June 10, 2022

Dear Interested Readers,

 

Are We Too Far Gone To Protect and Improve Healthcare?

 

It has been an anxious week for me. I have been waiting a long time to hear from the House committee investigating the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol that was an attempt to subvert for the first time in our nation’s long history the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in forgiving and moving on, but it is hard to forgive people who deny that anything wrong was done and continue to perpetuate a lie that could be the foundation of a new and more illiberal social order. 

 

Prior to last night’s prime-time broadcast of the hearings, the talking heads were split between those who said nothing could possibly be revealed that would make a difference and those who believed that even if time and the continuous disclaimer that the 2020 election was stolen had captured a significant number of Republican politicians and the base voters of the party, the nation and history deserved a factual account of the full story. David Brooks offered a surprising third pre-hearing opinion before any testimony or analysis was delivered in a column entitled  “The Jan. 6 Committee Has Already Blown It.” As usual, there is some truth in Brooks’ unique opinion. 

 

The core problem here is not the minutiae of who texted what to chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 6 last year. The core problem is that there are millions of Americans who have three convictions: that the election was stolen, that violence is justified in order to rectify it and that the rules and norms that hold our society together don’t matter.

Those millions of Americans are out there right now. I care more about their present and future activities than about their past. Many of them are running for local office to be in a position to disrupt future elections. I’d like the committee to describe who they are, what motivates them and how much power they already have.

 

What will Brooks say now that the committee has laid out the case that they will present over the multiple hearings that will occur over the next three weeks? I was impressed with the speeches of Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice-Chair Liz Cheney who made it clear that their investigation has revealed that before the election President Trump planned to hold on to office no matter what the outcome of the election was. They contend that he knew that he had legitimately lost, that the Attorney General and other prominent members of his family and administration knew that the election was not stolen and told him, and yet he continued to say that the election was stolen as he incited others to violence. They say that they will prove that the events of January 6 were his last desperate attempt to block the transfer of power to a duly elected Joe Biden and that he sat by and let the violence occur while others in the White House implored him to call off the attack. Because of his actions, people were injured and died, and the nation was brought to the brink of chaos by those who wanted to bring down the rule of law. 

 

The major point of the committee at the end of the night was that the facts will prove Trump and others around him, including perhaps some in Congress and President Trump’s administration, have violated their oaths to defend the Constitution and were indeed “domestic enemies” of the nation and the Constitution. After hearing the two excellent speeches and the proposed schedule of revelation over the coming hearings, I was wondering how the former president could avoid prosecution for sedition. The presentation sounded like a prosecutor’s summation to a jury.  

 

There is no doubt that even if Mitch McConnell, Kevin Macarthy, and other prominent Republicans had no role in the planning of Trump’s resistance and were appalled immediately after the event, they have now changed their minds and are willing to let the crimes go unpunished and hope that the whole mess will be soon forgotten after Trump or some other Republican is elected in 2024. In the days following the attack and especially before and after Trump’s second impeachment we heard these same men express their dismay and disgust in televised comments. They now contend that nothing significant happened, and they consider the committee’s work to be a partisan “witch hunt.” It is clear that those Republicans, especially Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who deny the lie and are willing to participate in the discovery of the truth are sacrificing their political careers to do so.

 

It amazes me just how many people want us to be blind to the slime and pretend we don’t notice the odor that persists around former President Trump. There seem to be hundreds if not thousands of Republican politicians at the state and federal level who are eager to allow as much of that slime and stink as possible to rub off on them for their short-term political gain that will come at the cost of the future viability of elections and our democracy. The Vice-Chair of the January 6th committee, Representative Liz Cheney, pointed out that Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry and others had sought pardons from Trump before he left office. If you want a pardon, it might be because you think that you committed a crime. Representative Cheney expressed my feelings well during her speech last night when she said:

 

“Tonight I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”  

 

It seems that the game plan for the Republican Party is to say, “So what?”  and “What about gas at $5 a gallon.” The old “whataboutism” maneuver is a key play on the menu of options that those who wish to obfuscate the truth always use. Another play from the reliable list of “dodge the truth” movements is to say “I have answered that question already, and I won’t talk about it again.” That’s a paraphrase of  Kevin McCarthy’s response to reporters like John Carlson of ABC when Carlson asked about his comments about Trump immediately after January 6th which he now denies. When Carlson continued and asked McCarthy if he thought Trump was to blame for the events of January 6th, McCarthy went big and said, “I think everybody in the country bears responsibility, based upon what was going on in the streets the riots, the others.” It is clear that the core Republican strategy will be to say that the events of January 6 are distant past history, and we should move on with our focus on all of the errors that Biden is making in real-time. 

 

Today’s header shows one of the three gas stations in my town. This sign is straightforward.  The digits tell a real and disturbing story. Across town where I usually buy my gas, the sign says $4.99 but the fine print says that you get that price only if you use their corporate debit card. If you pay cash or use a regular credit card, the price is $5.09. The price of premium gas which one of my cars requires is approaching six dollars a gallon. I have attended meetings of concerned individuals who are developing strategies to help the poorer members of our community contend with an expected high price for fuel oil and propane this coming winter. There is no question that the price of gas and inflation, in general, are frightening for all of us, but pretending that January 6th didn’t happen and giving the House and the Senate to Republicans in 2022 and the presidency back to Trump in 2024, are not solutions to these economic problems. 

 

The worse thing that could happen to all of us, even worse than gas at $10.00 a gallon, would be to lose our democracy by allowing a lie to go unanswered. I would have never guessed that I would hold Representative Liz Cheney in such high regard. I may disagree with her on almost every domestic political issue, but we are totally aligned when it comes to the basic question that we must come together to defend our threatened democracy and hold Donald Trump accountable for his crimes. What we have learned and will learn over the coming hearings should also be the basis for a movement to protect our elections and defend the Constitution against further attempts to move toward an illiberal society.

 

 I will be following every minute of these hearings with the same sense of concern and apprehension that I once had at the bedside of an ill patient. Our democracy has been threatened and as Brooks implies, the threat is not behind us. Complacency or an attitude of “So what, aren’t all politicians crooks?” will make us likely to lose what we have all taken for granted. We have already seen that lies repeated regularly can be taken as the truth. Those who know the importance of the truth and understand the corrosive power of lies and “misinformation” need to push back hard. There is much to be lost. 

 

I know the testimonies and video demonstrations last night were choreographed for emotional impact but in my mind the emotions they were meant to arouse needed to be stirred. When Officer Edwards testified about the hand-to-hand combat that she had to endure on the steps of the Capitol she said that it reminded her of the sacrifices her grandfather made in Korea. Her comment reminded me of how my uncle must have felt when he and other members of the 82nd Airborne parachuted into France behind Omaha beach in the predawn hours of D-Day seventy-eight years ago this week. Three-quarters of those men died along with thousands of other American and Allied soldiers on the beach. None of those who gave their lives in our many military struggles did so to give the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, or Donald Trump the right to cancel the results of an election by attacking the Captiol to block the peaceful transfer of power.  

 

The outcome of the hearings will not lower the cost of gas, reverse inflation, avert global warming, or improve healthcare, but I do believe that the hearings do offer us an opportunity to begin to narrow the deep divisions that prevent progress on so many of the challenges that threaten all of us. Sometimes, I think that we are numb to what is happening and blind to what we have already lost. I see a high degree of correlation between the presidency of Donald Trump and the loss of momentum in the noble effort to give everyone equitable healthcare that is patient-focused, safe, timely, efficient, and effective. Indeed, many Americans have discovered over the last six years that even if they have full coverage it is hard to find a doctor who will see them. Trump began his presidency by trying to repeal the ACA. When John McCain blocked that effort the strategy shifted to a process of death by a thousand administrative cuts and abuses. The pandemic demonstrated that a wannabe kleptocracy can’t equitably protect all of us and will use disease as a way of advancing confusion and deepening what divides us. I can’t imagine what lies ahead if the inciter and cheerleader of those who threatened us all on January 6, 2021 is not held accountable in a way that reinforces the concept that our collective goal is an open and equitable society that respects everyone. 

 

Perhaps the most disturbing evidence of the potential jeopardy to which we are all exposed that was revealed last evening was not presented by the hearings. The threat was broadcasted on Fox News where Tucker Carlson pontificated without commercial interruption that would have allowed his faithful followers the chance to surf over to another channel to catch a glimpse of the hearings. Carlson has the First Amendment Right to spew his vitriol, but we have no responsibility to listen to it. What is our defense against those who see opportunity in controversy and hate? I can’t help but think that the attitude that protects us from the Carlsons and Hannitys of the world was described at the end of the piece that David Brooks wrote in response to the revelation of the coverup of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Church. His thoughts and the direction they advocate deserve continued attention. I have bolded the core principle in what he wrote:

 

How can there be such a chasm between what people “believe” and what they do? Don’t our beliefs matter?

The fact is, moral behavior doesn’t start with having the right beliefs. Moral behavior starts with an act — the act of seeing the full humanity of other people. Moral behavior is not about having the right intellectual concepts in your head. It’s about seeing other people with the eyes of the heart, seeing them in their full experience, suffering with their full suffering, walking with them on their path. Morality starts with the quality of attention we cast upon another.

If you look at people with a detached, emotionless gaze, it doesn’t really matter what your beliefs are, because you have morally disengaged. You have perceived a person not as a full human but as a thing, as a vague entity toward which the rules of morality do not apply.

 

The Constitution as amended after the Civil War is a document that rests on the worth of every individual. It sees equality of opportunity across the entire population. It is not perfect, but it creates the possibility of continuous improvement in all aspects of our shared existence through the interaction between the people and their leaders via elections. If that process is debased by someone in a high political office who disgraces and attacks the Constitution and fair elections, there must be consequences to protect our collective health now and the opportunity for those who follow to enjoy the same. 

 

What Kind of Loon Summer Will It Be?

 

Over the past dozen years, one of my greatest summertime joys has also been one of my greatest summertime worries. I love observing the loons, but each summer I worry about whether or not they will be successful in producing one or two chicks. The worry doesn’t end when the chicks are born because after birth they are prime targets for predators like our local eagle.

 

Even in the years when something happens and no chick is produced, the loons are a daily source of joy. I love their calls. I love their red eyes. I love how fast they are under the water. They can dive under the water right in front of your kayak, and then in a matter of a few seconds emerge fifty yards away. Sometimes they will stay down for what seems like hours. There is no way to predict where they will come up. I once saw one pass under my kayak. It was astonishing. The loon was like a torpedo. As wonderful as it is to watch and listen to the loons, nothing beats observing them as they parent their chicks through the summer knowing that by fall the chicks must be prepared to fly to the Atlantic coast where they will spend the winter.  Click here for a great article about loons.

 

This year started out like all the other years. The loons don’t come back together. On April 9th not long after our early “ice-out”, one of the loons arrived. I showed a picture of the loon in the letter the next Friday. Somewhere between one or two weeks later a second loon showed up. Not long after the second loon arrived we got the ominous news that a third loon had been sighted. You might think that the more loons the better, but that is not the case. More than two loons at a time will create domestic problems.

 

For a long time, I had thought that loons were monogamous and were paragons of long-term relationships. I now know that they are monogamous, not to individuals, but to places. We know from banding that they come back to the same place. Did this third loon represent a new male or a new female? Was it a challenge to domestic tranquility? A year or so ago there was a love triangle on Pleasant Lake which is on the other side of town at the base of Mount Kearsage. A young female moved in and got enough attention from the male to lay eggs. When the eggs hatched, the older displaced female killed the chicks. Since all of New Hampshire’s loons are banded and tracked, it is now known that the older female eventually displaced the younger female whose chicks she had killed, and the next year the older female produced her own chicks. Who knew there was so much drama in the lives of loons?

 

Loons have a hard time in the best of times. They have come near to extinction for two reasons, lead poisoning and difficulty breading which is a function of finding safe places to nest because of their difficulty walking because of evolutionary adaptions to life on the water. Loon enthusiasts have vastly improved the lead poisoning problem by having lead fishing tackle banned in most states. We will not ban the lead from assault rifles to protect our children but the Constitution does not protect the right of fishermen to use lead fishing tackle and the Loon Preservation Committee has successfully lobbied the legislature for laws that ban lead fishing tackle.

 

The second problem that threatens loons is their mobility on land.  They have given up land mobility for their aquatic skills. Their legs have migrated posteriorly to the point that they can hardly walk. Their nests need to be near the water which makes them vulnerable to predators. The Loon Preservation Committee has addressed the second problem with floating islands for our lake and many others that are about four by four with a Quanset Hut-like roof where the loons can nest. I think of them as the aquatic equivalent of bird houses. The breading platforms are covered with vegetation and are usually placed in a sheltered cove. Below is a picture of one of our loons on our breeding island last June.

 

 

My first concern this year was that our “loon island” had broken loose from its moorings and had washed ashore. One of the older members of our lake association who is in his late 80s has “managed” our island over the last few years. I volunteered to help him repair and return the island to its usual location in early May which should have given the loons plenty of time to get ready for nesting. Once the eggs are laid the loons usually take turns on the nest for the twenty-seven days it takes for the eggs to hatch. In recent years the loons go on the nest about the third week of May and we have a chick or two sometime around the second week of June.

 

This year it has not happened. I have not seen the third loon, but almost daily I see the pair lollygagging about the lake like a couple on vacation. Their total disregard for their reproductive responsibilities annoys me no end. Several times a week I cross the lake in my kayak to check out the breeding island in its cove. To my chagrin, the nest has been empty every time I have made my trip to check out the nest. There is still room for a little hope, but something needs to happen soon, or I will need to be content with watching the adults swim about and listening to their woeful calls at night, and I will be denied the joy of watching a young loon grow up over three or four months. It seems that we can be as vulnerable to disappointment in nature as in our civil society. I know with the loons that there will be an occasional disappointment followed by recovery. In terms of politics, healthcare, and the stability of our elections, I am not so sure.

 

I hope that all of your expectations for the summer materialize, but if like me you seem headed for some disappointments, I hope that what remains for you will be as wonderful as getting to watch a pair of loons even when there is no chick.

Be well,

Gene