Category: Video

Good riddance to Boris the Butcher

The abysmal and deadly failures of the Johnson government’s COVID-19 response have been extensively documented, with the UK’s death toll (now more than 180,000) the highest in Europe second only to Russia. I won’t be analyzing them in this post. Instead, with Johnson having officially confirmed his resignation, I want to spotlight a statement he made before the chaos of the pandemic kicked off in full that made it clear what his governing philosophy and priorities were. Anyone who heard it should have fully expected what was to come.

Prior to the carnage of Spring and Autumn or his blunt pronouncement-cum-self-fulfilling prophecy in March that “many more families will lose loved ones before their time,” Johnson gave a speech at London’s Old Royal Naval College three days after the finalization of Brexit. It was a twenty-eight minute hubristic declaration of the UK’s commitment to global capitalism and why the country, now freed from the shackles of EU membership, was apparently destined to become an economic superpower. What would become the speech’s defining moment came six minutes in when Johnson said the following:

[When] we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other. And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role.

There it was, stated unambiguously, albeit dressed up in Johnson’s theatrical verbiage: the health of Britain’s private sector came first. The health of its public faced with the threat from a deadly novel virus came second (more accurately, probably tenth or twelfth.) Johnson painted neoliberalism as the most progressive and liberating force on earth, and himself as the valiant world leader ready to defend it with every ounce of strength he had.

This was also, appropriately enough, the first time Johnson had mentioned SARS-CoV-2 publicly. During his public address earlier today, he touted “getting us all through the pandemic, delivering the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe, the fastest exit from lockdown” among his stellar achievements as PM. It was a sick joke, coming from the man who made clear early on that he valued economic stability far more than human life. He stands atop not a legacy of effective leadership, but a mountain of corpses.

Good riddance to him and a preemptive “up yours” to the similarly unprincipled goon who’ll replace him.

False Prophets of Hope: A Response to the Downplaying of COVID-19’s Continued Threat

Anthony Fauci at a briefing by the White House COVID-19 Response Team in December of 2021. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker)

Yesterday, during an interview on the PBS NewsHour, Anthony Fauci declared the United States to be “out of the pandemic phase [of SARS-CoV-2.]” Coming from the man who, in March of 2020, said “the U.S. ‘should be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting’ to COVID-19,'” and as recently as March of this year was warning that the return of strict mitigation efforts could be immanent due to the threat of the Omicron BA.2 subvariant, it was an incredible, baffling and obviously premature assessment. Fauci backtracked almost immediately, but it was too late. His reply to Judy Woodruff was unambiguously indicative of an ongoing trend amongst governments around the world to downplay the persistent danger of the pandemic via claims that SARS-CoV-2 is now a “manageable” and “endemic” pathogen that humanity simply needs to “learn to live with.” Additionally (and granted, it’s been present throughout the pandemic,) this includes a distinctly neoliberal emphasis of the onus of risk assessment being on the individual and minimizing state intervention.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to write a comprehensive piece on this precise issue. For multiple reasons, I haven’t. Even in the wake of this year’s Omicron BA.1 surge, during which more than a hundred thousand Americans died and thousands were hospitalized due to the essentially unimpeded spread of a “milder” variant, I didn’t think I had anything substantive to add to the existing discourse. After hearing Fauci’s remark last night, though, I felt compelled to respond promptly in some fashion. Rather than begin the lengthy process that would entail writing my own rebuke, I’m instead providing several links to content that, in aggregate, seriously challenges the disingenuously sanguine framing of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Out of all the above commentary and analysis, the conclusion of Bruce Y. Lee’s article summarizes the current situation as well as any other:

Sure, some politicians and businesses may want things to appear as “normal” as possible as soon as possible. The illusion of complete normality could prompt people to spend more and re-elect current politicians for office. Plus, Covid-19 precautions require some up front spending and investment….The rush to return to normal, whatever “normal” means, and the repeated premature relaxation of Covid-19 precautions has continued to be remarkably short-sighted. The SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t really care what politicians and business leaders say. Failing to maintain proper Covid-19 precautions such as face mask use, social distancing, and Covid-19 vaccination could further extend the pandemic and increase the negative impact of the SARS-CoV-2. This is especially true with the more contagious BA.2 Omicron subvariant spreading. The CDC Covid-19 Community Levels map alone may have you seeing green as in low risk, go, go, go, and perhaps even mo’ money. But that could end up being an “off-color” conclusion.

“To pursue only power is to deny our reason for being.” Ed Broadbent at 85

Broadbent (MP for Oshawa-Whitby at the time) speaking in the House of Commons in 1974 alongside Tommy Douglas. (Photo: The Canadian Press)

Ed Broadbent, former leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, founder of the Broadbent Institute and enduring presence on the Canadian left, turns eighty-five years old today. In his two decade political career and three decades as an academic and public intellectual, Broadbent has consistently remained one of the most ardent and persuasive advocates of postwar social democracy (eschewing the third way liberalism of the 1990s and 2000s). In the midst of a global pandemic that has claimed the lives of scores of senior citizens (including fellow leftist academic Leo Panitch), Broadbent’s survival is an ember of hope in a world of bleak prospects, both medical and political.

A transcript of Broadbent’s 2013 address at Ryerson University, along with two videos featuring him, are already part of the social democratic bibliography. Today, I’m posting a recording of said speech as well as adding the link to its entry.

Happy birthday, Ed. Here’s to (hopefully) quite a few more.

Moral Wreckage: Murray Bookchin on Anti-Democratic Leftism

As conflict rages over “cancel culture,” identity politics and use of violence in the contemporary left, this Burlington, VT public access TV interview from 1986 with legendary anarchist Murray Bookchin remains shockingly relevant. When it was recorded, comrades were widely accusing each other of being “CIA agents.” Fast forward to the last few years and that accusation has simply been replaced with “cop.” For the left to regain any real power in the US, a lot of self interrogation is required. This assessment by a veteran member of the old left of its immoral tactics is an integral part of that self-critique and a segue into making a similar criticism of underhanded behavior engaged in by the modern left.