25 Countries Have Bullet Trains. Why Don't We?

Photo: MaedaAkihiko Creative Commons 4.0

Alright. We've put men on the moon and land rovers on Mars. It's obvious we have the technical know-how. So what's the problem? 

First, most countries have national rail ownership, centralized planning and eminent domain authority, which our citizens especially despise. The U.S., on the other hand, has Federal, state and local layers, and lawyers bringing decades of litigation. Key transport corridors are served by privately owned railroads.  

A. second reason is that in the U.S., highways and airports are our primary investment, both of which are subsidized. Passenger rail's decline leads to ever fewer passengers, so the trains are unprofitable except between key locations. Europe and Japan treat rail as core infrastructure, not an alternative.

Land acquisition and lawsuits make it hard for railroads to calculate costs. Project delays increase the costs exponentially with long environmental reviews, property challenges and political opposition the whole way. As a result, U.S. infrastructure projects are slower, more legally complex and far more expensive per mile than peers.

It's ironic that the U.S. invented much of the rail technology that is used around the world today. What's lacking may simply be political will. When you look at the numbers--most Amtrak routes are losing money--it's probably easier for leaders to say, "This is not my fight. I've got too many other irons in the fire." 

Without a visionary, projects perish.

Related Link: That Used To Be Us

Anchors Aweigh—or Anchors Astray? America’s Maritime Crisis

China builds ships. The U.S. builds excuses.

Sometime within the past year I read an article about how China was actively building or upgrading ports on the Western coast of Africa. More recently I caught a story showing the significant superiority of China's shipbuilding over our American efforts. 

Both these stories came to mind as I read yesterday's story in The Bunker, an eNewsletter I receive from the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). Yesterday's article was titled Anchor's Astray, addressing the phenomenal waste that goes on at the Pentagon. The story outlined a scuttled project to build build up to 20 small warships after the first two came in at two billion dollars, far above budget. 

This led me to investigate how many ships China is building compared the U.S. Here's some eye-openng data peraining to military ad commercial ship production. Commercial ships include domestic/merchant vessels, such as cargo ships, tankers, and container ships.

 Ship Production Comparison: United States vs. China

WARSHIPS

U.S. Fleet Size (2024): 296 battle-force ships (e.g., destroyers, submarines, carriers).

--- Annual Production (2024): ~1.13 Virginia-class submarines (goal: 2.0); 6 new ships requested for FY2025 (below 10-11 needed annually for 381-ship goal by 2042). 

--- Recent Trends: 82% of programs delayed (e.g., Constellation frigate: 3+ years behind; Columbia submarine: 1+ year delay). Net fleet decline projected: -9 ships in FY2025. 

--- Capacity: Limited to a few yards; overall output lags due to backlogs and costs ($40B/year planned but underfunded).

CHINA Fleet Size (2024): 370+ battle-force ships (largest globally). 

--- Annual Production (2024): 11+ major combatants launched (~130,000 tons); 23 destroyers added in past 10 years (vs. U.S. 11). 

--- Recent Trends: 8 cruisers since 2017 (vs. U.S. 0); submarine force to grow to 80 by 2035. Projections: 395 ships by 2025, 435 by 2030. 

--- Capacity: 230x U.S. total shipbuilding capacity; dual-use yards enable rapid scaling.

DOMESTIC/COMMERCIAL SHIPS

U.S. Global Market Share (2024): 0.1% (ranks 19th-22nd globally). 

--- Annual Output (2024): 3 large vessels ordered (out of 5,448 global); ~8 delivered. --- Recent Trends: Tonnage output <0.04% globally; total U.S. post-WWII commercial tonnage exceeded by one Chinese firm in 2024 alone. Focus shifting to revitalization via incentives (e.g., SHIPS for America Act targeting 250 U.S.-flagged vessels). 

--- Capacity: ~80 oceangoing yards, but minimal for large vessels; vulnerable to foreign supply chains.

CHINA Global Market Share (2024): 53% (leads world; 57% of completions by deadweight tons). 

--- Annual Output (2024): >1,000 vessels; 48.18 million dwt completed (up 13.8% YoY); 113 million dwt ordered (up 58.8% YoY). 

--- Recent Trends: 75% of global new orders in H2 2024; dominates bulk carriers, tankers, containers. Backlog: 208.72 million dwt (up 49.7% YoY). Slight dip in early 2025 orders (to ~52%) due to U.S. trade policies, but rebounding. 

--- Capacity: ~150 yards; state-owned CSSC alone outproduces entire U.S. historical commercial output.

Accordiing to The Atlantic, the U.S. shipbuilding industry, once a global powerhouse capable of producing over 5,500 vessels during World War II, has deteriorated into a shadow of its former self, capturing just 0.13% of the global commercial market in 2024 and facing chronic delays in naval production.  This handicap stems from a century-long interplay of policy neglect, economic shifts, and structural vulnerabilities, leaving the industry unable to compete with subsidized powerhouses like China (59% market share) or keep pace with national security needs.  

According to Contrary Research, China is now the leading powerhouse of the high seas. As of late 2025, the U.S. Navy's fleet hovers around 290 ships—projected to decline despite ambitions for 381—while shipyards grapple with backlogs that could take years to clear.  

The roots trace back to the post-Civil War era, when the U.S. opted against sustained public investment in maritime infrastructure, unlike European rivals who subsidized their fleets aggressively. This laissez-faire approach accelerated after World War I, as wartime booms faded and commercial demand for U.S.-built ships waned amid rising trucking competition for inland and coastal routes.  

By the 1980s, post-Cold War "peace dividend" cuts slashed budgets and fleet sizes, shrinking the number of capable shipyards by 80% and output by 90% from 1950s peaks.  Today, this historical atrophy manifests in a fragmented industrial base, where public yards suffer from obsolescence and private ones from overreliance on sporadic naval contracts. 

A core handicap is the acute workforce shortage, exacerbated by demographics and cultural shifts. Shipyards are hemorrhaging experienced workers through retirement—a "generation gap" leaving teams less productive and reliant on inexperienced hires who require heavy supervision—while struggling to recruit replacements.  Turnover exceeds 20% among younger employees, driven by low starting wages (despite competitive averages of $62,000–$83,000), demanding physical conditions, and a societal push toward college over trades.  

Entry-level jobs often demand 1+ years of experience, creating a catch-22 that stifles growth, and limited vocational training pipelines mean shipbuilding competes poorly with less hazardous fields.  This crisis compounds design and production flaws: U.S. vessels are notoriously complex, with "concurrency" (building before designs are finalized) leading to rework, delays (e.g., Constellation-class frigates years behind), and costs ballooning 30–50% over estimates.  Foreign subsidies enable rivals to iterate faster and cheaper, while U.S. monopsonistic procurement caps profits at 6–8%, deterring private investment in skills or tech. 

Supply chain fragility and infrastructural decay further immobilize the sector. Post-pandemic disruptions, inflation, and overreliance on foreign suppliers—even from China for critical components—have spiked costs for raw materials and parts, delaying projects by months. With fewer domestic suppliers than decades ago, bottlenecks ripple through yards, where outdated facilities (e.g., limited dry docks) and modular construction lags hinder scalability. High labor costs—coupled with stringent U.S. regulations like the Jones Act, which mandates domestic builds but stifles volume—make American ships 2–3 times pricier than Asian counterparts, eroding commercial viability. Meanwhile, global competitors like South Korea and Japan leverage dual-use yards for steady commercial-military output, investing in automation and modular techniques that U.S. facilities lack. 

Revival efforts, including the 2025 "Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance" executive order and $32.4 billion in FY2025 funding, aim to address these via workforce training, allied partnerships (e.g., with Japan), and supply chain fortification—but progress is glacial. Without bolder subsidies, immigration reforms for skilled trades, and a pivot to simpler designs, the U.S. risks ceding maritime supremacy, with dire implications for trade, deterrence, and surge capacity in conflicts. The industry's plight isn't inevitable; it's a policy choice, one that demands urgent, comprehensive reversal to rebuild what was lost.

Related Link

The Warship That Shows Why the U.S. Navy Is Falling Behind China

The Dire State of Our Shipbuilding Infastructure

The High Cost of Doing (Shipbuilding) Business

Sources: realcleardefense.com, americarenewing.com, The Atlantic, usni.org, freightnews.com

Has the U.S. Lost Its Edge? Does the Future Belong to China?

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was set in the future in the year 600 A.F.  The "A.F." stands for "After Ford," referencing Henry Ford, who revolutionized the automotive industry with the introduction of the assembly line and mass production. In the future Huxley describes, humans will be purposefully designed and efficiently mass-produced as well.

There is a sense in which mass production and efficiency were two of the primary engines that powered America's economic growth and enabled us to gear up for the war effort that stalled, then toppled the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) in W.W. II. 

Now, however, 80 years have passed and it seems like the U.S. is so bogged down in red tape, litigation and corrupt self-serving politicians that it can't help but decline as a world power. It's almost insane how hamstrung our government is at every level; federal, state and local. We allocate billions for infractructure and only manage to buid a handful of charging stations. When we set aside a billion dollars for housing we create a few hundred. Government incompetence is legendary.

How does this inefficiency compare to what China has been able to achieve and is accomplishng? Is China destined to become the most powerful nation on earth?

* * * 

The issue of whether our nation's internal challenges with red tape, litigation, and political corruption could lead to a decline in its global power, thereby allowing China to potentially become the most powerful nation on earth, is real. Here are some of the variables at play.

Red Tape and Bureaucracy: The U.S. is often criticized for its extensive regulatory environment which slows down innovation, infrastructure projects, and economic activities. This can deter both domestic and foreign investment due to the complexity and time involved in navigating regulations. 

Litigation: The litigious nature of U.S. society has led to a system where fear of lawsuits can stifle innovation and increase costs for businesses potentially affecting competitiveness. I recently concluded that we no longer live in a land where justice is blind. The new unspoken reality seems to be, "He who has the most lawyers wins." This environment can lead to a focus on compliance rather than growth or development.

Political Corruption: Corruption, while not as rampant as in some other countries, remains a concern. The U.S. has seen declines in its Corruption Perceptions Index, reflecting issues with political integrity and the influence of money in politics, which can distort policy-making and economic decisions.

The Rise of China

Economic Growth: China has pursued a path of rapid economic development, becoming the world's second-largest economy with ambitions to lead in technology and global influence. Its strategies like the Belt and Road Initiative illustrate an attempt to extend economic and political influence globally. The B&RI is an infrastructure and economic development strategy designed to build ties to Asia and Africa in a manner quite different than the way in which the U.S. and Europe exploited the poorer and weaker nations of the world, extracting resources and loaning money at exorbitant interest rates. 

Government Efficiency: China's one-party state system allows for quicker decision-making and project implementation compared to democratic systems like that of the U.S., where consensus-building can be time-consuming. To build new nuclear power plant takes as much time (or more) dealiing with red tape and litigation as building the plant itself. A ban on new nuclear energy plans has lasted 30 years in Minnesota while the demand for energy continues to grow.  By way of contrast, China has 29 new nuclear reactors under construction and in August 2024 approved 11 additional new nuclear plants. This kind of efficiency has been a significant factor in its economic growth.

Political Stability: Under Xi Jinping, China has seen a consolidation of power, which, while criticized for diminishing political freedoms, provides a stable environment for policy execution, unlike the often gridlocked U.S. political system.

Global Power Dynamics

Military and Technological Edge: Despite challenges, the U.S. retains significant military capabilities and is a leader in technology, although China is rapidly catching up in areas like AI, 5G, and surveillance technology.

Soft Power and Alliances: The U.S. has traditionally held strong alliances and cultural influence globally. However, as noted, China is expanding its soft power through economic investments and cultural outreach, though it faces resistance in some democratic nations due to concerns over human rights and political freedoms.

Economic Interdependence: The global economy's interconnectedness means that both countries are vital to each other's economic health. Decoupling or a significant shift in power would have profound global impacts, potentially destabilizing rather than simply shifting dominance.

*

When looking toward the future, we cannot see how the many variables will impact one another. China is funding its ambitious goals with debt which is growing fairly rapidly. Even so, in the debt race, the U.S. is carrying a rather stunning load of its own--more than $35 trillion--and is almost certain to exceed more than $50 trillion within ten years.

Besides debt, China has other challenges including demographic issues and international pushback agaist its policies. There is no certainty with regards to how all these things will play out.

I myself feel a bit like Ebenezer Scrooge when he asks if the thngs he has seen can be altered. “Spirit, are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be, only?” My concern is that if current trends in the U.S. continue without significant reform and China manages its issues effectively, the balance of power will indeed shift towards China.  

What do you think?
(Leave your comment below.)

Some of the information here was gathered via Grok.

Voter Fraud Is Real; Disbelieving That It Happens Is Naive

According to Newsweek: 

Besides the United States, there are 36 member states in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Forty-seven percent ban mail-in voting unless the citizen is living abroad, and 30 percent require a photo ID to obtain a mail-in ballot. Fourteen percent of the countries ban mail-in voting even for those living abroad.

https://www.newsweek.com/voting-fraud-real-concern-just-look-around-world-opinion-1522535

France banned mail-in voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people.

Among the 27 countries in the European Union, 63 percent ban mail-in voting unless living abroad and another 22 percent require a photo ID to obtain a mail-in ballot. Twenty-two percent ban the practice even for those who live abroad.

In 1991, Mexico's election mandated voter photo IDs and banned absentee ballots. The then-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party had long used fraud and intimidation with mail-in ballots in order to win elections. Only in 2006 were absentee ballots again allowed, and then only for those living abroad who requested them at least six months in advance.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3666259

In the early 80's we had a friend who was a professional photographer at Fingerhut in Minneapolis. Being single, he enjoyed traveling and sharing photos from exotic places he'd visited. One of his trips took him to Ecuador and he happened to be in that country on election day. 

He showed us photos of people with their thumbs ink-blackened as a sign that they had voted. It was his understanding that voting was required by law, so people were easily identified as having voted or evaded it. The black thumb prevented people from voting more than once.

Here's an article about 25 countries that still mark voters with ink:
https://tricitytimes-online.com/2020/12/23/25-countries-mark-voters-with-ink/

* * * * 

Here's an abstract detailing the issue of voter fraud in other parts of the world.

Why Do Most Countries Ban Mail-In Ballots?: They Have Seen Massive Vote Fraud Problems

152 Pages Posted: 9 Aug 2020 Last revised: 26 Apr 2021

John R. Lott

Crime Prevention Research Center

Date Written: August 3, 2020

Abstract

Thirty-seven states have so far changed their mail-in voting procedures this year in response to the Coronavirus. Despite frequent claims that President Trump’s warning about vote fraud/voting buying with mail-in ballots is “baselessly” or “without evidence” about mail-in vote fraud, there are numerous examples of vote fraud and vote buying with mail-in ballots in the United States and across the world. Indeed, concerns over vote fraud and vote buying with mail-in ballots causes the vast majority of countries to ban mail-in voting unless the citizen is living abroad.

There are fraud problems with mail-in absentee ballots but the problems with universal mail-in ballots are much more significant. Still most countries ban even absentee ballots for people living in their countries.

Most developed countries ban absentee ballots unless the citizen is living abroad or require Photo-IDs to obtain those ballots. Even higher percentages of European Union or other European countries ban absentee for in country voters. In addition, some countries that allow voting by mail for citizens living the country don’t allow it for everyone. For example, Japan and Poland have limited mail-in voting to those who have special certificates verifying that they are disabled.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3666259

Countries that require a photo ID to vote: UK Italy Chile Spain Malta Brazil Israel Latvia Russia France Mexico Austria Ireland Poland Greece Croatia Finland Estonia Belgium Sweden Bulgaria Portugal Hungary Ecuador Slovenia Slovakia Romania Denmark Germany Lithuania Argentina Columbia Botswana Zimbabwe Luxemburg Netherlands South Africa Czech Republic

(Just to name a few)

People who deny that voter fraud happens are either naive or ______. (Fill in the blank.)

EdNote: I am not a right-wing nut. Why is common sense so uncommon?

Niall Ferguson on the Breakdown of the Rule of Law

Lady Justice: Blindfold, Scales
and Sword*

The other day I shared the values and principles that transformed Western Civilization from a network of regional peoples to a global force. These four forces that came together in Europe (and were exported to North America) were Democracy, Capitalism, the Rule of Law, and Civil Society. 

In my second reading it became apparent that the historian Niall Ferguson's aim here was to draw attention not only to what made Western Civilization strong but to the dangers facing us as these very qualities deteriorate. 

Here are some of my notes and quotes from a section in which historian Niall Ferguson discusses the breakdown of the Rule of Law, opening with this question:

"How effective is the rule of law in the West in general and specifically in the English speaking world today?"

The Rule of Law's Enemies

Ferguson sees four threats to the Rule of Law.

1. How far have our civil liberties been eroded by the National Security state? At the outbreak of WWI Britain enacted the Defense of the Realm Act. The post-9/11 protracted detention of terrorist suspects veiled a similar overreach. And then there's the issue of surveillance on citizens in the name of National Security.

2. The intrusion of European Law with its Civil Law character is a second threat. Specifically, the 1953 European Convention on Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. Ferguson calls it Napoleon's Revenge, a creeping Frenchification of the Common Law. 

3. The third threat is the growing complexity and sloppiness of Statute Law which has become a "mania for elaborate regulations." We need a legal "spring cleaning" of obsolete legislation and the addition of sunset dates for new laws. 

4. The mounting cost of the law. He's not referring to the $95 billion a year the U.S. spends on law making, law interpretation and law enforcement. Nor does he mean the spiraling cost of lobbyists seeking to protect themselves or hurt their competitors by skewing legislation in their favor.  Though companies and cities spend only 3.3 billion dollars on lobbying, the real cost is found in the consequences of their work. How much? According to the U.S. Small Business Association this amounts to 1.75 trillion dollars a year.  And this doesn't include the costs extracted via tort law. Bottom line: It costs way more money to set up a business in the U.S. than elsewhere in the world due to all the legal red tape and the cost of lawyers.

Ferguson points us to a book by Joseph Steiglitz and David Kennedy who cite three egregious failings of the rule of law in the U.S. today. 

First: New bankruptcy laws and predatory lending by banking firms have created a new class of partially indentured servants. There are people so in debt that they have to give as much as 25% of their earnings to the banks for the rest of their lives.

Second: Intellectual property law has become absurdly and excessively restrictive. 

Third: With regard to laws concerning toxic waste, litigation costs represent more than a quarter of the amount spent on cleanup. 

Bottom line is that the game is rigged. The unnecessary costs and inefficiency of our legal system are apparent to all, but what is being done about it? 

"Experts on economic competitiveness (interviewed by) Michael Porter of Harvard Business School (HBS) define the term to include the ability of the government to pass effective laws, the protection of physical and intellectual property rights and lack of corruption, the efficiency of the legal framework including modest costs and swift adjudication, the ease of setting up new businesses, and effective and predictable regulations. It is startling how poorly the United States fares when judged by these criteria." 

When 600+ HBS alumni were queried by Porter as to whether or not to off-shore their operations, only 16% said they would choose the U.S. as a place to set up their business. Here are the Top Five reasons the other 84% would NOT. 

1. The effectiveness of the political system (lack of)

2. The complexity of the tax code

3. Regulation (Red Tape)

4. The efficiency of the legal framework (extremely inefficient)

5. Flexibility in hiring and firing (lack of)

By nearly every measure, our reputation "is shockingly bad," says Ferguson.

According to the Heritage Foundation's "Freedom Index" the U.S. ranks 21st in the world in terms of freedom from corruption, way behind Hong Kong and Singapore.

Ferguson goes on to list a dozen more ways that the U.S. has fallen behind when it comes to the Rule of Law, not just in the business realm but in both the personal and political spheres.

* * * 

My Two Cents

In many ways I believe people fail to observe what is happening today because they have a mental image of what it used to be. For example, it has been nearly 100 years since the Pittsburgh skyline was an abundance of steel factories belching black smoke. There has been immense progress in this realm of business pollution. They no longer need a fire department to put out fires on the Cuyahoga River that flow through Cleveland.

In the same way, many of us have a false image of our superiority as a nation compared to other countries when it comes to justice and freedom. Some make a case that there's never been a level playing field in this country, and that's certainly been true for many. Today, however, the cracks are increasingly visible, and an honest observer has to ask how or when--if ever--these things will be fixed. 

The Radical solution is to bulldoze the entirety into the sea. Saul Alinsky, in his Rules for Radicals, states that Machiavelli wrote his opus as a guide for the Haves to preserve power and what they have. Alinsky claims his book is a guide for the Have Nots. The path he outlines makes me cringe, but so does the path we're on. 

Is there a third way? Ultimately I find comfort in the notion that "this world is not my home." And yet....

*Photo courtesy ChvhLR10, Creative Commons.

Yes, the Soviet Union Was an Evil Empire, Though We Have Our Issues As Well

I'd like to share two articles from the December 2021 Reason magazine. I would have shared this last night except I was distracted by the Tuesday election results along with the climax of the World Series. (Congratulations, Braves fans.)

Reason routinely produces excellent journalism that fails to get the recognition it deserves. The first article is from their December issue marking the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Like Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, she brings an insider's view to this in depth story that has contemporary applications.

The second article ought to keep us from gloating. To fight for freedom means we have to be humble, vigilant and aware. 

Yes, It Was An "Evil Empire"

It was the summer of 1983, and I, a Soviet émigré and an American in the making, was chatting with the pleasant middle-aged woman sitting next to me on a bus from Asbury Park, New Jersey, to Cherry Hill. Eventually our conversation got to the fact that I was from the Soviet Union, having arrived in the U.S. with my family three years earlier at age 17. "Oh, really?" said my seatmate. "You must have been pretty offended when our president called the Soviet Union an 'evil empire'! Wasn't that ridiculous?" But her merriment at the supposed absurdity of President Ronald Reagan's recent speech was cut short when I somewhat sheepishly informed her that I thought he was entirely on point.

* * *

The woman on the bus in 1983 did not surprise me. By then, I had already met many Americans for whom "anti-Soviet" was almost as much of a pejorative as it had been in the pages of Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party. My favorite was a man in the café at the Rutgers Student Center who shrugged off the victims of the gulag camps by pointing out that capitalism kills people too—with cigarettes, for example. When I recovered from shock, I told him that smoking was far more ubiquitous in the Soviet Union, and anti-smoking campaigns far less developed. That momentarily stumped him.

You can read the full story here. Cathy Young's account is loaded with insights.

* * * * 

The second story is a reprint from 2013. It's a must read because it shows the extent to which the U.S. is involved in illegal domestic surveillance. 

Thank You, Edward Snowden

"The NSA has turned the internet into a giant surveillance platform."

Last week the Cato Institute put on a terrific conference about unconstitutional domestic spying. The Cato conference took place after a summer of alarming revelations of just how deep and extensive the feds' secret surveillance of our everyday communications had become. The conference, held at the institute's downtown D.C. headquarters, brought some of the most knowledgeable Internet luminaries together with some of the fiercest fighters for Americans' Fourth Amendment rights.

Watchdog organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had sought for years to expose the extent and depth of federal surveillance, but their efforts were largely stymied by the very walls of secrecy they were trying to breach...

The walls of surveillance secrecy were finally cracked by the June revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden's files conclusively show that the federal government has been operating a vast spying program that violates the Fourth Amendment rights of tens of millions of ordinary Americans.

This one, written by Ronald Bailey, is another good read:
Thank You, Edward Snowden

* * * 

Related Links

Solzhenitsyn on World Communism

George Orwell: Insight from a Man Who Saw It All

Lawrence Roberts, Author of Mayday 1971, Sheds Light on the Biggest Day of Mass Arrests in U.S. History

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
--Oscar Wilde

Author/Journalist Lawrence Roberts

Over the past few years I've attempted write about some of the experiences of my youth in an effort to perhaps gain deeper insights to what I saw and felt and thought, and how it may have shaped me. One of these was my experience of hitchhiking to Washington DC to be part of a major antiwar rally. What prompted me to write my story was Ken Burns' 10 part series on the Vietnam War. I believe it was part seven that covered the events of Mayday 1971. Watching this led me to write a blog post titled Mayday 1971: Correcting the Narrative in the spring of 2019. 

As it turns out several people who had been there for the Mayday rally left comments, and this past fall one of them informed me that a book had been written about the events preceding and surrounding protest. The book is titled Mayday 1971.

After acquiring a copy for myself I reached out to see if I could interview the author, who has clearly taken great pains to assemble and organize all this information so we have a better understanding of what happened and why. 

Lawrence Roberts has been an investigative editor with ProPublica, the Washington Post, Bloomberg News and a leader on teams honored with three Pulitzer Prizes. Mayday 1971 is his first book.

EN: A very big thank you for the work you've done here, Larry, and your efforts to give us an understanding from all angles. Where were you during the Mayday 1971 protests?

Lawrence Roberts: I came to D.C. with a group of friends to participate in the demonstrations. We drove down in a VW microbus from northern New Hampshire, where I was a sophomore at an experimental school called Franconia College.

 

EN: Did you participate in the non-violent protest training on Sunday May 2? What thoughts were you having then?

LR: I wasn’t there for the training because I didn’t camp at the West Potomac Park site. I was staying with friends at George Washington University.

 

EN: What bridge or intersection had you been assigned to block?

LR: My affinity group went to a traffic circle near Georgetown.

 

EN: Were you surprised by how quickly this event seemed forgotten in the shadow of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers?

LR: Yes, I was amazed that the biggest season of dissent in Washington history, followed by the biggest mass arrest in American history, all taking place under a president who would eventually resign in disgrace, had faded from collective memory. Like many people who had been there, I would get quizzical looks for years when I told people what happened. They’d never heard of the events and weren’t quite sure they believed me.

EN: What were the biggest insights you gained from researching and assembling this book?

LR: The Vietnam antiwar movement didn’t realize at the time what a profound effect it was having inside the White House. It’s an example of how sustained and organized nonviolent dissent can influence public policy. I also found it illuminating to retrace how people on all sides of the Mayday protests confronted that extraordinary historical moment. Some people stuck by their principles, while others, for all kinds of human reasons, were slippin' into darkness, as a popular song of the time said.

EN: What were the biggest challenges?

LR: Finding out who exactly ordered the mass arrests. Investigating who dynamited the U.S. Capitol in March 1971, and if the bombers had help.

 

EN: How did this experience color your understanding of the current protest movements on the right and the left?

 

LR: It’s striking to me that a half century ago, thousands of people who came to D.C. to protest nonviolently  against the policies of an authoritarian president were greeted by more than 15,000 police, National Guard, soldiers and marines, and mass detention camps, while this month, thousands of people who came to violently support an authoritarian president found only a handful of Capitol police in their way.

 

You might think that these events were like apples and oranges because they are separated by fifty years. But when you look at the Trump administration’s militarized overreaction to the 2020 protests by Black Lives Matter in D.C. and Portland, and elsewhere, you can see that the powers that be still tend to overestimate the threat of disorder from demonstrators on the Left, and underestimate the threat from the Right.

 

Although the Mayday Tribe’s motto was “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government,” the 12,000 protesters only ever wanted was to stop traffic in the capital. They had no intention of trying to overthrow Congress or override the Constitution, as the pro-Trump mob tried to do.

 

EN: Your book includes a lot of interviews with people who were involved in Mayday. Have you heard from others since it was published?

LR: Yes! I've been collecting some fascinating individual stories about those days from protesters, police, federal agents. They're available at www.lawrenceproberts.com/were-you-there

* * * 

Photos

Middle: Antiwar groups targeting the Selective Service, which conducted the draft. (AP/Charles Harrity)

Below: Troops from the 82nd Airborne being flown in to land on the National Mall (Washington Star photo/Pete Copeland)

* * * 

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it echoes."--Mark Twain 

Related Links

Lawrence Roberts' Mayday 1971 Takes Readers Behind the Scenes at the Biggest Mass Arrest in U.S. History

New book: www.lawrenceproberts.com

Twitter: @robertslawrence