XENOPHOBIA ERUPTING

On top of everything else, a shameful, xenophobic, infestation is spreading throughout our country, and through much of the world. On May 8, 2020, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, recognizing a festering problem, said that "the [Covid-19] pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering." He urged governments to "act now to strengthen the immunity of our societies against the virus of hate." Since he issued that statement, xenophobic reactions targeting Asian-Americans have proliferated exponentially. The organization "Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate" began collecting reports of racism and discrimination from the time the Covid-19 virus began spreading in the U.S.. Between March 19, 2020 and December 31 of last year, it received 2,808 first hand reports of anti-Asian hate across 47 states and Washington D.C.. Roughly 71% were cases of verbal harassment, shunning or avoidance made up about 21%, 9% involved physical assaults, and 6% included being purposely coughed or spit on. (Spectrum News, Feb. 21, 2021). Eruptions of xenophobia, the fear of others who are different from us, have historically followed closely on the heals of pandemics. Some, like David Ley, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, argue that this trend is actually normal. He refers to it as an evolutionary form of protection. Early on, even U.C. Berkeley listed xenophobia under "common reactions" to coronavirus, a statement for which they later apologized. Throughout history, people have assigned the blame for a contagious disease on outsiders. Especially when viral outbreaks are deadly, fear often drives those at risk to place blame on some group external to their own national, religious or ethnic identity. During the 1300s, people thought that the bubonic plague came from the Jewish community. People had little scientific understanding of the disease, and were looking for an explanation. The Jews were an easily identifiable target. They were massacred in numerous European cities. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed. Increased immigration from Ireland during that country's potato famine, mid-19th century, coincided with the outbreak of cholera in several U.S. cities. For Protestant elites who hated Catholics, it was only natural to assume that the alien newcomers must have brought what became known as the "Irish disease" with them. The influenza pandemic in the the 1900s was blamed on Germans, polio on Italians, Jewish immigrants were blamed for consumption (tuberculosis), Haitians for HIV, Chinese-Americans for SARS, and so on. The "Age of Sail" imposed a natural restraint on the spread of epidemics originating in Europe, Africa or Asia. It took as long as a month to cross the Atlantic. Many infections had already burned themselves out by the time port was reached. Steamships and, ultimately, air travel changed all that. The coronavirus spread like wildfire across the world. By the time former president Donald Trump began referring to it as the "China virus" or "Kung-Flu," it had already become convenient for some to assume that Asian-Americans were most likely to be to blame. As the virus spread all over, so did the eruption of xenophobia. For the Asian-American community, recent vitriol has just become the latest chapter in a long history of anti-Asian racism in the U.S., from the "Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Perpetrators of xenophobic assaults, many of which appear to be unable to distinguish between different ethnicities of Asian-Americans, need to be identified and persecuted. A sampling of some of the horrendous offenses will illustrate the point: - An 89 year-old Chinese-American woman was set on fire by two assailants in Bensonhurst, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. - Japanese jazz pianist Tadataka Unno was assaulted on the New York subway system, resulting in a complex fracture of his shoulder and arm, requiring surgery and leading him to comment that he may not ever be able to play piano professionally again. - A 19-year old McDonald's worker in Oakland was assaulted for asking a customer to wear a mask. The man in the drive-thru used racial slurs, threatened to kill her, then broke her arm. - An elderly Thai-American man was assaulted in San Francisco, later dying from his injuries. - At a Sam's Club in Midland, Texas, a man attacked a family from Myanmar, stabbing 3 victims, including a 2 year-old girl and a 6 year-old boy. He feared they were Chinese and infecting others. Throughout multiple jurisdictions, prosecution of these crimes has been grossly inconsistent. It appears obvious that all of these ought to be litigated as hate crimes. We should throw the book at the scum perpetrating these, and put a stop to it. Ignorance is no excuse. Theo Wierdsma

RECONSIDER CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

The run-up to the January 20 swearing in of our new administration appears to have included a determined effort by the outgoing administration to expedite the execution of federal death row inmates. 5 Death row inmates were executed during Mr. Trump's final weeks in office, 13 between July 2020 and January 2021. The most since 1896. Some cynics believe that the rush to execute was prompted by then President-Elect Biden signaling his opposition to capital punishment. The U.S. is the only remaining westernized democracy, and one of the few democracies world-wide, that still supports the death penalty. All European countries, except Belarus and Russia, abolished the practice on moral grounds. Abolition of capital punishment is a precondition for membership in the E.U. Twenty-eight U.S. states, the federal government and the military continue to authorize death sentences for extreme crimes. The twenty-two states that have abolished the practice thus far will soon be joined by Virginia, which is scheduled to be the first southern state to do so. A 2017 Gallup poll indicated that 55% of U.S. citizens still favor the death penalty. Although significant, this is a substantial decrease from 1994 when 80% declared favoring capital punishment. Since 1976. we have executed almost 1,500 people - 569 in Texas alone. Since 2017, we executed 87 inmates. Currently, 52 people are incarcerated on federal death row, and 2,500 nation wide. Conceptually, arguments in favor or against the application of the death penalty have probably changed very little. However, the emphasis has shifted over time. At the top of the list of arguments sits the question of morality. Proponents believe that in cases of the most heinous murders, to do less than death would fail to do justice and would be grossly disproportionate to the heinousness of the crime. They suggest that it promotes belief in and respect for "the majesty of the moral order." Opponents counter that "life is either hallowed or it is not." "We should no longer accept that capital punishment plays any constructive role in our criminal justice system." Apparently, most of the developed world agrees with that viewpoint. The recurring constitutional argument focuses on the 8th Amendment of our Constitution's provision of "cruel and unusual punishment." Former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to apply that provision to the death penalty, advising: "I would not presume to tell parents whose life has been forever altered by the brutal murderer of a child that life imprisonment is punishment enough." Justice Steven Breyer retorted that today's administration of the death penalty involves three fundamental defects: (1) Serious unreliability; (2) Arbitrariness in application, and (3) Unconsciously long delays, undermining the death penalty's penological purpose. The last defect Justice Breyer identifies relates to the argument that capital punishment deters or reduces the rate of homicide. Many would agree that it does not. Back in 1990 the average time between sentencing and execution was 95 months - 8 years. Since then. this time span has grown to an average of 238 months or 19 years. Nearly one quarter of inmates on death row in the U.S. die of natural causes while awaiting execution. The likelihood is incredibly remote that some small chance of execution many years after committing a crime will influence the behavior of a sociopathic deviant who would otherwise be willing to kill if his only punishment was life imprisonment. (John Donohue, JD, Phd, Stanford). Proponents tend to dismiss the suggestion that sometimes reversible but often irrevocable mistakes show up after judicial decisions have been rendered. Nevertheless, during the last few years, DNA analyses have resulted in more that 150 inmates being removed from death row because they were declared innocent. And, since 1973, more that 170 people who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death were exonerated. However, sadly, 18 executions of people who were strongly believed to have been innocent actually did take place. ("Death Penalty Information Center", 2021). There does seem to be some agreement that intellectually disabled inmates should not be executed. In fact, in "Atkins v Virginia," the U.S. Supreme Court, in June of 2002, held that doing so violated the 8th Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause. Nevertheless, the issue remains problematic because of definitional issues. Some states insist on simply using a hard IQ of 70 and below as the cut-off point. "Mental Health America," a community based non-profit, estimates that 5-10% of all death row inmates suffer from a severe mental illness. Other arguments focus on retribution, the cost of death vs. life, closure for victims' families and the quality of representation provided by the state to those unable to afford attorneys themselves. Ultimately, we need to question the purpose of continuing to embrace capital punishment. Is it: To remove from society someone who would cause more harm? To remove someone who is incapable of rehabilitation? To deter others from committing murder? To punish the criminal? To take retribution on behalf of the victim? Most of the answers to these questions ought to make us want to join the rest of the civilized world, and abolish it all together. Theo Wierdsma

CULTURE IMPACTS COVID RESPONSE

The Coronavirus infestation is peaking. As of January 26 the country has encountered more than 25 million cases, and suffered close to 425 thousand fatalities. Every statistic more depressing than the next. In some circles, the tendencv has been to blame former president Donald Trump's administration's grossly inadequate response to the developing crisis. There is no argument that the administration failed to manage the ever intensifying pandemic from day one. Even though we were repeatedly promised that the end was around the corner, with only 4% of the world's population, we ended up with 25% of the world's deaths. This statistic in itself should make us question why this is. It couldn't all be Trump. Multiple statistical analyses indicate that, compared to most developed countries, we are grossly under performing. Bloomberg's "Covid Resilliance Ranking," which scores the 53 largest economies on their success containing the virus with the least amount of socio-economic disruption, ranks the U.S. number 37 - well behind New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, Japan, South Korea , China and others. The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a Texas based think tank, on its "World Index of Healthcare Innovation," which measures Covid-19 fatalities per million residents, places us 27 out of 31. The only countries lagging behind us are Spain, Italy, the U.K., and Belgium. And Foreign Policy Magazine ranks us among the six worst performing countries in the world on its "Covid-19 Global Response Index," along with Turkey, Iran, Mexico and Indonesia. The assumption is that, even though some strategies are being applied more or less emphatically, most countries communicate similar protocols containing social distancing, masks, and other hygiene practices. The difference is that these protocols are more fully embraced and complied with in some countries than in others. That difference appears to be cultural based. According to an article published in the "Harvard Political Review," "The Importance of Culture in Societal Responses to Covid-19," (Oct. 14, 2020), suggests that cultural attitudes and relationships definitely impacts a country's response to and outlook on the pandemic. Their research concludes that countries with a generally "collectivist framework" show a faster, more effective response, as their citizens are more likely to comply with social distancing and hygiene practices that help reduce the spread, while individualist countries respond much less successfully. This contrast between individualistic cultures like the U.S., collective attitudes found in China, South Korea, or Japan, or some mix of those forms as in Canada and France, could well be at the root of these significantly divergent outcomes. It is worth mentioning that U.S. national media has long pointed at our highly individualistic culture as the primary reason behind us having the most Covid-19 cases in the world. In countries where the population places a higher emphasis on group welfare, we generally see widespread compliance with nationally announced public health measures. People wear masks whenever they feel sick at any time, Covid or not. They also trust their government and follow directions. But in countries where cultural traits are more individualistic, focused on personal freedom, and where attitudes toward government control are more skeptical, as in the U.S., we have seen pockets of intense resistance to recommended guidelines, like wearing masks, physical distancing and the temporary closure of businesses. However, recognizing why we may be lagging the world in our effective response to this pandemic is little more than understanding the underlying problem of why we are where we are. It still poses the question what to do about this. I recently came across a thought provoking opinion piece that tends to address this issue in plain language. I really have no idea who wrote this, but I consider it something worthwhile communicating. They are not my words, but they definitely reflect my sentiment: "WELCOME TO THE FREEDOM CAFE" "We trust you to make your own choices if you want to wear a face mask. And, in the spirit of individual liberty, we allow our staff to make their own choices about the safety procedures they prefer to follow as they prepare and serve your food. We encourage employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom, but understand that some people maybe allergic to certain soaps or simply prefer not to wash their hands. It is not our place to tell them what to do. We understand that you may be used to chicken that has been cooked to 165 degrees. We do have to respect that some of our cooks may have seen a meme or a You Tube video saying that 100 degrees is sufficient, and we do not want to encroach on their beliefs. Some of our cooks may prefer to use the same utensils for multiple ingredients including ingredients some customers are allergic to. That's a cook's right to do so. Some servers may wish to touch your food as they serve it. There is no reason that a healthy person with clean hands can't touch your food. We will take their word for it that they are healthy and clean. Water temperature and detergent are highly personal choices and we allow our dish washing team to decide how they'd prefer to wash the silverware you will put in your mouth. Some of you may get sick, but almost everyone survives food poisoning. We think you'll agree that is a small price to pay for the sweet freedom of not ever being told what to do - and especially for the silly reason of keeping strangers healthy." Does anyone argue with public health departments establishing requirements for food handling safety? Does anyone complain that such requirements are an infringement on individual liberties? Perhaps we should learn to distinguish between individual liberties and social responsibilities. Theo Wierdsma

DOMESTIC TERRORISM IS NOT A FEDERAL CRIME!

The insurrectionary assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, the day when 535 elected officials joined to formally count the votes submitted by the Electoral College, cementing the election of Joe Biden as President-Elect, will indeed be remembered as a day that goes down in infamy. The assault, executed by thugs and far-right militia supporting President Donald Trump, was lambasted by most everyone. Many, including D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, President-Elect Joe Biden, Senator Chuck Schumer and multiple other lawmakers, referred to what transpired as a clear case of domestic terrorism. There is only one problem, even though the U.S. Patriot Act, which was passed in response to the 9/11 attacks in 2001, includes a definition, however, there is no such thing as a federal criminal offense targeting "domestic terrorism." The Patriot Act defines "domestic terrorism" as acts which are dangerous to human life, that are in violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any state, which appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping, and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Acts of "domestic terrorism" are charged under specific laws, such as killing federal agents, or "attempting to use explosives to destroy a building in interstate commerce." International terrorism, defined as "acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries," is a defined crime in federal law which could be punished with a life sentence, or, if anyone is killed, include the death penalty, even in states where this level of punishment has been abolished. Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of murder, conspiracy and using a weapon of mass destruction in the the April 19, 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and injuring another 500, was labeled as perpetrating the worst act of domestic terrorism in our history. However, he had to be charged with specific federal crimes. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston marathon bombers could not be charged with terrorism under federal law, because he is a naturalized U.S. citizen. But Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," a British citizen, was charged with eight federal counts of international terrorism, and received three consecutive life sentences and 110 years without parole. The lack of parity between international and domestic acts of terrorism tend to handcuff authorities attempting to prosecute the latter. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have long expressed their concerns with the growing threat of extremist domestic terrorism by actors crossing the line from exercising First Amendment protected rights to committing crimes in pursuit of violent agendas. A June 2020 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that during the past 25 years the majority of attacks and plots came from far-right attackers - i.e. Neo Nazis, Neo Fascists, White Nationalists and others. In 2019 this sector was responsible for 66% of all attacks and plots. In 2020 their involvement had increased to 90%. At the same time, since 2019, far-left attacks by anti fascists, Antifa, groups grew by 400% as well. To attempt to mitigate their influx, the FBI published a 32 page document intended to alert the public to what to look for: the "Homegrown Violent Extremist Mobilization Indicators." Even in this manual it printed an opening caveat, stating: "Indicators may involve constitutionally protected activities." The ACLU expressed their concerns with the Patriot Act as well. It charged that domestic terrorism laws could "subject political organizations to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for political advocacy," suggesting the Act includes a "provision that might allow the actions of peaceful groups that dissent from government policy, such as Greenpeace, [could be] treated as "domestic terrorism," Similar civil rights concerns have prevented the passage of legislation designed to create parity between domestic and international terrorism laws. The "Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act" of 2020 (HR 5602), which would create offices within the Justice Department, Homeland Security and FBI to combat far-right violence, passed the House unanimously, but did not get a vote in he Senate. Dr. Francesca Laguardia, one of a number of academics, writing in the Northwestern University law review, argued that "a domestic terrorism statute is unnecessary and far more problematic than its proponents are willing to acknowledge," citing similar civil rights concerns. However, given the insurrectionary assault on the Capitol, the conversation won't end here, nor should it. With the inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris scheduled for January 20, social platforms like Wimkin and Parler are warning that massive demonstrations are being planned designed to stop Biden from entering the White House. A promotional piece published on Wimkin, signed by Vic Freeman, tells it all: "Millions of American militia will meet in Washington D.C. on January 20, 2021, for the purpose of preventing any attempt by the treasonous domestic enemy Joe Biden, or any other member of the Communist Organized Crime Organization known as the Democratic Party, from entering the White House belonging to We The People. In the event that justice is miraculously served and our Re-Elected President Donald J. Trump is sworn in: the President, the Capital and our National Monuments will be protected from the proven-violent Leftist insurgents who have declared war against the United States of America and have been conducting an active insurrection in the United States of America." Some of the militants have been very candid warning that: "This time we are bringing our guns." Hopefully, this time forewarned is forearmed. Regretfully, just throwing the book at them won't prevent another potentially violent altercation. As the French historian Voltaire already recognized three centuries ago: "Those who make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Theo Wierdsma

GREAT BRITAIN UNDER SIEGE

On December 8, Margaret Keenan, a 91 year old British grandmother, became the first person in Britain and the West to receive a vaccine against Covid-19. This was a big deal, and much of the British population celebrated, filled with pride and hope that there was light at the end of a long, unsettling and painful tunnel. Two weeks later jubilation turned to trepidation when epidemiologists discovered that a new and 56-70% more contagious variant of the coronavirus was sweeping the United Kingdom. As if this was not enough, many in the country were becoming increasingly apprehensive about the consequences of Brexit negotiations with the EU, which were in their ultimate phase, but not terribly promising. Brexit being concluded by the end of the year was long anticipated. However, reality was finally sinking in. All in all the U.K. experienced a double whammy. The more immediate crisis, the coronavirus variant, generated anxious responses from all over. Prime Minister Boris Johnson intensified the U.K. lock-down protocols, essentially eliminating most Christmas celebrations. One nation after another imposed flight restrictions on Britain. France barred entry of trucks from the U.K., and even though this edict lasted only a few days, the border closing left more than 1,500 trucks stranded as the Port of Dover and the Euro tunnel were shut to outbound traffic, multiple countries began establishing and requiring systematic testing for the virus for people coming in from Britain. New York governor Andrew Cuomo demanded a halt to flights, and insisted that airlines flying into New York from the U.K. mandate that all passengers produce a negative Covid-19 test before boarding flights. The remainder of the country followed suit as of December 28. The panic response developed late and was probably less than effective. Infectious disease experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, opined that there was a good chance that the variant was already here. In light of the improbability that the variant had remained confined to Britain, the European Commission recommended rather quickly that member states lift their blanket bans on Britain. However, the emotional damage was already done. As this crisis developed, Brexit negotiations reached a last minute push for a U.K.-EU trade agreement with a December 31 deadline looming and progress fleeting. While P.M. Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen meeting over dinner, and Mr. Johnson suggesting that he would leave without a deal, opinion polls in the U.K. indicated that positions in the country had shifted after its 2016 referendum. Currently 51% of those interviewed indicated they actually wanted the U.K. to remain part of the EU. At stake was not only termination of the free movement of goods across the English Channel for the first time in half a century. The recent memory of hundreds of trucks stuck at the Port of Dover only represented a small example of what could be anticipated during the logistical nightmare expected once the country effectively separated from the EU. Every day 10,000 trucks cross the Channel on ferries moving half of all goods between the U.K. and the continent. Terminating EU membership would mean that drivers and cargo required documentation going forward. New customs officers would need to be hired to test imports of meat and fresh produce, which meant that shipments that once breezed through could be held up for hours or days. It is estimated that for every 2 minutes of delay at the Port of Dover, a 17 mile traffic jam will be created on access roads. Besides, a "no deal" Brexit would mean that the EU could start taxing British imports from the beginning of January on, substantially raising prices. A last minute agreement was reached, which avoided the immediate imposition of tariffs on $900 billion of cross border trade. This is significant because last year the U,K relied on the EU for 50% of imports and 47% of exports, making it the U.K.'s single largest trading partner. However, the outcome is no substitute for the unfettered access to the largest single market in the world. The new agreement still throws more obstacles in the way for traders. The British government estimates that there will be 215 million extra customs declarations a year, nearly 600,000 a day, businesses have to process. And it is anticipated that the cumulative drop in GDP over the next 15 years could be a whopping 4%. Moreover, the prospect of a traffic nightmare at the Port is still expected to become a reality. Political opposition to Brexit is still powerful and is only getting stronger. Leaders in Scotland and Northern Ireland were quick to express their displeasure. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued the statement that "Brexit is happening against Scotland's will - and there is no deal that will make up what Brexit takes away from us." Northern Ireland's Social Democratic Labor Party leader Colum Eastwood chimed in, stating: "The entire Brexit fantasy is a future that people here do not want and did not vote for." The British government may believe that, for now, it is managing to limit the fallout of the recent crises it was forced to address. It ought to get prepared to confront the political backlash it is certain to encounter. The country is under stress. Its population feels besieged and may well be ready to shake off a populist yoke. Brexit, after all, was a populist pipe dream. Ultimately, national cohesion could be at stake. Theo Wierdsma

INCOME INEQUALITY THREATENS SOCIAL STABILITY

One way or another, politicians running for elective office have been pointing out that economic inequality in this country is spiraling out of control, shrinking the middle class and endangering social stability. During the 2016 election, then candidate Donald Trump effectively used this condition by pointing out how globalization had killed industries in our industrial heartland, forged the closure of many businesses, and shifted thousands of jobs into skill sets workers were not prepared for. He promised to revitalize industries like steel and coal, which had traditionally been the livelihood for many now unemployed. Self proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, never subtle, hammered on the "super rich" and large corporations suggesting that the country needed to dramatically reform the tax code and essentially redistribute some of the wealth. He and others pointed out that the wealth gap between the richest and the poorer families had more than doubled since 1989. And, during the most recent campaign, now President- Elect Joe Biden also ran on a platform of policy proposals designed to narrow this gap. Economic inequality is somewhat of a complex concept. It involves the distribution of income - the amount of money people are paid, and the distribution of wealth, the amount of wealth people own. On the one hand, the wealth gap, while growing steadily, is typically not considered to be easily actionable through government intervention. The richest one percent takes in about one third of the country's net worth. The catch phrase "the rich are getting richer, the poor get poorer," is not just a platitude. People who already hold wealth have the resources to invest or to leverage the accumulation of wealth, which creates new wealth, leading to what is called "wealth concentration." Income inequality, on the other hand, has become more of a political football. It refers to a significant disparity in the distribution of income between individuals, groups, populations, social classes, or even countries. Among the G-7 countries, composed of the world's largest developed countries, the U.S., the most prosperous country in the bloc, has the highest level of income inequality, and, by far, exhibits the worst poverty rate. Causes of steadily increasing inequality include a number of factors: the growth in technology, continued gender income differentiation, the decline of organized labor and the influence of globalization. Wages are a function of the market price of skills required for a job, which, in turn, is determined by supply and demand. Rapidly changing technologies demand specific skill sets many workers won't possess and which may be difficult to acquire by an aging, relatively uneducated labor force. Salaries for women in the U.S. are still only 77% of that of men. The share of workers represented by labor unions has dropped by half, to just over 10%, during the past four decades, shrinking the power to bargain for higher wages and benefits. Globalization has reduced global inequality between nations, but it has increased inequality within nation-states. Significant income inequality has consequences. A major downside is diminished economic growth. MIT professor David Autor argues that "dynamism," characterized by vigorous activity and progress, gives rise to "dynasticism." Kids of affluent parents, even of mediocre talent, go to the best schools and talented kids from less affluent families don't, which ultimately means our society will be less productive. Besides, people on the lower steps of the economic ladder may become discouraged as they experience diminished economic opportunity and mobility. Severe income and wealth inequality also tends to have a negative effect on the political influence of the disadvantaged. Moreover, regional income producing activities, be they industrial, agricultural or others, may create geographic segregation by income. When asked, 61% of Americans (78% Democrats and 41% of Republicans) believe that there is too much economic inequality in the U.S., but fewer than half call it a top priority Those who say there is too much inequality see merit in a variety of approaches: Ensure workers have the skills they need for today's jobs (65% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans); increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans (69% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans). (PEW Research, Jan. 9, 2020). More than half of those who believe there is too much inequality believe that the government needs to be instrumental in mitigating this condition and has the responsibility to provide all Americans with high quality K-12 education, adequate medical care, health insurance, adequate income at retirement and a decent standard of living. What is the point of living in the most prosperous country in the world when 50 million people are hungry and well over half a million have no roof over their heads. A considerable basket of policy objectives for our politicians to pursue. Kenneth Rogoff, professor of public policy and economics at Harvard University, cautions that: "there is no doubt that income inequality is the biggest threat to social stability around the world, whether it is in the United States, the European periphery, or China." ("In the long run we are all equally dead," The Economist, July 7, 2020.) Theo Wierdsma

WHEN FACTS NO LONGER MATTER

President Donald Trump will relinquish his office at noon on January 20, 2021. While he is leaving the White House, his legacy will remain with us for some time to come. Among the details most of us will have difficulty forgetting is what appeared to have been a deliberate attempt at obscuring objective truths, rather than sticking to using unbiased observable facts not influenced by his personal feelings or opinions. It began early on, two days after his inauguration, on January 22, 2017, when his counselor Kellyanne Conway, during a "Meet the Press" interview, defended Press Secretary Sean Spicer's false statements about attendance numbers during the president's inaugural. When Chuck Todd pressed her to explain why Spicer would utter a provable falsehood, she stated that the press secretary was simply providing "alternative facts," the first time many of us were exposed to that term. Since then we have been bombarded with alternative "facts," half truths and blatant lies. As of August 27 of this year, the Washington Post's database logged 22,247 claims that could be categorized as misinformation or disinformation. During most of his time in office, observers counted close to 50 plus untruths each day. The White House has denied that objective truth actually exists. Mr. Trump's current lawyer Rudy Giuliani has explained that "truth isn't truth." "There is no way to determine who is lying and who is not" he insists. "Truth is inherently partisan. It is whatever you prefer or believe." It did not take long for the pundits to begin comparing the deliberate misstatements by the Trump administration with what George Orwell referred to in "1984" as "double speak" and "double think," a deliberate attempt to indoctrinate its political base and develop the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time. Typical examples of this Orwellian concept are: "War is peace," "freedom is slavery," and "ignorance is strength." Trump's Orwellian "double speak" began with the lie about the size of his inauguration crowd, continuing with his early assurance that the coronavirus will go away like a miracle, and finally with his election meddling, during which, contrary to objective facts, the president maintains that he actually won "by a lot." Consequently, many in his base believe he did. "The Trump m.o. is not to lie convincingly. It is, in fact, the opposite - to distort the truth so blatantly that going along requires a cultish willingness to suspend disbelief." (Mother Jones, Oct. 9, 2020). Arguments made on behalf of the president are often ridiculous to the point of bordering insanity. Mr. Giuliani, for instance, advanced the belief that systemic election fraught perpetrated by the democrats during this past cycle was so refined that there was no discernible proof. At the same time, millions of believers are falling prey to a mass delusion about a secretive cannibalistic cabal popularized by Q-Anon. Mr. Trump maintains he does not know this group, except that they seem to like him. None of this is exclusive to the United States. Autocrats in numerous countries make use of deliberate misinformation - a.k.a. propaganda - to indoctrinate receptive populations. The idea is to flood their populations with so many alternative explanations that people begin giving up on the facts. It did not take long for political scientists to characterize the phenomenon as "post truth," an object of study for several different fields. "Post truth" became the Oxford dictionary word of the year in 2016. It describes the subject as a condition where objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. It identifies a growing international trend to where some feel emboldened to bend reality to fit their opinions, rather than the other way around. In substance, this is not a new concept. Historian and sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) drew a distinction between facts and values. He postulated that facts can be determined through the method of a value-free, objective social science, while values are derived through culture and religion, the truth of which can not be known through science. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) believed that humans created concepts through which they define the good and just, thereby replacing the concept of truth with the concept of values. Today "post truth" refers to a "philosophical and political concept for the disappearance of shared objective standards for truth," and the "circuitous slippage between facts or alt-facts, knowledge, opinion, belief and truth." When objective truth is replaced by a constant flow of disinformation, democracy is in peril. To quote former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who knew the Trump administration intimately, from a May 16, 2018 commencement address at the Virginia Military Institute: "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom. This is the life of nondemocratic societies, comprised of people who are not free to seek the truth." Theo Wierdsma