A lot of ink has been spilled lately—especially from a few particular publications—trying to paint the left as anti-child. The evidence? Cartoonish specters of abolition & family abolition—flattened to fit a smug “we’re not like other leftists” performance for an imaginary middle Abolition. Family abolition. Health communism. These aren’t fringe fever dreams of an anti-child radical left. They’re traditions specifically rooted in care, survival & futurity. They ask: what would it take for everyone (especially kids) to live a good life, not just scrape by?

This classic shallow argument runs cover for real ways that the response to the Covid pandemic has been all out class warfare, and is the perfect example of lazy, superficial “class analysis” that ignores the basic material conditions which actually define class under capitalism.

https://twitter.com/tyler_a_harper/status/1899505788214767754

The people who peddle this “Laptop Class vs. Working Class” nonsense faux class analysis are always either profoundly unserious or profoundly dishonest. A real class analysis starts with capital—who owns it, who profits, and who is forced to labor under what conditions and why.

Many valid theories re: why healthcare/other workers don’t protect themselves—but let’s talk about a few material conditions that made mass infection feel inevitable. Here’s how capitalism, state abandonment & labor discipline turned “getting sick at work” into a job requirement.

https://twitter.com/reallandsend/status/1889855608700215407

2020: Congress promised hazard pay. OSHA promised workplace protections. But as always, capital won. Most exploited workers—with least resources—were left exposed, underpaid & disposable while being designated “essential.” Many so-called “nonessential” workers lost their jobs.

In the hospital right now, and it’s full of people here for other reasons, also battling upper respiratory infections on top of everything else. Staff keep telling me how *everyone* is getting sick right now—how it’s just a constant churn of people getting sick and staying sick. And yet—despite all that—they’re being incredibly respectful of my masking. Before stepping into my room, they mask up without question, without comment, or needing to be asked—taking seriously my desire to avoid adding upper respiratory infection to what I’m already here for.

Calling in ableism on the left isn't about speech but pushing back on misunderstandings of epistemic oppression. Many status quo labor conditions left works against are justified by subtle rhetoric that ties sickness/disability/difference to abnormality/less worth/disposability So it's interesting that these moments of friction are heard with such hostility by the left, because in theory, practice, and praxis it would benefit the left to in any way, shape, or form think with disability (even a little bit)

I have been speaking privately with other ADA experts about what fighting mask bans might look like *if* they are implemented & it's scary. So, I wanted to share three quick points that have stood out as helpful to know if you're agitating against existing or new mask bans 🧵 First, the big worry is that mask bans using the ADA would require fighting it on a singular case by case basis (burden is on disabled people never the business) and as we talk about all the time on Death Panel this is one of the biggest limitations of the ADA legal framework.

We have an important Covid episode for you—CDC is planning to end 5-day Covid isolation guidance. In today’s episode we discuss why isolation guidance is a labor issue & is not responding not to any new scientific data or analysis but to capitalism & preserving economic activity.

https://twitter.com/deathpanel_/status/1758103336434159933

This week, The Washington Post reported that the CDC is planning to update Covid-19 isolation guidance, ending the recommendation that people who test positive for Covid stay home from work and school for five days.

https://twitter.com/reallandsend/status/1757481178662088866

It's laughable when people claim that Marxism has no place in fixing the US healthcare system. God forbid we imagine—and, scarier yet, demand—a life where healthcare isn't a burden, where being sick doesn't mean a guaranteed life of insurmountable debt, extraction & abandonment. Don’t be afraid of a little Marxism, Ben. US refusal to adequately provision care & embrace of market-solutionism are a constant downward pressure on the status quo, not only within our borders but internationally. Nothing you have to offer can address this—but Marxism can.

Urgent request for help! I need access to 2 of the Medicare compendia to prove my case for medication coverage. Unfortunately, these compendia are not readily available and would cost several thousand dollars to access. Help me get AHFS-DI and DRUGDEX for my appeal!

https://twitter.com/realLandsEnd/status/1655541620379467776

The entries I need are for IVIG, Panzyga. The medication is off-label, which means it is not specifically approved by the FDA for my condition. Medicare Part D covers off-label use only if the drugs are identified in an officially recognized drug compendium—these are not public.

Did you know that Medicare only pays for drugs if the condition is listed in the compendium? This means rare diseases with small patient populations are statistically punished & can have our meds held hostage by Part D insurance co’s managing Medicare drug plans for profit

https://twitter.com/realLandsEnd/status/1652277354566238210

I'm facing yet another denial from Medicare Part D for the medications that keep my vasculitis and resulting blindness at bay. My appeal now goes to a third party company for review, and if denied again (expected), I'll have to plead my case before an administrative law judge.

Capitalism’s commitment to constant growth requires a constant supply of workers not yet maimed by its own proclivity for extraction. The circulatory system of our political economy is the illusion of choice—what Lauren Berlant called “the good life’s traditional fantasy bribe.” According to Berlant, the good life fantasy bribe is a bargaining tool used against the “fall between the cracks,” when overwhelming crises threaten to bury our expectations & life-building. We often talk about this as capitalism’s tendency to show contradictions in the everyday

Really awesome to talk to @EpiEllie about evidence that supports claim that masking works at a population level, & why mask mandates are still an important policy! In the study we discuss: 40% of staff cases & 32% of student cases were associated with end of universal masking...

https://twitter.com/DeathPanel_/status/1633800261415182336

During a 15-week period (March to June 2022), Covid-19 cases in school districts that had ended universal school masking policies were compared with cases in school districts that sustained universal masking policies. Turns out mask mandates *do work* soundcloud.com/deathpanel/why…

Here’s the thing tho, Rochelle is both medium & message re: COVID response. There are no such things as political points, no grand cosmic tally of justice you pay into/take from—it’s justified rage—we know most wishing her well won’t extend compassion to vulnerable sick or dying.

https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1583884175999848449

Blame means to assign fault/wrong/consequences to an action. Usually it comes w harms—for her it won’t. Blame can be positive when used for the right reasons. Because it’s often used in negative or stigmatizing ways doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be used when categorically appropriate

Out today for @PetrieFlom: @avierkant and I wrote about the lessons we have *not learned* from the pandemic and why pretending health is personal responsibility is capitalism’s greatest trick

“Health…is an impossibility under capitalism.”
blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/09/26/cov… “We are forced to self-finance the maintenance of our labor power…to cure or repair ourselves, toward returning our bodies to work. When this bill comes due & we cannot pay it, or when the object finally breaks down, the economy moves on w/o many of us.” blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/09/26/cov…

I’m going to repeat a point I made in this ep & explain what the idea of the sociological production of the end of the pandemic actually means: We have not learned from COVID. The “end” is not a sudden development it’s been happening for years (we first covered it in fall ‘20)👇

https://twitter.com/DeathPanel_/status/1572705654921629696

How do we “learn from COVID” and end the sociological production of the end of the pandemic? It starts with admitting that we need to undo the ties that connect health with capital, bind illness and health to the commodity form, & profoundly reshape our broader political economy.

Is resistance to masking a novel phenomenon of newly politicized public health? No. Its still an important problem to address. But the issue isn’t getting politics out of science it’s fundamentally reshaping our relations to work & the economy—a new political economy of health The issues we have with masking right now are about a political economy of health that pretends disease is something that can always be confined to a neat and tidy cyclical encounter that requires no major structural or economic changes to mitigate—only personal responsibility

The survival outcomes of people who in any way, shape, or form differ from the preferred biologic norm, varies greatly depending on which “science” is being tapped to guide public policy decisions. Health & science are always political—neutrality is a goal not a characteristic ↓ Science, like any discipline, is often appropriated by the State, individuals and institutions to provide cover/justification for a wide range of genocidal policies, racial capitalist schemes & biomedical oppression via abandonment. E.g. war on drugs, HIV/AIDS, vax apartheid, etc

if you're new to realizing that David Leonhardt sucks, then here's a thread of all our coverage of him on @DeathPanel_ to help you get up to speed on how his sloppy methods go way beyond a few bad newsletters this week soundcloud.com/deathpanel/tea… soundcloud.com/deathpanel/dav…

Let me give you a historical example of what I mean: this is what the founder of the US Eugenics movement, Charles Davenport, told the New York Times about their intended scope in 1913 upon the founding of the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory.

https://twitter.com/realLandsEnd/status/1530533233779265538

There are two understandings of what the word eugenics means: the first, is the lay understanding which is tied wholly to sex/reproduction/mating/breeding and to the attenuation or prevention of reproduction in those with "negative" traits.

142 days until “Health Communism” is released! If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy yet it’s 20% off this weekend from @VersoBooks

versobooks.com/books/4081-hea… We examine how the idea that disabled/sick/non-working people are framed as a “debt burden” on the nation—an idea which has been perpetuated throughout history and then examine how it manifests in our current iteration of health-capitalism. bit.ly/healthcommunism

This shouldn’t need explaining: to say this wave of Covid won’t be bad because the most vulnerable have already been hospitalized or died is eugenic logic. It is saying that the landscape of health is different as a result of a specific portion of the body politic being culled. Eugenics is often collapsed into an ahistorical frame when people say its just about attenuating reproduction/forced sterilization. No, eugenics is the belief that science must intervene at a pop level lest the vulnerable overwhelm the strong leading to the destruction of society