Articles of Note and Deep Thoughts

The "Articles of Note" entries are intended to point readers to some insightful pieces of writing that may get lost in the wash of louder, immediate news. My "Deep Thoughts" comments are, as usual, obvious observations regarding the articles. The "Deep Thoughts" moniker is an homage to the SNL skits of the same name.

One remarkably illuminating piece was by Katherine Stewart, "The Roots of Josh Hawley's Rage." It appeared January 11 in The New York Times."  Because of the blooming, buzzing confusion of the January 6 riot, Stewart's article may not have gotten the attention it deserved.

I'll quote a couple of excerpts before offering my deep thoughts. Pelagius (A.D. 354-418) was a British monk. Hawley was giving a commencement address in 2019:

"Mr. Hawley denounced Pelagius for teaching that human beings have the freedom to choose how they live their lives and that grace comes to those who do good things, as opposed to those who believe the right doctrines."

Later in the piece, Stewart quotes from a 2017 Hawley speech,

"That is our charge. To take the lordship of Christ, that message, into the public realm, and to seek the obedience of the nations. Of our nation!"

Stewart was able to connect the Hawley dots for me in a concise and compelling way. Hawley is just another authoritarian psycho in religious clothing. His response to the irresistible U.S. demographic shift is to impose minority (in this case, white evangelical) views on the U.S. population via sanctioned authoritarianism. As such, Hawley is just a thread (albeit a neon one) in the overarching dynamics of a minority trying to impose behaviors on a majority of Americans.

The philosophical "Deep Thoughts" of Hawley and his compatriots are crudely obvious rationales for excusing their attempts to seek raw power over those of not-like mind. And of course, in their philosophical musings, the people who don't do good things aren't required to share the wealth because they believe the right doctrines. 

I think, as we try to understand the GOP and white nationalism going forward, it will be useful to start from the default position that most actions are simply blatant power grabs for a minority group, namely white evangelicals. That perspective clears away many of the rhetorical weeds jamming our analytical mowers.

Bob Dietz

February 23, 2021

Juxtaposition

Last Thursday, February 4, the United States suffered 5,077 Covid-19 fatalities. This was the largest single-day death toll thus far. Although diagnoses of infection have been falling, deaths (which usually lag by a couple of weeks) have not.

Today, February 11, the death statistics again appear to be broaching record territory. I will hold off on commenting about what this implies until final tallies have been recorded and examined. 

Also last Thursday, Donald Trump submitted a letter to the Screen Actors Guild. Evidently he had learned that he was about to be booted from the union, and in his never-ending quest to disallow anyone from dissing him first, he decided to attempt an "I'm breaking up with you first" bit of publicity.

This was the former president of the United States, on a day he knew was the worst of the pandemic, spending time and energy to play spin-master with the Screen Actors Guild. His sense of priorities, his lack of empathy or solemnity for the raw awfulness of the moment, his usual self-absorption and anesthetized sensibilities, were all on display. I present the letter verbatim, so readers can share in the insulated and unintentionally comical wonder that is Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. 

"Ms. Carteris:

I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!

While I'm not familiar with your work, I'm very proud of my work on movies such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Saturday Night Live and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, The Apprentice -- to name just a few!

I've also greatly helped the cable news television business (said to be a dying platform with not much time left until I got involved in politics), and created thousands of jobs at networks such as MSDNC and Fake News CNN, among many others.

Which brings me to your blatant attempt at free media attention to distract from your dismal record as a union. Your organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me -- besides collecting dues and promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas -- as evident by your massive unemployment rates and lawsuits from celebrated actors, who even recorded a video asking, "Why isn't the union fighting for me?"

These, however, are policy failures. Your disciplinary failures are even more egregious.

I no longer wish to be associated with your union.

As such, this letter is to inform you of my immediate resignation from SAG-AFTRA. You have done nothing for me."

I had a difficult time, reading this letter the first time, believing that Trump had actually written it. It sounded like something The Onion might have put out there in cyber space as a skewering dig. But no, the former American president wrote it, and then sent it on the day of the worst death toll from the pandemic. 

More than 70 million Americans voted for this man. The wonder and horror of that fact never grows old. It is a bit jarring to realize, at the age of 63, that one has spent the entirety of life in The Asylum. I'm not sure that I prefer having been stupidly unaware of my bunkmates' psychiatric issues to actually being one of the mentally challenged, but one thing is certain. I still have much to learn, even in The Asylum.

Bob Dietz

February 11, 2021

Another Saturday in The Asylum

Just another week of antics and pratfalls worthy of DSM-5 inclusion. First, your favorite and mine, the inimitable Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, proclaimed that she was "just like many regular Americans." See, this is what I've been arguing for months. There's nothing discernibly different about Greene that would set her apart from her northwest Georgia compatriots (and I do mean patriots).Green's not some bizarro American outlier; she's representative of the red-blooded American southern spirit. She's been using her ouster from committees as a fund-raising tool, a la Mr. Trump. This keen entrepreneurial sense is what has made America great...again.

That entrepreneurial energy was even more in evidence with Missouri state representative Tricia Derges, who was indicted Monday for allegedly selling regenerative stem cell treatments without stem cells. Her nimble marketing even suggested that the treatment could help with Covid-19. She made 200K selling her schlock, and yes, of course she's a Republican. Democrats lack entrepreneurial spirit.

Finally, Thursday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers made their pitch for being "regular Americans," as two starters managed to air-ball free throws against Denver. In 20 years of recreational leagues, I never shot a free throw air ball, including the year I tore a ligament in my right hand and shot free throws underhanded, Rick Barry-style. One of the Laker air balls was courtesy of Lebron James, who then decided being a regular American was not for him as he led the Lakers on a 68-35 second half rampage for the convincing 114-93 win.

The Asylum is a special place, my friends. I just hope that the outer walls are high enough to withstand the tsunami that one of the resident physicians, Dr. Michael Osterholm, has warned is on the way. We shall see.

Bob Dietz

February 6, 2021

Tsunami Watch

First, let me be clear. The Trump administration response to Covid-19 was the proverbial unmitigated disaster -- unmitigated by American expertise and unmitigated by American resources. The entirety of the 2020 American pandemic coping was a clown act to protect perceptions of the American economy.

My concern with the first week of the Biden administration was that most of the task force briefings were focusing on the logistics and minutia of vaccine deployment rather than the big questions. The national media focus wasn't on context but on being thrilled to get real answers to questions, something that had been lacking for the first year of the pandemic. The American media seemed blithely ignorant of virus concerns being raised by other countries.

Things, however, changed this last week as both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Osterholm stepped up and said what had to be said. Fauci explained that the South African variant was more transmissible and, more importantly, that having had a different variety of Covid-19 promised very little protection from the South African variant. Fauci referred to mutant strains as "wild cards" in an MSNBC interview, and said that if they became the dominant strains, we would see another surge. What he didn't explicitly state was that these mutant strains will almost certainly become the dominant strains, and that any surge will be on top of the current surge, which will be dire.

Osterholm's comments were more direct than Fauci's. Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious disease icon, has been deadly accurate with virtually all of his pandemic predictions. Early on, nobody believed his projections and warnings. As reality unfolded, however, it became clear that Osterholm has a grasp not only on Covid-19, but on how Americans respond with flawed, undisciplined behaviors. Osterholm said that he expects the mutant variants to surge in six to 14 weeks. His comment regarding the "capitalism uber all" attitude the U.S. has taken, " As fast as we're opening restaurants, we're likely going to be closing them." He likened the coming surge to a tsunami out of sight over the horizon.

All we can ask for is the best American science has to offer and the truth. I was concerned that the opening week under Biden had soft pedaled what international experts felt was coming. Fortunately, Fauci and Osterholm began beating the drums to warn us.

To put this in an overall context, some countries are now testing every infected individual to identify the strains of the virus. Obviously, doing this should be a priority. The U.S. has tested less than half a percent. This means that the U.S. is flying blind as to the prevalence of the mutant strains around the country, and it almost assuredly means that community spread of the variants has already occurred on a large scale. Thus, mutant surges on top of the current surges are almost inevitable.

If this happens, Osterholm stated on Meet the Press, "We are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country."

Bob Dietz

February 5, 2021