Dear Citizens and Elected Officials:
I did see Trump’s point coming over the past few day, first when I heard host Mark Levin on Right Wing talk radio citing medical objectors, one at Stanford with serious “credentials,” and then saw Thomas Friedman, the Center-Right establishment voice for business pick up the same themes in his column here: www.nytimes.com/…
The logic is heading towards this: the all out professional medical advice is crashing the economy, and that logic is starting to be challenged not only by nervous Right wing politicos, but by some of the white coated specialists themselves. Whether there is overlap and politics might creep into medicine is just too shocking to contemplate, isn’t it...and I mean that both ways.
To be clear, I tend to side with the stronger ends of social/public distancing, as long as its advocates don’t try to ignore the human realities of eating, paying rent and earning a living.
Today, there is a long Times article presenting the case for all out medical and quarantining responses here www.nytimes.com/… The title of the article, by Donald G. McNeil, Jr. is: “The Virus can be stopped, but only with Harsh Steps, experts say.”
Here was my just published comment on it:
Very informative. Here's the problem. It does not respond to the attack line of the evolving Right wing political response, summarized in Trump's recent comment: "the cure is worse than the disease." Trump and others mean that the economic catastrophe set in motion, which will intensify if the logic outlined here is set fully in motion, is worse than the Pandemic itself. You can agree or not, and the medical people won't buy it, but that's a logical and easy to anticipate argument. And this article does not even acknowledge that huge factor, which must be addressed on a scale of the New Deal combined with the "mobilization" of the economy for World War II. Suddenly, we Sanders’ supporters find that the meat cleaver question of "how are you going to pay for it" does not come up when business survival is at stake...and of course we Green New Dealers said Nature and People were intertwined in their fates in the coming environmental collapse. Just sayin. If I agree with the medical course outlined in this article, then the scale of balancing economic intervention is on the scale of 1929-1945. Will the Right and the Democratic Centrists who attacked Sanders on cost suddenly shift their rhetoric and analysis?
And to add to my argument, here is Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect on the scale and scope of the needed economic response: www.nytimes.com/… The title is “This Stimulus Bill Will Not Save the Economy from Collapse.”
And here is the background to today’s posting, which I sent to a group of activists in Western, Maryland, yesterday...before I heard of Trump’s easy to anticipate line of attack. Please note at the end my comparison of Biden’s and Sander’s addresses from March 12th and 17th, respectively:
Hope everyone is as well as can be:
Three matters are on my mind, and there is nothing wrong with Victory Gardens...
I've read two challenges to the conventional medical thinking dominant today and I would like to get____ response:
The first from an unnamed professional in the field with long experience: I like it:
And third, and I just Googled to see the national picture: HOARDING of paper products, food, cleansing agents which has been shocking to me and confirmed nation wide - the NYTimes covered the toilet paper panic, which makes no sense, there is no shortage, just hoarding; I've seen it this Wed. at Walmart, Martins and Weiss.
Where is our local delegation on this, and why can't Allegany County issue “no hoarding” guidelines to the stores in question: limit on how much of key items one customer can take...I could be wrong, but in an emergency I believe local gov’s have the power to act...Nationally, the paper companies say there is no shortage and they are making repeated deliveries but my two last random trips show that not to be the case...or that the hoarders are eclipsing the deliveries easily...
That's what government is for...
By the way, after listening to Sanders vs Biden's speeches on the crisis, from the 17th and 12 of this month, they both were excellent in style and delivery, but Biden falls far short, like Speaker Pelosi in failing to send individual or family crisis checks out. They're behind the Republican Right and Trump on this. And so you wanted to know how Trump beat Hillary? Exactly the failure to understand the level of pain among the bottom 60%...
Best,
Stay as well as possible, in health and in economics,
Bill of Rights
Frostburg, MD