“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance
when the need for illusion is great.”
Saul Bellow

January 6 committee member Republican Adam Kitzinger and his wife received voice and emails threatening to murder them and their five-month-old son.  No doubt these inarticulate, profanity-laced, ramblings are the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Who knows how many Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, and Chuck Schumer receive?  In Unthinkable, Congressman Jamie Raskin reports that, when he agreed to lead Donald Trump’s second impeachment, Speaker Pelosi arranged security for him and his family.           

Testifying before the January 6 Committee, aid to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, alleged: (1) President Trump knew that some in his January 6 crowd were armed and prepared to commit violent acts.  (2) Demanding he be taken to the Capitol, the President grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential limousine.  (3) Trump agreed Mike Pence deserved to hang.  (4) White House Counsel Pat Cipollini told Cassidy, “If he goes there, we’ll break every law imaginable.”  (5) A humorous note: Hearing a noise from the Oval Office, Cassidy went to investigate.  The valet was changing the tablecloth.  Cassidy observed, “There was ketchup on the wall and there was a shattered porcelain plate on the floor.”  Learning Attorney General Barr told the Associated Press there was no election fraud, it seems the President threw a tantrum.

For her courage and candor, no doubt Ms. Hutchinson receives death threats and marriage proposals.  The wannabe assassins and bridegrooms are motivated by testosterone and politics, rarely facts.

Did Ms. Hutchinson, “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”?  Or, is she a brazen, bald-faced liar?  Would an obviously intelligent Republican White House aid dream up allegations so easily reputed? 

For me, this raises a larger question: Apart from Chaney, Kitzinger, and a handful of others, do left-leaning Republicans legislators receive death threats?  They would have to be authored by Democrats.  It’s impossible to imagine Democrats scribbling, emailing, or texting, rambling, profanity-laced death threats. 

Richard Hickock, Perry Smith, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Adam Lanza, Nikolas Cruz, Payton Gendron, Salvador Ramos, and Robert E. Crimo III were never Student Body President or Homecoming King.  Never labeled “Most likely to succeed,” their infamy eclipses all other faces in their high school yearbooks.  Friendless, fearful, furious, these young men became Mass Murderers!

From a Kansas farmhouse to Columbine High, Sandy Hook Elementary, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Tops Supermarket, Robb Elementary, a Highland Park Fourth of July Parade, and doubtless beyond, in the name of God and Humanity, why do they do it‽

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood recounts Hickock and Smith’s slaughter of Kansas farmer Herbert “Herb” Clutter, wife Bonnie, daughter Nancy, and son Kenyon.  Their ages and choice of victims make Richard and Perry outliers, but comments Capote attributes to the pair offer an explanation why some young men murder total strangers.  As memory serves, cryptically, “Somebody had to pay.”  Capote quotes Smith, “(Mr. Clutter) was a very nice gentleman.  Soft spoken.  I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.”

Human history is permeated with individuals and groups striking out against standards of civil behavior.  In America, apart from circumscribed, depression-era gangland assassinations, multiple murders were unheard of.  Then, around two decades back, precedent, economics, and technology converged.  Harris and Klebold invented the model.  A profit-motivated, Arms-Industry/NRA/ Conservative-Congressional Cabal made military-grade assault rifles the, cliched, ticking timebomb.

I’ll wrap this up once again citing social psychologist, psychoanalyst, and philosopher Erich Fromm’s The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.  Fromm argues man needs to “make a dent.”  If nowhere else, sometimes he makes it “in someone’s head.“

Joe Biden’s administration can claim its full measure of mismanagement and blunders.  This said, Joe might echo his predecessor’s assertion he inherited a “mess.“  A mess largely created by that predecessor’s paralysis on being told, in early 2019, that an anonymous upper respiratory virus was sweeping China and would, inevitably, leap the Pacific.  Biden’s primary headache, inflation, may be attributed to that leap.    

In early spring, spurning a “Pandemic Playbook” crafted for just such an emergency, President Donald Trump assured Americans the “China” virus would infect a handful of Americans and vanish, “a miracle!”  By Easter churches would be packed, people “raring” to go back to work.  Through the remainder of his term, Trump’s denials and obfuscations greatly exacerbated America’s COVID-19 suffering and deaths.

A Lancet Commission report concludes that, had Donald Trump taken early, decisive, contravening measures, 40% of American’s COVID-19 infections and deaths “could have been averted.”  By July 2, 2022, 87,626,140 Americans had contracted and 1,017,266 died from the disease.  Rather than cower behind fear and denial, had President Donald Trump stepped forward with the courage and wisdom of real Leader, upward of 30,000,000 illnesses and 400,000 deaths from COVID-19 could have been averted.

The impact of COVID-19 on America’s economy cannot be overstated.  To ameliorate spread of the virus, businesses were forced to close.  Basics like toilet paper disappeared from Super Market shelves.  Desperate to rescue out-of-work, out-of-cash Americans, Congress flooding the country with free money.  More money chasing fewer goods and services: the classic recipe for inflation is.  A major piece of Biden’s mess.

For self-defense, some Americans chose to “carry” a handgun.

At Robb Elementary school, a shielded, armed-to-the-teeth squad of lawmen cowered in a hallway while a gunman massacred nineteen children and two teachers.

How often, on the street, in a mall, church, school, or at home, does an Urban Gunslinger unholster his or her trusty ol’ Glock and take down a Bad Guy with an AR-15?  At the same time, how many accidental shootings, murders, and suicides happen because of handguns?

Who, in a temper tantrum, threw his plate and ketchup at the dining room wall?

A three-year-old who wanted his ice cream before dinner.

Certainly, never a piqued seventy-six-year-old.

Attempting to grasp the legalese in America’s new “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act gun safety bill” made my head hurt.  So, as usual, I retreated to Google.  According to an Associated Press June 25 report, the bill includes:

“Expanded background checks: state and local juvenile and mental health records of gun purchasers will be part of federal background checks for buyers 18 to 20.  Three-day maximum for gathering records will be extended to 10 days to search juvenile data.  If 10 days lapse without a resolution, the sale will go through.”

In Oregon, I assume in most states, an eighteen-year-old must be licensed to catch a fish.  He or she may not purchase cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, or patronize businesses which primarily serve alcohol.  For license to driver a motor vehicle, he or she must have 15 hours behind-the-wheel experience, fork out upwards of $400 for driver’s education, and pass a Department of Motor Vehicles driving test.

To purchase an AR-15 assault rifle, designed and intended for the soul purpose of killing human beings, that same American teenager must wait 10 days.  No training.  No experience.  No license!  That’s it!

Why‽

In Firefight, My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America,

“A former firearms executive pulls back the curtain on America’s multibillion-dollar gun industry, exposing how it fostered extremism and racism, radicalizing the nation and bringing cultural division to a breaking point.”

That executive, Ryan Busse, details how, by hijacking and using the National Rifle Association as its mouthpiece, the Firearms Industry dictates America’s gun policy.

Crafted for the Firearms Industry/NRA‘s stamp of approval, America’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act gun safety bill is cosmetic, a sham.  Make no mistake, so long as boys, whose brains have not yet developed the capacity to appreciate the significance and consequences of their actions, can purchase military grade assault weapons, Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, and Robb Elementary type massacres will repeat. 

Someone I love and respect was told doctors get $30,000 for every COVOD-19 patient who dies!  Even in today’s insane world, this seemed outlandish.  So, I checked it out.

Like a virus, unchecked misunderstanding and lies spread exponentially.  It is always prudent to think and investigate rumor and hearsay, especially from “social media!” 

The closest I can find to a source for allegation doctors’ profit from COVID-19 deaths is a Fox, Laura Ingram interview of with Minnesota Senator, Dr. Scott Jensen.  The good doctor stated, “Right now, Medicare is determining that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you get $13,000.  If that COVID-19 patient is on a ventilator you get $39,000, three time as much.  Nobody can tell me, after 35 years in the world of medicine, that sometimes those kinds of things impact what we do.”

In a FactCheck.org, phone interview, Dr. Jensen “walked back” a seeming implication doctors cheat, “Do I think people are misclassifying?  No.”

FactCheck.org cites a Kaiser Foundation analysis finding the “average Medicare payment for respiratory infections and inflammations with major comorbidities or complications in 2017 .  .  .  was $13,297.  For more server hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for a respiratory system diagnosis with ventilator support for greater than 96 hours, which was $42,218.”  It seems important to note, “respiratory infections and inflammations” include influenza, pneumonia, Legionares’ disease, tuberculosis, COVID-19, and others respiratory ailments.

According to FactCheck.org , “Robert Berenson, an institute fellow at the Urban Institute, said the notion that hospitals are profiting on the pandemic—as some of the social media post may imply—isn’t borne out by facts, either.”  Berenson and others point out, “’upcoding,’  .  .  .  can result in civil and criminal liabilities.”

Before we pass it on, check it out!

Question: Who might say, “If you don’t do what I want, I won’t like you as
much?”
Answer: A third grader.

Question: Who said, “If Mike doesn’t come through, I won’t like him as much?”
Answer: Guess.

In America’s most recent presidential elections, 2 Republicans, George W.H. Bush and George W. Bush, and 7 Democrats,  Bill Clinton (2), Al Gore, Barak Obama (2), Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden won the popular vote!  If, arguably, G.W.H. rode Ronald Reagan’s coattails to one term, and, unarguably, the Supreme Court gifted G.W. one term, it seems clear the majority of American voters favor Democrat over Republican platforms and presidential candidates.    

Seeing they can’t win popular votes, Republicans concoct “stolen” elections, cajole Georgia’s  Secretary of State for 11,780 bogus votes, mount a seditious assault on our Capitol, Congress, and Constitution, gerrymander, enact regulations designed to limit ethnically non-white and lower income voter turnout, and empower state legislatures to overrule majority popular votes.

Desperate time for the Grand Old Party.

The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump quotes an American woman, “I want my country back!”  Her yearning echoes many middle-age and older citizens and reaches back decades.

On the heels of the Great Depression and WWII, Americans had a bellyful of pain and poverty.  It was time for peace and plenty.  Nineteen forty-five promised a bungalow for every family, a Ford or Chevy in every garage, a good job for Dad, an electric stove and refrigerator for Mom, and “Boomer” kids in lily-white school.  The miracle of television brought “Father Knows Best,” “The Adventures of Ozzy and Harriet,” “Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.”, and “Leave it to Beaver” into American homes.

Then, the picture went out-of-focus.  It turned out Father didn’t always know best, Ozzy and Harriet weren’t the “Nelsons,” and Gomer was gay.  After six-seasons, “The Beaver,” Gerald “Jerry” Patrick Mathers, graduated high school and abandoned the airwaves for the Air Force.  “The Graduate” introduced younger Americans to “plastic” and hypocrisy. Then the Beatniks—Remember?—Hippies, Viet Nam, and Civil Rights!

As our lady pining for her lost “country” suggests, many Americans trace today’s craziness, mass shootings, burgeoning murder rates, violence in video games and social and mass media, to breakdown of  “traditional,” male and female, two-parent America’s family.  But, like it or not, we can’t roll back the calendar.  “Ay, there’s the rub.”

Nostalgia notwithstanding, the cliché is true: The only constant is change.  A technocratic, solar-powered, speed-of-light Twenty-First Century leaves most Americans over age fifty bewildered and sometimes frightened.  A mechanized, gasoline-powered, speed-of-sound Twentieth Century left our parents bewildered and sometimes frightened.  So it’s been, generation after generation, century after century.   

Does our wistful lady long for laundry on a scrubbing board, travel by wagon or horseback, scurrying to a two-hole outhouse?  Does anyone pine for a clutch and gear shift, hand-push lawn mower, rotary phone, party line, “long distance,” “rabbit ears” on a two-channel, sometimes fuzzy, black-and-white TV?

In our grandparents’ era, the leading causes of death were disease, accidents, and childbirth.  Twenty-first century living conditions, public safety, and medicine have gifted Americans with far less suffering and far more material goods than in any time or culture of world history!

Despite today’s headaches and heartaches, do we really yearn for return to “Mayberry R.F.D.”?  Do we really want our country back?

Which country?