The Battle of Britain in 1940 and lessons to heed in 2020
Eighty years ago this month, the Battle of Britain began, leading to the horrific and deadly London Blitz.
For nine long months, the country observed a strict lights-out curfew while horrific bombing of London happened.
When air raid alarms sounded, citizens hid in dark basements and shelters, while bombs destroyed their neighborhoods.
The strict lights-out curfew was observed during the London bombing in 1940 so that enemy bombers could not see and would have a harder time hitting civilian targets. Turning out the lights at night in 1940 is the equivalent to wearing masks in 2020. We wear masks, gloves, and social distance so that the enemy virus has a harder time hitting civilian targets.
Science proves what works
Masks are proven to make it harder for the virus to spread and are now recommended by both the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, confirmed by scientists at Stanford.
Particularly when speaking, singing, or in close proximity to others, disease particles are proven to travel much farther without a mask than with a mask. Masking slows the transmission.
Imagine if Britain in the 1940s suffered all the partisan divisions we are suffering today. If the Prime Minister had filed lawsuits against his fellow public servants. Fired top expert advisors. Elevated non-expert loyalists to strategic positions. Told the people of London its safe to go back to work and party into the night. Imagine if Winston Churchill had said, “Sure, I turn my lights on at night.”
How might the war have gone differently?
I keep hearing George Washington’s dire warning to future generations: don’t let partisans take away your power: they will hurt you!
“The spirit of the party….serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.” —Farewell Address, George Washington, 1797
President Washington was so right!
President Washington was confident the country “could and should function without the existence of political parties” — and in my living memory, we did.
Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, my parent’s generation were independent as voters. For hundreds of years Americans affiliated with parties, but Americans were not loyal to parties. Americans were loyal to the United States of America. That is a big difference.
They certainly would not see a mask as a political symbol. A mask is not our flag.
We can do regain our independence from parties again. We can rise above the partisan divide. Brush ourselves off. And move forward.
We can prove it by coming together and uniting agains what our British friends might call this bloody pandemic.
Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Avoid gatherings. Practice social distancing. Do all that you can to #flattenthecurve. Starting now.
For those who think masks are dangerous
A few weeks ago an article appeared by a doctors citing old studies about the ineffectiveness of masks in transmission of influenza amongst medical clinicians in hospital settings. It warned that masks are dangerous, can create headaches, make it difficult to breathe, increase carbon dioxide, increase your illness level if you have the virus, or in any other way that masks are not safe and to be trusted.
If you believe all of this, I have some questions for you.
Really? Have you thought this through?
What about all the doctors, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, chemists in white room manufacturing, etc., who wear masks as part of their everyday jobs — and have been doing so for years? Where is the evidence that wearing masks has been “dangerous” for them? Are you advocating that everyone stop wearing masks? Thousands of nurses and doctors are wearing masks on 10–, 12–, 16-hour shifts. Have you asked them: are masks making you sick? Next time you go in for a procedure, are you going to ask doctors and nurses treating you to remove their masks? Are you going to feel safer having them unmasked, able to breathe, cough, or sneeze into your open wound or your mouth?
Really?
Please folks, think. With your head and your heart. And wake up.
We live in an era of mis- and dis-information. Millions of people like you and me who might accidentally share bad information (misinformation.) Plus organizations deliberately lying to us (disinformation).
Foreign-based groups and companies that can be hired by anyone who can afford them, are stealing our personal data from Facebook and using weapons-grade psychological warfare technology against us. Creating false emergencies. Invent fake groups. Invent fake protests. All to engender fear, insecurity, confusion. So that they can manipulate us.
Honestly, it is an election year and the propaganda-for-hire firms are out in force. Being employed by all partisans. Republican, Democrat, and other partisans around the globe. They’re all doing it.
Take every bloody thing you read or hear with a grain of salt
Beware disinformation campaigns spread on partisan websites. And that includes left and right.
Read something suspicious? Check the source site. Look at the About page. Is the site published by a group, a person, or by a legit news organization? Does the article identify the author by name? Look them up and see if they have any kind of agenda, be it commercial, ratings, or political. Google their name(s) and look at their critics, if there are any. Who confirms the sources as valid, or invalid, and who does not? Do fact checks on facts that are extreme.
Any time you read or hear something that villifies any individual as evil or a group of people, something that says there is a conspiracy, something that causes you a feeling of generalized mistrust or fear against an entire group or class of people, or attacks one person as if that person represents that group, (the essence of -isms), that all people of a certain have some kind of group-think motive — take note. That as Madeline Albright said is what fascists do, and how they manipulate us. By creating negative emotion.
Real journalists, real scientists, real expert sources, deal in facts.
What are their motives?
If you feel negative about anything, question the motive of the source behind the idea. For instance, one idea floating around is the conspiracy that big government is going to force us to take a vaccine, and that’s why they want us to wear masks.
What is the motive of those who advocate mask-wearing? That includes the CDC, the WHO, Dr. Fauci, and the hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses on the frontline. They are working around the clock to stop this pandemic and save lives. Stopping the pandemic, saving lives is their agenda.
They are seeking knowledge: what does the virus do in the human body, in the real world? And how can we stop it? They are the ones out there on the frontier, gathering data, risking their lives. Many are giving their lives and dying to save us. Saving us is their agenda.
Bonafide experts devoted to saving lives? Or partisan loyalists? Who is the wisest to? Who deserves most to be heard?
If you truly want to learn what is real about this novel virus that doctors have never encountered before, the real leading-edge insights, search YouTube for coronavirus autopsy.
Next time you see someone with mask think about Nazi bombers flying over darkened London. Think about turning out the lights and putting on your mask, so your neighborhood doesn’t get blasted to bits.
