thenation--2020-05-06--Carrie Fisher’s Inimitable Voice

Carrie Fisher’s Inimitable Voice

In the spring of 1985 , Carrie Fisher unintentionally overdosed on tranquilizers while draped in diamonds and a fox fur that she wore like a bathrobe .
Blacked out and barely conscious , Fisher , then 28 years old , was heaved into a car by a concerned friend and rushed to Los Angeles ’ s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center , where her stomach was pumped in a secret room to avoid having anyone leak the episode to the National Enquirer .
Two years later , the actress used the incident as inspiration for her first book , Postcards From the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ letters , monologues , and third-person narratives , the semiautobiographical Postcards follows a young Hollywood actress named Suzanne Vale as she endures rehab , relationships , and her movie star mother .
From its delicious first lines— “ Maybe I shouldn ’ t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number , but who cares ?
My life is over anyway ” —Fisher ’ s voice has a charming way of making life ’ s bleakest moments a little less humiliating without diminishing their gravity .
Though Fisher had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Postcards From the Edge gave people an introduction to the breadth of her literary brilliance—her sharp prose , her deep-seated sadness , her searing honesty .
Writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1987 , critic Carolyn See wondered why Fisher never seemed to “ grab your mind ” on-screen , like her mother , the actress Debbie Reynolds .
“ It occurs to you , ” See wrote , that “ Fisher ’ s heart might not have been in it .
You deduce this fact because her heart appears to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ process.
” Fisher had written since she was a child , finding salvation in the escape it provided .
“ I was just in love with words and they saved [ me ] from a lot of stuff , ” she told Rolling Stone in 2016 .
“ Books were my first drug .
They took me away from everything and I would just consume them.
” Sheila Weller ’ s recent biography of Fisher , Carrie Fisher : A Life on the Edge , contends that writing was the means through which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seven books she wrote—each playful and thinly veiled reflections of her life—placed her in direct conversation with her demons and forced her to confront them head-on .
From the moment she was born in 1956 , Fisher was defined by the lives of others .
Her parents , Reynolds and pop crooner Eddie Fisher , were hardworking entertainers who transcended their blue-collar origins and became America ’ s sweethearts ; their daughter was the puzzle piece that completed their picture-perfect family .
But shortly after the birth of their son , Todd Fisher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s idyllic world collapsed when Eddie Fisher left Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor , the recent widow of producer Mike Todd .
Not only was the affair a momentous Hollywood scandal , but it also irrevocably changed Carrie Fisher ’ s life , promising that she would always be the subject of tabloid fascination .
Externally , the adolescent Carrie Fisher seemed to want for nothing : She was popular , privileged , and charismatic .
But Weller hammers home the point that , internally , Fisher was lonely , insecure , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of the picture and Reynolds frequently working , Fisher was largely raised by her maternal grandmother and a nanny .
Fisher ’ s complicated relationship with her mother defined much of her childhood .
“ I had to share her , and I didn ’ t like that , ” she once told NPR ’ s Terry Gross about her childhood frustrations with Reynolds ’ s celebrity .
She struggled to find her own identity independent of her mother ’ s , and she shadowed her mother on- and offstage .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alongside Reynolds at her Las Vegas nightclub shows , belting out Simon & Garfunkel ’ s “ Bridge Over Troubled Water.
” “ As a child you want to fit in .
And that did not enable me to fit in .
I was doing nightclub work during the holidays instead of skiing , ” she later said on The Arsenio Hall Show .
“ My mother ’ s world was a quarter century older than mine .
So I was sort of lost between all the worlds .
I was decidedly without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was further alienated from her peers when she dropped out of Beverly Hills High School and went to New York to join Reynolds , who was playing the titular character in a revival of the Broadway musical Irene .
Fisher performed as a chorus girl seated at her mother ’ s knee .
Two years later , after landing her first film role , as a teenage seductress in Hal Ashby ’ s ensemble satire Shampoo , she enrolled at London ’ s Central School of Speech and Drama .
Beyond the gaze @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first time , Fisher blossomed .
Central ’ s training helped her win her breakout part , as Princess Leia in 1977 ’ s Star Wars .
Over the next few years , Fisher would occasionally put reality on pause and travel to “ a galaxy far , far away ” —turning a cardboard character on the page into an empowered heroine .
After the first Star Wars film , Fisher moved back to New York , where the insecurities of her childhood bubbled up once more , only this time much more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , like Saturday Night Live ’ s John Belushi and boyfriend ( and later husband ) Paul Simon , were enamored with her magnetism and wit , she professed that she felt deeply inadequate .
Around this time , she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after overdosing on the set of the 1981 box office flop Under the Rainbow .
She later wrote in The Guardian that she was “ unable to accept ” the diagnosis , and she attempted to self-medicate with opioids .
Over time , these addictions escalated until they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her first novel .
With Postcards , Fisher emerged possessing the type of self-assured voice that neither education nor experience can guarantee , although her proximity to Hollywood tinsel undoubtedly colored her imagination .
After a 1985 interview in Esquire showed off her ability to quip brilliantly about her unconventional upbringing and famous acquaintances , she was commissioned to write a book of Beverly Hills–centric humor essays titled Money , Dearest , which she likened to “ [ Fran ] Lebowitz West.
” That concept dissolved when Fisher reread Dorothy Parker ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” whose pinballing narration must have hit close to home .
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times after the release of Postcards , she gave the impression her mind moved not unlike the minds of Parker ’ s narrators , saying , “ I get a feeling like my mind ’ s been having a party all night long and I ’ m the last person to arrive and now I have to clean up the mess.
” Radiating a flair for both ingenious snark and doleful cynicism , Postcards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using wit as a protective wall , Fisher offered it as a momentary invitation to peek inside her brain : “ My life is like a lone , forgotten Q-Tip in the second-to-last drawer.
” Fisher had the rare gift of being able to deliver unmediated and self-deprecating thought—without crossing into self-pity .
In Postcards , across chapters that shift the structure from first-person perspective via letters and diary entries to third-person narration , she paints a rich , compassionate portrait of Suzanne and consequently of herself .
For an actress , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : How would you portray yourself honestly ?
“ I narrate a life I ’ m reluctant to live , ” Suzanne recalls a younger version of herself thinking ; it seems not much has changed .
The pacing is breezy and observational , with the occasional one-liner effortlessly thrown in for color .
Little actually happens in Postcards ( Suzanne goes to rehab , endures confusing dates , works at an ungratifying job , and attends a party full of painful people ) , and the driving force of the narrative is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the book finds her alone with her mind , a situation many of us frequently want to avoid at all costs .
Pointedly , Postcards From the Edge does not portray Fisher ’ s surrogate in the depths of her addiction .
Instead , the ugly grip of chemical dependence is shown in the book ’ s first section through the character Alex , a self-righteous , coke-fueled addict who resentfully goes to rehab and becomes determined to write a script about the place .
His story races toward his fall from grace—or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to it .
Suzanne ’ s tale begins just after she has hit rock bottom .
In rehab she begins to experience the loneliness and fear she has so diligently numbed with drugs , the feelings that “ tell you you ’ re something on the bottom of someone ’ s shoe , and not even someone interesting.
” She gloomily notes in her journal , “ Everything hurts now , and nothing makes sense.
” She phones her movie star mother , expecting to be received with anger and disappointment .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ closer to blithe incomprehension .
“ I told her I was miserable here , and she said , ‘ Well , you were happy as a child .
I can prove it .
I have films.
’ ” ( Further blurring the line between fact and fiction , Fisher frequently repeated the same bits of talk across her work , a writer constantly in conversation with herself .
She pointedly rehashes this interaction while recalling her childhood in Bright Lights , HBO ’ s documentary about her relationship with Reynolds . )
Instead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s upbringing were reminders that the surreal world she occupied was painfully real .
After rehab , Suzanne struggles to find a new normal , finding life to be better spent holed up in bed with Diet Coke .
“ She wanted to be tranquil , to be someone who took walks in the late-afternoon sun , listening to the birds and crickets and feeling the whole world breathe , ” Fisher writes .
“ Instead , she lived in her head like a madwoman locked in a tower , hearing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for someone to come and rescue her from feeling things so deeply that her bones burned.
” The dramatic imagery and affecting despair in passages like these are what made Fisher ’ s prose so striking .
They revealed that with her writing came real stakes .
She was writing to survive .
After the success of Postcards , Fisher began a new chapter in her life .
Weller notes that Fisher began thinking of herself less as an actor who writes and more like a writer who acts .
Though she continued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most famously as the smart-aleck best friend of the young woman played by Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally ( 1989 ) , in the ’ 90s Fisher also became an accomplished script editor , adding her offbeat and empathetic voice to Hook , Sister Act , and The Wedding Singer .
Over the next two decades , she mined her life with inventive , sardonic candor , sprawled out in bed with a notepad .
Like Postcards , Fisher ’ s early novels can be considered works of autofiction , though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used her experiences as narrative .
“ Carrie doesn ’ t draw on her life any more than Flaubert did , ” director Mike Nichols told Entertainment Weekly after working with her on the film adaptation of Postcards .
“ It ’ s just that his life wasn ’ t so well known.
” But the line between invention and autobiography in her work is paper-thin at best because she seemed to sprinkle details of her life throughout these texts .
For example , 1990 ’ s Surrender the Pink explores a young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a playwright who bears an uncanny resemblance to Paul Simon ; the plot of 1993 ’ s Delusions of Grandma mirrors Fisher ’ s relationship with Hollywood agent Bryan Lourd , with whom she had a daughter , Billie Lourd ; and the 2004 sequel to Postcards , The Best Awful , follows Suzanne ’ s breakup with the closeted father of her child and her struggles with mental illness .
Perhaps Fisher needed a degree of abstraction to be able to confront herself at her worst .
Or maybe her decision to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at all .
In 2004 , she told The New York Times that she meant to structure The Best Awful as a memoir before abandoning that idea .
“ The truth is a very stern taskmistress , and I can ’ t adhere to it , ” she said .
“ I have a very bad memory.
” In her 50s , Fisher dropped all pretenses and began writing explicitly about her life with full transparency , a decision she said was partly prompted by electroshock therapy she received for depression—a treatment that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 2008 ’ s Wishful Drinking , a memoir adapted from a one-woman show of the same name , she unpacked her “ all too eventful and by necessity amusing ” life .
With what was by then signature self-deprecation , Fisher described her imperfect journey toward sobriety and noted a lineage of “ accomplished ” individuals who shared her dual diagnoses of drug addiction and mental illness .
“ There are a couple of reasons why I take comfort in being able to put all this in my own vernacular and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote .
“ For one thing , because then I ’ m not completely alone with it .
And for another , it gives me a sense of being in control of the craziness… .
It ’ s sort of like : I have problems but problems don ’ t have me.
” Though she had spoken and written extensively about the severity of her battles with addiction and mental illness , Wishful Drinking marked the true beginning of Fisher ’ s late-career role as a mental health advocate .
In 2016 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Guardian called “ Advice From the Dark Side ” that destigmatized and demystified life with the diseases she fought .
In the series ’ final entry , published a month before her death , she addressed a young reader overwhelmed by bipolar symptoms and reassured the person that making peace with mental illness is possible .
“ We have been given a challenging illness , and there is no other option than to meet those challenges , ” she wrote .
It is “ an opportunity to be a good example to others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s curious that during the last decade ’ s personal essay explosion , Fisher did not experience a literary renaissance in the same way , for example , that Eve Babitz did .
Weller emphasizes her subject ’ s importance as a role model to other “ difficult women ” but does not consider Fisher ’ s rightful place among confessional , troubled female writers .
An heir to Sylvia Plath ’ s melancholy , Fisher sits smartly between Babitz and Elizabeth Wurtzel—a glorious triumvirate of messy self-awareness .
But crucially , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thinking “ that the exposed life is the same thing as an examined one , ” as book critic Michiko Kakutani aptly wrote in a 1997 New York Times piece about the era ’ s confessional memoir craze .
Fisher was under no such delusion .
Her life was exposed from the start , and she was determined to crack it open , bit by bit , for our enjoyment .
Fisher ’ s books are evidence of a hard-fought journey toward something resembling self-acceptance .
In December 2016 , at the age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arrest aboard a flight from London to Los Angeles while promoting what was to be her final book , The Princess Diarist .
Though the cause of death was initially given as cardiac arrest due in part to her chronic sleep apnea , traces of cocaine , heroin , and other opiates were found in her system .
Her ashes were laid to rest in an urn in the shape of a Prozac pill .
“ I felt it was where she would want to be , ” explained her brother , Todd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Life on the Edge , Fisher ’ s ex-partner Bryan Lourd issued a statement disavowing Weller ’ s book .
“ The only books about Carrie Fisher worth reading are the ones Carrie wrote herself , ” he said .
“ She perfectly told us everything we needed to know.
” While Weller ’ s book comes off as exhaustive , empathetic , and laboriously researched , his point rings true : There is no substitute for Fisher ’ s own voice .

In the spring of 1985, Carrie Fisher unintentionally overdosed on tranquilizers while draped in diamonds and a fox fur that she wore like a bathrobe. Blacked out and barely conscious, Fisher, then 28 years old, was heaved into a car by a concerned friend and rushed to Los Angeles’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where her stomach was pumped in a secret room to avoid having anyone leak the episode to the National Enquirer. Two years later, the actress used the incident as inspiration for her first book, Postcards From the Edge. Told through an array of letters, monologues, and third-person narratives, the semiautobiographical Postcards follows a young Hollywood actress named Suzanne Vale as she endures rehab, relationships, and her movie star mother. From its delicious first lines—“Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares? My life is over anyway”—Fisher’s voice has a charming way of making life’s bleakest moments a little less humiliating without diminishing their gravity. Books in Review Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge By Sheila Weller Buy this book
Though Fisher had been in the public eye since birth, Postcards From the Edge gave people an introduction to the breadth of her literary brilliance—her sharp prose, her deep-seated sadness, her searing honesty. Writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1987, critic Carolyn See wondered why Fisher never seemed to “grab your mind” on-screen, like her mother, the actress Debbie Reynolds. “It occurs to you,” See wrote, that “Fisher’s heart might not have been in it. You deduce this fact because her heart appears to be in this novel and in the writing process.”
Fisher had written since she was a child, finding salvation in the escape it provided. “I was just in love with words and they saved [me] from a lot of stuff,” she told Rolling Stone in 2016. “Books were my first drug. They took me away from everything and I would just consume them.” Sheila Weller’s recent biography of Fisher, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge, contends that writing was the means through which she found agency outside acting. The seven books she wrote—each playful and thinly veiled reflections of her life—placed her in direct conversation with her demons and forced her to confront them head-on.
From the moment she was born in 1956, Fisher was defined by the lives of others. Her parents, Reynolds and pop crooner Eddie Fisher, were hardworking entertainers who transcended their blue-collar origins and became America’s sweethearts; their daughter was the puzzle piece that completed their picture-perfect family. But shortly after the birth of their son, Todd Fisher, two years later, the family’s idyllic world collapsed when Eddie Fisher left Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor, the recent widow of producer Mike Todd. Not only was the affair a momentous Hollywood scandal, but it also irrevocably changed Carrie Fisher’s life, promising that she would always be the subject of tabloid fascination.
Externally, the adolescent Carrie Fisher seemed to want for nothing: She was popular, privileged, and charismatic. But Weller hammers home the point that, internally, Fisher was lonely, insecure, and longing for attention. With her father out of the picture and Reynolds frequently working, Fisher was largely raised by her maternal grandmother and a nanny. Fisher’s complicated relationship with her mother defined much of her childhood. “I had to share her, and I didn’t like that,” she once told NPR’s Terry Gross about her childhood frustrations with Reynolds’s celebrity. Fisher struggled to find her own identity independent of her mother’s, and she shadowed her mother on- and offstage. As early as age 12, Fisher performed alongside Reynolds at her Las Vegas nightclub shows, belting out Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” “As a child you want to fit in. And that did not enable me to fit in. I was doing nightclub work during the holidays instead of skiing,” she later said on The Arsenio Hall Show. “My mother’s world was a quarter century older than mine. So I was sort of lost between all the worlds. I was decidedly without a generation.” 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
In 1972, Fisher was further alienated from her peers when she dropped out of Beverly Hills High School and went to New York to join Reynolds, who was playing the titular character in a revival of the Broadway musical Irene. Fisher performed as a chorus girl seated at her mother’s knee. Two years later, after landing her first film role, as a teenage seductress in Hal Ashby’s ensemble satire Shampoo, she enrolled at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama. Beyond the gaze of Hollywood and her mother for the first time, Fisher blossomed. Central’s training helped her win her breakout part, as Princess Leia in 1977’s Star Wars. Over the next few years, Fisher would occasionally put reality on pause and travel to “a galaxy far, far away”—turning a cardboard character on the page into an empowered heroine.
After the first Star Wars film, Fisher moved back to New York, where the insecurities of her childhood bubbled up once more, only this time much more darkly. Although her new famous friends, like Saturday Night Live’s John Belushi and boyfriend (and later husband) Paul Simon, were enamored with her magnetism and wit, she professed that she felt deeply inadequate. Around this time, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after overdosing on the set of the 1981 box office flop Under the Rainbow. She later wrote in The Guardian that she was “unable to accept” the diagnosis, and she attempted to self-medicate with opioids. Over time, these addictions escalated until they led to the pivotal overdose that inspired her first novel.
With Postcards, Fisher emerged possessing the type of self-assured voice that neither education nor experience can guarantee, although her proximity to Hollywood tinsel undoubtedly colored her imagination. After a 1985 interview in Esquire showed off her ability to quip brilliantly about her unconventional upbringing and famous acquaintances, she was commissioned to write a book of Beverly Hills–centric humor essays titled Money, Dearest, which she likened to “[Fran] Lebowitz West.” That concept dissolved when Fisher reread Dorothy Parker’s booze-soaked story “Just a Little One,” whose pinballing narration must have hit close to home. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times after the release of Postcards, she gave the impression that her mind moved not unlike the minds of Parker’s narrators, saying, “I get a feeling like my mind’s been having a party all night long and I’m the last person to arrive and now I have to clean up the mess.” Radiating a flair for both ingenious snark and doleful cynicism, Postcards certainly evokes Parker. But instead of using wit as a protective wall, Fisher offered it as a momentary invitation to peek inside her brain: “My life is like a lone, forgotten Q-Tip in the second-to-last drawer.”
Fisher had the rare gift of being able to deliver unmediated and self-deprecating thought—without crossing into self-pity. In Postcards, across chapters that shift the structure from first-person perspective via letters and diary entries to third-person narration, she paints a rich, compassionate portrait of Suzanne and consequently of herself. For an actress, it’s almost the ultimate character study: How would you portray yourself honestly? “I narrate a life I’m reluctant to live,” Suzanne recalls a younger version of herself thinking; it seems not much has changed. The pacing is breezy and observational, with the occasional one-liner effortlessly thrown in for color. Little actually happens in Postcards (Suzanne goes to rehab, endures confusing dates, works at an ungratifying job, and attends a party full of painful people), and the driving force of the narrative is reflection rather than action. Most of the book finds her alone with her mind, a situation many of us frequently want to avoid at all costs.
Pointedly, Postcards From the Edge does not portray Fisher’s surrogate in the depths of her addiction. Instead, the ugly grip of chemical dependence is shown in the book’s first section through the character Alex, a self-righteous, coke-fueled addict who resentfully goes to rehab and becomes determined to write a script about the place. His story races toward his fall from grace—or the closest thing a pretentious asshole can have to it. Suzanne’s tale begins just after she has hit rock bottom. In rehab she begins to experience the loneliness and fear she has so diligently numbed with drugs, the feelings that “tell you you’re something on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and not even someone interesting.” She gloomily notes in her journal, “Everything hurts now, and nothing makes sense.” She phones her movie star mother, expecting to be received with anger and disappointment. Instead, Suzanne is met with something closer to blithe incomprehension. “I told her I was miserable here, and she said, ‘Well, you were happy as a child. I can prove it. I have films.’” (Further blurring the line between fact and fiction, Fisher frequently repeated the same bits of talk across her work, a writer constantly in conversation with herself. She pointedly rehashes this interaction while recalling her childhood in Bright Lights, HBO’s documentary about her relationship with Reynolds.) Instead of seeming gossipy, nods to Fisher’s upbringing were reminders that the surreal world she occupied was painfully real.
After rehab, Suzanne struggles to find a new normal, finding life to be better spent holed up in bed with Diet Coke. “She wanted to be tranquil, to be someone who took walks in the late-afternoon sun, listening to the birds and crickets and feeling the whole world breathe,” Fisher writes. “Instead, she lived in her head like a madwoman locked in a tower, hearing the wind howling through her hair and waiting for someone to come and rescue her from feeling things so deeply that her bones burned.” The dramatic imagery and affecting despair in passages like these are what made Fisher’s prose so striking. They revealed that with her writing came real stakes. She was writing to survive.
After the success of Postcards, Fisher began a new chapter in her life. Weller notes that Fisher began thinking of herself less as an actor who writes and more like a writer who acts. Though she continued appearing in film and on television, most famously as the smart-aleck best friend of the young woman played by Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally (1989), in the ’90s Fisher also became an accomplished script editor, adding her offbeat and empathetic voice to Hook, Sister Act, and The Wedding Singer. Over the next two decades, she mined her life with inventive, sardonic candor, sprawled out in bed with a notepad.
Like Postcards, Fisher’s early novels can be considered works of autofiction, though she often flip-flopped on how deliberately she used her experiences as narrative. “Carrie doesn’t draw on her life any more than Flaubert did,” director Mike Nichols told Entertainment Weekly after working with her on the film adaptation of Postcards. “It’s just that his life wasn’t so well known.” But the line between invention and autobiography in her work is paper-thin at best because she seemed to sprinkle details of her life throughout these texts. For example, 1990’s Surrender the Pink explores a young script doctor’s codependent relationship with a playwright who bears an uncanny resemblance to Paul Simon; the plot of 1993’s Delusions of Grandma mirrors Fisher’s relationship with Hollywood agent Bryan Lourd, with whom she had a daughter, Billie Lourd; and the 2004 sequel to Postcards, The Best Awful, follows Suzanne’s breakup with the closeted father of her child and her struggles with mental illness.
Perhaps Fisher needed a degree of abstraction to be able to confront herself at her worst. Or maybe her decision to fictionalize wasn’t a complicated choice at all. In 2004 she told The New York Times that she meant to structure The Best Awful as a memoir before abandoning that idea. “The truth is a very stern taskmistress, and I can’t adhere to it,” she said. “I have a very bad memory.”
In her 50s, Fisher dropped all pretenses and began writing explicitly about her life with full transparency, a decision she said was partly prompted by electroshock therapy she received for depression—a treatment that she admitted was whittling away her memory. In 2008’s Wishful Drinking, a memoir adapted from a one-woman show of the same name, she unpacked her “all too eventful and by necessity amusing” life. With what was by then signature self-deprecation, Fisher described her imperfect journey toward sobriety and noted a lineage of “accomplished” individuals who shared her dual diagnoses of drug addiction and mental illness. “There are a couple of reasons why I take comfort in being able to put all this in my own vernacular and present it to you,” she wrote. “For one thing, because then I’m not completely alone with it. And for another, it gives me a sense of being in control of the craziness…. It’s sort of like: I have problems but problems don’t have me.”
Though she had spoken and written extensively about the severity of her battles with addiction and mental illness, Wishful Drinking marked the true beginning of Fisher’s late-career role as a mental health advocate. In 2016 she wrote a regular column for The Guardian called “Advice From the Dark Side” that destigmatized and demystified life with the diseases she fought. In the series’ final entry, published a month before her death, she addressed a young reader overwhelmed by bipolar symptoms and reassured the person that making peace with mental illness is possible. “We have been given a challenging illness, and there is no other option than to meet those challenges,” she wrote. It is “an opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder.”
It’s curious that during the last decade’s personal essay explosion, Fisher did not experience a literary renaissance in the same way, for example, that Eve Babitz did. Weller emphasizes her subject’s importance as a role model to other “difficult women” but does not consider Fisher’s rightful place among confessional, troubled female writers. An heir to Sylvia Plath’s melancholy, Fisher sits smartly between Babitz and Elizabeth Wurtzel—a glorious triumvirate of messy self-awareness. But crucially, Fisher never fell into the trap of thinking “that the exposed life is the same thing as an examined one,” as book critic Michiko Kakutani aptly wrote in a 1997 New York Times piece about the era’s confessional memoir craze. Fisher was under no such delusion. Her life was exposed from the start, and she was determined to crack it open, bit by bit, for our enjoyment.
Fisher’s books are evidence of a hard-fought journey toward something resembling self-acceptance. In December 2016, at the age of 60, she went into cardiac arrest aboard a flight from London to Los Angeles while promoting what was to be her final book, The Princess Diarist. Though the cause of death was initially given as cardiac arrest due in part to her chronic sleep apnea, traces of cocaine, heroin, and other opiates were found in her system. Her ashes were laid to rest in an urn in the shape of a Prozac pill. “I felt it was where she would want to be,” explained Todd Fisher.
Shortly before the release of A Life on the Edge, Fisher’s ex-partner Bryan Lourd issued a statement disavowing Weller’s book. “The only books about Carrie Fisher worth reading are the ones Carrie wrote herself,” he said. “She perfectly told us everything we needed to know.” While Weller’s book comes off as exhaustive, empathetic, and laboriously researched, his point rings true: There is no substitute for Fisher’s own voice.


thenation--2020-05-06--Scenes From a Pandemic: 6

Scenes From a Pandemic: 6

Indian Country—For Indigenous people there are two viruses .
One has been killing us for centuries .
The novel coronavirus is biological and blameless , while colonialism is a man-made cocktail of historical and political toxicity .
For the sake of metaphor , work with me here , because you can not discuss the wildfire that is Covid-19 and the disparities it uncovers without recognizing how colonialism has fueled the blaze .
Something Is Happening Here is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind , a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind , who from 1982–94 was the magazine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Indian Country , the legal term for the 574 federally recognized sovereign tribal nations of the US mainland and Alaska , is disproportionately affected .
Our communities tend to be in isolated rural areas with the least Internet access .
Big extended families often live together in small homes .
Basic medical care and social services are limited and always underfunded , if they exist at all .
Poverty and chronic diseases are rampant .
Some of our relatives have no running water—or contaminated water , the fallout of extractive industries—so washing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ double virus explains why some headlines shout that Covid-19 could “ wipe out ” Natives .
As of May 3 , the Navajo Nation had 2,474 cases and 73 confirmed deaths , the highest infection rate after New York and New Jersey .
With a total Native population of just over 5 million , Indian Country can ’ t sustain numbers like that .
Something Is Happening Here More in this series Many tribes have instituted strict measures to limit contagion .
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota , where I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relatives live , enforces curfew , requires travel permits , and has checkpoints to control traffic in and out of its 1.4 million-acre reservation .
Governor Kristi Noem—notorious for snubbing tribes before greenlighting pro-pipeline legislation—now complains that the tribe did not first consult the state , though it ’ s indisputable that the safety measures work .
Cheyenne River announced its first Covid-19 case on April 29 , and our tribal chairman credited the checkpoint system for tracing the source of the virus to the victim ’ s travel outside the reservation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ aren ’ t faring as well .
Noem disdained statewide collective protection as “ herd mentality , ” and South Dakota became a virus hot spot , the worst in the country from a single source .
But that ’ s just a coincidence , right ?
People with a history of surviving state-led genocide are intimately aware of the power of a well-aimed germ—ask Natives about smallpox .
Government inaction is thus not surprising , nor is its boundless opportunism .
With public attention focused on the biological virus , the Interior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Mashpee Wampanoag ( of Thanksgiving fame ) and strip them of their lands .
When the tribe ’ s chairman got the call from the Bureau of Indian Affairs , he ’ d expected the discussion to be about FEMA relief .
A federal judge will hear the tribe ’ s case May 7 .
To say Indian Country distrusts the government is an understatement .
We rely instead on culture and relationships—to one another , to our languages , to the land .
The concept is foundational to Indigenous ways @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knowledge—or what science calls epigenetics .
Call it what you like ; it has prepared Indigenous people to weather whatever the plural of apocalypse is .
Surviving the very systems built without us in mind , or to destroy us , has forced us to expect and adapt to change .
This capacity for creative thrivance gives me hope , and examples of it shine through in today ’ s bleak viral landscape—a reminder that medicine comes in many forms .
• Social Distance Powwow emerged on Facebook after stay-at-home orders shuttered two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Denver March and the Gathering of Nations .
Now 170,000-strong and growing ( not without some pains ) , this online space provides daily inspiration and prayer , and serves as a digital classroom and marketplace .
This is especially meaningful to the artists , dancers , and revelers who depend on the powwow season both economically and culturally .
• Native storytellers—especially journalists at Indian Country Today—have been vital fonts of news , resources , and data in the crisis .
They include educators helping our people reclaim Indigenous food and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ innovation via tradition .
A Mniconjou Lakota television writer and educator in Los Angeles , Jana Schmieding learned to bead as a girl from her elders .
She calls the bold face mask pictured above “ NDN Quarantine Couture.
” For Schmieding and other artisans , beading is a near-ceremonial process ; it steadies them in a chaotic world .
Proud as I am of our resiliency , I await the day Natives are no longer applauded for surviving .
Living in a constant state of “ what kind of colonizer bullshit will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not OK. To overcome this , we need accomplices .
Now that privileged populations are experiencing the bitter taste of being confined to homes , blocked from earning money or going to worship , facing police action if you gather in groups , feeling the pressure of not having enough , and fearing contagion , maybe you ’ ll support Indigenous and other marginalized communities and help us demand accountability .
And when you learn , as we have always known , that the government is the problem , perhaps you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us in dismantling this colonial system and rebuilding communities of holistic well-being .
Something Is Happening Here is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind , offering scenes from a pandemic—a series of dispatches from Kopkind ’ s far-flung network of participants , advisers , guests , and friends .
Edited by Nation contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski , it will appear weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org .

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.
I ndian C ountry—For Indigenous people there are two viruses.
One has been killing us for centuries. The novel coronavirus is biological and blameless, while colonialism is a man-made cocktail of historical and political toxicity. For the sake of metaphor, work with me here, because you cannot discuss the wildfire that is Covid-19 and the disparities it uncovers without recognizing how colonialism has fueled the blaze. Something Is Happening Here is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind, a living memorial to radical journalist Andrew Kopkind, who from 1982–94 was the magazine’s chief political writer and analyst.
Indian Country, the legal term for the 574 federally recognized sovereign tribal nations of the US mainland and Alaska, is disproportionately affected. Our communities tend to be in isolated rural areas with the least Internet access. Big extended families often live together in small homes. Basic medical care and social services are limited and always underfunded, if they exist at all. Poverty and chronic diseases are rampant. Some of our relatives have no running water—or contaminated water, the fallout of extractive industries—so washing hands can be a hardship.
This double virus explains why some headlines shout that Covid-19 could “wipe out” Natives. As of May 2, the Navajo Nation had 2,373 cases and 73 confirmed deaths, the highest infection rate after New York and New Jersey. With a total Native population of just over 5 million, Indian Country can’t sustain numbers like that. Something Is Happening Here Untethered, or The Year of Living Virtually Patricia J. Williams The Art of the Meal Mary Lewis Maybe We Shouldn’t Go Back to Normal Bri M.
Many tribes have instituted strict measures to limit contagion.
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, where I’m enrolled and many of my relatives live, enforces curfew, requires travel permits, and has checkpoints to control traffic in and out of its 1.4 million-acre reservation. Governor Kristi Noem—notorious for snubbing tribes before greenlighting pro-pipeline legislation—now complains that the tribe did not first consult the state, though it’s indisputable that the safety measures work. Cheyenne River announced its first Covid-19 case on April 29, and our tribal chairman credited the checkpoint system for tracing the source of the virus to the victim’s travel outside the reservation. Across the state, communities of color aren’t faring as well. Noem disdained statewide collective protection as “herd mentality,” and Sioux Falls became a virus hot spot, the worst in the country from a single source. But that’s just a coincidence, right? 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
People with a history of surviving state-led genocide are intimately aware of the power of a well-aimed germ—ask Natives about smallpox. Government inaction is thus not surprising, nor is its boundless opportunism. With public attention focused on the biological virus, the Interior Department decided to rescind the reservation designation of the Mashpee Wampanoag (of Thanksgiving fame) and strip them of their lands. When the tribe’s chairman got the call from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he’d expected the discussion to be about FEMA relief. A federal judge will hear the tribe’s case May 7.
To say Indian Country distrusts the government is an understatement. We rely instead on culture and relationships—to one another, to our languages, to the land. The concept is foundational to Indigenous ways of being, passed down through ancestral knowledge—or what science calls epigenetics. Call it what you like; it has prepared Indigenous people to weather whatever the plural of apocalypse is. Surviving the very systems built without us in mind, or to destroy us, has forced us to expect and adapt to change.
This capacity for creative thrivance gives me hope, and examples of it shine through in today’s bleak viral landscape—a reminder that medicine comes in many forms.
Social Distance Powwow emerged on Facebook after stay-at-home orders shuttered two of Indian Country’s largest powwows, Denver March and the Gathering of Nations. Now 170,000-strong and growing (not without some pains), this online space provides daily inspiration and prayer, and serves as a digital classroom and marketplace. This is especially meaningful to the artists, dancers, and revelers who depend on the powwow season both economically and culturally.
Native storytellers—especially journalists at Indian Country Today—have been vital fonts of news, resources, and data in the crisis. They include educators helping our people reclaim Indigenous food and other wellness knowledge.
Artists showcase innovation via tradition. A Mniconjou Lakota television writer and educator in Los Angeles, Jana Schmieding learned to bead as a girl from her elders. She calls the bold face mask pictured above “NDN Quarantine Couture.” For Schmieding and other artisans, beading is a near-ceremonial process; it steadies them in a chaotic world.
Proud as I am of our resiliency, I await the day Natives are no longer applauded for surviving. Living in a constant state of “what kind of colonizer bullshit will we have to endure now?” is not OK. To overcome this, we need accomplices.
Now that privileged populations are experiencing the bitter taste of being confined to homes, blocked from earning money or going to worship, facing police action if you gather in groups, feeling the pressure of not having enough, and fearing contagion, maybe you’ll support Indigenous and other marginalized communities and help us demand accountability. And when you learn, as we have always known, that the government is the problem, perhaps you’ll go a step farther and join us in dismantling this colonial system and rebuilding communities of holistic well-being.
Something Is Happening Here is a collaboration between The Nation and Kopkind, offering scenes from a pandemic—a series of dispatches from Kopkind’s far-flung network of participants, advisers, guests, and friends. Edited by Nation contributor and Kopkind program director JoAnn Wypijewski, it will appear weekly on thenation.com and kopkind.org.


thenation--2020-05-06--V-E Day Was 75 Years Ago. How Relevant Is It Today?

The 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany ’ s surrender in May 1945 ought to prompt thoughtful reflection .
For Americans , V-E Day , as it was then commonly called , marked the beginning of “ our times.
” The Covid-19 pandemic may signal that our times are now coming to an end .
Tom Engelhardt , editor and proprietor of TomDispatch , was born less than a year prior to V-E Day .
I was born less than two years after its counterpart V-J Day , marking the surrender of Imperial Japan in August 1945 .
Tom is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was born and raised in the Midwest .
Tom is Jewish , although nonobservant .
I am a mostly observant Catholic .
Tom is a progressive who as a young man protested against the Vietnam War .
I am , so I persist in claiming , a conservative .
As a young man , I served in Vietnam .
Yet let me suggest that these various differences matter less than the fact that we both came of age in the shadow of World War II—or more specifically in a time when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intellectual landscape .
Over the years , that haunting would become the underlying rationale for the US exercise of global power , with consequences that undermined the nation ’ s capacity to deal with the menace it now faces .
Tom and I both belong to what came to be known as the Baby Boom generation ( though including him means ever so slightly backing up the official generational start date ) .
As a group , Boomers are generally associated with having had a pampered upbringing before embarking upon a rebellious youth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then as adults helping ourselves to more than our fair share of all that life , liberty , and happiness .
Now , preparing to exit the stage , we Boomers are passing on to those who follow us a badly damaged planet and a nation increasingly divided , adrift , and quite literally sick .
A Greatest Generation we are not .
How did all this happen ?
Let me suggest that , to unpack American history during the decades when we Baby Boomers sashayed across the world stage , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or more specifically , with how that war ended and became enshrined in American memory .
Of course , we Boomers never experienced the war directly .
Our parents did .
Tom ’ s father and both of my parents served in World War II .
Yet neither were we Boomers ever truly able to put that war behind us .
For better or worse , members of our generation remain the children of V-E Day , when—so we tell ourselves—evil was finally vanquished and good prevailed .
For Tom , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World War II as history and as metaphor centers specifically on the Nazis and their handiwork : swastikas , mammoth staged rallies , the Gestapo and the SS , the cowardice of surrender at Munich , the lightning offensive campaigns known as Blitzkrieg , London burning , the Warsaw Ghetto , slave labor , and , of course , a vast network of death camps engineering the Holocaust , all documented in film , photographs , archives , and eyewitness accounts .
And then there was der Führer himself , Adolf Hitler , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the decades , proved bottomless and more than slightly disturbing .
( If your local library ever reopens , compare the number of books about Hitler to those about Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini or wartime Japanese emperor Hirohito . )
Seventy-five years after his death , Hitler remains among us , the supreme villain routinely pressed into service by politicians and media pundits alike intent on raising the alarm about some imminent danger .
If ever there were a man for all seasons , it is Adolf Hitler .
Hitler ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ date the opening of World War II to September 1939 when the Wehrmacht invaded Poland .
Only in December 1941 did the United States ( belatedly ) join the conflict , the Imperial Japanese Navy ’ s attack on Pearl Harbor and other American installations in the Pacific forcing Washington ’ s hand .
In fact , however , a full decade earlier Japan had already set out to create what it would eventually call its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere .
In September 1931 , its forces invaded then Chinese-controlled Manchuria , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a very large and brutal armed conflict with China proper in which the United States participated on a proxy basis .
( Remember the Flying Tigers ? )
In other words , World War II actually began in Asia rather than Europe , with the first shots fired years before the Nazi attack on Poland .
Yet launching the narrative in September 1939 has the effect of keeping the primary focus on Germany .
From a moral perspective , there are ample reasons for doing this : Even in a century of horrendous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extermination of Ukraine ’ s kulaks , and Mao Zedong ’ s murderous campaign against his own people—the sheer unadulterated evil of the Nazi regime stands apart .
From a political perspective , however , intense preoccupation with one example of iniquity , however horrific , induces a skewed perspective .
So it proved to be with the United States during the decades that followed V-E Day .
Subsumed within the advertised purposes of postwar US policy , whether called “ defense , ” “ deterrence , ” “ containment , ” “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of human rights , ” has been this transcendent theme : “ Never Again.
” That is , never again will the United States ignore or appease or fail to confront a regime that compares to—or even vaguely resembles—Nazi Germany .
Never again will it slumber until rudely awakened by a Pearl Harbor–like surprise .
Never again will it allow its capacity for projecting power against distant threats to dissipate .
Never again will it fail to lead .
Of all Donald Trump ’ s myriad deficiencies , large and small , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ critics find most difficult to stomach : his resurrection of “ America First ” as a primary principle of statecraft suggests a de facto nullification of “ Never Again.
” To Trump ’ s critics , it hardly matters that “ America First ” in no way describes actual administration policy .
After all , more than three years into the Trump presidency , our endless wars persist ( and in some cases have even intensified ) ; the nation ’ s various alliances and its empire of overseas bases remain intact ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like 140 countries ; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to increase astronomically .
Even so , the president does appear oblivious to the historical antecedent—that is , the imperative of standing ready to deal with the next Hitler—that finds concrete expression in these several manifestations of US national security policy .
No one has ever accused Donald Trump of possessing a profound grasp of history .
Yet here his apparent cluelessness is especially telling .
Not least among the unofficial duties of any president is to serve as the authoritative curator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proclamations , and the laying of wreaths , presidents tell us what we should remember and how .
Through their silence , they give us permission to forget the parts of our past that we prefer to forget .
Himself born barely a year after V-E Day , Donald Trump seems to have forgotten World War II .
New Signs for a New Time ?
Yet let ’ s consider this admittedly uncongenial possibility : Perhaps Trump is onto something .
What if V-E Day is no more relevant to the present than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the War of 1812 ?
What if , as a basis for policy , “ Never Again ” is today just as outmoded as “ America First ” ?
What if clinging to the canonical lessons of the war against Hitler impedes efforts to repair our nation and our planet ?
An abiding problem with “ Never Again ” is that US policy-makers have never applied it to the United States .
Since V-E Day , individuals and regimes deemed in Washington to be the spawn of Hitler and the Nazis have provided @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , impose punishments , underwrite coups and assassination plots , and , of course , wage war endlessly .
Beginning with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and China ’ s Mao Zedong , the list of malefactors that US officials and militant journalists have likened to Hitler is a long one .
They ’ ve ranged from North Korea ’ s Kim Il Sung in the 1950s to Cuba ’ s Fidel Castro in the 1960s to Iraq ’ s Saddam Hussein in the 1990s .
And just to bring things up to date @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ayatollahs governing present-day Iran .
Two decades after V-E Day , a succession of presidents deployed lessons ostensibly derived from the war against Hitler to justify the Vietnam War .
John F. Kennedy described South Vietnam as “ the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia , the Keystone of the arch , the finger in the dike.
” Failing to defend that country would allow “ the red tide of Communism , ” as he put it , to sweep across the region much as appeasers had allowed the Nazi tide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I knew about history , ” Lyndon Johnson reflected , “ told me that if I got out of Vietnam and let Ho Chi Minh run through the streets of Saigon , then I ’ d be doing exactly what [ Neville ] Chamberlain did in World War II , ” a reference , of course , to the Munich Agreement with Hitler , which that British prime minister so infamously labeled “ peace in our time.
” Even as late as 1972 , Richard Nixon was assuring the public that “ an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encourage this kind of aggression all over the world.
” Vietnam provides but one example among many of how viewing problems through the lens of World War II in Europe has obscured real situations and actual stakes on this planet .
In short , the promiscuous use of the Hitler analogy has produced deeply flawed policy decisions , while also deceiving the American people .
This has inhibited our ability to see the world as it actually is .
Overall , the approach to statecraft that grew out of V-E Day defined the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of resisting evil .
That , in turn , provided all the justification needed for building up American military capabilities beyond compare and engaging in military action on a planetary scale .
In Washington , policy-makers have shown little inclination to consider the possibility that the United States itself might be guilty of doing evil .
In effect , the virtuous intentions implicit in “ Never Again ” inoculated the United States against the virus to which ordinary nations were susceptible .
V-E Day seemingly affirmed that America was anything but ordinary .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ one explanation for the predicament in which the United States now finds itself .
In a recent article in The New York Times , journalist Katrin Bennhold wondered how it could be that when it came to dealing with Covid-19 , “ the country that defeated fascism in Europe 75 years ago ” now finds itself “ doing a worse job protecting its citizens than many autocracies and democracies ” globally .
Yet it might just be that events that occurred 75 years ago in Europe no longer have much bearing on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s version of fascism ( albeit with considerable help from others ) has since allowed its preoccupation with fascists , quasi-fascists , and other ne ’ er-do-wells to serve as an excuse for letting other things slip , particularly here in the homeland .
The United States is fully capable of protecting its citizens .
Yet what the present pandemic drives home is this : doing so , while also creating an environment in which all citizens can flourish , is going to require a radical revision of what we still , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” priorities .
This does not mean turning a blind eye to mass murder .
Yet the militarization of US policy that occurred in the wake of V-E Day has for too long distracted attention from more pressing matters , not least among them creating a way of life that is equitable and sustainable .
This perversion of priorities must now cease .
So , yes , let ’ s mark this V-E Day anniversary with all due solemnity .
Yet 75 years after the collapse of the Third Reich , the challenge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Never Again.
” It ’ s “ What now ?
” For the moment at least , Tom and I are still around .
Yet “ our times ” —the period that began when World War II ended—have run their course .
The “ new times ” upon which the nation has now embarked will pose their own distinctive challenges , as the Covid-19 pandemic makes unmistakably clear .
Addressing those challenges will require leaders able to free themselves from a past that has become increasingly irrelevant .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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The 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender in May 1945 ought to prompt thoughtful reflection. For Americans, V-E Day, as it was then commonly called, marked the beginning of “our times.” The Covid-19 pandemic may signal that our times are now coming to an end.
Tom Engelhardt, editor and proprietor of TomDispatch, was born less than a year prior to V-E Day. I was born less than two years after its counterpart, V-J Day, marking the surrender of Imperial Japan in August 1945.
Tom is a New Yorker, born and bred. I was born and raised in the Midwest.
Tom is Jewish, although nonobservant. I am a mostly observant Catholic.
Tom is a progressive who as a young man protested against the Vietnam War. I am, so I persist in claiming, a conservative. As a young man, I served in Vietnam.
Yet let me suggest that these various differences matter less than the fact that we both came of age in the shadow of World War II—or more specifically in a time when the specter of Nazi Germany haunted the American intellectual landscape. Over the years, that haunting would become the underlying rationale for the US exercise of global power, with consequences that undermined the nation’s capacity to deal with the menace it now faces.
Tom and I both belong to what came to be known as the baby boom generation (though including him means ever so slightly backing up the official generational start date). As a group, boomers are generally associated with having had a pampered upbringing before embarking upon a rebellious youth (Tom more than me), and then as adults helping ourselves to more than our fair share of all that life, liberty, and happiness. Now, preparing to exit the stage, we boomers are passing on to those who follow us a badly damaged planet and a nation increasingly divided, adrift, and quite literally sick. A “greatest generation” we are not. Current Issue View our current issue
How did all this happen? Let me suggest that, to unpack American history during the decades when we baby boomers sashayed across the world stage, you have to begin with World War II, or more specifically, with how that war ended and became enshrined in American memory.
Of course, we boomers never experienced the war directly. Our parents did. Tom’s father and both of my parents served in World War II. Yet neither were we boomers ever truly able to put that war behind us. For better or worse, members of our generation remain the children of V-E Day, when—so we tell ourselves—evil was finally vanquished and good prevailed.
Never Forget
For Tom, for me, and for our contemporaries, World War II as history and as metaphor centers specifically on the Nazis and their handiwork: swastikas, mammoth staged rallies, the Gestapo and the SS, the cowardice of surrender at Munich, the lightning offensive campaigns known as Blitzkrieg, London burning, the Warsaw Ghetto, slave labor, and, of course, a vast network of death camps engineering the Holocaust, all documented in film, photographs, archives, and eyewitness accounts. 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
And then there was der Führer himself, Adolf Hitler, the subject of a fascination that, over the decades, proved bottomless and more than slightly disturbing. (If your local library ever reopens, compare the number of books about Hitler to those about Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini or wartime Japanese emperor Hirohito.) Seventy-five years after his death, Hitler remains among us, the supreme villain routinely pressed into service by politicians and media pundits alike intent on raising the alarm about some imminent danger. If ever there were a man for all seasons, it is Adolf Hitler.
Hitler’s centrality helps explain why Americans typically date the opening of World War II to September 1939, when the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. Only in December 1941 did the United States (belatedly) join the conflict, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s attack on Pearl Harbor and other American installations in the Pacific forcing Washington’s hand. In fact, however, a full decade earlier Japan had already set out to create what it would eventually call its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In September 1931, its forces invaded then Chinese-controlled Manchuria, an undertaking that soon enough morphed into a very large and brutal armed conflict with China proper in which the United States participated on a proxy basis. (Remember the Flying Tigers?) In other words, World War II actually began in Asia rather than Europe, with the first shots fired years before the Nazi attack on Poland.
Yet launching the narrative in September 1939 has the effect of keeping the primary focus on Germany. From a moral perspective, there are ample reasons for doing this: Even in a century of horrendous crimes—the Armenian genocide, Stalin’s extermination of Ukraine’s kulaks, and Mao Zedong’s murderous campaign against his own people—the sheer unadulterated evil of the Nazi regime stands apart.
From a political perspective, however, intense preoccupation with one example of iniquity, however horrific, induces a skewed perspective. So it proved to be with the United States during the decades that followed V-E Day. Subsumed within the advertised purposes of postwar US policy, whether called “defense,” “deterrence,” “containment,” “liberation,” or “the protection of human rights,” has been this transcendent theme: “Never Again.” That is, never again will the United States ignore or appease or fail to confront a regime that compares to—or even vaguely resembles—Nazi Germany. Never again will it slumber until rudely awakened by a Pearl Harbor–like surprise. Never again will it allow its capacity for projecting power against distant threats to dissipate. Never again will it fail to lead.
Of all Donald Trump’s myriad deficiencies, large and small, this may be the one that his establishment critics find most difficult to stomach: His resurrection of “America First” as a primary principle of statecraft suggests a de facto nullification of “Never Again.”
To Trump’s critics, it hardly matters that “America First” in no way describes actual administration policy. After all, more than three years into the Trump presidency, our endless wars persist (and in some cases have even intensified); the nation’s various alliances and its empire of overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like 140 countries; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to increase astronomically. Even so, the president does appear oblivious to the historical antecedent—that is, the imperative of standing ready to deal with the next Hitler—that finds concrete expression in these several manifestations of US national security policy. No one has ever accused Trump of possessing a profound grasp of history. Yet here his apparent cluelessness is especially telling.
Not least among the unofficial duties of any president is to serve as the authoritative curator of public memory. Through speeches, proclamations, and the laying of wreaths, presidents tell us what we should remember and how. Through their silence, they give us permission to forget the parts of our past that we prefer to forget. Himself born barely a year after V-E Day, Donald Trump seems to have forgotten World War II.
New Signs for a New Time?
Yet let’s consider this admittedly uncongenial possibility: Perhaps Trump is on to something. What if V-E Day is no more relevant to the present than the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812? What if, as a basis for policy, “Never Again” is today just as outmoded as “America First”? What if clinging to the canonical lessons of the war against Hitler impedes efforts to repair our nation and our planet?
An abiding problem with “Never Again” is that US policy-makers have never applied it to the United States. Since V-E Day, individuals and regimes deemed in Washington to be the spawn of Hitler and the Nazis have provided justification for successive administrations to accumulate arms, impose punishments, underwrite coups and assassination plots, and, of course, wage war endlessly. Beginning with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and China’s Mao Zedong, the list of malefactors that US officials and militant journalists have likened to Hitler is a long one. They’ve ranged from North Korea’s Kim Il Sung in the 1950s to Cuba’s Fidel Castro in the 1960s to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. And just to bring things up to date, let’s not overlook the ayatollahs governing present-day Iran.
Two decades after V-E Day, a succession of presidents deployed lessons ostensibly derived from the war against Hitler to justify the Vietnam War. John F. Kennedy described South Vietnam as “the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the keystone of the arch, the finger in the dike.” Failing to defend that country would allow “the red tide of Communism,” as he put it, to sweep across the region much as appeasers had allowed the Nazi tide to sweep across Europe. “Everything I knew about history,” Lyndon Johnson reflected, “told me that if I got out of Vietnam and let Ho Chi Minh run through the streets of Saigon, then I’d be doing exactly what [Neville] Chamberlain did in World War II,” a reference, of course, to the Munich Agreement with Hitler, which the British prime minister so infamously labeled “peace in our time.” Even as late as 1972, Richard Nixon was assuring the public that “an American defeat” in Vietnam “would encourage this kind of aggression all over the world.”
Vietnam provides but one example among many of how viewing problems through the lens of World War II in Europe has obscured real situations and actual stakes on this planet. In short, the promiscuous use of the Hitler analogy has produced deeply flawed policy decisions, while also deceiving the American people. This has inhibited our ability to see the world as it actually is.
Overall, the approach to statecraft that grew out of V-E Day defined the ultimate purpose of US policy in terms of resisting evil. That, in turn, provided all the justification needed for building up American military capabilities beyond compare and engaging in military action on a planetary scale.
In Washington, policy-makers have shown little inclination to consider the possibility that the United States itself might be guilty of doing evil. In effect, the virtuous intentions implicit in “Never Again” inoculated the country against the virus to which ordinary nations were susceptible. V-E Day seemingly affirmed that America was anything but ordinary.
Here, then, we arrive at one explanation for the predicament in which the United States now finds itself. In a recent article in The New York Times, journalist Katrin Bennhold wondered how it could be that when it came to dealing with Covid-19, “the country that defeated fascism in Europe 75 years ago” now finds itself “doing a worse job protecting its citizens than many autocracies and democracies” globally.
Yet it might just be that events that occurred 75 years ago in Europe no longer have much bearing on the present. The country that defeated Hitler’s version of fascism (albeit with considerable help from others) has since allowed its preoccupation with fascists, quasi-fascists, and other ne’er-do-wells to serve as an excuse for letting other things slip, particularly here in the homeland.
The United States is fully capable of protecting its citizens. Yet what the present pandemic drives home is this: Doing so while also creating an environment in which all citizens can flourish is going to require a radical revision of what we still, however inaccurately, call “national security” priorities. This does not mean turning a blind eye to mass murder. Yet the militarization of US policy that occurred in the wake of V-E Day has for too long distracted attention from more pressing matters, not least among them creating a way of life that is equitable and sustainable. This perversion of priorities must now cease.
So, yes, let’s mark this V-E Day anniversary with all due solemnity. Yet 75 years after the collapse of the Third Reich, the challenge facing the United States is not “Never Again.” It’s “What now?”
For the moment at least, Tom and I are still around. Yet “our times”—the period that began when World War II ended—have run their course. The new times upon which the nation has now embarked will pose their own distinctive challenges, as the Covid-19 pandemic makes unmistakably clear. Addressing those challenges will require leaders able to free themselves from a past that has become increasingly irrelevant.


thenation--2020-05-06--Conversations With ‘The Nation’: Zephyr Teachout

Zephyr Teachout joins Nation editorial director and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel in conversation at noon on Wednesday , May 13 @ @ @ @ @ toll Covid-19 has taken on our elections and the attempt by the New York State @ @ @ @ @ New York ’ s Democratic presidential primary .
Register now to join us for $ @ @ @ @ @ purchase a discounted package to this weekly event series .
Our weekly virtual series , @ @ @ @ @ , ” helps to support rigorous progressive journalism at a critical moment in our history @ @ @ @ @ Bill McKibben , Representatives Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Pramila Jayapal of Washington state , @ @ @ @ @ William J. Barber II have joined us .
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Zephyr Teachout joined Nation editorial director and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel in conversation on Wednesday, May 13, to talk about the toll Covid-19 has taken on our elections and the attempt by the New York State Board of Elections to cancel New York’s Democratic presidential primary.
Our weekly virtual series, “Conversations With The Nation,” helps to support rigorous progressive journalism at a critical moment in our history. Environmental activist and author Bill McKibben, Representatives Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, and the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II have joined us. Sign up for Nation emails to receive new speaker announcements and invitations to future events.


thenation--2020-05-06--Michael Jordan Is the Antihero of Our Times

Six episodes down , four to go .
Over halfway through ESPN ’ s 10-part documentary , The Last Dance , it is safe to say that we know what we are getting .
Entertaining as it is , it ’ s less a documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls than it is an exercise in brand management for current NBA franchise owner Michael Jordan .
This was manifestly the case in Episodes 1 and 2 , which were pure Jordan hagiographies .
Episodes 3 and 4 were more interesting , as they branched out to speak about Jordan ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
With Episodes 5 and 6 , we were back to the billion-dollar project of Jordan brand extension that still aims to conquer , and reconquer , the world .
Episode 5 is particularly illuminating , and in many respects , it gives the game away .
We finally get to grapple with Jordan ’ s lack of political involvement—in particular , his infamous statement in 1990 that he wouldn ’ t stick his neck out politically because “ Republicans buy sneakers too.
” Those words were an off-the-cuff response when he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Charlotte , N.C. , Mayor Harvey Gantt in his senatorial challenge to the segregationist bigot Jesse Helms .
This throwaway quote has been used as a cudgel against Jordan ever since .
His critics have compared him unfavorably with everyone from Muhammad Ali to LeBron James .
They ’ ve said that when push came to shove , Jordan chose his bank account over any kind of political solidarity , Nike over anti-racist political action .
It ’ s done enough damage to the Jordan brand that in recent years his handlers have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , claiming that it ’ s essentially an urban myth .
After all , it ’ s not on video or audiotape .
Who ’ s to say he said it at all ?
But in Episode 5 , we see the ruthless competitor side of 2020 Michael Jordan when he ’ s confronted with this quote .
He didn ’ t hide behind the notion that he never said it .
He didn ’ t express regret about the decision to pass on taking a stand .
Instead , he justified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way I go out of my life , I set examples .
If it inspires you , great .
If it doesn ’ t , then maybe I ’ m not the person you should be following.
” It was a big middle finger to everyone who wanted Jordan to use his global platform and be something more than what he was .
Some are praising the documentary for showing this side of Jordan , but that ’ s nonsense .
This is a Michael Jordan production .
This is the Jordan that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a ruthless competitor , always with a score to settle .
He lives to win , whether at hoops , cards , or throwing quarters against the wall .
Whether the stakes are thousands of dollars or one buck a hand , he is about the win and “ putting your money into [ his ] pocket.
” Jordan was also , as the documentary shows , single-mindedly competitive about making Nike the No .
1 basketball sneaker in the world .
Episode 5 shows Jordan covering up the Reebok logo on his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with an American flag so as not to give the rival company any shine on the medal stand .
The Last Dance does not show Jordan saying that he would look into allegations of sweatshop abuses at Nike when confronted by activists and then doing nothing .
The Jordan who stayed silent when kids were being killed for their sneakers—well , that hasn ’ t been seen either .
Instead we get a Jordan who tells the critics to piss off .
Republicans buy sneakers too : It ’ s more than an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s a mantra .
Jordan is in effect using this documentary to tell a new generation that you don ’ t have to care about anything if it gets in the way of the ultimate goal : to be No .
1 .
The hell with the person to your right or left .
At a moment when we desperately need a more compassionate and collectively minded approach to each other ’ s lives , that ’ s an ethos that needs to be challenged .
Yet it lives on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Don ’ t Tread on Me ” protesters gathering in front of governors ’ mansions , calling for death over discomfort .
That ’ s what you do when some lives are deemed more expendable—less essential—than others .
That ’ s what you do when winning matters more than the people you bring with you along the way .
Jordan ’ s documentary is his “ Don ’ t Tread on Me ” : He did it his way and it was the right thing to do , and the proof is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re not .
We need to understand that , and as much as he , his brand managers , and ESPN want to lionize that approach to life , we are also allowed to reject it .
We should thank Michael Jordan for showing us who he is—exactly who we thought he was .

Six episodes down, four to go. Over halfway through ESPN’s 10-part documentary, The Last Dance, it is safe to say that we know what we are getting. Entertaining as it is, it’s less a documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls than it is an exercise in brand management for current NBA franchise owner Michael Jordan.
This was manifestly the case in Episodes 1 and 2, which were pure Jordan hagiographies. Episodes 3 and 4 were more interesting, as they branched out to speak about Jordan’s teammates Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman. With Episodes 5 and 6, we were back to the billion-dollar project of Jordan brand extension that still aims to conquer, and reconquer, the world.
Episode 5 is particularly illuminating, and in many respects, it gives the game away. We finally get to grapple with Jordan’s lack of political involvement—in particular, his infamous statement in 1990 that he wouldn’t stick his neck out politically because “Republicans buy sneakers too.” Those words were an off-the-cuff response when he was asked why he wouldn’t endorse Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Harvey Gantt in his senatorial challenge to the segregationist bigot Jesse Helms.
This throwaway quote has been used as a cudgel against Jordan ever since. His critics have compared him unfavorably with everyone from Muhammad Ali to LeBron James. They’ve said that when push came to shove, Jordan chose his bank account over any kind of political solidarity, Nike over anti-racist political action. It’s done enough damage to the Jordan brand that in recent years his handlers have begun to deny that he ever said it, claiming that it’s essentially an urban myth. After all, it’s not on video or audiotape. Who’s to say he said it at all? Related Article Michael Jordan’s Last Dance Dave Zirin
But in Episode 5, we see the ruthless competitor side of 2020 Michael Jordan when he’s confronted with this quote. He didn’t hide behind the notion that he never said it. He didn’t express regret about the decision to pass on taking a stand. Instead, he justified his words by saying, “The way I go out of my life, I set examples. If it inspires you, great. If it doesn’t, then maybe I’m not the person you should be following.” It was a big middle finger to everyone who wanted Jordan to use his global platform and be something more than what he was.
Some are praising the documentary for showing this side of Jordan, but that’s nonsense. This is a Michael Jordan production. This is the Jordan that Michael Jordan wants us to see: a ruthless competitor, always with a score to settle. He lives to win, whether at hoops, cards, or throwing quarters against the wall. Whether the stakes are thousands of dollars or one buck a hand, he is about the win and “putting your money into [his] pocket.”
Jordan was also, as the documentary shows, single-mindedly competitive about making Nike the No. 1 basketball sneaker in the world. Episode 5 shows Jordan covering up the Reebok logo on his Team USA uniform at the 1992 Olympics with an American flag so as not to give the rival company any shine on the medal stand. The Last Dance does not show Jordan saying that he would look into allegations of sweatshop abuses at Nike when confronted by activists and then doing nothing. The Jordan who stayed silent when kids were being killed for their sneakers—well, that hasn’t been seen either.
Instead we get a Jordan who tells the critics to piss off. Republicans buy sneakers too: It’s more than an offhand comment said within earshot of reporters. It’s a mantra. Jordan is in effect using this documentary to tell a new generation that you don’t have to care about anything if it gets in the way of the ultimate goal: to be No. 1. The hell with the person to your right or left.
At a moment when we desperately need a more compassionate and collectively minded approach to each other’s lives, that’s an ethos that needs to be challenged. Yet it lives on, represented starkly by the armed “Don’t Tread on Me” protesters gathering in front of governors’ mansions, calling for death over discomfort. That’s what you do when some lives are deemed more expendable—less essential—than others. That’s what you do when winning matters more than the people you bring with you along the way.
Jordan’s documentary is his “Don’t Tread on Me”: He did it his way and it was the right thing to do, and the proof is that he’s Michael Jordan and you’re not. We need to understand that, and as much as he, his brand managers, and ESPN want to lionize that approach to life, we are also allowed to reject it. We should thank Michael Jordan for showing us who he is—exactly who we thought he was.


thenation--2020-05-06--If This Pandemic Is a War, Trump Is a War Criminal

On Tuesday , Donald Trump was asked by a reporter to comment on new projections showing even more deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic than previously were expected .
“ Those projections are without mitigation , ” Trump responded .
“ We ’ re doing a lot of mitigation.
” He added , “ The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors .
Our country has to open.
” On their own terms , these comments are incoherent and self-refuting .
The main mitigation the United States is doing is social distancing , which has been effective in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but not stopping it .
In fact , outside of New York and surrounding states , Covid-19 is still spreading rapidly .
As The New York Times reports , “ The country is still in the firm grip of a pandemic with little hope of release .
For every indication of improvement in controlling the virus , new outbreaks have emerged elsewhere , leaving the nation stuck in a steady , unrelenting march of deaths and infections.
” The pace of that spread will only increase with the opening up of the economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Americans “ should think of themselves as warriors ” becomes more ominous when coupled with his frank acknowledgment that the death count from the pandemic will rise .
“ Will some people be affected badly ?
Yes , ” Trump admitted in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday .
Trump ’ s Covid-19 Reckoning Is Only the Beginning The Pandemic in Our Minds Meatpacking Plants Are a Front in the Covid-19 Class War Of course , wartime metaphors are common in this crisis , used by many leaders , including the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Usually wartime is evoked to stiffen resolve and strengthen a shared sense of purpose .
With Trump , we see the darker side of the wartime metaphor , its use to justify the sacrifice of lives for some common mission , whether good or bad .
If Trump is , as he calls himself , “ a wartime president , ” then his leadership deserves to be judged by the standards we expect from military men .
Sacrificial death is justified in war , but only if it serves a purpose .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to being a Gen. William Westmoreland , an incompetent commander in an unjust war .
Of course , defeating the pandemic is itself justified .
But what makes Trump ’ s conduct horrific is that he ’ s calling on sacrifices for other purposes , including boosting the economy and ensuring his own reelection .
The persistent bungling of the Trump administration has made the pandemic death count much higher than it should be .
A New York Times report shows that the persistent and ongoing shortage of medical supplies was exacerbated by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was run by “ a team of roughly a dozen young volunteers , recruited by the president ’ s son-in-law , Jared Kushner , and overseen by a former assistant to Mr. Kushner ’ s wife , Ivanka Trump.
” The volunteers who worked in this task force had in common not just youth but also inexperience .
They had little background in procurement and were told to prioritize suggestions from political allies , including big donors and right-wing media stars .
A hospital favored by Fox host Jeanine Pirro received 100,000 masks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As the newspaper reports , “ At least one tip the volunteers forwarded turned into an expensive debacle .
In late March , according to emails obtained by the Times , two of the volunteers passed along procurement forms submitted by Yaron Oren-Pines , a Silicon Valley engineer who said he could provide more than 1,000 ventilators.
” Based on the recommendations of Kushner ’ s task force , Oren-Pines was given a $ 69 million contract by New York state .
He failed to deliver on the promised ventilators .
Kushner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same principles that guided the operation of the Green Zone in Baghdad during the George W. Bush administration .
Notoriously , the Bush White House gave key positions in the Green Zone to young Republican Party loyalists who had all the right connections—but no experience or expertise in administration .
The botched pandemic response resembles America ’ s failed wars in Vietnam and Iraq not just in ineptitude but also in terms of injustice .
As with those wars , there is no real shared sacrifice .
Rather , the American elite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Trump famously did with his draft deferments in Vietnam .
It ’ s left to working-class Americans , often people of color , to endure the brunt of the pain .
Writing in The New York Times , subway conductor and author Sujatha Gidla took stock of the enormous loss of life among public transit workers in New York .
Their mortality rate exceeds that of first responders .
Gidla writes , “ The conditions created by the pandemic drive home the fact that we essential workers—workers in general—are the ones who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chaos .
Yet we are treated with the utmost disrespect , as though we ’ re expendable.
” She quotes a colleague ’ s bitter comments : “ We are not essential .
We are sacrificial.
” Gidla and her fellow MTA workers are the “ warriors ” Trump is calling on to make sacrifices .
This conscript army includes all Americans—but with certain groups facing a far greater risk of death than the general population .
Those most in danger include doctors , nurses , delivery people , grocery store clerks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and prisoners .
None of these conscripted warriors will receive VA health care or the access to education and other benefits provided by the GI Bill .
Indeed , they could lose wages and benefits , as some doctors and nurses already have because for-profit health care providers are financially strapped by the decline in elective surgeries .
These endangered Americans are being sacrificed not for the sake of public health but for the goal of reopening the economy , with the hope of boosting Trump ’ s electability .
If the current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , then Trump is the moral equivalent of a war criminal .
His political defeat in November is a consummation devoutly to be wished , but full justice will have to include corruption investigations—and prosecutions where warranted—after he leaves office .

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.
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On Tuesday, Donald Trump was asked by a reporter to comment on new projections showing even more deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic than previously were expected. “Those projections are without mitigation,” Trump responded. “We’re doing a lot of mitigation.” He added, “The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. Our country has to open.”
On their own terms, these comments are incoherent and self-refuting. The main mitigation the United States is doing is social distancing, which has been effective in slowing down the spread of the disease but not stopping it. In fact, outside of New York and surrounding states, Covid-19 is still spreading rapidly.
As The New York Times reports, “The country is still in the firm grip of a pandemic with little hope of release. For every indication of improvement in controlling the virus, new outbreaks have emerged elsewhere, leaving the nation stuck in a steady, unrelenting march of deaths and infections.” The pace of that spread will only increase with the opening up of the economy Trump advocates.
Trump’s comment that Americans “should think of themselves as warriors” becomes more ominous when coupled with his frank acknowledgment that the death count from the pandemic will rise. “Will some people be affected badly? Yes,” Trump admitted in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday. More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
Of course, wartime metaphors are common in this crisis, used by many leaders, including the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. Usually wartime is evoked to stiffen resolve and strengthen a shared sense of purpose. With Trump, we see the darker side of the wartime metaphor, its use to justify the sacrifice of lives for some common mission, whether good or bad.
If Trump is, as he calls himself, “a wartime president,” then his leadership deserves to be judged by the standards we expect from military men. Sacrificial death is justified in war, but only if it serves a purpose.
As a wartime leader, Trump is close to being a Gen. William Westmoreland, an incompetent commander in an unjust war. Of course, defeating the pandemic is itself justified. But what makes Trump’s conduct horrific is that he’s calling on sacrifices for other purposes, including boosting the economy and ensuring his own reelection. Current Issue View our current issue
The persistent bungling of the Trump administration has made the pandemic death count much higher than it should be. A New York Times report shows that the persistent and ongoing shortage of medical supplies was exacerbated by the fact that the supply-chain task force was run by “a team of roughly a dozen young volunteers, recruited by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and overseen by a former assistant to Mr. Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump.” 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 volunteers who worked in this task force had in common not just youth but also inexperience. They had little background in procurement and were told to prioritize suggestions from political allies, including big donors and right-wing media stars. A hospital favored by Fox host Jeanine Pirro received 100,000 masks after she strenuously lobbied on its behalf.
As the newspaper reports, “At least one tip the volunteers forwarded turned into an expensive debacle. In late March, according to emails obtained by the Times, two of the volunteers passed along procurement forms submitted by Yaron Oren-Pines, a Silicon Valley engineer who said he could provide more than 1,000 ventilators.” Based on the recommendations of Kushner’s task force, Oren-Pines was given a $69 million contract by New York state. He failed to deliver on the promised ventilators.
Kushner’s task force is run on the same principles that guided the operation of the Green Zone in Baghdad during the George W. Bush administration. Notoriously, the Bush White House gave key positions in the Green Zone to young Republican Party loyalists who had all the right connections—but no experience or expertise in administration.
The botched pandemic response resembles America’s failed wars in Vietnam and Iraq not just in ineptitude but also in terms of injustice. As with those wars, there is no real shared sacrifice. Rather, the American elite gets to sit out the struggle, as Trump famously did with his draft deferments in Vietnam. It’s left to working-class Americans, often people of color, to endure the brunt of the pain.
Writing in The New York Times, subway conductor and author Sujatha Gidla took stock of the enormous loss of life among public transit workers in New York. Their mortality rate exceeds that of first responders. Gidla writes, “The conditions created by the pandemic drive home the fact that we essential workers—workers in general—are the ones who keep the social order from sinking into chaos. Yet we are treated with the utmost disrespect, as though we’re expendable.” She quotes a colleague’s bitter comments: “We are not essential. We are sacrificial.”
Gidla and her fellow MTA workers are the “warriors” Trump is calling on to make sacrifices. This conscript army includes all Americans—but with certain groups facing a far greater risk of death than the general population. Those most in danger include doctors, nurses, delivery people, grocery store clerks, meat packers, nursing home residents, and prisoners. None of these conscripted warriors will receive VA health care or the access to education and other benefits provided by the GI Bill. Indeed, they could lose wages and benefits, as some doctors and nurses already have because for-profit health care providers are financially strapped by the decline in elective surgeries.
These endangered Americans are being sacrificed not for the sake of public health but for the goal of reopening the economy, with the hope of boosting Trump’s electability. If the current crisis is the moral equivalent of war, then Trump is the moral equivalent of a war criminal. His political defeat in November is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but full justice will have to include corruption investigations—and prosecutions where warranted—after he leaves office.