As a "small government liberal" I would like to point something out. The Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis are against liberalism. White supremacists, alt-right groups, and the Islamic State are against liberalism. Hitler and Stalin were against liberalism. I could go on but I think that you get my point.
The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has several reasons to underestimate the unemployment rate. First, it is good for the reputation of the federal government's executive branch, which typically takes credit when the unemployment rate is low. Second, it reduces pressure on the federal government to implement social welfare programs. Why, for example, spend money to create jobs when there are plenty of jobs available. Third, the Federal Reserve, which represents the interests of the banking industry, is in a better position to justify raising interest rates if the unemployment rate is low. Since December the Federal Reserve has raised short term interest rates three times this year. As an investment strategist for a Wall Street banking institution explained, "The improvement in the labor market warrants a rate increase, and there's serious economic strength to support it".
The BLS contacts several thousand households every month to find out whether the occupants are working. If not, they will be counted as unemployed provided that they have actively attempted to find a job within the past four weeks. Although this criteria sounds innocent enough, it is problematic. Many job seekers who have applied for available jobs often wait for a response beyond 28 days to hear from an employer.
Because many employers have a substantial number of applicants, often a few hundred, it can take at least several weeks and even longer for employers to contact candidates. Also, workers with particular skills may find a very limited number of vacancies for the kind of jobs they are seeking. By counting as unemployed only workers who have attempted to find work in the most recent 4 weeks, the BLS is not taking account of the realities of the job search. As one observer noted, the job search often rides on the back of a snail.
According to the BLS over 1 1/2 million workers in July searched for work but were not counted as unemployed because their search was not within the last 28 days. Moreover, many unemployed job seekers are not considered unemployed even if they sought work within the 28 day period. The reason given is that many workers are not actively searching. According to the BLS being active entails attempting to contact employers one way or another. If an unemployed worker only checked newspaper and internet ads that person would not be counted as unemployed.
Although our next door neighbor, Canada, uses a similar approach to counting the unemployed, one important difference is that Canada's count is more inclusive. Any attempt to finding a job is regarded as legitimate. So the U.S. July unemployment rate, which was 4.3 percent, would be about 5.3 percent according to the Canadian criteria. That's over a 20 percent increase!
Another tremendously important issue is that more than 5 1/2 half millions workers are employed part time because they are unable to obtain full time jobs. They are counted as underemployed rather than unemployed because they do have a job. But since they are unemployed as well as employed, they should be included in the unemployment statistics. Since the number of involuntary part time workers exceeds 5 million, over 2 1/2 million should be counted by the BLS as unemployed. Not including any of these workers from being counted as unemployed should embarrass the BLS since it even includes as employed those who work only one hour in a week.
Finally, many workers who have conducted a vigorous search for jobs have run out of steam. But they still very much want a job. The BLS acknowledges that the numbers are large. Separately, the BLS' estimated count for July of the number of "Persons who currently want a job" is well over 5 million. Clearly, the real unemployment rate is certainly not 4.3 percent. The BLS' own statistics provides persuasive evidence that the unemployment rate is in the double digits.
In fact, the prospect of unemployment actually declining to the single digits is unlikely. As jobs continue to be shipped abroad or become digitalized, the economic situation will become even more worrisome. Also, it is important to take into account that about 70 percent of our GNP depends on consumers who are mainly working people. As workers lose jobs and as they confront the downward pressure on wages, their purchasing power along with the economy are likely to experience a steep decline.
During the 1930s depression a mass movement compelled the federal government to create useful jobs and provide many benefits that working people still enjoy. Only another major political movement can hope to at least match the remarkable accomplishments of that era
Most of you probably know of the planned rally at Civic Center Park on Sunday, August 27. Despite the event being billed as an "anti-Marxist" gathering, we have great concerns that extremists will show up there and engage not only in hate speech, but violence.
So we’re standing up to hate. In recent weeks, community groups have prepared many positive events you can attend to show that intolerance, bigotry and racism have no place in our community.
We’ve also printed 20,000 “Berkeley Stands United Against Hate” posters that residents, business owners and others can place in their windows or in their yards to show their support for our city.
These posters will be available starting Thursday, at the below locations and times. If any location runs out of signs, please call Jacquelyn @ 510-981-7101 and they will be replenished. Volunteers are gathering on Saturday 2pm behind City Hall to assist with hanging signs throughout town on light posts.
(Please do not hang ANY signage on telephone or PG&E poles!!) Show up if you want to help – we need at least 50 people!! Bring clear packing tape!
And don’t forget to take a picture of yourself and your sign and post on our Facebook page!
IronWorks 800 Potter St.
Sweet Adeline 3350 Adeline St.
Inner City Services 3286 Adeline St.
Berkeley Drop in Center 3234 Adeline Street
Star Market 3068 Claremont Ave.
St. Clements church 2837 Claremont Blvd Administrative Offices
Berkeley Bowl West 920 Heinz St.
Expresso Café Roma 1549 Hopkins St.
North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave.
South Berkeley Senior Center 2939 Ellis St.
West Berkeley Senior Center 1900 6th St.
South Library 1901 Russell St.
Main Library 2090 Kittredge St.
Claremont Library 2940 Benvenue Ave
North Berkeley Library 1170 The Alameda
West Branch Library 1125 University Ave.
TBID 2437 Durant Ave.
Moe's Books 2476 Telegraph Ave
Games of Berkeley 2510 Durant Ave.
DBA 2230 Shattuck Ave. Mikes Bikes 2161 University Ave.
Chocolate and Art Festival North Shattuck/Gourmet Ghetto (Sunday only)
BiRite Liquor & Store 2495 Sacramento St.
Cheese Board 1504 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley City College 2050 Center St.
Ecology Center 2530 San Pablo Ave.
In a statement released by Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, and Cat Zavis, executive director of the interfaith and secular-humanist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives said: “This will be an alternative to the potential violence on Sunday for people who want to publicly oppose the Nazis, do not want to be part of violent struggles that may develop on Sunday, and do want to affirm our vision for a nonviolent world of love, justice, and environmental sanity.”
Rabbi Lerner added: “The Nazis coming to Berkeley on Sunday are hoping to get public exposure and press. Their movement is strengthened when violence erupts between them and those opposing them. When standing in close proximity to people who are yelling verbal attacks and threatening you, it is extremely difficult for some to remain calm and nonviolent. Rather than risk the possibility of confrontation that will only bolster the Nazis cause and give the President an excuse to equate the Nazis with those who oppose them, we are providing a family-friendly space for people to nonviolently express their disgust and disapproval of the Nazis and white supremacists and to promote a vision of a loving and just world.”
Here is the full statement inviting participation in Saturday August 26th event which could provide a model for future ways to respond to the demonstrations by the ultra-Right-wing racists and anti-Semites.
The Network of Spiritual Progressives, Tikkun magazine and Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-Without-Walls invite interfaith and secular humanist individuals and organizations to join us this coming Saturday, August 26 at 3:00pm to create sacred space at the location where Neo-Nazis plan to rally the following day. Our goal is to provide a safe space for those who are concerned about the violence that may happen the next day when the right-wing extremists are scheduled to rally in that same location, do not want to be part of that scene, and do want to affirm our solidarity with those who will be nonviolently protesting the Nazis and other variants of fascism the next day. We will sanctify the location with our prayers and expressions of solidarity with all those who want a world of love and justice for all.
When: Saturday, August 26th from 3:00 p.m. till about 4:30 p.m.
Where: Civic Center Park in Berkeley (near Center Street crossing Martin Luther King. Jr.)
We will lead with some traditional Jewish prayers (in English and Hebrew) and invite other religious/spiritual communities and atheists and secular-humanists to bring prayers, songs, music, poetry, and anything else of beauty reflecting our values of love, justice, environmental sustainability, nonviolence and awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of the universe. Please bring your own contributions to the program which will also include some reflections on long-range strategy for strengthening the progressive and love-and-justice-oriented forces in the U.S. This event will hopefully be a model for other events around the U.S. in the coming months as right-wing-extremists bring their message of hate to a wide variety of communities.
This gathering is not meant in any way to detract from the importance of those who will be assembling or demonstrating the next day for precisely what we seek also--a world without racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and religiophobia.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and other East Bay elected officials gathered on the steps of Berkeley City Hall this morning to speak out against bigotry and hate in advance of a rally against Marxism that's scheduled to be held in Berkeley on Sunday.
Lee characterized the event, planned for 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday in Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, as a white nationalists' rally but organizer Amber Cummings, who spoke to reporters before Lee's news conference, said it's simply an anti-Marxist rally and said she doesn't want white nationalists to attend.
Lee said the rally on Sunday "represents a fundamental challenge to our community values, regardless of how the organizers are characterizing it."
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said he has characterized the event as a white nationalist rally because social media postings promoting it are filled with "hate-filled messages" and activists who engaged in violence at demonstrations in Berkeley earlier this year say they plan to come.
"Our community is united against hate and we are working to keep the peace this Sunday," Arreguin said.
He said, "I believe in peaceful resistance" and called for groups who want to oppose the rally Sunday to hold counter-demonstrations at another site nearby so there's no violence between groups with opposing viewpoints.
"We want to avoid violence at all costs," Arreguin said.
Lee said, "President Trump has emboldened white nationalists but we must hold steadfast to our progressive values as a community, regardless of the challenges. We cannot allow anyone, certainly not the president, to roll back the clock on progress. We must stand united against hate."
State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, said, "White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups are not welcome in Berkeley, our state or anywhere in our nation."
Skinner said she has introduced legislation to expand California's hate crime law "so that the hateful acts of these racist groups can be prosecuted fully."
She said, "I also introduced resolutions that condemn the terroristic acts of white supremacist groups and urge law enforcement to prosecute them under terrorism and hate crime laws."
Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, said, "Recent events have provided a painful reminder that we must continually address hate and racism and that education can be one of the most powerful tools for teaching tolerance to our students."
Thurmond said he will be hosting a roundtable discussion with education leaders and government officials this week "about the role education can play in countering racism and hate speech."
Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, said, "The East Bay stands firmly against the recent incidents of hatred and bigotry."
Bonta said, "These voices of ignorance and intolerance will never prevail. They will be unmasked and we will see they hold no power to erode our California values of inclusion, equity and opportunity. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the East Bay as a strong and diverse community. We will never let hate and bigotry divide us."
Cummings said she organized the rally on Sunday back in the late spring, long before a white nationalist drove a car into a group of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, killing one person and injuring others.
Cummings, who's known as "Based Tranny," accused Arreguin of characterizing Sunday's event as a gathering of white supremacists as "an outright lie" in an effort to incite violence against the people who will participate in the rally.
Yet another white nationalist rally in Berkeley is planned for Sunday, August 27. Will it be as violent as such rallies have been in the first half of this year? Not if civic authority and law enforcement take appropriate steps to “keep the peace.” That is the considered view of some criminologists who have commented on this subject, including Alex Vitale, a writer for The Nation and a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College who advises human rights groups and law enforcement agencies.
With the help of friends and family, all of whom live in Berkeley, I’ve authored a petition requesting that Berkeley city officials and law enforcement take measures to prevent violence at right-wing gatherings of this kind. Here are a few sentences from the petition text:
Although civic authority and law enforcement have been finding it difficult in cities like Berkeley to protect both public safety and the right to protest, more can and should be done. When extreme right-wing rallies are held in Berkeley, we the undersigned request that the city’s Mayor, City Council members, City Manager, and Police enact a policy to minimize violence. Appropriate means to achieve this end include:
https://www.change.org/p/berkeley-mayor-and-city-council-petition-for-non-violence-in-berkeley
As soon as I locked up my bicycle near Old City Hall, where the Berkeley City Council was having its Friday 3:00 pm special meeting on August 18, 2017 to tweak local protest laws before the arrival of the fourth alt-right/Neo-Nazi/white supremacist rally in Trump's first electoral year, I saw a friend who said, " are you ready to kick some Nazi ass?"
"Hey, my brother. Don't feed them what they want," I said, like the predictable kumbaya peace nut that of course I am.
"That's bullshit," he responded cheerfully. He's a poet, a powerful one. But he has clearly decided that using his words is not enough.
And he is not alone. The efficacy of violence, over the course of history, is a case easily made. I just happen to be the gal who loves the non-violent crew; Victor Jara, Wuilly Arteaga, Dr. Martin Luther King. It's not that violence can't be effective, it's just that if you're an artist, a moralist, and courting seventy years old, non-violence is more creative, more appealing from a philosophical and moral standpoint, on rare occasion more effective, and at least an equally daunting physical challenge for the creaking crew that saved People's Park along the way.
The Berkeley City Council is aware, after hosting three Trump rallies, that there's a remarkable ratio of local citizens ready to rumble with whatever they got out of a handy hardware store. The ordinance proposed to tailor local law to enable the Berkeley police tasked with honoring first amendment rights to assemble and speak to subtract improvised weaponry from those assembled no matter whom they hate and wish to kill aspires to at least lower the body count. The vote was seven to one, with Councilmember Cheryl Davila the lonely vote against increasing the City Manager's powers to either indulge in narrowly tailored powers to protect public safety or whittle away more civil liberties depending on one's perspective.
Only two people in the crowd spoke on behalf of further constricting protest rights. One was a man originally from Virginia who claimed to know people injured at Charlottesville and was ready to embrace any effort to protect the public. The second was a very young intern from Councilmember Kriss Worthington's office who spoke only on her own befuddled behalf explaining that Nazi hate was the very worst kind of hate and so deserved the city's very best effort to combat it no matter what it took.
The people in my section were almost laughing at her. It isn't that we don't get that some of the people coming to town are, for all practical purposes, Nazis. Nazis bad. We kind of get that, even those of us so young that it's pretty much a matter of movies and common sense.
But the idea that hate is more hateful with a swastika still seems dumb to people who had to serve coffee to the Ku Klux Klan, which ritually hung people in a picnic-like atmosphere. A parallel moment of accidental perspective collision happened when the majority of the Berkeley City Councilmembers spoke in turn about their support for tailoring local laws to try to address the weapons being brought to rallies by both out-of-towners and locals alike.
Councilmember Ben Bartlett spoke, making an ominous case for each white supremacist rally being worse than the one before, claiming that the alt-right rally scheduled for August 27th in Berkeley had been planned as a consequence of the perceived victory at Charlottesville. He used almost eerie horror movie affect in making his case. But in fact the upcoming Berkeley rally had been planned long before Charlottesville, which, when pointed out by someone sitting behind me, was silenced by a Mayor Jesse Arreguin no longer patient with interruption at his eight month mark in office. Councilmember Bartlett continued to make his case undeterred by fact, and it's at least a seductive case to the many still shaking their heads that unmasked, unabashed racists enjoy coming to Berkeley to watch the liberals quake at their flag capes and makeshift warrior costumes.
But the lone vote against the ordinance came from the clear voice of District 2 representative Councilmember Cheryl Davila, whose steady cadence recounted growing up with an awareness of the hate of the Ku Klux Klan, an awareness which continues steadily today in California's number one status in our number of hate groups, 917 by the latest count. Davila's quiet recollection stood in sharp contrast to the implication that this moment is anything new for African Americans with the longevity and perhaps the courage to recognize that hate has always been just around their corner all of their lives.
How to handle it is Berkeley's challenge, a challenge which could have convened a community forum months ago to collect creative suggestions in dealing with it considering that the alt-right/white supremacist/neo-Nazi fountain of provocation seems to have no end. We are a popular watering hole for these groups because we can always provide the predictable liberal/radical reaction and land any group that wishes it square in the middle of the evening news. That is, until we figure out a more creative way to slay the current dragon.
One of the crowd was part of SNCC, the student non-violent coordinating committee which decades ago practiced for the provocation and denigration they expected as workers for voting rights in the 1960's. She expressed that few young people would have any interest in hearing about non-violence training or strategy, a heart-breaking moment for me. There are around thirty SNCC members in the Bay Area today capable of telling their stories of personal sacrifice and SNCC organizing, which is undeniably one of the greatest American stories ever told. But it's significance at this moment can only be weighed if it is told at all to the people who wonder about what might be more powerful than makeshift shields from Home Depot.
# # #
It’s no surprise that the iggarunt lackeys of the current crop of white supremacists have chosen to invade college towns like Charlottesville and Berkeley. These folks have always feared and despised the pointy heads, as their ideological granddaddy George Wallace used to call intellectuals, especially liberal intellectuals.
Here in Berkeley, where I’ve lived off and on since 1958, we’re looking forward with annoyance to invasions four and five in the very near future. We are the storied 60s home of the Free Speech Movement, and we’ve been a target of opportunity ever since. Unfortunately, all too often the reaction by bureaucrats, both campus and city, has been to save themselves trouble by trying to restrict speech they (and often we) don’t like, which never works.
The next date when we’ll have to put up with an ugly bunch of bigots will be Sunday, August 27, a little over a week from now. The prospect seems to have provoked Berkeley officials both elected and appointed to unnecessary overreaction.
First, a little history.
Number one in the recent series was the aborted visit of the campy peroxide conservative Milo Yiannopoulos, who was supposed to speak on the University of California campus under the sponsorship of the Young Republicans. Tremulous UC Berkeley administrators blew that one big time, first cancelling his talk and then allowing truculent campus cops to get into a brouhaha with the Black Bloc, a bunch of masked self-styled anarchists, mostly testosterone-poisoned young men with sticks who came spoiling for a fight and broke a few shop windows downtown.
The next round, in March, billed as a post-election rally of Trump supporters, was held in Martin Luther King park next to City Hall. Most or all of them came from out of town spoiling for a brawl. The Black Boys also hoped for fist fights, and scored a few, but nothing much of consequence happened except a few arrests.
After that, the Young Republicans tried to schedule the shrewish blonde Ann Coulter. She bailed in a controversy over dates, but when she didn’t show up the rowdy rightists had another even smaller get-together in MLK park, with even fewer fights.
I went to both of the last two encounters, and can report that nothing describes the alt-right attendees as well as “a basket of deplorables”—sad inconsequential losers. A few among them were clearly striving to get recognized as armed-and-dangerous celebrities, but they didn’t do much but posture. The city of Berkeley police showed admirable restraint, breaking up actual fights but otherwise just marching around looking stern.
As the old joke has it, two Jews, three opinions. Here, it’s five Berkeleyans, 50 opinions. The question of the appropriate response to the upcoming visitations has been endlessly debated in the arenas of choice, which includes list-servs maintained by progressive organizations, Facebook, the UC student newspaper and various online news sites like the Berkeley Daily Planet and berkeleyside.com.
The writers seem to sort out into a few repetitive groups. First out of the gate was the idea that Berkeley’s city government should somehow ban what’s called “hate speech” within the city limits. That happens to be a particular bugaboo of mine, since the Planet was unfairly chastised for it at enormous length by a few people who mistakenly believed themselves to be friends of Israel. Let’s just say it’s a slippery slope.
A recent advocate of this theory cited as his authority a 1942 Supreme Court case, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, where a Jehovah’s Witness street preacher who called a city marshal a " damned racketeer" and "a damned fascist" in a public place was arrested and convicted under a New Hampshire law of breach of the peace.”
For context: that’s the same 1942 Supreme Court, remember, that upheld the internment of Japanese-Americansin the Korematsu decision, since discredited and repudiated. Also, the Chaplinsky case seems to have turned on whether the preacher’s cuss words created an immediate danger to the marshal, which of course they didn’t.
We should be careful what we wish for. Geoffrey Stone, in his 2004 book Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime, says this about Chaplinsky:
“…it would be very dangerous to allow the government to pick and choose which false statements in public debate it will prosecute and which it will tolerate. The opportunities for selective prosecution and political abuse are obvious, and the prospect of using federal courts to decide on the truth or falsity of such statements in the absence of any concrete harm should give us pause.”
Would we like Chaplinsky to set the standard for Berkeley? Especially, of course, with this federal government, this Supreme Court?
The Berkeley city administration, progressive council or not, seems no more qualified than the federal government to decide which speech can or should be restrained, especially prior to when it’s uttered.
But if we forego prior restraint on the content of the proposed speech, per established constitutional norms, what else can Berkeley do about the online threats from the White supremacists? It’s ordinarily assumed that government can regulate the time, place and manner of constitutionally protected speech, if not the content. Oddly, the facebook page of the August 27 rally organizers is entitled "No to Marxism in America", which seems to be exactly the kind of speech content protected by the First Amendment. It's true that the CPUSA generally stood up for racial justice, but that's kind of a stretch.
Mayor Jesse Arreguin in an August 16 press release said he was exploring, with city staff’s aid, tools available to prevent the kind of mayhem which happened at Charlottesville.
(Here we might pause to acknowledge the ingenuity of UC Berkeley, finally using some smarts to deal with threatened alt-right invasion number 5, the latest annoyance offered by the UC College Republicans, a talk by Ben Shapiro, an oxymoronic “conservative intellectual” twerp. According to the Daily Cal, he’s being offered the 2,000 seat Zellerbach Auditorium for his talk, which should effectively swallow up his little claque, which I hereby predict will be fewer than 200 idiots. Let’s all stay home from this dreary prospect. )
There still remains the question of how righteous Berkeleyans should deal with the August 27 crowd. One tempting stance could be called “Just Say No”, or perhaps “The Silent Majority”.
The idea would be that everyone with any principles would simply avoid MLK Civic Center Park, where the unpermitted ravening hordes are threatening to gather. Berkeley’s a city of ~125, 000, so we could claim that there are a lot of counter-protesters who just aren’t showing up. The argument goes that this would prove that they’re Wrong and we’re Right…er, Correct.
A corollary to this theory would be the very real worry that the right will show up armed and dangerous.
People who advance this point to a scary VICE news segment featuring lots of footage of what happened in Charlottesville.
An unsigned press release distributed from the City of Berkeley’s City Manager’s office by the “Press Contact” asked us all to stay home to make things easier for the police: “The best response for those seeking to safeguard our community is to stay away… Please do not create alternative events near downtown Berkeley. Even if peaceful, nearby counter-events take police officers away from those intent on committing violence or damage.”
The City Council is on its summer break, so it’s not clear whose idea this is, if indeed it’s backed by any of the Electeds, but it’s presumptuous at best.
I feel their pain, but at least for those of us who came up in the civil rights movement, staying silent in the face of what looks a lot like Fascism seems to be what’s dangerous.
Especially with the recent addition of blatant White supremacy to the Trumpist armory, it’s incumbent on those of us who are White to do what my young African American friends call “represent” –to speak truth to power, as my Quaker friends would say. I don’t need to tell African-Americans what to do.
I won’t even waste the pixels to talk about what a dumb idea it is to show up with sticks and shields as some self-styled Antifas like to do. But silence gives consent, so the rest of us should speak up, literally or symbolically, albeit non-violently.
In this category a variety of alternative actions have been proposed. FormerBerkeley Mayor Shirley Dean, thorough as always, has a whole compendium of them which can be seen here.
Rob Wrenn reports that a non-violent rally is planned for the morning of the 27th at the UC campus entrance on Oxford.
A number of proposals for what seem to be wickedly satirical counter-protests are floating through the electronic ether, including one which seems to involve a huge inflated chicken which looks like Donald Trump. If and when I get a specific plan from this group, I’ll let you know what it is.
At the time of writing (Friday noon), however, city staff seems to be throwing a major spanner in the works.
It appears that the newish City Manager is asking for a panoply of extra powers to be voted on at a hastily called “Emergency” meeting this afternoon for this afternoon at 3
. It is immediately obvious to any of us who has ever participated in a spontaneous protest that laws like this could be applied against all kinds of demonstrations.
This is what’s proposed:
"13.45.020 City Manager Authorization. The City Manager or his or her designee is authorized to issue such regulations and take such other actions as are necessary to preserve public health, public safety and property on City streets and sidewalks during street events planned or proposed to be held in the City and for which no permit has been obtained pursuant to Chapter 13.44 of this Title, including the prohibition of certain items and activities or restriction of them to certain times and/or locations. Failure to obey any directive issued by the City Manager or his or her designee pursuant to this section shall be a violation of this chapter."
Osha Neumann of the East Bay Community Law center has written an excellent letter to the City Council explaining what’s wrong with this proposal which can be read here.
I’ll go to the meeting and let you know what happens.
Mayor and Councilmembers:
I cannot be at the emergency meeting you have scheduled for 3 PM tomorrow, but I want to register my strong opposition to the proposed ordinance regarding unpermitted street events.
We have seen in this country the disastrous consequences of rushing to pass laws in response to perceived dangers without taking time to consider whether those laws are necessary and their possible unintended consequences. It’s really unfortunate to see the Berkeley City Council about to fall into that trap.
Is the proposed ordinance necessary?
If White Supremacists come to Berkeley and stage an unpermitted event in a park and if that event spills over into the street, they will be breaking multiple laws (I’m sure the city attorney would have no trouble developing a very long list.) If they break existing laws and are unruly and disruptive the Berkeley Police can use the authority of Penal Code section 726 to declare the event and unlawful assembly. This is what that section says:
Where any number of persons, whether armed or not, are unlawfully or riotously assembled, the sheriff of the county and his or her deputies, the officials governing the town or city, or any of them, must go among the persons assembled, or as near to them as possible, and command them, in the name of the people of the state, immediately to disperse.
If the event continues and the participants do not disperse Penal Code section 727 states that “officers must arrest them.” Everyone who participates in an unlawful assembly is guilty of a misdemeanor. (Penal Code section 408.)
Penal Code section 727 is a powerful tool. Police in the Bay Area have had plenty of experience using it. The proposed new ordinance is unnecessary.
The proposed ordinance is flawed, and will have unfortunate consequences.
One of the ways in which Berkeley progressive politics expresses itself is spontaneous street demonstrations against war and injustice at home and abroad. These demonstrations fulfill the need people feel for an immediate response to terrible and tragic events. They are a way for the community to come together in grief and outrage.
They are a vivid way to protest. They can be healing and inspiring.
It would be truly unfortunate if Berkeley, in response to threat of white supremacists in our midst, passed an ordinance that would give the City Manager authority to shut down this form of political expression. The ordinance grants her broad and unspecified powers to “issue such regulations [unspecified] and take such other actions [unspecified] as “are necessary to preserve public health, public safety and property.” There is nothing in the ordinance to constrain her discretion in deciding what is “necessary.” She can prohibit scertain items [unspecified. Signs? Effigies?] and activities [unspecified. Singing? Chanting?], simply because she thinks it “necessary.” She can restrict “activities” and “items” to certain times and/or locations, because it is “necessary,” regardless of whether the “time, place, and manner” restrictions she imposes comport with the First Amendment.
When we pass legislation in a rush we don’t have time to think. The ordinance goes into the books and we have to live with it.
This ordinance is unnecessary, ill-conceived, and flawed. I urge you to reject it.
I’ve tried to follow the many comments about what should be done on August 27 when once again the hate mongers descend upon our City. I believe they are doing this because they want to get the maximum amount of media exposure for their agenda of hate. What better venue to do that than the home of free speech?
The common thread in those making comments on how to respond is show that Berkeley is a community united against hate speech and violence. Not so long ago we experienced what can happen with the alt-right met what I will term the alt-left. (I apologize in advance if that isn’t the politically correct terminology). My point is that the result wasn’t pretty and didn’t speak well for us as a City. We’ve historically seen how emotionally charged gatherings can quickly lead to charges of over-reaction and to charges of under-reaction regarding our Police Department. None of these kinds of responses have worked particularly well in terms of expressing what the larger community wants to do and that is to make a non-violent statement AS A COMMUNITY against bigotry, hatred and violence. People want to find a way to take some action, but now we must decide what that action should be?
It is entirely understandable that when people who are confronted with views that are so repugnant that even if they have vowed to not to do anything that could be considered as violent, the actions - signs, symbols, threats, shouted words, raised fists act like gasoline poured on a fire. The situation is so highly charged emotionally that it takes super human restraint to keep things on a civil, debate oriented level. Those carrying the message of hate and bigotry are very adept at pushing everyone's buttons and they do so as part of their plan. Even holding separate events on the same day, but in different locations does not necessarily deter one group (or even a part of one group) from storming over to the other group and confronting them, especially if the very purpose of either side is to be recognized in the media. So let’s consider this:
The current Chancellor of UC, Carol Christ
The current president of the ASUC
The head of the Faculty Senate
The head of the Chamber of Commerce
The City Manager
Convenor of Berkeley Neighborhoods Council
It will give everyone in the City something to do in making a statement about our community - even those who might not otherwise be able to join a march or go to a rally, children can help with the flag and parents can help them understand what this show of unity is all about
It will portray Berkeley in the national press in a positive light, since it shifts the focus to the positive viewpoint that while we are different, we are united against hate and violence
It is relatively simple to pull together
I hope that someone will consider this instead of just send e-mails, or try to organize protests that could well deteriorate into violence provoked by either side.
This peaceful nonviolent rally is planned for Sunday August 27 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Crescent Lawn on the edge of the UC campus Addison/Center and Oxford. It’s far enough away from Civic Center Park and is occurring earlier so should be able to avoid the violence of clashes between far right and BAMN/antifas which will probably occur given Far Right group plans for an afternoon rally in Civic Center Park. If you are part of a group, you could ask your group to endorse.
I was born in the 1960's, and when young, would watch a television show called, "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." The program taught young children that the world is friendly, that people are good, and that you needn't be afraid when stepping out the front door of your house.
And, really, some of the time, all of the above are true.
I also participated in the "New Age" spirituality movement that seemed to evaporate at the end of the 1980's. The group in which I participated was led by the late Ken Keyes Jr., and promoted the idea that the world is your mirror--e.g., a hostile person lives in a hostile world, and a loving person lives in a loving world. The group taught people to believe that if you just follow the steps that were taught, you would end up having everything you need.
But now, it is 2017, and all of this naiveté has become useless, or worse.
People who expect the world to function according to sanity, are being freaked out by the insanity now taking place. Sensitive people, good people, people who want peace, are getting a shakeup. The U.S. is almost in a civil war. It is not actually the North vs. the South, in fact there are no geographical lines. The battle lines are undefined, and the battle is between ideologies, between those who live on hate, versus those who want the U.S. to be restored to the illusion of fairness and safety that we had just a couple of years ago.
Some individuals are willing to start a confrontation, or even a fight, over someone getting a parking space they've been waiting for. I was at County Hospital in Martinez, and lucked out on a parking space. Soon after I parked, a man stood next to my car door, was hostile, and acted like he was going to get violent because supposedly I took his space. I got out my cellphone and acted like I was about to call the cops, and he left, but not without banging a fist against my vehicle. Also, a Sheriff car was parked two spaces away from me on unrelated business.
I was just in Concord doing some business when I lucked out on a parking space again. Someone honked at me. And when I was getting out of my car, a woman stood at a distance, complained and left. I had difficulty hearing exactly what she said. However, I am pretty sure the person was unhappy over the parking space.
However, if the current trend continues, we're going to have much bigger worries than who gets the best parking space.
I feel some amount of future shock (even that term comes from the 1970's). I do not do Facebook or LinkedIn very much. I do not know the new conventions of abbreviation that apply to texting. Apparently, Y W means "You're Welcome" but I didn't know that. I thought it meant, "You Win." When I was corrected I had to apologize for the mistake.
However, we have bigger worries on the horizon.
Trump isn't denouncing the Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, probably because he is one of them. He doesn't want merely to be President of the U.S., he has a far more sinister agenda. And he may very well succeed. This is because of the power that violence and fear have--in their ability to silence people.
But not everyone will be silenced. Millions of Americans are not happy with him, many of whom are willing to put themselves in harm's way in order to fight against this craziness.
Yet Trump may have a plan in how he intends to take over. We could be in for a rough ride.
Thank you, white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan, and alt-right marchers. Thank you for not covering your faces, for lighting yourselves well with dollar store tiki torches, so we can all know if you are our neighbors and co-workers and try to arrange our lives accordingly.
Thank you for outlining our President so clearly as an unabashed sympathizer, so that no amount of spin can alter the obvious trajectory of his position on racism. Thank you for clarifying so succinctly that your groups see his presidency as aligned with your mission.
Thank you, white supremacists, for illuminating for anyone in confusion the shallow nature of your cause, the immorality of your goals, and the sheer ignorance of the vast majority of your members. Thank you for the non sequitur squirreling through what passes for writing on your websites, so that someday perhaps we reconsider our custom of underfunding education.
Thank you for expressing yourselves so freely, so that those observers with a thorough education in psychology can navigate the turgid waters of your movement’s cold soul and help the rest of us strategize some way to communicate better with you through the jungle of icons and clichés that seem to surround you.
Thank you for drawing the lonely, the misfit, the disoriented to your side, so that we who may have ignored them can meet them and make sure we are not part contributing to their sense of abuse. Thank you for making it so clear exactly how and where our world needs healing.
Thank you for showing us that those who are inspired to oppose you using violence and abusive taunts only feed and nurture your sense of being misunderstood and excluded. Thank you for making it so obvious that only love, welcome, and thoroughly honoring the first amendment, where speech meets speech to resolve differences, can someday clear our country of racism, our original sin.
Thank you for helping all of us understand that we may well have made some progress toward social justice, but that we remain at the very beginning of a long journey we can only take together.
We couldn’t do it nearly as well, or as quickly, without you.
My advise --Skip that trip to Oregon, and protect your health. At least a million visitors are expected in Oregon, which is a state of only 4 million residents. Of course, the business members of the Chamber of Commerce will be thrilled. But the consequences for visitors could be detrimental. The jammed roads will generate considerable frustration and air pollution. And the adverse impact will be particularly severe for young children.
What is the attraction? The eclipse seen in Oregon, which will last for only 2 minutes and 40 seconds, will be a total eclipse. If it is not total, even just 99 percent, the experts tell us that that it would still be daylight. But in Oregon, the morning hours will be dark. That miracle is among the temptations for making the trip. But think about it. What the public will see when looking at the skies then is virtually nothing.
Admittedly, those who are political, including myself, are very jealous about the active interest of eclipse seekers. We work very hard to bring people out to demonstrations on vital issues, including issues that directly impact on their well being. Yet more often than not, the turnouts are small. Even very minor inconveniences will discourage many from participating.
But the interest in seeing the eclipse despite the hassle tells us that very large numbers of people no matter how inconvenient are quite willing to come out if they believe it is worthwhile. It is the task of activists to figure out how to be more persuasive. We don't have eclipses to tempt people. But we offer something that is far more valuable and enduring - HOPE.
I recommend the media refrain from the use of "alt-right" when reporting on the preparation for the upcoming two right-wing rallies in San Francisco and in Berkeley. We should all stop calling hate-mongers the "alt-right."
The term "alt-right" is nothing more than a sanitized euphemism for hate-mongering groups like white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis and other such groups who feel that white people are disadvantaged and view other religious and ethnic groups as subhuman.
“Alt-right" is nothing more than a public-relations device to make its supporters’ actual beliefs less clear and more acceptable to a broader audience. Let's just call these hate-mongers what they are: a hate movement made up of racists, bigots, anti-semites.
Through six months of Donald Trump the progressive resistance has been united by opposition to his policies. The good news is that we have stopped his legislative program. The bad news is that most Americans don't understand what progressives stand for, other than opposing Trump. Now's the time to bring forward an agenda that emphasizes safety.
During the next six months, Trump won't change. He'll continue to lie, bloviate, and feather his own nest. His racism and resentment will become more obvious. And congressional Republicans will careen from issue to issue without challenging Trump or accomplishing anything of significance.
This six-month period provides a golden opportunity for progressives and Democrats, in general, to tell voters what they stand for. So far, the results have been underwhelming.
Democrats have responded with "A Better Deal." Washington Progressives have their own "Progressive Agenda." Both documents are too complicated. They follow the losing HRC prescription: "when in doubt hand the voter a policy paper."
An effective progressive agenda should contain only a handful of objectives. And, hopefully, one or two memorable phrases.
Affordable Healthcare: The obvious place for progressives to begin is with healthcare. The resistance has beaten back Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Progressives believe in strengthening Obamacare and expanding Medicaid into the 19 states that do not have it.
We should aim higher. Progressives should advocate Medicare for All; a concept easy to remember. We stand for safety through the democratization of healthcare.
Economic Equality: Most Americans believe the system is rigged. 61 percent feel "the country is headed in the wrong direction." Voters continue to rank "the economy" as the number one problem.
While the stock market is booming and total employment is at record levels, most Americans do not believe capitalism is working for them. Consumer-credit is at near-record levels; Americans carry more than $1 trillion in credit-card debt.
The Progressive Agenda offers a thirteen-point proposal "to restore an economy that works for working Americans.” While they are all good important, progressives need to identify one or two memorable ideas that differentiate them from Republicans. Two suggestions:
Feature the slogan: Give America a raise. The Progressive Agenda suggests: "Raise the federal minimum wage, so that it reaches $15/hour, while indexing it to inflation." Republicans have shown no interest in this measure but it's one that resonates with most voters. (A recent poll found that 74 percent of respondents favored raising the minimum wage.) Safety through better wages.
The second suggestion is adopt the slogan: Make Capitalism work for everyone. One of the unnoticed sections of "A Better Deal" is the section on "Cracking Down on Corporate Monopolies" (https://democrats.senate.gov/
The extensive concentration of power in the hands of a few corporations hurts wages, undermines job growth, and threatens to squeeze out small businesses, suppliers, and new, innovative competitors... A Better Deal on competition means that we will revisit our antitrust laws to ensure that the economic freedom of all Americans—consumers, workers, and small businesses—come before big corporations that are getting even bigger.This break up monopolies stance represents a dramatic change from previous Democratic platforms. It differentiates progressives from Republicans and is an issue that resonates with voters in general -- for example, a 2015 poll found that a majority of Americans favored breaking up the largest financial institutions.
Of course there are many other issues that could be featured in a progressive agenda; among these are climate change, immigration, reproductive rights, and criminal justice to mention only a few. Rather than add another issue to the three already mentioned, it would be more productive for the progressive agenda to focus on values.
The place to start is with safety.
America is a great country but American democracy is not working for everyone. We need look no farther than the Charlottesville violence, or the number of voters that believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, to understand that Americans are not satisfied with the status quo.
Donald Trump won the presidency because his slogan, "make America great again," resonated with more voters than did Hillary Clinton's slogan, "stronger together."
Trump's slogan, "make America great again," was interpreted by many of his supporters as, "let's return to the fifties when America was number one in the world and white men called all the shots." Clinton's tepid slogan was interpreted as "let's keep doing what Obama has been doing," an endorsement of the status quo.
Progressives need an effective alternative to "make America great again." Make America safe again. This reflects the reality that because of economic inequality and Donald Trump, most Americans are fearful. They fear for the future because the economy is not working for them and they do not have adequate healthcare, education, or housing. Many Americans fear for the future because of climate change.
In addition, the Charlottesville violence reminds us that many Americans are fearful because of the color of their skin, or their gender/sexual orientation, or their religion or country of origin. Donald Trump has brought bigotry and hate into the mainstream. He has legitimized the politics of resentment.
It's time for progressives to stand up to Trump's hate-filled conduct and proclaim to all Americans: We will make America safe again.
This week, I am going to discuss something that, one hopes, doesn't happen every day. Being a victim of identity theft and/or financial crimes will probably occur in our lives at some point. It should not make you afraid to pick up the phone when it rings, turn on a computer, or use a debit card to buy a soda at a store. However, these are some things of which we ought to be aware.
Persons with psychiatric problems could often be seen by criminals, con artists, and scammers, as easy prey. Mental health workers teach us to become naive, mostly defenseless, and excessively trusting.
Medication can make a mentally ill person pliable and malleable. And we've been taught that we should not get aggressive, that we should not become paranoid, and that we should believe what we are told. This doesn't leave us very equipped to deal with some of the deceptions and roughness that may sometimes appear in our lives.
There are a number of common scams that circulate in the U.S., most of them propagated on the internet or through phone calls. In reference to the phone calls, some are automated while some, apparently, are "live." A few of the recent automated ones are designed to fool people into believing a real person is on the other end. I am guessing that this is a way of gathering thousands of names and the associated personal information necessary to do identity theft at a future point.
In some instances, lonely men, and sometimes but probably less often women, are victims of "catfish" schemes. They (the perpetrator) might send a photo and might have a hard luck story. They may promise love in return for giving them financial help. They might manipulate the victim into giving away thousands of dollars. The photo may not be that of the actual person on the other end. You don't know who you're dealing with--it could easily be someone in a foreign country. As soon as the victim has wired away all of his or her money, abruptly, the person promising love is no longer interested, or may disappear entirely.
Other schemes rely on a pretense of being a legitimate financial or other institution. I recently witnessed a friend take a call from someone pretending to be Wells Fargo, offering a credit card, and asking for information. I asked my friend to give me the phone number of the caller who was supposedly from Wells Fargo. I googled the number and discovered the sad truth. (I would have tried to steer my friend away from the swindle, but there was no opportunity for me to do that.)
I received a number of phony emails of someone pretending to be Stripe. (FYI: Stripe is essentially the same idea as Paypal, and offers means of handling transactions through the internet.)
The phony Stripe emails repeatedly claimed that I had been paid funds. I contacted the real Stripe, and they put a stop to the emails. It is in their interest not to have scammers impersonate them. I was very suspicious from the start, because the emails didn't include my name. Secondly, I had no reason to believe that I would be getting funds through Stripe.
About six years ago, I received a death threat on my email. The person writing the email said that if I paid him more than the person paying him to kill me, he wouldn't kill me. I phoned the Martinez PD, and I printed a copy of the email for them. This email wasn't about doing harm to me or singling me out because of revolutionary writing or something, it was simply someone, probably in a foreign country, trying to get some money.
Another type of swindle, which is probably legal, consists of receiving credit card offers in the mail--not the legit ones, but those that include prohibitive fees.
If you have good credit, you might receive mail offers that are legitimate from companies that you have heard of. There is nothing wrong with this, if you are financially fit for the credit. If not, you should shred the offers.
Credit card offers are circulating, from unknown companies that you've probably never heard of, and they have bogus, but legal fees--that you can read in the disclosure part of the offer.
Often, the fees amount to as much as or more than the credit limit of the card. For example, "Setup fee." And they get more imaginative than that--in the names they give to the fees. This is worse than mere predatory lending. That's why you always need to read the fine print.
If you use a computer or a telephone, or if you receive USPS mail, you must be ready to deal with the scammers, con artists and identity thieves. This is where the naiveté and the cooperativeness, taught by the mental health treatment system, are not our friends.
Being excessively passive in life will probably get you nothing, or worse. Medication may have us "zoned out" to some extent, to where it is hard to be an active participant in life. However, at least some of the time, we need to stand up for ourselves, because no one else is going to do that for us.
Here is my two cents worth on the subject.
What if a hate group held a rally and no one showed up?
White nationalists and other hate groups conduct rallies with the expectation that the rallies will lead to jeering from counter demonstrators and violence by so-called anarchists. The hate group gets what it wants -- a spectacle that will headline the news the next day.
Those who come to oppose the hate group know or should know from past experience that their appearance will inevitably lead to violence, especially if anarchists are involved.
Why don't we just not show up when the white nationalists come to San Francisco on August 26 and Berkeley on August 27? Denying the hate group of a spectacle is the worst insult they can endure.
I know this is wishful thinking on my part. The rally will be held, counter demonstrators will appear, violence will occur, and the white nationalists will get their headlines.
As part of their 2017 Summer Festival, American Bach Soloists presented two performances, August 10-11, of 17th century British composer Henry Purcell’s King Arthur at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In fashioning King Arthur, Purcell set music to a verse text by poet John Dryden. This was not the first time Purcell and Dryden had teamed up to create works of semi-opera, a genre derived from the court and theatre masques that combined music, theatre and dance. Previously, Dryden and Purcell had worked together on Dioclesian, and, sub-sequently, they combined their talents on The Indian Queen. Purcell and Dryden were a good match: Dryden conceived drama as “nature wrought up to a higher pitch,” while Purcell had acquired a better understanding of Italian musical conventions than any other English composer of the late 17th century. Moreover, both Dryden and Purcell sought successfully to create a truly English art that would celebrate English life.
For King Arthur they chose to celebrate the medieval 5th or 6th century world of the legendary court of the knights of the Round Table, where Arthur struggles against Saxon invaders. In this struggle, each side has its magicians: Arthur has Merlin, while Oswald, the Saxon king, has Osmond. On Arthur’s side, Merlin is aided by the spirit Philidor, while on Oswald’s side Osmond is aided by the evil spirit Grimbald. These contending magicians and spirits conjure up many a trick to deceive their enemies; but goodness wins out, and the English soldiers defeat the Saxons and make truce with them, merging the two peoples in what became the Anglo-Saxon makeup of England.
All of this material supplies a sub-text that was provided in this American Bach Soloist production of King Arthur by a narrator, eloquently performed by Hugh Davies. Using Dryden’s text plus additional connective passages, the narrator kept the overall story-line moving, while the various musical moments – songs, dialogues, choruses, and instrumental movements – offered a rich musical portrait of the British Isles, its peoples, and its landscapes.
All walks of British life are represented, from King Arthur and his court of nobles down to peasants, sailors, shepherds and shepherdesses. Where the peasants are concerned, Purcell’s King Arthur offers a wonderful harvest song followed by a rowdy drinking song admirably performed here by tenor Jorge Prego and baritone Matthew Cramer. Likewise, a trio of fishermen was beautifully sung by countertenor Samuel Siegel, tenor Jacques-Olivier Chartier, and bass Seth S. Katz, whose voices blended exceedingly well. When the Saxon magician Osmond casts a spell that turns England into an icy, snow-covered realm, the role of the Cold Genius was magisterially sung by bass William Meinert. His shivering, chattering aria complaining about the cold was one of the highlights of the opera. He was also joined by a chorus of cold people who likewise shivered and chattered in the freezing cold. Purcell’s stuttering music, both instrumental and vocal, eloquently captures the spirit of a frozen group of people on an icy winter day. Later in King Arthur, William Meinert doubled as Aeolus, who commands the blustery winds to abate.
Various mythical characters appear briefly in Purcell’s King Arthur. Nereid was sung by soprano Ju Hyeon Han; Pan was sung by bass Seth S. Katz; Cupid was sung by soprano Michele Elizabeth Kennedy, and Venus was sung by soprano Katelyn G. Aungst. To the character of Venus goes Purcell’s patriotic aria “Fairest isle,” a brilliant encomium of England. Toward the end of King Arthur a lovely duet ensues by characters simply identified as She and He. She was sung with great expressivity, both vocal and dramatic, by soprano Amanda Keenan; and bass Bryan Jolly’s He was her lively counterpart in this love duet, which was another highlight of this King Arthur. Throughout King Arthur, the American Bach Soloists, led by Conductor Jeffrey Thomas, gave a vivid orchestral performance of Purcell’s bright instrumental music. They were ably augmented by harpsichordist Elizabeth Crecca, who provided continuo. The American Bach Choir sang beautifully throughout King Arthur as a chorus of Shepherdesses, Soldiers, Spirits, Satyrs, etc. All in all, this was a fine authentic period instrument performance of Purcell’s semi-opera King Arthur, which premiered in London in 1691. A few years earlier, of course, in 1689, Henry Purcell premiered his one true opera, Dido and Aeneas, which is still a frequently performed work in the opera repertoire. Alas, by 1695 Henry Purcell was dead at the young age of 35, thereby depriving England of perhaps her finest musical genius. To honor their great composer, the English buried Henry Purcell in Westminster Abbey.
West Edge Opera currently presents three performances, August 5, 13, and 19, of French composer Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet at their new venue at Pacific Pipe, an abandoned steel factory in West Oakland. I attended the Sunday matinee on August 13. Although based on Shakespeare’s play, many of the bard’s famous lines are missing from the libretto of this opera, the work of Michel Carré who adapted it from a play by Alexandre Dumas père. The great “To be or not to be” speech is truncated. Only “Être ou ne pas être” survives. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and everything else in this beloved speech are cut. Never-theless, much of the greatness of Shakespeare’s Hamlet comes through in this opera, especially when it is as grandly sung as in this West Edge Opera production.
Ambroise Thomas premiered his Hamlet in 1868, and it is composed in a late bel canto style, with dazzling coloratura passages, especially for Ophelia (Ophélie in French). The role of Ophélie is here sung by soprano Emma McNairy, and she handles the difficult coloratura of her mad scene with gorgeous singing. More about this mad scene later. The role of Hamlet is here splendidly sung by baritone Edward Nelson, whose voice seems to grow richer and stronger every time I hear him. Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, is elegantly sung by veteran mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer; and the role of Claudius, murderer of Hamlet’s father and newly wed to Gertrude, thereby assuming the throne as king, is convincingly sung by veteran bass Philip Skinner.
The unitary stage set designed by Jean-François Revon is a stylized abstraction of the wood-trussed Pacific Pipe factory that is the venue for this production, though how this set relates to Hamlet’s Denmark is anyone’s guess. As the orchestral Prelude to Hamlet is played, director Aria Umezawa has Gertrude and Claudius mime the murder of King Hamlet, thereby giving us a kind of flashback that sets up the psychological drama that faces young Prince Hamlet. Little by little, he becomes ever more suspicious that his father was murdered by Claudius with Gertrude’s connivance. This suspicion is enhanced by the fact that his father’s ghost appears to Hamlet and calls for his murder to be avenged. The ghost was here ominously sung by bass Kenneth Kellogg, who appears only as a shadow. As the opera progresses, the ghost appears multiple times, becoming ever more explicit that it was Claudius who killed him and must be killed in turn. But the ghost instructs Hamlet to spare his mother.
The score by Thomas is full of color, with even a saxophone used to striking effect. As conducted by Jonathan Khuner, the orchestral reduction penned by Khuner displayed Thomas’s highly original orchestration. Trumpets often ring out in a forced effort to create a mood of celebration, when in fact there is little cause for celebration, for, as Shakespeare aptly put it, “Something is rotten in Denmark.” When Hamlet makes his first appearance, dark, brooding cellos introduce the melancholy Dane. He sports a black and white garment that is a cross between a Renaissance tunic and an Oaktown hoodie. (Director Umezawa intended the hoodie as a sop to Oakland fashion.)
One bit of staging by Aria Umezawa struck me as very questionable. This was when she had Hamlet and Ophélie engage in a torrid simulated sex scene in which Ophélie rips off Hamlet’s shirt and mounts him while he lies supine on a raised platform. They then engage in thrusting away at each other while Ophélie wraps her legs around Hamlet’s shoulders. Though this scene seemed out of place in Shakespeare’s Denmark, it fit right in with Mark Streshinsky’s tenure as General Director of this company, for in an effort to be ‘edgy’ he features at least one such graphic sex scene (and often many) in nearly every West Edge Opera production. (In last year’s Powder Her Face there were so many graphic sex scenes of a sado-masochist sort that even those who applauded this production called it porno-graphic.)
In Thomas’s Hamlet, Ophélie’s brother Laertes is reduced to a bit player, as is her father Polonius. Laertes was ably sung by tenor Daniel Curran, and Polonius was convincingly sung, in the few passages given him, by bass-baritone Paul Cheak. Hamlet’s famous ‘mousetrap’, a pantomime play he stages in order to “catch the conscience of the king,” does in fact work, angering Claudius who, grown pale at the similarities between the mimed murder of Gonzaga and his own murder of Hamlet’s father, gruffly orders the play stopped and the players summarily dismissed. Earlier, in prepping the players, Hamlet offers them wine and leads them in a merry drinking song that is one of the highlights of Thomas’s score. Later, when Hamlet overhears Claudius and Polonius whispering about the murder of Hamlet’s father, this adds to Hamlet’s anguish, for he wonders aloud how he can think of marrying the daughter of a man who conspired in the killing of Hamlet’s father. Little by little, Hamlet draws away from Ophélie, much to her confusion and dismay. Eventually, Hamlet brusquely tells Ophélie the French equivalent of “Get thee to a nunnery.”
Ultimately, Ophélie becomes thoroughly unhinged by Hamlet’s apparent betrayal of their fervently professed love, and her mad scene becomes the highlight of Thomas’s Hamlet. As Ophélie, Emma McNairy made the most of her opportunity to show off her ability to sing bel canto coloratura. (Neither her spectacular 2014 title role in Alban Berg’s Lulu nor her role as the raunchy maid in last year’s Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès offered McNairy anything approaching bel canto.) While singing with increasingly frenzied flights of coloratura, Ophélie thinks she sees the image of Hamlet in the waters of a lake, and she wades into the water and drowns. Dramatically, this scene involved Ophélie’s voluminous blue skirt that became the water that swallows her up. This device worked quite well.
The famous gravedigger scene remains from Shakespeare’s play, though quite truncated. When Horatio and Marcellus, the gravediggers, unearth a skull, there is no “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well.” Indeed, when Hamlet asks whose skull this might be, the gravediggers reply “We don’t know.” Horatio was sung by baritone Nick Volkert and Marcellus by tenor Greg Allen Friedman. Nor do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern make an appearance in Thomas’s Hamlet. The ghost of Hamlet’s father makes one last shadowy appearance in the gravedigger scene, insisting that the time for revenge is at hand. So Hamlet at last thrusts his sword into Claudius, killing him. But Hamlet himself is killed by Laertes to avenge the death of his sister, Ophélie, leaving Gertrude bereft of the men in her life, now alone to mourn her fate.
Set Design was by Jean-François Revon; Lighting Design was by Lucas Krech; and the imaginative Costume Design was by Maggie Whitaker. Conductor Jonathan Khuner led the orchestra in a fine rendition of Thomas’s colorful score. Though differing considerably from Shakespeare’s play, Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet offers a dramatically coherent condensation of this drama. This production of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet plays one more time, at 1:00 pm on Saturday, August 19, at Pacific Pipe.
