New life plan: Live until I’m 90, so I can see the world make any progress at all
I’m going to have to be very patient. It’s more than waiting just four years, which will indeed be a long four years. The consequences of the Supreme Court especially will stall any societal progress for 50+ years. So I really will have to wait until the 2070s…
Still trying to make sense of all this. Once upon a time, I had hope. I’m not a naturally optimistic person, but there were rational reasons. Real signs. Basically, there was a narrative that Bernie Sanders was this generation’s Barry Goldwater. Although he lost, he inspired a new generation which would signal a shift in governing philosophy over the coming decades . These things take time. In the past it was Goldwater’s failed 1964 presidential campaign that signalled the end of the Roosevelt era, and solidified in the 1980s when Reagan was triumphant, and then Reaganism basically defined the next 40 years no matter who was in office.
Well, now it’s very clear now that Sanders is not the future, despite polling young voters or whatever. It’s MAGA that is going to set the defining tone for the next four to five decades.
It’s such a shame, because there are serious problems with the world due to neoliberal economic policies. And the only remedy is to bring back what worked in the New Deal era, as democratic socialist countries have already proven themselves around the world to have the highest standard of living, it truly is the only path to fixing anything. Unions, higher wages, environmental regulations, labor rights, minority rights, police brutality, housing costs, education costs, all those issues!
And yet now we are on a path to make every single one of those far, far worse. A second Gilded Age, with even more income inequality than the first. Historians note that rising inequality is a major sign of civilizations falling. So apparently, when these problems worsen it just causes people to become more bitter and aggrieved, blaming marginalized groups for why they can’t afford to live, and whining about niche ‘woke’ issues, and generally pushing the Overton Window further and further to the bigoted right.
Why does it have to be this way? There is an international trend that all over the world incumbent parties have lost due to voters being mad about inflation. Just goes to show how irrational voters are, since right-wing governments with austerity had it worse, but whoever is in charge gets blamed and most don’t look at what’s happening around the world.
It’s so crazy how random history is—he lost in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then he won in 2024 because of the pandemic-caused inflation.
With all the hindsight over the election and the campaigning, shoulda been more left or shoulda been more centre, nobody really knows what might have been. Biden was a risk in 2020, but it seemed to have paid off that time. Then it turned out not to work well. He probably should have withdrawn earlier and allowed a primary, but then who knows maybe it was inevitable that the opposition party would win. Or maybe it’s simply sexism that doomed America. Debates and ridiculous shitshow of a campaign and a billion dollars wasted, none of it seemed to matter in the end.
(I just wish so much he went away in 2020, and at least it would have been a normal Republican destined to win now. But normal Republicans are essentially extinct.)
Misinformation online also seems to be a huge factor in why the world is getting crazier. Social media completely ruining the very concept of objective reality. It even appears that the youngest generation isn’t getting more progressive, as earlier assumed, but rather are influenced by far right podcast bros. This misogyny is only going to cause more social unrest as young women go in the other direction and resentment will build up even more.
The 21st century, frankly, sucks. The second half of the 20th century, for all its problems, did have quality of life steadily improve with each generation. Now it is going backwards, by every metric from income to lifespans, and it’s going to continue to go backwards. There’s very little reason to have any hope.
And the goddamn climate. We’ve all given up. We are a society gone mad. Leaving the Paris accords, denying reality. Rising temperatures are becoming increasingly obvious, we are all feeling it, and we do nothing but vote in science deniers. Absolute madness.
Sigh, it’s so frustrating. It’s like the world we live in is a badly written story. There’s no Karma. No arcs. All those scandals, all those laws broken, the indictments and felonies and proven sexual assault. It doesn’t matter.I was stupid enough to believe that there was a trend towards justice, that problematic old men get theirs in the end, and the gross far right had kept losing elections since 2018 so that seemed like a rational take. But looks like all that was happening was normalization.
Turns out, #MeToo and Black Lives Matter did not have the biggest impact on history. Old-fashioned bigotry was the future after all. Herein Elon Musk gets to destroy government services, RFK Jr gets to destroy healthcare, all those horrible trolls online get to feel vindicated. Furthermore, expect AI slop to grow even more prevalent on a dead internet devoid of truth, as Zuckerberg said himself.
It’s certainly possible, even extremely likely, that the economy will implode and Democrats will win a trifecta in 2028. But by then, I believe, it will be too late. The opposition party, already corporatized and lame, will be pushed rightwards. There will be no going back. It will be too hard. And no revolution rebooting the system either. The damage will simply be permanent.
No one is going to save us.
Personally, I never wanted to believe in the Great Man theory of history. It gives individuals too much credit. But it looks undeniable now that it’s his world, that fucker, and we’re just living in it.
So, who knows what exactly will be, but for me it’s going to have to be a lesson in patience. If I am to have any sense of optimism, it will be for the very long-term. I will wait out the next 50 years, see if I can experience some progress in my lifetime, and then at 90-something I’ll allow myself to have hope again…
It has to be said that is a personal story. While also rooted in the context of tragic current events, ultimately this is simply my own perspective based on my life. That’s all I can ever claim expertise over, in the end. So this essay is not meant to be an argument over what anyone else should do.
Therefore, let me begin at the beginning. I was born in Israel in the 1980s, so I’m told, and I left as a baby. I have no memory of this (which is much of the point, see below). My parents were both immigrants and not native to the region, and they had the idea to immediately go back to my father’s country of America soon after my sister and I came along.
This left me with dual citizenship. Technically. But practically, I’ve only ever been American. I grew up in America, I am an American. That’s how it works. All my formative memories are of Indiana and Ohio, and later of California. Although there’s much I would have preferred to have happened differently in my childhood, geographical speaking I’m generally grateful about where I grew up.
I did take remedial Hebrew school as a child, had a bar mitzvah, along with all those kinds of typical Jewish experiences. While now I don’t feel much of a connection to those rituals as an adult, I am okay with having had these cultural touchstones even if it didn’t have much of a lasting impact. It was fine. I recall the JCC after school, that “aleph bet vet” song, Passover dinners with extended family, and sometimes going to synagogue which was extremely boring. Everybody comes from somewhere, and there certainly is value in being part of a community and holding on to some traditions. As long as it doesn’t harm others, to each their own, and it’s totally acceptable if that’s what my dad and various relatives were into. Today, however, I’m smarter, I’m an adult, and I know I do not need any religion in my life. My ethnicity is Jewish, but my belief system is happily atheist. That’s my thing, secular humanism represents my values for a fair and just society, and I’m good with that.
Way back in the 2000s, as a young man, I went to Israel on more than one occasion. Went on a school trip, visited family, etc. I never had any problem using an American passport. Maybe it’s because the system wasn’t digitized back then, I don’t know. I certainly had no intention of getting drafted into the military, and have always felt absolutely no allegiance to the Israeli government. Why would I? It’s always been a strange place to me and I was only ever a visitor…
Then, it was sometime in the 2010s, when I was on another family visit and they told me at the airport that I was in trouble. The officials at customs said that I had to go to some office and fill out various bureaucratic paperwork, or else they wouldn’t even allow me to leave.
“You’re not American. You’re Israeli.” I remember feeling rather offended by that.
The very last time I had to take one of these trips, it was after COVID, and it had been too long since I’d seen my family who live there today. I gave in this time, and had to go and get the passport beforehand. Just more bureaucracy to do. I didn’t want it. I didn’t like it. But I simply needed it, and it represented no ideology or big statement from me. It was simply a pragmatic solution to a problem.
But I knew I would never live there, and it turned out I would never use this passport again.
On Anti-Semitism
Anyway, it’s probably necessary in this piece to acknowledge genuine anti-Semitism. I am a progressive, and it goes without saying that I am against racism. It’s a serious problem in the world, as hate crimes for all groups have gotten worse while the digital nature of media today seems to make humanity grow more tribal and more terrible.
And when it comes to criticisms of Zionism, and the endless back and-forth debate (which is, certainly, often in bad faith), there is the issue of whether or not anti-Zionism counts as anti-Semitism. Of course it is definitionally not the same thing. And at the same time, I must concede that there are times when anti-Zionism does overlap with racism. It’s obvious that happens, a lot, especially in certain corners. There are many who get over-the-top when it comes to the subject of Israel, and it doesn’t take long to just glance at the internet and see so much hate disguised as legitimate political debate.
That being said, it’s also a convenient excuse for rightist Zionists and rabid nationalists to dismiss any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. This is simultaneously another thing that happens very often happens. It happens constantly.
Where we are now as a society, is that terms like Zionism and anti-Semitism have become so inflamed as that they mean almost nothing now. What a shame how language is degrading.
Even more confusing, there are also many anti-Semites who support Israel as an ethnostate model for what they want for themselves. They are bigots who don’t believe Jews can’t be real Americans, and they are obsessive Zionists. Christian nationalists, or rather, let’s just call a spade a spade and refer to them as white nationalists. They are an enormous political block in America and this describes what they are perfectly. It’s because of religion and apocalyptic prophecies or something like that, really a bizarre world we find ourselves in the 21st century when grown adults believe in such nonsense and then have real political power.
It may seem incoherent and contradictory, but that’s the mess the world finds itself in now. Note that these kinds of people are also why Islamophobia is on the rise at the same time. White supremacy of all stripes is coming out of the gutter, as extremist right-wing ideology destroys public discourse and hate becomes mainstream. It’s a terrible time in world history, full of bigotry and ignorance, no doubt about that.
But without getting into the state of the entire planet, just speaking for me personally, I can really recall only two experiences of dealing with anti-Semitism in my own life. In both cases, it wasn’t from activists who hate Israel. It was from weird conspiracy theory people. That is, it was from the far right.
What has happened to me more frequently, by the way, is when other Jewish people, those who identify as Israeli nationalists, have called me a self-hating Jew. Again and again. From strangers, and even from family members, it’s been the far more common type of bigoted abuse I’ve ever received. It’s ridiculous, it’s a stupid slur, and doesn’t add anything to mutual understanding. It’s just plain hate, and frankly I am very sick of it.
On Israel
In any case, Israel shouldn’t be the center of the universe. It’s a place with serious flaws, and at the same time sure I admit it is obviously not the root cause of all injustice in the world. That’s a very low bar of an Israel defense, but I’ll concede that. It’s just another messed up country, that’s all, and shouldn’t be considered as special as so many people think it is. Whether it’s loved as God’s eternal holy land, or hated as the ruler of the world conspiracy, those takes are both entirely too much sentiment.
Another thing, I never thought being a Jew is somehow the most interesting thing about me. It’s something I’ve long felt uncomfortable about, how other people who like to wear that identity on their sleeve. Why is nationality/religion/culture something to be so proud of? Nobody earned it, it’s just randomly what people were born into. It’s heritage, it’s a part of how one may have grown up, and no one should ever be made to feel ashamed of this either. But isn’t it better to be proud of things I’ve chosen, of things I’ve done, shouldn’t that be what I base my identity on?
Identifying with this country just isn’t my thing. Even, without getting into the controversial politics, the history and the tragedy, I simply never felt like I fit in there. It was never my home.
Perhaps for the older generation of Jewish people, this is a difficult thing to understand. There really was an existential threat not that long ago. Now, to say the least, things are very different. Israel has been an extremely right-wing country for so many years, a powerful and aggressive force in the region. Netanyahu and the Likud party, the far-right coalition and populism and settler extremism, all of these define Israel today and so very deeply not represent me at all.
More broadly-speaking, the Zionist experiment seems to be a failure. The ancestral homeland promise was supposed to be about safety and peace, that was the pitch, and it didn’t work.
And if the only way to stay safe was to occupy millions of people forever, then it wasn’t worth it. If the result of the formation of this country was endless war, then what was ever the point?
Honestly, I think one of the core issues is that it’s a better thing for the human soul to be in the minority. I may be a cis hetero white male, but I do know a bit about not fitting in with the mainstream religion and of being from a slightly different culture than the majority. Historically, Jews in America have thrived in that context and created many positive things. Yes, Europe had a different and darker history, but statistically in America today most Jews have done quite well.
To be the majority in a country, to have power over others and to be in charge, it apparently brings out the worst in humanity. This has happened in the Jewish-majority country as much as it happens in every other country on earth. It’s almost as if Israelis, with the privilege of being the ones in charge this time, now want to do to other minorities what was done to them…
In any case, regardless of the impact of all centuries past, I simply know that theocratic ethnostates are not a good thing. I don’t need to justify anymore than that. I am an American abroad. (And sure, America is also a very flawed and complex place with good and bad elements. All nation-states have blood on their hands, don’t they? That’s the way it is but I still know who I am.) In my entire living memory, I’ve been American. I don’t speak the language, I don’t feel Israeli, and I want to be in control of my identity. That was always reason enough.
On the Gaza War
Why now? Well, these are all issues I’ve thought about for long time. Then October 7 happened, and the Gaza War. And everything, which was always bad, somehow still got so much worse.
It goes without saying that Hamas is terrible in their own right, that is clearly self-evident. I’m not into Islamic fundamentalism either, because duh. Obviously. But ultimately the politics of the Middle East are about power dynamics more than any other factor. It’s not about who’s supposedly most “moral,” it’s about which side has the hi-tech Western modern military and which side is full of people in poverty. Who has the most power is what truly matters in the end.
The way the older generation thinks of Israel as some kind of plucky underdog, how so many Boomers were raised with that postwar context, it just doesn’t fit anymore today. That narrative hasn’t made sense for a very long time, it simply hasn’t been the case for decades and decades and decades. Billions upon billions of dollars in American military support is the complete opposite of underdog. Today, it’s incredibly clear which side has become the oppressor.
This happens again and again in history, and we’d see that if we took the time to study. A people are oppressed, colonized, and suffer horribly. Then they gain power, and use the new position to oppress others. Which in turn causes more suffering, and the cycle continues for generations.
To repeat: October 7 was terrifying, taking hostages is wrong, and there were too many victims. Then, that day was followed up with so many more tens of thousands of casualties, creating far more victims, leading to more abject poverty and no solutions which respect human rights in the future whatsoever. That’s even worse.
In Conclusion
I don’t want to get bogged down by every horrifying news story, but let me get a little specific here. Out of all of them, from the horrible genocidal statements by members of the government, to settlers ransacking food shipments for starving refugees, the ongoing failure to get hostages back in exchange for a ceasefire, the criminal prime minister who has been corrupt for years and years, the authoritarian media clampdown silencing dissenting voices, even this Zeteo documentary footage highlighting how extreme Israeli society has become—not to mention AIPAC’s interference into American politics and how the lobbying group has become a fully right-wing Republican organization, I could just go on and on—it’s the utilizing of AI to maximize the mass killing of human beings that has disturbed me the most.
In case you haven’t read up on that: Source. What an evil, soulless future this is. This is a very bad sign of what is to come for the future of warfare and for the future of humanity, and Israel should be ashamed. I wish I could convince people who support this government to do some serious soul-searching. Probably can’t convince very many people at this point, but I wish.
So, in conclusion, I think Israel is on the path to being just another Middle Eastern dictatorship. Nothing special whatsoever. There’s not much I can do about that awful course that they seem to be choosing. It’s been in the making for a while, with the endless occupation and the far-right government long in control. I can only disassociate, maybe protest a bit, but overall the only thing left is to petition the US government with my vote to stop funding the war machine there.
And also, some might say that terms like genocide and apartheid, however legally they are defined, are too loaded terms. We should or shouldn’t say it, it’s all so inflamed. But in any case, even without those charges which are in fact valid, even still, what was and what is happening there is an absolute affront to my values and it’s easy for me to know I am not on that side.
Yes, I am privileged. I had the ability to do something about how I feel in this situation, and used that privilege to remove myself from it. I don’t want the dual citizenship. I want to control my life. And that’s why I’ve now renounced my Israeli citizenship. I am not, and I cannot be, Israeli.
Adrian Cone has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember. Soon after I moved to Cincinnati, we met at Princeton Junior High and became best friends immediately. Childhood can be a rough time, especially at middle school, and the joy that came with hanging out at his house playing video games and watching cartoons are among the best memories of my youth.
These memories will exist for as long as long as I still do, and a piece of Adrian’s spirit will live in this way. I will never forget the ups and downs we had, all over the world. It was the friendship of a lifetime. We were teenagers together dodging responsibility and testing the limits of what we could get away with, then we were twenty-somethings trying to figure out who we were. In our thirties, we were finally men.
He spent much of his life in the military, in large part I believe because he wanted to see the world. It worked. He was well-traveled, racking up experiences all over this planet.
Adrian lived all over the United States, from coast to coast. I have the fondest memories of when he visited me in California and of when I visited him in Seattle. He also worked in Bahrain, learning about and appreciating Middle Eastern culture. He traveled to Australia, and visited me in China. I can still recall the joy of discovering the Hong Kong skyline together after we found each other at the airport. The years passed but we easily just picked up where we left off.
He was a passionate man. Whatever he did, he did it with 100% of his spirit. He may have changed his focus from time to time, going from one thing to the next, but what an honor it was while it lasted to be obsessed over by Adrian Cone.
If he got a job, he worked at that job as hard as he could. If he had a cause, he believed in that cause with all his heart. If he loved, he loved with every fiber of his being.
To be honest, I’ve always been envious of this ability. I have never met anyone like Adrian, and I never will again.
Over this past month, so many people have come together to remember our dear friend and family member. He will absolutely live on in all our memories.
He was so many things to so many people. He was a father. He was an artist. He was a brother.
I know he was in a lot of pain recently. But that wasn’t all he was. I hope he is at peace now.
I truly believe his spirit lives on, through the love of his children and through the love of all of us still here.
What a month it’s been. What a four years it’s been.
At the time, I felt I didn’t have much to add to the January 6 conversation. The new year was fresh, and I felt optimistic. The Senate election in Georgia gave me hope for my country, and also hope for my personal issues in feeling so much anxiety every damn time there was an election.
While the lawsuits trying to overthrow the presidential results were disconcerting at first, they were of course absolutely pathetic and nothing to worry about. If anything, it just energized the opposition more and more seeing that wannabe dictator lose dozens upon dozens of times all over again.
That said, America is kind of broken when the leaders don’t concede in lost elections anymore. If we’re not all playing by the same rules, the social contract doesn’t work.
It makes for some very dangerous shit.
Then, on the 6th, all those horrifying images. What can I say about the stupid bullshit insurrection that hasn’t been said already?
I’m just sick of the excuses these past four years, with various apologists saying that “the resistance” has been overreacting and he’s not really that bad. Fuck that perspective.
This was an evil unique to American history. And yeah, a lot of evils that happened before were also bad. Many things have been bad. It would be nice though to get to have some progress in the 21st century, to get better as a society, instead of having this terrible form of bigotry and authoritarianism backsliding so horrifyingly.
It’s damn irritating.
Well, guess we made it to the other side. Inauguration has come and gone and all that.
Peaceful transfers of power aren’t a thing in America from now on, which we’ll have to get used to forever. Doesn’t really feel like mine is a normal country anymore. It was quite a record, all those centuries.
I didn’t appreciate how important that was before. Took it for granted, didn’t we?
So. That said. Of course America is not suddenly a utopia just because one terrible menace is out. It’s important to hold the new president accountable, and corporatism and all the other -isms affect both parties. Still, I believe that this administration will be held more accountable due to the new generation that has awakened politically. It’s not going to go back to the complacent status quo. A whole hell of a lot of people will demand better from now on, and that is something to be optimistic about indeed.
Healthcare, police brutality, universal basic income, economics, climate change, discrimination, sexual harassment, war, diplomacy, foreign policy, the courts, technology, automation, misinformation, education, and of course the dreaded pandemic. At least there’s a good chance now that it’s all going to get better!
But I don’t feel like I’m qualified to be a political commentator any longer. I’ve shared how I felt from time to time in these writings, and I certainly have a lot of opinions. I may even review a book on current events from time to time.
Yet, when the boring and flawed party is back in charge, then I get to take it a little easier. I deserve it.
Let’s enjoy the promises of this better future, and not worry so much. At the same time, let’s still stay active and demand a more equitable system from our lawmakers.
Vote. Learn about the issues. Educate yourself for God’s sake. Also, at some point, do take a break and relax when possible…
I don’t know how to feel about the rush of current events.
There is obviously some very good news. It was long dragged out, but seems to be coming to a close, and celebrations are indeed in order. That feeling of relief as a dead weight is assuredly going to go, sooner or later. Incredible times, especially after so much uncertainty.
But it’s still a lot to process. I’ll spare any readers from all my obnoxious political opinions, well-thought as I’d like to think them to be, and just express how this state of affairs still leaves me anxious.
I’m no pundit. I have my perspective, and I like to read and review and share my thoughts, but there’s not really any reason people should listen to me.
That said, I simply cannot escape this terrible sense that tens of millions of my fellow countrymen are undeniably bad people. I had no idea it could get this bad. It’s not worth it anymore debating and talking about fake news and racial bias and social hierarchies and brainwashing etc. It’s a fact and here we are. They are bad people and there so many of them.
What is my country and the world going to do?
Well, turns out in the end, the good guys (or at least the moderate-not-that-evil guys) have won/will win. The fight for so many issues goes on, for healthcare and peace and freedom, no doubt about it, and at the very least there’s still a chance now… perhaps state of the world can actually survive at this rate and progress…
I voted from afar. Funny thing, as a matter of fact, it’s the first time I have voted for the winning team. It seemed an emergency so I had to. But I remain an American abroad, a privileged expat, incredibly lucky to live in the only country on earth to have defeated the pandemic. I do have to wear a mask everywhere, slightly annoying, and there’s danger from the mainland, but above all I am in the greatest social democracy in Asia and I am grateful to be here.
Been weird staying on the island for an entire year. No travel, no airplanes. No visiting relatives, no exploring new cultures. And yet right now I am far luckier than the vast majority of the planet.
To feel hope for the environment of this world, for the climate, for the very air, and to have so much reason to worry at the same time. It’s all come to ahead, and 2020 isn’t even over. It looks like the danger to democracy isn’t going anywhere in the next couple of months, plenty of anxiety is going to continue. At the same time, hope exists. Humans may, believe it or not, make it through this.
Going back to ‘normal’ or not, there is a future. If we can survive the grueling present.
This damn year. Let’s try to make it through this, everyone.
Ray Hecht’s autobiographical graphic novel starts with his birth in Israel, where his parents were immigrants, and ends up with him working in Asia. Moving to America as a small child he has an unstable upbringing, thanks to his Ukrainian mother and American father divorcing. The drawings and the layout here obviously took a lot of work and I dare say it may have been easier just to write the narrative, however, this was a more interesting way to tell his story. Each year is introduced with a picture of a key event and I laughed when I saw OJ’s Bronco being chased by police down the highway for 1994.
Things start out well for the family in America, but after a few years the cracks begin to show and his parents get divorced in the early nineties. His mother remarries a none-too trustworthy Israeli man and Ray stays with his Dad, who trains to be a nurse. Ray does recognise his father’s efforts to better himself. His sister is academic and as she grows up gets sucked into a conservative Israeli world that Hecht wants no part of. She learns Russian and presumably Hebrew too — as she moves to Israel and gets married there. Ray’s trips to Israel don’t work out well, it’s not a place he connects with. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that he prefers to study Japanese and later Chinese.
A self-confessed nerdy child, Hecht struggles socially and finds solace in comic books. (I was waiting for his reading to break out from the pure escapism of comics and this does eventually happen.) A convincing portrayal of how America can be a lonely place for a teenager, a lot of this must have been hard to bring to the surface again. One major problem for him is always moving from school to school, as the title indicates it is “Always Goodbye”. Probably the most painful incident is when he gets kicked out of school for something he says about a mass shooting. Despite being an introvert, he makes various efforts to improve his social life, investigating subcultures — punk, Goth, arty-type, straight edge, hippie — looking for something to hold onto. His friends do the same thing and he falls in and out with them depending on what phase they are in — a problem of a fractured society: you can join many different tribes but a sense of belonging is not guaranteed. He does some hallucinogenic drugs, but the answer doesn’t lie there.
In his early twenties Ray moves out of his Dad’s place and back again several times, in a non-linear surge towards independence common in his generation. He has a string of dead-end jobs in various States and then vaguely commits to life in California. Salvation comes in the form of China, recommended to him by a random character at the Burning Man Festival 2008. Like many young Westerners who go to work in Asia (me included), it’s the first time he has the luxury of living alone in a decent apartment. He begins teaching at a kindergarten in Shenzhen, the huge city over the border from Hong Kong where everything is new and exciting. He mentions the bootleg markets and this reminded me that one of the pleasures (and even social activities) of living in China back then was shopping for pirated DVDs; now of course we just download movies without leaving the house. He survives the kindergarten, moves onto a Korean owned school in Guangzhou, and escapes the English teaching world to become a copy editor.
Ray realises that a lot of the expat life is about drinking and tries to find meaning through writing and dating. The dating doesn’t go so well, but gives him material to write about. While many say it’s easy to get an Asian girlfriend, it doesn’t work out most of the time because of different expectations and, sure enough, Hecht takes us through a few awkward flings. The world of online dating also turns out to be a wash-out. Despite these romantic failures, he publishes a novel and eventually gets involved in a serious relationship with a creative South African woman— i.e. finally he has some good luck. I was interested to read that he initially went down to Hong Kong every six months to get visas, but later got a ten year China visa. Surely long term visas like this are not on the table anymore?
The text isn’t that polished and there are still a few mistakes to be ironed out, or perhaps they were left in the on purpose to emphasize the DIY nature of this work? His analysis of society is usually spot on and you can see a narrow view of the world broadening as he travels more — this gives the story a nice arc. As a thirty-something he ends up in Taiwan, looking at current events it was probably a wise decision to leave China and move there.
As a longtime author and editor, I’d like to offer my services in the fields editing, copyediting, and proofreading. A detailed summary of my experience and rates are below. Feel free to click on the links for further information.
For journalism writing samples, I have worked extensively at the Shenzhen Daily, South China’s only daily English-language newspaper. I have also been published a number of times by the reputable Wall Street Journal.
In 2016, my novel South China Morning Blueswas released by Hong Kong-based publisher Blacksmith Books. I have also had fiction published by TWG Press in Taiwan.
As for my credentials, I have enrolled in the University of California San Diego’s advanced Copyediting Certificate program.
I have since worked with a number of high-profile clients on a regular basis, including China-based translation companies CEPIEC (China Educational Publications Import & Export Corporation Ltd.) as well as Grouphorse. I have also contributed education material for Taiwan’s AMC.
My most notable editing work may be the novel Death Notice by Zhou Haohui, which was published in the United States by Penguin Random House.
My starting rates are as follows for these currencies:
.03 USD per word (United States)
.25 CNY per word (China, PRC)
1 NTD per word (Taiwan, ROC)
Please contact me via email at rayhecht@gmail.com for any inquiries.
2016 – 2019: Terrible politics, book tour, leaving China and coming to Taiwan! Various family trips from Israel to South Africa and California. Art and comics and Burning herein. At last, we catch up to now (so meta) and I reflect… Thus, an ending.
Thanks so much to you all for reading this, my humble life story!
2014 – 2015: After recovering from some heartache, I reinvent myself yet again (tattoos, grey hair). Then family, family, and more family; meeting the next generation.
And at long last the love of my life, and we meet each others’ parents *shudder* … Africa!
Lastly, novel published.
Well, I did it. I slugged through the entire report. It’s all free online, don’t even have to steal it.
As eBooks go, this is not the most entertaining page-turner. There are a lot of footnotes, for example, which tend to interrupt the flow.
Moreover, as a narrative this is one of the all-time most anticlimactic stories ever told.
Rather than a book to be judged on its own merits, it’s really more about the news cycle context than anything else.
All this makes it rather difficult to review.
But let us try. Firstly, the context of Volume I: This section heavily details Russian interference in that infamous 2016 election via social media spamming as well the DNC hack. Is this still a controversial fact in some circles? If you are interested in learning about the IRA—the Internet Research Agency—this report is as good a source as any. If you dismiss it as a left-wing conspiracy theory fake news or something, then apparently nothing will truly convince especially some legalistic government report.
The schizophrenia of the U.S. government at this time is quite fascinating, how the highest level of the executive branch can have such a different spin than the entire intelligence apparatus (although recent tweets may have finally admitted that he had help, if tweets are something we are going to get into then).
Which perhaps is the whole point. In these post-truth times, can anyone be convinced of anything anymore?
Then we have endless detail on collusion. Yes, outright collusion. There’s a colorful cast of characters, such as foreign policy “expert” George Papadopoulos and the ever-present diplomat Sergey Kislyak. There’s Richard Gates, Roger Stone, and of course Don Jr. and the big tower meeting. What a stream of reports and reports and reports about how much they welcomed Russian help and even tried and failed to further collude but couldn’t get as far as they’d have liked due to incompetence.
It does not make for a very satisfying read. To learn all this, and then find out that the legal definition for conspiracy is so narrow that they ultimately find it inconclusive and ultimately don’t charge the big guy. Cue the insipid right-wing exoneration talking points.
One particularly close example of what may be illegal, as far as specifically trading campaign work for favors, is the question of the Republican party changing their stance on the Russian invasion of the Ukraine at the RNC convention. This highlights the entire problem with the report right there–we have a question that is unanswered. Did or didn’t officials in the campaign trade influence? This subject even part of the written answers with the president, which were dismissed and sadly not followed up on. More on that failure of a Q & A below.
These near-misses continue; again and again it’s a running theme. Was it illegal for Don Jr. to have a meeting with Russians, whether or not it was really about adoptions? The answer is yes, due to campaign finance law, that’s clearly against the law. But then… they say let’s go ahead and not charge him because he probably didn’t know it was illegal and it would be hard to prove intent in court and whatever in this case ignorance of the law is apparently a valid excuse.
So much painstaking research, and so much giving up. These impossible standards keep making it frustrating for the reader.
Not that there aren’t plenty of convictions and crimes uncovered. Paul Manafort was a pretty large get, let’s acknowledge that. But when it comes to the most powerful of the powerful, there is a sense of exasperation. That in the end, America is about protecting those who are too big to lose and the system will always find a way to make sure those on top will never face the consequences they deserve.
And at least we reach Volume II: Obstruction. Here is where it may or may not get good. There are the ten examples of the president unambiguously obstructing justice to the best of his ability. Public witness-tampering, changing the story on firing Comey, live on TV no less, demands of loyalty, et al. There’s quite a lot of that whole thing.
[And please don’t give me that line about how there can’t be obstruction if there’s no underlying crime. 1: That’s not true, period. If it was true, wouldn’t it be an incentive to obstruct because if it works criminals would get away with the crime? 2: More importantly, there were so many crimes! The president’s own personal lawyer Cohen lied about the Moscow tower, is in jail now, and let’s not even get into the campaign finance violation with the porn star affair hush money. If nothing else simply firing Comey in order to protect his friend Michael Flynn, a convicted criminal, then that is clearly obstructing justice. It’s not only about evidence of collusion/conspiracy at the top. There’s still plenty of obstructing investigations if only to protect his dirty circle. If that’s not corrupt, what is?]
So, then it all ends in a pathetically lame copout in which DOJ guidelines say they can’t indict so they don’t bother indicting. Yes, Mueller went on television trying to explain his logic puzzle of how you can’t charge a crime against someone who can’t go to trial, even though at the same time it’s not an exoneration, punting to Congress as he hints that only they can hold the office to account. Yeah, like oversight is going to go well.
This is the core frustration of this document, and of this entire era we live in. It is postmodern enough that everybody gets their own talking point. You get to interpret the entire investigation however you want. Witch hunt or a valid call for impeachment, pick and chose your own interpretation. Attorney General Barr certainly wants you to interpret it in a political way that benefits his side, based on his initial coverup-y behavior. Mueller simply wants you to be smart enough to read 400 pages and decide for yourself (one of the most naïve positions possible in this age).
In the end, everyone is unsatisfied and the waters couldn’t be muddier. So if you want a sense of closure after reading this, you will still have a long while to wait as we see how history unfolds. So far, to put it lightly, I’m not sensing anything close to a national consensus in the near future.
Isn’t it amazing? This was supposed to be it, and the polls show that right-wingers still believe what they believe, they even have a few quotes to highlight to defend their extreme rationalizations. While the rest of the country vaguely listen to mainstream news summations and have ever so slightly leaned towards kinda’ maybe let’s-investigate-more-and-maybe-impeach-even-though-it’s-for-naught-cause-of-the-Senate.
Sadly, it seems that perhaps obstruction totally works and the people will never know. The appendix in which the president submits his written answers are certainly more of the same. Mueller even says more or less outright that the questionnaire isn’t enough, but he must give up because a subpoena would take too long and he wants to get this damn thing over with. Over thirty answers of “I don’t remember” with no chance to follow up. Once again, the system let’s the powerful get away with anything.
Hell, perhaps all the good stuff is redacted. There are a lot of redactions. So if this is a coverup, then one can only conclude that coverups work.
The story is still continuing. The television drama won’t be over any time soon. In the meantime, the vast majority of Americans will not read this free report. They won’t even read the summaries.
I suppose all that’s left is to depend on the Democrats, and that is a sad notion indeed.
The country is in trouble.
For these reasons above, for this humble reader at this particular time in history, one can only judge this book however full of facts to be a terrible disappointment.
2011 and 2012, beginning with my Guangzhou year. Didn’t work out well, so I returned to Shenzhen. Meanwhile so much travel, all over Southeast Asia and returns to Israel and Japan. Plus foreshadowing in Taiwan, and Hipster Pacific Northwest too. And I go to both my sister’s wedding and my best friend’s wedding. Growing up!
2009 and 2010, the beginnings of a new decade, as I become acclimated to life in Shenzhen/Hong Kong and have fun traveling in Southeast Asia (and America), and family stuff… plus I start dating somewhat regularly. Crazy, right?
So at this time of reflection, I think back on 2018 and all that’s happened. It was yet another great personal year, while the world around seemed to fall apart…
Obviously, if you’ve been paying attention, my own big news is that I’ve been working on my autobiographical comic Always Goodbye. Stay tuned for more. Eventually, a completed book. (Guess this is replacing my ‘career’ as a prose author, huh)
This past year I moved to the more central part of Taipei, and I’m continuing to enjoy living in Taiwan. As more and more news develops from the bamboo curtain–like that social credit score everyone is talking about but I’m not even going to get into–I’m quite glad to have escaped the People’s Republic.
I kind of did a ridiculous amount of travel in ’18. I started out last New Year’s in Japan, then went to Africa, and in the summer I returned to America to sadly sell my entire comics collection. For 2019, I plan to not get into an airplane even once.
As for the rest of the world. Well, politics. It was an exhausting year in which most things seem to have gotten worse, but there was also a bit of hope. Personally, I’m so very over it. Perhaps it’s all finally coming to a head. This chapter of history needs to close already, doesn’t it?
It’s been a while since I felt like writing an entire overt political post, and I’m sure you all know by now how I truly feel. American has learned some dark things about itself, and the time has come to get better. Consequences may be in the coming. And once it’s over with, I hope to never ever say the T-word for the rest of my life because that guy has gotten enough of my bloody attention and I’d just rather focus on other things.
Ray-Comics 