We Got Here, From There. We Need What We Left Behind.

COVID 19 is wreaking havoc on the United States, and a number of other nations. It's directly exposing the inability of our political system, and our healthcare system to be prepared for a pandemic, and this in turn, is exposing so many of the other ways our decisions leading up to now have put us in the position to attempt to counter COVID 19 with the broken systems we do have in place. To put it plainly, those systems are catastrophically lacking. From the very basic point of being able to protect the health of health care workers, all the way to having a populace which would be prepared for even a slight disruption in the day to day life of the nation. The daily reports of the number of infected and the death count are utterly surreal. Economically, politically, systematically, we are finding out just how fragile life in the United States is when it's built on the systems we have maintained. It is terrifying, exhausting and a number of the most well informed experts are suggesting the worst is yet to come. 

53 years ago, one of the nation's major political figures published a book, prescribing solutions to what he saw as problems which were going to undermine the nation.  He'd gained prominence by pushing forward with a campaign enough of the nation came to realize was not only an act of moral courage, but was also addressing a moral wrong which had gone on far too long.  Martin Luther King Jr. is, to this day, a titan of what is generally considered progressive politics.  Anyone engaging in protest or direct action of any kind is expected to follow the standards King set for himself and the SPLC.  He published "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" because he had realized during the fight for integration in the American South, integration by itself wasn't going to help the Black people in the nation reach for their own American dreams.  As quoted by Harry Belafonte in their last conversation, King believed he may have been fighting to integrate Black America into a "burning house": 

“We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I know that we will win. But I've come to believe we're integrating into a burning house.  I'm afraid that America may be losing what moral vision she may have had... And I'm afraid that even as we integrate, we are walking into a place that does not understand that this nation needs to be deeply concerned with the plight of the poor and disenfranchised.  Until we commit ourselves to ensuring that the underclass is given justice and opportunity, we will continue to perpetuate the anger and violence that tears at the soul of this nation.”

Belafonte added, “That statement took me aback.  It was the last thing I would have expected to hear, considering the nature of our struggle.”

Belafonte said he asked King, “What should we do?” and King replied that we should, “become the firemen.” King said, “Let us not stand by and let the house burn.”

"Where Do We Go From Here..." was his plan to put the fire out.  Today, as is evidenced by the response (and lack of response) and lack of effective preparation to COVID 19, the fire burns on. These 53 years have gone by with barely a whisper of the proposals MLK set forward prior to his assassination, a guaranteed basic income, universal health care, a living wage, collective bargaining rights. He directly supported all of these, despite the fact that all of those who do not already have power are required to meet his standards where the petitioning of power for any change is concerned. It is to rely either Kingian non-violence or to engage in electoral politics, which King did not ignore, but also did not rely upon. These are the only acceptable ways for those who do not have access to power to petition power for changes necessary to meet their needs. Let's be completely clear and honest as well, direct action, a petition for changes which is made through Kingian non-violence is only rhetorically acceptable, as well. The regularity with which even those efforts are met with state violence makes this very clear. 

For 53 years, we as a society have required that all those who seek to better society follow the example Dr. King left through the campaign against segregation.  Non-violence, to the point that the overwhelming majority of Americans will equate the importance of property as nearly equal to that of human well being in their denunciations of property damage during a direct action or protest, is required.  Yet, for 53 years, none of the proposals Dr. King put forward as preventions of violence, have been seen as anything other than radical. The bottomless hope he had for this world was inextricably tied to his reasons for seeing non-violence as the only way to bring real change, the kind of change which changed hearts and minds, as well as laws.  

For 53 years, there has been no recognition of his proposals for putting out the fire being as firmly grounded in an expansive intellect and moral vision as his insistence on the philosophy of non-violence has been.  It has been required of those who haven't broken faith with his vision suffer the lash of violence, often by the state, combined with regressive forces who fear the loss of their stability and security should the rest of Dr. King's philosophy be seriously considered for adoption.  The connection between his reasoning for following the philosophy of non-violence because he believed it the most likely way to effectively solve these problems has been purposely obscured and essentially erased.  The most consistent resistance the United States has evidenced as a political and social body, has been resistance to what that same philosophy asks of us. This resistance hasn't only come from regressives and conservatives, but also from the many who in fear of being labelled "radical," will position themselves as "moderate." Even when they state belief and support in the ideas which would have provided us some better ability to absorb the current social and economic shock from COVID 19, they will assert "practicality" requires some other course of action. There has been a requirement for all these years, to be patient. 

There has been a requirement to compromise with those regressive forces, even as those regressive forces have made it abundantly clear their philosophy and strategy is to be uncompromising. We've even been told we must go so far as to allow the ideology which has created the greatest moral and material horrors this nation has committed rekindle the fervor through which it constructed those horrors and through which the majority of the population accepted them as necessary. We've been told to stand aside as the same white supremacist ideology which committed a near genocide against native Americans and for centuries enslaved people stolen from their homes and families brought itself again to the fore, immediately bring more violence with it, instead of being forced to stay in the shadows, unable to rely on a social safety net for its violence. We have been hounded to ignore the same ideology which killed 13 million Jews, LGBTQ, disabled and mentally ill, because it crept it's way to power when the forces of compromise and moderation refused to recognize it for what the threat it was, as it has spread online and attempted to recruit a new generation. The faith in incrementalism only being capable of moral progress has been misplaced, and we are paying for it. 

All these years, those who have believed in the moral vision and the moral commitment of the man the country states it has a towering respect for, have been told they must be able to moderate.  At the same time, those same forces of moderation have refused to even attempt to follow his example, only to constantly misrepresent that example in their criticisms of those who have expended colossal efforts to follow it.  Unreasonable. Unrealistic. Extremist. Radical. To this day, one of the points of agreement between the moderate and the regressive has been the insults they have for people who have dedicated themselves to non-violence, as required by our political and social institutions. Be clear about this fact. Non-violence has been the only acceptable way for anyone with a belief in a genuinely civil society to attempt to petition power, and the rest of the population, for changes which would make society more civil, and in return, insults and alienation have been the reward. The moderates, and the regressive forces of the far right, with it's fascists, white supremacists, gender essentialists and all the rest, have gleefully employed all of the same attempts to render non-violence utterly ineffectual. What's radical and extremist in this, isn't the dedication to the philosophy of non-violence and it's requirement to expend every effort to create a genuinely civil society.  What's radical and extremist is making common cause with the far right, and the ideologies which are it's adherents, to render the only acceptable avenue for the powerless to petition power into what amounts to a joke or an invitation for the individual and collective to subject themselves to both state licensed violence, and the mob violence of the far right. 

This year, finally, it seemed there might be some progress. It seemed there could be some movement on the ideas of the man whom the entirety of the modern "progressive" movement built it's stated philosophy.  In this Democratic primary, there were a number of candidates voicing support for and showing their plans for how to implement one or a few of the ideas Dr. King championed.  Flawed as many of them were, in itself, this was a ray of some hope.  The ideas of universal health care, a guaranteed income, a living wage and collective bargaining rights were all brought to a national political election.  Now, we come down to one person who has laid out plans for how to implement some of those prescriptions put forward by Dr. King, and one person who straightforwardly opposed them when the political winds blew in favor of opposing them.  The person who has spent a career opposing many of  them is now ahead in the primary, and the "radical agenda" of human decency is being told is has to moderate, because believing in more than just non-violence as a political tactic or the "respectful" way to petition for a redress of grievances, and believing in the innate value of our fellow human beings to the point of believing that should be a materially recognized reality, is considered extremist and unrealistic. 

Now comes COVID 19. 53 years ago after one of the leading intellects and strategically brilliant minds in the nations history, laid out nearly all of the solutions which could have helped us to moderate the degree to which COVID 19 would take lives and disrupt society. We have moderated and compromised our way out of those solutions, instead of having compromise and moderation be the way we have brought them about. What we have compromised is the the value of human dignity and human life, and now instead of being hidden behind the veil of routine, it's front and center where we can't miss it, and it's preventing us from being able to escape this horrific reality, which is only going to get more horrific in the short term, as well as the long term. 

We could have had a health care system well provisioned because it wasn't running on the profit motive as the ultimate deciding factor about how well provisioned it was, and which was ready to care for anyone who might need care. Universal health care systems have not been a way to prevent all deaths brought on by COVID 19, but many of the socialized systems in the world have been better prepared and have responded better than ours. Maybe we wouldn't have more prison beds than hospital beds. We could have had Americans who have spent their lives working for a living wage, for whom savings would have been an actual possibility, instead of having all of the growth and added wealth hoovered up by the billionaire class. We could have even had a guaranteed income which would have prevented the majority of the country from being terrified for how they might be able to pay their rent/mortgages or even afford to eat. 

The same president who believed there were "fine people" among a mob of white supremacists and self avowed Nazis, has now asserted modern Germany should be treated as an enemy. It's nationalized health system has been prepared for a pandemic, on the advice of the world's scientists, and it still hasn't reached half of it's capacity to treat pandemic victims. As a result, it's prime minister has recently been referred to as "The Leader of the Free World" in a number of publications. Because this was a title which used to be reserved for the President of the United States, our current president has decided Angela Merkel must be an enemy. The people who have put this person in power, and who have engaged in nothing like good will deliberation and have essentially created an environment in which their adherents view compromise as their ability to enforce the entirety of their will on a nation which they are a mathematical minority in. Those who are positioned as their opposition are consistently preaching the moral and material benefits of compromise, when compromise does not exist in the world view of those they oppose.   

Instead of what 50 or even 40 years of having applied the solutions suggested by the man who is accepted as so towering in his moral and intellectual vision, who society claims to accept his standards as our avenues for change to be brought about, we have hospitals which have yet to even experience the apex of coronavirus cases in their area running out of supplies, like gloves and masks. We do not have anywhere near the number of ventilators that are going to be needed. We have a populace terrified that the economy is going to fall apart, and just like 12 years ago, they're going to be left trying to pick up the pieces after something beyond their control wrought havoc. The people who've spent their lives being told they needed to have saved more money, while also being told they don't deserve a living wage, are going to be the ones bailing out the multibillion dollar multinationals who've spent their profits on driving up their stock prices, while lobbying to insure those same workers don't get a living wage, health insurance, sick leave or vacation days. 

One of the other things being made clear as a result of COVD 19 is the fallacy of market value for labor being a sensible way to set wages, as opposed to what labor is genuinely essential. The arguments about the "makers vs. the takers" which have been part of the American political landscape since at least the 1940's, are being further exposed for the nonsense they always been. It's one of the foundations of American capitalism. If it falters, and the American public begins to lose faith in it, the fundamentals of our economy could change drastically. Right now, the only reason most Americans care anything about the stock market is due to reporting tying it to a possible recession or depression. It has no other value in our lives. It has no other bearing in our lives. What we're realizing we need are the genuine essentials, available health care which isn't going to to put us into lifelong debt, food and necessities in our grocery stores, places to gather in peace and safety with our friends and loved ones, time to have to spend with our friends and loved ones.  We're enjoying the time spent with our pets. We're realizing we need musicians and film makers, writers and all the rest who help give us some combination of distraction, perspective, a deeper understanding of our connectedness, or a better understanding of just who and what is undermining our survival and the things which make surviving worth it. We've been paying a whole lot for things we not only don't need, and detract from the value we get from our own lives, but also actively subtract from the cohesion of our society. 

We're also learning about what we're capable of when we are able to have some time to look at what is and isn't important. Across the nation, we're seeing people who are doing their best to help each other, with what they have, and are willing to learn how they can be better at it. We are not creatures who solely exist on self interest, because our existence is inextricably connected to those around us, and because given the time and opportunity, we can place kindness, compassion and solidarity ahead of selfishness. Even when it means holing ourselves up in solitude is the best thing we can do for each other, we're still finding ways to reach out to each other and to do what we can to make things a little more livable for each other. None of this is insignificant. It is proof of who we can be if we have the courage to say going forward doesn't mean going back, and that there's little difference in the results of "going back to normal" and "Make America Great Again."

In opposition, we are seeing the logical extension of forty years spent compromising all of these things to the malicious and cruel god of capitalist economics or the fickle and sadistic mewling of right wing populism in the failure of our systems to be prepared or respond. After forty years of compromising with racist philosophy, demonizing the poor, working class and immigrants, along with insuring a campaign of incarceration and economic devastation against minorities, and popularizing an empty symbolic understanding of gender equality, this is what we get. Broken systems, unable to bear the weight of the reality of our interconnectedness. The last sixteen years have been spent purposefully ignoring the growth of a right wing, racially motivated populist movement. Despite the best efforts of a good deal of the upper class to convince the public otherwise, a quick consideration of the political, media and social landscape suggests it's not a movement directed and being popularized by the working class and poor either. It's a cross class coalition, which is what the concept of race has been levied for since it's inception. Whatever complaints anyone makes about the Obama presidency, it's true his candidacy and then presidency was a catalyst for racial attitudes to become openly central to white Americans insecurities about their futures and their understanding of American politics, instead of being implicitly central as they have been since the 1970's. 

Let's be very clear about this. There is no longer an American conservative movement to speak of, in any numbers significant enough to make courting them or compromising with them in any way realistic, as has been the excuse for continuing to attempt to compromise with them. The case has been made by some to suggest it was always a far right movement, in conservative drag. The case has been made it by others that it has been pulled to the far right. What is incontrovertible is the evidence of the national conservative movement and the Republican Party now being the political and social means by which the far right exerts itself in American life. The evidence of the the Republican Party and conservative movement being a mechanism of the far right outweighs evidence to the contrary by an order of magnitude. It is self evident enough to not warrant a list of examples. Only one example is needed. The conservative movement is currently a mechanism of the far right to such a degree the entirety of the movement began to openly employ an argument to sacrifice millions of lives in order to protect an economy which has been systematically failing everyone but it's top fifteen or twenty percent, by relying on an intimation suggesting whatever the elderly, infirmed, and otherwise otherwise immunocompromised might have to offer couldn't be worth more than a few trillion dollars, making them expendable. 

The difference between this suggestion and the argument which lead to millions of dead, infirm, disabled and mentally ill during the Third Reich is the amount of money being discussed, and whether it was going to be good for a mythological conception of national bloodline. If, as was being suggested, it would be good for the whole of the nation to be infected with COVID 19 and to allow for 2.5% of the population to essentially be sacrificed in order to "keep the economy going" (without even getting into the level of fantasy involved in ignoring how much of the nation would be sick at the same time), it would be over 8 million people. The Nazis employed a focused demonization of Jews, and then used systemized industrial genocide to kill 6 million of them. They had a bevy of other excuses for killing the other 7 million people who weren't Jewish. Drains on the national economy by not producing near what they cost to keep them living was among them. The power of propaganda was enough to insure many of the German people didn't recognize these excuses for exactly what they were, and even those who did had been terrified into silence by the regular violence of a dedicatedly loyal number who were willing to engage in street violence and attacks against perceived enemies in order to intimidate. 

It's a movement which has continued to follow and empower Donald Trump. If all of the previous evidence wasn't enough, his incompetence and utter lack of fitness for the position should be clear in his handling of COVID 19. It's going to cost lives, in the thousands, at the very least. Realistically, it will cost tens of thousands of lives. The significance with which the lives of everyone who might read this are effected is due in large part to his inability to accept and act in accordance with reality, from the very beginning. Arguments will be made about how much he "came around." Again, the arguments are meant to obscure the basic fact of his incompetence causing what is likely to be tens of thousands of lives, when it could have been prevented. This week, because a number of publications referred to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, as "The Leader of the Free World," Trump's insecurity drove him to suggest Germany be treated as an enemy because of World War II. This is the same man who called self avowed Nazis and other self avowed white supremacists that caused a race riot that concluded in the attempted murder of dozens and the successful murder of Heather Heyer, "fine people." This is an obvious lack of any interest in making the distinction between the aspiration of social democracy, with principles like representative government which our county claims to value, and the genocidal fascist regime of the Nazis. At no point has the Republican Party and conservative movement attempted to disempower this person who is so plainly incapable of executing the duties of the office, and has no sense of moral compass or ability to delineate anything other than fealty to himself and lack thereof. 

It is the "moderate position" to continue to compromise with the leadership of this political arm of the far right movement empowering the leaders which employed a propaganda slogan about "death panels" when an attempt was made to insure a few million more people would have health insurance. The elected leadership, much of it the same today as it was then, was last week openly employing the argument to sacrifice human lives to the economy without irony or any hint of self reflection. 

Germany and South Korea have reacted to the threat of COVID 19 more successfully than the U.S., Italy and China, in part because of how prepared their nationalized health systems were for a pandemic and in part because of how quickly they were able to establish best practices through their nationalized health systems. The point regularly being made that Italy also has a socialized healthcare system isn't entirely without merit, but it needs to be taken into account how right wing elements in it's government have spent the last decade undermining that system through austerity measures. It's not a coincidence this effort was most successful under a right wing Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who had been a media mogul and very public personality prior, and whose tenure was marred by corruption and sex scandals, one after another. His use of office. to protect his business ventures was seen as shockingly blatant at the time. Italy has seen it's fair share of the far right engaging in street violence connected to discrimination and anti-immigrant sentiment as well. These are all too familiar circumstances to anyone who cares to look.

As of last week, 6 million people in the United States had lost their jobs. The employer provided healthcare which the moderate position has been claiming to protect against single payer or universal healthcare, is now gone for those millions of people. That is on top of the millions who have not had healthcare because it is unaffordable or not provided by an employer, and the many more millions who are likely to lose their jobs and healthcare as this pandemic continues, and social distancing continues to take its toll on the economy. 

A few days ago, Joe Biden, current the standard bearer for moderacy in the United States who is being talked about as the guaranteed Democratic nominee for president, said he still opposes single payer healthcare. Biden, it's been argued, goes where the political winds blow, so his "moderate" constitution means he can be moved. Today, it was revealed that 6.6 million people filed for unemployment last week. The majority of the nation already backed some version of universal or single payer healthcare before COVID 19 decimated millions of jobs and erased coverage for millions of people. The compromise forged under the last administration, the ACA, left millions uninsured, and as it's now under the control of the current administration (which is suing to be given authority to end the ACA), it isn't being opened for new enrollment, despite the drastic changes in the material reality the work force is facing. The nationalized healthcare systems of Germany and South Korea were better prepared because they were not being run for profit. Having seen what Avian flu, Swine flu and other near pandemics suggested, those health systems were prepared. Their mission, to treat the people of their nation, in any circumstance, meant listening to the advice of epidemiologists. The ability to meet the healthcare needs of their people aren't compromised by profit seeking. 

Pandemics are a part of human civilization and human history. They are going to happen. When, and where are the questions we don't have the definitive answers to. It is definitive they will happen. How severely they effect a population is often due to how much that population has access to good scientific research. We had access to the research. The systems we have just had no way to take it into account. Keeping the materials available to counter a pandemic in storage is not going to look good on a balance sheet. Planning to have enough hospital beds, over a few years, to handle a pandemic and then having empty beds is not a good business practice. It is a good practice when your mandate is only concerned with the health of a population, since a pandemic is practically guaranteed at some point. Our patchwork of thousands of different for profit healthcare companies being in competition with each other and answering to their profit margin and stock prices as evaluation of what have and haven't been good decisions, isn't capable of preparing for those kind of eventualities. 

The result is also turning healthcare workers into conscriptions, putting their lives in danger unnecessarily. The healthcare professionals who've had the courage to speak up about this have been facing a response which says, "Well, that's what you signed up for." This is not true. They signed up to do their jobs to attempt to insure the health of every patient who came into their care, while reasonable measures were being taken to safeguard their own health and well being. Hospital nurses and doctors did not sign up to be administering medical care in the armed forces. They are not soldiers. They are heroic. It has always been heroic to make the decision to do what they do, most especially in this society, where they know they are going to have to witness profit competing with patients humanity. They are not soldiers. They did not sign up to be put in this level of danger, because the entirety of the economic and political systems failed them. This needs to be clear and it needs to be reiterated regularly. 

The same can be said of many of the people who are now finding out they are essential. How many of them have we even denied deserve a living wage? The easiest and now most referenced example is grocery store employees. Does it seem like the deserve a living wage and the benefits of vacation, and sick time now? They're certainly pretty important at the moment. They didn't sign up to be part of the essential response to a pandemic, did they? They're certainly not being treated as an essential response to a pandemic, because we've completely manipulated the meaning of what the words labor and value mean. "Let the market decide" is now proving the market doesn't make very good decisions, in many, many places. 

We can be grateful for the work they do, and show that gratitude, but we also have to make new choices to insure they are never put in this position again. This isn't voluntary. 

Others who are equally important, but haven't been highlighted by the pandemic like trash collectors, have always been extremely important while being paid as little as we can justify paying them, and also in very dangerous circumstances compared to most other jobs. How did we come to the idea that being a trash collector was something beneath your average person, to the degree we use it as a kind of cudgel in convincing our children to get an education? Without refuse collection and management, pandemics happen a lot more often. The same is true for water and sewage treatment. If this seems to be overstating the case, ask yourself how many more pandemics you think the US could reasonably handle right now, because that's is the result of not having an organized effort to deal with refuse. 

Beyond the stress of COVID 19 as a threat to their physical well being, and the physical well being of their loved ones and friends who are being conscripted without sufficient ability to protect their health, 6 million are also dealing with being out of work. For all the crowing about how well the economy was doing prior to this, 40% of Americans didn't have $400 in case of an emergency expense, and now, many of those people are not going to have income, at all. Basic income means they wouldn't have to try to figure out what to do without any money coming in, and what unemployment may exist wasn't guaranteed to be completely overwhelmed, and therefore slower to respond. How many people who've spent their lives paying rent and bills are now going to be in danger of being evicted or having their utilities shut off, when they are being told they need to be in their homes? 

We did not get to a point where the wealthiest country in the world, with the most advanced technology at it's disposal, can't effectively and efficiently handle a pandemic without all of those decisions we've made leading up to now. One central part of this involves the decisions about what proposals are possible to approach for compromise. Republicans and conservatives are now open extremists, who will refuse to compromise at the moment they see advantage in it, even if that advantage has no real material reward attached to it and is just a rhetorical or perception based reward. Among the Democratic Party, those who've claimed the label of "moderate" will still continue to act like compromise with the extremist stances of the far right Republican Party is both a measure of protecting the concept of "deliberative democracy" and as a moral requirement. 

A surrogate for Joe Biden, during a television news appearance, responded to another candidates surrogate having brought up MLK's reference to white moderates in his "Letter From A Birmingham Jail," by saying this, "You know, (the other candidates surrogate) referenced Dr. Martin Luther King before saying he said from the Birmingham jail that we should be concerned about white moderates," said Rosen. "That's actually not what Martin Luther King said." The other candidate's surrogate is a Black woman, who is also a South Carolina Senator. And it's exactly what Martin Luther King said. The letter can be read in it's entirety, behind this link. It's something anyone interested in the furtherance of justice, humanity, a civil society, should read. Whatever your definition of "progressive" may be in the context of the American political reality, we should all be intimately familiar with it, as it details very well the material results of a dedication to moderacy as a concept with no fixed moral compass, instead of as a perspective between two fixed moral points, however the value of those fixed points may be defined. 

Decoupling the material reality from any sense of moral definition, inevitably serves to further immoral aims by enabling the confusion of what is and isn't moral. The greatness of a nation as a concept becomes the reason to override moral connection to material reality. We may read them on the different extreme ends of the political spectrum, but these are things the likes of Pol Pot and Hitler had in common. The promise of the concept of national greatness was the excuse to allow what would have been unthinkable a few years before, wholesale murder of people who were part of the nation they claimed to be raising to greatness. 

Moderacy, as an abstract concept without a definition tied what moral values are as practiced in material reality, has been playing a game which is to render the moral value of material effects on the lives of millions of Americans at a time, as essentially null, which then materially legitimizes the extremism of the far right, and it's political and cultural arms, the Republican Party and conservative movement. The constant attempts to separate the three, are again, only conceptual, and without any material evidence. The three have consistently coalesced for more than a decade. The David Frum's, Andrew Sullivan's and other "moderate conservative" columnists are doing a fair job portraying a conservative/Republican standpoint different from the far right rhetorically, but when the time comes to make a choice between implicitly aligning themselves with the far rights material actions in policy and legislation or not implicitly endorsing the far rights agenda and it's talking points, the record is very clear. What you'll find in looking back on their work is a whole lot of "Well, yes, that is terrible, but they did it because of how horrible and terrifying the libtards who want to take everyone's freedom and property are," in a much more erudite and academically satisfying essay construction. It's not exactly, "look what you made me do," but possibly even worse, "look what you made them do." 

This is the political faction which spent months publishing "both sides" columns following Unite The Right, which then turned into a fair number of "moderate liberals" echoing similar talking points, because it was more important to appear moderate than it was to leave no room for equivocation where white supremacy and Nazism were concerned. The refusal to recognize the essential difference between the fact that Nazis and white supremacists can choose to stop being Nazis and white supremacists or can choose not to hold public gatherings as methods of intimidation and recruitment, while people of color, religious minorities, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, the disabled, the mentally ill and all of the others who've been targeted by white supremacy and Nazism can't all just choose to stop being who they are, while Nazis and white supremacists will not stop targeting them, no matter what else they do or what choices they make. It's in the refusal to admit a swastika is in and of itself a call to violence, while demanding the only way to prevent the violence it calls for is to submit to such violence. The evidence is very clear about the difference between what the definition of justice is for a swastika brandishing thug is compared to that of a someone dedicatedly employing the philosophy of non-violence. These aren't the stated aims of moderates, they aren't the stated values of moderates, but there can't be any doubt that these are the material realities resulting from moderacy being consistently unmoored from points of moral definition, and instead employed as an end in and of itself. 

We are facing dark times. We're facing a lack of security, a lack of stability and an abundance of anxiety, fear and incompetent leadership. There isn't gong to be a "going back to normal." The "normal" in that sentiment is as unrealistic as the "great" in "make America great again." 

The average person's love and admiration for Martin Luther King is based in his possession and expression of an unending hope and sense of optimism for humanity. It came through even in his most biting critiques. It was central to his reason for following the philosophy of non-violence. He believed non-violence brought ends which were worthy of the means. It was always clear his critiques were based in both an unwavering belief in the dignity of human beings, and as a result, the ability for us to collectively do and be better by making it our core value. The desire to decouple his hope and optimism from his critiques, and to require this hope and optimism only be practically applied by those who have the least power to provide material support to make them a reality is also a result of separating compromise from any fixed moral points. 

"Love" is a word the moderate always uses in connection with Dr. King. It's not misplaced. His love for Black people drove him to continue the fight against segregation, even after his home was bombed. His love for the humanity of all people made him stand against the Vietnam war when his closest associates thought it was a "strategic error." His love for everyone drove him a march with striking sanitation workers in Memphis, both Black and white. The moderate has demanded the rest of us act in accordance with this love whenever we come forward as people without power making a request of power, but has never turned to us as the people in power to show us their material understanding of this love. The moderate hasn't even seen fit to attempt to use what power they have to prevent people without power from being abused by the state when those people are acting in a way consistent with that love. The moderate would allow those same people employing that attempt to act in concert with the kind of love they claim to respect in Dr. King to be left to the violence of the far right, in the sense of direct physical street violence or the violence of dehumanization through legislation. 

We're coming to a place where we are either going to do more than voice a belief in the optimism of non-violence, the hope which feeds it and puts faith in human dignity or we are going to guarantee violence as a result of our continued decision to compromise with nihilism and hatred which has no regard for humanity or the concept of human dignity. We can begin to acknowledge that there is a great deal more to non-violence than not having fist fights with police or Nazis at a demonstration or carrying a peace sign at a political rally and act as if the respect for the dignity of each others basic humanity is the path to which we create a genuine civil society or we are going to be doomed to a continuation of the many forms of violence we have lived with as the result of continuing to decouple the material reality of the majority of the nation's people from the moral recognition of basic dignity. 

We don't have time for the incrementalism of moderacy as its been practiced and centered in American politics these past 50 years. We need to move definitively in the direction which says there isn't a compromise about human dignity being tied to material reality, and that human dignity is not completely abstract and theoretical. What has been passed off as moderacy has plainly failed us. Look around. What is happening? How did we get here? Most importantly, how did we get here, when we love to take the perspective of looking back on things like the aims of the civil rights movement, the sexual/gender equality movement and the like as a recognition of shared humanity which America was magnanimous enough to bestow on it's people? We love the perspective which suggests this, but it's not real.  It was not bestowed on the people, the people acted to make it a reality. What we need now is to do the same, and we need a leadership which can do the same and understands the goal of inextricably tying the moral value of politics to the material reality of the people. Moderacy has only ever ever taken this seriously when it has been given no other choice, and only as long as it has no other choice. 

Our friends, family and neighbors are going to see how much the demonization of things like universal healthcare, living wages, bargaining rights, and a guaranteed income are full throated so long as the political class and billionaire class aren't too deeply disturbed. When the whole of the civil order suddenly becomes threatened by the long term policy failures they've shepherded in becomes starkly apparent, and their political and economic power comes under the threat due to sheer emergency, just as millions of Americans live everyday under the threat of chaotic emergency, they're also going to see how quickly socialized solutions are accepted. 

That many millions of Americans teeter on the brink of financial ruin through low wages, lack of adequate healthcare coverage or any other emergency wasn't an issue worth taking decisive and immediate action over. In fact, the result of the compromises so often fought for has been the steady dissolve of the social safety net which once existed for many and to allow the uppermost reaches of the economic ladder to suck up and sit on the resources which were previously used to provide that safety net. 

Universal healthcare, a living wage, collective bargaining rights, a guaranteed income are not FREE STUFF as both the far right and "moderates" have gone to great lengths to label them. They are preventative measures against the winds of chaos when they bring the kinds of "market instability" which brings about a world wide recession because of the entire financial industry defrauded itself and everyone else at the same time or because something we can guarantee will eventually come, like a pandemic, throws the entire world into social and economic chaos. The taxes the wealthiest refuse to pay to support these preventative systems is the equivalent of refusing to pay for home owners insurance, because your neighbors keep crowdfunding the reconstruction of your waterfront home after every hurricane. When the chaos comes, no one is calling it free stuff to prevent entire industries collapsing, but it's definitely called free stuff when it's about preventing the well being of entire families, neighborhoods, communities or entire geographic regions from collapsing. 

We cannot afford to continue to leave our faith in the compromises of moderacy. Its failure to understand how the far right uses the understanding of how moderacy perceives itself as a tool is right now contributing to a loss of life through a lack of preparation and a refusal to compromise on the preventative measures millions of Americans needed before COVID 19, to even give them a chance to  better position themselves to weather something like COVID 19 came. This is following many of the same problems having already been brought about by the economic crash, and all of the available data showing the majority of the growth from the recovery, didn't go to working class, poor or even middle class people. It went to a small minority of those who were already most wealthy. 

Moderacy is by definition, a lack of it's own vision. It has no vision of it's own, which is why it has been unable to comprehend how its been used to decouple morality from reality.  We need to be able to move forward with a vision of what it means to be able to recognize the dignity of our communities and our neighbors as a material reality. We need to be able to present a vision which isn't wholly and completely defined by competition, but as a plan for cooperation and equity. If the nation itself can come out of this experience, understanding why social distancing is imperative, seeing who is and isn't essential labor and how the economy functions without labor to be its engine, then it deserves to tear itself apart, as it inevitably will, and it has no reason to exist. 

For those who believe there is an alternative, it's incumbent on us to begin to take the actions which put the vision for "putting out the fire" into practice and communicating it to the rest of the country, as soon as possible. We will all do what our consciences call for where the current electoral situation is concerned, as should everyone.  This is far beyond the outcome of one election or one candidate. It's time for us to detangle our hopes, our numbers, our money and everything else, from the facet of American politics which continues to define itself as "moderacy" in our current political, social and economic reality is concerned. The threat of what can be lost as a result and what will be lost if we continue to attempt to create some kind of working coalition with moderacy, is too great. What has already been lost in the compromises a far right which has now demonstrated an incompetence of towering proportions and in every possible facet, can't be counted in dollars. The policies, the leadership, the cultural identity, of both the concept of moderacy and the far right movement have failed spectacularly, and have been the other end of the compromises which left the nation without any even basic, effective preventative measures, as well as both being incapable or unwilling to address the failure of the capacity to complete the duties necessary in an executive branch and legislative branch to this degree. Moderacy has been a failure of vision, and the failure of those who have refused to put policies and action behind the optimism and hope they require the rest of us afford to them through both their requirement of non-violence and through their promise of the tomorrow of incrementalism, as they've constantly painted themselves as the "realists" while at the same time their arrogance prevented them from believing a figure like Trump could, in fact, win the presidency. 

The sooner we are willing to acknowledge he colossal failures of moderacy, in large part because it is an ideology without any vision, the sooner we can stop looking to moderates for leadership, the sooner we can begin building what is needed to institute a vision which takes human dignity as something a nation cannot abandon because it is politically convenient at a given moment. 

Moderacy has left us in a position where we are unprepared for a disaster which not only could be predicted, but was predicted, and left us in the position to attempt to prevent a far right government from using this disaster as further opportunity to implement their agenda or to enrich themselves through corruption, and no recourse to prevent a historically self obsessed, genuinely intellectually dull president from incoherently bungling the response. There's nothing practical about moderacy. This is what it has wrought. 

It's time to take the vision which helped give us a foundation in moral reality and to start recognizing the moderate has no genuine interest in seeing it achieved, because they don't even have the vision to see how it's preventative aspects are necessary. They can't see anything but what they know, and what they know and has brought them power, has failed too many of us for us to keep turning to them. 

It's time now we love ourselves enough, and all of those who are failed by this state of affairs enough, to set ourselves free of the moderate who has shown us little better than indifference. It's time to begin to build a movement not based on a man, but based on the recognition of the material needs of human dignity and respect for each others humanity as a material reality.