We are Living in a Failed State - George Packer, the Atlantic

[superpatriotman]

From the June, 2020 issue:

...Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state. With no national plan—no coherent instructions at all—families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter. When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power—a beggar nation in utter chaos...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share

PLEASE READ AND SHARE

[dalton99a]

1. It is a kakistocracy led by the worst of the worst.

[SoonerPride]

2. +1

[young_at_heart]

3. How many deaths will it take

for Republicans to wake up?

[Nay]

13. When they don't care about millions dying, there are no number of deaths that can be 'enough.'

[Aristus]

4. This is what the Republicans have been working for for the last forty years.

The end of America.

I guess all that flag-waving and anthem-singing was a smokescreen. We got taken in by the worst kind of pseudo-patriotism.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. If it fails, it fails because Uglicans try SO HARD to make it fail.

They don't believe gov't SHOULD work, so they force practice to match their "principles".

[redstatebluegirl]

6. The GOP only wants the rich to survive.

[Zoonart]

7. The is spot on.

She this around folks.

[niyad]

8. KNR

[kairos12]

9. Disagree. Shithole country is more like it.

[Chainfire]

10. You folks are wrong

The state has not failed those it serves.

If you happen to be one of the vast majority that it does not serve, too bad, so sorry, get back to work.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. This.

[SouthernCal_Dem]

12. K&R!

[bronxiteforever]

14. To the Greatest Page. K&R. Essential reading.

Thank you for posting.

[LuvNewcastle]

15. This is excellent, and worth reading in full.

Packer does a great job exposing the players behind this mess we have, especially Jared Kushner. I wish Fox viewers were required to read this article, but I know they won't. Too much truth for them.

[crickets]

16. K&R for visibility.

[SouthernCal_Dem]

17. I've read this article twice now

Perhaps the best analysis of our current situation that I've ever read.

Brilliant.

[Larissa]

18. Riveted by every word

Reading this article bolted me to my chair. We knew all of this: we live it and know it every day. But Packer crystallized it.

[superpatriotman]

20. Agreed

He was on M$NBC this a.m. and I wanted to reach into the screen to shake his hand (gloved!)

[erronis]

19. A great follow-up article from Marcy Wheeler:

https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/04/23/long-overdue-policies-that-look-obvious-in-the-age-of-pandemic/

I’m not usually a fan of George Packer. But I keep coming back to this column, We Are Living in a Failed State. The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken, which is something I might have written. It argued that this pandemic, to which the US responded like a corrupt poor country, was actually the third crisis of this century, and our responses to the previous two — 9/11 and the Iraq War, and the Wall Street crisis — simply brought this country to the place where Trump could loot it.

[superpatriotman]

21. All good points

medicare for all
universal basic income
decarceration
deindustrialization of the food system
broadband as utility
progressive industrial policy (bringing back small manufacturing)