This week on the podcast, I had Kmele Foster from The Fifth Column, Anna Khachiyan from Red Scare, and The Intercept’s Lee Fang on to talk about vaccine mandates and what they may or may not suggest about the future of our civilization. If you’re enjoying the pod, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! I’m told it actually makes a difference.
Listening to this a month after the fact- I wanted to point out the research Vladimir Kogan has done on reopening in urban areas. This article is from last spring. “Delays in reopening urban districts are a key *cause* -- rather than merely a consequence -- of racial polarization in opinion on this issue” and that once schools open the racial gap narrows. Working poor parents in these areas are not on social media and do not read the NYT or WaPo. It was the fact that schools were closed that made parents in these areas think it was too dangerous to send their children. Once schools opened and some kids went and all was fine that hesitancy ended. Thanks for the interesting conversation.
That was interesting. I especially appreciated y'all making clear that the people are demanding these mandates and their representatives are just representing them - their job. Although it's also true that we could be more specific in placing most of the blame on the media.
Media pushing scary covid to garner clicks > people being rightfully afraid > representatives addressing those fears.
If we had a real president, or even non-politicized health leaders, one would hope the most credible one of them would take an hour to address the Nation and simply tell everyone to calm tf down. "These are the numbers, this is the data. There is no need to be afraid. Take care of our vulnerable, get vaxxed if you want, or if not we have therapeutics to treat you. Get on with your lives"
What a great group of interesting indie media voices to get together. I've been enjoying your podcast and your writing. I'm also a regular listener of Red Scare and Fifth Column. (I enjoyed your fledgling Backchannel project before that dissipated as well.)
I wanted to leave a quick comment to push back on some of what Lee Fang said at the conclusion here. I really like Fang and his work, but I think he (and a lot of progressives) are misinterpreting the actions, and the potential effectiveness, of this administration.
I don't think that the endless babble about identity and wokeness is a screen to get through a huge spending package in the background, but the babble is the actual outward public content of this administration and the talk about legislation are the endlessly broken, barely spinning wheels. It's beyond obvious that the reconciliation package does not have the votes to get through. If it's not Manchin or Sinema who vote it down, they'll be plenty of other moderates to step in and put the kibosh on the package, as we saw with the proposed minimum wage increase. I'm starting to think that this will cost the US another shot at getting any infrastructure spending passed at all.
I'm personally for a bigger social safety net, and many of the stated goals of this reconciliation package (although they won't let anyone know what's actually in it, so who the hell knows). I've become more and more of a single issue voter on some form of universal health care, and that is auspiciously absent from the package. You'd think that it would be the number one concern during a worldwide health crisis, but it's very clearly left out.
I also don't trust this administration — or anyone in either dominant party — to actually be efficient enough to make any amount of money actually fix any problem, and any amount of money will likely just increase the same impenetrable, incompetent bureaucracy that's couldn't manage to leave an unjust war with any effectiveness; or manage to actually get any of the money set aside for renters in jeopardy into their pockets; or to ramp up the manufacturing of medical equipment during a crisis; or even make it possible for New Yorkers to get in touch with the unemployment office for months and months. Biden can't even quite get the alliteration of his simplistic slogan out of his mouth, so America is left with an empty promise to "Bill Black Butter."
I think that the actual current, unwritten goal of the Biden administration (and their former neocon allies) is happening in back rooms and on Zoom calls, sans legislation, right now: to continue to foment out-group hate, paint non-democrats as terrorists, and lean on tech companies to continue to remove troublesome voices from social media (ahem, Nicki Minaj), disappear websites, ask/force Amazon and eBay to remove problematic books, force people to take medicines they don't want, all to try to regain control of a media narrative that's long lost to them. This is certainly key in Gurri's work, but has also been spilling out of the pens of Taibbi, Greenwald, Thomas Frank, FIRE, the former leadership of the ACLU, and anyone with their heads still screwed on correctly.
Should we really trust this administration to do anything (or anything right), or is all simply a race between two ineffectual parties that hate each other — and are engaged in a cold civil war — to see who can get closest to totalitarian rule first?
Not sure I understand Anna's point about the agencies failing to make a compelling argument that the vaccines are safer for kids than contracting COVID. Haven't they not made that point because the safety trials in children are not finished yet? It would be putting the cart before the horse to declare them safe, because if they could reasonably do that then why run the trials at all?
The freedom to risk other people's lives won't hold up in court. Holding to a religious command to be drunk all day every day will not work as a defense of DUI.
And why is it that almost every member of the self described "contrarian left", opposed to identity politics makes Jewish identity politics the one exception to the rule? As they defend free speech with the same exceptions. Chatterton-Williams is fine with censoring the "anti-Semitic" Eli Valley. If Valley is a self-hating Jew then I guess it's fine for me to wonder how some contrarian blacks and Asians can earnestly associate themselves with proponents of race science, or "human bio-diversity"
Libertine illiberalism is an old and still valid conservatism, but libertine illiberal moralism is just the autistic anti-politics of 12 year olds
Listening to this a month after the fact- I wanted to point out the research Vladimir Kogan has done on reopening in urban areas. This article is from last spring. “Delays in reopening urban districts are a key *cause* -- rather than merely a consequence -- of racial polarization in opinion on this issue” and that once schools open the racial gap narrows. Working poor parents in these areas are not on social media and do not read the NYT or WaPo. It was the fact that schools were closed that made parents in these areas think it was too dangerous to send their children. Once schools opened and some kids went and all was fine that hesitancy ended. Thanks for the interesting conversation.
https://www.crpe.org/thelens/whats-behind-racial-divide-school-reopening?fbclid=IwAR0ZB5gVuGyxGbHqGExVSzTAtLnvbvM5_PppieLXohID0-TsLhY8Rb1N9OM
That was interesting. I especially appreciated y'all making clear that the people are demanding these mandates and their representatives are just representing them - their job. Although it's also true that we could be more specific in placing most of the blame on the media.
Media pushing scary covid to garner clicks > people being rightfully afraid > representatives addressing those fears.
If we had a real president, or even non-politicized health leaders, one would hope the most credible one of them would take an hour to address the Nation and simply tell everyone to calm tf down. "These are the numbers, this is the data. There is no need to be afraid. Take care of our vulnerable, get vaxxed if you want, or if not we have therapeutics to treat you. Get on with your lives"
What a great group of interesting indie media voices to get together. I've been enjoying your podcast and your writing. I'm also a regular listener of Red Scare and Fifth Column. (I enjoyed your fledgling Backchannel project before that dissipated as well.)
I wanted to leave a quick comment to push back on some of what Lee Fang said at the conclusion here. I really like Fang and his work, but I think he (and a lot of progressives) are misinterpreting the actions, and the potential effectiveness, of this administration.
I don't think that the endless babble about identity and wokeness is a screen to get through a huge spending package in the background, but the babble is the actual outward public content of this administration and the talk about legislation are the endlessly broken, barely spinning wheels. It's beyond obvious that the reconciliation package does not have the votes to get through. If it's not Manchin or Sinema who vote it down, they'll be plenty of other moderates to step in and put the kibosh on the package, as we saw with the proposed minimum wage increase. I'm starting to think that this will cost the US another shot at getting any infrastructure spending passed at all.
I'm personally for a bigger social safety net, and many of the stated goals of this reconciliation package (although they won't let anyone know what's actually in it, so who the hell knows). I've become more and more of a single issue voter on some form of universal health care, and that is auspiciously absent from the package. You'd think that it would be the number one concern during a worldwide health crisis, but it's very clearly left out.
I also don't trust this administration — or anyone in either dominant party — to actually be efficient enough to make any amount of money actually fix any problem, and any amount of money will likely just increase the same impenetrable, incompetent bureaucracy that's couldn't manage to leave an unjust war with any effectiveness; or manage to actually get any of the money set aside for renters in jeopardy into their pockets; or to ramp up the manufacturing of medical equipment during a crisis; or even make it possible for New Yorkers to get in touch with the unemployment office for months and months. Biden can't even quite get the alliteration of his simplistic slogan out of his mouth, so America is left with an empty promise to "Bill Black Butter."
I think that the actual current, unwritten goal of the Biden administration (and their former neocon allies) is happening in back rooms and on Zoom calls, sans legislation, right now: to continue to foment out-group hate, paint non-democrats as terrorists, and lean on tech companies to continue to remove troublesome voices from social media (ahem, Nicki Minaj), disappear websites, ask/force Amazon and eBay to remove problematic books, force people to take medicines they don't want, all to try to regain control of a media narrative that's long lost to them. This is certainly key in Gurri's work, but has also been spilling out of the pens of Taibbi, Greenwald, Thomas Frank, FIRE, the former leadership of the ACLU, and anyone with their heads still screwed on correctly.
Should we really trust this administration to do anything (or anything right), or is all simply a race between two ineffectual parties that hate each other — and are engaged in a cold civil war — to see who can get closest to totalitarian rule first?
Not sure I understand Anna's point about the agencies failing to make a compelling argument that the vaccines are safer for kids than contracting COVID. Haven't they not made that point because the safety trials in children are not finished yet? It would be putting the cart before the horse to declare them safe, because if they could reasonably do that then why run the trials at all?
Vaccines currently required in the state of Florida:
• Diphtheria-tetanus-acellular Pertussis (DTAP)
• Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV)
• Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR)
• Varicella (chickenpox)
• Haemophilus Influenzae Type B (HIB)
• Pneumococcal Conjugate (PCV13)
• Hepatitis B (HEP B)
https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/how-covid-19-vaccines-can-become-requirements-state-florida/V2QU6LZF2VFRDHTQH4VOAL5KCQ/
And Mississippi
https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/14,8569,71.html
See also Jacobson v. Massachusetts.
The freedom to risk other people's lives won't hold up in court. Holding to a religious command to be drunk all day every day will not work as a defense of DUI.
And then Khachiyan, who famously takes Steve Bannon seriously as an "intellectual", as Bannon does Richard Spencer and Curtis Yarvin. Bannon, advocate of Marine Le Pen, and the return of the Crusades, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWXScQaZ2uI&t=237s and of course, of fraud. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fugitive-chinese-billionaire-allied-with-steve-bannon-agrees-to-pay-dollar539-million-fine
And why is it that almost every member of the self described "contrarian left", opposed to identity politics makes Jewish identity politics the one exception to the rule? As they defend free speech with the same exceptions. Chatterton-Williams is fine with censoring the "anti-Semitic" Eli Valley. If Valley is a self-hating Jew then I guess it's fine for me to wonder how some contrarian blacks and Asians can earnestly associate themselves with proponents of race science, or "human bio-diversity"
Libertine illiberalism is an old and still valid conservatism, but libertine illiberal moralism is just the autistic anti-politics of 12 year olds