Salem Political Snark

If you hate free speech, you'll love Let's Discuss Salem

If you're a reasonable person who isn't wild about political correctness/cancel culture and supports free speech, probably you haven't had direct experience with excessively "woke" people on the far left of the political spectrum who (1) aren't reasonable, (2) absolutely love political correctness/cancel culture, and (3) don't support free speech.

But if you want a glimpse of how Salem's Woke Police treat reasonable people like you and me, below are Facebook messages exchanged today between me and Shaundi Wuleigh, who founded a recently-formed Let's Discuss Salem Facebook group that I became a member of. 

(Based on what I know now, the "Let's Discuss Salem" name reminds me of those housing developments where every tree that used to be there was cut down, but the development is named "Big Oak Estates.")

Wuleigh is one of the administrators for Let's Discuss Salem. A previous run-in I had with the Woke Police on Let's Discuss Salem is described in "I get cited by Salem's Woke Police." 

The messages from Wuleigh are in italics. Mine are in regular type. I didn't include one of my messages where I referred to someone in another Facebook group.

The blog post I wrote about Amazon was yesterday's "Who wants an Amazon store in the JC Penney building?" The supposedly horribly sexist content in my blog is shown in red in this excerpt from the post. I stand behind what I said, which I included for some mild humor and because I consider it correct.

So I probably wouldn't do much shopping at a physical Amazon store even if one were to be built in Salem one day. However, a lot of people do enjoy walking around a store. By and large they're called women. Thus since Amazon is going to be a major force for the foreseeable future, cities like Salem might as well embrace Amazon, warts and all.

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WULEIGH: Hi Brian. Your most recent post containing your blog about Amazon was removed for containing what admins determined was sexism. I was the one who approved the post, but I didn't read the blog first and so that was my mistake. I should have read it first before approving it.

ME: Give me a break. I don’t think you realize how dogmatic and lacking in humor you are. I’ve been married for 49 years. I know from my experience and those of my friends that most men look upon shopping differently than most women do. But I realize facts don’t matter to you, just feeling self-righteous.

Here's an article that talks abut the differences between men and women shoppers. https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/male-shopping-habits-versus-female-shopping-habits

Excerpt for you to consider, if you think talking about differences between men and women is sexist.

------------------

It’s no secret that most men and women view shopping differently as an activity. Based on a survey conducted by the Key Note Media Centre, males tend to view shopping as a chore. They do what needs to be done as quickly as possible and are more than happy to be on their way.

As a result, they are less likely to check on competitors’ prices or listen to their friends for advice. So for an ecommerce store aimed towards males, you want to make the experience something extremely simple and straightforward.

Women, on the other hand, treat shopping as a fun event. They tend to bring their friends along during sprees, are more receptive to other people’s opinions, make impulse purchases, and devote a lot of time to shopping. You want to make their online shopping experiences social and comprehensive.

Try to add social media features to your product pages and expose female shoppers to as many products as possible. For instance, you can let them share purchases on Facebook, send them product recommendations, and display similar items to the ones in their carts somewhere on your page.

So I accept your apology for being wrong. It'd be nice if you'd admit this, but I feel good pointing out your error, since I'm a proud member of the reality-based community.

WULEIGH: Only women's views matter with regards to what is and isn't offensive to women. You don't get to decide. You don't get a seat at that table. Your opinion on this subject doesn't matter.

ME: Actually I do get to have a seat at the woman’s table. I also can sit at the Black and LGBTQ table. This is a country with free speech where opinions aren’t limited to only certain people. I realize you want a Taliban-like nation where only certain views can be expressed, but thankfully we don’t live in that sort of place.

WULEIGH: For refusing to respect rule 7, the admins have voted and you have been permanently muted in the group.

[Rule 7 of the Let's Discuss Salem Facebook group says, "7) Telling members of marginalized communities how to think, feel, and act about their own oppression is prohibited."]

ME: This shouldn't be news to you, but I hope you realize that white legislators discuss and vote on laws affecting Black people, and heterosexual legislators discuss and vote on issues affecting LGBTQ people. By your logic, and Rule 7, it's forbidden for anyone who isn't a member of a marginalized community to tell those members how to think, feel, and act.

So do you and the other woke administrators really believe that no one who is white, including legislators, can say something like "I support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act because this will help assure the right of Blacks to vote, and I urge Blacks around the country to contact their legislators and urge them to vote yes on this act"?

That statement is expressing an opinion about an action affecting a marginalized community.

*************************************

Lastly, Here's the complete list of Let's Discuss Salem rules.

1) The group's political identity is neutral, but healthy political debate between individuals is welcome and encouraged.

 

2) All science-related posts and comments must be able to provide widely-accepted scientifically accredited sources if asked.

 

3) Posts should somehow be related to the city.

 

4) Posts and comments must not contain racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, body-shaming, or appearance-based discrimination.

 

5) Please notify the admins about complaints or concerns about any members or admins. Responsive action will be determined by a majority vote of admins.

 

6) Blocking one or more admins is prohibited.

 

7) Telling members of marginalized communities how to think, feel, and act about their own oppression is prohibited.

 

*Please note that admins do not tone police (limiting members' choice of words they can use to express themselves and/or limit the tone they are allowed to have) in this group with the exception of the items listed above.

Who wants an Amazon store in the JC Penney building?

I admire fellow progressives with social media death wishes. In these politically correct times, it took some guts for Jim Scheppke to post this on the Salem City Council Facebook page, which leans decidedly liberal in its readership.

(Note: this page is just where City Council-related stuff is discussed; it has no official connection with the City Council.)

Of the 74 comments, there only were a few supporting an Amazon store.

Most were along the lines of Amazon being a corporate devil that makes drivers piss in bottles while working warehouse employees to death and killing retail stores all across the United States.

Personally, I think this is an idea worth exploring, though it is a long shot.

I suspect that most of the people who commented on Scheppke's post hadn't read the Strong Towns story. Here's how the story starts out. 

Last week brought the surprising news that Amazon intends to open a series of department stores. Yes, department stores. Remember those things? 

CNN Business reports that a number of new Amazon retail stores, starting in Ohio and California, will operate much like department stores, selling clothing, household items, electronics, and other products, and facilitating returns and exchanges. Amazon will strongly emphasize its own private-label products, and these stores will occupy smaller footprints than conventional mall anchors: closer to 30,000 square feet than 100,000.

It seems counterintuitive that the mall killer, the company that brought on-demand, two-day delivery of nearly anything under the sun to millions of people, would follow in the footsteps of its vanquished enemies by opening brick-and-mortar stores. Department stores have long been a waning presence in U.S. retail, from 14.5% market share in 1985 to 2.9% today.

But there are clear reasons why Amazon sees this as a strategic move. And those reasons are worth understanding, even if you have no love lost for Amazon itself (and I think it's safe to say that here at Strong Towns, we don't).

Me, I'm a progressive who believes in strong towns also. But I'm perfectly willing to admit that unlike the Senior Editor for Strong Towns who wrote the story, I do love Amazon. 

I've had Amazon Prime for as long as it was offered as a paid way to get free shipping on most Amazon purchases. Over the years I've used Amazon more and more. Now that Amazon has a warehouse in Salem, I'm thrilled when stuff I've ordered comes even faster.

It's just so damn convenient to buy from Amazon. Rather than drive all over town looking for an obscure item, I fire up Amazon on my laptop, search for the item, and bingo! -- it's in my hands in a couple of days. 

So I probably wouldn't do much shopping at a physical Amazon store even if one were to be built in Salem one day. However, a lot of people do enjoy walking around a store. By and large they're called women. Thus since Amazon is going to be a major force for the foreseeable future, cities like Salem might as well embrace Amazon, warts and all.

The Strong Towns story says that Amazon isn't looking to put stores in existing malls, which usually are on the edge of a town. Instead, they want to locate them in areas with a lot of pedestrians. Downtown Salem might qualify. 

Since an Amazon store would only be about 30,000 square feet, this would leave a lot of room in the JC Penney building for other uses like local shops. Having something occupy that building sure seems better than having it vacant.

Several commenters on the story noted that a large grocery store is needed downtown. One person suggested that Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon, could occupy a floor of the JC Penney building. 

Anyway, I'm glad Jim Scheppke raised this idea. Amazon has been successful because it is meeting the needs of both consumers and business owners. A great many small businesses sell on Amazon. They couldn't survive without Amazon. Sure, Amazon deserves much of the criticism directed at it.

But this shouldn't stop Salem's Urban Development Department from telling Amazon that the City of Salem is interested in exploring the possibility of having an Amazon store in the JC Penney building. Maybe a better use for the building will emerge.

Yet maybe one won't.

Salem Climate Action Plan lacks urgency

When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there's no time to waste.

Everything I read about global warming is scary. The Earth's climate is changing for the worse considerably faster than scientists expected as little as a few years ago. 

So everybody -- nations, states, cities, government, businesses, individuals -- we all have to do our part to keep our one and only planet habitable for humans and other life forms. 

This month USA Today had a story, "Local climate plans a key to progress." 
Download Local climate plans a key to progress - USA TODAY

Over the past three decades, more than 600 local governments across the United States adopted their own climate action plans setting greenhouse gas reduction targets. These pledges were in addition to America’s commitment to the 2015 Paris Agreement, an international treaty signed by nearly 200 nations to limit the impact of climate change.

But experts now say many of those cities’ plans were aspirational at best. Now they must work harder if they’re going to curb the warming trend.

...A small window of opportunity remains for local governments to get serious about curbing climate change, according to the IPCC report. But, to achieve any kind of major corrective action, emissions must be slashed by the end of the decade.

The pressure is on to limit emissions faster at every level, said Mark Muro, a senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

Cities can play a key role in the nation’s ability to cut greenhouse gas, but more need to adopt action plans, Muro said, and those that have “need to deliver on their promises and tighten them.”

“Within this decade we have to make a sharp turn,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Yet with disturbing regularity I hear people say, "What's the point in Salem having a Climate Action Plan, since we account for such a small percentage of global emissions?"

That's a ridiculous argument. If every nation, state, and city in the world followed that logic, nobody would do anything, since each entity generates a relatively small share of planetary greenhouse gases. 

Here in Salem, we need to do our part.

Recognizing this, 350 Salem OR pushed the City Council to allocate funds for a Salem Climate Action Plan. As noted in my December 2020 post, Salem Climate Action Plan is going in wrong direction, the goals established by the City Council match what experts say is needed to fight global warming. 

The City Council wants a Salem Climate Action Plan to specify how we're doing to do our part in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions that are literally cooking our planet. Recently these goals were approved by the council.

By 2035, Salem’s greenhouse gas emissions shall be reduced to 50% of the citywide greenhouse gas emissions for the baseline year of 2016, and by 2050, Salem should be carbon neutral.

OK. One would think that the Climate Action Plan process would be focused on how these goals are to be achieved.

That's the main problem evident in the Climate Action Plan nine months ago, and it still is the main problem today. The project team isn't serious enough about coming up with strategies to reduce Salem's greenhouse gas emissions, most of which come from transportation.

So if the plan doesn't mandate significant reductions in driving fossil-fuel-powered cars and trucks, there's no way Salem will be able to meet the goals set by the City Council. 

Yet the title of an August 17 Salem Breakfast on Bikes post, Draft Strategies for Salem Climate Action Plan Still Evade the Heart of the Matter, says it all. 

We still haven't seen even a basic swag at charting effectiveness and cost. Not to mention any modeling showing analytically that a 50% reduction by 2035 is plausible under this current proposal.

This list as we have it is mainly symbolic, not oriented to actual reductions.

So it is hard to look at the list and take a very positive first impression from it. It looks instead like it continues to evade the heart of things and is not positioning Salem for success on a 50% reduction by 2035.

Geez. It isn't as if we don't have plenty of evidence that global warming is a huge threat to Salem.

Last year gigantic wildfires turned our air so smoky the reddish sky was dark at noon. This year a heat wave smashed all-time temperature records, with Salem recording a sizzling 117 degrees, the same as the record high in Las Vegas.

Yesterday a Drought Status Update for the Pacific Northwest was issued. The tweet that brought the report to my attention had some disturbing facts. 

Hopefully the draft Salem Climate Action plan will be altered to reflect the seriousness of our global warming situation.

We can't afford to screw around with bureaucratic half-steps and cosmetic gestures that won't markedly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. 

I get cited by Salem's Woke Police

For a long time I thought that being "woke" always was a positive thing. Sure, conservatives warned of the danger of liberal political correctness, but by and large I thought that fear was overblown.

I still believe that it is better to be overly concerned about racism, sexism, nationalism, and other nasty "ism's" than under concerned. 

However, a balance needs to be struck between awareness of social problems affecting minorities and other historically oppressed groups, and an overzealous righteousness where perceived affronts to social justice are criticized in an absurd fashion.

Here's a couple of examples of how I've been cited by the Woke Police here in Salem. Keep in mind that my progressive credentials are impeccable in my admittedly personal opinion.

I always vote Democratic. I've supported Progressive Salem-backed candidates in every election since that organization was formed. My Salem Political Snark blog posts almost always criticize non-progressive policies, though I'm fine with taking shots at fellow liberals when I think this is deserved. I've marched against Trump and in favor of Black Lives Matter.

In short, I'm a mainstream progressive. My three blogs and three Facebook pages I administer are an open book. I doubt anyone could find something I've written that isn't solidly liberal. However, I'm not an extreme liberal. 

That's why the Woke Police cited me for several insufficiently woke infractions.

(See here for a review of how the modern meaning of "woke" came into the English lexicon; in 2017 the Oxford English Dictionary defined it as "alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice.")

Yesterday I got a message via Facebook asking about the cover photo on my personal Facebook page, as shown above. Here's our dialogue, with my replies in italics.

Hey there.. so... I was just wondering if you could help me understand what the headdress looking thing is in your cover photo?

Just a mask that I got at the Oregon Country Fair in Veneta one year.

So you don't know what it is or its cultural significance?

No. It just is a mask sold by the creative mask makers who had a booth at the fair. The cultural significance is that I liked the mask and bought it.

Were the people who made the mask of African descent? The reason I'm bringing this to your attention is because you may not be aware that what you've done with that mask might be seen as cultural appropriation. It's very reminiscent of an African ceremonial headdress and face paint.

I don’t believe in cultural appropriation, so this concerns me not at all. I guess by your reasoning I shouldn’t have gotten so many Tango lessons, since this dance style originated in a different culture.

Huh... well okay then. I would kindly invite you to study up on the topic and learn the differences between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange and appreciation. Maybe when I have a moment ill dig up a few resources for you.

I believe in America as a melting pot. My father's parents came from Germany. My heritage is a bit over 85% German and Baltic states. So what? Doesn’t bother me at all when someone wants to have a beer festival. Cultural appropriation makes no sense to me but you’re welcome to embrace it.

Now, I'm not saying that cultural appropriation isn't a real thing. This is why the Washington Redskins pro football team has just been called the Washington team since 2020. Redskins seems offensive to me. But the mask I bought doesn't seem offensive at all.

It's a matter of degree. If Redskins scores 100 on the woke cultural appropriation scale, I'd rate me wearing my mask at a 1. Or even zero.

However, over on a private Facebook group I belong to, Let's Discuss Salem, where Salem-related issues are discussed, today the person concerned about my mask left this comment on a post that I'd shared with the group.

Im just gonna point out that Brian here told me that he doesn't believe in cultural appropriation, it makes me wonder what else he doesn't believe..

Ooh! Scary! A member of the Woke Police, who often bear at least some resemblance to a Maoist reeducation committee back when such existed in communist China, are using my mask infraction as reason to question what other inappropriate ideas might be floating around in my pseudo-progressive head.

Why, I might be a closeted Trump supporter. Or maybe a Proud Boy who keeps my bear spray, baseball bat, and paintball gun hidden from my liberal friends, which could be why I need a culturally appropriated mask to hide my identity when I go out beating up Black Lives Matter protesters. 

Speaking of the Proud Boys, my other recent run-in with the Woke Police happened after I posted a story on the Let's Discuss Salem Facebook group from the Oregonian regarding last Sunday's battle in Portland between Proud Boys and counter-protesters. 

I figured what I said about the Oregonian story would be fairly uncontroversial.

Others are free to disagree, but it sure seems like the best way to handle the Proud Boys is to ignore them when they come to a town -- Salem, Portland, or anywhere. Leaving them alone takes away most, or all, of their incentive to be violent. When counter-protesters show up, as happened in Portland yesterday, there's firing of paintballs, pepper spray, and even bullets. I fail to see what's gained by giving the Proud Boys an opportunity to act like the tough guys they pose as. Ignore them and they get much less publicity and incentive to violence. Excerpt from Oregonian story:

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"By mid-day, splinter groups from the left arrived at the right wing gathering, prompting verbal skirmishes, followed by roving street battles that were marked by bear mace and bursts of fireworks that shrouded a stretch of Northeast 122nd Avenue in thick smoke. Members of both sides were heavily armed. Bats, paintball guns and wooden spears were among the weapons observed on the left and paintball guns and bats were seen among members of the right. People on both sides carried large shields. A person clad in black was seen at the waterfront early in the afternoon carrying what appeared to be a rifle and bullets. It was not immediately clear whether the rifle was a replica."

It didn't bother me that most of the commenters on my post disagreed with me. They felt antifa and other counter-protesters should be armed and fight against the Proud Boys. What irritated me were the comments saying that I was complicit in the nasty stuff Proud Boys do, because I didn't think it made sense to fight with them on Portland city streets. For example...

Hi, I’m sorry, but silence is absolutely violence in this case snd I refuse to remain silent. If you want to tuck your tail between your legs and retreat, we don’t need you anyways. I will not let these terrorists remain comfortable here. You are a problem, Brian.

Let me make a cup of tea, I cannot wait to read what an old white guy thinks BIPOC people should do when terrorists come to town to kill them.

Brian is basically saying, if you got cancer or a tumor growing on your nose right in front of your eyes, ignore it and it will go away. Of course as a white man, you can ignore hate and still live comfortably. The same can't be said for others.

The comments got so bad, a friend defended me.

Can we please stop the personal attacks on my friend Brian Hines? He and I (obviously) disagree on a number of topics, but he is a kind and thoughtful person. I am grateful for his posts here, which help make this an open forum and not an echo chamber. I am here to learn and debate, not to watch people who are here in good faith be harried and driven out.

Well, that's the goal of the Woke Police.

They're motivated by an almost religious zeal for ideological purity. If you don't agree completely with their take on social issues, then you're a traitor to the progressive cause. Geez, all I said was counter-protesters shouldn't arm themselves and get into fights with the Proud Boys.

UPDATE: I was just informed that this blog post, which I shared on Let's Discuss Salem because it obviously pertains to how issues are discussed on that bastion of wokeness, has been deleted from that Facebook group. I told the administrator that it was strange that numerous comments criticizing me personally were allowed, yet this well-reasoned critique of political correctness was banned. Guess I hit a nerve with the Woke Police. I invite Salem residents who are on Facebook to head over to Let's Discuss Salem and join the group. If enough reasonable people become members, we could change the climate of the group for the better. FURTHER UPDATE: It seems the Let's Discuss Salem administrators deleted my Facebook posting before reading this blog post, which doesn't surprise me. I've now been told that after they finished reading this blog post, it has been deemed racially insensitive. I've asked how this could be.

That puts me in some damn good non-violent company. Like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi. Of course, having said that, the Woke Police now probably will charge me with runaway egotism, comparing myself to King and Ghandi.

This is the problem with having a black and white view of the world. Nuance, shades of gray, moral ambiguity, political compromise -- that doesn't appeal to people on either the left or right who believe that how they see things is how everybody should see things.

However, since excessive wokeness is related to political correctness, the good news is that the people who found fault with me on Facebook aren't at all representative of the country as a whole. Here's excerpts from an October 2018 story in The Atlantic, "Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture." If that link doesn't work for you (I'm a The Atlantic subscriber), The Hidden Tribes of America report described in The Atlantic story can be read here. And below is a PDF file of The Atlantic story.
Download Large Majorities Dislike Political Correctness - The Atlantic

Note the last paragraph about how the 8 percent of Americans who are progressive activists, and are most likely to support woke political correctness, are viewed by most other Americans as falling prey to a "preening display of cultural superiority."

On social media, the country seems to divide into two neat camps: Call them the woke and the resentful. Team Resentment is manned—pun very much intended—by people who are predominantly old and almost exclusively white. Team Woke is young, likely to be female, and predominantly black, brown, or Asian (though white “allies” do their dutiful part). These teams are roughly equal in number, and they disagree most vehemently, as well as most routinely, about the catchall known as political correctness.

Reality is nothing like this. As scholars Stephen Hawkins, Daniel Yudkin, Miriam Juan-Torres, and Tim Dixon argue in a report published Wednesday, “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” most Americans don’t fit into either of these camps. They also share more common ground than the daily fights on social media might suggest—including a general aversion to PC culture.

The study was written by More in Common, an organization founded in memory of Jo Cox, the British MP who was murdered in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. It is based on a nationally representative poll with 8,000 respondents, 30 one-hour interviews, and six focus groups conducted from December 2017 to September 2018.

If you look at what Americans have to say on issues such as immigration, the extent of white privilege, and the prevalence of sexual harassment, the authors argue, seven distinct clusters emerge: progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, the politically disengaged, moderates, traditional conservatives, and devoted conservatives.

According to the report, 25 percent of Americans are traditional or devoted conservatives, and their views are far outside the American mainstream. Some 8 percent of Americans are progressive activists, and their views are even less typical. By contrast, the two-thirds of Americans who don’t belong to either extreme constitute an “exhausted majority.” Their members “share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints, and a lack of voice in the national conversation.”

...Most members of the “exhausted majority,” and then some, dislike political correctness. Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” Even young people are uncomfortable with it, including 74 percent ages 24 to 29, and 79 percent under age 24. On this particular issue, the woke are in a clear minority across all ages.

Youth isn’t a good proxy for support of political correctness—and it turns out race isn’t, either.

Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87 percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness.

...The one part of the standard narrative that the data partially affirm is that African Americans are most likely to support political correctness. But the difference between them and other groups is much smaller than generally supposed: Three quarters of African Americans oppose political correctness. This means that they are only four percentage points less likely than whites, and only five percentage points less likely than the average, to believe that political correctness is a problem.

...If age and race do not predict support for political correctness, what does? Income and education.

While 83 percent of respondents who make less than $50,000 dislike political correctness, just 70 percent of those who make more than $100,000 are skeptical about it. And while 87 percent who have never attended college think that political correctness has grown to be a problem, only 66 percent of those with a postgraduate degree share that sentiment.

Political tribe—as defined by the authors—is an even better predictor of views on political correctness. Among devoted conservatives, 97 percent believe that political correctness is a problem. Among traditional liberals, 61 percent do. Progressive activists are the only group that strongly backs political correctness: Only 30 percent see it as a problem.

...So what does this group look like? Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are. With the exception of the small tribe of devoted conservatives, progressive activists are the most racially homogeneous group in the country.

...It turns out that while progressive activists tend to think that only hate speech is a problem, and devoted conservatives tend to think that only political correctness is a problem, a clear majority of all Americans holds a more nuanced point of view: They abhor racism. But they don’t think that the way we now practice political correctness represents a promising way to overcome racial injustice.

The study should also make progressives more self-critical about the way in which speech norms serve as a marker of social distinction. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the affluent and highly educated people who call others out if they use “problematic” terms or perpetrate an act of “cultural appropriation.” But what the vast majority of Americans seem to see—at least according to the research conducted for “Hidden Tribes”—is not so much genuine concern for social justice as the preening display of cultural superiority.

Painful truth: Afghanistan was a mostly useless war

Recently I've seen interviews with veterans of the twenty-year Afghanistan war where the interviewer says at some point, "Thank you for your service; it wasn't in vain."

Not true. It was mostly in vain.

So were the 2,448 deaths of American service members, the 66,000 deaths of Afghan military and police, the 47,245 deaths of Afghan civilians, the 444 deaths of aid workers, and the 44 deaths of journalists.

I realize that it's really tough to admit that a war which cost the United States over 2 trillion dollars and caused so many deaths was a big mistake -- at least after Osama bin Laden had left the country and Al-Qaeda no longer had a viable presence in Afghanistan, which occurred soon after our 2001 invasion.

So virtually all that money and all those deaths went toward nation-building.

Just as in Iraq, the United States is great at winning wars against minimal opposition. We're lousy at nation-building, in large part because we believe that it's possible to remake other countries in our own image. 

Trump wisely decided to pull American forces out of Afghanistan. Biden wisely decided to go along with Trump's decision. Yet supporters of a perpetual war in Afghanistan now are criticizing Biden for doing what most Americans support: getting out.

It doesn't make sense to argue that even though the Afghanistan war was a failure, the contributions of the American military were a success. 

Sure, it's human nature to see a glass as half full rather than half empty. But when a war is almost entirely useless, those who fought that war almost entirely were doing something equally useless. 

Obviously almost all of the Americans who served in Afghanistan did so with bravery and honor. However, so did almost all of the Confederate forces who fought in the Civil War. This doesn't make the Confederate cause anything other than what it was: a failed attempt to secede from the Union.

Undoubtedly some good came out of the Civil War, though I'm unsure what that might me. Some technological advances, probably. Some good also resulted from the Afghanistan war.

However, if Americans had been asked in 2001 if they'd be willing to fight a twenty-year war that resulted in Afghan women and girls having considerably more rights, and Afghanistan getting roads, schools, wells, and other infrastructure built, few of our citizens would have said that'd be worth thousands of American lives and several trillion dollars -- especially if the end result was the Taliban returning to power.

The plain fact is that sometimes a lot of effort goes into a cause that results in failure.

Everybody has experienced this in their own life to a greater or lesser extent. Countries experience this also. Witness the United States and the Vietnam War. Witness Germany/Japan and the Second World War. 

Sacrifices frequently are made for a lost cause. This doesn't take away from the nobility of those who made the sacrifices, because it is impossible to know that a cause is lost until that happens. 

Which is the case in Afghanistan.

Veterans of that war are entitled to look for benefits from their service. But history can't be rewritten to make those veterans feel better. For most of those twenty years, the Afghanistan war was a mistake. Our military and political leaders misled the public about how the war was going, just as happened with the Vietnam War.

Now President Biden is telling the truth to the American people. Good for him. That truth about a mostly useless war has been a long time coming.

I'll end by copying in a series of tweets that do a great job of briefly explaining the Afghanistan war and the current uproar over the American pullout. 

Biden critics are ignoring key Afghanistan facts

It's pile-on Biden time. Naturally Republicans are criticizing how the Afghanistan pullout is being handled. That's to be expected.

But many Democrats, along with mainstream media like CNN, MSNBC, and Washington Post/New York Times opinion writers, also are falling all over themselves in their eagerness to roast Biden over the Afghanistan coals.

I find this unfair.

Like I said a few days ago, "Afghanistan is horrible, but Biden is doing right thing." What I've learned since only makes me more confident that while our withdrawal hasn't been perfect -- what in life is? -- there's little evidence that the Biden administration has made a major blunder.

Talking heads on the cable news networks have been blasting Biden for ignoring intelligence that supposedly pointed to a rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban as the August 31 deadline for withdrawing all American forces neared.

Thus, they claimed, Biden should have been getting American civilians and Afghans who helped us out of the country much sooner, given that intelligence.

Only problem is, today General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said something quite different.

The top US general said repeatedly on Wednesday that he had not seen any intelligence assessments suggesting that Afghanistan would collapse as quickly as it did.

"There was nothing that I or anybody else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said at a Pentagon press briefing, his first since the Taliban seized control of Kabul.

He told reporters that "there are not reports that I am aware of that predicted a security force of 300,000 would evaporate in 11 days, from 6 August to 16 August, with the capture of 34 provinces and the capital city of Kabul," explaining that no one saw an army of that size falling apart that fast.

So there goes the basis for criticizing Biden because he failed to heed intelligence reports warning of a very rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. If Biden was told that the country wouldn't fall to the Taliban for many weeks or months, it makes sense that he would wait to get all Americans and Afghan refugees out of Afghanistan.

After all, the Kabul airport would still be in the hands of the Afghan government, as would major cities and highways. 

In an interview today Biden said something that strikes me as probably true: no matter when the American withdrawal happened, there would be chaos.

That's the normal state of affairs in Afghanistan, chaos. It's been that way for the twenty years since we invaded in 2001. It's been that way for a lot longer, also. This is a tribal nation. Afghans don't trust the corrupt central government. They are used to looking out for themselves. Their allegiance is to their tribe, not Afghan leaders.

We Americans tend to look at the world through our own nationalistic eyes. Since we would fight to defend our country, we assume that people in other nations would do the same thing. Bad assumption.

Today the New York Times has a fascinating story, "Collapse and Conquest: The Taliban Strategy That Seized Afghanistan." Basically, the Taliban negotiated terms of surrender with Afghan commanders, working their way up from check points and small towns to provincial capitals. 

When they got Afghan forces to surrender in exchange for money, power, and not being killed, the Taliban acquired valuable military equipment and momentum that made it easier to control more territory. The process ended with the Taliban entering Kabul without having to fight for the Afghan capital.

Who among the Biden critics saw this coming? Probably no one. According to General Milley, the intelligence community didn't. At least, not as a likely scenario, since the rapid collapse of the Afghan military was just one possible outcome among many. 

When something bad has already happened, it's easy for Monday morning quarterbacks to rewind the tape and point to things that supposedly were obvious. However, Afghanistan obviousness is anything but. The Biden critics weren't able to predict what was going to happen there ahead of time, but now they're expert in playing the "what should have been done" game.

Another gripe I have is that I'm not hearing these critics explain how Biden is supposed to make sure that all Americans and refugees under the SIV (special immigrant visas) program get out of Afghanistan. All they do is say, "Biden had better make sure that no one is left behind."

OK. That's a laudable goal. I hope it is achieved. 

But the Taliban control all of Afghanistan other than the Kabul airport. Hopefully the Taliban will allow Americans and the Afghans who helped us during the past 20 years to enter the airport. This is a daunting challenge, though. 

The United States isn't going to send our 6,000 or so soldiers at the airport out in vehicles like military Uber drivers to find people who need to be airlifted out of Afghanistan. As someone I heard interviewed today said, that would risk attacks or ambushes. 

Yes, the folks who are rewinding the tape like to say that if Biden had started the airlift sooner, it would have been much easier for the people who needed to get out to make it to the airport. That's a valid criticism, since there's reason to believe that the Biden administration followed in the footsteps of the Trump administration by slow walking the SIV program. 

Again, though, this problem only became crystal clear in hindsight. If the Afghan government and military hadn't collapsed much quicker than anyone expected, flights out of the country could have occurred over several months rather than several weeks.

What's happening in Afghanistan right now illustrates how limited the human ability to forecast the future is. Biden wasn't referring to chaos theory when he spoke about chaos, but that theory is very much relevant here.

Small changes in initial conditions can have huge nonlinear effects. Just as a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can help produce a hurricane many hundreds of miles away in Florida, all the small things happening in Afghanistan prior to Biden announcing his pullout timetable led to unexpected large events months later.

Life is uncertain. We can't control much with any sort of exactitude. So cut Biden some slack, critics. You couldn't have done any better than he did with the Afghanistan pullout. 

Courthouse Club Fitness being lax about masks

Back in November 2020 I was deeply disappointed when John Miller, the owner of Courthouse Club Fitness here in Salem, defied Governor Brown's order for gyms to close for two weeks because COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were rising so rapidly in Oregon.

(See "Courthouse Club Fitness defies Governor's order to close for two weeks")

Starting yesterday, August 13, 2021, Governor Brown has mandated mask-wearing in indoor public spaces due to... COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rising so rapidly in Oregon. As the familiar saying goes, it's deja vu all over again. 

Well, one personal difference is that in November 2020 I wasn't a member of Courthouse Club Fitness, as described in the above blog post.

My wife and I cancelled our Courthouse Club Fitness membership, which I've had for almost as long as the clubs opened up many years ago, after we learned that the clubs were going to allow people to wear face shields rather than masks when gyms were allowed to reopen. (Face shields are ineffective.)

I rejoined Courthouse Club Fitness after Governor Brown announced the end of Covid restrictions about six weeks ago. It felt good to get back to my usual exercise routine -- stairmaster for 30 minutes, circuit weight training, a bit of solo Tai Chi -- after so many months of at-home exercising. 

Presciently, about two weeks ago I started wearing a mask in Courthouse Club Fitness even though it wasn't mandated. I just felt better doing this, since the Delta variant was causing serious Covid problems in Oregon and elsewhere. Plus, too many people in Marion County were refusing to get vaccinated, a huge mistake both for them and the public at large.

Today I was curious to see whether Courthouse Club Fitness was requiring their gym users to wear masks, as called for by Governor Brown's mask order. Things looked sort of promising when I got to the front door of the River Road center and saw this notice had been put up on a window.

It turns out that masks, face coverings, and face shields are all OK under Brown's order, even though I'm still convinced that face shields are considerably less effective than masks based on the research I've seen, albeit better than nothing.

The Courthouse Club Fitness employee at the front desk was wearing a mask, another positive sign. But then things went downhill, Covid-safety wise.

In the aerobics room most people weren't wearing anything. A couple of young women were running along on the treadmills close to the elliptical machine I was using, maskless, face coveringless, and face shieldless. Some older folks and I had masks on, which was good.

However, I saw no indication that gym staff were making any effort to encourage people to wear a mask, or reminding them of the requirement. In fact, aside from the sole person at the front desk, it appeared that staff weren't wearing a mask either. 

All this bothered me, but not enough for me to say anything.

After all, since Courthouse Club Fitness has been willing to be hit with $126,000 in fines for staying open despite Covid restrictions, a complaint from a member about mask-wearing seemed extremely unlikely to change the owner's resistance to complying with public health requirements. 

I'll keep on wearing a mask while exercising there. It really isn't a big deal.

My heart rate on the elliptical trainer is just the same during my 30 minutes of aerobic exercise whether or not I'm wearing my N95-quality mask with a filter. I'm able to take occasional sips of water while on that machine by pulling up the bottom of my mask a bit.

And when I'm doing my thing in the circuit weight room, I slip off a mask earpiece periodically and take some quick sips of water without breathing much if any maskless air.

It's just unfortunate that Courthouse Club Fitness is so resistant to doing its part to help combat the Delta variant surge in Covid cases that threatens to overwhelm local hospitals. I readily admit that exercising with a mask on isn't as pleasant as exercising maskless. 

However, my Tai Chi instructor just sent out an email saying that even though everyone in our classes is vaccinated, now we're going to wear masks during our indoor sessions, because that's what Governor Brown's mask mandate requires.

Everyone should be working together to stop the pandemic, or at least to get cases down to an acceptable level. Today an estimated 1,000 people gathered at the state capitol here in Salem to protest vaccine and mask mandates. That is incredibly misguided.

Either those people aren't bothering to understand public health science, or they're purposely politicizing the pandemic for their own selfish ends.

A surprising conclusion from my City of Salem public record requests

After the May 1 gun rights rally at Salem's Riverfront Park where the Proud Boys provided insecurity by intimidating citizens, who included a journalist, I submitted several public record requests to the City of Salem.

One sought information regarding how it was that up until April 30, the city web site said permits would be required for events in parks beginning May 1, yet the gun rally didn't have a permit. 

Another requested documents about communications regarding the gun rally between City Manager Steve Powers, Police Chief Trevor Womack, and Public Works Director Peter Fernandez. 

In the end I learned as much about the frustrating way the City of Salem handles public records requests -- or at least these requests -- as I did about the substance of those requests. But I'm going to describe those frustrations in a separate blog post.

I do need to mention that I never did learn some of what I asked for. 

As I described in "Typogate" adds a twist to Proud Boys gun rally, at some point between late 2020 and late March 2021, the City of Salem "Reserve a City Facility or Park" web page changed from saying "Due to COVID-19, parks and other City facilities are not available for reservation" to "Due to COVID-19, parks and other city facilities are not available for reservation through April 30, 2021. Reservations are being accepted for outdoor events in parks occurring May 1, 2021 or after."

I'd asked for documents concerning who authorized and made the change to the page saying that reservations were being accepted for events on May 1 and after. I never got any, which leaves unsettled the question of how the page came to say this.

At first city officials said this was a typo, with a "3" being left out of May 1, which would have made it May 31. But this doesn't explain the statement that "parks and other city facilities are not available for reservation through April 30, 2021," with April clearly not being a typo.

On May 10, City Councilor Tom Andersen asked City Manager Powers to explain the confusion about why the city web site said permits were required as of May 1. Suspicions were raised when, after numerous citizens asked city officials why the gun rally didn't need to have a permit, the web page in question was changed on April 30, a day before the gun rally, to say that permits were being required as of May 31.

Powers said, "That web page, that section of the web page that’s been referred to, it was incorrect and frankly also poorly worded before it was corrected." I was hoping for a better explanation, as I said in "City Manager gives poor excuse for permitless Proud Boys rally."

However, I asked for park reservation requests for events occurring between March 27 and April 30, 2021. Twenty-five reservations were accepted for this period, but almost all of them were for the use of athletic facilities (one was for a farmer's market).

So even though city officials weren't as open and transparent as they should have been regarding the web site error, it's true that no events in Salem parks were being scheduled prior to May 31, even though for more than two months the web site said something different.

My conclusion is that the City of Salem is less like a smoothly functioning machine and more like a creaky collection of flawed human parts that sometimes gets things right, and sometimes gets things wrong, yet almost always tries to put forward a public face of correctness.

This doesn't mean that willful self-serving actions by city staff at odds with the public interest don't occur -- they surely do -- just that disorganization and a fervent desire to appear competent often better explain WTF? reactions by citizens to staff behavior. 

I got lots of documents peripherally related to my public records request for communications between the City Manager, Police Chief, and Public Works Director. Many, if not most, were public relations attempts by city officials to justify their response to the Proud Boys gun rally.

Since as mentioned above, several citizens were intimidated and threatened by armed Proud Boys, with no Salem police in the immediate area of the gun rally, one would think that Police Chief Womack and City Manager Powers might have said something like "We could have handled the police response to the gun rally better and will be letting you know how we're going to learn from this experience and improve our response to future similar events."

All that said, here comes the promised surprise conclusion in the title of this post.

Which is on a blog called Salem Political Snark. Sure, I came up with that name when the Mayor, City Council, and City Manager were considerably more conservative than is the case now, and thus more deserving of snarkiness given my progressive leaning. 

However, I'm still prone to suspect that city officials in Salem deserve criticism, in part because almost all of my previous public record requests have revealed that what those officials say in public doesn't always match up with what is happening behind the scenes.

In this case, though, I read through the documents I got with a surprising degree of Buddha-like compassion.

Not that I have much of that sort of compassion, despite my fondness for Buddhist philosophy. What surprised me was the extra feeling of compassion I had after perusing those documents, since before I'd gotten more irritated after reviewing public City of Salem documents, not less.

What struck me is something I alluded to above. By and large, City staff are hard-working, competent, pleasant people who are trying to do the best job they can. Yes, they're flawed. So are we all. Perfection isn't an attainable human quality. As I remember my 4th grade teacher, Eleanor Marshall, saying to us students: "Do your best. Angels can do no better."

Somehow a miscommunication or some other sort of error resulted in the city web page saying permits were required as of May 1. I was told that requests for web site changes sometimes happen verbally, so this could explain why I didn't get any records relating to who authorized or made the May 1 wording.

Regardless, mistakes happen.

I felt like I needed to learn more about how the web site changed from a May 1 date when park permits were required to a May 31 date. It appears that city staff gave me as much information as possible about this, even though I didn't get all that I asked for.

Some of the documents I got pertained to the public record requests I submitted. (I paid for one of them; I got a fee waiver for the other request, which was appreciated.) I realize that responding to public record requests isn't a favorite activity of city staff, since this takes time away from their other duties.

Thus I'm grateful for the information that I received. As noted above, I'll write another blog post about the problems I had with the public record requests, including some ideas for improvements in this area. 

One key thing I want to say to officials at the City of Salem is this:

Don't worry about not being perfect. Worry about creating a climate where all city employees are rewarded for admitting mistakes and finding ways to do better. Like most organizations, I see the City of Salem as being overly concerned with managing public relations instead of being open with the public when errors were made. 

People can recognize the difference between spin and sincerity. Less spin and more sincerity, please.

Events in Salem parks may face tougher rules

There's good reason to say that some of the recommendations of the Salem Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (SPRAB) could be called "Proud Boys" rules. 

After all, the May 1 gun rights rally at Riverfront Park, where the Proud Boys provided security (better termed insecurity), wasn't a shining example of how events in Salem parks should be conducted. 

                                                                                      Proud Boys at Riverfront Park

Citizens, including at least one journalist, were confronted by armed Proud Boys and told they had to leave the public park for no discernible reason other than the Proud Boys like to intimidate people. Salem police stood by and let this happen.

So it's good that the SPRAB recommendations include a prohibition on bad behavior and a prohibition on intent to intimidate. Too bad the nation's capitol didn't have those prohibitions or the Proud Boys never would have been allowed to take part in the January 6 insurrection, since their reason for being is bad behavior and intimidation. 

I've copied in the 15 recommendations below. The whole SPRAB report can be downloaded here:
Download Parks-and-recreation-advisory-board-pup-subcommittee-agenda-2021-08-09

Other recommendations seem to be related to Salem Awakening wrongly feeling like they have a god-given right to use the amphitheater at Riverfront Park to hold religious gatherings numerous times through the summer, mostly without getting a required permit, even though the gatherings are amplified. 

City officials have been very slow to crack down on Salem Awakening. But citizen activist Jim Scheppke and others have been relentless in demanding that the City of Salem enforce its park rules against Salem Awakening.

I suspect that this is one reason SPRAB has recommendations about how often a group can reserve a park, plus a requirement that events using amplified sound post notices warning other park users that an event may impact their use of the park.

Speaking as an atheist, I can tell you that my enjoyment of Riverfront Park is impacted by loud voices telling me to believe in God. Likewise, if an atheist group was to hold amplified events in the park, I doubt that religious believers would enjoy hearing godless talk night after night while they're trying to enjoy the park.

All in all, the SPRAB has done an excellent job with these recommendations. They researched how other cities in Oregon and elsewhere handle park policies and permitting. The City of Salem has had a hands-off approach that, clearly, has led to some serious problems in city parks. 

It's no wonder that groups like Salem Awakening and the Proud Boys push the limits of acceptable behavior when so far there have been few, if any, consequences when existing park rules are broken. Here's the new stronger recommended rules. 

1. Statement of Expectations on permits. The City should develop a statement of principles or expectations regarding appropriate behavior in City parks. The statement should be posted at prominent locations in the parks. The statement should be incorporated into permit applications with a signature of the event organizer acknowledging having read and understood it.

2. Reporting acts of discrimination. It is not clear what options park users have in instances in which they feel threatened or discriminated. The City should at least be able to track such occurrences and should set up a hotline similar to the below.
   
   Discrimination: The City of Salem values all persons without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, domestic partnership, disability, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or source of income. If you believe that you have been discriminated against in a program, activity, or facility, or if you desire further information, please contact the Public Works Department at 503-588-XXXX. 

3. Accessibility at events. Event organizers should be required to ensure their events are accessible per the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). A statement to this effect should be incorporated into all facility reservation agreements.

4. Summary of rules and potential consequences on permits. The City should clearly state on permit applications that park rules and regulations must be followed and required permits must be obtained. Language should be included indicating that if the rules are violated or permits not obtained, the event organizer or the organization may not be allowed to reserve a facility in the future. Event organizers must be required to sign the permit application acknowledging they have read and understood.

5. Notification of event impacting other park users. Events that use walkways, bridges, or amplified sound should be required to post signage ahead of the event notifying other park users that an event will be conducted that may have an impact on their use of the park.

6. Posting approved permits. The City should consider posting approved permits at the reservable locations where an activity will be taking place so that others are aware of the approved times and to reduce the risks of an opportunity user inadvertently taking a space in advance of the arrival of the party that has reserved the facility.

7. Exclude individuals or organizations from permits based on unpaid damage. The Director should have the authority to exclude an individual or a group from reserving a park facility if the individual or group has caused damage to park property and not reimbursed the City for the cost. Similarly, permits should not be issued to individuals or organizations that have not paid permit fees from previous events.

8. Exclude individuals or organizations from using parks based on unpaid damage. The Director should have the authority to exclude an individual or a group from using a park if the individual or group has caused damage to park property and not reimbursed the City for the cost.

9. Limit multiple reservations. The City should consider establishing a policy that limits the ability for one group to make multiple reservations at the same location on the same day(s) over an extended period of time. The concern is the potential for a single entity to block the same reservable area on the most popular days of a season over many weeks or months. Perhaps there could be a limit of two events per month for a single entity in specific parks or reservable facilities.

10. Sound Permit – Maximum allowed dB. Enforcement of sound permit violations should be clarified in SRC 51 regarding maximum allowable dB levels and how this is determined.

11. Sound Permit – Notification requirements. Applicants for sound permits are required to notify residents and business owners within a certain distance of sound source. From a practical aspect, this is a challenge for most applicants. Consider, for example, all the apartments and condominiums located near Riverfront Park. The City should review the notice requirements for residents and business owners and determine if there a way the City can facilitate the notification requirement, charging an appropriate fee for cost-recovery.

12. Enforcing violations of park rules. Violators of park rules—dogs not on leash, smoking, using facilities without permits, driving on turf, etc.—should have an expectation of enforcement actions being taken against them. Enforcement is a matter of policy and resources and should be evaluated by City staff.

13. Tiered fines for repeat violations. It might be possible that the fine for using a park facility without a reservation is lower than the fee charged for using that facility. Therefore, there should be a tiered system of fines so repeat violators of park rules pay higher penalties.

14. Prohibit bad behavior. Section 1.010 (Prohibited Activities) of the City of Eugene’s Parks and Open Space Rules includes a provision prohibiting “participating in a disturbance or riotous behavior that interferes with the reasonable use by the general public of the park, open space, or facility.” The City should consider incorporating similar language in its codes, rules, permits, or policies.

15. Prohibit intent to intimidate. The Seattle Municipal Code 12.A.14.075 (Unlawful use of weapons to intimidate another) includes the following: “A person is guilty of unlawful use of weapons to intimidate another if he or she carries, exhibits, displays or draws a firearm, dangerous knife, any knife with a blade that is open for use, other cutting or stabbing instrument or a weapon apparently capable of producing bodily harm in a manner, under circumstances, and at a time and place that either manifests an intent to intimidate another person or warrants alarm for the safety of other persons” (SMC 12.A.14.075.A). If allowed under Oregon law, the City of Salem should consider incorporating similar language in its codes, rules, permits, or policies regarding menacing actions.