Posts by jim
Meet Anthony Gonzales, the First New Staffer at Downwinders in a Decade. Now Help Us Keep Him.
There's a slew of changes coming as a result of decisions made at the Downwinders' board retreat with Lois Gibbs last month. Among them:
New redesigned website
New updated logo
New presence on social media
New year-round events calendar for supporters
New campaigns and projects
New board members
As a commitment to this make-over, Downwinders is pleased to announce its first new staff hiring in ten years: Anthony Gonzalez is a Mansfield resident and UTA Junior in History. He ran for Mansfield City Council when he was 18…and lost. He's currently enrolled in Downwinders' College of Constructive Hell-Raising and works part-time for the City of Arlington Department of Environmental Services. Anthony has been hired as our very first Program Assistant to help Downwinders' Director Jim Schermbeck in modernizing our data base, assist in communications work, and coordinate new volunteer outreach and events.
This means for the first time since it's founding, Downwinders has two people on staff at the same time to help us fight for your lungs.
With this new growth comes new responsibilities. We have donations to cover Anthony's part-time job until the beginning of summer. We need your help to keep him employed year round from now on.
In its decision to hire Anthony, the all-volunteer Downwnders' board made a down payment on our future. Can you show your good faith and return the favor?
Lois Gibbs is Coming Back to Dallas – to Help Downwinders Plan and Strategize
Imagine Rosa Parks personally leading a strategy and planning session for your local civil rights groups. Or Ralph Nader coming to spend a weekend with your consumer rights groups to help you prioritize your goals.
That's the enviable position Downwinders at Risk's all-volunteer board is in after finding out Lois Gibbs, the mother of the modern American environmental movement, will be their facilitator in a weekend-long retreat this coming weekend…for free.
It seems one of the few perks of becoming a board member for Downwinders is being able to call on America's #1 toxic avenger for help when you need her.
Gibbs and Downwinders go back almost 25 years, by way of our founder, Sue Pope, and our Director, Jim Schermbeck. Gibbs was the featured guest at our very first Root and Branch Revue in 2015. Besides getting her entire community relocated off a toxic waste dump, and building the Superfund clean-up program from scratch to address the contamination at sites like hers, Gibbs also founded the The Center for Health, Environment & Justice, the largest grassroots environmental network in the country. She brings decades of organizing experience and a national perspective to the Downwinders program work in DFW.
From this Friday through Sunday, the entire Downwinders board and staff will be meeting out of town to discuss what it means to be a local clean air watchdog in the Age of Trump. We had lots of good conversations over the course of this year's just-concluded Root and Branch Revue that we'll be following-up on. We'll also review all the recommendations left on our "What If" Wall" that made the rounds of Root and Branch events. We asked everyone who showed-up to write down what they needed to happen. We got a wheelbarrow of ideas, all of which are being considered by our board, including:
"Getting a doctors/nurses groups organized"
"Getting a children's group organized"
"More coordination and communication among groups"
"Using new technology to do environmental testing"
"Getting cities to better address climate change"
"Better connecting food policy to environmental policy"
"Systematically addressing environmental racism/justice"
"Linking local targets to national campaigns"
A Trump Administration means that our hopes for a sane DFW clean air plan are gone. What they get replaced with is up for grabs although we have some promising ideas that we hope Lois can help us sort through. We made great new allies over the past month. We've made some alarming discoveries that deserve more attention. We need to adjust our plans to suit the new times. We'll be reporting back soon with our results. Stay tuned.
2017 R&B in pics
Scientists, Officials, and Activists: All in One Day
One- Day University of Change
Tomorrow – Saturday Jan. 28th
Two tracks of workshops going on all day
9:30-5:50
Walk-Ups Welcome
$35 for workshops plus lunch
$20 for students
Bluebonnet Ballroom, UTA Univ. Center
300 West First Street, Arlington
It only happens once a year
Flint Water Protectors!
Local Elected Officials in a Q&A!
Drones!
Lawyers! Scientists! Activists!
SCHEDULE
9:00- 9:30 am Morning Registration
9:45-10:45 am
Classroom #1
The Dos and Don't of Citizen Health Surveys
Leslie Allsop, University of Texas Health Science Center Classroom
Classroom #2
Using Science to Make Violations Stick
Tamera Bounds, Mansfield Gaswell Awareness and Downwinders at Risk, with Ranjana Bhandari of Livable Arlington
11:00 am – 12:00 Noon
Classroom#1
Citizen Monitoring of Drinking Water
Doug Carlton of UTA's C.L.E.A.R.
Classroon #2
State of the Air – An Asthma Forecast
Shammara Norris, Asthma Chasers
LUNCHTIME FORUM
12-1 pm
Catered Lunch
Local elected officials talk about protecting their quality of life goals in the face of state and federal opposition
Dallas County Commissioner Theresa Daniel
Dallas City Council Member Sandy Greyson
Fort Worth City Council Member Ann Zedah
1:15 -2:15 pm
Classroom#1
Fighting Environmental Permits in Texas
Ilan Levin, Attorney, Environmental Integrity Project
Classroom#2
Petition Rights: The Source of Citizen Power to Take Back Their Towns
Linda Curtis, Independent Texans
2:30 – 3:30 pm
Classroom#1
Strategy vs Tactics
Jim Schermbeck, Downwinders at Risk
Classroom#2
Door-to-Door Outreach
Corey Troiani, Texas Campaign for the Environment
3:45 – 4:45
Classroom #1
High Tech Tools for Citizens
Dr. David Lary, University of Texas @ Dallas, Doug Carlton, University of Texas @ Arlington, Jim Schermbeck, Downwinders at Risk
Classroom #2
How Flint was Exposed
Melissa Mays, Water You Fighting For and Nayyirah Shariff, Flint Rising
5:00 – 5:30
Air Sampling and Monitoring Drone Demonstration (weather permitting)
5:30
Happy Hour Networking
REGISTER HERE NOW
OR WALK-UP ON SATURDAY
(It's a secure Click and Pledge pay portal established just for this event, so the $35 registration is called a "donation." Just click on the $35 button and fill out the credit card info and you're done)
Do You Have an “After-March” Strategy for Change?
Three events this week can help make you a better activist…year round
– A high-level discussion about Civil Disobedience as a tactic for
social change
– A forum with Flint Activists on the front lines of the nation's best known
environmental justice fight
– A full day of skills and information workshops featuring local experts
and elected officials
Don't Miss These One-Of-A- Kind Opportunities
1. Get Inspired by Flint National Heroes Melissa Mays and Nayyirah Shariff.
These are the Lois Gibbs and ErinBrockovichs of our age.
Flint is our Love Canal.
This is their only stop in Texas.
You have TWO opportunities for quality time with them.
Thursday, Jan 26th, from 7 to 9 pm at the beautiful Mountain View Performance Hall, they'll be "Exposing the Poison Water and Toxic Government" that caused the Flint Scandal and then joining local lead activists from West Dallas and Frisco. This evening with them is free and open to the public.
On Saturday, January 28th at UTA as part of our 1-Day University Of Change they'll both be doing a workshop on "How Flint was Exposed." Limited seating to spend up close and personal time with national environmental justice heroes. Register here.
There are still arrests being made in Flint and Michigan because of this scandal. There is still a problem with lead in Dallas. Come hear why the two problems are connected.
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2. See the Public Premier of the Trailer for a New Film on Flint – "Bigger than Water" co-produced by Earth Day Texas
The same team that produced "Racing Extinction" is now turning its attention to the public health crisis in Flint. This is the first public showing of their trailer promoting "Bigger than Water," expected to be in theatrical release soon. It serves as an introduction to the Women from Flint, Thursday at 7 at the Mountain View Performance Hall.
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3. DRONES!
Come see the future of citizen air monitoring. If the weather holds, Cap't Dave Schafer from UTD's drone fleet will be giving a live demo flight right after the "High Tech Tools for Citizens" workshop at Saturday's 1-Day University of Change. In addition, he'll have the better part of his fleet on display during the day for you to look at up close. UTD's drones have been used in many air quality studies, including EDF's recent one in the Barnett Shale gas patch. Downwinders is working in collaboration with UTD to develop our own North Texas CLEAN Air Force drone capacity.
Register herefor the workshops and the drone demo on Saturday, January 28th, beginning at 9:30 am and ending by 5:30 – 6:00 pm.
(It's a secure Click and Pledge pay portal established just for this event, so the $35 registration is called a "donation." Just click on the $35 button, fill out the credit card info and you're done)
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4. ONE NIGHT ONLY: Sixty Years of Local Civil Disobedients on a Single Dallas Stage
Peter Johnson was there on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965.
Mavis Belisle organized what is still the single largest act of Civil Disobedience in Texas history at the Comanche Peak nuclear plant.
Cory Troiani and Ron Seifert have been on the front lines of the movement to stop new fossil fuel pipelines.
LaSadion Anthony is organizing local anti-police brutality protests that challenge the status quo AND traditional approaches to civil disobedience.
All of these remarkable people will be talking about how and when civil disobedience is used effectively – or not – after a screening of "Above All Else" about the East Texas Keystone Pipeline blockade. Be part of the discussion.
At the Angelika Theater @ Mockingbird and Central, Tuesday, January 24th 7 to 9 pm.
ABSOLUTELY FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
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5. Face Time with Local Elected Officials Who Actually Care About Quality of Life Goals
As part of our 1-Day University of Change on Saturday January 28th, we're hosting a special lunchtime discussion with local officials who've been outspoken in their defense of clean air and water, sustainability, and sane transportation options.
So far, Dallas County Commissioner Theresa Daniel and Dallas Council member Sandy Greyson have agreed to participate. This is your chance to ask them about local strategies to fight hostile state and federal governments and tell them what you think they should do.
Register for the 1-Day University of Change here. $35 for the whole day – includes lunch. (It's a secure Click and Pledge pay portal established just for this event, so the $35 registration is called a "donation." Just click on the $35 button, fill out the credit card info and you're done)
Why Flint Matters to Us: South Dallas “High” Lead Levels Six Times Above National Average
Discrimination can kill in lots of ways. In Dallas, one of the ways has been lead poisoning.
It may be hard to imagine now, but up until the mid-1980's there were three lead smelters operating right across the street from homes in Dallas. Those homes were all south of the Trinity River: in West Dallas and Cadillac Heights. Along with all the other things and people the city considered undesirable, the poor, the black, the Mexicans and the lead smelters were all squeezed in close to the Trinity River.
Lead contamination permeated the neighborhoods night and day, year-round. Smokestacks let loose tons of fine lead particles and other toxins directly into the air residents breathed – every day. The heavier particles created fallout zones where the soil built-up layers of lead in the ground – the same ground people were using to grow their own food. Because the lead smelters "recycled" old batteries by busting them open for their lead, the discarded pieces of contaminated battery casings were used for paving neighborhood streets or as fill, along with the cooked smelter waste "slag." Sometimes this waste was used for "agricultural supplements." Often it was just dumped in near-by vacant lots. West Dallas and Cadillac Heights residents employed by the smelters were covered were lead dust when they got home and played with their children. In doing their laundry, their spouses got exposed as well.
Smelters were not the only sources of lead poisoning. Household paint was doused in it and every car and truck ran on leaded gasoline. But none of these produced the dense clouds of lead, or the constant exposure to it across a variety of "pathways" that the operation of a neighborhood lead factory did. Thousands of African-American and Mexican-American families' lives, entire generations of Dallasites, were wrecked by the pollution from the smelters.
But the last of those smelters closed more than 30 years ago, so why is this ancient environmental justice history lesson important now? Because their legacy is still haunting Dallas neighborhoods.
Take a look at this story on lead contamination that the Reuters news agency recently did. It compares the results of child blood lead testing by Zip Codes across the country to the more alarming levels of lead in Flint. As it turns out, there are lots of places in the nation still suffering high rates of lead contamination – including Dallas. There's an interactive map that allows you to zoom in on a specific Zip Code and find out what percentage of the blood tests were considered "high."
Over 15% of the child blood tests in Dallas Zip Code 75215, the site of the two former Cadillac Heights smelters, were “high” for lead – as high,or higher than the lead levels of affected Flint residents. The Center for Disease Control estimates the national average is 2.5.%. In other words, South Dallas kids are suffering six times the national rate of severe lead poisoning. Residents in North Oak Cliff and West Dallas where RSR was located – 75208 and 75212 – had between 7 and 10% of their child blood tests come in as high or higher than Flint, or 3 to 4 times higher than the national average.
Yes, there's more older housing stock likely to still have lead paint in those neighborhoods, and yes, because of lack lf new development, the soil in those neighborhoods may still contain lead gasoline fallout. But it's more than just coincidence that, in 2017, these two predominantly minority communities still have the highest blood lead levels in their children of any Zip Codes in North Texas.
Lead is an insidious poison. It not only harms you physically with organ damage on many fronts, it also handicaps a person emotionally and intellectually. We know even low levels of lead exposures cause learning disabilities and anti-social behavior from the very beginning of life. There is now substantial evidence to believe lead exposure is directly tied to your chances of engaging in criminal behavior, that is, the more you're exposed to lead, the more likely it is you'll commit a crime. The explosive crime wave of the 1960's – 80s, along with the subsequent dramatic drop, tracks almost precisely with the peaks and decline in lead exposure among residents in urban America over that same period.
In creating lead pollution zones in minority neighborhoods around its smelters, Dallas condemned its black and brown residents to more than just physical hardships –they reshaped the entire culture and destiny of those communities. They made the children in these neighborhoods less likely to be able to learn and more likely to be arrested. What were interpreted as a pejorative cultural stereotypes by the White Establishment, were in fact the result of large-scale industrial poisoning by the White Establishment. Proximity to lead meant less options, less choices – because you started out with less, because the lead had robbed you of your potential even before you knew you had it. Once taken, it can never be given back. What kind of reparations can pay for that?
But this is a preventable fate. We can clean-up lead. We can take it out of the community. Out of the paint. Out of the soil. We can stop the stealing of souls by doing good old-fashioned remedial physical cleaning. It just takes the political power to bring that cleaning to West Dallas and Cadillac Heights.
This is one more reason why the visit of Flint activists Melissa Mays and Nayyirah Shariff is important. These women took it upon themselves to do their own testing, and then use those tests to organize a plan to quit being poisoned. The ways lead can reach inside of you are different in Flint than Dallas, but the result is the same. They have some valuable lessons about how to put the status quo on its heels. This is their first Texas trip. Come out and hear from two hardcore environmental justice advocates.
Recognizing its Black and Brown residents are up to six times more at risk of having high lead levels, Dallas should be more committed to getting the lead out. Failure to do so is just one more legacy of the institutional racism that still scars the city on MLK Day 2017. But it's a failure that can be remedied.
How Will You Spend Your First Week of Trump? The Root and Branch Revue Offers Lessons in Resistance
We've got the first three scheduled events for the 2017 version of our Root and Branch Revue nailed down for next month and they all offer a chance for you to contribute to the resistance of the anti-environmental, anti-democratic aganda of the Trump Administration, right out of the box:
Tuesday, January 24th
7-9 pm
Angelika Theater @Mockingbird
Film Screening and Panel Discussion
"When is Civil Disobedience Effective?"
FREE
Film Screening : "Above All Else" is a firsthand account of the dramatic 2012 East Texas Keystone XL Pipeline Blockade. What began as a stand by one landowner became a frontline action for the nationwide climate change movement. Many DFW residents participated in this action and some of them will be there at the Angelika on Tuesday.
Panel discussion afterward includes:
Mavis Belisle, veteran peace activist
Peter Johnson, veteran civil rights activist
Corey Toriani, East Texas Keystone Blockader
Moderated by Jim Schermbeck, Downwinders at Risk
Co-Sponsored by the Dallas Peace Center
Thursday, Janaury 26th
7-9 pm
Mountain View College Performance Hall
"Flint Comes to Dallas –
Or Is It Already Here?
An Evening with the Women Who Broke the Flint Scandal Wide Open
– and Their DFW peers
FREE
Featured Guests from Flint:
Melissa Mays – founder, "Water You Fighting for?" citizens group in Flint. Melissa is respsonsible for inviting scientists from Virginia Tech to do independent water testing in hundreds of households in Flint. Those test results are what finally made the government take notice of the largescale lead poisoning taking place in Flint.
Nayyiriah Shariff – an organizer for the Flint Democracy Defense League and an advisor to Black Lives Matter.
DFW residents who've fought their own local lead contamination fights:
Luis Sepulveda – founder, West Dallas Environmental Coaliton for Environmetnal Justice, former Justice of the Peace
Colette McCadden, co-founder, Frisco Unleaded
Moderator: Randy Lee Loftis: Texas Climate News, former Environmental Reporter for the Dallas Morning News. Mr. Lofits has written about the lead contmaination problem in West Dallas and Frisco for the Morning News, and more recently covered Flint for National Geopgraphic.
Saturday, January 28th
9:30 am to 5:30 pm
1-Day University of Change
Bluebonnet Ballroom
inside UTA's University Center
at the Arlignton Campus
A full day of skills and info workshops
with lunch included, for only $35!
Worshops Include:
Health Survey Dos and Don'ts
High Tech Tools for Citizens
Do-it-Yourself Water Testing
Basic Door-to Door Outreach
Petition Rights
Making Violations Stick
Fighting Permits in Texas
________________________________________________________________
Special lunchtime panel discussion among local elected officials:
"How Do Local Governments Protect Their Quality of Life Goals
in the Trump Era?"
Participants include Dallas County Commissioner Teresa Daniel and Dallas City Council Member Sandy Greyson with more to come.
Limited Seating. Register now for the 1-Day University of Change Here.
Be Where Your Feet Are
Dear Downwinders,
Based on position papers, advisors, and now job offers, it's hard to overestimate the harm to the environment that can and will be done by a Trump Administration. Your first response may be to already feel defeated by the enormity of the challenges now facing us.
Don't let those feelings get the best of you.
What happened on Election Day was unexpected, but history is always so.Consider the odds against a black man named Hussein winning the Presidency in 2008. The unpredictable nature of history is what gives us hope. This moment won't last. The future isn't written yet. Even now there are important tipping points waiting for you to make them happen. But you must show-up.
We don't say this as Pollyannas unschooled in the difficulties of working in a hostile political atmosphere. We say it BECAUSE we've worked in the political wilderness of Texas for over twenty years and won some of our biggest victories when awful political circumstances would tell you our chances ranged from slim to none.
Certainly there'll be national fights that have to be fought. Progress will be measured in how much we save as well as how much we advance. But the model of change Downwinders at Risk has followed since its founding, with its emphasis on local action, is more relevant than ever.
We were already committed to building more local movement "infrastructure" before the elections, but those efforts seem doubly important now.
Here are some examples of what we mean:
Our next "Root and Branch Revue" for environmental activists this coming January 24th-28th We're going to be screening a film, sponsoring discussions, and hosting workshops – all with the aim of making you a better activist. This year's featured guests will be the women from Flint, Michigan who exposed that public health scandal by doing their own water testing.
Our work in building the North Texas Air Research Consortium with local universities and municipalities This new high-tech network, co-founded by Downwinders, will provide the public with more and better information about air quality than either the state or federal government is even thinking about. Downwinders' part of this larger effort is our "North Texas CLEAN Air Force" that will use drones and sensors for mobile monitoring to fill data gaps, study specific facilities, or respond to accidents.
Our semester-long "College for Constructive Hell-Raising" Twice-a-month evening class from January to May that will offer intensive training in traditional community organizing techniques as well as an opportunity to hear stories from 50 years of social justice history in DFW. Our goal is to graduate students who will produce positive change across a variety of local issues and causes.
All of these efforts concentrate on building community among the like-minded, not just online, but in person. We need strong networks and good relationships with our peers to survive and thrive, so if you feel impotent to do much about DC or Austin, get out of the house and vote with your feet in your own backyard. This is where you can do the most good.
Here's a last unlikely scenario to consider:
A local group of environmentalists whose volunteer board membership never numbers more than a dozen, and who receive no national or state support, manages to not only survive for two decades, but fields the only full-time staff person devoted to clean air in DFW and becomes the leading protector of regional air quality, winning battles with sheer persistence as much as anything else.
That's the unexpected history that's happened because of support like yours in times like these. Please stick with us, and we promise we'll keep fighting for, and with, you.
You can make your secure online tax deductible contribution here, or send a check to PO Box 763844 Dallas, TX 75376.
Thanks for your continued support. See you in the New Year – and New Era.
Jim Schermbeck, Director
Tamera Bounds, Chair, Downwinders at Risk Education Fund
This is Your EPA. This is Your EPA on Trump…..
There's some commentary out there, including unfortunately from within the EPA itself, suggesting that a Trump administration can't undue much of the nation's environmental regulations, no matter how determined his appointees might be to do so; that things won't be as bad as you fear.
Don't buy it. It's exactly the kind of commentary that said Trump would never be elected in the first place.
This isn't W. This isn't even Reagan. There's no shared world view, or even a rhetorical fig leaf devoted to the need for environmental protection. It's ISIS about to invade and systematically blow-up the nation's environmental safeguards because they don't believe in them. The Clean Air Act is a false idol. The Clean Water Act is blasphemy against an unfettered market. They must be demolished.
Reassurances to the contrary, there are lots of ways to make sure EPA doesn't work. You don't have to repeal the Clean Air Act to make it impotent. As Grover Norquist commented, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
Citizens know in the best of times, it's a chore to make the government enforce what's on the books. Imagine no interest at all in enforcement by EPA, where you still have federal regulations but their implementation is left entirely up to states, cities, or environmental groups. No money for attorneys or staff. All work out-sourced to contractors who are also getting paid by the polluters they're now regulating.
Imagine EPA's scientific panels filled with Michael Honeycutts, the TCEQ's own professional apologist. There's not only no such thing as Climate Change, there's no such thing as smog. Or if there is, it turns out to be good for you!
Over the weekend, reports surfaced of the Trump people literally taking names of EPA employees who've been directly involved in climate change work. He's not even president yet, but he already putting together an environmental enemies list.
Staid observers are counting on bureaucratic inertia to help maintain business-as-usual. But these people are underestimating both the zeal and the intent of the new gang. They're here to destroy, not carry-on. Illusions to the contrary can only facilitate the destruction.
Wondering How to Respond? Look to Reagan-Era AIDS Activists
At first blush it might seem strange to recommend Trump-era environmentalists undertake a crash course on Reagan-era AIDS activism, but this review of David France's book in the Washington Post makes a good case.
Frances' “How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS" is based on the 2012 documentary of the same name. Faced with political opposition based on cultural shaming at the highest levels of government using ideological fig leafs, the LGBT community in the 1980's had to fight for the very scientific legitimacy of the disease itself. It then had to organize its own treatment, and fight to fund new research. It had to fight the idea of AIDS as a "gay curse," educate about the new threat to everyone, and remind mainstream America the problem was closer than just the nearest gay bar downtown.
To some of us, that's a pretty good description of the war against climate change activism we find ourselves confronting now.
Just like AIDS deniers, there are climate change deniers. They don't even want to grant the most important fate-changing phenomenon of our times the legitimacy of reality.
At this point opposition to climate change is more cultural than political. It's a middle finger to the pointy-headed scientists and government regulators just looking to make a buck off selling the End of the World.
In the 1980's, survival of the LGBT community motivated a spectrum of responses to an uncharitable status quo. To paraphrase Dr. Johnson, death has a way of focusing the mind. Everything from civil disobedience, to traditional lobbying, to the improbable idea of a giant silent quilt bearing profound testimony on the National Mall. Activists had to fight to even get on the radar of Big Science and Big Government. They did their own science and their own organizing. And from those contentious times grew something remarkable that would flourish and lead to the current status quo – marriage equality, anti-discrimination laws, huge national boycotts pushing back against attempts to re-institutionalize prejudice.
Here's the nut graph of the piece:
"The book is also something of a how-to manual for activism. ACT UP agitators shut down the FDA, blocked access to drugmakers’ buildings, and even placed an enormous condom over Helms’s house. Their efforts built new and lasting bridges among activists, scientists and policy wonks while establishing a blueprint for social change. France was emphatic when he told me that the lesson from the AIDS era is a sweeping one: Against all odds, he declared, “empowerment and victory are possible.” That’s an important one to recall at the dawn of a Trump administration."
Survival is on the line again but there's a President-elect already on record as saying climate change is a hoax. What's the appropriate responses to such a basic level of uncomprehension? We're about to find out, but maybe we could save some time by going back and absorbing the lessons of the people who knew what it was like to fight with everything on the line and no friends in high places.