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26 Sunday Apr 2020
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The Rich Wanted to Strangle a Tiny Government in a Bathtub to Avoid Taxes; Now It Turns Out We Need a Competent State
Informed Comment – April 19, 2020 – Jim Hightower
https://www.juancole.com/2020/04/strangle-bathtub-competent.html
Amazingly, America has become a nation of socialists, asking in dismay: “Where’s the government?” These are not born-again Bernie Sanders activists, but people of all political stripes (including previously apolitical multitudes) who are now clamoring for big government intervention in their lives. Nothing like a spreading coronavirus pandemic to bring home the need that all of us have — both as individuals and as a society — for an adequately funded, fully functioning, competent government capable of serving all. Instead, in our moment of critical national need, Trump’s government is a rickety medicine show run by a small-minded flimflammer peddling laissez-fairyland snake oil… Right-wing politico Grover Norquist once said he wanted a government so small “I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Trump has shown us what such a small-minded government looks like. And what it costs us.
Marijuana Laws and COVID-19
ACLU – April 17, 2020
https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/a-tale-of-two-countries-racially-targeted-arrests-in-the-era-of-marijuana-reform/
Marijuana arrests clog the criminal legal system with people who should not be there. This puts even more people in harm’s way as COVID-19 threatens to devastate jails and prisons, where the virus can spread rapidly. Officials must respond by reducing both arrests and the incarcerated population.
This Is Not a System. This Is Organized Piracy.
Esquire Magazine – April 20, 2020 – Charles P. Pierce
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a32209099/hospital-ppe-supplies-federal-government-piracy/
The most important story of the weekend could be found in, of all places, the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Andrew Artenstein, a physician and hospital administrator from the western part of the Commonwealth (God save it!) wrote a hair-raising saga of his efforts to get ahold of the supplies of PPE that his facility had ordered and his efforts to keep those vital supplies from being hijacked by the federal government… This is not a system. This is organized piracy. And its organizing principle is to use a pandemic to improve the political standing of an incompetent and criminal president.
Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Death Cult Takes to the Streets
The New Republic – April 18, 2020 – Osita Nwanevu
https://newrepublic.com/article/157356/donald-trump-coronavirus-protests
The president has transformed yesterday’s Tea Party revolutionaries into worshippers of authoritarian power in Washington… Trump is pivoting to what he does best—inflaming his base, both to build public pressure on governors to open their state economies sooner and to misplace blame for an economic downturn made necessary by the administration’s initial failure to monitor and contain the virus. His allies in the conservative press are lending him a hand… The coronavirus protests bear more than a passing resemblance to the Tea Party’s demonstrations a decade ago, and aspects of the crisis have proven potent triggers for conservative identity politics—from the virus’s origins in China to Democratic efforts to offer assistance to the undocumented and the homeless… If our assessments of the coronavirus protests draw anything at all from the example of the Tea Party, it should be an understanding that a small, loud minority can do a great deal to undermine policy and damage public sentiment.
“Make No Mistake: This Country Is Edging Closer to Neo-Fascist Authoritarianism”
Democracy Now! – April 21, 2020 – Juan González
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/21/juan_gonzalez_coronavirus_update
If hundreds of African Americans or Latinos showed up in cities around the country brandishing automatic weapons, what would be the response of the country to this? Why is this being almost accepted and normalized now as a method of protest? And my fear is that this will become normalized over the next few months as we head toward a bitter national election. And we should make no mistake, that this country is edging closer and closer to neo-fascist authoritarianism.
No Football, No Trump
Tom Dispatch – April 23, 2020 – Robert Lipsyte
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176692/tomgram%3A_robert_lipsyte%2C_no_football%2C_no_trump/#more
President Trump has recently been tweeting for his “troops,” his own personal pandemic death cult, to head into the streets and “liberate” locked-down states with Democratic governors not eager to immediately begin “reopening” the country to an even worse pandemic moment. He may be no less eager to declare open season when it comes to bringing back professional sports as well. In fact, as Lipsyte points out today, his reelection may depend on it.
The global pandemic has spawned new forms of activism – and they’re flourishing
The Guardian – April 20, 2020 – Erica Chenoweth, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Jeremy Pressman, Felipe G Santos and Jay Ulfelder
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/20/the-global-pandemic-has-spawned-new-forms-of-activism-and-theyre-flourishing
The near cessation of street protests does not mean that people power has dissipated. We have been collecting data on the various methods that people have used to express solidarity or adapted to press for change in the midst of this crisis. In just several weeks’ time, we’ve identified nearly 100 distinct methods of non-violent action that include physical, virtual and hybrid actions – and we’re still counting. Far from condemning social movements to obsolescence, the pandemic – and governments’ responses to it – are spawning new tools, new strategies and new motivation to push for change… Emergencies often prove to be the forge in which new ideas and opportunities are hammered out.
The Monoculture effect and COVID-19
African Centre for Biodiversity – March 21, 2020 – An ACB statement on Human Rights Day, 21 March
https://www.acbio.org.za/en/monoculture-effect-and-covid-19
The COVID-19 outbreak illustrates the complex interactions between deforestation, reduced biological diversity, ecosystem destruction, and human health and safety, in large part driven by the globalised agricultural and food system. Further, with the threats posed by climate change, we can expect greater exposure to existing and emerging pathogens.
It’s time to grown our own food!!
Justice Initiative – April 21, 2020 – Heather Gray
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/It-s-time-to-grown-our-own-food–.html?soid=1109359583686&aid=uneGryDY4lM
The U.S. is in the midst of a gardening renaissance. As the coronavirus pandemic prompts big questions about the future of our food system, people everywhere are buying up seeds, pulling up lawns, building raised beds, and flocking to learn from Master Gardeners. Most of these new and seasoned gardeners are making careful decisions about what type of plants they want to grow and how to organize the beds, but it’s also a good time to consider another, perhaps more important aspect of food sovereignty: what kind of seeds you’re planting and whether or not you’ll be able to save and share them next year… Perhaps most important in this moment, saving (and sharing) seeds also makes sense economically.
New COVID-19 Bill Helpful But Inadequate — More Needed for States and Localities, the Most Vulnerable, and the Economy
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – April 21, 2020 – Robert Greenstein
https://www.cbpp.org/press/statements/greenstein-new-covid-19-bill-helpful-but-inadequate-more-needed-for-states-and
The White House’s refusal to provide more relief to states — whose revenues are plummeting due to the virus’ effect on economic activity — will almost certainly lead many states to cut education and other critical services, including even health care, and to lay off teachers and other workers as states struggle to balance their budgets both for the fiscal year ending June 30 and the new fiscal year that starts July 1. The approaching state budget cuts (and possibly tax increases in some areas) will cause the U.S. economy to contract further — making the economic downturn deeper and more protracted, causing many more people to lose their jobs, and magnifying the serious hardship we already see.
We Are Living in a Failed State
The Atlantic – Special Preview: June 2020 Issue – George Packer
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/
The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken… When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category. The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering… And it should force a question that most Americans have never had to ask: Do we trust our leaders and one another enough to summon a collective response to a mortal threat? Are we still capable of self-government?… We can learn from these dreadful days that stupidity and injustice are lethal; that, in a democracy, being a citizen is essential work; that the alternative to solidarity is death. After we’ve come out of hiding and taken off our masks, we should not forget what it was like to be alone.
The Foundations of American Society Are Failing Us
The New York Times – April 19, 2020 – Bernie Sanders
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/opinion/coronavirus-inequality-bernie-sanders.html
I get very tired of the politicians and pundits who tell us how difficult it is to bring about fundamental changes in our society. “It always seems impossible until it is done,” Nelson Mandela is widely reported to have said. Let’s get to work and get it done.
‘Horrible hybrids’: the plastic products that give recyclers nightmares
The Guardian – April 20, 2020 – Erin McCormick
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/20/plastic-products-recyclers-single-use
“I call them ‘horrible hybrids’,” said Heidi Sanborn, who heads up the National Stewardship Action Council, a network of groups that seeks to get manufacturers to take responsibility for the proper disposal of the products they sell. “They are made of multiple materials or materials that are impossible to recycle. It’s a mushing of things.”
Disney heir criticises company over $1.5bn bonuses as it cuts pay
The Guardian – April 22, 2020 – Mark Sweney
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/apr/22/disney-heir-criticises-company-over-15bn-bonuses-cuts-pay
An heir to the Walt Disney fortune has criticised the company for protecting executive bonuses and dividends of more than $1.5bn (£1.2bn) while cutting the pay of more than 100,000 workers to help weather the financial impact of coronavirus.
UN: Acute Food Shortages Worldwide May Double Due to COVID-19
EcoWatch – April 21, 2020 – Jordan Davidson
https://www.ecowatch.com/un-food-shortages-coronavirus-2645785865.html
A stark new assessment from the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) found that the economic implications from the economic downturns due to the coronavirus crisis might raise the number of people facing acute food shortages to 265 million, according to Reuters. That’s nearly twice as many as were already suffering from acute hunger. The WFP experts warned that swift action is required to provide food and humanitarian relief to the most at-risk areas of the planet before more than a quarter of a billion people are at risk of starving, as The Guardian reported. “COVID-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread,” said Dr. Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Program, as The Guardian reported. “It is a hammer blow for millions more who can only eat if they earn a wage. Lockdowns and global economic recession have already decimated their nest eggs. It only takes one more shock – like COVID-19 – to push them over the edge. We must collectively act now to mitigate the impact of this global catastrophe.”
Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz Warns US Barreling Toward Second ‘Great Depression’ Thanks to Trump-GOP Failed Covid-19 Response
Common Dreams – April 22, 2020 – Jake Johnson
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/22/nobel-economist-joseph-stiglitz-warns-us-barreling-toward-second-great-depression#
“If we had the right policy structure in place we could avoid it easily,” said Stiglitz. “We were unprepared but, even given the degree of unpreparedness, Trump’s decision to make this about politics rather than about science has meant we have responded far more poorly.”
We Face Another Colossal Failure of Capitalism
Telesur – April 21, 2020 – Noam Chomsky
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/We-Face-Another-Colossal-Failure-of-Capitalism-Chomsky-20200421-0010.html
“The only country that has shown genuine internationalism has been Cuba, which has always been under the U.S. economic stranglehold and has survived somehow to continue showing the world what internationalism is about,” Chomsky stressed.
Why farmers are dumping milk down the drain and letting produce rot in fields
The Conversation – April 23, 2020 – Elizabeth Ransom, E. Melanie DuPuis and Michelle R. Worosz
https://theconversation.com/why-farmers-are-dumping-milk-down-the-drain-and-letting-produce-rot-in-fields-136567
As sociologists with a specialty in agriculture and food, we study how the structure of the food system affects people’s lives and the environment. Seeing food destroyed at a time when people are going hungry highlights both short- and long-term problems with this system… We believe a longer-term problem that needs to be addressed is how concentrated food supply chains have become, which has made them less nimble in adapting to disruptions like a health pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic makes clear the need to cooperate despite political differences
Gamma – April 16, 2020 – Ministry of Foreign Affairs Statement
http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2020-04-16/the-covid-19-pandemic-makes-clear-the-need-to-cooperate-despite-political-differences
At a time when the worldwide battle against the COVID-19 pandemic requires boosting cooperation and the leading role of international organizations, particularly the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the current U.S. administration attacks multilateralism and seeks to disqualify the established leadership of WHO. It also insists in its petty strategy of taking advantage of the circumstances to impose its dominance and attack countries whose governments it has discrepancies with.
Vote-by-Mail could cost Dems the Election
Dissident Voice – April 18, 2020 – Greg Palast
https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/04/vote-by-mail-could-cost-dems-the-election/
Nationally, over 100,000 absentee ballots were deep-sixed because they are missing a signature—in many cases, the second voter signature required in some states. In California, Asian-American voting rights activist Hyepin Im was horrified to find that Korean-American absentee ballots were tossed because the Korean language ballots ask for the voters signature in Korean. Not surprisingly, the voters signed with Korean characters, disqualifying their mail-in ballot. And another 100,000 ballots are lost in presidential elections because of postage due.
Fifty Years Ago This Spring, Millions of Students Struck to End the War in Vietnam
Jacobin Magazine – April 24, 2020 – Steve Early
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/kent-state-shooting-vietnam-war-protest-student-organizing
In May 1970, 4 million students went on strike across the country, shutting down classes at hundreds of colleges, universities, and high schools and demanding an end to the Vietnam War. Fifty years later, their rebellion remains an inspiration, as radical student politics is back on the agenda.
The Oil Industry Is Dying Right Now. Don’t Resuscitate It.
Jacobin Magazine – April 21, 2020 – Chris Saltmarsh
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/oil-barrel-price-crash-green-new-deal
There is only so far investment in competitive renewable industries and regulation will go. If we are to wind down the fossil fuel industry and guarantee justice for affected workers and communities, we will have to bring the industry into public ownership to manage its contraction as part of a planned transition. Liberating the industry from its current drive toward profit is the only way to ensure it does not throw all its remaining resources at undermining a just transition and a Green New Deal. This strategy is the only way to ensure that energy is clean, treated as a public good, and universally provided as a basic right by public companies. As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot go back to normal. There should be no place for the rogue oil industry in the future we build for ourselves.
Donald Trump set to fall back on xenophobia with re-election plan in tatters
The Guardian – April 26, 2020 – David Smith
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/26/donald-trump-xenophobia-re-election-campaign-2020
The president had been intending to campaign on a strong economy and facing a socialist opponent but scapegoating foreigners has worked for him before.
Capitalism Is Failing Its Coronavirus Stress Test—Only Workers Can Turn Things Around
Portside – In These Times – April 23, 2020 – Labor Leaders
https://www.portside.org/2020-04-23/capitalism-failing-its-coronavirus-stress-test-only-workers-can-turn-things-around
Labor unions today have the political opportunity and moral responsibility to help organize a movement of the whole working class, organized and unorganized alike, to fight for the safety and welfare protections that we all deserve… Like the workers at Sprouts Farmers Market in McAllen, Texas who won increased social distancing in their store by building a super-majority of support with their co-workers to demand safer working conditions from the boss, we cannot wait for corporations to do the right thing, we need to force them to.
“It’s Time to Engage in as Much Class Struggle as We Can”
Portside – Jacobin – April 20, 2020 – Interview with Mark Meinster by Meagan Day
https://www.portside.org/2020-04-20/its-time-engage-much-class-struggle-we-can
The United Electrical workers’ union and the Democratic Socialists of America are teaming up to help nonunion workers organize during the coronavirus crisis. The goal: find workers who are already spoiling for a fight and help them win it… Unions need to be reaching out to workers in unorganized workplaces with support in the form of training around their right to concerted activity, training around OSHA rights to refuse unsafe work, and training in how to organize and mobilize their coworkers. We need to be helping workers who don’t have a union think through what actions they can take in their workplace, and strategize about how to win immediate demands for personal protective equipment (PPE), for social distancing in the workplace, for hazard pay, or to get their workplace shut down with pay if that’s what they’re aiming for. The task is to putting workers in motion where they want to be in motion. Now is not the time for complacency from union. It’s not the time for unions to sit back or hunker down. It’s time to engage in as much class struggle as we can.
From Emergency to Emergence
Yes! Magazine – April 23, 2020 – David Korten
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/04/23/coronavirus-rebuild-economy/
This is an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how our beliefs, values, and institutions shape our relationships. We can create a world that works for everyone or face a future that no longer works for anyone… At a deeper level, this emergency is reminding us that we are living with another emergency—climate change. The combination of the two emergencies is helping us awaken to the profound implications of the simple truth that we are living beings born of and nurtured by a living Earth. Our well-being depends on Earth’s well-being. Life is the goal, community is essential, and money is only a tool… This current emergency provides the possibility for a new emergence—the birthing of a truly civil civilization dedicated to the well-being of all people and the living Earth.
25 Saturday Apr 2020
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this guy is amazing… impressive that he can speak an hour without notes but even more amazing what he has to say
https://store.eckharttolle.com/video-2-the-hidden-harmony-beyond-order-and-chaos37793564?_ke=eyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJ0ZkB0aGlua3NwZWFrLm5ldCIsICJrbF9jb21wYW55X2lkIjogIk5rN3paYiJ9
25 Saturday Apr 2020
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the Beyond War movement strategized embedding the notion of ending war into the population http://tfthinkspeak.blogspot.com
24 Friday Apr 2020
19 Sunday Apr 2020
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Under Cover of Covid-19, Donald Trump Ramps Up His War on Truth-Tellers
The Intercept – April 12, 2020 – James Risen
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/09/coronavirus-trump-firings/
Hoping that the country is too distracted by Covid-19 to notice, Trump has over the last few days engaged in a Stalinist purge of truth-tellers, leaving the survivors frightened and intimidated even as the federal government is shown to be too weak to counter the rampaging coronavirus… Trump views anyone who tells the truth as an enemy who must be crushed. Since the onset of the pandemic, he has often assaulted the truth in the middle of White House press briefings. That the docile White House press corps has repeatedly let it happen with barely a murmur encourages Trump to keep it up… Trump has lied and spouted propaganda and conspiracy theories ever since he took office. In the last few days, he has intensified his war against the truth and anyone who speaks it. With Covid-19, we are witnessing the results.
The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back
Foreign Policy – April 9, 2020 – Adam Tooze
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/09/unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic-normal-economy-is-never-coming-back/
There has never been a crash landing like this before. There is something new under the sun. And it is horrifying… Millions of Americans and their families are facing catastrophe… This collapse is not the result of a financial crisis. It is not even the direct result of the pandemic. The collapse is the result of a deliberate policy choice, which is itself a radical novelty… If the public response to the debts accumulated by the crisis is austerity, that will make matters worse. It makes sense to call instead for a more active, more visionary government to lead the way out of the crisis. But the question, of course, is what form that will take and which political forces will control it.
COVID-19 Relief Needs to Be Tied to Duration of Crisis, Not an Arbitrary Date
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – April 13, 2020 – Chad Stone and Sharon Parrott
https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/labor-market-conditions-should-determine-duration-size-of-covid-19-relief-measures
In the next relief package, policymakers should tie relief measures to economic conditions rather than an arbitrary calendar date, using “triggers” based on job market conditions to determine when assistance would phase up or phase out. A national trigger would ensure that relief measures continue nationwide as long as they are needed, but no longer. Since the recovery from the pandemic may occur at different rates in different parts of the country, additional state-specific triggers could provide longer-lasting help in states facing greater challenges after nationwide relief has triggered off.
Climate Change Won’t Stop for the Coronavirus Pandemic
ProPublica – April 13, 2020 – Abrahm Lustgarten
https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-wont-stop-for-the-coronavirus-pandemic
“Climate change is loading the weather dice against us,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a professor of public policy and law at Texas Tech University and one of the world’s foremost climate scientists. “We always have the chance of rolling a double six.” When we do, disasters that might have otherwise proved manageable will compound and amplify COVID’s effects until the hurt — measured in lives, livelihoods and property damage — winds up worse than it might have been from any one disaster alone… “To say that we are not prepared for these concurrent disasters is putting it mildly,” said Irwin Redlener, a clinical professor of health policy at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and a leading expert in public health ramifications of catastrophic events. “I’m extremely worried.”… It sets us up for a level of misery that no living American has experienced — even during the Great Depression,” Redlener said. “There is no real equivalent to what I am worried about in terms of multiple large scale disasters in a country that is ill prepared.”
Decades of Science Denial Related to Climate Change Has Led to Denial of the Coronavirus Pandemic
InsideClimate News – April 14, 2020 – Neela Banerjee and David Hasemyer
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042020/science-denial-coronavirus-covid-climate-change
A merican science denialism, deployed for years against climate change and, most recently, the coronavirus, can be traced back to the early 1950s during the fight over smog in Los Angeles. When a Cal-Tech biochemist fingered nitrogen oxide emissions and uncombusted hydrocarbons from automobiles and refineries as the cause of the thick smog that often blanketed the city, the American Petroleum Institute counter-attacked by highlighting the alleged uncertainty of his science. The tactic was a test run for the fossil fuel industry’s assault 40 years later on climate science.
America’s Billionaires Are Giving to Charity – but Much of It Is Self-Serving Rubbish
The Guardian – April 12, 2020 – Robert Reich
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/12/americas-billionaire-class-donations
If the pandemic has revealed anything, it’s that America’s current social safety net and healthcare system does not protect the majority of Americans in a national emergency. We are the outlier among the world’s advanced nations in subjecting our citizens to perpetual insecurity. We are also the outlier in possessing a billionaire class that, in controlling much of our politics, has kept such proposals off the public agenda. At least until now.
World faces worst recession since Great Depression
BBC – April 14, 2020 – Szu Ping Chan
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52273988
The global economy will contract by 3% this year as countries around the world shrink at the fastest pace in decades, the International Monetary Fund says. The IMF described the global decline as the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It said the pandemic had plunged the world into a “crisis like no other”. The Fund added that a prolonged outbreak would test the ability of governments and central banks to control the crisis. Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, said the crisis could knock $9 trillion (£7.2 trillion) off global GDP over the next two years… The IMF set out four priorities for dealing with the pandemic. It called for more money for health care systems, financial support for workers and businesses, continued central bank support and a clear exit plan for the recovery. It urged the world to work together to find and distribute treatments and a vaccine. The Fund added that many developing nations would need debt relief in the coming months and years.
Albert Camus’ ‘The Plague’ and the art of living during times of catastrophe
Waging Non-violence – April 14, 2020 – Bryan Farrell
https://wagingnonviolence.org/podcast/albert-camus-the-plague-nonviolent-resistance-rescue-wwii-coronavirus/
Influenced by the nonviolent resistance and rescue Camus witnessed during World War II, “The Plague” insists that solidarity, compassion and saving lives is the only way forward… Although written during World War II — and intended as an allegory for the Nazi occupation of France — this classic novel feels immediately relevant. A disease that spreads from animals to humans wreaks havoc on an unprepared population, one that is too wrapped up in itself and its economic dealings to take the threat seriously at first… what follows is an examination of Albert Camus’ “The Plague” and the real-life nonviolent history that helped shape its timely, and timeless, message.
The case for public ownership of the fossil fuel industry
The Next System Project – April 14, 2020 – Johanna Bozuwa
https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/case-public-ownership-fossil-fuel-industry
We need public ownership for the people, not a bailout for fossil fuel executives. By assuming ownership and control of the coal, oil, and gas industries, the U.S. government can position itself to provide near- and long-term economic security for struggling workers and communities, and to proactively wind down fossil fuel production to meet climate goals. This approach would help manage further social, financial, and environmental stress from a sector already in decline before COVID-19… Public ownership would shift control of U.S. fossil fuel reserves from profit-driven, myopic shareholders to a government acting in the public interest. Rather than lobbyists running the show, the government could mandate oversight of a managed phase-out of fossil fuel production via an independent Federal Just Transition Agency.
How Do We Exit The Shutdown? Hire An Army Of Public Health Workers
Kaiser Health News – April 13, 2020 – Anna Maria Barry-Jester
https://khn.org/news/how-do-we-exit-the-shutdown-hire-an-army-of-public-health-workers/
The principles are simple: Stabilize the number of people who have the virus (through the strict social distancing already in place), and ensure hospitals can handle the cases they have. Then, put tools in place to stop new infections in their tracks so there isn’t a renewed outbreak. It all starts with testing, and several countries that revamped their public health programs in the wake of the deadly 2003 SARS epidemic seem to be reaping the benefits now. That includes Singapore, which quickly ramped up testing for both active infections of COVID-19 and an antibody test to show previous infection, and South Korea, which tested tens of thousands of people in the weeks after it detected its first cases… Dr. Sten Vermund, dean of Yale School of Public Health, called it “the definition of insanity” if the U.S. didn’t take this moment to reinvest in public health. “There is no greater threat to the economic well-being of planet Earth,” he said, “than pandemic respiratory viral illness.”
Think This Pandemic Is Bad? We Have Another Crisis Coming
The New York Times – April 15, 2020 – Rhiana Gunn-Wright
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/opinion/sunday/climate-change-covid-economy.html
Covid-19 and the economic collapse it has caused have laid bare how connected our problems are. Congress and the Federal Reserve are not going to lay out trillions of dollars, over and over, in perpetuity. Refusing to include measures related to climate and environmental justice in economic stimulus packages related to the coronavirus is not neutral when there is no guarantee of other opportunities to do so later. We need to design the stimulus not only to help the U.S. economy recover but to also become more resilient to the climate crisis, the next multitrillion-dollar crisis headed our way… It’s past time to elect leaders who are fit to handle the crises we face, instead of hoping for problems small enough to fit the leaders we have.
What the Green Party Could Do, Instead of Challenging Biden
The New Yorker – April 15, 2020 – Bill McKibben
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/instead-of-challenging-joe-biden-maybe-the-green-party-could-help-change-our-democracy
To understand why this reform—ranked-choice voting—seems so important to me, let me say that, by ideology, I’m pretty much a Green… Here’s how it works: if there are ten candidates on your ballot, you list your choices from one to ten. You can proudly vote for the Green candidate as your No. 1 choice for Congress, and, if she comes in last, you haven’t lost your vote or spoiled someone else’s chances. That’s because that vote would then be eliminated and your second-ranked vote would be counted instead, and so on, until someone has won a majority… These elections not only allow for more ideological diversity but also tend to reduce the truly hateful divisiveness that’s become such a feature of our elections. If you’re a candidate in a ranked-choice election, you have a strong incentive not to be a sneering jerk to your competitors, because that kind of behavior reduces your chances of getting crucial No. 2 votes. You have to make your case, and you have to at least understand someone else’s.
How We Can Build a Hardier World After the Coronavirus
The New Yorker – April 16, 2020 – Bill McKibben
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/how-we-can-build-a-hardier-world-after-the-coronavirus
The coronavirus pandemic has revealed one particularly shocking thing about our societies and economies: they have been operating on a very thin margin. The edifice seems so shiny and substantial, a world of silver jets stitching together cities of towering skyscrapers, a globe of soaring markets and smartphone connectivity. But a couple of months into this disease and it’s all tottering, the jets grounded and the cities silent and the markets reeling. One industry after another is heading for bankruptcy, and no one knows if they will come back. In other words, however shiny it may have seemed, it wasn’t very sturdy… If you’ve got diabetes or hypertension, or have a suppressed immune system, you’re far more likely to be felled by COVID-19. Societies, too, come with underlying conditions, and the two that haunt our planet right now are inequality and ecological turmoil. They’ve both spiked in the past few decades, with baleful results that normally stay just below the surface, felt but not fully recognized. But as soon as something else goes wrong—a new microbe launches a pandemic, say—they become starkly evident.
‘A Right of the People’: Leader of Postal Workers Union Demands USPS Funding in Next Stimulus Bill
Common Dreams – April 17, 2020 – Jake Johnson
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/17/right-people-leader-postal-workers-union-demands-usps-funding-next-stimulus-bill
“I think it’s pretty straightforward,” Dimondstein said of Trump’s agenda. “In June of 2018, an Office of Management and Budget report—that’s the White House—openly called for an opportunity to sell off the Post Office to private corporations. Their agenda is to enrich a few of their private sector friends at the expense of the people of our country… The underlying thing is, they’re coming after a right of the people.” One of the central components of the White House’s proposal, which it touted again in February as the Postal Service warned of looming financial disaster, was rolling back postal workers’ right to organize. “The presidential task force that Mnuchin headed up actually called for an end to our collective bargaining rights,” Dimonstein noted. “So that’s on their agenda too.”
EPA Guts Rule Credited With Cleaning Up Toxic Coal Plant Air
Time Magazine – April 16, 2020 – Ellen Knickmeyer
https://time.com/5823046/epa-guts-rule-coal-plants-emissions/
The Trump administration on Thursday gutted an Obama-era rule that compelled the country’s coal plants to cut back emissions of mercury and other human health hazards, a move designed to limit future regulation of air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants.
“Gangster in the White House”: Noam Chomsky on COVID-19, WHO, China, Gaza and Global Capitalism
Democracy Now! – April 17, 2020 – Amy Goodman interviews Noam Chomsky
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/17/noam_chomsky_coronavirus_trump_gaza_palestine
We continue our conversation with world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky. He responds to President Trump’s cuts to U.S. support for the World Health Organization and the surge in deaths in the United States to another record high, and discusses conditions in Gaza, the rise of authoritarianism around the world, and the progressive response. “This is typical behavior of autocrats and dictators. When you make colossal errors which are killing thousands of people, find somebody else to blame,” say Chomsky. “In the United States, it’s unfortunately the case, for well over a century, century and a half, that it’s always easy to blame the ‘yellow peril.’”
America Can Afford a World-Class Health System. Why Don’t We Have One?
The New York Times – April 14, 2020 – Anne Case and Angus Deaton
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/opinion/covid-inequality-health-care.html
Our system takes from the poor and working class to generate wealth for the already wealthy… The American health care industry is not good at promoting health, but it excels at taking money from all of us for its benefit. It is an engine of inequality… The health care industry has armored itself, employing five lobbyists for each elected member of Congress. But public anger has been building — over drug prices, co-payments, surprise medical bills — and now, over the fragility of our health care system, which has been laid bare by the pandemic. This anger could breach the protective cordon in Washington. If it does, what will we get instead?
Canceling Rent and Suspending Mortgage Payments
Portside – Common Dreams – April 18, 2020 – Jessica Corbett
https://www.portside.org/2020-04-18/canceling-rent-and-suspending-mortgage-payments
“My bill to cancel rent and mortgages isn’t just necessary,” says Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, “it’s popular.”
Starve the Beast, Feed the Depression
Portside – The New York Times – April 17, 2020 – Paul Krugman
https://www.portside.org/2020-04-17/starve-beast-feed-depression
“Starve the beast” — forcing governments to cut services by depriving them of resources — has been Republican strategy for decades. This is just more of the same… At a basic level, then, anti-government ideologues are preventing us from responding adequately to the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Their obstructionism will cause vast suffering, as crucial public services are curtailed. It will also compound the economic damage. In the near future, we’ll see millions of unnecessary job losses as impoverished families cut back spending, as local governments lay off teachers and firefighters, as the post office, if it survives at all, becomes a shadow of its former self. And many of these job losses will probably persist even after the pandemic subsides.
Coronavirus and Climate Change: How to Save Lives During Crises
Yes! Magazine – April 14, 2020 – Breanna Draxler
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/04/13/coronavirus-save-lives-climate/
Courtney Howard is an emergency doctor in Yellowknife, Canada. She serves a patient population that, so far, has only seen one case of COVID-19 but is living in one of the most rapidly warming climates in the world… She sees the response to coronavirus and the resulting investments as the perfect opportunity to address both new and long-standing threats to health… Essentially, we’re in a generational tipping point. Things have been disrupted, so now we have this opportunity: How can we apply the lessons that we’ve learned to saving lives this century and into the next?
The America We Need
The New York Times – editorial series
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/opinion/america-inequality-coronavirus.html
The devastation of the pandemic has also created an opportunity to begin to put things right, to ensure that the America that ultimately emerges is more just, more free and less fragile. Through this initiative, Times Opinion is exploring, and seeking to answer, basic questions about what the government owes its citizens, what corporations owe their employees and what we all owe each other. America was ailing long before the coronavirus reached its shores. Now we have the chance to make it better.
10 resources: organizing and analysis on COVID-19
American Friends Service Committee Blog – April 9, 2020 – Lucy Duncan
https://www.afsc.org/blogs/acting-in-faith/what-were-reading-organizing-and-analysis-covid-19
Here are a few resources I recommend, including some nuts-and-bolts on organizing in these times, some moving analysis about what it all means, and one beautiful prayer written by a Quaker anarchist. – Lucy
Amid the coronavirus crisis, mutual aid networks erupt across the country
Waging Nonviolence – March 27, 2020 – Shane Burley
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/03/coronavirus-mutual-aid-networks-erupt-across-country
As the government response to the pandemic falters, mutual aid projects — a staple of social movements for decades — are rising up to meet people’s basic needs.
17 Friday Apr 2020
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15 Wednesday Apr 2020
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https://streetsofatlanta.blog/2020/04/02/climate-change-an-age-of-catastrophes-and-pandemics/
14 Tuesday Apr 2020
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