Collective punishment: Iran's citizens deserve to die.

President Trump proudly announced a war crime:

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day." 

Americans in the Democratic anti-Trump coalition of people who watch MSNOW and read The Atlantic and Heather Cox Richardson and attend town meetings for Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden feel disapproval, but not surprise at Trump's post. 

That's him, not us. God knows we didn't vote for him. 

But we Americans did. We pledge allegiance to the flag, one nation indivisible, and we pay our taxes. We are citizens. We have immeasurably more influence on American leadership and policy than do citizens in Iran whose electricity may be shut off. 

For seven decades of the post-WWII world American has had a preferred weapon of choice: air attacks on military and civilian targets. We had boots on the ground in Vietnam, but that was a lesson in what not to do. The preference is to bomb countries until they crawl to the negotiating table. We made hostages of their citizens. They weren't bystanders or collateral damage. We treated them as combatants who sympathize with, enable, or at the very least tolerate their government.

The notion that Palestinians living in Gaza tolerated Hamas is the justification for mass destruction of civilian targets. They had to know about the tunnels and maybe helped build them. 

Hospital in Gaza

Residence in Lebanon

University in Iran

Israel, and by extension the U.S., accepted that idea of collective guilt. The U.S. tolerates and enables Israel's bombing of Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

Accountability goes in both directions. Israeli citizens who were enjoying a quiet evening on October 7, 2023 weren't innocent civilians, not under that rule of collective guilt. They tolerated the brutalization of people in the West Bank. They voted for Benjamin Netanyahu or the far-right policies in his coalition, or at the very least they paid taxes and acted as citizens in a country carrying out Netanyahu's policies. 

There is a lot of hypocritical argumentation regarding responsibility and collective guilt. People who consider the Israelis killed on October 7, 2023 to have been innocent  and the raid to be an outrage accept the necessity of bombing and civilians.  

Tomorrow, at 8 p.m. EDT, unless Trump changes his mind, he will initiate the bombing of civilian infrastructure in Iran. This isn't Israel doing it. It is the USA. This probably will cause tens of thousands of Iranians to die, perhaps invisibly to Americans, one at a time as hospital ventilators turn off and food spoils and water doesn't get pumped or it gets contaminated, but just as dead as if they had been covered in rubble or lined up in front of firing squads. 

The U.S. has signed treaties that declare targeting electrical generation stations to be forbidden, a war crime, a moral wrong.

Do we care? Isn't it just one more thing we have gotten accustomed to and tolerate, like bombing boats in waters off Venezuela? Or ignoring the War Powers Act? Or letting Trump ignore Congress on tariffs and program cuts? Or letting ICE ignore the 4th Amendment requirement that it have a judicial warrants? Some Americans sympathize with Trump; others enable him, All of us are tolerating him. Trump is still in office, our leader, and we are citizens.

Americans elected a Senate that approved Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. We have watched him fire top military people who showed signs of independent resistance to illegal warfighting. We didn't revolt, impeach, or call a general strike, and we still say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Americans cannot have it both ways. If civilians in Vietnam, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran can be killed because we oppose the policies of their leaders, then we need to look in the mirror and accept the reality that President Trump is not acting alone. Do not be outraged or surprised when terror attacks happen here or Americans are held hostage. Don't presume we are free of moral guilt. Trump isn't committing a war crime. Americans are.

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Easter message

     "For over 2,000 years the story of Jesus’ resurrection has been recognized as the central event in human history."
          John Coster 

Once again, on this Easter weekend I am letting someone else speak for me.

I see that the Christian religion I learned in my childhood has been warped and stolen by people who have replaced it with something far easier to sell than "love your neighbor." The golden calf won.

"They worshiped the golden calf." Scene from Cecil B. DeMille "The Ten Commandments."

We are descendents of a succession of winners in the competition for survival. Jesus, the supposed central figure in Christianity, preached against the survival instincts of human nature. Radical generosity? Love enemies? Help people who cannot reciprocate? That's a strategy for losers. The American mood chooses to be proud winners, and we are moving toward a state-approved version of Christianity that validates this spirit of triumph. We're number one. Plows into swords. Impoverish your neighbor. Hate your enemy. Dog eat dog.

I am too disappointed and cynical to write an Easter message, so I asked John Coster to do one. He studied theology at Regent College while continuing his career managing multimillion-dollar development projects for high-volume users of electricity. He recently retired. Coster is an unusual combination. He operated at the highest levels in the Seattle technology world while also doing hands-on missionary work in Africa and Asia and, most recently, among the homeless population on the sidewalks of Seattle.

Coster

Guest Post by John Coster

Much is being written about Christian Holy Week and what it all means (or doesn’t). Here is how and why I embrace Easter.   

Religion is often rightly blamed for some of the most horrific acts in human history. But what exactly is “religion”? If you look up the etymology of “religion” you will find almost as much controversy in the details of its meaning as you will about differences in religions themselves. I’ll use the definition that religion is any belief system that provides its adherents (creedal or not)  with a sense of identity, purpose, meaning, and moral reasoning – what is good and fair and just. But most importantly, religion is wherever humans place their ultimate hope or confidence. Some secular examples of “religion” are the U.S. Constitution, financial markets, political systems like democracy, technology (seriously), or even agreed-upon principles of decency. They are where many people have found identity (e.g., MAGA, LGBTQ+ etc…) and in which they have placed their hope and sense of worth. Wars of aggression in the name of religion are rarely theologically based regardless of the claims.   

Back to Easter. For over 2,000 years, in every culture that has embraced it, the story of Jesus’ resurrection has been recognized as the central event in human history, offering ultimate hope in an otherwise despairing world. It’s why Christianity is growing so quickly in the Global South; they have so few other avenues of hope. St. Paul the Apostle wrote that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then our faith is in vain and we (Jesus followers) are to be most pitied.

My parents were old-school fundamentalist Christians who discouraged all the cultural Easter festivities because they believed it trivialized the single-most sacred event of their faith -- one that that made eternal life with God possible. I used to be a little embarrassed by their hard lined stances on things like that, but I have come to appreciate what they held as sacred.

My wife and I went to a Good Friday service at our church that revisited the Passion story in music, scripture reading, sacraments and prayer. Sunday will be a celebration. Next week I’ll go to a friend’s Greek Orthodox Church to celebrate their Pascha. I’ve celebrated communion with Christians in different cultures in dozens of countries and I’m always delighted to see how different cultures express the same story in powerful ways.

It ain’t about bunnies and chocolate eggs.  

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An Easter weekend reflection on human dignity

"When they stop seeing others as human beings and reduce them to pieces in a geopolitical game, they lose the moral compass required to prevent future conflicts."

          Cardinal Blase Cupich

I will let college classmate Larry DiCara speak for me during this Easter weekend. Larry grew up in the working-class Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. He was a standout at Boston Latin School, then at Harvard. At age 22 he became the youngest person ever elected to the Boston City Council, which then led to a long career as a lawyer helping shape the extraordinary turnaround of Boston over the past five decades. He is the author of Turmoil and Transition in Boston: A Political Memoir from the Busing Era.

Larry Dicara, with his three daughters

Guest Post by Larry DiCara

Dred Scott and Cardinal Cupich Human dignity has been a frequent topic of discussion throughout our 250 year history. In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the Dred Scott Decision. While Taney was drafting his decision, U.S. Senator Charles Sumner was arguing that the rights of the people emanated not only from the Constitution but also from the Declaration of Independence which preceded it.    Andrew Jackson appointed Taney. Supreme Court appointments were quite routine in those days. With the exception of the Brandeis nomination early in the 20th Century, no major battles ensued until Nixon nominated Clement Carswell and Harold Haynsworth as part of his obeisance to U. S. Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC).    The Dred Scott Decision said that Black Americans have been “regarded as beings of an inferior order, all together unfit to associate with the white race…and so inferior, that they have no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Most religious leaders remained silent.    More than 150 years later, we are in a similar place in American history. Service members and families who have lost loved ones say the Trump team’s memes and jokes trivialize combat and sacrifice. Many of our religious leaders have remained silent. Others have not. The Pope made a very strong statement on Palm Sunday stating that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood.’” Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago wrote in The Washington Post:  When people treat war as entertainment, they surrender their humanity. When they allow their consciences to be dulled by the allure of easy profit, they step away from what God desires for his children. When they stop seeing others as human beings and reduce them to pieces in a geopolitical game, they lose the moral compass required to prevent future conflicts.  In 2026, we are dealing with questions of human rights, and we need to hear the voices of other religious leaders! Thousands of children, the majority of whom are of Latin heritage, are in ICE custody. They live in subhuman conditions. They do not go to school. They live in a large cage and are treated the same way Roger Taney wanted Black people to be treated.    Congressman Andy Ogles (R-Tenn) recently called for all Muslims to be denaturalized and deported: “Muslims don’t belong in American society…pluralism is a lie….” Ogles posted on X. To me this sounds mighty familiar to the thinking of Hitler and his lackeys who called for Germany to be “Judenrein” - free of Jews. Jeff Jacoby, writing in The Boston Globe, reminded us that “demonizing religious minorities is a tradition as old as the Republic and politicians were exploiting it to win followers long before social media existed.” Our “call of duty” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited Doug Wilson, his pastor, to conduct a prayer service at the Defense Department. Wilson has stated plainly that in his vision of a Christian nation, anything Protestants consider “public displays of idolatry” would be prohibited. Catholic parades and processions fall squarely within that definition. Are we going backwards as a country? Hegseth, in addition to treating war like a video game, now also facilitates attacks on organized religion. Our national leaders have created two lists: one of the accepted and one of the rejected. Are his policies why so many no longer feel invited to serve our country, as confirmed by essays quoting retired generals? Does he want our military to be all tall white “Christian” men with good hair?    Do some of our religious leaders only selectively read scripture? Do they not understand the very clear messages in the Bible and other sacred texts as to the dignity of human beings and each person’s being identified as a child of God? I recall the words of Pope Francis, who always reminded us that we are all brothers and sisters – “fratelli tutti.” Our national leaders have created two lists: one of the accepted and one of the rejected. Perhaps there was not enough political courage among religious leaders 150 years ago. Perhaps there is not enough political courage today, given that some of those who wave the Bible do not open it very often, preferring Project 2025 to Matthew: 25! [Note: To get daily delivery of this blog by email go to Https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]

Bentz on vote by mail: Keep it; it's dangerous.

Here is how to do two opposite things at once. 

U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (R- OR) says he doesn't want to ban mail voting. Then he tells us how bad it is.

Read the headline, then watch the news clip. It's just 60 seconds. 

Click here

He was asked if he favored ending mail-in voting. He took exactly one second to say "I'm not." 

Then he spent 39 seconds saying what was wrong with it.  Here is what he said:

I’m not. I think mail-in voting does result in a lot more people actually voting, but it doesn’t mean it’s perfect. It’s not even close. I brought a bill years ago when I was in the Oregon legislature to ban ballot harvesting, and that’s just one of the problems with mail-in ballots. The other problem is many times ballots are sent to houses that no longer have the occupants previously there, and who knows who’s actually voting. There’s a signature identification requirement, and I think county clerks are doing a great job trying to apply it, but it’s not perfect by any stretch. But more people vote.

Strange headline. Did the person who wrote the headline actually watch the clip? 

About 97 percent of his statement repeated Trump talking points that mail-in voting is prone to fraud. It was skillful political sleight of hand on Bentz's part: a single second to get himself a lucky headline from KOBI to please Oregon voters who overwhelmingly favor our voting system, but news clip content that reverses course 180 degrees to be compliant with Trump and MAGA. 

Early this year I talked with Tobias Read, Oregon's secretary of state, the state's highest election official, suggesting he identify a few of the most flagrant cases of voter fraud and refer the incidents to a district attorney for prosecution. I suggested, "Let Oregonians see that people who commit voter fraud spent serious time in prison."

He said he couldn't because voter fraud is very, very rare in Oregon and there aren't cases to prosecute.

I am not going to complain about KOBI's odd headline. I cut its news department some slack. KOBI is a locally-owned TV station, one that still has a substantial news department at a time when most other local news operations are cutting back and shutting down. At least KOBI is trying and they covered the story. But Bentz is not being straight with the public on the voting issue, because on this issue, as with others, he cannot get crossways with Trump.

Yesterday I wrote that Bentz's district office staff was stonewalling constituents who were trying to learn his position on vote by mail. I quoted the run-around I got. Instead of reading a statement from Bentz, the staff sent me to a dead-end website. Several people have written me saying that they, too, called his local office and got the same non-answer. I consider this unacceptable and unworthy of the job of representation.

Does this news clip resolve the question of whether Bentz supports Oregon's vote by mail? Not really. I would characterized his words this way: He doesn't join Trump in trying to ban mail-in voting, but delivers Trump's central message that its a bad system that lets fraudulent votes be counted. 

He gets to have it both ways, or neither way. 

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U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz hides out.

Trump signs an executive order banning voting by mail.

I had a simple question for U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, my congressman. 

Does he support vote by mail?

Oregon has had vote by mail for three decades. Both Democratic and Republican election officials in the state say that it is working well. It is popular with voters. Yet President Trump is attacking it. Democratic officeholders in Oregon are defending Oregon's vote by mail system. Not Bentz, a Republican. He doesn't dare disagree with Trump.

What is he to do? Hide.

Bentz's website makes no mention whatever of this hot topic affecting Oregon directly, so I called Bentz's Medford office, 541-776-4646. Here is how it went, verbatim, as recorded, with all the raggedness of real conversation:

"BENTZ'S OFFICE: Good afternoon, Congressman Cliff Bentz's office. This is Chris.

ME: Hi, Chris, this is Peter Sage. I'm calling to see if the Congressman Bentz has a position on vote by mail.

BENTZ'S OFFICE: I believe you can check congress dot gov. It has all the voting records and everything on there. I just don't have access to the information at this time.

ME: You don't have access to whether your boss supports vote by mail?

BENTZ'S OFFICE: Well, I don't have it here in front of me, sir.

ME: All right. Am I the first person to have called you asking about vote by mail? President Trump said he wants to ban it, and it's how Congressman Bentz got elected. I was wondering if he supported the president on this.

BENTZ'S OFFICE: Uh, you can check on congress dot gov.

ME: Well, that would tell his votes. The question is, uh, you're telling me to go to congress dot gov?

BENTZ'S OFFICE: Uh, hum. There are voting records there. And it'll tell you exactly what the congressman, uh, any congressman, senators, all kinds of bills they put forward, it's got all that information.

ME: And you can't just tell me whether he's supporting vote by mail?

BENTZ'S OFFICE: I don't just have that information in front of me.

ME: Is there someone there in the office that would know the congressman's position on vote by mail? You know, it's how we vote in Oregon. It's how he got elected.

BENTZ'S OFFICE: Hmm.

ME: Could you connect me with somebody who's kind of up on what the congressman's position is on the, uh, thing that President Trump is--

BENTZ'S OFFICE: Um, I'll direct you to the same because we don't speak on behalf of the congressman.

ME: I bet you there's a statement that he has, that this is his position on vote by mail, no?

BENTZ'S OFFICE: Congress dot gov.  [Silence.]

ME: I will go there. Thank you so much.

It will surprise nobody to learn that congress.gov has nothing about Bentz's position on vote by mail. Not votes, not position statements, nothing. Bentz's system is to send voters to a dead end. It's the screw-you-pound-sand-get-lost approach.

Bentz has turned his voice and vote over to Trump. He cannot take independent action to defend our District's interests lest Trump notice and endorse a primary opponent. Bentz isn't defending the district's voters on vote by mail, on health insurance exchanges, rural hospitals, tariffs, the Epstein cover-up, or tax cuts for billionaires. 

Bentz had two bad choices. Either disagree with Trump and admit publicly that vote by mail is working well and Oregonians like it and want to keep it, or tell Oregonians that he agrees with Trump and now opposes the popular voting system.

His solution is to hide.

[Note: I have been a congressional aide. I feel sorry for Chris to have to work for such a bad boss. I worked in the district office of Congressman Jim Weaver (D) from 1977-1980. When there was a highly public visible issue -- abortion, timber harvest, oil prices, that had been in the news for any length of time -- there was an official statement from the congressman that we could read and share. Much of the work of a district office is getting calls from constituents with an opinion they wanted to congressman to hear, and to hear from the congressman's office what his position is. Sometimes the constituent likes the congressman's view. Sometimes not. "We won't tell you" is an unacceptable approach, unworthy of the job of representation. If a congressman's office won't tell you his position on a matter of high visibility and interest, why should taxpayers pay for the office?]

Birthright citizenship oral arguments: This morning, 7 a.m. Pacific Time.

Dred Scott

Wong Kim Ark

Let's pretend for a minute that President Trump operates with care and foresight. 
What is he thinking?

He insults the Supreme Court in a long Truth Social post, a portion of which reads:

The supreme court (will be using lower case letters for a while based on a complete lack of respect!) of the United States accidentally and unwittingly gave me, as President of the United States, far more powers and strength than I had prior to their ridiculous, dumb, and very internationally divisive ruling. . . . Our incompetent supreme court did a great job for the wrong people, and for that they should be ashamed of themselves (but not the Great Three!). The next thing you know they will rule in favor of China and others, who are making an absolute fortune on Birthright Citizenship, by saying the 14th Amendment was NOT written to take care of the “babies of slaves,” . . .

Feb 23, 2026, 4:06 AM

Trump is attending the oral argument to watch the oral argument and look the judges square in the eyes.  

If the Court sides with Trump and ends birthright citizenship, about 200,000 babies a year born in the U.S. would be be non-citizens. It would re-establish chronic second-class status for them. It would create complications and ambiguity for every baby born in the U.S. because every baby's status would be contingent on the parents' status, requiring proof of lawful citizenship by the mother or proof of both paternity and lawful citizenship by the father. As we saw in the Barack Obama "birther" controversy, even in a case where a baby is born in a U.S. hospital in Hawaii, with multiple witnesses to the birth and birth-notice announcements by two newspapers, a persistent troll with nefarious motives can make persistent accusations and put into question a person's status. 
Maybe there is method in Trump's behavior.
Trump is collecting on a favor. He has no respect for the Court as an impartial referee of the law. He presumes the Court is part of the network of crony corruption in which favors and debts are rewarded and paid, equivalent to the one billion dollar deal with campaign contributors in the oil industry. Everything is a deal. Friends help friends. Three justices owe him big time. 

Pressure might work. Trump may presume that high visibility cases like this, the results aren't about the law. They are entirely political decisions, with the six Republican-appointed justices making a decision weighing their partisan interest in helping the GOP and their own personal benefit or cost as they carry out that policy goal. They are politicians in robes. Trump is showing he can be naughty or nice, depending on what they do. Trump's performance is primarily directed at the three members of the court that he appointed.  He is showing the justices the sweet kiss of approval or the angry fist of disapproval.

Making a show for MAGA. Maybe this is the equivalent of a dramatic flop by a basketball player who wants to exaggerate a purported foul. Trump knows he is going to lose on the case's merits, so he is showing he did everything possible to try to win. MAGA voters care about this issue. They sincerely feel that Latin American, African, Asian, and Middle Eastern immigrants are profoundly "other" and should be excluded from citizenship. After all, "They eat our dogs, they eat our cats." Trump understands that his brand is to be a winner in negotiations. A loss needs an external explanation, and he provides one: betrayal by corrupt, stupid judges. 

Just careless 4 a.m. venting.  The premise of this blog's headline is that Trump knows what he is doing. But maybe the premise is profoundly wrong.  He was awake at 3 a.m. or earlier, stewing, and maybe he simply wrote a stream of consciousness post of resentment and rage, full of sound and fury signifying nothing, and impulsively pushed POST at 4:06 a.m. No need to overthink this. Trump certainly doesn't.

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The rich get richer.

Democratic candidates are raising the issue of income distribution. The richest are getting even richer. The rest are gettting left behind.

Wealth is going to capital, not humans doing the work.

All of the Democratic candidates for Congress in Oregon's bright-red 2nd District advocate for greater fairness in government. Two of them put income distribution and fair wages at the top of their lists.

Chris Beck, a former three-term state legislator who worked for former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D), and President Barack Obama, begins his website with these words:

It's no secret that we live in an era dominated by an extraordinary wealth gap separating a small group of American family dynasties and corporations from those of us who make up 99% of the U.S. population. It's the root cause of so many issues that plague our society. . . .

Rebecca Mueller, a Medford pediatrician, begins by saying her campaign is focusing on the issues of health care and fair wages. 

The income and wealth gap is a top one for Democrats. Something is wrong with the way our economy is working. People who own investment assets are doing very well. People who are living off earned income are not.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes about the problem repeatedly in his Substack newsletter:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made the argument with uncommon eloquence in a campaign speech in August, 2011:

I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

When Obama echoed the comment, Republicans mocked him and had a full day of speeches at the Republican National Convention on the theme of "Yes, you did build it," all by yourself.

My cohort of Baby Boomers grew up in a special moment: postwar America. The ethos of the time was recognition of shared effort and shared sacrifice. Pitching in and doing one's part wasn't being a sucker; it was doing the right thing. 

Movies of the postwar era describe it. The narrative takes a turn in the movie The Best Years of Our Lives, when a banker appeals to a loan board ,saying that a veteran without financial collateral had something better, proven character. We saw an actor with missing arms. That is sacrifice. The Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed characters in It's a Wonderful Life tried to compensate for being unable to serve in the military with service to their community. 

The movies seem sappy and sentimental now because the zeitgeist has changed from "commonwealth" to zero-sum, dog-eat-dog competition, and me-first. Trump exemplifies and amplifies our era.

The strongest argument for a rebalance of national incomes, is that it is fair: Everyone contributes in one way or another. Perhaps as a solder, as a neighbor, as a fellow-citizen, as part of the workforce,  as a consumer, or as a person whose work product was swept up for free and became part of the data that informs artificial intelligence. Andrew Yang, briefly a candidate for president in 2020, made that argument in proposing a universal basic income. He said that every American, without compensation, provided the data and network-effect that makes our technology companies trillion-dollar enterprises. Citizens should be compensated for that, with the income spread equally and circulated. It would replace poverty programs.

That would be the carrot. 

There is a stick, too. Left-wing, redistributionist revolutions happen when societies hit a breaking point, when wealth is concentrated among too few oligarchs, aristocrats, and cronies. Desperate people take action if they feel they haven't got a shot at the life they want. Before Alexander Hamilton helped create a new country, he participated in a revolution.

I am not throwin' away my shot
I am not throwin' away my shot
I'm just like my country
I'm young, scrappy and hungry
And I'm not throwin' away my shot

The 2nd District's incumbent U.S. Representative, Republican Cliff Bentz, voted for the "Big Beautiful Bill." It perpetuated tax cuts for billionaires. About 70 percent of Americans tell pollsters that they support higher taxes on billionaires, and about 85 percent of Americans tell pollsters they have contempt for Congress. Possibly no Democrat can win in this district, but this is an opportunity. Frustrated voters may not feel that postwar common interest with fellow citizens, but this you're-on-your-own sentiment feeds an opposite emotion, resentment within the polity. 

Trump exploits that, pointing to immigrants and the poor, and calls them leeches. Democrats can return the favor by pointing to the crony capitalism of exploitive billionaires. The billionaires are flagrant about it their new wealth and influence. The huge judgment against Facebook shows that juries are ready to punish them. Democrats can use a proven slogan: Drain the swamp.

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