Commentary

Christmas Gifts from Our Democracy

For lovers of democracy (and if you are reading this surely that means you), the news has blessed us with some noteworthy early Christmas/Happy Holidays/seasonal gifting. First, if you didn’t feel a little warm glow when the news first broke, you have to understand that we are all Lady Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

Published

4 months ago

December 27, 2023

Oakland Post

Thank you for taking the time for these words. Happy Holidays to everyone connected to the Post, most especially its dear readers.

Commentary

By Emil Guillermo

For lovers of democracy (and if you are reading this surely that means you), the news has blessed us with some noteworthy early Christmas/Happy Holidays/seasonal gifting.

First, if you didn’t feel a little warm glow when the news first broke, you have to understand that we are all Lady Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

You know them. They are the Georgia election workers, the ones who Trump’s lawyer and now disgraced leaky hair colorist Rudy Giuliani said were passing a USB drive to each other — proof, somehow, of some digital malfeasance to help steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

In fact, there was no such attempt to steal anything from anybody. The USB drive was a piece of ginger candy.

The whole thing was a lie told by Giuliani to perpetuate the “Big Lie,” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Earlier a federal district judge in Washington, D.C. ruled that Giuliani’s lies defamed Freeman and Moss, whose lives were turned upside down.

They couldn’t go out in public for fear they’d be retaliated against by Trump’s MAGA zealots. Freeman couldn’t run her businesses. Moss began doubting democracy.

And then last week the jury ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss $148 million in damages. That breaks down to $75 million in punitive damages. Add $16.2 million in compensatory damages to Freeman, and $16.9 million to Moss, as well as $20 million to each of them for emotional suffering, and you have the price for justice in a defamation case.

That’s what lies on top of lies will cost in America if you’re Rudy Giuliani defending Donald Trump.

Giuliani didn’t take the witness stand in his own defense. But he did talk to the media at every juncture saying just wait, he’d provide evidence backing him up. “Stay tuned,” he said.

But he never did. When you’re a liar, you lose in a court of law. The only place for you is the court of public opinion, which is why Giuliani kept lying in impromptu sidewalk press conferences. For all those lies, Freeman and Moss slapped Giuliani with a second defamation suit on Monday.

It’s Giuliani as a combination lying and human ATM. Still, collecting money from him will be tougher than you think. Even Freeman and Moss admit while the $148 million award is good, no amount of money will undo the damage they incurred from lies told by Giuliani and Trump himself. (Trump actually named Freeman specifically on a recorded call. That’s another suit waiting to happen).

For now, a federal court has verified and awarded damages on Giuliani’s lies. Score one for justice and truth.

Hooray?

GOP PREFERENCE FOR CRIMINALS

As I’ve said, Trumpers tend to discount the court of law and prefer the court of public opinion where lies outweigh facts.

And then even when the facts are outrageously damning, e.g. the criminality in Trump as per being indicted four times with 91 felony counts, Republicans simply don’t care.

They see a bad guy and still support him for president because he is their bad guy.

Seventy percent of Republicans believe if Trump wins the GOP primary and is convicted, he should still be the nominee, according to a New York Times/Sienna College poll.

To Republicans, more important than justice is a sense of restored power. It’s the real fear we should have in our democracy right now. Some people prefer justice not for all, but for some. And that likely doesn’t include you or me.

COLORADO COURT RULING

And that brings us to the other gift in the news, the Colorado State Supreme Court has ruled Trump is ineligible for the ballot in that state based on the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.

Colorado’s highest court ruled 4-3 that Trump be removed from the state’s primary ballot, saying that on Jan. 6, 2021 Trump “incited and encouraged the use of violence and lawless action to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”

Legal experts say the court’s ruling is “unassailable.” But that’s not going to stop Trump from playing victim and using it to show his followers that the establishment is out to get him.

Expect the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, and all that might bring. Would Justice Clarence Thomas be forced to recuse himself because his wife was texting on Jan. 6 encouraging insurrection?

How rich would that be if the vote was 4-4 and Thomas was the tiebreaker?

Add all this to Trump’s diabolical devil’s journey through our democracy: Four criminal indictments, plus civil cases involving sexual abuse, business abuses — and now this.

It’s the ugly beauty of our democracy. The truth is all out there. Just don’t forget to vote or the bad guys will win.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I was walking through Oakland recently and went past my old office on College Avenue. All the other businesses had changed, but Thelma still had her art gallery. Down the block, at a new café, I saw an old Filipino American activist I’ve known since the 80s when he was protesting U.S.-backed dictators. Finally, I made it to a PEN Oakland event at the Rockridge Library, when a young woman of Kenyan descent came up to me and said, “I read your columns in the Post.”

That’s a reminder that I am writing for all of you. Thank you for taking the time for these words. Happy Holidays to everyone connected to the Post, most especially its dear readers.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a secret talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1

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Commentary

Opinion: Lessons for Current Student Protesters From a San Francisco State Strike Veteran

How the nation’s first College of Ethnic studies came about, bringing together Latino, African American and Asian American disciplines may offer some clues as to how to ease the current turmoil on American college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war. After the deadline passed to end the Columbia University encampment by 2 p.m. Monday, student protesters blockaded and occupied Hamilton Hall in a symbolic move early Tuesday morning. Protesters did the same in 1968.

Published

2 days ago

May 3, 2024

Oakland Post

iStock Photo

By Emil Guillermo

After the deadline passed to end the Columbia University encampment by 2 p.m. Monday, student protesters blockaded and occupied Hamilton Hall in a symbolic move early Tuesday morning.

Protesters did the same in 1968.

That made me think of San Francisco State University, 1968.

The news was filled with call backs to practically every student protest in the past six decades as arrests mounted into hundreds on nearly two dozen campuses around the country.

In 1970, the protests at Kent State were over the Vietnam War. Ohio National Guardsmen came in, opened fire, and killed four students.

Less than two weeks later that year, civil rights activists outside a dormitory at Jackson State were confronted by armed police. Two African American students were killed, twelve injured.

But again, I didn’t hear anyone mention San Francisco State University, 1968.

That protest addressed all the issues of the day and more. The student strike at SFSU was against the Vietnam war.

That final goal was eventually achieved, but there was violence, sparked mostly by “outside agitators,” who were confronted by police.

“People used the term ‘off the pigs’ but it was more rally rhetoric than a call to action (to actually kill police),” said Daniel Phil Gonzales, who was one of the strikers in 1968.

Gonzales, known as the go-to resource among Filipino American scholars for decades, went on to teach at what was the positive outcome of the strike, San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies. It’s believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. Gonzales recently retired after more than 50 years as professor.

As for today’s protests, Gonzales is dismayed that the students have constantly dealt with charges of antisemitism.

“It stymies conversation and encourages further polarization and the possibility of violent confrontation,” he said. “You’re going to be labeled pro-Hamas or pro-terrorist.”

That’s happening now. But we forget we are dealing not with Hamas proxies. We are dealing with students.

Gonzales said that was a key lesson at SF State’s strike. The main coalition driving the strike was aided by self-policing from inside of the movement. “That’s very difficult to maintain. Once you start this kind of activity, you don’t know who’s going to join,” he said.

Gonzales believes that in the current situation, there is a patch of humanity, common ground, where one can be both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel. He said it’s made difficult if you stand against the belligerent policies of Benjamin Netanyahu. In that case, you’re likely to be labeled antisemitic.

Despite that, Gonzales is in solidarity with the protesters and the people of Gaza, generally. Not Hamas. And he sees how most of the young people protesting are in shock at what he called the “duration of the absolute inhumane kind of persecution and prosecution of the Palestinians carried out by the Israeli government.”

As a survivor of campus protest decades ago, Gonzales offered some advice to the student protesters of 2024.

“You have to have a definable goal, but right now the path to that goal is unclear,” he said.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. A veteran newsman in TV and print, he is a former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered.”