My interest in World War II always aroused my curiosity about the fall of the Iron Curtain in East-Central Europe, in 1989, and the demise of the Soviet Union two years later. The more I understand these world-historic events, the greater the lessons I discover for our own political situation here in Oakland.

How come a nonprofit group that’s dedicated to opposing torture in such places as Bosnia, Cambodia and Chile is fighting efforts to provide stun guns to Santa Clara jail deputies, who frequently have to defend themselves against dangerous inmates?

An article in the current New Yorker concerns the Trump regime’s “assault on colleges and universities” and explores the thinking of rightwing Christian nationalists who believe that their turn to have power has finally arrived, after decades of being on the outside.

A week ago, with little fanfare, Gov. Newsom signed a reparations bill. As many of you might recall, he’d earlier announced, in no uncertain terms, that he’d never allow cash payments to Black people, not even descendants of slaves. So what does the bill he signed actually mandate?

I was really looking forward to going. Not even rain could have kept me away. I wanted to protest the current situation, to affirm my rights and freedom against a would-be fascist dictator who would make America into a religious theocracy, to express my revulsion for the creepy nationalists and their Biblical nonsense, and to defend my status as a Gay man in America.