thenation--2020-05-11--Chinatowns Must Radicalize to Survive

Chinatowns Must Radicalize to Survive

Chinatowns were in crisis even before Covid-19 hit North America .
Low-income residents in these neighborhoods were already being displaced , as cities allowed developers to build luxury apartments and commercial buildings that raised property prices and rents .
Then , once the first cases of the novel coronavirus were found in the United States , Chinatown economies were the first to be hit , as messaging about the “ Chinese virus ” influenced many to stop frequenting Chinatown businesses as early as January .
Not only that , but the New York City Human Rights Commission found that nearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harassment have been directed at Asian Americans .
These aren ’ t abstract numbers : A man threw acid on an Asian woman ’ s face in Sunset Park , Brooklyn , and a group of people in the Bronx attacked a 51-year-old woman on a bus .
As Covid-19 exacerbates the precarity of working-class communities and the fragility of market-based solutions , it is clear that Chinatowns across North America need an inclusive , grassroots politics that empowers workers and tenants to advocate for themselves .
‘ I Hotel ’ Is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American Activism The last upsurge of Asian American and Asian Canadian radical organizing started in the late 1960s .
There had been earlier organizing efforts in diaspora Asian communities—including the Chinese American anarcho-syndicalists in the Industrial Workers of the World , starting in the 1910s .
The revolutionary collectives that started to form in the 1960s were influenced by the New Left , and included groups in New York and San Francisco such as the Communist Workers Party , I Wor Kuen from New York , and the Red Guards .
Their members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Chinatowns and other diaspora communities across the country .
From anti-eviction protests at San Francisco ’ s International Hotel that began in 1968 , to the women-led Garment Workers ’ Strike in New York Chinatown in 1982 , revolution was in the air .
These leftist groups could be wracked by personal and ideological infighting at times , and by the late 1980s , most had dissolved under those pressures .
Many organizers from this era have since entered electoral politics , including California Democrat Wilma Chan , New York City Council @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Judy Chu .
Mass membership organizations first started by the collectives later evolved into progressive nonprofit organizations , such as the Chinese Progressive Association ( CPA ) , Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance ( APALA ) , and Asian Americans for Equality .
As a result , Asian American organizing has been disproportionately led by institutions over the past few decades .
They have sometimes been able to politicize working-class communities to fight for more equitable policies and other major reforms—such as in 2014 , when the CPA helped to win a $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ San Francisco dim sum restaurant , or in 2016 , when APALA helped secure a $ 7.8 million settlement for workers at a major Chinese-language newspaper in California .
But there are inevitably limits to how NGO-led organizing can empower rank-and-file workers and the communities they serve .
Nonprofits ’ staff-driven model means that local workers and tenants , with few exceptions , are left out of central organizing decisions .
These groups may also be compelled by donors ’ interests and state funding to make political compromises with city governments , developers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other institutions have also struggled to respond to the current Covid-19 crisis , while they themselves are forced to cut costs and lay off staff .
As a recent story in Harvard Business Review pointed out , nonprofits ’ survival depends on “ soliciting gifts ” from corporate foundations , which must now decide who deserves these limited resources amid mass unemployment and a tanking economy .
We need a different model now .
A grassroots coalition led by locals and community allies will be more effective in helping Chinatown residents make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Over the past few years , a new wave of intergenerational Asian American and Asian Canadian community organizers have led struggles against real estate developers and landlords in many different cities .
These are responses to the gentrification that has swept across diasporic enclaves , making housing increasingly unaffordable for working-class Asian , black , and brown communities .
In 2017 , Asian diaspora activists led a fight against luxury condominium development in Vancouver ; others staged a 2018 hunger strike and protests against evictions from a rent-stabilized building in Manhattan ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York ’ s Chinatown Art Brigade have protested “ artwashing ” —in which developers rent out space to galleries and artists to hike up property values—as a method of gentrification .
We have been part of some of these fights , organizing single-rent occupancy and other affordable-housing residents through Los Angeles ’ Chinatown Community for Equitable Development ( CCED ) , and participating in the Flushing for Equitable Development & Urban Planning ( FED UP ) Coalition through New York ’ s Red Canary Song , a grassroots collective of Asian and migrant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both became part of a new , international coalition known as Coast to Coast Chinatowns Against Displacement ( C2C ) .
It ’ s led mainly by unpaid organizers , including CCED and Red Canary Song , and supported by the expertise and resources of a few nonprofit groups and other partners in cities including New York , Los Angeles , Seattle , Toronto , and Vancouver .
It had its first convening in the fall of 2018 ; since then , it has empowered the growth of new grassroots organizations , such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizations follow a model that emphasizes collective direct action—such as confronting landlords in front of their homes—led by working-class Asian diaspora and Latinx tenants .
C2C is based on the idea that the very existence of Chinatowns is under attack and that grassroots resistance should be the norm .
This is especially clear because gentrification in Chinatowns is often invited by Chinese American or Chinese Canadian business elites and supposedly progressive politicians , in partnership with corporate developers .
In New York , Mayor Bill de Blasio ’ s plan to close Rikers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new jail in Manhattan ’ s Chinatown , spurring the opposition of local residents and community organizations .
Activists from the No New Jails coalition have pointed out that the neighborhoods where most of the proposed jail sites would be located were represented by members of the New York City Council Progressive Caucus who backed de Blasio ’ s plan .
C2C also acknowledges some of the shortcomings of the last wave of Asian American organizing .
Some of those collectives supported women ’ s organizing efforts , such as the New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of I Wor Kuen , in particular , were mostly women , and the group organized local campaigns for community child care programs in Chinatown in the early 1970s .
But as William Wei writes in his 1993 book The Asian American Movement , although all of these groups touted women ’ s liberation , women ’ s groups and issues were often not centered in the parties and their affiliate mass organizations .
What counted as “ working-class labor ” was limited .
These collectives may have advocated for trade workers such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but that concern usually didn ’ t extend to informal street hawkers , women doing housework , or sex workers .
Asian diaspora sex workers and massage parlor workers have often been stigmatized by their own ethnic communities ; sex workers in general have long had few allies outside of prison abolitionists and the LGBTQ+ community .
But the reality is that the work of massage parlor workers , street hawkers , and domestic workers sustains Chinatown communities .
It ’ s time to call for these workers ’ empowerment .
How Sex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Coronavirus When C2C held its second convening in New York this March , the meeting was overwhelmingly led by womyn , queer , and nonbinary organizers .
Importantly , sex workers—including members of Red Canary Song and Toronto ’ s Butterfly—were invited to the table to discuss Chinatown issues .
Centering Chinatown members who have been previously excluded or marginalized from their own communities is not just about representation .
It ’ s also what will help us to realize the principle of “ collective organizing from below ” to its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states have announced orders to shelter in place , C2C members have been able to keep building on this momentum .
Through CCED , Los Angeles tenants and ally organizers have organized multiple tenant unions around apartment blocks and single-room occupancy complexes in LA ’ s Chinatown , many of them after struggles against rent increases and evictions .
Now tenants at two of those buildings , Hillside Villa and 920 Everett , are joining other tenant unions in the neighborhood to demand expanded moratoriums on evictions and rent increases—while also fighting new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own .
In Seattle , members of another C2C partner , the Chinatown-International District coalition , have helped to develop a grassroots mutual aid network to empower local communities across Washington state to share resources , while also organizing with inmates ’ families to demand the release of prisoners .
The network has made demands connecting US imperialism to workers ’ and prisoners ’ rights , while raising over $ 240,000 for working-class communities in Seattle and King County .
And in their own ways across the country , C2C local organizations have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials and other state institutions to expand protections for tenants and other marginalized groups through small-scale , socially distanced protests—staged everywhere from the front yards of city council members , to the streets outside prisons .
In New York , tenants of 81 Bowery in Manhattan Chinatown launched a rent strike on May 1 , organized by C2C supporter CAAAV .
They ’ re acting in solidarity with over 15,000 tenants across the state , through the Cancel Rent initiative .
The Asian American collectives that formed in the wake of the New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ successes and failures of the past—to learn from , and move beyond their predecessors .
Now , in the midst of a pandemic , we are turning to mutual aid and direct action .
This is not just a survival tactic .
This is a political campaign .
We need a mass movement now , as the failure of social services to respond reveals the limitations of capitalism .

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.
Chinatowns were in crisis even before Covid-19 hit North America.
Low-income residents in these neighborhoods were already being displaced, as cities allowed developers to build luxury apartments and commercial buildings that raised property prices and rents.
Then, once the first cases of the novel coronavirus were found in the United States, Chinatown economies were the first to be hit, as messaging about the “Chinese virus” influenced many to stop frequenting Chinatown businesses as early as January.
Not only that, but the New York City Human Rights Commission found that nearly half of all reports of Covid-related discriminatory harassment have been directed at Asian Americans. These aren’t abstract numbers: A man threw acid on an Asian woman’s face in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and a group of people in the Bronx attacked a 51-year-old woman on a bus.
As Covid-19 exacerbates the precarity of working-class communities and the fragility of market-based solutions, it is clear that Chinatowns across North America need an inclusive, grassroots politics that empowers workers and tenants to advocate for themselves. Related Article ‘I Hotel’ Is the Unheralded Document of a Decade of Asian American Activism Lucas Iberico Lozada
The last upsurge of Asian American and Asian Canadian radical organizing started in the late 1960s. There had been earlier organizing efforts in diaspora Asian communities—including the Chinese American anarcho-syndicalists in the Industrial Workers of the World, starting in the 1910s. The revolutionary collectives that started to form in the 1960s were influenced by the New Left, and included groups in New York and San Francisco such as the Communist Workers Party, I Wor Kuen from New York, and the Red Guards. Their members started movements with working-class and immigrant Asians in Chinatowns and other diaspora communities across the country. From anti-eviction protests at San Francisco’s International Hotel that began in 1968, to the women-led Garment Workers’ Strike in New York Chinatown in 1982, revolution was in the air. 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
These leftist groups could be wracked by personal and ideological infighting at times, and by the late 1980s, most had dissolved under those pressures. Many organizers from this era have since entered electoral politics, including California Democrat Wilma Chan, New York City Council member Margaret Chin, and US Representative Judy Chu. Mass membership organizations first started by the collectives later evolved into progressive nonprofit organizations, such as the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), and Asian Americans for Equality. Current Issue View our current issue
As a result, Asian American organizing has been disproportionately led by institutions over the past few decades. They have sometimes been able to politicize working-class communities to fight for more equitable policies and other major reforms—such as in 2014, when the CPA helped to win a $4 million settlement for workers at a San Francisco dim sum restaurant, or in 2016, when APALA helped secure a $7.8 million settlement for workers at a major Chinese-language newspaper in California.
But there are inevitably limits to how NGO-led organizing can empower rank-and-file workers and the communities they serve. Nonprofits’ staff-driven model means that local workers and tenants, with few exceptions, are left out of central organizing decisions. These groups may also be compelled by donors’ interests and state funding to make political compromises with city governments, developers, and other stakeholders.
Many nonprofits and other institutions have also struggled to respond to the current Covid-19 crisis, while they themselves are forced to cut costs and lay off staff. As a recent story in Harvard Business Review pointed out, nonprofits’ survival depends on “soliciting gifts” from corporate foundations, which must now decide who deserves these limited resources amid mass unemployment and a tanking economy.
We need a different model now. A grassroots coalition led by locals and community allies will be more effective in helping Chinatown residents make collective political demands for their own neighborhoods.
Over the past few years, a new wave of intergenerational Asian American and Asian Canadian community organizers have led struggles against real estate developers and landlords in many different cities. These are responses to the gentrification that has swept across diasporic enclaves, making housing increasingly unaffordable for working-class Asian, black, and brown communities.
In 2017, Asian diaspora activists led a fight against luxury condominium development in Vancouver; others staged a 2018 hunger strike and protests against evictions from a rent-stabilized building in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Groups such as New York’s Chinatown Art Brigade (CAB) have protested “artwashing”—in which developers rent out space to galleries and artists to hike up property values—as a method of gentrification. We have been part of some of these fights, organizing single-rent occupancy and other affordable-housing residents through Los Angeles’ Chinatown Community for Equitable Development (CCED), and participating in the Flushing for Equitable Development & Urban Planning (FED UP) Coalition through New York’s Red Canary Song, a grassroots collective of Asian and migrant sex workers.
In 2018, we both became part of a new, international coalition known as Coast to Coast Chinatowns Against Displacement (C2C). It’s led mainly by unpaid organizers—notably LA’s CCED, New York’s CAB, and Seattle’s Chinatown International District (CID) Coalition, also known as Humbows not Hotels—and supported by the expertise and resources of a few nonprofit groups and other partners in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and other cities. It had its first convening in the fall of 2018; since then, it has empowered the growth of new grassroots organizations, such as Friends of Toronto Chinatown. Affiliate organizations follow a model that emphasizes collective direct action—such as confronting landlords in front of their homes—led by working-class Asian diaspora and Latinx tenants. C2C is based on the idea that the very existence of Chinatowns is under attack and that grassroots resistance should be the norm.
This is especially clear because gentrification in Chinatowns is often invited by Chinese American or Chinese Canadian business elites and supposedly progressive politicians, in partnership with corporate developers. In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to close Rikers Island prison involved the construction of a new jail in Manhattan’s Chinatown, spurring the opposition of local residents and community organizations. Activists from the No New Jails coalition have pointed out that the neighborhoods where most of the proposed jail sites would be located were represented by members of the New York City Council Progressive Caucus who backed de Blasio’s plan.
C2C also acknowledges some of the shortcomings of the last wave of Asian American organizing. Some of those collectives supported women’s organizing efforts, such as the New York garment workers’ strike. The leaders of I Wor Kuen, in particular, were mostly women, and the group organized local campaigns for community child care programs in Chinatown in the early 1970s. But as William Wei writes in his 1993 book The Asian American Movement, although all of these groups touted women’s liberation, women’s groups and issues were often not centered in the parties and their affiliate mass organizations.
What counted as “working-class labor” was limited. These collectives may have advocated for trade workers such as those in the garment industry, but that concern usually didn’t extend to informal street hawkers, women doing housework, or sex workers. Asian diaspora sex workers and massage parlor workers have often been stigmatized by their own ethnic communities; sex workers in general have long had few allies outside of prison abolitionists and the LGBTQ+ community.
But the reality is that the work of massage parlor workers, street hawkers, and domestic workers sustains Chinatown communities. It’s time to call for these workers’ empowerment. Related Article How Sex Workers Are Using Mutual Aid to Respond to the Coronavirus Jack Herrera
When C2C held its third convening in New York this March, the meeting was overwhelmingly led by womyn, queer, and nonbinary organizers. Importantly, sex workers—including members of Red Canary Song and Toronto’s Butterfly—were invited to the table to discuss Chinatown issues. Centering Chinatown members who have been previously excluded or marginalized from their own communities is not just about representation. It’s also what will help us to realize the principle of “collective organizing from below” to its fullest extent.
Even after cities and states have announced orders to shelter in place, C2C members have been able to keep building on this momentum. Through CCED, Los Angeles tenants and ally organizers have organized multiple tenant unions around apartment blocks and single-room occupancy complexes in LA’s Chinatown, many of them after struggles against rent increases and evictions. Now tenants at two of those buildings, Hillside Villa and 920 Everett, are joining other tenant unions in the neighborhood to demand expanded moratoriums on evictions and rent increases—while also fighting new eviction notices and rent increases of their own.
In Seattle, a sibling organization of CID Coalition called Pacific Rim Solidarity Network (Parisol) has helped to develop a grassroots mutual aid network to empower local communities across Washington state to share resources, while also organizing with inmates’ families to demand the release of prisoners. The network has made demands connecting US imperialism to workers’ and prisoners’ rights, while raising over $240,000 for working-class communities in Seattle and King County.
And in their own ways across the country, C2C local organizations have been empowering tenants to pressure city government officials and other state institutions to expand protections for tenants and other marginalized groups through small-scale, socially distanced protests—staged everywhere from the front yards of city council members, to the streets outside prisons. In New York, tenants of 81 Bowery in Manhattan Chinatown launched a rent strike on May 1, organized by C2C supporter CAAAV. They’re acting in solidarity with over 15,000 tenants across the state, through the Cancel Rent initiative.
The Asian American collectives that formed in the wake of the New Left were trying to build on the successes and failures of the past—to learn from, and move beyond their predecessors. Now, in the midst of a pandemic, we are turning to mutual aid and direct action. This is not just a survival tactic. This is a political campaign. We need a mass movement now, as the failure of social services to respond reveals the limitations of capitalism.


thenation--2020-05-11--The New Cold War in Asia Is Born of Desperation

When it comes to his business deals , Donald Trump is the most secretive American president ever , hiding his tax returns and the commercial transactions he ’ s making even as he sits in the White House .
But at least in his motives , Trump is nakedly transparent .
Few public figures have been so up-front about their baser nature or so willing to give vent to emotions like spite , jealousy , and vindictiveness .
One sure heuristic for figuring out what Trump is up to is the psychological principle of projection .
He loves to accuse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do .
In the past , Trump has been quick to accuse other presidents of using military conflict for political advantage .
On November 29 , 2011 , Trump tweeted , “ In order to get elected , @ BarackObama will start a war with Iran.
” The following October , he returned to this theme , tweeting , “ Now that Obama ’ s poll numbers are in tailspin—watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran .
He is desperate.
” With the Covid-19 pandemic killing more than 80,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tailspin , Trump is the desperate one .
He is all the more dangerous because he is running for reelection in the fall .
Could Trump act out the scenario he attributed to Obama and launch a “ wag the dog ” war ?
There are already signs that the Trump White House is ramping up conflict with two long-standing rivals , China and Iran .
Both Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have asserted , contrary to the overwhelming scientific consensus , that the Covid-19 virus was developed in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this a “ Chinese virus ” are clearly part of a reckless escalation in hostility .
If This Pandemic Is a War , Trump Is a War Criminal Trump ’ s Covid-19 Reckoning Is Only the Beginning The administration also appears to be opening up cyberspace as a new front in this war .
The New York Times reported on Sunday , “ The F.B.I .
and the Department of Homeland Security are preparing to issue a warning that China ’ s most skilled hackers and spies are working to steal American research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and treatments for the coronavirus .
The efforts are part of a surge in cybertheft and attacks by nations seeking advantage in the pandemic.
” In retaliation , the United States , the article claims , could “ mount proportional counterattacks ” by attacking China ’ s Internet infrastructure .
The report added , “ The warning comes as Israeli officials accuse Iran of mounting an effort in late April to cripple water supplies as Israelis were confined to their houses , though the government has offered no evidence to back its claim.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the only one making claims without evidence .
Read closely , the claims of the American government as reported in the article seem a classic example of threat inflation .
If China is engaged in more hacking , then so are governments that are either allied with the United States ( South Korea ) or otherwise not seen as major threats ( Vietnam and Nigeria ) .
The surge in hacking , if it is real , is occurring for two reasons : First , the chaos created by the pandemic is causing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more information .
Second , many more private citizens are staying at home and have more time to engage in cyber pranks .
In other words , this is not a national security crisis but rather a social problem produced by the pandemic .
The push for a more hawkish foreign policy toward China is based on flimsy evidence and poor logic .
Even if it is true that the pandemic originated in China ’ s wet markets and the Chinese government was too slow to notify the world , these are problems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military posturing .
They require a more direct engagement with China , not a belligerent ramping up of conflict .
The same is true of the other issues the United States has with China , notably human rights and trade .
Unfortunately , the push in Washington is not for more diplomacy but rather for a new Cold War , complete with an arms race , increased spying , and threats of cyberattacks .
In an op-ed in The New York Times , Rachel Esplin Odell and Stephen Wertheim , both foreign policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ noted : As in the original Cold War , the likely scenario is that Democrats and Republicans will compete to outdo each other in hawkishness .
Joe Biden has already run an ad accusing Donald Trump of being weak on China , reminiscent of John F. Kennedy ’ s accusation in 1960 that Richard Nixon was soft on Cuba .
Politically , hawkishness could pay off for Biden , as it did for Kennedy .
The problem is in the realm of policy .
Once you accept the logic of hawkishness , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing more than the need to project an image of toughness .
That was the trap Kennedy fell into that led to the disasters in Cuba and Vietnam .
Biden has already proven that he ’ s a sucker for this sort of bipartisan bluster with his 2003 support of the Iraq War .
Odell and Wertheim argue that “ Biden now has the opportunity to show he learned from past mistakes by speaking out against an unnecessary cold war with a power strong enough to endanger Americans ’ security and well-being.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely .
Even at the peak of his political agility , Biden didn ’ t possess the farsightedness to challenge a foreign policy consensus .
Now , in his twilight , Biden will continue to bang the drum about the need to confront China .
As with Trump , President Biden is likely to find China a useful scapegoat for America ’ s intractable domestic problems .

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When it comes to his business deals, Donald Trump is the most secretive American president ever, hiding his tax returns and the commercial transactions he’s making even as he sits in the White House. But at least in his motives, Trump is nakedly transparent. Few public figures have been so up-front about their baser nature or so willing to give vent to emotions like spite, jealousy, and vindictiveness. One sure heuristic for figuring out what Trump is up to is the psychological principle of projection. He loves to accuse others of what he himself wants to do.
In the past, Trump has been quick to accuse other presidents of using military conflict for political advantage. On November 29, 2011, Trump tweeted, “In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.” The following October, he returned to this theme, tweeting, “Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin—watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.”
With the Covid-19 pandemic killing more than 80,000 Americans and sending the global economy into a tailspin, Trump is the desperate one. He is all the more dangerous because he is running for reelection in the fall. Could Trump act out the scenario he attributed to Obama and launch a “wag the dog” war?
There are already signs that the Trump White House is ramping up conflict with two long-standing rivals, China and Iran. Both Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have asserted, contrary to the overwhelming scientific consensus, that the Covid-19 virus was developed in a Chinese lab. The efforts to label this a “Chinese virus” are clearly part of a reckless escalation in hostility. 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
The administration also appears to be opening up cyberspace as a new front in this war. The New York Times reported on Sunday, “The F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security are preparing to issue a warning that China’s most skilled hackers and spies are working to steal American research in the crash effort to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus. The efforts are part of a surge in cybertheft and attacks by nations seeking advantage in the pandemic.” In retaliation, the United States, the article claims, could “mount proportional counterattacks” by attacking China’s Internet infrastructure.
The report added, “The warning comes as Israeli officials accuse Iran of mounting an effort in late April to cripple water supplies as Israelis were confined to their houses, though the government has offered no evidence to back its claim.”
The Israeli government isn’t the only one making claims without evidence. Read closely, the claims of the American government as reported in the article seem a classic example of threat inflation. If China is engaged in more hacking, then so are governments that are either allied with the United States (South Korea) or otherwise not seen as major threats (Vietnam and Nigeria). 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
The surge in hacking, if it is real, is occurring for two reasons: First, the chaos created by the pandemic is causing governments and private citizens to seek out more information. Second, many more private citizens are staying at home and have more time to engage in cyber pranks. In other words, this is not a national security crisis but rather a social problem produced by the pandemic.
The push for a more hawkish foreign policy toward China is based on flimsy evidence and poor logic. Even if it is true that the pandemic originated in China’s wet markets and the Chinese government was too slow to notify the world, these are problems that can’t be solved by military posturing. They require a more direct engagement with China, not a belligerent ramping up of conflict.
The same is true of the other issues the United States has with China, notably human rights and trade. Unfortunately, the push in Washington is not for more diplomacy but rather for a new Cold War, complete with an arms race, increased spying, and threats of cyberattacks.
In an op-ed in The New York Times, Rachel Esplin Odell and Stephen Wertheim, both foreign policy scholars affiliated with the Quincy Institute, noted:
In recent years, China hawks have cited a cocktail of geopolitical fears, economic grievances and human rights violations as causes for alarm, leading some Obama administration veterans to arrive at the expansive conclusion that engagement with Beijing had failed. While balking at Mr. Trump’s trade war, much of the bipartisan establishment embraced his administration’s notion, laid out in the 2017 National Security Strategy, that China is a threat requiring a strategy of full-spectrum competition.
As in the original Cold War, the likely scenario is that Democrats and Republicans will compete to outdo each other in hawkishness. Joe Biden has already run an ad accusing Donald Trump of being weak on China, reminiscent of John F. Kennedy’s accusation in 1960 that Richard Nixon was soft on Cuba.
Politically, hawkishness could pay off for Biden, as it did for Kennedy. The problem is in the realm of policy. Once you accept the logic of hawkishness, you can easily drift into conflicts motivated by nothing more than the need to project an image of toughness. That was the trap Kennedy fell into that led to the disasters in Cuba and Vietnam. Biden has already proven that he’s a sucker for this sort of bipartisan bluster with his 2003 support of the Iraq War.
Odell and Wertheim argue that “Biden now has the opportunity to show he learned from past mistakes by speaking out against an unnecessary cold war with a power strong enough to endanger Americans’ security and well-being.” This is a worthy aspiration—but not very likely.
Even at the peak of his political agility, Biden didn’t possess the farsightedness to challenge a foreign policy consensus. Now, in his twilight, Biden will continue to bang the drum about the need to confront China. As with Trump, President Biden is likely to find China a useful scapegoat for America’s intractable domestic problems.


thenation--2020-05-12--Columbia Has the Chance to Expose the Lie of Austerity

On April 24 , hundreds of graduate workers at Columbia University from over 20 departments went on strike in response to the university ’ s failure to provide adequate support to the thousands of workers in financially precarious situations now facing unemployment and possible loss of housing due to Covid-19 .
The strikers are demanding immediate and unconditional financial relief for all graduate workers , visa extensions for international students , and a rent freeze for those living in university-owned housing .
Thus far , Columbia has ignored these requests .
Why should anyone outside of Columbia care about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University is a powerful and wealthy institution whose actions set important precedents for other universities and New York City at large .
Thus far , Columbia has toed an all-too-familiar line : Economic crisis requires austerity .
Columbia University , like the immensely wealthy class that it belongs to and largely perpetuates , has money to spare .
Equitable redistribution is possible .
Students Across the Country Are Going on Strike The graduate workers currently on strike are doing something more than fighting for a modicum of security for themselves : They are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during a time of social crisis .
What successful collective action in the face of austerity can accomplish goes beyond immediate demands .
It is a demonstration that resources do , in fact , exist , and can be redistributed to those at the bottom rather than hoarded at the top .
Just as the depth of the social and economic crisis set off by Covid-19 is partly the result of policies that favor wealth concentration to the detriment of social spending , so too is the dire financial situation of graduate students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ university policy .
While Columbia ’ s endowment has grown by 87 percent since 2009 , the size of the faculty has increased by only 20 percent and graduate stipends have increased by 3 percent yearly ( or less ) .
In other words , payouts from the endowment for operating costs like budgets and salaries do not ebb and flow as a natural result of market fluctuations ; they are a product of decisions made by the trustees and a whole host of financial advisers .
To demand that Columbia shift its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic is to demand that an institution with considerable financial and cultural capital stop endorsing the notion that universities have no choice but to trim budgets by revoking funding for the academic labor that contributes most directly to its purpose as an institution of higher learning .
In addition to being tightfisted with its graduate students ( who teach courses as primary instructors , do the majority of grading , hold office hours , lead discussion sections as TAs , and do important and monetizable research across departments ) , Columbia seems almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ response to the pandemic .
Department budgets are being slashed by 25 percent , faculty lines are being cut and hiring freezes implemented .
Billionaire universities have a vast array of options to manage their finances compared to the university workers they hire .
Yet the cuts they routinely suggest fall squarely on the shoulders of workers and students .
If Columbia continues to behave in this manner , it won ’ t only affect its own , relatively well-off student body .
It implicitly endorses similar cuts being proposed by the City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ universities nationwide .
If the Ivies can ’ t afford it , how can CUNY be expected to ?
Columbia boasts immense wealth , vast real estate holdings , and an ability to withstand financial downturns and market volatility .
The university ’ s own financial reporting indicates robust financial health and flexibility .
While it is true that the pandemic has placed certain of the university ’ s sources of revenue under considerable strain , the nearly $ 11 billion endowment remains largely intact .
According to Columbia ’ s own 2019 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 814 million in cash on hand and $ 3.7 billion in resources that can be used for unexpected costs .
Indeed , Columbia “ has various sources of internal liquidity at its disposal , including cash , cash equivalents , marketable debt and equity securities , and lines of credit.
” The purpose of these funds is precisely to ensure the continuous operation of the university independently of the market .
Some may be concerned that meeting the demands of the graduate workers would shift costs onto other campus workers .
Should such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to another happen , it would not be because of real budgetary constraints but a choice by the university to play musical chairs with its most vulnerable workers rather than disturb its central coffers and executive salaries .
As a landlord university , Columbia has an opportunity to make a bold statement about the importance of housing security .
Freezing rent for tenants in university-owned housing has broad relevance for New York City residents .
Columbia is the seventh-largest property owner in all of New York City in terms of buildings alone ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its reputation , owns less local real estate ) .
If you include its non-address real-estate holdings , it is second only to New York City itself .
Because it is a nonprofit institution , it pays property taxes on a fraction of these holdings .
If Columbia forgavse rent for its tenants , it would show that rent suspension is a possibility for landlords with extensive holdings .
Billionaire universities , like billionaire banks and billionaire corporations , are asking their communities to participate in a “ shared sacrifice ” for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a statement on the impact of the pandemic , Harvard ’ s president Larry Bacow announced that “ we have responsibilities to our faculty and staff , but we will need to engage in shared sacrifice as we work through very real financial challenges.
” In a more equivocal email to the Columbia community , Bollinger suggested that the coming semester would require “ creative ” solutions .
In truth it is the jobs and well-being of workers and students that are being sacrificed while the guardians of endowments are receiving robust protection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is apparent to the most casual observer from the expensive real estate development in Manhattanville ; the exorbitant fees paid to Manhattan ’ s most expensive union-busting law firm , Proskauer Rose ; and the bloated paychecks of top university administrators .
In 2016 University President Lee C. Bollinger earned a salary just shy of $ 4 million , while graduate worker earnings hovered around $ 30,000—if they were lucky enough to be fully funded .
Deceptive accounting is currently playing itself out at the national level , as trillions of dollars are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ society while the rest of us are told that universal health care is a fiscal impossibility .
Victory for striking graduate workers would poke a hole in the logic of austerity at large .
Already , Columbia has had to admit that it was essentially lying when it claimed that it couldn ’ t afford to support its graduate students financially .
The threat of the current strike magically produced $ 1,500 for every PhD student in years one through seven .
It is true that the relative precarity of life for graduate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devastating poverty faced by too many Americans .
But the austerity logic of Columbia ’ s administration is being replicated across society to the detriment of truly poor and unprotected citizens .
If workers don ’ t organize and win concrete concessions that expose the lie of this manufactured and highly selective austerity , the official position— “ this can ’ t be done because there is no money ” —will gain rhetorical power with real material effects .
Showing that this is not the case empowers the people who create a university @ @ @ @ @ @ @ teachers , researchers , and students , to exert control over its agenda in the future .
Forcing an institution like Columbia to admit that it is possible to provide support to its community does not solve immediate problems for those outside of the university , but it sets an important precedent for redistribution .
And it provides an actually existing example of the democratic governance of wealth that can , and hopefully will , be replicated nationwide .

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On April 24, hundreds of graduate workers at Columbia University from over 20 departments went on strike in response to the university’s failure to provide adequate support to the thousands of workers in financially precarious situations now facing unemployment and possible loss of housing due to Covid-19. The strikers are demanding immediate and unconditional financial relief for all graduate workers, visa extensions for international students, and a rent freeze for those living in university-owned housing. Columbia has largely ignored these requests.
Why should anyone outside of Columbia care about the outcome of this strike? Because Columbia University is a powerful and wealthy institution whose actions set important precedents for other universities and New York City at large. Thus far, Columbia has toed an all-too-familiar line: Economic crisis requires austerity. Columbia University, like the immensely wealthy class that it belongs to and largely perpetuates, has money to spare. Equitable redistribution is possible.
The graduate workers currently on strike are doing something more than fighting for a modicum of security for themselves: They are holding a powerful and wealthy institution accountable during a time of social crisis. What successful collective action in the face of austerity can accomplish goes beyond immediate demands. It is a demonstration that resources do, in fact, exist, and can be redistributed to those at the bottom rather than hoarded at the top.
Just as the depth of the social and economic crisis set off by Covid-19 is partly the result of policies that favor wealth concentration to the detriment of social spending, so too is the dire financial situation of graduate students and contingent faculty the result of long-standing university policy. While Columbia’s endowment has grown by 87 percent since 2009, the size of the faculty has increased by only 20 percent and graduate stipends have increased by 3 percent yearly (or less). In other words, payouts from the endowment for operating costs like budgets and salaries do not ebb and flow as a natural result of market fluctuations; they are a product of decisions made by the trustees and a whole host of financial advisers.
To demand that Columbia shift its budgetary priorities in the midst of a pandemic is to demand that an institution with considerable financial and cultural capital stop endorsing the notion that universities have no choice but to trim budgets by revoking funding for the academic labor that contributes most directly to its purpose as an institution of higher learning. In addition to being tightfisted with its graduate students (who teach courses as primary instructors, do the majority of grading, hold office hours, lead discussion sections as TAs, and do important and monetizable research across departments), Columbia seems almost eager to punish its full-time faculty in response to the pandemic. Department budgets are being slashed by 25 percent, faculty lines are being cut and hiring freezes implemented. Billionaire universities have a vast array of options to manage their finances compared to the university workers they hire. Yet the cuts they routinely suggest fall squarely on the shoulders of workers and students. 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 Related Article One Hospital System’s Response to Covid-19? Union-Busting. P.E. Moskowitz
If Columbia continues to behave in this manner, it won’t only affect its own, relatively well-off student body. It implicitly endorses similar cuts being proposed by the City University of New York system and public universities nationwide. If the Ivies can’t afford it, how can CUNY be expected to?
Columbia boasts immense wealth, vast real estate holdings, and an ability to withstand financial downturns and market volatility. The university’s own financial reporting indicates robust financial health and flexibility. While it is true that the pandemic has placed certain of the university’s sources of revenue under considerable strain, the nearly $11 billion endowment remains largely intact. According to Columbia’s own 2019 financial statement, the university has $814 million in cash on hand and $3.7 billion in resources that can be used for unexpected costs. Indeed, Columbia “has various sources of internal liquidity at its disposal, including cash, cash equivalents, marketable debt and equity securities, and lines of credit.” The purpose of these funds is precisely to ensure the continuous operation of the university independently of the market. Related Article Students Across the Country Are Going on Strike Mary Retta
Some may be concerned that meeting the demands of the graduate workers would shift costs onto other campus workers. Should such a displacement of cost from one worker to another happen, it would not be because of real budgetary constraints but a choice by the university to play musical chairs with its most vulnerable workers rather than disturb its central coffers and executive salaries.
As a landlord university, Columbia has an opportunity to make a bold statement about the importance of housing security. Freezing rent for tenants in university-owned housing has broad relevance for New York City residents. Columbia is the seventh-largest property owner in all of New York City in terms of buildings alone (New York University, in spite of its reputation, owns less local real estate). If you include its non-address real-estate holdings, it is second only to New York City itself. Because it is a nonprofit institution, it pays property taxes on a fraction of these holdings. If Columbia forgave rent for its tenants, it would show that rent suspension is a possibility for landlords with extensive holdings.
Billionaire universities, like billionaire banks and billionaire corporations, are asking their communities to participate in a “shared sacrifice” for the financial well-being of the institution. In a statement on the impact of the pandemic, Harvard’s president Larry Bacow announced that “we have responsibilities to our faculty and staff, but we will need to engage in shared sacrifice as we work through very real financial challenges.” In a more equivocal email to the Columbia community, Bollinger suggested that the coming semester would require “creative” solutions. In truth it is the jobs and well-being of workers and students that are being sacrificed while the guardians of endowments are receiving robust protection.
The money is there. This is apparent to the most casual observer from the expensive real estate development in Manhattanville; the exorbitant fees paid to Manhattan’s most expensive union-busting law firm, Proskauer Rose; and the bloated paychecks of top university administrators. In 2016 University President Lee C. Bollinger earned a salary just shy of $4 million, while graduate worker earnings hovered around $30,000—if they were lucky enough to be fully funded.
Deceptive accounting is currently playing itself out at the national level, as trillions of dollars are doled out to the wealthiest members of society while the rest of us are told that universal health care is a fiscal impossibility. Victory for striking graduate workers would poke a hole in the logic of austerity at large.
Already, Columbia has had to admit that it was essentially lying when it claimed that it couldn’t afford to support its graduate students financially. The threat of the current strike magically produced $1,500 for every PhD student in years one through seven. Related Article Hit Hard by Covid, Nursing Home Workers Threatened to Strike—and Won Bryce Covert
It is true that the relative precarity of life for graduate student workers is not comparable to the devastating poverty faced by too many Americans. But the austerity logic of Columbia’s administration is being replicated across society to the detriment of truly poor and unprotected citizens.
If workers don’t organize and win concrete concessions that expose the lie of this manufactured and highly selective austerity, the official position—“this can’t be done because there is no money”—will gain rhetorical power with real material effects. Showing that this is not the case empowers the people who create a university’s real value, namely its teachers, researchers, and students, to exert control over its agenda in the future.
Forcing an institution like Columbia to admit that it is possible to provide support to its community does not solve immediate problems for those outside of the university, but it sets an important precedent for redistribution. And it provides an actually existing example of the democratic governance of wealth that can, and hopefully will, be replicated nationwide.


thenation--2020-05-12--Between God and Science in the Surreal Silicon Valley of ‘Devs’

The premise of the miniseries Devs is straightforward : Amaya , a company that specializes in quantum computing , invents a top secret prediction algorithm , kills an employee in an effort to protect that invention , and makes an enemy of the victim ’ s lover and coworker .
The first episode features a gilded computer fortress , espionage , a murder , and a staged suicide , pulpy elements suggesting popcorn thrills and cyberpunk frenzy .
The reality is much stranger : Devs is really about deities and the theologies we embrace to appease them .
Devs is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ second tale of Silicon Valley delusions .
His directorial debut , 2014 ’ s Ex Machina , explored the development of a gendered AI being , Ava , whose sentience is tested by her creator , Nathan , and Caleb , his unwitting employee , who believes he has won a special contest .
The film takes place far outside Silicon Valley , at a remote compound owned by Nathan , who is the CEO of a search engine company , but it ’ s defined by the tech industry ’ s promethean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ casually of creating and assessing life , they come across as intelligent but self-important , a dynamic that Ava uses to plot her escape .
Devs takes place in the Valley itself .
It opens with a foreboding profile of Amaya CEO Forest ( Nick Offerman ) , who ’ s introduced alone in darkness , followed by a montage of San Francisco ’ s glittering landmarks and jarring snapshots of the city ’ s horrific income disparity .
Those poles merge when Amaya employees Lily ( Sonoya Mizuno ) and Sergei ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work : Before the couple can exit their apartment building , they must step past a homeless man who sleeps on their stoop .
But then , as the Amaya-branded charter bus that transports them glides out of the city and into the surrounding redwoods , Garland ’ s portrayal of the Valley shifts again , from the sociological to the occult .
Ensconced in the verdant Bay Area hills like the lair of a Bond villain , the Amaya campus is scenic and glamorous—except for a gargantuan bust of a little girl @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , her hands raised as if she ’ s praying or dancing .
The strangeness intensifies when Sergei is promoted to work in “ Devs , ” the software development arm of Amaya that focuses on the company ’ s clandestine predictive algorithm ( also named Devs ) .
The team is housed in a facility located in a clearing that ’ s deeper in the woods than the main campus .
The path through the trees is lined with glowing lights that form halos around the redwood trunks , and the entrance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the California sun .
As Sergei enters this sanctum and rides a levitating platform to his workstation , Amaya acquires an increasingly magical hue .
This is the heart of Devs : science , the surreal , and the thin line between them .
The show is Garland ’ s first foray into television , but it ’ s continuous with his previous work as a screenwriter and director .
Its closest analog in his filmography , which spans works like the zombie film 28 Days Later ( 2002 ) and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is 2018 ’ s Annihilation .
Like that hallucinogenic adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer ’ s sci-fi book , Devs starts with the familiar and moves deep into the uncanny .
The show is variously a drama , a thriller , and horror , constantly molting its skin .
Garland seems to favor genre because he can set up traditional narrative structures and fill them with trapdoors—beckoning viewers in , then flipping a switch .
The first misdirection is the main character .
Though Sergei is the focus of the initial episode , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the circumstances of his death prompt Lily to question Amaya ’ s quaint veneer .
A member of the company ’ s encryption department , Lily is questioning and cunning .
She speaks and moves slowly , dwelling on her words and constantly frowning .
When Amaya covers up Sergei ’ s death as a self-immolation and even furnishes a convincing video of the suicide , Lily is suspicious , a skepticism that structures the show .
For every obstacle Amaya throws in her path , she responds with a unique @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and mouse that involves cons , hacking , and escape from a mental ward .
She ’ s well-suited to a story critical of the tech industry : brainy yet ordinary , crafty but fallible , frightened but not paranoid .
Compared to brooding sci-fi heroes like Elliot Alderson of Mr .
Robot , who is a savant hacker and exclusively wears black hoodies , or John Anderton of Minority Report , who is a master detective and escape artist , Lily isn ’ t a virtuoso .
Her defining trait is her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Silicon Valley , a disposition that grounds her decisions as she ’ s drawn deeper into Amaya ’ s designs .
Through Lily , the show highlights the lives beyond the technocracy , even at the epicenter of its innovations .
Devs follows a decade filled with critical looks at the tech industry .
From the roasting of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network to Anna Wiener ’ s memoir Uncanny Valley to Boots Riley ’ s fuming send-up of Silicon Valley callousness in Sorry to Bother You , tech culture has become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about corporate power , personal privacy , and social inequality .
Devs channels these tensions , but tweaks their vernacular .
While the show can be watched as a David and Goliath tale , in which an aggrieved woman goes to war with an egomaniacal man and the ruthless capitalist machine at his disposal , Garland is largely disinterested in allegory .
For him , politics and philosophy are embedded in science and technology itself .
Accordingly , the conflicts of the series flow from the quantum mechanics at the heart of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the consequences of a religious embrace of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics .
In that version of quantum theory , all possible iterations of an event can and do happen , and our experience of an event is just one branch on an infinitely expanding tree .
This interpretation posits that all events are reducible to their underlying physics—meaning they are deterministic—and Forest and his chief programmer , Katie ( Alison Pill ) , test that theory by using the Devs algorithm to recreate and then observe the past with pristine clarity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well .
The self-fulfilling nature of viewing choice as an illusion , and then later confirming it , imbues Forest and Katie with an inhuman dispassion .
Forest , aloof and disinterested , powerful yet not paranoid , is a far cry from the standard tech overlord .
He lives in a modest house without a fence or gates and wears dinky plaid shirts and jeans , scanning as down-to-earth .
Katie , who is introduced at his side , has zero tolerance for error and ineptitude , yet she ’ s intensely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without the performative machismo or affected awkwardness ; she wants to be right , not worshipped .
Together the pair practice a cold form of nonintervention , declining to interfere as the events of the series beget car accidents , kidnappings , and torture .
Fate ( on the quantum level ) is their religion and their piety is steadfast .
For a higher cause , they relinquish their free will .
Garland plays with narrative forms through Lily ’ s pluck and suspicion , giving the series a peculiar , contradictory rhythm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jamie ( Lin Ha ) , a heartbroken and downcast ex-boyfriend she ’ s enlisted to help her investigate Sergei ’ s death , are arranged around their old apartment at different points in time .
They sit apart , enter and exit separately , and brood .
Simultaneously , Lily and Sergei are positioned around the same space : They hug , kiss , and cuddle .
Jamie insists he was smitten with Lily and blindsided by their breakup , but in this moment we see the distance between them .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Katie views different versions of the car accident that killed Forest ’ s wife and daughter , who the company is named after .
The collisions play out simultaneously , showing multiple versions of Forest running to the scene of the accident as the cars swerve or impact in different ways , like some video game glitch .
Only one scenario is fatal , however , highlighting how perfectly the accident played out .
These time collages are a preview of the Devs system that gets honed later in the series , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relationship to science .
As uncanny as it is to view the past in high-definition and as scary as it is for Amaya to possess such technology , it ’ s also impressive .
Garland isn ’ t an apologist for Amaya ’ s abuses , but he doesn ’ t downplay the wonder of the company ’ s achievements .
That cautious reverence pays off in the form of the predictive algorithm system actually working .
After starts and stops , toward the end of the series it becomes fully functional , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exactly as it happened by applying determinism to GPS coordinates and setting the clock .
The result is the ultimate archive of earth ’ s history and an unparalleled spying device .
Housed in a cozy , theater-like room inside of the Devs HQ , the device works like an immersive scrying mirror , conveying the spookiness at the heart of cutting-edge science .
“ What if we ’ re magicians ?
” Forest asks Katie , his voice quaking with fear .
This outcome is striking because a longstanding trope in sci-fi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inventors are themselves flawed .
This is the premise of most fictional forms of artificial intelligence , from Sonny in I , Robot to The Avengers ’ Ultron .
( And it is nearly always the premise of stories involving genetic engineering , as seen in Jurassic Park , Frankenstein , and The Fly . )
In a sly nod to tech leaders often coming from sales or venture capital backgrounds , , Forest plays no role in the Devs system getting up and running ( “ He ’ s not a genius @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” one character quips ) .
More than a joke , this choice allows the narrative to pivot away from his neurosis as a grieving father and husband and consider the broader implications of Devs .
As Devs programmers celebrate the tool and test it , an anxiety sets in .
They have become gods and the power is horrifying .
Determinism robs them of liberty and humanity .
In a masterstroke of plotting and irony , that breakthrough leads back to Lily , the rogue nonbeliever .
When Katie and Forest use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they find that they can not see past a moment when Lily strolls into Devs , beginning a countdown to learn the fate of the company and the device itself .
When that encounter inevitably happens , what ’ s dazzling is that Lily does not arrive as an avenging angel .
Rather , she acts as a sort of quantum trickster , at once foiling Amaya ’ s schemes and enabling them , challenging the company ’ s mad science and proving it .
A key moment in the finale is Forest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Devs is roman , making Devs Deus , or deity in Latin .
Forest introduces this trivia as an “ inside joke , ” accenting how removed he is from the consequences of his ambitions .
In his pursuit to reconnect with his daughter and wife at any cost , he turns the world into his instrument .
In his view , everything Lily has endured is collateral damage .
For Lily , the disclosure validates her resistance .
If a deity is as constraining and controlling as Forest , it must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the series ends ambiguously .
There ’ s no divine punishment for Katie and Forest ’ s tinkering , no reward for Lily ’ s courage .
The Devs system does not explode or short-circuit or get unplugged .
The government does not storm in with guns and hackers to save the day .
Instead , the show concludes with Lily and Forest becoming quantum data , allowing them to repeatedly live out multiple versions of their lives .
In the timeline we see , which is one among infinite possibilities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wife and Lily reconciles with Jamie .
It ’ s tragic and touching and fleeting—a very quantum ending .
This sort of finale elides the aftermath of a world containing a godlike algorithm and settles instead on something more conventional : twin portraits of grief .
But the value of the more narrow conclusion is it posits that , like consumers , tech ’ s engineers and their loved ones are also exploited by the relentless drive for innovation .
In Ex Machina , Garland packed this sentiment into an allusion to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , destroyer of worlds , ” the line from the Bhagavad Gita that Robert Oppenheimer uttered after witnessing the detonation of a nuclear weapon .
In Devs , the technology and the destruction are different , but in the show ’ s panorama of losses personal , global , and ontological , “ worlds ” feels pointedly more plural .

The premise of the miniseries Devs is straightforward: Amaya, a company that specializes in quantum computing, invents a top secret prediction algorithm, kills an employee in an effort to protect that invention, and makes an enemy of the victim’s lover and coworker. The first episode features a gilded computer fortress, espionage, a murder, and a staged suicide, pulpy elements suggesting popcorn thrills and cyberpunk frenzy. The reality is much stranger: Devs is really about deities and the theologies we embrace to appease them.
Devs is writer and director Alex Garland’s second tale of Silicon Valley delusions. His directorial debut, 2014’s Ex Machina, explored the development of a gendered AI being, Ava, whose sentience is tested by her creator, Nathan, and Caleb, his unwitting employee, who believes he has won a special contest. The film takes place far outside Silicon Valley, at a remote compound owned by Nathan, who is the CEO of a search engine company, but it’s defined by the tech industry’s promethean ambitions. As Nathan and Caleb speak casually of creating and assessing life, they come across as intelligent but self-important, a dynamic that Ava uses to plot her escape.
Devs takes place in the Valley itself. It opens with a foreboding profile of Amaya CEO Forest (Nick Offerman), who’s introduced alone in darkness, followed by a montage of San Francisco’s glittering landmarks and jarring snapshots of the city’s horrific income disparity. Those poles merge when Amaya employees Lily (Sonoya Mizuno) and Sergei’s (Karl Glusman) commute to work: Before the couple can exit their apartment building, they must step past a homeless man who sleeps on their stoop.
But then, as the Amaya-branded charter bus that transports them glides out of the city and into the surrounding redwoods, Garland’s portrayal of the Valley shifts again, from the sociological to the occult. Ensconced in the verdant Bay Area hills like the lair of a Bond villain, the Amaya campus is scenic and glamorous—except for a gargantuan bust of a little girl that towers over the buildings and trees, her hands raised as if she’s praying or dancing. The strangeness intensifies when Sergei is promoted to work in “Devs,” the software development arm of Amaya that focuses on the company’s clandestine predictive algorithm (also named Devs). The team is housed in a facility located in a clearing that’s deeper in the woods than the main campus. The path through the trees is lined with glowing lights that form halos around the redwood trunks, and the entrance is lined with iridescent obelisks that sparkle in the California sun. As Sergei enters this sanctum and rides a levitating platform to his workstation, Amaya acquires an increasingly magical hue. This is the heart of Devs: science, the surreal, and the thin line between them.
The show is Garland’s first foray into television, but it’s continuous with his previous work as a screenwriter and director. Its closest analog in his filmography, which spans works like the zombie film 28 Days Later (2002) and the dystopian police thriller Dredd (2012), is 2018’s Annihilation. Like that hallucinogenic adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s sci-fi book, Devs starts with the familiar and moves deep into the uncanny. The show is variously a drama, a thriller, and horror, constantly molting its skin. Garland seems to favor genre because he can set up traditional narrative structures and fill them with trapdoors—beckoning viewers in, then flipping a switch. 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
The first misdirection is the main character. Though Sergei is the focus of the initial episode, he’s killed by its end, and the circumstances of his death prompt Lily to question Amaya’s quaint veneer. A member of the company’s encryption department, Lily is questioning and cunning. She speaks and moves slowly, dwelling on her words and constantly frowning. When Amaya covers up Sergei’s death as a self-immolation and even furnishes a convincing video of the suicide, Lily is suspicious, a skepticism that structures the show. For every obstacle Amaya throws in her path, she responds with a unique solution, inciting a game of cat and mouse that involves cons, hacking, and escape from a mental ward.
She’s well-suited to a story critical of the tech industry: brainy yet ordinary, crafty but fallible, frightened but not paranoid. Compared to brooding sci-fi heroes like Elliot Alderson of Mr. Robot, who is a savant hacker and exclusively wears black hoodies, or John Anderton of Minority Report, who is a master detective and escape artist, Lily isn’t a virtuoso. Her defining trait is her detachment from the myths and illusions of Silicon Valley, a disposition that grounds her decisions as she’s drawn deeper into Amaya’s designs. Through Lily, the show highlights the lives beyond the technocracy, even at the epicenter of its innovations. Related Article Jordan Peele’s Dive Into the Uncanny Valley Namwali Serpell
Devs follows a decade filled with critical looks at the tech industry. From the roasting of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network to Anna Wiener’s memoir Uncanny Valley to Boots Riley’s fuming send-up of Silicon Valley callousness in Sorry to Bother You, tech culture has become a standard milieu for parsing modern anxieties about corporate power, personal privacy, and social inequality. Devs channels these tensions, but tweaks their vernacular. While the show can be watched as a David and Goliath tale, in which an aggrieved woman goes to war with an egomaniacal man and the ruthless capitalist machine at his disposal, Garland is largely disinterested in allegory. For him, politics and philosophy are embedded in science and technology itself. Accordingly, the conflicts of the series flow from the quantum mechanics at the heart of the story.
In particular, Garland traces the consequences of a religious embrace of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In that version of quantum theory, all possible iterations of an event can and do happen, and our experience of an event is just one branch on an infinitely expanding tree. This interpretation posits that all events are reducible to their underlying physics—meaning they are deterministic—and Forest and his chief programmer, Katie (Alison Pill), test that theory by using the Devs algorithm to recreate and then observe the past with pristine clarity, eventually peering into the future as well.
The self-fulfilling nature of viewing choice as an illusion, and then later confirming it, imbues Forest and Katie with an inhuman dispassion. Forest, aloof and disinterested, powerful yet not paranoid, is a far cry from the standard tech overlord. He lives in a modest house without a fence or gates and wears dinky plaid shirts and jeans, scanning as down-to-earth. Katie, who is introduced at his side, has zero tolerance for error and ineptitude, yet she’s intensely serene. She channels Silicon Valley intelligence without the performative machismo or affected awkwardness; she wants to be right, not worshipped. Together the pair practice a cold form of nonintervention, declining to interfere as the events of the series beget car accidents, kidnappings, and torture. Fate (on the quantum level) is their religion and their piety is steadfast. For a higher cause, they relinquish their free will.
Garland plays with narrative forms through Lily’s pluck and suspicion, giving the series a peculiar, contradictory rhythm. In one scene, Lily and Jamie (Jin Ha), a heartbroken and downcast ex-boyfriend she’s enlisted to help her investigate Sergei’s death, are arranged around Lily’s apartment at different points in time. They sit apart, enter and exit separately, and brood. Simultaneously, Lily and Sergei are positioned around the same space: They hug, kiss, and cuddle. Jamie insists he was smitten with Lily and blindsided by their breakup, but in this moment we see the distance between them is fundemental.
In another scene with the same visual conceit, Katie views different versions of the car accident that killed Forest’s wife and daughter, who the company is named after. The collisions play out simultaneously, showing multiple versions of Forest running to the scene of the accident as the cars swerve or impact in different ways, like some video game glitch. Only one scenario is fatal, however, highlighting how perfectly the accident played out. These time collages are a preview of the Devs system that gets honed later in the series, and they convey Garland’s unique relationship to science. As uncanny as it is to view the past in high-definition and as scary as it is for Amaya to possess such technology, it’s also impressive. Garland isn’t an apologist for Amaya’s abuses, but he doesn’t downplay the wonder of the company’s achievements.
That cautious reverence pays off in the form of the predictive algorithm system actually working. After starts and stops, toward the end of the series it becomes fully functional, granting Amaya the ability to view history exactly as it happened by applying determinism to GPS coordinates and setting the clock. The result is the ultimate archive of earth’s history and an unparalleled spying device. Housed in a cozy, theater-like room inside of the Devs HQ, the device works like an immersive scrying mirror, conveying the spookiness at the heart of cutting-edge science. “But I am scared we might be magicians” Forest says to Katie, his voice quaking with fear.
This outcome is striking because a longstanding trope in sci-fi is that devices or processes with flawed inventors are themselves flawed. This is the premise of most fictional forms of artificial intelligence, from Sonny in I, Robot to The Avengers’ Ultron. (And it is nearly always the premise of stories involving genetic engineering, as seen in Jurassic Park, Frankenstein, and The Fly.) In a sly nod to tech leaders often coming from sales or venture capital backgrounds,, Forest plays no role in the Devs system getting up and running (“He’s not a fucking genius, he’s an entrepreneur,” one character quips). More than a joke, this choice allows the narrative to pivot away from his neurosis as a grieving father and husband and consider the broader implications of Devs. As Devs programmers celebrate the tool and test it, an anxiety sets in. They have become gods and the power is horrifying. Determinism robs them of liberty and humanity.
In a masterstroke of plotting and irony, that breakthrough leads back to Lily, the rogue nonbeliever. When Katie and Forest use the algorithm to view the future, they find that they cannot see past a moment when Lily strolls into Devs, beginning a countdown to learn the fate of the company and the device itself. When that encounter inevitably happens, what’s dazzling is that Lily does not arrive as an avenging angel. Rather, she acts as a sort of quantum trickster, at once foiling Amaya’s schemes and enabling them, challenging the company’s mad science and proving it.
A key moment in the finale is Forest informing Lily that the “v” in Devs is roman, making Devs Deus, or deity in Latin. Forest introduces this trivia as a “private joke,” accenting how removed he is from the consequences of his ambitions. In his pursuit to reconnect with his daughter and wife at any cost, he turns the world into his instrument. In his view, everything Lily has endured is collateral damage. For Lily, the disclosure validates her resistance. If a deity is as constraining and controlling as Forest, it must be defied.
Corresponding to its themes, the series ends ambiguously. There’s no divine punishment for Katie and Forest’s tinkering, no reward for Lily’s courage. The Devs system does not explode or short-circuit or get unplugged. The government does not storm in with guns and hackers to save the day. Instead, the show concludes with Lily and Forest becoming quantum data, allowing them to repeatedly live out multiple versions of their lives. In the timeline we see, which is one among infinite possibilities, Forest is reunited with his daughter and wife and Lily reconciles with Jamie. It’s tragic and touching and fleeting—a very quantum ending.
This sort of finale elides the aftermath of a world containing a godlike algorithm and settles instead on something more conventional: twin portraits of grief. But the value of the more narrow conclusion is it posits that, like consumers, tech’s engineers and their loved ones are also exploited by the relentless drive for innovation. In Ex Machina, Garland packed this sentiment into an allusion to the quote “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” the line from the Bhagavad Gita that Robert Oppenheimer uttered after witnessing the detonation of a nuclear weapon. In Devs, the technology and the destruction are different, but in the show’s panorama of losses personal, global, and ontological, “worlds” feels pointedly more plural.


thenation--2020-05-12--Trump and the GOP Are Ignoring Economic Catastrophe

The Signal this week is the continued descent into either Shakespearean tragedy or Greek farce of the grand American experiment in democracy .
As the election nears , William Barr ’ s Justice Department has abandoned all pretense of impartiality and legality .
In dropping charges against Trump ’ s first national security adviser , Michael Flynn , despite the fact that Flynn had already pleaded guilty not once but twice to the crimes of which he was accused , Barr has caved to Trump ’ s dictatorial whim .
Barr ’ s action was so shocking that , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic from the lead-story perch it has occupied , almost without interruption , since mid-March .
Former president Obama averred that the rule of law was under threat as a result of Attorney General Barr ’ s move—an extraordinary intervention , given how careful Obama has been to stay out of the daily fray over the past three years .
Meanwhile , Trump reacted with his usual Noise , a series of tirades against alleged crooked G-men and evil political figures determined to ensure his demise , who had wrongly ensnared Flynn in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be getting their comeuppance soon .
In tweeting about this Tuesday ’ s special congressional election in Southern California ( triggered by the resignation of Democratic Representative Katie Hill ) , Trump also continued to test-run two of his campaign themes : that the Democrats are going to try to steal the election through rigged vote-by-mail systems , and that by opening additional polling stations in poorer neighborhoods , they are making it somehow unfairly easy for minorities to vote .
Why Are Republicans Stampeding to Reopen ?
Trump and GOP to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Of course , this has been occurring in the shadow of the pandemic—which as of this writing has claimed nearly 80,000 lives and cratered the job market to an extent not seen since 1933 .
Instead of focusing on a full-court effort to get control of the spiraling public health and economic calamities , Trump spent much of the last week coordinating disinformation campaigns and vitriolic attacks on international responses to the disease .
While most of the world ’ s top leaders came together in a virtual summit to work out a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raising money for a universally available vaccine and for shoring up the public health systems of poorer nations , Trump and his henchmen were nowhere to be seen .
This one wasn ’ t hard—it didn ’ t involve long air travel or shaking hands with a bunch of strangers .
It was online , for Christ ’ s sake !
But neither Trump nor Pence—who ostensibly is in charge of the coronavirus task force—nor Secretary of State Pompeo nor any other administration official could be bothered to log in and represent the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of pique , Trump ’ s team blocked a UN Security Council resolution calling for a global cease-fire during the pandemic .
Why ?
Ostensibly because the document mentioned the World Health Organization , which Trump is blaming for the failure of his own administration to respond with alacrity to warnings given out by… the World Health Organization .
And perhaps US officials thought it would look bad to vote in favor of a global cease-fire just hours after US mercenaries were arrested in Venezuela after attempting to enter the country with plans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Nicolás Maduro .
Meanwhile , as the US public health crisis worsens , making attempts to rush the restart of local economies a dangerous game of Russian roulette , states and cities are staring down a financial catastrophe that will make 2008–9 look like a mild case of the sniffles .
California , which has a $ 222 billion budget , and which , after a decade of careful curating of its finances , began 2020 with a $ 5.6 billion surplus and a rainy-day fund worth close to $ 20 billion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 54 billion deficit .
New York City is looking to cut $ 1.3 billion in services .
And the agencies that run the country ’ s great public transit systems are on the verge of financial collapse , with New York ’ s MTA needing $ 4 billion to survive the pandemic .
In response , the GOP-controlled Senate , along with Trump ’ s economic advisers , is increasingly advocating a “ let them sink ” approach .
We need a huge federal intervention now to stanch the economic bleeding .
Instead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to , in their words , hit the pause button on more assistance .
Stay well , stay healthy , and stay focused on the Signal .
Remember , everything is in play now , and Trump and his gang are playing for keeps .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
The Signal this week is the continued descent into either Shakespearean tragedy or Greek farce of the grand American experiment in democracy.
As the election nears, William Barr’s Justice Department has abandoned all pretense of impartiality and legality. In dropping charges against Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, despite the fact that Flynn had already pleaded guilty not once but twice to the crimes of which he was accused, Barr has caved to Trump’s dictatorial whim.
Barr’s action was so shocking that, for a brief moment, it knocked the pandemic from the lead-story perch it has occupied, almost without interruption, since mid-March. Former president Obama averred that the rule of law was under threat as a result of Attorney General Barr’s move—an extraordinary intervention, given how careful Obama has been to stay out of the daily fray over the past three years. Meanwhile, Trump reacted with his usual Noise, a series of tirades against alleged crooked G-men and evil political figures determined to ensure his demise, who had wrongly ensnared Flynn in the first place, and how they would be getting their comeuppance soon.
In tweeting about this Tuesday’s special congressional election in Southern California (triggered by the resignation of Democratic Representative Katie Hill), Trump also continued to test-run two of his campaign themes: that the Democrats are going to try to steal the election through rigged vote-by-mail systems, and that by opening additional polling stations in poorer neighborhoods, they are making it somehow unfairly easy for minorities to vote. More Signal:Noise Why Are Republicans Stampeding to Reopen? Sasha Abramsky Trump and GOP to Nation: Go Bankrupt, Drop Dead Sasha Abramsky
Of course, this has been occurring in the shadow of the pandemic—which as of this writing has claimed nearly 80,000 lives and cratered the job market to an extent not seen since 1933. Instead of focusing on a full-court effort to get control of the spiraling public health and economic calamities, Trump spent much of the last week coordinating disinformation campaigns and vitriolic attacks on international responses to the disease. 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
While most of the world’s top leaders came together in a virtual summit to work out a global response to the pandemic, including raising money for a universally available vaccine and for shoring up the public health systems of poorer nations, Trump and his henchmen were nowhere to be seen. This one wasn’t hard—it didn’t involve long air travel or shaking hands with a bunch of strangers. It was online, for Christ’s sake! But neither Trump nor Pence—who ostensibly is in charge of the coronavirus task force—nor Secretary of State Pompeo nor any other administration official could be bothered to log in and represent the United States.
In a similar fit of pique, Trump’s team blocked a UN Security Council resolution calling for a global cease-fire during the pandemic. Why? Ostensibly because the document mentioned the World Health Organization, which Trump is blaming for the failure of his own administration to respond with alacrity to warnings given out by… the World Health Organization. And perhaps US officials thought it would look bad to vote in favor of a global cease-fire just hours after US mercenaries were arrested in Venezuela after attempting to enter the country with plans to kidnap the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Current Issue View our current issue
Meanwhile, as the US public health crisis worsens, making attempts to rush the restart of local economies a dangerous game of Russian roulette, states and cities are staring down a financial catastrophe that will make 2008–9 look like a mild case of the sniffles. California, which has a $222 billion budget, and which, after a decade of careful curating of its finances, began 2020 with a $5.6 billion surplus and a rainy-day fund worth close to $20 billion, is now looking at a $54 billion deficit. New York City is looking to cut $1.3 billion in services. And the agencies that run the country’s great public transit systems are on the verge of financial collapse, with New York’s MTA needing $4 billion to survive the pandemic.
In response, the GOP-controlled Senate, along with Trump’s economic advisers, is increasingly advocating a “let them sink” approach. We need a huge federal intervention now to stanch the economic bleeding. Instead, Trump’s advisers have decided to, in their words, hit the pause button on more assistance.
Stay well, stay healthy, and stay focused on the Signal. Remember, everything is in play now, and Trump and his gang are playing for keeps.