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.
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