thenation--2020-07-29--Without Medicare for All, This Isn’t ‘the Boldest Democratic Platform in American History’

The Democratic National Committee ’ s platform committee approved a draft of the party ’ s 2020 agenda this week and committee cochair Denis McDonough promptly described it as the “ boldest Democratic platform in American history.
” It ’ s not—unless your definition of “ bold ” includes a tepid health care stance that rejects the single-payer Medicare for All agenda that enjoys overwhelming support from Americans in this Covid-19 moment .
The proposed platform also pulls its punches on a host of other issues , from marijuana legalization , an end to qualified immunity for police officers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel , a federal jobs guarantee , and a comprehensive approach to developing and implementing a Green New Deal .
Every Democratic platform is a complex document that blends ideas from the various ideological factions that make up the party , and this draft document is no different .
The 2020 draft includes a number of solid stances that respond to pressure from progressives to move the party to the left .
It sets some clear goals for combating climate change , reflecting the movement of presumptive nominee Joe Biden on the issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as NPR notes , “ for a $ 15 minimum wage , mandatory paid family leave , more federal gun control , broad changes to federal sentencing guidelines and drug laws , and many other changes that most Democratic candidates for Congress and the White House have supported for years.
” Call Trump ’ s Tactics What They Are : Fascist As Trump Threatens Cities , Philadelphia ’ s DA Prepares to Uphold the Rule of Law But it is hard sell to claim that this is the boldest Democratic platform in American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by “ warn [ ing ] the American people that imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home.
” That was bold .
The 1932 Democratic platform announced , in the midst of the Great Depression , that the party was committed to “ stamping out monopolistic practices and the concentration of economic power.
” That was bold .
The 1944 Democratic platform asserted , in a time of Jim Crow segregation when the party relied on the “ solid South ” as a part of its coalition , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right to live , develop and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution.
” And it argued that “ Congress should exert its full constitutional powers to protect those rights.
” That was bold .
The 1960 Democratic platform declared , at a point when new technologies were transforming workplaces , that “ we will provide the government leadership necessary to insure that the blessings of automation do not become burdens of widespread unemployment.
” That was bold .
The 1972 Democratic platform promised “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country ” to address systemic racism and sexism and classism—and it outlined a plan to “ restructure the social , political and economic relationships throughout the entire society in order to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth and power.
” That was bold .
So , too , was the document ’ s recognition that a for-profit health care system was failing the United States—and its commitment to “ establish a system of universal National Health Insurance which covers all Americans with a comprehensive set of benefits including preventive medicine , mental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against catastrophic costs , and in which the rule of free choice for both provider and consumer is protected .
The program should be federally-financed and federally-administered.
” From the 1940s through 1980 , on health care issues , Democratic platforms took bolder stands than does the party ’ s 2020 draft platform .
“ Progressive ideas are nothing new , ” notes Representative Ro Khanna , a cochair of the California delegation to this year ’ s convention , who argues that “ there ’ s no reason we can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the platform committee does not propose to do so .
A Medicare for All amendment advanced by supporters of the 2020 presidential bid of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was rejected overwhelmingly on Monday , garnering just 36 “ yes , ” versus 125 “ no , ” votes from a committee dominated by Biden backers .
Proposals to lower the Medicare eligibility age and expand access for children were also rejected .
The party ’ s refusal to support Medicare for All is wrongheaded practically , as Michael Lighty noted Monday when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil rights groups in supporting Medicare for All .
“ It ’ s vital that we meet this moment that demands health justice and Medicare For All to create a system to address the health inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic when Blacks and Latinos are dying at rates two- , two-and-a-half-times that of whites , ” said the veteran single-payer activist .
The party ’ s refusal to support a single-payer system is also wrongheaded politically , as the campaigns of Sanders and a rising generation of Democratic members of Congress have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such an extent that recent polling finds it is supported by 69 percent of all Americans and 88 percent of Democrats .
“ The Democrats are making a fatal mistake by turning their backs on Medicare for All , ” argues Winnie Wong , a former senior political adviser to the Sanders campaign , more bluntly .
She labeled the committee votes “ shameful ” at a time “ when the country is in the death grip of a global pandemic and people are dying ” because they can ’ t afford health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whole of the platform ?
A substantial number of delegates think so .
Sanders delegates from Nevada have called on convention delegates to sign a petition that concludes with a “ pledge to vote against any platform that does not include a plank supporting universal , single-payer Medicare for All.
” Progressive Democrats of America , RootsAction.org , and other groups are circulating the petition and , according to Jeff Cohen of RootsAction , it had been signed by 700 delegates as of Tuesday afternoon .
Norman Solomon , a Sanders delegate and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ It ’ s a reasonable hope that historians will look back at the next couple of weeks as a time when hundreds of delegates stepped forward and said , ‘ This is a red line for a humane society and we ’ re not going to stop saying so.
’ ” Now , that is bold .

The Democratic National Committee’s platform committee approved a draft of the party’s 2020 agenda this week and committee cochair Denis McDonough promptly described it as the “boldest Democratic platform in American history.”
It’s not—unless your definition of “bold” includes a tepid health care stance that rejects the single-payer Medicare for All agenda that enjoys overwhelming support from Americans in this Covid-19 moment.
The proposed platform also pulls its punches on a host of other issues, from marijuana legalization, an end to qualified immunity for police officers, the placing of conditions on aid to Israel, a federal jobs guarantee, and a comprehensive approach to developing and implementing a Green New Deal.
Every Democratic platform is a complex document that blends ideas from the various ideological factions that make up the party, and this draft document is no different. The 2020 draft includes a number of solid stances that respond to pressure from progressives to move the party to the left. It sets some clear goals for combating climate change, reflecting the movement of presumptive nominee Joe Biden on the issue. “It also calls,” as NPR notes, “for a $15 minimum wage, mandatory paid family leave, more federal gun control, broad changes to federal sentencing guidelines and drug laws, and many other changes that most Democratic candidates for Congress and the White House have supported for years.” More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
But it is hard sell to claim that this is the boldest Democratic platform in American history.
The 1900 Democratic platform began by “warn[ing] the American people that imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home.” That was bold.
The 1932 Democratic platform announced, in the midst of the Great Depression, that the party was committed to “stamping out monopolistic practices and the concentration of economic power.” That was bold.
The 1944 Democratic platform asserted, in a time of Jim Crow segregation when the party relied on the “solid South” as a part of its coalition, that “racial and religious minorities have the right to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution.” And it argued that “Congress should exert its full constitutional powers to protect those rights.” That was bold.
The 1960 Democratic platform declared, at a point when new technologies were transforming workplaces, that “we will provide the government leadership necessary to insure that the blessings of automation do not become burdens of widespread unemployment.” That was bold.
The 1972 Democratic platform promised “to rethink and reorder the institutions of this country” to address systemic racism and sexism and classism—and it outlined a plan to “restructure the social, political and economic relationships throughout the entire society in order to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth and power.” That was bold. So, too, was the document’s recognition that a for-profit health care system was failing the United States—and its commitment to “establish a system of universal National Health Insurance which covers all Americans with a comprehensive set of benefits including preventive medicine, mental and emotional disorders, and complete protection against catastrophic costs, and in which the rule of free choice for both provider and consumer is protected. The program should be federally-financed and federally-administered.”
From the 1940s through 1980, on health care issues, Democratic platforms took bolder stands than does the party’s 2020 draft platform. “Progressive ideas are nothing new,” notes Representative Ro Khanna, a cochair of the California delegation to this year’s convention, who argues that “there’s no reason we can’t finish enacting those policies today.”
Unfortunately, the platform committee does not propose to do so.
A Medicare for All amendment advanced by supporters of the 2020 presidential bid of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was rejected overwhelmingly on Monday, garnering just 36 “yes,” versus 125 “no,” votes from a committee dominated by Biden backers. Proposals to lower the Medicare eligibility age and expand access for children were also rejected.
The party’s refusal to support Medicare for All is wrongheaded practically, as Michael Lighty noted Monday when he urged platform committee members to join civil rights groups in supporting Medicare for All. “It’s vital that we meet this moment that demands health justice and Medicare For All to create a system to address the health inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic when Blacks and Latinos are dying at rates two-, two-and-a-half-times that of whites,” said the veteran single-payer activist.
The party’s refusal to support a single-payer system is also wrongheaded politically, as the campaigns of Sanders and a rising generation of Democratic members of Congress have popularized the Medicare for All agenda to such an extent that recent polling finds it is supported by 69 percent of all Americans and 88 percent of Democrats.
“The Democrats are making a fatal mistake by turning their backs on Medicare for All,” argues Winnie Wong, a former senior political adviser to the Sanders campaign, more bluntly. She labeled the committee votes “shameful” at a time “when the country is in the death grip of a global pandemic and people are dying” because they can’t afford health care.
Shameful enough to oppose the whole of the platform? A substantial number of delegates think so.
Sanders delegates from Nevada have called on convention delegates to sign a petition that concludes with a “pledge to vote against any platform that does not include a plank supporting universal, single-payer Medicare for All.” Progressive Democrats of America, RootsAction.org, and other groups are circulating the petition and, according to Jeff Cohen of RootsAction, it had been signed by 700 delegates as of Tuesday afternoon.
Norman Solomon, a Sanders delegate and the national director of RootsAction.org, says, “It’s a reasonable hope that historians will look back at the next couple of weeks as a time when hundreds of delegates stepped forward and said, ‘This is a red line for a humane society and we’re not going to stop saying so.’”
Now, that is bold.


thenation--2020-07-29--Diary of a Never-Ending Crisis

Diary of a Never-Ending Crisis

ew ork ity—March .
I remember Beirut in 2005 , after a car bomb went off , trying not to go near parked cars , and stopping , hyperventilating , catching my breath , and drilling into my brain : “ Keep walking , keep going ; you can ’ t control it ; you have to keep going.
” I need to do this now , here .
Having spent my childhood between Beirut during two wars and NYC in the 1970s– ’ 80s , I have learned to be prepared .
I tell myself , “ I fear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Half my Pilates clients are away , some are over 70 and canceled out of fear , and the rest just don ’ t think it ’ s a good idea right now .
I am officially income-less .
My production of Palestine in Chicago will be pushed back at least two to three weeks as of now .
I have waited 10 years for a theater to want to do my play again .
Now I ’ m pretty sure it ain ’ t happening .
I ’ m making a pink @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I have no problem staying busy .
I don ’ t feel like I have ADHD anymore , because without the confines of other people ’ s structure , I can do things at my own rhythm .
You ’ re a Doc , You ’ ve Got This , but Your Face Shield ’ s Foggy The Covid Crisis Reveals the Need to Abolish Abortion Restrictions More in this series My shrink says that many traumas will be reactivated during this crisis and asks me how I am doing .
“ This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ easier.
” “ Oh right .
Well , for you it ’ ll be easier , then.
” I predict the return of telephone calls .
I hope no one calls me .
I ’ m an introvert ; I hate the phone .
In the store the guy behind me has a cart filled with bottled water .
“ You must be Lebanese , ” I say .
He laughs .
“ How can you tell ?
” There is no need to stock up on water in New York , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I tell people that niqabs ( veils over the mouth and nose ) were originally worn in the desert to keep sand out of people ’ s faces , just as masks now are supposed to keep the virus out of our mouth and nose .
I explain that Arabs invented soap and the word “ quarantine.
” No one cares .
There were 6,000 911 calls in the city yesterday .
In Beirut , I would hear bombs and artillery fire , and then the sirens .
Here it is just sirens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
April .
My birthday .
My cousins organized a Zoom call for me , and people rang me on the phone .
I made a cake .
I sang “ Miss Mary Mack ” with my niece , talked to my nephew , and virtually jumped on a trampoline with my goddaughter .
Expect nothing , do nothing , no pressure—perfection .
I ’ ve knit five scarves .
I make pudding , even though I don ’ t eat pudding .
CNN keeps saying that other countries have more beds in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the virus : “ Why ?
It ’ s a long story.
” Easter is soon .
Maybe Jesus will come back and fix this mess .
For many Americans feeling unsafe is too much .
But the whole world lives this way all the time .
American exceptionalism needs to die and stay dead .
Meanwhile , I am living in a Beckett play , making up things to do and say so that I exist .
There is something satisfying about that .
My nephew changes his Instagram profile pic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fist in the air , and shares a photo of the George Floyd mural on the wall in Palestine .
The kids are alright .
June .
Between the virus and George Floyd ’ s death , I think about the importance of breath .
I make connections with Palestine , explaining that the IDF trains our cops , that the move used to kill Mr. Floyd is from Krav Maga .
I ’ ve been told that expressing Palestinian solidarity is “ co-opting ” the black struggle .
I should be quiet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on TV .
I ’ m grateful , because no one seems to know that my father ’ s work helped us get to this point .
I ’ m glad people are getting radicalized , but I worry about all that gets left out .
I worry about the inability to make connections .
I wonder where I fit in this new BIPOC acronym .
I just got chased down the street by a nutjob who screamed that I ’ m a stupid white bitch who doesn ’ t care about Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
” I yell , for all the Upper West Side to hear .
I am not Black .
Or Indigenous .
Am I POC ?
I never seem to have a place here .
July .
Extroverts text and call too much ; they need to call other extroverts .
Outside New York , no one wants to wear a mask .
Almost everywhere else in the world , people value community .
Here it ’ s the individual , who always seems to be complaining .
We have another family Zoom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Carolina , Connecticut , London , Dallas , San Francisco , Seattle—my mom ’ s generation , my generation , the kids .
My cousin , on his way to Beirut , stops at different ATMS to bring cash and medicine to family members .
Lebanon is in free fall for other reasons , but still they test everyone on the plane before and after the flight ; anyone who tests positive is sent to a hotel for two weeks .
That seems like the proper way to do things .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Now some days the silence is too much and I just cry .
Nothing is happening ; everything is happening .
“ You must go on .
I can ’ t go on .
I ’ ll go on.
” Scenes From a Pandemic is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind , a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind , who from 1982–94 was the magazine ’ s chief political writer and analyst .
This series of dispatches from Kopkind ’ s far-flung network of participants , advisers , guests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski , and appears weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org .

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.
N ew Y ork C ity—March. I remember Beirut in 2005, after a car bomb went off, trying not to go near parked cars, and stopping, hyperventilating, catching my breath, and drilling into my brain: “Keep walking, keep going; you can’t control it; you have to keep going.” I need to do this now, here.
Having spent my childhood between Beirut during two wars and NYC in the 1970s–’80s, I have learned to be prepared. I tell myself, “I fear nothing and live for human solidarity.”
Half my Pilates clients are away, some are over 70 and canceled out of fear, and the rest just don’t think it’s a good idea right now. I am officially income-less. My production of Palestine in Chicago will be pushed back at least two to three weeks as of now. I have waited 10 years for a theater to want to do my play again. Now I’m pretty sure it ain’t happening.
I’m making a pink glittery unicorn T-shirt for my niece. I have no problem staying busy. I don’t feel like I have ADHD anymore, because without the confines of other people’s structure, I can do things at my own rhythm. Scenes From a Pandemic Untethered, or The Year of Living Virtually Patricia J. Williams The Art of the Meal Mary Lewis Maybe We Shouldn’t Go Back to Normal Bri M.
My shrink says that many traumas will be reactivated during this crisis and asks me how I am doing.
“This is kind of like Beirut, but easier.”
“Oh right. Well, for you it’ll be easier, then.”
I predict the return of telephone calls. I hope no one calls me. I’m an introvert; I hate the phone.
In the store the guy behind me has a cart filled with bottled water. “You must be Lebanese,” I say.
He laughs. “How can you tell?”
“The bottled water.”
There is no need to stock up on water in New York, but that is what Lebanese people do.
I tell people that niqabs (veils over the mouth and nose) were originally worn in the desert to keep sand out of people’s faces, just as masks now are supposed to keep the virus out of our mouth and nose. I explain that Arabs invented soap and the word “quarantine.” No one cares.
There were 6,000 911 calls in the city yesterday. In Beirut, I would hear bombs and artillery fire, and then the sirens. Here it is just sirens. Which is eerie, more unsettling.
April. My birthday. My cousins organized a Zoom call for me, and people rang me on the phone. I made a cake. I sang “Miss Mary Mack” with my niece, talked to my nephew, and virtually jumped on a trampoline with my goddaughter. Expect nothing, do nothing, no pressure—perfection.
I’ve knit five scarves. I make pudding, even though I don’t eat pudding.
CNN keeps saying that other countries have more beds in ICU and better medical systems to respond to the virus: “Why? It’s a long story.”
I want to scream, “Socialized medicine! Duh!”
Easter is soon. Maybe Jesus will come back and fix this mess. 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
For many Americans feeling unsafe is too much. But the whole world lives this way all the time. American exceptionalism needs to die and stay dead.
Meanwhile, I am living in a Beckett play, making up things to do and say so that I exist. There is something satisfying about that.
May. George Floyd is dead.
“Mama, Mama…”
My heart shatters.
My nephew changes his Instagram profile pic to one of John Carlos with his fist in the air, and shares a photo of the George Floyd mural on the wall in Palestine. The kids are alright.
June. Between the virus and George Floyd’s death, I think about the importance of breath.
I make connections with Palestine, explaining that the IDF trains our cops, that the move used to kill Mr. Floyd is from Krav Maga. I’ve been told that expressing Palestinian solidarity is “co-opting” the black struggle. I should be quiet.
Cornel West keeps mentioning Edward Said on TV. I’m grateful, because no one seems to know that my father’s work helped us get to this point.
I’m glad people are getting radicalized, but I worry about all that gets left out. I worry about the inability to make connections.
I wonder where I fit in this new BIPOC acronym. I just got chased down the street by a nutjob who screamed that I’m a stupid white bitch who doesn’t care about Black lives.
“I’m Palestinian!” I yell, for all the Upper West Side to hear.
“Yeah, bitch, and I’m Cherokee.”
What. The. Fuck.
I am not Black. Or Indigenous. Am I POC? I never seem to have a place here.
A nice gay boy asks if I’m OK.
Happy Pride.
July. Extroverts text and call too much; they need to call other extroverts.
Outside New York, no one wants to wear a mask. Almost everywhere else in the world, people value community. Here it’s the individual, who always seems to be complaining.
We have another family Zoom call—relatives in Beirut, New York, South Carolina, Connecticut, London, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle—my mom’s generation, my generation, the kids.
My cousin, on his way to Beirut, stops at different ATMS to bring cash and medicine to family members. Lebanon is in free fall for other reasons, but still they test everyone on the plane before and after the flight; anyone who tests positive is sent to a hotel for two weeks. That seems like the proper way to do things.
I kind of loved lockdown at the beginning. Now some days the silence is too much and I just cry.
Nothing is happening; everything is happening.
I am invisible. I am exhausted.
“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
Scenes From a Pandemic is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind, a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind, who from 1982–94 was the magazine’s chief political writer and analyst. This series of dispatches from Kopkind’s far-flung network of participants, advisers, guests, and friends is edited by Nation contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski, and appears weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org.


thenation--2020-07-29--The Sad Sex Lives of Overeducated Millennial Malcontents

Like many writers of my socioeconomic , educational , and psychochemical background , I often find myself bound up in mental contortions over problems that , under sober scrutiny , are not problems at all , but that—left to foxtrot about in the recesses of one ’ s mind—present themselves as urgent questions .
Questions like : What is the role of realist fiction in an age of political upheaval ?
How should a critic ’ s identity bear on her reading , and how should a writer ’ s identity bear on how he is read ?
And what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all the well-heeled , hetereosexualish , white-man writers who , up until quite recently , might have strolled chest first onto the literary scene , but who now find themselves met with a healthy dose of corrective skepticism ?
Mercifully , these questions tend to recede in the face of good fiction , which proves its purpose in its pleasures .
While reading Andrew Martin ’ s new story collection Cool for America , the follow-up to his excellent 2018 debut novel , Early Work , I didn ’ t have space for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of each of the collection ’ s 11 stories , there was just pleasure to be had .
Yes , at a glance , Martin ’ s work belongs to an established tradition whose moment has largely passed—comfortable white male writers broadly concerned with the life and times of comfortable white male writers .
But Martin strikes me as less of a kind with Roth or Foster Wallace or Franzen and more decisively a descendent of the great Ann Beattie .
Like Beattie , Martin compassionately chronicles the sorrows and sex lives of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ era , may have resigned themselves to more overtly conventional lifestyles but who , in Beattie ’ s 1970s and Martin ’ s 2010s , commit themselves to gently bohemian ( though never truly subversive ) projects , like graduate school and self-aware promiscuity and drinking too much .
Both Beattie and Martin wrote during periods of heightened political awareness oscillating with burned-out ambivalence .
Yet , thrust into their respective moments in history , their protagonists rarely attempt to affect their surroundings .
Rather than make productive use of the limited but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ citizens , Martin ’ s characters are desperate to assume a posture of powerlessness—in sex , in politics , in their careers .
In Martin ’ s vision , there is something borderline spiritual in the millennial ’ s desire to consider themselves beholden to forces outside their control .
The stories in Cool for America are realist in content and conventional in form .
Men and women are thrown together in a variety of familiar situations ( a brother and sister home for Christmas , a pair of unhappily married couples sharing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the haphazard dinner party ) that play out just long enough to hit the high notes of resentment and the low notes of desire before ending with an offhand remark or sudden shift in attention .
Martin ’ s characters are professionally ambivalent and ambiguously employed , distinguished by their semisecret artistic ambitions , which are tucked and often buried beneath menial day jobs .
( At the same time , they never really struggle for cash .
Financially , they exist in a zero-gravity state , staring morosely at downward mobility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the darkest woes of a hellish economy , if not from its knock-on effects , Martin ’ s characters spend much of their days absorbed in self-made problems .
Then , in a form of high-millennial penance , they devote nearly as much time to aimless guilt over just how self-made their problems are .
Yet this guilt never alters their behavior , as though moral and ethical thought exist purely to generate feelings ( mostly bad feelings ) , not actions .
In “ The Changed Party , ” as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , belligerently drunk over the course of a day while they ’ re both on parenting duty , his attempts to control the situation don ’ t extend further than cute literary quips ( “ I don ’ t want to go through the Eugene O ’ Neill routine with you and Vic ” ) and consciously pathetic attempts to intervene .
After Mike throws a beer-fueled tantrum in front of the children at an arcade , the narrator attempts to position himself as the good guy , apologizing to the teenage arcade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should know better than to let people like that into a place full of kids.
” The narrator reflects , “ I mean , he was right.
” It ’ s a refrain for the whole collection .
Martin ’ s characters are quick to admit that they are “ thoroughly and expensively educated.
” They always know better ; it ’ s just that knowing doesn ’ t count for much .
Wisdom is masturbatory , a way of making yourself feel good without having to risk anything .
Knowledge is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you from your instincts ; it just makes you more neurotic about them .
Considering why he ’ s spending so much energy seducing a good friend ’ s flirtatious wife , the narrator of the collection ’ s title story thinks , “ I ’ d spent years of my life getting educated…and now I was a teacher myself , but I still didn ’ t really believe in it , at least not in the visceral way that some people believe in Jesus or supply-side economics .
The pursuit of unavailable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a life ’ s passion.
” It ’ s convenient , for Martin ’ s characters , to want people and things they are structurally unlikely to get .
Any action they take is , de facto , surprising : more a performance than an admission of real desire .
At the same time , they can frame their inaction as sane and mature—noble , even .
These characters typically view the consequences they experience as somehow detached from the actions they take .
“ I was waiting , I guess , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ launch me screaming into my thirties .
Please stop me if you ’ ve heard any of this before , ” says the narrator of “ The Boy Vet , ” Peter , who is also the narrator of Early Work .
While sharing a joint with a younger coworker , Cassie , the main character of “ Attention , ” he thinks , “ How long would it be before the first major rupture in her life , the event that pulled her out of her youth and into whatever her life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of course , the chosen posture of the privileged .
Still , whatever advantages they have , Martin ’ s characters aren ’ t having much fun .
Instead , they are restless and self-defeating , childishly irritated by the lack of worthwhile distraction from their first-order needs : companionship , validation , meaning .
Fiction characterized by its characters ’ commitment to ironic detachment is frequently hailed as millennial in affect , as though critics are eager to believe that today ’ s twenty- and thirtysomethings are actually as cool and disaffected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as blasé and self-obsessed as a Moshfegh antihero .
In contrast , Martin recognizes the exhausting conflict of feelings at the heart of the millennial generation , born during the last gasp of an empire ’ s dominance , raised on its diet of laugh tracks and oil wars , and brought kicking and screaming into adulthood at the moment of its decline .
Over and over again , the stories in Cool for America sit with the discomfort of holding on to a romantic ideal that you intellectually recognize as ridiculous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discovered as an unsung genius , or feeling a sense of control over your life , or believing in the goodness of America .
Early Work tells the story of Peter , a half-heartedly struggling writer whose work and personality and narrative are all deservedly eclipsed by those of his successful doctor-poet partner , Julia , and his self-possessed unstable-genius crush , Leslie .
Like Cool for America , Early Work explored the emotional lives of would-be writers and academics who , in their dilettante brand of bourgeois precarity , lean heavily on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Sexual tension and clever literary banter operate as currency , almost always performing a more important social function than actual sex and actual reading .
Missoula , Montana , where Martin completed his MFA , features prominently , though it could be any college town in any landlocked state , anywhere one person ’ s daily existence is another ’ s romanticized escape from somewhere more serious , more “ real.
” Cool for America is subtly but insistently concerned with the ways in which the ostensibly liberal class squanders its energy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tensions ebb and flow rather than meaningfully build .
In “ Attention , ” Cassie grapples abstractly with the 2016 election , but her immediate emotional reality is dominated by her own minor concerns , like whether she ’ s going to get fired from her job , whether her boyfriend provides sufficient stimulation , whether she ’ ll be able to replace the electric kettle she inadvertently destroyed over an open flame .
Martin writes : It would be a reasonable criticism of Martin ’ s work to suggest that , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the population , he risks missing the broader picture .
But Cool for America offers a portrait of precisely those who , as Cassie notes , could be the ones best positioned to raise hell if and when the time came for hell to be raised .
If Martin ’ s depiction of millennial inaction and squandered political energy is a critique of his peers , it ’ s also a critique of his readers .
As in Early Work , the women of Cool for America appear substantially more interesting , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its fumbling men .
Martin ’ s men are rarely mean—there is only one overt bad guy in the collection , a wicked baby-faced veterinarian—but they cause plenty of harm anyway .
In “ Cool for America , ” the narrator , bound to a sofa because of a severely broken leg , pursues a married woman , only to realize after she sets her marriage ablaze that he “ did not know or understand ” her at all .
( Convenient timing ! )
It ’ s a neat image for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these stories : A man convinced he is powerless suddenly realizes he has exerted real power , done real damage , with willful women either caught in the mess or , more often , watching , bemused , nearby .
In the collection ’ s particularly dark second story , “ With the Christopher Kids , ” the alcoholic narrator , Stevie , returns home for Christmas , where he grows listless and tempts his younger sister Patricia , a recovering addict , into doing a few lines of cocaine and driving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stevie ’ s life is falling apart , while Patricia ’ s seems on the upswing .
The impression given is that their respective sobrieties operate like a seesaw . )
Stevie considers himself at the whim of his selfish impulses , and his actions are never framed as malicious .
All the same , the result is a near-death experience for Patricia , the evisceration of the progress she ’ s made since recovery , and a crappy Christmas for their long-suffering mom .
The book ’ s approach to modern masculinity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ narrator ’ s intimidating crush in “ Childhood , Boyhood , Youth , ” as a War and Peace reading group looks to name its least valuable participant : “ Only a man can be least valuable.
” Martin addressed the gender dynamics at play in his work in a 2018 interview with The Paris Review , ascribing them not to overt politics but to the mediocrity of many men .
“ Many of the lousy-acting male writers are less productive , or at least less interesting , than their female counterparts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s a reflection of reality rather than ideology , though there ’ s no way to take one ’ s politics out of it , probably.
” Cool for America further interrogates this dynamic with a winking self-reflectiveness .
In “ Short Swoop , Long Line , ” a narrator in his early 20s considers his role as a sexual submissive in his dynamic with a confident divorcée .
( He ’ s falling for her , but the feeling isn ’ t reciprocated .
Even if it were , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ narrator runs into her pubescent sons , she introduces him as “ my friend ’ s son ” —a minor , possibly erotic humiliation . )
Toward the story ’ s artful , memorable ending , the narrator tries to sort out his thoughts about being dominated : Martin ’ s men find it hard to grasp that power isn ’ t a zero-sum game .
For better or worse , the empowerment of those around them doesn ’ t mean they ’ ve been rendered impotent .
( And in any case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be an asshole . )
But male or female , all of Martin ’ s characters share in this exhaustion , this desire to relinquish power and thought and responsibility , if just for a while ; to not have to process ; to , in an age of senselessness , be freed from the need to make sense .
Martin bookends Cool for America with two exceptional stories about Early Work ’ s Leslie : “ No Cops ” and “ A Dog Named Jesus.
” It ’ s left unclear whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predates the Leslie of “ A Dog Named Jesus ” or vice versa .
Both unfold in Montana , and while we know Leslie is 27 in the first story , there is no indication of her age in the last one .
This inability to track whether she is progressing or regressing feels like sleight of hand ; it leaves us hoping that the stories are told in reverse order .
“ No Cops ” ends with a spark of optimism .
“ A Dog Named Jesus ” takes all such sparks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the latter , Leslie goes along with Jake , a man she has just met , to some strangers ’ rural , hot springs wedding .
Again , there ’ s a stubborn , embarrassing desire to commit to a romantic narrative .
Leslie is caustic up front but quietly believes there ’ s a connection growing between her and Jake .
But as the wedding progresses , he effectively abandons her at an event where she knows no one .
The story fixates on Leslie ’ s growing loneliness and boredom , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intellect and shamelessness to fend off that loneliness and boredom , and the ways in which her efforts run up against other people ’ s limits .
Like the rest of us , she can ’ t protect herself from embarrassment or from occasionally being used as a pawn in someone else ’ s psychosexual game .
The final three words of Cool for America are delivered by an intoxicated , well-intentioned hippie lying beside Leslie in a stranger ’ s tent at the end of the night , summing up the problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stop crashing into .
The breathy remark , like much of millennial doublespeak , is at once earnest and ironic , ridiculous and profound : “ So many options .
”

Like many writers of my socioeconomic, educational, and psychochemical background, I often find myself bound up in mental contortions over problems that, under sober scrutiny, are not problems at all, but that—left to foxtrot about in the recesses of one’s mind—present themselves as urgent questions. Questions like: What is the role of realist fiction in an age of political upheaval? How should a critic’s identity bear on her reading, and how should a writer’s identity bear on how he is read? And what should we do, now, with all the well-heeled, hetereosexualish, white-man writers who, up until quite recently, might have strolled chest first onto the literary scene, but who now find themselves met with a healthy dose of corrective skepticism? Books in Review Cool For America: Stories By Andrew Martin $27 Buy this book
Mercifully, these questions tend to recede in the face of good fiction, which proves its purpose in its pleasures. While reading Andrew Martin’s new story collection Cool for America, the follow-up to his excellent 2018 debut novel, Early Work, I didn’t have space for neurotic third-person self-examinations. For the length of each of the collection’s 11 stories, there was just pleasure to be had. Yes, at a glance, Martin’s work belongs to an established tradition whose moment has largely passed—comfortable white male writers broadly concerned with the life and times of comfortable white male writers. But Martin strikes me as less of a kind with Roth or Foster Wallace or Franzen and more decisively a descendent of the great Ann Beattie.
Like Beattie, Martin compassionately chronicles the sorrows and sex lives of drifting overeducated malcontents who, in another era, may have resigned themselves to more overtly conventional lifestyles but who, in Beattie’s 1970s and Martin’s 2010s, commit themselves to gently bohemian (though never truly subversive) projects, like graduate school and self-aware promiscuity and drinking too much. Both Beattie and Martin wrote during periods of heightened political awareness oscillating with burned-out ambivalence. Yet, thrust into their respective moments in history, their protagonists rarely attempt to affect their surroundings. Rather than make productive use of the limited but real power they wield as educated adult citizens, Martin’s characters are desperate to assume a posture of powerlessness—in sex, in politics, in their careers. In Martin’s vision, there is something borderline spiritual in the millennial’s desire to consider themselves beholden to forces outside their control.
The stories in Cool for America are realist in content and conventional in form. Men and women are thrown together in a variety of familiar situations (a brother and sister home for Christmas, a pair of unhappily married couples sharing a vacation home, the ever-fertile landscape of the haphazard dinner party) that play out just long enough to hit the high notes of resentment and the low notes of desire before ending with an offhand remark or sudden shift in attention. Martin’s characters are professionally ambivalent and ambiguously employed, distinguished by their semisecret artistic ambitions, which are tucked and often buried beneath menial day jobs. (At the same time, they never really struggle for cash. Financially, they exist in a zero-gravity state, staring morosely at downward mobility but never actually falling.) Safe from the darkest woes of a hellish economy, if not from its knock-on effects, Martin’s characters spend much of their days absorbed in self-made problems. Then, in a form of high-millennial penance, they devote nearly as much time to aimless guilt over just how self-made their problems are. 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Yet this guilt never alters their behavior, as though moral and ethical thought exist purely to generate feelings (mostly bad feelings), not actions. In “The Changed Party,” as the narrator watches his friend Mike get progressively, belligerently drunk over the course of a day while they’re both on parenting duty, his attempts to control the situation don’t extend further than cute literary quips (“I don’t want to go through the Eugene O’Neill routine with you and Vic”) and consciously pathetic attempts to intervene. After Mike throws a beer-fueled tantrum in front of the children at an arcade, the narrator attempts to position himself as the good guy, apologizing to the teenage arcade staffer, who responds, “You should know better than to let people like that into a place full of kids.” The narrator reflects, “I mean, he was right.”
It’s a refrain for the whole collection. Martin’s characters are quick to admit that they are “thoroughly and expensively educated.” They always know better; it’s just that knowing doesn’t count for much. Wisdom is masturbatory, a way of making yourself feel good without having to risk anything. Knowledge is a liability. It doesn’t protect you from your instincts; it just makes you more neurotic about them. Considering why he’s spending so much energy seducing a good friend’s flirtatious wife, the narrator of the collection’s title story thinks, “I’d spent years of my life getting educated…and now I was a teacher myself, but I still didn’t really believe in it, at least not in the visceral way that some people believe in Jesus or supply-side economics. The pursuit of unavailable women was the closest I could get to a life’s passion.” It’s convenient, for Martin’s characters, to want people and things they are structurally unlikely to get. Any action they take is, de facto, surprising: more a performance than an admission of real desire. At the same time, they can frame their inaction as sane and mature—noble, even.
These characters typically view the consequences they experience as somehow detached from the actions they take. “I was waiting, I guess, for the unforeseen motivating force that would launch me screaming into my thirties. Please stop me if you’ve heard any of this before,” says the narrator of “The Boy Vet,” Peter, who is also the narrator of Early Work. While sharing a joint with a younger coworker, Cassie, the main character of “Attention,” thinks, “How long would it be before the first major rupture in her life, the event that pulled her out of her youth and into whatever her life would become?” Passivity is, of course, the chosen posture of the privileged. Still, whatever advantages they have, Martin’s characters aren’t having much fun. Instead, they are restless and self-defeating, childishly irritated by the lack of worthwhile distraction from their first-order needs: companionship, validation, meaning.
Fiction characterized by its characters’ commitment to ironic detachment is frequently hailed as millennial in affect, as though critics are eager to believe that today’s twenty- and thirtysomethings are actually as cool and disaffected and politically consistent as a Rooney protagonist, as blasé and self-obsessed as a Moshfegh antihero. In contrast, Martin recognizes the exhausting conflict of feelings at the heart of the millennial generation, born during the last gasp of an empire’s dominance, raised on its diet of laugh tracks and oil wars, and brought kicking and screaming into adulthood at the moment of its decline. Over and over again, the stories in Cool for America sit with the discomfort of holding on to a romantic ideal that you intellectually recognize as ridiculous, corny, dead—like waiting to be discovered as an unsung genius, or feeling a sense of control over your life, or believing in the goodness of America.
Early Work tells the story of Peter, a half-heartedly struggling writer whose work and personality and narrative are all deservedly eclipsed by those of his successful doctor-poet partner, Julia, and his self-possessed unstable-genius crush, Leslie. Like Cool for America, Early Work explored the emotional lives of would-be writers and academics who, in their dilettante brand of bourgeois precarity, lean heavily on sex, substances, and literary allusion. Sexual tension and clever literary banter operate as currency, almost always performing a more important social function than actual sex and actual reading. Missoula, Montana, where Martin completed his MFA, features prominently, though it could be any college town in any landlocked state, anywhere one person’s daily existence is another’s romanticized escape from somewhere more serious, more “real.”
Cool for America is subtly but insistently concerned with the ways in which the ostensibly liberal class squanders its energy in gestures rather than actions, letting tensions ebb and flow rather than meaningfully build. In “Attention,” Cassie grapples abstractly with the 2016 election, but her immediate emotional reality is dominated by her own minor concerns, like whether she’s going to get fired from her job, whether her boyfriend provides sufficient stimulation, whether she’ll be able to replace the electric kettle she inadvertently destroyed over an open flame. Martin writes:
There was danger in projecting her own emotional vacillations on the country at large, but, unfortunately for her sense of herself as a unique and independent human, her varying acceptance of the unending political crisis seemed to map quite neatly onto that of her compatriots, or at least—and crucially—those of her age and social position. Re: Leonard’s question, if there was going to be a revolution, it would likely come from roughly their quarter. And the signs at the protests were still mostly jokes.
It would be a reasonable criticism of Martin’s work to suggest that, in applying his focus to this particular sliver of the population, he risks missing the broader picture. But Cool for America offers a portrait of precisely those who, as Cassie notes, could be the ones best positioned to raise hell if and when the time came for hell to be raised. If Martin’s depiction of millennial inaction and squandered political energy is a critique of his peers, it’s also a critique of his readers.
As in Early Work, the women of Cool for America appear substantially more interesting, more driven, and more complex than its fumbling men. Martin’s men are rarely mean—there is only one overt bad guy in the collection, a wicked baby-faced veterinarian—but they cause plenty of harm anyway. In “Cool for America,” the narrator, bound to a sofa because of a severely broken leg, pursues a married woman, only to realize after she sets her marriage ablaze that he “did not know or understand” her at all. (Convenient timing!) It’s a neat image for the way man-woman dynamics play out in many of these stories: A man convinced he is powerless suddenly realizes he has exerted real power, done real damage, with willful women either caught in the mess or, more often, watching, bemused, nearby.
In the collection’s particularly dark second story, “With the Christopher Kids,” the alcoholic narrator, Stevie, returns home for Christmas, where he grows listless and tempts his younger sister Patricia, a recovering addict, into doing a few lines of cocaine and driving to a local dive bar. (Stevie’s life is falling apart, while Patricia’s seems on the upswing. The impression given is that their respective sobrieties operate like a seesaw.) Stevie considers himself at the whim of his selfish impulses, and his actions are never framed as malicious. All the same, the result is a near-death experience for Patricia, the evisceration of the progress she’s made since recovery, and a crappy Christmas for their long-suffering mom. Related Article Heterosexual and Miserable Marie Solis
The book’s approach to modern masculinity is summed up by Violet, the narrator’s intimidating crush in “Childhood, Boyhood, Youth,” as a War and Peace reading group looks to name its least valuable participant: “Only a man can be least valuable.” Martin addressed the gender dynamics at play in his work in a 2018 interview with The Paris Review, ascribing them not to overt politics but to the mediocrity of many men. “Many of the lousy-acting male writers are less productive, or at least less interesting, than their female counterparts,” he said. “I think it’s a reflection of reality rather than ideology, though there’s no way to take one’s politics out of it, probably.”
Cool for America further interrogates this dynamic with a winking self-reflectiveness. In “Short Swoop, Long Line,” a narrator in his early 20s considers his role as a sexual submissive in his dynamic with a confident divorcée. (He’s falling for her, but the feeling isn’t reciprocated. Even if it were, it would be a nonstarter. When the narrator runs into her pubescent sons, she introduces him as “my friend’s son”—a minor, possibly erotic humiliation.) Toward the story’s artful, memorable ending, the narrator tries to sort out his thoughts about being dominated:
Maybe, if looked at from a certain angle, he was the one who had the power. Because he was the one being acted upon, which made him the necessary medium for power, something like that. He was overthinking it. He didn’t have to make a decision about how he felt about any of this right now. That was something he’d only just figured out. It helped with sex, keeping an open mind. It was better to be led. Acted upon.
Martin’s men find it hard to grasp that power isn’t a zero-sum game. For better or worse, the empowerment of those around them doesn’t mean they’ve been rendered impotent. (And in any case, impotence is never an excuse to be an asshole.) But male or female, all of Martin’s characters share in this exhaustion, this desire to relinquish power and thought and responsibility, if just for a while; to not have to process; to, in an age of senselessness, be freed from the need to make sense.
Martin bookends Cool for America with two exceptional stories about Early Work’s Leslie: “No Cops” and “A Dog Named Jesus.” It’s left unclear whether the Leslie of “No Cops” predates the Leslie of “A Dog Named Jesus” or vice versa. Both unfold in Montana, and while we know Leslie is 27 in the first story, there is no indication of her age in the last one. This inability to track whether she is progressing or regressing feels like sleight of hand; it leaves us hoping that the stories are told in reverse order. “No Cops” ends with a spark of optimism. “A Dog Named Jesus” takes all such sparks and determinedly stamps them out. In the latter, Leslie goes along with Jake, a man she has just met, to some strangers’ rural, hot springs wedding. Again, there’s a stubborn, embarrassing desire to commit to a romantic narrative. Leslie is caustic up front but quietly believes there’s a connection growing between her and Jake. But as the wedding progresses, he effectively abandons her at an event where she knows no one. The story fixates on Leslie’s growing loneliness and boredom, her increasingly desperate use of charm and intellect and shamelessness to fend off that loneliness and boredom, and the ways in which her efforts run up against other people’s limits. Like the rest of us, she can’t protect herself from embarrassment or from occasionally being used as a pawn in someone else’s psychosexual game.
The final three words of Cool for America are delivered by an intoxicated, well-intentioned hippie lying beside Leslie in a stranger’s tent at the end of the night, summing up the problem Martin’s characters can’t stop crashing into. The breathy remark, like much of millennial doublespeak, is at once earnest and ironic, ridiculous and profound: “So many options.”


thenation--2020-07-29--The Democratic Party Platform Needs a Pandemic Plank

There are many good things in the report of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force , but it is fundamentally a fusion of progressive and moderate Democratic ideals from the era before Covid-19 .
The pandemic figures mainly as an aggravating factor , adding urgency and scale to various proposals .
There is a presumption—as there was at the end of the 2008 financial crisis—that the old instincts and time-tested remedies will work as they have in the past , accelerating an economic recovery destined to occur anyway as the virus recedes and the world returns to normal .
In our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every level .
Absent a new and far more effective mobilization , both medical and social , on current evidence the pandemic will not recede .
It will instead wreak havoc on American life for years .
Given the lingering effects of the disease on many who recover , the costs in health , as well as lives lost , will multiply .
But even if the pandemic passes , profound damage to the American economy has already been done .
Though the Unity Task Force Report shows little awareness that this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ damage in six areas : Health care .
Covid-19 has wrecked the American system of fee-for-service private health care , and has done so irreparably .
That system had evolved to provide individualized health care funded largely by private insurance attached to employment contracts .
Now , nearly 40 million unemployed face a transition to costly , time-limited personal insurance , and after that , uncertainty .
In addition , US health care faces its own financial crisis .
As the population avoids hospitals and clinics , as work and commuting accidents and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ procedures are postponed or canceled , less usage means higher unit costs , higher costs mean less usage : a financial-medical death spiral for this system .
Energy and climate .
The Unity Task Force plank on climate change makes no mention of the pandemic .
It fails to observe that America ’ s recovery from the 2007–09 crisis was propelled by revolutionary changes in oil and gas production , eliminating the need for imported oil and replacing a lot of dirty coal with relatively cleaner natural gas .
The pandemic has put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off around the world , oil is in vast surplus , the boom is over , and American oil production can not be sold at a profit .
An end to fracking , though good for the climate , will weaken the economy—unless we move strategically to cut consumption where it does the least damage to our quality of life , while at the same time putting the necessary resources toward clean energy .
Services and jobs .
The services sector was responsible for almost all new jobs after the Great Crisis—an American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social benefits .
But services—restaurants , bars , theaters , concert , hair and nail salons , gyms , coffeehouses , resorts and spas and theme parks , boutiques and craft shops—all involve close personal contact between the served and the server .
The pandemic has dealt them a heavy blow .
And worse is now unfolding , for consumers , faced with job uncertainties of their own , can and will cut these activities far back .
In doing so , they inadvertently but unavoidably deprive their compatriots of income , business @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs .
To bring all those jobs back , people need more than money ; they would need to forget what is happening now and to lose the anxieties that the situation has already produced .
This will not occur .
Advanced industries and construction .
America ’ s advanced industries serve a world market .
They depend on global , not local , investment , which depends on the full use of existing equipment .
To take one example , there are two major producers of commercial aircraft in the world .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of all airworthy aircraft worldwide are parked on the ground ; new ones will not be ordered , regardless of how heavily subsidized the producers may be .
The situation is similar in other sectors , such as construction machinery and oilfield equipment .
As firms adapt to the pandemic through automation and work-at-home programs , and as they adjust the usage of office towers to public health needs , there will be surplus space .
Empty buildings mean that new ones will not be built .
Also , as commuting falls , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ longer , meaning the demand for new cars will also fall .
Rents , mortgages , utilities and debt .
As jobs and incomes disappear , rents , mortgages , water and power and phone bills do not .
Nearly one-third of American renters did not make full payment in June .
The CARES Act—tax rebates , extended unemployment , and payroll protection—helped .
But the funds provided are running down , the programs have expired , and so have legal protections against evictions and foreclosures .
Waves of displacement and homelessness are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Latinx communities that are mostly renters .
These will unleash new waves of infections and deaths , again weighted against minorities and low-income families , unless steps are taken now to preserve and provide housing and basic services to all who need them .
Trust in government .
The countries that have beaten the coronavirus so far were not all rich .
They did not necessarily have the world ’ s most advanced hospitals and medical equipment .
Some are capitalist or social-democratic , such as Germany , Italy , Greece , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Taiwan .
Others , including China , Cuba , and Vietnam are socialist or further left .
What they have in common is widespread trust in government , and governments that earned that trust—even after early mistakes as in China—through decisive action , clear messaging , social discipline , and unflinching tenacity in maintaining public services , food supplies , basic protective equipment , and basic medical services available to all without cost .
The countries that are failing—right now including Brazil , Russia , India , and the United States—are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ widespread trust .
This problem is compounded by the toxic role of politics and public image-making , so that the appearance of success counts more than success itself , and illusions of reopening and recovery count more than facts .
This breakdown can be repaired only by dramatic , radical public action , mobilizing the whole population—effectively , for the duration—as a matter of survival , such as seen on only three occasions in US history : in 1861 , at the start of the Civil War ; in 1933 , at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1941 , at the start of World War II .
What is to be done ?
The first task is to take stock correctly of the actual situation and to begin to frame a response at the appropriate conceptual scale .
We can not provide a full account in this brief space .
But the following seem indispensable .
• The United States needs a new National Public Health Service , taking over facilities and personnel , rationalizing and reorganizing as Ireland and Spain have done this year .
This necessity goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinics and hospitals should be integrated with basic production capacities for masks and other protective equipment , set up and funded by an independent Health Finance Corporation .
• Transition to green energy , via a Green New Deal and as proposed by the Climate Committee , but building on the radical transportation economies available in work-at-home situations , reordering of the work-life balance , and accelerating the shift to energy-efficient distribution of goods and services , including via universal , low-cost , high-quality broadband as a public utility .
These functions call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from developer-dominated urbanism , for a new way of living , suited to local conditions , carried out on a national scale .
• A massively cooperative and nonprofit model for the provision of services and amenities , of all types required for the maintenance of civilized community life , along with a teacher-intensive , remote-as-necessary model for schools , colleges , and universities , and with publicly supported hibernation of facilities pending better times .
• A public job guarantee of useful work at a decent wage for all seeking jobs , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public services .
So long as the pandemic lasts , basic income supports should be rationalized and sustained , sufficient to support utilities , groceries , medicines , housing , and other necessities .
• The government must consolidate the most critical advanced sectors , maintaining scientific and engineering capacity , alongside redevelopment of sites , plant conversion , rationalization and repurposing of office and retail spaces for public purposes such as education , culture , and sports .
Again , a freestanding financial and organizational entity , modeled on the Reconstruction Finance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ensure that this occurs .
• For economic and racial justice and for public health , there must be a long-term moratorium on evictions , foreclosures , and utility stoppages , with compensation for small landlords .
The victims of this pandemic must not be punished for staying home !
Rents and other debts can not be merely postponed ; they will never be paid in full and must be written down .
This is a moral imperative that requires urgent action , even though it means , necessarily , a large-scale transfer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ property rights , and a restructuring of finance .
Going forward , the country needs a community-based system for determining fair rents , and for adjudicating disputes , with outcomes driven first and foremost by the demands of public health .
• As for trust and image , these will follow concrete achievements .
The American government will be trusted when it is trustworthy again .
America will be admired when it becomes admirable again .
Neither bluster nor braggadocio will work , regardless of party—only work , dedication , spirit , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , public purpose , and common sense .
These are the things we call for , now , in the Democratic platform , in the fall campaign , and in the program that will govern the country for the next four years .

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There are many good things in the report of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force, but it is fundamentally a fusion of progressive and moderate Democratic ideals from the era before Covid-19. The pandemic figures mainly as an aggravating factor, adding urgency and scale to various proposals. There is a presumption—as there was at the end of the 2008 financial crisis—that the old instincts and time-tested remedies will work as they have in the past, accelerating an economic recovery destined to occur anyway as the virus recedes and the world returns to normal.
In our view, this presumption is wrong at every level.
Absent a new and far more effective mobilization, both medical and social, on current evidence the pandemic will not recede. It will instead wreak havoc on American life for years. Given the lingering effects of the disease on many who recover, the costs in health, as well as lives lost, will multiply.
But even if the pandemic passes, profound damage to the American economy has already been done. Though the Unity Task Force Report shows little awareness that this is the case, we can identify this damage in six areas:
Health care. Covid-19 has wrecked the American system of fee-for-service private health care, and has done so irreparably. That system had evolved to provide individualized health care funded largely by private insurance attached to employment contracts. Now, nearly 40 million unemployed face a transition to costly, time-limited personal insurance, and after that, uncertainty. In addition, US health care faces its own financial crisis. As the population avoids hospitals and clinics, as work and commuting accidents and other infectious diseases fall, as elective procedures are postponed or canceled, less usage means higher unit costs, higher costs mean less usage: a financial-medical death spiral for this system.
Energy and climate. The Unity Task Force plank on climate change makes no mention of the pandemic. It fails to observe that America’s recovery from the 2007–09 crisis was propelled by revolutionary changes in oil and gas production, eliminating the need for imported oil and replacing a lot of dirty coal with relatively cleaner natural gas. The pandemic has put an end to that. With demand off around the world, oil is in vast surplus, the boom is over, and American oil production cannot be sold at a profit. An end to fracking, though good for the climate, will weaken the economy—unless we move strategically to cut consumption where it does the least damage to our quality of life, while at the same time putting the necessary resources toward clean energy.
Services and jobs. The services sector was responsible for almost all new jobs after the Great Crisis—an American success story despite mediocre wages and poor social benefits. But services—restaurants, bars, theaters, concert, hair and nail salons, gyms, coffeehouses, resorts and spas and theme parks, boutiques and craft shops—all involve close personal contact between the served and the server. The pandemic has dealt them a heavy blow. And worse is now unfolding, for consumers, faced with job uncertainties of their own, can and will cut these activities far back. In doing so, they inadvertently but unavoidably deprive their compatriots of income, business owners of profit, and workers of jobs. To bring all those jobs back, people need more than money; they would need to forget what is happening now and to lose the anxieties that the situation has already produced. This will not occur. 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
Advanced industries and construction. America’s advanced industries serve a world market. They depend on global, not local, investment, which depends on the full use of existing equipment. To take one example, there are two major producers of commercial aircraft in the world. But at present, half or more of all airworthy aircraft worldwide are parked on the ground; new ones will not be ordered, regardless of how heavily subsidized the producers may be. The situation is similar in other sectors, such as construction machinery and oilfield equipment. As firms adapt to the pandemic through automation and work-at-home programs, and as they adjust the usage of office towers to public health needs, there will be surplus space. Empty buildings mean that new ones will not be built. Also, as commuting falls, passenger vehicles get less use and last longer, meaning the demand for new cars will also fall.
Rents, mortgages, utilities and debt. As jobs and incomes disappear, rents, mortgages, water and power and phone bills do not. Nearly one-third of American renters did not make full payment in June. The CARES Act—tax rebates, extended unemployment, and payroll protection—helped. But the funds provided are running down, the programs have expired, and so have legal protections against evictions and foreclosures. Waves of displacement and homelessness are now certain, heavily affecting African American and Latinx communities that are mostly renters. These will unleash new waves of infections and deaths, again weighted against minorities and low-income families, unless steps are taken now to preserve and provide housing and basic services to all who need them.
Trust in government. The countries that have beaten the coronavirus so far were not all rich. They did not necessarily have the world’s most advanced hospitals and medical equipment. Some are capitalist or social-democratic, such as Germany, Italy, Greece, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Others, including China, Cuba, and Vietnam are socialist or further left. What they have in common is widespread trust in government, and governments that earned that trust—even after early mistakes as in China—through decisive action, clear messaging, social discipline, and unflinching tenacity in maintaining public services, food supplies, basic protective equipment, and basic medical services available to all without cost.
The countries that are failing—right now including Brazil, Russia, India, and the United States—are those with governments that do not command widespread trust. This problem is compounded by the toxic role of politics and public image-making, so that the appearance of success counts more than success itself, and illusions of reopening and recovery count more than facts. This breakdown can be repaired only by dramatic, radical public action, mobilizing the whole population—effectively, for the duration—as a matter of survival, such as seen on only three occasions in US history: in 1861, at the start of the Civil War; in 1933, at the launch of the New Deal; and in 1941, at the start of World War II.
What is to be done?
The first task is to take stock correctly of the actual situation and to begin to frame a response at the appropriate conceptual scale. We cannot provide a full account in this brief space. But the following seem indispensable.
The United States needs a new National Public Health Service , taking over facilities and personnel, rationalizing and reorganizing as Ireland and Spain have done this year. This necessity goes beyond single-payer or Medicare for All. Clinics and hospitals should be integrated with basic production capacities for masks and other protective equipment, set up and funded by an independent Health Finance Corporation.
, taking over facilities and personnel, rationalizing and reorganizing as Ireland and Spain have done this year. This necessity goes beyond single-payer or Medicare for All. Clinics and hospitals should be integrated with basic production capacities for masks and other protective equipment, set up and funded by an independent Health Finance Corporation. Transition to green energy , via a Green New Deal and as proposed by the Climate Committee, but building on the radical transportation economies available in work-at-home situations, reordering of the work-life balance, and accelerating the shift to energy-efficient distribution of goods and services, including via universal, low-cost, high-quality broadband as a public utility. These functions call for public planning and a reorientation away from developer-dominated urbanism, for a new way of living, suited to local conditions, carried out on a national scale.
, via a Green New Deal and as proposed by the Climate Committee, but building on the radical transportation economies available in work-at-home situations, reordering of the work-life balance, and accelerating the shift to energy-efficient distribution of goods and services, including via universal, low-cost, high-quality broadband as a public utility. These functions call for public planning and a reorientation away from developer-dominated urbanism, for a new way of living, suited to local conditions, carried out on a national scale. A massively cooperative and nonprofit model for the provision of services and amenities , of all types required for the maintenance of civilized community life, along with a teacher-intensive, remote-as-necessary model for schools, colleges, and universities, and with publicly supported hibernation of facilities pending better times.
, of all types required for the maintenance of civilized community life, along with a teacher-intensive, remote-as-necessary model for schools, colleges, and universities, and with publicly supported hibernation of facilities pending better times. A public job guarantee of useful work at a decent wage for all seeking jobs, especially outdoor work on climate mitigation and public services. So long as the pandemic lasts, basic income supports should be rationalized and sustained, sufficient to support utilities, groceries, medicines, housing, and other necessities.
of useful work at a decent wage for all seeking jobs, especially outdoor work on climate mitigation and public services. So long as the pandemic lasts, basic income supports should be rationalized and sustained, sufficient to support utilities, groceries, medicines, housing, and other necessities. The government must consolidate the most critical advanced sectors , maintaining scientific and engineering capacity, alongside redevelopment of sites, plant conversion, rationalization and repurposing of office and retail spaces for public purposes such as education, culture, and sports. Again, a freestanding financial and organizational entity, modeled on the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, is the best way to ensure that this occurs.
, maintaining scientific and engineering capacity, alongside redevelopment of sites, plant conversion, rationalization and repurposing of office and retail spaces for public purposes such as education, culture, and sports. Again, a freestanding financial and organizational entity, modeled on the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, is the best way to ensure that this occurs. For economic and racial justice and for public health, there must be a long-term moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, and utility stoppages , with compensation for small landlords. The victims of this pandemic must not be punished for staying home! Rents and other debts cannot be merely postponed; they will never be paid in full and must be written down. This is a moral imperative that requires urgent action, even though it means, necessarily, a large-scale transfer of real wealth, a change in property rights, and a restructuring of finance. Going forward, the country needs a community-based system for determining fair rents, and for adjudicating disputes, with outcomes driven first and foremost by the demands of public health.
, with compensation for small landlords. The victims of this pandemic must not be punished for staying home! Rents and other debts cannot be merely postponed; they will never be paid in full and must be written down. This is a moral imperative that requires urgent action, even though it means, necessarily, a large-scale transfer of real wealth, a change in property rights, and a restructuring of finance. Going forward, the country needs a community-based system for determining fair rents, and for adjudicating disputes, with outcomes driven first and foremost by the demands of public health. As for trust and image, these will follow concrete achievements. The American government will be trusted when it is trustworthy again. America will be admired when it becomes admirable again. Neither bluster nor braggadocio will work, regardless of party—only work, dedication, spirit, and actual success, built on shared effort, public purpose, and common sense.
These are the things we call for, now, in the Democratic platform, in the fall campaign, and in the program that will govern the country for the next four years.


thenation--2020-07-29--It’s Time to Bring the Carbon Barons to Justice—and Take Their Money

The carbon barons are in trouble .
Landmark lawsuits against ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel giants charging that they have caused—and lied about—the climate crisis are making real headway .
Unfortunately , they ’ re doing so just as Big Oil is in danger of going broke , which jeopardizes the chances to make these companies pay for the damage they ’ ve caused .
Since 2017 , more than a dozen states , counties , and municipalities across the United States have filed lawsuits against the biggest oil producers—ExxonMobil , Chevron , Shell , BP , et al.—alleging that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they knew to be dangerous .
While these lawsuits are particular to place—some cite the damage from rising sea levels , others focus on the destruction caused by climate-fueled wildfires and flooding—all seek to recover the costs to those communities as they adapt to climate chaos .
At one point , it looked like the oil giants would receive a “ get out of jail free ” card .
In 2018 , a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed climate liability suits brought by San Francisco and Oakland , ruling that the issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a federal court in Manhattan subsequently tossed out a New York City claim .
The carbon barons then petitioned to move the other lawsuits from the state courts where they were filed to federal courts .
Federal courts are generally considered a more sympathetic venue for Big Oil , because suits there may get tangled up in knotty constitutional questions .
The plaintiffs want to keep their cases in the state courts and argue that their lawsuits are uncomplicated tort claims not unlike the successful lawsuits against the tobacco companies .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been agreeing with the plaintiffs .
In July , the US Appeals Court for the 10th Circuit rebuffed ExxonMobil and other defendants in a Colorado case .
In late May , a Ninth Circuit panel ruled unanimously that suits filed by six California counties and cities should be settled by the California courts .
Judges with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came to the same conclusion in a Baltimore case , at one point slapping Chevron and other defendants with a terse , “ They are wrong.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In late June , the District of Columbia and the State of Minnesota announced lawsuits against ExxonMobil , the oil refining Koch Industries , and the American Petroleum Institute .
Those suits go beyond earlier complaints by arguing that the carbon barons ’ decades-long campaign to sow uncertainty about the science of global warming violates local statutes against consumer fraud , deceptive trade practices , and false advertising .
The new lawsuits and procedural wins arrive as Democrats are showing strengthened resolve to hold the fossil fuel giants accountable for their crimes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ were operating under the delusion that they could strike a grand political bargain in which they would agree to support a price on carbon in exchange for blanket legal immunity .
( Congress has the constitutional power to give an industry or a company a “ liability waiver ” ; gun manufacturers enjoy such immunity . )
That pipe dream is now crumbling .
House Democrats recently released a comprehensive plan for addressing the climate crisis that includes a pointed rebuke to the idea of a congressional liability waiver : “ Congress should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exchange for a carbon price.
” Joe Biden ’ s climate plan includes a promise that should he be elected , the federal government will become an ally of the state , county , and municipal lawsuits .
Calls to bring the carbon barons to justice are smart politics .
A 2019 survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications found that 57 percent of Americans favor having the fossil fuel companies pay for climate-related damages .
A poll released in July by Data for Progress found that more than three-quarters of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ want to hold the oil companies responsible for climate damages .
More than 60 percent of Republicans who are younger than 45 agree .
Here ’ s where things get tricky .
The progress in the courts and the shift in politics and public opinion are occurring just as the carbon barons ’ fortunes are dwindling .
For years now , oil and gas giants have been struggling against an oversupply of a commodity the world is trying to turn away from .
In December , Chevron was forced to write down $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that signaled , according to The New York Times , that the shale gas “ boom has given way to bust.
” By the end of 2019 , North American oil and gas companies were saddled with an estimated $ 200 billion of debt , and Wall Street was starting to look askance at an industry that has underperformed the S & P in four of the last five years .
In January , loudmouth market guru Jim Kramer went on a rant in which he said the oil giants are in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turned on them.
” Then the pandemic arrived .
As businesses shut down and streets emptied , demand for oil fell off a cliff ; at one point this spring , there was such a glut that oil briefly traded at negative prices .
While the oil and gas companies are still an economic behemoth—the total capitalization of the industry is around $ 1 trillion—the pandemic appears to have accelerated their decline .
Today , Apple alone is worth more than all of the oil and gas majors combined .
The pandemic-related recession @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have reached the historic peak of global oil demand .
“ Could it be peak oil ?
” the CEO of BP mused in May , not long before announcing sweeping layoffs .
“ Possibly.
” The raft of climate tort cases are , above all , a demand for justice .
The carbon barons amassed some of the largest fortunes in history through deception and the manufacturing and marketing of a product they knew was dangerous .
Basic fairness requires that they pay for the damage they have caused .
Adapting to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more climate-related disasters will likely cost trillions of dollars ( with a t ) in the course of this century .
Someone will have to pick up the tab .
Either that someone will be you and me—or it will be the companies that have done the most to imperil civilization .
The Climate Emergency Won ’ t Wait for the Press to Play Catch-up Again More in this series The danger now is that as oil company officials see justice closing in , they will try to grab for themselves as much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Look for a wave of executive bonuses , stock buybacks , and asset liquidations designed to transfer oil company wealth to those at the top .
ExxonMobil , for example , has been on a multiyear stock buyback binge , a scheme that enriches executives even as a company suffers .
All of which intensifies the urgency of demands for climate reparations .
All calls for justice are urgent , but this one is especially so , because it ’ s racing against a clock—driven by the implacable force of atmospheric chemistry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be the hottest or second-hottest in history .
Siberia is on fire ; much of Australia has already burned to a crisp .
There is no time to wait .
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said , “ The arc of the moral universe is long , but it bends toward justice.
” With Earth beginning to boil , we can ’ t afford to wait for the long touchdown at justice .
We need—to use a term of 2020—to flatten the curve of the moral arc .
We need accountability now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ address the carbon barons ’ crimes , the greater the chance that the oil executives and their shareholders will make off with their ill-gotten gains and leave the rest of us holding an empty bag .
Justice demands better than that .

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This article was published jointly with Sierra magazine.
The carbon barons are in trouble. Landmark lawsuits against ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel giants charging that they have caused—and lied about—the climate crisis are making real headway. Unfortunately, they’re doing so just as Big Oil is in danger of going broke, which jeopardizes the chances to make these companies pay for the damage they’ve caused.
Since 2017, more than a dozen states, counties, and municipalities across the United States have filed lawsuits against the biggest oil producers—ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, et al.—alleging that the companies harmed communities by selling products they knew to be dangerous. While these lawsuits are particular to place—some cite the damage from rising sea levels, others focus on the destruction caused by climate-fueled wildfires and flooding—all seek to recover the costs to those communities as they adapt to climate chaos.
At one point, it looked like the oil giants would receive a “get out of jail free” card. In 2018, a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed climate liability suits brought by San Francisco and Oakland, ruling that the issue needed to be settled by Congress, and a federal court in Manhattan subsequently tossed out a New York City claim. The carbon barons then petitioned to move the other lawsuits from the state courts where they were filed to federal courts. Federal courts are generally considered a more sympathetic venue for Big Oil, because suits there may get tangled up in knotty constitutional questions. The plaintiffs want to keep their cases in the state courts and argue that their lawsuits are uncomplicated tort claims not unlike the successful lawsuits against the tobacco companies.
In the last few months, federal judges have been agreeing with the plaintiffs. In July, the US Appeals Court for the 10th Circuit rebuffed ExxonMobil and other defendants in a Colorado case. In late May, a Ninth Circuit panel ruled unanimously that suits filed by six California counties and cities should be settled by the California courts. Judges with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came to the same conclusion in a Baltimore case, at one point slapping Chevron and other defendants with a terse, “They are wrong.”
Other jurisdictions are now piling on. In late June, the District of Columbia and the State of Minnesota announced lawsuits against ExxonMobil, the oil refining Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute. Those suits go beyond earlier complaints by arguing that the carbon barons’ decades-long campaign to sow uncertainty about the science of global warming violates local statutes against consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices, and false advertising. 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann 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 A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
The new lawsuits and procedural wins arrive as Democrats are showing strengthened resolve to hold the fossil fuel giants accountable for their crimes. Not long ago, the carbon barons were operating under the delusion that they could strike a grand political bargain in which they would agree to support a price on carbon in exchange for blanket legal immunity. (Congress has the constitutional power to give an industry or a company a “liability waiver”; gun manufacturers enjoy such immunity.) That pipe dream is now crumbling. House Democrats recently released a comprehensive plan for addressing the climate crisis that includes a pointed rebuke to the idea of a congressional liability waiver: “Congress should not offer liability relief…to cut pollution in exchange for a carbon price.” Joe Biden’s climate plan includes a promise that should he be elected, the federal government will become an ally of the state, county, and municipal lawsuits. Current Issue View our current issue
Calls to bring the carbon barons to justice are smart politics. A 2019 survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications found that 57 percent of Americans favor having the fossil fuel companies pay for climate-related damages. A poll released in July by Data for Progress found that more than three-quarters of Democratic voters and 63 percent of independents want to hold the oil companies responsible for climate damages. More than 60 percent of Republicans who are younger than 45 agree.
Here’s where things get tricky. The progress in the courts and the shift in politics and public opinion are occurring just as the carbon barons’ fortunes are dwindling.
For years now, oil and gas giants have been struggling against an oversupply of a commodity the world is trying to turn away from. In December, Chevron was forced to write down $10 billion in assets, a move that signaled, according to The New York Times, that the shale gas “boom has given way to bust.” By the end of 2019, North American oil and gas companies were saddled with an estimated $200 billion of debt, and Wall Street was starting to look askance at an industry that has underperformed the S&P in four of the last five years. In January, loudmouth market guru Jim Kramer went on a rant in which he said the oil giants are in a death spiral because “the world has turned on them.”
Then the pandemic arrived. As businesses shut down and streets emptied, demand for oil fell off a cliff; at one point this spring, there was such a glut that oil briefly traded at negative prices. While the oil and gas companies are still an economic behemoth—the total capitalization of the industry is around $1 trillion—the pandemic appears to have accelerated their decline. Today, Apple alone is worth more than all of the oil and gas majors combined. The pandemic-related recession has even sparked chatter that we might have reached the historic peak of global oil demand. “Could it be peak oil?” the CEO of BP mused in May, not long before announcing sweeping layoffs. “Possibly.” Covering Climate Now How to Stop the Spread of Climate Disinformation Erika Seiber and Michael Khoo A Soundtrack for the Climate Emergency Mark Hertsgaard Can Gen Z Save the Midterms for Democrats? Mark Hertsgaard
The raft of climate tort cases are, above all, a demand for justice. The carbon barons amassed some of the largest fortunes in history through deception and the manufacturing and marketing of a product they knew was dangerous. Basic fairness requires that they pay for the damage they have caused. Adapting to rising temperatures, higher seas, and more climate-related disasters will likely cost trillions of dollars (with a t) in the course of this century. Someone will have to pick up the tab. Either that someone will be you and me—or it will be the companies that have done the most to imperil civilization.
The danger now is that as oil company officials see justice closing in, they will try to grab for themselves as much of the remaining profits as they can. Look for a wave of executive bonuses, stock buybacks, and asset liquidations designed to transfer oil company wealth to those at the top. ExxonMobil, for example, has been on a multiyear stock buyback binge, a scheme that enriches executives even as a company suffers.
All of which intensifies the urgency of demands for climate reparations. All calls for justice are urgent, but this one is especially so, because it’s racing against a clock—driven by the implacable force of atmospheric chemistry. This year is on track to be the hottest or second-hottest in history. Siberia is on fire; much of Australia has already burned to a crisp. There is no time to wait.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” With Earth beginning to boil, we can’t afford to wait for the long touchdown at justice. We need—to use a term of 2020—to flatten the curve of the moral arc. We need accountability now. The longer the courts wait to address the carbon barons’ crimes, the greater the chance that the oil executives and their shareholders will make off with their ill-gotten gains and leave the rest of us holding an empty bag. Justice demands better than that.