Llewellyn King: Some of COVID-19's long-term effects on the body politic
A dark cloud is passing across the nation and the world. When it passes, how will we have changed? How will we react after this national jolt?
In Britain after World War II, there was a period, at the end of the 1940s and into the 1950s, of idealism and common purpose. It ushered in as its prime minister not Winston Churchill, who had won the war, but milquetoast Clement Atlee. One lasting and revered reform of the Atlee government was the introduction of the National Health Service.
In America there was a new confidence, aided by legislation like the GI Bill, which helped lead to the expansion and general contentment of the 1950s.
The tumultuous, jolting 1960s left us changed. Sex was considered an entitlement, the environment an ethic, civil rights a moral obligation, and women gained nominal equality. Reverence for institutions was out and all expertise was suspect. “Some things are too important to be left to the experts,” said the young people who had hated the Vietnam War.
In the 1970s, the revolutionaries of the 1960s were gradually absorbed into the bourgeoisie. Mostly, they seemed slightly embarrassed about who they had been and what they had done.
The killing of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968, and the riots that followed, engulfing major cities from Baltimore to Los Angeles, looked momentarily like a national wake-up call that would unite the nation. Instead, we got a measurable jolt with increased white flight to the suburbs.
The energy crisis of 1973-75 also jolted the American body politic. Here was an external force that could not be internalized: The oil we needed could not be produced domestically. We were at the mercy of foreign powers, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. All the raw materials we had needed up that point appeared to be domestic. Now we had joined the world community in a way frightening to us. Fortress America was breached.
We thought that crisis would change the way we lived. Amitai Etzioni, then a professor at Columbia, and a Wall Street Journal columnist, predicted that we would all have less of everything – and be just as happy, if not happier. We would all wear jeans as daily dress, ride bicycles and drive very small cars. Detroit-made some small cars -- and they were awful. But the move to smaller cars — no more land yachts with acres of chrome and fins — can be seen on the streets today. Something seminal had jolted us and spurred our engineers to do better.
Another jolt was 9/11: an attack of wartime proportions. It fed a new nationalism, an inward turn, with a profound distrust, even dislike for people of different cultures who want to come here from elsewhere. It stirred a somnolent patriotism.
Now, in the time of COVID-19, we are enduring another great national jolt which will have consequences in the decades ahead.
After this pandemic, it is a fair guess, we will be more inclined to believe the experts and to value medical science the same way we have worshiped computer technology. In addition, stock markets might come to be eclipsed by a more representative measure of the national well-being.
Particularly, the indifference we have felt to predictions of existential calamity may be taken way more seriously than before COVID-19. Predictions of disasters that did not happen, like the Y2K computer alarm, have lulled us into thinking bad things will not really happen: A fix would be found.
Now we are struggling with an assault that will be seminal in its impact, personally frightening and economically devastating. We cannot buy or fight our way out of the COVID-19 pandemic. An immunization is a year and half away. Will it work?
I would put at the top our list of existential threats climate change and cyberattack. Sea levels are rising, and coastal cities are under pressure. That will get worse. The security of the electric grid also is under a daily attack. Experts are and have been warning of the possibility of parts of the country being blacked out for long periods. A new bipartisan congressional cyberattack threat report has just been released.
Going forward, we dare not think it cannot happen here because it can. It is happening here now.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com and he’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.
The mixed legacy of the late GE czar Jack Welch
Jack Welch in 2012
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Jack Welch, a brilliant son of Salem, Mass., who never let anything get between him and a camera, has died at 84. He helped amplify the myth of the superman, imperialist CEO as he built up the vast conglomerate through acquisitions and divestitures (including of throngs of employees). His focus on “shareholder value’’ above all else, and enriching himself beyond all the dreams of avarice, was impressive, as was his charismatic showmanship. He made a lot of money for shareholders during his reign and they naturally loved him for it.=
But some of his big bets, especially in making GE more of a finance company than anything else, turned out very bad for the company in the long run, after he retired, in 2001. Indeed, more than a few of his decisions look in retrospect to have been dangerously unsustainable. But while he reigned, he reveled in a cult of personality, which gave him a monarchial lifestyle, including in retirement – paid for, of course, by his beloved shareholders, many of whom were unaware of his extreme compensation and privileges.
Some of the things he did were financially necessary, such as closing some not very profitable Rust Belt factories and moving the operations to cheap-labor countries. More problematic was that he cut funding for research and development in order to maximize short-term profits – bad for GE’s very long-term health and so bad for America. He also pushed back against public pressures to make the company clean up some of the horrific industrial pollution it caused.
“Neutron Jack” (so named because of his enthusiasm for firing people) could be amusingly hypocritical. For instance, in 2009, long after his retirement, he called “shareholder value” (above all else) a “dumb idea’’ and said that corporate executives’ “main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your product.’’ But during his 20-year reign at GE, its stock price took precedence above all else.
Still, I’ll miss his TV and other performances.=
A sentence in a New York Times editorial in 2001 summed up Welch’s work well:
“His legacy is not only a changed G.E., but a changed American corporate ethos, one that prizes nimbleness, speed and regeneration over older ideals like stability, loyalty and permanence.”
Jeff Spross, a writer for The Week, opined: “Focusing on shareholder value and stock market capitalization ultimately turns a company into an abstraction, its life sustained by financial flows that are less and less connected to the underlying fundamentals of the company — its workers, its resources, its infrastructure, the real needs it provides to the people it serves. When the good times end and the money dries up, what's left of the company may not be able to stand on its own.’’
Maybe, but in any case, now-Boston-based General Electric seems back on the road to long-term prosperity again.
Under new management, now-Boston-based GE is trying to recharge its finances.
Photo by Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine
Chris Powell: Hartford (Rail) Line would work better if cities along it did, too
Hartford Line train in Hartford
Lauding the increase in passenger traffic in the first 18 months of the Springfield-Hartford-New Haven commuter railroad -- the Hartford Line -- Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont remarked the other week that he found it "astounding" that central Connecticut had gone without a commuter railroad for so long.
While the increase in traffic indeed is encouraging -- the millionth passenger appears to have ridden the restored line around Thanksgiving -- the long lack of commuter rail service between Springfield and New Haven is really not astounding at all. Because of the automobile and the commitment of government to highways, commuter rail service became deeply unprofitable in the 1950s and died in central Connecticut after the bankruptcy of the New Haven Railroad, in 1961. Amtrak's interstate service on the route long has been infrequent and clunky.
Commuter rail service from New Haven to New York survived the New Haven's bankruptcy because New York and Connecticut state governments have operated it with big subsidies as part of the Metro-North Railroad system. Heavy rush-hour traffic on the highways from New Haven to New York keeps the train attractive there despite the rickety tracks and bridges. But highway traffic between Springfield and New Haven seldom is bad enough to induce people to get out of their cars to take buses or the new commuter trains.
For passengers the new Hartford Line service is great and inexpensive, just $8 per ride. The line will get better as more stations are built. But when the service began in June 2018 every passenger trip was being subsidized by state government in the fantastic amount of $59. That subsidy was entirely operating cost, not counting the $700 million spent rebuilding the line. Even now, with ridership increasing, the subsidy per passenger trip is still about $56. A bus ride for a parallel trip costs a fraction of that.
It will be a miracle if the Hartford Line's per-passenger subsidy can be reduced someday even to $40, since the area served lacks the necessary population density and workforce flow patterns and since another prerequisite of a successful commuter railroad isn't always available: frequent bus, taxi, or subway service at major destinations.
But the Hartford Line seems like a far more promising transportation project than another heavily subsidized recent project, the Hartford-New Britain bus highway, which added little to commuting options that were already available. The Hartford Line's reach and service area are far greater. In a state that chose to encourage economic growth instead of just to cannibalize itself to pay pensions to government employees, something like the Hartford Line would be a much greater asset for "transit-oriented development."
Further, of course, highways represent government subsidies just as the new commuter railroad does -- so much so that highways have been given their own revenue streams with special taxes on gasoline and tires. Where population density is high and highways are already crowded, shifting subsidies toward mass transit makes sense.
Maybe the best government could do to build ridership on the Hartford Line would be to improve the demographics and commerce of the cities along it -- Springfield, Hartford, Meriden, and New Haven -- something that should be done for its own sake, quite apart from the success of the new railroad.
Improving the demographics of those cities will require examining what in government policy is perpetuating instead of eradicating the poverty there and thus driving self-sufficient people away from "transit-oriented development."
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.
‘Nature and Abstraction’
“Uprising” (acrylic and mixed media on wood panel), by Philip Gerstein, in his joint show with Carolyn Newberger, “The Color of Seasons: Nature and Abstraction,’’ at Galatea Fine Art, Boston, April 1-26
The artists say:
“We approach nature from seemingly opposite directions, across the line that is supposed to divide abstraction from realism. Carolyn enters the forest with paints and watercolor notebook in her fanny pack and a folding stool on her back. She records in images and words the hidden treasures that she finds. In a studio, Philip finds form, rich texture, and emotive color as he creates vibrant abstract canvasses.
“Though the seasons of nature inspire both of us, Carolyn finds her inspiration within the living forest. Through distillation and interpretation she moves in her paintings from realism toward abstraction. For Philip, as form and color emerge, he finds nature revealed within, drawing inspiration from ancient Chinese landscape painting and the rich achievements of 20th century abstract painters.
“Both of us search until we find that living vibration, the pulse of life, clearly heard emanating from beneath the layers of paint before solidifying into form. Hung together in pairs, our paintings converge and contrast, evoking nature in its many interpretations -- and creating a vibrant dialogue of form, color and emotional impact’’
At Galatea Fine Art
“Everything is Interesting’’ (watercolor and pastel), by Carolyn Newberger.
As painters, we approach nature from seemingly opposite directions, across the line that is supposed to divide abstraction from realism. Carolyn enters the forest with paints and watercolor notebook in her fanny pack and a folding stool on her back. She records in images and words the hidden treasures that she finds. In a studio, Philip finds form, rich texture, and emotive color as he creates vibrant abstract canvasses.
Though the seasons of nature inspire both of us, Carolyn finds her inspiration within the living forest. Through distillation and interpretation she moves in her paintings from realism toward abstraction. For Philip, as form and color emerge, he finds nature revealed within, drawing inspiration from ancient Chinese landscape painting and the rich achievements of 20th century abstract painters.
Both of us search until we find that living vibration, the pulse of life, clearly heard emanating from beneath the layers of paint before solidifying into form. Hung together in pairs, our paintings converge and contrast, evoking nature in its many interpretations -- and creating a vibrant dialogue of form, color and emotional impact.
Miriam Feldblum/Jose Magana-Salgado: What N.E. colleges should to prepare for a Supreme Court decision on DACA
From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org).
Last November, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the administration could rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), with the fate of over 650,000 DACA recipients in the balance. While a decision is expected by June 2020, colleges and universities—including New England institutions—can begin preparing now.
As of September 2019, New England is home to more than 10,000 DACA recipients, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. DACA is a renewable protection originally created under the Obama administration that lets undocumented immigrant youth live and work legally in the U.S.
Under federal law, DACA recipients cannot access federal financial aid, so most rely on a mix of private scholarships, state or institutional aid, personal savings and multiple jobs to afford a college education. New England is a hub of prestigious higher education institutions, but remains a mixed bag for college-bound undocumented students. Connecticut and Rhode Island opted to extend in-state tuition to all state residents regardless of immigration status, while Massachusetts and Maine extend in-state tuition only to DACA recipients. New Hampshire effectively bars undocumented students from in-state tuition and financial aid, though individual institutions (such as the private Southern New Hampshire University) offer scholarships for undocumented students or in-state tuition for DACA recipients, according to the uLEAD (University Leaders for Educational Access and Diversity) Network.
But we don’t have to wait for the worst-case scenario to support undocumented students. Nationally, approximately 98,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year, the most recent graduating without access to DACA. Approximately 450,000 undocumented students with and without DACA are studying at colleges and universities across the country. With that in mind, here are five ways universities and states can help their DACA and undocumented students, before and after the Supreme Court decision:
Renew, renew, renew! Colleges should encourage DACA recipients to renew immediately if they have a year or less of their DACA status. While we do n0t know exactly how the program could be phased out, pending applications (e.g. those received by the government on the date of a decision) may still be processed if the Supreme Court allows the administration to end DACA. There are also resources available to help with the process and application fees.
Audit your internal and external financial aid policies regarding DACA and undocumented undergraduate and graduate students. Take a look at the eligibility criteria for your institution’s admissions, financial aid and tuition policies for DACA and undocumented students and, if needed, adjust them. Institutional policies should ensure that funding streams available to DACA recipients can be expanded to those without DACA. Delinking DACA from eligibility criteria lets institutions expand financial aid, admissions and tuition policies to both former DACA recipients and those who could not apply for DACA. While undocumented undergraduates have received considerable attention, it is crucial for institutions to also improve access, funding and support for undocumented graduate and professional students.
Weigh in on the state level and work to amend state tuition and aid policies. If your state policies are in any way tailored to DACA, explore how they can be expanded if DACA is ended so the same cohort of students continues to benefit. For example, the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education currently bases its in-state tuition rules around DACA recipients’ work permits, which they would lose along with DACA. States can adopt proxy measures, like length of residency, instead of immigration status to capture that same population.
Establish alternative options for income generation. Students will need to prepare for the possibility that they may lose their work permits and the ability to generate income. Schools can support students by directing them to non-employment-based internships and externships and creating or expanding fellowships and scholarships that also do not require work permits.
Both public and private institutions can develop non-employment-based funding through educational fellowship programs. An educational fellowship funds a student through a scholarship or stipend rather than through the employer. As long as the student is the “primary beneficiary” of the work relationship (the closely supervised work is closely related to learning goals), this is not considered an “employment relationship” by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Schools can also think outside the box and look for opportunities with cooperatives, self-employment and small businesses—lawful options that do not necessarily require employment authorization.
Connect students to campus resources. Connect DACA recipients to legal resources so they can see if they qualify for better forms of relief. Schools will have to invest in investigating and educating students, counselors and immigrant resource centers on alternative forms of income generation. Importantly, campuses should connect students to other forms of support, including mental and health services.
Finally, earlier this year the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration convened stakeholders including higher ed presidents and chancellors, government relations experts and advocates to develop the Campus Checklist to Prepare for a Supreme Court DACA Decision, a synthesis of the top opportunities for campuses to prepare for a DACA decision. We encourage campuses to utilize it extensively.
Miriam Feldblum is executive director and Jose Magaña-Salgado is director of policy and communications at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.
Greentown and Vineyard Wind partner for offshore-windpower innovation
From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com):
“Greentown Labs has partnered with Vineyard Wind to develop an accelerator program for offshore wind innovation.
“Based in Somerville, Mass., Greentown Labs is a clean-tech incubator, and oversaw its first clean-energy program launch in 2015. Through this partnership, Greentown will support startups working to develop offshore wind and marine-mammal technology. An oft-overlooked facet of offshore wind, marine data-monitoring technology—which provides important information on environmental conditions necessary for offshore wind projects—is integrated into the partnership. The partnership will also provide ‘resources, training, and expert mentorship’ to startups. Greentown’s previous launch programs focused on areas such as solar, hydrogen and digital energy.
“‘We’re thrilled to add Vineyard Wind to our network of launch partners, and we know offshore wind presents a tremendous opportunity to bring more clean energy to homes and businesses across the Northeast region and beyond,’ said Greentown Labs CEO Emily Reichert. ‘We’re confident that by working closely with Vineyard Wind, we’ll be able to help deploy solutions to advance the industry and protect the environment.’
Don Pesci: 2 pro-abortion-rights senators seem to see no limits
Even the universe has borders and limits, both perhaps undiscoverable; so we are told by science. The big bang theory has not only a beginning but an end.
Charles Schumer, of New York, and Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, are two U.S. senators who fervently believe that abortion should be borderless, not hemmed in by reasonable regulations, such as those that they believe should govern the exercise of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Laws are limits to human behavior that, we deduce from bank robberies, rapes and murders, may be overridden in some ungovernable people. The law is a red line saying thus far you may go but no further -- without risking some painful sanction.
Blumenthal knows, perhaps better than most, that one way to set limits to the sometimes audacious behavior of businesses is through the establishment of regulations. As attorney general of Connecticut for more than 20 years, Blumenthal earned his political spurs by applying a legal birch switch to the backsides of Connecticut businesses and others.
When Blumenthal vacated his sinecure to make a successful run for the U.S. Senate, he left behind more than 200 unsettled cases quickly dismissed by the next attorney general, George Jepsen. Blumenthal’s victims, hung out to dry on hooks in the attorney general’s offices for many years, were now free to resume pursuing the American dream if – big “if” – they had not been driven into penury by some of Blumenthal’s punishing tactics, the most successful of which was to encumber a business’s assets until the business compliantly acceded to terms dictated by Blumenthal.
Blumenthal is well known in Connecticut for his unyielding opposition to abortion regulation and two Trump appointed justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. But Blumenthal, the “Senator from Planned Parenthood” has now been trumped by Schumer. Hectoring a crowd of abortion advocates on the steps of the U.S Supreme Court, and sounding a bit like Huey Long at his boisterous worst, Schumer said this: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
Schumer’s harangue was intended as a threat; it was directed as a threat to two specific Supreme Court Justices; and it was received as a threat by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who responded with great temperance in a written statement, “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”
Schumer later blamed his threat to the court justices on Brooklyn, according to the New York Post, – “Sen. Schumer cites his NYC roots in non-apology over Supreme Court squabble: 'We speak in strong language’”.
Speaking from the floor of the U.S. Senate, Schumer offered, “I should not have used the words I used yesterday. They didn’t come out the way I intended them to. I’m from Brooklyn. We speak in strong language. I shouldn’t have used the words I did, but in no way was I making a threat. I never — never — would do such a thing.”
Schumer accused Republicans of “manufacturing outrage” over his own threats to Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. That fish won’t fly.
In an opinion piece in the New York Post, George Conway III, a lawyer and adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump super PAC, wrote “Schumer’s words, however, were unmistakably intimidating: ‘I want to tell you, Gorsuch.’ ‘I want to tell you, Kavanaugh.’ ‘You (emphasis original) will pay the price.’ ‘You won’t know what hit you if …’ The emphasis is mine, but the meaning is clear: If you don’t do as we say, something bad will happen to you….”
There is some talk of censure in the air. Would Blumenthal support the censure of a fellow senator who has threatened two Supreme Court justices -- not of course with body harm, but with political repercussions -- if the high court failed to decide a pending case related to abortion in a way that did not satisfy abortion-rights extremists?If Blumenthal has been asked the question, his answer to it has not appeared anywhere in Connecticut’s media. Perhaps the media feels it might be indelicate to put such a question to Blumenthal who so far has resisted every effort, however reasonable, to regulate Big Abortion. Blumenthal spearheaded the effort to deny the Supreme Court placement of both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Schumer’s threatening remarks, it may be argued, simply carries the Blumenthal effort a logical step forward.
Don Pesci is a Vernon, Conn.-based columnist.
Save our dairy farms
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Over the last half century, New England has lost most of its dairy farms, most of them small. Most rural towns had at least one such farm. The rural/suburban town I lived in as a boy had several, including one across the road from our house. We used to go over there and try to irritate the bull. Now there are only about 125 dairy farms in the state, though much of Massachusetts remains rural west of Worcester.
It’s tough to compete with huge agribusiness dairy operations that are outside New England; they can usually produce milk and other dairy products more cheaply. But besides the aesthetic/psychological rewards to us of their beautiful open green spaces, New England’s dairy farms offer some local security by ensuring a supply of nearby food as a buffer against transportation and other supply-chain problems of far-away agribusinesses in the Midwest and elsewhere. (The Coronavirus reminds us of supply-chain dangers.)
And I’m not just talking about dairy. Many New England farms also sell fruits, vegetables, maple syrup and so on, and some are also growing solar energy – all that full-sunlight land for panels.
Let’s help keep as many of these farms open as possible, first off by buying more of their stuff.
'The Long March' of March
“It’s March, the longest month of the year….The Long March. The Death March. The March of Time, the March of Doom, the maddening thump-thump-thump of days in 4/4 time. No wonder we go a little crazy, or a lot, at this time of year. Our March entertainments have a desperate, hysterical character.’’
--Tim Clark, in “March Madness, in the March 2002 Yankee magazine.
Sword play
“Rock After Excalibur (cocktail swords and rock), by Matt Garrison, in the show “A Horse Walks Into a Bar,’’ at the Hampden Gallery at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst through April 12
The gallery says the show displays the work of “artists who continue to push the boundaries of fine art toward humor and wit.’’
Peter Certo: So capitalism naturally goes with democracy? Do some research
Medicare is a socialistic idea.
From OtherWords.org
For decades, Republicans have painted anyone left of Barry Goldwater as a “socialist.” Why? Because for a generation raised on the Cold War, “socialist” just seemed like a damaging label.
And, probably, it was.
You can tell, because many liberal-leaning figures internalized that fear. When Donald Trump vowed that “America will never be a socialist country,” for instance, no less than Sen. Elizabeth Warren agreed.
But while older Americans retain some antipathy toward the word, folks raised in the age of “late capitalism” don’t. In Gallup polls, more millennial and Gen-Z respondents say they view “socialism” positively with each passing year, while their opinion of “capitalism” tumbles ever downward.
As a result, it’s not all that surprising that self-described democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders tops Trump in most head to head polls.
Still, old propaganda dies hard. What else could explain the panicky musings of Chris Matthews, the liberal-ish former MSNBC host, who recently wondered aloud if a Sanders victory would mean “executions in Central Park”?
Nevermind that Sanders is a longtime opponent of all executions, as any news host could surely look up. The real issue is a prejudice, particularly among Americans reared on fears of the Soviet Union and Maoist China, that “socialism” implies dictatorship, while “capitalism” presumes democracy.
Their Cold War education serves them poorly.
Yes, it’s easy to name calamitous dictatorships, living and deceased, that proclaim socialist or communist commitments. But it’s just as easy to point to Europe, where democratic socialist parties and their descendants have been mainstream players in democratic politics for a century or longer.
The health-care, welfare, and tax systems built by those parties have created societies with far greater equality, higher social mobility, and better health outcomes (at lower cost) than we enjoy here. These systems aren’t perfect, but to a significant degree they’re more democratic than our own.
But we don’t have to look abroad (or to Vermont) for a rich social democratic history.
Milwaukee Mayor Daniel Hoan — one of several socialists to govern the city — served for 24 years, and built the country’s first public busing and housing programs. And ruby-red North Dakota is, even now, the only state in the country with a state-owned bank, thanks to a socialist-led government in the early 20th Century. Today, dozens of elected socialists hold office at the state or municipal levels.
While plenty of socialists embraced democracy, plenty of capitalists turned to dictatorship.
In the name of fighting socialism during the Cold War, the U.S. trained and supported members of right-wing death squads in El Salvador, genocidal army units in Guatemala, and a Chilean military regime that disappeared or tortured tens of thousands of people while enacting “pro-market reforms.”
Only last year, the U.S. government was cheering a military coup against an elected socialist government in Bolivia. And in 2018, The Wall Street Journal praised far-right Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro, an apologist for the country’s old military regime, for his deregulation of business.
Even here at home, our capitalist “freedoms” have co-existed peacefully with racial apartheid, the world’s largest prison system, and the mass internment of immigrants and their children.
Sanders has been clear his socialist tradition comes from the social democratic systems common in countries like Denmark, with their provisions for universal health care and free college.
Should Matthews next wonder aloud if candidates who oppose Medicare for All or free college also support death squads, genocide, mass incarceration, or internment camps? If that sounds unfair, then so should the lazy fear mongering we get about “socialism.”
The sobering truth is that all political systems are capable of either great violence or social uplift. That’s why we need resilient social movements, whatever system we use — and why we’re poorly served by propaganda from any corner..
Peter Certo is the editorial manager of the Institute for Policy Studies and editor of OtherWords.org.
'Time learns its impotence'
You got lucky as well: where else, save perhaps in a snapshot perhaps,
will you forever remain free of wrinkles, lithe, caustic, vivid?
Having bumped into memory, time learns its impotence.
Ebb tide; l smoke in the darkness and inhale rank seaweed.’’
From “Brise Marine,’’ by Joseph Brodsky (1940-96), Russian-American poet
Shefali Luthra: How insurers sank plan for 'public option' in Connecticut
Headquarters of the huge insurance company Cigna in Bloomfield, Conn
Health-care costs were rising. People couldn’t afford coverage. So, in Connecticut, state lawmakers took action.
Their solution was to attempt to create a public health insurance option, managed by the state, which would ostensibly serve as a low-cost alternative for people who couldn’t afford private plans.
Immediately, an aggressive industry mobilized to kill the idea. Despite months of lobbying, debate and organizing, the proposal was dead on arrival.
“That bill was met with a steam train of opposition,” recalled state Rep. Sean Scanlon, who chairs the legislature’s insurance and real estate committee.
Through a string of presidential debates, the idea of a public option was championed by moderate Democrats ― such as former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Vice President Joe Biden ― as an alternative to a single-payer “Medicare for All” model. Those center-left candidates again touted the idea during the Feb. 25 Democratic debate in South Carolina, with Buttigieg arguing such an approach would deliver universal care without the political baggage. (Buttigieg and Klobuchar have since ended their presidential bids.)
The public option has a common-sense appeal for many Americans who list health-care costs as a top political concern: If the market doesn’t offer patients an affordable health care insurance they like, why not give them the option to buy into a government-run health plan?
But the stunning 2019 defeat of a plan to implement such a policy in Connecticut — a solidly blue, or liberal-leaning, state — shows how difficult it may be to enact even “moderate” solutions that threaten some of America’s most powerful and lucrative industries. The health-insurance industry’s fear: If the average American could weigh a public option — Medicare or Medicaid or some amalgam of the two — against commercial plans on the market, they might find the latter wanting.
That fear has long blocked political action, said Colleen Grogan, a professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration, because “insurance companies are at the table” when health care reform legislation gets proposed.
To be sure, the state calculus is different from what a federal one would be. In the statehouse, a single industry can have an outsize influence and legislators are more skittish about job loss. In Connecticut, that was an especially potent force. Cigna and Aetna are among the state’s top 10 employers.
“They became aware of the bill, and they moved immediately to kill it,” said Frances Padilla, who heads the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut and worked to generate support for the public option.
And those strategies have been replicated at the national level as a national coalition of health industry players ramps up lobbying against Democratic proposals. Beyond insurance, health-care systems and hospitals have joined in mobilizing against both public option and single-payer proposals, for fear a government-backed plan would pay far less than the rates of commercial insurance.
Many states are exploring implementing a public option, and once one is successful, others may well follow, opening the door to a federal program.
“State action is always a precursor for federal action,” said Trish Riley, the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy. “There’s a long history of that.”
Virginia state delegate Ibraheem Samirah introduced a new public option bill this session. In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis is spearheading an effort. And Washington state is the furthest along — it approved a public option last year, and the state-offered plan will be available next year.
But in 2019, Connecticut’s legislators were stuck between two diametrically opposed constituencies, both distinctly local.
Health costs had skyrocketed. Across the state, Scanlon said, small-business owners worried that the high price of insurance was squeezing their margins. A state-provided health plan, the logic went, would be highly regulated and offer lower premiums and stable benefits, providing a viable, affordable alternative to businesses and individuals. (It could also pressure private insurance to offer cheaper plans.)
A coalition of state legislators came together around a proposal: Let small businesses and individuals buy into the state employee health benefit plan. Insurers’ response was swift.
Lobbyists from the insurance industry swarmed the Capitol, recalled Kevin Lembo, the state comptroller. “There was a lot of pressure put on the legislature and governor’s office not to do this.”
State ethics filings make it impossible to tease out how much of Aetna and Cigna’s lobbying dollars were spent on the public option legislation specifically. In the 2019-20 period, Aetna spent almost $158,000 in total lobbying: $93,000 lobbying the Statehouse, and $65,000 on the governor’s office. Cigna spent about $157,000: $84,000 went to the legislature, and $73,000 to the executive.
Anthem, another large insurance company, spent almost $147,000 lobbying during that same period — $23,545 to the governor, and $123,045 to the legislature. Padilla recalled that Anthem also made its opposition clear, though it was less vocal than the other companies. (Anthem did not respond to requests for comment.)
A coalition of insurance companies and business trade groups rolled out an online campaign, commissioning reports and promoting op-eds that argued the state proposal would devastate the local economy.
Lawmakers also received scores of similarly worded emails from Cigna and Aetna employees, voicing concern that a public option would eliminate their jobs, according to documents shared with Kaiser Health News. Cigna declined to comment on those emails, and Aetna never responded to requests for comment.
Connecticut’s first public option bill — which would let people directly buy into the publicly run state employee health plan ― flamed out.
So lawmakers put forth a compromise proposal: The state would contract with private plans to administer the government health option, allowing insurance companies to participate in the system.
The night before voting, that too fell apart. Accounts of what happened vary.
Some say Cigna threatened to pull its business out of the state if a public option were implemented. Publicly, Cigna has said it never issued such a threat but made clear that a public option would harm its bottom line. The company would not elaborate when contacted by KHN.
Now, months later, both Scanlon and Lembo said another attempt is in the works, pegged to legislation resembling last year’s compromise bill. But state lawmakers work only from February through early May, which is not a lot of time for a major bill.
Meanwhile, other states are making similar pushes, fighting their own uphill battles.
“It really depends on whether there are other countervailing pressures in the state that allow politicians to be able to go for a public option,” Grogan said.
And, nationally, if a public option appears to gain national traction, Blendon said, insurance companies “are clearly going to battle.”
They’re going to go after every Republican, every moderate Democrat, to try to say that … it’s a backdoor way to have the government take over insurance,” he said.
Still, when President Barack first proposed the idea of a public option as part of the Affordable Care Act, it was put aside as too radical. Less than a decade later, support for the idea ― every Democratic candidate backs either an optional public health plan or Medicare for All ― is stronger than it ever has been.
So strong, Grogan said, that it is hard for people to understand “the true extent” of the resistance that must be overcome to realize such a plan.
But in Connecticut, politicians say they’re up for a new battle in 2020.
“We can’t accept the status quo. … People are literally dying and going bankrupt,” Scanlon said. “A public option at the state level is the leading fight we can be taking.”
Shefali Luthra is a Kaiser Health News reporter.
Would Grandma have approved?
“Paint Me to Match My Grandma's Drapes’’ (oil and acrylic on canvas), by Mia Cross, in her joint show with Daniel Zeese, “The Outlanders,” April 1-April 26, at Fountain Street Fine Art Gallery, Boston.
Forget poems about spring here
“The people of New England are by nature patient and forbearing, but there are some things which they will not stand. Every year they kill a lot of poets for writing about ‘Beautiful Spring.’ These are generally casual visitors, who bring their notions of spring from somewhere else, and cannot, of course, know how the natives feel about spring. And so the first thing they know the opportunity to inquire how they feel has permanently gone by.’’
— Mark Twain, in a speech at a New England Society dinner on Dec. 22, 1876
But at least they can't get COVID-19
“Too Close” ( wall installation sails, welded steel), by Andy Zimmermann, in his show “Sailing to the Edge,’’ at Boston Sculptors Gallery, through March 29.
Mr. Zimmermann uses translucent materials to filter light. He also works with recycled materials, which has led him to use old weathered sails as his preferred materials. The installation in this show includes 12 sections of sails and metal sculpture, creating a maze-like space that can be reconfigured with every installation.
Kristin J. Demoranville: Feeding corn to deer can kill them
A white-tailed doe
From ecoRI News (ecori.org)
Christian Floyd, a natural-resource scientist at the University of Rhode Island, spotted an unusual white-tailed deer carcass while birding on the South County Bike Path in mid-January.
Floyd went into the woods for a closer look at the carcass. His inspection revealed that this wasn’t a hunting fatality or natural death; the deer’s stomach looked as if it had exploded. The animal’s stomach was enlarged and bursting open with partially digested corn grains. The cause of the deer’s death was familiar to Floyd, who recalled a scene from his childhood, “I knew that rumen acidosis was responsible because my favorite goat, Maria, succumbed to the same fate after devouring the chicken feed.”
Ruminants, including deer, goats, and cattle, are a group of animals named after their specialized digestive system that allows them to eat large amounts of nutrient-poor plant material such as grass and woody shrubs. In this specialized digestive system, food first enters a chamber called the rumen, which is home to the microbial community — bacteria, protozoa, and fungi — solely responsible for breaking down the large quantities of ingested fibrous plant material.
Shifting away from their normal fibrous diets can disrupt a ruminant’s microbial community and have fatal consequences, a process called rumen acidosis, which occurs when a ruminant suddenly gorges on carbohydrate-heavy meals of corn or other grain. In response to this meal, the number of carb-feasting microbes in the rumen dominate the microbial community to cope with the carbohydrate overload. These carb-feasting microbes ferment the ingested corn causing a build-up of lactic acid. The lactic acid lowers the pH of the rumen, causing an acidic environment that destroys the animal’s ability to digest and absorb nutrients.
At this stage, an animal will stop feeding because its gut is too full. However, the animal is functionally starving because of its inability to process the leftover corn present in the rumen. At the same time, the excess lactic acid leaks from the rumen into the animal’s bloodstream, damaging cells and tissues throughout the body. Muscle groups are usually too damaged to function, and an animal may be seen staggering or unable to stand.
Rumen acidosis causes the animal’s death within one or two days of its grain-heavy meal.
Dylan Ferreira, a senior wildlife biologist with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, noted that rumen acidosis is a concern for Rhode Island’s white-tailed deer population. He said it’s one of the reasons why the state informs people not to feed or bait deer.
Feeding white-tailed deer can be detrimental to entire populations, since feeding can cause large congregations of deer that facilitate the spread of contagious diseases such as chronic wasting disease.
Feeding wildlife can be tempting because it creates seemingly special wildlife viewing opportunities. However, feeding white-tailed deer often harms these animals by disrupting their natural diet and altering their normal behavior.
Kristen J. DeMoranville is a Ph.D. candidate in the Physiological Ecology, Natural Resources Department at the University of Rhode Island.
Life sciences in New England
Bioreactors
From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com):
On Tuesday, April 7, 2020, The New England Council will host the sixth event it its popular “New England Innovates” series. “New England Innovates: On the Cutting Edge of Life Sciences,” will feature keynote remarks from Udit Batra, CEO of MilliporeSigma. Headquartered in Burlington, Mass., MilliporeSigma is the life sciences business of Merck KGaA, which develops and manufactures products focused on scientific discovery, biomanufacturing and testing services.
Following Dr. Batra’s remarks, a panel of NEC members representing a diverse array of life sciences businesses and organizations in the region will highlight some of the incredible innovation taking place right here in New England, and will discuss some of the key challenges as well as opportunities for continued growth in this thriving industry.
Launched in 2016, “New England Innovates” is a periodic series presented by The New England Council to promote an ongoing dialogue in the region about how we maintain our reputation as a global innovation hub. Each event focuses on a specific sector or issue affecting innovation in the region, and highlights the role that New England Council members are playing to drive innovation across various sectors of the economy. The goal of each forum is to explore challenges and opportunities for continued innovation and growth, and to examine how policy makers at the local, state, and federal level can support innovation in New England. Past programs have explored such topics as cybersecurity, FinTech, autonomous vehicles, and workforce development.
“New England Innovates: On the Cutting Edge of Life Sciences” will take place at The Hampshire House in Boston on Tuesday, April 7, 2020, from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. For more information, contact Emily Heisig at eheisig@newenglandcouncil.com or Sean Malone at smmalone@newenglandcouncil.com.
'Spacetime' at Emerson College
“The Dancer “ (detail), by Nicole L’Huillier, in the show “Spacetime (x, y, z+ t)’’ at Emerson College’s (Boston) Media Art Gallery through March 15.
In the show she and fellow artists Katherine Mitchell DiRico, Monika Grzymala, Zsuzsanna Szegedi and Sarah Trahan use, the gallery says, “unconventional, multi-dimensional works of art to explore the dynamic relationships between objects and how ideas and concepts can travel across time, media and location. Rather than existing in ‘space’ and ‘time,’ the artwork in this exhibition resides in the entity called ‘spacetime,’ an idea demonstrated by Albert Einstein that contends that the two concepts are one and the same.’’
Part of Emerson College, in downtown Boston