Dear Progressive Reader,
When Gerald Ford was sworn in as Vice President in 1973 (to replace a disgraced Spiro Agnew), he famously told a reporter, “I am a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln’s.” Today, the prevaricator-in-chief in the White House gives new meaning to non-eloquence with his self-serving, anti-science, daily rants. As cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates this week, we have moved into a realm where “the pseudo-science is winning.”
It was Herbert Hoover’s inaction, and his catering to the interests of the wealthy, that exacerbated the Great Depression of the 1930s. His successor Franklin Roosevelt responded with bold public programs to address the real needs of a suffering population. Speaking in October 1932, during his race for the Presidency, Roosevelt explained, “The philosophy of social justice through social action, calls definitely, plainly, for the reduction of poverty. And what do we mean when we talk about the reduction of poverty? We mean the reduction of the causes of poverty.”
This week, Lisa Beringer reports from Indiana on how everyday working people are faring in the time of COVID-19 shutdowns. “What I found,” she writes, “is that people are questioning the morality of an economic system that supports large corporations over small businesses, while ignoring the needs of those who are suffering right now.” Sarah Anderson explains how threats by the Trump Administration to privatize the Post Office (or simply let it fail) are impacting small businesses and everyday folks that depend on the service. And Andy Spears looks at the ways in which the pandemic is being used as an excuse to push for privatizing our public education system.
With impetus from the White House and funding from conservative billionaires, efforts to “re-open the country” are being pushed by rallies and, in some places, court cases. In Wisconsin, the Republican-controlled legislature has taken the Democratic Governor’s “Safer-at-Home” order to court. As Ruth Conniff reports, “Republicans are doing their best to weaponize people’s weariness with COVID-19 and turn it against the Democratic officeholders who are making policy to try to control the deadly outbreak.” In some cases, this has included entering state capitol buildings with firearms. Frank Smyth, longtime NRA watcher, reminds us this week, “The protesters who recently carried semi-automatic rifles into capitol buildings in different states were hardly the first to do so. Back in May 1967, a group of Black Panthers led by Bobby Seale in Sacramento carried firearms into the California state house. Within less than three months, Governor Ronald Reagan signed a law banning the open carry of weapons in the state.” And as Bill Lueders points out, a similar “different standard” is being applied to tracking cases of the virus contracted by people attending these large “anti-social-distancing” events.
Meanwhile, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies show that, in spite of a call by the United Nations for a global cease-fire during the pandemic, “Trump has so far spurned this chance to make good on his promise to bring U.S. troops home, even as his lost wars and ill-defined global military occupation expose thousands of troops to COVID-19.” And Reese Erlich describes how, while there are many similarities between the two main political parties in their views on U.S. military actions, “Biden will respond to anti-war activists far more readily than Trump. If Biden wins on November 3, then starting on November 4 progressives should be pressuring Biden to do more than ‘restore’ U.S. foreign policy.”
Finally, last Monday was the fiftieth anniversary of the tragic killings of antiwar protestors at Kent State University in Ohio. Next Friday will be the fiftieth anniversary of more deaths at Jackson State University in Mississippi. Special conferences and commemorations at both universities have been cancelled or postponed due to the coronavirus. In May 1988, The Progressive featured an article by Elaine Holstein, the mother of Jeff Miller, one of the four students killed at Kent State. She wrote: “The myth of a benign America where dissent was broadly tolerated was one casualty of the shootings at Kent State.” Fifty years later, few would disagree with the right of students to peacefully protest a misguided U.S. policy to make war on the people of Vietnam. Few disagree that the National Guard troops were wrong to fire on the crowd with live ammunition. But in the America of today, it is unclear whether the lessons of those 1970 protests have been learned. Senator George McGovern, speaking at a commemorative service in Kent, Ohio, on May 4, 1990 said, “The war with Vietnam is unfinished. The killing has stopped, but the arrogance and ignorance which produced it survive.”
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
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