The politics of the mask

‘The years since Donald Trump’s election have been marked by a resurgence of violent street-level political confrontations. Fascists and their opponents have squared off in numerous cities, while recent protests against racist police violence have grown into a powerful movement. Cities across the country are now in open rebellion.

‘This new political instability coincides with the tenth anniversary of the publication of critical theorist AK Thompson’s Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent (2010), which advanced a provocative thesis regarding the intimate bond between political violence and the white middle class. In Thompson’s account, the black bloc – a demonstration tactic in which masks and sartorial uniformity are used to facilitate participation in confrontational skirmishes – was both seductive and disquieting to white middle-class audiences because it forced them to confront the limits of their own political efficacy. Today, as activists confront the question of violence once again – and COVID-19 universally necessitates the wearing of masks in public – the polarizing debates that inspired the book have reignited, and Thompson’s analysis has implications that reach far beyond the case study that prompted it.

‘In this interview, the writer pushes Thompson to clarify his positions and extend his analysis to consider the forms of street-level political violence we confront today.’

https://socialistproject.ca/2020/06/the-politics-of-the-mask/

Read here (The Bullet, June 22, 2020)

US in the spring of the pandemic

‘The gnawing anger beneath the pandemic is that democracy itself is being rewired in our absence. The system has failed us, the system is guaranteed to go on failing us, but while we the people are out of the picture, others are making grand, world-altering decisions. The powerful are rewriting the social contract while we watch TV and console ourselves with booze and simple chores.’

Read here (Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2020)

Regime change didn't disrupt Covid-19 response: Health DG

‘The country’s Covid-19 response was not adversely affected by the change in government, says Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah. “No. Even though there was a change of government, we were still able to carry out our duties, which were to monitor data, look at our strategic planning and do what we needed to do to control and stop the spread of Covid-19.”

Read here (Malaysiakini, June 3, 2020)

‘Normal’ life failed us. The coronavirus crisis gives us the chance to rethink a new economy

’The basics hardly involve a huge leap of imagination: to some extent, they mix what might be salvaged from recent Labour politics with ideas that have long been in circulation way beyond the traditional left. The lives of people at the bottom of most socio-economic hierarchies will soon need to be lastingly improved, perhaps via an initial minimum income guarantee of the kind embraced by the coalition government in Spain. Given that we are unlikely to be able to revive a featherweight labour market based around retail and services, the time ought to be ripe for the economy to be pushed at last towards a green new deal, and the revival of manufacturing.’

Read here (The Guardian, May 17, 2020)

The coming post-Covid anarchy: Kevin Rudd

‘As with other historical inflection points, three factors will shape the future of the global order: changes in the relative military and economic strength of the great powers, how those changes are perceived around the world, and what strategies the great powers deploy. Based on all three factors, China and the United States have reason to worry about their global influence in the post-pandemic world.

Read here (Foreign Affairs, May 6, 2020)

Threatened, maligned, jailed: Journalism in the coronavirus pandemic

‘What we are currently seeing is not the arrival of new authoritarian regimes or attacks on freedom of the press, but rather an increase in tendencies that already existed before the pandemic hit. One could say the crisis has hardened the approach many authoritarian or dictatorial governments have taken against journalists.

‘We will not be able to say with certainty just how many journalists have disappeared or been jailed since the coronavirus pandemic began until the end of the year. However, we can report that as of today at least 231 professional journalists and 115 so-called citizen journalists and bloggers — that is, people disseminating information on authoritarian governments via YouTube or Facebook — are currently behind bars. Another 14 media professionals (photographers, camera operators, editors, etc.) are in jail as well.’

Read here (DW, May 3, 2020)

The British charlatan style has been sent packing by too much reality

‘[The present administration's] time has gone. I am not saying we are about to enter a better age of competent government. Hard times are rarely good times for the centre left and it looks as if we are heading into the hardest of times. Angry people cling to what they have in a slump. They blame foreigners and turn to shop-soiled saviours. Who knows, after populism with a smirk on its face could come populism with the authentic snarl.

‘What’s over is the glib, deceitful spirit of 2016 with its false promise that bills need never be paid. The Brexit right has attempted a final rally. It dismissed warnings about public health as “over the top” just as it dismissed warnings about Brexit as “Project Fear” and assured us that “German carmakers” or some other knight on a shining unicorn would make everything all right.’

Read here (The Guardian, May 2, 2020)

Three major concerns over Covid-19 and the MCO

‘Despite the overall good efforts by the government... there are three concerns at least which need to be addressed by this government to the satisfaction of the public.

1. One, there are excessive detentions following the movement control order or MCO which has raised legitimate concerns over police highhandedness, extreme sentencing, and the possibility of actually exacerbating Covid-19 instead of controlling it.
2. Two, the limited 1-day sitting of Parliament, in name only, on May 18 does not allow Parliamentary sanction, legitimacy and debate of the moves taken by the new backdoor government.
3. And three, this shortened parliamentary session raises issues over the lack of legitimacy of moves taken and the inability to raise more funds to deal with the economic effects of the pandemic.’

Read here (FocusMalaysia, April 30, 2020)

Republican Party memo urges anti-China assault over coronavirus

‘The National Republican Senatorial Committee has sent campaigns a detailed, 57-page memo authored by a top Republican strategist advising GOP candidates to address the coronavirus crisis by aggressively attacking China.

‘The memo includes advice on everything from how to tie Democratic candidates to the Chinese government to how to deal with accusations of racism. It stresses three main lines of assault: That China caused the virus “by covering it up,” that Democrats are “soft on China,” and that Republicans will “push for sanctions on China for its role in spreading this pandemic.”’

Read here (Politico, April 24, 2020)

Coronavirus is accelerating eight challenging mega trends

‘...be in no doubt, as the long days at home seem to pass ever so slowly: in its effect on societies, politics and the distribution of power in the world, COVID-19 is on track to be the Great Accelerator.’

1. Eurozone existential crisis: ‘To put it crudely, Italians will not work as productively as Germans, and Germans will not agree to pay off the debts of Italians.’ 
2. Trans-Pacific tensions: ‘...the process of “deglobalisation” - more of what we consume being made closer to home, even if it is more expensive - will accelerate.
3. Greater rise of the Asian tigers: ‘[Asia] was already going to account for 90 per cent of new middle-class people in the next decade. Perhaps we can revise that up to 95 per cent now.’
4. Oil price volatility: ‘Countries dependent on oil production already faced forecasts that petroleum demand would peak and fall before 2030.’ We have in recent days seen negative oil prices.
5. Politics of inequality: ‘It will push to the forefront of politics fundamental issues about the taxation of wealth, the case for basic incomes provided by governments, and the responsibility of companies for their employees.’
6. Debts: ‘Political parties will campaign for debt forgiveness and write-offs, and for the cancelling by central banks of money borrowed by governments, with inflationary consequences.’
7. Data: ‘Once we are all carrying around an app on our phones to show where we have been and who we have met, pressure will grow to use that information for other purposes.’
8. Crisis as the mother of innovation: ‘More optimistically, they have one positive companion - the massive incentive this crisis provides for innovation’

Read here (The Age, April 21, 2020)

Trump fans protests against Democrat governors

‘Groups rallied in at least six states this week, and protests are planned in four more in coming days. On Friday, President Trump encouraged protesters in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia who this week violated stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines to march against Democratic governors.

‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN!’ Trump tweeted. ‘LIBERATE MINNESOTA,’ he continued. ‘LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!’

Read here (Washington Post, April 17, 2020)

‘Kerala model is nothing but focus on education and welfare’

This opinion piece covers (1) what Kerala did right in fighting coronavirus? (2) Kerala model: Left, right and centre (3) Kerala sticks to WHO guidelines & executes them efficiently (4) No time for political one-upmanship

Read here (The Quint, April 15, 2020)

‘On cronies, cranks and the coronavirus’: Opinion piece by Paul Krugman

‘So where’s this [push to open up the economy quickly] coming from? I’ve seen some people portray it as a conflict between epidemiologists and economists, but that’s all wrong. No, this push to reopen is coming not from economists but from cranks and cronies. That is, it’s coming on one side from people who may describe themselves as economists but whom the professionals consider cranks...’

Read here (New York Times, April 14, 2020)

Of haircuts, MITI website crashes and living with Covid-19

‘I really, really wish our backdoor ministers postpone their ambitions to exert the power in their hands to do things and instead seek the counsel of experienced and knowledgeable civil servants in their ministries before opening their mouths and coming up with ridiculous suggestions. It would not only save money but human lives in the current dire environment.’

Read here (Focus Malaysia, April 13, 2020)

18 lessons of urban quarantine urbanism

This is a most succinct and informed piece of communication on our present predicament and what we could/should do.

‘To what world will we reemerge after the distress and devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic? Calling for a geopolitics based on a deliberate plan for the coordination of the planet, design theorist and The Terraforming Program Director Benjamin H. Bratton looks at the underlying causes of the current crisis and identifies important lessons to be learned from it.’

Read here (Strelkamag, April 4, 2020)

Bringing in the experts: Blame deflection and the COVID-19 crisis

“The contemporary visibility and political emphasis on ‘the experts’ is therefore a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is completely rational to heed the advice of those who have dedicated their professional lives to understanding and protecting public health; on the other hand, it is also a depoliticisation strategy in the sense that politicians who have dedicated their professional lives to not going MAD (i.e. falling foul of ‘multiple accountabilities disorder’) will understand the benefit of allowing ‘the experts’ to become the public face of the crisis.”

Read here (LSE, April 3, 2020)

Coronavirus has not suspended politics – it has revealed the nature of power

‘In recent years, it has sometimes appeared that global politics is simply a choice between rival forms of technocracy. In China, it is a government of engineers backed up by a one-party state. In the west, it is the rule of economists and central bankers, operating within the constraints of a democratic system. This creates the impression that the real choices are technical judgments about how to run vast, complex economic and social systems.

‘But in the last few weeks another reality has pushed through. The ultimate judgments are about how to use coercive power. These aren’t simply technical questions. Some arbitrariness is unavoidable. And the contest in the exercise of that power between democratic adaptability and autocratic ruthlessness will shape all of our futures. We are a long way from the frightening and violent world that Hobbes sought to escape nearly 400 years ago. But our political world is still one Hobbes would recognise.’

Read here (The Guardian, March 27, 2020)

Pandemic rules and the law: Shad Saleem Faruqi

‘Those in positions of authority must also remain cognisant of the rule of law dimension. Power is not inherent. It must be derived from the law and its exercise must remain within the four corners of the enabling legislation.

‘From the rule-of-law point of view, an executive order, policy, directive, instruction or scheme does not amount to ‘law’ (and thereby require obedience) simply because of expediency, workability or reasonableness. It must be anchored in and derived from legislation or subsidiary legislation.‘

Read here (The Star, March 26, 2020)