Is there a Doctor in the House?

Jose Martinez

In medical emergencies it is asked if there is a doctor in the house.  Well, there are emergencies out there medical and otherwise that many people overlook, but then there is a reason they have been overlooked.  Namely, too many physicians, psychiatrists, political scientists, criminologists, educators and other professionals do what they do for the money or security (precarious enough today) from the job they have to basically just pay the bills, not for society’s benefit and thus do not critique on a sustained basis as a professional entity Trump and what his administration is doing to people.  That should have been the case in regard to Obama and Bush but wasn’t quite so even then.

Sure there are snippets from such professionals scattered here and there about such malfeasance, but not on a sustained basis.  There is not much of a well-publicized daily website of “Criminologists on Trump’s Crimes,” for example. There could be a site for many psychiatrists analyzing his and others’ facial and bodily behavior and how he expresses things, which are very public and easy to see (how many psychiatrists or psychologists or counselors write about something as simple as his terribly anguished look today in comparison to before, and what this portends with someone so anguished and angry and unstable in consequential actions and behavior?).  Similarly for educators Betsy DeVos’ statements are absolutely anathema to thousands of teachers, yet I would estimate that less than 1% of them write anything about it and/or devote a daily, sustained website about it or even donate money to such causes without their principal knowing about the donation.

Because there are so few professionals writing about Trump and his administration, they are easily brushed off by said administration.  Thus it is that commentary and analysis by such professionals becomes quite inconsequential.  Yes, part of the problem may be that the millions of professionals are afraid of losing their jobs in speaking out publicly, but a good number of these professionals are not afraid and/or are retired and thus harbor no fears, etc.  When I see many of the latter (safe) types it is too often quite awkward to even broach the topic with them of why they do not do more, or do not do anything at all, or only obliquely refer to Trump and his administration.  Many scholars are more interested in writing which will be forgotten the next day by the miniscule number of readers of such journals, or by the attendees in professional conferences.  A number of these professionals are reading this.  Thousands of readers will not address all this in a very public, sustained way, but they will only read something about it here and there in the comfort of their own homes.

As another example, there are ministers and priests in Central Texas where Fort Hood, as the largest military base in the world, is located who will not deliver a sermon to their congregations about military atrocities, Christ’s peace, etc.  They will only bless the soldiers as they go kill.  It must be remembered that Martin Luther King said it was the white moderate clergy who were the problem and who told him to quiet down.

There are a number of media analysts on the left, but if you ask the public about FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) they will generally have no idea what that is.  I have asked a number of social scientists about FAIR and unfortunately most of them have not even heard of it.  They will have heard a lot about FOX News, but not of those on the left.  The latter of  course do not have the money and resources as many websites and organizations on the right have, but still way too many on the left do not even so much as contribute a few dollars, much less participate actively and in a sustained way in addressing the right.  It does not cost money to participate in a demonstration (or many more demonstrations), to write a simple letter to the editor, and to do many other things, with many at home just sitting at home watching TV.

So the question again is in our national emergency, is there a doctor in the house?  It is quite clear that most people are not involved or even think much about such issues as racism, poverty, joblessness, etc., and such apathy has been the case throughout history, though I am not talking about people in general throughout history.  Many circumstances are much worse now than during the Vietnam War when a large number of baby boomers protested and did much more.  Sure, that large segment of the population are much older now (it was said in the 1960s not to trust anyone over 30).  Now it is clear why boomers themselves cannot now be trusted as they have sailed past 30.  With jobs and a family, too many forget about what they thought they would never forget about, but again not all of them or most of them will even throw in a few dollars to a cause or spend a few minutes in a demonstration, etc.

The above boomers are in their 60s and even retired and still relatively (to the Vietnam days) quiet.  There is a saying to not go quietly into that long night (of retirement and eventual death), but basically many are going quietly, while society (their children and grandchildren) are affected negatively by the gramps’ relative non-action.  Young teen Greta Thunberg has a point.  We are essentially destroying the future of the young in regard to the emergency of global warming (and be sure to stick to “global warming” rather than the more non-emergency “climate change” that the so-called moderates and the right have successfully thrust upon the public and have thereby even controlled that narrative, with many going along with “climate change”). Let’s see if the thousands of professionals out there can even say “global warming” as was said in the recent past.

If Trump is re-elected, let’s just see how many of us will still be sitting down.  Such a wake-up call will be too late.  But it is not just Trump the person and his administration that is the problem, it is the mere fact that in the U.S. there are millions on the right, as there always have been, and the right has not been challenged much by the more timid left.  Even the many demonstrations around the country are not publicized by the corporate press.  Why cry if Trump is re-elected if we did not act as though there are social, national emergencies, as there are right now.  You will literally see people on TV crying on election night if Trump is elected.

A professor of mine once mentioned that he was disappointed when Carter won the presidency because his election would mask the stark realities particularly between the haves and have-nots which the election of Ford would have clarified. What he said about Carter’s election transpired soon enough.  Trump being elected again will certainly be clarifying enough to those who today still don’t get the picture.  We’ll see.

Interestingly enough, Bernie Sanders, as a contender for President, is told that he is responsible for those who do some bad things in his name (in order of course for the other candidates and the media to discredit Sanders), as was emphasized in the February 19^th debate by contenders in the Democratic Party striving to discredit him.  All that is needed now are videos of said bad persons acting supposedly in Bernie’s name, as happened in the McGovern convention to discredit the latter.

Remember Kissinger said that the people of Chile were irresponsible for having elected a Socialist as President at the time, and the CIA successfully did all that it could to overthrow him.  Even though the people are voting for Bernie, there are already echoes of Kissinger in the media today saying all that they can to discredit the democracy of the voters themselves and thus the corporate media talk of the calamity of Bernie winning elections, etc.  Editors are now selecting more negative photographs of Bernie and his followers than those of others.

A very real possibility, not conspiracy-laden, is that there are operators and agent provocateurs from official and unofficial sources out there hired/working in earnest to destroy Sanders, as was most definitely in the 1960s and 70s the case with the extensive FBI COINTELPRO program and CHAOS as well as other operations against domestic movements, where some were even killed as a result.  This is not to mention the CIA’s extensive international US manipulation for decades of movements, elections, etc., and even assassinations of leaders in other countries.  So-called Russian meddling in our elections is a joke compared to our deadly interventions elsewhere and even in Russian, from the days of our White Russians right after 1917 in Russia to this moment.  Yet even though there is much research on this and entire books by writers as well as agents who came out of the cold, these many writers and many others who know about this are quiet about Bernie’s situation.  The silence is deafening.

The precedents are extensive and the provoking and such discrediting will likely only intensify against Bernie unless the possibility and/or reality of provocateurs are highly publicized and such a situation is outed.  The precedents are clearly there, regardless of whatever dissatisfaction/disagreement may be genuine in any quarter at any given time about any candidate.

Example of interventions abound.  During the quite recent Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, the FBI knew about sniper plans for shooting Occupy Houston members, but gave no further details about it and did nothing else about it.  Another was the killing of the Chicago Panthers leader in the 1960s in the Panther headquarters.   Also in the 60s a person was sent by California law enforcement to Texas to provoke violence by demonstrators, such as in one case by his getting on top of a car with a rifle, pretending to be one of the Chicano demonstrators in order to discredit them and have them arrested.  Discredited they were in the media.

The other day 2,450 prosecutors and the like sent a letter to Trump’s Attorney General Barr to resign.  That is great from those types of professionals, but it was only for the day, without a sustained effort by them as an entity on the Barr issue and similar issues.  Thus it is forgotten a day or two later when Barr shrugged it off.

It need not be of course only professionals addressing the right on a sustained and very public basis, it could be anybody.  Although it shouldn’t be that we listen only to professionals, it is unfortunate that we give them more credibility.   In sum, therefore, I am talking about the millions of rather quiet professionals out there, who may be “wailing and gnashing their teeth” if Trump is elected again by the millions in his base, and costing the very lives of the professionals’ children and grandchildren, in other words, our future and that of the world, no less.

Jose Martinez has a doctorate in sociology from the University of Texas, and has taught at universities.  He has written recently Inequality in American Education and also Diversity, Funding, and Standardized Testing, both by Academica Press, and is writing another book.