ReOpen N.C. protest turn angry and ugly

Forget about being in this all together, united. Protests against public health restrictions have turned ugly.

This morning's (April 29) News & Observer quoted a Reopen North Carolina protester asking, "What will we do when the food runs out?" and answering himself: "We'll eat the health care workers!"

Another protester proclaimed at the Reopen rally outside the Legislative Building: "If we hanged traitors like our forefathers did, we'd all be back at work."

How did this protest effort turn so nasty, so vile, so quickly? The protesters have come prepared. They carry professionally printed signs. They wear costumes or clothing that evoke America and Uncle Sam. Some clothing originated with the Trump campaign. These well-organized protests with a thousand people, parade permits, attorneys, etc. don't just happen. A lot of money and a lot of planning go into them.

These protesters are largely Republicans, and the legislators who express support for the protests are nearly all Republicans, but it seems unlikely that the GOP would risk its political future by vocally and financially supporting a movement opposed by two-thirds of Americans polled.

These protests are aimed at disrupting trust in government, sowing doubts about the competence and fairness of elected officials, and inflaming worries and panic about the future. Even the most vile and insidious of Americans would not join efforts to undermine elections and other democratic elections for ephemeral gains.

It seems likely, though I've seen no evidence of it, that foreign powers intent on weakening American institutions are sowing these seeds of doubt and stirring the fires of anger and hatred this election year. We know, from U.S. intelligence reports, that Russia, China and other nations are using social media and other tools to divide and weaken American institutions and other western democracies. It is logical that these adversaries would use the COVID-19 pandemic to turn Americans against each other and against their own elected officials.

We need to see who is financing and masterminding these protests.

 

Protesters wanting to "Reopen" America risk lives

This post was published in the Wilson Times April 24, 2020

Barely a month into North Carolina’s “Stay at Home” order, protests are popping up across the country, including one in Raleigh that let to an arrest of one protester.

Protests in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Utah opposed restrictive executive orders that required residents to stay home and ordered businesses and schools to close. All these restrictions are aimed at containing the COVID-19 pandemic that has infected nearly 7,000 people in North Carolina and killed more than 40,000 in the United States, which now has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths of any nation.

Protesters are making two arguments against the anti-pandemic orders that have been effective, scientists and medical experts agree.

The first argument is that the executive orders have ruined the nation’s economy. Many small businesses have shut down because of lack of customers (who are staying at home as ordered) or inability to obtain merchandise or needed equipment because of travel restrictions.

The second argument is that governors’ executive orders violate citizens’ constitutional rights.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to peaceably assemble, and the Fourth Amendment protects a right to privacy. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments allow limits on life, liberty and property only after due process of law. But the Constitution allows state governors to issue orders to protect the health and safety of the population. As I have written before, no constitutional rights are absolute. Your right to practice your religion will not allow you to engage in human sacrifice.

These confinements are supported by constitutional scholars and by epidemiologists. Although the restrictions may be extremely inconvenient and disappointing (as travel plans, family reunions, graduations and other events are ruined), stay home rules, “social distancing” and other measures are the best defense the states and whole nation have to prevent illness and death, experts at the Centers for Disease Control say. Polls show that about two-thirds of the public support measures to contain the virus, despite their harm to the economy.

The Washington Post and other news sources have identified a number of right-wing Republican groups and conspiracy theorists who are supporting or igniting the protests. Even President Trump, who had endorsed the very measures the governors imposed, reversed course and tweeted “Liberate Michigan,” “Liberate Virginia” and “Liberate Minnesota.” “Liberate”? Is he advocating violent overthrow of duly elected governors?

The virulent protests are dividing the populace into two camps: those who are willing to risk the lives of others for their own convenience and those who think their personal inconveniences and economic sacrifices are worth it to prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands of others.

At a time when national unity and global cooperation are needed, the protesters and their cheerleaders are endangering everyone — your family, your neighbors, the elderly, the vulnerable. This pandemic has shown its deadly ways can afflict anyone.

Life in the Time of Corona Virus, 4.11.20

This post was published in the Wilson Times April 21, 2020

I wore a mask over my nose and mouth this morning, the same mask I wore to the grocery store earlier in the week to protect me from the Corona virus. Today the mask protects my sinuses from the pollen. I was outside to shovel five big piles of raked and swept pollen into a compost bin, to be buried in the landfill.

String-like tassels from three big oaks and comma-shaped pods from a half-dozen pines blanket the lawn and asphalt driveway.

The trees’ reproductive dust fell like snowflakes, soft and weightless. The wind picked up, and it was snowing pollen horizontally, coating cars, streets and outdoor furniture. The trees’ determination to survive coats my sinuses and my skin.

It took some time to get accustomed to the mask over my face, but medical professionals recommended them for everyone, so I complied in the hope that I might not be infected or might avoid infecting others. Wearing the mask for more than a few minutes tugs at my ears and requires me to remove the mask to wipe my nose, which drains each pollen season.

My wife made my mask from scraps of cloth left from all the years she sewed clothes for our children and gifts for others. She put the mask together quickly from instructions in a newspaper. The rumble of her sewing machine resonated through the house for the first time in months as she worked. Newspapers, which provided the concept and the pattern, and home sewing machines are both becoming rare. What will we do at the next pandemic?

For four weeks, the grocery store has had no facial tissues or toilet paper. Hoarding and panic buying are to blame, we’re told, but that doesn’t fill the paper products shelf. I recall during my newspaper days someone telling me that newsprint was just one step above toilet paper. Maybe we’ll be forced to upgrade to newsprint. Until the papers we subscribe to quit print publication altogether, I guess we’ll have a sufficient supply of a necessary product, despite hoarders.

We order takeout from our favorite local restaurants in the hope that they will survive the stay-at-home orders that have emptied their dining rooms.

We have developed the habit of avoiding close encounters with other people so the virus won’t spread. We are staying home for the same reason. We don’t want to be responsible for illness or death of others.

We have canceled two trips we had planned for this year. This was to be the year we would really take advantage of our free time as retirees. We would travel to places we’d never seen. We’d cross an ocean for the first time. But an invisible disrupter forced a revision in our plans. Our planned trips amount to nothing compared to the potential hazards if we are not vigilant in avoiding other people and washing our hands repeatedly.

I like being home, a comfortable, quiet and familiar space. Rules of fashion don’t apply here. I can wear the same jeans all week, and no one notices. But personal hygiene rules our lives. I have washed my hands so many times my skin is dry and flaking. Kitchen counters are cleaner than ever.

But the virus can strike anyone, and it’s especially dangerous for older people (like us). A cousin’s friend far away wrote a gut-wrenching account of watching her husband die from COVID-19. Because of the virus, she was not allowed into his hospital room to say goodbye, to hold his hand, to give him a last kiss, to share tearful farewells.

The thought of dying alone in some hospital isolation ward without any family members in the room, then forgoing any funeral or memorial that might attract more than 10 people provides the motivation for me to observe social distancing, wash my hands frequently, stay home, and wear a face mask when I leave the house.

A pandemic has the power to change society, culture and civilization. Already, pundits are predicting changes in retail, governance, travel, Internet use, shopping, civic clubs, religious observances, funerals, sports event, family reunions and so on.

While everyday life continues, the virus lurks unseen, waiting for an opening and shading our every thought. Songwriter John Prine died from COVID-19 last week, leaving these timely words from my favorite of his songs, “Hello in There”: “But old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say, ‘Hello in there.’”

Navy throws captain overboard

This post was published in the Wilson Times April 11, 2020.

That brotherhood of military veterans, whether they served in combat or not, has detected an odor of unfairness in the removal of Navy Capt. Brett Crozier from command of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. Crozier’s relief (essentially firing) was the result of his persistent appeal to the Navy to get sailors with COVID-19 symptoms off the Roosevelt. Crozier sent an email to Navy brass, urging officials to let the Roosevelt dock, evacuate the infected sailors and decontaminate the ship. Instead of protecting the health of the ship’s crew (there is no way to practice social distancing aboard a warship), the Navy relieved Crozier of his command and effectively ended his career.

One can argue, as some critics have, that Crozier was not following the chain of command when he sent that email, which eventually ended up in a newspaper. Some went even further, to claim Crozier’s letter might give hostile powers key intelligence about the ship’s combat readiness.

I spent three years in the Coast Guard responding to letters from service members or their families who had written to members of Congress. The complaints were usually about duty assignments or discipline, along the lines of “My son joined the Coast Guard to guard the coast; so why is he in Greenland?” My job title was “congressional correspondent.” I replied to the members of Congress, explaining the Coast Guard’s circumstances, process or reasoning. Some veteran personnel didn’t like the idea of accepting complaints outside the chain of command, but we treated the letters as another information source that deserved our attention. Among the officers I served under, Crozier’s letter would have launched an informal inquiry, not a rebuke for working outside the chain of command. If Crozier’s letter can be categorized as outside the chain of command, it was written only after repeated efforts through official channels to alert senior staff to the crisis aboard the Roosevelt.

Criticism of Crozier looked more suspect after hundreds of crewmembers lined the decks to cheer Crozier as he left the Roosevelt for the last time. Crozier’s punishment began to look more severe or even ridiculous, and some high-ranking veterans defended Crozier.

Then Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly lashed out at Crozier this week in language that is entirely improper for any serious organization, least of all one that depends on group loyalty. Modly, whoå called Crozier “either naïve or stupid,” apparently feared getting “crossways with the president,” as his predecessor had, and being fired, so he did his best to emulate the commander-in-chief’s caustic language and disrespect for subordinates.

A Navy officer doesn’t get to command an aircraft carrier without years of vetting through annual fitness reports and promotion boards aimed at making sure only the finest officers are given the awesome responsibility of operating a multi-billion-dollar ship with nearly 5,000 crew members, thousands of lethal weapons, ranging from sidearms to aircraft, missiles and nuclear weapons.

Modly, who later apologized for his speech to Roosevelt sailors on Guam and has since resigned, did not behave like a senior member of the chain of command. Rather, he sounded like a petulant child, using profanity and claiming Crozier’s actions were a “betrayal.” That word shows his criticism was not about military matters but about public relations or politics. In military terms, “betrayal” is a criminal offense, so it’s not a word to use haphazardly.

The president has preferred “treason” — a word the Constitution limits to “levying war against” the United States — as his go-to invective.

Pandemic will end, but we'll be different

This column was published in the Wilson Times April 4, 2020.

The Corona Virus COVID-19 has changed our lives, our culture, our habits, our relationships and our economy more than any other event in my memory, and it’s not over yet.

The threat is real, despite what some non-scientists might say. The Trump administration estimated this week that COVID-19 could take 100,000 to 250,000 American lives.

But one day the spread of the contagion will succumb to medical and scientific efforts to quell the spread of the disease. People will go back to work. Students will go back to school. Members will attend church services within the holy places built for those services. “Social Distancing” will be largely forgotten. Our hands will not be washed quite so frequently.

But things will have changed, and we will not revert to life as it was, ante-pandemic. After months of avoiding direct contact with another human being, of staying away from social events, of diverting to “virtual” experiences and events, how soon will we be able to be our old selves again? After seeing empty shelves in our favorite stores, will our minds be persuaded to hoard bottled water, toilet paper and candy?

Will restaurants, forbidden to serve customers at tables, survive on less profitable carryout meals in foam trays and plastic bags? Will patrons forget the pleasures of being served by a thoughtful staff in a pleasant dining room, or will they conclude that carryout meals taste just as good at home? Will the wait staff, unable to survive on unemployment benefits, still be available?

Perhaps the most profound changes post-pandemic may be felt in churches. With gatherings of more than 10 people forbidden, churches have, in most cases, canceled their Sunday services and other events; they have redirected members to online church services held in empty sanctuaries or pastor’s homes. For some people, the virtual service will be sufficient, and it’s so much more efficient. For members of liturgical churches, accustomed to observing the Eucharist, the central sacrament of the church, each week or more often, will welcome the return to the bread and wine with its spiritual presence of Christ.

Once the habit of attending church and supporting the church with donations in the offering plate, will people assume their old habits, or will they drift away from churches, extending a trend among major denominations over the past 75 years?

Likewise, schools that have been forced to do much more online are likely to continue to shift more and more courses and instruction to virtual classrooms. This will affect teachers and other school employees and will have a large effect on local and state budgets. Done right, this transition could make schooling better and less expensive.

But if elected officials see only an opportunity to cut costs, education will suffer. More spending will be needed in internet access and bandwidth to ensure that all students can attend online classes from school or from home. The UNC system boasts 50,000 online courses, most having started before the pandemic.

Schools may be tempted to replace curriculum with digitally centered courses, but classic literature should continue to be taught. Shakespeare’s plays are 500 years old. Homer’s description of the Trojan War is more than 2,000 years old. Insights into human nature in both classics are relevant today.

The opportunity to update education is just one benefit from the pandemic. Another is the public’s reluctant discovery of walking as exercise. I am seeing many new faces walking in my neighborhood. You can’t go to the gym, shopping is no longer entertainment, and you can’t travel much. But you can walk, and walking includes nature, neighborly conversations and improved weight control and physical fitness.

With luck and vigilance, we might see preventive measures eased in the fall or early winter, but we will all have to accept how much has changed and realize the virus could make an unexpected comeback.

Hal Tarleton is a former editor of The Wilson Daily Times. Contact him at haltarleton@myglnc.com.

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