What Should I Write About This Week? (Updated)
By Hank Silverberg
Every Friday afternoon, I start thinking. What am I going to write about in my blog this coming week? Sometimes it's obvious. Often like this week, it's difficult.
I want my readers to be informed about things they may have missed during the past week or things coming up, and not a rehash of what everyone else has been writing and talking about.
This time? No inspiration. My youngest daughter got married on Saturday and maybe I was too busy with a Covid-era wedding to ponder the future of the world. I was more concerned about the lighting for the Zoom feed from my back yard at dusk, and social distancing the few guests who were actually here for the celebration. Somehow two poorly scheduled town hall TV events by the presidential candidates were not important. After all, I already voted early-- three weeks ago.
At my wedding almost 39 years ago, the biggest thing we had to worry about was running out of cream cheese for our post-wedding brunch. We didn't have to worry about all our guests wearing masks.
Each generation seems to deal with one big tragedy or challenge in their lives, and how the nation deals with that challenge can set the tone for a whole lifetime in America.
For my parents, it was December 7th, 1941-- Pearl Harbor. They had little time to mourn with the nation thrust into war. As he had done during the Great Depression, F.D.R. didn't worry about panic. He told the truth with inspiring words on the radio and elsewhere.
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| (FDR giving a Fireside Chat, courtesy FDR Library |
He rallied the populace and led them thorough severe rationing on the home front amid the sorrow of a half million war dead. It resulted in victory, even though F.D.R. himself died before the war ended. But there was hope for the future. The Baby Boom, which spawned our nation's largest generation ever, was proof of that.
The Boomer generation was shocked into reality on November 22, 1963. All was not peaceful in America when Lyndon Johnson took office after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But Johnson was able to use his political acumen and the moral high ground to bring us out of Jim Crow and into a promise of a Great Society, though we never quite realized it. We didn't get all the way up Martin Luther King's Mountain of Hope, but at least we were out of the Valley of Despair for a while.
That mountain got higher during our engagement in Vietnam, which challenged my generation once again. Through the horror of Mi Li, Agent Orange, Napalm and Kent State, we emerged again to regret and acknowledge our nation's mistakes. We finally push hard to heal the wounds not only to the warriors who lost their youth in the rice paddies and jungles, but a nation who lost its conscience at home and its leadership abroad.
Even though the Watergate scandal challenged our democracy and highlighted the flaws in our leaders, we emerged stronger with some faith that the system still worked.
Our security, which most thought had been assured by World War Two, was challenged again on 9/11. But like before, our system worked and our leaders came together to push back the immediate threat and move ahead. We thought we were still one nation, indivisible, still striving for liberty and justice for all. The country seemed more united than it ever had been.
Then came Donald Trump and Covid-19. Through Vietnam and Watergate we had learned that our leaders were often not honest with us and not always honest about policy, either. But no one went as far off the rails as Trump. Even before Covid-19, he was dividing us and spreading false information across the world. But once the virus hit, it became clear that this man cared little about anything but himself.
There was no national comfort like we got from F.D.R.
There was no hope like we got from Dr. King or L.B.J. (before Vietnam).
The was no stoic determination and sense of duty like we got from George W. Bush.
American values--liberty, equality, fairness, hard work, progress, charity-- a united purpose, does not seem to exist in Donald Trump's world. He found all the flaws that were left over from previous tough times and exploited them.
He made racism--which we had been trying to kill for more than 250 years, and vaulted it into mainstream ideology again.
He made regionalism, which we had fought a deadly war to eliminate, more popular again.
He made greed, which we had spent four generations trying to control, more acceptable again.
He showed first hand that poor leadership destroys strides toward unity and encourages divisiveness.
No, he didn't do it alone. He had allies and they too, need to be held accountable.
I have a hard time understanding why ANYONE still supports this man. Even those he aimed to please should have discovered by now that his attacks on American institutions as diverse as the military and the media, have weakened the economic stability of our country along with the strength of its diversity.
Trump turned a major health crisis into a divisive political crusade.
And finally, he has even thrown doubt upon our voting system by suggesting he would not abide by the results of the election and leave office if he loses.
(That would destroy an unique American experience, the peaceful transition of power over the 244 years of our the country's existence with arguably one exception in 1860. )
If this is still America, then we, as a people and a nation will eventually crawl out from under the threat of Covid-19, which has been exacerbated by the last four years of incompetent buffoonery.
It will take leadership. It will also take the acknowledgement by all those who followed this man down the rabbit hole that they were very wrong.
Snail Mail gets new legs:
For several weeks now, I have been writing about the efforts by the United States Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, to slow down the mail. He's a big Trump donor. With mail-in voting a big deal this year, the slowdown was seen by many people as an attempt to impact the election rather than an effort to reform the Post Office, as DeJoy would like us to believe. This week, that effort has supposedly been stopped.
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| (Courtesy San Diego County BOE) |
Montana's Governor, Steve Bullock, had filed a lawsuit last month to stop the changes, and this week there's been an out-of-court settlement that will do that.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-10-15/us-postal-service-reverse-service-changes
The postal service has agreed to reverse the so-called reforms, which had included a cutback in retail hours and the removal of collection boxes and mail-sorting machines.
USPS will no longer restrict extra trips for timely delivery or limit overtime needed to get the job done. The decision affects all 50 states.
This comes just three weeks before election day. I still suggest if you are planning to use a mail-in ballot, that you take it to the Board of Elections yourself, or to one of the official drop-off boxes rather than put it in the mail. And make sure it's an official drop-off box and not one set up by a political party (see last week's blog). If you must mail it, do it NOW.
The Update:
There will be another Presidential debate coming up on Thursday. The Trump campaign has already complained because there will be a switch to turn off the mics if someone goes over their allotted time. They have also complained about the topics chosen by the moderator. They include:
Covid-19 (Which Trump wants to avoid talking about)
American Families
Race in America
Climate Change
National Security and leadership.
With a mute switch the debate could be very interesting.
Also, late on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania decision that will allow mail-in ballots to be counted until three days after election day. It applies only to Pennsylvania which is a key battleground state. The state had originally approved the extension because of of the pandemic. The decision was 4-4. It would have taken five votes to over rule the state supreme court, a ruling that had been challenge by the Republican Party. . But, as everyone knows there is a vacancy on the court. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal wing on this issue. There was no explanation for the ruling. There often isn't for such an Emergency request.
This is just another of the many battles we will see overt the next two weeks, many of them efforts by the GOP to suppress the vote.
This particular rule applies only to Pennsylvania.
(Your comments and suggestions are welcome)
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