Seeing and Believing, &c.

On videos, police work, Ukraine, Nobel prizes, boners, and more

Some videos are murky—not lending themselves to clear-cut conclusions—and some are not. As a rule, however, people believe what they want to believe. Or so it seems to me.

As people have been debating ICE videos, I have thought of—well, the Holocaust and October 7. Let me explain.

The Holocaust is one of the most meticulously documented events in history. Yet there is still Holocaust denial, and it is rampant, and growing. October 7? Those atrocities were filmed. And there are still people who deny it ever happened, or who minimize it.

A few months after October 7, in January 2024, I talked with Deborah E. Lipstadt, the historian, who has studied the Holocaust and Holocaust denial in depth. At the time, she was in the State Department, and her title was “special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.”

Let me quote from the piece I subsequently wrote about her:

A question: Will Holocaust denial increase or decrease in coming years? Increase, Professor Lipstadt says to me. This is, in part, because there will be no survivors left. “I can give a pretty good lecture,” she says. “I can hold my students’ interest.” But nothing equals bringing a survivor into the classroom—to tell his or her story firsthand. Soon, they will all be gone.

And consider: The October 7 massacre was committed months ago. And almost immediately after, people around the world were denying it—despite the fact that the perpetrators filmed it, documented it, celebrated it.

The memory hole has a terrible pull.

***

Many of us have been thinking and writing about policing. A simple thought occurs to me: There’s a big difference between policing and provoking. Every law-enforcement officer—every genuine and experienced one—knows this.

One other thought: There was a time when it seemed to me that the Right was too skeptical of federal agents. Not just skeptical but hostile.

There was an infamous fundraising letter from the NRA—complaining of “jack-booted government thugs” who, in addition to jackboots, wore “Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens.”

If I had to choose, I think I would rather have too much skepticism than blind acceptance and cheering.

***

Are you aware of this crisis? Things tend to get swallowed up in the news, and the world grew numb at hearing about Ukraine by probably the end of 2022.

A headline reads, “Freezing and in the dark, Kyiv residents are stranded in tower blocks as Russia targets power system.” (For that report, go here.)

Me? I live in a building with old-style steam heat. We residents don’t control the heat. We can’t increase it or decrease it. Even in sub-freezing weather, many of us open our windows, to counterbalance the heat.

That’s how much heat we get. And I think of the Ukrainians with none, because of Russia’s brutality ...

(President Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to join a new “Board of Peace.”)

***

In 2010, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its peace prize to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese political prisoner. The Chinese Communist Party was furious. They retaliated against Norway. The Norwegian government explained to the CCP that the Nobel committee was independent of the government. The CCP refused to listen.

Last year, the committee awarded its prize to María Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition. President Trump was furious—for he wanted the prize for himself. He sent a text to the prime minister of Norway, which said, “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” etc.

I wrote about this matter in a column last Wednesday, here.

One notable thing about Republican politicians, media personalities, and others: they feel a need to adopt and ratify Trump’s grievances.

Here’s the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, accusing Norway of “making a political decision and not awarding the Nobel prize to probably the most deserving individual in the history of the prize.” Johnson added, “He got snubbed.”

(He was speaking of Trump, of course.)

A reporter said, “The prime minister has nothing to do with that.” Johnson said, “No, but it is his country and he has a lot of influence.”

Influence over the Nobel committee’s decisions? That would come as a surprise to both the committee and the prime minister.

I wonder how Republicans feel about being in the company of the Chinese Communist Party. I suspect it bothers them not at all, which is bothersome.

By the way, is Donald Trump “probably the most deserving individual in the history of the prize,” as Speaker Johnson said? (You can tell Johnson’s a moderate because he said “probably.”)

I will not lay too much information on you. I wrote a history of the prize (Peace, They Say). But let me jot a quick list, in chronological order, of laureates I believe were more deserving than Trump:

Fridtjof Nansen
Ralph Bunche
Albert Schweitzer
George C. Marshall
Albert John Lutuli
Martin Luther King
Norman Borlaug
Andrei Sakharov
Sadat and Begin
Mother Teresa
Lech Wałęsa
Elie Wiesel
The Dalai Lama
Mandela and de Klerk
Hume and Trimble
Liu Xiaobo
Malala Yousafzai
Denis Mukwege
Nadia Murad
Dmitry Muratov
Ales Bialiatski
The Center for Civil Liberties
Memorial
Narges Mohammadi
María Corina Machado

***

Vice President JD Vance was blaming our country’s economic problems—the “affordability crisis”—on the previous administration. “You don’t turn the Titanic around overnight,” he said. A lot of people got a chuckle out of this.

(Incidentally, do you know the iceberg/Goldberg joke?)

My favorite in this genre comes from Andy Reid, the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. In 2019, they beat my Detroit Lions in rough fashion. In other words, they “won ugly.”

Coach Reid said, “Hey, not all of Mozart’s paintings were perfect. The end result, though: That sucker’s gonna sell for a million dollars!”

***

Speaking of football coaches: Earlier this week, I mused about Curt Cignetti, of the Indiana Hoosiers. And Christina Rossetti. And Ogden Nash. Those last two are not football coaches. The first was an English poet, and the second was an American poet, especially of light verse.

I quoted Rossetti’s poem “Echo,” which includes the line “Speak low, lean low.” I wondered whether Nash got the phrase “speak low” from Rossetti. With Kurt Weill, Nash wrote the song that begins, “Speak low, when you speak love.”

As readers reminded me—I say “reminded” because I think I once knew this—Nash got his line from Shakespeare—who, in Much Ado About Nothing, has a character say, “Speak low, if you speak love.”

Geez, sorry, Bill. Or is it “Will”? As in Will in the World?

In any case, I need to brush up my Shakespeare. (That’s Cole Porter.)

Thanks for joining me, my friends. Since Onward and Upward started last May, the comments have been open to paid subscribers only. Just for the hell of it—hang on, this is Sunday: just for the heck of it—I’m going to open the comments to all.

To “all y’all,” as they say in parts of our fair country.

See you!