June 24, 2022
Dear Interested Readers,
Slip Slidin’ Away
From time to time since election night in November 2016, I have found myself humming the melody of Paul Simon’s 1977 hit, “Slip Slidin’ Away” while the words pass through my mind. The fourth verse plus the chorus are my favorite parts.
God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we’re gliding down the highway
When in fact we’re slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away
“Slip Slidin’Away” is no “silly love song,” to steal a phrase from Paul McCartney. You can ask Google about what its deeper meaning is, and find a few answers. One Internet essay pontificates:
The Paul Simon song Slip Sliding Away tells what can happen if we don’t live deliberately. Drifting is just existing, coasting along without purpose or direction. Even if we have a desire, dream or purpose, we spend most of our time not working towards our dreams.We spend it drifting wherever life carries us…
That’s not exactly what the song means to me. What I value in any work of art is that I am entitled to my own interpretation. I am sure that Simon had a concrete idea in his mind behind his words, but I also see a meaning that may not be exactly what he was saying so magnificently. What makes this a powerful work of art for me is that it continues to resonate with my experience. The idea in his song of the importance of time and its fleeting nature is for me connected to the idea of how difficult it is despite a sincere desire to persist, to stay the course in individual and collective efforts to generate improvements in the world. I am not saying that continuous improvement is impossible, I am just saying that it is very hard work that always takes longer than you expect and is punctuated by surprises and setbacks. That reality is captured in another favorite aphorism of mine:
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
If you clicked on the link and read Wikipedia’s version of the history of this thought and its possible meaning, you needed to read most of the article to get down to what the aphorism says to me.
A different interpretation of the saying is that individuals may have the intention to undertake good actions but nevertheless fail to take action. This inaction may be due to procrastination, laziness or other subversive vice. As such, the saying is an admonishment that a good intention is meaningless unless followed through.
Sometimes the external world plus our own sense of futility or fatigue makes the critical “follow-through” hard to pull off, especially if you must link your actions with the intent and energy of others. When I reflect back on my own excitement about the efforts to improve the experience and cost of care that began in the 1990s, I realize that my hopes peaked sometime before the Supreme Court took away the requirement that all states must accept the Medicaid expansion of the Affordable Care Act in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius which was announced on June 28, 2012. . That decision also began the erosion of the mandate. It is true that the ACA has survived three Supreme Court decisions, and thanks to John McCain’s down turned thumb, Presidents Trump’s attempt to repeal and replace it with a sham law, but since 2016 it has been impossible to carry the ACA through a series of logical improvements that were envisioned when the law was passed in 2010 as a “first step” toward universal coverage and better healthcare for all.
Deeply divided partisan politics, the individual interests of employers, healthcare institutions more interested in their bottom line than improvements in care, and individuals in healthcare who put clinical autonomy ahead of best practices are just a few of the elements that explain how the movement toward the Triple Aim stalled and began to slip-slide away. The sum of all the external and internal challenges has been that the ACA lives, but the potential positive impact of the ACA has been eroded. The ACA persists as a partially fulfilled promise as barriers to universal coverage and healthcare that is equitable, patient-centered, safe, timely, effective, and efficiently delivered continue to undermine an unrealized dream.
Perhaps we are all to blame for the fact that potential benefits of the ACA have been “slip slidin’ away” due to barriers to better care experienced as deteriorating access to care, workforce issues, supply chain problems, the persistence of economic inequality, and the financial greed of the industries associated with healthcare have made the cost of drugs, the out of pocket costs of care, and the shift of risk to individuals into a powerful set of realities that have largely gone unaddressed while we fight other battles to prevent our democracy from slip-sliding away. We understand that there are social determinants of health that are the root causes of the “hell” of healthcare inequities that appear to be beyond our ability to effectively address despite the good intentions or desire for something better that is held by a majority of Americans, if not American voters.
I am beginning to understand the frustrations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed in his book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? As I have explained before, he wrote this last book in 1967 less than a year before he was assassinated. The summer of 1967 was a time of racial violence in the ghettos of Northern cities. The previous two summers had also been difficult despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voters Rights Act of 1965. King could feel the benefits of those victories “slip slidin’ away” as the coalition of African Americans and Liberal white activists deteriorated. He wrote:
In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out: there are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and Negro alike.
…I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective—the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.
A little further along in the book, he wrote:
Laws only declare rights: they do not deliver them.
The need to continuously apply energy to a system to maintain order is a principle of thermodynamics. It is also a reality in any system whether it is a medical process or a system of laws. Dr. King understood the necessity of vigilance in social systems perhaps better than we do now judging by the erosions that appear obvious in our current affairs. Dr. King knew he had to organize a push back against the threat to the tenuously held gains of the Civil Rights movement. His philosophy of non-violence was challenged by the rise of the Black Power movement. The political coalition between King’s non-violent civil rights activists and the white liberals that had gotten legislation passed in 1964 and 1965 was falling apart as liberals were distracted by the challenges of Vietnam and their sense that the work of civil rights was done.
King suggests that passing the Civil Rights Act was not the same as achieving equality. He sensed an air of white supremacy even among those who believed in everyone’s right to vote, and the justice of integrated schools and lunch counters. His movement was “slip sliddin’ away.” He hoped that a new coalition could be formed on the basis of the need to eradicate poverty. He did not have our language about the social determinants of health but he understood the problem. He wrote:
Racism is a tenacious evil, but it is not immutable. Millions of underprivileged whites are in the process of considering the contradiction between segregation and economic progress. White supremacy can feed their egos but not their stomachs.
One wonders what would have happened if Dr. King had lived to lead us in a movement to abolish poverty. Perhaps his hope was unrealistic. I wonder what Dr. King would say if he was alive and could comment on the threats to democracy that have been demonstrated in the first five public hearings of the “House Select Committee on January 6.” I wonder what he would say about our Supreme Court and the raft of conservative opinions it has announced so far this month.
I wonder what Dr. King would say if he knew that the concept of “settled law” so-called stare decisis is just a neat way for a candidate for the Supreme Court to lie about their biases so that Susan Collins can justify voting for their confirmation. It is ironic that as we struggle to decide whether or not Donald Trump broke the law and should be held accountable he has scored one of the biggest victories for oppression in the history of the nation as the Supreme Court has thrown out Roe. With decisions on guns, abortion, climate, education, and voting rights, his three conservative appointees are systematically undermining decades of progress. One wonders what will be left when their work is done.
Perhaps, we can get a preview of what to expect as more of our rights go slip-slidin’ away by looking at such enlightened states as Florida, Texas, Idaho, and Mississippi. Last week Texas Republicans voted at their convention to favor withdrawing from the union. My first response to that news was to agree with Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank and add: “Please invite Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama to join you, and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.” If you need a good laugh, I recommend that you read Milbank’s column. Unfortunately, if you ponder the fact that this actually happened and is not a theatrical farce, you may cry.
The question now in our post-Roe world is what other liberties and progressive pieces of legislation are “slip slidin’ away.” The Supreme Court’s decision announced yesterday to undermine New York’s gun laws may unleash a series of reversals in several states that cause more deaths than will be prevented by the watered-down set of compromises hailed as a breakthrough gun law that Congress may pass soon. I would not be surprised if that piece of legislation is not on the docket of the Supreme Court not long after it is signed into law by the president.
We are likely to get another decision next week that will undermine the EPA and President Biden’s promise of limiting global warming. The justification is that it is too expensive and disruptive now to prevent the climate disasters of the future. West Virginia wants us to burn more coal. These decisions we have seen, and others that will surely occur from the six conservative members of the court give me great concerns for the future of the country and for any possible progress toward equity in the next decade or longer.
This morning we have heard that Roe is dead. American women no longer have a right to control when and if they want a child. This painful moment did not begin a few weeks ago. Evangelicals have been gathering a coalition against Roe since 1978.
They have had a very patient strategy with an eye on the prize. They have built a coalition with white supremacists, the NRA, and powerful individuals who see a minority control of government as in their best short-term interest with no concern for the long-term consequences of their actions. My family is chocked full of conservatives who consider themselves to be righteous followers of Christ. I asked one of them sometime after Trump ascended to the presidency how he had their support when he was a liar who treated women like objects and showed no interest in the common good. The answer came quickly, “It’s all about the judges he will appoint.”
I have found the House Select Committee Hearings On January 6 to be interesting and convincing. I also found Robert Muller’s report on the irregularities of the 2016 election to raise concerns that were worthy of action. I thought that the House Democrats made two justified efforts to remove Trump from office through impeachment. I would love to see something happen now to remove Trump’s influence from our politics whether he runs again or stands behind the candidacy of some clone of him, but I keep hearing “Slip Sliddin’ Away” in my head which triggers the thought that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think that we have found the bottom yet. The war in Ukraine, inflation, global warming, and deteriorating healthcare are not what will bring an end to our brief dance with democracy, but failing to hold accountable those in high office who would violate their oaths to the Constitution when following the rule of law doesn’t promote their own self-interest could initiate a long slide into an even darker future. Many patriotic Republicans who see mutual benefit in the rule of law did the right thing to prevent a collapse of our democracy after the 2020 election, but count me among those who understand that the House Committee is trying to warn us that we are hearing the testimonies of a righteous few and there may be a larger number for whom January 6, 2021 was a dress rehearsal for an even darker 2022 and 2024. As President Biden stressed in his speech in the aftermath of the announcement of the Court’s decision on Roe, the mid-term elections offer us the first opportunity to prevent losses as we attempt to keep our democracy from “slip slidin’ away.”
Ah! The Summer Solstice. It’s Time To Prepare For Winter!
I hope to enjoy a wonderful summer on the lake even though my 1972 Johnson 9.8 HP outboard motor has been declared dead by the mechanic at Sunapee Marine. I like old things. My fishing boat which once sported that dead motor is also from 1972. It is a 14-foot aluminum boat with oarlocks. I may need to do more rowing since I am not sure I want to replace the dead Johnson.
My sailboat is a 1972 O’Day Javelin. You can see it if you look at the picture on the email you received announcing this letter. A few years ago an old Wellesley friend who had retired to Falmouth on the Cape asked me if I wanted his 1972 Sunfish. I said sure! The price was right. It was a gift. We had a nice weekend on the Cape and came home with a Sunfish.
It is interesting that all three of my boats are vintage 1972 which makes them all fifty years old! That fact had not occurred to me till now. It would be too unusual for all my summer toys to be from 1972. I do have a 1990 3-horse Johnson on the back of my Javelin because you can never count on the wind. Sailing on small lakes can be a challenge. I think that my boats are all old, including my 12-year-old Kayak and canoe which must be at least thirty years old, because I am reluctant to spend money on a new boat. I am certainly not going to get a new motor for my fishing boat when I have oars.
I am mostly a solo sailer. Occasionally, I can convince someone to join me especially if they have never sailed much before, and I couch the invitation that they join me as a chance for them to learn to sail. What they don’t know is that my sailing is like my guitar playing. After more than forty years of effort, I am still a novice. My wife will not get in a boat with me. I once had an AMF Puffer which may have been from 1972 since that is the year they were first introduced. I had the idea that if I put “Nancy Lee,” my wife’s name, in large letters on the stern, she might give it a chance, but that was an unsuccessful strategy that lead to an unfulfilled dream. She prefers her kayak or riding in our neighbor’s “wake boat,” a new 23-foot “Supra.”
My only travel this summer is likely to be a trip to Portland, Maine to help my son find a house. Given the abolition by the Supreme Court of New York’s gun laws, I have yet another reason to be happy that they are moving. With the price of gas, all the cancellations on the airlines, and the beauty of nature near my home, I have no interest in leaving home, but I am looking forward to visits from all of my grandchildren. The country and the world are troubled and collectively we have an uncertain future, but for the moment I feel blessed and have no reason for a personal complaint.
I need to give you a couple of updates. The baby birds in the eve of our porch all flew away this week. It is amazing how fast their development was. I miss watching their parents feed them. Perhaps it is a good thing because just about the time Roe was overturned today our young bear emerged from the woods and emptied my one remaining bird feeder in the front yard. I am grieving the loss of the pleasure of watching a whole host of birds consume my offerings. This week we have had a lot of purple finches and a new cardinal couple. The loons still call, but all hope for a chick is gone.
What further disturbs my summer revels are my thoughts about those who don’t have the opportunities I enjoy. I am also very concerned about the challenges that face so many of my neighbors. I have been in conversations with other concerned members of my community. The rapidly rising cost of fuel is destroying the shaky finances of many families in our community. New Hampshire is an enigma. We have one of the nation’s lowest rates of unemployment, but poverty abounds even when people are working hard because of the very high cost of housing, transportation, and energy. This recent increase in the costs of gas, fuel oil, propane, and electricity is just more pain on top of the high cost of the scarce housing in the Upper Valley where it is hard to find a rental that is appropriate for a family for less than $2,000 a month with no utilities.
Since there is no direct action that we can take to improve healthcare or improve the economy, over the last several years, my wife and I have translated our previous interests in medical practice and Massachusetts politics into activity in local charitable organizations. I have described the organizations that we work with before, but I feel the need to do it again. I am active in Kearsarge Regional Ecumenical Ministries (KREM). KREM provides cash to individuals who have unpaid bills and emergencies. The other non-profit in which we both participate is Kearsarge Neighborhood Partners (KNP). KNP provides services like rides to medical appointments, home repair and maintenance, advice and help with budgeting, and a variety of other services including free wood for heating. As partners, KNP and KREM have launched a third effort, Kars For Kearsarge. So far we have provided five individuals without transportation with free well-functioning used cars that were donated and then delivered after they were repaired. Feel free to click on either link and make a contribution!
I feel that the call for the services from both KREM and KNP will be huge this winter because of the higher prices that we can expect for all heating fuels–oil, kerosene, propane, wood, and wood pellets. The government does provide fuel subsidies for many of our clients, but those subsidies are often inadequate, and we don’t know yet if the allotments will be increased adequately to match inflation. One response will be for people to attempt to save on their fuel bills by burning more wood. My wife manages the KNP “wood ministry.” She provides the management, and I am part of a group of volunteers that stack the wood in the summer, then load the wood into pickups and trailers, and deliver it during the winter. Today’s header shows some of our volunteers at a “stacking party” last Saturday. We accept wood donations and also buy green wood at a lower price than seasoned wood. In the picture, we are stacking some of that green wood. It will season through the summer and fall and will burn well next winter.
A retired friend of mine is fond of saying, “When you are retired you wake up with nothing to do, but by the end of the day you are only half done.” That reality is especially true in the summer! Whatever you are doing this summer I hope that it is good for you and that some of your time is used in a way that is good for others. Roe is gone and who knows what will follow. There is a lot at risk that needs your attention as well as your good intentions. We don’t want all of our progress to go “slip slidin’ away.”
Be well,
Gene
