The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-08)

than oil.” Bread is a measure of stability — or instability. And

that’s what makes it such a powerful propaganda tool. “Wheat,”

as one agriculture economist wrote during the panic of 2010, “is

all about fear.” The real danger is not a global wheat shortage; it’s

a fear-driven panic that pushes up prices and cuts off the truly

hungry.

There’s a tendency to believe that people starve because there

isn’t enough food to go around, but for the past 60 years, that

hasn’t been the case. In that period, food prices have steadily

trended down, even as income inequality within countries has

trended up. So today when people go hungry, it’s not because

there’s a shortage of food — it’s because they don’t have the money

or the ability to buy it. “Famines are never about food produc-

tion,” said Arif Husain, chief economist for the U.N. World Food

Program. “It is always about access.”

SEE WHEAT ON B3

W

hen Russia invaded Ukraine, governments around

the world responded with severe economic sanc-

tions. Russian President Vladimir Putin retaliat-

ed, threatening to ban exports of oil, gas, fertilizer

— and wheat.

“We will only be supplying food and agriculture products to

our friends,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said

April 1 on Telegram, calling food a “quiet weapon” in the war.

Wheat is a weapon. But not just in the obvious way. Putin is not

only starving his enemies into submission; he’s also using wheat

as a weapon of psychological warfare. The Russian president is a

master propagandist, and like all manipulators, he knows that

perception, carefully managed, can become reality.

Wheat is a valuable global commodity, both symbol and

sustenance. In 2009, after a spike in prices, a Senate subcommit-

tee proclaimed wheat “even more central to modern civilization

KLMNO

Outlook

SUNDAY, MAY 8 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/OUTLOOK. SECTION B EZ BD

INSIDE OUTLOOK

Lessons in love from an aging mother. B3 The Alito opinion imperils privacy. B4

INSIDE BOOK WORLD

The downfall of the neoliberal order. B5 David Mamet’s half-baked essays. B6

Book review by Joe Klein

I

n 2015, Craig McNamara — the

son of former defense secretary

Robert McNamara — got in touch

with Rich Rusk, son of former secre-

tary of state Dean Rusk. They had a

lot in common. Their fathers had

been chief promulgators of the war in

Vietnam. Both sons had opposed the

war. Both loved their fathers desper-

ately, although Rusk once refused to

speak to his for 14 years. Both had

gone off the grid for extended periods

of time — Rusk, salmon fishing in

Alaska; McNamara, traveling and, for

years, subsistence farming in South

America. They talked about visiting

Vietnam together, but they never

made it. On Jan. 28, 2018, Rusk killed

himself by jumping off a bridge.

That Craig McNamara has sur-

vived, and thrived, and given us this

staggering book, is something of a

miracle. “My life has been a journey

outward,” he writes in “Because Our

Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and

Family, From Vietnam to Today.”

“Maybe up, toward light.” It certainly

was a struggle. Robert McNamara

would have been a difficult father

under the best of circumstances —

loving and sometimes doting, but

distant, unable and unwilling to talk

to his son about his work, especially

about the colossal tragedy he super-

vised in Vietnam. And about other,

more personal things, too. This book

is full of metaphors. One of the first

comes early when Craig was a student

at the exclusive St. Paul’s School

outside Concord, N.H., in the mid-

1960s. He was a great athlete but a

SEE MCNAMARA ON B4

A s a dad, Robert

McNamara

o≠ered love

and deflections

A

mong the many shocking el-

ements of the leaked draft Su-

preme Court opinion overturn-

ing Roe v. Wade, this one jumped out

at me: the rosy picture of pregnancy

painted by Justice Samuel Alito, who

has never been pregnant. Alito lists a

string of what he calls “modern devel-

opments” that lessen the financial

toll exacted by pregnancy. “Federal

and state laws ban discrimination on

the basis of pregnancy,” he writes.

“Leave for pregnancy and childbirth

are now guaranteed by law in many

cases,” and “costs of medical care

associated with pregnancy are cov-

ered by insurance or government

assistance.” The implication is that

Roe has outlived any role it once

played in improving women’s eco-

nomic security.

But anyone who has been pregnant

— or cares to understand — knows

that the reality in the United States is

not rosy at all. At best, pregnant

Americans must navigate a patch-

work of leaky protections, a labyrinth

of financial costs and penalties, and a

health-care landscape that threatens

the lives of the most vulnerable.

Let’s start with Alito’s claim that

pregnant workers have nothing to

fear because federal and state laws

ban pregnancy discrimination. His

claim that workplace protections in-

sulate pregnant employees from

harm is particularly rich given the

origins of the 1978 Pregnancy Dis-

crimination Act, a rebuke to a 1976

Supreme Court decision, General

Electric Co. v. Gilbert, which wrongly

concluded that workers could be pe-

nalized for being pregnant.

Fortunately, Congress stepped in

to right that wrong, but there remains

a persistent gap between the letter of

the law and the lived experience of

pregnant workers. That’s certainly

been our experience at the ACLU

Women’s Rights Project, where we

routinely represent women fired or

forced into unpaid leave for being

pregnant. These women aren’t anom-

alies. In the nearly half-century since

SEE PREGNANT ON B2

Justice Alito’s

rosy view o f

pregnancy

i s fantasy

Workplace and health-care

penalties abound in the

United States, says the

ACLU’s Ria Tabacco Mar

RYAN JOHNSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Weaponizing wheat

The world produces plenty, says Annia Ciezadlo,

but Putin can use fear to create a market panic