www.coldtype.net THE BIG COVID-19 THOUGHT EXPERIMENT | C.J. Hopkins SICK DAYS, MARKET CRASHES & CLOSED BORDERS | Linh Dinh WHEN ‘FAKE’ NEWS WAS BANNED | Adam Hochschild iSSue 202
ColdWriting Worth reading n Photos WorthType seeing Mid-March 2020 A STRANGE CASE OF
MISTAKEN IDENTITYDavid Anderson Trevor Grundy thought his new girlfriend was taking him to a secret 1976 Johannesburg party in honour of jailed Anc leader nelson mandela. When they arrived, he discovered something was seriously wrong PLUS VIVA LAS VIRUS Joe Allen CORONAVIRUS CHAOS Andrew Fischer 2
n Writing worth reading n Photos worth seeing ColdType Issue 202 / Mid-March 2020
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C?IJ7A;D?:;DJ?JODavid Anderson Ki\mfi>ile[pj^ek]^j^_id[m 16 The war that won’t go away / William Croke ]_hb\h_[dZmWijWa_d]^_cjeW i[Yh[j'/-,@e^Wdd[iXkh]fWhjo _d^edekhe\ `W_b[Z7D9b[WZ[h D[biedCWdZ[bW$M^[dj^[o 22 The man who skewers presidential numbskullery Whh_l[Z"^[Z_iYel[h[Ziec[j^_d] mWii[h_ekibomhed] FBKI Tony Sutton L?L7B7IL?HKI J o e A l l e n 9EHED7L?HKI9>7EI 24 The big Covid-19 thought experiment / C.J. Hopkins Andrew Fischer 27 Viva Las Virus / Joe Allen 30 Sick days, market crashes and closed borders ColdType 7 Lewis Street, Georgetown, Linh Dinh Ontario, Canada LG7 1E3 36 Coronavirus chaos / Andrew Fischer Contact ColdType: Write to Tony Sutton Insights at [email protected] 39 The public lab that could have helped Subscribe: For a FREE subscription the coronavirus fight / Linda McQuaig to Coldtype, e-mail 40 Radio Times gets with the programme [email protected] Trevor Hoyle Back Issues: www.coldtype.net/reader.html 42 Turkey’s gamble in Syria ends in failure or www.issuu.com/coldtype Conn Hallinan Cover image: David Anderson 44 Coronavirus and the Shock Doctrine www.dandersonillustration.com Sam Pizzigati & Sarah Anderson © ColdType 2020 46 Freedom finally arrives for Chelsea Manning Binoy Kampmark
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 3 n Adam Hochschild When ‘fake news’ was banned
The 1917 Espionage Act gave huge powers over the media to the postmaster general, former Texas Congressman Albert Sidney Burleson, an America Donald Trump would have loved
very month, it seems, brings CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press zestfully banned magazines and a new act in the Trump ad- pass. And the list goes on. newspapers of all sorts doesn’t ministration’s war on the me- Yet it remains deceptively easy even appear in either Morison’s dia. In January, Secretary of to watch all the furore over the history, that Britannica article, or State Mike Pompeo exploded media with the feeling that it’s still just about anywhere else either. Eat National Public Radio reporter intact and safely protected. After Mary Louise Kelly when he didn’t all, didn’t Richard Nixon and Ron- like questions she asked – and then ald Reagan rail against the press The story begins in the spring banned a colleague of hers from in their presidencies? And don’t of 1917, when the United States the plane on which he was leaving we have the First Amendment? In entered the First World War. De- for a trip to Europe and Asia. In my copy of Samuel Eliot Morison’s spite his reputation as a liberal February, the Trump staff booted 1,150-page Oxford History of the internationalist, the president at a Bloomberg News reporter out of American People, the word “cen- that moment, Woodrow Wilson, an Iowa election campaign event. sorship” doesn’t even appear in the cared little for civil liberties. Af- The president has repeatedly index; while, in an article on “The ter calling for war, he quickly called the press an “enemy of the History of Publishing,” the Ency- pushed Congress to pass what be- people” – the very phrase that, in clopedia Britannica reassures came known as the Espionage Act, Russian (vrag naroda), was ap- us that, “in the United States, no which, in amended form, is still in plied by Joseph Stalin’s prosecu- formal censorship has ever been effect. Nearly a century later, Na- tors to the millions of people they established.” tional Security Agency whistle- sent to the gulag or to execution blower Edward Snowden would chambers. In that context, Trump’s be charged under it and in these term for BuzzFeed, a “failing pile So, how bad could it get? The an- years he would hardly be alone. of garbage,” sounds comparatively swer to that question, given the Despite its name, the act was benign. Last year, Axios revealed actual history of this country, is: not really motivated by fears of that some of the president’s sup- much worse. wartime espionage. By 1917, there porters were trying to raise a fund Though few remember it today, were few German spies left in the of more than $2-million to gather exactly 100 years ago, this coun- United States. Most of them had damaging information on jour- try’s media was labouring under been caught two yea rs ea rlier when nalists at the New York Times, the the kind of official censorship that their paymaster got off a New York Washington Post, and other media would undoubtedly thrill both City elevated train leaving behind outfits. In 2018, it took a court order Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo. a briefcase quickly seized by the to force the White House to restore And yet the name of the man who American agent tailing him.
4 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Photo: Karel Miragaya / 123RF.com / Miragaya Karel Photo: his efforts to put an enforced news- paper censorship section into the espionage bill”. The Act was then being debated in Congress. “I have every confidence”, he wrote to the chair of the House Judiciary Com- mittee, “that the great majority of the newspapers of the country will observe a patriotic reticence about everything whose publica- tion could be of injury, but in every country there are some persons in a position to do mischief in this field.” Subject to punishment under the Espionage Act of 1917, among others, would be anyone who “shall willfully utter, print, write or pub- lish any disloyal, profane, scurril- ous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States.” Who was it who would deter- mine what was “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive”? When it came to anything in print, the Act gave that power to the postmaster general, former Texas Congress- man Albert Sidney Burleson. “He has been called the worst postmas- ter general in American history”, writes the historian G.J. Meyer, “but that is unfair; he introduced parcel post and airmail and im- proved rural service. It is fair to Rather, the new law allowed the to criminalise much of the Left. say, however, that he may have government to define any opposi- (My new book, Rebel Cinderella, been the worst human being ever tion to the war as criminal. And follows the career of Rose Pastor to serve as postmaster general.” since many of those who spoke out Stokes, a famed radical orator who Burleson was the son and most strongly against entry into was prosecuted under the Espio- grandson of Confederate veterans. the conflict came from the ranks of nage Act.) When he was born, his family still the Socialist Party, the Industrial owned more than 20 slaves. The Workers of the World (famously first Texan to serve in a cabinet, known as the “Wobblies”), or Censorship was central to that he remained a staunch segre- the followers of the charismatic repressive era. As the Washington gationist. In the Railway Mail anarchist Emma Goldman, this Evening Star reported in May 1917, Service (where clerks sorted mail in effect allowed the government “President Wilson today renewed on board trains), for instance, he
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 5 considered it “intolerable” that Burleson instructed nent targets would be the New York whites and blacks not only had to City monthly The Masses. Named work together but use the same postmasters to after the workers that radicals toilets and towels. He pushed to were then convinced would deter- segregate Post Office lavatories immediately send mine the revolutionary course of and lunchrooms. him newspapers or history, the magazine was never ac- He saw to it that screens were tually read by them. It did, however, erected so blacks and whites work- magazines that looked become one of the liveliest publica- ing in the same space would not in any way suspicious tions this country has ever known have to see each other. “Nearly and something of a precursor to the all Negro clerks of long-standing New Yorker. It published a mix of service have been dropped”, the political commentary, fiction, poet- anguished son of a black postal pression of dissenting publications ry, and reportage, while pioneering worker wrote to the New Republic, of any sort. Within a day of its pas- the style of cartoons captioned by a adding, “Every Negro clerk elimi- sage, he instructed postmasters single line of dialogue for which the nated means a white clerk appoint- throughout the country to imme- New Yorker would later become so ed.” Targeted for dismissal from diately send him newspapers or well known. Burleson’s Post Office, the writer magazines that looked in any way From Sherwood Anderson and claimed, was “any Negro clerk suspicious. Carl Sandburg to Edna St. Vin- in the South who fails to say ‘Sir’ cent Millay and the young future promptly to any white person.” columnist Walter Lippmann, its One scholar described Burleson And what exactly were postmas- writers were among the best of as having “a round, almost chubby ters to look for? Anything, Bur- its day. Its star reporter was John face, a hook nose, gray and rather leson told them, “calculated to... Reed, future author of Ten Days cold eyes and short side whiskers. cause insubordination, disloyalty, That Shook the World, a classic With his conservative black suit mutiny... or otherwise to embar- eyewitness account of the Russian and eccentric round-brim hat, rass or hamper the Government Revolution. His zest for being at he closely resembled an English in conducting the war”. What did the centre of the action, whether in cleric”. From President Wilson and “embarrass” mean? In a later state- jail with striking workers in New other cabinet members, he quickly ment, he would list a broad array of Jersey or on the road with revo- acquired the nickname “The Car- possibilities, from saying that “the lutionaries in Mexico, made him dinal”. He typically wore a high government is controlled by Wall one of the finest journalists in the wing collar and, rain or shine, Street or munition manufacturers English-speaking world. carried a black umbrella. Embar- or any other special interests” to A “slapdash gathering of ener- rassed that he suffered from gout, “attacking improperly our allies”/ gy, youth, hope”, the critic Irving he refused to use a cane. Improperly? Howe later wrote, the Masses was Like most previous occupants of He knew that vague threats “the rallying centre... for almost his office, Burleson lent a political could inspire the most fear and everything that was then alive hand to the president by artfully so, when a delegation of prominent and irreverent in American cul- dispensing patronage to members lawyers, including the famous de- ture.” But that was no protection. of Congress. One Kansas senator, fense attorney Clarence Darrow, On July 17, 1917, just a month after for example, got five postmaster- came to see him, he refused to the Espionage Act passed, the Post ships to distribute in return for spell out his prohibitions in any Office notified the magazine’s edi- voting the way Wilson wanted on more detail. When members of tor by letter that “the August issue a tariff law. Congress asked the same question, of the Masses is unmailable.” The When the striking new pow- he declared that disclosing such in- offending items, the editors were ers the Espionage Act gave him formation was “incompatible with told, were four passages of text and went into effect, Burleson quickly the public interest.” four cartoons, one of which showed refocused his energies on the sup- One of Burleson’s most promi- the Liberty Bell falling apart.
6 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Soon after, Burleson revoked IIn Kafkaesque in dozens of tongues, from Serbo- the publication’s second-class Croatian to Greek, frustratingly mailing permit. (And not to be de- fashion, it often incomprehensible to Burleson and livered by the Post Office in 1917 his minions. In the fall of 1917, how- meant not to be read.) A personal proved impossible ever, Congress solved the problem appeal from the editor to President even to learn why by requiring foreign-language pe- Wilson proved unsuccessful. Half riodicals to submit translations a dozen Masses staff members something had of any articles that had anything including Reed would be put on been banned whatever to do with the war to the trial – twice – for violating the Es- Post Office before publication. pionage Act. Both trials resulted Censorship had supposedly in hung juries, but whatever the been imposed only because the frustration for prosecutors, the land, of course, was then under the country was at war. The Armi- country’s best magazine had been rule of wartime ally Great Britain.) stice of November 11, 1918 ended closed for good. Many more would Six hundred copies of a pamphlet the fighting and on the 27th of soon follow. distributed by the Intercollegiate that month, Woodrow Wilson an- When editors tried to figure Socialist Society, Why Freedom nounced that censorship would be out the principles that lay behind Matters, were seized and banned halted as well. But with the presi- the new regime of censorship, the for criticizing censorship itself. dent distracted by the Paris peace results were vague and bizarre. After two years under the Espio- conference and then his campaign William Lamar, the solicitor of nage Act, the second-class mailing to sell his plan for a League of Na- the Post Office (the department’s privileges of 75 periodicals had tions to the American public, Bur- chief legal officer), told the journal- been cancelled entirely. leson simply ignored his order. ist Oswald Garrison Villard, “You Until he left office in March know I am not working in the dark 1921 – more than two years after on this censorship thing. I know From such a ban, there was no the war ended – the postmaster exactly what I am after. I am after appeal, though a newspaper or general continued to refuse sec- three things and only three things magazine could file a lawsuit ond-class mailing privileges to – pro-Germanism, pacifism, and (none of which succeeded during publications he disliked. When a high-browism.” Burleson’s tenure). In Kafkaesque US District Court found in favour Within a week of the Espionage fashion, it often proved impossible of several magazines that had Act going into effect, the issues of even to learn why something had challenged him, Burleson (with at least a dozen socialist news- been banned. When the publisher Wilson’s approval) appealed the papers and magazines had been of one forbidden pamphlet asked, verdict and the Supreme Court barred from the mail. Less than a the Post Office responded: “If the rendered a timidly mixed decision year later, more than 400 different reasons are not obvious to you or only after the administration was issues of American periodicals had anyone else having the welfare out of power. Paradoxically, it was been deemed “unmailable.” The of this country at heart, it will be conservative Republican Presi- Nation was targeted, for instance, useless... to present them”. When dent Warren Harding who finally for criticising Wilson’s ally, the he inquired again, regarding some brought political censorship of the conservative labor leader Samuel banned books, the reply took American press to a halt. Gompers; the Public, a progres- 13 months to arrive and merely sive Chicago magazine, for urging granted him permission to “submit that the government raise money a statement” to the postal authori- In some ways, we seem better off by taxes instead of loans; and the ties for future consideration. today. Despite Donald Trump’s Freeman’s Journal and Catholic In those years, thanks to mil- ferocity toward the media, we Register for reminding its readers lions of recent immigrants, the haven’t – yet – seen the equivalent that Thomas Jefferson had backed United States had an enormous of Burleson barring publications independence for Ireland. (That foreign-language press written from the mail. And partly because
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 7 he has attacked them directly, the Does a demagogue even at that front door, in Fox president’s blasts have gotten News, Trump has a vast media strong pushback from mainstream who loves strongmen empire to amplify his attacks on pillars like the New York Times, his enemies, a mouthpiece far the Washington Post, and CNN, as the world over and who more powerful than the largest well as from civil society organiza- jokes about staying in newspaper chain of Woodrow Wil- tions of all kinds. son’s day. With such tools, does a A century ago, except for a few power indefinitely even demagogue who loves strongmen brave and lonely voices, there was need censorship? the world over and who jokes about no equivalent. In 1917, the Ameri- staying in power indefinitely even can Bar Association was typical in need censorship? CT issuing a statement saying, “We condemn all attempts... to hinder panies wary of offending the ad- Adam Hochschild teaches at the and embarrass the Government ministration, and has already been Graduate School of Journalism, of the United States in carrying cleverly manipulated by forces University of California at on the war... We deem them to be ranging from Cambridge Analyti- Berkeley. He is the author of 10 pro-German, and in effect giving ca to Russian military intelligence. books, including King Leopold’s aid and comfort to the enemy”. In Outright lies, false rumours, and Ghost and Spain in Our Hearts: the fall of that year, even the Times more can be spread by millions Americans in the Spanish declared that “the country must of bots and people can’t even tell Civil War, 1936-1939. His latest protect itself against its enemies at where they’re coming from. book, just published, is Rebel home. The Government has made This torrent of untruth flood- Cinderella: From Rags to a good beginning.” ing in through the back door may Riches to Radical, The Epic In other ways, however, things be far more powerful than what Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes. are more dangerous today. Social comes through the front door of This article first appeared at media is dominated by a few com- the recognised news media. And www.tomdispatch.com.
www.coldtype.net | C.J. Hopkins www.coldtype.net K DEJ;I
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David Anderson
J. S. DAVIES A;D?:;DJ?JO MIN & NICOLAS 7 B E N J A C?IJ Medea j^ek]^j^_id[m Ki\mfi>ile[p ]_hb\h_[dZmWijWa_d]^_cjeW i[Yh[j'/-,@e^Wdd[iXkh]fWhjo _d^edekhe\ `W_b[Z7D9b[WZ[h D[biedCWdZ[bW$M^[dj^[o Whh_l[Z"^[Z_iYel[h[Ziec[j^_d] mWii[h_ekibomhed] FBKI ^cfYXcg\XZ\dfm\d\ek GCLJ G 8 > < *, L7B7IL?HKI ÆP\d\eËj[\X[cp^_fjkj_`gs8d\i`ZXËjÕ`e^n`k_ifdXeZ\Zfd`Zj L? D\[\X9\eaXd`e E`Z_fcXjAJ;Xm`\j$ J o e A l l e n 8jkife^\i#dfi\Zfdd`kk\[#Xe[dfi\[\k\id`e\[& >7EI Zflc[kXd\k_\LJnXidXZ_`e\ 9EHED7 L?HKI 9 Andrew Fischer Get your FREE subscription to ColdType Send an email to [email protected] – write subscribe in the subject line
8 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net More great journalism for you to enjoy
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ColdType | September 2018 | www.coldtype.net ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 9 n George Monbiot UK politics isn’t designed to protect the public
The politics of denial, first honed in the tobacco industry, has serious consequences for the UK’s floundering Johnson government
he worst possible people are jettisoning an entire structure of pour doubt on climate science and in charge at the worst pos- political thought developed in attack researchers and environ- sible time. In the UK, the US these countries over the past half mental campaigners. and Australia, the politics of century. I showed how these companies the governing parties have Politics is best understood as funded rightwing thinktanks and Tbeen built on the dismissal and public relations for particular in- university professors to launch denial of risk. Just as these poli- terests. The interests come first; attacks on public health policy in tics have delayed the necessary politics is the means by which general and create a new narrative responses to climate breakdown, they are justified and promoted. of risk, tested on focus groups and ecological collapse, air and water On the left, the dominant interest honed in the media. They reframed pollution, obesity and consumer groups can be very large – every- responsible government as the debt, so they appear to have de- one who uses public services, for “nanny state”, the “health police” layed the effective containment of instance. On the right they tend and “elf ’n’ safety zealots”. They Covid-19. to be much smaller. In the US, the dismissed scientific findings and I believe it is no coincidence that UK and Australia, they are very predictions as “unfounded fears”, these three governments have re- small indeed: mostly multimillion- “risk aversion” and “scaremonger- sponded later than comparable aires and a very particular group ing”. Public protections were re- nations have, and with measures of companies: those whose profits cast as “red tape”, “interference” that seemed woefully unmatched depend on the cavalier treatment and “state control”. Government to the scale of the crisis. of people and planet. itself was presented as a mortal The UK’s remarkable slow- threat to our freedom. ness to mobilise, followed by its Their purpose was to render potentially catastrophic strategy Over the past 20 years, I have re- governments less willing and – fiercely criticised by independ- searched the remarkably powerful able to respond to public health ent experts and now abandoned but mostly hidden role of tobacco and environmental crises. The – to create herd immunity, and its and oil companies in shaping pub- groups these corporations helped continued failure to test and track lic policy in these three nations. to fund – thinktanks and policy effectively or to provide protec- I’ve seen how the tobacco com- units, lobbyists and political ac- tive equipment for health workers, panies covertly funded an infra- tion committees – were then used could help to cause large numbers structure of persuasion to deny by other interests: private health of unnecessary deaths. the impacts of smoking. This infra- companies hoping to break up the But to have responded promptly structure was then used, often by NHS, pesticide manufacturers and sufficiently would have meant the same professional lobbyists, to seeking to strike down regulatory
10 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net controls, junk food manufacturers ative base, with a strong aversion Photo: Roger Fenton / Flickr.com resisting advertising restrictions, to novelty and change, and its po- billionaires seeking to avoid tax. lar opposite: the risk-taking radi- Between them, these groups re- cal right. Leaving the European fined the justifying ideology for Union permits a reconciliation fragmenting and privatising public of these very different interests, services, shrinking the state and simultaneously threatening food crippling its ability to govern. standards and environmental pro- Now, in these three nations, this tections, as well as price controls infrastructure is the government. on medicines and other crucial No 10 Downing Street has been regulations, while raising barri- filled with people from groups ers to immigration and integra- strongly associated with attacks tion with other nations. It invokes on regulation and state interven- ancient myths of empire, destiny tion – such as Munira Mirza, who and exceptionalism while poten- co-founded the Manifesto Club; tially exposing us to the harshest Chloe Westley from the TaxPay- of international trade conditions. ers’ Alliance; and of course Do- It is likely further to weaken the minic Cummings, who was hired state’s capacity to respond to the by Matthew Elliott, the founder of Boris Johnson boasted that 14 of his govern- many crises we face. the TaxPayers’ Alliance, to run ment frontbenchers were alumni of The theory on which this form Vote Leave. of government is founded can When Boris Johnson formed seem plausible and logically con- his first government, the Institute understand without grasping the sistent. Then reality hits, and we of Economic Affairs (IEA), which pollution paradox. The greater the find ourselves in the worst place has been funded by the tobacco risk to public health and wellbe- from which to respond to crisis, industry, boasted that 14 of its ing a company presents, the more with governments that have an in- frontbenchers, including the home money it must spend on politics – grained disregard for public safety secretary, the foreign secretary to ensure it isn’t regulated out of and a reflexive resort to denial. and the chancellor, were “alumni existence. When disasters arrive, its expo- of IEA initiatives”. Political spending comes to be nents find themselves wandering The foreign secretary, Dominic dominated by the dirtiest com- nonplussed through the waste- Raab, has published one book and panies, ensuring that they wield lands, unable to reconcile what launched another through the IEA, the greatest influence, crowding they see with what they believe. which he has thanked for helping out their cleaner rivals. While no- Witness Scott Morrison’s response him “in waging the war of ideas”. body has a commercial interest in to the Australian fires and Boris The health secretary, Matt Han- the spread of coronavirus, the na- Joh n s on’s b el at e d e n ga ge me nt w it h cock, in a previous role, sought to ture and tenor of the governments the British floods. It is what we see turn an IEA document into gov- these interests have built impedes today, as the Trump, Johnson and ernment policy. He has accepted state attempts to respond quickly Morrison governments flounder significant donations from the and appropriately. in the face of this pandemic. They organisation’s chairman, Neil are called upon to govern, but they Record. The home secretary, Priti know only that government is the Patel, was formerly a tobacco lob- Brexit (remember that?) could be enemy. CT byist. One in five new Conserva- interpreted as an effort to bridge tive MPs have worked in lobbying the great split within the Conserv- George Monbiot is a columnist for or public relations for corporate atives, caused by the rising power the Guardian, where this article interests. of dirty money. The party became first appeared. His website is Modern politics is impossible to divided between an older, conserv- www.monbiot.com
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 11 n Trevor Grundy A strange case of mistaken identity
After being caught-up in a Machiavellian political exercise known as Detente between black-ruled Zambia and apartheid South Africa in the early 1970s, Trevor Grundy found work in 1976 as a journalist at the Star newspaper in Johannesburg. In this excerpt from his new book, Call Me Comrade, he tells what happened when a woman took him to a clandestine ANC gathering to celebrate Nelson Mandela Photo: Adarsh Nayar) pril 20, 1976, Johannes- alongside UNITA to stop burg’s Hotel Elizabeth, the the Marxist MPLA tak- drinking den for people who ing over the country, worked for the Star, the city’s students rioted and biggest-selling newspaper. I threatened Kaunda’s Awas telling a group of cynical white presidency because journalists how I’d represented the of his tacit support London Financial Times and BBC’s for apartheid. Focus on Africa while I was work- After that, I was ing in Zambia just a few months no longer any use to earlier. either side, so I was “So what you doing on the Fruit given the chop and put and Veg desk at the Star?” quipped on a plane to Johannes- an enormous one-eyed bullyboy, burg on February 25. who specialised in the coverage Reuters correspondent of the country’s true religions Fred Bridgland had given – rugby and cricket. (Fruit and Trevor grundy in the newsroom of me a copy of Let History Veg Desk was the nickname for The Standard in Dar es Salaam in Febru- Judge, a book about Stalin by the paper’s business and finance ary 1970. the Russian writer Roy Medvedev department.) as a parting gift as I left Lusaka. How could I start to explain grasp of life in Zambia, and this But the customs officer at Johan- what had happened to me in Lu- was the age of détente between nesburg’s Jan Smuts Airport saka? I told him that Zambian the Black North and the White almost had a heart attack when President Kenneth Kaunda had South. he saw it and accused me of be- approved my transfer from the Kaunda was a big supporter ing a communist, so I was held in Times of Zambia to the Lusaka of Jonas Savimbi and his Ango- an airport prison in a room not office of the Johannesburg-con- lan freedom movement UNITA, much bigger than a cupboard for trolled Argus Africa News Serv- but when it was revealed that the a week while my entry form was ice (AANS) because I had a good South African Army was fighting processed in Pretoria.
12 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Art: David Art: Anderson / www.dandersonillustration.com
old-timers when I first landed in the Johannesburg bar that I had In a matter of Zambia almost exactly ten years previously worked in Tanza- hours I’d gone from before: “If you can’t take a joke, nia, including two years when being a damned fascist sympathis- don’t live in Africa”. the country’s President Julius er in Zambia to a communist cadre Nyerere was the self-appointed in South Africa. It reminded me of editor-in-chief of the Standard what I had been told by expatriate When I told the journalists in with arch-communist Frene –
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 13 as managing editor, and had also “Are you insane? If the near any of them. I never want to worked at the Aga Khan’s Nation hear the word ‘ANC’ again in my newspaper in Nairobi, and then cops stop us and tell life. They’re a collection of goons spent a year with Jim Bailey’s with guns.” Drum magazine in London, one us to open the boot, “But don’t you see? That’s why of them – the loudest and larg- how would you explain they want you. Because you’re not est – spluttered into his beer and trying to be one of them. And you said: “You’re talking shit, man, all those Free Nelson don’t want to be a BOSS (Bureau and that’s for sure”, followed by a Mandela leaflets” of State security) nark, either. derogatory phrase I would hear so You know Frene Ginwalla is the often in the days to come: “Kaffir most hated non-white woman in Boete” (African lover). South Africa. But she’s a goddess Perhaps I was speaking too “What’s yours,” I asked. “Cilla to many of us . . .” loudly, but my mention of Drum Black?” Cynthia removed the pamphlet magazine, headquartered in Jo- “Not telling”, she said. “It’s a from the envelope as if it was a hannesburg, attracted the atten- secret. Only our cell leader knows vital part of the Shroud of Turin. tion of a good-looking woman in all the names and I don’t know who It showed a black and white photo her early thirties. he is.” of Nelson Mandela and under- “I couldn’t help hearing what “Or she …”, I corrected. neath his famous words during you said about Drum. I read it eve- She rambled on. the Rivonia treason trial at which ry month. It’s the best magazine in “Paul’s my ex, thought I still see he was sentenced to life impris- Africa. Sorry to listen in, but did him. He’s a member of Umkhonto onment 12 years earlier, on April you say that you had actually met we Sizwe, the armed wing of the 20, 1964: Jim Bailey? He’s a living legend. ANC.” “During my lifetime I have And Frene – ? You worked with Then came a confused silence dedicated myself to this struggle of her? So committed to The Cause. and an uncertain shaking of her the African people. I have fought May I join you? head. “Whoops! I shouldn’t have against white domination, and I She told me her name was Cyn- mentioned his name. I can never re- have fought against black domi- thia and she worked at one of the member his war name. Up in Rho- nation. I have cherished the ideal Star’s rural offices. desia they call it your Chimurenga of a democratic and free society Within a matter of days we were name. I should have said Shaka, in which all persons live together what people called “an item”. Her not Paul. I’m always forgetting in harmony and with equal op- divorce had just come through, things. It’s the altitude.” portunities. It is an ideal which I although her ex-husband was hope to live for and to achieve. But still a regular visitor to her flat if needs be, it is an ideal for which on the edge of the Johannesburg One evening she came bubbling I am prepared to die”. Hillbrow, at that time the city’s into the flat, took an envelope from “We’ll be together” cried Cyn- answer to London’s Soho, full of the back pocket of her skin-tight thia. “It’ll be tremendous and you’ll bookshops, cafes, restaurants, and jeans and waved it before me. see the kind of people who are in nightclubs. It was an invitation for us to at- the movement. No-one is supposed She told me that when they mar- tend a party on April 20 to mark to know anyone else because it’s ried it was the white ANC wedding Nelson Mandela’s famous speech some sort of secret cell-set-up but of the year in Johannesburg. from the dock on that day in 1964. we all do, of course. A lot of our best “Nearly all the decent whites “That’s a real honour be- members went to school together. I know are in the ANC. I went to cause you’ve only been in this And they’re risking their lives for school with most of them. But it’s country for how long? Just two The Cause. Goons with guns! You very much hush-hush. You never months?” couldn’t be more wrong. April 20. write down names; everyone has I recoiled. “But I don’t want to Address to follow. Well, of course a war name.” go. I don’t want to get anywhere the address is to follow. Tactics.”
14 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net On April 20 I picked up Cynthia At the bottom a newcomer. from her flat. She asked me to drive She gave me a sweet smile and to a café run by Portuguese exiles of the stairs said – “The Leader says that the which the white ANC in-crowd I bellowed at Cynthia, British killed 27,000 of our people called the Frelimo Inn. There we’d in their concentration camps and stop, have a coffee and receive a sounding just like the their gravestones cry out to heav- signal to either proceed or retreat. en . . . and the man who was the If the waiter wore a red cap we Leader we’d left best friend of the Afrikaners was should abort and go home, but if on the third floor Adolf Hitler who today, April 20, he placed the coffee mugs in front would be old in years but young in of us and said Aluta Continua we the hearts of the men, women and should go ahead with the danger- children of White South Africa. He ous mission. slabs to the third floor where we says our new slogan must be: “The Cynthia was bubbling with ex- heard loud marching songs. Cyn- right to fight to be white in South citement, “The man on the other thia shook her head. “I suppose Africa.” end of the phone just said the once a year we’re allowed to have Shit! We weren’t at a party for address – Rand Court, Number a bit of a sing-song. I hope the cops the ANC, but for the AWB (Afri- Seven. I can’t say who it was. aren’t listening.” kaner Weerstandsbeweging – the Secrecy is everything. I hope I I knocked on the door of a flat. Afrikaner Liberation Movement). got the address right because It was opened by a huge man in I took hold of Cynthia: “You nut- Shaka’s contact had such a heavy khaki shirt. The smell of beer hit case. She tells me this is bloody cold and was sneezing down the us like an ocean wave; we shook Krugersdorp. I bet you ten to one phone. I can’t remember if he said hands and walked in and were im- Shaka’s mate said Roodeport.” Krugersdorp or Roodepoort. But mediately handed two huge Ger- We fled. it’s by a post office next to the man beer jugs. bottle store and it’s up the stairs A blonde teenage girl asked us on the third floor. I’ve been there if we’d like crisps or wait for the At the bottom of the stairs I bel- before, so I’ll remember it when braai (barbecue) that would be lowed at her, sounding just like the I see it.” served after the Leader’s speech Leader we’d left on the third floor. I put a camera in the boot and I “It’s not what I thought it would “Jesus Christ. You people are saw hundreds of ANC pamphlets. be”, I said to Cynthia. “You didn’t supposed to be leading a revo- “What the fuck! Are you in- say it was a fancy dress party. lution! You couldn’t organise a sane? If the cops stop us and tell And who’s the Leader? You said piss up in a brewery. This isn’t us to open the boot, how would you didn’t have one, just Mandela the April 20th gathering to mark you explain all those Free Nelson or is it Tambo or Slovo or fucking Nelson Mandela’s speech from the Mandela leaflets.” Shaka, your ex-husband who’s now dock. This is the neo-Nazi’s April Nonchalantly, she replied, “The in Umkonto we Sizwe.” 20th gathering to mark Hitler’s cops won’t bother us. We’re white.” A few minutes later a huge man, birthday.” We drove away. A few kilometers also wearing a khaki shirt, stood Later that evening, mellowed by later, she advised, “If this map is up- in front of a sign that strongly re- t op qua l it y M a law i G old ma r ijua na , to-date you turn left at the corner, sembled the Nazi swastika. followed by gin chasers, Cynthia go straight on and it’s the second Next to him was a blonde girl reprimanded me: “You don’t have on the left and then right at the in a brown uniform with an arm- to be so uppity. Anyone can make a next corner by the bridge . . . Well, band that looked like three sevens mistake.” CT I think it is.” stuck together. In the background a strong, firm voice, spoke out in Trevor Grundy is an English Afrikaans. I asked the girl to trans- journalist who lived and worked We parked the car and climbed up late, apologising that I couldn’t in Central, Eastern and Southern three flights of cracked concrete speak the language because I was Africa from 1966-1996.
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 15 leT’S danCe The War aWay: revellers dress for the occasion as the english town of Pickering transforms itself back in time to the 1940s for its annual rail in Wartime event.
16 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Photos: Bill Croke
Move along there: Dad’s Army takes on the might of the British navy during Pickering’s Rail in Wartime celebration.
n Bill Croke The war that won’t go away
Each October the English town of Pickering in North Yorkshire celebrates the years of struggle in World War II with a massive three-day party that fills the streets with 30,000 visitors The war can wait: Time for a cuppa.
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 17 Photos: Bill Croke
or 51 weeks each year, Pick- ering is just a sleepy English market town on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. Then, for a three-day weekend Fin mid-October, the town explodes into life as its 7,000 inhabitants, bolstered by up to 30,000 visitors, celebrates the end of World War II in an explosion of 1940s-themed exhibits, street parties, recipe demonstrations, flea markets and reenactments of wartime events. Organised by the North York- shire Moors Railways charity, the “Railways in Wartime” weekend has become so popular that events have sprung up all over the sur- rounding area. But, despite its emphasis on fun and food, the organisers have ensured that the grave undertones of the war are remembered in the town and at the nearby port of Whitby, which suffered at the hands of German bombers. Last year more than 26,000 peo- ple visited Pickering alone, most of them dressed in 1940s costume, while Whitby saw an influx of 5,000 passengers, who arrived on special INVASION: German troops disembark at Levisham railway station.
Left: The invaders launch a mortar attack, as members of the French resistance get ready for battle, armed with a pistol, tommy gun and . . . onions. (above).
18 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net On the streets: Locals and day-trippers enjoy the weekend fun in the packed streets of Pickering in North Yorkshire.
wartime-vintage steam trains. The event has had its moments of controversy. In 2018 a German wartime reenactment group which had, for 12 years, turned the railway station at Levisham into ‘Le Visham’, a German-occupied town in northern France, was forced to withdraw after national tabloids were ‘horrified’ that gun-wielding Nazi soldiers should be parading through English streets. This year, however, the festival faces a larger challenge with the current war against the coronavirus shutting down all mass gatherings. The shutdown, says PM Boris Johnson, should only last a few months. But the government made the same vague promise at the out- break of World War II - and that lasted six long years. IN Hemingway’s FOOTSTEPS: US war correspondents look for a fight. – Tony Sutton
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 19 Photos: Bill Croke
Bulldog spirit 1: A Churchill double declares victory.
HIDE YOUR DAUGHTERS: The Yanks are here! On yer bike: Wild ride through the streets of Pickering. The photographer Bill Croke was one of the North of England’s leading wedding/ society photographers until his retirement in 2017. He now lives in Whitby. These photographs were taken during the Railways in Wartime events from 2014-2019.
Railway in Wartime 2020 This year’s event is planned to be held in Pickering from October 9-11, assuming the coronavirus restrictions are lifted. l For latest information, go to www.welcometopickering.co.uk SENT PACKING: March of the young evacuees.
20 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Bulldog spirit 2: Union-jacketed British Bulldog snuggles up to an American admirer.
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 21 n Tony Sutton The man who skewers presidential numbskullery
Masterful essays take aim at the numbskullery of Trump, his hapless political opponents, and the boneheaded media warriors who flounder hopelessly in the president’s turbulent wake
very political leader needs condoms on QVC, or a New York a tame biographer to weave Times bestseller, or something.” the fine-spun words that will Then, Hopkins, along with the help create the lasting legacy rest of us, watched in astonish- of a political colossus. Donald ment on November 9, 2016 as ETrump, the 45th President of the Trump, propelled by a simplistic United States, is, I’m sure, seeking ‘Make America Great’ slogan that that person right now. drew the votes of millions of work- Whoever lands the job, I can ing class supporters – memorably say with certainty that it will not described as ‘deplorables’ by his be C.J. Hopkins, the German- opponent Hillary Clinton – was based American playwright and proclaimed President of the United author who has, for the past four States, leader of the ‘free’ world. years, been crafting a collection of Trumpocalypse darkly satirical essays that skewer Consent Factory Essays Vol the numbskullery of Trump, his 1 (2016-2017) Trump’s political opponents, see- hapless political opponents, and C.J. Hopkins king someone other than them- the boneheaded warriors of the Published by Consent Factory selves to blame for St Hillary’s corporate media who flounder Publishing humiliating election rout, homed hopelessly in the president’s tur- www.consentfactory.org in on a secretive band of scheming bulent wake. internet-enabled Russian ne’er-do- US $10.99 “Back in the summer of 2016”, wells. writes Hopkins in the introduction “Apparently”, writes Hopkins, to Trumpocalypse, the first volume who went around plastering his “these Russo-neo-fascists (aka of his Consent Factory Essays, name on everything in big, gold, the ‘Putin-Nazis’) had been lying “like most other halfway rational shiny, ostentatious letters ... hotels, in wait throughout the glorious people, I regarded the candidacy casinos, country clubs, you name eight-year Reign of Obama the of Donald Trump as some sadistic it. He put his name on steaks for Beneficent, and now, like a mega- cosmic joke the gods were playing Christ’s sake. The man even had swarm of locusts, they poured up on anyone foolish enough to believe a fake university. His ‘candidacy’ out of their lairs en masse, took to in American electoral politics. This was clearly a promotional prank. the Internet, and unleashed a veri- was, after all, Donald Trump, the He was probably preparing to table blitzkrieg of silly Facebook B-List celebrity billionaire buffoon launch a line of Trump-branded posts, ‘discord-sowing’ Twitter
22 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net memes, and other such ‘divisive’ suddenly morphed into a bunch of propaganda on the minds of inno- Hitler-loving white supremacists, cent Western consumers. but because they were utterly ex- “This Putin-Nazi attack on de- asperated with the empire and its mocracy was discovered by the soulless ideology, and its simula- US Intelligence Community more tion of democracy, and above all or less the moment Trump won its political stooges, and they saw the nomination, so just as the pre- a chance to toss a massive stink vious attack on democracy (bet- bomb into establishment headquar- ter known as the Global War on ters ... a stink bomb by the name of Terror) was winding down after Trump.” ‘I WAS SIX WHEN THE RUSSIANS CAME’ | MAYA EVANS HOPING FOR A MIRACLE ON 34th STREET | fi f t e e n y e a r s . LOVING AMERICA, RESISTING TRUMP | TO M KAVANA “The Intelligence Community C FRIDA BERRIGAN alerted the media, which seam- WR I T I N Go W O R T Hld R E A D I N G oldType |P H O T O S WT O R T H ype S E E I N G C
lessly switched from relentlessly ABOVE: Author C.J. Hop- ISSUE 135 135 readers will fl ogging the ‘suddenly self-radical- kins. Right and below: A already have ized terrorist’ hysteria that they few of his ColdType cover read many of had been relentlessly fl ogging for stories. the essays in several months to relentlessly this fi rst volume, fl ogging Putin-Nazi hysteria. but t h at shou ld n’t
“Which is more or less Essays by be a barrier to @JJL<(0) CJ Hopkins, and Diana Johnstone, Peter Georghagan Adam & Shatz, where I came in.” Adam Ramsay buying it and fu- NI@K@E> SEND IN THE CLOWN | TOM ENGELHARDT NFIK?I<8;@E> ■ G?FKFJ SLAPPING IS WORSE THAN SHOOTING? | GREGORY SHUPAK What followed has been a NFIK?J<<@E> ture volumes (the D@;$F:KF9
:A?FGB@EJ ISSUE 153 satirist’s dream: four years of Kildg\ejk\`e second is due later unrelenting political chaos, this year) of what dljkY\WRITING WORTH READING ● PHOTOS WORTH SEEING FEBRUARY 2018 senior government offi cials [\jkifp\[ CJ HOPKINS | CHRIS HEDGES | JOHN PILGER | DAN LOMAS will almost certainly sacked by email, a beautiful, K F ; ; D @ C C < I be the most incisive KiXgg\[`eXe THE WAR ON DISSEN T but still awaited, southern
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 23 n C.J. Hopkins The big Covid-19 thought experiment
What if this isn’t the greatest global pandemic that mankind has ever faced? And a few other nagging, but hypothetical, questions as we while away our days of ‘self-imposed isolation’
et’s try a little thought ex- wisdom of locking down the entire Sorry … I’m getting a little periment. Just for fun. To pass world (and likely triggering a new emotional. I’m a big-time Idris the time while we’re indefi- Great Depression) on account of Elba fan. The point is, I’m not a nitely locked down inside our the discovery of some glorified Covid-denialist, or a conspiracy homes, compulsively check- bug. theorist, or one of those devious Ling the Covid-19 “active cases” Obviously, this is not just the Chinese or Russian dissension- and “total death” count, washing flu. Thousands of people are dying sowers. I know for a fact that this our hands every 20 minutes, and from it. OK, sure, the flu kills many pandemic is real, and warrants attempting not to touch our faces. more than that, hundreds of thou- whatever “emergency measures” Before we do, though, I want sands of people annually, but this our governments, global corpora- to make it clear that I believe this Covid-19 virus is totally new, and tions, and intelligence agencies Covid-19 thing is real, and is prob- not like any of the other millions want to impose on us. ably the deadliest threat to human- of viruses that are going around No, I’m not an epidemiologist, ity in the history of deadly threats all the time, and the experts are but I have a close friend who to humanity. According to the data saying it will probably kill, or seri- knows a guy who dated a woman I’ve been seeing, it’s only a matter ously sicken, or briefly inconven- who dated a doctor who personally of days – or hours – until nearly ience, millions or even billions of knows another doctor who works everyone on earth is infected and people if we don’t lock down entire in a hospital in Italy somewhere, is either dying in agony and alone countries and terrorise everyone and she (ie, my friend, not the doc- or suffering mild, common cold- into submission. tor in Italy) posted something on like symptoms, or absolutely no Facebook yesterday that was way symptoms whatsoever. too long to read completely but was I feel that I need to state this Which, don’t get me wrong, I’m a gut-wrenching account of how clearly, before we do our thought all for that … this is not the time Covid-19 is killing Kuwaiti babies experiment, because I don’t want to be questioning anything the in their incubators! anyone mistakenly thinking that corporate media and the authori- Or maybe it was Italian babies. I’m one of those probably Rus- ties tell us. This is a time to pull Like I said, it was too long to read. sian-backed Nazis who are going together, turn our minds off, and Also, did you see the story about around saying, “it’s just the flu”, or follow orders. OK, sure, normally, the baby that was born infected?! who are spreading dangerous con- it’s good to be skeptical, but we’re Or the stories about the people in spiracy theories about bioweapons in a goddamn global state of emer- their 30s and 40s who were more and martial law, or who are other- gency! Idris Elba is infected for or less in perfect health (except wise doubting or questioning the Chrissakes! for, you know, cancer or whatever)
24 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Art: Khalil Bendib / otherwords.org Bendib Khalil Art:
who died from (or with) the Covid Internet, and otherwise implement every year there are a lot of new plague?! And what about all those a global police state. variants? charts and graphs?! And those pic- Relax, OK? I know this one tures of people in hazmat suits?! is different, and totally unlike And those Italians singing Turan- But what if it wasn’t? Just hy- anything ever encountered by vi- dot on their balconies?! Doesn’t pothetically. What if this wasn’t rologists in the history of virology. that just make you want to break the deadliest global pandemic hu- Remember, this is just a thought down and cry over the sheer hu- mankind has ever faced? (I’m just experiment. These are just hypo- manity of it all?! posing the question as a thought thetical questions. No, there is absolutely no doubt experiment, so please don’t report Here’s another hypothetical whatsoever that Covid-19 is the me to the WHO, or the CDC, or question. What if all the scary sta- deadliest global pandemic human- FEMA, or whoever.) What if this tistics we’ve been seeing (eg, the kind has ever faced, and that we new coronavirus was just another death rates, the explosion of “cas- have no choice but to cancel eve- coronavirus like all the other coro- es”, etc.) weren’t unquestionable rything, confine everyone inside naviruses that people die from (or scientific facts, but rather, were, like their home, wreck the entire glo- with) all the time? What if the fact other statistics, based on things like bal economy, force working class that this one is “new” didn’t really sample groups, and dependent on a people even further into debt, mean all that much, or possibly host of factors and variables, which pour trillions into the investment anything at all, because corona- you kind of need to know to make banks, cancel elections, censor the viruses are always mutating, and sense of anything?
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 25 Say, for example, you tested eve- OK, I’m getting ish and irrational panic, and just ryone that died of acute respiratory flex its muscles to remind every- failure on a given day in your Ital- all worked up again. body what could happen if we all ian hospital, and you discovered keep screwing around by voting that, let’s say, five of those patients I’d better take for “populists”, tearing up Paris, had been infected with Covid-19. So my pills and leaving the European Union, and you feed that number to the WHO, otherwise interfering with the for- and they add it to the “total deaths” get back ward march of global capitalism. count, regardless of whether the to Facebook No, it certainly isn’t like that. It folks who died had terminal can- is an actual plague that is probably cer, or heart disease, or had also going to kill you and your entire been infected with the common flu, family if you don’t do exactly what or some other type of coronavirus. cebook (or accidentally censored you’re told. So, forget this little That would probably skew your by some totally innocuous tech- thought experiment, and prepare “death” count, wouldn’t it? nical glitch) for posting “Covid yourself for global lockdown. It Or, say you wanted to test for misinformation”, or tempt the probably won’t be so bad … unless the virus to keep track of all the Wikipedia “editors” to rush back they decide they need to run the “active cases” and generate an to my Wikipedia page and label part of exercise where it goes on infection rate, but you can’t test me a dangerous “conspiracy theo- too long, and people get squirrelly, hundreds of millions of people, rist” … or, you know, get myself and start rebelling, and looting, because no one has that many preventatively quarantined. and otherwise not cooperating, and tests So, you test everyone who It probably won’t come to that the military is eventually forced to turns up sick, or thinks they’re anyway, ie, rounding up “infected deploy those Urban Unrest Sup- sick and demands to be tested, or persons”, “possibly infected per- pression Vehicles, and those Anti- who touched someone sick who sons”, and “disruptive” and “un- Domestic-Terror Forces, and … you already tested (though you’re cooperative persons”, and quar- OK, I’m getting all worked up not even sure that your test is ac- antining us in, like, “camps”, or again. I’d better take my pills and curate) and you come up with, let’s wherever. get back to Facebook. Oh, and … say, ten positive results. So you All this state of emergency stuff, I should probably check up on Id- feed that number to the WHO, and the suspension of our civil rights, ris! And see if Berlin has gone to they add it to the “active cases” the manipulation of facts and fig- “Level 3”, in which case I’ll need to count, regardless of the fact that ures, the muzzling of dissent, the find whatever online application I everyone knows the real number illegal surveillance, governments need to fill out in order to leave my is likely 20 times higher. legislating by decree, the soldiers, house. CT OK, so now you take your “ac- the quarantines, and all the rest of tive cases” number and your “total it … all these measures are tempo- C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning deaths” number and you do the rary, and are being taken for our American playwright, novelist math (keeping in mind that your own good, and purely out of an and political satirist based in “total deaths” include those cancer “abundance of caution.” Berlin. His plays are published and heart failure people), and you by Bloomsbury Publishing and end up grossly underestimating Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. your “infection rate” and “active I mean, it’s not like the global His dystopian novel, Zone 23, cases,” and grossly overestimating capitalist empire was right in is published by Snoggsworthy, your “death rate” and the number the middle of a War on Populism Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of “total deaths.” (a war that it has been losing up of his Consent Factory Essays Just hypothetically, you under- to now) and wanted to take this is published by Consent Factory stand. I am not suggesting this is opportunity to crank up some Publishing. He can be reached actually happening. I certainly disaster capitalism, terrorise the at www.cjhopkins.com or don’t want to get censored by Fa- global public into a frenzy of self- www.consentfactory.org.
26 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Photo: YouTube screenshot
KEEPING THEIR DISTANCE: Israel “The Stylebender” Adesanya faces Yoel “Soldier of God” Romero in the weigh-in before the fight. UFC president Dana White stands between them.
n Joe Allen Viva Las Virus …
Watching UFC matches from the arena floor, there’s no running commentary, just the smell of spilled beer, and two sweaty dudes thrashing each other half to death
as Vegas would soon be a Fifteen thousand of these ya- ers and one had an Iranian-Amer- ghost town, but on March 7, hoos were on the Strip to see UFC ican. Given the current crisis, what this neon ant farm was still 248. Despite persistent symptoms are the odds of that? Female straw- crawling with the world’s of hypochondria, I joined them at weight champ Zhang Weili had to bug-eyed tourists. Gamblers T-Mobile Arena. This was the 50th flee China back in early February, Lwere pulling the smudged levers live UFC event I’ve had the fortune as did the welterweight Li Jin- of one-armed bandits as if already to attend. It was also the weirdest. gliang. They evaded their nation’s immune to the coronavirus. As The nagging fear of a border- impending quarantine in order usual, parents dragged their kids jumping virus hung heavy in the to spill their bodily fluids all over through clanging casino mazes, air. The ominous vibe culminated the Octagon, the cage that encloses players huddled around tables, when Chinese flags appeared on the ring. During their fights, the and gangs of young bucks prowled every side of the jumbotron, cast- crowd’s trash-talking epidemiolo- for ladies of the evening. If you’re ing a blood red glow on the stunned gists wondered if they’d managed gonna enjoy Vegas to the fullest, crowd. to avoid the contagion. “Knock ’at you have to live like germs don’t Of the five fights on the main coronavirus out of him!” came one exist and money trees do. card, two featured Chinese fight- helpful suggestion.
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 27 More than social collapse, I fear If you’re gonna predict behaviour. this plague will kill all the fun. For another example, consider The bizarre middleweight bout be- who will inherit the the astonishing success of the tween Nigerian-born champion Is- earth, first understand UFC’s women’s division. While I’m rael “The Stylebender” Adesanya averse to seeing females beat each and Cuban contender Yoel “Soldier biological fortitude, other’s faces in, I’d be a fool to say of God” Romero was like watch- they don’t have a natural capacity ing two germophobes try to dance then turn your attention for it. After seeing Ronda Rousey’s at an anti-vax mixer. As much as to cultural superiority debut at Anaheim’s Honda Center, they wanted to, the fighters barely and certainly after the vicious co- touched each other. main between Zhang Wieli and Joanna Jędrzejczyk at UFC 248, joints better than others. plus a half dozen other girl fights, Up until that dud finale, the fights When two athletes of roughly I worry that pop evopsych suffers were brilliant. Mixed martial arts equal size, both born with ex- from repeated brain trauma. is pretty much the only sport traordinary speed and strength, Genetic constraints notwith- worth watching. Like all sports, face off in the Octagon, sophisti- standing, intense training can there’s the thrilling anticipation cated technique is often the deter- transform the body. Look at a fe- of an indeterminate outcome, re- mining factor. In the UFC’s early male fighter, then look at a bikini- solved by superior technique and days, back when rules and weight clad ring girl. They’re barely the raw athleticism. But unlike other classes were for sissies, the point same species. When it comes to games, which are mere simulacra was to pit various fighting styles women’s survival strategies, an of primitive combat, cagefighting against each other to determine ability to deliver an unexpected is total war. Only the strongest the fittest. jab can make the difference be- survive in the Octagon – at least The agonist community learned tween ogling eyes and a broken in theory. If you can spot a winner, two things. First, those frilly ka- nose. As anthropologist Joseph there’s a fortune to be made in Ve- tas taught in overpriced karate Henrich explains persuasively in gas sports betting. classes will get you crushed. Many his 2016 book The Secret of Our The advent of mixed martial stylised martial arts are like Ori- Success: “Cultural differences are arts is an illuminating case study ental teacups with holes in the bot- biological differences but not ge- in cultural evolution. Is a competi- tom – ornate and basically useless. netic differences.” tive outcome determined by primed These styles were rapidly selected bodies or learned behaviours? If a against. If a combatant has superi- learned behaviour is the key factor or genes and vitality, more instinc- Just as eons of relentless com- in success, can we say that nature tive movements like punching and petition between organisms has selects for it? Or do “winning” choking will do just fine. produced endless fangs and talons behaviours depend on the whimsi- Second, it was confirmed that – most beautiful, so does cultural cal kinesis of personal choice and to an extent – certain techniques evolution sharpen the weapons by social momentum? Figure that out can transcend biology. Big guys which the greatest minds destroy and you’ll make a million. usually beat little ones, but bronze their enemies. If you’re gonna Anyone apprised of Darwin- swords beat stone hatchets. In predict who will inherit the earth, ian selection will take biological that sense, muay thai strikes and first understand biological forti- inequality as a baseline. Gener- Brazilian jiu-jitsu proved excep- tude, then turn your attention to ally, the race goes to the swift and tionally effective, as did the Greco- cultural superiority. the battle to the strong. But in hu- Roman traditions of wrestling and The UFC is multiculturalism in mans, developed culture confers pugilism. Every time a smaller guy an octagonal petri dish. Downsides a critical edge that may confound beat some massive knucklehead aside, border-cracking globalism the unequal predispositions of the into submission, it appeared that has opened a vast arena where flesh. Some arm bars hyperextend biology was outclassed by learned disparate cultures compete for the
28 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net gold. Effective ideas and practices, A far better manoeuvre my life. … I don’t know what staph such as head kicks or quarantines, feels like. Some people have had are being freed from the constraints – for spectators and my it, where I’m from, but I’ve never of superfluous tradition. Syncretism wallet – would have been had it and I never will, knock on opens vast possibilities. Given a wood. … And malaria is the big- level playing field, the best cultural to slam the champ to the gest killer in the world, isn’t it? So, mutants will prevail. this whole corona shit – fuckin’ With these principles in mind, mat and batter his face knock on wood, I don’t get it now, I put a hundred bucks on Olym- until he looked different talking shit about corona.” pic wrestler Yoel Romero to take Even if his lungs were clean, the belt from kickboxer Israel Adesanya had germs on the brain. Adesanya. Yeah, the 30-year-old After multiple bouts with malaria, Adesanya is undefeated with 19-0 biology or cultivated martial arts. a flash of PTSD would be under- MMA record, but the 42-year-old If anything, the whole off-putting standable. Maybe he saw Romero Romero’s freestyle wrestling his- scene is best explained by evolved shaking people’s hands backstage. tory is solid. Plus he’s proven he cognitive processes that trigger Maybe that wasn’t an accident. can knock the best unconscious. pollution-aversion and an atavistic For five rounds, the sly Cuban As any shuffleboard competitor fear of aberrant behaviour. vacillated between stone tranquil- will tell you, age is just a number. The only sane hypothesis is that ity and doing ane arm waggle in Other than blowing 500,000 rupiah the “Soldier of God” Romero used Adesanya’s face, as if to say, “You at a cockfight in Indonesia, UFC Cuban Juju against his opponent. wan’ deez germs, man? You think 248 is the first time I’ve ever bet He employed mental games to over- you can handle dee virus?!” on a match. I’d better buy a money come Adesanya’s high T and fast- A far better manoeuvre – for tree if I’m gonna keep gambling. twitch muscles, allowing the aging spectators and my wallet – would wrestler to collect a $350,000 conso- have been to slam the champ to lation prize without a scratch. Even the mat and batter his face until Watching UFC matches from the advanced technique proved unnec- he looked different. But I have arena floor, you don’t have the run- essary. Brazilian jiu-jitsu is done. to admit, Romero’s psychic in- ning commentary that TV audi- Witness the power of Cuban Juju. timidation worked. For half an ences enjoy. There’s only the jeer- Bet you a hundred bucks the hour, Adesanya could barely lift ing crowd, the smell of spilled beer, key pressure point was Israel Ade- a finger. Romero may have lost and two sweaty dudes thrashing sanya’s latent germophobia. In his by the judges’ decision, but by each other half to death. pre-fight interview, the fighter at- the time his check cleared, the Adesanya vs. Romero was like tempted to shield this psychological “Soldier of God” had won in the staring into placid motor oil. For the vulnerability with brash projection spirit world. first minute-and -a-half, Romero and a touch of superstition: Or maybe Yoel Romero just had just stood there with his fists up, “How many people died from a hardluck homeboy in dire need barely moving, and it really freaked the coronavirus so far? I don’t of fast cash. It’s possible that he Adesanya out. To everyone’s hor- know. … There’s this hype about turned the other cheek and threw ror, Romero kept up this psych- corona, and even I had my face the fight at +230 odds. If so, I’m cool out for the entire fight. Both men mask on at the airport. But at the with that. It would be the Christian looked like they were trapped in one end of the day, fuck, I’ve had ma- thing to do. But still, morally speak- of those dreams where you try to laria like eight times. My genet- ing, the guy owes me a hundred punch but your arms won’t move. ics is different, and I’m not above bucks. CT The most astute MMA observer nature, don’t get me wrong. I don’t couldn’t predict such weird be- subject to that. I don’t see myself Joe Allen writes about race, haviour. No matter how loud the getting affected by that. … robots, and religion. Most days, crowd booed, the fight’s outcome “You guys thought I had staph he’s based out of tour buses and wouldn’t be determined by gross this week. I’ve never had staph in far-flung hotels.
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 29 Photo: Linh Dinh Photo:
“Incheon, South Korea: the streets are almost deserted, and I eat and drink in empty cafes and restaurants.” n Linh Dinh Sick days, market crashes and closed borders
Perhaps we’ve also reached peak freedom, not that it was all that free for much of the world
erhaps I have really bad The two baristas are young, attrac- mostly. You’re living through a body odour, but here in tive and courteous, and they’re here sonic hell, nearly whenever and South Korea I mostly eat to serve me, and me alone, for the wherever you’re among others, and and drink alone, sitting in next hour or so. even alone if you’re weak willed. It’s completely empty restau- Only the music sucks, predicta- a global virus. What a waste. Prants and cafes, like right now. This bly. Aggressive, urban and earnest, On a subway platform, I just casual yet elegant joint is called it corrodes your self consciousness, bought for 80 cents a Snicker-like Ottchill. It has solidly built wooden sociability and even heritage with chocolate bar called Ghana. Some- chairs padded with homey cushions. a relentlessly moronic English, thing is not kosher here, so we must
30 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Photo: Linh Dinh Photo:
“My $24-a-night room is not Vietnam cheap, but is ridiculously low for central Seoul, thanks to the coronavirus.” alert the Anti-Defamation League, It is dark now. There subway station is a quick scramble Southern Poverty Law Center and away from the guest house’s door. every Holocaust museum director, are voices outside my I have a tiny window with opaque worldwide. There must be six-mil- glass panes, so there’s no sky or lion of them, I reckon. Just because window. Earlier, I could skyscrapers to gaze at. I even have it’s brown, nutty and cheap doesn’t hear cheerful bells from a fridge, but it doesn’t work. mean it should be associated with When I pointed this out to the anything African! A boycott is def- the water buffaloes, manager, the young man said, initely in order. All flights from un- feeding across the road “Most of our refrigerators are woke South Korea must be barred second-hand.” immediately! “So they don’t work?” I’ve been in Seoul eight days. I “No,” he shrugged. “Maybe ten had to come, especially since the all passengers arriving from South years ago.” price was coronavirus affordable. Korea, thus ceasing all flights Fair enough. My one-way ticket cost just $109, between the two countries. I had What I’m in is basically a cap- plus $18 for a checked luggage. I fully anticipated this scenario. sule apartment, of the type widely have extra stuff because I’m home- available in Japan, South Korea and less. Like a turtle, I must carry Hong Kong. Even smaller than the everything as I move. I’m a bag I have a closet-sized room in My- American efficiency, none has a gentleman. eong-dong for just $24 a night. It kitchen and most don’t even have I got out on one of the last flights has heat, wifi and its own toilet, a porcelain throne. Mine, though, from Hanoi, just hours before the and there are hundreds of stores is elevated, so I’m on stage, so to Vietnamese decided to quarantine and cheap restaurants nearby. A speak, for each humbling perform-
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 31 ance. Anyway, a goshiwon apart- It is dark now. There Despite this demographic uni- ment costs around $300 a month formity, South Korea is astonish- here, and tenants don’t just have are voices outside my ingly cosmopolitan, for they’re access to a communal kitchen, but window. Earlier, I could open to just about every culture, usually even unlimited cooked rice, without welcoming too many al- kimchi and sometimes even noodles, hear cheerful bells from iens. Seoul has a food culture to so starvation is not an issue. rival the best. Well, almost. If New The poorest Koreans can’t the water buffaloes, York is a 10, Seoul is an 8.5. Bitches even squeeze into a goshiwon. feeding across the road who go on about not finding ed- Around Seoul Station, the mis- ible Ethiopian here haven’t been shapen homeless droop on steps to Club Zion for lunch, so just shut or trudge down sidewalks, past your trap, awright? greasy spoons, chain cafes, bare- Even after Japan had opened up It is cold and dark, and I don’t boned poolhalls and grimy window to the world, Korea stayed shut in, know where I am, or what I’m do- displays of prosthetic limbs. thus it was labelled “the last of the ing, so I walk. Like everyone else, I The station itself is grand and hermit nations” by William Elliott wear a mask, not because I fear im- sparkling. Nearly all men, these Griffis in 1882. Now, North Korea is minent death, but because it would down and outers nudge coins into the world’s most hermetic society, not be nice to infect anyone here the cheapest coffee machines. Bat- which it justifies with an ideology, with whatever I already have. I turn tered by frigid winds, they rub juche, that stresses self-reliance in into an alley, because why not? Sud- their hands, sneeze and hack out all spheres, from economic, politi- denly, I see five white people, dead viruses. With less than a thousand cal, self-defense to diplomatic. for centuries: Pope Paul III, Queen street dwellers, Seoul’s homeless Elizabeth I and three others I can’t problem pales compared to most identify. You tell me, smart ass. It’s cities, however. As for South Korea, it is remark- a Five Alls pub. Momentarily find- To be pure, you must say no ably homogeneous compared to ing a purpose, I enter. to just about everything. Think other advanced nations. In Seoul, It’s only slightly brighter inside. convents. The first Korean quar- there are whites, blacks, Turks At the short bar, a beefy biker is antined herself. She was a bear. and Arabs in Itaewon, and there’s parked in front of a row of lick The son of God, Hwanung, want- a smallish Chinatown in Daerim. her bottles: Fireball, Jim Beam, ed to be human for a change, so he Vietnamese and Thais are here, Jack Daniel’s, Captain Morgan, went down to Korea, where he met a but they don’t form distinct neigh- Jagermeister, Tiffin Tea Liqueur, tiger and a bear who also wished to bourhoods. as well as the more obscure Black become solipsistic, narcissistic, self- An hour away in Pyeongtaek, Nikka from Japan and Sobieski pitying and eternally lonely bipeds 30,000 American soldiers are Vodka from Poland. It’s just a with a laughable taste in clothing stationed, and in nearby Incheon, neighbourhood joint, where a and everything else. there is a huge, theme park- pint of Guinness costs just 7,000 “You can become human,” like Chinatown, plus Filipino wons ($5.87). Although three cats Hwanung said, “if you stay in this sailors nursing beers in their own feed right on the bar, they never cave for 100 days and eat only mug- club, but in Greater Seoul, you’ll knock your drinks over or stick wort and garlic.” The tiger couldn’t rarely see a non-native away from their furry heads into your food. hack it, but the bear turned into touristic sites. There are no tribal I can hang. not just one gorgeous babe, but groups in the mountains. It’s Five Alls’ menu, though, Hwanung’s wife, and together Just two weeks ago, I was in Si I want to highlight. Among the they’ve spawn a great and enduring Ma Cai, Vietnam, where ethnic Vi- rather extensive offerings, it has nation that has given to this shame- etnamese made up only 1 percent Canadian poutine, German cur- fully ungrateful world Goryeo cela- of the population, yet everyone rywurst, British sausage and don, kimchis as side dishes and the was a native. Nothing like that ex- mash, Irish lamb stew, Swedish Korean Zombie, etc. ists in Korea. meatballs, Italian mushroom ri-
32 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Photo: Linh Dinh Photo:
“In Pyeongtaek, 30,000 American soldiers are stationed, and in nearby Incheon, there is a huge, theme park-like Chinatown.” sotto, Spanish calamares a feira, pockets and fill you with misery / rea leads the world in cosmetic Indian beef keema, Okinawan taco I’ve got men to the left, and men to surgery, and the most popular rice, Japanese meat sauce doria the right / Men every day and men procedure is to make one’s eyes and American buffalo wings. In every night / I’ve got so many men, seem larger. case you these are just garbage mmm, I don’t know what to do.” Unlike in Vietnam, Laos, Cam- versions, I had the $6.71 taco rice, bodia or even Japan, you don’t see and it was fantastic, something I South Koreans wearing anything wouldn’t mind as my last meal be- Although both Korea and Japan but Western clothing, and the pal- fore being shot or hanged. have made a sustained and com- ette tend to be dark, most often Any foreign population that prehensive effort to modernise black. Even before this coronavirus would happily scarf poutine or and Westernise, South Korea may crisis, the ambience on any Seoul currywurst must be Mother Ter- have gone even further than its subway car is decidedly funereal, esa tolerant and forgiving, more neighbour. There is very little tra- and even grimmer, actually, for open than a progressive border or ditional architecture left, and most everyone is sepulchered within his maybe just insane. tellingly, more Christians than own cyberworld. Two weeks ago, Five Alls’ music selection is also Buddhists here. Walking around, I was at a weekly market in Can noteworthy, for it favours blues I see almost no Buddhist temples, Cau, Vietnam, where tribal peo- from 60+ years ago, ragtime, stride but churches everywhere. With ples wore their colourful best to piano, jazz vocalists, and rhythm their thin spires, many merely oc- go shopping, but that’s barbaric, and blues from the ’60s. I focus cupy the top floor of a commercial dude. A highly cultured and civi- as Dinah Washington belts and building, then you have the mega lized man must always appear like growls, “I’m an evil gal, don’t you churches. Large or small, almost a coffin bearer or occupant. bother with me / I’ll empty your all are hideously ugly. South Ko- Perusing photos of Seoul from
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 33 the 1960’s, I see little traffic, beat It is dark now. There dred loyal customer cards, but I up buses, men or oxen pulling drink alone, thanks to the corona- heavy carts, cattle on streets and are voices outside my virus. Nearly every shop in this un- women with babies strapped to window. Earlier, I could derground mall is empty. Normally, it their backs, or with baskets on would still be packed on weekends. their heads. Now, Koreans make hear cheerful bells from Unlike China, South Korea has good cars, excellent smart phones not shut down entire cities, so and the second most ships in the the water buffaloes, Seoul is still at work, with its sub- world annually. They erect mon- feeding across the road way cars somewhat filled, and ster skyscrapers for foreign coun- many people are still eating and tries, such as the PNB 118 in Kuala drinking out, but business is clear- Lumpur. ly way down. It’s awkward to stroll Koreans have paid for this No children became sick. Appar- past so many brightly lit yet empty progress with the world’s second ently it could be dangerous only for stores, with their proprietors idling longest workweek, one of its high- people over 60. There was no rea- outside, looking anxious. est suicide rates and weeping chil- son for panic at all.” With 7,041 coronavirus cases dren in cram schools, but it’s all Although they’re both super and 47 deaths, South Koreans are worth it, for no one has subscribed smart, only one can be right, and trying to function more or less nor- more to the forward religion. we’ll find out soon enough, per- mally, but already they’re being haps by Opening Day. Batting banned or restricted from entering My first exposure to Koreans ninth, here’s my lunging whiff: if 95 countries! Borders are suddenly was in Saigon in the early 70’s, and the coronavirus wasn’t serious, shut, and if this pandemic intensi- I remember being impressed by China would not have shut down fies, more nationalities will be how well-built and confident look- its economy for over a month, thus grounded or, worse, quarantined. ing the ROK soldiers were. Now, I affecting every other economy on With harsher policies adopted by see feminised Koreans, preening earth. Even if millions of people governments, citizens will become or with flowers in their hair, star- won’t die, this crisis has already more exasperated and angry. Much ing at me from many Seoul ads. As been very disruptive to the daily ugliness will ensue. Korea gains more muscles, it cele- life of billions, especially if they’re In hip Seogyo-dong, there’s a brates its sissy side, but a return to just trying to make a buck to sur- handwritten sign taped to a res- old school arrangements, virtues vive another day. taurant door, “Chinese NO entry / and taste is coming, I think. In Si Ma Cai, Vietnam, I talked NO China,” and as an afterthought, Has the bullet train towards the to a woman who sold banh mi sand- in smaller script, “Sorry!” Such a future been derailed by the corona- wich for just 64 cents each, and she display is still rare, though. virus? On February 24th, Anatoly was seriously hurting, because Vi- Nearby, there’s a two-story bar Karlin boldly wrote an article titled, etnamese schools had been closed and café, Blackjack, which opened “Corona Will Kill Millions & for weeks, and students were her just over three weeks ago, mere Crater the World Economy”, yet on primary customers. days before the coronavirus cri- March 2nd, Israel Shamir weighed If it wasn’t serious, Vietnam sis hit South Korea. “Bad timing, in, “There is nothing to panic about, wouldn’t have stopped all flights Jack,” I said to the owner. said Trump about the Corona, and from South Korea and China. “I know,” he chuckled. “I ask God, he is right. Corona is a mental virus These countries aren’t just Viet- ‘why?’ When I first opened, people of fear, not much else. We have a nam’s top two sources of tourists, were queuing outside, to get in.” sterling proof: the Diamond Prin- but foreign investments. After finishing law school, Jack cess liner had been marooned in moved to Las Vegas, where he the ideal, for virus, circumstances stayed for six years. Repatriating, of single ventilation system. Many Another morning, another emp- Jack opened an English language people had got the decease, but only ty Seoul café. On a wall, there’s a academy, which did so well, he two persons, aged over 80, had died. Styrofoam board with over a hun- launched Blackjack. Now, both of
34 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Photo: Linh Dinh Photo:
“I see feminised Koreans, preening or with flowers in their hair, staring at me from many Seoul ads” his businesses are suffering. counter, there’s a sign, “You Only WE MUST DO THE SAME! We are Many firms have demanded their Live Once / Enjoy This Moment born to travel, discover, love, dream employees stay home as much as with BLACKJACK.” and follow our passions. Doing all possible after work, so no evening For a while, it was suggested this means we haven’t stopped English classes even, which com- the coronavirus would only kill growing, or enriching ourselves panies normally pay for. Chinese or Orientals, but Iran’s with new experiences and most His waitress, Chris, was a stew- official death toll is already 107, beautiful places, or being free.” ardess for Eaststar. She’s tall, slim with the real figure likely much The economic fallout from all and strikingly beautiful. Recently, higher, and Italy has 197 corona- this is already enormous, and it Chris applied at Korean Air. Cer- virus deaths, with 49 dying in the has just begun. Perhaps we’ve also tain of getting this job, she told last 24 hours. Italian schools are reached peak freedom, not that it Jack she was quitting. shut, soccer matches are played in was all that free for much of the “She told me too soon! Now, Ko- empty stadiums, entire towns are world. rean Air won’t hire anyone.” quarantined and cities have gone It’s evening in Seoul, but the Peak travel is in our rearview quiet and empty. A growing list of bright lights still beckon. Strap- mirror. “God wants her to stay countries are also banning travel- ping on my mask, I will march with you, Jack!” lers from Italy. outside. CT “She doesn’t listen to God.” On March 3rd, I got an email Blackjack is decked out with from Alitalia, “Linh, non smet- Linh Dinh’s latest book is Postcards Victorian furniture and framed tere di volare!” [“Linh, do not stop from the End of America. He prints of 18th-century Europeans, flying!”] maintains a photo blog at mostly aristocratic. He’s certainly The desperate ad continues, https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot. laid on the gooey cheese. Over the “THE WORLD KEEPS TURNING, com
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 35 n Andrew Fischer Coronavirus chaos
People fighting over rolls of toilet paper? Frenzied denuding of shelves of chicken, toilet paper and hand sanitiser? To say the reaction is overblown at this point is to understate the obvious
efore I tackle the “meat” semblance of order, no discussion, virus in a country of 330-million? of this piece, I feel like nary a thought as to who was first, To say the reaction Covid-19 relating my first taste of who was next. Just shouts of “two is somewhat overblown at this chaos. I think it’ll be a good cones and four lemonades” and the point is to understate the obvious. transition; call it an appe- like. I felt angry -- with the propri- I get it, the spread of CV19 seems Btiser, if you will. Perhaps a low- etors for not insisting on a single to be faster than other viruses, calorie bloomin’ onion, if that were line, with their employees for nev- and deadly to people with com- possible…. er asking whose turn it was. And promised immune systems. Still, My family and I lived in a major also with myself, for being hesitant even the government’s “experts” east coast US metropolitan area for about joining the fray. reassuringly state that 80 percent my first 20-odd years, solidly low- But disgust with my fellow be- of infected people will experience to-middle class, and in some 1960 ings was by far the more compel- it as they would a common cold, summers my parents were able to ling emotion. This happened every and the death rate will likely end afford a “swim club” membership. week at the swim club. Where was up at just 1 percent. So why are Many of the families in our neigh- the sense of fairness, of honour the media making it appear like bourhood joined the same club, among these self-absorbed bar- Armageddon is around the corner? which was essentially a pool with barians? Where was their sense Why is government saying unlike- a ballfield, tennis court, lounge of common decency? ly things like 150-million people and dining room. There was also could be infected and 1.5-million a refreshment stand. Here I wit- might die? nessed, first hand, how boorish Cut to 2020 and the coronavirus Here’s a question, dear reader people could be. (I was going to hysteria. I suppose seeing lines of – is it a pandemic if, say, a dozen write “how savage”, but I’m sure anxious people waiting to get into people in all 200 countries on there was actual savagery back Walmart brought back memories Earth get infected with a future then that I was lucky enough to of the old swim club. Sure, some Andromeda strain? Will billions avoid.) people do wait patiently to get into be forced to stay home for a few At that stand there was no such stores, but what goes on in- months if that happens? What if, line, just a mass of hungry-thirsty side? People fighting over rolls of instead of AndrovirusTM, those kids and adults, a swarm of bees toilet paper? Frenzied denuding of 2,400 people contract gonorrhea? around a honeycomb. Simply shelves of chicken, toilet paper and (Okay, it’s a good bet that’s already put, the biggest squeaky wheels hand sanitiser? All because – as of true, but it isn’t my point. Not a (loudmouths) were first to get the mid-March at least – 10,000 people great disease choice by me, any- delicious grease. There was no have contracted the “pandemic” way, since it takes two to tango and
36 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Photo: Andrew Fischer
CLEANED OUT: Shelves are emptied of toilet paper in a Giant supermarket at West Chester, Pennsylvania. so far as I know isn’t transmitted tween shoppers in Georgia and them; via touching a salt-shaker at the New York; • The same Costco was forced greasy spoon.) • A brawl broke out inside a to close its main gates later that Back to the point: the lack of con- crowded Sam’s Club in Hiram, day as the stream of customers trol, of civility is far worse in 2020 Georgia; became too heavy. than it was 60 years ago. It’s been • Two men came to blows after I can understand this kind of apparent everywhere for decades, one of them, using a motorised thing happening in Brooklyn… but the present virus outbreak has cart, bumped into the other’s cart but Hiram, Georgia? brought it sharply into focus. A few carrying a child .They proceeded Anyway, whatever happened to samples from a single day, single to hit each other with wine bottles basic decency, waiting your turn website: until the bottles broke, then slash- and such? Would the lack of toilet • Brawls and screaming match- ing one another with shards; paper really be such a horrible es break out at stores across the • Cellphone video showed men predicament? Seriously, a body country as coronavirus panic buy- tussling on the floor, before one could use paper napkins or towels, ing intensifies and national emer- of them was taken away on a newspaper, or even a washcloth gency is declared; stretcher; (which interestingly could itself • Tensions are erupting in stores • A screaming match emerged be washed). Hate to tell you, but around the country as fights break in a Brooklyn Costco as customers toilet paper wasn’t even in use out between panicked shoppers waited 40 minutes in line; until 1857, and it was so rough it stocking up amid the coronavirus • An employee begged the crowd could give you splinters. Ouch! It emergency; to calm down as women shouted at wasn’t until the 1930s that modern • Videos show altercations be- him about carts being pushed into TP was available. We truly are the
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 37 Charmin generation. ish politicians are screaming “free I suppose I should apologise to Shameful incidents money for all” – also infl ationary, both Brooklyn and Hiram, since have been occurring and equally senseless. panic shopping and associated Perhaps worst of all, govern- bad behaviour is taking place eve- regularly. Just search ments will permanently enjoy rywhere, regardless of income, for the 1983 Cabbage even more control over our lives. social status, ethnicity, race, etc. Recall Reagan’s comment please: We may be the Charmin genera- Patch Riot videos “The most terrifying words in the tion but we’re also the Me-First on the web English language are: I’m from society. Even before the Covid-19 the government and I’m here to conundrum, shameful incidents help.” have been occurring regularly, The bloodcurdling thing about especially around the Xmas shop- just 10,000 CV19 cases in USA as all this is not that the present ping season. Just search for the of March 19th (.003 percent of the situation could last for many 1983 Cabbage Patch Riot videos population), many of them merely months, or that its repercus- on the web. presumptive due to a lack of test sions might last for years. It’s kits. Keeping us all afraid. that the next time could be a lot Yet this has been declared a worse. What if an Andromeda Of course this time the main- national emergency. Perhaps it is. strain event does occur in the stream media are fanning the Perhaps without all the lockdowns, future? Will a panicked, un- fl ames mightily with round-the- stay-at-home edicts and hand- civilised population empty store clock coverage of the pandemic. washing it could be a lot worse. shelves within hours … or die (By the way, I don’t know the The draconian measures that have trying? CT exact moment when “media” be- been imposed by our governments came a singular noun, but it’s not. may, in fact, turn out to be good Andrew Fischer is an accountant “Medium” is singular; “media” is ideas, but there are risks and po- and author of two books. plural. Maybe I’ll change my tune tential repercussions. Businesses Purgastories, a collection of when the next update of Marshall will shut down and close. People short stories, is available at McLuhan’s famous book is re-titled will lose their livelihoods. Invest- www.amazon.com. He enjoys The Media is the Massage.) Noth- ments are tanking big time. The his fi ancée and designing ing like a good panic to bump up Fed is pumping like mad and cut- board games; the latter can be the ratings and revenue. Twenty- ting interest rates, which will not downloaded at no charge from four hours of coverage a day with work but will cause infl ation. Fool- www.boardgamegeek.com. Free Books by Danny Schechter
Download these – and fi ve more full-length e-books by Danny Schechter at www.coldtype.net/schechterBooks.html
38 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net n Linda McQuaig The public lab that could have helped fight to control coronovirus pandemic
a n a da once had a pub- a diphtheria treatment available tetanus, typhoid and meningitis. licly owned pharmaceu- from a US manufacturer. But, at Connaught developed an im- tical company that could $25 a dose, it was unaffordable pressive research capacity, with have made a difference to all but the rich. FitzGerald set its scientists contributing to some Cin the current coronavirus crisis out to change that – and he did. of the biggest medical break- – except that we sold it. After experimenting on a throughs of the 20th-century – Connaught Labs was a super- horse in a downtown Toronto including penicillin and the Salk star in global medicine. For seven stable, FitzGerald developed and Sabin polio vaccines. It also
decades, this played a central Photo: NIAID-RML publicly owned role in the global Canadian com- eradication of pany performed smallpox. brilliantly on the “It was a national and in- pioneer in a lot ternational stage, of ways”, says contributing to Colleen Fuller, a medical break- research associate throughs and of the Canadian developing afford- Centre for Policy able treatments Alternatives. “It and vaccines for did things com- deadly diseases. mercial companies Hated by its wouldn’t do be- corporate competi- cause they weren’t tors, Connaught This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (orange) – also willing to take the was unique in that known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19 – isolated from a patient financial risks.” its focus was on in the US, emerging from the surface of cells (green) cultured in the lab. Fuller argues human need, not that if a publicly profit. an antitoxin that proved effec- owned Connaught were still It would have come in handy tive in treating diphtheria, and operating today, it could be con- today. made it available to public health tributing to the development of In fact, Connaught got its start outlets across the country. Then, the coronavirus vaccine – and amid a diphtheria outbreak in with lab space provided by the ensuring a Canadian supply if 1913. Toronto doctor John Gerald University of Toronto, he and his there was a global shortage. FitzGerald was outraged that team went on to produce low- Yet, tragically it isn’t. children were dying in large cost treatments and vaccines for Succumbing to corporate pres- numbers even though there was other common killers, including sure and a misguided belief that
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 39 the private sector always does dian universities, yet relies on the deadly Ebola outbreak in West things better, Brian Mulroney’s private marketplace to produce, Africa, according to a recent Progressive Conservative gov- control – and profit from – the paper published in the Journal of ernment privatised Connaught resulting medical innovations. Law and Biosciences. Labs in the 1980s. Today, what For instance, the crucial work With a surge in future global remains of this once-dazzling in developing a vaccine to treat pandemics expected, it might Canadian public enterprise Ebola was done by Canadian well be time to rethink Canada’s has been taken over by a giant scientists at the National Micro- foolhardy attachment to the no- French pharmaceutical company. biology Laboratory in Winnipeg tion “the private sector always – and financed by Canadian does things better.” taxpayer money. But sole licens- Always unproven, that The coronavirus outbreak may ing rights to the vaccine were theory is looking increasingly finally help expose the fallacy granted to a small US company, far-fetched. CT of the notion that the private which then sublicensed it to marketplace is innately superior pharmaceutical giant Merck for Linda McQuaig is a journalist – which has been the guiding $50-million. and author of The Sport & Prey principle in Anglo-American Although Merck is now pro- of Capitalists, which explores countries (including Canada) for ducing the vaccine, critics have the different energy policies of the past four decades, leading to charged that the company did Alberta and Norway. This article the constant denigration of gov- “next to nothing” to rush the vac- first appeared in the Toronto ernment and its functions. cine into production during the Star. Fortunately, Canada’s public healthcare system, established in the 1960s, has been so popular n Trevor Hoyle that it has survived, despite attacks of “socialised medi- cine” – although our political leaders have quietly whittled Radio Times gets away funding for the system in recent decades. with the programme If the foolishness of cutting funding for public health care l i k e reading and reporting four-million) ran what became wasn’t already abundantly clear, on the Radio Times. The an infamous article on global the coronavirus has driven it weekly programme guide warming without mentioning home with a sledgehammer – as to the UK’s national TV and that phrase once. The piece was we’ve witnessed the extra strug- Iradio service is embedded deep actually based on a factoid in the gles the US faces in containing in the sclerotic heart of the Brit- press that within 30 years the the virus with its lack of public ish establishment and thus the British Isles would have a very health care. perfect weather-vane on which similar climate to that of Madei- Still, our willingness to go way respectable, received opinion ra, the island just off Portugal. So along with the privatisation cult is shifting. Even though it’s not the editor had a brainwave: Let’s in recent decades has left us owned and run by the BBC any show how wonderful life will be weaker and less protected than longer, the two are snugly hand- in this idyllic golden future. The we could be. in-glove on so many things. outcome was a three-page article Not only do we no longer have Ten or twelve years ago (I can’t fronted by a double-page artist’s Connaught Labs, but Canada put a date to it exactly) the then- impression of a typical English spends $1-billion a year funding best-selling weekly magazine in garden: a vividly-coloured ro- basic medical research at Cana- the UK (readership upwards of mantic rendering (much like the
40 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net illustrations in a children’s book) of a contented middle-aged couple on a serene sunny afternoon — smiling dad lounging in a deck- chair while smug wifey trundles a wheelbarrow laden with man- goes and bananas and pineapples and other exotic fruits. (And check out the Radio Times: bang up to speed with them new-fangled gender is- sues – capable Mum, not silly old Dad, wheeling the wheelbarrow, geddit?) And, as I’ve said, nary a men- REALITY CHECK: How Radio Times acknowledged the problem of climate change. tion anywhere throughout the entire piece of global warming or sorts, saying they should be pre- the most attractive face overlook the fireball our planet is turning paring for visitors from Europe the fact that he or she doesn’t into. When I read the article I and all over the world “as our actually know what he or she is didn’t know whether to fall off my climate becomes more acceptable talking about.” chair in fits of hysterical laughter and their own becomes unbear- Clumsily expressed it may be, or have my head explode in impo- ably hot.” but this is strong stuff; conveyed tent rage. It was beyond crass or I wrote again to the Radio in the pages of such an ultra- stupid; it was criminal. Times in my usual conciliatory conformist, cosily traditional and I wrote to the letters editor at manner: deeply conservative organ as the RT asking the simple, obvious “What are Mr Giles’s forecasts Radio Times, it’s incendiary. question: if our climate was to be- for 2060? Iceland as being the come like Madeira’s in 30 years’ ideal holiday destination? Or how time, what would Madeira’s cli- about 2070? The Arctic Circle?” Wilson quite rightly highlights mate be like 30 years hence? You And again they ignored me! his credentials as a chartered won’t be surprised to learn the Who’d have thought? meteorologist and a fellow of the letter wasn’t even acknowledged, But reality must be slowly Royal Meteorological Society, never mind published. creeping up – at snail’s-pace – on drawing the comparison with the BBC/RT crew (instructions today’s lot who don’t know jacks- from above perhaps? – “Let’s hit about weather forecasting, the Fast forward to as recently as get with the programme, guys”) climate, or anything else come to last August when the Radio because there’s been a dramatic that. But Wilson isn’t done with Times ran an opinion piece by Bill change. In the March 7, 2020 is- these dunces yet: Giles, the former BBC weather- sue there was a “Viewpoint” by “ ..... we need presenters with man who spent a long career with Francis Wilson, who used to be the authority that comes with real the Met Office. Now I know this the young good-looking weather- knowledge and understanding of will seem incredible, and you’ll man on ITV’s morning show, what is happening to the climate. rub your eyes in astonishment, wearing garish and “amusing” We need presenters who can but this is what he wrote: knitted pullovers. The sub-head state that these life-threatening “By 2050 the British climate reads: “It’s time for our weather events [referring to storms, floods, will be among the best in the forecasters to get serious.” Wil- droughts and wild fires] are caused world.” He then goes on to extol son is highly critical of how TV by global warming. That such the merits of British seaside re- companies in their “rush to get things are happening because we
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 41 have a much warmer atmosphere should never have been given The crisis began on February than we did before the industrial space anywhere, never mind 25, when anti-government rebels, revolution and the subsequent in- in a national publication) to openly backed by Turkish troops, crease in carbon dioxide. this one by Francis Wilson artillery, and armour, attacked “I’d go further and say that in seven months is .... well, it’s the Syrian Army at the strategic there is a moral obligation for gobsmacking. town of Saraqeb, the junction of weather presenters, when there Second, for the RT to allow Highways 4 and 5 linking Aleppo is a serious and significant Wilson to insist on it being a to Damascus and the Mediter- weather event, to say that this “moral obligation” for weather ranean. The same day Russian kind of intensity is entirely con- presenters to state scientific warplanes in Southern Idlib were sistent with what we expected facts, and for him to call them out fired upon by MANPADS (man to happen – because of the man- as basically ill-informed, unquali- portable air-defence systems), made rise in temperatures. We fied and incompetent is a defining anti-aircraft weapons from Turk- need to tell people to stop warm- moment – and not before time. ish military outposts. The Rus- ing the atmosphere, to stop add- Perhaps my decades of (unpub- sian air base at Khmeimim was ing carbon dioxide to the atmos- lished) letters of protest have had also attacked by MANPADS and phere. That way, viewers won’t an effect after all. armed Turkish drones. lose sight of the fact that they can If you believe that, you also What happened next is still actually do something about it.” believe that Jeffrey Epstein killed murky. According to Ankara, a Leaving aside the obvious and himself, Tony Blair honestly column of Turkish troops on its glaring Incredibility Hole that thought there were WMD in way to bring supplies to Turkish it’s precisely the kind of article Iraq, Corbyn is an anti-semite, observer outposts in Idlib was by a weather forecaster that and Boris Johnson is a cuddly, attacked by Syrian war planes should have been appearing 15 to amiable buffoon with the best of and artillery, killing 34 soldiers 20 years ago, let’s be charitable intentions. CT and wounding more than 70. and agree this is a startling and Some sources report much higher unprecedented volte-face by the Trevor Hoyle is a writer and causalities. Radio Times. novelist based in Lancashire, But, according to Al Moni- First, to have made the switch England. His most recent novel tor, a generally reliable on-line from Bill Giles’s establishment is the environmental thriller The publication, the column was a loopyland propaganda version Last Gasp, published by mechanised infantry battalion of of reality (which, quite frankly, Jo Fletcher Books (Quercus). 400 soldiers, and it wasn’t Syrian warplanes that did the damage, but Russian Su-34s packing KAB- n ConN Hallinan 1500Ls, bunker busting laser guided bombs with 2400lb war- heads. Syrian Su-22 fighters were involved, but apparently only to Turkey’s gamble spook the soldiers into taking cover in several large buildings. in Syria ends in failure Then the Su-34s moved in and brought the buildings down on u r k i s h President Recep ment’s siege of the last rebel the Turks. Tayyip Erdogan’s lat- held province, Idlib, Turkey has The Russians deny their est gamble in Syria’s backed off, and Ankara’s Syrian planes were involved, and the civil war appears to have adventure is fuelling growing Turks blamed it all on Damascus, Tcome up snake eyes. Instead of domestic resistance to the power- but when it comes to Syria, the halting the Damascus govern- ful autocrat. old saying that truth is the first
42 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net Mikhail Palinchak / Palinchak Wikimedia Mikhail casualty of war is pretty much a become a nest for all jihadists. truism. It has turned into a trouble spot Erdogan initially blustered for Turkey and the world. And and threatened to launch an who is protecting these jihadists? invasion of Idlib – which, in any Who is safeguarding them? case, was already underway – but Erdogan has jailed many of after initially remaining silent, the HDP’s members of parlia- Rear Adm. Oleg Zhuravlev said ment and AKP appointees have that Russia “cannot guarantee replaced the Party’s city mayors. the safety of flights for Turkish Recep Erdogan Tens of thousands of people have aircraft over Syria.” been imprisoned, and tens of The Turkish president is a awfully like a threat to de- thousands dismissed from their hardhead, but he is not stupid. clare war. jobs. The media has largely been Troops, armour and artillery Engin Altay, the CHP’s deputy silenced through outright repres- without air cover would be sit- chair, said “The president has sion – Turkey has jailed more ting ducks. So the Turks pulled to brief parliament, Idlib is not journalists than any country in back, the Syrians moved in, and an internal matter for the AKP”. the world – or ownership by pro- now Russian military police are Altay has also challenged Er- Erdogan businessmen. occupying Saraqeb. Russia has dogan’s pledge to separate Tur- But body bags are begin- also deployed two cruise missile key from the extremist rebels, ning to come home from a war armed frigates off the Syrian like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an that looks to a lot of Turks like coast. affiliate of al-Qaeda. “Is this even a quagmire. The war is costly But for Erdogan, the home possible?” he asked, “There is no at a time of serious economic front is heating up. ven before the way to distinguish these from trouble for the Turkish economy. current crisis, the Republican each other.” Unemployment is stubbornly People’s Party (CHP) has been Turkey made an agreement high, and the lira continues to demanding that Erdogan brief with Russia in 2018 to allow it to fall in value. Polls show that a parliament about the situation in set up observation posts in Idlib if majority of Turks – 57 percent Idlib, but the president’s Justice it pledged not to support extrem- – are more concerned with the and Development Party (AKP) ists like Tahrir al-Sham , but economy than with terrorism. voted down the request. The right- Ankara has facilitated the entry While Turks have rallied around wing, nationalist Good Party – a of such groups into Syria from the soldiers, before the recent CHP ally – made similar demands, the beginning of the war, giving incident more than half the popu- which have also been sidelined. them free passage and supplying lation opposed any escalation of All the opposition parties have them with massive amounts of the war. called for direct negotiations with fertiliser for bombs. In any case, And Turkey seems increas- the Assad government. the extremists eliminated any ingly isolated. Erdogan called The worry is that Turkey is so-called “moderate” opposition an emergency session of NATO drifting toward a war with Syria groups years ago. on Feb. 28, but got little more without any input from the Par- “Turkey said it would disas- than “moral” support. NATO liament. On February 12, Erdog- sociate moderate elements from wants nothing to do with Syria an met with AKP deputies and radicals”, says Ahmet Kamil and certainly doesn’t want a con- told them that if Turkish soldiers Erozan of the Good Party, “but it frontation with Russia, especially suffered any more casualties – at couldn’t do that.’ because many of the alliance’s the time the death toll was 14 The Kurdish-based progres- members are not comfortable dead, 45 wounded – that Turkey sive People’s Democratic Party with Turkey’s intervention in would “hit anywhere” in Syria. (HDP) parliamentarian Necdet Syria. In any case, Turkey is not To the opposition that sounded Ipekyuz charged, “Idlib has under attack. Only its soldiers,
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 43 who are occupying parts of Syria civil war are ineffective unless are increasingly limited. He may in violation of international law, led by and supported by the Turk- try to escalate Turkish involve- are vulnerable. ish army. But without air cover, ment in Syria, but the risks for The Americans also ruled out the Turkish army is severely that are high. He has unleashed setting up a no-fly zone over Idlib. limited in what it can do, and the the refugees on Europe, but not Erdogan is not only being Russians are losing patience. many are going, and Europe is pressed by the opposition, but Moscow would like the Syria war brutally blocking them. He may from the Nationalist Movement to end and to bring some of its move to call early elections be- Party (MHP) within his own military home, and Erdogan is fore his domestic support erodes ruling coalition. The MHP, or making that difficult. any further, but he might just the “Gray Wolves”, have long Moscow can be difficult as lose those elections, particularly represented Turkey’s extreme well, as Turkey may soon find since the AKP has split into two right. “The Turkish nation must out. The two countries are closely parties. A recent poll found that walk into Damascus along with tied on energy, and, with the 50 percent of Turks say they will the Turkish army”, says Devlet sanctions blocking Iranian oil not vote for Erdogan. Bahceli, leader of the MHP. and gas, Ankara is more and Or he could return to his suc- Erdogan has no intention more dependent on Russian cessful policies of a decade ago of marching on Syria’s capital, energy sources. Russia just built of “no problems with the neigh- even if he could pull it off. The the new TurkStream gas pipeline bours.” CT President wants Turkey to be a across the Black sea and is build- regional player, and occupying ing a nuclear power plant for Conn Hallinan can be read at parts of Syria keeps Ankara on Turkey. Erdogan can only go so www.dispatchesfromtheedgeblog. the board. But that line of reason- far in alienating Russia. wordpress.com and ing is now under siege. Stymied in Syria and pres- www.middleempireseries. Turkey’s allies in the Syrian sured at home, Erdogan’s choices wordpress.com
n Sam Pizzigati & Sarah Anderson disorientation following a collective shock – wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes, Coronavirus and or natural disasters – to push through radical pro-corporate measures.” the Shock Doctrine The 2008 financial collapse would vividly illustrate the e all have to come ever gets everybody marching in dynamics Klein described. together. We need sync. In deeply unequal societies The Wall Street giants whose to help each other. like our own, a wealthy few can reckless and criminal behaviour We don’t have time exploit such catastrophes to make ushered in that crisis ended forW politics as usual. themselves even wealthier. up even bigger and more In times of crisis like Back in 2007, Naomi Klein powerful than before the crisis the current coronavirus explored this phenomenon began. pandemic, these sorts of calls brilliantly in her landmark Klein sees those same for cooperation become the book The Shock Doctrine. Klein dynamics now resurfacing in drumbeat of our daily lives. showed how corporate elites the coronavirus crisis. “We are Unfortunately, no drumbeat worldwide have repeatedly seeing,” she told Democracy and brutally used “the public’s Now recently, “this very
44 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net predictable process that we see the public purse to shift our execs an incentive to pay workers in the midst of every economic economy towards greater equity more – and exploit them less. crisis, which is extreme corporate and sustainability. The core of a Back in mid-20th-century opportunism.” reverse shock doctrine ought to America, a time of much In response to the pandemic, be a massive public investment greater equality than we have she said, Trump is “dusting program designed to create good now, corporate top execs only off” the Wall Street wish list on jobs, with a premium on projects averaged 30 times more pay than everything from cutting and that better position our economy their workers. That more equal privatizing Social Security – by to address climate change. America proved resilient enough undermining its payroll tax But we could also use these to overcome a fearsome polio revenue stream – to enriching funds to reverse some of the epidemic and prosper. the fossil fuel industry with huge inequality that makes economic That more equal America, bailouts. So how can we prevent a crises so dangerous to begin with. let’s remember, also emerged out “shock doctrine” repeat? Various industries are already of the back-to-back crises of the For starters, we need to clamouring for federal loan Great Depression and world war provide immediate support for guarantees and other bailouts against fascism. Progressives those the coronavirus is hitting to get them past the coronavirus seized the opportunity those the hardest: the sick and those crisis. For immediate bailout crises created and changed the who care for them, as well as funds, policymakers should face of American society. Why the workers who lose jobs and consider attaching pro-worker can’t we? CT income. strings. But we can’t afford to stop We could deny, for instance, Sarah Anderson & Sam Pizzigati there. We need, in effect, a “shock tax-dollar support to private co-edit Inequality.org at the doctrine” in reverse. We need companies that pay their CEOs Institute for Policy Studies. to seize the openings for change over 50 or 100 times what they pay This op-ed was adapted from the coronavirus presents – and their most typical workers. Moves Inequality.org and distributed challenge the capacity of our rich in that direction would give top by www.otherwords.org. and powerful to become ever richer and more powerful at the expense of everyone else. One example: Within our n Binoy Kampmark increasingly coronavirus- ravaged economy, more and more families will be facing evictions. Freedom finally arrives Progressive activists and officials are now quite rightfully calling for a coronavirus moratorium on for Chelsea Manning evictions. But we have a chance to h e l s e a Manning’s purpose.” go much further. Why not release from detention Her detention had never use this crisis to rewrite the on March 12 by order of served any coercive purpose as eviction-enabling statutes that Virginia District Court such – she remained unwilling to let corporate landlords enrich Cjudge Anthony Trenga had an air testify before an institution she themselves at the expense of of oddness to it. “The court finds questions as dangerous, secre- vulnerable families in the first Ms Manning’s appearance before tive and oppressive. She stead- place? the Grand Jury is no longer need- fastly refused to answer any The coronavirus crisis also ed, in light of which her detention questions relating to WikiLeaks gives us an opportunity to use no longer serves any coercive and Julian Assange. What her
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 45 detention has done is disturb her cruel, inhuman or degrading Despite accepting the premise health and constitute an act of treatment or punishment noted that detaining her had ceased State harassment that ranks high at the time, such limitations any utility, the fines amounting in the annals of abuses of power. on Manning’s liberty did “not to $256,000 were not “punitive but In March 2019, the former constitute a circumscribed sanc- rather necessary to the coercive military analyst was summoned tion for a specific offence, but an purpose of the Court’s civil con- to appear and give testimony to open-ended, progressively severe tempt order.” the Grand Jury convened in the measure of coercion fulfilling all The brutish episode has done Eastern District of Virginia. As the constitutive elements of tor- much to confirm Manning’s the New York Times put it at the ture or other cruel, inhuman or views that the Grand Jury has time, “there were multiple rea- degrading punishment.” powers that are needless, serve sons to believe that the subpoena The mental degradation in- no purpose other than to vex [forcing Manning to testify] is flicted by the process did almost those it seeks to ensnares, and
related to the investigation of Mr Wikimedia Luigi Nappi Mattia Photo: remains an odd fit in a demo- Assange”. cratic state. She challenged the legitimacy As Manning herself ex- of the subpoena, though lost and plained in a letter to Judge was held for contempt. Having Trenga in May last year, “I object already been court martialled to this grand jury … as an effort and sentenced, Manning saw to frighten journalists and pub- little need having to go through lishers, who serve a crucial public another round of ear bashing good. I have had these values interrogations. since I was a child, and I’ve had “Chelsea,” submitted her sup- years of confinement to reflect on port committee in a statement, them. For much of that time, I de- “gave voluminous testimony pended on survival on my values, during her court martial. She Chelsea Manning: Free at last! my decisions, and my conscience. has stood by the truth of her I will not abandon them now.” prior statements, and there is achieve its worst. On March The rosy standpoint – that no legitimate purpose to having 11, Manning attempted to take such body served, in Robert her rehash them before a hostile her own life. Gilbert Johnson’s words, as grand jury.” In attempting to battle her fine, “security to the accused against Manning argued that the Court oppressive prosecution and as vacate the imposed sanctions, protector of the community In May that year, Manning was as they exceeded “their lawful against public malfeasance and granted a week of freedom until functions as coercive” and were corruption” – can be put to bed the next grand jury was convened. punitive in character. Her legal and strangled. Again, she was found to be in civil team had argued that she lacked The very secrecy that sup- contempt and remanded “to the savings, had seen “an uncertain posedly protects the grand custody of the Attorney General speaking career … abruptly jurors against corrupt eyes and until such time as she purges her- halted by her incarceration, and venal prosecutors has been self of contempt or for the life of the is moving her few belongings into used to ensure its flourishing. Grand Jury”. Her refusal to purge storage, as she can no longer af- Prosecutors can be assured of herself of contempt after 30 days ford to pay her rent”. compliance rather than challenge duly incurred a fine of $500 per Financial records were duly being, in District Judge Edward day, an amount that was increased shared with the court to make the Becker’s sharp observation, “es- to $1,000 after 60 days. case of “compromised earning sentially controlled by the United As Nils Melzer, UN Special capacity”. States Attorney [as] his prosecu- Rapporteur on torture and other Judge Trenga refused to bite. torial tool”.
46 ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net The current crop of critics is simple mechanism for investi- met its goal handsomely. But the also growing in number. Accord- gating criminal offences, it can legacy of the grand jury, and the ing to Natasha Lennard, writ- be – and historically has been continuing prosecution of As- ing on the subpoena directed – used by prosecutors to gather sange and the WikiLeaks project, at Manning, “Prosecutors and intelligence to which they are not retain their menace and sting. CT other authorities use grand juries entitled, for example about lawful to map out political affiliations and constitutionally protected Binoy Kampmark was a while sowing paranoia and political activity.” The US, being Commonwealth Scholar at discord.” a galloping imperium, needs cer- Selwyn College, Cambridge. He She quotes the views of civil tain tools to rein in the dissidents lectures at RMIT University, rights attorney and Manning’s and rabble rousers. Melbourne. He is a frequent legal representative Moira A funding campaign was contributor to Global Research Meltzer-Cohen. “While the fed- commenced to ease Manning’s and Asia-Pacific Research. eral grand jury purports to be a burden and, with $267,002 raised, Email: [email protected]
Hurwitt’s Eye Mark Hurwitt
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net 47 Writing worth reading n Photos worth seeing ColdType
www.coldtype.net | www.coldtype.net K C.J. Hopkins K
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