Memorial Day Comments Follow Up [UPDATED]

Oliver left this message on my Memorial Day Covid Count post in which I questioned the extreme level of honor we give to all military and veterans:

"Or do we reserve such days to glorify those who are sent off to kill people overseas?
The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. I would wager that some people are very thankful for those who went overseas rather than disparage them. My dad was one of those people and I am dam proud of him."

I started a response comment, but felt it should be more than just a comment, that it deserved a post of its own.  Here it is:


Oliver, I understand that there have been situations where taking up arms was a necessary form of self protection. My paternal grandparents died in a Nazi concentration camp, possibly Auschwitz, so I understand that argument and thank your father for fighting Nazi Germany.   My father and step-father both served in the US military during WW II after fleeing Nazi Germany.

 But let's be clear. The US did not go into WW II to liberate concentration camp victims. The State Department consciously restricted visas for Jews fleeing the Nazis. The British and US military passed on disrupting concentration camp infrastructure during the war. The US public opposed joining the war in Europe and it took Pearl Harbor to change that opinion.

WW II ended almost 75 years ago! What good wars would you like to cite since then? What about the various countries in which the US is killing soldiers and civilians right now?

There are legitimate reasons to go to war. But there are few legitimate reasons to start wars. My point here was not to dis-honor veterans, but rather to point out that our adulation of them is way out of proportion.

Soldiers are victims of what Eisenhower - the hero of WW II - called the military-industrial complex back in the 1950s. Nine percent of US homeless today are veterans. We go to war because it serves the war industry.

 By elevating soldiers as the greatest possible heroes, we make it easier to lure 18 year olds into joining the military. Poverty is another structural way to recruit soldiers. And let's not forget all the well-paid mercenaries the US uses now. We haven't started building monuments to them yet.

The nationalism that accompanies this adulation (American flags are as important to Memorial Day as Christmas trees are to Christmas) also has the effect of demonizing the people of other countries. Vietnamese were 'gooks' not humans, so they were acceptable targets.

 We should honor legitimate war heroes, but we shouldn't glorify war. We should stop creating more war corpses and shattered veterans. That was my point.

I'd recommend a few resources, one 80 years old - Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series, starting with World's End (available at the link free), and these contemporary ones: this Youtube on rethinking Memorial Day featuring Danny Sjursen. Let's continue this after you've checked out these links (particularly the last two, since the first one is pretty lengthy.)  (Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle.)

[UPDATED  May 31, 2020: And here's a reassessment of the US role in WW II and the idea of 'the good war.']

Alaska COVID-19 Count Friday May 29, 2020 - 5 New Cases, 1 New Hospitalizations

Today's five new cases seems good, only in comparison to yesterday's 13 new cases.  Before yesterday, the last time we had over four cases was May 1.  After I posted yesterday, I thought that maybe the jump in the numbers resulted from a week of Kenai test results getting processed in on day (there were seven from Kenai yesterday.)  But today's numbers include two more from Kenai, as well as two from Anchorage, and one from Juneau.

CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ALASKA MARCH/APRIL/May 2020
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
new/total	hos=hospital		12th  = 0/0	13th = 1/1	14th = 0/1	15th = 0/1
16th = 0/1	17th = 2/3	18th = 3/6	19th = 3/9	20th = 3/12	21st= 2/14	22nd= 8/22
23rd=14/36	24th =6/42 1 hos 1 dead	25th = 17/59 3 hos 1 dead	26th = 10/69 3 hos 1 dead	27th =16/89 5 hos 2 dead	28th = 13/102 6 hos 2 dead	29th= 12/114 7 hos  3 dead
30th=5/119 7 hos 3 dead	31st= 14/133 9 hos 3 dead
April 2020		1st=  10/143 9 hos 3 dead	2nd=8(6)/149 13 hos 3 dead	3rd=8(11)157 15 hos 3 dead	4th=15/171 16 hos 5 dead	5th= 14/185 20 hos 6 dead
6th=6/191 23 hosp 6 dead	7th= 22/213 23 hosp 6 Dead29 recovered	8th= 13/226 27 hosp 7 dead 32 recovered	9th= 9/235 27 hosp 7 dead 49 recovered	10th=11/246 28 hosp 7 dead 55 recovered	11th=11/257 31 hosp 8 dead 63 recovered	12th= 15/272 31 hosp 8 dead 66 recovered
13th= 5/277 32 Hosp 8 dead 85 Recovered	14th = 8/285 32 Hosp 9 dead 98 Recovered	15th= 8/293 34 Hosp 9 dead 106 Recovered	16th= 7/300 35 hosp 9 dead 110 recovered	17th=  9/309 36 hosp 9 dead 128 recovered	18th =  5/315 36 hos 9 dead 147 Recovered	19th= 4/319 36 hos 9 dead 153Recovered
20th 2/321 36 hos 9 dead 161 recovered	21st 8/329 36 hos 9 dead 168 recovered	22nd  6/335 36 hos  9 dead 196recovered	23nd  2/337 36 hos  9 dead 209recovered	24th  2/339 36 hos  9 dead 208recovered (-1 from 4/23)	25th  0/339 36 hos  9 dead 217recovered	26th  2/341 36 hos  9 dead 217recovered
27th  4/345 37 hos  9 dead 218recovered	28th  6/351 37 hos  9 dead 228 recovered	29th  4/355 36 hos  9 dead 240recovered	30th  0/355 36 hos  9 dead 252recovered
May 2020				1st  9/364 36 hos  9 dead 254recovered	2nd  1/365 36 hos  9 dead 261recovered	3rd  3/368 36 hos  9 dead 262recovered
4th  2/370 37 hos  9 dead 263recovered	5th  1/371 38 hos  9 dead 277 recovered	6th  1/372 38 hos 10 dead 284recovered	7th  2/374 38 hos 10 dead 291recovered	8th  3/377 38 hos 10 dead 305recovered	9th  1/378 38 hos 10 dead 318recovered	10th  1/379 38 hos 10 dead 324recovered
11th  1/381 38 hos 10 dead 328recovered	12th  2/383 38 hos 10 dead 334 recovered	13th  0/383 38 hos 10 dead 335recovered	14th  4/387 39 hos 10 dead 339recovered	15th  1/388 41 hos 10 dead 343recovered	16th  4/392 43 hos 10 dead 344recovered	17th  4/396 43 hos 10 dead 344recovered
18th  3/399 43 hos 10 dead 345recovered	19th  0/399 43 hos 10 dead 348 recovered	20th  3/402 44 hos 10 dead 352recovered	21st  0/402 44 hos 10 dead 356recovered	22st  2/404 44 hos 10 dead 356recovered	23rd4/408 45 hos 10 dead 358recovered	24th 0/408 45 hos 10 dead 358recovered
25th1/409 45 hos 10 dead 361recovered	26th 2/411 45 hos 10 dead 362 recovered	27th 2/411 46 hos 10 dead 362recovered	28th13/425 46 hos 10 dead 366recovered	29th5/430 47 hos 10 dead 367recovered

State Charts

The screen shot above is high resolution so you can click on it to enlarge and focus. Click here if you want to use the chart interactively,

Alaska Covid-19 Data NewFor... by Steve on Scribd

I'd also suggest a commentary in the ADN this morning by Dr. Stephen Tower and a lot of other folks, including State Senator Cathy Giessel, explaining why social distancing has kept our numbers low in Alaska, the state's right to impose restrictions during a health emergency, and that getting herd immunity through allowing the infection to just spread naturally would kill 15,000 Alaskans.

Why The Dunleavy Recall Is Still Critical

You can pick your from a number of examples, even while he's done a reasonable job of letting Dr. Anne Zink set the tone and policies on COVID until recently.  But he's also cone the kinds of things that got so many signatures so quickly onto the initial recall petition:

• Half million dollar no bid contract to Florida company to provide online education in Alaska, without any prior announcements or consultation with educators
• Letter of support from his AG to Judge Sullivan to drop the charges against Gen. Flynn
• Allowing tens of thousands of people to come to Alaska to commercial fish this summer with minimal preparation for local health facilities, the people in the small communities where they will work or where their boats dock, and trusting the fishing companies to monitor their quarantines and their COVID testing

Those are just a few examples.  Today we have another.  He's given an interview on Youtube with Dana Loesch, while not granting such one-on-one interviews to Alaskan reporters, who might ask him more than softball questions.

Cool but my listeners and readers actually live in Alaska and I've been asking your press secretary for an interview for literally weeks and he doesn't respond, so let me know what I'm missing here #AKleg https://t.co/MEAeIONL2Y

— Nat Herz (@Nat_Herz) May 28, 2020

So who is Dana Loesch?  Here's the start of Wikipedia's description:

"Dana Lynn Loesch (/læʃ/ LASH; née Eaton; born September 28, 1978) is an American former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association. She is a former writer and editor for Breitbart News and the host of the program Dana on TheBlaze TV from 2014 to 2017. Loesch has appeared as a guest on television networks such as Fox News, CNN, CBS, ABC, and HBO."

There's a long, long piece about her in the St. Louis Magazine (where she once worked) about her transformation in life.  Here's one quote about her thoughts on journalists:

"After the mass shooting in the Capital Gazette newsroom, writer Shaun King tweets an old article in which the accused shooter said he wanted to smash the face of a reporter into concrete. King also tweets an old clip of Dana talking about mass media on NRATV: “I’m happy, just frankly, to see them curb-stomped… They are the rat bastards of the Earth.” He asks if she now sees why “it is disturbing that you said you want to smash the faces of journalists into concrete.” Dana says she was referring to reports being curb-stomped, not people. Then she says, 'I condemn the recklessness and violence you encourage.'”

If you need to watch the video it's here.  In this case, she fawns over his being the first governor to open up his state for stage three and he allows that we Alaskans trust our people to do the right thing, so we never had any threats to people if they didn't follow social distancing.  I guess if Nat Herz or Kyle Hopkins (who also tweeted he was never given an interview with the governor last year) might have followed up about whether that trust of Alaskans included letting women and their doctors decide about abortions.

This all seems like Dunleavy is working on national exposure with right wing viewers.  Is this a way to raise money to fight the recall vote?  Is he planning on running against Murkowski in the next Republican Senate primary?  Loesch is all sweetness and light in this interview.

He's also lucky because this seems to have been done yesterday, before today's stats showed the state had the highest jump in new cases - 13 - in over a month.  That may sound like a low number, and it is relative to other states - but for weeks the numbers have been under five.