No meals out at restaurants, no movies, no gatherings here
at Carolina Meadows of more than twenty people, no NBA, no March Madness. Beleaguered, bereft, marooned, house bound, I
watched the debate last night, or at least the first hour.
The contest for the nomination is over. Biden won the debate hands down. He stood tall, he smiled, he radiated Oval
Office confidence, he had plans, he expressed concern, he was what America
yearns for in these dark days. Bernie only
had one thing going for him, and it was not nearly enough. He told the truth, and Biden lied through his
teeth.
Now I must do whatever I can to distance myself and my wife from the virus. The data gathered worldwide thus far indicate that people in our risk group who contract the virus have a 15-20% probability of dying from it. We shall have to postpone our trip to DisneyWorld.
8 comments:
I agree with your assessment of both Biden and Sanders, but to me Sanders won the debate easily. Of course, winning to me is telling the truth and being authentic and sincere, so maybe our definitions are different. Call it exercising my white privilege or going rogue, I'm not voting for either candidate. I'm going Ghandi on this one and becoming the change I want to see. That includes avoiding voting for these candidates.
Yes, stay safe.
Biden didn't win the debate- he just didn't fall on his face. Which is what Sanders kind of needed. Bernie was clear about what he wants to do, why he wants to do it, why we need to do it, the differences between how he thinks and how Biden thinks. He was great. He won the debate at least in my view.
But he needed Biden to lose it and Biden didn't. And for whatever reason, Bernie wasn't going to full out critical on the guy. But Trump will- you know it. Trump respects no norms of behavior. And unfortunately, Biden has a lot of things Trump can hit him on.
Well, anyways, you are stuck at home. And a lot of us are stuck at home too. There is going to be a lot more demand for your writings. And I hope you can accommodate some of that :)
Here is a detailed account from Italy about how Biden utterly lied about the role of its single-payer health insurance system in the COVID-19 crisis there:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/03/joe-biden-italy-coronavirus-public-health-care-debate
Was it really a lie? As I--with my 81-yr-old memory--recall from watching last night's debate, Biden basically jeered 'see how Italy with its health care system is doing in relation to the coronavirus crisis.' That may be a not so subtle mischaracterisation of a complex Italian situation, but even with only two of them on stage, sublety was hardly the order of the day.
Except, I have to say, I think Sanders was a bit too subtle for his own good. It was clear to me (though maybe I only see it this way because this is the way I see it) that he was repeatedly trying to convey that every crisis in this society is simultaneously a systemic crisis and that the system-as-is inevitably makes every crisis much more hazardous and painful than it need be, but I think he only got around to saying that explicitly once. I suppose he needs to focus on the trees, so to speak, on medicare for all, on the role of the bankers, etc., but I do wish he'd again and again remind those listening to him that these are intended as critical, basically transformative correctives of an overwhelming system. In other words, his proposals aren't piecemeal proposals, they're part of a more fundamental attack, but he, as I hear him, never quite conveys that.
That said, I did think I was witnessing an encounter between bourgeois thinking [cf., e.g., Raymond Geuss's essay "On bourgeois philosophy and the concept of "criticism" "] and radical thinking, with Biden again and again talking from the point of view that there are no problems that a few relatively minor adjustments won't correct. Too bad that most of the audience was, in all likelihood, self-congratulatory in their pragmatism and therefore happy to go along with the Biden view/approach. Presidential? Since no matter what Jefferson may have said about the need for revolutions, I suppose, when one gets right down to it, Presidents are chosen to preserve the system not to replace it.
I'm one province over from a red zone in Italy. 368 Italians died in the last 24 hrs with total cases hitting 25,000. (Italy's population is 66 million.) It's complete lockdown. Only markets, banks, gas stations ...essential services are open. When you go to a market only 10 people are allowed inside at a time. Servers wear gloves and masks. You are handed gloves as you walk in. Of course hospitals are swamped and severe triage has been taking place. (The very vulnerable are left untreated). The streets are practically empty. You see a few walkers about every few miles. Eerie. I ride my bike around and exchange glances with people who beseechingly look back, directly into your eyes. Concern. Fear. As if we are saying to one another, "Do you feel it too? Is this really happening?"
A message to Americans from Italians:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=o_cImRzKXOs&feature=emb_logo
I do not praise Bernie Sanders for telling the truth, but it is interesting how he hit Biden on Social Security, if that's what you mean. Of course, Biden was indeed scrambling to defend his record of at least pondering cuts to Social Security, out of a concern with the deficit. Biden might not, in my view, really have anything to be ashamed of here as far as his record, but Social Security has become untouchable -- hard to believe that the Obama administration was and Biden was out to negotiate on the issue.
I'm glad you are getting out on your bike, Jerry. My understanding is that being outside, as such, isn't dangerous, and in some cases safer, if you are not in a crowd or the like. (At my university, people are being encouraged to go outside when possible, but warm weather and sun may matter, too.)
As to the debate, I didn't watch it, but gather that Biden made an extremely expansive claim about regularizing unauthorised immigrants, so expansive that I expect he at least misspoke, but it will be a good marker to use going forward.
Yesterday"s Man The Case Against Joe Biden by Branko Marcetic is a well documented and penetrating portrait of his career from plagiarizing a paper in his first year of law school at Syracuse to how much his bills have damaged the poor and especially poor young black men. Well worth a read before you must vote for him.
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