FREE: I've written about eager despots who are using the virus as an excuse to crack down on basic liberties, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Thank you, @joannaelmy, for bringing the story of the persecuted Plovdiv doctors to my attention: claireberlinski.substack.com/p/coronavirus-…
and for helping me understand the translation from Bulgarian, which I don't read--but Google Translate does a bang-up job.
Neo-Nazis and right-populists in Europe, in particular, are finding coronavirus extremely useful. Russia is of course exploiting this.
Neo-Nazis and right-populists in Europe, in particular, are finding coronavirus extremely useful. Russia is of course exploiting this.
The EU--like everyone else--is completely distracted by the two most immediate problems: the virus and the economic collapse. But Europe's also in the most dire geopolitical position it's been in since the 1930s--
there's a risk that Western Europe will wake up to discover it's now ringed by belligerent, neo-fascist regimes backed by the authoritarian superpowers, with the US completely checked out or down for the count. suphttps://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/coronavirus-diary-day-x
I hope someone in the EU, or in Western European leadership, is taking this seriously right now and about to come down like a ton of bricks on the budding #coronadespots, but I'm not hopeful:
I can actually think of no historic example in which Europe has, together, decided to nip this kind of development in the bud before it's too late. My historic memory goes back a ways.
Also in this newsletter: Are we about to run out of reagents for test kits?
Also in this newsletter: Are we about to run out of reagents for test kits?
And more letters from my readers: #coronavirus stories from #Madrid, #London, #Delhi, #Sydney, #Paris, #Singapore, and #Jerusalem. I find the letters my readers send me fascinating, moving, maddening, illuminating--please keep sending them; I'll keep publishing.
If you like the newsletter, please sign up (it's FREE). If you find it invariably interesting, please subscribe; and please forward it to your friends. I started this newsletter on a lark, and I wasn't very disciplined about it. But now it's my full-time job--
because I can't leave my apartment to do anything else.
If you just lost your job, too, and you're in dire economic straits, keep reading it for FREE. But it would be great if you forwarded it to all of your friends, including the ones who are still employed.
If you just lost your job, too, and you're in dire economic straits, keep reading it for FREE. But it would be great if you forwarded it to all of your friends, including the ones who are still employed.
If you're a healthcare worker, first responder, Waitrose cashier, or anyone else who's now doing the difficult, dangerous work of keeping our civilization from collapsing, let me know: I'll send you a gift subscription.
(This will give you access to a couple of features like the comments section, which I guess you probably won't have time to use or to read. But I still want to give you a gift subscription--just on general principles.)
So, check out the FREE newsletter. I try to say at least one really interesting thing every time I send it out. Sign up if you like it, and pass it around to everyone you know. I think that would work out well for all of us. claireberlinski.substack.com/p/coronavirus-…
Oh, I should copy @anneapplebaum and @IlvesToomas and ... what about @TheRickWilson, you've got lots of followers. And maybe @SkinnerPm, you've got a cat. And @MollyMcKew, you get it about Russia. And @john_sipher, so do you.
