The Mason Missile, July 24, 2020

Greetings, Americans! It’s official-the United States of America is a pariah state, “thanks” to the Coronavirus and trump’s negligence. The states of the European Union have announced a list of nations whose citizens are welcome to enter the block-and ours is NOT one of them. (https://www.dw.com/en/eu-agrees-to-reopen-borders-to-14-countries-extends-travel-ban-for-us-tourists/a-53986435?maca=en-newsletter_en_bulletin-2097-xml-newsletter&r=77175521877467155&lid=1528755&pm_ln=36039 ) I can’t say I blame them, though; after much suffering and labor, they have managed to diminish the number of COVID-19 cases and fatalities to rock-bottom, whereas, under the leader-shit of the tangerine tumor, new highs in infections and deaths are being set. I lament, is there NO way to eliminate him from office NOW? Pence would be no improvement, since he bootlicks trump as every opportunity. Trump has also been calling for schools to reopen in the fall, no matter that the COVID is still lurking around in the atmosphere, and trump’s disciples keep talking about how young kids can’t get the virus, but the virus is an equal-opportunity killer. I also lament the police state tactics that federal agents have been using in Portland, Oregon. (https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unmarked-vehicles-portland-protesters/) (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/portland-protests.html) (https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/oregon-expanding-criminal-probe-of-unmarked-federal-troops-88038469617?cid=eml_mra_20200721) This, from the party of “small government” and “get the government off your backs!” This is the culmination of what the Republicans have long advocated, since at least the New Deal: return the government to the enforcers of plutocratic power, and prevent it from being utilized on behalf of working and low-income people. These agents have been recruited from such agencies as the US Marshall’s Service, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Bureau of Prisons; they have been wearing military gear (like they’re at war with-US? Their fellow Americans?), grabbed peaceful protestors, and anyone else they thought “looked funny,” hauled them into unmarked cars-their “due process,” the kind of stuff your recall from Chile under Pinochet. trump has also prepared to send these agents to other cities in the nation-Chicago, New York, AND Philadelphia-“all run by liberal Democrats-” without any input by the municipal governments, calling the cities “stupidly run.” (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-chicago-police-dhs-deployment-20200720-dftu5ychwbcxtg4ltarh5qnwma-story.html) Yes, a dictatorship CAN happen HERE, in the “land of the free,” and we must NEVER allow it! At this time, we remember and work and example of Congressman John Lewis-a leader of the Civil Rights struggle of the Sixties, who organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, who was the youngest speaker at the March On Washington For Jobs and Freedom in 1963, and who led the March on Selma in 1965 for voting rights-and, as the state troopers and other police assaulted the marchers, one trooper cracked Lewis’ skull; but through the sacrifice of Lewis and other brave activists, Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Lewis risked his life to make sure ALL Americans have the right to vote, to elect their public officials who run our society. Let the history of the Civil Rights movement, and the lives of its brave freedom fighters, guide us as we struggle against trump and his minions. This is the basis of the long-time Republican-conservative disparagement of utilizing the government to redress grievances; the same people who have been long oppressed finally asserting and attaining their rights. Can we do any less than what Lewis and his cohorts did? We, regular working and low-income Americans can indeed band together and improve our communities-and in this situations, save our country. On the same day Lewis died, so did another titan of the Civil Rights struggle, the Reverend CT Vivian (https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/us/ct-vivian-death/index.html). Both Lewis and Vivian emphasized the right to vote as the height of a people’s empowerment, and they both advocated for non-violent resistance to oppression. But alas, trump and his disciples are happy to apply violence against their enemies; you’ll recall trump cheering as his fans at his rallies beat up protestors-“Knock the crap out of them, will yuh?”-and promising to pay their legal bills for beating them up. The brute force applied by the federal agents is one more example of the disregard trump and his minions have for the rights of working people, low-income people, and minorities, or anyone who stands against him and for their rights. With the police-state tactics emanating from the regime, and rightist thugs carrying assault rifles to terrorize legislators (and just while going to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk) is treated like free speech, the idea of progressives and leftists carrying guns and learning, how to use them, is inevitable-you can only push a person SO far. (https://www.salon.com/2017/09/03/6-gun-groups-that-arent-for-white-right-wingers_partner/) (https://philadelphiapartisan.com/2017/08/12/armed-and-revolutionary/) (https://harpers.org/archive/2020/04/good-guys-with-guns-socialist-gun-club/) One is the John Brown Gun Club (affiliated with Redneck Revolt), mainly comprised of white leftists, and modeled on the Young Patriots, a radical group allied with the Black Panther Party. (https://www.redneckrevolt.org/) There is also the Pink Pistols, for LGBTQ Gun owners. (http://www.pinkpistols.org/). There is also the National African American Gun Association (https://naaga.co/), the Liberal Gun Club (https://theliberalgunclub.com/) the Huey P. Newton Gun Club ( https://hueypnewtongunclub.org/), and the Socialist Rifle Association. (https://socialistra.org/). I would never condemn a person for doing what it takes to protect their lives and the lives of their loved ones. We are up against people who have no respect for the rights and lives of working-class people, low-income people, or people of color-the same types of people John Lewis, CT Vivian, and the other Civil Rights activists stood up against, and finally defeated, through their bravery and collective effort. But an even mightier weapon for us Americans it our vote-it’s our first line of defense against tyranny, and let’s never allow anyone to take it from us. Let us band together like the Civil rights heroes to fight this dime-store despot wannabe contaminating the White House-we’re in this together. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together, and America will be free! Bye! ADVERTISEMENT Since this publication takes a good deal of work and time, I welcome any donations, and I am willing to discuss selling ad space. For a fee I will be happy to advertise your business on the Missile. Please contact me and we’ll talk about it.

The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason, July 20, 2020

The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason, July 12, 2020

The Mason Missile, The COVID-19 Chronicles, June 8, 2020

Greetings! I hope we continue to stay safe in this crisis. We have now surpassed the 100,000 mark in Coronavirus fatalities in this country, all thanks to the incompetence on the weird per lurking in the White House. He and his minions have failed to show leadership in organizing the manufacture of vaccines, test kits, PPEs, respirators, etc. trump’s preferred method to deal with the crisis is the old tactic of failed regimes, the scapegoat, blaming China for the virus, and the Republican Party has ordered its candidates to blame China-and so Chinese-Americans, and Asian-Americans in general, have been subjected to racist assaults. This is what passes for statesmanship currently in DC-and let’s not forget the constant golf trips trump takes to his resorts (and the taxpayers pay for these), the encouraging of white-supremacist maniacs parading at state capitols with assault rifles demanding that their favorite bars, hair salons, etc. be reopened, pandemic or no pandemic. This would demand workers risk their lives from the pandemic to do the work, coinciding with demands from right-wing pundits and politicians that factories and other worksites reopen, to “stimulate the economy.” To corporations and their political pets-like the one squatting in the White House-the stock market IS the economy, and not the paychecks of workers or the prosperity of local communities. For TOO long, economic policy has been in favor of corporations and the wealthy as opposed to working and low-income people, the real generators of wealth in our economy; hence the skewing of the trillion-dollar stimulus payments, supposedly to “small businesses,” going to billion-dollar corporations-$30 billion going to Amazon’s head Jeff Bezos, already worth $130 BILLION. But Kevin Hassett, a trump economic advisor, referred to workers as “human capital stock”-they’re like livestock, cattle that can be slaughtered. ( https://www.vox.com/2020/5/26/21270863/kevin-hassett-human-capital-stock-coronavirus) In public discourse about the economy, Americans have been reduced to their function in the economy, as “producers” making stuff for the corporations, and “consumers” buying the corporations’ stuff; not as citizens participating in the community’s affairs. That’s all working and low-income people are to them, and that’s the way they want us to remain. That is also why they want unions to stay powerless, economically and politically, and to prevent consumers of goods and services from protesting shoddy corporate practices. We have seen the blatant assaults upon African-Americans, showing that racism is alive in this country, fueled by trump and his pet media. Ahmaud Aubrey, in Georgia, was killed while jogging in a residential area, in February, and his killers, Gregory McMichael (father) and Travis McMichael (son), were only arrested late in May; the McMichaels and their companion William Bryan (who videotaped the whole killing), had the idea of capturing Aubrey by themselves and detaining him, in a citizens’ arrest, but it turned into a killing. It’s as if white people have some sort of police power over people of color. ( https://www.nytimes.com/article/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-georgia.html) Amy Cooper, who worked in an investment company, took her dog into Central Park in May; Christopher Cooper, an African-American man going bird-watching, urged Amy Cooper to leash her dog, as required by the park’s rules, but she got on her cell, all hysterical (why?) and threatened to tell police that Christopher Cooper was threatening her. For that she lost her dog and her job in the investment firm. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amy-cooper-christian-cooper-central-park-karen-video-uncomfortable-hate/) Breonna Taylor, an EMT in Louisville, was shot in March by plainclothes police armed with a “no-knock” search warrant. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/15/minute-minute-account-breonna-taylor-fatal-shooting-louisville-police/5196867002/) And now there is the case of George Floyd, killed while a Minneapolis police officer sat his knee on Floyd’s neck and choked him to death, out in the open, while a cellphone camera was on him. That was the trigger of a national movement addressing police abuse within communities of color, and racism in this country in general. Let me be clear: I do NOT think ALL police officers are horrible or racist, and so many of them go out of their way for the community. However, racism in law enforcement is a reality and a danger to be cut out of our society root and branch, in law enforcement and in other areas of our community, such as education, with city schools dilapidating and underfunded by state legislatures filled with rural hacks who hate the people of the cities; medical care, with minority communities having the worst rates in infection of COVID-19, diabetes, cancer, and heart attacks; and higher rates of unemployment. Let us not forget that June is the month for several great demonstrations; the Tiananmen Square incident in China in 1989, which was put down by a government at war with its own young people seeking a change in the system, a repression trump at that time, in a Playboy interview in March 1990, applauded: “When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of the world…” (https://www.playboy.com/read/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990) Another event was the Stonewall uprising in June 1969, when patrons of a crappy bar owned by a Mob associate rioted against the police harassment they endured forever, saying “Enough is enough of this!”, thereby jumpstarting the LGBT rights movement. Fighting for freedom in an ongoing process, it is not something that happens just in one particular season of the year, and not always in the view of the news media. One little thing can happen to finally trigger national discussion of a longstanding injustice-Rosa Parks challenging racial segregation by simply not giving up her seat on the bus; young gay men in a skuzzy bar fighting off police harassment; or jobless military veterans who, in 1932 during the Great Depression, peacefully camped out near the White House to attain some help from President Herbert Hoover, but instead were forced out of their camp by soldiers under the command of General Douglas MacArthur (yep, that one). That has been the trump response to the peaceful demonstrators-and the VAST-est majority of them HAVE been peaceful-to have police and Guard troops assault them, and trump-in his bunker talking bad-ass on Twitter, then ordering peaceful protestors attacked by police so he can hold a bible in front of St. John’s Church for a photo op- threatened to deploy the regular military if state governors did not “dominate” their streets against protestors. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/03/insurrection-act-trump-history/) Here is trump impersonating his role models Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi of China. I have been reading Bruce Catton’s centennial history of the American Civil War, published on the hundredth anniversary of the terrible conflict that finally ended the shame and scourge of chattel slavery in this country. Some many of the southern men threatened for at least a decade before the war to secede from the Union if it didn’t do their bidding in defending slavery, and the northern men, to preserve the Union and avoid war, constantly accommodated the southern men, like indulging spoiled kids; but at the election of Lincoln in 1860, instead of waiting to see what he would do, the southern states began to secede. It was all bold talk at the beginning, and it ended up in war; what about today? trump and his disciples talk big and bold, threatening to not accept the election results of 2020 if it doesn’t go their way; If another civil war, God forbid, in the offing? Bullies are like that; they talk all tough as opposed to doing anything, but what if they feel threatened by people standing up to them, challenging their alleged power? Here, Americans, is a watershed moment in our history, akin to the Civil War, the 1929 Depression, and the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements of the 1960s-when we decide where our country is to go. Let us not falter, but let us take this chance to save our freedom, and deal finally with the ills of our country-systemic racism, extremes of wealth and poverty, poor medical and educational services, and corrupt government. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together-bye!

The Mason Missile-The COVID-19 Chronicles, May 7, 2020

Greetings! I hope we continue to stay safe in this crisis. May First was May Day, AKA International Worker's Day, a day honoring working men and women throughout the world. It has been celebrated all over the world, except in the United States, due to the Cold war and the association of May Day to the Stalinist regime in Moscow. (Of course, people in power will associate any challenge to their regime with Communism, thus having an excuse for repressions.) This year, amidst the COVID-19 crisis our nation faces (no thanks to trump's willful incompetence), May Day takes a special meaning to workers. Due to the Corona-virus, workers had to be put out of work through no fault of their own, and are trying to attain Unemployment benefits through their states. Congress has allocated trillions of dollars for small business relief, but that money has would up in the hands of multi-million dollar corporations, including the ones with the "trump" name on them. Workers who have been particularly hard hit have been those at Amazon and Whole Foods, “essential” businesses that need to stay open. On May Day, workers in those two companies-along with workers at Target, Walmart, Instacart, FedEx, and Shipt went out on strike over their managements’ failure and refusal to provide safety measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, while these same companies have made enormous profits. (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884w3a/amazon-instacart-target-whole-foods-fedex-workers-explain-why-theyre-striking-may-day) Christian Smalls, a worker in the Amazon distribution center in Staten Island, led a walkout at the facility over COVID-19 safety, and he urged company leadership to sanitize the building and seriously deal with the pandemic among employees. For this, Smalls was fired and subjected to a company-sponsored slander campaign. (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dm8bx/leaked-amazon-memo-details-plan-to-smear-fired-warehouse-organizer-hes-not-smart-or-articulate) That has always been a tactic of corporations, to smear workers who stand up for themselves. Amazon is a particularly serious example of profiteering during the pandemic, since people can’t go to stores and go have to order their goods online. Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, already the richest human being on the planet worth $113 BILLION, and now, with the pandemic, his profits have risen, and he has thus added $24 BILLION to his bank account. With the trillions of dollars of stimulus from the federal government-call it the “rich man’s welfare,” as it is-corporate leaders are feeling confident again of a recovery for their own selves, still engaging in stock buybacks, which take stocks out of the market and thus raise (artificially) their value, thus raising the profits from them. (https://fortune.com/2020/04/14/jeff-bezos-net-worth-2020-billionaires-amzn-amazon-stock/) State governments are not necessarily the friend of workers. In Iowa, the state government has ordered furloughed workers to resume work, with no regard for the continuing presence of the CIVD-19, or else lose forever their unemployment benefits. (https://www.businessinsider.com/iowa-tells-workers-return-to-work-or-lose-unemployment-benefits-2020-4?fbclid=IwAR1_Mr0j4_0M6GlmOYk5iBjOC8Cx6nI0Ej0Avcq64Yi8lsAGTMLSriQ3qeI) Wisconsin Chief Justice Patience D. Roggensack was hearing a case around Governor Tony Evers’s stay-at-home order related to the JBS Packerland meat-packing plant in Brown Country, which had close to 800 COVID cases; the learned chief justice’s comment was, “These were due to the meatpacking, though, that’s where Brown County got the flare. It wasn’t the regular folks in Brown County.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/07/meatpacking-workers-wisconsin-coronavirus/) Does this mean that the meat workers were NOT part of the community, that they were alien, from another planet perhaps? The meat-packing industry has particularly shown itself to be abusing to its workers, many of who are immigrants and of color; trump, who has not utilized the Defense Production Act to order manufacturers to turn out masks and ventilators, has invoked the act to order meat-processing workers back to their job sites, which have been hotbeds for the COVID. The Smithfield pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was found to have 853 workers test positive for the virus. Tyson shut down its pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa due to the pandemic. (https://kstp.com/coronavirus/tyson-foods-suspends-operations-largest-pork-plant-amid-iowa-outbreak/5707704/) (https://kstp.com/coronavirus/smithfield-tyson-react-to-trump-executive-order-keeping-meat-packing-facilities-open/5714501/) trump’s order would demand these workers risk their lives from the virus-for what? The profits of the board of directors over the next quarter, which none of the workers will benefit from? Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced plans to end the stay-at-home order in his state; over a phone call with legislators, he admitted that would be a health threat to people in his state: “Listen, the fact of the matter is pretty much every scientific and medical report shows that whenever you have a reopening—whether you want to call it a reopening of businesses or of just a reopening of society—in the aftermath of something like this, it actually will lead to an increase and spread. It’s almost ipso facto,” knowing full well the danger to the public was real. (https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas-governor-greg-abbott-admits-dangers-of-reopening-state-on-private-call-with-lawmakers/?via=twitter_page) (https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/texas-governor-slammed-after-being-caught-on-hot-mic-admitting-his-reopen-order-will-worsen-the-pandemic/) The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare many of the ills of American society-inaccessibility to healthcare; government focused on aiding the already- rich and powerful at the expense, and to the detriment, of working and low-income people; racial disparities in health care; and class privilege flaunted brazenly in our faces, as when Mike Pence strolled through the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota without a face mask, as is policy in the clinic to do, and stating afterwards that he has gotten regular tests, while regular people have to line up for hours, if they’re lucky, to get one; does he think that the rules we follow don’t apply to him? (https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/politics/mike-pence-mayo-clinic-mask/index.html) Our vote is our weapon, and we must use it to restore our government for working and low-income people. We deserve, and must attain, leaders who will operate the government for the benefit of all, not just for a gang of con artists, pseudo-science cranks, upper-class twits, and Wall Street gamblers. In Pennsylvania, the primary election is June 2, and the general election is November 3. PLEASE, for the sake of the nation, for the sake of your communities, for the sake of future generations, get out there and VOTE! Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together-Bye!

The Mason Missile, Special Edition-The COVID-19 Chronicles, April 19, 2020

Greetings! I have just finished celebrating Pesach, aka Passover, the holiday commemorating the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt-Mitzraym in Hebrew, the “narrow place,” the place of limitation and powerlessness. My synagogue, Congregation Leyv ha-Ir (http://www.leyvhair.org/) held its second night Seder over the video-conferencing system Zoom (zoom.us). Many congregations have held their Passover and Easter services online due to the COVID-19, aka Coronavirus. Alas, several others have refused to heed the warnings about social distancing and not congregating during the pandemic, thereby possibly exposing them to the virus. One such is Life Tabernacle Church in Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, where the pastor, evangelist Tony Spell, has defied a ban on mass gatherings in his state and has insisted on holding services, including Easter services. (https://www.thedailybeast.com/louisiana-pastor-tony-spell-vows-satan-and-virus-wont-stop-easter-service-as-others-make-unusual-plans) Spell has made this a form of martyrdom, saying “Like any zealot or any pure religious person, death looks to them like a welcome friend.” ( https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/491928-louisiana-pastor-who-refuses-to-stop-holding-church-services-says-true) Several states, like Florida, have carved out exemptions to the state-at-home orders for religious bodies. This follows along with other evangelists, such as Rodney Howard-Brown of Tampa, who has refused to close his church because “we’re raising up revivalists, not pansies.” (https://nypost.com/2020/03/17/evangelical-pastor-mocks-pansies-wont-close-church-for-coronavirus/) Jonathan Shuttlesworth, an evangelist near Pittsburgh, called for a “Woodstock-style” Easter gathering, and called pastors who close over the virus a ”bunch of pansies” and they practice a “fake faith.” (https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/04/01/pittsburgh-pastor-to-hold-woodstock-like-easter-gathering-despite-coronavirus-pandemic/) (https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/03/pastor-says-sissies-pansies-wash-hands-prevent-coronavirus/) (Here he sounds like a little kid in the playground.) I see a pattern here; religious zeal, certainly, but also a sense of privilege and entitlement that conservative-evangelical communities have about how they conduct themselves, like they don’t have to follow the same rules everyone else follows. This shows in the evangelical movement’s pushing for certain privileges, like the end of the Johnson Amendment, the rule that prohibits nonprofit 501c(3) organizations, like churches, from endorsing political candidates. Also there is the strain of theology traditionally known as “Muscular Christianity,” a movement from the Victorian Era that combined Christianity with manliness and physical fitness. This movement called for young men participating in sports as a means towards self-discipline and moral standards. This movement led to the development of the Young Men’s Christian Association (the Y) And the Boy Scouts. President Theodore Roosevelt was part of this movement, as was Billy Sunday, the leading evangelist of that time. It also played into the development of Laisse-faire capitalism and the dominance to the corporate “robber-barons;” Social Darwinism, the biologically-based reasoning for the dominance of wealthier classes over everyone else, even for the death of the “unfit;” eugenics, the “science” of determining the “superiority” or “inferiority” of certain races and ethnic groups; and imperialism, the drive for European (and American) powers to dominate African and Asian nations, thus asserting their “superiority” Here is a great article about Muscular Christianity in Counterpunch, https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/09/the-brutal-legacy-of-the-muscular-christian-movement/. In Muscular Christianity, we have several toxic strains in American thought-racism, sexism, imperialism, the glorification of force over intellect, the treating of reason and thought as effeminate. This has shown up in the forming of the Ku Klux Klan (coinciding with the movement of Christian Fundamentalism) and the resistance to the Civil Rights movement in the Sixties, where white parents, refusing to allow their kids to go to school with black kids, formed “Christian “ schools for the sole purpose of racial self-segregation, under the cover of “Christian”. It was out of this movement, rather than campaigns against abortion and gay rights, where the religious right political movement gets its origins; it could also explain why this movement loves trump-racist, whoremaster, misogynist, wife-tax-business-golf cheater. He like a “real” man would not tolerate any opposition or dissent. Due to businesses closing down due to the pandemic-to prevent people congregating and spreading the virus-people have been laid off from their jobs, and are having trouble paying their rents. Many of these are workers in the restaurant and hotel industries, which don’t make much money and are thus already struggling. Many of them, in Philadelphia and throughout the country, are preparing to carry out rent strikes, to try to cut deals with property owners. (https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/rent-strike-coronavirus-philadelphia-constellar-corporation-guy-laren-20200408.html). Among the progressive media, these has been talk about a general strike. (http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/22426/general-strike-coronavirus-workers-unions-labor-healthcare-economic-crisis?link_id=2&can_id=a133d0f069f90f7c5fb79c2acd0407fd&source=email-not-working-in-these-times-the-incoming-wave&email_referrer=email_767511&email_subject=so-you-want-a-general-strike-workers-are-essential-ceos-are-not) That would be an extraordinary event, but we’re living in extraordinary time, with corporations demanding that workers go to work while the virus is still going on, our “president” more worried about how he looks on Facebook and how the stock market is doing, and pundits saying that workers need to go back to work and possibly die from the virus for the greater glory of the “economy.” But whose “economy?” Is the “economy” Wall Street, the Fortune 500, the 0.1 percent of billionaires ruling our politics, government, media, and academia? Or is it the workers who work in the factories, stores, and shops, and who buy from local vendors and thus stimulating the local economy? The Coronavirus crisis has laid bare many of the social problems in this country, like the commodification of health care, so that people can’t afford to get sick due to medical bills and huge co-pays; racial disparities in health care, as seen in the disproportionate number of deaths from Coronavirus among African-Americans; the “one paycheck from disaster” phenomenon, where any sudden reversal of fortune, like losing a job, could mean eviction or foreclosure from your home, shutting off of your utilities, and inability to buy groceries. And-What federal response? Initially, trump told governors that they were on their own, telling them to get their own ventilators to deal with the Coronavirus, rather than utilize the resources of the federal government to deal with this crisis-and greater buying power than any of the states-as any other president would deal with a war or other national crisis. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-respirators.html) (https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-told-governors-get-medical-equipment-on-their-own-2020-3) (https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-to-us-governors-get-your-own-ventilators) This approach has created a bidding war between states and cities for equipment, driving up the costs of the equipment. (Here, the “free market” hasn’t done any good, as corporations are using this catastrophe to line their pockets, the public’s health and safety be damned.) Can you imagine, during the Civil war or the Second world war, Lincoln and FDR telling divisions and regiments, “get your own rifles, cannons, bombs, bullets,” etc.? Jared Kushner, trump’s son-in-law/senior advisor/pet boy, told a press conference that the Federal Strategic Reserve, a stockpile of health-care supplies to be used for such emergencies as this, kept saying “the notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile, it’s not supposed to be the states’ stockpile that they then use.” No it’s the American stockpile, to help Americans! (https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/04/03/jared-kushner-federal-stockpile-sanders-intv-cooper-nr-vpx.cnn) (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jared-kushner-stockpile_n_5e86dca8c5b6a949183425ca) And what the hell does he mean by “our” stockpile? Who does he think it belongs to? The Strategic National Stockpile’s website has stated, “When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency.” All along, trump and his minions have told the sattes they were on their own, in a perverse version of “federalism” and “states’ rights,” the Republican gospel since Barry Goldwater. Now? trump has arrogated to himself, supposedly as “President,” the authority to order states’ governors to reopen their states’ businesses, no matter what the situation is with the virus. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/coronavirus-updates.html) State governors in the northeastern United States-including Pennsylvania-and on the West Coast have formed alliances to work together in this crisis, and they let trump know they would decide when to reopen their businesses; trump has since backed down from his “edict.” (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-backs-down-after-cuomo-governors-unite-coronavirusk-response-n1183471) Thus ends the notion of “states’ rights” and “get the government off our backs.” Conservatives and Republicans find the federal government useful, is it’s used to beat down anyone they want beaten down, like minorities, workers, and slammed nations. So much has been discussed around this crisis-the possibility of a general strike, the incompetence of our federal-level leadership-yes, I mean our alleged “president!”-the forming of mutual-aid networks locally, cluster of states doing collectively what the federal government can’t and won’t do, the movement of rent strikes and-maybe-a general strike-what does the future hold? In my interactions with my fellow Americans, I have regained hope that we will overcome this crisis-if we consider our friends and neighbors, our co-workers, and our own health, to follow the science, not the rhetoric or the blather from the strange person lurking around the White House-AND his enablers in Congress and his regime and his family-and realize this “person” cares nothing about our health and safety, and we know the value of our lives and health. We do NOT deserve to die of a disease that could have been prevented, and we do NOT deserve the “leadership” that has constantly misled us into this crisis. Let us, NOW, lead ourselves out of this. We can do it. Stay safe, stay together, and stay strong. Bye!

The Mason Missile, April 2, 2020, Special Edition-Special Edition-The COVID-19 Chronicles, April 2, 2020

Greetings! The COVID-19, aka coronavirus crisis goes on and so do trump’s failures as a “president”, as well as the charlatanism of his cheerleaders. Many of them are the evangelical Christian wing, who can’t stop seeing trump-thrice-married adulterer, tax-business-wife-golf cheater, racist, sexist, ignoramus rich kid who got out of the draft through his father’s connections-as their Messiah. Many of them are refusing to abide by stay-at-home, social-distancing rules; one has been Jonathan Shuttlesworth, a Pittsburgh-area evangelist, has called for a big Easter revival service on the scale of Woodstock. (https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/04/01/pittsburgh-pastor-to-hold-woodstock-like-easter-gathering-despite-coronavirus-pandemic/?fbclid=IwAR15NtquugQF_ez5IEr6PChnDEFe9vFs3KFYPifnhxIkLet7COOEimB4sw0) Shuttlesworth has been on Twitter complaining that church leaders who close their churches due to the COVID-19 crisis were a bunch of “sissies” and “pansies.” ( https://deadstate.org/christian-pastor-churches-that-shut-down-due-to-coronavirus-are-a-bunch-of-pansies/) Another, Rodney Howard-Brown of Tampa, was just arrested for defying rules against holding large gatherings, continuing to hold services at his River Church. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/us/coronavirus-pastor-arrested-tampa-florida.html) Howard-Brown, a supporter of trump, kept the church open and urged his congregants to shake hands, saying that “we are raising revivalists, not pansies.” (https://nationalpost.com/news/world/covid-19-florida-pastor-arrested-for-violating-bans-on-large-gatherings-says-closures-are-for-pansies) So many of our plutocratic leaders, and their media mouthpieces, are demanding that workers jeopardize their health by returning to work, “to save our country,” and it makes no never mind to them that the virus is still floating around. We the working people of America are expendable to them. But workers are still recognizing their value, as human beings and as parts of the economy, and are stepping up to the fight against COVID. Workers at the GE aerospace plant in Lynn, Massachusetts, are demanding that they, and their laid-off colleagues, be put to work in producing ventilators for hospitals in their fight against the virus. (https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2020/03/30/general-electric-silent-protest-coronavirus) (https://www.masslive.com/business/2020/03/coronavirus-related-layoffs-at-general-electric-prompt-workers-in-boston-and-lynn-to-walk-off-the-job-demand-ge-make-ventilators.html) Workers at the Amazon warehouses in Staten Island NY have walked off the job, urging greater safety conditions and pay. This is similar to the demands of workers at Whole Foods (a subsidiary of Amazon) and of Instacart (a grocery delivery firm). What the Amazon workers need especially is a deep cleaning of the warehouse to kill the virus, more sick time, and availability of hand sanitizer and sanitary wipes. (https://www.npr.org/2020/03/30/823767492/amazon-instacart-grocery-delivery-workers-strike-for-coronavirus-protection-and-) (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/business/economy/coronavirus-instacart-amazon.html) (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52096273) (https://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2020/03/29/Amazon-walkout-New-York-City-Staten-Island-fulfillment-center/stories/202003290163?fbclid=IwAR3KX_zOJQAV3i22BjKguaFHGd4f65AOVdMUoiep-P56s1gqC64UdP8pKdI) Of course, Amazon spokespeople announce d the company’s concern for the well-being of its employees during the pandemic; but Amazon fired Chris Smalls, the organizers of the Amazon workers in Staten Island, for his activism for the workers. (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-coronavirus-strike-leader-chris-smalls.html) Even in the midst of a national crisis, union-busting and intimidating workers go on. Throughout the country, Whole Foods workers announced plans to “call in sick” to demand paid leave for workers who self-quarantine due to the virus, plus free COVVID-19 testing for employees, and hazard pay for workers working during the crisis.( https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dmeka/whole-foods-employees-are-staging-a-nationwide-sick-out) These are companies owned by Jeff Bezos, estimated worth $115 billion-wealthy enough to form his own space program- and yet he doesn’t spend a dime of his fortune on the people who got it for him, the workers who toil in his warehouses, with every move monitored electronically, with no time for rest of breaks. Amazon employees, and workers in general, are easily disposed of these days-just like in the “Gilded Age” of this country, right after the Civil War, when capitalism was at its most blatantly laissez-faire, where corporations grew and were more powerful than the state and local governments they bought and sold, when immigrants were brought into this country-amid hostility by the “native” (i.e., white Protestant) Americans- to do the lowest-paid, most dangerous and tedious, and unskilled jobs available, and workers were expected to fight amongst each other for whatever such jobs the bosses condescend to throw at them-and the bosses look down on workers as losers and insignificant. But now, in this situation, this crisis that the leading leader was supposed to lead us out of, due to his vast business skills hones in tax evasion, bankruptcy, underpaying immigrant workers, and fraud, has shown himself to be a disaster of a President and as a human being altogether; and the working people-despised as “losers,” toiling in minimum-wage jobs for eternal hours-grocery workers, medical and cleaning staff, and truck drivers-are the saviors of this nation, and let’s never forget that. We are seeing an entirely different ethos in the works in this country, and where we work together mutually in our communities, watching out for each other; as a recent editorial in the New York Times shows. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-governors-cities.html?smid=fb-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR2n5irW9zYsZOVxztkJC8DMA0taJ02s4-KUxVU7NB6dmKS5xfwGTDGQj-A) This meshes well the workers organizing-at Amazon, at Whole Foods, at GE- for their rights and welfare, and for that of their communities-no different than from a the labor struggles over a century ago; but we have a rich history of Labor struggles to draw inspiration from during our current struggles. We are up against a serious crisis; but if we band together, connect with each other, support eachother, and love each other, we’ll be victorious. Bye!