Here are links to articles and essays circulated this week, as well as notice of three important new publications.
Overcoming a pandemic may look like fighting a war, but the real need is far from that
by Amartya Sen, Indian Express, April 8, 2020
Read here.
Covid-19 highlights Trump’s malignant narcissism—and proves Americans will survive despite him
by James Risen, The Intercept, April 22 2020
Read here.
Why Beijing must change before it’s too late
The next phase of the perpetual U.S/China contest will be determined by Beijing’s success in confronting its own internal challenges
by Francesco Sisci, Asia Times, April 23, 2020
Read here.
The Myth of the disease-spreading migrant
The Covid-19 pandemic has renewed rhetoric on migrants as a public health threat. The science doesn’t bear that out.
by Lourdes Medrano, Undark, April 22, 2020
Read here.
The COVID-19 excuse? How migration policies are hardening around the globe
by Eric Reidy, The New Humanitarian, April 17, 2020
Read here.
The complex interplay between immigration, health and medicine
A Conversation With Alan M. Kraut: the author of “Silent Travelers” discusses the complex interplay between immigration and issues of health and medicine.
Undark, April 24, 2020
Read here.
COVID-19, Capitalism and Public Health: What are the connections?
by Nicholas Freudenberg, Corporations and Health Watch, April 16, 2020
Read here.
A violence which must be named
C19 and the impact of global systems
by Tarik Kochi, Critical Legal Thinking, April 29, 2020
Read here.
Decolonising COVID-19
Editorial, The Lancet Global Health, Volume 8, Issue 5-E612, May 1, 2020
Read here.
Malaria services must be maintained amid COVID-19 pandemic
by Pedro Alonso, Global Health NOW, March 23, 2020
Read here.
Dueling data on would-be Covid-19 treatment leave questions
by Michelle Fay Cortez, Bloomberg, April 29, 2020
Read here.
Misogyny is often behind the acts we deem ‘senseless’
by Elizabeth Renzetti, The Globe & Mail, April 24. 2020
Read here.
Silence is violence against women too
Name what happened in Nova Scotia. Note its long tradition. And don’t stop writing reading and talking about it.
by Dorothy Woodend, The Tyee, 29 Apr 2020
Read here.
Men must speak
by Brian K Murphy, Murphy’s Log, 28 April 2020
Read here.
And three important new publications to consider:
Re-imagining Long-term Residential Care in the COVID-19 Crisis
The COVID-19 crisis offers an opportunity to create a new better normal at Canadian long-term residential care facilities.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, April 24, 2020
A full list of evidence-based recommendations can be found in the report
available online here.
Coding Democracy: How Hackers Are Disrupting Power Surveillance and Authoritarianism
Hackers as vital disruptors inspiring a new wave of activism in which ordinary citizens take back democracy.
by Maureen Webb | The MIT Press | March 2020
“Hackers have a bad reputation as shady deployers of bots and destroyers of infrastructure. In Coding Democracy, Maureen Webb offers another view. Hackers she argues can be vital disruptors. Hacking is becoming a practice, an ethos and a metaphor for a new wave of activism in which ordinary citizens are inventing new forms of distributed decentralized democracy for a digital era. Confronted with concentrations of power, mass surveillance, and authoritarianism enabled by new technology, the hacking movement is trying to ‘build out’ democracy into cyberspace. Coding Democracy is not just another optimistic declaration of technological utopianism; instead it provides the tools for an urgently-needed upgrade of democracy in the digital era.”
Read more here.
No Warming, No War: how militarism fuels the climate crisis—and vice versa
by Lorah Steichen & Lindsay Koshgarian, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC.
“While meaningful climate action has stalled on Capitol Hill and in the White House, planners at the Pentagon have been quietly preparing a militarized “armed lifeboat” response to climate chaos for years. Unfortunately the tendency to understand climate change as just another national security issue has misdirected resources away from the programs that we need to mitigate and adapt to a warming climate. In this report we lay out how militarism and the climate crisis are deeply intertwined and mutually-reinforcing. The military itself is a huge polluter—and is often deployed to sustain the very extractive industries that destabilize our climate. This climate chaos in turn leads to massive displacement, militarized borders, and the prospect of further conflict. True climate solutions must have anti-militarism at their core. In the face of both COVID-19 and the climate crisis we urgently need to shift from a culture of war to a culture of care. Funneling trillions into the military to wage endless wars, and project military dominance, has prevented us from investing in true security and cooperation. If we don’t transform our society and the way we confront crises we will face even more unjust and inhumane realities in a climate-changed future.”
Read here.