Month: May 2020

This weekend American cities were wracked with riots. Legitimate protests over the death of George Floyd spilled into confrontations with authority and vandalism. While the fires raged in Minneapolis and other towns, other Americans achieved a new first – private industry sent Americans into space.

Americans in Space

The American manned space program didn’t start off well.  The Russian program launched their first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957.  The United States tried to catch up, launching Explorer I three months later.  Russia moved ahead following up with the first man in space and in orbit, Yuri Gagarin in April of 1961.  Meanwhile the American rocket, Vanguard, had lots of problems.  

Alan Shepard was selected to be the first American Astronaut in space.  After the Vanguard rocket failed, he rode a tested but smaller military rocket, the Redstone, on a sub-orbital flight lasting a little over fifteen minutes in May of 1961.  The second American, Gus Grissom, launched in July, but still was using the Redstone’s sub-orbital power.  Both Shepard and Grissom’s flights were successful, though Grissom’s capsule unfortunately flooded and sunk after he was rescued.

Meanwhile the Russians launched a second man into orbit, Ghreman Titov.  He did seventeen orbits of the earth before returning safely.  It wasn’t until the following February, on a different, more powerful Atlas rocket, that the United States launched John Glenn into space, and orbit.  While his flight had difficulties and was cut short, he did manage to orbit the earth three times before returning.

Only the insiders at NASA knew the risks that Glenn faced with the untested Atlas.  Scott Carpenter, Glenn’s astronaut backup, was “cap-com”; capsule communicator for Glenn’s mission.  He was the voice that Glenn, and America, heard communicating throughout the mission.

As Glenn’s rocket left the Launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Carpenter intoned the phrase:  “Godspeed John Glenn”.  It became the watchword for the original Mercury Astronauts and NASA, as well as for John Glenn himself. 

Moon and Shuttle 

The race with Russia went on, and several Astronauts on both sides were sacrificed.  But seven years later, in the turmoil filled year of 1968, it was three Americans who first orbited the Moon in Apollo 8.  On Christmas Eve Astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders read the first Book of Genesis to the people of earth, as we watched the Earth itself rise above the lunar landscape.  Seven months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed Apollo 11 on the surface, the first of six successful moon explorations.

After Apollo, the US space program turned its focus to a more mundane but important project:  building a reusable vehicle to work in space.  The Space Shuttle program began in 1981 with five shuttle vehicles, and continued for over thirty years.  Shuttles were launched and returned 133 times.  There were two catastrophic failures, with the loss of the Challenger and Columbia vehicles and their crews.

The last Shuttle launch was in July of 2011.  Since then, almost nine years, the United States has been shut out of space, hitching rides to the International Space Station on Russian rockets and capsules. 

Free Enterprise

In 2011, the United States Government contracted out the space program.  NASA still oversees civilian space flight, but instead of purchasing the rockets, capsules and equipment and using them, they now contract with companies to carry NASA personnel and equipment into space.  Two companies, Elon Musk’s (Tesla) SpaceX and traditional aeronautics giant Boeing, built competing products.  NASA awards contracts to each, allowing them access to the Kennedy Space Center testing, assembly and launch facilities.

SpaceX won the first race, to get a human payload-ready space vehicle in place.  Like Musk’s Tesla cars, the SpaceX rocket, is designed to look sleek and modern.  Even the names are cool:  the Falcon Rocket, and the Dragon space vehicle.  The Falcon even returns to earth, landing gently just offshore of the Cape on a drone piloted barge named “Of Course I Still Love You” for re-use for future missions.

Space – Dude

Spacesuits have changed since the silver metallic of the Mercury days and the bright white Michelin suits of Apollo.  Even the orange “test flight” suits of the Shuttle days are gone.  The two astronauts launched by the SpaceX team are wearing something closer to Star Wars Storm Trooper with a cooler helmet.  Except for the boots, which look like a cross between Doc Marten and Wellington.

And the grizzled Astronauts and engineers who spoke for NASA are now young “millennial something’s “ in casual SpaceX sportswear.  The launch was cool, and so are the folks talking about it.  It’s the California laidback style, “…of course it all works, Dude.”

But after nine years, two Americans are back in space in their own “ride”.  They are headed to the International Space Station, but they’ll get a “nap” along the way: it’s a nineteen hour pursuit to meet the station in low earth orbit, so there’s an eight hour sleep cycle scheduled.

And as the Falcon Rocket cleared Launch Complex 39-A, home of the Apollo and Shuttle Launches, the SpaceX announcer gave the NASA invocation with an informal twist: “Godspeed, Doug and Ben!”

Welcome back America!!

Burning Cities

Minneapolis burned last night.  Even quiet Columbus Ohio felt the strain of riot and looting.  I am reading the outrage of many, mostly white suburban voices:  “This is not the way,” or “ Columbus, we are better than this”.  And, of course, the President, with his usual idiocy, tweeted,  “…but when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.

In the United States we value property.  We even know that black entrepreneurs own some of the stores burned in Minneapolis.  And we expect the police to arrest the arsonists and the looters.  But here’s the point the outraged black communities of Minneapolis, and Columbus, and Los Angeles, and Denver, and other cities are making.  The police see an arsonist or a looter, or even a CNN news crew.  They see something those folks are doing, and they have “probable cause” to make an arrest.  They put them in custody, right there.   The cuffs go on:  right or wrong, they go to jail.

Probable Cause

Most of us have sat through the excruciating last seven minutes of George Floyd’s life.  We heard him plead to the police officer to take the knee from his neck.   And we listened to the pleas of the spectators, to let the man breath.  He died, a knee on his neck, and two other officers holding his handcuffed body down on the ground.  A fourth officer stood guard to make sure no one else could intervene.

The probable cause is self-evident, just like the young man caught throwing the firebomb, or removing a television set from Target.  But the officers are not under arrest.  The local prosecutor is waiting for some unknown exculpatory evidence that will somehow justify what was done to George Floyd.  Sure, they have been “fired” from the police force:  so what.  It’s just another time of being told, “Don’t believe your lying eyes”.  

Why is Minneapolis burning?  Why are young people in Columbus, Ohio protesting, then attacking police and property? They are recognizing their “self-evident” truth.  The Target store, the AutoZone, the doors to the Ohio Statehouse, must be so much more important than the life of a black man on the street:  their lives.  The point is clear: the looters and vandals are jailed; the murderers of George Floyd are sitting in their homes.

Nothing New

It’s the same question that was asked in the riots of the 1960’s:  in Watts, and Detroit, and Dayton.  Why are people burning their own neighborhoods, why are they destroying their local stores and buildings?  It’s to make the point:  our majority society values that property much more than we value the lives of minorities.

I know that many of my more conservative friends struggle with the slogan, “Black Lives Matter”.  They respond with alternate sayings: “Blue Lives Matter” or “All Lives Matter”.  But they miss the point.  We do care about “Blue Lives”, about the police officers that risk their lives daily.  Even yesterday, a Columbus Police Officer was shot in the line of duty.  He risked his life to protect others, and our thoughts are with him as he recovers.

And of course, we do care about “All Lives”.  But, as a society, we need to be aware of the message being sent to minorities, and particularly to black men:  your lives don’t matter as much, at least to many.  Your life means so little, that the policeman can kneel on your neck, on the open street in the bright light of day with cameras videoing, and nothing will be done to stop him.  Not even by his brother officers.

What Matters

No one protected George Floyd’s life.  It didn’t matter.  No one protected Ahmaud Aubrey’s life.  It didn’t matter.  No one protected Eric Garner’s life.  It didn’t matter.  How long a list do you need to see, to see that black lives don’t matter?  We watched all three die, on video.  How can we not believe our eyes?

But don’t burn down the Third Precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department.  That matters!  It’s not about protecting property.  It’s about what we as a society value, and until we make it clear that our society values minority lives, then we will continue to watch devastating videos, and continue to call on the National Guard to protect property from folks demanding that they matter too.

Trump World

Four events occurred in the past few days. The first, and most obscene, is the death of another black man at the hand (or knee) of a white man with “official” standing.  It’s one of those things, like school shootings, that America seems to abhor, yet accept as “unsolvable”.  I have already said a lot about these actions in the past weeks, and this new incident doesn’t change what needs to be done.  

What I will note is this:  maybe for the first time, the “blue wall” of support has cracked.  Police officers aren’t immune to the depravity of some in their profession, but they are loath to discuss it.  I understand that completely.  When they are out in the field, they must be absolutely confident that their fellow officers have “their back”.  It’s literally life and death.   That confidence depends on supporting each other, regardless of personal likes and dislikes.  

But the fastest way to change those few brutal outlier officers is from the inside.  It’s not just “on” their coworkers, but it’s where change can begin.

Numbers

The second is the ongoing battle of numbers. We now find that some of the tests, the fifteen million that President Trump is so proud of, are about as accurate as flipping a coin.  That allows everyone to simply ignore the most important number of the week: one hundred thousand dead from COVID-19 in the last four months.  And there is no stopping this yet:  it’s almost 102,000 as I write this essay.  Like the school shootings, and like the death of black men, the numbers seem no longer shocking.

The third is positive:  the United States is preparing to send humans back into space.  I was waiting for that launch: it’s past time for an “uplifting” essay, and I am a huge proponent of space exploration.  But, as we are discovering with a vengeance in our current world, nature controls us so much more than we control her.  The rocket didn’t launch yesterday, thunderstorms lurked around Cape Canaveral making it far too dangerous.  They will try again on Saturday.  I look forward to writing about the United States in space on Sunday morning.

All of which leads us to today’s topic.

The First

“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” – First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

In school, teachers talk about the First Amendment as “the five freedoms:” religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition for redress of grievances.  But the wording of the Constitution is more nuanced:  it doesn’t really asset a “positive right”.  What it does do is establish a boundary:  Congress, representing the Federal government, shall make no law.  

The First Amendment restricts the Government.  It does not control what private individuals do.  So for example, in New York City last week, a white woman was in Central Park, allowing her dog to run off-leash.  A black man, in the Park bird watching, asked the woman to follow the “rules” and leash the dog.  He recorded the ensuing discussion/argument on his cell phone.  The woman responded by calling 9-11 and demanding that the police come and protect her from this “African American man ‘threatening’ the dog and her.”

White privilege and racism were loaded in all of her actions:  thankfully the police came and defused the situation. No one was arrested or charged. When the video of her actions went viral, she was fired from her investment company job.  Some claim that this is a violation of her First Amendment rights, including her “right” to be a bigot.  But the investment company is not the Federal Government:  it is a private corporation.  The First Amendment does not circumscribe their actions.

Twitter

There are many negative things to say about the President of the United States, Donald Trump.  I’ve spent three years and three months composing the essays of Trump World, and many of them have criticized the President.  This is my “right” under the First Amendment, and in spite of the concerns of some friends and relatives, some of them from outside of the United States, I haven’t had any “governmental” repercussions from speaking my mind.  

But one positive thing can be said about Mr. Trump:  he has found a new way to bypass the media and communicate with the American people.  In the past, Presidents could either use the press, or use the “bully pulpit” of the White House and speak directly to the public.  But President Trump has made it an “art form” to use social media, particularly Twitter, to reach Americans.  He has 81 million Twitter followers, but his Tweets resonate far beyond them to the rest of us.

Rules

Twitter has a “community use” policy.  There is a list of actions that are banned from the platform (Twitter): 

• Threatening violence, 
• Threatening or promoting terrorism, 
• Child sexual exploitation, 
• Promoting violence, 
• Threatening or harassing someone based on race, ethnic origin, gender, etc.
• Suicide of self-harm,
• Graphic violence and adult content,
• Illegal or regulated goods.

Twitter is a publicly traded company, run by CEO Jack Dorsey.  Like Facebook, Instagram, and other social media giants, Twitter is characterized as a “platform”.  The concept is that they are simply a conduit for the sharing of information, and have little or no responsibility for what is shared.  As a “platform” they are a “structure”, without an editorial position.

This allows them to avoid the strictures that broadcast media are required to follow through regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.  And, they are corporations, not government entities.  The First Amendment does not restrict them.  In essence, they can make the rules for the use of their platform, if you don’t like their rules, don’t sign up for their platform.

Twitter regulates what its users say.  Violate the “community standards” and Twitter punishes by restricting or banning use – “Twitter Jail”.  But Twitter has determined that some chosen few Americans, including the President, are so “newsworthy” that no matter what they say they are exempted from the rules.   They are given a “pass”:  the fact that they bring millions of followers, and therefore income, to Twitter is beside the fact, supposedly. 

The President

President Trump takes full advantage of his Twitter immunity.  He says whatever comes to his mind, and whatever appeals to his diehard supporters.  In the past week, the President has Tweeted about the dangers of mail-in voting, citing all of the “cheating and fraud” that occurs when ballots are cast by mail.  It’s simply not true, and Twitter knows it.  Rather than placing Mr. Trump in “jail”, they have determined to fact-check his Tweets, placing “the truth” under his Tweets to counter the fiction.

Mr. Trump doesn’t like to be corrected, and most certainly doesn’t want to be questioned on his favorite communication medium.  So he is now threatening some kind of regulation over Twitter and the other social media platforms.  He claims he has the First Amendment “right” to say what he wants on Twitter, and that their corrections are interfering in the 2020 Presidential election.

Executive Orders

So he’ll sign an Executive Order today.  It will threaten Twitter and the rest, with the threat of regulation:  a threat, of a threat.  

His threat of regulation is another “paper tiger:” the President on his own cannot just create regulatory authority.  It would require Congress to agree, and would then surely be tested in Court against the First Amendment.  But that’s not what Mr. Trump really wants to do.  He’s simply firing a “warning shot” at Jack Dorsey and Twitter world, the same shot he’s been firing at Fox News.  He’s saying, “If you don’t back me, I’ll take my millions of followers and go somewhere else”.  The problem the President has in both cases, is that the alternative platforms aren’t nearly as broadly viewed.  

But it might well work.  It’s 2020:  Twitter, and more importantly Facebook, look to the Trump Campaign for many ten of millions of advertising dollars in the next few months.  So don’t count on any of them putting the President in “jail”, even if he makes up a conspiracy about an opposing news personality committing murder.  It’s not about freedom of speech; it’s about cash on the barrel.

Another Memorial Day

It was Memorial Day, yesterday.  A near-traditional Memorial Day for us, with the very first hot weather of the upcoming summer, family at the house for early dinner and a “low country” boil on the back deck.

But, of course, it wasn’t traditional at all.  We remain under a cloud, even under the hot May sun.  It’s the COVID-19 pandemic, changing life in all sorts of big and small ways.  The crisis seemed to have frozen time:  it’s a little bit of a shock to see that summer came anyway.  The weather, and the world, felt like it was going to be March rain forever.

But here we are, on the cusp of summer.

2001 – the Future

When I was a young man, I became fascinated with science fiction books. Clarke and Asimov were my favorites, though Frank Herbert crept in towards the end.  Some created whole new universes, but the authors I related to most were those that showed what life here on earth would be like only a dozen decades ahead of today.  

Many of them prophesized some kind of world crisis, when the people of earth made some dramatic decision on how to live their lives. For a few, it was an atomic war; a reasonable prediction given the way the 1950’s and 60’s were going.  Gene Roddenberry, creator of the Star Trek franchise, showed earth rising from the ashes of a nuclear war that ended in 2053.  That seemed so far away back in 1968.

Several authors anticipated mankind’s crisis of confidence in science.  Isaac Asimov recognized this in his Robot series.  He constantly dealt with the fear that somehow robots would use their superiority over humans to “take over”.  He developed an entire “moral” code for robotics to convince mankind they were safe.  And while we aren’t quite to the point of his andromorphic helpers, we do depend on artificial intelligence for growing parts of our daily living.  From “smart houses” to “Alexa” and “Siri,” AI has infiltrated our daily routines.  It’s listening and responding to our every word.

Anti-Science

Like any good 1960’s science fiction novel, we find a backlash in our society to these advances.   For many, Microsoft creator Bill Gates has become a bête noire, “threatening” to put “chips” in our body to somehow gain control.  As if we aren’t already allowing access to all of that information already, instead of a “chip” in our arm, we carry a little box in our pocket with all of that data.  We call it a “phone”, but that little computer we all carry is constantly in communication with an interconnected world, revealing our location, our likes and desires, our calendar and our images, fingerprints and sounds.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is a backlash against science.  It was already happening before COVID-19 was even named back in February.  Anti-vaxxers have been crying out for years, their conspiratorial theories amplified by celebrities and led by a name that echoes other great crusades, Kennedy.  Climate change deniers have ignored scientific research for decades, well financed by a petroleum industry whose profits are vested in the status quo.

And now, with COVID-19, we have accelerated the war against science.  Just as we have folks who are willing to close their eyes to the damage we are doing to the climate, we now find many who refuse to take the advice of our leading scientists as they offer a less painful path through this crisis.  Like the petroleum industry, we have a political party who has embraced the “anti-science” view.  It too is led by a “name”, the President of the United States.

2020 – The Present

Clarke and Asimov would find our current situation strangely familiar.  There is a commonality in the fear of those educated in the arcane “secrets” of viral epidemics.  They know and understand what has happened and can confidently predict possible futures, knowledge most of us do not have.  The virus seems capricious, and like the Judaic angel of death, passes over many.  And that gives President Trump an advantage, the virus as an “unseen enemy”. It’s easy to doubt something you can’t see, and create doubt in the scientific prescriptions. Invisibility allows manipulation for daily political gain. 

But the “laws” of science are as inexorable as the changes of the season.  The virus will do what it’s going to do, regardless of the political ramifications.  Perhaps it will mutate itself “away” from infection, the miracle that President Trump wishes for.  Or perhaps we will find that “herd immunity” doesn’t exist for this particular virus.  We really don’t know. What we do know is what the best science tells us:  social-distance, masks, and testing.  

Decades from now we may well look back at 2020 is a pivotal year, a turning point where the “people of earth” made decisions that altered our future path.  Science is competing with immediate self-interests:  Clarke and Asimov had faith we would choose wisely.  I hope that faith was right.

Memorial Day 

So this is from a couple of years ago – but it’s more important today than it was even then.  Memorial Day should remember those who served – but also remember those veterans we are losing in overwhelming numbers to the pandemic.  

I don’t remember growing up with any specific “Memorial Day” activities.  My parents were both veterans, unusual for the World War II, “Greatest” generation. Dad was a Warrant Officer, part of the Army finance operations.  My Mom, a British citizen (she never gave it up) was an agent of the Special Operations Executive.  

Memorial Day was many days during the year, with parties in the “living room,” bourbon, scotch, and whiskey in tumblers and cigarettes in the boxes on the table.  The conversation often turned to what they did during the war.  It allowed me to grow up with a special awareness of the impact of World War II; after all, I wouldn’t have been here without it.

My Mom and Dad met in London, a blind date at the Queen’s Brasserie restaurant. (As a child I wasn’t really sure what the Queen’s Brassiere was all about.) He was from Cincinnati, stationed in England waiting for the invasion. She was home in England, back from being behind enemy lines making preparations to invade.  According to them, they fell madly in love at the first dinner and walked the blacked out streets as the bombs fell.  

There wedding was scheduled for June 6, 1944.  In early March they were both notified that they would be unavailable for that date (it turned out to be D-Day) and the wedding was moved up to March 27^th.  Soon after, Dad went to a secure base outside of Southampton to wait, and Mom went back over to France to coordinate with the Maquis.

They both managed to survive the ordeal of the last year of the war.  They came home, back to Cincinnati, with drive and determination to start a family and make their life strong and successful.  Their friends did as well.  Art ended up serving in both World War II and Korea.  Buddy commanded segregated troops before the invasion.  Walter was a prisoner of war.  We grew up with their stories.  

It was never a question about honoring their service.  They knew they had saved the world from Fascism, and we recognized their sacrifices.  They had missing friends, the stories of those who didn’t come home.  My Mom’s fiancé (before my Dad) was one of those.

As I grew up in the throes of the Vietnam War (I was a couple of years too young to go) it was a difficult contrast:  the sacrifice my parents made to “save the world” versus the sacrifice my older friends were being asked to make in Southeast Asia.  And even a more challenging distinction:  being against the war without being against those who fought it.   Memorial Day was difficult.  America didn’t get that part right then, and we still owe those folks now.

Later, as a teacher and coach, I had the privilege and fear of watching many of my students go to serve.  They were in Lebanon when the barracks were bombed, Iraq when the scuds were launched; they served as special operators in Iraq and snipers in Afghanistan.  Today they serve on Navy ships, fly Air Force planes, drive Army tanks and proudly wear Marine dress blues.  They take the lessons of our classroom, and maybe more significantly, the family of our team; and use those early experiences to help keep our country safe.

So it’s Memorial Day.  Today, and most days, I think about the sacrifices of those who have passed, not just the Greatest Generation, but also my friends who served in more recent times.  As the rabid politics of our time cloud the field, there is still one thing that is clear:  remember and honor those who serve.  They’ve earned it.

My Friends 

This is an open letter from here in Central Ohio, to all of my “won’t wear a face mask,” “going to church this morning” friends.  There are a lot you:  I see you in the grocery store, at the restaurant for carryout last night (including the staff) and for sure at the hardware store.  Some of you are uncertain, but many are proudly proving that “you aren’t scared”.  And when I read social media, I hear you over and over again.  

There’s a litany of reasons. 

• “It is all a hoax,” says one far-out idea. 
• Many doctors say facemasks don’t help. 
• Most people who get the virus won’t have a problem, or at least they will survive.  
• And the final reason, more people will be hurt by the economic disaster than are by the virus.

All I can say to all of you is I truly hope you are right.  You better be.

Decision

You see, you’ve decided this for all of us.  The reason that we didn’t have the “curve” at the beginning, overwhelming our hospitals with thousands more, is that we shut down.  You could hear it on Broad street two hundred feet from my house.  On a normal morning, about six, there’s lots of traffic, people heading to work.  But in the shut down, six in the morning sounded like four in the morning.  There were only a few cars headed into town.

You could see it at the grocery store, where folks quickly got what they needed and got out.  And you could see it on the side streets, where the only traffic was the Amazon vans silently slipping in and out of driveways, providing “everything needed” for sheltering at home.

But that’s all done now.  When you wander around our small town, it’s getting right back to “normal”.  Traffic is back up on Broad street.  Folks are acting like “we won”.  And today the President has “ordered” that churches, synagogues and (he could hardly say it) mosques should be open.  It’s his first “national” command, and he probably doesn’t have the authority to do it.  But that doesn’t really matter; he’s told the country it’s OK.  OK to gather in groups, OK to sing together in a room, OK to share the Eucharist.  The President wants us back in our pews.

Science

In a progressively smaller voice, the leading epidemiologists have said:  the virus is still here.  We only stopped if by stopping transmission, but it hasn’t “gone away”.  If we go back to “normal” we will be right back in February and early March.  But that’s not what people want to hear, and it’s certainly not what the President wants us to do.  No, we’ve done “our duty” in March and April; we’ve made our “sacrifice”.  It’s time to get back to work, to life, to normal.   

Back to swimming pools and Little League, back to bars and restaurants.  Hell, Disney World is going to reopen soon.  But none of this is based on “science”; it’s all based on a whole lot of wishing and hoping and “what it should be”.  

Rights

I hope you’re right:  I hope all of this was a hoax.  Except for those 100,000 dead and probably a whole lot more.  We’ve been playing fast and loose with the numbers; figures make Presidents and Governors look bad. 100,000 or more are dead in less than three months.  And that was with all of the protections and protocols that we had in place.

I hope your right, that facemasks won’t make a difference.  Because even if they did, they won’t when you aren’t wearing them.  There are those who say, “Well, if you’re scared, wear it, but don’t make me wear one”.  But, of course, if they work at all, they work by preventing transmission, not reception.  Put simply, it keeps an infected person from spreading the virus, not a non-infected person from getting it.  One person with a facemask isn’t protected.  It’s all of the unknowingly infected people wearing them that prevent the spread.

And I, truly, hope you are right that religious places opening to actual services won’t spread the virus.  Because that is really an awful thought:  folks go to commune with their fellow man and God, only to be struck down by a virus they could have avoided.

Your Choice, Not Mine

I feel like a man driving back from work late on a Friday night.  You know that out there, on the roads, there are people driving home from the bar.  Some are far too drunk to drive, but they’ve made the choice to “make it home”.  They’ve chosen for themselves, but when they swerve into your lane, they’ve made that choice for you too.

So, my mask-less, church going friends, I hope you are right.  If you’re not, then we are going to go through so much more tragedy than we’ve already seen, and so many more are going to die needlessly.  But I know, it’s your rights.  And I know that you are so sure you’re right.

  Right?

Mr. Nix

As a rookie teacher, back in 1978, I was fortunate enough to have an outstanding Principal.   Mr. Pete Nix was an amazing role model:  strong, caring, an administrator who “had your back” but still held you accountable.  Pete taught me a lot, and let me “in” on what it was like to be the head of the high school in a small town.  And, as a proud product of Alabama, Pete had a whole textbook of sayings that summed up almost any situation.  As far as statistics were concerned, Pete would say, “…figures lie, and liars figure”.

I’ve always held that particular saying close.  As education, and many other parts of our computerized and digitized world changed, I keep remembering it.  Figures can be made to back any side, any view.   Numbers can be intimidating, and can seem unalterably correct.  But they often aren’t.

Politics and Numbers

Today, the death toll of COVID-19 crossed the 95,000 mark here in the United States.  We are, by far, the worst hit nation in the world, with more than a quarter of all cases, and all deaths.  But we also know that China, still only claiming 4,634 deaths, may well be doing some figuring, and some lying.  They want to look as if they had everything under control from the beginning.  It’s not even a matter of “fault”, but China clearly didn’t have much control over the virus.  What they did manage to control was the information flow.  We may never know how many died or are dying there.

Politics is driving many of the “numbers” about COVID-19 here in the United States.  Let’s get a couple of points clear. First, everyone wants the economy to “open up”.  The whole storyline damning the Democrats for wanting to keep the nation closed in order to win the November election is, well, Bull.  Democrats are the most likely folks most damaged by the economy being closed, of course they want it re-opened.  

What Democrats Want

But here’s the problem, Democrats are also likely to be the folks employed in the jobs that put them most at risk.  If you can stay home and work from the kitchen table or the couch, you have a lot of control over your risk of exposure to the virus.  But if you drive the city bus, or work at the restaurant, or stand on the line at the meat packing plant, you’ve got to go to work.  You are at risk.  The figures from New York show it, as the percentage of minority deaths soar far above their percentage of the population.  That’s no lie.

No, what Democrats want is the nation to open safely.  Republicans should want it too; after all, if the virus ignites and fills the hospitals, whatever economic (or political) gains from “opening” the economy will be lost.  And, for the President of the United States, facing an election based on his handling of this crisis, so will the election.  

Political Distancing

We have “social distancing” today, but the President has done a different kind of distancing.  He has distanced himself from responsibility for whatever happens in the next few months.  Instead of taking control of the situation on a national basis, as Presidents have done in past crises, Mr. Trump has pushed the “responsibility” to the Governors of the states.  

But once he gave them responsibility, he immediately began to use his “bully pulpit” to demand that they open up their states.  That pressure was inexorable:  since the Federal financial response for individual workers turned out to be pretty anemic, they need the jobs.  So the Governors are stuck:  keep the economy closed and control the virus, open up and risk explosive infection and overwhelmed hospitals.  As far as the President is concerned, opening the economy is “on him,” increases in infection are somebody else’s fault.

The Tests

The biggest failure of the Federal government has been testing.  And today we found out something else:  that while the Administration has absolutely increased testing, we now find that the different tests are all being agglomerated into one figure.

What does all that mean?  So there are two kinds of tests for COVID-19.  One is a viral test:  it detects whether you are suffering from the virus NOW.  It’s the test you need to have if you want to test workers at a plant, or students at a school.  You don’t care whether someone had the virus at one time or another; you want to know whether they are currently infected.

The other kind of test is the antibody test.  It detects if you have had the virus at some point in the past.  Perhaps someday, that will give us some information about whether you have some immunity to future infection, and for how long.  We don’t know the answer to that yet, but we need to hope there is some longer-term immunity.  That’s when the whole “herd immunity” idea kicks in, that if enough people are immune, than the virus won’t be able to be as infective.  Then we can isolate the higher risk folks, and let others go back to their lives.

Liars Figure

But if you are a Governor, trying to keep you finger on the pulse of infection in your state, you need the first test.  You need to know if current infections are increasing or not.  Whether folks had the virus in the past, is good information to know, but not directly useful in making immediate decisions for your state.  Sure, they can wait until hospital admissions go up; but that’s a fourteen-day lag.  By the time Governors have that data, it’s late.

The Centers for Disease Control has been taking the numbers from both tests and putting them together.  If Governors depend on those testing numbers to tell them what’s happening, the information from those combined tests doesn’t help.

After all of the political fuss over testing, it shouldn’t be a surprise that CDC is putting out figures that look like they’re testing a whole lot of people.  The President, and the Administration, after neglecting testing for months, turned and made it their biggest talking point.  The CDC needs to “please” their President, and bigger numbers are better.  Two sets of numbers, for each type of tests doesn’t sound as good.  The problem is, those combined numbers won’t help anyone make the difficult decision of  “opening the economy” or not.

Figures lie, and liars figure.

Democrats

So a Facebook friend of mine, of a very conservative and pro-birth persuasion, introduced me to a black woman named Candace Owen.  He posits Ms. Owen as a counter expert to many of the issues we argue about on Facebook, particularly race oriented ones generated from the essays I write here in Trump World.    

To use his words:  “She’s bright and articulate.  She leads a group called Blexit (black exit from the Democrat (sic) Party.”

So before I go any farther, I am going to take a point of privilege here.  I am a Democrat.  My political party is the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, not the Democrat Party.  We Democrats believe in the ideals of the Democratic Party.  There is no “Democrat Party” just as there is no “Republic Party”.  So let’s get past the petty “digs” before we move on.

Ms. Owen, by the way, and many of the Republic(an) members of the House do the same thing.  It must have been a Republic(an) talking point somewhere, but it just makes them sound stupid.  The Republic(an) thing makes me sound stupid too, so I’ll stop.

Our Shared History

Both Ms. Owen and my friend are fixated on the Democratic Party’s role in the Civil War and post-Civil War era.  It’s nothing to be proud of:  Democrats were definitely on the side of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and hate.  By the way, so were many Republicans, though our history has been re-written to say that there was no such thing as discrimination and hate in the North.  Winners get to write the story.  But, common sense tells us that it’s not true:  there are many things done in the past that shame members of both political parties.

But in more recent times, it has been the Democratic Party that has led the movement towards greater Civil Rights.  It was Democratic Presidents, Truman with the desegregation of the military, and Kennedy and Johnson with the passage of the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965, leading the way.  In fact, the reason why the South has been a solidly Republican voting block since Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, is that many Democrats in the South switched parties when the Democratic Party pushed through desegregation and greater civil rights.  Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and Trent Lott in the past, and Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana today all started as Democrats, and ended up Republicans.

Racism Today

Ms. Owen, and my friend, both seem to think that racism and white nationalism in the United States aren’t really issues, but are merely “talking-points” for the Democratic Party.   But on a national achievement test given to eighth graders, white students scored 26 points higher, on average, than black students.  Those numbers aren’t much different north or south, Democrat or Republican.  

In the United States the average white family makes $89,632, the average black family $58,985.  Prior to our current COVID-19 disaster, white unemployment was 3%, black unemployment was almost twice that at 5.7%.  

Racism isn’t just an economic phenomenon.  37% of the male population in US prisons is black, while they only represent 12% of the US population.  And of course, there is the ongoing struggle of black people to be treated fairly by various institutions and government entities from education to justice to employment. 

These aren’t Democratic or Republican problems; they are national problems.  The difference in the political parties seems to be that the Democratic Party is interested in closing these gaps, while the Republican Party seems more interested in ignoring them, and focusing on creating greater profit for investors and businesses.  The Republicans are fixated on the old Ronald Reagan trope:  that economic growth at the top will “trickle down” to the bottom.  It hasn’t worked in the thirty-two years since Mr. Reagan left office, but the Republicans are still trying.

Abortion

Oh, and because my pro-birth friend is so definitely fixed on that topic:  yes, there is a much higher rate of abortions in states like New York and Illinois and California.  These are states, controlled by Democrats, who believe women should have a choice about their own bodies.  And yes there are fewer abortions in those states where access has been restricted and more intrusive tests and procedures are mandated.  

In Missouri for example, there is only one clinic available where a woman can even access an abortion.  Those states happen to be states controlled by Republicans.  But to manipulate those “statistics” to claim that Democrats are racists by allowing abortion is just distorting the facts.  The question isn’t about the woman’s race; it’s about the right of that woman to choose.

My friend and I have a fundamental disagreement on this issue, so much so that there is no room for discussion.  And he, like many pro-birth Republicans, is willing to accept all of Donald Trump’s immorality and dereliction of duty, to get one more Supreme Court Justice to overturn Roe v Wade.  

Ms. Owen

So yes, my friend, I really did listen to Ms. Owen’s testimony to Congress.  I have tried to respond to what she asserted, rather than proved.  I did not find her “facts” valid or persuasive.  But I do want you to know, I listened, and while we will continue to disagree, I hope we can also continue to dialog.  Rather than closing doors and hiding behind  ideologies, Americans need to talk.

Smoking Gun

The pivotal evidence in the Republican investigation of the end days of Barack Obama’s Presidency was declassified yesterday.  “Obamagate” they call it.  It’s the “catchphrase” that Trump 2020 campaign and Republican Senator Ron Johnson hopes will match the “Hillary Emails” of 2016 MAGA rally fame. Trump and his fellow travellers tried to build this case of “Deep State Conspiracy” in 2018, now they are back again, just in time for the 2020 election.

Susan Rice was the National Security Advisor to President Obama in those waning days of his term in office.  She wrote a “memo to self” on Inauguration Day, memorializing the national security discussions of the last few weeks.  The national security team, including Obama, Rice, Vice President Biden and FBI Director Jim Comey, were aware of the FBI investigation into the Trump Campaign, titled Crossfire Hurricane.  They were briefed that Russian intelligence had multiple interactions with Trump campaign operatives.  And they knew that it was Russian Intelligence that broke into the Democratic National Committee computers and stole the emails that were dripped out in the last few months of the 2016 election.

Flynn

And now, they had transcripts of Trump’s top national security expert, former Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, discussing foreign policy with the Russian Ambassador, Sergei Kislyak.  They knew that Flynn had asked the Russians not to respond to the Obama Administration actions in response to the Russian hacking, implying that Trump would withdraw the penalties.  Flynn, as former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, knew that Kislyak’s phone was tapped, but had the conversations anyway.  And they also knew that Flynn himself had connections to the Russian and Turkish governments as well.

The Memo

So what did these “nefarious” Democrats do?  Donald Trump has literally accused them of treason, and now, with the release of this email, we have the evidence.  Here’s what Susan Rice “memoed to self” (Fox).

• After a January 5^th Intelligence Community leadership meeting on Russian hacking, there was a brief follow-on conversation.  The President, the Vice President, Rice, Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates were present.
• President Obama began by committing that every aspect be handled “by the book”, and that he was not instructing or initiating anything from law enforcement.
• From a National Security perspective, the President wanted to be sure that as they engaged with the incoming team, that “…we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reasons that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia”.
• Comey affirmed that he is proceeding “by the book” as it relates to law enforcement.
• The FBI Director did have concerns about Flynn who was speaking frequently with Kislyak.  Comey was concerned that Flynn might potentially share sensitive information.  Obama asked if the NCS (National Security Council) should withhold sensitive information from Flynn.  Comey replied, “potentially”.
• Comey added that Flynn had not passed classified information to Kislyak so far, just that that the “level of communication is unusual”.
• Obama asked Comey to inform him of any changes that might effect sharing classified information with the incoming team.
• Comey said he would.

Pop Gun

That’s it – the smoking gun.  Obama, Biden, Rice, Comey and Yates sat around and discussed withholding information from a potential leak to Russian intelligence.  They agreed to “go by the book” and share with the “incoming team” but be aware of any changes that might effect that sharing.

So let’s get this straight.  As Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found twice, the FBI investigation into the Trump Campaign was “properly predicated”, despite later issues with the Carter Page FISA warrant.  That means it had legitimate reasons to begin.  We now know from the Mueller Report, that there were literally hundreds of contacts between Trump campaign personnel and Russian intelligence.  We also know from the Senate Intelligence Committee Report, that the intelligence community was right.  Russia was playing a significant role in the 2016 campaign, weighing-in to favor Trump.  

We know that Flynn was in consistent communication with the Russian Ambassador.  And we now know that while Flynn was advising Trump, and designated as the incoming National Security Advisor, he was on the payroll of the Turkish government.

Duty

So the President and his close national security team were concerned about Russian influence on the incoming Presidential team.  And they talked about it.  Isn’t that what the President and his team should do?  They were aware of Flynn’s actions, so much so that President Obama warned President-elect Trump about it.  Shouldn’t these folks have acted to protect American interests?  Wasn’t that their job?

If this is “Obamagate”, Trump’s definition of treason and the “Deep State Conspiracy” that Trump 2020 will ride to re-election:  they ain’t got – well – nothing.

Trump might try to turn this into another “lock him up” moment in a rally, but the reality is they should be chanting “Thank You” to Obama and his team for doing their duty for America.

Navajo Nation

The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the United States.  It spans over 24,000 square miles across New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, an area larger than West Virginia.  More than 170,000 Navajo live spread out on the high plains and plateaus. 

The Navajo, unlike their neighbors the Hopi and Zuni tribes, often live in isolated homes, tending to herds of sheep and goats.  The sheep provide the wool for their best-known product, the Navajo blankets and rugs.  There are small towns scattered throughout the reservation, but it’s not unusual for tribal members to live hundreds of miles to the nearest urban area.

The Navajo Nation is one of the poorest sections of the United States.  The average annual family income is around $27,000.  Forty percent don’t have electricity, and thirty percent of the homes lack running water or plumbing.  The low incomes and lack of access to medical care means that many suffer from chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart conditions.  

The Diné

The Diné (the people) maintain Navajo traditions through elders, who pass on the history and culture to younger tribal members.  While more than half of the 350,000 Navajo tribal members live off of the reservation, it is the elders living there that keep Navajo life alive.

Life on the reservation today includes trips into “town” to get supplies, particularly water.  And, like many Native American tribes in the United States, alcoholism is a very significant public health concern.  All of this comes together in Gallup, New Mexico, a city of 22,000 just outside the southern border of the Navajo Nation.  Gallup is on a major intersection, where the main east-west route Interstate 40 and north-south route US 491 (previously US 666) cross.  

There are two hospitals located in Gallup, the Rehoboth McKinley Christian Medical Center and the Gallup Indian Medical Center.  There are sixty beds in the hospital, and eight intensive care units.

COVID 19

Gallup seems a long way from the corona-virus crisis.  But I-40 crosses America, from California to North Carolina, and the virus found its way into the town.  As in many other towns in America, the stores, bars, and jails served as hot spots to transmit the virus.  One particular transmission site in Gallup was the self-service water fill-up, where change from the machine passed the virus.  Today, 4071 have COVID-19 on the reservation, and 142 have died.  This week, the Navajo Nation passed New Jersey and New York with the highest per person infection rate.

COVID-19 represents a particular threat to the Navajo.  Not only are medical facilities scarce but also the pre-existing conditions that contribute to the seriousness of infection are present, particularly among the elders of the tribe.  In short, COVID represents not only a threat to people, it poses a threat to the Navajo culture itself.  If it kills the elders, it kills the repository of tribal history and tradition.

Epidemics are not new to the Navajo.  The flu epidemic of 1918-19 killed thousands, and more recently in 1993 the hanta-virus carried by deer mice had a 50% mortality rate.  But COVID-19 has the potential to cause even greater damage. 

The primary health care available in the Navajo Nation is the Indian Health Service, a department of the US Department of Health and Human Services, but their services are spread thin across the wide-ranging reservation.  Some help from other parts of the United States has arrived, including a team of twenty-one doctors and nurses from the University of California-San Francisco.

Doctors without Borders

Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) is the legendary medical team that goes where no one else dares.  They bring medical care to seventy-four different areas of the world, including war zones like Syria, Somalia and Yemen.  MSF often is the only medical care available in war torn and impoverished areas.  They arrive in a crisis, whether it’s the Haitian earthquake, or the war in Afghanistan. 

Their medical personnel risk their own lives in order to help others.  

The American southwest is not a war zone, and few think of the United States as a land of poverty.  But Medicins Sans Frontieres put teams into the Navajo Nation in the past few weeks.  They are familiar with these conditions:  lack of electricity and water, scattered medical services, poverty and difficulty tracking disease and patients.  

They went there for the same reasons they have risked (and lost) their lives all over the world.  To provide a last-chance at medical care, where little or none is available.  As Americans feud among ourselves about whether to “open up” the American economy again versus controlling the virus, it’s easy to overlook what’s happening in the poorer corners of our nation.  So poor, that MSF, dedicated to providing medical care to the poorest and most conflicted, has landed:  here in the United States.

The Apprentice

There’s a reason that The Apprentice, Donald Trump’s successful reality television show, ran for fourteen seasons.  He found a formula that worked, and he repeated it over and over again.  There’s nothing wrong with that, it how success usually works in America.  And when the show started to get a little stale, The Celebrity Apprentice was mixed in.  New, known faces were battling for the “right” to hear the famous line, “You’re Fired!!”

So we shouldn’t be surprised that the Trump 2020 Campaign is using the 2016 playbook to try to win victory.  In 2016 they achieved an improbable win; for those poker players out there they drew to an “inside straight”.  They lost the popular vote by millions of votes, but were able to squeak out a narrow victory in the Electoral College.  We all know the “mantra:” Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and the Trump margins:  Wisconsin 22,748, Michigan 10,704, and Pennsylvania 44,292.  It takes 270 votes to win the Electoral College, Trump earned 278 to Clinton’s 260.  I wrote about these figures in one of the first essays here on Trump World, 77744.

Gy-Nah

Peter Navarro is President Trump’s chief economic advisor.  Navarro has been an “outlier” in American economic thinkers for years, favoring an isolationist and protectionist view reminiscent of 1920’s thought.  He wrote a book in 2011, Death by China, which endeared him to the Trump Campaign.  We all remember the 2016 campaign, and Trump’s continual attacks on China (he pronounced it GY-NAH rhyming with VAGINA).

One of the main strategies of Trump 2020 is to change the conversation.  COVID-19 is not a winning argument for them, the growing death total, nearing 100,000 is unsupportable.  So in typical American political fashion, it’s time to pivot, to change the subject from something Trump can do little about, the virus, to somewhere where he feels he has better credentials, the economy.  So it was no surprise that Peter Navarro was the main spokesman for the Administration this weekend.  He appeared on several of the major news shows on Sunday, including This Week with George Stephanopoulos and Meet the Press.

He spent a lot of interview time dodging questions about the Administration’s response to the crisis.  “I don’t have time to look in the rear-view mirror” was a typical response to questions about past actions.  And in answering questions about whistleblower Dr. Richard Bright’s accusations of Administration neglect of the impending crisis in January and February, Navarro essentially accused the doctor of “desertion under fire” by refusing to accept a demotion and transfer.

Political Equation

Navarro’s message on the virus was clear.  It wasn’t the President’s fault:  the Centers for Disease Control screwed up the tests at the beginning, and besides, it’s no longer COVID-19 or even the Corona-Virus.  No, Navarro has a new name for our current plague:  THE CHINA VIRUS.  Navarro intoned that they started it, lost control of it, and maybe (underscore probably), attacked us with it.  This is step one in Trump 2020’s move to shift blame away from the Administration, and onto someone, anyone else.  And Navarro is the perfect anti-China guy to do it.

So step one:  it’s China’s fault.  Step two is to link Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden, to China.  And it’s not enough to just claim, true or not, that Biden through his Vice Presidency with the Obama Administration, was “soft” on China.  Navarro tried to make a stronger connection, falling back to the ongoing falsehood that Joe’s son, Hunter, made billions of dollars in what must have been illicit deals in China.  The equation they are reaching for:  it’s China’s virus, Biden liked China, his son made money in China:  Biden equals China.

Obamagate

Navarro wasn’t done though.  He went on to put forth the newest Trump 2020 strategy:  that in the weeks between the November 2016 election and January 2017 inauguration, the Obama Administration tried to plant the seeds of Trump’s destruction.  They hypothesize that it was Obama, and of course Biden, who encouraged the Russia investigation by the FBI (even though it was opened in August, far before the election). As their “proof” they are using the supposed “perjury trap” of then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn by FBI agents.  Flynn admittedly lied to the agents about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, but now Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr is trying to drop the charges. 

Trump 2020 has a new “catch-phrase”, Obamagate.  But it’s not the former President they’re after, it’s the former Vice President, Joe Biden.  The Trump campaign is trying to put Biden in the same position Hillary Clinton was with her emails.  They are “painting” Biden as corrupt, lowering him to their own standards of behavior.  Then, like they did in 2016, they can say that there is no moral difference between Trump and Biden.  

They can even use their favorite chant at the rallies:  “Lock Him Up!!!”

No Knock Warrants

A “no knock warrant” is a document, issued by a judge, granting authorities the right to enter a home, office, or other establishment without asking permission, and without announcing themselves.  For those TV watchers, the Chicago PD show has at least several examples of “no knock warrants” a week.  It’s when they bring out the massive steel “post pounder” and smash in the door, guns drawn, yelling “Chicago PD!!!”

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States affirms in part that, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.  Generally the only “allowable excuse” for using deadly force is to protect someone’s life.  The law requires that someone retreat rather than use that force.  Some states have modified that interpretation by creating the “castle doctrine”.  The “castle doctrine” makes the assumption that if someone has come into your home, your “castle”, you have the absolute right to defend it, even with deadly force.

And finally there is a “new” interpretation of the use of deadly force in many states, the “stand your ground” rule.  This basically takes the “castle doctrine” right to defend, and applies it to any situation.  “Stand your ground,” states that if you are threatened anywhere you have the right to “stand your ground” with deadly force, and have no obligation to retreat.

A World of Guns

In our modern society, the Second Amendment to the Constitution creates a clear danger.  The nation of 1791, when the Bill of Rights was adopted, had relatively small urban areas, and vast tracts of rural farms and wilderness.  The population of four million was spread out across the new nation.  Only five percent lived in “urban” areas.  Communications was slow, and the threat on the frontier was real.  The ability of the government to protect folks was severely limited:  those settlers had to have a way to protect themselves.  It made sense that they would have weapons, and organize into small “cells” of militia.

The stark contrast to our present society couldn’t be clearer.  We are a nation of three hundred and twenty million.  Seventy-nine percent of our residents describe their neighborhood as urban or suburban, only twenty-one percent live in a rural setting.  In 1791, when a citizen fired a gun, there probably wasn’t anyone around to hear.  In 2020, when a nearby neighbor fired a shotgun, the pellets bounced off of several houses.

But today’s essay isn’t about the flaws in the Second Amendment. 

Castle Doctrine 

 All of these legal “rights” create a clear conflict:  the authorities can break into a home without permission, and the residents have the legal option to defend themselves.  In many states, Kentucky for example, citizens can “shoot first, and ask questions later”.

Breonna Taylor, a twenty-six year old EMT, was asleep in her apartment with her boyfriend when the Louisville Police Department came through the front door executing a drug warrant.  Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, used his legal weapon to fire at what he thought were “home invaders”.  Walker shot a police officer, and the police fired at least twenty rounds in return.  Walker was unhurt, but Taylor was shot at least eight times in the melee.  She died at the scene.  The police officer was shot in the leg.

It happened at one in the morning on March 13, just as the COVID-19 crisis was breaking.  It’s taken two months for the shootings to percolate up above the COVID news.  Walker remains in jail under attempted murder charges.

Stand Your Ground

It was even earlier, in February that Ahmaud Arbery, a twenty-six year old black man, was jogging through a suburban neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia.  We now know that Arbery had stopped his run to look into a house under construction, perhaps looking for water, then continued down the road.  The owner of the house was alerted to Arbery by motion sensing cameras, and called a neighbor, Gregory McMichael, a former police officer.  McMichael and his son, Travis, armed themselves and jumped into their pickup truck.  

They drove up to Arbery.  While what was said is unclear, but video of the event shows that Travis, shotgun in hand, confronted Arbery.  Gregory stood in the bed of the truck, seemingly “covering” Travis.  Arbery grabbed for the gun, and was shot and killed on the street.  

The McMichael’s claim they were trying to execute a “citizen’s arrest”.  They also invoke Georgia’s “stand your ground” law, stating that when Arbery went for the shotgun, Travis had the “right” to stand his ground and shoot him.

Black Lives

The fact that both Arbery and Taylor were black is important.  And the fact that both of these cases were buried for months under the weight of COVID-19 makes it worse.  The question many are asking, particularly in the Arbery case, is would this have happened had they been white rather than black.  

A black man defends himself against seeming home invaders.  In that few seconds in the middle of the night, he did exactly what gun rights activists say he should do:  he used his weapon to defend his “castle”.  The result is he is in jail, and his girlfriend, who did not have a gun, is dead.

A black man is running through a neighborhood.  Two white men determine they were going to “enforce” the law, and the result is a black man dead on the street.  The white men stand on their right to “stand their ground”.  

Whatever your “stand” on the Second Amendment, we clearly have a conflict of rights and privileges today.  People on “both sides” can act in ways they think are justified.  But the result of these actions is that two black people are dead.  Perhaps we need to resolve the conflicts in law, but we absolutely need to deal with the ongoing reality:  black people don’t have the “rights”, white people do.

Our World

We are not in a perfect world.  Our world today, with the dark shadow of COVID-19 hanging over everything, is far, far from perfect.  And worse than that, COVID-19 is deceptive.  If there were a hazardous fog, like a chlorine gas leak, we would know what to do.  Or if thick smoke from a nearby fire, or volcanic ash was falling, we would understand.  But it’s not the air, or the earth, that’s threatening.  It’s us.

Humans are the threat. But how big a threat are we?  It’s like that old Amway pitch, circles connecting to circles.  We have our own circle, our immediate household.  But someone has to go to the grocery store, and, unfortunately some have to go to work.  So they create all new circles, circles that include people they don’t even know.  And they bring all the possible infections of all those people back into their own immediate circle.

And who knows who’s infected?  In fact, you may not know that you are infected yourself.  Does someone in your circle have a cold, the flu, a bad hangover?  Or is it COVID-19, and you are now in the fourteen-day incubation window?  And that’s the whole point of wearing protection, facemasks and such, in public.  No one, including yourself, knows.

What We Did

In a perfect world – we would have tested people coming into the country last December. A corona-virus team would have met folks at the airports, identified the infected, and traced all of their contacts.  Blame whoever you want, but we didn’t do that.

In a somewhat less perfect world, we would have done what we did – sheltered in place.  We would have done that to “flatten the curve” in order to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed with COVID patients.  And we did that, in a piecemeal kind of way.  During that time we would have made sure we had all of the equipment, from PPE to ventilators, available.  And again, in a clunky way, we’ve managed to do that as well.

While everyone was at home, we needed to find a way to keep people supported financially.  The $1200 handed out by the Federal government was too little, and for many, too late or not at all.  So for the four to six weeks we “flattened” we also created an enormous economic pressure to get “back out”.  So that didn’t work out very well.

Where We Are

So here we are – under pressure (Bowie song – insert here) and we are opening.  The problem is, while we flattened the curve, we didn’t end the disease.  It’s still out there, just as much as it was in March, and the curve is perfectly capable of spiking again.  So we need to take precautions:  social distance, masks (yes, for you for me, and vice versa) and we need to realize that things ARE NOT BACK TO NORMAL.

And we need to test, and trace, and do the public health things to control the disease.  Those things that we could have done in December and January, but failed to do.  And we need to create a financial safety net for folks who get infected, so they can say to their family and their employers, “I’m not working so I don’t infect others, and we won’t suffer financially”.  Any other alternative puts infected folks out in the work force – something that is unacceptable for ANY disease, much less one as infectious as this one. 

Where We’ll Be

So what if we just ignore all of that, and “go back” to the good old days, two months ago?  COVID-19 doesn’t have a political agenda; it doesn’t favor Biden over Trump.  The virus knows one thing:  how to spread.  So if we don’t do the right thing now, the virus will do its thing.  It will infect many, many more people, and by our own actions we will kill some of them.

And we will be forced to close again, but this time it won’t be as easy.  Before all of this, 40% of Americans couldn’t afford a $400 expense.  While I can’t find a statistic to point you to, I think we can all agree that the percentage is much higher now.  And there seems to be no appetite among some of our leaders to fix the financial problems that face average Americans.  It’s all about “getting open” and “going back to work”.  So the second time, when the Governors (certainly not the President) say, “stay home,” there’s going to be Hell to pay.  

We are making American workers face an impossible choice.  They can work, support their families, and face disease.  Or they can stay home, keep their circle safe and healthy, and face poverty.  

And that’s not a perfect world at all.

A Five-Dollar Word

There is an old Mark Twain saying – never use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent one will do.  I am a believer in that. As an old educator, I’ve sat through far too many conferences when the teachers all used university class “education-ese” to parents and students who, through no fault of their own, just didn’t get it.  

But there is one five-dollar word I love because it’s so descriptive.  It’s the title of this essay:  OBFUSCATION!!  When I used it in an eighth grade class, all of the boys tittered – thinking it was one of “those” words, just because it ends in “ion”.  But it isn’t. Webster defines it as: “to make obscure, throw into shadow”.   Today’s essay has a lesson, and it’s not the definition of obfuscation (there will be no quiz at the end).  It’s about the use of obfuscation as a political tactic and strategy. 

Distracting from Death

It is clear what the crisis in America is today, and it’s not a lack of spelling words.  I’m afraid we are becoming comfortable with 2000 people a day dying from the COVID-19 virus.  The death toll appears nightly on the television screen, much as the “butcher’s bill” of Vietnam appeared in my childhood.  Each night, we see more and more Americans succumbing to the illness.  We hear of those we know, and some we loved, lost to the pandemic.  But it seems to have stopped having the impact it had in those first few weeks, as if the today’s dead aren’t quite as important as those early victims.  

We were over 85,000 dead this morning.  If you’re the sitting President of the United States, intent on winning re-election in less than six months, it’s important to get America’s mind off of death.  We may all want to “open up” and go back to work, but the President NEEDS us to go back to work.  He needs chicken breasts in the supermarket, he needs restaurants open, and he needs the economy moving again.  And he knows that Americans aren’t willing to risk death to do it.  So he has determined to make those deaths “obscure, thrown into the shadow”.  

How can he possibly do that?  What could he possibly say to distract us from death?

Whose Facts

Well, the first thing he can do is get us to question the numbers.  You can see it on social media over and over, from arguments about diagnosis to questions about Medicare reimbursement (“they’ll pay more if it’s Corona-Virus” states one).  And they’ll try to make the death toll statistically insignificant, as if the tiny fraction of Americans dying isn’t really important.  But, of course, it is.  If the 2753 lost on 9-11 are important, if the 58,220 Americans who died in Vietnam are important, then surely our current nightly toll today is.  It’s almost a 9-11 a day.

The second thing is to make the experts, “wrong”.  Sure the President himself says nice things about Dr. Fauci, but his minions, from his son to the talking heads on Fox News, all are attacking him.  And that’s not close to what the “Internet” is doing.  Video after video of obscure “experts” saying that Fauci has got it all wrong appears.  They question his science, his career, and his motivation (they say he’s in league with that arch-villain, Bill Gates). 

So, to paraphrase the words of Donald Trump, don’t believe what you hear or read, believe what I say. 

The President can’t focus on death or fighting the virus. It’s not that he doesn’t know; he can’t have HIS America in mourning.  If it is, then his chances for re-election are non-existent.

Change the Subject

Another word that goes along with obfuscation is distraction (though with nowhere near the value, maybe only worth two dollars).  Lets talk about “Obamagate” whatever the Hell that is.  Let’s makeup an entire conspiracy, led by the now openly critical former President and the 2020 Democratic candidate, Mr. Biden.  Let’s accuse them of treason, even though there is no legal way to commit that crime outside of war.   And if that doesn’t distract you enough, then add in the Attorney General using his power to “pardon” Trump’s allies from their crimes and sentences.  Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone:  Trump won’t have to take the “heat” for actually pardoning them.  Bill Barr will abuse his authority as America’s chief law enforcement officer to take care of that light work.

It’s all to distract, to throw into shadow.  Perhaps the Trump campaign thinks we will miss what’s really happening in America.  At least that what they hope: that their obfuscation will be sufficient to cloud our vision, and get him re-elected.

Maybe the eighth grade boys are right.   Maybe obfuscation is a dirty word.

 

Sunshine

Looking out my window this morning, it’s a beautiful day.  We had a frost warning last night, it one of those May’s that I hated as a track coach.  But hopefully last night was the last cold night, it’s going up to the sixties today and the seventies later this week.  Maybe April is done now that we’ve reached the middle of May.

Funny that somehow “stay at home” isn’t stay “indoors”.  It’s not the outside air that’s a risk, nor the cool green grass.  It’s people that represent a danger, and it’s me that represents a risk to them.  That concept is so much harder than just “hide inside”.

Empty Schools

May is always a busy month in public education.  Kids are finishing up school, teams are finishing up the season, and seniors are graduating.  But it’s a very different world this year.  Kids are still finishing up school, but it’s a cold distant school, reached through a screen and a keyboard.  No one is getting hugs on the last day, pitching notebooks into the school trash on the way out the door.  It’s just a final sign-off, a last Zoom or video.  

I’m not coaching, but if I were this would be an awful, empty year.  Staying close to home I don’t notice it that much, but when I got out, drove by the high school track, I felt the ache of loss that those kids are feeling.  It’s gone, something that can never be made up.  As a coach I always stopped the kids from talking about “next year”.  I’d tell them:  “…There’s no guarantee of next year, no contract with the future that your body and your plans will come true.  Don’t depend on that; go for your goals now”.  I never thought about this scenario though, not for a whole team, a whole class, a whole world.

Here in Pataskala, the adults are doing their best to make graduation something special. There is no way to replace the camaraderie, sitting by your friends through the ritual of the ceremony. This year, they can’t sit by their friends. Some schools fixed on “crossing the stage”, the line used by administrators to push marginal seniors to graduate. But crossing an empty stage, in an empty room, and picking up a loan diploma seems to only emphasize all that’s missing.

New Rituals

But here, the school leaders have taken a different approach.  Graduation day is Saturday May 23^rd.  Thirty school buses will head out, each with a driver, an administrator, and a parade of teachers’ cars behind it.  A bus will go to each of the three hundred senior’s homes and pull up.  The administrator will come out and award a diploma to the appropriately capped and gowned student.  Family, masked and distanced, will get the chance to watch.  Pictures will be taken beside the bus.  As one parent described it, “…we put a kindergartner on a bus in front of our house thirteen years ago, now the bus delivers our graduate back to us”.

The emphasis is on the graduate, not the empty room and stage.  There was some controversy when this was first announced, along with the final statement that there wouldn’t be a traditional graduation.  Some folks lashed out on social media, attacking the school leaders for “letting the kids down”.  But once that first wave of frustration washed through, most of the community got behind the plan.  

The Finish Line

The seniors picked up their caps and gowns at the high school; spaced carefully to keep from any unacceptable gathering.  The Cross Country coaches, good friends of mine, arranged for a special tribute.  A new finish line “arch” was specially ordered.  It’s large enough to drive through, and the seniors literally got to cruise through “the finish” of their high school career.

Twenty-two years from now, will the then-forty year old graduates look back with regrets at the ceremonies they missed?  Of course they will.  But will they also look back at a school and a community that did everything they could to make their “finish” special and unique?  I think so.  

Our COVID world is one full of “no’s”.  NO graduation, NO Fourth of July fireworks, NO swimming pools in the summer, NO concerts or ballgames or track meets.  In our world of “NO”, it’s good that some are making it better; making it special even if it’s very different.  Here in Pataskala, there is at least one “yes”.  The bus will pull up out front, and three hundred kids will graduate, one-by-one.  That’s a big “YES” for them.

Mission Accomplished

It was May 1^st, 2003.  President George W. Bush, a veteran jet pilot in the Vietnam era Air National Guard, landed in an anti-submarine aircraft on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.  He wasn’t piloting, but he was in a flight suit.  It was scene reminiscent of the 1996 film Independence Day, when that President flew a fighter aircraft attacking the alien invaders.  The cameras “ate up” President Bush, surrounded by flight crews, a natural presence in the military world after 9-11.

Bush later gave a speech about the success of American operations in Iraq.  A banner flew from the bridge of the Lincoln, “Mission Accomplished”.  However, the war in Iraq, the mission supposedly accomplished, would last for another seven years.  Bush never lived down the moniker of “Mission Accomplished” for a war that seemed to have no end.

President Trump gave another public press conference yesterday.  The President, whose attitude against testing for the COVID-19 virus delayed action for months, now surrounded himself with the latest testing equipment.  He lauded the fact that the United States now had tested more people than any nation in the world, perhaps even many of them combined.  Banners were mounted on the White House, “US Number One in Testing”.

The Buck Stops There

Harry Truman had a sign too:  “the buck stops here”.  Donald Trump, in this most important crisis of his Presidency, has spent much time and effort making sure that “the buck” stops almost anywhere else, mostly with the state Governors.  He hid behind a façade of  “Federalism” to avoid demanding that states “close” their economies and “shelter in place”.  It was up to governors to decide.  Some closed their states, Republican and Democrats alike. Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois and New York, California and Washington are examples of that. And it was other governors, in Florida and Georgia, Texas and South Dakota, who placed their states in greater jeopardy by refusing to take a stand.

Transition to Greatness

But the one person who dodged “the buck” was Donald Trump.  And it is Donald Trump who now is pressing the “good” governors of both parties, to open their states, ready or not.  Trump didn’t want to close anything, and he won’t “order” anything opened either.  But he’ll make sure the “COVID protestors” feel supported, and he’s pressing business to open.  He claims we are making a “transition to greatness” in reference to his old MAGA slogan, and demands that it’s time to open up.  In reality, the phrase “It’s the economy stupid” is the mantra of the Trump Campaign:  if he can’t make the economy trend upward by Labor Day, he doesn’t think he can be re-elected.  HE needs the economy to re-open, virus ready or not.

To force a re-opening, he’s only supporting plans to finance Americans who are working.  They “one-time IRS payment” of $1200 is long spent by those who lost their jobs.  It’s absolutely a class divide:  if you have the “right” jobs, you can stay at home and work safely from the couch in the living room.  If you have the “essential” jobs, you go out in the world and risk contact with the virus.  And if you have a job where you are at risk, and don’t want to get sick, then you choose:  got to work and get sick, or stay home without pay. 

And for the over 33 million Americans who’ve lost their jobs, the President’s payroll tax cut won’t do them a damn bit of good.  To point out the obvious, payroll tax cuts only help those on a payroll.  Trump is saying to workers the same thing he said to the meat packers:  take the risk and keep your job, don’t take the risk and starve.  

We Have Prevailed

“We Have Prevailed”:  Trump in the press conference floated his newest campaign slogan.  Don’t be surprised to see it echoed over and over in social media,  “We Have Prevailed” over the corona-virus, and “we have prevailed” over those who know that opening the economy will create an unacceptable loss of life.  Even the so-called Presidential plan to re-open has been thrown out the window.  There isn’t a state, even New York; that has achieved the fourteen-day decline in infection rates.  But every one is opening anyway.  The Presidential led pressure is too much.

This press conference, on the heels of the news of high-level White House infections, may be Trump’s “Mission Accomplished”.  It will certainly be the fodder for Biden campaign ads, “We Have Prevailed” backed up by increasing death tolls due to increasing social interaction.  Or maybe it will be more blunt:  “we have prevailed” in killing many more Americans.

All sacrificed so a President can get re-elected.

 

A Polarized Nation

So in my last week of substitute teaching, I have the privilege of presenting the American Civil War.  There is nothing in our history that tested the strength of our commitment to the concept of nationhood, of a Union, and of democracy.  

It began in frustration, as all of the political “tools” of our Republic led to dead ends.  There seemed to be no path to resolution as the Nation was polarized beyond reconciliation.  Every compromise, every agreement was made then broken:  neither side was willing to commit to a mutual solution.  Some even went so far as to propose a war with another power, France, as a “distraction” they could all unite behind.  That didn’t work either.

Civil War

It became almost a joyful release to start the war.  The nation, both sides; rushed to join “in the fun” of dramatic battle.  Soon they discovered the truth of war:  that people die in horrible ways.  The first battle at Bull Run was more two mobs than two armies, and America realized that it would take so much more time and sacrifice then they ever anticipated.

The years of the Civil War served as a revelation of horrors, posing the question:  how much can the people stand.  After the pause to train, there was the growing casualties, the “butcher’s bill” as General Grant would call it.  First there were the small actions, then larger battles around Richmond.  In the spring of the 1862, there was the horror of Shiloh in Tennessee, as thousands died on the grounds around a small church near the woods.

The cost would grow higher.  While Shiloh was bad, 13,000 killed, wounded or missing, the fall of 1862 would be much worse.  In one day in Sharpsburg, Maryland by the Antietam Creek, almost 23,000 were lost.  It seemed like the bottom, the worst. There couldn’t possibly be greater suffering.

Democracy Maintained

But of course, there was.  Only nine months later the same armies met again at a crossroads town in Pennsylvania, Gettysburg.  46,000 were killed wounded, or missing there in three days. And while that should have been the end, it wasn’t.  It would be two more years. The Virginia Overland Campaign of the summer of 1864 cost almost 55,000 casualties.  And the war would grind on.  It would be ten months even more after that until the war would finally end.

In the middle of that last year, the states remaining in the Union held a Presidential election.  The Army, spread far across the rebellious South, was still allowed to vote.  Some came home, some voted by absentee ballot, but all Americans found a way to hold a referendum on Abraham Lincoln, even in the course of horrific battles.  We lost a lot in the Civil War, but we maintained the traditions of our Republic, even in the worst of times.

Our World

That’s something we should remember in our COVID-19 world.  The current “butcher’s bill” for today’s crisis is 1,347,411 Americans “wounded”, and over 80,000 lost.  In the past two months, we have suffered greater losses than Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg combined.  To put it in more “modern” terms, we have suffered nearly twenty-seven 9-11 attacks.  And we have no reason to believe that we are at the “Virginia Overland Campaign”, that we have reached the bottom.  More likely we have only seen our Shiloh, only at the beginning of the cost to be paid for COVID-19.  The difference – we hope a vaccine or a treatment can end the bloodletting, rather than the long bloody slog to “herd immunity”. 

Meanwhile we too are asked to judge our government.  Whatever side of our current polarized politics you hold, we must find a way to allow our democracy to survive, and to hold real elections.  The people of Wisconsin showed courage and determination, lining up to vote in a primary held in the middle of an epidemic.  The numbers are vague:  at least sixty-seven voters became infected after the election, but it’s difficult to determine cause and effect.

Come November

There is no reason to believe we will be in any better condition in November than we are now.  Holding a “normal” election, gathering at the polls and lining up to vote, seems an unnecessary risk. But, if necessary, Americans will be courageous.  They will mask and glove themselves and stand in line.  Some will get sick and die because of it, but that same dedication to democracy that lived in 1864 lives today.  

But it is completely unnecessary.  We have multiple ways to safely vote, just as those soldiers fighting far away from home in 1864 did.  This isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a partisan question; it’s simply American tradition.  We must allow Americans to safely vote.  It doesn’t even have to be some complicated electronic computer ballot.  We did it in the Civil War, we can do it today: mail ballots out, and mail them back in.

Barring some miraculous discovery, we have a long way to go in our COVID-19 crisis.  It is easy to become even more isolated and polarized, trapped in our own homes with the bad news constantly droning in the background.  But we have our own duty, as much a duty as those soldiers felt in the spring of 1861.  We have a duty to maintain our democracy, regardless of the roadblocks our partisan legislatures place in our way.  Americans should be able to do it in a protected way, but if not, then we will have to risk becoming a line on “the butcher’s bill”.  

We must do it for our country.

Good Faith

I think most people, regardless of their political views about the President, agree that the COVID-19 crisis puts many Americans’ health at risk.  And, I really believe, in spite of what I read on social media, that most Americans don’t want others to get sick or die.  But, some are desperate:  they are afraid that they won’t get paid, they won’t have a way to buy food for their families, or pay their mortgage, or keep the heat on in the winter or the air in the summer.  

They feel that this crisis makes us choose between personal economic survival and other’s illness and death.  In fact, it’s even worse than that, because they also know that they are risking illness and death for themselves, their families, and their friends.  But they are willing to take that “blind” risk, rather than suffer the more obvious economic catastrophes.

Yesterday I went on a rant about some of this.  Some of my friends (and they still are my friends) are clinging to aberrant scientists, or conspiratorial “insiders”, who are telling them what they want to hear.  They’re told it’s all a lie, a fake crisis to achieve some dark underlying goal.  They reminds me of the anti-industrialism movement of the late 1800’s, where workers took their shoes, called “sabots,” and threw them into the factory machinery.  It’s where we get our current word “sabotage” from, and it was a desperate attempt to stop progress.  It didn’t work then, and I don’t think it will now.

Our Mistakes

There have been many mistakes in this COVID-19 crisis.  We were late, so late, in recognizing the danger that the virus represented.  We didn’t act in a way that secured our country.  The November elections will in part, be all about how that was handled.  We all will get to weigh in then.  But there has also been a failure of imagination, an inability to think beyond our current processes, that has left many Americans in this desperate plight.

Unemployment

Let’s look at our unemployment process.  Here in Ohio, we have a state unemployment compensation agency that in the past processed between 20,000 and 30,000 claims a month.  December 2019 was 29,389.  January 2020 claims were 25,603, February 2020 20,498.  Then the crisis hit:  March 2020 unemployment claims were 540,542.  While final numbers for April aren’t out yet, we know that there were closer to 600,000.

So why is there surprise and consternation that the state is having trouble processing unemployment claims?  A system designed to handle tens of thousands is now trying to deal with hundreds of thousands.  It wasn’t designed for the load, and in this moment of crisis, with offices closed and workers socially distanced, isn’t “scaling up” very well.  The current process might not even be able to handle the volume with a full “scale up”.

Another “idea” is to cut the payroll taxes so that employees have more money.  But the problem isn’t getting money to the employed; it’s about how to get money to those who have lost their jobs because of the crisis.  Cutting taxes on non-existent pay gives you that old equation (and song):  “nothing from nothing leaves nothing”.

PPP

And how about the PPP, the Payroll Protection Plan that was supposed to allow small businesses to keep employees on their payroll, even if the business has to close.  The system is for the business to “borrow” money from the Small Business Administration, and then “if” they use the money to pay employees and essential bills, the loan would be forgiven.

 It’s not about the fact the “small” businesses were defined as having 500 employees or less, and that well financed and funded organizations from the LA Lakers NBA team to Harvard University to Ruth Chris Steakhouse (home of a very expensive flat iron steak) took most of the first $350 billion (the Lakers and Harvard have since returned the money).  It’s that there were so many businesses applying for funds.  Chet’s Auto here in Pataskala, with five employees got in line with everyone else but just like the unemployment process, the system was overwhelmed with the volume.  And the amount of money, including the next $310 billion added in, isn’t even close to covering the need.

Fire Hoses

We tried to use existing systems, unemployment benefits and small business loans, to grease the process of getting money out.  It wasn’t a bad idea in principle. Why establish a whole new structure when one already exists?  But it’s the old fire hose analogy:  you can’t pump more water through a maxed out two-inch hose.  You need a bigger hose.

We have an existing bigger hose.  We even used it for just a moment.  The IRS moves trillions of dollars every year.  They have a vast database of taxpayers.  When we wanted to pump out $1200 per person, the IRS process worked better than anything else.

Listen, we know that health insurance through employment works well for millions of people, but fails millions as well.  The US model of using employment as the sole means of financing people isn’t even perfect in a “perfect world”.  Whatever the Dow Jones Industrial Average was in January, we are in a “perfect world” no longer.  

So let’s take the money that the US Government is going to spend anyway – and skip the middleman.  We have already dropped FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS – ($4,000,000,000,000 – just had to write that down).  And right now, there’s lots of money leaking out the tiny hoses along the way to the people who need it.  We’ve got a direct main line, the tax information.  Let’s use it to establish a national wage until we can open up the nation SAFELY again.   Then more Americans can feel secure about both their economic lives, and their health.  They can take “the risk” of dealing with the virus first.  

And they can stop throwing sabots.

Paul McCartney and Wings – Live and Let Die

Rant

It’s not often (at least, I don’t think it’s often) that I just go off on a rant.  But this is the day, and this essay might be categorized in the “rant” column.  Take it for what it is, but it’s happening.

Yesterday, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, toured a factory in Arizona that makes facemasks.  In the COVID-19 world, they are doing important work:  facemasks help protect people from giving the virus to others, and from getting the virus themselves.  The music playing in the background:  Live and Let Die by Paul McCartney and Wings.  But in what was undoubtedly an intentional act, the President chose not to wear a mask.  And the others around him didn’t either.

It wasn’t that the President was against all protective devices.  He wore the protective eyewear needed in the factory environment.  No, he was simply making a false point about the virus.  He was saying, “It’s over, and facemasks are really not needed”. The theme song was the heavy-handed way of underlining the point:  some will live, some will die, but the country is going to open up, regardless of what Dr. Fauci or the rest of the medical community says.   We don’t even need a Corona-Virus taskforce anymore.

Money

This isn’t about those “workers” who need to get back to their jobs.  There are other ways they could be cared for:  countries all over the world are literally paying folks to stay home to stop the spread of COVID-19.  And it certainly isn’t about “the poor” at all:  the President knows that the death rate among the poor is greater than any other group, and particularly among minorities.  But they are also the most “essential workers” out in the community.  They are already working, and getting sick, and dying at a greater proportion than everyone else.

No, those “poor workers” need to GET BACK TO WORK.  Our meat packing plants have turned into hotbeds of COVID?  Too bad, we are ordering them reopened, ordering those workers back into a viral soup.  If they don’t, then Trump’s voters won’t get their boneless, skinless chicken breasts and 80-20 hamburgers because they won’t be in the stores – and the nation won’t stand for that!

Clock’s Ticking

In what seems like another lifetime, Congressman Doug Collins of Georgia criticized the Democrats of the House for impeaching the President on “…a clock and a calendar,” accusing them of hurrying ahead of the facts.  Well, here’s the real “clock and calendar;” it’s the clock of the crashing economy, and the calendar of the 2020 Presidential election.  

President Trump knows that his only chance of re-election, if there’s any remaining chance at all, is based on the James Carville phrase, “it’s the economy, stupid”.   If Trump can’t show the ‘V’ velocity of economic growth by Labor Day, then he knows the family “party” is over in the White House.  The VIP’s on Jared’s list will lose their “free lunch”.  So people need to get their meat, and workers need to get to work, even if it’s at the risk of their lives.  

This doesn’t impact the “white collar” workers, safely working from the couch at home.  And this doesn’t affect the old retired folks, many Trumpers, hiding away in their retirement homes.  The government will find a way to “fudge” the statistics on deaths in nursing homes, so that we don’t really see the contagion burning through our elderly.  Oh, they died of pneumonia, or heart failure, or old age.  COVID-19, well we didn’t test for that, so we will never know.

Excuses

In fact, while we’re fudging numbers, let’s make sure that no one trusts the facts.  Social media is absolutely stuffed with fake doctors saying fake things about COVID, and Trump sycophants re-tweeting all of that nonsense over and over again.  What’s the old advertising adage, if you hear something five times it’s true?  Trump’s social media strategy will make sure we all hear the lies fifty times.  It doesn’t make it valid, but it does make it even more difficult for the real truth to be heard.

Guess what:  China hid the fact they had a virus.  They didn’t tell the rest of the world that COVID-19 was burning through their population.  They hoarded protective gear, and ventilators, and all the other stuff they needed, and didn’t tell anyone.  And they certainly have lied about the number of fatalities; it’s hard to imagine that China had fewer deaths than New Jersey.

That doesn’t let Trump off the hook. US Intelligence warned ISRAEL (the nation) about COVID-19 in November 2019 (I25).  You think they didn’t tell their own President?  But it didn’t fit in with the Trump program, he was cutting a “great deal” with China at the time.  Instead of preparing, developing tests, tracking the virus, and keeping it out of the United States, Trump ignored the problem.  Sure he was being impeached.  I guess that the Democrat’s fault, we knew he couldn’t chew gum and walk, that we elected a President with a ten second attention span.   He let COVID in, and we’re suffering for it.

Strategy

So the Trump campaign strategy for 2020 is no longer about Biden and the Ukraine.  It’s not even about Make America Great Again.  It’s all summed up by Paul McCartney’s song:  let the corona-virus spread, as long as the Dow Jones goes back up again.  The brokers will be fine – the “essential workers” and the elderly, well: Live and Let Die.

The Lincoln Memorial

Kent State

Fifty years ago, President Richard Nixon announced an expansion of the Vietnam War.  The President who, two years before ran on a “secret” peace plan, was now expanding the war zone into Cambodia, bombing North Vietnamese bases and supplies.  Reaction on American college campuses was swift and dramatic.  Throughout the nation, students poured onto the campus greens, demanding an end to the war.  

At Kent State University there were days of demonstration.  Ohio’s Governor James Rhoades sent in the National Guard.  It was an odd confrontation, the college kids demanding that the US end the war, and the Guard, many kids the same age as the demonstrators, facing them down.  

The National Guard had tear gas, and they had the shear force of their bodies and equipment.  They established lines to contain and control the demonstrators, and while they took incoming rocks and bottles, they held the line.  But someone in the chain of command ordered live ammunition dispersed among the troops.  And someone else in that chain gave an order to fire.  Twelve students were hit, some not even in the demonstration.  Four were killed.  William Schroeder, on a ROTC Scholarship, was walking between classes.

Unfortunately Kent State wasn’t the only student shootings that month.  Police in Jackson, Mississippi fired shots into a demonstration at Jackson State University.  Two were killed, twelve wounded then.

Nixon Talks

Students marched on Washington, D.C.  Spokesmen for the President, including Vice President Spiro Agnew and Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, derided the demonstrators as “effete snobs” and “lazy elitists”.  But Nixon tried to talk to them.  The demonstrators were on the Mall, by the reflecting pool; the area just at the bottom of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  Nixon drove the block from the White House, and with Secret Service hovering close by, spent two hours with the demonstrators trying to talk. But there was no healing of wounds.  Nothing changed.

Today’s President 

On Sunday, the current President of the United States used the Memorial to stage a “town hall” with Fox News.  It’s an election year, and while the Memorial is supposed to be “off limits” for these kinds of events, it’s a surprise to no one that the Secretary of the Interior waved the rules, and allowed the President to use it.

It’s a political consultant’s dream; the view of the candidate, sitting in sight of Lincoln.  It doesn’t even take a great “eye” to realize that the “shot” is the “Presidential view” with Lincoln’s statue observing in the background the current leader.  So when the “town hall” was staged literally at Lincoln’s feet, it was just bad staging.

The message that President Trump was attempting to send is obvious.  He is leading a nation in crisis, economically decimated and in literal fear for its life.  Just like Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was re-elected to the Presidency at one of the toughest points in the Civil War.  His phrase at the time was:

 “An old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams.”

Trump is trying to convince a nation that he is the horse to get us across the stream of the COVID-19 and economic crisis.  That’s why President Lincoln is sitting in the background.

But instead, President Trump took the opportunity to whine:  

“They always said, ‘Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.”

Lincoln

Of course, Lincoln was assassinated.  Guess Trump can’t top that.

And the President still refuses to take responsibility for the consequences of the crisis.  Instead, he continued his campaign of blaming China.  He even refused to back his own plan for re-opening America, instead saying about demonstrators in many states:

“They just want to go back. You see it every day. You see demonstrations all over the country and those are meaningful demonstrations. It’s big stuff.”

If only the President had looked beyond the Fox interviewers, and read the writing on the wall behind them.  Engraved on the wall are the words of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural speech. Those words helped change Lincoln’s world, and they still apply today.

“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

We know Abraham Lincoln.  And regardless of the location, we all know:

Donald Trump is no Abraham Lincoln.