The Lies They Tell

by Tuvia Tenenbom

  I’m impressed.

  Downstairs, after being escorted by yet another young girl, I meet some Alaskans of the white kind. How many Native villagers live in Alaska? I ask one such Alaskan.

  “Do you mean off-the-road villages?”

  Yes, the Natives.

  “My WAG is about 125,000 people. But that’s just a WAG.”

  What’s WAG?

  “Wild-ass guess.”

  Got it. And how many of them are at risk of losing their homes?

  Well, this she doesn’t know. Actually, no one I approach at this conference does.

  What everyone knows, on the other hand, is this: there is no smoking anywhere in the building, including the balcony. Usually it’s okay to smoke on the balcony, but today it’s a security risk. What does a cigarette have to do with security? I don’t know, and nobody will share with me the sophisticated relationship between homeland security and Marlboro.

  I go to the pressroom, and there I see three big screens: the middle one is displaying a session taking place upstairs, on the left CNN is playing and on the right screen is MSNBC, both favorite networks of the left side of politics. No Fox News here. Conservatives, I guess, are not welcome.

  I want to smoke a cigarette and am told that in between sessions, when there are no speakers, I am allowed to go out.

  I do.

  Outside I see about two hundred people, standing ready to welcome Obama when his motorcade passes by, some holding signs that declare their love for him. Among them are a grandmother and her grandchildren, Justin and Amelia. I ask the two kids if they love Obama and why. “Yes. He is the president,” Justin says.

  Any other reason?

  Yes. The president makes good laws, the kid says. His grandma is not impressed. She tries to whisper better reasons in his ears. I tell her that I’m interested in Justin’s and Amelia’s opinions and that it would be really great and cool if she let them have their own say.

  Justin is pleased by my comment and is ready to explain what laws the president has legislated. “The law that people have to stop at stop signs,” he says.

  Grandma is not happy. And she shows it, with sour facial expressions.

  Justin wants to please his grandma and pulls off another good law: “Boys and girls can marry.” A discussion follows between the two children as to the meaning of this law, and then they get back to me and explain that two girls can marry each other and also two boys.

  Grandma is very happy.

  Justin knows another law made by the president, and he shares it with me. The president, he says, is changing the name of Mount McKinley to Mount Denali. A big smile appears on grandma’s face.

  Why is the president changing the name to Denali? I ask him.

  “Because he likes the name,” he answers, and Amelia concurs.

  Grandma is not at all happy. The fact that Denali was Indian and McKinley white, which is the idea behind the change of names, is totally lost on these kids. But they love Obama for coming up with the name “Denali.” I like it too. I like the name Denali much more than McKinley.

  I go back to attend the conference.

  • • •

  As time passes I find out that the day after tomorrow Kerry will be in Philadelphia to deliver a major speech about the Iran deal. A busy man, this secretary.

  Escorted by a nineteen-year-old Alaskan beauty I make my way up to the third floor, where the president is to give a speech in about an hour. There I meet a man named Dr. Matthew Sturm. Matthew has an exhibition of ice – all kinds of it – with signs next to them: “Touch me.” He hopes, he says to me, that President Obama will pass by him and touch the ice. One ice sample, black in color, is thirty thousand years old, he says.

  I ask Dr. Matthew who is right: the conservatives who don’t believe in climate change or the liberals who do? He tells me that the proof is in front of my eyes: this thirty-thousand-year-old piece of ice proves that climate change has been going on for many, many years. In addition, he chides, conservative business owners have climate change contingency plans; they talk big, but they do small.

  Perhaps he doesn’t know, but what he says is also said by many conservatives. They say that climate change is a natural process that has been going on for thousands of years, long before people started burning fossil fuels, but they don’t believe in “climate change” in the way that this administration, and many European countries, do, meaning that it’s mostly man-made and that it can be reversed.

  Be that as it may, “climate change” has taken on a whole new meaning in today’s culture war: you are either pro-climate change or anti-climate change. And, for whatever reason, liberals believe in climate change and conservatives don’t.

  I still don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong. All I know is this: President Obama is about to arrive.

  I try to enter the hall in which he’ll be speaking, but am told that I cannot. Why not? Reporters are not allowed in the main hall. Who said? That’s the instruction. I protest. I was invited here by White House officials for the sole purpose of attending Obama’s speech, I argue, and won’t take no for an answer.

  Not knowing what to do with me, one escort negotiates with another escort, then two more escorts get involved, and then another official. Nobody knows what to do. Until, miracle of miracles, yet another official comes in with a clarification: I’m welcome to join the session, but I first must go downstairs and only then come up again with some other reporters.

  Down and up, up and down. That’s why this building has escalators – to use them!

  It is possible, I don’t know, that this is exactly the way America has been negotiating the Iran deal for the past few years.

  In any case, I go down and out. To smoke.

  Outside I see the president’s motorcade, somewhere between twenty and thirty cars, as it slowly makes its way to the building. Part of the entourage, a person in the know tells me in a soft voice, consists of a bunch of “White House reporters” and an ambulance. Why an ambulance? Just in case. Why are the cars moving so slowly? “This is Anchorage; they are looking for a parking place.” Good to have some funny people around.

  Cigarette smoked, I enter the building again. The guards already know me and laugh every time they screen me in.

  I get an escort and we go upstairs.

  At a quarter to the hour, everybody’s quiet. It’s amazing how people will shut up when they think a president is about to enter. A few minutes pass, and then John Kerry goes to the podium to introduce the president. Between nuclear bombs and freezing glaciers, this man finds the time to say lines such as: “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama!”

  On cue, Barack appears. “Thank you to the many Alaskans,” he says, “Alaska Natives and other indigenous peoples of the Arctic.” Americans, as we all know by now, love their Natives. Obama proceeds to business. “Our understanding of climate change advances each day,” he says. “Human activity is disrupting the climate, in many ways faster than we previously thought.”

  There are two teleprompters next to him, one on the right and one on the left, which make it easy for him to speak about climates, winds and storms as a man learned in the science of glaciers, icebergs, emissions, geology, chemistry, biology and a host of other sciences.

  I have seen Obama before, when he was still a presidential candidate. He was a young, agile man then. Now, as he starts preparing for life after the White House, he seems to have grown quite a bit older. He doesn’t move much, save for his head, which turns back and forth from the right prompter to the left. He seems tired.

  Surprisingly, some in the American media, for example NBC news, depict this speech as “a forceful address.” Perhaps those reporters smoked a joint before coming here, a legal activity in this state.

  In any case, what Obama lacks in stagecraft, at least today, he makes up for with scary prophesies and forecasts. “People will suffer. Economies will suffer. Entire nations will find themselves
under severe, severe problems. More drought, more floods, rising sea levels, greater migration, more refugees, more scarcity, more conflict,” unless we take action to stop climate change.

  Is this a scare tactic? Maybe yes, maybe no.

  On one occasion he does rise to the task of oratory. It happens when he utters this line: “Those who want to ignore the science are increasingly alone; they are on their own shrinking island.” Applause immediately follows.

  As is often the case with Obama, he presents himself as a man above all others. “Any leader who refuses to take this issue seriously or treats it like a joke is not fit to lead,” he says, as if he is the only one worthy of the “leader” title. He ends his remarks in a way almost no European leader ever will. “May God bless all of you and your countries.”

  Now that I’ve gotten a closer look at America’s leaders, have I learned anything?

  Yes. First and foremost, they are politicians. As I listened to President Obama I couldn’t stop thinking of Illinois’s Thirteenth District. Is it conceivable that a man who doesn’t care about one district, the district that first voted him in, would care for the entire world? Is it possible for a man who doesn’t give a hoot about the people living today to care so deeply for those living tomorrow?

  Maybe Obama the person does care, but as a “leader” he lacks the strength to lead the people out of their misery. Maybe, just maybe, he is a guy who is not fit to lead.

  Whatever the case, for me the most interesting discovery at this conference is the treatment of the reporters. What’s the story here? An older military man in attendance, who says he has worked with more than one president, tells me that the Obama administration is very much about “control.” This administration, he says, wants to control the media and keep it tight.

  Wasn’t President George W. Bush the same? “No way!”

  President Bill Clinton? “You must be kidding! Not including President Obama, presidents are very lax with the media. You would never be escorted to the toilet! This administration is different. This administration wants to control everything, and it does.” And it succeeds.

  As the conference ends for the day and we all leave the building, a group of Christian singers awaits us on the other side of the street, urging us to believe in Jesus. But I have had enough preaching for one day, and I head to a local bar.

  Believe it or not, instead of ordering a shot of Christian Brothers, I order coffee.

  Next to me sit a number of people who have come from Washington, DC, as part of the president’s visit to Alaska. All are government employees, some of higher rank than the others, and all are into beer or wine. It’s good to talk with government officials while they drink.

  The highest of ranks in this cadre of drinkers is a lovely lady who speaks her mind, and I will not name her. This is what she has to say:

  “The Obama administration, from the perspective of people like me, a government employee, is one of the worst. The people of this administration came in without any background or experience in governing and they didn’t know what they were doing. They had ideas, big ideas, but they lacked the knowledge to execute them. We, government employees, know how government operates. Policies need to be managed, executed, and the money must be there to have it done.

  “Why do we support Israel? We support Israel because of the Jews in this country. The Jews in this country give money to politicians, and the politicians have to do what the Jews want them to do. Everybody in Hollywood is Jewish, and they gave Obama the money to run. He won, he became president, and he brought in the people he knew: smart young people, but with no experience in governing. New politicians don’t understand that they can’t do anything if they don’t have the people around them who are capable of executing their policies. I remember how they came in and all they wanted to do was to ‘discuss’ what should be done; they thought they were in a university.”

  Why does the “Jew” thing keep popping up? I order a Belgian beer. I drink and drink. Glass emptied, I leave.

  Where should I go from here? Perhaps California. California has many liberals, the kind of people who believe in climate change. Maybe I’ll get smarter there and will understand these people better.

  Gate Fourteen

  Sexy whites like black whores

  WHERE SHOULD I STOP FIRST IN CALIFORNIA? LET’S SEE IF ANYTHING’S cooking there that grabs my attention. Here’s what I read in the San Francisco Business Times: “UC Berkeley launches Saudi-funded Philanthropy University.”

  Say what?

  A little explanation follows: “University of California, Berkeley, and its Haas School of Business are launching an online ‘Philanthropy University’ to help folks in the nonprofit realm with finance, fundraising, strategy, leadership and other challenges.”

  As far as I know Saudis, they are interested in charity as much as I’m interested in forestry. But life offers its surprises, and maybe one day I will discover an interest in forestry.

  Whatever their reason, I’m intrigued by this Berkeley university. I’ve heard much about UC Berkeley through the years, and it’s time I get to know it and find me a charitable Saudi or two.

  It’s early afternoon when I arrive at the campus. Oh my God, what I see! An endless stream of people moving around countless small tables, everybody trying to convince everybody else to join this or that particular club. What’s happening here? I ask a few students.

  “Tabling,” they answer. Berkeley, they explain, has about fifteen hundred different clubs, and each club wants members. Some of the clubs are just for fun, such as health clubs, but others are more serious: “Muslim Student Association,” “Queer Business and Leadership,” an atheist club, a bunch of Catholic clubs; here is one for Palestine, and quite a distance off is a Jewish one.

  There is even a Republican club here, which happens to be one of the biggest clubs at Berkeley. I thought that Berkeley was liberal, so how come the Republican club here is one of the biggest? I ask a young Republican.

  “Republicans in Berkeley feel constantly attacked and they want to be together, for protection,” he replies.

  Are you pro-choice or pro-life?

  “I have dedicated much thought to this issue and I came up with a simple idea: abortion tax. You want to have an abortion? No problem, but it will cost you.”

  Walking around the students, a huge herd of young flesh, I notice that almost every second person here is Asian. As for blacks, there are very, very few; you can hardly see them here. The blacks are in Germantown and in Englewood.

  There is no smoking anywhere in this campus, even in the streets. Berkeley is huge in size, and nobody lights up. When I do, people look at me as if I were a rapist-in-waiting. As long as they don’t approach me, I have no reason to deny it. With time, as I want to feel a part of them, I stop lighting up as well. Let me be a Berkeley guy.

  I keep walking, like a good, healthy man.

  Here are some Jewish students. Berkeley has the largest number of Nobel laureates of any university, they share with me, and it’s an honor to study here.

  How does it feel to be Jewish here?

  “It’s not easy,” one of them says.

  What do you mean?

  “For me it’s tough, because Israel is important for me and most Berkeley students are pro-Palestinian. When I share positive thoughts about Israel, they move a distance from me. But for most Jewish students here, either those who don’t get involved in politics or those who are pro-Palestine, it’s okay.”

  Some Jewish students, I hear, don’t get politically involved for fear that they will be viewed badly by the other students. How are the professors? I ask a young lady.

  “Nine out of ten are against Israel and for the Palestinians.”

  ” Do you regret choosing this university?

  “No! Berkeley is a great university!”

  If you had children, would you advise them to study here?

  “Yes!”

  I can’t say that I fully under
stand her. To get a better grasp of this prestigious university, I go to chat with the boss of all bosses, Nicholas Dirks, who is UC Berkeley’s chancellor.

  • • •

  Nicholas Dirks, as his name implies, is of German descent. Do you have German characteristics? I ask him.

  “How would you characterize German?”

  Whatever people say about them, you know: exactness, honesty, a little racist…

  Sitting by Nicholas is Berkeley’s spokesperson, an American Jew by the name of Dan. And this American Jew bursts into loud laughter when he hears this. Nicholas laughs as well, and says: “I don’t want to go there, you know. This can only get me in trouble!”

  It’s great if you get in trouble, at least for me!

  “Yeah. And I get fired!”

  As the laughter subsides, Nicholas says: “I am obsessively punctual.”

  Are you also direct with people, telling them exactly what you think?

  “Yes.”

  Am I fat or not?

  “You are not fat at all! You could use a little more exercise, but that’s true for all of us.”

  Laughter again. And when this subsides, I move on. Yesterday, at the “tabling,” it seemed to me that about half of UC Berkeley’s students are Asian. Is that really so? What’s the percentage of Asian students at Berkeley?

  “Close to 40 percent,” Dan interrupts. “Asians are the single largest group.”

  What’s the number for blacks? I ask Nicholas, ignoring Dan.

  “Three percent,” says Nicholas.

  How come Berkeley has so many Asians and so few blacks?

  “This morning we announced a new African American initiative, and one of our hopes is to dramatically increase the percentage of African American students in our student body.”