culture

The Pandemic in Our Minds

By Jeet Heer* – The Nation A classic horror movie reveals how authoritarianism and scapegoating flourish during a plague None of us are going to the movie theater anytime soon. Fortunately, there are convenient substitutes for cinema addicts, perhaps most readily the streaming…

Civil Society

Medical, Economic, Social, Military: The State of Play

By George Friedman* –  Geopolitical Futures A riot broke out in a poor, predominantly Muslim neighborhood north of Paris over the weekend. The immediate cause was a traffic offense and a violation of the coronavirus lockdown. The deeper cause was the belief that police were…

Corruption

Jair Bolsonaro’s dangerous divorce

The Economist Brazil’s justice minister storms out, calling the president a scofflaw ON APRIL 19TH Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, climbed onto a lorry outside army headquarters in Brasília to fire up protesters who were calling for a shutdown of Congress and the Supreme…

Civil rights

Trump's 'Liberate' Protesters Want the Right to Feel Safe

Hannah Friedman* -Newsweek Americans Want the Right to Be Safe Across the country, we’ve been bombarded with pictures and videos of extremists storming state capitols, cradling guns and badgering the rest of us about their idea of “freedom.” They claim to speak for all…

Commerce

Why the Oil and Gas Industry Will Never Be the Same

By Marshall Auerback* –  Independent Media Institute The upheavals in the oil market are flipping the world on its head and again proving that rational industrial policy is a better guidance. When a staple commodity collapses to negative value it signals that something is…

Health

How Trump and His Team Covered Up the Coronavirus in Five Days

By Ryan Goodman and Danielle Schulkin(*) – The New York Times The president and senior officials manipulated Americans and played down the severity of the pandemic The strongest critics of the Trump’s administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic point to…

Civil Society

Giulietto Chiesa has died, leaving an unbridgeable void

He was a faithful reader of Othernews, as well as a partner and supporter, and we would like to express our grief over his disappearance here. Giulietto Chiesa (*), the journalist who knew better than anyone else the final stages of the Soviet Union, has died suddenly.

Economy / Finance

Should we be scared of the coronavirus debt mountain?

Adam Tooze* – The Guardian The pandemic has necessitated huge borrowing – but post-crisis austerity would be the very worst way to deal with it We do not know how this pandemic will end. We do know that we will be poorer when it’s over: GDP is plunging around the world.