21st Century

The Oldest Bigotry


Anti-Semitism is the world’s oldest bigotry. Go ahead – see if you can come up with an example that’s older than thousands of years. It rises and falls in frequency and in severity, but it always shows up.

Here’s a dramatically condensed version of history to put this in context, a story which you might recall from Sunday School and your history text books.

Jews started in Ur – that’s part of what is now southern Iraq and it’s where Abraham came from. He settled in what eventually became Israel. Then the Babylonians came, destroyed the first temple and dragged the people away into slavery. Then the people returned, only to be banished by the Romans, who sacked the second temple.

That’s when Jews became the diaspora, wanderers looking for a safe place to live. But eventually every place Jews settled became dangerous or deadly. There was an Inquisition, pogroms (those brought my ancestors to the U.S.) and a Holocaust, so each time we wandered yet again looking for a safe place to live.

Jews have always been accused of being evil, of being dishonest. The most heinous of those accusations was the nineteen hundred years of the Catholic Church declaring unequivocally that Jews killed Jesus. I was called a Christ killer many times while growing up, although I know for a fact that I wasn’t around 2000 years ago, so I really couldn’t have had a hand in anything that took place back then. Near the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1964 I was absolved by the Vatican of personal responsibility for the crucifixion. It was a shame that a lot of the bad guys in high school didn’t get the message.

Overall, though, life in the United States for Jews has been pretty good and has seemed pretty safe, if at times limited and sometimes threatening. But violence against Jews has taken a terrible turn for the worse in recent years. The frequency of anti-Semitic acts is increasing, as is the severity of its violence.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that, “In 2020 and 2021, there were 7,528 incidents of extremism or anti-Semitism in the United States.” That’s over 14 per day and the rate is increasing. Take a look at the ADL tracker – filter for your state and look at just the recent incidents near you.

“Incidents” is a strange word to use for anti-Semitic violence. If you were the rabbi just walking down the sidewalk and you got pushed to the ground and kicked repeatedly by a couple of toughs,* you might use a different word.

You’d surely use a different word if you had been at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh that awful October morning in 2018 or at the Chabad in Poway, CA in April 2019 or in that kosher deli in Brooklyn in December 2019. You would have had a different word, all right, if you had somehow survived the shootings.

Here’s the point: Hate is on the rise in America. I usually write about the anti-democracy hatred and racial cruelty of far right extremists, but it’s concurrent with the dramatic rise in anti-Semitic hatred in our country. And there is a difference.

If attacks like the ones listed above had been against Blacks there would have been BLM marches across the country and perhaps around the world, as there were following the murder of George Floyd, and rightly so. But these attacks were against Jews. There were and are no marches for Jews. Nobody comes to the rescue. It has always been this way. That’s just how it is in the world’s oldest bigotry. Refer to the videos below.

The hatred by angry Palestinians is rising in London following the May hostilities between Gaza and Israel. Have a look at the short videos below to get a feel for reactions to what is happening. As you watch, keep in mind how the public is reacting to this violence.

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.Many thanks to Mel Zahn for sending the videos.

Note: I’ll appreciate it if you can identify the woman in the first video or provide a link.

The public isn’t reacting to this violence at all, just as these videos report. No help. No support. Crickets.

The violence in Israel and Gaza last month has been reported mostly in an irresponsibly simplistic way, as though this isn’t an enormously complex problem. Castigation of Israel has been the main theme, based primarily on the fact that there were many more Gazans killed and injured than Israelis.

Using John Oliver as a placeholder for all the grand pontificators who have dumped myopic criticisms on those events, he managed to mangle the logic of that casualty disparity. He specifically said it wasn’t a fair fight because Israel has Iron Dome and Hamas Gazans don’t. I haven’t a clue why he thinks fairness is an issue in this violence. I’m thinking survival should be the issue, like surviving rocket attacks. The way Oliver presented the issue sounds as if he would label it a fair fight if more Israelis had been killed. I’m not sorry to disappoint him.

Be clear that nobody lobbed 4,360 rockets at John Oliver, as Hamas did to Israelis, so he’s fully ignorant and missing the point. So did much of the world’s reporting of those dreadful days. This video and this one will explain that for you.

Key point: If you had been on the receiving end of those rockets, you wouldn’t have focused on playing fair. You would have done whatever it took to stop more rockets from being fired at you and your loved ones.

The leaders of Hamas knew in advance the likely response if they fired rockets into Israel. They’ve seen that movie before. Still, they fired rockets at Israeli civilians. They did it from Gaza apartment buildings and hospitals and office buildings, knowing that Israel would attack to stop yet more rockets from being fired. They knew that Israel silencing the rocket launchers would cause the death of a lot of Palestinians. Indeed, that was made worse because Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to remain in those buildings even after they were explicitly warned by Israel of coming attacks.

If there’s one thing Hamas leadership is good at it’s creating dead Palestinians so they can claim victimhood, gain world sympathy and make Israelis look like monsters. Where’s the fairness in that, especially for Palestinians?

Anger, hate and violence are always present or about to show up wherever Jews have gone. It’s the continuation of the world’s oldest bigotry and it is part of the reason why Israel exists and why Never Again means exactly that. The cavalry is never going to come over the hill for Jews, not in Israel, not in the United State and not in London (although the police did detain 4 suspects after the current anti-Semitic hate fest).

Jews have to take care of ourselves, regardless of whether John Oliver or anyone else thinks violence is a playground game with fairness rules. If the world doesn’t understand Never Again after the murder of the 6 million and Israel being repeatedly attacked by neighbors, there’s nothing I or anyone else can do to clarify it for them.

Palestinians are convoying through the streets of London yelling, “Fuck the Jews! Rape their daughters!” and the world’s condemnation of that vile hatred is  .  .  .  inaudible. It’s the same old crickets of the world’s oldest bigotry.

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  • * Google “rabbi attacked” and you’ll find links to stories of this happening in other countries, too.

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA

 


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Have A Nice Memorial Day


From Giovanni Russonello’s article in the New York Times:

“QAnon Now as Popular in U.S. as Some Major Religions, Poll Suggests
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“But it’s not just the notion that the election was stolen that [QAnon] caught on with the former president’s supporters. QAnon, an outlandish and ever-evolving conspiracy theory spread by some of Trump’s most ardent followers, has significant traction with a segment of the public – particularly Republicans and Americans who consume news from far-right sources.

“Those are the findings of a poll released today by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core, which found that 15 percent of Americans say they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, a core belief of QAnon supporters. The same share said it was true that ‘American patriots may have to resort to violence’ to depose the pedophiles and restore the country’s rightful order.

“And fully 20 percent of respondents said that they thought a biblical-scale storm would soon sweep away these evil elites and ‘restore the rightful leaders.'”

Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are conducting hate rallies. Last week Gaetz began, saying, “We have a Second Amendment in this country and I think we have an obligation to use it.” He was reported by Heather Cox Richardson and all major news agencies this way:

“[Gaetz] told attendees that the nation’s founders wrote the Second Amendment to enable citizens to rise up against the government. ‘It’s not about hunting, it’s not about recreation, it’s not about sports,’ he said. ‘The Second Amendment is about maintaining, within the citizenry, the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government if that becomes necessary.’

“As the audience cheered, Gaetz continued: ‘I hope it never does, but it sure is important to recognize the founding principles of this nation and to make sure that they are fully understood.’”

These are powerful words harkening back to our founding days of tricorn hats and muskets and thoughtful men in wigs, except for one thing: every bit of Gaetz’s chest thumping declaration is false. All of it.

The Second Amendment was included in the Constitution for many reasons, including self-defense. It was also included to keep southern slave states in the Union. White slave masters were vastly outnumbered by slaves then and the slave owners figured they needed a mechanism to counter any slave rebellion. Local militias – essentially vigilantes with firearms – was their solution. The Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights to appease the slave owners.

Further, as Garrett Epps writes in The Atlantic. ”  .  .  .  the main—indeed, almost exclusive—purpose of the [Second A]mendment was, in fact, to protect the rights of states to maintain and arm militias.” And, indeed, they’ve done that. Today they’re called the National Guard.

However chest-thumpingly satisfying it may be to our citizens wearing camouflage, carrying military weapons and assaulting our state capitols and the Capitol Building in DC or plotting to kidnap and assassinate the governor of Michigan, they aren’t the militias envisioned by the Framers. They aren’t well-regulated. They aren’t even militias. They are insurrectionists in waiting.

There is nothing in the Second Amendment or in The Federalist Papers or in the words of any Founding Father, nor is there any representation anywhere of a right of citizens “.  .  .  to maintain an armed rebellion against the government,” to rise up in violence against democracy – not a word, however our many insurrectionists and impassioned blowhards think there is. What’s worrying is that our self-righteous believers in citizen tyranny own a huge proportion of the over 300 million firearms in this country.

There is no cabal of Satan worshiping child sex traffickers running the world or our country, nor is there an imminent biblical-scale storm that will sweep away elites. There is no right of insurrection. Accusations are not the same as evidence or proof. Fantasies aren’t the same as facts. Lies are not truths. But some people will believe whatever feeds their passions, hate and anger, good sense be damned.

And all of this fantasy based insanity that promotes tough guy-ism and stokes violence flies in the face of the special day we set aside for our military people who died protecting our nation from “all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That refers to enemies of the Constitution.*

Go to your local Memorial Day ceremonies tomorrow, be they in person or virtual. Honor our fallen ones and say thank you.

And have a nice Memorial Day – while we still have our democracy.

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In Case You Missed The Craziest Play in Baseball

Watch this.

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  • * I’m reminded of a line from Aaron Sorkin’s wonderful movie The American President:

“How do you have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can’t stand Americans?”

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Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Relativism and National CPR


Relativism: The idea that nothing is any more correct or true than anything else.

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I know, it sounds preposterous, but that is the prevailing assumption about reality in much of our society. Example: Kellyanne Conway did an interview from the White House lawn shortly after Donald Trump moved in. She was defending a false claim that press secretary Sean Spicer had made at his first press briefing a day earlier. He had insisted that Trump had the greatest number of attendees at his inauguration of any president, ever. When presented with empirical evidence that the claim was false, Conway announced that they (the administration) believed “alternative facts.”

Let’s be clear that “alternative facts” doesn’t mean that they were looking at other metrics, nor does it mean that they had additional information not included in the original observations. It means specifically that they believed that they were free to make up anything they wanted and that their made-up story was just as valid, accurate and true as any other. For them and for so many others, false = true, fiction = fact. Relativism.

While Trump is gone from a position of power and is now preparing for his position as defendant, alternative facts have not disappeared. We hear them every day from politicians blabbering some vacuous reinvention of history, from QAnon spouting another impossible conspiracy fiction, from yellow journalism masquerading as news and from extremists breaking the law while claiming they’re protecting the Constitution. But these conjurors of alternative facts aren’t alone. Indeed, we have a major cultural problem.

Kurt Andersen’s book Fantasyland is an historical trip through our wondrous American tapestry of belief in fantasy, in anything goes. Andersen quotes science fiction writer Phil Dick, introducing his words writing, ”  .  .  .  he wrote a perfect summary of his dread about the transformation of American society and culture as the real and unreal became indistinguishable.” Sounds a lot like today, don’t you think?

‘The problem is a real one, not a mere intellectual game. Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups – and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener.  .  .  .

‘And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes.  .  .  .

‘I consider that the matter of defining what is real – that is a serous topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans – as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides.  .  .  .  Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland.’

And here we are in our alternative worlds, stumbling through our cultural Fantasyland of alternative fact inbreeding. We believe whatever we want to believe and then accept the mutants we’re creating, as we befuddle ourselves to death, all because relativism rules.

This is dangerous stuff. It is where people believe whatever they want to believe with no weight given to reality. They believe whatever serves their motives and fears and hopes, like believing that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump; like sending partisan know nothings to audit the last election so that they can fabricate the desired result; like people selecting themselves to attack democracy, even as they invoke the red, white and blue. It is what causes little self-inflated men and women to lie and to cling to power over others, while justifying their actions with fantastical fabrications. That and more goes on every day in America, regardless of how our detachment from tangible facts causes us to self-immolate.

Perhaps that is why President Biden speaks of fighting for the soul of America. It needs life support intervention right now and nobody else is showing up to do national CPR.

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Tweets So Far This Week

From @richardhine:

“If 53% of Republicans think Trump is still President but only 26% of Americans say they belong to the decaying Party of Trump, that would mean only 14% of Americans think Trump is still President. Which might be an accurate measure of the batshit fringe.”

From @HunaNaMeaHuna

“Vote Theft Is Your Future Denied”

Gerrymandering and sham voting audits will do that.

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Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Under Attack


We have a lot of huge challenges before us. The problems are complex and not susceptible to simple thinking or uncomplicated solutions. In consequence, our indelicate dances around gun safety, education, healthcare, jobs, infrastructure, race and so many more issues continue to vex us, even as they are all secondary issues. There is one that lies like a death shroud over our country and resolving it has, is and will continue to bedevil us until we at last find the courage to assertively confront it.

We are a nation perpetually drunk on power, so we have a large minority that wants to get its way vigilante style. They are certain that they are right and that they are the true patriots, but they are ironically using unconstitutional means while thinking they are protecting the Constitution. They don’t believe in majority rule. They are ready and even eager for physical confrontation and they thrill to the message of a megalomaniac autocrat wannabe. They don’t want democracy and have demonstrated their intentions against it many times.

In short, we’re beset by people who are appallingly angry agents of unconstitutionality, who are somehow content in their dishonesty and who love the power rush of minority rule. That applies to both cowardly politicians, as well as to the mobs in the streets.

Our democracy is under attack from within.

We’ve been warned many times that this was happening, but we’ve done far too little to combat it. It continues almost exclusively because of elected leaders and appointees promoting hatred and spewing lies powered by their mindless and cowardly obeisance to a cult leader.

This is stuff that promotes vicious attacks, mob violence and civil wars. This is stuff that leads to autocracy and fascism. This is stuff that violates everything we say we hold dear.

Read what Professor Timothy Snyder has to say about that in his brilliant New York Times essay and in his little book, On Tyranny. Read what Professor Jason Stanley has to say in his book How Fascism Works.

Our democracy is under attack from within.

Just in case you have even a tiny bit of doubt that an angry, animated minority hates democracy, is intentionally working to take away your vote and whose members want to steal power for themselves, read this piece that unmasks Republican voter suppression, this in their own words, as reported by Mother Jones. The report is horrifying, even as it is completely unsurprising.

This kind of cheating and manipulating has been championed and practiced since Paul Weyrich* announced his voter suppression strategy four decades ago. Indeed, this kind of effort has a long and sordid history, as Heather Cox Richardson explains here.

If we don’t get a handle on that, if we don’t find ways to stop that attack, none of our other problems, challenges or opportunities will matter, because all will be lost. This is no time for complacency or willful self-delusion. This is no time to sit on the sidelines and expect someone else to do the critically important  work.

From Thomas Paine in The American Crisis #1,** December 23, 1776:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

Paine was right then and he’s right once again.

The anti-democracy mob is angry and motivated. They vote in large numbers and joyfully suppress others. Democrats aren’t as constantly angry and have a way of failing to be active, failing to vote and, of course, they’re nice. That’s a liability when facing an insurrection.

Stacey Abrams did an amazing job in Georgia last election. Can we replicate her 49 times? That, plus our active foot soldiering and the For The People Act are what we need in order to protect democracy and stop the thieves from stealing the next election.

Isn’t that an odd thing to be able to say? The insurrectionists – both politicians and the mobs – are having tantrums over what they’re calling a stolen election. Yet at the same time they are erecting barriers to voting so that they themselves can steal the next election. And they’re still trying to steal the last one. Pathetic irony.

Our democracy is under attack from within.

Fun Section

We all have to use our talents and energy in our own way to do our part. These posts, for example, are some of what I do to make a difference.

Randy Rainbow does his part, too, and I think he’s topped all of his prior offerings, as good as they are, with this musical paean to insurrection loving Josh Hawley and his duplicitous pals. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this.

Many thanks to brother Jim for the pointer.

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  • * Weyrich laid out his intention to suppress voting, saying,

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the election, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

** “General Washington found Paine’s first essay so inspiring that he ordered it to be read to the troops at Valley Forge.”

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Fairness Triple Crown


1. Tax Fairness

Everyone likes government programs that benefit themselves; we just don’t want to pay for them. Consequently, President Biden’s tax plan is hugely popular with we common folk, because it calls for somebody else to pay for the goodies. Good for us!

Not so good for the proposed payers.

On the other hand, those proposed payers are the very people who have consistently benefited from government policy and programs that for many decades have filled their piggy banks with massive wealth. It seems to most of us that turnabout is fair play.

Brendan Bechtel, CEO, Bechtel Corporation

But not to poor, picked on Brendan Bechtel. He runs Bechtel Corporation. It’s the same company that was happy to get those no-bid contracts from the George W. Bush administration for construction work in Iraq and still more no-bid contracts following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. That Bechtel Corporation.

Mr. Bechtel recently said of the Biden jobs program funding proposal, “it doesn’t feel fair.”

“Fair” is an interesting concept. From my observation post as a behavior geek it appears that “fair” usually means, “That isn’t what I want for me.” In other words, there is no link to the concept of even-handedness or a reasonable distribution of responsibility and obligation. “Fair” is solely about “I get what I want.” Let’s add one more piece of information and then test the concept.

Here’s a chart reported by The New York Times, sourced from Gabriel Zucman of UC Berkely.*

The graphs represent average federal tax rates for top earners, like Mr. Bechtel. Note how low taxes have been in recent decades relative to most of the last century. Note, too, that these are nominal rates, not what anyone actually paid after their highly expert accounting ju jitsu was applied.

Please tell us again, Mr. Bechtel, about how unfair (meaning “not even-handed”) a relatively slight increase in your taxes will be. You and your family and your top executives have been bathing in the flood tide of money that you’ve been able to amass for half a century. And you’ve been able to keep ever more of it for yourselves, because special tax loopholes and lower top rates have sent your actual, send-IRS-a-check tax bill on a near-constant downward trajectory. So has the employee attrition from the IRS that has minimized scrutiny of tax returns of those at the top of the wealth distribution pyramid.

Another way to say that is that the 99% of the rest of us who don’t have those tax loopholes available to us or the cash to pay high priced tax attorneys have borne a higher burden to support the commons because you’ve skated. I’m talking about the roads, bridges, schools, national defense, emergency services and the rest of the things we do together in this country. You haven’t paid your fair share for a really long time. So, “It doesn’t feel fair” is just too much for we common folk to hear.

You could take a page from Warren Buffett’s book and demand higher tax rates on the ultra-rich. It won’t affect your lifestyle a bit and the next generation Bechtel lucky sperm club winner will still inherit enough money to buy a small country.

So, go ahead and publicly demand our legislators and president raise taxes on the ultra-rich so we can fix the bridges, provide pre-K for our little ones and all the rest of the vitally needed actions in the commons that are decried so absurdly by Republicans.

Your gesture would be a most patriotic thing. It still won’t be what you want, but we’ll be most grateful for your having progressed to something that looks a lot more fair – as in “even-handed” – to the rest of us.

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2. A Jonathan Swifty Solution for Pandemic Fairness

Extremists have taken full control of the Republican Party. These people are angry and vocal and violent and they show up in huge numbers to vote. They openly carry guns, they like to intimidate others, they refuse masks and vaccines and they’re certain they’re the true patriots. That’s a problem for the rest of us who prefer boring negotiations to settle differences, rather than mob violence. And we’d rather not be infected by the mask and vaccine refusers. Fortunately, I have a modest proposal to tame all of that.

Caution: snark follows.

Let’s give them their own country. We’ll cede the Dakotas, where they can refuse masks and vaccines and embrace their Second Amendment remedies with wanton abandon. The Dakotas should be enough space, as they’ll kill one another in gun fights and die of Covid pretty quickly, so they’ll cull their own herd. Tucker Carlson will fit right in.

More immediately important is the issue of the pandemic, as it’s estimated that over 905,000 Americans have already died from it and the extremists overwhelmingly refuse masks, social distancing and vaccines. That imperils our ability to achieve herd immunity, which means their stubborn refusal puts the rest of us at risk. Here’s how to fix that.

By late summer we will have had sufficient vaccine supply and the distribution network for all of us to be vaccinated. Anyone not vaccinated by then can be considered a refuser. These are the people most likely to wind up in hospitals, then on ventilators and finally in the morgue. These are the people who will put our healthcare workers at risk and overload them. They’ll tie up our entire medical system, which compromises everyone else’s access to healthcare. Indeed, it’s been reported that 94% of cancer screenings over the past year were not done due to the pandemic. Our refusers threaten to make that permanent, which imperils all the rest of us.

I propose that after August 31 that we refuse to deliver medical service to anyone who contracts Covid and can’t produce a vaccination card.

It’s their choice to refuse to be vaccinated and that choice, like every choice, comes with consequences which shouldn’t be dumped on the rest of us. They made their bed; now they can lie in it – at home in the Dakotas, where they can’t infect the rest of us with the Covid variants they carry.

This is fair to the rest of us who don’t want to deal with the extremists and their Covid threats and their constant threat to our democracy. It provides freedom of choice, a true American value. It’s in line with the absolute freedom demands of our rugged individuals. And it gets all of us what we want.

This is another in an ongoing offering of simple Swifty solutions for complex problems and for fairness in our country. Please sign the petition at www.ExtremistsGoAway.com.

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3. Fairness Quotes of the Week

From David Brooks in the New York Times:

“That [WW II] victory required national cohesion, voluntary sacrifice for the common good and trust in institutions and each other. America’s response to Covid-19 suggests that we no longer have sufficient quantities of any of those things.”

That’s observationally accurate and fair to say.

From John Pavlovitz on vaccine refusal:

“Conservatives: you’ve been brainwashed. You are afflicted with partisan politics and bad theology, and you are unable to think clearly because of it. You are so intent on validating your vote that you will do anything to feel that way.”

Pavlovitz’s words actually apply to Trump brain slaves. True conservatives would be demanding that we all get vaccinated, this as a patriotic duty. It’s entirely fair to say that.

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* Click the link on Zucman’s name and download any of his papers – say, the top one: Tax Evasion at the Top of the Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence. Just read the abstract. Then give some thought to how the Trump administration’s IRS focused on middle income taxpayers and didn’t even glance at most of the wealthy.

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Speech I Wanted President Biden to Give Last Night


In The United States House of Representatives
Sergeant at Arms:

Madam Speaker: the President of the United States

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.:

Speaker Pelosi, Vice-President Harris, Members of the Supreme Court, Senators, Representatives and guests, we’re here tonight for an accounting of the condition of the United States of America – something of a report card for our nation. It is well and fitting that we should do so after the most turbulent transfer of power in the history of our nation.

While we are gathered here in the presence of officials and luminaries, tonight I’m speaking directly the American people – all 331,400,000 of us – because you know the truth, that we are in a fix of our own making, putting us in peril.

On December 1, 1862 Abraham Lincoln sent a message to Congress in those dark days of Americans fighting and killing Americans. Our nation was being ripped apart as he spoke a truth they all knew:

“We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth.”

These times are not so different in spirit and this is our peril. There is a rise of autocracy around the world. It is the very enemy of democracy and we are not so exceptional that we are immune to that danger. Indeed, it has set foot on our doorstep.

I love this country just as you do, so it’s time that we put all the cards on the table, time that we stop withholding the gritty truth so that we might begin to heal ourselves and meet our challenges – so that we save this last best hope of Earth.

Surely, you remember the comments of the last president about the events in Charlottesville that culminated in the murder of Heather Heyer. He said that there were “very fine people on both sides.”

But you know that there weren’t.

Because one side was made of people chanting hateful things, people who wore the emblems of Nazis, the enemy we fought and defeated at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives. Nazis like and want autocracy – dictatorship – not democracy. They are an enemy that wants to bring down our country. So, no, those were not fine people.

Here’s more gritty truth: Congress is not unlike that.

We have people in Congress who promoted insurrection, violence against our country and our countrymen and women. We have people here in Congress who know full well that Trump’s Big Lie about the election having been stolen is pure fiction. They know that claims of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes are pure fiction. They know that there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in our last election, which is why over 60 of Trump’s lawsuits were laughed out of court. They know that these are just another set of self-serving Trump lies. They will acknowledge that in the cloakrooms of the House and Senate and in other private places. They know the truth.

But in public, when it counts, they cower in fear of the megalomaniac and they toe the corrupt line for Trump and their party bosses. They mouth the Big Lie. When they do that they weaken our nation.

The Electoral College votes of all 50 states were certified, but 147 senators and representatives challenged some state counts and voted to overturn the election, even though they had no evidence of any election wrongdoing, nor any other factual reason to object. They were blindly promoting the Big Lie, even as they knew the truth, and they undermined our democracy. You elected them to be leaders, not followers, but they caved to party pressure. Here’s what that means to you:

They stand in opposition to any and every plan to make your life better and safer.

For decades they have voted against nearly every piece of legislation that would have had benefit for you. They voted in goose stepping unison to oppose the American Rescue Plan, our program that has led to the vaccination of over 200 million Americans, put money in your pocket and created hundreds of thousands of jobs. I say again: they voted against that. And they offer nothing to make things better for you.

They stand in unison against the proposed American Jobs Plan (the infrastructure bill), the John Lewis Voting Rights Bill and every other action proposed by Democrats designed to be of service to the American people. They stand against universal background checks before the transfer of firearms, even though 90% of Americans want that protection. They have no policy proposals and stand only for obstruction. They give no thought to you.

In short, they have sold you out.

That’s why I’m speaking directly to you. Because if you want anything good to happen, if you want government to work for you, you have to pressure your senators and congressperson to vote in favor of you. You have to tell them to stop the un-American, self-serving dance they do that focuses solely on themselves. Tell them to start working for you. Tell them to shape up or you will ship them out.

We are at a crossroads where we must decide which way to turn. One way leads to continuing division and anger and despair. It encourages more extremist violence like the awful attack on our nation on January 6. It has already generated state laws that dramatically attack your freedoms. It promises greater wealth for people who don’t need it and increasing poverty for everyone else.

A turn the other way leads to a better America – that shining city on the hill. It leads to greater prosperity for all Americans and keeps us the envy of the world. It restores our place among nations. It keeps faith with the Founders of our nation and the vision they gave to us of what we can be. It tells us that the American Dream is alive and well and it’s there for all of us, if only we have the courage to make the right choices and grab it.

So, call or write to your legislators both in Washington and in your own state. Tell them you want an end to their jiggering our country just to serve themselves. Tell them that you have a long memory when you’re double-crossed and you’ll surely remember their selling you out if they don’t start doing the right job for We the People, the job they were elected to do.

Look, there will be time to talk about programs we have developed and will be proposing. Right now what you need to know is that your voice is the one that must be heard if the self-serving obstructionists are to be stopped, so your job is to speak up. I’ll do my job of finding solutions that will work. Together we’ll get past our decades of self-defeat and restore our country to the path where we know it belongs.

May God bless America and may God protect our troops.

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Be sure to read Heather Cox Richardson’s take on this in today’s Letters From an American. And subscribe to her brilliant writings.

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Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Who Should Get Out of Jail Free?


The triple convictions of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd prompted a variety of reactions including relief, joy, renewed hope, satisfaction, release and more. There was a palpable and stated sense of rightness that justice had been done. And there was another verse to this song.

Tucker Carlson went on a fresh, yet customary extremist rant, this time declaring that public support for George Floyd is “an attack on civilization.” There’s more to his hateful outburst, but I can’t bring myself to put it here. You’ll have to link through if you want to experience his full lunacy and cruelty. And do bear in mind that this hate monger is considered a leading candidate to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024.

Click the pic for the story

Of course, it isn’t just Carlson saying hateful things. You can cruise the righty outposts and find lots of sticking up for the police, for example, even if they’re murderers. And no, I don’t mean the “one bad apple” defense. It’s more an absolutist devotion to turf protection, much like George W. Bush’s absolutist, “You’re either with us or you’re against us” polarization and evilization (yes, I made up that word). They are staunch supporters of “qualified immunity” for cops who violate people, giving them carte blanche to do inhumanity as they please without fear of consequences.

Perhaps America has always been this way. I’m reading Kurt Andersen’s Fantasyland to find out more. For now, just take it on faith (odd to use that phrase in this age of unreason*) that we have always had such highly opinionated absolutists who believe that whatever thought comes into their heads is a fact – the true reality – just because they believe it.

CAUTION: Don’t believe everything you think.

I heartily recommend that you look at lawfareblog.com for a thorough, even-handed and interesting description of qualified immunity. An argument offered there in favor of qualified immunity is,

” .  .  .  it would be unfair to hold government officials to constitutional rules they were not aware of at the time of the violation.”

I find that monstrously odd, in that if I violate a constitutional rule I didn’t know about, well, you know the deal: ignorance of the law is no excuse. How come it shouldn’t work that way for cops?

Lawfareblog.com also reported,

“The court wrote that ‘there is the danger that fear of being sued will dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible [public officials], in the unflinching discharge of their duties.’”

Aren’t we all supposed to fear being sued for our malfeasance? You know, the accountability thing?

Here’s my favorite:

“When government officials are sued, qualified immunity functions as an affirmative defense they can raise, barring damages even if they committed unlawful acts”

At least that one makes sense, because every one of us has a Get Out Of Jail Free card, right? Check your wallet for yours.

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April 27, 2021

Related to bad cop defenders and to Tucker Carlson in their absolutism are those who refuse to wear a mask to prevent the spread of Covid-19 because wearing a mask is such an awful infringement on their rights and their freedom.

There are tens of thousands of new cases of Covid in this country every day, but, hey, we’re only killing a few hundred of those people. After seeing the number of Covid deaths in the thousands every day for so long, perhaps we’re immune to the grim reality of the deaths of a few hundred. That’s understandable, unless you are one of them.

So, for our mask-less, I have a new offering. Please pass it along to your favorite mask refuser.

A Question For Our Mask-less

It is your right, of course, to mask or not to mask.

There’s just one curiosity, and so I’ll dare to ask.

We know that 81% of deaths are of the aged,

The old folks who succumb by going past the bad end stages.

But you aren’t in that old folks group, you’re young and strong and healthy,

And maybe you’re well-health insured, with no need to be wealthy.

And if you catch the Covid bug it’s likely that it’s true,

That you won’t get much sicker than if you had caught the flu.

All that is true, there is no doubt, and this is also true,

That Covid threat is bigger and it’s not just all ‘bout you.

Because your mask-less face is like a vacuum to the bug,

Thanks go to JA for the cartoon.

Your mouth and nose can suck it in, and you become a thug.

A thug infected even if you haven’t symptom one,

You’ll pass it on, infecting more, a virus shooting gun.

And maybe when you visit Gramps and kiss him on the cheek,

It all seems quite so normal, but that changes when you speak.

Because the bug will slip your lips and entered Grandpa’s nose,

And now he’s been infected and you know where that tale goes.

Which leads us to the question now, so here’s my single ask:

What the hell is that about when you refuse to mask?

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* Nerd readers may enjoy a short book review of Our Age of Unreason; A Study of the Irrational Forces in Social Life, by Franz Alexander. In it the reviewer relates how philosophers through the ages, “.  .  .  were unable to formulate a political psychology which would enable man to bring his repressed destructive and rivalrous impulses under control for more than a brief period.” That was in 1942. Here we are now with our destructive and rivalrous impulses blazing throughout our culture in a war of irrationality.

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Speak


On Saturday I attended the Rally After the Verdict, organized by the Abolition Coalition of Skokie, IL and supported by the NAACP of Evanston. The point, of course, was to open eyes to the need for action, that the verdict isn’t the end of the story.

Indeed, some don’t even see it as a victory. One speaker told us she’s a school teacher and one of her students told her – and this is close to verbatim – that celebrating the jury’s guilty verdicts against Derek Chauvin was like applauding a fish for swimming.

Chauvin was so obviously guilty of murder – we all know what we saw – that it’s something of a wonder that there could be a question in anyone’s mind of his guilt. And I know in my bones that this verdict is just a small stepping stone on a very long path, but it is movement. So much is needed in mankind’s eternal struggle and our ongoing national struggle for freedom and justice, which leaves me with a notion of what is required.

Last week I taught a class for a friend who is a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. I focused on how our politics work and how that affects whether we Americans are getting what we want. For example, since the slaughter of those little kids at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 over 90% of us have wanted universal background checks before the transfer of ownership of any firearm. That we don’t have that speaks both to the power of the gun lobby and the enormous amounts of money legislators have to raise in order to win an election. The point is that there are powerful reasons why we aren’t getting what we want – including liberty and justice for all – and things will remain this way until we make things change.

So, I told the students that they must speak up if they’re to get what they want, and that applies to you and me as well, of course, because,

If you don’t make your voice heard, people who want a very different America from the one you want will be heard, because they will be the only ones talking.

That’s right: If you go silent, they won’t shut up. They’ll continue pushing for what they want and you’ll have disempowered yourself. That’s why we all must speak up,

In 1966 Dr. Martin Luther King spoke at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, saying,

“I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

So do I. Go look in the mirror and you’ll know, too. That’s especially true for our younger people, our Millennials and Gen Zs. They are going to live much farther into the future and we are right now, right this minute, crafting the America they and all of our descendants will inherit.

So, give some thought to a definition of your vision for America, the one you want to leave to your dear ones, especially those who will be here long after you and I are gone. They will be “We the People” then. What do you want their America to be?

As an example – and just a guess – you surely want them to have full voting rights. There are a lot of people working day and night right now to make sure that they don’t have those rights and that they will never have a voice. That’s why our future “We the People” need you to speak up for them right now.

Speak. And keep on speaking. Let your voice ring out for the America you believe in.

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Bonus Section

Here’s a Star Wars prelude to the prediction of Gianna Floyd, George Floyd’s daughter, who said, “My daddy is going to change the world.”

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Pizza and Water


The issue is not whether it should be illegal to give a slice of pizza and a bottle of water to an old lady waiting in line for hours to vote on a Tuesday in November in Georgia. Focusing there completely misses the point.

Our brilliant and frightened (read: deranged) White supremacist citizens know that their God given superiority is incrementally being challenged and that it will be gone very soon unless they take strongly discriminatory action. Actually, they’ve known this since 1619 and they successfully led us to our bloodiest war, thousands of lynchings and other murders, the economic suppression of millions, plus police shootings of unarmed Black males at a rate 3.5 times greater than that of Whites. It has all been done in service to a desperate, fear-stoked drive for power for themselves.

Nixon used dog whistles to divide Americans, as did Reagan, H.W. Bush and the beyond-the-edge, far right Republicans, like the Tea Party and now the Freedom Caucus. The calls to discrimination were perfected by Trump. He’s completely out of the slime cave and overtly White supremacist. The incremental claw-back to Jim Crow can be seen every day, now with 361 voter suppression bills in the states.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is about to sign a bill he initiated last year, the so-called Anti-Riot bill. Extremists will be glad to know that Florida will be protected by this legislation that puts teeth into attacking the First Amendment. Said one critic, “It is racist, extremist, militaristic and dangerous. This is not an anti-riot proposal. It is actually an anti-protest proposal. This is just a Republican effort designed to stop the rising tide of protest prompted by the police murder of George Floyd. The governor wants to criminalize peaceful protestors who are merely exercising their constitutional rights.”

Surely, you recall the protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year. Outrage went around the world and people of all colors, races and nationalities were in the streets. Some of the protests included idiots committing vandalism and theft. Too bad, because those fools gave right wing extremists the fertilizer (feel free to substitute your own term) to criticize and attack anyone not on the fringe right and to create legislation against peaceful protesters, like that of Oberführer DeSantis. Indeed, his bill is a dog whistle serenade to his White supremacist base, which I’m sure will help him in his presidential bid in 2024. No need for concern over those whose rights will be squashed along the way, because they won’t be able to vote, anyway.

This Twitter thread is a MUST READ. Just click the pic. Many thanks to Jay Becker (@futureup2us) for pointing it out.

DeSantis, as self-serving and cruel as he is, is not alone. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is desperate for anything that will move the spotlight from his alleged sex crimes, so he’s partnered with QAnon nut case Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Arizona racist Paul Gosar (R-AZ) to found the America First Caucus. It is a blatantly White supremacist, love-to-hate effort cloaked in patriotic sounding distractions. You can download their 7-page manifesto here and get a flavor of it in this video. Either way it’s a call to hate and discrimination. Like DeSantis’ legislative dog whistles, this is a disingenuous “Look at me!” from these extremist representatives that is designed to appeal to “the base.”

Republicans want very much to restrict voting rights. That’s because they will become an extinct species if We the People actually have a democracy – i.e. majority rule. Republican Paul Weyrich, founder of the self-righteous Moral Majority and other right wing manipulation machines, said it plainly, clearly and publicly in 1980:

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the election, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

Which is to say, the only way for Republicans to win is to stop millions of Americans from voting. So, gerrymandering, removing voters from voting rolls just because they missed the last election, closing polling places to make it difficult to vote, requiring IDs that are hard to obtain by poor people and all the other discriminations are just the things to keep those “others” down and to make sure White supremacy powers on. Instead of changing to become attractive to more voters, today’s Republicans are still channeling Paul Weyrich.

The Arizona RNC defended in court some Arizona laws that were undisguised discriminatory attacks on the Voting Rights Act. When questioned by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett about the Arizona RNC’s interest in this issue, attorney Michael Carvin declared – and I’m not making this up – “Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.”

Translation (as if you need one): Republicans need to suppress the votes of Democrats in order to sustain their minority rule.

So, going back to the slice of pizza and bottle of water for the old lady still waiting hours to vote, the issue isn’t about the length of the line, the hours of waiting, the pizza or the water. The issue is solely that White supremacists want to sustain minority rule, so they don’t want her to vote. They gerrymandered her district to neuter her vote. They closed polling places to make voting take all day. The issue isn’t about pizza or water. The issue is minority rule fueled by racism and classism.

We humans are poor at detecting slow change; we tolerate it quite well. Our relative insensitivity has brought us overt racism in the White House (“fine people on both sides” and incitement to insurrection via The Big Lie), and in Congress. It infects our state houses with bills that are overtly discriminatory, anti-Constitution and anti-democracy. These laws are ready to pounce on our freedom and devour it.

HR1/SB1 – the For The People Act, aka the Voting Rights bill – has passed the House and awaits the Senate. It would eliminate much of our state voting discrimination, but House Republicans voted in lock step against it and Republicans in the Senate have all vowed to vote against it. Now, why would they be against voting rights?

Sadly, meanly, now you can be arrested for giving a slice of pizza and a bottle of water to that old lady waiting to vote and there is no relief for her in sight.

————————————

Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

We’re Still Not Free


Can you believe we’re still having conversations about basic Covid stuff? I mean, we’ve known what to do to defeat this pandemic for most of a year and the rising availability of vaccines has greatly enhanced our ability to fight it, but still over 60,000 Americans test positive every day and our hospitals are filling up once again.

Through most of the past year we sat on our hands and allowed a lot of people to get sick, and a lot of people to suffer very long duration horrible symptoms and we’ve stood by and watched over half a million of our fellow citizens die. Dr. Deborah Birx recently said what you know to be true, that about 450,000 of our 550,000 Covid deaths were preventable. Early on in the pandemic a study at Oxford University said that 70 – 99% of U.S. Covid deaths were due to poor national leadership; i.e. they were preventable, but for self-serving you-know-who.

Given that,

How is it that so many millions of Americans still refuse to wear a mask? Yeah, I know it’s a terrible infringement on their individual freedom, poor babies.

How is it that Republican governors like DeSantis (FL), Abbott (TX) and Noem (SD) are doing everything possible to prevent any requirement for mask wearing in their cities, at work and inside retail stores? Of course, they’re doing it to suck up to their flagrant and vocal constituents in order to collect campaign donations, but they harm those very constituents because they, like so many others, continue to get sick and die.

How is it that the vast majority of White Evangelicals oppose vaccines on self-righteous religious grounds?

How is it that way too many of our citizens are both anti-science and conspiracy believers who refuse vaccines for staunchly held, anti-fact reasons? No, vaccines don’t cause autism, as proven conclusively and repeatedly by – guess what? – science. And Bill Gates isn’t packing nanobots into vaccines so he can track and control you.

In all cases – mask and vaccine refusers, political contribution suckers and science and reality deniers –  these are people ruled by self-serving confirmation bias and a drive for power and control.*

Why are we treating this deadly disease like it’s an optional game of volleyball in the park, where refusing to play is no big deal? There are milliions of our people doing that, and that is why we’re still not free of this awful disease.

Here’s a parallel to that.

President Biden is initiating a series of Executive Orders aimed at curtailing our gun slaughter, but those will only be temporary fixes, subject to the whim of the next President. We need Republicans to act, but they’ve proven to be intransigent on this issue, as they are to most challenges.

Here’s my view about gun safety reform:

We’ll have strong gun safety legislation and the beginning of curtailing our national carnage when we and our legislators at last decide that we love our children, our relatives and our friends more than we love our lust for power and control.

Given the overwhelming public support for gun safety laws, it’s our Second Amendment thumpers and our political contribution suckers whom we have to win over if we’re ever to be free from this brutality.

And so it is with masks and vaccinations. The refusers are the key obstacle to our resuming full personal and national health and are the ones we have to win over if we’re ever to be free from this brutality.

Meanwhile, we know what to do to defeat this pandemic – really, both pandemics. The trick is getting people to do the right thing.

Jennifer Rubin explains why it’s so hard to do that here.

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End Note

Each year the local high schools combine their singing and orchestral talents into a marvelous spring concert of about 500 very talented kids under wonderful direction. It’s held in the cathedral of Techny Towers, a massive and beautiful sanctuary, the acoustics of which compel music to sound. It is a singer’s and musician’s delight.

The programs are new each year, but the closer is always The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Written by abolitionist Julia Ward Howe in 1861, it is a prayer for a time when we were ripping ourselves apart, not unlike today. If you have not heard this majestic piece in full, you need to – it’s attached below. As you listen, imagine that you’re surrounded by singers and musicians. They’re in front of you, along both sides and even along the sides of the balcony above and around you. You’re surrounded by a message.

The point of bringing this into the conversation is a line from the Hymn. It is inherently Christian, so feel free to take this in that way. But also read and feel these words as a compelling message for us in these dark times of civil strife.

As He died to make men holy let us live to make men free

That’s free, like: Our people healthy and free from pandemic; You and I free from the danger of firearms in the hands of those who would harm us; Our citizens free and with full and equal rights – all of them. Feel free to add to this list.

Let us live to make men – and women – free.

  • Glenbrook Festival of Music, March 13, 2016
  • Glenbrook High Schools, IL D-225, Choirs and Orchestra

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* Indeed, I believe that lust for power and control was the gut level driver for Derek Chauvin to murder George Floyd. Life and death is the ultimate power and control.

————————————

Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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