Global Research

Listening to Trump’s daily press conference, one gets injected with a healthy dose of how market based solutions are already saving us from the virus.

On  a daily basis, Trump tells us what a fantastic job he’s doing, then trots out corporate CEOs before the camera, one after another, each telling us what they’re doing: US auto execs tell us of their plans to convert their idled factories and produce millions of ventilators (while states in desperate need are actually buying them from abroad, mostly China).  Big Pharma companies are developing the new vaccine or interim medical treatments like hydrocholoroquinine (which Cuba has already produced and is giving free to Italy); silicon valley tech companies announce  contributions of hundreds of thousands of N95 masks (from their offshore inventories purchased from Asia and elsewhere no doubt).

But the reality is that the free market and so-called free enterprise system is largely responsible for much of today’s health crisis.  It is the ‘market’ that has given us the massive shortages in hospital beds, ventilators, critical personal protection equipment (PPE), and the long lag in developing interim medical treatments—let alone a vaccine.

Here’s just a few notable cases how the market has failed and continues to do so:

Hospital Beds 

As others have pointed out, before the Neoliberal market system implanted itself in the USA decades ago with Ronald Reagan (deepening and expanding ever since), there were 1.5 million hospital beds in the country and an extensive non-profit public hospital system.  Before 1980 there were 100 million fewer US citizens for those 1.5 million beds. Today there are 100 million more Americans, but only 925,000 hospital beds. We’ve added 100 million but reduced beds by 500,000. The reduction, of course, was all done in the name of ‘market efficiency’ by the for profit hospital chains who bought up and then shut down much of the non-profit public hospital system. Now, as the current health crisis deepens, we’re left setting up cots in auditoriums and college dorms and call them hospitals.

The crisis in hospital beds for virus patients can be traced largely to the program of Bill Clinton in 1994 called ‘managed health care’. That program permitted and incentivized the acquisition of the public hospital system by the for-profit chains who sought to reduce competition so they could raise prices. Under Clinton’s program, the for-profit chains were even exempted from US anti-trust laws that might have prevented the loss of half million hospital beds. Hospitals are one of the few industries totally exempt from anti-trust still today.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Why is the USA so short on ventilators, masks, safety clothing, even disinfectants? It’s because the market solution was to offshore the production of these critical items to Asia, Latin America, and especially China years ago.  It was cheaper to move production offshore (experts call this today relocating the supply chains!). It was cheaper to import back these products to the US economy.  Expanding free trade (again under Clinton) then made the cost of importing back to the US even cheaper and thus more profitable still.  Offshoring and free trade are but two sides of the same coin. Add a third leg to the economic stool: tax laws were changed to provide tax breaks to corporations that actually offshored the production of PPE.

Image on the right: Staff load medical materials bound for Italy at Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, March 17, 2020. Photo: Xinhua/Zheng Mengyu via Getty Images

Fast forward and today we have China producing 115 million N95 and surgical masks A DAY! China’s surplus is so great it is giving ventilators and masks to Italy for free. But is the US saying anything about this in Trump’s press conferences?  Has Trump ever admitted the availability of these critical PPE materials, ready for import to the US right now! No.  Instead, health care providers, doctors, nurses, technicians, are told to re-use their masks and other equipment since there aren’t enough of them to go around.  And we’re told by corporate representatives in Trump’s press conferences the materials are coming. Just be patient.

And then there’s the Hydrochloroquinine interim treatment for those sick with Covid-19. Trump mentioned that. But did he say where it was being already used? Some reports are now appearing that the treatment was successfully developed in Cuba, whose doctors have been sent to Italy to administer it there to the most ill patients. But no mention, however, that that treatment is taking place right now in Italy. You won’t hear that ‘non-market’ solution from market unfriendly Cuba from Trump.

Unemployment Benefits

The USA has one of the most miserly unemployment benefit payment systems among all the advanced economies. It provides barely a third of what’s needed to live on. And in many states not even that.  In California, one of the more generous in relative terms, the top benefit is $450/wk. That’s about $1,800 a month. But the median rent in urban areas of California alone is $3,000 or more!  In New York and other big cities, even more.  And the insufficient benefits are paid for only six months.

But if you’re one of the tens of millions of temp, contract, gig workers you’re not considered an employee for the company you’re working for. You therefore are not eligible for even the insufficient unemployment benefits paid in the US.

That has temporarily changed as the US Congress CARE Act just passed. It now provides unemployment benefits for ‘gig’ and other contract workers, albeit for just four months. But the point is this: It’s not the ‘market’ that is helping the millions of gig and other contract workers with at least some benefits. It’s the government.  With the CARES Act the government and taxpayer will now pick up the tab for the unemployment benefits for the millions of contract and gig workers that the ‘market’ has failed to cover. The market has allowed companies to avoid paying any unemployment benefits tax that would otherwise cover contract and gig workers. The taxpayer and government now will ‘pick up the tab’. The market  failed and the government-taxpayer must clean up its mess and provide the benefits companies like Uber, Lyft, AirBnB and others have avoided and pocketed for themselves.

Health Insurance

In the free market Nirvana that is the USA today, millions of companies are permitted to forego providing their employees health insurance coverage.  37 million have no insurance at all. And 87 million are under insured.  Millions with some insurance have deductibles of thousands of dollars per person a year.

Now the Cares Act once again, i.e. the government and taxpayer, is stepping in and ensure these millions—employed and unemployed—have some kind of health insurance coverage. The government is called upon to clean up the mess the market has left.

Paid Medical-Sick Leave

The richest country in the world, the USA, where the Fortune 500 largest companies have managed to distribute more than $1 trillion a year for the past nine years to their shareholders in stock buybacks and dividend payouts, only provides on average 6 paid sick leave days a year to employees. And that’s typically only where a union contract exists. Most get unpaid sick leave or none at all. Get sick, go find another job. That’s the ‘market solution’. In Europe and elsewhere, combined paid leave is typically 30 days or more a year. But not in Trump’s market solution America.

Once again, the consequence is that the government-taxpayer in the CARES Act will have to pick up the tab for paid medical leave for the millions who must stay home due to their Employer’s order, or government ‘stay in place’ guidelines, or school districts shutdowns.

Market Solutions for Worker Retraining 

It used to be that companies trained their own workers to become more skilled and productive. There was once a very widespread on the job training culture in the USA. That disappeared as well with the deepening of Neoliberalism and globalization (aka free trade, offshoring, and foreign direct investment by US multinational corps). Under Bill Clinton, corporations were allowed to bring hundreds of thousands of skilled workers from their foreign operations back to the US to take some of the best US jobs. It still continues. Free market efficiency meant it was cheaper (and more profitable) just to transfer workers on H1-B and L-1/2 visas to the US. No need to train American citizens. Cheaper simply to import skilled labor. That was the ‘market solution’ to job training.

The CARES ACT: $500 Billion ‘Socialism for Corporations’

The CARES Act allocates $500 billion just to large corporations. (Another $367 billion to smaller businesses). But do the large corporations really need the $500 billion? And who will oversee the distribution of that largesse?

Take the Airlines. Do they need it for the next 60 days? Do they deserve it?

The airlines are getting $58 billion under the just passed Cares Act. Half of that in outright grants. No strings attached.  Another half in loans. Reportedly, they’re now quickly taking the grants but not the loans. Why? They’re probably waiting for Congress to agree to convert the loans to outright grants later in the year.

But no one is asking how much cash on hand the airline companies have as they’re handed these tens of billions of $! And no one is mentioning that the same airline companies in recent years gave their shareholders and CEOs no less than $45 billion in stock buybacks and dividend payouts. So now they’re getting $58B to back fill the hole of $45 billion they gave away to themselves and their big investors (who together owned most of the $45B stock bought back).

Here’s another question unanswered:  In recent years big corporations (Fortune 500) earned record profits and paid out more than $1T a year in buybacks and dividends. Under Trump, they’ve paid out a total of more than $3 trillion in buybacks+dividends.  In addition to that, in the months immediately leading up to the March 2020 virus crisis, the same big corporations were drawing down hundreds of billions of dollars from their credit lines with banks.  At the same time in recent months they have been issuing new bonds and raising billions more in cash. No less than $73 billion was raised from issuing new bonds in February, a record.  Flush with mountains of cash from Trump 2018 tax cuts, from their bank credit lines, and from record corporate bond issuance, they now are being given $500 billion more by Congress in the CARES ACT. Do they really need it? Let’s open their books and see before they get even $1.

Not least, there’s the question of who will oversee who gets the $500 billion.  The Democrats in Congress say the special board created must oversee. Trump in turn has said, no way. I’m personally going to oversee. Want to guess who’ll win that one?

The point is Big Corporations are loaded with cash. And they didn’t earn most of it from the ‘market’. They got it from Trump tax cuts, from bank credit lines, and from low interest corporate bond issuance made possible by convenient near zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve.  Nevertheless, now the non-market sugar daddy, the US government, is giving them $500 more whether they need it or not!

Super-Socialism for Bankers & Investors

The $500 billion going to big business pales in comparison, however, to the multi-trillions that the central bank, the Federal Reserve, is now pouring into the bankers, shadow bankers (i.e. hedge funds, equity firms, investment banks, mutual funds, etc.), and even now into non-bank corporations for the first time as well.

In 2008 the Federal Reserve provided more than $4 trillion to bail out the banks. Now it is providing more than $6 trillion (thus far)—and this time the banks haven’t even failed yet!

The Fed has opened a free money spigot to investors, bankers, and to big business of all types, and has simply declared ‘come on in and take it’. And if the $6 trillion to date isn’t enough, we’ll provide more.

For the first time ever the Fed is now providing free money not only to bankers, but to credit card companies, mortgage companies, corporate bond holders, and even to investors in derivatives like Exchange Traded Funds, or ETFs. Next it will start buying stocks to prop up those markets. Its cousin central bank, the Bank of Japan, has been doing that for years now.

Subsidizing Capital Incomes by Government Not the Market

Both tax policy and central bank monetary policy are supposed to function as general economy stabilization tools, according to mainstream economists. But today that’s a fiction perpetrated by the corporate media. In recent decades, tax and central bank policy ‘tools’ have become virtual conduits for the subsidization of capital incomes.

They have become the vehicles of Corporate Socialism. The Capitalist State and its government takes care of its own. The rest of us will be taken care of by ‘the market’, according to Trump.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Jack Rasmus.

Dr. Rasmus is author of the just published book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, January 2020. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions on the Progressive Radio Network. Join Dr. Rasmus for daily commentary on developments in the US economy and politics on Twitter at @drjackrasmus.

Featured image is from Morning Star

A story that is not presented in mainstream media is that of the suffering and punishment of the people of Gaza at the whim of the Israeli military in the open air prison that is their home.  In “Gaza Fights For Freedom” Abby Martin of The Empire Files has created a documentary that vividly portrays life in all aspects for the people of Gaza.

The documentary uses videos of ‘live’ action in Gaza, mainly from the current events concerning the Great March of Return.  It has interviews with the people of Gaza and their concerns, hopes, and ambitions, in spite of 14 years of lockdown and destruction, and shows how they manage to survive in conditions which currently are deemed uninhabitable.

The topics covered are varied but all are centered on the imprisonment and deprivation caused by the Israelis blockading the small territory (about 40 km by 10 km).  The Israelis have created a situation where most of the water is toxic, where electricity on a good day maybe lasts eight hours, but often only four and frequently never.  Imports of food are limited, as put officially by the Israelis themselves to put them on starvation rations.  Movement is restricted by the Israeli military on all sides, and no construction materials are allowed through to repair the severely damaged infrastructure from recent Israeli attacks.

After a brief historical run through, the main focus of the story is the Great March of Return and the impact it has had on Gaza and the manner in which it highlights the Israeli (and U.S.) military and political leaders’ complete disregard of many international humanitarian and war crimes treaties.  Even though the Great March of Return is non violent Israeli and western media always present it as a violent attack against Israeli citizens by the Hamas leaders in Gaza, yet the demonstrators themselves say that Hamas has no hand in organizing it.

All Palestinians are terrorists by Israeli definitions even as Israel ignores and abrogates all international law.  The UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions are referenced and the video clearly presents Israel as breaking these laws in their actions against women, children, journalists, medical workers, disabled people, and unarmed citizens.

In the purely military aspect the video explains the Israeli use of illegal exploding bullets that cut into flesh before exploding creating catastrophic injuries – which then can not be treated properly due to the deprivation of medical materials and medicines.  Another purely military feature is the Israeli use of what is called “tear” gas, but is a new gas that causes suffocation, hallucinations, and death.  The gas is described as a “toxic gas much more intensive” than tear gas, it is “battle tested”, and “experimental gas”, it is “not what normal tear gas does.”

Exploding bullets are banned under weapons conventions and international treaties prohibit the use of chemical weapons such as the gas used by the IDF.  It is more than ironic, it is overwhelmingly disgusting, that a people whose main reason for their existence as Israel stems from the mass gassing of their own people, a method they are now experimenting with themselves on another people.

All the great information aside, and all the great journalistic photography aside, “Gaza Fights For Freedom” allows the Palestinians to speak for themselves.  Abby Martin serves as an occasional commentator not so much to offer an ideology but so as to introduce a topic or provide a larger perspective on what has already been said.  The comments are simple yet powerful:

“The Palestinian people are buried alive”

“Isn’t it time to prosecute the Israeli army”

“We must endure.”

“My ambitions are work, school…joy”

Watch the trailer below.

Source: https://gazafightsforfreedom.com

I watched the video on a webinar presented by Canada Boat to Gaza, and the Social Justice Collective of London, Ontario.  After the video Abby Martin was on the webinar live and offered in her clear, concise, and accurate manner to add more comments to the situation.  She explained how the video showed the “average day to day life of Gazans” and how the corporate media was “cynical, dehumanizing, atrocious” in its presentation of Palestinians and Gaza.

She says the hero of the film is Razan’s mother, Razan being a young medic murdered by Israeli sniper fire while she was trying to help other injured marchers.  On war crimes she says Israel flaunts them “flagrantly, brazenly” with full U.S. support.  As for the U.S. she discusses the situation with Israel against the new definitions of antisemitism and the actions by various states to limit the BDS movement.  For the latter her comment is simply, “…foreign interference, much?”

When describing Razan’s actions near the Gaza prison border she said that “courage is being scared but doing it anyway” in reference to Razan’s last day helping others.  An item that stood out in reference to western viewers was her statement that you are not antiwar, progressive, or on the left if you support Israeli occupation and the U.S. empire.

Following Abby Martin, a Gaza journalist, Raed Shakshak discussed his situation.  Online at 11:00 pm Gaza time, he was using battery power for his computer link. His references were mainly to his work as a journalist and activities with wearenotnumbers.org as outreach coordinator.

The video documentary is available through gazafightsforfreedom.com and a trailer is available for viewing on Vimeo.  I highly recommend viewing the video, preferably with a group like a webinar group, or at a local theater – where Abby Martin says it has received large audiences in the U.S. when it has been shown.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Razan al-Najjar, the 21 year old Gaza medic killed by an Israeli sniper on June 1, treating an injured man, undated photo from Palestine Live on twitter.

In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the head of United Arab Emirates (UAE), spoke by phone on Friday in the first such communication since the Syrian War began in 2011. This shows a metamorphosis of alliances and geopolitics in the Middle East and the wider region considering the UAE was one of the main backers of terrorist organizations who fought to remove Assad from power. However, for more than a year, the UAE has been sending signals showing a change in policy towards Syria. The phone call was after a long series of rapprochement that began in late 2018 with the reopening of the Emirati embassy in Damascus.

“I have discussed with the Syrian president… updates on the coronavirus. I assured him of the support of the UAE and its willingness to help the Syrian people,” Prince Mohammed said on Twitter. “Humanitarian solidarity during trying times supersedes all matters, and Syria and her people will not stand alone.”

A diplomatic source close to the case was quoted by the Lebanese daily L’Orient-Le Jour as saying the “Westerners, the Americans and French particularly, were against” a Syrian-Emirati rapprochement. According to the diplomatic source, the UAE is trying to gain favours from Moscow and has already won dozens of contracts, including in armaments, gas and infrastructure, but also with space cooperation. This is part of a broader geostrategic context and the stakes go far beyond Syria and the UAE. Rather, the UAE has acknowledged that Russia has taken a greater interest in the region, in particular in Syria and Libya.

Relations between the Gulf monarchies and the United States, traditional allies, have greatly deteriorated in recent years. The gradual disengagement of American forces from the region, but especially the lack of support from Washington against Turkey, made the monarchies with the exception of Qatar, lose the confidence they once had in the United States. According to the diplomatic source quoted by L’Orient-Le Jour, the UAE is trying to get closer to Beijing and Moscow, and the Crown Prince’s phone call to Assad is evidence of that. The call also comes as relations with Iran softened, especially seen with the many Emirati delegations who visited Iran last year, however this has not softened the UAE’s brutal Yemeni policy. None-the-less, this suggests a change in foreign policy that appeals to Moscow.

It appears then that the UAE’s turn around in its Syria policy serves two purposes: first – to strengthen relations with Russia, second – to form an anti-Turkish bloc.

As Turkey actively pursues for the establishment of a neo-Ottoman Empire, the UAE is aggressively undermining the project as it opposes the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has openly supported and backed in Syria, Libya and Egypt. The UAE recognized the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization in 2014 after the fundamentalist group made plans to infiltrate and destabilize the Gulf country to take control – the main reason for the ever-increasing deterioration in relations between the UAE and Turkey.

Since then, the UAE has been actively pursuing to counter Turkish influence across the region. As part of its efforts to create an anti-Turkish block, the UAE have strengthened their relations with Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt fear being taken over by Muslim Brotherhood rule. However, the UAE’s pursuit of countering Turkey has not been reduced to only the Islamic world.

Greece, considered the “Old Enemy” by the Turks, received 11 tons of medical aid from the UAE on Thursday, with a Greek government press release stating that relations “began as economic cooperation, but thanks to the trust that was developed, it evolved into a strong bond.” This came as a working meeting of the Greece-UAE Broader Strategic Cooperation Forum was held in Athens on February 19 following the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ visit to UAE. In 2019 and 2020, the UAE and Greece has conducted joint military drills and military heads have been meeting each other often in a clear directive against Turkey.

In Libya, the UAE has not held back in supporting the Libyan National Army in their struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood government in Tripoli, headed by the ethnic Turk Fayez al-Sarraj who has the full backing of Erdoğan. The UAE’s material assistance has been crucial in the success of the Libyan National Army’s battle against Muslim Brotherhood forces, a clear demonstration that the UAE are willing to directly check Turkey’s ambitions to exert its influence and power across the region.

By securing close relations with Greece and directly countering Turkey in Libya, the UAE’s rapprochement with Syria is another step in formulating an anti-Turkish bloc, with itself at the head. While Turkey has acted to strangulate countries who oppose its hegemony in the region, it now appears that it is the UAE who is pressurizing Turkey and isolating it. There is every chance that the UAE will begin sending material aid to Syria that will be crucial in its future battles to expel the Turkish military and their jihadist proxies from Syrian territory. This will once again undermine Turkey’s efforts to dominate Syria and be the main power in the region, a move that Erdoğan would not have expected.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies. 

It is true to say that the coronavirus Covid-19 is quite frightening, more so because its modus operandi is covert. It is indiscriminate and likes to pick on the more vulnerable but isn’t fussy about its victims. It creates a perfect panic button. And just as the story of a mass serial killer on the loose is stoked by a media frenzy with the political opportunism that follows – the whole event is turned into a circus of mass hysteria. This article is not designed to mock or belittle the incredible effort being put in to combat Covid-19, but question why, as a country, we have reacted the way we have.

On the 16th of July 2009, the Guardian published its headline, as many others did, quoting a predicted 65,000 deaths from the H1N1 pandemic as a result of the chief medical officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson’s warning. Health Protection Agency modelling forecast two peaks, the first to reach a weekly contagion rate of 115,000 and the second at 80,000 twelve weeks later. UK epidemiologists at Imperial College London considered that H1N1 swine flu was spreading fast enough to justify the preparations for a pandemic.

Coughing and sneezing was thought to be the transfer cause and washing hands and cleaning surfaces that were potentially infected was the advice given. Anyone suspected of having H1N1 was advised to stay at home and self-isolate.

Weekly Cobra meetings were called with Tony Blair, the hero of the day, managing the tiller of the ship. In the heart of Downing Street, Cherie Blair caught it and had to cancel public engagements.

Professor Steve Field, the chairman of the Royal College, said:

“Swine flu is spreading rapidly across the whole of the country now. GPs are saying that they are coming under a lot of pressure from patients who have it and many GPs say that the publicity surrounding the death of six-year-old London schoolgirl Chloe Buckley has increased demand and made people more anxious.” (Headline 15th July: Swine Flue cases soar sixfold)

Research was later carried by the NHS out into the actual mortality rate and from 540,000 known infections in the UK, 138 died by the time the outbreak had fallen to very low infections in December, not the tens of thousands reported in the newspapers. In 2010, The Telegraph reported that from start to finish the ‘pandemic’ had killed 457 people and cost the country £1.2billion.

Further research from the BMJ found that reporting of the 2009 ‘pandemic’ was more measured and by the second wave (and lower rate) of infections, the mainstream media had lost interest and moved on. In other words, the majority of people in Britain knew about ‘swine flu’ but weren’t frightened by it as they are with Covid-19 today.

Like a decade ago, everything is the same, except today the story is amplified and then magnified in tiny detail. Forecasts from scientists suggested that 250,000 could die this year if the government used its ‘mitigation’ strategy, whereas a ‘suppression’ strategy will half that number to a very worrying 125,000 victims. A government U-turn from the former to the latter strategy has led to a partial lockdown. The expectation is of more control measures quite soon. The economy is rapidly contracting.

Speculation, misleading stories, fake news and propaganda are the main characteristics inside the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic story of 2020. This is partially because we know little about how to combat Covid-19 and for the click-baiters it is fair game. Fear has been stoked by the mainstream media to levels not seen in Western countries since the financial crash of 2008 and even that didn’t dominate as this story has. In Britain, that sordid episode in our history saw a massive transfer of wealth that has seen public national debt explode by £1trillion.

The reality is that Covid-19 is nothing like the existential threat to us all that the mainstream media, scientists and the politicians who have knelt to their pressure would have us believe.

We should not forget that each year around 500,000 people die in England, and it is predicted that this will rise to 590,000 within the next 20 years. Heart failure and stroke are the biggest killers. With an increasingly ageing population, the majority of older people will be living with a number of conditions. For example, around 30% of people over the age of 85 with cancer will also have dementia. One in four people in the UK will die of cancer. Covid-19 has four main health targets, the same that most previous modern-day pandemics have had.

We should also not forget that the 21st century, just 20 years in the making, the world has officially recorded 67 ‘epidemics’ – almost double that recorded for the whole of late 19th and all of the 20th century. The four that we are aware of were worldwide but also affected the West. Little known in the UK is that in 2015, the H5N2 epidemic broke out in the USA and fear caused by the media ended with 43 million poultry birds (mostly turkey’s) being slaughtered but not one human fatality. The birds were culled by pumping an expanding water-based foam into the barn houses, which suffocated them.

But there is another statistic that is rarely reported. Public Health England updated their annual findings on 11th March last year – “Air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to health in the UK, with between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths a year attributed to its long-term exposure. There is strong evidence that air pollution causes the development of coronary heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease and lung cancer, and exacerbates asthma.” All of these health conditions happen to be targets of Covid-19 as well.

In Italy, the Centre of International Studies at the University Institute of Lisbon has published research in newspaper ‘publico’ that shows that nearly 25,000 Italians died in the winter of 2016/17 of flu and that in 2015, 38,000 people died of just one toxic emission – diesel fume (NOx) inhalation throughout Europe. Neither caused the media mania of today. At the time of writing, Italy is in a tight lockdown, its economy has been utterly crushed, looting and public unrest is emerging as many households have run out of money and food. So far, half the number have died of C19 to that of the Italian winter flu outbreak of 2016.

Over the last decade, well over a quarter of a million people living in England have died of air pollution alone. Like Covid-19, these unfortunate people became victims of a silent serial killer, breathed in its toxic cocktail and succumbed to the effects of it. The government, the health services, think tanks and experts have known this fact for years but for Covid-19, the country is about to allow its economy to completely implode.

Economic toll

Isabel Stockton, a research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said on March 26th:

“The response to the covid-19 pandemic has led to a sharp downturn in economic activity. It has also, rightly, prompted a substantial fiscal policy response, the cost of which will add directly to government borrowing. The outlook is uncertain to say the least. Only taking account of measures announced so far, and even if the economy “only” shrinks by 5% per cent this year, we might expect borrowing in the coming financial year to exceed £175 billion, or more than 8% of national income. This would be more than triple the amount forecast in the Budget just two weeks ago. About 40% of that increase would result from new fiscal measures, and the rest from the economic downturn depressing revenues and adding to government spending. The deficit could easily swell by much more than that if the economy shrinks by more, if take up of the employment retention scheme is high, or if further substantial fiscal measures are unveiled. A deficit of over £200 billion in the coming financial year is well within the bounds of possibility. Yesterday’s announcement in parliament to increase the contingency fund for the coming financial year from £10.6 billion to £266 billion suggests the government may be prepared to go even further than that.”

The current Bank of England interest rate has been slashed to 0.1 per cent. An additional £200 billion in quantitative easing will ensure the banks are protected against loan defaults and already Stockton’s forecast has been obliterated less than a week later.

The OECD has now calculated that Britain’s GDP could contract by something like 25 per cent during the Covid-19 lockdown. In 2019, the UK’s GDP was £2.091 trillion (source ONS). This expected contraction will, therefore (adjusting for Q1 and Q4 being as normal), cost over £250bn in lost revenue and business activity. Bankruptcies, insolvencies and debt defaults will skyrocket for both businesses and individuals irrespective of government support.

The Guardian July 16th 2009: 138 deaths were officially recorded by December 2009, 458 in total six months later

Annual seasonal flu

Covid-19 acts a lot like seasonal flu in the UK in many respects. Annual deaths reported by Public Health England from flu have been: 2014/15 = 28,330, 2015/16 = 11,875, 2016/17 = 18,009, 2017/18 = 26,408 and 2018/19 = 1,692. Over five years the total number of deaths has been 60,314, averaging  12,062 per annum.  Most cases of seasonal flu are reported by week 50 (mid-Dec) through to week 8 (end Feb) and continue to decline through to Week 15 (mid-April). The bad years go into the summer, fall and then spike early winter. Most winters the country is also dealing with at least three if not four different strains of flu (see Fig.27 Page 33). There is no knowing yet, but in all likelihood, there will be no seasonal flu deaths recorded this year, all will relate to C19 or underlying conditions.

If Covid-19 kills people in line with seasonal flu numbers of around 20,000 this year and then disappears like SARS and MERS did, which it is expected to do, a question will need to be asked. Why did the media and government not be so outraged when worse happens year in year out with air pollution? Why was the economy crashed for the annual pilgrimage of an ever-evolving virus that we always knew was coming? And we knew it was definitely coming a few years ago after ‘Exercise Cygnus.‘

Economic post mortem

When the Covid crisis has been brought to heel and the economic post mortem reveals the true scale of damage, the people paying the price for the mainstream media’s hysteria will be measured in shattered businesses, banks picking over their corpses, bailouts for corporate hustlers and decimated high streets. Then their focus will shine a light on the terrible plight of the millions queuing at job centres- when all along, this self-inflicted economic catastrophe was created by the Guardian, Daily Mail, Express, Telegraph, Mirror and the Sun – who indiscriminately cashed in on their click-baiting strategies.

Britain was barely recovering from the financial implosion created by the banks that is known to have killed at least 120,000 by rabid government policy that looked more like social engineering and eugenics aimed at the poorest in society. Where was the outrage for them over the last decade? Where was the outrage for the 300,000 or so Britons who have lost their lives to the fossil fuel industry in the last decade? Why were their lives so expendable? Is it perhaps that the poor have no power but that Covid-19 might just touch the lives of those actually in power? The country was just about to have about 5 per cent of its GDP ripped out for another decade over Brexit but this media scrum to publish the most outrageous fear-mongering headlines will completely overshadow any worries about Brexit.

By now, it should be sinking in that the 250,000 mass death prediction was complete nonsense. The National Medical Director, Professor Stephen Powis has now said the national effort of self-isolation can work if everyone plays their part – and if they do, Covid-19 deaths will be more like 20,000. There is no attempt here to state the Covid-19 is not dangerous or that we should divert from government advice. But that number is less than two of the last five years who have died from seasonal flu and more for three of the last five years.

All the numbers point towards the fact that we’ve willingly crashed the entire economy to balance that one statistic. And without questioning the realities of Covid-19, the only people who really benefit was a click-baiting media, the banks, politicians and some zombie corporates already on their knees like Richard Branson’s failed Virgin Atlantic empire that no-one wants to buy. For the rest of us – another decade of austerity beckons. As that decade unfolds, statistically speaking, another Covid will visit us – what then?

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Law firm Stoke White has filed evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity said to have been committed in Yemen. The firm made the submissions in three jurisdictions — Britain, the US and Turkey — on behalf of its clients.

In a press release issued today, Stoke White explained that the applications have been made using UN mechanisms, requesting the authorities to investigate further the notorious Sanaa Funeral Hall bombing in 2016, the UAE’s use of mercenaries and allegations of torture in secret prisons in the country. The submissions are said to include evidence that officials and even authorities higher up in the coalition partners — notably the UAE and Saudi Arabia — as well as mercenaries were all involved directly in war crimes in Yemen.

In September last year, the same law firm held a press conference in which it announced its intention to file a complaint on behalf of three clients whose relatives were among the victims of the funeral bombing in which 137 civilians were killed. The principle of universal jurisdiction was cited, under which anyone accused of committing serious international crimes may be brought to justice in, for example, British and US courts, “irrespective of where they took place, who the perpetrator is and what their nationality is”.

Last week, Stoke White also submitted evidence to the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries, and requested an investigation into all mercenaries operating in Yemen, in particular the executives of America’s Spear Operations Group.

Today it was announced that separate applications were filed with the UN Human Rights Council and the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen regarding violations of international human rights and war crimes.

The applications include allegations such as targeted killings, enforced disappearances, sexual assault, illegal detention and torture in secret prisons, as well as the use of American and other foreign mercenaries in Yemen. They point out that responsibility is shared by the internationally-recognised government of Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

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Angesichts des Coronavirus „ist es unser oberstes Anliegen, die Gesundheit unserer Streitkräfte und unserer Verbündeten zu schützen“ – erklärte das US-Europa-Kommando. Es kündigte daher an, dass es die Anzahl der Soldaten bei Defender Europe 20 reduziert hat. Aber es wird trotzdem weitergehen.

„Seit Januar hat die US-Armee 6.000 Soldaten aus den Vereinigten Staaten nach Europa entsandt“, mit 12.000 Ausrüstungsgegenständen (von personengebundenen Waffen bis hin zu Panzern), und „der Transport von Soldaten und Ausrüstung von verschiedenen Häfen zu den Übungsplätzen in Deutschland und Polen ist abgeschlossen“, erklärte das Kommando am 16. März. Darüber hinaus werden auch 9.000 in Europa stationierte US-Dienstangehörige an der Übung teilnehmen. Seit Januar hat die Armee etwa 6.000 Soldaten aus den Vereinigten Staaten nach Europa entsandt. Sie hat etwa 9.000 Fahrzeuge und Ausrüstungsgegenstände aus den vorpositionierten Beständen des Heeres und etwa 3.000 Ausrüstungsgegenstände auf dem Seeweg aus den Vereinigten Staaten verlegt. Außerdem schloss sie  die Verlegung von Soldaten und Ausrüstung von mehreren Häfen zu Übungsplätzen in Deutschland und Polen ab.

Der von den USA angestrebte Zweck ist „die Aufstellung einer glaubwürdigen Kampftruppe in Europa zur Unterstützung der NATO“, offensichtlich gegen eine „russische Aggression“. Der eigentliche Zweck – wir haben vor zweieinhalb Monaten in il Manifesto geschrieben (die einzige Tageszeitung, die damals über Defender Europe 20 berichtete) – ist es, Spannung zu säen und die Idee des Feinbildes zu nähren.

Das voraussichtliche Übungsszenario könnte niemals eintreten, denn ein bewaffneter Zusammenstoß zwischen der NATO und Russland wäre auch unweigerlich nuklear. Dies ist das reale Szenario, für das die US-Streitkräfte in Europa trainieren. Es wurde von General Tod D. Wolters, dem Chef des Europäischen Kommandos der Vereinigten Staaten und als solcher Kommandant des Europäischen Kommandos der Vereinigten Staaten und Oberster Alliierter Befehlshaber in Europa, bestätigt.

Am 25. Februar 2020 erklärte der Befehlshaber der US-Luftwaffe – US European Command, General Tod D. Wolters, während einer Anhörung im Senatsausschuss für Streitkräfte der Vereinigten Staaten: „Die Nuklearstreitkräfte sind die oberste Garantie für die Sicherheit der Bündnispartner und garantieren jede militärische Operation der Vereinigten Staaten in Europa.“ Dies bedeutet, dass Defender Europe 20 nicht nur eine Übung der konventionellen (nicht nuklearen) Streitkräfte, sondern auch der nuklearen Streiträfte ist.

Am 18. März wurde berichtet, dass zwei US-amerikanische Nuklearangriffsbomber B-2 Spirit, Teil der am 9. März aus den USA eingetroffenen Task Force, diese Woche über Island und den Nordatlantik geflogen sind. Sie wurden von drei norwegischen F-35-Kampfflugzeugen eskortiert.

Diese beiden Flugzeugtypen sind für den Einsatz der neuen Atombomben vom Typ B61-12 vorgesehen, die die USA in Kürze in Italien und anderen europäischen Ländern stationieren werden und die derzeitigen B-61 ersetzen sollen.

In der Senatsanhörung machte General Wolters deutlich, welche Rolle die US-Atomstreitkräfte in Europa spielen. Als Senator Fischer ihn fragte, was er vom Verzicht auf Ersteinsatz von Atomwaffen halte, antwortete der General: „Frau Senator, ich bin ein Fan einer flexiblen Ersteinsatzpolitik.“ Er, der für die US/NATO-Atomwaffen in Europa verantwortlich ist, erklärte offiziell, dass er ein Befürworter ihres ersten Einsatzes für den Erstschlag, den nuklearen Überraschungsangriff auf „flexibler“ Basis, ist.

Angesichts einer derart schwerwiegenden Erklärung, die die russischen Generäle dazu drängt, den Finger auf den nuklearen Auslöser zu legen, herrscht völliges Schweigen von Regierungen, Parlamenten und wichtigen europäischen Medien.

In der gleichen Anhörung sagte General Wolters: „Seit 2015 hat das Bündnis die Rolle der nuklearen Ressourcen stärker betont“ und „das Europäische Kommando der Vereinigten Staaten unterstützt voll und ganz die Empfehlungen der Nuclear Posture Review 2018, die ballistische Niedrigleistungsrakete W76-2 zu stationieren.“

Der nukleare Niedrigleistungssprengkopf W76-2, der bereits auf von U-Booten gestarteten Raketen installiert ist (vom Pentagon am 4. Februar angekündigt), kann auch auf bodengestützten ballistischen Raketen in der Nähe des feindlichen Territoriums installiert werden. Die US-Marine hat den W76-2-Nuklearsprengkopf mit geringer Sprengkraft eingesetzt, der auf der von U-Booten gestarteten Trident II-Rakete verwendet wird.

Es ist besonders gefährlich. Weniger starke Atomwaffen – warnen selbst maßgebliche US-Experten – erhöhen die Versuchung, sie zuerst einzusetzen, sie können die Kommandeure zu einem Vorstoß veranlassen, weil bei einem Angriff die Atombombe in dem Wissen eingesetzt wird, dass der radioaktive Fallout begrenzt wäre. Stattdessen scheint es, als würde man ein brennendes Streichholz in ein Pulverfass werfen.

Alla nostra salute ci pensa il dottor Stranamore. «Senatrice, io sono sostenitore di una flessibile politica del primo uso» de la arma nucleare

(il manifesto, 24. März 2020)

Übersetzung: K.R.

Over the weekend, CDC director Anthony Fauci said he expects “millions of (US COVID-19) cases…between 100 and 200,000” deaths.

Comments like the above when most people already are scared to death by a daily drumbeat of COVID-19 fear-mongering facilitate the imposition and maintenance of draconian policies intended to erode human and civil rights.

Temporary shelter in place, social distancing, and lockdown orders will end when the coast is clear.

Other lost rights may not be restored to their previous state. US and other ruling authorities seek control over their populations, notably wanting dissent suppressed.

Fauci didn’t explain what’s on the CDC website about seasonal flu/influenza.

During the 2018-19 flu season, running from October to May, there were more than 35.5 million flu illnesses, over 16.5 million medical visits, about 490,600 hospitalizations, and around 34,200 deaths — with no fear-mongering headlines about a real epidemic.

It repeats annually with numbers similar to what’s above — with no shelter in place, social distancing, or lockdowns ordered, no mass closure of retail establishments or cancellations of public events.

Life proceeds normally in spite of a large-scale epidemic that occurs like clockwork annually in the US and other countries.

For weeks, Trump denied that COVID-19 threatened Americans. On January 21, he said “(w)e have it totally under control…It’s going to be just fine (sic).”

Time and again, he falsely blamed China for US outbreaks, on February 2 saying “(w)e pretty much shut it down coming in from China (sic).”

On February 10, he claimed outbreaks would “miraculously (go) away…by April (sic).”

Two weeks later he falsely said “(w)e’re very close to a vaccine” that requires many months to develop, likely won’t be available until around yearend, and will be hazardous to human health when obtainable.

Around the same time, he falsely said there’s only “15” cases in the US that “within a couple of days (will be) close to zero (sic).”

He lied claiming “(w)hatever happens, we’re totally prepared (sic).”

Five weeks later, the US has about 164,000 cases through Monday, numbers rising sharply each day — US outbreaks exceeding other countries, including over 3,200 deaths.

Throughout his tenure in office, Trump repeatedly and consistently showed and continues to show indifference toward human health and welfare.

According to him, 100 to 200,000 US deaths will show he’s “done a very good job (sic).”

Critics slammed his insensitivity. National Nurses United’s Charles Idelson said “(a) serial killer would be jealous.”

On Sunday, Trump claimed mid-April will be the “highest point” of outbreaks. They’ll start coming down from there (sic)” — citing no evidence to back his claim because there is none.

Extending social distancing guidelines to end of April, he claimed “(t)hat will be a day of celebration (sic).”

The vast majority of Americans have nothing to look forward to but permanent unemployment or underemployment earning poverty wages with few no benefits, along with steady erosion of their fundamental human and civil rights.

That’s the disturbing reality today in the United States of I Don’t Care for its ordinary people.

The nation under both right wings of the one-party state serves its privileged class exclusively — at the expense of most others.

A Final Comment

By executive order Friday, Trump authorized the war department and DHS to activate up to around one million reservists and National Guard forces for up to 24 months on the pretext of combatting COVID-19.

Borrowing language from the US Declaration of Independence, never before “in the course of human events (was it) necessary” to activate up to a million military personal to combat the flu or any other disease.

Does Trump have something else in mind — more foreign wars or perhaps protecting privilege from angry masses if protracted hard times get too hard to bear?

These are no ordinary times. Business, large investors, and other high-net worth households are benefitting hugely from what’s going on at the expense of the vast majority of Americans getting screwed.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In a recent article I reported existing evidence on the way in which COVID-19 is being used to implement, but also divert attention from, initiatives being taken by the global elite to consolidate and expand its power in significant ways, and perhaps to make the final drive to take total control of global society. See ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear: COVID-19, Propaganda and Knowledge’.

Moreover, while global attention is focused on COVID-19, attention has been distracted from the many other ongoing crises – particularly including the vast range of threats that constitute an imminent danger to human existence: see ‘Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report on the State of Planet Earth’– and no doubt other undesirable initiatives being carried out by the global elite outside our view. In addition, activism has been stymied as activists are either themselves distracted by COVID-19 or hindered by the measures (such as ‘social distancing’ and bans on public gatherings) introduced to supposedly deal with it.

Before and since writing ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear’, more evidence has been published pointing at an elite coup with governments around the world introducing draconian measures severely curtailing human rights and freedoms (including those involving the internet) and destroying national economies.

As Helen Buyniski notes, using the example of the US Patriot Act, passed by Congress a short time after the 9/11 false flag event that destroyed World Trade Center buildings 1, 2 and 7 in New York: ‘They always declare a state of emergency, they never undeclare the state of emergency or repeal any of the emergency measures.’ See ‘Rockefeller Blueprint For Police State Triggered By Pandemic Exposed’. In any case, with the corporate media endlessly promoting panic, most people prefer to be ‘saved’ by having even more severe restrictions placed on their freedom. See ‘As Trump Eyes Restarting Economy, Nearly 3 in 4 Voters Support National Quarantine’.

In this article I would like to outline a strategic response to prevent this takeover before we find ourselves moving from a version of the dystopian society described in the novel Brave New World to that outlined in the novel 1984 that many of us read as students. We might have been happy with the drugs but Big Brother is now poised with the sword held high above our necks.

‘It won’t happen’, you might say. And perhaps you are right.

But my own long and extensive study of the global elite revealing the progressive manner in which it is endlessly consolidating and expanding its power is also matched by others who share my interest in this subject. So I invite you to consider the evidence presented above with the hope that we can mobilize a sufficient response from the wider population to avoid this being the final move in the elite’s strategy to take total control of our lives.

If you would like to better understand the origin, identity and behaviour of the global elite and why it is insane, see the section headed ‘How the World Works’ in ‘Why Activists Fail’ and the articles ‘Exposing the Giants: The Global Power Elite’ and ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’ and the many references cited in these documents. For a deeper understanding of why elite and other human violence is so pervasive, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

Moreover, to highlight brief excerpts from three of the scholars cited above, the distinguished and award-winning author and geopolitical analyst Professor Michel Chossudovsky states:

‘The tendency is towards a Worldwide lockdown spearheaded by fear and media disinformation. Currently, hundreds of millions of people Worldwide are under lockdown…. This is an act of “economic warfare” against humanity.’ See ‘After the Lockdown: A Global Coronavirus Vaccination Program…’.

In the view of economist and geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig, who spent more than 30 years working for the World Bank and the World Health Organization:

‘We are moving towards a totalitarian state of the world…. [which includes ID2020]. What is the infamous ID2020? It is an alliance of public-private partners, including UN agencies and civil society. It’s an electronic ID program that uses generalized vaccination as a platform for digital identity.The program harnesses existing birth registration and vaccination operations to provide newborns with a portable and persistent biometrically-linked digital identity…. Population reduction is among the goals of the elite within the WEF, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Morgans – and a few more. The objective: fewer people (a small elite) can live longer and better with the reduced and limited resources Mother Earth is generously offering.’ See ‘The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic: The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020”’.

And here is the assessment of what COVID-19 means to John W. Whitehead, US Constitutional attorney and author of Battlefield America: The War On the American People:

This coronavirus epidemic, which has brought China’s Orwellian surveillance out of the shadows and caused Italy to declare a nationwide lockdown, threatens to bring the American Police State out into the open on a scale we’ve not seen before.

If and when a nationwide lockdown finally hits – if and when we are forced to shelter in place – if and when militarized police are patrolling the streets – if and when security checkpoints have been established – if and when the media’s ability to broadcast the news has been curtailed by government censors – if and when public systems of communication (phone lines, internet, text messaging, etc.) have been restricted – if and when those FEMA camps the government has been surreptitiously building finally get used as quarantine detention centers for American citizens – if and when military “snatch and grab” teams are deployed on local, state, and federal levels as part of the activated Continuity of Government plans to isolate anyone suspected of being infected with COVID-19 – and if and when martial law is enacted with little real outcry or resistance from the public – then we will truly understand the extent to which the government has fully succeeded in recalibrating our general distaste for anything that smacks too overtly of tyranny. See ‘This Is a Test: How Will the Constitution Fare During a Nationwide Lockdown?’

But envisaging such a dystopian future would not be complete without the Pentagon’s take on how it might turn out, with this graphic video describing a future in which citizens, with rights, no longer exist. See ‘Pentagon Video Warns of “Unavoidable” Dystopian Future for World’s Biggest Cities’.

The path on which we are traveling ends with our confinement in ghettos, locked down in one area of the elite’s totalitarian police state, or death.

I am one of those who intends to fight to the end to get us off this pathto tyranny.

Fighting for our Humanity

And that is why the primary purpose of this article is to identify the components of a comprehensive nonviolent strategy to defeat a coup attempt conducted by the global elite against humanity.

What does a nonviolent strategy entail? In essence, it works by strategically altering the will or undermining the power of the global elite to repress, exploit or kill us. While the global elite is our ultimate target, we can more immediately impact this elite by targeting its agents including governments, the corporate media, the medical and pharmaceutical industries, retail corporations, the banking industry as well as its military and police forces. Hence, from a strategic perspective, it is imperative that we noncooperate with these institutions and corporations in ways that have strategic (not simply tokenistic) impact. This means that our nonviolent actions – which will involve some risk but without requiring effort that overwhelms us – will both consolidate and build our capacity to resist, while also functionally altering the will or undermining the power of key institutions and corporations to control us.

Here are five examples:

First, if we seek out news from progressive news sources – such as the site on which you are reading this article – that are committed to giving us accurate information about what is taking place, while boycotting corporate media outlets (television, radio, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter…) which are essentially peddling a combination of propaganda and fear in order to scare us into submitting to (or even asking for) greater government control (lockdowns, martial law), then we will reallocate power in society away from a key elite instrument that is being used to manipulate and control us.

Second, given the power of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, which are peddling fear and profit-making drugs, it is important to seek out advice and remedies offered by natural health practitioners who will prescribe dietary measures and nutritional supplements to prevent and/or treat any infection. Given the push for compulsory vaccination which has serious social control implications and entails a high risk of adverse health consequences – see, for example, ‘COVID-19 – The Fight for a Cure: One Gigantic Western Pharma Rip-Off’, ‘The National Plan to Vaccinate Every American’ and ‘A Serious Warning about the Toxicity of Aluminum-Adjuvanted Vaccines – Especially for Infants and the Elderly’– it is particularly important that we resist this.

Third, the propaganda campaign is destroying small and family businesses which will consolidate the power of large corporate chainstores. We need to support the smaller and family businesses wherever we can and boycott the elite’s corporate stores.

Fourth, the major banks are participating in this coup, particularly by supporting efforts to force all monetary exchange to occur via electronic means rather than cash. Under the guise of helping to halt the spread of the infection, cash is being refused as a means of payment in an increasing number of outlets and contexts. As soon as possible, we need to transfer all of our banking to small, community-owned banks and credit unions that act in the interests of their members and not the corporations and the elite.

Fifth, the elite must use the police, military forces and security personnel to enforce its laws in relation to lockdown, martial law and whatever else unfolds as this crisis deepens. These individuals live in our communities; they are part of us even if the elite controls their behaviour during their employment hours. Engaging with these people, listening to them carefully, will open space for them to reconsider their own involvement in what is taking place. In the end they are on our side; they just don’t know it yet.

So you are probably starting to get the idea: Collectively, we have enormous power if we deploy it to defend what we want to preserve while undermining the power of those who wish to exploit us. There are 7.8 billion of us and few of them. Their power is an outcome of institutions they control; we can change that, as I explain more fully below.

One other point worth mentioning first, however, is this: So that we can identify those who choose to be part of the resistance, it will be useful to have a symbol that represents our human solidarity: we are all in this together. My own suggestion is that any image that shows several people of different genders/races/religions/abilities/classes holding hands or just being close together represents this solidarity. Of course, the elite might start using this symbol in an attempt to co-opt it. This doesn’t matter.

The point, of course, is that it is our behaviour that defines our allegiance, not the symbol itself. While the  elite is encouraging our separation (‘social distancing’) it has always been physical closeness that is the essence of human solidarity. Let our symbol represent that.

The Strategy in More Detail

I have outlined this nonviolent strategy, identifying its political purpose – obviously ‘To defend humanity against a political/military coup conducted by the global elite’– and I have set out a basic list of 26 strategic goals, of which eleven are as follows:

(1) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by wearing a global symbol of human solidarity, such as an image of several people of different genders/races/religions/abilities/classes holding hands.

(2) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting all corporate media outlets (television, radio, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter…) and by seeking news from progressive news outlets committed to telling the truth.

(3) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by withdrawing all funds from the corporate banks that are supporting the coup and to deposit their money in local community banks or credit unions.

(4) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting the medical and pharmaceutical industries – including by conscientiously refusing to submit to vaccination – and by seeking health advice and treatment from natural therapists.

(5) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting corporate supermarkets and by supporting small and family businesses, and local markets.

(6) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in other locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For this item and many subsequent, see the list of possible nonviolent actions in the document ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(7) To cause the workers [in trade unions or labor organizations T1, T2, T…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include withdrawing labor from an elite-controlled bank, media, pharmaceutical or other corporation operating in your country.

(8) To cause the small farmers and farmworkers [in organizations F1, F2, F…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include distributing farm produce through (existing or created) grassroots networks to small and family businesses as well as local markets rather than through corporate supply chains.

(9) To cause the indigenous peoples [in organizations IP1,IP2, IP…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include utilizing indigenous knowledge to improve local self-reliance in food production and in other ways.

(10) To cause the soldiers and military police [in army units AU1, AU2, AU… and MP1, MP2, MP…], wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].

(11) To cause the police [in police units P1, P2, P…], wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].

Rather than detail all 26 strategic goals here, you can read the ‘Strategic goals for defeating a political/military coup conducted by the global elite against humanity’ by scrolling down the page at ‘Strategic Aims’.

Remaining pages on the website fully explain the twelve components of the strategy, as illustrated by the Nonviolent Strategy Wheel. These include the need to provide leadership and mutual aid at local levels, which are already happening in many places, as part of the overall effort.

The website also has articles and videos explaining all of the vital points of strategy and tactics, including articles to help you understand ‘Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works’, the difference between ‘The Political Objective and Strategic Goal of Nonviolent Actions’and how to prepare, frame and conduct any nonviolent action to minimize the risk of violent repression. See ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.

It is worth emphasizing that, in some contexts, there is a place for large public nonviolent actions for those who are inclined to plan and conduct them. And the article just referenced will assist you to conduct it with minimal risk of violent repression. However, because the bans on public gatherings are being implemented widely, I have concentrated on providing tactical options in the examples above that do not depend on gathering in one place.

Equally importantly to any of the points above, particularly given the pressing threat of human extinction – see ‘Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report on the State of Planet Earth’– but also because becoming more self-reliant is vital to our ongoing capacity to resist elite encroachments on our rights and freedom, consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. This project also explains how to take full advantage of non-monetary forms of community where goods and services are exchanged directly, without money as a medium of exchange. Money only has value in certain types of economy and this economy must definitely be superseded if humans are to survive.

And given the enormous pressure on children at the moment, as their lives are upended, it would be useful to spend time listening to them. Of course, if you know an adult who is having trouble coping, it will help them enormously if you listen while giving them the opportunity to talk about, and focus on feeling, their own emotional reactions to what is happening. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

If you have suggestions that you believe might improve this strategy, please let me know. My email address is in my biodata below.

And while I have a full backup copy of the strategy website, given the obvious vulnerability of websites to removal from the internet by the elite, if people are interested in creating mirror sites of this website, I would be pleased to hear from them. In addition, people are welcome to print copies of this article and pages from the website. The home page of the website is here: Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy. It is extracted/adapted from the book The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

If, at any point, the internet is taken down and/or we are prevented from communicating using the electronic means to which we have become accustomed, printed copies of key documents should still be able to be easily copied to share by one means or another. In the worst case scenario: if everyone is confined to their house permanently and receives a routine allocation of food that is delivered to their door, the delivery person might be willing to transfer messages. And so might other service people who will inevitably be necessary. Obviously, until such extreme measures are taken, while we have any freedom to move, even to go shopping, there will be opportunities to communicate and to arrange further opportunities to communicate.

As I mentioned above, however, apart from the ongoing elite coup, the Earth is under siege from our assaults on a vast range of fronts. If we are serious about tackling this crisis too, we must be willing to consider committing to:

Conclusion

Humanity is at a crossroads it has never before faced.

The global elite has engineered this latest crisis after many years of planning so that it can take control of the Earth and everything on it. While some ‘sweeteners’ in the short term, such as minimal income support for individuals and businesses in some countries, are being offered to make it look as if governments are responding to the crisis with our best interests in mind, whatever palliative measures are being taken are simply designed to ensure that we remain submissive as we are led to our fate. In any case, of course, the vast bulk of government handouts are going to wealthy corporations. See ‘The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, CARES Act Is Business Giveaway, “Handout” to Monied Interests’.

If you lack the inclination or courage to do the research to understand the nature and depth of this crisis and/or to join the struggle to resist the elite takeover of our world, you are encouraged to support those who do have the inclination and courage. If you simply believe that the ‘COVID-19 crisis’ will pass and everything will revert to how it was, it might be worth reading some political history (focusing on life in those countries that suffered or still suffer under dictatorship or occupation) or simply checking out what Israel is doing now. See ‘Americans Beware: Trump Could Emulate Netanyahu’s Coronavirus Coup’. We are already so far beyond the possibility of ‘areturn to how it was’ that the only realistic question worth asking now is ‘How bad will it be?’

In short, this struggle to restore our rights, economic well-being and freedoms will not be won easily. And it will come at significant cost. But it is only if enough people are willing to risk paying that cost, and apply their energy strategically, that this struggle for our humanity can actually be won.

I intend to do everything I can to ensure that we succeed. I hope that you will too.

The Earth Pledge

Out of love for the Earth and all of its creatures, and my respect for their needs, from this day onwards I pledge that:

1. I will listen deeply to children (see explanation above)
2. I will not travel by plane
3. I will not travel by car
4. I will not eat meat and fish
5. I will only eat organically/biodynamically grown food
6. I will minimize the amount of fresh water I use, including by minimizing my ownership and use of electronic devices
7. I will not buy rainforest timber
8. I will not buy or use single-use plastic, such as bags, bottles, containers, cups and straws
9. I will not use banks, superannuation (pension) funds or insurance companies that provide any service to corporations involved in fossil fuels, nuclear power and/or weapons
10. I will not accept employment from, or invest in, any organization that supports or participates in the exploitation of fellow human beings or profits from killing and/or destruction of the biosphere
11. I will not get news from the corporate media (mainstream newspapers, television, radio, Google, Facebook, Twitter…)
12. I will make the effort to learn a skill, such as food gardening or sewing, that makes me more self-reliant
13. I will gently encourage my family and friends to consider signing this pledge.

References:

For just a taste of this literature and these videos, see

‘The “Lock Step” Simulation Scenario: “A Coronavirus-like Pandemic that Becomes Trigger for Police State Controls”’, ‘

The EARN IT Bill is the Government’s Plan to Scan Every Message Online’,

‘What more could he do? A look at Trump’s extreme powers’,

‘Police in California Plan to Use Drones to Enforce Quarantine Lockdown’,

‘DOJ seeks new emergency powers amid coronavirus pandemic’,

‘Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Serve a Global Agenda?’,

‘Two Hundred and Thirty Years of Rights and Liberties Shredded: Why I Oppose The Lockdown’,

‘Martial Law is Coming to the USA?’,

‘After the Lockdown: A Global Coronavirus Vaccination Program…’,

‘Planetary Hysteria: Manufactured COVID-19 “Health Crisis” Pushes Humanity,

Global Society to Total Shutdown’, ‘

COVID-19 – The Fight for a Cure: One Gigantic Western Pharma Rip-Off’,

‘Police State Uses Crises to Expand Its Lockdown Powers: Suspending the Constitution’,

‘Whither Coronavirus? When Will It End and What Will Happen Along the Way’,

‘Covid-19: The Panic Is Worse Than the Pathogen’ and

‘Rockefeller Blueprint For Police State Triggered By Pandemic Exposed’ which cites the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2010 document ‘Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development’ with its prescient description of what is taking place now: ‘LOCK STEP – A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback.’

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to ‘Global Research’.

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed school districts across the United States, introducing a new conversation about what schools and teachers actually do and, frankly, whether or not they are necessary at all.

On the Internet and in real life, teachers, parents, writers, and entrepreneurs have been forced to grapple with this new reality. Students from preschool to college are also now having to separate learning from the physical, in-person, brick-and-mortar concept of school.

“Parents are struggling to cope as coronavirus worries shut schools down,” a recent Business Insider article warned. Children, too, are feeling upset and alone, with the sudden loss of structure and community—not to mention the confusion that’s washed over students who just days ago were busily planning for college, graduation, playoffs, or prom.

The closures are occurring alongside the collective realization that public schools have become absolutely essential safety nets for students and families who, without them, can’t access enough food, childcare, or educational technology.

Schools in Minnesota, like many other states, were shuttered last week, seemingly overnight. My own children attend the Minneapolis Public Schools, and it wasn’t long before a phone call went out to families, letting them know that meals, school supplies, learning packets, and pantry staples will be available at school sites across the city.

But here’s another concern: What if this sudden disruption is actually a golden opportunity for those invested in market-based education reform?

Could this be the moment many well-heeled investors and politicians, from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, have hoped for, when public education becomes less democratic and more individualized?

After Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2004, the city’s school system received a makeover, courtesy of market-based education reform entities such as Teach for America and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Today, there are no traditional public schools left in New Orleans. Instead, the city is a patchwork of privately run charter schools, along with the swath of private schools that have long drawn the city’s wealthiest, and whitest, students.

Many observers, including parents of color who did not appreciate the overhauling of their city’s schools, have documented the way a crisis—Hurricane Katrina—was used to usher in a new era of disaster capitalism for New Orleans.

The push to privatize education in New Orleans, post-Katrina, can also be tiedto similar efforts in Puerto Rico, following the destruction of Hurricane Maria.

Now, some observers are predicting that the COVID-19 crisis will provide yet another disaster capitalism-style intervention in America’s public schools. Audrey Watters, a critic of the influence of capitalism and technology in education, tackled this subject in a March 8 blog post.

Watters lives in Seattle, the epicenter of both tech-based innovation and the spread of the coronavirus in the United States. When Washington Governor Jay Inslee closed schools, Watters noted that many “ed-tech” enthusiasts were likely “giddily sharing lists of their favorite digital learning tools,” with little thought given to “questions of accessibility, privacy, or security.”

Something akin to a gold rush could be upon us. Suddenly, a crisis has caused schools to close. But learning must go on. But how? Ed-tech financiers and product manufacturers have the answers!

The educational technology industry already rakes in billions of dollars each year. Even before the pandemic, ed-tech was quickly becoming a “global phenomenon,” with the potential for expansion seen in any software or app that would, allegedly, make teachers’ lives easier.

It is extreme, of course, to imagine that the end goal of ed-tech is to replace all teachers with computers. However, one of the key arguments made by industry insiders is that technology can help educators handle larger class sizes.

Struggling with teacher shortages or overcrowded classrooms? Consider giving kids Chromebooks, advises EdTech magazine.

Want to cut costs? Put one teacher—or an assistant—in charge of fifty or so students, seated in front of their own screens, moving through pre-packaged curriculum one personalized step at a time.

Better yet, just keep kids at home. Let them attend virtual schools or plow through lessons without a teacher on hand.

For ed-tech’s innovators, COVID-19 is an opportunity to experiment with tech-driven, less labor-intensive schooling options. But, as Watters points out, education is much more than the simple delivery of instruction or the mastery of certain skills.

Instead, schools serve as community hubs and nutrition centers, as well as safe spaces for students and families left reeling by inequality, housing instability, and the general insecurity that many live with today.

“To close the doors to a school,” Watters writes, “shifts the burden of all these services onto individual families.” And, it may allow entrepreneurs another Katrina-like window of opportunity to reconfigure schools to their liking.

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Sarah Lahm is a Minneapolis-based writer and researcher. Her work has appeared in outlets such as The Progressive, where she writes the Midwest Dispatch column and contributes pieces to the Public School Shakedown site.

Featured image is from BAZA Productions, courtesy of ShutterStock

Some wars are fought with bombs and bullets. These are the wars in Syria and Iraq, in Afghanistan and Yemen. Then there are quieter wars executed by drone. These cowardly wars also kill people, but not our people. These quieter wars accomplish what the more cacophonous wars accomplish without the public outcry and condemnation.

Medical Warfare

But there are wars that are even quieter still. There are wars so quiet that they aren’t even heard beyond the borders of the countries in which they are happening. In Iran, the U.S. is waging medical warfare: what foreign minister Javad Zarif has called medical terrorism.

Iran is being crushed by the COVID-19 virus, and the weight of the pandemic is being intensified by US sanctions that prevent Iran from adequately testing and treating the virus and from preventing it. Iran’s strangled economy is too emaciated to come to a temporary stop or to support people if they are prevented from going to work to earn their living. And sanctions on Iranian banks choke the acquisition of drugs and medical equipment.

But, like the efficient and deadly warrior it is, the US doesn’t ease up as its enemy staggers, but presses at the enemy’s exposed weakness. Despite pleas from both U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and UN Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, Iran and the international community, America has not provided momentary respite from the sanctions but intensified them.

The crime is compounded by an ugly and little discussed piling of crime upon war crime. People with respiratory illnesses are at greater risk of dying from COVID-19, and approximately 100,000 Iranians are made vulnerable by that risk because of respiratory illnesses still lingering from the effects of an Iraqi chemical war rained on Iran with US approval and partnership.

Adding the word “medical” to the word “war” doesn’t make it any less of a war.

Economic Warfare

And there have been other forms of quiet wars. The re-imposition of sanctions on Iran has been a modern version of a medieval siege.

The US was legally bound to honor its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement, including ending sanctions, as long as Iran was honoring all of its commitments. So, since Iran was verifiably honoring all of its commitments, the US acted illegally when it pulled out of the treaty and re-imposed sanctions.

America has pressed Iranians down under the weight of unprecedented unilateral sanctions that may well constitute an internationally prohibited act of aggression. Iran’s economy is suffering, and its people are being killed.

The US didn’t only sanction Iran by itself but forced extraterritorial sanctions on every other nation. Those sanctions barred any economic trade that could contribute to Iran’s nuclear program or that dealt with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But since the US claimed that any contribution to the economy could contributed to the nuclear program or to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the US, as Gareth Porter and John Kiriakou explain in their book The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis, essentially criminalizes the entire Iranian economy. The sentence, according to the IMF, was “severe distress” for Iran’s economy and people.

As the American economic siege strangled the Iranian economy, the Iranian people gasped for breath. The economy has collapsed into severe recession; GDP has shriveled; oil production has fallen; Iran’s currency, the rial, has lost 50% of its value; inflation has soared and the cost of living, including buying food, has become prohibitive.

A siege is the oldest form of collective punishment and war. Adding the word “economic” to the word “war” doesn’t make it any less of a war.

Cyber Warfare

But medical warfare and economic warfare did not exhaust the variety of quiet wars. The U.S. has admitted direct responsibility for a barrage of cyberattacks against Iran.

The New York Times has revealed that the US ordered sophisticated attacks on the computers that run Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. A massive virus known as Flame attacked Iranian computers. This virus maps and monitors the system of Iranian computers and sends back intelligence that is used to prepare for cyber war campaigns against Iran. Officials have now confirmed that Flame is one part of a joint project of America’s CIA and NSA and Israel’s secret military unit 8200.

One such cyber war campaign was Stuxnet, the computer virus that infected Iran’s centrifuges and sent them spinning wildly out of control before playing back previously recorded tapes of normal operations that plant operators watched unsuspectingly while the centrifuges spun faster and faster until they literally tore themselves apart. Stuxnet seems to have wiped out about 20% of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

Adding the word “cyber” to the word “war” doesn’t make it any less of a war. The United States attacked Iran. That crucial Iranian infrastructure was destroyed by a computer virus rather than a bomb does not change the destruction. A NATO study has admitted that Stuxnet qualified as an “illegal act of force.” According to Russia scholar Stephen Cohen, after the US accused Russia of hacking computers, NATO issued a statement saying that “hacking a member state might now be regarded as war against the entire military alliance, requiring military retaliation.” That is, cyber attacks are an act of war, not only justifying, but requiring military retaliation.

America has dropped no bombs on Iran. There are no explosions to be heard. But the quiet of the war doesn’t make it any less of a war. Wars don’t stop being wars because you place the words “medical,” “economic,” or “cyber” before the word “war.”

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Ted Snider writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

During the 2008-09 financial crisis, banks got trillions of dollars of free bailout money. Ordinary Americans got sold out.

A protracted main street Depression remains ongoing since that time, greatly deepening for millions of US households with real unemployment already at Great Depression levels and rising exponentially in what’s shaping up perhaps to be the Greatest Depression, what economist Nouriel Roubini envisions.

History is repeating. Americans in need are getting crumbs alone from the great congressional corporate bailout Trump signed into law days earlier.

It’ll likely to be greater than what was doled out in 2008-09 when the dust settles, including from massive Fed money printing madness — free money handouts to business and large investors at a time when growing millions of US households are broke, unemployed, and food insecure, along with growing thousands ill from COVID-19.

Congressional Dems and Republicans colluded with the Trump regime in arranging an unprecedented wealth transfer from ordinary Americans to privileged ones.

According to WaPo’s White House economics reporter Jeff Stein, the prospect for further main street aid is “zero,” citing an unnamed White House source, saying:

“No more spending. We did all the spending” — when much more is needed for millions of US households in need.

House speaker Pelosi and Dem Senate minority leader Schumer falsely claimed more aid is coming for ordinary Americans.

The time to get it was in the now enacted great giveaway to business, large investors, and other high-net worth households.

Republicans and undemocratic Dems don’t give a damn about the rights, needs, and welfare of ordinary Americans, just privileged ones.

It notably shows in legislation now the law of the land since the neoliberal 90s — a bonanza for the nation’s privileged class, hard times getting much harder for the vast majority of Americans.

When needed in Washington to serve them during deepening hard times, Congress is recessed until April 20.

It’s at a time when unemployment is likely to surge, along with sharply rising COVID-19 outbreaks, making it hard for the nation’s healthcare system to cope.

There aren’t enough hospital beds in US cities with large-scale COVID-19 outbreaks to handle numbers of patients needing hospitalization.

New York’s Central Park was transformed into a makeshift hospital — supplemented by a US Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds.

Chicago’s McCormick place is being transformed into a makeshift 3,000-bed hospital by end of April — 500 beds expected to be ready in a week.

Similar efforts are likely elsewhere in the US as numbers of COVID-19 outbreaks keep growing exponentially — through Monday numbering about 165,000.

It’s guesswork as to when numbers will peak, but they’re certain to be much greater than now — taxing healthcare facilities and medical staff more greatly than any time in modern memory.

US prisons are breeding grounds for widespread coronavirus outbreaks.

Last week, the New Yorker said they’re spreading “like wildfire (in) New York’s prisons.”

As of Monday, at least 134 Cook County, IL detainees in the greater Chicago area were diagnosed with COVID-19.

Federal, state, and local authorities need to empty prisons of nonviolent inmates who pose no threat to society to prevent a potential tsunami of outbreaks behind bars.

There’s no time to delay. Trump should use his bully pulpit to urge mass releases nationwide and order it for federal prisons.

Many hundreds of inmates were already diagnosed with COVID-19. In crowded prisons, they could spread it like wildfire to countless others.

These are very stressful times for most people everywhere.

On top of hardships they face in normal times, increasing numbers of highly contagious COVID-19 outbreaks, rising unemployment, and suspension of social interactions, makes it increasingly hard for most people to cope.

Most concerning is there’s little clarity on how long the current status quo will last.

Now is the time when all-out government help is most needed. It’s large-scale for privileged Americans, crumbs alone for the vast majority with little prospect for improvement.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008-2009 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly-mutating, global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities.

In response, numerous social movements have put forward demands that take seriously the potentially disastrous consequences of the virus, while also tackling the incapacity of capitalist governments to adequately address the crisis itself.

These demands include questions of worker safety, the necessity of neighbourhood level organising, income and social security, the rights of those on zero-hour contracts or in precarious employment, and the need to protect renters and those living in poverty. In this sense, the COVID-19 crisis has sharply underscored the irrational nature of health care systems structured around corporate profit – the almost universal cutbacks to public hospital staffing and infrastructure (including critical care beds and ventilators), the lack of public health provision and prohibitive cost of access to medical services in many countries, and the ways in which the property rights of pharmaceutical companies serve to restrict widespread access to potential therapeutic treatments and the development of vaccines.

However, the global dimensions of COVID-19 have figured less prominently in much of the left discussion. Mike Davis has rightly observed that “the danger to the global poor has been almost totally ignored by journalists and Western governments” and left debates have been similarly circumscribed, with attention largely focused on the severe health care crises unfolding in Europe and the US.

Even inside Europe there is extreme unevenness in the capacity of states to deal with this crisis – as the juxtaposition of Germany and Greece illustrates – but a much greater disaster is about to envelop the rest of the world. In response, our perspective on this pandemic must become truly global, based on an understanding of how the public health aspects of this virus intersect with larger questions of political economy (including the likelihood of a prolonged and severe global economic downturn). This is not the time to pull up the (national) hatches and speak simply of the fight against the virus inside our own borders.

Public Health in the South

As with all so-called ‘humanitarian’ crises, it is essential to remember that the social conditions found across most of the countries of the South are the direct product of how these states are inserted into the hierarchies of the world market. Historically, this included a long encounter with Western colonialism, which has continued, into contemporary times, with the subordination of poorer countries to the interests of the world’s wealthiest states and largest transnational corporations. Since the mid-1980s, repeated bouts of structural adjustment – often accompanied by Western military action, debilitating sanctions regimes, or support for authoritarian rulers – have systematically destroyed the social and economic capacities of poorer states, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with major crises such as COVID-19.

Foregrounding these historical and global dimensions helps make clear that the enormous scale of the current crisis is not simply a question of viral epidemiology and a lack of biological resistance to a novel pathogen. The ways that most people across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia will experience the coming pandemic is a direct consequence of a global economy systemically structured around the exploitation of the resources and peoples of the South. In this sense, the pandemic is very much a social and human-made disaster – not simply a calamity arising from natural or biological causes.

One clear example of how this disaster is human-made is the poor state of public health systems across most countries in the South, which tend to be underfunded and lacking in adequate medicines, equipment, and staff. This is particularly significant for understanding the threat presented by COVID-19 due to the rapid and very large surge in serious and critical cases that typically require hospital admission as a result of the virus (currently estimated at around 15%-20% of confirmed cases). This fact is now widely discussed in the context of Europe and the US, and lies behind the strategy of ‘flattening the curve’ in order to alleviate the pressure on hospital critical care capacity.

Yet, while we rightly point to the lack of ICU beds, ventilators, and trained medical staff across many Western states, we must recognise that the situation in most of the rest of the world is immeasurably worse. Malawi, for example, has about 25 ICU beds for a population of 17 million people. There are less than 2.8 critical care beds/100,000 people on average across South Asia, with Bangladesh possessing around 1100 such beds for a population of over 157 million (0.7 critical care beds/100,000 people). In comparison, the shocking pictures coming out of Italy are occurring in an advanced health care system with an average 12.5 ICU beds/100,000 (and the ability to bring more online). The situation is so serious that many poorer countries do not even have information on ICU availability, with one 2015 academic paper estimating that “more than 50% of [low income] countries lack any published data on ICU capacity.” Without such information it is difficult to imagine how these countries could possibly plan to meet the inevitable demand for critical care arising from COVID-19.

Of course, the question of ICU and hospital capacity is one part of a much larger set of issues including a widespread lack of basic resources (e.g. clean water, food, and electricity), adequate access to primary medical care, and the presence of other comorbidities (such as high rates of HIV and tuberculosis). Taken as a whole, all of these factors will undoubtedly mean a vastly higher prevalence of critically ill patients (and hence overall fatalities) across poorer countries as a result of COVID-19.

Labour and Housing are Public Health Issues

Debates around how best to respond to COVID-19 in Europe and the US have illustrated the mutually-reinforcing relationship between effective public health measures and conditions of labour, precarity, and poverty. Calls for people to self-isolate when sick – or the enforcement of longer periods of mandatory lockdowns – are economically impossible for the many people who cannot easily shift their work online or those in the service sector who work in zero-hour contracts or other kinds of temporary employment. Recognising the fundamental consequences of these work patterns for public health, many European governments have announced sweeping promises around compensation for those made unemployed or forced to stay at home during this crisis.

It remains to be seen how effective these schemes will be and to what degree they will actually meet the needs of the very large numbers of people who will lose their jobs as a result of the crisis. Nonetheless, we must recognise that such schemes will simply not exist for most of the world’s population. In countries where the majority of the labour force is engaged in informal work or depends upon unpredictable daily wages – much of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia – there is no feasible way that people can choose to stay home or self-isolate. This must be viewed alongside the fact that there will almost certainly be very large increases in the ‘working poor’ as a direct result of the crisis. Indeed, the ILO has estimated for its worst-case scenario (24.7 million job losses globally) that the number of people in low and low-middle income countries earning less than $US 3.20/day at PPP will grow by nearly 20 million people.

Once again, these figures are important not solely because of day-to-day economic survival. Without the mitigation effects offered through quarantine and isolation, the actual progress of the disease in the rest of the world will certainly be much more devastating than the harrowing scenes witnessed to date in China, Europe, and the US.

Moreover, workers involved in informal and precarious labour often live in slums and overcrowded housing – ideal conditions for the explosive spread of the virus. As an interviewee with the Washington Post recently noted in relation to Brazil: “More than 1.4 million people — nearly a quarter of Rio’s population — live in one of the city’s favelas. Many can’t afford to miss a single day of work, let alone weeks. People will continue leaving their houses …. The storm’s about to hit.”

Similarly disastrous scenarios face the many millions of people currently displaced through war and conflict. The Middle East, for example, is the site of the largest forced displacement since the Second World War, with massive numbers of refugees and internally-displaced people as a result of the on-going wars in countries such as Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq. Most of these people live in refugee camps or overcrowded urban spaces, and often lack the rudimentary rights to health care typically associated with citizenship. The widespread prevalence of malnutrition and other diseases (such as the reappearance of cholera in Yemen) make these displaced communities particularly susceptible to the virus itself.

One microcosm of this can be seen in the Gaza Strip, where over 70% of the population are refugees living in one of the most densely packed areas in the world. The first two cases of COVID-19 were identified in Gaza on 20 March (a lack of testing equipment, however, has meant that only 92 people out of the 2-million strong population have been tested for the virus). Reeling from 13-years of Israeli siege and the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure, living conditions in the Strip are marked by extreme poverty, poor sanitation, and a chronic lack of drugs and medical equipment (there are, for example, only 62 ventilators in Gaza, and just 15 of these are currently available for use). Under blockade and closure for most of the past decade, Gaza has been shut to the world long before the current pandemic. The region could be the proverbial canary in the COVID-19 coalmine – foreshadowing the future path of the infection among refugee communities across the Middle East and elsewhere.

Intersecting Crises

The imminent public health crisis facing poorer countries as a consequence of COVID-19 will be further deepened by an associated global economic downturn that is almost certain to exceed the scale of 2008. It is too early to predict the depth of this slump, but many leading financial institutions are expecting this to be the worst recession in living memory. One of the reasons for this is the near simultaneous shutdown of manufacturing, transport, and service sectors across the US, Europe, and China – an event without historical precedent since the Second World War. With one-fifth of the world’s population currently under some form of lockdown, supply chains and global trade have collapsed and stock market prices have plunged – with most major exchanges losing between 30-40% of their value between 17 February and 17 March.

Yet, as Eric Touissant has emphasised, the economic collapse we are now fast approaching was not caused by COVID-19 – rather, the virus presented “the spark or trigger” of a deeper crisis that has been in the making for several years. Closely connected to this are the measures put in place by governments and central banks since 2008, most notably the policies of quantitative easing and repeated interest-rate cuts. These policies aimed at propping up share prices through massively increasing the supply of ultra-cheap money to financial markets. They meant a very significant growth in all forms of debt – corporate, government, and household. In the U.S, for example, the nonfinancial corporate debt of large companies reached $10 trillion dollars in mid-2019 (around 48% of GDP), a significant rise from its previous peak in 2008 (when it stood at about 44%). Typically, this debt was not used for productive investment, but rather for financial activities (such as funding dividends, share buybacks, and merger and acquisitions). We thus have the well-observed phenomena of booming stock markets on one hand, and stagnating investment and declining profit levels on the other.

Significant to the coming crisis, however, is the fact that the growth in corporate debt has been largely concentrated in below investment grade bonds (so-called junk bonds), or bonds that are rated BBB, just one grade above junk status. Indeed, according to Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, BBB debt made up a remarkable 50% of the global bond market in 2019, compared to only 17% in 2001. What this means is that the synchronised collapse of worldwide production, demand, and financial asset prices presents a massive problem for corporations needing to refinance their debt. As economic activity grinds to a halt in key sectors, companies whose debt is due to be rolled over now face a credit market that has essentially shuttered – no one is willing to lend in these conditions and many overleveraged companies (especially those involved in sectors such as airlines, retail, energy, tourism, automobiles, and leisure) could be earning almost no revenue over the coming period. The prospect of a wave of high profile corporate bankruptcies, defaults, and credit downgrades is therefore extremely likely. This is not just a US problem – financial analysts have recently warned of a ‘cash crunch’ and a ‘wave of bankruptcies’ across the Asia Pacific region, where corporate debt levels have doubled to $32 trillion over the last decade.

All of this poses a very grave danger to the rest of the world, where a variety of transmission routes will metastasise the downturn across poorer countries and populations. As with 2008, these include a likely plunge in exports, a sharp pull back in foreign direct investment flows and tourism revenues, and a drop in worker remittances. The latter factor is often forgotten in the discussion of the current crisis, but it is essential to remember that one of the key features of neoliberal globalisation has been the integration of large parts of the world’s population into global capitalism through remittance flows from family members working overseas. In 1999, only eleven countries worldwide had remittances greater than 10 per cent of GDP; by 2016, this figure had risen to thirty countries. In 2016, just over 30 per cent of all 179 countries for which data was available recorded remittance levels greater than 5 per cent of GDP – a proportion that has doubled since 2000. Astonishingly, around one billion people – one out of seven people globally – are directly involved in remittance flows as either senders or recipients. The closing down of borders because of COVID-19 – coupled with the halt to economic activities in key sectors where migrants tend to predominate – means we could be facing a precipitous drop in worker remittances globally. This is an outcome that would have very severe ramifications for countries in the South.

Another key mechanism by which the rapidly evolving economic crisis may hit countries in the South is the large build up of debt held by poorer countries in recent years. This includes both the least developed countries in the world as well as so-called ‘emerging markets’. In late 2019, the Institute for International Finance estimated that emerging market debt stood at $72 trillion, a figure that had doubled since 2010. Much of this debt is denominated in US dollars, which exposes its holders to fluctuations in the value of the US currency. In recent weeks the US dollar has strengthened significantly as investors sought a safe-haven in response to the crisis; as a result, other national currencies have fallen, and the burden of interest and principal repayments on $US-denominated debt has been increasing. Already in 2018, 46 countries were spending more on public debt service than on their health care systems as a share of GDP. Today, we are entering an alarming situation where many poorer countries will face increasingly burdensome debt repayments while simultaneously attempting to manage an unprecedented public health crisis – all in the context of a very deep global recession.

And let us not harbour any illusions that these intersecting crises might bring an end to structural adjustment or the emergence of some kind of ‘global social democracy’. As we have repeatedly seen over the last decade, capital frequently seizes moments of crisis as a moment of opportunity – a chance to implement radical change that was previously blocked or appeared impossible. Indeed, World Bank President David Malpass implied as much when he noted at the (virtual) G20 meeting of Finance Ministers a few days ago: “Countries will need to implement structural reforms to help shorten the time to recovery …  For those countries that have excessive regulations, subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection or litigiousness as obstacles, we will work with them to foster markets, choice and faster growth prospects during the recovery.”

It is essential to bring all these international dimensions to the centre of the left debate around COVID-19, linking the fight against the virus to questions such as the abolition of ‘Third World’ debt, an end to IMF/World Bank neoliberal structural adjustment packages, reparations for colonialism, a halt to the global arms trade, an end to sanctions regimes, and so forth. All of these campaigns are, in effect, global public health issues – they bear directly on the ability of poorer countries to mitigate the effects of the virus and the associated economic downturn.

It is not enough to speak of solidarity and mutual self-help in our own neighbourhoods, communities, and within our national borders – without raising the much greater threat that this virus presents to the rest of the world. Of course high levels of poverty, precarious conditions of labour and housing, and a lack of adequate health infrastructure also threaten the ability of populations across Europe and the US to mitigate this infection. But grassroots campaigns in the South are building coalitions that tackle these issues in interesting and internationalist ways. Without a global orientation, we risk reinforcing the ways that the virus has seamlessly fed into the discursive political rhetoric of nativist and xenophobic movements – a politics deeply seeped in authoritarianism, an obsession with border controls, and a ‘my-country first’ national patriotism.

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Featured image is from Verso

If large numbers of doctors, nurses, and other medical staff become ill from COVID-19, who’ll be there to treat patients infected with the virus and all other medical conditions.

A shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) exists in US hospitals nationwide. Nor are there enough isolation rooms to prevent COVID-19 patients from spreading their disease to others.

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), N95 respirator face masks provide at least 95% filtration effectiveness against non-oil based particles.

National Nurses United calls them “the minimum personal protective equipment necessary for health care workers to remain safe.”

Yet the CDC told US hospitals that doctors, nurses, and other medical staff don’t need protection that N95 respirators provide when treating patients.

National Nurses United executive director Bonnie Castillo RN called this action “outrageous,” stressing:

“(I)t is imperative for Congress to act immediately to include” proper protective gear for medical staff in further COVID-19 related legislation.

“When nurses and doctors get sick from this virus, who is going to be left to take care of the public,” she asked?

“If they don’t want the entire health care system to collapse, Congress must act immediately to protect the frontline healthcare providers.”

On Monday, Castillo expressed outrage over mistreatment of nurses by hospital administrators, saying:

They’re being “disciplined for just trying to protect patients from COVID-19.”

They’re enduring “interrogations, harassment, hostility, accusations of insubordination — even threats of termination (for) dar(ing) to question…backwards personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection control policies” of US hospital administrators.

Castillo slammed the American Hospital Association (AHA) for failing to mandate PPE for all medical staff at a time of spreading COVID-19 outbreaks.

Hospital medical staff are on the front lines of dealing with this crisis. They above all others require maximum protection from infection.

On Sunday, Medicine Net.com reported that “upper management patrolled the halls at one hospital in California, telling staff they could be fired on the spot for wearing N95 masks brought from home.”

A nurse remaining anonymous for self-protection said one of her “biggest concerns is the nontransparent way management is addressing these issues,” adding:

“If we don’t start treating healthcare workers as adults, providing us with honest information, adequate protection, and supplies, I am terrified that this current situation will quickly escalate, not just with viral spread, but with staffing shortages through contagion and/or the ‘rats off a sinking ship’ scenario.”

Many medical professionals believe their safety is being jeopardized, clearly an untenable situation.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media have countless numbers of accounts by medical professionals, explaining an unacceptable situation likely to worsen ahead without swift remedial action.

Dr. Ali Haider tweeted the following:

“I’m tired of hearing stories of docs and nurses getting reprimanded by the ‘suits’ for wearing a freakin surg mask when they are on the unit because it looks bad.’ ”

“Do you know how many HCP (health care providers) are admitted in the US? Are you on the wards? I say F that. Protect yourselves. #COVID19.”

In Chicago, a medical worker wearing a P100 mask from home was told by a hospital staff member that it’s not permitted in hallways because it “scare(s)” patients.

A Maryland ER physician was told he was “not setting a good example for other staff members” by wearing PPE gear.

“I’m angry just talking about this and almost want to disclose the hospital (but naming it) would be certain termination for me,” he said.

A nurse at an Oklahoma hospital was fired for wearing a surgical mask while inserting an IV line in a patient.

He removed the mask as ordered but after complaining to human resources, he was dismissed on the spot.

National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association said Kaiser Permanente staff were told they’d be immediately fired for wearing their own N95 masks for protection.

Ascension Health in Michigan issued a memo to medical staff, saying:

“All associates and clinicians in care settings outside (designated ones) should not be using scarce PPE resources, such as standard surgical masks, N95 masks, gowns, goggles and face shields.”

Claiming this practice scares patients or other phony excuses is the last refuse of hospital administrators who fail to uphold the Hippocratic Oath of doing no harm.

The Phoenix New Times reported that Arizona-based Banner Health medical staff had masks pulled off their faces. They were reprimanded for wearing them and told only to use hospital supplied PPE as instructed.

A statement by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine said it supports ER doctors who are threatened or fired for wearing their own PPE, adding:

“(A)assistance (will be provided to) file an OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) complaint and pursuit of litigation for wrongful termination.”

The Boston Globe reported that city-based Partners HealthCare requires medical staff to wear protective face masks at all times on duty, an exception to the rule policy that should be standard practice in medical facilities eveywhere, along with use of other PPE.

Yet shortages of everything needed to protect medical staff aren’t being adequately addressed.

An unnamed Los Angeles ER physician said PPE is in short supply, including face masks, goggles, face shields, gloves, and disinfectant wipes.

“We’re using diluted bleach and a spray can instead (that’s) not as effective,” the unnamed doctor added.

Epidemiologist Saskia Popescu stressed that large-scale outbreaks in “New York (are) a warning for” all medical professionals.

Through Monday, the state has 66,497 of 164,610 US infections, including 1,218 of 3,165 deaths nationwide.

Weeks earlier, Bloomberg News reported that a “top coronavirus (intensive care) doctor in Wuhan, China” warned that “(p)atients with hypertension appear to be at a higher risk of dying from” COVID-19.

According to the American Heart Association, about 100 million Americans have high blood pressure, making them more vulnerable to contracting the virus if the above assessment is right.

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations’ Dr. Richard Hatchett said COVID-19 “is the most frightening disease I’ve ever encountered in my career, and that includes Ebola… MERS (and) SARS.”

“(I)t’s frightening because of the combination of infectiousness and a lethality that appears to be manyfold higher than flu.”

Clearly extra precautions are warranted for protection against contracting the disease.

Despite dire predictions by some experts, it’s unknown to what extent and for how long outbreaks may occur and spread.

At all times it’s far better to be safe than sorry, especially at times like now.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image: Bonnie Castillo from National Nurses United 

Warnings of Economic Depression

By Stephen Lendman, March 31, 2020

According to a March 20 – 26 online survey of over 250 companies of varying sizes and business sectors, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that nearly half the number surveyed are likely to lay off workers over the next three months.

Over one-third (37%) of companies instituted a hiring freeze. The St. Louis Fed projects unemployment potentially reaching 32% of the US workforce, a loss of 47 million jobs if things get this bad.

Coronavirus Shutdown and the Worldwide Corporate Debt Crisis

By Christian Parenti and Dante Dallavalle, March 30, 2020

The coronavirus shutdown is hammering supply and demand across the globe. That has forced the real economy into a sharp recession and triggered a rolling financial crisis. Below is a primer on one key piece of this mess: the crisis in corporate debt markets. This branch of finance is vitally important because even healthy companies often need access to credit. If they do not get it, they go under.In 2008, the vector of crisis ran from mortgage-backed securities to the rest of the financial sector and then to the real economy. This time, the real economy is being hit directly, and the damage is reverberating back into financial markets.  The failing markets, in feedback-loop fashion, further threaten the real economy as corporations find it harder to borrow. As the corporate debt markets sour, major companies will go bankrupt. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Some analysts expect the economy to contract by an annualized rate of 30 percent during the second quarter of 2020.

What Happens In the Wake of the COVID-19 Lockdown? Economic Destruction, Global Poverty, Bankruptcies, Mass Unemployment. Neoliberalism to the Rescue

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 28, 2020

In the wake of the lockdown: Bankruptcies and mass unemployment, the economic destabilization of entire countries.

Millions of people have lost their jobs, and their lifelong savings. They are unable to pay their home mortgages.

In developing countries, poverty and despair prevail.

The political implications are far-reaching. The lockdown undermines real democracy.

COVID-19 Puts Capitalism on a Ventilator. No More Bank and Corporate Bailouts!

By Prof. Anthony A. Gabb, March 27, 2020

The modern-day Robber Barons of industry and Wall Street, along with the government are frantically designing a ventilator to distribute taxpayer’s money to all organs of the economy–domestic and foreign banks and corporations and consumers. The corporate media is firing on all cylinders hoping to convince you to support the efforts of the “job creators”. While the Congress is preparing a stream of trillion dollar bailout programs, last Friday the Federal Reserve Bank handed the banks a massive $1T handout at zero interest rate.

A Brady Bond Solution for America’s Economic Crisis and Unpayable Corporate Debt

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and Prof Michael Hudson, March 26, 2020

Even before the Covid-19 crisis had slashed stock prices nearly in half since it erupted in January, financial markets were in an inherently unstable condition. Years of quantitative easing had loaded so much money into stock and bond prices that stock price/earnings multiples and bond prices were far too high by any normal and reasonable historical standards. Risk premiums have disappeared, with only a few basis points separating U.S. Treasury bills and corporate bonds.

The 2020 Great Recession 2.0 –Or Worse!

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, March 24, 2020

The US will lose 2 million jobs just in March (Bloomberg News). US GDP will fall by -24% to -30% in second quarter (Goldman-Sachs & Morgan-Stanley Banks). Jobless rate could rise to 30% (Fed St. Louis Governor, Bullard). Federal Reserve promises $4T more to pre-bailout banks (Marketwatch). Financial markets imploding and credit system on verge of freeze up. Trump and US politicians considering sending people back to work despite higher cost in infections and deaths from the virus!

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À medida que a crise do Coronavírus paralisa sociedades inteiras, forças poderosas movem-se para tirar a máxima vantagem da situação. Em 27 de Março, a NATO sob comando USA, expandiu-se de 29 para 30 membros, incorporando a Macedónia do Norte. No dia seguinte – enquanto o exercício USA “Defensor da Europa 2020” prosseguia, com menos soldados, mas com mais bombardeiros nucleares – iniciou na Escócia, o exercício aeronaval NATO Joint Warrior com forças USA, britânicas, alemãs e outras, que durará até 10 de Abril, também com operações terrestres.

Entretanto, os países europeus da NATO são advertidos por Washington de que, apesar das perdas económicas provocadas pelo Coronavírus, devem continuar a aumentar os seus orçamentos militares para “manter a capacidade de se defender”, obviamente, da “agressão russa”.

Na conferência de Munique, em 15 de Fevereiro, o Secretário de Estado, Mike Pompeo, anunciou que os Estados Unidos solicitaram aos aliados para reservar outros 400 biliões de dólares para aumentar as despesas militares da NATO, que já ultrapassam bem mais de 1 trilião de dólares, anualmente.

A Itália deve, portanto, aumentar as suas despesas militares, que já subiram para mais de 26 biliões de euros por ano, ou mais do que o que o Parlamento autorizou destinar, precisamente, para a emergência Coronavírus (25 biliões). Assim, a NATO ganha terreno numa Europa largamente paralisada pelo vírus, onde os USA, hoje mais do que nunca, podem fazer o que querem.

Na conferência de Munique, Mike Pompeo, atacou violentamente não só a Rússia, mas também a China, acusando-a de usar a Huawei e outras empresas como “cavalo de Tróia dos serviços secretos”, ou seja, como ferramentas de espionagem. Deste modo, os Estados Unidos aumentam a sua pressão sobre os países europeus para que também quebrem os acordos económicos com a Rússia e com a China e fortaleçam as sanções contra a Rússia.

O que é que a Itália deveria fazer, se tivesse um governo que quisesse defender os nossos verdadeiros interesses nacionais? Antes de tudo, deveria recusar-se a aumentar a nossa despesa militar, avolumada artificialmente com a fake news da “agressão russa”, e submetê-la a uma revisão radical para reduzir o desperdício de dinheiro público em sistemas de armas como o caça americano F-35. Deveria suspender imediatamente as sanções contra a Rússia, desenvolvendo o intercâmbio ao máximo. Deveria aderir ao pedido – apresentado em 26 de Março à ONU, pela China, Rússia, Irão, Síria, Venezuela, Nicarágua, Cuba e Coreia do Norte – que as Nações Unidas pressionem Washington para abolir todas as sanções, particularmente prejudiciais no momento em que os países que sofrem com elas, estão afectados pelo coronavírus.

Da abolição das sanções ao Irão também resultariam vantagens económicas para a Itália, cuja troca com este país foi praticamente bloqueada pelas sanções USA. Estas e outras medidas dariam oxigénio, sobretudo, às pequenas e médias empresas sufocadas pelo encerramento forçado, disponibilizariam fundos para a emergência, especialmente, a favor das camadas mais desfavorecidas, sem, por isso, se endividarem.

O maior risco é sair da crise com o nó corrediço no pescoço de uma dívida externa, que poderia reduzir a Itália às condições da Grécia.

Mais poderosas do que as forças militares, aquelas que mantêm as alavancas das tomadas de decisão, mesmo no complexo industrial-militar, são as forças da grande finança internacional, que estão a usar a crise do Coronavírus para uma ofensiva global, com as armas de especulação mais sofisticadas. São elas que podem arruinar milhões de pequenos poupadores e que podem usar a dívida para se apoderarem de sectores económicos inteiros.

Decisivo nesta situação, é o exercício da soberania nacional, não a da retórica política, mas a que está consagrada na nossa Constituição, a verdadeira soberania que pertence ao povo.

Manlio Dinucci

A rtigo original em italiano :

Manovre strategiche dietro la crisi del Coronavirus

il manifesto, 31 de Março de 2020

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

Mentre la crisi del Coronavirus paralizza intere società, potenti forze si muovono per trarre il massimo vantaggio dalla situazione. Il 27 marzo la Nato sotto comando Usa si è allargata da 29 a 30 membri, inglobando la Macedonia del Nord. Il giorno dopo – mentre proseguiva l’esercitazione Usa «Difensore dell’Europa 2020», con meno soldati ma più bombardieri nucleari – è iniziata in Scozia l’esercitazione aeronavale Nato Joint Warrior con forze Usa, britanniche, tedesche e altre, che durerà fino al 10 aprile anche con operazioni terrestri.

Intanto i paesi europei della Nato vengono avvertiti da Washington che, nonostante le perdite economiche provocate dal Coronavirus, devono continuare ad aumentare i loro bilanci militari per «mantenere la capacità di difendersi», ovviamente dalla «aggressione russa».

Alla Conferenza di Monaco, il 15 febbraio, il segretario di stato Mike Pompeo ha annunciato che gli Stati uniti hanno sollecitato gli alleati a stanziare altri 400 miliardi di dollari per accrescere la spesa militare  della Nato, che già supera ampiamente i 1.000 miliardi annui.

L’Italia deve quindi aumentare la propria spesa militare, già salita a oltre 26 miliardi di euro all’anno, ossia più di quanto il Parlamento abbia autorizzato a stanziare una tantum per l’emergenza Coronavirus (25 miliardi). La Nato guadagna così terreno in una Europa largamente paralizzata dal virus, dove gli Usa, oggi più che mai, possono fare ciò che vogliono.

Alla Conferenza di Monaco, Mike Pompeo ha attaccato violentemente non solo la Russia ma anche la Cina, accusandola di usare  la Huawei e altre sue compagnie quale «cavallo di Troia dell’intelligence», ossia quali strumenti di spionaggio. In tal modo gli Stati uniti accrescono la loro pressione sui paesi europei perché rompano anche gli accordi economici con Russia e Cina e rafforzino le sanzioni contro la Russia.

Che cosa dovrebbe fare l’Italia, se avesse un governo che volesse difendere  i nostri reali interessi nazionali?

• Dovrebbe anzitutto rifiutare di accrescere la nostra spesa militare, artificiosamente gonfiata con la fake news della «aggressione russa», e sottoporla a una radicale revisione per ridurre lo spreco di denaro pubblico in sistemi d’arma come il caccia Usa F-35.
• Dovrebbe togliere immediatamente le sanzioni alla Russia, sviluppando al massimo l’interscambio.
• Dovrebbe aderire alla  richiesta – presentata il 26 marzo all’Onu da Cina, Russia, Iran, Siria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba e Nord Corea – che le Nazioni Unite premano su Washington perché abolisca tutte le sanzioni, particolarmente dannose nel momento in cui i paesi che le subiscono sono colpiti dal Coronavirus.

Dall’abolizione delle sanzioni all’Iran ne deriverebbero anche vantaggi economici per l’Italia, il cui interscambio con questo paese è stato praticamente bloccato dalle sanzioni Usa. Queste e altre misure darebbero ossigeno soprattutto alle piccole e medie imprese soffocate dalla forzata chiusura, renderebbero disponibili fondi da stanziare per l’emergenza, a favore soprattutto degli strati più disagiati, senza per questo indebitarsi.

Il maggiore rischio è quello di uscire dalla crisi con al collo il nodo scorsoio di un debito estero che potrebbe ridurre l’Italia alle condizioni della Grecia.

Più potenti delle forze militari, quelle che hanno in mano le leve decisionali anche nel complesso militare-industriale, sono le forze della grande finanza internazionale, che stanno usando la crisi del Coronavirus per una offensiva su scala globale con le più sofisticate armi della speculazione. Sono loro che possono portare alla rovina milioni di piccoli risparmiatori, che possono usare il debito per impadronirsi di interi settori economici.

Decisivo in tale situazione è l’esercizio della sovranità nazionale, non quella della retorica politica ma quella reale che, sancisce la nostra Costituzione, appartiene al popolo.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 31 marzo 2020

Diana Johnstone’s just published book, Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher, is the best book I have ever read, the most revealing, the most accurate, the most truthful, the most moral and humane, the most sincere and heartfelt, and the best written.  Her book is far more than a memoir.  It is a history that has not previously been written.  If you want the truth of the last 60 years in place of the contrived reality constructed for us by controlled explanations, it is in this book.

This book is so extraordinary in its truthfulness and conciseness that it is difficult for a less gifted writer to do it justice.  It is a book without a superfluous sentence.

Herein I will provide some of the books message.  In future columns I hope to present some of the  history in the book.  

In the Western World the legitimate national interest of people has become identified with racism and fascism.  Corporate globalism requires open borders, and the left has aligned with globalism and has become the most zealous enforcer of open borders, which has come to mean the right of refugees with victim status to other peoples’ countries.  The leftwing has abandoned the working class and anti-war activity.  Today the leftwing is pro-war in order to enforce “human rights” on alleged dictators by bombing their peoples into oblivion, thus producing refugees and tag along opportunistic immigrants that flock to the Western aggressor nations.  

Self-styled moral censors, such as Antifa, denounce hate while violently hating those they denounce. Everything is settled by controlled explanations that cannot be questioned or examined in debate.  Those who engage in critical free thinking are censored, shouted down, beaten up, fired, and cancelled.  The cancel culture permits no debate, only enthusiastic acquiesce to explanations that have been settled in advance. 

Antifa by shutting down open debate actually serves to protect the authoritarian center consisting of “the Clintonian Democratic Party, mainstream media, the military industrial complex and globalized neoliberal finance capital.”  Antifa turns the left into a support group for the authoritarian center.

In the European Union’s so-called constitution, private corporate interests take precedence over—indeed do not permit—the socialized elements of European mixed economies that made the societies livable communities. Today people are sacrificed to the greed of the global elite as social services are curtailed and privatized. 

In the “Western democracies,” democracy–that is, rule by the people and a rule of law– has been extinguished. European peoples were forced into the European Union at the expense of their national sovereignty despite having voted down EU membership.  The French people voted 54.7% against EU membership and 45.3% for.  The Dutch people voted 61% against the EU and 39% for.  Faced with an unacceptable democratic outcome, the ruling elites removed the question from the people by turning EU membership into a “treaty” that could be signed by governments without input from the peoples.  When the French Constitutional Court ruled that the “treaty” was contrary to the French Constitution, the French Constitution was changed to accommodate the “treaty.”  Only the Irish government gave the people a choice by putting the “treaty” to a referendum, and the people rejected it. Chastised for allowing the people to decide their own fate, the Irish government collapsed under elite pressure and after a period of intense propaganda in favor of the “treaty” forced it through on a second referendum.  The Western “democratic” media were principal agents of the elite in stripping European peoples of any control over how they are governed.

In the West lies and orchestrated deceit have replaced truth in government and media. Instead of spreading facts and mutual understanding, media have deceived the public in order to gain support for unjustifiable wars.  Deceit “reached an extravagant new peak of danger with the campaign of calumny against Russia” culminating in the preposterous charge investigated by a “special prosecutor” that Hillary Clinton’s defeat was caused by a Putin/Trump plot involving Russian interference in the US presidential election.  

“Western values” are constantly invoked, but what are these values?  They are not the values that made the West what it is, or rather was.  These values are rejected.  Free speech is out if it challenges official explanations whether the government’s or the left’s or uses any words that can be misrepresented as “hate speech.”  Democracy is out as demonstrated by the anti-democratic formation of the European Union. Truth is out as it is “offensive.”  Rational inquiry is regarded as denial of emotion-based proclamations.  It goes on and on.  Diana Johnstone notes that government repression is most significant not against violent acts of rebellion but against Julian Assange for exercising press freedom to convey information to the public.  

Where does this leave us?  We have the West against the world, the West against itself, and the people against themselves.  Washington is unable “to view the world other than as a field for exercising US ‘leadership,’ and all who balk are considered deadly enemies.”  The diplomacy of the US and its NATO vassals consists of dropping sanctions and bombs on those who refuse to submit to Washington’s will, while the West itself dissolves into “diversity” and the mutual hatred of Identity Politics, which has progressed to the point that the transgendered are busy at work hating feminists. Diana Johnstone puts it best:

“When individuals are bunched into groups assigned intrinsic qualities—from victimhood to racism—normal human ties of mutual concern, shared purpose, comprehension and compassion are severed. In a grotesque development, new gender identities are invented, whose ‘cause’ overshadows the real problems of genuinely disadvantaged people. Economic issues are forgotten as groups mobilize solely to police attitudes.  Billionaires prosper more than ever before, while down below people bicker over safe spaces and toilet use.”

Hubris has destroyed humanity:

“The countries of the Western world are in a state of schizophrenic overconfidence and self-doubt. Their leaders persist in proclaiming ‘our values’ as the model for the rest of humanity, while their own people are increasingly divided and disillusioned. 

“The 18th century was the century of the liberated mind. The 19th century was the century of Great Men. The 20th century was the century of the common man. And the 21st century’s looks like it may become a negation of all of them. The century of nobody at all.

“Irrationality and censorship restore chains to thought. Great Men are only statues to be demolished. The common man, once hailed as the hero of a radiant future, has been degraded to a superfluous nuisance, probably racist and homophobic. Ordinary folks have been reassigned from the glorious concept of ‘the people’ to their derogatory redefinition under the rubric of populism’ [and Trump deplorables].

People are reduced to ‘consumers,’ while being told that by consuming, they are destroying the planet. Identity Politics has not only turned people against each other by group, but its late manifestation, Vegan speciesism, even turns people against people altogether, for being an overprivileged life form.”

What will our future be? Currently we live in a dystopia of deceit.  But the failure of our leaders to deal adequately with a health crisis and their hostility to an economic system that serves people rather than the wealth of elites are marking the Western world as a massive failure. Will realization of this failure cause the people at revolt as the Yellow Vests have, or will it break the people and further diminish them?

As we are confined at home in an effort to avoid infection and to limit the spread of infection, now is a good time to read a clear explanation of what has happened to us in our time, assess the failures that have undermined our existence as a united and free people, and prepare for reconstructing a livable and humane society.

Diana Johnstone’s book is available from Clarity Press.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

CLICK IMAGE TO ORDER DIANA JOHNSTONE’S BOOK Directly from Clarity Press

Over three million US workers filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, millions more likely coming in the weeks ahead.

Never before in US history did this happen so swiftly in such large numbers as now.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that around one-fourth of US adults were either laid off or furloughed because of COVID-19 outbreaks.

For weeks, Trump remained in denial about the potential human and business cost of growing virus numbers — as late as February saying it’ll disappear “like a miracle.”

Now he believes if 100,000 Americans die from COVID-19, it’ll show he did a “good job.”

What’s ongoing today is the greatest challenge to business and workers since the Great Depression, along with a threat to human health.

According to a March 20 – 26 online survey of over 250 companies of varying sizes and business sectors, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that nearly half the number surveyed are likely to lay off workers over the next three months.

Over one-third (37%) of companies instituted a hiring freeze. The St. Louis Fed projects unemployment potentially reaching 32% of the US workforce, a loss of 47 million jobs if things get this bad.

Trump regime social distancing guidelines were extended through April 30. It’s highly unlikely that conditions will ease by then.

Virginia Governor Northam issued a statewide shelter in place order through June 10, unless amended or rescinded ahead.

If current COVID-19 outbreaks abate, there’s no assurance that a second wave won’t follow or that new widespread outbreaks won’t happen during the 2020/21 flu season.

Is what’s beginning to unfold “a greater depression,” as economist Nouriel Roubini believes?

He anticipates “a far worse outcome” than most economists see unfolding, adding:

“Even mainstream financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley expect US GDP to fall by an annualized rate of 6% in the first quarter, and by 24% to 30% in the second.”

“(E)very component of aggregate demand – consumption, capital spending, exports – is in unprecedented free fall.”

“While most self-serving commentators have been anticipating a V-shaped downturn – with output falling sharply for one quarter and then rapidly recovering the next – it should now be clear that the COVID-19 crisis is something else entirely.”

“Not even during the Great Depression…did the bulk of economic activity literally shut down” so fast.

Economist David Rosenberg said

“(i)t’s time for investors to start saying the D-word. This economic damage could be double 2008,” adding:

“(B)ears will help you preserve your capital. Bulls will…destroy” it by advising investors to stay the course at a time when extreme caution is necessary.

Rosenberg projects a global GDP contraction of 5% this year, what hasn’t happened throughout the post-WW II period.

A deep recession like 2008-09 would likely cause financial markets to decline at least 50%, he said, stressing:

“We have a big problem on our hands. There is no economic visibility so everything’s a crapshoot.”

“This turbocharged debt cycle will end miserably. It’s just a matter of when” and how severe.

Even a one-month US national lockdown will see a “wave of defaults and bankruptcies with no jobs for people to go back to.”

“If nothing is done to make people whole, call (congressional action) ‘transfer payments,’ (not) ‘stimulus,’ because the amounts (for ordinary Americans) will put food on the table and a roof over heads” for a few months at most, “but that is about it.”

Rosenberg believes Republicans and Dems don’t realize the seriousness of what’s going on.

Workers need jobs and normality to their lives. There’s only fear, duress, stress, and uncertainty ahead.

While recession has been priced into markets, it’s not enough, said Rosenberg, adding:

“Households and businesses will be coping with how their lives have permanently changed once the crisis ends.”

“(N)othing is going back to the way it was. There will be a new normal, but it won’t be the old normal.”

“But for the here and now, we are dealing with a health shock, a self-imposed economic shock, and a financial shock all at once” — an unprecedented situation with no clarity on when or how it will end.

Markets usually bottom about three months before a GDP trough, Rosenberg explained.

He doesn’t see one until at least September, meaning “another three months of pain” most likely, maybe more.

Will the “new normal” Rosenberg envisions when economic and public health conditions end include loss of what remains of the US middle class?

Its privileged class seeks a ruler/serf society, a longstanding aim for greater wealth and power.

Along with an unprecedented wealth transfer from ordinary Americans to monied interests and likely increased loss of human and civil rights, perhaps destruction of the US middle class entirely is a key objective of the current crisis.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

September 17, 2019 was a significant day in American economic history. On that day, the New York Federal Reserve began emergency cash infusions into the repurchasing (repo) market. This is the market banks use to make short-term loans to each other. The New York Fed acted after interest rates in the repo market rose to almost 10 percent, well above the Fed’s target rate.

The New York Fed claimed its intervention was a temporary measure, but it has not stopped pumping money into the repo market since September. Also, the Federal Reserve has been expanding its balance sheet since September. Investment advisor Michael Pento called the balance sheet expansion quantitative easing (QE) “on steroids.”

I mention these interventions to show that the Fed was taking extraordinary measures to prop up the economy months before anyone in China showed the first symptoms of coronavirus.

Now the Fed is using the historic stock market downturn and the (hopefully) temporary closure of businesses in the coronavirus panic to dramatically increase its interventions in the economy. Not only has the Fed increased the amount it is pumping into the repo market, it is purchasing unlimited amounts of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities. This was welcome news to Congress and the president, as it came as they were working on setting up trillions of dollars in spending in coronavirus aid/economic stimulus bills.

This month the Fed announced it would start purchasing municipal bonds, thus ensuring the state and local government debt bubble will keep growing for a few more months.

The Fed has also created three new loan facilities to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in credit to businesses. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has stated that the Fed will lend out as much as it takes to revive the economy.

The Fed is also reducing interest rates to zero. We likely already have negative real interest rates because of inflation. Negative real interest rates are a tax on savings and thus lead to a lack of private funds available for investment, giving the Fed another excuse to expand its lending activities.

The Fed’s actions may appear to mitigate some of the damage of the coronavirus panic. However, by flooding the economy with new money, expanding asset purchases, and facilitating Congress and the president’s spending sprees, the Fed is exacerbating America’s long-term economic problems.

The Federal Reserve is unlikely to end these emergency measures after the government declares it is safe to resume normal life. Consumers, businesses, and (especially) the federal government are so addicted to low interest rates, quantitative easing, and other Federal Reserve interventions that any effort by the Fed to allow rates to rise or to stop creating new money will cause a severe recession.

Eventually the Federal Reserve-created consumer, business, and government debt bubbles will explode, leading to a major crisis that will dwarf the current coronavirus shutdown. The silver lining is that this next crisis could finally demolish the Keynesian welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system.

The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented interventions in the marketplace make it more urgent than ever that Congress pass, and President Trump sign, the Audit the Fed bill. This would finally allow the American people to learn the truth about the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. Audit the Fed is a step toward restoring health to our economic system by ending the fiat money pandemic that facilitates the welfare-warfare state and the unstable, debt-based economy.

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The US Justice Department unsealed an indictment on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other government officials last week, accusing them of “narco-terrorism.” The move is reminiscent of the 1988 indictment of former CIA asset and Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. The Noriega indictment resulted in a US invasion of Panama that left hundreds – possibly thousands – of dead civilians in its wake. Attorney General William Barr took to the podium to announce Maduro’s indictment. Barr happens to be the same person who gave the first Bush administration the legal justification to invade Panama just over 30 years ago.

Barr first worked in the DOJ in 1989 when George H. W. Bush appointed him as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). Bush and Barr had some history together. The two first crossed paths in 1976 when Bush was head of the CIA, and Barr served as a congressional liaison for the agency. At the time, Manuel Noriega was also on the CIA’s payroll.

Noriega served as a useful tool for the CIA for decades, most notably known for helping the US send money and weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua. But after Noriega became more of a liability than an asset, the US turned on him. Noriega’s connection to drug trafficking became the pretext for his disposal, something the US government was undoubtedly aware of long before the indictment.

In 1988, the Senate subcommittee on terrorism, narcotics, and international operations said,

“It is clear that each US government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellin Cartel (Pablo Escobar’s infamous Colombian cartel).”

In February 1988, under the Reagan administration, the US indicted Noriega on charges of Drug trafficking and racketeering, and he was taken off the CIA’s payroll. Over the next year, the US placed economic sanctions on Panama in an effort to pressure Noriega to step down. When Bush came into the White House in January 1989, he continued adding sanctions, and tensions between Noriega’s military and US troops stationed in Panama increased. The US controlled the Panama Canal at the time, so there was a strong US military presence in the country, and tens of thousands of US citizens were living there.

It was around the time of ever-growing tensions between Noriega and the US that William Barr was asked by then-Attorney General Dick Thornburgh to author a legal opinion memo. The purpose of Barr’s opinion memo was to overrule an opinion written in 1980 by President Carter’s head of the OLC that ruled the FBI does not have international authority to arrest a person in another nation if that nation does not consent. The opinion written under Carter said,

“US agents have no law enforcement authority in another nation unless it is the product of that nation’s consent.”

Barr’s opinion said that the FBI could carry out arrests in other nations, even if it violates international law. The document, dated June 21^st 1989, reads,

“At the direction of the President or the Attorney General, the FBI may use its statutory authority to investigate and arrest individuals for violating United States law, even if the FBI’s actions contravene customary international law.”

Barr wrote,

“The 1980 Opinion was clearly wrong in asserting that the United States is legally powerless to carry out actions that violate international law by impinging on the sovereignty of other countries. It is well established that both political branches — the Congress and the Executive — have, within their respective spheres, the authority to override customary international law.”

In November 1989, after the document’s existence became known, Barr testified before Congress on its contents. Barr refused to make the document itself public and did not disclose all of its contents, which caused some controversy, but that seemed to be a distraction from the real issue – the belief that the president is above international law. Writing in the Los Angeles Times in October 1989, journalist Ron Astrow said his sources in the White House dubbed Barr’s ruling “the president’s snatch authority.” Astrow speculated that this new authority could be used to arrest Noriega.

On December 20^th 1989, President Bush launched Operation Just Cause. Over 27,000 troops invaded Panama to arrest Noriega, the largest US military action since the Vietnam war. The campaign was especially brutal for civilians. The neighborhood of El Chorillo in Panama City saw the worst destruction. US forces indiscriminately bombed El Chorillo without giving the residents any notice, resulting in civilian deaths and the destruction of about 4,000 homes. Horrific stories of US tanks running over and crushing civilians surfaced after the invasion, and witnesses described a total disregard for civilian life by the US forces.

The civilian death toll given by the US government is around 200, but that number is widely disputed. Some human rights groups say the number is in the thousands. Either number is horrific considering Noriega was captured on January 3^rd 1990, and the campaign only lasted two weeks. Victims claim many bodies were buried in mass graves and never counted, and to this day, families of the dead are still searching for the bodies of their loved ones. In 2019, Panama made December 20^th an official day of mourning.

Bush did not get Congressional approval for the invasion, violating the War Powers Act that was passed in 1973 after President Nixon’s bombings of Cambodia and Laos. Bush publicly justified the invasion on the grounds of self-defense. A US marine was killed in Panama a few days before the invasion, part of an escalating series of confrontations between US troops and the Panamanian military. Some reports say US troops were purposely provoking members of Panama’s armed forces. The indictment of Noriega and the harsh economic sanctions were probably enough provocation to cause incidents between the two countries’ armed forces.

The invasion violated at least two international treaties: The United Nations Charter and the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS). Shortly after the invasion began, the OAS voted 20 to 1 in favor of an immediate US withdrawal. The UN General Assembly denounced the invasion in a vote of 75 to 20. Barr’s opinion memo made it clear that the Bush administration was not concerned with violating international law.

Barr believed in a strong Executive branch and later advised Bush that he did not need Congressional approval for the war against Iraq. In 1991, Barr’s support for Bush’s leadership was rewarded, and he was nominated to be the 77^th Attorney General of the United States. Fast forward about 30 years later, and William Barr is back in that office.

With the indictment of Maduro, the DOJ placed a $15 million bounty on his head, offering that money for any information that leads to his arrest. Indicting a head of state is an incredible provocation, but by US logic, Maduro is no longer Venezuela’s president. Since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president of Venezuela in January 2019, the US and its allies have not recognized the Maduro government, even though he still holds power in Caracas. As Barr put it, “We do not recognize Maduro as the president of Venezuela. Obviously, we indicted Noriega under similar circumstances, we did not recognize Noriega as the president of Panama.”

Maduro has always been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, and this indictment is just another transparent effort of US regime change in the South American country. The allegation against Maduro is that he works with Colombia’s rebel FARC group to smuggle cocaine through Venezuela that eventually reaches the US. According to Barr, the route the cocaine takes is either on boats through the Caribbean, or on airplanes through Honduras.

A closer look at where the cocaine in the US comes from shows the vast majority does not pass through Venezuela. A report released by the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) earlier in March debunked the myth spread by Washington that Venezuela is a top narco-state. Using the US government’s own numbers, the WOLA report found that in 2017 only 7 percent of the cocaine that came to the US moved through Venezuela’s Eastern Caribbean waters. The vast majority, 84 percent, moved through the Eastern Pacific.

Barr estimates around 200 to 250 metric tons of cocaine transits through Venezuela per year. According to the numbers in the WOLA report, 210 metric tons passed through Venezuela in 2018. By comparison, Guatemala had over 1,400 metric tons pass through it that same year. Both Venezuela and Guatemala are known as “transit countries,” meaning they do not produce cocaine, it only transits through. Colombia, the world’s top producer of cocaine, had about 2,400 metric tons moved through the country in 2018.

The numbers show that if the concern was drug trafficking and not regime change, the US has much bigger fish to fry than Nicolas Maduro if the allegations against him are even true. Economic sanctions placed on Venezuela by the Trump administration make it near impossible for the country to sell its oil, Venezuela’s greatest natural resource. If Maduro really was the corrupt “narco-terrorist” the US claims he is, wouldn’t sanctioning the oil sector make him more reliant on drug money and increase the flow of cocaine? Since the oil sanctions started in 2017, the flow of cocaine through Venezuela has actually decreased.

The Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) released a report in April 2019 that found US sanctions on Venezuela were responsible for 40,000 deaths in the country. Experts believe the updated number is now around 100,000 since the crippling sanctions are still in effect. The CEPR report explains how sanctions impact Venezuela’s medical supplies, and with the country now facing a possible coronavirus outbreak, those sanctions will only exacerbate the epidemic. The indictment of Maduro in the midst of a global pandemic shows the world that US imperialism never shows mercy.

Realistically, a US invasion of Venezuela to arrest Maduro is unlikely. The task would prove much more difficult than the invasion of Panama. Venezuela is much bigger and is lacking the US military presence Panama had in the 80s. The military has stayed loyal to Maduro, and Venezuela’s civilian militia has over three million members. Maduro has called for the creation of an “Anti-Imperialist School” to train his militia members as “professionals.” Anti-imperialism is a key tenant of Maduro’s rhetoric, and Hugo Chavez’s before him, the Trump administration’s Venezuela policy has done nothing but play into this narrative.

But the fact is, there is a president in the White House who has not taken the military option to remove Maduro off the table. And the Attorney General believes the president has the right to invade a sovereign nation to arrest its leader without Congressional approval, even if it is in direct violation of international law.

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The Department of Defense is quietly asking Congress to rescind the requirement to produce an unclassified version of the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) database.

Preparation of the unclassified FYDP, which provides estimates of defense spending for the next five years, has been required by law since 1989 (10 USC 221) and has become an integral part of the defense budget process.

But the Pentagon said that it should no longer have to offer such information in an unclassified format, according to a DoD legislative proposal for the pending FY 2021 national defense authorization act.

“The Department is concerned that attempting publication of unclassified FYDP data might inadvertently reveal sensitive information,” the Pentagon said in its March 6, 2020 proposal.

“With the ready availability of data mining tools and techniques, and the large volume of data on the Department’s operations and resources already available in the public domain, additional unclassified FYDP data, if it were released, potentially allows adversaries to derive sensitive information by compilation about the Department’s weapons development, force structure, and strategic plans.”

Therefore, DoD said,

“This proposal would remove the statutory requirement to submit an Unclassified Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) to the Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, the Comptroller General of the United States, and the Congressional Research Service.”

It follows that FYDP data would also not be included in the published DoD budget request, as it typically has been in the past.

The DoD proposal would preserve a classified FYDP for Congress but it would repeal the requirement that DoD officials “certify that the data used to construct the FYDP is accurate.” DoD said that “This requirement is unnecessary as information from these systems is already used to provide the President’s Budget.”

The unclassified FYDP helps inform budget analysis

At a time when it is clear to everyone that US national security spending is poorly aligned with actual threats to the nation, the DoD proposal would make it even harder for Congress and the public to refocus and reconstruct the defense budget.

Without an unclassified FYDP, Congress and the public would be deprived of unclassified analyses like “Long-Term Implications of the 2020 Future Years Defense Program” produced last year by the Congressional Budget Office. Other public reporting by GAO, CRS, the news media and independent analysts concerning the FYDP and future defense spending would also be undermined.

Some information in the FYDP — such as projected intelligence spending — has always been deemed sensitive enough that it can be classified.

But most information in the FYDP is unclassified and is properly the subject of public oversight. So, for example, the recent FY2021 defense budget request for military construction includes an “FY21 FYDP Project List” identifying numerous proposed construction projects across the country and around the world that are anticipated through 2025.

DoD no longer publishes its legislative proposals

Until two years ago, DoD published its legislative proposals to Congress on the website of the DoD General Counsel. (The proposals for FY 2019 are still online.) But that is no longer the case. As part of a broader retreat from public oversight and accountability, the Pentagon today does not make its legislative proposals easily accessible to the public.

A copy of the current package of DoD legislative proposals through March 6, 2020 was obtained by Secrecy News. A complete tabulation of the dozens of specific proposals is available here. A section-by-section description of all of the proposals is here.

Among the current batch is a proposed exemption from the Freedom of Information Act for certain unclassified documents concerning military tactics, techniques, or procedures.

That very same proposed FOIA exemption has previously been rejected by Congress on at least four prior occasions. So legislative approval of such requests is not necessarily a foregone conclusion.

Late last week, the House Armed Services Committee filed a preliminary version of the FY21 defense authorization act (HR 6395) based on the DoD legislative proposals. “When the Committee meets to consider the FY21 NDAA, the content of H.R. 6395 will be struck and replaced with subcommittee and full committee proposals,” according to a March 27 news release.

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Featured image is from NationofChange

China sent an expert team and a large shipment of medical equipment to the United Kingdom on Saturday to help in the fight against COVID-19.

The team, sent from East China’ Shandong province, comprises 15 experts and doctors who are specialists in disease control, traditional Chinese and Western medicine, psychology, nursing, and other fields.

In addition to conducting epidemiological investigation and epidemic prevention education in the UK, they will also participate in disease prevention and treatment work.

They brought with them up to 17.5 tons of medical supplies, including traditional Chinese medicine, personal protective equipment, epidemic prevention educational materials, and other equipment.

Liu Jiayi, Party chief of Shandong, went to the airport to see the team off and expressed thanks on behalf the provincial Party committee and the provincial government.

He said the team will introduce epidemic prevention and control knowledge and experience to people in the UK, especially Chinese overseas students, workers at Chinese-funded institutions and enterprises, and other overseas Chinese people.

He said the team also aims to “guide (people) to do scientific personal protection, ease tension and anxiety, and let them feel the warmth of their motherland and the care of the people in their motherland”.

During an online conversation with the British Chamber of Commerce in China on Tuesday, Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to the UK, said China encourages collaboration between business, research institutions, and colleges from both nations on vaccine and drug development to fight against the disease.

“China and the UK are standing together,” he said. “I firmly believe that the relationship between our two countries will emerge even stronger, and the friendship between our peoples will emerge deeper after we win this battle against the virus.”

According to the latest UK government figures on Saturday, the number of people who died in the nation after being infected with the virus reached 1,019.

There are now 17,089 confirmed cases in the UK.

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Featured image: China sends an expert team and a large shipment of medical equipment to the United Kingdom on Saturday to help in the fight against COVID-19. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Indian government so terribly mishandled its 21-day lockdown demand that Prime Minister Modi was compelled to unprecedentedly ask for forgiveness from the nation’s poor after his policy was responsible for suddenly uprooting millions of migrants across the country who fled their cities of temporary residence to return back home to their villages where they feel more confident of their chances for surviving World War C, but the credible threat remains that some of them might already be infected with COVID-19 and could therefore end up carrying this deadly virus all throughout the country.

Shame on YOU. Ok, one need not be a financial genius or economist to know that in 2008-09 Uncle Sam gave away the store to the failing Wall Street banks and investment corporations. We paid for it, you and me working stiff taxpayers, to the tune of well over one trillion US dollars. What did the so called ‘bailout’ do for we who punch in the hours at work?

What was that original stimulus given to each of us? Perhaps what, a $ 1000 check in the mail?

Meanwhile, the ‘Too big to fail’ devious banks got taken off life support to the tune of billions for each of them. A must see film about the aftereffects of the Sub Prime scandal is Marc Levin’s 2012 documentary ‘Lost on Long Island’. He follows a group of laid off employees from different segments of the Wall Street financial community… with shocking results. That is how many working stiffs suffered by that bubble burst and the ensuing Bush/Cheney and then Obama gift to those sharks. What many in the media like to label as ‘The Middle Class’ revealed itself to be just working stiffs getting continually disappointed and screwed by the two headed monster: Predatory Corporate Capitalism and Good Old Embedded Uncle Sam.

This current pandemic, a worldwide phenomenon, is destroying both people’s lives and the economies throughout the world.

Companies cannot operate, working stiffs get laid off, and once again Uncle comes to the rescue of who? Of course, the super rich who run this corporate capitalism on steroids US empire. The FED recently decided what it did 12 years ago and created money electronically, funneling it right to those Wall Street behemoths and other Big Business. We are talking trillions this time! Oh, the new carrot fed to the mule to make him compliant is of course that $ 1200 one time only check to each citizen… and of course a four month extension of unemployment insurance.

Let’s see, the white collar and even blue collar working stiff who earns, let us say, $ 30k a year, will get much less than the $ 600 a week he or she was used to getting. The higher up you go on that payroll scale the more the gap between one’s actual pay and the unemployment insurance check. Translated: How in the hell can folks make it through this pandemic, which could last more than a few months? Public banking advocate attorney Ellen Brown has been touting what former candidate Andrew Yang was on board with: A Universal Basic Income plan to give each citizen $ 1000 (minimum) per month… not just a ‘one time only’. This UBI as they call it would be over and above one’s current earnings and would have nothing to do with unemployment insurance. Ellen says Uncle Sam has now bailed out the banks… now bail out working stiffs!

This writer leaves it to the slew of progressive economists like someone as knowledgeable as Dr. Jack Rasmus to go over the minute details of this current bailout AKA Stimulus. My concern is to point the finger at the Army of Predatory Capitalists who made out like kings in 2008-09, and are now going to have a repeat performance…on we working stiff’s dime. Go and read Aaron Glantz’s great book Homewreckers to see how those sharks made out from the Bush/Cheney and Obama bailouts. Just one for instance, already mentioned in a previous column of mine (and through my recent interview with Aaron Glantz), is that of our current Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin. Glantz reveals how Mnuchin, an alumnus of the giant shark Goldman Sachs, watched how mortgage giant Indy Mac was ready to fold up. He and his fellow investors bought Indy Mac for peanuts, changed the name to One West, and were holding well over 100,000 toxic mortgages… well over! The FDIC, supposed to be our savior, became an indirect co-conspirator with Mnuchin’s company. Why? Well, here is how Glantz said it worked. When his One West company was holding a mortgaged home originally assessed at $ 300K, and now worth only $ 100K, the FDIC allowed One West to sell it for that $ 100k and then gave One West an additional $ 200k. No kidding! When my partners and I owned a failing cafe business in 2008, we had to sell it for 50% less than we put into it. Where was Uncle Sam then to help us?

So, what is the answer to this dilemma? Is it simply going out and voting in November, for whom, Twiddle Dum and Twiddle Dee politicians? Well, getting rid of the Trump crew is always a great motivation, but that is where it ends for we working stiffs. Currently, we cannot even rally in public, due to this pandemic. Yet, once the smoke finally clears a bit, we who labor for this empire need to get out and demand from our elected officials that they are supposed to represent us and not the 1/4 of 1 percent. Education of our young is priority one, along with education of the majority of working stiffs who most likely would not even see through the scam of this financial moment. Sad. Fool me twice, shame on ME!

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

The violence of this disease was such that the sick communicated it to the healthy who came near them, just as a fire catches anything dry or oily near it. And it even went further. To speak to or go near the sick brought infection and a common death to the living; and moreover, to touch the clothes or anything else the sick had touched or worn gave the disease to the person touching.  —from Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio‘s The Decameron, an account of the plague, or Black Death, that ravaged the city of Florence and killed between 25% and 50% of Europe’s population.

The Virus Hits Home 

Wednesday, March 25, 2020. I’m sitting in the waiting room of Duke Medical Center’s orthopedic unit in Durham, North Carolina. My wife has fractured her ankle and needs to see a specialist. Otherwise, both of us are in relatively good health given our advanced age (early 70s) and the various ailments we’ve collected over the years. As we entered the facility, we had to answer a series of questions regarding our exposure, or lack thereof, to the novel coronavirus—COVID-19. Thankfully, neither of us are experiencing symptoms (though one can be asymptomatic and still be infected) and, as far as we know, have not been near anyone who has the disease. In the waiting room, the chairs are roughly 5 feet apart in keeping with the latest set of precautions issued by the Center for Disease Control.

Friends and family members have been in contact with us to see how we’re coping with this pandemic and if we need any kind of help. (So far, we don’t.) The airwaves are delivering a nonstop flow of stories about the spread of the disease, the latest fatalities, the danger of social isolation as a result of sheltering at home, and of course the latest pronouncements from our incompetent president concerning his administration’s efforts to catch up to the rest of the world in containing the virus. A recurrent theme in these newscasts is the shortage of ventilators, testing kits, and hospital beds in this country, thanks in large part to a for-profit healthcare system and the federal government’s appalling lack of preparedness—to say nothing of the administration’s cruel disregard for the well-being of our most vulnerable people.

A few days ago, I had a ride with a Lyft driver. Instead of the weather, we talked about the pandemic and the state of panic he observed when food shopping at a local Walmart. People, he said, were afraid of not having enough to eat in the event of a complete breakdown of the economy. He described the carriages overflowing with canned goods, paper products, and foods with a long shelf life. Like millions of others, I’ve done my share of “stocking up” should a national quarantine come to pass but have avoided hoarding supplies. Today, searching for a coffeehouse where I could hunker down and get some writing done, I had to reckon with the fact that most public venues in the state are shuttered until further notice.

Of course, the most tragic part of this pandemic is the growing number of deaths from COVID-19. Surprisingly, 20% of US deaths from the virus have occurred among young adults. As of this writing, the death toll in Italy has surpassed China’s death toll, and the global advance of the virus shows no sign of slowing down. As senior citizens, my wife and I are naturally worried about becoming infected. Would our immune systems rise to the occasion and beat back the rapidly escalating number of pathogens invading our cells, or would we succumb to its malignant spread and end up dying from multi-organ failure in an understaffed hospital with no ventilator to open our airways?

Maximum Pressure

Shortages of life-saving drugs and essential equipment, medical facilities overwhelmed with critical cases, an increasing number of deaths from what should have been preventable causes—these are some of the indications of a healthcare system in crisis. They are also the direct consequences of the sanctions imposed by the US on countries around the world. While we hurry off to grocery stores to stock up on provisions and fear, quite rationally, that our hospitals and clinics might run out of what we would need to stay alive in the event of infection, it bears remembering the thousands of men, women and children who have already died as a result of sanctions and the countless others whose lives are in jeopardy due to the “maximum pressure” policy of economic sanctions.

Currently, the US has levied sanctions against a dozen plus countries, including Venezuela, Iran, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Nicaragua, North Korea, China, Cuba, Libya, and Yemen. The sanctions are either comprehensive or selective, depending on foreign policy and national security goals. They are anything but a benign alternative to military force. With the possible exception of selective sanctions targeting “terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, [and] those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” comprehensive sanctions against sovereign governments are, I would argue, calculated to bring about regime change.

Countries most likely to fall victim to unilateral US sanctions are those whose governments refuse to conform to the dictates of the US hegemon. According to Vijay Prashad, Indian historian and journalist, “The objectives of these [comprehensive] sanctions are broadly all the same—that the United States will suffocate a country’s ability to trade and access finance as long as it does not do what the United States of America asks it to do.” Iran and Venezuela are two contemporary examples in which comprehensive, unilateral sanctions, imposed by the US, are having a devastating impact on those countries’ civilian populations.

The case of Iraq under UN/US sanctions for 13 years may seem like ancient history to some or deemed not germane to contemporary issues of war and peace, and great power rivalry. But it appears the US has learned nothing from the failure of the economic embargo to change Iraq’s government, which was eventually accomplished through direct military intervention. The pervasive suffering of ordinary Iraqis during the embargo was rarely covered by US media. UN reports and anecdotal evidence from eyewitnesses documenting the effects of sanctions among Iraq’s most vulnerable populations—children, the poor, the elderly—were either ignored or downplayed. If Iraq was experiencing unprecedented levels of child and maternal mortality, and a frightening increase in deaths from severe malnutrition and normally preventable water-borne diseases, then surely these were the results of Saddam Hussein’s hoarding of available resources and his government’s incompetence and corruption.

Granted, the collapse of Iraq’s healthcare system can be attributed to a variety of causes, including harmful policies of the regime. But the most destructive cause and the “force multiplier” of sickness, death and poverty was the UN-imposed and US-enforced economic sanctions. While they were in place, hardly a word was spoken in the mainstream media about this humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Iraq. Joy Gordon, Professor of Social Ethics at Chicago’s Loyola University, undertook an exhaustive study of Iraq sanctions and published her results in a book: Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions. She writes:

What I want to explore now is the question of how a human catastrophe of this magnitude came about: what the policies and practices were that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths; decimated the health of several million children; destroyed a whole economy; made a shambles of a nation’s education and health care systems; reduced a sophisticated country, in which much of the population lives as the middle class in a First World country, to the status of Fourth World countries. . . . [These] are the result of measures that compromised the economy as a whole by broadly restricting imports in a society that was heavily dependent on imports; by restricting or undermining oil sales in an economy that was heavily dependent on oil sales for its gross domestic product (GDP); and by undermining the infrastructure—electricity production, telecommunications, transport, and water and sewage treatment—in an advanced industrialized society that was highly dependent on modern infrastructure. (Joy Gordon, Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 87.)

Much the same is happening to Iran and Venezuela, where US sanctions, intended to effect regime change, are exacerbating each country’s economic problems and ongoing humanitarian crisis. In 2017, the Trump administration imposed a new round of financial sanctions on the government of President Nicolas Maduro and PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company. A statement issued on August 25, 2017 by the White House press secretary characterized the government as a “dictatorship” and blamed the “regime” for creating a humanitarian crisis:

The Maduro dictatorship continues to deprive the Venezuelan people of food and medicine, imprison the democratically elected opposition, and violently suppress freedom of speech. The regime’s decision to create an illegitimate Constituent Assembly — and most recently to have that body usurp the powers of the democratically elected National Assembly –represents a fundamental break in Venezuela’s legitimate constitutional order.

Venezuela’s economic woes pre-date the imposition of US sanctions and are likely the result of the government’s monetary policies and its dependence on the sale of oil, its major export. According to analysts writing in 2016 for The Atlantic:

Oil exports have been responsible for 95 percent of Venezuela’s exports earnings and nearly half of its government’s income. And in 2015 alone, the revenue from oil exports and of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA)—the state-owned oil-and-natural-gas company—plummeted by more than 40 percent.

While other countries that depend heavily on oil exports have managed to keep their economies afloat even when the price of oil drops precipitously, President Maduro insisted on paying back foreign creditors despite the country’s limited financial resources and failing to diversify the country’s exports. Before the latest round of US sanctions (in 2017 and again in 2019), the Venezuelan people were already experiencing extreme hardship as inflation rose to 180%, food shortages became widespread, and the economy went into a tailspin. Since 2014, the US has implemented 43 unilateral sanctions against the government of Venezuela even as that country’s economic crisis worsened. These sanctions prevent Venezuela from selling its oil on the global market, in addition to freezing the government’s financial assets in the US and shutting down its access to international banking systems. John Bolton, former US national security adviser, referring to the sanctions imposed on Venezuela in August 2019, clarified the scope of these latest coercive measures:

I want to be clear that this sweeping executive order authorizes the US government to identify, target and impose sanctions on any persons who continue to provide support to the illegitimate regime of Nicolas Maduro.

In response, Michelle Bachelet, the UN human rights chief, feared this new set of unilateral sanctions could have a “severe impact on the human rights of the people of Venezuela” and lacked “sufficient measures to mitigate their impact on the most vulnerable sectors of the population.” Analysts writing in The Lancet, a highly respected, peer-reviewed medical journal, went much further in their condemnation of US sanctions.

The impact of the US sanctions on the Venezuelan population cannot be overstated. More than 300,000 Venezuelans are at risk due to a lack of life-saving medications and treatment. An estimated 80,000 HIV-positive patients have had no anti-retroviral therapy since 2017. Access to medication such as insulin has been curtailed because US banks refuse to handle Venezuelan payments for this. Thousands to millions of people have been without access to dialysis, cancer treatment, or therapy for hypertension and diabetes.

Particular to children has been the delay of vaccination campaigns or lack of access to antirejection medications after solid organ transplants in Argentina. Children with leukemia awaiting bone marrow transplants abroad are now dying. Funds for such health-assistance programs come from the PDVSA state oil company. Those funds are now frozen.

Food imports dropped by 78% in 2018 compared to 2013. The very serious threat to health and harm to human life caused by these US sanctions are thought to have contributed to an excess of 40,000 deaths in 2017–18 alone.

The pursuit of regime change by way of comprehensive economic sanctions amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, which is unequivocally prohibited under Article 33 of the Geneva Convention: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” In addition to violating both international and federal US law, the sanctions “fit the definition of genocide” in so far as they are intended to “destroy a people, in part or in whole.”

One of the thousands of victims of US sanctions in Venezuela was a seven-year-old boy awaiting a bone marrow transplant to treat his chronic lymphoblastic leukemia. The cost of this expensive procedure was to be handled through a financial agreement between Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, and an Argentinian-Italian network of hospitals. But the agreement was rendered null and void as a result of the sanctions, which block any kind of financial transactions with the government of Venezuela. As a witness to the effects of sanctions on the people of Iraq, I visited a number of pediatric oncology wards in public hospitals in several major cities, including Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra. The children in these wards, for the most part, were receiving palliative care. The doctors were not able to administer a complete chemotherapy regimen since many of the necessary drugs were not available. And they were not available because the US- and British-dominated UN Sanctions Committee in New York placed holds on a range of humanitarian supplies including chemotherapy drugs. I remember all too clearly one Iraqi doctor looking around the room at the children under his care and saying to me, “Mr. George, all of them are going to die.”

The “Most Severe” Economic Sanctions

On May 8, 2018, during a White House address, President Trump announced that the US would pull out of the long-term deal the Obama administration had successfully negotiated with Iran in 2015 to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), involved Iran and a consortium of world powers: the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, collectively known as the P5+1. During his address, Trump accused Iran of being the leading state sponsor of terror and of fueling conflicts throughout the Middle East by supporting so-called “terrorist proxies,” including Hezbollah and Hamas. The he attacked the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1:

At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program. . . . The fact is this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will. . . . The agreement was so poorly negotiated that even if Iran fully complies, the regime can still be on the verge of a nuclear breakout in just a short period of time. The deal’s sunset provisions are totally unacceptable. If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs. . . . it is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core.  If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. . . the world’s leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.

Trump also announced that he would shortly authorize the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran: “We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanctions. Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States.” Trump has referred to the sanctions on Iran as “the most severe ever imposed on a country.” They are certainly the most severe ever imposed on Iran. The decade-long sanctions on Iraq were, arguably, far more devastating and left hundreds of thousands of deaths in their wake. Nevertheless, the sanctions on Iran have provoked a humanitarian crisis comparable to what the people of Venezuela are enduring. In both cases, the US government bears the lion’s share of responsibility for this shared suffering.

It’s worth noting that Trump’s decision to trash the agreement with Iran has been widely criticized. The day after Trump’s announcement, Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, had this to say:

The Iran pact is supported by virtually every country in the world. The vast majority of those in the U.S. national security establishment, current and retired, have supported it, as have the vast majority of nuclear scientists and policy experts. Even within Israel, there is strong support among intelligence and defense officials.

Responding to the arguments Trump put forth for pulling out of the deal, Zunes noted that there is no evidence that Iran was “cheating” by not living up to the terms of the agreement. Moreover, to ensure compliance, Iran had been subjected to “one of the most rigorous inspection regimes in history.” The slightest violation on Iran’s part would have triggered a return of the sanctions the deal had relaxed. Trump was right about one thing. It was a one-sided deal with the US holding all the cards. The sanctions returned, not because of Iran’s failure to abide by the terms of the pact but in deference to Washington hardliners, including Donald Trump, who are determined to prevent any challenge to US hegemony in the Middle East. Iran, a strong, regional power, is perceived as a threat mainly because it challenges US geostrategic ambitions in that part of the world. It follows that this “threat” must be neutralized, and coercive, comprehensive economic sanctions is the preferred instrument, or weapon, for getting the job done. The cost to the Iranian people is simply not factored into Washington’s power politics. Discounting ethical or moral considerations, much less simple humanity, the US will do whatever it takes to keep the world in its back pocket, even if this means destroying a country’s economy and impoverishing its people in the process.

Earlier this year, during a visit to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his approval for the sanctions and praised them for “draining [Iran’s] capacity to conduct strategic activity in the region and destabilize the Middle East. They’re having to make harder choices today. It will take time . . . . There remains work to do.” It appears that the sanctions have already accomplished a great deal. All social and economic indicators paint a uniformly grim picture of a society on the verge of total collapse. As in Venezuela, the US “maximum pressure” sanctions regime is eating up the life savings of people; causing businesses to close their doors; driving up the rate of inflation for foodstuffs to 74%; increasing housing costs by more than 95% in the country’s largest cities; and decimating the entire healthcare system. Because of the perilous gap between wages and the escalating cost of living, there has been a “catastrophic drop in living standards” with a 30% increase in the number of people who fallen into the category of “absolute poverty.” These are people surviving on $1.08 or less per day.

In addition to the rising cost of living, rates of unemployment, divorce, suicide, crime, and substance abuse are also rising as the society implodes under the unrelenting pressure of sanctions and the impoverishment they cause. According to a statement issued by Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC):

The grievous harm sanctions cause the Iranian people cannot be overstated. As the economy and unemployment levels make daily life unbearable for millions of Iranians, families are choked off from life-saving medicines and starved of critical infrastructure.

The sanctions that have hit Iran the hardest are those impacting the energy, shipping, and financialindustries. In response, oil exports have plummeted, leading to a dearth of petrodollars for re-investing in the country’s infrastructure. At the same time, foreign investment is practically non-existent. To make matters worse, the sanctions prevent US companies from trading with Iran and penalize foreign companies or countries that conduct financial transactions with Iran. Trump’s stated goal is to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero.

Under the terms of the sanctions, medicine, medical supplies, and other humanitarian supplies are exempted. However, since financial transactions with Iran are in principal banned, the country is unable to pay for imported supplies. In addition, its major source of revenue, oil exports, has dried up. As a result, medicine and medical supplies are in effect sanctioned and increasingly unavailable, and this has led to a predictable healthcare crisis. Ahmad Jalalpour, an Iranian journalist writing for The Nation, interviewed doctors about their daily struggle to cope with dwindling supplies of equipment and drugs:

Doctors in Iran’s hospitals tell countless horror stories about making do with fewer drugs, fewer spare parts for their medical equipment, and a much larger pool of people with serious medical conditions. ‘It really seems like I’m in a field hospital in a war zone at times,’ said a surgeon working in a midsize town in southwestern Iran. ‘We have daily quotas of how much anesthesia we can administer each day. At the same time, there are days when you just can’t turn away many patients. So what do you do? You become creative and do a lot of praying.’ According to this surgeon, it is not unusual at his hospital for an ob-gyn to perform a C-section delivery with localized anesthesia.

Year of the Plagues

The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the healthcare crisis in Iran where the number of deaths from the virus continues to rise. US sanctions, which have already crippled Iran’s healthcare system, have made it all but impossible for medical professionals in Iran to treat the growing number of confirmed cases. Sarah Lazare, web editor of In These Times, reported on the impact of sanctions on Iran’s ability to deal with the pandemic. In her article for Jacobin online magazine, she writes:

On March 12, Iran’s Health Ministry reported dire shortages of key supplies, including syringe and infusion pumps. . . . several companies were reluctant to sell testing kits to Iran over concerns about violating a complex web of sanctions, until the World Health Organization (WHO) stepped in and instructed them to. . . .Relief International, one of the few humanitarian organizations that has been bringing medical supplies into Iran, issued a stark warning nearly three weeks ago: ‘There is an extreme shortage of these supplies in-country, where stock is often low due to the steep price of medicines and medical equipment—a consequence of US sanctions.’

The doctors, nurses, and pharmacists on the front lines of the crisis have been sounding the alarm about the dire circumstances for days. ‘Medical professionals in Iran are seeing the early signs of shortages,’ warned Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Abbas Kebriaeezadeh (the latter is a pharmacology professor at Tehran University of Medical Sciences) in a March 3 article. ‘They are calling the Iranian vendors of respiratory masks, surgical gowns, and ventilators only to hear that the goods are out of stock. They are struggling to get antiviral medication even to those patients exhibiting the most acute symptoms.’

Last year, in response to a question from Roxana Saberi of CBS about the effects of the sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo answered: “Things are much worse for the Iranian people, and we’re convinced that will lead the Iranian people to rise up and change the behavior of the regime.” Despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Iran, the Trump administration has warned the European Union not to violate the sanctions by establishing an alternative way for Iran to pay for medical supplies.

If ever there were an opportunity for people to recognize each other’s humanity and cast aside their mutual fears and antagonisms, now is that opportunity when everyone is facing the same life-threatening disease. We share one fate, one Earth, one life in one unimaginably intricate web of needs and aspirations. The Buddhists call this mutuality and interdependence Indra’s net—a metaphor for all that is. (In ancient Vedic scripture, Indra was considered the greatest of deities.) The ends of this metaphorical net stretch to infinity in every direction, and at the intersection of each strand, there rests a perfect jewel in whose many facets every other jewel is reflected. To flatten the curve of the coronavirus’s spread, in my view, a coordinated, global effort is necessary in which everyone’s life is seen as precious and worthy of the highest standards of healthcare. Like the jewels in Indra’s net, when one of us falls ill and needs emergency care, we all suffer when there is no testing kit available or when ventilators and respirators are not in stock. The deadly effects of US sanctions, like the coronavirus, are capable of infecting entire societies, causing otherwise preventable deaths, spreading disease, eroding vital civilian infrastructure, and showing the world once more that one of this country’s principal exports is massive human suffering, most notably among defenseless populations.

To flatten this curve means identifying with the victims of US sanctions, specifically, and US foreign policy more generally. It means raising our voices, waking up our compatriots to the impact of sanctions on people in Iran and Venezuela (two of the many countries currently under sanctions), and working in solidarity with organizations opposed to collective punishment for the purpose of regime change. It also means taking a principled stand against the Administration and members of Congress who support the imposition of sanctions, while supporting representatives opposed to them.

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George Capaccio is a writer and activist who has recently relocated to Durham, North Carolina. During the years of US- and UK-enforced sanctions against Iraq, he traveled there numerous times, bringing in banned items, befriending families in Baghdad, and deepening his understanding of how the sanctions were impacting civilians. His email is [email protected] He welcomes comments and invites readers to visit his website: www.georgecapaccio.com

The Western mass media is extremely busy frightening its own citizens and the entire world with statements like:

“A leaked government document has suggested up to 500,000 people could die from coronavirus if the disease is able to infect up to 80 per cent of the country.”

That’s what The Independent wrote on 26 February 2020. And that horrifying number of the fatalities ‘could occur’ according to the ‘documents’ in the United Kingdom.

It all feels bizarre. As if the Western regime were preparing its citizens and the world ‘for the most awful scenario.’

As if there were no solution to this dire global crisis.

“Chinese Virus”, says the U.S. President Donald Trump. He pronounces it with spite, and naturally, China feels deeply insulted. Some citizens and the government officials had enough of the continuous, racist abuses, and they are openly protesting.

Well, first of all, do we even really know where the virus has originated from? In Wuhan? But how did it get to Wuhan, and what triggered the epidemy? We don’t know. Nobody really knows.

Without pointing fingers or drawing conclusions, what we do know is that the U.S. has been engaged in various chemical and biological warfare, in several parts of the world, including Latin America. It also does all it can to provoke and to even damage the People’s Republic of China: psychologically, politically, economically and, perhaps, physically.

These are facts. No need to draw conclusions, yet.

In the meantime, China is helping more than 80 countries worldwide to combat the epidemy.

The White House obviously does not like what China is doing. It is petrified that the most obvious facts would be detected by the people in the United States, in Europe and the rest of the Planet: that the North America failed, that the European Union failed, and that most of the allies of the West failed, squarely and patently.

And the more China is doing to save the humanity, the more punches it is receiving. And not only China, but also Cuba, and several other socialist nations, which are defending their people instead of business interests.

On 21 March 2020, The Daily Beast wrote in its report ‘White House Pushes U.S. Officials to Criticize China For Coronavirus ‘Cover-Up’:

“As the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow at a rapid pace in the U.S., the White House is launching a communications plan across multiple federal agencies that focuses on accusing Beijing of orchestrating a “cover-up” and creating a global pandemic, according to two U.S. officials and a government cable obtained by The Daily Beast.”

And that’s not all. The report continued:

“The cable was disseminated to officials at a time when the administration is engrossed in a communications battle around how to disseminate the flow of crucial health information to the American public while at the same time deflecting criticism that the White House was unprepared for the pandemic and that President Trump is at odds with members of his coronavirus task force.”

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On 20 March 2020, RT wrote:

‘Washington has passed off blame to Beijing for its own failures in addressing the Covid-19 outbreak, China’s Foreign Ministry said, hitting back at the ‘Chinese virus’ rhetoric with the ironic term ‘Trumpandemic.’

“Some people in the United States attempt to stigmatize China’s fight against the epidemic and shirk its responsibility to China,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told reporters on Friday, referring to the finger-pointing adopted by President Trump and other top officials (after weeks of US media outlets calling it the ‘Chinese’ and ‘Wuhan’ virus).

This practice ignores the huge sacrifices made by the Chinese people to safeguard human health and safety, and denigrates China’s major public health security contributions.”

The bottom-line is clear: China defeated the coronavirus in an incredibly short time. It shared its experience, then began helping many countries, including those in the West.

Chinese airplanes and even trains packed with equipment and medical staff are helping to save lives on all continents, in some 80+ countries. Russia is doing its best, too, and so is Cuba.

What is difficult to comprehend is why the Western countries refused to follow Chinese example? Approach of London, Washington and Rome is sporadic, schizophrenic, deadly.

Compared to what the West is doing now to its people, China, even at the height of the virus outbreak, was using a relatively mild approach. Most of the major Chinese cities were never fully locked-down. While the battle of COVID-19 was raging, China continued to function. Every step of Beijing was logical and determined. Millions of lives were spared as a result.

So, why, despite of extreme measures applied, are hundreds of Italians dying every day, as well as hundreds of other Europeans and North Americans?

Italy is one of the richest countries on Earth.

Is it just a sloppiness of the Western medical system? Is it simply a bad planning? Or is it something much, much more sinister?

We will investigate, analyze, and find out soon.

But whatever it is, it is damaging the world, already ruining, directly and indirectly, millions of lives, perhaps irreversibly.

President Trump may be insulting those brave countries which are defending their citizens, as well as the countries that are fighting for the survival of men, women and children, regardless of their age, race and nationality. But it is China, Russia and Cuba, which are now clearing the mess created by Washington, Rome, Paris and London. The world is finally paying attention! And it is Beijing, Moscow and other capitals, which are now asking questions!

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A shorter version of this article was first published by China Daily Hong Kong.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Five of his latest books are “China Belt and Road Initiative”,“China and Ecological Civilization”with John B. Cobb, Jr., “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and Latin America, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website, his Twitter and his Patreon. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Morning Star

“For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.”   – Hamlet

On May 1, 1962, President John Kennedy was meeting in the Oval Office with a group of Quakers who were urging him to do more for peace and disarmament.  As he kept explaining the great political opposition he was facing within his own government, they kept urging him to do more.  He listened very closely to their words and finally said, “You believe in redemption don’t you.”  By the next spring he had turned decisively toward the peacemaking the Quakers had urged upon him, resulting in his murder in the fall by treacherous government forces, led by the CIA, that opposed him all along.

Now that Dylan has burst forth from behind his many masks and gifted the world with his incandescent new song about the assassination, with a title taken from Hamlet, from the mouth of the ghost of the dead King of Denmark –“ Murder Most Foul “– we have entered a new day in an odd way.  For those who have wondered over the years if Dylan had “sold out,” here is their answer. For those who have wondered if he would go to his grave reciting the words of T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock – “I am no Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be” – here is Hamlet’s booming response. Not only does this song lay bare the truth of the most foundational event in modern American history, but it does so in such a powerfully poetic way and at such an opportune time that it should redeem Dylan in the eyes of those who ever doubted him.

I say “should,” but while the song’s release has garnered massive publicity from the mainstream media, it hasn’t taken long for that media to bury the truth of his words about the assassination under a spectacle of verbiage meant to damn with faint praise.  As the media in a celebrity culture of the spectacle tend to do, the emphasis on the song’s pop cultural references is their focus, with platitudes about the assassination and “conspiracy theories,” as well as various shameful and gratuitous digs at Dylan for being weird, obsessed, or old.  As the song says, “they killed him once and they killed him twice,” so now they can kill him a third time, and then a fourth ad infinitum.  And now the messenger of the very bad news must be dispatched along with the dead president.

The media like their Hamlets impotent and enervated, but Dylan has come out roaring like a bull intent on avenging his dead president.

He has the poet’s touch, of course, a hyperbolic sense of the fantastic that draws you into his magical web in the pursuit of deeper truth.  In many ways he’s like the Latin American magical realist writers who move from fact to dream to the fantastic in a puff of wind.

Dylan is our Emerson.  His artistic philosophy has always been about movement in space and time through song.  Always moving, always restless, always seeking a way back home through song, even when, or perhaps because, there are no directions.  “An artist has got to be careful never to arrive at a place where he thinks he’s at somewhere,” he’s said.  “You always have to realize that you are constantly in a state of becoming and as long as you can stay in that realm, you’ll be alright.”

Sounds like living, right.

Sounds like Emerson, also.  “Life only avails, not the having lived.  Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.  Thus one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes.”

“Murder Most Foul” is Dylan’s soul becoming. 

“A song is like a dream, and you try to make it come true.  They’re like strange countries that you have to enter.  You can write a song anywhere …. It helps to be moving.  Sometimes people who have the greatest talent for writing songs never write any because they are not moving,” he wrote in Chronicles. 

“Murder Most Foul” is a moving song in every sense of the word – a trip to truth.

Dylan has long been accused of abandoning his youthful idealism and protest music.  I think this is a bum rap.  He was never a protester, though his songs became anthems of the civil rights and anti-war movements.  There is no doubt that those songs were inspirational and gave people hope to carry on the good fight.  But in turning in a more oblique and circumspect musical direction, following his need to change as the spirit of inspiration moved him, Dylan’s songs came to inspire in a new way. You could always tell his sympathies lay with the oppressed and downtrodden, but for decades he didn’t shout it, with perhaps the one exception being the powerful, hard-hitting, and mesmeric Hurricane in 1975.  With that one he stepped into the ring to brawl.

But for the most part over the years, a listener has had to catch his drift. If you go to the music, and dip into his various stylistic changes over the decades, however, you will find a consistency of themes.  He deals with essentials like all great poets.  Nothing is excluded.  His work is paradoxical.  Yes, he’s been singing about death since twelve, but it has always been countered by life and rebirth.  There is joy and sadness; faith and doubt; happiness and suffering; injustice and justice; romance and its discontents; despair and hope.  His music possesses a bit of a Taoist quality mixed with a Biblical sensibility conveyed by a hopelessly romantic American.  He has fused his themes into an incantatory delivery that casts a moving spell of hope upon the listener.  He is nothing if not a spiritual spell-binder; similar in many ways to that other quintessential American – the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, whose best work was a poetic quest for an inspired salvific poetry.

While speaking the unspeakable truth about President John Kennedy’s murder might seem hopeless, it is actually a sign of great hope.  For our only hope is in telling the truth, which Bob has done.

This is art, not theory, and art of a special kind since Dylan is an artist at war with his art.  His songs demand that the listener’s mind and spirit be moving as the spirit of creative inspiration moved Dylan.  A close listening will force one to jump from line to line, verse to verse – to shoot the gulf – since there are no bridges to cross, no connecting links.  The sound carries you over and keeps you moving forward. If you’re not moving, you’ll miss the meaning.

I have no wish to explicate the poet’s brilliant work.  It speaks for itself.  It says far more than it actually says about a system rotten to the core, a country where everything went wrong since “The day the killers blew out the brains of the king/Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing.”

If you listen to Dylan’s piercing voice and follow the lyrics closely, you might be startled to be told, not from someone who can be dismissed as some sort of disgruntled “conspiracy nut,” but by the most famous musician in the world, that there was a government conspiracy to kill JFK, that Oswald didn’t do it, and that the killers then went for the president’s brothers.

Your brothers are comin’, there’ll be hell to pay

Brothers? What brothers? What’s this about hell?

Tell them, “We’re waiting, keep coming,” we’ll get them as well

This is an in-your-face tale, set to music with a barely tinkling piano, a violin, and a soupçon of percussion, whose lightest words, as Hamlet’s father’s ghost said to him:

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,

Thy knotty and combinèd locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.

“Murder Most Foul” truly startles.  It is a redemptive song.  Dylan holds the mirror up for us. He unlocks the door to the painful and sickening truth.  He shoves the listener in, and, as he writes in Chronicles, “your head has to go into a different place.  Sometimes it takes a certain somebody to make you realize it.”

Bob is our certain somebody. In these dark times he has offered us his voice.

You believe in redemption, don’t you?

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. Visit the author’s website here.

Featured image is from OffGuardian

As draconian lockdowns, punitive regimes and surveillance become the norm of the coronavirus world, Sweden has treaded more softly in the field.  This is certainly in contrast to its Scandinavian cousins, Denmark and Norway.  The rudiments of a life uninterrupted generally remain in place. Cafes, restaurants and shops, for the most part, remain open and stocked.  As do gyms and cinemas.  Vibrant after-ski parties persist, much to the bemused horror of those across the border. 

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, embracing the principle of voluntariness over coercion, has issued warnings to citizens to keep travel down to a minimum, avoiding anything non-essential.  The traditional age group – those over 70 – have been told to mind their movements and stay at home.  In the prime minister’s words during a televised speech,

“Us adults need to be exactly that: adults.  Not spread panic or rumours.  No one is alone in this crisis, but each person carries a heavy responsibility.”

Despite all of this, Sweden’s authorities show that they do have a foot on the brake, albeit one applied with slow motion caution.  Gatherings used to be limited to 500 – that confidently embraced number has now been reduced to 50, a measure that will be policed.  Bars can only provide table service.  Colleges and universities have moved to a virtual format in line with recommendations issued on March 18. 

But the Public Health Agency exerts a powerful influence, insisting that a lockdown is simply unwarranted.  Local sports tournaments and matches required no cancellations – exercise and sports were healthy initiatives.  Organisers of events and seminars were responsible for conducting a risk assessment and providing information “about good hand hygiene, and access to hand washing facilities for all participants.”

The focus, rather, is on individual initiative, minimising instances of transmission while herd immunity builds up, or a vaccine is found.  If over 70, avoid using public transport, shopping in supermarkets, visiting areas of congregation. 

“Instead, ask friends, family or neighbours to do your shopping etc.” Work from home, if you can.  “This is to decrease the speed of transmission and the number of people needing hospital care.”

Central to such recommendations is a modelling game.  As with all such games, risks abound.  The go-easy approach has certainly caused little alarm in the country; if anything, it has given the Social Democrats a hearty boost.  The wisdom of authorities is generally taken for granted, suggesting the customary, even awesome power of the Swedish civil service.  The eggheads remain in charge. 

The Swedish example shows a differing approach to measurement, which invariably involves looking at a crystal ball of sorts.  Paul Franks and Peter Nilsson, both epidemiologists based at Lund University, suggest that the government is gambling on simulations made by the public health authorities on “surge requirements”. “From these simulations, it is clear that the Swedish government anticipates far few hospitalisations per 100,000 of the population than predicted in other countries, including Norway, Denmark and the UK.”

The observations by Franks and Nilsson are filled with characteristic scientific caution.  Which modelling do you go for?  Using British variants suggests a higher death toll for Sweden, though the authorities seem to be holding to the point that most infected people will have no symptoms, leaving one in five requiring a stint in hospital.  And Britain is not Sweden. 

We are left with the treacherous nature of public health modelling.  COVID-19 prediction models, for instance, tend to rely on the examples in China and Italy, furthering upon data gathered from previous Ebola outbreaks, SARS and MERS.  This brings the old question of demography into play, and the need to gather evidence of community transmission (so far, material on this is sketchy in Sweden).  An inescapable fact is that Sweden has one major metropolitan area, so any accurate modelling would require material specific to that.  Ways of interaction between generations would also have to be considered.  In Sweden, less intergenerational conduct would lessen the risk to the elderly.  More than half of Sweden’s households consist of one person, another telling factor.

The data does not tend to focus on hospital admissions and fatalities, a point stressed by Franks and Nilsson.  “This latter can be used to be a ‘poor man’s estimate’ of community transmission, providing approximately how many fatalities occur among those infected.”  The accuracy of this is somewhat compromised by the two-week period between diagnosis and the mortality, a “very blunt instrument” indeed. 

The numbers of COVID-19 cases in Sweden have not been negligible.  From the first recorded case on February 4, 2020, the total, as of March 30, 2020, stands at 4,028.  Deaths come in at 146, though a disproportionate number come from a Somali community located in less commodious quarters with extended families. 

Despite the highest death toll of the Nordic countries, state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is supremely confident that the “strategy” has worked well, with Sweden showing a relatively flat curve of infection relative to Italy and Spain.  “We want to slow down the epidemic until Sweden experiences a sort of peak, and if the peak is not too dramatic we can continue.”    

A large number of citizens, bearing their heavy responsibility, have chosen to avoid public transport – Storstockholms Lokaltrafik claims a fall of 50 percent in the number of commuters.  Schools might be open, but many parents are keeping their children at home.  Remote and work-from-home options have been embraced by companies with gusto. 

The warning calls, while not shrill, are in evidence.  An epidemiological battle is taking shape, though it remains one dominated by parrying disagreements of expertise.  Britain’s chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance has much praise for the approach, having made similar suggestions to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the “herd immunity” phase of discussions.  In contrast, a petition featuring over 2,000 doctors, scientists and academics, which boast among its numbers the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, Prof Carl-Henrik Heldin, has called for more aggressive measures. 

“It is risky to leave it to people to decide what to do without any restrictions,” opines a paternalistic Joacim Rocklöv, an epidemiologist based at Umeå University.  “As can be seen from other countries this is a serious disease, and Sweden is no different than other countries.” 

Virologist Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, based at the Karolinska Institute, has not held back in her views, claiming with some punchiness that the government has committed all the big no-nos in responding to a pandemic.  “We’re not testing enough, we’re not tracking, we’re not isolating enough – we have let the virus loose.”  In so doing, Sweden had been placed on the path to catastrophe.  To avoid a lockdown, a mass-testing approach as adopted by South Korea would have to be adopted.  Time will tell which one stacks up.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.  Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from caglecartoons.com

South Korea has accomplished a remarkable success in its fight against fearful virus COVID-19 and it is now the object of global curiosity, envy and even admiration.

More than 100 countries faced with rapid waves of virus attack are seeking for Korea’s help and cooperation. Even the mighty president of the U.S. Donald Trump has phoned on March 24 asking President Moon Jae-in‘s help.

South Korea’s president gladly agreed to send medical equipments needed for the fight against the virus in the country of Uncle Sam.

This paper has four sections. In the first section, I examine the nature of the Korean model’s success, while, in the second section, I discuss the principal factors responsible for its success. In the third section, I try to see if there is any basic philosophy in the model.  Finally, in the fourth section, I am asking myself if we have learned anything from the crisis.

How Successful? 

The results of the anti-virus war can be measured in terms of tracking, the number of tests, the ratio of healing, the number of infected and the rate of mortality.

One of the most difficult parts of the whole process of war against the virus is the tracking. Once one finds the infected person through the test, one has to find all the persons who had first round contact with the original person.

There are, let us say 10 persons. Now, some of these 10 persons may have had the contact with some other people. Here, we have the second round contact and the chain of contact goes on and the virus spreads further.

Korea has done a superb job of tracking owing to the use of cell phones and the collaboration of the general public. This process may involve human right issues, but the government requires the target person’s consent. Furthermore, the government guarantees the confidentiality of personal information.

Korea has so far conducted 330,000 tests, 15,000 per day. Through these tests, as of March 26, about 9,000 have been identified as being infected. Of this number, about 50%, that is, 4,500 persons have been cured.

Of 9,000 infected, 158 lost lives as of March 26 yielding the mortality rate of 1.8%. It is rather low compared to other countries’ mortality rates. But, it is more than possible that Korea’s mortality could increase.

These impressive results were possible because of the Korea’s ability to rapidly stabilize the virus propagation.

On February 19, the daily number of the infected was 39 and it rose rapidly to 610 on March 2nd to fall to 47 on March 26.

So, 12 days were needed to reach the peak of the infection curve and 24 days to hit the near bottom of the curve.

In short, Korea was able to stabilize the virus outbreak in 36 days.

However, now, Korea has to deal with the infected persons coming from the U.S. and other foreign countries.

There is another problem. Many protestant churches are holding Sunday services despite the government’s warning; this increases the danger of community transmission of the virus.

The amazing thing is that Korea has done it without a general lockdown of the society. Only the Taegu City area had partial lockdown for a few weeks.  Even here, the government did not order the lockdown; it was decided by the citizens themselves.

The rest of the country was allowed to lead a normal life, although the streets and shops were less crowded than usual as the result of people’s voluntary isolating to avoid infection.

It is interesting to point out that Korea has done it despite   politically motivated obstruction by the conservative party (the Liberty Korea Party: LKP) in collaboration with the cult sect, Shincheonji.

They tried to discredit Moon Jae-in government’s anti-virus war efforts in order to increase their chance of winning the general election of April 15.

The Shincheonji has been the primary factor of the exponential explosion of the infected. At times, almost 70 % of the total number of the infected persons was composed of Shincheonji members. And, the cult sect did not fully cooperate with the government in identifying and locating the possible infected.

Another amazing thing about the Korean model is that despite such difficulties, Korea has achieved to stop the wave of the virus without panic or hoarding of toilet papers, foods and other goods of necessity. The super markets have been relatively well stocked throughout the trial time.

Why Successful? 

The success of the Korean model may be attributable to the following factors: preparedness, apolitical approach, reliance on science and technology, use of masks, quality of leadership and citizens’ voluntary participation.

• Preparedness

During the crisis of SARS of 2002-2003, Korea was not well prepared to fight the virus. Fortunately, as soon as the progressive government of Rho Moo-hyun came along in 2003, the government prepared a complete manual of fighting virus.

However, when the conservative government took over the power in 2008 by Lee Myong-bak and Park Geun-hye in 2013, the manual was thrown away, simply because it had been prepared by a progressive government.

Fortunately, as soon as the progressive government of Moon Jae-in took over the power in 2017, the manual was restored and much improved. This has made Korea well prepared for its fight against the COVID-19.

• Apolitical Approach

In general, one of the difficulties often encountered during the public health crisis is the collusion between business and politics. The collusion invites not only the misallocation of resources needed for the fight against the virus but also it delays the progression of the fight.

It is more than possible that this difficulty is being experienced by many countries, even developed countries.

The collusion hampers the anti-virus fight. For example, if the government decides to give the contract of mask production to an incompetent producer who is close to politicians in power, the supplied masks could be of poor quality or the supply of masks could be delayed.

The infected people need hospital care. If the government designates, for the care of the infected, one particular hospital because of bribes, the propagation of the virus could be accelerated.

In many cases, the government does not take anti-virus measures in time- and loses the golden time- because of the pressure coming from large corporations which are important source of political funding and bribes; these corporations are afraid of losing sales and profit which could result from the government’s anti-virus measures.

Thus, politically motivated government decisions, in time of virus crisis, may surely aggravate the crisis and delay the solution.

Right from the beginning of the virus crisis, Moon Jae-in’s government took apolitical approach to the crisis. This approach was an interesting contrast to the behaviour of the conservative party, LKP.

The solution of the MERS (2015) crisis was delayed because of the   government-Chaebols collusion.

There were many victims of the MERS virus; they had to be hospitalized. Samsung Hospital was and is one of the major hospitals in Korea. Unfortunately, because of this hospital’s poor virus control, as many as 91 individuals were infected in the hospital.

But, the government did not announce this fact, because of the hospital’s possible demand not to report it. If the government announced this fact, Samsung Hospital would have lost a large number of usual patients and profit.

Because of this political and financial collusion of the conservative government with the Samsung Group, the MERS crisis lasted longer and its impact was devastating more than necessary.

The conservative party, currently the chief opposition party, exploits, once again, the virus crisis for its political purpose.

It has spread all sorts of fabricated facts and lies to discredit, in collaboration of the cult, Shincheonji, the government efforts to stop the invasion of the virus.

Fortunately, the government of Moon Jae-in was above politics; it was concerned only with saving the lives of the people.

• Reliance on Science and Technology

The apolitical approach to the fight against the virus allowed Korea to appeal to science and technology.

A reputed Korean expert in the area of virus-related diseases insisted on the importance of humility in front of science, because the virus listens only to science; there is no place for anti-virus measures which are for political gains or business profit.

Korea has been humble in front of the science and technology. The sustained scientific and technological research activities by universities, government-run laboratories and private technology firms have made a major contribution to the fight against the COVID-19.

In particular, Segene Inc.,Gencurix, GeneMatrix, SolGent Co. and iLamp have discovered the composition of the virus by identifying the genes. The products of these firms have made it possible to produce massively and rapidly efficient test kits. In particular, iLamp’s product “Novel COV19 Detection kit” is popular and it allowed a complete test in 20 minutes.

Moreover, further research has produced “the drive-through test system” and “the booth-based test device.” As a result, Korea could test, in safety, as many as 15,000 individuals a day; up to now, Korea has tested 330,000 individuals.

There is another role played by technology. Korea is one of the most advanced digitalized countries. The digitalization of commerce has allowed the rapid distribution of necessity goods and services through e-commerce. This is one of the factors of the relative absence of hoarding of goods and the prevention of the panic.

• Use of Masks

In the West including Canada and the U.S. the general public is discouraged – even forced – not to wear masks. The government insists that only the people working for the public health should wear them.

This policy of the government can be explained by two possible reasons. One is the belief that the masks cannot protect us from being infected. The other is the shortage of the supply of masks.

According to experts in Asia, the masks are good devices of protection not only from the air born virus but also the virus coming from human touch.

There are those who seem to believe that the Asians wear masks because of the “culture.” It is hard to believe that there can be a culture in which people love to suffer by wearing the mask. This is sheer nonsense to relate mask wearing to culture.

The plausible reason for asking Canadian not to wear masks should be the shortage of its supply. Here again, it is not convincing, for Canada’s industrial capacity can solve the problem.

Do not forget, the medical team wear masks, because the masks do protect them. If so, they protect the general public, too.

Incidentally, it may be added that the popular use of masks in Korea allowed the continuous operation of factories, restaurants, shopping centers and a host of other businesses.

• Leadership

The most important determinant factor of the success of the Korean model is, perhaps, the leadership of the government and strong public faith in Moon Jae-in. This leadership has been demonstrated in various collective activities.

First of all, the quality of human resources of the government is pretty high and they are well motivated. Most of the key positions in the government are filled with people who have two characteristics.

Most of them are the anti-corruption generation who fought against the corrupted conservative policies and at the same time, they are highly qualified professionally and motivated for their functions.

In other words, under Moon’s government, we rarely see those who are nominated for bribes or connections.

Second, the present government is free from political debt to the corrupted establishment. This has allowed the government to focus on the job of saving lives without being forced to protect vested interests.

Third, President Moon is not only respected but also loved by the great majority of the people. His entire career has been devoted to the fight for the poor and the weak. This has led the people to have confidence in the information provided by the government policy makers. Such confidence has made people to follow faithfully the government instructions.

Fourth, the confidence in the leadership has facilitated the communication between the government and the people.

In Korea, there is a system in which, if more than 200,000 persons request something to the government, the Blue House (Korean White House) must react.

For instance, more than 2,000,000 people have requested the abolition of the cult Shincheonji. This has allowed Seoul City to take harsh punitive measures against the cult sect. On the 25th of March, the cult  did lose its legal status.

• Character of Ordinary Koreans

One of the most important reasons for the success of the Korean model is the character of the ordinary Koreans.

For centuries, they have been exploited and mistreated by the ruling class, called “Yang-ban.” This has created a situation where the ordinary people had to find the problem solutions themselves without relying on the ruling class.

They organized the “Dong-hak:東學” (Eastern Studies) and revolted against the corrupted officials during the latter half of the 19th century and succeeded in abolishing the feudal “Yang-ban” system; they rose against the Japanese colonial government in 1919; they fought against the corruption of the conservative governments’ police and military dictatorship.

Finally, 17,000,000 people carried out the Candle-Light Revolution of 2016-2017 and impeached Park Geun-hye.

This tradition has made the ordinary Koreans to unite and find solution themselves even without the help of the government; this tradition has led to the culture of “Jeong-情” which can be translated into caring each other and the collective will to solve the problems all together. There is no doubt that this culture has been one of the key factors of the Korean model’s success.

Philosophy of the Korean Model?

There is another interesting feature of the Korean model; it is its inclusiveness. Korea believes that the COVID-19 crisis is not a simple national crisis of Korea; Korea believes that it is a global crisis and, hence, Korea must participate actively in the global anti-corona-virus fight.

Recently, a delegation of WHO came to Korea in order to organize a global team of scientific research hoping to produce a global manual of anti-corona-virus fight. The Foreign Minister of Korea, Kang Kyung-hwa said this:

“We are taking this approach of openness and transparency not just domestically but to the international community that is highly interdependent with rest of the world.” (Interview with abs-cbn, March 3, 2020)

On March 26, President Moon Jae-in took the initiative of an online conference with the heads of G20 in order to share the experience of Korea’s anti-virus fight.

Learn Anything from the Current Crisis? 

I may allow myself to say a few words on the current global corona-virus crisis.

First, for last half century, the world has been blindly devoted to GDP growth, as if it were the only reason for man to exist.

Under the banner of neo-liberalism, the humanity has been chasing after more and more advanced technology and bigger and bigger GDP.

But what we got? We got wider income disparity, increasing jobless, increasing depletion of natural resources, worsening natural environment. Only a few got richer.

What is upsetting is that with all that money, knowledge and technology, man has not been able to prepare for the corona-virus invasion.

There are thousands more viruses in the nature; some of which could be more deadly than corona-virus. Can’t we take some money from the billionaires and produce more masks, tests kits and medical gowns?

Second, the COVID-19 has shown us that it does not care about the race, income or geography. The COVID-19 is telling us that we need a global preparedness for other virus that will surely attack us.

So we need international cooperation. China has been generous in sharing its experiences and sending needed medical equipment to needy countries. Korea is doing the same.

Third, Washington’s attitude toward the current crisis is quite disappointing, to say the least.

Mike Pompeo, the State Secretary of the U.S. seems to like to use the word,”Wuhan Virus” and Donald Trump looks happy when he picks the expression “Chinese Virus.”

It is true that the first location of massive breakout of the virus was the city of Wuhan, but this does not mean that the city was the location of virus origination; we do not know who the ground zero infected person was. The virus could have come from outside China and planted in Wuhan.

Owing to excellent papers of the Center for Research on Globalization by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Peter Koenig, Stepĥen Lendman and many others, we have meaningful information on the origination location of the corona-virus. These papers make it clear that the virus could have originated in the U.S. and transmitted to China.

Even if the virus originated in China, it has been the tradition of not mentioning the place of the origination in order to avoid harmful stigma and promote international cooperation.

The U.S. has the largest economy and the most powerful army in the world. Therefore, it is natural to expect some generosity and mature behaviour as the world leader. But I am asking if it is a real leader.

Fourth, the world, especially the developed countries, should repent for not having prepared for such a global crisis like the COVID-19 crisis; it is about the time to mobilize resources to create a world in which the public health security is as important as economic growth.

To conclude, I offer my sincere compliments to the Quebec Premier, François Legault, and his team for their devotion to the fight against the corona-virus.

If Korea’s experience means anything at all, it is the importance of the united participation of the people. The Quebec people can be united as they were united during the Quiet Revolution.

As the premier said, the Quebec people should become “a singly army unit” and march forward to kill the enemy, the COVID-19.

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the Observatoire de l’Asie de l’Est (OAE) of the Centre de Recherches sur l’Intégration et la Mondialisation (CEIM), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) He is Research Associate of the Center for Globalization (CGR)

Trying to predict anything amongst the Coronavirus pandemic is a fool’s game. But amongst the chaos, one thing is certain. The oil industry is in deep, deep trouble.

For the foreseeable future, the only certainty on the oil price is that it is going down into a place where bankruptcy beckons for many companies.

The boom and bust of the Big Oil cycle continues, but the boom days have gone, possibly forever. The cycle is broken.

Demand for oil is plummeting. As the global experts at Rystad Energy outlined last week:

“We now estimate 2 billion barrel less oil demand in 2020 due to the virus outbreak, with an average daily production of 95 million bpd for the year, i.e. approximately a -5% contraction vs the 2019 level of 100 million bpd.”

According to Business Insider, the crude oil price “tanked” today as Coronavirus fears slammed energy demand.” The price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI), seen as the US benchmark, dropped below $20 a barrel, while Brent crude hit $23.03, its lowest price since 2002.

As the Financial Times noted today simply, with the price war continuing between Saudi Arabia and Russia, there is “no sign of the oil price slump easing any time soon.”

The business paper outlined how:

“High cost production from US shale and Canadian tar sands will come under pressure, so too will those producers in the North Sea. But Russia’s oil producers could turn a profit even if prices fall to $15 a barrel.”

In Canada, where the dirty tar sands is not cheap to produce, the industry is particularly vulnerable. At the end of Friday, the National Observer was reporting that the “price of Canadian crude plunged to a new historic low of USD $5 per barrel”.

Or put another way, the Observer noted:

“Western Canadian Select (WCS), the Canadian benchmark, is going for roughly the same price as a Big Mac.”

This is not sustainable. Warren Mabee, the director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen’s University, told the Observer:

“This is really unknown territory.” Mabee added that “he wouldn’t be surprised if Canadian crude prices briefly go negative – a scenario where producers are paying people to take away product.”

“For some companies, unfortunately, it will be a death blow,” Mabee told the Observer. “They won’t have the money to continue with their operations.”

If the industry has no money, a government dependent on that industry has no money either. For example, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s budget relies on forecasts of nearly $60 per barrel. Not $5. On Friday, Kenney told Albertans to expect “what will likely be the largest single contraction in our economy in history.” The boom has bust again.

Canada may be in particular trouble, but the whole industry is not in a good shape. The Guardian reported yesterday that:

“Global oil producers have begun shutting down their oil rigs on the largest scale in 35 years as the coronavirus continues to drive market prices to their lowest level since 2002.”

The global investment bank, Goldman Sachs, also believes that we could be heading for negative pricing too:

“Given the cost of shutting down a well, a producer would be willing to pay someone to dispose of a barrel, implying negative pricing in landlocked areas,” it said in an investor briefing earlier today.

This is economic madness: the oil industry is now paying people to take its oil. But when the pandemic is over, with so much production shut in, “paradoxically, this will ultimately create an inflationary oil supply shock of historic proportions.”

The oil cycle is now going from bust to bust. From shock to shock. Never has it been more important to break the cycle and move towards a just, clean transition.

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The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) follows up with concern the healthcare situation in the Gaza Strip and seriously warns of a catastrophic deterioration that would strike the health care sector in the case of a Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.  PCHR is concerned over the healthcare system’s inability to respond to the needs of patients if an outbreak occurs.

According to PCHR’s follow-up, the healthcare facilities in Gaza are already on the verge of collapse due to the Israeli- imposed closure on the Gaza Strip for the last 13 years, exacerbated by the repercussions of the Palestinian internal division and political bickering.  All of this has caused a fragile healthcare system in the Gaza Strip, a perpetual shortage of essential drugs and medical devices and insufficient number of specialized health professionals; rendering the system unable to meet the basic medical needs of the Gaza Strip population in normal times.

According to the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Gaza, the Israeli closure barred MOH from importing new medical devices or spare parts for malfunctioning ones. The crisis of medical devices shortage imposes a major obstacle for the development and sustainability of the Gaza hospitals and medical centers in a manner that would be proportional to the population’s health needs. In a statement published on 21 March 2020, MOH announced its urgent need for respirators, intensive care units and equipment, medicines, medical consumables and protective gear to prepare it to combat Coronavirus. MOH’s appeal came after the Israeli authorities allowed the entry of limited quantities of medical supplies into the Gaza Strip on 18 March 2020, including equipment for diagnosing those infected with the Coronavirus, hundreds of protective gowns and goggles for the protection of medical personnel, upon a request Submitted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

MOH in Gaza announced the first 2 cases of Coronavirus in the Gaza Strip after a total of 118 people were tested (116 of them tested negative for the novel Coronavirus.)  Moreover, 1399 persons were forced into quarantine, distributed on 22 quarantine centers across the Gaza Strip while 1969 are placed under home quarantine.[1]

On 19 March 2020, Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said in a statement that he is worried about the potential impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on the Gaza Strip population. He added that the Gaza health care system was collapsing even before the pandemic, because its stocks of essential drugs are chronically low and its natural sources of drinkable water are largely contaminated. He explained that Gaza’s population is also a physically more vulnerable population due to the malnutrition, deteriorating living conditions and high population density. Lynk warned that the possible widespread outbreak of the novel Coronavirus in the besieged Gaza Strip will exacerbate pressures on medical personnel[2].

Furthermore, on 21 March 2020, Mr. Jamie McGoldrick, UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement that there can be frightening consequences of Coronavirus in Gaza Strip due to the high population density and limited health facilities. He added that “we are very concerned about the situation in Gaza Strip, it is a complicated area due to the long-term closure and the imposed-Israeli restrictions that could worsen the situation.”  McGoldrick also believed that the outbreak of Coronavirus in the Gaza Strip would turn it into “an incubator, especially when people get stuck in a densely populated area where health system suffers from the lack of funding, medical resources and equipment”[3].

In light of the fear of a health sector collapse in the Gaza Strip and the foreseeable inability of the healthcare system to deal with patients in the case of a Coronavirus spreads, PCHR:

• Stresses that the primary responsibility for providing medical supplies to the Gaza Strip population lies with Israel and it must take all necessary preventive measures available to combat the spread of infectious diseases in accordance with Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.
• Calls upon the international community and WHO to put pressure on Israel and compel it to comply with its obligations, and to allow the entry of medical supplies and equipment necessary for Coronavirus medical examination.
• Calls upon the international community and humanitarian organizations to provide assistance to the health system in the Gaza Strip, including medical supplies to Gaza Hospitals, in order to combat the spread of Coronavirus.
• Stresses the need for coordination between MOH in Gaza and Ramallah to combat the spread of Coronavirus.
• Calls Upon the Palestinian National Authority to establish a unified higher emergency committee that includes all Palestinian governorates to follow through on the measures taken to combat the spread of Coronavirus, and to disseminate up-to-date information on inflicted cases and access health service.

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Notes

[1] To review MOH’s full report issued on 23 March 2020, visits the following link:https://www.moh.gov.ps/portal/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Corona-23-03-4.pdf

[2] For the full statement issued on 19 March 2020, see the UN News website: https://news.un.org/ar/story/2020/03/1051642

[3] For the full interview published on  21 March 2020, see the UN News website: https://news.un.org/ar/story/2020/03/1051802

The Syrian Army and Iranian-backed militias deployed a new batch of reinforcements to the frontline in southern Idlib and western Aleppo. According to local sources, fresh troops reinforced by armoured vehicles and battle tanks were placed near Saraqib, Kafranbel, and Urma as-Sughra. These areas were the hottest points of the conflict between Syrian troops and Turkish-led forces during the previous round of escalations in Greater Idlib. Turkey and its proxies are also preparing for a new round of confrontations.

During the past week, at least four Turkish military convoys, with battle tanks and even MIM-23 Hawk medium-range air-defense systems, entered Idlib, allegedly to secure the ceasefire regime and contain the terrorist threat. How Turkish troops are planning to use air defense systems against al-Qaeda terrorists that do not have aircraft remains a mystery.

At the same time, sources close to Idlib militants announced that Ankara is forming five new units consisting of its own troops, members of the National Front for Liberation and the Syrian National Army. Both these militant groups are funded and trained by Turkey. The newly formed units will be led by Turkish officers and allegedly include 9,000 Syrian militants and a similar number of Turkish troops. Pro-Turkish sources speculate that this force will be tasked with securing the M4 highway in southern Idlib and clearing the area of radical groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. After this, a security zone will be established and joint Turkish-Russian patrols will be launched in the area as it was agreed to by Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The problem with this theory is that the Turkish-backed groups, which should supposedly be involved in this operation are allied with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other al-Qaeda-linked organizations. So, they will have little motivation to confront them shifting the burden of fighting to Turkish troops.

According to pro-government sources, the Turkish motivation is different. They note that Ankara is very unsatisfied with the performance of their proxies during the recent battle against the Syrian Army. So, it opted to make a new attempt to create elite units that should deliver a devastating blow to the brutal Assad regime that is cowardly resisting the occupation of Syrian territory by Turkey.

Turkish-backed forces also increased their activity in Syria’s northeast. On March 29, the 20th Division of the so-called Syrian National Army attacked positions of Kurdish militias near the village of Sayda. Pro-Turkish sources claimed that a truck equipped with a 23mm machine gun belonging to Kurdish forces was destroyed and that many fighters were killed. Turkish proxies still cherish radiant hopes to capture the nearby town of Ayn Issa thus seizing control of the crossroad of the M4 highway and the Tall Abyad-Raqqah road.

The US-led coalition continues evacuation of smaller bases and regrouping of its forces in Iraq. After the withdrawal of coalition troops from al-Qaim and al-Qayyarah, they left from the Kirkuk K1 base. Means and forces from these facilities will be redeployed to other US bases in the country, mainly Camp Taji. There are no signs of any kind of US troop withdrawal from the country despite the demands from the Baghdad government. To the contrary, the Pentagon recently announced that it was working to deploy Patriot air defense systems to protect US troops in Iraq from missile attacks.

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Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of Germany’s Hesse state, has committed suicide apparently after becoming “deeply worried” over how to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, state premier Volker Bouffier said Sunday (29 March).

Schaefer, 54, was found dead near a railway track on Saturday. The Wiesbaden prosecution’s office said they believe he died by suicide.

“We are in shock, we are in disbelief and above all we are immensely sad,” Bouffier said in a recorded statement.

Hesse is home to Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, where major lenders like Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have their headquarters. The European Central Bank is also located in Frankfurt.

A visibly shaken Bouffier recalled that Schaefer, who was Hesse’s finance chief for 10 years, had been working “day and night” to help companies and workers deal with the economic impact of the pandemic.

“Today we have to assume that he was deeply worried,” said Bouffier, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“It’s precisely during this difficult time that we would have needed someone like him,” he added.

Popular and well-respected, Schaefer had long been touted as a possible successor to Bouffier.

Like Bouffier, Schaefer belonged to Merkel’s centre-right CDU party.

He leaves behind a wife and two children.

Der Tod von Finanzminister Thomas Schäfer erschüttert die Landespolitik. Ministerpräsident Volker Bouffier spricht davon, dass die Sorgen um die Zukunft den Minister „erdrückt“ haben könnten. https://t.co/ElLhkQCjRo

— FAZ Rhein-Main (@FAZ_RheinMain) March 29, 2020

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Featured image: An undated handout photo made available by the Ministry of Finance of German state of Hesse shows Finance Minister Thomas Schaefer. According to the Wiesbaden public prosecutor’s office, the Minister of Finance of Hesse, Thomas Schäfer, was found dead on 28 March 2020. [EPA-EFE/SABRINA FEIGE]

Bulgaria says there is no Macedonian language but rather it is a Bulgarian dialect. There is academic consensus that the Ancient Macedonians were Greek. Albanians claim nearly half of North Macedonia in their project for Greater Albania. North Macedonia is a complex and complicated country, but despite this fact, on Friday, it became NATO’s thirtieth member, with Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, saying “North Macedonia is now part of the NATO family, a family of thirty nations and almost one billion people. A family based on the certainty that, no matter what challenges we face, we are all stronger and safer together.”

There was little surprise that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed jubilation by saying that their membership “will support greater integration, democratic reform, trade, security and stability across the region. North Macedonia’s accession also reaffirms to other aspirants that NATO’s door remains open to those countries willing and able to make the reforms necessary to meet NATO’s high standards, and to accept the responsibilities as well as benefits of membership.” Pompeo is effectively opening the floodgates for more NATO members.

North Macedonia’s accession into NATO marks the completion of one of the key goals of the country since it separated from Yugoslavia, namely the entry into NATO and the European Union. This was made possible by the 2018 Prespa Agreement to end the long-standing name dispute with Greece by changing its name from the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” to the “Republic of North Macedonia.” This ended North Macedonian claims to the legacy of the Ancient Macedonians as Article 7 outlines that they “are not related to the Ancient Hellenic civilization, history, culture and heritage.” With the messy name and historical issue with Greece resolved, North Macedonia was given a clear path to join NATO, taking less than two years from the Prespa Agreement to become a full member, and is now being fast-tracked into the European Union. But why was it necessary for North Macedonia to join NATO? Let’s examine what the 30th NATO member brings to the table:

An active military of 8,000 people with 5,000 in reserve.

An air force consisting of 20 helicopters.

No Navy.

An annual military budget of some $150 million.

North Macedonia brings absolutely nothing of material value to NATO. That is because there is no expectation for North Macedonia to bring any great material value to NATO, and rather its geographic location is of interest to the alliance. North Macedonia is to serve as a base against Serbia and Russian influence in the Balkans, in the same way that other NATO members in the Balkans do, as well as Kosovo’s illegal sovereignty. Of Serbia’s eight neighbours, only Bosnia is not a NATO member, but is ruled from the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. It is unlikely Serbia will join NATO in the near future as 89% of Serbs are against NATO membership according to a 2019 poll. This makes Greece and Serbia the only two countries in the Balkans where NATO is looked at negatively by the majority of the population, as in North Macedonia for example, 66% of the population wanted to join NATO according to a 2018 poll.

NATO wants to complete the process of encircling Serbia, a Russian ally, and has effectively made Serbia an island in the sea of ​​anti-Russian states. NATO hopes that by encircling Serbia, it can force Belgrade to become pro-Western, something that will never happen since it was the West who orchestrated the collapse of Yugoslavia, bombed Serbia mercilessly in 1999 and protected Kosovo’s illegal independence. North Macedonia’s accession is another piece of the puzzle to encircle Serbia, but it becomes all the more confusing why they choose to play this game considering Skopje must increase their military budget to meet NATO standards when 22% of their citizens live in poverty and their GDP is ranked 130 in the world.

Of course, by joining NATO, North Macedonia will hardly pose any threat to Serbia and Russia, but it does put a psychological impact on Belgrade as it continues to feel pressurized to conform to Western demands and question whether they should abandon their Russian allies. This does not discount though that North Macedonia is now simply another periphery state in a disorganized organization that defends American interests and hegemony around the world. But the mutual defense of NATO means that the organization will have to expand its security umbrella even further. There is a very low risk of North Macedonia being attacked by any of its neighbours though, which suggests that besides being aimed against Serbia and Russia, its membership, like all of the small countries in the alliance, like Estonia and Montenegro, is for the U.S. arms industry who continue to profit by selling weapons to these states under the guise of conforming to NATO doctrine.

As we enter the Multipolar Age, North Macedonia is a unique country as it is wedged between the East and West of Europe. Rather than embracing this new world system emerging, one that is being accelerated into existence because of the coronavirus pandemic, it is going into the comfort of the status quo that attempts to maintain U.S. hegemony.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

A civilization or culture is defined as a set of customs, traditions, ethics, values, language, music, dance, gastronomy, clothing, religion, and social and political organization of a people, ethnic group, tribe, or nation.

British scholars of the 19th century classified the peoples and races as Civilized, Barbarians and Savages, based on their respective “evolutions.” Such classification was based primarily on three factors:

1. Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution;
2. the Industrial Revolution in the beginning of industrial capitalism; and
3. the Reformation of the Catholic Church, the schism from which Protestantism arose.

False premises that led to false conclusions.

Such a classification made the field fertile for the appearance of a Capitalist/Protestant ethic, which would produce today’s capitalist system.

The Theory of Evolution (not a science, but a theory) postulates that only the most capable, among the various species of living organisms, survives and evolves. Darwin labeled his theory Survival of the Fittest. This competition for survival and evolution would be in genetic, biological, adaptive and/or mutative terms, in relation to the environment from which they would have evolved and where they would live. Human beings have been labeled Homo Sapiens, representatives of the supposedly most evolved species–the most apt. The civilized, barbaric and savages represented an attempt to hierarchize Homo Sapiens.

To speak of capitalist ethics is to incur a contradiction in terms as capitalism does not have an ethic, but a single overriding value: profits. On the other hand, a Protestant ethics is based on the Old Testament of the Bible and on the doctrine of Martin Luther that God, a supposedly elderly, male, white entity, distributes His blessings in the form of material wealth, power, good life to those most deserving and for whom He feels greater affection. The subtext is that the poor are poor because they are sinners. And Jesus, the messiah son of that God, was a white Jew. The pieces fit together historically.

• In the Civilized category would be the European, white and Christian colonial empires, with Anglo-Saxons being the civilized par excellence.
• Labeled as Barbarians would be Asians (yellow skinned, in their classification), nomadic peoples, Arabs and North Africans, Eskimos, all non-Christians (pagans), as well as all dark-skinned races that were not in the category of savages, such as the Indians (from India).
• Finally, the Savages would be the inhabitants of black Africa, the Indians of the American continent, the so-called primitives of the Pacific Islands: Aborigines, Maori, Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, etc., and cannibals.

Barbarians

The only two other civilizations respected by this novel Western Civilization were the Greek and the Roman, their progenitors–not very civilized to be sure, built and sustained by wars, conquests and slavery.

There were also the Slaves, captured like animals from the Savage group, who in the 19th century came predominantly from the native peoples of sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. Christians believed that these savages, like animals, did not have a soul. Hence the legality and morality of their objectification by Christians who sold them as merchandise. Arabs also exploited the slave trade, a major source of investment/profits.

A corollary of such doctrines and beliefs were attempts to ‘civilize’ barbarians and savages through Christian missions that would take European religious organizations to evangelize the African, American and Asian continents, as well as the Pacific Islands. Such missions gave rise to genocides and exterminations of nations and native peoples who refused to be ‘evangelized’ and ‘civilized’. Spain (Corona de Castilla) is an extreme example of this in South and Central America where its conquistadores decimated the Inca, Maya and Aztec civilizations among others. The religious missions exist and persist today, albeit in derisory numbers and without much influence and credibility.

From the First to the Third World

The 20th century witnessed a change in the English classification, with the advent of Communism in Eastern Europe. The conceptualization of the divisions was then redefined as First World, Second World and Third World.

• Within the First World, were grouped the most affluent capitalist societies that were economically, politically and/or militarily dominant, and whose citizens were Jewish-Christians of white color.
• As Second World, were labeled all those countries that adopted the Communist/Marxist-atheist ideology/economy.
• And the Third World was left with everybody else: poor, destitute, barbarians, savages, all people of color, etc.; the majority of earth’s population.

God remains a white entity who rewards material wealth, and civilized Anglo Saxons and Judeo-Christians remain His chosen people.

After WWII, the divisions were renamed by the International Monetary Fund as Developed, Developing and Underdeveloped countries (IMF country classification.pdf). These labels remain in effect with the prejudices intact in the world’s deep culture/structure.

In this new characterization, all non-economic considerations were then discarded. Japan and the Soviet Union, for example, were accepted into the exclusive Developed Club of the First Civilized World, although the Japanese were Eastern, non-Christian and non-white, and the Soviets were Communists and atheists.

The North American empire claimed world leadership from the British empire and the Capitalist/Protestant ethics, with Anglo-Saxons always at the helm, acquired an irresistible and unstoppable momentum, with science and technology, the planet’s riches and resources becoming servants of the lords of capital.

The outcome of WWII was the determining factor for the definitive establishment of the capitalist market economy globally. It overcame Socialism/Communism and today stands above all the governments of the planet whose armed forces, police, and intelligence services are manipulated and used against anyone and everything that dares to challenge the Free Market Capitalist Economy whose foundation are the banks, central banks, financial institutions, hedge funds, and so on. A Mafia–by definition–getting what they need/want through lethal force, sanctions, Machiavellic manipulations, bullying, threats, and so forth.

Slavery of the Mind and Lack of Ethics

At the same time, unification has developed–complicity I would say–between economic, military, political, religious, intellectual, media and scientific elites from all countries in any of the categories. The New World Order of the third millennium is characterized by haves vs have nots, that is, who accumulates money vs. who is prevented from doing so. The number of billionaires grows exponentially with the spread of misery: the famous 1% against the remaining 99%. The class war that Karl Marx’s foresaw–also two centuries ago–hitting the bull’s eye. The present rat race is who is going to be the first individual trillionaire. Money addiction by definition. Keep in mind that this is all under the same Capitalist/Protestant/Judaic/Industrial Revolution/Anglo Saxon/Civilized ‘ethics.’

Today slavery is of the mind, conscience, awareness, aided by the Main Stream Corporate Entertainment Social Media and communication technology. Wall Street is a Church. The goals–profits, favors, privileges, powers–justify any means necessary. Armies are their faithful servants. Does this survival of the fittest have anything to do with that advocated by Darwin two centuries ago? Is this state of affairs natural, normal? We are destroying the planet–its oceans, rivers, forests, insects, animals, the atmosphere–for whom or what to be the fittest? Those who win a nuclear war? Something went definitely wrong on the way to heaven.

We must extinguish from our collective psyche the idea that human beings are naturally divided into economic, social, or other spurious classes by birth. We learned to reason collectively from within the confines of the Theory of Evolution [a theory and not a science, I repeat], which implies competition rather than cooperation. The nomenclature has changed and adapted to new conditions, but the prejudice remains; it must be eliminated. We are not royals or commoners, slaves, barbarians, savages, capitalists or workers; our primary identity is humans. Period.

Global finance capitalism is not and should not be seen as a last word. Its greatest deficiency lies in providing an unequal, unjust and unfair distribution of wealth between producers/capitalists/shareholders and wage-workers, consumers. The cruelty and aggression  of this system against nature reached its peak at the beginning of this century, especially among international elites that, allied, constitute the aristocracy that nourishes and maintains the royal family of industrialized countries, the most apt among the Fittest. What a farce! A false, illusory and illogical socio-economic engineering that is incompatible with the intelligence, compassion, imagination and nobility of character inherent in human beings and humanity, revealed in the arts, culture, science, even in the new technologies unfortunately used primarily to kill, control and dominate for selfish delusional purposes.

The three pillars of high finance and international movers are:

1. oil,
2. armaments (legal and illegal),
3. drugs (legal and illegal).

International capitalism has become hopelessly dependent on the activities of organized crime, in fact adopting its Modus Operandi.

Government officials are hostage to their complicity with lobbies. The mafia entered the system and imposed its ethics. This state of affairs is not resolved with terrorism, but with radical changes not only in the paradigms of economic, political and social structures, but also and especially in the minds, in the individual consciences/consciousnesses that are beget in the womb of reality. We are the builders of our own realities–from the personal to the collective.

Need for an Alternative

For each Hitler there is a Gandhi. For each Trump there is a Nelson Mandela. For each Bolsonaro or Boris there is a Luther King. Those who are not part of the solution are, by necessity, part of the problem in a world with a record population of close to 8 billion interdependent beings where everyone affects everyone and nobody is an island. We represent a colony on earth—not a globalization construct, not merely numbers, statistics or resources to be exploited.

It is undeniable that societies classified as Civilized, First World or Developed, led by the USA and the West but spread throughout, retain the reins of world markets, politics, economics and culture, being the main producers of weapons, technology, science and atmospheric pollutants as well as wealth (or poverty, depending on the viewpoint) and materialistic values. As such, they also retain the greater share of responsibility for the misery that spreads throughout the so-called Third World. After the fragmentation of the former Soviet Union, the number of members of the underdeveloped has increased, not because poverty has expanded, but because the labels have changed places. In English, there is a rhyme: the West and the Rest.

We need a viable alternative–more benign–to the ‘trickle down’ economy, more aptly named ‘trickle up,’ which slowly and inexorably corrodes and erodes the spirit of nobility in everyone’s character, whether labeled or believed to be civilized, barbaric or savage. We become slaves to the monster we believe in, our Leviathan. The so-called Capitalist/Protestant ethics is outrageous, ignominious. God is not the God of the affluent, white people. This is an incongruity, heretic, unadulterated primitivism.

Our mental paradigm must change, both individually and collectively, towards cooperation, nonviolence, conflict resolution by peaceful means, and sharing–with equity and reciprocity–of the planet’s resources, instead of lethal competition for them; passing through the elimination of sick nationalisms and sociopathic and homicidal patriotisms that kill legally en masse. Our mental constructions must be modified by ourselves, by education, and not by the state. If there were no soldiers logically there would be no wars as generals do not fight each other. We must achieve a degree of civilization that does not require authority, police, justice, militarism or weapons of any type or size for collective control and destruction. Replaced by social servants, leaders. Utopia? I believe not; if we work for it.

United in our diversity and accepting our differences instead of dividing us into races, we may, in any future, acquire a Consciousness of Civilized Beings–and act on it. Without this shift in consciousness any other meaningful change is unlikely as Darwin’s myopic and ethnocentric theory will continue to influence our lives, private and public, and our spiritual (not religious) evolution.

I recommend the works of Prof. Johan Galtung.

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This article was originally published on Transcend Media Service.

Antonio Carlos da Silva Rosa (Antonio C. S. Rosa), born 1946, is founder-editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS (from 2008), an assistant to Prof. Johan Galtung, Secretary of the International Board of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, and recipient of the Psychologists for Social Responsibility’s2017 Anthony J. Marsella Prize for the Psychology of Peace and Social Justice.

All images in this article are from TMS

This Forbes Opinion Article was first published on Forbes in February 2010 under the title Why the WHO Faked the Pandemic. (edit to the title)

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The World Health Organization has suddenly gone from crying “The sky is falling!” like a cackling Chicken Little to squealing like a stuck pig. The reason: charges that the agency deliberately fomented swine flu hysteria [in 2009]. “The world is going through a real pandemic. The description of it as a fake is wrong and irresponsible,” the agency claims on its Web site. A WHO spokesman declined to specify who or what gave this “description,” but the primary accuser is hard to ignore.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), a human rights watchdog, is publicly investigating the WHO’s motives in declaring a pandemic. Indeed, the chairman of its influential health committee, epidemiologist Wolfgang Wodarg, has declared that the “false pandemic” is “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century.”

Even within the agency, the director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Epidemiology in Munster, Germany, Dr. Ulrich Kiel, has essentially labeled the pandemic a hoax. “We are witnessing a gigantic misallocation of resources [$18 billion so far] in terms of public health,” he said.

They’re right. This wasn’t merely overcautiousness or simple misjudgment. The pandemic declaration and all the Klaxon-ringing since reflect sheer dishonesty motivated not by medical concerns but political ones.

Unquestionably, swine flu has proved to be vastly milder than ordinary seasonal flu. It kills at a third to a tenth the rate, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. Data from other countries like France and Japan indicate it’s far tamer than that.

Indeed, judging by what we’ve seen in New Zealand and Australia (where the epidemics have ended), and by what we’re seeing elsewhere in the world, we’ll have considerably fewer flu deaths this season than normal. That’s because swine flu muscles aside seasonal flu, acting as a sort of inoculation against the far deadlier strain.

Did the WHO have any indicators of this mildness when it declared the pandemic in June?

Absolutely, as I wrote at the time. We were then fully 11 weeks into the outbreak and swine flu had only killed 144 people worldwide–the same number who die of seasonal flu worldwide every few hours. (An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 per year by the WHO’s own numbers.) The mildest pandemics of the 20th century killed at least a million people.

But how could the organization declare a pandemic when its own official definition required “simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.” Severity–that is, the number of deaths–is crucial, because every year flu causes “a global spread of disease.”

Easy. In May, in what it admitted was a direct response to the outbreak of swine flu the month before, WHO promulgated a new definition matched to swine flu that simply eliminated severity as a factor. You could now have a pandemic with zero deaths.

Under fire, the organization is boldly lying about the change, to which anybody with an Internet connection can attest. In a mid-January virtual conference WHO swine flu chief Keiji Fukuda stated: “Did WHO change its definition of a pandemic? The answer is no: WHO did not change its definition.” Two weeks later at a PACE conference he insisted: “Having severe deaths has never been part of the WHO definition.”

They did it; but why?

In part, it was CYA for the WHO. The agency was losing credibility over the refusal of avian flu H5N1 to go pandemic and kill as many as 150 million people worldwide, as its “flu czar” had predicted in 2005.

Around the world nations heeded the warnings and spent vast sums developing vaccines and making other preparations. So when swine flu conveniently trotted in, the WHO essentially crossed out “avian,” inserted “swine,” and WHO Director-General Margaret Chan arrogantly boasted, “The world can now reap the benefits of investments over the last five years in pandemic preparedness.”

But there’s more than bureaucratic self-interest at work here. Bizarrely enough, the WHO has also exploited its phony pandemic to push a hard left political agenda.

In a September speech WHO Director-General Chan said “ministers of health” should take advantage of the “devastating impact” swine flu will have on poorer nations to get out the message that “changes in the functioning of the global economy” are needed to “distribute wealth on the basis of” values “like community, solidarity, equity and social justice.” She further declared it should be used as a weapon against “international policies and systems that govern financial markets, economies, commerce, trade and foreign affairs.”

Chan’s dream now lies in tatters. All the WHO has done, says PACE’s Wodarg, is to destroy “much of the credibility that they should have, which is invaluable to us if there’s a future scare that might turn out to be a killer on a large scale.”

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Michael Fumento is director of the nonprofit Independent Journalism Project, where he specializes in health and science issues. He may be reached at [email protected].

No matter what’s the origin of COVID-19, the response to this virus lead to a series of drastic and unprecedented changes on a global level. The dystopian future is now. Here’s how this pandemic created the largest human experiment in history.

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The response to the COVID-19 pandemic launched the largest human experiment in world history. At the moment of writing these lines, over a third of the global human population is forced into confinement. Furthermore, the global economy came to a screeching halt as several governments ordered the closing of all non-essential businesses.

Never in world history have we seen such sweeping and far-reaching measures that affect each individual at such a profound level. In a matter of weeks, the ability of billions to move around freely and to earn a livelihood completely vanished.

While these measures are said to be temporary in order to stop the propagation of the virus, an important fact remains: They’ve actually become a reality. And this means that they can easily become a reality at any point and time in the future.

Although it is comforting to think that our governments have our health and best interests at heart, it is rather naive to believe that the most powerful people in the world do not see this pandemic as an amazing opportunity. One of the elite’s favorite sayings is “never let a good crisis go to waste”. And this crisis is definitely not going to waste. This pandemic has enabled the “testing” of various authoritarian measures that are exactly in line with the world elite’s long-term plans. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a better plan to simultaneously terrify, isolate, subdue, impoverish and demoralize a society as a whole – creating the perfect context to reshape to fit specific interests.

In short, the dystopian future is now. For years, this site has been warning about plans for a world government that is based on intense mass media indoctrination and high-tech police state surveillance. We are living all of this now – to a degree that many of us did not even fathom a few weeks ago.

If this global lockdown lasts a few weeks, the world might recover and regain some sort of normality (until the next crisis). However, if this goes on months (as some experts predict), the impact on society will take on biblical proportions.

Here’s a look at the many facets of this lockdown and their possible long-term impact on humanity as a whole.

Mass Media Takeover

Mass media preparing the masses for a long crisis.

The first “symptom” of COVID-19 was the complete takeover of mass media on a global level. Nearly every media source – no matter its target audience or niche interest – switched to 24/7 COVID coverage. All other news topics became irrelevant and got evacuated from the public discourse. Nearly all forms of entertainment – most notably professional sports – were put on hold, forcing people to solely focus on the pandemic.

In newspapers, scoreboards displaying sports results were replaced with a morbid “deaths and confirmed cases” scoreboard that is custom-made to generate fear. Every day, billions of humans anxiously follow these “scores”, knowing that their freedom and livelihood depend solely on these government-issued numbers. If the numbers do not go down, the confinement goes on.

As COVID-19 took over mass media, popular culture as a whole instantly turned into a barren wasteland. There are no new cultural products and no artists releasing material that could ease minds, provide some entertainment or, perhaps, provide some much-needed insight. Most artists are reduced to social media “influencers” who repeat the Orwellian orders heard everywhere else around the world: “Stay home and wash your hands”.

In short, nearly all forms of social and cultural distractions were replaced with wall-to-wall COVID coverage. As people consume a steady stream of frightful news, levels of anxiety keep going up, creating an ideal context for the introduction of police-state measures. And these measures were welcomed with thundering applause.

High Tech Police State

Chinese citizens must show a government-issued QR code on their phone in order to take public transportation.

The threat of a deadly pandemic is the perfect context to introduce aggressive police state tactics. People are scared and they want to see decisive measures taken by their government. However, once this is all said and done, will society recover 100% of its freedoms? Or will it gradually go back to about 50%, celebrating each percent as a victory?

The first casualty of the pandemic was air travel. Simply put, it just stopped. All flights were canceled and people abroad were told to go back home as soon as possible. Once everyone got home, everyone was told to remain home. Then, in a matter of days, governments went from banning “large gatherings” to banning gatherings of “2+ people”.

These unprecedented restrictions on human contact generated a climate of fear and paranoia as people began to alert authorities of illegal gathering. While these “snitches” would argue that “the faster the epidemic is eradicated, the faster we all return to normalcy”, precedents are being set.

Police in India beat lockdown violators with sticks.

The pandemic has also justified the use of high tech surveillance at a level never seen before. Here are some examples from around the world:

In China, government-installed CCTV cameras point at the apartment door of those under a 14-day quarantine to ensure they don’t leave. Drones tell people to wear their masks. Digital barcodes on mobile apps highlight the health status of individuals.

In Singapore, the government rolled out an app called TraceTogether. It uses Bluetooth signals between cellphones to see if potential carriers of the coronavirus have been in close contact with other people.

Over in Hong Kong, some residents were made to wear a wristband which linked to a smartphone app and could alert authorities if a person left their place of quarantine.

In South Korea, the government used records such as credit card transactions, smartphone location data and CCTV video as well as conversations with people, to create a system where confirmed cases were tracked. The result was a map that could tell people whether they had gone near a coronavirus carrier.

On Thursday, the South Korean government launched an enhanced tool that it says can help track patients even more closely in near real time, in order to see where the disease was moving.

Meanwhile, Israel’s security agency Shin Bet is using citizens’ cell phone location data to track where they’ve been so they can enforce quarantine controls and monitor the movements of those infected. Controversially, the data has been collected over the past few years and intended to for counterterrorism purposes, the New York Times reported. The newspaper said this data trove and the collection of it had not been previously reported.

Some parts of India were stamping the hands of people arriving at airports telling them how long they had to be quarantined, Reuters reported. Reservation data from airlines and trains were being monitored to make sure those people didn’t travel, the report added. In the south Indian state of Kerala, authorities have been using a mixture of telephone call records, surveillance camera footage and phone location data to track down people who may have been in contact with coronavirus patients.

In the U.S., the government is talking to Facebook, Google and other tech companies about the possibility of using location and movement data from Americans’ smartphones to combat coronavirus.
– CNBC, Use of surveillance to fight coronavirus raises concerns about government power after pandemic ends

“We have absolutely no reason to believe that the government agencies that are eager to expand their power in response to COVID-19 will be willing to see those authorities lapse once the virus is eradicated.”

Major Economy Shift

Initial unemployment insurance claims in the United States. From 2010 to 2020, a steady decline … until a sudden and historical peak.

COVID-19 incited several governments to enact a controversial measure: The closing of all non-essential businesses. This led to millions of workers to instantly losing their jobs. It also led to some unhealthy wheeling-and-dealings with governments to determine which businesses are deemed essential or not.

While most major corporations will weather the storm and hire back employees, a great number of small and medium businesses will not survive the shutdown.

The situation also creates clear winners: Major chains such as Walmart, Costco, Walgreens, McDonald’s and Amazon. In fact, due to a staggering jump in sales, Amazon recently announced the hiring over 100,000 employees to help cope with the demand. However, not unlike most jobs available at these major chains, the offered pay nears minimum wage.

If the lockdown persists, we can expect a major shift in the global economy: Small and medium businesses will struggle and die while gigantic entities will thrive as they turn into monolithic “distribution centers” for essential goods.

To prevent a complete crash of the global economy, governments announced trillions of dollars in financial aid to those impacted by the shutdown. However, this money does not come out of thin air: It will result in massive debts and, most likely, higher taxes. In poorer countries, financial aid is rare or non-existent – a recipe for impending chaos.

In the end, all economic crises always end up favoring the elite. The net result of the financial crash of 2008 (and its bailouts) led to the funneling of tens of trillions of dollars from the pockets of the middle class towards the world elite. This COVID crisis will most likely end with similar results.

In Conclusion

While the above assessment might seem grim, it is an objective analysis of a planet in lockdown. In a matter of weeks, the entire planet went from normalcy to fear, panic, paranoia, confinement, unemployment, police-state surveillance and extreme social distancing. Millions of citizens who thrived on freedom and free enterprise are now on “house-arrest” and must rely on the government for subsistence.

Although the absolute necessity of these measures is up for debate, there is no possible debate about their necessity once the virus is gone. And we need to make sure that the dystopian nightmare we are living now does not become permanent. Because, right now, some power-hungry people are salivating and they will only want more of this.

In these critical times, we must keep track of the many ways society is being altered and we must make sure that, once the virus is gone, liberty is fully restored. Because, as Thomas Jefferson said: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”.

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The New York Times of March 20, asks rhetorically – “Is Our Fight Against Coronavirus Worse Than the Disease?”

A Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in relation to China’s novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) categorized  as a viral pneumonia. was declared by WHO’s Director General, Dr. Tedros on 30 January 2020, when outside of China there were only 150 WHO-registered infections.

This declaration – nowhere justified – has devastating effects on the entire world population and the world’s socioeconomic fabric. The globe is literally on lock-down, until – who knows – but the latest date put forward by President Trump is 12 April 2020. It can almost be taken for granted that the date will have global validity. The world at large dances to the tune of the United States.

Some ten days ago, Mr. Trump declared, that this “situation” is enough and that it is time to get the economy working again. He is a business man and knows best. He suggested March 30 for going back to work. He then must have gotten instructions from his higher-ups, that more time was needed – this is just my guess – to prepare whatever sinister plan is in the making. So, he postponed by two weeks the “back-to-normal” day.

The coronavirus, COVID-19, has a catastrophic impact on the world, on the population, on the economy, and most importantly on the livelihoods of about a quarter of the world population, who are at the margin or below the level of vulnerability and precariousness. Without work, even occasional, hourly or daily work to make some money to buy food, these people are doomed – doomed to die from disease, famine or sheer neglect. Their disappearance will be unnoticed. They are the non-people.

This fake global public health emergency (January 30) was imposed on almost every country of the 193 UN members. It is “fake”, because when it was declared, as said before, there were only 150 cases outside of China, in a population of 6.4 billion people.

This is by no stretch of imagination a pandemic.  (While the PHEIC was declared on January 30th, the pandemic was casually confirmed by the WHO Director General on March 11)

Noteworthy is, this decision was taken by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos (21 – 24 January 2020), behind closed doors, by an entirely non-medical, but political body. Dr. Tedros, WHO’s DG, who for the first time in WHO’s history, is not a medical doctor, was present.

The short- medium- and long-term impact of this decision will be of a dimension that nobody can fathom at this time. It may bring a paradigm shift in our lives and society that mankind has never experienced in the last 200 years and beyond.

In Germany, scientists with integrity start moving, standing up against authority, telling them the facts. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, sent an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling for urgent re-evaluation of the response to Covid-19, asking the Chancellor five crucial questions. This is the letter, dated 26 March 2020.

Professor Sucharit Bhakdi explaining his Open Letter (turn on subtitles and translation)

What about China? You may ask. China is different. Virologists in Wuhan found out very early that what was originally called 2019-nCoV (renamed by WHO to COVID-19), was nothing else but a stronger mutation of the SARS virus that hit Hong Kong and China in 2002 / 2003 and which killed worldwide 774 people. Since the SARS virus was tailor-made for the Chinese genome, Chinese scientists knew that its new and stronger mutation was also focused on the Chinese DNA.

China also knew, since it was a lab-made virus, that it came from outside, probably from the US which is waging an economic war against China. A deadly virus may be an ideal -and invisible – tool to weaken China and her economy. Therefore, without a moment of hesitation, China declared as quarantine large areas of the country, and later proceeded to a complete lock-down. Thanks to this fast reaction by President Xi and the people’s discipline, China is now in control of COVID-19 – and her economy is rapidly recovering.

It looks like “a global coup d’état” – carried out in selected countries imposing curfew and even house arrest on everyone – not by guns or bombs, not by rolling tanks in the streets and an oppressive police force, but – by an invisible tiny-tiny enemy, a microscopic virus. Can you imagine! Its sheer genius. Controlling the world by – a virus. You have to give it them. The 0.01% has brought the 99.99 % to their knees – and begging, begging for mercy. Begging for vaccinations, ignorant of the cocktail of substances that this malignant dark force may want to inject into your body. Please, please bring us vaccines. People will run into the streets – when it is allowed again – offering their arms and bodies to anyone who comes with a syringe.

The injections include many nefarious agents that sterilize, that may bring long-term neurological damage – damages that may be passed on to future generations, DNA-manipulating proteins – life-reducing agents? Injections may also comprise an electronic nano-chip that keeps track of all personal data, from health records to bank accounts. At the stage of total despair, people are not interested. They want to get rid of fear and sleep again in peace at night.

The 2009 H1N1 Swine flu Pandemic

This man-made outbreak of a pandemic is not new. Of course, it’s never mentioned in the mainstream media, that the corona virus COVID-19 is laboratory-made (and so are SARS, MERS, H1N1 Swine Flu, Ebola, Zika and many more), and that outbreaks can be and are being targeted on specific populations. In fact, the infamous Plan for a New American Century (PNAC), which is still very much alive, in its update of 2000, mentions on p.60 – that future wars may not be fought with conventional or nuclear weapons, but with invisible agents, biological weapons, viruses which are more effective than conventional weapons and don’t destroy infrastructure.

The new corona is the making of a bonanza for Big Pharma. It was planned for years, and patterned on the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak, or the H1N1 virus. The latter lasted for about a year – April 2009 to April 2010. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Swine flu killed about 12,500 people in the US, and caused worldwide about 300,000 deaths. (These CDC estimates were questionable. Were they backed up by lab exams? In most cases they were not in a position to differentiate between H1N1 and the seasonal flu).

Then, like today, WHO declared a pandemic – green light for the pharma industry to race for the production of a vaccine. The Big Pharma promised they could produce 4.9 billion H1N1 vaccines – they delivered millions to governments – which by the time they arrived were no longer used, because the flu was over. The taxpayers paid billions in vain. Since the annual flu mutates from year to year, there was no use to keep the vaccines. What some governments did, though – listen to this! – they sent them to Africa as development assistance, where the vaccines, of course, were equally useless.

Media Disinformation

Today, we are again confronted with a tireless 24 x 7 propaganda machine, dishing out fear and anxiety — because of an invisible virus. An enemy that cannot be seen by the population. An enemy that cannot be followed, for example, how it spreads, or doesn’t spread. An enemy that the people just have to believe the authorities exists. How clever! Propaganda and fear are enough to dominate within a few weeks the entire world population.

For example, a new Oxford University Study concluded that COVID-19 most likely exists in the UK since January 2020, and that in the meantime about half of the British population has been infected, and is, thereby, immunized against the virus. Most people have none or only mild symptoms. This would mean that only about 1 out of 1,000 infected people needs to be hospitalized, this corresponds to the common flu or less. Here is the study.

An American physician and the founding director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, Dr. David Katz, says:

“I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near-total meltdown of normal life — schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned — will be long-lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself. The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order.”

Nobody of those who hyped-up the pandemic-panic seems to have a clear view of the Big Picture. Government officials around the world are co-opted. They follow orders. They know they must. Or else. This is an important step to bring about this gigantic societal paradigm change for the New World Order (NWO) to reign. It involves a shift or enormous sums of resources over time, in the trillions, are being moved from the common people to a small powerful financial elite.

Key Organization: Agenda ID2020

There is a little-known agency, called Agenda ID2020 which is behind implementing the broader agenda. – The Agenda ID2020 is a public-private partnership, including UN agencies and civil society. Key partners include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (co-founder), the Rockefeller Foundation (co-founder), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance that “brings together public and private sectors with the shared goal of creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries”; Accenture, A global management consulting and professional services firm; and IDEO.Org, an international consulting firm, “to design products, services, and experiences to improve the lives of people in poor and vulnerable communities.”

Agenda ID2020’s principal objective is implementing an electronic ID program that uses generalized vaccination as a platform for digital identity. In May 2016, at the impulse of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Office for Partnership (UNOFP) organized an international Summit in New York to create Agenda ID2020. According to the Summit’s own website, Agenda ID2020 is a strategic, global initiative launched in response to the Sustainable Development Goal 16.9:

“Provide legal identity to all, including birth registration, by 2030 …. harnessing Digital Identity for the Global Community…. Around one-fifth of the world’s population (1.8 billion people) is without legal identity, which deprives them of access to healthcare, schools, shelter.”

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 16 is to “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.” To implement and justify this objective, the vaccination king, Bill Gates, needed a special sub-goal, No.16.9 – see above.

Agenda ID2020 is closely linked to GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization – also a Bill Gates creation. Gavi identifies itself on its website as a global health partnership of public and private sector organizations dedicated to “immunization for all”. GAVI is supported by WHO, and needless to say, its main partners and sponsors are the pharma-industry.

The ID2020 Alliance at their 2019 Summit, entitled “Rising to the Good ID Challenge”, in September 2019 in New York, decided to roll out their program in 2020, a decision confirmed by the WEF in January 2020 in Davos.

Event 201: Simulating a Worldwide Epidemic 

Curiously, on October 18, 2020, The Gates Foundation, WEF and the John Hopkins Institute for Public Health sponsored Event 201 in New York City. Essentially, Event 201 focused on simulating a worldwide epidemic, which was coincidentally based on the SARS outbreak and called 2019-nCoV, the name first given to the outbreak in China, before WHO changed it to a more generic form, COVID-19.

The simulation resulted over an 18-month period in 65 million deaths worldwide, a stock market dive of 15%-plus and countless bankruptcies and unemployment. Just a few weeks later, the first 2019-nCoV infected person was identified in Wuhan. Coincidence?

Is it also just a coincidence that ID2020 is being rolled out at the onset of what WHO calls a Pandemic? – Or is a pandemic needed to ‘roll out’ the multiple devastating programs of ID2020? – See this.

After three months of the outbreak, and only two weeks of complete world lock-down, we can already see signs of disastrous obliteration as the stock market dove at least 30%, wiping out savings of small investors, bringing about bankruptcies of millions and millions of small and medium-sized enterprises around the globe, creating unemployment of biblical proportions, untold misery, poverty  famine – and deaths – by starvation, rooflessness, despair, absence of health care – and ultimately suicide.

The New York Times reports on 27 March, more than 3.3 million new claims for unemployment benefits, in an economy that is coming apart. President Trump on 27 March signed a bill for US$ 2 billion as a rescue package. Nobody really knows whom and how this money should benefit the desperate and jobless, the hungry and homeless. This money is peanuts, as compared to the overall damage to the US economy alone. Now, at the beginning of the crisis it is estimated at between US$ 3 and US$ 5 trillion, about a fourth of US GDP. Worldwide – US$ 10 to US$ 20 trillion? And, we are far from the end if the calamity.

In developing countries, or the Global South, where poverty for a large proportion of the population is already rampant, the impact of this man-made disaster is even worse- and potentially irreversible. The NYT reports that an estimated 1.7 billion people worldwide are in an acute precariousness.

Developing countries, especially big cities, have a large “informal” sector – often 30% or higher of the so-called work-force – which consists mostly of younger people from age 15 to 35, who have no fix jobs, who find occasional work on a daily or hourly basis on meekly wages that allow them just barely to survive. With small enterprises or construction sites coming to a halt – going broke in most cases, these people have no longer not even a minimal income. Their numbers will grow, as the economy is spiraling further into recession, the magnitude of which is uncertain, but most likely gigantic – and possibly irrecoverable.

These people, moneyless, roofless, hungry, and often sick and desperate, they may turn to crime, or to suicide. In Greece, for example, according to the Lancet, the suicide rate increased almost exponentially after the 2008 / 2009 also man-made debt-driven depression (by Greece’s European traitors). Crime rates may explode. Hungry people have nothing to lose. Looting supermarkets for food and other shops for cash – is nothing new. Shanty towns in Europe and North America may rapidly proliferate. Migration to rich or richer countries my explode.

Countries will be offered “rescue” type loans by the sorts of the World Bank and the IMF. The WB has already offered at least US$ 12 billion to alleviate the adversities of the COVID-19 crisis. The IMF started out with US$ 50 billion, and now following demand – from an estimated already 60 countries, upped the ante to a trillion. Some IMF board members call for the creation of a special fund of up to 4 trillion SDRs (Special Drawing Rights).

The “rescue” of these countries will be sheer debt bondage – even if low interest – debt has to be repaid and the collateral is privatization of social services, infrastructure, concessions to foreign corporations to exploit their natural resources, oil, gas, forests, water, minerals, all what the rich oligarchs who stand behind this criminal Agenda ID2020 covet. And so, another shuffling of funds from the grassroots to the top will take place – and further dependence and enslavement of people and entire nations is in the books.

The next step in this paradigm shift is uncertain may not follow immediately after this corona-crisis.

That would be too obvious. Instead there may be a respite – where the people may breathe – and forget. Yes, forget. Because that is an important tool of those who manage and manipulate humanity, our forgetfulness. We may ask ourselves, what makes very-very rich and powerful people so pathologically inhumane for wanting to dominate not only mankind, but the entire Mother Earth with all her rich resources? What is it that brings about so much evil? – I don’t have the answer.

On a Positive Note…

After Dark follows Light. That’s a universal law of nature. And as the saying goes, every dark cloud has a silver lining. Might it be that this low-intensity ticking of the world may have an earth rejuvenating effect? Big portions of industrial pollutions have been wiped out, and healthier, oxygenated air moves in. Air and water are in constant transition. They move fast and endlessly. Even a short break in the lambasting of nature may bring bright results – which in turn, may inspire changes in human behavior. And a whole new ecological ball game may emerge.

Trees are breathing again, the sea starting to regenerate her constantly moving marine life, heavy industrial chimneys spewing out carbon dioxide have stopped – the skies got bluer, the grass greener, insects return and are happily chirping away – and the birds start singing again? – A dream? Some of it may have begun – there may be some humans who awakened to this new potentially cleaner, healthier and safer environment, a world of smiles that reflects the light that is gradually replacing the dark. New, clean and safe life-sustaining activities may be born and coming to light. We don’t know. But we hope. Dynamics are unpredictable, but endless.

We, mankind, do have the spiritual capacity to abandon the disaster path of western neoliberal capitalism, and instead espouse solidarity, compassion and love for each other, for our society and for Mother Earth, nourishing the emerging new era of Light.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world, in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press, TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

My dear fellow citizens,

I am a virologist, specialist in coronaviruses and respiratory diseases, whose views differ significantly from the experts who advise the government on the management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The situation is dire and I would like to offer you a clear plan for getting out of the health, economic and social crisis that Belgium and the rest of the world are facing.

Everything I am proposing is based on the basic principles of public health that have been known since ancient times; and the history of the five pandemics of the previous five centuries has only one refrain, the cities and the countries that emerge from pandemics relatively unscathed are those that respect these rules, the others pay their tribute. It was true yesterday, it is true today, it is enough to see how Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore handled the crisis from the start, and how China and South Korea recovered. Contrary to what the Prime Minister says, there are countries that are doing very well in their handling of this crisis.

The urgency of the situation

The very first principle of public health in a response to a pandemic can be summed up in one word, EMERGENCY! Always answer right away with absolutely all means available, as this is the best and only reasonable way to flatten the curve. Every hour counts, every hour lost means more people infected, more people hospitalized, more deaths, it’s just basic math.

If you hurt your fingertip and the wound becomes infected, you have to act quickly. Otherwise, your entire finger, then your hand and finally your arm will be affected. It’s the same with the population in the event of a pandemic, it’s an exact analogy. The infectious agent spreads from cell to cell in our body before infecting it in its entirety if we do not stop it, and in the same way the coronavirus spreads from individual to individual in our social body, and we must do everything to stop it, immediately, without any delay.

My point of view differs from that of other experts, and for me, the fault lies first of all with the WHO. They made two errors with absolutely catastrophic consequences in their management of this crisis. The first was to believe that this new coronavirus was transmitted in the same way as the two recently emerged coronaviruses, SARS and MERS. It is the classic mistake of generals to prepare for the coming war by thinking that it will be a repetition of the previous one. They dig fortified trenches, put heavy artillery in bunkers, and then a blitzkrieg overruns them.

SARS and MERS were not very contagious for respiratory viruses, and from an epidemiological point of view we knew for example that the contagion only happened when the patient was already sick for 4-5 days, which explains that for these two epidemics the virus was spread mostly to relatives and attending medical staff.

Our public health measures are not suitable for COVID-19

By contrast, COVID-19 is transmitted before the onset of symptoms, which implies that public health measures which could control a virus like SARS and MERS (but only if they were rigorously applied, with quarantine of people returning from risk area, and mass screening), could never be sufficient to contain such a contagious virus.

This contagiousness, comparable to that of rubella or mumps before vaccination, implies that this virus can only spread like wildfire in an immunologically naive population. And a virus capable of being transmitted by aerosol can only explain this contagiousness; it is a property of practically all respiratory viruses, SARS and MERS being notable exceptions to the rule.

The WHO has in fact admitted in a press release that aerosol transmission is possible and requires more study, when we don’t have time for more study. I worked in an institute dedicated to respiratory diseases and there the work on aerosols, chemical or infectious, is done every day, it is perhaps 10% of their activities; I have absolutely no doubt that this virus is transmitted by aerosol, if I can leave my reserve as a scientist who must doubt everything. In an emergency situation, we follow the preponderance of evidence.

The WHO’s first fault was that it did not recognize that aerosol transmission was substantial and therefore that the recommendations had to be changed to contain the spread of the virus, which they still have not done. The WHO’s second fault is to underestimate the contagiousness of the virus, with a basic reproduction number of ~ 2.5 when in reality it is ~ 7, with a doubling time of 2.4 days in the absence of any public health measure.

Italy has been in total lockdown since March 10 and we can clearly see that since the cessation of all non-essential economic activity, the progression of the coronavirus has slowed down (doubling time ~ 5.5 days on March 24 compared to ~ 3.3 days before the lockdown), but it still remains exponential [update: doubling time 9.7 days for this last week on March 29, a lockdown makes a big difference, it works].

There is therefore progress, but it is insufficient, and that is why the Italian government is considering even stricter measures. We are only 4-5 days behind Italy when we consider the difference in population size, so in proportion to the infected population we will be in the same percentage of cases as Italy in 4-5 days.

We will not stop the exponential progression with the current measures.

In Belgium, we have had a doubling time of ~ 3.3 days for the past 15 days, the same figure as Italy before its lockdown. On March 24, Italy is at 5.5 days of doubling time, but it is still not enough. So we are not doing enough in Belgium, we will not stop the exponential progression with the current measures.

The recipe for successful countries is: sanitary cordon, screening of travelers, massive use of adequate masks by the population, quarantine when necessary, surveillance of respiratory diseases, massive screening, tracing of possible contacts, and early hospitalization when necessary. But you have to be organized before the pandemic to be able to apply this recipe.

As we find ourselves in an insufficiently prepared pandemic, what to do?

The first thing to realize is that those who continue to work in a non-essential occupation must stop immediately for two reasons. First of all, in practice the 1.5 meters are not respected, you just have to see the preparation for the swearing in of the government to realize it. Then and above all, a virus that is transmitted by aerosol respects no distance.

So the first measure to take is the immediate cessation of all non-essential economic activity, with only teleworking allowed. Certainly we can do without going to the hairdresser in a crisis. It is imperative to close the daycare, Belgian style, leaving a daycare for essential staff, but otherwise it is necessary to close the daycare. Babies can be very contagious, for example a 6 month old baby in South Korea, under observation in a hospital because her parents were infected, produced an amount of virus considered contagious for 20 days. Her only symptom? 38 °C for less than an hour over the total duration of the observations.

To understand what is going to happen, we must now consider two distinct populations in Belgium, those who remain active because they have an essential function, and those who are confined to lockdown, because the prognosis is very different for these two populations.

The population on lockdown

In any viral epidemic, there are three fractions: a) the uninfected population, b) an infected but asymptomatic fraction (and here potentially contagious and the number of which is unknown), and c) an infected fraction with various symptoms and varying degrees of severity. When we put the population in lockdown (we start with 4 weeks then we reevaluate), we limit our contacts to only the household and the people met in food stores.

So infected people will only contaminate at most those who live under the same roof, plus a very small fraction outside their house. The number of people infected in this population can therefore only be multiplied at most by, say, four; the average number of people living under the same roof should be taken as a multiplier. During the lockdown, those who were infected and asymptomatic can either get rid of the virus naturally or become symptomatic, be identified and then treated appropriately for the severity of their symptoms.

Contrast this to a scenario of no containment during these 4 weeks, where the number of people infected would be multiplied by 256, at the current rate of 3.3 days as doubling time. The measures in place today in Belgium will lengthen this doubling time, but not enough, the curve will remain exponential.

So for the population whose activity is not essential, it is the most basic common sense that the lockdown be imposed today, and the sooner it is implemented, the sooner we can get out and return to an almost normal economic activity. And the sooner it is implemented, the fewer people will be infected, hospitalized and dead in the final assessment.

The population with essential function

It is of course the population that is most at risk during the lockdown period. I had a flashback to this scene in Stanley Kubrick’s film, Barry Lyndon, where we see the troops advancing in close rank, and lines after lines fall under the musket fire, the madness of war, mid-19th century version.

I went on Facebook to get feedback, and I get messages from everywhere, especially those on the front lines. I’m also on the COVID-19 group for medical doctors. In public medical personnel present a brave face, like the government, they cannot show their feelings, but in private there are all the feelings, the fear, the rage, the incomprehension that in the 21st century, a society that believes itself advanced, finds itself so unprepared to face a relatively small number of cases.

Let’s remember the difference between isolation (or surgical) masks and the famous N95/FFP2 masks. The first wave in Wuhan the medical staff was short of FFP2, all the photos show them with surgical masks; result: 3,000 infected medical staff. The Chinese government sends reinforcements, 42,000 medical personnel equipped with FFP2; result: zero infection out of 42,000!

Our doctors and nurses proudly go into battle without the necessary protection, namely a N95/FFP2, knowing that they will become infected one after the other, falling like the soldiers of the empire, like already Dr. Philippe Devos with whom I was on a TV set at the beginning of the month. But we cannot say that publically in our society, in France a scientist has been rebuked for daring to say that Macron sends the medical staff to the “case-pipe”, another metaphor for heavy casualties. It’s apparently too raw to describe reality simply; you have to wrap it in lots of euphemisms.

It is simply UNACCEPTABLE as a situation and absolutely everything must be done to rectify it as soon as possible. It is infuriating to learn that we placed only ONE order in Turkey for such a vital material as FFP2 masks, when we should have placed a 100 orders! And then there was fraud and we received nothing! We can sue them but it will not save any life here.

China is once again offering this equipment for sale and by chartering a plane you can have the equipment in two days. There was an article in La Libre (a Belgian newspaper) by a journalist in Hong Kong who was offended that members of the French government continued with the disinformation that these masks would not help the population, and she made the essential point that these masks were available in China, what are we waiting for?

FFP2 must be recycled for the moment

Furthermore, I tried to communicate the importance of recycling FFP2 masks, without any success. It is a matter of life and death. These masks are considered for single use and staffs throw them away too quickly. This is not the place to be technical, but I have proposed four methods to recycle them and they must be implemented according to the sterilization equipment available in hospitals, information that I have still not been able to obtain. We must educate medical staff on how to extend the life of these masks and recycle them, today, the urgency is immense.

The army, firefighters and probably the police have gas masks, which should not be left in the barracks, they are even more effective than the FFP2. We do not care if it looks crazy to see doctors with gas masks, I prefer to see them stay alive and able to care for patients, and also it would prevent them from becoming vectors of spread themselves. How many gas masks, which are cleanable and reusable, are available?

Finally, for the front line staff who cannot be protected by an FFP2 or a gas mask, what about using hydroxychloroquine? I floated the idea on Facebook COVID-19 medical doctor, the prophylactic use of hydroxychloroquine to see their responses, which of course ranged from total rejection to approval as an idea worth pursuing.

The major objection is that the studies are preliminary, but we don’t have time for a study with more double-blind patients, our healthcare staff will be needlessly infected by then. The prophylactic use of this drug for malaria is well demonstrated, there is a population for whom it would be contraindicated but it is well known and we are talking about medical personnel, not self-medication.

It is necessary to leave the choice to each individual to protect themselves in this way or not, according to the availability of the proper masks. Do not believe that the doctors do not know their rights, which is in particular not to work in conditions that put them in excessive danger. [Health minister] Maggie De Block’s statement on Monday, no FFP2 on the front line, shocked and woke up more than one caregiver.

The second difficulty is logistics and all wars are won or lost in logistics. It is not clear if we have enough of this drug, hydroxychloroquine, because of course the priority goes to COVID-19 patients, and patients afflicted with chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, etc., who also need this drug.

I hear that Belgium, like France, has taken over the national stock, and that France has several factories capable of producing hydroxychloroquine. We have to know what is in stock and their productive capacity, and how much France would be able to supply, with what delay, in order to calculate the judicious use of our stocks.

And, if we know that reinforcements will arrive in time, let us use part of our stocks as prophylactics for those on the front line who want them because they do not have an adequate mask, including those who do not see symptomatic COVID patients, because of contagion by asymptomatic individuals. Those who cannot be protected by FFP2 or hydroxychloroquine must remain in reserve, it is imperative!

FFP2 masks for the population, a simple solution for returning to work.

To finish with the masks, let us understand that what will get us out of confinement, lockdown, and will allow the population to resume almost normal work, is the massive production of FFP2 masks for the entire population, small (children) and adults (adults). The faster the necessary production tools are put in place, the faster Belgium can get back to work, it’s really that simple.

During the minimum 4 weeks of lockdown, massive screening is needed, and the establishment of the task force is a step in the right direction. We cannot lift the lockdown until our ability to track down infected individuals has been greatly increased.

At Vo’Euganeo in Italy, all the confined residents (3,300) were tested a month ago. Result: out of 89 positive cases, there are only handful contaminations, reports La Voix du Nord. The approach I propose works when you can combine lockdown and massive screening.

Screening, screening, screening

This screening should especially not be limited to the nucleic acid of the coronavirus. A team from Namur (and many others around the world) produced a serological test that was validated and then promptly prohibited, on the pretext that it will not detect recently infected patients before they produce antibodies. An absurd position, because all doctors are already well aware of this limitation.

This test is useful, let us think of all those who were quarantined because of flu symptoms, but who could not be tested due to lack of sampling equipment, or not given enough priority for testing during the test shortages. They would like to know what infected them. A screening for the presence of nucleic acid, the screening test currently used, no longer makes sense if people got rid of the virus at the time of being tested. In addition to valuable information on the spread of the virus in our country, positive cases identified by this technique would motivate a disinfection of their home.

Other logistical aspects that require urgent attention are the situation of the truckers who are on their knees and no longer have access to the facilities that normally allow them to function humanely, and the farmers who replant. We must ensure that we replant what Belgium will need because there is the risk that countries keep their agricultural production for domestic purposes in this pandemic situation.

It is of course necessary to increase the number of respirators available.

Universal income for the duration of the government-mandated lockdown.

We must also support the population with a form of universal income for the duration of the lockdown mandated by the government, it is not only necessary financially for many who have their rent and food and other bills to pay, but it will certainly decrease the general anxiety of the population, which will allow it to resist the virus more effectively. It will also facilitate acceptance of containment and compliance with the rules.

Finally, with Belgium rebuilding itself post-corona and preparing for the probable return of the virus in October, once again masks for everyone is the simple and effective solution (and we can manufacture them in fabrics, which must to be validated of course, and make them recyclable).

We must consider that our medical staff and other first lines will probably be in a state of revolt, comparable to that of the yellow vests, because of the horrendous conditions in which they were forced to operate.

Our society must change, why return to society as it was organized before when it failed in its most basic duty? And of course politics has an essential role to play. Let’s not have preconceived ideas, Paul Craig Roberts proposes a rational approach which has proven itself for companies in difficulty, which we would be very inspired to consider: see this and this.

So in summary, and without further ado:

1. Italian-style lockdown, all non essential economic activities are suspended;
2. Belgian day-care centers closed;
3. FFP2 masks or gas masks or hydroxychloroquine, for all those on the front line; recycling of masks; those who have no real protection remain in reserve; more respirators are needed;
4. Massive nucleic acid and serological screening of all suspected cases;
5. Industrial production of FFP2 masks to put the population back to work when the health lockdown is lifted;
6. Universal income during the government-mandated lockdown period.

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Marc Wathelet is a Belgian virologist and specialist in coronaviruses and respiratory diseases.

Originally published in French by Sudinfo Belgique 

The measure agreed to near-unanimously by both right wings of the one-party state is all about transferring countless trillions of dollars from ordinary Americans to the nation’s privileged class.

Deception defines it by including crumbs for about 150 million US households. Most people are unaware of how Congress and the White House are fleecing them.

The scheme is straight from Wall Street’s playbook, discussed in my books titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America” and “Banker Occupation.”

What Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein once claimed was doing “God’s work” is all about making money the old-fashioned way by stealing it.

GS and other Wall Street banks do it by fraud, grand theft, market manipulation, front-running, pump and dump schemes, scamming investors, bribing politicians, serving in senior government posts, and getting trillions of dollars in bailouts on request.

According to Section 4018/Division A of the corporate bailout bill, “a new special inspector general…within the” Treasury Department is established to oversea distribution of half a trillion dollars in corporate bailout funds.

In his Friday signing statement, Trump claimed the measure “includes several provisions that raise constitutional concerns” — regarding executive branch authority and the separation of powers.

The bill mandates congressional oversight over distribution of funds, the newly created inspector general required to report to Congress on how this is administered.

Trump wants control of the slush fund to hand disbursements to regime favorites with no oversight.

He cited the Constitution’s Article II, Section 3, stating that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” — the so-called Take Care Clause.

According to the Constitution Center, it’s “a major source of presidential power because it seemingly invests the office with broad enforcement authority.”

“Yet, at the same time, the provision also serves as a major limitation on that power because it underscores that the executive is under a duty to faithfully execute the laws of Congress and not disregard them.”

Three US presidents, including Trump, were in part impeached for allegedly violating the Take Care Clause.

The same holds for most or all of their predecessors and vast majority of current and former congressional members.

George Washington once said:

“It is my duty to see the laws executed. To permit them to be trampled upon with impunity would be repugnant to” that duty.

Yet US presidents time and again breach international, constitutional, and US statute laws, accountability never forthcoming.

While presidents are required to observe and enforce the laws of the land, Thomas Jefferson refused to enforce the Sedition Act he called unconstitutional.

In his Friday signing statement, Trump effectively said he’ll decide whether or not to submit to Congress reports by the special inspector general.

This action will undermine transparency in disbursement of funds required under Section 4018 of the corporate bailout bill — including by establishment of a congressional oversight panel charged with reviewing inspector general reports.

Trump also said he won’t observe a provision of the measure that gives Congress oversight authority over State Department, Veterans Affairs Department, and USAID expenditures.

“These provisions are impermissible forms of congressional aggrandizement with respect to the execution of the laws,” his statement said — clearly written for, not by, him.

Together with trillions of dollars of  Fed created free money for business favorites, the corporate bailout bill is all about transferring unprecedented amounts of wealth from the public to America’s privileged class.

A manufactured crisis is being used to commit the grandest of grand theft, along with further eroding human and civil rights.

Things perhaps are heading toward eliminating them altogether on the phony pretext of protecting national security.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Involuntarily, week by week Nepal’s population, joined by the global community, will find itself compelled to abandon hitherto starry-eyed views of ‘America’ as redeemer, source of truths, and all things good. (It’s already happening.)

Working in your country for over four decades, I’ve never met people more enthralled with the U.S. as you are. Everyone I know strives to send children here. You order your iphone direct from U.S.A.; you quote the NY Times and CNN; villagers too consult Facebook for ‘reliable’ news; Kathmandu residents patronize your local reproduction of Starbucks and Pizza Hut. (The only exception to these addictions is Hindi dramas; they’re accessed from India.)

On its side, America too is charmed by Nepal. We admire your beguiling, robed monks, your extravagant and vibrant Hindu rituals, and docile residents welcoming us on treks through your Himalaya.

Appreciating the value of your exceptional loyalty (perhaps based on historical Gurkha-Britishalliances) the U.S. extends an open door to Nepalis: with your abiding charm, your industrious  graduates and Buddhist gurus, and your 6,000 earthquake victims, (admitted on TPS-visas in 2015, regardless of their largely fraudulent claims, then granted extensions last year).

Politically, Nepalis are inexplicably complacent at home. For most of your history you were subjected to the rule of absolute monarchs. Although never occupied by foreign invaders. Following your successful 10-year Maoist guerilla campaign, you eventually rid yourselves of that oppressive sacred kingship. That was followed by your declaration as a republic, multi-party involvement, a democratic constitution and a 2015 election  that endowed the winning Marxist/Leninist Party with power. Few lives had been lost in that process and expectations were high moving ahead. Despite the ended monarchy, an expanded free press, a vibrant tourism industry and the injection of foreign aid, your nation’s economy was never reformed, your class disparities never addressed. The elite remained entrenched; favoritism, corruption, graft, and nepotism deepened.             Corruption is worse today than ever. Although officially secular, consumptive spending on temples and rituals has increased, and high caste privilege remains. Your economy is crippled: as new plutocrats sap the wealth, your administration grows fat on bribes while allowing ordinary families to depend on overseas remittances; (5-7 million jobless, a fifth of your 28 million, are migrant workers in Malaysia and Arab Gulf states).

The U.S.’s open door combined with the generosity of foreign social service organizations lodged in Nepal, maintains this status quo.

It was to be expected that you and your government would await the arrival of foreign medics and health supplies along with instructions from here about how to treat your COVID-19 victims. Instead, growing awareness of that plague arrived with waves of those sons and brothers sent home from their curtailed employment overseas. (This influx may reverse the drop in agri-production after farms were abandoned or mortgaged, resulting in cash-dependency, more reliance on imported food and other needs, more demand for iNGO assistance.)

Meanwhile, by March 15^th Nepal reported only a single case of infection—a figure no Nepali accepted.

Your government (neither as impoverished nor indebted as outsiders suppose) is unabashedly corrupt and inattentive; so you’re unsurprised at its negligence in identifying infections and moving to protect you from the spreading scourge.

According to those of you I speak to on a weekly basis, the Nepali leadership was as slack as Americain quarantining your population. You bide the time, accustomed to mismanagement and lies waiting for America’s magic pill to arrive. (By March 28^th, only 4 positive cases had been announced, again causing public skepticism.) Now on lockdown—imposed on the heels of U.S. orders for its citizens — you can’t even take your demands to the streets, a strategy used so effectively against your monarchy.

While the American leadership has finally awakened to the severity of the pandemic, now rushing to contain the damage; it can draw on abundant resources, however belatedly. Nepal is slowly rousing itself, but it lacks those resources.

In our phone conversations, it seems you feel forsaken, not by your government but by the U.S. and elsewhere. You must be shaken by witnessing the depravity of your hero.

As you see, every government is occupied with its own overwhelmed health systems.

If anyone comes to your rescue I expect it will be China, your northern neighbor and a steadfast benefactor. Beijing’s earthquake aid in 2015 was immediate, efficient and unmatched. (China has had major infrastructure projects underway there—partly to balance your traditional reliance on India.) Just yesterday, responding to today’s crisis, Chinese help is on its way to Kathmandu. Your government’s incompetence will be ameliorated, for the present.

In the long run, your romanticized image of the omnipotent richest-country-in-the-world, will dissolve. You’re not the alone. The world had already glimpsed the unmasked face of the global bully in the person currently occupying the White House. Now your view is further refined by the U.S.’ presumption of immunity, our sloppy response to the epidemic, our ill-equipped medical system, the impotence of our military might.

It’s time for Nepal to consider a new policy, not one that transfers over-dependence to China, but one of resourcefulness and self-sufficiency, perhaps on the model of Cuba or Vietnam. A logical step for a Marxist-led government, don’t you think?

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Author-anthropologist BN Aziz has published widely on Nepal and returned from an extended stay there last December. Her journalism articles on Nepal are posted at www.RadioTahrir.org.

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Midnight on Planet Lockdown: Dylan Strikes Again

By Pepe Escobar, March 30, 2020

What spectacular timing. Like a shot ricocheting at Heaven’s Door as a virus pandemic rages and Planet Lockdown is the new normal, Bob Dylan has produced a stunning 17-minute masterpiece dissecting the November 22, 1963, assassination of JFK – releasing it at midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Thursday.

For baby boomers, not to mention obsessive Dylanologists, this is the ultimate sucker punch. Countless eyes will be plunged into swimming pools revisiting all the memories swirling around “the day they blew out the brains of the king / Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing.”  But that’s not all: the Dylanmobile takes us on a magical mystery tour of the 60s and 70s, complete with the Beatles, the Age of Aquarius and the Who’s “Tommy.”

U.S., Canada Side with Fanatical Coup Regime in Bolivia

By Asad Ismi, March 30, 2020

Washington has also been opposed to Morales’s remarkable achievements in the areas of poverty reduction, wealth generation and redistribution, the nationalization of mineral wealth and the enshrinement of Indigenous rights. All of these dramatically signified reduced U.S. control over Bolivia highlighted by the expulsion of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2013 and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2008, partly for “political interference.”

Netanyahu Uses Coronavirus to Lure Rival Gantz Into ‘Emergency’ Government

By Jonathan Cook, March 30, 2020

Benny Gantz, the former Israeli general turned party leader, agreed late last week to join his rival Benjamin Netanyahu in an “emergency government” to deal with the coronavirus epidemic. 

Two weeks ago he had won a wafer-thin majority vote in the parliament that gave him first shot at trying to put together a coalition government.

Instead he has conceded to Netanyahu, who will remain prime minister for the next 18 months. Gantz is supposed to take over in late 2021, though Netanyahu has a formidable reputation for double-dealing.

DOJ Seeks to Exploit Coronavirus Emergency to Detain People Indefinitely

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, March 30, 2020

In light of the national emergency Donald Trump declared on Friday, March 13, his Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking Congress to allow the attorney general to indefinitely detain people without trial in violation of the constitutional right of habeas corpus. The DOJ also seeks to hold hearings without the defendant’s consent and exclude anyone with COVID-19 from eligibility for asylum.

Cuba – An Example of Solidarity in a Time of Crisis

By Nino Pagliccia, March 30, 2020

In January 1959 something new arose in Cuba from the rebellion against the rotten US supported government that had condemned the majority of Cubans to poverty and ignorance. The new society that emerged has resisted a fierce blockade on its economy for the last 60 years, despite of which it has thrived and set the most valuable example to humanity: the value of solidarity.

It is quite striking that just few months into the new Cuban revolution Che Guevara stated in a speech on revolutionary medicine “[what] we have done is practising charity, and what we have to practice today is solidarity.” 

Putin Says ‘the Rich Must Pay’ for the Coronavirus

By Mike Whitney, March 30, 2020

Putin has settled on a more rational and compassionate plan. He’s going to launch a relief program that actually focuses on the people who need it the most. Then, he’s going to cover the costs by taxing the people who are most capable of shouldering the burden. His intention is not to “soak the rich” or to redistribute wealth. He simply wants to find the most equitable way to share the costs for this completely unexpected crisis.

Coronavirus Shutdown and the Worldwide Corporate Debt Crisis

By Christian Parenti and Dante Dallavalle, March 30, 2020

The coronavirus shutdown is hammering supply and demand across the globe. That has forced the real economy into a sharp recession and triggered a rolling financial crisis. Below is a primer on one key piece of this mess: the crisis in corporate debt markets. This branch of finance is vitally important because even healthy companies often need access to credit. If they do not get it, they go under.In 2008, the vector of crisis ran from mortgage-backed securities to the rest of the financial sector and then to the real economy. This time, the real economy is being hit directly, and the damage is reverberating back into financial markets.  The failing markets, in feedback-loop fashion, further threaten the real economy as corporations find it harder to borrow. As the corporate debt markets sour, major companies will go bankrupt. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Some analysts expect the economy to contract by an annualized rate of 30 percent during the second quarter of 2020.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Thursday sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin calling on the United States to ease economic sanctions against countries where sanctions are hindering the humanitarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic – specifically Iran and Venezuela. Sen. Murphy’s letter is co-signed by U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawai’i), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

“It hurts our nation’s security and our moral standing in the world when our sanctions policy results in innocent people dying. I am particularly concerned about the impact of sanctions on the COVID-19 response in Iran and Venezuela,” said Murphy.

The senators wrote,

“As these countries struggle to respond to their domestic health crises, U.S. sanctions are hindering the free flow of desperately needed medical and humanitarian supplies due to the broad, chilling effect of sanctions on such transactions, even when there are technical exemption. While the shortcomings of these national governments are largely due to their endemic corruption, mismanagement, and authoritarian behavior, broad-based U.S. sanctions have exacerbated the failing medical response. Helping these nations save lives during this crisis is the right thing to do from a moral perspective, but it is also the right thing to do from a national security perspective.”

Full text of the letter can be found here and below.

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Dear Secretary Pompeo and Secretary Mnuchin,

We are writing to express our concern regarding the deteriorating humanitarian crises in countries under U.S. sanctions as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread. We are particularly concerned about the impact of sanctions on the COVID-19 response in Iran and Venezuela. As these countries struggle to respond to their domestic health crises, U.S. sanctions are hindering the free flow of desperately needed medical and humanitarian supplies due to the broad chilling effect of sanctions on such transactions, even when there are technical exemptions.

While the shortcomings of these national governments are largely due to their endemic corruption, mismanagement, and authoritarian behavior, broad-based U.S. sanctions have exacerbated the failing medical response. Helping these nations save lives during this crisis is the right thing to do from a moral perspective, but it is also the right thing to do from a national security perspective. The Iranian and Venezuelan regimes are American adversaries, but the good people of these nations are not our enemy. By allowing our sanctions to contribute to the exceptional pain and suffering brought about by the coronavirus outbreaks in both nations, we play into the anti-Americanism that is at the heart of both regimes’ hold on power.

Importantly, there is ample precedent for providing short-term, targeted sanctions relief to facilitate humanitarian and medical assistance. For instance, when a massive earthquake struck Iran in 2003 killing 26,000 people, the Bush administration temporarily suspended sanctions to send 150,000 pounds of medical supplies and more than 200 aid workers on military aircraft to help the people of Iran recover. Short term abeyance of sanctions does not weaken our nation—it strengthens it by showing that above all else, America cares about the preservation of human life.

As you know, Iran is experiencing one of the worst outbreaks of the coronavirus in the world, and the situation continues to deteriorate. As of March 23, the death toll in Iran from COVID-19 infections is more than 1,800, with researchers stating that deaths could stretch into the millions. U.S. sanctions have had a clear impact on the ability of Iran’s medical industry to cope with the crisis. Human Rights Watch reported in 2019 that U.S. sanctions on Iran had “drastically constrained the ability of the country to finance humanitarian imports, including medicines, causing serious hardships for ordinary Iranians and threatening their right to health.”

Venezuela’s medical system is in freefall. Only 25 percent of doctors have reliable running water in their hospitals and clinics, while two-thirds do not have gloves, masks, soap, goggles or scrubs. While the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Venezuela remains relatively small, the dysfunction of the healthcare system and the inability to adequately test undermines the accuracy of such statistics. Humanitarian organizations report that over-compliance by businesses fearful of violating U.S. sanctions has undermined their ability to get medical goods and equipment to the Venezuelan people.

We understand that the administration has stated that humanitarian and medical needs are exempt from U.S. sanctions, but our sanctions regime is so broad that medical suppliers and relief organizations simply steer clear of doing business in Iran and Venezuela in fear of accidentally getting caught up in the U.S. sanctions web. Moreover, the administration’s decision to impose additional new sanctions in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak has only contributed to the sense among companies that they should avoid doing any business involving these countries, even if their work is humanitarian in nature. To improve clarity and ensure that our sanctions do not exacerbate the health crises in Iran and Venezuela, we call on the administration to provide:

• A clear general license authorizing specific medical goods and equipment to facilitate international relief efforts. This license would aid in the donation or sale of items including testing kits, respiratory devices, personal protective equipment and medicine.
• Proactive efforts to establish new financial channels for sanctioned countries to pay for humanitarian goods.
• A 90-day waiver of sectoral sanctions that impede a rapid humanitarian response.
• Unconditional delivery of aid through a third-party country or entity.
• In Iran, an easing of sanctions barring technology companies from delivering services to the Iranian people, which inhibits the spread of public information on how to combat the virus.

One of America’s greatest sources of strength is our reputation as a compassionate nation. But at this moment, strategic rivals like China are attempting to undermine our leadership by criticizing U.S. sanctions policy while sending medical aid to countries like Venezuela and Iran. In order to counter Chinese influence as well as protect the health of millions of people, we encourage you to implement targeted U.S. sanctions relief in countries including Iran and Venezuela for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Doing so would send the irrefutable message that while the United States opposes these regimes, we will always stand with their citizens.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

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Featured image: A person in protective clothing walks through a temporary 2,000-bed field hospital for COVID-19 coronavirus patients set up by the Iranian army at the international exhibition center in northern Tehran, Iran, March 26, 2020. Ebrahim Noroozi | AP 

An Open Letter from Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, to the German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel. Professor Bhakdi calls for an urgent reassessment of the response to Covid-19 and asks the Chancellor five crucial questions. The let­ter is dated March 26. This is an inofficial translation; see the original letter in German as a PDF.

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Dear Chancellor,

As Emeritus of the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz and longtime director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology, I feel obliged to critically question the far-reaching restrictions on public life that we are currently taking on ourselves in order to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

It is expressly not my intention to play down the dangers of the virus or to spread a political message. However, I feel it is my duty to make a scientific contribution to putting the current data and facts into perspective – and, in addition, to ask questions that are in danger of being lost in the heated debate.

The reason for my concern lies above all in the truly unforeseeable socio-economic consequences of the drastic containment measures which are currently being applied in large parts of Europe and which are also already being practiced on a large scale in Germany.

My wish is to discuss critically – and with the necessary foresight – the advantages and disadvantages of restricting public life and the resulting long-term effects.

To this end, I am confronted with five questions which have not been answered sufficiently so far, but which are indispensable for a balanced analysis.

I would like to ask you to comment quickly and, at the same time, appeal to the Federal Government to develop strategies that effectively protect risk groups without restricting public life across the board and sow the seeds for an even more intensive polarization of society than is already taking place.

With the utmost respect,

Prof. em. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi

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1. Statistics

In infectiology – founded by Robert Koch himself – a traditional distinction is made between infection and disease. An illness requires a clinical manifestation. [1] Therefore, only patients with symptoms such as fever or cough should be included in the statistics as new cases.

In other words, a new infection – as measured by the COVID-19 test – does not necessarily mean that we are dealing with a newly ill patient who needs a hospital bed. However, it is currently assumed that five percent of all infected people become seriously ill and require ventilation. Projections based on this estimate suggest that the healthcare system could be overburdened.

My question: Did the projections make a distinction between symptom-free infected people and actual, sick patients – i.e. people who develop symptoms?

2. Dangerousness

A number of coronaviruses have been circulating for a long time – largely unnoticed by the media. [2] If it should turn out that the COVID-19 virus should not be ascribed a significantly higher risk potential than the already circulating corona viruses, all countermeasures would obviously become unnecessary.

The internationally recognized International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents will soon publish a paper that addresses exactly this question. Preliminary results of the study can already be seen today and lead to the conclusion that the new virus is NOT different from traditional corona viruses in terms of dangerousness. The authors express this in the title of their paper “SARS-CoV-2: Fear versus Data“. [3]

My question: How does the current workload of intensive care units with patients with diagnosed COVID-19 compare to other coronavirus infections, and to what extent will this data be taken into account in further decision-making by the federal government? In addition: Has the above study been taken into account in the planning so far?  Here too, of course, “diagnosed“ means that the virus plays a decisive role in the patient’s state of illness, and not that previous illnesses play a greater role.

3. Dissemination

According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, not even the much-cited Robert Koch Institute knows exactly how much is tested for COVID-19. It is a fact, however, that a rapid increase in the number of cases has recently been observed in Germany as the volume of tests increases. [4]

It is therefore reasonable to suspect that the virus has already spread unnoticed in the healthy population. This would have two consequences: firstly, it would mean that the official death rate – on 26 March 2020, for example, there were 206 deaths from around 37,300 infections, or 0.55 percent [5] – is too high; and secondly, it would mean that it would hardly be possible to prevent the virus from spreading in the healthy population.

My question: Has there already been a random sample of the healthy general population to validate the real spread of the virus, or is this planned in the near future?

4. Mortality

The fear of a rise in the death rate in Germany (currently 0.55 percent) is currently the subject of particularly intense media attention. Many people are worried that it could shoot up like in Italy (10 percent) and Spain (7 percent) if action is not taken in time.

At the same time, the mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it is established that the virus was present at the time of death – regardless of other factors. This violates aPrinciples of  only when it is certain that an agent has played a significant role in the disease or death may a diagnosis be made. The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies of Germany expressly writes in its guidelines: “In addition to the cause of death, a causal chain must be stated, with the corresponding underlying disease in third place on the death certificate. Occasionally, four-linked causal chains must also be stated.“ [6]

At present there is no official information on whether, at least in retrospect, more critical analyses of medical records have been undertaken to determine how many deaths were actually caused by the virus.

My question: Has Germany simply followed this trend of a COVID-19 general suspicion? And: is it intended to continue this categorisation uncritically as in other countries? How, then, is a distinction to be made between genuine corona-related deaths and accidental virus presence at the time of death?

5. Comparability

The appalling situation in Italy is repeatedly used as a reference scenario. However, the true role of the virus in that country is completely unclear for many reasons – not only because points 3 and 4 above also apply here, but also because exceptional external factors exist which make these regions particularly vulnerable.

One of these factors is the increased air pollution in the north of Italy. According to WHO estimates, this situation, even without the virus, led to over 8,000 additional deaths per year in 2006 in the 13 largest cities in Italy alone. [7] The situation has not changed significantly since then. [8] Finally, it has also been shown that air pollution greatly increases the risk of viral lung diseases in very young and elderly people. [9]

Moreover, 27.4 percent of the particularly vulnerable population in this country live with young people, and in Spain as many as 33.5 percent. In Germany, the figure is only seven percent [10]. In addition, according to Prof. Dr. Reinhard Busse, head of the Department of Management in Health Care at the TU Berlin, Germany is significantly better equipped than Italy in terms of intensive care units – by a factor of about 2.5 [11].

My question: What efforts are being made to make the population aware of these elementary differences and to make people understand that scenarios like those in Italy or Spain are not realistic here?

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Notes

[1] Fachwörterbuch Infektionsschutz und Infektionsepidemiologie. Fachwörter – Definitionen – Interpretationen. Robert Koch-Institut, Berlin 2015. (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)

[2] Killerby et al., Human Coronavirus Circulation in the United States 2014–2017. J Clin Virol. 2018, 101, 52-56

[3] Roussel et al. SARS-CoV-2: Fear Versus Data. Int. J. Antimicrob. Agents 2020, 105947

[4] Charisius, H. Covid-19: Wie gut testet Deutschland? Süddeutsche Zeitung. (abgerufen am 27.3.2020)

[5] Johns Hopkins University, Coronavirus Resource Center. 2020. (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)

[6] S1-Leitlinie 054-001, Regeln zur Durchführung der ärztlichen Leichenschau. AWMF Online (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)

[7] Martuzzi et al. Health Impact of PM10 and Ozone in 13 Italian Cities. World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. WHOLIS number E88700 2006

[8] European Environment Agency, Air Pollution Country Fact Sheets 2019, (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)

[9] Croft et al. The Association between Respiratory Infection and Air Pollution in the Setting of Air Quality Policy and Economic Change. Ann. Am. Thorac. Soc. 2019, 16, 321–330.

[10] United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Living Arrange ments of Older Persons: A Report on an Expanded International Dataset (ST/ESA/SER.A/407). 2017

[11] Deutsches Ärzteblatt, Überlastung deutscher Krankenhäuser durch COVID-19 laut Experten unwahrscheinlich, (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)

Fear is an instrument of social control and repression.

Time and again, terrified people bow to the will of their ruling authorities even when harming their own rights and well-being.

The philosopher Seneca once said that

“(t)here are more things…likely to frighten us than there are to crush us. We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Edmund Burke explained that

“(n)o passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”

According to HL Mencken,

“(t)he whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

America’s second president John Adams said

“(f)ear is the foundation of most governments.”

The 9/11 mother of all state-sponsored false flags was a powerful example of how an entire population was manipulated to believe barbarians at our gates threaten everyone — the mother of all Big Lies ignored at the time.

False flag mass deception gets people to willingly go along with what otherwise would be considered unacceptable.

Ruling authorities take full advantage — especially because establishment media feature the official narrative ad nauseam.

Fear-mongering reports drown out alternative views.

Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels noted that

“(i)t would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle.”

“They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas in disguise.”

Herman Goering reportedly said:

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.”

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

Orwell understood the power of mass deception.

“Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind,” he once said.

In his book The Prince, Machievelli said

“(s)ince love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”

“(F)ear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.”

Machiavelli believed that leaders must be deceptive and cunning to maintain control, that ends justify the means.

He argued that leaders unable to force their will on subjects can never be successful.

He inverted the Golden Rule, saying

“do evil unto others as they would do evil unto you.”

He also believed that rulers should distance themselves from state-sponsored criminality – shifting blame for their wrongdoing onto others.

Influenced by Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan favored authoritarian leadership for control because the “danger of violent death, and the life of man (is) solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

The power of mind-manipulating propaganda has entire populations believing that COVID-19 may infect and harm almost everyone.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll found that around 90% of Americans are hunkering down at home as much as possible — fearful of COVID-19 contagion.

About 60% of US households stockpiled food and essential supplies. Three-fourths of respondents said COVID-19 disrupted their lives, about 70% citing the virus as a source of stress.

Over half of respondents believe they’re at risk of infection, about 70% believing an immediate family member could become ill from COVID-19.

The poll was conducted from March 22 – 25. As infections in the US increase — combined with official and media fear-mongering — these numbers are likely to grow.

On national television March 29, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci scared Americans to death, saying:

The US could have “millions of (COVID-19) cases.”

“(L)ooking at what we’re seeing now..I would say (there could be) between 100 and 200,000 (deaths).”

Trump extended nationwide social distancing guidelines through April 30 — after earlier wanting normal activities resumed by Easter, April 12.

No one knows the severity or duration of COVID-19 outbreaks. For most people, infections cause short-term illness that enables the body to build up antibodies against its reoccurrence.

The elderly, people with weakened immune systems, and others with significant pre-existing health issues are most vulnerable to something more serious.

Here’s what some experts are saying:

Microbiologist Sucharit Bhakdi:

“The life expectancy of millions is being shortened” by anti-COVID-19 measures.

“The horrifying impact on the world economy threatens the existence of countless people.”

“The consequences on medical care are profound. Already services to patients in need are reduced, operations cancelled, practices empty, hospital personnel dwindling. All this will impact profoundly on our whole society.”

Pulmonologist Wolfgang Wodarg:

“(W)hat is missing right now is a rational way of looking at things.”

“We should be asking: How did you find out this virus was dangerous?”

“How was it before? Didn’t we have the same thing last year? Is it even something new? That’s missing.”

Community Health Sciences and Surgery Professor Joel Kettner:

“I have never seen anything like this, anything anywhere near like this. I’m not talking about the pandemic because I’ve seen 30 of them, one every year. It is called influenza.”

“(T)he message to the public (is) about fear of coming into contact with (other) people…I worry about many, many consequences related to that.”

Former Israeli health ministry director general Yoram Lass:

“In every country, (many thousands of) die from regular flu (annually) compared with those who die from the coronavirus.”

One example is “the swine flu in 2009. (I)t reached the world…and until today there is no vaccination against it.”

“At the time there was no Facebook. (COVID-19) is a virus (a) with public relations” campaign.

“Whoever thinks that governments end viruses is wrong.”

Infectious diseases specialist Pietro Vernazza:

“(A)round 85% of all infections have occurred without anyone noticing the infection.”

Around “90% of the deceased patients are verifiably over 70 years old, 50% over 80 years.”

Epidemiologist Hendrik Streeck:

“The new pathogen (COVID-19) is…less dangerous than Sars-1.”

Founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center David Katz:

“I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near-total meltdown of normal life — schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned — will be long-lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself.”

“The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will.”

“The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order.”

University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy director Michael Osterholm:

“Consider the effect of shutting down offices, schools, transportation systems, restaurants, hotels, stores, theaters, concert halls, sporting events and other venues indefinitely and leaving all of their workers unemployed and on the public dole.”

“The likely result would be not just a depression but a complete economic breakdown, with countless permanently lost jobs, long before a vaccine is ready or natural immunity takes hold.”

Professor of Clinical Research Design and Analysis Peter Goetzsche:

“No such draconian measures were applied during the 2009 (Sars) influenza pandemic, and they obviously cannot be applied every winter, which is all year round, as it is always winter somewhere. We cannot close down the whole world permanently.”

Facilitated by a virtual daily drumbeat of fear-mongering, the US and other governments are instituting draconian policies with public consent.

What’s going on in the US is all about transferring countless trillions of dollars from ordinary people to privileged ones.

As during the 2008-09 financial crisis, it’s also about favored businesses consolidating to greater power and influence by acquiring failing enterprises at fire sale prices.

Most important, what’s going on is a slippery slope toward full-blown tyranny by compromising and eliminating human and civil rights on the phony pretext of protecting the general welfare.

Time and again we’re lied to by our ruling authorities — notably during manufactured crises like 9/11 and now.

A Final Comment

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Friday found that nearly one-fourth of US adults said they either were laid off or furloughed by their employers.

More of the same is likely coming to what extent will only be known in the fullness of time.

Over 80% of respondents support shelter in place and stay at home orders to keep COVID-19 from spreading, regardless of the economic impact.

The power of mind manipulation works as intended.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from TruePublica

What spectacular timing. Like a shot ricocheting at Heaven’s Door as a virus pandemic rages and Planet Lockdown is the new normal, Bob Dylan has produced a stunning 17-minute masterpiece dissecting the November 22, 1963, assassination of JFK – releasing it at midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Thursday.

For baby boomers, not to mention obsessive Dylanologists, this is the ultimate sucker punch. Countless eyes will be plunged into swimming pools revisiting all the memories swirling around “the day they blew out the brains of the king / Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing.”  But that’s not all: the Dylanmobile takes us on a magical mystery tour of the 60s and 70s, complete with the Beatles, the Age of Aquarius and the Who’s “Tommy.”

If there’s any cultural artifact capable of sending a powerful jolt across a discombobulated America trying to come to grips with a dystopic Desolation Row, this is it, the work of America’s undisputed, true Exceptionalist. The times, they are-a-changin’. Oh, yes, they are.

There are so many nuggets in Dylan’s lyrics they would be worthy of a treatise, tracking the vortex of music, literature, film references and interlocking Americana.

This is essentially an incantatory mantra set to piano, sparse percussion and violin. We have two narrators: a dying Kennedy (“Ridin’ in the backseat next to my wife / Headin’ straight on in to the afterlife / I’m leanin’ to the left, got my head in her lap / Oh Lord, I’ve been led into some kind of a trap”) and Dylan himself.

Or this can be read as Dylan playing Kennedy’s doppelganger, plus occasional interventions, such as Kennedy’s would-be killers (“Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car / Shot down like a dog in broad daylight / Was a matter of timin’ and the timin’ was right / You got unpaid debts we’ve come to collect / We gonna kill you with hatred, without any respect / We’ll mock you and shock you and we’ll grin in your face / We’ve already got someone here to take your place”).

The pearl at the heart of the mantra is nothing sort of apocalyptic: “They killed him once and they killed him twice / Killed him like a human sacrifice / The day that they killed him someone said to me, / ‘Son, The Age of the Antichrist has just only begun.’”

Extra words to define it would be idle. Wherever you are in Planet Lockdown, sit back in stay at home social distancing mode, turn on, tune in and time travel. There will be blood on the tracks.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Dallas, Texas, location of the scene where John Kennedy was assassinated during an official journey in 1963. Photo: AFP / United States National Archives

Bob Dylan has chosen this moment, of all moments, to release his masterful epic on the assassination of President Kennedy, “Murder Most Foul.”  Why now?

Could it be that his artist’s heart feels a world under assault, once again, by the powers that be?  For whatever the actual lethality of the virus, (a question whose answer now appears to be far less terrifying than originally advertised), there is no doubt that we are all suffering from the same sort of “shock and awe” we did when our collective hopes for a New Frontier were blown away in 1963.

Now much of the world is locked down, physically and socially isolated, bankrupted and thrown out of work, with a whole “new normal” of medical and governmental authoritarianism on the way.

And Wall Street is about to receive the lion’s share of two trillion dollars.

You don’t have to have a religious streak for it all to feel something like the fulfillment of the prophesy spoken to Dylan’s narrator:

The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son, The Age of the Antichrist has just only begun”

When Kennedy died, so died the efforts he had been making to end the Cold War, to withdraw from Vietnam, to create a rising economic tide that would “lift all boats.”

And while much has been made of Lyndon Johnson’s carrying-on of Kennedy-era social and civil rights initiatives, the reality was as Martin Luther King described it:

“The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam, making the poor, white and Negro, bear the heaviest burden, both at the front and at home.”

Well, as Mark Twain once allegedly said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

Dylan describes the Kennedy assassination as “the greatest magic trick ever under the sun/ Perfectly executed, skillfully done.”

What trick is playing out all around us as you read this?  And would we see it now, as so few really saw it then?

It happened so quickly, so quick by surprise

Right there in front of everyone’s eyes 

It would seem Dylan, courageously, has sent us a message when we needed it most, with little in the way of encryption. It is up to us to break the simple code, take in its meaning, and act.

Act as we didn’t then.

“This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you.”

And also with you, Bob.

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John Kirby is the director of FOUR DIED TRYING, an upcoming feature documentary about the extraordinary lives and calamitous deaths of John Kennedy, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy.

On November 10, 2019, a U.S.-backed group of neofascists in Bolivia deposed the government of Evo Morales on spurious accusations of electoral fraud. The coup government’s first act was to unleash the army and police on mainly Indigenous protestors in the capital of La Paz, killing at least 10 people. Further massacres pushed the coup’s death toll above 30, with hundreds more wounded in clashes between supporters of Morales’s Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party and state police.

The coup regime is now led by Jeanine Áñez, a Christian-fundamentalist senator and opponent of Morales, who in 2013 tweeted (translation):

Image on the right: Deputy Senate speaker Jeanine Anez speaks from the balcony of the government Quemado Palace in La Paz after proclaiming herself the country’s interim president (AFP / Aizar RALDES)

“I dream of a Bolivia free of indigenous satanic rites, the city is not for ‘Indians,’ they better go to the highlands or El Chaco.”

On claiming the presidency after the army “asked” Morales to step down (he fled to Mexico following threats to his life and has since moved to Argentina), Áñez declared,

“Thank God the Bible has returned to the Bolivian government.”

About two-thirds of Bolivia’s population is Indigenous, forming a major part of Morales’s support base. Before the coup, MAS held majorities in both the Bolivian chamber of deputies and the senate.

Entering the presidential palace on November 10, also with a bible in his hand, was Luis Camacho (image below), a millionaire neofascist and prominent member of both the U.S.-supported right-wing separatist group Santa Cruz Civic Committee (of Santa Cruz province) and its paramilitary Youth Union (also U.S.-funded), which attacks Indigenous people. Both groups were involved in an attempt on Morales’s life in 2009.

“God has returned to the palace,” Camacho posted to Facebook on November 10. “To those who did not believe in this struggle I say God exists and is now going to govern Bolivia for all Bolivians!”

The coup regime has scheduled new elections for May 3, 2020, but these are unlikely to be free and fair. As Alexander Main, director of international policy for the U.S.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), tells me, many MAS leaders have been targeted with dubious charges.

“Morales himself is unlikely to return to Bolivia to help support the MAS campaign, as he has been accused of terrorism and sedition by top de facto officials,” says Main. “It appears likely that the de facto authorities will do all they can to prevent MAS leaders from running and they may also create an environment of fear and intimidation for MAS supporters that want to be involved in the electoral campaign.”

Angus McNelly, lecturer in Latin American politics at Queen Mary University of London (U.K.), agrees with Main, pointing out that 100 MAS politicians have been arrested or were forced to flee from the law. Former government minister Carlos Romero was blockaded in his house by a civilian vigil after his address was leaked and had to seek medical care for lack of food and water.

“Romero was arrested while he was at hospital receiving medical care,” McNelly notes. “This attack on the MAS might mean that it cannot field its strongest candidates, and that some sections [of the populace] are afraid to vote for the MAS.”

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Morales was accused by the opposition of winning the October 20, 2019 election through fraud. The U.S.-dominated Organization of American States (OAS), which sent an electoral observation mission to Bolivia, announced the day after the vote—but before all the votes were counted—its “deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results.”

However, a CEPR analysis of the election returns showed “no evidence that irregularities or fraud affected the official result that gave Morales a first-round victory.” In fact, the centre declared on November 8, “statistical analysis shows that it was predictable that Morales would obtain a first-round win, based on the results of the first 83.85 per cent of votes in a rapid count that showed Morales leading runner-up Carlos Mesa by less than 10 points.”

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of CEPR, accused the OAS of lying to the public about the election results, pointing out it was “highly questionable” for the organization to issue a press statement doubting the election results “without providing any evidence for doing so.” He added that the OAS “isn’t all that independent at the moment,” considering the Trump administration was “actively promoting this military coup” alongside its right-wing allies in the region. These allies include the former Argentine government of Mauricio Macri and the Bolsonaro presidency in Brazil. Immediately following the coup, Chrystia Freeland, then Canadian foreign minister, declared her government’s support for new elections, claiming, “It is clear that the will of the Bolivian people and the democratic process were not respected.”

The OAS statement on election results put the coup machinery in motion. Camacho’s paramilitary gangs served as shock troops, kidnapping and torturing elected officials, burning public buildings, ransacking Morales’s home, attacking his ministers and holding their families hostage to compel their resignations. Bolivian general Williams Kaliman Romero, who trained at the U.S.-run School of the Americas, then “suggested” to Morales on November 10 that he should resign.

According to Sacha Llorenti, Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations, “Loyal members of Morales’s security team showed him messages in which people were offering them $50,000 if they would hand him over.” Some reports out of Brazil and Argentina have claimed Kaliman was paid US$1 million by the U.S. for his role in the coup and that he has since fled to the United States, along with other Bolivian police chiefs who were paid to look the other way on the day of the coup. As Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, puts it, “The United States’ fingerprints are all over the coup.”

Morales claimed in an interview with Agence France Press that the U.S. overthrew him to gain control of Bolivia’s vast lithium reserves. Lithium is used to make batteries for electric cars and Bolivia has the largest deposits of the mineral in the world. Demand for lithium is expected to soar as the manufacture of electric cars expands. According to Morales, Washington has not “forgiven” him for pursuing lithium extraction projects with China and Russia rather than the U.S. “Industrialized countries don’t want competition,” he said, “that’s why I am absolutely convinced, it’s a coup against lithium. We were going to set the price of lithium.”

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Washington has also been opposed to Morales’s remarkable achievements in the areas of poverty reduction, wealth generation and redistribution, the nationalization of mineral wealth and the enshrinement of Indigenous rights. All of these dramatically signified reduced U.S. control over Bolivia highlighted by the expulsion of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2013 and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2008, partly for “political interference.”

“Bolivia made enormous social and economic progress during the Morales presidency,” Main tells me. “Thanks to the Morales government’s heterodox, state-led economic policies—which promoted strong growth and better redistribution of the country’s wealth—poverty was reduced by 46% and extreme poverty by 60%. Unemployment declined by 50%. An important factor behind these remarkable advances that should be noted by other governments in the region was the fact that public investment under Morales reached the highest levels of the region.”

Morales also almost tripled Bolivia’s per capita GDP and instituted three cash transfer programs for mothers, children and pensioners. Of course, all of Morales’s policies have not been beyond objection. There has been a contradiction between MAS’s support for Indigenous rights and the rights of nature (both embedded in the Bolivian constitution) and his continued promotion of and dependence on mineral extraction for the generation of revenue.

“Countries with left- and right-wing governments across the region have all pursued an extractive agenda in the region in large part due to the way Latin America has been inserted into the world market,” says McNelly. “The difference between Morales and his predecessors is that his government was able to capture more of the surplus and redirect it toward the Bolivian population. The problem for Morales is that the MAS was supposedly pursuing an alternative form of development through the notion of vivir bien (living well).”

The social base of the MAS is largely rural and drawn from the Indigenous peasantry in the Andean highlands and the valleys of Cochabamba, McNelly explains. But these groups have very different conceptions of nature and how to manage resources.

“What essentially happened was that arguments for exploiting Bolivia’s extensive natural wealth for the good of all Bolivians—particularly those who were the social base of the MAS who saw the greatest material improvement—won over arguments for protecting Mother Earth.”

McNelly adds that this brought Indigenous communities benefiting from extractivism into conflict with other Indigenous nations that were “displaced and dispossessed” by such activities. Prominent examples are the conflict over the construction of the highway through the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS), the El Bala and Chepete hydroelectric dams and the Mallku Khota mine.

Domestic decisions about the structuring of the economy will always be limited by the ways a country has been inserted in the global economy, says McNelly. “The question is whether Bolivia has the option to follow an alternative pathway [as] a small, poor country with little to no room to manoeuver in negotiations with superpowers such as China or the United States. The whole region is inserted as a source of primary resources and changing a country’s position in the global economy is very difficult.”

The coup regime, which represents Bolivia’s white-dominated ruling class and is allied to western multinational corporations, will almost certainly reverse Morales’s resource nationalizations and wealth redistribution and poverty reduction programs if they are elected to government in May. In a January 3 Unitel (local Bolivian media) election poll, 20.7% of Bolivians said they would vote for MAS, followed by 15.7% for Áñez.

On January 19, Morales announced in Argentina that the MAS candidates for president and vice-president would be Luis Arce (former economy minister) and David Choquehuanca (former foreign minister) respectively. Jorge Derpic, assistant professor in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Georgia (U.S.), told Al Jazeera these choices were aimed at getting middle class votes and Indigenous votes. “MAS may be able to win the election with these two candidates,” Derpic predicted.

McNelly is more skeptical, pointing again to the massive attacks on MAS politicians by the right. “Although it is ahead in the polls, the MAS is unlikely to win in the May elections,” he tells me.

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This article was originally published on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor (CCPA Monitor).

Asad Ismi covers international affairs for the Monitor. 

Benny Gantz, the former Israeli general turned party leader, agreed late last week to join his rival Benjamin Netanyahu in an “emergency government” to deal with the coronavirus epidemic. 

Two weeks ago he had won a wafer-thin majority vote in the parliament that gave him first shot at trying to put together a coalition government.

Instead he has conceded to Netanyahu, who will remain prime minister for the next 18 months. Gantz is supposed to take over in late 2021, though Netanyahu has a formidable reputation for double-dealing.

Over the past year Gantz fought three hotly contested, though indecisive, general elections in which he vowed to bring down Netanyahu, who has ruled continuously for 11 years. 

He had promised supporters he would never sit in a government alongside Netanyahu, who is due to stand trial on multiple corruption charges.

Predictably, the U-turn tore apart Gantz’s Blue and White party. Denouncing the decision, two of the alliance’s three constituent factions said they would head into the opposition.

There has been increasing governmental paralysis over the past year with neither Gantz nor Netanyahu able to cobble together a majority coalition with other parties. 

The reason was the Joint List party, representing Israel’s Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the country’s population, which effectively held the balance of votes. None of the main Jewish parties was prepared to be seen relying on its 15 seats.

Even with Gantz’s depleted party, Netanyahu’s “emergency government” should now be able to muster more than 70 seats in the 120-member parliament, giving him a safe majority.

Renowned for his ability to pull off political miracles, Netanyahu appears to have gradually worn down Gantz’s resistance over the past 12 months. The coronavirus epidemic proved the final straw.

Netanyahu has exploited justifiable fears about the virus to cement his status as Father of the Nation. In regular addresses, he has presented himself as Israel’s Winston Churchill, the British wartime leader who helped vanquish the Nazis. 

He has now served longer as prime minister than the country’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. 

Gantz, it seems, assessed that there was no practical way to push for a fourth election during the current lockdowns. And in any case Netanyahu, given his complete dominance of the airwaves, would have been able to cast Gantz as recklessly endangering Israel’s health and its security by refusing to join him in government.

The Blue and White leader may have blanched too at the prospect of another no-holds-barred election campaign, unleashing yet more of the dirty tricks in which Netanyahu and his allies excel.

As Netanyahu has grown more desperate to stay in power – and fearful of being put on trial – the gloves have come off. In the last two elections, his officials have questioned Gantz’s mental health and spread unverifiable rumours that a phone stolen from him contained compromising photos passed on to Iran.

Further, because his path to power depended on backing from the Joint List, Gantz was the subject of endless smears from Netanyahu accusing him of getting into bed with “supporters of terrorism”. The result was a wave of death threats.

There was another consideration for Gantz. It had becoming increasingly clear that Netanyahu was prepared to provoke a constitutional crisis – and likely violence – to hold on to power.

Netanyahu’s strategy has been to undermine the court system and the parliament – the two main checks on the executive he controls.

Amir Ohana, his justice minister, has partially shut down the courts. That included postponing Netanyahu’s March 17 trial until the end of May. There is no certainty the case won’t be delayed again.

To deal with the resulting logjam of hearings, the cabinet passed emergency regulations last week to allow court cases to be conducted by video instead. But notably, an exemption was made for those facing indictment, such as Netanyahu.

The caretaker prime minister has also stood by mutely as his senior officials have unleashed a torrent of incitement against the Israeli supreme court, in a transparent effort to intimidate its judges and turn the public mood against the legal system.

Yuli Edelstein, the speaker of the parliament from Netanyahu’s Likud party, suspended the legislature on March 18 – two weeks after the election – and refused to hold a vote for his successor as speaker because Gantz’s bloc had a narrow majority.

The fear was that a new speaker would help pass legislation to prevent criminal suspects under indictment from serving as prime minister, ousting Netanyahu from power.

The supreme court ruled that Edelstein had committed “an unprecedented violation of the rule of law” and demanded that he allow the parliament to vote on his replacement. Instead, Edelstein resigned to avoid carrying out the ruling. 

Netanyahu’s closest allies, including the justice minister, rounded on the judges. Yariv Levin, the tourism minister, accused the chief justice, Esther Hayut, of launching a judicial “coup”. He mocked her, suggesting she come to the Knesset, backed by court guards, and open the parliament herself. 

As veteran Israeli analyst Ben Caspit observed:

“The coronavirus outbreak allows Netanyahu to keep undermining the rule of law for his own survival, almost unchallenged.”

Defending his decision to join the government, Gantz said: “These are not normal times and they call for unusual decisions.” 

He hopes to persuade his supporters that he has not capitulated completely. If things go to plan – a big if – Gantz should become prime minister in a year and a half’s time.

Reportedly, Gantz had also insisted that one of his legislators be justice minister – presumably to ensure Netanyahu cannot evade trial indefinitely. But that safeguard was almost immediately undermined by legislation the emergency government started drafting to exempt Netanyahu from a current law that would prevent him from serving as an ordinary minister while under criminal indictment.

As a Haaretz editorial observed this week:

“It’s hard to stomach this new reality in which people who, until not long ago, presented themselves as warriors against government corruption in general and the corruption attributed to Netanyahu in particular, have now become its defense attorneys.”

A further plus for Netanyahu is that in the meantime he will likely have Gantz as foreign minister – where he will be responsible, as a supposed “moderate”, for burnishing Israel’s “democratic” credentials abroad. 

It may not be plain-sailing.

This month Israel scored record lows in annual global democracy surveys. Freedom House noted Israel had slipped six points – “an unusually large decline for an established democracy” – even before the latest events, noting that Netanyahu had “anti-democratic tendencies”.

Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, from Netanyahu’s own party, has similarly warned that the country’s democratic institutions are under threat.

Convoys of cars have been defying the lockdowns to protest at Netanyahu’s increasing flouting of norms.

The first test of the emergency government will be whether Gantz’s inclusion stays the demonstrators’ hand for the time being or inflames yet more protests.

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A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Throughout U.S. history, presidents have exploited national emergencies to exceed their constitutional powers. Abraham Lincoln illegally suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Franklin D. Roosevelt confined people of Japanese descent in internment camps during World War II. And George W. Bush used his post-9/11 “war on terror” to launch two illegal wars, mount a program of torture, conduct extensive unlawful surveillance and illegally detain people.

In light of the national emergency Donald Trump declared on Friday, March 13, his Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking Congress to allow the attorney general to indefinitely detain people without trial in violation of the constitutional right of habeas corpus. The DOJ also seeks to hold hearings without the defendant’s consent and exclude anyone with COVID-19 from eligibility for asylum.

Trump, who delayed responding to the pandemic for an unconscionable period of time, has now declared himself a “wartime president.” He knows that wartime presidents are never defeated at the ballot box. Despite Trump’s incompetent handling of the crisis, his approval ratings are as high as they have ever been.

But, during Bush’s so-called war on terror, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld,

“We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens,” adding, “Even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties.”

Trump’s Powers During the National Emergency

In declaring the national emergency, Trump invoked the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, which provides for financial and technical assistance to state and local governments.

He also invoked the National Emergencies Act, which triggers more than 100 additional powers for the president, constitutional law scholar Stephen Rohde said on WBAI radio’s “Law and Disorder.” They include the authority to shut down radio stations, freeze bank accounts and even deploy the military.

Moreover, the Communications Act of 1934 says that when a president proclaims there is a state or threat of war, he can order “the closing of any facility or station for wire communication.”

Rohde worries that provision could include television, radio and the internet. “It can give a president a virtual kill switch,” he told “Law and Disorder” hosts Michael Steven Smith and Heidi Boghosian. “This panoply of powers that have existed and are now at the president’s beck and call are very dangerous.”

DOJ Proposes Indefinite Detention

The DOJ is proposing that Congress grant the attorney general power to ask a district court’s chief judge to suspend court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation,” documents reviewed by Politico reveal.

That authority extends to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings.”

This would be a violation of the right to habeas corpus, which allows people to challenge the legality of their detention in court. The U.S. Constitution says only Congress can suspend the writ of habeas corpus. “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it,” reads the Suspension Clause.

Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, sounded the alarm.

“So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over,” he said. “I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.”

The DOJ also wants to amend the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to allow for hearings conducted by videoconference without the defendant’s consent.

And the DOJ seeks Congress’s permission to suspend the statute of limitations for criminal and civil cases during a national emergency.

Fortunately, there appears to be strong opposition in Congress to the DOJ’s proposal. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote, “Two Words: Hell No”; Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) tweeted, “OVER MY DEAD BODY”; and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “Absolutely not.”

People Suspected of Having Virus Subject to Surveillance and Detention

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is planning the surveillance and detention of people suspected of having COVID-19. The agency’s internal pandemic response plan obtained by The Nation discusses quarantining detainees in tent cities at the border and coordinating with foreign and domestic intelligence agencies and the Pentagon.

“We do not yet know whether CBP will carry out surveillance, transfer and detention of individuals based actual or perceived health status,” immigration attorney Helen Sklar, a member of the executive board of the National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles chapter, told Truthout. “We do know, however, that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will not release immigrant detainees notwithstanding the near universal agreement among public health experts that their continued detention poses a grave danger to public health, including an elevated risk for chronic and infectious diseases such as COVID-19.”

Sklar said that ICE does not release detained immigrants for medical reasons even though it has long had the authority to do so.

Will Trump Suspend the Election?

The national emergency occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic has already led to the postponement of presidential primaries in Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, Connecticut and Louisiana. Could Trump use his emergency declaration to suspend the November presidential election?

Not legally, as the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits presidents to two terms, and Congress, not the president, has the power to schedule presidential elections.

The more likely scenario is that Republican governors will erect roadblocks to discourage people from voting during the pandemic. They could “tamp down the turnout in the elections if they are not robust in providing creative and innovative solutions for how people can vote either in person with social distancing at normal polling stations or by mail,” Rohde told Smith and Boghosian.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has proposed a bill that would require states to develop plans to conduct the election in light of “the very real threat looming this November.” The Resilient Elections During Quarantines and Natural Disasters Act of 2020 would require states to furnish postage-free absentee ballots with self-sealing envelopes and provide grants worth $5 million to states to pay for postage and high-speed scanners to count ballots.

Even if Trump loses the election, however, there is a danger he might illegally declare martial law and refuse to leave the White House.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump claimed the election was being rigged and refused to say he would accept the results if he lost the election.

Author’s Note: This article has been corrected to clarify that the national emergency declaration does not actively weaken Medicare, Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance.

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Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

People in Tehran tell MEE that Washington has granted sanctions waivers to some countries to allow them to release frozen Iranian central bank funds for urgent medical supplies

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The United States has agreed to grant sanctions waivers to some countries, allowing them to release frozen Iranian assets to help Tehran buy medicine and equipment to fight the coronavirus outbreak, sources in Iran told Middle East Eye.

This move comes amid strident public resiststance by Washington to growing international pressure to ease sanctions against Iran, where more than 2,300 people have died from the virus.

The US State Department on Friday dismissed that account, however, after the US Treasury had on Thursday imposed new sanctions targeting individuals and companies it accused of having links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Still, a senior source in Tehran told MEE that the US has agreed in recent days to grant waivers allowing some countries to release Iranian assets without facing punitive measures.

“The efforts of some countries have led to the release of some of the Iranian central bank’s money,” he said. “Those countries will receive a sanctions waiver [for releasing Iran’s frozen assets], this has been granted and we are following this issue.”

He added:

“The unfreezing of Iranian central bank money will decrease pressure regarding the lack of foreign exchange for importing medication and life necessities.”

The source, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, did not specify which countries had been granted waivers. He also said that there had been no official deal struck between Tehran and Washington.

Iran says it has billions of dollars in oil money frozen under US pressure by countries throughout the world.

Washington said on Friday that it was not easing its measures against Tehran.

“These reports are inaccurate,” a State Department spokesperson told MEE.

“Despite the regime’s disinformation, the truth is that it already has funds available to it to spend on humanitarian trade that would benefit the Iranian people. Instead, it chooses to spend this money on terrorism and proxy groups. The Iranian people deserve better.”

‘Probably done behind the scenes’

Washington imposed blanket sanctions on Iran’s central bank last September, but it did allow partial exemptions in February that would enable Tehran to buy food and medicine through a Swiss banking channel.

European diplomats in Tehran spoken to by MEE could not confirm that sanctions waivers had been granted, but one said that “if that happens, it will probably be done behind the scenes”.

Asked which countries may have received waivers, he suggested it was likely to be nations in Asia.

Another diplomat told MEE:

“There is a lot of pressure right now to help Iran in this difficult situation.”

Several other Iranian officials had suggested in recent days that a release of Iranian assets frozen as a consequence of sanctions was imminent.

On 25 March, Abdul-Naser Hemmati, the governor of Iran’s central bank, said:

“We have been informed that financial resources frozen due to US pressure may be released.”

In an Instagram post on Friday, Hemmati said that the central bank was doing “all in its power… to provide the foreign currency the country needs… to procure medicines and medical equipment”.

Hemmati said efforts to obtain a $5bn emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund and to secure the release of central bank assets frozen by US sanctions were on a positive track.

MEE also contacted the IMF for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

On Friday, Hashmatullah Falahat Pishe, a member of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, told the ISNA news agency that some Iranian financial resources were supposed to be released, but said that the virus would continue to spread through Iran and the region if more was not done.

The United Nations and countries including the UK, Russia, China and Pakistan have urged the US to ease sanctions against Iran, which has been one of the countries worst hit by the global pandemic.

‘Dignity and humanity’

On 20 March, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani published a letter addressed to the American people in which he said that sanctions against Tehran risked undermining the worldwide fight against the virus.

“I warn that under a pandemic situation, Tehran, Paris, London and Washington are not far apart, and any hostile actor seeking to undermine Iran’s health system and restricting the needed financial resources to tackle the crisis will undermine the fight… all over the world,” he wrote.

Hinting that the crisis offered an opportunity for a rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, Rouhani added:

“The Iranian people value friendship and respect based on the principles of dignity and humanity… We react to the language of force with the language of resistance and to the language of dignity with the language of respect”.

Officials within US President Donald Trump’s administration maintain that the US sanctions policy of “maximum pressure” has not hindered Iran’s response to the coronavirus outbreak because it excludes medicine and humanitarian aid.

On Monday, the State Department published a “fact sheet” accusing the Iranian government of mismanaging the response to the virus, and suggesting claims that sanctions had contributed to the crisis in the country were “Russian and Chinese propaganda”.

Still, Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told MEE earlier this week:

“Sanctions have weakened the Iranian economy to such an extent that the country is really ill-prepared to deal with this crisis. And the responsibility for that falls on the United States, which quit the Iran nuclear deal when Iran was in full compliance with it.”

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The most frequent qualifier used to describe the global experience of the pandemic we are currently witnessing or affected by, is “crisis”. And I am reminded of political theorist Antonio Gramsci’s words: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Is the coronavirus COVID-19 Gramsci’s “morbid” symptom? I don’t know. He may have been thinking of more political symptoms. If he were alive today he may have named the level of desperation of the US government towards countries resisting its hegemony like Venezuela, Cuba, China, Nicaragua, Russia,…and the list goes on… as a morbid symptom. The agony of the dying empire that lashes against anything that is healthy and living.

The Trump administration is surpassing the threshold of what is acceptable from anybody in distress when it put a $25 million bounty “for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction” of the president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro and other top officials. Information or assassination? For the US State Department that is just semantics. Without doubt the US was behind the assassination attempt against Maduro planned in Colombia in August 2018 that took place in Caracas with drones carrying explosives. 

After all, the list of political assassinations by the US is quite extensive. The last one, this year, was that of Gen Qassem Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite military Quds force. Let no one be tempted to cast judgement on the victims. Only the assassin should stand trial.

The fact that the targeted killing against Maduro was ordered by the US State Department a few days ago at the precise time of a serious global health problem with the COVID-19 pandemic can only be interpreted as a Gramscian morbid symptom of the US administration collective disturbed minds.

But the state of mind of the US regime managers is not what I would like to focus on. 

If we take the etymological meaning of the word crisis, it comes from the Greek krisis meaning decision. That is, we are at a critical point where we are encouraged to look forward and make decisions. Those decisions may well be political and we hope that they will bury the old and lead to something “new” to be born.

In January 1959 something new arose in Cuba from the rebellion against the rotten US supported government that had condemned the majority of Cubans to poverty and ignorance. The new society that emerged has resisted a fierce blockade on its economy for the last 60 years, despite of which it has thrived and set the most valuable example to humanity: the value of solidarity.

It is quite striking that just few months into the new Cuban revolution Che Guevara stated in a speech on revolutionary medicine “[what] we have done is practising charity, and what we have to practice today is solidarity.” 

In my professional life I have worked with Cuban health professionals and I have observed the superb public health system that Cuba has in place. It is a fully publicly funded system with complete geographical coverage. The best indicator of the health achievement is Cuba’s infant mortality rate that stands at 3.7 per 1,000 live births (for the US is 5.6) according to the World Bank (2018). Its major success comes from a very proactive prevention approach to primary care. 

A major part of the strength of the institutions is the predominant role of solidarity in Cuban society. This sense of social cohesion may in fact be one of the reasons why Cuba is dealing quite successfully with the COVID-19 pandemic with 80 confirmed case reported to date and no deaths. President Diaz-Canel recently stated, “Everyone of us depends on every one of us, and we all depend on each other.” Consequently, community leaders and health brigades have visited close to 643,000 families to ensure they have the support needed to confront the health emergency in the face of an increasing blockade by the Trump administration.

Solidarity in domestic affairs is matched by the Cuban program of medical cooperation at the global level. A description of this program states that it is based on the principle of international solidarity and started with its first medical brigade to Algeria in 1963. In a research paper this author uses the example of Cuba to illustrate the practice of solidarity in healthcare in the hope of a healthier future. 

However, given that healthcare deals directly with human lives and that resources are scarce, hard questions need to be asked: What is the value of human life? What acceptable trade-off—if any—can we make for a human life? What sacrifices are we willing to make as a society to save the life of a child? These are more than philosophical questions. The decisions we make around those questions will determine the kind of society we envision to have. This author and a Cuban colleague have suggested that Cuba has shown strong political will to sustain human life in Cuba as well as in other countries with matching resources. There is no better time to show political will to sustain good population health than at time of crisis.

In the last few weeks there have been many reports of Cuban health professionals being deployed to several countries that have asked for assistance to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic that even the corporate media has not been able to hide. For example, the conservative National Post has recognised the valuable contributions made by “communist-run Cuba” together with China and Russia even in a NATO country like Italy.

Meanwhile, capitalist-run USA calls on governments not to receive Cuban doctors. The White House attacked the Cuban health professionals, who in half a century of history have carried out missions in over 150 countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia, totalling more than 400,000 medical collaborators. That is irresponsible and contrary to human solidarity. What the international organization Médicins sans Frontières (MSF) is doing to alleviate the deadly burden of COVID-19 is commendable. What must de condemned is the fact that such a daunting task relies on charity through unpredictable donations. 

In conclusion, at a time of crisis – such as the spread of a deadly pandemic – we need to drop preconceived notions that might in fact exacerbate the crisis and search for ideas and strategies in order to build a new paradigm. Examples abound if we are objective observers. Cuba is such a living example of what is possible in the most severe health situation ever experienced in recent history in such a global scale. 

Solidarity as a human value– quite contrary to charity – is meanttoact upon the social organization in order to change it for the benefit of the larger collective. The exercise of solidarity is directed at awareness of the condition and at social change or the redefinition of power relations.

International solidarity, as a synonym of cooperation, could also be considered a pillar of foreign relations in a broader scale. What would it be like to have foreign relations between countries based on solidarity instead of hostility? Cuba shows us that it is possible.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Nino Pagliccia is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Vladimir Putin has decided how Russia is going to pay for the corona-virus.

He’s going to tax the rich.

It’s a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren’t asked. Instead, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package for which the American taxpayer will be held entirely responsible. Even worse, the new legislation contains a $500 billion allocation (another corporate giveaway) that the Federal Reserve will use as a capital base for borrowing $4.5 trillion. That massive sum of money will be used to buy toxic bonds in the corporate bond market. Just as Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) were used to fleece millions of investors out of their hard-earned savings in the run-up to the 2008 Financial Crisis, so too, “toxic” corporate bonds were the weapon of choice that was used to pilfer trillions of dollars from investors in the run-up to today’s crisis. (Same scam, different instrument) The virus was merely the proximate cause that tipped the sector into meltdown. The problem had been festering for years and everyone in the financial community (Including the Fed, the BIS and the IMF) knew that it was only a matter of time before the market would blow sky-high. Which it did.

What every American needs to know is that our crooked bought-and-paid-for Congress just passed a bill that transfers the credit risk for $4.5 trillion of corporate sludge onto the National Debt. A bailout of this magnitude could impact the nation’s credit rating (Fitch has already issued a warning), send interest rates to the moon, dampen economic activity for years to come, and pave the way for a long and painful slump. The much ballyhooed $1,200 checks for unemployed workers are merely a tactical diversion that’s being used to conceal the giant ripoff that is taking place right under our noses.

In contrast, Putin has settled on a more rational and compassionate plan. He’s going to launch a relief program that actually focuses on the people who need it the most. Then, he’s going to cover the costs by taxing the people who are most capable of shouldering the burden. His intention is not to “soak the rich” or to redistribute wealth. He simply wants to find the most equitable way to share the costs for this completely unexpected crisis. In short, Putin was presented with two very bad options:

1– Let the Russian people huddle in their homes (“shelter in place”) until the food runs out and the bills pile up to the ceiling.

2–Or tap into a temporary source of revenue that will help the country get through the hard times.

He wisely chose the latter option not because he’s a fiery leftist who hates the “free market”, but because he realizes that in a time of national crisis, the people who are more able to pay, should pay. It’s a question of fairness.

And who are the people who will benefit from Putin’s plan? Well, he named them in a speech he delivered to the nation just last week. Here’s a clip:

“We also need to take additional steps, primarily to ensure the social protection of our people, their incomes and jobs, as well as support for small and medium-sized businesses, which employ millions of people….

First, all social protection benefits that our citizens are entitled to, should be renewed automatically over the next six months… if a family is entitled to subsidized housing and utility payments, they will not need to regularly confirm their per capita income to continue receiving this state support…all payments to war veterans and home-front workers timed to the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory, 75,000 and 50,000 rubles, respectively, should be made before the May holidays…

Second, it is essential to support families with children……..Third, we need to support those on sick leave and people who have lost their jobs.” (Putin’s Address to the Nation)

See? No big payouts to failing corporations, no welfare checks for Wall Street, and no tax breaks for fatcat bankers and their crooked friends. Just money for the people who desperately need it: Families with children, veterans, home-front workers, the sick, the unemployed, and the homeless. Simple and fair.

The strategy is aimed at everyone who is impacted by the virus, not just the people who filed taxes last year like the Trump Plan, but anyone who needs public assistance. At the same time, financial support will be provided for small and medium-sized businesses, incomes will be protected, jobs will be guaranteed. and mortgage payments will be suspended. It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s fairly comprehensive and targets the people that are most vulnerable. It also underscores the primary responsibility of government during times of crisis, that is, to ensure the health, safety and security of its people. That is Job 1.

The Putin plan also provides support for medical personnel, doctors, nurses, emergency staff, hospital employees, health care workers and first-responders. Here’s Putin:

“We have mobilized all the capabilities and resources for deploying a system of timely prevention and treatment. I would like to specially address doctors, paramedics, nurses, staff at hospitals, outpatient clinics, rural paramedic centers, ambulance services, and researchers: you are at the forefront of dealing with this situation. My heartfelt gratitude to you for your dedicated efforts.”

Will Putin and his advisors make mistakes in containing the virus and ending the contagion as swiftly as possible?

Probably, but it certainly looks like they’ve got their priorities right. Putin seems to understand that the health and welfare of the Russian people has to be put before the stock market, finance capital or the voracious corporate kingpins. In contrast, Trump wants to put more people at risk of infection by sending them back to work after Easter. That’s just not the way responsible leaders behave, not if they really care about the health of their people. Here’s more from Putin:

“There are two more measures I would like to suggest. First, all interest and dividend income that flows from Russia and is transferred abroad into offshore jurisdictions must be taxed properly….I suggest that those expatriating their income as dividends to foreign accounts should pay a 15 percent tax on these dividends….

Second, many countries levy income tax on interest earned by individuals from their bank deposits and investments in securities, while Russia does not tax this income at all. I propose that people with over 1 million rubles in bank deposits and debt securities pay a 13 percent tax on this income…. I propose using the budget revenue from these two measures to fund initiatives to support families with children and help people who are unemployed or on sick leave.”

What does it mean?

It means that Putin is closing tax havens and tax loopholes so he can get the money he needs to pay for the epidemic. It means he’s taking on the wealthiest and most powerful people in Russia so he can provide relief for the people who are stuck in their homes trying to survive. It means he’s risking his own political future in order to do the right thing. Here’s Putin:

“People of Russia, we need the state, society and the people to work together.. We have to be mindful that we bear personal responsibility for our close ones, for those who live near us, and who need our help and support….It is our sense of solidarity that underpins the resilience of our society, as well as an unwavering commitment to mutual assistance and the effectiveness of the response we come up with to overcome the challenge we are facing.”

Shared sacrifice, solidarity and brotherly love. That’s what he’s talking about, isn’t it? The threads that bind a disparate group of people into a sovereign nation.

In America, we make the working poor pay for the excesses of the crooked rich, while in Russia, the wealthy are asked to make sacrifices for the sake of the country. Which approach do you think is better?

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

The WHO now calls the Coronavirus epidemic a ‘pandemic’ and calls on all countries to apply drastic health policies.

The rapid spread, morbidity and mortality associated with the disease are all the more worrying as they can quickly deplete health system resources to meet the needs of people. All countries are thus on alert.

In the United States, President Trump, after minimizing the threat for a while, has declared a state of national emergency. Prime Minister Trudeau invites people to reduce their trips for the time being.

Italy, overwhelmed, announced 250 dead in 24 hours, and chose the patients to be treated as a priority. Iran has declared 1000 new cases in 24 hours, knowing that the numbers are lower than the reality since the country does not have the resources to make the full national diagnosis.

Only China has turned the tide, with only 8 new cases reported in the last 24 hours, the lowest figure since mid-January. Iran and Italy are now the “front line” countries in the fight against COVID-19.

The situation is particularly serious in Iran where there is “a shortage of breathing apparatus and oxygen”, according to the head of WHO’s emergency health programs, Dr Ryan. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says that ‘Iran is doing its best. They need more equipment.’

The behavior of the Covid-19 dictates seeking health security through a concerted global effort. It requires collaboration and coordination of actions without borders since our health security is more than ever interdependent.

The Covid-19 highlights the dual illegitimacy of the United States’ draconian and unilateral sanctions against various countries, Iran in particular.

In this case Iran, seriously affected by the pandemic, is unable to sell its oil. And banking sanctions prevent it from obtaining essential products for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of coronavirus. These sanctions jeopardize both lives in Iran and the global fight against the pandemic.

The United States refuses to withdraw the sanctions despite the request of the United Nations while Iran is one of the epicenters of the pandemic in the Middle East region, as China has been in Asia and Italy is in Europe. How many in Iran will die needlessly because of these illogical, illegitimate, immoral, and illegal economic sanctions?

Let us add that the sanctions of the USA against Iran are condemned by the UN, which endorsed the nuclear agreement through resolution 2231 of the UN Security Council.

Certainly the Iranian government is responsible for the shortcomings in the management of the health crisis. However, Italy is currently experiencing the same propagation situation, but the European budgets set aside for the control of the Covid-19 are in the order of several billion euros per country. Iran has much more limited financial resources, largely blocked by sanctions, with a population equivalent to that of Germany.

According to a US government-funded site, “Radio Farda,” Iran can only export 250,000 barrels of oil per day, one-tenth of what it exported before the 2015 agreement.

We can see that the strategy of Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran (an unprecedented financial and commercial blockade aimed at impoverishing the Iranians in the hope of pushing them to overthrow the government) has more responsibility for the country’s current difficulties in the face of the pandemic.

In this context of extreme tension imposed by the United States, the Iranian government felt, from the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic, that it should not appear vulnerable.

With the US treasury having imposed third party sanctions on European, Indian and other firms, Iran has been pushed to increased dependence on China, the only country capable of somewhat challenging Trump. Iran has therefore not had the luxury of cutting trade and travel with China.

The call this week of the United against Nuclear Iran (UANI) to prevent pharmaceutical companies holding ‘special licenses’ (defined as ‘humanitarian exemptions’) from doing business with the Iran says a lot about the credibility of the protagonists of sanctions.

Another lobby recognized as a sanctioner, the FDD (Federation for defense of democracy) welcomed the coronavirus outbreak: ‘the virus has harmed the economy of the country where the sanctions could not have done it’.

The rhetoric weaponizing the “legitimate fight for human rights” to justify these cruel sanctions before public opinion is severely tested by the difficulties of Iran and the suffering of the Iranians, kept in a situation of vulnerability to the pandemic against all civilizational standards.

Health, hygiene and access to medical care are inalienable human rights. The American and Iranian peoples, and all of humanity, have a common enemy in this pandemic: the coronavirus and the unjust and inhuman sanctions.

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After a decade-long, worldwide corporate debt binge, the bill has come due: huge swaths of the corporate world are now at risk of default, with only governments able to save them. This time, any bailouts must place corporate investment under public control.

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The new coronavirus has already infected hundreds of thousands of people, taken more than 20,000 lives and caused a level of economic, social and political disruption not seen in decades.

But for many far-right hardliners, it’s a crisis to be welcomed.

The hardest-core “accelerationists” – violent neo-Nazis who want civilisation to crumble, hope that COVID-19 will turn out to be their secret weapon.

“The situation is ripe for exploitation by the far right,” Cynthia Miller-Idriss, American University sociologist and expert on the far-right, told Al Jazeera. 

Aside from feeding into “accelerationist and apocalytic ideas”, Miller-Idriss said “the uncertainty the pandemic creates creates fertile ground for claims about the need for change or the solutions the far right purports to offer.”

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