One Small Voice: We must work together to beat fears

by Lynn Mandaville

The other day, as I was beginning another day of home schooling my grandsons, their father Randy (my son) firmly told the older one, Jack, that he couldn’t show me his new Nintendo Switch game until all that  day’s lessons had been completed.  Then he left for work.

Jack was disappointed, and very angry at his dad.  So, since he couldn’t take out his anger on his dad, he began to be nasty toward his younger brother, demeaning him and shoving him around.

I pointed out how unfair it was to take out on James the feelings he was having toward his dad.

Jack still sulked, but he actually seemed to be thinking about what he was doing to James.  He wasn’t mad at James, he was mad at Randy.  Instead of being mean to his brother, he chose to brood about it for a while.  And having been given time to ponder my “pearls of wisdom,” he came around.  They were buddies again, and they stepped up to their school work.  And when that was done, Jack showed me his new game, and our world became a happy place again.

*****

I’d hazard a guess that most of the people who intend to be vaccinated against COVID-19 have already done so or are in the process of doing so.

In AZ, where the roll-out of vaccinations was the chaotic melee of a Trumpian governor and Republican failure to do any proactive preparation for what was inevitable, especially after Trump left office, my older son is still awaiting the second in his series of Pfizer inoculations.

Getting signed up for the shots was all but impossible.  Nick spent mornings before work on the phone, waiting on holds that never ended.  He signed up for all Maricopa County alerts to new sites opening up.  He hounded local pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreen’s, only to be told that he didn’t qualify because he wasn’t a first responder or teacher.  (Guess they didn’t get the governor’s weeks’ old memo that anyone over the age of 16 had been qualified to get the vaccine.)

Nick became anxious enough to invoke with his boss the threat of signing up for unemployment, his right in AZ if he would simply say that he felt unsafe at work where masking policies were not enforced (because the governor said those couldn’t be enforced) and he was not protected enough by his mask.  Clients refused to mask or to keep social distance.

So his boss spent the majority of one work day finding and signing him up to be vaccinated.  In eleven days he will be on the prudent road to as full protection as can be reasonably expected so far.

That means our tight little bubble can breathe a collective sigh of relief for the foreseeable future, until our boosters become available.

There are still some — not saying who — who believe this is a sign we live in fear, that we are  not “living  life” because of a hoax.

They can have their delusion.

There is plenty of evidence to prove that COVID-19 and its variants are a force to be reckoned with.

It is a nasty virus that’s kills with impunity.  It’s a virus that the experts learn more about every day.

The fact that more is learned every day by virologists does not make them liars.  It means that they are every vigilant for new discoveries about an unknown disease so that they can revise best practices, predict who may be most vulnerable, determine who most likely carries the disease without presenting symptoms, and who may be the next group to be stricken by the variants.

The basics of washing our hands, wearing masks and distancing ourselves from one another are no more than excellent hygiene, successful in any setting where carelessness may cause harm to others.

It’s why doctors, nurses, and anyone working in medicine scrubs up.  It’s why people who are contagious with serious maladies are isolated in hospitals.  It’s why dentists took to wearing masks several years back to avoid catching or spreading common germs, as well as not so common ones.

Even as long ago as 1976, when our first baby was born a preemie with a ruptured colon, we, his parents, had to scrub up for five minutes with “doctor soap” and orange sticks just to hold him at Children’s Hospital in Detroit.

Good hygiene is just plain a smart idea.

But somehow it got all tangled up in conspiracy theories and dubious claims of civil rights infractions.

Aside from reasonable exceptions for those for whom masking up is not possible, there is just no good reason in my opinion for anyone to be such a big baby as to refuse to wear a mask.

Many responders to Townbroadcast columns have admitted that they disdain the mask, but comply when a private business where they’d like to shop requires a mask.  That’s reasonable.  It’s not being a wuss, or a baby, or a patriot.  It’s respectful, kind and generous of spirit.

The amateur psychologist in me says that the rebellious responses to the pandemic are based in plain old fear, and manifest themselves in transference of that fear into angry displacement of that fear into the outward attributes of masks, isolation, the inconvenience of shut-downs, and loathing toward those who would willingly go along with the inconvenience of containing the virus.

But I’m no expert.  Just a product of 1970s Phil Donahue shows and two semesters of Psychology 101 nearly 50 years ago.

Recently I accused Americans as a group of being selfish and egocentric, exemplified by negative responses to SARS-CoV-2.  I should have elaborated then, saying that the selfishness was a subconscious result of their fear.  Which I believe it is.

We in the United States have come to expect American Exceptionalism, like that which resulted in the aftermath of World War II, in all phases of our lives.

That exceptionalism has been disappearing over the last few decades.  (Blame the economy, or Democrats, or Republicans, or the American public school system, blah, blah, blah.)

I would put it to you that one of the reasons is that we, collectively, recognize that our national problems are so great that there is no solution as “simple” as winning a global confrontation with two single outward displays of death and machismo, as were the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I don’t intend to get into the philosophical or practical arguments as to the validity of those actions.

My point is that none of our major issues right now can be solved simply by closing ourselves off from the other nations of the world or committing a single action.

I don’t believe we can solve it with only a border wall, or by withdrawing from previously agreed upon multinational health initiatives or environmental pacts.  We can’t solve racism by ignoring it, or wealth inequality by shaming the working poor.  It’s impossible to run a nation on the backs of only the middle class, without addressing the excesses of modern day robber barons who fail to pay living wages, or provide uncorrupted universal health care for their employees.  And we cannot solve the unfair dishing out of justice in a country that disproportionally arrests people of color for the same crimes that are committed by white people, or by incarcerating anyone in a for-profit jail or prison.

I do believe that one really good start to solving any and all of these problems begins with legislators who stop thinking of legislation as an “I win, you lose” proposition.

When either Democrats or Republicans “win” these days, it means the people, you and me, lose.  Not them.

They continue to collect generous speaking fees because of their status as elected representatives of the people.  They amass wealth through being re-elected to office by the contributions of special interest groups and PACs that buy their support through unethical means.  They set themselves up to be highly paid consultants after their political lives are over, or to sit on boards of corporations who influence what happens in Congress.  And then they sit back and collect their pensions while still continuing to receive excellent health benefits.

And all the while we don’t expect them to hold themselves accountable to fulfill their oaths of office.  We don’t vote the bums out when they threaten insurrection, or challenge the Constitution, or act in any manner unbecoming a United States Representative or Senator.  We don’t even object when they have what we can’t, simply by virtue of their political honorific.

Ranger Rick’s mantra is “The rotting of America from within continues…”

What he doesn’t say is that the rotting comes from US.  ALL of us.

It comes from our inaction when we know the truth.  It comes from our willfulness to remain uninformed.  It comes from the failure to teach intense civics classes to our school children.  And it comes from our hypocrisy as Christians who rely on the old saw “we were founded as a Christian nation,” while failing to live up to the simplest of Christ’s teachings.

We have become a punitive nation, eager to punish any real and perceived transgressors, except those at the top, whose complicity tarnishes us all.

And then we become shells of the human beings we were born with the potential to be, caught up in looking out for number one, and making our insecure selves look good via comparison by bad-mouthing others in the attempt to make them look bad.

And that is the ultimate lose-lose situation.

Sometimes in my frustration with the way things seem to be, I fall prey to sarcasm, facetiousness, and doomsaying, despite my natural inclination to “always look on the bright side of life.”  (da-dum, da-dum-da-de-de-dum)

Even now, with our former president settled in as former president for at least the next four years, I have fears that Grandpa Joe and Aunt Kamala may not be able to pull off congressional reconciliation and bipartisan cooperation.

It’s fairly evident to me that change must come from the grass roots.  From you and me acting like intelligent, unemotional adults who have the best interests of ALL our fellows and gals at heart.

I suggest the notion that we could all start looking to our actual, personal fears and directing that discomfort at the legitimate sources of that fear, and turning it from anger and destructive behavior to the kind of vulnerability that lets us work together to conquer the fears.

May it come to pass that all becomes right with our world.

Peace.