truthout--2020-07-30--Who Profits From Trump Administration’s $6 Billion Vaccine Program?

As researchers around the world race to find a vaccine for COVID-19 , we speak with Peter Maybarduk , director of Public Citizen ’ s Access to Medicines Program , about who is profiting from government efforts to fund vaccines , testing and treatment .
The Trump administration has announced major contracts with pharmaceutical companies as part of its $ 6 billion program , Operation Warp Speed , including with firms that have never brought a vaccine to market .
Meanwhile , a New York Times investigation shows corporate insiders from at least 11 companies working on coronavirus research have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billion since March .
“ The problem is that the companies , the executives , the hedge funds are feeding on people ’ s hope and desperation , and it only takes a little bit of positive news to send stocks soaring , ” says Maybarduk .
Public Citizen recently released a database that tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars supporting COVID-19 research .
This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
The Quarantine Report .
I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Operation Warp Speed .
That ’ s the name of the government program pumping billions into vaccine development and research .
But who ’ s profiting ?
We look now at the nearly $ 6 billion the U.S. government has invested into coronavirus vaccines , testing and treatment .
The Trump administration has poured taxpayer money into more than six vaccine efforts , recently announcing a nearly $ 2 billion contract with Pfizer and a German company for 100 million vaccine doses by December .
Earlier this month , the Trump administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ company , Novavax , which has never brought a vaccine to market in its more than 30-year history .
This comes as The New York Times reports corporate insiders are profiting off the rush to make a vaccine .
The Times reports , quote , “ Insiders from at least 11 companies — most of them smaller firms whose fortunes often hinge on the success or failure of a single drug — have sold shares worth well over $ 1 billion since March.
” For more , we ’ re joined by Peter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Public Citizen ’ s Access to Medicines Program , which has released a database that tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars supporting COVID tests , treatments and vaccines .
Welcome to Democracy Now !
, Peter .
It ’ s great to have you with us .
So , lay out who ’ s getting this money .
I mean , people want a vaccine , that ’ s for sure .
Billions and billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars is going into where ?
How do these companies prove that there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
PETER MAYBARDUK : Well , we don ’ t know how they ’ re proving their path to success , because there is a striking lack of transparency in the selection process .
But BARDA , the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency , as you ’ ve said , is giving hundreds of millions of dollars to each of a number of pharmaceutical corporations to advance vaccine development and also manufacturing .
In many cases , these are vaccine candidates that are already built on taxpayer-funded science .
In some cases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ owns or claims patents on some of the key technology .
So , the public has been investing in these technologies for a very long time , but today we see executives and hedge funds making tremendous paydays just by announcing snippets of positive news , even though their candidates may turn out not to be successful .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And I wanted to ask you , because this is not just happening , obviously , in the United States .
In the European Union , in China , in India , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brazil , huge sums are being invested in what is essentially the California gold rush for the pharmaceutical industry .
Untold wealth awaits those who are able to produce these initial vaccines , and yet there is so little , as you mentioned , transparency as to who is getting this and how the decisions are being made .
PETER MAYBARDUK : Yeah , we don ’ t have the contracts .
So , some heavily redacted contracts from BARDA were obtained by a consumer group called Knowledge Ecology International last month , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it ’ s still hard to tell whether any significant conditions are being attached to the hundreds of millions of dollars that taxpayers are giving out .
Indeed , we want to be investing in vaccine research and development , but it ’ s important that there are conditions attached , regarding , for example , affordability and reasonable pricing , regarding plans to get to scale and supply and to transfer technology so that we can teach the world how to make this vaccine and avoid severe rationing in years ahead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to know , but what is clear right now is that stock options are increasing five- and sixfold for the executives in these firms , even as they exaggerate their role in Operation Warp Speed .
AMY GOODMAN : Can you talk , Peter , about the company Novavax ?
BARDA — that ’ s , again , the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority — was — the single-largest award from BARDA , $ 1.6 billion to Novavax , the little-known Maryland firm that had not developed a successful vaccine in 30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ?
Why do they get $ 1.6 billion ?
PETER MAYBARDUK : We don ’ t know , is the short answer .
And we don ’ t know too much more about Novavax than what you ’ ve said .
So , it ’ s the largest grant , and it just indicates how little transparency there is in this process and how much we need to know .
Unfortunately , it ’ s — we do know that Novavax ’ s stock options for executives jumped from $ 20 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ association with Warp Speed , so there ’ s that .
But in terms of the science , in terms of how it ’ s progressing , we know very little .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And this whole issue of the executives being able to cash in , even before a drug particularly comes to — is proven effective , or vaccine is proven effective and comes to market , is there any way to restrain this kind of activity , especially in an international emergency like this ?
PETER MAYBARDUK : Well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as regard reasonable pricing .
We certainly should be demanding a great deal more transparency in the disclosures that are made .
Trump ’ s vaccine czar actually comes from GlaxoSmithKline , and we had petitioned that he at least have to disclose his financial conflicts of interest , were turned down by the HHS inspector general .
So I think the public needs to demand quite a bit more here .
But , really , what we ’ re primarily concerned about are the conditions of affordability and supply that come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manufactures at scale to supply the entire world .
So , a year or two years from now , we could be encountering a serious , essentially , global vaccine apartheid , where much of the world ’ s population does not have access to vaccines .
And that ’ s because there ’ s a tremendous reticence among our leaders to order corporations to transfer their technology to impose any conditions whatsoever on top of these grants , despite the fact that all the leading candidates that are being considered for Operation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , are benefiting not just from the BARDA grants , but from early-stage research by federal scientists , taxpayer-funded studies , that led to the development of the technology that ’ s being used to develop the vaccines today .
So , we have already invested in these vaccines , and we should have the right to attach certain conditions and make sure everybody can access a safe and effective vaccine when it ’ s developed .
AMY GOODMAN : Peter , let ’ s talk about how investors are benefiting from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies .
For example , The New York Times reports , after Vaxart , a small San Francisco-based company , was selected to be part of a federal program to develop a vaccine , stock options for insiders at the company soared .
A hedge fund that partly controls the company immediately gained something like $ 200 million of profits .
PETER MAYBARDUK : Yeah , that ’ s right .
So , as you ’ ve said , the problem is that the companies , the executives , the hedge funds are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ desperation , and it takes only a little bit of positive news to send stocks soaring , or , conversely , a little bit of negative news to send them plummeting right now .
And so , Vaxart , for example , noted in a press release that it had been selected by Operation Warp Speed .
Now , “ selected ” just meant , in this case , a clinical trial involving primates .
Vaxart is neither receiving BARDA funding nor negotiations to receive that funding .
But just that bit of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ connection to the federal government , led Vaxart ’ s stocks to soar , as you said , allowed the hedge fund to make $ 200 million and walk away .
So , that ’ s the sort of climate that we ’ re in .
And we obviously — you know , we need a little more discipline .
We need transparency around the standards of how these contracts are being selected and what we can expect out of them .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And do you have any concerns about any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be , in one way or another , being able to privately benefit from the inside information that is developed within the administration as to who gets funded or who gets government support ?
PETER MAYBARDUK : Well , in addition to Moncef Slaoui , the vaccine czar — as I said , comes from GSK , was on the board of Moderna , and maybe heavily invested — we don ’ t really know , because he ’ s not been forced to disclose his ties — the Trump administration is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that have played key roles .
Alex Azar , secretary of health and human services , is an insulin price spiker from Eli Lilly .
Former adviser Joe Grogan in the White House came from Gilead , where he was a lobbyist .
So , these policies — this background certainly has informed the Trump administration ’ s policy in this area and its extreme deference to corporate interests in Operation Warp Speed and elsewhere .
The central problem that we see — you know , it ’ s appropriate to be investing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an effort — and putting money , investing money at risk , recognizing that some vaccines are not going to work out .
We have to spend that money as a people in order to develop a safe and effective vaccine as quickly as possible .
However , we should be able to ask for certain conditions attached to that .
And we are very concerned about what happens when a vaccine comes online and there ’ s simply not enough manufacturing capacity to get it to everyone who needs it .
AMY @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PIRG organized a letter that ’ s been signed by hundreds of health professionals , that essentially says to President Trump , “ Shut it down , start over , do it right.
” What are you demanding ?
PETER MAYBARDUK : We ’ re demanding that the Trump administration impose — first , BARDA needs to publish the contracts .
We need to see what is being done with the billions in taxpayer dollars , and more to come , that is being spent in the vaccine hunt .
Second , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contracts , reasonable pricing and technology transfer .
Technology transfer means we have to order companies to disclose their confidential information , to license their patents , so that other manufacturers can also make those same vaccines .
Essentially , if we don ’ t teach the world how to make vaccines , there will be a global vaccine apartheid .
There will be serious rationing in years ahead .
The delay will cause great setbacks in poverty .
It will cost people ’ s lives .
It could come with costs to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world .
So , we have to be willing to order corporations to do what is necessary to scale up supply , and that means not basing the vaccine market on monopolies , not simply entrusting any given corporation with hundreds of millions of our dollars to then just go and do the right thing , but making it a national project to get to scale , to liberate the vaccine technology and help others manufacture it , to publish the data so we can verify safety and efficacy , and so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be forbidden ?
Five seconds .
PETER MAYBARDUK : Patents for — well , they should be licensed .
There shouldn ’ t be monopolies .
Everything should be licensed nonexclusively , openly , so that others can make use of the technology .
AMY GOODMAN : And I should say , that letter from U.S. PIRG and hundreds of health professionals is more broad , beyond vaccines , again , telling the U.S. government to shut it down , to go back to a national strategy for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thank you for being with us , director of Public Citizen ’ s Access to Medicines Program , organization recently releasing a database that tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars supporting COVID tests , treatments and vaccines .
When we come back , we will go to one of the people who went to a local hotel in McAllen , Texas , and saw children being held there , immigrant children .
What ’ s happened to them ?
The state being hit not only by the pandemic , but by the hurricane @ @ @ @ @

As researchers around the world race to find a vaccine for COVID-19, we speak with Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program, about who is profiting from government efforts to fund vaccines, testing and treatment. The Trump administration has announced major contracts with pharmaceutical companies as part of its $6 billion program, Operation Warp Speed, including with firms that have never brought a vaccine to market. Meanwhile, a New York Times investigation shows corporate insiders from at least 11 companies working on coronavirus research have sold shares worth more than $1 billion since March. “The problem is that the companies, the executives, the hedge funds are feeding on people’s hope and desperation, and it only takes a little bit of positive news to send stocks soaring,” says Maybarduk. Public Citizen recently released a database that tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars supporting COVID-19 research.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Operation Warp Speed. That’s the name of the government program pumping billions into vaccine development and research. But who’s profiting? We look now at the nearly $6 billion the U.S. government has invested into coronavirus vaccines, testing and treatment.
The Trump administration has poured taxpayer money into more than six vaccine efforts, recently announcing a nearly $2 billion contract with Pfizer and a German company for 100 million vaccine doses by December. Earlier this month, the Trump administration gave $1.6 billion to a small company, Novavax, which has never brought a vaccine to market in its more than 30-year history.
This comes as The New York Times reports corporate insiders are profiting off the rush to make a vaccine. The Times reports, quote, “Insiders from at least 11 companies — most of them smaller firms whose fortunes often hinge on the success or failure of a single drug — have sold shares worth well over $1 billion since March.”
For more, we’re joined by Peter Maybarduk. He is the director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program, which has released a database that tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars supporting COVID tests, treatments and vaccines.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Peter. It’s great to have you with us. So, lay out who’s getting this money. I mean, people want a vaccine, that’s for sure. Billions and billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars is going into where? How do these companies prove that there’s a possibility, a path to success?
PETER MAYBARDUK: Well, we don’t know how they’re proving their path to success, because there is a striking lack of transparency in the selection process. But BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency, as you’ve said, is giving hundreds of millions of dollars to each of a number of pharmaceutical corporations to advance vaccine development and also manufacturing. In many cases, these are vaccine candidates that are already built on taxpayer-funded science. In some cases, the National Institutes of Health actually owns or claims patents on some of the key technology. So, the public has been investing in these technologies for a very long time, but today we see executives and hedge funds making tremendous paydays just by announcing snippets of positive news, even though their candidates may turn out not to be successful.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you, because this is not just happening, obviously, in the United States. In the European Union, in China, in India, and we’ve seen recently in Brazil, huge sums are being invested in what is essentially the California gold rush for the pharmaceutical industry. Untold wealth awaits those who are able to produce these initial vaccines, and yet there is so little, as you mentioned, transparency as to who is getting this and how the decisions are being made.
PETER MAYBARDUK: Yeah, we don’t have the contracts. So, some heavily redacted contracts from BARDA were obtained by a consumer group called Knowledge Ecology International last month, but they’re so heavily redacted that it’s still hard to tell whether any significant conditions are being attached to the hundreds of millions of dollars that taxpayers are giving out.
Indeed, we want to be investing in vaccine research and development, but it’s important that there are conditions attached, regarding, for example, affordability and reasonable pricing, regarding plans to get to scale and supply and to transfer technology so that we can teach the world how to make this vaccine and avoid severe rationing in years ahead.
So there’s much more to know, but what is clear right now is that stock options are increasing five- and sixfold for the executives in these firms, even as they exaggerate their role in Operation Warp Speed.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, Peter, about the company Novavax? BARDA — that’s, again, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority — was — the single-largest award from BARDA, $1.6 billion to Novavax, the little-known Maryland firm that had not developed a successful vaccine in 30 years. What do you know about it? Why do they get $1.6 billion?
PETER MAYBARDUK: We don’t know, is the short answer. And we don’t know too much more about Novavax than what you’ve said. So, it’s the largest grant, and it just indicates how little transparency there is in this process and how much we need to know. Unfortunately, it’s — we do know that Novavax’s stock options for executives jumped from $20 million to $100 million with their close association with Warp Speed, so there’s that. But in terms of the science, in terms of how it’s progressing, we know very little.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this whole issue of the executives being able to cash in, even before a drug particularly comes to — is proven effective, or vaccine is proven effective and comes to market, is there any way to restrain this kind of activity, especially in an international emergency like this?
PETER MAYBARDUK: Well, we certainly should be attaching conditions, as regard reasonable pricing. We certainly should be demanding a great deal more transparency in the disclosures that are made. Trump’s vaccine czar actually comes from GlaxoSmithKline, and we had petitioned that he at least have to disclose his financial conflicts of interest, were turned down by the HHS inspector general. So I think the public needs to demand quite a bit more here.
But, really, what we’re primarily concerned about are the conditions of affordability and supply that come out of this, because no corporation manufactures at scale to supply the entire world. So, a year or two years from now, we could be encountering a serious, essentially, global vaccine apartheid, where much of the world’s population does not have access to vaccines. And that’s because there’s a tremendous reticence among our leaders to order corporations to transfer their technology to impose any conditions whatsoever on top of these grants, despite the fact that all the leading candidates that are being considered for Operation Warp Speed, one way or another, are benefiting not just from the BARDA grants, but from early-stage research by federal scientists, taxpayer-funded studies, that led to the development of the technology that’s being used to develop the vaccines today. So, we have already invested in these vaccines, and we should have the right to attach certain conditions and make sure everybody can access a safe and effective vaccine when it’s developed.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter, let’s talk about how investors are benefiting from the billions of dollars going to these drug companies. For example, The New York Times reports, after Vaxart, a small San Francisco-based company, was selected to be part of a federal program to develop a vaccine, stock options for insiders at the company soared. A hedge fund that partly controls the company immediately gained something like $200 million of profits.
PETER MAYBARDUK: Yeah, that’s right. So, as you’ve said, the problem is that the companies, the executives, the hedge funds are feeding on people’s hope and desperation, and it takes only a little bit of positive news to send stocks soaring, or, conversely, a little bit of negative news to send them plummeting right now.
And so, Vaxart, for example, noted in a press release that it had been selected by Operation Warp Speed. Now, “selected” just meant, in this case, a clinical trial involving primates. Vaxart is neither receiving BARDA funding nor negotiations to receive that funding. But just that bit of news, just that claim of a connection to the federal government, led Vaxart’s stocks to soar, as you said, allowed the hedge fund to make $200 million and walk away.
So, that’s the sort of climate that we’re in. And we obviously — you know, we need a little more discipline. We need transparency around the standards of how these contracts are being selected and what we can expect out of them.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And do you have any concerns about any other members of the Trump administration who may be, in one way or another, being able to privately benefit from the inside information that is developed within the administration as to who gets funded or who gets government support?
PETER MAYBARDUK: Well, in addition to Moncef Slaoui, the vaccine czar — as I said, comes from GSK, was on the board of Moderna, and maybe heavily invested — we don’t really know, because he’s not been forced to disclose his ties — the Trump administration is built on a number of pharmaceutical executives that have played key roles. Alex Azar, secretary of health and human services, is an insulin price spiker from Eli Lilly. Former adviser Joe Grogan in the White House came from Gilead, where he was a lobbyist. So, these policies — this background certainly has informed the Trump administration’s policy in this area and its extreme deference to corporate interests in Operation Warp Speed and elsewhere.
The central problem that we see — you know, it’s appropriate to be investing great sums of money right now in an effort — and putting money, investing money at risk, recognizing that some vaccines are not going to work out. We have to spend that money as a people in order to develop a safe and effective vaccine as quickly as possible. However, we should be able to ask for certain conditions attached to that. And we are very concerned about what happens when a vaccine comes online and there’s simply not enough manufacturing capacity to get it to everyone who needs it.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Peter, U.S. PIRG organized a letter that’s been signed by hundreds of health professionals, that essentially says to President Trump, “Shut it down, start over, do it right.” What are you demanding?
PETER MAYBARDUK: We’re demanding that the Trump administration impose — first, BARDA needs to publish the contracts. We need to see what is being done with the billions in taxpayer dollars, and more to come, that is being spent in the vaccine hunt.
Second, we need to attach basic conditions to the contracts, reasonable pricing and technology transfer. Technology transfer means we have to order companies to disclose their confidential information, to license their patents, so that other manufacturers can also make those same vaccines. Essentially, if we don’t teach the world how to make vaccines, there will be a global vaccine apartheid. There will be serious rationing in years ahead. The delay will cause great setbacks in poverty. It will cost people’s lives. It could come with costs to political stability in less wealthy parts of the world. So, we have to be willing to order corporations to do what is necessary to scale up supply, and that means not basing the vaccine market on monopolies, not simply entrusting any given corporation with hundreds of millions of our dollars to then just go and do the right thing, but making it a national project to get to scale, to liberate the vaccine technology and help others manufacture it, to publish the data so we can verify safety and efficacy, and so on.
AMY GOODMAN: Should patents be forbidden? Five seconds.
PETER MAYBARDUK: Patents for — well, they should be licensed. There shouldn’t be monopolies. Everything should be licensed nonexclusively, openly, so that others can make use of the technology.
AMY GOODMAN: And I should say, that letter from U.S. PIRG and hundreds of health professionals is more broad, beyond vaccines, again, telling the U.S. government to shut it down, to go back to a national strategy for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Peter Maybarduk, I want to thank you for being with us, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program, organization recently releasing a database that tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars supporting COVID tests, treatments and vaccines.
When we come back, we will go to one of the people who went to a local hotel in McAllen, Texas, and saw children being held there, immigrant children. What’s happened to them? The state being hit not only by the pandemic, but by the hurricane. Stay with us.


truthout--2020-07-30--If We Reopen Schools, We Admit That Community Safety Is Not Our Priority

A simple family moment this week revealed to me how thoroughly unprepared this country is to send its children back to school while COVID-19 still rages unchecked across the land .
I needed little convincing before this happened , but afterward , I was surer than ever that calamity and failure awaits us if we swing the school doors open next month .
It started , as most things do in my home , with my kid trying to pull one of the oldest tricks in the book .
My daughter said she had a tummy ache , and I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she ’ d gone on and on about not wanting to go to summer camp anymore , so the stomach discomfort the following morning seemed exceptionally convenient .
Here in the far corner of southwest New Hampshire , COVID is as gratefully contained as anywhere in the nation .
While an ominous uptick in new cases is happening on the eastern side of the state due to its beaches and proximity to Boston , our county has been in the green for weeks .
Long enough , we decided , that it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Like every other kid in the country , she had spent March to July like a bug in a bottle , and the isolation was taking a noticeable emotional toll .
She needed other kids , and other kids needed her .
We were exceedingly fortunate to have the opportunity in a time when so many regions do not .
The camp we sent her to is almost deliberately designed to thwart the virus : Outside all the time on a working farm even in the rain , lots of play in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ children in small groups , counselors masked and constantly cleaning , and an absolute ace of a camp director at the helm .
In terms of brick-and-mortar facility comparisons , the camp is the binary opposite of the school buildings in the district , all fresh air and sunlight .
The tummy ache presented a pressing dilemma .
In the Before Times , what Esquire ’ s Charles P. Pierce calls the days before COVID , it would have been a no-brainer : Some time on the potty with a warning that staying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in bed , some pediatric meds and water , and off we would go .
I was born in the day , but I wasn ’ t born yesterday .
Nausea , however , is dead-bang in the middle of the list of COVID symptoms .
Before they let her in at camp , they ask if she ’ s been out of state , if she has sniffles or a stomach ache , and they take her temperature .
I was sure she wasn ’ t sick… wasn ’ t I ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she could taste her food , but a shadow of doubt lingered .
Should I frighten her with the potential consequences of crying sick wolf in the middle of a pandemic ?
What a miserable thing to do to a child .
I decided to bring her to camp , but consulted her counselors before letting her out of the car .
They confirmed she had spent the previous two afternoons singing the “ I want to go home ” song well before pick-up time , which buttressed my sense that her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the up-and-up .
They took her temperature , she was clear , and so off she went .
I got maybe two miles down the road when my phone rang , camp director on the other line , with a message of “ Nope ” for Daddy .
As it turns out , two other campers had been sent home with similar stomach troubles , apparently a tummy bug was making the rounds , and the camp was properly taking zero chances .
I turned around , collected my daughter , and consigned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the day .
Her recovery was unsurprisingly remarkable .
Now , paint that picture in the confined enclosure of a full-capacity elementary school in bleak November , where the germs and viruses run wild even on the best of days .
A student says she has a stomach ache and gets sent home , but what of the other kids ?
COVID tests are taking days to return for those of us who are not rich or pro athletes .
What if it actually was COVID affecting that kid ’ s stomach ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ quarantined ?
Her teachers , too ?
Do they all need to be tested ?
The whole school ?
How ?
If one kid with a tummy ache — faked or genuine — can create this unmanageable scenario , schools are not ready to reopen .
Period , end of file .
WMUR , the local TV station here , recently posited a question to school administrators about a similar scenario : “ If a student or a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 , will the entire class be required to quarantine for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” provided is one of the more dramatic examples of bureaucratic no-speak you ’ re ever likely to come across : One of the most important questions and one of the most important factors in our guidance is our schools having a robust response plan .
And it ’ s really going to be dependent on the circumstances in the school — if a teacher quarantines , if that class quarantines .
Perhaps it ’ s even a wing of school or maybe even a whole school .
So , we ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that will include working directly with Health and Human Services to give them guidance in terms of how they should respond to that when they do have to respond .
We are also working with them so they can nimbly continue to offer educational opportunities both for the teachers to teach and the students to learn during that quarantine period .
Raise your hand if you find that a satisfactory “ plan ” weeks before the bell rings .
Yeah , me neither .
I don ’ t blame the administrator who crafted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , school districts have been utterly abandoned , denied necessary funding for personal protective equipment ( PPE ) and other essentials , even as the days tick by .
These people are trying to swim the rapids with their hands and feet tied behind them .
That they are sinking beneath the burden is as predictable as the sunrise .
“ After putting our lives on hold for what , by the time school starts , will be nearly half a year , parents and teachers are now in the position of fighting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never wanted , ” writes Dana Stevens in a furious Washington Post editorial .
“ Most of us are resigned to go back to the hell of online learning , because the only alternative our leaders have left us with is even worse .
Their baldfaced abandonment of American families is only one reason among many to wake up every morning ablaze with righteous anger.
” One gets the sense that many districts are waiting for the teachers to make the no-reopen decision for them by refusing to come to work in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Teachers , the second-largest teacher ’ s union in the country , announced Tuesday it would approve a strike “ in districts and states that move to reopen classrooms without adequate health and safety measures , ” according to The New York Times .
Three cheers for the teachers .
“ [ C ] lassrooms without adequate health and safety measures ” covers most of the populated portions of the country right now .
Even in my district , with the green numbers in our county , it would be perfectly Trumpian magical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here now is how it shall ever be .
COVID has proven that premise wrong time and again to monstrously lethal effect , and winter is coming .
If a kid with a tummy ache presents unanswerable dilemmas in the face of a murderous pandemic , it is deadly folly to believe we can get away with reopening schools under the present circumstances .
Absent a rapid and effective testing regimen , proper funding for comprehensive PPE , and in the face of an infection spike that is devouring much of the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ horror into our schools and homes .
We are not ready .

Part of the Series Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19
A simple family moment this week revealed to me how thoroughly unprepared this country is to send its children back to school while COVID-19 still rages unchecked across the land. I needed little convincing before this happened, but afterward, I was surer than ever that calamity and failure awaits us if we swing the school doors open next month.
It started, as most things do in my home, with my kid trying to pull one of the oldest tricks in the book. My daughter said she had a tummy ache, and I was skeptical. The afternoon before, she’d gone on and on about not wanting to go to summer camp anymore, so the stomach discomfort the following morning seemed exceptionally convenient.
Here in the far corner of southwest New Hampshire, COVID is as gratefully contained as anywhere in the nation. While an ominous uptick in new cases is happening on the eastern side of the state due to its beaches and proximity to Boston, our county has been in the green for weeks.
Long enough, we decided, that it was safe to send our daughter to camp. Like every other kid in the country, she had spent March to July like a bug in a bottle, and the isolation was taking a noticeable emotional toll. She needed other kids, and other kids needed her. We were exceedingly fortunate to have the opportunity in a time when so many regions do not.
The camp we sent her to is almost deliberately designed to thwart the virus: Outside all the time on a working farm even in the rain, lots of play in the running water of a creek, children in small groups, counselors masked and constantly cleaning, and an absolute ace of a camp director at the helm. In terms of brick-and-mortar facility comparisons, the camp is the binary opposite of the school buildings in the district, all fresh air and sunlight.
The tummy ache presented a pressing dilemma. In the Before Times, what Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce calls the days before COVID, it would have been a no-brainer: Some time on the potty with a warning that staying home from camp meant a day staying in bed, some pediatric meds and water, and off we would go. I was born in the day, but I wasn’t born yesterday.
If one kid with a tummy ache can create this unmanageable scenario, schools are not ready to reopen. Period, end of file.
Nausea, however, is dead-bang in the middle of the list of COVID symptoms. Before they let her in at camp, they ask if she’s been out of state, if she has sniffles or a stomach ache, and they take her temperature. I was sure she wasn’t sick… wasn’t I? No fever, no cough or sniffles, she could taste her food, but a shadow of doubt lingered. Should I frighten her with the potential consequences of crying sick wolf in the middle of a pandemic? What a miserable thing to do to a child.
I decided to bring her to camp, but consulted her counselors before letting her out of the car. They confirmed she had spent the previous two afternoons singing the “I want to go home” song well before pick-up time, which buttressed my sense that her digestive complaint wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. They took her temperature, she was clear, and so off she went.
I got maybe two miles down the road when my phone rang, camp director on the other line, with a message of “Nope” for Daddy. As it turns out, two other campers had been sent home with similar stomach troubles, apparently a tummy bug was making the rounds, and the camp was properly taking zero chances. I turned around, collected my daughter, and consigned her to bed for the remainder of the day. Her recovery was unsurprisingly remarkable.
Now, paint that picture in the confined enclosure of a full-capacity elementary school in bleak November, where the germs and viruses run wild even on the best of days.
A student says she has a stomach ache and gets sent home, but what of the other kids? COVID tests are taking days to return for those of us who are not rich or pro athletes. What if it actually was COVID affecting that kid’s stomach? Does her whole class need to be quarantined? Her teachers, too? Do they all need to be tested? The whole school? How?
If one kid with a tummy ache — faked or genuine — can create this unmanageable scenario, schools are not ready to reopen. Period, end of file.
WMUR, the local TV station here, recently posited a question to school administrators about a similar scenario: “If a student or a teacher tests positive for COVID-19, will the entire class be required to quarantine for 14 days?”
The “answer” provided is one of the more dramatic examples of bureaucratic no-speak you’re ever likely to come across:
One of the most important questions and one of the most important factors in our guidance is our schools having a robust response plan. And it’s really going to be dependent on the circumstances in the school — if a teacher quarantines, if that class quarantines. Perhaps it’s even a wing of school or maybe even a whole school. So, we’ve asked schools to have really dynamic plans that will include working directly with Health and Human Services to give them guidance in terms of how they should respond to that when they do have to respond. We are also working with them so they can nimbly continue to offer educational opportunities both for the teachers to teach and the students to learn during that quarantine period.
Raise your hand if you find that a satisfactory “plan” weeks before the bell rings. Yeah, me neither.
I don’t blame the administrator who crafted that reply. All over the country, school districts have been utterly abandoned, denied necessary funding for personal protective equipment (PPE) and other essentials, even as the days tick by. These people are trying to swim the rapids with their hands and feet tied behind them. That they are sinking beneath the burden is as predictable as the sunrise.
“After putting our lives on hold for what, by the time school starts, will be nearly half a year, parents and teachers are now in the position of fighting tooth and nail for an outcome we never wanted,” writes Dana Stevens in a furious Washington Post editorial. “Most of us are resigned to go back to the hell of online learning, because the only alternative our leaders have left us with is even worse. Their baldfaced abandonment of American families is only one reason among many to wake up every morning ablaze with righteous anger.”
One gets the sense that many districts are waiting for the teachers to make the no-reopen decision for them by refusing to come to work in a dangerous environment. The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teacher’s union in the country, announced Tuesday it would approve a strike “in districts and states that move to reopen classrooms without adequate health and safety measures,” according to The New York Times. Three cheers for the teachers.
“[C]lassrooms without adequate health and safety measures” covers most of the populated portions of the country right now.
“[C]lassrooms without adequate health and safety measures” covers most of the populated portions of the country right now. Even in my district, with the green numbers in our county, it would be perfectly Trumpian magical thinking to believe that how it is here now is how it shall ever be. COVID has proven that premise wrong time and again to monstrously lethal effect, and winter is coming.
If a kid with a tummy ache presents unanswerable dilemmas in the face of a murderous pandemic, it is deadly folly to believe we can get away with reopening schools under the present circumstances. Absent a rapid and effective testing regimen, proper funding for comprehensive PPE, and in the face of an infection spike that is devouring much of the country, to do so invites an unimaginable horror into our schools and homes. We are not ready.
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truthout--2020-07-30--In Wake of Recent Victories, Standing Rock Activists Carry On With Renewed Hope

“ The hardest part about locking down , is deciding to do it , ” Mark K. Tilsen told Truthout .
It ’ s been almost four years since Mark ’ s brother Nick Tilsen ( Oglala Lakota ) and Daniel T ’ seleie ( K ’ asho Got ’ ine Dene ) attached themselves to excavators with handcuffs inside PVC piping in a device called a “ Sleeping Dragon ” to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline ( DAPL ) at Standing Rock .
Mark emulated them on his 35th birthday , July 6 , 2018 , at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of southern Louisiana .
Bayou Bridge is the end of the DAPL pipeline .
When cut loose and arrested , Tilsen was cuffed behind his back with zip ties and then lifted up by the cuffs by five cops who wrenched his shoulder so severely out of its socket , he still feels the injury on cold days .
A “ fair trade ” he calls it .
He had seen a lot worse at Standing Rock .
Tilsen has published a poetry collection , now in its third printing , It Ain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Smoking Cigars on the Drill Pad .
Its title pithily sums up his response to a recent spate of favorable rulings awarded by courts on the Keystone XL Pipeline , DAPL , Atlantic Coast and Bayou Bridge pipelines .
“ I ’ m somewhat cynical , ” he admitted with a laugh .
T ’ seleie , too , is circumspect about attributing too much energy to the seeming wins , knowing how they often turn out to be partial , tentative or fragile , or are meant to diffuse resistance just when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up .
Truthout reached out to Mark Tilsen , T ’ seleie and three other Standing Rock front-liners — Karla Colon ( Taíno ) , Olive Bias ( Appalachian Water Protector ) and Floris White Bull ( HunkPapa Lakota and Cochití Pueblo ) — for their thoughts and reflections on how effective organizing done well then contributed to a strengthened movement now .
Tilsen counts the establishment of the encampment itself as a foundational success .
“ It ’ s definitely not a coincidence that it happened at Standing Rock , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like every tribe in [ the U.S. ] , but more so — an intense people living in extreme conditions.
” Living at camp and being rooted in Lakota ceremony were key to the transformation at the core of the Water Protector movement , from individual self-interest to community survival .
Where the courts are the arena in which movement lawyers operate , the prayer camp was the site from which those willing to risk themselves in direct action were propelled .
Standing Rock was like “ a university of what leadership is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up on the tail end of the Red Power movement , he ’ d thought that a leader is “ usually the loudest Native man on a bullhorn.
” But at camp , their goal was “ to empower all people to do what was in their hearts to protect the water.
” It ’ s not that we were free we could see what This glimpse was motivating “ to throw down powerfully , ” and not just for young people .
“ Elders were on the front line , some with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going toward the cops , living on oxygen in camp , fighting terminal illnesses ; one who spent some of his last time before going into hospice care told us not to worry about him , but to stay focused on fighting the pipeline , ” Tilsen recalled .
“ People whose names you ’ ll never know , who weren ’ t in the limelight.
” The work stoppages they inflicted on Energy Transfer Partners , whether for 15 minutes or a whole day , cumulatively cost the pipeline operator a world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the sabotage against DAPL , Energy Transfer Partners didn ’ t want to make an issue publicly of how much it hurt , damaged and befuddled them , ” he says .
But the repression that ensued “ woke up the whole world to the Indigenous activism against the fossil fuel industry on six continents.
” Climate justice organizer Daniel T ’ seleie told Truthout that the effects of global warming on his Dene homelands in the Arctic have been profound and are an existential threat to the caribou , a mainstay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the spiritual heart of Dene culture .
“ We ’ re looking at a future where the land may be fundamentally different , where there ’ s a potential for not being able to hunt caribou .
The more we go down that road , the more it will impact who we are as Dene people , ” he cautioned .
In the “ adaptation or mitigation ” conversation , there ’ s really no choice .
“ There ’ s no possibility for us to adapt to the loss of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ depths of his decades of experience , starting as a youth climate organizer , working within a UN frame on several continents .
“ The only viable option for responding to climate change , if we ’ re serious , is mitigation .
We have to transition.
” In his view , Standing Rock was a dramatic and urgent object lesson in many usually abstract political concepts — Indigenous sovereignty and climate and environmental justice among them .
It catalyzed the contemporary Indigenous sovereignty movement on this continent and generated pushback against colonialism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sovereignty is important for all Indigenous nations , ” T ’ seleie counseled , “ because we have our own governance structures , laws , legal orders , or in some cases legal systems , and we were here before Canada , the United States or Mexico — before any of these settler states even existed .
It ’ s a matter of justice for us to have the right to continue to make decisions for ourselves.
” From a climate justice analysis , climate change will not be sufficiently mitigated unless the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like colonialism .
He advises that the single most important thing people can do is to find struggles doing Indigenous sovereignty work , like the Wet ’ suwet ’ en people in their fight against the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Canada , and meaningfully support them .
The present moment offers two other crucial opportunities , according to T ’ seleie : Joining with the movement for Black lives as it rises up against police terror because “ liberation is not a zero-sum game ; ” and COVID-19 because “ now is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we need.
” “ The pandemic provides a completely different social reality in which myths often told about fossil fuel and the economy are being debunked , ” he said .
“ It ’ s undercutting some of the control narratives that shut down our movements .
People are seeing that it is possible to drastically reduce extraction and rapidly transition off fossil fuels.
” Preserving the Health of the Earth “ With this virus , nature gets a break , ” Floris White Bull told Truthout .
“ The beaches are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chance at undisturbed birthing in their birth cycles .
All these different instances of healing .
This is all connected in a way to what we were doing .
That it wasn ’ t just about a pipeline , but it was for the Earth , for life and the future.
” White Bull ’ s home is on the Standing Rock reservation and she remains as committed to resisting the pipeline now as she was when she was on the front lines getting arrested for criminal trespass on her own lands .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ by those actions .
We want to be able to hold our head up in the future , ” she said , “ and we hold ourselves accountable to our ancestors.
” While at camp she was in college , submitting her assignments to her professors via her laptop in a yurt .
She has since gained several more degrees in environmental science so she can fulfill her personal mission : to create a body of work that can directly inform the Environmental Impact Statement under contention in her tribe ’ s lawsuit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , seeks to compel a full environmental review of the impact of the pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe , something the operator skipped over , and a re-do on the bogus approvals of the permits .
The oil is set to stop flowing by court order , and the pipeline must be emptied by August 5 , until the Environmental Impact Statement is completed , which will take years .
The operator has asked for a stay of the order while the case is under appeal and the tribe has answered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I ’ m looking at plants , medicines and traditional foods along the Missouri River , so I never really stopped fighting in that sense , ” White Bull said .
“ So much of our health and the medicines and plants we harvest and eat are impacted by pipelines.
” She says the rulings , which may slow the pipelines ’ advance or stop them altogether , feel like something the Earth needs .
“ In our pursuit of comforts , we ’ re taking too much away from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the impact of their decisions , the weight of their privilege , and how much we ’ re wanting to change.
” For Karla Colon , the decision to join the prayer camps at Standing Rock was a leap of faith , a turning point and a defining moment all rolled into one .
“ I was done talking about it , about things that I found unjust , ” Colon told Truthout .
“ I wanted to physically do something.
” So she traveled to North Dakota .
The # NoDAPL uprising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever .
“ The first time I walked toward a police line it was National Guard ; they all had huge shields and guns , and we were walking straight toward them because it was at the bridge , ” she recalled .
“ We were going to ceremony , and I remember feeling not scared — like we could do anything , we could literally achieve anything .
That ’ s something that came out of camp — this complete sense of purpose together , that we could have anything together with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to be okay and we were going to take care of each other.
” This alternative vision activates her in rural Massachusetts as her community in the Western part of the state moves to defund the police and build a sustainable future , one that is intersectional .
She ’ s reluctant to name her specific town because as part of her personal process of decolonizing she gives less and less credence to the ideas of contrived borders , boundaries and real estate .
In addition to Black abolition and liberation struggles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , her heart is also in organizing to abolish ICE immigrant detention .
She knows communities can exist without police because she ’ s lived it at camp ; police were not allowed into her camp .
“ I have this understanding that it is possible , we can build that community , without police .
People do care about each other and they can come together and make a change .
When we ’ re supporting each other , it allows for other really beautiful things to grow in community , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re all okay.
” The Fight Will Continue Past the Pipelines “ We ’ re still tangibly struggling , even if the oil stops , we ’ re still fighting the pipeline , ” Bias , who uses they/them pronouns , told Truthout .
They ’ re referring to the ongoing sentences of two Standing Rock Water Protectors still in federal prison who are doing what they can to stay out of COVID-19 ’ s way .
The virus has reached both of their institutions , Sandstone in Minnesota and Dublin in California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which both they and Karla Colon serve , is ever diligent in its pursuit of liberty for them .
Bias had spoken to an NPR reporter earlier in the day , trying to draw attention to the injustice of their being imprisoned during a pandemic .
For Bias , Standing Rock was a proving ground for the idea that another more just world is possible .
“ Looking at the magnitude of camp , we literally made history in so many ways , ” they said .
Dakota- , Nakota- and Lakota-speaking peoples @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over a hundred years .
“ The Oceti Sakowin , the Seven Council Fires ; we were occupying treaty lands ; that was a big deal that we stayed out there , ” Bias said .
The absence of police in the camp did not mean there were no accountability processes , but they were aligned with traditional societal structuring and values derived from water ceremonies , inipi ( sweats ) , songs and offerings .
Out of that positivity , the idea emerged to use ceremony as a way to stop construction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ holy embodied experience — that they got to live .
“ When I got arrested … we sat with an elder with prayer ties — that ’ s how we were holding space , ” Bias said .
The state had it all wrong calling the people they targeted for charges “ ringleaders.
” “ Everyone had designated roles , ” they said .
“ I ’ m going to be an arrestable , or a police liaison , I ’ m the one who ’ s going to lock down [ the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through that collectively , people were not rogue , and no one was a leader.
” They say they were unarmed people going out of their way , they knew the risks , they were making sacrifices , so that we could live differently .
“ We all took those risks , the brutalizations , you lose count .
How many times did I have my chest thumped or they ’ d push you ?
How many times was I pepper sprayed , tear gassed ?
I was sprayed with nerve agents on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the river , we all risked hypothermia , to let them know we ’ re here for the water .
We didn ’ t get hypothermia .
We felt that the water we ’ re trying to protect is literally protecting us.
” They say they met a lot of their objectives .
They wanted to stop construction , and they did ; they wanted to stop the police , and they did .
Not every time , but many times .
“ People are so much more capable than we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ It ’ s going to take a lot of acts of willingness to pull this off as a species .
Either human beings are going to decide , or the Earth is going to decide for us .
”

The recent spate of favorable pipeline rulings is just the first step on the long road to victory, say activists.
“The hardest part about locking down, is deciding to do it,” Mark K. Tilsen told Truthout.
It’s been almost four years since Mark’s brother Nick Tilsen (Oglala Lakota) and Daniel T’seleie (K’asho Got’ine Dene) attached themselves to excavators with handcuffs inside PVC piping in a device called a “Sleeping Dragon” to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at Standing Rock. Mark emulated them on his 35th birthday, July 6, 2018, at the Bayou Bridge struggle in the swamps of southern Louisiana. Bayou Bridge is the end of the DAPL pipeline. When cut loose and arrested, Tilsen was cuffed behind his back with zip ties and then lifted up by the cuffs by five cops who wrenched his shoulder so severely out of its socket, he still feels the injury on cold days. A “fair trade” he calls it. He had seen a lot worse at Standing Rock.
Tilsen has published a poetry collection, now in its third printing, It Ain’t Over Until We’re Smoking Cigars on the Drill Pad. Its title pithily sums up his response to a recent spate of favorable rulings awarded by courts on the Keystone XL Pipeline, DAPL, Atlantic Coast and Bayou Bridge pipelines. “I’m somewhat cynical,” he admitted with a laugh. T’seleie, too, is circumspect about attributing too much energy to the seeming wins, knowing how they often turn out to be partial, tentative or fragile, or are meant to diffuse resistance just when it’s crucial to ramp it up.
Truthout reached out to Mark Tilsen, T’seleie and three other Standing Rock front-liners — Karla Colon (Taíno), Olive Bias (Appalachian Water Protector) and Floris White Bull (HunkPapa Lakota and Cochití Pueblo) — for their thoughts and reflections on how effective organizing done well then contributed to a strengthened movement now.
Screenshot from video by Kaden Jerry
The Struggle Built a Foundation for Common Leadership
Tilsen counts the establishment of the encampment itself as a foundational success. “It’s definitely not a coincidence that it happened at Standing Rock,” he said. “The Lakota people are like every tribe in [the U.S.], but more so — an intense people living in extreme conditions.”
Mark K. Tilsen
Living at camp and being rooted in Lakota ceremony were key to the transformation at the core of the Water Protector movement, from individual self-interest to community survival. Where the courts are the arena in which movement lawyers operate, the prayer camp was the site from which those willing to risk themselves in direct action were propelled.
Standing Rock was like “a university of what leadership is and isn’t.” Having grown up on the tail end of the Red Power movement, he’d thought that a leader is “usually the loudest Native man on a bullhorn.” But at camp, their goal was “to empower all people to do what was in their hearts to protect the water.”
In his poem “Camp Life,” Tilsen writes:
It’s not that we were free
not really
But on a clear day
we could see what
freedom looked like
This glimpse was motivating “to throw down powerfully,” and not just for young people.
The work stoppages they inflicted on Energy Transfer Partners, whether for 15 minutes or a whole day, cumulatively cost the pipeline operator a world of pain .
“Elders were on the front line, some with severe mobility issues, with walkers, going toward the cops, living on oxygen in camp, fighting terminal illnesses; one who spent some of his last time before going into hospice care told us not to worry about him, but to stay focused on fighting the pipeline,” Tilsen recalled. “People whose names you’ll never know, who weren’t in the limelight.”
The work stoppages they inflicted on Energy Transfer Partners, whether for 15 minutes or a whole day, cumulatively cost the pipeline operator a world of pain.
“At the time of the sabotage against DAPL, Energy Transfer Partners didn’t want to make an issue publicly of how much it hurt, damaged and befuddled them,” he says. But the repression that ensued “woke up the whole world to the Indigenous activism against the fossil fuel industry on six continents.”
Indigenous Sovereignty Is Essential to Combat Climate Change
Climate justice organizer Daniel T’seleie told Truthout that the effects of global warming on his Dene homelands in the Arctic have been profound and are an existential threat to the caribou, a mainstay of his people’s food security and the spiritual heart of Dene culture.
“We’re looking at a future where the land may be fundamentally different, where there’s a potential for not being able to hunt caribou. The more we go down that road, the more it will impact who we are as Dene people,” he cautioned.
In the “adaptation or mitigation” conversation, there’s really no choice.
Standing Rock was a dramatic and urgent object lesson in many usually abstract political concepts — Indigenous sovereignty and climate and environmental justice among them.
“There’s no possibility for us to adapt to the loss of the caribou,” he said from the depths of his decades of experience, starting as a youth climate organizer, working within a UN frame on several continents. “The only viable option for responding to climate change, if we’re serious, is mitigation. We have to transition.”
In his view, Standing Rock was a dramatic and urgent object lesson in many usually abstract political concepts — Indigenous sovereignty and climate and environmental justice among them. It catalyzed the contemporary Indigenous sovereignty movement on this continent and generated pushback against colonialism, imperialism and capitalism worldwide.
“Sovereignty is important for all Indigenous nations,” T’seleie counseled, “because we have our own governance structures, laws, legal orders, or in some cases legal systems, and we were here before Canada, the United States or Mexico — before any of these settler states even existed. It’s a matter of justice for us to have the right to continue to make decisions for ourselves.”
From a climate justice analysis, climate change will not be sufficiently mitigated unless the underlying structures are changed, especially structures like colonialism. He advises that the single most important thing people can do is to find struggles doing Indigenous sovereignty work, like the Wet’suwet’en people in their fight against the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Canada, and meaningfully support them.
The present moment offers two other crucial opportunities, according to T’seleie: Joining with the movement for Black lives as it rises up against police terror because “liberation is not a zero-sum game;” and COVID-19 because “now is the time to push for the fundamental change that we need.”
“The pandemic provides a completely different social reality in which myths often told about fossil fuel and the economy are being debunked,” he said. “It’s undercutting some of the control narratives that shut down our movements. People are seeing that it is possible to drastically reduce extraction and rapidly transition off fossil fuels.”
Preserving the Health of the Earth
“With this virus, nature gets a break,” Floris White Bull told Truthout. “The beaches are empty so the sea turtles have a chance at undisturbed birthing in their birth cycles. All these different instances of healing. This is all connected in a way to what we were doing. That it wasn’t just about a pipeline, but it was for the Earth, for life and the future.”
White Bull’s home is on the Standing Rock reservation and she remains as committed to resisting the pipeline now as she was when she was on the front lines getting arrested for criminal trespass on her own lands.
“As Indigenous people, we stand by those actions. We want to be able to hold our head up in the future,” she said, “and we hold ourselves accountable to our ancestors.”
The idea emerged to use ceremony as a way to stop construction — more than a tactic, a holy embodied experience — that they got to live.
While at camp she was in college, submitting her assignments to her professors via her laptop in a yurt. She has since gained several more degrees in environmental science so she can fulfill her personal mission: to create a body of work that can directly inform the Environmental Impact Statement under contention in her tribe’s lawsuit. Its suit, brought by Earthjustice, seeks to compel a full environmental review of the impact of the pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, something the operator skipped over, and a re-do on the bogus approvals of the permits. The oil is set to stop flowing by court order, and the pipeline must be emptied by August 5, until the Environmental Impact Statement is completed, which will take years. The operator has asked for a stay of the order while the case is under appeal and the tribe has answered them. No hearing is yet scheduled.
Courtesy of Floris White Bull
“I’m looking at plants, medicines and traditional foods along the Missouri River, so I never really stopped fighting in that sense,” White Bull said. “So much of our health and the medicines and plants we harvest and eat are impacted by pipelines.”
She says the rulings, which may slow the pipelines’ advance or stop them altogether, feel like something the Earth needs.
“In our pursuit of comforts, we’re taking too much away from the future; we need everybody to understand the impact of their decisions, the weight of their privilege, and how much we’re wanting to change.”
Resisting Police at #NoDAPL
For Karla Colon, the decision to join the prayer camps at Standing Rock was a leap of faith, a turning point and a defining moment all rolled into one.
“I was done talking about it, about things that I found unjust,” Colon told Truthout. “I wanted to physically do something.”
So she traveled to North Dakota. The #NoDAPL uprising at Standing Rock was her first protest ever.
“The first time I walked toward a police line it was National Guard; they all had huge shields and guns, and we were walking straight toward them because it was at the bridge,” she recalled. “We were going to ceremony, and I remember feeling not scared — like we could do anything, we could literally achieve anything. That’s something that came out of camp — this complete sense of purpose together, that we could have anything together with the community we built, it was going to be okay and we were going to take care of each other.”
This alternative vision activates her in rural Massachusetts as her community in the Western part of the state moves to defund the police and build a sustainable future, one that is intersectional. She’s reluctant to name her specific town because as part of her personal process of decolonizing she gives less and less credence to the ideas of contrived borders, boundaries and real estate. In addition to Black abolition and liberation struggles, with an emphasis on mutual aid, her heart is also in organizing to abolish ICE immigrant detention. She knows communities can exist without police because she’s lived it at camp; police were not allowed into her camp.
“I have this understanding that it is possible, we can build that community, without police. People do care about each other and they can come together and make a change. When we’re supporting each other, it allows for other really beautiful things to grow in community, when we all make sure that we’re all okay.”
Rob Wilson Photography
The Fight Will Continue Past the Pipelines
“We’re still tangibly struggling, even if the oil stops, we’re still fighting the pipeline,” Bias, who uses they/them pronouns, told Truthout.
They’re referring to the ongoing sentences of two Standing Rock Water Protectors still in federal prison who are doing what they can to stay out of COVID-19’s way. The virus has reached both of their institutions, Sandstone in Minnesota and Dublin in California, and the support committee, on which both they and Karla Colon serve, is ever diligent in its pursuit of liberty for them. Bias had spoken to an NPR reporter earlier in the day, trying to draw attention to the injustice of their being imprisoned during a pandemic.
Screenshot from video by Andrew Kimmel Frances Madeson
For Bias, Standing Rock was a proving ground for the idea that another more just world is possible.
“Looking at the magnitude of camp, we literally made history in so many ways,” they said. Dakota-, Nakota- and Lakota-speaking peoples came together for the first time in over a hundred years. “The Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires; we were occupying treaty lands; that was a big deal that we stayed out there,” Bias said.
The absence of police in the camp did not mean there were no accountability processes, but they were aligned with traditional societal structuring and values derived from water ceremonies, inipi (sweats), songs and offerings. Out of that positivity, the idea emerged to use ceremony as a way to stop construction — more than a tactic, a holy embodied experience — that they got to live.
“When I got arrested … we sat with an elder with prayer ties — that’s how we were holding space,” Bias said.
The state had it all wrong calling the people they targeted for charges “ringleaders.”
“Everyone had designated roles,” they said. “I’m going to be an arrestable, or a police liaison, I’m the one who’s going to lock down [the] equipment. We had to go through that collectively, people were not rogue, and no one was a leader.”
They say they were unarmed people going out of their way, they knew the risks, they were making sacrifices, so that we could live differently.
“We all took those risks, the brutalizations, you lose count. How many times did I have my chest thumped or they’d push you? How many times was I pepper sprayed, tear gassed? I was sprayed with nerve agents on November 20, 2016. We stood in the river, we all risked hypothermia, to let them know we’re here for the water. We didn’t get hypothermia. We felt that the water we’re trying to protect is literally protecting us.”
They say they met a lot of their objectives. They wanted to stop construction, and they did; they wanted to stop the police, and they did. Not every time, but many times.
“People are so much more capable than we can ever possibly realize,” Bias declared. “It’s going to take a lot of acts of willingness to pull this off as a species. Either human beings are going to decide, or the Earth is going to decide for us.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-07-29--Anti-Government Propaganda Is a Republican Ploy Meant to Disarm Progressives

Social justice activists win myriad campaigns on specific issues each year , but when we step back , it still looks like we ’ re losing the broader struggle for a livable future .
Despite our best efforts , we still face unprecedented concentrations of wealth and power , expanding economic insecurity ( the “ gig ” economy ) , environmental catastrophe and systemic racism .
Why have progressives failed to mobilize a force capable of governing the U.S. ?
Recently , I found a compelling explanation — and a prescription for winning the long game .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democracy by Donald Cohen , executive director of the national nonprofit research and policy organization called In the Public Interest .
The booklet is divided into two sections — first , how our right-wing adversaries deliberately worked us into this mess over the last 50-plus years , and second , 10 things we could do together now to develop a long game , to “ build a movement and a nation rooted in protecting and advancing the common good , ” as Cohen writes .
At its core , the right-wing agenda of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assault on government .
They want us to believe that government is represented by potholes in our streets , long lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles , and “ socialism ” that creates a nation of “ dependent moochers.
” Their solution is to privatize government functions — schools , water departments , prisons , the military , and more , cutting taxes to “ starve the beast ” and shrink government so small they can drown it in a bathtub .
Why did the right wing spend decades demonizing government ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , negative attitudes toward government have allowed the right to sustain their agenda of austerity ( cut taxes , then cut benefits ) , privatization ( it ’ s so much more “ efficient , ” wink , wink ) and deregulation of big corporations ( unleash the “ job creators ” ) .
Destroying faith in government has allowed the rich and powerful to take control of government and rewrite the rules to make themselves even richer and more powerful , eliminating “ majority rule ” from our political system , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1950s .
Second , bashing government convinced huge numbers of secret progressives and “ undecideds ” that voting is a waste of time — no matter who wins , all you get is more useless government .
As a result , even in a presidential election , 40 percent of eligible voters don ’ t even bother to vote .
In midterm elections , 60 percent don ’ t vote .
The third reason is that government plays an essential role in every issue that progressives and liberals care about .
Discredit government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , “ living wage campaigns use the power of government purchasing to lift economic standards ; inclusionary housing policies employ the land use power of government to increase the amount of affordable housing ; mass-transit systems rely on public spending of tax dollars ; Social Security and Medicare depend on the government ’ s unique ability to create universal social-insurance programs ; the Clean Air Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act that protect public health rely on the regulatory powers of the state .
These are the essential public powers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Labor Relations Act to banking reform , and much more.
” No wonder the right has spent more than five decades changing the public perception of government — government is the progressives ’ friend if sympathetic people hold office and they work for the public good .
Corporate executives began campaigning in the 1950s to demonize government ( they hated Roosevelt ’ s New Deal and set out to roll it back ) .
Despite their best efforts , Social Security and unemployment benefits have survived ( so far ) , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public faith in government .
In 1964 , during President Lyndon Johnson ’ s first term , 77 percent of Americans said they trusted the government to do what is right “ just about always ” or “ most of the time.
” Asked the same question in 2019 , only 17 percent of Americans said they trusted their government .
Instead of focusing on taking control ( by voting ) and changing the all-important “ who ” in government , we progressives surrendered it to our adversaries , who were only too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government to their own narrow advantage using clever , consistent , concerted strategies .
They made “ government is hopeless ” the conventional wisdom , and then they turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy by gutting the capacity of government to promote the common good .
As Paul Krugman wrote recently , “ decades of conservative attacks on the idea that government can do anything good have left America with a unique case of learned helplessness ” unable to control a pandemic that has killed more than 151,000 people — most of them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The only real antidote to decades of anti-government propaganda would be a long-game campaign to rehabilitate the idea that lifting up “ public purpose ” and “ the public good ” is how we can all thrive .
The second half of Cohen ’ s little book spells out 10 strategies for building a coherent , powerful progressive movement to win the long game .
It requires finding spaces and times for progressives to discuss and clarify their ideas , to develop “ a clear and forceful restatement of the comprehensive case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ develop a clear statement of the kind of country we want to build .
It means thinking creatively about how progressive groups are funded — as it is , they compete against each other for foundation and labor dollars .
It means working through the racism , classism , sexism and other social issues within our own movements as well .
The good news is , despite decades of government-bashing , large majorities of the general public still believe government should play a “ major role ” in keeping everyone safe , healthy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Even before the pandemic , a full 89 percent of Americans said public health plays an important role in the well-being of their community .
In December 2017 , 87 percent told the Pew Research Center that government should have a “ major role ” in “ ensuring safe food and medicine.
” And three-quarters favored a “ major role ” for government in protecting the environment ( 76 percent ) , “ maintaining infrastructure ” ( 75 percent ) and strengthening the economy ( 75 percent ) .
Fully two-thirds said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ role ” in “ ensuring access to quality education ” ( 68 percent ) , “ setting standards for workplaces ” ( 65 percent ) , “ helping people get out of poverty ” ( 67 percent ) and “ ensuring access to health care ” ( 69 percent ) .
People know what they want , and they know they ’ re not getting it from government .
That ’ s a huge opportunity for progressives .
As George Goehl of People ’ s Action likes to say , government is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prize .

Progressives need a long-game strategy to restore confidence in the efficacy of government to work for the common good.
Social justice activists win myriad campaigns on specific issues each year, but when we step back, it still looks like we’re losing the broader struggle for a livable future.
Despite our best efforts, we still face unprecedented concentrations of wealth and power, expanding economic insecurity (the “gig” economy), environmental catastrophe and systemic racism.
Why have progressives failed to mobilize a force capable of governing the U.S.?
Recently, I found a compelling explanation — and a prescription for winning the long game. It’s a short, free booklet called Dismantling Democracy by Donald Cohen, executive director of the national nonprofit research and policy organization called In the Public Interest.
The booklet is divided into two sections — first, how our right-wing adversaries deliberately worked us into this mess over the last 50-plus years, and second, 10 things we could do together now to develop a long game, to “build a movement and a nation rooted in protecting and advancing the common good,” as Cohen writes.
At its core, the right-wing agenda of the last 50-plus years has been an assault on government. They want us to believe that government is represented by potholes in our streets, long lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and “socialism” that creates a nation of “dependent moochers.” Their solution is to privatize government functions — schools, water departments, prisons, the military, and more, cutting taxes to “starve the beast” and shrink government so small they can drown it in a bathtub.
Why did the right wing spend decades demonizing government? There are three big reasons.
First, negative attitudes toward government have allowed the right to sustain their agenda of austerity (cut taxes, then cut benefits), privatization (it’s so much more “efficient,” wink, wink) and deregulation of big corporations (unleash the “job creators”). Destroying faith in government has allowed the rich and powerful to take control of government and rewrite the rules to make themselves even richer and more powerful, eliminating “majority rule” from our political system, which they set out to do in the 1950s.
Destroying faith in government has allowed the rich and powerful to take control of government and rewrite the rules to make themselves even richer and more powerful.
Second, bashing government convinced huge numbers of secret progressives and “undecideds” that voting is a waste of time — no matter who wins, all you get is more useless government. As a result, even in a presidential election, 40 percent of eligible voters don’t even bother to vote. In midterm elections, 60 percent don’t vote.
The third reason is that government plays an essential role in every issue that progressives and liberals care about. Discredit government, disarm progressives. As Cohen puts it, “living wage campaigns use the power of government purchasing to lift economic standards; inclusionary housing policies employ the land use power of government to increase the amount of affordable housing; mass-transit systems rely on public spending of tax dollars; Social Security and Medicare depend on the government’s unique ability to create universal social-insurance programs; the Clean Air Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act that protect public health rely on the regulatory powers of the state. These are the essential public powers that have created every policy victory from National Labor Relations Act to banking reform, and much more.” No wonder the right has spent more than five decades changing the public perception of government — government is the progressives’ friend if sympathetic people hold office and they work for the public good.
Corporate executives began campaigning in the 1950s to demonize government (they hated Roosevelt’s New Deal and set out to roll it back). Despite their best efforts, Social Security and unemployment benefits have survived (so far), but the right wing totally succeeded in destroying public faith in government. In 1964, during President Lyndon Johnson’s first term, 77 percent of Americans said they trusted the government to do what is right “just about always” or “most of the time.” Asked the same question in 2019, only 17 percent of Americans said they trusted their government.
Instead of focusing on taking control (by voting) and changing the all-important “who” in government, we progressives surrendered it to our adversaries, who were only too happy to turn the mighty power of government to their own narrow advantage using clever, consistent, concerted strategies. They made “government is hopeless” the conventional wisdom, and then they turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy by gutting the capacity of government to promote the common good. As Paul Krugman wrote recently, “decades of conservative attacks on the idea that government can do anything good have left America with a unique case of learned helplessness” unable to control a pandemic that has killed more than 151,000 people — most of them unnecessarily — and is ravaging our economy.
The only real antidote to decades of anti-government propaganda would be a long-game campaign to rehabilitate the idea that lifting up “public purpose” and “the public good” is how we can all thrive.
The second half of Cohen’s little book spells out 10 strategies for building a coherent, powerful progressive movement to win the long game. It requires finding spaces and times for progressives to discuss and clarify their ideas, to develop “a clear and forceful restatement of the comprehensive case for effective government,” and to develop a clear statement of the kind of country we want to build. It means thinking creatively about how progressive groups are funded — as it is, they compete against each other for foundation and labor dollars. It means working through the racism, classism, sexism and other social issues within our own movements as well.
The good news is, despite decades of government-bashing, large majorities of the general public still believe government should play a “major role” in keeping everyone safe, healthy, educated and able to pursue happiness.
Even before the pandemic, a full 89 percent of Americans said public health plays an important role in the well-being of their community. In December 2017, 87 percent told the Pew Research Center that government should have a “major role” in “ensuring safe food and medicine.” And three-quarters favored a “major role” for government in protecting the environment (76 percent), “maintaining infrastructure” (75 percent) and strengthening the economy (75 percent). Fully two-thirds said the government should have a “major role” in “ensuring access to quality education” (68 percent), “setting standards for workplaces” (65 percent), “helping people get out of poverty” (67 percent) and “ensuring access to health care” (69 percent).
People know what they want, and they know they’re not getting it from government. That’s a huge opportunity for progressives. As George Goehl of People’s Action likes to say, government is not the problem, it’s the prize.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-07-31--Poll: Majority of Americans Have Negative View of Trump’s Handling of Protests

Most Americans do not believe the aggressive tactics which President Donald Trump has employed to quell uprisings in cities across the country are making the situation better , a new poll has found .
According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Friday , just 36 percent of the country approves of the way Trump is responding to protests against racism and police violence .
An overwhelming majority , 64 percent , say they disapprove of what he ’ s done .
Trump ’ s use of federal law enforcement officers from the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as well as the U.S .
Marshals Service to deal with protesters is having a negative effect , according to a majority of those polled .
Just 30 percent of respondents said the use of federal officers is making the situation better .
Fifty-two percent said that their presence in cities is actually making matters worse , while 19 percent say they have no effect one way or the other .
The data from the ABC News/Ipsos poll aligns with what other data have shown when it comes to the national uprising .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ found that 65 percent of Americans support the protests , with 53 percent saying they will be helpful in the long run toward achieving the goal of racial equality .
Portland , Oregon , where agents have snatched protesters from the streets without first identifying themselves and placing them into unmarked vans .
Videos from the nightly demonstrations showcase a violent response to protesters from federal law enforcement officers , including use of tear gas , rubber bullets and flash-bang devices , including many instances where individuals did not appear to be engaged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any kind .
Many have suggested that the federal officers ’ presence has escalated the situation on the ground , and that their actions have prompted Portland residents to take action to protect themselves .
Mac Smiff , a Black organizer in the city , gave his opinion in a now-viral video .
“ We came out here dressed in T-shirts and twirling Hula-Hoops and stuff , and they started gassing us , so we came back with respirators , and they started shooting us , so we came back with vests , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , so we started wearing helmets , and now they call us terrorists , ” Smiff said .
“ Who ’ s escalating this ?
It ’ s not us.
” Fifty years of research has consistently demonstrated that police departments oftentimes escalate situations at protests and demonstrations to the harm of protesters and themselves .
Many states do not even offer de-escalation training options or regulations to local police forces , leaving it to municipalities to determine what standards should be used .
The situation in Portland may be even worse than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Times , the federal officers who were deployed to the city lacked any training in how to work with crowds or mass demonstrations prior to their arrival .

The poll also found most Americans don’t think federal officers’ presence at protests are making things better.
Most Americans do not believe the aggressive tactics which President Donald Trump has employed to quell uprisings in cities across the country are making the situation better, a new poll has found.
According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Friday, just 36 percent of the country approves of the way Trump is responding to protests against racism and police violence. An overwhelming majority, 64 percent, say they disapprove of what he’s done.
Trump’s use of federal law enforcement officers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as well as the U.S. Marshals Service to deal with protesters is having a negative effect, according to a majority of those polled.
Just 30 percent of respondents said the use of federal officers is making the situation better. Fifty-two percent said that their presence in cities is actually making matters worse, while 19 percent say they have no effect one way or the other.
The data from the ABC News/Ipsos poll aligns with what other data have shown when it comes to the national uprising. Earlier this week, a Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Americans support the protests, with 53 percent saying they will be helpful in the long run toward achieving the goal of racial equality.
Portland, Oregon, where agents have snatched protesters from the streets without first identifying themselves and placing them into unmarked vans.
Videos from the nightly demonstrations showcase a violent response to protesters from federal law enforcement officers, including use of tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang devices, including many instances where individuals did not appear to be engaged in an illegal or life-threatening act of any kind.
Many have suggested that the federal officers’ presence has escalated the situation on the ground, and that their actions have prompted Portland residents to take action to protect themselves. Mac Smiff, a Black organizer in the city, gave his opinion in a now-viral video.
This clip from @MacSmiff is essential. Protect this man at all costs. pic.twitter.com/TY8lma2btr — Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) July 30, 2020
“We came out here dressed in T-shirts and twirling Hula-Hoops and stuff, and they started gassing us, so we came back with respirators, and they started shooting us, so we came back with vests, and they started aiming for the head, so we started wearing helmets, and now they call us terrorists,” Smiff said. “Who’s escalating this? It’s not us.”
Fifty years of research has consistently demonstrated that police departments oftentimes escalate situations at protests and demonstrations to the harm of protesters and themselves. Many states do not even offer de-escalation training options or regulations to local police forces, leaving it to municipalities to determine what standards should be used.
The situation in Portland may be even worse than that. According to The New York Times, the federal officers who were deployed to the city lacked any training in how to work with crowds or mass demonstrations prior to their arrival.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.