A Pox on Your House

How many Presidential elections have you been cognizant of with enough maturity to understand the difference in the candidates? My first election was in 1960 at the age of 10. Since then I have experienced 14 elections. This 15^th election in 2020, however, is the first time a sitting President, the supposed leader of this Country, and what used to be the leader of the “free” world, has openly chosen to undermine the basic pillars of this democracy.

It should be disturbing, if not terrifying to every person in the United States.

Never once in those 60 years since the Kennedy-Nixon contest did I ever consider that the actual process of electing a President was or would be fraudulent. Further, I felt confident that every other citizen in the Nation felt the same degree of comfort regarding the process, whether happy with outcome or not. After all, we don’t live in a banana republic, where the first rule of corruption is a tacit acceptance by the populous that systemic corruption exists.

In 2016 Donald Trump had proclaimed to his audiences late in the election that certain states were going to have “rigged” elections, notably Pennsylvania.  This barely registered at the time given the buffoonery of the candidate and the widespread belief that Trump was going to lose. Those claims evaporated after the election.  Poof!

In this election year Trump, as President, has gone far beyond his clown car antics of 2016 and has engaged in rhetoric which damages our Country in a way that may take years to repair, whether he is re-elected (God forbid) or not.

Trump has now proclaimed in multiple gatherings and interviews that the only way he can lose, the only way, is for the election to be “rigged”.  He is sending out this message to a vulnerable 30% or so of the electorate who view him as their defender against Left Wing conspiracies and the ravages of wealth-sucking minorities. They will believe him in the face of bare and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, because he has come to embody their political identities.

Of course, the obvious corollary to his proclamations is that even if he should win (God forbid) the election was still “rigged”, just not so efficiently as to elect Joe Biden. Either way Trump has sought to poison a well which has made this Democracy the oldest and most respected in the World, at least up to four years ago. 

The question, of course, is has he succeeded? Undermining the confidence of elections is a major step toward autocracy, right after the successful denouncement of a free press. Will our new compatriots be the citizens of Moscow, Manila, and Istanbul? 

We won’t know how well or even if we recover from this assault on American Democracy. Even though most of us can speculated that Trump is an aberration in the political history of this Country, I am absolutely sickened to see the Presidency used as an autocratic tool. His unprecedented use of the White House (the “People’s House”) for political campaigning, is like a metaphor for a decline of American prominence.

Four more years of Trump and we could end up with Russia on the Potomac. 

What sickens me also, perhaps more, is the silence of Republican leaders and legislators who don’t have Trump’s ignorance as an excuse. They hear what he says and they ignore it. They see what he does and they say nothing. They appear solely focused on retaining their positions and power by courting Trump’s 30% and not bearing the wrath of Fox news or Conservative talk radio.

Republican leaders have crowded on the corroded vessel Donald Trump, and they are more than willing to throw overboard every sacred facet of American Democracy in order to stay afloat. 

A pox on their house, I say…would I could.  Even when Trump is removed from office (God willing) they will still be a presence to participate in the healing.  I won’t be holding my breath.

My Case for Reparations...Again

To Kamala Harris. My hope is that you become the lead on matters of civil discord and that President Biden first focuses on Foreign Affairs (including immigration), and climate change.

(In January 2019 I posted an essay on a case for reparations for African Americans. This post takes mostly from that essay, but also modifies the conclusion, a result current civil unrest.)

There has been a tussle between Liberals and Conservatives for decades on the question of reparations for slavery in the United States. It has never managed much traction because it has always been relegated to an intellectual debate.

It has been over 15 decades years since the ratification of the 13^th Amendment ending slavery, so it is difficult to see how specific losses can be quantified to apply to currently living individuals. At the end of the American Civil War there were approximately 4 million freed slaves. The current estimate of African-Americans in the US is 46 million.  How do you do the math?

In fact, it is too simplistic to look at the great American stain of slavery and assume that there is some means by which the Nation as a whole could compensate its way out of that shame. Further, there are virtual armies of Conservatives who view individuality as having no historical liability. They believe that any given person has the potential wherewithal and opportunity to lift themselves to social and fiscal success.  No societal help necessary and certainly not with their tax dollars.

Liberals who see reparations as only fair are stymied by how to distribute such largess and are muted by questions on how such reparations would be used. No wonder. The problem is that the injury cost is viewed, and often attempted to be calculated, based on what was essentially stolen (i.e. freedom and labor) prior to 1865. There is a mistake in believing that something could get repaired today by simply throwing money at it.

Yet here we are, still a segregated society. Black Americans continue to occupy a sub-culture which includes a disproportionally large segment of the lower middle class and poverty portions of our Nation. Black Americans populate a highly disproportionate segment of an incarceration “system” that is nearly as shameful today, by worldwide standards, as slavery was 155 years ago.

One can travel nearly anywhere in this Country (and everywhere in the South) where poor, undesirable, or simply “bad” neighborhoods are vocalized synonyms for Black neighborhoods. This fact overflows into schools, perceived crime, and use of public services.  It is the mother’s milk of social Conservatism whether it’s the simple vilifying of the term “welfare” or the grotesque marching for White Supremacy.

That Liberals want a quick fix is as useless in solving this national conundrum as Conservative’s focus on self-interest.

Reparations? Yes. For Slavery?  No.

The BLM movement does not advance their cause by trying to re-write history to mesh with modern ethics, such as vilifying anyone associated with slavery (which could include practically everyone during the first 80 years of this Country and for centuries before). The great wealth of the antebellum South, accumulated on the backs of slaves, was effectively destroyed by the Civil War. The true crime, for which those of African descent are still victims, is what happened to them, as free Americans, during the decades following the War and how they were systematically deprived of a just recovery.

   

Where we are today is less a problem of former slavery than it is about how the Nation (and especially the Southern states) reacted to the end of Slavery. The horrors of hate, terror, incarceration (with associated servitude), Jim Crow, Ku-Klux-Klan, and general discrimination notwithstanding, the underlying issue which today creates this great racial divide is primarily economic…and cumulative.

The hostile application of prejudice since the mid-19^th century compromised the economic evolution of Black Americans in two important ways (among others); education and the accumulation of real property (real estate or land).  Today’s white American stands atop a history of education and real property transfers that span literally hundreds of years.  It can be argued that Black Americans can count any equivalent success in a few decades at most. Combine that with our National penchant toward economic inequality across all sectors and there is nothing I see that signals a real change in direction.

Two “reparations” could be as follows: 1) for the next 50 years (two generations) every Black student would receive tuition-free education to any public (non-profit) college, university, or training school simply because they have a Black biological mother or father, and 2) for the next 50 years every adult who had a biological Black parent would have access to a one-time, Government guaranteed mortgage (at the same rate as VA mortgages – no equity needed) and where the only criteria for acceptance is the ability to make monthly payments. Essentially a "GI Bill" for Black Americans. 

The total elimination of prejudice is probably impossible.  Human beings will always gravitate toward those for which they feel a common bond.  However, discrimination should be, if not eliminated, fought against as the struggle for our better selves. There is no reason to think that simply adopting preacher elevated ethics will get the job done. When mistakes are made you need to correct them with dollars and sense.

Trumpression

I’m quite sure I have it…do you? Is it a new condition, or just a new name? 

Last night I awoke at about 3am. Not unusual, but in normal times I’d fall back to sleep. Not last night, or several other similar nights. Instead I began considering the possibility of something happening to Joe Biden, perhaps something with Russian sophistication or White Supremacist crudeness.

Then I thought about a less than resounding defeat of Donald Trump and the aftermath of conflict. I saw Institutions being blown apart in the wake and a psychotically pure narcissistic mad man, with the power to inflict martial law and exercise nuclear codes. No…I didn’t get back to sleep.

Take this new form of Depression, I’ll call Trumpression, mix it with the uncertainties we must all now deal with daily regarding a malevolent disease, and sprinkle in social inequities that have finally (and understandably) reached a boiling point, and November 3^rd starts to feel like a lifetime…no, two lifetimes away.

Perhaps if I was a bit stronger or maybe more clever I could compartmentalize. Like many Americans, or others around the world, most of my Trumpression is derived from watching the idiot in the White House, listening to the pundits who rail against him, and railing at the pundits who worship his idiocy.

(Let me pause briefly: the President IS an idiot, not because he is profoundly stupid but because he is woefully lacking in knowledge. But, more importantly, he has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and therefore his world view, personal or otherwise, is totally subjective. He does not have, nor can he have any empathy or shame. It is the stuff of nightmares for us, but interestingly for him as well. It is why autocrats are such focused, corruptible, and miserable people.)

My life is not significantly different than it was when Obama was President. The economy was tracking up year after year, the United States was still respected around the world for things other than its military, those that supported science began to hold sway, and the realities of wealth inequality and systemic racism were becoming inescapable. Still, none of that affected my day to day life, really.

However, those pleasing abstract realities, ending with a few thousand people voting or failing to vote in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in 2016, have now been replaced. So now my diet, my sleep patterns, and my level of energy are all enslaved to Trumpression. No matter how much I try to tell myself how well off I am compared to so many others, it is inescapable.

Being over 70 I’m supposed to help the impact of the Pandemic by remaining out of circulation. That, of course, only exacerbates the problem. I know that to thrive through these next 66 days I’m going to have to find some ways to apply my time and money to ending my Trumpression.  Perhaps you do too. Maybe I’ll see you out there. We need a universally identifiable mask.

Stay healthy Joe.

Switcharoo

Why do you believe Donald Trump?  I’m not speaking to Republican bureaucrats, Fox News personalities, Christian Conservatives, QAnon nut jobs, or white supremacists. I’m directing that question to Democrats, the Democratic leadership, and non-Fox media. Because Trump says something often enough and loud enough makes it so? Is that correct?

Trump and his Republican cult have been proclaiming for too long that he created the “greatest (US) economy in the history of the Nation”, only to have it woefully snatched away by the “China” virus. Why haven’t I seen his claim of economic prowess challenged by Democrats with the kind of ferocity equal to the fantasy?

US Presidents have very little short term impact on an economy.  The Economy and various markets are like a mammoth oil tanker. They can be torpedoed or otherwise disabled quickly by an unforeseen disaster or accumulated negligence. However, for the captain and crew to make a radical change in course, for better or worse, that ship is going coast in the same direction for some time and distance.

So it goes with a change of Administrations in Washington, especially if it also includes a change in a governing Party.  The most dramatic example was the collapsing economy transitioning from George Bush to Barack Obama in 2009. During Obama’s first year the GDP went negative, the unemployment rate (already a high 7.3%) increased another 34%. The stock market (using the DOW as an index) dropped over 50%.

Trump’s first year in office was no different, and yet also the complete opposite.

The Obama Administration turned it around, constantly attacked by Republicans for shepherding a “too slow” recovery.  The reality is that it began the longest period of sustained economic growth in the country’s history. During the remaining 7 years the stock market increased 203% and unemployment dropped from 9.9% to 4.7%. Just as important, the wounds of mistrust in financial systems were mostly healed.

The first year of the Trump Administration saw the unemployment rate continue to fall to 4.1% and the stock market climbed another 32%.  Conservatives, Republicans, and Fox News were quick to give Trump credit. This was actually the end of the Obama Economy.

What did Trump do to deserve this adoration?  Nothing! His first year was spent trying to dismantle Obama social programs, defend his Russian assisted campaign, anger allies, find money for his wall, travel to and pontificate at “rallies”, Tweet, and watch TV.

It wasn’t until December 22, 2017 that he signed the great Republican Tax giveaway, for which his Republican Congress argued would bring real “life” to the US Economy (albeit with a wink and a nod).

What happened?  Over the next two years, up to the point of the Pandemic, the Unemployment Rate dropped a whopping 0.5%, from 4.1% to 3.6%.  The stock market was actually lower by the end of 2018 and had “skyrocketed” a massive 8% before it fell off the Pandemic cliff. GDP remained basically unchanged. If Obama had presided over similar results during his second and third year, Mitch McConnell and the gang would have been gleefully heating tar and plucking chicken feathers.

Of course I can’t make comparisons regarding what has occurred in 2020. The Corona Virus crippled economies around the globe. However, thanks to the anemic and incredibly stupid response by Trump, our recovery will lag the rest of the world and we will be paying a price for many months to come.

Once again, a Republican President will be handing a Democrat successor an economy the size and odor of a three story cow pile. Yet once again, Republicans will claim the mantle as the Party for Economic growth, and will minimize and disparage the recovery as inadequate. The real tragedy, it appears, is that too many Democrats will believe them.

Lest We Forget

No one in the US is immune from the affects of the Corona Virus Pandemic, one way or the other. So for the Democrats and the Biden campaign to target the Pandemic and expose the many flaws Trump and his administration have applied to its defense is understandable. However, I find their focus too narrow, dwelling excessively on the disease and its impact, both on the national health and economy.

We knew before the Pandemic that Trump was a failed human being, let alone President, and needed to be removed from office. It didn’t take a pandemic to understand that.

So much is not being said. Entire books, for example, will be written about the inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants on our southern border, with the callous separating of children from their families, some never to be reunited, or the indifference given to the American Citizens in Puerto Rico, resulting in over 3000 dead. Were those actions of Trump’s even mentioned at the DNC?

I understand his ineptitude (call it “covfefe”) is not being pursued, but what about his general disregard for the job? He played golf 236 times during his first three years, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars (Forbes puts it at over $350 million), much going into his own pocket at the clubs he owns.

He has held 97 (ego) “rallies” since his election victory, again the taxpayers picking up millions in transportation and security expenses. He has tweeted and re-tweeted over 17,000 times during his first 3 years in office. He has tweeted so often on some weekends, it’s difficult to do the math and not conclude he has done nothing else. He watches television constantly, apparently whenever he’s not tweeting or playing golf. He virtually allows Fox News pundits to direct his policy or rage. He doesn’t start his work day until 11am and reads virtually nothing.

Current counters have shown his lies, misstatements, and untruths to now exceed 20,000! 

During his first year in office 34% if the entire White House Administration was either fired or resigned (the average for the previous four Presidents was 8%). He is surrounded by cronies, with enough corruption and indictments to be rivaling the Nixon Administration, always shielded by the Republican Senate. This, of course, includes his own corruptions, one of which led to his impeachment.

There is so much to shine a light on beyond the Pandemic. I have compiled a partial list for my own edification, which I share with you. Please read through and remember, and add any that I missed, which are likely numerous.  They are in a rough chronological order:

-          Inaugural crowd delusion

-          Missing millions from inaugural fund

-          FBI discloses Russia connection

-          Comey fired, Russians in the Oval Office

-          Flynn resigns, later arrested and convicted

-          Manafort arrested, later convicted

-          Gates arrested, later convicted

-          Puerto Rico ignored, 3000 dead

-          Stormy Daniel bribe uncovered

-          Playmate affair exposed

-          NFL slammed

-          Charlottesville and his “fine people” aka Nazis

-          Defends guns after Las Vegas

-          Backs child abuser for Senate

-          Signs Republican tax cut for wealthy

-          “Falls in love” with Kim Jong Un

-          Announces he is a “stable genius”

-          Gives credibility to North Korea

-          Trade wars initiated

-          Trashes Christine Blasey Ford

-          Violates International Iran Nuclear Treaty

-          Attacks Muller

-          Withdraws US from Paris Climate Accords

-          Attacks John McCain

-          Abandons the Kurds

-          His lawyer arrested, later convicted for Trump's crime

-          Holds refugees in detention cages

-          Separates children from families

-          Sides with Putin against CIA/FBI

-          Shuts down Government for 35 days

-          Money illegally diverted for “wall”

-          Withdraws US from Russian Nuclear Treaty

-          Vetos Yemen withdrawal

-          Trump Foundation shut, pays $2MM fine

-          Directs military planes to his Irish golf club

-          Sues to eliminate Affordable Care Act

-          Withholds military aid from Ukraine

-          Pressures Zelenski to investigate Biden

-          Is impeached, with no dispute of facts

-          Orders assassination of Iranian General

If the Covid Pandemic had never reached our shores and the economy, created during the Obama years, had remained intact, there was always a deep well of reason to get rid of this narcissistic clown.

My dream now is to lay down to sleep at night and suddenly realize for the first time in years that I hadn’t heard the name "Trump" once all day.

President Pence, POTUS 46

When President Pence is sworn in we can feel confident there will be no debate over the size of the crowd.  That’s a relief all by itself.

This week Donald Trump Tweeted his suggestion that the 2020 elections on November 3^rd be postponed and it turned the American news streams into various levels of dither. Fox News et al, along with most Republican legislators, just tried to dodge the comment or “laugh” it off. This is something they’ve learned to be quite good at.

Some respected Republicans took issue with it publicly. Democrats, left and center, went ballistic, calling out terms like dictator, autocrat, or destroyer of the Constitution…something they’ve learned to be quite good at.

I think they all may be missing the point.

Since 2016 I have been writing in this blog several times my conclusions that Donald Trump suffers from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and that this condition explains all his actions, short of those he has felt compelled to act on to protect himself. Not to argue this point further, my opinion is leading me inescapably to a final speculation:

Donald Trump will likely resign the Presidency before the November election.

The importance of his Tweet is not the suggestion of a postponed election, something he has no power to do. It is with his reasoning…points he has repeatedly raised. Attaching those points to his absurd suggestion magnifies their importance in his mind.

He has proclaimed that this election will (not might or could) be “the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history”. He neither reflects on the fact there has previously been no inaccurate and fraudulent election in US history or that he assigns all the fraud and inaccuracies to benefit only his opponent. He really doesn’t care a fig about how the election is run.

If Trump truly has a NPD, a major loss would painfully conflict with his self-perception. Intuitively his knowing that a post-election analysis would later deem the contest accurate may be a bridge he is unwilling to cross.  His only out would be to resign. In his mind, the “fraud” in the election makes it impossible for him to win, and that the resulting landslide loss (the election cannot be stopped) will be primarily due to his resignation.

Someone with an NPD faces an imperfect world with subjective perfection. It’s as if he lives his life on reality TV.  His niece, a PhD psychologist, in her book “Too Much and Never Enough” discounts the idea that her uncle has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, even as she admits that every characteristic of that disorder applies to him. She essentially claims he is too complex to be labeled in that fashion. Having read her book I can understand how she would find it difficult to not include the impact of such a dysfunctional family. However for the rest of us, he is simply a dysfunctional President and NPD fits the bill.

Sure, it’s not inevitable. After all, Trump has to deal with his cowardice and there is no telling for sure in the end. He also could delude himself into thinking he could magically win, delusion and paranoia are later characteristics of NPD. Of course it didn’t work well for him in figuring the Corona Virus was just going to suddenly disappear, and that memory may linger.

I’d give better than even money that come late September or early October Trump will throw up his arms in “disgust” and walk off the set, not waiting to hear the words you’re fired. Ol’Mikey will become the shortest office holder in US history, beating out the previous record holder, Warren Harding, by 27 months. I’m sure they’ll get his picture up in at least one little Post Office in Indianapolis.

Don't Know Modern Monetary Theory? Buckle Your Seat Belt.

When I was born in 1950 the National Debt was $257 billion. Adjusted for inflation that amount in today’s dollars would be about $2.7 Trillion. Today that debt is nearly $27 Trillion (watch it run at Debt Clock ) almost exactly ten times the size.

I’ve spent nearly my entire life listening to politicians extol the value of balanced budgets, warn against debt passed onto future generations, and condemn social expenses deemed “welfare”.  Usually these efforts came from those considered “fiscally conservative” and they were a mantra for the Republican Party.

Liberal leaning Democrats have fumed over unpaid wars, special interest pork, and reductions in taxes for the very wealthy.

We have learned, and should know, that it’s never made a difference which political party had power in Washington. Only in 5 of my 70 years have there been budget surpluses (all under Democratic Administrations). Dealing with the “Great Recession” in 2009 the Obama Administration almost doubled the National Debt during his 8 years in office. Trump is getting ready to nearly double it again in his first 4 years, even though he and the Republicans were given a relatively healthy economy.

Given the erratic, embarrassing, upside down world of the Trump Administration, the Covid19 Pandemic, and the explosion of racial awareness you might think enough news is on your plate, and you’d generally be right. Still, have you stopped to think for a second that the trillions of dollars thrown at every problem that has surfaced seem a little different…a little unusual?

Your familiar Republicans, a’la Paul Ryan, who would rail against excess spending and fight to reduce revenues have been deafening in their silence, have they not? If you weren’t paying attention, this disappearing act has been going on since Obama left office, not just since the Pandemic hit. They’ll attack Democratic proposals for spending, which seem endless in their presentation, but go mute regarding the spin of the Debt Clock.

Actually the whole gang, Republicans and Democrats, have quietly entered us into a new era. They have for some time now adopted a new economic reality that embraces a new discipline known as Modern Monetary Theory. Our economic dingy has been launch on to virgin waters and there’s no telling where it’s going to end up.

To give a detailed explanation Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) would be no easier for the average citizen then to explain Keynes’ General Theory (1930s-70s) which focused on Government spending or the Monetarist Theories of Milton Friedman (free market determination of money supply) that followed Keynes. It is easiest just to present the practical application of MMT.

Both Keynes and Friedman argued that excessive increases in money relative to the supply of goods and services ultimately produced inflation.  MMT takes a different tact. MMT argues that there is no limit to the increase in money into the economy as long as the economy has excess capacity and inflation is at bay. Excess capacity is often referred as unemployment.

MMT claims taxes are not used to pay for government expenses; rather they are a tool for government to regulate the money supply.

The supply of money, as you may have been noticing, certainly since 2008 or before, is simply accomplished by the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) creating instruments of debt (bonds). It is simply the way we have for decades printed up money without the necessity of paper. The accounting for this increase in money is what we fondly call the National Debt.

Andrew Yang knew this when he proposed his $1000 a month for every American. The left side of the Democratic Party (Bernie Sanders et al) have also embraced MMT with all their proposals. In neither case was the Theory presented along with their plans.  The Republicans have been no better with unfettered military spending and reductions in revenue.

Bottom line is that there is now no real ceiling to the National Debt nor any reason to reduce it. Perhaps when it is more than twice the Nation’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product), in another $20 Trillion or so, they might start to take a look at it.  As long as inflation is cool the spending in Washington will remain hot.

There is good thinking behind MMT, and in an economic petri dish it offers Government extraordinary fiscal power.  Fix the infrastructure, provide health care, or educate the populous, on the short list. However, there are so many variables (foreign currency markets, corruption, natural and manmade disasters, international conflicts and competition, and shortages to name a few) that our Economy seems to resemble the Starship Enterprise now that we’ve been freed from what we thought was gravity.

The takeaway I always come back to from my Econ education is that Economics is not an exact science, it’s a social science. Therefore, it is subject to the behavior of the people that lead and inhabit it. Science can eventually provide reasonable predictability about things like Pandemics and Climate Change, but Economic Theory can take us on a wild ride. I have some suspicion we’re one right now. All Economic theories work…until they don’t. Buckle up.

Sorry “Patriots”, the World Is About To Change…Again

Maybe I shouldn’t think what I do when I see a “Don’t Tread on Me” license plate or flag… probably not healthy…mentally speaking.

It’s not the historical misuse of the Gadsten Flag of 1775 that bothers me, given that flag had nothing to do with individualism or civil liberty. Not even that the symbol and phrase glorify aggression as a means to deal with irrational fears of insecurity, inferiority, and impotence (among others).

That it’s embraced nearly exclusively by Conservative, white men in America is somewhat troubling since it has been picked up, in many parts of the Country, like a baton from those who have had to let go of their “Stars and Bars”. The sound of dog whistles is deafening.

No, what truly bothers me the most when I see that license plate or the little flags attached to automobile side windows, or the banner proudly hanging from a front porch are my thoughts of the children of these “patriots” who are encouraged to have a world view of intractable inertia.

Hopefully, with a dollop of education, a spoonful of experience, and a squirt of empathy those children might live long enough to chuckle at their father’s paranoid antagonism, while simultaneously shaking their heads, possibly uttering the words “poor mom”.

65 percent of Americans today are under the age of 44. None of them have any idea what the world is like without packaging that has one or more levels of security and, I believe, don’t think anything of it. I, on the other hand, occasionally muse over those days when I could just unscrew a bottle of ketchup and pour it out, instead of surgically removing a band of hard plastic around the neck and then ever so slowly pry a sticky tag off the mouth of the bottle.

How long ago did that change take place…the 1960s, 1950s? No, it was actually in the 1980s, beginning September 1982 to be exact. One event, the unsolved “Tylenol Murders”, led to changes that impact every person in this Country, maybe the world.  Seven people died as a result of intentional product tampering. So do you think your Conservative-Libertarian lives are not going to be involuntarily adjusted after the deaths of more than a quarter-million people?

Everyone can speculate on what those changes will be, from access to healthcare to chest bumps, however let me suggest one thing that isn’t going away.

From now on you will never be able to enter a hospital without a face covering. That will probably also be true of clinics, doctor’s offices, physical therapy workplaces, and maybe even dental offices. Essentially anyplace that deals with health services. No telling where else masks might be mandatory, movie theaters, pharmacies, indoor school events…who knows?

Hopefully, it will become common practice for anyone who knows they are sick with a communicable illness, albeit minor (a cold, e.g.), to wear a mask where ever they go, as is already being done in much of the world.

So if you think that wearing a face covering labels you as a Socialist Liberal and violates your inalienable civil liberties…get over it, and get used to it. Just get ready to be carrying a mask around with you 24/7. Your fidelity to “individual patriotism” doesn’t work in a world that includes other people.

Your children or grandchildren will probably never think twice about putting on a face covering when and where appropriate, anymore than they question the security of their food or medicine. They may also never know how uninformed and thoughtless members of a free society could be. Now wouldn’t that be nice.

The War May Finally Be Over...Let's Not Start Another One

As a small child growing up in the 1950s I loved war. The romanticizing of military conflict had exploded after WWII. I was particularly fond of the American Revolution and the Civil War, what little I knew. When I played Civil War, often by myself with make-believe solders, I usually favored the Rebels, despite growing up an hour north of New York City. After all, they were the scrappy underdogs. I didn’t have the slightest concept of what slavery was or had been.

My love of history taught me much more over the decades with a clearer understanding of the conflict we know as the Civil War, but often referred to by Southerners as The War Between the States. The difference in title is telling. Civil War implies a conflict between citizens of the same country while the other is more simply geographic affiliation, e.g. Nationalism

When I moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1981 as an educated, employed, white male I recall being impressed with the displayed (almost) reverence to the Civil War and the allegiances that had supported the Southern cause. After all, north of Gettysburg the Civil War has a fairly small footprint across village greens. It was like going back in time.

I was also keenly aware of the results of discrimination in the South, resulting in the socio-economic deficits experienced by African-Americans. However, it was relatively easy – way too easy – not to associate the plight of poor, less educated Blacks with the conflict that had ended 160 years earlier and its foundational discrimination.

As the years past and we experience life in the South, my wife and I slowly at first and then almost constantly reacted to a societal reality. As “Yankees” we were able to objectively observe how those native to the region had embraced their heritage like a religion. Unfortunately, from our perspective, that “religion” included underlying hostilities, fears, and insecurities. Casting  African-Americans as a single lot (the essence of racism), viewing Northerners as foreigners, extolling Nationalism but with Confederate Flags were all too obvious.

Gun ownership clearly had long expanded beyond practical use and become symbolic of defiance to anything that wasn’t consistent with the Dukes of Hazard.

With a growing family, we found ourselves loving the area, the congenial nature and honesty of Virginians, economic opportunity, and friendship warmly afforded to a young family. Still, when we’d see what was happening around us, the “stars and bars” snapping in the wind everywhere, war reenactments, and what was on the news daily, we’d often say to each other, “when in the hell is this damned Civil War going to end?”

That day may have arrived. Let’s hope so.

The BLM demonstrations have been supported by a wide spectrum of individuals and organizations. As part of it they have shined a stark light on the affection given to a conflict where the origins and motivations have been so removed as to allow those that extolled the conflict to act like small boys playing with make-believe soldiers. Despite any historical reference, the removal of tributes to the Conflict (statues, flags etc) is not only appropriate, but also carries the weight of morality.

Let the Civil War surrender itself to former battlefields and cemeteries. However, I find myself conflicted with the apparent attempt to erase slavery as an historical reality, most recently in the attacking of a rash of monuments that have no representation to the Confederacy, but some connection to slavery (Washington, Jefferson, Keyes, Grant etc.). I’m afraid in doing so they are missing the point and playing into the hands of White Supremacists.

We live in an enlightened world. The immorality of slavery is no more in question, regardless that it was morally acceptable as an institution for 95% of recorded history. Embedded pseudo-slavery, as with indentured servitude, imprisoned individuals, and women generally has existed even longer, and we also know it’s wrong, though in many areas of the world it still survives.

The real crime to consider for Black Americans and ethnic minorities generally is not slavery, it’s what happened after slavery ended: the subjugation of an entire population based on race to keep them as a viable economic resource while simultaneously denying them access to the opportunities of a free society, social and economic. This was true in two essential and critical aspects: education and real property ownership and it was done through legal policy that let discrimination flourish.

The BLM movement needs to pivot from the emotional backlash against history to supporting policies that fundamentally compliment the new understanding of morality we’re experiencing today. Get rid of the Trumplicans and place in office people at all levels of Government that understand how to get policy done.  Protest those that are trying to suppress the vote, and then get out and vote the right people in. It is the issue that transcends race or ethnicity.

It's STILL About Politics

White America: get one thing straight. The demonstrations taking place in the US and around the World are not only proper but are steeped in moral authority. The only questions that come to my mind are why this social response is unlike those for similar incidents and will it make a difference?

It is certainly different in scope.

Six years ago Tamir Rice, an innocent 12 year old boy, was arbitrarily shot to death by a policeman in Cleveland. I say arbitrarily because no effort was made to assess or mitigate the situation before ending Tamir’s life. Instead of rendering aid, the only thing the two policemen did after shooting the boy was to tackle his 14 year old sister running to his side, handcuff her, and put her in the patrol car. Nether police officer was charged or even fired as a result of the incident.

The human tragedy that befell a child and his family, by any reasonable gauge of compassion, certainly equals or (in my opinion) exceeds that which was inflicted on George Floyd. So what made Floyd’s death set the world off while the crime of Tamir’s death was thrown on the 155 year heap of racial injustice and essentially forgotten?  I believe the answer can be summed up in one word: reality.

There was grainy distant video of Tamir’s death, but the vivid video of Floyd’s homicide has taken the plight of African Americans beyond the abstraction lodged in the heads of most white Americans. His death was no different than if he had been hanged, with all of America watching as his feet slowly left the ground. Add to that the methodical and apparent indifference of his “executioner” (dear God, the cop had his hands in his pockets) and there was no wall for the viewer to hide behind.

This may explain the open floodgate of revulsion coalescing a movement that could possibly have legs. I also believe the tension and disillusion created by Western Democracies mishandling of the Corona Pandemic has instilled a degree of empowerment to populations wanting change. But what would that change look like and how could it happen?

The “Greatest Generation” (those Americans born 1900-1925) had, like most generations, several characteristics that were less than great. That generation was the last to live their formative years in an America where racial discrimination was not only prevalent and tolerated, but was also considered ethically correct. There was virtually no moral imperative for the vast majority of white American to combat racism or most ethnic discrimination. Nationalism trumped post-Civil War inequality. It was how things were and, as most white people felt, how they were supposed to be. The success of WWII was used as justification.

The white Baby Boom Generation grew up in a transitional period regarding discrimination, experiencing both the clash of civil liberties against moral injustice, but also the carryover of their parents world view. As adults enjoying material growth, boomers along with their parents didn’t (or wouldn’t) comprehend the painfully slow cadence of social change.

A relentless surge of economic inequality separated the two worlds of those landed and educated, and those who were not. The police, in a very real sense, evolved into a domestic army “defending” one against the other.

However, an important transformation took place since 1960 and it accents the significance of the demonstrations we are seeing today. There are no corners left in this Country where racial, ethnic, or sexual discrimination is considered morally and ethically correct. Opposition to the necessary changes or bravado that supports White Supremacy is now only founded in contrived fear; fear of losing power, property, lifestyle, and hubris.

I have great faith that as the ethics of Millennials and their children drive the social structure in the US, real decline in ethnic, racial, and sexual discrimination (including immigration) will occur. However, systemic inequality needs help and protesting by itself won’t do it.

Economic inequality, veiled white supremacy, and even response to natural disaster (e.g. pandemics) exhibit real flaws in representative democracy. We can’t avoid the System and we shouldn’t, given its merits and history. However, a real political tsunami is needed and it can be done within the System.

The Republican Party, at all levels, needs to be voted into insignificance, where it rightfully belongs. The Republican Party has totally lost its moral compass and has become bonded only by limited special interests and the type of self-aggrandizement personified in Donald Trump. It survives primarily through disinformation, which is consistent with a Party that truly represents a precious few.

Special interests by definition are not bad. The Democratic Party is diverse enough to corral large numbers of interests into a coherent set of policies. It could actually enhance the possibility of a viable new ethically based major party.  My hope is that Biden chooses his VP and Cabinet based on their proven ability to get things done…to compliment the emotions of the times, not wallow in them.