In mid-October, I flew to Oakland, California, to meet my grandson, Felix Kyle Lueders-Morrison. He was born on October 6 at a hospital in Berkeley, to my son Jesse and daughter-in-law Lauren. He was, in my arms, “this seven-pound universe, full of all possibility,” to quote the late songsmith Marques Bovre.
When Jesse was born thirty-five years ago, I wrote about my fear for his future. The wars, the bombs, the lies. Of course I fear for my grandson, too, and have plenty of reasons to do so. But I also have reasons to be optimistic. Look at how much better the world is because it has Jesse and Lauren in it!
Meanwhile, a different drama has been playing out here in Wisconsin regarding my mom, Elaine, who is ninety-seven. In late October, just hours before she was to be discharged from a short stay at a physical rehabilitation center, the Milwaukee-area senior living facility where she has lived since 2011 informed my sister, Diane, that our mother would not be allowed back because her needs had gotten too great.
Grampa and Felix
Wisconsin law generally requires senior living facilities to give a written notice at least thirty days in advance before they can boot people from their homes. But my mom’s facility claims it didn’t have to do this because her condition was so dire; we think they’re dramatically overstating this to provide cover for the facility’s failure to follow the law.
The rehab center let our mom stay, until she could find another home, then went into a COVID-19 lockdown. Diane, who tries to visit every day, now had to wave at her through glass. I used to talk to her every day, then could not for a month. Diane did reach her briefly by phone. “I need you,” Mom said.
I lodged desperate appeals with state health officials, asking them to intervene, but they did not do so in time. We scrambled to find Mom a new place to live. On November 17, the day this issue went to press, we were set to move her into a different senior care facility—away from her friends and all that’s familiar. It’s a transition we fear might kill her. When we told this to one of the people kicking her out, the person replied, matter-of-factly, “I know.”
Diane, my brother, Rick, and I, along with all of the many other people who know and love my mom, are deeply aggrieved by this turn of events, which I will update you on in our next issue. We feel it’s just not fair. And fairness is something my mom has always cared about.
In January 2005, when she was eighty, my mom Elaine wrote what may have been the only letter to the editor in her life. It ran in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She mailed me a copy, saying, “Thought you would find this interesting.”
It read: “The letter written by James Arndt about minimum wages made my blood boil (‘Does anyone even work for the minimum wage now?’ Jan. 20). He has no idea what the world is like when one is disabled or blind. To say ‘You are one big sucker’ if you are working for minimum wages shows Arndt doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Elaine at her residence of ten years.
These two sets of family affairs converged as we at The Progressive worked on this issue, and it has helped me to see why what we do here matters. We educate. We agitate. We recognize a duty to fight for what’s right.
This issue of The Progressive is weighted toward investigations. Mike Kuhlenbeck looks into the frightening connections between neighborhood watch groups and law enforcement, aided by new surveillance technology. Helen Christophi probes the white nationalist ties of U.S. Department of Justice official Brian Haughton—something he and others do not want to talk about.
Marc Eisen explores the serious and growing threats to small organic farmers. Mike Ervin exposes the cruel constraints placed on people with disabilities who receive pitiful levels of support from the federal government. And Sarah Jaffe weighs in on the explosion of worker activism.
Our job at The Progressive is to make people more aware, more prepared, and more likely to achieve progress—for my mother, my grandson, and everybody else.
Bill Lueders
Editor