CONFRONTING HOLOCAUST AMNESIA

It is that time of the year again, wedged between International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 8, and the gradual liberation of Europe, culminating in the Nazi surrender on May 8, 1945, to remember the horrors permeating Europe during World War II, 76 plus years ago. At a time when 23% of 18-39 year old Americans believe that the Holocaust was a myth, 11% believe the Jews caused it, and 12% said they never heard of the Holocaust, as very few survivors are still around to testify, it seems imperative that we should strive to preserve the recollection of its horrific past. (Claims Conference, Feb. 9, 2021). Every year I make a point of re-reading my family's history. I was born in January of 1945 in the Netherlands. I never directly experienced the atrocities my fellow countrymen endured during five years of Nazi occupation. However, my formative years were consumed by accounts of first-hand encounters, unimaginable suffering, and intense hatred of Nazis. Pre school conversations were mostly initiated by my mother, who expressed very distinct opinions of her experiences during the occupation. My father never talked about them, even though his father, my grandfather, ended up in a concentration camp from which he never returned. My dad managed to internalize his emotions until late in life, when he committed his recollections to paper in the form of short narratives compiled in a series of small booklets. Those stories, amplified by research from one of my nephews, painted a picture of some of what my family went through during those fateful years. The very first story my father published set the tone, and offered a window into his frame of mind in June of 1942. I spent some time translating this story - some of what follows is paraphrased: A VERY SAD DAY "That morning, when I arrived at the time clock at the factory in Vaassen, I noticed that it was a quarter till eight. I was 15 minutes late. I was scheduled to start work at 7:30. However, the roads were iced over and terribly slick. I was forced to walk my bicycle for most of the eight kilometers from home. Those days, as soon as the start time arrived, the receptionist collected the time cards of those still absent, and took them to his office adjacent to the employee entrance. That morning was the first time my time card had disappeared. I had never been late to work. I had no choice but to retrieve my card, because if it did not show a clocking, you would not be paid. When I requested it, he said: "Sure, you can have it. I added 2 entries. You will now get paid from 8 a.m., plus you will be docked a quarter penalty because you are late." After some explanations, he forgave the penalty, but docked my pay by a quarter, for which I would have to work an extra hour. But that was the situation during those days. You had nothing to say. I made 12 gulden per week. That evening, when I went home and arrived at my parents' house, I entered the kitchen as I always did. The first thing I noticed was that my mother was not in the kitchen where I usually found her. The stove was not even lit. My mother lived by the clock. She served dinner every evening exactly at 6pm. You could not imagine how she managed that every day, and feed a family with seven children. Food was very scarce, and coal hardly available. She gathered wood from the forest to fuel the stove. Hesitantly, I crossed the kitchen and entered the living room. The picture that unfolded before my eyes has never been erased from my memory. In one corner the children were huddled, quietly staring somberly ahead. In the another corner sat my mother, at the table, crying. Confused, I sat across from her and stammered: "What's going on here?" Haltingly, she said: "The Germans picked up your dad. It's not just that he is gone - but how are we going to survive financially? The few pennies we have left will be gone in no time." I had never seen my mother cry. It cut straight through my soul. I tried to calm her down, but she exclaimed: "I will never see your dad again!" She dried her tears and mumbled "I totally forgot to cook." Half an hour later, the entire family sat at the table. My mother just stared ahead. She did not eat." My grandmother was right. She never saw her husband again, and my father never really found out what exactly happened to him. My grandfather was a butcher and inn keeper. During the war he occasionally supported the underground by hiding Jews as well as gentiles. Even though the Germans never found incriminating evidence at his house, they arrested him anyway on trumped up charges, and convicted him to 2.5 years of prison time. My nephew traced his whereabouts since his incarceration in 1942. Although his sentence officially ended on February 16, 1945, the Germans apparently considered it to be too risky to release prisoners while their country was being attacked from all sides. Instead of letting him go, they transported him to the Gestapo-led re-education camp "Lahde." "Lahde" was notorious for systemically killing its prisoners. The text at the entrance to the camp read: "Hier wird jeder Wille gebrochen." (Here every will is broken). The assembly area in front of the barracks featured two scaffolds where prisoners were regularly and publicly executed. Whippings were a daily occurrence. Every week the Nazis killed an estimated seventy prisoners. If you ended up being sick, not unusual after routinely being forced to do back-breaking work, you received one hundred lashes, which most prisoners did not survive. Less than one month after arriving at this facility my grandfather ended up on the gallows. He was murdered on March 11, less than two months before the end of the war. With the growing threat of extreme-right political parties throughout many parts of the world, white supremacy movements flourishing, and the glorification of historical revisionism growing in popularity, we are inching closer to coming full circle. As time passes, distancing us ever further from what happened 76 plus years ago, it becomes increasingly essential to preserve its memory. We ought to insist that our schools go beyond only teaching sub-group specific history, and cast a wider net to include global events to preserve a sense of proportion and perspective. Ignorance of history poses a significant threat to the future of a free society. Theo Wierdsma

FILIBUSTER - RELIC OR TACTIC

Former President Barack Obama made news when he delivered a eulogy for civil rights icon John Lewis last year. He punctuated his remarks by declaring he was open to ending the Senate filibuster, referring to it as "another relic of the Jim Crow era." Ever since the inauguration of the 117th Congress on January 3rd, followed by the outcome of the run-off election in Georgia a few weeks later, which resulted in splitting the senate's partisan power structure right down the middle, Senate Democrats have carried the "Jim Crow era relic" mantra forward with conviction. With the longstanding rule of the U.S. Senate that allows a minority of 41 senators to block action on a bill, an opposition party can prevent the majority from advancing its legislative agenda. Today the threat to make use of this tactic is most apparent in the debate over a national voting rights bill, passed by the House and stuck in the Senate. Considering Georgia's newly enacted voting law, which heavily favors Republicans by tending to restrict minority access to the polls, majority Democrats are intent on passing legislation to neutralize moves by state legislatures exhibiting similar intent, no matter what. This includes eliminating filibuster rules, so they can pass legislation by a simple majority, along a straight party-line vote, if need be. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who, in effect, now has a pocket veto, has argued that the senate filibuster "has no racial history at all. None. There's no dispute among historians about that." It is clear that the debate is less about racial connotations linked to the use of filibuster, and predominantly about majority rule in the Senate. Yet, the immediate conversation will inevitably remain focused on its history. The filibuster, the tactic of talking a bill to death to prevent its passing, cannot be found anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. Its emergence had nothing to do with racial legislation, and it has been used against a variety of bills. However, as Reconstruction, the post Civil War attempt to redress the inequities of slavery, ended in 1877, the efforts of former slaves to assert their rights began to be repressed. Whites succeeded in passing so-called Jim Crow laws that segregated and disenfranchised African-Americans, which they enforced with violence. Historians agree that, for more than a century, the filibuster was closely intertwined with anti-civil rights efforts in the Senate, thanks to repeated efforts by southern senators to filibuster civil rights bills. So, even though the tactic was not created for specific racist purposes, it has been used as a tool to protect white supremacy. Its use grew significantly during the 19th century. Early on, the Senate did not have a formal process for the majority to end debate and force a vote on legislation or nominations. In 1917 senators finally adopted a rule, Senate Rule 22, which allowed for cloture and limit debate with a two-thirds majority. This was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture and limited debate to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. However, a two-thirds majority was difficult to attain. For four decades after 1919 the Senate managed to invoke cloture only five times. The cloture threshold was changed to 60 in 1975, and entirely eliminated for executive branch and judicial nominations in 2013. In 2017 Republicans eliminated the 60 vote threshold for Supreme Court nominations. In the interim, filibusters remained particularly useful for southern senators seeking to block civil rights legislation. Two political scientists, Sarah Binder and Steven Smith, identified every bill between 1917 and 1994 they believed failed because of use of the filibuster. Among these, half were civil rights bills, including those proposing anti-lynching legislation. The "Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1922," intended to establish lynching as a federal crime, was passed by the House, but died in the Senate being filibustered by southern Democrats. Similar legislation proposed in 1935 and 1938 suffered the same outcome. Southern Democrats justified opposition to these b ills by arguing that lynchings were a response to rape, and proclaiming they were an issue left best to states to deal with. During the 1940s and much of the 1950s it was virtually impossible for civil rights legislation to get past the Senate. Southern senators frequently launched filibusters to kill any legislation challenging the southern states' status quo. Notable during this time was a record-setting filibuster by South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond during the debate on the "Civil Rights Act of 1957," which lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes. The "Civil Rights Act of 1964" finally managed to be approved after an 83 day filibuster and significant political maneuverings behind the scenes. Democrats will likely refer back to history to support their contention that the filibuster is a Jim Crow relic and should be removed. Minority Leader McConnell insists that the filibuster is neither racist nor unfair. He contends that its racial framing is about Democrats trying to push an election-law power grab. Conservatives insist that the filibuster rule is needed to protect minority rights and to protect states from interference by the federal government. To advance their legislative agenda, including voting rights, infrastructure, minimum wage and immigration, without Republican support, Democrats can't continue to rely on using the "reconciliation procedure" they used to pass the "American Rescue Plan Act." That option has largely been tapped out. Eliminating the threat of a filibuster, controversial in its own right, may be their last resort. Theo Wierdsma

ELECTIONS IMPEDE E.U. COVID RESPONSE

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the European Union, governments of member states invoking draconian measures in attempts to control the spread of the virus could do no wrong. Few complained when anti-democratic authoritarian methods were used to enforce restrictive regulations. Many countries crawled back within their own boundaries, and multiple "Schengen area" countries closed their borders to stem the spread of the virus. Approval ratings for national governments soared. Italy's leaders' public support grew 27%, while Germany's and France's confidence in government improved by 11% each. After several months of relative success, infatuation with prolonged resolute leadership is rapidly fading, affecting both the political will and popular compliance. During the last few weeks a surging pandemic has come roaring back across Europe. This one promises to be as significant as the one contacted during the same time last year. However, this time different elements are in play. The science has evolved, and we now know more of what we are facing. This version of the pandemic is predominantly driven by the U.K. variant, B117, which, according to several studies, is 60% more lethal than other strains. It hit during a period of relaxed compliance with health directives, increased resistance to drastic responses implemented to subdue the virus, growing fatigue and diminishing confidence in governments' ability to counter the epidemic. And for several major countries, leaders are caught up in the middle of political campaigns focused on impending and consequential national elections. The latter has led to conflicting messaging between health professionals and dominant politicians, often resulting in hesitant guidance when resolute leadership is again called for. Of scheduled elections, not all are terribly consequential for the E.U. per se, although in every instance responses to the pandemic affect the outcome. Portugal, which voted January 24, re-elected, largely ceremonial, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. The country pointedly waited until the day after the election to introduce a new national lock-down. Italy's government fell mid-January when former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi pulled his centrist party "Italia Viva" from the ruling coalition, effectively unseating P.M. Giuseppe Conte's government. Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, was sworn in a few weeks later as P.M. of an emergency government, supported by all major parties. Unencumbered by upcoming elections, he essentially placed the entire country again under lock-down. Elections in The Netherlands were completed on March 17. Center-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte, running for a 4th term, was extremely popular last year as he steered the country through the pandemic which killed 16,000 people in The Netherlands. However, his popularity dropped significantly during recent weeks as public support for a month-long lock-down declined. Nevertheless, he retained sufficient support to be re-elected, and claimed 35 seats for his party in the new parliament. Notable, however, was the strength of far-right opposition parties which came in with a combined 29 seats. In none of these situations were elected legislators significantly handicapped politically when selecting strategies to combat the resurgent pandemic. Not so with the run-up of the very consequential German federal election scheduled for September 26, and France's presidential election in April of 2022. They are consequential, because in either case leadership positions in the E.U. are at stake. The timing of the German federal election corresponds to the date that Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to step down after 16 years in office. Merkel's leadership has been essential to the European Union. Provided her party will again be dominant leading the country following this election, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is also expected to assume the mantle of Chancellor. Back in January, Armin Laschet, Minister-President of the state of North Rhine-West Phalia, was elected to succeed Merkel as leader of the party. But while Merkel's handling of Covid during the first phase was widely applauded, her response to the current phase is no longer popular. Perhaps consequentially, the CDU has already lost two regional elections. In excess of 88% of voters are dissatisfied with the slow vaccine roll-out, especially after the government decided to temporarily suspend use of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine. Merkel's plan to ease Germany's lock-down, designed to counter national dissatisfaction, is also in disarray. Parts of Germany is shutting down again anyway. In a matter of weeks, the CDU's "Covid bonus" evaporated almost entirely. And the party does not have the political will to implement the essential restrictions its health advisors are recommending. While France's national election won't take place until April next year, strategic positioning is already taking place full steam. President Emanual Macron's "La Republique en Marche" will face significant competition from Marine Le Pen's, far-right, Euroskeptic, "National Rally." Her party is gaining substantial ground, not in the slightest because of spreading coronavirus fatigue. Avoiding lock-downs is a mainstay of Macron's management of the Covid-19 epidemic. He appears keen to avoid the measure at all cost in a bid to safeguard the social and economic life in the country. However, Minister of Health Olivier Veran disagrees and recently reinstalled a lock-down of the Paris region and Hauts de France for another four weeks to combat the current phase. The point of all this is that politicians up for reelection seem to have become gun-shy, afraid of implementing drastic restrictions on populations already exhausted and frustrated with ongoing constraints, no matter how necessary. It does not help that the E.U. has dragged its feet approving the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, and that the use of AstraZenica was suspended by 15 countries over reports of dangerous blood clots in some recipients. Observers have charged that the latter was very much a politically "safe" move. The European Medicines Agency, which recently cleared the vaccine, had been investigating 30 cases of unusual blood disorders among 5 million recipients on the continent and 11 million in the U.K. The agency's "go ahead" was welcomed, but the damage was done. Many potential European recipients remain skeptical about the vaccine's safety. The current pandemic wave could have been ameliorated with greater emphasis on expediting vaccination programs and systemic responses that were less politically cautious. Theo Wierdsma

VOTING RIGHTS IN THE CROSSHAIRS

As a counterweight to voting rights restrictions being advanced in Republican controlled state legislatures, the U.S. House of Representatives, on March 3rd, by a vote of 220-210, passed HR1, a sweeping voting rights bill. The "For the People Act of 2021," which faces unanimous Republican opposition, includes, among other fundamentals, a national system for automatic voter registration, transparency requirements for political advertising, and it establishes non-partisan redistricting commissions to end partisan gerrymandering. Republicans argue that this bill, which faces an uphill fight in the Senate, would give license to unwanted federal interference in states' authority to conduct their own elections. Solid Republican opposition to this legislation is fed by the fear that these changes would ultimately benefit Democrats through higher turnout, most notably among minorities. For Democrats, this is the third attempt to restore key provisions of the "Voting Rights Act of 1965." Republican control of the Senate and the White House insured that previous endeavors had no chance of succeeding. According to "History.com," the "Voting Rights Act," which passed August 6, 1965, and was designed to enforce voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, was "one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history." The Act was subsequently amended 5 times, to bring it in line with contemporary realities. However, in 2013, in "Shelby County v. Holder," the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the law's core provision. By a 5-4 majority vote, the Court concluded that section 5 of the Act, which mandated that states had to get permission in advance - "preclearance" - from the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington D.C. before making any changes affecting voting processes. They had to prove that their proposed changes were not racially discriminatory. The Court decided that this section was antiquated, and declared it unconstitutional. Immediately following publication of this decision, Texas announced that it would implement the country's strictest voter i.d. law. Other states followed suit. In a backlash to historic voter turnout in the 2020 general election, and grounded in a rash of baseless and racist allegations of voter fraud and election irregularities, Republican legislators, still taking advantage of the 2013 Supreme Court decision, introduced well over four times the number of bills to restrict voting access they had proposed during the same time last year. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 33 states introduced over 165 restrictive bills, compared to just 35 by February 2020. Absentee voting reform appears to be of particular interest. The general tendency is to limit voting access, impose stricter voter i.d. requirements, slash voter registration opportunities and enable more aggressive voter roll purges. Specific examples include Arizona's proposal to enable the legislature to overthrow the state's voting result for president, awarding Arizona's Electoral College votes to the candidate of the lawmaker's choosing. This state also proposes to require voters to get their mail-in ballots notarized before sending them back. Georgia wants to limit Sunday voting. (African-Americans tend to vote on Sunday in larger proportions than other demographic groups.) In general, Arizona is discussing 19 restrictive bills, Pennsylvania 14, Georgia 11, New Hampshire 10 and so on. The objective has been simple and quite clear: "Help the Republican Party win elections." Most of these bills still require adoption by respective state Senates and signatures from their governors. Pennsylvania and Michigan, unlike Arizona, Georgia and Texas, have Democratic governors who may veto some election-related bills passed by GOP controlled legislatures. The voting rights bill passed by the House would invalidate many of the restrictions that are being proposed. However, Democrats would need to convince 10 Senate Republicans to go along with them. Without significant process changes this would be a steep hill to climb. Progressive Democrats see ending Senate filibuster rules, which would "only" require a simple majority, as a primary target. Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD), author of HR1, during a recent "Vox" interview, suggested that "there's all manner of ways you could redesign the filibuster so [the bill] would have a path forward." But conservative groups have already embarked on a $5 million campaign to persuade moderate Senate Democrats to oppose rule changes needed to pass any measure to accomplish that. The 15th Amendment to our Constitution reads: "[t}he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude." While this statement appears pretty straight forward, political opposition following its ratification in 1870 continues to focus on blatantly ignoring or circumventing its provisions, from establishing poll taxes and literacy tests early on to, more recently, usurping flagrant misinterpretations reflecting "contemporary" reality. It's time to remove partisanship from the equation and accept the Amendment's intent at face value. Theo Wierdsma

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