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“[When Fascism comes to America] it will be wrapped in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and the preservation of the Constitution”*. 

• James Waterman, “The Christian Century”, 1936

 Fascism is a term that is seldom used in reasoned political discourse because it’s extreme and prejudicial due to the inevitable comparisons to Adolf Hitler and Naziism.  Usually, when the comparison is made, the recipient expresses outrage and attempts to transfer outrage to the speaker because they dared to make the comparison, which aims to derail the dialog and comparison. This often works because of the cultural view that America is exceptional and that “America is the good guy” and Fascist Germany is the canonical “bad guy”.  This post examines the parallels between the current political atmosphere and the characteristics of Fascism.  While the comparison is uncomfortable, it is entirely warranted.

I’m sometimes very impressed with my children (but I’m biased). A few weeks ago while driving one of them back to college, I was talking to one of them about the state of the world, immigration, war and intolerance. During the conversation, he dug up this quote on the topic:

“The increasing immigration of this new group of people is gradually becoming a serious problem. Although one may be far from wanting to deny these unfortunate ones the right to asylum, it must not be forgotten that a large proportion of these arrivals are made up of people whose immigration and settlement in our country meets justified concerns. Pity for them must not blind us to the fact that they are largely unfit for integration into our society.”

Sounds like a reasonable, conservative — almost mainstream(?) — position on Immigration, right? This was actually written about the refugees streaming out of Ukraine because of the problems there caused by the Russians flexing their muscles in the area, which force refugees into Europe — here Germany. Understandable, right?

I was talking to a teenager about great movies this week, and I brought up Casablanca, which I’d first seen at his age. I remarked that we were struck by the incredible number of trite aphorisms in the movie, which of course it created. (“Here’s lookin’ at you kid”, “We’ll always have Paris”, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”, “Round up the usual suspects”…)

However, Casablanca is also a movie with a resonance today that shook me on recounting it. When I watched this movie as a teen I didn’t understand the subtext of the movie. The movies captures the plight of refugees victimized by a war of aggression and the fight against fascism. Even more poignant, most of the cast was international, and many were refugees of the fascist regime of the day, either because of their ethnicity, sexual orientation or other reasons.

I originally wrote the first part of this to a friend almost four years ago partly about facing the trauma of sexual assault during (now) Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.  On the two year anniversary of the onset of the pandemic and with the atrocity in Ukraine, I wanted to revisit the idea of heroic sacrifice, because while this was to one person, it is in a sense universal, and there are “everyday heroes” in all walks of life that are sometimes asked to act heroically without recognition.

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I could not sleep last night thinking about your question “Would I ask you to do what Dr. Ford is doing?”  I said earlier I didn’t have words to respond.  A sleepless night brought them to me.  

The truth is I recognize I have no right to ask you to do it.  We both know that the cost to you and your loved ones would be high, perhaps impossibly high.  And we know that there are clearly others who’ve got similar experiences who have decided not to come forward, or chose to speak only anonymously.  But I don’t think those people are as strong and mature as you are.

The coming pandemic has the potential to be the largest crisis that the world, our nation — and our community — has faced since World War II.  

Today (March 13), the New York Times reported on a leaked CDC estimate that between 200,000 and 1.7 million people would die (That’s 15-75 deaths in Oneida).  Our national preparation and response has been a colossal, appalling failure whose impacts have yet to be felt.  Our response will be compared to China’s and South Korea’s in the years to come, and the comparison will not be kind.  Because of the Federal failures, our state and local officials have had to lead. They are doing their best, but their preparation and response has also fallen short.

In the present pandemic, schools are perhaps the second most important public health organization in our community after our primary health care system.  That’s because closing schools and eliminating other large gatherings at the very beginning of a pandemic-and keeping them closed- saves lives. The closings save lives by slowing the rate of transmission so that the primary health care system isn’t overwhelmed as the pandemic runs through the population. We do not want to be in the situation that Northern Italy is in now, where the hospitals do not have enough ventilators for all the critically ill and doctors must make the terrible decision about who lives and who dies. 

I sent this letter the Oneida City School Superintendent and School Board:

As I’m sure you know, COVID-19 (caused by the Corona virus), has been spreading around the world, with cases in four new countries yesterday.  In China, where the best data is currently available, the death rate is approximately 2 percent. To put that in context, the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed more people in 1918 than all of World War I, had a death rate of slightly less than 2 percent.  COVID-19 is more dangerous in some ways, because subjects are communicable before they show symptoms, promoting the disease’s spread.

While the World Health Organization said yesterday that we are not yet in a pandemic, it is clear that this is just a matter of time.  Yesterday, the Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases recommended, among other things, that the public “should ask your children’s schools about school dismissals or school closures or plans for tele-school“.  (That’s a direct quote, but I can’t cite it in a way that I can link to right now).

There is lead in the Oneida school district’s water supply, in spite of what you’ve heard from the school district recently.

Lead in Oneida Water

Lead is cumulative neurotoxin, which is particularly harmful to young children.  The EPA declares that the safe level of Lead in drinking water is 0 parts per billion (ppb).  Lead is impossible to detect shortly after exposure, but causes lifelong mental degradation and behavioral problems.  There is no cure for lead poisoning.

The current superintendent of the Oneida School District, Mary-Margaret Zehr said during her public interview last spring that the first responsibility of the school system is the safety of our children.

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After two years of following the Oneida City School Board, I’ve decided that the Board needs someone with my history of excellence and commitment to transparency, so I’m running for the Board of Education.

I’ve prepared a tri-fold that lays out my professional history, community involvement and recent interactions with the Board.  You can also find more details about my professional history, Community Involvement and Oneida Board of Education activism.

You can find a Tri-Fold  description of my Candidacy here.