An open letter to Hillary Rodham Clinton

Author's note: Although this blog is about my travels, living outside the U.S. since 2000 means being asked about that country and its president. More often than I would like. So I've chosen this forum to share thoughts.

Dear Mrs. Clinton,

I know you sign your e-mails to me "Hillary" but we both know those aren't really written by you, so please accept the formality. The way things have been going in this election campaign, to err on the side of respect is no vice.

I'm on Bernie Sanders's e-mail list too. In fact, I voted for him during the primary. I mention that now because I want you to know where I'm coming from. I have not been an uncritical fan of yours, but I listen to what you have to say, and I feel that I gave you a fair chance.

I'm not one of those young student voters, but I was the first time I saw you, with your husband in New Hampshire in 1992. He was running for president, and I hadn't heard of you before you were First Lady of Arkansas. I have to say, I didn't warm to either you or Mr. Clinton at first. But, by the time the general election rolled around I was glad to vote for him, and I remember you trying hard to accomplish something on health care during his administration. It failed--tragically--and part of me thought then that both of you should have gone down fighting for the most important thing we elected him for.

But, the 1990s were a different time. The number of jobs increased, and the markets were going up and up and up--it's no wonder Mr. Clinton made some of the decisions he did about welfare and trade deals. A lot of Americans were more optimistic in those days. And I certainly would never excoriate you, as opposed to your husband, for things he did wrong in your personal life. Public humiliation in front of the entire world is a high enough price to pay.

We've been through a lot since 2000--you, and I, and America. I left the country for reasons that did not change until the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor a couple years ago. By that time, I'd long since become a Canadian and made a life for myself somewhere else. But I wasn't one of those people who claim they're going to run away to Canada if someone gets elected they don't like. I still have a stake in America, as do other Canadians and, in fact, the rest of the world.

One of your most disarming moments in this long campaign was when you said, in the Univision debate, "I am not a natural politician, in case you haven.'t noticed, like my husband or President Obama." I felt for you then, Mrs. Clinton, because it made you human to me. So often, your answers are so measured and careful, and believe me, I understand why that is. The "vast right-wing conspiracy" may not have been to blame for your husband's problems, but people certainly have had it in for you. You've learned from long experience to weigh your words carefully whenever you open your mouth, and you know that issues are usually more nuanced and complex than simply "yes" or "no."

The problem is that right now, we are in a place that we have never been before. You went into the 2008 campaign (when I voted for you, by the way) with the same broad economic and policy views shared by Mr. Clinton, Mr. Obama, and indeed Republican presidents before you. Up until 2008, I guess they still made sense, especially in the world in which you move. The problem is that a lot has gone down since then and a lot of people are hurting in a way that you may not have been aware of.

Some of them, no doubt, have the kind of racial resentment that your Republican opponent has proven so adept at stirring up. But others do not. That's why you had such a hard time putting away your surprising opponent for the Democratic nomination--an independent senator whose state, age, and self-described socialist views the media never get tired of making fun of. They have been on your side from Day One (remember that expression from eight years ago?) yet they haven't completely been able to crush coverage of, and enthusiasm for, Mr. Sanders. In my opinion, he has been good for the Democratic party--even, dare I say it, good for you. He has forced you and the rest of the Democrats to deal with a bunch of issues that were not important during Mr. Clinton's presidency, but are very important to many Americans today, especially those who don't have the memories of the 1990s that you and I have.

So now you've survived that, and you are facing the ugliest thing that has happened to U.S. politics since George Wallace walked out of the Democratic party a generation ago. Since the "police riot" of chaos and violence in Chicago in 1968. Only at least that year, the violence didn't erupt until the Democratic convention in the summer. This time, it's been going on all year.

You may not be a natural politician, Mrs. Clinton, but you know what we are all up against is not the usual four-yearly opponent. I didn't want Mitt Romney or John McCain to be president, but they were honorable men, with whom you could disagree in what was once called civil discourse. Heaven knows what's happened to John McCain now, but you remember that after Mr. Obama had gotten the nomination in 2008 and was starting to get hit with the lies and disrespect that have plagued his administration, Mr. McCain spoke up for that civil discourse and his own honorable opponent. "He's a decent person...no, ma'am, he's a decent family man and citizen."

Now, however, we have Mr. Trump. You know him--personally--and you also know that he has found a way to tap that racial resentment, that hurt. By saying just enough truth to convince people (never more), Mr. Trump has won voters to his side. You have got to win more voters, in more states, than he does.

Of course you know this is your task. And many of your supporters--opponents, even--may think this is a good position to be in, that you can't flub it up. With the greatest respect, Mrs. Clinton, I think that you can. I don't, God forbid, think that you will, but we must all recognize the possibility of failure. If we don't, failure will come to you.

Hence, my unsolicited advice to you, as a voter, not an expert of any kind. I like you, Mrs. Clinton. I won't say I've always supported you, and goodness knows you've driven me up the wall plenty of times, but we are on the same side. So are most Democratic voters, regardless of whom they voted for in the primaries. So are a lot of Republicans. In fact you probably would rather disclaim some of the people who've supported you, but as a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson in the apocryphal campaign story, "Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!"

"That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"

So here's how you're going to get that majority, Mrs. Clinton--though you're not a natural politician, though you're held to a different--some would say impossible--standard because you are a woman, though you've had to evolve on numerous issues, though the economic consensus to which you and Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton held is not holding water anymore and it's awkward for you to adjust to that.

1. Say it like you mean it. I know you've gotten better at this, but my gosh, sometimes I still cringe. We know Benghazi is a made-up scandal. We know you testified for eleven hours and Congress got nothing on you. So when Jorge Ramos asks did you lie, please start your answer with No. Then you can explain the context and express your feelings for the Benghazi families.When asked if you lie--and when given the opportunity to lie--ever, just say no. 

Does that remind you of Nancy Reagan? Sorry to bring that up again. I know you apologized and, while I don't feel entitled to accept your apology on behalf of all gay people, I get that you misspoke. To paraphrase a friend of mine, I'm guessing that when asked to say something nice about the Reagans, you may have panicked a little bit. In the same circumstances, I'd probably have to make something up too. 

2. Don't take your voters for granted. You've already figured out that African-Americans don't owe you their vote just because you're named Clinton. Queers don't owe you their vote just because you're a Democrat. Yes, I said queer. Get used to it, as we said before your husband was president (the first we'd ever had who could pronounce the words gay and lesbian). We've all come a long way from Little Rock, Mrs. Clinton. Don't blow it.

3. Represent us. All of us--America. You and Mr. Sanders have run such a high-class campaign, but this is the fight of your life. It's the fight of our lives. Literally. Thanks to executive overreach by every recent president including Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton, the office you're running for is more powerful than any position in the world should be. And we have someone reaching for it who would destroy freedom of speech, tighten libel laws, threaten lawsuits or punishment to those who disagree with him, deport millions (or, if he can't prove their illegality, make it up), and close the borders to an entire religion. A man who speaks loathsomely of women and for whom no level of rhetoric is too low, or too inflammatory, to stoop to. A man who pines for "the good old days" before "political correctness"--where political correctness means "not punching black people in the face."

This is not a Republican opponent, Mrs. Clinton. This is an opponent of the republic itself.

Like it or hate it, the President of the United States is both our head of government and the head of state of our country. He represents it to us and to the world, like the Queen. The position you are in, Mrs. Clinton, is that you have to represent the country before you are even elected to the office. You have to start acting like our president right now.

Not that many voters care what the rest of the world thinks, but we are horrified by what America has become even before the election. People who normally take minimal interest in politics find it hard to believe that someone so obviously (to a European) a right-wing nationalist is in danger of becoming the President of the United States. Living outside America, Mrs. Clinton, I am asked every day about Mr. Trump and what will happen if he gets where he wants to go.

This is not just about Supreme Court nominations, or same-sex marriage, or Obama-/Hillary-/Romneycare. As important as those and many other issues are, there is really only one issue in 2016. Is the U.S.A. going to continue to be the republic for which the flag stands, "one nation," or is it going to fracture into something else?

I mentioned the 1960s before, but I think something even greater than the 1960s is at hand. Try the 1860s. This country is in danger of splitting as it did during the Civil War, and along the same lines. You have never claimed to be Abraham Lincoln, Mrs. Clinton, but right now the best the party of Lincoln has come up with is your opponent, Mr. Trump. If President Lincoln were here, he would no doubt be surprised to see a "little lady" running to be his successor. But I believe if he, or any responsible Republican or Democrat of the past, thought that the alternative was a vulgar misogynist who whips crowds into a fury with the rhetoric of hate groups, Mr. Lincoln would vote for you.

Our opponents will laugh us to scorn. Hillary Clinton! We've never liked her! I know that hurts your feelings; as you reminded us, you're a human being too. I'm not saying you're Lincoln. But you are--forgive me--the little Dutch boy whose finger is plugging this particular dike, and if you can't get it done, we're all going to be under water for a long time to come.

We are the U.S. citizens whom you said you would always support, whether we supported you or not. We are people who never imagined America could elect a woman president, and people who weren't sure that you were that woman. We are registered in different parties and we are independents. We live in many countries and look to see what the United States will do. We all know who Hillary Clinton is, that you visited more countries than any other Secretary of State, that you were in the Situation Room when they went for Osama bin Laden--all of that. Millions and millions of us are hoping, even praying, that you rise above your human weaknesses and get this done for us.

You are a Christian and talk about praying daily, but I've never heard anyone say of you that you're anointed by God to seek and obtain the presidency. For all that, I believe this is your moment. I very much doubt that you would have chosen these exact circumstances and no one is more surprised than I that we are in them, but here we are. 

If I may conclude with an anecdote you may know from British history. Before World War II, Arthur Greenwood became the deputy leader of the opposition Labour Party under Clement Attlee. On the 2nd of September 1939, acting for an absent Attlee, he was called to respond to Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's ambivalent speech on whether Britain would aid Poland. He was interrupted by an angry Conservative backbencher, Leo Amery, who exclaimed "Speak for England, Arthur!" Arthur Greenwood proceeded to give the speech of his life, denouncing Mr. Chamberlain's appeasement and beginning the unification of Britain against the greatest enemy the Allies ever faced.

Speak for America, Hillary.

Yours sincerely,

J. E. Knowles

X

I read an article recently that got me thinking about something I rarely identify with: my generation. It's a spirited call to action, to which this is a complement. If you don't have time to read both articles, read Matthew Hennessey's.

I have friends across a range of ages and have always thought that was important, so even when “Generation X” was a popular term, I didn’t really submit to it. But age has been prominent this year in the U.S.A., more than race or ethnicity. The age of Bernie Sanders seems to be remarked upon as often as the remarkable fact that the U.S., at this late date, has yet to elect a woman president. What I never hear mentioned is that Hillary Clinton, several years younger than Senator Sanders, is the same age as our oldest president (the one I grew up with, Reagan.)

All of this has made me realize that the people least noticed and talked to/about in all of this are the generation doing most of the work and kid-raising happening today—mine. So I want to sit down in a [virtual] room with the Baby Boomers and the “millennials” and knock their heads together sort this out. I’m addressing this not just to Democrats, because one of the problems is that lots of Americans (including, until recently, Sanders) identify as independents. That’s not actually a problem, of course, unless your party is more important than your country. If it’s not (I’m looking at you, Republicans), read on.

The Sanders campaign has drawn the focus of this talking past each other, because its candidate’s age contrasts with the age of some of his strongest supporters. The Millennials are by no means all of his voters, but what Baby Boomers (the core of Clinton’s and Trump’s support) can’t get past is that these young people are voting for someone so old, when they themselves know nothing! They don’t remember First Lady Hillary Clinton. They don’t appreciate what happened in the 1990s.

Well, I do. And because I am in the middle, I can see farther than either of you.

Further into both the past and future. Unlike my youngest compatriots, I know members of the Greatest Generation—my grandparents’. I vividly remember people who lived through the Second World War. I have met Holocaust survivors on numerous occasions, and I will never forget them. The 1940s are receding into history, but still part of my century.

But I can also see further into the future than perhaps those born in the 1940s can. And that’s important, because the next President of the United States is almost certain to come, once again, from that decade. The presidency, and voters for the presidency, skew overwhelmingly Baby Boomer. By sheer size, the Baby Boomer generation has had overwhelming influence at every stage of their lives, and that continues. But as you guys retire, your grandchildren’s generation is going to need mine.

The week I graduated from college (=university), 1994. Reality Bites was in theatres.

 Most people my age are too busy. We’ve had presidents from your generation since 1992. That was when George Bush, a World War II veteran, gave way to Bill Clinton, the first Baby Boomer president. Back then, Bill was the draft dodging, pot smoking guy in his forties. Remember that? Millennials don’t remember when Bill and Hillary Clinton were the young First Family, but I do. You don’t have to remind me.

I get you, Baby Boomers. I’ve known of Bernie Sanders since before the Millennials were born. You were the original “never trust anyone over thirty” protesters, and now you see people under thirty voting for someone older than you and you don’t understand it. My gosh, are they even Democrats? The answer to that depends on your response now. They represent either the future of your party or its end.

I’m Ted Cruz’s age, so I remember the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. But these young people don’t. What they remember is capitalism never having worked for them in their entire lives.

And as for you, young people…of course I’m frustrated that you don’t like “feminism” or seem to appreciate all that your mothers’ generation went through, not to mention my mother’s. I’m a ‘70s-born lesbian, for Pete’s sake. But you are also the world that previous generations fought for. We wanted a generation that takes environmental science and homosexuality for granted, and thinks barring transgender people from bathrooms is stupid. We worked so that you would think electing a woman is no big deal. We are the generation that changed minds over this.

Every generation gets its turn to challenge what went before and try to do better. The Baby Boomers did this on a seismic scale, and gave us the revolutions of the 1960s. Women’s rights and gay rights come from that generation. Well done.

But this is your last chance. You get one more chance to run this country instead of running it into the ground. Many people, not just young people, have lost all confidence in the system even functioning, let alone fairly. You can continue to dismiss and alienate them, like your parents’ generation once did you, or you can listen to your children.

Both older and younger people need to listen to us for once. We’re the only ones who can understand you both.

Safe travels

The first book that inspired me to travel internationally was my favorite novel, Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev. In it, Asher Lev's mother saw first her husband and then her son off on many trips. Before leaving them at the airport, she would always say, "Have a safe journey." And off the man would walk to his plane, a copy of The New York Times under his arm.

That was my dream--to be that politically aware, global traveler. But I always remembered Mrs. Lev's unease, and the sendoff our loved ones give us when we travel: "Have a safe journey."

Given that every aspect of a journey is not actually within our control, how do we do that? What is the best approach to take to ensure a safe and enjoyable trip?

You won't be surprised to find that I think attitude is the key. Attitude and preparation. Both are necessary to get the most out of our travels as well as for safety, but as the saying goes, "safety first."

Start with attitude. Many of the concerns we, or our families and friends, start off with at home are based on fear, and the fact that news in general tends to focus on negative things. For example, at the moment I happen to live in the London area. From time to time, I hear things said on the news, usually by people in other countries, about how dangerous English cities are or how London in particular has some kind of problem. Because I actually live here, and some of the people I know best are serving or former police officers, I know how wildly inaccurate these statements are, and that the people making them literally have no idea what they are talking about. But if I'd never been to London, and all I knew was what I saw on TV, I might take the news at face value. The point is that news in general focuses on the sensational and the bad, so leaving you with a highly skewed impression of other parts of the world.

If you're a traveler or planning an overseas trip, you probably already have an adventurous attitude, but it still makes sense to be prepared before you travel. One way is to read up on the place you are going--not exclusively travel advisories or news (though of course those are worth taking into consideration), but from travel guides and forums online. People who have recently traveled to an area are usually best placed to advise you. Get an idea of where is generally a good place to visit vs. areas of a city or country you should definitely avoid.

If you're leaving your home behind temporarily unoccupied, you've probably already thought about things like having your mail stopped and taking precautions so that your home does not look empty. Lights that go on at a certain time or, best of all, having a friend or neighbour keep an eye on the place are good ideas. If you're gone for an extended period and have a housesitter actually living in your home, that is ideal, but if it's empty, resist the temptation to update social media on the road. It's tempting to post your pictures right away and tell all your "friends" what a great time you are having thousands of miles away...but it's not wise. Save those posts for after you're safely home!

Preparation before your trip also involves:

• Packing light. There are so many reasons for this, but the safety one is that the less stuff you have, the less there is to possibly lose, and the easier it is to carry it around. If you're always having to check bags then they're not with you, and if you have a lot of items, you can lose track of them while packing or unpacking. At home, you likely tend to keep your keys, etc. in the same place--get in the habit of packing items in the same place each time too.
• Stick with what you truly need on the trip. Leave things at home such as cards you won't use. I once had the misfortune of losing a wallet with items inside such as a library card from my hometown. Why was I carrying that? It was one more thing to replace when I got home.
• The only truly essential things you need are your travel documents--e.g., passport--and money/ways of getting money like a credit and debit card. It's wise to keep these in different places: you can zip your passport inside a pocket of your bag, and keep one card in one place, another in another place with some cash. This isn't paranoia, it just makes the chance of losing everything vanishingly small.
• Finally, I recommend making photocopies of your passport's ID pages and of your cards, or writing down your card numbers along with the emergency phone numbers to call in case a card is lost or stolen. Keep these papers* in a safe place (of course, separate from the documents themselves). You can't use a photocopy the way you would a passport, but these copies will make replacement much easier, and you can cancel a card if you happen to lose it. From experience, I can say this saved me much time.

Some people suggest scanning these documents and storing the copies in "the cloud." I'm not that digital, personally. Having something in my phone makes it more of a problem if I lose my phone, and if documents are stored on a web-based application, I'm not sure that's secure. In any case, take good care of the physical documents. Your passport is probably safest locked in a locker or safe at the place you're staying; carry the copy while you're out.

Of course, being in transit is when you'll have everything with you and you'll need to be most careful. A padlock is handy to bring along, not only for lockers you may find in budget accommodation around the world, but to lock your bag. I once traveled on a night train and made sure my bag was tucked down under the seat in front of me, not in an overhead rack where someone might have gone through it. Some travellers also suggest a retractable wire lock so you can secure a bag e.g. to a seat.

Having taken care of the most important things, you can easily replace most other items and don't have to pack a lot of clothes. The more you take, such as pricey electronics, the more you potentially stand to lose. Weigh the benefits of having the flashiest smartphone or camera against the risk you are prepared to take.

From this, it sounds as though I think theft is a common experience; in fact, you're more likely just to leave something behind through carelessness than to be a victim. Personal safety is arguably more important. You certainly don't want to avoid whole cities or countries because of a bad report on the news, but you do want to know where you're going. Visiting a new city and exploring it on foot is one of my favorite experiences...but I always have a map and some idea of how to get back to my starting place. If I get lost or just need to stop and reevaluate, rather than stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk, I tend to go into a café or somewhere to have a look at my map. It's more relaxing and I'm less likely to be distracted. (If you're truly lost, it also means you can ask someone local for guidance.)

Although it will be obvious in many places that you're a visitor, a little effort can go a long way to making your trip not only safer, but more enjoyable. For instance, wear comfortable walking shoes--preferably not brand new Nikes that really make you stand out. And don't, under any circumstances, bring one of those "fanny packs"/bum bags, or carry a wallet or other important item in a back pocket. Most theft is opportunistic, so just don't give anyone the opportunity.

Special safety considerations apply to specific kinds of travelers:

• There is no doubt that being female or gay can cause extra concerns. To some extent, this is true for women everywhere in the world, and this issue is too large to address within this post. I would just say that as for so many other reasons, it's important to be aware of cultural expectations, even if you find them sexist or homophobic. It's not in your interest to draw unnecessary attention in a place you're not sure of.
• To give one example, I personally would not wear headphones when walking around a strange city, or many other places traveling--perhaps while relaxing in transit. It may not be uniquely because I'm a woman, but I like to have all my senses alert, even while I'm taking photographs or otherwise enjoying the experience.
• Finally, if you're planning on specific activities at your destination, do prepare for them by gathering information and bringing any necessary gear. Despite what I said about traveling light, you don't want to be that woman (as I recently read about in the news!) who wandered up Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain, on a whim wearing shorts and carrying only a candy bar. Nor do you want to risk your life by hiking into the Grand Canyon in the heat of summer armed only with Pepsis (yes, I've seen those guys too). Preparation!

A lot of travel safety is just the same attitude and preparation you'd use at home in your ordinary life. You probably have a smoke alarm (at least I hope you do) and health insurance at home. Well, on the road you want to make sure you're covered by medical insurance as well (and keep with your important documents* any information you'd need to make a claim--policy number, phone number, etc.) . And as for smoke alarms...whenever I check into someplace, I always look where the fire exit is and figure out which way I'd go if I had to exit my room/the building suddenly. I've twice experienced a fire alarm going off in the middle of the night, and if you haven't checked these, it's disorienting to figure out the exit when you've just woken up somewhere you've never stayed before. If there was ever really a fire, it could save you precious time.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is perspective. Focus on the top priorities (such as survival in the case of an emergency) and even if something else goes wrong, you can recover from it. In all my years of travel, I've only had one bad experience, and even that trip turned out great.

One last thing: listen to your instincts. Our brains subconsciously signal us when something "feels wrong" and get us out of trouble. You are likely to meet people on your travels who want to get to know you, perhaps fellow travelers who innocently want to know where you're staying, or where you're going next. These can be opportunities for great experiences. But following a stranger to a party in a totally unfamiliar location and getting drunk or stoned is not. You need to be aware of your surroundings and enough "in focus" to avoid trouble...just as you would at home.

If someone starts following you around, asking questions which are none of their business, or suggesting you do odd things (participate in a game, jump a turnstile), you may be the potential victim of a con. Never feel bad about cutting off a conversation, even if a stranger has hitherto been friendly. No matter where you are in the world, if at any time someone makes you feel uncomfortable or a situation just isn't giving off good vibes, walk away. 

Your mother will thank me :-)
 

Useful links for more information:
On the home front: http://simplisafe.com/wireless-security-systems has a great blog, with tips on everything from traveling safely internationally, to winter blackout advice. You can find it here: http://simplisafe.com/blog

And a great blog for independent travel, including safety information, is http://www.indietraveller.co.

 

Language, please

In the raging torrents of populist politics that currently threaten to sink the Western world, I once again find myself unable to take my eyes off the shipwreck that is U.S. news. Specifically, the election. Much has been made of "language" in this cycle, meaning bad language or insults. I'd like to note a much broader way in which language has worsened the situation.

The most important--some would say only--job of a writer is to choose words carefully, to say precisely what she means to say. This is not primarily so I, the writer, can go on to glory in my comparison of U.S. news to a shipwreck in the opening sentence. It is so the words mean to you, my reader, what I mean by them, and carry the intended power.

Words, and images, are often used lazily, however. (That sentence is an example--who misuses them? How lazy not to say.)  For instance, I lived in the U.S.A. from 1972 to 2000. In all that time, as far as the news was concerned, "Muslims" meant people out to destroy innocent lives. Depending on who the U.S. was mad at at the time, they were Iranians, Palestinians, Libyans, or Iraqis (Iraqis were "good" in the 1980s, as were Afghan mujahideen). Since September 11, 2001, "Muslims" has meant al-Qaida, I.S., and now Syrians generally. But always, they were someone foreign screaming on TV.

Now it's 2016 and some Americans are being accused of "Islamophobia." What does that mean to them? All those decades and September 11 and all the rest of it, and now they want to deport the dentist down the street and it's a problem? Since when?

Another example is the phrase "political correctness." I first heard this on a jokey ad in 1989, about how people in the '60s had done drugs and had unsafe sex, because it was "politically correct" to do those kinds of things then. The joke was that Baby Boomers had had all the fun. But in the ensuing twenty-five years, political incorrectness has come to convey anything I want to say that someone, somewhere, doesn't like. The range is too wide to be meaningful.

For one person, it's saying "Merry Christmas" in a store. For another it's calling the President of the United States a n-----. Both of these happen in America, and both are constitutionally protected free speech, but there's a world of difference between them. That world of difference is not law enforcement or speech codes. It's taste.

We are supposed to be an evolving species. We're supposed to discover that x or y is "homophobic" and stop saying it, not because it's banned or politically incorrect, but because the gay person is our neighbor and gratuitously hurting someone is wrong.

It's one thing when an elderly white relative moans about how hard it is to remember not to say "colored people" anymore. But we don't expect this kind of thoughtlessness to spread unchecked into the public square.

Because that's what it really is--thoughtlessness. Not thinking hard enough about the words we use and the harm that they can cause. Think of the insidious way in which Nazism, one of the worst atrocities of the twentieth or any other century, has been repeatedly and lazily used for comparisons. We hear this appalling misuse in phrases like soup Nazi, grammar Nazis, and feminazis. Further, every time Saddam, Assad, or any other brutal dictator stops being our guy and starts being the enemy, he is routinely compared to Hitler. (A brutal dictator like Chile's Pinochet, who assumed power after "our" September 11, 1973 coup, was not.)

The appeasement at Munich is trotted out every time we want to warn about some opponent's slippery slope. Every undeclared war, every "regime change," is compared to the sacrifices our forebears made in World War II--"would you not have stopped the Nazis??" T-shirts depicted George W. Bush as a terrorist, and Barack Obama is portrayed as a totalitarian intent on taking away our rights and guns. As a consequence, the original horrors have lost their power to shock.

After hearing about "Hitler" every five minutes for an entire lifetime, how are we supposed to recognize fascism when we actually see it?

The thoughtless misuse of words is not free speech. Freedom of speech is the freedom to call out, object, have rational argument, and protest. It involves choosing words and thinking about the consequences before we use them. In some world orders, the consequences of protest include being carried out on a stretcher.

When we hear a man longing for those good old days, we must not call that political incorrectness. We need to call it what it is, and hope crying wolf all those other times has not robbed the right words of their power.

America will change in 2016. The question is how

This is not an endorsement of a particular candidate or party in the U.S. presidential election. It is my attempt, as succinctly as possible, to identify what I think is at stake in 2016, why this election year is unusual, and what voters should carefully consider—if you have the privilege yet to vote. (Everyone on earth will be affected by the results of this election, but only U.S. citizens will decide it.)

Nothing that has so far happened in two atypical states—the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries—means that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz will get the Republican nomination, or that Bernie Sanders will be nominated by the Democrats. Their early success, though, has gotten a lot of people wondering what’s going on with the American voter. The people who are wondering the most are the people who, last year, were confident that a Bush on the Republican side, and a Clinton on the Democratic side, would sail to their nominations for a 1990s rematch.

A lot of people thought this. Some of us found it depressing to think that U.S. politics were so dynastic, even if we thought Jeb Bush, or Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a good candidate. The people who found it less depressing were the people who do best out of the current economic system and climate. Depending on your point of view, those people are sometimes called the establishment, the top 1%, or the millionaire/billionaire “class.”

It is not in dispute that the economic gulf between that group of people, and everyone else, has widened vastly in the U.S. (and in other rich/Western countries, which are experiencing the same kinds of polarization I’m talking about here). Even The Wall Street Journal has acknowledged that capitalism has let everyone down, including Republicans. Those of us who remember Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 know that “The economy, stupid” was and is the decisive truth about American elections. Here, in the shortest history possible, is why that matters so much this year:

In the 1990s the economy was going up and up and up. Pointing to figures throughout the twentieth century, our elders (I was young then) told us that we would be successful if we put our money in the U.S. stock market, which could reasonably be expected to deliver 8% or more annual returns and, someday, a comfortable retirement. We didn’t need public pensions or defined-benefit plans anymore, because the market would take care of everything so much better (some politicians even wanted Social Security invested there). Times seemed good. The Soviet Union was gone, and what was now Russia didn’t seem like much of a threat. The most salient thing about President Clinton’s scandals and impeachment, now that I look back on it, is that America had nothing else to worry about. (Of course, life was not as good for people of color or LGBT people, but then it never had been. Our expectations were lower to begin with.)

About the time I left the United States, in 2000, the high-tech bubble burst and the market stopped delivering. New products that no one really understood, such as mortgage-backed securities, started being sold as the latest wave of things we should invest in. The housing market crashed in 2008, and big banks started being bailed out. This was less of a problem in some rich/Western countries, like Canada which has strong banking regulations, than others, but the effects were global. Then the Citizens United decision at the U.S. Supreme Court in effect enabled corporations to buy elections by claiming to be people (again, see The Wall Street Journal). 

Eight years later, it isn’t the imagination of most Americans that they have been let down by a system that hugely benefits that very small group of privileged people. It isn’t only people on the left who think so. It is obviously true. Ask anyone in the American communities whose houses lost value or who even lost their homes in the crisis. Ask today’s graduates if they ever remember a time when the neoliberal/neoconservative economic consensus—Reaganomics—served them well.

Throughout the rich/Western world, people my age, let alone younger, know that without some stroke of individual luck, we are not going to achieve retirement at all, at least not as a previous generation envisioned it. If we’re lucky enough to have defined-contribution pension plans/401(k)s available to us, we can still take advantage of investing in the stock market, for the sole reason that returns on any other investment would only be more dismal, if not negative. (Japan has recently set interest rates on bank deposits into negative territory—you pay for the bank to have your money. Neat, eh?)

The top people who paid for elections to belong to them are mystified by figures like Trump and Sanders not just going away, but if you’re in the 99%, it makes sense. People are angry. They feel let down by a system that has worked against them since the late 1970s.* They sense that, while the Clinton and Obama administrations made important advances in some social areas that Republicans opposed, they didn’t readjust the economic balance in favor of greater equality. These people, and they aren’t just young people, want something different and they want their vote to count.

Of course, Trump and Sanders are advancing very different ideas about the kind of America they would like to see. One is, from where I sit in Europe, terrifyingly nationalist, and the other is social democratic (though Senator Sanders is socialist in the context of the United States). But both ideas are very different from the America we’ve had my whole life. Sanders has built his campaign on the idea that the economic consensus is fundamentally flawed and only (by American standards) radical programs like single-payer health care, maternity leave, and state-paid-for college can begin to address the imbalance. He has crossed the previously taboo line in American politics by stating that in some areas, other countries do better and the U.S. should learn from them. Lots of Americans still aren’t ready to hear this and recoil from socialism.

Trump, by contrast, is too rich to need anyone’s contributions and so appears “not bought” in a different way from Sanders. Trump blames foreign countries for ripping America off (China) or wants to destroy them with bombing (Syria). He has terrible things to say about Mexicans, Muslims, and of course women. I’ve already analyzed his appeal but the fact is, it’s still a populist appeal. President Obama once told some bankers that it was either him, or the  pitchforks. Trump (and Senator Cruz) are followed by the people with pitchforks, and this time there is no Obama to stop them.

The conclusion I draw is that it’s no surprise Bush vs. Clinton isn’t panning out, because this isn’t 1992. Back then, Democrats only dreamed of getting a little tiny bit of health care, and Bill and Hillary weren’t even able to deliver that. Now, we’ve got “Obamacare,” same-sex marriage, and a whole whack of other social change that was undreamed of a generation ago. We’ve also got tremendous economic inequality, a surge of white supremacism that always accompanies it, and long-term stagnation in Washington on issues ranging from immigration to gun violence. The candidate who wins is going to have to show voters that a different America is possible, because too many people believe this one isn’t working anymore.

Right nationalists, like Cruz and like Trump is playing, hold out a vision of that different America being “great again.” “Great” means like it was in the past—white-dominated, Christian-dominated, militarily dominant, misogynist, and queer-unfriendly. But it also means like it was in the past in terms of economics—where working-class people (if America knew how to talk about class) could get a decent job and their fair share. White working people. That is a valid economic aspiration, and in U.S. politics, economic aspirations always trump [sic] other issues.

Senator Sanders offers a vision of left egalitarianism instead. His policies, which sound unrealistically radical to people who have believed in Reaganomics for so long, would actually not have been out of place in the L. B. Johnson era, or even Eisenhower’s. So Sanders is also harking back to something the past got right, while preserving and even extending the ways in which women, LGBT Americans, and Americans of color have gained in the decades since. His potential for magic is in his appeal to white working people who have not voted Democratic since Ronald Reagan captured them in the last big shakeup of economic ideology this country had.

That’s a powerful appeal. Candidates won’t do well by ignoring the crushing problems voters have and warning that any radical change would be even worse. If I were Secretary Clinton, I would remind voters that I said it’s time to end “the era of mass incarceration.” I would remind voters that Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has done as much as anyone to push Democratic politics in a progressive direction, praised my Wall Street reform plan. I would tell voters that I went to Flint, Michigan, where a poor, largely black community’s drinking water was poisoned by cheap politicians. I would talk less about preserving the gains of the Obama era—which sounds like a defensive game, the best we can hope for—and more about extending them. Not just for one year or four or eight, but for the decades to come.

Perhaps E. J. Dionne summed it up best. “Now here's why so many Democrats like both of them: Most share Clinton's view that gradual reform is the most practical way forward. But most also agree with Sanders that even moderately progressive steps will be stymied if money's influence is left unchecked, if progressives do not find new ways of organizing and mobilizing, and if so many white working-class voters continue to support Republicans.”

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*If you have time to read this through, it's a thoughtful historical analysis--the best I've read. It puts this election in a context going back to the 1920s and forward decades, not just a year or four. I don't share all this author's opinions, but if you haven't heard Coolidge's name in a while, pull up a chair!

Ireland 1994: Birth of a backpacker

This blog has been going for a few years now, but its focus hasn't always been travel. Somewhere along the line I went from being a (more or less) happy passenger in the backseat of my parents' car, to traveling independently. I didn't always post about my travels, but I always wrote about them. The useful things, the indiscretions, mostly moments I experienced that made that trip unique and different from anyone else's. Then one day, I decided they might be useful for readers too.

On what trip did I become what they call a backpacker? Was it Germany in 2008? Wales in 2002? Or even earlier, southern Ireland in December 1994?

"Backpacking" means two different things. It can mean hiking with all your gear to camp overnight; this requires the kind of a big frame backpack that can hold a tent, sleeping bag, etc. "Backpacking" in international travel means traveling light (and relatively cheaply), not carrying a suitcase. These are sometimes confused, including by travelers themselves, who buy, and can then be seen carrying, the type of backpack you'd need for trekking in a national park. The Discreet Traveler means a regular backpack, ideally the size that can fit as carry-on luggage on a plane.

That first time I went off traveling with nothing but a backpack, I was twenty-one. It's a nice stereotypical age for a backpacker. The Republic of Ireland seemed like a good place to start. There was no language barrier, at least not more than there is in England, where I'd been living for six months. It seemed almost wrong not to make the short hop across the Irish Sea. Because I wasn't prepared to drive myself around, I booked a week's tour of Dublin, Galway city, and Cork.

When I say "tour": I had hostel beds booked in the three cities and "coach" (bus) tickets in between. There was no guide or other impediment to independent travel. I exchanged currency--in those days, Ireland used the punt--packed the same backpack I'd been carrying around as a student, and flew to Dublin.

I know I was wearing a warm coat, because it was winter. Other than that, I couldn't have been carrying many clothes. I must have washed them out in the bathroom sink, as on subsequent trips. Funny how such a detail, which sounds like such a pain in advance, is totally inconsequential in the memory.

I remember walking down the high street in Dublin and seeing a chalkboard sign for a vegetarian restaurant that turned out to be cheap and delicious, as vegetarian food often is. I saw a flyer in the hostel for a Dublin literary pub crawl. It was to be the evening after I visited the Dublin Writers Museum, so I would actually have heard of Brendan Behan and the other writers they were talking about.

It was a great time. There were a number of us including a couple Australian girls and a Norwegian guy who was at the upper limit of the old 18-35 age range (hostels aren't "youth" anymore). It seemed wild then, that someone so much older was backpacking around the way we were. I'd assumed that, by 35, everyone would at least have a mortgage, if not kids.

(Cut to myself, turning 35 in a bud-ridden bedsit, newly single, no savings to speak of...but that's another backpacking trip.)

Two actors told us about the writers of Dublin, reciting from their work as we moved from pub to pub. I drank Guinness and Harp. By the time we got to our final stop, I was ready for a quiz question: Name a writer from Ireland who has won the Nobel Prize in literature. I'd just been to the museum so I named Samuel Beckett. Who wrote in French, but never mind; where you're born is the only thing that matters in these isles.

The prize was either a Jameson's duffel bag, or a bottle of their whiskey. I chose the whiskey.*

On the other side of the (admittedly small) country, whom did I run into on a street in Galway but those same Australian girls! I've learned since that this is not remarkable in travel; you tend to run into people down the road. It's nice if you've been friendly or helpful to them in the first place.

You might think I'm straining a metaphor for life, but I think all travel is that.

By Cork, I was over this trip. Only the local stout, Murphy's, stood out, as I preferred it to Guinness (and I'd had a generous amount of that free at the brewery back in Dublin). Cork airport was as small as my native Tri-Cities at the time. A driver (pre-booked) bumped over the gravelly road. I got lovely Irish butter with my bread on the plane. Yes, an hour's flight included food and drink. This was Europe!

The taste for packing light and taking off with only a small backpack has never left me. I haven't always traveled that way, but it's my favorite. There's nothing so freeing. I don't need cars or even to tell anyone, exactly, where I'm going. Because I may not know.

*I was to hold this souvenir of Ireland until I accomplished one of my life's great goals: to emigrate to Canada. It would be almost six years before I'd land in Toronto and finally open that bottle.

France 2000: Lessons for a safer and better trip

I took many trips before I started this blog. Part of the joy of travel--perhaps the main joy--is looking back over the travels you've already been on, and reliving the pleasures and even the challenges. Writing them down at the time or shortly thereafter helps, of course. It's only a bonus to be able to go back and share those adventures with readers now.

My first trip to France was in 1992 but I want to share some anecdotes from my second visit, in February 2000. That's because it's a good snapshot of some of the bad, or at least hard, things that can happen during travel, and also why it's all worth it. What I learned in France in 2000 is a good summary for the rest of The Discreet Traveler's life.

The first thing that happened to me in Paris, after being greeted by my lover who was living there at the time, was that I got pickpocketed. In more than twenty years of international travel, this was the only bad thing that has ever happened to me (long flight delays and cancellations, while annoying, are First World problems that I don't consider as having caused me any harm). I want to emphasize that, because while I drew several lessons from the experience, it was highly exceptional. It also was not that "bad" in the way that an outright robbery, or violent crime would be bad. That's the most important thing I learned from the experience. Here are a few more:

1. It was avoidable. No, I don't by any stretch believe that criminals aren't responsible for their crimes, but that doesn't mean travelers shouldn't take sensible precautions. Me getting pickpocketed was an opportunistic theft. The thief could see that he had here a tired, jet-lagged foreigner who had never been on the train in from the airport before and was preoccupied with talking to my companion, looking at the signs, etc. If I hadn't been so tired and preoccupied, I would have noticed him moving in and gradually sliding open the zipper on my bag--movements I clearly recalled once I got off the train and realized my wallet was gone. Don't give lazy thieves easy opportunities like this.

2. It's hard to avoid jet lag or being distracted, but it's not hard to prepare properly. Wearing one of those "fanny packs" or "bum bags" was a really bad idea; I've never done it since and don't recommend you do either. They present your valuables on a shelf to any pickpocket happening by. Some people swear by money belts but I find them uncomfortable, and it's awkward to have to dig around under your shirt all the time.

3. Another thing I made sure never to do again was to have all my valuable stuff in one wallet! Cash (yes, Americans, most countries do use it; you'll need some) in one place. Cards in another. Not all cards together. And whatever you do, take only essential cards abroad that you are going to need. I could have done without having to replace my Social Security card, library card, and other things there was no reason for me to have in France anyway. Don't carry pictures or anything irreplaceable.

4. One thing I had read about doing in advance, and was really glad I'd done, was making photocopies of important things like my passport (which fortunately was not stolen), and the front and back of the cards I was carrying. Oh, and keeping those photocopies in a different place from my wallet! It made it so much easier to call the credit card company and cancel the card (everything was done by phone in those days) when I had the numbers right there.

5. Finally, I learned that while this was a bad start to my trip, it was not that bad. Believe it or not, I could carry on a passable conversation in French in person, but as anyone who's studied a language knows it's a lot harder on the telephone, when you have no facial expressions or gestures to guide you. I froze up with the stress and the woman on the phone assured me that it was OK, she spoke English. Don't stress yourself out. It took a detour to a Western Union office where I stood in line and filled out forms, but I got cash. Just like that, there were no problems at all bar a couple follow-up phone calls after I got home (and all but one of those could have been avoided if I hadn't had unnecessary cards with me--see #3).

The rest of the trip was one of the most amazing of my life. I explored Paris and successfully asked for directions in French (a language only comes alive when you stop studying and start using it in real life). We went to Normandy, where everywhere there were signs proclaiming "Welcome to our Liberators"; we visited the beaches where the D-Day landings took place, in a group that included descendants of troops from other nations. I successfully negotiated bus information to Mont Saint-Michel from a hotelier whose English was even shakier than my French (but who, like everyone else I met, was friendly and trying very hard to help us). We got to St-Malo as night was falling, without an advance reservation, and found a room with no problem (I had never tried that before). At the train station ticket office, a man who did speak English was tickled at how "good" my French was. My French was terrible, but the point was I was visiting his country and trying. You have no idea how far that will take you in non-English-speaking countries of the world.

I've been told that this has something to do with my Americanness, and that an English person would have a different experience. I can only say that my British companion had exactly the same experience throughout the trip--but then, she was living in Paris, so of course she was also trying. When confronted with a particularly obnoxious English-speaking couple in a restaurant, we actually tried speaking French with each other, just so nobody would think we were with them!

So, here was a trip with a bad start, but many highlights thereafter. We ate at a restaurant around the corner in the 9e arrondissement called Haynes--sadly, it is no more. It was founded by an American jazz musician who used to live in Paris, and served wonderful soul food. We had tourist experiences but also discovered things about the people and place we never would have, if we hadn't been traveling independently. And, as upset as I was at having been pickpocketed, I did not let it affect the rest of the visit. I got my money and moved on.

It would have been possible to have that initial experience and conclude something about the French, or people of possibly-Arab origin (I did see the guy), or even men in general. There are plenty of people, and women specifically, who are afraid to travel for this reason. But to me, those conclusions would be absurd. I had some of the best bread, wine, and personal interactions of my life on that trip to France. In fact, 2000 turned out to be the best year of my life up to that point.

I'm so glad I didn't stay home.