Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis

Description

This short book calls to account the government misrulers and corporate criminals who made suffering from the global coronavirus pandemic more acute. Modeled on a famous 1940 bestseller--a pamphlet exposing appeasers of Nazi Germany--Guilty Men shows how the crisis has been stoked by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful men. The rogues gallery begins with Donald Trump, who deliberately downplayed the crisis despite knowing its dangers, as well as his international political allies, above all Boris Johnson. Billionaire politicians like Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler moved stocks at the same time they were telling Americans all was well . Political charlatans like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos undermined public safety in order to advance their agenda, Trump-controlled agencies, led by the ever-crooked Federal Reserve, bailed out Wall Street while failing to provide basic relief for workers. Libertarian "think tanks" like the Ayn Rand Institute decried public expenditures but were first in line to get bailout checks. Pharmaceutical companies gamed the vaccine race, and the most rapacious global corporations like Facebook, Visa, and Pfizer have found the pandemic to be very profitable indeed, vastly enriching the already grotesquely bloated fortunes of trillionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Charles Koch. Guilty Men closes with a call for a version of the Pecora Commission, initiated by newly elected Franklin Roosevelt, that took aim at what FDR called 'speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, and profiteering' that stoked the Depression. The commission led to some of the most far-reaching reforms in US history, as well as sensational hearings that led to the fall of the leading bankers and financiers of that era.

John Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine, a contributing writer for the Progressive and In These Times, and the associate editor of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times. He is the author of several books, including The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party and The "S" Word.

On The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: Henry Wallace is a political figure-one of the giants of the mid-twentieth century-who has kind of been pushed out of the national political discussion. Nichols [tells us] that one of the reasons Wallace was not renominated in 1944 was because of his opposition to racism. The segregationists didn't want him around. -- Senator Bernie Sanders On The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: More than a history book-this is an examination of what progressives must do to retake our democracy. Nichols points the way toward how we can build a party based on peace, liberty, and justice for all. -- Representative Ilhan Omar On The 'S' Word: A chilling reminder of how much rich American history has been erased by shallow messaging. A crucial book. -- Naomi Klein On The 'S' Word: The Tom Paine of our time. -- Bill Moyers Sure to alarm as much as it angers and informs ... [Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers] will leave readers with a renewed hunger for justice regarding the pandemic. * Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) *