America Can't Stop Killing Black People
Ahmaud Arbery, China's Power Play, and a Low-Rent Bay of Pigs | #TC64
Welcome to Third Cultured, a Queer Reading of the American Empire through crisis-after-crisis — written by yours truly, Kyle Borland.
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Black Lives Matter. There’s nothing else to say today.
And, if peace means a white man can steal the life from someone with black skin and not be deemed a racist but me pointing out the long history of white men who kill people with black skin somehow makes me a racist, then I do not want it.
So, no, Ahmaud Arbery, do not rest in peace.
Deliver unto us a sword.
And, for God’s sake...
Stay safe and healthy, beautiful people. And, thanks for reading.
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xoxo,
Kyle (@kgborland)
“We talk a lot about growth and potential but far less about the very common experience of ‘touching it’ — whatever ‘it’ is at any given moment before it slips away or morphs into some new elusive goal — then losing it, then maybe if you’re lucky touching it again someday.”
– Rachel Friedman, And Then We Grew Up: On Creativity, Potential, and the Imperfect Art of Adulthood
American Empire & Other Wars
Attorney General William Barr dropped its case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, a key prosecution from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Didn’t you hear? Law and Order are only for us poors.
China will hold its National People’s Congress on May 22 where Xi and the CCP plan to signal to the world that Beijing – having defeated COVID while thousands of Americans die daily – is prepared to fill the void left by the US (as its aircraft carriers recover) in the South China Sea and around the world. In too-perfect timing, Beijing announced they had found archeological evidence proving China’s civilization is 5,300 years old.
Facebook announced the first 20 members of its “Oversight Board” that will act as a Supreme Court on content decisions.
Georgia’s AG requested the DOJ investigate the handling of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder investigation. Based on the Flynn case…this is not good news.
Tara Reade’s accusation against former VP Biden gained another level of credibility last week with the uncovering a 1996 court document detailing a complaint with Biden’s office. The lawyer who represented six of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers is now representing Reade’s case after she agreed on Megyn Kelly’s show to take a lie detector test if Biden took one.
Three SCOTUS cases this week – Trump v. Mazars, Trump v. Deutsche Bank, and Trump v. Vance – will determine if Trump is above the law. They’ll also review if cops who kill are immune, too.
Trump’s nationalism should concern everyone. Our nation has been divided for decades and now armed militias at state capitol buildings are becoming a regular occurrence? Americans need to snap out of our complacency and see the real threat in front of our face, pointing a loaded gun at us.
US Senate upheld Trump’s veto of the Iran War Powers Resolution.
Venezuela thwarted the worst invasion attempt in modern history. It was a deranged, low-rent Bay of Pigs.
With no US or Chinese leadership, the post-COVID World Order will be a free-for-all. US hard power (military, the dollar) is at its breaking point and Chinese soft power was shredded by the CCP’s COVID response. (Graphic: Statista)
The economic damage has been massive. Overall, 2020 growth is likely to be around zero—the worst performance since the Cultural Revolution five decades ago. China’s debt-to-GDP ratio already stands at around 310 percent, acting as a drag on other Chinese spending priorities, including education, technology, defense, and foreign aid. And all of this comes on the eve of the party’s centenary celebrations in 2021, by which point the leadership had committed to double China’s GDP over a decade. The pandemic now makes that impossible.
As for the United States’ power, the Trump administration’s chaotic management has left an indelible impression around the world of a country incapable of handling its own crises, let alone anybody else’s. More important, the United States seems set to emerge from this period as a more divided polity rather than a more united one, as would normally be the case following a national crisis of this magnitude; this continued fracturing of the American political establishment adds a further constraint on U.S. global leadership.
Meanwhile, conservative estimates see the U.S. economy shrinking by between six and 14 percent in 2020, the largest single contraction since the demobilization at the end of World War II. Washington’s fiscal interventions meant to arrest the slide already amount to ten percent of GDP, pushing the United States’ ratio of public debt to GDP toward 100 percent—near the wartime record of 106 percent.
“With rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism and a push back against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic.”
— U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the COVID pandemic
COVID-19 Updates (as of 5pm, 5/10/2020)
Total Confirmed: 4,098,981; Total Deaths: 282,553; Total Recovered: 1,406,345
US Cases: 1,367,638; US Deaths: 80,787; Recovered: 256,336; Tested: 8,987,524
25,600 – The number of residents and workers who have died from COVID at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for older adults in the US. It probably isn’t surprising that Trump trails Biden by 10-points with voters 65-and-older – a key demographic for the president’s re-election.
20,500,000 US jobs lost in April – 33,500,000 in seven weeks – and the official unemployment rate is 14.7% (with real unemployment at 24.9%) For reference, the Great Depression’s unemployment topped out at 25.6%. And, don’t expect pre-crisis levels until at least Q42021. Before then, it’s gonna get worse.
“An absolute chaotic disaster” – Former President Obama admonished the Trump Administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic on a Friday night call with ex-members of his administration. Responding to the DOJ’s dropping of its criminal case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, Obama said he worried that the “basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.” Worth noting, people on the call said this was only the beginning of campaigning from the former president as he hopes to counter Trump’s incumbency advantage with his own clout.
"This election that's coming up -- on every level -- is so important because what we're going to be battling is not just a particular individual or a political party," Obama said. "What we're fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy -- that has become a stronger impulse in American life."
"It's part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty," Obama said. "It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset -- of 'what's in it for me' and 'to heck with everybody else' -- when that mindset is operationalized in our government."
"That's why, I, by the way, am going to be spending as much time as necessary and campaigning as hard as I can for Joe Biden."
"I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do."
A 107-year-old woman beat both COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu.
Black Americans face a long-running racial bias in medical care, on top of being disproportionately represented in COVID cases and deaths. Doctors do not believe Black people, particularly Black women when they describe their health.
California ordered its November election for 20.6M voters to be held entirely by mail.
CDC and White House clashed over reopening recommendations. Relatedly, last week a whistleblower report documented extensive corruption inside the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Maybe that had something to do with the offer for millions of American-manufactured masks being turned down.
FDA granted emergency authorization for the first at-home saliva collection kit to test for COVID. The kits must be ordered by a physician.
Fiji has returned to a barter system as its economy crashed.
In Africa, COVID is exposing the gaping holes in the continent’s public health infrastructure, based on survey results from 48 of Africa’s 54 countries. South Africa and Ghana make up 46 percent of total African testing so far. Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Egypt only have 1,920 ICU beds between them for 400+ million people. The Central African Republic only has three ventilators nationwide.
Most Americans are against reopening, by a 30+ point margin. (Graphic: WIRED)
Pay attention to South Korea. Re-opening without a vaccine won’t work.
Russia is misclassifying COVID deaths to decrease its case/death count. Mexico is doing the same.
Sundance Film Festival may have been the first US hot spot of the virus.
The Small Business Administration’s inspector general flagged the $660B Paycheck Protection Program’s flawed rollout left many minority- and women-owned businesses, as well as those in rural areas, unable to get loans. Worse yet, the program said loans could total up to $2 million but now cap at $150K.
The UK will require 14-day quarantine for all air travelers, except Irish citizens.
The US announced it will buy $3 billion worth of ag products, bringing the Trump administration’s total farm bailout and relief programs to $31 billion.
The US Treasury will borrow $3 trillion in three months, more than double what it borrowed in all of 2019.
US VP Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive on Friday, the second staffer after the president’s military valet came down with the virus. Several top public health officials have gone into full or partial quarantine as a result, including Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The White House is now a hotspot.
A Cultural Thing
Rest in Power, beautiful soul. Thank you for Rock ‘n’ Roll.
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