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Black Activists Protect Michigan Lawmakers amid
Anti-Lockdown Protests, Now This News, 5/8/2020

COVID-19 and US White Supremacy

White Supremacy in the 21st first century, especially in the US, has a distinctly suicidal flavor it did not appear to have in the 19th. States with a high degree of white supremacy, a main motivating factor in the election of Trump, also have high rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, opioid/meth addiction, and anti-scientism, all key features in the current white supremacy cultural complex. These are the same areas that feature stronger anti-lockdown protests and whose governors tend to reject taking the pandemia seriously. The classic marxist analysis ties all of this to wealthy elites who wish to maximize their money and power, and this is a driving factor behind the poor quality of life the white supremacists are experiencing thanks to loss of jobs, poor health care and other features of US elite social engineering. However, the classic analysis needs enhacements as it does not explain the poor choices, the lowering of mental abilities among the white supremacist majority in white America.

Anti-lockdown "movement": Powered by racism 5/4/2020 Salon: "But as with so much of the horror show that is unfolding in the era of Trump, the rot runs deeper than political expediency. There's obviously something deeply compelling to white identity ideologues about the idea that this virus is a hoax concocted by the "deep state," beyond their desire to defend Trump. The far right has grown increasingly hostile to the government in the face of social programs — most recently Obamacare — that they view as redistributing money from "deserving" white people to people of color. All the bellyaching about "tyranny" and patriotic cosplay is about creating a moral justification for anti-government views that are rooted in racist resentment and xenophobia. The lockdown protests are about further enshrining their hatred of Democrats, and their reluctance to pay taxes or share public goods with nonwhite people, as resistance to "tyranny."

Articles/Artículos

Trump Demanded Churches Re-Open After Polls Found ‘Staggering Decline’ in Support From Christian Conservatives: Report  5/22/2020 The New Civil Rights Movement: "Declaring there is “alarm inside his campaign,” Politico cited a “person close to the campaign” who “described an April survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, which showed a double-digit decline in Trump’s favorability among white evangelicals (-11), white Catholics (-12) and white mainline protestants (-18) from the previous month, as ‘pretty concerning.'”"

La gripe española de 1918 y el ascenso del nazismo: tomen nota  5/22/2020 Publico: "Desde hace unos días sabemos un poco más sobre el ascenso del nazismo en Alemania pues un economista de la Reserva Federal de Nueva York, Kristian Blickle, ha publicado un estudio, todavía en versión preliminar, en el que se demuestra la gran influencia que la pandemia de gripe española tuvo en el éxito posterior de Adolf Hitler (puede leerse aquí)."

The next death wave from COVID-19 will be the poor, rural and white  5/22/2020 Alternet: "Then came April 7, when the New York Times ran a front-page story with the headline: “Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States.” Across the American media landscape, similar headlines appeared at other outlets, and the story was heavily reported on cable news and the network news that night. American conservatives responded with a collective, “What the hell?!?” Rush Limbaugh declared soon after that “with the coronavirus, I have been waiting for the racial component.” And here it was. “The coronavirus now hits African Americans harder—harder than illegal aliens, harder than women. It hits African Americans harder than anybody, disproportionate representation.”"

Pandemics Change Cities: Municipal Spending and Voter Extremism in Germany, 1918-1933  5/20/2020 NY Fed: "We merge several historical data sets from Germany to show that influenza mortality in 1918-1920 is correlated with societal changes, as measured by municipal spending and city-level extremist voting, in the subsequent decade. First, influenza deaths are associated with lower per capita spending, especially on services consumed by the young. Second, influenza deaths are correlated with the share of votes received by extremist parties in 1932 and 1933. Our election results are robust to controlling for city spending, demographics, war-related population changes, city-level wages, and regional unemployment, and to instrumenting influenza mortality. We conjecture that our findings may be the consequence of long-term societal changes brought about by a pandemic."

How People Are ‘Dying of Whiteness’ Amid COVID-19  5/17/2020 Now This News: "In US news and current events today, professor and doctor at Vanderbilt University Dr. Jonathan Metzl says that the COVID-19 pandemic is exposing another type of crisis in America: people are dying from whiteness. Metzl further explains what he means by this by saying, 'The GOP is making the lives of its own support base expendable'. Jonathan Metzl is the Director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University and the author of the book 'Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America's Heartland'. "

Fight breaks out at Michigan anti-lockdown protests  5/15/2020 CBS: "Protesters demonstrated at Michigan's state capitol Thursday to voice their opposition to statewide stay-at-home orders. Michigan's governor says she's concerned about the racist undertones of those protests."

Coronavirus restrictions fuel anti-government ‘boogaloo’ movement  5/13/2020 Fox: "The coronavirus pandemic has become a catalyst for the “boogaloo” movement because the stay-at-home orders have “put a stressor on a lot of very unhappy people,” said J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. MacNab said their rhetoric goes beyond discussions about fighting virus restrictions — which many protesters brand as “tyranny” — to talking about killing FBI agents or police officers “to get the war going.” “They are far more graphic and far more specific in their threats than I’ve seen in a long time,” she said."

What Trump’s refusal to wear a mask says about masculinity in America\  5/12/2020 Vox: "One man says: “It’s submission, it’s muzzling yourself, it looks weak - especially for men.”"

Anti-lockdown protests are imploding — because the Koch network has soured on them: Columnist  5/12/2020 Raw Story: "“The protesters began losing steam when the Koch network, underwriters of the tea party movement from a decade ago, decided to run with scientists instead of the gun-toting provocateurs trampling the spring-green grass around state capitols,” wrote Parker. “The chief executive of Americans for Prosperity, the main political arm of the network, said the group prefers working with doctors, data crunchers and public policy leaders to create guidelines for a safe and staggered reopening of American businesses.”"

Gov. Whitmer tells Mike Pence in leaked call that Michigan anti-lockdown protesters spread COVID-19 to rural areas  5/12/2020 Raw Story: "Some protesters who descended on the Michigan state capitol to demand the state reopen the economy in spite of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic have spread infections in rural areas where they live, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told Vice President Mike Pence in a recorded phone conversation obtained by ABC News. Whitmer, a Democrat, asked Pence to discourage the demonstrations after the state’s data suggested the protesters brought COVID-19 back to their rural communities. “We have seen from initial protests here is that we’ve got COVID-19 spreading in rural parts of our state, from which people traveled,” Whitmer reportedly told Pence."

60 Minutes Airs Devastating Report on ‘Disinformation Campaign’ Hampering Virus Response; Trump Responds  5/11/2020 Mediaite: "The segment began with a look at Daszak’s history of studying viruses, along with his concerns expressed in 2003 that the global community is unprepared for the emergence of a radical new virus that could devastate the planet. Since that prediction, Daszak became president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit scientific organization that has worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the past to study pathogens originating from bats. Pelley reported that a “political disinformation campaign” caused EcoHealth to lose their funding from the National Institutes of Health just two weeks ago."

Security guard suffers broken arm after confrontation over masks inside Van Nuys Target  5/11/2020 ABC: [Two white men attack Black and Brown security guards.]

Black Gun Rights Group Armed with Rifles Escorts Michigan Lawmaker Into Capitol to Make Statement About Second Amendment and African-Americans  5/11/2020 Atlanta Black Star: "Michael Lynn Jr., a Black Lansing firefighter and community activist who helped organize Anthony’s security detail, said he suspected that cops would’ve been a bit more cautious — and perhaps violent — had his group been as boisterous as some of the crowds last week. His hoped that Wednesday’s escort changed the narrative to prove that Second Amendment rights aren’t limited on the basis of race."

Pence Had CEOs Remove Masks Before Meeting With Him Just Hours After His Press Secretary Tested Positive for COVID-19  5/10/2020 The New Civil Rights Movement: [White supremacy in the 21st century is all about suicide.]

Unmasked in Iowa: CEOs Who Came to Meet Pence in Masks Were Asked to Remove Them  5/9/2020 The Intercept: "After the event, at which the chief executive of Smithfield Foods choked up when mentioning the death of a worker from Covid-19, the union that represents Iowa meat-packers, who have been forced back to work by an executive order from the president despite outbreaks at their plants, suggested that it would have been more useful for Pence, Perdue, Grassley and Ernst to have worked a shift alongside them. “They should work in the same conditions and under the same fear that our members and their fellow Iowans work under every day,” the United Food and Commercial Workers union said in a statement."

The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying  5/8/2020 Atlantic: "The coronavirus epidemic has rendered the racial contract visible in multiple ways. Once the disproportionate impact of the epidemic was revealed to the American political and financial elite, many began to regard the rising death toll less as a national emergency than as an inconvenience. Temporary measures meant to prevent the spread of the disease by restricting movement, mandating the wearing of masks, or barring large social gatherings have become the foulest tyranny. The lives of workers at the front lines of the pandemic—such as meatpackers, transportation workers, and grocery clerks—have been deemed so worthless that legislators want to immunize their employers from liability even as they force them to work under unsafe conditions. In East New York, police assault black residents for violating social-distancing rules; in Lower Manhattan, they dole out masks and smiles to white pedestrians."

‘Get Back to Work!’ Is the Clarion Call of White Christian Nationalism  5/7/2020 Black Commentator: ""As the racial, class and demographic implications of the coronavirus are in full view, eugenics dictates that the elderly, prisoners, people of color, immigrants and poor and working folks who are vulnerable and unable to work at home via Zoom are expendable. Once again, white Christian nationalists prioritize profits over lives. This time, they worship an unholy triumvirate of the Golden Calf, White Jesus and Donald Trump.""

She Said Anthony Fauci Sexually Assaulted Her. Now She Says Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman Paid Her to Lie.  5/7/2020 Reason: ""Mother Nature has to clean the barn every so often," Burkman counters. "How real is it? Who knows? So what if 1 percent of the population goes? So what if you lose 400,000 people? Two hundred thousand were elderly, the other 200,000 are the bottom of society. You got to clean out the barn. If it's real, it's a positive thing, for God's sake.""

Armed black citizens escort Michigan lawmaker to capitol after volatile rightwing protest  5/7/2020 Guardian: "A black lawmaker came to Michigan’s capitol with an escort of armed black citizens on Wednesday, days after white protesters with guns staged a volatile protest inside the state house, comparing the Democratic governor’s public health orders to “tyranny”. The state representative Sarah Anthony, 36, said she wanted to highlight what she saw as the failure of the Michigan capitol police to provide legislators with adequate security during the protest, which saw demonstrators with rifles standing in the legislative chamber above lawmakers."

Why Trump and Anti-Lockdown Protesters’ Calls to Return to Normal Are Acts of White Supremacy  5/7/2020 IMI: "Ending lockdowns too early will kill more Americans—it’s that simple, and even the government’s own agencies project such a scenario. President Donald Trump has admitted it, saying, “Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.” Except that ending the lockdowns now will specifically kill far more African Americans than any other demographic. The health news website MedPage referred to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on blacks as a, “Wildly disproportionate mortality.” Researchshows that African Americans are dying from COVID-19 at a rate that is, “2.3 times higher than the rate for Asians and Latinos, and 2.6 times higher than the rate for Whites.” In fact, whites are the least impacteddemographic in the nation. In New York City, the national epicenter of the disease, the same racialized outcomes are observed, with more African Americans being hospitalized and dying from the disease than any other racial group, followed by Latinos. Black and brown Americans are also more impacted financially by the virus-related lockdown. A Pew Research survey found that African Americans and Latinos were far more likely to lose their jobs and lack the savings to cover their expenses than whites."

COVID-19: Open Defiance and the Reality of White Privilege  5/7/2020 Black Commentator: ""Vast segments of the right-wing media have avidly lauded the increasingly abrasive activity that is occurring among the more aggressive sectors of the cultural right by using the word 'boogaloo,' a prominent term among anarchists across the political spectrum, in particular the varied elements of the far right, who have been increasingly and passionately agitating for a racial civil war.""

Anti-lockdown "movement": Powered by racism  5/4/2020 Salon: "But as with so much of the horror show that is unfolding in the era of Trump, the rot runs deeper than political expediency. There's obviously something deeply compelling to white identity ideologues about the idea that this virus is a hoax concocted by the "deep state," beyond their desire to defend Trump. The far right has grown increasingly hostile to the government in the face of social programs — most recently Obamacare — that they view as redistributing money from "deserving" white people to people of color. All the bellyaching about "tyranny" and patriotic cosplay is about creating a moral justification for anti-government views that are rooted in racist resentment and xenophobia. The lockdown protests are about further enshrining their hatred of Democrats, and their reluctance to pay taxes or share public goods with nonwhite people, as resistance to "tyranny." "

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Situation Update  5/4/2020 Cryptome: [Many "elevasted incidence growth" areas in the South and the Midwest.]

What are the ‘reopen’ protesters really saying?  5/1/2020 The Conversation: "One clearly visible theme in the #Reopen protests is how white the attendees are – but not just in terms of their own race. Their compassion also seemed limited to fellow white people. None that I saw were calling attention to the fact that the coronavirus doesn’t hit all populations equally: Blacks and other racial minorities had less access to high-quality health care before the outbreak, and as a result are less healthy and less able to fight off the virus when it strikes."

COVIDeniers: Anti-Science Coronavirus Denial Overlaps with Climate Denial  4/22/2020 Desmog: "These are dangerous operatives at work spreading all manner of doubt and delusion to confuse the public, and their actions and words will forever cement them on the wrong side of history. Explore the report materials below, and please contact DeSmog with any other examples of COVID denial you come across."

The Roger Stone Network is Active on COVID-19 Messaging  4/21/2020 Washington Monthly: "One member is protesting social distancing and another is the new spokesperson for Secretary Alex Azar."

The Same People Who Peddle Climate Denial Are Behind Coronavirus Pseudoscience  4/20/2020 Gizmodo: "Some of that misinformation has been crafted to foster doubt about government responses to the pandemic. Some fossil fuel industry-backed climate deniers are now claiming that the pandemic is a plot by “globalist elites” like Bill Gates and George Soros to alternately force vaccines or function as a “world population cull.” Other schemes use misinformation to exploit people’s fear. Organisations that previously argued that plastic bag bans were hysterical overreaches by the climate movement, for instance, are now misrepresenting scientific studies to advocate for an end plastic bag bans to stop the spread of coronavirus. Many of those same organisations, like the Manhattan Institute and Heartland Institute – US-based conservative think tanks – have also received fossil fuel company money."

The GOP has become a death cult  4/17/2020 Alternet: "“Long live death!” That was the defiant cry of José Millán-Astray y Terreros, a general in Francisco Franco’s fascist army during the Spanish civil war. It could just as well suit Trump’s foot soldiers."

Meet the right-wing groups protesting against social distancing and stay-at-home orders: report  4/17/2020 Alternet: “While protesters in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and other states claim to speak for ordinary citizens, many are also supported by street-fighting right-wing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right,” Wilson explains.

How the coronavirus pandemic shows that Christian white nationalism is a much greater threat to the US than radical Islam  4/17/2020 Alternet: "Islamist terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda encourage suicide bombing, which — as countless anti-terror Muslims will point out — is an insult to Islam because the Qu’ran is very anti-suicide. For that matter, Christianity is equally anti-suicide. And yet, the Christian Right and many of President Donald Trump’s far-right white evangelical supporters have been encouraging behavior that is suicidal. When far-right white evangelicals, white nationalists and coronavirus truthers rail against social distancing and encourage large gatherings, they are encouraging suicidal behavior. And there have been many examples."

Louisiana Pastor - If Parishioners Die After Contracting COVID-19 ... It's a Sacrifice for God and Freedom!!!  4/8/2020 TMZ: "Tony Spell, leader of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, tells TMZ ... he thinks true Christians do not mind dying from COVID-19. He insists that what they fear instead is living in fear. As he puts it, "People that can prefer tyranny over freedom do not deserve freedom." He's also not flinching at medical experts suggesting most of the nation will eventually contract the virus, even if only mildly. Spell's reaction is, "Let's get on with life.""

The rightwing Christian preachers in deep denial over Covid-19's danger  4/4/2020 Guardian: "André Gagne, an associate professor of theological studies at Concordia University, and a researcher of the Christian right, recently published on the phenomenon of coronavirus denialism among evangelicals. Asked why evangelical leaders are committed to taking such a risk in denying the reality of the infection, or even assisting its spread, Gagne said it was rooted in their theology. “Many of these preachers believe Christians shouldn’t be controlled by a ‘spirit of fear’,” Gagne said. “They often quote biblical texts which promise God’s healing and protection to those who have faith. They are confident that God is in control; that this is part of his overall plan before a great end-times spiritual revival.” He said: “There are those who also understand this in terms of ‘spiritual warfare’, and that Jesus gave Christians authority over every demon and sickness. And if a Christian dies, no worries: he or she will ‘be with the Lord’.”"

The South Doesn’t Want to Self-Isolate  4/2/2020 Washington Monthly: "Whether religiosity explains it, or a probably related skepticism toward scientific expert advice, or maybe something to do with their car culture, I don’t know. But their slowness to respond to this outbreak has undermined the effectiveness of the efforts of the areas that did respond. And, because of the nature of this disease, we’re all going to be paying for that for the foreseeable future."

Man under investigation for plotting an attack at a hospital believed to be treating Covid-19 patients was killed during an FBI investigation  3/25/2020 CNN: "The suspect, who hasn't been identified by authorities, was the subject of a months-long investigation into alleged white supremacist activity, and recently had made threats the FBI took seriously, the sources said. Among the threats was one to carry out an attack on a hospital in the Kansas City, Missouri, area, where he lived, in part because of the belief that patients may be treated there for the Covid-19 virus."