Coop Scoop April 4; The Blood On His Hand Edition

THE BLOOD IS ON HIS HANDS EDITION

ISSUE #14
APRIL 4 2020
COOPSCOOPNEWS@GMAIL.COM


The Five O'Clock Follies

As we continue to rudderlessly get carried down the river to darker and darker times, I must admit that it is difficult writing a succinct or insightful newsletter as all one feels is outrage, outrage and more outrage – and that’s just before lunchtime on any given day.

I’m giving credit to the creaky institution of a shrunken newspaper’s editorial board for providing the most clarity this week. The Boston Globe said it most glumly and most accurately:

“Catastrophic decisions in the White House have doomed the world’s richest country to a season of untold suffering…

While the spread of the novel coronavirus has been aggressive around the world, much of the profound impact it will have here in the United States was preventable. As the American public braces itself for the worst of this crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure of leadership…

The months the administration wasted with prevarication about the threat and its subsequent missteps will amount to exponentially more COVID-19 cases than were necessary. In other words, the president has blood on his hands….

For our own sake, every American should be hoping for a miraculous turnaround — and that the too-little, too-late strategy of the White House task force will henceforth at least prevent contagion and economic ruin of the grandest scale. But come November, there must be a reckoning for the lives lost, and for the vast, avoidable suffering about to ensue under the president’s watch.”

Sometimes the stay at home experience feels like upscale solitary confinement. Locked up all day and night and allowed only one hour of recreation a day; namely the televised Five P.M. Follies where the worst, most ignorant president in American history gets up and jives and improvises, ad-libs, lies and spreads confusion about the nature of the pandemic, blames others for his glaring failures and at the same time never ever admits that something is really awry in the country.

It’s all good, he tells us, it’s all taken care of, even if the other 23 hrs a day are filled with harrowing reports of mayors, governors, medical workers and staff literally begging for the federal government to deliver needed emergency supplies.

And when asked about this, the President blithely answers that as far as he is concerned it’s every state for itself. Good luck and leave me the fuck alone!

As the Globe put it:

Americans] have a White House marred by corruption and incompetence, whose mixed messages roil the markets and rock their sense of security. Instead of compassion and clarity, the president, in his near-daily addresses to the nation, embodies callousness, self-concern, and a lack of compass. Dangling unverified cures and possible quarantines in front of the public like reality TV cliffhangers, he unsettles rather than reassures. The pandemic reveals that the worst features of this presidency are not merely late-night comedy fodder; they come at the cost of lives, livelihoods, and our collective psyche.

Not to say there are not true moments of comic relief during some of the briefings. Like when Dr. Fauci gets up and in his small frame and wrestler’s voice calmly, coolly, and deftly slaps down some off the wall comment just made by the president standing at his side. Or how about that appearance the other day by the Idiot-Son-in-Law, Jared Kushner architect of a durable Middle East peace, who told us that the emergency U.S. stockpile is “for us, not for the states.” I have no way of describing this. If you do, let me know.

What I THINK is emerging from these daily clown shows are the vague outlines of a retooled re-election strategy. This is somewhat speculative, but not much. I think even the President has been stripped bare of any rationale for re-election. His hollow economic miracle has evaporated in a cloud of toxic droplets and when it comes to Making America Great Again, the most he can now claim is that he has made us have the greatest number of confirmed cases and deaths of any country in the world (and as I write there are still a handful of cracker southern and mid-western Republican governors who are frankly too stupid or too religious –or both—to close down their states claiming some sort of invisible divine umbrella.

So now the prez is slowly building a new narrative. He went on endlessly this week of how if he had “done nothing” there were would have been some 2.2 million deaths. And now, because of his great, tremendous, terrific response there might only be 200,000 deaths. At the same time, he is escalating his attacks on US medical workers, implying that they are hoarding and STEALING crucial equipment and thereby creating the shortages that he doesn’t really acknowledge otherwise. And as to the origins of this rapid spread, why now you see, according to the president, it’s because the states themselves, the governors and mayors were just not prepared and were ignoring warnings about this.

So come November, Trump can proudly stand on a pile of 200,000 rotting corpses and claim that only because of him the casualty rate was only 10 percent of what it might have been. And in the meantime, he set those governors straight with his decisive action.

The reality, of course, is miles apart. It was a full 70 days between the time U.S. intelligence warned Trump of the danger coming from the outbreak in China until he actually, begrudgingly and suddenly recognized the emergency of the pandemic. Seventy days of shame, of ruin, pain and death.. paving the way for tens of thousands of deaths still to come.

The whole snafu, to be polite, (shit sandwich is more to the point) of missing and flawed tests, the availability of the tests, to wear or not wear a mask are all vaguely hilarious as nobody really knows where any of these things are. Trump promising that everybody will soon be tested, and all the equipment will be in place tomorrow or next week is like Leonid Breshnev in 1980 promising the imminent withering away of the state!

He’s not one of my favorite writers by any stretch, but William Saletan of Slate writes the bill of indictment:

“Throughout the crisis, Trump’s behavior has been selfish and partisan. He has blamed states for their own suffering. He has sent aid more promptly to some states than to others. He has demanded praise from governors and has refused to speak to those who, in his view, are insufficiently “appreciative.” He has refused to interact with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He invited no Democrats to his signing of a bipartisan financial relief bill. As body bags pile up, Trump has used daily White House briefings—which are supposed to be about the virus—to complain that he’s mistreated by the press. On Thursday, after Democrats called for congressional oversight of the administration’s multiple failures in responding to the virus, he accused them of undermining America’s war against “this enemy.”
Saletan says Trump like to posture as a bold, strongman and that’s why he continues to tout his early suspension of incoming flights from China. His favorite lie says Saletan is repeating how he was the lone voice in making this decision. In fact, it was the other way around,
“”Trump was reluctant to impose the travel ban. His aides had to push him into it. And instead of following up with virus control measures inside the United States, he used the travel ban as an excuse to do nothing more.”

.”
Saletan says Trump like to posture as a bold, strongman and that’s why he continues to tout his early suspension of incoming flights from China. His favorite lie says Saletan is repeating how he was the lone voice in making this decision. In fact, it was the other way around,
“”Trump was reluctant to impose the travel ban. His aides had to push him into it. And instead of following up with virus control measures inside the United States, he used the travel ban as an excuse to do nothing more.””

Saletan is onto something here but does not go far enough. Isn’t Trump the guy who believes he is an unbounded genius and Superman? Doesn’t he and his despicable toadies like Bill Barr and Justice Kavanaugh believe in a “unitary executive” in which the President of the United States has and should exercise nearly unlimited power?

Then why has the president continued to avoid slamming the private sector with the DPA? Why isn’t he commandeering the needed supplies in this “war time “scenario? Why, for heaven’s sake, has he not federalized, nationalized or intervened directly into the national medical supply chain? Why has he permitted the atrocity of states bidding against each other and against FEMA to buy supplies – which by the way, thanks to 40 years of bi-partisan de-industrialization are now made almost wholly in, you guessed it, China. Why hasn’t the president appointed ONE totally credible and prepared Flu Czar who oversees this whole operation so we at least know who the fuck is in charge?

Look at the action taken by Phil Murphy, Governor of New Jersey. He has ordered the State Police to seize and commandeer masks, ventilators, and other PPE wherever they found. That’s leadership. You ask why wouldn’t the president be attracted to scale that up to a national level and actually do something worthwhile?

My answer: the president knows he’s getting toasted; the water is so far above his head he simultaneously has no idea what to do but will not listen to those who do. In short, I think Donald Trump is scared shitless and the last thing he wants is to fully “own” this crisis. He does NOT want to be the center of power and decision and be under constant scrutiny. He just wants to shoot his mouth off in public every day.

Let’s quickly review some of thins promised this week that are already transitioning into the make-believe category.

The president spent several days hyping the new simplified covid-19 test from Abbot Labs with the administration saying Abbot would hand have a half million right away. Turns out the real number is five thousand, one percent of what was promised.

Then there’s the extended unemployment insurance promised in the $2.2 trillion bill last week. Oops. Trump has added a rule so that as many as 75% of workers will NOT get any support.

About those SBA loans to bail out small businesses, loans secured by and backed by the US govt. Well, the banks have a different idea than Trump and they want to make more than the 1% interest so they have set up their own rules. Bottom line is that small biz owners are now in limbo and don’t if and when or how they will get a loan.
One study projects 43% of American small businesses will never re-open.

And as a cynic might predict, the $500b in funds set aside for corporate bailouts that the Democrats claimed were “worker-first” are not. The so-called strings attached to the funding to keep big business from using the money for, say, stick buy backs and enrichment of their executives are made of gossamer. I’ll cut to the chase and read you the simple lead from Politico:

Most big companies that take advantage of the $500 billion corporate bailout in last week’s coronavirus relief bill are unlikely to face restrictions against firing workers or giving bonuses to executives, according to officials familiar with the program.

INTO THE ABYSS

Ten million workers filed for unemployment in the last 2 weeks. That’s probably half the real number. And here’s going to be more and more. No, we are not in a recession. We are already in a depression. When everything is closed, when nobody is working, when nothing is getting produced, what else do you call it, even if it analogous to a self-induced coma, which is still a coma.

The press, IMHO, has done piss poor job in reporting the coming consequences of the economic downturn. With some exceptions it has been too short sighted, too much reluctance to gaze ahead more than a month two. Not that I blame anybody because it ain’t a pretty sight,

A recent study from the Federal Reserve in St. Louis projects that in late spring and early summer a mind boggling 47 million Americans could lose their jobs sending the unemployment rate to 32%. Added to those already out of work we might be looking at something like 53 million out of work.
Cable TV business touts who still promise a V shaped recovery i.e. a very sharp dip and a near immediate rebound are delusional. Serious economists agree that while we don’t yet know just how dark things will get, at a minimum it will take years to recover from this hit. Indeed, the earliest signs of a housing market crisis are beginning to appear, and those banks, those wonderful big banks, are starting to sweat over a projected 30% foreclosure rate.

But not to worry! Nancy Pelosi says her team is already working on a “Phase 4” piece of legislation to bolster federal aid to workers and states. Mitch McConnell has also, reluctantly agreed to work on something, but with less urgency, Mitch took a shot a Pelosi telling her he was not going to let her use the new relief bill as a vehicle for “Democrat agenda” issues. Translation: he doesn’t want to hear much about building new infrastructure, about reforming the completely broken medical care industry, more family leave etc.

This is to be expected from the part-time Senate leader and part-time tobacco lobbyist. What is disheartening, if not also predictable, was Pelosi’s own immediate capitulation. In other words, the Dems have agreed in advance to keep the next bill narrow. To hell with reform. The same way Joe Biden said the other day, idiotically, that in the midst of this crisis he is no more inclined to free universal health care than he ever was. Here’s Pelosi: “While I’m very much in favor of doing some things we need to do to meet the needs — clean water, more broadband, the rest of that — that may have to be for a bill beyond this,” the California Democrat said in an interview Friday on CNBC. She talked about focusing in a fourth response on providing more direct payments to Americans and extending unemployment insurance.
At other points in history, natural disasters and the failure of governments to meet those crises have resulted in social disorder and change. The 1972 earthquake that levelled the Nicaraguan capital of Managua that was followed by the Somoza regime stealing much of the relief money and leaving the city in ruins, led directly to revolution 7 years later.

The monster1985 quake that tumbled vast parts of Mexico City and the inability of the govt to deal with it, led to immediate self-organization of the citizenry to help themselves and was the first crack that led to the crumbling of the ruling PRI dictatorship the following decade.

I am not expecting revolution here any time. And admittedly it is hard to conjure up how exactly self-actualized Americans could take this issue into their own hands, other than running sand buggies over the morons littering the beaches of Florida.

At some point, however, the bill is going to come due for this tragedy. And with a whole lot of interest charges. No one can any longer argue with credibility that a private medical system, a private childcare system, a lack of workplace rights, and a government run by aging millionaires and plutocrats should be our future.

With tens if not hundreds of thousands of dead around him, an economy in smoking ruins, millions out of work and in food lines (that have already appeared at myriad food banks), Donald Trump is a very very long shot to win re-election.

He will be gone, but he will leave us a deeply scarred and deeply wounded society. Even if once again “normal” we will still have the Two Americas – of the privileged and the hard-pressed to deal with as always – just a whole lot worse. And we will inherit a zombie system already in its afterlife. Believing that the election of a Democratic president alone will solve THESE issues is willful ignorance. Getting rid of Trump is not the answer to anything unless the American people assume the historic responsibility of serious engagement with their own history and certainly their future and begin to create it, rather than continuing to hope some gallant politician will just deliver it. -+-