I often will sit at my computer, kind of bored and idle and unstimulated. I suppose some of that is not only the life of a writer, but as a mostly-unsuccessful blogger, it’s pretty much the bottom of the barrel of the writing profession. So whereas a writer such as Hemingway or Woolf or Nietzsche, whom you could imagine sitting at the typewriter (or chewing mindlessly on their quill), might experience writer’s block (or a manic work-spree), at least they have the highest-caliber brains and publishers awaiting a quality product. Now, with 1,000,000 books published in any given year, and folks being mostly resistant to being marketed to, the number of writers who probably sit and suffer day in and day out must be legion. But, today, I fell into a rich vein of political, philosophical, and written gold, and I want to share it here. The medium: quotes. The subject: America’s characteristic, predictable, and mixed response to the biggest crisis in a century: the coronavirus pandemic. It is stretching each of us, and our social fabric, and our institutions, to the limit. Here are some trenchant thoughts by three sources that all cohere nicely (that is, quotes about public health, economic insecurity, social welfare, philosophy, and politics).
As I said, quotes about public health; the sources: The New York Times Editors (as a group)(in the first of a series on the American response to the coronavirus pandemic), and two editors in particular: Jeneen Interlandi and James Bennet. The links to the essays in question are here, here, and here, respectively. I will cite them as “NYT”, “JI” and “JB” so it will be a bit monotonous on the eye.
As well, a decent source for quotes about public health can be found here, and one of my latest blogs:
And now, twenty trenchant thoughts in the form of quotes about public health, the way we organize American society economically, and the dark underbelly that this crisis/opportunity/danger provides:
[The Progressive legislation of the early 20th century, Roosevelt’s New Deal, and President Johnson’s Great Society, which created programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and Head Start] embodied a broad and muscular conception of liberty: that government should provide all Americans with the freedom that comes from a stable and prosperous life. ‘We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence,’ Roosevelt told the nation in 1944. The goal, of course, was never realized in full, but since the late 1960s, the federal government has largely abandoned the attempt. The defining trend in American public policy has been to diminish government’s role as a guarantor of personal liberty. NYT
Advocates of a minimalist conception of government claim they too are defenders of liberty. But theirs is a narrow and negative definition of freedom: the freedom from civic duty, from mutual obligation, from taxation. This impoverished view of freedom has in practice protected wealth and privilege. It has perpetuated the nation’s defining racial inequalities and kept the poor trapped in poverty, and their children, and their children’s children. NYT
Sick people, lacking paid leave, couldn’t afford to stop working. Others who lost their jobs lost their health insurance, too. White-collar workers on lockdown discovered they were counting on people without health care to endanger themselves by delivering food. Poor children began falling farther behind in school simply because their parents couldn’t afford the internet access other kids took for granted. African-Americans in states like Louisiana began dying in numbers out of all proportion to their share of the population. The coronavirus was a serious blow. But it quickly became obvious that America’s pre-existing conditions had left the country far weaker and more vulnerable than it should have been. JB
The United States does not guarantee the availability of affordable housing to its citizens, as do most developed nations. It does not guarantee reliable access to health care, as does virtually every other developed nation. The cost of a college education in the United States is among the highest in the developed world. And beyond the threadbare nature of the American safety net, the government has pulled back from investment in infrastructure, education and basic scientific research, the building blocks of future prosperity. It is not surprising many Americans have lost confidence in the government as a vehicle for achieving the things that we cannot achieve alone. NYT
The nation’s hierarchies are starkly visible during periods of crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated extraordinary sacrifices, but the distribution is profoundly unequal. The wealthy and famous and politically powerful have laid first claim to the available lifeboats: Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia secured their own fortunes by selling off stock holdings as the virus spread in January and February, even as they reassured the nation that everything was going to be OK; the billionaire David Geffen posted on Instagram that he planned to ride out the crisis on his 454-foot yacht, Rising Sun, adding, “I’m hoping everybody is staying safe”; large corporations lobbied successfully against a proposal to provide paid sick leave to every American worker, pleading they couldn’t afford the cost. NYT
Already this pandemic has usefully complicated catchphrases that have flattened our politics for decades. Stalwart opponents of “big government” have recognized, at least tacitly, that the federal government has a central role to play in managing the economy and assuring sensible outcomes; advocates of “socialism” must see that private laboratories have played a critical role in creating rapid, reliable tests for the disease, and scaling them, after the government botched the job. JB
Less affluent Americans will bear the brunt in health and wealth. Already they suffer disproportionately from the diseases of labor like black lung and mesothelioma; the diseases of poverty like obesity and diabetes; and the opioid epidemic that has raged in the communities where opportunity is in short supply. By one estimate, these patterns of poor health mean those at the bottom of the income spectrum are twice as likely to die from Covid-19. Many are losing their jobs; those still working generally cannot do so from the safety of the living room couch. They risk death to obtain the necessities of life. NYT
Captains of industry will have to commit acts of genuine altruism, because not all of the innovations needed to build a modern public health system will be clearly lucrative. If you’re making a fortune out of cornering the market on ventilators, for example, designing a cheaper, easier-to-make version of your product might sound like bad business. Likewise, developing vaccines and antibiotics may seem like a risky investment compared with the prospect of another million-dollar cancer drug. But when the next pandemic threat arrives, millions of lives — not to mention the entire global economy — may depend on exactly these things. JI
The crucible of a crisis provides the opportunity to forge a better society, but the crisis itself does not do the work. Crises expose problems, but they do not supply alternatives, let alone political will. Change requires ideas and leadership. Nations often pass through the same kinds of crises repeatedly, either unable to imagine a different path or unwilling to walk it. NYT
[The coronavirus] pandemic offers the same opportunity that Americans have seized during past crises: To set aside petty differences, recognize national priorities and set to work again on creating a more perfect union. JB
Generations of federal policymakers have prioritized the pursuit of economic growth with scant regard for stability or distribution. This moment demands a restoration of the national commitment to a richer conception of freedom: economic security and equality of opportunity. NYT
So great was the effect of these public health measures that by the time the century turned again, life expectancy in the United States had risen sharply, from less than 50 years to nearly 80. ‘Public health is the best bang for our collective buck,’ Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, notes. ‘It has consistently saved the most lives for the least amount of money.’ One would never guess as much today. Across the same century that saw so many public health victories, public health itself fell victim to larger forces. JI
Health care spending grew by 52 percent in the past decade, while the budgets of local health departments shrank by as much as 24 percent, according to a 2019 report from the public health nonprofit Trust for America’s Health, and the C.D.C.’s budget remained flat. Today, public health claims just 3 cents of every health dollar spent in the country. JI
Crucial programs — including ones that provide vaccinations, test for sexually transmitted infections and monitor local food and water supplies — have been trimmed or eliminated. As a result, several old public health foes have returned: Measles and syphilis are both resurgent, as is nicotine consumption among teenagers and the contamination of food and water with bacteria and lead. Each of these crises has received its own flurry of outrage, but none of them have been enough to break what experts say is the nation’s default public health strategy: neglect, panic, repeat. JI
And the nation’s tattered social safety net is in desperate need of reinforcement. Americans need reliable access to health care. Americans need affordable options for child care and for the care of older members of their families, a growing crisis in an aging nation. No one, and especially not children, should ever go hungry. Everyone deserves a place to call home. NYT
A society that prizes individual liberty above all else is bound to treat health as a private matter. But if Covid-19 has taught us anything, it’s that our health and safety depend on collective action. That’s what public health is all about. JI
A once-in-a-century public health crisis is unfolding, and the richest country in the world is struggling to mount an effective response. Hospitals don’t have enough gowns or masks to protect doctors and nurses, nor enough intensive care beds to treat the surge of patients. Laboratories don’t have the equipment to diagnose cases quickly or in bulk, and state and local health departments across the country don’t have the manpower to track the disease’s spread. Perhaps worst of all, urgent messages about the importance of social distancing and the need for temporary shutdowns have been muddied by politics. Nearly all of these problems might have been averted by a strong, national public health system, but in America, no such system exists. JI
The worst crises often occur under weak leadership; that is a big part of how an initial problem spirals out of control. …The multi-trillion-dollar scale of the government’s response to the [coronavirus pandemic], for all its flaws and inadequacies, offers a powerful reminder that there is no replacement for an activist state. The political scientist Francis Fukuyama has observed that the nations best weathering the coronavirus pandemic are those like Singapore and Germany, where there is broad trust in government — and where the state merits that confidence. A critical part of America’s post-crisis rebuilding project is to restore the effectiveness of the government and to rebuild public confidence in it. NYT
The purpose of the federal government, Lincoln wrote to Congress on July 4, 1861, was “to elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial burdens from all shoulders, and to give everyone an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” NYT
Early data from several states indicates that Hispanics and African-Americans already account for a disproportionately high number of coronavirus-related deaths, a finding that is both unsurprising and unacceptable. A better system would direct federal aid to where it’s needed most — and would work to eradicate legacies of injustice and abuse that mar the history of public health victories. JI
The coronavirus pandemic has also exposed the federal government’s lack of resources, competence and ambition. The government failed to contain the virus through a program of testing and targeted quarantines; it is struggling to provide states with the medical equipment necessary to help those who fall ill; and instead of moving more aggressively to contain the economic damage, the federal government has allowed companies to lay off millions of workers. The unemployment rate in the United States has most likely already reached the highest level since the Great Depression. NYT
Corporate action and philanthropy certainly have their places, particularly in the short term, given President Trump’s feckless leadership and the tattered condition of the government he heads. But they are poor substitutes for effective stewardship by public institutions. What America needs is a just and activist government. The nature of democracy is that we are together responsible for saving ourselves. NYT
The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare once again the incomplete nature of the American project — the great distance between the realities of life and death in the United States and the values enunciated in its founding documents. NYT
The present crisis has revealed the United States as a nation in which professional basketball players could be rapidly tested for the coronavirus but health care workers were turned away; in which the affluent could retreat to the safety of second homes, relying on workers who can’t take paid sick leave to deliver food; in which children in lower-income households struggle to connect to the digital classrooms where their school lessons are now supposed to be delivered. NYT
The erosion of the American dream is not a result of laziness or a talent drought. Rather, opportunity has slipped away. The economic ladder is harder to climb; real incomes have stagnated for decades even as the costs of housing, education and health care have increased. Many lower-income Americans are born into polluted, impoverished neighborhoods, with no decent jobs to be found. NYT
The wealthy are particularly successful in blocking changes they don’t like. The political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern have calculated that between 1981 and 2002, policies supported by at least 80 percent of affluent voters passed into law about 45 percent of the time, while policies opposed by at least 80 percent of those voters passed into law just 18 percent of the time. Importantly, the views of poor and middle-class voters had little influence. NYT
You have read some quotes about public health. Other quotes about values, ethics, wisdom, and the like can be found HERE, for free, in what I call The Wisdom Archive.
