I usually go to see fireworks on July 4. I did, but this year I couldn't because some @$$hole shot up a Fourth of July parade about 150 miles away in Highland Park, Illinois. I may have driven through Highland Park only once in my life, and then on an Interstate, bus still...
Maybe some mass shootings, as in Uvalde, Texas or in Sandy Hook, Connecticut burn our consciousness even if we have no connection. Media know how to appeal to our empathy, and it is just as well that we have empathy. A school where kids are preparing for adult life. Children need to get the most out of childhood if they are to become competent adults.
Most of us have empathy, so we are sickened. The problem isn't that someone shooting up a movie theater, a place of worship, or a Christmas parade sickens us. The problem is that someone does something that can only sicken us.
COVID-19 killed like a major war, and still does, if with a different demographic than soldiers. Civilians are targets, and I can imagine an enemy targeting the housing of the workers in the munitions factories and the highways and bridges that bring them into work. Even commuting to war work will make one a target if one is in a traffic jam leading to the tank factory. Let's start with the observation that Donald Trump is the worst sort of leader to deal with such a crisis as a war or a plague. He has been more capable of appealing to the vilest attributes of human nature instead of to the best. This is not a partisan smear. Trump has no empathy, as one would expect from a sociopath, so he cannot understand it in others. Have me as President at the time, and I would be appealing to the best in human nature, like the recognition of tragedy as such. I'd play up the heritage of Americans meeting great dangers from Valley Forge to Iwo Jima. I'd praise medical researchers and the pharmaceutical companies for their research and development. I would praise commercial entities for doing things that keep the economy going. I would make sure that the appropriate life-affirming messages go out -- wear masks, stay home as much as possible, wash for at least twenty seconds (count to thirty), and avoid big congregations. I would remind people that patience saves lives. Life is precious.
I'd ensure that everyone gets a food-aid card. That's the least expensive welfare that there is, as the expenditures go right back into the commercial economy. If one loses a job, then one can at least eat well. Still doing well? I'd authorize a tax break for people to give money to their favorite small businesses so that those businesses can pay rent, taxes, maintenance, and insurance.
Most importantly I would try to keep us all connected. To that end I would get the post office in the act -- to get people writing letters to fellow shut-ins. People would get stationery, envelopes, stamps, and pens and pencils (with appropriate propaganda) and be told to write letters. If people can not hear your voice or see you one-on-one, then at least they can see the precious handwriting. How about some current equivalents of V-letters? The COVID-19 plague is a war!
Obviously I do not think like Donald Trump, and it is not only because I am a liberal and because he is a near-fascist. I am satisfied that Ronald Reagan would have done far better than Donald Trump, thank you.
...and once the vaccines are available, we get people connected to them. I got mine at the first opportunity because of age (having just turned 65) and having an auto-immune disorder (psoriasis). Needless to say the propaganda machine would remain functioning.
Over a million people have died in America of a respiratory virus that kills as such viruses kill in far poorer countries today or in the past when there were no good measures against respiratory infections. We thought that we were safe, and we weren't.
I have smeared Donald Trump at seemingly every turn. It's not for difference. I can respect people of very different culture and ethnic heritage because of shared values. I cannot respect someone whose values go no further than self-indulgence and anger at any frustration. He has done great harm to America, harm that will not go away quickly. Yes, we should feel awful about the effects of a sociopath as President, one who has shown contempt for science, old decencies that most of us take for granted, and norms of mature behavior. Enough of us voted for him that we should be scared of some other right-wing populist appealing to white male rage and offering us solutions that require that we sacrifice our freedom and our moral values.
Maybe some mass shootings, as in Uvalde, Texas or in Sandy Hook, Connecticut burn our consciousness even if we have no connection. Media know how to appeal to our empathy, and it is just as well that we have empathy. A school where kids are preparing for adult life. Children need to get the most out of childhood if they are to become competent adults.
Most of us have empathy, so we are sickened. The problem isn't that someone shooting up a movie theater, a place of worship, or a Christmas parade sickens us. The problem is that someone does something that can only sicken us.
COVID-19 killed like a major war, and still does, if with a different demographic than soldiers. Civilians are targets, and I can imagine an enemy targeting the housing of the workers in the munitions factories and the highways and bridges that bring them into work. Even commuting to war work will make one a target if one is in a traffic jam leading to the tank factory. Let's start with the observation that Donald Trump is the worst sort of leader to deal with such a crisis as a war or a plague. He has been more capable of appealing to the vilest attributes of human nature instead of to the best. This is not a partisan smear. Trump has no empathy, as one would expect from a sociopath, so he cannot understand it in others. Have me as President at the time, and I would be appealing to the best in human nature, like the recognition of tragedy as such. I'd play up the heritage of Americans meeting great dangers from Valley Forge to Iwo Jima. I'd praise medical researchers and the pharmaceutical companies for their research and development. I would praise commercial entities for doing things that keep the economy going. I would make sure that the appropriate life-affirming messages go out -- wear masks, stay home as much as possible, wash for at least twenty seconds (count to thirty), and avoid big congregations. I would remind people that patience saves lives. Life is precious.
I'd ensure that everyone gets a food-aid card. That's the least expensive welfare that there is, as the expenditures go right back into the commercial economy. If one loses a job, then one can at least eat well. Still doing well? I'd authorize a tax break for people to give money to their favorite small businesses so that those businesses can pay rent, taxes, maintenance, and insurance.
Most importantly I would try to keep us all connected. To that end I would get the post office in the act -- to get people writing letters to fellow shut-ins. People would get stationery, envelopes, stamps, and pens and pencils (with appropriate propaganda) and be told to write letters. If people can not hear your voice or see you one-on-one, then at least they can see the precious handwriting. How about some current equivalents of V-letters? The COVID-19 plague is a war!
Obviously I do not think like Donald Trump, and it is not only because I am a liberal and because he is a near-fascist. I am satisfied that Ronald Reagan would have done far better than Donald Trump, thank you.
...and once the vaccines are available, we get people connected to them. I got mine at the first opportunity because of age (having just turned 65) and having an auto-immune disorder (psoriasis). Needless to say the propaganda machine would remain functioning.
Over a million people have died in America of a respiratory virus that kills as such viruses kill in far poorer countries today or in the past when there were no good measures against respiratory infections. We thought that we were safe, and we weren't.
I have smeared Donald Trump at seemingly every turn. It's not for difference. I can respect people of very different culture and ethnic heritage because of shared values. I cannot respect someone whose values go no further than self-indulgence and anger at any frustration. He has done great harm to America, harm that will not go away quickly. Yes, we should feel awful about the effects of a sociopath as President, one who has shown contempt for science, old decencies that most of us take for granted, and norms of mature behavior. Enough of us voted for him that we should be scared of some other right-wing populist appealing to white male rage and offering us solutions that require that we sacrifice our freedom and our moral values.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.