Monthly Archives: April 2020

April 4, 2020 · 00:20

Pandemics and Their Indirect Effects

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We are living in difficult times. We have the COVID-19 pandemic which is claiming thousands of people a day while infecting far more, many of who will be permanently damaged by its effects. We have an economic meltdown going on with businesses going under, millions of people losing their jobs. The unemployment rate is skyrocketing, and many people are left without enough to survive on. They are doing so despite the approved yet unissued $1,200 subsidy, as well as increased unemployment coverage. Many of the newly unemployed have also lost their healthcare insurance.

Of course many of the now failed business offered no health benefits to their employees to begin with. But others did, like Craftworks Holdings, owners of numerous restaurants and brewery restaurant chains, started shutting down many of its most profitable locations in January and February, including our own version of cheers, Gordon Biersch, Virginia Beach. On Sunday, Craftworks closed every one of their remaining 338 restaurants. They notified their 18,000 employees that they were fired with no severance pay or insurance, as they made sure that they had ended their policy to continue health coverage under COBRA before they fired their employees.   However, I am sure that the CEO left with a golden parachute worth more than the severance  that they denied all their employees.

But now, in barely two weeks six and a half million people have filed for unemployment assistance!  over 3 million of those last week. It is worth noting that it is economists expect that the unemployment rate will reach 10% and not go down significantly until sometime next year. We are talking unemployment numbers not seen since the Great Depression, and it will get worse because so many American companies shut down their American operations and moved to countries where they could profit from using near slave labor rather than pay American workers what they worth. Now, like in 1929 we are watching everything collapse before our eyes. In 1929 President Herbert Hoover, maintained a policy of austerity, which only deepened the depression. His actions put more people out of work with no safety net. Food kitchens set up by churches and communities sprang up to feed those without the ability to provide food. Likewise, homeless shelters multiplied, while Shantytowns, nicknamed Hoovervilles popped up all over the country as people  lost their homes.

By the summer of 1932 as the Great Depression crushed the economy, and resulted in massive unemployment.  With no relief from the Republican Administration of Herbert Hoover, the Republican Senate stopped a House attempt to pay WWI Veterans a previously approved bonus for their service,  that was deferred until 1948. In response, veterans from all over the country camped out, many with their families at Anacostia Flats, across the Potomac from the White House and Capital Hill. Eventually the veterans numbered nearly 17,000, with thousands of women and children.

The veterans were falsely accused of being the leaders of a Communist attempt to overthrow the government, which would be backed by the Marines in Washington DC.  President Hoover refused to meet with their leaders, and ordered the Attorney General to send the Metro Police to drive them off. The police attempt failed with the death of two veterans. Hoover then ordered in the Army.  Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur took direct command of a force of infantry, cavalry, and tanks, the latter commanded by Major George Patton. On the afternoon of 28 July MacArthur took action and attacked the veterans. He even disobeyed the orders of Hoover to not drive the veterans out of their camps on the Anacostia Flats. MacArthur not only did that,  but had his soldiers burn down their shelters. The unprovoked attack wounded over 50 veterans, while over 150 more were arrested.

What happened in the United States set off a crushing economic ripple effect around the world, especially in countries like Germany which had racked up massive loan debts from banks in the United States in order to help it out of the earlier Weimar depression, as they also tried to alleviate the effects of World War One and the Great Influenza.  When the depression it the American bankers called in their loans and the fragile Weimar Democracy was overwhelmed by massive unemployment and hunger. As this happened the Republic was ripped apart by extreme political movements. On the left there was the Communist Party of Germany KPD, and on the Right, the National Socialist Workers Party, the NSDAP, or the Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler.both had the same goal of overthrowing the Republic and replacing it with an authoritarian state.

However, Hitler was much better at wooing the Conservative parties of the German Right Center to support him, than the KPD was in its relationship to the mainline, slightly left of Center Socialist Party of Germany. The KPD hated the SPD worse than the Nazis. They hated democracy more than anything, and at its birth they attempted to overthrow the incipient Republic and replace it with a Soviet State. This alarmed the essentially moderate leaders of the SPD who had been given leadership of the new Republic by the outgoing Imperial Chancellor based on their parliamentary majority. The SPD allied itself with the Army high command in order to build up a new Army to defend the Republic. The Republic authorized the formation of Freikorps, units raised up by officers and NCOs to fight the Communist threat. Some of these were lead by SPD leaders or Army veterans with SPD backgrounds, but many were either monarchists, or represented the extreme right of the German political spectrum.

These formations fought the Communists in the German Civil war of 1918-1920. Communists had seized control in many cities, from which the better trained and disciplined Freikorps drove them and defeated them. While the civil war went on Freikorps fought battles with Polish troops in the disputed boundary areas. All of this went on during the Great Influenza. In defeating the Communist threat the SPD worked with the Army, conservatives, and business to show that they were responsible and to be trusted with the reigns of government. Eventually this odd coalition held Germany together, despite the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. For their efforts the SPD was blamed for Versailles and gave up power to coalitions of the German right and center parties, while Friedrich Ebert of the SPD remained President. For their cooperation with the Army the KPD never forgave them. Ebert died unexpectedly in 1925 and Paul Von Hindenburg, Germany’s top General in WWI was elected President.

For a time things looked good, and then the Great Depression hit. When it really mattered, the KPD would not join a left wing coalition government which might have provided enough stability in the Reichstag and Republic, ride our the storm. But like the “My way or the highway ideologues” of any stripe do all the time. The KPD hated the Republic more than it did the Nazis, and frequently coordinated its efforts to destroy the Republic with the Nazis. But only one authoritarian party could win, and many of the people on the German right and center, even non-Nazis trusted them more than the Communists. after numerous coalitions of the right and center failed to establish effective governments to lift the country out of the depression, Hindenburg was encouraged by his son Oskar, and advisor Franz Von Papen to give Hitler a chance. They did not believe that a government led by Hitler, with the Nazis having few seats in the Cabinet could survive which would cause Hitler’s movement to crumble, and if it did not they believed that they could moderate it, and contain its excesses. However, Hitler outmaneuvered all of them. Within six months all political parties and free labor unions were banned, and Hitler given full power. In a year Hindenburg was dead, and Hitler combined his office as chancellor with that of President. He also became the head of the military, while key aids became the heads of the police, and the ministry of justice.

Of course this whole situation was due to a number of factors, all mentioned above, but the Great Flu was significant as it killed another 426,000 Germans on top of the war deaths. The H1N1 pandemic was just one of many factors that resulted in the eventual collapse of the the Weimar Republic, and it did not help the United States, which lost over 600,000 people to it.

Pandemics have direct and indirect effects. Some of those indirect effects are more deadly than the virus itself. I expect that will be the case in many countries as a result of the novel Coronavirus of 2019. It’s effects will be felt for many years to come. It is going to change the course of history, but God only knows how. But as for me, I cannot be a bystander. I must both speak out and care for those in my care and those infected or dying from this horrific pandemic. While doing this it is my full intent and purpose to live through it and to bear witness against those who let it happen.

Until Tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

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Filed under authoritarian government, Coronavirus, Diseases Epidemics and Pandemics, germany, History, leadership, Military, nazi germany, News and current events, us army

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April 2, 2020 · 03:07

The COVID-19 Tsunami is Here and The Pro-Life is Exposed as Profit over People

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The disaster that few prepared for, including our President despite having verified and validated evidence of it in January is here. Back then we were given a moment in time to prepare, something that people that experience tsunamis ever get. An administration in denial dismissed evidence that could have mitigated the novel Coronavirus and minimized the number killed by it. I will not go through the litany of deception and false claims that he made made, and the actions of his administration in giving away tons of vitality needed Personal Protective Equipment  from our national stockpile, to China. PPE that our doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel are crying out for because they are having to reuse or use makeshift gear to treat the victims of the novel Coronavirus. 

Back in January there were only a few cases, which the President said would soon disappear along with the virus, and the President’s “band played on,” to borrow words the late Randy Shilts in his monumental volume about the initial response of the Reagan Administration to the AIDS pandemic. However, despite the warning the President played politics by minimizing the threat, and later bragging about how he has responded to it, constantly upstaging, and contradicting the experts of the CDC including Drs. Fauci and Brix, while ignoring the rising infection rate and death toll until it became a political liability. When that happened he and is enablers, supporters, and propaganda network, you know them well Fox News began to deflect the blame to the Democrats, the impeachment hearings and Senate trial, the Chinese, the media, and anyone else for his multiple failures when simply listening to experts and being honest with the American people would have been far better. In fact he took his impeachment trial and COVID-19 so cavalierly that he kept having campaign rallies beating his chest, demonizing his opponents, bragging on himself, and exposing his followers to to a deadly virus in massed rallies who God knows how many were exposed to satiate his vanity. That is the mark of a true sociopath, he doesn’t even care about his supporters. Think about that.

Just 24 days ago, on 8 March, the United States reported 541 infections and 22 deaths. By March 18th there were 9,259 cases and 150 deaths. Four days later we were at 46,182 cases and 582 deaths, a death rate of 66%, well over the worldwide percentage. Two days later we were over 66,000 infections and over 1,000 deaths. Now we lead the world in number of infections, as infections and deaths are spiking, and the healthcare system is being overwhelmed without enough resources to care for the victims or protect their caregivers. In two and a half months we went from a barely noticeable situation, unless you pay attention to potential pandemics. But in 24 days we went from a noticeable wave to a tsunami of infection and death, not to mention economic carnage, and worldwide instability. But, instead of doing what almost all of his 44 predecessors did, President Trump declared “I don’t take responsibility for anything.” Forget President Harry Truman who declared “the Buck stops here,” or any other President, this President denies any blame for anything regardless of how serious it is. But that is his history: draft dodging, divorces, affairs, corporate bankruptcies and failures, leaving employees, contractors, and now the American people in the lurch to protect himself.

As of now the United States has 215,300 of the world’s 936,204 infections, or 23% of the world total. That is a 338% increase since 8 March. Our death rate since 8 March has gone up by 223%. By the way we have the unfortunate distinction of having the most infections or any country in the world. But wait, there’s more. Of the 47,249 deaths we went from 3,ooo to over 5,000  deaths in 48 hours. Our death toll is now 5,110, or 11% or the worldwide death total, and supposedly we have the best medical system in the world.

But that is not the case. Public health ranks at the bottom of our priorities. Expensive specialty procedures and interventions are at the top, not to include medical procedures performed simply for our vanity and good looks. Preparation for pandemics and disasters  is also low, because our medical system is profit based predicated on what insurance companies will pay for, if an American is fortunate enough to have medical insurance. The fact is that our private and even public hospitals operate with very little surge capacity, because it takes profits down. ICU beds, ventilators, and the highly trained staff need to man them are expensive. Insurance companies don’t like to pay those costs, nor do hospitals and medical systems. For the corporations, profit takes priority over people, even when the doctors, nurses, and other staff are committed to life and the Hippocratic Oath.

As of today that number is far lower than it was a week ago, as failing businesses end their COBRA policies, and then fire their workers. It looks great on a corporate balance sheet but it fucks all of their employees, especially those who devoted their lives and careers to those corporations, while the Trump Administration refuses to let the millions of people impacted by this to purchase health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges. The President rejected that today, it is quite obvious that he would rather destroy the lives of people than to save them and then claim victory despite the loss of 100,00-240,000 people or more. Those are not the actions of a man who stands for the sanctity of life, but rather a sociopath willing to sacrifice lives to keep power.

The cruelty of profit over life exposes that our real civil religion and morality is not life, but profit. As a historian and scholar of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, I have to ask when palliative care transitions to euthanasia, and those deemed life unworthy of life, are euthanized by the people who supposedly there to care for them and protect the sanctity of their lives. As this cris continues, and the Trump Administration remains in change that such a decision will be made, not to protect the sanctity of life, but to enhance corporate profits, and political power, regardless of the human cost.

It is late and I am tired, but as of now of those whose cases were resolved by death and recoveries, 36% resulted in death. The worldwide death rate has gone up to 20%, up from 16% at the end of last week.

I believe in God, faith and prayer, but without the actions of responsible human beings in leadership positions, elected, appointed, or commissioned, we are headed to a human, economic, sociological, and eventually war based solution, regardless of whatever nation starts it,

So until tomorrow I wish you all the best. Please be careful out there.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

 

 

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April 1, 2020 · 00:33

COVID-19: Living with its Reality While Being Brave and Caring While Acknowledging our Fears

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

T.S. Elliot penned these words: “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” 

The sad fact is that Drs. Birx and Fauci have been quietly trying to brace the President and many of us for reality. Despite all the falsehoods and false hopes that emanated from the mouth of the President  between January and the beginning of March they, like them or not, soldiered on when many would have quit. All the President’s  denials, delays, disinformation, claims of fake news, bragging about his success, attacking  political opponents, and demonizing real news agencies, and reporters by name did not keep them from pushing back. I am not sure, but I suspect that Vice President Pence began to trust them helped push the President into accepting reality that the numbers that will die in the United States are far beyond anything that he ever would admit. Today they admitted that 100,000 to 240,000 could die, and that with successful mitigation. The same models predict a million and a half to two and a half million deaths without “successful” mitigation efforts. Who knows what April will bring, but I don’t think most American leaders or their followers are willing to deal with the hard truth that lay before us.

What our states are now beginning to do may be too little and to late to prevent an even higher death toll. Truthfully, based on the deadliness COVID-19 has demonstrated in our country where a lot more people in the 20-50 year old bracket are falling victim than was expect, I think, though I desperately  want to be wrong, and a quarter of a million is a low estimate based on the historical tendency for Americans to not obey the rules, trust science, or the government.

The terrible thing is that now the President would consider a death toll of 100,000 a “victory.” Had the President and  administration prepared for the virus when they were warned, we would have had a chance at minimizing the death toll, like South Korea.

But here we are facing one of the most catastrophic moments in the history of our country. We have to pull together, work together, and fight this together. Political, ideological, and religious animosity has to be chucked over the rails of this ship called America if we are not to sink. As one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence said, “we either hang together or we hang separately.”

Sadly, I have the feeling that many Americans will not believe until they, their family members, and friends start dying. As C.S. Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed:

“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”

That my friends is the reality that we face. No matter our religion, lack thereof, or ideology may be, we are all human. Unless we are true narcissistic sociopaths, the deaths of friends and loved ones strike the very core of our innate human finiteness. They remind us that we too are mortal, and part of a community. I have friends across the religious and political spectrum, even people who disagree with me vehemently on various matters. But the death of any of them would involve grief that I cannot explain.

So now the latest COVID-19 casualty report. Worldwide there are 858,669 cases, 42,151 deaths, and 178,099 recovered. The get the death rate we do not uses the total infections. John’s Hopkins uses the total number infected, but since that number is always changing it is unreliable. Instead you have to use the total cases completed by either death or recovery, as the denominator. You divide the number of deaths by the number of completed cases. That rate is now 19% worldwide. In the United States there are now 188,530 total cases, 3,889 deaths and  7,251 people who have recovered, a 35% death rate. Of course as the minor infections recover the rate will most likely go down, to between 5 and 10%, not the 1-3% that some estimated just weeks ago. This is a killer virus, much worse than any flu. I’m not a scientist, but a historian. The great Spanish Influenza of 1918-19 killed over 600,000 Americans, and based on the latest estimates nearly 50 million deaths worldwide, and the populations, especially those living in major metropolitan cities, were far less than they are today.

John Barry, author of The Great Influenza: the Story of the Greatest Pandemic in History  wrote:

“overstate to make a point—warned, civilization could have disappeared within a few more weeks. So the final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that those who occupy positions of authority must lessen the panic that can alienate all within a society. Society cannot function if it is every man for himself. By definition, civilization cannot survive that. Those in authority must retain  the public’s trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart.”

The lesson is that truth even in the face of unimaginable disaster and loss of life, must be told. The same is true with how to mitigate the threat. Fear is a natural response, and anyone involved in a war, which this is, is not unreasonable, especially when there is no vaccine, should demonstrate a measure of reasonable fear. General George Patton wrote words that should be absorbed by everyone facing this virus today:

“If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.”

That means that we can be frightened, yet brave. We must continue to life life and care for others even as we use social distancing and other prevention measures.

As Captain Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek the Next Generation said: “the first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth, historical truth or personnel truth…”

Our leaders regardless if the are political, scientific, media, military, religious, or medical leaders must tell the truth, and then do the hard things in order to survive without becoming the dystopia of a world like the Mad Max films, novels like 1984, or so many examples from history and fiction.

We need leaders who tell the truth, and we need to act, despite our fears to defeat this threat. As Winston Churchill said in Britain’s darkest hour, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” our leaders regardless of party or ideology have to stop offering meaningless but comforting words, and tell the truth. If they don’t we will experience worse than we could imagine. As the English comedian Rowan Atkinson uttered in the BBC comedy series, Black Adder: “a fate worse than a fate worse than death.”

100,000 to 2400,000 preventable deaths is not a victory, it is a needless sacrifice of human life. Each of the dead is more than a number or name, they are human beings who leave behind parents, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, grandchildren, friends, and coworkers. Each death leaves a hole in the heart of someone who loved and cared for them, that cannot be filled by empty words.

Until tomorrow, and with hope for the future. Please be careful out there,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

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