Op-Ed

The nationwide outpouring of protests during the last 10 days has provided a historic moral response to the murder of George Floyd. In one city after another, people braved tear gas, pepper spray, clubs and other weaponry -- as well as mass arrests -- to nonviolently challenge racist police violence. Those same people were also risking infection with the coronavirus.

“Guns aren’t just a danger in and of themselves,” writes Noah Berlatsky at Quartz. “They enable a policing philosophy built on violence and forced compliance, rather than one founded on respect, trust and consent. That philosophy affects every police interaction, even those that don’t involve actual shooting.”

We don’t know what the long-term damage is of coronavirus in those who recover. We don’t know who will die among those who catch it. We do know that we each have a responsibility to avoid catching it and avoid spreading it. Here are some ways to do that.

If nothing changes, New York State will not have independent candidates on the general election ballot in November. Only candidates who affiliate with a party and win their party’s nomination will be on the ballot this November. Governor Cuomo’s executive order suspending petitioning for independent candidates, for both the Presidential race and for all races down the ballot, offer no alternative to get on the ballot in November. Governor Cuomo must offer a path to the ballot for independent candidates. Otherwise, he risks presiding over a constitutionally defective election. Moreover, in negotiating a path for independent candidates, the Governor needs to move past the petty politics that dominate the party primaries, to end the byzantine petitioning process and to switch to digital or electronic signatures.

We don't want to go back to the way it was. Normal was devouring the planet, devouring all of us. 

COVID-19 has changed the world, but the world apparently wants to go back to the way it was. We should find that intolerable. Out of this pandemic crisis, this is our opportunity to create a better world. Corporate capitalism itself should be the target under attack.  

COVID-19 has taken our attention off of climate change. Changes were happening in the oil market when COVID struck. With so many fewer cars and airplanes in use, the price of oil has plummeted. Let's keep our level of usage what it is today as we transition to renewable energy. Let the oil companies be the victims of the pandemic. We all want to get back to work, but we don't need to continue our dependence on fossil fuels. Some things do not need to come back. Business travel is now proven to be unnecessary. It is now time to move to green energy.

In just a short period of time the world in Russia has changed for
everyone. I’ve started to notice how people around me are going mad.
They’ve started blaming and avoiding other people, making social
distance the priority of their lives. These people are well-educated,
well-off, with flexible minds. It doesn't matter who they were in their
life “before corona”. Now all of them are afraid. And that's the reason
for their madness.

They are afraid to go to the office, walk, meet with their friends and
just do what they usually do. And all of them are repeating the same
mantra - the situation is _very_ serious; we don't want the Italian and
American scenario be repeated here. One person told my friend: “They
cancelled the Cannes Film Festival”. They never did that before. So it
does mean the world is close to catastrophe.

Would you say it's the pandemic of coronavirus that is changing Russia?
No, I'd say it's the Pandemic of Fear that did it.

Of course, no politician wants to see all these human victims (and the
fall in their own ratings). But do they really know what to do?

In a recent article I reported existing evidence on the way in which COVID-19 is being used to implement, but also divert attention from, initiatives being taken by the global elite to consolidate and expand its power in significant ways, and perhaps to make the final drive to take total control of global society. See ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear: COVID-19, Propaganda and Knowledge’.

Every day now we’re waking up into an extreme real-life nightmare, while responses are still routinely lagging far behind what’s at stake. Urgency is reality. The horrific momentum of the coronavirus is personal, social and political. In those realms, a baseline formula is “passivity = death.” The imperative is to do vastly better.

Trump is moving in the direction of another upper class New Yorker who also became president in an era of extreme crisis. It’s time for some “bigly” Federal government action - again.

Facing a global pandemic, America’s very existence hasn’t been this threatened since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration confronted the Great Depression and World War II. The coronavirus is challenging the USA with a double whammy that combines both dangers: Economic collapse and an invasion causing massive loss of life. To combat these twin perils requires a response on a par with Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Allied war effort against fascism.

The night before Super Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren spoke to several thousand people in a quadrangle at East Los Angeles College. Much of her talk recounted the heroic actions of oppressed Latina workers who led the Justice for Janitors organization. Standing in the crowd, I was impressed with Warren's eloquence as she praised solidarity and labor unions as essential for improving the lives of working people.

Now, days later, with corporate Democrat Joe Biden enjoying sudden momentum and mega-billionaire Mike Bloomberg joining forces with him, an urgent question hovers over Warren. It's a time-honored union inquiry: "Which side are you on?"

How Warren answers that question might determine the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. In the process, she will profoundly etch into history the reality of her political character.

"The urgency of Warren's decision can hardly be overstated."