REICH COMMUNICATIONS

How the Government Can Help Us Trough the Financial Part of the Health Crisis

 

 

Even as the Senate is hammering out details of what the government’s financial stimulus package will look like, I offer my 2 cents…

No doubt, the shutdown will impact most of us.  For some – individuals and small businesses -- it will be a disaster from which they may never fully recover.  People now living on the edge will be pushed over the edge.  Some small businesses we frequent – restaurants, mom & pop retailers, personal service providers like our barbers and nail salons – may not be able to reopen, and they will be missed.  Some smaller entertainment and recreation providers like indie movie theaters and bowling alleys will fall by the wayside.

If the shutdown lasts more than a few weeks, our world may look different than it did last week or the week before.

I think the government should take steps to secure our economy and help individuals who need it most.  But I think it is wrong to give $50 billion to the airline industry and billions to the cruise industry.  Airlines are essential to our way of life, but the big airlines can weather this storm.  Perhaps they merit a smaller level of assistance – not outright handouts, but low or no-interest credit to keep them going.  No money for stock buy-backs and no money for big bonuses for top executives.  Any money they get should come with specific and strict stipulations to avoid unfair and greedy abuse.   

Smaller businesses should be given funds to help get them through, again with some stipulation that a major portion of the funds go to furloughed employees.  Owners should be allowed a portion to cover key expenses like rent to help them stay solvent so they can open again once we get past this.

A $1,200 or $2,400 payment to individuals will be welcomed by many, but if a shutdown extends for more than a few weeks, many hourly workers will be under water and may never fully get whole.  A more equitable assistance formula should be worked out.   

And now is the time to begin planning for once we get past this immediate crisis.  Now is the time for our government to start developing programs to repair our crumbling infrastructure and get serious about ending our dependence on fossil fuels.  Government money can incentivize businesses to begin production or shift existing production facilities to create and install solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal heating and cooling systems.  Special attention should be paid to areas that have been hard hit by loss of factory jobs in the Midwest, in Appalachia and upstate New York and parts of New England.  Factory retrofits and job training can create tens of thousands of jobs and revive some dying towns where even the local Walmart has shut down (after destroying local retailers that had long served those places).       

I’m not an economist, but to me these things are simply common sense and decency.  Put our tax dollars where they will help the most people long-term.  The stock market will eventually rebound, so the Dow Jones index should not be the yardstick now.  Keeping people afloat with the dignity of earning a paycheck is what should be our national economic priority.

Trust ... A Precious Commodity

Those of us in the Public Relations business know that trust is something that is difficult to earn and easy to lose.  It's something that is built up over time, by being consistent and truthful.

This president has never attempted to earn the trust of the American people, right from his first day in office when he lied about the size of his inauguration crowd.  There were the photos right in front of us, yet he asked us to believe his words rather than our own eyes.

He's been doing this repeatedly for the past three years, despite videotape, photos and transcripts that we all can see that prove he's lied to us again and again and yet again.

So it comes as no surprise that, after nearly 27,000 documented lies and exaggerations since 2016, most of us put little stock in what he says.

Trust in our government and our leader in a time of crisis is essential, and these past few weeks as the coronavirus has overtaken our lives have been a very sad case history of how important trust – and truth -- is. 

Most Americans simply do not trust the president on matters of public health and COVID-19. 

We've turned instead to the major networks and major papers for accurate information and advice.  A new poll shows 53 percent of us beehive what we are seeing on network news (excluding FOX) as opposed to about 41 percent who trust what the president tells us. 

Instead, we listen to or governor's, mayor's and health experts like Dr. Fauci, who hasn't (yet) been corrupted or compromised by the president to lie to us about the seriousness of this health situation.

What a pathetic state of affairs where we can't believe the White House in a time of national crisis.

I love the headline in today's New York Times: "Saying He Long Saw Pandemic, Trump Rewrites History."

The story documents the statements he's made that minimize or mock the seriousness of this pandemic, going back to Jan. 22 when he said he wasn’t worried at all and said “it was one or two people coming in from China.”  Even two days ago, he said the pandemic would " wash away," whatever that means. 

And now he says he’s known it was a pandemic for a long time.  So he again lies to our faces, denying what we all have seen and heard with our own eyes and ears for the past few weeks.  He continues to chip away at whatever little trust might remain.

Oh, how nice it would be to again be able to believe what our president tells us.

If It Quacks Like a Duck ...

 

There cannot be room for words of racism and hate in our public dialogue and from our elected leaders... especially from the very top.

A big part of the president's job is to unite and heal, not divide and hurt. The person in the White House is supposed to set a high moral example that the rest of us would strive to follow, rather than demean the office and this nation with hateful racist words.

Congress was right to issue a statement condemning the president's racist words. Yet I can't help but wonder how 187 legislators in the House could, in good conscience, sit on their hands when it came time to officially and publicly call out racism. I understand party loyalty, but this issue should rightfully go beyond whether a Congressperson has a D or an R after their name.

The Republicans in Congress have allowed themselves to sink to a new low that belies one of the core values upon which this great nation has been built. Whether you chalk it up to fear or spinelessness, it still is so wrong and so damaging. Other nations are watching and noting that Americans -- or many of our leaders, at least -- implicitly support racism and hatred.

This is not good and it must change.

We have the power to bring change. I just wish we didn't have to wait another 16 months to implement that change. Serious damage is being done every day.

Words Do Matter

This post is personal, not political.

I am an American Jew.  Not a Jewish-American, but an American Jew. 

I am a 2^nd-generation American.  This country welcomed my grandparents more than 100 years ago when they came to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, fleeing pogroms and terrorism against Jews in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.   

This country enabled my grandparents and my parents to raise their families in peace, with each generation moving up the financial and education ladder.  I was the first in my family to graduate from college.

As a kid, I sometimes felt isolated because of my religion – mostly around Christmastime when so many friends and neighbors put up decorations and trees and we sang Christmas carols in school.   Outside of the house or synagogue, I rarely heard any mention or acknowledgement of Chanukah.

By the time my children were in school, things were very different and people – at least here in the New York area – acknowledged that some of us held beliefs other than Christianity, and the shared values as well as the differences were celebrated.

I’ve been fortunate that, except for some stupid incidents when I was about 10 or 11, I haven’t faced anti-Semitism directly.  And even at 10 when I and some mostly Jewish friends were chased off a neighborhood ballfield by some Catholic school kids who threw rocks at us and called us Christ-killers, I held no grudge, since I had so many Catholic friends and neighbors who I knew would never condone such behavior and who always treated me and my family with affection and respect.

Despite feeling a part of this great nation, I’ve always had a nagging fear – way down deep – that what happened in Germany in the 1930s could happen here.  The Jews in Germany were assimilated, like Jews are here, and they were a vital part of that nation’s cultural and economic life.  Most of them felt what eventually happened there could never happen to them.

That’s how many of us Jews here in America feel.  We love this country and we cherish the freedoms it affords.  But we can’t ignore history and as much as I couldn’t imagine discrimination or worse for Jews here in America, deep down is the knowledge that to some, we are different and perhaps viewed with suspicion or even hatred.  Usually, I feel secure because civility and the law will protect me and my loved ones from anti-Semitism that might turn violent.

Now here’s the part that may look political, but I’m just speaking honestly…  The rhetoric that we’ve seen from the president over the past 3+ years has alarmed me.  If he talks hatred against Latinos and Blacks, we know what eventually follows… the Jews.  And in his rallies, he has made some statements that could be seen as dog-whistles for anti-Semites. 

The Anti-Defamation League has documented a startling increase in hate crimes against Jews in America over the past 2 years  -- up almost 60 percent in 2017.  Part of it is attributed to the tenor of the president’s talk. Words do matter.

Many people in public life and in government, including many Republicans, have called him out for talk that might encourage prejudice.  The nut-job who shot up a synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday didn’t take direction from the president, but he may have been emboldened to act by the hateful rhetoric, just as we’ve seen an alarming increase in violence against black people brought on by the rhetoric about “taking our country back.”  Back from who? 

I’m pretty sure we’ll feel comforted by an outpouring of sympathy and support from most Americans over these next few days.  The vast majority of Americans are horrified by prejudice and violence toward minorities.  (And yes, we Jews are a minority.)  But the sympathy and support and brotherhood must also come from our nation’s top leaders, and it must be honest support rather than hollow words mandated by the situation.

I’m an American Jew.  I would hope I and my loved ones will never be made to feel isolated from the mainstream because of our religious beliefs.  I would like to think it could never ever happen here in America.  But that’s something we all have to continuously work toward – all of us, from the top down.

 

Real Fake News

 

USA Today has been both praised and criticized for running the fact-deprived op ed by the president last week, where he talked about Medicare.

Some criticized the paper running it, since, as The Washington Post's fact-checkers said, virtually every sentence contained inaccuracies, exaggerations or straight-out fallacies.  Others criticized the paper for including links to fact-checking sites.

I understand that reputable papers usually fact-check op ed submissions when statements are presented as facts rather than opinion and if they are off base, the piece would be rejected or returned to the writer for corrections.

The editors at USA Today faced a tricky choice.  They had in their hands a piece by the president of the United States.  But they knew it was full of lies or errors. 

Do they refuse to run it?  Do they give it back and insist the White House correct it?  Or run it, with lies exposed and corrected?

I think the paper did the right thing by running it, with links to other reports that showed the real facts.  It let readers see the president's words while exposing them for the lies that they are.  False statements side-by-side with clear facts.  Let readers make their own judgement as to what's fake news.

Leslie Stahl also came under criticism from the right for her interview with the president, which aired on "60 Minutes" last night. 

 

From what I saw, she was doing her job as an objective journalist, trying to get at the truth.  She asked the president some tough and direct questions and didn't let him squirm out of them by changing the subject or throwing more falsehoods into the mix.  But now there's meme going around on Facebook saying how slanted the interview was.  "FOX & Friends" whined that the president was "peppered endlessly with questions" during the interview, as if Stahl  was doing something bad by asking questions and repeating or following up on them when they weren't directly answered.

When the fake news comes from the president, whether as an op ed or in answer to interview questions on TV, it should be called out for what it is -- lies.

Finally, the media is doing that.  Good for them and good for us.

 

Fighting Back in the War on the Press

 

Media people, as well as all Americans who cherish our freedoms and our democracy, have been troubled by the president’s ongoing war on the media.  His tweets and his rants at his rallies about the media being “the enemy of the people” raise fears among many of us that he is trying to move this country toward a fascist dictatorship.   A free and unfettered press is a key element in keeping a democracy a democracy.

The Boston Globe has launched a campaign to battle those destructive words from the White House.  It is urging other papers nationwide to run editorials on Aug. 16 that condemns the president’s anti-media rhetoric.   So far, more than 100 papers have joined the effort, including major market dailies like The Miami Herald, The Denver Post, The Houston Chronicle and The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis.  Small town papers are also joining.

Marjorie Pritchard, the editorial page editor at The Globe said it’s not a political move.  “It’s not about being a Democrat. It’s not about being a Republican.  It’s about the importance of a free press, enshrined in the Constitution.  It’s something we should all get behind.”

In an editorial yesterday, The Globe reminded readers about a 1974 book by political theorist Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism.”   “A people that can no longer believe anything cannot make up its mind,” Arendt was quoted.  “It is deprived…of its capacity to think and judge.  And with such a people, a leader can do what you please.”    

Thus, the editorial continues, an ill-informed, frightened public is precisely the audience an authoritarian president hopes to cultivate.  Losing public trust in a free press leaves unprincipled leaders with unprecedented powers and control.

Does anyone still not understand the importance of a free press here in the U.S.? 

Bad Policy, Bad PR

 

The president's statement announcing plans to withdraw the United States from the worldwide Paris Climate Accord was a bad move for this country on many fronts, including PR.

It's ironic that, in making his statement, he said the world has been laughing at us for this "bad deal, but they won't be laughing at us anymore."

Actually, it’s just the opposite, as leaders and citizens here and abroad are scratching their heads in despair and laughing at the utter stupidity and arrogance of the man whom less than the majority of us elected last November.  (Click here for a Washington Post fact-check of his speech Thursday.)

His arrogant dealings with EU and G7 leaders last week and his grand proclamation Thursday regarding the Paris Accord have quickly moved us from a position of world leadership and world respect to the back of the pack.  In the process, the former “leader of the free world” is making himself irrelevant on the global stage.

Despite his misguided rationale, based on flat-out wrong thinking on both climate change and economics, those who do understand the importance of global attempts to slow mankind’s destruction of our planet are taking action on their own and in concert with each other – ignoring the U.S. government’s official position.

It is encouraging to see so many coming together to say that despite the official edict of the Administration, they will continue their efforts to adhere to green initiatives set out in the Paris Accord.  As of this morning, less than 24 hours after the president’s grand reveal of his decision, which seemed more like the crowing of a new Apprentice or The Bachelorette winner, more than 90 major city mayors, governors of three of our largest states, and countless captains of industry have rejected the president’s position and made it clear they intend to work together toward lessening our carbon footprint.  Proof that the president has made himself irrelevant on this important issue.

At the same time, the chorus of disappointment and rejection by so many world leaders, including our closest allies, points out that our Administration stands alone on this crucial issue.   

The president said his decision was based on the need to put America first.  Unfortunately, this move threatens to hurt American business, not to mention the health of future generations of Americans.  Government support of alternative energy efforts could have created tens of thousands of new and lasting jobs here, instead of a few hundred low-paying and dangerous jobs at a coal mine the president said his efforts will soon open.

China just announced major plans to expand its alternative energy initiatives, which it estimates will add hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs and bring in something like $300 billion for the Chinese economy.  Even if those numbers are exaggerated, it’s still a lot of jobs and money that could have been helping our economy right here at home.

This is bad policy that is creating very bad PR for the United States.  I hope the bad PR will be temporary, just as the bad policy will be minimized by the grass-roots efforts of state and local governments and companies who intend to ignore the president’s edict.  Good PR will return eventually, with a new Administration that will set this bad policy and other negatives straight so that U.S. can again be “great again” in the eyes of the world.

 

 

 

Does “America First” mean Americans last?

 

The administration’s motto of “America First” may have brought in votes, but what sort of message has it been sending to other nations, especially our allies around the world? Are they seeing us pulling back from the global stage, where we’ve long been the leader – both in terms of military might and in terms of moral right.

The proposed budget – which admittedly is only a proposal at this point – seems to give a mixed picture. Upping the defense budget by ten percent positions us to be an even bigger power in terms of sheer military strength. Do we really need to bolster that might? We’re already big and strong. And at what cost do we need to be even stronger?

The discretionary part of the budget is relatively small compared to the over budget which has spending that can’t be touched – interest payments, money for Social Security, etc. But the cuts proposed, although a very small part of the total we spend, will undo or seriously harm many programs that help make this country great – from programs that feed some of us who need help, to others that help our teachers do a better job to programs that bring art and culture to all of us and not just to those who have access to major cultural institutions.

The proposed budget seems to put many Americans last. Much attention has been given to the cuts to Meals on Wheels, for instance, a program that helps many older people with food and human interaction. But other cuts to the Dept. of Housing will impact the poorer among us who rely on subsidies to keep a roof over their heads.

Cuts to the Dept. of Education threaten programs that provide ongoing training for our nation’s teachers.  Money may be diverted to charter and private schools, which do offer alternatives for some people, but at what cost?  Remember, some charter schools are operated by for-profit companies, which means some of the money goes into the corporate till and back to shareholders.

The arts are one of the things that makes America great. Destroying the National Endowment for the Arts will put a severe strain on many cultural institutions, especially in smaller cities and towns that don’t have a large donor base to draw from. It will also harm our public broadcasting systems – PBS and NPR -- which provide informative and cultural programming that would be difficult to thrive on commercial channels.

One of the core principles of this great nation is our answer to the Biblical question – Am I my brother’s keeper?  Historically, the answer to that has always been “Yes” in how we as a whole pay for programs that help the less fortunate among us. But maybe the “America First” vision of the new administration doesn’t consider those Americans who need a hand. They are not the Americans of power and wealth who, it seems, will be helped “bigly” by tax cuts and changes to the health care system. Ironically, many of those who will be hurt by these changes were conned into voting for the new president last November with his promises to drain the swamp and bring back jobs.

Are we bringing back jobs by cutting 3,200 jobs in just one Federal department – the State Department? Rather than drain any swamp, it may, in fact, risk getting us into quicksand. Top generals have been warning us that the “soft” work of diplomacy very often saves us from the “hard” work of the military that ends up costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

Destroying the Environmental Protection Agency and halting research on climate, space and other areas of science is simply short-sighted. And it puts at risk future generations, here and worldwide. Remember, 96 percent of the world’s experts say climate change is real and that it will eventually come back to bite us in the ass if we ignore it.

Cutting wasteful spending is a way to trim budgets. We’ve all heard stories about the $500 hammers the military buys. More money could be found for legitimate military spending by getting a handle on the military’s purchasing procedures.

So with all those cuts, the president still wants to spend $30 billion on his wall, which the Mexicans will NOT pay for. That’s $30 billion that could go to education, food and shelter for the needy, and with maybe a little left for the arts.

The proposed budget, in my opinion, will not make us safer from foreign threats. It will not make life better for most of us in the middle and lower economic classes. It will not help keep us healthy and free from worry about having good healthcare. It will not keep us as the beacon of freedom and moral leadership that we have traditionally been.  And it will not make America great.

Life goes on ...

 

The election certainly did not turn out the way I had hoped and, honestly, I am still trying to get myself out from under the strange haze that's enveloped me since late Tuesday night.

 

But the sun rose as usual this morning. 

I woke up and l'm still breathing.

 

I was heartened to see that Hillary won the popular vote, which just points up the idea that the Electoral College system, which was initially designed to preserve power for the less populous southern states where slave-power fueled the agrarian system, needs to be changed.  But that's a battle for another time.

 

For now, I have to have faith in our system.  As much as I can't stand him on a personal and business level, Trump will be the president, hopefully for all of us, as he pledged yesterday.  I have to hope that much of his nasty and hateful rhetoric was an act in order to gain attention.  I have to hope that his advisors and Congress, including the many decent Republicans, will calm him and make him behave in a manner that won't shame us in the eyes of the world. 

 

Hopefully he will reach out and try to hear those he demeaned in his campaign rants.  Of course, we cannot forget what he has said and done over the years, and we will need to remain vigilant that he doesn't try to repeat some of that terrible behavior while in office.  Hopefully Congress and the court system, if necessary, will act as a check...hopefully.

 

I will probably find it difficult over these next few months to watch the news on TV without the remote in my hand, ready to flip the channel so I don't have to hear his voice.  I will rely on newspaper reporting, and if I see a headline that scares or disgusts me, I can avoid or delay reading that story.  I certainly won't be watching the inauguration in January.

 

I know...it's burying my head in the sand, but that's how I feel I must cope for now. 

 

And, above all, I will continue to hope that good triumphs over evil and that love ...and decency...trumps hate.

That is how I expect to get through these next few months and the coming four years.

Over the Top

 

I suppose it should not be a surprise, but Trump's attacks on the media have gone over the top.

His attacks on the media and on individual reporters at a news conference earlier this week emphasize how unfit he is to be President.

Calling a reporter a ‘sleazebag’ because he pressed the candidate on his donations to veterans groups takes him to a new low.. if that's possible.  The media are doing their job when they ask tough questions and continue to hammer when all they get are non-answers or tangential responses aimed at distracting from the initial line of questioning.  They do it to all the candidates and others who are in office.

When asked by a reporter if this is how he would behave if he made it to the White House, he said yes.  Earlier in his campaign, he said as President, he’d sue reporters and media who don’t report “fairly,” leaving the definition of “fair” to his own discretion.

Major Garrett, who reports for CBS News, said on CBS This Morning that for reporters who have been covering his campaign, this behavior is not a surprise.  It's fairly normal for this candidate, he said.

This candidate is hardly the only politician who lashes out at the media when reporting doesn’t go exactly as they would want it.  Sarah Palin, the candidate’s partner in grime and also a name-caller, refers to the media as the “lamestream media.” 

This behavior in the White House would be totally unacceptable and against the idea of a fairly transparent government.  I'm not saying every President, including our current one, has never blurred the truth or evaded some lines of questioning.  But civility in government is crucial to maintaining dialogue that can lead to resolution of conflict and building of trust among leaders and the citizenry.  Imagine name-calling and nastiness on the floor of the Senate and the House.  We know some of them can’t stand each other, but they remain civil and engage in discussion which, before obstructionism, would lead to compromise and things getting done.

The presumptive Republican nominee demonstrates none of that civility.  His thin skin causes him to attack --  often childishly -- anyone he feels has treated him ‘unfairly.’  As President – heaven forbid – would he spend precious time and attention on name-calling reporters who report the truth as they see it, or who ask the probing questions they are supposed to if they are doing their jobs? 

As President, it seems like he’d ignore the Constitution’s very first Amendment – the one guaranteeing Freedom of the Press.   That seems to be in step with his calls for action that would ignore other amendments like Freedom of Religion as well as Civil Rights laws passed 40 and 50 years ago.

I know the media will continue, as they should, asking tough questions and probing… not only of Trump, but of Clinton, Sanders and others in offices high and low. 

Right from the early days of this nation, our founding fathers recognized the importance of a free press as a way to inform the public about what our elected leaders – people we pay with our tax dollars – are doing on our behalf.  That’s the role of the media, even if some candidates don’t like it.