Here goes…I generally support police-court-prison reform and policies to reduce violence in all its forms. I support policies to help right past and present injustices, both race and class based.

I’m very concerned about thousands of people out on the streets just when we thought we were getting Covid-19 under control. This is a disease that has killed black people and poor people disproportionately. About 100,000 people dead in the last couple months vs. about 1,000 per year killed by police (which is certainly too much). Now is just not the time, in my view. If we wanted to devise an experiment to find out whether people gathering in the streets by the thousands, packed in like sardines but largely wearing masks, would reverse our progress on Covid-19 or not, this would be the experiment. It would not be an ethical experiment!

A history lesson: In 1918, Philadelphians took to the streets by the thousands in the midst of the flu epidemic that year, with devastating consequences. From Smithsonian:

When the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive parade stepped off on September 28, some 200,000 people jammed Broad Street, cheering wildly as the line of marchers stretched for two miles. Floats showcased the latest addition to America’s arsenal – floating biplanes built in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard. Brassy tunes filled the air along a route where spectators were crushed together like sardines in a can. Each time the music stopped, bond salesmen singled out war widows in the crowd, a move designed to evoke sympathy and ensure that Philadelphia met its Liberty Loan quota…

Within 72 hours of the parade, every bed in Philadelphia’s 31 hospitals was filled. In the week ending October 5, some 2,600 people in Philadelphia had died from the flu or its complications. A week later, that number rose to more than 4,500. With many of the city’s health professionals pressed into military service, Philadelphia was unprepared for this deluge of death.

Attempting to slow the carnage, city leaders essentially closed down Philadelphia. On October 3, officials shuttered most public spaces – including schools, churches, theaters and pool halls. But the calamity was relentless. Understaffed hospitals were crippled. Morgues and undertakers could not keep pace with demand. Grieving families had to bury their own dead. Casket prices skyrocketed. The phrase “bodies stacked like cordwood” became a common refrain.

Smithsonian

Let’s hope this is a history lesson and not history repeating itself!

In another case of “let’s hope this is a history lesson”, Trump is calling for a military crack down almost exactly 50 years (May 1970) after the Ohio National Guard mowed down protestors with machine guns at Kent State.