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“Social Distancing” — Or Physical Distancing and Social Solidarity?
“Critical accounts of the current pandemic have explained how social distancing is often an unaffordable luxury for the most underprivileged groups in rich and low-income countries alike. One thing that has not received critical attention, however, is the term ‘social distancing’ itself. Its use as a synonym for physical distancing is an ideological misnomer. Social distancing suggests a loosening of social ties, when, in fact, the pleas that authorities and public health officials make on behalf of physical distancing appeal to such feelings of social solidarity as still exist in otherwise competitive and individualistic capitalist societies.”
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Trump Trying to Cut Pay for Farmworkers, Who “Should Get Hazard Pay Instead”
“Empty shelves in supermarkets are proof that the work of farmworkers is essential, if we didn’t know it already. But instead of rewarding this work, and the courage of farmworkers as they continue laboring in the fields, the Trump administration wants to punish them by trying to cut their wages.”
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A “Critical-Care” Bailout for Main Street in the Face of COVID-19
“The same Congress that has insisted we cannot afford a universal basic income, Medicare for All, free state college tuition, and other critically needed programs has suddenly discovered that it has unlimited funds to ‘do whatever it takes’ to rescue corporations and the stock market. Meanwhile the individuals, local governments, and local businesses suffering the devastating consequences of the shutdown have essentially been left out of this bailout. But relief for all is possible, if the central bank is run as a true public utility.”
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Updated: 13.5 Million Likely to Become Uninsured by June 30
“4,805,894 American workers and their dependents have lost health insurance coverage in the past three weeks … The researchers also estimate that a total of 13.475 million will join the ranks of the uninsured by June 30, raising the number of uninsured Americans to about 43 million.”
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Iraq’s Coronavirus Crisis Was Made Possible by Decades of War and Occupation
“Economic desperation contributes to the impact of the virus, but another factor makes it much more lethal. The spread of COVID-19 is taking place in a country with a devastated healthcare system. The U.S. owns a great part of the responsibility for this. Two invasions, a decade of sanctions and the occupation largely caused the ruin of Iraq’s medical and public health systems.
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As World Economy Grinds to a Halt, U.S. War Machine Churns On
“As the vast majority of people in the United States are being told to stay at home, weapons manufacturers are allowed to keep their doors open. On March 20, the Department of Defense declared the ‘Defense Industrial Base’ to be essential work during the COVID-19 crisis after, as the DOD put it, working closely with ‘the Hill and the Department of Homeland Security.”
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New Study: 7.3 Million Likely to Lose Health Coverage by June 30
“Millions of Americans are newly vulnerable to financial catastrophe, as we face an epidemic of life-threatening illness,” said study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a primary care doctor, distinguished professor at Hunter College and lecturer at Harvard Medical School. “The COVID-19 epidemic highlights the folly of tying health coverage to jobs. Our health care system saddles people with medical bills when they’re least able to afford them because they’ve been laid off or are too sick to work. Health insurance in the U.S. is like an umbrella that melts in the rain.”
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Today’s Wisconsin In-Person Voting Condemned by Local Elections Inspector
“Our state, specifically our Wisconsin Supreme Court, has forced in-person voting to take place [today], when there were other options. We are in the midst of the worst week [of the pandemic] according to the surgeon general and we decide to make people vote. … Even states like Ohio, who are similar to Wisconsin, had the common decency to protect the people above partisan politics. We failed to do so!”
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Pandemic Highlights Bipartisan Interventionist — Rather than Security — Goals
“On Thursday, the captain of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, on which the virus was reportedly spreading, was relieved of command. He was blamed by his superiors for the leak of a letter he wrote warning the Navy that failure to act rapidly threatened the health of his 5,000 sailors.”
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During Pandemic: Cuba Sends Doctors, U.S. Sends Warships
“While countries like Cuba, China and Russia are sending personnel and aid to other countries to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government has sadly pivoted in the other direction — tightening sanctions against countries like Iran and Venezuela, and even sending warships to the Caribbean on the pretext of fighting drug trafficking, allegedly from Venezuela. However, the U.S. government’s own data belies the Trump administration’s claims about Venezuela as some type of narco-state.”
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“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn