U.S. Dubious Achievement Award: 37 million refugees

Most know the U.S. needlessly killed hundreds of thousands of innocents in the Middle East and Africa since the War On Terror began twenty years ago next month. But few know it has produced at least 37 million refugees, possibly as many as 59 million, during the same time. Only WWII created more refugees since 1900 during wartime than the U.S has with its lust to revenge the 911 bombings. Brown University’s Cost of War Project has provided the first comprehensive study of the mass movement of folks displaced by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and the Philippians. In a cruel irony, the U.S. has restricted the number of refugees that can enter the U.S. from 30,000 in 2018 to 18,000 in 2019 and beyond. U.S. policy is tops in creating refugees; a flop in alleviating their suffering.

Urban disinvestment timeline 85 years off

Patrick Holden’s ‘Will South/West projects pay off?’ (Trib, Sept. 7) posits private development will avoid Chicago’s urban wastelands due to “what has transpired over the past several months". Holden is correct investment unlikely there but his timeline is 85 years off. In 1935, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) directed the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) to look at 239 cities, including Chicago, to develop ‘Residential Security Maps’ identifying levels of security for real estate investment. HOLC came up with a 4 color scheme. Green was for affluent suburbs and outer city areas, blue for ‘still desirable city neighborhoods, yellow for declining neighborhoods and red for areas too dilapidated for loans. Thus was born America's infamous 'Redlining'. These redlined’ areas were virtually all poor minority communities. Private banking and home loan institutions took their cue from the Fed, resulting in nine decades of disinvestment which turned Chicago’s South and West Sides into violent urban wastelands. Whites living there also took the Fed’s cue, moving west toward green and blue lined areas where housing loans were readily available to those with the right color. That is institutional racism enshrined in a bureaucratic directive and it’s still at work today.

Private investment will never fix the problem. Neither will state and local initiatives. The federal government must acknowledge it fueled the creation of urban minority wastelands. It must institute a Marshall Plan for America’s inner cities to rebuild them, providing jobs, health care, healthy food stores; indeed all the resources only available outside their invisible walls. The U.S. spent $13 billion to reconstitute Western Europe after WWII ($140 Billion today). It was among the best initiatives America made last century. With wisdom, will and compassion, America can do it this century, right here in the Homeland.

Outside the bubble; ominous hoof beats

Life is pretty good in the bubble I inhabit. The air and water are tops, not a hint of a coming environmental disaster. Heath care is wonderful…Medicare and a supplement cover every health care need at little cost to moi. Money? Only question every day is did the stock market make me a tad more affluent, and most days it does. Pandemic? Tho I wear a mask when required, I didn’t know a single one of the 186,392 that lay dead from covid-19. Don’t even know any of the 6,117,367 who became infected. Racial strife? I can look long and hard and not see any here under the bubble of the bucolic burbs.

But in the distance, ominous hoof beats. California is on fire, Iowa’s battling 140 MPH winds and the Gulf Coast has been deluged. Tens of millions still don’t have health insurance and millions more on the brink or in process of losing theirs. Over 30 million have lost their jobs and face economic catastrophe. Pandemic takes a thousand of the most vulnerable to an early grave every day. Racial strife erupts in disorder throughout the land with every senseless police or citizen minority killing.

And riding this quintet of steeds spelling societal unraveling is a strange, disconnected narcissist, exploiting and expanding the damage they inflict. Worse, over 60,000,000 of my fellow citizens are poised to unleash the master of this carnage for another four years.

The many millions of us in the bubble of the American Good Life should enjoy it while we can. The hoof beats are getting nearer and louder.We either rise together or splinter apart and fall.

First words uttered are institutionally racist ‘tell’

Living in the bubble of White Privilege, I routinely commune with many from the right side of the political divide. Tho dismayed at their views, I use my acquaintance, family ties and friendship to engage on the critical issues putting our society at risk. The issues of senseless war, income inequality, environmental decline, humane healthcare are all daunting. But no issue frustrates like the urgent need to address institutional racism one year into its fifth century with no end in sight. The police killings and maiming are not the problem, they are the most visible symptom of the life suffocating creation and maintenance of urban wastelands where millions of minorities (including poor Whites for that matter) are virtually shut out from the American Experiment, languishing in poverty, drugs, guns; creating a near hopeless despair and a near catastrophic death toll from bullets, disease, mental illness and suicide. Add in pandemic and general economic collapse and it’s no wonder Chicago’s murder rate is up a staggering 66%.

But to the folks unsympathetic to the problem of institutional racism, there are only scenes of civil disturbance: looting, arson and occasional violent attacks. “There’s your Black Lives Matter people” they proclaim with indignation that anyone could be moved to such action. In their fairy tale world of White Privilege there is no racism, no incompetent/criminal cops, no societal anchors weighing down minority communities. “Look at the successful Black leaders trotted out at the GOP Convention” they argue, proving that all anyone has to do is strive harder and success will come. One even blamed the recent Black motorist who shot 2 cops at a traffic stop in Chicago on Black Lives Matter.

I don’t consider these woefully misguided folks outright racists. I see them as the White toll of 401 years of institutional racism. When the first words out of their mouth are all directed at restoring tranquility to their White dreamland, and not one word is spoken on the endless toll inflicted on those with whom they’d never trade places, I recognize the ‘tell’ of institutional racism. My response is always the same: “When can I drop off your Black Lives Matter sign”? No takers yet.

Trump gets big nose for big lie over no new wars and troops coming home

Trump’s nose almost hit the teleprompter at the GOP Convention, expanding Pinocchio style when he claimed “I have kept America out of new wars, and our troops are coming home". No new wars? Tell that to the 82 million Iranians who saw their top military leader and a bunch of Iraqis blown to bits by a U.S. drone last January. Now they’re reeling from the twin scourges of degraded health care and economic collapse from U.S. sanctions ratcheted up after the U.S. withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, the most war saving initiative of the Obama administration. When Trump tried to impose more severe sanctions under the treaty he trashed, the UN Security Council voted 13-2 against. Only lowly Dominican Republic voted with the U.S. to destroy Iran without resorting to more bombing. No new wars? Tell that to the 29 million Venezuelans incurring tens of thousands of deaths caused by U.S. sanctions aimed at overthrowing a hated socialist government which “refuses to bow down to the dictates of Bad Neighbor Uncle Sam. No new wars? Tell that to 12 million Cubans suffering from Trump’s dumping of most of Obama’s 55 year long overdue Cuban détente.

Troops coming home? Trump is moving them around like chess pieces. Nearly half of the proposed 12,000 to leave Germany will march east to Poland to further provoke Russia. Many of the troops Trump is bringing out of Afghanistan are troops he sent in after taking office. His Afghan withdrawal gets U.S. back to troop levels when he arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Washington Post reports that overall U.S. troop levels abroad have increased slightly during Trump’s reign.

Normally, it’s good to believe only half of what a political leader proclaims. With Trump, make that half of one percent.

Quote of the Day

"If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed".
Ike, NATO Commander, 1951

Ciggy sticker shock

Staring back at me from the Jewel service desk was the cigarette display (yes, Jewel still sells cancer sticks). The big numbers in both size and amount proclaiming $9.01 jolted me back to 1955, when my ten year old friends and I bought our first pack of smokes at a local mom and pop grocery store. Back in ’55 mom and pops were as ubiquitous as Starbucks today. No signs demanding ID to buy tobacco and no questions asked. We picked out the bravest of our crew to sidle up to mom or pop, pluck down our collective 27 cents and pipe up “Package of Marlboro, please”. Nothing else exchanged besides the 27 cents and the coveted package. At 27 cents we were splurging. Pint size ‘regular’ smokes were 25 cents; king size was an extra penny. Getting the 27th cent for filters, avoiding tobacco bits on our lips and teeth was important.

We newbie smokers had a bigger problem: finding a hiding spot to puff away at. Fortunately, our outlying Chicago neighborhood had an abundance of prairies, some filled with enough trees to keep us hidden from those pesky adults. No helicopter parents to spoil our fun in the Fabulous Fifties.

After a couple of weeks we grew tired of sitting around inhaling fouled air when we could be running around playing baseball. Gave up smoking for 5 years till I was 15; then for good 7 years later. Still among best life decisions I ever made. If ciggies cost $9.01 back then or even 91 cents, we would never have started. Amazes me what folks will pay today to ruin their health.