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Johnson’s reaction in the U.K. was shameful. Trump’s U.S. brought
up the rear.
Germany’s solicitude for the population did not, however, extend
beyond its borders. The European Union proved to be anything
but. However, ailing European societies could reach across the
Atlantic for succor. The Cuban superpower was once again ready
to help with doctors and equipment. Meanwhile, its U.S. neighbor
was cutting back health aid to Yemen, where it had helped create
the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and was using the opportu-
nity of the devastating health crisis to tighten its cruel sanctions to
ensure maximal suffering among its chosen enemies. Cuba is the
most longstanding victim, back to the days of Kennedy’s terrorist
wars and economic strangulation, but miraculously has survived.
It should, incidentally, be profoundly disturbing to Americans
to compare the circus in Washington with Angela Merkel’s sober,
measured, factual report to Germans on how the outbreak should
be handled.
The distinguishing feature in responses seems not to be democ-
racies vs. autocracies, but functioning vs. dysfunctional societies
— what in Trumpian rhetoric are termed “shithole” countries, like
what he is working hard to craft under his rule.
C.J. Polychroniou: What do you think of the $2 trillion coro-
navirus economic rescue plan? Is it enough to stave off another
possible great recession and to help the most vulnerable groups in
American society?
The rescue plan is better than nothing. It offers limited relief
to some of those who desperately need it, and contains an ample
fund to help the truly vulnerable: the piteous corporations flocking
to the nanny state, hat in hand, hiding their copies of Ayn Rand
and pleading once again for rescue by the public after having spent
the glory years amassing vast profits and magnifying them with
an orgy of stock buybacks. But no need to worry. The slush fund
will be monitored by Trump and his Treasury Secretary, who can

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