CONFRONTING HOMELESSNESS

As Californians attempt to cope with a multitude of vexing challenges, the plight of the homeless remains near the top of the list. While nationally, in 2020, 580,466 Americans experienced homelessness on any given night, 151,278 of these suffered in California alone. Nationwide, these statistics reveal a 2.2% increase over 2019. But, during the same period, homelessness in California grew by 6.8%, and surged 16.2% since 2007. Even though billions of dollars were spent on attempting to solve this problem, attempts to mitigate this crisis at any level have thus far proven relatively ineffective. One in nine Americans live in California. One in four homeless live in California. As some of what is being attempted appears to have a limited effect, it has been tempting to approach the subject from a wider perspective and study what, if anything, has worked elsewhere. This seemed reasonable. However, it turns out that our closest allies in the European Union are facing many of the same problems we do. According to "Feantsa", the "European Federation of National Organizations Working with the Homeless", at least 700,000 homeless people are sleeping rough or in emergency or temporary accommodations every night in the E.U. (2019 numbers). Most of these are in the U.K., the fewest in Germany, if we don't count the approximately 441,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary housing. This last observation actually points at a significant obstacle analysts are forced to wrestle with. Few states adopt a universal definition of homelessness. Cross country comparisons don't necessarily measure comparable data. When the European Parliament called on E.U. member states to stop homelessness by 2030, the first bullet point in its resolution stipulated the need to develop a common definition to "improve data collection and coherent indicators to be able to better understand and assess the extend of the problem." In this country, many states use the definition provided in the "McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act" of 1987, which identifies the homeless as "individuals who lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence." But multiple states include a variety of other qualifying categories in their calculations, and eleven states don't define it at all. These differences aren't just confusing academic debating points, they can have a significant practical effect on the allocation of resources. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) uses a much narrower definition of homelessness than what is used by the the Department of Education (ED), which forms the basis of funding allocation to school districts. HUD estimates that there are 500,000 homeless. ED reports that 1.36 million children experience some form of homelessness. When the "Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development" (OECD) attempted to execute a count of homeless across countries, 16 countries included people temporarily living with family and friends, 15 included people living in institutions and 15 also covered those living in non-conventional dwellings. It is clear that there appears to be little agreement on how to define the concept of homelessness. Most researchers do agree, however, that homelessness is a complex social problem with a variety of underlying economic and social factors. such as lack of affordable housing, poverty, uncertain physical and mental health and addictions. One can argue about cause and effect, or whether the severe stress people face when they lose shelter and are forced to live exposed on the streets wreak havoc on their mental health and leads to substance abuse. However, the most significant cause remains the cost of housing. William Yu, an economist at UCLA, identified a direct correlation between the cost of housing and homelessness. For instance, in West Virginia, which has one of the lowest homeless rates, the medium home value is $98,300. In California, which has the highest rate, the medium rate is $548,700. In Mississippi, which has the highest poverty rate of any state, the homeless rate is also among the lowest. Homelessness experts agree that emergency shelters are mostly just a band-aid. Permanent supportive housing is the long term solution. This conclusion has led to the development of one of the most promising strategies to mitigate this evolving crisis - identified as "Housing First." This model seeks to move homeless people into permanent housing as quickly as possible, before addressing other issues. The approach was first developed in New York during the early nineties, and has successfully trickled through to a number of cities, states and some countries. Those opposed to this scenario criticize its expense, and decry what they identify as a reduced focus on the human care most homeless need. Proponents argue that giving people homes rather than first getting them "ready" for housing by placing them in shelters, rehab or half-way houses makes much more sense. Overseas, Finland, the only E.U. member state with decreasing numbers of homeless, has used this strategy deliberately and effectively for years. Its homeless count shrunk from 19,000 earlier this century to 4,600 today. In this country, Utah is on track to become the first state in the nation to eradicate homelessness. Using the same concept, its homeless count has decreased by 72% since 2005, at greatly reduced expense. It used to cost Salt Lake City more than $20,000 a year to take care of chronically homeless. It now costs the state just $8,000 to put them into permanent housing. Daniel G. Garrett, Assistant Professor of finance at the Wharton School of Business, concluded that providing permanent supportive housing to the homeless community actually saves the taxpayer money: healthcare cost is reduced by 59%, emergency department expenses are reduced by 61%, and the number of general inpatient hospitalizations decrease by 77%. The point is, there is a way forward. The question remains whether our decision makers are willing to attempt to fundamentally change how we confront our acute homelessness crisis. Theo Wierdsma

CHILD SOLDIERS - A PERSISTENT OUTRAGE

It is not terribly difficult to uncover disturbing feature articles in our news coverage these days. A recently published Associated Press op-ed by Sam Mednick, highlighting the chronic, but rarely publicized, unsettling subject of child combatants, as manifested in Burkina Faso, West Africa, stood out. His story poignantly summarized the experience of a 43 year-old mother who fortunately survived an attack by kids, trained to be assassins, during which 160 of her neighbors were killed. Fundamentally, the narrative exposed a subject matter that has been around, unabated, for centuries. Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been involved in military campaigns. For much of the time these entanglements were unregulated. The U.N., in the "Convention on The Rights of the Child" (CRC) made an attempt at establishing parameters by defining this group to be composed of young people under the age of 18, while the "International Criminal Court" declared that the recruitment or use of children under 15 was considered a war crime. Nevertheless, most warring parties took little notice. For a significant number of armed forces involved in combat, the temptation to recruit, abduct, and train under-aged fighters appear irresistible. Recruiters target children from troubled areas or conflict zones, who are accustomed to violence, and who have few educational or work opportunities. Child soldiers come cheap. They are more easily manipulated when forced into combat, and who, ultimately, are considered expendable. Besides being used as fighters, they become informants, looters, messengers, spies, cooks, sex slaves, and may end up employed to clear mine fields or are forced to become suicide bombers. Not all inductees are involuntary participants. Many are attempting to escape from grim socioeconomic conditions at home. To some, joining active military forces is considered to be a rite of passage into adulthood. Others are searching for identity, expressing the need to belong to something resembling a family. And there are those who seek refuge or who are looking for revenge after seeing friends and family killed. And there always are a few who feel compelled to go to war to show loyalty to a new country they immigrated into. Some observers readily dismiss the topic of child soldiers as an outgrowth of persistent post-colonial conflicts across many parts of Africa. And, indeed, a 2003 U.N. study concluded that up to half of all children involved with armed forces world-wide came from Africa. This amounted to an estimated 100,000 children in 2004, and grew to 120,000 four years later. Today, most of these are found predominantly in the Central African Republic, the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. However, it is not just an African problem. The use of child soldiers is far more widespread than the scant attention it typically receives. Statistics produced by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in 2005 concluded that 23% of armed organizations in the world (84 out of a total of 366) use children age 15 and under in combat roles. Eighteen percent of the total (64 of 366) use children 12 and under. There is no reason to believe that these totals have changed significantly since. A U.N. report published in June 2020 summarized that there were still an estimated 250,000child soldiers employed in 20 countries world-wide, while, according to "Child Soldiers International," 50 countries still allow children to be recruited into armed forces. Although Africa may still be considered to be the epicenter of half the problem, the Americas (Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and others), Europe (Chechnya, Kosovo, Macedonia, and the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey), the Middle East and Central Asia (Sudan, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria) and Asia - (especially Myanmar, where more than 75,000 child soldiers - 20% of its total recruits - are under 15) make up the other half. (P.W. Singer, "The New Faces of War," AFT, Winter 2005-2006). This is, of course, nothing new. During the American Civil War, between 250,000 and 420,000 males under the age of 18 were involved in the fighting. An estimated 100,000 Union soldiers were 15 years old or younger. As many as 250,000 boys under the age of 18 served in the British army during World War I. (Recruitment officers were paid two shillings and sixpence for each new recruit and were not terribly scrupulous when signing up under-aged children.) Towards the end of World War II, Nazi Germany removed huge numbers of youths from schools and sent them out on what were essentially suicide missions. And children as young as 8 years old were reportedly captured by American troops as the fighting came to a close. The Japanese imperial army mobilized students aged 14-17, and ordered schools to force almost all students to "volunteer" to become soldiers.The numbers are all over the place. While doing the research you are readily overwhelmed by letters home written by very young soldiers who were rapidly stripped of their illusions of adventure and the glory of battle. Decades ago, Graca Machel, former First Lady of South Africa and wife of Nelson Mandela, in her function as "Special Expert" for the U.N. on this topic, summed up the outrage this appalling condition deserves to generate as follows: "These statistics are shocking enough, but more chilling is the conclusion to be drawn from them: more and more of the world is being sucked into a desolate moral vacuum, This is a space devoid of the most basic human values; a space in which children are slaughtered, raped, and maimed; a space in which children are exploited as soldiers; a space in which children are starved and exposed to extreme brutality. Such unregulated terror and violence speak of deliberate victimization. There are few further depths to which humanity can sink." Theo Wierdsma

TIME TO CLOSE GUANTANAMO

In response to the September 11 attacks, which killed 2,996, the U.S., joined by troops from the U.K., launched "Operation Enduring Freedom," and invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. While in pursuit of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda fighters, most of which escaped to neighboring Pakistan, the Taliban was driven from power and scattered throughout the countryside. In the process, the U.S. and an expanding contingent of coalition members, captured, held, and expressed the desire to interrogate a large number of suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants, but needed to a find a place to do this. Guantanamo, a 45 square mile U.S. naval base on the south-east coast of Cuba, which the U.S. had been leasing since 1903, was considered to be perfect for this purpose. Guantanamo was secure and far from the front lines of battle. It was technically outside of U.S. territory, yet under complete U.S. control. In legal terms, the Bush administration considered it a zone in which its personnel could conduct detention and interrogation operations with few legal and judicial constraints. Moreover, the administration decided that the Geneva Convention would not apply to the conflict at hand. On January 11, 2002, the first flight with 20 detainees landed at Guantanamo. This total grew to a peak of 780 inmates before it began to shrink. Ultimately, President Bush released 540 prisoners, President Obama transferred 200, and President Trump got rid of 1. Today 39 captives remain. Many are being held without having been charged or tried. Of these, 17 are held in indefinite "law of war" detention as enemy combatants. They are neither facing tribunal charges nor being recommended for release. Another 10 have been recommended for transfer. They are no longer considered a threat to U.S. security, but they are still incarcerated. Of the remaining 12, 3 face proposed charges and 9 have been charged or convicted. The latter group includes Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Mohammed's trial was set to begin January 11, 2021, but it has been postponed because of myriad pretrial motions and complications related to the pandemic. Pressure to close the Guantanamo detention center has been building from the outset.. Early on, even President Bush admitted that the detention facility had become a "propaganda tool for our enemies and a distraction for our allies." Retired Major General Michael Lehnert, the first commander of the prison camp, during a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting in March of 2016, was quoted to have concluded that "Guantanamo was a mistake. History will reflect that. It was created in the early days as a consequence of fear, anger, and political expediency. It ignored centuries of rule of law and international agreements. It does not make us safer and it sullies who we are as a nation." A major segment of consequential office holders, including President Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Senator McCain and others over time also indicated they wanted it closed. The Biden administration picked up where Obama left off, launching a National Security Council review with the intent of closing the facility before the president leaves office. The timing seems appropriate. Since we have officially announced the end of our war in Afghanistan, continued detention of prisoners of war is no longer justifiable. Under the rules of war, combatants can only hold prisoners of war without trial until the war ends. These are supposedly held in preventive detention to stop them from returning to the battle field. They should be released upon cessation of hostilities. (Article 118 of the Geneva Convention). While closing the Guantanamo detention camp is arguably desirable from a number of viewpoints, actually doing it proves complicated. Our moral authority as a nation was seriously compromised when we used torture to obtain information and secure confessions. Guantanamo undermined our security by diminishing international cooperation and alienating Muslim communities. Legally we are skirting the law by denying habeas corpus rights to inmates not being charged, even though the Supreme Court specifically held that federal law applies in these cases. (Rasul v. Bush (2004) and re-affirmed in Boumedienne v. Bush (2008)). Moreover, the cost of keeping the facility open amounts to $13 million per prisoner per year. At $540 million Guantanamo is the most expensive prison on earth. Objections to closing the camp are practical, legal and political. Sending remaining detainees back to their home country may not be easy. They may not all be welcome and could be endangered upon their return. Transferring others to the U.S. mainland for prosecution could also be an issue. Some could be found innocent, simply because confessions were secured under torture. Politically closing Guantanamo remains controversial as well. In 2015, the Senate passed a defense appropriations bill which specifically prohibited the transfer of detainees to the U.S., or the use of funds to build or modify a prison on the mainland to house those detainees. However, there probably are ways to get around these prohibitions. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's statement during his January confirmation hearing that the administration would seek the closure of Guantanamo's detention facility drew a letter of rebuke signed by 7 Republican House members. They expressed their concern that those released would "become rock stars in the Islamist extremist world, posing an even greater threat to America and the world." This probably remains a sentiment held by many. But, after 20 years with a rapidly aging detainee contingent, we ought to cut to the chase, try and convict the master minds behind the 9/11 attacks, transfer or release the remaining prisoners, and close the facility down! The advantages far outweigh any potential ramifications. The place has been an albatross around our collective neck for too long. Theo Wierdsma

THE ESSENCE OF "CRITICAL RACE THEORY”

Well ahead of the 2022 election cycle, our culture wars are already intensifying. One of the not-so-subtle political dog whistles permeating partisan bickering focuses on what is referred to as "Critical Race Theory" (CRT), which relatively recently morphed from an obscure academic discussion point on the left into a political rallying cry on the right. The concept theorizes that racism is not just demonstrated acts of individual bias or prejudice, but is rather embedded in our institutions, policies and legal systems. In short, it suggests that it is systemic. During the 1970s, legal scholars, activists and lawyers, frustrated with the limitations of the civil-rights movement, tried to understand why civil-rights-era victories had stalled and were being eroded. They were exasperated by traditional civil-rights discussions, which predicted that racism would stop once we stop thinking about race. In other words, ignore skin color in everything and the problem of racism will eventually disappear. Acknowledging this incrementalist approach, a growing number of them banned together and developed a coherent framework within which to confront our history of race and racism, and provide us with the ability to think about present-day implications. In light of last year's police killing of George Floyd, 240 other African Americans and 159 Hispanic Americans, parents and educators grappled with the question of how to handle conversations about race and racism in schools. "Critical Race Theory" provided an available academic framework within which to pursue this effort. Politicians and conservative pundits quickly latched onto the concept, arguing that its teachings are un-American, in spite of the fact that there is very little evidence that it is actually being taught to K-12 public school students. In many classrooms the subject never even comes up.However, facts don't matter in today's political environment. CRT opponents now use the term as a catch-all phrase for virtually all examinations of systemic racism. Opponents have argued that "Critical Race Theory" is a Marxist framework that suggests that our nation is inherently evil and that white people should feel guilty for their skin color. More than two dozen states have passed or introduced bills that aim to stymie educational discussions about race, racism and systemic oppression in the U.S. The Florida law specifically stipulates that educators cannot teach "Critical Race Theory." The GOP-controlled legislature in Tennessee passed a sweeping law banning educators from discussing racism, sexism, bias and other social issues with students altogether. Some bills explicitly prevent the teaching of the New York Times' "1619 project," which was launched in August of 2019, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia. Its aim was to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of African-Americans at the very center of our national narrative. And Senators Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn and Mitch McConnell recently reintroduced the "Saving American History Act," which would block federal funds to schools teaching about this project. Overall, the mantra seems to be that the subject is divisive, and that it is even racist to examine the role of race in U.S. systems and structures. That doing so would teach kids to hate their country and to hate each other. Academic supporters of the concept suggest that there is nothing in "Critical Race Theory" that promotes any of the adverse consequences critics are blaming it for. Kimberle Crenshaw, law professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, a founding CRT theorist, admonishes that: "When you're really serious about addressing a problem, the last thing you do is punish people for building the tools to see the problem, to analyze the problem and to develop the capacity to remove the problem. "Critical Race Theory" is not a coherent school of thought. It is simply an effort to confront our history of race and racism and to give us the capacity to think about its implications." During a different time, it was political scientist and U.S. National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who argued that the term "war on terror" was intended to deliberately generate a culture of fear, because it "obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue." We could draw a direct parallel to the situation today, given that we are involved in a culture war, and that a significant slice of the electorate has no clue about the essence of "Critical Race Theory," other than what their manipulators suggest. We have to assume that the application of this political dog whistle is solely intended to elicit fear and mobilize constituents in advance of next year's elections. Theo Wierdsma

DOOMSDAY LOOMS FOR AFGHAN ALLIES

In April, President Biden announced that, after being engaged there for twenty years, the U.S. would withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by September 11 of this year. When we initiated this war on October 7, 2001, our objectives were to dismantle al qaeda, remove the Taliban from power and remake the country into a democracy. While we had some successes early on, we ultimately ended up frustrated. As the British found out almost 200 years ago, and the Soviet Union more recently, the political, cultural and geographic complexity of Afghanistan is such that foreign powers have an insurmountable task of putting their own stamp on the country. During the process of trying, we spent $2.26 trillion, lost 2,312 lives, while the local Afghan population suffered in excess of 6,400 casualties. Following our departure, Afghanistan anticipates only a limited number of possible outcomes: a takeover of the country by the Taliban, which has grown in strength and gained control over progressively more territory ever since the announcement was made; a defeat of the Taliban by the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, which is having an increasingly more difficult job without the support of U.S. air power; or a resurgent civil war. On the U.S. side, President Biden's announcement was largely met with relief. Pursuit of our mission had rapidly become indefensible, and the feeling that it was time to bring the troops home already prevailed. But what is relief for some, converts to anxiety among the 50,000 plus Afghans who served with our military units during the past twenty years. Of these, 18,000 and up to 53,000 family members are nervously attempting to obtain the necessary visas to leave the country for the U.S.. Most fear assassination by Taliban militia who view them as traitors. There have already been at least 300 targeted killings of people who worked with us. If we don't get our act together and get them out, many more could end up being slaughtered. The timetable for withdrawal already accelerated. At the current rate we could complete our exit as soon as some time in July. Regardless, even if we run the operation out until the September 11 completion target, there are at most three months left. Not enough time for our State Department to process the admitted backlog of 18,000 Special Immigrant Visa applications. By law, these applications need to be approved or denied within nine months. However, they have instead taken three to five years to get resolved. A significant problem has been that many applicants lack appropriate documentation of their work background. Afghans who worked with the CIA or other spy agencies face especially difficult hurdles, since they often have no tangible proof of who they worked with. Many operatives never used their real names. Besides, a significant number of applicants can't produce the money for required medical screenings. In the mean time, the embassy staff in Kabul has already been decimated. It faced increased violence and threats as troops began leaving the country. Thus far it only managed to process about 20% of visa requests. Officials insist that the embassy will continue to process the S.I.V. program even after all U.S. troops have left the country. But continued security threats could well hamper that effort. The Taliban issued a statement of its own, urging Afghans to remain in the country: "The Islamic Emirate would like to inform all the above people that they should show remorse for their past actions and must not engage in such activities in the future that amount to treason against Islam and the country. But none should currently desert the country. The Islamic Emirate will not perturb them, but calls them to return to their normal lives, and if they have expertise in any field, to serve the country. They shall not be in any danger on our part." As might be expected, few in or out of Afghanistan trust the veracity of this declaration. With time running out and the logistics of successfully managing the overwhelming visa backlog unrealistically remote, the potential of a calamitous outcome is becoming more apparent. While pulling out our troops well ahead of schedule may garner some political points at home, if part of our objective is, as it should be, to protect our Afghan allies, this expedited withdrawal ought to be discouraged. Time will be of the essence. We will need all the time we can muster to get the job done. And given the virtual impossibility of completing the visa application process, we should instead focus on getting our interpreters and other co-workers out of the country before we leave. Visas can be processed elsewhere. We need to begin to evacuate those in danger. We can do this. We have done this before. Toward the end of the Vietnam war, during "Operation New Life," we evacuated 111,000 Vietnamese to Guam. Preceding the capture of Saigon by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), "Operation Frequent Wind" evacuated almost all of the American civilian and military personnel, along with thousands of Vietnamese civilians. And when Saddam Hussein's regime attacked Iraq's Kurdish region, the U.S. military evacuated about 6,600 Iraqi Kurds to Guam as well. The process is not new. It just takes political will to set it in motion. A growing number of decision makers have apparently already reached the conclusion that evacuation is the moral and only rational choice. Processing visa applications can certainly be accomplished in a third country or U.S. territory. The State Department and the Department of Defense are reportedly drawing up plans to do just that. There is little time left, and the logistics of such an undertaking in a country experiencing rapidly advancing Taliban control would still be challenging. However, if we fail to protect and extricate our Afghan allies, we are effectively sentencing them and their families to a very uncertain future, including death. That outcome would have a lasting impact on our future partnerships and global reputation. Theo Wierdsma

QANON GOES MAINSTREAM

When Marjorie Taylor Greene was elected to represent Georgia's 14th Congressional District, most observers wrote it off as an aberration. Her victory was considered a fluke, and not terribly impressive, since she ran unopposed in one of the country's most conservative districts. Posing as an openly committed devotee of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory, was so far off center that few expected her beliefs to be consequential, even in our unstable political environment. Who could subscribe to conspiracy theories blended with so-called inside information from an anonymous government official posing as "Q"? Conspiracies like: The federal government has been infiltrated by a satanic, child trafficking ring peopled by Democrats, deep state denizens, and Satan worshipping pedophiles and cannibals; the believe in an adrenochrome conspiracy, spreading the theory that the blood of kidnapped children is being harvested by liberal elites for a drug called adrenochrome, which is actually extracted from the pituitary gland, which offers a psychedelic experience, and holds the promise of immortality for those who take it; the assertion that Covid vaccines are part of Bill Gates' plan for mind control; that the furniture company Wayfair is smuggling trafficked children in its cabinets; that California's wildfires are not natural, but are caused by Jewish space lasers, and so on. QAnon's premise is that we can't trust the people in power; we can't trust the information we've been given; and the only way to save society is to destroy its institutions. Its philosophy is that our hunches can be as or more correct as what we know through reason or evidence. Nobody would believe all this, right? Wrong! What started as an online obsession for the far-right fringe has grown beyond its origins in the dark corners of the internet. Kathryn Olmsted, a U.C. Davis history professor who specializes in the subject, suggested that "what is different now compared to other conspiracy theories in the past is that now there are people in power who are actually spreading the conspiracy theory." The handwriting seems to have been on the wall for some time. During the 2020 election cycle at least two dozen QAnon converts ran for congressional seats. Aside from Marjorie Taylor Greene, only one other candidate was successful: Lauren Boebert, in Colorado's 3rd District. Both of these are up for reelection next year. However, undeterred, QAnon supporters are already counting on the GOP's embrace of the conspiracy theory, and throwing their hats in the ring for a seat in Congress in 2022. Estimates are that, thus far, 19 converts are already poised to run. All but one on the Republican ticket. One independent in Nevada is running under the "Patriot Party of Nevada" banner. Five of these are competing in Florida. What is gradually becoming clear, is that the QAnon conspiracy is no longer the property of a lunatic fringe. In 2020, Time Magazine declared "Q" one of the 25 most influential people on the internet. In March of 2019, "QAnon,: An Invitation to a Great Awaking," a book written by twelve anonymous QAnon followers, peaked at #2 on Amazon's list of best selling books. A December, 2020 NPR/IPSOS poll found that one in three Americans believed in some of the key tenets of its ideology. And the American Enterprise Institute reported that 29% of Republicans surveyed agreed that former President Trump has been secretly fighting a group of child traffickers. The emergence of QAnon can not be dismissed as yet another conspiracy theory, or be relegated to simple expressions of our well documented history of "anti intellectualism. (See Richard Hofstadter, 1963). It is much more than that. The FBI has identified QAnon as a potential terrorist threat.The American University produced a report that revealed a "growing, violent threat from [the] QAnon movement to public safety and democracy," specifying: "creating and amplifying cultural and political divisions; introducing and spreading disinformation and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories; and mobilizing and motivating extreme violence." In keeping with the movement's philosophy, which elevates hunches and conspiracy theories over scientific evidence, converts have been manipulated to trust that their beliefs need not change in response to evidence. This makes us more susceptible to conspiracy theories, science denial and extremism. (Andy Norman, "The Case of America's Post-Truth Predicament," Scientific American, May 18, 2021.) As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. aptly observed: "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." Or, to quote the 19th century teacher and philosopher Amos Bonson Alcott, "the ignorance of once ignorance is the malady of the ignorant." We have a lot of work to do before this anomaly undermines our already fragile democratic system. Theo Wierdsma

VACCINE PASSPORTS PERMIT NORMALCY

Mid May, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released an updated health guidance acknowledging that fully vaccinated people no longer needed to wear a mask or stay away from others in most settings, whether outdoors or indoors. During a press conference, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walinsky proclaimed: "If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things you stopped doing because of the pandemic. We have all longed for this moment, when we can get back to some sense of normalcy." While, on the face of it, this is great news for all of us who are duly vaccinated, for many venues potentially benefiting from the CDC's updated guidance, it begs the question: "Short of trusting the so-called honor system, how can we tell if someone is actually vaccinated?" Municipalities across the country inevitably reacted by re-opening a discussion about creating systems that would help verify someone's vaccination status. Some, like Santa Clara County, put the onus on employers, requiring them to find out which of their workers have gotten their shots, and to treat those who refuse to reveal that information to be treated as if they have not. At the other extreme, states like Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Texas, South Carolina and Arkansas actually passed legislation prohibiting local governments from requiring proof of vaccination. Nevertheless, businesses, regardless of size, struggle to separate the fully inoculated from those who are not, either by choice or circumstance. Establishments concerned about the safety of their employees and patrons are not allowing people into their facilities unless they are able to prove they have had their shots. Many are beginning to insist that we establish some form of vaccine passport, either in the form of a signed and stamped document or a QR code stored on our phones. This form of documentation has become especially important for travel and for entrance into large venues like sports arenas or concert halls. Internationally, Israel, which is virtually fully vaccinated, introduced a "green pass," enabling people to use facilities like gyms and hotels, while Bahrain, China and Greece also already require similar documentation. The UK and the EU are close to establishing a "digital green certificate" to facilitate opening up their economies. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently lamented that Covid passports would likely become a "fact of life" in overseas travel. Given the devastating financial losses incurred by the travel industry, and the realization that many markets, especially in Europe, rely on tourism for much of their economy, airlines and travel organizations are increasing their push for adoption of some form of universally accepted proof of vaccination for the traveling public. In the mean time, domestically, venues like Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and a growing number of sporting facilities elsewhere are setting aside special seating areas for those who are inoculated, to allow them to enjoy games side by side with other fans the way they used to pre-pandemic. For those supporting this form of documentation, vaccine passports are the way back to normality. Those opposed argue that requiring these leads to unnecessary government interference. When introduced for travel, it could be too easily extended and abused. They consider its requirement punishment for not getting vaccinated, and fear that it would create a two-tier society where only some people can participate in normal activities or access employment opportunities., which could have major ethical implications. Whatever the opposition throws at the discussion about the desirability of a standard proof of vaccination, private industry seems to forge ahead in support of the idea. Some cruise lines have already stipulated that no one can board their ships without proof of vaccination. Norwegian Cruise Lines is even threatening to keep its ships out of Florida ports if the state stands by a law prohibiting businesses requiring vaccines in exchange for services. Airlines are eager to introduce vaccine passports, which, in their view, are the "golden tickets" for reopening borders and allowing for international travel that will help local economies and the global hospitality begin to recover from the adverse effects of the pandemic. Or, as a bar owner in Washington was reported to have said: "As we hit a plateau with vaccines, we can't sit and wait for all of the non believers. If we are going to convince them, it's going to be through them not being able to do the things that vaccinated people are able to do." Theo Wierdsma