The capitalist god is still getting its human sacrifice

benfell

Updates

  1. Originally published, June 11, 7:08 am.
  2. June 12, 5:07 am:
    • My mother has been convinced I am confusing ACT UP! with another group in the below, but one of the articles she sent me confirms my recollection. In San Francisco, there are two ACT UP groups: ACT UP Golden Gate, which succeeded in pushing for more research, and which I’m guessing Gregg Gonsalves hails from, and ACT UP San Francisco. The latter does indeed deny that HIV causes AIDS and this idea has been banging around since the 1980’s, well before when I encountered it in the 1990’s along Market Street, probably very near where ACT UP (both groups) meet today:[1]

      Why has denialism sprung up? Actually, it’s a revival. The deniers’ main claim, that HIV does not cause AIDS, has circulated like a rumor since the 1980s—based largely on the work of one Berkeley biologist, Peter Duesberg. The theory has been so thoroughly repudiated by the science that it now resembles more fantasy than hypothesis.[2]

Pandemic

My recollection of ACT UP! in San Francisco is of folks who denied that HIV was responsible for AIDS, who accordingly resisted using condoms, and who glued conspiracy theories about AIDS to streetlight poles. So I’m more than a little surprised to see an alumnus from this group as an epidemiologist working on the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19. But here Gregg Gonsalves is, in a New York Magazine interview, seeking to help today’s protesters navigate the pandemic.[3]

We’re at a moment of conservative backlash to public-health professionals. They accuse you [Gregg Gonsalves] and others of hypocrisy for backing the protests against police brutality while advocating shutdowns and social distancing. I want to ask you first what you think about the premise implied here — that the pointy-headed public-health people have been bossing people around. 

You know, if only. If only the public-health people had been in charge. And that’s not just Republicans. Bill de Blasio was basically giving the hand to his department of public health; public health was marginalized even by ostensibly one of the top Democrats in the country. At the federal level, they all serve at the president’s pleasure. There were some very tough choices to be made, and often what the science says is not palatable to our leaders. Even now. In Connecticut, we’d love the governor to release people from prison, and he doesn’t want to do it. If we think about the inability of Governor Cuomo to confront the nursing industry, if we think about the meatpacking plants.[4]

The pandemic is not over[5]—the articles today emphasize that[6]—but as I have said repeatedly, we have refused to support people through the lockdown,[7] and naturally, the cops are making everything worse with their usual asinine response to protests.[8]

The capitalist god is getting its human sacrifice.[9] And it isn’t just the elites who don’t care.[10]

Alexis C. Madrigal, “America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic,” Atlantic, June 7, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/06/america-giving-up-on-pandemic/612796/

Irin Carmon, “An Epidemiologist’s Lessons From the ACT UP Era, for Today’s Protesters,” New York, June 10, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/is-it-safe-to-protest-during-a-pandemic.html

  1. [1]Jim Nelson, “The AIDS Deniers,” Gentleman’s Quarterly, June 16, 2017, https://www.gq.com/story/the-aids-deniers↩
  2. [2]Jim Nelson, “The AIDS Deniers,” Gentleman’s Quarterly, June 16, 2017, https://www.gq.com/story/the-aids-deniers↩
  3. [3]Irin Carmon, “An Epidemiologist’s Lessons From the ACT UP Era, for Today’s Protesters,” New York, June 10, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/is-it-safe-to-protest-during-a-pandemic.html↩
  4. [4]Irin Carmon, “An Epidemiologist’s Lessons From the ACT UP Era, for Today’s Protesters,” New York, June 10, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/is-it-safe-to-protest-during-a-pandemic.html↩
  5. [5]Joel Achenbach et al., “Coronavirus hot spots erupt across the country; experts warn of second wave in South,” Washington Post, May 20, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-hot-spots-erupt-across-the-country-experts-warn-of-possible-outbreaks-in-south/2020/05/20/49bc6d10-9ab4-11ea-a282-386f56d579e6_story.html; Joel Achenbach, Rachel Weiner, and Isaac Stanley-Becker, “Study estimates 24 states still have uncontrolled coronavirus spread,” Washington Post, May 22, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/study-estimates-24-states-still-have-uncontrolled-coronavirus-spread/2020/05/22/d3032470-9c43-11ea-ac72-3841fcc9b35f_story.html; Irin Carmon, “An Epidemiologist’s Lessons From the ACT UP Era, for Today’s Protesters,” New York, June 10, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/is-it-safe-to-protest-during-a-pandemic.html; Emma Farge with Peter Graff, “WHO warns of ‘second peak’ in areas where COVID-19 declining,” Reuters, May 25, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-peak/who-warns-of-second-peak-in-areas-where-covid-19-declining-idUSKBN2311VJ; Alexis C. Madrigal, “America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic,” Atlantic, June 7, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/06/america-giving-up-on-pandemic/612796/; Reis Thebault and Abigail Hauslohner, “A deadly ‘checkerboard’: Covid-19’s new surge across rural America,” Washington Post, May 24, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/24/coronavirus-rural-america-outbreaks/↩
  6. [6]Irin Carmon, “An Epidemiologist’s Lessons From the ACT UP Era, for Today’s Protesters,” New York, June 10, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/is-it-safe-to-protest-during-a-pandemic.html; Alexis C. Madrigal, “America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic,” Atlantic, June 7, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/06/america-giving-up-on-pandemic/612796/↩
  7. [7]Anne Applebaum, “The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff,” Atlantic, March 15, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-showed-america-wasnt-task/608023/; David Benfell, “Elite priorities: Why social, animal, and environmental justice remains essential with COVID-19,” Not Housebroken, April 26, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/26/elite-priorities-why-social-animal-and-environmental-justice-remains-essential-with-covid-19/; David Blanchflower, “Pandemic Economics: ‘Much Worse, Very Quickly,” New York Review of Books, March 26, 2020, https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/03/26/pandemic-economics-much-worse-very-quickly/; Zak Cheney-Rice, “Even Naked, America Cannot See Itself,” New York, April 27, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/coronavirus-inequality-america.html; Amy Goldstein, “First, the coronavirus pandemic took their jobs. Then, it wiped out their health insurance,” Washington Post, April 18, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/first-the-coronavirus-pandemic-took-their-jobs-then-it-wiped-out-their-health-insurance/2020/04/18/1c2cb5bc-7d7c-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html; William Gumede, “The impact of coronavirus could compare to the Great Depression,” Al Jazeera, May 3, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/impact-coronavirus-compare-great-depression-200420070542882.html; Kim Hart, “The coronavirus economy will devastate those who can least afford it,” Axios, March 23, 2020, https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-economy-layoffs-children-families-bad-d588cc93-ff26-4031-8be8-5654cce05a15.html; Zoë Hu, “A New Age of Destructive Austerity After the Coronavirus,” New Republic, April 23, 2020, https://newrepublic.com/article/157417/new-age-destructive-austerity-coronavirus; Sarah Jones, “Dear Rich People: Please Stop Hoarding Things,” New York, March 30, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/things-are-bad-and-rich-people-arent-helping.html; Hanna Kozlowska, “Coronavirus is revealing ugly truths about social structure in the US,” Quartz, March 14, 2020, https://qz.com/1818548/coronavirus-is-revealing-ugly-truths-about-social-structure-in-the-us/; Eric Levitz, “In the Age of the Coronavirus, Biden’s ‘Results’ Require Bernie’s ‘Revolution,’” New York, March 16, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/who-won-the-democratic-debate-between-biden-and-bernie-coronavirus.html; Joe Lowndes, “The Morbid Ideology Behind the Drive to Reopen America,” New Republic, April 30, 2020, https://newrepublic.com/article/157505/morbid-ideology-behind-drive-reopen-america; Tony Romm, “Uber drivers and other gig economy workers were promised unemployment benefits. It may be a long wait,” Washington Post, April 2, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/02/uber-airbnb-lyft-unemployment-coronavirus/; Jenny Schuetz, “America’s inequitable housing system is completely unprepared for coronavirus,” Brookings, March 12, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/03/12/americas-inequitable-housing-system-is-completely-unprepared-for-coronavirus/; Luke Taylor, “When coronavirus is behind us, will you still think of restaurant and bar workers?” Vox, March 21, 2020, https://www.vox.com/2020/3/21/21188210/coronavirus-restaurant-bar-workers-economy-service-industry; Reis Thebault, Andrew Ba Tran, and Vanessa Williams, “The coronavirus is infecting and killing black Americans at an alarmingly high rate,” Washington Post, April 7, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/07/coronavirus-is-infecting-killing-black-americans-an-alarmingly-high-rate-post-analysis-shows/; Funda Ustek-Spilda et al., “The untenable luxury of self-isolation,” New Internationalist, March 18, 2020, https://newint.org/features/2020/03/18/untenable-luxury-self-isolation; Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Denise Lu, and Gabriel J.X. Dance, “Location Data Says It All: Staying at Home During Coronavirus Is a Luxury,” New York Times, April 3, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/us/coronavirus-stay-home-rich-poor.html↩
  8. [8]Alexis C. Madrigal, “America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic,” Atlantic, June 7, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/06/america-giving-up-on-pandemic/612796/↩
  9. [9]David Benfell, “The capitalist death cult,” Not Housebroken, March 27, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/03/27/the-capitalist-death-cult/; David Benfell, “An impatient capitalist god demands human sacrifice. Now,” Not Housebroken, April 17, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/15/an-impatient-capitalist-god-demands-human-sacrifice-now/↩
  10. [10]Alexis C. Madrigal, “America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic,” Atlantic, June 7, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/06/america-giving-up-on-pandemic/612796/↩

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