Two Perspectives on J. Robert Oppenheimer

Like the two images in a stereoscope, the subject is the same person in both views. The source materials are largely the same. 

American Prometheus is focused on the personalities of the physicists. Life in the Center goes into the development of quantum theory and JRO’s role in that. It was as a physicist in the 1920s and 1930s that Oppenheimer earned his reputation and the respect of the colleagues who later endorsed his leadership of the Manhattan Project and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton.

Robert Oppenheimer: 

A Life Inside the Center by Ray Monk, 

Anchor 2014. 

The value judgments of the authors are necessarily similar though somewhat different. In 200 years, we advanced from Wheatstone’s viewer to the IMAX, but the overwhelming projection of a huge flat image does not replicate the immersive experiences of hours, years, or decades. In quantum theory it is known that indeterminacy cannot be overpowered with two repetitions of the same experiment because they will not be the same experiment. Delivered in two books or a hundred, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s emotions and intellect, motives and motivations, virtues and foibles, must separately explicable while remaining collectively indeterminate. The important questions are: Would you want him for a colleague, or a supervisor, or a neighbor or an in-law; as collaborator or a competitor; a teacher or a student? He was all of those though to different people at different times and no two matrices of data can be the same as received then and there, or here and now. It remains that he was not a sphynx, neither the silent Egyptian nor the deceptive Greek. At some junctures he was one or the other—and other times, he was something completely different. 

“The Institute is an interesting paradise. But in an ideal society, when you remove all the everyday frictions, the frictions that are created to take their place are so much more cruel.” Verna Hobson quoted in Monk, Life Inside the Center, page 338. 

American Prometheus:
The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer 
by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
Vintage, 2006.

The decades of conflict between Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss were as inevitable as the civil wars of Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar—and Brutus. The movie version of American Prometheus trivializes that clash of personalities. Strauss hated Oppenheimer for several reasons starting with their competition to head the Institute for Advanced Studies. In the opening gambit, Oppenheimer acquired a rental home for someone else, blocking Strauss’s acquisition, apparently knowing fully that Strauss wanted to be near the institute which intended to head. In addition, Strauss was politically conservative. Moreover, as Oppenheimer was often insensitive to other people, Strauss was extremely sensitive to other people and their perception of him. Being embarrassed (humiliated, in his view) by Oppenheimer at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing may have been the nadir of their relationship, but it was not the last point below the horizon. 

According to Monk, even Edward Teller was impressed with JRO’s leadership. That they disagreed on other subjects did not alter his view of those facts. Teller was a scientist. That was true of all of them: their feelings were not as important to themselves or to each other individually as were the verifiable theories and substantiated facts, including what makes a good academic department chair. 

Everyone had ideas and theories and experiments but Oppenheimer seemed less willing to forcefully put forward his own because he was critical of them. That self-critical judgment allowed the other physicists to trust him as a leader of perhaps the most complex human achievement to that time. Regardless of whether Teller was right about the practicality and desirability of the hydrogen bomb, Teller could not have run Manhattan. Lawrence wanted the job, but Manhattan was far more than a very large academic laboratory. Everyone knew that about themselves and each other. That was why they endorsed J. Robert Oppenheimer as director of the Manhattan Project.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Genius 

Physics for Astronomers: the Works of Steven Weinberg 

The Legacy of Vannevar Bush 

Simply Dirac by Helge Kragh

SEVEN DAYS IN MAY

In my early teens, growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, I was a regular reader of Fletcher Knebel’s political humor column, Potomac Fever, which ran in The Plain Dealer. So, when the film version of Seven Days in May was recommended to me recently, I knew the reference although I had neither read the book nor viewed the movie. My interlocutor had just watched the film, and on the eve of President Trump’s Flag Day 2025 birthday parade found it disturbing. “What if those 60,000 troops don’t go home?” I have since read the book and watched the movie.

You might think that it can’t happen here or maybe you think that it already has. Fascism’s militaristic vestments notwithstanding, like Communism, it is a civilian republican theory of government. While military rule survives in some nations today, the rise of republicanism after the Enlightenment made it exceptional for the head of state to be the active commander of the armed forces. (The powers and duties of the President are defined in Article II Section 2 of the Constitution.)  

The last significant example of a head of state commanding an army in the field was Louis Napoleon III of France who was captured by the Prussians at Sedan in 1870. Previously, Napoleon III had successfully commanded the French at the Battle of Solferino; the army of their ally, Piedmont-Sardinia, was commanded by Vittorio Emanuele II, later king of the newly unified Italy. Significantly, no emperors were in the field for World War I.

George Washington defined the paradigmatic corollary of a general (or admiral) becoming the head of state through civilian electoral process. Of the 45 US Presidents only 14 had no prior military service. The two short lists of exceptions  run: Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Roosevelt; and then: Clinton, Obama, Biden, and Trump. 

When I read the book, the characters seemed unreal to me until I removed myself and accepted that the authors were accomplished journalists and therefore, these portrayals were derived from their own experiences, being composites or sketches of actual people. My personal experience had been that in public you call a colonel “Colonel” rather than “Jiggs” no matter how well you know them. Clearly, the previous age was a different time. 

As to whether a military coup d’etat could happen here, this story may have been influenced by the events in France in 1961, with over thirty attempts on the life of Charles de Gaulle, a military putsch in Algeria, and the threat of civil war within metropolitan France. 

“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” 

— Charles de Gaulle.

As for the storyline of the conspiracy itself, it seemed to me that the refusal of the Chief of Naval Operations to go along would have required his removal and replacement by the conspirators. They could not have moved forward while lacking one of the other Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

The President’s summary speeches in front of the White House reporters for the major news media also encapsulated another problem with the tale, in effect asking rhetorically, “What was their plan for the day after tomorrow?” Once you have captured and isolated the President and Vice President, then what? The Constitution has no provision for that. The order of succession was fixed by law, but in this story, the generals did not intend to install the Speaker of the House. They intended to rule directly by martial law. How and when they intended to stop ruling was never clear in the story. 

That  raises the deeper question of whether and to what extent the People would accept military rule. The movie version did show Gen. James M. Scott being wildly popular among some factions, especially at a mass rally of  the American Veterans Organization. The cinema version opened with a scuffle between pro-Gen. Scott and pro-Pres. Lyman supporters picketing the White House. It is easy to transpose that to January 6, 2021. Following the dreamland fantasy in which the rioters succeeded in hanging Vice President Mike Pence, certifying their own election results, declaring Donald Trump the President, following which he rides down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol and assumes office—then what? How long could that situation have remained stable? 

If Seven Days in May echoed the crisis in France, that model depended specifically on the personality of Charles de Gaulle, who had been a public literary figure and a charismatic politician within the military even before World War I. Of Gen. James M. Scott, we had only a sketchy portrait of a decorated air ace. In the book, more context was developed to set the story a few years in its future, from 1963 to 1972, following a military failure in Iran and its partitioning. To me, that was not enough to sell Gen. Scott to the reader as the Man of the Hour, though in the book, the line is offered that every twenty years, we seek a man on a white horse.

It Can’t Happen Here

It Has Happened Here

In our world of 1968, Gov. George Wallace received 46 electoral votes. That was perhaps the only modern challenge to mainstream politics until the ascendency of Donald Trump. Wallace’s choice of Gen. Curtis LeMay as his running mate was problematic on several grounds and did little to help the campaign. (See Wikipedia on the 1968 Wallace campaign.) Furthermore, it is salient that Donald Trump’s vice president was, indeed, the very person who refused to certify his 2020 election and thereby became a target for the January 6 rioters, perhaps personifying the distinction between traditionalist and populist conservatism in America. 

Contrary to the plot of Sinclair Lewis’s warning, the actual attempt at a fascist coup in America came not from a populist groundswell but from a Wall Street cabal, the 1933 "Business Plot." Now, our hillbilly Vice President starred at Yale Law School and worked for a venture capital firm before entering Ohio politics. So, comparisons and contrasts are at once parallel and skew, depending on your perspective. And four dimensions might not be enough for an accurate projection onto our political Flatland. 

The State of Texas just enacted a law to require that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom. It was quickly challenged in court by self-identified Christian leaders. 

In other news, the State House and Senate passed a new bill to ban marijuana gummies and drinks and the Governor vetoed it, calling them back into session to write a law that can be enforced to the benefit of the State via taxes and regulation.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Book Review: Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” 

I Stopped Listening to NPR 

The GOP as Pushy Beggars 

Morality and the Philosophy of Science 

Against Gulching 

Where are the Augurs?

Originally, the Romans were seven hilltop villages under Etruscan domination. The nominally Roman deities Minerva, Mercury, and Vulcan were Etruscan. The Romans eventually ascended, absorbing their Tuscan, Latin, Samnite, and Greek neighbors.

The words in red come from Latin. This is based on a poster
in a classroom at Lincoln High School in Cleveland where
Nida Glick taught Latin for many years before my time.
(During WWII, she was a cryptologist. See her biography at
 https://www.military.com/coast-guard/lt-cmdr-nida-glick-uscgr.html )

The Roman Senate was only the topmost assembly. While the Roman Senate was culturally conservative, it also could be fickle when making and repealing laws. As the republic matured over decades, lifetimes, and centuries, young men ascended through increasingly responsible (and therefore powerful) appointments in public service. Being the moneyer for two years let you get your name out there for people to see, typically by honoring the public service of an ancestor.

 

Jean-Antoine Houdon's George Washington (left)
and Horatio Greensnborough's George Washington (right).
Washington was called "The Father of His Country" by
people who had been educated to read Latin.

When political conservatives insist that we are a republic and not a democracy, they are glossing over some contextual facts. It is true that in the Athenian assembly citizens voted directly—and they could change their collective minds. If a law remained in force, it was transcribed from painted words on wood to being carved in stone. It is also true, though, that the assembly voted to install officials in charge of the harbor, the mint, etc. On the other hand, Rome had a different tradition. 

 

Imperial Rome continued the fiction of being a republic and not a kingdom. The emperor (imperator: military commander-in-chief) was the “first citizen” and one of two consuls, and often granted the title “father of his country. ” Around the head on the obverses of many denarius coins of the empire the abbreviation PP stands for Pater Patriae: father of his country. But it refers to a deeper tradition of privilege (privis + legis = private law), when the senior elder of a family held life-and-death ownership over everyone on the farm. 

The coins of Roman emperors also give their years of consulship: COS III, for example, meaning that the Senate had re-elected them to their third term of office. Silver coins generally came from the private holdings of the imperator. The Senate issued the official copper coins of the government. The abbreviation SC meant Senatus Consulto. 

Copper sestertius of Marcus Aurelius.
Minerva with Owl and S C.

Some political conservatives claim to be Constitution originalists who insist that today we should return the intentions of 1789. At that time, political parties were private associations, not public institutions. Even when parties first erupted, conservative Anglophile Federalists versus liberal Francophile Republicans, the Vice President and President were elected separately and could be from different parties. 

This one-ounce silver commemorative issued by the
U.S. Mint would have spoken well to ancient Romans
with both the personification Libertas and the eagle of Jupiter  
carrying olive branches and its mottoes and legends: 
Liberty, United States,
E Pluribus Unum.
The numerals would be foreign to them
but they could sound out the letters.

Today, the VP is still the President of the Senate but seldom sits there, giving over the daily work to a president pro tempore, chosen by the Senate. You have to wonder what life would be like with President Donald Trump and President of the Senate Kamala Harris. President Harris (her proper title under the original Constitution) would vote as a senator in case of tie balloting. 

 

Previously on Necessary Facts

Etruscans and Americans 

The Cure for a Failing Empire 

Tycoon Dough is Democratic 

The Mercury Dime 

Lack of Religion is not the Presence of Science

Recent polls from the Pew Trust and Gallup assert that 30% of Americans self-identify as Not Religious along the spectrum from Atheist to Do Not Attend Services, even as 60% of Americans say that God created us directly or may guide our evolution. Moreover, a Marist poll commissioned by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History revealed that 17% of college graduates believe that the Earth goes around the Sun in one day.

"Measuring Religion in Pew Research Center's
American Trends Panel" 
Pew Research Center 14 January 2021 

"Science Knowledge Quiz" 
Pew Research Center
28 March 2019

Richard Hofstadter found the source of our anti-intellectual tradition in Jacksonian Democracy of the late 1820s, after the passing of the Revolutionary generation. (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on 4 July 1826.) Entrenched ignorance is a tradition running 200 years. Granted that exceptions stand out. 

 

https://maristpoll.marist.edu/cleveland-museum-of-natural-history-survey/

James A. Garfield is credited with an original proof of the Pythagorean Theorem in 1876, but it had little to do with his election to the Presidency in 1880. Woodrow Wilson served as president of Princeton University. Herbert Hoover earned his degree in mining engineering from Stanford (1895). Although Jimmy Carter completed a degree in nuclear engineering at the US Naval Academy, John F. Kennedy was the last president who could be called an intellectual. 

 

Nearly 3 in 10 Doubt Leaders Value Scientific Expertise
https://news.gallup.com/topic/science.aspx

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Why Evidence is not Enough

The Science of Liberty 

The Success of the Weird People 

Gregory M. Browne’s Necessary Factual Truths 

 

 

You Have No Right ...

Following the logic of the U.S. Supreme Court in its recent “abortion” decision (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), although you do have an explicit right to bear and keep arms, you have no implied right to a bulletproof vest. You have a First Amendment guarantee to publish whatever you want, but no implied right to read whatever you want. Because nothing in the Sixth or Seventh Amendments defines how many people are empaneled on a jury one person can be a jury. The list goes on.

 

These are among the many specious arguments put forward by the Court: 

The Constitution makes no express reference to a right to obtain an abortion, but several constitutional provisions have been offered as potential homes for an implicit constitutional right. Roe held that the abortion right is part of a right to privacy that springs from the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. See 410 U. S., at 152–153. The Casey Court grounded its decision solely on the theory that the right to obtain an abortion is part of the “liberty” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Others have suggested that support can be found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, but that theory is squarely foreclosed by the Court’s precedents, which establish that a State’s regulation of abortion is not a sex-based classification and is thus not subject to the heightened scrutiny that applies to such classifications.

[...]

The Court finds that the right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition. The underlying theory on which Casey rested—that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause provides substantive, as well as procedural, protection for “liberty”—has long been controversial.

The Court’s decisions have held that the Due Process Clause protects two categories of substantive rights—those rights guaranteed by the first eight Amendments to the Constitution and those rights deemed fundamental that are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.

[...]

Finally, the Court considers whether a right to obtain an abortion is part of a broader entrenched right that is supported by other precedents. The Court concludes the right to obtain an abortion cannot be justified as a component of such a right. Attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy and to define one’s “concept of existence” prove too much. Casey, 505 U. S., at 851. Those criteria, at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.

Syllabus, DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, No. 19–1392. Argued December 1, 2021—Decided June 24, 2022.

In the logic of the court, because extra-marital and non-marital relationships have no historic support in US law, they can be outlawed today (or tomorrow). By the last sentence above, the fact that a substance is ruled "illegal" by legislation closes your right to challenge that law. The justices of the Supreme Court may know prostitution when they see it. I am not sure how it is different from "dinner and a movie" -- or marriage. 

 

You have no right to leave the United States or to travel within them. 

 

Just as medical devices are regulated and their ownership, possession, and use are controlled by law, so, too can any instrument or tool be circumscribed: electrophoresis, polymerase chain reactions, spectroscopes, microscopes, telescopes, radios, televisions, … In fact, radios have almost 100 years of regulation around them and nothing in the Constitution or US history establishes your right to a radio (television, computer). 

Whether a computer is a “press” would be an argument before a Court that seems well disposed to limiting any claims not supported by explicit text in the original documents of 1789 or 1868. 

Can a state require the licensing of a musical instrument?  

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

 

AMENDMENT XIV

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The 14th Amendment notwithstanding, states had laws against marriages across racial lines.  (Personally, I find no scientific evidence for the existence of "race" as a characteristic of human beings. Most of the rest of the world seems to disagree with me.)

“The first ever anti-miscegenation law was passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 1691, criminalizing interracial marriage. In a speech in Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln stated, "I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people". By the late 1800s, 38 US states had anti-miscegenation statutes. By 1924, the ban on interracial marriage was still in force in 29 states. While interracial marriage had been legal in California since 1948, in 1957 actor Sammy Davis Jr. faced a backlash for his relationship with a white woman, actress Kim Novak. In 1958, Davis briefly married a black woman, actress and dancer Loray White, to protect himself from mob violence. 

“In 1958, officers in Virginia entered the home of Richard and Mildred Loving and dragged them out of bed for living together as an interracial couple, on the basis that "any white person intermarry with a colored person"— or vice versa—each party "shall be guilty of a felony" and face prison terms of five years. In 1967 the law was ruled unconstitutional (via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868) by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws

In a statement of sheer ignorance, Vice President Kamala Harris told NPR: “This [Dobbs v. Jackson] is the first time in the history of our country that the United States Supreme Court has taken a constitutional right that was recognized …” (Interview with Asma Khalid 28 June 2022 here.) It absolutely was not. To be generous, let us allow that Vice President Harris misspoke.

 

It was the law of the land that no Asian could become a US citizen. That fact was cited by “the great dissenter” Justice John Marshall Harlan in his reply to the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling affirming racial segregation. Harlan noted that by law, an Asian, who could not become a citizen would be allowed to ride in a railway carriage with White people, though a Colored person, born here, an Army veteran, perhaps, could not. 

World War I US Army veteran Bhagat Thind Singh was denied his citizenship. The Court affirmed that racially, as an Aryan, Singh was “White” but that to the common man of America, he was an Asian and therefore ineligible for citizenship. 

 

In 1935, Jehovah’s Witness Christians in Minersville, Pennsylvania, refused to salute the flag in a pledge of allegiance ceremony. They were expelled from school. In 1940, the Supreme Court upheld the decision: Minersville School District v. Gobitis. Freedom of religion is not absolute, the Court said, but is subsidiary to the need for national unity and therefore national defense. That decision was overturned in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). 

The fact remains - contrary to the opinion of the Vice President - that SCOTUS has taken away rights from people.

While the First Amendment promises freedom of religion, there is no explicit right to freedom from religion. While the Federal government is barred from establishing a national religion, states can and have (Massachusetts and Virginia) had their own government-supported churches. 

 

About 30 years ago, it occurred to me that if abortion takes a human life and is therefore murder, then a miscarriage must be manslaughter. I am pretty sure that I offered it as an argument to libertarians and progressives at social gatherings and was met with blank stares. It seems to have sunk in. (NPR here: Losing a pregnancy could land you in jail in post-Roe America.) You would have to prove that you were not negligent, that you obtained pre-natal care and followed the regimen prescribed for you. Absent that, you are negligent. 

I do not understand why "a State’s regulation of abortion is not a sex-based classification" except, perhaps, because men are also prohibited from terminating their pregnancies, just as the rich and poor alike are forbidden to sleep under bridges. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

The GOP as Pushy Beggars 

Tycoon Dough is Democratic 

Ayn Rand versus Conservatives 

The Science of Liberty

Crimes Against Logic: Exposing Bogus Arguments 

 

Austin’s Homeless: Laissez Faire in a Mixed Economy

Here in Austin, Texas, the reductio ad absurdum of the city government’s policies toward the homeless is that you (and all your friends) can take over any public space for your own use. The city council and mayor have declared de facto privatization. I want a school. They are not being used now and I can make good use of one. Once in, I will be hard to extricate because schools are defensible fortresses. (See, for example, The Girl Who Owned a City.) Perhaps you would like a park or a sports arena. Just find one that is not being used and make yourself a home. 

 

Menchaca and Ben White Jan 2020 and June 2020 

Austin Statesman

City Council rescinds measures that critics say criminalize homelessness

By Elizabeth Findell 

Posted Jun 21, 2019 at 3:36 AM

Updated Jun 21, 2019 at 6:14 PM

 

The Austin City Council early Friday rescinded city prohibitions on sitting or sleeping in public and panhandling — measures social advocates said wrongly criminalized homelessness — after hours of emotional testimony from passionate residents on both sides of the issue.

 

The decisions, made after 2 a.m. during a meeting that started at 10 a.m., capped a long day of intense discussion surrounding several homelessness-related votes at City Hall.

 

https://www.statesman.com/news/20190621/city-council-rescinds-measures-that-critics-say-criminalize-homelessness

 

Ben White opposite Target Then 

Summary of Changes to the Ordinances

On October 17, 2019, the City Council made several revisions to the city ordinance that prohibits camping in public areas.  Other ordinances, including those prohibiting obstruction on sidewalks in the downtown area and aggressive confrontation, remain unchanged.  The ordinance changes went into effect on October 28, 2019.

https://www.austintexas.gov/department/council-direction-and-policy

 

The Texas Tribune

Greg Abbott says TxDOT could remove homeless camps from Austin's highway underpasses

BY DAVIS RICH OCT. 18, 2019

 

The governor has vowed to use state resources to clear Austin's homeless residents from public spaces since city officials began changing local ordinances dictating where people can and can't camp.

 

Gov. Greg Abbott's office said Friday the Texas Department of Transportation could force homeless Austin residents out from under bridges and overpasses where some of them live or camp if recent changes to city ordinances don't result in less feces and fewer needles by Nov. 1.

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2019/10/18/greg-abbott-says-txdot-will-remove-austin-homeless-under-highways/

Ben White opposite Target Now 

 

KVUE-TV (ABC)

After more downtown stabbings, Abbott says Austin's 'reckless' policies on homelessness 'must end now'

Author: Drew Knight, Luis de Leon

Published: 5:16 PM CST January 24, 2020

Updated: 8:16 AM CST January 25, 2020

AUSTIN, Texas — After a series of Downtown Austin stabbings overnight left three people injured, Gov. Greg Abbott released a pointed statement for the Austin City Council on Friday.

"City of Austin leaders have allowed lawlessness throughout the capital city that is resulting in violence against Austin residents, including those who are homeless," Gov. Abbott said in a statement released to KVUE. "Last night’s tragedy, leaving three injured, is just the most recent instance of this violence. This rise in violence has corresponded with the revocation of the camping ban that the Austin City Council passed in June. Public endangerment and murder can no longer be tolerated because of the actions – and inactions – by City officials. Mayor Adler and the city council should re-instate the camping ban and restore the rule of law in Austin. The City’s gamble on these reckless policies has been a loser and must end now."

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/gov-abbott-calls-austin-homeless-policy-reckless-after-stabbings/269-fe1bd9ab-d65b-4cff-a013-3edb295c4c1f

 

Fox-7 TV

Gov. Abbott working to override Austin homeless camping ordinance

By Steven Sarabia 

Published February 7 [2020]

Homeless Crisis FOX 7 Austin

While talking about Austin's homeless issues Wednesday, Abbott said on Twitter, "Next step should be to reinstate the ban on camping and work with non-profit organizations to assist with shelters. That's exactly what I will ask the Texas Legislature to do."

https://www.fox7austin.com/news/gov-abbott-working-to-override-austin-homeless-camping-ordinance

Wikipedia provided this definition from the Communist Party of Texas

LUMPENPROLETARIAT - German for "rag proletariat." Generally unemployable people who make no positive contribution to an economy. Sometimes described as the bottom layer of a capitalist society. May include criminal and mentally unstable people. Some activists consider them "most radical" because they are "most exploited," but they are un-organizable and more likely to act as paid agents than to have any progressive role in class struggle.  See https://www.cp-texas.org/glossary

 

Previously on NecessaryFacts

 

Workers’ Paradise Promised an End to Money 

Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny 

Karl Marx and the Dustbin of History 

Furloughs for Freedom: Downsizing Government 

Toxic Leadership