The Nordic Way to Economic Rescue
The New York Times – March 28, 2020 – Peter S. Goodman
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/business/nordic-way-economic-rescue-virus.html
What is needed, say many economists, is not a spur to economic activity, but a comprehensive rescue for people harmed while normal life is frozen: The government should step in and issue paychecks directly to prevent a disastrous wave of joblessness…. In Denmark, political parties from across the ideological spectrum joined with labor unions and employers associations this month to unite behind a plan that has the government covering 75 to 90 percent of all worker salaries over the next three months, provided that companies refrain from layoffs.
DOI Is Using COVID-19 as a Smoke Screen to Push Oil and Gas Agenda
Outside – March 26, 2020 – Wes Siler
https://www.outsideonline.com/2411003/interior-doi-coronavirus-oil-gas-agenda
It appears that the Department of the Interior is using the coronavirus crisis to push through controversial policy changes that are environmentally harmful, benefit the oil and gas industries at a significant cost to the American public, suppress both science and the public’s voice, or compromise the safety of DOI employees. To recap, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is a former lobbyist for the oil, gas, and agriculture industries who has continued to work in benefit of his former clients in his current role.
Putting Jared Kushner In Charge Is Utter Madness
The New York Times – April 2, 2020 – Michelle Goldberg
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/opinion/jared-kushner-coronavirus.html
Kushner has succeeded at exactly three things in his life. He was born to the right parents, married well and learned how to influence his father-in-law. Most of his other endeavors — his biggest real estate deal, his foray into newspaper ownership, his attempt to broker a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians — have been failures. Undeterred, he has now arrogated to himself a major role in fighting the epochal health crisis that’s brought America to its knees. “Behind the scenes, Kushner takes charge of coronavirus response,” said a Politico headline on Wednesday. This is dilettantism raised to the level of sociopathy.
11 to 100,000: What went wrong with coronavirus testing in the U.S.
The Washington Post – March 30, 2020 – Meg Kelly, Sarah Cahlan and Elyse Samuels
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/11-100000-what-went-wrong-with-coronavirus-testing-us/
With the clarity of hindsight, it is obvious the situation was very much not under control. In reality, a lack of testing gave a false picture of how many people across the country were infected. Through government documents, testimony, news reports and interviews, The Fact Checker video team has reconstructed events that left the government blind to the virus’s spread, and examined how those errors opened the door for 11 confirmed cases to balloon to more than 100,000 in less than six weeks… The president spent nearly two months issuing confusing and contradictory signals — leaving the bureaucratic machine of the U.S. government to chart the course for the coronavirus response… We may never have a true count of how many Americans contracted the virus. The missteps that went unmanaged were ignored by leaders at the highest level of government and allowed cases to go undetected, contributing to the spike in the virus’s spread.
Who Will Win the Fight for a Post-Coronavirus America?
The New York Times – March 29, 2020 – Rebecca Solnit
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/opinion/coronavirus-revolution.html
Every disaster shakes loose the old order. What replaces it is up to us.
Trump Bashed Immigrants, but Nearly 1/3 of US Doctors Are Foreign-Born, on Pandemic Front Lines
Informed Comment – March 30, 2020 – Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/2020/03/immigrants-foreign-pandemic.html
Nearly nearly one third of American physicians are foreign-born. And about a quarter of nursing aides are first-generation immigrants. They are on the ramparts, our first line of defense, risking their lives every day during the pandemic. Quite apart from immigration, the medical profession is not just Trump’s kind of white people. About 17 percent of US physicians are Asian-Americans. These are the same Asian-Americans against whom Trump fomented beatings and harassment by calling Covid-19 “Chinese.”
The Coronavirus Spurs a Movement of People Reclaiming Vacant Homes
The New Yorker – March 28, 2020 – Dana Goodyear
https://www.newyorker.com/news/california-chronicles/the-coronavirus-spurs-a-movement-of-people-reclaiming-vacant-homes
There are thirty-six thousand homeless people in Los Angeles and countless others living in crowded, inadequate, and unstable situations. Wouldn’t they, too, be safer in a home? The acute crisis of the coronavirus, and the paradox of stay-at-home orders for a homeless population, might offer activists a chance to force decisive change.
The Coronation
Charles Eisenstein website – March, 2020
https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-coronation/?_page=3
Covid-19 is showing us that when humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change is possible. None of the world’s problems are technically difficult to solve; they originate in human disagreement… Covid demonstrates the power of our collective will when we agree on what is important. What else might we achieve, in coherency? What do we want to achieve, and what world shall we create? That is always the next question when anyone awakens to their power.
Taxpayers Paid Millions to Design a Low-Cost Ventilator for a Pandemic. Instead, the Company Is Selling Versions of It Overseas.
Propublica – March 30, 2020 – Patricia Callahan, Sebastian Rotella and Tim Golden
https://www.propublica.org/article/taxpayers-paid-millions-to-design-a-low-cost-ventilator-for-a-pandemic-instead-the-company-is-selling-versions-of-it-overseas-
Some experts said the nature of the current crisis — in which the federal government is scrambling to set up field hospitals in New York’s Central Park and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center — underscores the urgent need for simpler, lower-cost ventilators. The story of the Trilogy Evo Universal, described here for the first time, also raises questions about the government’s reliance on public-private partnerships that public health officials have used to piece together important parts of their disaster safety net. “That’s the problem of leaving any kind of disaster preparedness up to the market and market forces — it will never work,” said Dr. John Hick, an emergency medicine specialist in Minnesota who has advised HHS on pandemic preparedness since 2002. “The market is not going to give priority to a relatively no-frills but dependable ventilator that’s not expensive.”
The famous Cuban interferon vs the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus
OnCubaNews – March 18, 2020 – Tahimi Arboleya
https://oncubanews.com/en/cuba/the-famous-cuban-interferon-vs-the-sars-cov-2-coronavirus/
Many American readers have asked us if the interferon produced by Cuba could be exported to the United States. The answer is yes, it could.
More Hydroxychloroquine Data From France, More Questions
Medscape – March 30, 2020 – Véronique Duqueroy
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/927758
Personally, I really believe in hydroxychloroquine. It would nevertheless be a shame to think we had found the fountain of youth and realize, in 4 weeks, that we have the same number of deaths. That is the problem. I hope that we will soon have solid data so we do not waste time focusing solely on hydroxychloroquine.
Meet the Americans Studying Medicine on the Cuban Government’s Dime
MintPress – March 31, 2020 – Alan Macleod
https://www.mintpressnews.com/meet-americans-studying-medical-school-cuba/266223/
The Cuban government has been paying Americans through a little known program to study medicine in order to return to the United States and serve underprivileged communities.
Welcome to the Fourth World
The Shipler Report – March 31, 2020 – David K. Shipler
http://shiplerreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/welcome-to-fourth-world.html
We are now in a Fourth World, “a new category of nations: those once mighty and noble that are falling into frailty and disrepute.” Those words are from a piece I wrote the day before Trump was inaugurated. It was entitled, “America Enters a Fourth World.” My apologies for quoting myself, which puts me off when writers do it. But I’ll continue shamelessly, and you can read the whole essay here [https://shiplerreport.blogspot.com/2017/01/america-enters-fourth-world.html#more] to see how obvious Trump’s defects were even before he took office as “the most childish, reckless, and truthless president in modern American history.” The Fourth World “is a place of undoing. It is a place where moral values of the common good are picked apart, strand by strand, until only the shreds of caring and justice remain. It is where progress is dismantled: progress—albeit fitful and incomplete—in mobilizing the society through government to protect the impoverished from utter ruin, the innocent from false imprisonment, minorities from tyranny, children from hunger, families from dangerous foods and medicines and polluted air and water, and the earth from the end-stage of catastrophic global warming… We need to observe social distancing—from the President and his babbling.
Report reveals ‘massive plastic pollution footprint’ of drinks firms
The Guardian – March 30, 2020 – Sandra Laville
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/31/report-reveals-massive-plastic-pollution-footprint-of-drinks-firms
Four global drinks giants are responsible for more than half a million tonnes of plastic pollution in six developing countries each year, enough to cover 83 football pitches every day, according to a report. The NGO Tearfund has calculated the greenhouse gas emissions from the open burning of plastic bottles, sachets and cartons produced by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Unilever in developing nations, where waste can be mismanaged because people do not have access to collections… The report says: “This massive plastic pollution footprint, while a crisis in and of itself, is also contributing to the climate crisis.”
This new kind of plastic is made to degrade in seawater
Anthropocene Magazine – March 26, 2020 – Prachi Patel
https://anthropocenemagazine.org/2020/03/this-new-degradable-plastic-could-be-the-relief-our-oceans-need/
At five sites in the world’s oceans, plastic waste accumulates in large swirling gyres, the largest of which is three times the size of France. Japanese researchers have developed a new kind of biodegradable plastic that could help. The material, reported in the journal Carbohydrate Polymers, is made from starch and cellulose, and could be a step towards a low-cost biodegradable plastic that can be mass-produced.
In Race for a Sustainable Alternative to Plastic, Indonesia Bets on Seaweed
Mongabay – March 30, 2020 – Johan Augustin
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/in-race-for-a-sustainable-alternative-to-plastic-indonesia-bets-on-seaweed/
Edible cups made from seaweed. Shopping bags from cassava starch. Food containers from sugarcane fiber. These are some of the bioplastic alternatives being tried out in Indonesia, the world’s No. 2 producer of seaweed.
Trump: Killing You Not Just Quickly but Slowly
The American Prospect – March 31, 2020 – Harold Meyerson
https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/trump-killing-you-slowly-fuel-efficiency-emissions-standards/
In what would be a very big story at any time other than pandemic season, the Trump administration today officially rolled back the fuel efficiency and emissions standards on cars that the Obama administration promulgated in 2012… If the administration’s dismissal of the coronavirus threat doesn’t get us, fear not. Their indifference to the climate crisis may well.
America’s Innocent Prisoners Are Going to Die There
Atlantic Magazine – March 31, 2-020 – Barbara Bradley Hagerty
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/americas-innocent-prisoners-are-going-die-there/609133/
While millions of Americans shelter in place, one group simply cannot escape the coronavirus: prisoners. Among them are hundreds of people who have plausible claims that they are innocent, whose cases were working their way through the courts—until the coronavirus ground regular court business to a halt. What these stories reveal is the threat the virus poses to prisoners, both innocent and guilty, and to the wider population as a whole… Experts say that America will now see the price of mass incarceration, and that it will be catastrophically high, both for people in prisons and for the communities around them.
He served nearly 44 years in solitary confinement. He was innocent of the crime
The Washington Post – March 31, 2020 – KK Ottesen
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/he-served-nearly-44-years-in-solitary-confinement-he-was-innocent-of-the-crime/2020/03/31/714b5506-621c-11ea-b3fc-7841686c5c57_story.html
Albert Woodfox, 73, is an activist and the author of “Solitary,” a 2019 National Book Award finalist. Known as one of the Angola Three, along with Robert King and Herman Wallace, Woodfox served nearly 44 years in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. He was released in 2016… Anger is one of the motivating factors in what I’m doing now, continuing to be a social advocate. I’ve been around the country, around the world speaking on the horrors of solitary and other issues. But I never allowed myself to become bitter because, again, the example by my mom: With all the hardship she went through, she never became bitter. She instilled in me that belief that whatever situations you were given, you can make it into something better.
Anti-Asian American hate crimes are surging. Trump is to blame
The Los Angeles Times – April 1, 2020 – Russell Jeung, Manjusha P. Kulkarni and Cynthia Choi
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-01/coronavirus-anti-asian-discrimination-threats
Immediately after 9/11, President Bush denounced those who intimidated Muslims and called on the nation to treat this American community with respect. In contrast, Trump repeatedly used the term the “Chinese virus” despite warnings that this would incite racist threats against Asian Americans. His tepid retreat on that rhetoric last week did little to stem the harm. The damage is done.
Homegrown Crisis Response: Who Grows Your Food
Justice Initiative – March 31, 2020 – K. Rashid Nuri
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Homegrown-Crisis-Response—Who-Grows-Your-Food.html?soid=1109359583686&aid=3Xo9rZ1DKCo
I am calling for five percent of the over $50 billion to farmers-a mere $2.5 billion-to be allocated to small farms and urban agriculture. This new Agricultural Homestead policy would support infrastructure development for small farms and urban agriculture, as well as provide small inputs for home gardeners. The Big Ag system of mass producing nutrient-deficient, GMO foods that we have known for the last 75 years, is broken. The paradigm has changed. The current pandemic is contributing to the creation of a new world order. Small farms and urban agriculture extend backyard gardens into a viable economic system for just and equitable food distribution, based on sustainability and self-sufficiency. They shift the paradigm from Big Ag to thriving local food systems, under local control… The time to choose is now. Grow your own food and grow your community
The November Election Is Going to Be a Nightmare
The Washington Post – March 31, 2020 – Paul Waldman
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/31/november-election-is-going-be-nightmare/
Republicans are convinced that Democrats are just taking the opportunity of this public health crisis to push their preexisting election reform agenda. And to a degree, that’s true. It just happens that part of this agenda — letting anyone vote by mail if they want to — is absolutely necessary when we’re in the midst of a pandemic that makes it dangerous for people to gather in large groups… The only question is how bad it’ll be, and whether we can make it to the other side with our democracy intact.
Coronavirus Makes It More Clear Than Ever: Health Care Is a Human Right
The Chicago Sun-Times – April 1, 2020 – Jesse Jackson
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2020/3/30/21200283/health-care-human-right-coronavirus-covid-19-jesse-jackson-insurance-companies
The COVID-19 crisis exposes the foolishness of pretending that health care is a private marketplace.
There’s Never Been a Better Time for Us to End Private Health Insurance Than Right Now
Jacobin Magazine – April 1, 2020 – Tim Higginbotham
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/coronavirus-medicare-for-all-m4a-single-payer-health-insurance
Allowing private companies to bankroll our health care system has always been a terrible policy choice, but the horror of this approach is about to become even more evident. Hiking premiums in the midst of a devastating pandemic to make up for their losses is an act of cruelty, to be sure. But it’s also the only logical act for companies whose sole purpose is to chase accrescent profits. Instead of allowing our premiums to skyrocket or bailing out a heartless industry with public funds, thereby prolonging a profit-driven nightmare, we need to seize this watershed moment by taking the step many Americans have demanded for over a century. It’s time to abolish the private insurance industry and create a single, national insurance plan in its place.
The Coronavirus Has Created Record Support for Medicare for All
Jacobin Magazine – April 2, 2020 – Luke Savage
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-medicare-for-all-support
The causes of this shift are not hard to identify given the scope of the current crisis and the strain it has visibly placed on America’s already ramshackle and largely profit-driven health care system. With unemployment set to reach record highs in the coming months (almost 10 million Americans filed for unemployment in the last two weeks alone) an already underinsured and vulnerable population is probably wondering about the rationality and viability of a model that ties health care so intimately to employment… Whatever its short-term political impact, the coronavirus pandemic is yet again underscoring the chronic dysfunction of America’s mostly profit-driven health care system — and the deep inhumanity at its core.
How to Prepare for the Trump Recession
Robert Reich’s Website – April 1, 2020
https://robertreich.org/post/614125226375184384
We need to expand unemployment coverage so that everyone is protected… We need to reform the public assistance program so that more families in need are eligible. It should be easier to waive the strict work eligibility requirements during the economic downturn, and the lifetime five-year limit should be suspended… We need to protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps… Stronger safety nets are not only good for individuals and families in need. They will also prevent the looming recession from becoming an even deeper and longer economic crisis.
How Donald Trump Plans on Spinning 200,000 Coronavirus Deaths as a Win
Mother Jones – April 1, 2020 – David Corn
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/how-donald-trump-plans-on-spinning-200000-coronavirus-deaths-as-a-win/
As a reality-TV president more focused on PR than policy, he believes he can rewrite the script as the first act plays. Like a virus, he can change with no regard of past actions… Trump is now attempting to set the stage for a grand finale in which he can claim victory and demand reelection while standing on the corpses of 200,000 or so dead Americans. This will be an absurd argument but the nation has already seen a flood of absurdity from Trump and an overflow of credulity from his cultlike followers… Trump, the onetime owner of bankrupt casinos, appears to be betting on this 200,000 estimate. That horrific level of death will still be a tremendous tragedy for which Trump will bear partial responsibility. And the number of fatalities is likely to be higher. Should that be the case, Trump will, no doubt, adapt once more and concoct a new strain. A virus has no conscience. It only exists to survive and spread.
Early Data Shows African Americans Have Contracted and Died of Coronavirus at an Alarming Rate
Propublica – April 3, 2020 – Akilah Johnson and Talia Buford
https://www.propublica.org/article/early-data-shows-african-americans-have-contracted-and-died-of-coronavirus-at-an-alarming-rate
Milwaukee is one of the few places in the United States that is tracking the racial breakdown of people who have been infected by the novel coronavirus, offering a glimpse at the disproportionate destruction it is inflicting on black communities nationwide… Experts say that the nation’s unwillingness to publicly track the virus by race could obscure a crucial underlying reality: It’s quite likely that a disproportionate number of those who die of coronavirus will be black… “When COVID-19 passes and we see the losses … it will be deeply tied to the story of post-World War II policies that left communities marginalized,” Sprague said. “Its impact is going to be tied to our history and legacy of racial inequities. It’s going to be tied to the fact that we live in two very different worlds.”
Coronavirus Pandemic Could Have Been Prevented
Aljazeera – April 4, 2020 – interview with Noam Chomsky
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/noam-chomsky-coronavirus-pandemic-prevented-200403113823259.html
Chomsky slams US’s handling of virus as he warns nuclear war, global warming threats will remain after pandemic is over… Describing the US president as a “sociopathic buffoon”, Chomsky said while the coronavirus was serious, “it’s worth recalling that there is a much greater horror approaching. We are racing to the edge of disaster, far worse than anything that’s happened in human history. “Donald Trump and his minions are in the lead in racing to the abyss. In fact there are two immense threats that we’re facing – one is the growing threat of nuclear war … and the other of course is the growing threat of global warming.” While the coronavirus can have “terrifying consequences, there will be recovery”, said Chomsky, but regarding the other threats, “there won’t be recovery, it’s finished”.
Community Care: An Indigenous Response to Coronavirus
Yes! Magazine – March 30, 2020 – Jade Begay
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/03/30/coronavirus-indigenous-community-care/
By the time the pandemic has been managed, we will have learned so much from this moment and how we can better prepare for these types of scenarios; we will see where we have gaps in our communities, cities, nations, and where we have strengths. When all of this has stabilized, we encourage you to not to forget the feelings and the lessons that this moment is giving each and everyone one of us. Write them down so as to not forget this moment. We can not go back to business as usual after this experience. We have to apply what we learned to our lives, to our politics, and to our relationships, so that if and when this happens again, whether it’s a pandemic or a climate catastrophe, we can be fully prepared as communities. This might look like voting in November, or working for Medicare For All in your state or region, or working within your community to build gardens and food banks, bringing in renewable energy so we are not dependent on grids or oil and gas. This moment can feel scary and strange. But again, when you quiet worries and the fears, moments like this really urge us to become strong, innovative, holistic-minded, and resilient peoples.
Why Coronavirus Relief Needs to be Permanent
Yes!Magazine – March 20, 2020 – Megan Wildhood
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/03/20/coronavirus-relief-permanent/
What we need is a permanent culture of mutual aid, one where all of the efforts discussed above are constantly being created and sustained perpetually not because of an emergency but because that’s what brings social and economic justice to all. It’s time to push our leaders to replace their short-term view of maintaining until things can go back to normal (as in, the conditions that make pandemics possible) with the bigger vision of a sustainable society that always cares for what its members need.
Saving People from Coronavirus Can Teach Us How to Do the Same for Climate Change
Yes! Magazine – April 3, 2020 – Reynard Loki
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/04/03/coronavirus-climate-change/
It’s up to you and me, and every single individual who wants a healthy planet for ourselves, our children and future generations. And environmental activists should use this moment in history to help people understand that we can, we should, and we must make changes to our behavior, our lifestyles, and our consumption habits. Across the globe, the coronavirus pandemic has changed daily human life in ways small (like the length of time we wash our hands) and big (like how we work and play). It also demonstrates one salient fact: Our everyday activities affect so many things—not just our own personal health, but the health of our local communities and even the entire planet. Coronavirus is a killer, but it can also be a teacher. Let’s learn all of its lessons.
“Working Together Is What Humans Are Built to Do”: Social Trust Is Key to Stemming the Coronavirus Crisis
The New Yorker – April 2, 2020 – Bill McKibben
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/social-trust-is-key-to-stemming-the-coronavirus-crisis
the Scandinavian nations, which a United Nations report released on March 20th said are in the best position to deal with such crises. Nations “with higher levels of social trust and connections are more resilient in the face of natural disasters and economic crises,” it concluded, because “fixing rather than fighting becomes the order of the day.” It’s probably no accident that, in many ways, the Nordic nations also lead the climate fight, or that South Korea’s ruling party proposed a sweeping Green New Deal to confront the economic slump that the virus left behind. Working together is what humans are actually built to do.
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