Commentary

A Boston trip and a character snapshot 1   Recently updated !

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Saturday was an excellent first day of spring. I went to listen to the Boston Bach Birthday celebration at the First Lutheran Church. They had all-day performances, mostly on the organ, and a German lunch with bratwurst and sauerkraut. The lunch was a rare opportunity; there are no German restaurants in the area. The music included two recently discovered chaconnes by Bach, maybe their first public performance in Boston. It also included group singing of some old hymns, including one from Luther’s German Mass, which is 500 years old this year. They got this atheist singing hymns in a Lutheran church. 😇

It was sunny and about 50 degrees outside. After lunch I walked through the Public Garden and Boston Common. Near Park Street Station I saw a small group protesting the US oil blockade of Cuba. A guy (let’s call him Mr. Shouter) started yelling at them. I and another man I don’t know (Mr. Talker) went over to talk to him; my aim was just to distract him from a potentially nasty confrontation. In the few minutes we were there, I got some impressions of how that kind of mind works.

Cuba Blockade Protest, March 21, 2026, Boston CommonMr. Shouter was yelling that Cuba has a Communist government. True enough. He also yelled that dissent was impossible in Cuba because anyone who criticized the government would be shot and sent to a concentration camp. It wasn’t clear in which order. Granted, dissent in Cuba is dangerous, even if he exaggerated. I tried to tell him that a large part of that was true, but the best way to weaken Cuba’s rulers was open trade. Cuba hasn’t been a threat to the US at least since the Soviet Union collapsed. He didn’t reply to me or give me much notice; he was more interested in what Mr. Talker said. Talker told him that he had visited Cuba and that it was impossible to stop Cubans from speaking out. Shouter called him a Communist and a liar. Talker didn’t lose his temper. After a little while, I said quietly to Shouter, “If you’d stop yelling long enough to hear what others say, you might learn something,” and went down into the subway station.

We’ve all seen people like Shouter, who always yell and never listen. They’re a cliché of TV and movies, often drawing the protagonist into an unwanted fight. It isn’t other people they’re trying to keep from hearing disagreement. It’s themselves. They’re convinced the world is a certain way, but they know their certainty is built on shaky ground. If they stopped screaming, they might have to think about what they heard. He wasn’t entirely wrong. Cuba lacks freedom of speech, and maybe Talker thought they have more than they do. But Shouter saw its government as incredibly efficient in finding and stamping out every dissenting voice, like Orwell’s Big Brother. He was desperate to banish any possibility that open dissent exists in Cuba. Havana has seen several protests recently, at considerable risk to the participants, but he needs to believe that doesn’t happen.

Weird as it is, some people get satisfaction from believing their foes are all-powerful. Maybe it’s that the greater the enemy is, the greater the victory will be. It’s a literally apocalyptic way of thinking, straight out of the Book of Revelation.

Hopefully Talker and I helped to avoid a nasty scene. I didn’t see anything about the Cuba protesters in the news, which likely means nothing newsworthy happened.

Travel advisory

A special note for today: Trump is deploying ICE to airports. If you have a scheduled flight that isn’t strictly necessary, seriously consider cancelling. Somalis will be targeted; if you have any connection to Somalia, cancel the flight unless it’s a matter of life or death. If you must fly, don’t make an idiot of yourself. Find a way to get where you’re going without exposing yourself to more risk than necessary.

Bombers are not “counterprotesters”   Recently updated !

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Has violence become so normalized that people who throw bombs are considered mere “counterprotesters”? From the news coverage of a recent event, it appears so. US News headlined an article “Counterprotester Threw Improvised Explosive at Anti-Islam Event in NYC, Police Say.” The article was from AP and appeared on many sites.

It went on: “The sparsely attended event drew a far larger group of counterdemonstrators, including one person who tossed a smoking object containing nuts, bolts, screws and a ‘hobby fuse’ into the crowd, police said.” The article repeatedly uses the words “counterprotesters” and “counterdmonstrators,” making it sound as if the whole body of counterdemonstrators was bent on violent destruction.

What actually was happening was that a small group held a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” rally in front of Gracie Mansion, where Mayor Mamdani lives, and a larger group was demonstrating against the rally. The first group was clearly bigoted, but I can’t find any indication that either group was violent. The only violence I’ve seen mentioned was from the two bomb-throwers who embedded themselves in the crowd.

Update: A second AP article continues to refer to the would-be mass murderers as “counterprotesters.” A post by Mother Jones on Bluesky also calls them “counterprotesters.”

A tweet by CNN, which seemed to say the suspects were minding their own business when they were inexplicably arrested, has gotten more attention, but the “counterprotester” story is worse. By trivializing the attack, it makes the actual counterdemonstrators seem like a terrorist mob.

If protest and terrorism are the same thing, that cuts both ways. The federal government has reportedly charged eight people with “material support for terrorism,” said terrorist support consisting of wearing “black bloc” clothes to a protest. When you accept an equivalence, you accept all that it implies.

While it’s not directly relevant, I should remind readers that Islamic State and Iran are on opposite sides of Islam’s great religious divide, so it’s unlikely that these bombers were working for Iran.

Update: One more. The headline “Bombs Near Gracie Mansion Spark Charges Against Counter-Protesters” makes it sound as if people were arrested for merely protesting. The body of the article calls them “counter-protesters” five times.

A murder cult

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In November, I wrote about people who advocate assaulting people they call Nazis. Bad as they are, they aren’t in the same league as people whose political views include endorsement of murder. This group is on the fringe, but it needs to be strongly repudiated.

A report that caught my attention recently says that “The man who allegedly opened fire at a country club in Nashua, N.H., last fall, killing a restaurant patron and wounding two other people, later confessed to the shooting and told investigators he wanted to kill the rich.” Many people on the left admire Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with killing insurance executive Brian Thompson in cold blood. Posts on social media express enthusiasm for France’s Reign of Terror, in which about 17,000 people were executed. The Chicago Teachers Union posted on pre-Musk Twitter applauding a death threat in the form of a mock guillotine.

I didn’t see much outright celebration of Charlie Kirk’s death, but the outburst of hatred following his death was far out of proportion to his views and inappropriate to the occasion. Last September, I posted about one aspect of that reaction.

These are people who believe individual human lives have no significance. If they can improve “society” by eliminating some of its members, they’re all for it. In previous generations, people with similar views cheered the killing of millions by Stalin and Mao.

These people have the right to express their views, so long as they aren’t directly threatening people. What they don’t have is the right to be considered anything better than human dirt. Teachers who applaud guillotines should be pariahs in educational communities. Talk show audiences who cheer for Mangione should be kicked out of the studio. People who post to social media advocating a new Reign of Terror should have their accounts suspended. People who believe in human rights in any form should make it clear they have nothing to do with admirers of murder.

Oligarchy: A conspiracy theory of the left 2

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Oligarchy: Government by the few. (Merriam-Webster)

Claims from the left that certain people, usually very rich ones, are “oligarchs” of the USA are common. The Mother Jones website boasts at the top of every article that it’s “a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs.” If the USA has oligarchs, it must be an oligarchy. That’s an odd claim, since most people think the country is a democracy. Perhaps a dysfunctional one, but still a government run by elected officials.

It’s true that Congress has grown more passive than ever, but if the US has ceased to be a democracy, what it has become is an autocracy under Donald Trump. Like Sauron, he doesn’t share power. Perhaps if you count the most powerful Cabinet members, such as Hegseth and Noem, and advisors like Miller, it’s an oligarchy. But that’s not what the oligarchy theorists are talking about. Their claims are a new version of the “secret masters” conspiracy theories, claiming people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are the real puppet masters. In older versions, it was the Rothschilds or the Jewish Bankers. Some on the American right consider George Soros the leading Jewish oligarch. The new left-wing version differs mainly in its lack of overt antisemitism (though even that has started to change in the last couple of years).

There’s a long history of claims that a small number of people without official power run countries or even the whole world. The “iron law of oligarchy” claims that all governments eventually devolve into oligarchies. The people nominally in charge take orders from them because of financial pressure or blackmail. In this scenario, the president is merely a front man. This raises an obvious question: Why would they pick Donald Trump as their puppet? You’d think they’d pick someone who’s more competent, predictable, and superficially respectable.

Conspiracy theories aren’t grounded in evidence or plausibility. They rest on emotional satisfaction. If a cabal of the rich is running America, they’re a target to blame everything on. They’re incredibly rich, so they’re not like “us.” Nobody voted for them, so the voters are absolved of guilt.

But the bitter truth is that officials elected by Americans, not puppeteers behind the scenes, are responsible for what has happened to America.

Thoughts on the February 21 Merrimack protest

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ICE wants to set up a facility in Merrimack, NH to hold its abductees. Governor Ayotte didn’t notice as ICE communicated with state officials about it, or else she’s lying. Lots of people in New Hampshire are outraged. On February 21, I went to Merrimack for the second time to attend a protest against the plan. I’m glad I did, but my reaction is mixed. The spirit I saw expressed wasn’t as good as the first time.

Man decked out with many US flags at Merrimack anti-ICE protestThere were some inspiring highlights, especially a man who stood on a huge snowbank decked out with many US flags. He looked like a human kite, and I almost worried that the wind would lift him into the air. People were there to oppose the human warehouse, which certainly would follow ICE’s usual standards for ignoring due process and treating people cruelly. Many were angry at Governor Ayotte, a modern-day Pontius Pilate who washes her hands of the whole thing.

I wore a small clip-on body camera and left my phone behind. It can’t track me, it’s inconspicuous, and it wouldn’t be as bad as losing a phone if anyone took it from me. Anyone who regularly goes to protests or observes ICE activity should consider getting one.

The crowd was big, and the atmosphere was friendly. I even ran into another member of my UU choir. At the same time, there were some aspects that made me uncomfortable.

There was a lot of chanting of obscenities. Now I’m aware that many on the left think insults and curses are the best way to win people over, but in practice it doesn’t work. When they don’t persuade people with their curses, they think their curses must not have been nasty enough. But I have to explain this, incredible as it may sound: Most people, hearing someone yell curses, don’t say, “Of course, that makes so much sense!” In fact, they’ve been known think that people who spew curses aren’t worth listening to.

There were lots of references to the facility as a “concentration camp.” It won’t be a “camp” of any kind. A concentration camp houses large numbers of people, usually based on ethnicity or culture, in barracks, makeshift buildings, or tents. In addition to the Nazis’ notorious concentration camps, examples include the British relocation of Boers during the Second Boer War and the United States’ internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The building in Merrimack would crowd abductees to an indoor space with barely something to sleep on. The Germans’ concentration camps were a preliminary step to mass murder; others weren’t, though all were cruel to varying degrees. Let’s call a prison a prison.

The level of cursing and the widespread “concentration camp” terminology were new to me, as anti-ICE and anti-Trump protests go. We’ve heard “Alligator Auschwitz” before, which is wrong for different reasons.

Several signs treated Trump’s felony conviction as an important point. The conviction was for not treating hush money payments as campaign expenditures, which is quite minor compared to many other things he’s done. On the other hand, I didn’t see many references to his having over a hundred people killed at sea in unprovoked military attacks. They’re mass murder, and it hasn’t been stressed enough. People have even debated whether it’s OK to come back and finish off any survivors. That’s like asking whether it was legitimate for old-style pirates to make their captives walk the plank.

In times like these, though, we can’t be too picky about our allies. What’s important is that hundreds of people expressed their opposition to an inhumane government facility in New Hampshire.