[Despite 100,000 confirmed US coronavirus deaths, powerful
economic interests are fighting to reopen the country prematurely —
no matter the cost to workers.] [[link removed]]

CORONAVIRUS DENIAL AND CLIMATE DENIAL HAVE ONE THING IN COMMON: GREED
 
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Basav Sen
May 29, 2020
Newsweek
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_ Despite 100,000 confirmed US coronavirus deaths, powerful economic
interests are fighting to reopen the country prematurely — no matter
the cost to workers. _

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As the state of Florida went ahead with its move to substantially end
the coronavirus lockdown and reopen its economy, it emerged that Dr.
Rebekah Jones, the scientist in charge of the state’s coronavirus
database, was fired. She claims she was ordered to manually change
data to support the case for reopening.

While we don’t know for certain yet if Dr. Jones’ version of
events is true, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if it is.

In neighboring Georgia, data on the state government website
purporting to show a steady decline in coronavirus cases turned out to
be erroneous. What’s more, it appears that the Georgia Department of
Public Health is intentionally “moving the goalposts” in how it
portrays coronavirus data in a way that minimizes the seriousness of
the pandemic, according to an associate professor of public health at
Georgia State University.

This isn't new. Recall that Florida was the same state where
scientists working for state agencies were under a gag order
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prevented them from discussing climate change, or even using the term
"climate change."

And it's not just in Florida. The Trump administration is waging an
Inquisition-like "war on science
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across the federal government, affecting the EPA, the Interior
Department, and many other agencies. Official coronavirus minimization
is completely consistent with the pattern of official climate change
denial and dismissal of science.

It's tempting—but fundamentally incorrect—to attribute the
widespread denial of science to ignorance and lack of education.

The source of political power backing climate change denial is obvious
and well-documented [[link removed]]. The fossil
fuel industry
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other big industries such as agribusiness
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spent decades—and lots of money—funding fake grassroots groups
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think-tanks
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promoting misinformation
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and buying access to politicians
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both parties.

The fact that climate change denial is a popular ideology on the U.S.
right today has much more to do with this concentration of economic
and political power than with a diffusion of ignorance.

With coronavirus minimization
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sometimes ventures into truly preposterous coronavirus denial
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the political motives are less immediately obvious. But the evidence
on hand points in the same general direction as with climate change
denial.

The premature reopening of states against the advice of public health
experts was preceded by horrifying statements
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political leaders that it may be essential to sacrifice human lives
for the sake of "the economy," and fake grassroots "protests"
of armed vigilantes
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supremacists and fascists
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with funding and backing from wealthy interests
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(In fact, _The Guardian_ reports that major fossil fuel
companies have funded some of the same organizations
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protesting stay at home orders.)

Clearly, there are powerful economic interests who stand to gain from
the premature reopening. The question is why?

Consider a disturbing development in Ohio, where the state appears to
be urging employers to report workers
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don't return to work after businesses reopen, so they can be denied
unemployment benefits. This coercive measure would save money for the
state unemployment system — and eventually for employers, because
the taxes they pay to fund the system
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like insurance premiums.

Obviously, affected workers would include many who legitimately fear
returning to work because they don't have confidence that their
employer will provide a safe work environment. This isn't an unfounded
concern, as the experience of workers
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businesses like Amazon who have remained open through the nationwide
lockdown has shown.

In some places, the profit motive seems clearer still. In California,
Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO, openly defied a local lockdown
order
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reopen a factory. Tesla workers were getting unemployment benefits, so
clearly this wasn't out of concern for their livelihoods. It's because
the indefinite closure of the factory meant that Tesla made less
money, which threatened to make Musk less money
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Even before the reopening, the Institute for Policy Studies reported
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more money during this crisis than anyone not named Jeff Bezos. But he
was still willing to risk exposing his workers and the communities
they live in to a deadly disease to make even more.

Taken together, it's hard not to imagine a more sinister motive for
moves like these: disciplining workers into accepting that if they're
not willing to risk their lives to enrich their employers, they face
losing their livelihoods — without a social safety net to catch
them.

The common thread between climate denial and coronavirus minimization,
then, is not opposition to science per se. It's the weaponization of
opposition to science in the service of profit — no matter the cost
to everyone else.

_Basav Sen is the director of the Institute for Policy Studies as the
Climate Justice Project Director. His work focuses on climate
solutions at the national, state, and local level that address racial,
economic, gender and other forms of inequality._

_Prior to joining IPS, Basav worked for about 11 years as a strategic
corporate campaign researcher at the United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW). He has also had experience as a campaigner on the
World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and global finance and
trade issues. As a member of a grassroots neighborhood-based
environmental group, he has been involved in local struggles on energy
justice in Washington DC._

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