San Francisco's Hypocrisy
Americans are Done With Quarantine | #TC67
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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We didn’t even make it to Memorial Day.
The early summer sun came out this weekend all across the country and Americans wasted no time shedding their quarantine skins. Armed with the education to justify any action and little to no regard for the vulnerable populations around them, they sauntered to their leisure activity of choice empowered in their defiance.
Here in San Francisco, it was unsurprisingly the privileged and open space-spoiled parts of town – the Marina and the West Side – that took advantage of the sunshine.
Unlike most parts of San Francisco, Bayview's open/public spaces are gated off or rightfully being used to provide SIP spaces for unhoused folks.
Even on good days, because of generations of municipal neglect, the air, and soil in southeast San Francisco’s historically Black neighborhood are polluted by nuclear waste, ongoing industrial activity, and the highway that is Third Street.
So, to get “fresh air” residents would have to drive to a different part of the City — park near other cars (aka people) — taking up space in another neighborhood’s open areas (already occupied by the adjacent privileged rather than the emerging underclass) for an unselfish amount of time (<15 min).
And, that’s if you’re lucky enough to have a car!
It’s not feasible or safe for people to use public transit during a pandemic just to sit in a park. Our City’s answer to that? Provide more open space to those with the most options already rather than the areas affected by COVID.
Richer parts of the City not as affected by the virus — merely inconvenienced by it — have no regard for San Franciscans suffering from COVID’s foot on their necks. They cluster in their urban oases and watering holes toasting their triumph and the magic of being six-feet apart.
After they’ve quenched their thirst for sun and drink, the rich will scurry from their individual anthills to be home when their scheduled delivery arrives.
Stay safe and healthy, beautiful people. And, thanks for reading.
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xoxo,
Kyle (@kgborland)
“It’s so mind-bogglingly dumb.”
– A former Navy SEAL about the plan to invade Venezuela and abduct Maduro.
American Empire & Other Wars
60,000 – Number of refugees who have fled into Niger since April 2019 escaping from armed groups in the Sokoto, Zamfara and Katsina states of Nigeria.
$970,000 – Trump’s business has made at least $970,000 since he took office, including more than 1,600 nightly room rentals at Trump’s hotels and clubs.
Beijing believes Trump is bluffing when he threatens to “decouple” with China, explaining it away as Beltway bluster for election season. However, some elites within China agree that a harder line should be taken and even see the two nations as already waging a 21st Century Cold War. Xi is not interested in claiming Washington’s position in the world, Beijing has no interest in being the World’s Policeman, but he does want to build a world where China and its values are at the center as the global driving force.
When people warn of a new Cold War, they are typically referring to one or more of these possible scenarios:
Division of the world into competing spheres of influence
A sweeping economic embargo
A military build-up
At home, accusations of disloyalty and secret sympathies
Former President Obama got under Trump’s skin this weekend with his remarks during the Graduate Together high school commencement broadcast.
"More than anything, this pandemic has fully finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing," Obama said in a commencement speech on Saturday. "A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge."
France followed Berlin’s lead and passed a law that will fine social media for not removing illegal or harmful content within an hour of notification, noting that the window is 24 hours for hate speech. The new rules go into effect on July 1 and fines can be. up to 1.25 million euros or up to 4 percent of global revenues.
President Trump criticized the F-35 being built in several different countries which completely ignores the fact that the explicit point of the F-35 program was to intricately tie our allies’ military supply chains to the Pentagon.
The EU is suing Luxembourg for not following its news money laundering laws.
The US announced a “high degree of certainty” that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government paid Iran with tons of gold for fuel, an illegal trade under several US sanctions.
The US partnership with Saudi Arabia has run its course. Washington should now focus on shrinking its troop presence in the Middle East because it would achieve two long-term objectives: “reduce the threat of terrorism and support American energy interests” (by investing in domestic renewables-generation).
The White House is considering re-listing Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Trump removed the inspector general for the State Department, which is the third IG in six weeks to be removed after alienating Trump or proving disloyal.
We knew this, but Trump’s following is a full-fledged conspiracy cult.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said the CDC “let the country down.”
“Without better planning, 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history."
– Rick Bright, a whistleblower who testified to a U.S. House of Representatives panel about the lack of readiness for the outbreak. He’s correct. We were found flat-footed and the only word that any of our allies can think of to describe us is “pity.”
COVID-19 Updates (as of 5pm, 5/17/2020)
Total Confirmed: 4,710,683; Total Deaths: 315,023; Total Recovered: 1,732,384
US Cases: 1,527,664; US Deaths: 90,978; Recovered: 346,389; Tested: 11,499,203
1 in 5 – The number of American workers who lost their jobs in March.
Thirteen percent of all U.S. adults, or 20 percent of people who were employed in February, were laid off or furloughed as the pandemic began sweeping through the country in March, the Fed said. Another 6 percent of all adults worked reduced hours or went on leave without pay, the central bank found in the survey, included in its annual Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households.
For those who lost their job or were working fewer hours, only 64 percent expected to be able to pay off all their bills, compared to 85 percent of Americans who didn’t see their employment situation change.
Still, the numbers paint a grim picture: 39 percent of employed people in households making less than $40,000 lost their job or were furloughed in March. That compares to 19 percent of individuals in households making between $40,000 and $100,000, and 13 percent of people in households with an income above $100,000, a Fed official told reporters.
The survey findings also highlight disparities among workers with different education levels, with financial well-being declining among those with a high school education or less.
People with more education also had more ability to work from home; 63 percent of workers with at least a bachelor’s degree worked entirely from home during the last week of March, compared to 20 percent of workers with a high school degree or less, and 27 percent of people with some college education or an associate degree.
$820,000 – About 24,000 donors from Ireland gave $820,000 in an online fundraiser to buy food and supplies for families on the Hopi and Navajo reservations in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The inspiration for the donation was to repay for the generosity the Irish received two centuries earlier from Native Americans during the Potato Famine when the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma took up a collection, pooled together $170, and sent it to a group collecting money in New York. South Korea is also sending 10,000 masks.
Australia, joined by 116 other nations, called for an “impartial, independent, and comprehensive evaluation” of the international response to the pandemic. China is not pleased but they are outnumbered as the list includes Russia, Indonesia, India, Japan, Britain, Canada, and the African Union.
Brazil projected its economy will contract -4.7%, the largest decrease since 1900.
COVID may cause the first rise in the global child mortality rate since 1960, estimating that an additional 1.2 million children could die before their fifth birthday in the next six months. A 45 percent jump from pre-COVID numbers.
Growth in cities and public transit use hit a screeching halt because of COVID. However, it would be a mistake to believe urbanization is paused for good.
Free Movement within the European free-travel area may be one of COVID’s major institutional victims. Nations locked-down borders to slow the virus and many are hesitant to reopen now that they have a handle on it.
The Commission presented a two-step approach. First, countries with a comparable epidemiological situation as assessed by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control should lift travel restrictions between themselves provided they still respect social distancing. This would, for example, appear to cause problems for Greece bringing in British tourists, because the coronavirus has been far more severe in the U.K.
Only in a second phase would travel be restored throughout the whole Schengen area and beyond.
Germany – the world’s fourth-largest economy – entered a recession because it contracted -2.2 percent in Q12020.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp issued an apology for publishing a false chart reporting a downward trend in COVID cases.
Japan – the world’s third-largest economy – also entered a recession with a -0.9% contraction in Q12020. Nationwide states of emergency were lifted but left the measures in place for the capital, Tokyo, and Osaka.
J.C. Penney filed for bankruptcy last week, joining J. Crew in the COVID heap.
London announced one of the world’s largest car-free initiatives to create more open space for pedestrians/cyclists during the pandemic. (Graphic: The Guardian)
Most state reopening plans in the US lack benchmarks that detail when to reimpose restrictions if infections spike.
Seoul, which last week eased rules in anticipation of “a new daily life with covid-19,” shut bars and nightclubs after the discovery of a cluster of cases. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has a PhD in quantum chemistry, has required that restrictions be reinstated in any region that records more than 50 new cases for every 100,000 residents in a week.
No such specificity appears in the White House’s nonbinding guidelines for a phased reopening, which warn of “rebound” but do not establish parameters for measuring one. That has left states to decide on their own whether to build into their reopening plans rules that would compel them to snap restrictions back into place.
President Trump announced "Operation Warp Speed,” a crash effort aimed at developing a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. However, he stressed, “Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back.”
South Korea’s nightclub outbreak is waning as cases drop to 13. (Graphic: Statista)
Summer weather will slow COVID, but it won’t be gone and it will come roaring back come the Fall.
US automakers only have two-weeks of inventory and their suppliers in Mexico where COVID is surging. However, Mexico’s president announced on Friday that plants could reopen before June 1 deadline if proper safety protocols are taken.
A Cultural Thing
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