The seasons totter in their walk

It will not require much further elaboration if I say that it feels as if our society—our world—were teetering on the edge. Our president is saying he may call in the military against people protesting police violence; he has threatened the use of "ominous weapons" against people gathered outside the White House; he has discouraged people from voting... We are slouching toward something; or perhaps we are still at the pivotal moment, when choices matter most. One way lie fascism, authoritarianism, genocide; the other—a deeply flawed yet surviving multiracial democracy, which maintains an internal capacity to critique and improve itself.

It is an apocalyptic summer, capstone to an apocalyptic spring. More than 100,000 people have died in this country from a raging pandemic with grossly unequal and structurally racist effects; millions have been thrown into unemployment. And we are only beginning to grapple with the impact this crisis will have on the Global South. What happens when economies that have been made dependent on food imports, tourism, or remittances by neoliberal policies suddenly have to reckon with something approaching involuntary autarky? There will be hunger, unemployment, suffering on a massive scale...

Crocodiles and Snakes

Recently on an assignment for my job, I worked my way through "Burma's Path to Genocide": a powerful and disturbing new virtual exhibit from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which documents the systematic exclusion and persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar over a period of decades, culminating in an act of outright genocide in 2017.

Among the many things in the exhibit that inevitably hold one's attention was a section about the instigating rhetoric from Burmese media that preceded the 2017 atrocities. The exhibit cites multiple examples, including editorials in state-owned media in Burma that insinuated all Rohingya are potential terrorists, or that compared Muslim minorities to "fleas" and other animals.

To Pedantry

If it wasn’t for all
The annoying people who
To my consternation
Have corrected me
I’d never know
There’s a hard “G”
In Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Or that the first name of the most famous Waugh
(Neither Auberon nor Alec, I mean)

Easter Eggs 004: Waugh

A series dedicated to the strange and interesting things that can be uncovered by closely reading books. 

HEROES and heroes

It appears that some progressive leaders in Congress are disappointed with the HEROES Act (House Democrats' proposal for the fifth coronavirus relief and stimulus bill) that was dropped on Tuesday afternoon. They have pursued against it a reasonable and familiar line of argument: it does not, they say, go nearly far enough (no automatic stabilizers, no paycheck guarantee, etc.). And it is hard to argue with them on that point, as the country takes a nosedive into economic depression.

On the other hand, one might be justified in doubting the value of holding this debate, since the 3.3 trillion dollar legislation is almost certain to never make it past the Senate or Trump's desk anyway. It was drafted without bipartisan negotiations. Republicans, meanwhile, are holding out for things like immunity from liability for businesses, which are not likely to make it far with Democrats, in turn. So, the bill will most likely never become law, at least not in its present form.

To the slaughter

"The Slaughter-House" by Alfred Hayes is a poem that has been much on my mind this past week, as reports have continued to populate my news feed about the appalling conditions essential workers are facing in the meat processing industry, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hayes is somewhat of a left-wing hero, having penned both the lyrics to "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night," as well as the screenplay for The Bicycle Thief. One might, therefore, expect his treatment of the meatpacking industry to resemble Upton Sinclair's. It should be a naturalistic exposé and a cry of the conscience, right?

Fixed Ideas

I have not watched the new Michael Moore-produced documentary about climate change, Planet of the Humans, but the early reviews are not encouraging. The thrust of it appears to be not the anticipated defense of a Green New Deal, or any other of the policy proposals currently trending on the left. Rather—and perhaps surprisingly—it is devoted to attacking renewable energy sources as a false solution to climate disruption (and relying on dated and often patently inaccurate information to do so).

If, in the film's judgment, wind and solar will never actually manage to achieve steep reductions in carbon emissions, what are we to do? Well, un-grow the economy, it would seem, and get rid of most of the humans. How? The film doesn't advocate killing us, per se; rather it relies on that unnerving technocratic phrase, "population control."