7/31/20
I am appalled at what’s become of our country. The slow deterioration of our political system has turned into a cascade of self-centered hypocrisy and out-right lies for their own political gain. Now I’m not naïve, I’ve been around long enough to remember the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, the Watts riots, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago all the way to “Russia Collusion”. Somewhere in the last twenty years we’ve lost our way. There a was a time not long ago when a National Emergency like the Covid 19 virus would have galvanized our nation and brought both parties together to overcome this threat to our health and economy. From the very beginning the process has been politicized with small minded and un-serious proposals to use a genuine emergency as nothing more than an attempt to score points. The Cares Act, a one trillion-dollar bill to help the American people had many laudable features. It had $1200 for every American, I for one still had a job and did not need this money. No attempt was made to find out who really needed the money. It also had $75 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $75 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities, $25 million for The Kennedy Center and $324 million Diplomatic programs, something already fully funded by congress. Oh, $25 million for salaries and expenses for the House of Representatives, so it appears they gave themselves a raise in the process. They even sent out checks to people who had died with no provisions to claw them back and there’s more. This is money that could have been spent on people who actually needed it! As I said this was not a serious attempt to help the American people. It’s nothing less than a blatant waste. The Cares Act II or The Help Act (or add whatever catchy phrase they come up with) promises to be an even bigger boondoggle, a grab bag of trillions with even less going to the people in need and the rest going to only God knows what. This list promises to be breath taking. I’m not opposed to helping people in need but throwing money at every pet project is just wasteful. If they were serious in Washington about tackling this problem, we would have a dynamic approach. Instead we have a thinly veiled vote buying schemes that contribute to the debt and don’t solve the problem.
The Communicable Disease Center or CDC has been behind the curve from the very start. There advise has been contradictory and misleading. In the beginning masks were not necessary, now they’re imperative. First we heard this or that would work and the following week it wouldn’t. No one had temerity to stand up and say, this is all new and we just don’t know. I believe this is due to the fact that over the years their mission has been enlarged. In the military this is called mission creep. Originally their mission, disease control was pretty clear, but by the 2000s it has expanded to include gun violence, addiction, nutrition, how parent should discipline their children, and other such topics which may need research but clearly do not fall under the perview of disease control. It’s no wonder that the CDC was unprepared given that their budget was spent on these superfluous studies instead of stockpiling PPE and ventilators. Maybe the fact that they weren’t focused on communicable diseases is a factor.
We are given a daily dose of hysteria from the media that has most of our population afraid to leave their houses. This constant onslaught of misleading information has certainly helped drive up ratings but does nothing to inform the public. They gleefully give the daily tally of new positive cases, usually southern states, without mentioning hospitalizations or deaths. The two latter statistics are down dramatically, and they continue to fall. Some may call these lagging indicators, but this remains to be seen. Without this context people are left to believe that like in the early stages of the pandemic that if you get “it” chances are you’ll die. This is patently untrue at this point unless you are over 55 or have underlying health problems. Our children are not going back to school because of this informational shell game the media is playing. The yearly death toll from the flu is much greater than Covid and children are far more susceptible to the common flu. We don’t have flu vaccine, yet our children go to school. Flu shots are not a vaccine and do not prevent the flu. They only help boost your immune system fight off the infection. We are told that these decisions are made based on the “science and data” but is clearly not true given the CDC’s own data and Dr. Fauci’s recommendation on this subject. The media is contributing to shutting down our society and economy for political purposes. The American people once held the media in high esteem, sadly that’s no longer the case and we unfortunately deserve what we get. The media believe that they are the arbiter of all that is “news-worthy”. In this they’ve failed miserably. They spew forth opinion and certain facts that support their position in an effort to shape public opinion while leaving out facts that don’t serve their narrative. This is unworthy of an institution that was at one time critical to the functioning of our system of government. These talking heads that so blithely trumpet closing down our economy again are not the ones that will suffer from their suggestions. They are considered essential workers and have not missed a paycheck. They are upper income individuals who’s children go to private schools and are not affected in the same way. They can afford private tutors to make sure their children are not left behind in this educational wasteland, unlike “the great unwashed”, they look down their noses at condescendingly on a, nightly bases. In a crisis such as this we need serious, worthy individuals not only to lead us, but to contribute in an honest manner for the good of the country. I’d like to close by saying that better days are ahead of us. Sadly, however I don’t see that, and I am profoundly troubled by what I do see.
