Saturday, May 2, 2020
Romance Is the New Realism: Eugene Debs and the Age of Corona
In this pandemic-era, it has become increasingly clear that we are only as healthy as the least insured—hence the poorest—in our society.
by
Danny Sjursen
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/05/01/romance-new-realism-eugene-debs-and-age-corona
I was first exposed to Eugene Victor Debs through Kurt Vonnegut novels. That sci-fi social critic was a lifelong fan and referenced Debs in several of his books. Since then, mine has been a whirlwind historical love affair. The passion and eloquence of this former worker turned labor leader, and eventual five-time Socialist candidate for president is undeniable. His work and example have spoken to me in different ways at various points in my life—but never before has Debs seemed more relevant.
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.His lifelong fight for social justice, and an end to war, did not come without costs. It rarely does. In 1918, Debs was arrested under the Sedition Act—a recent statute that criminalized constitutionally-protected speech—after he delivered peaceful oratory opposed to America’s entry into World War I. Later, just after he’d been sentenced to a decade in prison, Debs proclaimed before a Cleveland federal court that:
Sounds a bit like something Christ might reputedly have said in the early Synoptic Gospels, no? Of course, Debs has always been a secular saint, of sorts, in progressive left and nascent antiwar circles. Still, my love for Debs—and personal penchant for plastering this particular quote on t-shirts and social media—has struck many critics as naive. That is, until now.
Corona’s empathy-gift amidst the mass of lonely death is that it demonstrates—in a rather concrete sense—that none are better than the “meanest” (or “sickest”) among us. Even the prosperous cannot forever hide, or wall themselves off, from the inequities of the global system. After all, it is often forgotten that Debs, and the socialists of his day, had a distinctly international vision that transcended the illusory boundaries, and “imagined communities,” crafted by the powerful.
In this pandemic-era, it has become increasingly clear, per another Debs-enthusiast, Bernie Sanders, that we are only as healthy as the least insured—hence the poorest—in our society. The same may be said of those recently released from behind (domestic) bars or the prison-like boundaries of America’s cruel worldwide sanctions-stranglehold regime. For ours is a technologically mobile world in which the virus respects no borders and “speaks” Mandarin just as well as Italian or English.
America’s—and the world’s—corona response will be put to this “Debs-test,” and heaven forbid it be found wanting.
A Lower Class
The COVID-19 outbreak has exposed the liability of carrying a permanent domestic underclass—particularly given the peculiar, ineffectiveness of America’s employer-based healthcare system. These under- or un-insured folks also tend to serve the food, pump the gas, and pack the boxes for online delivery that the more privileged in society have come to expect with immediacy. Workers are, so to speak, no longer invisible. The poor can infect and spread disease just as (perhaps more) rapidly as the rich.
What’s more, corona has laid bare the immense leverage of the working class—especially those in the service industry—over the bourgeois and wealthy stratums in society. Moving forward, the potential power of a general service strike could be profound. Sure, Jeff Bezos and his—or others’—bureaucratic “company men” can immediately fire Christian Smalls, a strike leader at a Staten Island Amazon warehouse, but his indecently superfluous billions can’t counter the moral and rational weight of the striker’s position. One wonders if that genie can ever be stuffed back into what was always a rather narrow nozzle of the proverbial bottle.
Furthermore, war, of course, has shown its true colors as history’s great epidemic exacerbation device. Can the U.S. afford to continually don the blindfold, bow to the Pentagon fiction that endless war has any other real enemy than the fear of falling military-industrial-complex profits, and ignore the human costs of unnecessary American conflicts of choice? After all, in this moment—though one must question the long-term sincerity—even the very “meanest” among the world’s states, the theocratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has called a corona-induced ceasefire to its American-complicit terror war on Yemen. There has never been a better—or more imperative—time for the U.S. to deescalate its own countless far-flung wars, scale-down its national security posture, and prioritize diplomacy and humanitarianism.So too for the foreign indigent in countries and societies utterly unprepared for pandemic. In Africa, for example—where 85 percent of the population still survives on less than $5.50 a day—many national governments are turning to overt civil liberties squelching because, in addition to being power-opportunists, they know implicitly that they are unprepared for even a modest outbreak. Will the obscene global wealth distribution—whereby the richest 10 percent possess 85 percent of the total, and the bottom half claim barely one percent—seem sustainable if and when shattered societies produce refugees on a scale that puts those from the “Arab Winter” to shame?
A Criminal Element
All too often America is—per its long-standing claims—exceptional, only in all the wrong ways. No other country wages as many aggressive overseas wars, or imprisons quite so much of its own population, as the USA. Seen in this decidedly inconvenient light, Uncle Sam is as criminal as any other nation. The COVID-moment, however, is a time for rare self-awareness, an historical knowledge of national self. As South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission illustrated, only an honest accounting of past crimes opens a clear path to future redemption.
Victim and victimizer become inextricably linked in the folly of foreign war and domestic repression. To channel that Nazarene stoic again, the U.S. must place its own past and present house in order before it “casts stones” of dispersion at even the most flawed “enemy” states. Allow the great corona-equalizer to establish and hold our government to account through a sort of humanitarian litmus test, and one finds the U.S. doesn’t stack up so well against Cuba, for example.
Nor, according to the United Nations, and just about every human rights or medical organization, does Washington’s “economic warfare” sanctions regime—which is quite literally killing innocents—live up to America’s promise. Finally, lest we forget that unnecessary, aggressive wars of choice—which no nation today wages with the alacrity and consistency of the United States—are, according to the postwar Nuremberg Principles (which Washington had a decisive hand in molding), the supreme “crime against peace.”
Our Souls in Prison
Prisoners eventually come home. Even with America’s uniquely draconian-sentences, inmates usually return to society, bringing with them the scars of institutional violence, mental health deterioration, the scarlet letter of employment barriers, and now, potentially, the coronavirus. It can be distinctly difficult to socially-distance while incarcerated, and so terrifying is the likelihood of an outbreak in these prison petrie-dishes that many inmates nation and worldwide are literally going “over-the-walls” because it is a living nightmare—or “death sentence”—inside.
What can be said about a nation that embarks on a self-proclaimed “Freedom Agenda” abroad whilst simultaneously locking up a higher proportion of its population at home than any other country in the world—including such “enemies” as Russia, China, and Cuba? The hypocrisy is so stark it provokes pure bewilderment. That the U.S. incarcerates at such insane rates leaves the rational man or woman with the stark realization that either there’s a uniquely American predisposition to crime, or, far more likely, that the nation’s criminal justice system largely invents “criminals” and inherently lacks “justice.”
Nor does the United States of Incarceration end at the ocean’s edge. The prison-industrial-complex is a two-way street. Mass incarceration is the “empire come home,” and vice versa. The Islamic State was largely conceived in America’s Iraqi prison farm, and U.S. detainee abuse in Saddam Hussein’s old jails helped make “terrorists” out of countless Arabs and Muslims from West Africa to Central Asia. So, in these pandemic times, let us finally admit that Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are Riker’s Island, and the police murder of Eric Garner is the military murder of Diluwar of Yakubi at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.
Finally, as Americans ponder the implications of coronavirus’s spread within their jails, and in the carceral state that is the world under U.S. military hegemony, it’s long past time to consider—per Dostoyevsky—exactly what “the degree of civilization in” American society “can be judged” to be after “entering its prisons.”
A “Kinship with All Living Beings”
Eugene Debs lived out, quite literally, the second and third stanzas of his oft-quoted courtroom declaration. Official branded a “criminal element,” for a time he was “not free.” He’d ultimately serve three years of his ten year sentence in Illinois, West Virginia, and Atlanta’s Federal Penitentiary. Nevertheless, in 1920, with a certain ironic flair unique to the man, Debs ran, again—this time from the inside of a cell—on the Socialist ticket for president of the country that jailed him. His campaign buttons sported a photo of a weathered Debs clothed in prison garb in front of his ubiquitous cell bars. The caption read: “For President, Convict No. 9653.”
So beloved was this “caged bird’s” song, that he still received over 900,000 votes—during the height of the First Red Scare—when it was genuinely dangerous to support such “radical” figures. It was the highest vote tally in U.S. history for a Socialist Party presidential candidate.
Yet today, as a deadly pandemic—that respects neither class nor imaginary national boundaries—rages and exposes the systemic rot of America’s domestic structures, and puts the lie to the absurd fiction that far-flung forever war ensures homeland security, my guess is a new Eugene Debs would garner millions more votes. Bernie Sanders may have disappointed his movement—in the interest of not ending up like Ralph Nader—by endorsing the former “senator from MBNA,” Joe Biden, and left Americans with the paltry choice between a billionaire race-baiting demagogue and a corporate stooge.
Still, call me crazy, but precisely a century after he had the temerity to run from prison, this moment—and the future—may belong to Eugene Debs.
As Millions Stripped of Health Coverage Amid Covid-19, House Dems Unveil Bill for Emergency Expansion of Medicare and Medicaid
"Our nation's for-profit, employment-based healthcare system did not make sense before Covid-19 struck, and it is proving dangerous and deadly during the crisis."
by
Jessica Corbett, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/01/millions-stripped-health-coverage-amid-covid-19-house-dems-unveil-bill-emergency
Just a day after the U.S. Labor Department announced that more than 30 million people have applied for unemployment benefits since mid-March, over 30 House Democrats came together to introduce legislation that would guarantee healthcare coverage to all Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement announcing the Medicare Crisis Program Act, lead sponsors Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) slammed the U.S. healthcare system and pointed out that an estimated 35 million people could end up uninsured due to the public health crisis.
"Our nation's for-profit, employment-based healthcare system did not make sense before Covid-19 struck, and it is proving dangerous and deadly during the crisis," declared Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and lead House sponsor another coronavirus-related healthcare bill unveiled with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in April.
"Millions of Americans are losing their job and their health insurance at precisely the moment when we need everyone to be able to access care and treatment for illness," said Jayapal. "The Medicare Crisis Program Act would guarantee healthcare for millions of people struggling with the health and economic realities of the Covid-19 pandemic and protect Americans from outrageous out-of-pocket costs."
Jayapal and Kennedy's new bill would "dramatically expand" Medicare and Medicaid eligibility, cap out-of-pocket costs for Medicare enrollees, and require all public and private health insurers to fully cover care related to Covid-19—including for patients who display symptoms but test negative for the disease. Further, the legislation would bar healthcare providers from billing uninsured patients for Covid-19 care.
"A healthcare system more concerned with profits than patients was never equipped to confront a pandemic like Covid-19," said Kennedy. "Because of our nation's stubborn failure to guarantee universal healthcare, millions of people are now not only out of a job, but out of health care coverage as coronavirus ravages their communities."
"With the Medicare Crisis Program Act," he said, "we can begin to fill in the gaps of a fundamentally flawed healthcare system during this pandemic and chart a path towards Medicare For All when it ends."
The bill is backed by a number of high-profile progressives in the House, including all four members of the Squad and Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). More than 60 local and national groups—such as Business for Medicare for All, Indivisible, Our Revolution, People's Action, and Social Security Works—have also endorsed the bill.
Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, issued a lengthy statement in support of the legislation. He emphasized how Americans losing their jobs—and thus their employment-based health insurance—because of a pandemic serves as a harsh indictment of the country's current system and noted that even millions of Americans with insurance face cost-sharing demands for Covid-19 care.
Drs. Justin Lowenthal and Meenakshi Bewtra, co-chairs of the Covid-19 response taskforce and members of the national board of directors of Doctors for America, said in a joint statement welcoming the legislation Friday that they "know firsthand that Covid-19 has not merely caused—but rather, exposed—the deep and critical problems that our patients face in affordability, equity, and accessibility of their healthcare.""We would have none of these problems if we had a Medicare for All system, but for right now, we need an immediate solution. The Medicare Crisis Program Act is that solution," he said. "At the very least, everybody must be guaranteed healthcare amid a national health emergency, without fear of facing bankruptcy or unmanageable bills."
"We applaud this proposal for ensuring coverage, affordability, and access to healthcare for all of our patients during the Covid crisis, while illustrating one of several viable approaches for moving toward universal healthcare in the future," the doctors said. "This crisis shows us that, as a nation, we are all in this together: We should all have access to [personal protective equipment] when caring for and serving others, and we should all have insurance coverage that does not disappear when you need it nor depend on your employment status during a pandemic."
Dr. Adam Gaffney, president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), another national network of doctors, also welcomed the new proposal—along with the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act previously introduced by Jayapal and Sanders—in a statement Friday.
"To forestall medical and economic catastrophe, emergency action to cover the uninsured and underinsured through the federal Medicare program is needed now," said Gaffney, also a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts. "Yet only single-payer reform will secure healthcare for all Americans in the years ahead."
2 Weeks After Novia Scotia Massacre, Canada Bans Assault Weapons. 7 Years After Sandy Hook in the US—And Still Nothing
"Republicans in the U.S. Congress—what are you waiting for?"
Julia Conley, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/01/2-weeks-after-novia-scotia-massacre-canada-bans-assault-weapons-7-years-after-sandy
Telling the Canadian public that they "deserve more than thoughts and prayers" less than two weeks after a series of shootings in Canada that killed 13 people, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday announced a ban on "assault-style" semi-automatic weapons in the country.
Effective immediately, Trudeau said, the sale, transport, and use of about 1,500 makes and models of such guns will now be illegal in Canada.
The prime minister added that the government would work in the coming months on legislation to compensate people who already own the weapons. Owners have until April 2022 to dispose of the guns.
"These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time," Trudeau said. "There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada."
Trudeau called the shootings of April 18 and 19, which were carried out by one gunman with multiple weapons, "the deadliest rampage in our country's history." Nine people also died in fires set by the gunman, who obtained the weapons illegally in the U.S. and Canada.
The Coalition for Gun Control, a Canadian group, said the country has endured "a long wait" for gun control reforms like the one passed by Trudeau's cabinet without going through the legislature. Last month's massacre was the deadliest shooting in the country since 1989, when a gunman killed 14 women and himself in Montreal.
"This is a milestone for Canada and an important step forward. We are counting on all parliamentarians to support a mandatory buy back program and to keep this ban permanent," coalition president Wendy Cukier said in a statement.
In the U.S.—where 70 to 90% of the guns used in Canadian shootings come from—gun control advocates applauded Trudeau's decisive action and condemned the U.S. government, particularly the Republican Party, for standing in the way of a similar ban.
"Canada banned assault weapons [less than] two weeks after the Nova Scotia mass shooting," tweeted the Newtown Action Alliance. "It's been more than seven years since the Sandy Hook shooting tragedy when 26 children and educators were massacred with an AR-15 and high capacity magazine."
In addition to the Sandy Hook shooting, Americans in recent years have watched lawmakers refuse to pass meaningful legislation after 58 people were killed at a concert in Las Vegas in 2017; 49 were killed at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida in 2016; 17 were killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida in 2018; and as tens of thousands of people are killed by firearms each year.
"Republicans in the U.S. Congress—what are you waiting for?" tweeted Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting.
"I'll Never Lie to You," Vows Trump's New Press Secretary at First Regular Briefing in Over a Year—Then Starts Lying
"To start with these words is a 100% guarantee that you WILL be lied to on an EPIC scale."
by
Eoin Higgins, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/01/ill-never-lie-you-vows-trumps-new-press-secretary-first-regular-briefing-over-year
Newly-minted White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Friday gave reporters their first regular briefing in the press room in over a year and kicked off the event by promising the media and American people, "I'll never lie to you."
"You have my word on that," said McEnany.
But McEnany lied repeatedly over the course of the 32 minute briefing—the first outright falsehood, as Vox reporter Aaron Rupar noted, coming just 15 minutes after her pledge to the truth.
As Rupar explained:
McEnany's first lie from the White House podium came in response to a question about comments President Donald Trump made earlier in the day characterizing Tara Reade's sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden as "far more compelling" than the accusations made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. Asked to flesh out Trump's thinking, McEnany characterized the Kavanaugh allegations as "verifiably false."
The complaints against Kavanaugh, while not proven, were not found to be "verifiably false"—they were found to be credible.
The secretary followed up those lies by lying about newly published FBI documents and notes about the investigation into General Michael Flynn, the disgraced former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump. Flynn faces up to five years in prison for lying to the FBI during the course of the investigation though federal prosecutors have asked for only a six month sentence after his guilty plea.
At the podium, McEnany implied that FBI notes laid out a plot to trick Flynn into lying to investigators—but the notes only offer it as one option for investigators along with determining if the advisor was telling the truth about his communications with Russia.
Watch the full briefing:
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