thenation--2020-04-13--The Tangled History of Illness and Idiocy

A few weeks ago , at the time of writing , a significant proportion of Americans joined ranks behind a ludicrous assumption : that they were exempt from the rules of contagion .
The rest of us , at least those not yet ill , took it upon ourselves to police the streets .
New Yorkers leaned out apartment windows to yell at pedestrians , “ Go home !
” Passing a group of tourists walking six astride , a pack of picnickers in a nearby park , I thought to myself , “ What idiots.
” The festive atmosphere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s The Magic Mountain , where bourgeois consumptives , held in luxury quarantine , obsessively check their temperatures , adopt hobbies , attend lectures , gorge on gourmet cuisine ( Champagne , velouté ) .
They gossip and flirt like unsupervised children .
For a Swiss tuberculosis clinic on the eve of WWI , the mood is deceptively gay .
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann , Vintage International , Translated from the German by John E. Woods The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky , Knopf , Translated from the Russian by Larissa Volokhonsky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Chehaw Station , ” from The Collected Essays , Ralph Ellison , Ballantine Books If we still clung to the myth of exceptionalism then—as if a virus could grant clemency ( it will disappear “ like a miracle , ” Trump said ) —perhaps it ’ s because this country has made it so easy , at least for some , to take safety as a given .
Physical suffering is , for many comfortable Americans , a virtual experience—something that happens elsewhere , on a screen .
It seems a warning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ illness , Thomas Mann ’ s The Magic Mountain ( 1924 ) and Dostoevsky ’ s The Idiot ( 1869 ) , are also novels about ignorance , written in eras preceding national crisis .
Mann , once a conservative , underwent a political transformation in the Weimar years ; The Magic Mountain reflects a cautious liberalism in the face of Germany ’ s incipient fascism .
Dostoevsky , monarchist , Slavophile , and moralist , diagnosed the early symptoms of the Russian Revolution .
( However conservative his leanings , he identified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ modernization against an anachronistic Tsarist regime . )
Both novels explore nascent national calamity through the eyes of invalids who often pass for ignoramuses .
In the era of Covid-19 , one wonders : What kind of idiots are we ?
Covid-19 Is the Crisis Radical ‘ Traditionalists ’ Have Been Waiting For The protagonist of Mann ’ s bildungsroman is the young engineer Hans Castorp , the German Everyman .
His first impressions of the sanatorium leave him curiously stunned .
He arrives with the belief that illness carries a kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Berghof finds that many patients manage to be both sick and fatuous .
He muses , postprandially , that it seems “ very peculiar for someone to be stupid and sick besides… .
One assumes stupid people must be healthy and vulgar , and that illness must ennoble people and make them wise and special.
” His interlocutor , an Italian humanist and long-term patient cum pedagogue named Settembrini , rejects Hans ’ s theory .
“ I , too , prefer a clever invalid to a consumptive idiot , ” Settembrini @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the point where you regard the conjunction of illness and stupidity as a kind of stylistic blunder… .
Illness is definitely not elegant , and certainly not venerable.
” Settembrini ’ s objection borrows from Nietzsche ’ s Beyond Good and Evil .
By elevating suffering to a noble state , Nietzsche says , Christianity weaponizes the anguish of the weak against the strong : Suffering is “ good , ” while strength and health are “ evil , ” establishing a moral order based in ressentiment .
Nietzsche ’ s sister @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense of vigor to justify Hitler and Mussolini—the manipulated manuscripts she compiled would damn her brother to decades of misreadings—but his critique of ressentiment just as soon discredits far-right populism .
It exposes the ways in which the powerful prey on self-pity and resentment , leveraging it for their own purposes .
In a sense , both Settembrini and Hans are wrong .
It is dangerous , if not fascist , to venerate either the weak or the strong , as readings and misreadings of Nietzsche have shown .
The attempt to divide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on-ramp to extremist politics .
Hans may not be so far afield , however , if we take him to mean simply that there is some knowledge to be gained from first-hand suffering that the healthy can only approximate .
This association of idiocy with health , and intelligence with illness , seems less spurious in a nation that was so slow to recognize the seriousness of its Covid-19 situation—as if many of us , having felt healthy and safe for so long , lack an imagination for mass illness .
Of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are those who had the power to communicate to Americans how serious the situation was , but didn ’ t .
In particular , the president , who displays a morbid fascination with his own “ good genes , ” who spent weeks downplaying the mortal severity of the pandemic , who continues to downplay it , who threatened to reopen the economy by Easter , and who has lately taken to forging a new stock of xenophobic narratives to explain the virus ’ s advance .
The attempt to peg Covid-19 as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump insists , though it has since become clear that the origins of the US outbreak can be traced to tourism in Europe—frames the virus not so much as an illness as an invasion , as if untimely death were itself foreign .
Rapid contamination , devastating supply shortages , premature deaths : These things don ’ t happen here ; America is an exception .
If The Magic Mountain revolves around the axes of illness/health and intelligence/stupidity , then in The Idiot , the poles are ordinary/extraordinary .
Dostoevsky conceived of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a purely beautiful ” person , an answer to the thought experiment , What if Jesus were merely human ?
Prince Myshkin , Dostoevsky ’ s divine-in-the-flesh , is childlike , frank , ignorant to the point of cruelty .
Raised in yet another sanatorium in Switzerland , where he was treated for “ idiocy , ” he returns to St. Petersburg at the beginning of the novel as naive about Russian customs as any foreigner .
On the train , his future romantic rival , Rozoghin , mocks the prince ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shoes with gaiters—all not the Russian way.
” In Petersburg , his ignorance of social cues drives those around him to distraction .
He is forgiven in part for his “ simplicity of spirit , ” and in part because he is sick ; he suffers , as Dostoevsky did , from epileptic fits .
His companions compare him to Don Quixote ; Dostoevsky aligns him with Christ .
Everyone refers to him as “ the idiot.
” One of the prince ’ s unwitting talents , upon arrival , is to expose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( The object of his affection , femme fatale Nastasya Filippovna , has many other suitors . )
Toward the end of the novel , the narrator divides these ordinary men into two categories , those who falsely imagine themselves to be “ unusual and original , ” and those who , though “ infected ” with the desire to be extraordinary , know in their hearts that they are average .
None of these men are ever as original as they aspire to be—only the idiot is .
The true savant is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ original at all .
The prince ’ s genius is inextricable from his naïveté .
He is forever out of step with consensus logic , doomed to wear “ thick-soled shoes with gaiters ” in the heart of a Russian winter .
How eccentric !
Most people , with their proper footwear and petty feelings , are doomed to be “ like everybody else.
” He gleefully tells a roomful of socialites that they are “ ridiculous , ” mistaking this frank pronouncement for a compliment .
The idiot , with a child @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pointing out what others won ’ t , or can ’ t .
The implication is that all true idiots possess a kind of brilliance .
( Shakespeare ’ s fools would all agree , whether or not they were , as Twitter seems to believe , conceived of under quarantine . )
If genius is achieved by tempering the lust for exceptionalism , and stupidity by the denial of one ’ s own ordinariness , then America faces a significant handicap .
Its economic system is greased by the promise that everyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reminds us we are nothing more than biovectors .
No one is special in a pandemic .
We must all act as if we are invalids .
Americans aren ’ t used to playing the invalid , however .
This is a country that has participated in most of the major wars of the last century , yet which has experienced only two acts of war on home soil .
As a result , the American imagination for international calamity has been developed largely vicariously .
It has also allowed the politically dominant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is almost as if we ’ ve lived our whole lives in a virtual space .
That this relative comfort might bear on the general public ’ s ability to imagine disaster is captured by what behavioral psychologists call the “ white male effect.
” Asked to rate the “ perceived threat ” to individuals and the public of a number of social and environmental hazards ( handguns , ozone depletion , drugs ) , researchers found that white males consistently and categorically reported perceiving lower risk than every other group .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ this discrepancy point to the importance of “ identity protective cognition , ” or in other words , individual experience .
Hans Castorp was on to something : There is , perhaps , a strain of stupidity—a blind spot—begotten by uninterrupted well-being .
Immigrants Know All About Disaster Preparedness This naïveté about suffering is especially egregious when there has always been suffering at the heart of American life , physical , bodily , immediate disasters that the comfortable ignore or under-report : the AIDS epidemic , mass incarceration , the genocide of Native @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the thousands of black men and women murdered by police violence and white terrorism , the abuse of asylum seekers and their children , the overt criminalization of poverty , a nonexistent social safety net that forces the sick to choose between their lives and their livelihoods .
These waves of mass death and anguish have failed to accrue material reality for spectators who have never felt personally threatened by them .
On the subject of suffering , most white or middle-class Americans can choose ignorance .
Opining in public on things you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ form of idiocy in which Americans , in particular , are known to indulge .
In early March , after suggesting that Covid-19 is milder than the flu , Trump told the CDC that he was as knowledgeable about the virus as any medical professional .
“ Every one of these doctors said , ‘ How do you know so much about this ?
’ Maybe I have a natural ability , ” he reported .
“ Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.
” Indeed !
Maybe Kushner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individual level , the hubris of asserting our opinions over experts ’ makes us ignoramuses .
On a national level , it may be our sole stroke of genius .
To incorporate the opinions of those who exist outside the establishment is a fundamentally democratic impulse .
When everyone is given the right to claim expertise , anyone can punch up the social hierarchy .
Ralph Ellison personified this inherent “ orneriness ” of the American public in his essay “ The Little Man at Chehaw Station.
” He attributes the idea of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he once had at the Tuskegee Institute .
There is something “ more involved , ” that teacher told him , in performing classical music in this country than there is elsewhere .
In America , she says , “ you must always play your best , even if it ’ s only in the waiting room at Chehaw Station , because in this country there ’ ll always be a little man hidden behind the stove…and he ’ ll know the music , and the tradition , and the standards of musicianship.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and in that critique there will be some authority and truth—an unlikely connoisseurship ; he understands the cultural landscape so well because he isn ’ t reflected in it .
This Little Man is , Ellison argues , at once a product of our lack of “ serious cultural introspection ” and an agent of progressivism , urging us “ toward a perfection of our revolutionary ideals.
” He insists that those at the margins have a right to speak , making good on the ( often false ) promises of meritocracy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the antiauthoritarian spirit of the Little Man that disrupts established social order .
He is too iconoclastic for 24-karat fascism , too individualistic for solidarity or effective mass action .
This is to say that whatever might spur us to extraordinariness also makes us idiots , especially in the time of Covid-19 .
As a young intellectual involved in anti-imperialist circles , Dostoevsky was arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad—a notorious fake-out , never intended to be carried out .
After receiving a pardon just as he and his comrades @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he served four years in a Siberian labor camp instead .
But his narrow escape reverberates throughout The Idiot , rendering it one of the more autobiographical of his works : “ Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands , ” the prince says , in one of the novel ’ s many discussions of capital punishment .
While the victim of the robbery may hope for rescue even after his throat is slit , when facing penalty of death , “ that last hope , which makes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken away for certain… .
The whole awful torture lies in the fact that there is certainly no escape.
” There is no question that with the pandemic we too have been consigned to disaster .
Three-quarters of the nation is now under lockdown , 16 million are out of work , and , while more Americans are beginning to follow epidem iologists ’ advice to keep apart and stay at home , the economic damage , still accruing , is sure to be protracted .
Without hope of escape , there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consequences .
A paranoid nation is vulnerable to the seduction of extremes and the erosion of social norms ; Wisconsin has already staged a sham election .
One wonders how our ornery individualism , combined with a historical ( even willful ) ignorance about the manifest suffering that ’ s always been central to the American experience , will position us to handle a future like this .
On the far side of the pandemic lie recession and resentment , and history is no guide as to whether we will swing right or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the New Deal—but also to fascism .
Slavery , and American Racism , Were Born in Genocide One predictive measure , however , might be a nation ’ s relationship to death , its willingness to confront the physical reality of suffering versus its eagerness to sublimate it .
Democratic socialism is predicated on the recognition that suffering is real and ought to be addressed ; fascism promises a salvation scrubbed of it .
As Mussolini wrote in “ The Doctrine of Fascism , ” historically , “ Fascists knew how to die.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ know how to eliminate the fear of ordinary death , by elevating it to martyrdom , a contribution to the national afterlife .
As Rush Limbaugh told his listeners , he would rather die of Covid-19 than saddle “ our children and our grandchildren ” with the costs of a prolonged shutdown .
“ I ’ m not afraid to die , ” he proclaimed .
“ I am afraid that our nation might die.
” The other way to read this pledge , of course , is that he ’ s willing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ current White House has cynics , not fascists ; there is no established national program for which paranoid Americans are invited to sacrifice their lives , at least not yet—though some of the more extreme calls to reopen the economy come close .
For the most part , however , instead of being leveraged , death was simply ignored , until the optics grew so gruesome as to require presidential comment .
And your average idiot , we should recall , will do anything at all to stave off the fear , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordinary death .
No wonder Dostoevsky wanted Russians to continue to believe in God ; it ’ s a godless people who would make deities of men .
One has the feeling that , years from now , we ’ ll look back on those minor idols and say , “ What idiots.
” But a lot of people will have died by then .

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.
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
A few weeks ago, at the time of writing, a significant proportion of Americans joined ranks behind a ludicrous assumption: that they were exempt from the rules of contagion. The rest of us, at least those not yet ill, took it upon ourselves to police the streets. New Yorkers leaned out apartment windows to yell at pedestrians, “Go home!” Passing a group of tourists walking six astride, a pack of picnickers in a nearby park, I thought to myself, “What idiots.” The festive atmosphere recalled the sanatorium from Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, where bourgeois consumptives, held in luxury quarantine, obsessively check their temperatures, adopt hobbies, attend lectures, gorge on gourmet cuisine (Champagne, velouté). They gossip and flirt like unsupervised children. For a Swiss tuberculosis clinic on the eve of WWI, the mood is deceptively gay. WORKS DISCUSSED The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, Vintage International, Translated from the German by John E. Woods The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Knopf, Translated from the Russian by Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear “The Little Man at Chehaw Station,” from The Collected Essays, Ralph Ellison, Ballantine Books
If we still clung to the myth of exceptionalism then—as if a virus could grant clemency (it will disappear “like a miracle,” Trump said)—perhaps it’s because this country has made it so easy, at least for some, to take safety as a given. Physical suffering is, for many comfortable Americans, a virtual experience—something that happens elsewhere, on a screen.
A pandemic, however, throws bodies into relief.
It seems a warning that two of the greatest novels on illness, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain (1924) and Dostoevsky’s The Idiot (1869), are also novels about ignorance, written in eras preceding national crisis. Mann, once a conservative, underwent a political transformation in the Weimar years; The Magic Mountain reflects a cautious liberalism in the face of Germany’s incipient fascism. Dostoevsky, monarchist, Slavophile, and moralist, diagnosed the early symptoms of the Russian Revolution. (However conservative his leanings, he identified the instigating tension: the push for modernization against an anachronistic Tsarist regime.) Both novels explore nascent national calamity through the eyes of invalids who often pass for ignoramuses.
In the era of Covid-19, one wonders: What kind of idiots are we? Related Article Covid-19 Is the Crisis Radical ‘Traditionalists’ Have Been Waiting For Benjamin Teitelbaum
The protagonist of Mann’s bildungsroman is the young engineer Hans Castorp, the German Everyman. His first impressions of the sanatorium leave him curiously stunned. He arrives with the belief that illness carries a kind of nobility and “intelligence,” but at Berghof finds that many patients manage to be both sick and fatuous. He muses, postprandially, that it seems “very peculiar for someone to be stupid and sick besides…. One assumes stupid people must be healthy and vulgar, and that illness must ennoble people and make them wise and special.” His interlocutor, an Italian humanist and long-term patient cum pedagogue named Settembrini, rejects Hans’s theory. “I, too, prefer a clever invalid to a consumptive idiot,” Settembrini says. “But my protest begins at the point where you regard the conjunction of illness and stupidity as a kind of stylistic blunder…. Illness is definitely not elegant, and certainly not venerable.”
Settembrini’s objection borrows from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. By elevating suffering to a noble state, Nietzsche says, Christianity weaponizes the anguish of the weak against the strong: Suffering is “good,” while strength and health are “evil,” establishing a moral order based in ressentiment. Nietzsche’s sister, after his death, perverted his defense of vigor to justify Hitler and Mussolini—the manipulated manuscripts she compiled would damn her brother to decades of misreadings—but his critique of ressentiment just as soon discredits far-right populism. It exposes the ways in which the powerful prey on self-pity and resentment, leveraging it for their own purposes. 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
In a sense, both Settembrini and Hans are wrong. It is dangerous, if not fascist, to venerate either the weak or the strong, as readings and misreadings of Nietzsche have shown. The attempt to divide humankind into these categories is itself an on-ramp to extremist politics. Hans may not be so far afield, however, if we take him to mean simply that there is some knowledge to be gained from first-hand suffering that the healthy can only approximate. This association of idiocy with health, and intelligence with illness, seems less spurious in a nation that was so slow to recognize the seriousness of its Covid-19 situation—as if many of us, having felt healthy and safe for so long, lack an imagination for mass illness.
Of course, the true culprits of this crisis are those who had the power to communicate to Americans how serious the situation was, but didn’t. In particular, the president, who displays a morbid fascination with his own “good genes,” who spent weeks downplaying the mortal severity of the pandemic, who continues to downplay it, who threatened to reopen the economy by Easter, and who has lately taken to forging a new stock of xenophobic narratives to explain the virus’s advance. The attempt to peg Covid-19 as an import—a “Chinese virus,” Trump insists, though it has since become clear that the origins of the US outbreak can be traced to tourism in Europe—frames the virus not so much as an illness as an invasion, as if untimely death were itself foreign. Rapid contamination, devastating supply shortages, premature deaths: These things don’t happen here; America is an exception.
If The Magic Mountain revolves around the axes of illness/health and intelligence/stupidity, then in The Idiot, the poles are ordinary/extraordinary. Dostoevsky conceived of the novel with the ambition of writing “a purely beautiful” person, an answer to the thought experiment, What if Jesus were merely human?
Prince Myshkin, Dostoevsky’s divine-in-the-flesh, is childlike, frank, ignorant to the point of cruelty. Raised in yet another sanatorium in Switzerland, where he was treated for “idiocy,” he returns to St. Petersburg at the beginning of the novel as naive about Russian customs as any foreigner. On the train, his future romantic rival, Rozoghin, mocks the prince’s “faded foulard” and “thick-soled shoes with gaiters—all not the Russian way.” In Petersburg, his ignorance of social cues drives those around him to distraction. He is forgiven in part for his “simplicity of spirit,” and in part because he is sick; he suffers, as Dostoevsky did, from epileptic fits. His companions compare him to Don Quixote; Dostoevsky aligns him with Christ. Everyone refers to him as “the idiot.”
One of the prince’s unwitting talents, upon arrival, is to expose the ordinariness of his romantic competition. (The object of his affection, femme fatale Nastasya Filippovna, has many other suitors.) Toward the end of the novel, the narrator divides these ordinary men into two categories, those who falsely imagine themselves to be “unusual and original,” and those who, though “infected” with the desire to be extraordinary, know in their hearts that they are average. None of these men are ever as original as they aspire to be—only the idiot is. The true savant is original man with no desire to be original at all.
The prince’s genius is inextricable from his naïveté. He is forever out of step with consensus logic, doomed to wear “thick-soled shoes with gaiters” in the heart of a Russian winter. How eccentric! Most people, with their proper footwear and petty feelings, are doomed to be “like everybody else.” He gleefully tells a roomful of socialites that they are “ridiculous,” mistaking this frank pronouncement for a compliment. The idiot, with a child’s shamelessness, is brilliant at pointing out what others won’t, or can’t. The implication is that all true idiots possess a kind of brilliance. (Shakespeare’s fools would all agree, whether or not they were, as Twitter seems to believe, conceived of under quarantine.)
If genius is achieved by tempering the lust for exceptionalism, and stupidity by the denial of one’s own ordinariness, then America faces a significant handicap. Its economic system is greased by the promise that everyone can be extraordinary. But the virus reminds us we are nothing more than biovectors. No one is special in a pandemic. We must all act as if we are invalids.
Americans aren’t used to playing the invalid, however. This is a country that has participated in most of the major wars of the last century, yet which has experienced only two acts of war on home soil. As a result, the American imagination for international calamity has been developed largely vicariously. It has also allowed the politically dominant demographic—white suburbanites—to grow up so physically safe it is almost as if we’ve lived our whole lives in a virtual space. That this relative comfort might bear on the general public’s ability to imagine disaster is captured by what behavioral psychologists call the “white male effect.” Asked to rate the “perceived threat” to individuals and the public of a number of social and environmental hazards (handguns, ozone depletion, drugs), researchers found that white males consistently and categorically reported perceiving lower risk than every other group. Attempts to explain the underlying cause of this discrepancy point to the importance of “identity protective cognition,” or in other words, individual experience. Hans Castorp was on to something: There is, perhaps, a strain of stupidity—a blind spot—begotten by uninterrupted well-being. Related Article Immigrants Know All About Disaster Preparedness Liana Aghajanian
This naïveté about suffering is especially egregious when there has always been suffering at the heart of American life, physical, bodily, immediate disasters that the comfortable ignore or under-report: the AIDS epidemic, mass incarceration, the genocide of Native Americans, slavery’s barbarism, the thousands of black men and women murdered by police violence and white terrorism, the abuse of asylum seekers and their children, the overt criminalization of poverty, a nonexistent social safety net that forces the sick to choose between their lives and their livelihoods. These waves of mass death and anguish have failed to accrue material reality for spectators who have never felt personally threatened by them. On the subject of suffering, most white or middle-class Americans can choose ignorance.
Opining in public on things you don’t really understand is a form of idiocy in which Americans, in particular, are known to indulge. In early March, after suggesting that Covid-19 is milder than the flu, Trump told the CDC that he was as knowledgeable about the virus as any medical professional. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability,” he reported. “Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.” Indeed! Maybe Kushner should have joined him.
On an individual level, the hubris of asserting our opinions over experts’ makes us ignoramuses. On a national level, it may be our sole stroke of genius. To incorporate the opinions of those who exist outside the establishment is a fundamentally democratic impulse. When everyone is given the right to claim expertise, anyone can punch up the social hierarchy.
Ralph Ellison personified this inherent “orneriness” of the American public in his essay “The Little Man at Chehaw Station.” He attributes the idea of the Little Man to a music instructor he once had at the Tuskegee Institute. There is something “more involved,” that teacher told him, in performing classical music in this country than there is elsewhere. In America, she says, “you must always play your best, even if it’s only in the waiting room at Chehaw Station, because in this country there’ll always be a little man hidden behind the stove…and he’ll know the music, and the tradition, and the standards of musicianship.” He’ll criticize you, and in that critique there will be some authority and truth—an unlikely connoisseurship; he understands the cultural landscape so well because he isn’t reflected in it. This Little Man is, Ellison argues, at once a product of our lack of “serious cultural introspection” and an agent of progressivism, urging us “toward a perfection of our revolutionary ideals.” He insists that those at the margins have a right to speak, making good on the (often false) promises of meritocracy and keeping the powerful in check. It is the antiauthoritarian spirit of the Little Man that disrupts established social order. He is too iconoclastic for 24-karat fascism, too individualistic for solidarity or effective mass action. This is to say that whatever might spur us to extraordinariness also makes us idiots, especially in the time of Covid-19.
As a young intellectual involved in anti-imperialist circles, Dostoevsky was arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad—a notorious fake-out, never intended to be carried out. After receiving a pardon just as he and his comrades were lining up to be shot, he served four years in a Siberian labor camp instead. But his narrow escape reverberates throughout The Idiot, rendering it one of the more autobiographical of his works: “Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands,” the prince says, in one of the novel’s many discussions of capital punishment. While the victim of the robbery may hope for rescue even after his throat is slit, when facing penalty of death, “that last hope, which makes dying ten times as easy, is taken away for certain…. The whole awful torture lies in the fact that there is certainly no escape.”
There is no question that with the pandemic we too have been consigned to disaster. Three-quarters of the nation is now under lockdown, 16 million are out of work, and, while more Americans are beginning to follow epidem iologists’ advice to keep apart and stay at home, the economic damage, still accruing, is sure to be protracted. Without hope of escape, there is only anticipation and dread—and dread has political consequences. A paranoid nation is vulnerable to the seduction of extremes and the erosion of social norms; Wisconsin has already staged a sham election.
One wonders how our ornery individualism, combined with a historical (even willful) ignorance about the manifest suffering that’s always been central to the American experience, will position us to handle a future like this. On the far side of the pandemic lie recession and resentment, and history is no guide as to whether we will swing right or left. The Great Depression led to the New Deal—but also to fascism. Related Article Slavery, and American Racism, Were Born in Genocide Greg Grandin
One predictive measure, however, might be a nation’s relationship to death, its willingness to confront the physical reality of suffering versus its eagerness to sublimate it. Democratic socialism is predicated on the recognition that suffering is real and ought to be addressed; fascism promises a salvation scrubbed of it. As Mussolini wrote in “The Doctrine of Fascism,” historically, “Fascists knew how to die.” What he means is that fascists know how to eliminate the fear of ordinary death, by elevating it to martyrdom, a contribution to the national afterlife. As Rush Limbaugh told his listeners, he would rather die of Covid-19 than saddle “our children and our grandchildren” with the costs of a prolonged shutdown. “I’m not afraid to die,” he proclaimed. “I am afraid that our nation might die.” The other way to read this pledge, of course, is that he’s willing to let other people perish.
The current White House has cynics, not fascists; there is no established national program for which paranoid Americans are invited to sacrifice their lives, at least not yet—though some of the more extreme calls to reopen the economy come close. For the most part, however, instead of being leveraged, death was simply ignored, until the optics grew so gruesome as to require presidential comment. And your average idiot, we should recall, will do anything at all to stave off the fear, the humiliation, the loneliness, of an ordinary death. No wonder Dostoevsky wanted Russians to continue to believe in God; it’s a godless people who would make deities of men. One has the feeling that, years from now, we’ll look back on those minor idols and say, “What idiots.” But a lot of people will have died by then.


thenation--2020-04-13--Waxahatchee’s ‘Saint Cloud’ Is a Modern Country Folk Opus

Katie Crutchfield ’ s songs are those of a wayfarer , building momentum in transit and feeding off the energy of her destinations .
On her last album , 2017 ’ s Out in the Storm , the passage between cities framed personal breakthroughs : She took a train to Berlin for a night of rejuvenation and self-discovery and drove her “ own damn car to Brooklyn , New York , USA , ” to detach from a fraught relationship .
Life as a touring musician has carried Crutchfield all over the world for more than a decade , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for her artistry .
Her intermittent home base from 2012 to ’ 18 , the city cradles a DIY scene that nurtured her craggy indie-rock sound and emotionally acute songwriting .
But Crutchfield is a Southerner by birth , her band ’ s Waxahatchee moniker borrowed from a creek near her parents ’ house in Alabama where she recorded her first album under that name .
The pull of her roots is felt in the scenery and sounds of her fifth and latest album , Saint Cloud .
On “ Arkadelphia , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city in Arkansas , Crutchfield describes the view from the window of her car : Trailer parks , fireworks , folding chairs , American flags , and roadside produce stands coalesce in a vividly rendered landscape .
Arkadelphia is one stop on an extended trip through the American South , and the album ’ s songs are like postcards scribbled along the way , shot through with the sort of clarity that emerges as the mile markers pass .
The road into West Memphis coaxes an outpouring of self-love and forgiveness ; Ruby @ @ @ @ @ @ @ father ’ s hometown of St .
Cloud , Florida , host her musings on time and mortality .
Such winding pathways—and the lived-in , roots-rock hybrid Crutchfield deploys while tracing them—will feel familiar to fans of Lucinda Williams .
Crutchfield is a devout fan herself , who praised the country icon ’ s authenticity and boldness in a 2018 essay written for the 20th anniversary of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road .
Across Saint Cloud , Crutchfield sings in the spirit of Williams ’ s female characters—sharp , independent , insatiable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in pursuit of something better .
Each stopover on her journey pulses with the potential for change .
Like Williams , Crutchfield presents herself here as a woman well acquainted with struggle .
A passing glance at Saint Cloud ’ s track list reveals signs of turmoil : “ Fire , ” “ Hell , ” “ War.
” Crutchfield wrote the album shortly after deciding to get sober , and while explicit references to drinking or addiction are absent , its rich imagery often darts between destruction and beauty , weakness and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s beginning to end each time it shifts .
Cut flowers live , die , and get replaced on “ Lilacs , ” a full-throated self-affirmation in which Crutchfield slips into jagged , Dylanesque cadences .
On “ Ruby Falls , ” she sings eloquently about the fluctuations of love : “ It breaks your neck / It builds you a delicate shrine.
” The album ’ s backstory also offers context for its dramatic sonic leap away from her previous work .
Crutchfield cut her teeth on the punk circuit , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rendered in incrementally higher fidelity , their ragged edges remain .
But in times of change or distress , we often reach for the comfort of home .
In Birmingham , Crutchfield grew up on country music— “ classic stuff like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn ” —and she ’ s called it her first musical love .
Saint Cloud moderates her pace and cleans up her fuzzy-rock-guitar tone , turning instead to those familiar sounds .
Earthy and leisurely , this is as close to a country record as any she has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to aestheticize her roots , telling Glamour in 2013 that “ I feel like people romanticize the South a little for art.
” She added a qualification : “ But that ’ s just my story.
” On Saint Cloud , Crutchfield is readily surfacing less-explored facets of her story .
Another of these is the very condition of being an artist , which “ The Eye ” takes as its subject : “ I will chase all the rain , put it down / Call it paint / …It ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In her telling , possession of the artist ’ s eye—or ear , really—is a burden but also a badge of honor .
She ’ s considered this duality before , in her essay on Car Wheels .
“ Making something out of thin air that others will take in and connect with is like having a magical power , ” she wrote .
“ Being consumed by the vision , the calling of the eye , is sometimes the flip-side.
” The urge to make art may be an all-consuming blaze , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twin flame in someone else .
On “ Witches , ” Crutchfield calls out a few of her creative kin by name : Allison , her sister and longtime collaborator , is one .
“ Marlee ” refers to Marlee Grace , the dancer and writer who appears in the jubilant video for “ Lilacs.
” And there ’ s one last name on the list—Lindsey .
Contextual clues suggest that this is Lindsey Jordan , the 20-year-old singer , songwriter , and guitarist who performs as Snail Mail .
She and Crutchfield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for lyrical self-excavation .
“ Lindsey ’ s giving me a little faith about what tomorrow might bring , ” Crutchfield sings here .
As much as Saint Cloud , a musical homecoming of sorts , is anchored by Crutchfield ’ s past , it ’ s also buoyed by the future—the promise of sobriety , self-acceptance , and songs yet to be written .
Jordan appears , ever so briefly , as a beacon of creative potential , a reminder that there is comfort to be found in where we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve come from .
And for the present , Crutchfield is her own capable navigator .

Katie Crutchfield’s songs are those of a wayfarer, building momentum in transit and feeding off the energy of her destinations. On her last album, 2017’s Out in the Storm, the passage between cities framed personal breakthroughs: She took a train to Berlin for a night of rejuvenation and self-discovery and drove her “own damn car to Brooklyn, New York, USA,” to detach from a fraught relationship. Life as a touring musician has carried Crutchfield all over the world for more than a decade, and Philadelphia in particular holds a special significance for her artistry. Her intermittent home base from 2012 to ’18, the city cradles a DIY scene that nurtured her craggy indie-rock sound and emotionally acute songwriting.
But Crutchfield is a Southerner by birth, her band’s Waxahatchee moniker borrowed from a creek near her parents’ house in Alabama where she recorded her first album under that name. The pull of her roots is felt in the scenery and sounds of her fifth and latest album, Saint Cloud. On “Arkadelphia,” a contemplative tune named for a small city in Arkansas, Crutchfield describes the view from the window of her car: Trailer parks, fireworks, folding chairs, American flags, and roadside produce stands coalesce in a vividly rendered landscape. Arkadelphia is one stop on an extended trip through the American South, and the album’s songs are like postcards scribbled along the way, shot through with the sort of clarity that emerges as the mile markers pass.
The road into West Memphis coaxes an outpouring of self-love and forgiveness; Ruby Falls, in Tennessee, and her father’s hometown of St. Cloud, Florida, host her musings on time and mortality. Such winding pathways—and the lived-in, roots-rock hybrid Crutchfield deploys while tracing them—will feel familiar to fans of Lucinda Williams. Crutchfield is a devout fan herself, who praised the country icon’s authenticity and boldness in a 2018 essay written for the 20th anniversary of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Across Saint Cloud, Crutchfield sings in the spirit of Williams’s female characters—sharp, independent, insatiable, ready to pack up the car in pursuit of something better. Each stopover on her journey pulses with the potential for change.
Like Williams, Crutchfield presents herself here as a woman well acquainted with struggle. A passing glance at Saint Cloud’s track list reveals signs of turmoil: “Fire,” “Hell,” “War.” Crutchfield wrote the album shortly after deciding to get sober, and while explicit references to drinking or addiction are absent, its rich imagery often darts between destruction and beauty, weakness and regeneration, covering the distance from recovery’s beginning to end each time it shifts. Cut flowers live, die, and get replaced on “Lilacs,” a full-throated self-affirmation in which Crutchfield slips into jagged, Dylanesque cadences. On “Ruby Falls,” she sings eloquently about the fluctuations of love: “It breaks your neck / It builds you a delicate shrine.” 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 album’s backstory also offers context for its dramatic sonic leap away from her previous work. Crutchfield cut her teeth on the punk circuit, and while her Waxahatchee recordings have been rendered in incrementally higher fidelity, their ragged edges remain. But in times of change or distress, we often reach for the comfort of home. In Birmingham, Crutchfield grew up on country music—“classic stuff like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn”—and she’s called it her first musical love. Saint Cloud moderates her pace and cleans up her fuzzy-rock-guitar tone, turning instead to those familiar sounds. Earthy and leisurely, this is as close to a country record as any she has made.
Crutchfield has previously expressed reluctance to aestheticize her roots, telling Glamour in 2013 that “I feel like people romanticize the South a little for art.” She added a qualification: “But that’s just my story.” On Saint Cloud, Crutchfield is readily surfacing less-explored facets of her story. Another of these is the very condition of being an artist, which “The Eye” takes as its subject: “I will chase all the rain, put it down / Call it paint / …It’s a heavy weight,” she sings. In her telling, possession of the artist’s eye—or ear, really—is a burden but also a badge of honor. She’s considered this duality before, in her essay on Car Wheels. “Making something out of thin air that others will take in and connect with is like having a magical power,” she wrote. “Being consumed by the vision, the calling of the eye, is sometimes the flip-side.”
The urge to make art may be an all-consuming blaze, but what a thrill to spot a twin flame in someone else. On “Witches,” Crutchfield calls out a few of her creative kin by name: Allison, her sister and longtime collaborator, is one. “Marlee” refers to Marlee Grace, the dancer and writer who appears in the jubilant video for “Lilacs.” And there’s one last name on the list—Lindsey. Contextual clues suggest that this is Lindsey Jordan, the 20-year-old singer, songwriter, and guitarist who performs as Snail Mail. She and Crutchfield have toured together and share a knack for lyrical self-excavation. “Lindsey’s giving me a little faith about what tomorrow might bring,” Crutchfield sings here.
As much as Saint Cloud, a musical homecoming of sorts, is anchored by Crutchfield’s past, it’s also buoyed by the future—the promise of sobriety, self-acceptance, and songs yet to be written. Jordan appears, ever so briefly, as a beacon of creative potential, a reminder that there is comfort to be found in where we’re going as well as where we’ve come from. And for the present, Crutchfield is her own capable navigator.


thenation--2020-04-13--These Students Took Care of Each Other When Their Universities Didn’t

Across the country , communities are responding to uncertain times with solidarity .
People are connecting with neighbors , contributing to grocery and supply funds , and buying and delivering groceries to the elderly .
All of this work falls under the umbrella of “ mutual aid ” —where communities and individuals come together to help meet each other ’ s needs .
It is an exchange predicated on the concept of solidarity , not charity .
Mutual aid recognizes that there is no hierarchy of need ; it does not make distinctions between those who have and those who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aid is envisioned as a method of collective care—where resources and support are shared among everyone .
It ’ s been the case for students across America , too .
For millions , Covid-19 has meant having their time on campus—which in many cases provided students with shelter , food , and jobs—abruptly come to an end .
Thrown into uncertainty and precarity , students have been organizing mutual aid networks to make up for the losses .
This story was produced for Student Nation , a section devoted to highlighting campus activism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own words .
For more Student Nation , check out our archive .
Are you a student with a campus activism story ?
Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at samantha @ thenation.com .
The Student Nation program is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation .
Within the first two weeks of March , universities and colleges across America made the decision to end in-person classes , switch to remote work for nonessential staff , and , for the most part , asked students to vacate dormitories .
Because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ preparing to leave for or were on spring break , thousands of students found themselves in limbo—scrambling to arrange flights and travel plans , to arrange storage and new housing arrangements .
Students like Shivani Nishar and Xochi Cartland learned in early March that Brown University would make an abrupt move to remote learning .
They met with organizers on campus to identify needs and coordinate a response .
“ We identified five key areas : housing , food security , financial security , transport and mental and physical safety that needed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a joint e-mail statement .
“ Concerns we had included what the burden of proof would be to stay on campus , if hourly workers would continue to be paid , and what would happen if students had to be quarantined in an abusive family environment , among others.
” Project LETS , a national grassroots organization , provided assistance to student organizers at Brown as they coordinated safety trainings for students , created a crisis line , and offered financial assistance .
A spreadsheet to coordinate housing , storage , and transportation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Everyone ( HOPE ) .
Students at the University of Pittsburgh and Wesleyan University also used spreadsheets to coordinate mutual aid .
“ There are three or four spreadsheets out there—but people can use a form if they don ’ t feel comfortable .
There ’ s a spreadsheet for emotional support , for housing and storage and then a monetary support fund that people can contribute through Venmo , ” said Anaïs Peterson , a student helping to coordinate mutual aid efforts at the University of Pittsburgh .
“ We have no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each other ’ s lives right now , ” they said .
“ There ’ s so much to do in terms of taking care of ourselves and absorbing so much new [ information ] .
” Student organizers said that mutual aid worked in two ways : spreadsheets and forms that allowed students to directly contact each other if someone could meet a need of another person , plus a general financial relief fund that doles out funds to students in need .
At Wesleyan , in addition to organizing housing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ student government took action to support a GoFundMe created by and for low-income first-generation students .
“ We donated $ 100,000 of our remaining money that would otherwise be used for clubs and other things to that fund , ” said Katelin Penner , a student at Wesleyan .
“ Then we donated another $ 80,000 to a general fund that would go towards other things , like reimbursing people for child care.
” Penner also runs a Twitter account , called @ CovidMutualAid , which compiles information on student-run mutual aid funds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ usually worked in coordination with other initiatives and groups organizing in surrounding communities , the mutual aid project at Duke University—primarily organized with a Facebook group—grew to include and serve the needs of the community as a whole .
Because of this , student organizers at Duke said they anticipate that the mutual aid Facebook group will continue to support the needs of the community at large , even as the immediate consequences of the virus recede .
“ There ’ s potential for some of our resources to transition to community concerns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unhoused , and incarcerated people in Durham once Duke community members have received more assistance from the university or made it back home safely , ” said Duke students Gino Nuzzolillo and Jamal Burns in a joint e-mail .
According to Peterson , the term “ mutual aid ” itself is confusing for some students who are unfamiliar with organizing spaces .
“ People don ’ t necessarily understand where that ’ s coming from or what it really means , ” Peterson said .
“ Something I did when we created our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a seven-picture-long Instagram story that went through what mutual aid is in an anti-capitalist framework ; how it ’ s not charity , it ’ s not transactional.
” At the same time , according to Nuzzolillo and Burns , without students on campus , reaching an atomized network of students was difficult .
“ Part of the issue is that people ’ s lives remain chaotic and unstable while everyone tries to address their material , familial , personal , and academic issues , ” they wrote.
“ People may not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so we ’ ve tried to vigorously spread word about our resources and infrastructure.
” And because the students leading these efforts are themselves in precarious positions , while student organizers could count anywhere from 30 to 500 students involved in mutual aid efforts , some said the bulk of the organizing efforts frequently fell upon a few students .
“ We were all struggling with how this transition impacted us while also putting in hours to make sure that those around us had support networks to rely on , ” wrote Nishar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absolutely be a part of this support effort , we shouldn ’ t have been the only reliable resource.
” According to Peterson , this was the case at the University of Pittsburgh , as well .
“ It ’ s hard not to want to help everyone and donate as much money as you can find .
Everyone has really valid needs , ” they said .
“ More [ monetary ] requests come in than we can fill .
And it ’ s hard to say , ‘ I ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ We can ’ t keep doing that .
It ’ s not a sustainable thing.
” Students are now getting used to the new normal .
Spring break is now over and Zoom classes are in session .
Still , students say , now that they ’ ve seen how mutual aid networks can be built and grow , they ’ re not likely to let the experience go .
“ I think this should be something that goes beyond Covid .
This was a way that our community was able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ That ’ s something that we should really be conscious about bringing beyond this short term crisis .
”

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.
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Across the country, communities are responding to uncertain times with solidarity. People are connecting with neighbors, contributing to grocery and supply funds, and buying and delivering groceries to the elderly. All of this work falls under the umbrella of “mutual aid”—where communities and individuals come together to help meet each other’s needs. It is an exchange predicated on the concept of solidarity, not charity. Mutual aid recognizes that there is no hierarchy of need; it does not make distinctions between those who have and those who don’t. Rather, mutual aid is envisioned as a method of collective care—where resources and support are shared among everyone.
It’s been the case for students across America, too. For millions, Covid-19 has meant having their time on campus—which in many cases provided students with shelter, food, and jobs—abruptly come to an end. Thrown into uncertainty and precarity, students have been organizing mutual aid networks to make up for the losses. This story was produced for Student Nation, a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words. For more Student Nation, check out our archive. Are you a student with a campus activism story? Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at [email protected]. The Student Nation program is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation.
Within the first two weeks of March, universities and colleges across America made the decision to end in-person classes, switch to remote work for nonessential staff, and, for the most part, asked students to vacate dormitories. Because this happened just as most students were preparing to leave for or were on spring break, thousands of students found themselves in limbo—scrambling to arrange flights and travel plans, to arrange storage and new housing arrangements.
Students like Shivani Nishar and Xochi Cartland learned in early March that Brown University would make an abrupt move to remote learning. They met with organizers on campus to identify needs and coordinate a response. “We identified five key areas: housing, food security, financial security, transport and mental and physical safety that needed to be addressed,” they said in a joint e-mail statement. “Concerns we had included what the burden of proof would be to stay on campus, if hourly workers would continue to be paid, and what would happen if students had to be quarantined in an abusive family environment, among others.”
Project LETS, a national grassroots organization, provided assistance to student organizers at Brown as they coordinated safety trainings for students, created a crisis line, and offered financial assistance. A spreadsheet to coordinate housing, storage, and transportation needs was organized by Housing Opportunities For Everyone (HOPE).
Students at the University of Pittsburgh and Wesleyan University also used spreadsheets to coordinate mutual aid. “There are three or four spreadsheets out there—but people can use a form if they don’t feel comfortable. There’s a spreadsheet for emotional support, for housing and storage and then a monetary support fund that people can contribute through Venmo,” said Anaïs Peterson, a student helping to coordinate mutual aid efforts at the University of Pittsburgh.
“We have no idea what’s going on in each other’s lives right now,” they said. “There’s so much to do in terms of taking care of ourselves and absorbing so much new [information].” Current Issue View our current issue
Student organizers said that mutual aid worked in two ways: spreadsheets and forms that allowed students to directly contact each other if someone could meet a need of another person, plus a general financial relief fund that doles out funds to students in need. At Wesleyan, in addition to organizing housing and other mutual support efforts, students in student government took action to support a GoFundMe created by and for low-income first-generation 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
“We donated $100,000 of our remaining money that would otherwise be used for clubs and other things to that fund,” said Katelin Penner, a student at Wesleyan. “Then we donated another $80,000 to a general fund that would go towards other things, like reimbursing people for child care.” Penner also runs a Twitter account, called @CovidMutualAid, which compiles information on student-run mutual aid funds across the country.
While most students usually worked in coordination with other initiatives and groups organizing in surrounding communities, the mutual aid project at Duke University—primarily organized with a Facebook group—grew to include and serve the needs of the community as a whole. Because of this, student organizers at Duke said they anticipate that the mutual aid Facebook group will continue to support the needs of the community at large, even as the immediate consequences of the virus recede. “There’s potential for some of our resources to transition to community concerns, especially around assistance for low-income, unhoused, and incarcerated people in Durham once Duke community members have received more assistance from the university or made it back home safely,” said Duke students Gino Nuzzolillo and Jamal Burns in a joint e-mail.
According to Peterson, the term “mutual aid” itself is confusing for some students who are unfamiliar with organizing spaces. “People don’t necessarily understand where that’s coming from or what it really means,” Peterson said. “Something I did when we created our Instagram for the Pitt mutual aid effort was a seven-picture-long Instagram story that went through what mutual aid is in an anti-capitalist framework; how it’s not charity, it’s not transactional.”
At the same time, according to Nuzzolillo and Burns, without students on campus, reaching an atomized network of students was difficult. “Part of the issue is that people’s lives remain chaotic and unstable while everyone tries to address their material, familial, personal, and academic issues,” they wrote.“People may not know what exists to support them, so we’ve tried to vigorously spread word about our resources and infrastructure.”
And because the students leading these efforts are themselves in precarious positions, while student organizers could count anywhere from 30 to 500 students involved in mutual aid efforts, some said the bulk of the organizing efforts frequently fell upon a few students.
“We were all struggling with how this transition impacted us while also putting in hours to make sure that those around us had support networks to rely on,” wrote Nishar and Cortland. “While students should absolutely be a part of this support effort, we shouldn’t have been the only reliable resource.”
According to Peterson, this was the case at the University of Pittsburgh, as well. “It’s hard not to want to help everyone and donate as much money as you can find. Everyone has really valid needs,” they said. “More [monetary] requests come in than we can fill. And it’s hard to say, ‘I’ll just cover this one as an organizer.’ We can’t keep doing that. It’s not a sustainable thing.”
Students are now getting used to the new normal. Spring break is now over and Zoom classes are in session. Still, students say, now that they’ve seen how mutual aid networks can be built and grow, they’re not likely to let the experience go. “I think this should be something that goes beyond Covid. This was a way that our community was able to really come together,” said Penner. “That’s something that we should really be conscious about bringing beyond this short term crisis.”


thenation--2020-04-13--Immigrants Are Bearing the Brunt of the Coronavirus Crisis

The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States and the rest of the world .
Each week we ’ re focusing on and amplifying the experiences of frontline workers and communities disproportionately affected by the upheaval , all through the independent lens of image makers whose role in recording , collecting , and communicating stories is especially crucial in a time of collective isolation .
This week , photographer Cinthya Santos Briones reached out to friends from Mexican and K ’ iche ’ migrant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re weathering the crisis .
“ As we continued to chat , ” Santos Briones says , “ I realized there was incredible value in the stories surfacing from their updates.
” What resulted from these exchanges was a series of images documenting how some of the most vulnerable communities are seeing and experiencing this crisis .
“ For these migrants , staying home is not an option , ” Santos Briones explained .
“ This pandemic represents one more crisis that they have to bear in their lives .
Some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others continue to work in restaurants , in grocery stores , in factories , and cleaning houses.
” “ Typically a photographer , my role became more curatorial , ” Santos Briones says , “ to amplify the gaze of babysitters , domestic workers , cooks , waiters , delivery people , and day laborers—perspectives that aren ’ t often published in the media.
” What follows are photos sent to Cinthya , along with snippets of the conversations she ’ s been having over text messages over the past several weeks .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ class migrants can not give ourselves the privilege of not working , we have to pay the rent , the bills .
And although I was born here , my parents are immigrants.
” Cinthya : Are you still working ?
Kimberly : During this pandemic I have had to do different jobs , one of them was working in a factory bottling hand sanitizer at 62nd St and 13th Avenue in Brooklyn .
In the factory my job is to put the hand sanitizer in the empty bottles .
Then other workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ caps on , cleaning the bottles , putting a sticker , and packing them .
My bosses pay me per day $ 100 from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. , with a half an hour break .
Cinthya : Hello Kimberly !
How is your life at this moment of the coronavirus ?
Kimberly : Hi Cinthya , right now it ’ s a little difficult , with the kids at home , everyone already is at home .
There is no space for everyone to be in their own space .
My @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with 5 people , it is difficult for us not to fight .
Each thing makes us angry , of course we have our moments that we laugh but , with so much being together , at times we feel we will suffocate .
You already get bored of being the same every day .
Now , if you go out , you already have to use gloves 🧤 and a mask 😷 .
Cinthya : Good afternoon dear Aracely , how have you been during these days of coronavirus ?
Aracely : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I am fine .
I ’ m with my husband at home and we make Mexican hot dogs and instead of tomato sauce we use chipotle .
We live in New Jersey , my husband works in a meatpacking company every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Other workers work from 3 a.m. to 1 p.m. and usually after work we try to eat together , walk out and see the trees .
Cinthya : Hi Myrna , how have you been ?
Myrna : Good , Michelle plays a lot during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daughter not to get bored from the confinement , Michelle and I have made clothes for her dolls .
She wanted to make a face mask for her Barbie .
Cinthya : Dear Francisca , how are you ?
Francisca : Hi Cinthya .
With good health thanks to God .
Cinthya : Are you still working ?
Francisca : I ’ m still working , but I would rather stay at home , but I can ’ t because we need to buy things to eat and pay the expenses that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I don ’ t get close to people .
In fact I walk to work to minimize the risks of being infected .
Walking towards my work I passed by “ la parada , ” one of the places where migrants wait to be picked up for work [ in Brooklyn ] .
I see a lot of worry on their faces , immigrants are afraid of losing their jobs in this pandemic .
Cinthya : Hi Jesus , what did you do today ?
Jesús : I was working and my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Usually I work as a waiter or in construction .
Despite this pandemic , from time to time , I have had work , but not like before .
Cinthya : How are you Jesus ?
How have you been with the Coronavirus ?
Jesús : Hi Cinthya , for the moment I am well , resting at home , since due to the situation we are experiencing I have not been able to work .
The job where I was working in construction is closed until further notice , but hopefully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since , financially it is affecting me .
Myrna Lazcano : We bleach [ the masks ] and reuse them because they cost $ 3 .
Kimberly : Hi Cinthya , how are you ?
today I went to the “ marqueta ” on Fifth Avenue in Sunset Park .
The stores no longer let you be in crowds , they put signs warning us to take care so that we do not get infected with the virus .
People walk around with masks and gloves on .
Myrna Lazcano : We do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this crisis as we play the lottery and eat together .
Although we do not have much space and we know that we are in a crisis , we , as migrants , always know how to get out of hard times .
Cinthya : Hi , what are you doing ?
Myrna : Miguel and I are dancing to Boleros songs by Mexican singer Javier Solis in the living room .

Cinthya Santos Briones, The Nation, Magnum Foundation

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
This article appears in the May 4/11, 2020 issue.
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States and the rest of the world. Each week we’re focusing on and amplifying the experiences of frontline workers and communities disproportionately affected by the upheaval, all through the independent lens of image makers whose role in recording, collecting, and communicating stories is especially crucial in a time of collective isolation.
This week, photographer Cinthya Santos Briones reached out to friends from Mexican and K’iche’ migrant communities to check in and ask how they’re weathering the crisis. “As we continued to chat,” Santos Briones says, “I realized there was incredible value in the stories surfacing from their updates.”
What resulted from these exchanges was a series of images documenting how some of the most vulnerable communities are seeing and experiencing this crisis. “For these migrants, staying home is not an option,” Santos Briones explained. “This pandemic represents one more crisis that they have to bear in their lives. Some have been fired from their jobs, others continue to work in restaurants, in grocery stores, in factories, and cleaning houses.”
“Typically a photographer, my role became more curatorial,” Santos Briones says, “to amplify the gaze of babysitters, domestic workers, cooks, waiters, delivery people, and day laborers—perspectives that aren’t often published in the media.”
What follows are photos sent to Cinthya, along with snippets of the conversations she’s been having over text messages over the past several weeks.
Portrait of Heidy Animas, a young Mexican-American activist at her home in Harlem.
Heidy Animas: “We as working class migrants cannot give ourselves the privilege of not working, we have to pay the rent, the bills. And although I was born here, my parents are immigrants.”
Photo from Kimberly in Brooklyn.
Cinthya: Are you still working?
Kimberly: During this pandemic I have had to do different jobs, one of them was working in a factory bottling hand sanitizer at 62nd St and 13th Avenue in Brooklyn. In the factory my job is to put the hand sanitizer in the empty bottles. Then other workers are in charge of putting the red caps on, cleaning the bottles, putting a sticker, and packing them. My bosses pay me per day $100 from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m., with a half an hour break.
Kimberly’s home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
Cinthya: Hello Kimberly! How is your life at this moment of the coronavirus?
Kimberly: Hi Cinthya, right now it’s a little difficult, with the kids at home, everyone already is at home. There is no space for everyone to be in their own space. My family and I live in a room with 5 people, it is difficult for us not to fight. Each thing makes us angry, of course we have our moments that we laugh but, with so much being together, at times we feel we will suffocate. You already get bored of being the same every day. Now, if you go out, you already have to use gloves 🧤 and a mask 😷.
Aracely’s husband, New Jersey.
Cinthya: Good afternoon dear Aracely, how have you been during these days of coronavirus?
Aracely: Well, with God’s protection I am fine. I’m with my husband at home and we make Mexican hot dogs and instead of tomato sauce we use chipotle.
We live in New Jersey, my husband works in a meatpacking company every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Other workers work from 3 a.m. to 1 p.m. and usually after work we try to eat together, walk out and see the trees.
Myrna Lazcano’s daughter’s Barbie doll, Manhattan.
Cinthya: Hi Myrna, how have you been?
Myrna: Good, Michelle plays a lot during the pandemic. In order for my daughter not to get bored from the confinement, Michelle and I have made clothes for her dolls. She wanted to make a face mask for her Barbie.
Cinthya: Dear Francisca, how are you?
Francisca: Hi Cinthya. With good health thanks to God.
Cinthya: Are you still working?
Francisca: I’m still working, but I would rather stay at home, but I can’t because we need to buy things to eat and pay the expenses that we have. When I go to work, I don’t get close to people. In fact I walk to work to minimize the risks of being infected.
Walking towards my work I passed by “la parada,” one of the places where migrants wait to be picked up for work [in Brooklyn]. I see a lot of worry on their faces, immigrants are afraid of losing their jobs in this pandemic.
Jesús Bravo’s self-portrait working as a waiter in Brooklyn.
Cinthya: Hi Jesus, what did you do today?
Jesús: I was working and my bosses asked me to wear a mask. Usually I work as a waiter or in construction. Despite this pandemic, from time to time, I have had work, but not like before.
Self-portrait of Jesús Bravo working in construction.
Cinthya: How are you Jesus? How have you been with the Coronavirus?
Jesús: Hi Cinthya, for the moment I am well, resting at home, since due to the situation we are experiencing I have not been able to work. The job where I was working in construction is closed until further notice, but hopefully this situation will be resolved soon, since, financially it is affecting me.
Myrna Lazcano: We bleach [the masks] and reuse them because they cost $3.
Kimberly: Hi Cinthya, how are you? today I went to the “marqueta” on Fifth Avenue in Sunset Park. The stores no longer let you be in crowds, they put signs warning us to take care so that we do not get infected with the virus. People walk around with masks and gloves on.
Myrna Lazcano: We do gather between friends and family to endure this crisis as we play the lottery and eat together. Although we do not have much space and we know that we are in a crisis, we, as migrants, always know how to get out of hard times.
Cinthya: Hi, what are you doing?
Myrna: Miguel and I are dancing to Boleros songs by Mexican singer Javier Solis in the living room.


thenation--2020-04-12--A ‘Jubilee’ Cancellation of Debt Is Vital to Fighting the Coronavirus

To fight the spread of the novel coronavirus in the world ’ s most impoverished countries , it is essential to free up the resources that those countries need to expand health care and provide a safety net for the most vulnerable people on the planet .
And the way to do that is to embrace the redemptive promise of Jubilee .
“ Inspired by the ancient concept of the Jubilee , a time when debts were cancelled , slaves freed , and land and wealth redistributed , bringing about greater fairness and equality in the economy and society , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ launched an urgent international campaign to demand the immediate cancellation of debt payments for the poorest countries .
And it is gaining traction in the United States , where the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Jubilee USA are urging officials in Washington to “ lead the world ” by “ calling on wealthy countries , the G20 , the IMF and World Bank , to suspend debt payments for developing countries.
” Various faith traditions speak of debt cancellation and forgiveness .
It is embedded in the Christian tradition ’ s Lord @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ Forgive us our debts , as we forgive our debtors.
” The book of Deuteronomy speaks of a charge “ to release the hand of every creditor from what he lent his friend.
” Now , religious and secular groups have amplified the message , recognizing the need to respond to a mid-March message from Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan , who suggested that to counter the pandemic , “ The world community has to think of some sort of a debt write-off for countries like us which are very vulnerable.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s not just Pakistan .
I would imagine the same in India , in the subcontinent , in African countries , If it spreads , we will all have problems with our health facilities .
We just don ’ t have that capability .
We just don ’ t have the resources.
” Wisconsin ’ s Pandemic Election Is a Red Alert for Democracy in America That message was heard by activists who have for decades advocated on behalf of debt cancellation and now say a Jubilee is all the more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people of faith around the world prepared to mark Passover and Easter , more than 200 religious and secular organizations from around the world signed the Jubilee Debt Coalition ’ s call for the cancellation of all external debt payments from the countries of the Global South that are due to be made in 2020 and for the provision of emergency additional finance that does not create debt for these countries .
Declaring that “ cancelling debt payments is the fastest way to keep money in countries and free up resources to tackle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crises resulting from the Covid-19 global pandemic , ” the groups explain : The global Covid-19 crisis has led to falls in commodity prices , an increase in future borrowing costs for global South governments , and contributed to the largest ever capital outflow from developing countries.Government revenues will fall as a result , and debt payments will increase at the same time that countries need to expand healthcare and social protection in response to the crisis .
Developing countries had already been facing heightened debt vulnerabilities and rising debt costs before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public health crisis and need for rapid policy responses means vital government resources must be urgently directed towards the needs of populations and not diverted to lenders .
The outbreaks of Covid-19 so far show that time is essential .
Governments need to have resources for decisive action today .
Any delay will make the pandemic more difficult to control and a later repair of economic damage more costly , especially for borrower countries .
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have already called for an immediate suspension of debt payments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hardest-hit developing nations .
While those institutions are right to call for a suspension of debt payments to other governments , Tim Jones , the head of policy for the Jubilee Debt Campaign , counsels that “ they also need to waive debt payments to themselves as well .
Furthermore , the Fund and Bank need to call for and support a suspension of payments to private creditors .
It would be outrageous to allow private speculators to keep taking high interest payments from poor countries at this time of crisis.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Public Health More in this series Outrageous , and incredibly dangerous .
Covid-19 is spreading to many of the world ’ s poorest nations—places that are ill-prepared for what is to come .
On Friday , under a headline reading “ Yemen confirms first coronavirus case , braces for outbreak , ” Al Jazeera reported , “ Following years of war , Yemen already faces what the United Nations describes as the world ’ s worst humanitarian disaster .
Aid groups have warned that a major outbreak will be ‘ disastrous ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ healthcare system.
” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and California US Representative Ro Khanna have in recent weeks been sounding the alarm , noting that “ as the coronavirus spreads all over the world , Yemenis may be the planet ’ s most vulnerable people in the face of this pandemic.
” There are similar concerns for a number of developing nations in Africa , as Jubilee USA ’ s Director Eric LeCompte explains : “ Developing countries are unprepared to deal with the economic and health impacts of the coronavirus .
Most of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beds per country .
Without action , tens of thousands of people will die because they can ’ t access life saving health services.
” In an urgent April 8 letter to President Trump , LeCompte , and Bishop David J. Malloy , the chair of the Committee on International Justice and Peace for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops , pleaded with the president to put the United States on the right side of this fight when the G20 nations consult over the next week :

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
To fight the spread of the novel coronavirus in the world’s most impoverished countries, it is essential to free up the resources that those countries need to expand health care and provide a safety net for the most vulnerable people on the planet. And the way to do that is to embrace the redemptive promise of Jubilee.
“Inspired by the ancient concept of the Jubilee, a time when debts were cancelled, slaves freed, and land and wealth redistributed, bringing about greater fairness and equality in the economy and society,” the UK-based Jubilee Debt Campaign has launched an urgent international campaign to demand the immediate cancellation of debt payments for the poorest countries. And it is gaining traction in the United States, where the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Jubilee USA are urging officials in Washington to “lead the world” by “calling on wealthy countries, the G20, the IMF and World Bank, to suspend debt payments for developing countries.”
Various faith traditions speak of debt cancellation and forgiveness. It is embedded in the Christian tradition’s Lord’s Prayer, with its line, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” The book of Deuteronomy speaks of a charge “to release the hand of every creditor from what he lent his friend.” Now, religious and secular groups have amplified the message, recognizing the need to respond to a mid-March message from Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who suggested that to counter the pandemic, “The world community has to think of some sort of a debt write-off for countries like us which are very vulnerable.”
The prime minister warned, “It’s not just Pakistan. I would imagine the same in India, in the subcontinent, in African countries, If it spreads, we will all have problems with our health facilities. We just don’t have that capability. We just don’t have the resources.” More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
That message was heard by activists who have for decades advocated on behalf of debt cancellation and now say a Jubilee is all the more urgent.
So it was that as people of faith around the world prepared to mark Passover and Easter, more than 200 religious and secular organizations from around the world signed the Jubilee Debt Coalition’s call for the cancellation of all external debt payments from the countries of the Global South that are due to be made in 2020 and for the provision of emergency additional finance that does not create debt for these countries. 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
Declaring that “cancelling debt payments is the fastest way to keep money in countries and free up resources to tackle the urgent health, social and economic crises resulting from the Covid-19 global pandemic,” the groups explain:
The global Covid-19 crisis has led to falls in commodity prices, an increase in future borrowing costs for global South governments, and contributed to the largest ever capital outflow from developing countries.Government revenues will fall as a result, and debt payments will increase at the same time that countries need to expand healthcare and social protection in response to the crisis. Developing countries had already been facing heightened debt vulnerabilities and rising debt costs before the Covid-19 outbreak. The scale of the public health crisis and need for rapid policy responses means vital government resources must be urgently directed towards the needs of populations and not diverted to lenders. The outbreaks of Covid-19 so far show that time is essential. Governments need to have resources for decisive action today. Any delay will make the pandemic more difficult to control and a later repair of economic damage more costly, especially for borrower countries.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have already called for an immediate suspension of debt payments to other governments by a group of the hardest-hit developing nations. While those institutions are right to call for a suspension of debt payments to other governments, Tim Jones, the head of policy for the Jubilee Debt Campaign, counsels that “they also need to waive debt payments to themselves as well. Furthermore, the Fund and Bank need to call for and support a suspension of payments to private creditors. It would be outrageous to allow private speculators to keep taking high interest payments from poor countries at this time of crisis.” Coronavirus Amid Partisan Politicking, Revelations on a Covid Origins Article Jimmy Tobias It’s Not “Unreasonable” to Want to Change Our Rotten Health Care System Gregg Gonsalves Covid Has Left Deep Wounds in America’s Rural Communities Anne N. Sosin
Outrageous, and incredibly dangerous. Covid-19 is spreading to many of the world’s poorest nations—places that are ill-prepared for what is to come. On Friday, under a headline reading “Yemen confirms first coronavirus case, braces for outbreak,” Al Jazeera reported, “Following years of war, Yemen already faces what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Aid groups have warned that a major outbreak will be ‘disastrous’ and devastate the country’s gutted healthcare system.” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and California US Representative Ro Khanna have in recent weeks been sounding the alarm, noting that “as the coronavirus spreads all over the world, Yemenis may be the planet’s most vulnerable people in the face of this pandemic.”
There are similar concerns for a number of developing nations in Africa, as Jubilee USA’s Director Eric LeCompte explains: “Developing countries are unprepared to deal with the economic and health impacts of the coronavirus. Most of Africa only has about 50 critical care beds per country. Without action, tens of thousands of people will die because they can’t access life saving health services.”
In an urgent April 8 letter to President Trump, LeCompte, and Bishop David J. Malloy, the chair of the Committee on International Justice and Peace for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, pleaded with the president to put the United States on the right side of this fight when the G20 nations consult over the next week: