Hypocrisy?

Maybe you’re thinking that if one person holds both of these beliefs, they're being hypocritical:

(1) “Women should have choice about their own bodies”
(2) “People should be required to get a vaccine.”

One statement advocates for personal choice and the other advocates against it.

But keep in mind that not getting a vaccine puts people near you at risk - you could have an asymptomatic case of COVID, they could catch it, and they'll have a slim but non-zero risk of death. But getting an abortion affects one person: the woman getting an abortion.

To me, the real hypocrisy is between the ideas that:

(1) An embryo the size of a grain of rice (i.e. 6 weeks after conception, I'm looking at YOU, Texas) deserves the same protection as a human being, and 

(2) It's "giving undeserving people free stuff" to provide a safety net for babies, children and adults.

It’s a shame that people need mandates to make them do things that should come naturally from their kindness towards their fellow humans.

Dances with Death

Somewhere inside me, the distaste for Florida has increased. I have complained about several things, including the danger I faced on my bicycle, the dearth of pretty views in this flat landscape, the relentless heat. There is also this feeling of “not home” – I miss my old neighborhoods and the friends and family nearby.

But I have come to realize that there is another, more sinister problem about living in Florida. Let me explain.

In 2017, I left a technology career in the New York area. Having been laid off at age 65 it seemed unlikely that I could find another job at a comparable salary. New York is an expensive place to live, so what to do? We came to Florida, where we could afford to live comfortably on a smaller budget. Deb had friends and family here but not in other places we could potentially afford, so Florida seemed like a rational destination.

Florida is known for its many retirement communities. People come down here to enjoy the last few years of their lives in sunshine among friends in similar circumstances. Many “snowbirds” start with a sort of “pied-à-terre” away from the harsh winters up north, and eventually stay here full time. It’s known as the place where old people come to die. (Is that from Robert Klein? George Carlin?)

Since we have been here, we have made new friends in our community. But we have also lost a close friend, and have lost several friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood, to cancer and other causes. We probably will “lose” some snowbird family members due to the difficulties of traveling while old. COVID has also prevented one of the activities that could have made these things more endurable, or at least escapable: travel.

So the problem here in Florida is that we are surrounded by death. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t learn about someone falling ill, whether suddenly or at the beginning of a long decline. They say, “No-one gets out alive” – but must we continually be reminded? There’s even a community down here named, “Journey’s End.”

It might be a good thing to be reminded, often, to live each moment in the present and to live each day as if it were your last. But in view of my current health situation, what good will that do me? There is not enough time, and I have too many regrets.

I am dancing with death, moving closer, then further away, twisting and squirming like Elaine on Seinfeld. I know the music will end, the dancing will stop. I don’t know when, but it won’t be very long.

I had a dream once, in which Deb, Ronni, Allison and I had a joyful dance together in another realm. Perhaps it was one of my premonitions. While I’m still on this Earth where each day should be celebrated, I wait for a time without time in a realm where time is meaningless, and only love, joy and kindness matter. And dancing. There should be dancing.

Originally posted Dec. 20, 2018 in FaceBlech.

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I’m old enough now to have begun “living the dream” and moved to sunny Florida, where I no longer have to shovel, rake, or mow. Every time I take a drive around here I pass dozens of gated communities. Each community has a name. When you tell someone where you live, you often give them the name of your community along with your actual address. I laugh when I see the names of some of them. Others leave me scratching my head in confusion. For example:

* Timber Creek, which has neither timber nor a creek anywhere nearby.

* Isles of Boca, which is, of course, completely landlocked.

* Harbour Green, consisting of concrete and houses nowhere near a harbor.

* Tides at Newport Bay, which is miles from the ocean so it’s not YET subject to tides - wait about 20 years, they say.

* Sherwood Forest - you mean Robin Hood has a condo?

* Coral Trace, in which surely there is no trace of coral anywhere except maybe as an end-table decoration.

* Whisper Trace, probably the nearest thing to “it’s not really there”. And what’s with all these “traces” anyway?

* Broken Sound — I’m concerned. Was this named for staccato gunshots? Or a body of water that has failed in some way?

* Isles at Hunter’s Run, where there have been no hunters for decades, no isles, and a low probability that any of the senior residents do any running.

* Hammock Reserve, evidently a place set aside to grow tree-borne beds.

* Snow Hill - are you kidding me?? This is Florida, remember?

* Mill Lake, where there never was a mill, and the so-called lake is a three foot deep pond.

* Waters Edge, which is, of course, at the edge of a five-foot-wide flood-control channel.

* Central Park: unhappy with living in Florida, they named the community nostalgically.

* Forest Hills - no forest, and flat as a kitchen counter. Also nostalgia-based.

* Patch Reef - is that a command?

* Waters Bend North, Waters Bend East - I guess it depends which way you’re looking.

One community is named Patios on the Park. To me this is nearest to the truth because nearly everyone has either a golf course or park to look at from the patio. Another is named Ashland, which is possibly another nostalgic reference, to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Flushing Meadow.

Now, why are so many communities named “Pointe” (pwant? pointy?)? The word “Point” is too unpretentious, I guess.

One developer here in South Florida has created a bunch of projects each named Valencia-something: Palms, Isles, Lakes, Cove, Reserve, Preserve... We seniors have enough memory problems already, and thanks to these names, I don’t know where some of my friends actually live.

But my all-time favorite community name is Journey’s End. Finally some truth in advertising: Florida is where you come to get old and die.

I used to live on Long Island, NY, in a community called East Northport, which was east of South Huntington. I had friends in West Islip, which was north of Islip. So apparently I have exchanged one kind of brain-bending name silliness for another.

Thoughts About Humans

What a pickle we are in, as a country and even as a species.

Our parents taught us that there are two sides to every story. They were wrong.   If only we could all deeply comprehend the concept that life is not win/lose and zero-sum.

There can be many “sides” to a story. In a formal debate (as opposed to the political shows we see in every election season) one “side” is declared the winner by a jury/audience. In American politics, just like in most sports, there are two sides and when the “game” ends there is one winner.

In contrast, when a group has a discussion, many opinions can be exchanged, and there is no winner or loser - everyone wins for having learned something.

Making policy should be the result of a discussion, not a debate or a game. Why is it a game in the American system?

Is it because our system reflects the game-based, winner-loser society we live in? 

In our broader set of social norms, everywhere there are winners and losers. Success and failure is measured by power and wealth.

But (reaching back to old maxims) if we are “all in this together” and “we’re all children of God” and “nobody gets out alive” then why must we think of some people as winners and others as losers? Why do we see things as black vs. white, have vs. have-not, workers vs. lazy, other vs. us? Granted that “good” and “bad” DO exist, why is it that, once we’ve made these distinctions, those who fall on the wrong “side” stop deserving our support, love and respect?

I guess these are questions that we humans have been asking for millenia. Finding answers has been the starting point of most religions. I don’t, of course, have The Answers. They might reside in the way we have evolved, or perhaps in the way we have been taught. Or both.

But we are more than a collection of cooperating cells. Our ability to understand ourselves and our fellow Travelers distinguishes us from all other species. If we could put more thought into that sympathetic and empathic part of our souls, this planet, this realm would be a happier place.

Am I lazy and a loser for thinking this way? Perhaps. Shall we discuss?

Incitement, Insurrection, Impeachment

I spent some time today watching Impeachment #2. Below I have tried to describe what happened neutrally, without inflammatory words and without bias, despite my outrage. This exercise is intended to to help me vent, calm down, and dissect the January 6 incident. It is not intended to provoke argument, or in fact, any discussion at all. So be aware that it's my blog, I'll be deleting any comments that aggravate me. Feel free to post your own summary, opinions, questions, etc. on your own blog, or on Farcebook.

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The problem: people were led to believe that "This is a rigged election" (Trump, August 24, 2020). Certain TV, radio and print outlets consistently and firmly amplified and expanded this message, stating that early and absentee voting was invalid, that voting machines were hacked, and that votes for Biden were "dumped" into the voting system overnight. So with the help of those media sources, the groundwork for disbelieving the election results, no matter what they were, was in place.

By the weekend after Election Day virtually all the votes were counted (and in some cases, recounted), and Biden had won. But Trump and his supporters still believed the election was stolen from Trump, who then proceeded to use all legal recourse to try to fix the problem. For the next several weeks, in about 60 cases that were brought by his legal team:

• Widespread fraud was neither alleged nor evidenced,
• Most cases were dismissed for reasons that might be called "technical", e.g. lack of standing to sue, or (in PA) waiting many months to dispute the legality of the absentee voting process,
• No court supported the assertion that the election was rigged.

The fact that 60 court cases found no widespread problems did nothing to change the minds of those who had been convinced in advance that the election would be fraudulent. Trump and certain media continued to say that Trump had won. In time they went further, saying that it was actually a Trump landslide, and that the election should be reversed. The Electoral College processes of certifying each state's vote count should be reversed by State Governors, and (later) Congress' certification of the overall result should be blocked.

If you believed that Trump actually won, and that the election process was subverted, your next move might have depended on the degree of passion you had developed. Some people in the public sphere promoted and harnessed this passion, including Trump. 

A large crowd from all over the country assembled on January 6, organized by Trump's tweets and by other people who were convinced that "the election was rigged". They gathered in front of a podium and screen near the Capitol, where the last step in preparing to inaugurate the new President was about to occur. Here they were urged to "fight for their country" by Trump and several other speakers, and watched a video supporting the patriotic nature of the crowd's genesis. Then the crowd walked to the Capitol. 

Here is where things went south. If you sincerely believed that the November 3 election was fraudulent, that your country's government was in danger of being taken over by bad actors, and that there was a way to stop all that from happening, what would you do?

Some of the angrier participants entered the Capitol violently and tried to find the Congresspeople responsible for finalizing the election results. We don't know what those participants would have done if they had found the Congress members, but many were shouting things like, "Hang Pence", and a few were carrying plastic zip-ties of the sort that would normally be used to detain criminals.

Many people were injured, some severely, and a few were killed during the incident. We don't yet know the full story concerning Law Enforcement intelligence, preparation and response to the unfolding incident, but we do know that they were unarmed and severely outnumbered. They have arrested many people, and more arrests are likely. 

The questions in my head include:

• Was the election fraudulent? There are always some irregularities, but were there enough fraudulent votes to have changed the result?
• Since legal remedies had been exhausted, was “stopping the steal” the only appropriate action? Do LEOs think it was appropriate?
• Does inviting a crowd, speaking to them about "taking back your country", and telling them to go to the Capitol - does that constitute incitement? Does the bigger picture do that?
• At what point should Trump have spoken out against the incident? Did he wait too long?

And a little further afield:

• Why has government become a zero-sum football game? Will we ever go back to discussing consequential issues instead of what enables one "side" to "win"?
• Should the Fairness Doctrine be reinstated and apply to all media? Doesn't that just perpetuate the "us vs. them" zero-sum mindset?
• How do we distinguish between facts and falsehood? How do we agree on a set of facts that the Fairness Doctrine would apply to?  
• Who won the Civil War?

Spitting into the wind

Today’s rant is a note to the unreasonably wealthy:

Many of you earn more in a week than you can possibly spend in your lifetime, and you own so much that all of your descendants for the next four generations will be set for life. 

Do you realize it’s in your own self-interest to “redistribute wealth”? It won’t cause you to live in poverty. On the contrary, it will increase your wealth, because more people will be able to afford to buy the stuff you make, or the services you offer. 

Do you recognize that people who are homeless, or food-poor, or can’t afford healthcare or a shack to live in, won’t be sending you any cash for cell phones, trips to Disney World or birthday gifts for their friends or kids?

Perhaps you could consider voluntarily, constructively redistributing your own wealth? Can you think of ways to help people to live above the level of “just surviving”? 

Maybe, for example, you can pay them a living wage, so they could work ONE job instead of three? With all that spare time, and a little more money, think of all the things they’ll be able to do and buy!

Or maybe you could advocate for separating health care from employment, so if you fire them or they get sick it’s not a death sentence? Dead people don’t spend much, as I understand it.

How about lobbying the government to put a proper “safety net” in place as in nearly all of Western civilization outside the U.S.? Then you can lobby the government to increase your taxes a bit, so that only three generations of your descendants will be set for life instead of four.

Maybe if you reinvested more money into your businesses instead of your own salary, you could justify hiring more people who could then buy your products. You’d be letting your wealth “trickle down” instead of hoarding it. 

In fact, a livable minimum wage, a safety net, and universal health care are just a few of the ways you can redistribute resources.

Think of it as an investment. The money you part with today will come back to you tomorrow.

So it's in your own self interest to do these things. How about it?

Off the Screen

We have endured 5 years of a Media Master. Enough.

Since he announced his candidacy for President, Trump has said or done something every day that makes headlines. I don't think "every day" is an exaggeration. We have not had a break for a very long time.

Now his removal from office is pending. Whether it's by voluntary resignation, invocation of the 25th amendment, impeachment, or the end of his term, he will no longer be President Trump, but will become Former President Trump. He will lose his "bully pulpit" from the White House, and has already lost several media platforms from which he has long dominated discourse.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Monday that a House plan to vote this week to impeach President Trump is “ill-advised.” I agree, in that Trump will NOT be convicted with a 2/3 majority in the Senate, and that it will delay Biden's efforts to assemble a new government and pass his legislative measures.

But I also believe that impeachment is a bad idea because it keeps Trump in the limelight. Congressional impeachment hearings will take some time, and you can bet the headlines about Trump's latest statements or actions will continue to dominate throughout that time.

Better to let Trump stop being the primary focus of the media. I'm sure he won't go quietly. I know the so-called Conservative Media (i.e. Fox, OANN, Breitbart, et. al.) will retain their focus. But even there, the new President Biden and his new agenda will take some space away from the Media Master if only for negative coverage.

Let's not give Trump any additional reason to keep our attention. Let him, however unwillingly, fade away.

Comments on "The American Abyss" by Timothy Snyder

The American Abyss

By Timothy Snyder

Jan. 9, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html

Timothy Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University [that bastion of Liberal thought /s]. I have tried to summarize Snyder’s article to some degree, but you should really read the whole thing.

In my opinion, Snyder’s article is premature, stating in effect, with his “milling around” observation, that the coup failed. He should have waited for the next two weeks to play out before publishing.

Some of his most important points, with my changes or comments [in brackets]:

It takes a tremendous amount of work to educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make sense of their own previous choices.

Gamers and Breakers:

One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a minority of motivated voters. …

Yet other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually break the system and have power without democracy. 

Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves.

[Social media] supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.

Like historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies of the people.”

Trump told a lie that was dangerously ambitious: that he had won an election that in fact he had lost. This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run the world,” but big enough.

To make sense of a world in which the 2020 presidential election was stolen requires distrust not only of reporters and of experts but also of local, state and federal government institutions, from poll workers to elected officials, Homeland Security and all the way to the Supreme Court. It brings with it, of necessity, a conspiracy theory… Trump’s focus on alleged “irregularities” and “contested states” comes down to cities where Black people live and vote. At bottom, the fantasy of fraud is that of a crime committed by Black people against white people.

[Here, I think, is Snyder’s core argument about Gamers and Breakers]:

In the four decades since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have overcome the tension between the gamers and the breakers by governing in opposition to government, or by calling elections a revolution (the Tea Party), or by claiming to oppose elites. The breakers, in this arrangement, provide cover for the gamers, putting forth an ideology that distracts from the basic reality that government under Republicans is not made smaller but simply diverted to serve a handful of interests.

[Trump’s] pre-fascism fell short of fascism: His vision never went further than a mirror. … And he could bring his supporters to Washington and send them on a rampage in the Capitol, but none appeared to have any very clear idea of how this was to work or what their presence would accomplish. It is hard to think of a comparable insurrectionary moment, when a building of great significance was seized, that involved so much milling around.

A joint statement Cruz issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down. [This is an indirect reference to the "flat earth" theory that “It’s turtles all the way down”]

Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B, to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by faith.

America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. … Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

Hello again, and Welcome

I'm old. Well, old if 68 is old. I have relatives and friends in their 90s, and THAT's truly old.

This site is intended to replace my Facebook account. There's nothing wrong with this blogspot site except that I haven't used it, so it's bare and sad. As for Facebook, I'm writing this entry two days after the "insurrection" at the Capitol in Washington, DC. That was the most disturbing political event I can recall since the multiple assassinations in the 1960s. Most disturbing to me, however, has been the reaction in some quarters: some people thought it was hilarious, and some people compared the Black Lives Matter "riots" to this mob action. And some people with whom I agree were just as disturbed about it as I was, maybe more so.

I have decided that I am no longer interested in seeing such comments because I react with too much anger, and anger is not something I need in my life right now. I shouldn't be watching and reading the news at all. So I'll spend much less time on Facebook, and I will express my opinions here in this blog. If I react to someone's comment in anger, my action will be to simply delete the comment. It's my stuff, under my control.

So that's the rebirth story of this blog.

When I was in elementary school I wrote an autobiography. I called it "Me, Myself and I: The Three Stooges". I might even have a copy of it to transcribe. But at some point I guess I'll write another autobiography. 

Why? Just before the COVID pandemic disrupted our lives, I found out I had cancer. Pancreatic cancer is one of the toughest to overcome because it is usually diagnosed in Stage IV, where it has already metastasized (reproduced itself in other places besides your pancreas). Mine was at the border between Stage III (local spreading) and Stage IV, at a point where it "might" be surgically removed. After chemo it turned out to be unresectable (can't be sliced out), so I had an intense radiation "trial" instead. We continue to watch for results.

In an ordinary year, between or after treatments I might have travelled to visit all of my grandchildren, done some sightseeing, traveled abroad, and enjoyed the company of friends and family as long as I was able. But 2020 was no ordinary year (duh!) and none of that happened. And I don't know how much time I have left: will the widespread distribution of vaccines soon end the pandemic and allow us all to travel and congregate again? Or will I be gone before I can give and receive the hugs I long for?

So my purpose in writing this blog is to create a sort of autobiography, to let my friends and family in on my thoughts and activities while I'm able to write about them. Call it a legacy of sorts. It's kind of selfish, I know, but it's an outlet for my mind and heart that will survive me, I hope. Don't we all wish that we could live in good health for a longer time? Well, that's not the way life works, so this poor substitute will have to do.

I plan to pull into this blog my most important posts from Facebook and wherever else I have expressed something important to me. And I plan to post here exclusively. Facebook will no longer be a place where I spend much time or energy.

At least that's the plan. Let's see how it goes.

Putsch, Coup, Insurrection, Riot...

Reposted from Facebook. Noose image © Getty Images

Please read the words below and think about them. I'm honestly not interested in anyone's opinion, so don't bother to comment pro or con. (h/t Mitch Reicher)

"In 1923, a fringe, right-wing party in the democratic German Weimar Republic attempted a coup that history remembers as the Beer Hall Putsch. It was amateurish in its execution and quickly crushed by authorities. Democracy was saved...or so it seemed at the time.

The Weimar government's response toward the perpetrators of the coup, however, was timid to say the least. Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party leader who plotted the putsch, was convicted of treason and served less than a year of his five-year sentence. With Germany reeling from hyperinflation and a shattered economy, Hitler was on his way to becoming the dictator of Germany, the initiator of World War II and the mass murderer of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

Our republic cannot afford to ignore the possibility that January 6 represents the same warning sign of creeping right-wing authoritarianism in our own democracy. Our government must act swiftly by seeking the maximum punishment under the law for all those who smashed their way into the Capitol. This is the moment for resolve, not handwringing. The republic must make clear that it will defend itself from this existential threat."

Original opinion article by Jeff Weaver:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/opinions/capitol-attack-beer-hall-putsch-authoritarianism-weaver/index.html