We Moved Heaven and Earth After 3000 Were Killed on 9/11

Three thousand people died on September 11, 2001.  It was a tragic and horrifying event.  The nation rallied and mobilized to respond to this event.  Nothing could stand in the way of the most powerful nation on earth.

In 2020, a pandemic threatened our land with clear malice and deadly potential.  We saw the chaos and death that followed in its wake in China, Italy and Spain.  We had the resources, the economic resiliency, the healthcare capabilities, and the technology to combat this enemy.  But somehow, we failed miserably, and we have lost 150,000 lives, with perhaps an additional hundred thousand or more likely to be lost before it is all over.

What we lacked was the presidential will and leadership.

Other nations' leaders with fewer resources and more complex obstacles rose to this challenge.  They spoke earnestly and deliberately to their people, basing their policies and mandates on trusted scientists and physicians.  They shut down their economies and kept them shut down until the virus counts were low enough that the experts predicted they could be managed through extensive testing, tracing, tracking and quarantine.  They mobilized massive national resources for testing, tracking, PPE and other needs.

Donald Trump did not rise to the challenge.  On the contrary, he mocked and stood in the way of those who made efforts to warn the public and chart a sensible course.  Instead of using the vast presidential powers that he has to mobilize FEMA, the National Guard, the military and industry in a united effort to contain the virus, he dithered and complained bitterly about the contagion’s impact on ‘his’ stock market and economy.  

He rejected any responsibility for leading the efforts to combat the virus and chose a role of criticizing various governors, who do not possess anywhere near the access to resources that he has.  He even encouraged protestors to fight against the efforts of individual states to maintain shutdowns until the virus counts were low. The only time he seemed eager to use his presidential powers was to orchestrate disproportional federal force against BLM and social justice protesters

The USA should have been an example to the world about how to fight COVID-19.  Instead, it is yet another cautionary tale about how hubris, ignorance and other character flaws in a single leader can cause a massive loss of life and plunge a country into deep despair and misery.  There is simply no excuse for this failure and we must take a cold, hard look at our country and ourselves to understand how we have come to this point.

Has Donald Trump Created a Perfect Storm for this Nation?

Donald Trump trivialized and downplayed the pandemic when it first threatened because he was wary of its potential impact on ‘his’ economy and stock market.  He knew that his primary path to victory in the election would be on the strength of the economy, which is almost always a determining factor in a land where people vote with their pocketbook in mind.

So Donald ridiculed the epidemiologists and the scientists, a very familiar role for him as a climate change denier.  He compared the virus to the flu, he predicted it would disappear quickly, he peddled quack cures.   He made no effort to understand the science behind COVID-19 or to explain to the nation what it was facing.  When finally confronted with the dire consequences of his stubborn refusal to take action, he went into whopper mode and took refuge in his usual lies and exaggerations – 'there were plenty of tests, beautiful tests; he and Jared had done an incredible job of providing PPE'. 

And then he basically shrugged his shoulders and gave up any leadership role, dumping all responsibility on the individual states, who have limited capability to mobilize for a true national emergency.  The only role he kept was as a cheerleader for re-opening the economy as quickly as possible and a dog whistle agitator for the fools who were protesting lockdowns and masks, making it all the more difficult for the governors to reduce virus counts.

Some of the worst hit states, primarily in the Eastern seaboard, kept their shutdowns in place for a longer period and were able to get the contagion under control and put in place significant testing, tracing, tracking and quarantine regimens.  But many states re-opened very quickly, encouraged by Trump’s relentless warnings about the impact of the shutdowns and exhortations to get the economy back on track.

Trump had stopped listening to scientists or experts and the few advisors who have any sense at all run scared of him, generally acquiescing to whatever his so-called instincts tell him to do.  His childish refusal to wear a mask and his clear support of those who saw the mask as a violation of their God-given rights further limited the efforts of states to impose safety measures.

And now, in late July, five months after the pandemic took hold in the USA, a perfect storm is forming rapidly:

• The pandemic has not ‘disappeared’.  On the contrary, it is raging in many states at a level equivalent to or worse than in late March and early April.
• Our economy suffered horribly in the first shutdown, but massive stimulus funds generally kept it from becoming a human tragedy.  Now those funds will either run out or the country will have to go much further in debt because we did not do the hard work of really getting the virus under control.
• A second shutdown or continuation of this partial shutdown will do much more long term damage to the economy than a longer, more effective first shutdown would have done.
• A growing awareness of racial and social injustice and accompanying protests and violence are likely to be fueled by the pandemic's toll on the poor and working class.
• Fall and winter are around the corner and a stronger wave of contagion is very possible.

The irony is that all of Trump’s efforts to avoid an economic downturn that would endanger his re-election have done the exact opposite.  By the time the election arrives, the economy will be further in the hole, and the stock market will probably finally realize that a recovery is a long way off and fall precipitously.  We will have created a massive additional debt for the country, much more than the EU or other developed nations will incur.

Moreover, Trump's gut response to large scale protests on BLM and social justice is to provoke and threaten rather than to provide conciliatory and empathetic leadership.  The last refuge of a demagogue is the ramping up of fear and the use of paramilitary forces to silence dissent.

Let's face it, we are the laughingstock of the world.  No one looks to us for leadership anymore.  The richest and most powerful nation in the world looks terrifically vulnerable and pathetic.  It didn’t have to be this way.  If Donald Trump had any shred of dignity or morality, he would resign immediately and apologize for the almost irreparable damage he has done this great nation.

Spirituality

I have more or less given up on religion, as I see so much hypocrisy and toxic behavior associated with the world’s religions.  The fact that evangelical Christians support Trump in large numbers is just one more piece of evidence that Christianity has been coopted by a cabal of political forces that have absolutely nothing in common with the Christ of the gospels.  For me it has been the final straw in my exodus from the formal religion I embraced quite sincerely and passionately in my 20’s and early 30’s.

I am tempted by the thought of seeking spiritual experiences independent of religion.  But then the question arises:  What is spirituality?  What are spiritual experiences and how does one build a spiritual life?

I have tossed the word ‘spiritual’ around before.  I have described the effect that music often has on me as a spiritual experience.  I have attributed the joy I have in beautiful natural settings to a spiritual side of me.  I have assumed that the rush of emotion I have when I see a profoundly moving theater piece, or read an inspirational story is some sort of link to the spiritual.

But do these emotional responses really have anything to do with some sort of non-material spirit in me or around me?  Are they anything more than a set of electro-biochemical impulses that have evolved to influence my behavior or augment my other senses?

If one classifies strong emotional responses as spiritual, then the fans at a football match are having a spiritual experience.  How then are we to differentiate the powerful feelings at a nighttime Nazi or Trump rally from the flood of emotion at a Christian youth conference?  What makes one experience spiritual and another simply an example of mass psychology or hysteria?

I would like to believe that there is something beyond the material world, some higher order spiritual plane.  And as a scientist and engineer, I know that the so-called material world isn’t really as ‘material’ as we perceive it.  Our understanding of the universe is still in its infancy, though we have stumbled upon enough of quantum and particle physics and cosmology to know that ‘reality’ is quite hazy and elusive.

But I also am increasingly convinced that our human religions, including Christianity, are myths and cultural artifacts.  They are, of course, quite meaningful to many people in their daily lives, but they have proven woefully inadequate to explain much of anything as our knowledge has accumulated over the centuries since their advent.  Their primary function lies in providing a measure of solace in the chaos and uncertainty of our existence.  But the price paid for this solace is increasingly unacceptable as our world religions come in conflict with one another and are the cause of so much violence, bigotry and hatred.

One might question whether there is a foundation for morality and ethics independent of institutional religion.  I believe there is.  Countless organizations and groups of people who have rejected formal religion are working tirelessly in highly moral and ethical ways to solve the world’s problems.  Doctors without Borders is an excellent example.  Are these people imbued with some sort of spiritual impulse that motivates them to toil so selflessly?  Perhaps that is the ‘spirit’ we are all seeking. 

And is that spirit any less meaningful being untethered to religious trappings?  Do the rules and the rituals of our religions have any benefit other than providing a means for binding a cultural community together?  Couldn’t that sense of community and its moral and ethical lessons be nurtured in new ways that do not have the non-compete clauses, the archaic rules and chauvinistic tendencies of our historical religions?  Can a spiritual awakening unattached to religion occur?  That would be a pure and unsullied spirit of love, acceptance and tolerance.  But how to find it?

There are apparently countless ways to explore ‘spirituality’ without formal religion.  A quick search of the Internet will provide any aspirant with a multitude of choices.  The first task in many of these spirituality regimes appears to be ridding oneself of the clutter and chaos of the mind’s typical state.  I have attempted this on numerous occasions and have had limited success.  I am sure that passionate converts will smile condescendingly at my paltry efforts and tell me that the mother lode is waiting if I would only persevere.

But why am I seeking a spiritual life?  Is ‘living in the material world’ not all Madonna made it out to be?  Are we like George Harrison or countless others, looking for something to balance the obvious shortcomings of lives spent on a treadmill?  Or is ‘spirituality’ just another bougie indulgence, a whimsical diversion that the wealthy with time on their hands can afford to pursue?

No answers here unfortunately!  But as I do now have time on my hands, I may give the whole spirituality thing a bit of a whirl and see if anything comes of it.  Rest assured I will come out with a bestseller if I have success!

Wall Street’s Success (probably short-lived) Is Strong Evidence of our Problems

How in the world can one explain the continuing resiliency of stock prices in the face of the pandemic and resulting economic devastation?  The only answer is that the vast majority of America’s investable wealth is in the hands of people who are impervious to the initial pains of this tragic event.

We have known for years that most of the rewards from our economic growth have gone to a small minority of our citizens.  Executive and professional salaries have outpaced blue-collar worker and service employee salaries by wide margins for the last 40 years. 

The top 1% of the wealthy in the US own over 50% of stock market equity; the top 10% more than 82%.  It is estimated that another 40% of the public has some small ownership, mostly through 401k plans, but the power is all wielded at the top.

Technology industries, which make up a large percentage of that growth, often have relatively few workers but bring in massive revenues that mostly benefit the super-rich who funded or built the companies, or the stockholders who see their share prices rise dramatically.  It doesn’t take much capital or long years of toil to build a software application or platform that becomes an overnight success through the magical ubiquity of Internet access and brings vast riches to a small coterie of investors and owners.

Fears of the economic effects of the pandemic caused an initial drop in the stock market in late March and April, but prices have been steadily gaining ground since that time despite the continuing gloom of virus surges and unemployment.

The rich and comfortable simply haven’t felt any pain yet.  Sequestered in their massive homes, protected from the ravages of the virus, the wealthy continue to perform their work remotely and occasionally complain about not being able to dine out or entertain themselves with exotic travel.  Their investment dollars have no place else to go, as interest rates are essentially zero, so their money simply moves around the stock market as necessary to minimize the impact on their bloated portfolios.

A reckoning will come at some point. The pandemic shutdowns triggered massive unemployment on the scale of the 2008 or 1929 recession/depression.  In recent weeks there has been a return of some workers, but there is still an unemployment level of over 10% in the U.S.   Moreover, the entire world is in economic shock, which will certainly lead to more economic fallout in the months ahead.  The economic stimuli that staunched the hemorrhage in the first few months will soon fade away.  Does anyone really believe that a more dramatic decline of GDP and general global economic output with consequent rising unemployment does not lie ahead?

And recent coronavirus surges have demonstrated that there will be no ‘returning to normal’ until a vaccine and/or effective treatment is developed.  What will be the economic impact of another 6-12 months of partial shutdown?  It seems certain that even the wealthy will have to acknowledge the dire situation we are in.  At some point the selling will begin again and it will be much bloodier than the first round.

When the money runs out for those whose livelihood has disappeared in the pandemic, things may get very ugly.  Governments will be overwhelmed with debt trying to shore up social safety nets and unemployment benefits.   The only sensible recourse will be to require the rich, the foundations, the endowments and the mega-corporations to part with some of their plunder to keep the world from completely unraveling.  The world can certainly benefit from having a few less billionaires.  Let’s pray there is the will to make it happen.

The Tragedy of Incomprehensibly Pathetic Leadership

The COVID-19 pandemic is raging across the world.  The graphs show clearly that the number of daily new cases is continuing to rise as the virus spreads to many areas of the globe that were previously untouched.  And sadly, even areas that had the opportunity to get the pandemic under control are now losing the battle.  In this group the USA is number one!

The number of daily deaths is also increasing, though at a slower rate than early in the pandemic, and it has not yet reached the peaks of the first couple of months.  This demonstrates that the medical world has learned to combat the disease with better effect, and also that the more vulnerable are taking precautions to avoid getting sick.

The number of hospitalizations continues to be very high even with the fatality rate slowing, and there is evidence that longer term consequences of the virus may be quite significant, even in non-critical cases.

There are some success stories.  Germany is perhaps the best example.  There, a group of research institutions came up with recommendations for how to contain the pandemic with massive testing and contact tracing and then slowly open the economy.  The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, a scientist herself, embraced these recommendations and led the sixteen partly independent states in the effort to implement them.  

To date, Germany, with one quarter the population of the USA and a much higher population density (which, should actually make the task more difficult), has had about 9000 fatalities and is now trending at about ten fatalities a day and a few hundred new cases, compared to the USA with 130,000 total fatalities, resurgent peaks of 60,000 cases each day and close to 1000 daily fatalities.

Other EU nations have followed similar paths after the initial catastrophic surges and have slightly higher, though still very manageable, new cases and fatalities.

The big difference between Germany and the USA is leadership.  Donald Trump resisted acknowledging the severity of the pandemic from the beginning for fear of its impact on ‘his’ economy and stock market.  He scorned or ignored scientific evidence or advice.  He took no responsibility for national leadership or guidance.  He encouraged rapid re-opening long before the level of virus was at a controllable level.  He never focused adequate resources on the basic tasks necessary to minimize the pandemic – testing and contact tracing.  He failed in every possible measure of leadership.

The U.S., with its massive wealth, military and healthcare resources, should have been an example to the world on how to deal with this crisis.  Instead, it is a pathetic example of political and social failure, spawned by the hubris of its so-called President.

Why were the military and national guard not deployed across the country to staff testing and contact tracing positions?  Why wasn’t there a national recruitment campaign to employ out-of-work men and women to monitor and limit the pandemic?  What more important presidential task in the recent history of this country was there than responding to this cataclysmic event? 

History will condemn Donald Trump for many things, but his failure in leadership and outright insane refusal to protect the nation and its people from this scourge will be at the very top of the list.