Bill Withers left this world yesterday, but he leaves us with this beautiful song for our troubled times

The suggestion that now is not the time to point fingers, that we should wait until this crisis is over and then make a post mortem is terrible advice. Trump won’t suspend his daily effort to shape the narrative and shift responsibility for the colossal unpreparedness of his administration for this deadly virus so it imperative for us to speak up now, not wait until the crisis is past.

We should have learned that lesson in the aftermath of the release of the Mueller report. Before it became public property, Attorney General William Barr in a press conference dishonestly spun the report’s findings to exonerate Trump. Let’s not repeat the same mistake.

The countries of the Global North have to step up and assist the countries of the Global South in fighting this pandemic. Even if the latter countries have the political will, they have neither the resources nor infrastructure to combat the deadly virus. If we can’t extend assistance out of a sense of our shared humanity, own own national self interest should compel us to do so.

The suggestion that a Biden Presidency will be nothing more than neoliberalism with a human face strikes me as analytically empty and speculative in the worst sort of way.

Voting by mail should receive the sustained political and legislative attention of the Democratic Party and the larger democratic movement. In view of the present health care catastrophe, it seems to me that an obvious requirement if we hope maximize the participation and protect the health of the whole electorate this fall. Otherwise, millions of voters could be disenfranchised and their health put in jeopardy.