Rev Left Radio - Thinking Through The Crisis: Coronavirus, Capitalism, and The Future

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

On this emergency crossover episode of Red Menace and Rev Left Radio, Alyson and Breht discuss COVID-19, what the best models are predicting, what the response of the US State and capitalist class is, what the Left can do, what the future looks like, and much, much more.  Learn More and Support Red Menace here: https://www.patreon.com/TheRedMenace 

This is Allison, and I am here with Brett, and as you know, we are recording this in a very strange circumstance that I don't know if there's a ton of historical parallel for before, but we'll discuss it some. So we figured that in the midst of this coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, it would do good for us to sort of use our platform to talk about this, talk about what is happening, what it all means from our perspective. is Marxist, how we can respond to it, and just sort of how to wrap our minds around this really intense and difficult to understand thing. I know for me personally, I'm having a hard time even just processing some of what's happening here in California under lockdown, and I'm sure that other people are as well. So I'm hoping we'll be able to sort of all come together and at least get some ideas out around this. Yeah, definitely. You know, I'm here in Nebraska. I know the coasts have been shut down more intensely than the Midwest, but it's obviously

hitting here. I have a good friend who I work with sometimes do day labor gigs with, who I've seen in the last month, who just got diagnosed with COVID-19 after coming back from Georgia. And to hear firsthand his experiences engaging with the healthcare system, trying to get the test, getting charged for getting the test, trying to get a hold of a doctor after being confirmed that he has it and not being able to get a hold of a doctor. It's really highlighting just how incapable our health care system is to take on this emergency, and it's only going to get a lot worse. And I think one thing we should all keep in mind with pandemics, it really tests the human imagination to conceptualize, not only with the concept of exponential growth,

but the idea of a lag time, that what we're doing right now is sets the stage for what happens in two weeks. So a lot of people are looking around them and saying, well, the numbers are pretty low, nobody I personally know is sick. I think everybody's overreacting, but what they don't understand is that we're not overreacting. We're acting for what's going to happen in two weeks. There's this lag that occurs in pandemics. And so to think about these different things, it really sort of puts pressure on, you know, how our brains evolved, like, you know, what sort of problems our brains evolved to grasp and understand. And this is really putting a lot of that to test. And I know we're going to get into this more, but it's also showing us in sort of a condensed

time frame, what climate change is going to look like, what we're going to have to be prepared for to do with that crisis. And it's similar to this crisis in that it's, you know, it happens over a long period of time. It has sort of numerical values that are hard for the human mind to grapple with. It has long-term consequences for short-term actions. And so in a very eerie way, you know, it's almost like we're being shown exactly how the system fails under those conditions. And, you know, this is going to be a huge crisis in its own right, but it's also going to be a dress rehearsal for the even bigger crisis of climate change coming down the barrel. And we'll get to more of that as this conversation develops. But I think the way to set the table for this overall discussion,

Allison, is probably just to talk about the recent data coming out, the recent study, sort of highlighting where this is going and how we should start thinking about it. And then we can get into more of the analysis. Awesome. Yeah, sounds good to me. So I think in terms of the data that we need to look at, um, there's one paper that, has been really instrumental, and it's framing a lot of people's response, and I would argue even the U.S. government's response, which is the paper that the Imperial College put out this last week, basically looking at modeling predictions for how this can go. There's some controversy around it. I'll get in some of the flaws, but I want to talk about just sort of the basics of what this

paper outlines. So their paper found that on the trajectory that we're currently on, where we're shooting for flattening the curve. So we're encouraging social isolation, but it's not totally universalized. If we continue on that, we're still looking at a pretty bad world. Their model showed that if we just flatten the curve, which there's not even any guarantee we'll hit right now, that ventilator demand in the U.S. will probably still be eight times larger than the supply of available ventilators. And their models suggest that if we flatten the curve, what we are looking at in the United States is still two million deaths. And globally, we could be looking at tens of millions of deaths as well. So obviously, this is a very pessimistic.

look about how things could go. And it's one where if we meet this goal that it doesn't even look like we'll necessarily meet, we are still going to see an almost unthinkable death percentage, which will be hard to wrap our minds around. But their model also looked at what they basically consider the best case scenario, where we close down all schools, universities, public gatherings, most workplaces, and where everyone engages in social distancing, not just people who are at high risk. So arguably some states like California are kind of moving in this direction right now. So in that world, their models show that we would actually be able to make a huge impact, and we would be able to stop the peak death rate within three weeks, and we could

essentially allow recovery. The problem with their best case scenario that they found, though, is that if we were ever to loosen those restrictions before the vaccine comes out, we would have continual outbreaks over and over again. So what they talk about in that scenario is that we would have to have basically one month off of isolation, two months with isolation, alternating back and forth, so we can control the spread and have some smaller outbreaks, but not a large one, until the vaccine is ready. And sort of the problem from that perspective is that the likely number that they give for when a vaccine will be ready is in 18 months. So even in their best case scenario, most of us are long term out of work, out of school, out of society for a year

and a half while we wait for that to come through. So we're looking, according to these models from the Imperial College, at a huge amount of social disruption going forward. And even if, you know, we hit the sort of the flattening the curve, still millions of death. So MIT's technology review wrote a really interesting article that they appropriately titled, We're not going back to normal that I would highly recommend everyone read that looks at some of the data from this paper. And they argue that, you know, if these numbers are correct, we just are not going to return to life like we've. had before the outbreak. They talk about the fact that we are probably going to be so desperate for socialization that we're going to accept massive state surveillance and even potential

legalized discrimination against vulnerable populations in exchange for socialization. They look at places like Singapore that have used contact tracing based on phone data to basically suggest that probably what the world will look like is one where all of our data is centrally used in order to track our movements in the name of preventing health outbreaks like this. So even if we are able to recover. MIT's article that they put out basically says we are moving more towards a centralized surveillance state as a cost. Now, on the bright side of this, the New England's Complex System Institute published a critique of the Imperial College models where they argued that they failed to factor in certain actions that the U.S. state could take, such as contact

tracing, isolating individuals prior to showing symptoms, and door-to-door testing. So they therefore conclude that the models that the Imperial College used were incorrect. And they say that if we instituted these three extra things, we could see, you know, a few weeks of lockdown stop the virus cold, and they point more towards China's successes as an example of this. And they say we could prevent recurrent outbreaks, meaning we wouldn't all need 18 months of lockdown. And this is definitely some cause for hope. But, you know, after talking with many others who have looked at this critique, including people who study sort of public health, my concern is that the U.S. is not ready for a response that shows contact tracing, door-to-door testing,

and isolating people before they're symptomatic. At this point, in California, we had someone who gave confirmed CPR to a COVID-infected patient and who then got sick with symptoms and still didn't qualify for a test because he wasn't sick enough. So the likelihood of door-to-door testing when we have people who we almost know for sure are sick with it and can't get tested to me seems very low, which means that while the New England numbers might indicate that things are a bit more optimistic than what the Imperial College models show, I still question whether or not the U.S. is able to mobilize this. So even if we're capable of mobilizing these things, again, the sort of contract tracing that's talking about

means that we'd be accepting massive increases in state surveillance technology and increases that honestly are not likely to be, you know, undone once this outbreak is over. So, you know, looking at all this data and these contradictory ideas, you know, we have to ask what is most likely then? You know, will we be on lockdown for 18 months or are the New England scientists correct that it would only be a few weeks of total lockdowns? And, you know, obviously we don't know, but my money person, is, you know, somewhere in between. What I think is likely is that we're probably going to see a lot of unemployment increasing. I know I'm basically out of a job now after my discussion with my boss and that many others are in the same boat. I think we'll see state surveillance and management populations going up significantly with this as a pretext. And, you know, I think that the way that

the MIT paper phrased it is correct. We're probably not going back to normal. So the situation we're operating in is one where economically, most of us who are working class are in a very precarious situation right now and things are not looking stable and state expansion seems like a likely response so from my perspective at least that's the reality of how i'm framing this situation yeah i i really echo that i think i think you're on the right track with you know it's very hard to make predictions so much depends on what the response is how big it is but everything that we've seen so far from the u.s government shows that we are nowhere near taking the steps necessary to have the most optimistic outcome and just to talk about unemployment right now because

the Goldman Sachs just released numbers for next week with regards to unemployment. We're looking at Great Depression numbers of unemployment over a week. And even the Great Depression might be swamped by this set of events. So last week there was 200,000, just over 200,000 unemployment claims. And they are predicting by next week, we're talking two and a half million unemployment claims. At the height of the Great Depression, in 1933, there was a 24,000. percent unemployment rate in the United States. We are looking next week

and the week after at approaching and passing that number. This is truly unprecedented in American history. And just to sort of frame this historically a little bit more, because you see a lot of people dismissing it for various reasons saying it's just like the cold, whatever.

We just heard Allison cite experts saying that worst case scenario in the U.S. We're looking at 2.2 million deaths, right? Now, we probably won't get the worst case scenario, but we're definitely not getting anywhere close to the best case scenario. So taking there somewhere in between maybe a million deaths, maybe 900 or 800,000 American deaths over the next year or whatever.

Now, I want to compare that to deaths throughout major events in American history. At 9-11, we had 3,000 people dead because of that attack, right? In Vietnam War, we had 60,000 deaths in the Vietnam War. In World War II, we had 500,000 deaths. million deaths in World War II. And in the Civil War, which was the deadliest war in American history, we had 600,000 deaths, you know, 600,000 Americans killed in the deadliest war in American history. And right now we're looking at a pandemic that says that is on the optimistic side of the amount of Americans that could possibly die from this outbreak. So this,

whether economically or peer death count, however you look at this, this is absolutely unprecedented and again we're looking at a lag time so the actions we take now will dictate how this happens in two three four weeks and that's why social distancing right now which is already late because the you know it's so important right now but it's already late because trump fox news the right you know they've really been downplaying this for weeks and weeks only within the last few days has fox news and the president changed their sort of tone about this so while the virus was spreading for weeks even possibly a month or more um the right was downplayed playing and denying that it was even happening, let alone addressing it.

So, I mean, this is really looking at profound changes in our way of life. And after 9-11, we got the Patriot Act. We got the rise of the surveillance state. We had the creation of like the Homeland Department of Homeland Security, the creation of ice, right, all as a fallout of 9-11 and the subsequent war on terrorism that took place. This will swamp that by any measure. And as Allison's like hinting towards,

What does the state look like with, you know, a 9-11 times 1,000? You know, it's definitely going to try to hold on to power by all means. That's going to be a bolstering of the state in its repressive and surveilling capacities. Yeah. Well, I mean, so one thing that I would like to think about is sort of what the state action is and how it relates to just the utter failure of capitalism in this circumstance. The thought that I keep having in a lot of ways is that this is sort of probably the end of neoliberalism as a, social policy, because what we're seeing now is that when you take this privatized, atomized society in which health care is private, in which networks are separate, in which you don't

have any real connectivity for social services, and you throw a crisis at it, it falls apart, right? You know, people keep saying that this virus is just laying bare all the failures of American capitalism. Or, you know, I think as, I don't know, some liberal outlet put it, said, you know, America has been proven to be a sham. And there's a truth to that. We see how much there almost isn't a health care system. The privatized thing that we refer to as health care in the U.S. is completely incapable of responding to this. A world without social benefits or programs that can respond to a crisis to keep workers afloat means that the government is making ad hoc attempts to just randomly throw cash at people in a panic in order to avoid

total economic collapse. We're seeing the failure of the neoliberal system in a lot of ways. And we're also seeing the state, you know, respond to this in a certain way. I think it's interesting. There's almost a move towards nationalization in some of the way that the bailout package is being framed right now, where the state would take partial ownership of companies that it bailed out. So we're seeing, I think, a move away from sort of the old neoliberal style of capitalism to a more centralized crisis capitalism, because this virus has really shown that capitalism cannot handle a crisis of this scale. We always talk about how these crises come up inevitably and throw capitalism into a state of panic.

And we are seeing that panic play out before our eyes. Yeah, exactly. And right now we see the Republicans under Trump moving for more of the, you know, move away from neoliberalism, talking about handing out checks, you know, possibly taking over certain companies or getting some sort of buy into them in exchange for a bailout. And we see the Democrats, the centrist, the neoliberals, you know, go to the right of Republicans on economic policies.

We have Kamala Harris out there talking about tax credit. We have Nancy Pelosi talking about, okay, emergency UBI, but only if it's means tested, bolstering the sort of bureaucratic red tape that people have to cut through just in order to get their help. We know which people need right now. People need this help yesterday. And you're going to have more red tape and more bureaucratic navigation in order to get anything. So we see this very historically relevant thing happening where in a moment of crisis in capitalism, the far right outflanks the liberal center on economic. populism while dragging in its far-right social conservatism and racism and bigotry, right? So we're going to see Republicans going to the left of Democrats on emergency UBI, but going

hard right when it comes to building up borders, right, calling it the China virus, amplifying xenophobic fear and resentment in the meantime and using it as a pretext for this building up of a more suppressive and oppressive surveillance state, which you know if it's in the hands of the far right is going to be used in a million disastrous, brutal ways against the most vulnerable. This has happened before. The Nazis really arose out of the crisis of the Weimar Republic, out of an economic collapse. Right now we see eco-fascism and far right-wing neo-Nazis talking about how they can act right now to deepen the crisis, to put more pressure on the system because, you know, for a lot of these people, they want society to collapse, right? They have these

ideas of a race war, whatever, but they're going to try to put pressure. on that system to try to push it over the edge even more, taking opportunities to reach out and lash out against people. We already see hate crimes against Asian Americans going up as people are literally getting attacked in the street because people are internalizing this rhetoric that it comes from China. You know, it's very, very scary times. And I think a big thing that we have to stand back and really take stock of

is this move by the right to outflank the centrist liberals on economic populism in time of crisis. that has never led anywhere but fascism in the past. And so, you know, that's only going to put more pressure on us, on our organizations, on community defense to fight back. This epidemic, this outbreak makes it very difficult to organize in the traditional ways that we organize because we have to social distance, why we have to try to also help each other. And so this is putting a lot of pressure on the left,

but also hopefully bringing out some of our more creative capacities and our, you know, turning people into looking for alternatives to this system as they see it fall all around them and Allison is 100% right. Neoliberalism is a failed political project and every day we're seeing that capitalism is a failed economic project and the sort of steps it's going to take to solve this crisis are not the sort of steps that our government even really wants to take or is possibly even capable of taking and one thing I also want to say before I toss it back over to Allison, is this is very different in history with regards to crises. It's very different than any natural disaster, which can sort of be segmented to a region.

This hits all Americans and really all people at once. Rich, poor, regardless of your status in society, you know, we're even seeing like top Republicans and mayors and, you know, whatever, high-ranking politicians and countries getting the coronavirus. So this is really an unprecedented way to face a crisis when every single American is hit at the same exact time or at least is under threat at the exact time that it really i mean i'll talk about interconnectedness in a second but i'll toss it back over to you allison for your thought yeah no i mean i think that yeah that scale of it is what's so incredible right and that's what watching it spread so fast it's what's been so hard to wrap our minds around i think is watching

government officials watching actors watching your friends get infected with this thing and just seeing how universalized it is. And I think that, you know, the one thing that I want to emphasize as we're watching the state respond to this, and like I said, what I think will really be sort of the death of neoliberalism in a lot of ways is that this is just the beginning of that process. Like, this crisis is terrible, and I really have no clue what the world is going to look like after it. But the conditions that produced this disease and that allowed it to spread globally so quickly will still be in place afterwards. The globalized market in which commodities move freely everywhere and people move freely everywhere has done so much good in some senses

of creating a more progressive sort of cosmopolitan world. But at the same time, it also makes an economic and social system that is inherently at risk of pandemics like this. And even if we see state centralization after this, we will still see the risk of future pandemics as well. And we will still see climate change eventually coming. So in a lot of ways, I think this is sort of a test run for figuring out how we respond to future crises, how the state will respond to future crises, and for really mapping out what the future of the socialist movement looks like. We talk all the time about socialism or barbarism being our options. And I think really right now, this shows us how weak capitalism is and how true it is that capitalism will collapse under its own weight from all these crises

over and over again, increasingly reaching a peak. But the question then that we have to be left with is what comes after it. Are we going to have fascism? Are we going to have social collapse? Or are we going to have some sort of solidarity that can take advantage of the interconnectedness that we have in order to build alternative ways of existing and alternative ways of fighting for a better world? So I think that we're going to see this play out again and again. And it's time for us as socialist to really think in a world where the crises are this concrete, where they're this universalized and global and scale, how do we respond to these things? and how do we offer an alternative to both the obviously failing neoliberalism

and to the more centralizing capitalist state that is responding to this? Yeah, and, you know, it's really highlighting something that Allison and I talk about all the time on this show, which is the need for a party, right? A need for a really disciplined nationwide communist party like we've had in the past when it was at its peak, because when a crisis like this hits, what we see the left having to struggle with is being a completely sort of decentralized network of autonomous organizations who have to really rely heavily on the social media platforms granted to us by big companies in order to interact. There's some really great mutual aid work. I've just released an episode

where we talked about that. Our organization here on the ground is doing as much of that as we possibly can, but it really is sort of showing the failure of the left to get ready for this crisis. And that's not any one of our individual faults, right? There's lots of reasons why we aren't there, including variables that are completely out of our hands. But imagine if we had that level of organization where we could immediately then click into managing this crisis from a sort of principled, organized spot instead of a sort of disorganized, loose network, depending on corporate structures to communicate, et cetera. So, I mean, if this shows anything about what the left can do moving forward, especially if

this is a dress rehearsal for future crises, we need high levels. of discipline and organization to be able to deal immediately with these sorts of crises. And we don't know when they're coming. This came out of really nowhere. It reminds me of that old Lennon quote, which I've been thinking about a lot. There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen. And right now, decades are happening. I want to touch on the interconnectedness point too because I said I'd come back to that. And Allison is gestured towards this by saying that this is really revealing all the contradictions of society and it really is all the solutions that will absolutely be required to deal with this in a serious, meaningful

long-term way are all solutions that absolutely reject the individualist and market-based frameworks that really capitalism, but especially neoliberalism, has heightened and made and forced people to internalize over the last 40 years. And it really is this weird irony, right? Because on one hand, this crisis is simultaneously amplifying the physical isolation you know, that we all, we already have alienation and atomization and loneliness in our society is amplifying that. We all have to go into social distancing and self-isolation. But at the same time, it's doing that.

It's also demanding collective action. It's demanding collective evolution beyond these precisely failed individualist and market-based frameworks that we've been so internalized and so, you know, used to dealing with. And so this is, that profound irony is really something I've been wrestling. went around with a lot, you know? This entire crisis, it really puts pressure on every logic and sublogic of capital. And that's why we see even Republicans, you know, going for lack of a better word, full on socialism, right? Like, how can we get people money? How can we make sure that people don't have to pay for medical expenses? People left, right and center are now talking about the

need for Medicare for all, at least through this crisis, right? In the moment the crisis leaves, there will be immediate attempts to roll all of this back. But it really is showing like, in order to meet this crisis, we have to almost all become socialists, which is bamboos, like sort of bamboozling and frightening and strange and it's happening so fast. But when it comes to health care, when it comes to housing, when it comes to putting people's basic needs over the profits of big corporations, all of that stuff is showing to be, you know, inadequate in our current society. Debt isn't real because they can just stop taking it if they want to. money isn't real because they can just pump

$3.5 trillion into markets we're being shown jobs a lot of jobs aren't real because people can either take time off or just work from home and you know like a lot of these like what David Graber calls bullshit jobs where it's just like jobs for jobs sake and we're now saying that a lot of those jobs aren't even

necessary but the logics are still operating the logic of capitalism is still operating and so you know a lot of people in government a lot of people in business right now they are thinking how can we save the economy for its own sake over how can we save human beings for their own sake? That's very scary, but it also opens up an entire terrain of possibilities that even a month

ago we could never have imagined being possible. We can see people's minds turning. We can see people around us starting to question this system. You know, my wife's mother has had to recently have a situation where she had to use health insurance. Health insurance promised her that she would not have to have any co-pays and then sent her a bill for those co-pays way more than she's a lot. able to afford. So she was on line with, she was on a wait, waiting call for them yesterday for like,

you know, two hours waiting to get through to her insurance company. This is only going to heighten every single one of those contradictions. And then that's an opportunity for the left. And one thing that I've noted on Twitter is as somebody who is deeply, politically sort of kept up on what's happening, I'm involved in politics, you know, with organizing as well as with education and learning and being obsessed with it. I'm finding myself, you know, sort of, to my own surprise, being a resource for family and friends to tap into. I have, you know, family members calling me, asking me what's happening,

trying to get some understanding of the crisis and the government's reaction. I have friends leaning on me, asking me advice about what they do if they think they have symptoms, shit like that. And so while at one level it's sort of overwhelming, it's also a site of responsibility that all revolution, should take absolutely seriously because we are known you know in a time of peace as being oh you know my son or my cousin or my friend is sort of weird with politics you know now they're being like what is their number because i need to ask them these these pertinent questions and that that

puts a sort of obligation on us not only to respond but to be informed to to to stay up on the actual empirical facts of the situation as it develops help people understand the empirical facts of the situation and also the political realities of how this is putting pressure on our system, how our system is systematically unable to respond because of the sort of market incentives that our society has been dedicated to for its entire existence. Talk about, for example, sanctions, how the U.S. right now is still tightening up sanctions on Iran, saying things like the coronavirus will not spare you from our sanctions. So while America itself is unable to meet the needs of its own people at this time. It is also actively ensuring that other countries are

unable to meet their people's needs. That is beyond evil. And at this time, you can really point that out with extreme clarity. And I've seen, at least in my close circle of family and friends, people really have a radical paradigm shift that I thought was impossible just a month ago. And now I'm seeing people, you know, really being radicalized without them even really noticing it, just in the things that they say and their responses to this government's reaction. It's sort of profound. And again, bewildering because of the rate at which it's happening, but also a fascinating opportunity for revolutionaries, principled Marxists and leftist of all stripes to really take control of that situation and try to help people understand while pointing out the deficiencies of the system. Yeah, I mean, I very much relate to the radicalization thing. I think that's what's been kind of wild to watch is especially right now as the Democrats are sort of shooting themselves in the foot by insisting on means testing in the face of, you know, Trump's bill that would.

give money. It's really been interesting. A lot of liberals that I know suddenly turning hostile to their own camp in a lot of ways and seeing how systemic this is. And I think you're right. It's very important that we connect this internationally. It's not just even what's going on with sanctions in Iran. Somehow, even as this crisis is breaking out, we're still bombing Iraq. You know, it's unbelievable that we are still able to try to maintain this imperialist war machine in the middle of a crisis that is gutting our economy at its very core. And it's very important. I think like, you said, not just like propaganda in terms of written stuff, but I like what you're getting at

as just like inter like, like, you know, communally, talking to your family, talking to your friends and explaining what's going on here. Because I've also sort of found myself in that same situation where I'm just the person who's watching this very closely and reading what there is to read and giving people information and being able to highlight sort of how much of a failure this state is for people, I think is doing a lot of good work. And I think it's important for us that also we really need to propagandize around the flaws in this relief bill that the Republicans are putting out. So I don't know if you've looked into the details of it at all, but it would leave a lot of people without much of a cash payment at all. It has a means testing that cuts off for rich

people, but then it also cuts off at the very bottom. So if you made under $2,500 last year, you would only get $600 instead of the full $1,200. And if you didn't file a tax return last year, which many people who don't make the amount where it's required don't file a tax return, you would get no money at all. So even in this bailout that they're prepping, there's exclusions for the poorest of the poor. And I think those are specifically targeted at Lupin proletariat as well, who wouldn't have income to report officially. And even when we look at what the Dems are talking about is their response of expanding

unemployment benefits. Those unemployment benefits only matter if you have a public on the table job, not an under-the-table payment that a lot of this country relies on in order to get by. So even as we see the Republicans making these fairly bold steps to help people, they're still leaving out the people at the very bottom and pointing that out, talking to those people, making it clear that even when the states pivot as wildly as it can in an almost socialist-like direction from the right, that is still not going to meet their needs. They still are going to need to have an alternative that is organized external to both the Democrats and to the Republicans in order to respond to this, because

both sides are just absolutely dropping the ball for the people who will be hurt the worst by this virus. Yeah, I was wondering your take on China right now because, you know, there has, in your very early days, given just the sort of structure of the Chinese government and some of the, the urge for that government to want to sort of start acting before it revealed to the world what was happening. There was a little bit of sort of keeping the truth bottled up for a bit there at the beginning, and that's obviously being weaponized against them now, but sort of outlandishly and way over the top. But since then, we've seen the Chinese response really sort of be juxtaposed to the U.S. response and finding China on every level to be much superior in handling a crisis

precisely like this. And once they get their own country under control, and at this point, they've sort of flattened the curve, they've sort of gone over the peak, and the amount of people getting sick of has really slowed to a trickle. And what do they do? They immediately send out their doctors to other countries, particularly countries being put under U.S. sanctions like Iran to help them deal with their problem at the same time that the U.S. is imposing those sanctions and the same time where Trump it was revealed this week has reached out to a German company who is working on a promising vaccine, offering them a billion dollars to ensure that that vaccine will only go to Americans. And then the Germans found this out. They revealed it. Their people

are obviously disgusted. Their government almost for a second there had to start outbidding Trump to keep it public and open. You know, there's talks about companies taking or going to court to prevent these vaccines once they're made getting into China's hands because they fear China will give them out to the world for free instead of profiting off of them. So, I mean, my God, things are happening and we're really seeing two different systems go at one another. And I'll, you know, one thing I want to note here, this is sort of a prediction.

But looking back in retrospect, I think we will see this. moment. I mean, a lot of things could still happen, but I think this will be one of the crucial moments where we start seeing China rise as the superpower over the U.S. as the U.S. falls and crumbles further into decay. And, you know, this is happening all really fast right now, but I think this is really monumental in shifting the global power dynamics. And those implications might not be for several years before we fully see them come to blossom, but the process is happening right now. I was just basically wondering, Alison, what are your thoughts on China's response? What does it say about the Chinese system compared to the U.S. system, etc.?

Yeah, so, you know, as everyone knows, I'm fairly critical of China, but on this instance, I've got to give it to them. I think the response to this has been wild. And honestly, I think the amount of hypocrisy in terms of the U.S. towards China obviously needs to be called out. The U.S. wants to blame this on China entirely. While China's response, I think, you know, as even mainstream media headlines have put it, China bought time for the U.S. that the U.S. squandered in many.

many ways. The Chinese centralized response was very effective and could have given the West time to prepare and the West didn't. So I think in terms of China, one, I don't even really fault them for trying to keep it fairly secret at first, you know, trying to prevent a panic makes sense on a certain level. And the Chinese state needed time to mobilize a response. And I think that what we've seen, if nothing else, is that the Chinese state shows how only centralization can really respond to this sort of crisis. The problem in America in a lot of ways has been that we have 50 states making their own separate decisions. We have

individual cities making their own separate decisions. We have individual companies making their own separate decisions, often refusing to follow the state. The example would be GameStop claiming that they are a essential business that doesn't need to shut down right now. You know, it's that level of chaos and anarchy that's built into

a decentralized market economy that can't respond to this. And China, regardless of whether or not we think they're capitalist or socialist or whatever, has a centralized state where even their markets are centralized through the state and through the party. And that allows a kind of response that we just could not mobilize here in the West. And so China, I think, you know, again, I think you're right. This will show a pivot to them being a world's superpower.

And it'll show a pivot, I think, towards other states wanting to model their own sort of approach to things. It is going to, I think, show the world that centralization is what is necessary in order to respond to this. And that'll be great if that means socialists are centralizing. It'll probably be very bad if it means capitalists or centralizing. But I think that it goes to show that, again, this decentralized pure market lies a fair economy can't function in a world of globalized pandemics and soon in a world of climate change. And so China's paving the way that I think both capitalists and socialist will be forced to follow in a lot of ways.

Yeah, decentralizing this urge to decentralize, whether center, left, or right is being shown to be utterly incapable of dealing with pandemics and with climate change. And it feels, you know, if you want to get teleological about this, and I say this sort of tongue and cheap, But it almost feels as if given the things we have to face as a civilization, we're getting this pressure from nature, from whatever, to be like, hey, all these ideas you have about how society can be organized, we're putting pressure on all of that because you have to grow. You have to grow and become not a bunch of warring nation states, but you have to grow to become a human civilization that cooperates across space and time and culture. if you are going to survive this sort of century, you know, as a species. And I think we're really being tested in fascinating ways, and we should, you know, heed those lessons. But, yeah, China is obviously, amongst many other things, showing its superior capacity to plan for long-term situations. They've obviously taken pandemics very seriously because they went out and organized a quick response, meaning that they have not just sort of scurrying to try to figure it out in real time,

but have already had things set in place. Like, if this pandemic happens, this is what our government is going to do. And in the U.S., what do we see? We see Trump come in for the last four years, Republican administration slash funding to the CDC, cut the pandemic response agency, which, my God, what an irony that you go and you cut that so you can give tax cuts to the rich, you know, undermine a lot of the policies of the previous president, which is sort of in the nature of our two-party system every four to eight years, bounces to other people's hands.

We have a gridlocked Congress, so we're really operating on a lot of executive orders, which Obama does a bunch. Then Trump comes in and turns all them back because he has the executive order to do that. Meanwhile, China has a five-year plan, a 10-year plan, a 20-year plan, showing how utterly superior in every facet

their system is compared to the U.S. is, which I just think is really, really fascinating. I do want to shift a little bit here and talk about psychology, right? we've we've we've done wretched of the earth recently and fanon does this amazing job of having this empirical materialist analysis and then he also weaves it in with the psychological impact of you know in in that case the fight against colonialism but in this case we're going to see a lot of psychological reactions we're already seeing some right what is what is hoarding i've talked

about this on my recent episode of rev left there's one version of hoarding which is just individual people who are really scared in a market economy going out to stores and stocking up on toilet paper and stuff and you know it's silly and we should warn against it and show how damaging that is but that's really a psychological attempt to have some control over a situation that you fundamentally don't and can't have control over there's also the hoarding of the sort of capitalist logic which is which takes the form of price gouging which is people going out buying up all the necessary supplies in their in their area in their region multiple stores you know buying up all the hand sanitizer or whatever and then trying to price gouge and sell it for 10 or 20 times the price. Disgusting, right? One is understandable

from a psychological level, although harmful, and one is just straight up evil and really internalizes all the worst aspects of capitalist logic. That same logic, mind you, the same people getting pissed off rightfully about price gougers in a crisis should also realize that that's literally what our pharmaceutical industry and our health insurance industries do every single day. They take a human need that people cannot opt out of, and then they raise the price. prices in order to profit off of the suffering and fear and vulnerability of other people. So if you're mad at that asshole in the New York Times, he goes and buys, you know, those pallets of hand sanitizer, you'd just better be just as angry, if not much, much more

angry at the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance corporations, which do that every single day. But I digress. Let's talk about psychology. And I want to talk about this through the vector of an anecdote about my own mother. So my mom recently, she had a sore throat earlier this week. it's very unlikely that she has COVID-19, but her work sort of was all worried. They're not closing down. So they send her to work from home. Now, my mom is one of these people, like I think a lot of

other people in this world, who for one reason or another, have their selves sort of anchored in routine, right? Humans are sort of creatures of ritual. We're creatures of habit. And my mom is one of those people that even the slightest deviation in her day-to-day routine sort of unanchors her and gives her a lot of anxiety. And I get this call two days ago. My mom bawling, hyperventilating on the phone. She's home all alone. My stepdad works in a dairy factory and he has to work seven-day weeks now and he's not even allowed to be contacted while he's at work. So she can't call him, right? So she calls me crying, you know, basically having a meltdown. Her toilet is overflowing, flooding her house at the same time when she's supposed to be working from home and

she can't go to work and everything in her life is being upended and shifted. So I go over there and I try to calm her down. You know, I point out how some of these feelings of anxiety are her concerns over not having a routine and how, you know, making a best of this situation, once she gets everything set up for working from home, she'll fall into a new routine. I told her one thing you can do is to, even though you're working from home, do as much of your routine as you're, you're you usually do to sort of keep yourself anchored. That means waking up at the same time, you know, taking your shower, getting dressed as if you're going to work, taking your breaks at the same time during the day that you would at work, and, you know, doing those sorts of

things to help people like that. And I'm sure if my mom's suffering with that, a lot of other people are suffering with that as well. And that's just one instantiation of a psychological response to this. What is it going to look like, as Allison was pointing out at the very beginning when we're talking one year to two years of either intermittent or full on social distancing self-isolation especially for people that really depend on it right what about people locked at homes in abusive relationships right i i had somebody on twitter said that they you know they knew a cop and they asked this cop you know what have you realized happening since people have been self-quarantining and the cop without skipping a beat says huge spike in domestic violence

cases. So that's something that is not at all being addressed and maybe can't be addressed systematically in the way that it needs to be addressed. But there's also this fear that I think we're just coming to terms with and we're going to see a lot more of it play out in very interesting and perhaps unpredictable ways. And we already hear Trump ramping up rhetoric around this as like this invisible enemy. But there is this fear and it's very unique because it's like if you're at war, the soldiers of the other nation are your enemy. If it's a if it's a natural disaster, you know, this act of nature is the enemy. With a virus, it's invisible. It lives on surfaces, depending on what sort of surface, like plastic and stainless steel for up to three days.

It lives on cardboard for up to 24 hours. The psychological cost of being constantly worried about what you're touching, you know, whether that normal cold, the sniffles that you're going to get every year is just the sniffles, or if that is going to explode into the coronavirus, right people can remain non-symptomatic for up to 14 days while a big chunk of that time they're still able to pass on the virus so i see like stores do or you know different businesses doing things like we'll take your temperature and if you don't have a temperature you're allowed to come in well what the fuck does that mean for people that just don't have a temperature yet because they're not showing symptoms but they're still highly contagious all of these things

are sort of going to be bundled together into a broad sphere of psychological distress and fear and playing on people's vulnerabilities and anxieties in ways that we've never quite seen. And so whatever our response is, whether it's from the top down in the form of government packages or whether it's from the bottom up in the form of mutual aid, we should really be thinking seriously about the psychological costs as well as the economic, social, and, you know, sort of health costs of this pandemic. Yeah, I mean, the psychological part of it, I think, you know, a lot of us are struggling with right now. It's sort of the thought that I keep having that's almost funny to me is that as someone

who struggles with depression, my life right now, being in lockdown is certainly indistinguishable from my worst depression days in terms of I don't, you know, I'm not leaving the house. I'm not doing anything. I'm just sitting here at home in my pajamas most of the day, honestly. And, you know, there's an exacerbation of all of these, you know, psychological problems that capitalism has already created for us, right? I know for me, what has been really difficult to think about is just money. Like, I don't have a job right now. When I talk to my boss, she told me she doesn't know if we're opening again. She doesn't know if we'll be able to transition to online work. It's just, you know, precarity. And that's a precarity that capitalism has already put there, right?

I know a lot of us every month are worried about our rent. Every month are worried about our bills. And now that is just exacerbated by this. And there's, you know, intense just daily psychological grind to that kind of worry that I think all of us who are not rich right now are dealing with in a big way. And I think that what's important from my perspective at the psychological standpoint, at least, is that we try to use this as a chance to find empathy with each other and try to understand our collective precarity in this instance. It's not just us as individuals in our homes each worrying about these things, which is what it feels like because we are at this distance. But we need to think about how we as a class are all experiencing this right

now, and how we as a class all could have these, you know, worries resolve very easily with basic economic changes that can be put into place. And if we move towards thinking collectively empathetically towards the other people in this situation, that's the most productive thing we can do. I think, like you said, what we're seeing now is sort of the psychological component of just individualism playing out, whether through price gouging or through hoarding of resources. This is how America and how capitalism has taught us to think. It's us first or our family first, maybe. You know, that's about all there is. And we need to push back against that. And we need to think about sort of the vulnerability and the fear that each of us is feeling

right now, how everyone else in our class is feeling that too. And how that could be a source of collective strength if we were willing to organize and lean into it. What I kind of worry about on the psychological side of things, I think, is sort of, I think that this raises a bunch of questions that many scholars have talked about, the psychology of fascism as well, right? Which is, you know, fascism as emerging in a crisis has this very strange ability to be this obviously horrific and ugly thing that the populace can beg for because it can feel like the only solution. And I keep thinking to that MIT technology review article that was looking at the Imperial College article, which basically just said, like, think about after six months of social

isolation, what rights are you going to be psychologically prepared to give up just because of that desperation? You know, and that, the psychological pain is something, that the state and that capitalism as it turns into some other new thing right now, a more centralized thing, is going to play on. And I think it's very important that we strategize just alternative forms of socialization that I don't even know what that would look like, that can relieve some of the stress so that when the state says, all right, if you're willing to give up your privacy, willing to give up all of these rights that you're used to in exchange for the ability to socialize, we're just maybe collectively not so ready to say yes.

of that. I don't know. That's kind of where I'm at on it at least. Yeah. No, absolutely. And you said something. And there is a sort of silver lining in a lot of this and we've gestured towards some of that. But especially when it comes to the precarity that a lot of people are facing. And of course, all of us, I think most of us listening, certainly Allison and myself, been working class our entire lives. You have an inbuilt precarity and sense of fear when it comes to just living paycheck to paycheck. We always have it. It's like operating in the background of our minds all the time. I think a lot of us are so used to it. We don't even consciously become aware of just how often we think about money and making sure that

we're okay. And that's going to be heightened right now. But at the same time, it is heightened for everybody. So if you're one person who loses their job in normal circumstances, this system will absolutely leave you behind. But they can't leave behind two million people in one week losing their job. And that offers an opportunity. It offers a chance for people to, on the one hand, I understand being scared and having this precarity there. But on the other hand, having the silver lining of realizing that everybody right now is being hit with this. There's a lot more working people than there are, you know, rich, wealthy people that can withstand going several months without a paycheck. Most of us absolutely cannot. Studies show that up to 50% of Americans

couldn't even, you know, meet the needs of a $400 crisis outside of their normal bills and payments. So the fact that this is so widespread means that you're not going to be left alone. You're not going to be left completely in the dust for the most part. But it also shows the absolute need for, you know, community organizing for these mutual aid programs for sort of being there, even in the smallest ways right now, for your neighbors, right? Something that I've, I've doing and my organization right now is working on printing off pamphlets that you can put in mailboxes or doors saying if you're immunocompromised, if you're elderly, if you're not in the capacity to run errands, like to go to the grocery store, for example, which could be much more dangerous

for an older person than somebody that is relatively healthy. You know, here's my number. We can help. All the orgs right now in Omaha are coming together, forming a sort of united front. Omaha tenants united, feed the people, NLC, the local DSA, SRA. We're all coming together. We were on a conference call two days ago figuring out, how can we all work together to meet the needs of our class in this time? And of course, it's not going to be sufficient. We've talked about the need for sort of top-down help. When you have a complete economic crisis, you can't just depend on mutual aid to get through.

People need health care. people need food people need you know housing we can help with some of that but we can't do it all by ourselves and so it's just really interesting situation we're in but i've going out anytime i see a neighbor come out on their back porch you know we have a neighbor right next to us who we've already gotten their number and like i helped do their like mow their lawn and do lawn care for them because it's just a single mother with two smaller kids and they can't really do it so we've been in contact with them being good neighbors for you know over the last two years but now we're we text of them saying things are getting scary we're here for you if you need anything this neighbor

on the like live sort of catty corner backyard to me never talked to in my life um she was out there smoking and i just what you know took that opportunity to go out on my back porch and say hey just so you know we're here if you need absolutely anything you know i know these are very scary times we have your back if you need it and you know just seeing your neighbors sort of smile their eyes brightened up you've never talked to these people and they say hey i have your back too if you need anything, let me know. In my neighborhood, people walking dogs, you know, before you might keep your head down and avoid eye contact. Now I'm going out of my way and I see other people going out of the way to make eye contact, to give that wave to say in so many ways, I'm here for you.

That's going to become increasingly important as well. And it might seem sort of trivial to just let people know that you're there, but it's really not. And especially for people that live alone, especially for people that might not have big circles of family and friends that they can stay in contact with, you really have a responsibility to reach out. And even if it's just people in your life who don't live anywhere near you, but you know are older or maybe immunocompromise, I've been sending text to people I haven't talked to in a year saying, hey, just so you know, things are getting crazy. I'm thinking about you. I'm here for you. And that makes a huge difference in people's psychologies. And that could be one step that good people can take in this time of self-isolation

that can still make people not feel so alone. And I think we really have to start taking that aspect of seriously. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I think, like, you know, again, like, it's important as things go forward that when people think of what is happening and they ask who was there to take care of me, it's communists who they can point to. Like, you know, that simple thing will make such a huge difference. We've talked to our neighbors as well. We just got extra medicine that we didn't need and, you know, gave that out to some people who need it as well. And just those actions will be important when we need to build networks that are bigger as this continues. I mean, the question that I still have to some extent is what happens as lockdown happens. You know, obviously here in

California, we are under a lockdown essentially at this point. And unlike some states, we didn't get an end date. We were just told it's indefinite. And I was just wondering if you have ideas on like, how do we organize when we're not supposed to leave our house? No, it's incredibly difficult. And it depends on the sort of parameters of the lockdown. And I think, think in many places, like in China and like even in Italy, when they do full lockdowns, certain things stay open. And the things that stay open are stores and pharmacies. And, you know, that's great.

The people on the front lines working those places absolutely are heroes. They deserve hazard pay. You know, there needs to be something in these packages that give more money to the people on the front lines, making sure that everybody's supplied. Certain stores are doing things where maybe they sanitize overnight. And for the first hour, elderly or immunocompromise people are allowed to go shopping. and then after that, maybe they'll do things like if your last name is A through F, you come in at these times, sort of slow down the flow, so not at like 6 a.m. These stores are, you know, over-flooded

with people trying to get in. So there are certain things that can happen. And those things should reduce panic a little bit because, I mean, there's no reason why food is going to go away. There's no reason why the water coming out of your tap is going to be poisoned. There's no reason that, you know, you're not going to be able to go to the pharmacy. But a lot of of people will be able to do that, but will be scared to do that because of their situation, whether they're immunocompromised, elderly, whatever, have underlying conditions. And so when it comes to how can we organize, I think, one of the big things we've been focusing on is this sort of pamphlet idea where you don't have to make contact with somebody. You go, you hand out these

pamphlets saying, I'm here to help. Here's my number. Text me. They can text you and say, or call me, call me, you know, text you and say, hey, I need groceries. I am, you know, 84 years old. I live alone. I'm scared to go out to the store. You can say, okay, I will go and do that for you. Figure out some way to do, you know, I don't know how the, like some of these difficult things is like payment, right? Like you can't just like go and take a card from somebody or you might be passing on germs. Certainly when you, when you bring the supplies back, you can leave them on the front porch or leave them in the garage and walk away. Maybe for more savvy people, there's Venmo and PayPal that can be used to help sort of work these payments out. I'm not saying

this is a perfect solution, but this is what I've really been thinking a lot about. And this is one of the things that I've come to realize might be a way that we can still help, even in full lockdown. But again, it's very, very limited and it's going to require a lot of creativity because we've never had to organize without organizing, right? And it's very, very strange. It puts us in a very weird, unprecedented position. Yeah. And I mean, I think, like, you know, you're right that it's not perfect, but we're just not going to have a perfect solution in the middle of a huge pandemic like this. It's wild to watch. And I mean, the other thing that I've seen that I think is hopeful is the amount of people talking about, you know, just, you know, organizing your tenants, right?

I think this is where tenant organizing is going to be so fucking crucial because people are not going to be able to pay their rent. This $1,200 check might get some people through a month, right? But it's not going to get them through the potential 18 months that the Imperial College papers say we could be looking at on lockdown. And if we as individuals are caught not being able to pay our rent, that might be a problem. But if your neighbors are also willing to withhold in that instance, the potential for leverage since your landlord is also in a state of crisis here, I think is very, very high in a lot of ways. And I'm hopeful that we'll see a lot of the groundwork that over the last few years has been laid in terms of tenant organizing really be able to work in this context. Yeah, and that's worth repeating. Like landlords right now,

they're vulnerable. They're fucking scared. You can see them sort of lashing out on social media. Some are better than others, but it's really exposing that contradiction, right? like, oh, our housing is a human right, but it depends on the individual asshole that happens to be in ownership of my property. Now, if I have a really good landlord that's understanding, that's awesome. If I don't, that fucking sucks, right? There's packages being put out that is talking about giving mortgage relief. That does nothing for the rent here, for the people that rent, right?

The class of people like myself who don't own a home and we have to pay rent to a landlord every single month. Well, if that landlord gets their mortgage sort of put on moratorium, but we still have to pay rent checks, then sending us $1,000 or $2,000 a month means nothing because it's just going to immediately go into the hands of the upper class who owns these houses to begin with while their mortgages are taken care of.

So again, it's like this weird redistribution of wealth where, yeah, you get a check, but you got to turn around and pay your landlord that entire check immediately or you might be out of a fucking house. if they do that sort of unbalanced like mortgages moratorium but not a rent moratorium we're going to see really the predatory nature of landlords but as you said regardless of how this exactly goes there is a lot more power at this moment in people um you know with with withholding their rent and going on rent strikes one thing i am sort of worried about and i've seen this go around on social

media and it's worth saying because i know people's hearts are in the right place but just saying and just tweeting, April 1st, nobody pays their rent. Okay, that's easy to tweet, but there's no organizational capacity to back people up. There's no ability for people to step in and say, it's not just me saying no to my landlord, but this entire building saying no, that's where tenant organizations or ideally big mass parties could really come into, you know, utility here. But in lieu of that, just think twice about just screaming rent strike with no underlying capacity to organize and fight those fights because somebody says no mr landlord i'm not paying you my rent

because on twitter i saw that everybody's not doing it and he's like well every other tenant has already paid me so you either give me your fucking check or you're going to be homeless that's how it's actually going to play out in real life when people are individualized they're going to be more scared to act they're going to say i have to pay my rent because i can easily be picked out and and set aside and thrown out of my house. But if we have those organizations, people willing to fight those fights, people willing to bring a bunch of people together

and say, none of us are fucking paying our rent, that's when it becomes effective. So, you know, it's among everything else that this is revealing. It's revealing the limitations of only trying to organize online, of only trying to do these awareness campaigns and these, you know, flippant memes that it takes one second to retweet but mean fucking nothing. it's also unveiling that to be the sort of unaffective farce that it is.

And again, a lot of these people, your heart's in the right place. So I'm not shitting on anybody who has done this. I get what you're trying to do. But you've got to think deeply about two, three, four, five steps ahead and what that means for people. And I think that's really important now because we have to be extra responsible while people all around us fail to live up to their just sense of responsibility, especially the ruling class, the landlords, etc.

Yeah, I mean, with the face. post i was actually just discussing this was several people last night where i was sort of like you know like it is good that you're raising this idea on like a broader platform but if you share that post go talk to all your tenants who live in the same building with you like you know it's not going to do anything if they don't if you haven't like sat down or you know as we can't really sit down right now i guess if you haven't zoomed with each other and had a conversation making sure that you all understand that like yes you'll withhold and you will have each other's backs one facebook post isn't going to mean shit. It has to be localized, unfortunately. And it would be sick if we had the

infrastructure to make that a national campaign. But I just don't think the left does at this point. But you can set up that infrastructure in your building where you live. And that doesn't look like sharing a meme. It looks like talking to people and getting serious. And living in buildings is huge. I rent just an individual house from an individual landlord in a neighborhood. Some of those people around me own their house. Some rent from different landlords. It throws a wrinkle and how exactly to get a bunch of people together there. But living in big apartments or tenants, you know, almost most of the time, one company or one landlord owns that entire property.

And so you have a lot more leverage with everybody in your building. I was talking about putting out pamphlets to help people, you know, do their errands. Well, if you live in a certain building owned by one landlord or company, you can also say, hey, if we put all of our food, you know, all of our whatever, ammunition, our supplies, all of us come together and make sure we're all taking care. of when it comes to that stuff, then we can really come together and put pressure on our landlord that says we're not, we're not doing this. We're all striking as a cohesive unit, not as a bunch of atomized individuals who saw a tweet or a Facebook post. And so there's, there's some level

for creativity depending on what your exact situation is. And, you know, some people are going to find it harder to do one thing, but easier to do another. And that's where we have to sort of sit down, take stock of what you can do in your situation, and then go out and try to be as creative and helpful as possible without over-promising, without getting yourself involved in something that you can't possibly back up because the worst thing is to organize some sort of action that goes out. It's sort of done half-heartedly. Maybe half the people do it. Half the people don't. Then they turn to you who helped organize it and say, okay, now what? And you haven't thought that far ahead. Well, now you're just putting people in a shitty position. So that shouldn't discourage you

from organizing. It should only encourage you to organize in a responsible, creative, and thoughtful manner, I think. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And, you know, at the end of it, you know, as terrifying as all this is, I think there is some hope, right? Because I think it is true that the people who exploit us are also in a state of crisis right now in a lot of ways. It's going to hurt them way less bad, but it means that they're reliant on all of us in a way that they've never been before. The thing that people keep pointing out is like, look, who it is that is central to keeping our economy running. It's not CEOs. It is grocery clerks, right? It is the people doing things. these basic working class jobs, who we still have working, which means that the class has a level of leverage over this economy right now, that it has never had in such an acute way, perhaps, and that has been, you know, never perhaps like so bare for everyone to see. And so as scary as everything is, there also, I think, is a huge amount of hope that can come out of this if we are willing to respond to it correctly. Absolutely. Well, I've covered all of my main points. Do you have anything that you have left to say? Or if not, do you have a certain, anything you want to say to sort of wrap this up? Because we're almost at 70 minutes. And I don't want to make it so long that people don't listen. So. Right. Yeah. I mean, I guess all that I would say to wrap it up is that, you know, we are watching history happen. I think that is very much obvious. We talk about these hypothetical crises that shake capitalism to its core. And now we are alive during one of them. And we are watching the choice between, I think, fascism or socialism,

materialize before our eyes. And I think just now it's more important than ever that we be willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that it's socialism that comes out on top. This is a pivotal turning point in history, I think. And we have the burden and the privilege of getting participate in that. Absolutely. And I'll just echo that sentiment.

History is happening all around us. And it's manifesting itself through us. And as I said elsewhere, we're not the passive playthings of history, where the channels through which history is expressed and created. What is happening right now will be remembered for centuries to come. We are living through an profound time that will litter the history books of posterity long after everybody listening here is good and dead.

And so that requires from us to act in a way that is to the level of the historical moment that we are living through. And one of the reasons why Allison and I on both of our shows, Red Menace and Rev Left Radio, constantly think about history, talk about our comrades from the past, is precisely to humanize our project and to show that the feelings that we're feeling right now, the emotions, the decisions that we have to make, the uncertainty about what's going to happen, our comrades from the past have dealt with it. And the sort of feelings that we're feeling right now is what Rosa and what Che and what and what Lennon and what Mao felt at certain times throughout their lives and in the crises that

they were able to operate within. And that could serve as a way to anchor us to a much larger tradition than just ourselves to say, I might be feeling a bunch of feelings right now. I might be scared. I might have a little anxiety going on. I might be in full-blown panic. But I know that people in the past have dealt with things of this measure before, have felt these same feelings, have had to make these same decisions and that means that we are sort of human beings doing our best across space and time and we can look back to those who came before us, be inspired by them and think that you know what in the future, people are going to look back at what we are doing right now. And if we act in the right ways, if we take this chance to stand up and be courageous,

we could be an inspiration not only in the here and now to the people around us, but to people in the future looking back saying, wow, while this set of people were trying to profit relentlessly from the suffering and need of innocent human beings, this other group of people were organizing, taking care of each other, pointing out how this system needs to change and pushing it in a healthy socialist direction and not letting it fall into the hands of barbarians and fascists.

So I just wanted to reiterate that, you know, the waves of history are crashing down all around us and we must act accordingly. So with that said, Allison and I will keep doing this as long as we can. I think people are turning to, towards, you know, media folks and narratives on the left to sort of anchor themselves and help them understand and have the good analysis that hopefully, you know, outlets like us can

provide. So we'll keep showing up to this mic of people keep tuning in. And we don't want people to panic. We don't want people to be irresponsible. There is a middle ground you can take where you can be as responsible and educated as possible while still putting other people before yourself and helping others. And that's what we want to sort of advocate for. here. So stay safe out there. Help the people around you. Love and solidarity. We'll talk again soon. Oh my neighbor my neighbor at best for share a fence. We smile at each other and we make up all the rest. I see you six for two in the polyester suit safe behind a cabin down wondering if I'm around because who am I just some guy with the turban and a

And I'm only here to take away Only reason you're afraid There's no face There's no man behind the name I've started to believe My neighbor were the same La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La

My name, my name, my name, my only reason why my music stops at 10 p.m. Your rooster crows at 5 bits. So now I know we're together, not alone. If I borrow, would you share? If I suffer, would you care? Tell me who you praise, where you live. Let your children pray Hadaries clear into earth God forbid you ever heard Live forever more With a lock upon your door Close the windows, now the shade Never earn your neighbor's name

La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La Oh, la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la Oh, my neighbor, my neighbor, my neighbor, my neighbor.