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survivingcapitalism · 3 years

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The creation and rise of ecofascism actually began in the early 1900s, peaked in the 1970s during the birth of the modern environmental movement, and is now rising again with the current administration’s stance on immigration, environmental policy, and the ever-present effects of climate change. The founder of California’s first redwood and wild buffalo conservation organizations was also the founder of ecofascism (Darby, 2019). He was the president of the Bronx Zoo and responsible for kidnapping a Mbuti man and putting him on display in the zoo with apes. This white man, Madison Grant, believed the Nordic race was in decline and that his generation had the authority to decide which lives should be preserved and others discarded. In 1906 he authored The Passing of the Great Race, or The Racial Basis of European History , which would later become Hitler’s personal bible. He advocated for the incredibly racist Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 (Sparrow, 2019). Madison Grant introduced eugenics as central to the environmental movement, and the rise of ecofascism continued to grow. He is still so influential today that Anders Breivik, the Norwegian extremist who massacred 69 youth at a Labor Party Camp, made a tribute to Grant’s racial theory in his manifesto (Purdy, 2015).

In 1968, Paul Eirich, an entomologist at Stanford, published Population Bomb, in which he argued that ecological destruction and the majority of social problems on earth could be attributed to overpopulation and sterilization as the solution (Mann, 2018). Eirich’s publication and the growing environmental movement of the 1970s led to the first Earth Day in which 20 million people attended (Sparrow, 2019). Today, his theory has lost some of its stranglehold mainly due to slowed population growth, but his influence is still felt.

Modern ecofascists today draw on Eirich’s theory of overpopulation and believe that it puts a strain on natural resources and that, post-climate change, masses of people will be a threat to social stability (Darby, 2019). The only way to prevent this from happening in the future is to dramatically reduce the human population. As Pentti Linkola, a radical ecologist and ecofascist puts it: “When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides of the boat” (Linkola, 1989). Today, this looks like white nationalism and xenophobia. Climate change is already one of the biggest drivers of immigration. Some climate change researchers argue that climate change has had a part in wars like the civil war in Syria, leading to mass migrations of people (Darby, 2019). Like many white nationalists, ecofascists believe that allowing immigrants into the United States is suicide. A popular meme among the far right is “save trees, not refugees” (Stern, 2019). Ecofascist beliefs like these are a major part of why Patrick Crusius murdered 22 people and injured more than a dozen in El Paso, Texas, in August 2019. Before the massacre, Crusius posted to Facebook the attack was “in response to a Hispanic invasion of Texas.” An entire page of Crusius’ manifesto is dedicated to theories originally founded by Eirich, discussing demographic shift and overpopulation. In his manifesto, “An Inconvenient Truth,” he wrote, “If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can be more sustainable.” Crusiusalso discussed the “decimation of the environment” and corporations contributions to overharvesting. Crusius was inspired by the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shooter, Brenton Harrison Tarrant (Darby, 2019). Tarrant is a self-proclaimed ecofasisct who, in his own manifesto, stated that “there is no nationalism without environmentalism.” He massacred 51 people in May 2019 (Barton, Smee, 2019).

White supremacy is clearly not new to the environmental movement. When we promote the idea that social tragedies are a must in order to save the environment, we repeat a dangerous trope that has and will continue to cost many lives, many of whom are minorities. When one decides that population reduction is the most beneficial way to save the planet and minimize our impact, one has to choose who needs to be reduced – and it has consistently been minorities, immigrants, and marginalized peoples. It may not seem harmful to post misleading pictures of swans in Italy or call COVID-19 earth’s ‘vaccine’, but it contains an underlying tone very reminiscent of a devastating, racist, and violent sector of environmentalism.

We have already seen the consequences of scapegoating certain racial groups during COVID-19. Hate crimes against Asian Americans have now averaged to about 100 per day across the United States. Over 1,000 hate crimes have been reported since the start of the pandemic (Rep. Judy Chu, 2020). Labeling coronavirus a “Chinese virus” reinforces xenophobia and racism towards Asian people. When Patrick Crusius referred to “our way of life” in the El Paso shooting, he was referring to an all-white way of life, a way that would diminish multiculturalism and stop the demographic shift that has supposedly expedited the environmental crisis (Klee, 2020).

On top of the violence and genocide associated with ecofacsism, ecofascist tropes routinely disregard who is really at fault for the environmental crisis. Since 1988, only 100 companies have been responsible for 71% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and more than half of these can be traced to just 25 companies, including Exxon, Shell, BP, and Chevron (Riley, 2017). These companies are and will be responsible for catastrophic species extinction and global food scarcity over the next 30 years. Several billion people will have to and are already paying the price for a small number of state and private corporations to make record-breaking profits off oil. What’s even worse is that these corporations knew their potential impact on the global environment as far back as 1965, before the climate crisis (Taylor and Watts, 2019). Ecofasicists place the blame for climate change on population demographics rather than corporate groups and capitalism. Ecofasicists ignore the intertwining relationship between capitalist profits and environmental devastation. In a capitalist society, the consumption of goods is the center of everything (Reyes, 2019). The irrationality of it all is that it comes even at the expense of the state’s people and their wellbeing. Capitalism uses resources until it must transition or find new sources. From an environmentalist perspective, the resources are fossil fuels, and the consequence is environmental devastation and climate change. Ecofascism places this blame on the individual rather than the system as a whole. There are grave flaws with mindsets like this. Ecofascism has no place within the environmental movement. It is harmful and destructive to all human beings with an emphasis on those who identify as marginalized and non-white.

Now, this isn’t to say that every person who tweets or minimizes the impact of COVID-19 has the intention of being an ecofascist and is aware of the history and serious flaws within this mindset. It’s just to say that where there are unfathomable human tragedies, a dark, ecofascist side of environmentalism has always coexisted with it that ignores the overarching systemic issues that play a role. Until we call out the injustices in attributing environmental benefits to mass human loss, ecofascist tropes, unknowingly or not, are bound to rise and resurface in the midst of human calamities. The next time you see a post or tweet about the environmental benefits of shelter-in-place mandates, be careful and think about the potential and underlying repercussions of views like these on a broader, global, scale. Ecofascism does not have a place in the environmental movement, and well-meaning or not, articles and tweets with underlying ecofascist tropes should be scrutinized and called out.

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jacob-harger · 3 years

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“Devoid of any commitment to liberty”: How the CRG’s condemnation of the PM’s COVID-19 policy misses the point

Liberty. It’s a word we hear a lot in politics, usually in the context of it being defended from some perceived threat, and rarely with regards to a situation where it really is under attack. It’s beyond ironic that in the week that saw the House of Commons vote against legislation that would allow the High Court to determine whether a country was engaged in genocide in order to prohibit trade deals with it, an internal message from Steve Baker to the COVID Recovery Group (CRG) accusing the government of not having “any commitment to liberty” in its Coronavirus strategy surfaced. Baker, the mastermind of the ERG which sought to represent the hard brexiteer wing of the Conservative party, apparently saw no irony in criticising the government for its lack of interest in liberty, even as he supported its stance essentially to ignore the grave attack on Uighur liberties taking place in China, as to acknowledge it would compromise Britain’s ability to strike trade deals post-Brexit. It would appear that Baker is just as uncommitted to liberty as he argues the government’s pandemic policies are. It doesn’t matter that millions of Uighurs and other minorities are being identified, rounded up, and reportedly tortured and sterilised, because the good people of Britain are being kept indoors all day and only allowed out for a jog or to go to the shop, and that of course is a far graver assault on liberty than the fate of ethnic minorities, under a one-party dictatorship, on the other side of the world.

The CRG did largely support the latest round of government restrictions, in light of the emergence of a new, far more infectious strain of the virus in December, but as with all previous restrictions, have warned the government of the need to outline a roadmap out of them, keen to stress that their support is by no means guaranteed in future votes. Following the emergence of the internal message, despite explicitly arguing for Boris Johnson’s position to be considered at risk if their concerns were not heard, Baker issued a statement in support of the PM on Twitter, perhaps an indication that he realised the political toxicity of proposing an internal power struggle over the need to ease restrictions whilst daily death tolls were in excess of a thousand. Yet, this won’t be the last time that the idea of liberty is leveraged as a way of criticising the government’s COVID policies. More dangerously, it taps into the sentiments of fringe conspiracy groups on both sides of the political spectrum which see COVID as a hoax, are sceptical of the vaccine, and instead believe they are witnessing the formation of some kind of fascist dictatorship. These groups urge people to be sceptical of what they read and hear, instead sharing disinformation through social media in a phenomenon that could be described as the UK strain of a disinformation pandemic which has been devastating the political fabric of the US for some time. To have politicians with the kind of undeniable influence as Steve Baker, owing to his position at the helm of these factions of disgruntled Tory backbenchers, mirroring the language of these fringe groups in his attacks on government health policy is not just thoughtless, but irresponsible. By framing their critiques in the terminology of liberty and freedom, MPs will only further the cause of those outside mainstream politics who have been arguing that these are the things under attack by a ‘hoax’ pandemic. Spending as much time on social media over the last year we all have, it’s become unavoidable that there are an uncomfortably significant number of individuals who, to differing degrees, have expressed views that vary from mild scepticism to absolute denial toward COVID-19. Ideas of protecting liberty and freedom therefore don’t just give ammunition to extreme fringe views, but also feed into a more common sentiment that COVID isn’t serious enough to warrant draconian measures - something which was also fed enormously by both the Eat Out to Help Out scheme and the disastrous tier system which respectively disarmed and fragmented the public’s view of the pandemic.

However, not only does this obsession with grand ideas of liberty under siege undermine the counter-COVID effort by feeding into both disinformation and apathy, it also totally misses the crux of the problem with the government’s haphazard response to the crisis. Baker’s message gets close to the problem but fails to really engage with it when he writes that “nothing seems more certain to break the public than giving hope before taking it away, and doing it repeatedly.” This is absolutely true; the EOTHO scheme and accompanying relaxed messaging from the government about the virus over the summer was quite literally an exercise in behavioural science, designed to disarm the population sufficiently that they would go out, spend money and revitalise the ailing economy, especially the particularly decimated hospitality industry. The argument was that, so long as social distancing was enforced and changes made to how hospitality premises functioned, the sector could be saved from the brink and the economy could begin to heal. It worked - millions of us went out and relished the opportunity to recover a bit of normality which had been so sorely missed in the preceding months. It was easy to ignore voices of concern that the NHS was still facing an unparalleled winter crisis when you could catch up with friends over a half-price meal out at your favourite restaurant. It was, with hindsight, a strategy which instilled a false sense of optimism that proved difficult to withdraw from when, just as had been predicted by scientists for some time, cases began to rise again in the autumn. It also goes some way toward explaining why the government clung onto a ridiculous tier system for so long: both consumers and businesses were understandably unwilling to let go of the freedoms they had been granted earlier by the government.

Fast forward to the third national lockdown on the back of two periods of tiered restrictions, and it can safely be assumed that, in Baker’s words, the public has indeed been broken. Yet that’s not simply because they have been robbed of their freedoms, but rather because of the chaotic way in which restrictions have been put in place. The government used the grace period during the summer to encourage us into a new normal rather than highlighting its temporary nature sufficiently, and in the meantime totally failed to build effective infrastructure for contact tracing or mass testing which would have substantially cushioned the transition to the challenges posed by the coming winter. Even as it became clear following the emergence of a new variant prior to Christmas that drastic measures were required to save lives, the government believed it more important to give people the hope of spending Christmas with their loved ones (a luxury it didn’t afford numerous other religious holidays prior), than to act decisively based on the grave dangers it knew faced the country. The consequence has been death tolls that dwarf the first wave at precisely the worst moment for the NHS, which has been thrown into crisis as hospitals countrywide reach capacity.

So yes, Steve Baker is right, the country’s spirit has arguably been broken, but not because it’s been robbed of its liberty, but because as he points out it has time and time again been given false hope which has been nurtured by a government unwilling to take decisive action until events overtake it. However, when he seeks guarantees that a lockdown won’t be on the cards next winter, and that the government should have a clear roadmap out of the current restrictions in the spring, Baker and the CRG are a part of the very problem they are seeking to address, pursuing an optimistic narrative of relaxed restrictions at the earliest opportunity at the very same time as thousands are paying for a prior false sense of hope with their lives. This is the crux of the problem with the government’s COVID strategy, but it is something that the CRG’s obsession with liberty at all costs has helped happen.

#brexit #politics #uk politics #freelance #article #covid virus #COVID19 #lockdown #coronavirus #uk #boris johnson #government #uk government #policy #opinion #journalism

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louisdebraganza · 4 years

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I am writing to you from Italy, which means I am writing from the accelerated present of the pandemic. What started as a parallel dance among successive epidemics’ charts has become a chaos of separate choreographies. Depending on the country, the dance moves have been authoritarian, orderly and effective, fallible but humane, incompetent, in denial, abusive or even genocidal. The Covid-19 dancehall, however, is the same for everyone. Its walls are covered in mirrors. They are showing us who we really are and there’s no way we can avert our gaze.

The lifting of lockdown restrictions brings excitement, relief, anxiety, mistrust and trepidation. Some people will worry that it’s too soon, with the curve still far from being flat. They will stay put if they can, and wait and see. Others have decided that it’s over and will refuse to be stifled both in action and mood. It’s a landscape of ruins – grieving families, rising poverty, mental health crisis, the virus still roaming at large – but invisible for those who haven’t been directly affected. This will change soon.

There will be no lifting of lockdown for those at risk due to previous health conditions. They understand better than anyone else that the pandemic is far from over. Will they see the end of it alive?

Some healthcare workers will at last be reunited with toddlers who were beginning to forget their face. Others will have to remain quarantined so as to keep saving the lives of strangers. Both regard as a personal insult the word “hero” on the lips of elected officials whose policies curtailed their wages and made their shifts unnecessarily gruelling.

Teachers will be happy that nobody ever called them heroes, even though they’re the ones who’ve kept the public education systems running online; they too would appreciate better wages.

Long-fought gains in gender equality, which required the struggles of generations, have been obliterated in a day, as soon as working women were left without daycare centres.

Out of respect to the pain of others, many will hesitate to admit how much they enjoyed lockdown: its slowness, freedom from social pretence and the permission to be unproductive, to relinquish control.

Families and couples who avoided petty quarrels like sailors weathering a storm, who took good care of each other, may treasure forever all that unscheduled time together, like a precious gift. For others, instead, lockdown together was hell, but now, with even less money, where can they go?

Young people will rush out of isolation to finally have a good time, forgetting to wear their face masks. Older generations will say: “They are irresponsible, they only care about themselves, they are going to kill us all!” Young people will reply: “Let us remind you how you’ve handled climate change.”

The collective scale of events highlights the irrelevance of individuals. This will be embraced without qualms by the naturally empathic and by those women trained since childhood to put the needs of others before their own. It will shamefully confirm instead the secret low self-esteem of narcissists, and turn them into even more histrionic nuisances.All of the above also applies to world leaders. Some of whom, especially the inept ones, will sometimes curse their fate. Why didn’t this impossible mess fall into their predecessor’s lap?

The Covid-19 dancehall mirrors are hurling at our face the enormity of the world’s suffering – the decimated Amazon rainforest tribes, the jobless Indian labourer who walked for hundreds of miles towards his ancestral village, the homeless man who slept in the entrance of an office building until metal spikes were placed on the floor – and the understanding that we are all connected.

For many of us, this will make the world’s monstrous inequality increasingly unbearable, the environmental catastrophe something to be addressed at all costs, just like the cesspit of racialised history.

But not for all of us. “We struggle to pay our bills, we might be jobless soon and our wife just filed for divorce. Now, on top of all that, we are meant to feel guilty and repent?” The resentment at being defined as “privileged” will lead some of us to hate those whose existence reminds us that, yes, even if only relatively to them, we were dealt a better hand. And we’ll vote for anyone who promises to allow us to feel separate, superior and not responsible in any way for their pain.

Maybe one day we will look back at the quarantine confinement, regardless of how it was for us – traumatic, soothing or just plain odd – not at all like the exceptional experience we thought it was as we were living it. But more like the rehearsal before the dress rehearsal, well before the real drama.

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route22ny · 4 years

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“The moral crisis of poverty amid vast wealth is inseparable from the injustice of systemic racism, ecological devastation, and our militarized war economy.” by Rev. Dr. William Barber II, March 30, 2020. (complete text below)

***

The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, yet millions of American families have had to set up crowdfunding sites to try to raise money for their loved ones’ medical bills. Millions more can buy unleaded gasoline for their car, but they can’t get unleaded water in their homes. Almost half of America’s workers—whether in Appalachia or Alabama, California or Carolina—work for less than a living wage. And as school buildings in poor communities crumble for lack of investment, America’s billionaires are paying a lower tax rate than the poorest half of households.

This moral crisis is coming to a head as the coronavirus pandemic lays bare America’s deep injustices. While the virus itself does not discriminate, it is the poor and disenfranchised who will experience the most suffering and death. They’re the ones who are least likely to have health care or paid sick leave, and the most likely to lose work hours. And though children appear less vulnerable to the virus than adults, America’s nearly forty million poor and low-income children are at serious risk of losing access to food, shelter, education, and housing in the economic fallout from the pandemic.

The underlying disease, in other words, is poverty, which was killing nearly 700 of us every day in the world’s wealthiest country, long before anyone had heard of COVID-19.

The moral crisis of poverty amid vast wealth is inseparable from the injustice of systemic racism, ecological devastation, and our militarized war economy. It is only a minority rule sustained by voter suppression and gerrymandering that subverts the will of the people. To redeem the soul of America—and survive a pandemic—we must have a moral fusion movement that cuts across race, gender, class, and cultural divides.

The United States has always been a nation at odds with its professed aspirations of equality and justice for all—from the genocide of original inhabitants to slavery to military aggression abroad. But there have been periods in our history when courageous social movements have made significant advances. We must learn from those who’ve gone before us as we strive to build a movement that can tackle today’s injustices—and help all of us survive.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, African Americans who had just escaped slavery joined with white allies to form coalitions that won control of nearly every southern legislature. These Reconstruction-era political alliances enacted new constitutions that advanced moral agendas, including, for the first time, the right to public education.

During the Great Depression, farmers, workers, veterans, and others rose up to demand bold government action to ease the pain of the economic crisis on ordinary Americans. This led to New Deal policies, programs, and public works projects that we still benefit from today, such as Social Security and basic labor protections.

Pushed by these movements, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt even called in 1944 for an economic bill of rights, declaring: “We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.”

During what I like to call the “Second Reconstruction” over the following decades, a coalition of blacks and progressive whites began dismantling the racist Jim Crow laws and won key legislative victories, including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act.

With each period of advancement has come a formidable backlash. This is how we find ourselves today, in the year 2020, with levels of economic inequality as severe as during the original Gilded Age a century ago. Since the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby decision, Americans have had fewer voting rights protections than we did fifty-five years ago, while thanks to the earlier Citizens United ruling, corporations can invest unlimited sums of money to influence elections.

In response to fair tax reforms, the wealthy have used their economic clout to slash their IRS bills, cutting the top marginal income tax rate from more than 90 percent in the 1950s to 37 percent today. In response to the hard-fought wins of the labor movement, corporate lobbyists have rammed through one anti-worker law after another, slashing the share of U.S. workers protected by unions nearly in half, from 20.1 percent in 1983 to just 10.5 percent in 2018.

Decades after Depression-era reforms, Wall Street fought successfully to deregulate the financial system, paving the way for the 2008 financial crash that caused millions to lose their homes and livelihoods. And the ultra-rich and big corporations have also managed to dominate our campaign finance system, making it easier for them to buy off politicians who commit to rigging the rules against the poor and the environment, and to suppress voting rights, making it harder for the poor to fight back.

Our military budgets continue to rise, now grabbing more than fifty-three cents of every discretionary federal dollar to pay for wars abroad and pushing our ability to pay for health care for all, for a Green New Deal, for jobs and education, and infrastructure, further and further away.

In short, the official measure of poverty doesn’t begin to touch the depth and breadth of economic hardship in the world’s wealthiest nation, where 40 percent of us can’t afford a $400 emergency.

The wars that those military budgets fund continue to escalate. They don’t make us safer, and they’ve led to the deaths of thousands of poor people in Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, and beyond, as well as the displacement of millions of refugees, the destruction of water sources, and the contamination of the environments of whole countries.

The only ones who benefit are the millionaire CEOs of military companies, who are getting richer every year on the more than $350 billion—half the military budget—that goes directly to their corporations. In the meantime 23,000 low-ranking troops earn so little that they and their families qualify for food stamps.

Key to these rollbacks: controlling the narrative about who is poor in America and the world. It is in the interest of the greedy and the powerful to perpetuate myths of deservedness—that they deserve their wealth and power because they are smarter and work harder, while the poor deserve to be poor because they are lazy and intellectually inferior.

It’s also in their interest to perpetuate the myth that the poverty problem has largely been solved and so we needn’t worry about the rich getting richer—even while our real social safety net is full of gaping holes. This myth has been reinforced by our deeply flawed official measurements of poverty and economic hardship.

The way the U.S. government counts who is poor and who is not, frankly, is a sixty-year-old mess that doesn’t tell us what we need to know. It’s an inflation-adjusted measure of the cost of a basket of food in 1955 relative to household income, adjusted for family size—and it’s still the way we measure poverty today.

But this measure doesn’t account for the costs of housing, child care, or health care, much less twenty-first-century needs like internet access or cell phone service. It doesn’t even track the impacts of anti- poverty programs like Medicaid or the earned income tax credit, obscuring the role they play in reducing poverty.

In a report with the Institute for Policy Studies, the Poor People’s Campaign found that nearly 140 million Americans were poor or low-income—including more than a third of white people, 40 percent of Asian people, approximately 60 percent each of indigenous people and black people, and 64 percent of Latinx people. LGBTQ people are also disproportionately affected.

Further, the very condition of being poor in the United States has been criminalized through a system of racial profiling, cash bail, the myth of the Reagan-era “Welfare Queen,” arrests for things such as laying one’s head on a park bench, passing out food to unsheltered people, and extraordinary fines and fees for misdemeanors such as failing to use a turn signal, and simply walking while black or trans.

We are a nation crying out for security, equity, and justice. We need racial equity. We need good jobs. We need quality public education. We need a strong social safety net. We need health care to be understood as a human right for all of us. We need security for people living with disabilities. We need to be a nation that opens our hearts and neighborhoods to immigrants. We need safe and healthy environments where our children can thrive instead of struggling to survive.

With the coronavirus pandemic bringing our country’s equally urgent poverty crisis into stark relief, we cannot simply wait for change. It must come now.

America is an imperfect nation, but we have made important advancements against interconnected injustices in the past.

We can do it again, and we know how. Now is the time to fight for the heart and soul of this democracy.

***

Rev. Dr. William Barber II is a co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A Call for Moral Revival.

Read more by Rev. Dr. William Barber II

Source: https://progressive.org/magazine/real-epidemic-poverty-barber/

Note: the title of this article, and the purpose of this post, is not meant to diminish the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic in any way.

#poverty in america #rigged economy #covid19 #rev dr william barber II

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rfschatten · 4 years

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COVID-19 & the Rise of Prairie Populism

“By Failing to Prepare, you are Preparing to Fail” ~~~ Benjamin Franklin

We have arrived at the most critical moral point of this Pandemic Crisis. Where the Economy and the Health Crisis are beginning to collide with each other.

Yes, something has to be done to keep the economy running …the little businesses are suffering the most, and do have a good legitimate reason to re-open. Wall Street & Corporate America wants it open for their own greedy reasons. And Donald Trump desperately wants to open up, the most! His re-election hangs on his chance of a good economy …cause if he loses, they’re going to take him and “lock him up”!

On the other side of this moral dilemma, you have thousands that soon will be in the hundreds of thousands of Deaths, and Millions who eventually may easily become hundreds of million Infected by COVID-19.

One side wants to keep enforcing CDC Protocol cause they value human life and will observe all protocols till it’s over. On the other side, almost everyone values human life, too …but financial stress, and different situations are forcing some to look at things a little differently. Things not normally thought about. How many deaths are “acceptable” for the country, that they can get back to work?

For a while Trump & Pence have been saying; Soon, we all have to make some tough decisions on life and death. Chris Christie publicly said; 3,000 Deaths/Day is acceptable collateral damage to keep the Economy running. The Federal Government wants the economy to succeed at all costs, and to overshadow the Pandemic, …cause that’s Trump’s eminent Waterloo.

And for the economy to succeed, the US Gov’t prefers to accept the notion of acceptable “collateral damage” …like in a Nuclear Attack? That’s Trump’s Capitalism!

We, the People are just a “commodity” in a Trump Economy post-COVID019.

An Administration that intents to phase down the Medical portion of their Pandemic policies and begin the Economic Recovery phase, as soon as possible …while people are still dying daily by the thousands…is simply committing Public Policy Genocide. As Yale Epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves said; “What else do you call mass deaths by public policy”?

The Federal Government pretty much is saying; Americans can be sacrificed in order for the economy to grow.

The problem this stable genius can’t understand is; the Millions infected, and pretty soon the hundreds of Millions are not going out anywhere for a while, or on any type of shopping spree! …not until this Virus is taken care of and stopped, the Nation is not going to economically recover!

The value of Human Life? or the value of the US Dollar? That’s the moral of the story of what 2020 is all about!

Donald Trump wants to own the moment, he wants to be the almighty superhero who saved America from a catastrophic global pandemic. When he, and he alone knows how to stop the viral infection …and all his followers, will eventually follow him straight off the cliff!

Why are Batshit Trumpers considered America’s Village Idiots?

In a recent poll, 90% of Republicans trust Trump for COVID-19 information rather than the CDC & all Medical Professionals!

When you believe a man who publicly has made more than 18,000+ lies in 3 years, over Medical professionals …yes! you will die! But, not for your country or not for your family, but for someone who only cares ‘if’ you live, for your vote in November.

The Donald’s biggest problem? He never expected anything like this to occur, a crisis that transcends politics and transcends his life of lies. A crisis where he really does have to become and act presidential, be a true leader & show some leadership …but, he’s clueless on how to lead…and no one cares about his rhetorical bullshit anymore. He knows he’s out of his league, out of his element …he’s like a fish out of water …everything is way over his head, and he just doesn’t know how to handle it.

REALITY just bitch slapped the TV Reality Superstar. Let me introduce myself…hope you guess my name!

At a time when the country might forgive him, even just a little, and give him his just due if he only just comes out honest and truthful with the population …his demented mind pushes harder to make people hate him even more!

Trying to intimidate Governors and civic leaders with his quid pro quo’s…you do this for me and we’ll give you what you need. Intimidating everyone into opening the Nation up for business ASAP, to quickly recover the economy so he can get re-elected.

Making the States suffer without supplying the needed equipment or the needed Tests, and only giving them the bare minimum unless they all kiss his big, not so lovely tush.

But, nothing’s worse than the most disgusting thing our Gov’t has ever done to any of the States during a state of emergency. Making States go into a bidding war …in the middle of a pandemic! …for supplies against other States, Foreign Governments, Corporations, and even the U.S. Government, itself?!?!

The States are literally on their own… a Federal Government that says; “I take no responsibility whatsoever”. A Federal Government that says; We won’t lead you, we’ll just back you up.

2 Governors, a Democrat, and a Republican secretly ordered and sent planes to pick-up their desperately needed Medical Supplies from China. Secretly, because they’re both afraid of Trump confiscating it, and taking it to boost their own National Stockpile Supply.

The V.A. bought 5 million masks for Veterans and VA Hospitals across the country. FEMA confiscated it all and took it to boost Trump’s National Stockpile. Meanwhile, people are continuously dying and no one’s getting the needed masks!

The plane trips were secretly kept. But Larry Hogan, the GOP Governor of Maryland, went one up to secure the needed (500,000) Test Kits, and has them secretly stashed away and guarded by the “National Guard” & the “Maryland State Police” so the Feds don’t take them away!

You can’t make up shit like this, folks!

Now, he won’t give sanctuary Cities the emergency funding they desperately need, unless they remove the sanctuary status and permit ICE to round-up “Illegal” Immigrants.

When has any State or anyone ever gone through such cruel extreme measures? When has the American Government ever treated its Citizens with so much disdain and disrespect? And even worse, during such catastrophic times of health & human crisis?

He’s been working on plans to keep everything open since the Virus arrived when advised of the possibility of states and cities closing down.

For 70 days he jerked the Nation around trying to make believe the Virus was a hoax, all to keep his economy from collapsing.

Opening the country up is against his own official White House Policy! Against the advice of the CDC! the advice of Dr. Fauci, Dr. Redfield, Dr. Birx, & Doctors everywhere!

His obsession with irresponsibly pushing a Malaria drug for this Viral infection …against the recommendation of all Medical Professionals. Though it’s not hard to see why he’s pushing it like if he was the star spokesman for the company. Wonder how much money, stock, or what kind of deal Trump/Kushner Inc. has invested in the maker of Hydroxychloroquine …Mylan Pharmaceutical?

Now, he’s gone off his rocker once again…only this time it veers into the extreme far side of the bizarre! His latest push? Injecting yourself with disinfectants, including bleach!

Also, Injecting yourself with a tiny UV light that will miraculously kill the Virus in your bloodstream …I suppose if you believe that crock of horseshit! You only inject yourself with disinfectants if you’re committing suicide …cause that’s what will happen!

And he still considers himself a stable genius?

The next day, he tried to push it back, saying he was just kidding with the press …when a replay of the press conference showed him directing his spiel directly at Dr. Birx.

Nothing has gone right since he was sworn in. The Russians hacking the elections, the Ukraine scandal, all his women scandals, all his daily scandals, all the embarrassments throughout the world, all the fiasco that occurs no matter where he goes or what he does …and naturally, his Impeachment for life!

Now, a massive gigantic screw-up of devastating proportions that might very well end his presidency. Yes, his natural stupidity can be a factor …but this professional Puppet appears to be on the loose & on his own …and that, really is dangerous.

What are his motives?

His top priority …opening up the country and build up the economy at “all cost”, over a deadly Viral infection that can potentially kill in the millions. His priority is the Economy …no matter how many people die. It’s not his concern as he keeps saying; “I am not responsible at all”. Who cares how many people die? …not this President!

Telling people to Free their States and gather in mass which would immediately triple the population of Positive Tests …he keeps misrepresenting the truth. telling people he’s doing a ‘tremendous job’ and while keeping the virus down to only 30,000 deaths, then to 50,000, now that’s he’s doing such a good job, he’s going to contain the virus down to only 100,000 deaths.

A typical Trump trait…brag how stupid he is to the only people who will believe his horseshit. Now, by getting his minions to protest their Constitutional rights of not wearing any protective gear, the real Professionals are talking about the real possibility of hundreds of millions testing positive and millions dying.

He started a Prairie Fire telling his 2nd Amendment followers for an armed uprising over their States …calling for a rebellion against a State Government is sedition, and for the President to suggests people to rebel, that’s “Treason”!

While all along purposely lying, misleading, or delaying all the millions of test kits, which is the Federal Government’s total responsibility of distributing!

Donald Trump doesn’t want any more Test Kits! …he doesn’t want the public to see how many more people are infected! It’s not conducive to his top & only priorities …making money and getting re-elected.

Gloria Steinham once said; “The Truth will set you free, but first, it will piss you off”.

The reason Trump’s having more and more meltdowns during this Pandemic is that he’s continuously pissed off …no one believes his lies anymore …and he knows it.

The Truth hurts when you know and you’re forced to privately admit, you really are a nobody! …when your emotional and delusional bubble of illusions burst and you’re faced with the reality of life.

That’s when Trump realized he really does own the moment…lock, stock, & barrel!

And there’s no way out …he can remain in self-denial, but whether he likes it or not, he’s totally responsible for all the Positive Viral Cases and totally responsible for all the Deaths.

He can’t blame it on anybody this time, though Obama is always his usual target for one thing or another …it’s all happened in the 3 yrs of his Presidency..during his watch!

Hey, Donald! You wanted to be President? You got it! It’s your job, now go out and work for the first time in your life and do it right, or in November …’ you’ will be Fired!

The first Human Coronavirus was discovered in the 1960s …more recently, the 2002–2004 SARS Pandemic outbreak & 2012 MERS Pandemic, raged havoc.

Medical Scientists and Epidemiologists from the US had been closely working together with their Chinese counterparts in China for a long time (till Trump removed them in 2020) They’ve been tracking a new strain until they finally traced it to Wuhan 3 years later.

How bad would this Pandemic have been if a prepared Nation would’ve been notified since 2016?

It happened on his watch …and he knew about it the whole damn time!

He was warned more than a couple dozen times since 2016. First, during the transition period in 2016. the Pandemic policies from the Obama Administration, including supplies and preparedness guidelines were explained and passed on to the Trump Administration. They were told that a new little known strain of Coronavirus, totally different from the last two, was out there …but they haven’t traced it to anywhere, yet!

In 2018 he was warned at least twice, that’s when he fired the White House Pandemic Team. He was warned again over a dozen times in 2019.

1. Why would he fire medical experts on Pandemics with a Global Pandemic outbreak about to explode in the United States?

2. And now that it’s here, and knowing the gravity of the situation …why fire Dr. Rick Bright, the man who was on the development end of the COVID-19 Vaccine, right in his tracks? …while 82,000+ die and over 1.4 Million identified, out of all the unidentified hundreds of millions that are getting Infected daily?

3. Why did he warn Israel of the incoming Pandemic in November of 2019? yet, didn’t warn the American Public till 70 days after he was warned again by the CDC on Jan. 3rd, 2020, confirming the imminent arrival of COVID-19? The CDC officially warned the American public on Jan. 8th, 2020.

4. Why did the Administration’s Health & Human Services turn down an offer on Jan. 22nd…the day after the 1st US Coronavirus case was identified…from Texas’ Prestige Ameritech, the largest surgical face mask producer in the United States…to manufacture 1.7 Million N95 Masks per week?

Why is Donald Trump deliberately doing all of this? Does he really believe his own stable genius BS? Is it all his natural incompetence? This man may be a degenerate psychopathic screaming narcissist …but someone is pulling this puppet’s strings!

When you have a blatant lifelong coward who never takes responsibility for any of his actions, his failures, or his blunders …you’re going to see a lot of Psychological Projection …blame anybody or everybody for everything he ever does. No one in History can psychologically project any better than Bonespurs Donny!

And no one has had more conspiracy theories about everything imaginable in just 3 years, than this faker. His latest blame game? He blames China for developing a man-made Virus in their labs, which has been debunked by our own intelligence agencies, the CDC, WHO, as well as the medical professionals in his Task Force, and experts around the world.

He’s also blaming the World Health Organization for not warning him early enough …I guess 2016, 2018, 2019, & 2020 is not early enough!

All these Red State Governors are more interested in making a fast buck than the health of their constituents…they’re opening up their States to everything, as more and more people start ignoring rules and trying to go back to the old normal. Revolt against authority for the right to” go back to work”.

So far, a few are opening but the smell of spring air, the lure of the heat, and hoping for a nice summer breeze is too fascinating to pass up, causing all these people to congregate in the parks and the beaches, refusing to follow medical advice.

Take all these people, and add the ignorance of NeoNazis & gun-toting Batshit Trumpers…those that Trump calls “very good people”, just like the “Very Fine People” in Charlottesville.

They hear their beloved leader subliminally order them to go and cause havoc by “liberating” Michigan and other States …and off they go with no respect to whom they hurt or infect.

The latest projections on how many will die during the summer, now that Trump is allowing America (against all Medical advice & recommendations) to open up …an estimate of over 3,000 deaths daily through the summer with the infection rate in the hundreds of millions, assured. All for spending a day frolicking on the beach.

And now, when Trump’s beloved MAGA followers get pissed off and angry with cries for help as more and more get sick, and more and more start dying of COVID-19 ...what will he do?

How will Donald, who’s a man with absolutely zero empathy or compassion, an anti-altruistic human being, and a sociopath with a seriously severe “schadenfreude” complex …respond to these people?

You have his minions, those too stupid who’ll still follow him of that cliff, and you have those who’ll refuse to jump, turning on him, and try to stay alive! How will he respond? …how will he answer them without pissing off one side or the other?

When everyone else acts with dignity & respect …expect this fool to be his normal self. Pity his beloved supporters.

But just remember, all you good Trumpers; “I take no responsibility at all”!

So! America, wake up and smell the coffee! Stop living life in self-denial …and face the reality of COVID-19.

1st, STOP LISTENING to Politicos who have absolutely no experience, knowledge, or any idea whatsoever in Medicine to give you advise and updates …especially Trump, with his agenda of lies, misinformation, and misleading statements, all along while pushing a Malaria Drug that hasn’t been proven it works, although it’s proven that it kills. Also, all his Lysol, Clorox, and UV light cockamamie injections!

2nd, START LISTENING to the Medical Professionals and Medical Scientists, who know what they’re doing, people like Rick Bright, Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, and Bob Redfield!

The awful truth about COVID-19: Only 2.95% of our 350 million population has been tested …so, how many more than the current 1.4 million that tested positive are going to be “Positive” too? -

This bug is not going anywhere, anytime soon! It’s not going away for summer vacation, it’s not going to be gone with the wind, it’s not going to be here today and gone tomorrow, it’s not going to just be gone one day as the President tries to convince his base …and it’s not going to magically disappear one day, as Trump says; “It’s going to go away without a vaccine”!

COVID-19 is here to stay! It’s going to be our guest for a year or two, or more …remember, it will not ever be eradicated until a Vaccine is found!

Don’t fight the new normal, just go with the flow …the quicker We, the People use our natural intellect and do things right, the quicker we can get back to the old normal.

So! If you want to stay alive through 2020 and beyond? …Remember, November!

#Coronavirus #covid-19 #Donald Trump #Pandemic #2020 election #genocide #CDC #world health organisation coronavirus #coronavirus deaths #virus

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stephenmccull · 3 years

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Amid Covid Health Worker Shortage, Foreign-Trained Professionals Sit on Sidelines

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As hospitals nationwide struggle with the latest covid-19 surge, it’s not so much beds or ventilators in short supply. It’s the people to care for the sick.

Yet a large, highly skilled workforce of foreign-educated doctors, nurses and other health practitioners is going largely untapped due to licensing and credentialing barriers. According to the Migration Policy Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., some 165,000 foreign-trained immigrants in the U.S. hold degrees in health-related fields but are unemployed or underemployed in the midst of the health crisis.

Many of these workers have invaluable experience dealing with infectious disease epidemics such as SARS, Ebola or HIV in other countries yet must sit out the covid pandemic.

The pandemic highlights licensing barriers that predate covid, but many believe it can serve as a wake-up call for state legislatures to address the issue for this crisis and beyond. Already, five states — Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey and New York — have adapted their licensing guidelines to allow foreign-trained health care workers to lend their lifesaving skills amid pandemic-induced staff shortages.

“These really are the cabdrivers, the clerks, the people who walk your dog,” said Jina Krause-Vilmar, CEO of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit that helps immigrant professionals enter the U.S. workforce. “They also happen to be doctors and nurses in their home countries, and they’re just not able to plug and play into the system as it’s set up.”

That’s left doctors such as Sussy Obando, a 29-year-old from Colombia, jumping through hoops to become physicians in the U.S. In 2013, she graduated after six years of medical school in Colombia, then spent a year treating patients in underserved communities. But when Obando arrived in the U.S., her credentials and experience weren’t enough.

While licensure guidelines vary by state, foreign-trained doctors typically must pass a medical licensing exam costing more than $3,500, and then complete at least a year of on-the-job training, known as a residency, in the U.S. For many, including Obando, that means brushing up on their English and learning the relevant medical terminology. She also needed U.S. clinical experience to qualify for a residency, something U.S.-trained doctors achieve through rotations during medical school.

“If you don’t know anyone in this field, you have to go door to door to find somebody to give you the opportunity to rotate,” Obando said.

She tried emailing Hispanic doctors she found online to ask if she could complete a rotation with one of them. She ended up paying $750 to enter a psychiatry rotation at the University of Texas McGovern Medical School in Houston.

“I tried to go into internal medicine,” Obando said. “But because psychiatry was less expensive, I have to go for that.”

She also worked for almost a year as a volunteer at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, and is now assisting with clinical trials for covid vaccines at the Texas Center for Drug Development. She’s applied for a residency through a national program that matches medical school graduates with residency slots. But it’s difficult for foreign-trained physicians to secure a spot, because many are earmarked for U.S. med school graduates. And many residency programs are open only to recent graduates, not those who finished medical school years ago.

“It’s competitive for people who trained in the United States to get into a residency program. If you’re trained outside the United States, it’s even harder,” said Jacki Esposito, director of U.S. policy and advocacy for World Education Services, a nonprofit that helps immigrants find jobs in the U.S. and Canada.

That’s why states such as Colorado have eased the requirement for a residency during the pandemic. Early on, Colorado officials realized they couldn’t license doctors and other health workers because covid lockdowns had canceled required licensing exams. Under an executive order from Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in April, state officials created a temporary licensing program allowing medical school graduates to begin practicing under supervision for six months, and then extended it through June 2021.

Officials created a similar pathway to temporary licensure for foreign medical school graduates who lacked the minimum year of residency.

Colorado also created temporary licenses for foreign-trained nurses, certified nurse’s aides, physician assistants and many other health professionals. All of those licenses require supervision from a licensed professional and are valid only as long as the governor’s public health emergency declaration remains in effect.

The state relaxed the scope-of-practice rules for those health workers, too, allowing them to perform any task their supervisors assign to them.

“So if you’re an occupational therapist, you can give vaccinations as long as they are delegating to you and they’re confident you have the skill and knowledge,” said Karen McGovern, deputy director of legal affairs for the professions and occupations division at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. “You can exceed your statutory skill and practice to what needs to be done during the pandemic.”

Through mid-December, the state had received 36 applications from foreign-trained doctors seeking temporary licenses, although only one applicant met all the criteria. New Jersey, on the other hand, received more than 1,100 applications for temporary medical licenses last year. (Michigan also issued an executive order allowing temporary licenses, but it was later rescinded.)

Many of the medical professionals stuck on the sidelines have unique skills and experience that would be invaluable during the pandemic. Victor Ladele, 44, finished medical school in Nigeria and treated patients during a drought in Niger in 2005, in the midst of the Darfur genocide in Sudan in 2007 and after a civil war in Liberia in 2010. His family moved to the U.S. a few years later, but Ladele was recruited to help with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. What he thought would be a three-month stay turned into a two-year mission.

Now back in Edmond, Oklahoma, working with a U.N. program that helps new business ventures get off the ground, Ladele has found that the challenges of the covid pandemic parallel many of his past experiences. He saw how a program for Ebola contact tracing told people with a cough or fever to call a hotline, which would direct them to a care center. But as soon as the initiative went live, rumors began to spread on social media that European doctors at the care centers were harvesting organs. It took months of outreach to tribal and religious leaders to instill confidence in the system.

He’s seen similar misinformation spread about covid and masks.

“If, in Oklahoma, the public health officials had done outreach to all the pastors in the churches and gained their support for masking, would there be more people using masks?” Ladele said.

Ideally, he said, he would like to spend about half his time seeing patients, but the licensing process remains a challenge.

“It’s not unsurmountable,” he said. But “when I think of all the hurdles to credentialing here, I’m not really sure it’s worth the effort.”

Upwardly Global helps health professionals navigate that unfamiliar application and credentialing system. Many foreign-trained health workers have never had to write résumés or interview for jobs.

While the pandemic has temporarily eased entry in five states, Krause-Vilmar and others believe it could be a model to address workforce shortages in underserved areas across the country. As of September, the federal Health Resources and Services Administration had designated more than 7,300 health care shortage areas, requiring an additional 15,000 health care practitioners.

“We’ve had a crisis in access to health care, especially in rural areas, in this country for a long time,” she said. “How do we start imagining what that would look like in terms of more permanent licenses for these folks who are helping us recover and rebuild?”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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frankmwilliams25 · 4 years

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Legislative Report from House District 6

Dear Friends & Neighbors,

It’s hard to believe that 73 days have passed since the Legislature temporarily adjourned due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that we’re now back in Session. Just a few updates on where we stand and what the rest of Session looks like.

COVID-19: WHERE WE STAND

The whole world has changed.

The United States has lost over 100,000 people—friends, family members, and co-workers. At least 1,008 of these deaths occurred here in Colorado. As a State, we’ve had over 24,000 cases, seen 4,119 people hospitalized, and suffered over 260 outbreaks. The New York Times aptly described the losses this past weekend as “incalculable.”

Meanwhile our doctors and nurses have proven themselves to be honest to goodness mask-wearing heroes. Our parents, students, and teachers are finishing up remote learning, uncertain of what the Fall holds but saddled with the reality that Summer will be marked by an absence of camps, sports, exploration and fun. Our essential workers—including our bus drivers, grocery clerks, and plant workers—have courageously put themselves in harm’s way to keep supplies, food, and equipment moving. Our small businesses are fighting for survival.

For many of us, life has shifted to Zoom calls and Google hangouts. Socializing has completely new meaning and rules. Just going to Target or the grocery store now is a wholly different experience.

And while I think the Governor has done an exemplary job managing this crisis, we need to do better as a State. Our testing rates are low (second to last, actually) and yet our mortality numbers are high (we rank 13th per 1 million in population). We owe the people of Colorado our very best, and as we reopen I’m committed to working with Governor Polis and my colleagues in both parties to ensure Colorado is leads the Nation in the fight to contain the virus.

On the economic front, you’ve likely seen the headlines and already know: the forecast is horrifyingly dark. Nearly 40 million Americans are out of work. While Federal spending through the CARES Act has helped (more on that below), the shortfall is simply too great. We’ve gone from debates about new programs to severe budget cuts totaling $3.1 billion, and no portion of the State budget will be spared. Indeed, this will likely force us to consider deep cuts to K-12 education, Higher Ed, and State contributions to PERA.

It is against this backdrop that the Legislature officially returned to work this AM. Here is what the remainder of the session will look like.

THE REMAINDER OF THE SESSION

The remainder of the Session will focus intensely on responding effectively to the COVID-19 crisis and passing the budget.

First, the House Chamber looks completely different. We have dividers up to keep us safe and members may participate in Second and Third Readings of bills via remote participation. It is good to be reunited with colleagues, but it’s also kinda trippy:

Refusal By Some Members to Wear Masks Plastic Dividers Have Been Installed On The House Floor…Especially Necessary Given the

As for legislation there are still three main “buckets” to think about: (1) bills that address our State response to the COVID-19 pandemic, (2) bills that we are required by law to address, including the budget (and orbital bills) and school finance formula, and (3) bills that were in the pipeline and can still be passed without fanfare or fighting (there simply isn’t time).

Starting with the first group, I have spent the past 10+ weeks working tirelessly with my colleagues in both chambers to ensure that our values are seen and heard through our response to the crisis. We have focused on housing issues, mental healthcare, and protecting workers and consumers. This includes bills to extend the foreclosure and eviction moratoria for individuals and small businesses impacted by COVID-19 as well as a new federally funded rental and mortgage assistance fund. We are also working on steering federal dollars to improve mental health for students impacted by the virus.

As for the bills we are required to address, including the budget and the school finance formula, this is where the hard decisions are going to be made and tough votes taken. As you may have read, the cuts are going to be deep and felt by everyone. At the same time, I am very concerned about where things are headed. Unless and until federal law changes, the CARES Act money cannot be used to make up for our budget shortfalls now that revenues have plunged. This ban on using the money to “backfill” the budget means that the cuts will appear worse than they are.

For example, the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) has proposed cutting K-12 education by $724 million. This could be offset somewhat by $510 million in emergency CARES spending, but there will still need to be cuts. During the last recession teachers were asked to absorb HUGE cuts which we never paid back—known as the negative factor or budget stabilization (BS) factor. Ensuring we don’t revisit that will likely trigger a debate about suspending, at least temporarily, the senior homestead property exemption—something I oppose vigorously.

We may very well need in the end, especially given the limitations imposed on us through TABOR, to make painful and difficult decisions that impact our schools and retirees. My commitment to you is to first search everywhere else for alternative funds, to leave no stone unturned—including looking into closing tax loopholes and other deductions—and to lobby my colleagues to explore these other options before we finance this calamity (again) on the backs of teachers, students, and seniors. It may not be enough. We could close $400 million in breaks and still need to cut. But I’m going to fight to close the loopholes first.

Related to the budget is the School Finance Act. I am going to advocate for a more equitable distribution of our limited resources. One way to do this is by reducing the formula’s reliance on cost-of-living, a factor that leads the State to give more money to Aspen then neighboring Lake County.

Finally, there are bills that were in the works and can still be passed. We are all weary of protracted political fights—the consensus is to find consensus and work together like adults to address the pandemic. In that spirit, some the more non-controversial bills will be advanced. I continue to work, for example, with Representatives Michaelson-Jenet and Sirota on the Holocaust & Genocide Studies in Public Schools Act, HB20-1336. The response to the crisis by certain groups has been marred by anti-Semitism and anti-Asian rhetoric and actions, and we must equip the next generation of Coloradans with the knowledge and skills to promote American values of acceptance, courage, and freedom.

The next several weeks are going to be long and difficult. The decisions we make are going to have reverberations for the next several years (which will also be painful, especially 2021). But we MUST keep the needs of vulnerable Coloradans at the top of our priorities.

It is an honor to serve you. Through the hard times and the good. As the ancient adage holds, this, too, shall pass.

Until then, I remain yours with humility, gratitude, and respect,

Steven Woodrow Representative, House District 6 (720) 400-8107

The post Legislative Report from House District 6 appeared first on Cranmer Park/Hilltop Civic Association.

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bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue · 3 years

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✈️ what is your dream city and why? 🌠 if you were in charge of the world, what would the world look like? ☁️ talk about your dream universe. ☀️ what do you like the most about your best friend? (emoji asks; sorry if a bit late)

No problem! Thanks so much for the ask, anon! And if it’s okay with you, I’m going to combine 🌠 and ☁️ into one and put my answer to that at the end, since it’s a bit long. And by “a bit long,” I mean VERY long. For which I apologize.

✈️ What is your dream city and why?

I’m afraid this isn’t going to be a very deep answer, but I’ve always wanted to visit somewhere in Italy—maybe Rome or Venice—to see its beautiful culture, architecture, art, and music. (Although the only Italian I know comes from sheet music—forte, allegro, ritardando.) Barcelona would also be a beautiful place to travel to, and I’d actually know the language there!

Also, my 12-year-old Anglophile self is telling me to put London, so I’ll put that too.

☀️ What do you like the most about your best friend?

I’m going to talk about two of my best IRL friends here. (As far as I know, neither of them are on Tumblr.) I’ve known them both since elementary school; I saw them both recently at my graduation party, and it just reminded me of how much I love them.

One, who’s probably my oldest friend of all (I’ve known her since second grade), is seriously the kindest, nicest person you’ll ever meet. She always tries to see the best in everyone and always has a kind word for someone; the people she loves, she loves with her whole heart. I sometimes feel like I don’t deserve her!

The other one, I love because she’s not afraid to be herself, with her kooky sense of humor and her creativity and her absolute passion for the things she loves (film production, D&D, theatre, classical music). She knows who she is and is confident and unapologetic about it; I can only wish for that kind of confidence. She’s going to Florida in the fall to study film production and acting, and I just know she’ll thrive.

☁️ Talk about your dream universe, and 🌠 if you were in charge of the world, what would the world look like?

(I’ve combined these because if I was all-powerful and had control of the world, it would probably look a lot like my dream universe. Some of these will involve alterations of science and of human biology—I’m basically playing God here, pretending I have ultimate control of the Earth Control Panel. And, of course, this is by no means a complete list and it’s coming from the mind of a naïve, inexperienced 17-year-old girl [it almost reads like a writing prompt for a school assignment, as I read back over it], so please keep that in mind as you read this list.)

First I’d look at a lot of the current crises in the world and, with a snap of my magical finger, solve them all. For instance: No more Flint water crisis or famine in Yemen. No more genocide or concentration camps anywhere. The COVID-19 pandemic is officially over; everyone is immune to the disease, or at least everyone has easy access to working vaccinations in the foreseeable future so they can be immune, and those who currently have it or are suffering from complications of it are miraculously cured. Also, there are no more anti-maskers or anti-vaxxers.

I’d look at all the terminal illnesses—cancer, AIDS, dementia, advanced heart and lung diseases, etc.—and either declare them to just not exist anymore, so that everyone in the world who currently has them makes a miraculous and painless recovery, or create some sort of cure for each one that’s without major complications and easy to acquire and administer for everyone in the world who needs it. I can do that. I’m God now.

More ongoing, insidious problems like systemic racism would probably be harder for me to fix, even if I was God. But in my dream universe which I’m in charge of, there would be no prejudice or hatred, and everyone would be free to live freely as who they are. Everywhere in the world, LGBTQ+ people are allowed to marry whomever they want and present however they want, without fear of prejudice, discrimination, or arrest. Everyone in the world is free to practice their own religion and beliefs (provided it doesn’t hurt anyone). Those with disabilities are treated without prejudice while also having easy access to whatever medical aid, adaptive devices, etc. they need to live a healthy, successful life. Women can live their lives without fear of sexualization, sexual assault, or r*pe. Racial minorities can live their lives without fear of discrimination, hate crimes, or being killed just for the color of their skin. On that note, police brutality just doesn’t exist anymore, and the American police system has been heavily reformed so that cops really, truly keep everyone safe and protected. (And it certainly doesn’t look like this.) Women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ people are fairly and equally represented in schools and in the workforce, and their pay is equal to that of their cishet white male peers. This, of course, is an incomplete list of what I’d do to completely erase discrimination and prejudice (and if I were an all-powerful and all-knowing God instead of a 17-year-old with a limited perspective, I’m sure I’d think of more things). But it’s a start.

The Earth’s climate is—boom!—fixed. The global temperature is much lower and the levels of emissions in the atmosphere and of air & water pollution are no longer so dangerous. Ecosystems are perfectly sustainable, and there’s enough food for everyone to eat (and that food is accessible and fairly distributed to all). Y’know what, while I’m at it, I’m switching all sources of energy to renewable ones that don’t pollute the Earth. And anyone, or any corporation, who messes up this balance—who significantly contributes to pollution or global warming and makes the Earth in danger of going back to its previous condition—will be severely punished. Just to make sure we’ve all learned our lesson from the past several years and decades when the planet was on frickin’ fire.

While I’m talking about ecology: Turtleducks are real now. They’re real, adorable creatures who live alongside regular turtles and regular ducks in ponds & lakes, and they are very happy and loved.

The very rich—especially billionaires—are required to pay proportionate taxes that accurately reflect their wealth and net worth, and tax evasion, fraud, and generally hoarding their wealth are all actions that are heavily punished. The very rich are also required to pay their employees, company workers, and those working under them a fair, livable wage, as well as to give a significant percentage of their income to legitimate causes and charities.

While I’m on the subject: everyone gets a fair, livable wage that allows them to comfortably pay for food, shelter, healthcare, education, and other necessities. And the price of college and of healthcare are—if not free—at least significantly reduced. No one is ever three bad months away from being homeless, and there’s virtually no possibility of families being put in the hole by a medical emergency or a less-than-stellar university scholarship.

Public education gets a ton more funding, and teachers’ salaries in particular are much higher than they currently are. Libraries also get lots more funding, resources, and employees and are open later so they’re accessible to more of the working public. Speaking of accessibility and libraries: research papers no longer cost $40 to even access and read past the abstract. And if they do, then the majority of that money actually goes to the author!

Menstruation isn’t a thing anymore. Also, childbirth is much less painful and dangerous for the woman; the rates of death in childbirth are cranked down to 0%.

Chocolate becomes one of the healthiest, most nutritious foods you can eat. Its taste remains unchanged. And while I’m at it, same for potato chips.

The Tumblr app actually works instead of being a garbage hellfire pit that crashes if I click on a video the wrong way.

Universal language translator device thingies like in Star Trek are a thing. They work perfectly.

And finally, the stars are just a little brighter, and there’s less light pollution, so everyone—including those in big urban areas—are able to look up at them at night.

[Emoji Asks]

#that got LONG #but thank you for the ask!#this was fun to think about #i love how frivolous some of my answers to the last question are compared to the ones i thought about deeply #‘as your new god i’ve ended systemic prejudice & discrimination and cured all disease…oh and turtleducks are real now’#i’d either be an amazing god or a terrible one #of course what would REALLY happen if i were made god would probably be that i’d be frozen up from responsibility #and just stand at the Earth Control Panel paralyzed with indecision #so absolutely nothing down on earth would change #but at least now if i AM ever made god i have a framework for what changes i’d want to enact so i’m not so paralyzed with indecision!!#ask #answered #anon #emoji asks #maya’s musings #maya’s rants #long post

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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Coronavirus Proves Only Structural Changes Can Avert Climate Apocalypse

A new International Energy Agency report warns that while 2020 may see the largest CO2 emissions drop on record because of the coronavirus pandemic, there is still cause for concern.

The IEA anticipates carbon emissions will drop almost 8 percent—six times larger than the previous record caused by the 2008 global financial crisis and twice as large as the sum total of every reduction since the end of World War II. Global energy demand will fall 6 percent, which is seven times larger than the decline from the 2008 global financial crisis and equivalent to losing the entire energy demand of India. Renewables are the only energy source expected to see any growth in use (1.5 percent) or generation (3 percent), while oil demand will drop by 9 percent, coal by 8 percent, and natural gas by 5 percent.

All these numbers are staggering, but they are also inadequate. Despite the 70 year lows for each of these carbon energy sources and the IEA’s estimation that 50 percent of all global energy use is exposed to these global containment measures, we’re far from the reductions needed to avert climate catastrophe. Moreover, these reductions are inequitable and have come at a tragic personal cost to many. Structural changes (e.g. an internationalist Green New Deal that favors the working class) are necessary if we are to have any hope.

As Vox’s David Roberts writes, limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius—our only shot at avoiding hundreds of millions of deaths and widespread ecological collapse—means "emissions would need to fall off a cliff, falling by 15% a year every year, starting in 2020, until they hit zero." In fact, the emissions reduction we are on track to experience may yield no durable environmental benefits that last beyond the lockdowns as urban pollution, for example, will quickly return.

This insufficient but historic reduction is thanks to travel restrictions and economic lockdowns that have caused spikes in unemployment dwarfing those of the Great Recession and approaching Great Depression levels. In the United States alone, a country where nearly half of the population lives paycheck to paycheck, far more than the reported 30 million people have likely lost their jobs and a perpetual rent strike is developing as a growing plurality of tenants are simply unable to make ends meet. The full human cost of this pandemic has yet to emerge—its immediate death toll may be underreported, but it has obvious for months that the pandemic would make plain that our country views its most vulnerable populations as disposable.

“Resulting from premature deaths and economic trauma around the world, the historic decline in global emissions is absolutely nothing to cheer,” said Faith Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, in a statement. “And if the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis is anything to go by, we are likely to soon see a sharp rebound in emissions as economic conditions improve.”

Laura Cozzi, the main author of the IEA report, echoed the same concerns in a conversation with Motherboard, suggesting that these reductions would be erased and overtaken without serious steps.

"Every time we have a crisis, be it the financial crisis or some other shock, what you've seen is very consistent: the year or years around the crisis, you see a decline in emissions; the moment the economic activity resumes, emissions start growing again because we haven't fundamentally decarbonized our energy system on a structural level.”

Over the past few years, a great deal of noise has been made about the power individuals wield in the fight against climate change. “Consumer shaming” may have pushed Davos to offer “green fuel” for its elite attendees’ private jets but has done nothing to address that a great deal of our economic activity, from Amazon's business empire to long-haul air travel, is environmentally unsustainable. Capitalism relies on perpetual growth of production and consumption, irreconcilable with the decarbonization and degrowth we must aggressively pursue to avoid a climate genocide for island nations and the Global South.

Still, the fact that the IEA report points out that a large part of this global emissions and energy demand reduction comes from a 50 percent decline in global road transport activity and a 60 percent drop in aviation tells us that permanent structural reforms can be made there. Take just one area of the debate that gets taken up as an individual action item: car ownership.

Investing in green public transit and restructuring urban/suburban spaces to discourage car ownership, kill commuter culture, or simply be more green, all might allow us to individually reduce emissions, but more importantly fight the market logic that rationalizes annually producing and replacing tens of millions of cars or turning every plot of land into more roads, parking lots, highways, or another form of our concrete shrines to cars.

Cozzi is hopeful that this crisis might yield space for similar lessons or policies that hasten such transitions and eventually decarbonization. An upcoming study she’s working on looks at how climate policy can achieve the sort of sustainable individual and structural changes we need to avoid currently inevitable and dire scenarios.

“The centrality of a clean energy transition in stimulus packages is, for us, one of the key fundamental findings of these reports,” Cozzi said. "70 percent of energy investments are either directly led by governments or their regulations. The role of governments is not to be underestimated."

Of course, nothing is predetermined or a given. Politicians may not want to turn to a Green New Deal due to myriad hang-ups and ideological obstacles. In fact, it’s likely that they will not. But as with many other areas during the coronavirus pandemic, the changes we are seeing now can be blueprints for tomorrow’s mass civil action.

Coronavirus Proves Only Structural Changes Can Avert Climate Apocalypse syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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junseth · 4 years

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Introducing the Wuhan Bond

Remember when Krugman proposed printing a single coin worth some trillion dollars and pegging US Bonds against it? When he proposed it, I thought it was an insanely stupid idea. But now I have an insanely stupid idea, and I’d love to hear why it’s stupid.

As the Corona Virus rages all throughout the world, countries have seen some $15 trillion dollars wiped off the balance sheets. Companies have plummeted, and countries have begun printing money in order to stave off the possible problems. In the US, there are proposals on the table to literally send Americans thousands of dollars to get through these hard times.

Here’s the problem, the world has no way of dealing with international externalities. China refuses to deal with its wet markets. For now, put your conspiracies about the origins of Corona aside. Let’s presume it was of a natural origin and not created in a lab. On your own time, you can presume anything you want about it. But for now, let’s stick with the official narrative. Recognize that this is virus is one of many that we regularly deal with that originates in China. The country as a whole refuses to deal with the ways they raise animals and the proximity of humans to these wild beasts. We know that many of these animals harbor viruses that are readying themselves for transmission to humans. These animals include bats, pangolins, baby mice, dogs, monkeys, pigs, and more.

In the right conditions, most of these problems can be averted. But when humans are eating things like raw bats or Pangolins or baby mice, or putting monkeys in cages while they are alive, cutting open their heads, and munching on their brains, perhaps it is time to begin pointing fingers. When these viruses jump from animal to human and develop the ability to move from human to human, the result can be a pandemic. China has gifted us MERS, SARS, and now COVID-19. All of these in successive, short order. Not to mention, the annual flu’s dubious origins. China! China! China!

Perhaps it’s time we charge China. In the way that Trump promised Mexico would pay for the wall. In this case, however, China has a lot of American debt. They are holders of $1.1 trillion in US debt. These treasuries, I believe, are serialized We know which ones we issued to them.

Why not create a new kind of debt instrument? We call it the Wuhan Bond, perhaps. It acts as a sort of series B US dollar. These bonds are bills to other nations. We issue them based on externalities. China makes America spend $5 trillion to stave off the dire effects of a crisis? The American people have mounting medical bills? No problem. We print $5 trillion in Wuhan bonds and put them to the China account. Any treasury China has purchased will be paid in these bonds. Any debt that we owe China will be paid in these bonds. Any trade deal we strike with China will use these bonds as negotiable instruments. You want a great deal? Excellent. Let’s talk about how to pay off the remaining $3.9 trillion you owe us. What kind of tariffs will you agree to?

Maybe this ruins the Chinese economy. Perhaps it takes off and the whole world begins issuing these externality bonds. But as far as I see it, there are times to employ this sort of thing judiciously. China owes America and her people every dollar they spend getting themselves healthy. China owes money to every family that lost a loved one. You might even say they owe us all of their tea. And it’s not just us. It’s Italy, France, Iran, for God’s sake.

But this is the insane reality. There is no use in dealing with a country whose evil regime is propped up by our wealth. We want things produced in China. The cost: China gets rich, murders her own people, genocides Muslims, harvests their organs, and let’s their people live in a manner that makes them a Petri dish for every single goddamn pandemic. All of this so that we can have an iPhone. I say fuck that. Send them the bill.

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