Author: Henry

Next Sunday is Father’s Day. I think it is kind of a stupid holiday. I have six kids. I ought to know. 

Why stupid? Because I’ve already received gifts – thousands of them – in all those days I spent with my kids: running up and down stairs, with one toddler in each arm giggling and screaming while holding onto my hair for dear life; seeing the smile on a five year old’s face when she said “I love you” and then added “AND I like you!”; watching one son score in soccer; watching another give the most insightful high school graduation speech I’d ever heard, moving a daughter into a five story Brooklyn walk-up; buying the first book a son authored and illustrated.

There is no part of life better than being a father, including all the arguments, the failures (mostly mine, not theirs), the angst over their bumps in the road. While my other career in TV and video had its highs, it wasn’t half as rewarding as my primary career.

And you know what’s really weird about that? I had no training. I had to learn on the job. I had great training for my second career as a producer-director: a good education, a degree in Communications, and had great mentoring. But my training for fatherhood consisted of the old TV show and truism:  “Father Knows Best”; to wit, fathers are benevolent dictators and everyone does what they’re told.  

Our first-born wasn’t 2 hours out of the hospital before I learned the folly of that – the real dictator was a cuddly bundle of poop and smiles.  I relearned it repeatedly over the years, from missing an Eagles score because of a diaper change, to going to a teacher’s conference instead of an Eagles game (you may note a bit of a trend, here). My kids learned the same thing when I stayed late at the studio or had to travel for a shoot.

Raising kids is a balancing act, not a dictatorship.

Another part of parenting – and life – is: you don’t know what you don’t know.

For a ninth birthday party, I took kids and some friends to the Disney movie “Holes”. Toward the end of the movie the African American hero and the white blond heroine kissed. On the way home I asked what they thought about that.

“Oh Dad!” said one in a patronizing voice. And another: “They were in love!” 

That was it. End of discussion. I was proud of them, their friends, and their school. 

A few years later they started complaining about the African American kids at school, that they were pushing and shoving the other kids. They asked me why. I guessed that they had learned that from friends and family – maybe as a way of their fending off bullies. But I really had no idea. So I just suggested avoiding anyone who made them uncomfortable or scared. Over the years, each group went their separate ways.

I gave my kids good educations. They studied the Revolution and learned that “all men are created equal” was written by a slave owner. They studied the Civil War and its disastrous results for the South. They traveled and experienced bits of other cultures.

They learned that democracies need balance to thrive. Your right to speak must be balanced against my right not to be slandered. My right to safety cannot threaten your safety. 

During my second career, I had occasion to see some real poverty, but leave it behind at the end of the shoot.  Only once – in some Tennessee mountains, where the only way people warded off winter cold was to line their clothes with crumpled newspaper – was poverty populated by white faces.

It was always jarring. Where was the balance? Do poor people have a right to eat, to be warm, to go to school, to have babies…? I edited some compelling stories about poverty, but it was always in the comfort of high tech editing rooms, well distanced from what I had filmed. As a result, from the Watts riots to Rodney King to Michael Brown to Colin Kaepernick’s first knee, and more, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Being white and comfortable – privileged – has always had its drawbacks. For all of us. It has kept this nation out of balance.

Then came the cell phone videos. Then came George Floyd’s murder. Then came more videos. Then came worldwide demonstrations. 

Then came a Facebook posting from a former professional clown, former bookstore sales person and current novelist. Her explanation of protests is personal, articulate, and full of what I didn’t know. What Kimberly Jones said was so compelling I sent the link to readers of this column last week. 

(https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=573677583520667) In case you missed it.

While full, deep understanding can only come from living in the other person’s shoes, in a few short minutes she sure fits you for a pair. 

Oh, I sent it to my kids, too – an early Father’s Day Present.

For the last two weeks, Trump and his sidekick, Barr, have been trying to dominate the demonstrators. What a surprise: two old school bullies try to bully their way through a national crisis.

They used a modern version of horse soldiers, national and local police, secret service, and combat soldiers wielding flash bangs, tear gas, and batons to attack fellow citizens peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights near the White House.  

Guess who won? Not the jeans and t-shirt crowd.

“Dominate the streets! ” was Trump’s command of the week. He hurled it at governors in a nationwide phone call at the same time Barr was demonstrating it on the demonstrators in Lafayette Park.

In reaction, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser thumbed DC’s nose at him with a curb-to-curb painting on the street in front of the White House: “Black Lives Matter”. (In politic-speak, “Screw You, Trump!”)

It also drew screams of foul, predictably from Democrats, but unpredictably from a few key Republicans and long admired military leaders.

Is the foundation of Trump’s divide and conquer political strategy starting to crack? Maybe. It’s certainly the only time in US history that the current Secretary of Defense, along with a series of former military leaders, have come out against their President.

The absolute folly of “Dominate! Dominate! Dominate!” was proven immediately as governors started prosecutions against police who wounded or killed demonstrators and as public anger in Minneapolis evolved into a national movement to curtail or “defund” police departments across the country.

Old footage of police of using tear gas and attack dogs against African Americans in the 50’s and 60’s was replayed across the country. The only scene missing was the 1960’s girl placing a flower in the barrel of a soldier’s gun.

Trump’s obsession with reigniting 1950’s racism resulted in, not just the biggest nationwide protests since the 60’s, but protests across the world, from London and Berlin to Australia. 

And you know who has been caught up and trapped in this burst of ego and fear? Those we used to call “Peace Officers”: the police. 

Today police have become part military combat force and part support system. They perform SWAT team duties and settle domestic disputes. They solve murders and rescue lost dogs. They communicate with Phd’s from foreign countries and with high school dropouts from next door. They catch robbers and murderers and rescue people from floods. They attack First Amendment protestors and take a knee with them.

“Protect and Serve” has become “Protect, Serve, Attack, Dominate, and Everything In Between”.

So citizens have become distrusting and police have become self-protective and adversarial. Their loyalty is, above all, to the “Blue Line”. Their union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has become all-powerful. It has established numerous laws giving police virtual immunity from prosecution for anything from assault to murder. Municipalities don’t choose their police officers; the FOP does. Most cities or towns can’t fire police officers; instead they have to go through a lengthy and expensive arbitration system that is heavily stacked in favor of the FOP. 

And police are very expensive. One example: the police costs for five full time and six part-time officers in Malvern PA, a town of about 3000, takes up between a third and half of the town’s entire budget.

As a result and with the catalyst of the last few weeks, municipalities are now looking at reducing police duties and moving those duties and funds to other areas of expertise. 

For example, ever since Reagan emptied mental hospitals in the 80’s police have had to take on the mentally ill. “Defunding” would put money back into the mental health system where real experts can do a better job.

Not every police department needs military equipment or SWAT teams. Not every town needs so many cops. And not all cops need military combat vehicles, flash bangs, tear gas, or assault rifles to protect and serve their citizens.

A few years ago an English police force experimented with training police to actually help demonstrators by directing traffic for them and preventing violence and looting – without wearing combat gear. The result: fewer arrests, less damage, happier citizens.

A few years ago, the state of New Jersey completely replaced the police in Camden NJ. Result: better community policing and support, fewer arrests overall – especially during the last few weeks – and a happier police force.

Imagine reducing the conflict between police and citizens by reducing the demands on police while making them more accountable, by leaving combat to the military, by funding mental health and other services. 

Imagine ignoring Trump’s and Barr’s churlish demand to “Dominate the streets!” and letting police just “Protect and Serve”.

Remember Elizabeth Barret Browning’s iconic 1845 love poem:  “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”? It swept the world. 

Sweet, huh?

Compare that to what’s sweeping the country today.

“How do I hate thee?” say protesters to cops response to police killings of black men.

“How do I hate thee?” say hundreds of cops to thousands of protesters converging on them.

“How do I hate thee?” says our President to the press or anyone who questions his dictates.

“How do I hate thee?” say Trumpists to anti-Trumpists.

“How do I hate thee?” say anti-Trumpists to Trumpists.

Anger and the ensuing hatred, according to most psychologists, is triggered by fear. If you want to understand what’s happening in the country right now, substitute the word “fear” for “hate” in all of the above and things become a lot clearer.

The Russians are influencing our elections. The Chinese are stealing our industry. Climate change is destroying the planet. Covid19 is killing us.  

That’s scary.

And those are just the fears we share. Now add the fears that separate us – whites vs. blacks, women vs. men, Urban vs. Rural, North vs. South.

That’s scary.

We’re pack animals. We need each other. But, for the last ten weeks, we’ve had to defy nature and stay separate from the pack. No shaking hands or hugging. No baseball games. No concerts. We can’t even vote the way we used to. 

That’s scary.

The economy is teetering. 40 million people are out of work. American icons like Hertz, JC Penny’s, and Neiman-Marcus are going under. What’s left, Walmart and Amazon?

That’s scary.

Fear and pent-up anger has swept the country. All that was needed to unleash it was a suitable flash point. 

Which was provided on May 25, 2020, by white Officer Derek Chauvin of Minneapolis, who took a knee on African-American George Floyd’s neck, and calmly –with no expression – killed him. 

It was the third murder of an unarmed black person by white cops (or ex-cops) in just the last few weeks. 

Coming on the heels of generations of killings like this, the horror of it triggered riots across the country, from San Francisco to Boston, Minneapolis to Austin, not to mention Berlin, London, Paris, Vancouver, Amsterdam, Lebanon, and more.  

Remember the shot heard round the world? Now we have the knee seen round the world. 

That’s scary. 

Now cops are scared of protesters and protesters are scared of cops. 

And you know who is really, really scared – of rioters and the next election? The guy who has used fear as a political weapon for the last four years, the guy who hid from protesters in the White House bunker last Friday night, our President.

The Constitution is very clear about not using the US Army against US citizens – except in DC. So guess what the phony tough guy with a phony bone spur is doing? 

Yep. Poor DC.

“You have to dominate,” he bloviated to governors on a Monday conference call from inside the safety of a barricaded White House. “If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time — they’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks…”

“…you gotta’ arrest people, you have to try people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years.”

Across the country a few cooler heads prevailed. Two cops in Queens, NY removed their combat gear and knelt with protesters, calming themselves and the protesters. Officers in Des Moines did the same thing.  One can only imagine the life and property saved if more cops did that. 

After the call, the National Guard, the mounted police, and the Secret Service used flash-bang shells, gas, and rubber bullets peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park to clear a short path from the White House to St. John’s “Church of Presidents” (which President Fear Monger may have attended…once?). He held up a borrowed Bible for some photos then scurried back to the White House. The whole thing took minutes.

“He did not pray,” said Episcopal Bishop Mariann E. Budde. “He did not mention George Floyd, he did not mention the agony of people who have been subjected to this kind of horrific expression of racism and white supremacy for hundreds of years.”

On the phone call with Trump, Governor Waltz of Minnesota said to him, “a posture of force on the ground is both unsustainable militarily — it’s also unsustainable socially, because it’s the antithesis of how we live.” 

The antithesis of hate is love, which brings us back to Elizabeth Barret Browning and a more dignified and human kind of power.

Remember the Women’s Marches every year since 2017: the pink hats, the millions of women across this country and the world who march for equality in the “Me too” movement?

No testosterone. 

No fear.

No-one killed. No-one bloodied. No-one hurt. 

Sweet, huh?

“Why are people avoiding us?” asked Buddy, my standard French poodle the other day. He speaks English, French and Bark!, but I only speak English, so he humors me.

“And why are we avoiding them?”

We were on one of our walks – not the short ones, during which we focus on his immediate needs: watering fire hydrants and the like – but a long walk, which focuses on my needs too, like getting out of the house!

During these Coronavirus times, we walk past a closed up park and into town, past still mostly shuttered shops, and then back home via neighborhoods that are usually quiet, but now are really, really quiet.

I love the peace and quiet, not getting honked at or, for that matter, almost run over by speeding commuters, and having a chance to muse. 

Occasionally we will pass someone else walking a dog, or maybe a couple. There are awkward “Good Mornings!” or something appropriate, usually muffled by our masks. As protocol now requires, we veer away from each other, leaving not just the required 6 feet, but maybe double that. We humans follow directions when we have to.

Buddy stops and looks at me. “It’s got to be something about you. I’m just as handsome and cuddly as ever.”

I patiently explain the Coronavirus, and the fact that keeping distance is the only protection we have until they find a cure or a vaccine. 

“Bien sur”, he says. “Is that why you yell and rant at the TV so much now?”

Did I mention I’m really tired of walking my dog? 

This whole “stay at home” thing is getting boring. It’s been going so long even the boredom is getting boring.

That’s one reason all those less congested states are opening up, or trying to. When Georgia and others opened up their economies, not too many people came. At least that’s what the news said…until the other news denied it.

Argh!

I don’t know what’s worse, news about the Coronavirus, which I can do nothing about, or news about our President’s latest tantrum, which I can do nothing about. This whole thing is like a bad TV movie with two villains and no hero.

What I need is a commercial break. Commercials are great breaks from bad movies. 

Like the best history book I’ve been reading, These Truths, by Jill Lepore. It’s very dense and so full of cool facts you can’t just breeze through it, which is great, because it takes me away from the news.

And brings perspective.  For example, you know who was a really bad President? Andrew Jackson. He warred on Native Americans ruthlessly and cruelly, because they weren’t white. He was also notoriously rude and crude.

Woodrow Wilson was also racist, very arrogant, and so disliked he couldn’t get the Congress to approve something all of Europe wanted after WWI: the League of Nations. We helped win one world war, but didn’t have the leadership to prevent another.

Anyone else connect the dots here?

Here’s a really cool fact: Before Watt invented the steam engine, before oil and coal produced that steam and started the Industrial Revolution, most people didn’t think of work and home as two separate places; they worked out of their homes. Store owners lived in the back of their stores. Farmers simply went out the front door to work in the fields. Doctors lived at home and made house calls.   

A hundred plus years later, it’s starting to look like deja vu all over again. We’re working from home. Doctors are tele-doctoring. Stores are delivering. We’re zooming instead of commuting. 

And it’s not been all bad. It’s actually had some positives.

In two months the earth’s carbon footprint has dropped by 17%. You can see across the English Channel on a good day again. The canals of Venice have fish again.  

I stop and stare at the blue sky for a minute.  In a hundred or so years, we humans have gummed up the air, poisoned the water, killed off hundreds of species, and filled the oceans with our garbage. Talk about leaving a campground worse the we found it.

I wonder if the Coronavirus is Mother Nature’s way of saying, “knock it off or I’ll knock you off”?

I start walking again.

“Bark!” says Buddy, stopping suddenly, jerking me backward as well as breaking my thoughts. He has left a small token of our walk on the sidewalk. 

“Excuse moi…” I say, as I clean it up. 

As we head for home, I wonder if human race will, too.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from this pandemic, it’s that human beings are pack animals. It’s been that way since the first caveman saw the first T-Rex and realized there was safety in togetherness.

Through the ages the idea of sticking together, of helping each other, sometimes before helping ourselves, became part of our DNA. The idea traveled up through the ages, from cavemen to Greeks to modern times. 

That’s why “isolation” is a prison punishment. It’s why psychologists equate loneliness with anxiety and fear. 

In the 1762 Swiss-born Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had been alone from his early years, gave the idea a name, “The Social Contract”, and added a key element, the notion of community, in which benefitting the community was more important than benefitting the individual. 

“All for one and one for all” became the official motto of the fictional Three Musketeers, and the unofficial motto of real Switzerland.

The idea traveled across the Atlantic and embedded itself in the British colonies where it inspired rebellion from monarchy and a brilliant new form of government, democracy – although aspects of it involves a round peg in a square hole. “All men are created equal” was written by a guy who owned slaves (Oops!) and ignored women (Double Oops!).

One recurring problem with the Social Contract has been balancing the rights of one individual against the rights of another. Which gets even more complicated when the rights of the entire community are added. So, Rousseau (and like thinkers) thought that individuals could gather together and structure a government to decide issues that involved the entire community. 

The country has held to that Social Contract ever since (with the exception of the Civil War, when all balance was lost). Thus the shared sacrifice of WWI, the Depression, WWII, and so on. People followed rules set by their government and adhered to a common set of ethics: no lying, stealing, or killing. In other words, “thee before me”- Bible stuff.

The Social Contract was supported by an economic system based on an entirely different concept: capitalism. Capitalism thrives on competition, but when unregulated, becomes the law of the jungle. When that has happened in the past, when capitalists like John D Rockefeller created monopolies, Social Contract supporters like Theodore Roosevelt created laws to stop them.  

But in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the country began to change. Greed, once considered anti-ethical, became an acceptable part of capitalism. Like a parasite, it has been eating away at the Social Contract ever since.

Leonardo DeCaprio’s fictional Wolf of Wall Street character personified a new paradigm:  “me before thee.”

About the same time a real-life greedy one bought his first Manhattan hotel. He didn’t invent the new paradigm; he just rode it all the way to the White House.

How did he and the others get away with it? If you’re convinced the other guy is following “all for one and one for all”, you believe anything he says, until it’s too late.

It’s Grandma until it’s the Wolf.

Today, other countries are successfully fighting a pandemic by adhering to their Social Contract, while the Wolf of Washington is crippling this country’s fight by adhering to “me before thee”.

The only defense against the Coronavirus is putting an economy on hold, supporting people with government money, and having them isolate in place until a cure or a vaccine is found – probably within two years. 

All we individuals have to do is follow the Social Contract. 

But no. Today, for so many, there is no sacrifice too small not to make.  We want what we want, whether it’s going to the beach or a crowded bar, even if doing so will kill us.  

We are encouraged by a leader who never has been a pack animal, who has never met a contract he wouldn’t break for his own benefit.

“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear”, says this Liar-In-Chief, who will lose the election if the Coronavirus doesn’t disappear.

“If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases,” says our Idiot-in-Chief, who will lose the election if the economy doesn’t recover.

”What have you got to lose?” says our Narcissist-in-Chief, who will lose the election if the Coronavirus and the economy don’t bend to his will.

Without the Social Contract, Coronavirus won’t disappear, the economy won’t rebound and, yes, we’ll lose lives.