War!

  

At the end of World War II, the countries of Western Europe were in ruins. A xenophobic, egotistical believer in nationalism and white superiority had gained control of the fledgling democracy.

Germany created a war machine with the simple objective of taking over Europe, creating a home for the Aryan race, and getting rid of, literally, those of Jewish or African descent. It nearly succeeded.

With the help of the new world, England, France, and Russia brought the warmongering nation to heel at a cost of billions of dollars and millions of lives. A new world order was desperately needed.

 Then, never trusting Russia, many Western European nations, the U.S.A., and Canada created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO.

The Eastern European nations formed the Soviet Union, which increased distrust of them, and with good reason. What Churchill described as the Iron Curtain between the East and the West became literal when East Germany erected a wall between itself and its familial neighbors.

Article 5 of the NATO Charter states that an act of war against a member in Europe or North America is considered an attack against all. The only time it was invoked was on 9-11 when the U.S was attacked.

That world order kept peace in Europe for nearly eighty years. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.

Since Ukraine, a former Soviet Republic, was not a member of NATO, the Obama administration essentially did nothing to prevent the takeover. When Russia sent incursions further inland and occupied nearly 20% of Ukraine and shelled the rest, the U.S. sent armaments but ensured that there would be no U.S. boots on the ground. These actions cost billions of dollars; dollars that went to U.S. manufacturers to replenish our supplies.

The first Trump administration tried to gut NATO's effectiveness and saw little value in allied relationships between nations, except on a transactional basis. The second Trump administration has called for an end to the war, but again, on a transactional basis. Its basic approach has been to ask Ukraine to cede the land it has lost and eliminate its military on the condition that Russia not invade any more of the country. Perhaps that is an overgeneralization of the negotiations, but it's within the margin of error.

Essentially, the administration is saying that it is OK to invade another country with no expectation of retribution or costs. Moral standing is missing from that viewpoint. The world order is left to the strong over the weak. Transactional!

Why would you expect an administration to get all worked up over Russia invading another country when it has expressed its intention to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and annex Gaza, turn it into a resort site after expelling all of its citizens? The lack of understanding of international relations, mutual aid pacts, world economics, and a peaceful world order is overwhelming, to say the least. It’s embarrassing, and it causes chaos among nations that don’t know when the next early morning tweet will drop. We must do better.

I suggest a simple solution: if your country invades another country, the world will descend on you with all its might, and you will suffer the consequences for years to come on the stage of world opinion, and your armed forces will be decimated. No matter the cost.

The current administration has announced that it will give the peace process another week or so before it decides that peace is not worth the price or effort. That is not the American way. Russia’s military should be ousted from Ukrainian territory. Full stop. Russia should be ousted from the world economic stage for several years. There has to be a price for bad behavior.

When peace between nations becomes transactional, it increases the likelihood of full-scale wars down the road. Are we willing to say that we will not defend Poland when Russia invades, or if it invades  Estonia, or Lithuania? What about Belarus or Moldova? Hungary or Slovakia? 

Taking Back!

 Someone once said that writing is easy; finding the right words is hard. I’ve struggled with that most of this year.

I’ve written a lot of first paragraphs. Then something else sets me off. I write a new first paragraph on a different subject, and something else sets me off. I seldom get to the second paragraph.

If you can’t guess what and who is setting me off, you haven’t been paying attention.

Project 2025 called for as many massive disruptions to the government as possible, as quickly as possible. The strategy was to overwhelm the legislature, the press, citizens, and foreign allies. It is working, and that isn’t a good thing for the country, its citizens, or the world.

Where to start? 

My current lament is with three interknitted areas: Democracy, Government, and the Presidency.

We have done a reasonable job of being a democratic republic for nearly twenty-five decades. There were some not-so-good times, but we try to make the Union more perfect, even if it often takes too long to right the wrongs.

Democracies, by their nature, are not efficient forms of government; they are meant to be messy. They require constant discussion, forever disagreements, and the best-for-now compromises. The current administration doesn’t believe that axiom, and I’m not sure the out-party does either.

The current poohbah thinks he has the right to govern by fiat, executive decree. His minions do whatever they can to strengthen the role of the executive to the detriment of the legislative and judicial branches.

The Founders were afraid of such a strong leader. After all, they had just won a revolution that ousted a king. They didn’t want another one. We go back once again to Madison, who tells us in The Federalist, No. 47, that “ The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” 

Let us consider the purpose of our government. We all learned and maybe memorized the words, “…to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity …” To accomplish these great aims, Article I of the Constitution gives  the power to make laws and the power of the purse strings to the legislature. Article II instructed the President to execute those laws and spend the money as instructed. With few exceptions, a president doesn’t have the authority to spend money as s/he wishes or make laws by decree. S/He doesn’t have the power to dissolve government departments established by Congress.

It is a simple concept - the government is designed to provide services to the people. Providing for the general welfare includes having a strong public health component. It is responsible for the military to protect the nation. It should bolster the educational strength of the nation, preserve our natural resources and national parks for the pleasure of its citizens. It ensures a wide separation between religions and the state. It encourages basic scientific research, supports the arts. It encourages these institutions. It doesn’t tear them down or tear them apart. The current administration doesn’t believe that axiom.

Many of the Founders warned against strong political parties. But those that governed from the middle have been a strength for our democracy. They generally limit the ambitions of those who want to lead from the edge of the ideological wings. Calvin Coolidge told us that “It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man.” We miss that humility today and suffer the consequences.

While I tend to lean just a tad to the left of center, I’m registered as “No Party Preference,” but I’m wondering if that designation really fits my mood today. I might be a Libertarian for all I know, or even an Independent. The lack of a party affiliation allows me to put “a plague on both their houses,” without guilt.

The Republican Party began its takeover of the nation decades ago, mostly under the radar. They built strong alliances at the county and state levels, where election districts are formed and local laws enacted.

Donald Trump used the party to gain his first term, took over the party with threats of primary challenges for those who didn’t agree with him, accumulated successful oligarchs willing to bend a knee to change power structures in their favor, and smartly identified the angst of the middle class in the heartland who disliked the changing culture and that of the skilled tradesperson who had lost their jobs to other countries. He expertly attracted those who feared their white advantage was ebbing, to the point of carrying guns to a Capitol incursion.

All the while, the Democrat Party smothered its best and brightest in ideological quagmires that required fidelity to positions that never became vote-getting messages. They became the party of the university faculty lounge, the city elites, and the tech workforce. They forgot the farmer, the small business owner, the ones losing jobs to higher-skilled young people. They ran on issues the populist didn’t think affected them, and didn’t raise up the issues that did. The degree of loss at the Electoral College level devastated them to the point that five months later, they still couldn’t identify a leader or a message to take to the voters. They have cowered at meeting constituents in public; too scary for them.

So we are living in a dystopian era governed by a near cultlike group that tears at the strings of our institutions to unravel the very fabric of the nation only to be countered by a floundering opposition party that doesn’t know what to make of itself, whose ancient leaders won’t invite the younger crowd to the table or knows how to reclaim a vestige of recognition among the electorate.

So what are we going to do?

The saving grace seems to be the millions of people who are taking to the streets to protest the tearing apart of the government that they witness daily. It seems there is a big difference between voting for change and seeing destruction. The rise is an effort to remind those who support autocratic and oligarchic style government that, in the end, this is a country of and for We The People.

The Democrats don’t control any branch of the government, so they must rely on the people to rise up and for the judiciary to do its job. The opposition is filing one case after another each day that questions the legal authority of the president’s actions. They are winning most of them. Many cases are already at the appellate level. From there, they will move to the Supreme Court for final determination. Many of the administration’s actions are designed specifically to evaluate the limits of presidential power and seem to assume that SCOTUS will validate their efforts.

But we have this annoying thing called the Constitution, designed to rein in the bad actors in the executive branch and bad laws drawn in the legislative branch. Marbury v. Madison told us that the Constitution says what the Supreme Court says it says. Its power is derived from the willingness of the people to follow its rulings. It doesn’t have an army. But …

If SCOTUS hands down a decision and the executive branch doesn’t obey it, we will have lost our democracy for sure and may never reclaim it. That is a bridge too far, but the first months of the current administration have caused an upheaval unlike any since the days of Andrew Jackson or the Civil War. They want to test the limits of presidential power.

For the generations who lived with the notion that you get up in the morning to face the world and make it better, their ideals are being destroyed before their eyes. 

Where to start?

 Lawmakers listen to their constituents. Let’s make sure that we are heard. They will listen –

·         Especially if they are in the streets. That’s how the civil rights movement succeeded. That is how we can save our democracy.

·         We can pressure the legislature and the administration to change their methods. That involves demanding change and attending town hall meetings with Members of Congress.

·         We can pressure our aged leaders to give the reins to those who can relate to the younger generation’s needs.

·         We can demand that leaders are active on the social media that younger folks use.

·         We can insist that members of Congress hold live Town Halls.

·         We can fill the Letters section of newspapers, digital or pulp, with information about our aims.

·         We can attend opposition rallies.

·         We can  gather in small groups to keep like-minded folks informed and to gin up enthusiasm for action.

 

We the people haven’t been in the streets since the sixties and seventies. Most have forgotten how to do it, and at least two generations have never experienced rising up to demand better from our government for our nation. It will be a steep learning curve, but we can’t let the destruction continue much longer. Nor can we allow the destruction of our economy and the world order to continue.

 

 

 

Coup?

 They say, “It’s good to be the King.”[i] I don’t have royal genes, but I’ve thought about being a dictator or an autocrat, whichever is in fashion when I get around to it.

America hasn’t had a king in a long time, or an autocrat or dictator for that matter. I’m not sure how to become one. Besides, I have a history of people not doing what I tell them to do. If they changed that behavior, I’m sure I would be confused and it would take some getting used to.

But I’m working on it. I study the news every day, I watch TV news, and I read books about autocrats doing away with democracy. I’m getting the hang of it. Every day I see new techniques for taking a democracy and turning it into something else.

Being an autocrat isn’t easy. You tell people what to do and the courts say you can’t do that. But never mind, bugger on. If you tell the folks to do lots of new things each day they won’t be able to keep up with you. That’s what I’ll do. Confound them, hourly, twenty-four-seven. That’s what I’ll do.

Some people will say I’m saving the country; some will say I’m leading a coup. The former are correct and the latter righter. I’m going to coup. This is important stuff, no sense in taking small steps. First, I’ll get rid of the silent “p.” If you don’t say it, why write it. Cou it is.

Here is how you cou. 

Make a lot of money. Hang out with those who make more. Promise them that you will make their bankroll larger. Tell them they can help you get rid of all those annoying regulations and taxes, especially the taxes. You get those rich people to give you a lot of money. The more they give the more you promise them. The more they give the more they ask for more. The money machine goes round and round, with more money and more promises.

Then you tell people how bad their lives are and how you can fix them, even if you have to lie a bit. If the economy is good, tell them it’s terrible. If you lost a reelection, tell them it was rigged. Blame all the problems of the world on people who went to college or live near the coast. Tell the folks how horrible the elites have treated them and that their only salvation is to rely on an alternative group of elites, like oligarchs. Tell them that insurrectionists are patriots and that you will forgive them.

If your rich friends really want influence they can bankroll part of the campaign in return for naming one of their former employees the candidate for vice president.

If your friends are really rich they can finance the campaign with half of a trillion dollars. That gets them a promise that they can take over the workings of the government with impunity. They can send young computer engineers in their white tee shirts and blazer uniforms into every corner of the government and decide who works and who gets fired. If they donate enough money to the cause they will let you bust open the national government’s payment system, the checkbook. They might be able to attempt to shut down agencies they don’t like, take over their computer systems, and release national security information on their new systems which can then be hacked by anyone who wants to know our country’s secrets. (DOGE.gov)

Now you can decide who gets paid and who doesn’t receive their social security check. You can install your own server onto the system so that you can compare your government contract payments to that of your competitors. But hey, it’s only money.

If you are really good at this cou stuff, you sic your baseline supporters on any member of Congress who doesn’t vote the way you want them to vote. That way you can fill your government with highly incompetent department and agency heads who will do your bidding. You can even get Congress to approve a non-medical person to head up the government’s public health system, or a friend of our biggest enemy to head up national security, or a sex offender TV commentator to run the military, or … it just goes on and on.

If you really want to do first-class cou’ing, you make the Department of Justice your personal law firm. You make sure that they only prosecute your enemies, and that they stop prosecuting your friends. The worst that could happen is that a bunch of first-class legal beagles will resign in protest, which most people will forget about in a few days or weeks. Don’t remind them of the Midnight Massacre at the DOJ back in 1973,

A really good cou’er will want to nullify the idea of a free press. The networks and cable channels that are a bit too even-handed in their reporting or who have a leftward bias should be made to believe they will be shut down, their licenses revoked, removed from the White House press pool, hoisted on their own petard, so to speak.

One successful universal strategy is to demonize folks who don’t look like you or your base supporters. Putting a lot of the blame for anyone’s ails on the immigrant population works every time. A well-run expulsion plan to rid the nation of refugees and people of color always works. Folks won’t notice that basic work isn’t getting done; houses are being built, food isn’t being harvested, manufacturing has slowed, and more people are homeless.

To be really effective, you go after the schools. That makes you a great autocrat. Mao showed us how to do it: Get the kids to report on teachers who taught other than the Party line, limit the history that can be taught, encourage blind patriotism, and destroy government agencies related to education.

The nice thing about the cou thing is that it doesn’t take long if it is well thought out in advance. If you can put a hundred of your strong supporters on a project to write the game plan for your cou then you can plan out every day’s activities; call it Project 2025.

[i] Mel Brooks, History of the World, Part 1, 1981

If You Can Keep It!

 In November 2024, the American voters who voted decided that democracy wasn’t  worth the effort.

 We kept our democracy for just short of two hundred and fifty years. But now we are losing it day by day. The majority voted for an autocratic oligarchy. For many, the distrust of government and traditional institutions that keep the country on an even keel was overwhelming. Too many felt left out of the resurging economy, like their moral upbringing was questioned beyond an acceptable level, or just wanted a change. They went for a leader who promised them a better life, who came out fighting at an assassination attempt, and convinced them that the opposition was corrupt. Only one party had a message that resonated at the kitchen table, and their candidate was an expert at producing shows, events, and merch that sold.

 Somewhere along the way, the nation decided that what used to count doesn’t anymore. There was a time when the slightest dalliance by a pol would end a career. It happened to members of Congress mayors and city council members.

 A minority of voters selected a person judged in a court of law of sexual harassment and the leader of a company convicted of cheating on loan applications and tax returns. It no longer matters. We elected a person who urged his followers to attack the capitol and interrupt the counting of votes on January 6, four years ago, people who harmed police officers trying to protect our temple of liberty. It doesn’t seem to matter. MLK asked us to judge people by their character. In America, character has always counted. It doesn’t anymore.

The once and new president has marshaled the angst and fury of the left-outs and the fly-overs and created a form of populism that is popular these days. National populism seldom works. David Brooks says, “Today’s populist ire is directed not at the European establishments living across an ocean but at the American ones on the East and West coasts. Democrats are mistaken if they think they can rebuff Trump by howling the words “fascism” or “authoritarianism,” or by clutching their pearls every time he does something vulgar or immoral.”[i]

I dissent.

Authoritarianism and oligarchy are precisely the factors that can take our democracy down. Democracy isn’t quick and easy and not always efficient but it is better than whatever is in second place.[ii] The opposite of quick and easy governing is never a good outcome.

 Over the last couple of centuries, when high schools taught civics and comparative government, the basic assumption was that America would never be a communist country, an autocratic country, or an oligarchy, so classes concentrated on how to make democracy work best. Well, now what will they teach?

Germany once elected an up-and-coming new chancellor. It took him less than three  months to turn the country into an autocracy that quickly invaded most of Europe and killed millions of Jews. How can such things happen?

They happen easily and often quickly. The elected leader of a strong movement begins by ignoring the institutions that weld the nation, cowers the legislature to their bidding, rules by fiat, finds scapegoats for all their supporter’s perceived troubles, and sends the military to harass the people. Then they forge a justice system that goes after people the leader doesn’t like, shouting about and shutting down the free press. Then they decide who is a good citizen or a bad citizen and continue lying  to the people until the lies are the accepted norms.

These things happened on the first day of the new presidency.

Over a thousand insurrectionists, convicted and sentenced in courts of law, were pardoned on Day One. Civil rights programs were outlawed on Day One. The army was sent to the border on Day One. Executive orders were issued to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution on Day One. The country was pulled out of the World Health Organization on Day One. Hundreds of Executive Orders were issued on Day One that changed the country. Inspectors General were fired so that there would not be anyone to ensure that agency heads followed rules, procedures, and laws.

At the inauguration ceremony, the oligarchs who supported the incoming president were given better seats than the incoming cabinet nominees. Many of the oligarchs have conflicts of interest because of their business dealings with the government. Some of them can’t get proper security clearance to conduct their mission. One of them has an office in the executive office building.

Among the oligarchs that influence the new administration is Peter Thiel, a significant contributor to the new president’s campaign and former employer of the new vice-president. Thiel has said, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Some suggest that he has simply bought into the idea that the president will die in office and the vice-president will take over or be the next president in four years. In either case, his monetary contributions will put him and his other Silicon Valley oligarchs in control and their investment will have paid off.[iii]

Many cabinet nominees have no experience running large organizations or experience in the areas they are expected to manage. Their reputations run from avowed unhinged to sex offenders lacking even a modicum of required experience. Yet they will be approved because the senators in the president’s movement are afraid the movement will primary them or they and their families will receive death threats, a common practice on the part of the movement’s base.

Too many people believe the lies told to them about America’s state of affairs. We have been told that the economy is bad when it is one of the best in the world. Inflation is down, unemployment is extremely low, and infrastructure construction is on the upswing.

Immigration is a serious problem. There is no way that a nation can assimilate millions of refugees each year. But the lies that are told about refugees being sent from hospitals for the insane, or from prisons can’t be substantiated. But the lies are good for ending affirmative action programs designed to level the playing field for everyone. Making America great again smacks and smells of a return to when white males ran the world, all of course in the name of Christian Nationalism.

Ben Franklin told us, “You have a Republic if you can keep it.” Millions of people have decided that neither is that important.

We have to ask ourselves if we are the land of the free anymore? Time will tell.

We have to ask ourselves if our democracy can stand? Maybe … despite all evidence to the contrary this last week.

We have to ask ourselves again, why did the voters do this?

Is the price of eggs and gas reason enough to decimate the world’s longest-running democracy? Is an uncontrolled southern border enough to try autocracy?

Are we willing to throw in the towel on a world order that has kept us free since 1945?

Are we willing to cede our free government to the wiles of a few oligarchs who control the information flow around the world and decided to discontinue fact-checking in the name of free speech?

I think the country will survive, but it won’t be the free or democratic United States we once knew. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.

 

 

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[i] David Brooks, How Trump Will Lose, New York Times, 01/23/2025.

[ii] Winston Churchill paraphrased, House of Commons, November 11, 1947

[iii] Trump’s First Week: The Real Story, Robert Reich, 01/26/2025

Kill the CEOs!

Insurance companies take a large risk that their income from premiums will exceed the amount they pay out to doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers for their services. They lower their risks by denying coverage as often as possible.

In most of the civilized world, healthcare systems provide coverage for whatever the doctor orders. In many countries, there is no charge for healthcare at the point of use or minimal copays. Our Medicare plan for older Americans is remarkably similar to what is available for everyone in most counties.

It is common knowledge that the healthcare system in the U.S. is broken. OECD ranks us last in healthcare availability and outcomes.[i] Millions of people can’t afford medical care except in emergency rooms. Millions of people can’t afford health insurance. Our life expectancy is 76.4 years compared to 80.4 years for OECD countries. Our infant mortality ranks thirty-third out of thirty-eight countries. We have the highest levels of diabetes. We spend twice as much on healthcare than any other OECD country and have worse results. There is plenty of blame to go around. Prescription drugs are expensive, and hospitals are costly and getting more expensive as hedge funds buy them up and reduce staff and departments to increase profits. Too often the U.S. healthcare system isn’t so much about healthcare as it is about profit. So let’s shoot the CEOs?

Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot in the back while walking to an investor information meeting. The assailant evidently believed that shooting a CEO would improve healthcare. It won’t. The assailant has two degrees from an Ivy League school and comes from an upper-middle-class prominent family, who went missing for a month before the shooting. He should know better. Shooting someone isn’t an acceptable way to express anger. It is not justifiable under any circumstance. It never was. But that was then and this is now.

A study by the University of Chicago indicated that only seventy-eight percent of those surveyed blamed the assailant totally. Sixty-nine percent said that denial of coverage by insurance companies was to blame, and seventy-six percent blamed the general inequality of wealth or income. Axios reported that in a survey of one thousand voters, seventeen percent said that the killing of Brian Thompson was acceptable or somewhat acceptable. Shockingly, forty-one percent of those 18-29 said it was at least somewhat acceptable.

The assailant, Luigi Mangione, received loud applause when he was mentioned on TV. Axios said that the public's veneration of Mangione “Revealed a deep distrust of the health insurance industry and its treatment of patients in need of critical care.”[ii]

The day after the killing, Andrew Witty, the CEO of the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times in which he said that he and his colleagues were trying to make sense of, “The unconscionable act and the vitriol that has been directed at our colleagues.”[iii] Yes, the deliberate and planned shooting was an unforgivable act. The vitriol should not be unexpected.

Mr. Witty went on to note that, “No one would design a system like the one we have. And no one did. It’s a patchwork built over decades.” He is right. It is a system that doesn’t work, it shouldn’t work and shouldn’t exist. Nothing changes without change. A highly educated friend of mine recently wrote to me, “I knew the U.S. healthcare for us old folks was broken but since coming here (nursing home) I realize how very bad it is.”

Mr. Witty was correct, the system is broken. You can’t expect different results if you keep on doing the same thing over and over again. Change requires change.

But will we make the needed changes? We just elected a president who has appointed people to responsible positions who want to do away with the parts of the system that work. They have convinced a large segment of the country that easily available and affordable healthcare is a bad thing. They want to tear apart Medicare and Medicaid which provides basic coverage for millions and millions of older people and low-income people. They don’t see good healthcare as a basic human right. They are wrong.

So what would be a good start to improving the healthcare of Americans? What would be a good start to make our healthcare as good as that of other nations? We could start by agreeing that everyone should have good healthcare. The rub is that it is hard to get people to agree on the definition of good healthcare. Then we could try to agree that everyone should have affordable access to good healthcare.

If we could agree on those two things it would open the floodgates of strategic options related to how we pay for healthcare, how we provide it, and how we use the system.  My thought is that we try to determine how we will pay for healthcare before we redesign the system. Everyone agrees that healthcare is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be so much. Hospital services, for example, have risen 269% since the year 2000.[ii] That suggests that some of the costs are increasing because the for-profit hospitals feel that they can raise the prices with impunity.

The price of drugs in the U.S. is extremely costly compared to the rest of the world. For example, the cost of the new drug for weight loss, Ozempic, is $936 in the U.S. It is $93 in the UK and $83 in France.[iii] Most users don’t pay full price if they have insurance. Other countries negotiate prices directly with manufacturers or have national groups that determine the price. The manufacturers tell us they could not afford to develop new drugs if prices were constrained, but they do it for other nations. The U.S. and Australia are the only two countries that allow drug manufacturers to advertise. Eli Lilly spends $1.0 billion on advertising each year and Pfizer averages $3.7 billion for advertising. They spent $9.3 billion and $10.7 billion respectively for research. Simply outlawing pharmaceutical advertising would save the system billions of dollars. Allowing negotiation for prices would reduce the cost of drugs by more than a third. Outlawing for-profit hospitals could lower those costs by at least half. A single-payor funding plan would eliminate billions of dollars that flow into insurance company profit streams. The point is that affordable healthcare for all citizens will require a massive disruption of the current system.

If we designed a system that wasn’t a patchwork of random methods and regulations we might do away with healthcare for profit. We might find ways to reduce by half the cost of healthcare if more people were healthier because they can afford preventive care. We might find ways to reduce our child mortality rates and increase our life expectancy. We might be able to provide prenatal care to all who need it. We might reduce the number of people who don’t seek medical care because of the cost. Killing CEOs won’t change the system. What will change the system is a nation of people who believe that good affordable healthcare is a human right.

Imagine a nation whose people’s health is as good as the rest of the world. We could be that nation someday.

 

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[i] The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is an international organization that provides economic information from one hundred countries.

[ii] Axios, 12/27/2024

[iii]Andrew Witty, New York Times, 12/13/2024

[1] Nonpartisan research organization at the University of Chicago

[1] Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024

[1] Shawn Radcliff, Heartline, 7/31/202 13

 Nonpartisan research organization at the University of Chicago

[ii] Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024

[iii] Shawn Radcliff, Heartline, 7/31/202 13

Out Of The Fire, Dreams!

 If you’ve been there, you will never forget it. If you have the chance you will go back again and again, no matter what your religious preference or none.

Notre Dame de Paris took two hundred years to build and stood for nearly nine hundred years. The world watched, shocked, as it burned to near rubble in 2019, within fifteen to thirty minutes of total collapse. The bell towers and walls of the nave were saved by the buttresses and the firefighters. People in the know said it could never be rebuilt. It was.

I remember visiting the grand cathedral once when the organ was playing gently until it wasn’t. The organist prodded it until walls shook and the floor vibrated a little. The orgue, all  eight thousand pipes, was saved but it had to be dismantled, cleaned of toxins, and reconstructed.

Les cloches, nine of them weighing from thirteen tons to as little as seventeen hundred pounds, were lowered, cleaned, and raised again to new support beams. You can hear them from nearly any spot in the inner arrondissements of Paris.

This last weekend the rejuvenated church opened to fanfare witnessed by leaders from around the world in both a secular ceremony for la crème de la crème on Saturday, and a religious rite of consecration and Mass on Sunday. The iconic building has an unusual status: owned by the state, which is anti-religion, and the cathedra[i] of the Catholic Archbishop of Paris, a parish church and a tourist destination, the icon of Paris.

Much can be made of the reconstruction: religious, secular, nationalism, or just beauty. As the TV cameras panned the cathedral before the opening ceremony, it showed a large section of the nave with empty seats. Early in the ceremony firefighters entered, clad in their bright uniforms, followed by artists, engineers, stone masons, and others who had worked to restore the building. The applause was deafening as they filled the seats reserved for them.

The thousands who labored for five years were the backstory of the reconstruction. The initial decision to rebuild the edifice as it had been originally built caused a  wave of old skills to be renewed. People went to the original forest to topple trees and hand-hew the beams that would form the roof, held together with hand-shaped dowels. Young men and women learned the old skills of stone carving, painting restoration, granite cleaning, leaded glass cleaning, and reconstruction. The soot and toxic debris demanded that the interior walls be cleaned, removing over eight hundred years of grime, resulting in a bright white interior mirroring its original opening so many centuries ago.

In 1962, President Kennedy challenged the nation: “ We choose to go to the moon in this decade …  not because they are [it is] easy, but because they are  [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win…” We did.

President Macron rallied his nation after the fire: “The fire at Notre Dame reminds us that our history never stops and we will always have challenges to overcome. We will rebuild Notre Dame, more beautiful than before –  and I want it done in the next five years. We can do it. After the time of testing comes a time of reflection and of action.” They did.

Both challenges required great organization, highly skilled workers and artisans, and a great deal of money; nine hundred million dollars for the cathedral. But it brought focus to a nation in disarray economically and politically. It set a goal to be achieved, and its achievement shouts to us to raise our expectations and change our behavior.

Individuals and nations can achieve greatness if  rightly directed, challenged, and given a chance. We can do better than we are doing. What if our leaders urged us to greatness rather than in-fighting all the time. What if our leaders gave us great goals that moved the world forward to real greatness, to end the funk we are in, to end starvation and disease, to end wars, to let the people rule the world, to shoot for Mars and beyond? Imagine if someone said we could do all that in five or ten years, and we said yes. Out of the fire, we can bring beauty to the world.

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”[ii]

 

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[i] Cathedral derives from cathedra, the Latin word for chair. Bishops traditionally taught from the Chair. Most now teach/preach from the ambo/pulpit.

[ii] John Lenon, Imagine - 1971

The Oath!

 "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

On January 20^th, our once-and-new president will take an oath of office. It is short, specific, and traditional. He will affirm his intention to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. That’s it—full stop.

There are some other duties outlined in the Constitution. The President is Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy (it was written before we needed an Air Force or a Space Force). S/He also commands the militia of the several states when called into the actual service of the U.S. For those who take an “originalist” view of the Constitution, one might remember that in the late 1700s militias were made up of the local gentry. Because the Framers wanted a “well regulated militia,” they gave people the right to keep and bear arms.[i] Presidents also appoint heads of executive departments, members of the Supreme Court, and other important officials, with advice and consent of the Senate. We know this. We learned it in the eighth grade and again in Civics and History courses, but it’s worth repeating.

When a President-Elect chooses his/her Cabinet they have at least two choices: Competent people who are loyal to the President or loyal people who are competent or not so much. At face value, President-Elect Trump’s choices are in the not-so-much category. Selections based on loyalty to him are the first criterion. He and his MAGA movement scored the trifecta of the electoral race: the presidency, and a majority in both houses of Congress. There is a highly conservative majority in SCOTUS that leans in his direction.

It presents an opportunity for good or bad. If political survival in the majority party of both houses of Congress requires fealty to a president, it messages concern. Montesquieu championed the idea of three separate branches of government. He noted that “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”[ii]

Yale professor Timothy Snyder wrote in 2017 that, “The democracies that arose after the First World War (and the Second) often collapsed when a single party seized power in some combination of an election and a coup d’etat. A party emboldened by a favorable election result or motivated by ideology, or both might change the system from within.”[iii]

The President-elect campaigned on a platform of retribution, politicizing the Justice Department, or using the military against the people of the country. We learned from his first administration that he tends to do what he tells us he will do. Again, his Cabinet appointments seem to be based on loyalty instead of competence, potentially a step toward autocracy in the name of democracy, intended or not.

The President-elect has shown no lack of favoritism for oligarchs. Elon Musk clings to the shirttails of power. Other oligarchs created massive PACs to support the Trump election, as did a few for Harris. The oligarchs own most of the wealth of the nation. Too many of us refuse to acknowledge the reality of the massive wealth distributed among a few dozen people. If they successfully get their claws into the governing fabric of the country, democracy will shrink. You just can’t have a democracy ruled by oligarchs. It never works.

The candidate for Secretary of Defense, for example, isn’t qualified for the job based on his work experience. His appointment is scary because of his disdain for the American system and his call for using the military against citizens who disagree with the neo-nationalism philosophy. He wears tattoos supporting white nationalism. His books call for divorcing red states from the rest of America. If one is less MAGA than he is, they should be concerned: “Whether you like it or not, you are an ‘infidel’ – an unbeliever – according to the false religion of leftism. You can submit now or later, or you can fight.”[iv] He has stated that we are now in a post-Constitution period in our history. If he believes that, one wonders if he will take the oath to support and defend the Constitution.

The danger of one-party rule extends to the states as well. Some states are letting officials determine what is taught in colleges, trying to eliminate tenure for professors. Some states now require schools to teach the Bible and promote Christian beliefs in opposition to the Constitution.

So what is one to do? We know that the nation is exhausted from 24/7/365 politics. They have heard all they want to hear about how bad a person Trump is, true or not. “Woe is me” isn’t especially useful.

We can, however, insist that those who take an oath to defend and protect the Constitution do just that. Whenever someone acts against their oath they should be brought to heel by the press, the Fourth Estate. Individuals can write about it on X, on Facebook, Bluesky, or even Instagram and TikTok. They can write to the local newspaper if they still have one. They can be opposed in the next election.

What can we do about this? We need to pay attention to what our leaders do, rather than just what they say. That applies at the local school board level and at city hall or in the state capitol. Politicians react to citizen reactions. They read their mail; they listen to the phone calls. When they see a trend they move in that direction. Write to your representatives at each level, leave phone messages, write to local newspapers, respond to X messages, join your party’s local committee, and influence it to support your objectives.

Let’s remember that all elected officials at the federal level take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Let’s make sure they do.

It’s about the Constitution. It isn’t about Trump.

 

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[i] Second Amendment of the Constitution, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". Note the placement of the commas. Hamilton argued in The Federalist No.28 that, “For a long time to come, it will not be possible to maintain a large army; and as the means of doing this increase, the population and natural strength of the community will proportionably increase.”

[ii] Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, 1748. Noted in The Federalist No 47. He also wrote that “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.”

[iii] Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Tim Dugan Books, 2017

[iv] The Guardian, Nov. 22, 2024, a report on Pet