Innehållsförteckning för April 6, 2020 från The Nation

@thenation.com The Rest Is Commentary Thank you for Joshua Leifer’s review of my book The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left From Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky [“A Tense Relationship,” February 24]. Though he did not like the book, I appreciate the seriousness and thoughtfulness of his review. However, I would like to clarify two things. Contrary to what Leifer writes, I do not criticize Chomsky for making “mistakes.” I criticize him—and document my statements thoroughly—for manufacturing entirely fictitious claims and then basing his political analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on them. There is a big difference between making mistakes and telling lies. The latter has always resulted in political and moral catastrophe for the left. Second, nowhere have I “somehow justified” the expulsion and massacre of the Palestinians in…

The 2020 primary election schedule is being upended by the coronavirus outbreak, and that should ring alarm bells for the November 3 general election that will decide not just the presidency but control of Congress and statehouses across the country. Steps must be taken now—major steps—to ensure not only that the November elections go ahead as planned, but also that they aim for the highest possible turnout by guaranteeing all Americans safe and secure procedures for casting their ballots. “No voter should have to choose between exercising their constitutional right and putting their health at risk,” says Senator Ron Wyden, who has proposed ambitious legislation that would require states and localities to develop and administer plans to operate elections in the face of “the very real threat looming this November.”…

In late 2010 a car struck Michelle DuBarry’s 22-month-old son, Seamus, in a crosswalk in Portland, Oregon. After two surgeries and a night in the pediatric intensive care unit, he died. Soon, the bills started coming. They arrived from the hospital and DuBarry’s insurer, each itemizing fragments of her toddler’s care—anesthesiologists, emergency room physicians, trauma surgeons, orthopedists, intensivists, lab tests, and the ambulance—each accompanied by amounts charged by the hospital or paid by her insurance company. The numbers didn’t always match. “I think anyone who’s been through something like that understands that you’re not really high functioning in the aftermath of a tragedy,” DuBarry told me by phone. “So to start getting the bills was just really bewildering…. You have to sort through this mountain of paperwork and try to…

Dear Readers, Normally the neigh-borhood around The Nation’s office—on Eighth Avenue, in the heart of New York’s Garment District—is one of the busiest, most crowded places on earth. But like so many other publications, we are now conducting all of our operations remotely. It is distressing to picture the bustling streets eerily quiet and our office vacant, but we are living in unprecedented times. We extend solidarity to the many businesses and workers—in particular, frontline care workers—who do not have the option to work remotely and who face either an uncertain financial future or unimaginable conditions as they labor to mitigate this crisis. For many of our editors and writers, working remotely is a familiar experience. But the isolation and loneliness of social distancing affects all of us, and spending…

To practice the virtues, you’ll need to askWhat a virtuous person would do in a situationLike this one, here in the health-food restaurant,After witnessing the young father, two tables away,Slap his son for spilling a glass of orange juice.Is it time to practice courage by boldlyConfronting the father for his fierce impatience?Or should a commitment to justice prompt youTo remain unnoticed so you can follow the pairWhen they leave the restaurant on the chanceOf including a license number or street addressIn your sharply worded report to Social Services?Or is the appropriate virtue here humility,The recognition you might do more harmBy having the boy placed in a foster family,Unless you could verify that his new parentsWould try as hard as you believe you would tryIf the boy were yours? Can you…

Join the conversation, every Thursday, on the Start Making Sense podcast. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or go to TheNation.com/StartMakingSense to listen today. STACEY ABRAMS MARGARET ATWOOD CHARLES M. BLOW SHERROD BROWN NOAM CHOMSKY GAIL COLLINS MIKE DAVIS ELIZABETH DREW BARBARA EHRENREICH DANIEL ELLSBERG FRANCES FITZGERALD ERIC FONER THOMAS FRANK HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. MICHELLE GOLDBERG AMY GOODMAN CHRIS HAYES MARGO JEFFERSON DAVID CAY JOHNSTON NAOMI KLEIN RACHEL KUSHNER VIET THANH NGUYEN NORMAN LEAR GREIL MARCUS JANE MAYER BILL MCKIBBEN WALTER MOSLEY JOHN NICHOLS LAWRENCE O’DONNELL LAURA POITRAS KATHA POLLITT ROBERT REICH JOY REID FRANK RICH ARUNDHATI ROY BERNIE SANDERS ANNA DEAVERE SMITH EDWARD SNOWDEN REBECCA SOLNIT MARGARET TALBOT CALVIN TRILLIN KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL YANIS VAROUFAKIS JOAN WALSH AMY WILENTZ GARY YOUNGE…

In March, Slate and the Marshall Project released the results from a political survey of 8,266 people incarcerated across the United States. 80% Percentage who said they believe politicians generally do not act in the interests of people like them 75% Percentage identifying as Republican who said they supported marijuana legalization and an increase in the minimum wage 45% Percentage of white inmates who said they would vote for Donald Trump if the election were held today—compared with 19 percent of nonwhite inmates 66% Percentage in prison for more than 21 years who said their political beliefs had changed since their incarceration began…

For nearly nine years now, we’ve had the honor of providing a cryptic crossword for every issue of The Nation. We’re only the third to do so in a lineage that dates back nearly unbroken to 1943—the oldest and longest-running cryptic crossword in the United States, by far. Our illustrious predecessor Frank W. Lewis constructed the Nation puzzle for more than 60 years. We had been devoted fans of his work since the 1970s, and we’ve tried to maintain his tradition of lively wit and wordplay while adding a few wrinkles of our own. But nothing lasts forever, and the next issue will have the final installment of the Nation cryptic. We’re grateful to the magazine for giving us this opportunity, to the readers who chose us as Frank’s successors,…

1- Cattle in the agriculture of a selfbesieged by the deceit of payback as insurance against extinction.There are other ways. Everything in moderation. The middlepath comes after violence. No point in whose brutality was on first,who balked, and who walked it home. 2- When we decipher memorywe’ll have created another memory: longing and reflex are foreverin the package insert. 3- What kind of yearning, and what response?You’re a tourist in your identity, from earthworms to diatoms,extraordinary exhibition of ordinary you behind love lines,all the way behind them. You weren’t parachuted in,you were born in—back against the wall, you screamed at grizzliesbut they were stuffed animals. 4- We sent emails, holograms, online petitions,“Maybe this, too, is love” we said to ourselves and they heard us think it,neo-Cupids who asked us “to…

ACROSS 1 Reverse damage involving single candelabra (7) 5 Wine and mead curdled nest egg (7) 9 Like Johnson, engage in beach activity while embracing former partner (5) 10 Steampunk walk in real life (9) 11 We hear Costello dispatch a piece of unfinished business (5,3) 12 Announce German vehicle for Venetian heiress (6) 14 Nobleman from European country seen in small American state (4) 15 Conceived anew, study beginning to investigate more smelly boomerangs (10) 18 Damned similar to Australia? (10) 19 Help to swallow cold drug (4) 22 Crescent-shaped instrument captivates North America (6) 24 Unholy crusades for lemons, perhaps (4,4) 26 Play with tailless miniature (a feline) (9) 27 Ominous-sounding name for a storied pair? (5) 28 Shameful cop-outs for army animal? (7) 29 In front of…

The coronavirus crisis has helped popularize an essential truth: There are no libertarians in a pandemic. The rapid spread of Covid-19 is already ripping apart both America’s fragile health care system and its economy. The stock market crash is merely the first symptom of what will soon be a system-wide crisis, one that could rival not just 2008 but also 1929. A vaccine could be 18 to 24 months off. If so, we’re likely to see not a single global outbreak but a series of waves, as with the Spanish flu at the end of World War I. That would keep the economy sputtering for months. In reaction to the pandemic, even very conservative politicians are embracing sweeping responses. In the Senate, Mitt Romney has called for the government to…

The coronavirus is spreading across our economy every bit as much as it is spreading across our communities. As businesses shutter and travel bans go into effect, a recession is almost certain. To lessen the crash and its very real human impact, Democrats in Congress must take immediate action. There are three essential aspects to the stimulus plan we urgently need right now: It should be bold and equitable, it should automatically renew, and its temporary programs should be able to evolve into more permanent ones. Each of these would help address the threat that hangs over the economy: that we will repeat the mistakes of the Great Recession. That recession started in December 2007 and technically ended after two years—but 13 years later, we still aren’t sure if unemployment…

Are you looking around for home entertainment now that you can’t go out? The other night, we watched Contagion, a really exciting (that is, stressful and upsetting) movie from way back in 2011 in which a pandemic kills millions of people but is ultimately defeated by a black guy, a Jewish guy, and the three most beautiful women in the world. Social distancing is mentioned as the best protection, by the way, so you can’t say you weren’t warned. Mostly, though, I’ve been catching up on the classics. For example, Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, an early example of the nonfiction novel, written in 1722 about London’s Great Plague of 1665. After a slow start—the novel begins with a lot of statistics to establish its factual reliability—it…

IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, THE SEAbed drops to depths of more than 17,000 feet, forming the most stunning geological feature of the Mediterranean basin: the Hellenic Trench, an approximately 400-mile-long, crescent-shaped abyss stretching from western Greece to Turkey, where powerful earthquakes are born and rare marine creatures find refuge. These days, the western edge of the Hellenic Trench represents a stark divide between two opposing worlds: In the west, Italy, Croatia, France, and Spain have banned or are in the process of banning new offshore hydrocarbon extraction as a way of safeguarding the fragile Mediterranean environment and combating climate change. In the east, Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey are locked in a growing geopolitical competition, staking conflicting claims to marine areas containing possible hydrocarbon reserves while warships defend vessels prospecting for…