Christian Parenti’s recent article on the Grayzone, “How Covid lockdowns primed the current financial crisis,” is ageist, ableist, and wrong in so many ways.

He is correct that U.S. lockdowns early in the pandemic contributed to supply chain problems, which in turn contributed to the inflation, and even the bank failures, that we’re seeing today. But this was only one of a myriad of factors that played into this, including price gouging by greedy business owners. And the U.S. “Lockdown Left” can hardly be blamed for China’s lockdowns, which were actual lockdowns, compared to the weakly enforced and temporary closures and shutdowns we saw in the U.S., and which probably contributed far more to international supply chain problems than the U.S. “lockdowns” did.

Parenti is also correct to criticize the “left” for its hypocrisy, dishonesty and mistakes, particularly since he comes from the left, himself. But the biggest cause, and the biggest beneficiary, of the current financial crisis is the capitalist class, not the left. It was the capitalist-run Fed, not the left, that jacked up interest rates. Capitalist bankers, not the left, who made risky investments and refused to maintain safer amounts of liquidity. Capitalist politicians (particularly Trump), not the left, who watered down Dodd-Frank, making it easier for banks to fail.

He is also correct that the “lockdowns” dragged on longer than was required. But incorrect that they were unnecessary and didn’t work. They were implemented before there were life-saving vaccines, and at a time when Fauci was telling us masks didn’t work. Consequently, it was much easier to catch the disease, and people were much more likely to die from it. And numerous studies have shown that the closures saved tens of thousands of lives. Nevertheless, when my school district returned to in-person learning last year, when we had a strictly enforced mandatory masking policy, and a 95% vaccination rate for students and staff, we didn’t have a single covid outbreak in any of our schools.

Parenti suggests that Covid is not a serious, or a particularly deadly, disease. Kind of depends on your perspective, and your willingness to ignore things like Long Covid, and the increased risk of developing heart and lung disease, or diabetes (https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/long-covid-may-double-risk-new-heart-conditions, & https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01410768231154703). It is true that younger people are less likely to die from it than are older people. But many still do die, and the overall mortality rates for children and young adults have increased significantly because of it (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2800816?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=013023). And what about seniors; people with disabilities or comorbidities; and low wage front line workers who are especially at risk of hospitalization and death? Why should they be the only ones who have to take special precautions, and who must bear the brunt of the suffering and mortality, when it’s younger people, particularly teens, who contribute the most to covid’s proliferation in communities? Indeed, Parenti’s claims that covid is not an especially deadly disease, and that “focused protection,” like that proposed in the Great Barrington Declaration, are ageist and ableist arguments.
And he is wrong, like most of the media, about the terrible effects of school closures on teen mental health. Yes, it was bad. But nowhere near as bad as the effects of losing a primary care giver to the pandemic, which happened to over 100,000 U.S. children, or the effects of covid-related financial stress, as shown in this study: cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/survey-study-ties-covid-related-family-financial-problems-child-stress-worry. Likewise, global mental health is not significantly worse now than before the pandemic according to this study: Https://www.bmj.com/content/38

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