In the News
There's so much to read today, it feels sort of like a feast day.
First up is a Smithsonian article by John Barry, author of the engrossing "The Great Influenza." The article is receiving attention today because it details how a government that lies or distorts the facts about an epidemic can make its effects so much worse than they would have been otherwise.
The last five paragraphs are particularly interesting.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/
Next, Paul Solman for the PBS NewsHour interviews David Enrich about his new book, "Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and an Epic Trail of Destruction." The bank seems to have been helping launder money far longer than I ever knew.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-book-explores-the-schemes-and-scandals-of-deutsche-bank
Related: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/us/trump-deutsche-bank-tax-returns.html
Finally, for me Anne Applebaum's writing is simultaneously dry and overwhelmingly intense. (After 14 years of trying I still haven't finished "Gulag".) She has just been to Venezuela.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-book-explores-the-schemes-and-scandals-of-deutsche-bank
The country’s National Assembly, which is controlled by the opposition, passed special measures to address the health crisis; the Supreme Court, which is controlled by Maduro, rejected them.
Most Venezuelans—80 percent according to a recent survey—now rely on boxes of food, containing staples such as rice, grain, or oil, from the government. Agencies known as Local Committees for Supply and Production hand the packages out to people who register for a Patria (“fatherland”) card or smartphone app, which are also used to monitor participation in elections... The hungrier people get, the more control the government exerts, and the easier it is to prevent them from protesting or objecting in any other way.
Like the destruction of [Venezuela's] economy, the destruction of the political culture took some time, because there were several decades' worth of democratic institutions to destroy.
...once in power [Chávez] slowly changed the rules, eventually making it almost impossible for anyone to beat him. In 2004, he packed the Supreme Court; in 2009, he altered the electoral system.
Chávez began to transfer the wealth of the country to his cronies. This process was extraordinarily well documented, in real time, by many people.And yet it happened anyway.
...the two strongmen [Chávez and Maduro] have made it almost impossible for the independent press to function, undermined the credibility of experts, and distracted supporters,
...Chávez made up names for his enemies...
Over time, Chávez successfully polarized society into groups of fanatical supporters and equally dedicated enemies—warring tribes who felt they had little in common.
Extrajudicial murders... are now common."Echoing Hannah Ahrendt:
Polarization adds to this cynicism by creating suspicion and mistrust on both sides; people hear politicians shouting diametrically opposing slogans or presenting contradictory facts, and their instinct is to cover their ears.
The second person I met who started to cry was a translator... As the translator put my answer into Spanish, she broke down. “I suddenly thought of my nieces and nephews,” she told me afterward. “All of those hopeful young people, all gone.”
