It's difficult to heal trauma without truth-telling

Almost a week ago (I’ve said many times things can sit in my browser tabs for quite a while) Michel Martin, host of NPR’s All Things Considered, held a discussion about truth and reconciliation commissions. Such commissions were effectively used in post-Apartheid South Africa and in Northern Ireland. In the discussion was Denise Altvater, a co-founder of the Maine-Wabanaki State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Martin introduced Altvatar by saying:

That commission was convened to address the widespread practice of taking Native American children from their homes and placing them in foster care or adopting them out to white families. That was Denise's experience, and it was deeply traumatic for her. She recalls being tortured and abused when she was separated from her mother for years.

Altveter described the result of her work in the commission:

The most important was having the space where my voice and others' voices could be heard and believed in a place where we knew that something was going to happen. So it was so life-changing to tell your story in that type of an atmosphere, and it transformed me into somebody who started having courage that I never had before. And it just transformed my life. So healing and having a voice were the two most important aspects to me.

Rev. Nelson Johnson described the incident that led to a truth and reconciliation commission in Greensboro, North Carolina:

We were organizers - active organizer in the textile industry and in communities throughout North Carolina. We chose to have a march through the historical Black community. Well, nine carloads of Klan and Nazis drove into the march with a cache of weapons, and they fired on the group. Five people were killed. I was wounded. And I knew then that this couldn't happen without the police collusion. We fought it from the very, very beginning. Two juries did not convict the Klan or found them not guilty of anything. So at our 20th anniversary of this tragedy, we mull over what to do. We resolve to build a truth process over 40 years of persistent work.

He described what the commission accomplished:

Well, it laid a foundation of information that was available to the community. The population of our city had been so thoroughly inundated with the view that we were responsible for our own deaths, I think it opened the door for what eventually happened. And that is that the city used the document, although some 40 years later, to help them come to a conclusion that the police deliberately did not show, that the city government created an atmosphere that mitigated against a decent trial.

Johnson is now working towards a national truth process. Rev. Mark Sills is also of Greensboro, raised in a white privileged family. His father preached against segregation and the Klan burned a cross in their yard. Even with that he felt had been lightly touched by racism. Martin said some people believe these commissions are “basically beat-up-on-white-people day.” Sills responded:

There's a fact that truth commissions exemplify that cannot be denied. And that is, it's difficult to heal trauma without truth-telling. You have to uncover and acknowledge what has been done wrong before you can fully move forward. And so that's what this commission accomplished.

Sills concluded with this:

To me, racism is like an addiction. And an addicted person may not at first see that they have a problem. It may make them feel strong or wise or intelligent or powerful. And anyone who's ever worked with addicted people knows you cannot help a person resolve an addiction, overcome an addiction, until they're ready to acknowledge that they have a problem. Truth commissions are a way that society can acknowledge the things that are killing us and destroying us and fraying the edges of our culture. And once those things have been identified and acknowledged, then progress - real progress, substantive progress - can be made. So I think the models that are represented in Maine and in Greensboro are worthy of - for other communities to look at ways to go forward.

Because so many people lost jobs that resulted in less buying and less payment of sales and income tax to the states. State and city budgets are hurting. Ian Reifowitz of Daily Kos reported that New Jersey is leading the way by raising taxes on the rich. Governor Andrew Cuomo has dismissed a wealth tax in New York, saying it should be done nationwide. He doesn’t want to put his state at a competitive disadvantage. But Reifowitz says Cuomo is wrong. He quoted findings from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities of two main results. 1. Raising top income tax rates is unlikely to harm state economies in the short run. 2. Differences in taxes between states have minimal effects on state economic growth. David Root, who runs a wealth management company, told the New York Times that a person who would be affected by the wealth tax is pretty well entrenched in their location with too many local ties to move. New Jersey shows how it works at the state level. Reifowitz reviewed Biden’s proposal for the nation (I’ll let you read the details). Then Reifowitz reminds us that the income of billionaires has been going up by just under $5 billion a day, for an increase of $1.31 per billionaire. In contrast, the income of the bottom 82% of American earners dropped by 4.4%. CNBC did an analysis of why raising taxes on the rich was a bad idea. As evidence they explained where a $400,000 household income goes and why that isn’t enough. Laura Clawson of Kos tears their reasoning to shreds. Even though they’re declared to be “middle class” the family is in the top 2% of earners. This sample family has: A pricey home in the city rather than a less a less pricey one in the burbs. Hefty donations to retirement accounts. Hefty contributions to college funds. Extended hours at day care. Pricey vacations. Most “middle class” families are getting by with far less and many “get by” through debt. So a description of this family just getting by is …

well, this whole exercise in the name of arguing against slightly more fair taxation is outrageously offensive. This is a myth people write for themselves about why they deserve what almost no one else has. This is the personal finance analysis of people for whom only people richer than themselves truly exist, who are always, no matter how much money they make, going to be looking at the income category above themselves and feeling bereft. Here’s something to try for anyone who feels middle-class at anywhere above, let’s say, the 89th percentile for income: Look below rather than above yourself, for a damn change, and embrace reality. Yes, the ultra-rich are ultra-rich, and the distance between them and the rest of us is horrifying. But if your rationale for claiming middle-class status is that you don’t live like the 0.1%, you’ve let our twisted, unequal economy twist your judgment. And if you think that your choices about how to spend your $400,000 a year mean that you shouldn’t pay an extra 1% in taxes, you’re just looking to justify a monstrous selfishness—and unfortunately, you’re finding plenty in our society to back you up in that.

Kos of Kos says we should stop using the frequent Democratic mantra of “Run like we’re 10 points down!” His reasons: People are motivated by winning, not losing. If their candidate is ahead they’re more excited about helping out and voting. But if a candidate is behind people are more likely think about walking away. See 2010. At least this year no one is staying home. People are voting early in large numbers. And…

People aren’t voting to elect Joe Biden anymore. They’re voting to give Donald Trump the biggest middle finger possible. This is transcending mere electoral considerations and becoming a cultural moment. Even California, which has no competitive political offices at stake, has record turnout. Knowing Biden is going to win the state isn’t deterring any golden stater from casting that delicious anti-Trump vote.

There are more races than president. A forecast for a Biden win should prompt us to say that’s awesome, can we flip the Texas House? But if we act like we’re 10 points down we’re also saying all these other races are out of reach. From a post written at the end of September (yeah, sometimes it takes a while for me to get to some things) Joan McCarter of Kos reviews various cases of Postal Service workers, even some managers, who are defying Louis DeStroy’s efforts to slow down the mail. Related to that, Hunter of Kos reported that DeStroy has reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed by Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. In the settlement DeStroy agreed to reverse all changes that have recently delayed the mail. However, wrote Hunter, because the nasty guy administration lies so much it is quite possible that DeStroy was lying when he agreed to reverse all changes. We’ll have to wait until postal workers tell us that changes have been made. From this week’s download of Michigan’s coronavirus data: Six days ago the number of new cases was above 1400. The peak at the beginning of April was just above 1600 new cases a day. That same day the number of deaths was 22. The last time it was this high was in early June. Since mid September the number of cases per day has risen sharply. Before then the weekly peak was under 900 cases a day.