Escalation/De-Escalation

 

I escaped my hometown of Evanston IL for a few days, with two adult children and four small dogs in tow.  My thoughts and emotions have been escalating dangerously in the past few weeks.  On the personal front, my sister-in-law died, leaving my infirm brother broken-hearted and bereft.  One of my adult kids spent a week in the hospital to get major depression under control (it seems to have worked, thank goodness).  I am disconnected from my gang of friends and acquaintences due to the on-going pandemic.  I am facing a minor surgical procedure that it is causing me a bit of anxiety.  But hey - I am a very lucky guy overall.  I have a safe home, plenty of resources and a loving family.  Lots of people would love to swap their problems for my problems.

Outside of my personal circle, things have been much worse.  Jacob Blake was shot in Kenosha - weird location for this violence; we used to call it "Kenoplace." Jacob has deep ties to Evanston.  His family includes  prominent local civil rights activists and he went to Evanston Township High School (he graduated one year before my middle kid, Andy).  The unrest in Kenosha is heart-breaking and predictable.  It is an added agony, hard on the heels of another outbreak of anger and looting on Michigan Avenue in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and the George Floyd protests earler in the summer.  So yeah, I have bailed to Galena IL to run away from all of it, to hopefully calm down a little and clear my head.  I might be a coward, but here I am.

Escalation is happening every day on almost every level.  Something awful happens, people take action (i.e. demonstrate, break things, etc.), there is a disproportionate response, which leads to more escalation, and the cycle is launched.  The noise attracts other actors (counter-demonstrators, armed civilians, multiple groups of security forces, allies of the original demonstrators, etc.) and soon we have chaos.  What is remarkable to me is that our illegitimate president is totally unwilling to defuse things.  He throws gas on any fire that he think will help him get re-elected.  

If a guy cuts me off in traffic these days, I might get irritated but I let it go.  Not long ago, I would have laid on my horn, flipped the bird, rolled down the window to cuss the guy out at the next stoplight and generally acted like an asshole.  The guy that cut me off might have responded in kind.  If we had firearms, one of us might have pulled them and someone could be dead.  It took me way too long to realize that my reactions made things worse.  By refusing to escalate, everyone is safe.  I can't control someone from cutting me off in traffic, but I can control how I react.

This is not the same as reacting to yet another criminal shooting by a police officer, but the underlying theory applies.  If the authorities want to preserve calm, they have to be calm.  This seems to be impossible for most police organizations to pull off.  And Trump loves the conflict and yells "Law and Order" while escalating at every opportunity.

I have no idea where current events might be taking us, but I have a feeling that we won't get to a more peaceful place by more escalation.  De-escalation does not mean surrender!! I think that the most effective form of resistance is voting and removing the elected officials that want to divide us - no matter where they reside in the political landscape.

Pobre Puerto Rico

I have been fortunate - I have visited Puerto Rico several times.  I am particularly fond of Culebra, a small island off the east coast of Fajardo (the main island of Puerto Rico).  Culebra is a wonderful, sleepy place with marvelous beaches and very friendly people - a combination of long-time locals and gringos that have escaped the rat race in El Norte.  I have hung out at the Dinghy Dock and Zaco's Tacos, strolled Flamenco Beach and snorkeled off the coast; I have danced on New Year's Eve in the town plaza with the locals and the tourists.   So I have been personally dismayed by the disaster of Hurricane Maria - not as bad as the 5.3 million Puerto Ricans living in the U.S., of course, but I have a connection. I have heard via the internet that Culebra did not get hit as hard as Fajardo and Vieques (another small island, but not as small as Culebra), but everything on Culebra is tied to Fajardo - the fresh water is piped over via an undersea aquaduct.  All of Puerto Rico is in a massive crisis - pobre Puerto Rico, este hermoso país despreció este desastre.
  
The U.S. Government's response to this has been, at best, lumbering and slow.  It takes time for the Federal apparatus to start moving.  Since Maria took out the local relief capabilities, there hasn't been much rapid response.  And yes, the local infrastructure was not as strong as one might like (but I am not sure that any infrastructure could have stood up well to Maria's onslaught).  The tone of discourse from President Trump has been awful, of course.  He is an awful person and generally does not try to comfort anyone.  But I suspect that the folks in FEMA and on the ground in Puerto Rico and working frantically to pull the territory out of the abyss.

And I am left with a question - why are we yelling at each other?  There is a crisis; it is no one's fault.  Of course the people who are in extreme distress are afraid that they have been abandoned and legitimate logistical challenges feel like deliberate delays.  It is reprehensible for anyone to blame the people and government of Puerto Rico for this disaster - that is like blaming a carjacking on the victim because they were driving in a bad neighborhood.  And the racial overtones of Trump's tweets can't be ignored.  The folks in Houston and Florida did not get accused of laziness.

And I, too, have been guilty of self-indulgent anger and righteous rage.  I have degenerated into name-calling and vilification.  How does this help?  Of course, it doesn't. 

The United States is in a cultural crisis that is at least as bad as the one that was raging during the Vietnam War when I was a teenager.  We have a president that is not a kind and calm human being, which adds to our difficulty.  Legitimate issues across the political spectrum can't be rationally discussed in the current environment.  Our nation has always struggled with the tension between individual freedoms and group interests.  With calm deliberation, folks that disagree can find ways to accommodate each other.  We are far, far away from calm deliberation.

The core principles of the United States of America are honorable, and the country has yet to live up to them.  From the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  From the Constitution:  We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and for our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.  If any government or president seeks to upend these core principles, that government or president must be defeated.  I do think that the current Trump administration is violating our nation's core principles.  I am an optimist, so I think this situation will be corrected in time. But regardless of "who is in charge," our country will still fall short of living up to its principles.   The legitimate disagreements will continue.  And that is the way it will always be.