Mueller Report

The much-touted Mueller Report (Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election) was publicly released on April 18.  One of my friends read it and blogged on it right away (https://linnposts.com/2019/04/25/the-mueller-report-and-the-fate-of-the-nation/).  He probably read it a lot more carefully than I did.  It took me longer to get to the report and it took me longer to get through it; I skipped the footnotes and skimmed some sections.  However, I read enough to have formed some conclusions.

First, note the title refers to the “Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election,” and that is the main focus.  However, Mueller was charged with pursuing other criminal activity that arose in the course of the investigation.  Thus, the entire second volume is devoted to possible obstruction of justice by President Trump.   

Volume One amounts to 199 pages; Volume II, 182 pages.  There are lots of redactions, so the actual number of pages to read is somewhat less.  The redactions often leave one guessing as to what we don’t know yet, but there is enough information to substantiate the main claims in the Report.

 As has been widely reported Mueller found multiple attempts by Russian officials to interfere in the election (1) by a social media campaign designed to sow division in the electorate and favor the Trump candidacy, and (2) by contacting Trump campaign workers to offer negative information, or “dirt,” on Hillary Clinton.  Some of those Russian officials were indicted.  As we know, Mueller did not find (enough) evidence of criminal conspiracy by the Trump campaign and Russia to issue an indictment on those grounds. 

The Office of Special counsel “determined that the contacts between Campaign officials and Russia-linked individuals either did not involve the commission of a federal crime or, in the case of campaign-finance offenses, that our evidence was not sufficient to obtain and sustain a criminal conviction. At the same time, the Office concluded that the Principles of Federal Prosecution supported charging certain individuals connected to the Campaign with making false statements or otherwise obstructing this investigation or parallel congressional investigations.” (V.I, p. 174) 

The Report makes clear that they could not conclude that no conspiracy occurred but rather that, while evidence of conspiracy existed, it did not rise to a strict enough legal level or it was not sufficient to charge anyone in court. 

At one point the report states that because certain campaign officials made false statements (lied), or took the Fifth Amendment, or deleted records, the Office was unable to paint a complete picture of campaign contacts with Russian officials:

“Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.” (V.I, p. 10)

My biggest take-away from Volume I is, if there was no criminal conspiracy, coordination, or “collusion,” why did so many Trump campaign officials lie, take the Fifth, or delete records?  What were they covering up? Even Trump has suggested that when someone takes the Fifth, they must be guilty: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-immunity-pleading-fifth-amendment-michael-flynn-2017-5   

Though the Office was unable to charge anyone with conspiracy or violations of federal campaign laws, it did charge certain Trump campaign officials with lying and obstructing justice:

“The Office determined that certain individuals associated with the Campaign lied to investigators about Campaign contacts with Russia and have taken other actions to interfere with the investigation…the Office therefore charged some U.S. persons connected to the Campaign with false statements and obstruction offenses. “ (V. I, p. 191)

Also, given the wealth of documented evidence of Russian interference, why is our government not doing more to prevent it from happening in future elections?  It is astounding that we seem to be accepting this practice as the status quo.

Volume II of the Report, as has been widely reported, did not conclude that Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice, but it also did not exonerate him: 

“Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” (V. II, p. 8) 

Furthermore, “The President' s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests. Comey did not end the investigation of Flynn, which ultimately resulted in Flynn's prosecution and conviction for lying to the FBI. McGahn did not tell the Acting Attorney General that the Special Counsel must be removed but was instead prepared to resign over the President's order. Lewandowski and Dearborn did not deliver the President's message to Sessions that he should confine the Russia investigation to future election meddling only. And McGahn refused to recede from his recollections about events surrounding the President's direction to have the Special Counsel removed, despite the President's multiple demands that he do so.” (V. II, p. 158) 

My main take-away from Volume II is that there are grounds for impeachment.  Whether that is a politically expedient course for the Democrats to pursue is questionable, but there is little doubt in my mind, based on the multiple, documented cases in the Report of Presidential attempts to impede or obstruct the investigation of his campaign that impeachment would be the Constitutionally appropriate action to take. 

Those who know me know that I identify as a progressive and vote Democratic (in most cases).  If you question my reading of the Mueller report as politically biased, I refer you to, perhaps, a more neutral summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_Report

Or, read the full report here:  https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2C51tCRpU0u7Bq3AJ6reyjl7tSO8JLhtRSST9EcW_olAc-9ArlZ5Adb7I
 
Finally, I was surprised when I told people that I was reading the Mueller Report, how often I was met with silence.  Was it that people did not want to get into a political conversation?  Did my conservative friends (I have a few) fear we would get into an argument? Or were they aware of how damaging the report is to their conservative hero, Donald Trump?  Did my liberal friends feel like they’d heard enough about it, and were possibly sick of the whole thing?  Are they just exhausted and disgusted by the lack of outrage and action in response to the findings?  I don’t know, but I found it striking how little interest folks took in discussing it.  Perhaps they felt they had already heard enough about it.  

Regardless, it is troubling how dismissive, even “ho, hum,” some folks seem to be about what, to my mind, are shocking revelations about our current administration that are well documented and well established in the Report.  In addition to my deep concern about the corruption, incompetence, deception, dysfunction, and outright ignorance of our current administration, I am deeply worried that, as an electorate, we may have become inured to the lowest standards of ethics, intelligence, and general quality of performance. 

Perhaps a lot of folks are just holding their fire until the next election.  We can only hope.

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Edinburgh Twilight

On New Year’s Eve we watched the movie Wind River (2017), which takes place on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_River_(film)). It’s a far cry from Edinburgh Twilight (2017), set in the cobblestone streets of Old Town in the Scottish city, but they both raise a question about whether there’s more good than evil in the world.  I suppose any murder mystery raises that question indirectly, if not directly, but this unlikely pair do so in intriguing ways, one somewhat subtly, the other more explicitly.

In Wind River, desolate, windswept mountains provide the backdrop to an investigation into the death of a young woman found frozen in the snow by a Fish and Wildlife Service tracker who hunts predatory animals.  It turns out the young woman herself is the victim of human predators, who had raped her, left her to die, and killed her boyfriend, whose body is found a couple of days later. The stark, natural setting with images of dead animal prey and growling mountain lions, and the Indian reservation with images of neglect and deteriorated conditions serve to suggest in an understated way that rape, violence, and murder are outgrowths of nature “red in tooth and claw” and a society in which the strong have license to overpower the weak. As in most murder mysteries, the rapists and murderers are eventually overpowered by the forces of justice, and, in this case, the forces of nature, but we are left with the sense that nature and society are as cruel and heartless in the end as they were in the beginning.

In Edinburgh Twilight by Carole Lawrence, a serial killer stalks his prey in the back alleys, the pubs, and the open markets of the city, leaving a calling card on his victims with the image of a skeleton.  The streets reek of human waste, drunkards, prostitutes, pickpockets, scam artists, etc. As in most murder mysteries, the detective uses rational methods of investigation, as well as intuition, to collect the evidence, follow the clues, and track down the killer.  As in most murder mysteries, the reader is left with a sense of satisfaction that the crime is solved, and the perpetrator gets his just deserts.  Good conquers evil.  But, again, we are left with the sense that the struggle for survival goes on in the streets, leaving corruption and depravity in its wake.

What is different in Edinburgh Twilight is that this question of whether there is more good than evil in the world is openly discussed in the novel.  The omniscient point of view allows us into the mind of the killer, whose recurring mantra is, “Oh, there is so much evil in a man, one hardly knows where to begin.”  Detective Ian Hamilton often says that, as a policeman, he has to believe that anyone is capable of anything.  His brother Donald opines that “…the forces of light and dark exist in a relationship of delicate balance, and that murderers appease the blood lust of humanity.  They perform a double duty: first, by expressing mankind’s desire to kill, and second, as appropriate victims of slaughter when they are brought to justice.” Ian asks, “Do you believe the thirst for blood runs in all our veins?”  And Donald replies, “When you look into your own soul, do you not find a shadowed corner that takes secret delight in the suffering of others?  The Germans even have a word for it—Schadenfraude.”

Later, Ian wonders, “What if Donald was right? Did evil really exist in equal measure in every man’s heart? Ian had spent his career convinced there were good men and bad, and it was his job to protect the former from the latter. Was it just a matter of circumstances then—and under the right conditions, even a good man could become corrupted, like the monster he pursued so doggedly? ...The idea was unthinkable.  If his brother was right, fate toyed with people like a cat tormenting a mouse, and mankind was at the mercy of a cruel and indifferent universe.”  He even begins to wonder if his own brother might be the perpetrator!  When Ian finally does trap the killer, he confronts him, “Why? …What made you do it? …I need to know.”  The killer replies, “You may as well ask a river why it flows, or a rooster why it crows. It’s my nature.”

Are some people naturally evil? Do we all have a shadow of blood lust? Is the only difference among us that some of us are capable of controlling our evil impulses more than others? Do murder mysteries appeal to us because they allow us to act out our own sublimated murderous fantasies?

In Wind River, there are good people and bad, but the background of nature and social environment are such, we are left wondering if good is the exception to the rule of evil in nature, including human nature. And in Edinburgh Twilight we are led to question the goodness of even the “good people” who somehow seem to rise above the squalor of the streets.

At the end of the novel, though, Lawrence leaves us with some images of redemption:

“…it was March already. February had slipped quietly away, giving way to the promise of spring and rebirth…”

“As he swung out onto George IV bridge, the sight of Edinburgh spread out beneath him took his breath away.  He stopped the admire the glistening of a thousand lamps, touched by the Promethean hand of the city’s leeries [lamplighters], bringers of light amidst the northern Scottish darkness.”

Is it just a matter of perspective, such that from the inside of evil it is impossible to see the good, whereas the wider view puts evil in its place and allows the light of goodness to shine through?

A friend and I were commiserating recently that when we read/watch the news, it does sometimes seem there is more evil than good in the world, but as we go through our daily lives, interacting with family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, fellow citizens, even strangers, it seems there is more good than evil.  Maybe it is all a matter of perspective.

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

Back when I was a college professor of English, we were undertaking curriculum review, seeking to revise our course offerings in order to affirm more “multicultural” and “ethnic” literature.  Some of us revised our syllabi to include more non-white writers and voices.  I think our efforts were noteworthy, but there is little doubt the Western, European, white literary tradition remained fully intact and fully dominant in our curriculum. Perhaps, this cannot entirely be avoided in an “English” department, which focuses on reading/writing the English language and literature written in English, not to mention the dearth of non-white writers and voices in English given their history of oppression in a white-dominant culture.

At best the changes we made led to more conversations among faculty and students regarding race relations, colonization, white supremacy, and systemic, historically-based racism reflected in our English language and literature.  At worst these changes merely cosmeticized and therefore reinforced what remained an essentially white supremacist curriculum.

I remember an occasion when I was discussing our Ethnic Literature course with an indigenous faculty member. He pointed out to me that the effect of relegating non-white literature to a separate, “ethnic” category implied that white literature did not have ethnicity, that white literature was the norm, whereas non-white literature was some kind of aberration. That was a moment of revelation I have never forgotten. 

Of course, I had routinely checked the box for white or Caucasian when asked for my race on an informational form, but somehow it had not quite sunk in that my whiteness is just as much a race or ethnicity as all the other categories.  Furthermore, multiculturalism includes whiteness as a separate culture distinct from non-white cultures.  I was more likely to think of white culture regionally—Southern, Southwestern, Irish, German, etc.

Such is the power of white supremacy.  As whites we are socially conditioned to think of ourselves as the norm, and the entitled norm at that, and to think of non-whites as deviations from that norm.  In other words, whites are more color-blind when it comes to themselves than when it comes to non-whites.

This book by Robin DiAngelo (2018) not only analyzes white supremacy as a system of both conscious and unconscious patterns of racism, it also documents and demonstrates in example after example how white people resist acknowledging their participation in this system, much less accepting it and taking responsibility for changing both themselves and the larger system.

Until white people, including, and perhaps especially, white liberals, move beyond this resistance and open themselves to learning how to be authentic allies of those fighting for their liberation from oppression, we will continue to be part of the problem, benefiting from and reinforcing the system of oppression, instead of part of the solution.  Good intentions won’t cut it.  Genuine humility, consciousness-raising, and transformation are called for.

This book can be the beginning of a long journey during which white people learn how they can contribute to the work of dismantling white supremacy and achieving racial equity.

Leave No Trace

The motto of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) is “Leave no trace.”  A permit is required to camp and canoe there and guidelines are provided for minimizing the human impact on this wilderness area in northern Minnesota close to the Canadian border.  Outdoor enthusiasts, as well as environmentalists, are fiercely protective of this natural preserve, “the largest remaining area of uncut forest in the eastern portion of the United States” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Waters_Canoe_Area_Wilderness).

Most recently “Renewed proposals for copper and nickel mining in northern Minnesota has…been a source of tension. Mines would be situated south and west of the BWCAW upstream of the wilderness and within its watershed, leading to concerns among conservation groups that surface runoff could cause damage to the area. In December 2016 the federal government proposed banning mining for 20 years while the subject was studied. The new administration cancelled the study in September 2018, clearing the way for mining leases in the national forest.^”   

Mindy Mejia’s recent novel, Leave No Trace, does not directly address the land use disputes of the BWCA, but it does make an understated plea for the preservation of wilderness areas.  The wilderness theme has a long history in American literature, dating back to William Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation: “What could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men?” These early colonial narratives morphed into the nineteenth century frontier novels by James Fenimore Cooper and Catharine Maria Sedgwick, who borrowed from earlier American “captivity narratives” (https://yourbrainonbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/narrative-of-captivity-and-restoration.html). 

Not only does Mejia’s novel harken back to the wilderness theme, with its contrast between nature and civilization, but also to the captivity narrative, in which European settlers recount their experiences being captured by Indians. In Leave No Trace, however, civilization is the enemy, nature is the source of restoration, and the systems of law enforcement and mental health treatment are the captors, who prevent the narrator, Maya Stark, Assistant Speech Therapist at the Congdon mental health facility in Duluth, MN (those in the know will find the name of this facility hilarious), and her patient, Lucas, from tracking down Lucas’ father, Josiah, who has disappeared deep in the BWCA. 

Which brings us to the theme of disappearance, not by captivity, but by choice.  Josiah and Lucas Blackthorn had escaped into the BWCA wilderness ten years earlier, after Josiah had been arrested for obstruction of justice in Ely, MN, a gateway to the BWCA. Mejia underscores this theme by drawing parallels among the fictional Josiah and historical instances of voluntary disappearance, such as that of Agafia Lykov ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agafia_Lykova) and Ho Van Thanh (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/08/09/210477419/father-and-son-coaxed-from-jungle-40-years-after-vietnam-war).  In addition, Maya’s father, operator of a salvage tugboat on Lake Superior, has received a grant to search for the lost “ghost ship,” the SS Bannockburn, a Canadian freighter, that (involuntarily) disappeared on Lake Superior in 1902 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Bannockburn).  In another parallel, one of the orderlies at Congdon refers to Lucas as “Tarzan.”

Other forms of “disappearance” occur in the novel.  Lucas’ mother had disappeared from his life when she died suddenly of an aneurysm; Maya’s mother had abandoned her and her father when Maya was a child.  These parallels, as well as a budding romantic attraction, bond Lucas and Maya, as together they scheme to escape the mental facility to go in search of Josiah.

 

Having lived in the BWCA with his father for ten years, Lucas, now nineteen-years-old, had suddenly reappeared, caught breaking and entering into a camping outfitter store in Ely. Violent and uncommunicative he is committed to Congdon. Though he is violent toward her at first, Lucas eventually connects with Maya and she with him.  Maya learns that Josiah is sick; Lucas had left to get help but is arrested and confined at Congdon before he could get back to his father.  Finding Josiah and getting him help is Lucas’ mission; with Maya’s help he is able to succeed, though, in the end, Josiah finds another way to disappear.

Maya’s journey into Lucas’ past takes her on a journey into her own past.  It turns out they share, not only the loss of their mothers, a history of law-breaking, and of mental health treatment, but also a history that neither of them knows about. 

The tangle of coincidences in their pasts is barely believable, but despite an unlikely plot, the themes of disappearance, of being lost and found (or in the case of the Bannockburn, not found), of captivity and restoration, of recovery and redemption resonate powerfully. 

And the BWCA wilderness is not the only one in the novel where people can disappear; there is the wilderness of personal history, of social alienation, of mental instability, in which one can get lost, but from which one can also find truth, human connection, and mental health. 

Maya’s mother had been a geologist, and the rocks of the BWCA become part of the setting and the story. Agates, a type of volcanic rock, become a dominant symbol in the novel.  Maya’s mother had taught her: “The Earth took violence and decay and made agates…Agates can only form when something in you is destroyed, when the hollows of grief or depression can never find the light, and the sediment that accumulates inside them is dense. Their power changes you.”

However “hideous and desolate,” however “full of wild beasts and wild men,” however violent, however capable of destruction, the wilderness has the power to create beauty, strength, and preservation.  As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “In Wildness is the preservation of the World…From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind.” And such is the underlying message of Leave No Trace.  There is healing value in exploring both the wilderness without and the wilderness within.

And such is the value of preserving the wildness of the BWCA and other wilderness areas.

In the end Maya and Lucas seem to make peace with civilization and find some semblance of balance between it and the wilderness.  The fate of our planet may depend on the ability of all of us to find such balance.

   

Mislaid

A friend recommended this book because it takes place in my home state of Virginia, but, as I’ve discovered previously, just because I’m familiar with the setting doesn’t necessarily make it a great read. (See https://yourbrainonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/09/commonwealth.html)

Published in 2015, Mislaid by Nell Zink, who grew up in rural Virginia, may be one of the most bizarre novels I’ve ever read. The plot itself is bizarre enough, as a lesbian student at a women’s college marries the resident gay male poet and bears two children by him.  She finally leaves him, taking their daughter with her, and hides out in rural Virginia changing their names and passing themselves off as black, not for the same reason as Rachel Dolezal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal), but because she doesn’t want her husband to find her.  This unfolds in just the first three chapters, and so it continues with one bizarre episode after another.

Set during the 1960’s, serious issues, such as gender, sexuality, race, class, power and privilege, are addressed, but they are somewhat overshadowed by the bizarre plot and outlandish humor.  There are laugh-out-loud lines on almost every page, which makes for great entertainment but distracts from the social commentary. 

Here’s a small sample of some of those LOL lines:

“Around age fourteen, it got more complicated. She informed her best friend, Debbie, that she intended to join the army out of high school. She knew Debbie from Girl Scout camp. Debbie was from Richmond, a large and diverse city. ‘You’re a thespian,’ Peggy heard her say. ‘Get away from me.’ Debbie picked up her blanket and moved to the other side of the room…Betrayal. Debbie never spoke to her again. Peggy told her mother.

            ‘A thespian,” her mother said, bemused. ‘Well, darling, everybody gets crushes.’ Her mother was from the generation that thought a girl’s first love is always a tomboyish older girl…Her mother suspected her of having a girlfriend, already and sent off for brochures to Radcliffe. She didn’t believe in coeducation, but her daughter’s plight called for desperate measures.”

“To look at him, Temple was about as black as a person could get, as though the school were hoping to pack as much blackness as possible into each ‘token black’ seat in each of his successive integrated classrooms.  Initially he was chosen his mannerly comportment and tidy clothes and resented only for making it impossible for his classmates to win at Eraser Walk.  The eraser nestled in his hair like an egg in a nest.  He could have hopped to the blackboard on one foot.  The class voted never to play Eraser Walk again. One by one, his superior achievements were acknowledged with surrender. He called it, raising the white flag’.”

“The ghost-like, flaxen-haired black child was almost a matter of civic pride. They hoped she would stay in the county and marry a light-skinned, blue-eyed man to found one of those conversation-piece dynasties.”

“He was the democratically elected head prosecutor of the city of Charlottesville.  Since victims outnumber criminals, he favored victims. He knew there is no such thing as a victimless crime. Whatever casual drug users might say. A person whose harmless actions are criminalized becomes a victim of the law. That paradox helped him out every day by showing him the unreality of his job.”

“Still, she insisted on living with Temple, explaining to Lee that with him around she could always be assured of finding leftover pizza in the refrigerator. She would never have to cook. Lee admitted it was a strong argument.”

Humor can sometimes mask offensive stereotypes, and such is the case with this novel, despite its ostensibly liberal treatment of social issues.  I grew up in Virginia during the 1960’s and never experienced anything approximating the world of this novel, though the depiction of class rang true.  So, read it if you will, but don’t take it as a realistic representation of Virginia or the South in general.