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Thoughts from the outside: A mind of one’s own vs. COVID-19

What is “visible” to the system is only “economic” activity: earning and spending money. We see that playing out in the debate over opening the...
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‘Full surrogacy now’
Critical review of the book Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lewis.
Women worldwide
Women seize homes in Los Angeles for the homeless; Rachel Lloyd awarded for services for victims of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking; huge increase in domestic violence intensified by COVID-19; and the Colabo organization in Tokyo, Japan, helps teen girls fleeing home due to abuse, poverty or other reasons.

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Health worker speaks
As a healthcare worker in a community setting, I see that the response from clinic administration to COVID-19 has been a microcosm of Trump’s: rooted in denialism, optimism, and the capitalist-realist ethos (fetishizing production while denying the possibility of an alternative world).
Surviving at Kroger
Working at the grocery store, you truly appreciate the saying that “goodness is its own reward” because, despite all the news and advertisements touting grocery store employees as heroes, I sure don’t feel rewarded like one.

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Global pandemic indicts capitalism
The economic system leaves us all vulnerable and requires sacrificing healthcare workers, delivery drivers and other people doing essential work. I hope that this experience wakes more people up to the dangers and inhumanity of living under capitalism.

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Readers’ Views
Readers’ views on: The dialectic in thought and in liberation; labor and pandemic; pandemic and ecology; pandemic and school; women’s liberation; and voices from behind bars.

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Handicap this!
April Dunn, advocate for alternative ways for students with disabilities to get a diploma; workers and disabled adults in group homes don’t get medical equipment they need to avoid COVID-19 and to care for those who have it; the fear that the disabled have that they are disposable in the COVID-19 pandemic; and how pediatricians are considering denying organ transplants to kids with disabilities.
Youth in action
Dominican-American youth protest in New York City; Emma Theofelus, 23, Namibia’s youngest cabinet member; and Sudanese dancers, DJs, and musicians performing in public after a popular women’s and youth movement toppled the regime of al-Bashir and its “morality police.”
Queer Notes
Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling against Peruvian government in favor of Trans woman Azul Rojas Marin; LGBTQ Asians fighting hate crimes; and a coalition of LGBTQ people demanding California enact the Emergency Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund.
Detroiters dis rally
Most Detroiters were dismayed by the “reopen” rally at the state capital, where hundreds of people got out of their cars to flout social distancing guidelines, scream conspiracy theory propaganda, and flaunt assault weapons.

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No masks to prisoners
Incarcerated people are producing masks to protect people from COVID-19, but the vast majority of them are not receiving these masks for their own use.
Voices from the Inside Out: COVID-19 in prison
Depending on the state and their prison system, healthcare inside is marginal during the best of times. Some prisons in Wisconsin are better than in most states, but that care is not consistent throughout Wisconsin’s facilities.

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Detroit dispatch #4: The rush to reopen
Many in Detroit are concerned about the rush to reopen and the false dichotomy between “the economy” and health. The death rate is still high.

COVID-19 has generated a lot of “free time” for workers, but how can we create full, human “free time”?
The measures adopted in the face of the spread of COVID-19 in the world have caused billions of people to suddenly have excess “free time.” But this is not a full “free time,” conducive to the enjoyment and development of new skills, but a “time without work” that is exacerbating the enormous economic contradictions already existing in our society.

Detroit Dispatch #5: Education and individualism
Susan Van Gelder reports on Detroit including: a Supreme Court ruling saying Detroit children have been “deprived of access to literacy”; how children are faring in obtaining internet access so they participate in distant learning; and how “individualism” needs to be framed in relationship to society as a whole.

Discussion article: Neoliberal necropolitics and Indian migrant workers
India has been witnessing a mass exodus of internal migrant workers due to an unplanned lockdown. The coronavirus crisis has compelled the Indian state to haphazardly effectuate a lockdown in order to properly practice social distancing. But it has unaccountably forgotten that social distancing is a privilege of the elite class if well-thought-out arrangements are not made.

Detroit Dispatch #6: Hospitalizations, funerals and the need for justice
In Detroit most people have been practicing social distancing. (The miserable cold, wet spring weather so far may be helping.) The police department, recovered from a substantial COVID-19 outbreak, has enforced social distancing on streets and in stores without incident; residents who have been directly affected by this illness are not about to ignore non-compliance.

CHECK OUT OUR SPECIAL COVERAGE OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC here!