Masks Get a Red Death

  

With the stroke of a pen, as they still say in the age of keyboards, a Republican appointed federal judge struck down a transportation mask mandate. The CDC had sought to extend the mandate for a couple of weeks to give it time to see what the experience would be with the BA 2 COVID variant.

Maybe the virus has traded in some of its potency for transmissibility. It seems everyone is getting it. But cases of COVID from this have not really translated into sickness and death, so far. The herd appears to be getting immune.

The signs are everywhere. In a convenience market here in my California county, I noted that while employees were wearing masks, those little decal imprints on the floor to ensure 6 feet of social distance had been removed. In another store, the plexiglass between clerk and customer was gone.

But the brightening picture is also marked by COVID revisionism, as in, lockdowns didn’t work, the CDC, and even Dr. Fauci, were just plain wrong on a lot of things, and the damage done to children and families, especially around school closing policy, was an unnecessary byproduct.

While watching a TV host I otherwise admire last week, I almost threw something at the screen when he started on, children don’t really get sick with COVID, and his guests chimed in with, vulnerable grandparents usually don’t live with the family anyway, etc. In the past, this same TV host has said most of those dying were old or obese. I wanted to shout, so what were all those hospitals overflowing with sick patients of all ages about during the last two years? Wasn’t that at least real? I’m oversimplifying the discussion on the show and may have mischaracterized some of it, but I think I got the general tone right.

Yes, the CDC has made missteps, but I still believe the scientists were learning about COVID as they went along, and they changed battle tactics in this war as fast as they could for a huge agency that seems much less than nimble. And yes, lockdowns and mask policies were full of holes, but they were designed to slow down COVID and ease the burden on hospitals, not eliminate the disease. At least we are not China. But I do hope there is a commission to thoroughly review our response after it’s all over.

OK, that’s how I feel…but I looked at the clock and the calendar as I wrote this, and it WAS Monday morning, wasn’t it?

 

Two Wastelands

 At this moment, we don’t know when the Ukraine war will end, or who will win it. We can say that it looks like the Ukrainians will, but what will they win? Several of the country’s major cities are in ruins, or heading in that direction. Millions of civilians are displaced, and thousands have been killed, and even the staggering numbers of fatalities we’ve heard so far are probably much too low.

And then there is Russia. While physical war hasn’t come to the homeland in a big way,  another form of war has. The West’s sanctions have turned Russia into an economic wasteland, at least for the average citizen. As President Biden has pointed out, most of the gains Russia has made since the collapse of the Soviet Union have now been erased. Millions of ordinary Russians are suffering, and sadly, many there still don’t know why.

We had to de-Nazify Ukraine, President Putin tells them. An odd turn of phrase, since it’s the Russian troops who are behaving like the dreaded German SS occupiers of World War II. If we’re generous, we might say that the shocking brutality toward civilians is only the behavior of a few rogue military units, or of Russian soldiers seeking revenge for their own losses. But there is much evidence that it’s neither of those things. It looks a lot more like policy. The appointment of the military commander who led Russian operations in Syria to oversee the Ukraine offensive is not a good sign.

At some point, it may occur to Mr. Putin how wasteful his war has been. The truth is, he had it pretty good before starting it. He is (or was) perhaps the single wealthiest person on Earth. While most other European nations aren’t especially fond of him, they have been good customers for Russia’s oil and gas. But now, a major pipeline has been put on hold, and those nations are trying to disentangle themselves from the need to buy anything from Russia.

And even when the war ends, and even if Putin is removed from power by internal or external means, Europe will be left with one country half reduced to rubble, land mines and unexploded ordnance, and the other a pariah state. Both will have suffered catastrophically in their own ways, and both are going to need rebuilding, physically in Ukraine’s case and economically in Russia’s. They, and Europe in general, will need lots of time to heal. I wonder what happened to Never Again.

 

The Trouble with Red Lines

How many times have we heard it spoken or implied: NATO won’t get involved in direct military action in the Ukraine war, but if Russia uses chemical or nuclear weapons, well then, that’s different, that’s a red line that Russia cannot cross. Russia doesn’t have to, of course, because it is trying to accomplish its ends without going there.

Let’s take the city of Mariupol, which has been destroyed, by merciless conventional bombardment, with many people killed. Let’s say that had been done by a nuclear weapon instead. The end result would be pretty much the same.

The basic problem with red lines is not the awful things that happen when they’re crossed. It’s what’s allowed to happen on this side of the line.

There are actually many lines drawn, as in, we’re not going to send our troops in, but we actively are sending weapons to help the Ukrainians out. So, we clearly have taken a side. NATO countries might say, it doesn’t involve us directly, because Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO. Well, yes it does, if you consider the tremendous economic impact it’s already having with the millions of refugees now flowing into NATO countries.

Of Vladimir Putin, President Biden said, this man cannot remain in power, forcing a lot of hair-splitting about whether that meant regime change. But Putin more or less IS the regime, in this particular case.

At some point there will be a cease fire and negotiations. Will Russia get to keep some of the territory it has conquered? And what about reparations? Will Russia pay for the physical damage, not even considering the pain and suffering caused to people? And the biggest question is, how do you negotiate with a war criminal, or multiple war criminals, down to the troops who have committed atrocities. Is genocide going on or not?

Look, I’m not beginning to suggest that any of these decisions or word definitions are easy. People with very good intentions are doing their best to avoid World War III. That is a line that nobody wants to cross. But how much is the world going to tolerate on this side of that line?