Ronald E. Yates's Blog, page 65

The Perfect Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder (Almost)

As they used to say on the old Monty Python TV show: “Now for something completely different.”

After weeks of battling his backyard squirrels, Mark Rober decided it was finally time to design and build the perfect squirrel proof bird feeder, which goes to show that sometimes self-isolating can bring out the genius in any of us! At least it did in the case of these quick-witted and resourceful squirrels!

Click on the link below to see how he did it! You won’t be disappointed. 

Enjoy!

https://biggeekdad.com/2020/05/squirrel-proof-bird-feeder/

Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder

Twitter’s New ‘Fact-Checking’ Label Has Dangerous Implications

Is Twitter a content publisher or a social media platform?

Twitter insists it is a social media platform, but by adding a fact-checking label to posts by President Trump it is behaving more like a content publisher.

On May 26, the president expressed concern in a Twitter post about mail-in ballots, saying that such a practice, if widespread, would lead to fraud and a “rigged election.” Twitter later added a warning label to the post that reads, “Get the facts about mail-in ballots.”

The label links to a Twitter article that is headlined, “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.”

The message under the headline reads, in part: “These claims are unsubstantiated, according to CNN, Washington Post, and others. Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud.”

The article also includes three points under the title, “What you need to know.”

The fact-checking label is concerning because it sends people to a list of content that Twitter deems to be factual, such as certain media organizations, and non-media accounts that have been verified by the platform.

The move has “dangerous” and “far-reaching implications,” and fairness and consistency will be hard to guarantee moving forward, say social media experts.

Andrew Selepak, social media professor at the University of Florida, argues that “Twitter is essentially telling users who can and who cannot be trusted and labeling content from some users as untrustworthy. Determining what is true and false … is what a content publisher would do—and not a social media platform.”

If deemed a publisher, Twitter may no longer be protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and therefore could be subject to government regulation.

In effect, Twitter is not allowing users to decide for themselves what they believe. If a platform makes that decision for users, that platform is Behaving more like a publisher than serving a role as a public sphere.

In a statement to media outlets on May 26, Twitter said that Trump’s posts about mail-in voting “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context.” Twitter noted that the post doesn’t violate its rules because “it does not directly try to dissuade people from voting.”

Twitter also pointed to a new policy that indicates it “may use these labels and warning messages to provide additional explanations or clarifications in situations where the risks of harm associated with a tweet are less severe but where people may still be confused or misled by the content.”

However, legal experts who specialize in cyberlaw, say Twitter has opened a can of worms. No one wants to see misinformation on social media but … how will Twitter ensure fairness and consistency? Twitter has opened itself up for major headaches.

Will this new policy apply to other politicians? Which ones? Will all tweets be fact-checked or just some? Who will determine the veracity of a tweet?”

President Trump didn’t wait to find out. He signed an executive order Thursday seeking to crack down on social-media companies over allegations of bias against conservatives. Trump’s executive order seeks to empower federal regulators to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives social-media companies broad authority to moderate speech on their platforms.

[image error]

“We’re here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers,” Trump said before signing the executive order in the Oval Office where Attorney General Bill Barr was present.

The president added, “This censorship and bias is a threat to freedom itself. Imagine if your phone company silenced or edited your conversation. Social media companies have vastly more power in the United States than newspapers, they’re by far richer than any other traditional forms of communication.”

Trump vowed that social media companies “that engage in censoring or any political company will not be able to keep their liability shield.”

“My executive order further instructed the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit social media companies from engaging in any deceptive acts or practices,” said the commander in chief who at one point held up a copy of Thursday’s Post featuring one of the members of Twitter’s policing team who once called the president a “racist tangerine.”

The order seeks to create new regulations for how social-media companies are allowed to moderate speech, and it calls for the Federal Trade Commission to keep a list of complaints from users about political bias on social media platforms.

Meanwhile, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a statement that Twitter has a “clear political bias.”

“We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters,” Parscale said.

“Partnering with the biased fake news media ‘fact-checkers’ is only a smokescreen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility. There are many reasons the Trump campaign pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and their clear political bias is one of them.”

Letter to President Trump from 500 doctors

Was the shutdown of the American economy necessary to deal with the coronavirus? It’s a question we are hearing more and more often these days. Let’s look at some facts.

First, 80% of the U.S. COVID-19 fatalities occur in the 65 and older group. Federal health officials apparently assumed that Americans 65 and over and others with underlying health conditions did not know enough to take care of themselves and many would wind up being admitted to hospitals. Those same health officials must have decided that people under 65 could not be responsible either.

So what happened? Those health experts recommended that most of the economy be shut down to avoid over-crowding hospitals.

Guess what? The hospital over-capacity concern never materialized and yet threats and scare tactics continue today from some federal health officials, some governors, and the media. One study showed that as of early May two-thirds of counties in the U.S. had one or no fatalities.

More than 25 million jobs have already been lost and many of those jobs are not coming back. In addition, thousands of businesses are now bankrupt because of the mandated economic shutdowns. Here is some perspective: the job loss in April alone was more than double the cumulative job loss during the Great Recession.

[image error]

Pandemics have occurred before and the Wuhan virus is just the latest. Had the Chinese Communist Party been transparent and forthcoming about their virus, the rest-of-the-world may have been able to avoid many of the deaths.

Instead as of yesterday, there were approximately 98,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19. Let’s say by year-end COVID-19 deaths double to 196,000. The U.S. total population was 328 million in 2019, which would place the death rate, as a percentage of the total population, at 0.09%. This is a similar death rate as occurred in the 1968 flu pandemic and slightly below the 1957-58 pandemic death rate.

These facts have caused a lot of discussion in the medical community. Doctors and health experts alike are challenging the necessity of shutting down our economy based on flawed modeling which has since been revised multiple times.

Recently, 500 doctors sent a letter to President Trump expressing their dismay and concern about the deleterious and potentially deadly impact of the economic shutdown on the health of millions of Americans. These doctors make a lot of sense.

Here is that letter.

 

President Donald J. Trump

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20500

May 19, 2020

Dear Mr. President:

Thousands of physicians in all specialties and from all States would like to express our gratitude for your leadership. We write to you today to express our alarm over the exponentially growing negative health consequences of the national shutdown.

In medical terms, the shutdown was a mass casualty incident.

During a mass casualty incident, victims are immediately triaged to black, red, yellow, or green. The first group, triage level black, includes those who require too many resources to save during a mass crisis. The red group has severe injuries that are survivable with treatment, the yellow group has serious injuries that are not immediately life-threatening, and the green group has minor injuries.

The red group receives the highest priority. The next priority is to ensure that the other two groups do not deteriorate a level. Decades of research have shown that by strictly following this algorithm, we save the maximum number of lives.

Millions of Americans are already at triage level red. These include 150,000 Americans per month who would have had a new cancer detected through routine screening that hasn’t happened, millions who have missed routine dental care to fix problems strongly linked to heart disease/death, and preventable cases of stroke, heart attack, and child abuse. Suicide hotline phone calls have increased by 600%.

Tens of millions are at triage level yellow. Liquor sales have increased 300-600%, cigarette sales have increased, rent has gone unpaid, family relationships have become frayed, and millions of well-child check-ups have been missed.

[image error]

Hundreds of millions are at triage level green. These are people who currently are solvent, but at risk should economic conditions worsen. Poverty and financial uncertainty is closely linked to poor health.

A continued shutdown means hundreds of millions of Americans will downgrade a level. The following are real examples from our practices.

Patient E.S. is a mother with two children whose office job was reduced to part-time and whose husband was furloughed. The father is drinking more, the mother is depressed and not managing her diabetes well, and the children are barely doing any schoolwork.

Patient A.F. has chronic but previously stable health conditions. Her elective hip replacement was delayed, which caused her to become nearly sedentary, resulting in a pulmonary embolism in April.

Patient R.T. is an elderly nursing home patient, who had a small stroke in early March but was expected to make a nearly complete recovery. Since the shutdown, he has had no physical or speech therapy, and no visitors. He has lost weight, and is deteriorating rather than making progress.

Patient S.O. is a college freshman who cannot return to normal life, school, and friendships. He risks depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, trauma, and future financial uncertainty.

We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients. The downstream health effects of deteriorating a level are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error.

It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown. Losing a job is one of life’s most stressful events, and the effect on a person’s health is not lessened because it also has happened to 30 million other people. Keeping schools and universities closed is incalculably detrimental for children, teenagers, and young adults for decades to come.

The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.

Because the harm is diffuse, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We, the undersigned, know otherwise.

Please let us know if we may be of assistance.

 

Respectfully,

Simone Gold, M.D., J.D. & >500 physicians

(signatures attached to original document)

 

The Doctrine of Media Untruth

I spent nearly 30 years of my life working as a journalist. It was an honor to be a member of what some have called The Fourth Estate.

I began my career in the Windy City at the Chicago Tribune. At the time, Chicago was probably Journalism’s toughest and most merciless proving ground. I had just graduated from the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. It was a good education, but when I arrived inexperienced and unproven in the cavernous Tribune newsroom it didn’t take long for me to realize that I had a long way to go before I earned my journalistic chops.

Chicago, I quickly learned, was a damned tough newspaper town.

I worked five years covering every kind of story imaginable: cops, crime, fires, disaster, the good, the bad, the ugly. I worked the most ungodly hours imaginable: 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., midnight to 8 a.m., and 9 to 5 the hard way (that’s 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.).

Chicago had five competing newspapers when I began my career and compete they did. You learned to be fast and observant, but most of all you learned to be accurate and fair. If opinion crept into one my stories, some crusty, in-your-face editor would let me have it.

“Yates, keep your fatuous opinions out of your stories,” he might thunder. “Nobody gives a crap (or some other suitable expletive) what YOU think. Just keep it fair and accurate.” Then, with his big black pencil, he would eliminate what I was sure was some of my best insightful prose.

Sadly, that is NOT the kind of mentoring (or hectoring) that is de rigueur in today’s newsrooms. The result is often sloppy journalism and stories filled with a reporter’s attitudes, biases, and judgments.

That is NOT journalism. That is propaganda. Joseph Goebbels would applaud the misleading and dishonest stories I see today in newspapers and on network television and cable news shows. So would Pravda, the erstwhile Soviet Union’s disinformation outlet.

It is distressing to see the profession I was once proud of decline into a morass of misinformation, indoctrination, mendaciousness, and bias. Am I exaggerating? No, not when reputable journalism organizations like the Pew Foundation and others report that coverage of the Trump administration is 90 to 95 percent negative. I think the American media gave Adolph Hitler more dispassionate and impartial coverage during World War II than it does today to Donald Trump.

All of this is my way of introducing the following commentary on the media by Victor Davis Hanson entitled The Doctrine of Media Untruth. I hope you will take a look at it. It is thought-provoking and on point.

By Victor Davis Hanson

As a general rule, when the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting Service, NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN begin to parrot a narrative, the truth often is found in simply believing just the opposite.

Put another way, the media’s “truth” is a good guide to what is abjectly false. Perhaps we can call the lesson of this valuable service, the media’s inadvertent ability to convey truth by disguising it with transparent bias and falsehood, the “Doctrine of Media Untruth.”

[image error]

Take the strange case of the respective records of liberal New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Florida counterpart Ron DeSantis. Both states have roughly equal populations, with Florida slightly larger by about 2 million. Both have populations that travel daily back and forth between their respective major cities. Both are major international tourist and travel hubs. Both have widely diverse populations.

Both have large numbers of retirees and long-term-care homes. Yet, New York has suffered 14 times the number of coronavirus deaths as has Florida. Florida is now increasingly open, and on May 19 saw 54 deaths attributed to the virus. That same day, New York was completely locked down and yet saw nearly twice that number at 105 deaths.

One would never know from the media of the contrasting fates of the two states during the epidemic. DeSantis is often rendered little more than a reckless leader who exposed Floridians to needless danger. Cuomo, in contrast, increasingly is deified by the media as likely presidential timber who finesses press conferences in the lively fashion of his legendary beloved father, and iconic liberal, Mario Cuomo.

Yet on the principle of media’s commitment to untruth, the public legitimately could deduce from the hagiographic news coverage that the frenetic Cuomo has proven the most incompetent governor in the nation in dealing with the virus. He sent the infected into vulnerable long-term care homes. He neither applied social distancing to, nor cleaned, mass transit. And Cuomo exaggerated his need for some medical supplies, while neglecting shortages in others.

In contrast, the media furor at DeSantis is a good guide to his successes in both mitigating viral fatalities while charting Florida’s path back to economic normality.

Hagiography of the Unfit and Unprofessional

The media assures us that failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is a statuesque heroic figure who is an experienced state politician, a successful polymath, and would be a valuable asset as Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick, but even better—wink-and-nod—a likely next president.

That new media consensus narrative is best typified by a recent and obsequious promo piece in the Washington Post. So given the media deification and the Doctrine of Media Untruth, we might assume that Abrams never has held statewide office, in incoherent fashion could not concede her legitimate defeat in the last Georgia gubernatorial race, and until recently still had not paid off an enormous credit card, student, and tax debt well over $200,000.

In other words, read the media narrative on Abrams and without knowing much else, one could conclude that she is not a photogenic candidate; she is not gracious in defeat; and she is without much experience of victory. Her baggage and lack of even a statewide constituency would mostly hurt a Biden ticket, which explains why his opponents hope that she is the vice-presidential nominee.

The Doctrine of Media Untruth was a valuable guide during the serial psychodramas to abort Donald Trump’s presidency. When Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee was canonized for tele-diagnosing Donald Trump as unhinged and in need of forced removal under the 25th Amendment, we knew the media glorification signaled she was unprofessional in making such a diagnosis of a patient she never met, and would never dare offer such a long-distance mental assessment of presidential candidate Joe Biden, based on his obvious cognitive impairment, memory lapses, and frequent cul-de-sac patterns of thought.

Trump’s antics simply lured the snails out of their shells and showed the public they were glorified slugs all along.

The more that CNN and MSNBC put ambulance-chasing lawyer Michael Avenatti on the air, and gushed about his tailored suits, his possible presidential gambit, his cocky take-downs of Trump, and his advocacy of supposed female victims of the predatory Brett Kavanaugh, the more we knew he was a fraud, a criminal, and likely a legal predator of his own clients. That he was sent to prison was predictable the more one heard the media gush.

Do we remember that for a while “Bob” Mueller was Washington’s hallowed prosecutor, investigator, or inquisitor par excellence? No wonder he had assembled a “dream team” of “all-stars” who, as “hunter-killer” squads of legal eagles, would tear apart Trump’s supposedly doddering third-stringers and send Trump either to jail or into ignominious exile. So, the more that legal eagle narrative saturated the liberal media landscape, the more we knew the opposite was true.

[image error] Victor Davis Hanson

Mueller himself had a spotty history. He was both physically and cognitively unable to run an effective two-year high-intensity investigation. He was the un-Durham—as leaky and hodge-podge as the latter’s probe is quiet and professional. Mueller likely outsourced his tasks to an incestuous group of partisan and progressive lawyers, many of them incompetent, with conflicts of interest and blinded by partisanship.

In the end, Team Mueller’s chief legacy was burning through more than $32 million in federal funds, hiding evidence, rigging a now-withdrawn indictment of Michael Flynn, initially hiding the amorous unprofessionalism of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok—and Mueller himself testifying before Congress that he knew little of anything about the Steele dossier and Fusion GPS, the fonts of his own investigation.

Mythology of the Weak and Pathetic

The country once knew little of Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). But once the media sanctified his role after the 2018 election as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, we knew what lay ahead. No sooner had the Renaissance Schiff assumed the chairmanship of the committee than we were lectured ad nauseam how he was a Harvard Law graduate, with a sly sense of humor, who had he not blessed the country with his stellar political career otherwise might well have been a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He ran his committee with flair and competence lacking under the former chairman, the supposedly plodding dairy farmer Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). In other words, we quickly discovered the truth through the Doctrine of Media Untruth.

Within about a year, the public knew that Schiff was a fraud. He had suppressed key testimonies that long ago revealed that the functionaries in the collusion hoax had admitted under oath they had no evidence for the accusations they made daily in the media, and that CrowdStrike, in fact, could not prove a Russian genesis for the hacking of DNC emails.

Schiff himself tapped into the communications records of his own colleague and the former chairman of his committee, Nunes. He lied habitually, most egregiously in denying that he or his staff had anything to do with the Ukrainian “whistleblower” when in fact his team had been in close communications with him.

Each time Schiff assured the media of “bombshells,” that the “walls were closing in,” or that there were all sorts of new top-secret, classified, rarified information known only to him, which would shortly “prove” Trump “collusion,” we understood that he was a con man and prevaricator who had no proof at all or any such evidence. Whatever report he issued (cf. the “Schiff memo”), would certainly be dishonest and not factual. And, of course, it was.

Empowering of the Deceptive Expertocracy

Nowhere has the Doctrine of Media Untruth been more helpful than in following Trump during the coronavirus epidemic. The media fixated on hydroxychloroquine because Trump said it might be a game-changer and he took it himself as a prophylactic. That ensured that the ubiquitous, long-tested, mostly safe, and cheap anti-malarial, anti-lupus household drug would suddenly be declared useless and deadly.

Would the media ever repent and empirically report that in some cases hydroxychloroquine is considered to be efficacious in treating the early symptoms of the disease by front-line doctors, in line with a series of pre-COVID-19 studies that it could be helpful against SARs-like viruses?

If tomorrow Barack Obama gave a press conference, and should confess that when he travels he takes the drug, given its general safety and scattered reports it might have prophylactic value against COVID-19, we would soon read headlines of a “miracle drug” that is cheap, accessible, and vital to the world’s poor and at-risk.

When readers are told that Trump is an idiot for suggesting that the virus might end up like a bad flu year, that his advocacy for opening up the country is a death sentence, that his travel ban was too late and too porous, and that the economy has been wrecked permanently by his incompetence, then we should assume that the death tolls by autumn might approximate or slightly exceed the flu’s lethality in years like 1957-8 or 1967-8, that states that open up do not have much greater spikes in virus morbidity than do states that do not, that the travel ban saved thousands of lives and would likely not have been issued by most traditional presidents so early, and that the economy likely will begin its ascendance by autumn.

[image error]

Finally, early on in the COVID-19 crisis, the media consecrated Dr. Anthony Fauci as the godlike man of science, in antithesis to the buffoonish, pre-Enlightenment fool Trump. If Fauci uttered a truism, it reverberated across the media world as gospel—but also as a sly putdown of the oblivious, oafish president. So, under the Doctrine of Media Untruth, the more the Fauci hallowing grew, the more we knew he had feet of clay.

The more Fauci was brilliant, prescient and sibyllic, the more we knew that he came late to the danger, had once declared the virus to be not much of a threat, suggested that hook-ups and cruise trips need not be too much derailed by the virus, declared that opening up locked-down states would be a terrible idea, fueled wild modeling estimates of several hundreds of thousands soon to die from the virus, doubted the efficacy of masks, and warned we should not expect an effective vaccination for years.

In other words, under the Doctrine of Media Untruth, the more Fauci was turned into a god and an anti-Trump avenging angel, the more he was human and not especially any more prescient medically than Trump was politically.

Today, the public knows that if Fauci issues a periodic warning from on high, listeners should contextualize it as a valuable data bit, collate his warning with underappreciated economic realities, consider that it might be seen as a subtle putdown of Trump, and move on—all the more so as the media blares out that Trump ignores the latest brilliant forecast from the Einsteinian viral master.

Trump Draws Them Out

The hatred of Donald Trump explains some, but not all, media bias. During the Obama years, a media cohort came of age assuming that the hip, young, educated, urban classes like itself were in permanent ascendance. It did not need to worry about listening to others, venturing beyond coastal corridors, or questioning whether it was really educated or merely branded with mostly mediocre degrees.

Being in the media was analogous to being issued a union card or belonging to the late Soviet party: one was part of an unthinking herd, mouthing platitudes, and hoping to get by and ahead that way.

When knowledge, wisdom, independent thought, even basic competence were no longer requisites for success, then the media naturally slid into mediocrity, valued youth and looks, rank partisanship, obeisance to conventions and stereotypes, and mastered networking and obsequiousness instead of valuing independence.

Trump’s antics simply lured the snails out of their shells and showed the public they were glorified slugs all along.

Victor Davis Hanson is an American military historian, columnist, former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He was a professor of classics at California State University, Fresno, and is currently the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism.  He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict was Fought and Won (Basic Books).

The death of the American Constitution

Today, on this Memorial Day, I am posting an opinion piece that appeared recently in The Hill,  an American news website, based in Washington, D.C. The author, Grady Means, argues that our nation’s embrace of “identity politics” has fragmented our country and eroded portions of the U.S. Constitution. As an official in the former U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Means was instrumental in creating and expanding U.S. welfare programs. He makes a lot of sense in this piece.

BY GRADY MEANS

During the past couple of weeks, Americans have seen unprecedented authoritarian behavior on the part of many governors and local government leaders, and the chilling possibility that the Obama White House intentionally weaponized the National Security Agency, FBI, CIA, IRS and other federal agencies to attack domestic political opponents. At the same time, the government and the tech community have made huge strides in expanding the surveillance state, often termed fascism. The concepts of democracy, personal privacy and property rights are rapidly becoming quaint concepts from a bygone era.

Many Americans and legal scholars have been screaming that all of this is unconstitutional and plainly illegal. Regrettably, what they all have missed is that, for the past 50 years, America has had a covert “Constitutional Convention” under way, which has dismissed much of the Bill of Rights and radically restructured American rules of governance and the criminal justice system. We have become a Nation of Men (and Women), rather than the Constitution’s Nation of Laws. When President Obama repeatedly referenced the “living Constitution,” he really meant the dead U.S. Constitution.

In his book, “The Age of Entitlement,” Christopher Caldwell makes clear that the period since 1964, what I’ve called the “Constitutional Convention,” began with the civil rights laws and expanded welfare programs of the 1960s. Those programs were designed to right historical American wrongs to African Americans and create huge social justice programs that have cost trillions of dollars to bring tens of millions of Americans out of poverty and into the mainstream of American life. But they also unleashed a constitutional virus that wreaked havoc across America for 50 years.

By creating loosely defined views of “fairness,” “equality” and “human rights,” they opened a Pandora’s box. The emergence of identity politics has fragmented America, creating new “rights,” grievances,and demands for endless “communities” in the country. It has built stronger alliances among “identity” segments, rather than unifying the country as a whole, made identity rights paramount, and made the rights of American citizens, as a whole, secondary.

[image error]

In essence, a “New Constitution,” with a vast set of new “rights,” has resulted. The problem is that new “rights” for everyone leads to no sustained rights for anyone. It is worth noting that many authoritarian countries have frameworks similar to the American Bill of Rights — they simply don’t enforce them. “Legal activism” puts America on that track.

The traditional backstop for enforcing the Constitution is the court system — and especially the Supreme Court. The fight over Justice Brett Kavanaugh was considered to be existential, but it had nothing to do with sexual abuse — it was all about the New Constitution. Control of the court system with activist judges cements the New Constitution with infinite rights and no rights. It opens up a free-for-all. Of course, the designers of the New Constitution have a clear fallback strategy: denial of service. Internet thugs often attack critical infrastructure systems by swamping them with messages that overwhelm and crush them. Today, the flood of “rights cases,” combined with a tidal wave of unconstitutional behavior by government officials and some in the tech community, overwhelms the judicial system. This allows “justice” to become more arbitrary (and “illegal”) and prevents the federal courts and Supreme Court from sorting out the chaos.

The result is authoritarian and dictatorial behavior by the government and legal systems. The associated result is that all Americans lose. It edges toward anarchy. Many Americans are slowly awakening to something new and alarming. The military, who’ve fought for freedom, must despair.

African Americans are among the prominent losers under the New Constitution. For example, conferring a wide swath of “rights” and benefits on illegal immigrants, who are, in fact, illegally here, takes away the hard-earned jobs and rights of all Americans, but especially African Americans. Hispanic American citizens and women are other prominent victims. All of this increases income inequality since it destroys the gains made by these groups before the coronavirus pandemic, with real hope and change coming through the lowest unemployment rates for them in history.

Unions also are prominent victims. For example, the arrival of immigrant health care workers — many replacing doctors and nurses furloughed under states’ ban on elective procedures during the pandemic — will transform health care. The authoritarian shutdown and slow reopening of American business will drive many companies to web-based business models and increased artificial intelligence, benefitting tech while hurting American workers.

As illegal and authoritarian COVID-19 policies bankrupt America, almost everyone will be a victim.

America is becoming a country of the elite, by the elite and — judging from the wealth accumulated during and after public office — for the elite.

Politically, the country has broken into two strong political, almost religious, factions. One seeks to maintain the structures of governance and laws in the Constitution. The other displays arrogant confidence in their personal visions of fairness and the future of the country. It has become an unresolvable conflict.

President Trump is a highly flawed and imperfect vessel, but he still appears to play by the old rules. For those who believe in a clear and stable structure of American rights, enshrined in the Constitution and the American legal system, Trump is, by far, the best bet. For those who prefer to roll the dice for some vision of a “better future,” Not Trump is the answer. The New Constitution comes with a user agreement — best to read it carefully.

Grady Means is a writer (GradyMeans.com) and a former corporate strategy consultant. In the former U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, he helped create and expand American welfare programs. He also served in the White House as a policy assistant to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. Follow him on Twitter @gradymeans1.

TAGS  BRETT KAVANAUGH DONALD TRUMP LIVING CONSTITUTION US CONSTITUTION PROGRESSIVES 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

#RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR, DAY 12, NONNIE JULES @NonnieJules #RRBC #RRBC_COMMUNITY #RWISARISEUP

Today, Foreign Correspondent is pleased to host author Nonnie Jules on her Rave Writers International Society of Authors’ “Rise UP” blog tour.

Welcome to our 2nd RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR!

Because of the current state of the world where we are faced with a pandemic like none has ever seen before, where homelessness, hunger, job losses, and world-wide lock-downs are the norm, we wanted to give you a glimpse into our world as we are now living it.

Since we are also in the month of May, when Mothers should be celebrated even more than they should be every day, some of us are going to reflect upon our lives without our moms.  Yes, we have two themes this year!

For 14 days, we invite you here to the RWISA site to enjoy, engage, and to become enlightened – awakened even to the many plights of our communities and to share in our memories and sorrows as we navigate our world without the moms who brought us into it.  Hopefully, in some of these stories, you will also be compelled to RISE UP and share your story in hopes of making someone else’s day brighter and their load a little lighter.

Come along with us on this journey!

by Nonnie Jules

By Friday, I doubted that I would even be part of this event.  I’m sure many of you noticed that I kept moving others ahead of me and ahead of me, until I ran out of members to move – as I struggled with finding the time in my schedule to write something.  As of this morning, I had finally decided that I just wasn’t going to be able to participate, as again, I saw no opening in my schedule that would allow it.

Then, I got a phone call at 7:37 this evening from a friend, sharing that her relative had just attempted suicide due to his personal struggles since the arrival of COVID19.  He had lost his job, had received an eviction notice, and saw no clear path to anything remotely close to “better” while the Coronavirus lingered.  That conversation forced me to sit down at my desk just as soon as I hung up the phone.  What you will find below may not be that great, but it’s what my heart rolled out in the final hour.

***

And So, I Believed

We are living through what is possibly the most trying time in many of our lives.  We are a world on lock-down, and though there are those of us who are living a bit more comfortably than others during this pandemic, many in the world are suffering.

Some of us are not concerned with how our mortgages and car notes will get paid.  Some of us aren’t concerned with where our next meal will come from, or, if we’ll have to suffer through another night filled with tears streaming down the faces of our hungry children, along with our own tears of helplessness.

For those who suffer with mental illness, their situations are creating a new wave of crisis, as many who see no way out, are, out of fear and desperation, turning to suicide.

My heart breaks for these innocents in this war.

***

It’s quiet.  

I’m afraid​. ​

I’ve been locked up inside for so long, I don’t know my nights from my days.

 

It’s lonely.  

I’m scared.

There’s no place to hide, ​and ​no other place to go​, ​because it’s everywhere.

 

I need to make a run

​…​just out to the store

…but, I’m not even sure

…it’s safe to open my door.

 

It’s in the air ​we breathe​

​…​on everything that we touch

I never realized ​until now​

​…​I needed people so much​. ​

 

I’ve no medical insurance

…so, I mustn’t get sick​. ​

My stomach is growling​​​ 

​…​but, it will soon quit​. ​

 

I’ll just stay inside for now.

 

I do need my meds 

…to kill the voices in my head.

They’ve never been this loud before.

A little knock at the door 

…would really help right now.

 

It’s ​too ​quiet.

I’m ​so ​afraid.

I open my wallet and remember…

I haven’t even gotten paid.

 

What will I do?

​How will I survive?

I don’t even know if it’s worth staying alive.

And, what will I eat?

What about the heat?

 

I know that it’s summer

…and it’s supposed to be hot

…but​, ​this thing has me terrified

…all tied up in knots.

​So, I strangely shiver as if it is cold.

While parts of the world move, my life is on hold. ​

 

Under the covers

…the only place I feel safe.

Oh, how I wish

…to feel the sun on my face.

 

How will I ​cover​

…the rent that is due?

My landlord’s expecting 

…to be paid at two.

 

Some understand 

…but others not

My luck ran out

…with the landlord I got.

 

“I’ve got a family to feed – you’ve only got you.” 

He does not ​see​ that only me has to eat, too.

 

I don’t have the rent, dear Lord. 

What will I do?

Where will I go?

I need a sign

…because I just don’t know.

 

How long will this crisis last?

No one knows for sure.

I’m afraid​ of my thoughts​.

How much more can I endure?

 

I just don’t know.

 

My mind is racing

…it just won’t stop.

Please slow it down, Lord

…these thoughts are just not – to your liking.

 

I cover my mouth

A cough escapes.

​I d​rift over to the window

…and pull back the drapes.

Unlocking the locks

…one by one

I can hear the calling ​

​…​not a voice​, ​but a gun.

 

​No, too noisy, I think.

 

And what if I miss?  

I’m already afraid to even consider this.

 

Now, it’s a voice – louder – more clear  

Almost a shout – deep in my ear.

“Come closer to me. 

Look, I’m down here.” 

 

Five stories below me

Cars rush​ing​ by

​I hear the voice again​

“​C’mon, you can fly.”

 

I look back over my shoulder

As my landlord knocks

Then I glance at the wall

…it’s straight two o’clock.

 

“Why are you hesitant? There’s only pain here for you.

There’s nobody to help, so, what will you do?

The world is on lockdown, but you can be free.

Do not wait another second; come and join me!

You see, I am free – down here. 

And don’t forget, you can fly.”

 

​And so, I believed.

***

To everyone reading this who might be struggling with thoughts in their head, that under normal circumstances wouldn’t make sense, yet, they seem to make sense in the moment, what you should always remember is that the devil is alive and well, and sometimes looks and sounds just like you and me. {And of course, he wants you to join him…in hell.}

Fight those voices that encourage you to harm yourself and others.

If you were not born a bird or created in the likeness of some type of aircraft, listen to ME – you cannot fly.

***

“Thanks for supporting me!” 

[image error]

***

Thank you for supporting today’s  RWISA  author along the  RWISA  “RISE-UP” Blog Tour!   To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the main  RWISA  “RISE-UP” Blog Tour page on the  RWISA  site.  For a chance to win a bundle of 15 e-books along with a $5 Amazon gift card, please leave a comment below and on the main  RWISA  “RISE-UP” Blog Tour  page!  Thank you and good luck!

  Link to Nonnie Jules’ RWISA Profile Page:

https://ravewriters.wordpress.com/meet-the-authors/author-nonnie-jules/

 

 

#RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR, DAY 11, PEGGY HATTENDORF @PeggyHattendorf #RRBC #RRBC_COMMUNITY #RWISARISEUP

Today, Foreign Correspondent is pleased to host author Peggy Hattendorf on her Rave Writers International Society of Authors’ “Rise UP” blog tour.

Welcome to our 2nd RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR!

Because of the current state of the world where we are faced with a pandemic like none has ever seen before, where homelessness, hunger, job losses, and world-wide lock-downs are the norm, we wanted to give you a glimpse into our world as we are now living it.

Since we are also in the month of May, when Mothers should be celebrated even more than they should be every day, some of us are going to reflect upon our lives without our moms.  Yes, we have two themes this year!

For 14 days, we invite you here to the RWISA site to enjoy, engage, and to become enlightened – awakened even to the many plights of our communities and to share in our memories and sorrows as we navigate our world without the moms who brought us into it.  Hopefully, in some of these stories, you will also be compelled to RISE UP and share your story in hopes of making someone else’s day brighter and their load a little lighter.

Come along with us on this journey!

by Peggy Hattendorf

“Mother is the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind.” Kahlil Gibran

We define, mother or mom, as the female parent, whose responsibilities center around the physical and emotional care of a child, who may or may not be her own biological offspring. In certain circumstances, childcare commitments may be handled by the grandmother, stepmother, foster mother, godmother, or mother-in-law.  All categories of “mothers” who have a hand in nurturing, teaching, and fostering the development of a child, deserve respect and admiration.

[image error] Peggy Hattendorf

The American terms, mother, or mom, adopted from the British English names, mummy or mum, sound remarkably similar or are spelled the same, in many languages around the world.

Whether we say,

Mother or Mom – American English
Mummy or Mum – British English
Mother or Mom – Canadian English or Maman – French-speaking province of Quebec
Madre – Spanish
La Mere – French
Moeder – Afrikaans
Ma – Hindi (India)
Moeder – Dutch
Madre or Mamma – Italian
Mama – Romanian
Matka – Polish
Mor or Mamma – Norwegian
Mum – Australian English
Mum – New Zealand English
Mueter – Swiss German
Mamma – Swedish
Mutter – German
Me – Vietnamese

the meaning and the identity of the person referenced is the same – the female parent of a child.

The initial love and affection, devotion, and care, given by our mothers, cultivated our early introduction to life and the universe around us. It provided the initial foundation and perceptions of the world as a happy, gentle, and kind place or a world to be viewed as hostile, brutal and unkind.

Without the support, training, guidance, and discipline set by our mothers, we would not have grown into social beings, in the image of God. Mothers help prepare us with knowledge, skills, and abilities to mature and become independent. In so doing, our mothers sacrificed many of their desires and needs for our necessities and demands.

If the virtuous governing principles of life are learned by teaching and examples bestowed by our mothers, then a “world without mothers” would be:

A world with significantly fewer women
A world devoid of selflessness and unconditional love
A world less disciplined and restrained
A world less organized and efficient
A world less righteous, decent, and understanding
A world less emotional, demonstrative, and affectionate
A world with less compassion and empathy
A world less patient, kind, and gentle
A world with less encouragement and motivation
A world less balanced and controlled
A world less polite and respectful
A world less thoughtful, tender, and considerate
A world less merciful and forgiving

Mothers play an indispensable role which is hard to duplicate.  As infants, nearly all of our physical needs are attended by our mothers. That physical care prevailed as we started to crawl and then walk, babble, and then talk, and shed our diapers when toilet trained. Our safety, protection, and physical well-being remained paramount to our mothers even as we matured and entered adulthood.

For many of us, the emotional care given by our biological mothers originated before we were born. After birth, we were embraced with love and affection. That unconditional love stands as the cornerstone of the mother and child relationship. As our mothers motivated and inspired, encouraged, and supported, they provided the strength necessary for us to grow and mature. As our first instructors, they taught us about love, and hope, faith and spirituality, acceptance and tolerance, courage, and bravery, confidence, and determination, giving, and charity.

And they raised us to let us go and assume independence; all-the-while, we remain in our mothers’ hearts and souls forever. Mothers change the world with every child they raise.

Women are not handed an “instruction kit” as they assume the role of motherhood. No guidebooks, training manuals, or college courses prepare them for the most challenging, yet most fulfilling experience of their lives.

It is hard to envision a world without our best supporter, best listener, and best friend forever. Mothers are the ones who are always happy to hear from us, no matter what we are calling about, or when we are calling. They are the ones that will drive us crazy – but we know will always be there.  And no matter our age, we always need our mothers.  My mother has been gone for twenty-one years, but there is not a day, I do not wish I could pick up the telephone and speak with her.

Below, my grandchildren and daughter have shared their perspectives on what life would be like without mothers.

From my 16-year old granddaughter Anabella:

“I can’t imagine a world without moms, as my mom is my biggest supporter and sometimes my biggest critic. My mom has always been there to laugh at me when I fall but to also pick me up and wipe my tears. I love my mom; she is always there to help me. She is my best friend. I can come to her with all my problems and she is always there with a witty comment and some friendship knowledge.”

From my 15-year old granddaughter Skylar:

“A world without moms would be dark and unforgiving. There would be no one to love you unconditionally, no one to bring you back up when you are sad and feeling down. You would not have your biggest cheerleader and fiercest defender by your side. You would not have that unconditional love that a mother gives to her child. And you wouldn’t have anyone who utterly understands you like your mother.”

From my 10-year old grandson Erik:

“What a world without moms? No, that cannot be, because it means everything in the world to me to have a mom. She takes care of me when I am sick.”

From my daughter Rebecca, the mother of Anabella and Erik:

“Strong women raise strong girls and you are the strongest woman I know. I can’t imagine the world without you and all the other strong wonderful moms.”

It would be a decisively different and fragmented world without the love, hugs, and the comforting touches of mothers.

In a world without moms, we would lose our navigational compass, our emotional barometer, and our positioning in the world order. We would be set adrift in an ocean of ever-changing conditions and unknown dangers. Thankfully, we have mothers and live on a planet fondly called “Mother Nature” or “Mother Earth” from the Greco-Roman personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it, in the form of a mother.

Link to Peggy Hattendorf’s RWISA Profile Page:

https://ravewriters.wordpress.com/meet-the-authors/author-peggy-hattendorf/

Thank you for supporting today’s RWISA author along the RWISA “RISE-UP” Blog Tour!  To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the main RWISA “RISE-UP” Blog Tour page on the RWISA site.  For a chance to win a bundle of 15 e-books along with a $5 Amazon gift card, please leave a comment on the main RWISA “RISE-UP”Blog Tour page!  Once you’re there, it would be nice to also leave the author a personal note on their dedicated tour page, as well.  Thank you, and good luck!

 

 

 

#RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR, DAY 10, MAURA BETH BRENNAN @MAURABETH2014 #RRBC #RRBC_COMMUNITY #RWISARISEUP

Today, Foreign Correspondent is pleased to host author Maura Beth Brenna on her Rave Writers International Society of Authors’ “Rise UP” blog tour.

Welcome to our 2nd RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR!

Because of the current state of the world where we are faced with a pandemic like none has ever seen before, where homelessness, hunger, job losses, and world-wide lock-downs are the norm, we wanted to give you a glimpse into our world as we are now living it.

Since we are also in the month of May, when Mothers should be celebrated even more than they should be every day, some of us are going to reflect upon our lives without our moms.  Yes, we have two themes this year!

For 14 days, we invite you here to the RWISA site to enjoy, engage, and to become enlightened – awakened even to the many plights of our communities and to share in our memories and sorrows as we navigate our world without the moms who brought us into it.  Hopefully, in some of these stories, you will also be compelled to RISE UP and share your story in hopes of making someone else’s day brighter and their load a little lighter.

Come along with us on this journey!

MEMORIES OF MOM

by Maura Beth Brennan

I miss my Mom’s quirks. Her superstitions, for instance.

“Don’t you dare put your shoes on that table,” she would say. She wasn’t talking about putting shoe-clad feet on the coffee table. She didn’t want anyone putting a shoebox containing new shoes on a table—any table. Such an action could have dire consequences. That box must be placed on the floor. Period.

No one in our house would have dared leave a wet umbrella open to dry inside the house. That would have, according to Mom, invited disaster. And if you left the house by the front door, you had better return that way. If not, who knew what tragedy might befall you?

Now, when I walk my dog through the woods and take a shortcut home, I double around the house to reenter through the same door. I can still hear her voice, warning me. I leave that dripping umbrella on the porch. I place that shoebox on the floor. Because my mother—she’s a deep, tenacious part of me.

I miss so many things about her—her funny remarks, her kindnesses, her soft voice. I say things to my daughter and think, there is my mother talking. She blurted the funniest things sometimes, and Dad, my brothers, and I sometimes teased her about it. One source of our amusement was her habit of mixing up common clichés. “Sit down, let’s chew the breeze,” my mom would say. Or, “It’s six of one, a dozen of the other.” When we’d laugh, she’d look confused until she realized what she had said. Then, she’d laugh along. She was the inspiration for the mother in two of my short stories, where the mother’s sayings always came out wrong.

[image error] Maura Beth Brennan

I miss having Mom to lean on. One difficult year, I had to take a leave of absence from work. A new house, a demanding job, a young daughter, night school to earn a degree—it was suddenly all too much for me, and I couldn’t seem to stop crying. One morning, as I sat feeling sorry for myself, I heard a knock at my door. There was Mom, smiling, bearing homemade muffins for us to share. She settled me at the kitchen table. “Now, don’t you cry anymore,” she said. “It will all work out.” She made me a cup of tea and brought it to me. “This is nice,” she said. “Isn’t it? Just us girls.”

What I would give to have a cup of tea with her now. To let her know how much that meant to me.

Mom was a shy and quiet woman, but she had courage and a steely spine when it came to her family. Her courage showed when, during World War II, she packed a suitcase and took her baby daughter (me) three-thousand miles across the country, by train and bus, to be with my father while he was stationed on the west coast. She stayed there, making a home for us until the war was over.

She showed that courage when she won her first battle with cancer. She never told either of my recently married brothers how ill she was, not wanting to worry them. She told them she had “a little procedure.” When her health returned, it was as if it never happened. She never spoke of it.

But cancer struck again, a different one this time, more deadly.

And this is the memory that breaks my heart. She was in the hospital after exploratory surgery and a terrible prognosis. I went to visit, pulling my chair close to her bed to hear her quiet voice. Her eyes stretched wide and she grasped my hand in hers.

“I’m so scared,” she said.

She died nine months later. That January, the doctors had “given” her three months to live. But she was determined to live until her fortieth wedding anniversary on September 20th.

The afternoon she died, my father, my brothers and I were gathered around her bedside. She asked my father, “Bud, is today our anniversary?” She was suffering and my father couldn’t bear to watch it go on. It was September 19th, a day too early.

He pulled her close and embraced her for the last time. He knew what he had to do.

“Yes, sweetheart,” he said. “It is.”

Link to Maura Beth Brennan’s RWISA Profile Page:

MEET #RWISA #AUTHOR, MAURA BETH BRENNAN – @MauraBeth2014 #RRBC

Thank you for supporting today’s RWISA author along the RWISA “RISE-UP” Blog Tour!  To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the main RWISA “RISE-UP” Blog Tour page on the RWISA site.  For a chance to win a bundle of 15 e-books along with a $5 Amazon gift card, please leave a comment on the main RWISA “RISE-UP”Blog Tour page!  Once you’re there, it would be nice to also leave the author a personal note on their dedicated tour page, as well.  Thank you, and good luck!

 

 

 

Vietnam’s Coronavirus Success Not a Model for the U.S.

Today, I am reprinting a fascinating article from Foreign Policy Magazine. It reveals just how Vietnam’s Communist Party has been able to control the outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 virus. Simply put, it has done so by using intimidation, censorship, and repression. These are not the kinds of tools most Americans would tolerate, though there are those in this country who believe that federal, state, and local governments are using onerous tactics that border on those measures. Take a look at this revealing report on Vietnam’s pandemic control strategy. 

Vietnam’s Coronavirus Success Is Built on Repression

The Communist Party’s tools of control made for effective virus-fighting weapons

BY BILL HAYTON & TRO LY NGHEO

MAY 12, 2020

When the Hanoi-based economic consultant Raymond Mallon returned home after a trip abroad in late March, he was immediately texted by the local police asking after his health. Vietnam is a state that not only knows where you live but also knows when you go away—and your mobile phone number.

The degree of control matters because Vietnam has been widely praised for its success in tackling COVID-19. As of May 12, the country had, according to official statistics, suffered no deaths from the virus and had limited total infections to just 288, despite being next door to China and a popular holiday destination during the spring festival, when the coronavirus first hit the Chinese city of Wuhan.

This has led many observers to suggest that the country’s pandemic control strategy could be a model for others to copy, especially for developing countries. But that is unlikely to succeed because few other countries have, or want to have, the structures of control that Vietnam possesses.

Todd Pollack, the country medical director of the Partnership for Health Advancement in Vietnam and a specialist in infectious diseases, ascribed Vietnam’s success to three factors: its relatively young population (just 12 percent of Vietnamese are over 60, compared with 22 percent in the United Kingdom); rigorous testing combined with early hospitalization for those found to be infected; and diligent contact tracing and isolation.

It is the last of those three—the tracing and isolating of infected people—that enabled Vietnam to get its outbreak under control. As Matthew Moore, a Hanoi-based official from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters: “The steps are easy to describe but difficult to implement, yet they’ve been very successful at implementing them over and over again.”

But the reason Vietnam’s disease control mechanisms have been so effective, and the reason why they are unlikely to be copied, is that they are the same mechanisms that facilitate and protect the country’s one-party rule. Vietnam has standing armies of neighborhood wardens and public security officers who keep constant watch over city blocks.

When required, they can be augmented by militia and self-defense forces with the ability to seal off entire districts. The structures that control epidemics are the same ones that control public expressions of dissent.

[image error]

Several countries have deployed police as troops in the war against COVID-19, giving them extra powers to impose social order. In the Philippine town of Santa Cruz, for example, police detained five youths who violated the national lockdown in a dog cage.

In March, France put 100,000 additional police officers on the streets to enforce its 15-day lockdown. But in Vietnam, police are not only watching you on the street. They track you to your front door, through your phone, and via your social media accounts.

In late March, a number of COVID-19 infections were discovered at the Bach Mai Hospital in southern Hanoi. In response, the chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee (the city municipality), Maj. Gen. Nguyen Duc Chung, instructed thousands of police and local officials to visit every household in the neighborhoods for which they are responsible.

One resident, Dang Bich Thao, told Foreign Policy that the same evening, a local police officer knocked on her door and those of other households in her building to ask if they or their families had visited the hospital.

Each inhabitant was checked against official residency lists and asked to explain their recent activities and travel history. “I felt like a criminal,” Ngo Minh Hoang told Foreign Policy, after a police officer knocked on his door in late March asking if he had traveled abroad during the last 14 days. “Although [the police] explained that the check was just for our own safety, I was still horrified,” Hoang added.

While the government has technological tools at its disposal, the foundation of its enormous security capacity is a vast human intelligence-gathering machine with the ability to trace and track individuals in person. Chung was the right man when it came to controlling the capital city. Until 2016, he was the director of Hanoi’s police department.

On May 2, the authorities closed off part of the Hanoi suburb of Gia Lam, quarantining 120 households (around 600 people) because one person was showing symptoms that could have been COVID-19. So-called district functional forces—uniformed police and militia—were pictured erecting barricades.

Media photos also showed the men without uniforms who hold real power in these situations. They work for the Ministry of Public Security: shadowy enforcers in polo shirts and slacks who can, depending on the situation, dish out orders to local officials or summon up the heavy mob with a phone call.

These are the same people who can barricade government critics inside their houses to prevent them, meeting journalists, convene a neighborhood denunciation session to intimidate dissidents or make sure someone’s kids get rough treatment at school if he or she makes too much noise about local corruption.

The enforcers can be quite sure that their behavior is not going to be challenged by an independent judiciary because the Communist Party decides what the law is. Is it any wonder that people obey instructions to stay inside barricades when they live under a system that can make or break livelihoods by bureaucratic fiat?

[image error]

These are the actual mechanisms that make the difference between the national pandemic preparedness that the United States and United Kingdom were thought to enjoy and the real deal that Vietnam demonstrated.

They were born as tools of Communist Party control and have now been repurposed in the service of health protection. The same systems, born from the same roots, made it possible for China to eventually control its outbreak, even after thousands of people died. The party’s supporters will applaud its efforts and the domestic intelligence panopticon that made it possible. Those who are more skeptical about surveillance states will be wary of trying to emulate its success.

Caroline Mills, who runs a small island resort near Hoi An, described on Twitter in late February how this surveillance worked in the case of one French visitor. According to Mills, the Frenchman had been flagged with a higher than normal temperature on arriving in Bangkok some 20 days earlier. After two days passing through Cambodia, he arrived in Vietnam.

Unknown to him, the Vietnamese authorities monitored his entire journey through the country for 18 days. Within minutes of Mills logging his arrival at her hotel with the immigration service’s database, she received a call from the police. Officers were at the hotel to interview and test the Frenchman within 15 minutes.

The military has also played a role in Vietnam’s battle against the virus. Sixty-eight military camps with a capacity of 40,000 people were set up to receive people ordered into quarantine. Nguyen Khanh (whose name has been changed to protect her identity), a 19-year-old who returned from studying in the U.K. and was quarantined in one of the camps, said she was woken up at 6 a.m. each day by a loudspeaker blaring a song declaring, “Our lives are a military march.”

Similar messages were also being broadcast outside the camp. Each morning, the loudspeakers found on every street corner in Hanoi were also praising the contributions of the military and law enforcement agencies in fighting the virus.

At the same time, the authorities were stepping up their efforts against unauthorized information. According to local news reports, between Jan. 23, when Vietnam detected its first case of infection, and mid-March, police censored around 300,000 posts on news sites and blogs and 600,000 posts on social media about COVID-19. During those two months, police took action against 654 cases of so-called fake news and sanctioned 146 people.

[image error]

The overlap between the techniques useful for fighting misinformation and those for squashing political criticism is obvious. Vietnam sits at 175th on the Reporters Without Borders 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

While some other Asian states, notably South Korea, have used phone tracking, credit card records, and video surveillance to trace the travel history of infected people, only Vietnam and China are able to combine such technologies with the street muscle to maintain direct personal control over large numbers of people. Only Vietnam and China are able to do so permanently and without the need to submit to legal or parliamentary oversight.

While the international community has criticized Vietnam’s security apparatus in the past for violating its citizens’ rights, the country has received near-unanimous praise for its successful handling of the current pandemic.

But the tools used are the same. For decades, the Communist Party has used surveillance, physical monitoring, and censorship to manage the population. The techniques have become more sophisticated, but Vietnam does not provide a model that many other countries are likely to either want or be able to implement.

Bill Hayton is an associate fellow at Chatham House.

Tro Ly Ngheo is a pseudonym for a Vietnamese author.

 

 

 

#RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR, DAY 9, HEATHER KINDT, @HMKINDT #RRBC #RRBC_COMMUNITY #RWISARISEUP

Today, Foreign Correspondent is pleased to host author Heather Kindt on her Rave Writers International Society of Authors’ “Rise UP” blog tour.

Welcome to our 2nd RWISA “RISE-UP” TOUR!

Because of the current state of the world where we are faced with a pandemic like none has ever seen before, where homelessness, hunger, job losses, and world-wide lock-downs are the norm, we wanted to give you a glimpse into our world as we are now living it.

Since we are also in the month of May, when Mothers should be celebrated even more than they should be every day, some of us are going to reflect upon our lives without our moms.  Yes, we have two themes this year!

For 14 days, we invite you here to the RWISA site to enjoy, engage, and to become enlightened – awakened even to the many plights of our communities and to share in our memories and sorrows as we navigate our world without the moms who brought us into it.  Hopefully, in some of these stories, you will also be compelled to RISE UP and share your story in hopes of making someone else’s day brighter and their load a little lighter.

Come along with us on this journey!

LOSING MOM

By: Heather Kindt

Have you ever lost someone? The pain is unimaginable, ripping through you like an express train. But what if you lost that person again and again? The agony of the loss knocks you off your feet until you’re numb. That’s what it’s like when you lose someone to dementia.

My mom was my best friend.

She was my shoulder to cry on, and I told her everything. On summer mornings, she’d lie in bed thinking, so I’d hop in next to her and we’d talk about everything or nothing at all. She was there to hold me when I lost my first love and to celebrate with me when I found my last. We spent an entire summer planning my wedding and finding ways to keep the costs within my measly teacher salary. Rummaging through bargain bins at the Christmas Tree Shop, we found the perfect, gold-trimmed ribbon to don the pews at the church.

After I was married, I moved to Colorado, and being two thousand miles apart put a dent in both of our souls. But, she was there when my babies were born, helping me figure out the tasks of new mothers for the few weeks she was able to be away from home. She was always there, even if it had to be over the telephone wires.

[image error] Heather Kindt

Until she wasn’t.

It started off slowly—spoiled milk in the refrigerator, aluminum foil in the microwave, and accusing my uncle of leaving tiny, recording devices under her couch. She’s getting forgetful with age…paranoid. That’s what I told myself.

But then things weren’t so small. When my mom and dad finally moved to Colorado, she and my brother took separate cars to church one night. Matt followed my mom back to their house but instead of turning down their road, my mom went straight. I received the phone call from Matt frantic, explaining the situation.

“Why didn’t you follow her?” I thought it was a reasonable question.

“I don’t know?”

I lived an hour and a half away, and it was eight o’clock at night. Pulling on my coat, I waited by the phone. There was no way I’d be able to find my mom in a city at night, though I’d search all night if I had to. Before leaving out the door, I called Matt one last time. Why wasn’t he searching?

A pair of headlights turned up our driveway. Impossible. We lived in a housing development in the country littered with dirt roads and deer. I rushed down the stairs to greet my mother. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her whole body shook as she melted into my arms.

“He left me,” she sobbed. “I found a road that I recognized that went to your house, and I kept going.”

I wrapped her in a blanket and lay next to her on the bed in the spare room, her body heaving as she fell asleep.

As time went on, the incidents became more frequent. My parents moved back to New Hampshire because Dad couldn’t handle the altitude. My sister insisted they live in a retirement community. My mom didn’t like the price tag, so six months later she found an apartment in the town I grew up in. I was their telephone caregiver, calling every day on my way to work.

That summer when we visited, it was becoming more and more apparent that Mom couldn’t care for Dad, who was eighteen years her senior. He fell a couple of times, and she called the ambulance because she couldn’t lift him. Being there, I learned it was because he was malnourished and dehydrated. A local independent living facility provided them with at least two meals a day, and they could make friends. It worked for a while. Mom accused the maids of stealing her things, but it was her paranoia setting in again.

But then Dad got sick.

My mom insisted on coming to live with us. It was always how I imagined things would be. When Dad passed away, Mom would come live with us and help me with my children. But Dad wasn’t gone yet.

She insisted.

We moved her out to Colorado, and she lived with us. Frequent plane trips to New Hampshire drained my bank account. She missed him and in less than a year she wanted to move back. Things were different now. We hid her car keys, we arranged for her to go to a local senior center while we were at work, and she became severely combative.

For three years, my mother lived with us as I lost her day after day. At times, it felt like she ripped my heart out and stomped on it. I lashed out at her in my own frustration one day when she helped me clean out a closet. I missed our conversations, our comradeship and the love we’d always shared. It was as if someone reached down to Earth, snatched my mother and replaced her with a stranger. After three years, my husband and I made the decision to place her in a nursing home on a memory care unit.

I lost her again.

It was the most difficult thing I’ve done in my entire life, but I had to do it for her safety. Mom would get angry with me for no reason at all and storm out of the house. My husband followed her in the car until he could coax her inside. Her leaving also saved our marriage. The strain and stress it put on us those three years isn’t something I would want anyone to go through.

Have you ever lost someone? I lose my mom every day, but it’s not as painful now. When you lose someone to dementia, at least for me, it’s like you’re going through the pain of losing someone suddenly again and again over many years. At some point, the pain numbs because it has to, or the stress will eat you alive. I love my mother, but the disease has stolen precious years of her life. It’s in the small glimmers of her spirit—a smile, a mischievous eye aimed at my husband, a hug from recognition—that I find hope that someday we can be together fully again.

Link to Heather Kindt’s RWISA Profile Page:

https://ravewriters.wordpress.com/meet-rwisa-author-heather-kindt-hmkindt-rrbc/

  Thank you for supporting today’s RWISA author along the RWISA “RISE-UP” Blog Tour!  To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the main RWISA “RISE-UP” Blog Tour page on the RWISA site.  For a chance to win a bundle of 15 e-books along with a $5 Amazon gift card, please leave a comment on the main RWISA “RISE-UP”Blog Tour page!  Once you’re there, it would be nice to also leave the author a personal note on their dedicated tour page, as well.  Thank you, and good luck!