thenation--2020-04-03--Underpaid, Ignored, and Essential: A Coronavirus Sketchbook

Quarantined in my apartment , I put out a call on Twitter saying that I wanted to draw those workers @ @ @ @ @ home : delivery people , shelf stockers at grocery stores , nurses , janitors , @ @ @ @ @ next few hours , more than 50 people wrote to me .
I drew these @ @ @ @ @ sent me in their work clothes .
These are the underpaid , ignored , essential @ @ @ @ @ the earth move—and now are forced to risk their lives doing it .

This article appears in the April 20/27, 2020 issue.
Justice, janitor, Albany, New York
Quarantined in my apartment, I put out a call on Twitter saying that I wanted to draw those workers who could not stay at home: delivery people, shelf stockers at grocery stores, nurses, janitors, and cashiers. In the next few hours, more than 50 people wrote to me. I drew these portraits from the selfies they sent me in their work clothes. These are the underpaid, ignored, essential workers who have always made the earth move—and now are forced to risk their lives doing it.
Ross Grooters, railway worker, Iowa
Seanan El Daher, delivery nurse, Rhode Island
Sarah, pharmacy clerk, Tustin, California
John, janitorial facilities cleaner, Paso Robles, California
Jay, warehouse worker, Texas
Dot, physician assistant, New York City, New York
Anty, grocery shopper, Brooklyn, New York
Abby, grocery store cashier, New Jersey
Aaron, grocery store worker, Morningside Heights, New York
Alison, Target worker, Massachusetts
Jacob, paramedic, Ohio
Simon, delivery worker for goPuff, Texas
This project was made possible in part by support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.


thenation--2020-04-03--The WHO Ignores Taiwan. The World Pays the Price.

There is an island nation off the southeastern coast of China where public health officials saw the pandemic coming—and took action before China did .
Nearly three months after reporting its first confirmed case of Covid-19 , this country has only reported 348 positive diagnoses and five deaths .
It was one of the earliest countries to be hit and has one of the lowest infection rates .
But you wouldn ’ t know any of this if you got your information from the World Health Organization .
The country is Taiwan , which the WHO refuses to recognize as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Taiwanese officials , the organization kept the island cut off from its global information networks .
Now , it may be the rest of the world that ’ s paying the price .
For nearly half a century , the People ’ s Republic of China has effectively blocked Taiwan from joining the WHO .
Despite never having exercised authority over the island , the Chinese Communist Party officially considers Taiwan part of its territory , and forces international organizations—including the United Nations and its agencies like the WHO—to affirm its view @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this geopolitical paradox was laid bare in a news broadcast that quickly went viral .
In a Skype interview , journalist Yvonne Tong of Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK asked Dr. Bruce Aylward , a senior WHO official , if the global health body would reconsider Taiwan ’ s membership .
On Tong ’ s laptop screen , Aylward ’ s face twitched .
He blinked for several seconds .
Then he said he “ couldn ’ t hear the question.
” When Tong offered to repeat herself , Aylward cut in : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , let ’ s move on to another question then.
” “ I ’ m actually curious to talk about Taiwan as well , ” said Tong .
Aylward ’ s face disappeared—he had ended the call .
When Tong called back and repeated her question , Aylward replied , “ Well , we ’ ve already talked about China .
And when you look across all the different areas of China , they ’ ve actually all done quite a good job.
” He thanked Tong and ended the call again .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ minute .
But for Taiwanese people , it summed up a lifetime of gaslighting .
During this outbreak alone , the WHO has kept changing how it refers to this country of nearly 24 million , going from “ Taiwan , China , ” to “ Taipei ” to the newer and bizarre “ Taipei and its environs.
” It also allowed China to report Taiwan ’ s coronavirus numbers as part of its own total , instead of reporting Taiwan ’ s numbers alone—a conflation that created headaches for the smaller nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Taiwan along with China , despite the former ’ s drastically lower infection rate .
When geopolitics dictate health policy , however , the most serious effects are rarely just economic .
The WHO ’ s distortion of Taiwan ’ s reality has consequences that should be measured in human lives .
Soon after the RTHK video was released , a WHO spokesperson e-mailed a statement to reporters , a rare instance of using Taiwan ’ s preferred name : “ The question of Taiwanese membership in WHO is up to WHO @ @ @ @ @ @ @ However , WHO is working closely with all health authorities who are facing the current coronavirus pandemic , including Taiwanese health experts.
” Taiwan says that cooperation has not occurred .
According to the country ’ s officials , on December 31—the same day that Wuhan health officials announced the discovery of a viral pneumonia with “ no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission ” —Taiwan wrote to the WHO to request more information about the disease ’ s potential to pass between humans .
They say that the WHO acknowledged receipt of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or share it with WHO member states .
Taiwan took action anyway .
Before nightfall on December 31 , the country decided to begin health inspections for all passengers arriving on flights from Wuhan .
Two weeks later—amid continued reassurances from Chinese and WHO officials that there was no need for alarm—Taiwan dispatched two of its health experts to the city in Hubei province , where they found significant likelihood that the coronavirus was capable of human-to-human transmission .
This virus , they reported on January 16 , could be far more dangerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s local doctors were taking the disease very seriously as well .
It would be four more days before the Chinese government officially acknowledged that the virus could be transmitted between humans , on January 20 .
In the meantime , Wuhan had hosted a 40,000-household dinner to celebrate Lunar New Year and millions of people had left the city for the holiday , dispersing across the country at the worst possible time .
By the time Taiwan confirmed its first case of Covid-19 on January 21 , the country was arguably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world .
It mobilized its Central Epidemic Command Center—a rapid-response agency formed in the wake of the 2003 SARS outbreak—to implement quarantines and conduct drills at hospitals .
Citizens were asked to stay calm and assured that they would all be able to buy surgical masks , as production of the masks ramped up into millions per day .
Soon after , Taiwanese masks were temporarily banned from export .
The Crisis in Wuhan ‘ Forced Me to Become Political ’ By contrast , Hubei did not begin its own emergency measures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese health authority was already reporting 440 cases and nine deaths across mainland China .
In spite of its decisive response , Taiwan was shut out of the WHO ’ s emergency meeting on January 22 , where representatives from 16 countries—including the PRC , Japan , South Korea , and the United States—opted to delay declaring the coronavirus a global health emergency .
When the Taiwanese CDC deputy director general , Chuang Jen-hsiang , gave his own press conference in Taipei , a local reporter asked him whether Taiwan was coordinating with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not like other countries , ” replied Chuang with a pained smile .
“ We weren ’ t invited to the meeting .
There ’ s no way for us to get firsthand information.
” By the time the WHO finally declared a global health emergency on January 30 , nearly 8,000 cases had been confirmed by Chinese authorities , hundreds of people had died , and the virus had surfaced in at least 18 countries outside of China .
Still , the WHO struck a deferential tone .
“ This declaration is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China , ” said Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus .
“ On the contrary , the WHO continues to have confidence in China ’ s capacity to control the outbreak.
” Taiwan , Italy , and the United States all confirmed their first cases of Covid-19 within days of one another .
But unlike the other two countries , Taiwan has so far avoided mass deaths—so much so that on Wednesday , President Tsai Ing-wen announced that Taiwan would donate 10 million surplus masks to places including Italy and the United States .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or to any of the other rapid aid deals crisscrossing the globe since the outbreak began .
Nations that give aid to others project an image of power , to both domestic and international audiences .
Even countries whose own outbreaks are far from contained , such as Russia and Australia , are using this moment to score points .
For Taiwan , this is an opportunity to press the case for greater recognition .
The country was a founding member of the United Nations under its formal name , the Republic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1945 .
But it was ejected in 1971 , when the UN gave its seat to the PRC .
The Chinese Civil War has never legally ended , and the PRC still seeks to eventually gain full authority over Taiwan .
That ’ s why Beijing has kept up the diplomatic pressure by forcing other countries to disavow Taiwan ’ s sovereignty , while paving the way for Taiwanese firms such as Foxconn—the world ’ s largest electronics manufacturer—to do business on the mainland .
How to respond to this dilemma is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ range from hard pro-unification to hard pro-independence , with politicians and activists representing every gradation in between .
In 2009 , Taiwan ’ s then-president , Ma Ying-jeou , managed to negotiate a backroom deal with authorities in Beijing for Taiwan to gain observer status in the World Health Assembly ( WHA ) , the committee of states that governs the WHO .
A member of the pro-unification Kuomintang party , Ma agreed that Taiwan would reaffirm Beijing ’ s “ One China ” principle and use the name “ Chinese Taipei ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Taiwan ’ s participation was limited : A leaked WHO memo from 2010 revealed strict instructions for the agency to use the name “ the Taiwan Province of China ” in its publications , and explicitly excluded Taiwan from the International Health Regulations , which enables WHO member states to rapidly share information and resources during global health emergencies .
Any sense of détente was undone when President Tsai was elected in 2016 .
The PRC , enraged by her pro-independence position , retaliated by ordering “ Chinese Taipei ” ejected from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reinclusion every year since .
But perhaps debating Taiwan ’ s inclusion in the WHO misses the point .
What if the legitimacy in question here were not Taiwan ’ s—but that of the system that the WHO represents ?
The WHO is ostensibly a sober , disinterested moderator , a corrective to the self-interest of nation-states .
The PRC ’ s initial cover-up of the 2003 SARS epidemic—which led to deaths in two dozen countries , including 73 people in Taiwan—is a classic example of what the WHO should help prevent .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic , the agency has again acquiesced to PRC policy , raising critical questions about whether this system is working at all .
The WHO has never operated free from state interests .
Like other international agencies founded under the UN in the wake of World War II , the agency originated as a tool of the 20th century US-led world order .
In 1954 , Republican Representative Frances P. Bolton articulated the US interest in the WHO in a speech on the anniversary of the agency ’ s founding : “ In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our principal endeavors is to keep the free world strong .
Disease breeds poverty and poverty breeds further disease .
International communism thrives on both.
” Health was a means to a geopolitical end .
Today , the WHO remains submissive to American politicians and corporations .
In 2018 , the Trump administration pushed the WHO to nix a campaign advocating breastfeeding and blocked a WHO resolution to tax sugary drinks , in both cases to satisfy US lobbyists and manufacturers .
The United States pays by far the largest share of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any member state .
But its yearly contribution—which Congress approved at nearly $ 123 million this year—is paltry in the grand scheme of global health ; the WHO ’ s largest nonstate sponsor is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , which has pledged $ 100 million to the WHO and other organizations to fight Covid-19 alone .
The WHO considers itself perpetually underfunded , with a $ 4.4 billion budget that is smaller than that of some American hospitals .
Trump has only exacerbated the agency ’ s feeling of financial insecurity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to slash US contributions to global health .
That could explain why the WHO is looking to China .
This dynamic is especially apparent within the WHA , which elects the WHO ’ s director general every five years .
Competition for the post is fierce , and countries with more leverage lobby other countries into forming voting coalitions , in a secretive process that has included accusations of “ rampant ” bribery .
Beijing has proved especially adept at this game : In 2006 , it successfully pushed through its pick , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and in 2017 backed the current chief , Ethiopia ’ s Dr. Tedros , who courted the CCP for months by praising China ’ s growing trade with African countries .
( And reiterated his support for the “ One China ” principle after being elected . )
Protecting the Truth About the Coronavirus in China This international horse trading discourages the WHO from antagonizing its member states , even when doing so could save lives .
The organization was panned by experts for its slow response for the Ebola outbreak in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials delayed declaring an emergency for as long as two months , for fear that it would be seen as a “ hostile act ” by Guinea Bissau , Ivory Coast , and Mali , and that it would hurt those countries ’ mining interests .
To be sure , the WHO has a significant record of accomplishments , not least of which was the global drive that eradicated smallpox by 1980 .
Still , the contradiction at the heart of its cross-border mission—that it has always depended on rigid notions of sovereignty—is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say that the coronavirus “ knows no borders.
” As post–Cold War globalization fractures and right-wing nationalisms harden , the WHO ’ s deference to individual countries ’ interests only risks widening divisions .
The stakes have never been higher for us to rethink the question of national sovereignty .
Cases like Taiwan ’ s show how border disputes have powerful , distorting effects upon how we understand and respond to health and disease .
In both the United States and China , state-led nationalisms fueled by anger over the coronavirus threaten to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ War .
Is it mere coincidence that at least two of the societies that have responded most ably to the virus—Taiwan , Hong Kong—are ones that the WHO doesn ’ t consider to be sovereign places at all ?
The coronavirus pandemic is already a profound tragedy .
We can avoid further heartache by ending our reliance on a global health system that sees the world as competing states .
Instead , we need to focus on creating bottom-up , transnational mutualism between health workers , researchers , and communities .
At this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us—but solidarity might .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
There is an island nation off the southeastern coast of China where public health officials saw the pandemic coming—and took action before China did. Nearly three months after reporting its first confirmed case of Covid-19, this country has only reported 348 positive diagnoses and five deaths. It was one of the earliest countries to be hit and has one of the lowest infection rates.
But you wouldn’t know any of this if you got your information from the World Health Organization. The country is Taiwan, which the WHO refuses to recognize as a sovereign state.
Despite early warnings from Taiwanese officials, the organization kept the island cut off from its global information networks. Now, it may be the rest of the world that’s paying the price.
For nearly half a century, the People’s Republic of China has effectively blocked Taiwan from joining the WHO. Despite never having exercised authority over the island, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially considers Taiwan part of its territory, and forces international organizations—including the United Nations and its agencies like the WHO—to affirm its view.
Last weekend, the absurdity of this geopolitical paradox was laid bare in a news broadcast that quickly went viral. In a Skype interview, journalist Yvonne Tong of Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK asked Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO official, if the global health body would reconsider Taiwan’s membership.
On Tong’s laptop screen, Aylward’s face twitched. He blinked for several seconds. Then he said he “couldn’t hear the question.” When Tong offered to repeat herself, Aylward cut in: “No, that’s OK, let’s move on to another question then.”
“I’m actually curious to talk about Taiwan as well,” said Tong. Aylward’s face disappeared—he had ended the call. Current Issue View our current issue
When Tong called back and repeated her question, Aylward replied, “Well, we’ve already talked about China. And when you look across all the different areas of China, they’ve actually all done quite a good job.” He thanked Tong and ended the call again.
The surreal exchange lasted all of one minute. But for Taiwanese people, it summed up a lifetime of gaslighting. During this outbreak alone, the WHO has kept changing how it refers to this country of nearly 24 million, going from “Taiwan, China,” to “Taipei” to the newer and bizarre “Taipei and its environs.” It also allowed China to report Taiwan’s coronavirus numbers as part of its own total, instead of reporting Taiwan’s numbers alone—a conflation that created headaches for the smaller nation. Some other countries enacted travel restrictions on Taiwan along with China, despite the former’s drastically lower infection rate. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
When geopolitics dictate health policy, however, the most serious effects are rarely just economic. The WHO’s distortion of Taiwan’s reality has consequences that should be measured in human lives.
Soon after the RTHK video was released, a WHO spokesperson e-mailed a statement to reporters (a rare instance of using Taiwan’s preferred name): “The question of Taiwanese membership in WHO is up to WHO Member States, not WHO staff. However, WHO is working closely with all health authorities who are facing the current coronavirus pandemic, including Taiwanese health experts.” Taiwan says that cooperation has not occurred. According to the country’s officials, on December 31—the same day that Wuhan health officials announced the discovery of a viral pneumonia with “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”—Taiwan wrote to the WHO to request more information about the disease’s potential to pass between humans. They say that the WHO acknowledged receipt of the letter, but did not otherwise respond or share it with WHO member states.
Taiwan took action anyway. Before nightfall on December 31, the country decided to begin health inspections for all passengers arriving on flights from Wuhan. Two weeks later—amid continued reassurances from Chinese and WHO officials that there was no need for alarm—Taiwan dispatched two of its health experts to the city in Hubei province, where they found significant likelihood that the coronavirus was capable of human-to-human transmission. This virus, they reported on January 16, could be far more dangerous than initially assumed, noting that Wuhan’s local doctors were taking the disease very seriously as well.
It would be four more days before the Chinese government officially acknowledged that the virus could be transmitted between humans, on January 20. In the meantime, Wuhan had hosted a 40,000-household dinner to celebrate Lunar New Year and millions of people had left the city for the holiday, dispersing across the country at the worst possible time.
By the time Taiwan confirmed its first case of Covid-19, on January 21, the country was arguably more prepared than any other place in the world. It mobilized its Central Epidemic Command Center—a rapid-response agency formed in the wake of the 2003 SARS outbreak—to implement quarantines and conduct drills at hospitals. Citizens were asked to stay calm and assured that they would all be able to buy surgical masks, as production of the masks was ramped up into millions per day. Soon after, Taiwanese masks were temporarily banned from export. Related Article The Crisis in Wuhan ‘Forced Me to Become Political’ Jessie Lau
By contrast, Hubei did not begin its own emergency measures until the day after, when the Chinese health authority was already reporting 440 cases and nine deaths across mainland China.
In spite of its decisive response, Taiwan was shut out of the WHO’s emergency meeting on January 22, where representatives from 16 countries—including the PRC, Japan, South Korea, and the United States—opted to delay declaring the coronavirus a global health emergency.
When the Taiwanese CDC deputy director general, Chuang Jen-hsiang, gave his own press conference in Taipei, a local reporter asked him whether Taiwan was coordinating with the WHO. “We’re not like other countries,” replied Chuang with a pained smile. “We weren’t invited to the meeting. There’s no way for us to get firsthand information.”
By the time the WHO finally declared a global health emergency on January 30, nearly 8,000 cases had been confirmed by Chinese authorities, hundreds of people had died, and the virus had surfaced in at least 18 countries outside of China. Still, the WHO struck a deferential tone. “This declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China,” said Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “On the contrary, the WHO continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak.”
People line up to buy face masks at a pharmacy in Taipei, February 3, 2020. Taiwan’s government made masks available to all, but limited the number that each person could buy per day. (Gene Wang / Getty Images)
Taiwan, Italy, and the United States all confirmed their first cases of Covid-19 within days of one another. But unlike the other two countries, Taiwan has so far avoided mass deaths—so much so that on Wednesday, President Tsai Ing-wen announced that Taiwan would donate 10 million surplus masks to places including Italy and the United States.
There is no real altruism to this, or to any of the other rapid aid deals crisscrossing the globe since the outbreak began. Nations that give aid to others project an image of power, to both domestic and international audiences. Even countries whose own outbreaks are far from contained, such as Russia and Australia, are using this moment to score points.
For Taiwan, this is an opportunity to press the case for greater recognition.
The country was a founding member of the United Nations under its formal name, the Republic of China (ROC), in 1945. But it was ejected in 1971, when the UN gave its seat to the PRC. The Chinese Civil War has never legally ended, and the PRC still seeks to eventually gain full authority over Taiwan. That’s why Beijing has kept up the diplomatic pressure by forcing other countries to disavow Taiwan’s sovereignty, while paving the way for Taiwanese firms such as Foxconn—the world’s largest electronics manufacturer—to do business on the mainland.
How to respond to this dilemma is the central issue in Taiwanese politics. Positions range from hard pro-unification to hard pro-independence, with politicians and activists representing every gradation in between.
In 2009, Taiwan’s then-president, Ma Ying-jeou, managed to negotiate a backroom deal with authorities in Beijing for Taiwan to gain observer status in the World Health Assembly (WHA), the committee of states that governs the WHO. A member of the pro-unification Kuomintang party, Ma agreed that Taiwan would reaffirm Beijing’s “One China” principle and use the name “Chinese Taipei” at the assembly. In practice, Taiwan’s participation was limited: A leaked WHO memo from 2010 revealed strict instructions for the agency to use the name “the Taiwan Province of China” in its publications, and explicitly excluded Taiwan from the International Health Regulations, which enables WHO member states to rapidly share information and resources during global health emergencies.
Any sense of détente was undone when President Tsai was elected in 2016. The PRC, enraged by her pro-independence position, retaliated by ordering “Chinese Taipei” ejected from the WHA. Taiwan has unsuccessfully lobbied for reinclusion every year since.
But perhaps debating Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO misses the point. What if the legitimacy in question here were not Taiwan’s—but that of the system that the WHO represents?
A medical worker collects a sample for coronavirus testing during a drill organized by the New Taipei City government on March 14, 2020. (Sam Yeh / AFP via Getty Images)
The WHO is ostensibly a sober, disinterested moderator, a corrective to the self-interest of nation-states. The PRC’s initial cover-up of the 2003 SARS epidemic—which led to deaths in two dozen countries, including 73 people in Taiwan—is a classic example of what the WHO should help prevent. Yet in the case of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the agency has again acquiesced to PRC policy, raising critical questions about whether this system is working at all.
The WHO has never operated free from state interests. Like other international agencies founded under the UN in the wake of World War II, it originated as a tool of the 20th century US-led world order. In 1954, Republican Representative Frances P. Bolton articulated the US interest in the WHO in a speech on the anniversary of the agency’s founding: “In our global struggle against communism, one of our principal endeavors is to keep the free world strong. Disease breeds poverty and poverty breeds further disease. International communism thrives on both.” Health was a means to a geopolitical end.
Today, the WHO remains submissive to American politicians and corporations. In 2018, the Trump administration pushed the WHO to nix a campaign advocating breastfeeding and blocked a WHO resolution to tax sugary drinks, in both cases to satisfy US lobbyists and manufacturers. The United States pays by far the largest share of the WHO’s budget out of any member state. But its yearly contribution—which Congress approved at nearly $123 million this year—is paltry in the grand scheme of global health; the WHO’s largest nonstate sponsor is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pledged $100 million to the WHO and other organizations to fight Covid-19 alone. The WHO considers itself perpetually underfunded, with a $4.4 billion budget that is smaller than that of some American hospitals. Trump has only exacerbated the agency’s feeling of financial insecurity since taking office, threatening every year to slash US contributions to global health.
That could explain why the WHO is looking to China. This dynamic is especially apparent within the WHA, which elects the WHO’s director-general every five years. Competition for the post is fierce, and countries with more leverage lobby other countries into forming voting coalitions, in a secretive process that has included accusations of “rampant” bribery. Beijing has proved especially adept at this game: In 2006, it successfully pushed through its pick, the Hong Kong bureaucrat Dr. Margaret Chan, and in 2017 backed the current chief, Ethiopia’s Tedros, who courted the CCP for months by praising China’s growing trade with African countries (and reiterated his support for the “One China” principle after being elected). Related Article Protecting the Truth About the Coronavirus in China Nation contributor
This international horse trading discourages the WHO from antagonizing its member states, even when doing so could save lives. The organization was panned by experts for its slow response for the Ebola outbreak in 2013; leaked documents show that WHO officials delayed declaring an emergency for as long as two months, for fear that it would be seen as a “hostile act” by Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, and Mali, and that it would hurt those countries’ mining interests.
To be sure, the WHO has a significant record of accomplishments, not least of which was the global drive that eradicated smallpox by 1980. Still, the contradiction at the heart of its cross-border mission—that it has always depended on rigid notions of sovereignty—is revealing its limits. Dr. Tedros may say that the coronavirus “knows no borders.” As post–Cold War globalization fractures and right-wing nationalisms harden, the WHO’s deference to individual countries’ interests only risks widening divisions.
The stakes have never been higher for us to rethink the question of national sovereignty. Cases like Taiwan’s show how border disputes have powerful, distorting effects upon how we understand and respond to health and disease. In both the United States and China, state-led nationalisms fueled by anger over the coronavirus threaten to plunge us headlong into a new Cold War. Is it mere coincidence that at least two of the societies that have responded most ably to the virus—Taiwan, Hong Kong—are ones that the WHO doesn’t consider to be sovereign places at all?
The coronavirus pandemic is already a profound tragedy. We can avoid further heartache by ending our reliance on a global health system that sees the world as competing states. Instead, we need to focus on creating bottom-up, transnational mutualism between health workers, researchers, and communities.
At this point, sovereignty can’t save us—but solidarity might.


thenation--2020-04-03--Trump Helps Big Business Profiteer Off Our Misery

One of the most terrifying facts about the coronavirus pandemic is that Jared Kushner is still setting policy .
The president ’ s son-in-law was one of the chief architects of Trump ’ s early dismissive response to the pandemic .
If Trump spoke about the crisis as a hoax promoted by his political enemies and to Covid-19 as a problem comparable to the flu , it was because Kushner was whispering in Trump ’ s ear .
Kushner , in line with many on the right , thought the coronavirus threat was grossly exaggerated by the media .
Speaking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ press briefing on the pandemic , Kushner no longer downplays it .
Instead , Kushner argued that many of the problems hamstringing the pandemic response have their origins in state governments .
He insisted that shortages in medical supplies , notably ventilators and personal protective equipment ( PPE ) , are matters governors have to deal with .
“ The notion of the federal stockpile was it ’ s supposed to be our stockpile , ” Kushner said .
“ It ’ s not supposed to be states ’ stockpiles that they then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aren ’ t even aware of how many ventilators they have .
He explained , “ What a lot of the voters are seeing now is that when you elect somebody…think about who will be a competent manager during the time of crisis.
” Kushner ’ s remarks make clear that the Trump White House has turned the pandemic into a reality-TV show competition .
Just as the rivals in The Apprentice had to do battle to get Trump ’ s approval , now the governors of 50 states are in a scramble @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ That is a Darwinian approach to federalism ; that is states ’ rights taken to a deadly extreme , ” said former Maryland governor Martin O ’ Malley .
The Coronavirus Class War Has Already Started Workers Are Warriors in the Fight Against the Coronavirus This ghoulish tournament has two purposes : It is a way of making the governors fall guys if things go bad ; it also creates new opportunities for big business to profiteer .
The pandemic reality show thus serves Trump both politically and ideologically .
One problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic is that it was hard to combat the crisis without violating the Republican aversion to government spending .
But the business interests that support Trump don ’ t mind government programs they can profit from , as opposed to social welfare measures .
On an ideological level , Trump ’ s Darwinian federalism helps win over conservatives who are wary of the federal government .
Republican-led states like Arizona , Florida , and Texas have been allowed to take a go-slow approach to social distancing .
In Arizona , many small businesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ notably barber shops , are allowed to keep running .
The governor of Florida has carved out exemptions for churches to continue to hold large gatherings .
This Darwinian federalist approach makes little sense as public policy .
The United States is a nation with no internal borders and tremendous geographical mobility .
An outbreak in Florida or Arizona could easily spread all over the country .
Further , Trump ’ s approach puts the federal government and 50 jurisdictions into competition for the same medical supplies , setting off a price war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where medical supplies were sent to the worst-hit regions first would be much more logical—and effective .
But Trump ’ s policy is guided not by logic but by a right-wing ideology that prioritizes the enrichment of big business .
Even the military is now subsumed to this goal .
The navy has set up an air bridge to help bring PPEs to America .
Speaking about it in a press conference , Rdml .
John Polowczyk said , “ This product that we are moving is primarily a commercial product that would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through financial business transactions between hospitals and these distributors.
” Former Obama official Andy Slavitt has spoken to several governors about the ventilator situation .
“ One of the governors tells me about price , ” Slavitt reports .
“ FEMA is buying all the vents in the market .
‘ We can ’ t buy any ’ , one tells me .
The other has found a manufacturer in state who has produced 10 to see if they work .
Trump was on TV complaining that it was the states ’ fault @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is making the ventilators hard to find.
” Slavitt also noted , “ One of the governors is trying to buy them at $ 45,000 per ventilator .
The typical cost is $ 15,000 per ventilator .
The other can ’ t even find them at that price ( hence the manufacturing ) .
They are all bidding against each other .
State vs. state.
” The WHO Ignores Taiwan .
The World Pays the Price .
Your Rent or Your Life The Coronavirus Reveals That the Stars Are Not Like Us More @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Talking Points Memo observes , “ Reporting tonight it ’ s clear that there are huge , huge fortunes being made now on the COVID Crisis.
” Marshall also noted that “ if you ’ ve got the right connections and access to trade networks and political power there are fortunes to be made starting bidding wars for products people are literally dying for .
This is much uglier than I think most people imagine .
And it ’ s being made possible by no clear federal response or a federal response which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sector markets.
” Jared Kushner has shifted from downplaying the pandemic to arguing that it is up to the governors to deal with it .
The same transition can be seen in the views of many right-wing pundits .
On February 27 , Candace Owens , a provocateur closely aligned with the Trump White House , sarcastically tweeted , “ Now we ’ re all going to die from Coronavirus .
The Left is becoming a Doomsday Cult.
” On April 1 , Owens took a slightly different tack : “ Two things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ # coronavirus can be real , and corrupt politicians like @ GovNedLamont and @ NYGovCuomo can be lying to extract money from the federal government because their socialist-run states are out of money.
” The fact that Kushner and Owens are no longer dismissing the pandemic is welcome , but as a response to the crisis , Darwinian federalism is only a slight improvement on malign neglect .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
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One of the most terrifying facts about the coronavirus pandemic is that Jared Kushner is still setting policy. The president’s son-in-law was one of the chief architects of Trump’s early dismissive response to the pandemic. If Trump spoke about the crisis as a hoax promoted by his political enemies and to Covid-19 as a problem comparable to the flu, it was because Kushner was whispering in Trump’s ear. Kushner, in line with many on the right, thought the coronavirus threat was grossly exaggerated by the media.
Speaking at the White House’s daily press briefing on the pandemic, Kushner no longer downplays it. Instead, Kushner argued that many of the problems hamstringing the pandemic response have their origins in state governments. He insisted that shortages in medical supplies, notably ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE), are matters governors have to deal with. “The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Kushner said. “It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.” Kushner also said many governors aren’t even aware of how many ventilators they have. He explained, “What a lot of the voters are seeing now is that when you elect somebody…think about who will be a competent manager during the time of crisis.”
Kushner’s remarks make clear that the Trump White House has turned the pandemic into a reality-TV show competition. Just as the rivals in The Apprentice had to do battle to get Trump’s approval, now the governors of 50 states are in a scramble to acquire their own medical supplies.
“That is a Darwinian approach to federalism; that is states’ rights taken to a deadly extreme,” said former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley. More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
This ghoulish tournament has two purposes: It is a way of making the governors fall guys if things go bad; it also creates new opportunities for big business to profiteer.
The pandemic reality show thus serves Trump both politically and ideologically. One problem he’s had grappling with the pandemic is that it was hard to combat the crisis without violating the Republican aversion to government spending. But the business interests that support Trump don’t mind government programs they can profit from, as opposed to social welfare measures.
On an ideological level, Trump’s Darwinian federalism helps win over conservatives who are wary of the federal government. Republican-led states like Arizona, Florida, and Texas have been allowed to take a go-slow approach to social distancing. In Arizona, many small businesses that would be shut down elsewhere, notably barber shops, are allowed to keep running. The governor of Florida has carved out exemptions for churches to continue to hold large gatherings. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Current Issue View our current issue
This Darwinian federalist approach makes little sense as public policy. The United States is a nation with no internal borders and tremendous geographical mobility. An outbreak in Florida or Arizona could easily spread all over the country.
Further, Trump’s approach puts the federal government and 50 jurisdictions into competition for the same medical supplies, setting off a price war that hurts everyone. A centralized system where medical supplies were sent to the worst-hit regions first would be much more logical—and effective.
But Trump’s policy is guided not by logic but by a right-wing ideology that prioritizes the enrichment of big business. Even the military is now subsumed to this goal. The navy has set up an air bridge to help bring PPEs to America. Speaking about it in a press conference, Rdml. John Polowczyk said, “This product that we are moving is primarily a commercial product that would enter the commercial system and be distributed through financial business transactions between hospitals and these distributors.”
Former Obama official Andy Slavitt has spoken to several governors about the ventilator situation. “One of the governors tells me about price,” Slavitt reports. “FEMA is buying all the vents in the market. ‘We can’t buy any’, one tells me. The other has found a manufacturer in state who has produced 10 to see if they work. Trump was on TV complaining that it was the states’ fault, yet it’s FEMA who is making the ventilators hard to find.”
Slavitt also noted, “One of the governors is trying to buy them at $45,000 per ventilator. The typical cost is $15,000 per ventilator. The other can’t even find them at that price (hence the manufacturing). They are all bidding against each other. State vs. state.” Coronavirus Amid Partisan Politicking, Revelations on a Covid Origins Article Jimmy Tobias It’s Not “Unreasonable” to Want to Change Our Rotten Health Care System Gregg Gonsalves Covid Has Left Deep Wounds in America’s Rural Communities Anne N. Sosin
As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo observes, “Reporting tonight it’s clear that there are huge, huge fortunes being made now on the COVID Crisis.” Marshall also noted that “if you’ve got the right connections and access to trade networks and political power there are fortunes to be made starting bidding wars for products people are literally dying for. This is much uglier than I think most people imagine. And it’s being made possible by no clear federal response or a federal response which wants to leave disaster response to private sector markets.”
Jared Kushner has shifted from downplaying the pandemic to arguing that it is up to the governors to deal with it. The same transition can be seen in the views of many right-wing pundits. On February 27, Candace Owens, a provocateur closely aligned with the Trump White House, sarcastically tweeted, “Now we’re all going to die from Coronavirus. The Left is becoming a Doomsday Cult.” On April 1, Owens took a slightly different tack: “Two things can be true at once: the #coronavirus can be real, and corrupt politicians like @GovNedLamont and @NYGovCuomo can be lying to extract money from the federal government because their socialist-run states are out of money.”
The fact that Kushner and Owens are no longer dismissing the pandemic is welcome, but as a response to the crisis, Darwinian federalism is only a slight improvement on malign neglect.


thenation--2020-04-03--The Difference Between America’s Coronavirus Response and Norway’s

The appalling response to the coronavirus pandemic on the part of the administration , Congress , corporations , and certain segments of the public should be cause for a serious reconsideration of our priorities as a country .
The current crisis highlights , as little else has , a lack of social cohesion among Americans : Clearly , we are not all in this together .
The startling lack of civic solidarity has only been exacerbated by the stunning incompetence of the Trump administration .
To discuss the current crisis , I spoke to author and photographer Ann Jones .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Quincy Institute , is an astute observer of American decline , having chronicled our misadventures in Afghanistan , while at the same time documenting the political and social dysfunction that plagues us at home .
Her 2016 Nation essay “ After I Lived in Norway , America Felt Backward ” should be required reading for those searching for an alternative to the economic and social policies that have failed us .
I began by asking Jones , who recently returned to the United States from Norway , how she thinks this country is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our European counterparts .
James Carden : You just returned from Norway by way of Boston ’ s Logan airport .
Can you talk about your initial impressions of the respective American and Norwegian responses to the crisis upon landing ?
Ann Jones : The day after Trump ’ s March 11 announcement of a “ travel ban ” from Europe , anxious Americans abroad felt an urgency to get home before Trump did something worse .
So , like the frantic parents of US students abroad , I paid top dollar for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On the second leg of that journey , from London , I was wedged among some 200 students , including many coming from Italy , for a seven-hour flight to Boston .
There , under the low ceiling of Logan ’ s cramped arrivals room , we spent a few more hours together , inching along—more a mob than a line—to the passport controllers , and then one at a time to a small room for an official “ Screening.
” I ’ m an old woman—a member of an endangered group—and by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But the masked woman in charge asked me no questions .
Indeed , she seemed scared to inquire about my condition ; she just gestured to some pamphlets on a table and told me to go home and take my temperature .
That was the entire “ screening.
” I had left Norway , a country where the government and the people were taking the threat of pandemic seriously , with most already working or studying from home , and yet I returned to a country that seemed to be doing things upside-down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then issues arbitrary , alarming , pointless orders .
Thousands of returning Americans , some of them probably ill , are closely confined together for up to eight hours at 13 designated US airports—perfect percolators of contagion—only to collect a pamphlet and disappear to unknown destinations all across the country .
Who were we ?
How many of us already carried the virus ?
And what ’ s become of us ?
The whole irrational operation came from the top down , and what happens to the people at the bottom , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Today the biggest difference between the US and Norway , as both countries struggle against the pandemic , is this : Norway is not in chaos , and Norwegians are not desperate .
JC : I get a feeling that the current moment will not redound to our credit as a country .
Here I have in mind the college kids who insisted on enjoying their spring break , consequences be damned ( though they are hardly the only people putting self-interest ahead of public safety ) .
And then there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senators Burr , Feinstein , Loeffler , and Inhofe ( and they too were far from alone ) by profiting from insider knowledge of the coming pandemic .
The spring breakers and the senators seem to share a complete lack of a sense of obligation to their fellow citizens .
And I worry that theirs has become a very American way of thinking : Because I have a right to do this , nothing will stop me from doing it .
That line of thinking evinces a total lack of regard for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward others .
How would you compare it to what you ’ ve experienced living in Norway ?
AJ : We have a long history of disguising grasping self-interest as the “ right to individual freedom.
” A century ago , in America ’ s first Gilded Age , the Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen labeled filthy-rich captains of industry as antisocial , greedy “ predators ” who enrich themselves off the labor of others .
Those kids at the beach and the stock-dumping senators are classic Americans , living the venerable American Dream @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with civic responsibility or “ obligation , ” much less any sense of community .
Norway , on the other hand , created itself as an egalitarian social democracy , and that makes all the difference .
In Norway , for the most part , self-interest and the public interest coincide .
Like the US , it ’ s a capitalist country .
But unlike the US , Norway regulates capitalist ventures and is the major shareholder in some private enterprises of public concern .
Wages and working conditions are not dictated by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by national confederations of enterprise and labor , for labor retains the power to set the standards of work .
To ensure equality—without which democracy is not possible—the government also oversees a universal welfare system .
It collects high but fair progressive income taxes to support universal health care , almost-free education from preschool through university , full unemployment compensation , affordable housing , public transport , and the like .
The result is one of the most equal , democratic , highly educated , innovative , modern , technically advanced , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you may have heard that this remarkable success owes itself to Norway ’ s “ oil wealth ” drawn , since the 1970s , from the North Sea .
It ’ s a tale Conservative columnists rerun to dismiss the obvious advantages of a welfare state .
In fact , Norway ’ s oil money is stashed in a sovereign wealth fund , officially the Government Pension Fund , now valued above $ 1 trillion .
With only 4 percent of a year ’ s income available to the government in case of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oil producers until 2017 , when it began a popular transition to investments in solar and wind power .
And here ’ s a fact that these Conservative columnists never mention : According to Norway ’ s Ministry of Finance , the real source of new money expanding the welfare state was not oil but the income taxes paid by women who entered the workforce , on a par with men , just about the time the oil came in .
The welfare state , in turn , enabled women by taking on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home : health care , child care , elder care , and primary education .
Norwegians liked these arrangements so much that by 1981 they chose their first woman prime minister , Gru Harlem Bruntland , who later went on to head the World Health Organization .
Over the last few days , the oil fund has become a bone of contention in Norway , with the government tapping into the surplus to meet the coronavirus emergency and economists protesting that the emergency should be met by additional progressive taxation so the fund @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : providing old-age pensions to future generations .
These days , Norwegian enterprises—including the oil industry—feel the same pain as those in other nations afflicted by Covid-19 .
Shops close , businesses struggle , the currency loses value .
But in Norway , the sick are well cared for by the national health service , workers are still paid by employers or through national insurance , and , in a changing job market , some workers may choose to be retrained at public expense .
Few , if any , are homeless .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the welfare system , Norwegians can focus on family , friends , the future : what matters most to them .
Incidentally , the current government is not Communist or Socialist , as Americans may fear , but Conservative and led by women .
( When Trump met Prime Minister Erna Solberg in 2018 , he marveled that she spoke English , and then announced the first delivery on Norway ’ s $ 10 billion purchase of American fighter jets : F-35s and F-52s , though the latter exist only in the video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
As conditions worsen around the world , Solberg has asked Norwegian students abroad to consider coming home .
And on March 14—the very day I left Norway—the Norwegian University of Science and Technology urged the return of its students studying in countries “ with poorly developed health services and infrastructure…like the United States.
” JC : Overall , I think it ’ s fair to say the response to the economic crisis brought about by the pandemic has been wholly inadequate to the moment because both parties are wedded to zombie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Democrats to neoliberalism .
What is preventing Americans from taking even modest steps , such as those proposed by Senator Sanders , in the direction of social democracy ?
AJ : I wouldn ’ t characterize all Democrats that way .
Bernie Sanders , Elizabeth Warren , and others fight as best they can for the interests of the common people , the forgotten poor , the folks on the bottom .
But what stands in their way is the power of the plutocrats .
Why should we be surprised ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the corporations a decade ago with the outrageous Citizens United decision .
Four years later , political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded , unsurprisingly , that US government policy is shaped by “ economic elites ” —Thorstein Veblen ’ s “ predators ” —while ordinary Americans have “ essentially no influence over what the government does.
” Too many of our so-called “ representatives ” are captive not merely to ideology but to their donors .
JC : Pivoting to foreign policy for a moment : Secretary of State Mike Pompeo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the White House press conference on March 20 was to “ assure ” the American people that Iran was still under unilateral American sanctions ( thereby preventing it from receiving sorely needed medical supplies from abroad ) .
It seems the pandemic has done nothing to stop Trump and Pompeo from pursuing a childish , vindictive foreign policy .
What do Europeans generally think about the conceit of American leadership in light of our actions ?
AJ : Well , this is a projection of Trump ’ s “ character ” onto his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he ’ s a childish , vindictive man who inflates himself at the expense of others .
He just cut a promised billion dollars in aid to Afghanistan as well .
None of our traditional allies in Europe look to the US for leadership anymore , though right-wing dictators around the world have a certain exploitative affinity with Trump .
But the European response is not simple : On one hand , he ’ s a laughingstock , but he also evokes powerful memories of the rise of fascism .
Norway , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occupation during the Second World War , and Norwegians have not forgotten their American ally .
A statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt still graces Oslo ’ s harbor .
But I think it ’ s fair to say that many of my Norwegian friends looking at our government today are both appalled and wary .
JC : Nearly a decade ago , the late historian of Europe Tony Judt observed that we are a country “ in decline , but burdened with the rhetoric of endless possibility : a dangerous combination , since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and angry that so much seems amiss , but not yet frightened enough to do something about it.
” While it seems we are still in the early days of the crisis , I suspect that not even this will shake us out of our collective slumber .
Do you share this pessimism ?
AJ : Yes , I am pessimistic , but I see things a little differently .
I don ’ t fault ordinary Americans for confusion or inaction or collective slumber .
I blame the members of the predatory upper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ marketplace but also the state and imposed their will on the rest of us .
In the first Gilded Age , Thorstein Veblen described the result this way : Ordinary Americans , taught to aim for success yet deprived of education , health care , a living wage , affordable housing , job security , and self-respect , learn to blame themselves for their “ failure.
” Still , worn out as they are , scarcely recalling how their labor leaders were shot down or strung up , their unions crushed , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ruling class .
They want to climb up into it .
That steep road is blocked .
So some look for an alternative path .
And some will find it at a rally , under those flashy , loud , bright-red MAGA hats .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
The appalling response to the coronavirus pandemic on the part of the administration, Congress, corporations, and certain segments of the public should be cause for a serious reconsideration of our priorities as a country.
The current crisis highlights, as little else has, a lack of social cohesion among Americans: Clearly, we are not all in this together. The startling lack of civic solidarity has only been exacerbated by the stunning incompetence of the Trump administration.
To discuss the current crisis, I spoke to author and photographer Ann Jones.
Jones, a Distinguished Fellow at the Quincy Institute, is an astute observer of American decline, having chronicled our misadventures in Afghanistan, while at the same time documenting the political and social dysfunction that plagues us at home. Her 2016 Nation essay “After I Lived in Norway, America Felt Backward” should be required reading for those searching for an alternative to the economic and social policies that have failed us.
I began by asking Jones, who recently returned to the United States from Norway, how she thinks this country is handling the crisis, particularly compared to our European counterparts.
James Carden: You just returned from Norway by way of Boston’s Logan airport. Can you talk about your initial impressions of the respective American and Norwegian responses to the crisis upon landing?
Ann Jones: The day after Trump’s March 11 announcement of a “travel ban” from Europe, anxious Americans abroad felt an urgency to get home before Trump did something worse. So, like the frantic parents of US students abroad, I paid top dollar for an inflated ticket home from Norway. On the second leg of that journey, from London, I was wedged among some 200 students, including many coming from Italy, for a seven-hour flight to Boston. There, under the low ceiling of Logan’s cramped arrivals room, we spent a few more hours together, inching along—more a mob than a line—to the passport controllers, and then one at a time to a small room for an official “Screening.” I’m an old woman—a member of an endangered group—and by that time I was fairly exhausted. But the masked woman in charge asked me no questions. Indeed, she seemed scared to inquire about my condition; she just gestured to some pamphlets on a table and told me to go home and take my temperature. That was the entire “screening.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
I had left Norway, a country where the government and the people were taking the threat of pandemic seriously, with most already working or studying from home, and yet I returned to a country that seemed to be doing things upside-down. Here, the president lies and then issues arbitrary, alarming, pointless orders. Thousands of returning Americans, some of them probably ill, are closely confined together for up to eight hours at 13 designated US airports—perfect percolators of contagion—only to collect a pamphlet and disappear to unknown destinations all across the country. Who were we? How many of us already carried the virus? And what’s become of us? Current Issue View our current issue
The whole irrational operation came from the top down, and what happens to the people at the bottom, the top does not seem to care about. Today the biggest difference between the US and Norway, as both countries struggle against the pandemic, is this: Norway is not in chaos, and Norwegians are not desperate.
JC: I get a feeling that the current moment will not redound to our credit as a country. Here I have in mind the college kids who insisted on enjoying their spring break, consequences be damned (though they are hardly the only people putting self-interest ahead of public safety). And then there are the accusations of inappropriate stock trading by Senators Burr, Feinstein, Loeffler, and Inhofe (and they too were far from alone) by profiting from insider knowledge of the coming pandemic.
The spring breakers and the senators seem to share a complete lack of a sense of obligation to their fellow citizens. And I worry that theirs has become a very American way of thinking: Because I have a right to do this, nothing will stop me from doing it. That line of thinking evinces a total lack of regard for the idea that we also have an obligation toward others. How would you compare it to what you’ve experienced living in Norway?
AJ: We have a long history of disguising grasping self-interest as the “right to individual freedom.” A century ago, in America’s first Gilded Age, the Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen labeled filthy-rich captains of industry as antisocial, greedy “predators” who enrich themselves off the labor of others. Those kids at the beach and the stock-dumping senators are classic Americans, living the venerable American Dream, which has nothing whatsoever to do with civic responsibility or “obligation,” much less any sense of community.
Norway, on the other hand, created itself as an egalitarian social democracy, and that makes all the difference. In Norway, for the most part, self-interest and the public interest coincide. Like the US, it’s a capitalist country. But unlike the US, Norway regulates capitalist ventures and is the major shareholder in some private enterprises of public concern. Wages and working conditions are not dictated by billionaire owners but negotiated once a year by national confederations of enterprise and labor, for labor retains the power to set the standards of work. To ensure equality—without which democracy is not possible—the government also oversees a universal welfare system. It collects high but fair progressive income taxes to support universal health care, almost-free education from preschool through university, full unemployment compensation, affordable housing, public transport, and the like. The result is one of the most equal, democratic, highly educated, innovative, modern, technically advanced, and happy societies on the planet.
Yet you may have heard that this remarkable success owes itself to Norway’s “oil wealth” drawn, since the 1970s, from the North Sea. It’s a tale Conservative columnists rerun to dismiss the obvious advantages of a welfare state. In fact, Norway’s oil money is stashed in a sovereign wealth fund, officially the Government Pension Fund, now valued above $1 trillion. With only 4 percent of a year’s income available to the government in case of emergency—and rarely used—the fund invested largely in oil producers until 2017, when it began a popular transition to investments in solar and wind power.
And here’s a fact that these Conservative columnists never mention: According to Norway’s Ministry of Finance, the real source of new money expanding the welfare state was not oil but the income taxes paid by women who entered the workforce, on a par with men, just about the time the oil came in. The welfare state, in turn, enabled women by taking on some of their traditional jobs in the home: health care, child care, elder care, and primary education. Norwegians liked these arrangements so much that by 1981 they chose their first woman prime minister, Gro Harlem Bruntland, who later went on to head the World Health Organization. Over the last few days, the oil fund has become a bone of contention in Norway, with the government tapping into the surplus to meet the coronavirus emergency and economists protesting that the emergency should be met by additional progressive taxation so the fund would be preserved for its original intention: providing old-age pensions to future generations.
These days, Norwegian enterprises—including the oil industry—feel the same pain as those in other nations afflicted by Covid-19. Shops close, businesses struggle, the currency loses value. But in Norway, the sick are well cared for by the national health service, workers are still paid by employers or through national insurance, and, in a changing job market, some workers may choose to be retrained at public expense. Few, if any, are homeless. None will go hungry. Covered by the welfare system, Norwegians can focus on family, friends, the future: what matters most to them.
Incidentally, the current government is not Communist or Socialist, as Americans may fear, but Conservative and led by women. (When Trump met Prime Minister Erna Solberg in 2018, he marveled that she spoke English, and then announced the first delivery on Norway’s $10 billion purchase of American fighter jets: F-35s and F-52s, though the latter exist only in the video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.) As conditions worsen around the world, Solberg has asked Norwegian students abroad to consider coming home. And on March 14—the very day I left Norway—the Norwegian University of Science and Technology urged the return of its students studying in countries “with poorly developed health services and infrastructure…like the United States.”
JC: Overall, I think it’s fair to say the response to the economic crisis brought about by the pandemic has been wholly inadequate to the moment because both parties are wedded to zombie economic doctrines: the GOP to libertarianism and the Democrats to neoliberalism. What is preventing Americans from taking even modest steps, such as those proposed by Senator Sanders, in the direction of social democracy?
AJ: I wouldn’t characterize all Democrats that way. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and others fight as best they can for the interests of the common people, the forgotten poor, the folks on the bottom. But what stands in their way is the power of the plutocrats. Why should we be surprised? The Roberts Supreme Court handed power to the corporations a decade ago with the outrageous Citizens United decision. Four years later, political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded, unsurprisingly, that US government policy is shaped by “economic elites”—Thorstein Veblen’s “predators”—while ordinary Americans have “essentially no influence over what the government does.” Too many of our so-called “representatives” are captive not merely to ideology but to their donors.
JC: Pivoting to foreign policy for a moment: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s first order of business at the White House press conference on March 20 was to “assure” the American people that Iran was still under unilateral American sanctions (thereby preventing it from receiving sorely needed medical supplies from abroad). It seems the pandemic has done nothing to stop Trump and Pompeo from pursuing a childish, vindictive foreign policy. What do Europeans generally think about the conceit of American leadership in light of our actions?
AJ: Well, this is a projection of Trump’s “character” onto his so-called foreign policy. Anyone can see that he’s a childish, vindictive man who inflates himself at the expense of others. He just cut a promised billion dollars in aid to Afghanistan as well. None of our traditional allies in Europe look to the US for leadership anymore, though right-wing dictators around the world have a certain exploitative affinity with Trump. But the European response is not simple: On one hand, he’s a laughingstock, but he also evokes powerful memories of the rise of fascism. Norway, of course, was subjected to Nazi occupation during the Second World War, and Norwegians have not forgotten their American ally. A statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt still graces Oslo’s harbor. But I think it’s fair to say that many of my Norwegian friends looking at our government today are both appalled and wary.
JC: Nearly a decade ago, the late historian of Europe Tony Judt observed that we are a country “in decline, but burdened with the rhetoric of endless possibility: a dangerous combination, since it encourages inertia…. Americans are confused and angry that so much seems amiss, but not yet frightened enough to do something about it.” While it seems we are still in the early days of the crisis, I suspect that not even this will shake us out of our collective slumber. Do you share this pessimism?
AJ: Yes, I am pessimistic, but I see things a little differently. I don’t fault ordinary Americans for confusion or inaction or collective slumber. I blame the members of the predatory upper class who have bought not only the marketplace but also the state and imposed their will on the rest of us. In the first Gilded Age, Thorstein Veblen described the result this way:
…the institution of a leisure class acts to make the lower classes conservative by withdrawing from them as much as it may of the means of sustenance and so reducing their consumption, and consequently their available energy, to such a point as to make them incapable of the effort required for the learning and adoption of new habits of thought.
Ordinary Americans, taught to aim for success yet deprived of education, health care, a living wage, affordable housing, job security, and self-respect, learn to blame themselves for their “failure.” Still, worn out as they are, scarcely recalling how their labor leaders were shot down or strung up, their unions crushed, they wouldn’t dream of overthrowing the ruling class. They want to climb up into it. That steep road is blocked. So some look for an alternative path. And some will find it at a rally, under those flashy, loud, bright-red MAGA hats.
A previous version of this article misspelled the name of former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Bruntland.


thenation--2020-04-02--Republicans Are Using the Covid-19 Crisis to Kill Abortion Rights

Conservative judges , at least the kind of devoted anti-choice activists Donald Trump has nominated , would outlaw abortion rights outright , if they could .
They ’ re waiting for the right case , and maybe the right death on the Supreme Court , in order to do just that .
But in the meantime , the goal of these judges is to restrict access to abortion services to the point where women can not practice their constitutional rights to control their own bodies , even as those rights still theoretically exist .
And these judges , and their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to let a good crisis go to waste .
Within the last few weeks , the governors of Texas , Ohio , Iowa , and Alabama—Republicans all—have taken advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to issue orders further restricting the rights of women .
Their excuse ?
Abortions are “ elective ” medical procedures and therefore have to be put on hold alongside all the other elective procedures that are being suspended during the crisis .
As if a woman ’ s right to her body is akin to getting a nose job .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Many states have issued temporary bans on elective medical care without shutting down abortion clinics .
Hell , New York and California , two of the states hardest hit by the coronavirus and in desperate need of the most basic medical supplies , have seen no need to ban abortions in the name of husbanding medical equipment .
That might be because those states are not being run by governors looking to use a crisis to further their agenda in the culture wars .
They ’ re not being run by Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not every state is lucky enough to be led by decent-minded officials .
The full effect of these precedents , in the hands of Republican governors , could be devasting .
If states are allowed to ban abortions because of a state of emergency , that ’ s a power Republicans will use again and again to shut down abortion providers .
Imagine the endless cycle of options .
Is your state suffering from a hurricane , flood , or some other weather event ?
No abortion services until the emergency has passed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or forest fire ?
No abortion services until the crisis has subsided .
Is there a temporary scarcity of some important medical supply or drug ?
No abortion services until the governor declares the scarcity over .
Governors declare states of emergencies for all sorts of things .
Every one of those emergencies could be used as pretext to ban abortions , if the coronavirus restrictions stand .
These state emergency abortion bans should be unconstitutional .
But this is where the long conservative effort to capture the federal courts is meant to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Texas , Ohio , and Alabama were initially struck down by District Court Judge Lee Yeakel .
( The ACLU and Planned Parenthood filed a separate case in Iowa . )
Yeakel is a George W. Bush appointee , but he was at least willing to follow precedent as established by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey .
In his opinion , released Monday , he wrote : “ Regarding a woman ’ s right to a pre-fetal-viability abortion , the Supreme Court has spoken clearly .
There can be no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By Tuesday , though , the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had overruled him .
A three-judge panel—which included Judge Kyle Duncan , a longtime culture warrior who is one of the most fanatical judges appointed by Trump—ruled 2-1 to overturn Judge Yeakel ’ s ruling and reinstate the three abortion bans , pending a full hearing .
The judges asked for expedited briefing on this matter .
They could issue a final ruling in a number of days , or weeks , or they could drag their feet for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has passed ( whenever that is ) and then decide that the issue is “ moot , ” meaning that there is no longer a “ live controversy ” for the courts to rule on .
The timing here matters a great deal , particularly for women living in the three states who find themselves in need of an abortion now .
Ever since alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh was elevated to the Supreme Court , giving anti-abortion forces a solid conservative majority there , efforts to limit abortions—often by limiting the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gone into hyperdrive .
Texas now effectively bans abortions prior to 20 weeks .
Last year , Ohio passed a restrictive “ fetal heartbeat ” bill that effectively banned abortions at around six weeks ; that bill has been temporarily blocked .
Alabama tried to ban abortions altogether , but their law was also temporarily blocked .
Both the Ohio and Alabama cases are still winding their way through the appellate system .
Even while their fetal heartbeat laws are banned , Ohio and Alabama still effectively ban abortions after 22 weeks .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ timing of abortions , when linked up with the new attempts to ban abortions during states of emergency , could trap women in a Kafkaesque nightmare .
Texas , Ohio , Alabama , and Iowa are trying to prevent women from getting abortions during the brief time in their pregnancies when the law allows them to , but when the pandemic has passed , the states will turn around and tell women that they ’ ve waited too long to get an abortion .
While the Fifth Circuit appeals court takes its time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inflict these undue burdens , we can ’ t forget that the Republican-controlled Supreme Court looms off in the distance .
That body might use this crisis to make new law restricting abortion access throughout the country , not just the region controlled by the Fifth Circuit .
Even in his opinion stopping the abortion bans , District Judge Yeakel suggests what the Supreme Court could do with this case .
He writes : That ’ s ominous .
Judge Yeakel might not be willing to predict what the Supreme Court will do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the rest of us to see how the Supreme Court could use this case to further restrict a woman ’ s right to choose .
A ruling that says , “ You can have an abortion , unless Republican governors feel like the medical equipment could be better used elsewhere , ” is not something I would put past this conservative Supreme Court .
There are five Republican men on the court who don ’ t think women should have access to anything other than a coat hanger .
Exclusive : The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Was Coming How Trump Is Going to Get Away With a Pandemic More in this series None of this should be surprising .
The Republican party can be defined by its opposition to women ’ s rights to their own bodies .
They use every legal tool or trick .
They motivate their base with this issue .
Of course , they ’ ll use a global pandemic that kills hundreds of thousands of people as an excuse to turn women into incubators .
Their “ concern ” for the health and safety @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the birth canal , because living humans do not give them an opportunity to control women .
And they ’ re proud of their general success at violating constitutional rights .
If Republicans succeed in using the coronavirus to kill off a few more abortion rights , some of them might just say the pandemic was worth it .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
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Conservative judges, at least the kind of devoted anti-choice activists Donald Trump has nominated, would outlaw abortion rights outright, if they could. They’re waiting for the right case, and maybe the right death on the Supreme Court, in order to do just that. But in the meantime, the goal of these judges is to restrict access to abortion services to the point where women cannot practice their constitutional rights to control their own bodies, even as those rights still theoretically exist.
And these judges, and their Republican confederates, are certainly not about to let a good crisis go to waste.
Within the last few weeks, the governors of Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alabama—Republicans all—have taken advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to issue orders further restricting the rights of women. Their excuse? Abortions are “elective” medical procedures and therefore have to be put on hold alongside all the other elective procedures that are being suspended during the crisis. As if a woman’s right to her body is akin to getting a nose job.
We know that excuse is a farce. Many states have issued temporary bans on elective medical care without shutting down abortion clinics. Hell, New York and California, two of the states hardest hit by the coronavirus and in desperate need of the most basic medical supplies, have seen no need to ban abortions in the name of husbanding medical equipment. That might be because those states are not being run by governors looking to use a crisis to further their agenda in the culture wars. They’re not being run by Republicans acting in bad faith.
Unfortunately, not every state is lucky enough to be led by decent-minded officials. The full effect of these precedents, in the hands of Republican governors, could be devasting. If states are allowed to ban abortions because of a state of emergency, that’s a power Republicans will use again and again to shut down abortion providers.
Imagine the endless cycle of options. Is your state suffering from a hurricane, flood, or some other weather event? No abortion services until the emergency has passed. Has your state experienced an earthquake or forest fire? No abortion services until the crisis has subsided. Is there a temporary scarcity of some important medical supply or drug? No abortion services until the governor declares the scarcity over. Current Issue View our current issue
Governors declare states of emergencies for all sorts of things. Every one of those emergencies could be used as pretext to ban abortions, if the coronavirus restrictions stand.
These state emergency abortion bans should be unconstitutional. But this is where the long conservative effort to capture the federal courts is meant to pay off. The abortion bans in Texas, Ohio, and Alabama were initially struck down by District Court Judge Lee Yeakel. (The ACLU and Planned Parenthood filed a separate case in Iowa.) Yeakel is a George W. Bush appointee, but he was at least willing to follow precedent as established by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In his opinion, released Monday, he wrote: “Regarding a woman’s right to a pre-fetal-viability abortion, the Supreme Court has spoken clearly. There can be no outright ban on such a procedure.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
By Tuesday, though, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had overruled him. A three-judge panel—which included Judge Kyle Duncan, a longtime culture warrior who is one of the most fanatical judges appointed by Trump—ruled 2-1 to overturn Judge Yeakel’s ruling and reinstate the three abortion bans, pending a full hearing.
The judges asked for expedited briefing on this matter. They could issue a final ruling in a number of days, or weeks, or they could drag their feet for a couple of months until the pandemic has passed (whenever that is) and then decide that the issue is “moot,” meaning that there is no longer a “live controversy” for the courts to rule on.
The timing here matters a great deal, particularly for women living in the three states who find themselves in need of an abortion now. Ever since alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh was elevated to the Supreme Court, giving anti-abortion forces a solid conservative majority there, efforts to limit abortions—often by limiting the time frame during which women can get them—have gone into hyperdrive. Texas now effectively bans abortions prior to 20 weeks. Last year, Ohio passed a restrictive “fetal heartbeat” bill that effectively banned abortions at around six weeks; that bill has been temporarily blocked. Alabama tried to ban abortions altogether, but their law was also temporarily blocked. Both the Ohio and Alabama cases are still winding their way through the appellate system. Even while their fetal heartbeat laws are banned, Ohio and Alabama still effectively ban abortions after 22 weeks.
These restrictions and attempted restrictions on the timing of abortions, when linked up with the new attempts to ban abortions during states of emergency, could trap women in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Texas, Ohio, Alabama, and Iowa are trying to prevent women from getting abortions during the brief time in their pregnancies when the law allows them to, but when the pandemic has passed, the states will turn around and tell women that they’ve waited too long to get an abortion.
While the Fifth Circuit appeals court takes its time to mull over whether it wants to inflict these undue burdens, we can’t forget that the Republican-controlled Supreme Court looms off in the distance. That body might use this crisis to make new law restricting abortion access throughout the country, not just the region controlled by the Fifth Circuit. Even in his opinion stopping the abortion bans, District Judge Yeakel suggests what the Supreme Court could do with this case. He writes:
This court will not speculate on whether the Supreme Court included a silent “except-in-a-national-emergency clause” in its previous writings on the issue. Only the Supreme Court may restrict the breadth of its rulings. The court will not predict what the Supreme Court will do if this case reaches that Court.
That’s ominous. Judge Yeakel might not be willing to predict what the Supreme Court will do, but it’s not hard for the rest of us to see how the Supreme Court could use this case to further restrict a woman’s right to choose. A ruling that says, “You can have an abortion, unless Republican governors feel like the medical equipment could be better used elsewhere,” is not something I would put past this conservative Supreme Court. There are five Republican men on the court who don’t think women should have access to anything other than a coat hanger. COVID-19 Exclusive: The Military Knew Years Ago That a Coronavirus Was Coming Ken Klippenstein How Trump Is Going to Get Away With a Pandemic Sonia Shah
None of this should be surprising. The Republican party can be defined by its opposition to women’s rights to their own bodies. They use every legal tool or trick. They motivate their base with this issue. Of course, they’ll use a global pandemic that kills hundreds of thousands of people as an excuse to turn women into incubators. Their “concern” for the health and safety of humans ends the moment one leaves the birth canal, because living humans do not give them an opportunity to control women. And they’re proud of their general success at violating constitutional rights.
If Republicans succeed in using the coronavirus to kill off a few more abortion rights, some of them might just say the pandemic was worth it.