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Europe’s Vaccine Rollout Just Suffered Its Second Major Setback Of The Week

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Europe’s vaccine rollout has just suffered its second major loss of the week after a court in Brussels ruled that AstraZeneca will only need to deliver a fraction of the jabs that it promised the EU, at a slower pace than the current delivery schedule requires.
That’s the second piece of bad news for the Continent’s vaccine rollout this week following German biotech firm CureVac’s revelation that its COVID-19 jab (intended to be a key player in Germany’s campaign) <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/new-obstacle-eu-vaccine-rollout-emerges-curevac-jab-misses-target-only-47-effective">was found to be only 47% effective in a late-stage trial</a>. While efficacy numbers do change from trial to trial, and final results are due out in a few weeks, analysts said they don’t expect much of a shift. German officials have insisted that the set won’t delay the vaccine rollout, but with restrictions on the AstraZeneca jab still in place, supplies remain restricted. Though ultimately it will be poorer countries who suffer because of CureVac’s failure.
Circling back to Friday’s court ruling, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6c535f67-c154-4044-91d0-8ed375cab361?shareType=nongift">the FT reports</a> that a court in Brussels denied Europe’s attempt to hold AstraZeneca accountable for its failure to keep its vaccine-delivery commitments, which were caused by supply disruptions tied to a factory in the Netherlands.
However, the court did rule that AstraZeneca must deliver 80MM doses by late September. The European Commission had demanded 300MM, and AZ has already supplied 70MM shots, meaning it only needs to deliver 10MM more over the summer, a target that should be easily met. The company is expected to deliver another 10MM doses by the end of June.
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The result is a blow to the commission, which had wanted the company to be ordered to deliver 120m shots by the end of June, with a fine of €10 per dose per day for any shortfall, penalties that could have run into billions of euros.
However, officials insisted the case was justified and pointed to the judgment’s criticism of AstraZeneca’s “big mistake” in failing to honour the original delivery timetable.
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In its ruling, the court determined that while the pharma company’s failure to deliver vaccines produced at an Oxford BioMedica plant in the UK was inconsistent with making the “best reasonable efforts” to meet its supply commitments as required by its contract, the court stopped short of ordering the company to use the plant to fulfill the European Commission’s demands. This key finding was apparently enough for the Commission to declare that the court validated its few, even though it walked away from the legal battle pretty much empty-handed.
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" readability="18">
AstraZeneca said it looked forward to renewed collaboration with the commission. Jeffrey Pott, AstraZeneca’s general counsel, said: “AstraZeneca has fully complied with its agreement with the European Commission and we will continue to focus on the urgent task of supplying an effective vaccine, which we are delivering at no profit to help protect people in Europe and around the world from the deadliest pandemic in a generation.”
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission, also notched the verdict up as a win.  “This decision confirms the position of the commission: AstraZeneca did not live up to the commitments it made in the contract. It is good to see that an independent judge confirms this,” she said.
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But since its own courts didn’t deliver the outcome it wanted, will <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/italy-finds-stash-29mm-astrazeneca-jabs-eu-moves-block-vaccine-exports">we now see the European Commission take another run at the UK?</a>
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Dr. Bridle and Canadian virologist <a href="https://freeworldnews.tv/watch?id=60ccfe51c9de0e16ffb52834">explains how the COVID vaccines work</a> and how he has been attacked for speaking out against vaccinating children.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/europes-vaccine-rollout-just-suffered-its-second-major-setback-of-the-week">https://www.infowars.com/posts/europes-vaccine-rollout-just-suffered-its-second-major-setback-of-the-week</a>

news Europe’s Vaccine Rollout Just Suffered Its Second Major Setback Of The Week

Europe’s vaccine rollout has just suffered its second major loss of the week after a court in Brussels ruled that AstraZeneca will only nee...

Green Beret Calls On U.S. Patriots Who Were Asked to Spy on Oath Keepers by FBI to Speak Out Against Deep State Setup

A Green Beret who refused to work with the FBI leading up to the Capitol riot on January 6 is calling for fellow patriots to step forward and blow the whistle on the Deep State plot to demonize Trump supporters.
US Army Special Forces combat veteran and former Congressional candidate Jeremy Brown revealed in October 2020 that he was approached by the FBI to spy on the Oath Keepers.
Not only did Brown refuse to be recruited, he released audio and video surveillance of the DHS and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) showing up at his Florida home.
Now, Brown is calling on U.S. patriots who were also approached by the FBI to blow the whistle on the Deep State setup, <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/green-beret-jeremy-brown-calls-us-patriots-asked-spy-oath-keepers-fbi-deep-state-step-forward-speak/">according</a> to The Gateway Pundit.
Tucker Carlson Calls Out Staged Events Being Used to Takeover America.
If you’ve been approached by the FBI to recruit you, send an email to lawyer Kellye SoRelle (<a href="https://www.infowars.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#442f2128283d2104302c21233621212a203625232b2a6a2d2a222b">[email protected]</a>), the founder of the Green Dragon Institute and <a href="http://oathkeepers.org/">Oath Keepers</a> General Counsel.
Brown’s testimony coincides with the recent <a href="https://www.revolver.news/2021/06/federal-foreknowledge-jan-6-unindicted-co-conspirators-raise-disturbing-questions/">bombshell piece</a> by Revolver News revealing that the FBI used numerous informants and provocateurs embedded in patriot groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys during the January 6 Capitol protest to commit violence.
Alex Jones breaks down the war being waged on the American right by their political opposition in control of the Justice Department.
<div class="COq0x5Yw"><a href="https://www.infowarsstore.com/mega-immune-support-pack?ims=exqge&utm_campaign=megaimmunesupporthero&utm_source=Infowars+Hero&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=megaimmunesupporthero" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.directus.libertycdn.com/uploads/_/originals/UPDATEDEssentialVitamins-hero-385.jpg" /></a></div>
The Deep State is using the events of the Capitol riot to justify their crackdown against Trump supporters and political opponents of Joe Biden, characterized by Attorney General Merrick Garland as “white supremacists.”
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Matt Bracken joins The Alex Jones Show to break down the plans of the establishment left to <a href="https://freeworldnews.tv/watch?id=60cbbe8963f23e137da4be1c">force their political opponents into submission</a>.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/green-beret-calls-on-u-s-patriots-who-were-asked-to-spy-on-oath-keepers-by-fbi-to-speak-out-against-deep-state-setup">https://www.infowars.com/posts/green-beret-calls-on-u-s-patriots-who-were-asked-to-spy-on-oath-keepers-by-fbi-to-speak-out-against-deep-state-setup</a>

news Green Beret Calls On U.S. Patriots Who Were Asked to Spy on Oath Keepers by FBI to Speak Out Against Deep State Setup

A Green Beret who refused to work with the FBI leading up to the Capitol riot on January 6 is calling for fellow patriots to step forward an...

Hypocrisy: Special Forces Chief Diversity Officer Who Likened Trump to Hitler Allowed Back at Pentagon

The former chief of diversity and inclusion within the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command has been given his old job back, months after he was suspended over comparing former president Donald Trump to Hitler.
Richard Torres-Estrada, appointed chief of diversity and inclusion for the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in early March, lasted about a week in that role, before an investigation into his social media output found a doctored image of Adolf Hitler and Trump holding up bibles, as well as other Trump-disparaging and race-baiting material.
However, three months later, the Department of Defense (DoD) cleared Torres-Estrada to return to work, claiming that his social media antics broke no DoD rules.
As chief of diversity and inclusion, Torres-Estrada will once again be able to make recruiting decisions. By way of explanation, a USSOCOM spokesman insisted that the DoD was “specifically prohibit[ed]” from screening social media accounts of would-be civilian employees, and thus must have missed the offensive posts. The explanation would make applicants for Pentagon posts a very rare group indeed, to be able to dodge a probe into one’s public social media trail – especially for an elite command that includes the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force.
USSOCOM commander Richard Clarke demanded an investigation into Torres-Estrada’s posts as the scandal broke. The investigation’s contents were not made public, however, and it made little sense in light of the spokesperson’s emphatic reiteration that screening the social media accounts of employment candidates was off limits.
The US military has experienced tough times amid the transition from Trump to current president Joe Biden. The new Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin embarked on a supposed effort to <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/01/19/defense-secretary-nominee-offering-scant-details-commits-to-rooting-out-extremism-sexual-assault-in-the-force/" target="_blank">root out</a> all “extremists,” charging a newly formed countering extremism working group with designing additional screening procedures for the uniformed personnel. The group is led by controversial activist Bishop Garrison.
Austin also <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2651424/austin-no-one-should-have-to-hide-who-they-love-to-serve-the-country-they-love/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pledged</a> to prioritize crimes against sexual orientation and gender identity, saying that the Pentagon would strive to “create a safe and supportive workplace for everyone.”
In a March <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/20210317-CHINFO-News-Clips.pdf" target="_blank">memo</a>, the Defense Department said it would “consider the impact of programs funded by DoD on human rights, including the rights of LGBTQI+ persons, when making funding decisions.”   
<div class="nsm62SuN"><a href="https://www.infowarsstore.com/mega-immune-support-pack?ims=exqge&utm_campaign=megaimmunesupporthero&utm_source=Infowars+Hero&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=megaimmunesupporthero" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.directus.libertycdn.com/uploads/_/originals/UPDATEDEssentialVitamins-hero-385.jpg" /></a></div>
<hr class="wp-block-separator" />
Facing long tours overseas, injury or death, new recruits entering one of the branches of the U.S. military could always maintain morale by knowing that they were <a href="https://freeworldnews.tv/watch?id=60a9b89ca390c0443e948038">protecting cherished freedoms</a>, namely the First Amendment.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/hypocrisy-special-forces-chief-diversity-officer-who-likened-trump-to-hitler-allowed-back-at-pentagon">https://www.infowars.com/posts/hypocrisy-special-forces-chief-diversity-officer-who-likened-trump-to-hitler-allowed-back-at-pentagon</a>

news Hypocrisy: Special Forces Chief Diversity Officer Who Likened Trump to Hitler Allowed Back at Pentagon

The former chief of diversity and inclusion within the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command has been given his old job back, months after h...

People keep finding late loved ones on Google Maps

For years, Google Maps has offered Street View, which stitches together panoramic camera images to recreate a digital facsimile of physical spaces in the real world that you can explore online. Some people are discovering that if they scroll through the platform long enough and <a href="https://blog.google/products/maps/go-back-in-time-with-street-view/">use a time travel feature</a>, they just might find the image of a late loved one captured by one of Google’s cameras — and seemingly saved in Google Maps forever.
In the past few days, several posts announcing these discoveries have gone viral. One from UK-based writer Sherri Turner has already racked up tens of thousands of “Likes” on Twitter. A similar tweet from an <a href="https://twitter.com/fesshole/status/1405169551092948994">anonymous confessions account</a> also attracted attention from not only other Twitter users but also major <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57511055">media</a> <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/google-maps-street-view-captures-image-late-family-members-fesshole-tweets-1601606">outlets</a>. The tweets have turned into threads where others share stories of looking for their deceased relatives in Google Maps.
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I look at my mum’s old house on Google maps street view, the house where I grew up. It says ‘Image captured May 2009’. There is a light on in her bedroom. It is still her house, she is still alive, I am still visiting every few months on the train to Bodmin Parkway,
— Sherri Turner (@STurner4077) <a href="https://twitter.com/STurner4077/status/1405152351112077317?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2021</a></blockquote>
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This is hardly the first time people have used the time travel feature in Street View to go searching for the departed on Google Maps — or to share the experience on social media. Google released Street View in 2007, and these types of viral Twitter posts have been happening <a href="https://twitter.com/r13639/status/392432114991239168">since at least 2013</a>. The trend points to an enduring pattern of Google forging ahead in its endless quest to map the entire world (Street View currently includes 87 countries) and constantly update that data. Somewhere along the way, Google Maps users are realizing this process has unintended consequences.
This effect suggests that the creation of these 360-degree views of the world requires momentary surveillance. Google Maps uses lots and lots of cameras to create the immersive experience that Street View offers. Google says the <a href="https://www.google.com/streetview/">digital recreation of the physical world</a> is powered by millions of cameras that capture multiple angles, <a href="https://www.google.com/earth/education/tools/street-view/">collected</a> by people “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FZH652qYkA">driving</a>, pedaling, sailing, and walking around and capturing imagery.” The company has also moved to allow users to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/03/google-now-lets-anyone-contribute-to-street-view-using-ar-and-an-app/">submit their own images to supplement its own Street View</a>. While helping people remember dead family members isn’t really the intended purpose of Google Maps, a spokesperson told Recode it was “heartwarming” people were using the platform in this way.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1624122120_9559_7074" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22665945,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Rr5Xy0NGeop9jWgWhcywKQ24Ci0=/0x0:1044x732/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oT_Bd11ehRfepLW3dLbQECswgdo=/0x0:1044x732/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UyNde59K3ndGO7oonVCNG6BZe7k=/0x0:1044x732/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rFQYZLPXSELQXnx0iPJfaVQDPrA=/0x0:1044x732/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9k-lBOKpKUytX6vMaUGhqvRKCxY=/0x0:1044x732/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GarvyFDTcUi6wJAF_tqNTAK-KXc=/0x0:1044x732/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/70BKRFM3fkeTXNp_5HP-1Fy47Yw=/0x0:1044x732/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QeKsYJfv2pai82t9lIHscKzIddI=/0x0:1044x732/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Vg8_FAsoFH_DxJlVcJakLXyFXNw=/0x0:1044x732/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="A person has a bicycle on a street in Brooklyn, which is recorded by Google’s Street View" data-upload-width="1044" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9u1XrBfLBL3H6B_cqRmhTNnxPpk=/0x0:1044x732/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DFZZKALPP0Uv_bK8Ujwn-1nsIAk=/0x0:1044x732/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bsoysHNEDExeBGaTU5eDG7CBx5E=/0x0:1044x732/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wsqLjrIL15gdKc0-Y9ybCS7i2fQ=/0x0:1044x732/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2fIoavHKct2DZL8MWsWvHqqwrcg=/0x0:1044x732/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/e47bifgetEiTOg8TJ5Fyrxx3ZG8=/0x0:1044x732/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cijoo6b-iXCwb78exuiMWPl6OtU=/0x0:1044x732/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0Hh3SumByfcCmusChjaTg6mLsEc=/0x0:1044x732/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YbvZX5sVl_-D3fCjevSq92nnz10=/0x0:1044x732/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LYqp5SpFm0QrJF4MuBn1MguMekQ=/0x0:1044x732/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1044x732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665945/Screen_Shot_2021_06_17_at_4.24.37_PM.png 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>The time travel feature in Street View lets you compare present images to images that were captured as far back as 2007.</figcaption>
<cite>Google Maps</cite></figure>
Turner, the writer, told Recode she discovered the time travel feature in Street View earlier this week, when she was trying to see what a house that belonged to her late mother, who passed away nearly four years ago, looked like now. She ended up finding that the last available image on Street View was from 2009. It showed the house with a light on, which told Turner that her mother was home when the image was captured. “That makes it a little bit more something that you feel like you’ve stumbled across rather than something you’ve made happen,” she told Recode.
Again, people have been discovering images of late loved ones on Street View for a while. It was even happening <a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/rZMM5o5">before Google introduced the time travel feature</a>. The phenomenon also drove a <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2020/01/google-street-view-deceased-loved-ones.html">whole</a> <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/searching-for-the-dead-in-google-street-view-d3cbb117f4fa">news cycle</a> last year, when one Twitter user said she’d found an image of her late grandfather on Street View. The tweet generated more than 400,000 “Likes.”
But there’s more to the story than viral content. The images are a reminder that many people who show up in Street View don’t know their pictures are being taken, and the deceased have no say in whether or not their image remains on the service.
More broadly, tech companies like Google hold much of the power over this sensitive and personal data, and citizens haven’t had a real role in setting norms for how data associated with decreased people ought to be handled. That’s especially important because Google’s approach to this data may not match up with the religious and cultural norms surrounding death practiced by many of its users across the world.
“Increasingly, the majority of our online users are going to come from global south countries,” <a href="https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/3183331">Faheem Hussain</a>, a professor at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, told Recode. “What we are increasingly seeing is the absence of [the] participation of the people in that design.”
Late family members aren’t the only surprising finds on Google Maps. There are entire <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/streetview/">online</a> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/googlemapsshenanigans/">communities</a> devoted to exploring the mapping platform for unusual things, identifying everything from wild animals to sandstorms. There’s also a much darker side of the apparent omnipresence of Street View and Google Maps more broadly, one that raises myriad concerns about <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/woman-sues-google-exposing-her-underwear-street-view-flna125876">peoples’ privacy</a>. Back in 2013, for example, a father in California had to ask Google to remove <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/catesevilla/man-says-the-body-of-his-dead-son-can-be-see-on-google-maps">an aerial image of his son’s dead body</a>. Google says it has systems in place for blurring out personally identifying information from passersby and license plates in the photos it takes. But clearly, some people can still be identified if a family member knows what they’re looking for.
The enduring trend of finding lost loved ones inevitably serves as a reminder that Google plays a major role in documenting our daily lives over time. There’s no sign that the digital artifacts being preserved in Street View are going to go away anytime soon. Instead, they might just become part of how history is recorded in a process that we don’t necessarily have control over.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22539126/google-street-view-maps-dead-relatives">https://www.vox.com/recode/22539126/google-street-view-maps-dead-relatives</a>

vox People keep finding late loved ones on Google Maps

For years, Google Maps has offered Street View, which stitches together panoramic camera images to recreate a digital facsimile of physical ...

Iran has a new president. He could end up being much more than that.

He’s a hardliner and staunch critic of the West, but he’s not expected to fundamentally change Iran’s policy toward the US. He’s loyal to the supreme leader, but he may soon replace him. And he’s just been imbued with substantial power, but he’ll mostly use it to do his boss’s bidding.
That’s what the world can expect from new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who <a href="https://twitter.com/hrome2/status/1406238239426494466?s=20">won the country’s presidential election on Friday</a> — a contest that was heavily rigged in Raisi’s favor — with extremely low voter turnout.
Raisi is an ultraconservative judge currently serving as head of the country’s judiciary. He’s long faced allegations of involvement in severe human rights abuses, including the <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/06/who-ebrahim-raisi-front-runner-irans-presidential-race">mass execution of thousands of prisoners</a>, mostly political dissidents and protesters — activities for which Raisi was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/front-runner-iran-presidency-is-hardline-judge-sanctioned-by-us-2021-06-15/">sanctioned by the Trump administration in 2019</a>.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Final <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranElections?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IranElections</a> numbers are in:
*Raisi received 17.9m votes (61.9%), followed by spoiled ballots, Rezaei, Hemmati, Ghazisadeh
*Turnout at 48.8%, lowest in pres election history. As with parl. vote, state not bothering to tweak the numbers to cross the "lowest" threshold. <a href="https://t.co/PwlfRzXRAp">https://t.co/PwlfRzXRAp</a>
— Henry Rome (@hrome2) <a href="https://twitter.com/hrome2/status/1406238239426494466?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
As president, Raisi will face several daunting challenges. He’ll have to negotiate America’s reentry into the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States. He’ll have to address both the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/23/these-6-charts-show-how-sanctions-are-crushing-irans-economy.html">sharp economic downturn</a> and the <a href="https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/iran/">coronavirus pandemic</a> plaguing his nation. And he may have to oversee the succession of 82-year-old <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55257059">Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei</a> — Iran’s first real power change in over 30 years.
Experts say Khamenei orchestrated Raisi’s election victory, mainly by <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210525-iran-bars-heavyweights-ahmadinejad-and-larijani-from-presidential-elections">barring strong challengers from competing against him</a>, to ensure the supreme leader’s <a href="http://english.khamenei.ir/news/6723/The-youth-can-bring-about-a-major-evolution-in-the-country-s">vision for Iran</a> far outlives him.
“Khamenei wants someone who sees the world the way he sees the world,” said Ilan Goldenberg, director of the Middle East security program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, DC. As a former <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/1/5/ebrahim-raisi-the-cleric-who-could-end-iranian-hopes-for-change">student of Khamenei’s</a> who was appointed to every major job he held by his mentor, Raisi is a safe bet to assure the supreme leader’s legacy.
But there are still open questions about what Raisi’s ascent to the presidency will mean for the future. One is how a hardliner will govern as president, especially now that his ilk will control all <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/islamic-republics-power-centers">major branches of Iran’s government</a>. Experts predict the country will become more repressive internally and continue its combative foreign policy. “They still won’t trust the United States,” said Holly Dagres, a UK-based fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.
The other, arguably bigger question is whether Raisi’s rise to the presidency makes him the clear <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/for-ebrahim-raisi-irans-presidency-is-a-step-toward-supreme-leader/">frontrunner to replace Khamenei</a> when the aging leader dies. If that’s the case, then how the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/16/ebrahim-raisi-iran-presidential-election-2021/">60-year-old</a> Raisi governs could offer clues to how he might lead Iran for decades to come. The money is on Raisi following in his mentor’s footsteps.
“Raisi owes everything he has to Khamenei,” said Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran project director.
Weeks before the June 18 presidential election, it was clear that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/world/middleeast/iran-election-khamenei-raisi.html">Iran’s leadership wanted Raisi to win</a>.
The regime allows only those deemed loyal enough to the supreme leader to run for president, but it also likes leaving a veneer of democratic legitimacy to the election. This time, though, Khamenei and the 12-person Guardian Council responsible for approving candidates openly removed that veneer. They disqualified anyone who could possibly challenge Raisi, effectively guaranteeing his victory — perhaps seen as a necessary move after Raisi surprisingly <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39984066">lost in 2017 to current President Hassan Rouhani</a>.
The move was so blatant that even the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/5/16/11682458/iran-revolutionary-guards">Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps</a>, the elite security and military organization responsible for the protection and survival of the regime, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/world/middleeast/iran-election-khamenei-raisi.html">called the election undemocratic</a>.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1624121656_2208_35472" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22665484,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KPIDDEzYDD_mxcbjXqfBTQjWbBE=/0x0:3114x2076/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/r0N7rJWRa95r9SvSajdXRv0DVVg=/0x0:3114x2076/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8-ooYu9Xyej9YP8Yvi2jgC6jyNc=/0x0:3114x2076/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_2bV9CeKKFBRYu-ASgPR2Md_Aog=/0x0:3114x2076/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DBo-zyLb5WTQ3BFOOA_dPJnS0HQ=/0x0:3114x2076/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Yyl8O1kZVkcvvZ6aojZgWuQcz1c=/0x0:3114x2076/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-rJ533mKODGwrdbMi7P7TJCHsGU=/0x0:3114x2076/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PRjXxr7_ac6jIi63Npxc9SlHpbc=/0x0:3114x2076/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oZOqV3TB7QVIErjCbMHj_8Io48I=/0x0:3114x2076/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="3114" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/O0TW2KMHXrToyndi6obaic9X3a0=/0x0:3114x2076/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kmyhx3B-cHl6EEwlNt-zrm9aaY0=/0x0:3114x2076/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vf7gBqY3xrlHI3277y3CBT2gbmQ=/0x0:3114x2076/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yC7cyGGW__8MTkQIv765iR2oHPY=/0x0:3114x2076/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ECkXwiY777vnfjz2B8PR4jopnyU=/0x0:3114x2076/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3g10h-PFeVDUoHVT9i-x9Ze6Xk8=/0x0:3114x2076/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZyPIagUHOiFFMG7NN4VVZqlnFfc=/0x0:3114x2076/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0xr3HBgjWIm50367g4IwQYjFENU=/0x0:3114x2076/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/O949Bketudp16tP7pyQ01iibt-k=/0x0:3114x2076/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sjVebbaWK6mPF4dd83_8IGZzrjo=/0x0:3114x2076/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3114x2076):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22665484/1324020949.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi in Tabriz, Iran, on June 16.</figcaption>
<cite>Meghdad Madadi/ATPImages/Getty Images</cite></figure>
A look at <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/1/5/ebrahim-raisi-the-cleric-who-could-end-iranian-hopes-for-change">Raisi’s</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/16/ebrahim-raisi-iran-presidential-election-2021/">past</a> makes clear why the regime would go to such lengths to make him the new president.
He was born in Mashhad in Iran’s northeast, the same city Khamenei hails from, and can trace his lineage back to the Islamic Prophet Mohammed (which allows him to wear a black turban). Born to a clerical family, he <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ebrahim-Raisi">received a religious education and achieved the status of a low-level cleric</a>, but he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/16/ebrahim-raisi-iran-presidential-election-2021/">never reached the status of ayatollah</a>, the highest rank of Twelver Shia clergy in Iran.
Raisi instead joined Iran’s judiciary in 1981 and only four years later became deputy prosecutor general in Tehran, the capital. It was in that role in 1988, toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war, that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2013/08/iran-still-seeks-erase-prison-massacre-memories-years/">Amnesty International</a> alleges Raisi was associated with the extrajudicial killings of political prisoners. “Between 4,500 and 5,000 men, women and children were killed in the summer of 1988 in prisons across Iran,” the human rights group wrote in 2013. (Raisi’s defenders <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/front-runner-iran-presidency-is-hardline-judge-sanctioned-by-us-2021-06-15/">deny</a> his involvement.)
Raisi continued to climb Iran’s power ladder, helped largely by Khamenei’s appointment in 1989 as supreme leader. Among other positions, Raisi went on to become the prosecutor general of Tehran in 1989, the first deputy chief justice of Iran in 2004, and the country’s attorney general in 2014.
In the last five years, Raisi became one of the nation’s leading regime figures. In 2016, Khamenei named him head of the powerful <a href="https://globe.razavi.ir/">Astan Quds Razavi</a> foundation, a supposed charitable group that manages the important Imam Reza shrine and other institutions. (The Trump administration in January <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1234">sanctioned</a> the foundation for its immense wealth and close ties to the supreme leader.)
Then in 2019, Khamenei gave Raisi the reins of Iran’s judiciary, where he used his perch to ostensibly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/06/16/ebrahim-raisi-iran-presidential-election-2021/">tackle corruption</a>, though some say he mainly targeted his political opponents. That same year, Raisi was elected vice president of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, which — interestingly enough — will choose the next supreme leader after Khamenei dies.
Such an inexorable rise could only end up with Raisi as Iran’s president, which will make him arguably Iran’s second most powerful official after Khamenei himself. But what precisely he’ll do with that power isn’t entirely clear.
Raisi hasn’t offered up much of a platform during the election, partly because he hasn’t really needed to craft a winning message, what with the election having already been in his favor.
But experts note that he’s long been ultraconservative on domestic issues, such as on stamping out political dissent and women’s rights, and on foreign policy he remains extremely critical of the West.
However, the potential good news for the Biden administration is that Raisi has shown a willingness to abide by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which restricted Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
“Let’s make it clear. We would definitely abide by the [deal] in the format that was approved with nine clauses by the supreme leader, as it a contract and a commitment that governments must abide by,” Raisi said during a <a href="https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1400/03/22/2519308/">June 12 debate</a>.
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<figcaption>Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei speaks during his meeting with students in Tehran, Iran, on October 18, 2017.</figcaption>
<cite>Iranian Leader’s Press Office/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</cite></figure>
He even attacked one of the other candidates as well as the current Rouhani government by saying only he could keep the agreement intact. “Gentlemen, you cannot implement the JCPOA,” Raisi said, using the acronym for the deal’s official name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “The JCPOA must be implemented by a powerful government. Foreign power is an extension of internal power.”
It seems contradictory that Raisi would consistently rail against the West but also want the nuclear accord to survive. But experts says the cleric’s stance makes sense: Khamenei had allowed the initial agreement to happen, and the lifting of sanctions would greatly help the struggling economy.
Ultimately, though, analysts told me Raisi’s main job will be to help Khamenei realize his vision of a <a href="https://english.khamenei.ir/news/6723/The-youth-can-bring-about-a-major-evolution-in-the-country-s">second Islamic Revolution</a>, one led by the nation’s youth. Many of the nation’s leading clerics are 70 or older, and it has been over 40 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Khamenei wants changes made to Iran’s government to foment a continued feeling of revolution among the next generation of Iranians.
To do that, the International Crisis Group’s Vaez says, Khamenei may change the government from a presidential to parliamentary system, removing a key source of friction between the offices of the president and supreme leader, and making it easier to pass reforms through government on party lines. Raisi likely won’t put up much of a fight during such shifts, and he’ll have few qualms about quashing dissent from the public or the government.
“Through this election, [Khamenei] wants to get a pliant president along with a pliant parliament so that he doesn’t have any resistance to internal changes,” Vaez told me.
By effectively handpicking Raisi, Khamenei aims to ensure his legacy and influence is lasting. “He’s thinking about after he’s gone, and this is how he’s doing it,” said the Atlantic Council’s Dagres.
So is Raisi fine with just being Khamenei’s puppet? Not quite, experts told me. Rather, it’s basically a trade: Raisi will do Khamenei’s bidding now, so that when the time comes to select a new supreme leader, Raisi is the odds-on favorite.
What Raisi’s election as president really means, then, is the arrival of a major new figure on the world stage. This is Raisi’s test before potentially taking the reins of Iran, and few believe he’ll throw away his shot. “Something big is happening in Iran,” Dagres told me.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/19/22536629/iran-election-ebrahim-raisi-supreme-leader-khamenei">https://www.vox.com/2021/6/19/22536629/iran-election-ebrahim-raisi-supreme-leader-khamenei</a>

vox Iran has a new president. He could end up being much more than that.

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It’s a question many of us are being asked, in ways large and small, as more people get vaccinated, restrictions lift, and public life starts to return to some semblance of normal.
Sometimes the question is explicit, like when a job interviewer asks if you used lockdown to <a href="https://twitter.com/Mr_Considerate/status/1402245120070664193">pursue “passion projects.”</a> More often it’s implicit, present in stories about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/well/family/curate-friends.html">how to rearrange your “friendscape”</a> after the pandemic or <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/15-personal-finance-lessons-we-can-all-learn-from-the-year-of-covid-19-11611493201">personal finance lessons</a> to learn from the last year.
But overall, as our second pandemic spring turns into our second pandemic summer, there’s a certain pressure to have learned or grown as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, even if it’s still going on. The pressure is part of a larger tendency in American culture, some say. “When we’ve been through a traumatic experience, a lot of people try to rush to make meaning of that,” Joy Harden Bradford, a psychologist and host of the podcast Therapy for Black Girls, told Vox.
It’s also just the latest iteration of a narrative that’s been around since the beginning of the pandemic: that people should be using their quarantine time productively, whether that meant learning a new language, writing a play, or even starting a business. That narrative has always ignored the reality of pandemic life, during which many people did not have the luxury of staying home, and even those who did were often too anxious to pursue personal growth. “The pandemic has been hard for people,” David Blustein, a professor of counseling psychology at Boston College and the author of the book The Importance of Work in an Age of Uncertainty, told Vox. “It hasn’t been like a staycation.”
But the narrative that we should have learned and grown over the past year — potentially transforming ourselves into better workers for our employers — persists, and with it damaging expectations for how people process pain and trauma. If anything, some say, what we should learn from this year is to give ourselves and others space to heal in our own ways. Sometimes, “the lesson is that I survived,” Bradford said. “If that is all you took out of this, then really, that should be enough.”
The pressure to be productive started almost as soon as the pandemic did. Time-consuming hobbies like <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2020/5/19/21221008/how-to-bake-bread-pandemic-yeast-flour-baking-ken-forkish-claire-saffitz">baking sourdough bread</a> became popular. Viral tweets told us that <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/4/17/21201878/quarantine-productivity-social-distancing-coronavirus-pandemic-covid-19-capitalism-ep-thompson">Shakespeare wrote King Lear</a> while quarantined during a plague epidemic. Someone came up with the word <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriscarosa/2020/03/14/use-your-self-quarantine-time-to-become-a-coronapreneur/?sh=1bafed846fe2">“coronapreneur.”</a>
The idea was that people — especially those lucky enough to be able to shelter in place during the pandemic — were supposed to be using this so-called free time to better themselves. The implication, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/4/17/21201878/quarantine-productivity-social-distancing-coronavirus-pandemic-covid-19-capitalism-ep-thompson">Vox’s Constance Grady wrote</a> in April 2020, was: “Shouldn’t you be using this time to become more productive? Shouldn’t you be buckling down and writing a masterpiece or inventing a genre or discovering fundamental laws of the universe?”
Inevitably, there was backlash, with many people questioning whether an unprecedented public health emergency was, in fact, an ideal opportunity for self-improvement. “For many, this is neither a hygge snow day nor an extended vacation,” Michelle Ruiz <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/i-dont-need-a-hobby">wrote at Vogue</a> last spring. “It’s a crisis.”
But the attitude persisted, with one hobby trend giving way to another (<a href="https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/tie-dye-fashion-pandemic-blues-dior-proenza-schouler-acne-studios-1234803128/">tie-dye!</a>) and seemingly everyone offering <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/productivity-tips-for-procrastinators-11610976600">pandemic productivity tips</a>. And now it’s summer 2021, and at least in the US and Europe, vaccinations are up and cases are down. People are starting to use the phrase <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/opinion/vaccination-pandemic-world.html">“post-pandemic”</a> — even though the pandemic continues to rage around the world and unvaccinated people remain at risk. And the productivity discourse might be starting to shift slightly, toward the idea that the pandemic should have been a learning experience, helping us optimize our skills, our lives, and ourselves for post-pandemic living.
Take <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/well/family/curate-friends.html">a recent New York Times story</a> on how to manage friendships in a post-pandemic world. “The pandemic shook us out of our social ruts, and now we have an opportunity to choose which relationships we wish to resurrect and which are better left dormant,” Kate Murphy wrote. “Ask yourself: ‘Who did I miss?’ and ‘Who missed me?’”
The story was <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/new-york-times-friendscape-obese-depressed-b1859966.html">widely criticized</a>, with many taking it to imply that perhaps overweight or depressed friends shouldn’t make the cut: “depressed friends make it more likely you’ll be depressed, obese friends make it more likely you’ll become obese, and friends who smoke or drink a lot make it more likely you’ll do the same,” Murphy wrote in an original version. (The Times later edited the story and issued a note saying that references to studies of obesity and depression “lacked sufficient context and attribution and did not adequately convey their relevance to the issues discussed in the article”).
But the attitude that the pandemic should propel us toward better, smarter living isn’t confined to one how-to piece. With a quick search, you can find lessons from the last 15 months to help you with <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/15-personal-finance-lessons-we-can-all-learn-from-the-year-of-covid-19-11611493201">personal finance</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/covid-19-pandemic-investing-lessons/">investing</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rhettpower/2021/03/21/one-year-later-lasting-leadership-lessons-from-the-pandemic/?sh=6ef50a3f254b">leadership</a>, and more. And at least in some cases, employers seem to be embracing the idea of quarantine self-improvement plans.
“I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I’ve just been asked in a job interview if I used lockdown ‘to pursue any passion projects or personal development,’” Niall Anderson, who works at a university in Dublin, <a href="https://twitter.com/Mr_Considerate/status/1402245120070664193">tweeted earlier this month</a>. “The market really does want us all to think we’ve just had a generous sabbatical.”
His tweet quickly went viral, generating thousands of replies. Most, he told Vox in an email, expressed “comic incredulity,” while “a few Rise & Grind types showed up to say the question was entirely fair, as did — more worryingly — a few HR types.” The responses that struck Anderson the most, however, were the hundreds who said they’d been asked the same question.
“One of the reasons I tweeted about it in the first place was that it felt like such a grim novelty,” Anderson said: “I hadn’t seriously considered that it could be widespread.”
It’s not clear how much the question Anderson encountered represents employer expectations more broadly. “There are always outlier employers who will ask all sorts of weird or inappropriate stuff — and those, of course, are the ones you’re most likely to hear about,” Alison Green, author of the work advice column <a href="https://www.askamanager.org/">Ask a Manager</a>, told Vox in an email.
But there’s a larger norm at work behind questions like this, and behind the greater expectation that people could use lockdown to boost their coronapreneurial profiles. An obsessive focus on productivity is “part of late-stage American capitalism,” Blustein said. “This productivity ethos has gotten transported into our hobbies, it’s gotten transported into our relationships, into our physical and mental health.”
And it’s not just about productivity. The pandemic has intensified a pressure to internalize the demand for constant work, with people striving to use their time in marketable ways, even if no boss is telling them to do so. Anderson sees the question about quarantine “passion projects” as a symptom of “the universalization of the concept of management altogether, whereby everyone is encouraged to think of themselves as ‘CEO of Myself.’” Indeed, much pandemic productivity discourse has centered not on getting things done because your employer makes you, but on getting things done because you make you.
In a viral tweet last April, for example, marketing CEO Jeremy Haynes argued that if you didn’t use lockdown to learn new skills or start a business, “you didn’t ever lack the time, you lacked the discipline.”
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
If you don’t come out of this quarantine with either:
1.) a new skill 
2.) starting what you’ve been putting off like a new business 
3.) more knowledge
You didn’t ever lack the time, you lacked the discipline
— Jeremy Haynes (@TheJeremyHaynes) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheJeremyHaynes/status/1245767684484202496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2020</a></blockquote>
</div>
The implication was that people should use the supposed extra time provided by quarantine to squeeze additional labor out of themselves, doing the work of capitalism without even being asked to do so. We’re so used to treating our time — our very selves — as a resource for the market that we do so even during a global crisis. And when a boss isn’t buying our time — when it’s allegedly “free” — we’re supposed to figure out a way to sell it on our own.
“I’ve been working with young people on the cusp of adulthood for the past two years, and the problems they’ve brought my way have all tended to revolve around perceived failures to be their own CEO,” Anderson said.
And now, on top of those pressures, we’re supposed to be our own CEOs during a pandemic, when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/us/600000-us-covid-deaths.html">more than 600,000 people have died</a> in the US alone, and many more have been sickened, bereaved, or had their lives disrupted by the virus. For people who lost a loved one, and for health care workers and other essential workers who have been working under dangerous conditions, the pandemic has been a source of very real trauma. That’s especially true for Black, Latinx, and other people of color whose communities have seen the biggest impact from the pandemic and from the economic crisis, and who have been overrepresented among essential workers. “A lot of the lives that were lost were Black and brown people,” Bradford said. “Our communities have really been hit hardest.”
Meanwhile, even for those who’ve been able to work from home, the pandemic has not necessarily been a source of endless free time to pursue personal projects. For starters, there are the many parents who picked up additional child care responsibilities when schools and day cares closed their doors — often on top of working or looking for work (as of last fall, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/17/the-pandemic-has-highlighted-many-challenges-for-mothers-but-they-arent-necessarily-new/">65 percent of remote-working parents</a> said they also had child care responsibilities while they were working, with a majority of moms saying those responsibilities were difficult to handle). Then there were the changes in daily life, from the closure of offices to the isolation of social distancing to the fear injected into once-ordinary tasks like grocery shopping.
“A transition is a source of anxiety for everyone,” Jessi Gold, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, told Vox. And “we’ve just had a year of transition upon transition.”
You don’t have to look hard to find tips on how to turn <a href="https://katu.com/afternoon-live/books-authors/harness-that-nervous-energy-to-live-a-more-productive-life">even your anxiety</a> into productivity. But for most people, stress just makes it that much harder — and slower — to get things done. As Blustein put it, “managing anxiety is time-consuming.”
Even though more than half of Americans have now received at least their first vaccination and some states have fully reopened — New York celebrated with <a href="https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/coronavirus/2021/06/16/fireworks-in-nyc-new-york-harbor-nyc-covid-70-percent-partial-vaccination-celebration">surprise fireworks</a> — that doesn’t mean the stress and worry are gone. Patients are still coming in with high levels of anxiety, as well as difficulty concentrating, Gold said. Throughout the pandemic, she added, “I’ve never had so many people who used to be on meds come back and ask for meds.”
Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/huge-disparities-in-vaccination-rates-are-creating-islands-of-vulnerability-across-the-country/2021/06/14/226fbdb2-cd3e-11eb-a7f1-52b8870bef7c_story.html">more than a third of eligible Americans</a> remain unvaccinated, and racial disparities persist, with Black and Latinx Americans less likely to be vaccinated than white people. And billions of people around the world remain at risk — in many low-income countries, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covax-effort-to-vaccinate-the-world-is-faltering/">fewer than 1 percent</a> of people have been vaccinated.
The pandemic isn’t over, its psychological effects certainly aren’t over, and it’s too soon, many say, to expect us to translate the pain of the last year into tidy lessons for the future. “There really hasn’t been enough distance,” Bradford said. “Sometimes when you rush to make meaning too quickly, you haven’t given yourself time to really sit with the feelings.”
“As a society, we don’t do well with grief, and processing what it means to have lost so many people,” Bradford added. Moreover, “we live in a culture where, for some reason, the goal is happiness” rather than sometimes being okay with just existing, Gold said. “We always need to be striving for the silver lining of everything.”
For people who want to, there’s nothing wrong with trying to reframe their experience of the pandemic in a positive light. That can be a coping mechanism for some people, Gold said. So can things like baking bread or taking up a new hobby. “Some of that has been people’s attempts to manage their own anxiety,” Bradford said. “It feels like, ‘oh, my gosh, the world is falling apart, I’m not in control of anything. Let me control the things I have control over.’”
The problem comes when we face pressure — from friends, from prospective employers, or even just from a culture that expects every experience to be somehow productive — to swiftly transform the pandemic into an opportunity for learning or growth. “There’s nothing you’re supposed to get out of this,” Gold said. “If what you get out of this is, like, you’re breathing, congratulations.”
For those who don’t yet feel ready to find silver linings in the pandemic, the good news is that the last year has also intensified the backlash against productivity pressure and the drive to self-improvement. Throughout the pandemic, young people, especially, “have resisted this kind of push to work and be productive,” Blustein said, instead trying to “enjoy the moment and find things that are meaningful in their lives.”
Whether it’s people <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-01/return-to-office-employees-are-quitting-instead-of-giving-up-work-from-home">quitting their jobs</a> rather than going back to the office or <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/12/15/covid-unifies-america-emotional-priorities-shift-2020-column/6540239002/">shifting their priorities</a> away from career advancement, there’s evidence that the pandemic is causing some people to rethink their relationship to capitalism and American work culture. Now the question is whether this shift will be enduring and broad-based, supported by policies to create <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22308547/pandemic-anniversary-labor-works-intimacy-how-to-do-nothing">protections for workers</a> and a true social safety net, rather than something confined to those privileged enough to have choices.
That, perhaps, would be a real silver lining — though one it never should have taken a pandemic to achieve.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22536756/covid-pandemic-quarantine-lockdown-productivity-hobbies-work">https://www.vox.com/22536756/covid-pandemic-quarantine-lockdown-productivity-hobbies-work</a>

vox Lockdown was not a sabbatical

Did you become a better person during the pandemic? It’s a question many of us are being asked, in ways large and small, as more people ge...