A22 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7 , 2019
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR[email protected]M
ARKETS ARE still trying to absorb the
impact of President Trump’s l atest escala-
tion in his trade war with China — and
Beijing’s i nevitable retaliation. Angry that
China failed to deliver the increased agricultural
purchases which, he claims, it promised earlier this
year, Mr. Trump announced a 10 percent tariff on
$300 billion in Chinese consumer goods to take
effect Sept. 1. In r esponse, China announced it would
cut off U.S. farm imports and allowed its currency to
drift lower — to which the Trump administration
responded by officially branding the country a
“currency manipulator” for the first time in a
quarter-century. Partly because of the impact of
tariffs, China has fallen from No. 1 to No. 3 on the list
of top U.S. trading partners, and from the Iowa
soybean fields to the canyons of Wall Street, people
fret about the consequences of what seems like a
lasting rupture in trade relations.
No mistake about it: This situation threatens
economic growth both in the United States and the
world, because of the direct impact of higher priceson U.S. consumer spending, and the indirect impact
of the uncertainty that the U.S.-China conflict is
sowing among investors. It’s important not to exag-
gerate these effects: A 10 percent tax on $300 billion
worth of imports amounts to a $30 billion hit to a
$21 trillion economy; there were and are plenty of
other threats to growth already, including China’s
own internal economic problems. China quickly
intervened Tuesday to stop its currency from declin-
ing too rapidly precisely because it could not afford
an uncontrolled devaluation and the capital flight
that might breed. And, as we have said before, some
short-run uncertainty — even short-run economic
pain — might be a price worth paying to negotiate
China into a more sustainable economic relation-
ship, one that did not involve so much protectionism
and intellectual property theft on Beijing’s part.
Still, the risks are real, and Mr. Trump’s approach
inspires no confidence that he has some strategic
objective in mind, as opposed to the continuation of
conflict with China for its own sake. We don’t e xpect
the president to announce his negotiating goals inadvance. He should, however, base policy on objec-
tive economics, not a general anti-China animus. In
that respect, his administration’s mostly symbolic
decision to brand China a currency manipulator was
anything but reassuring: The fact is that, until
Monday’s brief deviation, China had been propping
up its currency to avoid capital flight, which had the
effect of making U.S. exports more competitive. Also
misguided is the president’s fixation on the bilateral
trade-deficit number, of which his emphasis on
guaranteed soybean sales is a symptom. What
matters are fair rules of the game, not predeter-
mined outcomes. To the extent he’s asking China for
the former, Mr. Trump’s p osition will gain legitimacy
in both the United States and abroad.
Trade talks resume in early September, but there
is a real prospect of a conflict that lasts through the
election year. Americans, and U.S. allies abroad,
would be much more likely to follow Mr. Trump’s
lead if he gave some indication he knew where he
was going. There is no virtue in conflict for conflict’s
sake.A threat to both the U.S. and China
Mr. Trump’s escalation in his trade war with Beijing inspires no confidence that he has a strategic objective.
In his Aug. 4 Local Opinions essay, “Living proof
that mandatory minimums are wrong,” Virginia
state Sen. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) asserted that
Edward Simms is “living proof” that mandatory
minimum sentences are wrong. But, oddly,
Mr. Surovell avoided disclosing the actual crimes
that Mr. Simms committed, attempting to portray
him as a sympathetic child.
In fact, Mr. Simms was convicted of multiple
counts of armed robbery, in which he brandished a
sawed-off shotgun. Mr. Surovell also conveniently
failed to mention that Mr. Simms was reported to
have a long list of juvenile offenses. After Mr. Simms
was arrested for his robbery spree, he twice escaped
from custody — and after being convicted, “the
6-foot-tall muscular 17-year old... resisted an
attempt by three bailiffs to put handcuffs on him,”according to the coverage of the Hampton,
Va.,-based Daily Press.
Perhaps Mr. Simms truly did change in prison, as
Mr. Surovell claimed. But Mr. Surovell’s efforts to
mislead the public about the underlying facts only
seem to confirm that a life sentence was not a case of
injustice. Indeed, as was said in the Daily Press at t he
time: “They better do something before he kills
someone.”
Jol Silversmith , AlexandriaABCDE
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
“I
F YOU WANT to beat me for my heartfelt
birthday poem, come and find me at my
home.... I refuse to be gagged,” wrote
firebrand Ugandan activist Stella Nyanzi in
a poem she posted on Facebook last September that
condemned Uganda’s “aborted” democracy under
President Yoweri Museveni’s dictatorship. Indeed,
the authorities came for her, and indeed, despite
imprisonment, she has not been silenced.
Ms. Nyanzi is a champion for women’s, girls’ and
LGBTQ rights, a controversial academic famous for
taking her profane anti-Museveni activism to social
media, a strategy of “radical rudeness” rooted in
anti-colonial dissent. But “radical rudeness” —
which uses public insult to shed light on political
problems — is risky in a climate where civil liberties
are increasingly trampled upon.
In 2 017, Ms. Nyanzi was imprisoned for calling the
president a “pair of buttocks” on Facebook whencalling out his broken promise to provide free
sanitary pads to girls so that menstruation does not
deter school attendance. Upon release, she led the
“Pads4GirlsUG” campaign to pick up the govern-
ment’s slack.
This time, her words were more vulgar and her
prison time is longer. Using metaphors of childbirth,
Ms. Nyanzi’s latest poetic offense argues that Ugan-
da would have been spared the oppression, immo-
rality and unemployment of the current regime if
Mr. Museveni had died in his mother’s womb. The
activist, who was arrested and placed in Luzira
Women’s Prison in November for disturbing the
president’s “peace, quiet or right of privacy,” has
already served nine months for cyberharassment.
On Friday, Ugandan courts decided she will serve
nine more. In protest of the final verdict, Ms. Nyanzi
flashed her breasts and shouted profanities through
a live video feed — she had not been allowed towitness the judgment in person. But crude meta-
phors and irreverent behavior should not be an
excuse to muzzle political criticism. The ruling
under the Computer Misuse Act, which has been
used by the justice system in the past to stifle speech,
casts an illuminating light on the sad state of free
expression in Uganda.
Mr. Museveni, who has been in power since 1986,
lifted the age limit for the presidency in 2017 and
apparently expects to rule Uganda indefinitely
under tight control. His inability to tolerate dissent
offers one more piece of evidence that he has stuck
around too long and should give way to new leaders,
chosen by the people. And his courts should drop the
charges against the poet.
Resilient despite her imprisonment, Ms. Nyanzi
posted a new poem on Thursday. Defiantly, she
concluded: “I refuse to be a mere spectator in the
struggle to oust the worst dictator.”The power of poetry in Uganda
Even from prison, a firebrand activist continues to denounce — and irk — the country’s dictator.
T
HE INTERNET is not responsible for Ameri-
ca’s mass shooting epidemic. The single
most salient factor is easy access to guns
designed for mass killing. But poisonous
ideologies such as white supremacy are increasingly
incubated online before bursting into the world
wielding an assault rifle, and radicalization is easier
than ever when propagandists can broadcast their
beliefs in an instant to millions, who will broadcast
them to millions more.
“The perils of the Internet and social media
cannot be ignored, and they will not be ignored,”
President Trump said on Monday. It is ironic to hear
Mr. Trump demonize platforms for promoting radi-
calization even as his administration accuses those
very same platforms of censorship in response to
their efforts to reduce radicalization. But the peril is
real, and the question is what paying attention
actually looks like.
The massacre in El Paso this past weekend began
with a racist manifesto, as did the massacres at the
Chabad of Poway synagogue and in Christchurch,
New Zealand. All of these appeared, minutes before
the shooting, on 8chan — a messaging board that
operates on lawlessness. Posters celebrated this
weekend’s alleged perpetrator in El Paso as “our
guy”; the goal is to beat the last guy’s body count,
referred to in a ghoulish gamification of large-scale
violence as a “high score.”
There a re ways to drive 8chan into d eeper recesses
of the Web if not off the Web entirely, starting with
the services that provide the site technical support
turning it away. Two such services have done so this
week, forcing 8chan at least temporarily offline.
There is a worry that hiding 8chan and similar
forums from sight could make threats more difficult
to spot, but that risk is outweighed by the advantage
of making it more difficult for everyone to spot
8chan. Radicalization is a problem of falling into a
rabbit hole. The rabbit hole should be as difficult aspossible to stumble into.
Even then, erasing the ecosystem of right-wing
terrorism is a monumental task. Larger, more
responsible platforms can do their part, stepping up
their own efforts against white-supremacist con-
tent, adjusting their algorithms so that they do not
promote posts that push people toward even more
extreme parts of the Web, or blockading content that
originates in forums infamous for incitement. But
their ability to act has limits, as does the scope for
government’s action. Authorities should dedicate
more resources to stopping the next shooter before
he has a chance to shoot, yet every effort will involve
trudging through a morass of memes and irony
designed to disguise threats as jokes and jokes asthreats. The greatest power of this machine of
racism and mass murder is its inscrutability.
Getting rid of 8chan would not get rid of right-
wing terrorism on the Internet, and getting rid of
right-wing terror on the Internet would not get rid of
right-wing terrorism in the country. But there are
steps we can take today, and there’s a commitment
we can make for tomorrow: to confront this ugly
racism everywhere it lives.A rabbit hole
of radicalization
Getting rid of 8chan would not
get rid of right-wing terrorism
on the Internet. But it’s a start.ABCDE
FREDERICK J. RYAN JR., Publisher and Chief Executive Officer
News pages: Editorial and opinion pages:
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TRACY GRANT JO-ANN ARMAO
Managing Editor Associate Editorial Page Editor
SCOTT VANCE
Deputy Managing Editor
BARBARA VOBEJDA
Deputy Managing Editor
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1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 (202) 334-6000Second chances must be deserved
MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
At a makeshift memorial outside a Walmart in El Paso, Yamileth Lopez holds a photograph of her friend,
15-year-old Javier Amir Rodriguez, who was among those killed during Saturday’s shooting.Regarding the Aug. 4 front-page article “20 dead
in chaotic El Paso shooting”:
This past weekend, I spent time with 2,000 of my
fellow Moms Demand Action volunteers in the
District to learn more about how to prevent gun
violence in our communities. Yes, that is right: 2,000
people gathered because they are passionate about
this issue, and they all vote. As we met, we heard the
tragic news of yet another horrifying shooting, but
there are 100 people each day around this country
who die from gun violence.
Though there are many actions we can take, first
we need to have our senators find the courage to do
what more than 90 percent of Americans support
and pass universal background checks. H.R. 8 was
passed by the House of Representatives months ago;
now it is up to the Senate.
Joy McManus , Alexandria
The writer is a member of the Alexandria chapter
of Moms Demand Action.I am a Montgomery County Public Schools
teacher. I am returning to work this week for
leadership meetings in a space where I received the
district-mandated “safety training” l ast May. That
training included an armed SWAT team member
ridiculing other teachers who made reasonable
choices to protect themselves in drills and instruc-
tions about our “choices”: run, hide or rush an
assailant with an automatic weapon with our bare
hands. None of these choices is acceptable to me for
myself, my colleagues or my students.
Until we address white supremacy, toxic mascu-
linity and access to military-style assault weapons, it
is ludicrous to “train” education professionals in
response to such a traumatic event. Until those roots
of mass shooting are appropriately addressed, noth-
ing will change.
Laura M. Dorn , WashingtonI wish President Trump would use his executive
power for good and ban all assault weapons now.
Theresa Sanders , GaithersburgWhen is enough enough? These senseless
tragedies can be laid right at the doorstep of the
White House. President Trump encourages this
life-destroying behavior by his racist tweets and
comments. His slogan more appropriately should be
“Make America Hate Again,” because that is what he
encourages.
Shame on the Republicans who make the hypo-
critical gesture of “offering their prayers” for the
victims. Instead of that meaningless “sympathy,”
they should get on board and pass sensible gun laws
that would save countless people before they become
victims: banning automatic weapons and those
weapons that can readily be converted to automatic,
and mandating universal background checks. Ap-
parently, Republicans prefer to pander to the Na-
tional Rifle Association for votes and money rather
than doing their job protecting the American people.
Joe Mistrett , Chevy ChaseAfter the apparently hate-based massacre in
El Paso, authorities, including the governor, mayor
and police chief, held a televised news conference
and congratulated their first responders in arriving
within six minutes of being notified of the shooting.
They withheld the name of the shooter, rightly
arguing that fame is what such deranged people
seek. There has been an accelerating number of such
mass shootings this year.
But real success would be prohibiting the legal
sale of AK-47 and similar semiautomatic combat-
style rifles to anyone who wants to buy them. In the
written 5-to-4 District of Columbia v. Heller
Supreme Court decision, which dramatically ex-
panded the Second Amendment rights of individu-
als to possess guns outside of militias, Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia explicitly excluded
military-style weapons from that right.
In September 2004, a “conservative” Congress
allowed the 1994 Public Safety and Recreational
Firearms Use Protection Act, commonly called
the federal assault weapons ban, to expire per a
10-year sunset provision. Its constitutionality was
never challenged. It could have prevented this
massacre.
Barry Mendelsohn , AshburnAs the 250th and 251st mass shootings this
year occurred, I felt powerless to change the status
quo. I am asking the Republican Party to solve the
problem. Thoughts and prayers are not working.
Every idea that I feel would have an impact has been
laughed down by the people in power and the
organizations supporting them. I ask the president
and the members of the Senate and the House to
work with the National Rifle Association, Fox News
and other conservative voices to develop a policy
that will markedly and measurably reduce the
number of mass shootings. I ask the public servants
to use their offices, research teams and all instru-
ments at their disposal to develop a plan that they
find acceptable. Other nations solve this issue
through legislation. It’s on you.
I ask the American voter to demand this of our
elected officials and hold them accountable if they
do not develop a coherent policy that works.
Edwin Kirschner , AshburnThoughts and prayers have failed
In her Aug. 4 op-ed, “Your actions are your
morality,” my former student Molly Roberts mis-
characterized my “personal specialty” as defending
“accused rapists and wife-killers.” This is demonstra-
bly false. I have represented battered women, insti-
tutionalized women, harassed women, abandoned
women, female activists and prisoners of con-
science, falsely accused women and more. Many of
these cases were done on a pro bono basis, as I do
half of my cases without fee.
Over the course of my 55-year career involving
about 250 cases, I have also represented a small
handful of men accused of assaulting or killing
women. Several of these men were falsely accused
and ultimately vindicated. Two of them were on
death row, and I did their cases pro bono as well.
Ms. Roberts failed to ask me about my actual
career because the truth would have undercut her
false narrative. The essence of morality is truthful-
ness, not only for lawyers but also for journalists.
Alan M. Dershowitz , Cambridge, Mass.
The writer is the Felix Frankfurter professor
of law emeritus at Harvard University.Alan Dershowitz: Objection
EDITORIALSLOCAL OPINIONSMr. Surovell’s efforts to mislead the
public only seem to confirm that a life
sentence was not a case of injustice.
Tom Tole s
is away.Le tters to the editor: [email protected]