Covid-19 Disparities, and Other Problems That Need Fixing

 #Brbara Ransby, "Action, Not Words," The New Yorker, December 28, 2020. - "The government's investment in services and infrastructure has affected all, but low-income, under-resourced communities of color have taken a disproportionate hit." "Based on data reported by 40 states, Northwestern University cardiologist Clyde Jancy, found that one in 1,850 Black Americans has died from Covid-19, a mortality rate two and a half times higher than that for whites." "Debt relief, especially for student debt, is critical. The solution, though, is simple: Just eliminate student debt entirely."'

"The Breathe Act rests on four pillars: divesting from carceral institutions which have failed to solve the issue of harm reduction and security; investing in community-based and community-led programs of accountability, harm and violence prevention; offering to build healthy, sustainable, and equitable communities throughout the country, including jobs and much-needed human services, and finally, making sure public officials are accountable to the  communities they are sworn to serve, especially the Black communities that are most often neglected and ignored." 

#Jamie Ducharme, "Class of COVID-19" TIME, January 18/January 25, 2021. -  "The shift to online learning was a logical undertaking, but the harder work may be producing doctors who are better equipped to take on the systemic issues exposed by the pandemic, like race-based disparities, uneven access to care, and ballooning treatment costs." "A 2020 study found that about 25% of students who identify as Black, Hispanic/Latino or American Indian/Alaska Native experienced race-based discrimination during medical education." "Medicine and medical education remain very white fields in America. In 2019, out of nearly 38,500 medical-school professors in the U.S., 755 (2%) identified as Black, around 1,000 (2.6%) identified as Hispanic or Latino, and just 37 (0.01%) identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, according to AAMC data. More than 29,000, or 75%, identified as white."

"One 2016 study found that of about 400 medical students and residents surveyed in the U.S., half held false beliefs, like that Black people have higher pain tolerance, or physically thicker skin than white people."

"NYU and about a dozen other U.S. medical schools are also part of a consortium studying how to [create] an accelerated medical-school schedule -- three years instead of four -- [and it] affects learning, student finances, and placement for new doctors."

#Jane McAlevey, "Expand the Base," The New Yorker, December 28, 2020. - "More workers will face dire conditions in 2021 than they did in 2009: massive unemployment; a growing homelessness crisis because of imminent evictions, and not enough income to meet rent or mortgage demands; and a severe health care crisis made catastrophic by a raging pandemic, and 15 million people losing their employer-based medical coverage in the first three months of the  pandemic, when they or their loved ones lost their jobs." 

"We need executive-level directives that don't require congressional approval to tilt the scales in favor of justice-seeking Democrats in 2022." In the Senate, 33 seats will be up for election, with 13 Democrats and 20 Republicans defending their seats.) 

My Comment: I don't agree with legislating from the White House, except in very limited situations. I can live with much of the executive order signing that President Biden is doing now, because they are reversing some 15 of the executive orders President Trump signed, thus restoring the status quo when Trump took office.

#Zephyr Teachout, "Break the Stranglehold," The New Yorker, December 28, 2020. The biggest thing Biden could do, according to Barry Lynn, author of 'Liberty From All Masters,' would be to "Get rid of the Reagan-era consumer welfare pro-monopoly philosophy." In the first 100 days, to give energy and credibility to his challenge, Biden's Federal Trade Commission should tear down the ideological wall that has limited the antitrust enforcers to stop capital from organizing."

#John Nichols, "The Past Cannot Be Forgotten," The New Yorker, December 28, 2020. - "A politics of 'forgive and forget' will not unify the nation -- it will simply ensure that Democrats lose control of Congress in 2022, and the presidency in 2024." "As Philip Allen Lacovard, a former counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor, reminds us, 'If a person who succeeds in acquiring the presidency can flout the criminal law with impunity, then we will have rendered our republic unrecognizable to our Founders, and dangerous to our descendants." "A steady focus on accountability isolates and diminishes the critics who will challenge vital initiatives to renew the economy, save the planet, and address structural racism, as it identifies Trump and his congressional enablers with the crises that metastasized on their watch." 

"He [FDR] called out profiteers and linked his Republican rivals to the dreaded economic [soothsayers] who thwarted not just progress, but democracy. And when the merchants of greed objected, FDR cried, "I welcome their hatred." "The only way to prevent hyperpartisan and hyperstrategic Republicans from derailing another Democratic administration is to make it clear that the Republicans created the crises they now seek to exploit." 

ADDEDUMS:

*Joseph Hincks, "Heirs of the Arab spring," TIME, January 18/January 25, 2021. - "In 2020 alone, Turkey arrested hundreds for 'provocative' Facebook posts about COVId-19. Voicing support online for Qatar can warrant a jail term of up to 15 years in its rival, UAE. Saudi Arabia has become notorious for deploying state-backed 'troll armies' to overwhelm criticism and threaten dissidents."

*Alejandro Chacoffi, "Solitaire," The New Yorker, January 4 & 11, 2021. - "Typically, stories about the near-extinction of humanity dramatize the process of decay, with lessons on the fragility of civilization, and how easily a sense of community is shattered when people become desperate."

*Marella Gayla, "Kids in High Places," The New Yorker, January 4 & 11, 2021. - "At least sixteen other ventures were launched in the months after learning went remote." "Every student and their mother are creating nonprofits for 'social good' for college apps."