We are our own Calvary

My Sunday movie was The Boy and the Heron by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. It was released in the US almost a year ago and won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, making Miyazaki the oldest person to receive an Oscar. It finally came to streaming at a good price. The boy of the story is Mahito. I would guess he’s in his early teens. The time is World War II. The movie opens with a hospital on fire. Mahito becomes frantic because his mother is there. A while later he and his father go to their estate in the countryside where Father owns a factory making war material. They are met at the station by a woman who looks a lot like Mahito’s mother and is pregnant. She says Mahito is to call her Mom. They settle into the estate where there are several elderly women who take care of things. They live in a very Japanese style house. Mahito is put into the Western style house nearby. A heron takes a big interest in the boy and its actions lead him to a nearby tower with lots of mysteries. Then the step-mother wanders away. Mahito tries to find her. And things get weird. The first bit of weirdness is the heron has teeth. Mahito goes from one fantasy world to another, each with symbols of life and of death and with beings who will help and who will harm. But he doesn’t want to return to his own world without his step-mother. By the end I wasn’t sure of everything that had happened and why. I felt the payoff wasn’t a match for all the difficulty Mahito went through. That feeling reminded me of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away from two decades ago. I didn’t get that one. In both cases I suspect cultural references that a Japanese person would get and I don’t is the reason. As with many Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli films this one was beautiful. For an animated film there were also many scenes that were quite complicated – such as a big flock of pelicans. However, I noticed the characters were usually more simply drawn than the intricate backgrounds of their environment. Even though it got weird and I didn’t get a lot of cultural references and I don’t care much for fantasy because its rules can be so arbitrary – even with all that I enjoyed it. I regularly read Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine and have just finished the November/December 2024 issue. I normally don’t write about it when I finish an issue because it can be twenty stories and articles and I’d have a hard time writing about all of them. One of them in this issue is worth mentioning. It is an Alternate View column written by Richard Lovett titled How the Science of Moral Understanding can Reduce the Polarization in Politics. That’s quite a claim for a three page article. I don’t see this article at the magazine’s online site (though there is an interesting second Alternate View article on mitochondrial DNA and aging and how there might be a way to slow aging down). First, Lovett discusses a study by Kurt Gray, director of the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His point is that people of both political parties vastly overestimate the degree the other side actually holds them in contempt. We’re less hostile and more willing to work together than we’re portrayed to be. Lovett turned to Jonathan Haidt of the New York University Stern School of Business, who says liberals and conservatives share basic values, though prioritize them differently. Haidt sees five core values: (1) protecting the vulnerable, (2) fairness, (3) the need to bond into groups for the common good, (4) respect for authority, and (5) “purity” – avoiding things that contaminate the body (examples are a vegan’s dietary code or a fundamentalists sexual code). Liberals emphasize fairness and protecting the vulnerable. Conservatives also emphasize respect for authority, also seen as preserving the social order (and I see as preserving themselves at the top of the social hierarchy). Gray thinks there are more than five basic values (they’re not named). He also says Haidt’s first value of preventing harm is the most important. How we weigh the different values comes with tradeoffs. And this is where disputes come. How do we handle competing harms? In the gun debate do we minimize harm to ourselves and loved ones or the harm to the whole community? In the abortion debate do we minimize harm to the mother or the potential baby? In both cases we can’t minimize both harms. Recognizing that is the first step to reducing polarization. From there Lovett gets into a discussion of “active listening.” There are likely sources elsewhere that explain it in more detail. Michael Harriot wrote a thread about the greatest black on black crime in US history. On May 23, 1861 three slaves were donated to the Virginia Confederate Militia. As soon as they could they ran to Union Gen, George Butler. These slaves were legal property. Butler saw their crime as stealing themselves. But now they were under Butler’s protection he saw them as a tool of war, in the same way as a rifle. He was allowed to confiscate them. The Confederates threatened to sue for the return of their property. Butler replied since the owners intended their use to be against the United States he didn’t have to return them. Want them back? Take an oath of allegiance to the United States. When slaves heard about it they stole themselves to Union forts, where they were placed in refugee camps. Lincoln wanted nothing to do with this situation. But there were so many fleeing slave Congress passed the Confiscation Act, backing up Butler. About 100,000 people unslaved themselves, arriving at more than 100 camps. These became known as Contraband Camps – the refugees were no longer property but not citizens.

These "Contraband Camps" were the origin story of many Black towns, HBCUs and neighborhoods. They produced 200 K-12 schools, 12 HBCUs, & 1000s of Black veterans. Harriet Tubman freed more people while living in SC's contraband camp than as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Black neighborhoods in KC, Nashville & St. Louis were contraband camps. Mary Peake, a free Black woman, held reading classes [illegal at the time] under a tree at the original VA camp until classes got too big. But no one calls it the "Grand Contraband Camp" anymore. They call it Hampton University.

Contraband camps were the focus of the push for the 14th and 15th Amendments defining citizenship, due process, and the right to vote. They invented the American education system we know today. Harriot, who is black, looked at the current political situation and asked, what if we again stole ourselves? What if we build a camp? What if black people declared independence from white thought and permission? So Harriot is announcing the building of a new online Contraband Camp, to open when Biden’s term ends. And with that it sounds like he is leaving Twitter. Malcolm Nance, writing on Substack, has recommendations to resist the coming tyranny. He came up with these through studying the French Resistance in WWII. Nazi Germany invaded Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, and France on May 10, 1940. The three little countries were taken over within days, France capitulated after a month. Well, the French government capitulated. A large number of citizens resisted, organized, and fought back. We in America now face tyrannical rule. Even though only 31% of the electorate voted for the nasty guy, we must assume he will use all available powers, including the military, for evil. But we don’t have to and cannot wait until this evil begins. We can start resisting now. Choose a Resistance Posture. Secret or public? Either way it should be bland until you need to be openly defiant. The regime wants us swamped with disinformation and conspiracy theories. News media may participate. So help to collect and disseminate high quality news. Don’t be fooled by the lies. Pay your taxes. Don’t give the regime a reason to attack you. Law enforcement may see the tyrant will protect them. They may see abusing citizens as lawful. Be as careful interacting with officers as a black man needs to be. Do not argue or debate with a MAGA person. Just don’t. The nasty guy has perfected the simple slogans and his followers consider liberals to be “wordy.” So when you must interact with MAGA people ditch the logic and simple language. Example: “Trump is a tyrant.” Get off corporate social media and scrub your history. They own everything you posted there. Bluesky is not corporate owned. There are apps to transfer to it. Talk to your friends in person, not through social media, text, DM, or video chat. There is no corporate record and is actually beneficial to a relationship. Do not engaged in violent protests. If you own a gun keep it locked away and use it only in a direct threat (and know your local laws). The regime wants a violent response because that gives them extra permission to outviolence you. Be prepared for the economic hardship the nasty guy has been promising. Stock up if you can. Keep track of your family. If your resistance profile is defiant, put the number of a good lawyer on your phone. “Politically, no one is coming to your rescue in a dictatorship. You are your own Calvary.” Nance said in the opening that the French Resistance started as individuals that soon organized. He didn’t say anything in his suggestions for us. However, I see that as where our power will come from. Then it becomes “We are our own Calvary.” Back to that bit about getting off social media. I wonder if that includes this blog. It is hosted by Blogger, which is owned by Google. They’re not great with social responsibility. Perhaps I should stop writing and even delete all 5373 posts? One reason why I’m reluctant to destroy all that work (I do have copies on my computer) is in the last week there have been over 2000 views of this blog with 28% from Singapore and 16% from Hong Kong, both with restrictive or authoritarian governments. There are even a few readers in Russia. I hope my writings help them.