Reusable Grocery Bags.
Some grocery stores are banning them and making customers use plastic bags because of COVID-19 concerns.
Trump Guy Says: “You Liberals are more concerned about saving a few sea turtles than peoples lives!”
Urban Density
The LEED sustainability rating system offers points for projects in densely populated areas near public transportation. The idea is to confine occupants in taller buildings with less of a “footprint” and counter urban sprawl into the environment.
Trump Guy Says: "Look at what happened in New York! This is what happens when you pile people on top of one another like rats!
Public Transportation
The more people that use it, the less fossil fuels emitted into the atmosphere.
Trump Guy Says: "I’m never getting on a bus with all these dirty, sick people. I’ll drive in the safety of my nice, big, fat SUV, thank you very much!
Immigration
I don’t even need to explain this one.
What other holes will Republicans use to shoot holes in pet Democrat causes because of this mess, of course, setting aside the fact that conservatives were calling this a hoax, or claiming the left-wing media is blowing it out of proportion to get rid of Trump anyway.
As you pointed out, Immigration and climate change will be affected. During a pandemic like this, there is little appetite for allowing even legal immigrants in from abroad, let alone illegal immigrants. And people who continue to tout the cause of climate change will be perceived as being out of touch in the midst of the more immediate disease crisis, even if climate change continues to be a real threat.
Lastly, there is probably a whole lot more support for gun ownership now. As the pandemic continues to worsen - and especially, if law and order start to break down, or people get desperate - they’re going to want guns. (NBC News: Pandemic Pushes Gun Sales to All-Time High). Bad news for gun-control proponents.
Good. This has always been a feel-good “slacktivism” anyway (an easy thing to do to make yourself feel like you’re doing something useful, even though it actually doesn’t help the cause at all).
Only if suburban and rural areas actually get fewer cases per capita. Too early to tell.
Maybe.
I think you do. Immigration is different from travel, yes? And it’s travelers, not immigrants, who brought the disease to the US.
If hospitals become overcrowded, I can imagine some people (who lack empathy and human decency) making the argument that if everyone had free health care, the hospitals would be even more crowded.
Just never forget that one also must fight against the narrative from the right that tries to ignore that the denial of science also made this worse, there is really little else but to vote out the ones that continue to tell Americans to follow the pied pipers of ignorance.
Uh, the article talks also about the concerns of one that is worried about an increase in violence against women when on a pandemic, an issue that could be a setback but IMHO is actually pointing at an issue in a way that can make more people be aware of the problem, it is only a setback if the problem is ignored.
And regarding women being less active in work like writing, so as to have less to say to the world, the author of the piece points at great pieces that came from men when in isolation brought by plague had time to make great literature, I guess that the writer of the piece forgot about how women writers that had a bit more resources also had “holidays” separated from crowds, as Mary Shelley did when she wrote Frankenstein.
100% agreed on travel. If there are any COVID-19 infections from Latin American immigrants, I’d suggest they are far and few between. As a matter of fact, IIRC Mexico started placing border restrictions on US entries before we did vice versa. I joked around the time that Donald finally found a way to get Mexico to pay for the wall!
But don’t think for one second Conservatives won’t bundle Latin American immigration with Chinese travel into one issue, because they are both darker skinned people. Somehow, I am sure the fact that the majority of infected international travelers into New York were from Europe will be ignored by them.
I agree reusable bags are a pain in the ass anyway, but I’ve seen enough evidence that plastic bags have to go because of the damage they do to the environment. I personally hate them anyway: they are unreliable and too small. I wonder if biodegradable paper bags with handles are the way to go. I’m a proud member of Brown Paper Bag Nation.
Mexico closing their border for their protection first is already being used as proof that Trump was right about border security. You need to keep up with your memes.
The immigration one is easy to fight. Every time a Trumpist says “close borders” you finish with “…to tourists”. Since they’re, 'yknow, the chief pandemic spreaders.
No administration in the history of ever is going to forego tourist dollars
Yeah well not only did I find this ironic considering Trumps hate rhetoric there’s also a movie out there that came out about 10-15 years ago in which America froze over and Mexico agreed to take many of us in.
Remember who your next door neighbors are: you might need them when things go south.
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Over here, the point is being made, again and again, that this crisis has rammed home how many essential services depend on immigrants, and on workers on low-paid zero hours contracts. It’s also led to (supposedly temporary) renationalisation of at least the running finances of the railways and a re-assertion of the BBC’s central place in the media and cultural environment: both previously unlikely to be expected from this government, to put it mildly. Whether this will last in whatever political climate settles once the worst is over, remains to be seen.
I’ve heard that this shows we need to bring manufacturing back to the United States. I don’t know the logic. Is it because they are sending the virus through the goods?
And I heard that this shows that Trump was right about China. Somehow dumping products or something is similar to sending the virus over.
And somebody said that the empty shelves and long lines and so forth is what Socialism is like. Now we are getting a taste of Socialism. Prior to this the person used Venezuela as an example of Socialism.
The big fear for me is that deficits will be so huge that progressive economic agendas can’t be done.
Its one thing to have a $15 minimum wage with 3% unemployment. When we are at 30% unemployment, probably not a good idea.
Also all the new spending programs for health care, education, daycare, etc. not a good idea when we are running multi trillion dollar deficits. Also we can’t tax the rich when businesses are running low on capital either.
The reason we need to bring manufacturing back is that having all our important manufacturing in China is a bad idea because if China cuts us off for whatever reason, we’re fucked. The global supply chain can’t handle even mild stresses to the system, and a pandemic screws up production of necessary goods.
Ironically, the empty store shelves are more about the failings of capitalism. Lack of redundancies in our supply chains and lack of limits on how many items customers can buy are what caused the empty shelves.
I’ve never noticed someone that wants the borders closed being all that concerned about tourists, in fact, they usually specify illegal immigrants. If you’re talking about people from other countries stealing your jobs and raping your women, it’s not usually in reference to someone that is only planning to be here for a week.
I’ve found it works better to respond to ‘close the borders’ with ‘to people from Canada and Britain and Germany?’. IME, that’s usually what throws them. If you’re talking to a ‘regular’ person (as opposed to a politician that makes a living out of talking about this), they usually can’t explain why they want to keep out people from Mexico, but not Canada or Venezuela but not France and least not without sounding racist, and knowing they sound racist while they’re saying it.
Nah, harmfulness of plastic garbage will still be an issue even after this. What is likely is to refocus on a sustainable alternative to plastic that can be single-use but *not *smother the suroundings.
As to countering urban densification, part of the problem there will be that if there’s a flight of the current urban populations into a new exhurban sprawl, the folks out in ruralia may not be happy that “They” are now moving into a development in what used to be Doug’s farm (and now voting in that county!).
Yes, and it’s not just about it being “here” as opposed to “there”; there will have to be a reconsideration of what segments of production is it really wise to have a “lean inventory” and just-in-time supply system where there is little or no reserve or surge capacity built in. It’s little use to “bring home” production of some medication, only to then, because in normal times there is a non-growing market for it, you take down every production line for it except one with just enough capacity for one month’s regular demand (and then sell the plant to Bro Shkreli for good measure), and now the emergency comes and you are still screwed.
And maybe capitalism may also consider that it’s not just the individual but also the corporation that should have a 3 to 6 month cushion of actual cash and resources (not just stock valuation that can evaporate in 3 seconds) to survive on if revenue stops.
In our current one-way system of testing each case on its merits and/or luck and family connections and skills and job prospects, I also don’t see any reason to prefer people from Western Europe or the Anglosphere over other countries.
However, I could see a future agreement, especially if the United States institutes UHC, where countries would mutually allow each others inhabitants to move to each others countries. And I could see not wanting to enter into such an agreement with a country whose standard of living is such that few people would want to move there. *
*The residents of the poorer country would probably be ambiguous about it too since it would mainly benefit the rich from both countries who would take advantage of their both cheap labor and land. I’d think that an agreement between more equal countries would benefit the young and middle class, as well as the moderately rich who would be able to be just as mobile as the ultra-rich currently are and price out everyone from the popular city centers.
I fear we’ll sea a global rise of authoritarian regimes imposing rigid social controls - mandatory tracking of all residents, checkpoints at internal borders, suppression of dissidents, rule by decree, bracero-type immigrant worker programs, ubiquitous surveillance, et fucking cetera. We’ve seen it before. We’ll see it again.
The sad thing is that this should actually be teaching us just the opposite. Since the virus crime rates are down but domestic violence is up. Those guns are more likely to be used against a member of the household than they are to defend the household.
