China is helping countries throughout the world upgrade their infrastructures with China equipment that those countries will become dependent on for decades. The US can't get its act together to upgrade its own infrastructure. Is it so hard to see who will be the only superpower of the 21st century?
Mostly they are funding and constructing infrastructure that supports their own companies extraction of minerals needed by the Chinese economy. The minerals, the construction and operating contracts and of course all the profits go to China and its companies. The recipient country is left with the huge debt to finance to pay for the infrastructure loan and a few bottom level poorly paid jobs (not to mention a few healthy bribes to decision makers here and there)....and parts of the country that are "off-limits" to local government control and to the people. The country often loses control of it's only viable ports and rail infrastructure. The indirect economic impact on other local businesses and employment of this economic imperialism is not always great. In the 18-19th C. many western powers did likewise but some however paid a little more attention to the local scene, helped to develop political economic and cultural structures and institutions. I don't think, somehow, this is on the Chinese "to-do list". Many recipient countries are now backing out of "Silk Road" and other such sparkling financial burdens as they are hardly not appropriate for their state of economic and political development.
Correct, Stuart, except that China's policy is highly systematic, a global game of GO. Incidentally, one in which Russia will probably be among the first major victims, owing to their regime's awkward mix of tactical brilliance and ultimately suicidal strategy. A tendency in which they are far from alone. China, too, with its vast ecological catastrophes, has inflicted huge damage on itself and all Asia.
But isn't Cathy's second sentence the important one for America?
I don't think they do. The big joke on most Republicans is that the upper echelon don't give a crap about them and by the time they realise it it will be wayyyyy too late.
Too true Peter. Russia's government dominated, oil and mineral dependant economy is on the ropes anyway with the decline in oil prices. Navalny is getting special treatment because the Russians are getting poorer and are fed up with Putin's kleptocracy..hence increased repression and diversionary tactics.
Crazy thing, is that is exactly what the US has done in Central and S America, and Indonesia (and probably other places as well). Again - read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
The US has done some infrastructure work in some parts of Central & South America, where it benefited/benefits US corporate interests. I can't speak to Indonesia. The Chinese are developing infrastructure throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and are making inroads in Latin America. The difference is this: US infrastructure development in Latin America is "linear", it's single project oriented. Chinese infrastructure development projects, throughout the world, are more like tentacles of an octopus or a circulatory system. The Chinese are striving for interconnected infrastructures to advance their trade and influence globally. They will likely be successful because they are focused, goal oriented and partisan politics don't factor into their processes.
It is interesting in a historical context to go back to the conquest and takeover of the Philipines by the US after the war with Spain. Goodwin's writing about Taft's Governorship battles with "American interests and attitudes" in the "Bully Pulpit" is extremely revealing. His desire to return the Philipines to the Philipinos was not exactly widely shared as it got in the way of more financially interesting matters and hardly outlived his short stay before becoming Rooseveltes Secretary of State..
And the damage to the Philippines continues to this day.
Only... what might have happened if the US power grab hadn't followed Dewey's victory? There were other sharks patroling those waters, as the world was to see in 1941...
Even the rapacious King Leopold II of the Belgians had looked into buying the Philippines, lock, stock and barrel, from Spain. Before setting his sights on the unfortunate Congolese...
The Professor's talk last Thursday discussed the Spanish American war, and the US entanglements in Cuba and the Philippines. It would be worth the hour to go back and listen.
Not much attention on institutional development though but considerable help to American corporate $ bottom lines. What was it Ceasar was supposed to have said... I came, I saw, I raped and pillaged....and I left the country in the proverbial sh*t!......or something like that I wonder what Ceasar thought of the refugees streaming into Rome from the devastated hinterlands beyond the touch of Romanized civilized life in the outer margins of the empire.
Yep, this is a major concern that is getting far too little play in the national press. China has made major inroads, particularly in Africa, layering on infrastructure "help" that saddles the country with unpayable debt and perpetual obligation to China.
In African countries, such as Uganda and Ethiopia, China is building roads, plumbing, etc. in trade for mineral rights (source: my son who does outreach in these countries).
Both physical infrastructure investments and vaccine for more good will. Energy and resource extraction frim developing countries to supply energy and raw materials to feed Chinese manufacturing.
Have to determine the origin of the virus. Have to. Full stop. If China wants to participate in the world economy, then cooperate with the WHO and CDC. Otherwise we only have an illusion of public health and an illusion of National & Economic Security.
Epidemiologist solve disease mysteries through investigation. Part of that is, through genomic surveillance of an outbreak, tracing cases diligently to narrower and narrower probability to the “origin” case. This is vital knowledge for public health. As once the origin is confirmed, proper mitigation efforts can be implemented for the protection and health security for all the worlds people.
And remember that the Chinese doctor who was the first to warn people in late December, 2019. "Four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. In the letter he was accused of "making false comments" that had "severely disturbed the social order".
"We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice - is that understood?" Underneath in Dr Li's handwriting is written: "Yes, I do."
He was one of eight people who police said were being investigated for "spreading rumours".
He supposedly caught the virus and died rather quickly. Fishy (markety) sounding?).
Dr. Li thought it was the return of SARS and warned his fellow doctors to dress appropriately as seven people were in quarantine in the local hospital. Dr. Li never knew it was a totally new coronavirus before he supposedly died of Corona 19. It was 10 days later - on 20 January - that China declared the outbreak an emergency. That is when TFG knew about it and never told us.
"The Chinese doctor who tried to warn others about coronavirus"
I had forgotten about this doctor and still feel so sad about his death, and remember now the courage he showed in speaking out. He was one of the first heroes during this pandemic. We should never forget him, so thanks for posting this.
Over 900,000 surplus deaths estimate here in the USA. Takes a bit for coroner's to catch up. For example, you get sick, test positive for Covid. Go to hospital for treatment, Oxygen, and while in Critical Care you develop bacterial Pneumonia ( always follows viral Pneumonia), but after 2 to 3 weeks you are moved to ICU and get a ventilator, then you test negative for Covid, but die of a cytokine storm and bacterial pneumonia. Deaths like these were not counted in the short term tally's. The long term official tolls take 2 years to "officialize". From 2019 the total mortality in the USA was about 2.5M. Look for 2020 to be around 3.4M, this will be updated on the CDC's website probably by 2022. The difference in these two is "Surplus Deaths" or "Surplus Mortality".
Wish our police would have done something in 2016 with a significant person who disturbed our social order. However, despite all the negativity, a LOT of good has come out of that disturbance and it might be the eventual undoing of a lot of intolerance by white privilege nationalists and seditionists.
By not cooperating, China may save face in the short term, but by doing so, has increased the worlds distrust of their leadership as partners in humanity and allows the nonsense of conspiracy’s to flourish. This is how wars start. Better to let the worlds best Epidemiologist the access to do their work. The sooner they do that, the closer we are to ending this pandemic.
Ask the Tibetan people whan they think of the Han Chinese and the Xi dynasty's attitudes are to other parts of humanity.....no thought of partnership anywhere.
Many Han Chinese, like many white Americans regarding BIPOC, do not buy in to the current and historic treatment of national minorities. Just trying to point out the difference between international perceptions of a culture based on the government that gets the headlines and the people who live under that regime. How many times have Americans found ourselves saying in recent years (and in former troublesome times), "We aren't all like that!"
Exactly my thought Susan—China doesn’t and didn’t cooperate— so are we ever really finding out? I thought that it was pretty well established that like other viruses it came out of the outdoor market place in Wuhan and started in one of the exotic animals there.
Never well established, but suggested by the Chinese as there are sales of such live creatures in a "food" market close by the laboratory. The "first case" however has however never been traced to this market.
The bats, that seem to be in question - Horseshoe bats, Rhinolophus, are located a long way (>800km) from Wuhan, plus they are very small (25g max) and are certainly not likely to be captured for sale. So the probability of their being directly responsible is pretty miniscule. Plus there have been no reported cases of Covid like illnesses in the region.
From what I gather, it is possible, not only that there were "gain of function" experiments, carried out at level 2 conditions, which ought to have been at levels 3 or 4. I've visited a level 3 lab, level 4 is much more difficult to endure as a researcher.
Thank you for the link; the piece is well worth the time it takes to read through it. I had a close relative in my parents’ generation who was a virologist of note in the academic community. This article reminded me of some of his stories about how grants, funding and personality/ego drive behaviors in ways that are counterintuitive to the assumption that science is purely a high-minded search for objective fact. There is much more to this story that needs to be understood.
They are still measured, funded and promoted in academia by the number of peer-reviewed articles published and references thereafter and not necessarily the value of the content therein.
I seem to recollect that the bat hypothesis depended necessarily upon the bat having transmitted the virus to a second animal type which was itself for sale on the market. Hence the absence of direct infection in the bats' homeland. That the experiments took place, i have no doubt. I also think that this supposed "international" lab suffered from significant political disagreements amongst initial partners and subsequent budgetary shortfalls affecting maintenance.
If fraud-45 had not defunded the epidemiologist located in that part of China, who who left in July 2019, we would have had much better reports when the virus hit the fan.
Exactly...I have a stepson living in China and teaching there— he fully understands the danger involved of being perceived as opposed to them and he has very strict limitations on how we communicate. I hope Biden is able to trace the exact origins of the Covid but the Chinese won’t cooperate.
Thank you for attempting to get the stream back on track, Ted.
Geez. Somehow, HCR’s Letter today set off tangents.
I’m interested in the intel investigation bringing more light upon gain in function studies and this PERHAPS being a link in the COVID crisis and pandemic. The US has research background and participation in these studies. There’s so much in science can research that is intended for “the good of” but there are times when things go awry. A clear investigation can show simply what happened and not who is to “blame”. Science is a world community. Let’s get busy discovering a mistake, if there was one, so it is not made again.
Though I agree in principle, at some point we will simply need to move on. China is simply too good at obfuscating and has had over a year to "hide the bodies." We will never know where the virus came from, I don't think.
The US most certainly will compete very strongly an possibly dominate the technology required as it will become a very big, new industry and highly profitable creating new jobs in this economic revolution.
The handwriting is on the wall and has been for a long time. When I talked with an American construction worker for the big dam Zaire (now Congo) was building, he said the 20th century was the USA’ the 21st he predicted belonged to the Chinese. It was 1975. The empire that is the USA with its bullying proclivities around the world and its 800 military installations and its defense budget higher than that of 10 the next wealthy industrialized nations combined is pumping its testerone to “compete” with China. And the citizens here are paying the bill to preserve the status quo while the Chinese tsunami gradually unfolds. The so called foreign policy leadership has learned zero about the military debacles of the last 50 years. Who has voted for the Afghan War? The Iraq invasion? Now that the draft is supplanted by mercenaries (private contractors),the people in the USA have been safely stashed far away from and freed of responsibility and any say. Were the draft operational the people would have plenty to say as their dead sons and daughters return in body bags. The war machine is at the service of the oligarchics, the sociopathic ravenous corporate mind set intent on its own wealth and power - none of which (they’ve amply demonstrated) they are willing for the people’s voice to take a determining part in. We’ve been gently and calculatedly pushed into spectator position. Free tickets to watch the supereglobal ball game but that’s it. Isn’t it dehumanizing to hear the pontificating against the pitiful $15 minimal wage per hour while those very mouths vote yes for the biggest pentagon budget yet? So my fellow citizens, we get to subsidize the oligarchs’ global competition to further despoil earth and fracture nation states in their now aggressive drive for rare earth minerals, besides holy oil. While our very own people get to be hungrier, jobless, without healthcare, be strapped to the debtors wheel and politically stifled by working two jobs if they can get them to pay off their education while raising their family. Feudalism returns.
Thanks Selina - and everybody ignores the very large Tyrannosaurus coming in the door - the disruption that is climate change.. as the political disruption that would be caused by really addressing it, cannot be stomached by the PTB. Read Tom Murphy's book (free as a pdf) (he's from UC San Diego), Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet. Go on.. READ IT!
What is the PTB? And. Yes, indeed. I ask what is it about the human condition today -already deleteriously affected by the looming climate catastrophe - that we (as I did in my rant) - "forget" it? When a friend gets cancer or Covid, we move into high drive to respond. Easily seeing death's grimace on the horizon. How is it you and I and all of us en masse are not in the streets continuously until our "representatives" have but no other choice than amass intentionality and resources to meet it?
Useful interjection, Selina, but take Hugh Spencer's point.
Every reader should do that.
Every human being, regardless of the difficulty of encompassing a reality so vast and so terrible. And the even greater one of seeing and acting on what this means for us and above all for our children and grandchildren and for the unborn.
How much US gov’t. debt did China buy today? How much US debt is China holding? What is the annual interest payment? The last I heard, which was a while ago, (Why is NOBODY reporting on this?) the numbers are significant, and likely to continue to be.
How do you compete with your biggest, by far, creditor?
From where, exactly, did the Covid 19 virus originate? In a laboratory? In an open-air market?That seems of small consequence to me. Much better to study how we were so unprepared for it and what are we doing to prepare for the next one, because there will be a next one.
"The public holds over $21 trillion, or almost 78%, of the national debt. Foreign governments hold about a third of the public debt, while the rest is owned by U.S. banks and investors, the Federal Reserve, state and local governments, mutual funds, pensions funds, insurance companies, and savings bonds.
In France the government doesn't allow its own people to buy its debt. It will only deal with institutions. As the debt purchased by the French banks is automatically bought out by the European Central Bank that leaves our debt owned by foreigners and thereby both reduces sovereign controll and increases instability.
In economic terms, these financial inflows buying US Treasury Bonds are the necessessary counterpoint to the trade outflows engendered by the massive imbalance in China-US trade. On the other hand it reminds me of the bankers dilema. When I owe him $100 and don't pay, he jumps up and down on me. When I owe $100B the bank is nice to me and negotiates a "hair cut" (see Trump and Deutsche Bank for instance) of what I owe. The weight of American government debt that the Chinese government owns gives them an interest in maintaining the stability of the America economy and the value of the Dollar.......paradoxical no?
The Chinese need to invest that money. They can’t just leave it sit.
US Treasure bonds are th safest investment in the world and are purchased as a basic investment by governments, corporations, investment funds, and rich people all over the world. The Social Security Trust Fund is completely invested in special non transferable US Treasury bond., all $1.6 Trillion (?) of it. the US has never defaulted on a Treasury bond, and always pays annual interest.
That’s why the Chinese buy Treasury bonds, which are the US National debt.they’re a good, safe investment.
In macro-economic terms the 2 flows of money must balance to maintain stability. The sums are of course done in total of all countries and not just on a China trade and money flows
Reid, if they didn't balance out in total terms across the economy the value of the dollar would rise or fall to compensate. Question of supply and demand for the dollar.
This might be true for small countries, as we have seen in some African and Southeast Asian economies. But I find no evidence that this is true for the U.S. or the dollar. It's an entirely different dynamic when's dealing with a large, stable economy. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051515/pros-cons-trade-deficit.asp
Creditor countries can dump bonds they don’t need/want for pennies on the dollar, creating a better investment for that buyer. Creditor countries can refuse to buy more bonds and that can cause inflation. Runaway inflation can cause great hardship. Wholesale societal hardships can be taken advantage of by a populist party and demagogue, case in point, 1920s Germany.
The idea that China holding U.S. debt somehow gives them leverage over us doesn't really hold up to scrutiny, if that is what you're suggesting. China buys our bonds because the dollar is and has been the most stable currency in the world.
Meh. There's all sorts of hypotheticals we could propose, of course, but that's about the least likely of any of them to actually happen. If everyone stops buying U. S. bonds it will be because we have far bigger problems.
Yes, I forgot about our being beholden to the Chinese via our debt, and the media is not reminding me. I am reading Michael Lewis's "Premonition" though, which gives a terrifying account of how our pandemic response was compromised even before the former guy's demolition derby, in part because the numbers and speed of exponential growth of diseases this virulent are so difficult for the human mind to comprehend, even for seasoned public health scientists. An amazing and committed group of risk-taking doctors, nurses and government officials secretly worked to save our lives.
It's not true. China owning some of our debt does not in any way make us beholden to them. The dollar is a stable fiat currency and we can easily pay any portion of our debt without breaking a sweat.
My earlier comment was somewhat dismissive of today's LFAA, and I offer an informative piece from the New York Times' newsletter called: 'Morning' for further explanation of 'the lab-leak theory' of Covid. There was good reason for Heather to mention Tom Cotton in her letter, and explanation for his contribution to the debate concerning the source of Covid-19, follows here:
'By David Leonhardt'
'Good morning. The lab-leak theory is everywhere. We have an explainer.'
'Groupthink + polarization'
'Suddenly, talk of the Wuhan lab-leak theory seems to be everywhere.'
'President Biden yesterday called on U.S. intelligence officials to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origin of Covid-19 and figure out whether the virus that causes it accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Major publications and social media have recently been filled with discussion of the subject.'
'Today, we offer an explainer.'
'What are the basics?
The origin of the virus remains unclear. Many scientists have long believed that the most likely explanation is that it jumped from an animal to a person, possibly at a food market in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Animal-to human transmission — known as zoonotic spillover — is a common origin story for viruses, including Ebola and some bird flus.'
'But some scientists have pointed to another possibility: that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As in other laboratories, researchers there sometimes modify viruses, to understand and treat them'.
“It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told senators yesterday.'
'Why now?
The subject is getting more attention because some scientists who were once skeptical of the laboratory theory have expressed new openness to it.'
'Two weeks ago, 18 scientists wrote a letter to the journal Science calling for a new investigation and describing both the animal-to-human theory and the lab-leak theory as “viable.” And three scientists who last year dismissed the lab-leak explanation as a conspiracy theory have told The Wall Street Journal that they now consider it plausible.'
'Among the reasons: Chinese officials have refused to allow an independent investigation into the lab and have failed to explain some inconsistencies in the animal-to-human hypothesis. Most of the first confirmed cases had no evident link to the food market.'
'What changed?'
'In some ways, not much has not changed. From the beginning, the virus’s origin has been unclear. All along, some scientists, politicians and journalists have argued that the lab-leak theory deserves consideration.]
'Almost 15 months ago, two Chinese researchers wrote a paper concluding that the virus “probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.” Alina Chan, a molecular biologist affiliated with Harvard and M.I.T., made similar arguments. David Ignatius and Josh Rogin, both Washington Post columnists, wrote about the possibility more than a year ago. Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, didn’t mention the lab-leak theory in early 2020 but he did argue that the U.S. should “not be taking China’s word” for how the outbreak started.'
'But these voices were in the minority. The World Health Organization initially dismissed the lab-leak theory as implausible.'
'Why all the dismissals?'
'It appears to be a classic example of groupthink, exacerbated by partisan polarization.'
'Global health officials seemed unwilling to confront Chinese officials, who insist the virus jumped from an animal to a person.'
'In the U.S., one of the theory’s earliest advocates was Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas who often criticizes China — and who has a history of promoting falsehoods (like election fraud that didn’t happen). In this case, though, Cotton was making an argument with plausible supporting evidence.'
'The media’s coverage of his argument was flawed, Substack’s Matthew Yglesias has written. Some coverage exaggerated Cotton’s comments to suggest he was claiming that China had deliberately released the virus as a biological weapon. (Cotton called that “very unlikely.”) And some scientists and others also seem to have decided that if Cotton believed something — and Fox News and Donald Trump echoed it — the idea had to be wrong.'
'The result, as Yglesias called it, was a bubble of fake consensus. Scientists who thought a lab leak was plausible, like Chan, received little attention. Scientists who thought the theory was wacky received widespread attention. It’s a good reminder: The world is a complicated place, where almost nobody is always right or always wrong.'
'Why does it matter?'
'The virus’s origin does not affect many parts of the fight against Covid. The best mitigation strategies — travel restrictions, testing, contact tracing, social distancing, ventilation and masking — are still the best mitigation strategies.''
But there are at least three concrete ways, in addition to the inherent value of truth, in which the origin matters.'
'First, if the virus really did come from a lab, an immediate airing of the details might have led to even faster vaccine development and more effective treatments. Second, a leak that caused millions of deaths could lead to widespread change in laboratories’ safety precautions. Third, confirmation of a leak would affect the world’s view of China — and would put pressure on China to bear the burden of vaccinating the world as quickly as possible.'
'So what’s the truth?'
'We don’t know. Both animal-to-human transmission and the lab leak appear plausible. And the obfuscation by Chinese officials means we may never know the truth.''
For more: The Washington Post has published a helpful timeline. On Medium last week, the science writer Donald G. McNeil Jr. explained why he now finds the lab-leak theory plausible. And the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has argued that the issue highlights some of the problem with the media’s approach to fact-checking.'
Group think can be a problem in any setting, including the fine one we have here at the forum.
“some scientists...” Meaning, perhaps, scientists with a political agenda against China?
In my sense of commons sense, disease will arise as sure as the sun rises, when animals are slaughtered in an open air, public locale, with absolutely no measures of safety.
Frederick, your 'in my sense of commons sense, disease will arise as .....with absolutely no measures of safety' makes no sense concerning the legitimate questions raised about the source of Covid-19, How does your 'sense of commons sense' address leaks from labs and the possible consequences?
Heya Fern. I look at the consistency of conservative arguments. Everything is framed in a partisan, political context. I mean EVERYTHING. Women’s issues, civil rights, the planet’s future, our elections and democracy itself, and even what is considered "scientific truth.” Re Covid-19, does the potential source of an open air animal slaughter fit this narrative as well as a Chinese government induced lab leak? No, of course it does not. The lab leak fits perfectly. However, the practice of open air, public market animal slaughter en masse is so unconscionable that even family farmers in American would never consider the practice - simply due to the potentially unconscionable threat to public health.
Science points to the link of animals’ blood and humans with the outbreak of Ebola, while the cause of the SARS 2003 outbreak in China in still uncertain, but allows for the possibilities of origins from animals or a lab leak.
Lastly, conservatives and Pres. trump fawned over the president of China, until it became politically expedient to demean this man, China and Chinese Americans. Within this conservative movement, every societal and political issue fits so neatly into a unanimous agreement that it may be felt unbelievable, unless one understands from where this mindset arises.
Your comment has nothing to do with the piece that I posted. Unfortunately, I felt as though it was a political anti-right wing propaganda note without addressing the questions concerned with the source for Covid-19. Would it be worthwhile for you to reread the piece I posted?
Ah-ha. You KNEW I did not read your entire post, as that is apparently, readily evident from your post. It would be worthwhile to read you post, however, I am onto something else and will be shortly leaving for the day.
But I have a lesson learned from our exchange! I will pass over long emails without posting, or else read them - which I am most often not inclined to do, because I am also glancing or reading dozens of others.
Your lack of reasoning was evident, so was your adamant reply. There was more than one fault in your communications with me, Fredrick. Reading too much at one time and posting over-confident, unreasoned responses, what else might require reflection?
Just to add a thought. The Chinese have refused access to raw case data and only allowed access to their analysis of the data.....hence the uncertainty as there is a significant and justifiable lack of trust on both sides. What seems to have stoked this particular fire recently is the suggestion that several of the lab personel were hospitalized in Nov 2019...a full month before the reported 1st Chinese case....and the Chinese refuse to respond to questions on these cases.
Excellent piece, Fern. Thanks for posting. I read something similar about how the partisan divide may have prevented serious consideration of the lab leak theory. Hard to believe folks who have demonstrated agendas and a history of lying.
My stepdaughter is Korean American. She lives a block and a half from where George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. In 2019, she and her partner Andrew opened a restaurant, also in Minneapolis. After Trump started smack talking about the”China” virus, Mary Kay was the target of terrifying racial epithets both at work and in her neighborhood. And to top it off, her father, my wonderful husband Glen died of ALS in 2020. Hellish doesn’t begin to describe it for this beautiful young woman.
When Biden and Harris were elected, MK came over to the house to share her joy. A woman with part Asian ancestry? Works for us! Then watching Biden get grip on the pandemic, seeing people start to return to eating in the restaurant and not just doing takeout, and listening to a President working to rebuild the economy have helped start the healing process. Add to that seeing Floyd’s family being welcomed in the White House has given MK and her neighbors hope. Only a little hope but its a start.
How a disease like the corona virus jumps from animal to human is pretty well understood. Multiple factors can affect it but the process has been studied for many years (See Laurie Garret’s book The Coming Plague). Knowing how the novel corona virus exited Wuhan and killed nearly 600,000 Americans and 3.4 million people worldwide total is important. If it was an accident, international protocols have to be tightened- considerably. If it was being weaponized and escaped, time for some serious diplomacy with the Chinese. But when I think about the many complicated layers of vaccination, rebuilding the economy, shutting down the racist BS inflamed by the previous president and finding ways to help individuals like my stepdaughter, I’m aware of how precious is democracy and how much work there is to do. I’ve already started sending money to local candidates. I’ve signed up to write postcards to help get out the vote. I will write a letter to the editor this weekend slamming the Minnesota State Senate’s passage of several voter suppression bills. And We will gather as a family to remember a wonderful husband, father, stepfather and veteran who left us much too soon. Time to again wrap my arms around my daughters and grieve for a short while. That’s as important as anything else I can do because grieving in isolation while the corona virus raged was over-the-top difficult. Still is.
As Trump and Cotton try to take credit (without evidence) for being right all along, Biden and Harris focus on rebuilding the American middle class, the economy and our position as an international player. So much to do! What are all of you doing to move us forward? I need some more good news.
Fact based investigations and realistic assessment of global economic competition ..... what a relief there are intelligent and rational people at the helm. Meanwhile, at our house, “guess who is coming to dinner”?! ..... an elderly (albeit looking 20 years younger than her advanced age) relative of my husband who, for decades, has been head of the RNC in an upscale California enclave and remains active in GOP politics today. Conceding trump wasn’t the best, she believes Biden is a disaster; the worst. My only comment .... “I think Biden/Harris are off to a great start”. Have never engaged in political discussion with this person - no point and we see her very infrequently. But, it still amazes and dismays me that well traveled, so-called intelligent people can be so ignorant.
That is for sure! My parents were life-long republicans (not cultists) and pulled the lever twice for Obama. They passed away (at age 90) before the horror show of trump and for that I am actually grateful. It would have been soul crushing for them to get through that debacle.
My 86-year-old conservative father died just before he would have voted for Hillary, his first ever Democratic presidential vote. Growing up with dearly-loved parents who backed all the wrong people right up until Trump shows me that there are undoubtedly millions of decent conservatives who find the current Republican shitshow repellant.
It has amazed me that we feel a need to call a virus by a name other than what it represents in terms of what it is: covid-19 is a coronavirus. To call it the China virus or kung-fu flu is just as misleading as it was to call the flu epidemic of 1917-18 the Spanish Flu. That didn't start in Spain, it started in the US, but because our newspapers were censored the first paper that reported on it was in Spain. While it may help to pinpoint the epicenter of an infection to help impede the spread, it does not help to call it names. Can you imagine the additional death toll from the Black Death if it had been called by a particular country's name?
That we may never understand the Asian cultural mindset in terms of diplomacy and worldview is very apparent but the attempt to understand is essential in forming not only healthcare concerns but market concerns.
Many European villagers noticed that the Black Death was far less prevalent in Jewish sections of town. Instead of finding out why - which was better cleanliness - they blamed the Jews for the disease, and attacked them.
In public health circles the origins of viruses are often used in their names (see the annual flu variants, for instance). As with so many other things, though, leave it to Trump to weaponize a simple naming convention.
It was pretty measured and kind of Professor HCR not to mention Ivanka’s tacky shoes and handbags that were made in China before she abandoned her “business” into which she put zero of her own design talent and zero artisanal skill. Without the wage slaves there, her joke of a company would not have made one thin dime. The Grifterette’s companies dissolving was of course another reason the former president felt more emboldened to bray out “Choi-eyee-nah Virus” and do everything his cowardly portly ass could to inspire attacks on my ESL students as well as meddling with F1 visas for Fall 2021, causing immeasurable misery. I’m enjoying talk of a grand jury, but it’s impossible to hold the buffoon accountable for all the true hard me spent every day of his miserable presidency creating.
“… what we've seen over the last 15 years is unfortunately something of a democratic recession around the world: countries falling back on the basic metrics of democracy. The United States has had its own challenges visible for the world to see when it comes to democracy.”
I am woefully ignorant about US-China relations (and foreign relations in general). I did see a couple things on the news yesterday that did pique my interest. The first was yet another mass shooting, this one with 8 victims of workplace violence and the suicide of the perpetrator (I believe this is the 5th mass shooting since Biden/Harris took office.) The other one was that three US oil companies (Exxon, Shell, and Chevron) got hammered with climate issues (from a change in executives who will focus on climate issues, a court order to restrict emissions, and investors demanding emissions cuts, respectively). Rachel Maddow discussed the latter at length (if you haven't read her book, "Blowout", it is both worth the read and demonstrates her acumen in this area of global interest).
Another blow was struck too when international pressure finally forced Total and Chevron to stop making payments on oil and gas to the Myanmar Junta....announced also today.
"Blow Out" is mind blowing! THIS news, Ally, is an EARTH-QUAKE!! WOW!! I forgot about the power of corporate boards in good hands! This gives me more hope in Democracy Capitalism, as there are failsafes within the capitalistic system if they are used (and populated) wisely.
Thanks, Ally. I actually struggle with EVERYTHING, but decided not to beat myself up over it. So I'm usually in the "shallow end" of the pool rather than going for the "deep dive" analyses that others on this page engage in. There's a place for every one, I say.
Permission to enter the shallow end Lynell?! Im not sure if that is really where you belong, but since I'm 4'10" short, I really need the shallow end. Not a good swimmer either.
Whereas I stopped diving off the springboards or high boards as the water in the pool is rarely deep enough! The world is built for the median sizes and less and less allowance made for the tail ends of the population size graph.
This morning as I read comments on todays letter, along with "dissenting," troll like, back and forths, I keep coming back to the news yesterday that 9 people including the shooter, were killed yesterday in yet another mass shooting. Listening to Gavin Newsom speak to the press, he used the term, "rinse and repeat" to talk about the ongoing gun violence in this country. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/us/gavin-newsom-san-jose-shooting.html. I have mixed feelings about Newsom, but he is right on target on this one. WTF is going on and why can't we get some decent gun controls? While we have to depend on intelligence to ferret out the origins of Covid-19, we need to begin to use our own "intelligence" i.e. our voices, to demand better controls on our guns!
Whether or not the virus escaped from a lab, please note that no one is saying that it couldn't happen. In fact, accidental pathogen escapes from research labs are fairly common. Wouldn't you think that labs working on the deadliest diseases would be located out of the path of annual hurricanes (Galveston Island https://www.utmb.edu/gnl) and far from downtown (Boston South End http://www.bu.edu/articles/2017/neidl-bsl-4-lab-approved/)
Yes, I have wondered for years about Lyme's disease spread by ticks. While the idea has always been poo-pooed, I cannot help but wonder about the U.S. Army Chemical Corps a biological warfare program near Lyme in the 50's. ... Some claim that Lyme disease was introduced into the northeastern region of the U.S. by a man-made strain of Borrelia burgdorferi that escaped from a high containment biological warfare laboratory on Plum Island. I know a family of 7 children who grew up there and every member of the family had very strange illnesses that now have been determined to be Lyme's. I find biowarfare to be another one of those crimes against humanity and should be curtailed. I do not want my taxes going to biowarfare, landmines and a host of other atrocious human inventions that kill people and animals and poison our planet. It is way too small for this kind of toxic tinkering.
We do have opossums, but not sure where they live. I think there is something living in the well house with large gaps in the stone foundation, but the combination on the lock is not working so I can no longer go in there for now. My cat came in twice this week with a tick hanging off his long fur. They are very, very prevalent in VT this year.
That sounds really good. In Montreal i had marmots under the porch, squirrels in the trees and raccoons that would visit. The cats went crazy! In Washington, we couldn't let the dog out in the back yard because we had a herd of deer over the back wire fence!
Your piece today was just a whitewash of Biden’s policy vis a vis Trumps. I enjoy your writing and your historical insight, but sometimes your work sounds like it’s scripted by the DNC. Please, give us more thoughtful analysis and criticism and less cheerleading.
I started off today with this item of Rogers (immediately seized upon by Jack_le0n). Having spent decades with official communiqués (and seen them do exactly what I feared they would after the collapse of the USSR, becoming western versions of the worst Kominform crap, same liturgy, different fetish) I can only comment that I take your point, but... if only we saw (if only we could have seen) more of HCR's kind of analysis, informed by her long-perfected art of extracting the pith from historical documentation!
Perhaps you are asking too much of her. There are days when her work will inevitably be more journalistic, and then she runs the risk all journalists must face, that of coming too close to what's reported on and presenting something that looks too much like PR. It is unfair to criticize this. We may do so if, once we've all had time to distance ourselves from policy and see how it works out in practice, HCR—and, above all, the Administration itself—should fail to draw the necessary lessons from events.
People contributing to this thread run a far greater risk even more getting sidetracked into passionate—but irrelevant—reactions that sidetrack and spoil the conversation. Precisely because we’re sailing too close to the reefs of our personal prejudices.
Another analogy—a pointed one:
When driving on a major highway, it’s essential to develop the sixth sense that keeps us well away from road hogs. We can’t allow ourselves to lose our concentration on the road for one moment, even when a bad or mad driver endangers us. Otherwise we too risk contributing to a major pile-up.
The “road” we should be holding to is HCR’s daily contribution. We can make a service stop and take coffee with others, getting to know those traveling the same road. But stops for booze or drugs are out, as is anything that endangers ourselves and others journeying with us.
Peter, I'm in total agreement with you. A good example of journalistic ethics is NPR, which takes its remit seriously, and the result is that it sounds "lefty" to people for whom conspiracy theories and Fox Entertainment Network are their usual fare. I cannot remember which wag originally noted (Paul Krugman in the NY Times in 2017 but this has been a "thing" for far longer) that "facts have a well-known 'liberal' bias" (I would change "liberal" to "lefty"). It is also true that most of the time the more liberally educated--in the sense of a diverse and varied education experience--one is the less enthusiastic about totalitarianism one becomes, and this includes the top-down propagandistic approach to information.
There is a difference between the name-calling nonsense of the former guy and his minions and the fact-gathering focus of the current administration.
My "lefty" bias, being interpreted, means only that I have stuck to my boring-middle-of-the-road principles throughout decades during which the political playing field has lurched crazily so far to the right that I'm afraid of falling off the edge...
At the same time, I'm sure I'm a fascist in some supposedly "progressive" people's eyes... What fun!
Peter, I never thought I would live in an America in which it is considered to be radically leftwing to believe in the fundamental principles that (however flawed its realization of them) created this country, or in the basic principles of humanity: heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, treat everyone with equity. When I was growing up in the 1960s this seemed to be the impetus. And then 1968 happened. Sigh.
Yes, the right has been tragically effective at demonizing basic human values and re labeling them as socialist. Words like feminist and liberal became slurs. Instead of standing our ground we tried to compromise without realizing there was no good faith on the other side. If we haven’t learned that lesson by now we’re doomed.
Hello Mr. Cold Warrior, good morning. At least it is morning where I am, for you it is probably dinner-time.
Your FSB boys are on the booze and drugs. That’s just my opinion. I doubt you will agree. Your FSB lackeys harass and insult, and mock and ridicule, so I would hardly be willing to condone and support them as you do.
As you know, I am a truck driver, so your analogy is a familiar one for me, since this is my profession.
The “road” we hold to is not just HCR. A moral ethic is at work here. HCR’s daily contributions are the weather reports. The road itself, the concrete and asphalt foundation, is the moral foundation we are driving on. The drivers on this road all adhere to their own personal, and varying, codes of conduct. Moral codes, of integrity (for some) and lack of integrity (for others). Some are courteous on the road, some are discourteous and selfish on the road.
Your FSB boys are like the Los Angeles Freeway System drivers who treat the freeways like a race track, driving in and out of gaps with reckless speed and disregard for safety and common courtesy.
I have another analogy for you. Picture a pet tiger. The owner of this pet tiger believes himself to be the master. He, the owner, feels he has the freedom to harass and mistreat the animal whenever he pleases, because he believes that he has the animal bullied, cowed into submission.
One day, that pet tiger will no longer be a pet. The pet tiger will be free to do as the tiger wishes.
Since World War I, a turning point for democracy, monarchy and autocracy has experienced a rapid decline. There continue to be lingering relics, lingering re-establishments, reignitions if you will, of autocratic systems. The Trump administration, for example, is a mild version. Russia’s current government, another (seemingly) stronger example.
The trend is clear: autocracy is being phased out, slowly but surely, sometimes very slowly with returns to autocracy. Open society, democracy, individuality of nations (and people as individuals) is being phased in.
In 1989 the Soviet Union was there one month, and gone the next.
Perhaps portions of the US empire will do likewise. Maybe Puerto Rico and other territories will become independent nations. Who knows.
When the tiger is free to do as it pleases, what will it choose to do? Will the tiger become friends with the master? Will the tiger eat the master? Nobody knows for sure.
The tiger, as I’m sure you have ascertained, is Russian society.
I hope for the sake of your FSB boys that the Russian people treat you with the same kindness you have received from people like Roland.
As a master of a pet tiger, you may wish to give a little more thought to treating your charge, your duty (to your people), respectfully.
I have a comment to make for our other HCR subscribers here.
This is an online forum. You never know for sure who you are talking to. It is a mistake to assume that this is an “echo chamber,” I believe it’s called, just a bunch of progressives looking at themselves in the mirror.
Perhaps our Cold Warrior friend “Peter,” who is more likely Piotr, is the head or deputy head of the FSB. It certainly appears that the “Leon” crew works for him. In that capacity, he may well be having conversations with, or sending reports to, Mr. “Kremlin-Chief-For-The-Time-Being” himself.
I don’t say that to be disrespectful. He is head of the Kremlin now, but I don’t think that will last. It’s just my opinion, based on historical trends. Remember, dear Kremlin observers, history is not showing itself to be favorable to autocracy. History is not smiling on autocracy. And this forum is, if anything, a forum about history. HCR is a historian.
Notice how often “Peter” discusses and decries distractions. For him, having to wade through the Putin insults is probably as difficult as wading through (and trying to ignore the cacophony of) Leon’s spewings is for us.
Peter also wished nations could speak with nations. Well, here you go. The HCR nation is having a conversation with the Russian government. US and Russian diplomacy. Perhaps preparation for the upcoming meeting between government officials of both nations.
Remember what I said, Peter, about poker and judo.
Good and valuable comment - but it is difficult (Remember - don't drive where you are looking - Look where you are driving!). I notice the passions boil quite frequently here.
I worry about the dangers which the Substack approach entails, precisely because we are all too reactive. If we cannot bring this tendency under control we risk turning the comments thread—our community—into a cesspool, like most British counterparts. (Note that editing and prepublication censorship only made their problems worse.)
The one thing we all need urgently to break out of is the disgusting habit of befriending and frequenting only the like-minded. The effects of this are tearing our societies apart... I know GOP people who speak of California in the same tones as official America spoke of "Red China" in the '50s. Rejoicing at wildfires...
The disease can destroy our living together, destroy the institutions of democracy, it will go on to destroy all that it can burn. Even in this thread we're risking it, not only when someone, intentionally or unintentionally, sidetracks us by sowing discord but when we react by demonizing whoever expresses different views. That’s co-trolling.
There are many things in my life I can look back on with regret or disapproval, but not my friendly relations with extremists of the left and the right when I was twenty. Not the ability to relate to everyone around me, something that may gradually have worn threadbare, but not when it comes down to underlying convictions.
If my friend goes mad and sees me as their enemy, will I hate them?
I have experienced this…
If your mother falls victim to dementia, she'll get on your nerves but... will you cease to love her? If your child commits a horrible crime, you may hate the crime, it may separate you from the child. But our human bond lies deeper than all that.
There's so much mass madness in our midst, our mental wildfires. Getting some perspective on this, not only in space but in time—the time of humanity’s past—that’s what HCR is trying to do for us. Isn’t it up to us as readers to try to develop similar self-discipline?
Not perfect here, but many times after reading a comment not of my liking, I leave my computer, go outside to reflect on what should be my comment in return or whether to comment at all. It has amazed me more than once that I end up abandoning a reactionary retort in favor of a, hopefully, more constructive reply. Morning, Peter and Hugh!!
Peter why don’t you instruct your FSB boys to be that way. There is an expression in Toastmasters, “you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Kindness and courtesy are more powerful than “vinegar,“ sourness.
Morning Lynnell. Sun's out here and the new red flower moon is shepherding us into summer and better weather. It's nice out when thinking how to respond.
Thank you Lynell. I have been having that same thought for two straight days, ever since I was dialoguing with Peter on the day of HCR’s report of Lukashenko acting like a jerk.
Patience. In all things patience. The people here are very good at speaking nonjudgmentally and without blaming. I have said many times, and I will say it again, this is a mature group. Even the younger people in this group are mature. They could teach the FSB boys a thing or two.
Remember also, Peter, either you are being paid to be here, or you have a lot of freedom in your life. Not everyone here is retired or has freedom to do as they please. Even the retired ones have chores, tasks, duties. Plus as the day goes on, and this cavalcade/cascade of discussion grows larger, it gets more and more difficult to keep track of an individual post.
Christine, I feel bound to add that, having looked at the few words that accompany your twin giraffes and found that they accord closely with my deepest feelings, especially "We are all in this together", I want all the more that you should point an example out to me, not so that I can respond, but so that I can reflect on it.
I am particularly aware of one example of road rage on my part. But... that arose from a misunderstanding. I don't know if I have apologized adequately to the person to whom I reacted so angrily, but I have tried to do so. And I don't want to involve anyone else in this discussion.
If you'll not answer (or if, like me, you don't want to drag anyone else into this) I shall just repeat that, yes, I do tend to be excessively reactive and that is why I am so aware of the problem and the dangers to which it gives rise that I've wanted to discuss it with others prone to similar outbursts.
Yet I'd be willing to repeat again and again my reaction to Jack_le0n's asking us to "move on" from the worst of 2016 to 2020.
That is also why I appreciate Lynell's comment so much.
How many times have I read here a reference to “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.“ You’re preaching to the converted, at least to those here who agree with your argument. And I would say, at the risk of offending the few who disagree, that most people here will speak with an adversary, an opponent, a Trumpster in their family or in their circle of friends.
My father has been an intellectual opponent, an adversary on principle, and of course we still love each other.
But keep this in mind, Peter. An adversary who kills those who disagree with him, well, that is a completely different category than my father, who may be a right-wing diehard but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He taught me to take spiders out of the house. Spiders eat insects, spiders are our friends, that’s the message he gave me.
Killing your opponents, harassing them and putting them in jail and beating them and torturing them to death, because they’re not doing as you please, is not going to engender loving and kind responses. Magnitsky. Navalny. All the murdered dissidents and opponents, I don’t have to list them, you know even better than I do who they are. And then there are your FSB mosquitoes. Swarms of them. Having a team of online bullies who harass and threaten, and mock and ridicule, it’s not going to warm people’s hearts. If your “Leon” jokers don’t develop social skills, don’t start (as we say) “play well with others in the sandbox,“ you can’t complain when they are insulted right back. In just as harsh terms. Excuse me, but they have it coming to them.
I wish I knew of any. They must exist, but I don't know of them. The comments threads of serious publications like The Economist, The Guardian, even the Financial Times are abysmal. There's intelligent life in the Spectator and New Statesman, but you have to go to Letters to the Editor to find visible signs of it among the readership.
Maybe someone here can tell us. But I don't think there's anything like Substack elsewhere. And I do feel strongly that this venture needs all the help and support it can get. It is a delicately balanced experiment. If others were to follow Heather's example, who knows, it could re-seed America's old tradition of citizens' associations.
I had a somewhat similar reaction initailly to HCR's post today - but I would't call it a whitewash by any stretch. As usual, she's offering context and analysis based on it. The point of today's post is minor - yet also worthy because it anticipates how the trumpers are going to spin Biden's move on this. Play by play commentary today. Sometimes it's all there is.
Roger, Your comment was first up when I decided to read what other subscribers had to say about the Letter before commenting myself. To some degree your words met my thoughts. This LFAA read to me as a White House Press Release.
I don't know why Senator Cotton was mentioned as there was no elaboration. We'll know soon enough how Cotton will China-size his campaign against Biden and the Democrats.
There was an intense dispute about the source of Covid-19 stirred up by a scientist when we first began to know about the virus. He claimed the source to be the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China and that there was an American team working there as well. My memory is too vague. I will try to look into it over the weekend.
"This LFAA read to me as a White House Press Release." When an occasional LFAA reads in this way, I take a moment to remember that HCR is also a professor with students, a homeowner with a garden, a writer with research to do, and god knows what else. Sometimes just the condensed review of the day's news is plenty for me. I confess I tend to get more out of the subsequent discussion on many days, even when the Letters are very chewy.
Wow, Roger, first real dissent I've heard in here, thanks and sorry to probably have you compartmentalized as a troll, but about time. And I enjoy Heather's writing as well.
You guys like Heathers writing, you just want it to be ‘different’. Uh huh. I smell a little faint praise. It’s nice that you have found each other in what you consider to be a wasteland of dunderheaded, cheerleading loving, probably somewhat deluded, fans. Perhaps your own Substack is in order. Letters from Some Super Critical Thinking Guys on Other Peoples Work. It’s easy to tear something down. It’s a lot harder to build something up with integrity, diligence, kindness and class.
Thank you Robin. Well said. HCR’s letters have been my lifeline to realty. The comments by her followers were reassuring. Until today. If I wanted to read opposing views posted for the sake of stirring the pot in order to declare themselves different from HCR’s loyal and appreciative fans I would go elsewhere.
China is helping countries throughout the world upgrade their infrastructures with China equipment that those countries will become dependent on for decades. The US can't get its act together to upgrade its own infrastructure. Is it so hard to see who will be the only superpower of the 21st century?
Mostly they are funding and constructing infrastructure that supports their own companies extraction of minerals needed by the Chinese economy. The minerals, the construction and operating contracts and of course all the profits go to China and its companies. The recipient country is left with the huge debt to finance to pay for the infrastructure loan and a few bottom level poorly paid jobs (not to mention a few healthy bribes to decision makers here and there)....and parts of the country that are "off-limits" to local government control and to the people. The country often loses control of it's only viable ports and rail infrastructure. The indirect economic impact on other local businesses and employment of this economic imperialism is not always great. In the 18-19th C. many western powers did likewise but some however paid a little more attention to the local scene, helped to develop political economic and cultural structures and institutions. I don't think, somehow, this is on the Chinese "to-do list". Many recipient countries are now backing out of "Silk Road" and other such sparkling financial burdens as they are hardly not appropriate for their state of economic and political development.
Correct, Stuart, except that China's policy is highly systematic, a global game of GO. Incidentally, one in which Russia will probably be among the first major victims, owing to their regime's awkward mix of tactical brilliance and ultimately suicidal strategy. A tendency in which they are far from alone. China, too, with its vast ecological catastrophes, has inflicted huge damage on itself and all Asia.
But isn't Cathy's second sentence the important one for America?
Cathy's 2nd sentence is the important one for the US.
Obviously. Otherwise it would be just the latest dose of "don't do what I do, do what I tell you to". Of which we have all had more than our fill.
the R counter-offer...what is this? they just don't want to fix the country?
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/27/us/biden-news-today#republican-infrastructure-plan
I don't think they do. The big joke on most Republicans is that the upper echelon don't give a crap about them and by the time they realise it it will be wayyyyy too late.
true-true
Too true Peter. Russia's government dominated, oil and mineral dependant economy is on the ropes anyway with the decline in oil prices. Navalny is getting special treatment because the Russians are getting poorer and are fed up with Putin's kleptocracy..hence increased repression and diversionary tactics.
Biden will get there one way or another.
Russia is now one giant Ponzi scheme, always staying just one step ahead of financial collapse.
So unfortunately is the European Euro zone. It is held up by the ECB printing works funding all the governments' deficits.
Crazy thing, is that is exactly what the US has done in Central and S America, and Indonesia (and probably other places as well). Again - read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
The US has done some infrastructure work in some parts of Central & South America, where it benefited/benefits US corporate interests. I can't speak to Indonesia. The Chinese are developing infrastructure throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and are making inroads in Latin America. The difference is this: US infrastructure development in Latin America is "linear", it's single project oriented. Chinese infrastructure development projects, throughout the world, are more like tentacles of an octopus or a circulatory system. The Chinese are striving for interconnected infrastructures to advance their trade and influence globally. They will likely be successful because they are focused, goal oriented and partisan politics don't factor into their processes.
It is interesting in a historical context to go back to the conquest and takeover of the Philipines by the US after the war with Spain. Goodwin's writing about Taft's Governorship battles with "American interests and attitudes" in the "Bully Pulpit" is extremely revealing. His desire to return the Philipines to the Philipinos was not exactly widely shared as it got in the way of more financially interesting matters and hardly outlived his short stay before becoming Rooseveltes Secretary of State..
And the damage to the Philippines continues to this day.
Only... what might have happened if the US power grab hadn't followed Dewey's victory? There were other sharks patroling those waters, as the world was to see in 1941...
Even the rapacious King Leopold II of the Belgians had looked into buying the Philippines, lock, stock and barrel, from Spain. Before setting his sights on the unfortunate Congolese...
Sounds like Trump wanting to buy Greenland.
The Professor's talk last Thursday discussed the Spanish American war, and the US entanglements in Cuba and the Philippines. It would be worth the hour to go back and listen.
Yes, it was an informative talk.
Add "Bully Pulpit'" to the list.
Ohhh
Not much attention on institutional development though but considerable help to American corporate $ bottom lines. What was it Ceasar was supposed to have said... I came, I saw, I raped and pillaged....and I left the country in the proverbial sh*t!......or something like that I wonder what Ceasar thought of the refugees streaming into Rome from the devastated hinterlands beyond the touch of Romanized civilized life in the outer margins of the empire.
Exactly. We go in, extract resources, destabilize governments, then wonder why people from these countries wind up at our borders.
Or, hate us for decades thereafter.
Or both.
Bingo
"I came, I saw, I raped and pillaged." Yup.
Yep, this is a major concern that is getting far too little play in the national press. China has made major inroads, particularly in Africa, layering on infrastructure "help" that saddles the country with unpayable debt and perpetual obligation to China.
Totes Cathy. And we have failed in our contributions tot he rebuilding of infrastructure globally as well.
In African countries, such as Uganda and Ethiopia, China is building roads, plumbing, etc. in trade for mineral rights (source: my son who does outreach in these countries).
And giving/selling it’s Covid vaccine around the world.
Both physical infrastructure investments and vaccine for more good will. Energy and resource extraction frim developing countries to supply energy and raw materials to feed Chinese manufacturing.
Have to determine the origin of the virus. Have to. Full stop. If China wants to participate in the world economy, then cooperate with the WHO and CDC. Otherwise we only have an illusion of public health and an illusion of National & Economic Security.
Epidemiologist solve disease mysteries through investigation. Part of that is, through genomic surveillance of an outbreak, tracing cases diligently to narrower and narrower probability to the “origin” case. This is vital knowledge for public health. As once the origin is confirmed, proper mitigation efforts can be implemented for the protection and health security for all the worlds people.
And remember that the Chinese doctor who was the first to warn people in late December, 2019. "Four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. In the letter he was accused of "making false comments" that had "severely disturbed the social order".
"We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice - is that understood?" Underneath in Dr Li's handwriting is written: "Yes, I do."
He was one of eight people who police said were being investigated for "spreading rumours".
He supposedly caught the virus and died rather quickly. Fishy (markety) sounding?).
Dr. Li thought it was the return of SARS and warned his fellow doctors to dress appropriately as seven people were in quarantine in the local hospital. Dr. Li never knew it was a totally new coronavirus before he supposedly died of Corona 19. It was 10 days later - on 20 January - that China declared the outbreak an emergency. That is when TFG knew about it and never told us.
"The Chinese doctor who tried to warn others about coronavirus"
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51364382
By Stephanie Hegarty
Population Correspondent
Published6 February 2020
I would say it is definitely worth an investigation since just within our own country... more than 550,000 people have died of this lethal virus.
I had forgotten about this doctor and still feel so sad about his death, and remember now the courage he showed in speaking out. He was one of the first heroes during this pandemic. We should never forget him, so thanks for posting this.
Over 900,000 surplus deaths estimate here in the USA. Takes a bit for coroner's to catch up. For example, you get sick, test positive for Covid. Go to hospital for treatment, Oxygen, and while in Critical Care you develop bacterial Pneumonia ( always follows viral Pneumonia), but after 2 to 3 weeks you are moved to ICU and get a ventilator, then you test negative for Covid, but die of a cytokine storm and bacterial pneumonia. Deaths like these were not counted in the short term tally's. The long term official tolls take 2 years to "officialize". From 2019 the total mortality in the USA was about 2.5M. Look for 2020 to be around 3.4M, this will be updated on the CDC's website probably by 2022. The difference in these two is "Surplus Deaths" or "Surplus Mortality".
Wish our police would have done something in 2016 with a significant person who disturbed our social order. However, despite all the negativity, a LOT of good has come out of that disturbance and it might be the eventual undoing of a lot of intolerance by white privilege nationalists and seditionists.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Exactly, Ted. Keep saying it!
Correct me please if I’m wrong: I don’t recall that China ever cooperated ....
By not cooperating, China may save face in the short term, but by doing so, has increased the worlds distrust of their leadership as partners in humanity and allows the nonsense of conspiracy’s to flourish. This is how wars start. Better to let the worlds best Epidemiologist the access to do their work. The sooner they do that, the closer we are to ending this pandemic.
Ask the Tibetan people whan they think of the Han Chinese and the Xi dynasty's attitudes are to other parts of humanity.....no thought of partnership anywhere.
Many Han Chinese, like many white Americans regarding BIPOC, do not buy in to the current and historic treatment of national minorities. Just trying to point out the difference between international perceptions of a culture based on the government that gets the headlines and the people who live under that regime. How many times have Americans found ourselves saying in recent years (and in former troublesome times), "We aren't all like that!"
Being racist is most certainly not a white prerogative. Traveling the world most assuredly rids one of this as well as other such limiting thoughts.
Tell that to the Woke crowd!
What motive do you think the Chinese have to do this?
Exactly my thought Susan—China doesn’t and didn’t cooperate— so are we ever really finding out? I thought that it was pretty well established that like other viruses it came out of the outdoor market place in Wuhan and started in one of the exotic animals there.
Never well established, but suggested by the Chinese as there are sales of such live creatures in a "food" market close by the laboratory. The "first case" however has however never been traced to this market.
I suggest you read
https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
The bats, that seem to be in question - Horseshoe bats, Rhinolophus, are located a long way (>800km) from Wuhan, plus they are very small (25g max) and are certainly not likely to be captured for sale. So the probability of their being directly responsible is pretty miniscule. Plus there have been no reported cases of Covid like illnesses in the region.
From what I gather, it is possible, not only that there were "gain of function" experiments, carried out at level 2 conditions, which ought to have been at levels 3 or 4. I've visited a level 3 lab, level 4 is much more difficult to endure as a researcher.
Thank you for the link; the piece is well worth the time it takes to read through it. I had a close relative in my parents’ generation who was a virologist of note in the academic community. This article reminded me of some of his stories about how grants, funding and personality/ego drive behaviors in ways that are counterintuitive to the assumption that science is purely a high-minded search for objective fact. There is much more to this story that needs to be understood.
They are still measured, funded and promoted in academia by the number of peer-reviewed articles published and references thereafter and not necessarily the value of the content therein.
Another animal suggested was the Panglossian.?
Did Voltaire suggest this> <grin>
Pangolin?
I seem to recollect that the bat hypothesis depended necessarily upon the bat having transmitted the virus to a second animal type which was itself for sale on the market. Hence the absence of direct infection in the bats' homeland. That the experiments took place, i have no doubt. I also think that this supposed "international" lab suffered from significant political disagreements amongst initial partners and subsequent budgetary shortfalls affecting maintenance.
If fraud-45 had not defunded the epidemiologist located in that part of China, who who left in July 2019, we would have had much better reports when the virus hit the fan.
That was a fascinating and persuasive article. Thank you for the link.
Oh...I have a friend who said it was traced to the outdoor markets and he said we have been warning the Chinese about this.
I believe you are correct.
Not when their is the slightest chance that they might be seen to have done something blameworthy...or dead wrong!
Exactly...I have a stepson living in China and teaching there— he fully understands the danger involved of being perceived as opposed to them and he has very strict limitations on how we communicate. I hope Biden is able to trace the exact origins of the Covid but the Chinese won’t cooperate.
Thank you for attempting to get the stream back on track, Ted.
Geez. Somehow, HCR’s Letter today set off tangents.
I’m interested in the intel investigation bringing more light upon gain in function studies and this PERHAPS being a link in the COVID crisis and pandemic. The US has research background and participation in these studies. There’s so much in science can research that is intended for “the good of” but there are times when things go awry. A clear investigation can show simply what happened and not who is to “blame”. Science is a world community. Let’s get busy discovering a mistake, if there was one, so it is not made again.
And IMHO, quit blaming the animals.
"And IMHO, quit blaming the animals." Throwing in a vegan cheer here!
Though I agree in principle, at some point we will simply need to move on. China is simply too good at obfuscating and has had over a year to "hide the bodies." We will never know where the virus came from, I don't think.
Sound like Trump a year ago.
https://nypost.com/2020/09/22/trump-to-un-china-must-be-held-accountable-for-spread-of-covid-19/
We have zero leverage to insist and WHO has even less. Unless we get our hands on a credible defector, we may never know.
Wouldn't it be grand if we could compete with China for the best ways to halt (or at least slow) global warming?
The US most certainly will compete very strongly an possibly dominate the technology required as it will become a very big, new industry and highly profitable creating new jobs in this economic revolution.
The handwriting is on the wall and has been for a long time. When I talked with an American construction worker for the big dam Zaire (now Congo) was building, he said the 20th century was the USA’ the 21st he predicted belonged to the Chinese. It was 1975. The empire that is the USA with its bullying proclivities around the world and its 800 military installations and its defense budget higher than that of 10 the next wealthy industrialized nations combined is pumping its testerone to “compete” with China. And the citizens here are paying the bill to preserve the status quo while the Chinese tsunami gradually unfolds. The so called foreign policy leadership has learned zero about the military debacles of the last 50 years. Who has voted for the Afghan War? The Iraq invasion? Now that the draft is supplanted by mercenaries (private contractors),the people in the USA have been safely stashed far away from and freed of responsibility and any say. Were the draft operational the people would have plenty to say as their dead sons and daughters return in body bags. The war machine is at the service of the oligarchics, the sociopathic ravenous corporate mind set intent on its own wealth and power - none of which (they’ve amply demonstrated) they are willing for the people’s voice to take a determining part in. We’ve been gently and calculatedly pushed into spectator position. Free tickets to watch the supereglobal ball game but that’s it. Isn’t it dehumanizing to hear the pontificating against the pitiful $15 minimal wage per hour while those very mouths vote yes for the biggest pentagon budget yet? So my fellow citizens, we get to subsidize the oligarchs’ global competition to further despoil earth and fracture nation states in their now aggressive drive for rare earth minerals, besides holy oil. While our very own people get to be hungrier, jobless, without healthcare, be strapped to the debtors wheel and politically stifled by working two jobs if they can get them to pay off their education while raising their family. Feudalism returns.
Thanks Selina - and everybody ignores the very large Tyrannosaurus coming in the door - the disruption that is climate change.. as the political disruption that would be caused by really addressing it, cannot be stomached by the PTB. Read Tom Murphy's book (free as a pdf) (he's from UC San Diego), Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet. Go on.. READ IT!
What is the PTB? And. Yes, indeed. I ask what is it about the human condition today -already deleteriously affected by the looming climate catastrophe - that we (as I did in my rant) - "forget" it? When a friend gets cancer or Covid, we move into high drive to respond. Easily seeing death's grimace on the horizon. How is it you and I and all of us en masse are not in the streets continuously until our "representatives" have but no other choice than amass intentionality and resources to meet it?
just downloaded. excited. thanks.
Useful interjection, Selina, but take Hugh Spencer's point.
Every reader should do that.
Every human being, regardless of the difficulty of encompassing a reality so vast and so terrible. And the even greater one of seeing and acting on what this means for us and above all for our children and grandchildren and for the unborn.
Thanks Peter.
That is really looking at the history of today's news.
The last millennium belonged to Europeans, the next will belong to Asians.
Unless...
How much US gov’t. debt did China buy today? How much US debt is China holding? What is the annual interest payment? The last I heard, which was a while ago, (Why is NOBODY reporting on this?) the numbers are significant, and likely to continue to be.
How do you compete with your biggest, by far, creditor?
From where, exactly, did the Covid 19 virus originate? In a laboratory? In an open-air market?That seems of small consequence to me. Much better to study how we were so unprepared for it and what are we doing to prepare for the next one, because there will be a next one.
"The public holds over $21 trillion, or almost 78%, of the national debt. Foreign governments hold about a third of the public debt, while the rest is owned by U.S. banks and investors, the Federal Reserve, state and local governments, mutual funds, pensions funds, insurance companies, and savings bonds.
The Treasury breaks down who holds how much of the public debt in the monthly Treasury Bulletin. Here are highlights from the March 2021 report." (Japan holds more debt than China.) https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
Thank you for answering my question so comprehensively. I stand enlightened, and relieved.
Ralph, this is the beauty of "hive-mind".
Relieved with a Upper Case 'R' for me.
In France the government doesn't allow its own people to buy its debt. It will only deal with institutions. As the debt purchased by the French banks is automatically bought out by the European Central Bank that leaves our debt owned by foreigners and thereby both reduces sovereign controll and increases instability.
Thank you.
In economic terms, these financial inflows buying US Treasury Bonds are the necessessary counterpoint to the trade outflows engendered by the massive imbalance in China-US trade. On the other hand it reminds me of the bankers dilema. When I owe him $100 and don't pay, he jumps up and down on me. When I owe $100B the bank is nice to me and negotiates a "hair cut" (see Trump and Deutsche Bank for instance) of what I owe. The weight of American government debt that the Chinese government owns gives them an interest in maintaining the stability of the America economy and the value of the Dollar.......paradoxical no?
How do you figure the debt held by China and the trade deficit are related? I don't see that connection at all.
The Chinese need to invest that money. They can’t just leave it sit.
US Treasure bonds are th safest investment in the world and are purchased as a basic investment by governments, corporations, investment funds, and rich people all over the world. The Social Security Trust Fund is completely invested in special non transferable US Treasury bond., all $1.6 Trillion (?) of it. the US has never defaulted on a Treasury bond, and always pays annual interest.
That’s why the Chinese buy Treasury bonds, which are the US National debt.they’re a good, safe investment.
Militarization spending.
Uh huh, I know. The question was, how does that relate to the trade deficit?
In macro-economic terms the 2 flows of money must balance to maintain stability. The sums are of course done in total of all countries and not just on a China trade and money flows
I really don't think so. The two flows are not closely related in stable economies such as ours.
Reid, if they didn't balance out in total terms across the economy the value of the dollar would rise or fall to compensate. Question of supply and demand for the dollar.
This might be true for small countries, as we have seen in some African and Southeast Asian economies. But I find no evidence that this is true for the U.S. or the dollar. It's an entirely different dynamic when's dealing with a large, stable economy. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051515/pros-cons-trade-deficit.asp
Creditor countries can dump bonds they don’t need/want for pennies on the dollar, creating a better investment for that buyer. Creditor countries can refuse to buy more bonds and that can cause inflation. Runaway inflation can cause great hardship. Wholesale societal hardships can be taken advantage of by a populist party and demagogue, case in point, 1920s Germany.
Not really the way it works, though.
Wow!
The idea that China holding U.S. debt somehow gives them leverage over us doesn't really hold up to scrutiny, if that is what you're suggesting. China buys our bonds because the dollar is and has been the most stable currency in the world.
Not completely accurate. Selling & buying Bonds is a form of leverage. What happens if everyone stops buying for example?
The feds create the money and lend it to the government....which spends it.
Meh. There's all sorts of hypotheticals we could propose, of course, but that's about the least likely of any of them to actually happen. If everyone stops buying U. S. bonds it will be because we have far bigger problems.
Yes, I forgot about our being beholden to the Chinese via our debt, and the media is not reminding me. I am reading Michael Lewis's "Premonition" though, which gives a terrifying account of how our pandemic response was compromised even before the former guy's demolition derby, in part because the numbers and speed of exponential growth of diseases this virulent are so difficult for the human mind to comprehend, even for seasoned public health scientists. An amazing and committed group of risk-taking doctors, nurses and government officials secretly worked to save our lives.
In mathematical terms you are looking at exponential expansion on a logarythmic scale.
Cannot fathom it.
It's not true. China owning some of our debt does not in any way make us beholden to them. The dollar is a stable fiat currency and we can easily pay any portion of our debt without breaking a sweat.
Thank you for this Reid!
What happens when a global circulating mutated virus circles back from spreading around the world to its origin and endemic reservoir species?
Just like flu!
To quote pete Seeger:
"To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven.
Thank you Ralph for mentioning the 800 lb gorilla in the room, the US debt that China is holding.
A relatively tame gorilla which wont do anything that would hurt its investment.
Yes. This is a great education read for me going on here. I can see your point and others' clearly. TY.
My earlier comment was somewhat dismissive of today's LFAA, and I offer an informative piece from the New York Times' newsletter called: 'Morning' for further explanation of 'the lab-leak theory' of Covid. There was good reason for Heather to mention Tom Cotton in her letter, and explanation for his contribution to the debate concerning the source of Covid-19, follows here:
'By David Leonhardt'
'Good morning. The lab-leak theory is everywhere. We have an explainer.'
'Groupthink + polarization'
'Suddenly, talk of the Wuhan lab-leak theory seems to be everywhere.'
'President Biden yesterday called on U.S. intelligence officials to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origin of Covid-19 and figure out whether the virus that causes it accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Major publications and social media have recently been filled with discussion of the subject.'
'Today, we offer an explainer.'
'What are the basics?
The origin of the virus remains unclear. Many scientists have long believed that the most likely explanation is that it jumped from an animal to a person, possibly at a food market in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Animal-to human transmission — known as zoonotic spillover — is a common origin story for viruses, including Ebola and some bird flus.'
'But some scientists have pointed to another possibility: that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As in other laboratories, researchers there sometimes modify viruses, to understand and treat them'.
“It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told senators yesterday.'
'Why now?
The subject is getting more attention because some scientists who were once skeptical of the laboratory theory have expressed new openness to it.'
'Two weeks ago, 18 scientists wrote a letter to the journal Science calling for a new investigation and describing both the animal-to-human theory and the lab-leak theory as “viable.” And three scientists who last year dismissed the lab-leak explanation as a conspiracy theory have told The Wall Street Journal that they now consider it plausible.'
'Among the reasons: Chinese officials have refused to allow an independent investigation into the lab and have failed to explain some inconsistencies in the animal-to-human hypothesis. Most of the first confirmed cases had no evident link to the food market.'
'What changed?'
'In some ways, not much has not changed. From the beginning, the virus’s origin has been unclear. All along, some scientists, politicians and journalists have argued that the lab-leak theory deserves consideration.]
'Almost 15 months ago, two Chinese researchers wrote a paper concluding that the virus “probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.” Alina Chan, a molecular biologist affiliated with Harvard and M.I.T., made similar arguments. David Ignatius and Josh Rogin, both Washington Post columnists, wrote about the possibility more than a year ago. Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, didn’t mention the lab-leak theory in early 2020 but he did argue that the U.S. should “not be taking China’s word” for how the outbreak started.'
'But these voices were in the minority. The World Health Organization initially dismissed the lab-leak theory as implausible.'
'Why all the dismissals?'
'It appears to be a classic example of groupthink, exacerbated by partisan polarization.'
'Global health officials seemed unwilling to confront Chinese officials, who insist the virus jumped from an animal to a person.'
'In the U.S., one of the theory’s earliest advocates was Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas who often criticizes China — and who has a history of promoting falsehoods (like election fraud that didn’t happen). In this case, though, Cotton was making an argument with plausible supporting evidence.'
'The media’s coverage of his argument was flawed, Substack’s Matthew Yglesias has written. Some coverage exaggerated Cotton’s comments to suggest he was claiming that China had deliberately released the virus as a biological weapon. (Cotton called that “very unlikely.”) And some scientists and others also seem to have decided that if Cotton believed something — and Fox News and Donald Trump echoed it — the idea had to be wrong.'
'The result, as Yglesias called it, was a bubble of fake consensus. Scientists who thought a lab leak was plausible, like Chan, received little attention. Scientists who thought the theory was wacky received widespread attention. It’s a good reminder: The world is a complicated place, where almost nobody is always right or always wrong.'
'Why does it matter?'
'The virus’s origin does not affect many parts of the fight against Covid. The best mitigation strategies — travel restrictions, testing, contact tracing, social distancing, ventilation and masking — are still the best mitigation strategies.''
But there are at least three concrete ways, in addition to the inherent value of truth, in which the origin matters.'
'First, if the virus really did come from a lab, an immediate airing of the details might have led to even faster vaccine development and more effective treatments. Second, a leak that caused millions of deaths could lead to widespread change in laboratories’ safety precautions. Third, confirmation of a leak would affect the world’s view of China — and would put pressure on China to bear the burden of vaccinating the world as quickly as possible.'
'So what’s the truth?'
'We don’t know. Both animal-to-human transmission and the lab leak appear plausible. And the obfuscation by Chinese officials means we may never know the truth.''
For more: The Washington Post has published a helpful timeline. On Medium last week, the science writer Donald G. McNeil Jr. explained why he now finds the lab-leak theory plausible. And the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has argued that the issue highlights some of the problem with the media’s approach to fact-checking.'
Group think can be a problem in any setting, including the fine one we have here at the forum.
“some scientists...” Meaning, perhaps, scientists with a political agenda against China?
In my sense of commons sense, disease will arise as sure as the sun rises, when animals are slaughtered in an open air, public locale, with absolutely no measures of safety.
Frederick, your 'in my sense of commons sense, disease will arise as .....with absolutely no measures of safety' makes no sense concerning the legitimate questions raised about the source of Covid-19, How does your 'sense of commons sense' address leaks from labs and the possible consequences?
Heya Fern. I look at the consistency of conservative arguments. Everything is framed in a partisan, political context. I mean EVERYTHING. Women’s issues, civil rights, the planet’s future, our elections and democracy itself, and even what is considered "scientific truth.” Re Covid-19, does the potential source of an open air animal slaughter fit this narrative as well as a Chinese government induced lab leak? No, of course it does not. The lab leak fits perfectly. However, the practice of open air, public market animal slaughter en masse is so unconscionable that even family farmers in American would never consider the practice - simply due to the potentially unconscionable threat to public health.
Science points to the link of animals’ blood and humans with the outbreak of Ebola, while the cause of the SARS 2003 outbreak in China in still uncertain, but allows for the possibilities of origins from animals or a lab leak.
Lastly, conservatives and Pres. trump fawned over the president of China, until it became politically expedient to demean this man, China and Chinese Americans. Within this conservative movement, every societal and political issue fits so neatly into a unanimous agreement that it may be felt unbelievable, unless one understands from where this mindset arises.
Your comment has nothing to do with the piece that I posted. Unfortunately, I felt as though it was a political anti-right wing propaganda note without addressing the questions concerned with the source for Covid-19. Would it be worthwhile for you to reread the piece I posted?
Ah-ha. You KNEW I did not read your entire post, as that is apparently, readily evident from your post. It would be worthwhile to read you post, however, I am onto something else and will be shortly leaving for the day.
But I have a lesson learned from our exchange! I will pass over long emails without posting, or else read them - which I am most often not inclined to do, because I am also glancing or reading dozens of others.
But I get the point, well taken btw.
Your lack of reasoning was evident, so was your adamant reply. There was more than one fault in your communications with me, Fredrick. Reading too much at one time and posting over-confident, unreasoned responses, what else might require reflection?
Just to add a thought. The Chinese have refused access to raw case data and only allowed access to their analysis of the data.....hence the uncertainty as there is a significant and justifiable lack of trust on both sides. What seems to have stoked this particular fire recently is the suggestion that several of the lab personel were hospitalized in Nov 2019...a full month before the reported 1st Chinese case....and the Chinese refuse to respond to questions on these cases.
Thank you, Fern. This is an excellent, informative piece, and a sane assessment.
Thank you, Nancy. During these crazy days, sanity, thought and reason mean more than ever.
Excellent piece, Fern. Thanks for posting. I read something similar about how the partisan divide may have prevented serious consideration of the lab leak theory. Hard to believe folks who have demonstrated agendas and a history of lying.
Thank you, Gina.
Thank You for this, Fern!!!!😊
My stepdaughter is Korean American. She lives a block and a half from where George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. In 2019, she and her partner Andrew opened a restaurant, also in Minneapolis. After Trump started smack talking about the”China” virus, Mary Kay was the target of terrifying racial epithets both at work and in her neighborhood. And to top it off, her father, my wonderful husband Glen died of ALS in 2020. Hellish doesn’t begin to describe it for this beautiful young woman.
When Biden and Harris were elected, MK came over to the house to share her joy. A woman with part Asian ancestry? Works for us! Then watching Biden get grip on the pandemic, seeing people start to return to eating in the restaurant and not just doing takeout, and listening to a President working to rebuild the economy have helped start the healing process. Add to that seeing Floyd’s family being welcomed in the White House has given MK and her neighbors hope. Only a little hope but its a start.
How a disease like the corona virus jumps from animal to human is pretty well understood. Multiple factors can affect it but the process has been studied for many years (See Laurie Garret’s book The Coming Plague). Knowing how the novel corona virus exited Wuhan and killed nearly 600,000 Americans and 3.4 million people worldwide total is important. If it was an accident, international protocols have to be tightened- considerably. If it was being weaponized and escaped, time for some serious diplomacy with the Chinese. But when I think about the many complicated layers of vaccination, rebuilding the economy, shutting down the racist BS inflamed by the previous president and finding ways to help individuals like my stepdaughter, I’m aware of how precious is democracy and how much work there is to do. I’ve already started sending money to local candidates. I’ve signed up to write postcards to help get out the vote. I will write a letter to the editor this weekend slamming the Minnesota State Senate’s passage of several voter suppression bills. And We will gather as a family to remember a wonderful husband, father, stepfather and veteran who left us much too soon. Time to again wrap my arms around my daughters and grieve for a short while. That’s as important as anything else I can do because grieving in isolation while the corona virus raged was over-the-top difficult. Still is.
As Trump and Cotton try to take credit (without evidence) for being right all along, Biden and Harris focus on rebuilding the American middle class, the economy and our position as an international player. So much to do! What are all of you doing to move us forward? I need some more good news.
Beautiful entry, Sheila. Blessings to your family. And on ALL of us.
💞 I am reading your post, Shiela, and getting inspired to take action. Thank you. My feisty Irish mother was from Minnesota and taught me well.
My brothers’ names are Donovan, Kevin and Patrick, MaryPat. We have a few of those feisty Irish types in our family too😎
💚
Love your comment Sheila. Thank you 🙏 Sending love your way
Fact based investigations and realistic assessment of global economic competition ..... what a relief there are intelligent and rational people at the helm. Meanwhile, at our house, “guess who is coming to dinner”?! ..... an elderly (albeit looking 20 years younger than her advanced age) relative of my husband who, for decades, has been head of the RNC in an upscale California enclave and remains active in GOP politics today. Conceding trump wasn’t the best, she believes Biden is a disaster; the worst. My only comment .... “I think Biden/Harris are off to a great start”. Have never engaged in political discussion with this person - no point and we see her very infrequently. But, it still amazes and dismays me that well traveled, so-called intelligent people can be so ignorant.
Forty plus years of Movement Conservatism is a tough beast to turn away.
That is for sure! My parents were life-long republicans (not cultists) and pulled the lever twice for Obama. They passed away (at age 90) before the horror show of trump and for that I am actually grateful. It would have been soul crushing for them to get through that debacle.
My 86-year-old conservative father died just before he would have voted for Hillary, his first ever Democratic presidential vote. Growing up with dearly-loved parents who backed all the wrong people right up until Trump shows me that there are undoubtedly millions of decent conservatives who find the current Republican shitshow repellant.
But the Republican Party has always supported the economic principle that "Winner takes all".....and devil take the hindmost!
It has amazed me that we feel a need to call a virus by a name other than what it represents in terms of what it is: covid-19 is a coronavirus. To call it the China virus or kung-fu flu is just as misleading as it was to call the flu epidemic of 1917-18 the Spanish Flu. That didn't start in Spain, it started in the US, but because our newspapers were censored the first paper that reported on it was in Spain. While it may help to pinpoint the epicenter of an infection to help impede the spread, it does not help to call it names. Can you imagine the additional death toll from the Black Death if it had been called by a particular country's name?
That we may never understand the Asian cultural mindset in terms of diplomacy and worldview is very apparent but the attempt to understand is essential in forming not only healthcare concerns but market concerns.
Agree Pamela. The playground name calling is such a cheap trick. I despise how effective it’s been in creating blame and racial chaos.
Many European villagers noticed that the Black Death was far less prevalent in Jewish sections of town. Instead of finding out why - which was better cleanliness - they blamed the Jews for the disease, and attacked them.
In public health circles the origins of viruses are often used in their names (see the annual flu variants, for instance). As with so many other things, though, leave it to Trump to weaponize a simple naming convention.
I so love having grownups at the table 😎. I have not been this relaxed about the state of the country and world in years.
It was pretty measured and kind of Professor HCR not to mention Ivanka’s tacky shoes and handbags that were made in China before she abandoned her “business” into which she put zero of her own design talent and zero artisanal skill. Without the wage slaves there, her joke of a company would not have made one thin dime. The Grifterette’s companies dissolving was of course another reason the former president felt more emboldened to bray out “Choi-eyee-nah Virus” and do everything his cowardly portly ass could to inspire attacks on my ESL students as well as meddling with F1 visas for Fall 2021, causing immeasurable misery. I’m enjoying talk of a grand jury, but it’s impossible to hold the buffoon accountable for all the true hard me spent every day of his miserable presidency creating.
“… what we've seen over the last 15 years is unfortunately something of a democratic recession around the world: countries falling back on the basic metrics of democracy. The United States has had its own challenges visible for the world to see when it comes to democracy.”
Yup and yup.
I am woefully ignorant about US-China relations (and foreign relations in general). I did see a couple things on the news yesterday that did pique my interest. The first was yet another mass shooting, this one with 8 victims of workplace violence and the suicide of the perpetrator (I believe this is the 5th mass shooting since Biden/Harris took office.) The other one was that three US oil companies (Exxon, Shell, and Chevron) got hammered with climate issues (from a change in executives who will focus on climate issues, a court order to restrict emissions, and investors demanding emissions cuts, respectively). Rachel Maddow discussed the latter at length (if you haven't read her book, "Blowout", it is both worth the read and demonstrates her acumen in this area of global interest).
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/exxon-shell-and-chevron-suffer-major-setbacks-as-climate-concerns-cause-power-shift-113420869883
Another blow was struck too when international pressure finally forced Total and Chevron to stop making payments on oil and gas to the Myanmar Junta....announced also today.
Excellent, and yay!
"Blow Out" is mind blowing! THIS news, Ally, is an EARTH-QUAKE!! WOW!! I forgot about the power of corporate boards in good hands! This gives me more hope in Democracy Capitalism, as there are failsafes within the capitalistic system if they are used (and populated) wisely.
Thanks, Ally. I actually struggle with EVERYTHING, but decided not to beat myself up over it. So I'm usually in the "shallow end" of the pool rather than going for the "deep dive" analyses that others on this page engage in. There's a place for every one, I say.
Permission to enter the shallow end Lynell?! Im not sure if that is really where you belong, but since I'm 4'10" short, I really need the shallow end. Not a good swimmer either.
Moving over for you, br!!
Whereas I stopped diving off the springboards or high boards as the water in the pool is rarely deep enough! The world is built for the median sizes and less and less allowance made for the tail ends of the population size graph.
😍
Hope you are well!
I'm with you Lynell - shallow end!! But Ally, thats a BIG BIG deal! Thanks for the link.
Wow, Ally. Just listened to your link after reading NYT Sorkin's piece on the trifecta announcements. This is huge, well worth anyone's time to watch!
This morning as I read comments on todays letter, along with "dissenting," troll like, back and forths, I keep coming back to the news yesterday that 9 people including the shooter, were killed yesterday in yet another mass shooting. Listening to Gavin Newsom speak to the press, he used the term, "rinse and repeat" to talk about the ongoing gun violence in this country. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/us/gavin-newsom-san-jose-shooting.html. I have mixed feelings about Newsom, but he is right on target on this one. WTF is going on and why can't we get some decent gun controls? While we have to depend on intelligence to ferret out the origins of Covid-19, we need to begin to use our own "intelligence" i.e. our voices, to demand better controls on our guns!
Very good questions.
Whether or not the virus escaped from a lab, please note that no one is saying that it couldn't happen. In fact, accidental pathogen escapes from research labs are fairly common. Wouldn't you think that labs working on the deadliest diseases would be located out of the path of annual hurricanes (Galveston Island https://www.utmb.edu/gnl) and far from downtown (Boston South End http://www.bu.edu/articles/2017/neidl-bsl-4-lab-approved/)
Yes, I have wondered for years about Lyme's disease spread by ticks. While the idea has always been poo-pooed, I cannot help but wonder about the U.S. Army Chemical Corps a biological warfare program near Lyme in the 50's. ... Some claim that Lyme disease was introduced into the northeastern region of the U.S. by a man-made strain of Borrelia burgdorferi that escaped from a high containment biological warfare laboratory on Plum Island. I know a family of 7 children who grew up there and every member of the family had very strange illnesses that now have been determined to be Lyme's. I find biowarfare to be another one of those crimes against humanity and should be curtailed. I do not want my taxes going to biowarfare, landmines and a host of other atrocious human inventions that kill people and animals and poison our planet. It is way too small for this kind of toxic tinkering.
Prevent Lyme Disease: transplant an oppussum family to under your porch.
https://www.ajc.com/news/national/how-opossums-help-fight-ticks-and-lyme-disease/JYHG9OBdMaRvVkbbW0DCwL/
We do have opossums, but not sure where they live. I think there is something living in the well house with large gaps in the stone foundation, but the combination on the lock is not working so I can no longer go in there for now. My cat came in twice this week with a tick hanging off his long fur. They are very, very prevalent in VT this year.
Be careful. Really bad in Michigan. I have 2 friends in their late 20's with severe chronic illness now from it.
That sounds really good. In Montreal i had marmots under the porch, squirrels in the trees and raccoons that would visit. The cats went crazy! In Washington, we couldn't let the dog out in the back yard because we had a herd of deer over the back wire fence!
Again and again we are often our own worst enemies.
Yes. Secure locations are challenging to find, but these clearly vulnerable locations are ridiculous sites.
RE: the Wuhan lab
https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/05/25/wuhan-lab-leak-covid-19-origin-theory-roll-the-tape-keilar-newday-vpx.cnn
Your piece today was just a whitewash of Biden’s policy vis a vis Trumps. I enjoy your writing and your historical insight, but sometimes your work sounds like it’s scripted by the DNC. Please, give us more thoughtful analysis and criticism and less cheerleading.
I started off today with this item of Rogers (immediately seized upon by Jack_le0n). Having spent decades with official communiqués (and seen them do exactly what I feared they would after the collapse of the USSR, becoming western versions of the worst Kominform crap, same liturgy, different fetish) I can only comment that I take your point, but... if only we saw (if only we could have seen) more of HCR's kind of analysis, informed by her long-perfected art of extracting the pith from historical documentation!
Perhaps you are asking too much of her. There are days when her work will inevitably be more journalistic, and then she runs the risk all journalists must face, that of coming too close to what's reported on and presenting something that looks too much like PR. It is unfair to criticize this. We may do so if, once we've all had time to distance ourselves from policy and see how it works out in practice, HCR—and, above all, the Administration itself—should fail to draw the necessary lessons from events.
People contributing to this thread run a far greater risk even more getting sidetracked into passionate—but irrelevant—reactions that sidetrack and spoil the conversation. Precisely because we’re sailing too close to the reefs of our personal prejudices.
Another analogy—a pointed one:
When driving on a major highway, it’s essential to develop the sixth sense that keeps us well away from road hogs. We can’t allow ourselves to lose our concentration on the road for one moment, even when a bad or mad driver endangers us. Otherwise we too risk contributing to a major pile-up.
The “road” we should be holding to is HCR’s daily contribution. We can make a service stop and take coffee with others, getting to know those traveling the same road. But stops for booze or drugs are out, as is anything that endangers ourselves and others journeying with us.
Peter, I'm in total agreement with you. A good example of journalistic ethics is NPR, which takes its remit seriously, and the result is that it sounds "lefty" to people for whom conspiracy theories and Fox Entertainment Network are their usual fare. I cannot remember which wag originally noted (Paul Krugman in the NY Times in 2017 but this has been a "thing" for far longer) that "facts have a well-known 'liberal' bias" (I would change "liberal" to "lefty"). It is also true that most of the time the more liberally educated--in the sense of a diverse and varied education experience--one is the less enthusiastic about totalitarianism one becomes, and this includes the top-down propagandistic approach to information.
There is a difference between the name-calling nonsense of the former guy and his minions and the fact-gathering focus of the current administration.
Thanks for the laughs, Linda.
My "lefty" bias, being interpreted, means only that I have stuck to my boring-middle-of-the-road principles throughout decades during which the political playing field has lurched crazily so far to the right that I'm afraid of falling off the edge...
At the same time, I'm sure I'm a fascist in some supposedly "progressive" people's eyes... What fun!
Peter, I never thought I would live in an America in which it is considered to be radically leftwing to believe in the fundamental principles that (however flawed its realization of them) created this country, or in the basic principles of humanity: heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, treat everyone with equity. When I was growing up in the 1960s this seemed to be the impetus. And then 1968 happened. Sigh.
Yes, the right has been tragically effective at demonizing basic human values and re labeling them as socialist. Words like feminist and liberal became slurs. Instead of standing our ground we tried to compromise without realizing there was no good faith on the other side. If we haven’t learned that lesson by now we’re doomed.
Hello Mr. Cold Warrior, good morning. At least it is morning where I am, for you it is probably dinner-time.
Your FSB boys are on the booze and drugs. That’s just my opinion. I doubt you will agree. Your FSB lackeys harass and insult, and mock and ridicule, so I would hardly be willing to condone and support them as you do.
As you know, I am a truck driver, so your analogy is a familiar one for me, since this is my profession.
The “road” we hold to is not just HCR. A moral ethic is at work here. HCR’s daily contributions are the weather reports. The road itself, the concrete and asphalt foundation, is the moral foundation we are driving on. The drivers on this road all adhere to their own personal, and varying, codes of conduct. Moral codes, of integrity (for some) and lack of integrity (for others). Some are courteous on the road, some are discourteous and selfish on the road.
Your FSB boys are like the Los Angeles Freeway System drivers who treat the freeways like a race track, driving in and out of gaps with reckless speed and disregard for safety and common courtesy.
I have another analogy for you. Picture a pet tiger. The owner of this pet tiger believes himself to be the master. He, the owner, feels he has the freedom to harass and mistreat the animal whenever he pleases, because he believes that he has the animal bullied, cowed into submission.
One day, that pet tiger will no longer be a pet. The pet tiger will be free to do as the tiger wishes.
Since World War I, a turning point for democracy, monarchy and autocracy has experienced a rapid decline. There continue to be lingering relics, lingering re-establishments, reignitions if you will, of autocratic systems. The Trump administration, for example, is a mild version. Russia’s current government, another (seemingly) stronger example.
The trend is clear: autocracy is being phased out, slowly but surely, sometimes very slowly with returns to autocracy. Open society, democracy, individuality of nations (and people as individuals) is being phased in.
In 1989 the Soviet Union was there one month, and gone the next.
Perhaps portions of the US empire will do likewise. Maybe Puerto Rico and other territories will become independent nations. Who knows.
When the tiger is free to do as it pleases, what will it choose to do? Will the tiger become friends with the master? Will the tiger eat the master? Nobody knows for sure.
The tiger, as I’m sure you have ascertained, is Russian society.
I hope for the sake of your FSB boys that the Russian people treat you with the same kindness you have received from people like Roland.
As a master of a pet tiger, you may wish to give a little more thought to treating your charge, your duty (to your people), respectfully.
I have a comment to make for our other HCR subscribers here.
This is an online forum. You never know for sure who you are talking to. It is a mistake to assume that this is an “echo chamber,” I believe it’s called, just a bunch of progressives looking at themselves in the mirror.
Perhaps our Cold Warrior friend “Peter,” who is more likely Piotr, is the head or deputy head of the FSB. It certainly appears that the “Leon” crew works for him. In that capacity, he may well be having conversations with, or sending reports to, Mr. “Kremlin-Chief-For-The-Time-Being” himself.
I don’t say that to be disrespectful. He is head of the Kremlin now, but I don’t think that will last. It’s just my opinion, based on historical trends. Remember, dear Kremlin observers, history is not showing itself to be favorable to autocracy. History is not smiling on autocracy. And this forum is, if anything, a forum about history. HCR is a historian.
Notice how often “Peter” discusses and decries distractions. For him, having to wade through the Putin insults is probably as difficult as wading through (and trying to ignore the cacophony of) Leon’s spewings is for us.
Peter also wished nations could speak with nations. Well, here you go. The HCR nation is having a conversation with the Russian government. US and Russian diplomacy. Perhaps preparation for the upcoming meeting between government officials of both nations.
Remember what I said, Peter, about poker and judo.
And they would not be here if the switch from “cooperative to competitive” with China was not our new administration’s stance.
Bold, too, I might add.
Seems to me a worrisome prospect for Russia.
Good and valuable comment - but it is difficult (Remember - don't drive where you are looking - Look where you are driving!). I notice the passions boil quite frequently here.
Well put. Thanks, Hugh.
I worry about the dangers which the Substack approach entails, precisely because we are all too reactive. If we cannot bring this tendency under control we risk turning the comments thread—our community—into a cesspool, like most British counterparts. (Note that editing and prepublication censorship only made their problems worse.)
The one thing we all need urgently to break out of is the disgusting habit of befriending and frequenting only the like-minded. The effects of this are tearing our societies apart... I know GOP people who speak of California in the same tones as official America spoke of "Red China" in the '50s. Rejoicing at wildfires...
The disease can destroy our living together, destroy the institutions of democracy, it will go on to destroy all that it can burn. Even in this thread we're risking it, not only when someone, intentionally or unintentionally, sidetracks us by sowing discord but when we react by demonizing whoever expresses different views. That’s co-trolling.
There are many things in my life I can look back on with regret or disapproval, but not my friendly relations with extremists of the left and the right when I was twenty. Not the ability to relate to everyone around me, something that may gradually have worn threadbare, but not when it comes down to underlying convictions.
If my friend goes mad and sees me as their enemy, will I hate them?
I have experienced this…
If your mother falls victim to dementia, she'll get on your nerves but... will you cease to love her? If your child commits a horrible crime, you may hate the crime, it may separate you from the child. But our human bond lies deeper than all that.
There's so much mass madness in our midst, our mental wildfires. Getting some perspective on this, not only in space but in time—the time of humanity’s past—that’s what HCR is trying to do for us. Isn’t it up to us as readers to try to develop similar self-discipline?
Not perfect here, but many times after reading a comment not of my liking, I leave my computer, go outside to reflect on what should be my comment in return or whether to comment at all. It has amazed me more than once that I end up abandoning a reactionary retort in favor of a, hopefully, more constructive reply. Morning, Peter and Hugh!!
Maybe we're all getting a bit sidelined here, yet what you've just said speaks for me far better than anything I can recall having written.
And it is of the essence that we give thought not only to the matter in hand but to how we speak to one another about it.
Peter why don’t you instruct your FSB boys to be that way. There is an expression in Toastmasters, “you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Kindness and courtesy are more powerful than “vinegar,“ sourness.
Thanks, Peter. Agree.
Morning Lynnell. Sun's out here and the new red flower moon is shepherding us into summer and better weather. It's nice out when thinking how to respond.
Morning, Stuart!!
Thank you Lynell. I have been having that same thought for two straight days, ever since I was dialoguing with Peter on the day of HCR’s report of Lukashenko acting like a jerk.
Reflection. Been doing lots of reflection.
Reflection, with your feet propped up and an iced tea in one hand works for me!
Mr. Burnett. The “ road hog” you described earlier is you.
Sometimes, for sure. I know it.
What's more, I see other people who usually make sense to me going bananas from time to time.
But please help me (and all fellow readers) by providing an instance.
Otherwise it's "you too". And then we're all in trouble.
Patience. In all things patience. The people here are very good at speaking nonjudgmentally and without blaming. I have said many times, and I will say it again, this is a mature group. Even the younger people in this group are mature. They could teach the FSB boys a thing or two.
Remember also, Peter, either you are being paid to be here, or you have a lot of freedom in your life. Not everyone here is retired or has freedom to do as they please. Even the retired ones have chores, tasks, duties. Plus as the day goes on, and this cavalcade/cascade of discussion grows larger, it gets more and more difficult to keep track of an individual post.
Christine, I feel bound to add that, having looked at the few words that accompany your twin giraffes and found that they accord closely with my deepest feelings, especially "We are all in this together", I want all the more that you should point an example out to me, not so that I can respond, but so that I can reflect on it.
I am particularly aware of one example of road rage on my part. But... that arose from a misunderstanding. I don't know if I have apologized adequately to the person to whom I reacted so angrily, but I have tried to do so. And I don't want to involve anyone else in this discussion.
If you'll not answer (or if, like me, you don't want to drag anyone else into this) I shall just repeat that, yes, I do tend to be excessively reactive and that is why I am so aware of the problem and the dangers to which it gives rise that I've wanted to discuss it with others prone to similar outbursts.
Yet I'd be willing to repeat again and again my reaction to Jack_le0n's asking us to "move on" from the worst of 2016 to 2020.
That is also why I appreciate Lynell's comment so much.
Thank you Christine. ❤️
You are very welcome. Some others, not so much.
How many times have I read here a reference to “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.“ You’re preaching to the converted, at least to those here who agree with your argument. And I would say, at the risk of offending the few who disagree, that most people here will speak with an adversary, an opponent, a Trumpster in their family or in their circle of friends.
My father has been an intellectual opponent, an adversary on principle, and of course we still love each other.
But keep this in mind, Peter. An adversary who kills those who disagree with him, well, that is a completely different category than my father, who may be a right-wing diehard but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He taught me to take spiders out of the house. Spiders eat insects, spiders are our friends, that’s the message he gave me.
Killing your opponents, harassing them and putting them in jail and beating them and torturing them to death, because they’re not doing as you please, is not going to engender loving and kind responses. Magnitsky. Navalny. All the murdered dissidents and opponents, I don’t have to list them, you know even better than I do who they are. And then there are your FSB mosquitoes. Swarms of them. Having a team of online bullies who harass and threaten, and mock and ridicule, it’s not going to warm people’s hearts. If your “Leon” jokers don’t develop social skills, don’t start (as we say) “play well with others in the sandbox,“ you can’t complain when they are insulted right back. In just as harsh terms. Excuse me, but they have it coming to them.
Peter...are there any UK "substack Heather" equivalents that you might recommend?
I wish I knew of any. They must exist, but I don't know of them. The comments threads of serious publications like The Economist, The Guardian, even the Financial Times are abysmal. There's intelligent life in the Spectator and New Statesman, but you have to go to Letters to the Editor to find visible signs of it among the readership.
Maybe someone here can tell us. But I don't think there's anything like Substack elsewhere. And I do feel strongly that this venture needs all the help and support it can get. It is a delicately balanced experiment. If others were to follow Heather's example, who knows, it could re-seed America's old tradition of citizens' associations.
Acting as badly as them even if the provocation is great doesn't exactly contribute to a solution, Roland.
I’m not saying I condone the rude behavior. But I do understand it.
Yes, understood.
Ok
What's life without a little passion...boring.
Not boring. Just not life.
Not my life anyway.
Pardon my bad driving... "run a far greater risk OF getting sidetracked..."
Heather isn’t a cheerleader Roger. Her efforts are always to elucidate the current events within her knowledge as American historian.
I had a somewhat similar reaction initailly to HCR's post today - but I would't call it a whitewash by any stretch. As usual, she's offering context and analysis based on it. The point of today's post is minor - yet also worthy because it anticipates how the trumpers are going to spin Biden's move on this. Play by play commentary today. Sometimes it's all there is.
Roger, Your comment was first up when I decided to read what other subscribers had to say about the Letter before commenting myself. To some degree your words met my thoughts. This LFAA read to me as a White House Press Release.
I don't know why Senator Cotton was mentioned as there was no elaboration. We'll know soon enough how Cotton will China-size his campaign against Biden and the Democrats.
There was an intense dispute about the source of Covid-19 stirred up by a scientist when we first began to know about the virus. He claimed the source to be the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China and that there was an American team working there as well. My memory is too vague. I will try to look into it over the weekend.
We'll see where Heather goes tomorrow.
"This LFAA read to me as a White House Press Release." When an occasional LFAA reads in this way, I take a moment to remember that HCR is also a professor with students, a homeowner with a garden, a writer with research to do, and god knows what else. Sometimes just the condensed review of the day's news is plenty for me. I confess I tend to get more out of the subsequent discussion on many days, even when the Letters are very chewy.
Wow, Roger, first real dissent I've heard in here, thanks and sorry to probably have you compartmentalized as a troll, but about time. And I enjoy Heather's writing as well.
You guys like Heathers writing, you just want it to be ‘different’. Uh huh. I smell a little faint praise. It’s nice that you have found each other in what you consider to be a wasteland of dunderheaded, cheerleading loving, probably somewhat deluded, fans. Perhaps your own Substack is in order. Letters from Some Super Critical Thinking Guys on Other Peoples Work. It’s easy to tear something down. It’s a lot harder to build something up with integrity, diligence, kindness and class.
But were there one whose fires
True genius kindles and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
. . .
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?
Alexander Pope
Thank you Robin. Well said. HCR’s letters have been my lifeline to realty. The comments by her followers were reassuring. Until today. If I wanted to read opposing views posted for the sake of stirring the pot in order to declare themselves different from HCR’s loyal and appreciative fans I would go elsewhere.
Thanks Robin. Fabulous AND germane quote.
Perfection comment, Robin. Per usual.