Is There a Space for Us

  Exterior of the Blockhaus d'Éperlecques.

Is There a Space for Us?

It probably started in Germany at the end of World War II, much of that activity housed in a huge concrete building (pictured above) in Nazi occupied France. Some of Germany’s best scientists – including Warner von Braun who was later forgiven of atrocities (e.g., designing and building V2 rockets that randomly fell on civilian targets in the UK) and picked as a necessary rocket scientist by the United States – were dedicated to elevating the Nazi regime’s military capacity to attack even from space. The scientists even worked on a “death ray” that was intended to knock aircraft out of the sky. Allied bombing made that Nazi program difficult to continue.

After the war, the United States quickly located its initial rocket and missile design team to Huntsville, Alabama, a small town where strangers (read: Soviet spies) would stick out like a sore thumb. The Air Force, the Army and NASA carved out future of America’s ventures up into the upper atmosphere and beyond. The world of science fiction, from Star Wars to Star Trek became mainstays of American culture… and inspirations for space travel and discovery… and the more sinister goal of securing a military advantage, from spy satellites to space-based weapon platforms, against our enemies. Ray guns, nuclear missile platforms and EMP weapons. Treaties modified some of these capacities, but it was clear that space was now a military and civilian priority. From GPS systems to communications satellites to those classified weapons and surveillance platforms, the world had changed.

In 2018, President Donald Trump initiated a program for a new military branch of service, the Space Force under the aegis of the US Air Force, much as the Marines are part of the US Navy. “The Space Force officially came into existence on December 20, 2019, when the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) guaranteeing its funding was signed into law…

“Prior to the Space Force’s creation, U.S. military space operations were managed by the Air Force Space Command, a major command within the U.S. Air Force. Although some of the Space Command’s activities are classified, it is public knowledge that the Command’s personnel are engaged with the procurement and operation of military space technology, such as spaceplanes, satellites and the rockets used to launch them into orbit. Programs under the Space Command’s purview include the Global Positioning System (GPS), the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program and the Space-Based Infrared System Program. The Command also operates the Delta II, Delta IV and Atlas V launch vehicles…

“In 2018, President Trump proposed the formation of a new military branch to take over the Space Command’s responsibilities, citing the country’s increasing need to both protect its military space technology from foreign threats and to preserve ‘American superiority in space.’” Forbes, January 27, 2020. But this initiative was from a president that was uniquely unpopular with the opposing party. Could this program find its way on to the dust heap of unnecessary bureaucracies within the Biden administration, or will this concept be expanded and refunded? The Space Force did not begin with rousing bipartisan support.

“Then-Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), ranking member on a Senate committee that deals with aviation and space, disliked the idea of consolidating space programs from the other military branches, saying at the time there were ‘too many important missions at stake’ to ‘rip the Air Force apart.’… The idea of the new service became fodder for late-night comedians and a Netflix sitcom…

“Whether it can achieve [its stated] mission is an open question. Though Trump champions the initiative, he has done little to ensure it has the funding, staffing and authority to succeed. When he exits the White House next month, the Space Force’s trajectory remains unclear… The Space Force has gained control of some space operations, but many others are still spread throughout the nation’s other military branches.

“Within the Defense Department, the Air Force has the lion’s share of space programs and budget for space operations. It’s responsible for supporting and maintaining satellites for GPS, missile warning and nuclear command and control, as well as paying United Launch Alliance and SpaceX to launch national security satellites… The Army and Navy also have their own space operations…

“Consolidating these disparate programs into the Space Force has been slow. Some Air Force missions have transferred to Space Force control or are in the process of doing so — last week, Vice President Mike Pence announced that Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Patrick Air Force Base in Florida would change their names and become the first two Space Force installations. Eventually, all Air Force space missions are supposed to follow suit. But there has been no progress on integrating the Army‘s or Navy’s space missions.

“‘The last thing you want ... after all of this reorganization and creating a new military service is to continue to have the fragmentation of our space programs and space organizations across the military,’ said Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. ‘The whole point of this was to consolidate.’

“Compared with the budgets and personnel of the other branches of the U.S. military, the Space Force is lean. And technically it’s part of the Air Force, just as the Marine Corps is part of the Navy… Consisting of about 2,100 people as of Nov. 1, the Space Force commanded a budget of $40 million for its operations and maintenance in fiscal year 2020… At this point, it’s ‘highly unlikely’ that the Biden administration would try to eliminate the Space Force, Harrison said. ‘It would be 10 times more disruptive if we tried to reverse it at this point.’” Los Angeles Times, December 15th. 

With the pandemic, immigration complexities, racial justice, climate change, crumbling infrastructure and resetting our international relationships and alliances taking center stage, undoing this new military branch, the first since the Air Force was separated from the Army in 1947, just might be an unnecessary distraction. Given rather dramatic efforts from both Russia and China to militarize space, the ability to be able to resist and counter those movements, strengthening our own strategic weapons, are clearly necessities. So one way or another, President-elect Biden is going to have to address these realities… one way or the other.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are so many political balls being juggled of necessity that there has to be concern about material issues being ignored and falling between the cracks.

Medical Priorities vs Medical Impossibilities

We live in a society of instant gratification, more than ever. A click of a remote control or a mouse and we can change what amuses us. Food can be delivered to our door, groceries or gourmet meals. When we’re sick, we head to a doctor or dentist for what we hope will be a quick pill, injection or, if necessary, a minor surgery. Our cars are connected and air conditioned. If we are poor, we suffer at every level… but those at the top, those with the money to level the playing field prefer to tilt it more… don’t seem to care. And yes, even with insurance, the cost of healthcare for a serious issue can still bankrupt almost anyone except the wealthy.

We borrow for the now. From credit cards and mortgages, from government bonds to massive federal deficits, from leveraged buyouts, from car loans to student debt. We owe. We stress out. We borrow more. It’s just the way our modern life is designed. Hard to avoid. But the willingness to accept a quick solution often leads us to personal choices and governmental programs that are either inefficient and wasteful or that just plain do not work. We call it throwing money against the wall and hoping some of it sticks. 

We are going to have to borrow a whole lot more to save what we have and to reignite what we want to return after this pandemic. But will our remedy mirror a program where incarcerated felons were getting unemployment checks because of the haphazard way the stimulus package was designed? Or how about the massive push to build and deploy ventilators to save COVID lives? Not enough technicians to run them and ordering and building the wrong kind? 

“With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across its shores earlier this year, the U.S. government in April announced orders for almost $3 billion of ventilators for a national stockpile, meant to save Americans suffering from severe respiratory problems brought on by the disease.

“But of the 140,000 machines added since then by the government to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile, almost half were basic breathing devices that don’t meet what medical specialists say are the minimum requirements for ventilators needed to treat Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, the main cause of death among COVID-19 patients, according to a Reuters review of publicly-available device specifications and interviews with doctors and industry executives.

“Only about 10% are full intensive care unit (ICU) ventilators of a type that doctors and ventilator specialists say they would normally use to intubate patients suffering from Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome or ARDS, the Reuters review found. The remainder - or about 40% - are transport ventilators normally employed for shorter periods but are considered sophisticated enough to be used long enough for ARDS patients to recover.” Reuters, December 2nd. Oh, and it seems as if the Trump administration had an opportunity to expand the vaccine order from BioNtech-Pfizer (which depended on its being vetted as safe and effective) this past summer, but believing falsely that the pandemic was winding down, they did not. It now seems as if we might not get enough vaccine until June or later.

We’ve rushed to find treatments or vaccines to stop this horrific pandemic. By politicizing the effort and giving it a fancy Star Trek name – Operation Warp Speed – we’ve manage to terrify enough people into believing that the vaccine cannot be safe and that we will all be human guinea pigs in a mass inoculation effort. These skeptics just might prevent our acquiring that herd immunity. Even wearing a mask or being safely distanced is now a political statement when it really should not be. The result: the United States, once believed to be a technological leader, is now the nation with the most infections (still rising) and the most deaths (an equally bad statistic), even as countries like China seem to have tamed the beast. As much as the new administration wants to fix this fast, it is stuck with the legacy of lingering failure from the Trump administration.

We are also likely going to face new infectious diseases. We need to prepare. And we need to know that some diseases might not find that magic bullet vaccine or a ready cure; some might just have to work their way into managed care and containment. Such is our story with HIV/AIDS. It’s been around for decades, and at its inception got a reduced priority because it was seen that what too many Americans viewed as “social misfits”: gay men and intravenous drug users. There are so many ways that virus can be spread, although COVID is vastly more contagious. But we still found a path, although it took decades to get from the ravages of so many deaths from AIDS in the 1980s, to moderate and contain the disease.

“As the numbers of COVID-19 infections climb, it’s easy to forget that there are still more than 1.2 million people in the U.S. living with another virus—human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. When it first swept across the country in the 1980s, HIV was one of the most sobering public health challenges ever faced. It brought a cruel and isolating stigma toward gay men, who died in startling numbers, and it went on to kill 33 million people across the world.

“Times have changed. Now, most people don’t die from the virus. Thanks to continuing medical advances in medications, HIV can now be seen as a chronic disease. People who have it can enjoy long careers, get married, and raise families… ‘The message that we used to give in the early days of HIV was, ‘Let's try to make your remaining days as comfortable as possible.’ Now, it’s treatable. It's not curable, but it is controllable,’ says Merceditas Villanueva, MD, director of the Yale School of Medicine AIDS Program.

“Many HIV providers and public health experts believe they can eventually come close to eradicating the virus by 2030 with a goal known as ‘95-95-95.’ In this vision, 95% of people who have HIV would be diagnosed, 95% of them would be receiving treatment, and of those, 95% would have the virus suppressed (the term used when the amount of virus is so low that the patient with HIV stays healthy and has a greatly reduced chance of passing it to others)…  

“While annual [HIV] infections in the U.S. have decreased by more than two-thirds since the mid-1980s, recent data still show about 38,000 new infections in the U.S. each year between 2014 and 2018. The highest number of new diagnoses are in people between the ages of 20 and 35 (a population believed to most likely be unaware of their HIV status)…

“A collection of antiretroviral therapies (ART) has moved HIV into the chronic disease realm and given young people who are newly infected a close-to-normal life expectancy. In fact, more than half of people living with the virus now are over 50 years old, says Michael Virata, MD, director of HIV clinical services at YNHH’s [Yale New Haven Hospital’s] Saint Raphael Campus.

“‘Really, the basic goal is to treat people with highly active drugs that combat the virus, so we get them to the point where they have undetectable levels of it,’ he says… Patients may be given some combination or ‘cocktail’ of three drugs, and doctors are moving toward two-drug combinations. ‘We are even moving into a realm of longer-acting agents so that people won’t have to take a pill every day,’ Dr. Virata says.” YaleMedicine.org, November 30th. It took us decades to get here. COVID seems scarier since it breeds and spreads through the air we all breathe. 

Are there lessons that we may have forgotten from this earlier epidemic? Oh, it’s still with us, but… Beyond treatment, patience and experimentation, there is testing and contact tracing that helped minimize the impact of HIV. “HIV testing is critical because—as with COVID-19—many people who have the virus don’t know it. An estimated 14% of people with HIV in the U.S. (or 1 in 7) are not aware they have it. Symptoms aren’t always a tip-off, since about a third of newly infected people don’t develop symptoms (two-thirds report flu-like symptoms within 2 to 4 weeks of infection) but are still able to transmit it to others.

“In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended offering HIV tests to anyone between the ages of 18 and 65 coming into the health care system for any reason, regardless of their background or risk factors. [Dr. Lydia Aoun-Barakat, medical director of YNHH’s HIV clinic] would go a step further. ‘Every single person should be tested for HIV—annually, if they are at higher risk,’ she says. High-risk groups would include those who use drugs and share needles or engage in unprotected sex… Testing is important because once a person is diagnosed, he or she is more likely to be treated, and therefore less likely to spread the disease to others, says Dr. Virata.” YaleMedicine.org.

Relying on mythology, a strong but factually vapid belief and hoping for a quick and easy fix and return to normal – reactive vs proactive – have never worked for any big, serious problems. We need committed, scientifically solid and dedicated efforts to prepare for what is likely to come. And if you do not believe in “educated elites,” the next time you have a serious medical issue, be sure to call QAnon for the treatment.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I always wonder why people are terrified by truth and facts, when basing decisions on truth and facts is the only way to solve real problems.

Catch 22 or 2021-22

Nature designs her viruses well. If culling the herd, in a human-being-overpopulated planet, is the goal, she seems to have generated the full cooperation of mankind towards mass self-destruction. For those who arrogantly assume that if they have been exposed to the COVID virus (via asymptomatic infection or manifest infection followed by recovery), they have permanent immunity, I ask: “How do you know that? Are you sure?” There are already cases of double infection. For those who continue to deny its potency, I wish them well but suspect that will not be their fate.

The virus is also mutating – normal for most infectious agents, and most mutations do not negate vaccines against the initial incarnation of the incipient agent. But we are not completely sure. And while the new mRNA genetic synthesis used to generate a viable vaccine only takes days to develop once the genes are properly identified, the required testing process can take months or longer. If the recently developed vaccines need a tweak to respond to the new, much more infectious variant (which seems to have emanated in the UK), that will take more time. If the recently released vaccines prove ineffective or less effective against this new strain, guess what? While we think the vaccines will still work, however, so far there is no clear indication that there are vaccines that will work on children, particularly younger children. Even if kids have some innate resistance to the virus (not all do), they can still continue to carry that infection back into the adult community.

The United States has manhandled the pandemic though a combination of false narratives, denial and massive under-planning combined with massive over-promising. The Trump administration pledged that by the end of 2020, twenty million vaccinations will have been implemented. It will probably be only slightly less than two million, around 10% of what was promised. Pretty impacting only frontline workers and first responders. Germany, where the BionTech-Pfizer vaccine was invented, is already implementing mass vaccinations on a scale that looms as months or more away in the United States. The European Union is on the same track.

While that 40% anti-vax population is fading somewhat, black, Latino, Native American  and rural communities remain disproportionately skeptical, and some red states still seem mired in denial over the risk, still unwilling to wear masks or entertain vaccinations. Despite local hospitals running out of beds and ICU capacity as infections and death spike disproportionately where the disease is not taken seriously. These realities have caused some changes in herd immunity targets from the experts most Americans have come to trust.

“Top White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has appeared to shift his stance on what percentage of the U.S. population needs to get a COVID-19 vaccine in order for the country to reach herd immunity… Herd immunity is when a large percentage of a specific population becomes immune to a virus; immunity can happen naturally or by way of vaccines to prevent viral infections like the flu and COVID-19. 

“The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director told The New York Times in an interview published Thursday [9/24] that between 70% and 90% of the U.S. population would need to get inoculated (or vaccinated) against COVID-19 in order for the country to reach herd immunity. .. Fauci indicated that he based his shifting statements on public polling on the popularity of coronavirus vaccines.” Fox News.com, December 25th.

But all of this may be the tip of the iceberg. If a significant part of the planet does not generate large scale immunity to the COVID virus, the virus will fester, perhaps mutate into vaccine resistant varieties, waiting for an opportunity to cross back into the rest of the world, even if immunized, with a massive new resurgent wave of toxic viral infection. What is happening, what appears to be a rather consistent global theme on a variety of issues, is that the rich get richer, get first crack at the “best available,” leaving the rest to “live with it.” That applies just as readily to nations as it does to individuals.

“The race to vaccinate the world against a once-in-a-century pandemic [we hope] has begun in an all-too-familiar way: every country for itself… Rich nations have gobbled up nearly all the global supply of the two leading COVID-19 vaccines through the end of 2021, leaving many middle-income countries to turn to unproven drugs developed by China and Russia while poorer states face long waits for their first doses.

“‘Richer countries will be able to vaccinate ... their whole populations before vulnerable groups in many developing countries get covered,’ said Suerie Moon , co-director of the Global Health Center at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva… As a result, the pandemic may continue to kill people across much of the world for years, delay a global economic recovery and eventually resurge even in nations that manage to control it through vaccination.

“Experts say the inequities are the predictable result of a global health system in which money often counts more than the public good — and where vaccines are costly commercial products developed and patented by a few huge drug companies… The gap in access has sparked calls for emergency measures that would allow poorer countries to manufacture and import generic versions of COVID-19 vaccines.

“In October, India and South Africa asked the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual property protections for those drugs, just as it did for some medications used to treat HIV — a move credited with saving millions of lives in Africa… Humanitarian groups that support the plan — which they have dubbed ‘the people’s vaccine’ — warn that without it, 9 out of 10 people in dozens of poor countries will miss out on COVID-19 vaccinations next year… ‘If we do nothing, it’s going to be well into late 2022 or early 2023 before even half of the low-income countries are vaccinated,’ said Niko Lusiani, a senior advisor with Oxfam America, the global health charity.

“The proposal is opposed by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom — wealthy WTO members that helped finance vaccine development and argue that such innovation would be impossible without patent protection.

“The U.S. government provided the vast majority of funding for development of the vaccine made by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health. It also struck purchase agreements with the drugmaker and with Pfizer and BioNTech while their vaccines were still being tested. Those deals reduced risk for the companies and allowed the U.S. to secure 300 million shots.” Shashank Bengali and Kate Linthicum writing for the December 27th Los Angeles Times.

As of Christmas, the world has aggregated 1.75 million deaths, 320 thousand here in the United States. Numbers that are rising too fast. On Christmas day, here in Los Angeles with zero ICU capacity left, there was one death every ten minutes. Given that permanent isolation in a globally interconnected world is not economically or socially viable, what happens on a mass basis anywhere on earth is a threat to the entire planet. We need more here in the United States, which is unjustifiably behind its developed nations peers, and a whole lot more in every corner of the planet. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and while big money talks, if it ignores these obvious global anomalies, the blowback will generate some very loud screams of pain.

Killing Us Softly with Their Lies

Killing Us Softly with Their Lies

Natural Gas Just Might Not Be the Answer

“[An] international team of scientists reported last year that planet-warming 

emissions from gas are rising faster than coal emissions are falling.” 

Los Angeles Times, November 30th.

Nobody is disputing that natural gas is a whole lot less polluting, a vastly lower generator of greenhouse gasses, than coal. We all know that no matter what governmental policies the Trump administration has pursued to encourage the use of coal-generated power, nobody on earth really wants it, demand is plunging, and those nations (including the US) that rely heavily on coal for electrical power are knowingly phasing it out. More coal plants and mines have shut down, coal miners laid off, during the Trump era than during the Obama years. The cost of truly eliminating pollutants from even the purest coal is so cost-prohibitive than the only semblance of “clean coal” is to pump the effluents underground for future generations to figure out what to do with it. Later.

But the fossil fuel industry, from oil to natural gas, is alive and growing. While there has been a rise in the number of electrically powered cars, you have to ask yourself how that electricity was generated. While alternative energy – mostly wind and solar – is clearly growing, most of that electricity still comes from burning fossil fuel. Fracking – which involves pumping pressurized and chemically treated water underground to force natural gas and petroleum into cavities where it can be extracted (see above graphic) – has created fossil fuel independence for the United States. It has also spawned unexpected earthquakes in Oklahoma, and water contamination from California to Wyoming. 

Dollars spent in extracting and transporting natural gas are both extending the viability of fossil fuel supported electrical power generation and are not being used to upgrade our power grid (wildly inefficient) and create sustainable, non-polluting alternative sources of electrical power. And let’s face it, the massive fossil fuel extraction, processing and power generating sectors are vastly more able to field lobbyists and fund political campaigns than the nascent alternative energy sector… which the most certainly do. 

They are equally adept at finding (or creating) sympathetic allies – from states with vast oversupplies of oil and natural gas to Native American tribes seeking wealth from their access to fossil fuel wealth. And there is more than a little “tokenism” in embracing Native American support; a small member constituency is often marketed as a groundswell of Native American commitment. There’s also been a movement afoot to draw in the potential negative impact on minorities of color who, from jobs to convenience, might be impacted by the reduction of natural gas from their lives. Power companies are not beneath spreading a false narrative to these minorities in the hopes of enlisting their political power to support their outmoded business model.

“As protests rocked the United States after the police killing of George Floyd, a government relations firm whose clients include oil and gas companies told news media that the mayor of San Luis Obispo was ‘getting a lot of heat’ from the NAACP over a proposal to limit gas hookups in new buildings. That was proved false when the local NAACP chapter said it supported the policy.

“Around the same time, Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation wrote a letter to federal officials complaining about the refusal of several banks to finance oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, writing that the banks were harming Alaska Natives by ‘openly discriminating against investment in some of the most economically disadvantaged regions of America.’

“Some of the most contentious debates involve natural gas… Gas companies say their product is cleaner than coal and will only get cleaner as they blend renewable fuels into their pipelines. Gas also benefits low-income families by keeping energy prices low, supporters say… In recent months, California officials have faced criticism from some lawmakers and Black and Latino groups who say the state has focused too much on reducing pollution and not enough on the economic effects of climate policies.

“‘It’s not enough to continue to say, ‘Poor people want zero-emission cars.’ That’s the farthest thing from their mind,’ state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), who is Black, told the California Air Resources Board during a hearing on race and equity last month… Natural gas advocates also say eliminating the fuel would require people to give up their gas stoves. Sempra subsidiary Southern California Gas Co. has seized on this idea, using gas cooking as a talking point to foster opposition to all-electric building policies, which have been passed by nearly 40 cities and counties.

“Fossil fuel companies are ignoring the ways communities of color and low-income families are disproportionately harmed by polluted air and water, deadlier heat waves, more punishing droughts and other consequences of burning coal, oil and gas, said Leah Stokes, a UC Santa Barbara political scientist.

“The national uprising over racial justice and the COVID-19 pandemic have shone a spotlight on those injustices. Black and Latino people are more likely to suffer from the virus, and research suggests that greater exposure to air pollution may be one reason why.

“‘There’s definitely a marketing campaign to gaslight everybody, literally gaslight them, by saying, ‘If we do the [clean energy] transition, it’s going to harm front-line Black, Hispanic and Indigenous communities,’ ’ Stokes said…

“[G]roups such as the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network say the claims made by United Latinos Vote don’t represent the majority of their communities… A poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California over the summer found that 52% of Latinos and 46% of Black people are willing to pay more for solar and wind energy, compared with 42% of white people.

“Additionally, 70% of Latinos and 65% of Black people said stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost, compared with 53% of white people… Gladys Limón, executive director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, called United Latinos Vote an ‘industry interest group that describes itself as equity-based and cloaks itself by stealing the racial justice language of the movement.’” Los Angeles Times, November 30th. 

Yes, there will be change. Yes, some of that change may inconvenience more than a few of us. But next time you watch coverage of hurricane devastation, wildfires, plains flooding, storm surges and coastal flooding, ask yourself if that damage is simply an inconvenience. Not dealing immediately and effectively with climate change will begin to have irreversible devastating consequences. This is a problem for the here and now. Time’s up!

I’m Peter Dekom, and we need to live smaller, smarter and more responsibly starting yesterday.

Thou Shalt Execute

Thou Shalt Execute

I’ve always been fascinated, in a bad way, by people who wish to ban abortions under a notion of a “right to life,” but who believe strongly in the death penalty. Some are quick to demand military strikes for any number of reasons, often to enforce political, religious and cultural mandates. The support arming despots who will not use those weapons well. I understand the whys, and I do get self-defense and military realities, but the notion of the state as the authorized taker of lives other than for self-defense is a puzzling question. On a purely sectarian basis, it can make sense. But for committed Jews and Christians, it would seem to be a problem… however, for the most part it isn’t to many. It would seem to be an obvious hypocritical viewpoint, but there is so much self-righteousness in this mix, it’s hard to convince people who actually believe they are true followers of a Judeo-Christian ethos otherwise.

For example, the Biblical proscription, “Thou shalt not kill” (the fifth commandment), doesn’t come with footnotes or explanatory text; it’s pretty straight forward. That the Trump administration has executed more federal inmates during its last year than were executed in the prior 30 years combined is telling. The Department of Justice, knowing that the Biden administration is opposed to the death penalty, scheduled several last-minute executions. “The Justice Department is proceeding with plans for more federal executions in the closing days of President Trump's administration, including [three] scheduled [in the week] before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

“Attorney General William Barr announced the moves, connected with what he called ‘staggeringly brutal murders,’ in a statement late Friday [11/20]… The Justice Department said the directives amounted to a continuation of its policy since last year when it relaunched federal executions after an informal moratorium that had been in place for 17 years.” NPR.com, November 24th. So many so-called “Christians” are passionately in support of this decision.

You don’t need a moral or religious justification to oppose death sentences. You can object to the death penalty simply on the basis of cost. An Oklahoma study, reflecting the same basic result in every other such analysis, compared the government’s cost of a life sentence vs one that imposes a sentence of death. “This study found that on average, more time, effort, and costs are used for Oklahoma cases in which the death penalty is sought. In fact, the average across several states is 700 thousand dollars more on death penalty cases. So basically, when it comes to costs of death penalty vs life in prison, it is less expensive to keep someone in prison for life. Most of this money comes into play pretrial when the prisoners spend more time in a local or state lock-up awaiting trial which then costs both sides more to present. Then money is spent in excess on appeals when compared to a non-capital case. So, while it may be less costly to imprison them after the sentence, it is much more costly to handle a death penalty case up front. It seems to be simple fact that seeking the death penalty is more expensive.” InmatesPlus.com, June 2, 2019. Most state studies actually found a higher cost differential. But the morality of condemning another human being, regardless of the heinousness of the crime, is troubling. Especially given how many innocent have been wrongfully executed over the years.

Not that the Donald Trump has done so well with several other commandments, particularly the sixth (regarding adultery) and the eighth (false witness). Evangelicals who support Trump explain such egregious sinning away with the example of Cyrus the Great (Persian king, circa 600 BC), who helped the Jews escape the Babylonian captivity. There are very few commandments that Cyrus did not violate, multiple times, but since he helped an oppressed people, the Bible treats him fairly well.

The Old Testament/Torah is a harsh book, what I call the “eye for an eye” perspective, while the New Testament is a more gentle book preaching tolerance, love, forgiveness, charity and refraining from sitting in judgment of fellow humans. But as I read what evangelical supporters of Donald Trump stand for, how they egg him on, some with guns and cries to “lock her up” or totally supporting kicking DACA kids out of the only country they’ve ever known or simply to separate young children from their undocumented parents when detained, I wonder if perhaps a refresher course on Christian values might not be in order. Oh, there are lots of really pious Jews and Christians out there who find such Trump mandates abhorrent, and his constant lying reprehensible, but that anyone who truly believes in the Bible can still support such inhumanity simply shocks me.

Trump’s refusal to accept rather clear election results – he lost the popular vote by over seven million ballots and fell short by a whopping 74 electoral votes – is deeply destructive of our democratic system, one that might have serious long-term negative results. He’s willing to fight for a crude grab for permanent power, but he doesn’t give a pandemic – now that COVID is the number one killer in the United States – a second glance. “Me” vs the good of the nation?

“Even after he exits the White House, President Donald Trump's efforts to challenge the legitimacy of the election and seeking to overturn the will of voters could have staying power… Trump's tactics are already inspiring other candidates and have been embraced by a wide array of Republicans. Supporters include congressional candidates, state lawmakers, party chairs, conservative legal groups and appointees to previously little-known state vote-certification boards. The breadth of support for Trump's effort could be a troubling sign for future elections.” Associated Press, December 6th. Honesty apparently is no longer a Christian value for too many voters. Hypocrisy is quite acceptable thank you. And that “camel” and the “eye of the needle” thang, why that must be socialism.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while there is forgiveness in the Bible, I think it is important to remind those who profess a commitment to Judaism or Christianity that the Ten Commandments are not a menu.