Charles Michel's Speech to the World Health Summit: Data, Global Cooperation, and Human Dignity

Coronavirus, CDC Image

Charles Michel, a Belgian politician who serves as President of the European Council, spoke yesterday, October 25, 2021, to the World Health Summit. The World Health Summit is meeting this week in a combined digital and live format, based this year in Berlin, Germany.

While much of the world, including not only Michel’s European Union, but also the United States of America, has degenerated into bizarre conspiracy theories and angry revolts against obviously-needed public health measures, Michel gave a calm, scientifically-based vision about the world-wide coronavirus epidemic. “Data is critical to our decision-making,” he insisted. Michel reminded the Summit that fact-based evidence is the key to defeating the coronavirus. He ignored the conspiracy theorists whose anti-public-health antics threatens to run the world’s progress right off its tracks. Instead, he looked at traditions that we often forget: sound international policy, fact-based reason, and world-wide human dignity.

Global Solutions
Michel’s first point was that the world needed “global governance for global solutions.” Many nations, including both the United States and his own nation of Belgium, sometimes fear globality. In contrast, Michel emphasized that the world’s nations need to work together to beat this terrible disease. He reminded the Summit of the disease’s horrifying toll. He pointed out how unprepared the world was to meet the challenge:

“COVID-19 has killed nearly five million people around the world. It also revealed that no country, not even the most developed, was prepared for such a pandemic. Despite the many predictions of scientists. The virus exposed the gaps in our national preparedness. But it has also exposed stark deficiencies in global governance. Information sharing is a clear example of that.”

World leaders don’t like to admit that they made mistakes, but only by facing our mistakes can we learn to do better. Continuing with his theme of data-driven policy, Michel wanted to see the nations share data about how viruses spread in which populations are most likely to succumb. The world needs to share data about treatments, and, he noted, “intensive international cooperation must play a critical role.” That is why Michel noted that “we must learn and implement new ways of working.”

“New ways of working?” In a world that resists change, Michel’s idea is more radical than it seems.

Michel warned that relying on individual nations or regions to control pandemics would never be enough: 

“In the European Union, health is mainly a national, or even sometimes a regional, competence. Yet early in the pandemic, we realized that information-sharing needed to be strengthened.” 

Again, he insisted on the need to share information – data.

Good Decision-Making  
Michel’s speech also covered what he called “the value of fact-based and objective decisions.” Europeans and Americans alike have been inundated in an astonishing flood of right-wing misinformation – outright lies – about the coronavirus and the necessary public health measures. Michel never mentioned the misinformation. Instead, he focused on the positive need for making decisions according to what is true.

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Tucker Carlson Used a Textbook Fallacy to Question the Coronavirus Vaccines
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Finally, Michel insisted on the liberalizing principle of “human dignity:”

“We are convinced that global challenges, like climate change, economic development or the fight against pandemics, require global solutions. We believe in a rules-based international order. We believe in universal values. We hope the international community will negotiate and agree on the future international treaty on pandemics.”

Throughout much of the world, including the United States, globalization is a hot-button topic that often leads to violent protests and insane conspiracy theories. The fact remains that the world is one big community. The world has always been a huge, interconnected community. People have depended on international travel and trade for thousands of years. Bronze Age people traded internationally. Marco Polo was a globalist. It is a fallacy to think that we can burrow into our own regions and ignore the rest of the world. 

Yet, with all his liberalizing ideas, Michel‘s concluding remark reminded his audience of an important tradition: the idea of world unity, embodied in the United Nations, which formed after the horrors of World War II:

“Let’s keep in mind the future of our children in the spirit of her predecessors, who signed the UN charter over 75 years ago.”

 

The Past and the Future
That last sentence rhetorically tied past and future together. We must think about our children’s future. We must, however, remember that our predecessors – people of the past – gave us wisdom that the world today should not forget. Michel reminded his audience, and the entire world, that we have traditions that are good, fine, and uplifting. For, we too often forget that collaboration is just as much a tradition as narrow-minded individualism.

Michel did not refute the conspiracy theorists, the anti-globalists, or the lunatic anti-mask, anti-vaccine crowd. Reason will never reach those people anyway. Michel’s calm, thoughtful speech, emphasized information, global cooperation, and human dignity. Why any of that should be controversial, I have no idea. Michel conveyed lessons that the world needs to hear, and I wish that his wonderful speech would receive the same amount of attention that the press devotes to rioters, uninformed people, irresponsible politicians, and conspiracy theorists. For, indeed, data-based policy and international cooperation are all that stop the world from tumbling into chaos.

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WHO's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Spoke for Public Health in a Positive Way During His Coronavirus Briefing

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Sought Common Ground in the Fight against the Coronavirus

The Build Back Better Agenda: Will Democrats Use the Bully Pulpit? Or Not? William McKinley Shows the Way

Joe Biden

A CBS/YouGov opinion poll released yesterday (October 10, 2021) revealed that the majority of Americans have no idea, or only a vague idea, of what the Democratic Party’s Build Back Better legislative bill even contains. At this point, the bill’s passage is in doubt. If it does pass, it will probably be much-reduced.

No surprise there! Why should the public know anything about the bill? Who is telling them? Pretty much no one. If the Democrats want this legislation to pass, they need to sell it.

We’re hearing all kinds of stuff in the press, and from Democratic speakers, arguing about how big the bill should be. Should it be $3.5 trillion? Or some smaller amount? Should it be paid for by taxing the rich?

Get a clue! Voters care about none of that. They want to know what the bill is doing. They want to know what it might do for them. And, in fact, all of the bill’s provisions – and I mean all of them – are polling very well. The public likes the idea of shoring up Medicare, expanding broadband access in rural areas, improving dental and vision care, and upgrading the nation’s rotting, crumbling roads and highways. Polls show that voters even support the climate provisions. Who would have guessed?

But there is a big disconnect. The public isn’t going to support the legislation unless they realize that it contains bunches of things that they like.

Much is made of the reluctance of senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. They both come from relatively conservative states. The fact remains that their states would benefit tremendously from this legislation. So why are they stalling? Have they been bribed by big business? Are they playing both sides? Who knows? Who cares? Forget about all of that. Members of Congress are simple, uncomplicated creatures who do whatever it takes to get reelected. Convince the voters of Arizona and West Virginia that they want the Build Back Better agenda, and Sinema and Manchin will magically agree and vote accordingly. Bingo.

There is precedent for this. We know how presidents can sell an unpopular agenda. More than a century ago, when President William McKinley wanted an uncooperative Senate to ratify the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American War and annexed the Philippine Islands, he did what any smart modern president would do. He went on speaking tours.

William McKinley

These were not just any speaking tours. Among other parts of the country, McKinley traveled by train to the South, where opposition to his policies was strongest, where he gave speech after speech. He traveled in the company of the ever-popular Confederate General Joseph Wheeler, who had rejoined the United States Army and was the hero of the Spanish-American War. Wheeler was a Democrat, while McKinley was a Republican, and they had fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. McKinley’s speeches were vague, carefully constructed to offend as few people as possible. He praised the South. He promised to care for the graves of Confederate soldiers. He talked about trade and prosperity. He exalted the “protecting folds” of the American flag, which would spread out to give prosperity and justice to the Filipino people. He praised soldiers and sailors of the South and North alike for the quick, popular victory over Spain. In other words, he went directly to his opponents’ territory and reached out concerning issues they cared about.

And, guess what? It worked. The Senate ratified the treaty by the required two-thirds vote. The United States quickly annexed the Philippine Islands. Now, unfortunately, the annexation didn’t go quite as well as McKinley had expected. Filipinos immediately launched a bitter war of independence in an effort to drive the Americans out of their country. The fact remains that McKinley had a policy, the policy was not attractive, and yet he convinced the public to support it. Once the public was on his side, the senators meekly dropped into place.

Biden Speaking about Build Back Better

Let us come back to 2021. If Democrats want to sell their agenda, they need to reach out. They need to reach out much more aggressively than they have so far. President Joe Biden has given some speeches about the proposal. Those speeches were fine. He has not, however, given enough speeches. He needs to tell people about his agenda every day. He needs to reach out to different audiences – every day. Leading Democrats need to do more than to offer a few mumbled comments on the Sunday morning TV shows. They need to hold town halls, one after the other, and explain the benefits that their agenda will bring to people. Instead of sniping at one another on Twitter, they need to use their social media to tell people what the bill contains and how it will help them.
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More Information: Biden and the Bully Pulpit: Biden’s Infrastructure Speech
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And that is not enough. The Democrats need to go on Fox News. Democrats today act as if Fox News is poison. Why? The Fox News audience is exactly the people they need to reach. They need to get on talk radio. If they want to talk about the United States as one unified country, they need to reach out to people who disagree with them. Remember, McKinley was a decorated combat veteran of the Civil War. (Or, as Southerners of the time sometimes said, the War of Northern Aggression.) He didn’t expect to get a lot of support from the South. He did not even expect them to like him. He did know, however, that he needed to reach out to the South to moderate their opposition to his proposals, to show that he cared about them, and to solicit unity. He spoke to a friendly audience at a southern African-American University. He spoke to the Georgia legislature. Making a appearance on Fox News can’t be as hard as what McKinley did.

Theodore Roosevelt called the presidency the “bully pulpit.” And he was right. Political scientist Jeffrey Tulis said that modern presidents routinely bypass Congress to sell their ideas directly to the public. That is what the Democrats need to do.

People often talk about how former President Donald Trump is always in the news. Pundits say that he sucks the oxygen right out of the room. They are right. Trump controls the agenda. He controls the agenda by holding rallies, making media appearances, and generally making a nuisance of himself. You might not like him, but you can’t ignore him. President Biden is getting too easy to ignore. The Democrats are too easy to ignore. They need to climb on the bully pulpit and commandeer their share of the media’s oxygen. That does not mean that they need to say stupid things like what Trump says. It means that they need to tell people about their agenda – over, over, and over. They need to tell people why the agenda is needed and how it will work. That is why we have the bully pulpit. As I have said many times, the side that sets the agenda will win the debate.

Throughout his career, McKinley emphasized unity in the face of disorder and compassion in the face of strife. I don’t see any reason that it wouldn’t work today. The way to overcome polarization is with unity.

So, are the Democrats giving good speeches? Or bad speeches? That’s not the point. The point is that they are not giving enough speeches. They need to inform the public. They need to set the agenda.

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Further Reading: Rhetoric in William McKinley's 1898-1899 Speaking Tours

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Research Note: I wrote about McKinley’s speaking tours in a chapter that I wrote for Before the Rhetorical Presidency. Copies are available in most large libraries, and, of course, it is available for sale in major bookstores. I also wrote an unpublished paper about McKinley’s speaking techniques during his tour to sell the treaty; link above. Click on William D. Harpine’s Publications above to see more of my writing about McKinley’s speeches.

Interested readers might want to look at my book, From the Front Porch to the Front Page, about public speaking in the 1896 presidential campaign between McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. There are chapters about McKinley’s use of such themes as identification and unity. The book is now available in paperback, and, of course, many university libraries have it on their shelves. 

Mel Laracey’s excellent book, Presidents and the People: The Partisan Story of Going Public, includes an insightful discussion of McKinley and the rhetorical presidency.

P.S. If you want to bypass the politicians and read a summary of Build Back Better, here is a simple explanation. 

Image of Biden: White House photo. Image of McKinley: Library of Congress. Image of Biden's speech: White House YouTube channel. 

"It's All about Control:" Conservatives, Public Health, and the Jackhammer Method of Persuasion

Coronavirus, CDC Image

Right-wing firebrand Ryan Fournier recently complained on his Twitter account that the government uses the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to control people. He gave no support to public health. Instead, he invited his followers to fear the power that big government was exerting on their lives: 

“Los Angeles will soon require a VACCINE PASSPORT if you want to enter a:
Bar
Restaurant
Nail salon
Gym
Stadium
Mall
Museum
This is no longer about the pandemic. It's about control!”

Anyone who follows conservative anti-vaccine and anti-mask rhetoric hears the same phrase, over and over: “It’s about control.” It’s not about public health, they imply, it’s about control. Do they have a good argument to prove that? Of course not. Instead, they mindlessly repeat “It’s about control” over – and over – and over.

Indeed, what conservative listeners hear all day from their favorite media and elected officials is: “It’s about control.” “It’s about control.” “It’s about control.” The same phrase, pounded into their brains with the force of jackhammers.

Let’s start with two premises:

1. The coronavirus vaccines and face masks have been proven to be quite safe and effective.
2. For some reason, American conservatives have taken the virus’ side in this pandemic.

Since the substantive arguments against the vaccines and masks are absurd, American conservatives rely, instead, on two simple persuasive techniques: repetition and misdirection. The same methods that stage magicians use to fool their audiences. 

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What are some of the absurd arguments against public health? Prominent conservatives have claimed that the vaccines magnetize a person’s body to the extent that brass keys (which, of course, are not magnetic) will stick to a person’s body. They allege that tiny octopus-like creatures are injected along with the vaccines. (No, I didn’t make that up). Or that the vaccines contain microchips. Or that they alter a person’s DNA. Or that face masks like the ones surgeons wear all day trap carbon dioxide. Only the most deluded people will believe such nonsense. Although there turn out to be more deluded people than I would have expected, conservatives need to reach a larger audience. Conservatives turn to repetition and misdirection because their substantive arguments are ridiculous. They have no other choice.

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Repetition

The point is that, whatever conservatives lack in content, they make up in repetition. In a massive six-month study, Media Matters found that Fox News hosts, guests, and announcers attacked coronavirus vaccines almost every day. Fox News offered a wide range of bizarre accusations, one of which is the argument that vaccines are about government control, not about health. Fox News also routinely falsely claimed that vaccines were killing people, that they were ineffective, or that the coronavirus can be cured by quack medicine treatments.

Here was my moment of epiphany. The other day, wanting to stay alert while driving, I turned on a local talk radio station. Hour after hour (it dawned on me) talk radio hosts rant about the vaccines and masks, say that the masks and vaccines are all about control, and tell people that they are dangerous. Then, of course, public health misinformation is also all over Facebook and any number of right-wing websites. Rarely do conservatives present any evidence. Even less often do they present evidence that is remotely credible. That’s not the point. The point is that they repeat wild accusations constantly. Fox News and talk radio addicts expose themselves to a constant run, an endless, frantic flood, of misinformation. Absurd lies. Obvious nonsense. And why do they believe the nonsense? The answer: repetition. It’s not that the information is good, or even that it makes sense, but that many conservatives hear the misinformation all day and all night. Televisions in military bases and airports blare Fox News constantly to captive audiences. Many people subscribe to cable just so they can be misinformed.

Worse, the exact phrase – “It’s about control” – crops up over and over. Listeners’ minds are programmed to believe that “It’s all about control.” It’s not just that the false idea is repeated, but that the exact words are repeated in a direct, simple, easy-to-remember formula. Let’s take a look.


“It’s About Control”
There are many examples of the standard formula. Pedro Gonzalez, appearing as a guest on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, complained about military coronavirus vaccination mandates:

“The answer to your question is that this isn’t about public safety, it’s about control.”

Likewise, Tennessee congressional representative Diana Harshbarger proudly posted on her website that she opposed President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates:

“‘The recent vaccine mandates by President Biden are nothing short of authoritarian government overreach that infringe upon our American civil liberties,’ said Congresswoman Harshbarger. ‘The Biden administration has revealed that this isn’t about COVID-19, it’s about control.’” Americans have rightfully lost their trust in President Biden to provide accurate guidance when it comes to COVID-19 as he continues to put politics over science.’”

Agreeing that it is all about control, actor Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules on television, posted on his social media that:

“It’s not about a mask, it’s about CONTROL.” 

Similarly, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt tweeted that:

“But gov’t shouldn’t mandate those masks or masks for kids. It’s about control and I’m fighting back.”

Also concerned about government control, preacher Dr. Jimmy DeYoung, Sr. asked a guest on his talk radio show:

“Could this vaccine be another form of government control of the people?”

Not long after, Dr. DeYoung became one of several unvaccinated right-wing, anti-public health radio hosts to die from a coronavirus infection. It seems that it is dangerous to believe your own propaganda. Who would have guessed? 

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Further Reading: Tucker Carlson and the Conservative Fantasy of Perfect Vaccines

Elaine's Post: We Must Have Mask and Vaccine Mandates to Protect Children

Elaine's Post: Why Do People Fear the COVID-19 Vaccine More Than They Fear COVID-19? The Perception of Control  - Elaine discuses the psychology of vaccine hesitancy.
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And the Repetition Filters on Down –
Does this constant repetition about “control” have an effect? Alas, it does. Perfectly ordinary people find themselves echoing the same phrase: that public health measures are all about control. They even repeat the exact words – “It’s about control” – over and over, like tape recorders, like automata who are programmed to repeat a favorite phrase while never thinking about what it means. 

For example, refusing to take a mandated vaccine, substitute teacher April Johnson wrote to a local newspaper:

“But it’s not really about science or being ‘safe.’ It’s about control. Our state government doesn’t think we, the people who elected them, are capable of making our own choices. They are using fear tactics to steal away personal liberty, bit by bit. But I won’t comply. I won’t play the game.”

Aha! She repeated the magic phase, “It’s  about control.” Of course, any number of demonstrators are waving signs like the one in a recent Boulder protest, which said: 

“It’s not about the virus. It’s about control.”

Similarly, Shannon Long, a speaker at a recent Maryland school board meeting, complained that it was all about control. According to the news report:

“Ms. Long complained about ‘politicians and their bull-- — science. This is not about health. It’s about control.’”

Not to be outdone, a speaker at a North Carolina school board meeting was even more defiant as she protested government control:
 

“‘The reason for these mask mandates is not the health of our kids. It’s all about control,’ one woman said. ‘We do not consent. We do not comply.’”

“It’s about control” has, by sheer force of repetition, programmed itself into ordinary people’s brains. People who would otherwise have lived perfectly normal, good lives immerse themselves in conservative discourse and, by sheer force of hearing the repetition, begin to parrot right-wing phrases. I can’t say that they are parroting ideas. They aren’t. They are parroting words that have pounded into their minds. 

In other words, conservatives use the jackhammer approach to persuasion.


And Misdirection!
A rational, issue-based discussion of vaccines and masks would focus on the actual issues. Does the FDA have good evidence that the vaccines are safe and effective? Are there documented harms from the vaccines, or do masks really trap your carbon dioxide? Discussing substantive evidence will get conservatives only so far, since they don’t really have much evidence. Talking about microscopic octopi and DNA modification only gets you so far. But as soon as conservatives say, “It’s about control,” we are no longer debating the same issues. We are, instead, questioning whether we want to let the government tell us what to do. Do we want the government to tell us how to raise our children? Do we want the government to make health decisions on our behalf?

There is, of course, nothing new or tyrannical about public health. I grew up in the era of polio quarantines. The Founders of our Republic imposed quarantines and other public health measures when they thought they were necessary.

Of course, unfortunately, on the whole, the conservative public knows no more about history than they do about science. And so, the pandemic rages on – needlessly, and tragically.

For, in real life, it is not about control.

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Further Reading: People Did Not Believe Cassandra’s Warnings About the Trojan Horse, And People Didn’t Believe Bill Gates’ Warning about Viral Pandemics

Elaine’s Post: COVID-19 Misinformation and Lies Are Killing Young People

Further Reading: Trump and the Maskless Crowd: Masks Are a Flag Issue for Conservative Voters
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Research Note: A theory of persuasion called the Elaboration Likelihood Model says that there two different ways that audiences can process information. They can take the Central Route, which means they gather information and analyze the issue. Or they can take the Peripheral Route, in which they rely on otherwise irrelevant cues like the attractiveness of the source, or the simple repetition of the message.

People who feel qualified and willing to analyze information carefully will engage in critical thinking when they hear persuasive messages. People who, for whatever reason, are not analyzing the information will instead rely on cues. The simple fact that so many people have heard “It’s all about control” so many times gives them a peripheral cue. Repetition can persuade people–if they don’t spend time and effort to analyze the facts.


Citizenship Note: Yes, the conservative media outlets are utterly irresponsible. The rest of the public does, however, need to listen to what they are saying. There is, for example, no reason that the anti-public-health hysteria should have caught public health experts off guard. Right-wing propaganda goes under the radar only if people refuse to turn on their metaphorical radar sets and pay attention to what conservatives are saying. Yes, conservatives often live in a media bubble. When they emerge from that bubble, however, they can sometimes become quite dangerous. Pay attention.

[Note: In this post, I supplied italics every time someone said, “it’s about control.” The words are the same; I just added italics.] 

P.S. I love Kevin Sorbo's shows. Especially Andromeda. Just saying. 

Israel’s new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, Spoke against Polarization, but...... but.....

Israel’s new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, recently spoke at the United Nations. His twin themes: the coronavirus, and polarization. He said:

“There are two plagues that are challenging the very fabric of society at this moment: One is the coronavirus, which has killed over 5 million people around the globe; the other has also shaken the world as we know it — it’s the disease of political polarization.

“Both coronavirus and polarization can erode public trust in our institutions, both can paralyze nations. If left unchecked, their effects on society can be devastating.”

Unfortunately, Bennett soon contributed to polarization by devoting much of his speech to a brutal attack against Iran:

“Ebrahim Raisi [Iran’s President] also oversaw the murder of Iranian children. His nickname is “the butcher of Tehran,” because that’s exactly what he did — butchered his own people.”

I’m not saying that Bennett was wrong. The fact remains that name calling (“butcher of Tehran”) just adds to the polarization. Is Bennett extending an olive branch, or the barrels of artillery?

So hard, is it not, to live up to our ideals in an imperfect world?

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Further Reading: Trump's Polarizing Rally in Kentucky. Polarization Has Its Drawbacks.
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P.S.: I’m pro-Israel, and I don’t like Iran’s government, but, still, rhetoric is rhetoric.

Dina Pronicheva’s Testimony at a War Crimes Trial: A Model of Effective Persuasion, a Reminder That We Must Never Forget History’s Lessons

Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial

Today, September 29, 2021, is the 80th anniversary of the Nazi massacre at Babi Yar. On September 29-30, 1941, SS troops, assisted by Wehrmacht soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers, and Ukrainian police, murdered more than 33,000 Ukrainian Jews – men, women, and even small children. Babi Yar is a ravine outside Kiev. The victims were marched to the ravine and shot. The killings went on for two terrible days.

Dina Pronicheva, a local actress, survived the massacre and testified about her experiences. She presented her statement in a calm, matter-of-fact style. Her story taught us a lesson about inhuman brutality that we must never forget.

Pronicheva narrated how she was separated from her family on September 29, never to see her mother (who died that day) again. She described the sounds of screams and gunfire. She explained how she played dead while murdered and dying victims were piled on top of her, until it got dark and she was able to sneak away. Here is a brief selection from her testimony:

“Suddenly all became quiet. It was getting dark. Germans armed with submachine-guns walked around, finishing off the wounded. I felt that somebody was standing above me, but I did not give any sign that I was alive, even though that was very difficult. Then I felt we were being covered with earth. I closed my eyes so that the soil would not get into them, and when it became dark and silent, literally the silence of death, I opened my eyes and threw the sand off me, making sure that no one was close by, no one was around, no one was watching me. I saw the pit with thousands of dead bodies. I was overcome by terror. In some places the earth was heaving - people half-alive were [still] breathing.”

Her calm recitation of facts was enough. The Nazis’ crimes were so horrible, so unthinkably brutal, that there was no need for her to supplement her description with the blood-curdling words that demagogues so love to utter. She let her horrible experience speak for itself.

What was the legal aftermath? Paul Blobel, one of the massacre’s main organizers, was arrested after the war, convicted of murder, and executed. Most of the lower-level participants, such as common soldiers, middle-ranking commanders, and police officers, never faced justice. Those who survived the war returned quietly to their peacetime lives.

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Further Reading: Richard Spencer’s “End of History” Speech: Are Trump’s Supporters Fooling Themselves?
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A Holocaust slogan tells us: “never forget.” My uncle, Pfc. Peter Feduska, son of immigrants, gave his life fighting Nazis in World War II. My father-in-law, Rev. Jesse Clanton, was a disabled veteran of the same fight. My father came back from World War II in North Africa and Southern France uninjured, but shaken by what he had seen. Millions of Americans can tell similar stories. Conservatives love to call the men and women of World War II “the greatest generation.” 

Yet, in the United States today, we are getting closer to Nazi Germany than we would like to think. People who wave Nazi symbols and wear T-shirts that say “6MWE6” (“6 Million Wasn’t Enough”) describe themselves as American patriots. On occasions that are rare, but even so too frequent, such people even find a home in today’s Republican Party. Indeed, although former President Donald Trump condemned neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, he also said that some of those who marched with them were “fine people.”  That's a pretty close distinction. Before the 2020 election, Trump told the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group, to “stand back and stand by.” 

Yes, it could happen here. It could happen here if good people fail to stop it. Adolf Hitler characterized himself as a Christian fighter, a defender of the faithful. Germany in 1941 was one the world's richest countries, the homeland of Bach, Beethoven, Schiller, and Martin Luther. If it could happen there, it could happen here. The only way to honor the greatest generation is to make sure that their sacrifices were not in vain. 

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For Further Reading: Adolf Hitler’s “Christian Nationalist” Speech

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I bring up Dina Pronicheva’s testimony because we must, in fact, never forget. The human capacity for cruelty is boundless. Nevertheless, there is also no limit to the human capacity for doing what is right. Pronicheva’s calm, detailed recitation of the facts of her own experience remind us what can happen and what we must never allow to happen again. Pronicheva’s testimony reminds us of the horrors that people commit in the name of racism, religious bigotry, and bureaucratic inertia. Still, all the time, the people who commit monstrous deeds describe themselves as moral and noble, as good Christians, as self-sacrificing patriots, as paragons of virtue. The world must never forget Dina Pronicheva’s testimony. She laid out the facts. The world listened to her at the time. But have we moved on and forgotten? Or do we wrongly think that her dark warning has become ancient history? 

P.S. The "documentary novel" Babi Yar was one of the formative experiences of my youth. Everyone should read it. Everyone. 

Image: דוד שי, via Wikimedia Commons

President Joe Biden Told the United Nations the World Has a Choice

Biden Speaking at the UN

Yesterday, September 21, 2021, President Joe Biden gave a carefully-scripted speech to the United Nations General Assembly. He said that “our collective future will hinge on our ability to recognize our common humanity and to act together.” He did not just list policies or make promises; more than that, he urged the world to think about doing the right things. To work together, to do the right things, Biden assisted, was a choice: “this is the clear and urgent choice,” he said.

Biden reaffirmed the United States’ dedication to diplomacy, the nation’s recommitment to the Paris climate accords, and contributions to the fight against COVID-19. All of that is fine. In large part, he wanted to assure the anxious delegates that the United States was moving past the chaos of the Trump administration and rejoining the international community. I don’t know whether anyone was convinced. After all, the United States’ ongoing political turmoil is obvious to the entire world. Biden’s speech had a theme: and that theme was choice. Will we make the right choices? 

Indeed, Biden pulled his points into the theme of choice:

“I know this: As we look ahead, we will lead. We will lead on all the greatest challenges of our time — from COVID to climate, peace and security, human dignity and human rights. But we will not go it alone.

“We will lead together with our Allies and partners and in cooperation with all those who believe, as we do, that this is within our power to meet these challenges, to build a future that lifts all of our people and preserves this planet.

“But none of this is inevitable; it’s a choice. And I can tell you where America stands: We will choose to build a better future. We — you and I –- we have the will and capacity to make it better.”

Biden’s point was that – we all have a choice. “It is within our power,” he said, and “none of this is inevitable.” The news pundits and politicians all seem to be missing that theme. Biden promised that the United States would lead the world in making the right choices. 

Making positive decisions is a choice. At the same time, however, political turmoil is also a choice. We can choose to deal with climate change, or we can choose to ignore it. We can choose to deal with the coronavirus, or we, along with former President Donald Trump, can pretend that it is a hoax. We can choose to work together as an international community, or we can choose conflict and disaster. World history shows us that there is no guarantee that humanity will make the right choices. At the same time, however, history shows us that we can do the right things if we so desire. That is why he insisted "it is within our power." 

There will always be people who fear failure so deeply that they refuse to succeed. No one can stop change, but we can learn to control change instead of fearing it. We can recognize that humanity is stronger when we work together than when we degenerate into partisan conflict.

Even in the United States, however, it is not certain that Biden can fulfill his relatively modest agenda. Even as I write this, the Republican Party’s representatives in Congress are threatening to default on debt payments. Tens of millions of Americans, apparently still thinking that the coronavirus is no big deal, refuse to take vaccines or to follow even the most minimal public health precautions. Those are also choices. Inaction is a choice. Refusal to admit basic facts is a choice. It is a choice if, like former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, we choose to believe in “alternative facts” instead of truth.

Biden’s speech was sober and thoughtful. There were no John Kennedy-like flights of eloquence. His purpose seemingly was not to inspire, but to encourage us all to think about our futures. Yes, he tactfully refuted the Trump philosophy. But to reject what is bad is not enough. We must also move forward to what is good.

So, yes, the world faces choices. United States faces choices. Will we make the right choices? Or will we succumb to bitterness and fatalism? At least President Biden made the effort. Will enough voters, factions, and nations join him? Time will tell.

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Further Reading: Joe Biden's Juneteenth Speech Used Values to Support Policies

Further Reading: Joe Biden's 2020 DNC Acceptance Speech Did Not Play It Safe

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Image: From White House YouTube Channel

Can Proof Ever Be Absolute? Tucker Carlson and the Conservative Fantasy of Perfect Vaccines

Coronavirus, CDC Image

What I hear almost constantly from conservatives’ anti-vaccine rhetoric is a demand for certainty. Absolutism. The coronavirus vaccines must be proven, they say absolutely for certain, to prevent all infections. The side effects must be zero. The risk must be nil. The proof must be complete. The vaccines must be flawless. They either work, or they don’t work – nothing in between, so the anti-vaxxers tell us.

And the king of the anti-vaxxers is Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

But Carlson and his ilk promote a fantasy. Perfection is a fantasy. Human beings don’t have access to perfection. No physician can offer perfect medications. No one has a perfect brain. No scientific study is perfect. We live in a world of probabilities. If we are wise, we judge our actions by what the majority of the best evidence tells us. We can expect nothing better. Yet, the conservative anti-vaccine rhetoric often insists on perfection. Their argument seems to be that the vaccines must work 100%, or 0%. It appears that nothing in-between makes sense to them. Yet we live in a world of in-betweens.

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Read: Tucker Carlson Used a Textbook Fallacy to Question the Coronavirus Vaccines

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Tucker Carlson Asks for Perfection

So, let’s look a passage from Tucker Carlson’s July 30, 2021 monologue:

“Now — surprise, surprise — they’re demanding that even after you got the shot, you wear a mask again, even when you’re outside.

“What’s going on here? Why are they doing this? There must be some reason for it. We’ve been wondering about it all week. Yesterday we asked the CDC to explain the reasoning behind it. They couldn’t tell us. Today they did. What an explanation. It turns out that the COVID vaccines – those wonder drugs that were absolutely perfect, more impressive than the moon landing, the drugs you were not allowed to question in any way – don’t actually work in the way they told us they did. The science is more complicated than we thought.”

Let’s pull out Carlson’s key phrase, which he uttered, his lips dripping with sarcasm: “those wonder drugs that were absolutely perfect.”

But No One Said Vaccines Were Perfect  

First, public health officials aren't saying that the vaccines were “absolutely perfect.” In April 2021, for example, Dr. Anthony Fauci said: “No matter what study you look at, the protection against severe disease leading to hospitalization is always well within the 90%, regardless of the study, regardless of the country.” He did not say absolutely perfect. He did not say 100% effective. He said 90%: nine times out of ten.

Further, in April 2021 the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released a major controlled study. The study found that the mRNA vaccines were highly effective, but not 100% effective:

“Prospective cohorts of 3,950 health care personnel, first responders, and other essential and frontline workers completed weekly SARS-CoV-2 testing for 13 consecutive weeks. Under real-world conditions, mRNA vaccine effectiveness of full immunization (³14 days after second dose) was 90% against SARS-CoV-2 infections regardless of symptom status; vaccine effectiveness of partial immunization (³14 days after first dose but before second dose) was 80%.”

The researchers stated the information quite clearly. The vaccines were 90% effective against infections two weeks after the second dose. That’s remarkable, but it is not 100%. It is not perfection.

Despite the admitted lack of perfection, the study concluded:

“Authorized mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are effective for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection in real-world conditions. COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for all eligible persons.”

Similarly, an August 2021 research report found that the vaccines were highly but not completely effective:

“Among adults aged 65–74 years, effectiveness of full vaccination in preventing COVID-19–associated hospitalization was 96% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 94%–98%) for Pfizer-BioNTech, 96% (95% CI = 95%–98%) for Moderna, and 84% (95% CI = 64%–93%) for Janssen vaccine products.”

In other words, for older adults (like me), full vaccination prevented hospitalization with an effectiveness between 84% and 96%. That’s really good. It’s not perfect.

In September 2021 – this month – the CDC released a new study conducted among veterans hospitalized in Veterans Affairs medical centers. This is obviously a high-risk population. The results were somewhat less impressive than the April study, which was to be expected. The researchers nevertheless found that the vaccines were highly, but not perfectly, effective:

“During February 1–August 6, 2021, vaccine effectiveness among U.S. veterans hospitalized at five Veterans Affairs Medical Centers was 87%. mRNA COVID-19 vaccines remain highly effective, including during periods of widespread circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant. Vaccine effectiveness in preventing COVID-19–related hospitalization was 80% among adults aged ³65 years compared with 95% among adults aged 18–64 years.”

So, the researchers found that the effectiveness in reducing hospitalizations was 80% among older adults and 95% among younger adults. That’s good, of course, but still not perfect.

But Wasn't the Smallpox Vaccine Perfect? (Uh, No, It Wasn't.)

But is Tucker Carlson moderating his views in the light of repeated scientific studies? So far, no. In his September 13, 2021 monologue, Carlson carried the demand for vaccine perfection even farther:

“Unlike say the smallpox vaccine, which prevents you from getting smallpox, the COVID vaccines do not necessarily prevent you from getting COVID. The COVID vaccine does not prevent you from spreading COVID to other people. The long-term effects of the COVID vaccines are unknown, and at this point cannot be known.”

As usual, Carlson talked about perfection: “the COVID vaccines do not necessarily prevent you from getting COVID” he said.  Yes, once again, Carlson suffered from the fantasy of perfection. Nor were smallpox vaccines 100% effective. A 2003 scientific article found that the smallpox vaccines were 90%+ effective in producing an immune response. That is not 100%. By pretending that the old vaccines were perfect, Carlson falsely implied that the new vaccines are substandard. Necessarily? No, of course not. Probably? Yes. Perfection is a fantasy.

Probability Is Our Only Real Goal

Every argumentation and debate textbook warns students not to expect perfection. In the realm of human affairs, what we work for is probability, supported by evidence. If we wait for something to be proved for certain, well, we will wait forever. In their textbook, Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision-Making, Austin J. Freeley and David L. Steinberg explained that point precisely:

“Probability is associated with a high degree of likelihood (but not certainty) that a conclusion is true. As advocates we will spend much of our time trying to prove that our propositions have a high degree of probability and are more probably true than those of our opponents. For example, no method of contraception is 100 percent effective; even sterilization fails at times, and other methods range from 76 percent to 97.6 percent in their effectiveness. Thus, in choosing contraceptives, people are basing their decisions on probabilities.”

So, let us get back to Tucker Carlson’s July 30 conclusion: “The science is more complicated than we thought.” Is that not the point? Strangely enough, Carlson even admitted the problem of perfection at another point in his July 30 monologue:

“Surprised? You shouldn’t be surprised. Science is like that. It can change quickly. It is never really settled, despite what they tell you.”

Unfortunately, Carlson did not offer that cautionary comment to reassure his listeners that the bulk of scientific evidence was accurate. No, instead, he cast doubt on believing in any scientific information – since scientific information can change, should we believe it at all? “Despite what they tell you?” What a strange twist on the problem of perfection and certainty.

Conclusion: Judge by Probability and Evidence

Perhaps the anti-vaccine people insist that they will only change their minds if they hear 100% proof that they are wrong. Perhaps they think that is better to be wrong than to change. To insist on perfect proof, however, is to insist on something that can never be.

The scientific researchers and public health officials who Tucker Carlson misrepresented and ridiculed said exactly what they should have said. They said that the vaccines are effective with a stated degree of probability. Yes, it is possible to be vaccinated and still get sick. However, the evidence shows that the probability of being healthy is much greater if one is vaccinated than if one is not vaccinated. To pursue perfection is to chase a fantasy.

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Read: “And This Is Their New Hoax:” Donald Trump’s Six Deadly Words Still Ravage Our Nation

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P. S.: On a side note, if a person wants to be well-informed about scientific information, especially on a controversial subject, one can look directly at the scientific studies. Many of these are found on Google Scholar at scholar.google.com. On the right-hand column of a Google Scholar search, the reader can find full-text copies of some of the actual articles. Otherwise, your local library probably has access to the research databases. Librarians will be happy to help you find the information you need, and it doesn’t take much more time than browsing around on doubtful websites. If people want to do their own research, looking at Facebook posts and political blogs does not do the job. Listening to uninformed or devious political pundits is no better. The best way to avoid media misinformation is not to become cynical and turn to mindless negativism. No, bypass the media and go to the source!