It’s as if the US is half-asleep. It’s unable to rouse itself, even in a crisis. Tranquilized. Opiated.
Some of it is abdication of responsibility by the executive. Some of it is a health system that’s been so stretched that it hasn’t had capacity to plan a vaccination program. But there’s something else. Indifference. Helplessness.
The pollution of the media environment and the politicization of public health information have paralyzed the US virus response and cost thousands of lives. It will be remembered as a criminal act by a destructive administration.
Countdown to Trumpist media presenting this as the new Boston tea party

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More from @harikunzru

31 Dec 20
It’s the end of the year, and like everyone else I’m happy to see it go. Still, I'm going to do one of those year-in-review threads, so please do mute if you’re not in the mood.
Main achievement: @katiekitamura and I have two happy sane children who have learned some stuff at home. We lost my uncle to covid and my parents haven’t seen their grandchildren in a year, but we’re doing ok.
I wrote a lot of non-fiction this year. In March for @nybooks I reviewed @DaleBeran's book about 4chan, Gamergate and how the angry internet fringe went mainstream nybooks.com/articles/2020/…
Read 19 tweets
7 Nov 20
You may want to mute this account for a while because I feel I may have to individually insult every member of the outgoing administration in crude and personal ways
Mike Pence you repressed joyless would-be witchfinder, every time you spoke you always looked like you were straining to expel an enormous bolus of your own hypocrisy from your clenched sphincter
Betsy DeVos you blandly foolish soulless entitled child-stealing witch, rotting like a corpse inside your Chanel suit
Read 16 tweets
24 Sep 20
It's possible that I may have mentioned once or twice that I have a novel out. It's called Red Pill and it's partly set in Berlin. While I was researching it, I found out a lot about life in the former East Berlin. Some of that found its way into the book. But there was more ... ImageImage
I was interested in surveillance. These days we all have a spy in our pocket, and the people watching are mostly from big tech companies, looking to predict our behavior. In the GDR, they had the Stasi Image
At first I was interested in how the Stasi monitored political dissidents and artists - people like the writers Juergen Fuchs and Sascha Anderson Image
Read 18 tweets
21 Sep 20
So many questions. Who is ‘they’? Where is the valve? How does the beautiful water save the tiny fish?
I am now googling combinations of smelt / valve / water / tiny fish / in an attempt to find out what he might be referring to.
Turns out it’s a sort of first grade account of his attempt to undermine environmental regulation in Northern California theguardian.com/environment/20…
Read 4 tweets
20 Sep 20
Just arrived - Carnatic violin from 78’s collected by my friend (and Into the Zone guest) Chris King. Thanks @thirdmanrecords Image
Great liner notes too. Fascinating to see Chris joining the dots between Indian violin and his passion for Greek violinists like Alexis Zoumbas
On Into the Zone, Chris and I talked about prewar American rural music, and he played me jug bands and some amazing early Cajun music. We talked about the friendship between singer and accordionist Amédé Ardoin and violinist Dennis McGee.
Read 6 tweets
17 Sep 20
There's a new episode of Into the Zone out today. For 'It's Always Sunny in the Dialectic' I went to LA with @_hbraithwaite to eat at a place where your breakfast is a mantra: Image
We're living in difficult times. For some people, it's all about thinking positive Image
For others, not so much. This is Theodor Adorno, one of the pioneers of critical theory, who fled the Nazis and ended up in the world capital of positivity, Los Angeles Image
Read 12 tweets

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