Lily Salter's Blog, page 155

“Pablo Honey”: Beyond “Creep”: Radiohead’s debut foreshadowed their greatness

Pablo Honey by Radiohead (Credit: Parlophone)

Earlier in the week, Radiohead announced a string of North American arena tour dates for summer 2018, including a whopping three nights at Madison Square Garden. Judging by the grumbling about Ticketmaster on Twitter (and the occasional celebratory tweet), tickets went fast.

It’s safe to say that few thought Radiohead would still be around (much less so popular) when the band released its full-length debut, “Pablo Honey.” Issued in the U.K. in early 1993 — possibly on Feb. 22, although some archival fan sites claim a release date of March 6 — the album spawned only one notable single and didn’t necessarily sound unique or groundbreaking.

Billboard’s review at the time mentioned U2 as an inspiration, while Entertainment Weekly namechecked the Cure and Smiths as influences. The Los Angeles Times’ 2.5-star review was positively middling: “This English quintet’s debut doesn’t really deliver anything you haven’t heard before, steering too close to Smiths-like melodies and trying ever so hard to be depressed in the way the Cure popularized. Occasionally, though, it does offer clever lyrics and good hooks.”

All of these comparisons do make sense, although in hindsight the album is far more indebted to noisy American acts such as Pixies, Sonic Youth and, especially, Dinosaur Jr. The latter favored distortion-blurred guitar lines that twisted like a kite in the wind, a sonic approach evident all over “Pablo Honey.” The chiming “Lurgee” crescendos to a meandering solo; “I Can’t” juxtaposes desperate Thom Yorke crooning with raucous guitar pulses; and chunky melodic riffs bounce throughout “Prove Yourself.”

Yet, at least musically, “Pablo Honey” has aged well. “How Do You?” is a gleeful full-body thrash with chaotic piano and guitar effects, while the tense dynamics driving the explosive “Ripcord,” an abrasive song about the experience of hurtling into the unknown.

Lyrically, “Pablo Honey” is a different story. As “Ripcord” implies, Yorke (who seemed to be going by Thom E Yorke at the time) was trying to find his footing as a songwriter. References to Radiohead’s future favorite topics were all there on “Pablo Honey” — anger at the status quo, feeling like an outsider, worrying about the future — but Yorke’s clarity and specificity were a work in progress. “How Do You?” rails against a “dangerous bigot” and “powerful freak,” although it’s never clear why the man is to be feared, while the bottled-up irritation of “Vegetable” is somewhat comically exaggerated.

But Radiohead’s skepticism was already present in spades. The Pixies-esque “Anyone Can Play Guitar,” which features the inimitable Yorke lyric “I wanna be, wanna be, wanna be Jim Morrison,” was inspired by his visceral negative reaction to Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” movie. “I just ranted that verse the day after I saw that film,” Yorke once said. “It really wound me up, really upset me. It was like he was some sort of Arthurian legend or something.”

Little did Yorke know what kind of popularity he’d soon be facing. After all, no discussion of “Pablo Honey” would be complete without Radiohead’s albatross, the churning grunge touchstone “Creep.” The band’s biggest U.S. chart hit to this day, the song meshed well with the noisy guitars and loud-quiet-loud dynamics popular at the time. But “Creep” also resonated because it’s so relatable: Yorke wrote it about feeling awkward in front of a crush, who apparently later showed up at a Radiohead show.

“Thom was mortified, because he’s never spoken to her or anything,” guitarist Jonny Greenwood told The Chicago Sun-Times in 1993. “He just followed her for a couple of days or a week or whatever about two or three years ago. And here she was. He was very shaken up after that.”

Although “Creep” was initially released as a single in 1992, it didn’t connect in the U.S. until the following year, after a San Francisco radio station started playing the import. Around the time “Pablo Honey” was issued in the U.S., the song debuted on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart at No. 29, and would peak at No. 2.

To promote “Creep,” Radiohead ended up making the rounds of TV shows. One of the more incongruous appearances ended up being the band playing the song at MTV’s summer vacation party pad, the Beach House. The sunglasses-sporting band members looked aloof but intense as they stood on a tiny stage poolside slashing through the song. As a YouTube commenter hilariously (and correctly) put it, “Radiohead looks like Batman villains here.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, “Creep” fell out of Radohead’s setlist for a number of years, and is still only played sporadically. The ambivalence makes sense, however: The song certainly was a narrow representation of Radiohead’s sound and worldview, and its runaway success made many consider the band a novelty or one-hit wonder.

“A lot of journalists said, ‘This is a joke song, right?'” Yorke told Melody Maker about “Creep.” “Well, yeah, but no . . . I was quite shocked by that! It is an outsider’s song, and I suppose it touches a nerve with a lot of people — but it’s not a nerve I’d want to tap again. I couldn’t, anyway. It was an accident first time. I suppose it is ironic now, because I have to ask myself all the time whether or not I’m still an outsider. I think I am. I’ve just been pushed into a different corner.”

Yorke’s observation was astute, as Radiohead very quickly moved on from the lurching self-immolation of “Creep.” Starting with 1995’s “The Bends,” the band expanded its solipsistic worldview and added in rather pointed societal commentary. Radiohead was still a band of outsiders, but now it aimed to represent misfits everywhere.

With the band’s eventual success, perception of “Pablo Honey” softened, and it became easier to grasp the album’s legacy. “Thinking About You” sounds like a blueprint for Coldplay’s early delicate work, while “Blow Out” presages Radiohead’s later music; the song starts with tense, jazzy drumming, before ending in a guitar roar that’s an obvious Sonic Youth homage.

And the highlight “Stop Whispering” foreshadowed Radiohead’s future. The lyrics mention being oppressed by higher powers, and express frustration that they can’t articulate exactly why that’s bothersome: “And the feeling is that there’s something wrong / Because I can’t find the words, and I can’t find the songs.” The solution is simple but galvanizing: “Stop whispering, start shouting.” As it turns out, that’s exactly what Radiohead started to do — and became one of rock’s most enduring, influential and exciting bands.

The powerful politics of Killmonger

Michael B. Jordan as N'Jadaka / Erik "Killmonger" Stevens in "Black Panther" (Credit: Marvel Studios)

Erik Killmonger, the villain in “Black Panther,” is one of the greatest political thinkers ever to appear in a blockbuster movie.

And that is about as far as I can go without delving into spoilers. If you’re reading this and haven’t seen “Black Panther,” stop what you’re doing and go watch the movie. It’s worth it and this article can wait.

Now back to my point about the political philosopher Killmonger.

He may not be the greatest superhero villain, period (I still believe that distinction belongs to Heath Ledger’s Joker in “The Dark Knight”), but even antagonists in this genre who have been outwardly political pre-“Black Panther” haven’t done so as directly or brilliantly as Michael B. Jordan’s character. Magneto from the X-Men films may have been fighting for the rights of the oppressed, but he was still doing so for a fictional group (mutants). The political conflicts at the heart of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Captain America: Civil War,” though intelligently depicted, likewise focused on analogies to real-world problems rather than the genuine articles. And while The Joker in “The Dark Knight” and Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises” may have embodied various strains of anarchistic nihilism, the former has evolved into an all-purpose cultural icon rather than a specifically political symbol, while the latter was too silly to ever be taken entirely seriously.

Killmonger, on the other hand, is such a compelling political philosopher that many viewers aren’t even convinced he is the story’s real villain.

“He’s a Wakandan who was raised in Oakland around the time of the LA riots. He’s experienced the hardship and structural disadvantage experienced by racial minorities in America, and he wants to use Wakanda’s resources to liberate oppressed peoples around the world,” writes Osman Faruqi in Junkee. “It’s an extremely sympathetic position, yet the film keeps reminding us that he’s the bad guy — he ruthlessly murders his own accomplices and he dethrones T’Challa, nearly killing him in the process.”

Yet Faruqi protests the fact that the movie insists on vilifying Killmonger, pointing out that the violence that Killmonger advocates isn’t necessarily worse than the real-world violence that Wakanda has allowed. “Wakanda, under T’Challa’s reign, is just choosing to ignore it. Killmonger at least wants to do something to end the oppression of subjugated people,” Faruqi points out.

This point was echoed by Miles Surrey of The Ringer, who argued that the characterization of Killmonger was so strong that Marvel producers should learn from it in the future. “Don’t just make the villain’s philosophy convincing, make it seem like he’s really the hero of his own story, and let him or her affect the hero’s own ethos in a profound way,” Surrey wrote before expressing sympathy with Killmonger’s sharing of his murdered father’s belief that “Wakanda should be spreading its futuristic wealth to disadvantaged black communities around the world, rather than keeping its resources a secret.”

Author Brooke Obie also explained, in a recent article in Shadow and Act, how even Killmonger’s supposedly villainous behavior can be rendered sympathetic by understanding its political context. “Yes, his desperation for revenge has twisted him into a man who loves to kill — hence the name — and who covers his entire body with self-inflicted battle scars for each person he’s ever murdered,” Obie writes. “And his constant state of rage manifests in bloody action. But it’s the root of his rage that Coogler so deftly explores in ‘Black Panther.'”

She adds, “Killmonger’s pain, abandonment and generational trauma touch on the rawest parts of being African American. Sure, the imprint of the continent our ancestors hailed from is embedded in our gums, but our AncestryDNA results don’t exactly lead us into the open arms of our ancestral cousins. We are a homeless people, not welcomed anywhere. If Wakanda is the Black Promised Land, then we are its forgotten children, sold away, left behind, rejected, condescended to.”

Establishing that Killmonger is a thoughtful, even profound political thinker is one thing. It raises, however, an intriguing question: From what specific political traditions does he draw his inspiration?

“Killmonger seems to embody the tradition of Black Nationalism and revolutionary politics,” Professor Saladin Ambar of Rutgers University told Salon. “He is more in the line of Martin Delany, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X than Frederick Douglass, (the early) W.E.B. Du Bois, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It’s essentially a philosophy responsive to the intractability of white racism and supremacy — and as such, it argues for forms of racial exodus or armed struggle.”

Ambar also noted that the Wakandans’ isolationist philosophy, though despised by Killmonger and ultimately abandoned (or at least moderated) by Black Panther at the end of the movie, has strong historical roots.

“It’s important to remember that the Wakandans’ conservatism had been rooted in self-preservation and their own anti-colonialism,” Ambar said. “When that policy no longer became tenable, the tactics changed, and I think this is historically important.”

As an illustrative analogy, Ambar juxtaposed two of American history’s most famous African-American political thinkers — King and Malcolm X.

“Dr. King, for example, is a far more radical figure in 1967 and 1968 than in 1957 and 1958,” he said. “We needn’t pit King against Malcolm X — just look at the evolution of both figures as a window into how broader forms of black politics change. The two views are not necessarily antithetical, but rather reflective of particular strategies and political moments. I believe the film honors this.”

Just to be clear: Killmonger’s tactics are far from wholly admirable. Setting aside his casual use of violence, Killmonger has a clearly dismissive attitude toward the women in his life (as brilliantly explored by Princess Weekes in The Mary Sue) and the methods that he chose to liberate oppressed people were, as Jason Johnson at The Root pointed out, utterly ridiculous.

At the same time, I derive considerable hope from the fact that a popcorn flick produced by a major corporation can inspire this kind of intelligent political deconstruction. Our popular culture has been intersecting with our politics for decades now: Just look at our reality TV star president, who was elected on a far right-wing platform made possible by a Republican Party that became uber-conservative due to a movie star president. Yet so much of those intersections have been either muddled (see the aforementioned superhero films), banal (see the countless “hail the American flag” type movies) or worse (pretty much any of the tripe churned out by Christian exploitation factories like Pure Flix).

Yet with Killmonger in “Black Panther,” we get more than a political film. We get an intelligent political film. And for that — among many, many other things — fans of “Black Panther” like myself are incredibly grateful.

Top Trump campaign aide Rick Gates pleads guilty in special counsel investigation

Rick Gates (Credit: AP/Alex Brandon)

Another day, another shocker in special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe of Trump officials: Rick Gates, a former top adviser to Donald Trump, has pleaded guilty to fraud and lying to investigators, the New York Times reports.

Gates pleaded guilty in front of a judge in Washington on Friday and acknowledged that he participated in financial wrongdoings with Paul Manafort. He also admitted to lying to the special counsel about a 2013 meeting Manafort had with a member of Congress and a lobbyist. Currently, Gates faces up to six years in prison.

Gates is the third person known to be cooperating with Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Gen. Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos have also pleaded guilty and both agreed to cooperate with the investigation.

It’s unclear how cooperative Gates will be throughout the next steps of the process, and what insights he has to offer, but the New York Times speculates the plea deal is “a sign that Mr. Gates plans to offer incriminating information against his longtime associate and the former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, or other members of the Trump campaign in exchange for a lighter punishment.”

Gates may also have insights into Trump’s campaign following the election, since Gates served as a consultant on the transition team.

Murmurs that Gates was close to reaching a plea deal began to spread last week. ABC news obtained a letter that Gates had allegedly sent to friends and family alerting them he was planning on pleading guilty.

“Despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, I have had a change of heart. The reality of how long this legal process will likely take, the cost, and the circus like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. I will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process,” he wrote in the letter.

The next logical step would be for Manafort to plead guilty, but according to a statement via the New York Times, Manafort appears to be determined to hold onto to his innocence.

“Notwithstanding that Rick Gates pleaded today, I continue to maintain my innocence. I had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. For reasons yet to surface he chose to do otherwise. This does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me,” Manafort said in the statement.

Two women are vying to be the first Native American congresswomen

Sharice Davids; Deb Haaland (Credit: shariceforcongress.com/debforcongress...)

There have been many political milestones for minorities in the United States in the past decade, still Americans have yet to see a Native American congresswoman.

That may soon change. After urging women and people of color to seek public office, Sharice Davids decided to take her own advice. Now she’s running for Congress.

Davids, a 37-year-old attorney and member of the Ho-Chunk Nation tribe, hopes to be the first Native American woman elected to Congress, and hopes to win the Democratic primary in the fall. The Shawnee resident is vying for the seat in Kansas’ third district currently held by Rep. Kevin Yoder, a Republican who has held the spot since 2011.

Davids served as a White House fellow during the final year of President Obama’s administration, where she “saw first-hand the immediate need for competent, thoughtful people to step up, take action, and get involved in government,” as she explains in her campaign literature. Before her stint at the White House, Davids earned a law degree from Cornell Law School.

When asked about how she feels about potentially being the first Native American woman elected to Congress, Davids told Salon, “It’s just disbelief, like, really? We have a lot of educated Native women who are active in politics. … It feels like it’s about time.”

The daughter of a single mother Army veteran, Davids said she “knows the importance of hard work and service to country,” in a statement.

Davids officially entered the race in Kansas on February 15, one day after the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Naturally, gun violence is on her mind, and she hopes to act on the issue. “Congress has done so little up to this point,” she said, adding, “it’s likely that I will get the opportunity to participate in some action action on gun safety” if elected.

Davids is also prepared to fight for comprehensive immigration reform and to save Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program that gave limited rights to undocumented youth who were brought to the U.S. as children and met certain requirements — a program the Trump Administration has decided to end.

If she were to win, Davids would be the nation’s first female Native American member of Congress as well as Kansas’ first openly gay representative. She could possibly share that first distinction with Debra Haaland, a Native American woman who is running for Congress in New Mexico as a Democrat. Haaland is running for a seat in New Mexico’s First District.

Haaland is no stranger to politics. Before announcing her congressional bid, Haaland served as New Mexico’s Democratic Party chair — the first Native American woman to chair a state party — and as the Native American vote director for President Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012. She also spent nearly two decades volunteering on Democratic campaigns, in addition to a failed gubernatorial campaign (she ran for lieutenant governor in 2014).

Haaland told Salon she is confident in her ability to win the race, and perhaps she should be. She already has a long list of endorsements, including the National Organization for Women PAC (NOW) and the Congressional Black Caucus. And while she is running for a safe Democratic seat, Haaland has fierce competition. Six Democrats are facing off in the primary June 5.

Despite nearly 20 years of political experience, Haaland suggests her work would only be just beginning if she becomes the first female Native American member of Congress. “If I’m the first, I’ll be very grateful, and I will work hard to make sure that I’m not the last.”

Haaland has already inspired several other young women to go into politics. After a television appearance, one mother messaged her, saying that her daughter was inspired watching her. Several weeks later, another mother reached out to say, “We were inspired to watch you on TV, and my daughter is now going to run for student body president.”

In addition to empowering women, Haaland is committed to clean energy and natural resources, and disapproves of President Trump’s approach to fossil fuels and climate change.

Haaland has been an ardent critic of Donald Trump ever since he became a presidential candidate, especially for his treatment of Native Americans. In 2016 she penned an op-ed, blasting the presidential candidate for his use of the name “Pocahontas” to mock Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “Trump doesn’t understand how or why Native folks choose to identify themselves or how tribes place individuals on their tribal rolls,” Haaland wrote. “Ignorance is not an excuse.” She also said that Trump’s wealth does not excuse his language. “Any presidential candidate should be held to a high standard and being a billionaire doesn’t excuse you,” she wrote. “As Americans we are all responsible for learning our collective history and being respectful toward one another.”

A congressional victory by either Davids or Haaland would be historic. While eight Native American men ran for Congress in the November 2016 election, only two currently serve in the House of Representatives: Rep. Thomas Cole, R.-Okla., a member of the Chickasaw Nation; and Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R.-Okla., a member of the Cherokee Nation.

While the 115th U.S. Congress has been called “the most diverse in history,” critics contend it still does not accurately resemble America’s increasingly diverse population. According to Pew Research Center analysis, “Congress as a whole remains disproportionately white when compared with the U.S. population.” Given the flood of women running for political office this coming election, Capitol Hill may be even more representative come January.

Missouri state GOP blames George Soros for Gov. Eric Greitens’ revenge porn debacle

George Soros (Credit: AP/Olivier Hoslet)

The Missouri state Republican Party has finally broken its silence following the news that Republican Gov. Eric Greitens was indicted by a federal grand jury for one count of felony invasion of privacy charge stemming from a 2015 extramarital encounter.

In a statement released by the Missouri State GOP, Sam Cooper, Executive Director of the Missouri Republican Party, stated that St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner allegedly received $200,000 from “George Soros groups” making the indictment a “political hit job.” Gardner, who opened the investigation into the allegations against Greitens last month, alleged yesterday that Greitens snapped a photo of an unidentified nude woman — blindfolded and hands bound — without her knowledge in March 2015, and later threatened to release the photograph. The Missouri governor is married with children.

“Kim Gardner has received more than $200,000 from George Soros groups,” the statement from the GOP read. “Missourians should see this for what it is, a political hit job. This law has never been prosecuted in this way and it is safe to say if Eric Greitens wasn’t governor, it wouldn’t have been this time earlier. We have a progressive anti-law enforcement Democrat wanting to single-handedly oust a law-and-order governor.”

Here’s our full statement on the recent news re: Governor Greitens ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/QlsRmlgEiv

— Missouri GOP (@MissouriGOP) February 23, 2018

The law the statement refers to is a bill that was approved in the state House to criminalize “revenge porn,” making it a class D felony to share sexually explicit images or recordings without the consent of the person pictured. The bill was sponsored by Republican Rep. Jim Neely. The bill says that it is a class E felony for those who threaten to disseminate private sexual images.

Hence, Greitens could face up to four years in prison.

Over the years, liberal billionaire George Soros has been a favorite target of conspiratorial Republicans who pin the blame on him for whatever their grievance du jour is. Indeed, many conservative talking heads caricature him as some sort of political mastermind, without whom liberal causes would be rudderless. (Salon’s Amanda Marcotte has written in-depth about the far-right’s Soros obsession.)  As the Parkland shooting survivors have raised their voices in protest, urging lawmakers to impose stricter gun regulations, some conservatives have claimed Soros is also the force behind the rebellion.

CNN commentator Jack Kingston, a former Republican congressman, said “organized groups that are out there, like George Soros, are always ready to take up the charge”. He also suggested to Anderson Cooper that the Parkland shooting survivors were being paid to protest.

As Marcotte wrote, the GOP’s default move to cast blame on Soros is often driven by anti-Semitism.

Marcotte explained:

“The tendency of right-wingers, especially of the Trumpian variety, to pin everything they don’t like on Soros — a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust that was justified by similar conspiracy theories — is a chilling reminder of how much these kind of fringe fascistic ideas have been mainstreamed in American conservatism over the past decade.”

Alas, here we are: the Missouri GOP honestly believes that the Missouri governor, who allegedly threatened to release nude pictures without consent, is merely a part of Soros’ masterplan.

GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson offers to pay for US embassy move to Jerusalem

(Credit: AP/Evan Vucci/Kin Cheung)

One of President Donald Trump’s biggest donors, billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has offered to help pay for the construction of the controversial Jerusalem embassy.

The embassy, which is scheduled to open in May, has been a flash point of controversy ever since Trump announced that he was moving America’s diplomatic facilities out of Tel Aviv. Adelson, an extremely generous donor to right-wing political parties in both America and Israel, made his offer to Trump when the president first announced his decision in December, according to the Associated Press. State Department lawyers have since begun exploring whether it would be legal for the United States government to accept private donations to partially or entirely fund the construction of the new embassy.

One potential plan would be for the Trump administration to request donations from pro-Israel individuals, particularly those in the Jewish and evangelical communities, and then ask Adelson to pick up the difference between the money raised and the final cost. As the Trump administration announced on Friday, the embassy will be initially opened in the Arnona neighborhood by gradually converting existing consular offices there which handle matters like visas and passports. While retrofitting the existing offices is not likely to be expensive, the ultimate process of expanding them into a full embassy would cost at least $500 million — a steep tab that even the billionaire Adelson may not be willing to pay in full.

Another controversial aspect of Adelson’s involvement is his close involvement in right-wing politics. In addition to donating $25 million to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and $5 million to his inaugural committee, Adelson has also been a major contributor to Republican politicians throughout the United States. In addition, he has also donated generously to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and owns two of Israel’s most influential right-wing newspapers, one of which he gives away for free to promote his ideas.

Trump is already feeling the effects of the Oprah charm offensive

Oprah Winfrey on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" (Credit: ABC/Randy Holmes)

The Oprah Winfrey-saga-for-president continues. The media proprietor and personality, actor and philanthropist, but definitely not presidential candidate, continued the media circuit Thursday, this time visiting Jimmy Kimmel.

After roaring audience applause upon her introduction on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the late night host cut through the commotion and got right to the point: “So you’re definitely not running for president, that’s out?” Kimmel asked.

“Where do I look into the camera?” Winfrey replied. “I am definitely not running for president,” she repeated, slowly, clearly and to passionate booing and dissent from the crowd. This late night appearance followed her visit to “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which also aired Thursday.

“You know, you give a speech and then you sit down, and you have, surprisingly, started to run for president,” Winfrey told Kimmel. She gave a rousing and empowering speech at the Golden Globes in January and since then, fans and supporters have unrelentingly pined for Winfrey 2020.

Winfrey revealed that the presidential fantasies for her began immediately, and not just on social media, but backstage at the award show, too. “So, that was a surprise and I was at first thrown by it. It’s a humbling thing to have people think that you can run the country, it’s a humbling thing,” she added. “And so, I’m the kind of person who tries to listen to signs. I think: ‘well, am I supposed to run the country? I don’t think so.'”

“I feel like you already ran the country for about 15 years,” Kimmel retorted. It is certainly a fair assertion to make.

Whether Winfrey’s media appearances — even if they consist of telling viewers that emphatically no, she is not running for president — can be seen as a testing of the waters is still up for debate. The resounding applause on talk shows, supportive social media hashtags and think pieces all verify that if it is, indeed, a test; the test is working. And with all the enthusiasm despite her words, it could be a seamless transition to pivot into a campaign a year from now, with the explanation that this is clearly what the people want, or in Oprah lingo: the signs are abundantly clear.

Why else is she making the popular media rounds, from Ellen to Kimmel? It is hard to believe a petty tweet from President Donald Trump really got under Winfrey’s skin that much. I mean, c’mon, literally no one believes she is insecure. If anything, the media appearances come off as classy trolling on Winfrey’s part, not so subtlety declaring: I’m better at this popularity and ratings thing than you, something that undoubtedly agitates Trump more than any “60 Minutes” segment. Not to mention that poll that says Oprah beats Trump for president in 2020. Can’t you just picture his tiny fingers firing away on Twitter, with egregious grammar errors, should such a reality ever materialize?

But the undercurrent here is, Winfrey does not need to run for president. Her impact and influence, politically and culturally, has been demonstrated for decades. Plus we have first hand information about how Republicans treat and isolate a black person occupying the Oval Office.

Still, the appeal is there. She has the brand to rival Trump, and the popularity to topple him — a facet seemingly needed in politics today that feels as critical as it is bizarre. She is a woman, far more beloved and trusted than Hillary Clinton. And her decades in media, talking and listening to people from all walks of life, and recent endeavor into journalism of sorts, points to Winfrey’s ability to be in touch with the pulse of the people regardless of her tax bracket.

What is clear is that we won’t be getting answers anytime soon. Winfrey will likely continue to circulate the media programs as “A Wrinkle in Time” opens in theaters, fending off campaign questions in her same articulate, ambiguous nature. At the end of the day, maybe Winfrey’s appearances, with her affirming and comforting way, serves as a reminder that we are not totally doomed, least not as long as she has the mic.

People go to jail for lying on security clearance forms. Why hasn’t Jared Kushner?

(Credit: AP Photo/Richard Drew)

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has seemingly benefited from a double-standard when it comes to the number of errors he has made on his security clearance questionnaire. And it looks like Fox News host Shepard Smith may be the only anchor on the pro-Trump network that’s taking this potential ethical dilemma seriously.

“There’s a Kushner problem at the White House,” Smith announced Wednesday. And, again the next day, he continued to raise red flags to Fox News viewers.

“Jared Kushner submitted his application – his ‘SF-86′ as they call it – and did not include 100 contacts with foreigners, and then later had to go back and include them. But then later he did not include the meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian lawyer and the Russian translator. He didn’t include that. So that was another amendment to this thing,” Smith told his viewers on Thursday. “And that took this past June.”

Smith also asked his guest, Alayna Treene of Axios, about her thoughts on the ostensibly lax approach being applied to Kushner.

“An omission for most people, when you fill out as ‘SF-86,’ can be a crime punishable by prison. Not in this case, apparently, but it can be, right?” Smith asked Treene.

“Right. No, exactly. I think that what happened here was there’s a lot that had to be revised, sent back,” Treene told Smith.

As of October, Kushner had been forced to submit four addenda containing more than 100 omissions and errors on his security clearance questionnaire, according to CNN. When Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., brought this matter to the attention of Charles Phalen that month, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau within the Office of Personnel Management, he asked whether it was normal for someone to maintain their security clearance after so many errors had been found.

While Phalen could not speak to all security clearance applications, he conceded that he had “never seen that level of mistakes” himself.

Although Kushner is operating with an interim security clearance, he has not been able to secure a full top-level security clearance, in part due to the ongoing probe lead by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, according to CNN. As part of his investigation, Mueller is reviewing Kushner’s alleged contacts — financial or otherwise — with Russians and other foreigners, and it is unlikely he would be cleared during that time. What’s more, in the wake of the Rob Porter scandal, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly has decided to remove access to high level documents for anyone who only has interim security clearance, according to The New York Times.

Inside Atomwaffen as it celebrates a member for allegedly killing a gay Jewish college student

(Credit: Getty)

Late last month, ProPublica reported that the California man accused of killing a gay and Jewish University of Pennsylvania student was an avowed neo-Nazi and a member of Atomwaffen Division, one of the country’s most notorious extremist groups.

The news about the murder suspect, Samuel Woodward, spread quickly throughout the U.S., and abroad. Woodward was accused of fatally stabbing 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein and burying his body in an Orange County park.

The report, it turns out, was also taken up in the secretive online chats conducted by members of Atomwaffen Division, a white supremacist group that celebrates both Hitler and Charles Manson.

“I love this,” one member wrote of the killing, according to copies of the online chats obtained by ProPublica. Another called Woodward a “one man gay Jew wrecking crew.”

More soon joined in.

“What I really want to know is who leaked that shit about Sam to the media,” a third member wrote.

At least one member wanted to punish the person who had revealed Woodward’s affiliation with Atomwaffen.

“Rats and traitors get the rope first.”

Encrypted chat logs obtained by ProPublica — some 250,000 messages spanning more than six months — offer a rare window into Atomwaffen Division that goes well beyond what has surfaced elsewhere about a group whose members have been implicated in a string of violent crimes. Like many white supremacist organizations, Atomwaffen Division uses Discord, an online chat service designed for video gamers, to engage in its confidential online discussions.

In a matter of months, people associated with the group, including Woodward, have been charged in five murders; another group member pleaded guilty to possession of explosives after authorities uncovered a possible plot to blow up a nuclear facility near Miami.

Lucas Waldron/ProPublica

The group’s propaganda makes clear that Atomwaffen — the word means “nuclear weapons” in German — embraces Third Reich ideology and preaches hatred of minorities, gays and Jews. Atomwaffen produces YouTube videos showing members firing weapons and has filmed members burning the U.S. Constitution and setting fire to the American flag. But the organization, by and large, cloaks its operations in secrecy and bars members from speaking to the media.

The chat logs and other material obtained by ProPublica provide unusually extensive information about the group’s leaders, wider makeup, and potential targets, indicating:

The group may have as many as 20 cells around the country, small groups of indeterminate size in Texas, Virginia, Washington, Nevada and elsewhere. Members armed with assault rifles and other guns have taken part in weapons training in various locations over the last two years, including last month in the Nevada desert near Death Valley.

Members have discussed using explosives to cripple public water systems and destroy parts of the electrical power grid. One member even claimed to have obtained classified maps of the power grid in California. Throughout the chats, Atomwaffen members laud Timothy McVeigh, the former soldier who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168, including numerous children. Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof and Anders Breivik, the Norwegian extremist who massacred 77 people, also come in for praise.

Woodward posted several messages in the days after Bernstein’s murder, but before he was arrested and charged. In one thread, he told his fellow Atomwaffen members that he was thinking about the “passing of life” and was “truly grateful for our time together.”

Woodward, 20, has pleaded not guilty in the Bernstein case. Prosecutors have said they are exploring whether the murder constituted a hate crime and detectives are now investigating what role, if any, Atomwaffen might have played in the homicide. Woodward and Bernstein had known each other in high school in California, and appear to have reconnected somehow shortly before the killing.

Law enforcement, both federal and state, have said little about what they make of Atomwaffen. But organizations dedicated to tracking and studying hate groups have been calling attention to what they regard as the group’s considerable threat.

“We haven’t seen anything like Atomwaffen in quite a while,” said Keegan Hankes, a researcher who tracks the group for the Southern Poverty Law Center. “They should be taken seriously because they’re so extreme.”

Jeffrey Kaplan, a historian, has studied racial extremists for decades and edited the Encyclopedia of White Power. In an interview, he suggested that Atomwaffen is dangerous, but that talk in their propaganda and private conversations of aims such as toppling the U.S. government amounted to what he called a kind of “magical thinking.” Kaplan said such groups often contain a handful of diehards who are willing to commit crimes and many more wannabes who are unwilling to do much more than read fascist literature.

“It’s very hard to go from talking about violence to looking a guy in the eyes and killing him,” said Kaplan, a professor of national security studies at King Fahd Defense College in Saudi Arabia.

Where We’ve Identified Atomwaffen Division MembersThrough interviews and internal records, ProPublica was able to identify Atomwaffen members in at least 23 states.
Lucas Waldron and Rob Weychert/ProPublica

“Politics are useless. Revolution is necessary.”

ProPublica has identified five key Atomwaffen members through information provided by law enforcement investigators, internal Atomwaffen records, outside experts and a former group member.

Those records and interviews make clear that John Cameron Denton is the leader of Atomwaffen. Denton, 24, grew up in Montgomery, Texas, a small town about 30 miles north of Houston. Public records show Denton currently lives in the nearby town of Conroe, a few miles to the south of Montgomery.

ProPublica has obtained several photos of Denton. In one, Denton, who is short and wiry, has a bulky combat shotgun slung over his shoulder. He seems to favor camouflage pants and black T-shirts emblazoned with the logos of National Socialist Black Metal bands, a fringe subgenre of heavy metal music that mixes Satanic and Nazi themes.

“Politics are useless. Revolution is necessary,” Denton said in a chat post expressing the Atomwaffen worldview.

Records and interviews show Denton goes by the name Rape in the online conversations, and he appears to be involved in nearly every aspect of the organization. He shapes Atomwaffen’s ideology, chooses designs for its distinctive black-and-white posters and online propaganda, and selects the books that new recruits must study as part of their initiation, said a former Atomwaffen member interviewed by ProPublica. Denton’s younger brother, Grayson Patrick Denton, 19, is also a member, according to the chat logs and interviews; within the group, he goes by Leon, an homage to a Belgian fascist who fought with the SS.

The leader’s identity was first revealed last month in a report by the Anti-Defamation League. Afterward, Denton was seething. “They think they can stop RAPE!? THEY THINK THEY CAN STOP ME!?!,” Denton wrote in one chat message.

Neither Denton brother responded to messages seeking comment.

Just how many people belong to Atomwaffen is unknown. The ex-member told ProPublica that the group has enlisted about 80 members across the country, many of whom joined after the deadly events in Charlottesville last summer.

An internal Atomwaffen document obtained by ProPublica shows members scattered across 23 states and Canada. The group’s largest chapters are based in Virginia, Texas and Washington, according to a message posted in the chats by an Atomwaffen recruiter last summer.

“Each chapter operates independently,” wrote the recruiter. “We want men who are willing to be the boots on the ground. Joining us means serious dedication not only to the Atomwaffen Division and its members, but to the goal of Total Aryan Victory.”

A review of the chat logs shows messages posted by people using more than 100 different user names. Access to the discussions is tightly controlled, and it is unclear if some members post under multiple usernames.

Denton has helped build the organization around the ideas expressed in an obscure, hyper-violent book: “Siege.” The 563-page book collects and organizes the monthly newsletters produced during the 1980s by an old-line neo-Nazi activist named James Mason. It is required reading for all Atomwaffen members and serves as the backbone for the organization’s ideology, worldview and training program.

When Mason began publishing his newsletter in 1980, he was bitter and deeply dismayed. He had devoted his life to the fascist cause, joining the American Nazi Party in the mid-1960s, at the age of 14. But the movement had completely failed.

For Mason, the way forward was obvious: He no longer wanted to convince the masses of the rightness of Nazism. They would never get it. Now was the time for true believers to go underground and launch a clandestine guerrilla war aimed at bringing down “The System.”

“Siege” is essentially a long string of essays celebrating murder and chaos in the name of white supremacy. In Mason’s view, Dan White, the local politician who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk, was a hero.

Mason proposed the creation of a White Liberation Front composed of small armed squads that would “hide in wilderness areas,” moving frequently from location to location while striking out in a string of “hit-and-run engagements.” Mason based this proposed organization on the short-lived National Socialist Liberation Front, a small splinter group of the American Nazi Party that formed in 1969 and espoused the strategic use of political terrorism.

The chat logs show that Denton and other Atomwaffen figures are in contact with Mason, who is 65 and is said to be living in Denver, Colorado; in one online conversation, Samuel Woodward wrote about meeting with Mason face to face along with other Atomwaffen members. In chats, members frequently post pictures of Mason and revere him as a brilliant, under-appreciated thinker.

ProPublica was unable to contact Mason.

Jeffrey Kaplan, the academic at King Fahd Defense College in Riyadh, interviewed Mason in the 1990s and spoke to ProPublica about Mason’s outlook and the groups he inspires, such as Atomwaffen.

He describes Mason as “a true believer.”

“Now he’s got a following, which he didn’t have for the last 30 years,” Kaplan said. “He’s got some kids who’ve rediscovered him. He must be in heaven.”

As Kaplan sees it, groups such as Atomwaffen — would-be Nazi guerrillas devoted to white revolution in the U.S. — are “akin to cults,” and are propelled by a quasi-religious faith that they will ultimately prevail. He continued, “What else would sustain you when everyone hates you?”

John Cameron Denton, based on interviews and the material obtained by ProPublica, comes across as something of a cult leader. Lately he has been pushing for Atomwaffen members to pool money and purchase land in rural areas so they can “get the fuck off the grid,” and begin implementing their revolutionary agenda. The former member said Denton envisions using this network of Atomwaffen compounds to launch attacks against targets in the U.S.

The leader is already girding for a confrontation with law enforcement. “I do expect that one day I’ll get raided,” wrote Denton in one chat message. “I’m not gonna have a shoot out or anything stupid like that, but I just dont rule out possibilities because I know the govt doesnt play by the rules.”

“You would want to target things like substations, water filtration plants, etc.”

Late last month, Atomwaffen held a three-day training session — or “Hate Camp” in the group’s parlance — deep in the Nevada desert. The event was organized by an Atomwaffen leader, Michael Lloyd Hubsky, who calls himself Komissar, according to the chat logs.

A 29-year-old resident of Las Vegas, Hubsky holds both a concealed weapons permit and a security guard license, and is a big fan of high-powered military-style firearms. In one post he discussed a favorite weapon: a Czech-made rifle called a CZ Scorpion that, Hubsky said, he’d converted to fully automatic and equipped with a flash suppressor.

In another message, Hubsky wrote that he was planning on getting an “FFL” — federal firearms license — so he could “manufacture” guns.

“I can literally become our armory in the event we need it,” Hubsky bragged.

The former member said Atomwaffen has a rule: Don’t talk about the group’s terrorist ambitions in online chats or on social media. Those sorts of conversations are only supposed to happen in person. But Hubsky, at times, has been less than discreet outside the group’s confidential chats.

“So in any war, you need to cut off your enemy’s ability to shoot, move and communicate,” Hubsky wrote in a September 2017 message posted in a discussion on white nationalism that occurred in a non-Atomwaffen chat room. “You would want to target things like: Substations, water filtration plants, etc.” ProPublica has obtained Hubsky’s statements from that online conversation.

Hubsky wrote that he had “a map of the US power grid.”

“West-coast only,” he added in the message. “Classified map. Had someone with special permissions get it.”

Hubsky also discussed blowing up natural gas lines.

“You put a home-made thermite grenade on those,” he wrote. While other types of infrastructure — like water lines – figured in Hubsky’s discussions, hitting the power grid was, in his view, the most devastating and effective attack possible. Destroying electricity infrastructure, Hubsky wrote, “would by default take out the internet because it relies on power to operate.”

In a telephone conversation and subsequent series of text messages with ProPublica, Hubsky at first denied being a member of Atomwaffen. But he later offered to discuss the group at length if his name was not made public, an arrangement ProPublica declined. Hubsky acknowledged that he owns a CZ Scorpion assault rifle — even sharing a picture of the weapon — but said it was not fully automatic. He concluded the exchange by saying he had retained a lawyer.

Hubsky’s organization of the three-day Hate Camp in Nevada began with a proposal to the group late last year. He offered to arrange it so the group could hone its combat skills. There would be shooting and hand-to-hand sparring at a secret location on the edge of Death Valley.

Atomwaffen had already held a Hate Camp in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois during the fall of 2017. At least 10 members from different states attended, with some driving in from as far away as Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Jersey. In the Pacific Northwest, cell members had converged on an abandoned cement factory, known as “Devil’s Tower” near the small town of Concrete, Washington, where they had screamed “gas the kikes, race war now!” while firing off round after round from any array of weapons, including an AR-15 assault rifle with a high capacity drum magazine.

The training sessions were documented in Atomwaffen propaganda videos.

Members had also organized smaller training sessions, such as the one last year in Texas that had drawn Blaze Bernstein’s alleged murderer, Samuel Woodward. The Texas training attended by Woodward took place in the countryside outside San Antonio and involved 10 members of the Texas cell who took part in firearms, survival and weapons instruction.

Hubsky scheduled his training camp during the last weekend in January. Atomwaffen’s Washington chapter leader Kaleb J. Cole, who uses the alias Khimaere, agreed to help organize the desert training session in Nevada, which the group started calling the Death Valley Hate Camp.

“Bring your uniform, rifle/sidearm, and whatever camping gear you need,” he wrote. Cole, who is 22 and lives close to the Canadian border in the town of Blaine, is a National Socialist Black Metal enthusiast who holds a concealed firearms permit and owns an AK-47. In 2015, while Cole was living in Bellingham, police responded to a report that he had “Nazi memorabilia” in his residence, according to Lt. Danette Beckley of the Bellingham Police Department; he was also reported to police in the island town of Anacortes for allegedly harassing a Jewish grocery store owner by a waving a Nazi flag in front of the business, according to two law enforcement sources.

The former Atomwaffen member told ProPublica that Cole wields a significant degree of influence over the organization’s propaganda, recruitment and organization. ProPublica could not reach Cole for comment.

When the group got out to the desert, Hubsky made sure they shot photos and videos to be used in Atomwaffen recruiting clips. In one picture obtained by ProPublica, an Atomwaffen member is standing at the base of a sand dune showing off a military-grade weapon — an MCX Virtus rifle made by Sig Sauer — while holding a flag bearing the Atomwaffen insignia, a black shield bearing the symbol for radioactivity. Another member, clutching an assault rifle, is also in the photo.

Hubsky returned from Death Valley enthused and eager to do more training. He uploaded a memo to the Atomwaffen chat. Members would now be required to join Front Sight, a “private combat training facility” outside of Las Vegas in the small desert town of Pahrump. Front Sight, the memo said, could provide classes in “Uzi and full auto M16 combat, as well as knife fighting, hand to hand combat,” and instruction in climbing and rappelling.

“I don’t know anything about this group,” Bill Cookston, Front Sight’s director of operations, said this week. “If anyone were to be doing something against the law or in a radical manner, we would look into that.”

Shortly afterward, Michael Meacher, Front Sight’s CEO, said the training center had sent Hubsky a letter refunding his membership fees and informing the Las Vegas resident that he was banned from the facility for life.

“Not that the faggot kike didn’t deserve to die.”

Before Samuel Woodward was jailed on charges of murdering Blaze Bernstein, he frequently participated in the Atomwaffen chats. First he used the handle Saboteur. Later he posted under the name Arn.

Often, Woodward sounded like a typical 20-year-old. He enthused about video games (BioShock, Skyrim) and TV shows (he liked the early seasons of “Trailer Park Boys,” a Canadian comedy series). He complained about not having a girlfriend.

But Woodward also railed at “mongrels and jews” and gays.

He praised Mein Kampf and seemed to regard “Siege” as something akin to divine revelation; from his perspective, violence and society-shaking mayhem were the only options for a true Nazi.

That orientation attracted him to outlaw groups like the National Socialist Underground, a German organization that carried out a massive terror spree between 2001 and 2011, robbing 14 banks, planting bombs and murdering 10 people, most of them immigrants. “The NSU was pretty cool,” Woodward wrote.

In one conversation, Woodward discussed the Bosnian Civil War of the 1990s, during which Serbian soldiers and paramilitary fighters raped thousands of Bosnian Muslim women as part of an infamous campaign of ethnic cleansing. “The only acceptable case of miscegenation is what the serbs did to captured bosniak women,” he wrote in November 2017.

Woodward liked the idea of using rape to terrorize women of color, whom he saw as his foes. “Force them to carry around the spawn of their master and enemy,” he wrote.

ProPublica sought comment on the chats from Woodward’s lawyer, Edward Munoz, but did not get a response.

On Jan. 26, ProPublica published a story revealing Woodward’s belief in Nazism and exposing his involvement with Atomwaffen.

While the article attracted the attention of Atomwaffen members, who promptly posted it to their online chats, no one in the group expressed any sympathy for Bernstein, the young man Woodward allegedly murdered. They made jokes about his slaying and used slurs to describe him. If there was worry, it was about Woodward possibly having to do time behind bars for the murder.

“Sam did something stupid,” wrote one member. “Not that the faggot kike didn’t deserve to die. Just simply not worth a life in prison for.”

Sean Michael Fernandez, an Atomwaffen leader in Texas, even saw an upside for the group. Fernandez, who used the alias Wehrwolf, believed that Atomwaffen actually stood to benefit from the increased notoriety stemming from Woodward’s affiliation with the neo-Nazi group and the Bernstein murder.

“We’re only going to inspire more ‘copycat crimes’ in the name of AWD. All we have to do is spread our image and our propaganda,” Fernandez wrote on Jan. 30.

He continued: “The growing fear is what we set out to do and it’s working EXACTLY how I wanted it to since we took over ‘leadership.’ I couldn’t have planned this better, seriously.”

For his part, Denton, the national Atomwaffen leader, felt betrayed. ProPublica had interviewed a former member for the story; still, Denton believed that someone currently within the ranks was sharing information with the media. “Looks like AWD needs another purging,” he wrote.

Members began speculating about who was talking to outsiders. Was it a current member? Was it someone they’d kicked out recently?

Members also directed their rage toward the media. As they saw it, Woodward was the one being victimized. Now that his involvement with Atomwaffen had spilled out into the public sphere, Orange County prosecutors might hit him with hate crimes charges — charges that could potentially add years to a prison sentence.

“We really owe those jews at ProPublica,” wrote one member.

Woodward posted many hundreds of messages to the Atomwaffen chats. But on Jan. 5, he typed out a few lines that are quite distinct from all the rest. In them, the raging young man suddenly became highly sentimental. Two days earlier, according to prosecutors, he had buried Bernstein’s lifeless body in a park in Lake Forest, California.

Now Woodward explained that he was reflecting on mortality.

“hey everyone,” he wrote. “i just wanted to let you all know i love you so much.”

The meaning of America

(Credit: AP/Victoria Will)

When Trump and his followers refer to “America,” what do they mean?

Some see a country of white English-speaking Christians.

Others want a land inhabited by self-seeking individuals free to accumulate as much money and power as possible, who pay taxes only to protect their assets from criminals and foreign aggressors.

Others think mainly about flags, national anthems, pledges of allegiance, military parades, and secure borders.

Trump encourages a combination of all three — tribalism, libertarianism, and loyalty.

But the core of our national identity has not been any of this. It has been found in the ideals we share – political equality, equal opportunity, freedom of speech and of the press, a dedication to open inquiry and truth, and to democracy and the rule of law.

We are not a race. We are not a creed. We are a conviction — that all people are created equal, that people should be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, and that government should be of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Political scientist Carl Friedrich, comparing Americans to Gallic people, noted that “to be an American is an ideal, while to be a Frenchman is a fact.”

That idealism led Lincoln to proclaim that America might yet be the “last best hope” for humankind. It prompted Emma Lazarus, some two decades later, to welcome to American the world’s “tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

It inspired the poems of Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes, and the songs of Woody Guthrie. All turned their love for America into demands that we live up to our ideals. “This land is your land, this land is my land,” sang Guthrie. “Let America be America again,” pleaded Hughes: “The land that never has been yet — /And yet must be — the land where every man is free. / The land that’s mind — the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME — .”

That idealism sought to preserve and protect our democracy — not inundate it with big money, or allow one party or candidate to suppress votes from rivals, or permit a foreign power to intrude on our elections.

It spawned a patriotism that once required all of us take on a fair share of the burdens of keeping America going — paying taxes in full rather than seeking loopholes or squirreling money away in foreign tax shelters, serving in the armed forces or volunteering in our communities rather than relying on others to do the work.

These ideals compelled us to join together for the common good — not pander to bigotry or divisiveness, or fuel racist or religious or ethnic divisions.

The idea of a common good was once widely understood and accepted in America. After all, the U.S. Constitution was designed for “We the people” seeking to “promote the general welfare” — not for “me the narcissist seeking as much wealth and power as possible.”

Yet the common good seems to have disappeared. The phrase is rarely uttered today, not even by commencement speakers and politicians.

There’s growing evidence of its loss — in CEOs who gouge their customers and loot their corporations; Wall Street bankers who defraud their investors; athletes involved in doping scandals; doctors who do unnecessary procedures to collect fatter fees; and film producers and publicists who choose not to see that a powerful movie mogul they depend on is sexually harassing and abusing women.

We see its loss in politicians who take donations from wealthy donors and corporations and then enact laws their patrons want, or shutter the government when they don’t get the partisan results they seek.

And in a president of the United States who has repeatedly lied about important issues, refuses to put his financial holdings into a blind trust and personally profits from his office, and foments racial and ethnic conflict.

This unbridled selfishness, this contempt for the public, this win-at-any-cost mentality, is eroding America.

Without binding notions about right and wrong, only the most unscrupulous get ahead. When it’s all about winning, only the most unprincipled succeed. This is not a society. It’s not even a civilization, because there’s no civility at its core.

If we’re losing our national identity it’s not because we now come in more colors, practice more religions, and speak more languages than we once did.

It is because we are forgetting the real meaning of America — the ideals on which our nation was built. We are losing our sense of the common good.