Interview with Alan Goodman

The Ebola Epidemic and Xenophobia: A Fundamental Question of Morality

November 3, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Editors' note: The following is a slightly edited transcript of an interview on the Michael Slate Show with revcom.us correspondent Alan Goodman. Goodman has been writing on moral questions concentrated in the Ebola epidemic in Africa and the reaction of the U.S. and other world powers.

Times Square, New York City

Michael Slate: One of the things to talk to you about is generally the morality question, but then there's also this very specific thing about the xenophobia that's been really pushed hot and heavy, especially over the last couple of months.

Alan Goodman: And actually especially as we speak—I'm on the East Coast and I don't know what it's like on the West Coast and in other parts of the country and other parts of the world—but New Jersey Governor Christie, who is a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president, seized on the Ebola thing to promote just really ignorance, hatred, and fear of foreigners, particularly Africans.

A lot of this came down around the detention of a nurse, Kaci Hickox, who was one of the heroic people who was over in West Africa treating Ebola victims. She came back. She was asymptomatic. She was involuntarily detained. And Christie has been making statements like she was obviously ill, you know, he's not a doctor. He didn't see her. And, in fact, as a medical fact, she was asymptomatic.

Now, it's one thing to take Ebola seriously, it is a very terrible disease and it is contagious. But what's being done here is seizing on this to promote, yes, xenophobia. It's a term that we're all going to have to unfortunately both learn and speak out against. It's ignorant hatred and fear of immigrants with an ugly and ominously dangerous edge.

You and I were chatting earlier about some of the things that the current situation is evoking. One was the atmosphere when AIDS was first emerging as a terrible plague and primarily focused at that time in the male gay community. And instead of humane treatment, education, enlightenment, very ugly dark forces in society used that as a way to promote an agenda, which they already had, of hatred for anybody outside the norm of traditional patriarchal heterosexual relationships.

And the other thing it reminds me of and, you know, it might be a little more intense out here on the East Coast, but you feel glimpses of the atmosphere after September 11 and the attack on the World Trade Center, when anyone who looked like a Middle Easterner was subject to threats, suspicion, fear. and hatred, and so on. So that's a real danger. And then what has been the answer of... of Obama and Democrats? Well, New York Governor Cuomo, himself a very leading Democrat, has been basically hand in hand with Christie in feeding this—denouncing the CDC, that is the Centers for Disease Control, for not having strict enough measures in place.

And then there's the kind of fundamental moral point that you brought up when you referenced the article I wrote at revcom.us, which is the morality that American lives are more important than other people's lives, that only American lives matter.

And I'm on the same wavelength as your previous guest. That is outrageous. That is immoral.

But where is the Democrat who is calling out Christie as a xenophobe whipping up dangerous violent, you know, potentially violent fear of immigrants? You will find Democrats saying, oh, no, that's not the most effective way to prevent Ebola from coming here. But you won't find any Democrat of stature calling out what he's doing for what it really is.

Michael Slate: Well, let's... let's dig into this thing about the morality a little bit more, because one of the things... and in particular, in terms of American lives can't... you know, this whole idea that the message from the ruling class is that American lives count and other people's lives don't, when you look at what's happening in West Africa and you look at the way that... that the whole distortion and lopsidedness of the world and the fact that these people are left, you know, basically to hell with them, let them die, as long as we don't have to see it. And then even more, as long as it doesn't impact us negatively. And there's a lot of levels to that, that I thought you were actually getting into in your article as well.

Alan Goodman: I was out at Fox News's world headquarters dressed up in one of those fake HAZMAT suits that you can get for 10 bucks at Home Depot. And I was kind of trying to be the opposite of this guy who got his picture all over the news with it... out in front of the White House with the "Stop the Flights." And I had a "Stop the Xenophobia" sign.

I had a couple interesting experiences that I'll share. One was, you know, some people who were most offended by my "Stop the Xenophobia" sign, interestingly, were Democrats. A woman who works for Comedy Central was very oh, you're not talking about President Obama, are you?

And I made the basic point that this morality that American lives are more important than other people's lives runs through everything in America. You know, this whole logic that... that our approach to this terrible disease—should be based on how it impacts Americans, as if the lives of people in Africa don't count.

Another interesting experience was we met a man from Liberia who's in touch with his family and other people back in Liberia. And he just described to us whole families being wiped out without coming into any contact with any medical treatment or resources or education at all.

And, you know, in this world, when the president can listen to everybody's phone conversations, when they can assassinate people all around the world with drones, when they can bomb, you know, spend just obscene amounts of money to build a military that can bomb anybody, anywhere and everywhere... there aren't the resources, they say, to provide the most basic health education and medical care for African people suffering from this terrible disease.

I mean, do you need more reason to, you know, to condemn the current world order as utterly unacceptable?!

Michael Slate: People not familiar with the scene or maybe just vaguely familiar with it, might say, well, they've done something, I know I've seen doctors going over there and I've seen some money and, you know...

Alan Goodman: Another thing I just want to bring into the conversation at this point that we made at revcom.us, as well, is that there was the New York Times article that appeared on October 23. And it reported that a decade ago, scientists in Canada were very close to a vaccine that would be 100 percent effective, well, at least in tests with monkeys, but, you know, very promising for preventing the spread of Ebola.

But this is a quote from the Times: "The absence of follow-up on such a promising candidate reflects a broader failure to produce medicines and vaccines for diseases that affect poorer countries."

So, there you have it! I mean you have just the defining economic logic of capitalism, that, well, there's not enough profit in creating Ebola medicine. And the inhumanity of the outlook that well, they're Africans, so their lives don't matter as much. And again, you know, what more do you need to know to... to condemn the current world system?

Michael Slate: The big concern of the U.S. was not the spread of Ebola among the people, but the potential for destabilization inside these various African countries and what that would mean for what the U.S. has to do in the world, in Africa and around the rest of the world, as well.

Alan Goodman: Well, I think that the main destabilization issue that they're concerned about is not so much, you know, these countries that they characterize as failed states or whatever, that don't really have functioning medical care systems at all, but the possibility of Ebola spreading within the United States and having a destabilizing effect here.

And once again, we come back to the basic moral question that American lives... and I'm quoting Bob Avakian here from BAsics, "American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People's Lives," and this is... this is a fundamental question of morality. I think, you know, that outrage that your previous guest expressed is absolutely appropriate. It is unacceptable and obscene that so much, you know, there... that in a world with such incredible resources, you know, that so little, if any, have gone into this disease because African people aren't a profitable market for drug companies and because of the immoral logic that American lives are more important than other people's lives.

Michael Slate: That's a great note to end on. Thank you very much for joining us today. And we'll be following the story at revcom.us so stay tuned.

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