thenation--2020-05-01--Trump’s Pandemic Response Signals That American Lives Are More Disposable Than Ever

“ Be assured of one thing : whichever candidate you choose at the polls in November , you aren ’ t just electing a president of the United States ; you are also electing an assassin-in-chief.
” So I wrote back in June 2012 , with a presidential election approaching .
I was referring then to the war on terror ’ s CIA and military drone assassination programs , which first revved up in parts of the Greater Middle East in the years of George W. Bush ’ s presidency and only spread thereafter .
In the process , such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I wrote at the time , “ thoroughly institutionalized , normalized , and bureaucratized around the figure of the president.
” In Barack Obama ’ s years in the Oval Office , they were ramped up further as he joined White House “ Terror Tuesday ” meetings to choose individual targets for those attacks .
They often enough turned out to involve “ collateral damage ; ” that is , the deaths of innocent civilians , including children .
In other words , “ commander-in-chief ” had , by then , gained a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personally took on the role of a global assassin .
I had little doubt eight years ago that this wouldn ’ t end soon—and on that I wasn ’ t wrong .
Admittedly , our present commander-in-chief probably doesn ’ t have the time ( given how much of his day he ’ s spent watching Fox News , tweeting his millions of followers , and , until recently , holding two hour press-briefings-cum-election-rallies on the coronavirus pandemic ) or the attention span for “ Terror Tuesday ” meetings .
Still , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s managed to make himself America ’ s assassin-in-chief par excellence .
After all , not only have those drone programs continued to target people in distant lands ( including innocent civilians ) , but they have yet again been ramped up in the Trump years .
Meanwhile , still in our pre-Covid-19 American world , President Trump embraced the role of assassin-in-chief in a newly public , deeply enthusiastic way .
Previously , such drones had killed non-state actors , but he openly ordered the drone assassination of Major General Qassim Suleimani @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man in Iran , as he left Baghdad International Airport for a meeting with the prime minister of Iraq .
Of course , for American presidents such a role was not unknown even before the development of Hellfire-missile-armed drones .
Think of John F. Kennedy and the CIA ’ s ( failed ) attempts on the life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro or the successful killings of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba , South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem , and Dominican Republic head Rafael Trujillo .
Or , for a change of pace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign known as the Phoenix Program in which tens of thousands of supposed “ Vietcong ” supporters ( often enough , civilians swept up in the murderous chaos of the moment ) were murdered in that country , a program that was no secret to President Lyndon Johnson .
And it ’ s true as well that , in this century , our commanders-in-chief have overseen endless conflicts in distant lands from Afghanistan , Iraq , and Syria to Yemen , Somalia , Niger , and beyond , none of them congressionally declared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had the ultimate responsibility for the deaths of , at a minimum , tens of thousands of civilians , as well as for the uprooting of millions of their compatriots from settled lives and their flight , as desperate refugees , across significant parts of the planet .
It ’ s a grim record of death and destruction .
Until recently , however , it remained a matter of distant deaths , not much noted here .
A New Kind of Drone War on the Pandemic Front However , the assassin-in-chief may now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic .
Little did I imagine that , by 2020 , an American president without a lick of empathy for other human beings , even Americans who loved him to death ( so to speak ) , would be targeting not just civilians here in “ the homeland ” ( as it came to become known after the 9/11 attacks ) , but his most fervent followers .
In the age of Donald Trump , the assassin-in-chief now seems to be in the process of transforming himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least for me—came into focus only recently .
True , until then , even beyond those drone strikes , American presidents have had the ultimate responsibility for the deaths of startling numbers of civilians in faraway lands where the US military has been making war ( remarkably fruitlessly ) for almost 19 years .
The devastating use of American air power generally has only increased during the Trump years in , for instance , both Afghanistan and Somalia , where US air strikes have hit new levels of destructiveness , as Nick Turse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the first four pandemic months of 2020 than in all of the Obama years combined .
Still , historically speaking , killing Afghans or Iraqis or Syrians or Yemenis or Somalis has always been one thing , but Americans ?
That ’ s another story entirely , no ?
As it happens , the answer is indeed no , not in 2020 , and once again , in a sense , air power is at the heart of the matter .
In this case , though , we ’ re talking about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through respiratory droplets ( think of them as microscopic Hellfire missiles ) .
In that new air-powered context , with the equivalent of a drone virus in the hands of one Donald J. Trump , the president is bringing the role of assassin-in-chief home .
He is , in fact , in the process of becoming a killer-in-chief for his very own base—anyone , that is , who listens to what he says and believes fervently in him .
Set aside for a moment the deaths he ’ s undoubtedly responsible for because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently at his Informed Comment website , “ those two months he pissed away calling [ Covid-19 ] a hoax and setting up the country for Vietnam War-level death tolls.
” Put aside as well his repeated and dangerous medical advice to find and take anti-malarial drugs .
Put aside as well his suggestion that perhaps people fearing they have the coronavirus should try to inject or internally take disinfectants ( which , a recent study showed , do kill that virus on surfaces and in the air ) , an act medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Think of each of those potential death sentences for his most fervent believers as a striking combination of grotesque ignorance and narcissism .
But what about an actual decision , as commander-in-chief and president , to kill off members of his base ?
Until a couple of weeks ago , that would have been harder to imagine—until , that is , President Trump noticed the first demonstrations against state shutdowns focused on preventing the deadly Covid-19 virus from spreading .
Those protests against “ stay-at-home ” orders , organized or encouraged by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ an informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups , some with close connections to the White House , ” have continued to bring out demonstrators in Trump-election-like rallies by the dozens , hundreds , or even ( in a few cases ) thousands .
Often , the demonstrators are not wearing the very masks that the president has recommended for other people ( but not himself ) ; nor are they keeping the social distance he has also officially backed ( but continues to find it impossible to keep ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t cancel my golf season , ” “ My body/my choice , Trump 2020 ” [ with an image of a face mask crossed out ] , “ Give me liberty or give me Covid-19 , ” “ We demand haircuts ” ) , carry American flags and occasional Confederate ones , and are sometimes armed to the teeth ( not exactly surprising , given that the protests have been supported by conservative pro-gun or armed militia groups ) .
The Donald was clearly pleased with the earliest of those demonstrations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” America and “ the greatest economy in the history of our country ” ( then headed for the pandemic subbasement ) .
It mattered little that , despite the grim pressures of the moment , polling showed significant numbers of Americans , including Republicans , preferred to keep the United States largely shut down for now .
In response , he tweeted : “ LIBERATE MINNESOTA , ” “ LIBERATE MICHIGAN , ” and then “ LIBERATE VIRGINIA , and save your great 2nd Amendment .
It is under siege !
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And his focus on supporting such demonstrations quickly got the media ’ s attention , as they began to spread elsewhere .
At one of his nightly coronavirus briefings , the president then said this of the demonstrators : With his future election campaign undoubtedly in his sight-lines and his base in the forefront of his brain , he then began to encourage more of the same from both protesters and governors—and the Republican governor of Georgia broke the ice , so to speak , by attempting to reopen everything down to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even the president would later criticize ) , while the Republican governor of Florida reopened that state ’ s beaches .
Now , here ’ s the obvious thing in this pandemic moment : If you ’ re the president of the United States ( no less the governor of Georgia , Florida , or other Republican administrations or legislatures in a hurry to reopen the country ) , you ’ re encouraging people to sicken and die .
To support citizens turning out to protest without either protection or any sense of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ giving each other Covid-19 , a disease which clearly spreads best in close quarters like nursing homes , prisons , crowded housing of any sort , or assumedly protests of this very kind .
As one epidemiologist put it in response to a gathering of perhaps 2,500 protesters in Seattle , Washington , “ I predict a new epidemic surge ( incubation time—5-7 days before onset [ of ] symptoms , if any , and transmission to associates around that time , even among asymptomatics ) …so increase in 2-4 weeks from now.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ country leading the world by a long shot in known cases of , and deaths from , Covid-19 , none of this should exactly be rocket science .
It ’ s beyond obvious that if you encourage such demonstrations , you ’ re increasing the odds that the protesters will both catch and pass on a disease that ’ s already killed 60,000 Americans , more than US fatalities from 20 years of war in Vietnam .
And that , of course , makes the president of the United States a killer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the assassin-in-chief in distant lands has just transformed himself into an assassin-in-chief right here at home , a man who might as well have fired Hellfire missiles into such crowds or put a gun to the head of some of those protesters and their wives or husbands or lovers or parents or children ( to whom the disease will undoubtedly be spread once they go home ) and pulled the trigger .
The act of encouraging members of his base to court death is clearly that of a man without an ounce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ love and admire him most—and so of a stone-cold killer .
You couldn ’ t ask for more proof that the only sense of empathy he has lies overwhelmingly in his deep and abiding pity for himself ( which matches his staggering sense of self-aggrandizement ) and perhaps for his children , other billionaires , and fossil-fuel executives .
Them , he would save ; the rest of us , his base included , are expendable .
He ’ d sacrifice any of us without a second thought if he imagined that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any way .
But there ’ s no point in leaving it at that .
After all , as he pushes for a too-swiftly reopened country , he ’ s declaring open season on Americans of all sorts .
And every one of us who will die too soon should be considered another Covid fire missile death and chalked up to a president who , by the time this is over , will truly have given a new meaning to the phrase “ assassin in chief.
” You could say , I suppose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ putting his stamp of approval on the recent statement of Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick , another politician in a rush to reopen his state not to business , but to the business of pandemics .
Patrick classically summed up the president ’ s position ( and those of the protesters as well ) in this fashion : “ there are more important things than living.
” Indeed , how true , though not , of course , for Donald Trump , or the Trump Organization , or that hotel of his in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ properties , or for his reelection in November 2020 .
As for the rest of us , in Covid-19 America , we are all now potential Suleimanis .

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 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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“Be assured of one thing: whichever candidate you choose at the polls in November, you aren’t just electing a president of the United States; you are also electing an assassin-in-chief.” So I wrote back in June 2012, with a presidential election approaching.
I was referring then to the war on terror’s CIA and military drone assassination programs, which first revved up in parts of the Greater Middle East in the years of George W. Bush’s presidency and only spread thereafter. In the process, such “targeted killings” became, as I wrote at the time, “thoroughly institutionalized, normalized, and bureaucratized around the figure of the president.” In Barack Obama’s years in the Oval Office, they were ramped up further as he joined White House “Terror Tuesday” meetings to choose individual targets for those attacks. They often enough turned out to involve “collateral damage;” that is, the deaths of innocent civilians, including children. In other words, “commander-in-chief” had, by then, gained a deadly new meaning, as the president personally took on the role of a global assassin.
I had little doubt eight years ago that this wouldn’t end soon—and on that I wasn’t wrong. Admittedly, our present commander-in-chief probably doesn’t have the time (given how much of his day he’s spent watching Fox News, tweeting his millions of followers, and, until recently, holding two hour press-briefings-cum-election-rallies on the coronavirus pandemic) or the attention span for “Terror Tuesday” meetings. Still, in his own memorable fashion, he’s managed to make himself America’s assassin-in-chief par excellence. 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
After all, not only have those drone programs continued to target people in distant lands (including innocent civilians), but they have yet again been ramped up in the Trump years. Meanwhile, still in our pre-Covid-19 American world, President Trump embraced the role of assassin-in-chief in a newly public, deeply enthusiastic way. Previously, such drones had killed non-state actors, but he openly ordered the drone assassination of Major General Qassim Suleimani, the top military figure and number-two man in Iran, as he left Baghdad International Airport for a meeting with the prime minister of Iraq.
Of course, for American presidents such a role was not unknown even before the development of Hellfire-missile-armed drones. Think of John F. Kennedy and the CIA’s (failed) attempts on the life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro or the successful killings of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem, and Dominican Republic head Rafael Trujillo. Or, for a change of pace, consider the Vietnam War-era CIA assassination campaign known as the Phoenix Program in which tens of thousands of supposed “Vietcong” supporters (often enough, civilians swept up in the murderous chaos of the moment) were murdered in that country, a program that was no secret to President Lyndon Johnson.
And it’s true as well that, in this century, our commanders-in-chief have overseen endless conflicts in distant lands from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria to Yemen, Somalia, Niger, and beyond, none of them congressionally declared wars. As a result, they had the ultimate responsibility for the deaths of, at a minimum, tens of thousands of civilians, as well as for the uprooting of millions of their compatriots from settled lives and their flight, as desperate refugees, across significant parts of the planet. It’s a grim record of death and destruction. Until recently, however, it remained a matter of distant deaths, not much noted here.
A New Kind of Drone War on the Pandemic Front
However, the assassin-in-chief may now be coming home, big time, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Little did I imagine that, by 2020, an American president without a lick of empathy for other human beings, even Americans who loved him to death (so to speak), would be targeting not just civilians here in “the homeland” (as it came to become known after the 9/11 attacks), but his most fervent followers. In the age of Donald Trump, the assassin-in-chief now seems to be in the process of transforming himself into a domestic killer-in-chief. Current Issue View our current issue
That reality—at least for me—came into focus only recently. True, until then, even beyond those drone strikes, American presidents have had the ultimate responsibility for the deaths of startling numbers of civilians in faraway lands where the US military has been making war (remarkably fruitlessly) for almost 19 years. The devastating use of American air power generally has only increased during the Trump years in, for instance, both Afghanistan and Somalia, where US air strikes have hit new levels of destructiveness, as Nick Turse reported recently at The Intercept—more of them in the first four pandemic months of 2020 than in all of the Obama years combined.
Still, historically speaking, killing Afghans or Iraqis or Syrians or Yemenis or Somalis has always been one thing, but Americans? That’s another story entirely, no?
As it happens, the answer is indeed no, not in 2020, and once again, in a sense, air power is at the heart of the matter. In this case, though, we’re talking about the spread of Covid-19, in part through respiratory droplets (think of them as microscopic Hellfire missiles). In that new air-powered context, with the equivalent of a drone virus in the hands of one Donald J. Trump, the president is bringing the role of assassin-in-chief home. He is, in fact, in the process of becoming a killer-in-chief for his very own base—anyone, that is, who listens to what he says and believes fervently in him. Set aside for a moment the deaths he’s undoubtedly responsible for because of, as Juan Cole put it recently at his Informed Comment website, “those two months he pissed away calling [Covid-19] a hoax and setting up the country for Vietnam War-level death tolls.” Put aside as well his repeated and dangerous medical advice to find and take anti-malarial drugs. Put aside as well his suggestion that perhaps people fearing they have the coronavirus should try to inject or internally take disinfectants (which, a recent study showed, do kill that virus on surfaces and in the air), an act medical experts assure us could result in death.
Think of each of those potential death sentences for his most fervent believers as a striking combination of grotesque ignorance and narcissism. But what about an actual decision, as commander-in-chief and president, to kill off members of his base?
Until a couple of weeks ago, that would have been harder to imagine—until, that is, President Trump noticed the first demonstrations against state shutdowns focused on preventing the deadly Covid-19 virus from spreading. Those protests against “stay-at-home” orders, organized or encouraged by what The New York Times describes as “an informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House,” have continued to bring out demonstrators in Trump-election-like rallies by the dozens, hundreds, or even (in a few cases) thousands.
Often, the demonstrators are not wearing the very masks that the president has recommended for other people (but not himself); nor are they keeping the social distance he has also officially backed (but continues to find it impossible to keep). They sport bizarre signs (“Don’t cancel my golf season,” “My body/my choice, Trump 2020” [with an image of a face mask crossed out], “Give me liberty or give me Covid-19,” “We demand haircuts”), carry American flags and occasional Confederate ones, and are sometimes armed to the teeth (not exactly surprising, given that the protests have been supported by conservative pro-gun or armed militia groups).
The Donald was clearly pleased with the earliest of those demonstrations, being so eager himself to “reopen” America and “the greatest economy in the history of our country” (then headed for the pandemic subbasement). It mattered little that, despite the grim pressures of the moment, polling showed significant numbers of Americans, including Republicans, preferred to keep the United States largely shut down for now. In response, he tweeted: “LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN,” and then “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” All were states run by Democratic governors. And his focus on supporting such demonstrations quickly got the media’s attention, as they began to spread elsewhere.
At one of his nightly coronavirus briefings, the president then said this of the demonstrators:
These are people expressing their views. I see where they are and I see the way they’re working. They seem to be very responsible people to me, but they’ve been treated a little bit rough.
With his future election campaign undoubtedly in his sight-lines and his base in the forefront of his brain, he then began to encourage more of the same from both protesters and governors—and the Republican governor of Georgia broke the ice, so to speak, by attempting to reopen everything down to nail salons and movie theaters (something even the president would later criticize), while the Republican governor of Florida reopened that state’s beaches.
Targeting His Base
Now, here’s the obvious thing in this pandemic moment: If you’re the president of the United States (no less the governor of Georgia, Florida, or other Republican administrations or legislatures in a hurry to reopen the country), you’re encouraging people to sicken and die. To support citizens turning out to protest without either protection or any sense of social distancing is to support people potentially giving each other Covid-19, a disease which clearly spreads best in close quarters like nursing homes, prisons, crowded housing of any sort, or assumedly protests of this very kind. As one epidemiologist put it in response to a gathering of perhaps 2,500 protesters in Seattle, Washington, “I predict a new epidemic surge (incubation time—5-7 days before onset [of] symptoms, if any, and transmission to associates around that time, even among asymptomatics)…so increase in 2-4 weeks from now.”
At this point, in a country leading the world by a long shot in known cases of, and deaths from, Covid-19, none of this should exactly be rocket science. It’s beyond obvious that if you encourage such demonstrations, you’re increasing the odds that the protesters will both catch and pass on a disease that’s already killed 60,000 Americans, more than US fatalities from 20 years of war in Vietnam.
And that, of course, makes the president of the United States a killer, too. Or thought of another way, the assassin-in-chief in distant lands has just transformed himself into an assassin-in-chief right here at home, a man who might as well have fired Hellfire missiles into such crowds or put a gun to the head of some of those protesters and their wives or husbands or lovers or parents or children (to whom the disease will undoubtedly be spread once they go home) and pulled the trigger.
The act of encouraging members of his base to court death is clearly that of a man without an ounce of empathy, even for those who love and admire him most—and so of a stone-cold killer. You couldn’t ask for more proof that the only sense of empathy he has lies overwhelmingly in his deep and abiding pity for himself (which matches his staggering sense of self-aggrandizement) and perhaps for his children, other billionaires, and fossil-fuel executives. Them, he would save; the rest of us, his base included, are expendable. He’d sacrifice any of us without a second thought if he imagined that it would benefit him or his reelection in any way.
But there’s no point in leaving it at that. After all, as he pushes for a too-swiftly reopened country, he’s declaring open season on Americans of all sorts. And every one of us who will die too soon should be considered another Covid fire missile death and chalked up to a president who, by the time this is over, will truly have given a new meaning to the phrase “assassin in chief.”
You could say, I suppose, that he’s just been putting his stamp of approval on the recent statement of Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, another politician in a rush to reopen his state not to business, but to the business of pandemics. Patrick classically summed up the president’s position (and those of the protesters as well) in this fashion: “there are more important things than living.” Indeed, how true, though not, of course, for Donald Trump, or the Trump Organization, or that hotel of his in Washington, or his other presently sinking properties, or for his reelection in November 2020.
As for the rest of us, in Covid-19 America, we are all now potential Suleimanis.


thenation--2020-05-01--‘If Not Now, When?’ Behind the Growing Push for a Black Woman VP Nominee.

In 1984 , the Rev .
Jesse Jackson ’ s insurgent , multiracial campaign threatened to upend the Democratic Party .
But by the time the Democratic convention opened in San Francisco , Jackson had made peace with the eventual nominee , former vice president Walter Mondale , declaring in his historic prime-time speech that he would “ be proud to support ” him .
Representative Geraldine Ferraro made history as the first female vice-presidential candidate .
The convention was a love-fest , although the ticket bombed that November .
Only one cloud shadowed the gathering in the days before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only white women ( Ferraro , then–San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein , and Representative Pat Schroeder ) made Mondale ’ s VP short list , threatened a convention disruption to draw attention to the inequity .
I remember , because it was my first national “ scoop ” ; then–California State Representative Maxine Waters , now the legendary congresswoman , told me about it in a pre-convention interview for In These Times .
In the end , there was no disruption ; Waters and others held a lightly attended press conference to spotlight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ record of coverage on Google .
I pretty much had my scoop to myself .
Thirty-six long years later , black women , now recognized as the bedrock of the Democratic Party , have much more leverage , and they are using it to push former vice president Joe Biden , very hard and very publicly , to pick a black woman as his running mate .
Last Friday , 200 prominent black female Democratic leaders and activists signed a letter to that point ( by Thursday morning , another 262 had joined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heard for years that Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party ; now is the time to put deeds to words , ” prominent Democratic Party activist Karen Finney told The Washington Post .
“ We felt it was important to unify and lift up our voices with a clear message in support of a Democratic vice presidential nominee who is female and black.
” The letter didn ’ t back any one candidate , but put forward a list of qualified women , including former Georgia legislative leader and 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contender California Senator Kamala Harris ; Representatives Karen Bass of California , Val Demings of Florida , and Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio ; Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms ; and Susan E. Rice , former national security adviser under President Barack Obama as well as onetime ambassador to the United Nations .
“ To have multiple black women in a vetting process—women who could be not only VP but president—shows you the amazing pipeline of black women leaders , ” says signatory Glynda Carr of Higher Heights for Women , which promotes the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women I interviewed said the exact same thing : “ If not now , when ?
” Biden has already pledged to pick a woman , and Abrams and Harris are said to be on his short list , along with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar , Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren , and , lately , Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer .
But some black women worry that there are two tiers—with the white women considered the more “ serious ” candidates .
“ I ’ ve really been annoyed by the disparate treatment between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ process ” by the media and some politicos , adds Democratic leader Bishop Leah Daughtry , another backer of the effort .
“ It felt as though there was a tacit acceptance that Klobuchar , Warren , and maybe Whitmer were the leaders , and Stacey and Kamala were just ‘ also mentions.
’ ” Nobody behind this effort is threatening to sit out the election if the VP pick isn ’ t black .
“ I haven ’ t heard one person say , ‘ We won ’ t not vote for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a black woman , ’ ” Daughtry says .
The leverage their effort brings is enthusiasm .
“ It ’ s the difference between ‘ I ’ ll vote for you , and maybe write a check , ’ ” says Minyon Moore , a longtime party leader and Hillary Clinton insider , “ and ‘ I ’ m going to get my mother , father , sister and brother and everybody in my family to vote.
’ ” Black turnout slipped seven points between 2008 , when Obama was first elected , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a way to mobilize black women to create genuine enthusiasm—to close the [ black ] enthusiasm gap we saw between 2008 and 2016 , ” says Carr .
Many of my dozen or so interviews for this story came after new accounts surfaced in the case of Tara Reade , the former Biden staffer who last year accused him of inappropriately touching her neck and shoulders when she worked for him in 1993 , and in late March said he sexually assaulted her .
All of the women I talked to about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but there was consensus around one thing : Absent more solid corroboration , any move to sideline Biden over the charge would risk alienating the black voters who , from South Carolina through Michigan , made him the nominee .
“ It would crush [ black voters ’ ] enthusiasm , ” one woman who signed the letter told me .
When it comes to voter enthusiasm , Biden has other considerations , of course , especially bringing in fervent supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders .
Given Biden ’ s pledge to pick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s no obvious candidate who will do that .
( If Representative Pramila Jayapal had been born in the United States , she might well be on Biden ’ s short list . )
Senator Elizabeth Warren is an obvious choice to bring in a large segment of the left , but not the hard-core Sanders supporters who thought she betrayed the left by refusing to endorse him when she dropped out .
Then there are those who say Biden needs someone who can pull in the Midwestern states that abandoned Clinton in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Klobuchar , the former presidential candidate who endorsed Biden on the eve of Super Tuesday , and Whitmer , who has emerged as a hero of the coronavirus crisis .
But Biden himself is supposed to be the candidate for the states that abandoned Clinton in 2016 .
The man from Scranton won the Michigan and Wisconsin primaries , which Clinton lost to Sanders , and then to Trump that November ; he ’ s leading in those states against Trump , as well as in Pennsylvania and Ohio , two other states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ four years ago .
Also , Klobuchar will have trouble with two key Democratic constituencies : black voters and the left .
Try explaining to black women why a white female former prosecutor is a better choice than Harris , who was excoriated by some on the left for her mixed record as San Francisco district attorney and then California attorney general .
“ Why didn ’ t we ever hear ‘ Amy is a cop ’ ?
” one black leader asked , echoing the epithet some lefties threw at Harris .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you picked the candidate who stood out for mocking the aspirations of the left ( as in her early quip , “ I wish I could staple a free college diploma under every one of your chairs .
I do .
Don ’ t look .
It ’ s not there , ” at a CNN town hall for New Hampshire college students last April , resisting other candidates ’ calls for free college ) .
Within the group of black women leading this effort , opinions vary about the best choice for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in this group and nationally , are Abrams and Harris .
Finney says another motivator behind the effort was that “ we saw it shaping up as Stacey versus Kamala and we said let ’ s not play that game—they ’ re both great.
” Abrams is thought to be more palatable to progressives , since Sanders ’ s campaign cochair Nina Turner endorsed her 2018 bid for governor , and Georgia progressives strongly rallied behind her .
By some measures , though , she is more moderate than Harris ( being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be ) .
In her campaign for governor , she backed Medicaid expansion but did not , and still has not , come out for Medicare for All ; Harris is a cosponsor of Sanders ’ s bill , though she introduced her own plan that left a place for tightly regulated private insurance , alienating some Sanders backers .
In a poll of 900 women of color conducted by She the People , a group that works to advance the political and policy interests of women of color , Abrams and Harris @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order .
Abrams ’ s backers say she ’ s the kind of “ movement ” candidate Biden needs .
In her near-victory in the 2018 governor ’ s race—many people think she ’ d be governor today except for Brian Kemp ’ s voter suppression—she got more votes than any Democrat in Georgia history and mobilized an unprecedented wave of black voters .
Harris has strong backers , too , within this group and beyond .
The Grio ’ s Jason Johnson wrote last week : “ Joe Biden ’ s VP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needs to be Kamala Harris.
” ( Interestingly , four GOP strategists interviewed by Politico this week to size up the Democratic field all said Harris was Biden ’ s best choice as well . )
“ Kamala ran a large bureaucracy [ as California attorney general ] , and because she ’ s now a senator , she ’ d be a great partner with legislative leaders , ” says Daughtry , who is neutral .
Because her campaign unraveled before voting began , “ people forget how inspiring she can be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stage , ” said one woman who spoke on background .
“ She can chop someone up in a Senate hearing , and then be unbelievably charming teaching [ Senator ] Mark Warner how to make a tuna melt.
” But Harris ’ s top debate-stage moment could also doom her chance to be Biden ’ s running mate , since it came as his expense .
Noting his early-career opposition to mandatory busing , she referenced a child who was among the first bused across Berkeley , California , to integrate schools @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ That little girl was me.
” She briefly became one of the front-runners after that performance , but it also helped doom the campaign , with Biden backers going scorched-earth against her .
Harris and Biden seem to have patched things up : She enthusiastically endorsed him , campaigned with him , and this week did a virtual town hall with him on racial disparities in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic .
But people around the former vice president have yet to forgive her—most notably , three sources told me , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sister , Valerie .
Still , since Biden himself has made clear his priorities are finding a running mate who has the experience to serve as president and also be a governing partner , some say that could lead him to pick Harris , despite their debate clash , over Abrams .
A couple of the women leaders I talked to , while supportive , had slightly mixed feelings about the effort .
“ I think it would be a disaster not to have a diverse ticket , and it ’ s past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ticket , ” says strategist Aisha C. Moodie-Mills , who hasn ’ t signed the letter , though she backs the intent .
“ But we can ’ t get lost in the singularity of that demand.
” Mills says her top priority is mobilizing black voters , who already face GOP disenfranchisement , while a deadly pandemic makes that job even harder .
“ The thing I ’ m nervous about is saying , ‘ Let ’ s get a black woman VP ’ and then people taking for granted that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black voters out.
” To be fair , all of the organizers behind the VP push also talked about the need for the Biden campaign to invest in ways to turn out Democrats , especially black voters , under the threat of the coronavirus , and many back the push to have national vote-by-mail .
There is also concern that the effort could pit black women against Latinas , at a time when some are saying Biden ’ s best path to victory is activating the under-mobilized Latino community .
But Aimee Allison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ As a progressive who represents a multiracial coalition , my priority was , first , a woman of color , ” she says .
“ And then we polled our members and the top two choices were Stacey and Kamala , in that order , ” she says , and so she personally supports Abrams .
“ We do need to acknowledge enough hasn ’ t been done [ by Democrats ] to expand the Latino electorate .
We do need more representation.
” One result of the lack of Latina @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are fewer women perceived as ready to be president , though first-term Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is high on some lists , as is New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham , a former House member elected governor in 2018 .
Finally , several women told me they ’ d be happy , in the end , if Biden chose Elizabeth Warren , who got high marks from Allison and others for her assiduous outreach to black women during the primary , even if it didn ’ t result in much black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t want people to see this as advocating against anyone , but for ourselves , ” says Minyon Moore , who also praises Warren .
“ Whoever he picks , we ’ re gon na have to double down and get them elected.
” On Thursday morning , Biden announced his vice-presidential selection committee .
Its cochairs are former senator Chris Dodd , Delaware Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester , Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti , and longtime Biden adviser Cynthia Hogan .
They will work with vetting teams headed by former White House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ counsel Dana Remus , and former Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco .
The list was not a big hit with the women I talked to : Dodd had his own # MeToo problems in the 1980s .
Of the seven , five are white ; Rochester is black , and Eric Garcetti ’ s paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Mexico .
There ’ s not a genuine progressive , or a Latino with direct heritage , in the group .
If progressives want a diverse ticket , one woman who signed the letter said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are really going to have to push .
”

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In 1984, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s insurgent, multiracial campaign threatened to upend the Democratic Party. But by the time the Democratic convention opened in San Francisco, Jackson had made peace with the eventual nominee, former vice president Walter Mondale, declaring in his historic prime-time speech that he would “be proud to support” him. Representative Geraldine Ferraro made history as the first female vice-presidential candidate. The convention was a love-fest, although the ticket bombed that November.
Only one cloud shadowed the gathering in the days before: Black female Democrats, furious that only white women (Ferraro, then–San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, and Representative Pat Schroeder) made Mondale’s VP short list, threatened a convention disruption to draw attention to the inequity. I remember, because it was my first national “scoop”; then–California State Representative Maxine Waters, now the legendary congresswoman, told me about it in a pre-convention interview for In These Times. In the end, there was no disruption; Waters and others held a lightly attended press conference to spotlight their cause. I can find no record of coverage on Google. I pretty much had my scoop to myself.
Thirty-six long years later, black women, now recognized as the bedrock of the Democratic Party, have much more leverage, and they are using it to push former vice president Joe Biden, very hard and very publicly, to pick a black woman as his running mate. Last Friday, 200 prominent black female Democratic leaders and activists signed a letter to that point (by Thursday morning, another 262 had joined them). “We’ve heard for years that Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party; now is the time to put deeds to words,” prominent Democratic Party activist Karen Finney told The Washington Post. “We felt it was important to unify and lift up our voices with a clear message in support of a Democratic vice presidential nominee who is female and black.”
The letter didn’t back any one candidate, but put forward a list of qualified women, including former Georgia legislative leader and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams; 2020 presidential contender California Senator Kamala Harris; Representatives Karen Bass of California, Val Demings of Florida, and Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio; Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms; and Susan E. Rice, former national security adviser under President Barack Obama as well as onetime ambassador to the United Nations. Related Article The Most Consequential Decision of Biden’s 2020 Campaign John Nichols
“To have multiple black women in a vetting process—women who could be not only VP but president—shows you the amazing pipeline of black women leaders,” says signatory Glynda Carr of Higher Heights for Women, which promotes the political engagement of black women. Many women I interviewed said the exact same thing: “If not now, when?” 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Biden has already pledged to pick a woman, and Abrams and Harris are said to be on his short list, along with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and, lately, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. But some black women worry that there are two tiers—with the white women considered the more “serious” candidates. “I’ve really been annoyed by the disparate treatment between black women and white women in this process” by the media and some politicos, adds Democratic leader Bishop Leah Daughtry, another backer of the effort. “It felt as though there was a tacit acceptance that Klobuchar, Warren, and maybe Whitmer were the leaders, and Stacey and Kamala were just ‘also mentions.’”
Nobody behind this effort is threatening to sit out the election if the VP pick isn’t black. “I haven’t heard one person say, ‘We won’t not vote for Biden if he doesn’t pick a black woman,’” Daughtry says. The leverage their effort brings is enthusiasm. “It’s the difference between ‘I’ll vote for you, and maybe write a check,’” says Minyon Moore, a longtime party leader and Hillary Clinton insider, “and ‘I’m going to get my mother, father, sister and brother and everybody in my family to vote.’” Black turnout slipped seven points between 2008, when Obama was first elected, and 2016. “We think this is a way to mobilize black women to create genuine enthusiasm—to close the [black] enthusiasm gap we saw between 2008 and 2016,” says Carr. Current Issue View our current issue
Many of my dozen or so interviews for this story came after new accounts surfaced in the case of Tara Reade, the former Biden staffer who last year accused him of inappropriately touching her neck and shoulders when she worked for him in 1993, and in late March said he sexually assaulted her. All of the women I talked to about it were concerned about the allegation, but there was consensus around one thing: Absent more solid corroboration, any move to sideline Biden over the charge would risk alienating the black voters who, from South Carolina through Michigan, made him the nominee. “It would crush [black voters’] enthusiasm,” one woman who signed the letter told me.
When it comes to voter enthusiasm, Biden has other considerations, of course, especially bringing in fervent supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders. Given Biden’s pledge to pick a woman, though, there’s no obvious candidate who will do that. (If Representative Pramila Jayapal had been born in the United States, she might well be on Biden’s short list.) Senator Elizabeth Warren is an obvious choice to bring in a large segment of the left, but not the hard-core Sanders supporters who thought she betrayed the left by refusing to endorse him when she dropped out.
Then there are those who say Biden needs someone who can pull in the Midwestern states that abandoned Clinton in 2016. That faction is talking up Klobuchar, the former presidential candidate who endorsed Biden on the eve of Super Tuesday, and Whitmer, who has emerged as a hero of the coronavirus crisis.
But Biden himself is supposed to be the candidate for the states that abandoned Clinton in 2016. The man from Scranton won the Michigan and Wisconsin primaries, which Clinton lost to Sanders, and then to Trump that November; he’s leading in those states against Trump, as well as in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two other states that slipped out of the Democratic column four years ago. Also, Klobuchar will have trouble with two key Democratic constituencies: black voters and the left.
Try explaining to black women why a white female former prosecutor is a better choice than Harris, who was excoriated by some on the left for her mixed record as San Francisco district attorney and then California attorney general. “Why didn’t we ever hear ‘Amy is a cop’?” one black leader asked, echoing the epithet some lefties threw at Harris. And try explaining to Sanders voters why you picked the candidate who stood out for mocking the aspirations of the left (as in her early quip, “I wish I could staple a free college diploma under every one of your chairs. I do. Don’t look. It’s not there,” at a CNN town hall for New Hampshire college students last April, resisting other candidates’ calls for free college).
Within the group of black women leading this effort, opinions vary about the best choice for Biden, but the two leading contenders, in this group and nationally, are Abrams and Harris. Finney says another motivator behind the effort was that “we saw it shaping up as Stacey versus Kamala and we said let’s not play that game—they’re both great.”
Abrams is thought to be more palatable to progressives, since Sanders’s campaign cochair Nina Turner endorsed her 2018 bid for governor, and Georgia progressives strongly rallied behind her. By some measures, though, she is more moderate than Harris (being from Georgia, she almost has to be). In her campaign for governor, she backed Medicaid expansion but did not, and still has not, come out for Medicare for All; Harris is a cosponsor of Sanders’s bill, though she introduced her own plan that left a place for tightly regulated private insurance, alienating some Sanders backers.
In a poll of 900 women of color conducted by She the People, a group that works to advance the political and policy interests of women of color, Abrams and Harris came out on top, in that order. Abrams’s backers say she’s the kind of “movement” candidate Biden needs. In her near-victory in the 2018 governor’s race—many people think she’d be governor today except for Brian Kemp’s voter suppression—she got more votes than any Democrat in Georgia history and mobilized an unprecedented wave of black voters.
Harris has strong backers, too, within this group and beyond. The Grio’s Jason Johnson wrote last week: “Joe Biden’s VP pick better be a black woman—and it needs to be Kamala Harris.” (Interestingly, four GOP strategists interviewed by Politico this week to size up the Democratic field all said Harris was Biden’s best choice as well.) “Kamala ran a large bureaucracy [as California attorney general], and because she’s now a senator, she’d be a great partner with legislative leaders,” says Daughtry, who is neutral. Because her campaign unraveled before voting began, “people forget how inspiring she can be, with crowds and on the debate stage,” said one woman who spoke on background. “She can chop someone up in a Senate hearing, and then be unbelievably charming teaching [Senator] Mark Warner how to make a tuna melt.”
But Harris’s top debate-stage moment could also doom her chance to be Biden’s running mate, since it came as his expense. Noting his early-career opposition to mandatory busing, she referenced a child who was among the first bused across Berkeley, California, to integrate schools there, ending with the flourish: “That little girl was me.” She briefly became one of the front-runners after that performance, but it also helped doom the campaign, with Biden backers going scorched-earth against her.
Harris and Biden seem to have patched things up: She enthusiastically endorsed him, campaigned with him, and this week did a virtual town hall with him on racial disparities in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But people around the former vice president have yet to forgive her—most notably, three sources told me, Jill Biden and the candidate’s sister, Valerie. Still, since Biden himself has made clear his priorities are finding a running mate who has the experience to serve as president and also be a governing partner, some say that could lead him to pick Harris, despite their debate clash, over Abrams.
A couple of the women leaders I talked to, while supportive, had slightly mixed feelings about the effort. “I think it would be a disaster not to have a diverse ticket, and it’s past time to have a black woman on the ticket,” says strategist Aisha C. Moodie-Mills, who hasn’t signed the letter, though she backs the intent. “But we can’t get lost in the singularity of that demand.” Mills says her top priority is mobilizing black voters, who already face GOP disenfranchisement, while a deadly pandemic makes that job even harder. “The thing I’m nervous about is saying, ‘Let’s get a black woman VP’ and then people taking for granted that’s all it takes to turn black voters out.” To be fair, all of the organizers behind the VP push also talked about the need for the Biden campaign to invest in ways to turn out Democrats, especially black voters, under the threat of the coronavirus, and many back the push to have national vote-by-mail.
There is also concern that the effort could pit black women against Latinas, at a time when some are saying Biden’s best path to victory is activating the under-mobilized Latino community. But Aimee Allison of She the People rejects that dichotomy. “As a progressive who represents a multiracial coalition, my priority was, first, a woman of color,” she says. “And then we polled our members and the top two choices were Stacey and Kamala, in that order,” she says, and so she personally supports Abrams. “We do need to acknowledge enough hasn’t been done [by Democrats] to expand the Latino electorate. We do need more representation.” One result of the lack of Latina representation, some note, is that there are fewer women perceived as ready to be president, though first-term Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is high on some lists, as is New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a former House member elected governor in 2018.
Finally, several women told me they’d be happy, in the end, if Biden chose Elizabeth Warren, who got high marks from Allison and others for her assiduous outreach to black women during the primary, even if it didn’t result in much black voter support. “I don’t want people to see this as advocating against anyone, but for ourselves,” says Minyon Moore, who also praises Warren. “Whoever he picks, we’re gonna have to double down and get them elected.”
On Thursday morning, Biden announced his vice-presidential selection committee. Its cochairs are former senator Chris Dodd, Delaware Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and longtime Biden adviser Cynthia Hogan. They will work with vetting teams headed by former White House counsel Bob Bauer, Biden campaign general counsel Dana Remus, and former Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco. The list was not a big hit with the women I talked to: Dodd had his own #MeToo problems in the 1980s. Of the seven, five are white; Rochester is black, and Eric Garcetti’s paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Mexico. There’s not a genuine progressive, or a Latino with direct heritage, in the group.
If progressives want a diverse ticket, one woman who signed the letter said to me on background, “we are really going to have to push.”


thenation--2020-05-01--Celebrating May Day Starts by Taking Workers Seriously

May 1 is an official public holiday in 66 countries , including most of Europe .
Other than a couple of faith-based holidays and the start of the new year , there ’ s hardly a holiday that spans so many nations .
With its roots in ancient agrarian celebrations of spring , the official public holiday on May 1 is International Workers Day , celebrating the extraordinary contributions of workers and the working class .
In countries where it ’ s an official day off , and 100 other nations , it is often commemorated with marches , protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States , the date is barely known beyond those immigrants whose home countries honor it , or among the most committed labor activists .
Yet May Day commemorates the lives of four labor organizers in the United States who were hanged in Chicago after being falsely convicted of throwing a bomb into a group of police .
The lead-up to what became known as the Haymarket Massacre was a call to shorten the workday with no pay cut .
In 1884 , the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) voted at its annual convention that from May 1 , 1886 , onward , the workday would consist of eight hours .
Thus on May 1 , 1886 , peaceful protests took place in many US cities , with hundreds of thousands walking off the job .
In Chicago , a second consecutive day of action drew crowds to a steel mill that was the site of an ongoing labor dispute .
When police attacked the protesters , two workers were killed and dozens injured .
The organizers hastily called for people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ third day in the city ’ s Haymarket Square to protest the killings .
During this protest a bomb was thrown at the police .
In the ensuing melee , seven police officers and at least four civilians were killed , with dozens of others wounded .
Diagnosing the problem as “ an acute outbreak of anarchy , ” The New York Times prescribed the application of “ a Gatling gun ” followed by “ hemp , in judicious doses.
” Eight organizers of the Haymarket Square protest were arrested , and despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bombing—several were not even in the square at the time—four were executed in August of 1886 .
A fifth defendant committed suicide before being hanged , and three others who were convicted were later fully exonerated and released from jail .
The charges against the activists were obviously trumped up , intended to quell growing labor unrest in Chicago and the country at large .
Bernie Sanders : Now More Than Ever Workers Are Not Your Props Less than 10 years and several massive strikes later , President Grover Cleveland declared the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an action designed explicitly to sever the nation ’ s working class from their counterparts across the globe , as well as give the appearance that the Democratic Party cared about workers while it was brutally repressing strikes .
With the exception of the May 1 , 2006 , the “ Day Without an Immigrant ” —arguably the biggest strike by labor in the United States in decades—International Workers Day has hardly registered here .
This isn ’ t surprising : Despite the applause for health care workers whose employers are killing them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers and the working class are not valued in the United States .
The rot of our democracy lies in the indignation with which the political elite casts aside the daily contributions of workers , both paid and unpaid .
From housewives and mothers , rendered insignificant except for the unpaid , unofficial , Hallmark-card holiday called Mother ’ s Day , to immoral prison labor , to agricultural workers toiling in slave-like conditions in fields stretching from Deep South Louisiana to chic California to the verdant apple orchards of the Empire State @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and uncompensated for a long time before a record 26.5 million Americans filed unemployment claims because of the pandemic .
Amazon workers are being fired for standing up for their own health protection needs .
Registered nurses are being fired for coming to work with a garbage bag covering their scrubs and posting the pictures on social media on their own time , suggesting that their protective equipment is as good as trash bags .
Then there ’ s the outrageous series of federal bailouts designed to fatten the over-bulging pockets of CEOs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wages , health care , food , rent , heat , and any damned dignity at all .
Mitch McConnell ’ s musings—that he has no intention of helping local and state governments alleviate the crushing pain of millions of people being laid off , because the free market won ’ t produce equipment or testing or do a goddamned thing to stop the devastation—makes it clear that the bailouts are also designed to be a cudgel , intentionally destroying public service workers ’ hard-earned pensions in the name of post-Covid austerity .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2017 tax cut for the rich and ending with the pandemic ’ s corporate bailouts , engorges the super rich by sucking the lifeblood from workers .
Homelessness , car repossessions , and hunger are the reward for every bit of profit the workers have earned for the plutocrats in Silicon Valley and Wall Street .
Thinking about May Day can feel revolting in the United States , where workers need a lot more than another holiday .
Although , to be clear , many of the nation ’ s workers get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no vacation , in addition to no health care , no homes , and no pension .
The number of unemployed workers is now reaching Great Depression levels .
Meanwhile , the human misery index has long been reminiscent of the early 1930s—if less obvious to the cheery people at NPR ’ s Market Place .
They somehow—right up until Covid—consistently reported that the economy was doing fine and Wall Street was up , ignoring decades of massive underemployment , sinking wages ; rising numbers of personal bankruptcies due to health problems ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ addictions ; and rising suicide rates .
The number that should be increasing is the one documenting strikes and the number of workers on strike over the past two years .
Trump-appointed corporate lackeys have all but destroyed the National Labor Relations Board , the agency intended to protect workers ’ rights .
After suspending unionization elections in the name of Covid when workers were desperate to unionize , then cynically restoring them to hold what are called decertification elections ( the process by which workers can vote out a union ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States no real choice but to act as if they had an effective union .
That means building supermajority support and walking off the job unless and until their demands are met .
This May Day , however—aside from conjuring up wishful images of workers all across this country striking for every bit of what ’ s been taken from them—we need to dream bigger than securing personal protective equipment or hazard pay or sick pay during a pandemic .
We need to begin strike plans for what we really need : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pro-union Green New Deal guaranteeing all workers in the current fossil fuel sector can keep their current union contracts , while enabling “ essential ” workers in low-carbon-emission sectors ( home care and child care workers , those that harvest and deliver our food , etc . )
to achieve new collective agreements as good as those in the energy sector .
We need to plan strikes this fall , in 2021 , 2022 , and up to 2024 , where solidarity pledges are signed by tens of millions of workers : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of us achieve health care free at the point of service , national guaranteed sick leave , vacation leave , a just society and a functioning democracy.
” Every strike I ’ ve had the pleasure of helping to lead involved variations of solidarity pledges , which are literal , signed statements , public commitments organized work area by work area , shift by shift , so workers could wrestle up-front with the hard decisions to stay out longer for one another , and thus for all of us .
The Supreme Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the federal judiciary belongs to McConnell and Trump .
As we have seen from Illinois to Wisconsin , the electoral system is broken to the point where , yes , there will be something called an election in November—but it won ’ t be fair or free .
It will be suppressed and stolen .
Strikes are the only tool left in the basket .
Until we find our way to massive strikes , the country we once knew , problematic as it was , is done .
Running highly effective strikes—what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as hell , but everyone can learn .
Besides , taking action together easily beats hunger , homelessness and a lifetime of illegitimate debt heaped upon us by people profiting as workers die .
This May Day , pledge to learn about strikes , about what it takes to build supermajority strikes , like those recently waged by the Los Angeles , Chicago , and West Virginia educators .
They had nearly 100 percent participation , and serious spadework was done to build broad community support before the supermajorities ever walked off the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to someone you work with , live with , your next-door neighbor .
Start a book group on how to hold an effective strike .
Begin building groups to actively support workers who will be on strike .
Via Skype or Zoom , from sidewalk to front porch , commit to the knowledge that with the courts gone , the press under assault , the wrecked Wisconsin election as a portent of the coming presidential election , the only salvation each of us have is one another .

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May 1 is an official public holiday in 66 countries, including most of Europe. Other than a couple of faith-based holidays and the start of the new year, there’s hardly a holiday that spans so many nations. With its roots in ancient agrarian celebrations of spring, the official public holiday on May 1 is International Workers Day, celebrating the extraordinary contributions of workers and the working class. In countries where it’s an official day off, and 100 other nations, it is often commemorated with marches, protests, or strikes.
But here in the United States, the date is barely known beyond those immigrants whose home countries honor it, or among the most committed labor activists. Yet May Day commemorates the lives of four labor organizers in the United States who were hanged in Chicago after being falsely convicted of throwing a bomb into a group of police.
The lead-up to what became known as the Haymarket Massacre was a call to shorten the workday with no pay cut. In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (precursor to the American Federation of Labor) voted at its annual convention that from May 1, 1886, onward, the workday would consist of eight hours. Thus on May 1, 1886, peaceful protests took place in many US cities, with hundreds of thousands walking off the job. In Chicago, a second consecutive day of action drew crowds to a steel mill that was the site of an ongoing labor dispute. When police attacked the protesters, two workers were killed and dozens injured. The organizers hastily called for people to take to the streets for a third day in the city’s Haymarket Square to protest the killings. During this protest a bomb was thrown at the police. In the ensuing melee, seven police officers and at least four civilians were killed, with dozens of others wounded.
Diagnosing the problem as “an acute outbreak of anarchy,” The New York Times prescribed the application of “a Gatling gun” followed by “hemp, in judicious doses.” Eight organizers of the Haymarket Square protest were arrested, and despite no evidence to connect them to the bombing—several were not even in the square at the time—four were executed in August of 1886. A fifth defendant committed suicide before being hanged, and three others who were convicted were later fully exonerated and released from jail. The charges against the activists were obviously trumped up, intended to quell growing labor unrest in Chicago and the country at large. More From Jane McAlevey The Teamsters’ Proposed Agreement With UPS Is a Great Victory by and for the Workers July 28, 2023 Contract Talks by Teamsters and the UAW Have the Potential to Change Our Politics June 27, 2023 How Should Workers Respond to the Supreme Court's Ruling in “Glacier Northwest”? June 1, 2023
Less than 10 years and several massive strikes later, President Grover Cleveland declared the first Monday in September as Labor Day, an action designed explicitly to sever the nation’s working class from their counterparts across the globe, as well as give the appearance that the Democratic Party cared about workers while it was brutally repressing strikes. With the exception of the May 1, 2006, the “Day Without an Immigrant”—arguably the biggest strike by labor in the United States in decades—International Workers Day has hardly registered here. This isn’t surprising: Despite the applause for health care workers whose employers are killing them by denying them personal protective equipment, workers and the working class are not valued in the United States. The rot of our democracy lies in the indignation with which the political elite casts aside the daily contributions of workers, both paid and unpaid. From housewives and mothers, rendered insignificant except for the unpaid, unofficial, Hallmark-card holiday called Mother’s Day, to immoral prison labor, to agricultural workers toiling in slave-like conditions in fields stretching from Deep South Louisiana to chic California to the verdant apple orchards of the Empire State, tens of millions had been exploited and uncompensated for a long time before a record 26.5 million Americans filed unemployment claims because of the pandemic. 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Amazon workers are being fired for standing up for their own health protection needs. Registered nurses are being fired for coming to work with a garbage bag covering their scrubs and posting the pictures on social media on their own time, suggesting that their protective equipment is as good as trash bags. Then there’s the outrageous series of federal bailouts designed to fatten the over-bulging pockets of CEOs and shareholders while intentionally starving workers of wages, health care, food, rent, heat, and any damned dignity at all. Mitch McConnell’s musings—that he has no intention of helping local and state governments alleviate the crushing pain of millions of people being laid off, because the free market won’t produce equipment or testing or do a goddamned thing to stop the devastation—makes it clear that the bailouts are also designed to be a cudgel, intentionally destroying public service workers’ hard-earned pensions in the name of post-Covid austerity. Current Issue View our current issue
Recently passed federal policy, starting with the 2017 tax cut for the rich and ending with the pandemic’s corporate bailouts, engorges the super rich by sucking the lifeblood from workers. Homelessness, car repossessions, and hunger are the reward for every bit of profit the workers have earned for the plutocrats in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Thinking about May Day can feel revolting in the United States, where workers need a lot more than another holiday. Although, to be clear, many of the nation’s workers get no holidays, no days off, no vacation, in addition to no health care, no homes, and no pension.
The number of unemployed workers is now reaching Great Depression levels. Meanwhile, the human misery index has long been reminiscent of the early 1930s—if less obvious to the cheery people at NPR’s Market Place. They somehow—right up until Covid—consistently reported that the economy was doing fine and Wall Street was up, ignoring decades of massive underemployment, sinking wages; rising numbers of personal bankruptcies due to health problems; rising credit card debt; rising opioid addictions; and rising suicide rates.
The number that should be increasing is the one documenting strikes and the number of workers on strike over the past two years. Trump-appointed corporate lackeys have all but destroyed the National Labor Relations Board, the agency intended to protect workers’ rights. After suspending unionization elections in the name of Covid when workers were desperate to unionize, then cynically restoring them to hold what are called decertification elections (the process by which workers can vote out a union), the NLRB has left workers in the United States no real choice but to act as if they had an effective union. That means building supermajority support and walking off the job unless and until their demands are met.
This May Day, however—aside from conjuring up wishful images of workers all across this country striking for every bit of what’s been taken from them—we need to dream bigger than securing personal protective equipment or hazard pay or sick pay during a pandemic. We need to begin strike plans for what we really need: Medicare for All, and an aggressively pro-union Green New Deal guaranteeing all workers in the current fossil fuel sector can keep their current union contracts, while enabling “essential” workers in low-carbon-emission sectors (home care and child care workers, those that harvest and deliver our food, etc.) to achieve new collective agreements as good as those in the energy sector. We need to plan strikes this fall, in 2021, 2022, and up to 2024, where solidarity pledges are signed by tens of millions of workers: “None of us go back until all of us achieve health care free at the point of service, national guaranteed sick leave, vacation leave, a just society and a functioning democracy.”
Every strike I’ve had the pleasure of helping to lead involved variations of solidarity pledges, which are literal, signed statements, public commitments organized work area by work area, shift by shift, so workers could wrestle up-front with the hard decisions to stay out longer for one another, and thus for all of us. The Supreme Court is gone for the foreseeable future, and the federal judiciary belongs to McConnell and Trump. As we have seen from Illinois to Wisconsin, the electoral system is broken to the point where, yes, there will be something called an election in November—but it won’t be fair or free. It will be suppressed and stolen.
Strikes are the only tool left in the basket. Until we find our way to massive strikes, the country we once knew, problematic as it was, is done. Running highly effective strikes—what we need to reset this country—is hard as hell, but everyone can learn. Besides, taking action together easily beats hunger, homelessness and a lifetime of illegitimate debt heaped upon us by people profiting as workers die.
This May Day, pledge to learn about strikes, about what it takes to build supermajority strikes, like those recently waged by the Los Angeles, Chicago, and West Virginia educators. They had nearly 100 percent participation, and serious spadework was done to build broad community support before the supermajorities ever walked off the job. This May Day, talk to someone you work with, live with, your next-door neighbor. Start a book group on how to hold an effective strike. Begin building groups to actively support workers who will be on strike. Via Skype or Zoom, from sidewalk to front porch, commit to the knowledge that with the courts gone, the press under assault, the wrecked Wisconsin election as a portent of the coming presidential election, the only salvation each of us have is one another.


thenation--2020-05-01--The Pandemic in Our Minds

The Pandemic in Our Minds

None of us are going to the movie theater anytime soon .
Fortunately , there are convenient substitutes for cinema addicts , perhaps most readily the streaming of classic movies .
But it turns out there is no escaping the pandemic—even in the pleasures of the past .
Rewatching the movies of Val Lewton , who produced nine remarkable horror flicks for RKO during World War II , I was struck by how closely the anxiety of these films mirrors our own moment .
This is particularly true of one of his less well-regarded films , Isle of the Dead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plague-ridden Greek island whose inhabitants start suspecting they are being stalked by a kind of vampire .
Lewton , previously a troubleshooter at MGM , had been hired by RKO in 1942 with the mandate to produce trash .
RKO had just lost a fortune with Citizen Kane ( 1941 ) so the studio decided they needed less art and more crowd-pleasers .
The idea was to copy Universal Pictures ’ popular franchise of monster films , creature features like Frankenstein ( 1931 ) and Dracula ( 1931 ) which were endlessly recycled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d had an earlier career as a pulp writer , seemed just the man for the job .
RKO even ended up hiring Boris Karloff , famous for his doleful-eyed Frankenstein monster , to work with Lewton .
Though Lewton was hired to be a hack , he failed by giving the studio art .
Burdened with sleazy titles ( Cat People , Curse of the Cat People , I Walked With A Zombie ) and B-movie budgets ( each movie had to be made for under $ 150,000 ) , Lewton used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much artistry he could get away with .
If he had to make movies about cat people or zombies , he ’ d turn the freakish subject into a question : What are the circumstances under which a young woman could believe that she could become a murderous feline when aroused ?
Could it have to do with sexual repression ?
What function do myths about zombies serve in colonial societies ?
Are they a way to control the population through fear ?
Meatpacking Plants Are a Front in the Covid-19 Class War @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shared by All Lewton wasn ’ t interested in monsters so much as the conditions that made people believe in monsters , the impossible-to-suppress atavistic fears that persist even among people who think of themselves as rational .
Exploring the borderline where ambiguity gives way to terror , he became a maestro of uncertainty .
That love of uncertainty found its counterpart in the fog and murk that mark his characteristic visual style .
Low budgets and wartime limits on electrical usage were contributing factors to the shadowy nature of his movies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made film noir .
But as with film noir , Lewton turned necessity into opportunity .
Shadows have their shades , Lewton discovered .
The eye can be held by trying to distinguish between umbra , penumbra and antumbra .
In an interview with Life magazine in 1946 , Lewton codified this into a rule .
“ I ’ ll tell you a secret , ” he confided .
“ If you make the screen dark enough , the mind ’ s eye will read anything into it they want !
” He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ darkness with more horror than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of.
” One reason Boris Karloff proved to be such a happy collaborator with Lewton was that the famed horror actor had the same philosophy .
A gifted character actor , Karloff had grown tired of the luridness of the Universal Pictures formula , where the shocks were too explicit .
In the introduction to an anthology titled Tales of Terror ( 1943 ) , Karloff argued for the superiority of stories that used the subtlety of suggestion and explored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the unknowable.
” Isle of the Dead is set in 1912 , during the First Balkan War .
The movie was inspired by Arnold Böcklin ’ s famous painting of the same name , which shows a desolate island , an image alluded to in the film .
Karloff plays General Pherides , a fierce Greek military leader .
Nicknamed “ the Watchdog , ” Pherides is a stern disciplinarian , a believer in rules , order , and rationality .
An outbreak of the septicemic plague occurs on a small island housing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quarantine .
An old Greek woman named Kyra ( Helene Thimig ) starts planting rumors that the actual culprit isn ’ t the plague but a vorvolaka , one of the living dead .
Pherides scoffs at her with gruff good humor .
“ Go away with your nonsense , old woman , ” he chides .
“ These are new times for Greece .
We do not believe the old foolish tales anymore.
” Pherides sees himself as a modern man , a man of science , who has put aside foolish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his trust in the medical advice of a military doctor .
In scenes that will ring all too familiar , everyone on the island is caught up in rituals of handwashing and distancing , complete with awkwardly avoided handshakes .
But the pandemic takes a psychological toll , with Pherides increasingly coming to doubt science and taking comfort in raw authoritarianism .
His need for order makes him vulnerable in the end to Kyra ’ s teachings about the vorvolaka .
The film is an exploration of how the stress of a pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s hard not to think about the Trump administration ’ s campaign of blaming China , nor the rising hate crimes against Asian Americans .
Karloff is wonderfully nuanced as Pherides , a man whose vigilance is a strength at normal times but becomes his undoing .
The pandemic in Pherides mind is the true subject of the movie , and Karloff brings to life all the twists and turns of that mental universe .
There is much in the character that reflects Lewton himself .
Born in Russia in 1904 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to him by his nanny .
Even as he became a successful producer in sunny California , these Gothic tales never left him .
The inability of modern people to escape the Gothic past is Lewton ’ s recurring concern .
Isle of the Dead isn ’ t usually ranked as one of Lewton ’ s best movies ; Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie have been much more celebrated .
The movie had a troubled production history , with hasty rewrites leaving many plot holes and jarring scene shifts .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ James Agee gave it a wildly mixed review .
He said it was “ tedious , overloaded , diffuse , and at moments arty , yet in many ways to be respected , up to its last half-hour or so ; then it becomes as brutally frightening and gratifying a horror movie as I can remember.
” Revisiting it in a new century , we can see that it has many of Lewton ’ s characteristic virtues and , thanks to Covid-19 , a new urgency .
Isle of the Dead can be @ @ @ @ @

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None of us are going to the movie theater anytime soon. Fortunately, there are convenient substitutes for cinema addicts, perhaps most readily the streaming of classic movies. But it turns out there is no escaping the pandemic—even in the pleasures of the past. Rewatching the movies of Val Lewton, who produced nine remarkable horror flicks for RKO during World War II, I was struck by how closely the anxiety of these films mirrors our own moment. This is particularly true of one of his less well-regarded films, Isle of the Dead (1945), set in a plague-ridden Greek island whose inhabitants start suspecting they are being stalked by a kind of vampire.
Lewton, previously a troubleshooter at MGM, had been hired by RKO in 1942 with the mandate to produce trash. RKO had just lost a fortune with Citizen Kane (1941) so the studio decided they needed less art and more crowd-pleasers. The idea was to copy Universal Pictures’ popular franchise of monster films, creature features like Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula (1931) which were endlessly recycled in sequels. Lewton, who’d had an earlier career as a pulp writer, seemed just the man for the job. RKO even ended up hiring Boris Karloff, famous for his doleful-eyed Frankenstein monster, to work with Lewton.
Though Lewton was hired to be a hack, he failed by giving the studio art. Burdened with sleazy titles (Cat People, Curse of the Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie) and B-movie budgets (each movie had to be made for under $150,000), Lewton used his constraints as challenges to see how much artistry he could get away with.
If he had to make movies about cat people or zombies, he’d turn the freakish subject into a question: What are the circumstances under which a young woman could believe that she could become a murderous feline when aroused? Could it have to do with sexual repression? What function do myths about zombies serve in colonial societies? Are they a way to control the population through fear? More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
Lewton wasn’t interested in monsters so much as the conditions that made people believe in monsters, the impossible-to-suppress atavistic fears that persist even among people who think of themselves as rational. Exploring the borderline where ambiguity gives way to terror, he became a maestro of uncertainty.
That love of uncertainty found its counterpart in the fog and murk that mark his characteristic visual style. Low budgets and wartime limits on electrical usage were contributing factors to the shadowy nature of his movies, as they also were to those who made film noir. But as with film noir, Lewton turned necessity into opportunity. Shadows have their shades, Lewton discovered. The eye can be held by trying to distinguish between umbra, penumbra and antumbra.
In an interview with Life magazine in 1946, Lewton codified this into a rule. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he confided. “If you make the screen dark enough, the mind’s eye will read anything into it they want!” He added that viewers “will populate the darkness with more horror than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of.” 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
One reason Boris Karloff proved to be such a happy collaborator with Lewton was that the famed horror actor had the same philosophy. A gifted character actor, Karloff had grown tired of the luridness of the Universal Pictures formula, where the shocks were too explicit. In the introduction to an anthology titled Tales of Terror (1943), Karloff argued for the superiority of stories that used the subtlety of suggestion and explored the “fear of the unknown and the unknowable.”
Isle of the Dead is set in 1912, during the First Balkan War. The movie was inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s famous painting of the same name, which shows a desolate island, an image alluded to in the film. Karloff plays General Pherides, a fierce Greek military leader. Nicknamed “the Watchdog,” Pherides is a stern disciplinarian, a believer in rules, order, and rationality. An outbreak of the septicemic plague occurs on a small island housing refugees. Pherides immediately declares a strict quarantine.
An old Greek woman named Kyra (Helene Thimig) starts planting rumors that the actual culprit isn’t the plague but a vorvolaka, one of the living dead. Pherides scoffs at her with gruff good humor. “Go away with your nonsense, old woman,” he chides. “These are new times for Greece. We do not believe the old foolish tales anymore.”
Pherides sees himself as a modern man, a man of science, who has put aside foolish old wives’ tales. He puts his trust in the medical advice of a military doctor. In scenes that will ring all too familiar, everyone on the island is caught up in rituals of handwashing and distancing, complete with awkwardly avoided handshakes.
But the pandemic takes a psychological toll, with Pherides increasingly coming to doubt science and taking comfort in raw authoritarianism. His need for order makes him vulnerable in the end to Kyra’s teachings about the vorvolaka. The film is an exploration of how the stress of a pandemic breeds a search for scapegoats. It’s hard not to think about the Trump administration’s campaign of blaming China, nor the rising hate crimes against Asian Americans.
Karloff is wonderfully nuanced as Pherides, a man whose vigilance is a strength at normal times but becomes his undoing. The pandemic in Pherides mind is the true subject of the movie, and Karloff brings to life all the twists and turns of that mental universe.
There is much in the character that reflects Lewton himself. Born in Russia in 1904, Lewton grew up with horror stories told to him by his nanny. Even as he became a successful producer in sunny California, these Gothic tales never left him. The inability of modern people to escape the Gothic past is Lewton’s recurring concern.
Isle of the Dead isn’t usually ranked as one of Lewton’s best movies; Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie have been much more celebrated. The movie had a troubled production history, with hasty rewrites leaving many plot holes and jarring scene shifts. Writing in The Nation in 1945, James Agee gave it a wildly mixed review. He said it was “tedious, overloaded, diffuse, and at moments arty, yet in many ways to be respected, up to its last half-hour or so; then it becomes as brutally frightening and gratifying a horror movie as I can remember.” Revisiting it in a new century, we can see that it has many of Lewton’s characteristic virtues and, thanks to Covid-19, a new urgency.
Isle of the Dead can be seen for free on Archive.org