Stop It...Just Stop It!!

In our newly sequestered lives I decided to add HBO for some variety and escapism, and also because I had been wanting for quite a while to watch the docudrama miniseries Chernobyl. In just the first three episodes I was involuntarily hurled back to our COVID existence given the similarities between that Soviet disaster and what we are experiencing today.

The arrogance in the way the Soviet bureaucracy responded to the accident, the denial of science, the refusal to err on the side of caution, the need to assess blame, unashamed disregard for public safety, a deficiency of preparedness, lack of transparency, and just general incompetence has been played out in the United States, albeit in slow-motion by comparison.

It is a perfectly reasonable argument to suggest we need to set aside anger and focus on making the absolute best from where we currently find ourselves, that there will be plenty of time to deal with the folly of our history. However, the tragedy of our Federal Government’s ineptitude is ongoing and we need it fixed, not tomorrow…yesterday.

There are two critical pieces that need repair immediately: communication and trust.

I have tried to slog my eyes and mind through the daily “briefings” being conducted by Donald Trump, but no more. I am disappointed in myself in waiting for the ordination of Jared Kushner, the latest principal in dealing with this pandemic, to be the last straw…but he is. It has been a confusing political sideshow, as we watch the walls around us go up in flames. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci has succumbed to soft pedaling his observations so as not to induce El Duce’s ire.

However, just my or others turning away from the clown car is not enough. Not nearly enough.

We are not in the Soviet Union of 1986 or even authoritarian Russia today. It is time in this crisis for the American Fourth Estate to search way down deep and see if there are any cojones still dangling from their respective observations. The major news networks ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, BBC, and (yes even) FOX, need to join forces and provide our Nation with competency and transparency, with as little bias as possible.

First, they need to stop broadcasting the Trump Show. They are under no requirement feed the public the political drivel, administrative confusion, and misstatements that flow from those broadcasts. Summaries can be reported later. In fact, they should require that, given this is an election year; any live broadcasts must result in equal time by someone in the Democratic Party.

Second, the networks need to assemble a panel of experts, perhaps three or four, primarily in epidemiology but also in logistics (this could include Fauci representing the Trump Administration), to provide daily briefings and answer questions from the press. These briefings would be broadcast by each network.

It is fine if Evangelicals want to prepare for Armageddon, or Right-Wing conspiracy nuts want to wear tin foil hats, but the rest of us need more. This slow-motion Chernobyl we’re living through right now is likely to last for months, and its ramifications will probably mirror the progression of cancers that Ukrainians still face today.

Our first defense to this emergency is reality, truth, and candor. Give the Nation what it needs. Stop the sideshow…just stop it!!

Predicting Uncertainty

Okay…it’s easy, too easy to observe and comment on the confounded eccentricity and unstable idiocy of Donald Trump. It’s often a problem for me. It can become a trap, making it difficult to see that there is actually a road cradling all those potholes.

Sure, there currently is a dearth of leadership, but many governors across the Country have stepped in and taken charge. They, by contrast, have been competent in their efforts. The understandable problem, however, is that each approach is generally unique. It’s not reassuring, for example, to see Kentucky successfully dealing with the crisis while neighboring Tennessee is flushing reality down the toilet. That, along with Trump’s self interest, is the imperceptible boogeyman in this national nightmare.

What all people want in life is certainty. We’re all sold it, governments tout it, and religions thrive on it; e.g. .We all know, however, that when it comes to the future, and even interpretations of the past, certainty doesn’t exist. It can’t. We can only have certainty in the present moment. Only that kind of almost meditative awareness has the ability to vanquish anxieties that grow uncontrollably and proportionately with uncertainty.

As certainty in the future is impossible, what individuals, economies, markets, governments, and organizations of all kinds actually long for is predictability. The more comfortable we are in our ability to predict an outcome the closer we come to the unattainable fantasy of certainty. The further we are away from it the more life can evolve into stress and panic.

What is so important to note is that the accuracy of a prediction is less important than the comfort one feels about its accuracy. Predictions and outcomes are constantly changing with changing circumstances, even in Science. Equity markets, for example, rise, fall, then rise again always based on the comfort (or discomfort) of predictions, which in turn are based on underlying circumstances existing in a world of uncertainty.

Sound philosophically complex? Not really. Although it feels like homes built on shifting sands, it’s what we need as human beings to deal with that over which we have little or no control…which is just about everything.

What we don’t need is someone with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and access to mass media to feed worried individuals a buffet of knee jerk predictions that have little basis in reality; “we have it under control”, “it will all wash through”, “it will disappear with the season”, “our numbers are beautiful”, “I knew it before they gave it a name”, and so on. Trump, as we should have expected, was the wrong person at the wrong time.

There are reasonable predictions that could have and still can be shared with the American people. With reasonable and honest predictions, come stability, cooperation, and order. Life can start to feel doable. Such as:

-         ---   If everyone on the planet would remain isolated from other people this pandemic would be essentially under control in about two weeks, as we could identify all those infected and most asymptomatic carriers. Even if not realistic, the closer we can get to that goal the shorter the duration will be.

-        ---   Even without a vaccination, the historical duration of pandemics is measured in months; with a vaccination it would be even shorter. Once some control is obtained, as the Chinese have done, we should competently and successfully live with it until the vaccine is developed.  It will end.

-        ---  We have the opportunity to work internationally with allies and competitors alike toward a common goal. To do so could leave the world more aligned than it ever has been and perhaps save many more lives than the pandemic takes.

-        --   The expected duration of this pandemic does not equate to periods that preceded other great economic downturns that undermined economic instability. We should have a realistic expectation that a bounce back to a healthier economy will initially mirror the angle of the recent decline.

-       ---    After this pandemic is over this Country and the World generally will be a better place, at least for a while, as we will have a better understanding of the vulnerabilities all people face without regard to nationality. That has been the critical missing ingredient, for example, in the effort to deal with climate change.

There is real tragedy for those directly impacted by this and other crises. What we want is to run toward those tragedies with empathy, not run away from them in panic. It will be necessary that honesty and transparency, things our Federal Government has recently cast into a conflagration of self interest, be resurrected like a Phoenix. There really can be a lot to look forward to.   

America, This is No War

It seems now popular to use a metaphor of war to describe the national response to the Coronavirus pandemic. The “new” Trump (new only in the fact he is holding regular press conferences for the first time in his presidency) actually said in one conference I watched (albeit under his breath) that he was a “war President” (I believe he meant wartime President). The craziness of that concept did not escape me.

Nevertheless, the media and other politicians have taken up the metaphor with gusto. It should be noted that the only War they or Trump are referring to is WWII. This was the War in which most of these politicians grew up watching Romanized depictions on TVs and movies, as oppose to all those other “little”, unpleasant wars that could be turned off nightly with a push of a TV off button, such as Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.

The idea, of course, is that we need to “recruit” national involvement in a conflict. They are suggesting that the American people need to rally in a patriotic way, as what occurred with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. New York Governor Cuomo actually compared pandemic responses to "WWII missiles”, not considering the fact that the US didn’t use missiles in WWII. It is a Romantic application of history that has no place with this new reality. Its use is the foundation for Trump’s manic insistence to assess blame for the outbreak and divert attention from his own actions.

This infection is not a war with an enemy of defined resources. Trump is no “wartime President” and has, along with most of his supporters, shown themselves to be ineffectual in dealing with the crisis. Like Keystone Cops called in to bring law and order, they have mostly wrought confusion and dangerous delays. It would be humorous were there not so much peril to their folly. At this point I think it unlikely they will ever be able to fully gain the Nation’s confidence.

If there is any war in progress, it is the three year war waged by Trump and the Republican Party against Science. Good Science demands that ego, cupidity, and exploitation yield to objectivity, analytics, and ethical behavior. Trump is so far off the mark I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him tossing rolls of toilet paper to the Press Corps, as he threw paper towels to Puerto Ricans.

His action in 2018 to eliminate the National Security Council’s Directorate for Global Health and Security, mandated to prepare the Nation to respond to a pandemic (simply because it had been created by Barack Obama - his psychotic nemesis) was criminal, as any crime would be before a victim surfaces.  

His singular inability to truly focus on anything but himself has, and continues to, thwart the most important element of a pandemic…it is international. Donald Trump’s America First has clearly come to mean America Alone. This has been obvious for the past three years as it has impacted such things as immigration, commerce, and climate change, but the negative ramifications to those issues are not even close to its dire impact on this pandemic. This is true not only for the health aspects of this crisis, but also for the economic consequences.

Donald Trump will not improve and he will be held accountable. But what we need now is the application of Science combined with international cooperation, not declarations of war. We need clear communications from trusted sources. The world will be so better off if somehow the media, Congress, and the scientific community would stop deferring to Trump as if he were some kind of leader.

C’mon Obama, step into World and earn your damn Nobel Peace Prize.   

Wingless Phoenix

If there was ever a time when reasonably informed and concerned Americans should be weeping over the National tragedy that is Donald Trump it should be right now. What is it with these Republican leaders that they can turn nearly universal unity in the face of a common enemy into partisan gamesmanship, to meet what are essentially personal goals.

In September 2001 George Bush had the backing not only of a suddenly united country, but an entire world that would support the United States in its chosen direction.  He then proceeded to promote division among nations and Americans by turning his focus toward, as we have since learned, control of oil reserves and long desired regime change. What an ass.

As a result hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans have died during and as a result of the conflicts, untold numbers injured, a majority of their populations psychologically maimed, an entire region in turmoil, not to mention the thousands of Americans killed and wounded…and for what?

By the end of Bush’s administration the economy had been left sick and unattended, and our Nation was steeped in a sociological war zone, embraced by Republican Conservatism. The extraordinary opportunity that had been given to Bush, the rising of a Phoenix out of the ashes, was squandered.

Now this narcissistic clown, who was misfortunately elevated to world leadership, is doing the same thing. Although we should hardly be surprised, the calamity of his ineptitude and self interest remains appalling.

His pathetic reading of his struggling advisor’s speeches does little to dissuade the damage he has already managed to inflict. His focus on equity markets, his denials of severity, his contradicting professionals, his need to assess blame (first to China, then Europe, and now Obama), his blatant personal concerns (exempting Britain and Ireland…please), his initial consultations with Congressional Republicans only, and such stupid things as wearing his political cap while supposedly representing the entire Nation has been atrocious.   

His wholesale and psychotic dishonesty may be the best example in what precisely a leader should NOT do to rally a nation. He fools no one and at best gets his die hard supporters to just dismiss his knee-jerk lies as Trumpian hyperbola. However, faith in centralized information is critical during a National emergency. If there are any adults in the White House today they need to step up and tell us all to ignore Trump and find the truth elsewhere.

Think of it, the entire World…the entire World…has a common enemy, let alone Conservatives and Liberals or Republicans and Democrats. How fortunate it would be to bring people of many nations together.

Our non-authoritarian political system carries with it advantages and disadvantages. We cannot do what the Chinese have done to force the population to work in unison. There is no doubt, as is currently evidenced, that they can manage the threat posed by this virulent disease. However, their socio-political structure will likely be no better off for it.

In the United States we need real non-partisan leadership to rally all Americans to find common ground in voluntarily supporting the battle against this aggressive virus. The US should embrace International cooperation, not promote isolation and assess blame.

We have the potential to inflict not only the termination of this pandemic, which will ultimately happen, but also bring together competing individuals and entire nations that will, like a rising Phoenix, leave an even better, safer, and freer world than the virus found.

However, this sniveling, ignorant, self-absorbed, scum of a President will cut the wings off that bird because he intuitively believes that wallowing in the ashes is better than risking his ego. What a crying shame.

Cooling the Bern

It’s obvious that Bernie Sanders has centered his “revolution” on the issue of health care. It is his lumberjack T-Bone on the plate, and corporate greed, wealth inequality, free trade, and political establishments, e.g., are just so many sides on the menu. It is for good reason, as the search for relatable topics is the mission of every politician, and nothing beats health care for entering the reality of every American.

It has also been the major friction point between the so called Democratic “Moderates” and “Progressives” as was often painfully apparent in the season of “debates” we just endured. Now that it appears the Moderates have prevailed in the body of Joe Biden, it is time, in fact long overdue, to explain to the American people that Joe and Bernie are much closer in their answer to the American health care conundrum, and equally just as far away from explaining it at all.

On the upcoming and possibly last debate, this is what I’d like to hear from Joe Biden. He needs to explain why both he and Bernie are essentially on the same track when it comes to health care, and also, perhaps, to apologize why they have both been so brain dead in enlightening the Nation to that fact:

 “The law Republicans tagged as “Obamacare” is universally referred by we politicians and media as the ACA or Affordable Care Act. The actual name for the law is The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  The irony in the abbreviated title is that the part which survived (i.e. Affordable Care) is precisely the part the act failed to include. Any success it has had reflects the part that was directed toward universal coverage or “Patient Protection”. Universal coverage is what Bernie here talks about when he often says healthcare is a human right.

However, the real issue is cost. If health care costs were low, truly affordable, we wouldn’t have problems with insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, or health care providers. It wouldn’t even be a subject of debate. People could pay for it without distress or easily be subsidized. However, it is not affordable, and the Republican alternative, which is the status quo, only supports Americans paying twice as much, or more, as people around the world do for equivalent care.

Bernie’s assessment of trillions of dollars for a single payer system is based on that outrageous fact. Quite simply costs have to come down first and we need the Government working in concert with the Market to make it happen.

Every insurance company that represents a large group of individuals, perhaps a large company, negotiates the price of every medical service, device, or medication. This is not new. What I am advocating is a Public Option, which when combined with the largest medical insurance service in the country, Medicare, can set prices and challenge the insurance companies to negotiate down costs even for small businesses or individuals. Medicare, plus those enrolling in a pre-65 Medicare option, combined with legislative empowerment, would be a block too large for the medical service providers to avoid.

Over time insurance companies would either have to compete on price or go out of business. As opposed to a single payer system, as exists for example in Britain, it would be more likely that the US would evolve into a Japanese model (which we helped to create after WW2) where insurance companies (including those publicly owned) handle the administration of health care with strict controls over cost. This is one of several successful universal plans that Bernie refers to when he says “the United States is the only industrialized nation without universal coverage”, but yet he chooses not to detail when advocating his single payer system.

The object is to get from point A to point B. The Public Option was in the original Obamacare law, but ultimately did not get enough Democratic support to overcome Republican opposition. Thus the word “Affordable” in the title became a misnomer. Bernie’s supporters should welcome the concept of a public option added to Obamacare and be proud that their enthusiasm for Bernie’s grand cause for universal affordable health care will help make it happen.

It’s not going to be easy, because profits will drop for all players in our health care system. However, what Republicans want is unsustainable. They want to feed us our seed corn for short term gain. A Public Option would truly be revolutionary and all Democrats need to come together to make it happen.”

Jill Biden for First Lady

Joe Biden scares me. He doesn’t scare me like Trump scares me. With Trump it’s visceral, as one might experience standing on a beach, knowing there’s not enough time to avoid the tsunami that’s barreling your way. With Joe it’s more like not knowing what your favorite uncle is going to do to screw up Thanksgiving dinner, yet knowing that screw up may lead you to the beach.

Only days before the Virginia Primary Joe had been expected to trail Bernie Sanders, perhaps even come in third behind Mike Bloomberg. Yet he ended up crushing the competition with a record setting turnout. Huh? Joe spent money in his Virginia campaign in amounts equivalent to that found in Bloomberg’s limousine cushions.

The postmortem on that contest in Virginia, and really echoed around Super Tuesday, seems to clearly point in one direction – Trump. I can’t seem to forget a young and frank reporter for The Daily Beast, Betsy Woodruff Swan, pronouncing late last year that “a potted plant could beat Trump” in November 2020. I think it stuck with me because it felt like comforting hubris from a rising generation.

After Super Tuesday, the truth in her prediction may be getting ready to land for real. The outstanding question then is the runway long enough? Enter Joe Biden, who, all things being equal, will be the Democratic nominee; his illogical cache soaring like the Tesla stock price.

Joe Biden was the presumptive favorite at the beginning of this race going back to early 2019, even before he announced he was in it. Trump also bought into it, as we all became painfully aware with the Donald’s impeachment. Biden’s name recognition was without peers in the Democratic field, better even than Bernie’s. Then the characteristics that made him unappealing in his two previous runs for the Presidency set in, with an added distraction only doddering age could enhance. He was positioned to swan dive after the Nevada primary.

Democratic moderates dominated the winnowed field by late 2019 but couldn’t put together a coherent message that could compete with Bernie’s intractable, yet colorful, ode to revolution. As competent candidates dropped out, one after the other, the electorate and Democratic Party realists started getting nervous. Those who were not excited about revolution began to think there might be something worse than a potted plant. This was especially true with African-American voters.

It’s entirely reasonable to argue that the last moderate standing, whomever, would have enjoyed the same triumph that Biden did. Biden won in states he had not even campaigned in! It certainly appears that fear drove voters to the polls; the fear of that four year tsunami headed our way. However, I’m suspecting that the fear that comes with Joe Biden might be just beginning.

Joe has been notorious for decades in his singular inability to think before he speaks. We should be used to it, right (?), and not just with Joe. There is no politician in audible recorded history that is as inarticulate as Donald Trump. Add to that his psychotic narcissism and you have someone who’s dumb meter is equally matched by his irrational confidence.  

Trump supporters know he’s dumb, many also know he’s stupid, but he’s their kind of dumb and stupid. Why? Because he’s clever enough to tap into their emotions, and that’s all it takes. Biden doesn’t have that luxury.

We know that Joe is not dumb or stupid. That isn’t necessarily a good thing. When Joe says he’s running for the Senate when he’s running for President, or shouts out “Eruf ad lowsink n give barly ovr thmens so hemtaro ephriten” during a victory speech, you could possibly be left with one uncomfortable conclusion – he’s pitifully incompetent. As a younger man it was easier to laugh through his gaffes or his speech impediments. As a Presidential candidate who will hold that office into his eighties (remember Ronald Reagan, who was constantly chided for his age, ended his Presidency at a younger age than Biden would be entering into it), such gaffes take on a different meaning.

Joe doesn’t have to do a whole lot for the Trump war machine to drown the electorate in displays of perceived incompetence. The mad dash to crown Biden with the Democratic mantle might very well end up being a house of cards…and it scares me. With each foot to mouth I hear I’ll be afraid to look down and see my feet buried in the sand. Absent that he is POTUS #46. If he manages it anyway we can only hope he announces a year from now that he will be a one term President. There is no way he could pull this off twice four years older than he is right now.

There is one thing that Biden has that gives me a real beam of hope – Jill Biden. That woman is serious business. Highly educated, sensitive, and articulate, she has in her possession both an attractive personality and appearance. I’d pit her against Donald Trump any day of the week. And poor Melania…don’t even go there. So no matter what happens, I’m voting for Jill…and I hope everyone else does as well.   

I Like Mike

The famous line out of the successful 1992 election campaign of Bill Clinton was “It’s the economy, stupid”. Then we had an incumbent President, GHW Bush, who only a year and a half before his re-election run had a National approval rating of 89%! Yet when November 92 rolled around Bush couldn’t garner more than 37% of the vote. Clinton, of course, was right. The “…stupid” part of the line was merely to point out that it’s always right.

The reality is that an American President gets the credit or the blame for economic conditions. The reasons for a given economy, good or bad, likely stretch back years during which a current President may have had little input. It is a touch of irony in our representative democracy that, for example, Donald Trump excitedly wets himself with glory over an economy built by Obama, his psychological nemesis.

My greatest takeaway from earning a degree in Economics 44 years ago is something that has been, more or less, lost over those years, especially in the facade of economic science meant to dazzle the general population.  As quantifications, calculations, formulas, and statistics have dominated the discipline it has been essentially exhibited as an exact science, such as Biology, Geology or Astronomy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Economics is a behavioral science. It exists, or more aptly floats, in the quagmire of human interaction. It is a far closer relative to the discipline of Philosophy than to Biology and less predictable than 19th century weather.

Yet even 130 years ago, on a warm sunny day one could see storm clouds rising and barometers falling and be fairly confident what to expect.

You would think that Trump’s impact on our near economic future would be minimal since his time and efforts have been almost entirely devoted to Twitter composition and golf. However, what he has done is faithfully carried out the agenda of Mitch McConnell and (probably) Vladimir Putin. The brunt of this faithfulness will be felt by us all and sooner than we’d like.

Trump signed into law a tax bill that pumped a ton of money into US businesses, of which the greatest amounts were used for stock buy-backs, increasing equity share for the very wealthy and driving up stock prices. This was paid for with debt, as our deficit under Trump has exploded.
  

The storm clouds are out there; a flat yield curve, ridiculous P/E ratios, anemic growth, health and education inflation, unsafe infrastructure (especially power grids), under employment, and (worst of all) lack of predictability.

On top of that Trump has delivered to us tremendous instability in international relations. He has weakened the ability of the United States to maintain some control over the world economy. He is managing to accomplish what Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, and now Putin could only dream about: the neutering of American influence through abandoning treaties and Western cooperation.

Since Richard Nixon, the myopic Republican Party has, with each victory in the White House, turned an improving economy into economic calamity. With Trump it is not a question of whether the US economy will tank or not. The only questions are how soon and how bad? The instability caused by Trump and the overblown equity markets created by the Republicans will impact the “how bad” much more than the “how soon”. Further, Trump’s painful incompetency will undoubtedly make a bad situation even worse if he is reelected.

If the economy is unchanged prior to the Presidential nomination process, Democrats better think carefully about whom their standard bearer will be.

Trump will not run on a “good economy”. His obvious modus operandi is to use fear as his tool of choice.  His campaign will target the Democratic nominee as Lucifer entering the American economic Garden of Eden.  Whether its big undefined spending programs (Warren), Socialist labels (Saunders), inexperience (Buttigieg), or Congressional ineffectiveness (Biden & Klobucher), any one will be targeted to generate the fear of changing the status quo for the unknown.

There is only one candidate I see who can neutralize that fear factor and thus be able to move the debate to issues and character…Michael Bloomberg. Not only can he claim legitimate business success (his father was a bookkeeper for a dairy company), he also brings to the table extensive political administration experience. He is not particularly charismatic, but he carries the gravitas of someone people will listen to. He can turn the economic fear factor right back onto Trump…where it belongs. He also might be the best choice in dealing with economic downturn when it happens.

He’s fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which is the only combo that has a chance of lessening National divisiveness. On top of that he’s smart, short, and Jewish, all of which score big points in my book, but that's just me. I like Mike. Buttigieg in 2028.

I Probably Wouldn't Be Here

In April 1922 my grandmother traveled from Bremerhaven, Germany to New York City. She was sponsored by a great aunt or cousin, I’m not quite sure, and likely arrived by visa. She was single and also about five months pregnant. In August of that year my mother was born in New Haven, Connecticut.

By the end of that year my grandfather immigrated to the United States, possibly illegally, and caught up with my grandmother. They married without much ceremony and continued to live in Connecticut for the next six years. During that time my Uncle Walter was born. Then about 1928 the entire family moved back to Bremerhaven. Their reason for returning to Germany is unclear, but my grandfather’s immigration status may have been a factor.

Germany in the 1930s was a boiling political stew. Although a world-wide depression was in progress, the German experience was notably different. Where much of the world, especially the United States, had lived in a fabricated prosperity during the 1920s, the German people had spent most of the 20s in economic desolation, for a variety of reasons. As Hitler rose to power through lies, Nationalism, violence, and theatrics, Germans rallied to the perceived stability he symbolized. Exclusivity of the Aryan race, with the associated use of antisemitism, racism, and eugenics became foundational.

In 1935 the new Nazi controlled German Government quietly instituted what was called Lebensborn, roughly translated as “fount of life”. Although presented to the German people as a socially philosophical position by the Government, it soon became evident to Germans that there was an active policy at work. Young women of Aryan decent were essentially being rounded up to live in permanent camps where German men, usually army officers, would visit. The purpose was to create children of pure Aryan decent who could be raised as national leaders. This continued through the decade and into the next.

My mother was then about 14 and my grandmother was not emotionally blinded to the policy. When my mother turned 17 my grandparents found the resources to ship her off to the United States, even though in 1939 restrictions for such were quite difficult. They could so for one reason alone, my mother was a US citizen.

Today Donald Trump, in an effort to woo his Conservative supporters, has decided to attack the US Constitutional right of citizenship to anyone born in this country. Make no mistake about it, the assault on this right has more to do with the sense of exclusivity that we can associate with the dark periods of human social development than it does with any abuse of economic benefits.

Created in 1868 and ratified by the 14^th Amendment to our Constitution, it assured that all Americans, especially those born into slavery, would be guaranteed the same rights as any other American citizen. It elevated to the level of constitutional law an equality that had been left out of the original constitution as an appeasement to the Southern Colonies. It reduced ambiguity as to who was a citizen and who was not, which was likely the primary driver for the ratification. However, there were other unforeseen benefits that evolved over time.

The United States has been a magnet for individuals who viewed living in a land that symbolizes freedom and the pursuit of prosperity as more important than the fear of uprooting their lives. The knowledge that their children would not have to face that fear had to be liberating. As a country the benefits brought by those inspired individuals have been incalculable. How every politician or other successful American you listen to loves to display their immigrant roots is de facto proof of that very benefit.

Now, if my mother had not been allowed to return to the United States, staying in Germany and surviving the war, and didn’t meet my father in New York City in 1944, it is only a philosophical (or perhaps theological) question whether I, my children, or grandchildren would be in existence today or not. Regardless, we certainly wouldn’t be Americans.

I don’t portend that my contribution to this society has been a critical addition. However, I feel myself part of a larger iceberg of citizenry that supports a peak that rises above the surface of troubled waters that cover the earth. I also have every reason to think my children and grandchildren will be the same if not actually lead others in sustaining the values that have made this Nation unique. My mother’s journey was consequential.

The Trumpian-Conservative-Republican desire to eliminate birth right citizenship is another attempt to contract the nation into hate and nationalistic exclusivity. Lebensborn was logically consistent with a German effort to do exactly the same thing. Sure there will be women who will view the ability to confer American citizenship for their children in a way that labels them as “birth tourists”.  However, I believe this Nation can survive the few children that, as a result, will have an opportunity to travel to this Country as citizens and who will view that journey as one of opportunity.

There is no reason to scuttle, by use of fear for political purpose, a Constitutional law that gives back far, far more than it gives away.

A Rolling Holocaust

This week I visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for the first time. That’s a humbling admission considering it was completed nearly 26 years ago. Although my visits to DC are rare, I remember in the early years I was thwarted by its popularity, which didn’t allow for walk-in visits. I’m glad I went, belated though it was, and for reasons I wasn’t expecting.

It is a daunting exhibit with much more to see (and especially read) than can be accomplished during the length of a normal museum visit. For someone with limited historical perspective I would think it would be shocking to absorb the enormity of the inhumanity that occurred during the 1940s. However, I consider myself reasonably versed in the history of that period and there was not much I encountered that I would consider new.

That is not to say that deeper emotions, regardless of intellect, wouldn’t surface. For example, the display of victim’s actual shoes given to the museum, thousands of shoes, was certainly a moment that took me to a place of profound discomfort and reflection.

Considering that most all of what I read and observed was already part of my knowledge base including the social cruelty and political brutality which ran as an undercurrent beneath the military events of the period, I was personally curious what my takeaway would be. Would I have an insight I didn’t have before I entered the museum?  I believe I did.

What I hadn’t appreciated before was the enormous complexity of it all. Most abbreviated histories that a majority of Americans are exposed to center around the rise of Hitler and a relatively small cadre of men that surrounded him and how they manipulated individuals, both learned and simple, to support them in their quest for power and military conquest.

They are the ones credited with spearheading the mostly crude but sometimes mechanical ethnic cleansing of millions of innocent, mostly Jews, as a means to an end (power), not as part of some depraved philosophical ethic.

Leaving the museum I gained an intuitive understanding that it wasn’t that simple.

Hitler and his close followers were like an autoimmune disease. They were created in an environment which made it possible for them to make ordinary people turn on accepted social values like a body’s immune system turning on itself. That environment was of fiscal deprivation, fear associated with uncertainty, and a clinging to exclusivity for moral support, all of which were prevalent in the 1930s.

Hitler may have set a tone and initiated policy, but the 1940s Holocaust was just as equally caused by millions of small decisions and actions made all over Europe, including the intentional failure of actions not taken around the world.

The real shocker for me was the obvious realization that the ingredients which made the Holocaust possible are just as real today and never more prevalent as they have been over the past 3 years.

Politics and social behavior in this America is no longer about policy. It’s not even about money, since the concept of national debt has become irrelevant. It has become tribal and socially segregating.

If you’ve watched a Trump “rally” (and you should) you can see that it is an endless attack on the personal characteristics of his perceive opponents, peppered with aggrandizing his mythical successes. He is unlocking inhibited behavior and satisfying his supporters need for inclusion and safety, no different than eugenics gave solace to wanton discrimination.

What is a nation that says “America first” and proceeds to define that America as a place that “valiantly stops invasions” of ethnic diversity. What is a nation that says “America first” then calls out any source of information that doesn’t actively support the President as “fake”. What is a nation that says “America first” and creates an entire party of leaders that defend corruption and bizarre conspiracies to maintain power.  To use endless fear as the engine for making “America first” is the same secret sauce that made the Holocaust possible.

In a way I wish colloquial use of the term “Holocaust” had not become a noun. Although it communicates inhumanity to a scale that in the modern world has no equal, I would have preferred that it was a verb. The abhorrent behavior of leaders made acceptable and adoptable over time is a rolling form of holocaust, so complex in nature that, undeterred, may rival history for its depravity and number of victims.

All things being equal, we may be only one financial catastrophe away from something even worse.   

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Up before 6am on a Saturday morning, I turned on the kitchen TV during the waning period of infomercials that fill after midnight broadcast programming.

On the screen was a familiar face.  It was Mike Murdock (he refers to himself as “Dr” Mike Murdock although he dropped out in his second year at Southwestern Assemblies of God University – daunting academia for sure). He has been a long time televangelist and general purveyor in the God business.

He spent the majority of his air time that morning, as usual, preaching (but sounded more like demanding)  that his faithful listeners send him a measly $1000 “seed” donation, which will be returned to them a hundred fold (or more) in some financial or quasi-financial form. Not a bad deal…for Mike.

He shamelessly warns that if they keep the $1000 which they may have saved up for a vacation, medical care, or debt repayment...that’s all they’ll ever have. He points out that he doesn’t keep a debt balance on his credit card, but other people have told him they have paid their $1000 “seed” with credit card debt to ample reward. “I didn’t say that,” he discloses, “they did”.  

His tax supported flimflam is part of the substantial (and wretchedly ugly) tip of a colossal iceberg that is (to use an old but currently in vogue Latin phrase) a quid pro quo. Believe in me, have faith in me (send me your “seed”) and you will receive eternal life (no fear of death), and maybe even riches in this life.

The fact that the majority of funds sent to Murdock and an army of similar vendors goes to support their lavish lifestyles, unconstrained behavior, and fund their ego laden projects has never dissuaded the faithful. That is because the faithful simply don’t think of it as a quid pro quo, they only feel it.  

Now in our politically divided Nation this same dynamic is being played out, not just for the accumulation of wealth but also for the securing of power. Watching the progression of efforts to impeach and remove Donald Trump from office has become a contest of reality vs. belief, of reason vs. emotion.

The real trial is not being played out in Congress. The real hearing can be found with Fox News and Talk Radio on one side and the rest of the news media (CNN, MSNBC, BBC, PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC etc) on the other.

If you consider reason and reality in this drama you can become painfully bewildered as to why anyone would condone the behavior of Donald Trump. This episode with Ukraine is the only the one in which he got caught red handed. There are obviously numerous others, some even out in the open. Like the way he maneuvers public assets and influence to benefit himself financially or with his un-American (if not treasonous) relationship with Putin (a pariah in the global community). They will all come to light…someday.

Jonathan Turley (expert witness for the Republicans during the Judicial Committee hearing) only argued that the Democrats had not “proven” their case. He was never asked “if a Congressman believes what Trump is accused of beyond a reasonable doubt should he not vote for impeachment”? He would have had no choice but to answer “yes”. He would have undoubtedly followed with the question of what is reasonable doubt.

Republican Congressmen, the producers at Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest know the truth, but to them it is meaningless in the infomercial of the politics they sell. It is all about the quid pro quo they're transacting with 30% of the American population. It’s “listen to me, vote for me, believe in me and I will keep you safe from those others who want to take away everything you hold dear…don’t think about it, just feel it”.

They know they can sell a “reasonable doubt” as any doubt at all, no matter how ridiculous. Broadly applied no one could be convicted of any crime in this country. However this "reasonable doubt" is narrowly targeted.

Rush Limbaugh was a college drop-out and a failed disc jockey without a buck to spare. Since then he has only been a hard right-wing radio talk show personality. Yet now his current net worth is estimated at about $600 million and his current annual income at $84 million. Mike Murdock…eat your heart out! You're in the minor leagues.