Given the posturing bluster of would-be patriots and frightened (now unemployed) jerks like this, a post that came across my Facebook feed struck a chord.
Everyone stayed inside. Most people went underground, spending their nights in basements or crammed into Tube stations.
Everyone. Every single night. If even a handful of people had kept their lights on, it would have helped the Luftwaffe find their targets. But everyone did their part.
Here’s what the Londoners didn’t do:
They didn’t argue that they had the right to keep their curtains open.
They didn’t say that the bombings were a hoax or that they would stop on their own.
They didn’t say that it was dangerous to be out at night without any lights.
They didn’t insist that businesses had to stay open in the evenings to prop up the economy.
They didn’t say that the experts didn’t know what they were talking about or insist that their uninformed opinions were just as valid.
Nope. They pulled their curtains shut. They went underground. They took care of each other.
They put the interests of the community ahead of their own personal self-interest, in one of the most remarkable feats of communal courage the modern world has seen.
My father lived through the Blitz. He didn’t talk about it much. He lost almost all his friends in the Blitz and the War. (Many years later, this led him to move to America, where he ended up starting a family (me) 20 years later than most of his peers.)
But he carried the lessons of the Blitz to America with him. He’d seen what could happen when an entire country did what was in the best interests of all.
And when he saw people acting selfishly and stupidly in their own self-interest, he’d brand those people with the phrase. “I’m all right, the hell with you.”
I’m all right, the hell with you.
When you refuse to wear a mask in public, you’re saying, “I’m all right, the hell with you.”
When you insist that bars and beaches and gyms open up because you’re bored, you’re saying, “I’m all right, the hell with you.”
When you demand that other people’s children go back to school in patently unsafe environments, you’re saying, “I’m all right, the hell with you.”
We aren’t being asked to run for shelter the second we hear an air raid siren.
We aren’t being asked to huddle underground all night surrounded by strangers.
We aren’t being asked to emerge every morning, wondering if our homes and everything we own still exists (2 million homes were destroyed during the Blitz — but only 30,000 Londoners died, because of the precautions they took).
All we have to do is stay home and wear masks.
What we need to do to stem the spread of this pandemic is so easy. Almost every other country in the world has managed to do it. But we haven’t.
I wish we had the courage of London during the Blitz.
I wish we had the concern for our neighbors that Londoners showed to one another during the Blitz.
But apparently, we are a country of people proudly proclaiming, “I’m all right, the hell with you.”
Is that who you want to be?
Stay home. Wear your mask.
I knew a WWII British war bride (the late mother of my wife’s oldest friend). She lived through the Blitz too, huddling in the Underground. I can’t imagine what she’d think of these belligerent “Yahoos” (in the Swiftian sense) who refuse to do their part to help the United States and their countrymen survive this national emergency.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.