Post Election Day Thoughts

 

I am impressed by this year's election and how it was handled by both traditional and social media. Unlike in 2016, the news divisions of the major networks, the online social media sites, and the print media seemed to have taken the challenge of presenting real information to the public seriously.  Of course, this meant that the news divisions sometimes had to displease their corporate masters, that the social media sites had to perform limited censorship on lies posted by people friendly to a candidate, and that the print media had to call provable lies what they were - lies.

Regardless of who a person decided to vote for, the state election boards acted with appropriate dilligence to keep their elections honest, and many people from both major parties worked to ensure that all legal votes were included in the tallies for the candidates.  Not everyone would be happy. (Especially the supporters of the sore loser we have as our 45th president)  But there was no way that all could be happy in a polarized society such as ours.

My immediate impressions of some problems that must be addressed before the next presidential election are:

1. Procedures must be in place to deal with more than one type of disaster.  If major sections of this country were to be affected by natural disasters such as fires, floods, or hurricanes, what needs to be done to guarantee that the people affected by these disasters be able to cast their votes? 
2. In the case of a pandemic such as COVID-19, it doesn't make sense for people to cast their ballots in person. How can we ensure that appropriate and uniform procedures are available for people to cast absentee ballots in all of the 50 states?
3. Considering how long it took to get the results of the 2020 election, why shouldn't all 50 states be required to start counting absentee ballots before election day, and deal with provisional ballots within 48 hours of the close of polling places on election day?
4. Given that some states are using touch screen machines to cast ballots, shouldn't the states be required to have paper backup for each ballot?  In addition, shouldn't the machines be required to have double confirmation before a vote is considered cast?  (Can we afford not to be able to recount ballots as many times as needed?  Can we afford to have systems record votes before the voters intends their castings to be final?)    

Of course, there are many more procedural problems such as those listed above. But the bottom line is that all voters must be able to easily cast their ballots and be sure that their intent is recorded properly in time to have accurate results posted within 24 hours after the last vote has been cast.  

However, we must be vgilant - we can not afford to have a sore loser destroy the credibility of election results on his way out.  This is something we can't implement in law.  Instead, it has to be a custom that no one would dare think to challenge.  Unfortunately, we have a sore loser as president who will destroy what he can on his way out.  This is his way of expressing his anger at not being loved by the majority of the American public.  Hopefully, we will recover from this disaster of a presidential term....

Harry Truman said: The Buck Stops Here

Harry Truman said: The Buck Stops Here


Years ago, our 33rd president had a sign on his desk that read: "The Buck Stops Here!" Even if he was not to blame for a problem, it was his responsibility, as it happened on his watch. Contrast this with our 45th president who takes no responsibility for any of his mistakes. When push came to shove, he was too busy trying to be reelected than to do the job of keeping America safe.


As much as I felt that stopping the flow of people between the United States and China in January was Xenophobic and not called for, I now realize that this measure didn't go far enough to keep America safe from the Coronavirus. For any measure to be effective, we'd have had to quarantine ourselves off from the world, and then do whatever was needed to identify and isolate any carriers of the virus who have already made it to the United States. Unfortunately, our president claims that his January action was appropriate. He will never acknowledge that his half assed actions and cheerleading was not enough.


When the virus started to become an epidemic inside the United States, we were ill prepared. Little did we know that so much of our medical supply chain came from outside the United States - mainly from China. We didn't have enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the people in our hospitals and nursing homes, much less the people who had to interact with the public on a regular basis. Globalization failed us. In this regard, the rhetoric from our 45th president was correct. But he was a fatally flawed messenger for this message, as most of his branded goods came from the very countries he condemned. Yet, Americans rose to the challenge and started to make many of the goods we needed to help survive the pandemic. Even with this, we needed to import many of the products needed. And our federal government became a hindrance, as it delegated all pandemic related public health responsibilities to the states. It also bid against the states for the very same goods the states needed to help deal with the pandemic. In fact, one state's governor had to arrange for a secret shipment of South Korean goods to American soil, as he rightfully felt that the federal government would illegally confiscate these goods for its own use. Of course, it didn't help that the federal medical reserve was being managed by the president's son in law - someone totally out of his league for the responsibilities thrust upon him.


By the time the economy started shutting down in March, the Northeastern United States was the hardest hit area in North America. The United States, Canada, and Mexico officially shut down their borders to "tourist" traffic, but allowed essential trade and cross-border services to continue. ("Essential Workers" who worked on the other side of the borders were allowed to continue commuting to their jobs. Other people were stopped at the borders.) The New York Tri-State region was "Ground Zero" for the pandemic in North America. From being one of the busiest areas in the world, New York City's streets were empty. One could easily walk across Broadway in the middle of the day without worrying whether any vehicle posed a threat to one's crossing the street. Almost no one was on the road, save for ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars. Almost everything was closed.


Between Mid March and Mid June, the Tri-State region suffered its greatest losses. New York's governor was holding daily press conferences to give current status reports on the number of people suffering from the virus and the number of people who died of the virus. (My father was one of these people.) Nursing homes did not have enough PPE for their staffs. Yet, our president didn't bother invoking the Defense Production Act to make most of the needed goods when we needed them most. Instead, he allowed slaughterhouses to continue with their "Covid-19 unsanitary procedures" (my phrase) in spite of the fact that their workers were getting infected with the coronavirus due to poorly designed work areas. (These work areas are still not redesigned, and the federal government still ignores the health of the low wage workers in these plants.) While people died, our president kept saying that when summer comes, the virus will magically disappear. (Bob Woodward's recent book, Rage, shows that the president knew he was lying when he made statements such as this.) And to be more galling, our president claims that millions of people would have died if he didn't act. Hmmm. Maybe if he had acted more decisively earlier on, we'd have much less than 220,000+ deaths.


Unfortunately, the coronavirus became a political issue, separating political tribes. States where the virus hit hardest tended to vote Democrat, while those where it had yet to hit hard tended to vote Republican. So our president did not feel any need to help his opponents. In fact, he tried to make New York's governor look bad, and Cuomo did not take the bait. Instead, Cuomo deftly managed his relationship with the president, so that the federal government would not interfere with the efforts that states in the Northeast were making to deal with the pandemic. By the time New York (and the rest of the Northeast) got the virus "under control" so that it could relax restrictions on the economy, the virus had started affecting the rest of the United States. Because of this, New York, once the pandemic pariah of states was able to have the last laugh and require people from outside the Northeast to go into quarantine upon entry to the state. Sadly, the use of face masks became a symbol of which political tribe one belonged to, and a symbol of the success or failure of a state's efforts to tame the virus.


From the very beginning, our president dismissed the problems that the virus was causing, and made the reopening of the economy his highest priority. Unfortunately, he didn't understand that he should have been modelling appropriate hygiene by wearing a face mask. So most people from his tribe ignored directives meant to encourage social distancing and the use of face masks, enabling the virus to spread like wildfire outside the Northeast. It didn't help that our president was running for reelection, and held "super spreader" events which made it possible for the virus to infect many more people than had the behaviors in the Northeast had been modelled. To make things worse, governors of many states (mainly in the South and West) ignored the lessons learned in the Northeast, as they wanted to be seen as loyal to the president. Luckily, lessons learned in the Northeast regarding how to treat coronavirus patients helped to keep the death rate lower than it might have been otherwise.


It is now 7 months since the pandemic changed all our lives, and the president has been infected by the coronavirus. He continues to act as if it was a intense case of the flu, and nothing to be worried about. That may be easy for him to say, as he has the best doctors on call and he doesn't have to pay for treatment. But what about the rest of us? How many of us can afford medical treatment (and aftercare) needed to survive the virus? How many of us have doctors with up-to-date coronavirus skills to keep us alive? How many of us will suffer if Obamacare is ruled illegal on a technicality by the Supreme Court? What will replace it? Our president (and his political party) have demonstrated no plan to replace it. They don't care what happens to the public.


As for me, I know how I'm going to vote. And it won't be for people who have mismanaged things from the beginning. Hopefully, you will consider this when casting your vote - your life may depend on your decision....

Thoughts on Friendship

I've been thinking on the nature of friendship, and the following joke comes to mind:

A friend will help you move.
A good friend will help you move a body.

Years ago, when my wife died, my friend Bill went dumpster diving for me, trying to find one of my wife's purses that had $800 in it that I forgot to remove. Sadly, we never found that $800. But his actions illustrate the type of dedication that true friends have for each other.

I can't say that my relationship with Bill has always been smooth sailing. There was a several year period in our lives, that we were out of contact with each other. Yet, when I found the job in the city, he went out of his way to send me a top of the line, fully loaded iPad to as a gift to celebrate my success in finding work.

In order for two friends to be friends after hurting each other, it takes a lot of effort from both parties. It also takes a lot of forgiveness - not just for the other person, but for one's self. We all do things we are ashamed of, and in the heat of passion, we say and do a lot of things that we later regret. Unfortunately, we can never take those words back or undo those actions. But we can forgive others for what they have done.

Over the past few years, I have caused some of my friends to suffer more than their share of pain. For this, I will always be sorry. I have lost two friends very close to me - neither of which will likely see this blog post. And that's OK. With these lost friends, we gave as good as we got. In many ways, things balanced out in a strange sort of way.

While talking with one of my friends the other night, we discussed the frequency of contact between friends. This friend and I can talk about anything, including the most serious of subjects, but we don't talk too often. We are among each other's circle of close friends. These are the friends I'd ask to move a body. However, with the two friends I lost, we'd be on the phone every day. It was good to talk with them, even though we often had nothing much worth saying. They were comforting and fun to be with. But I'm not sure if I could have asked either one to move a body.

With one of the above friends I hurt, I noted that I was trying to have a wider circle of friends and acquaintances. Not everyone could be counted on to move a body, nor could all of those friends be counted on to be in contact on a daily basis. This friend preferred to have a extremely small and tight circle of friends who could be leaned on for any favor, big or small. When something I did hurt her, she felt that I betrayed her - and there is now no way to repair what has been broken in that friendship. There is no olive branch that would be accepted. With the other friend, I realize that both of us were processing grief in our own ways, and that we put all too many roadblocks in the way of friendship. We gave as good as we got, for better and worse. Yet, I have hope that one day, these road blocks can be removed and that friendship can be renewed.

All too often, friends move away, and there is little opportunity to maintain a friendship. This happened with a woman I once dated. My wife and I were at her wedding, and she and her husband were at my wedding. Her life made it impossible to keep in close contact, as she lived over 100 miles away. Luckily, Facebook brought us together again. It allows us to keep up to date with some of the details of what is going on in each other's lives. And I hope to be able to visit her and her husband once social distancing ends.

Other times, two friends who have distanced themselves for a while still have desires to resume a friendship. This was the case with me and an ex-girlfriend. When I first met her with her husband, I knew that he was the right man for her. And he knew that I would never be a threat to their relationship. In fact, it was one the story from of my experiences that made it possible for her to have a relationship with her husband, and to weather the storm that their first real argument triggered. Hopefully, they will live long lives, and that I will maintain friendships with both of them for a long time.

Some friendships are not meant to last. One of these friendships was built when we were both in college. Even when I had to choose between having him or Bill attend my wedding, he took it in stride. We stayed friends for years until American politics drove us apart. This friend needed to identify himself as a loyal member of his political tribe, and I got tired of hearing things that evidence continually was proving to be false. Rather than put up with hearing regurgitated propaganda from his tribe's spin masters, I let him go. Hopefully, he hasn't consumed too much of the "Kool-Aid" being handed out by his tribe's propaganda division.

Luckily, some friendships were meant to last. I've known Bill since I was 16. And we've been there for each other in time of need. Although he has not asked me to move a body, he did ask me to do something that could have put me at risk of being incarcerated. And I gladly did this for him. Yet, we haven't seen each other in person for years.

In short, each friendship is unique. The best ones are priceless, and much effort may be called for to preserve or restore them. Hopefully, we all have those types of friends. And for me, I hope that repairs can be made to some of the bridges which have been burnt between me and some of the friendships I should have valued more....

Coronavirus - A Custer F--k we should have been better prepared for.

The Coronavirus.  Many images of it look.like a serious work of designer art. But it has proven dangerous to thousands of people.  As for me, it has put a dent into my social and work life, and has caused my 401-k to drop by 30+ percent.  Yet, I am still one of the lucky ones.  I will likely have an income through the worst of times soon to come.  But today's post is not about the virus itself.  Instead, it's about the consequences of the virus as it spreads across America.


What we're seeing today around the world is reminiscent of what happened in 1918 with the "Spanish Flu". Look at the world today then read about America in1918, and you'll see some eerie similarities. Today, the ease of air transit allowed people from one part of the world to infect nations all over the globe. In 1918, America had people from one area of the country infecting people from other areas of the country, facilitated by our interstate rail network.


"Social Distancing" is a polite term for keeping people away from each other.  We are social animals, and generally hate to be away from others of our own kind.  For example, all of my meetup groups cancelled gatherings voluntarily.  But I know of at least one that had three scheduled meetings in the second half of March.  And its organizer said the following in a group email:

Greetings, Just wanted to respond to members' comments and questions:

This is a group of intelligent, educated, informed and engaged adults. Therefore I am leaving it to each of you to decide how to respond to the current 'crisis'.

If any of our restaurants cancel, I will let you know right away.  Until that happens I am not cancelling any dinners or other activities - it is up to you to decide whether or not to come. If you choose to cancel - no problem and no need to explain why - we understand!! - just change your RSVP.

Stay safe and well and I look forward to seeing you again whenever you think it is safe to join us.

Cheers and best wishes,

Do you think this was responsible, based on what we already knew on March 13, 2020?  Each and every one of my other meetup groups had already cancelled their meetings for the rest of March, and some cancelled meetings through the first half of April.  This woman put social cohesion above the health of the people in her group.


Sadly, the above Meetup organizer's feeling about the virus was not uncommon. 

• Reuters - Florida Retirement Hub worried more about stock market than virus
• Crooks and Liars - See no evil. People in The Villages are a test case of whether ignorance is bliss
• Washington Post - Older Americans are concerned about the Coronavirus, unless they are Republican

The common factor - most of the people who believed that the virus story is a hoax are Republicans who watch Fox "News".  They echoed Trump's early statements that the Coronavirus was a hoax, and was no worse than the common cold.  It took a while, but New York State is now mandating that all but 10% of an employer's personnel either work at home, or are furloughed for the duration needed to stop the spread of the virus.


As I said earlier, protecting people from this virus means behaving in a manner we are uncomfortable behaving - as if we were hermits.  Yet, some communities, such as the ultra orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn continue to violate public safety norms.  These will be the same people who complain most when many people from their community get sick then die.  It's hard to have compassion for these people, as they put their tradition above their communal safety.


During an age of social distancing, the function of governments must still be performed.  Garbage must still be picked up, Fires must still be fought, and the normal paperwork of government must still be processed. Not all functions will be performed well.  For example, we can't release every person from our prisons, nor can we staff the prisons at normal levels during this outbreak.  This means that more people will be at risk inside our prisons than before.

There are two functions of the federal government that can not be avoided or postponed this year - the presidential election and the decennial census. We're already seeing problems in the first, as no one ever dreamed that we'd have a pandemic in an election year.  Nor did anyone dream that we'd have so much politically at stake in this election.  In regard to the census, how many people will bother to open their doors to respond to a census taker - even when most people will be able to file electronically?  A screw up in the census can affect all 50 states for the next 10 years.  So it's very important that we get it right - in spite of the virus.

Without much help from the federal government, the states have taken it on themselves to act.  But uncoordinated action is likely to put resources where the highest bidders are, and not where they are most needed.  Can you imagine if California and New York were to buy up all the available masks, respirators, and other medical supplies before Texas felt there was a need to do so?  Even worse?  What if a poor state like West Virginia couldn't get needed supplies because they couldn't afford them?

Luckily for me, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are working together to slow down and stop the virus' spread in the tri-state region.  Andrew Cuomo looks much more like a national leader than our own president, as he is taking actions that the public can understand AND he is being clear about what is happening that can influence.  Unfortunately, there is only so much any leader at his level can do, as his powers are limited by custom, law, and the norms of society.


Unfortunately, there is an economic cost to fighting this virus.  Many of us will be out of work for a short time.  Others will lose their jobs permanently.  Businesses with healthy cash reserves will survive, while others that do not have adequate reserves will fail.  Even Steven Mnuchin, Trump's financial guru, says that we could have a 20% unemployment rate by year end.  This is coming way too close to the 25% unemployment rate of the Great Depression.  It could take decades to dig ourselves out from under this economic hole.  We need tools to keep things from getting as bad as the great depression - and we need to use them soon.

During his presidential campaign, Andrew Yang proposed the idea of a basic minimum income.  Recently, Mitt Romney suggested that we give out $1000 to every American to help keep the economy afloat.  Even though Romney thought of this as a one time action, universal basic income is now starting to get some traction on Capitol Hill - if only because politicians know in their guts that we need to spend some big money now to avoid radical political change.

Yet, the cost to sociaty can not only be measured in terms of money.  People need to feel they make a real contribution to society.  Getting paid real money for real work is part of the solution. And we have tools from our past we can use.  During the Great Depression, FDR put as many people as possible building (and enhancing) our nation's physical infrastructure.  We built dams, roads, post offices, and other public places - many of them still in use today.  Why not make similar investments in this country, instead of wasting money on our military-industrial complex?


Sadly, everything always seems to come back to politics - something my brother hates talking about with a passion.  With this virus, we had few tools to deal with many of the problems we now face.  For example, our president cut the CDC's pandemic response team in 2018, climing he could hire people quickly when needed.  Has this happened yet?  NO!  These people have moved onto better paying jobs, and will not make a sacrifice to be on Trump's team.  The financial stimulus tools we once had were squandered to give the wealthy a tax cut in 2017, goosing the economy's health for an extra 2 years.  Our president judged the health of America solely by the health of the stock market, and not the health of its people.  If he had cared about the health of its people, he would not have tried to gut the ACA (Obamacare) before having a good replacement ready to go. And recently, the president kept a cruise ship from docking, as it would increase the number of Americans in the 50 states afflicted by the virus.  

Years ago, Harry Truman said, "The Buck Stops Here!"  He took responsibility for dealing with things which were not his fault.  Trump says nothing is his fault, and shifts blame elsewhere. He is ignorant of science, and had no clue about how viruses spead.  All his actions were reactionary, and in his self interest - including NOT using the WHO virus test kit, and developing one of our own.  This wasted precious time we'll never get back in stemming this virus.  When asked about firing the CDC pandemic staff and not using the WHO virus test kit, he shows no responsibility.  Someone else is always to blame. This is not leadership. 


We could and should have been better prepared for a pandemic.  Even now, they are wondering what to do about Congress.  Why not brush off the old plans for a nuclear war, and move the three branches of government to an underground shelter after 30 days of self quarrantine?  There are 9 Supreme Court justices, 100 Senators, 435 Congressmen, a President and a Vice President. Can't they figure out ways to deal with their duties in a confined, safe place until the virus is contained?  What sould we do about elections?  This is something we should have planned for as well.  We did much of the thinking when we planned for a nuclear war against the USSR.  Now it's time to complete the thought process and update our preparedness plans.

To me, the biggest preparedness problem we should have solved was the presidential and congressional elections.  After that, comes the census, as we have both taken more than one year to complete a census AND have delayed reapportionment for several years.  In regard to this year's election, this is something we'll need to deal with quickly, as many current polling places are not equipped to handle large numbers of people and keep them the needed 6 feet apart in this age of the virus. It's bad enough that we have to deal with foreign meddling in this year's election. But having to worry about spreading a virus is way too much for many people to contemplate.  Hopefully, we'll be better prepared next time.

To impeach, or not to impeach, that was the question

As of early December, it looks like the Democratic controlled House will impeach the President, and that the Senate will vote to acquit him.  Our country is so polarized, that no GOP Senator would risk being "primaried" because s/he voted to convict him of "high crimes and misdemeanors."  We're seeing a political hypocrisy that we haven't seen since the Clinton impeachment. And it's so sad....  

Donald Trump is a narcisist. He will revel in the House presenting the impeachment to the Senate for a trial.  At that time, political hell will break loose.  The GOP will put their wagons in a circle and defend a president that most elected officials dislike, but our powerless to control.  (Shades of 1930's Central Europe....)   But there are ways that sane men and women from both parties could prevail if they gave the process some out of the box thought.

Many in the mainstream press report that most of the GOP Senators would vote to convict if their ballots were cast in secret.  There is nothing in the constitution that prohibits the Senate from making rules to allow this to happen.  Since politicians are in the business of lying to their constituents at times, saying that they were one of the handful of GOP Senators who voted to acquit should be easy for them.  Will Mitch McConnell take this way out of trouble?

An option that involves the House would be to impeach the president, but not send the articles over to the Senate until they are complete.  The house can approve a subset of articles based on current investigatory evidence, and hold off delivering the indictments until a full investigation is complete - sometime in late 2020.  This would prevent the president from getting the Senate acquittal he wants and allow the House to continue presenting public evidence through election season.  An added benefit for the Democrats would be to allow their presidential candidate Senators to continue their campaigns without having to be in Washington, DC for the Senate trial.

This nation has a serious problem.  Adding "Democracy" to the presidential nominating process has encouraged the bases of each party to grow more and more extreme.  When I was young, there wasn't that much that separated the left and right wings of American politics.  The party leaders would allow the base to voice its opinion, and prevent "extremists" like Lester Maddox and George Wallace (who later moderated his views) from getting on a nationwide ballot.  It is no coincidence that politicians pander to the base before the primaries, and move to the center afterwards. Over time, this process served to cull the centrists from both parties and leave people who want a winner take all process - and we all lose out because of that.

Given the polarized bases, might a middle road be chosen?  The majority of people polled want our president removed from power.  But this doesn't apply to his base.  It will accept no evidence that he has gone past tolerable political limits.  Do we have still have leaders in government who know how to finesse the system to deny the narcissist in chief what he wants - an acquittal?  The jury is still out on that verdict, but I hope they figure out something, as it doesn't bode well for people who have faith in the 2020 elections.

Thoughts on Impeachment

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Off the cuff thoughts on the recent murders in Ohio and Texas

It sickens me that more people like the shooters in the recent Ohio and Texas murders are on the loose. All the talk about "thoughts and prayers" coming from the GOP is as worthless as used toilet paper. Nothing of value comes from the GOP or the gun lobby, save additional business for the undertaker.

Yet, the leftist argument that banning guns can not solve the problems that America has. We are a violent society which does a poor job of assimilating the "alienated" into the larger whole. These socially isolated people become ever more angry, as they are caught in a vicious cycle: People look for answers, find answers in extreme positions, extreme positions cause people to become isolated, isolated people look for even more extreme positions. Eventualy, they give up hope on the larger society, and either as an individual or part of an extremist group, lash out in a violent, destructive rage.

All too many people look for simplistic solutions. And the current president spouted simplistic sound bites which sounded like solutions to these people. Like religious zealots, these extremists felt they had the right to take the law into their own hands, restoring the purity of a white America.

America was never pure, and it was never an "Aryan" nation. Our first settlements, as well as our westward expansion, depended on the intermixing of peoples. Whether it was Dutch settlers developing relationships with the native Iroquois, southern whites raping their black slaves, Anglos mixing with Mexicans along our southern border, or everyone mixing with native Hawaiians, none of us are pure. And it is about time that we break the back of violent white supremacist culture.

Not having a homogenous culture has been both a great asset and a great liability for America. As an asset, we mix the best of ideas from all cultures to produce something greater than any of the originals. As a liability, the lack of consistant cultural shorthands leads us to conflicts which can escalate into violence. If our founding fathers knew then what we know now, I'm not sure if the 2nd amendment would have been ratified. But I'm sure that they would have considered it, as then, like today, many people depend on their guns for food and protection.

Is there a single definite answer to stopping gun violence - NO!   We can institute programs which cause people of different backgrounds, Rural and Urban, Black and White, Anglo and Latino, etc. to mix and develop connections with each other.  Our military does that in the field. But what about civilian life?  Might it be possible to look at our past and use FDR's employment programs (CCC, WPA, etc.) as models for ways to mix people of different backgrounds AND to give them employment when they need it most?

But first, we can start by teaching people that the last resort of the incompetent is the initial use of violence. Teach people how to communicate and assimilate into the larger society, and to gain value from that society. That might be a good start to reduce the number of these unwanted killing sprees....