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Mia Farrow (Daisy Buchanan) and Robert Redford (Jay Gatsby) in promotional art for the 1974 film version of The Great Gatsby(Paramount Pictures)Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby, by Greil Marcus (Yale University Press, 176 pp., $26)

Sometimes a short book casts a long shadow. F. Scott Fitzgeralds slim 1925 novel The Great Gatsby looms large in American culture: It has sold well over 25 million copies and spawned film adaptations ranging from a lost silent movie to A-list productions with Redford and DiCaprio. Theres a Gatsby opera, a forthcoming graphic novel, and even a retro computer game in the style of the original Nintendo. It wasnt always canonical literature like many classics, the book was widely considered a flop until after the authors death but now this gem of the Jazz Age is a contender for our Great American Novel, its lush prose and bittersweet melancholy perfectly balancing the tabloid ending to its tragic plot.

The book tells the story of the blue-collar James Gatz, who reinvents himself as Jay Gatsby and loves the beautiful Louisville aristocrat Daisy. When she marries the brutish Tom Buchanan, Gatsby works for years to win her back, amassing a fortune through organized crime and throwing lavish parties in a mansion just out of reach from where Daisy has settled on a fictionalized Long Island. Gatsby briefly attains his romantic dream, but his faade soon crumbles, and American aristocracy shuts him out forever. When Daisy runs over Toms mistress, Myrtle Wilson, in Gatsbys Rolls-Royce, the victims husband tracks down the owner of the car. And before we know it, the glamorous Jay Gatsby is dead, murdered in his swimming pool by a cuckolded husband mad with grief, in a case of terribly mistaken identity.

Greil Marcus tackles the meaning and the cultural influence of Fitzgeralds masterpiece in his new book, Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby. Marcus is a noted music critic, scholar, and writer on American culture, as we saw in his editorial work for the fascinating revisionist New Literary History of America. In this book, he sets out to see what The Great Gatsby has to say about America, and how it has informed countless other responses to the failures and successes of the American project.

Fitzgerald once floated Under the Red White and Blue as a possible title for Gatsby, and we can be thankful it didnt stick; but readers have often seen in The Great Gatsby an allegory that critiques the American experiment. (English teachers everywhere are nodding their heads). Marcus starts there, and proposes that Gatsby himself represents the conflicted nature of America: big, transcendent dreams yoked to sordid violence and greed. What if Fitzgeralds goal, he asks, was to create just such a thing, a doubled, shifting image of beauty and crime? Its a poignant question, because Jay Gatsby always attracts and repels us. He stands grasping at a beautiful ideal of romantic fulfillment, but his business associate Meyer Wolfsheim wears cuff links made from human molars. Its a fair if not entirely original assessment of the American riddle: How do we understand a nation whose ideals of liberty and equality have too often been violated by its people, its leaders, and even its laws?

Marcus sees Fitzgeralds project in The Great Gatsby as fundamentally patriotic, because it maintains this twin vision, this chiaroscuro consciousness of darkness and light. He sees artists like Fitzgerald, musicians, legislators, and everyday people living out American patriotism when they serve as what Alexander Hamilton called inquisitors in Federalist No. 65: by which Marcus means interrogating our national cultures failures and holding it to its own high ideals.

Marcus continues this patriotic task of inquisition in his book, but readers of Under the Red White and Blue will struggle to follow the train of thought across its eight loosely connected sections. One ill-fitting chapter is an adapted essay on Moby-Dick. Another offers a long summary and analysis of Gatz, a six-hour theatrical dramatic reading of The Great Gatsby. A chapter titled The Ferment situates Fitzgerald in his cultural milieu, especially music and popular culture, and At the Movies follows some of the film adaptations of the book. Along the way we learn of numerous quirky spinoffs of Gatsby: an SNL skit by Andy Kaufman, a replica in St. Paul, Minn., (Fitzgeralds hometown)of Doctor T. J. Eckleburgs bespectacled billboard, and a Korean pop star modeling his public persona on Jay Gatsby.

Those who manage to follow the scattershot content of this cultural study will likely founder in its tangled prose. In one long sentence, Marcus delays his main verb to the 215th word, leaving poor old Strunk and White rolling in their graves. Rather than a clear, sustained analysis of Gatsby and its cultural afterlives, Under the Red White and Blue offers a freewheeling brain dump about America, until the book closes with an implication that conservatives are you guessed it racists like Fitzgeralds Tom Buchanan. Sigh.

Under the Red White and Blue skates gleefully across the surface of American culture, rarely risking a dive into profundity. But what does Fitzgeralds heartbreaking novel have to say to us today? Its a portrait of a tremendous crash some have read it as a prophecy of the crash that sparked the Great Depression but it deals with a deeper crisis than any stock-market plunge. The people of Gatsbys America have built a fragile world of distraction to numb their existential emptiness. Theyre trying to live without the permanent things: without real love, without family, without sacrifice, without transcendent meaning. Even Gatsbys lofty dream is just an egoistic project of self-fulfillment, an attempt to relive his own emotions from the past. Its a world in which there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired. That is, its a world built on the false premise that too many of us if were honest have accepted: that our life consists of busily avoiding pain and seeking pleasure.

Then it all comes crashing down. It ends when almost no one but the narrator, Nick Carraway, attends Gatsbys funeral, and the great mansion an extension of Gatsbys own vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty stands dark and empty. Nick watches a lone car drive up one night, someone hoping for another of Gatsbys epic galas: Probably it was some final guest who had been away at the ends of the earth and didnt know that the party was over.

The party was over. As I sit rereading The Great Gatsby amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, that phrase sticks with me. A lot of modern life has ground to a halt. The death toll rises; the shelter-in-place orders drag on. The economy shudders. The party is over, and weve all got a chance to do some soul-searching about what really matters, a chance to reflect on just exactly what the party was and whether we want to resume it when life returns to normal. Popularity, pleasure, success start to feel pretty empty when I cant have a beer with my best friend or hug my mom. The self-righteous bitterness of our partisan politics and culture wars seems mighty petty when were all facing death by plague together. And Fitzgeralds century-old tale of Gatsbys Jazz Era catastrophe offers a timely reminder of which things do and which things dont constitute the good life for human beings.

He painted the glittering escapism of an age, but Fitzgerald was too true an artist to accept shallow substitutes for the deepest things. As he once wrote in an autobiographical essay about the Roaring Twenties, I was pretty sure that living wasnt the reckless, careless business these people thought. Fitzgeralds book may speak to the American condition, as Marcus rightly sees; but it speaks louder to the human condition. Gatsby and the Buchanans and the Wilsons reap death or existential emptiness not because they have been bad Americans or because of the failure of American ideology, but because they have been bad humans because to the last pages of the story they lived selfishly.

And so for almost a hundred years, The Great Gatsby has remained fresh, because it utters something that still matters, something that touches bedrock: It dramatizes the failure of passing things to satisfy our colossal human yearnings, reveals the starved souls of people who live entirely for themselves. Well, thanks to the lockdowns were all getting some quality time with ourselves in 2020. Unlike the fictional characters of Fitzgeralds marvelous book, we have a chance to make some serious changes; now that the party is over, maybe we can begin the business of living.

This article appears as Before the Crash in the June 1, 2020, print edition of National Review.

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'Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby' Book Review - National Review

Good morning.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have warned that hackers linked to the Chinese government may target US firms and institutions conducting research into Covid-19, adding fuel to the tensions between Washington and Beijing. Chinas efforts to target these sectors pose a significant threat to our nations response to Covid-19, the US cybersecurity agency said on Wednesday, without citing any specific examples.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the accusations as rumours and slanders, describing China as a staunch upholder of cyber security and saying the country was leading the world in Covid-19 treatment and vaccine research. While China has spoken of offering global leadership during the pandemic, writes Peter Frankopan, it is doing little to lead international collective action:

Nor, for that matter, is the US, the EU or anyone else. And in our me-first world, where states put their interests first, and find collaboration either increasingly difficult or unpalatable, this indeterminacy could have very significant consequences for global affairs.

The Wisconsin supreme court has struck down its stay-at-home order, overruling the Democratic governor Tony Evers and reopening the state for business. The 4-3 decision, written by the courts conservative justices, was made despite a poll suggesting almost 70% of Wisconsin residents supported Evers approach.

The ruling appears to follow Donald Trumps lead. On Wednesday, the president said repeated warnings from Dr Anthony Fauci, his administrations top infectious diseases expert, about the dangers of lifting lockdown restrictions too soon were not acceptable. Oliver Milman reports on how Trump has sidelined science and the CDC during the pandemic.

Elsewhere in the US

Oil companies are capitalising on the crisis, with new analysis showing that financially troubled fossil fuel firms have taken at least $50m in taxpayer-backed coronavirus loans intended for small businesses.

South Dakotas governor might sue the Sioux after two Native American tribes vowed to go on operating road checkpoints to protect their communities from coronavirus.

Another conspiracy theory is gaining traction after the spread of a viral video called Plandemic, in which disgraced scientist Dr Judy Mikovits blames Bill Gates, Fauci and others for the pandemic.

Mexicos border states are home to more than 6,000 maquiladoras largely foreign-owned factories that manufacture products for export. And despite official efforts to keep them closed during the pandemic, they are facing intense pressure from companies and the US government to keep running regardless of the risks. Mexico on Wednesday recorded its highest daily coronavirus death toll so far, adding to fears of a surge across Latin America.

Elsewhere in the world

As he tries to pivot away from the pandemic towards smearing his presumptive election rival, Trump has expanded his so-called Obamagate conspiracy theory to implicate Joe Biden. Ric Grenell, the presidents acting director of national intelligence, has handed Congress a list of top Obama administration officials whom he alleges were involved in the unmasking of retired general Michael Flynn, including Biden himself. Unmasking is a routine practice used to identify a person anonymously referred to in an intelligence document. It takes place hundreds of times a year, without controversy.

Trumps obsession with Obama is an effort to distract from his own failures, writes Richard Wolffe:

Trump has many good reasons to sail away to the land of smears. Theyre called the polls, and they are for the sociopath sitting in the White House even worse reading than the pandemic death tolls or the latest unemployment claims.

The Rocky Mountain GP who healed the US

After he was featured in a seminal Life magazine photo-essay in 1948, the Colorado physician Ernest Ceriani briefly became a national hero. That pictorial record of his tireless efforts to treat a rural population of 2,000 singlehandedly resonate more than ever, writes Sean OHagan.

The rise of mutual aid under coronavirus

The lockdown has been a struggle for almost everyone in society, but it has also inspired a remarkable amount of generosity, kindness and solidarity. Rebecca Solnit reports on the spontaneous rise of mutual aid.

I made Robert Pattinsons ungodly pasta recipe

In a recent interview, Robert Pattinson described his own recipe for piccolini cuscino, a pasta dish with fast-food credentials that you can hold in your hand. Max Benwell writes about his attempt to make it, and then eat it: Ive never taken so much pleasure in scraping something into the bin.

It didnt take long for the global pandemic to become another battleground in the US culture wars, says Arwa Mahdawi. Now even wearing a face mask is seen as a political statement.

Wearing one signals that you believe in science; that you believe in putting the greater good ahead of your individual comfort. To some people, they are a sign of solidarity; to others, they signify that you are a liberal snowflake.

The Nana Otafrija dancing pallbearers of Accra, Ghana, gained prominence in 2017 after their signature coffin-based moves were featured in a documentary. Now, with the world holding far more funerals than usual, they have become a global meme and an example of how to mourn joyfully.

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First Thing: the FBI thinks China could hack US vaccine research - The Guardian

The Rise of Skywalker was a crowd pleaser for the worst possible crowd.

Today is May 4th. Yep,that day. Star Wars day. May the 4th be with you, etc. The pun that, thanks to the internet, somehow transformed a regular day into a global holiday of Star Wars worship. But there's only one problem: I don't really want to worship at that altar any more.

And The Rise of Skywalker is to blame.

It's embarrassing, but there was a point during my first watch of The Rise of Skywalker where, in a packed theater, I audibly said "what the hell?"

I can't remember exactly which part. There were a few candidates.

Entertain your brain with the coolest news from space to superheroes, memes to robots.

It could have been right at the beginning, when Rose Tico (played by Kelly Marie Tran) was yanked from The Rise of Skywalker like Poochie from The Simpsons. It absolutely felt like a move designed to placate the racist trolls who'd bullied Tran off social media in 2018.

That sucked. Big time. Definitely worth a "what the hell?"

Could have been the moment they "unkilled" Chewbacca, rewinding perhaps the only challenging moment in a first act that felt like it was written and edited by a 5-year-old high on sherbet.

What the hell?

But if I had to place bets, I'd say my "what the hell" moment came during the big "Rey's origins" reveal.

Undoing one of The Last Jedi's most interesting choices, Kylo Ren tells Rey she wasn't the daughter of drunkards who sold her off for booze money. Nah, scratch that. In a desperate attempt to tie everything back to the original trilogy (making the Star Wars universe feel smaller than a snow globe), Rey was revealed to be the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine: The big baddie who magically appeared in the third movie, minus any foreshadowing in the previous two movies.

"What the hell?"

Six months later, distanced from the warped bubble of Star Wars "discourse" -- and its place in the culture wars that consume all light and reason -- it's still difficult to explain why this choice annoyed me so much.

In hindsight Rey's reveal was the moment when Star Wars stopped existing as an object I could believe in and transformed into banal fan fiction catering to the worst type of fan. When Star Wars shrank into a story set in a Reddit thread far, far away. Designed to offend the least amount of people possible, built for people to sit in movie theatres and point: "LOOK, IT'S LANDO. LANDO'S HERE!"

I was pissed.

Pity my poor wife, eyes glazing over, who had to endure the train journey home. Me, arms waving like a madman, trying to explain why the passable sci-fi flick she'd just watched (and immediately began forgetting, like a normal adult) was a betrayal. That it deliberately and systematically unraveled every attempt made by The Last Jedi to reinvent Star Wars and have it successfully escape the dull nostalgia pit it's now fully descended into.

I stand by the assessment. The Last Jedi was a movie that demanded we "let the past die." It railed against casual nostalgia. Entire sections, like the casino scene on Canto Bight, were far from perfect, but The Last Jedi was bold and inventive. It never invited us to point, "LOOK, LANDO'S HERE!" Instead, it did a fantastic job of shredding all fan expectations. It murdered its main villain halfway through the run time; transformed Luke Skywalker from a dull do-the-right-thing hero-type into a vicious, bitter hermit tortured by his own failings.

It was a film that paid testament to the weird imagination of the original trilogy, but refused to pander to the most basic tenets of its mythology. A vocal minority hated it, but for my money it was one of the bravest blockbuster movies of the last decade. It made me care about Star Wars again.

But my biggest sin was caring in the first place.

In a post-Gamergate age, intense fandom has poisoned the well. The only response: Treat franchises like Star Wars and Marvel with indifference. If they rise above, like Into The Spider-Verse or Thor: Ragnarok? Great. If they don't? Ah well, it's just a movie. Taking it more seriously than that is a losing game.

I made the crucial mistake that renders all fandom toxic: I was too invested. As a teenager I devoured the Star Wars expanded universe. The good, the bad and The Courtship of Princess Leia. I was painfully in love with Star Wars as both a series and an idea. As an adult I had a huge amount of respect for the universe and the incredible movies it helped produce but now, post-Rise of Skywalker, I reckon I need a break from Star Wars. A long, long break.

May the Fourth be with you. I just want to ignore it. It's a hashtag I'll be muting into oblivion. Because in a day that's supposed to be a celebration, there's not much to celebrate.

That's enough Star Wars for me, thanks.

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Star Wars lost its mystique, and The Rise of Skywalker is to blame - CNET

The police in Holly are trying to identify and locate the man who wiped his nose and face on a store clerk's shirt when asked to wear a mask.

The incident occurred at about 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 2, at the Dollar Tree store on North Saginaw Street.

"The clerk advised the man that all in-store customers must wear a mask to enter the store as stated on the signs posted on the entry doors," Holly Police Chief Jerry Narsh said in a statement.

That apparently set the man off.

Police say this man wiped his nose and face on a store clerk's shirt, apparently angry at being asked to wear a mask.

"The man walked over to the clerk and wiped his nose and face on her shirt telling her, 'Here, I will use this as a mask,'" Narsh said. "The man continued to be loud and disruptive inside the store before leaving."

In a surveillance video released by the police, the clerk is wearing a facemark in the back of the store, and the man walks by. He paused as she said something, and then he walked back and grabbed her shirt sleeve and he bent over and wiped his face with it. He then walked away, gesturing as he did so.

It is believed the man had driven away in this type of van.

It is believed the man drove away in a white van with windows, possibly a Ford.

Narsh asked that anyone who recognizes the man to call Holly police at 248.634.8221. You can reference case number 20-2977.

In Michigan, people are required to wear face masks when out, especially within stores.

"Everyone that is able should wear a face covering when outside of their home and it is not possible to maintain at least 6 feet of distance between others," the state says in a FAQ about COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. "Social distancing is still necessary, even when using a face covering."

The New York Times reports that the face mask has become "a flash point in the virus culture wars," highlighting what's happening around the country, some angry at having to wear them and others shocked when groups gather without them on.

The idea of the mask is both to reduce the chance of coming in contact with the coronavirus and, more importantly, if one is sick, then there's less chance of passing it one if they are wearing a mask.The consensus from experts is that sick people, if wearing a mask, will not spread as many germs and thus overall spread of the coronavirus is slowed.

Near Holly, in Flint, according to multiple reports, including by NBC News, a security guard was shot and killed in what could possibly be a dispute over wearing a face mask. This incident occurred Friday night at the Family Dollar on 5th Avenue in Flint, in which Calvin Munerlyn, a father of eight.

Also on Saturday, in South Carolina, a 38-year-old woman was arrested Saturday after surveillance footage showed her licking her hands and touching food items and surfaces at a store and an eatery, according to Fox5NY.com.

And the American people returned to the American streets, bit by bit, place by place. And in the spaces they shared, they found a world that a

Oakland County will open its third coronavirus drive-thru testing site on Friday in Novi.

Both directions of Big Beaver Road under I-75 will be closed to set bridge beams from 10 a.m. Monday, May 4, until 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 5.

A Ferndale woman shot multiple times as she lay in bed is no longer in intensive care, police said as they continue their search to identify a suspect.

One man is arrested and another suffered serious injuries after an early morning crash on I-94 in Taylor, the Michigan State Police announced.

Its been 46 years since security guard James C. Browning was murdered at the former Northland Shopping Center in Southfield. Now, thanks to t

One local college student is publishing positive messages from others in hope to provide some good news during these unprecedented difficult t

Organizers anticipate another brisk week of activity for Forgotten Harvest's food distribution program in and around Macomb County.

When Ken Casida isnt selling real estate or working part-time in law enforcement in Oakland County, he takes some time to indulge in one of h

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Face mask rage? Man wipes nose and face on store clerk who asked he wear one - The Oakland Press

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, European governments are being forced to take extreme measures to contain the spread of the virus and limit its impact on the economy. The measures taken are largely unprecedented country-wide lockdowns and curfews reinforced with extended powers of the executive on the one hand, and economic stimulus packages on the other. In Hungary and Poland, the illiberal democratic governments are seizing this opportunity to continue their special way of hollowing out democracy.

These developments have largely been covered by the international media, albeit in a simplified way. For instance, contrary to the dramatic headlines, the Enabling Act adopted in Hungary, albeit already abused by the government indeed, did not add much to what the executive can already do, given the government coalitions two-thirds majority in Parliament and party loyalists in all institutions, from the Constitutional Court to the Prosecutors Office. In Poland, meanwhile, the government is fighting to maintain its ability to pass legislation weakening the rule of law as smoothly as possible by retaining its own candidate in the presidential palace, including by pushing for a national ballot in the midst of a pandemic.

In both countries, this business as usual is intensified on the front of the culture war. Thats worrying in light of what is materially at stake in the pandemic. The two governments are stirring up the well-known polarising fault lines that have served them well in the past: between government and opposition, and between the majority and any minorities (or common sense vs out-of-touch liberals). These are the developments that cause the most widespread reactions internationally, while a blind eye is turned to the fact that the socio-economic policies being introduced in the two countries are set to cause a wide-scale social catastrophe, far beyond what the crisis makes inevitable.

On 15 April, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, the Polish Parliament decided to debate two legislative proposals one on limiting legal access to abortion, the other on criminalising sexuality education. These proposals, which had already made an appearance in the previous parliamentary term, were the subject of widespread popular protests, making the topics inconvenient to the government. As a result, the legislative proposals had become permanently stuck at committee level.

Reactivating the proceedings at a time when all public gatherings are banned, making protesting in the streets nearly impossible, is a particularly cynical move on behalf of the Parliaments majority PiS party. That the two bills were finally sent back to committee for an indefinite period on 16 April seems to have less to do with the creative ways the opposition and grassroots groups found to protest despite the restrictions, than with the fact that the frantic debate they generated had served its purpose.

All the while, legislation on issues of material importance to millions of citizens seems to pass by unnoticed by international public opinion.

Before the reactivation of parliamentary work on these bills, the main topic of discussion had been Polands presidential election, set to be held on 10 May. Despite the spreading pandemic, the government had held on steadily to its commitment to hold the election on the scheduled date unsurprisingly, as opposition candidates inability to campaign further skews the odds in favour of the incumbent, backed by PiS.

Opposition candidates were rightly raising questions about not only the fairness of the competition in these circumstances, but whether holding a public ballot would even be safe. The diversion of attention towards the issue of reproductive rights has bought the government time to further entrench its election plans. The government is now preparing to organise the election through a postal ballot, despite the legally dubious nature of this proposal, which has been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Certainly, the PiS government is not simply opportunistic but is actively pushing its long-term conservative agenda: it is an openly Christian conservative party and sympathetic to the claims of the even more right-wing groups, which support them in return for the possibility to push through restrictions on issues such as these. However, it seems PiS has become accustomed to using the issue of reproductive rights for its own political advantage as a weapon against the opposition to force it to become distracted.

In Hungary, meanwhile, the government seems to be using the exceptional situation to further polarise opposing positions on tired but well-serving fault lines. They put up an omnibus bill that among many outrageous proposals contains an amendment that seeks to introduce the termSex at birthdefined asthe biological sex determined by primary sexual characteristics and chromosomesto the Civil Registry Act.

Sex at birthwould replace sexin the civil registryand, after the bill passes, altering this entry would be forbidden, making it impossible to legally change ones sex in Hungary. In Hungarian there is one word for sex and gender (nem), the difference between sex and gender is expressed by adding an adjective biological or social sex. This fact contributes to even more misunderstandings and ideological misrepresentations, on both left and right, around the already polysemic terms, e.g. in the recent weeks the term gender was used in liberal media and in politics both to mean gender identity (the persons felt identification) and sex.

The goal of putting this item into the omnibus package seems if not for catering to the obsessions of the smaller coalition party, the Christian Democrats less to legislate on the obvious (i.e. one cannot change the sex one had at birth), but to use it later against the opposition as the final proof that they are for gender ideology. This move reproduces a culturalist fault line: framed from the liberal side one is for or against trans rights, and from the conservative side one is for or against gender ideology.

Given the exceptional situation of the pandemic and the range of measures in the omnibus bill, the opposition despite the fact that many of them hold more nuanced views on the issue than the culture war framing suggests (one can grant trans people rights without questioning basic biological facts) was put into a situation where it has no choice but to vote down the whole bill in the week of 4 May. For the government, this will be the proof they wanted: the opposition is for gender ideology and in the midst of a pandemic is acting hysterically about an issue that affects very few people.

All the while, legislation on issues of material importance to millions of citizens seems to pass by unnoticed by international public opinion. In response to the crippling effects of the pandemic on the global, European and national economies, the Polish government introduced an anti-crisis shield: a package of measures designed to soften that impact. Nevertheless, the package completely fails to address the needs of those most affected the precarious workers on zero-hours or casual contracts who are not paid unless they do work, and temporary and service industry workers. They are expected to receive a paltry one-off payment of 500 from the state. Those who are unemployed and qualify for benefits (only around 17 per cent of the unemployed, according to trade unions) continue to receive the pre-crisis rates of around 185 a month.

Meanwhile, the new measures allow employers to implement pay cuts as well as decrease the amount of rest between shifts and trade unions already report that some enterprises are applying these measures even if their business has not been impacted. The new legislation also allows the employer to determine where that rest takes place and can therefore instruct nursing home or medical staff to sleep at their workplace between shifts, rather than going home.

East-West inequalities have become clearly visible in the corona-related breakdowns of supply chains for care work and agricultural harvests.

There have further been media reports of projected staff reductions and pay cuts in the government administration, including a 20 per cent staff reduction in the Ministry of Health. Most of the governments extra spending in the anti-crisis shield, meanwhile, is set to support the financial sector. The just-announced additional anti-crisis measures promise some further subsidies for workers salaries, but only for employees in the largest companies; at the same time the new provisions are set to make it easier to terminate employment contracts and lower wages.

In Hungary, the government continues to deepen its social-Darwinist approach. While it expects hundreds of thousands of people to lose their jobs, it does not plan to extend the duration of unemployment benefits up to approximately 180 for three months, the shortest period in the EU. More than half of Hungarian households have savings for a maximum of two to three months. In the current circumstances, for the government to hold on to its ideology of the work-based society and prime minister Viktor Orbn to state that there is no free money in other words, if one does not perform on the labour market, one should not get state help is therefore particularly cynical.

In a decree issued on 10 April, the government modified the overtime bill without prior consultation, and made it possible for employers to unilaterally apply an even more flexible working timeframe than granted them in the infamous slave law. Also, while opposition parties and local governments are expected to contribute to pandemic mitigation funds, the Fidesz-loyal oligarchs are exempt from sharing the burden.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the developments relating to the ruthless economic measures in Hungary and Poland do not receive the same amount of attention as the culture wars waged by their governments. While the proposals to restrict reproductive rights in Poland and the new trans regulation in Hungary met with widespread opposition from EU policymakers MEPs wrote to the Polish parliament and the Hungarian government to protest the developments there was no similar reaction to the economic measures.

Indeed, it would appear that the social catastrophe orchestrated by Poland and Hungary is not out of line with the European values. The lack of provisions for the lower classes of these countries is in fact beneficial for the core EU countries who continue profiting from their cheap labour force which, now more than ever, is clearly essential to the functioning of their own economies.

East-West inequalities have become clearly visible in the corona-related breakdowns of supply chains for care work and agricultural harvests. What merits the outrage of the EU and Western elite in Poland and Hungary, and what does not, is another tell-tale sign of the hypocrisy behind the terms solidarity and European values. If these words are to mean anything, the socio-economic catastrophe in the making in those countries should be urgently addressed too.

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How Fidesz and PiS exploit the culture war - IPS Journal