thenation--2020-12-29--Kelly Loeffler’s Sacrilegious Campaign

Kelly Loeffler’s Sacrilegious Campaign

Kelly Loeffler ’ s relentless assault on the religious faith of the Rev .
Raphael Warnock , her challenger in the January 5 Georgia runoff that could decide control of the US Senate , has been characterized by deliberate mischaracterizations of the pastor ’ s sermons and the Christian Scriptures on which they are based .
At rallies , in media appearances and in their only runoff campaign debate , the appointed Republican incumbent has attacked her Democratic rival for preaching a social gospel rooted in New Testament teaching , Framing her campaign around wildly out-of-context claims about Warnock ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordained opponent for referencing Christian teachings—along with those of the world ’ s other major religions—when he addresses issues of war and peace , policing and economics .
Loeffler bitterly rejects questioning of her approach , declaring , “ I ’ m not going to be lectured by someone that uses the Bible to justify abortion and to attack our men and women in the military.
” It is a bizarre political strategy that , like so much of Loeffler ’ s candidacy , demands that Georgians deny reality—in this case , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respected religious leader with a PhD in theology from Union Theological Seminary .
As only the fifth senior pastor in the storied history of Atlanta ’ s Ebenezer Baptist Church—the Rev .
Martin Luther King Jr. ’ s spiritual home—Warnock has earned acclaim for his biblical knowledge and his nuanced application of it to contemporary debates .
Yet Loeffler continues to claim that the Democrat disrespected people serving in the military when he delivered a 2011 sermon based on the Gospel of Matthew , in which he said , “ America , nobody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You can ’ t serve God and money .
You can not serve God and mammon at the same time .
America , choose ye this day whom you will serve.
” If that is a radical statement , it is the radicalism of Christian teaching over the past two millennia .
As Greg Garrett , a seminary-trained lay preacher in the Episcopal Church who teaches theology at Baylor University , has noted , Warnock ’ s message in that sermon was a fairly traditional reading of the Scripture : Jesus taught that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , anything we revere more than God , becomes God to us , whether that ’ s money or country or work or security .
The Scripture says this ; the 2,000-year discourse of the church says this ; our own honest understanding of the call of Christ says this .
Fox News itself reported that Warnock ’ s message was “ call ( ing ) on churchgoers , and America as a whole , to turn away from the pursuit of power and wealth in favor of a life of service.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being willfully misconstrued as an attack on military service , ” explains Garrett .
Warnock explained as much in the December 6 Senate debate , after Loeffler peddled the line of attack once more .
“ Listen , ” he said , “ this is why I think folks have turned off from politics very often—because people will turn anything into a kind of cynical political argument .
I was preaching that day from a very familiar Matthew text that says you can ’ t serve God and mammon .
It was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we do and that when you have everything in order , that actually makes you a better soldier .
It also makes you a better senator , and had Kelly Loeffler listened to the sermon rather than trying to make a cheap political point , she wouldn ’ t have used her advantage as US senator to make millions on a pandemic while playing it down to the people she was supposed to be representing.
” That devastating takedown should have been the end of it .
But Loeffler is shameless .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ announcement that “ I ’ m a Christian , I ’ m a person of deep faith .
I don ’ t need a lecture from someone who has used the Bible to not only justify attacking our military .
That ’ s not in Matthew 6:24 .
It doesn ’ t say you can ’ t serve the military and God .
But he ’ s also used the Bible to justify abortion .
I can not stand by and let Georgians not know who my opponent is , how radical his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fundamentally change our country.
” The hypocrisy of Senate Republicans when it comes to matters of religion has been well documented .
But Loeffler has taken things to such extremes that in their debate , Warnock finally said , “ She ’ s continued to misrepresent my record ; she ’ s lied , not only on me , but on Jesus .
Everybody ’ s clear about what that passage is about in Matthew : You can ’ t serve two masters , and she should have listened to the lesson .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ focused on herself ; she ’ d be thinking about the people she ’ s supposed to represent.
” Warnock was somewhat gentler than Garrett , who recognized the racism in Loeffler ’ s attack : I know we would not be having this same conversation about a white preacher calling America to account for its sins .
I know that because thousands of white pastors offer similar messages every week .
I know that because I heard that message over and over during the first 18 years of my life .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and many of these white preachers are condemning different kinds of American moral failings .
And Warnock , on the stump and from the pulpit , is calling on white Americans to repent of the sins of racism and inequality , and many white people do not want to hear these words from any Black man , even a Black man of God .
In a letter sent last week to Loeffler , more than 100 religious leaders from Georgia and across the country wrote , “ We call upon you , Kelly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Reverend Warnock ’ s social justice theological and faith traditions which visualize a just and ardent world where love , fairness and equal justice under the law for marginalized people of all races is not only accepted as an authentic prophetic message in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King , but also a central message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
” The letter explained , “ We see your attacks against Warnock as a broader attack against the Black Church and faith traditions for which we stand.
” Despite the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abandoning a strategy that was best summed up by the Rev .
William Barber III , who says of Warnock : “ He ’ s being attacked because he answered the call of God .
He ’ s being attacked because he believed that you shouldn ’ t use power for anything but to help people up.
” Barber wrote to Warnock as Loeffler ’ s attacks grew more vile .
“ I didn ’ t write him and say , ‘ Quit , ’ I didn ’ t write him and say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ’ I didn ’ t write him and say , ‘ That ’ s why a pastor shouldn ’ t be running.
’ I didn ’ t write him and say , ‘ Pray that they stop attacking you.
’ I wrote him and said , ‘ Don ’ t quit .
Stand on what you believe , because there comes a time when you ’ ve got to say , ‘ I ’ m not going to quit living in and living for God .
’ ”

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Kelly Loeffler’s relentless assault on the religious faith of the Rev. Raphael Warnock, her challenger in the January 5 Georgia runoff that could decide control of the US Senate, has been characterized by deliberate mischaracterizations of the pastor’s sermons and the Christian Scriptures on which they are based. At rallies, in media appearances and in their only runoff campaign debate, the appointed Republican incumbent has attacked her Democratic rival for preaching a social gospel rooted in New Testament teaching,
Framing her campaign around wildly out-of-context claims about Warnock’s sermons, Loeffler rips into her ordained opponent for referencing Christian teachings—along with those of the world’s other major religions—when he addresses issues of war and peace, policing and economics. Loeffler bitterly rejects questioning of her approach, declaring, “I’m not going to be lectured by someone that uses the Bible to justify abortion and to attack our men and women in the military.”
It is a bizarre political strategy that, like so much of Loeffler’s candidacy, demands that Georgians deny reality—in this case, the reality that her rival is an internationally respected religious leader with a PhD in theology from Union Theological Seminary. As only the fifth senior pastor in the storied history of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church—the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s spiritual home—Warnock has earned acclaim for his biblical knowledge and his nuanced application of it to contemporary debates.
Yet Loeffler continues to claim that the Democrat disrespected people serving in the military when he delivered a 2011 sermon based on the Gospel of Matthew, in which he said, “America, nobody can serve God and the military. You can’t serve God and money. You cannot serve God and mammon at the same time. America, choose ye this day whom you will serve.”
If that is a radical statement, it is the radicalism of Christian teaching over the past two millennia. As Greg Garrett, a seminary-trained lay preacher in the Episcopal Church who teaches theology at Baylor University, has noted, Warnock’s message in that sermon was
“Warnock’s theological conclusion is being willfully misconstrued as an attack on military service,” explains Garrett. Current Issue View our current issue
Warnock explained as much in the December 6 Senate debate, after Loeffler peddled the line of attack once more. “Listen,” he said, “this is why I think folks have turned off from politics very often—because people will turn anything into a kind of cynical political argument. I was preaching that day from a very familiar Matthew text that says you can’t serve God and mammon. It was a sermon about a moral foundation for everything that we do and that when you have everything in order, that actually makes you a better soldier. It also makes you a better senator, and had Kelly Loeffler listened to the sermon rather than trying to make a cheap political point, she wouldn’t have used her advantage as US senator to make millions on a pandemic while playing it down to the people she was supposed to be representing.”
That devastating takedown should have been the end of it. But Loeffler is shameless. She came right back with a self-righteous announcement that “I’m a Christian, I’m a person of deep faith. I don’t need a lecture from someone who has used the Bible to not only justify attacking our military. That’s not in Matthew 6:24. It doesn’t say you can’t serve the military and God. But he’s also used the Bible to justify abortion. I cannot stand by and let Georgians not know who my opponent is, how radical his views are, and how he would fundamentally change our country.”
The hypocrisy of Senate Republicans when it comes to matters of religion has been well documented. But Loeffler has taken things to such extremes that in their debate, Warnock finally said, “She’s continued to misrepresent my record; she’s lied, not only on me, but on Jesus. Everybody’s clear about what that passage is about in Matthew: You can’t serve two masters, and she should have listened to the lesson. Maybe she wouldn’t be so focused on herself; she’d be thinking about the people she’s supposed to represent.”
Warnock was somewhat gentler than Garrett, who recognized the racism in Loeffler’s attack:
I know we would not be having this same conversation about a white preacher calling America to account for its sins. I know that because thousands of white pastors offer similar messages every week. I know that because I heard that message over and over during the first 18 years of my life. The only two differences are these: Warnock and many of these white preachers are condemning different kinds of American moral failings. And Warnock, on the stump and from the pulpit, is calling on white Americans to repent of the sins of racism and inequality, and many white people do not want to hear these words from any Black man, even a Black man of God.
In a letter sent last week to Loeffler, more than 100 religious leaders from Georgia and across the country wrote, “We call upon you, Kelly Loeffler, to cease your false attacks on Reverend Warnock’s social justice theological and faith traditions which visualize a just and ardent world where love, fairness and equal justice under the law for marginalized people of all races is not only accepted as an authentic prophetic message in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, but also a central message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The letter explained, “We see your attacks against Warnock as a broader attack against the Black Church and faith traditions for which we stand.”
Despite the rebuke, Loeffler shows no sign of abandoning a strategy that was best summed up by the Rev. William Barber II, who says of Warnock: “He’s being attacked because he answered the call of God. He’s being attacked because he believed that you shouldn’t use power for anything but to help people up.”
Barber wrote to Warnock as Loeffler’s attacks grew more vile. “I didn’t write him and say, ‘Quit,’ I didn’t write him and say, ‘Get out of the race,’ I didn’t write him and say, ‘That’s why a pastor shouldn’t be running.’ I didn’t write him and say, ‘Pray that they stop attacking you.’ I wrote him and said, ‘Don’t quit. Stand on what you believe, because there comes a time when you’ve got to say, ‘I’m not going to quit living in and living for God.’”


thenation--2020-12-29--2020: The Year Sports Should Have Stopped

This cursed year of 2020 should be remembered as the time when sports was put in a meat grinder , mixed with all manner of offal and served to us as hope .
Professional sports , we were told , represented a “ return to normalcy ” in a time that was anything but normal .
“ The games must go on ” was the mantra , with athletes presented as “ essential workers ” by sports leagues and colleges desperate for their billion-dollar fix of television cash .
Think about how quickly sports were shut down in March after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Covid-19 , sending a warning to the country that tough times were ahead .
Then think about how in a matter of weeks , sports were repackaged and games resumed for our collective distraction .
NBA and WNBA players were sent to live in a hermetically sealed bubble , locked away from their families and the outside world .
College players in the revenue-producing sports were involuntary guests of honor at an infection frat party , with no pay , no semblance of union protections , and no voice .
Instead , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep the rickety financial tentpole of college football erect on the neoliberal campus .
Major League Baseball gave us tradition freaks a Dodgers World Series victory , only to have it marred when third baseman Justin Turner took the field after the game to celebrate while knowingly having Covid and proceeded to embrace everyone within spit-bubble distance , including his cancer-survivor manager , Dave Roberts .
Think of the games played in front of empty stands , giving an I Am Legend , post-apocalyptic field to the contest .
What a bizarre scene @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flapping in the breeze , as announcers spoke to each other through plexiglass , again pushing an illusion of safety while players sweated and expectorated all over one another on the field and court .
At least the Thunderdome had fans .
Sports , as scribe Jane McManus reminded us early in the year , is a sign of a functioning society .
Our society is profoundly dysfunctional , ripped apart by disease and inflamed by racism , and sports reflected that .
Far from being a respite of hope , it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us lived this year either in a state of isolating agony or abject and dangerous denial .
They served us slop and called it hope , which provokes the question about whether that ’ s crueler than serving nothing at all .
Some of us believe slop is superior to starvation , yet 47 percent of the American public said to the Marist pollsters that they were watching less sports than a year ago , showing that many pushed away their plates .
Meanwhile a new crypto-fascist strain of sportswriting appeared to blame @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The hate-tract analysis—always presented without facts—was that ratings were down not because of Covid ’ s sucking the life out of our society but because “ fans ” ( read “ white fans ” ) were repulsed by Black and white players ’ speaking out in solidarity with Black and brown people after the police murder of George Floyd .
This explanation failed to account for why ratings were down so dramatically for golf and NASCAR , sports not exactly delivering sermons on the mount .
It was just more profitable poison to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to stand .
The players , however , withstood the avalanche of hate and did more than send tweets with hashtags , amplifying the latest atrocity .
In a sports world built this year on an altar of false hope , the players gave us something real .
The very same week that the Republicans used their national convention to bleat about “ law and order ” and “ Black Lives Matter anarchists burning down our cities , ” the players went on strike for Black lives in August , after the police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wis. Why the Cleveland Indians Will Change Their Name These athletes changed the conversation , reminding all of us that the problem is not protesters but police violence .
They also brought the question of the strike into the struggle for Black Lives and gave many of us a sense of hope .
Real hope , completely unprocessed and unfiltered .
It was hope not staged by league marketeers hoping to attract a young and diverse fan base .
It was real struggle—substantial , authentic—and it sparked rage in all the right people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course of days from basketball , to baseball , to soccer , to tennis was to see labor at long last flex its power against state violence .
Yes , we don ’ t have a functioning society at the moment .
But maybe—just maybe—the actions of athletes as workers , played a vital role in something more important than just merely a return to normal .
Sports didn ’ t deliver normalcy in 2020 .
But they did nudge us toward justice .

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This cursed year of 2020 should be remembered as the time when sports was put in a meat grinder, mixed with all manner of offal and served to us as hope.
Professional sports, we were told, represented a “return to normalcy” in a time that was anything but normal. “The games must go on” was the mantra, with athletes presented as “essential workers” by sports leagues and colleges desperate for their billion-dollar fix of television cash.
Think about how quickly sports were shut down in March after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for Covid-19, sending a warning to the country that tough times were ahead. Then think about how in a matter of weeks, sports were repackaged and games resumed for our collective distraction.
NBA and WNBA players were sent to live in a hermetically sealed bubble, locked away from their families and the outside world. College players in the revenue-producing sports were involuntary guests of honor at an infection frat party, with no pay, no semblance of union protections, and no voice. Instead, they were put on the field to keep the rickety financial tentpole of college football erect on the neoliberal campus.
Major League Baseball gave us tradition freaks a Dodgers World Series victory, only to have it marred when third baseman Justin Turner took the field after the game to celebrate while knowingly having Covid and proceeded to embrace everyone within spit-bubble distance, including his cancer-survivor manager, Dave Roberts. Current Issue View our current issue
Think of the games played in front of empty stands, giving an I Am Legend, post-apocalyptic field to the contest. What a bizarre scene, as coaches wore ill-fitting masks, flapping in the breeze, as announcers spoke to each other through plexiglass, again pushing an illusion of safety while players sweated and expectorated all over one another on the field and court. At least the Thunderdome had fans.
Sports, as scribe Jane McManus reminded us early in the year, is a sign of a functioning society. Our society is profoundly dysfunctional, ripped apart by disease and inflamed by racism, and sports reflected that. Far from being a respite of hope, it was a sclerotic reminder that so many of us lived this year either in a state of isolating agony or abject and dangerous denial. They served us slop and called it hope, which provokes the question about whether that’s crueler than serving nothing at all. Some of us believe slop is superior to starvation, yet 47 percent of the American public said to the Marist pollsters that they were watching less sports than a year ago, showing that many pushed away their plates.
Meanwhile a new crypto-fascist strain of sportswriting appeared to blame the low ratings on Black athletes. The hate-tract analysis—always presented without facts—was that ratings were down not because of Covid’s sucking the life out of our society but because “fans” (read “white fans”) were repulsed by Black and white players’ speaking out in solidarity with Black and brown people after the police murder of George Floyd. This explanation failed to account for why ratings were down so dramatically for golf and NASCAR, sports not exactly delivering sermons on the mount. It was just more profitable poison to pour into a body politic barely able to stand.
The players, however, withstood the avalanche of hate and did more than send tweets with hashtags, amplifying the latest atrocity. In a sports world built this year on an altar of false hope, the players gave us something real. The very same week that the Republicans used their national convention to bleat about “law and order” and “Black Lives Matter anarchists burning down our cities,” the players went on strike for Black lives in August, after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. More From Dave Zirin “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash August 15, 2023 Why the Right Wanted the USWNT to Lose August 10, 2023 Carli Lloyd’s Attacks on the USWNT Are Personal—and Political August 1, 2023
These athletes changed the conversation, reminding all of us that the problem is not protesters but police violence. They also brought the question of the strike into the struggle for Black Lives and gave many of us a sense of hope. Real hope, completely unprocessed and unfiltered. It was hope not staged by league marketeers hoping to attract a young and diverse fan base. It was real struggle—substantial, authentic—and it sparked rage in all the right people. To see it cascade over the course of days from basketball, to baseball, to soccer, to tennis was to see labor at long last flex its power against state violence.
Yes, we don’t have a functioning society at the moment. But maybe—just maybe—the actions of athletes as workers, played a vital role in something more important than just merely a return to normal. Sports didn’t deliver normalcy in 2020. But they did nudge us toward justice.


thenation--2020-12-29--Letters From the January 11/28, 2021, Issue

Re “ The Next Fight , ” by John Nichols and Joan Walsh [ Nov. 30/Dec .
7 , 2020 ] : The Georgia runoff election is both a challenge and an opportunity for Biden .
Raphael Warnock , Jon Ossoff , and Stacey Abrams can ’ t do what he needs to do .
Like an off-year election , a runoff is an election without a presidential candidate on the ballot , and voter turnout is normally reduced .
But at this crucial moment , motivating everybody who voted on November 3 to return and vote again in January @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s because the Republicans , without Trump in the picture , will likely spread fear that an unrestrained Biden , together with a Democratic Senate , is a potential disaster .
And as the Democrats can ’ t use an anti-Trump message in the runoff ( because Trump is gone ) , they need substantive ideas and policies .
So it ’ s up to Biden .
Still , let ’ s face a few facts .
Biden ran for president before in 1988 and 2008 , during which time he never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Bernie Sanders—less well-known , without corporate funding , and scorned by the Democratic National Committee—won 23 states in 2016 .
Biden was on course to continue his losing streak in 2020 when he received the mother of all endorsements , from James Clyburn in South Carolina , and the rest was Covid history .
It ’ s not as if the American people have been beating the drums for decades for Biden ; he still needs to prove himself .
Moreover , of the top three Democrats in the House—Speaker Nancy Pelosi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majority whip Clyburn , who at 80 is the youngest ( a few months younger than Pelosi ) —none is particularly inspiring .
And it ’ s hard to recall what passions the lackluster Senator Charles Schumer ignites .
￼ Re “ Why the Left Should Ally With Small Business , ” by Stacy Mitchell and Susan R. Holmberg [ Nov. 30/Dec .
7 , 2020 ] : All the Democratic bashing aside , it is important the link between small businesses and workers gets reestablished .
We can also look overseas to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to organize domestic workers into unions .
Progressives trying to get leadership positions on committees that address monopoly power will also be helpful .
Rural broadband , PBMs [ pharmacy benefit managers ] , and breaking up agricultural monopolies are areas ripe for bipartisan legislation and are worth pursuing .
Ultimately , progressives need to do the work to make legislation that can be voted on and enacted .
This is a crucial area of growth that is consistent with Democratic principles .
Michael Sleet “ Fort Everywhere , ” by Daniel Immerwahr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misspelled the name of a New Mexico military base to which thousands of Navajos were forcibly moved in 1864 .
It was Fort Sumner , not Fort Sumter .

This article appears in the January 11/18, 2021 issue.
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It’s Up to Biden
Re “The Next Fight,” by John Nichols and Joan Walsh [Nov. 30/Dec. 7, 2020]: The Georgia runoff election is both a challenge and an opportunity for Biden. Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, and Stacey Abrams can’t do what he needs to do.
Like an off-year election, a runoff is an election without a presidential candidate on the ballot, and voter turnout is normally reduced. But at this crucial moment, motivating everybody who voted on November 3 to return and vote again in January is Biden’s responsibility. That’s because the Republicans, without Trump in the picture, will likely spread fear that an unrestrained Biden, together with a Democratic Senate, is a potential disaster. And as the Democrats can’t use an anti-Trump message in the runoff (because Trump is gone), they need substantive ideas and policies.
So it’s up to Biden. Still, let’s face a few facts. Biden ran for president before in 1988 and 2008, during which time he never won a single primary. In contrast, Bernie Sanders—less well-known, without corporate funding, and scorned by the Democratic National Committee—won 23 states in 2016.
Biden was on course to continue his losing streak in 2020 when he received the mother of all endorsements, from James Clyburn in South Carolina, and the rest was Covid history. It’s not as if the American people have been beating the drums for decades for Biden; he still needs to prove himself.
Moreover, of the top three Democrats in the House—Speaker Nancy Pelosi, majority leader Steny Hoyer, and majority whip Clyburn, who at 80 is the youngest (a few months younger than Pelosi)—none is particularly inspiring. And it’s hard to recall what passions the lackluster Senator Charles Schumer ignites.
Victor Sciamarelli Current Issue View our current issue
Doing the Work
Re “Why the Left Should Ally With Small Business,” by Stacy Mitchell and Susan R. Holmberg [Nov. 30/Dec. 7, 2020]: All the Democratic bashing aside, it is important the link between small businesses and workers gets reestablished. We can also look overseas to certain countries that have even been able to organize domestic workers into unions. Progressives trying to get leadership positions on committees that address monopoly power will also be helpful. Rural broadband, PBMs [pharmacy benefit managers], and breaking up agricultural monopolies are areas ripe for bipartisan legislation and are worth pursuing. Ultimately, progressives need to do the work to make legislation that can be voted on and enacted. This is a crucial area of growth that is consistent with Democratic principles.
Michael Sleet
Correction
“Fort Everywhere,” by Daniel Immerwahr [Dec. 14/21, 2020], misspelled the name of a New Mexico military base to which thousands of Navajos were forcibly moved in 1864. It was Fort Sumner, not Fort Sumter.


2020

We ’ ve had a year , you must admit , Whose misery would just not quit .
At last @ @ @ @ @ : We ’ re glad to see the back of it .

This article appears in the January 11/18, 2021 issue.
We’ve had a year, you must admit,
Whose misery would just not quit.
At last, we offer this obit:
We’re glad to see the back of it.


thenation--2020-12-29--What Can We Learn From the 1918 Pandemic?

The new disease , public officials said as people began to fall ill with unfamiliar symptoms , was “ trifling ” and “ nothing to worry about provided ordinary precautions were taken.
” It was just the flu .
In Spain , one newspaper said all that people needed to overcome it was “ three days ’ bed rest and a medicine cabinet.
” In the United States , as cases began to multiply , people were told that their government was working “ to confine this disease to its present limits , and in this we are sure to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happen .
Instead , it spread with astonishing rapidity from country to country , continent to continent .
Medical Pandemic 1918 : Eyewitness Accounts From the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History facilities were overwhelmed .
At Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan , “ people were dying in beds , on stretchers and in the corridors .
In the pediatric wards , children were packed three to a bed.
” Doctors and nurses were working virtually around the clock .
“ We didn ’ t have time to treat them , ” said one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ temperatures ; we didn ’ t even have time to take blood pressure.
” Governments , medical services , and ordinary citizens were unprepared .
Famous people began to fall ill ; the British prime minister was so badly affected that reports said it was “ touch and go ” whether he would live or die .
Special hospitals were hurriedly constructed to deal with the extra burden of thousands upon thousands of sick and dying patients .
In the morgues , bodies were stacked one on top of another , identified only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The families of victims resorted to stealing coffins , so great was the shortage caused by the massive rise in demand .
Medical opinion was uncertain in the face of the new disease .
Only as it spread did a better understanding of it develop , and in the meantime , all sorts of dangerous home remedies were tried , from gargling with disinfectant solution to ingesting kerosene administered on a lump of sugar .
A more agreeable way of disinfecting the digestive tract , recommended by some , was to down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One young man in North Carolina reported wearing a bag of asafetida around his neck .
“ People thought the smell would kill germs , ” he wrote .
“ So we all wore a bag of asafetida and smelled like rotten flesh.
” In some cities , including New York , schools and theaters remained open , and officials continued to play down the seriousness of the situation .
When medical authorities , concluding that the disease was spread by droplet infection through coughing and sneezing , recommended the wearing of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were particularly resistant : One downtown attorney in the city described an official order to wear a mask as “ absolutely unconstitutional.
” The police did their best to enforce the regulation .
On occasion , they could go too far .
One public health officer , according to a local newspaper report , drew his gun when a man refused to comply ; the man “ closed in on him and in the succeeding affray was shot in the arm and the leg ” before being taken to a hospital , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for his wounds , for refusing to obey the officer ’ s order .
Public health precautions worked , but they were applied only patchily .
In Manchester , England , the city ’ s chief medical officer managed to get the schools closed and the sick placed in lockdown , which was said to have saved many lives .
He had been through a similar epidemic more than a quarter-century earlier and knew what to do .
In Washington , D.C. , too , the schools , theaters , pool halls , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Red Cross issued face masks .
Advertisements called on Washingtonians to “ Obey the laws / And wear the gauze / Protect your jaws / From septic paws.
” Wrote one young man , looking back on these events : This story must seem a familiar one as we struggle to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic that started at the end of 2019 .
But these examples and quotations are taken not from contemporary news media but from Pandemic 1918 : Eyewitness Accounts From the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History , Catharine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so-called Spanish flu , which was first recorded in the American Midwest in March 1918 .
As the United States shipped hundreds of thousands of troops to Europe during World War I , the disease crossed the Atlantic , then went farther afield , reaching India in June .
Its impact was relatively mild , not much greater than that of an ordinary flu , but in August 1918 a second wave rolled over the globe , deadlier by far than the first .
It was followed by two more waves , somewhat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1920 .
The second wave , in particular , generated symptoms that were horrifying even to seasoned medical workers .
One doctor described the “ bluish cast ” of the victims ’ faces as “ a distressing cough brings up the blood-stained sputum ” ; sometimes the cough was so violent that the blood shot right across the ward .
The victims died in agony as their lungs filled with blood , suffocating them .
The pandemic spread far and fast , not least because it was helped on its way , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been , by troop movements , which were taking place on a global scale as the war entered its final stage .
Troops carried infections from the United States to Europe , from Europe to its colonies in Africa and Asia , and across Russia in the civil war raging in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution .
World War I involved not just service members from Europe and America but also many thousands of Indian troops and Chinese laborers , Australians and New Zealanders , and African forces deployed by the British @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
However , whether the pandemic had a real effect on the outcome of the war has to be doubted : Things might have been different had it discriminated among the various combatant nations , but it took no sides and affected them all .
And the German spring offensive of 1918 failed for different reasons—above all , because the Germans did not possess tanks , as the Allies did in their summer advance , and so were unable to overrun trenches , ward off machine-gun bullets , and reverse the advantage that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever since the war began .
The German generals sacrificed huge numbers of fighters in bloody frontal attacks , and the Allied economic blockade had severely damaged the German economy ’ s ability to replenish the army ’ s resources .
Given the inadequacies of statistics and of the registrations of deaths in many parts of the world at the time , it is not surprising that there is a good deal of uncertainty about how many people died .
Arnold claims that global deaths totaled “ upwards of 100 million.
” However @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more plausibly somewhere between 17 million and 20 million .
This was still catastrophic , given that the world ’ s population at the time stood at around 1.8 billion .
The high death rate and the onset of unusually severe pulmonary symptoms were also a result of years of privation , poor nutrition , and stress caused by the war , which had a serious effect on food supplies .
In Germany , for example , more than half a million people died of malnutrition and associated diseases as a consequence of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and food supplies in other countries were interrupted by submarine warfare and the disruption of peacetime trade patterns .
The disease ’ s origin is thought , though not with any great certainty , to have been in a genetic mutation that took place in the influenza virus in 1915 in the United States , possibly in Kansas .
But this was not recognized at the time .
On the contrary , in another striking parallel to the present-day pandemic , conspiracy theorists in the United States began to claim that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Germans , who had taken it across the Atlantic by submarine and offloaded it on America ’ s East Coast .
“ Let the curse be called the German plague , ” one said .
Of course , the flu was rampaging across Germany as well .
One thing , however , is certain : The disease did not originate in Spain , nor was it particularly virulent there .
It got its name because Spain , as a neutral country in World War I , did not suffer strong state censorship of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nations did .
Journalists there could widely report on the early stages of the pandemic , while their colleagues in Britain , France , Italy , and the United States , on the one hand , and Germany and Austria-Hungary , on the other , were often hindered by restrictions imposed in order to prevent the enemy from getting the impression that the population was anything but flourishing .
Like the current pandemic , the Spanish flu hit populations unevenly .
Although it is the elderly and the sick who are the worst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be young , otherwise healthy adults .
South African workers returning home from the gold mines of the Rand were crowded onto trains , where they began to die in huge numbers .
One newspaper reported that their corpses lined the tracks , and one ticket collector refused to go into the carriages designated for Black riders “ because there was so much illness there.
” Everywhere the poor , living in cramped conditions , malnourished , and weakened by existing health problems , suffered the most .
The disease stoked prejudice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called it the “ black man ’ s sickness ” ; Black South Africans called it the “ white man ’ s sickness.
” On November 11 , 1918 , the vast crowds that thronged the squares of Europe ’ s and America ’ s great cities to celebrate the end of the war spread the virus more efficiently than almost anything else .
Returning ships laden with troops did the rest .
In Australia , after a long period during which quarantines were effective in warding off the importation of the disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and precautionary measures , prepared over several months , were put into effect .
Bars were closed , churches stopped holding services , and even public telephone booths were sealed off .
The authorities issued proclamations telling people to wear masks .
Despite all this , some 15,000 died on the sparsely populated continent , the situation worsened by growing differences among Australian states over how to deal with the problem .
One of the many virtues of Pandemic 1918 is that it ranges across the globe , so we get a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disease was .
Arnold knows how to tell a good story and brings home the human dimension of the pandemic .
But after a while , the stories all start to seem rather similar , and one begins to long for deeper analytical penetration .
There ’ s no way of telling from this book , for example , which countries or cities combated the pandemic most effectively and why .
This homogenizing approach makes it in some ways difficult to extrapolate lessons from 1918 for today .
But lessons there surely are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to be prepared for something like this .
At the beginning of the 1890s , a pandemic dubbed the Russian flu killed an estimated quarter-million people in the United States and around 100,000 in the UK ; perhaps a million died worldwide .
Nearly three decades later , few seemed to remember it or show any concern about a recurrence .
Those who did and managed to take effective action saved many lives .
But action then , as now , was patchy .
With an airborne infection like influenza , spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by residues with the virus lingering on surfaces of many different kinds , a coordinated policy—imposing quarantines , closing places where people crowd together , and getting everyone to take hygienic precautions , notably frequent handwashing—is essential .
Arnold pours scorn on mask wearing as useless , and maybe the thin gauze masks people wore in 1918 didn ’ t offer a great deal of protection for the individual .
But in the present pandemic , evidence has accumulated over the months to show beyond doubt that modern masks are highly effective in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lockdown measures have been equally successful in limiting the impact of the coronavirus .
South Korea , which had plans ready to deal with a new epidemic as a result of previous recent flu outbreaks , managed to roll out an effective testing program and then isolate carriers , including those without obvious symptoms .
As a result , in a population of more than 50 million , there have been some 600 deaths from the disease at the time of writing , despite its return in late August .
South Korea ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has nothing to do with a supposedly more obedient population , one more willing to submit to government controls .
In Greece , a country with just over 10 million inhabitants , the first wave of the virus was kept under control .
The first case was confirmed on February 26 .
Within three weeks , schools , theaters , cafés , bars , and similar places were closed ; within a month , all nonessential movement within the country was banned , the tourist trade suspended , and a package of financial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moderate conservative government took advice from medical scientists on the country ’ s rapidly convened coronavirus task force and decided that saving lives should take precedence over continuing normal economic activity .
It was only with the arrival of the second wave of the pandemic , which followed a period of relaxation of controls , that infections and deaths began to rise , with Greece reporting some 3,600 deaths from the pandemic by the middle of December .
Countries that have not followed medical advice or implemented a coherent national policy have fared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led by populist politicians who are hostile to science , especially with regard to the climate crisis , have seen soaring numbers of deaths—more than 300,000 in the United States and over 180,000 in Brazil , both countries where the president openly dismissed the pandemic as trivial , scorned precautionary measures , and refused to take scientific advice .
Health policy during the pandemic has become politicized , along the lines of the climate crisis , with catastrophic results .
Epidemics have always produced conflicts between saving lives , on the one hand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the other .
Here , as in the climate crisis , too many politicians have seen only the negative , short-term impacts of preventive measures and decided to sacrifice human lives on the altar of profit .
This conflict between economic interest and medical science isn ’ t an aspect of the Spanish flu that Arnold ’ s book has much to say about , though it ’ s clear that state authorities ’ denial or trivialization of the pandemic in its early stages was governed above all by economic considerations .
Despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for lessons and despite some obvious parallels , it ’ s important to recognize that today ’ s situation is very different from 1918 ’ s .
People then did not have to contend with populist politicians who refused to take action against a deadly disease .
Science now is better equipped to deal with pandemics , though in some political circles skepticism about scientific advice has increased , and there is a far greater tendency to politicize the issues it raises .
Above all , the 1918 pandemic happened in the final @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which weakened people ’ s resistance to disease in myriad ways and paved the way for a second wave of the infection that turned out to be much more serious than the first .
This is not the case with the present pandemic , and the second wave of infection that is underway in many countries is unlikely to prove as devastating as in 1918 , not least because , so far , it seems to be mainly affecting younger people and so is relatively mild in its impact .
What is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precedent in 1918 or any other year in the modern era , is the way that large numbers of people are denying the evidence presented by medical science and refusing to take medical advice that would help prevent the spread of the disease .
There have been major demonstrations in a number of countries—including the United Kingdom , the United States , and Germany—that have linked the pandemic to wild and demonstrably false conspiracy theories like QAnon , with its undertones of anti-Semitism , its distrust of science , and its far-right ideology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theories represent can only do harm to our democratic political order .
In the early 1920s , after the Spanish flu , fascism and Nazism began to make waves , too , fueled by the unscrupulous falsehoods spread by propagandists like Joseph Goebbels .
When the Nazis began to describe Jews as “ parasites ” and “ viruses , ” the language of medicine was being used as a tool of racial abuse that would end in mass murder .
The political situation today may be different , but the threat to reasoned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to the safety and security of all our lives—is no less severe .

This article appears in the January 11/18, 2021 issue.
The new disease, public officials said as people began to fall ill with unfamiliar symptoms, was “trifling” and “nothing to worry about provided ordinary precautions were taken.” It was just the flu. In Spain, one newspaper said all that people needed to overcome it was “three days’ bed rest and a medicine cabinet.” In the United States, as cases began to multiply, people were told that their government was working “to confine this disease to its present limits, and in this we are sure to be successful.” But that did not happen. Instead, it spread with astonishing rapidity from country to country, continent to continent. Medical Books in Review Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts From the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History By Catharine Arnold Buy this book
facilities were overwhelmed. At Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, “people were dying in beds, on stretchers and in the corridors. In the pediatric wards, children were packed three to a bed.” Doctors and nurses were working virtually around the clock. “We didn’t have time to treat them,” said one. “We didn’t take temperatures; we didn’t even have time to take blood pressure.”
Governments, medical services, and ordinary citizens were unprepared. Famous people began to fall ill; the British prime minister was so badly affected that reports said it was “touch and go” whether he would live or die. Special hospitals were hurriedly constructed to deal with the extra burden of thousands upon thousands of sick and dying patients. In the morgues, bodies were stacked one on top of another, identified only by tags tied to their left feet. The families of victims resorted to stealing coffins, so great was the shortage caused by the massive rise in demand.
Medical opinion was uncertain in the face of the new disease. Only as it spread did a better understanding of it develop, and in the meantime, all sorts of dangerous home remedies were tried, from gargling with disinfectant solution to ingesting kerosene administered on a lump of sugar. A more agreeable way of disinfecting the digestive tract, recommended by some, was to down several straight whiskeys or tumblers of gin. One young man in North Carolina reported wearing a bag of asafetida around his neck. “People thought the smell would kill germs,” he wrote. “So we all wore a bag of asafetida and smelled like rotten flesh.”
In some cities, including New York, schools and theaters remained open, and officials continued to play down the seriousness of the situation. When medical authorities, concluding that the disease was spread by droplet infection through coughing and sneezing, recommended the wearing of face masks, residents of San Francisco were particularly resistant: One downtown attorney in the city described an official order to wear a mask as “absolutely unconstitutional.” The police did their best to enforce the regulation. On occasion, they could go too far. One public health officer, according to a local newspaper report, drew his gun when a man refused to comply; the man “closed in on him and in the succeeding affray was shot in the arm and the leg” before being taken to a hospital, where he was arrested, while being treated for his wounds, for refusing to obey the officer’s order. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
Public health precautions worked, but they were applied only patchily. In Manchester, England, the city’s chief medical officer managed to get the schools closed and the sick placed in lockdown, which was said to have saved many lives. He had been through a similar epidemic more than a quarter-century earlier and knew what to do. In Washington, D.C., too, the schools, theaters, pool halls, and bars were closed, and the Red Cross issued face masks. Advertisements called on Washingtonians to “Obey the laws / And wear the gauze / Protect your jaws / From septic paws.” Wrote one young man, looking back on these events:
We were afraid to kiss each other, to eat with each other, to have contact of any kind. We had no family life, no school life, no church life, no community life. Fear tore people apart. Related Article What if Scientists Already Know How to Prevent the Next Pandemic? Jimmy Tobias
This story must seem a familiar one as we struggle to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic that started at the end of 2019. But these examples and quotations are taken not from contemporary news media but from Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts From the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History, Catharine Arnold’s absorbing account of the so-called Spanish flu, which was first recorded in the American Midwest in March 1918. As the United States shipped hundreds of thousands of troops to Europe during World War I, the disease crossed the Atlantic, then went farther afield, reaching India in June. Its impact was relatively mild, not much greater than that of an ordinary flu, but in August 1918 a second wave rolled over the globe, deadlier by far than the first. It was followed by two more waves, somewhat less severe, before fading away in 1920. The second wave, in particular, generated symptoms that were horrifying even to seasoned medical workers. One doctor described the “bluish cast” of the victims’ faces as “a distressing cough brings up the blood-stained sputum”; sometimes the cough was so violent that the blood shot right across the ward. The victims died in agony as their lungs filled with blood, suffocating them.
The pandemic spread far and fast, not least because it was helped on its way, as so many pandemics over the centuries have been, by troop movements, which were taking place on a global scale as the war entered its final stage. Troops carried infections from the United States to Europe, from Europe to its colonies in Africa and Asia, and across Russia in the civil war raging in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution. World War I involved not just service members from Europe and America but also many thousands of Indian troops and Chinese laborers, Australians and New Zealanders, and African forces deployed by the British and French imperial powers against German colonies. However, whether the pandemic had a real effect on the outcome of the war has to be doubted: Things might have been different had it discriminated among the various combatant nations, but it took no sides and affected them all. And the German spring offensive of 1918 failed for different reasons—above all, because the Germans did not possess tanks, as the Allies did in their summer advance, and so were unable to overrun trenches, ward off machine-gun bullets, and reverse the advantage that defensive positions had held over attacking forces ever since the war began. The German generals sacrificed huge numbers of fighters in bloody frontal attacks, and the Allied economic blockade had severely damaged the German economy’s ability to replenish the army’s resources.
Given the inadequacies of statistics and of the registrations of deaths in many parts of the world at the time, it is not surprising that there is a good deal of uncertainty about how many people died. Arnold claims that global deaths totaled “upwards of 100 million.” However, other recent estimates put the figure more plausibly somewhere between 17 million and 20 million. This was still catastrophic, given that the world’s population at the time stood at around 1.8 billion.
The high death rate and the onset of unusually severe pulmonary symptoms were also a result of years of privation, poor nutrition, and stress caused by the war, which had a serious effect on food supplies. In Germany, for example, more than half a million people died of malnutrition and associated diseases as a consequence of nearly five years of the Allied blockade, and food supplies in other countries were interrupted by submarine warfare and the disruption of peacetime trade patterns. Related Article A Covid Christmas in Palestine Joseph Gedeon
The disease’s origin is thought, though not with any great certainty, to have been in a genetic mutation that took place in the influenza virus in 1915 in the United States, possibly in Kansas. But this was not recognized at the time. On the contrary, in another striking parallel to the present-day pandemic, conspiracy theorists in the United States began to claim that the disease had been deliberately manufactured by the Germans, who had taken it across the Atlantic by submarine and offloaded it on America’s East Coast. “Let the curse be called the German plague,” one said. Of course, the flu was rampaging across Germany as well.
One thing, however, is certain: The disease did not originate in Spain, nor was it particularly virulent there. It got its name because Spain, as a neutral country in World War I, did not suffer strong state censorship of the news media, as the combatant nations did. Journalists there could widely report on the early stages of the pandemic, while their colleagues in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, on the one hand, and Germany and Austria-Hungary, on the other, were often hindered by restrictions imposed in order to prevent the enemy from getting the impression that the population was anything but flourishing.
Like the current pandemic, the Spanish flu hit populations unevenly. Although it is the elderly and the sick who are the worst hit today, in 1918 it seemed to be young, otherwise healthy adults. South African workers returning home from the gold mines of the Rand were crowded onto trains, where they began to die in huge numbers. One newspaper reported that their corpses lined the tracks, and one ticket collector refused to go into the carriages designated for Black riders “because there was so much illness there.” Everywhere the poor, living in cramped conditions, malnourished, and weakened by existing health problems, suffered the most. The disease stoked prejudice on all sides. White South Africans called it the “black man’s sickness”; Black South Africans called it the “white man’s sickness.”
On November 11, 1918, the vast crowds that thronged the squares of Europe’s and America’s great cities to celebrate the end of the war spread the virus more efficiently than almost anything else. Returning ships laden with troops did the rest. In Australia, after a long period during which quarantines were effective in warding off the importation of the disease, the pandemic arrived in January 1919, and precautionary measures, prepared over several months, were put into effect. Bars were closed, churches stopped holding services, and even public telephone booths were sealed off. The authorities issued proclamations telling people to wear masks. Despite all this, some 15,000 died on the sparsely populated continent, the situation worsened by growing differences among Australian states over how to deal with the problem.
One of the many virtues of Pandemic 1918 is that it ranges across the globe, so we get a useful picture of just how widespread the disease was. Arnold knows how to tell a good story and brings home the human dimension of the pandemic. But after a while, the stories all start to seem rather similar, and one begins to long for deeper analytical penetration. There’s no way of telling from this book, for example, which countries or cities combated the pandemic most effectively and why. This homogenizing approach makes it in some ways difficult to extrapolate lessons from 1918 for today. But lessons there surely are.
The first one is that governments need to be prepared for something like this. At the beginning of the 1890s, a pandemic dubbed the Russian flu killed an estimated quarter-million people in the United States and around 100,000 in the UK; perhaps a million died worldwide. Nearly three decades later, few seemed to remember it or show any concern about a recurrence. Those who did and managed to take effective action saved many lives. But action then, as now, was patchy. With an airborne infection like influenza, spread by people breathing on one another and by residues with the virus lingering on surfaces of many different kinds, a coordinated policy—imposing quarantines, closing places where people crowd together, and getting everyone to take hygienic precautions, notably frequent handwashing—is essential.
Arnold pours scorn on mask wearing as useless, and maybe the thin gauze masks people wore in 1918 didn’t offer a great deal of protection for the individual. But in the present pandemic, evidence has accumulated over the months to show beyond doubt that modern masks are highly effective in preventing the spread of the disease. Lockdown measures have been equally successful in limiting the impact of the coronavirus. South Korea, which had plans ready to deal with a new epidemic as a result of previous recent flu outbreaks, managed to roll out an effective testing program and then isolate carriers, including those without obvious symptoms. As a result, in a population of more than 50 million, there have been some 600 deaths from the disease at the time of writing, despite its return in late August.
South Korea’s relative success in controlling the virus has nothing to do with a supposedly more obedient population, one more willing to submit to government controls. In Greece, a country with just over 10 million inhabitants, the first wave of the virus was kept under control. The first case was confirmed on February 26. Within three weeks, schools, theaters, cafés, bars, and similar places were closed; within a month, all nonessential movement within the country was banned, the tourist trade suspended, and a package of financial support measures introduced. Greece’s moderate conservative government took advice from medical scientists on the country’s rapidly convened coronavirus task force and decided that saving lives should take precedence over continuing normal economic activity. It was only with the arrival of the second wave of the pandemic, which followed a period of relaxation of controls, that infections and deaths began to rise, with Greece reporting some 3,600 deaths from the pandemic by the middle of December.
Countries that have not followed medical advice or implemented a coherent national policy have fared less well. In particular, states led by populist politicians who are hostile to science, especially with regard to the climate crisis, have seen soaring numbers of deaths—more than 300,000 in the United States and over 180,000 in Brazil, both countries where the president openly dismissed the pandemic as trivial, scorned precautionary measures, and refused to take scientific advice. Health policy during the pandemic has become politicized, along the lines of the climate crisis, with catastrophic results.
Epidemics have always produced conflicts between saving lives, on the one hand, and sustaining the economy, on the other. Here, as in the climate crisis, too many politicians have seen only the negative, short-term impacts of preventive measures and decided to sacrifice human lives on the altar of profit. This conflict between economic interest and medical science isn’t an aspect of the Spanish flu that Arnold’s book has much to say about, though it’s clear that state authorities’ denial or trivialization of the pandemic in its early stages was governed above all by economic considerations.
Despite our tendency to look to the past for lessons and despite some obvious parallels, it’s important to recognize that today’s situation is very different from 1918’s. People then did not have to contend with populist politicians who refused to take action against a deadly disease. Science now is better equipped to deal with pandemics, though in some political circles skepticism about scientific advice has increased, and there is a far greater tendency to politicize the issues it raises. Above all, the 1918 pandemic happened in the final stages of a catastrophically destructive world war, which weakened people’s resistance to disease in myriad ways and paved the way for a second wave of the infection that turned out to be much more serious than the first. This is not the case with the present pandemic, and the second wave of infection that is underway in many countries is unlikely to prove as devastating as in 1918, not least because, so far, it seems to be mainly affecting younger people and so is relatively mild in its impact.
What is truly alarming, however, and without precedent in 1918 or any other year in the modern era, is the way that large numbers of people are denying the evidence presented by medical science and refusing to take medical advice that would help prevent the spread of the disease. There have been major demonstrations in a number of countries—including the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany—that have linked the pandemic to wild and demonstrably false conspiracy theories like QAnon, with its undertones of anti-Semitism, its distrust of science, and its far-right ideology.
The degradation of political discourse such theories represent can only do harm to our democratic political order. In the early 1920s, after the Spanish flu, fascism and Nazism began to make waves, too, fueled by the unscrupulous falsehoods spread by propagandists like Joseph Goebbels. When the Nazis began to describe Jews as “parasites” and “viruses,” the language of medicine was being used as a tool of racial abuse that would end in mass murder. The political situation today may be different, but the threat to reasoned and evidence-based political discourse—and, through this, to the safety and security of all our lives—is no less severe.


Apples

The townspeople paste wax apples on the trees , glow shyly out their windows as the Dictator struts past the monument of his father strutting past nothing at all .
Yesterday , the Dictator dressed the Butcher ’ s boy in the uniform of his own son .
Today , at the orders of the Dictator , guards shot the boy .
In the town of his childhood , the Curator is a tourist .
He touches his mother with the language with which he does not touch his work .
In the painting , bored bored Eve chomps on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his work , he acquires her .
At the banquet : pigs choked with apples , music wrung from the townspeople ’ s anguish .
The meat in the soup is human meat .
The Dictator ’ s ring is made of gold yanked from the teeth of corpses .
The Censor bloats with what he knows .
His sons bloom in neat rows .
An orchard grows inside his wife .
He prunes her on Sundays .
Under the earth , the Butcher ’ s boy , laughing , eats an apple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rot .
The Dictator admires the fruit of his land .

This article appears in the January 11/18, 2021 issue.
The townspeople paste wax apples on the trees,
glow shyly out their windows as the Dictator
struts past the monument of his father strutting
past nothing at all. Yesterday, the Dictator dressed
the Butcher’s boy in the uniform of his own son.
Today, at the orders of the Dictator, guards shot the boy.
In the town of his childhood, the Curator is a tourist.
He touches his mother with the language
with which he does not touch his work.
In the painting, bored bored Eve chomps on an apple.
In the tongue of his work, he acquires her.
At the banquet: pigs choked with apples,
music wrung from the townspeople’s anguish.
The meat in the soup is human meat.
The Dictator’s ring is made of gold
yanked from the teeth of corpses.
The Censor bloats with what he knows.
His sons bloom in neat rows.
An orchard grows inside his wife.
He prunes her on Sundays.
Under the earth, the Butcher’s boy, laughing,
eats an apple. The core rises, light with rot.
The Dictator admires the fruit of his land.


Random Assignment

It seems to want to rain but can ’ t .
It fades to pink , an argument .
Relinquish @ @ @ @ @ ’ t ever get what you want , You can ’ t please any of @ @ @ @ @ time .
Time just lies there , Not fast or slow , Any more than @ @ @ @ @ if the very small ants are afraid Of the big ants , if they ever @ @ @ @ @ if happiness is ethical .
I ’ d like to do it all again In @ @ @ @ @ , A wasp in a fig .

This article appears in the January 11/18, 2021 issue.
It seems to want to rain but can’t.
It fades to pink, an argument.
Relinquish the dream.
You can’t ever get what you want,
You can’t please any of the people
Any of the time.
Time just lies there,
Not fast or slow,
Any more than a line.
I wonder if the very small ants are afraid
Of the big ants, if they ever cross paths.
I wonder if happiness is ethical.
I’d like to do it all again
In silence now, in darkness,
A wasp in a fig.