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Revolution

A Cuppa For Peace

March 11, 2022 by Jim Leave a Comment

Post Card from Moscow Coffee Bean. Photo by Peg Redwine

Starbucks Coffee Company has suspended operations in all 130 of its Russia based coffee shops as a protest to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The first shop opened in September 2007 in Moscow. Peg and I were in Moscow in 2003. We are Americans. We drink coffee. We were in anguished caffeine withdrawal almost the whole week we were in Russia. I applaud Starbuck’s gesture but worry about those people who are forced back to the pre-2007 coffee-less culture in Russia. Of course, the blame lies with Putin but the headaches are visited on the Russian proletariat as war is visited by Putin on the Ukrainians.

In 2003 Peg and I, after long and frenzied searching, located one coffee shop, The Coffee Bean, in Moscow. As this was our first trip to Russia we had been unaware of Russian culture which at that time considered one cup of instant coffee in tepid water good enough for such foreigners as we. The cold turkey shock treatment made us acutely aware of a society where vodka and cognac were more available at breakfast than coffee.

I do not expect Putin to come to his senses on his own so his war on Ukraine will most likely play out as such debacles always have. There is the initial shock and awe, then the search for weapons of mass destruction, the trading of lies and misinformation, then death, injury and misery followed by years of confusion and remaking of history by the survivors.

I do wonder what Putin’s thought process was that led him into this tar pit. He keeps making public statements and allegations about NATO and Ukraine’s belligerence. His statements and actions appear to arise from paranoia, what most of the world sees as an unreasonable fear that Ukraine and the other pre-1991 Soviet Union countries along Russia’s western border will be used as bases for the United States and our allies to attack Russia.

Putin may have reasoned that as Ukraine was steadily building up its ties to democracies such as America, if he did not strike now, he would have no viable defense to a stronger Ukraine that might become a member of NATO later. Such an analysis seems ludicrous to us but it is not our thought process that is in question. If Putin believes it, even if it is false, then his actions may make sense to him.

He also may have been misled by the relative ease with which Russia took over Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. In today’s attack his objective may have mainly been to take over that part of Ukraine, such as Odessa, that borders the Black Sea. But then he made a common tyrant’s mistake. He got too greedy and decided to grab what was left of the remainder of Ukraine beyond Crimea.

By this time, Gentle Reader, if you are still with me, you are asking, “What does any of this have to do with coffee?” Okay, as Fareed Zakaria might say, “Here’s my take”. I hope the Russian people will have become so hooked on coffee after 2007 that this forced Starbuck’s withdrawal will cause them to see Putin for the despot he is. Then perhaps the aroused common citizens will rise up and replace the warmongering Putin and his incompetent military leaders. If the Russians feel anything similar to the way Peg and I did in 2003, revolution is not so farfetched.

JPeg Osage Ranch Coffee Bar. Photo by Peg Redwine

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Filed Under: America, Foreign Intervention, Gavel Gamut, JPeg Osage Ranch, Military, Russia, Ukraine, War, World Events Tagged With: Black Sea, caffeine withdrawal, coffee, Crimea, Fareed Zakaria, Gentle Reader, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, Moscow, NATO, Odessa, paranoia, Putin, Revolution, Russia, Starbucks, The Coffee Bean, Ukraine

Passion Put To Use

November 20, 2020 by Jim Leave a Comment

Gentle Reader, if you read last week’s Gavel Gamut you will recall we were considering Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations of America as a country based on law. De Tocqueville’s parents, Hervé and Louise de Tocqueville, had barely escaped the guillotine during the French Revolution (1789-1799). De Tocqueville was born in 1805 so he and his family had an intimate personal understanding of the dangers of a nation ruled by individual people, not laws. De Tocqueville studied law and served as a magistrate. He knew the value of French philosopher Montesquieu’s theory of a government formed with a separation of balanced and competing powers (legislative, executive and judicial). And he agreed with the morality of English philosopher John Locke’s (1632-1704) theories that governments should serve their people whom nature had endowed with the rights to life, liberty and property.

When people call for revolution they might wish to re-visit Locke, Montesquieu and de Tocqueville or one could refer to those more contemporary English philosophers, The Beatles. As John Lennon sang while backed by the cabal of Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in “Revolution”:

♫ You say you want a revolution

    Well, you know

    We all want to change the world.

    ….

    But when you talk about destruction

    Don’t you know you can count me out.

    ….

    You say you got a real solution

    Well, you know

    We’d all love to see the plan. ♫

Unfortunately, Mark David Chapman did not get the message. But Lennon’s untimely loss is an example of how ideology and ignorance can get weaponized as opposed to de Tocqueville’s prescient observation about how the United States holds its “revolutions” every four years via the ballot box. Americans may get quite passionate about their politics, but as Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) might philosophize, “It (should be) a passion put to use”, not destruction.  (How Do I Love Thee).

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Filed Under: America, Democracy, Gavel Gamut, Law Tagged With: Alexis de Tocqueville, Beatles, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Gavel Gamut, Gentle Reader, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, Locke, Mark David Chapman, Montesquieu, nation ruled by individual people, nation ruled by laws, Revolution

The Constitutional Convention and Cable News

September 29, 2017 by Jim 1 Comment

The Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia in 1787. The delegates kept the proceedings secret to avoid, “licentious publications of their proceedings.” James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, stated that no Constitution would have ever been adopted if the debates had been public. Remarkably, for four months the secrecy was maintained.

Can you imagine the motives CNN, FOX and MSNBC would have projected upon George Washington, et. al.? No delegate would have escaped the allegations of lying or even treason to the Revolution.

But inside the Convention the fifty-five delegates, half of whom were lawyers, debated the most volatile issues of the day. Slavery, whether we would have one-man-one-vote or an electoral college, large states versus small states, foreign attachments, the establishment of courts, provision for national defense and many others. How did they do it?

Of course, I do not know. However, I am pretty sure no one was called a liar for stating his views and no one was ascribed venal motives. Most likely George Washington as the presiding officer of the Convention made sure each delegate had an opportunity to present his views and everyone else had an opportunity to respond.

Maybe it is because I am a judge and once practiced law but it seems likely to me the Constitutional Convention proceeded much as a court case. First an issue would be brought up, States’ Rights for example, then each delegate who wished to would state his position. Then, after extensive but civilized debate a vote would be taken.

This time honored approach to resolving controversies has served the legal system and America well for over two hundred years. First define the issues for resolution, a criminal trial for example, then allow each side to fully present their views without threats or name-calling.

I humbly suggest this same respectful approach will work in every conversation from government to individuals. Shouting down or using force to prevent those one disagrees with from speaking will not result in the kind of result we achieved in 1787.

As I was writing this column I received an email and an attachment from my friend Jerry Wade of New Harmony, Indiana who used to live in New York City and who still subscribes to the New York Times.

Jerry must have been really bored recently because he has obviously been following my column about our country’s increasingly uncivil discourse. Jerry sent me an article by Bret Stephens that appeared as an opinion editorial in The Times. It contained an excellent analysis of the current climate surrounding “Freedom of Speech”, a.k.a., “If you don’t agree with me, you must be crazy!”

I will share a small portion of Stephens’ article with you.

“We disagree about racial issues, bathroom policy, health care laws and, of course, the 45th president. We express our disagreements in radio and cable rants in ways that are increasingly virulent; street and campus protests that are increasingly violent; and personal conversations that are increasingly embittering.”

Stephens does suggest a solution:

“… [T]o disagree well you must first understand well. You have to read deeply, listen carefully, watch closely. You need to grant your adversary moral respect; give him the intellectual benefit of doubt; have sympathy for his motives and participate empathically with his line of reasoning. And you need to allow for the possibility that you might yet be persuaded of what he has to say.”

In other words, to have productive intellectual discourse we have to first concentrate on being civil.

 

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Filed Under: America, Democracy, Gavel Gamut, Judicial, Language, Law, News Media, Slavery Tagged With: civilized debate, CNN, Constitutional Convention, electoral college, establishment of courts, Father of the Constitution, fifty-five delegates, foreign attachments, FOX, George Washington, issue for resolution, James M. Redwine, James Madison, Jim Redwine, large state versus small state, lawyers, legal system, licentious publications, MSNBC, one-man-one-vote, Philadelphia, present views without threat or name-calling, provision for national defense, Revolution, slavery, States' Rights

© 2022 James M. Redwine

 

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