Facts, Lies and COVID-19

There have been so many versions of coronavirus – outbreaks that include the SARS epidemic – that the World Health Organization wants us to know that the latest incarnation has a new and permanent name: COVID-19. Dramatically mishandled by Chinese authorities from its genesis in a meat and produce market (where live animals are sold) in Wuhan (Hubei Province in central China), this latest version has lots of bad news and a little OK news. Censorship and outright lies from government officials made a bad situation much worse. Images of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who finally appeared in public wearing a blue surgical mask, unwilling to shake hands with anyone, did not instill confidence. Clearly, both internally and externally, Xi’s and China’s government’s credibility is slipping fast.

As stock markets gyrate from the uncertainty as death tolls and infection counts explode, particularly in Wuhan, as ships with contagious passengers become floating quarantine stations, and transit between nations restricted, folks quarantined in other designated facilities and as masks in some areas become mandatory (good luck finding a place to buy them now), the little trickle of good news is certainly welcome. The disease appears to show little or no current signs of mutating. That’s good for both treatment and, in time, prevention. And while the death toll mounts, especially among the most vulnerable, for most infected persons the disease is quite survivable.

In the meantime, the reconfigured numbers, particularly from China, do not look good. “Health officials in Hubei reported 14,840 new cases, most of them in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province where the virus is believed to have originated… The province also said another 242 people had died from the coronavirus Wednesday [2/12], taking the total number of deaths in mainland China to 1,367. It stood at 1,113 on Wednesday [2/12].

“Across mainland China, there were 15,152 new confirmed infections on Wednesday [2/12], bringing the total number of cases to 59,805, a significant jump that's sure to raise concerns about the true scale of the epidemic in China… The total number as of Wednesday [2/12] was 44,653.” NBCNews.com, February 13^th. Chinese New Year was extended. Entire factories, even industries, were shut down. Conventions, sporting events, festivals and celebrations were postponed or cancelled. Many workers were told to stay home, some recalled, some sent back home again. By February 14^th, the reported number of infected in the PRC rose to a confirmed 66 thousand.

Hordes of buyers worldwide were clamoring for surgical masks, which are in short supply. Even though there is little evidence that wearing such a mask has any real impact on preventing the wearer from getting COVID-19. In parts of China (and elsewhere), not wearing such a mask could get you in jail posthaste.

Biases and prejudices exploded the world over. People in unaffected areas far from China who were or looked ethnically Chinese were shunned. One ship with diagnosed passengers on board was denied docking privileges in five separate ports. The Chinese, and hence the global, economy is getting slammed by the shutdowns, exclusions and failure to end the epidemic as quickly as hoped. The stupidity of the spreading fear is underscored as sales of Corona beer plummeted.

The higher numbers are less a product of accelerating infection than an improvement in diagnostic techniques, primarily in the Peoples’ Republic. “The spike came after officials in Hubei province, hardest hit by the outbreak, started using new technology to diagnose coronavirus cases.

“Hubei had previously only allowed infections to be confirmed by RNA tests, which can take days to process. RNA, or ribonucleic acid, carries genetic information allowing for the identification of organisms like viruses… But it has now begun counting cases that have been clinically diagnosed.

“While the Hubei health commission didn't spell out the new diagnosis method used, Reuters reported, citing the country's National Health Commission, that computerized tomography (CT) scans, which can reveal lung infections, are being used to confirm infection… As a result, another new 14,840 cases were reported in Hubei on Thursday [2/13], up from 2,015 new cases reported across mainland China a day earlier.

“The new diagnosis method will help patients get treatment as early as possible and improve the success rate of their treatment, the Hubei health commission said… However, the new testing methodology is only being used in Hubei province, Chinese officials said.” NBCNews.com.

And while there is no solid evidence that the epidemic is nearing a clear end, “Ahead of the newly reported rise in cases in Hubei, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday [2/12] the number of cases of infection in China had stabilized, but it was too early to say the epidemic was slowing… ‘This outbreak could still go in any direction,’ WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing in Geneva Wednesday [2/12].” NBCNews.com. This too shall pass, with death and devastation perhaps forgotten, perhaps seared into our collective memory.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder exactly what lessons we learn from these increasingly frequent epidemics and what exactly will change going forward… if anything.

Is Hong Kong Over?

Democracy is getting slammed the world over. The impeachment farce and the plutarchy-building Citizens United in the United States. The rise of elected autocrats (“men above the law”) even in Western Europe (e.g., Hungary, Poland, etc… maybe here?), the surge of exclusionary “nationalism” everywhere. Populist wagons circling. Blaming others. The obvious failure of China’s “One Nation, Two Systems” experiment in Hong Kong. All accelerated by global conflict, massive forced migration/exodus from harm, amplified by increasingly intolerable impacts from global warming.  

Narrow-focusing on China, a nation that has so far capitalized on increasing and self-imposed isolation and withdrawal from multinational coordination by the United States, we are witnessing another superpower beginning to face a litany of unexpected negative consequences. To justify and expand its “linkage to China” Belt and Road initiative, China must continue to lead by example. Over the course of about 30 years, through often-brutal autocratic rule, the Peoples’ Republic has lifted about one billion people out of poverty (plenty still to go) and created the second largest economy on earth.

For developing nations looking for political role models, a rapidly unraveling populist American “democracy” is not an attractive solution anymore. China’s centralized government was able to force progress, even allowing for traditional corruption to continue, and generate the largest middle class on earth.  China sold its vision in part by touting its willingness to accept the vestiges of the British rules of governance for Hong Kong, technically required by treaty until 2047, within a greater notion of “one China.” Not what new President Xi Jinping has in mind, however.

Unable to impress either already financially successful Hong Kong and Taiwan that the PRC form of governance was a necessary precursor to prosperity, both these regional bodies looked warily at the iron hand of Beijing, not a possible plus for their futures – they are already rich – but as a huge minus when it comes to individual freedom. And the notion of two systems within one China – just looking at the friction (I’m being polite) between a universally-despised Beijing-friendly Hong Kong administration and especially the younger residents of Hong Kong – clearly was a concept that the PRC simply could not accept. Others were clearly watching.

Recent elections in Taiwan have reinforced a “stay independent from the PRC” movement. Hong Kong’s violence and societal depression reinforced a parallel feeling in that captive island city state. But the latest debacle, clearest evidence of fear of letting the masses know the truth and making loyal cadres tow the party line even as people are dying, has been China’s mishandling of the explosion of the coronavirus epidemic. Born in the produce markets of the large, central Chinese city of Wuhan, coronavirus was minimalized by communist leaders who did not want the world to see the PRC as unable to contain a bucolic virus now spreading to human beings. Disinformation abounded.

That virus spread rapidly. It soon surpassed the 2003 SARS epidemic as travelers from Wuhan carried the disease at first to cities within China – resulting in some of the largest quarantine efforts in history – and then to the region… and then to the rest of the world. For Chinese Asia, especially Hong Kong, the global shunning of regional travel and trade, was a kick to the gut. Writing for the February 1^st Los Angeles Times, David Pierson and Tang Wai Yin explain further:

“Henry Ng is used to hearing the familiar refrain of pro-democracy chants after months of demonstrations in Hong Kong… But when he looked outside his apartment window last week, he saw a protest of a different kind. Hundreds of black-clad demonstrators and local residents were locked in a standoff with riot police over plans to convert an adjacent public housing block into a quarantine site for patients infected with the coronavirus from China .

“The confrontation ended with police repelling the crowds with pepper spray, but not before masked protesters threw petrol bombs inside the lobby of the proposed quarters… ‘I wasn’t brave enough to go downstairs, so I just shouted through my window for the police to leave,’ said Ng, a 20-year-old university student who lives in the border town of Fanling with his mother. ‘We don’t want a quarantine site here. It could harm families.’

“After seven months of unrest, the arrival of the pneumonia-like virus in Hong Kong is landing like a gut punch — adding one more layer of volatility to a city racked by a social and political crisis that won’t go away… Hong Kong’s economy, limping from the protests and U.S.-China trade war, now faces the specter of an even greater decline in tourism and retail sales…

“At a time when millions of Hong Kongers are resisting the mainland, the coronavirus and China’s response to it is providing one more reason to demand greater autonomy from Beijing… ‘The coronavirus epidemic sits in the very center of the vortex of anger at an incompetent Hong Kong government, distrust of Beijing, and anti-mainlander xenophobia — all issues that have driven the past seven months of protests in Hong Kong — and, as such, risks becoming a ‘perfect storm’ of discontent,’ said Antony Dapiran, a Hong Kong-based lawyer and author of ‘City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong.’

“Hong Kong has 13 confirmed cases of the virus, which originated from Wuhan, a Chinese city of 11 million in the central province of Hubei, and has spread to 13 countries beyond China… Hong Kong is particularly vulnerable as a major travel hub connected to China through multiple border crossings approachable by air, road, sea and rail. The city’s economy is deeply reliant on those connections — one of the chief reasons Hong Kong’s death toll from the 2003 SARS epidemic was second only to mainland China’s…

“‘The economy is already not good and dying because of the protest movement. The virus is going to make it worse,’ said a 57-year-old catering service worker who provided only her last name, Wong, and has seen business at her company slow to a trickle. ‘I see people wearing masks on the street like when SARS was most severe.’” If the One Nation, Two Systems experiment in Hong Kong spirals to the bottom, if the Hong Kong the world has known for decades is over, exactly what are the ramifications for China?

The lesson for those ready to accept the obvious is clear: any government that can create and sustain fake news as acceptable policy will never serve its people well, no matter any degree of promised prosperity. Where autocrats are above the law, who exactly will protect the people in dire times?

            I’m Peter Dekom, and I fear that too many Americans, averse to recalling history or even watching the lessons in the world around them, are increasingly condemning the United States to repeat those mistakes.

Was $35,000 Too Much to Save Kobe & Friends?

It might not have mattered, but we know it could save lives. It’s called a terrain awareness and warning system, or TAWS, a system that is designed to warn pilots that they are flying dangerously close to the ground. It’s not cheap; average installation cost for this upgrade is about $35,000, and it adds one more element that requires a pilot’s attention. Until 2006, the technology to allow this detection system on helicopters did not exist. It certainly does now. Kobe’s helicopter, flying in very foggy weather on Sunday, January 26^th, might have benefitted from having a TAWS. But it did not have one.

While this seems stupid – to avoid an installation of an obviously important monitoring device – it is a debate that has consumed two federal agencies: one that is concerned with air safety (the National Transportation Safety Board, which inspects all US air crashes) against another that issues regulations for aircraft (the Federal Aviation Administration). As the recent failures at the FAA vis-à-vis the Boeing 737 Max illustrates, it seems that the regulator – consistent with other Trump-appointed regulatory bodies – is way too cozy with the industry it is trying to regulate.

Writing for the January 30^th Los Angeles Times, Adam Elmahrek and Kiera Feldman explain this rift between governmental agencies: “It is not clear that a terrain awareness and warning system, or TAWS, would have prevented the wreck, but National Transportation Safety Board investigators probing the crash’s cause have drawn attention to the chopper’s lack of a warning system.

“‘Certainly, TAWS could have helped to provide information to the pilot on what terrain the pilot was flying in,’ NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference Tuesday [1/28].

“The NTSB has argued for a decade and a half that the systems prevent crashes and should be mandatory in helicopters that can accommodate six or more passengers, such as the Sikorsky S-76 that carried Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others.

“But its efforts have been turned aside by another government agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, which sets rules for aircraft.

“The NTSB began pushing for a TAWS requirement after a 2004 helicopter crash into the Gulf of Mexico that killed 10.

“That crash involved a Sikorsky model very similar to the one in which Bryant and the copter’s other occupants died. According to the board, the two pilots in the 2004 crash were flying on a ‘dark night’ and failed to recognize their descent and correct it, resulting in a ‘controlled flight’ into the ocean.

“During the investigation, the NTSB concluded that TAWS could have alerted the pilots to the water below, giving them time to avoid the fatal plunge and ‘save the lives of all aboard.’

“A subsequent board review of 55 previous helicopter and plane crashes determined that 17 of them might have been prevented by TAWS.

“In 2000, the FAA required airplanes carrying six or more passengers to be outfitted with TAWS. At the time, the technology wasn’t workable on helicopters, but it had improved enough by 2006 to be required on those aircraft as well, the NTSB said.

“Some in the aviation industry balked at requiring TAWS, saying that the technology was mostly unproven.

“In comments submitted to the FAA in response to one proposal, some criticized the system as a ‘distraction in the cockpit’ that ‘doesn’t give the pilot the ability to see/avoid bad weather.’ Cost was also an issue. The systems can run $35,000, with operators losing additional revenue during the installation process.

“The FAA made TAWS mandatory for air ambulances in 2014, but the system remains voluntary in commercial helicopters. The NTSB called the decision ‘unacceptable.’

“The FAA said in a prepared statement that commercial helicopters operate in populated areas ‘relying on a robust network of routes and landing facilities.’”

We seem to have a government that is more concerned with inconvenience and cost for businesses than the safety of its citizens. Dumping toxins in public waterways is OK. Ramping back the dirtiest fossil fuel on earth (coal) as a power generating mainstay is OK. Global warming? So what or it’s a myth. Letting Boeing set the inspection parameters for its own new aircraft is OK. A few massive crashes later. Oh well. And letting commercial helicopter companies save a few bucks, that’s OK too, even if we lose a few people along the way. Get better insurance!

Kobe was an institution, an icon, a force to be reckoned with. By no means perfect, he was a man who tried and tried hard. Those sharing that Sunday flight with him were all engaged in supporting their families. There is honor for all of them. So, in memory of one of the greatest sportsmen who ever lived, may his death and the passing of those with him including three 13-year-old girls not have been in vain. Wake up FAA! For all of us. Mandate the TAWS for all commercial aircraft accordingly.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and sorry for the inconvenience federal regulators, but people actually do matter.

Friends in Peril

I have so many friends whose children, adults now, have moved to Israel. Studies show that Israeli citizens are among the most satisfied with their lives, despite the occasional hardships and increasingly frequent spates of violence from angry Palestinians, from individual terrorist acts to shelling missiles from a very decimated and hopeless Gaza. It has to be unnerving living in a country surrounded by hostile neighbors, especially when the standard of living and quality of life for Jewish citizens mirrors life in most economically advanced western democracies… and the Palestinians within Israel’s borders as well those in adjacent states living in an impoverished third world. I fear for them and the millions of other Israeli Jews surrounded by danger every day.

Israel, one of America’s most steadfast and reliable allies, is rationally concerned with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction into the region, particularly those with nuclear force. To some historians, it’s just a matter of time before some catastrophic attack ignites Israel and surrounding nations in Armageddon, which is the dream of so many evangelicals who believe that that holocaust will trigger the Second Coming of Christ, and the Rapture that will only spare true Christian believers. It just might kill millions without any offsetting religious relief, however. To Donald Trump, his severe support of hardline policies is his evangelical mandate.

Israel remains an amalgamation of Jews from all over the world, many bringing expertise and education to a nation of technological excellence, where astounding inventions and patents are the rule. One has to ask the question of whether political policy should embrace hardline military and ethnic superiority that defines the current government of Israel, one that increasingly tells local Palestinians that they are living a life of dwindling hope and opportunities as second and third class “citizens.” Is growing the population of Arab locals with nothing left to lose truly in Israel’s best interest? Is rubbing the Arab world’s face in that degradation making Israel stronger… or increasingly vulnerable.

Knowing that Israel’s popularity with the rest of the world, based on the litany of United Nations General Assembly votes against them, places them as one of the most despised countries in the world – with pretty much the United States (itself losing power and influence by the day) as its only significant ally – one has to wonder if this growing isolation protects Israeli Jews… or puts them more at risk. When people have nothing left to lose, do they cower in abased submission and accept their fate… or do they explode with murder and retribution on their minds? Are long-term Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and his “whatever you want Bibi” American mega-supporter Trump – and their hardline policies – really good for Israel or could they go down in history as the fomenters of anger, retribution and the rise of conflict that just could destroy this precious if not precarious state?

I see too many who consider questioning Israeli policies as evidence of antisemitism. Conflating support of Judaism with support of Israel “right or wrong” suggests that pro-Israeli Zionism is necessary to avoid that antisemitic label. Very much like stating that opposing Donald Trump, as the President would have you believe, is both unpatriotic and un-American. But just as there is opposition among Israeli Jews to their government’s hardline policies – believing that violence and intolerance breeds resistance and more violence, a cycle that seems to be escalating – there are many local American Jews who are watching what appear to be pro-Israeli policies that are only making the longer term prospects for Israeli security more vulnerable. I agree. I believe that history will show that the Trump-Netanyahu cable was toxic to regional peace and security.

The United States has engaged in gratuitous, one-sided gifts to Israel’s “under indictment” Prime Minister, who is struggling for his political life. Our policies are most definitely an administration attempt to influence Netanyahu’s chances of reelection, tying American support to his coattails. The latest foray – Jared Kushner’s 180 page, January 28^th “Deal of the Century” blueprint for settlement of the Palestinian conflict as detailed in my recent Peace without Freedom or Dignity blog – has been rejected by local Palestinians and lambasted by regional Arab leaders. Everyone (even Trump and Netanyahu) knows the plan is, was and always will be dead on arrival. It was a political document, obviously created by a post-impeachment president to cater to his evangelical base, an electioneering effort… not a serious attempt to diffuse escalating regional tensions.

Do those Israelis most impacted by this conflict – those living in Jewish settlement on the Palestinian West Bank – believe that this Netanyahu/Trump cabal reflected in this proposal will truly bring peace? Noga Tarnopolsky, writing for the February 5^th Los Angeles Times lets us know that these locals are aware that this proposal will not be implemented in whole or in part… and that, effectively, nothing has really changed: “On these contested hills where rosemary and thistle grow, Tatzi Cahn does not expect President Trump’s recent Middle East peace proposal to significantly change her life on land she and other Jewish settlers regard as a biblical birthright.

“Unlike Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who view the plan they unveiled last week as a windfall for Israel’s West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, she does not believe it will significantly affect her life. But it does offer her legitimacy.

“‘The best thing was Trump declaring that basically, he recognizes the history of the rights of the Jewish people over the land of Israel,’ said Cahn, a mother of nine. ‘Yes, we have a strong army,’ she added, glancing toward the rocky landscape, ‘but when you think about it, it is a miracle that we are here ... the few against the many.’… The political extension of Trump’s recognition, giving Israel permission to annex the West Bank or parts of it, has outraged Palestinians, who make up nearly 87% of the territory’s population of 3 million.

“Although the plan — presented as ‘a vision to improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people’ — foresees a four year-settlement freeze on a few communities, it is widely seen as Trump’s stamp of approval for Israeli expansionism. That prospect, according to Palestinian leaders, the Arab League and the European Union, destroys any hope of a two-state solution.

“The views of Cahn, 43, reflected the sentiment of many settlers who fear that international attention focusing on the plight of West Bank Palestinians, who have lived under Israeli military rule for 52 years, will result in Jews being pushed from their homes. The Trump plan calls for no Israeli or Palestinian to be uprooted.

“Although Cahn said crucial details, such as possible settlement evacuations and the Palestinian right to self-determination, ‘remain too complex,’ Trump’s recognition of Jewish links to this ancient land are a vindication.” Want to know how local Palestinians feel? Listen to rhetoric of their rejection, the tone… and see the seething anger in their eyes. They are very close to becoming a mass of human beings in that most dangerous of categories: those who believe that they have nothing left to lose. With support from regional Arab neighbors, that that cannot be good for Israel’s security and future.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and perhaps finding a path to hope with dignity would be better for Israel’s long-term security than rubbing Palestinian faces in the mire of their powerlessness.

Peace without Freedom or Dignity

"The Palestinian leadership have to ask themselves a question: Do they want to have a state?

Do they want to have a better life? If they do, we have created a framework for them to have it, and we are going to treat them in a very respectful manner. If they don't, they're going to screw up another opportunity like they've screwed up every other opportunity that they've ever had in their existence."

Jared Kushner, architect of the Trump Administration Palestinian “Peace through Prosperity” Plan, January 2020

On January 28^th, at the White House, President Donald Trump stood alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a criminal indictment, to present their fleshed out offer to Palestinians to settle their conflict within Israel. 180 pages of details. No Palestinian officials were in attendance at the revealing of a plan which, consistent with the Trump’s proclivity to label everything as the “best” or the “worst,” was called a Trump-self-serving Deal of the Century. But even a conservative Wall Street Journal label the proposal obviously “pro-Israeli."

To Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, it was the Slap of the Century, rejected that proposal the day before it was formally presented: "We reject it, and we demand the international community not be a partner to it because it contradicts the basics of international law and inalienable Palestinian rights… It is nothing but a plan to finish off the Palestinian cause.”

Much of the broad scope of this plan had been revealed in earlier administration outlines, effectively an invitation for economic investment into Palestine, hardly guaranteed, in exchange for a program – subject to total US and Israeli approval – that could result in a limited Palestinian state. A bribe? We will pay you to give up your hopes for true independence. And although Arab states ostensibly did not oppose the proposal, not wanting to alienate the American President, behind the scenes, no Arab state was remotely prepared to get behind this US/Israeli plan. Effectively, this plan looks more like a domestic election campaign program from two politicians: Trump and Netanyahu. Not a peace plan with a scintilla of practical reality.

The February 2^nd Politico.com noted that this was a “a proposal for a potential Palestinian state to be created four years down the road, with a section of East Jerusalem as its capital. It included a map that ceded some of the territory seized by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967 to Israel. That map also included land swaps that would shift communities that have been within Israel’s borders since 1948 to the potential Palestinian state… Plans for economic assistance for Palestinians were detailed as well.

“Critics of the plan noted it placed extensive conditions on Palestinians that reduce the possibility that they’d ever get a state — and would then limit the ability of Palestinians to govern themselves going forward. Israelis, having seen previous peace plans fall on deaf ears over the decades, countered that Palestinians could not hope for a resolution if they treated every proposal as immediately dead in the water.”

Reading Kushner’s above lambasting of the very Palestinian leadership that is necessary to accept and implement any peace plan, it appears clear that this is not a real attempt to secure a genuine peaceful settlement to a very difficult regional conflict. It seems all show for Netanyahu’s dwindling constituency in Israel and Trump’s pro-Israeli evangelical base. No one expects that this plan has the remotest chance of being implemented. No one.

Palestine has declared that recent US actions – effectively siding with Netanyahu in the rejection of the international notion of a genuine two-state solution, recognizing religiously sensitive Jerusalem as the legitimate capital of Israel (moving our embassy from Tel Aviv), recognition of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian-dominant West Bank, formally accepting that the Golan Heights were now permanent Israeli territory (a completely gratuitous statement that added nothing other than a pro-Israeli statement), etc. – have effectively disqualified the United States from functioning as a mediator in this Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas requested and got an emergency meeting of the Arab League for Saturday, February 1^st. At that Cairo gathering, Abbas threatened “to cut security ties with both Israel and the U.S. in a speech at an Arab League meeting in which he denounced the White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… The U.S. plan would grant the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank, while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of East Jerusalem...

“Abbas said he told Israel and the U.S. that ‘there will be no relations with them, including the security ties’ after the deal that Palestinians say heavily favors Israel… The Western-backed Palestinian leadership has been under mounting pressure from ordinary Palestinians and its rivals in the Islamic militant group Hamas to cut off security ties with Israel and the U.S. or even dismantle the increasingly unpopular Palestinian Authority…

“Under the long-awaited proposal Trump unveiled Tuesday [1/28] , in return for concessions in the West Bank and Jordan Valley, the Palestinians would be granted statehood in Gaza, scattered chunks of the West Bank and some neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem, all linked together by a new network of roads, bridges and tunnels… Israel would control the state’s borders and airspace and maintain overall security authority. Critics say this would rob Palestinian statehood of any meaning…

“The Palestinian leader said he refused to take President Trump’s phone calls and messages ‘because I know that he would use that to say he consulted us…. I will never accept this solution,’ Abbas said. ‘I will not have it recorded in my history that I have sold Jerusalem.’ He said the Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in East Jerusalem. He received long applause.

“Abbas said the Palestinians wouldn’t accept the U.S. as a sole mediator in any negotiations with Israel. He said they would go to the United Nations Security Council and other world and regional organizations to ‘explain our position.’… The Arab League’s head, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said that the proposal “does not help achieve peace and a just solution” and that the Palestinians reject it.” Los Angeles Times, February 2^nd.

Both Netanyahu and Trump have their extensive cadres of “whatever we say” supporters, followers who find deep satisfaction in hardlines, insults and ultimatums, however unworkable the underlying programs might be. But these positions cater to the worst in us and bait those most impacted into exactly the opposite of what the words suggest.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and this appears to be a “peace plan” that very likely will have a most opposite and violent actual result.

Polarization & Evangelical Christians

There is a notion running through the liberal factions in American politics that Republicans’ catering to an ultra-conservative evangelical constituency will be their death knell, that younger voters are and will continue to desert the evangelical movement in droves. Yes, younger voters are vastly more sensitive against those who embrace climate change denial or minimization. Yes, younger voters are better educated on average and have more tolerance of diversity – from sexual preferences to ethnic and racial differences. Yes, the younger majority does not favor eliminating abortions. Yes, organized religion in the United States is witnessing a trend away from those traditions into more a spiritual or less formalize approach to God. But NO, that section of American faith that adheres to evangelical beliefs appears to be rock solid and not showing much in the way of long-term erosion.

That single bloc of evangelical voters, those who will follow Donald Trump into hellfire if that is where he wants to lead them, has withstood the test of time. While American Catholics and mainstream Protestants have watched their numbers dwindle, American evangelicals can smile in smug knowledge that their constituency, now quite political and unified in their direction, is a strong as ever… and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. And while there are elements within the evangelical community strongly opposed to a dramatic and unempathetic movement that dominates that vision of God, the reality is that most evangelicals are unified in a very angry view of the change around them… and the diversity that threatens their vision. But they are and will remain a force to reckon with.

“Evangelicals definitely have problems to address, but they aren’t the Christian group in danger of extinction in the United States—that’s mainline Protestants… Many have spoken as if evangelicals are disappearing from the American religious landscape. According to analysis of the data from the General Social Survey, however, the share of Americans who attend an evangelical Protestant church has been consistent for the past 20 years.

“In 1996, 25 percent of Americans attended an evangelical Protestant church. By 2016, the number had only fallen one percentage point to 24 percent… Since 1972, evangelical church attenders have grown from 18 percent of the population. After reaching 30 percent in 1993, the share has hovered around 25 percent, ranging from 27 to 23 percent.

“Meanwhile, attendance at mainline Protestant churches has suffered a precipitous decline… In the mid-1970s, close to 30 percent of Americans attended a mainline Protestant church. After decades of membership loss, only 10 percent said they attended in 2016.

“Since 1990, there has not been a single year of growth for mainline Protestant church attendance… Corresponding to the mainline drop has been the rapid growth among the religiously unaffiliated Americans, also known as the nones.” Aaron Earls writing for the 3/22/18 FactsandTrends.net, which is also the source of the above chart.

In Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism, there is a growing schism between older, doctrinaire followers of their faith and the inherently more worldly, more liberal younger members of society they are trying to recruit or hold. The Catholic church under Pope Francis is witnessing conflicts of the possibility of allowing married priests, particularly in regions of the earth where there are few if any traditional priests to lead services. Battles over birth control, the realities of generally acceptable premarital sex, gender identity and sexual preference, same sex marriage and the role of wealth among the faithful continue to tear through these more traditional religious establishments, a reflection of changing times and the difference between older and younger values.

Protestant ministries are trying to create relevance for younger worshippers, especially those with families of younger children. Efforts to modernize churches, add music and video screens and update their sermons and even the main service itself, often antagonize the over-60 crowd that likes their church the way they’ve always experienced it. So, it is with the Grove United Methodist Church in the Minneapolis suburb of Cottage Grove, closing for a major remodel – and a younger pastor –that forces the faithful to a parallel house of worship eight miles away. For changes they don’t want.

Jenny Javie, writing for the February 6^th Los Angeles Times, continues the story: “Some complained of age discrimination. Others accused the minister of departing from biblical teaching, a charge he denies… ‘They’re kicking us out of our church!’ said Cheryl Gackstetter, 63, who has attended the Grove United Methodist Church in the rapidly developing city of Cottage Grove for 10 years. ‘God would never do that. It’s unkind. It’s unchristian.’

“The fallout between church leaders and lay members of this Midwestern church lays bare the sort of wrenching decisions that religious institutions across the nation face as they struggle to bring new generations into the fold. While some congregants feel left behind, church leaders insist they do not seek to exclude anyone, but simply want to save an ailing church from extinction… At heart, the battle involves competing visions of the church. Is it a place to engage in cherished rituals of worship and fellowship or a place to convert new followers of Christ?

“As U.S. churches grapple with a sharp decline in attendance — a recent Gallup poll found that the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque plummeted from 70% in 1999 to 50% in 2018 — many church leaders suggest it cannot be both.

“‘Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,’ said the Rev. Dan Wetterstrom, 59, who leads the two campuses that make up Grove United Methodist Church. ‘This isn’t going to work if we do what we’ve always done.’

“As fewer Americans say they have any religious affiliation, and even those who identify as religious are less likely to attend services, a growing number of churches have adopted a ‘relaunch’ strategy to attract new members. Often, this involves hiring professionals who temporarily turn off the lights — a process known as ‘going dark’ — in order to redesign and rebrand religious facilities for fresh, usually more youthful, target audiences. When reopened, the places of worship often feature updated lighting, projection screens, sound systems and child-care options.

“‘Relaunches will no doubt continue to cause a stir in many denominations and established churches,’ said Greg Wiens, the founder and chief strategist for Healthy Growing Churches, a company that offers church coaching and consulting services, and coauthor of ‘Dying to Restart,’ a book that offers tips and solutions for ailing churches to successfully die and be reborn. ‘Our prayer is that it can be done well and with grace.’”

Whenever a faith maintains that it, and it alone, has an exclusive access to God, where it tells the world that they alone possess the “true path,” that is an open door for the politically manipulative to convert passionate religiosity into dangerous autocracy at the expense of everybody else. Even for a political manipulator that is not himself or herself religious. It is also a signal to groups that may not share the relevant religious vision but embrace the likely result to forge an alliance. That has been true since the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the ISIS jihad and the Iranian Shiite theocracy.

For Americans, the message is abundantly clear: assuming the republic survives – which in itself is a significant and perhaps unwarranted assumption – polarization is a longer-term issue for the United States, one that cannot be cured by a couple of elections to change the landscape and our basic values. It may not even flow as older leaders are replaced in a normal generational transition. Indeed, if a liberal wind blows new leaders to the top, what exactly will that do to those factions – with their “unique truth” – opposed to that change and solid in both their beliefs… and their numbers?

            I’m Peter Dekom, and do we live in a new era where tolerance and democracy simply cannot coexist with the immutable beliefs of significant embedded constituencies dedicated solely to their contradictory vision?

Social Insecurity

“Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security…

They want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it on Medicaid. And we can’t do that.

And it’s not fair to the people that have been paying in for years.”

“Hillary Clinton is going to destroy your Social Security and Medicare…

I am going to protect and save your Social Security and your Medicare.”

Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election campaign

“Entitlements ever be on your plate?”

CNBC’s Joe Kernen at the World Economic Forum in Davos (1/22/2020), addressing Social Security, Medicare, etc.

“At some point they will be. We have tremendous growth. We’re going to have tremendous growth.

This next year I — it’ll be toward the end of the year. The growth is going to be incredible.

And at the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that’s actually the easiest of all things,

 if you look, cause it’s such a —” Donald Trump in response

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law in December of 2017. While it eliminated a few loopholes, it reduced the federal corporate tax rate from its 35% level to 21% in one fell swoop. Once again, trickle-down economics failed. There was no surge in hiring. There was no material uptick in building or upgrading American factories or other commercial structures. There were lots of rewards to shareholders from stock buybacks plus lots of mergers and acquisitions. Generally, corporate mergers and acquisitions lead to blending corporate functions, thus eliminating the obvious redundancy: layoffs. The rich got richer. The rest of us got deficits to repay. Huge new increases to our existing massive deficit!

The October 16, 2018 NPR summarized the first-year results from that tax cut: “The federal deficit ballooned to $779 billion in the just-ended fiscal year — a remarkable tide of red ink for a country not mired in recession or war… The government is expected to borrow more than a trillion dollars in the coming year, in part to make up for tax receipts that have been slashed by GOP tax cuts.

“Corporate tax collections fell by 31 percent in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, despite robust corporate profits. That's hardly surprising after lawmakers cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21… Income taxes withheld from individuals grew by 1 percent. Overall tax receipts were flat. As a share of the economy, tax receipts shrank to 16.5 percent of GDP, from 17.2 percent the previous year.

“‘The president is very much aware of the realities presented by our national debt,’ said White House budget director Mick Mulvaney… He insisted that accelerating economic growth will eventually help fill the deficit hole, though so far there's little evidence that growth is finding its way to government coffers.” It never has, but the deficit continues to bloom upwards.

So, how to reduce federal spending, cut federal programs, to support this massive unnecessary tax cut that truly only benefitted the richest in the land? Given the GOP’s proclivity to deregulate, their hostility to so-called “entitlements” (even though earned by those receiving retirement benefits… by paying into the system), as acknowledged in Donald Trump’s opening quotes above, and notwithstanding a once-immutable GOP aversion to incurring deficits, their choices to rein in the deficit focused on cutting “entitlements”: food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, student loans, etc. In short, we need poor folks and middle-class Americans to bear the burden of handing the richest Americans a permanent windfall, exacerbating the worst income inequality in the developed world even more.

As the above Davos quote confirms and notwithstanding his campaign pledges (also above) to the contrary, Donald Trump is totally open to continue to review and reduce social programs. You can always tell when someone is about to attack such established programs. They just have to call that program part of creeping socialism, and the ears, particularly of older Americans still smarting from decades of anti-communist policies, perk up. That socialism has a completely different meaning: government versus private ownership of all businesses, farms and often even homes – falls on deaf ears. Things like public schools, safety nets for those in need, Social Security, etc. are social programs, which exist at some significant level in every so-called capitalistic nation on earth. That is not “socialism.” Sorry, conservatives. It’s called “English.”

Michael Hiltzik, writing his OpEd for the January 24^th Los Angeles Times, provides further evidence of the President’s/GOP’s intentions for the coming year: “Cutting benefits has been part of Republican orthodoxy for decades, but the drumbeat has gotten louder. In September, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) talked about the need to go ‘behind closed doors’ to reform Social Security, because it’s clear that the American public won’t stand for it being done in the open. A year earlier, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) labeled Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — so-called entitlements — ‘the real drivers of the debt’ and called for them to be adjusted ‘to the demographics of the future.’

“It’s worth noting that proposals to cut social insurance benefits are certain to be dead on arrival as long as Democrats control at least one chamber of Congress, as they do currently. Indeed, the Democratic Party, through its representatives in Congress and its candidates for president, has shown itself to be strongly in favor of expanding and increasing Social Security benefits, not cutting them back.

“Trump still can do a lot of damage to these programs by starving their administrative budgets or tinkering with administrative rules, as he’s proposed to do with Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance.

“As I’ve reported before, Trump’s cavalier approach to these programs isn’t really a secret… His proposed 2020 budget would have pared as much as $1.5 trillion from Medicaid, partially by repealing the Medicaid expansion enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act, and partially by converting the program to a block grant to states — a system that destroys the program’s ability to match funding with costs and results in a massive shortfall over time.

“Trump’s budget would gut the nation’s disability programs by $84 billion. At least $10 billion of that would come from Social Security disability through changes in eligibility rules. An additional $400 million would come out of the Social Security Administration’s administrative budget, which is already strapped for cash, in the next year alone. Beneficiaries could expect more busy signals on the phone lines and longer waits at Social Security offices.

“In October, Trump signed an executive order bristling with stealth attacks on Medicare. Buried within the order was a provision that would destroy Medicare by driving its costs to an unsustainable level. He also proposed to turn more of the program over to commercial insurers. As I wrote then, ‘Put simply, he’s proposing to privatize Medicare.’”

Are we really so callous, so lacking in empathy, that we truly want to cut programs for the less fortunate to embellish the wealth of the richest people in the United States? Are we really so twisted that we are willing to take away accrued benefits for the elderly, who paid into the systems for years, because Republicans want to shift the responsibility for paydown of the deficit incurred to make the rich so much richer to those at the bottom and at the middle? Who are we?!

            I’m Peter Dekom, and if Donald J Trump is still a presidential candidate in November, and if any of the above means anything to you, VOTE!

Government Borrowing

There are times when a government spends beyond its means that are fully justified. Fighting a war is at the top of the list – but that kind of expenditure mandates concomitant austerity. WWII was the architype for that kind of appropriation. It was accompanied by the sale of war bonds as well as higher taxes, collection of needed metals and the rationing of critical materials (including metal, some foodstuffs and fuel). Economists refer to this process of wartime allocations and accompanying austerity as “guns or butter.” Without this two-fold process, what economists admonish as an unsustainable “guns and butter,” chronic growth-sapping deficits rise without concomitant offsets in underlying values and assets.

We started our unhealthy “guns and butter” practice of all borrowing to fight a war with no austerity – even lowering taxes for the rich under the thoroughly discredited “trickled-down/supply side economic theory – during the Vietnam War, continuing right into the recent wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Our deficit exploded, sapping continued government spending with the massive interest charges the US has to pay on its borrowings.

There are other instances where borrowing beyond your budgetary limits is justified. One, where the money is literally invested in assets that increase productivity or provide innovation-directed research, carries an inherent return on investment that should more than offset these costs with carried interest. Infrastructure expansion, repair and upgrades. Scientific and medical research that stimulates new industries and jobs. Education that provides for a much more productive workforce and reduced reliance on government welfare programs. Even investing in healthcare provides dividends. Healthier people in the workforce. Eliminating wasteful medical bankruptcies. Job creation in healthcare sector. Eliminating the cost of caring for those who have fallen between the crakes, a very expensive alternative.

Not to mention the competitive advantage in nations with national health insurance. We lost tons of carmaking jobs to Canada in the mid-1960s and years following after their implementation of universal healthcare. While US/Canadian wage rates were comparable, Canada’s subsidized health care saved US carmakers $1500/$2000 per vehicle. Today, “Automotive manufacturing is one of Canada’s largest industrial sectors, accounting for 10% of manufacturing GDP and 23% of manufacturing trade.” Wikipedia.

The last justifiable arena where government borrowings of this type include stimulus, generally in response to natural disasters or massive economic disruption. Fixing natural disasters reinstates prior productivity. Large expenditures of economic stimulus can reduce pressures from depressions or severe recessions, or fissures in the manufacturing (think: major carmakers), agriculture (think: dustbowl) and financial core (think: the depression of the 1930s and the recent great recession after 2007). Make-work (TVS, CCC, etc.) after the 1929 fall generated the massive electrical power generating capacity needed to win WWII and kick the post-war manufacturing sector into overdrive.

The 2017 corporate tax cut, however, fit none of the above paradigms. When too many years of guns and butter meld with policymakers who refuse to give up the notion that “give money to the rich and it will trickle down to everyone else” works (it never did), you get massive tax cuts that provide statistics that make it all look good but a reality that reflects huge increases at the top of the economic ladder – hence bringing the average performance levels up – but impose a crushing burden on the rest, amplifying income inequality the likes of which has never been seen in the United States over its entire history. Lots of jobs, but people are having to work harder to stay afloat with less buying power… or accepting sub-par jobs or part-time gig employment well below their expectations. All this as costs for food, housing, education and healthcare continued to rise much faster than wage rates for most Americans.

And federal budget deficits have exploded: “The U.S. government’s budget deficit ballooned to nearly $1 trillion in 2019, the Treasury Department announced Friday [1/24], as the United States’ fiscal imbalance widened for a fourth consecutive year despite a sustained run of economic growth. The deficit grew $205 billion, or 26 percent, in the past year.

“The country’s worsening fiscal picture runs in sharp contrast to President Trump’s campaign promise to eliminate the federal debt within eight years. The deficit is up nearly 50 percent in the Trump era. Since taking office, Trump has endorsed big spending increases and steered most Republicans to abandon the deficit obsession they held during the Obama administration.” Washington Post, October 25^th. In 2018, we spent 1.6% of our entire GDP on federal deficit interest alone… without reducing that deficit a penny. The entire federal budget for that year was $4.1 trillion. It’s heading to $4.6 trillion this fiscal year.

“The U.S. government’s [one-year] budget deficit is projected to reach $1.02 trillion in 2020, according to a report released Tuesday [1/28] by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, as the federal government continues to spend much more than it collects in tax revenue.  “A combination of the 2017 tax cuts and a surge in new spending has pushed the deficit wider. This year would mark the first time since 2012 that the deficit breached $1 trillion, a threshold that has alarmed some budget experts because deficits typically contract — not expand — during periods of sustained economic growth… With rising annual deficits, the total debt held by the government is also projected to grow dramatically, from about $18 trillion in 2020 to $31 trillion in 2030, according to the CBO’s projections. The U.S. government must pay interest on this debt to keep borrowing money.” Washington Post, January 28^th. And you thought Republicans hated deficits?! They do, so they are about to try and cut programs that do not benefit the rich to make up for their reckless fiscal policies.

In its Trillion-dollar deficits, again editorial (January 29^th), the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board explains the deficit crush that we face by reason of failed Congressional policies, efforts that have flown in the face of the most basic economic rules: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued yet another warning Tuesday that the federal government is heading down a dangerous fiscal path, racking up debt at an alarming rate. The CBO projects that deficits will average $1.3 trillion a year over the coming decade, with the economy settling into steady but sluggish growth. That’s the most disturbing thing about the report: the expectation that giant deficits will be allowed to continue even when there’s no recession driving up spending on federal safety net programs and causing tax revenue to plummet.

It’s not inherently bad for the federal government to borrow money; extra spending by the government can help stimulate the economy during a downturn. But sustained and heavy deficit spending can have the opposite effect, raising borrowing costs and slowing GDP growth. The CBO projects that the fastest growing part of the federal budget will be interest payments on the rising debt — spending that delivers no tangible benefit for taxpayers while leaving less money for programs that do.

Rising healthcare costs and an aging population are contributing to the federal budget mess. But the problem has been exacerbated by the large and irresponsible tax cuts Republicans pushed through in 2017. The cuts were sold as a way to trigger a sustained surge in economic growth; instead, GDP bumped up only briefly, held back in part by the tariffs President Trump slapped on a broad array of imports.

We’ve seen this movie before. Some supposed fiscal conservatives will demand more tax cuts to try to jump-start faster growth (in fact, Trump and House Republicans floated just such an idea before the 2018 election and again last year). Others will blame the problem on federal spending and demand cuts — not to the military and security programs that Trump has vastly expanded, not to the vast tax giveaways and subsidies, but to the safety net programs the administration is already trying to restrain.

Slashing programs such as Medicaid and food stamps to help pay for the GOP tax cuts would be redistributing wealth in the worst way — from the impoverished to the well-to-do. The right answer starts with lawmakers rolling back the tax-cut and spending excesses of the Trump administration. They can then work on a longer-term plan to bring spending and revenue back into line.

Such policies continue to reward the rich, and the economic markers that reflect this rise in incomes for the wealthiest are reflected in stock market values and the GDP, while the basic unemployment rate excludes workers who have given up (as in the coal and rust belts) and does not reflect the overall per capita income loss for working Americans do to lower pay and higher costs of living. Politicians who want to take credit for “growth” and “economic health” can pick and choose which number they can use to “justify their success.” A slight drilling down into the numbers says otherwise. For the rich, the best of times. For the rest, not remotely.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and we have gotten so good at lying to each other with manipulated statistics that finding truth appears to be relegated to the very “experts” so many Americans now hold in complete disdain.