Antiseptic.

So, look, when I saw the president's questions about sanitizing with light and disinfectant, I didn't think he was suggesting anyone do it - I think he genuinely didn't know if there were ways to apply that technology to the illness.

My problem is that he pursued a stream of consciousness on public television, which had potentially dangerous side effects - just like he's done hundreds of times, riffing about things that should be discussed before he speaks to an impressionable audience - and b) that when it didn't play well, he came back trying to say he was being sarcastic. He wasn't - it's very obvious.

And just as we've seen him speak incorrectly about stuff he doesn't know about, we've seen him lie continuously rather than own it. He could have said - "I was just asking."? Not defending the guy, but a lot of our solutions come from brain storming and looking a things that already exist differently. We just don't do that in front of millions of people who are look for assurance and accurate information.

I want someone in the White House that will own their mistakes. I want someone who will listen to the experts and to constituents, and think carefully before opening their mouths. I want someone who will make decisions based on people rather than money. And I want someone who won't be using the news cycle to distract people from the almost irreparable harm that is being done to our public investment in our government as a mechanism for (all of) the people.

Real Freedom

Here’s the thing: in our society where we are all created equal, your rights extend exactly as far as life and death decisions that affect yourself physically. The “my body, my choice” argument is valid in cases like abortion or suicide, cancer, etc. the minute you get to infectious disease or other actions that potentially physically harm others, you’re past your rights.

We outlaw actions that potentially harm others. You cannot poison the buffet. You cannot crash your car into a crowd of people, and call it freedom. You can’t knowingly take actions that spread contagious disease. We shut down dirty restaurants. We quarantine.

Putting others in danger for your benefit is putting yourself above them. You’re no longer supporting freedom as defined by our constitution or society.

Yes, you need to eat and a place to live, you have your right to survive which is why distancing guidelines are in place, businesses are shut and why your taxes should guarantee you eat, keep your house, cars and can get medical attention regardless of your lack of income. That is something you should protest for.

Being part of a society comes with responsibility to respect your fellow humans right to live. If we don’t maintain that, we’ve lost what we’ve fought so hard to achieve.

The forest for the trees

I read a paper a number of years back that said that we, as a race, had a problem understanding and responding to slow moving threats. Anything that didn't hit as a fire during a news cycle and sometimes something that was discussed too long (and wore off it's shine, as it were).

I've found this true, time and time again. The holocaust. Apartheid. Darfur, Rwanda. Aids. Global Warming. Universal Healthcare. World Hunger. The destruction of the South American Rain Forest. Corona virus.

It's because we have a hard time digesting the big picture. We've been so successful as reactive analysts that we try to break down to the detail and the doing without stepping back and seeing the big picture (continuously, as it changes). Its because we can be distracted with short term goals and by the explosion in a news cycle.

I was talking with a friend the other day and mentioned that I really get angry when people say in a meeting "we're not trying to solve world hunger" or "We're trying to boil the ocean". Big problems can be solved - but they need top be seen and kept in mind.

Some of us have the big picture firmly in view in this crisis and they are being attacked and torn at, by some who need to eat and by some who are greedy and do not care about who dies - those greedy people are taking advantage of those of us who want to eat, by pushing us to take risks, rather than feeding us. Because feeding us means using money (that we have paid into the system) and starving us makes money.

Right now the Corona virus dominates the news cycle, because we didn't pay attention to it when it didn't. Ignoring the warnings, the science, the root issue does not make it go away. It makes it worse. It's time to step back again and look at the big picture.

We need to feed people. We need to make sure they keep their homes. We need to make our social programs more robust and require business to pay into a business continuity insurance fund, so we can help them keep people in mind during hardship. To succumb to the idea that we cannot feed people, keep them sheltered and healthy, but can bail out businesses is to fall for the big lie, the short view, the small picture. We have the means, right now, to solve this. We just need to see the forest for the trees.

Stay at home for now, stay well. Demand better from your representatives. Vote out the greed in November.

Disruptive Change

Everyone is a little stir crazy. "When will we get back to normal?"

To paraphrase Ving Rhames in Pulp Fiction. "We're pretty phreaking far from normal."

Normal will change - it has to. Businesses will look to repair the status quo. We need to get them back and functioning, but not exactly as they were. We need to make this better.

We cannot walk out of this experience and move back to the same unstable, socially insecure for 70% of the country we were at, where employment, a condition for survival, is treated as something that can be ended in minutes. We cannot move back to pretending the world cannot function without everyone congregating in an office building. We cannot go back to a medical system that will drown people without insurance.

Isn’t it time we figure out ways to give each other a pass, to at least live a life that is free from hunger and where anyone can get treatment for injury and disease?

And we have to be robust enough to pause. We cannot be in a situation where our economy collapses when we need to take a break or change slightly. It cannot be dependent upon the will of companies that only have the profit motive - we can harness that engine, but also put safety belts and brakes in, so that we don't die when we have a blip.

Coronavirus is disruptive. In the same way that cell phones have replaced home phones, we have to replace what was the norm with the emergent norm. It has exposed weakness in our current system that we can fix.

A few ideas - none of these are new, but they are appropriate:

The government ensures banks. FDIC. Right? If there are businesses too big to fail then we should insure them. They should PAY PREMIUMS in the forms of taxes to the federal government and then when the Federal government needs to bail them out, it comes out of the insurance pool. This keeps them running, keeps people employed as a condition of the insurance, but keeps ownership private.

Universal health and human care. We pool resources to fund food, shelter and medical safety nets for everyone. It is no longer an employer based "privilege" but a human right.

We invest in technology that transforms us from unsustainable power to solar, wind, water and geothermal. We start heavy investments in both research and production for these. We stop mining coal. We stop fracking and damaging our water table. We put in programs to stop burning oil. (this all takes time). We train fossil workers in manufacturing and deployment of these new technologies.

Why now? Because we are surpassing ecological limits of fossil fuels and we need new markets to drive employment. Like tobacco and smoking, we are killing ourselves with fossil fuels. We need to quit and the new technologies will generate growth - they are untapped markets. Power can become personal in many cases - we can work off of power and technology grids, but not be solely dependent because we can also diversify our power sources, so that we are not reliant on a few companies to provide - it allows us to become more robust.

Seem like some crackpot ideas? 3 weeks ago, so did the idea of 40% of our population working from home. So did the idea that more of us would have to choose between our safety and eating (some of us have been living that already for many years). And like many emergent markets, getting in early is the key to leveraging them.

Many will fight against this change. Typewriter manufacturers fought against computers. It didn't stop people from writing. Republican fought against FDR and the New Deal, even in the face of the Great Depression and World War II. Social security didn't stop businesses from making money. Changing ourselves to be more robust will be represented by the opposition as Socialism, Communism, Totalitarianism - any name they can think to call it, to preserve the status quo were 1% of the people control 90% of the resources. It’s not the end of capitalism. It’s making capitalism robust enough to support our civilization. It’s making it socially responsible.

It has to change. 2 Trillion dollars suddenly appeared because there's an election coming up 3.4 of that is being given to business scot free. Another grab. We need to change that. We need to invest in ourselves now and continually. We need government for this - business is designed to create wealth, not take care of people. Government is designed and needs to be repaired, to take care of people and keep our society robust. It needs to support business in a way that allows the engine to work and produce the great things it produces, while benefiting people - monetarily and safely.

We the people need to press it. It is time for us to invest in ourselves. It starts with your vote.