{"id":25952,"date":"2021-02-04T08:54:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T08:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=158352"},"modified":"2021-02-04T08:54:30","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T08:54:30","slug":"the-resilience-doctrine-mutual-aid-in-the-pandemic-and-beyond-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/04\/the-resilience-doctrine-mutual-aid-in-the-pandemic-and-beyond-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Resilience Doctrine: Mutual Aid in the Pandemic and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"
Part 4 of a 4-part Primer on Disaster Collectivism in the Climate and Pandemic Crises<\/p>\n
At The Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington, our winter-quarter class on \u201cCatastrophe: Community Resilience in the Face of Disaster<\/a>\u201d began in early January 2020, so our students had early warning of coronavirus as it began to spread around the world, but before the disease or public awareness had reached the United States. COVID-19 had reached Washington state by February, as our class held a Catastroph-Fair<\/a>, and workshopped disaster scenarios such as a pandemic. After the shutdown began in mid-March, our faculty decided to introduce a new \u201cPandemic Academy<\/a>\u201d class, with the \u201cResilience Doctrine<\/a>\u201d as my inaugural lecture.<\/p>\n As I noted<\/a> at the onset of the quarantine, \u201cWe\u2019ve learned from previous disasters that fear makes citizens more obedient to authority. Fear reinforces the superstate as our protector, and justifies oppressive or unequal responses \u2026\u2018Elite panic\u2019 generates repressive measures that start to bring out the police, vigilantes, and military, ironically in the name of preventing public panic.\u201d President Trump acknowledged as such one week later when he told reporter Bob Woodward<\/a>, \u201cI always wanted to play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don\u2019t want to create a panic.\u201d<\/p>\n