Science and Truth

Let’s cut away the bullshit.  After listening to yesterday’s Sunday news programs and listening to Donald Trump over the last several weeks spreading his aspirational advice which is not based on any facts, there are some things that I, as an intelligent human being, can deduce for myself.

First, all available data tells us that this pandemic is on an upswing toward an apex that is still weeks away, maybe months.  Metropolitan areas, followed by local areas are all suffering increasing cases of the virus at their individual rates of infection.  Mitigation efforts are appallingly late in being applied by many public officials. 

Second, we must accept the fact that our national government was asleep at the switch after at least two years of warnings that our nation was vulnerable to a respiratory epidemic like Covid-19.  Then, the Trump administration purposely tried to downplay the danger in January and February which has left us 6-8 weeks behind the curve of the virus.  No matter—the task is now to do the best we can to mitigate by continued social distancing and lockdown.  And most importantly, we must allocate our woefully insufficient resources—test kits, PPE, and ventilators—to be supplied to the areas where the curve of infection is ascendant.

Third, we must accept the fact that the Trump's government is incapable or unwilling, or both, to accept responsibility for taking control of national distribution and management of supply chains.  This is leading to confusion, competing imperatives for buying and acquiring supplies and misallocating of resources.  The Defense Production Act is not being utilized to coordinate national production and distribution of critical resources.  Most hospitals are having trouble finding where critical supplies are, and then have to wait while hospital administrators have to figure out how to get access to them.  The federal government needs to take control and devise and then supervise production and distribution based on critical need.   Otherwise our front line health workers  will constantly be behind the curve and our misery will be prolonged.

Fourth, there is an incomprehensible reliance by the President on his own ‘feelings’ and instinct about how to act appropriately in this crisis.  He is not listening to his scientific and public health advisors.  Instead he is attacking science and the press, convinced there is a conspiracy to make him look bad.  Unless he stops this ‘show’ he is putting on every day, we will continue to experience confusion, mixed messages and unnecessary death and misery.  The media should stop broadcasting President Trump’s rambling self-aggrandizing daily press sessions because he is not giving us useful information.  They should instead present summaries during regular news broadcasts.

Fifth, WE must take responsibility for our own survival and health.  That means rigorously following the CDC guidelines for handwashing and social distancing.  In other words, STAY HOME and don’t mix with others until the wave of this infection passes.

When Chuck Todd asked Dr. Birx on Meet the Press what the ‘scientific team’ recommends that all Americans do with regard to extending the pseudo deadline that Trump had set for Tuesday for emerging from mitigation (ludicrous at best), she demurred.  She said she would rather give those recommendations to the President first.  Yet again, insufficient information supplied to the American people.  Apparently, all the scientific advisors are so afraid to speak openly about what the intelligent actions should be for fear of offending the President, that we are forced to remain victims to insufficient and conflicting advice.  However, ultimately, he extended the ‘shelter in place’ directive until the end of April.  The unfolding statistics were just too hard to ignore, even for Trump.  Another example of wasted time and energy not accepting the prima facie facts and truth about the challenge facing us.

Be smart-- we all know what the right thing to do personally is.  Just gird your loins and DO IT!  We will all be better off if we sacrifice now rather than wallow in the indecision being promoted by our public officials, both national, and regional.  Listen to the people who are showing themselves as real leaders—unafraid to speak the truth about what we face and what we must do.


BTW--check this out--my very talented daughter:  https://www.facebook.com/shaunelovesyou/videos/10102819013496225/

Fear and Responsibility

What strange times we live in!  In the midst of this chaos around all of us changing our lives, I decided to watch the first episode of “The Plot Against America”, based on the 2004 book by Philip Roth.  For those of you who aren’t aware of this program, it is the story of what would happen if hero aviator Charles Lindbergh beat FDR for the Presidency in 1940.  The America that results has much in common with America now in 2020, which is probably why HBO decided to present it.  Brilliant programming!

The story is told through the eyes of a lower middle-class Jewish family living in the Weequahic section of Newark.  What unfolded was a melancholic hour--for me-- when I suddenly remembered that my mother graduated from Weequahic High School in 1937.  As I watched, the stories she had related to me as a child about growing up in this part of Newark, suddenly took shape for me in a way I hadn’t expected.   The images I was seeing enabled me to imagine her and my aunts Maxine and Annette and my grandmother living in those houses; sitting on those stoops.  As I watched, I suddenly had a clear view of where I came from---I couldn’t wait to see each scene because all the places the characters appeared and the things they talked about was MY family history where I had been born and lived until I was 5…..and then when the story arc yanked me back to reality,  I realized how close we COULD have come in that story to being a country that …. that…..looks a whole lot like WHAT IS HAPPENING ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY RIGHT NOW!!

Wow! 

Life was so much simpler in a way.  Information was harder to come by—no TV or internet-- and so attention was paid to the smaller parts of life that were filled with just as much drama as our lives today.   However, the choice for the Levin family of Simon’s adaptation between complicity and revolt to what was happening in the country is the same as the choice we are all making today.  The evil of fascism is something that all of us must deal with when the specter of it appears in our living room.  No matter the time period, the choice is the same.  And this is our time. 

The difference for me and all Jews in America is that the target ‘other’ in Roth’s book and David Simon’s TV adaptation is me and my family.  Today it is brown and black people.  But it certainly does give me a perspective I did not have—the empathy I am feeling for those Americans who are now the target of Trump’s ‘America First’ philosophy.  It is an ominous nagging fear that won’t go away, a fear that events will get out of hand; a fear that pain and madness is coming.

Then, if you layer on top of that the chaos of the corona virus, you have a ‘sundae’ that goes down hard.  An unseen enemy that can strike without warning and make death surprisingly close, but not before great fear and sickness promise misery.  What a combination!

So, I am hunkered down with my wife.  We feel like we are safe for the moment in our house, trying to figure out how to live on less, while our world spins out of control with no schedule for relief.  What is the antidote to all this?  Well for me, Cecily, my children (who are for the moment safe), and millions of other Americans, there is the hope that tomorrow will bring intelligence and compassion to the world.  I will do my part to socially distance myself, which now seems like the only method of mitigation to reduce the danger.---Will you?  We all must accept responsibility for each other, or our selfishness will be the final chapter in what is clearly the consuming tragedy of our time.

The Chickens are Coming Home to Roost

As we watched the painful performance of Donald Trump’s Oval Office speech,  trying to be something he isn’t—an empathic human being—the magnitude of his and his administration’s ineptitude became clear.  It is not surprising of course, since just about everything he does and says is always about how it makes him appear and whose fault it might be (not his of course!).  After three and a half years of this, it is clear where his priorities lie.  His speech was riddled with misinformation and his proposed actions were examples of ‘closing the barn doors after the horses had escaped’.  It was apparent from his affect that he was terrified to be doing what he was doing and maybe even not aware of what he was proposing.  He utterly failed at reassuring any of us.

What is so awful to contemplate is where another 4 years of this kind of ‘leadership’ will take us.  Trump and his ilk (all the people who are supporting his efforts) are consummate capitalists with not a shred of humanity or empathy.  Our country has always espoused what I would call compassionate capitalism—a society pursuing the benefits of capitalism while keeping an eye on the human condition and being concerned about the public welfare.  Those were the kinds of discussions that our founding fathers wrestled with when our country was formed 250 years ago.  Trumpists make decisions about everything from healthcare to trade with only one consideration—how much money can they make.   Whether people suffer as a result of their actions doesn’t matter.

This is an example of the most cruel and inhumane application of capitalistic practices.  Nothing matters except the deal.  What we have seen over the past three and half years is the inexorable dismantling and destruction of what our country has strived to be.  With every action taken to disassemble governmental supports for all manner of American pursuits and protections, we are crushing our ideals—trampling over our guiding principles in the pursuit of profit.

What we have come to realize during this Corona Virus event is that our governmental structures are really important to us, and because of Trump’s actions over the past several years we are unprotected and not prepared to do the very foundational thing a government is supposed to do—protect the general welfare.  This crisis we face has given us an a-political look at what inept and craven leadership looks like.  Incompetence is never something a nation like the United States of America should tolerate in its President.

I am not a wildly enthusiastic fan of Joe Biden, but he is the right man for the job ---now.  We must repair the damage done to our national psyche and to our relationships among nations of the world.  Using the corona virus as an example, we need to work with our global partners to prepare for the next global threat, maybe another virus, or certainly climate change and its implications and effects for all of humanity.  Biden is the salve that will at least let us catch our breath.  We will be able to sleep knowing there is someone who is experienced and is imbued with a sense of humanity, integrity and honor at the helm.  We will be able to start binding up the nation’s wounds.

If we must endure another four years of the chaos and exhaustion we have experienced with Trump, we will emerge from that time as a changed country, and I don’t mean for the better.

A Good Man

Decency prevails.  The message from Tuesday’s vote across this nation is that hiding in the shadows has been a yearning for decency that was looking for a standard bearer.  Joe Biden is not the perfect candidate by any means, but there is no doubt that he is a decent man with integrity.  Despite how Ron Johnson, Devin Nunes and other Republicans will try to paint this man with rumor and innuendo, the majority of American people have a longer memory and a true compass heading when it comes to decency, honor and integrity—much to the chagrin of all the craven Republicans in Congress and the ignorant Trumpists who apparently have no moral compass.

What you witnessed on Tuesday was the majority of Americans standing in line for hours and hours to rebuke the disgusting path that Trump has led us all down for the past 4 years.   What their patience shouts louder than words is their determination to rid themselves of the malignant administration of Donald J. Trump.  They are exhausted and prepared to coalesce around a man who exemplifies what it means to be a compassionate, empathetic human being.

The silent wave of revulsion at what has taken root in America over the past 4 years is now revealing itself in a most unexpected manner, but of course the only way it really can—by the vox populi, the voice of the people.  My hope and expectation is that this foundational wave of the voice of our people will make its presence known at all levels of political awareness as we approach our election.

The vanguard for this movement has come from the progressive wing of the Democratic party, but the reality is that the majority of the party wants a return to normalcy, not a revolution that completely creates a government that is fraught with possible potholes and the impossible task of creating a model that would never get approval from Congress.  My hope is that Bernie and his minions will come to realize that they must address the most important issue first:  the rejection and ejection of Trump and his sycophants.  We must, as a unified force, bring rational and honest people into the government.  Then as we always have, negotiate and compromise to bring the best and most sensible reform to our biggest challenges as a nation.

But all of that starts with a leader who exemplifies the best in all of us.  At the most fundamental level, that is a person who is the best example of humanity—someone who has empathy, intelligence, a track record of doing good works, honesty, an embodiment of all that makes America what it is and has been since the beginning.  Joe Biden is old; he might occasionally lose his train of thought; he might confuse his wife and his sister; but he is at his essence a good man.  And that is what America needs right now—a good man.