British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, infected by the coronavirus, was moved Monday to intensive care at a London hospital, a dramatic development illustrating his countrys escalating battle with the outbreak.

The first major world leader to be so seriously sickened with COVID-19, the 55-year-old prime ministers move to a stepped-up level of care came less than 24 hours after he was hospitalized, ostensibly for tests.

He tested positive for the virus on March 26 and acknowledged persistent symptoms including a fever and cough. In a video released Friday, he looked markedly ill, puffy-eyed and subdued, a far cry from his usual ebullient self.

His foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was deputized to step in as necessary for Johnson, who had been reported earlier in the day to be tending to government affairs from his hospital bed.

Johnsons fate added new uncertainty to a fractious government led by one of Europes most polarizing figures. Quick of wit and at times blustery in temperament, Johnson helped lead Britain out of the European Union while upending the nations politics with his brand of unapologetic populism.

After Johnsons hospitalization was disclosed Sunday, President Trump called the prime minister a personal friend and great gentleman, expressing hopes for his recovery.

In recent years, Britain and the United States have shared a certain political zeitgeist, with Brexit and Johnsons rise both preceding and echoing the populist presidency of Trump.

That transatlantic pas de deux continued into the early days of the coronavirus crisis, with Trump and the British leader both striking an initially dismissive stance about the dangers of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

But now the two countries responses to the outbreak may be diverging, even as the near-term epidemiological trajectories in Britain and the United States appear similarly grim.

Less than two weeks before being hospitalized Sunday, Johnson shifted his stance on the outbreak, ordering a March 24 lockdown allowing only essential movement in public. His government now strongly advocates physical distancing measures, consistently pleading with Britons to stay home and save lives.

Queen Elizabeth II, who turns 94 this month, delivered a rare televised address to the nation Sunday evening that was widely hailed as a pitch-perfect expression of both dauntlessness and somber realism about the outbreaks gravity.

Queen Elizabeth made a rare address, calling on the British people to rise to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic and exercise self-discipline in an increasingly challenging time.

(Buckingham Palace)

Trump has been far more equivocal. He approved voluntary 30-day guidelines meant to slow the spread of the virus, but has turned aside calls for a national stay-at-home order and repeatedly voiced hopes that the country would soon be up and running again.

On Sunday, the president again predicted the now-battered U.S. economy would take off like a rocket when the outbreak eases. Experts say such an economic opening is far from imminent.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL! Trump tweeted Monday morning.

Britain, like the United States, is facing a projected increase of illness and fatalities in coming days.

During the weekend, the country marked an unwelcome milestone, surpassing devastated Italy in daily coronavirus deaths. Britains fatality toll as of Monday more than 5,000 was roughly half the total coronavirus deaths in the United States, whose population is about five times larger.

The United States, too, is on course for an extraordinarily bleak week, public health officials say. The surgeon general, Jerome Adams, on Sunday likened the coming seven days to Pearl Harbor or the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

As recently as the weekend, Trump was almost jocular when asked about the close physical clustering of senior aides at near-daily White House coronavirus briefings. Johnson was seemingly casual about that kind of contact as well until he, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Englands chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, all tested positive for the virus in the last week of March.

Hancock and Whitty recovered, and even after Johnson was hospitalized, initial reports were positive. The prime ministers office said earlier Monday he had spent a comfortable night at Londons St. Thomas Hospital.

But even then, aides refused to address news reports that he received oxygen treatment, though they stopped describing his symptoms as mild.

The outbreaks course in Britain and the United States have followed some common pathways, but on a few crucial points, the similarities break down.

As people have done in New York City, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, Britons have been taking to balconies and doorsteps for raucous, pot-banging rounds of applause for frontline health workers, a number of whom have died of or been sickened by COVID-19.

But while the U.S. and British publics share warm public sentiments toward individual doctors, nurses and others who care for coronavirus patients, the outbreak is seen in the U.K. as a ringing affirmation of its system of universal healthcare. In the United States, appreciation for medical workers is coupled with uninsured or underinsured patients fears of being bankrupted by the cost of care.

Although Britains National Health Service headed into the crisis already burdened by a long-term budget crunch, it has been holding its own even as the caseload inexorably rises.

In just nine days, marshaling hundreds of soldiers and a team of architects, the government set up a vast temporary hospital at a conference center in East London. Prince Charles the 71-year-old heir to the throne, who suffered his own bout of COVID-19 presided over last weeks ceremonial opening, but remotely.

New York City, with a measure of federal assistance, has also responded with swiftly assembled makeshift facilities, but individual hospitals have been staggering under the influx of critically ill patients. And state Gov. Andrew Cuomo like many of his counterparts has complained that individual states have been largely left to go it alone in obtaining crucial supplies.

While Trump has continued to lash out at domestic political opponents throughout the coronavirus crisis, Britains polarized political establishment has, for the moment, largely put aside bitter divisions over Brexit, the countrys exit from the European Union that took formal effect at the end of January.

Before the outbreak took hold, Scotlands first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was spearheading demands for a second Scottish independence referendum, reflecting most Scots wish to stay in the EU, while Britain as a whole voted in 2016 to leave, 52% to 48%.

But Sturgeon, previously an unrelentingly sharp critic of the prime minister, has pivoted to working with him to help stem the spread of the coronavirus and shore up the healthcare system. The outbreak demands that Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson cooperate, and so far it appears they are doing so, the Scotsman newspaper noted in an approving editorial.

Britains opposition Labor Party which went head-to-head with Johnson in December in one of the most bitter general election campaigns in recent memory over the weekend installed a new leader, Keir Starmer. He said he would speak out where he saw flaws in the governments strategy, but promised for the duration of the crisis to steer clear of opposition for oppositions sake.

And Britain possesses a singular weapon in its fight to rally the country in the face of the coronavirus: its doughty monarch, whose televised address from Windsor Castle was likened to the iconic radio speech delivered in 1939 by her father, King George VI, as war clouds threatened.

Composed and calm, wearing one of her signature brooches, Elizabeth urged Britons to show solidarity and resolve.

I hope in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge, she told her compatriots.

Across the Atlantic, royal watchers and public intellectuals took note of the value of inspirational rhetoric at such a moment.

Though I lived in Britain for many years, the monarchy always felt alien to me; if youre not raised to feel reverence for it, you never will, tweeted German American academic and author Yascha Mounk, now based in Washington. And yet, this brave, sensible woman puts into relief what America so desperately lacks: a head of state capable of uniting the nation.

The queen acknowledged the painful sense of separation as people must keep their distance from one another to prevent the spread of infection. But Elizabeth, alluding to the lyrics of a World War II-era song, also held out the implicit promise of a return to normal life even if a post-coronavirus era now seems impossibly distant to some.

We will meet again, she said.

Special correspondent Boyle reported from London and Times staff writer King from Washington.

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Britain's Boris Johnson in intensive care, illustrating U.K.'s growing struggle with coronavirus - Los Angeles Times

Punk, an exciting four-part Epix docuseries exec-produced by John Varvatos and Iggy Pop, manages to cover the movements various bases: gestation in the late-60s; NYCs CBGB scene; Londons two-fingered salute to the establishment; the rise of hardcore in DC, LA and beyond.

Legendary contrarians like John Lydon attempt to resolve timeworn debates, like whether UK punks ripped off their NYC counterparts (that beef spilled out into a chaotic panel discussion with Henry Rollins and Marky Ramone). But its the decision to show those who made it all happenincluding Lydon, Debbie Harry, and the Slits Viv Albertine, to name a fewlistening to the sounds they created and talking about its reverberations that make Punk worth watching.

Punk Epix Trailer

The series kicks off with the man whos widely considered the godfather of the movement talking about one of the seeds of rebellion planted in his young mind. Iggy Pop says The Kinks You Really Got Me was a welcome reprieve from the sh*tty Top 40 of the day and he recalls huddling under the covers past bedtime waiting for it to come on the radio as a kid. Pop says it sounded like life in the Industrial Age: You were free of the blues, you were free of Perry Como, you were free of mom and dadyou were dangerous. You turned into a monster.

Related: Iggy Pop: A Real Wild Child Returns

The KinksYou Really Got Me (Live on Shindig,1965)

The story picks up with another formative influence on Iggy and future punks: his fellow Detroit natives the MC5. The bands co-founder Wayne Kramer tells how the anti-war and civil rights protests inspired the MC5 to Kick out the jams. As the footage of the band kicking into high gear at the infamously riotous Chicago Democratic National Convention of 68, we get reactions from those the song inspired: NY Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain; Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, who effusively says this is what changed my life, and Black Flag singer Henry Rollins, who says the song was the promise of what rock and roll could be.

Iggy later recalls witnessing a shambolic and unruly Doors show at the University of Michigans Homecoming dance in 67 that inspired him to wonder: If these people with a Number 1 song can do that, what excuse do I have?

I stopped singing about mice and rainbows and started singing about having nothing to do and no fun and animal sex, Iggy goes on to say. About his band The Stooges he says: No one rocked as hard as we did at that time. No argument here.

The StoogesI Wanna Be Your Dog (1969 studio recording)

One of the keys to Punks success is that it not only features those who helped create the music but also those who acted as catalysts like Legs McNeil, who co-founded the zeitgeist magazine that gave the movement its name, and Zelig-like figure Danny Fields. Fields was the Doors publicist and signed The Stooges and MC5. In Punk, he reveals he was ready to sign the Ramones 15 seconds into seeing them perform at CBGB in 1975, but it took a trip to Florida and a check from his mom to meet the bands one signing conditiona $3000 drum kitin order to seal the deal.

Speaking of CBGB, Marky Ramone, Jayne County, Blondies Debbie Harry, and Chris Stein bear witness to the grit and the grime that was Hilly Kristals famous downtown NYC venue, recalling the dogsh*t on the floor and the inedible chili and hamburgers once served there.

Related: Rapture Ahead: The Top 10 Songs of Blondie

Episode 2 shifts to London and we hear from Lydon, who cites The Kinks and Iggy but also Irish folk songs as key ingredients to his formation. Still very much the contrarian at 63, the former Sex Pistol talks about his distaste for the very word punk, citing the so-called dictionary definition of Mr. Bigs toyboy in an American prison system to which he deadpans: Im afraid I dont fit that, but somehow the term stuck. But in classic Lydon fashion, he follows the snark with a moment of insight when he says: Whats really important to me is what punk turned into: honesty, originality and a genuine feel for my fellow human beings.

John Lydon and Marky Ramone at post-screening Epix panel discussion

Episodes 3 and 4 cover late-70s/ early-80s hardcore and bands like Cro Mags, Bad Brains, Agnostic Front, The Germs, Black Flag and second wavers Nirvana, L7 and Bad Religion. Along the way, Joan Jett, the Slits Viv Albertine, and Palmolive, L7s Donita Sparks are among the women who remind us just how crucial a role they played and continue to play in its ever-expanding reach.

Minor Threat and Fugazi co-founder Ian Mackaye sums up what might just be the most revolutionary thing about punk when he explains why teens continue to respond to it like he did when he first heard it:

Its just a piece of plastic spinning in a circle. Whats there to be scared of? It must be the ideas.

-Colm Clark

-Photo Credit: The Damned pose outside CBGBs club on the Bowery in New York in April 1977 L-R Rat Scabies, Dave Vanian, Brian James, Captain Sensible (Photo by Roberta Bayley/Redferns/Getty Images)

Previously published on culturesonar

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Mapping the Unruly History of Punk - The Good Men Project

The current coronavirus pandemic is more than a medical crisis, it is also a political and ideological crisis. It is a crisis deeply rooted in years of neglect by neoliberal governments that denied the importance of public health and the public good while defunding the institutions that made them possible. At the same time, this crisis cannot be separated from the crisis of massive inequalities in wealth, income and power. Nor can it be separated from a crisis of democratic values, education and environmental destruction.

The coronavirus pandemic is deeply interconnected with the politicization of the natural order through its destructive assaults waged by neoliberal globalization on the ecosystem. In addition, it cannot be disconnected from the spectacle of racism, ultranationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and bigotry that has dominated the national zeitgeist as a means of promoting shared fears rather than shared responsibilities.

The plague has as one of its roots a politics of depoliticization, which makes clear that education is a central feature of politics and it always plays a central role whether in a visible or a veiled way in any ideological project. For instance, it has been a central pedagogical principle of neoliberalism that individual responsibility is the only way to address social problems, and consequently, there is no need to address broader systemic issues, hold power accountable or embrace matters of collective responsibility. As a politics of containment, neoliberalism privatizes and individualizes social problems, i.e., wash your hands as a way to contain the pandemic. In doing so, cultural critics Bram Ieven and Jan Overwijk argue, it seeks to contain any real democratic politics; that is to say, a politics based on collective solidarity and equality [because] democratic politics is a threat to the market.

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Additionally, neoliberalisms emphasis on commercial values rather than democratic values, its virulent ideology of extreme competitiveness and irrational selfishness, and its impatience with matters of ethics, justice and truth has undermined critical thought and the power of informed judgment. As Pankaj Mishra states, for decades now, de-industrialization, the outsourcing of jobs, and then automation, have deprived many working people of their security and dignity, making the aggrieved vulnerable to demagoguery.

Americans live in an age when neoliberalism wages war on the public and inequality is recast as a virtue. This age supports notions of individual responsibility that tear up social solidarities in devastating ways. This is a historical moment that puts a premium on competitive attitudes and unchecked individualism, and allows the market to become a template for structuring all social relations. The social contract has been all but eliminated while notions of the public good, social obligations and democratic forms of solidarity are under attack. This is a form of gangster capitalism that speaks only in the market-based language of profits, privatization and commercial exchange. It also legitimates the language of isolation, deprivation, human suffering and death.

Ravaged for decades by neoliberal policies, U.S. society is plagued by a series of crises whose deeper roots have intensified the stark class and racial divides. Such a divide is evident in the millions of workers who do not have paid sick leave, the millions who lack health insurance, the hundreds of thousands who are homeless, and the fact that as the Boston Review points out, One in five Americans cannot pay their monthly bills in full, and 40 percent do not have the savings needed to cover an unexpected $400 expense.

Neoliberal capitalism is the underlying pandemic feeding the current global shortage of hospitals, medical supplies, beds and robust social welfare provisions, and increasingly an indifference to human life.

Under such circumstances, the social sphere and its interconnections become an object of either financial exploitation or utter disdain, or both. What is lost in this depoliticizing discourse of neoliberalism and made clear in the current pandemic is that our lives are indeed interconnected for better or worse. There is a certain irony here in that the current White House call for the public to abide by social distancing mirrors not only a medically safe practice to slow down the spread of the virus, it also occupies a long-standing neoliberal ideological space that disdains social connections and democratic values while promoting death-dealing forms of social atomization. Here is where the medical crisis runs head on into a long-standing political crisis. This is also the space where politics has become a tool of neoliberalism as the economy and powers of government relentlessly attack and erode the common good and democracy itself. Irony turns into moral and political irresponsibility as Trump pushes social distancing while also indicating he will relax social distancing guidelines, against the advice of public health experts, in order to reboot the economy.

In a time of crisis, capitalism reveals itself as a disimagination machine whose underlying message is that the market provides the only forms of agency left. In this context, political, economic and social forces become the new workstations incessantly pushing the flight from any vestige of social, ethical and political responsibility, parading as the new common sense. Politics becomes a war machine running overtime to habituate people to the abyss of power while undermining any sense of dissent, resistance and social justice. Of course, this is the wider context of neoliberalism in which the coronavirus pandemic operates.

The financial crisis of 2008 made visible the plague of neoliberalism that has for over 40 years ravaged the public good and imposed misery and suffering upon the poor and others considered excess, waste or dangerous. With its merging of brutal austerity policies, financialization of the economy, the concentration of power in few hands, and the language of racial and social cleansing, neoliberalism has morphed into a form of fascist politics. The new political formation is characterized by a distinctive and all-embracing politics of disposability, a massive gutting of the social state, and support for pedagogical apparatuses of spectacularized violence, fearmongering and state terror.

All of this points to a disdain for any notion of the social that expands the meaning and possibilities of the common good, including the crucial sphere of public health, and the broader notion of what political philosopher Michael Sandel calls living together in a community, which requires solidarity and sacrifices to treat people with compassion, humanity and dignity. Central to this notion of the common good, argues scholar Shai Lavi, is a mass movement willing to bring together struggles for emancipation, economic justice and political community established on the basis of human equality.

The brutality of the pandemic of neoliberalism was evident in Trumps call on March 24, 2020, to reopen the economy, by Easter. At that time, he wanted to move the U.S. quickly toward ending cautious measures such as social distancing and letting the virus run its course. Trumps initial rationale for such an action restated a right-wing argument that the cure is worse than the disease. After being told that 2.2 million people could die as a result of reopening the economy too early, Trump said the White House would keep in place its social distancing rules at least through April.

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has stated that social distancing is the most important tool for containing the virus, yet Trump still refuses to issue a national stay-at-home order, especially at a time when seven states do not have one. At a press conference on April 4, Trump had stated that things will get a lot worse with many more deaths. Yet, soon afterward, he reiterated that he would like to see the country open again. Such actions display a shocking level of moral turpitude, making clear that Trump is more concerned about his reelection, commerce and the stock market than the ensuing death toll. As reporters from The Washington Post point out, Trump has long viewed the stock market as a barometer for his own reelection hopes.

The not-so-hidden and terrifying message is that political opportunism, the drive for profits and the embrace of a cruel neoliberal ideology are being embraced by the Trump administration without apology. Trump appears to take pleasure in belittling experts and expertise and only follows the advice of public health officials in the midst of the most dire warnings. He treats the pandemic as a partisan battle, disparages governors desperately calling for supplies, and refuses to implement a coordinated national federal approach to addressing the crisis.

Without hard evidence or scientific proof, Trump endorses specific drugs as treatments, falsely claims the U.S. is close to a vaccine and often relies on the advice of right-wing pundits who push conspiracy theories. When it comes to the choice of saving lives or the economy, Trump appears more concerned about the fate of Wall Street. What is more, his often confused and contradictory public remarks are filled with hyperbole and falsehoods and serve to mislead the American public while potentially causing unimaginable misery along with the possibility that Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, maybe millions would get sick and die. In this instance, sheer incompetence coupled with an aversion to experts and scientific evidence rise to the status of being a public danger and a catastrophic crisis.

In light of the ongoing spread of deaths, infections, and hospital shortages and public health catastrophe, experts have called for long-term planning, strategies, increased testing, and coordination between the federal government and the states. Many governors have complained that the governments lack of a federal plan has created something akin to the Wild West a system beset by shortages, inefficiencies and disorder.

The urgency of demands are amplified by the fact that the White House and leadership at multiple levels failed to provide any sense of urgency and immediacy in the early stage of the looming crisis. A report by The Washington Post stated that it took Trump 70 days from first being notified about the grave implications of the coronavirus to treat it not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked Americas defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens.

Of course, the many people who are and will die as a result of this reckless policy will be those traditionally viewed as disposable under the reign of neoliberalism. These include the elderly, the destitute, poor people of color, undocumented immigrants and people with disabilities not to mention the front-line medical workers who lack the equipment they need to be safe as they treat the elderly, sick and dangerously ill.

There is more at work here than a hardened depravity of an ill-informed, petty celebrity politician who is causing havoc and needless human suffering in a time of crisis. Trump has always had a penchant for thoughtlessness and self-absorption, and takes delight in humiliating others. Citing Stephen Greenblatt in a different context, his words perfectly fit Trump for whom There is no deep secret about his cynicism, cruelty and treacherousness, no glimpse of anything redeemable in him, and no reason to believe that he could ever govern the country effectively.

Trumps crudeness, mendacity, disregard for science, and arbitrary rule had led him to disregard previous warnings from experts about the possibility of a looming pandemic. This willful form of ignorance and sheer effrontery was on display in his earlier refusal and colossal failure to mobilize the power of the federal government to provide widespread testing and masks while simultaneously ensuring that hospitals and medical staff had enough beds, masks, ventilators and other personal protective equipment for treating people infected with the virus.

Ed Pilkington and Tom McCarthy report in The Guardian that Trump not only downplayed the threat the virus posed after the World Health Organization confirmed that there were 282 confirmed cases in several countries on January 20, his actions were mired in chaos and confusion. Rather than act quickly to avert a national health disaster, Trump let six weeks go by before his administration took seriously the severity of the threat and the need for mass testing. Pilkington quotes Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the U.S. governments response in 2013-2017 to a number of international disasters. He stated: We are witnessing in the United States one of the greatest failures of basic governance and basic leadership in modern times.

Trump has a penchant for turning politics into a form of theater and entertainment into a form of cruelty. In a shocking display of pettiness, he publicly told Vice President Mike Pence not to answer the calls of those governors who are not appreciative of his efforts to deal with the pandemic. This includes Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, both of whom have made desperate pleas for critically needed supplies.

Moreover, as part of an ongoing effort to shift blame away from himself, Trump has attacked and attempted to humiliate reporters who asked him critical questions, and went so far as to claim that hospitals had squandered or done worse with masks and were hoarding ventilators, and that states were requesting equipment despite not needing them. He went so far as to suggest that much-needed masks were going out the back door. It is hard to overlook this type of weaponized cruelty, especially given the moving pleas by medical professionals appearing on social media begging for masks, gowns, ventilators and other crucial protective and lifesaving equipment. There is more at work here than the politics of denial and solipsism on the part of Trump; there is also what Robert Jay Lifton calls malignant normality, which I interpret as behavior that revels in violence and is fueled by what appears to be an immense pleasure in engaging in acts of cruelty. We have seen echoes of such cruelty in other eras with consequences that resulted in the death of millions, such as in the lynching of Blacks in the United States and acts of genocide in Nazi Germany.

Trumps obsession with wealth and ratings, and his limitless self-regard define him not only as an inept leader but also as a dangerous fraud. For instance, in the midst of the rapidly rising death toll in the United States, Trump boasted at one of his press media appearances about the [high] ratings for the White Houses coronavirus task force briefings. This is a form of political theater and pandemic pedagogy that weaponizes a rising death toll in the service of entertainment. Trumps incompetence bears tragic results in that hospitals are overcrowded, medical personnel lacking adequate protective equipment are dying, and the governors of hardest-hit states such as New York appear to be in a running feud with Trump, who is more at ease in insulting governors who have criticized him for his lack of leadership than in supplying them with much-needed medical equipment.

Trump and his administration are not alone in pushing a necropolitics that celebrates death over life, capital over human needs, greed over compassion, exploitation over justice and fear over shared responsibilities. How else to explain the chorus of Trump supporters in the media, corporate board rooms and the White House arguing for rationing life-saving care on the basis of age and disability in order to prevent imposing drastic strains on the nations hospitals and the U.S. economy? How else to explain that long before this pandemic crisis, as Naomi Klein points out, the apostles of neoliberalism have attempted to underfund services, such as state-funded health care, clean water, good public schools, safe workplaces, pensions, and other programs to care for the elderly and disadvantaged.

At the same time, a war has been waged by predatory capitalism on the very idea of the public sphere and the public good. One consequence is that the publicly owned bones of society roads, bridges, levees and water systems are going to slip into a state of such disrepair that it takes little to push them beyond the breaking point. When you massively cut taxes so that you dont have money to spend on much of anything besides the police and the military, this is what happens.

What is being revealed in the current pandemic crisis is the underlying plague of neoliberalism that has dominated the global economy for the last 40 years, though increasingly brandished as a badge of honor by fascist politicians, such as Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and others. Ruling-class corruption is also readily visible in a bailout package which, as Rob Urie observes, amounts to Bailouts for the Rich, the Virus for the Rest of Us. He writes:

In an economy where the richest 1% takes all the gains while the poor and working class havent seen a raise in four decades, it is the rich who will reap the benefits while workers get sick and die. It is finance capitalism that is being bailed out when it should have suffocated under its own weight in 2009.

What is being revealed in this looming pandemic is an unabashed resurgence of fascist politics with its history of grotesque inequalities, disposability, unadulterated cruelty and regressive policies. The latter neoliberal rudiments have a long legacy in the United States and have returned with revenge under the Trump administration. Neoliberal fascism signals a resurgence of a terror that bears an eerie echo to the racial cleansing and embrace of eugenics that marked the purification policies of the Hitler regime and made the concentration camp the endpoint of fascism. This was also policy designed to reboot the economy in a time of crisis.

We live at a time of multiple plagues that fuel the current coronavirus epidemic that is engulfing the globe inflicting economic misery, suffering and death as they move through societies with the speed of a deadly tornado. These include the plague of ecological destruction, the degradation of civic culture, the possibility of a nuclear war, and the normalization of a brutal culture of cruelty. Moreover, the plague of neoliberalism has waged a full-scale attack on the welfare state. In doing so, it has underfunded and weakened those institutions such as education and the public health sector. In addition, it has removed the vast majority of Americans from the power relations and modes of governance that would enable them to deal critically and intelligently with natural disasters, pandemics, and a slew of planetary crises which cannot be addressed by the market. In the midst of this pandemic, the poison of ruling-class power is at the center of the current political, ideological, and medical crisis. Frank Rich gets it right in arguing:

the pandemic has revealed in particularly stark terms that the extreme economic inequalities unmasked by the 2008 economic collapse remain unaddressed. Theres a titanic dynamic playing out now in real time. Celebrities and the wealthy are first in line for the lifeboats of coronavirus tests. Rupert Murdoch and his family protect their own health while profiting from a news empire that downplayed and outright disputed the threat of coronavirus. As the virus spreads from its current epicenters through the country the grotesque discrepancy between the elites and the have-nots is going to make Parasite look as benign as an episode of Modern Family.

The other plague, among many, is the rise of right-wing cultural apparatuses, such as Fox News and Breitbart Media in which truth is treated with scorn, science viewed as a hindrance and critical thought is maligned as fake news. This is a plague of willful ignorance and state-sanctioned civic illiteracy.

Under such circumstances, language at the highest levels of power and among powerful conservative cultural apparatuses operate in the service of denial, lies and violence. These media relentlessly push conspiracy theories such as the claim that the pandemic is a product of the deep state designed to prevent Trump from being reelected; a hoax created by the Democratic Party; or a virus that is no less dangerous than the common flu. They have also relentlessly insisted that all social problems are a matter of individual responsibility so as to depoliticize the public while making them indifferent to the neofascist claim that the government has no responsibility to care for its citizens or that society should not be organized around mutual respect, care, social rights and economic equality.

The current crisis is part of an age defined by a pedagogical catastrophe of indifference and a flight from any viable sense of moral responsibility. This is an age marked by a contempt for weakness, as well as rampant racism, the elevation of emotion over reason, the collapse of civic culture, and an obsession with wealth and self-interest. Under such circumstances, we are in the midst of not simply a political crisis, but also an educational crisis in which matters of power, governance, knowledge and a disdain for truth and evidence have wreaked havoc on the truth and endangered both millions of people and the planet itself. This is a politics fueled by a disimagination machine whose political and cultural workstations make the truth, justice, ethics, and most of all, bodies, disappear into the abyss of authoritarianism.

For the plague to end, it is crucial to address the ideologies of neoliberal fascism that prevent people from translating private troubles into broader systemic issues and to fight pedagogically in order to convince the public to move beyond the culture of privatization and atomization that propels a consumer society and reinforces a politics of single issues detached from broader considerations. This political crisis can only be grasped as a crisis of the social totality, one in which a range of democratic ills form the specifically political strand of a general crisis that is engulfing our social order in its entirety. We live in a moment in which it is becoming more credible to acknowledge that capitalism and democracy are not the same thing, and that the endpoint of capitalism is not only massive inequality and human suffering but a brutal machinery of death in which humanity is one step closer to the edge of extinction. This suggests that crises can have multiple outcomes resulting in a surge of authoritarianism and repression, on the one hand; or on the other, a resurgence of resistance movements at numerous levels willing to fight for a more just and equitable society, one that rejects what Brad Evans has called an age of multiple exclusions, mass terror, increasing expulsions and the hollowing out of the social state.

The coronavirus pandemic has pulled back the curtain to reveal the power of a brutal neoliberalism and its global financial markets in all of its cruelty. This is a system that has not only eroded the democratic ideals of equality and popular sovereignty, but has also created a political and economic context in which the looming pandemic puts a severe strain on medical workers and hospitals that lack ventilators and other essential equipment to treat patients and limit the number of deaths caused by the virus. This points to a moment in the current historical conjuncture in which the space between the passing of one period and the beginning of a new age offers the possibility for the social and political imagination to set in motion a global movement for radical democracy.

The current viral pandemic cannot be discussed outside of the crisis of politics and education. What is needed is a new vocabulary to comprehend the current pandemic crisis. Such a language must provide a sustained critique of neoliberal fascism with its discourses of exclusion, exploitation and racial purity. Such a discourse should also address the underlying causes of poverty, class domination, environmental destruction and a resurgent racism not as a call for reform, but as a project of radical reconstruction aimed at the creation of a new political and economic social order. In the words of Amartya Sen, we need to think big about society. In spite of the overwhelming nature of the current crisis, there is a need to think beyond being isolated, overwhelmed and powerless.

As we have seen in a number of countries, such as Hungary, Egypt, the Philippines, Thailand and Israel, the pandemic crisis creates extraordinary circumstances for restricting civil liberties, free speech and human rights while intensifying the possibilities of an emerging authoritarianism. There is no doubt that the COVID-19 crisis will test the limits of democracy worldwide.

At the same time, the magnitude of the crisis offers new possibilities in which people can begin to rethink what kind of society, world and future they want to inhabit. What we do not want to do is to go back to a system that equates democracy and capitalism. We must move beyond modifying the system, because the current crisis has deeper political and economic roots and demands a complete restructuring of society. David Harvey is right in arguing that The fundamental problems are actually so deep right now that there is no way that we are going to go anywhere without a very strong anti-capitalist movement.

As the pandemic crisis recedes, we will have to choose between a society that addresses human needs or one in which a survival-of-the-fittest ethos becomes the only organizing principle of society. It is time for new visions, public transcripts and pedagogical narratives to emerge about the meaning of politics, solidarity, mass resistance and democracy itself.

We still have the opportunity to reimagine a world in which the future does not mimic the predatory neoliberal present. This should be a world that brings together the struggles for justice, emancipation and social equality. More urgent than ever is the need to struggle for a world that imagines and acts on the utopian promises of a just and democratic socialist society. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, matters of criticism, understanding and resistance are elevated into a matter of life or death. Resistance is a dire necessity.

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The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Exposing the Plague of Neoliberalism - Truthout

Each month in PC Gamer magazine we devote a few pages to a section we like to call 'now playing', which features stories from our writers about games they have been enjoying recently. In this edition we take a look at Last Year, Cardpocalypse, Sayonaara Wild Hearts and The Witcher 3.

I didnt belong to any particular clique in school, but Last Year lets me live out thatnow that Im saying it out loudpretty abnormal fantasy. But it also punishes me for wanting to in the first place, often by A) feeding me to a large spider B) placing my skull between the large, meaty fists of a giant, or C) uh, well, hooks. So, so many hooks.

Yeah, its another asymmetrical monsters vs men game, but Last Year doesnt just copy Dead by Daylight or Left 4 Dead. It takes the conceit, a genre all its own at this point, and makes the monster an offensive level editor with a messed up suit and the teens focused, class-oriented (get it? Because school!) teammates. To be even more reductive, its a light level editor (monster) against five fragile testers (teens).

Heres what I mean: each match, five teen survivors, each their own horror movie cliche, picks a class and sets out into the level with a few typical horror movie objectives, like finding batteries to start a generator that opens a door and lets them escape. The four classes make up a team composition that, together, can foresee and repel any cleverly placed trap or monster attack. The scout can ping traps and tell if the monster is close, while the medic and assault classes work... well, pretty much how youd expect. Crafting materials are strewn about the level, often in precarious people-separating places, that allow players to make crucial items and weapons: hockey sticks, smoke bombs, flamethrowers, that sort of thing. Its that Left 4 Dead item management team meta, but deeper and wider and much more dependent on successful team coordination.

The monster (there are four types now, with the spider the newest addition) gets to play a demigod in order to even the odds against a team of five potentially well-equipped and communicative teens. As long as the monster isnt in anyones line of sight, it can despawn into something called Predator Mode. From this invisible no-clip adjacent overview, they can do horror movie stuff.

All that complexity makes it a necessity to play with friends, or at least communicative players on the same page. Any gap in the teen teamwork is easily exploited by the monster. It doesnt help that theres no tutorial to teach survivors how to work with one another either. Every third match with randos ends in the first few minutes because no one has a clue whats going on.

But when it works, Last Year brushes up closer to the feeling of being in a slasher flick than any other game of its type. Pounding synth-driven music and the ambience of whimpering teens help nail the oppressive atmosphere. It all works well enough that I still revel in watching a spider bite my head offas long as theyve earned it.

For players of a certain age, theres an easy nostalgia to Cardpocalypses premise. You play a kid at a school where everyones obsessed with a collectable card game starring weird, animal-like monstersin other words, a throwback to Pokemons utter domination of the playground zeitgeist in the late-90s.

But that set-up serves to do more than just evoke happy memories. By presenting its Power Pets card battles from the perspective of a group of enthusiastic kids, it gives itself permission to be messy. Children dont spend their time worrying about balance in games, or finding the most precise, efficient combos. They dont religiously follow the rules, or pore over FAQs online for the latest tweaks.

Theres only one rule that kids follow: the rule of cool. Especially in the period in which the game is set, the community that defined that rule wasnt a global one, it was local. What was fair play and what wasnt, what made sense and what didnt, it was up to you and your friends.

And so it is in Cardpocalypse. The kids at protagonist Jess school love playing Power Pets, but even more so they love making it their own. They trade not just in cards, but in stickersits agreed that you can stick new numbers over your favourite pets stats to buff them, and even give them a new name. Thanks to an article in the official magazine, its also considered kosher to create your own new cards from scratch, as long as you can do a convincing enough crayon drawing to illustrate it.

Cards are coveted, but not hoarded in pursuit of a complete collection. Instead they constantly change handstraded back and forth, used as currency, borrowed, stolen. If you want a particular card, youve got to find a kid whos got it, and give him something he wants. Maybe thats a card of equivalent raritybut, equally, maybe its just a fistful of chocolate bars.

I love a deep and straight-faced strategy game as much as the next PC gaming magazine editor, but theres something wonderfully freeing about Cardpocalypses anarchic approach. It conjures up nostalgia not just for a particular time and place, but for an entirely different attitude to gamingone based in youthful curiosity and wonder. We could all do with a little more of that in our lives, eh?

Im so glad this gorgeous indie made the leap from consoles, travelled full speed through cyberspace, and skidded to a timely halt on Steam. Its a rhythm action game about fast bikes, giant swords, lost loves, and magical girl transformations. Its free-spirited and energetic, and its pop soundtrack buzzes with energy.

On paper it sounds like a lot to keep up with, but Sayonara Wild Hearts is great at tying all of its ideas together neatly and coherently. In this universe, contemporary ballet is a rather more action-packed practice than it is in ours, and the game uses the grace of ballet choreography to create seamless transitions and a thematic throughline to its setpieces. The result is masterfully smooth, speedy gameplay that doesnt give you whiplash.

The story follows a young woman who has had her heart broken, and goes on a journey to accept herself and learn to love again. As part of her journey, she must chase down and defeat a number of bosses in a vibrant dreamscape of pinks, purples and blues. After a gentle tutorial that uses Debussys Clair de Lune, a song that many ballet dancers have performed, youre launched into the action.

All of the levels from Sayonara Wild Hearts repertoire have multiple different game modes, and it switches between them without breaking pace. One moment youre dodging incoming enemy missiles, then suddenly youll be challenged with some rhythm QTEs, and in another moment youll leap off the back of your bike and straight into a duel.

Its dazzling and spectacular, like something you would see in a Cirque du Soleil performance, and Sayonara Wild Hearts never leaves you behind. Theres a constant rush of landscapes, items and coloursbut the game takes it all in its perfectly choreographed stride. Your characters fluid ballet movements are always the thing to carry you smoothly through from one sequence to the next.

In one scene, shes gracefully pirouetting out of the way of enemy attacks while leaping effortlessly and the camera follows her movements. She doesnt just jump out of the way, she leaps and flips with elegance and poise. As she spins out of the way of the last threat, she spins to land back on her already moving motorbike and speeds away, already in position for the next sequence. Its all in one elegantly smooth motion, and this transition makes the movement between the different sequences as fluid as possible.

Theres no need for the game to pause and adjust, it just carries the player through to the next section in a rush of excitement. Sayonara Wild Hearts love of ballet means that it doesnt have to put the breaks on its speedy visuals. Its burst of ideas and expression all flows together through its fluid transitions, meaning youre never left behind.

Its been weeks since I watched Netflixs The Witcher, and I still cant get Jaskiers Toss a Coin to Your Witcher out of my head. His fantasy banger echoes through me, haunting my every waking moment. So in an attempt to break the spell hes clearly cast on me, I decide to do as he says, returning to The Continent to help Geralt earn a little extra pocket money.

The only problem there is that my version of Geralt is currently chilling out in sunny Toussaint in the gardens of his fully refurbished vineyard. That doesnt sound like the down-on-his-luck monster hunter from Jaskiers song, so I load up an earlier save and find a dishevelled and impoverished Witcher standing miserably in the rain beside a lake in Velen instead. Much better.

With little more than a handful of Orens to my name, I head towards a nearby village. When I arrive, I head straight for the noticeboard, and discover that the only Witcher contract available concerns someone called Jenny of the Woods. I ask the villages leader about her, and negotiate my (substantial) fee. Hes not happy, but Im not about to let Jaskier get the better of me. I head off to find Jenny, but soon discover that shes met an untimely end and transformed into a horribleand very angryNightwraith. I quickly find out that Im comically under- levelled for the ensuing fight, but I eventually vanquish Jenny and collect my reward.

As I head out of the village, Im ambushed by a band of deserters. As much as Im loathe to even pick up my sword if Im not getting paid for it, theyre a tenacious bunch, and Im forced to fight them off. To ensure I dont come away empty handed, I pick their corpses clean and sell everything to a conveniently-placed travelling merchant. With a few more coins clinking in my pockets, I head off in search of my next contract.

I dont have to go far. Just outside a nearby fishing village, I find a Nilfgaardian captain searching for a missing patrol. He thinks monsters are to blame, but then gets upset when I try and charge him nearly double the going rate to deal with them. Im forced to accept his paltry offering and head off in search of the soldiers, but I cant help but feel short-changed. Arriving at the patrols last known location, I find a band of ghouls. Thinking that this might be a chance for a quick buck after all, I head into battle, but discover to my horror that these corpse-eaters are so powerful that the games UI wont even tell me how strong they are. I manage a few minutes of frantic dodging, but Geralt is eventually torn apart, and I find myself back where I started. Stuff thisI reckon Ill have better luck convincing people to toss a coin to their Gwent opponent instead.

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PC Gamer plays: Last Year, Cardpocolypse, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and The Witcher 3 - PC Gamer

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker co-writer Chris Terrio admits to having struggles with the films ending. Launched this earlier December,The Rise of Skywalker not solely served as a result of the conclusion of the sequel trilogy that began withThe Strain Awakens, however moreover the entire Skywalker saga. It aimed to wrap up the nine-movie arc that started with the distinctive installment in 1977 and continued over the course of four a few years. It is perhaps an understatement to say that was a tall order, considerably since each viewer had their very personal ideas for the best way the story ought to complete. The understanding its unattainable to please allStar Wars followers doesnt make points any less complicated.

Lucasfilm positively had their justifiable share of points ironing out the last word chapter. Initially, Colin Trevorrow was introduced in to make a film known asDuel of the Fates, nevertheless he left the problem due to creative variations with the studio. J.J. Abrams modified Trevorrow, recruiting Terrio to co-write a model new script with him. Lucasfilm higher-ups may need preferred their mannequin to Trevorrows, nevertheless the ending was always a hard nut to crack no matter who was calling the pictures.

Related: Star Wars Followers Will Forgive The Rise of Skywalker Quicker Than The Prequels

Throughout the making-of documentary included on theRise of Skywalker residence media launch, Terrio discusses how laborious it was to craft the movies end and why it provided such an issue for them:

J.J. and Ive been having a number of problem with the highest of the film at one stage throughout the course of, and [production designer] Rick Carter talked about to us, I consider its because you two dont want Star Wars to be over. You dont want the Skywalker saga to be over, so you dont truly want to write it. And I consider there was a number of actuality in that.

Its unclear what Terrio is referring to when he saysthe highest of the film. One threat is hes talking regarding the Rey Skywalker scene, which was the last word sequence in the whole saga. Its easy to see why that will present troublesome for Abrams and Terrio. Its one issue to have the film assemble as a lot as an infinite third act battle in the direction of Emperor Palpatines giant fleet, nevertheless putting a bow on the Skywalker story is one different matter. There is no easy reply to what the ultimate scene throughout the Skywalker saga must be, and like so many alternative choices inThe Rise of Skywalker, Rey Skywalker proved to be terribly divisive. Nonetheless, author Rae Carson, who wrote the officialRise of Skywalker novelization, talked about it represents that familys closing victory over Palpatine. Since that battle has outlined the franchise over the course of three trilogies, one may say Rey Skywalker makes for a robust ending.

Saying goodbye to the Skywalker saga was bittersweet, nevertheless fortunatelyStar Wars as an entire simply isnt over. The franchise will nonetheless have a big presence throughout the widespread tradition zeitgeist, be it through the upcoming Disney+ TV reveals or the recently-announced Extreme Republic publishing initiative. Lucasfilm will also be planning on a model new slate of films, the first of which is able to premiere in December 2022. It is going to be attention-grabbing to see if any of these tales resonate as lots with most people as a result of the Skywalker saga.Star Wars is about to find new horizons, which is an thrilling prospect.

Further: Why Tatooines Suns Rise (In its place of Set) At The End of Rise of Skywalker

Provide: The Skywalker Legacy

Jar Jar Actor Says Phantom Menace Achieves Lucas Imaginative and prescient Higher Than Disney Sequels

Chris Agar is a info editor for Show Rant, moreover writing choices and movie critiques for the positioning as one among Show Rants Rotten Tomatoes accredited critics. Hes a graduate of Wesley Facultys Bachelor of Media Arts and Grasp of Sport Administration purposes. In 2013, Chris was employed to put in writing down weekly discipline office prediction posts together with the Show Rant Underground podcasts Subject Office Battle recreation and his place expanded over the following few years. Together with defending the latest info and hottest movie issues day-to-day, Chris has attended fairly a number of media events for Show Rant, along with San Diego Comic-Con, delivering content material materials his readers care about. He credit score Star Wars and Toy Story with launching a lifelong fascination with movies that led to his career, and now he has quite a lot of cinematic tastes, having enjoyable with the latest Hollywood blockbusters, Oscar contenders, and all of the issues in between. Chris favorite film genres embody sci-fi/fantasy, crime, movement, and drama.

Further About Chris Agar

Dana R. Dille Heather leads is leading the Entertainment column. She has mastered the art of writing since her childhood, and with time, this has developed to be an enormous talent. When we hired her, we were definite that her skill sets would benefit our website, and gladly, we were right. Not only she has shown skills in writing, but she has also demonstrated her ability to manage time according to her work schedule.

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Techland 's Dying Gentle 2 Is In Hassle: Why The Launch Taking Time And When Will It Come??? - Global News Hut