thenation--2020-07-14--It’s Time to Tell a New Story About Coronavirus—Our Lives Depend on It

In the summer of 1832 , a mysterious scourge that had come all the way from Asia loomed over the city of New York , having ravaged London , Paris , and Montreal .
Medical officials collected data showing that the disease—cholera—was spreading along the newly opened Erie Canal and the Hudson River , heading straight to New York City .
But New York ’ s leaders did not attempt to regulate traffic coming down the waterways.1 The demands of commerce were part of the reason ; officials knew that shutting down the routes would have disrupted powerful commercial interests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ belief that they didn ’ t need to .
According to the reigning paradigm , contagions like cholera spread through clouds of smelly gas called miasmas .
Cholera , one expert said at the time , was “ an atmosphere disease…carried on the wings of the wind.
” To protect themselves from these deadly gases , people burned barrels of tar and strung up large pieces of meat on poles , which they hoped would soak up the cholera vapors .
In London they attempted to rid their homes of stinky miasmas by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which also served as the city ’ s drinking water supply.2 The stories people told about the contagion in their midst sealed their fate .
Outbreaks of cholera plagued London , New York , and many other cities for the better part of a century , killing millions of people.3 Paradigms—the obscure , unspoken conceptual frameworks that shape our ideas—are powerful .
They bring order and understanding to our observations about the messy , changing world around us .
Without them , the philosopher Thomas Kuhn said , scientific inquiry is impossible : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ask or what facts to collect .
But paradigms blind us , too , as during the cholera pandemics of the 19th century , elevating certain narratives and serving particular interests , sometimes to our peril.4 Today we once again face a virulent , fast-spreading pathogen .
Our scientific understanding has advanced since the time of cholera , but it ’ s nonetheless constrained by paradigms that shape how we respond to this outbreak—and to future ones .
As we navigate this moment , it is therefore essential that we ask ourselves whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that causes Covid-19 , in a way that provides constructive insight into how we can survive its appetites .
Have we framed it effectively ?
Or , like the New Yorkers of old , do we continue to misunderstand the pathogens in our midst ?
5 In the case of Covid-19 , the story we have told from the beginning has been one of a passive population suddenly attacked by a foreign being .
The pandemic , in popular discourse , is an act of external aggression , an assault by an “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so savagely , ” as one physician put it in The Baltimore Sun .
In The New York Times , Steven Erlanger compared the virus to an act of terrorism or a natural disaster .
The writer Michael Lind likened it to “ an alien invasion.
” 6 In accordance with these martial metaphors , the response has been framed as a form of combat against an invasive intruder .
France declared itself “ at war ” with the infection .
China launched a “ people ’ s war.
” And Donald Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nations grounded flights and closed borders .
In the earliest weeks of the outbreak , when cruise ships full of sick passengers drew near , countries waved them away , their pleas for medicine , food , and care be damned.7 While the scale of the response has been unprecedented , the ideas framing the outbreak emanate from an old paradigm about contagion .
According to that paradigm , contagion is a problem of microbial invasion , a foreign incursion into domestic bodies to be repelled with military might .
Consider the history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ named contagions .
For decades , they named them based on where they were discovered or first erupted when those places were distant but not when they were local .
For example , Ebola was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo , and the 1918 influenza was dubbed Spanish flu , although it didn ’ t originate in Spain .
But HIV , whose emergence was first charted in California and New York in the 1980s , was not the “ LA virus ” or “ NYC-1 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which exploded in Boston in 1968 , is not known as “ the Boston plague.
” Infectious diseases were so often named in ways that emphasized their otherness and provoked stigma that the World Health Organization issued more-neutral naming guidelines in 2015.8 Our paradigm of microbial invasion has its origins in the dawn of germ theory in the late 19th century , when the chemist Louis Pasteur discovered the microbe responsible for causing a disease in silkworms and the microbiologist Robert Koch identified the microbe that causes anthrax .
For centuries before then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a dynamic interplay between miasmas ( which were shaped by environmental conditions , such as the climate and the local geography ) and the interior qualities of individuals ( from their morals to the unique balance of “ humours ” in their bodies ) .
Pasteur and Koch produced evidence that suggested a more tangible process : that disease was not the result of complex disequilibriums but an outcome of the simple presence of identifiable microbes.9 The germ theory of disease forged a whole new way of thinking about and acting against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of social relations , environmental factors , and human behaviors that promoted disease , scientists could blame a single microscopic speck .
A disease ’ s movement could be arrested or even repelled entirely .
It could be surgically excised or destroyed with killing chemicals , which early 20th century scientists labeled magic bullets .
The multifarious process of infection was reduced to its simplest components : a naive victim , a foreign germ , an unwanted incursion.10 The paradigm of microbial invasion revolutionized medicine , allowing us to tame contagions in brand-new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and effective vaccines .
As disease historians have documented , these interventions alone did not tame cholera , malaria , and other contagions that plagued Western societies .
But their arrival coincided with broad social changes , many pushed by the sanitary reform movement , that did .
The establishment of clean water systems , sanitation , and safe housing regulations—all hard-won social reforms—dramatically reduced transmission opportunities for pathogens like cholera .
The toll of infectious diseases plummeted .
At the end of the 19th century , 30 percent of US deaths were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end of the 20th century , fewer than 4 percent were.11 Nevertheless , the paradigm of the invasive germ and its attendant interventions got nearly all the credit , becoming “ the dominant force in Western medicine , ” as one observer put it .
Part of this may have been the genuine elegance of the theory .
But the magic bullet cures it made possible also dovetailed with the logic of industrial capitalism , in which the divisions between us and them , the pure and the contaminated , were clear—and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the buying and selling of biomedical commodities.12 Despite the seductive simplicity of the invading-germ paradigm , scientists began to realize almost immediately that contagion is far more complex than a simple process of incursion .
With each advance in the science of microbial detection—from ever more powerful microscopes to new methods of detecting microbial DNA—scientists found evidence of ever more microbes lurking in ever more places , including inside the human body .
Most of these microbes are beneficial , even necessary , researchers have learned in recent years .
And when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stems from the way our bodies respond to microbes , not the microbes ’ actions themselves.13 The paradigm of invasion casts microbial pathogens as invisible enemies full of incipient violence , but more recent discoveries have revealed that even those responsible for deadly outbreaks can be strangely quiescent in certain environments .
Helicobacter pylori , for example , causes gastric ulcers in some while lounging harmlessly inside the stomachs of others .
Strains of Lactobacillus that lead to sepsis in some are popped by others as “ probiotics.
” Meanwhile , microbiologists have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bodies of other animals by the fistful and cause them no problems whatsoever .
Zooplankton encrusted with cholera bacteria , for instance , float unperturbed by their microscopic guests in warm coastal waters ; wild waterfowl , teeming with influenza viruses , fly blithely through the skies ; and bats , their tissues full of Ebola , flit unharmed through the nighttime air.14 All of which is to say that , contrary to the central plotline of the paradigm of invasion , today ’ s pathogens don ’ t arrive in untouched territory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there is any invasion underway at all , it is spearheaded by us .
The majority of pathogens that have emerged since 1940 originated in the bodies of animals and entered human populations not because they invaded us but because we invaded their habitats .
By encroaching on wetlands and cutting down forests , we ’ ve forced wild animals to crowd into ever smaller fragments of habitat , drawing them into intimate contact with human populations .
It ’ s that proximity , which we force through our destruction of wildlife habitats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find their way into human bodies.15 How Trump Is Going to Get Away With a Pandemic Think Exotic Animals Are to Blame for the Coronavirus ?
Think Again .
But the paradigm of microbial invasion obscures these inconvenient facts .
Despite the growing scientific acknowledgment of the complexity and nuance of the disease process and our own complicity within it , the biomedical establishment focuses most of its attention and resources on finding magic bullet cures for contagion rather than addressing the underlying drivers .
This is true despite the fact that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drugs and vaccines for emerging pathogens fast enough to save us from their toll .
As a 2018 Lancet study reported , developing a single vaccine “ can cost billions of dollars , can take over 10 years to complete , and has an average 94 % chance of failure.
” It took dedicated researchers more than a decade to develop effective therapies for AIDS , and to this day , there is no effective HIV vaccine .
Drugs and vaccines for a wide range of other newly emerged pathogens , from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , have proved similarly elusive.16 Even in the case of older pathogens , vaccines that provide full immunity and treatments that deliver us from illness are the exception , not the rule .
Smallpox is the only human pathogen that we ’ ve eradicated through a purposeful campaign of vaccination , yet it ravaged human populations for centuries before we succeeded .
The best treatment for influenza , a pathogen that annually infects a billion people , can do little more than reduce the duration of illness by a day or two .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ effort to research , develop , and distribute flu vaccines , they ’ re only partly effective , leaving some half a million people to perish every year.17 Nevertheless , six months into our current pandemic , hype and desperate anticipation surround the development of drugs and vaccines .
But with treatments and vaccines still months away , the fact is that we must face SARS-Cov-2—as well as the next coronavirus , influenza virus , or other novel pathogen—bereft of medical weaponry .
Our only hope to stave off the worst damage is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the pathogen to spread.18 It ’ s time for a new story , one that more accurately captures the reality of how contagions unfold and why .
In this story , pandemics would be cast as both a biological reality and a social phenomenon shaped by human agency .
And the coronavirus , if cast as any kind of monster at all , would be a Frankenstein ’ s monster : a creature of our own making .
We , after all , created the world in which SARS-Cov-2 evolved , one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so much of the planet that microbes from wild animals easily slip into livestock and humans .
We created the society of overcrowded prisons and nursing homes staffed by underpaid employees who must work in multiple facilities to make ends meet ; in which employers force their workers to labor on meatpacking lines even if they ’ re sick ; in which asylum seekers are crammed into detention centers ; and in which people living in hard-hit cities like Detroit lack access to clean water with which to wash their hands.19 A narrative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to consider a much wider range of policy responses to counter the threat of pandemics .
Instead of blaming outsiders and waiting for magic bullet cures , we could work to enhance our resilience and reduce the probability of pathogens reaching us in the first place .
Instead of reflexively demanding that killing chemicals be slathered across the landscape to destroy mosquitoes infected by the West Nile virus and ticks infected with Lyme disease bacteria , we could restore the lost biodiversity that once prevented their spread .
We could protect the forests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , SARS , and other viruses stay in them and don ’ t find their way into human populations.20 A new story would allow us to see contagion as more than a purely biomedical phenomenon to be managed by biomedical experts and , instead , as the dynamic social phenomena they are .
It would necessitate new alliances among public health advocates and environmentalists , between doctors , epidemiologists , wildlife biologists , anthropologists , economists , geographers , and veterinarians .
It would shift the meaning of human health itself .
Instead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absence of pathogenic contamination , we would understand it as a complex latticework linking the health of our livestock , wildlife , and ecosystems to the health of our communities.21 When pathogens emerge , we could scrutinize our social and economic relations to find ways to reduce transmission opportunities as attentively as we screen pharmaceutical compounds to create new pills and potions .
When we encounter respiratory pathogens that spread silently in crowded places , we could empower our workers with hazard pay , sick leave , and fair wages .
When faced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we could work to improve drainage and housing so that people aren ’ t regularly exposed to their bloodthirsty bites .
Rather than prop up a drug industry that profits from our sickness , we could work to prevent the conditions that lead to contagions.22 Progress toward this new paradigm has already begun , thanks to a new approach called One Health , which considers human health in the context of the health of wildlife , livestock , and ecosystems .
As a theoretical approach , One Health has been endorsed by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high-level agencies in public health and veterinary medicine .
It ’ s been operationalized , on a more limited basis , as well .
After a 2005 outbreak of avian influenza , USAID used it to launch the Predict program , which sought to identify viruses that could slip from animals into humans .
The New York City–based EcoHealth Alliance used a One Health approach to discover a reservoir of SARS virus in bats , opening up new ways to understand the coronaviruses that afflict humans .
And in the Netherlands , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in people , by addressing the use of antibiotics in livestock.23 These still-nascent efforts could go much further to address the social , political , and environmental phenomena that drive the emergence of infectious disease , but they are already under attack .
The Trump administration canceled the Predict program in 2019 and recently pulled EcoHealth Alliance ’ s government funding .
Still , there are signs that policymakers are awakening to the value of the approach .
Just last year , bipartisan legislation to establish a national One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disease outbreaks was introduced in Congress.24 We can write a new story for this pandemic and the next ones .
We must if we hope to survive a future punctuated by outbreaks .
In this new story , the microbial other will fade into the background , and the nature of our relationships to one another and the environment will claim the foreground .
Instead of being the passive victims of microbial invaders , we can emerge as the makers of our own destiny who can rebuild the postpandemic world anew.25

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.
This article appears in the July 27/August 3, 2020 issue.
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In the summer of 1832, a mysterious scourge that had come all the way from Asia loomed over the city of New York, having ravaged London, Paris, and Montreal. Medical officials collected data showing that the disease—cholera—was spreading along the newly opened Erie Canal and the Hudson River, heading straight to New York City. But New York’s leaders did not attempt to regulate traffic coming down the waterways.1
The demands of commerce were part of the reason; officials knew that shutting down the routes would have disrupted powerful commercial interests. But no less powerful was the belief that they didn’t need to. According to the reigning paradigm, contagions like cholera spread through clouds of smelly gas called miasmas. Cholera, one expert said at the time, was “an atmosphere disease…carried on the wings of the wind.” To protect themselves from these deadly gases, people burned barrels of tar and strung up large pieces of meat on poles, which they hoped would soak up the cholera vapors. In London they attempted to rid their homes of stinky miasmas by dumping human waste into the river, which also served as the city’s drinking water supply.2
The stories people told about the contagion in their midst sealed their fate. Outbreaks of cholera plagued London, New York, and many other cities for the better part of a century, killing millions of people.3
Paradigms—the obscure, unspoken conceptual frameworks that shape our ideas—are powerful. They bring order and understanding to our observations about the messy, changing world around us. Without them, the philosopher Thomas Kuhn said, scientific inquiry is impossible: We would not know which questions to ask or what facts to collect. But paradigms blind us, too, as during the cholera pandemics of the 19th century, elevating certain narratives and serving particular interests, often to our peril.4 Current Issue View our current issue
Today we once again face a virulent, fast-spreading pathogen. Our scientific understanding has advanced since the time of cholera, but it’s nonetheless constrained by paradigms that shape how we respond to this outbreak—and to future ones. It’s worth pausing, then, to unearth this hidden, explanatory framework lurking in the stories we tell about SARS-Cov2, the virus that causes Covid19. Which realities does it illuminate, and which does it obscure? Whose interests does it serve, and whose does it leave behind?5
In the case of Covid-19, the story we have told from the beginning has been one of a passive population suddenly attacked by a foreign being. The pandemic, in popular discourse, is an act of external aggression, an assault by an “invisible enemy” that “attacks people so savagely,” as one physician put it in The Baltimore Sun. In The New York Times, Steven Erlanger compared the virus to an act of terrorism or a natural disaster. The writer Michael Lind likened it to “an alien invasion.”6 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
In accordance with these martial metaphors, the response has been framed as a form of combat against an invasive intruder. France declared itself “at war” with the infection. China launched a “people’s war.” And Donald Trump hailed himself a “wartime president.” Nations grounded flights and closed borders. In the earliest weeks of the outbreak, when cruise ships full of sick passengers drew near, countries waved them away, their pleas for medicine, food, and care be damned.7
Outbreak: In the summer of 1832, cholera erupted in Lower Manhattan, killing nearly 3,000 people. (Poster: New York Historical Society via Wiki Commons)
While the scale of the response has been unprecedented, the ideas framing the outbreak emanate from an old paradigm about contagion. According to that paradigm, contagion is a problem of microbial invasion, a foreign incursion into domestic bodies to be repelled with military might. Consider the history of how the Western biomedical establishment has named contagions. For decades, they named them based on where they were discovered or first erupted when those places were distant but not when they were local. For example, Ebola was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the 1918 influenza was dubbed Spanish flu, although it didn’t originate in Spain. But HIV, whose emergence was first charted in California and New York in the 1980s, was not the “LA virus” or “NYC-1,” and the antibiotic-resistant MRSA infection, which exploded in Boston in 1968, is not known as “the Boston plague.” Infectious diseases were so often named in ways that emphasized their otherness and provoked stigma that the World Health Organization issued more-neutral naming guidelines in 2015.8
Our paradigm of microbial invasion has its origins in the dawn of germ theory in the late 19th century, when the chemist Louis Pasteur discovered the microbe responsible for causing a disease in silkworms and the microbiologist Robert Koch identified the microbe that causes anthrax. For centuries before then, Western medicine described contagions in terms of a dynamic interplay between miasmas (which were shaped by environmental conditions, such as the climate and the local geography) and the interior qualities of individuals (from their morals to the unique balance of “humours” in their bodies). Pasteur and Koch produced evidence that suggested a more tangible process: that disease was not the result of complex disequilibriums but an outcome of the simple presence of identifiable microbes.9
The germ theory of disease forged a whole new way of thinking about and acting against contagion. Instead of untangling the web of social relations, environmental factors, and human behaviors that promoted disease, scientists could blame a single microscopic speck. A disease’s movement could be arrested or even repelled entirely. It could be surgically excised or destroyed with killing chemicals, which early 20th century scientists labeled magic bullets. The multifarious process of infection was reduced to its simplest components: a naive victim, a foreign germ, an unwanted incursion.10
The paradigm of microbial invasion revolutionized medicine, allowing us to tame contagions in brand-new ways, with magic bullet antimicrobial drugs and effective vaccines. As disease historians have documented, these interventions alone did not tame cholera, malaria, and other contagions that plagued Western societies. But their arrival coincided with broad social changes, many pushed by the sanitary reform movement, that did. The establishment of clean water systems, sanitation, and safe housing regulations—all hard-won social reforms—dramatically reduced transmission opportunities for pathogens like cholera. The toll of infectious diseases plummeted. At the end of the 19th century, 30 percent of US deaths were caused by infection, and by the end of the 20th century, fewer than 4 percent were.11
Nevertheless, the paradigm of the invasive germ and its attendant interventions got nearly all the credit, becoming “the dominant force in Western medicine,” as one observer put it. Part of this may have been the genuine elegance of the theory. But the magic bullet cures it made possible also dovetailed with the logic of industrial capitalism, in which the divisions between us and them, the pure and the contaminated, were clear—and, just as crucially, could be managed through the buying and selling of biomedical commodities.12
Lab technicians research Covid-19 at Janssen Pharmaceutica, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary in Beerse, Belgium, in June. (Virginia Mayo / AP Photo)
Despite the seductive simplicity of the invading-germ paradigm, scientists began to realize almost immediately that contagion is far more complex than a simple process of incursion. With each advance in the science of microbial detection—from ever more powerful microscopes to new methods of detecting microbial DNA—scientists found evidence of ever more microbes lurking in ever more places, including inside the human body. Most of these microbes are beneficial, even necessary, researchers have learned in recent years. And when they cause harm, the problem often stems from the way our bodies respond to microbes, not the microbes’ actions themselves.13
The paradigm of invasion casts microbial pathogens as invisible enemies full of incipient violence, but more recent discoveries have revealed that even those responsible for deadly outbreaks can be strangely quiescent in certain environments. Helicobacter pylori, for example, causes gastric ulcers in some while lounging harmlessly inside the stomachs of others. Strains of Lactobacillus that lead to sepsis in some are popped by others as “probiotics.” Meanwhile, microbiologists have discovered that many pathogens live in the bodies of other animals by the fistful and cause them no problems whatsoever. Zooplankton encrusted with cholera bacteria, for instance, float unperturbed by their microscopic guests in warm coastal waters; wild waterfowl, teeming with influenza viruses, fly blithely through the skies; and bats, their tissues full of Ebola, flit unharmed through the nighttime air.14
All of which is to say that, contrary to the central plotline of the paradigm of invasion, today’s pathogens don’t arrive in untouched territory as invaders do. Rather, if there is any invasion underway at all, it is spearheaded by us. The majority of pathogens that have emerged since 1940 originated in the bodies of animals and entered human populations not because they invaded us but because we invaded their habitats. By encroaching on wetlands and cutting down forests, we’ve forced wild animals to crowd into ever smaller fragments of habitat, drawing them into intimate contact with human populations. It’s that proximity, which we force through our destruction of wildlife habitats, that allows many animal microbes to find their way into human bodies.15 More from Sonia Shah How Trump Is Going to Get Away With a Pandemic Sonia Shah Think Exotic Animals Are to Blame for the Coronavirus? Think Again. Sonia Shah
But the paradigm of microbial invasion obscures these inconvenient facts. Despite the growing scientific acknowledgment of the complexity and nuance of the disease process and our own complicity within it, the biomedical establishment focuses most of its attention and resources on finding magic bullet cures for contagion rather than addressing the underlying drivers. This is true despite the fact that we’ve rarely been able to develop drugs and vaccines for emerging pathogens fast enough to save us from their toll. As a 2018 Lancet study reported, developing a single vaccine “can cost billions of dollars, can take over 10 years to complete, and has an average 94% chance of failure.” It took dedicated researchers more than a decade to develop effective therapies for AIDS, and to this day, there is no effective HIV vaccine. Drugs and vaccines for a wide range of other newly emerged pathogens, from the West Nile virus to Ebola and MRSA, have proved similarly elusive.16
Even in the case of older pathogens, vaccines that provide full immunity and treatments that deliver us from illness are the exception, not the rule. Smallpox is the only human pathogen that we’ve eradicated through a purposeful campaign of vaccination, yet it ravaged human populations for centuries before we succeeded. The best treatment for influenza, a pathogen that annually infects a billion people, can do little more than reduce the duration of illness by a day or two. And despite a massive and expensive annual effort to research, develop, and distribute flu vaccines, they’re only partly effective, leaving some half a million people to perish every year.17
Nevertheless, six months into our current pandemic, hype and desperate anticipation surround the development of drugs and vaccines. But with treatments and vaccines still months away, the fact is that we must face SARS-Cov-2—as well as the next coronavirus, influenza virus, or other novel pathogen—bereft of medical weaponry. Our only hope to stave off the worst damage is to alter our behaviors to reduce opportunities for the pathogen to spread.18
The “war” on Covid-19: A National Guard member stops traffic in New Rochelle, N.Y., a hot spot for the novel coronavirus in early March. (John Moore / Getty Images)
It’s time for a new story, one that more accurately captures the reality of how contagions unfold and why. In this story, pandemics would be cast as both a biological reality and a social phenomenon shaped by human agency. And the coronavirus, if cast as any kind of monster at all, would be a Frankenstein’s monster: a creature of our own making. We, after all, created the world in which SARS-Cov-2 evolved, one in which our industry has swallowed up so much of the planet that microbes from wild animals easily slip into livestock and humans. We created the society of overcrowded prisons and nursing homes staffed by underpaid employees who must work in multiple facilities to make ends meet; in which employers force their workers to labor on meatpacking lines even if they’re sick; in which asylum seekers are crammed into detention centers; and in which people living in hard-hit cities like Detroit lack access to clean water with which to wash their hands.19
A narrative that elevates these realities would compel us to consider a much wider range of policy responses to counter the threat of pandemics. Instead of blaming outsiders and waiting for magic bullet cures, we could work to enhance our resilience and reduce the probability of pathogens reaching us in the first place. Instead of reflexively demanding that killing chemicals be slathered across the landscape to destroy mosquitoes infected by the West Nile virus and ticks infected with Lyme disease bacteria, we could restore the lost biodiversity that once prevented their spread. We could protect the forests where bats roost, so that Ebola, SARS, and other viruses stay in them and don’t find their way into human populations.20
A new story would allow us to see contagion as more than a purely biomedical phenomenon to be managed by biomedical experts and, instead, as the dynamic social phenomena they are. It would necessitate new alliances among public health advocates and environmentalists, between doctors, epidemiologists, wildlife biologists, anthropologists, economists, geographers, and veterinarians. It would shift the meaning of human health itself. Instead of thinking of good health as the absence of pathogenic contamination, we would understand it as a complex latticework linking the health of our livestock, wildlife, and ecosystems to the health of our communities.21
When pathogens emerge, we could scrutinize our social and economic relations to find ways to reduce transmission opportunities as attentively as we screen pharmaceutical compounds to create new pills and potions. When we encounter respiratory pathogens that spread silently in crowded places, we could empower our workers with hazard pay, sick leave, and fair wages. When faced with viruses ferried around by mosquitoes, we could work to improve drainage and housing so that people aren’t regularly exposed to their bloodthirsty bites. Rather than prop up a drug industry that profits from our sickness, we could work to prevent the conditions that lead to contagions.22
Progress toward this new paradigm has already begun, thanks to a new approach called One Health, which considers human health in the context of the health of wildlife, livestock, and ecosystems. As a theoretical approach, One Health has been endorsed by the WHO along with a wide range of high-level agencies in public health and veterinary medicine. It’s been operationalized, on a more limited basis, as well. After a 2005 outbreak of avian influenza, USAID used it to launch the Predict program, which sought to identify viruses that could slip from animals into humans. The New York City–based EcoHealth Alliance used a One Health approach to discover a reservoir of SARS virus in bats, opening up new ways to understand the coronaviruses that afflict humans. And in the Netherlands, it’s been used to tackle the spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in people, by addressing the use of antibiotics in livestock.23
These still-nascent efforts could go much further to address the social, political, and environmental phenomena that drive the emergence of infectious disease, but they are already under attack. The Trump administration canceled the Predict program in 2019 and recently pulled EcoHealth Alliance’s government funding. Still, there are signs that policymakers are awakening to the value of the approach. Just last year, bipartisan legislation to establish a national One Health framework to prevent and respond to disease outbreaks was introduced in Congress.24
We can write a new story for this pandemic and the next ones. We must if we hope to survive a future punctuated by outbreaks. In this new story, the microbial other will fade into the background, and the nature of our relationships to one another and the environment will claim the foreground. Instead of being the passive victims of microbial invaders, we can emerge as the makers of our own destiny who can rebuild the postpandemic world anew.25


thenation--2020-07-14--More Veterans in Congress Could Mean Fewer Wars

If you still follow the mainstream media , you ’ re probably part of the 38 percent of registered voters who knew something about the op-ed Senator Tom Cotton ( R-Ark . )
published in The New York Times early in June , exhorting the president to use the Insurrection Act to “ restore order to our streets.
” This was in response to what he called “ anarchy ” but others saw as peaceful Black Lives Matter protests .
And yet that op-ed was actually less incendiary than an earlier tweet of Cotton ’ s demanding “ no quarter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and looters ” or his Fox News call to send the 101st Airborne onto the streets of America .
Anger at the decision to run that op-ed exploded at the Times .
While there are certainly grounds for umbrage over giving Cotton ’ s screed such blue-chip journalistic real estate , the takeaway for me was that a senator and military veteran who had sworn to uphold the Constitution in both capacities was demanding that soldiers patrol American streets in that protest moment .
I shouldn ’ t have been surprised , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have met a fight he doesn ’ t relish .
Still , it got me thinking about what difference , if any , veterans make in Congress when it comes to whether ( and how ) the US military is sent into battle .
The answer matters now , as many veterans will be on the ballot in November , including the challenger to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell .
And veterans , we were told , are just what the doctor ordered .
Back in 2018 , in a Baltimore Sun @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Congress , retired four-star Army Gen. Wesley Clark wrote that because veterans “ know the same sense of duty , commitment to results , and the integrity and discipline they have been trained to live by , ” they are “ uniquely well-positioned to fix ” a broken Washington .
High on the list of brokens is American war-making , so I ’ d like to think that veteran-legislators , when in a position to do something about it , would use those qualities Clark extols to push Congress—and the White House—toward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bring with them the authority of having been there .
They know what it means to live with the consequences of congressional actions .
They know the costs of war , especially the senseless wars of this century .
And , increasingly , they ’ re fed up .
Yet Congress , including its veteran-members , has allowed the US military to stay mired in those conflicts , which continue largely off-stage as if propelled by some mysterious force everyone is powerless to stop .
What , then , has been the actual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on this country ’ s war policy ?
For the 21st century , remarkably enough , the simple answer is : not much .
It hasn ’ t always been this way , though , and could change again .
Predicting history in the making is a fool ’ s errand .
For much of our history , a stint in the military , preferably as an officer , was a useful , even necessary , starting point for a political career .
Mitch McConnell , for instance , has acknowledged that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ career because “ it was smart politically.
” ( He lasted five weeks before being discharged for an eye condition and possibly thanks to political pull . )
In the military , young men , and more recently young women , practiced leadership skills , engaged in public service , made common cause with people of different backgrounds , and burnished their patriotic résumés , all of which was assumed to prepare them well for political life .
That ’ s changed in recent years as the number of veterans in Congress has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be coming as increasing numbers of Americans who fought the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan run for office , while the opinions of veterans more generally have taken a distinctly negative turn on America ’ s forever wars .
While voters don ’ t elect veterans just because they ’ re veterans , polls consistently find that the public has more confidence in the military than in any other American institution .
Not everyone who ’ s been in that military thinks the same way , of course , and veteran status @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s point of view .
But a military usually has a powerful influence on its members , shaping their political , social , and decision-making attitudes and their ideas about the use of force as a means of achieving foreign-policy goals .
Or so argue political scientists Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi who , in their influential book Choosing Your Battles , examined the impact of military experience on this country ’ s use of force abroad between 1816 and 1992 , finding that it made a difference , sometimes a profound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the proportion of veterans in the federal legislative and executive branches—what they termed “ the policymaking elite ” —the less likely the United States was to initiate wars of aggression .
This “ veteran effect , ” however , was anything but straightforward .
While civilian elites were more likely to go to war for ideological , imperial , or moral imperatives , military elites leaned more toward pragmatism and a clearer examination of the situation on the ground as reasons for sending the military into battle .
Both groups , however , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States goes to war only when provoked ( never by being provocative ) .
Moreover , the authors found that , once a war started , the more veterans in leadership roles , the bloodier and longer the use of force , while civilian elites were more willing to place constraints on how the military was used .
No surprise there : No military likes civilians telling it how to fight “ its ” wars , a tension that has appeared in the conflicts launched or supported by every recent administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the research only gets more intriguing .
An international study demonstrated that as the number of women in a national legislature increases , countries are more likely to intervene militarily for humanitarian reasons , but not for other ones .
Research also has confirmed that American presidents raised in the South have been twice as likely as other presidents to use force in international conflicts , were less likely to back down militarily , and were more likely to win .
These days , the American public apparently doesn ’ t care much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Not counting George W. Bush ’ s questionable turn in the Texas National Guard , the last executive who did active military service was Vice President Al Gore .
The last two presidential candidates who were veterans—John Kerry and John McCain—lost to civilians , and of the four veterans who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination this year , only Pete Buttigieg got any traction through referring to his military experience ( often ) .
For the record , Joe Biden , whose two sons enlisted , avoided the draft via student deferments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who appointed more recent active-duty military officers to senior policy positions than at any time since World War II—before he fired most of them—sidestepped military service with the world ’ s most famous bone spurs .
While the president as commander in chief is empowered to determine how wars are conducted , the Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress , which has made a formal declaration in only five wars throughout American history .
At the end of the ( never formally declared ) Vietnam War , heated debate over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ troops led to the passage of the War Powers Act of 1973 .
Theoretically , it restricts a president from launching a military excursion abroad without informing Congress and getting congressional consent within 60 days .
In this century , however , presidents have easily skirted such limitations .
( Examples : Barack Obama in his Libyan intervention , Donald Trump in his bombing of Syria . )
Meanwhile , Congress itself has funded any number of congressionally undeclared wars since 1973 .
In this century , with that all-important power to fund @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The current Pentagon budget , at almost $ 730 billion , is about 13 times the State Department ’ s , an indication of what ’ s truly central ( and not ) to US foreign policy .
Such budgets are authorized by the Armed Services Committees of both houses of Congress .
At the moment , veterans make up more than half of the Senate ’ s committee and more than one-third of the House ’ s .
Still , it ’ s tricky to judge the role and effect of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes to influencing American war-making policies , since there are so relatively few of them .
Their number has been in decline since the early 1970s , when nearly three-quarters of congressional representatives had been in the military , usually in combat .
Now , that number is 17 percent : 17 veterans in the Senate ( excluding five-week McConnell ) and 75 in the House ( including the nonvoting delegate from the Northern Mariana Islands ) .
They come from 39 states , about two-thirds of them are Republicans , nearly all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seven are women , and fewer than half were in combat .
Small as their percentage may be , it ’ s still about twice that of veterans in the general population .
In a phone interview last month , Dan Caldwell , former executive director of Concerned Veterans for America , a Koch-affiliated advocacy group , maintained that while military service informs politicians ’ views of war , it ’ s not a good indicator of their stance on foreign policy .
I ’ ve thought that a better test might be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ votes existed in recent years .
Unfortunately , they ’ ve been rare indeed .
On September 18 , 2001 , Congress overwhelmingly approved an authorization for the use of military force , or AUMF , against those the president might determine responsible for the 9/11 attacks , which turned out to mean an invasion of , and never-ending war in , Afghanistan .
( Never mind that most of the hijackers who carried out the attacks that day were Saudis . )
Everyone in Congress voted for that AUMF except the prescient @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who had never served in the military and was concerned that the resolution would offer a blank check for limitless war , just as it proved to do .
The vote in October 2002 for a second AUMF , this one functionally preparing the way for George W. Bush ’ s invasion of Iraq the following spring , was at least modestly more controversial , passing the Senate by a vote of 77 to 23 .
Of the 38 then-senators who were veterans , 31 supported it .
According to the Congressional Research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ invoked ever since to cover at least 41 military actions across significant parts of the Greater Middle East , Africa , and elsewhere .
The United States military has not won a sustained peace , nor achieved any of its long-term goals , through a single one of those conflicts .
Tracking congressional action on AUMFs , troop levels , arms sales , and escalating tensions in Afghanistan , Iraq , Iran , Libya , Niger , Pakistan , Somalia , Syria , Yemen , and other countries in Africa and elsewhere requires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress has hardly had in these years .
( Remember when members of the Senate were stunned to discover that this country even had troops in Niger after four of them died in a clash with a terror group there ? )
In the Trump years , Congress has seemed to grow more active on the subject of America ’ s global conflicts , mainly when annoyed at being openly and insultingly bypassed or slighted—for example , when the administration glossed over the murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t alert Congress before the president ordered the assassination of Iranian Major General Qassim Suleimani in a drone strike early this year .
In April 2019 , in a rare bipartisan rebuke to Trump , both houses of Congress invoked the War Powers Act to end US support for the Saudi military and involvement in the ongoing war in Yemen .
The president , however , vetoed the resolution , and a Republican-controlled Senate failed to override him .
As it turned out , none of that really mattered , since Secretary of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Arms Export Control Act to allow American companies to sell $ 8.1 billion in arms primarily to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen .
According to The New York Times , Congress has never successfully blocked an arms sale , but that didn ’ t keep it from trying again that July , sometimes with veteran-members like Ted Lieu ( D-Calif. ) in the lead .
That resolution was vetoed , too .
Steve Linick , until May the inspector general at the State Department , was said to be investigating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him , reportedly at Pompeo ’ s urging .
On these and other issues of war , nearly all the veterans in Congress simply voted with their party .
Yet , in the future , questions of how long to continue this country ’ s never-ending wars have the potential to forge unexpected alliances among them .
That could be true even if they arrive at the same position for different reasons , as I discovered in conversations with some independent-minded veterans .
For instance , Warren Davidson , a West Point graduate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ congressman from a solidly Republican district in Ohio , is one of the few veterans who , contrary to his party , voted consistently in 2019 to end US association with the war in Yemen .
He also took a stand this year against a future war with Iran .
To understand his reasoning , you need to look at his personal history .
He retired from the Army in 2000 , in part , he told me , because the lack of a coherent strategy in Kosovo , along with Congress ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there , seemed all wrong to him .
He cited costly and , to his mind , unnecessary projects , while the troops sent to fight that incursion went in ill-prepared .
“ I was like , can ’ t we just focus on what the military exists for ?
Which is fighting wars.
” Almost two decades later , a war he ’ s definitely done supporting is the one that started with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and continues without , as far as he ’ s concerned , either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I don ’ t know if we ’ re going to eventually vote on Afghani statehood , ” he jokes to me , before turning serious and adding , “ If we ’ re not going to leave , what are we still doing there ?
” I talked as well to Will Goodwin , director of government relations at VoteVets , a political action committee for progressive veteran-candidates who believes that “ there ’ s near universal agreement that the executive branch has far exceeded the intent of the 2002 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frustration , nothing changes .
Last year , VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America joined in a startling alliance across the right-left divide in veteran politics to push for a rethinking of Washington ’ s foreign and military policies , beginning with the removal of all US troops from Afghanistan and Syria .
Echoing the findings of scholars Feaver and Gelpi , Concerned Vets argues on its website for a new realism and restraint in deploying American military power globally and concludes , “ As the greatest nation in the world , America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Goodwin and Caldwell each cite a recent Concerned Vets national poll that found 57 percent of veterans believe this country should be less militarily engaged in conflicts around the world .
For a while now , majorities of them have felt that neither the Afghan nor Iraq wars were worth fighting .
Among such vets , “ interventionist ” and “ restrained ” may be replacing “ hawk ” and “ dove ” as the terms du jour , but Caldwell agrees when I suggest that Congress—including many of its veteran-members—is now generally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it as the veteran conundrum .
While a voting record tells us something , it can be a reductive way of assessing a politician ’ s thinking .
It doesn ’ t allow for the long ( or , in the case of America ’ s wars , even longer ) game .
Much of the reluctance of veteran-politicians to buck their parties on war-making arises from the increasingly divisive partisan politics of this country .
Republican politicians , in particular , may fear that an anti-war vote could come back to haunt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have loyalties to military contractors who support their campaigns or do business in their districts .
For all that , it ’ s hard not to add lack of courage to the mix—not exactly the greatest compliment you can pay a military veteran .
Coming to terms with the role of war in foreign policy requires serious and sustained attention to a subject many politicians and voters have shown themselves eager to ignore for years now .
The reasons for the current state of perpetual war are complex , but they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use their capacity for leadership , Congress could take on its true constitutional responsibility as the custodian of war—and peace—and life in this country could change accordingly .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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If you still follow the mainstream media, you’re probably part of the 38 percent of registered voters who knew something about the op-ed Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) published in The New York Times early in June, exhorting the president to use the Insurrection Act to “restore order to our streets.” This was in response to what he called “anarchy” but others saw as peaceful Black Lives Matter protests. And yet that op-ed was actually less incendiary than an earlier tweet of Cotton’s demanding “no quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters” or his Fox News call to send the 101st Airborne onto the streets of America.
Well!
Anger at the decision to run that op-ed exploded at the Times. While there are certainly grounds for umbrage over giving Cotton’s screed such blue-chip journalistic real estate, the takeaway for me was that a senator and military veteran who had sworn to uphold the Constitution in both capacities was demanding that soldiers patrol American streets in that protest moment. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose. Cotton doesn’t seem to have met a fight he doesn’t relish. Still, it got me thinking about what difference, if any, veterans make in Congress when it comes to whether (and how) the US military is sent into battle.
The answer matters now, as many veterans will be on the ballot in November, including the challenger to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. And veterans, we were told, are just what the doctor ordered. Back in 2018, in a Baltimore Sun op-ed promoting the idea of veterans running for Congress, retired four-star Army Gen. Wesley Clark wrote that because veterans “know the same sense of duty, commitment to results, and the integrity and discipline they have been trained to live by,” they are “uniquely well-positioned to fix” a broken Washington.
High on the list of brokens is American war-making, so I’d like to think that veteran-legislators, when in a position to do something about it, would use those qualities Clark extols to push Congress—and the White House—toward a less belligerent foreign policy. Veterans bring with them the authority of having been there. They know what it means to live with the consequences of congressional actions. They know the costs of war, especially the senseless wars of this century. And, increasingly, they’re fed up. Yet Congress, including its veteran-members, has allowed the US military to stay mired in those conflicts, which continue largely off-stage as if propelled by some mysterious force everyone is powerless to stop.
What, then, has been the actual influence of the veterans now in Congress on this country’s war policy? For the 21st century, remarkably enough, the simple answer is: not much. It hasn’t always been this way, though, and could change again. Predicting history in the making is a fool’s errand. 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 Veteran Effect
For much of our history, a stint in the military, preferably as an officer, was a useful, even necessary, starting point for a political career. Mitch McConnell, for instance, has acknowledged that he joined the Army Reserve early in his career because “it was smart politically.” (He lasted five weeks before being discharged for an eye condition and possibly thanks to political pull.) Current Issue View our current issue
In the military, young men, and more recently young women, practiced leadership skills, engaged in public service, made common cause with people of different backgrounds, and burnished their patriotic résumés, all of which was assumed to prepare them well for political life. That’s changed in recent years as the number of veterans in Congress has fallen significantly, but a change back may be coming as increasing numbers of Americans who fought the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan run for office, while the opinions of veterans more generally have taken a distinctly negative turn on America’s forever wars.
While voters don’t elect veterans just because they’re veterans, polls consistently find that the public has more confidence in the military than in any other American institution. Not everyone who’s been in that military thinks the same way, of course, and veteran status is but one determinant in a politician’s point of view. But a military usually has a powerful influence on its members, shaping their political, social, and decision-making attitudes and their ideas about the use of force as a means of achieving foreign-policy goals. Or so argue political scientists Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi who, in their influential book Choosing Your Battles, examined the impact of military experience on this country’s use of force abroad between 1816 and 1992, finding that it made a difference, sometimes a profound one. They concluded that the greater the proportion of veterans in the federal legislative and executive branches—what they termed “the policymaking elite”—the less likely the United States was to initiate wars of aggression. This “veteran effect,” however, was anything but straightforward. While civilian elites were more likely to go to war for ideological, imperial, or moral imperatives, military elites leaned more toward pragmatism and a clearer examination of the situation on the ground as reasons for sending the military into battle.
Both groups, however, were convinced that force works and that the United States goes to war only when provoked (never by being provocative). Moreover, the authors found that, once a war started, the more veterans in leadership roles, the bloodier and longer the use of force, while civilian elites were more willing to place constraints on how the military was used. No surprise there: No military likes civilians telling it how to fight “its” wars, a tension that has appeared in the conflicts launched or supported by every recent administration.
Bear with me now, because the research only gets more intriguing. An international study demonstrated that as the number of women in a national legislature increases, countries are more likely to intervene militarily for humanitarian reasons, but not for other ones. Research also has confirmed that American presidents raised in the South have been twice as likely as other presidents to use force in international conflicts, were less likely to back down militarily, and were more likely to win.
These days, the American public apparently doesn’t care much about veterans in the White House. Not counting George W. Bush’s questionable turn in the Texas National Guard, the last executive who did active military service was Vice President Al Gore. The last two presidential candidates who were veterans—John Kerry and John McCain—lost to civilians, and of the four veterans who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination this year, only Pete Buttigieg got any traction through referring to his military experience (often). For the record, Joe Biden, whose two sons enlisted, avoided the draft via student deferments and asthma, while Donald Trump, who appointed more recent active-duty military officers to senior policy positions than at any time since World War II—before he fired most of them—sidestepped military service with the world’s most famous bone spurs.
Authorizing War
While the president as commander in chief is empowered to determine how wars are conducted, the Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, which has made a formal declaration in only five wars throughout American history. At the end of the (never formally declared) Vietnam War, heated debate over the president’s role in deploying troops led to the passage of the War Powers Act of 1973. Theoretically, it restricts a president from launching a military excursion abroad without informing Congress and getting congressional consent within 60 days. In this century, however, presidents have easily skirted such limitations. (Examples: Barack Obama in his Libyan intervention, Donald Trump in his bombing of Syria.) Meanwhile, Congress itself has funded any number of congressionally undeclared wars since 1973.
In this century, with that all-important power to fund wars, Congress has acted lavishly indeed. The current Pentagon budget, at almost $730 billion, is about 13 times the State Department’s, an indication of what’s truly central (and not) to US foreign policy. Such budgets are authorized by the Armed Services Committees of both houses of Congress. At the moment, veterans make up more than half of the Senate’s committee and more than one-third of the House’s.
Still, it’s tricky to judge the role and effect of the post-9/11 crop of veteran-legislators when it comes to influencing American war-making policies, since there are so relatively few of them. Their number has been in decline since the early 1970s, when nearly three-quarters of congressional representatives had been in the military, usually in combat. Now, that number is 17 percent: 17 veterans in the Senate (excluding five-week McConnell) and 75 in the House (including the nonvoting delegate from the Northern Mariana Islands). They come from 39 states, about two-thirds of them are Republicans, nearly all are white, most were officers, seven are women, and fewer than half were in combat. Small as their percentage may be, it’s still about twice that of veterans in the general population.
In a phone interview last month, Dan Caldwell, former executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, a Koch-affiliated advocacy group, maintained that while military service informs politicians’ views of war, it’s not a good indicator of their stance on foreign policy. I’ve thought that a better test might be voting patterns on authorizing war—if only such votes existed in recent years. Unfortunately, they’ve been rare indeed.
On September 18, 2001, Congress overwhelmingly approved an authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, against those the president might determine responsible for the 9/11 attacks, which turned out to mean an invasion of, and never-ending war in, Afghanistan. (Never mind that most of the hijackers who carried out the attacks that day were Saudis.) Everyone in Congress voted for that AUMF except the prescient Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who had never served in the military and was concerned that the resolution would offer a blank check for limitless war, just as it proved to do.
The vote in October 2002 for a second AUMF, this one functionally preparing the way for George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq the following spring, was at least modestly more controversial, passing the Senate by a vote of 77 to 23. Of the 38 then-senators who were veterans, 31 supported it. According to the Congressional Research Service, those two authorizations have been invoked ever since to cover at least 41 military actions across significant parts of the Greater Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere. The United States military has not won a sustained peace, nor achieved any of its long-term goals, through a single one of those conflicts.
Tracking congressional action on AUMFs, troop levels, arms sales, and escalating tensions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Niger, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and other countries in Africa and elsewhere requires a finely tuned political GPS, which Congress has hardly had in these years. (Remember when members of the Senate were stunned to discover that this country even had troops in Niger after four of them died in a clash with a terror group there?) In the Trump years, Congress has seemed to grow more active on the subject of America’s global conflicts, mainly when annoyed at being openly and insultingly bypassed or slighted—for example, when the administration glossed over the murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 or when it didn’t alert Congress before the president ordered the assassination of Iranian Major General Qassim Suleimani in a drone strike early this year.
In April 2019, in a rare bipartisan rebuke to Trump, both houses of Congress invoked the War Powers Act to end US support for the Saudi military and involvement in the ongoing war in Yemen. The president, however, vetoed the resolution, and a Republican-controlled Senate failed to override him. As it turned out, none of that really mattered, since Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used an emergency provision in the Arms Export Control Act to allow American companies to sell $8.1 billion in arms primarily to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. According to The New York Times, Congress has never successfully blocked an arms sale, but that didn’t keep it from trying again that July, sometimes with veteran-members like Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) in the lead. That resolution was vetoed, too. Steve Linick, until May the inspector general at the State Department, was said to be investigating that huge arms sale when Trump fired him, reportedly at Pompeo’s urging.
Strange Bedfellows
On these and other issues of war, nearly all the veterans in Congress simply voted with their party. Yet, in the future, questions of how long to continue this country’s never-ending wars have the potential to forge unexpected alliances among them. That could be true even if they arrive at the same position for different reasons, as I discovered in conversations with some independent-minded veterans.
For instance, Warren Davidson, a West Point graduate, former Army ranger, and the congressman from a solidly Republican district in Ohio, is one of the few veterans who, contrary to his party, voted consistently in 2019 to end US association with the war in Yemen. He also took a stand this year against a future war with Iran. To understand his reasoning, you need to look at his personal history. He retired from the Army in 2000, in part, he told me, because the lack of a coherent strategy in Kosovo, along with Congress’s refusal to vote on US involvement there, seemed all wrong to him. He cited costly and, to his mind, unnecessary projects, while the troops sent to fight that incursion went in ill-prepared. “I was like, can’t we just focus on what the military exists for? Which is fighting wars.”
Almost two decades later, a war he’s definitely done supporting is the one that started with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and continues without, as far as he’s concerned, either resolution or a strategy to end it. “I don’t know if we’re going to eventually vote on Afghani statehood,” he jokes to me, before turning serious and adding, “If we’re not going to leave, what are we still doing there?”
I talked as well to Will Goodwin, director of government relations at VoteVets, a political action committee for progressive veteran-candidates who believes that “there’s near universal agreement that the executive branch has far exceeded the intent of the 2002 AUMF.” Yet, to our shared frustration, nothing changes. Last year, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America joined in a startling alliance across the right-left divide in veteran politics to push for a rethinking of Washington’s foreign and military policies, beginning with the removal of all US troops from Afghanistan and Syria. Echoing the findings of scholars Feaver and Gelpi, Concerned Vets argues on its website for a new realism and restraint in deploying American military power globally and concludes, “As the greatest nation in the world, America shouldn’t fight endless wars.”
Goodwin and Caldwell each cite a recent Concerned Vets national poll that found 57 percent of veterans believe this country should be less militarily engaged in conflicts around the world. For a while now, majorities of them have felt that neither the Afghan nor Iraq wars were worth fighting. Among such vets, “interventionist” and “restrained” may be replacing “hawk” and “dove” as the terms du jour, but Caldwell agrees when I suggest that Congress—including many of its veteran-members—is now generally out-hawking the US military. Think of it as the veteran conundrum.
While a voting record tells us something, it can be a reductive way of assessing a politician’s thinking. It doesn’t allow for the long (or, in the case of America’s wars, even longer) game. Much of the reluctance of veteran-politicians to buck their parties on war-making arises from the increasingly divisive partisan politics of this country. Republican politicians, in particular, may fear that an anti-war vote could come back to haunt them, and representatives in both parties have loyalties to military contractors who support their campaigns or do business in their districts.
For all that, it’s hard not to add lack of courage to the mix—not exactly the greatest compliment you can pay a military veteran. Coming to terms with the role of war in foreign policy requires serious and sustained attention to a subject many politicians and voters have shown themselves eager to ignore for years now. The reasons for the current state of perpetual war are complex, but they’re not inexplicable. If veteran-legislators were to use their capacity for leadership, Congress could take on its true constitutional responsibility as the custodian of war—and peace—and life in this country could change accordingly.


thenation--2020-07-14--America Is Headed Off a Cliff

America Is Headed Off a Cliff

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thenation--2020-07-14--Ayanna Pressley to Betsy DeVos: ‘I Wouldn’t Trust You to Care for a House Plant Let Alone My Child’

There could not be a worse time in history for Betsy DeVos to serve as this country ’ s secretary of education .
It is not merely that the billionaire campaign donor has spent decades working to subvert public education ; it ’ s that she refuses to recognize—or care about—the fact that her boss is far more concerned about his own reelection prospects than the health and safety of students and their families , teachers , and other school employees at a point when the United States is experiencing another Covid-19 surge .
President Trump is obsessed with reopening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was obsessed with opening businesses in the spring—because he thinks that doing so will create a sense of normalcy in the midst of the health care crisis that he has woefully mismanaged and the economic meltdown that has extended from it .
Trailing in the polls , the president is determined to rush children back to school and get workers back to their offices , warehouses , and factories , in order to foster the fantasy that he has led the country out of the mess he made and now merits a second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ THE FALL !
!
!
” screams Trump ’ s Twitter feed , where he has played politics with people ’ s lives since the pandemic began .
“ The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election , but is important for the children & families .
May cut off funding if not open !
” In fact , Democrats and rational Republicans have for months been struggling to figure out when and how it might be safe to reopen schools .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represent teachers and advocate for public education .
What they are saying is that any reopening must be done right .
What Trump is saying confirms that he does not care if it ’ s done wrong .
The president is attacking Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that are essential to a safe and functional reopening of the schools ; he ’ s threatening to withhold resources that are desperately needed to maintain public education—be it in-person or virtual—and he ’ s turning a debate that should be grounded in science @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Their goal isn ’ t safety , it ’ s politics , ” warned American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten , who urges students , parents , and teachers to listen carefully to what Trump and his education secretary are saying about reopening .
“ Are they putting the safety of kids or educators first ?
No , ” she argues .
“ Do they have a plan to actually reopen schools or resources for it ?
No.
” The president is literally retweeting game show host Chuck Woolery ’ s paranoid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lies are the ones about Covid 19 .
Everyone is lying .
The CDC , Media , Democrats , our Doctors , not all but most , that we are told to trust .
I think it ’ s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back , which is about the election .
I ’ m sick of it.
” There ’ s a political sickness in this administration .
And DeVos is spreading it .
The longtime critic of public education heads an agency that claims its mission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students ” by “ disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning , and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.
” Instead of leading , however , she is amplifying the anti-scientific claptrap that passes for Trump ’ s strategy for reopening schools .
Disregarding and disrespecting CDC guidelines— “ Lowest Risk : Faculty and students engage in virtual-only learning options , activities , and events.… Highest Risk : Full-sized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Students are not spaced apart , share classroom materials or supplies , and mix between classes and activities ” —DeVos rushes in to announce : “ There is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them.
” Educators and public-health experts , she says , are just “ fearmongering and making excuses.
” “ Kids need to be in school .
They need to be learning , they need to be moving ahead .
And we can ’ t—we can not be paralyzed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intent on that happening , ” says DeVos , who casually suggests , “ Where there are little flare-ups or hotspots , that can be dealt with on a school-by-school or a case-by-case basis.
” In an interview last week with Fox News host Tucker Carlson , DeVos echoed Trump ’ s threats about withholding funds from schools that fail to start full-time , in-person instruction in September .
“ We are looking at this very seriously , ” she said .
“ This is a very serious issue across the country.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appearance on Fox , where she told Chris Wallace , “ American investment and education is a promise to students and their families .
If schools aren ’ t going to reopen and not fulfill that promise , they shouldn ’ t get the funds .
Then give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise.
” That was DeVos returning to one of her favorite themes : taking money that ’ s intended for public education and , instead , using it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the move towards privatization , ” said Jamaal Bowman , the public school principal who was recently nominated for a House seat in New York .
“ It ’ s driven by market-based ideology and the so-called , quote-unquote ‘ choice movement.
’ So when we talk about vouchers and money moving with kids at the whim of the parents , that ’ s what we ’ re talking about .
And it ’ s an example of disaster capitalism within the public education sector.
” Former secretary of labor Robert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t let DeVos use the pandemic to privatize education.
” Representative Ayanna Pressley was blunter .
The Massachusetts Democrat jumped on social media to tell DeVos , “ [ Y ] ou have no plan.
” Pressley spoke to the secretary of education in language that parents across the country will understand : “ Teachers , kids and parents are fearing for their lives .
You point to a private sector that has put profits over people and claimed the lives of thousands of essential workers .
I wouldn ’ t trust you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alone my child .
”

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There could not be a worse time in history for Betsy DeVos to serve as this country’s secretary of education. It is not merely that the billionaire campaign donor has spent decades working to subvert public education; it’s that she refuses to recognize—or care about—the fact that her boss is far more concerned about his own reelection prospects than the health and safety of students and their families, teachers, and other school employees at a point when the United States is experiencing another Covid-19 surge.
President Trump is obsessed with reopening public schools in the fall—just as he was obsessed with opening businesses in the spring—because he thinks that doing so will create a sense of normalcy in the midst of the health care crisis that he has woefully mismanaged and the economic meltdown that has extended from it. Trailing in the polls, the president is determined to rush children back to school and get workers back to their offices, warehouses, and factories, in order to foster the fantasy that he has led the country out of the mess he made and now merits a second term. “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!” screams Trump’s Twitter feed, where he has played politics with people’s lives since the pandemic began. “The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!”
In fact, Democrats and rational Republicans have for months been struggling to figure out when and how it might be safe to reopen schools. So, too, have the unions that represent teachers and advocate for public education. What they are saying is that any reopening must be done right. What Trump is saying confirms that he does not care if it’s done wrong.
The president is attacking Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that are essential to a safe and functional reopening of the schools; he’s threatening to withhold resources that are desperately needed to maintain public education—be it in-person or virtual—and he’s turning a debate that should be grounded in science into a political food fight. “Their goal isn’t safety, it’s politics,” warned American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who urges students, parents, and teachers to listen carefully to what Trump and his education secretary are saying about reopening. “Are they putting the safety of kids or educators first? No,” she argues. “Do they have a plan to actually reopen schools or resources for it? No.” 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 president is literally retweeting game show host Chuck Woolery’s paranoid rants about how “the most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.”
There’s a political sickness in this administration. And DeVos is spreading it. The longtime critic of public education heads an agency that claims its mission is to “play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students” by “disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning, and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.” Instead of leading, however, she is amplifying the anti-scientific claptrap that passes for Trump’s strategy for reopening schools.
Disregarding and disrespecting CDC guidelines—“Lowest Risk: Faculty and students engage in virtual-only learning options, activities, and events.… Highest Risk: Full-sized in-person classes, activities, and events. Students are not spaced apart, share classroom materials or supplies, and mix between classes and activities”—DeVos rushes in to announce: “There is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them.” Educators and public-health experts, she says, are just “fearmongering and making excuses.” Current Issue View our current issue
“Kids need to be in school. They need to be learning, they need to be moving ahead. And we can’t—we cannot be paralyzed and not allow that or not be intent on that happening,” says DeVos, who casually suggests, “Where there are little flare-ups or hotspots, that can be dealt with on a school-by-school or a case-by-case basis.” In an interview last week with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, DeVos echoed Trump’s threats about withholding funds from schools that fail to start full-time, in-person instruction in September. “We are looking at this very seriously,” she said. “This is a very serious issue across the country.”
She was even more outspoken in another appearance on Fox, where she told Chris Wallace, “American investment and education is a promise to students and their families. If schools aren’t going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn’t get the funds. Then give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise.”
That was DeVos returning to one of her favorite themes: taking money that’s intended for public education and, instead, using it to fund private schools.
“It’s the move towards privatization,” said Jamaal Bowman, the public school principal who was recently nominated for a House seat in New York. “It’s driven by market-based ideology and the so-called, quote-unquote ‘choice movement.’ So when we talk about vouchers and money moving with kids at the whim of the parents, that’s what we’re talking about. And it’s an example of disaster capitalism within the public education sector.”
Former secretary of labor Robert Reich was blunt: “Don’t let DeVos use the pandemic to privatize education.”
Representative Ayanna Pressley was blunter. The Massachusetts Democrat jumped on social media to tell DeVos, “[Y]ou have no plan.”
Pressley spoke to the secretary of education in language that parents across the country will understand: “Teachers, kids and parents are fearing for their lives. You point to a private sector that has put profits over people and claimed the lives of thousands of essential workers. I wouldn’t trust you to care for a house plant let alone my child.”


thenation--2020-07-14--The Beginning of the End for Ever-Rising Pentagon Budgets

When Congress returns to work , progressives in the House and Senate will launch the first round of what will be a central debate in the coming years : challenging ever-rising Pentagon budgets .
After years of virtually reflexive bipartisan support for shoveling more money at the military , progressives , led by Senators Bernie Sanders ( I-Vt. ) , Edward J. Markey ( D-Mass . )
, and Elizabeth Warren ( D-Mass . )
, as well as Representatives Barbara Lee ( D-Calif. ) and Mark Pocan ( D-Wis. ) , will push for a 10 percent cut in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The $ 74 billion in savings would instead be used for distressed communities ’ vital needs .
The president , of course , has boasted about the money he has shoveled to the Pentagon , delighting particularly in the baroque weapons he calls “ incredible equipment ” and a new “ super duper missile.
” Democrats have largely gone along , pushing only for a bit larger piece of the pie for domestic purposes .
The Sanders-Lee-Pocan amendment marks the end of that dance .
As Sanders summarized , “ It is time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the midst of the worst public health crisis in over 100 years and the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression , we do not need to authorize $ 740.5 billion in bombs , weapons , fighter jets and endless wars.
” Just as in most states and localities , spending on police and prisons outweighs what the Rev .
Martin Luther King Jr. described as “ programs of social uplift , ” so the Pentagon ’ s bloated budget consumes an ever-increasing portion of federal discretionary spending .
The Defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Energy Department ’ s nuclear budget now comprise more than half of the national discretionary budget .
Last year ’ s $ 732 billion in defense spending exceeded the next 10 largest defense budgets—including China and Russia—combined .
Read the full text of Katrina ’ s column here .

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
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When Congress returns to work, progressives in the House and Senate will launch the first round of what will be a central debate in the coming years: challenging ever-rising Pentagon budgets. After years of virtually reflexive bipartisan support for shoveling more money at the military, progressives, led by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), as well as Representatives Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), will push for a 10 percent cut in the Pentagon’s top-line budget. The $74 billion in savings would instead be used for distressed communities’ vital needs.
The president, of course, has boasted about the money he has shoveled to the Pentagon, delighting particularly in the baroque weapons he calls “incredible equipment” and a new “super duper missile.” Democrats have largely gone along, pushing only for a bit larger piece of the pie for domestic purposes. The Sanders-Lee-Pocan amendment marks the end of that dance. As Sanders summarized, “It is time to fundamentally change our national priorities. In the midst of the worst public health crisis in over 100 years and the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, we do not need to authorize $740.5 billion in bombs, weapons, fighter jets and endless wars.”
Just as in most states and localities, spending on police and prisons outweighs what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described as “programs of social uplift,” so the Pentagon’s bloated budget consumes an ever-increasing portion of federal discretionary spending. The Defense Department and related appropriations such as the Energy Department’s nuclear budget now comprise more than half of the national discretionary budget. Last year’s $732 billion in defense spending exceeded the next 10 largest defense budgets—including China and Russia—combined.
Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.