Month: March 2021

Class warfare in a pandemic

benfell

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”[1]

Labor

Like the minimum wage before it,[2] a bill to extend unionization rights, even to gig workers, is likely dead in the Senate.[3] It’s another way that Democrats allegedly pursuing progressive policies can be seen merely as performative because it’s not like they don’t know that Republicans will kill these bills, whether through majority control of the Senate or through the filibuster when, as now, they’re in the minority. Neoliberalism’s ramparts remain stout.

Alex Leary and Eliza Collins, “Unions Notch Win With House Passage of Bill Opposed by Uber, Lyft,” Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/unions-notch-win-with-house-passage-of-bill-opposed-by-uber-lyft-11615382546

Eviction

There is a new blog post entitled, “Evictions in a pandemic.”

Kate Giammarise, Rich Lord, and Jay Manning, “Tenant Cities: One Day In Allegheny County’s Eviction Hotspot,” WESA, March 11, 2021, https://www.wesa.fm/post/tenant-cities-one-day-allegheny-countys-eviction-hotspot

The Windsors

You’re kidding me, right?

On Thursday, William and his wife, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, were visiting a school in east London that had recently reopened following a national lockdown and was rolling out a mental health project that the duchess launched three years ago.

A reporter shouted out, “Sir, have you spoken to your brother since the interview?”

“I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I will do,” said William, who paused briefly to answer the question. In response to a follow-up on whether the royal family was racist, William said, “We’re very much not a racist family.”[4]

I’ve been saying for years that the best way to convince me you’re a racist is to deny that you’re a racist. So, damn, here it is.

Karla Adam, “Prince William says royals ‘very much not a racist family,’” Washington Post, March 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/prince-william-response-racism-britain/2021/03/11/c5de88ce-825d-11eb-be22-32d331d87530_story.html

Stimulus

Joe Biden signed a bill:

The bill, known as the American Rescue Package, authorizes a third round of one-time stimulus payments up to $1,400 for most Americans; extends additional unemployment support to millions still out of work; and makes major changes to the tax code to benefit families with children. It also sets aside new federal money to help schools reopen, aid cities and states facing budget shortfalls, and assist in the distribution of coronavirus vaccine doses.[5]

Tony Romm, “Biden signs $1.9 trillion stimulus into law; some could see stimulus payments this weekend,” Washington Post, March 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/03/11/biden-sign-stimulus-covid-relief-congress-checks/

  1. [1]Warren Buffett, quoted in Ben Stein, “In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning,” New York Times, November 26, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html↩
  2. [2]Burgess Everett, “8 Democrats defect on $15 minimum wage hike,” Politico, March 5, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/05/democrats-15-minimum-wage-hike-473875↩
  3. [3]Alex Leary and Eliza Collins, “Unions Notch Win With House Passage of Bill Opposed by Uber, Lyft,” Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/unions-notch-win-with-house-passage-of-bill-opposed-by-uber-lyft-11615382546↩
  4. [4]Karla Adam, “Prince William says royals ‘very much not a racist family,’” Washington Post, March 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/prince-william-response-racism-britain/2021/03/11/c5de88ce-825d-11eb-be22-32d331d87530_story.html↩
  5. [5]Tony Romm, “Biden signs $1.9 trillion stimulus into law; some could see stimulus payments this weekend,” Washington Post, March 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/03/11/biden-sign-stimulus-covid-relief-congress-checks/↩

The price of royalty

benfell

Updates

  1. Originally published, March 9, 2021, at 7:32 am.
  2. March 9, 2021, 11:57 am:

There is a new blog post from yesterday (March 8, 2021) entitled, “The necessary desperation.”

Pandemic

Lena H. Sun and Lenny Bernstein, “Fully vaccinated people can visit with nearby grandchildren, dine indoors with one another, CDC says,” Washington Post, March 8, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/03/08/vaccinated-people-cdc-guidance/

British royalty

On the one hand, and Helen Lewis is right to raise this, we are indeed talking about very, very privileged people, people, who as people in my Twitter feed point out, largely live off the legacy of a cruel colonial empire. On the other hand, there is racism. There is a discrepancy between a palace investigation of allegations that Meghan Markle bullied her staff, that, as Lewis puts it, “looked like a smear campaign,” and the absence of such for Andrew, notorious for his association with the now-deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. And I really cannot abide the sort of coverage that killed Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, that serves no public purpose beyond prurience, that the royal family tolerates even as it drove Markle to contemplate suicide, supposedly hoping to avoid worse.[1] There is much to unpack here but probably some of my tweeps are right: Royalty ought not to exist. Which also probably should not impede an exploration of these other issues.

Helen Lewis, “Meghan and Harry Go to War,” Atlantic, March 8, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/03/meghan-markle-wont-be-silenced/618227/

Valentine Low, “Royal family in turmoil over Meghan’s racism claims in Oprah interview,” Times, March 9, 2021, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/royal-family-in-turmoil-over-meghans-racism-claims-in-oprah-interview-sgkkv27cq

  1. [1]Helen Lewis, “Meghan and Harry Go to War,” Atlantic, March 8, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/03/meghan-markle-wont-be-silenced/618227/↩

Housing activism on my doorstep

benfell

Pandemic

The apartment complex where I presently live—I expect to look for another place starting about the end of this month—made the news last October for attempting to evict a large batch of tenants who had encountered difficulty paying rent.[1] I’ve paid my rent on time, early even, throughout, so while I strongly disapproved, I haven’t felt personally threatened.

So it was a surprise when I came home tonight to find a bunch of legal stuff on my doorstep. No, I’m not being evicted. The legal form was a blank declaration for the local district judge (these guys operate out of storefronts and do not have stellar reputations) invoking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order banning evictions and there were three copies.[2] Otherwise, it’s resources for folks being evicted. According to this material, the mass eviction attempt I caught in the news is not by any stretch the only one: Apparently, the Alden South Hills has been doing this throughout the pandemic.

My main reason for looking for another place is that I feel very much on the front lines of a number of social issues here, including poverty, including white supremacy. I’ve been poor most of my life. I know the trauma much too well, it combines with numerous other traumas, and indeed I have been diagnosed with a post-traumatic stress-related condition. As well, I certainly don’t want to be on the front lines if white supremacists ever get their long-sought race war.

While my apartment is in decent enough condition and I’ve gotten generally decent service on maintenance requests, albeit sometimes not quite as quickly as I felt appropriate and almost never with quite satisfactory communication, I’ve been dismayed by the upkeep of the grounds. There’s litter everywhere and a lot of trash never makes it into the bins—a situation I have to blame on my fellow tenants, but which calls for somebody to come around and pick shit up. The exterior appearance of the buildings and walkways and even the interior stairway leading to my apartment betrays a certain level of neglect.

But this eviction thing? It’s positively and potentially lethally evil, which is why the CDC issued its order. Aion, the management company in a rather murky ownership of the complex that once involved Jared Kushner, and maybe still does,[3] doesn’t need the money that badly. Sorry, no. This is not okay. You don’t get to kill people. No.

I will be shredding this material shortly as I believe I have no use for it and I assume it has been distributed around the complex. But I took the precaution of scanning it in, a laborious process given that the originals were printed double-sided.

  1. [1]Ryan Deto, “Pittsburgh-area apartment complex The Alden South Hills seeking large-scale evictions,” Pittsburgh City Paper, October 21, 2020, https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/pittsburgh-area-apartment-complex-the-alden-south-hills-seeking-large-scale-evictions/Content?oid=18223682↩
  2. [2]John Fritze and Nicholas Wu, “Trump administration announces nationwide eviction moratorium through end of the year,” USA Today, September 1, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/01/trump-imposes-eviction-moratorium-because-covid-19-pandemic/5686402002/; Kyle Swenson, “Renters thought a CDC order protected them from eviction. Then landlords found loopholes,” Washington Post, October 27, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/10/27/trump-cdc-eviction-moratorium-loopholes/↩
  3. [3]Ryan Deto, “Pittsburgh-area apartment complex The Alden South Hills seeking large-scale evictions,” Pittsburgh City Paper, October 21, 2020, https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/pittsburgh-area-apartment-complex-the-alden-south-hills-seeking-large-scale-evictions/Content?oid=18223682↩