"It’s what the Best and the Brightest always do … they convince themselves the people can’t handle the truth. They convince themselves they can buy time to win the real war by designing a “communication strategy” to win the narrative war."
Here’s the note that started the series on “Yay, stock buybacks!” as the narrative cover for massive $$ transfers to management through sterilization of stock-based comp.
It’s pretty telling that the one time - the ONE TIME - where Dem Senators pull out all the stops and miraculously get 3 GOP Senators to join them in blocking a Trump nomination is for the Federal Reserve.
I think my disappointment stems from an innate trust that when the chips are down and we're faced with a common enemy, I really did expect some aspect of representative government somewhere in this gigantic country to rise to the occasion. I really did.
Universal testing and universal PPE requires a strong federal gov’t effort to establish.
It would reveal our current effort as weak and pathetic, which is why the GOP won’t support it.
It would revitalize our economy before the election, which is why the Dems won’t support it.
Universal testing and universal PPE gets R-0 way below 1 and keeps it way below 1. That plus improved therapeutics at each stage of disease progression is how we get through this if/until we get an effective, *proven* vaccine.
This is a thoughtful thread and deserves a thoughtful response.
I'll be making this the centerpiece of a Mailbag note on "Lucifer's Hammer" (because I've rec'd a ton of similarly smart comments on this note), but here's a brief thread on where I'm coming from ...
The sine qua non for any successful campaign where you are the underdog - whether that's a business campaign or a military campaign or a campaign of resistance for social change - is *discipline*.
If you're the underdog and you do not excel in discipline, you will lose. Period.
By allowing violence to permeate this campaign for social justice, its organizers have failed their most crucial (and difficult) leadership task.