Global Research

“Colonialism is not a thinking machine,
nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties.
It is violence in its natural state…”

— Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963)

This past month Israeli soldiers dumped a Palestinian worker at a checkpoint on the border of the West Bank, shivering from fever and barely able to breathe. According to Middle East Eye, he “had been showing signs of the coronavirus over the past four days, and was recently tested for the virus. But before the man, allegedly a resident of Nablus, could receive his test results, his Israeli employer reportedly called the authorities, who picked him up and dropped him on the other side of the Beit Sira checkpoint, which connects central Israel and the occupied West Bank.” “It’s like we are slaves to them,” says a local Palestinian, “They use us when they need us, and when they are finished, they throw us away like trash.” Since the crisis began Israeli soldiers have actively obstructed the emergency response for Palestinians by shutting down multiple clinics and continuing their practice of arbitrary house demolitions.

Checkpoint in Bethlehem. [Photo: Anne Paq]

Praise for “battle-ready” Israel’s militarized response to the coronavirus pandemic has turned a blind eye to the manner in which it has also weaponized the coronavirus pandemonium against Palestinians. While Gaza has been strangled by a 13-year blockade and repeated military invasions, which renders its two million inhabitants vulnerable to pandemics, in the West Bank Palestinians struggle with a brutal occupation that seeks to deny them the most basic and necessary means to survive and care for themselves. As of April 9, 2020, the West Bank is reported to have 250 cases of the coronavirus. However, these numbers are set to increase significantly in the coming period due to the return of many Palestinian workers from Israel following Passover and for Ramadan. While people in Italy and UK take to their balconies applauding the “essential sector” workers, Palestinians who work in Israel’s “essential industries” find themselves crushed “between the rock of the occupation and the hammer of coronavirus.”¹

Palestinian civil society organizations are calling for an immediate international intervention. Though the COVID crisis may be an “exceptional” moment in recent world history, the conditions to which Palestinians are subjected reminds us that the Nakba (النكبة) – the expulsion, dispossession, and dehumanization of Palestinians in 1948 – is not a fact of the past, but is ongoing. Palestinian workers bear the brunt of this violence. It is imperative that the international left recognize the exceptional setting of the pandemic confronting Palestinians, and take political actions in support of immediate relief to the medical emergency and an end to the Israeli occupation.

The Occupation and the Pandemic

Many Palestinians are denied access to basic health services by Israeli land confiscations and checkpoints. Palestinian communities in Area C, which comprises approximately 60 per cent of the West Bank, are particularly in jeopardy.² In the area of the Naqab (Negev), for example, over 80,000 Palestinians have no access to emergency healthcare. Coronavirus cases are rapidly spreading in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians are subject to Israel’s discriminatory “residency” criteria and severe underfunding of public services.³ Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem only have 22 ventilators for nearly 350,000 people. Many working class and poor Palestinians’ access to health services in the West Bank has been on the decline because their public health infrastructure has been undermined by Israel’s withholding of clearance revenues to the Palestinian Authority (PA), cuts in US funding under the Trump administration, as well as austerity measures imposed on the PA by the World Bank and IMF. In the West Bank, only 256 adult ventilators are available for a population of three million Palestinians, of which 90 per cent are already in use. Spread of the virus will have catastrophic consequences for Palestinians.

Yet efforts by Palestinians to develop communal systems of support are systematically sabotaged by the Israeli occupation. In March, Palestinians involved in disinfecting public spaces and distributing aid packages in the Old City of Jerusalem were arrested. In early April, the Israeli army arrested the Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi Hidmi as he sought to assist Palestinians in Jerusalem with the COVID pandemic.⁴ On April 15, despite forty confirmed cases in the East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, the Israeli army raided the coronavirus testing clinic in the local mosque and arrested its organizers. Palestinian residents of Silwan have been repeatedly the target of evictions and expulsions, as have Palestinians throughout Area C. In the Jordan Valley hamlet of Khirbet Ibziq, similarly, the Israeli army is sabotaging coronavirus relief attempts by confiscating equipment for the construction of a field clinic and emergency housing for its residents, some of whom have been subject to house demolitions.⁵ Even as the United Nations has called for ceasefire in all conflict zones and populations world over are told to stay indoors, Israel throws Palestinians out of their homes.

On a daily basis, Palestinians confront institutionalized segregation through Israel’s control over their water, access to which is a basic necessity under this pandemic. Israel’s appropriation and exploitation of water in Palestine’s coastal and mountain aquifers and in the Jordan Valley has been one of its main weapons of war. After the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities issued military orders to consolidate their control over underground water basins and water-related infrastructure, a control which they safeguarded under the terms of the 1994 Oslo Accords. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are forced to purchase water (trucked or from the Israeli state-owned water company, Mekorot) at exorbitant prices. According to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 180 rural communities in the West Bank have no access to running water. In the “unrecognized” villages of the West Bank, over 56,000 people are in the same situation. According to Amnesty International, water expenses can amount to one-half of the family’s monthly income in some of the poorest communities. The outcome is a manifestly racialized discrimination; the average Israeli settler living in the West Bank consumes three to eight times the amount of water than Palestinians.⁶ This system of “water apartheid” makes it impossible for Palestinians, especially working class and poor, to maintain the most basic hygiene conditions that are necessary to survive this pandemic. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel as an occupying power must at a minimum ensure the basic conditions of health and hygiene, including conditions of water and sanitation.

This moment of the COVID pandemic is being exploited by the Israeli authorities to further intensify military actions, electronic and other mechanisms of surveillance, and to create new “facts on the ground” in a process of annexation of Palestinian land that has been normalized by the Trump administration, recent Israeli Knesset decisions, and the “unity deal” being negotiated between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz.⁷In the last month, major Israeli settlement blocs such as Gush Etzion south of Jerusalem are being expanded, further cutting the territorial contiguity of the West Bank.⁸ Apartheid road infrastructure for settlers only are being extended in major settlements like Ma’ale Adumim.⁹ While the Palestinian Authority has imposed lockdowns in the West Bank, the Israeli army has intensified night raids, arrests, home demolitions, and house evictions in the West Bank and Jerusalem.¹⁰ In a two week period during the pandemic in March alone, according to Mondoweiss, “Israeli forces injured 200 Palestinians, detained 100, demolished 16 structures.” Israeli violations in the West Bank have intensified meanwhile, with recent news reports that attacks by settlers have risen by 78 per cent with Palestinians being brutally assaulted,¹¹ kidnapped, their olive trees uprooted, and their property spat on by Israeli soldiers and attacked by settler-youths who are under coronavirus quarantine.

Palestinians Crossing the Green Line and the Apartheid of Virus Containment

Palestinians who work in Israel and the settlements are particularly vulnerable during the pandemic. Having stripped Palestinians of their land, Israeli colonization has worked to transform them under military rule into dependent, subordinate, and exploitable wage-workers incorporated into the Israeli economy. A systematic policy of de-development suppressed Palestinian industrial development after 1967, and, accompanied by the expropriation of cultivable land and water in the Occupied Territories, forced many Palestinians to work as daily wage labourers in Israel and on the very settlements built on their confiscated lands. This policy remains in place today. Given the high levels of unemployment as a result of Israel’s strangulation of their economy, Palestinians now working in Israel and the settlements are estimated to number over 133,000,¹² while their wages support a population of over half a million.¹³

Even before the pandemic, these thousands of workers were subject to multiple tools of racial discrimination by the Israeli authorities. These include subjection to the checkpoints’ permits system, which is a primary tool of blackmail to politically discipline Palestinians and force collaboration; inhumane conditions in the checkpoints as thousands cross in the early morning hours; humiliation and harassment by soldiers; and discrimination in law and exploitation in practice by Israeli employers. Palestinian workers have minimal to no legal protections, are paid far less than their Jewish Israeli co-workers, without the benefits of health insurance, and yet they are forced to pay social security contributions and union fees to the Israeli labour syndicate Histadrut without representation. They are exploited by Israeli and Palestinian intermediaries – mafias who force them to pay exorbitant fees (at over $800 (US) monthly) to acquire black market permits to simply cross the Green Line but without any guarantee of actual employment.

The Israelis have been lauded for their “military style” effectiveness in response to COVID, tightening internal lockdowns. However, in order to keep key sectors of the Israeli economy running in the midst of the pandemic, which stood to lose $1.8-billion a month from the cessation of construction alone,¹⁴ the Israeli government allowed continued entry of Palestinian workers into Israel. In doing so, Israeli authorities have used the pandemic to intensify surveillance and repression of these workers. Palestinians who require permits to stay in Israel are now “advised” to download a smartphone app called “Al Munasiq” (“The Coordinator”) which allows the Israeli military to track users’ location, and access their personal files as well as the phone’s camera.

The frontiers of Israeli apartheid not only segregate Palestinians from Jewish Israelis, but also the Palestinian bodies themselves. Israel has privileged able-bodied young Palestinian workers to the exclusion of older ones. On March 11, the Israeli authorities announced new regulations barring Palestinian workers over 50 years of age from crossing effective March 12; On March 17, they announced that effective March 18, those Palestinian workers under 50 were obliged to remain in Israel for a one- to two-month period if they wished to continue employment. It is estimated that between forty and fifty thousand Palestinian workers entered Israel in this scramble. However, on March 25, the Palestinian Prime Minister issued a call for Palestinian workers to return to the West Bank following public outcries over their racist and inhumane treatment. Workers are being forced to live in squalid conditions at their places of work in Israel, which are reportedly “not appropriate for humans” while Israel has failed to test workers for coronavirus. Rather than being cared for, workers who develop symptoms or who have been suspected of being sick have been have been dumped back into the West Bank at checkpoints along the Green Line, “like trash,” often without coordination with Palestinian authorities.

A potential uncontrolled spread of coronavirus is feared in the West Bank due to the return of over 40,000 workers after the start of Passover and Ramadan. Moreover, the Israeli government has announced that workers who return to the West Bank during this holiday period will be denied entry back into Israel for employment.¹⁵ These workers are highly reliant on their wages in Israel as the only source of income and many still owe debts for the permits they purchased to cross the checkpoints.¹⁶Meanwhile they risk direct exposure to the virus in Israel and are simultaneously unable to access healthcare or testing. Upon their return to the West Bank, these workers are still unable to get tested and face backlash with the recent surge of cases.¹⁷

International Labour Solidarity with Palestinians

This moment of crisis offers a historical opportunity to galvanize solidarity movements with Palestinians and other indigenous people and workers around the world. On April 7, a coalition of Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations issued a new call for international solidarity, demanding that Israel allow access to critical civilian health infrastructure, and release Palestinian political prisoners who have been illegally detained and risk exposure to the virus in Israeli prisons. They have also called for the siege of Gaza to be broken with another Freedom Flotilla, and the escalation of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign.¹⁸ Coalitions between civil society organizations have issued a Palestinian Civil Society Joint Statement on COVID. Regular systems of reporting have been established by Al-Haq, the long-time legal advocacy group, to monitor the violence to which Palestinians are being subject in the current pandemic, as well as, on basic conditions of water, health, and medical equipment. Most recently on April 14, 2020, a coalition of human rights organizations issued an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Procedures. They are calling on the UN to denounce Israel’s systematic practices of racial discrimination and exploitation of Palestinian labour, who are forced to risk their health and life under this crisis. Beyond COVID, initiativesto bring Israel to trial on war crimes in the International Criminal Court have direct bearing on current realities.

One of the questions for the international left is how to urgently mobilize support for the campaigns and coalitions being advanced in/from Palestine. Nakba Day on May 15, 2020 will mark the 72nd year of the unconscionable injustices against which the Palestinian people continue to struggle. It is imperative for left forces to link the specific conditions of colonialism and apartheid facing Palestinians with neoliberal attacks on working classes the world over. The struggle of Palestinian workers cannot be interpreted only as a national struggle for self-determination. COVID-19 comes at a time of intensified capitalist crisis, in which the working class has been under systematic attack from decades of neoliberalism, commodification of most areas of social life, dispossession of land base, and indebtedness. Palestinian workers are fully incorporated in these processes of global finance capital, in the particular context of the ongoing Israeli settler-colonial rule. Thus, struggle of workers in Palestine with COVID-19 needs to be understood as a struggle also against capitalism. Calls for unified global action by labour have been made by the International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggle, among others, demanding solidarity with Palestinians and all colonized people in this pandemic.¹⁹ We need to urgently act in solidarity, understood, in the words of Mozambican revolutionary Samora Machel, not as “an act of charity but an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objectives.”²⁰

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G.N. Nithya is a Ph.D. candidate at York University.

Notes

1. Mahmoud Zawahreh, Palestinian activist, in “Coronavirus: Israeli settlers exploit lockdown to annex Palestinian land.”
2. Joint statement, “Israeli Apartheid Undermines Palestinian Right to Health Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic,” 7 April 2020; World Health Organization, “Overcoming barriers to healthcare access in the West Bank with mobile clinics.”
3. Nir Hasson, “After Weeks of Warning, Coronavirus Spreading Among Palestinians in East Jerusalem,” 14 April 2020; J. Ahmad, “Falling between the cracks in Jerusalem,” 30 March 2020.
4. Daoud Kuttab, “Palestinian minister claims Israeli police physically abused him,” 4 April 2020; Dr. Ashrawi, “Israel deliberately undermining Palestinian efforts to combat COVID19 pandemic,” 3 April 2020.
5. B’Tselem, “During the Coronavirus crisis, Israel confiscates tents designated for clinic in the Northern West Bank,” 26 March 2020; The New Arab, “Coronavirus under occupation: Israeli forces demolish emergency health clinic for Palestinians,” 27 March 2020.
6. Adri Nieuwhof, “Israeli settlers use six times more water than Palestinians,” 8 April 2013; Al-Haq, “On World Water Day, Al-Haq Recalls Israeli Water-Apartheid Amidst a Global Pandemic,” 23 March 2020.
7. Chaim Levinson, Jonathan Lis, “Netanyahu, Gantz Agree on West Bank Annexation Proposal as Unity Deal Nears,” 6 April 2020; Yaser Alashqar, “From Covid-19 to the ‘Deal of the Century’ – Palestine and international law,” 8 April 2020.
8. “Israel exploiting coronavirus for settlement expansion,” 12 March 2020; Akram Al-Waara, “Coronavirus: Israeli settlers exploit lockdown to annex Palestinian land,” 27 March 2020.
9. Haaretz editorial, “Israel’s Latest Highway to Apartheid,” 11 March 2020; for background: “The E1 plan and its implications for human rights in the West Bank,” 27 Nov. 2013.
10. Ali Abunimah, “Israel attacks Palestinians as they fight COVID-19,” 31 March 2020; “Israel demolishes Palestinian homes amid coronavirus crisis,” 28 March 2020; “Since coronavirus pandemic outbreak: Israel kidnapped 292 Palestinian,” 3 April 2020.
11. Tamara Nassar, “Settler attacks rise by 78 percent amid pandemic,” 11 April 2020; “Jewish Settlers Attack Palestinian Family Homes in Hebron,” 6 April 2020.
12. Estimates includes West Bank and Gaza, “The Labour Force Survey Results 2019,” Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
13. In a recent interview with Al-Jazeera, director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Jerusalem estimated these figures at 200,000 Palestinian workers, implying their wages support a population of over one million (assuming each worker supports at least five dependents) (“Palestinian labourers fear loss of income as well as coronavirus”).
14. On March 6, 2020, the Israeli financial newspaper, Calcalist, estimated significant losses at $1.8-billion monthly for the construction sector if Palestinian workers were not allowed in, see Ahmad Melhem, “Israel tightens grip on Palestinian workers to limit COVID-19,” 20 March 2020; Adam Rasgon, “PA urges Palestinian workers to return to West Bank as Israel’s virus cases grow,” 25 March 2020.
15. Jack Khoury and Hagar Shezaf, “Palestinians fear coronavirus surge as workers return from Israel over passover,” 4 April 2020; Rania Zabaneh, “Palestinians brace coronavirus outbreak workers return,” 6 April 2020.
16. Zeina Amro, “A Glimpse into the COVID-19 Crisis in the Context of Palestine,” 2 April 2020; Alex Lederman, “Palestinian labourers fear loss of income as well as coronavirus,” 28 March 2020.
17. Palestinians brace for influx of workers as Covid-19 cases continue to rise; see video.
18. Al-Haq, “In the face of potential COVID-19 outbreak in the Gaza Strip, Israel is obliged to take measures to save lives,” 7 April 2020; Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council press release, “PHROC Calls the International Community & ICRC for an Urgent Intervention,” 23 March 2020; Samidoun, “Virtual call to action for Palestine: COVID-19, Gaza and the Struggle for Justice,” 16 March 2020; also see, internationally: Michael Arria, “Warren, Van Hollen lead Senators in demanding Trump admin send aid to Palestine amid COVID-19 crisis,” 27 March 2020; IfNotNow, “Demand Israel Protect Palestinians in Gaza.”
19. Solidaires (CM), “Coronavirus: colonialism worsens the situation too,” 1 April 2020; Solidaires (CM), “Palestine in the Time of Covid-19,” 9 April 2020.
20. Salim Vally, “From South Africa to Palestine, Lessons for the New Anti‐Apartheid Movement,” Left Turn, Notes from the Global Intifada, April 2008.

All images in this article are from The Bullet unless otherwise stated.

“The costs of the pandemic keep piling up,” writes Marc Thiessen at the Washington Post. “Somebody has to pay for this unprecedented damage. That somebody should be the government of China.”

And why, pray tell, should China’s government be punished? For “intentionally lying to the world about the danger of the virus, and proactively impeding a global response that might have prevented a worldwide contagion.”

Sounds fair, doesn’t it? If a government lies and people die as a result, that government and its functionaries should be held responsible, right? Good enough for me.

But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so if we’re having Peking Duck this week, I’d like to know when Thiessen plans to cough up his share of US government’s tab.

As a speechwriter for US president George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the first decade of this century, Thiessen was directly responsible for pushing lies that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Humanity is still paying a steep price for fairy tales about weapons of mass destruction and cries of wolf that “the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud” – fairy tales and cries of wolf that Thiessen helped draft and craft.

In fact, he’s got a lot of nerve pretending that he’s even on the same moral level as Chinese government actors who may have lied about COVID-19, let alone in a position to lecture them.

Those Chinese actors were, at worst, trying to save face for their regime, and at best trying to keep themselves out of jail (the Chinese Communist Party has a reputation for harsh treatment of people who embarrass it).

Thiessen was shilling for an unprovoked war of aggression in Iraq by his regime, and he could have quit that job any time he chose without fear of being dragged off for “re-education.”

Governments collectively, and the people who comprise them individually, lie. A lot. About all kinds of different things and for all kinds of different reasons. And often, as a result, people die. I’m all for holding them accountable, but accountability starts at home.

Let’s be honest about what’s going on here: Republican flacks like Thiessen are trying to shift blame away from their party’s own policy failures by re-premising the same old anti-China campaign they’ve been waging for years.

Don’t forget to tip your server, Marc.

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Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism. He lives and works in north central Florida. This article is reprinted with permission from William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

Featured image is from Morning Star

We are seeing a massive backlash against the coronavirus lockdowns all over the United States, and it is likely that the protests against these lockdowns will only intensify in the days ahead.  But some elected officials are doubling down and are insisting that “shelter-in-place” orders will remain in effect in their jurisdictions for quite a few months to come. 

I honestly do not know how that is possibly going to work, because after just a few weeks millions upon millions of Americans have become deeply frustrated with these lockdowns.  Trying to confine people to their homes for the foreseeable future is likely to spark tremendous explosions of anger, but that appears to be exactly what authorities intend to do in some of our largest urban areas.  For example, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio just told Fox News that he expects his city will be shut down until July or August…

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio joined Bill Hemmer today on FOX News Channel.

The mayor told Hemmer he does not expect New York City to open until July or August.

Does he honestly believe that New York City residents will put up with being confined to their homes for another three or four months?

Over on the west coast, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently told the press that there probably will not be mass gatherings in his state “until we get to herd immunity and we get to a vaccine”…

“The prospect of mass gatherings is negligible at best until we get to herd immunity and we get to a vaccine,” Newsom told reporters at his press briefing.

“Large-scale events that bring in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of strangers … [are] not in the cards based upon our current guidelines and current expectations,” he said.

It is exceedingly unlikely that we will get to the point of “herd immunity” in the United States this year, and most experts do not anticipate a vaccine until some time in 2021.

Would he really try to keep his state locked down for that long?

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti appears to be on the exact same page, and he has already pretty much ruled out all large gatherings in his city “until 2021”…

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday that large gatherings like sporting events and concerts are unlikely to occur until 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, a major blow for one of the world’s major sports and entertainment capitals.

Considering the fact that the NFL has two teams in Los Angeles, this is potentially an absolutely devastating blow for football fans.

Of course it is possible that the Rams and the Chargers could play their games elsewhere, but that is probably not likely.

Especially in liberal bastions on the east and west coasts, fear of large gatherings is likely to persist for a long time to come.  Facebook has already canceled all large company events until 2021, and other big tech firms will almost certainly follow suit.

Without a doubt, everyone should be in favor of reasonable measures to help prevent the spread of the virus, but the hysteria that we are seeing in some areas of California right now is off the charts.

For instance, Mendocino County has actually banned people from singing in online worship services.  The following is an excerpt from their absurd social distancing directives…

No singing or use of wind instruments, harmonicas, or other instruments that could spread COVID-19 through projected droplets shall be permitted unless the recording of the event is done at one’s residence, and involving only the members of one’s household or living unit, because of the increased risk of transmission of COVID-19.

Of course we aren’t just seeing this sort of insanity here in the United States.

Over in Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is seriously considering extending his nation’s social distancing measures for many months to come…

Australian public life could be constrained for another year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned on Friday, as the country’s most populous state mulled sending children to school in shifts.

Australia has so far avoided the high numbers of coronavirus casualties reported around the world after closing its borders and imposing strict “social distancing” measures for the past month.

These lockdowns may be slowing down the spread of the virus to a certain extent, but they are also absolutely crushing economic activity.

Thousands of businesses have been either crippled or destroyed, and tens of millions of jobs have been lost in the United States alone.

Needless to say, business owners and workers all over the nation are sick and tired of not being able to make a living, and President Trump added fuel to their frustration when he called for several states to be “liberated” on Friday…

President Trump made himself the star of the ‘lockdown rebellion’ on Friday by tweeting ‘LIBERATE Minnesota’ and then adding Michigan and Virginia to the list of states that should be freed.

The tweets came one day after the president’s coronavirus taskforce rolled out guidelines that would give governors broad power to decide when states’ economies would open back up amid the coronavirus pandemic.

And instead of waiting for permission, some business owners across the country have decided that they are going to reopen anyway…

Summit Motorsports Park owner Bill Bader Jr. vowed to start holding events with or without government permission, in a Facebook live post earlier this week.

“I’m not asking, I’m opening,” he said in the video and said that he thought that business closures were an overreaction. “If in Huron County, for example, we are able to save every life and limit and ultimately mitigate any outbreaks of Covid-19, but in the process of that we all starve to death, what have we accomplished.”

As I have warned all along, Americans are simply not going to have much patience with these sorts of lockdowns, and this is particularly true in areas of the nation that tend to lean conservative.

But those on the left are pointing out that we are already starting to see a huge surge in confirmed cases in parts of the country that haven’t been locked down…

The bump in coronavirus cases is most pronounced in states without stay at home orders. Oklahoma saw a 53% increase in cases over the past week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Over same time, cases jumped 60% in Arkansas, 74% in Nebraska, and 82% in Iowa. South Dakota saw a whopping 205% spike.

Once restrictions start being lifted nationwide, it is probably inevitable that we will see another huge wave of new cases and new deaths.

However, it is important to point out that this virus is going to eventually spread through most of the population no matter what measures we take.  Yes, we want to keep our hospitals from being completely overwhelmed, but we also don’t want to completely destroy our economy at the same time.

Our policy makers are going to have some very, very tough decisions in the days ahead, and the truth is that this coronavirus pandemic is just the very beginning of our problems.

The months in front of us are going to be extremely challenging, and life as you have known it will never be the same again.

The good news is that some of the coronavirus lockdowns will start to be lifted in the weeks ahead, and that will enable millions of Americans to start making a living once again.

But in other areas, politicians are warning that the lockdowns could last for many months to come.

If the politicians in your state tried to do that, what would you do?

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My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Featured image is from Pixabay

Things are getting dizzy in the White House on what, exactly, is being done to “open the economy”.  Cranky advocates for the financial argument over the restrictions of public health have been attempting to claw back some ground.  As Jonathan Chait puts it, “The anti-public health faction either believes the dangers of the coronavirus have been exaggerated, or that the cost of social-distancing requirements is so high that the economy should simply be opened, regardless of medical danger.” 

Officials such as US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow have been busy pushing the line that the shuttered economy will be opened come May.  In Mnuchin’s words, “As soon as the president feels comfortable with the medical issues, we are making everything necessary that American companies and American workers can be open for business and that they have the liquidity they need to operate the business in the interim.”  On the Fox Business Network, Kudlow outlined his views.  “Our intent here was, is, to try to relieve people of the enormous difficult hardships they are suffering through no fault of their own.”

The economy-before-health group, which also consists of Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, has never had much time for the medical arguments.  In the views of a senior administration official, “They already know what they want to do and they’re looking for ways to do it.”

What, then, could be done to remove the shutters?  President Donald Trump initially felt enough confidence to claim the broadest of powers on the subject, bypassing states and their authority to manage and ease the coronavirus lockdowns.  “The authority of the president of the United States having to do with the subject we are talking about is total,” he explained at a White House press conference early last week.  “I have the ultimate authority.”

He tantalised those gathered with promises of a written paper on the subject, though felt it unnecessary “because the governors need us one way or the other because, ultimately, it comes with the federal government.” 

On April 14, Trump took aim at his most favourite of hobby horses – the “Fake News Media” – for claiming “that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government.  Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect.”  Legal authorities such as Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas in Austin disagree: “the president has no formal legal authority to categorically override local or state shelter-in-place orders or to reopen schools and small businesses.”   

After his initial imputation of such vast constitutional powers, Trump felt that it was all up to the governors in any case.  He called testing for COVID-19 “a local thing”, feeling that State officials were showing little or no initiative in using commercial labs.

Things are certainly not rosy, let alone coordinated, between the White House and the governors.  Criticism of the president’s uneven and tardy response has earned rebuke and mocking.  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer became “Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer”; Washington Governor Jay Inslee was lashed by comments of being a “failed presidential candidate who was “constantly chirping”.  As Trump has explained with a note of tartness to Vice President Mike Pence, “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”  Even during times of high crisis, the president luxuriates in adolescent petulance.

In certain states, there has been a rash of protests against quarantine regimes.  Trump, ever the tease, has thrown in his lot with them, tweeting messages of “liberation” for Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, all led by Democratic governors.  Michigan, in particular, has one of the firmest quarantine regimes in the country, measures which have spawned such groups of disgruntlement as the Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine. 

The April 15 protest, which featured a gathering outside the Michigan State Capitol, was held with a daring impertinence, with participants fobbing off anything related to physical distancing rules.  Four Michigan residents have also decided to throw the law book at the governor, with legal proceedings claiming that the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order is in violation of their constitutional rights.  The attorney responsible for filing the suit, one David Helm, argues that Whitner’s initial executive order passed muster in targeting “the specific needs of the crises”; the second, issued on April 9, was “unreasonable” and an act of executive over stretch.

The White House has suggested a strategy to the 50 governors, one involving three phases.  Phase one continues to feature social distancing in public, the isolation of vulnerable individuals, socialising in small groups and minimising “non-essential travel”.  Bars are to be remain closed, but gyms can open on the proviso of observing “strict physical distancing and sanitation protocols”.  Phase Two keeps vulnerable individuals in shelter, increases the number of individuals who can gather in social settings (from 10 to 50) and permits non-essential travel.  The continuation of telework where feasible and keeping common areas where workers might gather closed also feature.  The final phase permits vulnerable individuals to resume public interactions, though low-risk populations should still exercise caution in spending time “in crowded environments” and the resumption of “unrestricted staffing of worksites”.

But confusion reigns, exemplified by the remarks made by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. “Open what, open it when, and open it how?”  Trump continues to play – loudly – to his political base, indulging bouts of pageantry even as he mocks the methods of the States.  In responding to Trump’s tweets of support for the protestors, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz tried to get some clarification.  “I called to ask, what are we doing differently about moving towards getting as many people back into the workforce without compromising the health of Minnesotans or the providers?”  No reply was forthcoming.  And that, to a governor who has not, as Walz described it, “had open clashes with the administration.”

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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. Email: [email protected]

Sometimes, the best thing to do, is to do nothing at all. Take Sweden, for example, where the government decided not to shut down the economy, but to take a more thoughtful and balanced approach. Sweden has kept its primary schools, restaurants, shops and gyms open for business even though fewer people are out in public or carrying on as they normally would. At the same time, the government has kept the Swedish people well-informed so they understand the risks the virus poses to their health and the health of others. This is how the Swedes have minimized their chances of getting the infection while avoiding more extreme measures like shelter-in-place which is de facto house arrest.

What the Swedish experiment demonstrates, is that there’s a way to navigate these unprecedented public health challenges without recklessly imposing police state policies and without doing irreparable harm to the economy. And, yes, the results of this experiment are not yet known, but what we do know is that most nations cannot simply print-up trillions of dollars to counter the knock-on effects of bringing the economy to a screeching halt. These countries must dip into their reserves or take out loans from the IMF in order to recover from the lack of production and activity. That means they’re going to face years of slow growth and high unemployment to dig out from the mess their leaders created for them.

And that rule applies to the US too, even though the government has been recklessly printing money to pay the bills. The unforeseen cost to the US will come in the form of long-term unemployment triggered by millions of failed small and mid-sized businesses. That grim scenario is all but certain now. And just as the USG “disappeared” millions of workers from the unemployment rolls following the 2008 Financial Crisis– forcing them to find low-paying, part-time, no-benefits work in the “gig” economy– so too, millions of more working people will fall through the cracks and wind up homeless, jobless and destitute following this crisis. One $1,200 check from Uncle Sam and a few weeks of unemployment compensation is not going to not be enough to prevent the fundamental restructuring of the US labor force that will be impossible to avoid if the economy isn’t restarted pronto.

That’s why we should look to countries like Sweden that have taken a more measured approach that allow parts of the economy to continue to function during the epidemic, so other parts can gear-up quickly and return to full capacity with minimal disruption. This should not be a “liberal vs conservative” issue as it’s become in the United States. One should not oppose restarting the economy just because Trump is ‘for it’, but because millions of working people are facing an uncertain future in an economy which– most economists believe– is headed for a severe and protracted recession. Liberals should be looking for ways to avoid that dismal outcome instead of wasting all their time criticizing Trump. (Of course, now that the idiot Trump has appointed Ivanka, Jared, Kudlow and Wilbur Ross to lead his Council to Re-Open America” it will be impossible to extricate the issue from partisan politics.) This is a clip from an article by Donald Jeffries at Lew Rockwell:

“The shutdown of businesses now has been going on for more than a month. How many of the dwindling small businesses left in our casino economy have already closed down forever? How many mid-sized ones will ever be able to reopen? How many millions will be furloughed, laid off, fired- however they word it- because of this draconian reaction? How can an economy based on commerce exist without commerce?” (“The Locked Down World”, Donald Jeffries, Lew Rockwell)

Indeed. This isn’t a question of putting profits before people. The economy IS our life. Try to make a living without an economy. Try to feed your family or pay the rent or buy a car or do anything without an economy. We need the economy. Working people need the economy, and we need to find a way to do two things at the same time: Keep the economy running and save as many lives as possible. The idea that we can just do one of these things and not the other, is not only blatantly false, it is destructive to our own best interests. We have to do both, there is no other way. Here’s more background on Sweden from an article at Haaretz:

“The truth is that we have a policy similar to that of other countries,” says Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, “Like everyone, we are trying to slow down the rate of infection … The differences derive from a different tradition and from a different culture that prevail in Sweden. We prefer voluntary measures, and there is a high level of trust here between the population and the authorities, so we are able to avoid coercive restrictions”…

It’s still too early to say whether Stockholm’s policy will turn out to be a success story or a blueprint for disaster. But, when the microbes settle, following the global crisis, Sweden may be able to constitute a kind of control group: Did other countries go too far in the restrictions they have been imposing on their populations? Was the economic catastrophe spawned globally by the crisis really unavoidable? Or will the Swedish case turn out to be an example of governmental complacency that cost human lives unnecessarily?” (“Why Sweden Isn’t Forcing Its Citizens to Stay Home Due to the Coronaviru”, Haaretz)

Tegnell, is no long-haired, fist-waving radical, he’s Sweden’s chief epidemiologist and has worked for mainstream organizations like the WHO and the European Commission. Where he differs from so many of his peers is simply in his approach, which empowers ordinary people to use their own common sense regarding their health, their safety and the safety of others. It’s simple, if you develop symptoms, stay home. Tegnell believes that its easier to get people to do the right thing by trusting their judgement then by ordering them to do so.

That said, Sweden’s objectives are the same as every other country impacted by the pandemic. The emphasis is on “flattening the curve”, slowing the rate of infection, testing as many people as possible, and protecting the vulnerable and older populations. It’s just their methods are different. They’ve taken a more nuanced approach that relies on level-headed people conforming to the guidelines that help to minimize contagion until some better remedy is found. “Social distancing” is practiced in Sweden, but the population has not had their civil liberties suspended nor have they been put under house arrest until the threat has passed. Sweden has not compromised its core values in a frenzied attempt to stave off sickness or death. Can the U.S. say the same? Here’s more from an article at the Washington Times:

“As government leaders in the UK and the United States are grappling with how to revive dormant economies, Dr. Tegnell said the Swedish approach will allow the country to maintain social distancing measures in the long term without putting the economic system at risk. Dr. Tegnell said he believes certain regions in Sweden are already very close to … a state where so many in the population have built up resistance to the virus that it is no longer a pandemic threat…

“We do believe the main difference between our policies and many other countries’ policies is that we could easily keep these kinds of policies in place for months, maybe even years, without any real damage to society or our economy,” Dr. Tegnell said. Although the government has not issued a stay-at-home order, many Swedes have decided to quarantine and practice social distancing on their own volition, Dr. Tegnell said.” (“Top Swedish official: Virus rates easing up despite loose rules”, The Washington Times)

The threat of pandemic is new to most countries, so it’s not entirely fair to criticize their response. But, at this point, reasonable people should be able agree that implementing sweeping policies that inflict incalculable damage to the economy and on people’s personal liberties is a gross overreaction that poses as big a threat as the pandemic itself. Leaders must be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. That’s all we should expect of them: Just restart the damn economy while minimizing the risks of infection as much as possible. Is that too much to ask? Here’s an excerpt from an article at MedicineNet:

“The financial ruin this pandemic has caused for many will almost certainly lead to increased suicide, mental illness, and physical health problems exacerbated by a loss of health insurance in countries without socialized medicine, according to the World Economic Forum. That’s partly why both Sweden and Singapore have tried to keep life in their countries as normal as possible for as long as possible during the response. It does not explain the drastically different death tolls between the two countries, however….

Anders Tengall, the country’s chief epidemiologist, is making a grim wager. The hypothesis is there will not be significantly more Swedes dead at the end of the pandemic than if the country had initiated stricter distancing protocols, but the looser approach will keep the number of cases from spiking when lockdowns are lifted.

Tengall’s and the rest of the Swedish government’s bet is this approach is more sustainable, and can help prevent some of those other bad health outcomes that accompany economic depression.” (“Sweden and Singapore: The COVID-19 ‘Soft’ Approach vs. Techno-Surveillance”, MedicineNet)

So, yes, the number of deaths per thousand in Sweden do not compare favorably to nearby Denmark, but the final results of the experiment might not be known for years. With a population of 5.8 million, Denmark’s death-toll is currently 336, while Sweden’s is 1,400 for a population of 10.2 million. (as of 4-17-20) So, as a practical matter, the Swedish method looks vastly inferior. (Interestingly, Sweden’s population is similar to NY City’s 8.4 million, but coronavirus deaths in NYC have now reached a horrific 12,822.)

But there’s more to this story than mere data-points or the latest grim statistics. Here’s a clip from the LA Times that helps to connect the dots:

“Tegnell… insists that Sweden’s approach still seems to make sense, though he also acknowledges that the world is in uncharted territory with the virus. He argues that while Sweden might have more infections in the short term, it will not face the risk of a huge infection spike that Denmark might face once its lockdown is lifted.

“I think both Norway and Denmark are now very concerned about how you stop this complete lockdown in a way so you don’t cause this wave to come immediately when you start loosening up,” he said. He said authorities know that the physical distancing Swedes are engaging in works, because officials have recorded a sudden end to the flu season and to a winter vomiting illness.” (“Sweden sticks to ‘low-scale’ lockdown despite rise in coronavirus deaths’”, LA Times)

The Swedish plan will continue to be criticized by public health experts who think that their draconian recommendations should be fully-implemented without the slightest deviation, but it could turn out that the Swedish model is not only vastly superior to the other courses of action but, ultimately, the only real option for countries that want to save lives but avoid a permanently-hobbled and severely-depressed economy.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

VICE on Thursday published an “astounding” and “important” exclusive report on how Rick Snyder, a Republican who served as Michigan’s governor from 2011 to 2019, “knew about Flint’s toxic water—and lied about it.”

The report, based on a year-and-a-half investigation, comes almost six years after an emergency manager appointed by Snyder switched Flint’s water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River. Since that move on April 25, 2014, city residents have endured health consequences resulting from a deadly Legionella pneumophila bacterial outbreak and exposure to heavy metals and cancer-causing contaminants.

6 years after Flint began using a toxic water source that sickened its residents, @VICE uncovered payoffs, whistleblower silencing, a shady financial deal, a coverup, & the former gov. who presided over it all. By @JordanChariton & me#FlintWaterCrisishttps://t.co/Gt2fjv280s

— Jenn Dize 👩🏻‍💻 (@JennElizabethJ) April 16, 2020

As Jordan Chariton and Jenn Dize reported Thursday:

Hundreds of confidential pages of documents obtained by VICE, along with emails and interviews, reveal a coordinated, five-year cover-up overseen by Snyder and his top officials to prevent news of Flint’s deadly water from going public—while there was still time to save lives—and then limit the damage after the crisis made global headlines.

All told, the waterborne bacterial disease may have killed at least 115 people in 2014 and 2015, and potentially more whose pneumonia wasn’t officially considered Legionnaires’ disease, the illness caused by Legionella. In addition to the outbreak, Flint’s water supply was contaminated with lead and other heavy metals, harmful bacteria, carcinogens, and other toxic components. This wreaked havoc on Flint residents, leaving them with a laundry list of illnesses, including kidney and liver problems, severe bone and muscle pain, gastrointestinal problems, loss of teeth, autoimmune diseases, neurological deficiencies, miscarriages, Parkinson’s disease, severe fatigue, seizures, and volatile mood disorders.

Beyond this, the long-term effects of heavy-metal poisoning takes years to develop, meaning many ill residents’ conditions are worsening as the years go on. Many have said they still rely on bottled water to avoid using the water that comes through their pipes and into their homes, schools, and businesses.

The report detailed actions of local and state officials both leading up to and during the public health crisis, which continues today. It is based on interviews and documents from a criminal investigation of Snyder’s administration that was led by special prosecutor Todd Flood from 2016 until last year, when newly elected state Attorney General Dana Nessel fired Flood and others.

The prosecution team led by Flood charged 15 Flint and Michigan officials with various crimes; seven of those cases were resolved with plea agreements. In January 2019, Nessel appointed Fadwa Hammoud as the state’s solicitor general and assigned her to take over the Flint criminal cases.

In June, the state’s prosecution team dismissed all pending criminal charges against the eight remaining defendants and launched a new probe based on concerns about the initial one. That decision, as Common Dreams reported, “elicited fresh concerns and demands for justice.”

VICE noted that with Flint about to enter its sixth year of the water crisis, “the clock for justice is also ticking.” Unless the Republican-controlled state legislature intervenes, the statute of limitations for filing new felony misconduct-in-office charges will run out next week. Chariton highlighted that detail in a series of tweets about the reporting Thursday.

the statute of limitations to press new felony misconduct in office charges related to the #FlintWaterCrisis runs out in 9 days (4/25/14 to 4/25/20). Some lawmakers have called to extend it from 6 years to 10 years…so far unsuccessfully.

— Jordan (@JordanChariton) April 16, 2020

In August, a pair of state legislators from Flint proposed legislation to extend the statute of limitations from six years to 10. Karen Weaver, then-mayor of Flint, expressed support for the proposal, declaring at the time that “there is no time limit that can be put on the amount of suffering that we have faced, nor the amount of pain as a result of the loss of life.”

Weaver told VICE that the governor’s office repeatedly dangled “a pot of money for different things” and pressured her to publicly claim that the city’s water was safe. The outlet reported that “after repeated attempts by the Snyder administration to get Mayor Weaver to cooperate proved unsuccessful, the promised funding suddenly became unavailable.”

The outlet added:

Weaver was even pressed to say the water in Flint’s schools was safe to drink, according to former city government officials familiar with the administration’s overtures to Weaver. Weaver didn’t, and soon after, the remaining free water-bottle stations Flint residents relied on were prematurely shut down.

When the stations were shuttered, Weaver attempted to reopen them by turning to the $48.8 million rainy-day fund that was allocated to Flint from the state’s 2017-2018 budget. But when Weaver looked, the money was gone. The Snyder administration had been using these funds—meant to be under Flint’s control—to pay for the water stations.

In addition to detailing interactions between Weaver and the Snyder administration from the mayor’s perspective, the report highlighted a few findings from the Flint criminal investigation documents:

• Snyder was warned about the dangers of using the Flint River as a water source a year before the water switch even occurred.
• Snyder had knowledge of the Legionella outbreak in Flint as early as October 2014, six months after the water switch—and 16 months earlier than he claimed to have learned of the deadly outbreak in testimony under oath before Congress.
• Communication among Snyder, his top officials, and the state health department spiked in October 2014 around the same time state environmental and health officials traded emails and calls about the Legionella outbreak in Flint.

Snyder and his attorneys did not respond to VICE‘s requests for comment. Several other officials named in the exhaustive report also declined to respond or comment, with some of them citing the ongoing criminal investigation.

The reporting provoked a fresh wave of criticism directed at government officials involved in the crisis and was published as the international community contends with a global pandemic that has infected more than two million people since late last year.

Sharing Chariton and Dize’s Flint piece on Twitter Thursday, VICE senior editor Maxwell Strachan wrote that “coronavirus is the biggest story in the country, and rightfully so. But today, this enormous, exclusive, and damning story should be a very, very close second.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

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The answer to the question is “YES.”  The large bailed-out creditors will end up with the property of the non-bailed-out debtors who are being pushed deeper into debt with “bail-out loans” and fees and penalties for missed debt payments. Write-offs for the One Percent, and more indebtedness for everyone else.

Turn your mind to the economy.  The US has a work force of 164,000,000.  The unemployment forecast from the work closedowns is 30%.  That would mean 49,000,000 people who are potential rioters. (We are half way there with today’s report of a 16% unemployment rate with 22 million unemployed). Many of these people were already living paycheck to paycheck, could not raise $400, and their debts leave them no discretionary income.  As they could barely service their debts when employed, how do they service them when unemployed and when their small businesses are closed and incurring costs but have no revenues?  Loans further indebt them. The cash payouts to the unemployed might cover food and housing but will not service their debts.  

Fast food franchises and stores in malls are saying they are not paying their rents for three months.  Mall owners won’t be able to pay their creditors.  The bailout works for no one except those who caused the problem. As they are being bailed out, they will have the money to buy up or foreclose on the bankrupted businesses. More property will be concentrated in fewer hands.  

The bail-out scheme concocted by the New York banks and Trump’s Treasury Secretary, who earned the name “the foreclosure king” during his Wall Street career, leaves creditors whole and debtors deeper in debt.  

The more debt is concentrated in fewer hands and the more indebted everyone else becomes, the less consumer purchasing power there is to drive the economy.  The foreclosed assets become less valuable as their profitability declines with consumer purchasing power.

The destruction of the US economy has been underway since global corporations moved middle class jobs offshore. It has been underway since the financial sector diverted a larger share of consumer income to the service of debt.  It has been underway since corporations invested their profits in buying back their own shares instead of expanding their production capabilities.  It has been underway since Quantitative Easing inflated stock and bond prices beyond realistic values. It has been going on since the rules against concentration were set aside and the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed.  It has been going on since endless wars crowded out infrastructure investment and social safety net expansion.  

Is this a plot or stupidity?  Whatever the answer, the economy is being destroyed.  

The economic problem is that private sector debt, both personal and corporate, is too great to be paid.  This problem existed prior to the closedown.  The closedown means that there is even less income with which to service the unsustainable level of debt.  This is not a problem that can be fixed with more debt.

The problem is that banks lend to finance the purchase of existing financial assets, not to exand the economy’s productive potential.

The problem is that corporations use their profits and borrow money in order to buy back their own equity instead of investing in their businesses.  The executives indebt the corporations while decapitalizing them, and they are rewarded for doing so with “performance bonuses.”

The problem is that global corporations thinking short-term moved high-productivity, high-value-added US jobs to Asia, thus reducing earned income in the US, impairing state and local tax base, and causing the Federal Reserve to substitute a growth in consumer debt in place of the lost consumer income growth.

The people in charge of the fix are only fixing it for themselves and in a short-sighted way.  There is only one way to fix the situation, and that is to write down private sector debts to levels that can be serviced.  As the creditors are being bailed out regardless, their loan losses don’t matter.

The bank and corporate bailouts are an opportunity to fix the economy in other important ways. In effect, the bailouts amount to nationalization.  The government should accept the ownership that it is purchasing.  Then the government can break up the “banks too big to fail” and separate investment from commercial banking without having to pass new Glass-Steagall legislation and without having to battle against financial lobbying in Congress.  Once broken up, the banks could be sold off.  This would take enormous vulnerability out of the financial system and restore financial competition.  With corporations in government hands, the jobs could be brought home from overseas.  The middle class would be restored. 

These measures together with a debt writedown would restore consumer purchasing power. Pent-up demand would propel the economy to higher growth as occurred following World War II.  

This is a real solution to a real problem.  But with the One Percent in charge of the problem, we are not going to get a real solution.  We are going to get more money used to push up prices of financial assets and paper over unsustainable debt and a dying economy with an artificially-inflated stock market.

The elite have failed us too many times.  It is time to dethrone them.

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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.

In the first of three books on Cuba, Latin America and the U.S., published in 1999 by Editorial José Martí (Havana), I wrote:

“During the 1960 May Day speech, Fidel Castro developed the notion of how the new state was a state of the majority in the true sense of the term. After the U.S. airstrikes took place as part of the overall policy to destroy the Revolution and to restore U.S. political and economic power, the people were faced with the real possibility of confronting full armed aggression. From this the notion of the militia arose.”[i]

On May 1, 1960 at the annual May Day march in Havana, the publication quotes Fidel:

“Only a few months ago there was not a single organized worker or peasant militia. The appeal for the organization of the militia was issued in the month of October, on 26 October, to be precise, in connection with the protest against the air attack which cost our citizenry more than 40 victims.

Six months ago, we did not have a single workers’ militia. Six months ago, the workers did not know how to handle weapons.  Six months ago, the workers did not know how to march. Six months ago, we did not have a single company of militiamen to defend the Revolution in the event of attack.  And in only six months we have organized the militia, we have trained and instructed them.” [ii]

Then, further developing Fidel’s unique vision of the militia, the book continues:

“The establishment of the militia meant far more than close ties between the state and the people. It signified in reality the masses of people becoming an extension of the state. The Rebel Army was the factor allowing the people to take political power, and out of it emerged the new state to protect and extend this political power in the hands of the majority. Therefore, the extent to which people participated in the armed protection and extension of the Revolution was necessarily an indication as to what point the people were actually in power. The Revolution and its defence had sunk such deep roots amongst the people that never did it cross the minds of the new government that the people may turn their arms against it. And so, guns were given to the people. This feature of the new Cuba was brought home in a most lively way by Fidel Castro on May 1, 1960 when he suggested the  analogy of what would happen if armaments were handed out to the most oppressed section of the population in a country where exploitation and discrimination prevails.

From the same May 1, 1960 podium where Fidel spoke, the Historical Leader of the Cuban Revolution is quoted once again in the book:

“A democracy exists when the people are made strong by uniting them!  A democracy exists when guns are given to the peasants, and to the workers, and to the students, and to the women, and to the Negroes, and to the poor — to each citizen who is prepared to defend a just cause!  A democracy exists when not only do the rights of the majority count, but when they are given weapons as well!  And this can only be done by a truly democratic government, wherein the majority governs!

And this could never be done by a pseudo-democracy.  We would liketo know what would happen if the Negroes in the southern part of the United States, who have so many times been lynched, were each given a gun!  Whatcould never be done by an exploiting oligarchy, what never could be done by a military camp representing those who oppress and plunder the peoples,what could never be done by a minority government is to give each worker,each student, each young person, each humble citizen, each of those whomake up the majority of the people a gun.”[iii]

The role of the militia in defeating the U.S. was even highlighted by BBC in 2011:

“The American plan was to sneak ashore virtually unopposed, secure the area, take the airfield and fly in a government-in-exile who would then call for direct US support.

At the same time, they were relying on a mass uprising in Cuba against the revolutionaries.

It could not have gone more wrong: when an advance frogman lit a beacon to show the exiles where to land, it also alerted the Cuban militia to their presence.

Local fisherman Gregorio Moreira, who still lives in the same house beside the beach, was one of the first to raise the alarm.

“I went out of the house and saw a flare, like a candle, in the sky. So I headed to the trench with my father and my brothers,” 74-year-old Mr Moreira recalls.

He was joined on the beach by one of his neighbours, another fisherman, Domingo Rodriguez.

“We thought, ‘This is the invasion boys, be careful! They are trying to invade.’

“We had 11 rifles between us and at about 0400 they started the landing, so we opened fire.”

Reinforcements, including Cuban air force planes, quickly arrived.

The exiles had some air support, but US President John F Kennedy was determined to keep the U.S. involvement a secret and as the initiative turned against the invading force, he backed away from providing further critically needed air cover.

At the same time, Fidel Castro took personal charge of the operation, and within only three days the battle was over. “

Furthermore, Granma in reporting on the anniversary act in Playa Girón in 2017, points out the important role of Fidel and the militia:

His [Fidel] physical presence at the scene of the invasion contributed to keeping morale high among the militias and was decisive to their victory in those glorious days of April 1961, stated Kenia Otaño, a young resident from Ciénaga de Zapata, speaking during the act.

Today, on the anniversary of the victory in Playa Girón, Cuba is more than able to confront a similar Playa Girón-type military provocation by the U.S. Washington knows it.

In addition, now there are two “civic-military unions” in the region: Cuba and Venezuela. Furthermore, Cuba and Venezuela today have more friends than ever around the world in defense of the Cuban and Bolivarian Revolutions.

The Yanquis should pay attention to history.

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Arnold August is a Canadian journalist and lecturer, the author of Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion and Cuba–U.S. Relations: Obama and Beyond. He collaborates with many web sites, television and radio broadcasts based in Latin America, Europe, North America and the Middle East. Twitter  Facebook. 

Notes

[i] August, Arnold, Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections, Editorial José Martí, Havana, 1999, page 195.

[ii] Castro Ruz, Fidel, Revolución, La Habana, May 2, 1960 (Translation by author)

[iii] Castro Ruz, Fidel, Ibid.

A future without independent media leaves us with an upside down reality where according to the corporate media “NATO deserves a Nobel Peace Prize”, and where “nuclear weapons and wars make us safer”

 

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The Massive Covid-19 Hoax

By Tony Cartalucci, April 20, 2020

The numbers of infections versus deaths in Iceland where testing has been the most widespread shows a death rate of about 0.5%, though only 5% of the population has been tested. 50% of those tested showed no symptoms at all meaning that many, many more Icelanders likely had the virus, overcame it with ease, and never visited a doctor or hospital to avail themselves for testing or to make into national Covid-19 statistics.

Video: “The House Cat Flu” is Coming. The Meow Apocalypse…

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 19, 2020

In 2009, hundreds of thousands of pigs were executed Worldwide, despite the fact that  the WHO had confirmed that there was no danger of transmission from pigs to humans.

And then what happened, an authoritative study by the John Hopkins School of Public Health was released saying that humans could infect the pigs. Putting Meat on the Table Industrial Farm Animal Production in Americas, see also Washington Post, May 9 2009).

A Universal Basic Income Is Essential and Will Work

By Ellen Brown, April 20, 2020

The mandated shutdown from the coronavirus has exacerbated the debt crisis, but the economy was suffering from an unprecedented buildup of debt well before that. A UBI would address the gap between consumer debt and the money available to repay it; but there are equivalent gaps for business debt, federal debt, and state and municipal debt, leaving room for quite a bit of helicopter money before debt deflation would turn into inflation.

Orwellian Lockstep and a Loaded Syringe

By Colin Todhunter, April 20, 2020

Some years ago, the then vice-president of Monsanto Robert T Fraley asked, “Why do people doubt science”. He posed the question partly because he had difficulty in believing that some people had valid concerns about the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture.

Critics were questioning the science behind GM technology and the impacts of GMOs because they could see how science is used, corrupted and manipulated by powerful corporations to serve their own ends. And it was also because they regard these conglomerates as largely unaccountable and unregulated. 

Lock Step, This Is No Futuristic Scenario: Panic and the Post-Pandemic Future?

By F. William Engdahl, April 19, 2020

Every day world mainstream news reports more people in more countries diagnosed “positive” for the coronavirus illness, now called COVID-19. As the reported numbers grow, so does widespread nervousness, often in the form of panic shopping for masks, disinfections, toilet paper, canned goods. We are told to accept the testing results as science-based. While it is next to impossible to get a full picture of what is taking place in China, the center of the novel virus storm, there is a process, being fed by mainstream media accounts and genuine panic in populations unclear what the real dangers are, that has alarming implications for the post-pandemic future.

Bill Gates and the Depopulation Agenda. Robert F. Kennedy Junior Calls for an Investigation

By Peter Koenig, April 18, 2020

For over twenty years Bill Gates and his Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) have been vaccinating foremost children by the millions in remote areas of poor countries, mostly Africa and Asia. Most of their vaccination program had disastrous results, causing the very illness (polio, for example in India) and sterilizing young women (Kenya, with modified tetanus vaccines). Many of the children died. Many of the programs were carried out with the backing of the WHO and – yes – the UN Agency responsible for the Protection of Children, UNICEF.

Why Are They Inflating the Numbers? New York City Adding 3,800 Unconfirmed Cases to COVID-19 Death Toll

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, April 17, 2020

Mayor De Blasio said that there was an increase in “unexplained at-home deaths” and that he “suspected many of them were caused by Covid-19″and he also said that “there’s no question in my mind and the doctors can speak to this, the driver of this huge uptick in deaths at home is Covid-19 and some people are dying directly of it and some people are dying indirectly of it, but it is the tragic X factor here.” There is something terribly wrong with this picture. Why are they adding unconfirmed cases to the death toll?

The US administration views Iraq as an arena for confrontation with Iran, with the aim of subjugating the country to its hegemony and dominance. The US imposes harsh sanctions on Iran and is trying to close the Iraqi market to prevent Tehran from smuggling its oil through Mesopotamia, and to obstruct the sale of gas even if it means cutting the supply of electricity to southern Iraq. All US means are valid for the current administration to ​​crush Iran with economic sanctions and close off its access to neighbouring countries. The US is also said to be preparing a military campaign against Kataeb Hezbollah in Iraq, apparently convinced that this group is the Iraqi branch of Hezbollah Lebanon. Even if both groups have the same objective—to oppose US hegemony—they differ in leadership and in their approach and relationship to Iran. However, it should be borne in mind that the consequences on US national territory of the devastating effect of COVID-19 have created an unprecedented economic decline and this burden also falls on the US army deployed abroad. Also, history shows that the US does not engage in any war if victory is not guaranteed. 

There are many reasons why the US is not even close to starting a war in Iraq. There is no doubt that America has the military power to wage any war it wants against any small or medium-sized country. However, Washington may start a war at will but will not be able to stop it so easily. It also has no idea about the damage a war on Iraq could cause. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are the best evidence, if we evoke contemporary history, of the US inability to decide when a war should stop! Hence, launching a war on Iraq in 2020 would not be such a cakewalk as the 2003 war. Notwithstanding its occupation of Iraq with tens of thousands of men, the US failed to subjugate Iraq, mainly due to the emergence of the Sunni and Shia resistance which drove America out of Iraq in 2011.

And when US forces returned in 2014 – at the request of the Iraqi government – to contribute to fighting ISIS, the US presence was regulated and limited to fighting the Takfiri organisation and to offering paid-for military training. It was to refrain from conducting any military activity in the country without the permission of the Iraqi Prime Minister. The US has not only violated this agreement, it hasattacked the Iraqi army, federal police, and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) on the Iraq-Syria border, killing and wounding 56 elements. Furthermore, it allowed Israel to attack Iraqi security forces’ warehouses, this according to what the American ambassador in Iraq revealed to the Prime Minister during a private visit to his office in Baghdad. Also, the US crowned its illegal interference in Iraqi affairs with the assassination of two leaders, the Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani on a mission requested by Iraqi Premier, and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis the commander of the PMF. These acts pushed the Iraqi parliament to formally request the immediate US departure from Iraq.

Iran was the first to respond to the need to defend Baghdad and Erbil when these were under imminent danger from the ISIS advance in 2014. Tehran carried on supplying the Iraqis with weapons at the request of Baghdad. A decision-maker in Iraq said “a senior British diplomat told a senior Iraqi official in Baghdad that the US believes that the PMF has very accurate Iranian missiles that can reach any country in the region and this is what worries America and the countries of the region.”

Following parliament’s request and the increase of hostility towards the US presence in Iraq, where foreign troops are considered occupation forces, the US initiated a redeployment plan. It has pulled out of 6 military bases and centres but equipped the military bases of Ayn al-Assad, Balad, and Harir with Patriot missiles, disregarding Baghdad’s disapproval. This is why Iraqi leaders are skeptical about the seriousness of the US’s real intention of withdrawal.

The US’s presence in Iraq aims to control Iran and to control access to the oil. Therefore – sources believe – the US exit will not be straightforward. The US has failed, after 17 years of occupation and military assistance against ISIS, to win the hearts and minds of the population.

The US wrongly assumed that Ismail Qaani, the commander of the IRGC-Quds brigade, would not replace his assassinated predecessor Qassem Soelimani. It also failed to understand that Iran is a country, whereas the IRGC is an institution. The axis of the resistance had never depended on a specific person, whatever his status. Qassem Soleimani was indeed a decision maker, but he was affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard Corps – Al-Quds Brigade, which is headed by its supreme leader Sayed Ali Khamenei. Following the assassination of Soleimani, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, took over in the temporary void to follow up on the affairs of the Palestinians in Gaza, the development in Syria, the Iraqis and Yemenis. We can see the presence of the Lebanese Hezbollah in all these axes and countries.

In Iraq, statements have emerged from different new organisations showing competence in media warfare, possession of drones and reading of aerial footage, and a similarity to the methods and professionalism of the Lebanese Hezbollah. One of the latest communiqués of the new anonymous group “Islamic Resistance in Iraq – Cave Owners (companions)” thanked Sunni Iraqi for their help in attacking the US convoy travelling between Erbil and Salahuddine province and invited the Iraqi Sunnis to join the resistance against the US forces. The group offered to arm, train and deliver weapons to “our Sunni Brothers. ”

Another reason why the US is far from declaring any war on Iraqi groups is the outbreak of the Corona virus and the decision taken by the Pentagon to stop all military movement between the bases, and military deployment in the whole country. Any war is a risky adventure that could have heavy consequences for the US army especially that, in the number of cases and the number of deaths caused by the Covid virus, the US holds first rank. President Donald Trump is in no position to allow his army to be hit by the virus.

We also have already seen how President Trump refused to attack Iran on several occasions. Iran has said that it will defend Iraq, as Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Secretary-General of National Security-has confirmed. Therefore, the US does not want to see Iran involved on the battlefield in Iraq. Iran has shot down the most sophisticated drones and bombed the American base of Ayn al-Assad in the first attack against US forces since Pearl Harbour during the days of World War II. Trump preferred not to respond.

Last but not least, President Trump will not fight a war in the next few months before the presidential elections, especially when the results of such a war and its consequent retaliation are unpredictable. As a result, the US administration’s leaking of information to the Western media that the Pentagon issued an order to prepare for a war in Iraq can be identified as part of the psychological war.

The US has violated its agreements with Iraq in many occasions, deploying Patriot missiles to protect US bases inside Iraq and redeploying its forces by pulling out from more vulnerable bases spread in various parts of Iraq. However, the Patriots already demonstrated their inability to repel missiles fired from Lebanon, Yemen and Palestine. Consequently, it is a defensive measure that will not protect the US from the decision of various Iraqi organisations to bomb US bases when confrontation becomes inescapable, if the US insists on staying in Iraq and disregarding the Iraqis’ will. Thus, America doesn’t itself hold the decision to go to war in Mesopotamia: most probably the many Iraqi groups will be the ones starting it. The US departure may protect US interests strategically but, if the US insists on staying, the power of the central government in Baghdad will be weakened. Lebanon is the best example of this phenomenon. And Iraqi resistance organisations will become quasi-state actors, much stronger than they are now.

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The heavily anticipated (at least by Anti-Empire) Stanford University antibodies test of a representative population has now concluded.

Background

Addressing COVID-19 is a pressing health and social concern. To date, many epidemic projections and policies addressing COVID-19 have been designed without seroprevalence data to inform epidemic parameters.

We measured the seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in Santa Clara County. Methods On 4/3-4/4, 2020, we tested county residents for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 using a lateral flow immunoassay. Participants were recruited using Facebook ads targeting a representative sample of the county by demographic and geographic characteristics. We report the prevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in a sample of 3,330 people, adjusting for zip code, sex, and race/ethnicity. We also adjust for test performance characteristics using 3 different estimates: (i) the test manufacturer’s data, (ii) a sample of 37 positive and 30 negative controls tested at Stanford, and (iii) a combination of both.

Results

The unadjusted prevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in Santa Clara County was 1.5% (exact binomial 95CI 1.11-1.97%), and the population-weighted prevalence was 2.81% (95CI 2.24-3.37%).

Under the three scenarios for test performance characteristics, the population prevalence of COVID-19 in Santa Clara ranged from 2.49% (95CI 1.80-3.17%) to 4.16% (2.58-5.70%).

These prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50-85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases.

Conclusions

The population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection is much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases.

Population prevalence estimates can now be used to calibrate epidemic and mortality projections.

Professor Doctor John Ioannidis reports:

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has more:

 

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The Trump administration unveiled on March 31 a “democratic transition” plan to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from office, in favor of a “council of state” composed of both opposition and ruling party loyalists.

The plan was, however, less an offer to negotiate than a diktat, with the US State Department (3/31/20) vowing that “sanctions will remain in effect, and increase, until the Maduro regime accepts a genuine political transition.”

Despite the obvious mafioso overtones, Washington’s stenographers in the corporate press were quick to present the initiative as “sanctions relief,” once again whitewashing murderous US economic warfare against Venezuela (FAIR.org, 2/6/19, 6/14/19, 6/26/19).

Western journalists’ callous obfuscation of sanctions’ deadly toll, especially amid a global pandemic (FAIR.org, 3/25/20), goes hand in hand with their parroting of bogus “narco-terrorism” charges leveled against Maduro and top Venezuelan officials, which butresses Washington’s ever-illicit casus belli.

An Offer They Can’t Refuse

The New York Times (3/31/20) jumped at the opportunity to furnish the Trump administration’s plan with a varnish of reasonability. “The proposal…offers to ease American sanctions intended to pressure President Nicolás Maduro and his loyalists over the past year,” Lara Jakes wrote, misconstruing the unilateral measures destroying Venezuela’s economy as well-intentioned steps to bring about “fair elections.”

At no point did the paper of record mention Washington’s threat to ramp up illegal sanctions if Maduro refuses the “offer” to replace his government with a five-person junta, in flagrant violation of Venezuela’s constitution. Other Western media likewise covered up the US blackmail, praising Donald Trump’s bayonet-hoisted ultimatum as a “roadmap to relief” (Washington Post, 3/31/20), a “more toned-down approach” (Reuters, 3/31/20) and a “conciliatory framework” (Economist, 4/2/20).

Having dutifully whitewashed US sanctions, the Times and its counterparts were free to cast war criminal Elliott Abrams, rehabilitated last year as Trump’s Venezuela envoy (CounterSpin, 3/1/19), as an honest broker committed to good-faith dialogue:

But Mr. Abrams was careful to say that the plan was an opening offer for talks between the two sides, “not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition,” and that no single issue was a deal breaker—except the demand for Mr. Maduro’s departure.

By contrast, Maduro—reelected in internationally monitored elections with a greater percentage of the electorate than Trump won in 2016, or Barack Obama in 2012—is for the Times “reminiscent of mid-20th century Latin American strongmen,” whose 2018 victory was “self-declared.”

The Times went on to accuse the Venezuelan leader of “creating one of the world’s largest refugee populations,” concealing the role of criminal sanctions in driving migration (FAIR.org, 2/18/18).

This vilification of Maduro and the Chavista poor people’s movement does not merely reflect reporters’ professional class bias, but is structurally necessary to justify US economic warfare and more overt criminality in the first place.

It is therefore no coincidence that the Trump administration’s gunpoint “proposal” to overturn Venezuela’s constitutional order came on the heels of Department of Justice “narco-terrorism” charges against the Venezuelan head of state and other top officials, which corporate journalists trumpeted enthusiastically.

Most outlets regarded the timing as a symptom of “contradictory” (Washington Post, 4/14/20) or “erratic” (New York Times, 4/10/20) US policy, which could “make it harder to remove Maduro” (Economist, 4/2/20), but the underlying regime change (ir)rationality never comes into question.

Indeed, even liberal imperialist academics like David Smilde and Abraham Lowenthal (Washington Post, 4/14/20) declined to call for scrapping the indictments, let alone easing sanctions, as a goodwill gesture aimed at securing Chavista support for the US plan, which they hailed as a “step in the right direction.” Rather, they merely recommend that the Trump administration offer “guarantees for indicted officials” against extradition, as if Maduro would be inclined to negotiate while Washington continues its collective punishment and maintains a $15 million bounty on his head.

Smilde and his Washington Office on Latin America colleague Geoff Ramsey’s  (Washington Post, 3/27/20) refusal to demand the immediate annulment of the drug charges and illegal sanctions is hardly surprising, given both men’s long-running support for US coup efforts (Common Dreams, 3/5/19).

(Left) The New York Times found Maduro’s white suit and being flanked by ministers as “reminiscent of dictators.”; (Right) The Washington Post found an unconstitutional plan to remove an elected president on the basis of threats as “a step in the right direction.”

Calling the Kettle Black

The DoJ’s indictment of 14 current or former senior Venezuelan officials on “narco-terrorism” charges provided the Western media with fresh grist for its imperial propaganda mill.

This is hardly the first time that the corporate media have reported the Washington’s evidence-free drug allegations against official enemies, which they have frequently done without any pretense of journalistic rigor (Extra!, 1/90, 9/12; FAIR.org,  9/24/19, 5/24/19).

The New York Times (3/26/20) dedicated no less than 12 paragraphs to repeating prosecutors’ claims, which are centered on the outlandish notion that Maduro secretly heads a drug cartel that conspired with Colombia’s FARC guerrillas to “‘flood’ the United States with cocaine.”

Despite marshaling a crack team of three writers and four contributing reporters, the Times proved incapable of citing any contrarian perspectives, let alone basic facts, that cast doubt on the “narco-terrorism” narrative.

The Guardian (3/26/20) and the Washington Post (3/27/20) were virtually the only outlets to mention the US government’s own publicly available data showing that just a small fraction of drug routes pass through Venezuela, with the overwhelming majority of cocaine entering the United States via Mexico and Central America. Furthermore, Colombia remains the world’s largest cocaine producer, right under the nose of large US military and DEA contingents, which have long waged a “war for drugs and of terror” in the country.

The DoJ’s case looks like a reheated version of equally unfounded accusations against former President Hugo Chávez, which corporate journalists eagerly promoted last year (FAIR.org, 9/24/19).

A map produced by the US Southern Command shows that most drug routes enter the US via the Pacific and then Central America. (Business Insider)

As with prior allegations against Socialist Party Vice President Diosdado Cabello (Wall Street Journal, 5/18/15), the indictments hinge on the testimony of defectors, whose claims are echoed in the Western press without scrutiny.

In the most recent case, retired Maj. Gen. Cliver Alcalá and former intelligence chief Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal were also charged by the DoJ and pledged to cooperate with US authorities. Both had previously broken with the Maduro government and endorsed self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó.

Alcalá, who swiftly surrendered to DEA agents and was flown to the US, boasted of plotting a coup in conjunction with Guaidó and “US advisers.”

In an exposé of the coup plot, the Financial Times (4/4/20) cast doubt on the general’s “rambling and contradictory” account, quoting several US officials denying the coup attempt and alleging Alcalá was “acting on the orders of Caracas.”

The outlet conveniently ignored that this would not be the first time Alcalá conspired to invade Venezuela with a paramilitary force.

According to Bloomberg (3/6/19), there was a plan for the general to lead a contingent of 200 Venezuelan exile soldiers to clear the way for the entry of “humanitarian aid” on February 23, 2019, which was vetoed at the last minute by Colombia, suggesting high-level coordination with Washington, Bogotá and Guaidó.

By repeating the US narrative of Alcalá as a Maduro “plant,” corporate journalists paradoxically legitimize the general as a reliable source of current information on Venezuelan “narco-terrorism,” while concealing his embarrassing ties to the US and its opposition proxies.

As we have exposed for FAIR.org (5/24/19), Carvajal has already proved his worth in the past by serving up to credulous reporters highly dubious allegations about Venezuelan leaders’ Hezbollah ties (New York Times, 2/21/19).

(Left) The New York Times (and other outlets) accepted the DoJ’s “narco-terrorism” charges at face value; (Right) An AP headline endorsed Trump’s dubious justification for an aggressive military move.

Imaginary Cartels, Real Warships

The uncritical coverage of the DoJ charges paved the way for a further US escalation shortly after the “transition” plan was unveiled.

On March 31, the Trump administration announced a military deployment to the Caribbean described by Associated Press (4/1/20) as “one of the largest in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama.”

One might have expected such an obscenely expensive display of force amid a deadly pandemic currently killing thousands of Americans to be met with widespread rebuke across the media spectrum.

In fact, the opposition was largely muted. Newsweek (4/3/20) and Foreign Policy (4/2/20) gave voice to the Pentagon’s concern that the operation was wasteful and politically motivated, while the New York Times (4/10/20) published an op-ed raising polite proceduralist quibbles.  Agreeing with the Trump administration that Maduro is a “dictator” who “must go,” Michael Shifter and Michael Camilleri nonetheless placed a vague call for Washington “to reboot sanctions policy, provide aid through accountable channels, and press the country’s leaders to work together.” Evidently, demanding the immediate lifting of (arguably genocidal) sanctions was too unreasonable to ask.

Referring to the Venezuelan military as “deeply involved in corruption and criminality,” Shifter and Camilleri exemplify the decadent imperial intelligentsia’s psychology of displacement.

From social democratic left to neoliberal right, Global North journalists and intellectuals remain invested in the self-serving illusion that besieged Southern nations such as Venezuela and Iran are more “criminal,” “corrupt” and “authoritarian” than the US empire (FAIR.org, 2/12/20).

For all their polite critiques of illegal US sanctions and military escalation–whose monstrosity has been laid bare by the current pandemic–the cult of Western exceptionalism goes unchallenged.

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Lucas Koerner is an editor and political analyst at Venezuelanalysis.

Ricardo Vaz is a political analyst and editor at Venezuelanalysis.

Featured image is from Novinite.com

According to an April 6 article on CNBC.com, Spain is slated to become the first country in Europe to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) on a long-term basis. Spain’s Minister for Economic Affairs has announced plans to roll out a UBI “as soon as possible,” with the goal of providing a nationwide basic wage that supports citizens “forever.” Guy Standing, a research professor at the University of London, told CNBC that there was no prospect of a global economic revival without a universal basic income. “It’s almost a no-brainer,” he said. “We are going to have some sort of basic income system sooner or later ….”

“Where will the government find the money?” is no longer a valid objection to providing an economic safety net for the people. The government can find the money in the same place it just found more than $5 trillion for Wall Street and Corporate America: the central bank can print it. In an April 9 post commenting on the $1.77 trillion handed to Wall Street under the CARES Act, Wolf Richter observed, “If the Fed had sent that $1.77 Trillion to the 130 million households in the US, each household would have received $13,600. But no, this was helicopter money exclusively for Wall Street and for asset holders.”

“Helicopter money” – money simply issued by the central bank and injected into the economy – could be used in many ways, including building infrastructure, capitalizing a national infrastructure and development bank, providing free state university tuition, or funding Medicare, social security, or a universal basic income. In the current crisis, in which a government-mandated shutdown has left households more vulnerable than at any time since the Great Depression, a UBI seems the most direct and efficient way to get money to everyone who needs it. But critics argue that it will just trigger inflation and collapse the dollar. As gold proponent Mike Maloney complained on an April 16 podcast:

Typing extra digits into computers does not make us wealthy. If this insane theory of printing money for almost everyone on a permanent basis takes hold, the value of the dollars in your purse or pocketbook will … just continue to erode …. I just want someone to explain to me how this is going to work.

Having done quite a bit of study on that, I thought I would take on the challenge. Here is how and why a central bank-financed UBI can work without eroding the dollar.

In a Debt-Based System, the Consumer Economy Is Chronically Short of Money

First, some basics of modern money. We do not have a fixed and stable money system. We have a credit system, in which money is created and destroyed by banks every day. Money is created as a deposit when the bank makes a loan and is extinguished when the loan is repaid, as explained in detail by the Bank of England here. When fewer loans are being created than are being repaid, the money supply shrinks, a phenomenon called “debt deflation.” Deflation then triggers recession and depression. The term “helicopter money” was coined to describe the cure for that much-feared syndrome. Economist Milton Friedman said it was easy to cure a deflation: just print money and rain it down from helicopters on the people.

Our money supply is in a chronic state of deflation, due to the way money comes into existence. Banks create the principal but not the interest needed to repay their loans, so more money is always owed back than was created in the original loans. Thus debt always grows faster than the money supply, as can be seen in this chart from WorkableEconomics.com:

When the debt burden grow so large that borrowers cannot take on more, they pay down old loans without taking out new ones and the money supply shrinks or deflates.

Critics of this “debt virus” theory say the gap between debt and the money available to repay can be filled through the “velocity of money.” Debts are repaid over time, and if the payments received collectively by the lenders are spent back into the economy, they are collectively available to the debtors to pay their next monthly balances. (See a fuller explanation here.) The flaw in this argument is that money created as a loan is extinguished on repayment and is not available to be spent back into the economy. Repayment zeros out the debit by which it was created, and the money just disappears.

Another problem with the “velocity of money” argument is that lenders don’t typically spend their profits back into the consumer economy. In fact, we have two economies – the consumer/producer economy where goods and services are produced and traded, and the financialized economy where money chases “yields” without producing new goods and services. The financialized economy is essentially a parasite on the real economy, and it now contains most of the money in the system. In an unwritten policy called the “Fed put”, the central bank routinely manipulates the money supply to prop up financial markets. That means corporate owners and investors can make more and faster money in the financialized economy than by investing in workers and equipment. Bankers, investors and other “savers” put their money in stocks and bonds, hide it in offshore tax havens, send it abroad, or just keep it in cash. At the end of 2018, US corporations were sitting on $1.7 trillion in cash, and 70% of $100 bills were held overseas.

Meanwhile the producer/consumer economy is left with insufficient investment and insufficient demand. According to a July 2017 paper from the Roosevelt Institute called “What Recovery? The Case for Continued Expansionary Policy at the Fed”:

GDP remains well below both the long-run trend and the level predicted by forecasters a decade ago. In 2016, real per capita GDP was 10% below the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) 2006 forecast, and shows no signs of returning to the predicted level.

The report showed that the most likely explanation for this lackluster growth was inadequate demand. Wages were stagnant; and before producers would produce, they needed customers knocking on their doors.

In ancient Mesopotamia, the gap between debt and the money available to repay it was corrected with periodic debt “jubilees” – forgiveness of loans that wiped the slate clean. But today the lenders are not kings and temples. They are private bankers who don’t engage in debt forgiveness because their mandate is to maximize shareholder profits, and because by doing so they would risk insolvency themselves. But there is another way to avoid the debt gap, and that is by filling it with regular injections of new debt-free money.

How Much Money Needs to Be Injected to Stabilize the Money Supply?

The mandated shutdown from the coronavirus has exacerbated the debt crisis, but the economy was suffering from an unprecedented buildup of debt well before that. A UBI would address the gap between consumer debt and the money available to repay it; but there are equivalent gaps for business debt, federal debt, and state and municipal debt, leaving room for quite a bit of helicopter money before debt deflation would turn into inflation.

Looking just at the consumer debt gap, in 2019 80% of US households had to borrow to meet expenses. See this chart provided by Lance Roberts in an April 2019 article on Seeking Alpha:

After the 2008 financial crisis, income and debt combined were not sufficient to fill the gap. By April 2019, about one-third of student loans and car loans were defaulting or had already defaulted. The predictable result was a growing wave of personal bankruptcies, bank bankruptcies, and debt deflation.

Roberts showed in a second chart that by 2019, the gap between annual real disposable income and the cost of living was over $15,000 per person, and the annual deficit that could not be filled even by borrowing was over $3,200:

Assume, then, a national dividend dropped directly into people’s bank accounts of $1,200 per month or $14,200 per year. This would come close to the average $15,000 needed to fill the gap between real disposable income and the cost of living. If the 80% of recipients needing to borrow to meet expenses used the money to repay their consumer debts (credit cards, student debt, medical bills, etc.), that money would void out debt and disappear. These loan repayments (or some of them) could be made mandatory and automatic. The other 20% of recipients, who don’t need to borrow to meet expenses, would not need their national dividends for that purpose either. Most would save it or invest it in non-consumer markets. And the money that was actually spent on consumer goods and services would help fill the 10% gap between real and potential GDP, allowing supply to rise with demand, keeping prices stable. The end result would be no net increase in the consumer price index.

The current economic shutdown will necessarily result in shortages, and the prices of those commodities can be expected to inflate; but it won’t be the result of “demand/pull” inflation triggered by helicopter money. It will be “cost/push” inflation from factory closures, supply disruptions, and increased business costs.

International Precedents

Critics of central bank money injections point to the notorious hyperinflations of history – in Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, etc. These disasters, however, were not caused by government money-printing to stimulate the economy. According to Prof. Michael Hudson, who has studied the question extensively, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”

For contemporary examples of governments injecting new money to fund domestic growth, we can look to China and Japan. In the last two decades, China’s M2 money supply grew from 11 trillion yuan to 194 trillion yuan, a nearly 1,800% increase. Yet the average inflation rate of its Consumer Price Index hovered between 2% and 3% during that period. The flood of money injected into the economy did not trigger an inflationary crisis because China’s GDP grew at the same fast clip, allowing supply and demand to rise together. Another factor was the Chinese propensity to save. As incomes went up, the percent of income spent on goods and services went down.

In Japan, the massive stimulus programs called “Abenomics” have been funded through bond purchases by the Japanese central bank. The Bank of Japan has now “monetized” nearly half the government’s debt, injecting new money into the economy by purchasing government bonds with yen created on the bank’s books. If the US Fed did that, it would own $12 trillion in US government bonds, over three times the $3.6 trillion in Treasury debt it holds now. Yet Japan’s inflation rate remains stubbornly below the BOJ’s 2% target. Deflation continues to be a greater concern in Japan than inflation, despite unprecedented debt monetization by its central bank.

UBI and Fears of the “Nanny State”

Wary critics warn that a UBI is the road to totalitarianism, the “cashless society,” dependence on the “nanny state,” and mandatory digital IDs. But none of those outcomes need accompany a UBI. It does not make people dependent on the government, so long as they can work. It is just supplementary income, similar to the dividends investors get from their stocks. A UBI does not make people lazy, as numerous studies have shown. To the contrary, they become more productive than without it. And a UBI does not mean cash would be eliminated. Over 90% of the money supply is already digital. UBI payments can be distributed digitally without changing the system we have. 

A UBI can serve the goals both of fiscal policy, providing a vital safety net for citizens in desperate times, and of monetary policy, by stabilizing the money supply. The consumer/producer economy actually needs regular injections of helicopter money to remain sustainable, stimulate economic productivity, and avoid deflationary recessions.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, The Web of Debt Blog.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age.  She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. 

Some years ago, the then vice-president of Monsanto Robert T Fraley asked, “Why do people doubt science”. He posed the question partly because he had difficulty in believing that some people had valid concerns about the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture.

Critics were questioning the science behind GM technology and the impacts of GMOs because they could see how science is used, corrupted and manipulated by powerful corporations to serve their own ends. And it was also because they regard these conglomerates as largely unaccountable and unregulated. 

We need look no further than the current coronavirus issue to understand how vested interests are set to profit by spinning the crisis a certain way and how questionable science is being used to pursue policies that are essentially illogical or ‘unscientific’. Politicians refer to ‘science’ and expect the public to defer to the authority of science without questioning the legitimacy of scientific modelling or data.

Although this legitimacy is being questioned on various levels, arguments challenging the official line are being sidelined. Governments, the police and the corporate media have become the arbiters of truth even if ‘the truth’ does not correspond with expert opinion or rational thought which challenges the mainstream narrative.

For instance, testing for coronavirus could be flawed (producing a majority of ‘false positives’) and the processes involved in determining death rates could be inflating the numbers: for example, dying ‘with’ coronavirus’ is different to dying ‘due to’ coronavirus: a serious distinction given that up to 98 per cent of people (according to official sources) who may be dying with it have at least one serious life-threatening condition. Moreover, the case-fatality ratio could be so low as to make the lockdown response appear wholly disproportionate. Yet we are asked to accept statistics at face value – and by implication, the policies based on them.

Indeed, documentary maker and author David Cayley addresses this last point by saying that modern society is hyper-scientific but radically unscientific as it has no standard against which it can measure or assess what it has done: that we must at all costs ‘save lives’ is not questioned, but this makes it very easy to start a stampede. Making an entire country go home and stay home has immense, incalculable costs in terms of well-being and livelihoods. Cayley argues that this itself has created a pervasive sense of panic and crisis and is largely a result of the measures taken against the pandemic and not of the pandemic itself.

He argues that the declaration by the World Health Organization that a pandemic (at the time based on a suspected 150 deaths globally) was now officially in progress did not change anyone’s health status, but it dramatically changed the public atmosphere. Moreover, the measures mandated have involved a remarkable curtailing of civil liberty.

One of the hallmarks of the current situation, he stresses, is that some think that ‘science’ knows more than it does and therefore they – especially politicians – know more than they do. Although certain epidemiologists may say frankly that there is very little sturdy evidence to base policies on, this has not prevented politicians from acting as if everything they say or do is based on solid science.

The current paradigm – with its rhetoric of physical distancing, flattening the curve and saving lives – could be difficult to escape from. Cayley says either we call it off soon and face the possibility that it was all misguided (referring to the policies adopted in Sweden to make his point), or we extend it and create harms that may be worse than the casualties we may have averted.

The lockdown may not be merited if we were to genuinely adopt a knowledge-based approach. For instance, if we look at early projections by Neil Ferguson of Imperial College in the UK, he had grossly overstated the number of possible deaths resulting from the coronavirus and has now backtracked substantially. Ferguson has a chequered track record, which led UK newspaper The Telegraph to run a piece entitled ‘How accurate was the science that led to lockdown?’ The article outlines Ferguson’s previous flawed predictions about infectious diseases and a number of experts raise serious questions about the modelling that led to lockdown in the UK.

It is worth noting that the lockdown policies we now see are remarkably similar to the disturbing Orwellian ‘Lock Step’ future scenario that was set out in 2010 by the Rockefeller Foundation report ‘Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development’. The report foresaw a future situation where freedoms are curtailed and draconian high-tech surveillance measures are rolled out under the ongoing pretexts of impending pandemics. Is this the type of technology use we can expect to see as hundreds of millions are marginalized and pushed into joblessness?

Instead of encouraging more diverse, informed and objective opinions in the mainstream, we too often see money and power forcing the issue, not least in the form of Bill Gates who tells the world ‘normality’ may not return for another 18 months – until he and his close associates in the pharmaceuticals industry find a vaccine and we are all vaccinated.

US attorney Robert F Kennedy Jr says that top Trump advisor Stephen Fauci has made the reckless choice to fast track vaccines, partially funded by Gates, without critical animal studies. Gates is so worried about the danger of adverse events that he says vaccines shouldn’t be distributed until governments agree to indemnity against lawsuits.

But this should come as little surprise. Kennedy notes that the Gates Foundation and its global vaccine agenda already has much to answer for. For example, Indian doctors blame the Gates Foundation for paralysing 490,000 children. And in 2009, the Gates Foundation funded tests of experimental vaccines, developed by Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) and Merck, on 23,000 girls. About 1,200 suffered severe side effects and seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates-funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations.

Kennedy adds that in 2010 the Gates Foundation funded a trial of GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects to 1,048 of the 5,949 children. In 2002, Gates’ operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Approximately 50 of the 500 children vaccinated developed paralysis.

Bill Gates committed $10 billion to the WHO in 2010. In 2014, Kenya’s Catholic Doctors Association accused the WHO of chemically sterilising millions of unwilling Kenyan women with a  ’tetanus’ vaccine campaign. Independent labs found a sterility formula in every vaccine tested.  

Instead of prioritising projects that are proven to curb infectious diseases and improve health – clean water, hygiene, nutrition and economic development – the Gates Foundation spends only about $650 million of its $5 billion budget on these areas.

Despite all of this, Gates appears on prime-time TV news shows in the US and the UK pushing his undemocratic and unaccountable pro-big pharma vaccination and surveillance agendas and is afforded deference by presenters who dare not mention any of what Kennedy outlines. Quite the opposite – he is treated like royalty.  

In the meantime, an open Letter from Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, emeritus professor of medical microbiology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, to Angela Merkel has called for an urgent reassessment of Germany’s lockdown. Dr Ioannidis, a professor of medicine and professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University argues that we have made such decisions on the basis of unreliable data. In addition, numerous articles have recently appeared online which present the views of dozens of experts who question policies and the data being cited about the coronavirus.  

While it is not the intention to dismiss the dangers of Covid-19, responses to those dangers must be proportionate to actual risks. And perspective is everything.

Millions die each year due to unnecessary conflicts, malnutrition and hunger, a range of preventative diseases (often far outweighing the apparent impact of Covid-19), environmental pollution and economic plunder which deprives poor countriesof their natural wealth. Neoliberal reforms have pushed millions of farmers and poor people in India and elsewhere to the brink of joblessness and despair, while our food is being contaminated with toxic chemicals and the global ecosystem faces an apocalyptic breakdown.

Much of the above is being driven by an inherently predatory economic system and facilitated by those who now say they want to ‘save lives’ by implementing devastating lockdowns. Yet, for the media and the political class, the public’s attention should not be allowed to dwell on such things.

And that has easily been taken care of.

In the UK, the population is constantly subjected via their TV screens to clap for NHS workers, support the NHS and to stay home and save lives on the basis of questionable data and policies. Its emotive stuff taking place under a ruling Conservative Party that has cut thousands of hospital beds, frozen staff pay and demonised junior doctors.

As people passively accept the stripping of their fundamental rights, Lionel Shriver, writing in The Spectator, says that the supine capitulation to a de facto police state has been one of the most depressing spectacles he has ever witnessed. 

It’s a point of view that will resonate with many.

In the meantime, Bill Gates awaits as the saviour of humanity – with a loaded syringe.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

Is it coincidental that the first widely reported COVID-19 outbreak was in China.  

It’s unknown if the virus was natural or man-made, the latter very much possible, perhaps originating in a US bio-lab.

The US has a long disturbing history of bio-and-chemical warfare, waging it against Native Americans, during its Civil War, in WW I and II, and all its wars thereafter against invented enemies to the present day — along with homeland experiments.

Since at least the early 1940s, the US conducted research, development, and testing of bioweapons at Fort Detrick, MD, later at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore labs, Pine Bluff, AR and Dugway Proving Ground, UT.

Biological agents were introduced in New York, San Francisco, and other US cities to learn the effects of germ warfare.

The CIA’s Project MKULTRA research produced drugs and biological agents for mind control and behavioral modification.

The history of US development and use of banned weapons is long and disturbing.

Arsenals of chemical, biological, radiological, and other banned weapons are maintained by the Pentagon and CIA.

International law bans use of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons, the latter used by US forces at least since the preemptive 1991 Gulf War.

Depleted uranium weapons are radioactive, chemically toxic and poisonous, yet used in all US wars of aggression since GHW Bush’s aggression against Iraq.

No evidence suggests COVID-19 was made in a Chinese lab or originated from bats or other wildlife.

Was it made in the USA? US intelligence and the Pentagon have known for years about possible coronavirus outbreaks that could spread widely in the US and elsewhere.

COVID-19 shares common symptoms with seasonal flu/influenza that infects millions of Americans annually, hospitalizes hundreds of thousands, and results in tens of thousands of deaths — with no fear-mongering/screaming headlines.

Both are communicable diseases, COVID-19 more contagious by a factor of about 2.5 to 3.5, why precautions for personal safety are warranted.

Older individuals, anyone with a weakened immune system, and others with significant health issues are most vulnerable to serious illness from COVID-19.

According to Healthline.com, from 25 – 50% of COVID-19 infected individuals may be asymptomatic.

Iceland researchers reported that around half of individuals who tested positive for the virus had no symptoms.

That’s good news for them, worrisome for their ability to unwittingly spread disease to others.

The same goes for epidemic-level seasonal flu and numerous other infectious diseases that do not reach epidemic levels in developed and most other countries.

Because COVID-19 is much more contagious than influenza it’s wise to take protective measures if in a high-risk group.

The economic, political, and geopolitical fallout from what’s going on is far more serious than contagion that will pass.

Evidence one day may show that that US dark forces were and remain responsible for unleashing COVID-19 and its accompanying fear-mongering to further its objectives — domestic and geopolitical.

The former is all about the largest ever wealth transfer from ordinary Americans to privileged ones, along with greater erosion of human and civil rights for enhanced population control.

The latter appears primarily to target China, a nation heading toward surpassing the US as the world’s leading economy in the years ahead.

Washington’s likely main objective is trying to derail its growing economic, financial, industrial, technological, and geopolitical development.

It’s also a likely attempt to reverse US decline while other nations are rising, notably China.

It’s US public enemy No. one because of its growing geopolitical influence — establishment media allied with US dark forces in vilifying the country.

Last week, the NYT falsely accused China of growing “nationalism and xenophobia,” claiming “foreigners are being shunned, barred from public spaces and even evicted (sic).”

China leads the world in combatting COVID-19. It’s all-out efforts reduced outbreaks to a trickle.

Like other countries, it’s playing it safe until the virus is fully contained and no longer a threat to anyone, a short-term policy to ensure public health.

In its latest edition, the Times arrogantly said “(t)he US tried to teach China a lesson about (the) media, but it backfired.”

The above refers to Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal correspondents expelled from the country, including from Hong Kong and Macau.

China’s Foreign Ministry explained the action as follows:

Its authorities responded to Washington’s “unwarranted restrictions on Chinese media agencies and personnel in the US…subject(ing) them to growing discrimination and politically-motivated oppression.”

In February, the Trump regime “designated five Chinese media entities in the US as ‘foreign missions’ and imposed a cap on the number of their employees, in effect expelling Chinese journalists from the US.”

Beijing imposed “reciprocal measures” on US correspondents  because of “unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the US” — what the Times and other establishment media failed to explain, including the following Chinese Foreign Ministry remark:

“What we reject is ideological bias against China, fake news made in the name of press freedom, and breaches of ethics in journalism.”

“Should the US choose to go further down the wrong path, it could expect more countermeasures from China.”

US fake news about China and other sovereign independent countries on its target list for regime change is longstanding.

A WaPo editorial last week falsely accused China of spreading COVID-19 globally, along with “cover(ing) up the truth as the virus spread (sic).”

A WSJ report was similar, quoting Senator Rick Scott, calling for a congressional investigation into the alleged WHO’s “role in helping Communist China cover up information regarding the threat of the coronavirus.”

Over the weekend, Trump warned of “consequences” if China was “knowingly responsible” for spreading COVID-19, adding:

“It could have been stopped in China before it started and it wasn’t, and the whole world is suffering because of it (sic).”

His weekend and earlier remarks were all about falsely shifting blame to China for his own failings and malfeasance.

If evidence proves the novel coronavirus to be a US bioweapon unleashed at home and abroad, it’ll be covered up to wrongfully shift blame to China.

It’s part of US war on the country by other means, what’s likely to intensify ahead.

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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.

Last week the socialist pest from Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders, formally endorsed former vice president Biden in an awkward livestream in which the two septuagenarians told one another how wonderful they are and how awful Trump is. As of this writing, masses of Sanders’ supporters, the Bernie Bros, refuse to accept the endorsement and vow to fight on against the Democrat Party Establishment. Polls indicate that a significant number of Bernie Bros, perhaps as many as 10 percent, would vote for Trump before Biden.

There followed the coup-de-tat. Showing great political courage, Barack Obama waited till Biden had won the primaries to endorse his vice president. Three years after leaving office, Obama still looks old and tired. He watches powerlessly as Trump wipes away his legacy. Trump withdrew the United States from Obama’s ‘Iran Deal’. With the noxious individual mandate repealed by congress, Obamacare is dying a slow death. The man who offered ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ is a spent force now, too close to the center for the hard-left, while even his most ardent supporters wonder to what his eight years in office amounted.

After 18 months of campaigning, former vice president Joe Biden is the undisputed victor of the 2020 Democrat Party primary. The Democrat Presidential Primary began with such high hopes and had a slew of interesting and intersectional candidates. None of the young rising stars proved to be up to the task of defeating a 77-year-old white man who has been in politics for 50 years.

Former Congressman Robert Francis O’Rourke was young and charismatic, Kennedyesque, the nostalgists in the Dem media exclaimed. But with O’Rourke it seemed that there was no there-there.  In 2018, he failed to unseat the unpopular Senator Ted Cruz. On the campaign trail he spoke in platitudes only, his arms flailing about wildly as he did so. O’Rourke came off like a Generation-X cliché, a man in arrested development, stuck permanently in the mid-1990s.

New Jersey Senator Corey Booker (for whom we voted) looked like a strong candidate on paper. He was a college football player at Stanford and Rhodes Scholar. Booker was mayor of the state’s largest city, Newark, before being elected to the senate. But in committee hearings, Booker had this weird way of yelling at Trump officials so that his eyes seemed nearly to pop out of his head. Booker is the son of an IBM executive, and didn’t really have strong appeal among African American voters, while affluent white liberals preferred candidates more like them.

California Senator Kamala Harris is both female and black, twice a minority, one could say, giving her impressive intersectional credentials. Harris portrayed herself as a progressive but tough on crime prosecutor and attorney general. After eviscerating Joe Biden over his 1970s era opposition to Forced Busing, Harris was briefly the frontrunner. At the next debate, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took Harris’ strength and turned it against her, ‘She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,’ Gabbard said. Harris never recovered.

Which opened a path to the nomination for Elizabeth Warren. The septuagenarian and senator from Massachusetts had all the right progressive stances and stole Sanders’ issues in a bid to win over the Bernie Bros. For decades, Warren lied about her Cherokee heritage (she has none) to advance her career. On the stump she has the bearing and voice of a middle school librarian, making her almost as unlikable as Hilary Clinton, no easy feat.

There were at least a dozen also-rans none of whom had any hope of winning the nomination, all but a few of them utterly forgettable and forgotten. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appealed to nobody. Pete Buttigieg, mayor of Indiana’s fourth largest city, tried to be the white, gay Obama. Late in the race came former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. He campaigned for three months, spent a billion dollars and then dropped out just in time to disappear for the Wuhan Coronavirus crisis. Warren is at least coherent.

Not so, Sleepy Joe, as the president calls him. On the campaign trail, Biden will tell you what bills he voted for, pieces of legislation he co- and the senators with whom he wrote them. The man’s work goes all the way back to the Nixon Administration.  On his podcasts and livestreams from his home study in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden will sure as heck tell you what needs to be done during the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic and how he’s going to do it.  Last week he harkened back to the Roosevelt Administration, of which he has vague memories, “You know, there’s a, uh — during World War II, you know, Roosevelt came up with a thing that uh, you know was totally different than a, than the, you know he called it you know the, World War II, he had the war… the war production board,” he told us. And so, after eighteen months of campaigning and a couple dozen candidates, the Democrat Party has chosen Joe Biden.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

William Stroock is an author of military fiction.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

US President Donald Trump tried to prove his effective leadership in the COVID-19 fight during the White House briefing on Saturday. He said that the US mortality rate was 11.24 per 100,000 people, lower than that of Spain, France and Italy. China’s mortality rate is only 0.33 per 100,000 people and Trump blasted it as “impossible,” saying “does anybody really believe this number?”

The COVID-19 has claimed 4,632 lives in the Chinese mainland so far. For the Chinese people, the number is already very large. Some 3,869 people died of the virus in Wuhan, which is difficult for people to accept. Chinese public opinion has been questioning why so many people died. We think our country could have saved more lives and we sincerely believe that there is room for improvement.

The US is the most powerful country and has the most abundant medical resources and the most advanced technology. It could also refer to China’s experience. But now, its daily deaths are around 2,000 and could peak at 4,000. This is completely beyond the Chinese imagination of the US. There is no reason for such mass deaths. The COVID-19 spread in the US is almost like that of a primitive society. It should not have been like this if the US had the slightest science and organization.

The US president and ruling elite should have reflected on the current situation, but the federal government regards passing the buck to others as top priority. It quarrels with governors and the Democratic Party internally, and shirks responsibility to China and the WHO externally. Now it is claiming the US mortality rate is not as high as Europe and China’s figure is “impossible.” This is politically unethical.

China never intended to compare itself with the US. China has been doing its utmost to protect people’s lives while the US has been weighing between people’s lives and the economy. Moreover, those in power are calculating which side helps them win the upcoming election.

The US has never seen containing the epidemic and reducing the death toll as an overarching purpose. The federal and state governments have been engaging in endless disputes, and leading officials at both levels are focusing on their public appearances. US officials are in fact competing on how to act more like a “wartime leader” and how to shift blame onto others.

To put it bluntly, the US is no match for China in terms of anti-epidemic organization and mobilization. The US political system has been hit by the pandemic on its weak side and we were willing to show understanding for that. After all, every system has its weaknesses.

However, the Trump administration has repeatedly found fault with China, blatantly accused China of fabricating epidemic achievements, eagerly passed the buck to China and unscrupulously attempted to win reelection by stepping on China. In that case it is not our fault to reveal the miserable failure of the US.

Nearly 40,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the US, way beyond other countries in the world. And it is hard to tell how large it will become. Even if US laws are not ready to hold those in power accountable, history will eventually put them on trial.

The Chinese government has done its utmost to fight the epidemic and has controlled it, preventing the deaths from rising out of control like that in the US. China’s achievements stand the test of time and all kinds of doubts. The Trump administration only wants to shirk responsibility by blackening China. This will be proven a lame trick. This will only reflect the incompetence and ethical failings of the related US politicians.

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It was like scenes from an Armageddon-like movie made in Hollywood instead of a real-world Tehran hospital, Hesam Khezri said, describing the state of Masih Daneshvari during the first days of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.

“Looking down from the rooftop of the hospital…you could see dozens of ambulances rushing with their sirens blaring. People in sanitary clothes were going hurriedly from side to side transferring patients on stretchers,” Khezri told Middle East Eye.

Khezri is a doctor’s assistant working in the hospital’s surgery department but was transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU) as the demand for more personnel to deal with the crisis grew.

He was diagnosed with Covid-19 on 1 April.

“Suddenly, we were spearheading the fight against Corona,” Khezri said of Masih Daneshvari, a big hospital built in a mountainous area north of the capital.

“We were all taken by surprise. By no means, could the hospital staff have predicted that within 48 hours more than 20 different wards, including three for emergencies, would be filled with patients suspected of having coronavirus,” Khezri said.

The Iranian health ministry publicly announced the first two cases of Covid-19 in the country on 19 February.

A few days later, Iran became one of the global epicentres of the virus. At the time of publishing this article, there are more than 76,000 confirmed cases and more than 5,000 deaths in Iran.

Since the onset of the outbreak, Masih Daneshvari quickly became the primary destination for infected patients, with Iranian health officials also sending suspected cases there.

Khezri said the situation was made complicated by the state of panic felt by the hospital staff who had little experience in dealing with a new virus that is yet to have a cure.

“Within 24 hours, between 650 and 700 people were taken to our hospital, a trend that gained serious momentum over the next few days”, he added.

The rapid increase in the number of cases and the death toll saw other hospitals and medical centres in Tehran join the efforts to contain the spread of the virus.

Iranian Health Minister Saeed Nemaki recently said that despite the state of the first days of the outbreak, Iranian medical staff are already much more experienced now than they were at the outset.

The first wave of infections had caused fear and pushed people, either suffering from coronavirus symptoms or wishing to be tested, to rush to the hospital.

“A large number of people could have contracted the virus in the hospital during the early days,” Khezri said.

But, he added, the situation eventually improved at Masihi Daneshvari with fewer people seeking hospital treatment and medical staff having gained some experience in how to manage the inflow of patients.

Today, people presenting with acute difficulty in breathing and dry coughs are sent to the relevant departments for blood tests and CT scans for their lungs.

Meanwhile, patients with no pulmonary problem are sent into quarantine either at home or in an isolated ward in the hospital.

The frontline

“I will never in my life forget these days I am going through. [We see] patients who are in good condition in the morning but then show severe symptoms at night and die before the next morning,” Fatemeh, a nurse in Masih Daneshvari, said using only her first name.

Fatemeh said fear was prevalent at the beginning of the crisis, especially when some of the staff contracted the virus themselves.

“But now, as the cases increase, what matters most to us is saving people’s lives.”

In Iran, as is the case in many countries, there was a shortage of medical staff on the frontline of the outbreak.

Nurses and doctors have had to spend numerous long days and nights at the hospital, with many retired doctors and nurses returning to assist the exhausted personnel.

Being most at risk for exposure, health professionals are being applauded all around the world for their relentless efforts and dedication in battling the virus.

According to Iran’s health ministry, 43 medical workers including doctors have died so far after contracting the disease.

Nurses and doctors in the special unit for Covid-19 patients in Masih Daneshvari Hospital pose for a photo (MEE/Mohammadreza Abbassi)

Fatemeh said Masih Daneshvari Hospital has suffered from a severe shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) – such as face masks, gloves, and sanitary clothing – at the start of the outbreak, and although the problem is being gradually solved, the damage was already done.

“We received a big shock at first,” she said.

“The huge number of cases and our poor experience in dealing with the disease has led us to witness some of our colleagues getting infected and has increased our anxiety in dealing with coronavirus patients.”

Medical staff either work 19-hour shifts and are off for 48 hours afterwards or works 7am-2pm shifts every day.

A few days after the outbreak, some retired physicians and nurses voluntarily joined the staff, reducing the initial pressure.

Dealing with grief

Hospital staff sometimes have to wear PPE for 19 hours at a time, which Fatemeh says can feel like a nightmare, but this is not their only problem.

“We work for many hours and days and have to isolate ourselves because of our exposure to the virus. Many of us have not seen our families for fear of transmitting the virus to them,” she said.

Many of the medical workers were not able to spend the eve of the Iranian new year, Nowruz, with their families because they had to stay at the hospital.

“Seeing the death of patients has caused us a lot of grief and sorrow. We have to sometimes sing together and play instruments to get over the sad situation,” Fatemeh said, praying that the crisis will be over soon.

Besides the medical staff, many other workers are part of the tragic scenes, including the personnel in charge of carrying the corpses to the morgue, those in charge of maintaining the quarantined areas of the hospital, and the catering staff taking care of the patients’ meals.

They too have to wear PPE as they carry out physically demanding tasks while also being exposed to Covid-19 patients.

In the coronavirus unit at Masih Daneshvari, a member of the cleaning crew has taken the initiative, in addition to his daily duties, to talk to patients, to listen and entertain them, and to improve the morale of his colleagues.

US sanctions

The coronavirus crisis in Iran has been compounded by the harsh sanctions imposed by the United States, which has essentially cut Iran off from the international banking system.

While Washington has repeatedly insisted that medicines and humanitarian goods are excluded from the sanctions, restrictions on trade have made many international banks and companies reluctant to do business with Iran.

Iranian officials have rejected recent US claims that Tehran can still import medicine and food, saying that no company is willing to sell medicine to Iran out of fear of punitive measures by Washington.

Medical staff work 19-hour shifts and are off for 48 hours or works 7am-2pm shifts every day (MEE/Mohammadreza Abbasi)

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned of a humanitarian catastrophe if the sanctions against Iran remain in place.

A large number of civil and humanitarian groups across the world, as well as officials and even some US congressmen, have also called for the temporary lifting of sanctions on Iran during its battle against coronavirus.

One doctor at Masih Daneshvari said there is, in fact, no shortage of medical equipment at the hospital, with enough ventilators and beds in the intensive care unit.

But, the problem, he said, is the shortage of medicine caused by the sanctions.

“A pack of Tamiflu [an antiviral medication] is sold at over $100 on the black market in Iran. Had it not been for the sanctions, this medicine would cost less than $5,” the doctor told Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

“Another anti-coronavirus drug, Actemra [tocilizumab] is now traded at $3,000 on Iran’s unofficial market, while the same medicine would not be worth more than $100 had the situation been normal. That is the case with other imported medicines.”

Masih Daneshvari Hospital is a specialised centre for lung diseases and one of the best medical establishments in the Middle East. It is also presided over by prominent Iranian politician Ali Akbar Velayati.

Warnings

But the case is different for other hospitals in Iran.

According to various reports, many hospitals in the country lack appropriate medical equipment.

Other reports say that medical staff in many hospitals, particularly in small towns, face shortages of basic necessities such as face masks, sanitary clothes and goggles.

The overall situation of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran is improving according to the president and some health officials, although the daily number of reported cases in the country has not yet dropped.

Nevertheless, the number of suspected cases or infected people admitted to Masih Daneshvari Hospital has significantly decreased compared to the early days of the outbreak.

According to the doctor who wished to remain unnamed, the number of cases has dropped from 600-700 per day to 150.

He believes that Iran has already reached the peak of the disease and it will be on a downward trend.

The doctor cautioned, however, that if social distancing measures and restrictions on people’s activities are rolled back too soon, the country will suffer a more severe outbreak and a second peak.

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Featured image: The goggles of a member of the emergency medical staff cloud up after several consecutive hours of use (MEE/Mohammadreza Abbasi)

The U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) has furloughed about half of its 8,500 local hires, not for fear of the COVID 19 pandemic, but in a ploy to extract more subsidies from the South Korean government, using workers as pawns.

As of April 1, about 4,000 Korean employees were put on unpaid leave until further notice after the U.S. and South Korean governments failed to renew a cost-sharing deal that expired December 31.

“This is an unfortunate day for us,” USFK commander, Gen. Robert B. Abrams, said on April 1, commenting on the unprecedented massive furlough. “It’s heartbreaking.”

In a sarcastic tweet he sent some hours later, however, the four-star army general betrayed his sympathetically toned remarks.

“I learned today that,” Gen. Abrams said, “’Don’t count your chickens before they hatch’ = ‘Don’t eat your kimchi stew before the time is right.’”

He dashed any hope for a quick end to the furlough, dismissing local press reports that the two governments were a few days away from reaching a new deal.

Five-fold increase

The initial stages of negotiations for the renewal of a cost-sharing deal, known as the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), were bound to fail, as the Trump administration demanded of the South Korean government about $5 billion a year, more than a five-fold increase from about $853 million of the previous agreement. The Trump administration rejected a 13% increase offered by the South Korean government.

However, the mass furloughs could have been avoided had the United States not rejected an offer by South Korea to cover local hires’ wages during the runup to a new deal.

As of press time, half the usual level of South Korean staff clean and maintain at least 17 U.S. military bases for 25,800 troops stationed in the country.

U.S. belligerence

On the campaign trail, Trump routinely attacked South Korea, one of Asia’s new economic powerhouses, for shrewdly passing military costs on to the United States. In January 2016, he slammed South Korea, saying, “South Korea is a money machine. They pay us peanuts.” He went on to declare, “South Korea should pay us and pay us very substantially for protecting them”

However, South Koreans have been paying for the U.S. military presence on their own soil since 1953, when U.S. bases and camps began to dot their war-torn country to house more than 100,000 troops, after the Korean War of 1950 to 1953, a civil war that grew into a war by proxy between the Cold War superpowers.

While public data are still scant, there were three big bumps in South Korean contributions during the Cold War, between the 1950s and the early 1990s, when the country emerged as the U.S. government’s bulwark against communist bloc. In 1966, the United States and South Korean entered into the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), under which South Korea would pay for the land and facility use by the USFK.

In 1979 when the Carter administration stepped up pressure on South Korea, still a poor country with a per-capita GNI of $1,670, to increase military spending and financial support for the USFK, U.S. ambassador William Gleysteen and USFK commander John Wickham jointly warned Washington of “one of the most serious misperceptions” about U.S. policy toward Korea: “The U.S. finances a significant portion of Korean defense.” They argued that South Korea’s support largely exceeded that of more prominent allies with a U.S. military presence. Gleysteen and Wickham recommended gradual pressure. Any immediate, substantial rise in host-country support, they warned, would result in the postponement of South Korea’s infrastructure expenditures or even the downgrading of its credit ratings.

In 1991, the two countries signed the SMA, replacing much of the SOFA and further strengthening South Korea’s financial contributions to the USFK. In the three decades since 1991, South Korea’s payouts rose by 10 times, despite the post-Cold War reality that the USFK, once committed almost exclusively to the Korean peninsula, were increasingly becoming something of a rapid response force for the entire region.

Major foothold

The 28,500-strong USFK represents the U.S. military’s third-largest overseas presence. Nothing showcases South Korea’s financial burden better than Camp Humphreys, about 40 miles southwest of Seoul, and the largest U.S. military base outside the United States. The base, which can accommodate up to 45,000 personnel from all military branches, was completed in 2017, with the rise of China as military superpower in mind. Camp Humphreys, about 250 miles away from China’s eastern seaboard, is the most forefront of about 400 U.S. military bases encircling China. While neither government discloses dollar figures, several press reports said South Korea paid more than $9 billion out of a total of $10.8 billion for the construction.

Direct hit

The 4,000 USFK Korean employees were held financially hostage as the country grappled with the economic and social fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Categorized as freelancers under contract with a foreign entity, these workers are not entitled to furlough benefits. Their employment status and conditions are governed under a vagely SOFA that does not delineate labor rights or employment status.

USFK local hires are in a legal limbo that falls between U.S. and Korean jurisdiction. The workers are left with little legal recourse in the face of layoffs or wage freezes. Between 2017 and 2019, the USFK shed 400 to 500 Korean hires despite continued rises in South Korean subsidies. During the Great Recession in 2018, the command refused to approve a mediation deal by South Korea’s labor relations commission over a three-year wage freeze. All of these issues should now be settled under SOFA structure. Under the SOFA, both parties must agree to even discuss an issue, and to date, the U.S. has refused to initiate discussion about these labor concerns. The SOFA bans workers from taking collective action such as stoppages over a pending settlement.

“Amid the COVID 19 pandemic, it is even difficult find interim part-time jobs,” said the USFK Korean Employees Union in a statement. “Our livelihood will be hit directly.”

Unionists mount daily pickets at Camp Humphreys while the government considers a one-time loan program for the workers. As one community activist told the press, “This amounts to daylight robbery.”

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Kap Seol is a writer based in New York.

Featured image is from Flickr

By all accounts and from the very beginning it was clear that Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) was at the very most a bad cold – little more dangerous than the annual flu – but being deliberately hyped to stampede the public into a tangled web of bad policies.

As early as last month cooler-headed experts warned that hyped death rates spread by politicians, the Western corporate media, other various panic-mongers, and even World Health Organization (WHO) officials would give way to much, much lower death rates as more people were tested, found to have had the virus, and showed little to no symptoms.

The numbers of infections versus deaths in Iceland where testing has been the most widespread shows a death rate of about 0.5%, though only 5% of the population has been tested. 50% of those tested showed no symptoms at all meaning that many, many more Icelanders likely had the virus, overcame it with ease, and never visited a doctor or hospital to avail themselves for testing or to make into national Covid-19 statistics.

Another study conducted in the United States by Stanford University found the infection rate was likely 50-85 times higher than reported – meaning the death rate was astronomically lower than reported at around 0.2% to as low as 0.12% – not the 3-4% claimed by the World Health Organization.

In other words – Covid-19 is no more dangerous or deadly than the annual flu. But it has been hyped as such by Western politicians, the Western corporate media, and even international institutions like WHO – a deliberate deception accompanied by coordinated theater including government briefings with reporters comically spaced out in “fear” of contracting Covid-19.

Other props used to panic the public into imprisoning themselves at home and accepting the immense socioeconomic damage “lockdowns” are causing included showing the expotential graphs of infections seemingly rising straight up with no end in sight.

If responsible journalists put these graphs in context – say, perhaps next to annual flu infection curves – the public would notice they are identical and simply represent the way the flu, colds, and Covid-19 which is related to both – work their way through populations.

The same goes for total deaths. Should the media present Covid-19 deaths in the context of and in comparison to annual deaths from the flu, Americans – for example – would see that versus the 2019 flu season, Covid-19 is actually 30,000-40,000 deaths short of just matching the common flu – saying nothing of living up to the hype and hysteria the government and media have deliberately created around Covid-19 to justify lockdowns.

So why have governments around the globe crippled their economies, put millions out of work, and placed draconian measures in place to, in essence, imprison their populations at home?

Those with power and money seek to keep what they have and to take what little is left in the hands of others. During the manufactured “War on Terror,” similar hysteria was deliberately spread across society to justify draconian police powers at home and endless wars abroad – pouring ultimately trillions into the accounts of defense contractors and the financial institutions invested in them.

During a manufactured health crisis like the 2009 H1N1 “Swine Flu” outbreak, the unfounded fear of an uncontrollable pathogen ravaging the population helped justify the centralizing of control over people’s health and lifestyle while pumping billions in pubic funding into the coffers of big-pharma.

And here we are again with the very same interests who lied to us about all of the above, doing it again and on a much larger and more destructive scale – creating socioeconomic havoc virtually no one will escape completely.

If the Covid-19 hoax doesn’t convince you to divest from the politicians and the corporations they serve – including divesting from big-business’ goods and services – nothing will. Special interests just beta-tested turning entire nations into virtual prisons. If people allow it this time, their ability to do it again and to an even greater and more disruptive degree is all but guaranteed.

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Tony Cartalucci writes on his blog site, Land Destroyer Report, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from LDR unless otherwise stated

Washington-based military think tanks constantly warn of possible attacks by the wicked North Koreans who have a large arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver to North America.

So do Britain, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, China, India and Israel. The US still has a very large, lethal arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. I recently wrote of how the Reagan administration supplied Iraq with feeder stocks to make anthrax, Q Fever and other biowarfare materials for use against Iranians.

And yet we have just seen from the COVID-19 scare how woefully unprepared we were for a chemical/biological attack despite being world leader in germ and chemical warfare.

As the bodies of COVID-19 victims pile up from New York to New Zealand, politicians are waging a furious blame game over the pandemic.

At first, President Donald Trump dismissed COVID-19 as a simple cold or flu and, in the best dictatorial tradition, scared into silence scientists and politicians who disagreed with him for over a month.

China’s General Secretary Xi Jinping, or high-level Communist Party officials, may have suppressed information about the Wuhan virus for six days before news of the killer virus was revealed and a common Party response agreed upon.

Covering up bad news is standard procedure in Communist and autocratic regimes. That’s a major reason why the slow motion collapse of the Soviet Union’s economy went unknown to the Kremlin until too late.

In Trumpistan, none of the sycophants and yes-men around the president, except for the admirable Dr. Fauci, dared contradict the Great White Father cum Physician cum Mussolini in the White House. Anyone who does quickly gets a ‘you’re fired.’

Many of Trump’s evangelical supporters in the Bible Belt view him as a semi-religious figure, a sort of holy man who can, in the best Old Testament Biblical tradition, stop or even cure plague and pestilence. That’s what Trump’s claim to be able to miraculously end the Coronavirus plague by Easter was all about.

Next, fearing American voters would blame him for ineptitude and quackery for downplaying the crisis, Trump sought to lay blame on China and the World Health Organization for the pandemic. Flat-earth Midwestern Republicans believe the UN and anything that sounds international is satanic. This includes the bumbling, overly bureaucratic WHO which has indeed been too easy on China as the right-wing Republicans claim.

But this is the same UN-directed outfit that played a key role in repressing or even eradicating malaria, smallpox, Ebola, river blindness, bilharzia and other dreadful plagues of Africa and Asia. WHO has also had some success in fighting dengue and tsetse flies.

After studying the timeline of recent events in Wuhan, it appears to me that there was some confusion among Chinese medical authorities because of the unknown nature of the new virus. It took them close to a week to evaluate the virus which was at first believed to be a virulent influenza.

Their confusion was minor compared to the muddled reaction of US political and medical authorities and Trump-supporting evangelical groups who each had their own beliefs (usually mistaken) about the new virus. Trump was very successful at laying blame on China – just as the lethal 1918 flu epidemic that began in US Army camps and killed millions of people was successfully marketed to the public as the ‘Spanish flu.’

In an effort to come up with a snake-oil cure, Trump told Americans to take the anti-malaria drugs Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine. French doctors warned these drugs could provoke serious, even lethal heart problems.

They were quite right. I took Chloroquine while in the jungle in southern Africa while covering the fighting between South African (SADF) forces and East-Bloc backed African Congress forces. I developed a mild but still very scary psychological problem and was sick as hell. Who wants to be psycho and paranoid in the deepest jungle?

One remarkable factor in this 21st century plague is how successful China appears to be so far in bottling up the COVID plague. It may be the Chinese are fudging the facts as Republicans, who never lie, claim.

However, I think the key to China’s success has been the ubiquity of special Communist Party committees who ruthlessly and successfully managed the epidemic. Every Chinese factory, apartment building, school and organization has its very own Party official whose job is to spy and report on every person in their group.

Each member is graded and guided. ‘Good’ Communists received better apartments, school slots, factory jobs and retirement care based on their grade book. The all-seeing party knows all, sees all, and can control just about everyone.

That’s how China has so far bested this plague – though of course Trump will try to take the credit.

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Apple and Google last week announced a joint contact tracing effort that would use Bluetooth technology to help alert people who have been in close proximity to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Similar proposals have been put forward by an MIT-associated effort called PACT as well as by multiple European groups.

These proposals differ from the traditional public health technique of “contact tracing” to try to stop the spread of a disease. In place of human interviewers, they would use location or proximity data generated by mobile phones to contact people who may have been exposed.

While some of these systems could offer public health benefits, they may also cause significant risks to privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. If such systems are to work, there must be widespread, free, and quick testing available. The systems must also be widely adopted, but that will not happen if people do not trust them. For there to be trust, the tool must protect privacy, be voluntary, and store data on an individual’s device rather than in a centralized repository.

A well-designed tool would give people actionable medical information while also protecting privacy and giving users control, but a poorly designed one could pose unnecessary and significant risks to privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. To help distinguish between the two, the ACLU is publishing a set of technology principlesagainst which developers, the public, and policymakers can judge any contact tracing apps and protocols.

Technology principles that embed privacy by design are one important type of protection. There still need to be strict policies to mitigate against overreach and abuse. These policies, at a minimum, should include:

• Voluntariness — Whenever possible, a person testing positive must consent to any data sharing by the app. The decision to use a tracking app should be voluntary and uncoerced. Installation, use, or reporting must not be a precondition for returning to work or school, for example.
• Use Limitations — The data should not be used for purposes other than public health — not for advertising and especially not for any punitive or law enforcement purposes.
• Minimization — Policies must be in place to ensure that only necessary information is collected and to prohibit any data sharing with anyone outside of the public health effort.
• Data Destruction — Both the technology and related policies and procedures should ensure deletion of data when there is no longer a need to hold it.
• Transparency — If the government obtains any data, it must be fully transparent about what data it is acquiring, from where, and how it is using that data.
• No Mission Creep – Policies must be in place to ensure tracking does not outlive the effort against COVID-19.

These policies, at a minimum, must be in place to ensure that any tracking app will be effective and will accord with civil liberties and human rights.

The Apple/Google proposal, for instance, offers a strong start when measured against these technology principles. Rather than track sensitive location histories, the Apple/Google protocol aims to use Bluetooth technology to record one phone’s proximity to another. Then, if a person tests positive, those logs can be used to notify people who were within Bluetooth range and refer them for testing, recommend self-isolation, or encourage treatment if any exists. Like the similar proposals, it relies on Bluetooth because the location data our cell phones generate is not accurate enoughfor contact tracing.

Like location histories, however, proximity records can be highly revealing because they expose who we spend time with. To their credit, the Apple/Google developers have considered that privacy problem. Rather than identify the people who own the phones, apps based on the protocol would use identifiers that cannot easily be traced back to phone owners.

As of this writing, the Apple/Google protocol could better address certain important privacy-related questions, however. For example, how does the tool define an epidemiologically relevant “contact”? The public needs to know if it is a good technological approximation of what public health professionals believe is a concern. Otherwise, the tool could be collecting far more personal information than is warranted by the crisis or could cause too many false alarms. And if there is indeed a plan to terminate the program at the conclusion of the pandemic, what criteria are the companies using to indicate when to press the built-in self-destruct button?

Another issue is whether phone users control when to submit their proximity logs for publication to the exposure database. These decisions should be made by the phone user. There may be good reasons why people do not want to upload all their data. User control can help to reduce false positives, for example if a user knows that identified contacts during that time were inaccurate (because they were in a car or wearing protective gear). It would also encourage people whose records include particularly sensitive contact information to at least volunteer the non-sensitive part of their records rather than fail to participate completely.

Also, when users share their proximity logs, what will they reveal? Right now, under the Apple/Google proposal, an infected user publicly shares a set of keys. Each key provides 24 hours of linkable data — a length of time that threatens the promised anonymity of the system. It is too easy to re-identify someone from 24 hours of data and the current proposal makes it impossible for the user to redact selected times during the day. There are other options that would ensure that identifiers published in the exposure database are as difficult as possible to connect to a person’s name or identity.

Voluntariness is particularly important. A critical mass of people will need to use a contact tracing app for it to be an effective public health mechanism, but some proposals to obtain that level of adoption have been coercive and scary. This is the wrong approach. When people feel that their phones are antagonistic rather than helpful, they will just turn location functions off or turn their phones off entirely. Others could simply leave their phone at home or acquire and register a second, dummy phone that is not their primary device with which they leave home. Good public health measures will leverage people’s own incentives to report disease, respond to warnings, and help stop the virus’s spread.

In the coming weeks and months, we are going to see a push to reopen the economy — an effort that will rely heavily on public health measures that include contact tracing. Bluetooth proximity tracking may be tried as a part of such efforts, though we don’t know how practical it will prove in real-world deployments. But privacy-by-design principles and the policy safeguards outlined here must be core to that effort if we are to benefit from a proximity tracking tool that can give people actionable medical information while also protecting privacy and giving users control.

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Jennifer Stisa Granick, Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel

A new Gallup poll showed Trump’s mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis and indifference toward infected Americans is catching up to him.

Concerned only about his own self-interest and monied ones he serves at the expense of the health and welfare of ordinary people everywhere, a newly released Gallup poll showed dissatisfaction with him growing.

His weeks earlier approval rating of 49%, the highest of his presidency, slumped to 43%.

Congress is worse at 30%, its lowest approval rating in over a decade.

Respondents’ satisfaction with the direction of the country fell 12 points from weeks earlier.

Poll results, based on interviews conducted from April 1 – 14, showed the sharpest drop in Trump’s approval rating in opinion surveys conducted by Gallup.

In over three years in office, he failed to ever reach the historic average 53% approval rating of US presidents since 1945.

His low since taking office was 40%. His approval among registered Dems fell six points to 7%.

He’s down four points among independents to 39%. Approval among registered Republicans in 93%.

According to Real Clear Politics, 11 national polls show Trump’s disapproval among respondents exceeding his approval by an average of five points.

A CNN/SSRS poll has his approval at 44%, his disapproval at 51%.

A FiveThirtyEight poll published Friday showed Trump’s approval at 44%, his disapproval at 52%.

Some others out in mid-April were as follows:

Morning Consult: 42% approve v. 54% disapprove of Trump’s performance.

YouGov: 42% approve v. 53% disapprove.

Rasmussen/Pulse Opinion Research: 46% approve v. 53% disapprove

Global Strategy Group/GBAO: 44% approve v. 54% disapprove.

Change Research: 44% approve v. 56% disapprove.

A new Pew Research poll showed that 65% of respondents believe Trump reacted too slowly to COVID-19 outbreaks.

Almost three-fourths of respondents believe the worst is still to come. Two-thirds fear state authorities will lift restrictions too soon.

Over half of respondents said Trump’s portrayal of current economic and contagion conditions is better than reality.

The nays on Trump have it. His bump was short-lived. The longer economic hard times and COVID-19 outbreaks continue, the worse his reelection prospect.

A USA/Ipsos poll released Monday showed “rising (public) uncertainty about when routine daily activities will seem safe again.”

Numbers of respondents expressing concern that COVID-19 threatens them personally doubled in recent weeks from 15- 29%.

Nearly all respondents said their lives were changed at least to some extent because of current conditions.

A late March Kaiser Family Foundation poll found nearly half of respondents saying what’s going on affected their mental health, 19% indicating it’s having a “major impact.”

The longer current conditions continue, or if they ease and then worsen, the more dismal survey numbers may look ahead.

A mid-April Gallup poll showed “Americans remain risk averse about getting back to normal.”

Around 80% of respondents said they’ll wait before resuming normal activities.

Rural and other less populated areas may ease restrictions sooner than large urban ones.

The longer shutdown continues, the more restless and eager increasing numbers of people may be to return to work for vital income to support themselves and families.

In the last four weeks, around 22 million US applications for unemployment benefits were processed.

A backlog likely includes millions more, authorities unable to keep pace with unprecedented demand.

State and city budgets are hard-pressed, large shortfalls expected, assuring cuts in essential services without federal help that’s very stingy for ordinary people.

The extent of US unemployment since March is unprecedented with likely more to come.

Because most US workers live from paycheck to paycheck, millions of Americans may be unable to pay rent, service mortgages, pay medical expenses with loss of insurance, and cover other essentials.

Homelessness may increase dramatically. Already hard-pressed food banks are overwhelmed by public need, hunger in America growing exponentially.

Feeding America needs greater amounts of charitable contributions to meet growing demand for their help.

What’s happening worldwide in most countries is what a perfect storm is all about that won’t likely end any time soon.

Hindsight will best explain the human toll from what’s ongoing that’s already unprecedented for growing millions of families in need.

Breadwinners are out of work. Stores, restaurants, factories, theaters, recreational facilities, sports arenas, hotels, and transportation facilities are closed.

Fear of coronavirus contagion has ordinary people looking at others like they’re typhoid Mary, even friends, keeping a good distance away.

A next door neighbor friend I’ve known for years in my building asked if it was OK to ride in the same elevator together.

People fear the unknown, especially because of round-the clock establishment media reports on one topic — COVID-19 contagion.

Even doctors aren’t operating normally, some only seeing emergency patients, others practicing telemedicine, many working shorter schedules.

One of my doctors told me his patient load is 20% of normal. Two others suspended face-to-face visits.

COVID-19 will pass — though maybe not for some time with possible new waves ahead.

The economic and social fallout is far more serious. It’ll likely be long-lasting for ordinary Americans and their counterparts abroad, especially for the world’s most disadvantaged people.

Michel Chossudovsky explained what establishment media ignore, saying the following:

“The unspoken truth is that the novel coronavirus provides a pretext to powerful financial interests and corrupt politicians to precipitate the entire World into a spiral of mass unemployment, bankruptcy and extreme poverty.”

It’s also a way for greater social control by eroding fundamental rights on the phony pretext of greater public safety and security — along with pulling off the greatest heist of wealth from ordinary people to super-rich ones in world history.

When current economic and contagion conditions ease, the state of things is highly likely to be more dismal for most Americans and others abroad than when what’s ongoing began.

The scourge of force-fed neoliberalism is coming full force to the US and most other countries.

It’s about more greatly empowering and further enriching wealth and privileged interests — at the expense of pushing growing poverty and human misery to unprecedented levels.

That’s what lies behind the current socio-economic/public health crisis.

A dystopian world more unsafe and unfit to live in for ordinary people everywhere than already has arrived.

Governments in the US and other Western countries are the public’s enemy, not its savior or ally.

We have a choice — resist or suffer the longterm consequences of what’s going on, our rights lost, our welfare harmed, our future hopes dashed.

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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.

The attempt to make the irrational and implausible appear rational and plausible has now reached dizzying new heights. The ceaseless flow of blatantly contradictory proclamations and actions emanating out of governments and global institutions that represent health, the economy and justice, sets the scene for the puppet dictators to play their Covid crisis cards.

With approximately three billion people now under house arrest, it certainly is not a pretty picture.

But here we are; and the media is the design and control agent for ensuring that this picture reaches every home and flat TV screen in the Western World. While the media’s main controlling agent may appear to be government, government moves in lock-step with the commands of corporations, billionaires and bankers and they, in turn,  are beholden to some form of conductor who is not directing from in front of the orchestra, but from somewhere behind the orchestra pit – somewhere dark. 

We are finding ourselves being herded by this Corona cabal. There is a distinct feeling that we are entering into a fundamental battle for the survival of the species. While the present battle lines are being defined by the degree to which irrational and draconian lock-down measures are being imposed on those whose basic civil rights and liberties are completely disrespected or simply not considered at all.

That amounts to a deliberate attempt to pick a fight with the people of this planet – and then, if they retaliate – imprison them. I believe this provocation is being masterminded to create sufficient confusion and fear to allow the perpetrators to take a big step forward in what was publicly stated in George Bush’s infamous announcement of a ‘New World Order’ on September 11^th 1990, thirty years ago.  A declaration made in the context of foreign affairs dealings with Russia, but disguising the coming imposition of a despotic totalitarian regime whose covert web was already being wrapped around the planet via decades of US military industrial funding and hegemonic power play.

So let us remind ourselves, on 19 March 2020 – which now seems a long time ago – the British government published this official announcement under the title ‘Status of Covid-19’ “As of 19 March 2020, Covid-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectuous disease (HCID) in the UK.” On the very next day a colleague sent me a scan taken from a page of The American Encyclopedia of Practical Medicine clearly stating that Corona Virus is the medical term for the Common Flu (influenza). I then read some statistics relating to the number of deaths caused by the common flu and each country showed a similar pattern: the number of month by month deaths attributable to the common flu very closely aligned with those being given for CV-19.

So where does that leave us today?

Caste your mind for a moment to the global warming scam and consequent arrival of Green New Deal and its fanatical ambition to achieve ‘Zero Carbon’ planetary (CO2) emissions. The language being used here is designed to deliberately create confusion, since ‘carbon’ is a vital clear and completely natural gas that plants take-in in order to live and grow. Without it the plant kingdom would die – and so would we – for a lack of oxygen. If the ‘science’ was real one would not hear government leaders (advised by scientists) spouting on about why we must achieve Zero Carbon, because they would realise that they were promoting an extinction event – the end of oxygen – and that would not be popular with the voters, one presumes. The science is fake, even when it is occasionally stated as anthropogenic CO2 emissions rather than simply ‘carbon’.

Now we are seeing the same thing happening with the Corona Virus. It is being portrayed as a killer and so bad that we all have to be locked away from each other and from most normal activities for months on end, like cattle suffering from mad cow disease, or as though five Chernobyls had suddenly gone into melt down. But the reality is that the common flu bears the encyclopedia description ‘Corona Virus’. So just like with ‘carbon’ being designated a killer in the global warming fake dialogue, so the common flu is also being hyped-up as a pandemic killer within the context of the current Covid-19 epidemic. 

In both cases the language has been twisted inside-out and up-side-down – so as to thoroughly confuse the situation and deliberately obfuscate reality. We are then informed by straight-faced ‘experts’ that the resulting irrational gobbledygook is the bona fide truth.

To do this, they rely on our gullibility and willingness to suspend our powers of reason when confronted by a deceptively managed ‘big show’. One that typically features suited officials bearing various pompous titles being wheeled out so as to show us how very well trained in the art of lying they really are.

It’s unnervingly interesting that millions and millions can be brought to their knees by such a simple technique. Such a basic form of deception. And it is, of course, amplified when combined with digital communication techniques, subliminal and actual mind control methodologies and dire warnings that deliberately provoke fear. All this is what we now have to contend with, recognise for what it is and then take specific actions to counter and render inoperative.

We are at the turning point of humanity’s long history of slavery to the perpetrators of mass hypnosis and the deep levels of domination which this form of sedation makes possible. However, even the best laid plans in the world cannot plan for the ‘law of unintended consequences’ and the fact that even the most skilfully contrived plots produce unforeseen and unintended outcomes. This is where the laws of nature and the universe ultimately undo the demonically inspired forces of tunnel vision despots, and expose the underlying weakness of those obsessed with puffed-up political power.

It is our job to now hold the line of fearless commitment to the deeper truths of life and pass their message on to those who have ears to hear. Under the law of unintended consequences some rather remarkable things are happening during this unprecedented domestic imprisonment of great swathes of society, with its consequent lack of commercial activities.

There is a great reduction of noise, everywhere. There is a marked drop in levels of pollution, in general. The sky is largely free of aircraft and even the chemtrails have temporarily abated. People confined to their houses and apartments are finding creative ways of expressing their humanity and pride, for example in joining together in songs and music from balconies and across the streets in which they live. Humour erupts where the absurdity of the supposedly ‘precautionary regulations’ reaches critical levels. 

All sorts of sparks are illuminating the imposed shadows of darkness. We are witnessing and participating in – pockets of instinctive survival rebelliousness – thus brightening the standardised moods of internalised anxiety and fear-based obedience to the state. Not only on the earthly plain are we being subjected to deep challenge, but on the cosmic level we are also being taunted. Ever more taunted to wake-up!

That is the dual nature of the Lila; the divine cosmic play. A game in which the Creator ensures that  ‘evil’ is unwittingly given an unlikely role, that of forcing the good in us to come out of its shell – and take a lead in guiding us through the labyrinth. We are being coaxed to rise up as one, from North to South, from East to West, to liberate ourselves from that which will – unless we finally withdraw our acquiescence  – destroy the greater part of life on Earth.

Covid-19 is our trigger point. Along with the forced deployment of genetically engineered foods and 5G microwave radiation, this is the event which will turn the tide of history and reveal ‘we the people’ to be the true heirs to the future. We are touching critical mass. They have gone one step too far – and know it. The mix is explosive.

Rise-up, we have work to do.

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Julian Rose is a writer, organic farmer, international activist and holistic practitioner/teacher. Two of Julian’s books ‘Creative Solutions to a World in Crisis’ and ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ are particularly prescient reading for this time. See www.julianrose.info for more information.

Featured image is from Greek City Times

“And all the news just repeats itself

Like some forgotten dream we’ve both seen”

– John Prine, Hello in There

Without the ability to forget, we become imprisoned within a collective mental habit that induces us to repeat things that are as hard to escape as is trying to unlearn how to ride a bicycle. This results in the experience of boredom that John Prine captures in the above epigraph from his moving song, “Hello In There,” where the daily news reports seem so old to an elderly couple because they are so repetitive and not new and they realize that. Now that not just old folks are “in there” and people of all ages are “sheltering in place,” the ability “to forget what it is worse than useless to remember,” as Thoreau put is, has become more important than ever if one wishes to not be driven crazy with boredom of the self- and socially-induced kinds.

“Oh, every thought that’s strung a knot in my mind/I might go insane if it couldn’t be sprung,” sang Bob Dylan in “Restless Farewell,” echoing Thoreau.

As a motivating force in human affairs, boredom is hard to beat.  Hatred, envy, lust, love, anger, jealousy: these are some of the alluring emotions that are often emphasized.  But boredom – it is so boring!  Why go there? It seems too simple an explanation for human behavior, yet nothing is more complex and powerful.

Boredom is like sex once was long ago – a taboo. To admit one is bored is to confess to the modern equivalent of a mortal sin.  I think there is an unacknowledged agreement to deny the truth of boredom for what it can reveal about how we live and die.  For boredom is intimately tied to our experience and understanding of time and space, and time in its turn is the home from which the modern mind is exiled, as we wander nowhere in a transcendental homelessness, without leaving the places where we are while already being no longer there.  To contemplate our existential and social confusion terrorizes people.

Since it is hydra-headed, boredom’s truths are many. It is often the flip side of the constant agitation and false excitation of modern life and the search for diversion. Conversely, modern manic high-tech busyness, while aimed at repressing boredom, simultaneously serves the function of boring through intense repetition, numbing those who seek to use it to escape boredom. It’s a rotating spit.

In the culture of the copy, everything is replayed, rerun, recapitulated, reiterated, repeated, reproduced, replicated, over and over and over again. Unlike our lives that pass in a flash one time only, we are living in a techno world where we have internalized the machine and unconsciously think we can digitally record our lives and play them again.

Going live tends to irritate and scare people.

So the solution to boredom becomes a problem equal to the boredom itself. It becomes boring. One is trapped, going round and round, even if one doesn’t know it.  Then there are those who keep themselves extremely busy, buzzing like an insect’s hum, and deny they are ever bored.  They are some of the most boring people you can find, because the sound of their busyness produces no echo since it sounds over a sea of nothingness, as Kierkegaard put it

The current societal coronavirus shutdown that has people locked in their homes under house arrest offers a perfect example of agitated digital boredom at its finest.  The incarceration is a two-headed monster serving to drive people quite mad and very anxious as they go nowhere but around and around on the information superhighway, setting the stage for the day the authorities press the release button and people manically rush out into the streets, thanking their bosses for their freedom.

It is a common experience for people who are “sheltering in place” to say their sense of time is distorted and they aren’t sure what day it is.  A sense of temporal disorientation prevails, just as it does for those in prisons.  “Every ruling minority needs to numb and, if possible, to kill the time-sense of those it exploits,” wrote John Berger.  “This is the authoritarian secret of all methods of imprisonment.”

What was once felt but rarely said to be the boredom of “normal” life with its tedious rounds of the same old-same old will feel like liberation and a gift from the authorities when the go button is pressed.  The daily rounds of getting and spending will commence with shouts of joy.  The “new” normal, however, will quickly seem old as the daily grind, which is reality for most working people, resumes, even if at reduced wages and lost opportunities and carried out within a social spectacle that will produce “exciting news” that will be repeated repetitively to keep people aroused, “engaged,” and fearful of the next crisis erupting even as so many go bankrupt.  Angst will float in the bubble of hyperreality as the economic screws are tightened on working people everywhere.

If you can keep yourself busy and preoccupied with trivia and shopping; if you can consume news, entertainment, and social media 24/7; if you can embrace all the weapons of mass distraction offered, then you can deny that boredom is speaking to you, even when these methods of avoiding boredom are themselves monotonously boring.  Self-deception and social control are conjoined tricksters.

Boredom has many voices, but the most feared yet liberating message it utters may be: “You are trapped on the merry-go-round of the living dead, bored to death, repeating yourself. You are being oppressed by an unjust social order and are being conned. Why not start living.” This is the experience of boredom that can give rise to revolt and the urge for freedom, something radically upsetting to both the trapped and their trappers. Echo’s voice is liberated to speak when people are willing to listen.

The essential element of boredom is repetition and monotony; knowing that day follows dusty day and you are going to read, hear, or experience the same thing again and again. As Macbeth says:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day….

In a terrifying take on this idea, Nietzsche suggested, through his idea of eternal recurrence, that we best be very careful how we live each moment since they are eternal, and that after death we will have to live our lives over and over again down to the slightest detail, while remembering that we are doing so.  Eternal repetition sounds a bit boring, wouldn’t you say? Now that’s a thought to rouse one from lethargy and perhaps escape boredom for good.

Interestingly, modernity has forced upon us the necessity for choice.  Constant choices are demanded of us, and the more choices we have in a high-tech capitalist consumer culture, the more boring repetitions we encounter. One reason for this is the need of the corporations, government, and the media to offer us something “new” every hour of every day. Pseudo-events and “news” are manufactured non-stop.  And the “new” is updated, with the “new” so often turning out to be old, a variation on a theme across all forms of media and the consuming life.  Having to fill up the space and their pockets, these corporations are experts at repetition, and repetition is the key to effective propaganda.

Have you noticed that when you go to your favorite television station or website, you will encounter endless repetition? If you switch channels or websites – from liberal to conservative, etc. – you will see that most are beating the same drum, flipped to one side or the other.  These days it’s coronavirus-coronavirus-coronavirus, Trump-Trump-Trump; endless droning on today about what was droned on about yesterday.  Soon the subject will change, and be repeated until something else is manufactured to keep people occupied and bored.  You can easily fill in the blanks.

But why do people subject themselves to such boring repetition?  Could the writer William Saroyan’s flippant remark shed some light on this phenomenon? Regarding the claim that smoking causes cancer, he said, “You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke, not from the smoking itself.”

Could wanting to flee existential and social boredom by embracing the culturally proffered means to do so, be the real problem? What is it about boredom that so frightens people?  Does boredom scare people to death?  Is getting as far away from death the goal?  But is not the flight from death the flight from life and therefore the embrace of death?

I think the quest to seek a solution to boredom is the problem.  Walter Benjamin said it beautifully in “The Storyteller”:

Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.  A rustling in the leaves drives him away.

But such creative boredom demands a silent patience and a state of mental relaxation that is almost extinct.  It can only be experienced if one dwells and does not flee into action.  It means forgetting what an oppressive society wants us to always remember.

Maybe in a mediated world where direct experience is becoming more and more uncommon – as we live in a world of screens and filters and electronic gadgets that occupy our living space – we are afraid of fully experiencing inspired boredom because it may force us to consider living.  And since living is change, and change is always new, it frightens us. It means time goes by. But without embracing change we cannot make social change.  We may think we can, but we will be doing the same old boring thing and strengthening the existing system.

To rotate on boredom’s spit is to slowly die.

Alan Watts once wisely said:

To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist, you kill yourself.

Only when it hatches, can the dream bird fly.

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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 Getty

Legislation circulating in the US Congress threatens to withdraw military support from Saudi Arabia.

This is not because Saudi Arabia is an absolute dictatorship which still severs heads off in public. It is not because Saudi Arabia arms and funds some of the worst terrorist organizations on Earth – including Al Qaeda, its Syrian franchise Tahrir al-Sham – previously known as Jabhat Al Nusra, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

And it’s not even because of Saudi Arabia’s years of committing war crimes in neighboring Yemen.

These are all aspects of modern Saudi Arabia the US has in fact aided and abetted.

Instead, US representatives are threatening to withdraw US military support from Saudi Arabia for allegedly lowering energy prices by flooding markets with Saudi oil.

Reuters in its article, “Bill would remove US troops from Saudi Arabia in 30 days,” would claim:

A Republican US senator introduced legislation on Thursday to remove American troops from Saudi Arabia, adding pressure on the kingdom to tighten its oil taps to reverse the crude price drop that has hurt domestic energy companies.

The threat of yanking out military support from Saudi Arabia undermines decades of propaganda attempting to justify US military support for the Saudi regime.

According to the US State Department’s own website under a section titled, “US Relations With Saudi Arabia,” the US supports Saudi Arabia because (emphasis added):

The United States and Saudi Arabia have a common interest in preserving the stability, security, and prosperity of the Gulf region and consult closely on a wide range of regional and global issues.  Saudi Arabia plays an important role in working toward a peaceful and prosperous future for the region and is a strong partner in security and counterterrorism efforts and in military, diplomatic, and financial cooperation.  Its forces works closely with US military and law enforcement bodies to safeguard both countries’ national security interests.

If anything the US State Department says about US-Saudi relations is true – “preserving the stability, security, and prosperity of the Gulf region” must surely come first and foremost – especially ahead of something as trivial as oil profits for America’s domestic shale industry.

Of course, very little the US State Department says is ever true. US ties with Saudi Arabia have helped drive precisely the opposite of stability, security, and prosperity for both the Persian Gulf region as well as the wider Middle East and even as far as North Africa and Central Asia – with both nations playing leading roles in destabilizing and destroying nations, fueling extremism, separatism, and terrorism, and even engaging in direct military aggression.

Because of the dubious nature of US-Saudi ties and the true agenda of money and power that defines them – there should be little surprise that at moments of opportunity, these two “allies” draw geopolitical and economic daggers against one another.

The US threatening to withdraw military support from Saudi Arabia would leave Riyadh particularly vulnerable in the many proxy wars it wages on Washington’s behalf against Iran, Syria, Yemen, and beyond. Of course – the ultimate loser would be Washington itself – which would be further isolating itself in a region increasingly slipping out from under its control.

The US finds itself trying to prioritize its various rackets – its domestic shale gas industry versus its protection rackets abroad, versus its profitable and endless wars, versus maintaining a collection of obedient client regimes around the globe.

But by threatening Saudi Arabia – whether the threat is empty or not – Washington once again reveals to the world that it maintains an international order exclusively serving special interests – using platitudes like “preserving the stability, security, and prosperity of the Gulf region” as an increasingly tenuous facade behind which it advances its self-serving agenda.

Saudi Arabia – despite its many, many sins and from a realist point of view – must begin seriously thinking about a major overhaul of its economic, political, diplomatic, and military alignment within the region and world. As multipolarism moves forward and the tired unipolar order Riyadh belongs to – subordinated to Washington – continues to fade, the threats Riyadh faces will increase as will the cost of being an American “ally.”

When Washington begins turning the screws on Riyadh, it does however open a window of opportunity for nations like Russia and China who are looking to improve and expand ties with Saudi Arabia and lead it toward a more constructive role upon the international stage.

It also opens a window of opportunity for nations like Iran – who are perceived as enemies of Saudi Arabia – but who would benefit greatly from a Saudi Arabia that no longer serves US interests and instead truly seeks to preserve “the stability, security, and prosperity” of the region – side-by-side with other nations that actually are located there – not a nation located oceans and continents away.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

For bipartisan US hardliners and their establishment media press agents, any pretext will do to bash China and other sovereign independent nations on the US target list for regime change.

Blaming China for spreading COVID-19 outbreaks plays out daily in the US, its own gross failings and wrongdoing given short shrift or ignored.

The US under both right wings of its war party consistently and repeatedly shifts blame for its war on humanity onto others.

China is a prime target, COVID-19 the latest pretext, its authorities falsely blamed for spreading outbreaks — instead of praising how effectively they addressed the issue, far better than any other countries, world’s different from Trump regime bungling and indifference to the problem.

After China raised the number of known COVID-1 deaths in the  country to around 4,600, about a 50% increase in Hubei province, its epicenter, Trump falsely claimed its authorities “doubl(ed) the number,” adding:

“It is far higher than that and far higher than the US, not even close.”

Through Saturday, known US deaths from COVID-19 are around 39,000 — about eightfold China’s mortality rate from the disease.

The true US total may be far higher because of undercounting, including by mistakenly attributing seasonal flu/influenza deaths to COVID-19. Their symptoms are similar.

On a daily basis, the novel coronavirus is currently the leading US cause of death, LiveScience.com reported on April 10 — a dismal reality Trump and hardliners surrounding him won’t touch.

Over the weekend, the NYT falsely accused China’s Xi Jinping of weakening China’s global standing by “aggressive diplomacy,” claiming he’s using COVID-19 outbreaks “to shore up his political power at home” — a US specialty, the Times adding:

Beijing “accused Western countries of failing to protect their people” — clearly the case in the US, Britain, and likely elsewhere in the West.

Compared to China’s effective response to COVID-19 outbreaks, bringing them under control in around two months, they continue spreading in the US and Europe.

While the US is doing little or nothing to aid other countries combat COVID-19 outbreaks abroad and treat infected individuals, China sent vital medical supplies, technology, and experts to nearly 100 nations worldwide.

Xi stressed that viruses have no borders, mutual cooperation among nations needed to combat COVID-19 outbreaks.

Authorities in nations receiving Chinese aid expressed gratitude for the helping hand.

China’s Global Times slammed US mishandling of the issue, saying “nobody (is) accountable despite rising virus deaths.”

Sharing a common border and interests, China and Russia united to combat COVID-19 and aid other countries in need — while the Trump regime blames other nations for its own bungling and indifference to the issue.

According to US media reports, nursing homes in America are hotbeds of COVID-19 deaths,  numbering in the thousands from the infection compounded by indifference from management, leading to poor treatment by staff.

An estimated 20% of COVID-19 fatalities occurred in these facilities. According to the CDC, the US has around 15,6000 nursing homes for the elderly.

About 70% are for-profit businesses, benefitting most by cost control that can come at the expense of patient care for the sick and infirm.

Elder abuse in the US is widespread, and not just in nursing homes.

The late comedian Jerry Lewis once said old people are discarded like yesterday’s garbage in the US.

In congressional testimony at age 92, the late actor Mickey Rooney explained abusive treatment he received from his stepson, saying “(y)ou can’t believe it’s happening to you.”

“You feel overwhelmed.” He urged Congress to criminalize what’s happening.

“I’m asking you to stop this elderly abuse,” he urged. “I mean stop it now. Not tomorrow. Not next month, but now.” Pass legislation saying “it’s a crime, and we will not allow it in the United States of America.”

It happens nationwide because authorities at the federal, state, and local levels do little or nothing to stop it.

Common problems include untreated bedsores, inadequate medical care, malnutrition, dehydration, preventable accidents, along with inadequate sanitation and hygiene.

Mistreatment jeopardizes the health, welfare and lives of elderly Americans, at times responsible for serious illnesses, injuries or deaths — including thousands perishing from COVID-19 this year.

For many it’s for lack of proper care, the issue most often under the radar. It won’t likely stay above it for long.

Despite spending around double the per capita amount on healthcare compared to other developed countries, America falls woefully short in treating its sick, disabled, and otherwise needy.

A 2017 Commonwealth Fund study of the US, other Western countries, Australia and New Zealand (10 nations in total), found America’s performance record was dead last in care process, access, administrative efficiency, equity and health outcomes.

It has open-checkbook funding for militarism, imperial wars, corporate handouts, and other benefits to its privileged class — peanuts for ordinary Americans, including at times of duress like now when generous government help is essential.

The US has the world’s best healthcare system – based on the ability to pay — a fundamental human right commodified for profit.

It’s the only developed nation without some form of universal coverage that’s especially essential at times like now for its poor, most disadvantaged, and millions of unemployed.

The Times and other establishment media go out of their way to irresponsibly bash China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and other sovereign independent nations the US doesn’t control.

Accountability begins at home. The Trump regime and vast majority in Congress serve privileged interests exclusively.

They don’t give a hoot about ordinary people at home and abroad. Their disturbing policymaking shows it.

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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.

He was standing there, in the middle of the school yard…alone. At first I envisioned him as a pitcher, standing on the mound with a field full of players, some behind him, and  some facing him, in the middle of a game. No, he was standing all alone, dressed in an old winter coat, surrounded by the dying leaves of autumn by his feet. I watched him from my classroom window as he paced about in the yard. He seemed to be waiting, and even though quite far away, I understood who he was awaiting. And being only eleven years old, I was amazed at myself for such a revelation. I knew just what was happening on this chilly Wednesday afternoon at a quarter to three.

The bell rang, startling no one, as we all had been sitting there, for seemed an eternity, restlessly awaiting it. The sound of it still came across as harsh and abrupt and cold, as if a forewarning to us all this November day. The jail was open, and the inmates were freed, until but tomorrow morning at eight, when this prison would re-engulf us again. Most of my classmates darted for the exits, swarming into the yard like ants running to a piece of chocolate. I just stood there by the window, gazing out at the sights below. I tried to follow that solitary man, lost now in a mass of adolescents. Finally, after a few moments, I caught sight of him again. He was walking through the crowds searching for what seemed to be but one face. And as far as I could see, he hadn’t found it yet. I wondered to myself, who was he looking for, this lonely man dressed in that funny worn coat? I stood up and got my own coat. As I rearranged my books and sorted out my homework, my teacher told me to hurry up as she was ready to lock up. Lock up, I thought, what a sin to be locked up in here all night…. All day was enough. I quickly walked back to the window. The school yard was emptying out now. Most of the kids were on their way home, to a glass of milk or a bottle of soda and some cookies. Yet, the man was still there, standing by the pitcher’s mound, looking about the yard. He still hadn’t found who he was seeking. Poor guy.

I remember shouting out “Good bye Mrs. Steckler” and hurried down the stairs. Got to go, I thought, before they lock me in here. As I reached the school yard doors, I stopped for a moment. Tonight was Wednesday. Mom always made pot roast on Wednesday, and she knew I hated pot roast. Yet, she made it every Wednesday, like clockwork. And I would never eat any, but she made it just the same. As I pushed open the heavy steel door, his presence startled me! The old winter coat made him look menacing. I jumped back a bit as he smiled at me.

“What took you so long, son? I must have seen every kid but you in the yard.”

“Well, I got sort of tied up a bit.”

“Oh well, here you are, what the heck.”

His hug was so tight, I could not breathe. I inhaled the deep smell of  the fabric of that old coat as he kept me in his embrace.

“What’s the matter, too old to kiss your old man? Come on son, give your pop a kiss.”

We walked on, arm in arm, and I never did get to eat Mom’s pot roast this Weds. afternoon.

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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, Cross Currents 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 400 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]

No evidence suggests that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab or from bat-eating Chinese people.

Writer Allen Yu explained that no Chinese tradition of bat-eating exists. Videos suggesting otherwise weren’t from Wuhan or elsewhere in China.

Filming was “in Palau or Indonesia, in locales where bats have traditionally been consumed as food,” said Yu, adding:

The bat-eating theory doesn’t hold up. “According to current research, it is not likely that bat (or other) consumption” of wild animals caused COVID-19.

Researcher Larry Romanoff explained that “Japanese and Taiwanese epidemiologists and pharmacologists have determined that the new coronavirus (COVID-19) almost certainly originated in the US.”

In September 2019, Japanese citizens who never visited China were infected with the novel coronavirus in Hawaii — “long before the outbreak in Wuhan.”

Falsely blaming China for its origination is all about the Trump regime shifting blame for its own wrongdoing and failings onto others.

French virologist/Nobel laureate for Medicine Luc Montagnier said COVID-19 was man-made, not transmitted to humans from bats or other wildlife.

In April, a peer-reviewed study published in the Antiviral Research medical journal revealed unique COVID-19 features that facilitate human-to-human transmission — making the novel coronavirus much more contagious than seasonal flu/influenza.

The study also found no evidence that COVID-19 evolved naturally. Its genetic coding isn’t natural.

Most likely it was engineered with elements from MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) — first reported in 2012, according to the study.

Genomics researcher James Lyons-Weiler explained that “(t)here is no doubt that there is a novel sequence in 2019-nCoV” —the virus causing COVID-19 disease, adding:

“IPAK researchers found a sequence similarity between a pShuttle-SN recombination vector sequence and INS1378,” indicating human engineering.

Infectious diseases expert Dr. Yuhong Dong explained that “this new coronavirus has unprecedented virologic features that suggest genetic engineering may have been involved in its creation.”

“The virus (has) severe clinical features. Thus it poses a huge threat to humans.”

“It is imperative for scientists, physicians, and people all over the world, including governments and public health authorities, to make every effort to investigate this mysterious and suspicious virus in order to elucidate its origin and to protect the ultimate future of the human race.”

A Lancet report said “recombination is probably not the reason for emergence of this virus” — meaning mutations likely didn’t occur naturally.

Greek scientists found no connection between COVID-19 and viruses occurring naturally, saying:

“(T)he new coronavirus provides a new lineage for almost half of its genome, with no close genetic relationships to other viruses within the subgenus of sarbecovirus” — meaning it didn’t occur from natural mutations.

China’s Global Times accused the Trump regime of “international hooliganism” by the following tactics:

Accusing Beijing of initially “concealing” COVID-19 outbreaks, claiming it let the disease spread and “harm the US and the world.”

Claiming China concealed its “actual number of deaths.”

By its actions, the Trump regime fueled anti-China sentiment and encouraged individual and class-action lawsuits — while diverting attention from its own failings.

On March 13, Thailand Medical News (TMN) news reported that “traditional Chinese medicine concoctions used alone or in conjunction with antiviral protocols (is the) secret to (its success in) controlling…COVID-19 outbreaks.”

A peer-reviewed Lancet study of 102 Chinese COVID-19 infected patients treated by the above protocol showed nearly all recovered.

Another study of 701 confirmed COVID-19 infected patients showed that over 90% were cured, had improved symptoms, or were stable with no further deterioration when treated withe above protocol.

China is in the forefront of combatting COVID-19, the US a laggard for failing to prepare for what its officials knew was possible long in advance of outbreaks, and failing to provide proper help to states, local communities, and ordinary Americans in need.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) said “minimal diagnostic” testing for weeks after outbreaks began contributed to their spread, adding:

Faulty test kits produced inconclusive or invalid results, making a bad situation worse.

The proof of the pudding is in the data. The US by far leads the world in COVID-19 outbreaks (around 700,000 through Friday), deaths (about 37,000), and mishandling of the public health crisis.

The true seriousness of the disease will best be known in hindsight.

Calling it a hoax is a disservice to growing numbers of infected Americans and others abroad.

According to CDC data for April 14, more Americans died from COVID-19 infection than any other cause.

The Trump regime’s blame game, falsely accusing China for originating COVID-19, encouraged multiple class action lawsuits in the US.

Through mid-April, numerous suits were filed against China and other targets, seeking trillions of dollars in compensation.

One filed in late March by California property managers and an accounting firm that represent small businesses seeks compensation from China for what it had nothing to do with.

A Florida class action suit representing millions of state residents seeks to cash in the same way.

Freedom Watch head Larry Klayman leads another anti-China class-action suit that falsely accuses Beijing of unleashing a biological weapon on humanity.

Anti-China lawsuits are highly unlikely to be successful. No evidence suggests Beijing’s responsibility for COVID-19 outbreaks.

According to California attorney Kent Schmidt, numerous class-action suits were filed, adding:

“These early filings can be indicative of the liabilities that companies should take into consideration and inform their practices now to avoid getting hit with one of these costly lawsuits.”

A class-action case was filed against Norwegian Cruise Lines. It alleges that the company made “unproven (and) blatantly false” statements regarding COVID-19 in order to entice customers to purchase cruises, thus endangering the lives of both their customers and crew members.”

Other cruise line companies may face similar lawsuits.

A virtual cottage industry of litigation stems from COVID-19 outbreaks.

A Washington state civic organization sued Fox News for claiming that COVID-19 is a hoax.

Stating an opinion, true or false, doesn’t involve legal liability.

New York Sports Clubs was sued for allegedly defrauding members during the shutdown.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals was sued for allegedly claiming it developed a vaccine for COVID-19.

A union representing state employees sued Alaska for subjecting them to health and safety risks from COVID-19 outbreaks.

Use of Zoom communications telecommuting application risks lawsuits for violating privacy protections. At least one class-action lawsuit already was filed against the company.

Tort lawyers in the US and perhaps elsewhere see COVID-19 outbreaks as a chance to cash in big.

A Final Comment

Republican Senator Josh Hawley introduced the so-called Justice for Victims of COVID-19 Act to hold China responsible for outbreaks.

The measure would strip Beijing of immunity in US court and permit lawsuits against the state and its authorities.

GOP Senator Tom Cotton and Rep. Dan Crenshaw introduced legislation to let US citizens sue China for “damages” caused by COVID-19.

Given anti-China fervor in the US in more normal times, now bordering on hysteria, the measure will likely become the law of the land.

The so-called Immunities Act protects foreign nations from being sued in US courts — except for China.

Enactment of these measures into law will likely produce a greater divide between both countries, making mutual cooperation all the harder.

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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 Asia Times

While the world confronts a real-life deadly epidemic, the Covid-afflicted US Navy struggles to maintain the farce of keeping the planet safe from fictitious threats.

“The US Navy’s Pacific Command is not in its normal operational mode.”

On April 9, the Kitsap Sun reported  that Pentagon and Navy brass were in conflict about whether there’s a COVID-19 outbreak on the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Chester Nimitz docked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. I grew up in Bremerton, so much of this story is familiar to me, but like all COVID-19 stories, it’s changing fast. The brass may have come to an agreement about what’s happening on the Nimitz and what to do about it by the time this is published, but dissension and disorientation will no doubt continue as long as the coronavirus spreads and kills, especially in the Navy, where sailors share particularly close quarters.

Before the conflict about COVID-19 aboard the Nimitz, the Navy was set to deploy it to the Pacific to “relieve” the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which was already docked in Guam because of a COVID-19 outbreak onboard. On April 14, Stars and Stripes  reported that one sailor on the Roosevelt had died of the virus, another was in intensive care, at least four had been hospitalized, and 589 had tested positive. Most of the crew of about 4,800 had been transferred from the ship to Guam, but roughly a thousand remained on board to perform key functions such as the operation of the ship’s nuclear reactors. Several sources reported  that the sailor from the Roosevelt was the second US serviceperson to die of COVID-19.

“Dissension and disorientation will no doubt continue as long as the coronavirus spreads and kills.”

Not surprisingly, the 160,000 Micronesian natives of Guam, a US island territory, aren’t happy  about hosting hundreds of infected sailors in their beachside tourist hotels, but their home hasn’t been their own for a long time; the US seized the island from Spain in 1898. It’s now the site of Anderson Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam, situated a mere 2100 ocean miles from the Korean Peninsula.

In April 2017, NPR International published a story headlined “Why Is North Korea Threatening Guam? ” (LOL). It read:

“There is trouble in paradise — but that is nothing new for Guam. The U.S. island territory in the western Pacific Ocean is ringed by beaches, studded with palm trees and packed with bombs. It’s small but strategically significant.

“After President Trump threatened to bring ‘fire and fury’ down on North Korea, Pyongyang said Wednesday that it is ‘carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam.’

“. . .The U.S. uses the island for war games and joint exercises. Guam also stores a massive quantity of weapons. As of 2014, according to Andersen Air Force Base , Guam held ‘the largest munitions stockpile in the world’ — stored in igloos ‘deep [in] the jungle, surrounded by brown tree snakes and wild boar.’”

Guam is, to say the least, essential to US Pacific military strategy. It’s probably the last place the Navy would have wanted to weather a pandemic, restless natives or no.

Or would that be Albuquerque, home to New Mexico’s Kirtland Air Force Base and Sandia Labs, which would be the world’s third greatest nuclear power if cities were in the running?

Or maybe my hometown, Bremerton, home to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, where the USS Nimitz now awaits orders to deploy or not, due to conflict in the chain of command about how to handle COVID-19 infections among its crew.

“Albuquerque would be the world’s third greatest nuclear power if cities were in the running.”

The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard repairs, overhauls, refuels, and recycles the Navy’s nuclear-powered and armed aircraft carriers and submarines. In 2004, Naval Base Bremerton merged with Naval Submarine Base Bangor to become Naval Base Kitsap [County]. It includes the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific (SWFPAC), which provides maintenance, calibration, missile assembly/test, spare parts, and spare nuclear warhead storage for the UGM-133 Trident II ballistic missiles deployed on nuclear submarines.

Full staffing and a tight chain of command are obviously optimal throughout US military operations, but disruptions began as soon as COVID-19 began to spread. I reported on early disruptions two weeks ago in “Pentagon Orders All Installations to Stop Reporting COVID-19 Infections and Deaths,” and there’ve been more since.

The US Navy’s Pacific Command is not in its normal operational mode, although I’m sure someone could figure out how to fire off a few nuclear bombs if they perceived the need in some Strangelovian scenario. The USS Nimitz was supposed to relieve the USS Roosevelt in the Pacific, and now it’s stuck in Bremerton with COVID-19 and/or fears of it, while the Roosevelt is stuck in Guam, with sailors sick and even dying in hospitals, 600 hundred more infected, and a skeleton crew of 1000 tending its nuclear reactors.

The natives in both places fear infection spreading through the ranks and into their communities. On April 13, the Kitsap Sun reported that “U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, is asking the Navy to boost pay for shipyard workers and provide them additional personal protection amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”

There have been 128 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and one death in Kitsap County, and on April 14 the Sun reported  that “Kitsap County’s drive-thru testing site reopened Tuesday to an expanded pool of people who are eligible for free COVID-19 testing.” At least one sailor aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Vinson, also docked at Kitsap Naval Base, has been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Further developments will be reported here and on the websites of Stars and Stripes , Defense One , Military.com, and my hometown newspaper, the Kitsap Sun.

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Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire  Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and   Peace Prize  for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. Please support her work on Patreon.  She can be reached at ann-at-anngarrison.com. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Time and again, Trump’s hyperbole defies reality.

As US economic conditions peaked in mid-February and began declining sharply, he falsely claimed that “(o)ur economy (is) the greatest…we’ve had in the history of our country.”

His fantasy assessment was reminiscent of noted economist of his day Irving Fisher.

On October 17, 1929 (a week before Black Thursday), he claimed “stock prices had reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”

Crash and the Great Depression followed. Even John Maynard Keynes was wrong in 1927, saying:

“We will not have any more crashes in our time.”

In the late 1920s, the US economy was a house of cards, the same thing true about most of the past decade in America, the chickens now coming home to roost, as the saying goes.

What’ll unfold in the months ahead be best be understood in hindsight.

All vaccines, no exceptions, are harmful to human health. Rushing COVID-19 vaccine development could prove deadly for many.

Even establishment figures like Harvard Medical School Professor Dr. David S. Jones warned that “(t)he basic history lesson when it comes to vaccines and immunization is that there always has been a risk and there always will be a risk.”

Australian vaccine expert Ian Frazer said at best vaccines can take years to develop. No successful ones were ever developed for coronaviruses, he explained, adding:

“One of the problems with corona vaccines in the past has been that when the immune response does cross over to where the virus-infected cells are it actually increases the pathology rather than reducing it.”

The reality is when vaccine availability is announced, at best they may only work for a few months, at worst not at all — either way most likely to cause more harm than good.

Economist David Rosenberg believes economic recovery will be slower at best under optimum conditions.

Things won’t return to “normal” until a COVID-19 vaccine is available, he said, the risk of mass immunization not considered.

He sees economic downturn bottoming in  Q II, adding: “A lot of what I call economic detonation is not permanent.”

Perhaps not for the economy as reflected by macro data ahead, things likely to be much different for most people in the US, West, and elsewhere as the future unfolds.

Rosenberg: “I think that the recovery is going to be very slow, and things will not generate significant, sustained momentum until we put this pandemic behind us and people’s fears about going out and engaging with each other again resorts back to what it might have looked like previous to the mid-part of February.”

He stressed that numbers of job losses in the West don’t fully reflect the plunge in hours worked.

Based on that metric, unemployment is much higher. He sees no V-shaped recovery.

Shadowstats economist John Williams said “pending first quarter (US) GDP contraction should rival the depths of the Great Depression,” adding:

Q II should be worse. April US unemployment will more than double anything seen” post-WW II.

March retail sales plunged a record 10.3%. March industrial production fell more than any time “since the post-World War II production shutdown.”

Global economies and markets are experiencing “extraordinarily unstable circumstances.”

“Financial market and political turmoil (has) likely just begun, despite ongoing massive systemic manipulations and interventions.”

Williams sees US unemployment reaching 43%. US Q II GDP will “likely see the deepest drop in modern history.”

Economist Joe Carson explained that exploding corporate debt “is the exact opposite of the practices that were employed in the past to help the economy escape recession.”

“The payback will be weak growth (when recovery occurs) as firms struggle with record debt levels.”

Excess easy money fueled the bubble economy, “and its fall deepens the recession and slows the recovery.”

Economies function best when companies focus on productive investments and innovation.

Notably since the 2008-09 great recession, things in the US were polar opposite. Protracted easy money fueled corporate stock buybacks and unsustainable bubble markets.

Market manipulation propelled US and other equity prices higher this month. Market analyst Scott Minerd believes the S&P 500 may fall to around 1,200 from its April 17 2,875 level.

“How do we know when we have not reached the bottom,” he asked? “When the talking heads on CNBC (and other financial channels) are buying.”

Current gains are unsustainable, he stressed. “The market at this level based upon where earnings are doesn’t represent any kind of intrinsic value. It is being entirely propped up by liquidity.”

“It’s going to be a long haul to get back to the unemployment levels we saw prior to the downturn,.”

“That’s why I’m so concerned about a longer-term plan to encourage business to get people back to work.”

Billionaire investor Jeffrey Grundlack tweeted:

“ ‘A successful near-term retest of the March lows’ was such a consensus opinion no wonder we got a big, rapid rally instead.

“The new narrative: ‘thanks to the Fed there will be no retest’ will likely not come to pass either, leaving ‘a takeout of the March lows’ as the base case.”

Grundlach believes markets are “dysfunctional” and that projections of a quick economic recovery unrealistic.

Economist Chris Rupkey believes “(t)he worst is yet to come.” The worse things get, the longer the recovery.

Millions of jobs will be lost longterm as large numbers of mainly small and medium-sized businesses go bankrupt.

When the US and other economies reopen, many people may avoid large crowds for sometime to come.

Stores, restaurants, theaters, sports areas, airline and other transportation terminals, as well as other businesses may not return to normal for many months or years.

According to MIT researchers, reopening the US economy too soon could “lead to an exponential explosion in the infected case count, thus nullifying the role played by all measures implemented in the US since mid March 2020” — the same true for other nations with high infection rates.

Clearly what’s happening in many countries is unprecedented in modern times. The coast may not be clear for some time.

When public health and economic normality is likely to return is largely guesswork. The fullness of time will explain best.

As long as significant numbers of outbreaks continue, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

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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.

To the casual observer, there appear to be ‘hot’ pockets of coronavirus infections in certain areas of the country such as NYC which reportedly has been ravaged by CV infections as well as the State of Michigan which, according to its Democratic Governor Gretchen Witmer,  has registered the  “third highest number of COVID 19 cases in the country.“

Yet those ‘hot’ pockets do not explain why the number of fatalities would be so dramatically beyond a statistical norm unless the cause of death is more of a  judgment i.e. political call as opposed to relying on a medical diagnostic laboratory-confirmed test.

In any case, it appears that the process being used to report those deaths is seriously flawed with, in some cases, different States with a Democratic Governor who have a looser standard and use a different criteria, for determining what is a COVID 19 related death.  The numbers are squirrely, all over the map.

The problem with how coronavirus deaths are being reported in the US without following a consistent standard has been further confused by the CDC which recently issued a new ruling  that deaths do not need to be confirmed by a test in order to be attributed to CV. The effect of that ruling has elevated what may not even be an epidemic into a bona fide pandemic.  

As of April 16, the CDC reported total US coronavirus deaths at 31,071 which included  ‘probable’  CV deaths at 4,141.  Therefore, the more accurate and true number of CV related deaths in the US is 26,930 while the true number of laboratory-confirmed deaths may also remain problematic.  The CDC’s most current numbers of national CV deaths has not yet reached the average for flu related deaths of 35,000.  No matter how that number might increase, it will always contain a significant number of ‘probable’ CV deaths.

At an April 7^th press conference, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the President’s  CV Task Force said that in the US, ‘we’ve taken a very liberal approach to mortality … counting the deaths of people with underlying conditions as covid-19 deaths“ and that if “someone dies with covid-19, we are counting that as a covid-19 death” even if it was not the clinical cause of death.

The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists* (CSTE) which represent state health officials, also adopted  guidelines to include ‘probable’ CV deaths without a test along with confirmed deaths. Ohio, Delaware and Conneticut all follow the CSTE guidelines  with Pennsylvania not distinguishing between the probable and confirmed CV deaths.

NYC is one of those localities that count ‘probable” CV infections that have never been tested  and add them to their confirmed deaths.

As Michigan’s Governor Witmer extended her state’s “StayHome” Order until April 30^th,  her state’s  tolerance for increased citizen restrictions erupted  in a noisy push back demonstration at the State Capitol. 

With a statewide population of less than 10 million, Witner  defended the new  restrictions by claiming 29, 263 fatalities  which is immediately suspect as that number cites more fatalities than the CDC is reporting for the  entire country.  The discre3pancy may be attributed to the inclusion of ‘probable’ CV deaths or some other statistical trick to pad the numbers. While Witmer has responded by accusing the protestors of spreading the virus, qualified protesters would do well to closely scrutinize the State’s numbers to confirm   how many ‘confirmed’ cases of CV are to be found. 

Witner’s new Order includes  civil fines up to  $1000, the possibility of criminal charges and a $500 fine or 90 days in jail  for any non essential business that remain open. In response, four County Sheriff’s announced they would not enforce the Governor’s new Executive Order. 

Colorado with 347 deaths,  does not use a test to label a COVID 19 death  but relies on a ‘highly likely” or a  ‘probable” determination that may be based on symptoms. In Alabama, a physician reviews  the records of anyone who died and who tested positive for CV. as that State makes the distinction between those who died with CV but not of CV which is a higher standard than the CDC recommends.   

Therein lies another  conundrum of exactly how many deaths in the US  are identified  as CV since there are anywhere from  five to eleven different CV strains have been identified, with at least one SARS CoV2 strain  of three estimated to be of the lethal variety.

Important questions remain for the Task Force to address like exactly what strain is being tested for? Are any of the tests  making the distinction to identify which strain of CV is found or are all and any strain discovered being counted as CV ‘infected?’ If so, there is another opportunity to pad the CV numbers.  It would also be informative for any of the Task Force to explain the difference between the known strains and especially to explaint that if one strain of the Safe CV strain is discovered, it mostly likely could be  from a cold or flu attack from some years   Since the Task Force appears to be dominated by Big Pharma  lackeys, let’s not expect that sort of clarity to be forthcoming.

There is clearly an active campaign on the part of the CDC, the Task Force, some Democratic Governors and the pro Big Pharma crowd to increase the number of fatalities where possible as good for business.   The incentive for a  federal agency, a locality  or state can be attributed to  an increase in available funding down the road. 

There has been great hue and cry about ventilators.  Why aren’t there more ventilators  available? President Trump has encouraged industry to increase the  manufacture of ventilators amid a great pr effort  as they are  identified as vitally necessary for treatment. Yet the medical community is not united in that approach citing ventilators as causing oxidative stress which may then lead to organ failure.

While a shocking number of Americans remain behind closed doors, there is no doubt that the entire CV crisis has been well planned and superbly executed  leaving many Americans to confront their own reality about who they are and how they will respond as the crisis escalates with a more authoritarian government forcing mandatory untested vaccinations as Congress rubber stamps the Bio Patriot Act.

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Renee Parsons  has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter.   She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC.  Renee is also a student of the Quantum Field. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The chaos that Iraq is experiencing today has roots in the 2003 US invasion, which set-up sectarian divisions that have been used to keep the country in turmoil. The US foreign policy is based on creating chaos in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and Lebanon to further the US agenda.  Iraq today stands on the edge of breaking free of the shackles of US domination.  

Iraq has a new Prime Minister

On April 19, the President of Iraq named former spy-chief Mustafa Kadhimi as Prime Minister-designate. Kadhimi announced on April 14 that he had selected a cabinet. He is expected to be approved by Parliament before to April 23, when the Holy month of Ramadan begins.  On April 13, the US stated support for the new government, but not without mentioning Shia and Sunni differences.

In a statement to the media, Kadhimi said, “We have no choice but to work on a comprehensive Iraqi national project, which transcends sub-identities, whether ethnic or sectarian.” He added that a top priority was to negotiate with the US concerning their military presence, stressing that ‘Iraq is not an arena for settling scores’.

Kadhemi faces serious challenges concerning the COVID-19 crisis, and the economic crisis following it, as well as record-low oil prices.  As of April 14, the country has registered 1,400 COVID-19 cases and 78 deaths, according to the health ministry.

The Sunni-Shia divide

The shah of Iran was a close US ally and many would classify him as the definition of an “American Puppet”.  However, the Iranian grass-roots revolution in 1979 saw the US-backed regime toppled.  While the Shah was on his peacock throne, the US had never discussed Sunni-Shia differences. Iraq is a Shia majority, and neighbor of Iran, with shared historical, geographical and religious experiences. The Sunni-Shia divide didn’t exist in Iran, or Iraq, or Syria before the US state department, and their co-workers in the CIA developing the hatred to be used as their tool. The US used Arab media to replace ‘Israel’ with Iran as the ‘enemy’, thus pushing the occupation of Palestine into the oblivion.

The US invasion of Iraq 2003

Seventeen years ago, on March 19, 2003, the United States of America attacked and invaded Iraq.  The US destroyed most of the Iraqi infrastructure and occupied the country for eight years, withdrawing troops in 2011, after having spent nearly $2 trillion in war-related costs.  The Bush administration had been high-jacked by a group of extremists, including Richard T. Perle, who had worked for Israeli PM Netanyahu in 1996. The group controlling the White House in 2003 had wanted to create a ‘New Middle East’.

The US killed an estimated 600,000 Iraqi civilians during the early stages, which fueled sectarian violence and the rise of religious militants.  The Iraqi people have suffered almost two decades of violence and chaos which was the aftermath of the invasion, and the failures of the US occupation.  Paul Bremer, the American installed dictator of the occupation, caused Iraq to be divided along sectarian lines.

In 2014 the US troops arrived again in Iraq, but this time to fight ISIS, which was defeated in 2017.

Trump assassinated Soleimani

On January 3, President Trump ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force. Also killed was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who founded Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah unit after the 2003 US invasion. The killing was a breach of the 2014 agreement between the Iraqi government and the US, concerning the re-entering Iraq to fight ISIS. The Iraqi government, military and resistance groups all were shocked at the magnitude of the drone strike.  Sayyed Ali Khamenei of Iran said, “The price of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis is the US departure from West Asia.”  This marked a line being drawn in the sand: the US must be forced to leave Iraq, regardless of the cost.

Iraqi Parliament orders US troops out

Two days after the Trump ordered assassination; the Iraqi Parliament met and passed a resolution demanding the complete withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.  Driving the US out of Iraq is their goal.

PM Abdul-Mahdi asked parliament to take “urgent measures” to ensure the removal of foreign forces from the country, and he later met with US Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller and stressed the need for the two countries “to work together to execute the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq,” and added the situation in Iraq was “critical”.

US Embassy  and bases attacked

Iraqi soldiers attacked the US Embassy in Baghdad on December 31, 2019, in retaliation for US attacks on Iraqi military bases which resulted in the deaths of dozens of soldiers.  These soldiers had been US allies in Iraq during the fight to defeat ISIS. In January more attacks took place on the Embassy, and in February attacks continued, with the latest attacks occurring in late March, resulting in the US State Department ordering some Embassy employees to leave the country.

By early April, David Schenker, assistant secretary of Near Eastern Affairs, stated that Iraqi military groups have been regularly shelling bases in Iraq which house US troops, as well as the US Embassy area, and this poses a significant threat to US forces in Iraq.  Schenker voiced the US disappointment in the Iraqi military for not being able to protect the US military in Iraq.

Recently, three rockets landed near an area housing workers of the US oil service company Halliburton, which was brought into Iraq by VP Dick Cheney in 2003, in the looting of oil resources of Iraq made possible by the unprovoked invasion.

New videos have emerged on the internet from organizations determined to drive the US troops out of Iraq. The videos employ drone footage of the various bases the US troops are stationed at, and the message is clear: the unwelcome foreign Army is not secure as long as they remain in Iraq.

The US withdrawal begins

An Iraqi member of Parliament, Ali al-Ghanimi, told the media that US troops have begun to consolidate their presence in two large Iraqi bases: one in Erbil in the North and the other in Ain- al-Assad airbase.  Al-Ghanimi reported the US troops previously had been scattered among 15 military bases, and he saw the consolidation of troops as a sign of beginning an ultimate total withdrawal.

June meeting planned to discuss withdrawal

US Ambassador Matthew Tueller met with caretaker Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to discuss the issues surrounding the US military presence in Iraq, and the need for discussions between both countries.  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has proposed a large meeting in June to agree upon the mechanism of withdrawal of troops.  Some Iraqi military units have promised to not attack US troops while the US exhibits sincere efforts to leave Iraq.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a Syrian-American award-winning journalist.

Featured image is from Murtadha Sudani – Anadolu Agency

Vor über 500 Jahren schrieb Thomas Morus, englischer Staatsmann und humanistischer Gelehrter den philosophischen Dialog „Utopia“. Als kleiner Inselstaat ist „Utopia“ – griechisch „Nirgendwo“ oder „Nicht-Ort“ – ein Gegenmodell zum zeitgenössischen England und ein Heilmittel für eine verfallende Gesellschaft. Wenn nichts mehr hilft, so die Botschaft von „Utopia“, dann hilft es, die Dinge radikal anders anzugehen. Ein nachvollziehbarer Gedanke. Steht dieser radikale Schritt nicht auch heute an? Man stelle sich vor, es fänden sich beherzte Staatsmänner, die ihre Generäle und das Militär hinter sich wüssten und denen das Wohl der Menschheit tatsächlich am Herzen läge. Sie könnten gemeinsam der satanischen Kabale bei ihrem Krieg gegen die Menschheit noch „in die Suppe spucken“ und damit beginnen, eine humane Gesellschaft auf den Weg zu bringen.

Thomas Morus‘ ideale Gesellschaft „Utopia“

Die Erstveröffentlichung von Morus‘ Schilderung einer „idealen“ – jedoch sehr fernen – Gesellschaft geschah auf Betreiben des berühmten Humanisten Erasmus von Rotterdam 1516 in Löwen (Belgien). Der Roman des Autors der Renaissance hatte den Untertitel „Vom besten Zustand des Staates oder von der neuen Insel Utopia.“ In ihm wird eine auf rationalen Gleichheitsgrundsätzen, Arbeitsamkeit und dem Streben nach Bildung basierende Gesellschaft mit demokratischen Grundsätzen beschrieben. Aller Besitz in dieser Republik ist gemeinschaftlich. Es herrschen Religionsfreiheit und Toleranz. Alle lieben den Frieden, verabscheuen den Krieg als etwas ganz „Bestialisches“, schaffen ihn aber letztlich nicht ab. Außerdem weist der Modell-Staat „Utopia“ totalitäre Züge auf.

Thomas Morus stützt sich in seinem Werk auf Platon (Politeia), Aristoteles, Cicero und andere Gelehrte vor ihm. Das Buch war so prägend, dass man fortan jeden Roman, in dem eine erfundene positive Gesellschaft dargestellt wird, als Utopie oder utopischen Roman bezeichnete. In Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Krisen kann eine Utopie auch ein politisches Mittel sein, nicht in Passivität und Resignation zu versinken (Robert Jungk).

Welcher radikale Schritt stünde heute an?

Müsste nicht zuallererst die korrupte und verdorbene „Elite“ beziehungsweise das „Establishment“ oder der „Tiefe Staat“ mit all seinen satanischen Praktiken wie zum Beispiel Kinderschändung aus den Angeln gehoben und dafür gesorgt werden, dass deren Protagonisten nie wieder ans Ruder kommen? Der amtierende US-amerikanische Präsident Donald Trump hat bei seiner Antrittsrede (Inauguration Speech) Entsprechendes angekündigt?

Die Menschheitsfragen und Menschheitsprobleme müssten einvernehmlich zum Wohle aller beantwortet beziehungsweise gelöst werden. Die laufenden Kriege seien zu stoppen und neue zu verhindern. Alle geistigen Kräfte seien für die Frage einzusetzen, wie der Mensch lernen kann, in Frieden mit anderen Menschen zusammenzuleben.

Die Aufgabe eines zukünftigen Staates wäre es, alles zu unterlassen, was die Würde eines Menschen beeinträchtigt. Und diese Menschenwürde muss überpositives Recht, also Naturrecht sein. An diesem Naturrecht müssten sich der Staat, die Staatsführung sowie die Gesetze eines Staates zu allen Zeiten kritisch messen lassen. (Siehe „NRhZ“ Nr. 741: „Autonomie und Naturrecht“)

Das gegenwärtige Wirtschaftssystem beruht nicht auf dem Gemeinschaftsprinzip; lediglich eine kleine Schicht von Superreichen wird begünstigt, indes die meisten Bürger und vermehrt die Jugend der schwankenden Konjunktur, den Wirtschaftskrisen und der Arbeitslosigkeit ausgeliefert sind. Gefragt seien Reformvorschläge, die den Gemeinschaftsgedanken in sich tragen und die Schranken zwischen den Menschen zu beseitigen helfen. „Schwerter zu Pflugscharen“ war das Motto vieler Denker; heißt: von Kriegswirtschaft auf Friedenswirtschaft umstellen. Vor allem müsse die Finanzwirtschaft, die einen parasitären Charakter entwickelt hat, wieder am Gemeinwohl orientiert werden.

Allgegenwärtiges Streben nach Herrschaft und Macht vergiftet unser Zusammenleben. Deshalb müssten das menschliche Gemeinschaftsgefühl und der Geist der Verantwortlichkeit die Gewalttätigkeit beenden. Kulturentwicklung besteht im Wesentlichen darin, dass sich die Stimme des Menschheitsgewissens mehr und mehr Gehör verschafft. Eine ethische Errungenschaft ist das Anwachsen des menschlichen Gemeinschaftsgefühls, das Wissen um die Zusammengehörigkeit aller Menschen. Es gäbe die Menschheit nicht mehr, hätten unsere Vorfahren nicht Gemeinsinn und das Gefühl des Miteinanderseins zum Leitmotiv ihres Handelns gemacht. Diese Idee müsse auch die Jugend durchdringen. Sie soll ja die Welt einmal in eine andere Bahn lenken.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Diplom-Psychologe und Erziehungswissenschaftler-

The recent so-called “exchange of criticisms” between Russia and China over their respective border policies in response to World War C is more of a rare wrinkle in their relations caused by media reports than a growing rift that could endanger their comprehensive strategic partnership, though it should still be monitored in the worst-case scenario that it turns out to be a turning point in their relations in hindsight.

“Trouble In Paradise?”

The Mainstream and especially Alternative Media have become accustomed to reporting about the increasing closeness between Russia and China ever since the onset of the New Cold War in 2014, each for their own reasons (the former mostly to ominously fearmonger and the latter to wishfully cheerlead) which rarely portray this comprehensive strategic partnership for the pragmatic marriage of convenience that it really is, which is why it was so surprising to them that these two Great Powers recently exchanged criticisms of one another over their respective border policies during World War C. Global Times, a popular Chinese media outlet run by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) People’s Daily, published an editorial on 13 April titled “Russian alarm on imported infection risk: Global Times editorial” which painted a bleak picture about Russia’s COVID-19 containment efforts. The author of the present analysis is sharing the piece in full below and underlining specific passages in order to draw the reader’s attention to them, followed by an analysis of the article itself before discussing Russia’s official reaction to it that was soon thereafter reported upon by TASS and RT:

China’s “Message”

“The number of imported cases from Russia has surged. At least 409 imported cases from Russia have been confirmed as of press time, China’s largest source of imported cases. The China-Russia border city of Suifenhe has been hit hard by returnees from Russia by land. Since the start of April, every flight from Russia to China has seen a high rate of infection, suggesting the worsening situation in Russia.

Russia is the latest example of a failure to control imported cases and can serve as a warning to others. When the virus wreaked havoc in Europe, Russia appeared to have successfully blocked the epidemic outside its border. It was only on March 2 that the country reported its first case, much later than Western Europe and the US. Russia has also imposed strict restrictions on the entry of Chinese travelers. But it eventually failed to curb the epidemic.

Russian experts said hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens returned from Italy, France, Spain and other Western European countries in late March. Most of them ended up in Moscow or transited through the capital, making the city the worst-hit area within Russia. Europe is one of the global hubs. It would be much tougher for Russia to guard against cases from there than from China.

The virus knows no borders or races. The Chinese people have watched Russia became a severely affected country from one that did a great job. This should sound the alarm: China must strictly prevent the inflow of cases and avoid a second outbreak. For China, understanding this is perhaps more important than coping with the large number of imported cases from Russia. The anti-pandemic fight is a protracted one, and we cannot lose any battle.

Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province and others are facing a major test from the sudden influx of infected people from Russia. But it is believed that they are able to handle it. And the central government is also mobilizing and ready to provide support. Another problem is how to avoid panic of Chinese people returning home. That will increase the risk of those compatriots and also increase the difficulty of China’s response.

Some say there are 1.5 million Chinese people in Russia. But according to Da Zhigang, a Chinese expert based in Heilongjiang, the number should be around 100,000. Some of them are worried that Russia’s prevention and control system is weak and the medical system may break down. They know that China has done a good job in domestic prevention and medical care is guaranteed. Thus, the willingness to return to China is strong among them.

For Chinese people in Russia, we encourage them to stay where they are to avoid being infected. The most effective way to prevent infection is to implement strict self-quarantine. The risk of long-distance travel is very high. The flight from Moscow to Shanghai on Friday carried 204 people and 60 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 so far. This was the flight with the most confirmed cases since the global outbreak. We cannot confirm how many of them were infected during their trip, but the ratio is not low.

Among those who returned to China from Russia through the Suifenhe land port, the infection rate was also very high. This has sounded the alarm for the Chinese people in Russia. The actual infection rate in Russia is likely to be high, and every flight to China imposes a great risk to healthy passengers. If it were not the last resort, Chinese people in Russia should not take the risk.

China and Russia are comprehensive strategic partners of coordination for a new era. They should have enough political will and resources to coordinate supporting Russia’s anti-epidemic fight and helping the Chinese people in Russia. China and Russia should help and understand each other, and jointly defeating a vicious enemy such as the COVID-19 as they build a high-level strategic relationship.“

Explaining The Global Times’ Op-Ed

The first thing to be said is that it’s not exactly accurate to interpret this piece as being an official “message” from China despite Global Times being managed by a CCP-run outlet, the same as can be said about RT in respect to be being publicly financed as well. Both media platforms clearly have an editorial stance that favors that respective governments, but they are not official reflections of state policy even though it can sometimes be speculated that their editorial decisions to publish certain content might hint at a certain unspoken stance that can’t be publicly expressed for “politically correct” reasons. For example, if one applies the standard that the Global Times’ piece reflects China’s official policy, then they should hold the same view that RT’s rare China-bashing is also a reflection of Russia’s official policy, which clearly isn’t the case.

After all, RT published two of its own op-eds in late March which included extremely provocative passages about China. The narrative propagated in the article titled “From villain to hero? After its badly botched response to the Covid-19 outbreak, China now seeks to be the world’s savior” is self-explanatory and includes the quip that “A cynic might suggest that there is something intrinsically wrong with China arguably being entirely responsible for spreading a disease then selling its cure back to those nations who have not managed to avoid its killer path” while the piece titled “I am an American constitutional lawyer – and I see our government using Covid-19 to take away our fundamental rights” which came out a few days later is less direct but nevertheless strongly implies that China is abusing its citizens when the outlet’s contributor wrote that “The very premise of popular films like V for Vendetta reveal this: a group uses a virus to seize power and create a totalitarian society. Anyone could witness this from far-off lands, watching the news about China locking people up in their own homes and then removing them screaming from those homes whenever the state wanted.” Furthermore, RT hosted notorious China-basher Gordon Chang on a show discussing the US’ response to this global pandemic earlier that month, which can be interpreted as an attempt by their producers to “gently” introduce him to their audience, build his credibility, then possibly interview him about China in the event that Russia’s relations with the People’s Republic sour one day and the decision is made to “unleash” him as the ultimate “perception manager” on this topic.

Still, it would be amiss to assume that RT is acting at the direct order of shadowy state figures in this respect, the same as it would be equally amiss to assume the same about the Global Times vis-a-vis the CCP regarding its recent editorial about the worsening COVID-19 situation in Russia that’s comparatively milder in its criticisms of Moscow’s comprehensive strategic partner than RT’s two cited ones were of China. Having gotten that “disclaimer” out of the way, it should be objectively acknowledged that the Global Times article is somewhat critical of Russia, but purely in an objective sense and not the fearmongering and/or fake news-driven subjective one that characterizes most Mainstream Media reporting on the country. President Putin himself recently acknowledged that the situation is worsening in his country, so there’s no longer any “taboo” about discussing this, let alone by one of the leading international media outlets of Russia’s trusted comprehensive strategic partner.

All that the Global Times did was draw attention to the objectively existing and easily verifiable fact officially shared by the Chinese authorities that the largest number of imported cases into their country are attributable to their compatriots who are returning home from Russia. Extrapolating on this, the editorial included passages remarking on the observable failure of the Russian authorities to fully contain this outbreak and the possibility of its medial system breaking down, the latter of which has since been vindicated by the Moscow health department’s warning that the city might soon experience a shortage of hospital beds in the coming weeks. No attribution of blame was even remotely implied in the piece, simply a listing of facts and interpretations thereof that are relevant for Chinese citizens and the outlet’s international readership alike.

Russia’s Official Reaction To The Global Times

Even so, Russia reacted real negatively to the Global Times’ editorial. TASS published a short report on 15 April headlined “Kremlin says countries should drop accusations and join efforts to fight COVID-19” which cited presidential spokesman Peskov’s response to a question about that particular piece, with the relevant portions of that article being republished below for the reader’s convenience:

“The Kremlin disapproves of ‘playing table tennis’ through mutual accusations and wants to see countries join their efforts to tackle the coronavirus crisis, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a comment on China’s Global Times daily’s article claiming that China is facing the threat of a second wave of infection as people are returning from Russia.

“We hear that various countries exchange such criticism about coronavirus, which is reminiscent of a table tennis game. We think that there’s little use in it. On the contrary, Moscow is a supporter of uniting globally to counter the coronavirus,” Peskov noted. The spokesman added that Moscow does not agree with such accusations. “In any case, we cannot agree with this criticism, if there was criticism voiced in that newspaper,” he said, clarifying that he is not aware of the article in question.”

What’s interesting is that he implied that the Global Times’ editorial stance is the same as its government’s despite the outlet not being an official representative of the state like its Ministry of Foreign Affairs is. In addition, describing their reporting and the analysis the facts thereof as “reminiscent of a table tennis game” after talking about how “various countries exchange such criticism about coronavirus” implies that Russia participated in this “game” as well.

It hasn’t, at least to the best knowledge of the present article’s author, unless one speculates that Peskov was referring to RT’s rare instance of China-bashing that was described earlier. That of course can’t be known for sure, but moving along, it should also be pointed out how he clarified that he actually wasn’t even aware of the article in question anyhow and was thus only responding to the claims made in the unnamed journalist’s question about that piece.

Is RT Stirring The Pot?

This is extremely important because it suggests that the Russian media’s reporting about this exchange isn’t as accurate as it should be. This is even more so the case when reading how RT — which to remind the reader once again, isn’t “state-run” despite being publicly financed and therefore isn’t an official representative of the Russian government the same as the Global Times isn’t China’s official representative either — dramatically headlined their article “Kremlin rejects criticism as China calls Russia its ‘largest source of imported coronavirus cases’“.

There’s a lot wrong with how they covered this, presuming of course that they intended to abide by the journalistic standards of simply reporting the facts like they regularly present themselves as doing since they should have otherwise indicated that they were analyzing/interpreting them if that’s what they indeed meant to do (recognizing that journalism and analysis, despite being closely related, are actually two separate information products that readers can tell the difference between upon becoming “media literate”). To begin with, it’s mistaken at best and misleading at worst to equate the Global Times’ editorial with the official position of the Chinese government, and secondly, RT didn’t mention in their article that Peskov clarified that he wasn’t even aware of the editorial in question before being asked about it.

For the reader’s convenience, here’s the entirety of their report on his remarks:

“The Kremlin has rejected criticism of Russia’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak after China said its largest source of imported cases had come from transmissions in the far northeast, bordering Russia. “We hear that there is now an exchange of criticism over coronavirus between different countries, which is played like ping pong. We consider this to be a thankless exercise,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

Beijing’s Global Times newspaper said in an editorial on April 13: “The Chinese people have watched Russia become a severely affected country from one that did a great job. This should sound the alarm: China must strictly prevent the inflow of cases and avoid a second outbreak.” The newspaper is run by the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily.

China reported 46 new confirmed cases on Tuesday compared with 89 cases a day earlier, according to the National Health Commission. Of the new cases, 36 involved travelers arriving in the country from overseas, compared with 86 a day earlier.

“China is on guard against imported cases,” the state-owned Global Times wrote in its editorial on Tuesday, saying that the US and Europe are “not ready to restart [their] economy.” It warned that “once the epidemic is repeated in Europe and the US, or spreads around the epicenters worldwide, it will disastrously continue.””

Only RT itself can account for why the editorial decision was made to omit that crucial detail, but leaving it out left the reader with the false impression that Peskov planned to make a statement about the Global Times’ piece and wasn’t just generically responding to a journalist’s question about something that he wasn’t even aware about before being asked. This raises very uncomfortable questions about whether RT is either simply incompetent in how it reports on Russian-Chinese relations (which are strategically sensitive) or if something more insidious might be brewing per its earlier publishing of two China-bashing pieces and its efforts to “gently” introduce notorious China-basher Gordon Chang to its largely China-friendly audience.

Earlier Wrinkles In Russian-Chinese Relations

Whatever the case may be, there’s no ignoring the fact that some wrinkles were earlier observed in Russian-Chinese relations as a result of World War C. Russia’s leading business daily Kommersant reported that “Chinese diplomats were at a loss after Russia barred entry to Chinese citizens as a coronavirus prevention measure” in mid-February, a move that the author analyzed in his piece titled “Russia Bans Most Chinese From Entry: ‘Pure Racism’ Or ‘Preventive Reaction’?” The Global Times published an article around the same time titled “Russian ban on Chinese visitors regrettable but understandable: experts“, which cites Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang as saying that “Russia informed China through diplomatic channels in advance before issuing the ban”.

That could have been the end of their differing views over border security at the start of World War C had it not been for the subsequent reports that the Russian authorities were discriminating against Chinese citizens in Moscow. Whatever may or may not have happened was apparently serious enough to warrant the Chinese Embassy in Russia officially complaining about this through a letter that they published in the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, after which the Global Times published a detailed report sourced from some of the alleged victims titled “Dozens of Chinese citizens forcibly quarantined and deported in Russia amid coronavirus“.

It’s unclear how that scandalous situation was resolved, if ever, but the next wrinkle in Russian-Chinese relations came earlier this month after the latter closed down a border crossing along its neighbor’s Far Eastern frontier over fears of imported cases arriving from Russia. The Global Times once again took the lead in reporting on this in their relevant article on 9 April titled “China, Russia appear to be in discord over whether to re-open land port amid pandemic“. Instead of republishing it in full below like the one that forms the focus of this present analysis, here are some highlights that convey its main points, with key passages underlined like before:

“As epidemic wanes in China, North East China’s Heilongjiang Province recently came under the spotlight as one of its border cities with Russia, Suifenhe, recorded 118 COVID-19 cases in just 5 days, all of whom were Chinese nationals returning home from Russia. The growing number not only shocked China but also overwhelmed the medical capacity of the small border city, which has a population of mere 70,000.

Fearing that the pouring infections might collapse its medical system and spark widespread outbreak, China temporarily suspended the Suifenhe land port on April 7 to give itself more time to prepare for the inbound patients. The only problem is that Russia, which is under increasing pressure to contain the virus as it just witnessed a record-high single day surge of confirmed cases, may not be able to accommodate Chinese nationals aggregating at the border for long.

Lu Yuguang, a journalist of Phoenix TV in Russia, said Wednesday on Twitter-like Weibo that Russia’s Ussuriysk customs required the Chinese side to re-open its border port to receive citizens returning to China through the land port as the direct flight was limited to once a week. Customs said they have opened the Pogranichny port and moved stranded Chinese travelers to the port, waiting for Suifenhe to open up, according to Lu’s post. Lu’s post has not been verified by the embassy and consulates as of press time.

…

Lu’s post has sparked massive debates on the Chinese internet with some netizens expressing disappointment over Russia’s arrangement, claiming it was irrational to let Chinese nationals to wait at the border for Suifenhe to open, as doing so might facilitate cross-infection. Global Times also learned that the hotels available for isolation in Suifenhe, which locked down on Wednesday, are fully occupied, including hotels for hundreds of medical workers. A makeshift hospital with over 600 beds is expected to be completed on April 11, which might ease the burden. “Our public health capacity is saturated, and we hope that the Russian side will understand and help take care of our compatriots for the time being,” a Suifenhe resdient told the Global Times on Thursday.

…

The Chinese government attaches great importance to the health and safety of Chinese citizens in Russia, maintaining close communication with the Russian side, and urges the Russian government to provide convenience and guarantee for Chinese citizens in terms of residence and medical treatment.

…

Wu Dahui, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times that it is not the case that China doesn’t want to accept its citizens stranded on the border. China is moving to make preparations to receive them, such as hospitals and medical teams.

Wu said the rumors over the Ussuriysk customs’ move to some extent shows the severe condition in Russia’s far east region in terms of pandemic prevention and control, as they do not have the ability to temporarily take in stranded Chinese. Local Russian regulators also face pressure from the central government, which might lead to the stranding of Chinese at the border.
Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday that “it is normal for Russia to express its concern as the confirmed cases in the country is rising, but we also hope Russia could understand China’s pressure.””

Cooperation Amid Controversy

While the above-mentioned wrinkles are understandably cause for concern, it should be noted that Russia and China still retained — and even strengthened — their cooperation in other dimensions during this time. Famous Chinese billionaire Jack Ma gifted Russia over 1 million masks and 200,000 testing kits in late March, which earned him heartfelt thanks from Russian Defense Minister Shoigu. China then pledged to deliver over 80 million masks to Russia in April or early May and later dispatched medical experts to Moscow to brief their counterparts on their country’s successful COVID containment measures. In addition Chinese Foreign Ministry Zhao Lijian recently thanked Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov for his opposition to the West’s calls for reparations from China over the fact that the virus originated within its borders.

The spokesman also answered some specific questions about Russia during a different press conference earlier this week, with the relevant exchanges being republished below and points of interest underlined by the author:

“RIA Novosti: I have two questions. First of all, yesterday Heilongjiang provincial authorities promised up to 5000 yuan for reports about illegal crossing of China-Russia border. I wonder if there were already any cases or incidents of illegal border crossing, or it’s just precautions? And secondly, I wonder if the Foreign Ministry has any statistics or information on how many Chinese citizens are in Russia at the moment?

Zhao Lijian: Regarding the first question, according to the agreement on the boundary management system between China and Russia, the competent authorities and local governments of the two sides should jointly take necessary measures to prevent and stop illegal border-crossing and other illegal activities in the border area. This is a responsibility that the two sides must fulfill in order to uphold order in the border area. As to the second question, based on the information we have, there are about 100,000 Chinese citizens in Russia but the exact figure is hard to come by for the time being.”

…

Beijing Daily: We’ve noticed the increasingly severe epidemic situation in Russia. With regard to the Chinese medical group to Russia you mentioned the other day, could you talk about their work? Will China provide more assistance to Russia?

Zhao Lijian: The medical team sent by the Chinese government arrived on April 11. The experts visited designated hospitals for COVID-19 patients and had exchange with their Russian counterparts on such topics as epidemic prevention, containment, diagnosis and treatment. There will be more in-depth exchange, experience-sharing, guidance and training. The group also shared through video-link know-how in prevention and control with Chinese nationals including students and employees of Chinese enterprises in Russia and distributed medical supplies. At our most trying times fighting COVID-19, Russia offered us strong support and assistance. At present, with the fast spread of the virus, Russia is at a crucial stage. As its comprehensive strategic partner of coordination for a new era, China relates deeply to what Russia is going through and will not stand by and watch. We will further enhance cooperation with the Russian side to jointly tackle this challenges posed by the pandemic.”

Two main points stand out from his answers. The first is that he emphasized that it is the joint responsibility of the competent authorities “to prevent and stop illegal border-crossing and other illegal activities in the border area”. This strongly implies that the Russian side isn’t doing what it’s supposed to, thus feeding into the speculation that it’s passively facilitating illegal border crossings by Chinese citizens trying to get back home because the local and/or regional authorities there either don’t want them in the country any longer (i.e. the same attitude that the Moscow authorities reportedly expressed towards Chinese citizens in the capital) and/or simply aren’t able to safely accommodate them for whatever reason (e.g. state systems are overwhelmed due to World War C).

The other point, however, is much more positive and it’s that China isn’t letting these wrinkles get in the way of its comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia. Just like Russia helped China during its most trying time, so too is China reciprocating that act of friendship by helping Russia during its own present travails. Quite clearly then, the exchange of criticisms between Russia and China over their strategic partner’s response to World War C is more of a rare wrinkle in their relations than a growing rift, though there’s also no denying that the combination of Russia’s recently renewed strategic relations with newly pro-American India and the even more recent progress that it’s made towards clinching a “New Detente” with America could complicate this relationship in the future.

Concluding Thoughts

All told, it convincingly appears to be the case that the recent so-called “exchange of criticisms” between Russia and China stemming from the Global Times’ editorial is more an invention of the media (whether innocently created through RT’s journalistic incompetence or deliberately manufactured for purely speculative ends) than anything to be seriously concerned about, though several disagreements nevertheless objectively exist between these two Great Powers over their border security policies during World War C. Those issues, however, are mostly being kept under wraps and responsibly addressed by the relevant authorities at this moment owing to the sensitive nature of their bilateral strategic relations during these uncertain times so as to prevent any third state parties (such as the US and India) from exploiting their differing stances for divide-and-conquer infowar ends. Having said that, the recent wrinkles in their relations shouldn’t by any means be ignored by responsible observers since they might end up being seen as a turning point in the worst-case scenario that a growing rift eventually emerges from their increasing divergences on key issues.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

According to US constitutional experts, state governors and local officials, not Trump, are empowered to decide on when and to what extent current COVID-19 restrictions may be eased.

Days earlier, Trump falsely said “ultimately, I have to make that decision.” On April 13, he tweeted:

“(S)ome in the fake news media are saying that it is the governors decision to open up the states, not that of the president…& federal government.”

“Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect…It is the decision of the president…”

At his daily self-promoting briefing earlier this week, he arrogantly said “(t)he president… has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do…The president…calls the shots.”

No US constitutional or statute law affirms this power. According to Law Professor Robert Chesney, restrictions in place are “promulgated by state governors, county commissioners and mayors — not from the federal government.”

UC Berkeley Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky stressed that

“Trump is wrong as a matter of constitutional law,” adding:

“Quarantine and stay-at-home orders are entirely the decision of the state governors.”

“States have the police power and the authority to quarantine.”

“The president has no authority to override such orders and order the country open.”

“No federal statute gives the president such authority. Nor did the president order sheltering in place.”

“He can exhort, but the orders come from state and local governments.”

“(H)e cannot override state or local law…The bottom line is that if California, or other states, or cities or counties, feel the need to continue restrictions…they may (legally) do so.”

According to Law Professor Jonathan Turley,

“(t)here is no authority for a president to order states to ‘open up’ if the state believes that such an order would be inimical to public health.”

“The president had no authority to order a national lockdown and certainly does not have authority to now order the lifting of such orders issued by governors.”

The US Constitution was “designed to limit federal authority.” Trump’s aim to reopen the economy “falls somewhere between the aspirational and the persuasive” — short of legal authority to order it.

“Trump has to convince, not command, governors on what is best for their states.”

James Madison, the 4th US president and one of its founders said the following:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.”

“Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite” — according to the 10th Amendment that states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), the Supreme Court ruled that the “safety and health of the” states’ people are for its authorities “to guard and protect,” not the “national government.”

This “right (is) secured by the federal Constitution.”

Trump has no legal authority to prioritize economic issues over public health and welfare, the latter the prerogative of states and local communities to decide.

At present, 41 US states are in mandated lockdown. Authorities of several others recommended it.

Schools are closed nationwide. Except for essential services like hospitals and pharmacies, businesses serving patrons are either closed or have limited operations — like drive-though orders offered by some restaurants.

States and local communities are empowered to order business closures, sheltering in place, and other public restrictions at their discretion — not the president or federal government.

One possible exception to the above exists — classified Presidential Emergency Action Documents that exist for worst-case scenarios like nuclear war or other extraordinary circumstances never before experienced in the nation’s history.

Created in the 1950s, they’ve never been invoked or revealed to show what powers they contain, not even to congressional members.

COVID-19 outbreaks don’t remotely rise to the level of a need to invoke whatever extraordinary powers these documents contain.

They likely circumvent international, constitutional, US statute, and individual state laws that render them illegal and highly controversial — the stuff tyrannical rule is made of if invoked.

So far at least, Trump hasn’t gone this far. On Thursday, he presented phased guidelines on reducing movement restrictions and reopening the economy in steps as considered appropriate by states and local communities.

He left it to their authorities to decide when and how to reopen their economies.

He falsely said “if they need to remain closed, we will allow them to do that.” It’s not his call. It’s the sole prerogative of state and local officials.

How phased in reopening of the economy will work in various states will depend on whether COVID-19 outbreaks are contained and don’t reemerge in a second wave ahead.

Whatever happens going forward, an unacceptable new normal is likely that involves further erosion of fundamental human and civil rights.

Post-COVID-19 life in America was likely planned in advance by the nation’s ruling class like pre-and-post-9/11 — for ill, not good.

As for Trump, his only interests are self-serving — getting reelected, protecting, preserving, and increasing his personal wealth, and serving privileged interests exclusively.

Throughout his time in office, he showed contempt for world peace, equity, justice, and the rule of law.

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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.

Over 500 years ago Thomas Morus, English statesman and humanist scholar, wrote the philosophical dialogue “Utopia”. As a small island state, “Utopia” – Greek for “Nowhere” or “Non-place” – is a counter-model to contemporary England and a cure for a decaying society. If nothing helps anymore, so the message of “Utopia”, then it helps to approach things radically differently. An understandable thought. Is this radical step not also on the agenda today? Imagine that there were courageous statesmen who knew that their generals and the military were behind them and who really cared about the well-being of humanity. Together they could still “spit in the soup” of the satanic cabal in their war against humanity and start to bring a humane society on the way.

Thomas Morus’ ideal society “Utopia”

The first publication of Morus’s description of an “ideal” – but very distant – society took place at the instigation of the famous humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam in Leuven (Belgium) in 1516. The novel by the Renaissance author had the subtitle “Of the best condition of the state or of the new island Utopia.”It describes a society based on rational principles of equality, hard work and the pursuit of education with democratic principles. All property in this republic is common. There is religious freedom and tolerance. Everyone loves peace, abhors war as something quite “bestial”, but ultimately does not abolish it. Furthermore, the model state “Utopia” has totalitarian features.

Thomas Morus bases his work on Plato (Politeia), Aristotle, Cicero and other scholars before him. The book was so formative that from then on any novel depicting an invented positive society was called a utopia or utopian novel. In times of social crisis, a utopia can also be a political means of not sinking into passivity and resignation (Robert Jungk).

What radical step would be taken today?

Shouldn’t first of all the corrupt and rotten “elite” or the “establishment” or the “Deep State” with all its satanic practices such as child abuse be taken off their hinges and their protagonists never be allowed to take control again? Ironically, President Donald Trump announced something similar in his Inauguration Speech?

The questions and problems of humanity must be answered or solved in a consensual manner for the benefit of all. The current wars had to be stopped and new ones prevented. All spiritual forces are to be employed for the question of how man can learn to live together in peace with other people.

It would be the task of a future state to refrain from everything that would affect the dignity of a human being. And this human dignity must be overpositive law, that is, Natural Law. The state, the governance and the laws of a state must at all times be critically measured against this natural law. (See “NRhZ” No. 741: “Autonomy and Natural Law”)

The current economic system is not based on the Community principle; only a small stratum of super-rich people is favoured, while most citizens and, increasingly, young people are at the mercy of the fluctuating economy, economic crises and unemployment. What is needed are reform proposals that embody the Community spirit and help to remove the barriers between people. “Swords to ploughshares” was the motto of many thinkers; means: change from war economy to peace economy. Above all, the financial economy, which has developed a parasitic character, must again be oriented towards the common good.

Ubiquitous striving for domination and power poisons our living together. Therefore, the human sense of community and the spirit of responsibility should end the violence. Cultural development essentially consists in making the voice of human conscience more and more audible. An ethical achievement is the growth of the human sense of community, the knowledge that all people belong together. Humanity would no longer exist if our ancestors had not made community spirit and the feeling of togetherness the leitmotif of their actions. This idea must also permeate the youth. They should steer the world into a different direction.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a qualified psychologist and educational scientist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Italy has been affected by the coronavirus more than any other European country, with over 168,000 confirmed cases and 22,000 deaths. Europe is mobilizing to help Italy but this has not always been the case, and rather was a reaction to the Russian, Chinese and Turkish assistance given to the Mediterranean country. In the early days of the crisis, in the face of a need for a common European response as would be expected from the European Union, too many, especially Germany, thought only of their own problems, making a mockery of Western liberalism.

The self-serving interests were harmful and could have avoided thousands of deaths in Italy. Social distancing is a must between individuals to prevent the spread of the virus and fundamental for our safety, but the distance between European nations, on the contrary, puts everyone in danger and is exactly what happened when coronavirus began to devastate Italy. From the beginning of the pandemic, the European Union refused to coordinate to deal with the enormity of the crisis.

The European Union’s lacklustre response to the crisis saw Professor Mauro Ferrari quit his position as President of the European Research Council when he became frustrated with the bloc’s inaction to create a dedicated research programme into coronavirus.

“I arrived at the European Research Council a fervent supporter of the European Union [but] the Covid-19 crisis completely changed my views, though the ideals of international collaboration I continue to support with enthusiasm,” he told the Financial Times.

The ERC however hit back, saying

“During his three-month term in office, Professor Ferrari displayed a complete lack of appreciation for the raison-d’être of the ERC to support excellent frontier science, designed and implemented by the best researchers in Europe.”

Rather than assisting Italy, Brussels was too busy engaging in a war of words with a renowned professor who was frustrated as he was restricted from dealing with the coronavirus in an effective manner. Instead Italy had to rely on assistance from Cuba, Albania, Turkey, China and Russia among others to deal with the public health emergency.

This has caused the European Union to have a change in pace and now millions of masks have been delivered to Italy. The mobilization of aid from non-European Union countries to Italy significantly embarrassed the bloc, forced it into action, and has even humbled it now.

European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen extended a “heartfelt apology” to Italy on behalf of Europe, admitting that it had not been by its side since the beginning of the crisis.

“It’s right that Europe offers its heartfelt apology,” she said when speaking at a debate in the European Parliament on Thursday. She added that “too many were not there on time when Italy needed a helping hand at the very beginning.”

However, she went on to claim that “Europe has now become the world’s beating heart of solidarity.” She of course did not mention that Russia was one of the very few countries to help the Mediterranean country, resulting in an increase of Russophilia and anti-European Union sentiment among the local people .

For many Italians, the apology is not good enough and it is inexcusable that the European Union was not there for them in their hour of need. Many in Italy will not forget that and it will certainly become a major talking point in future Italian elections and in debates on Rome’s relations with Moscow in the post-coronavirus world.

Although der Leyen claims that Europe is the “beating heart of solidarity,” it is Turkey that has provided aid to 24 different countries from North America to South America, Africa to Asia, and across Europe. Although Turkey is engaging on this mission of good will to improve its reputation after it received international condemnation because of their attempt to asymmetrically invade Greece with illegal immigrants, it has proven to be more of a “beating heart of solidarity” than the European Union has.

Last week during a meeting of European Union finance ministers discussing a financial rescue package, a clear division was seen between northern European countries and the Mediterranean European countries. Led by the Netherlands, the wealthier northern European countries refused to back a rescue package that would soften the economic blow the coronavirus pandemic has caused to southern European countries.

While der Leyen makes apologies and propagandizes that the European Union is the “world’s beating heart of solidarity,” the facts are proven on the ground – while northern Europe contracted to protect state interests, it was non-European Union members who mobilized to assist Italy. This will prove to be a decisive soft power victory for Russia, China and Turkey and will have great geopolitical ramifications in the post-coronavirus world.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

New York City recently added close to 3,800 deaths due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19). The problem is that the Coronavirus death toll is unconfirmed. 

According to a report by Bloomberg News, ‘NYC Adds 3,800 Probable Virus Victims to Death Toll’ stated that “New York City added thousands of people to its coronavirus death toll to account for victims who died in recent weeks without a confirmed diagnosis.”

Yes, you read this right, they added close to 3,800 deaths without any confirmed Covid-19 cases. The data according to Mayor Bill De Blasio’s administration titled ‘Confirmed and Probable COVID-19 Deaths Weekly Report’ defines probable as “A death is classified as probable if the decedent was a New York City resident (NYC resident or residency pending) who had no known positive laboratory test for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) but the death certificate lists as a cause of death “COVID-19” or an equivalent”. The press secretary to Mayor Bill de Blasio, Freddi Goldstein said

“that the data include at-home deaths of people suspected of having Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. That judgment is based on reported symptoms including cough, fever and shortness of breath.”

The Bloomberg report said that

“the unconfirmed presumed victims represent about 36% of the 10,367 virus-related deaths in New York, the nation’s most populous city.”

Mayor De Blasio said that there was an increase in “unexplained at-home deaths” and that he “suspected many of them were caused by Covid-19″and he also said that “there’s no question in my mind and the doctors can speak to this, the driver of this huge uptick in deaths at home is Covid-19 and some people are dying directly of it and some people are dying indirectly of it, but it is the tragic X factor here.” There is something terribly wrong with this picture. Why are they adding unconfirmed cases to the death toll?

Recently, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) came out with ‘Guidelines for Certifying Covid-19 Deaths’ that clearly states the following:

In Cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID-19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g. the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as “probable” or “presumed”

Why did the CDC release guidelines that will certify questionable Covid-19 deaths in the first place? One answer to that question is that First and foremost, The CDC and the pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharma) want to scare the public about the seriousness of the outbreak, which it is serious especially for the elderly and those with serious health issues.  But they also want the public to believe that a future vaccine that is already in development is needed to combat the Coronavirus. For Big Pharma, an elevated death toll with inflated numbers will allow the state to vaccinate the public because of the fear factor. The bigger the number, the more people will want the Covid-19 vaccine so that they themselves won’t end up being part of that statistic. The CDC is pro-Big Pharma and pro-vaccine. As more data is released down the road, unsettling truths about the death toll will be revealed and hopefully, people will wake up from the mass hysteria.

Reference

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

The verbal attacks by members of the Brazilian government on China have been costly, not only to Brazil, but also to Jair Bolsonaro‘s biggest international ally, the United States. The offensive words to China recently spoken by Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, education minister Abraham Weintraub and foreign affairs minister Ernesto Araújo created a situation of gigantic diplomatic tension between Brazil and China. Beijing is well aware of how to manipulate this tension in its favor. As China is Brazil’s biggest trade partner, the Asian country is demanding certain benefits in its negotiations, which are quickly being granted.

Cornered and pressured in the face of the irresponsibility of his son and other members of his government, Jair Bolsonaro recently contacted Chinese President Xi Jinping apologizing for what had happened and trying to return to closer ties between the both countries. Xi, in all his political expertise, was not proud and welcomed Bolsonaro’s lamentations, but apparently demanded certain concessions. Just three days after telephone contact between the heads of State, Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourão announced that Huawei, a Chinese multinational in the technology and telecommunications industry, will be able to participate in the 5G technology infrastructure in Brazil.

The announcement of Huawei’s participation is the result of a true lesson of international relations expertise by the Chinese president. During the controversy involving the Brazilian government and its offenses against Beijing, several media agencies gave enormous coverage to the case, overestimating an alleged threat to the supply of masks and sanitary equipment to combat the pandemic of the new coronavirus in Brazil. The attention of Brazilians was focused on monitoring whether China would retaliate against Brazil by abandoning it to its own fate in the fight against the infection. In fact, this shows how far political analysts, the media and Brazilian public opinion in general are lagging behind in knowing how to do business on the international arena.

China has absolutely nothing to gain by blocking the supply of medical and sanitary equipment to Brazil or any other country. This international cooperation campaign is one of the great tools of Chinese foreign policy today. These acts of humanitarian diplomacy allow Beijing to strengthen relations with several countries, undermining influences from other powers and raising its international image. Still, the Chinese government is fully aware that in bilateral relations between Brazil and China, Brazilians are the most fragile part, with various sectors of the Brazilian economy dependent on the Chinese market, such as agribusiness. It is obvious that China would use this whole scenario as a backdrop to try to improve some specific points in the relations with Brazil instead of simply making silly decisions such as imposing international sanctions, cutting mask supplies or banning the purchase of Brazilian soy.

Unlike Bolsonaro, Xi Jinping demonstrates great skill and decorum in his relations with other statesmen. The Brazilian president’s apology was a beautiful opportunity to gently “suggest” the Chinese company’s insertion on the big 5G technology auction in Brazil. Interestingly, the biggest loser in this agreement was precisely the nation that Brazil currently supports and swears loyalty – the US. As it is well known, the great international dispute over control of 5G technology is between Washington and Beijing. Until then, the Brazilian government kept China out of the infrastructure projects in 5G platforms in the country, precisely because of its total alignment with the US, which is a central feature of Bolsonaro’s foreign policy. Now, this small “exchange of favors” between Brazil and China calls into question all the cooperation between Brasília and Washington in recent years. Attacking China, Brazil has hit the United States, its biggest international “ally”, and will now be even more vulnerable to the overwhelming advance of Chinese interests.

Gradually, over the past few decades, China has undeniably made its technological production a strong soft power mechanism. However, some geopolitical opponents of China have gone far beyond the concrete data in their speculations about China’s technological strategy. It was Donald Trump’s unfounded conspiracies about an alleged use of Huawei’s 5G technology for espionage purposes that served as the basis for international pressure to abolish Chinese participation on the 5G structure in all Washington allied countries – like Bolsonaro’s Brazil considers itself.

It was precisely this conspiracy speech that the Brazilian government maintained to keep China away from the 5G network in Brazil, but that all changed with Bolsonaro’s call to apologize for his son’s words. Now, what will become of the speech on Chinese espionage through Huawei? And what Bolsonaro will answer to Donald Trump? More importantly, what will be the Trump’s reaction to Bolsonaro’s betrayal? Considering the great strategic value of 5G technology, it is still possible that Brazil will lose its total alignment with the USA forever and be forced to further strengthen ties with China.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Featured image: Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro shake hands during a press statement after their bilateral meeting at Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on November 13, 2019. (Photo by Sergio LIMA / AFP) (Photo by SERGIO LIMA/AFP via Getty Images)

The head of the Russian Reconciliation Center affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Defense, Oleg Goralev, announced on Wednesday that the 27 militants who surrendered to the Syrian authorities, reported that they had received training by the American military to carry out attacks on oil and gas sites as well as the infrastructure of sites under the control of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

“According to the testimonies of members of the armed groups who joined the government forces, the Americans provided them with weapons and vehicles, and they were trained by the United States to sabotage the oil and gas infrastructure, transport and organize terrorist acts in the territories under the control of the Syrian government forces,” Goralev said in a briefing.

Goralev noted that

“on the night of April 13-14, a group of gunmen who were trained at the U.S. Army base near the Rukban Camp tried to leave the Al-Tanf area.”

He said that

“the gunmen decided to surrender to the government forces and return to a peaceful life, but on the borders of the 55-km security zone, a group of extremist gangs attacked by the so-called ‘Commandos of the Revolution’, supported by the United States.”

He continued:

“As a result of the clash, the fighters lost 3 trucks, and 27 people managed to escape, and they are currently in Palmyra under the protection of the Syrian Arab Army.”

He added that they

“handed over dozens of small arms, including rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, including weapons manufactured in Western countries.”

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On the eighteenth anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup against the government of Venezuela, senior American officials announced that the people should prepare for another imminent push. “The goal is to replace [President Nicolas] Maduro’s illegitimate dictatorship with a legitimate transitional government that can hold free and fair elections to represent all Venezuelans. It is time for Maduro to go,” announced Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

On Saturday the eleventh, exactly 18 years after the U.S. supported a briefly successful coup against Hugo Chavez, American envoy for Venezuela and coup specialist Elliott Abrams warned that if Maduro resisted the implementation of said “transitional government” his departure would be far more “dangerous and abrupt,” effectively threatening him with another assassination attempt, like the one the U.S. tacitly supported in 2018.

The U.S. has recently upped its sanctions against Venezuela and sent warships to the region to enforce a blockade.

The phrase “transitional government” has been used a great deal of late; the White House describing Bolivia’s Añez administration as such. Añez came to power in November thanks to a U.S.-supported coup against President Evo Morales. That “transitional government” has since massacred protestors, pulled Bolivia out of multiple international treaties and indefinitely suspended elections. Thus, it came as no surprise when Maduro rejected the same fate as his ally, Morales. “We will take care of Venezuela,” he replied, “Mr. Abrams, cool your jets.”

13 April 2002: Nicolás Maduro Moros stands among the Venezuelan people in the streets, demanding freedom for Comandante Hugo Chávez. pic.twitter.com/KtmuY8aWyz

— Camila (@camilateleSUR) April 12, 2019

Maduro is well aware of the history of U.S. coups in his country, having been part of a counter-demonstration that successfully overturned the April 2002 putsch. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that coup leaders at the time traveled back and forth to Washington D.C. several times in the months leading up to the event, where they received counsel and training from American officials. NED and USAID funding for the groups who carried it out quadrupled in 2002 and then quadrupled again in 2003. The U.S. government incontrovertibly knew by at least April 6 that a coup carried out by those they were funding and training was about to occur. But instead of alerting the government, they immediately endorsed events, falsely claiming that President Chavez had massacred his own people and then resigned.

Since then, Washington has never stopped attempting to remove the United Socialist Party from power, refusing to accept the validity of widely-lauded presidential elections in 2013 and 2018, funding virtually the entire spectrum of the domestic opposition for two decades. A number of other, less successful coups attempts have all been met with at least tacit American approval as well, including 2014 and 2017 waves of terrorist violence, a failed 2018 assassination of Maduro, and four separate coup attempts last year by self-declared president Juan Guaidó.

The Trump administration has also ramped up Obama’s sanctions on the country, leading to over 100,000 deaths, according to an American U.N. Special Rapporteur who visited the country, describing them as akin to a medieval siege and declaring Trump guilty of crimes against humanity.

Abrams’ life’s work has been to use the power of the U.S. government – overtly and covertly – to overthrow sovereign states through coups, sanctions and genocides. On his first day as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs under Ronald Reagan in 1981, he jumped into action, covering up the now-infamous El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, conducted by a death squad created, armed and trained by Washington. Since then he has been an architect of “dirty wars,” genocides and regime change in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia and Panama, among others. As Jon Swartz of The Intercept wrote:

The choice of Abrams sends a clear message to Venezuela and the world: The Trump administration intends to brutalize Venezuela, while producing a stream of unctuous rhetoric about America’s love for democracy and human rights.”

When Rep. Ilhan Omar brought up some of this history during a 2019 House Committee on Foreign Relations last year, he appeared outraged, almost beyond words.

Despite the sanctions, the Venezuelan government has actually proven to be far more capable of handling the coronavirus pandemic than the Trump administration. Even before any confirmed cases, Maduro declared a health emergency, canceling foreign flights and prohibiting crowds. On the day of the first case, schools, theaters, and restaurants were closed, and wearing a mask in public became mandatory. The government created a national online database and website where unwell citizens could inform authorities of their condition. Over 20,000 people who registered were immediately visited in their homes by medics. The country has reported only 181 infections and 9 deaths.

While Pompeo and Abrams’ latest remarks are a grave threat to the sovereignty of Venezuela, they are not novel, Venezuelans have been hearing similar proclamations for nearly two decades. Whether they will succeed where previous administrations before them have failed remains to be seen.

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Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.

Towards A New World Order, The Global Debt Crisis and the Privatization of the State

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 17, 2020

There is a serious health crisis which must be duly resolved. And this is a number one priority.

But there is another important dimension which has to be addressed.

Millions of people have lost their jobs, and their lifelong savings. In developing countries, poverty and despair prevail.

While the lockdown is presented to public opinion as  the sole means to resolving a global public health crisis,  its devastating economic and social impacts are casually ignored.

How Complex Is this Pneumonia Crisis? Millions of People Lost Their Jobs, Food is Disappearing…

By Cal Crilly, April 17, 2020

How complex is this? If 8 Million people die from air pollution a year, is the virus THE crisis?

Today is 8th of April 2020 and as I type this millions and millions of people have lost their jobs for some weeks now, food is disappearing, they are in lock down conditions in shanty towns, too scared to go out, walking home or trapped in the street crackdowns, India, South Africa, Philippines, all collapsed.

The Coronavirus and the Economic Crisis this Time

By Prof. Sam Gindin, April 16, 2020

The crisis this time is unique in an especially topsy-turvy way. The world, as Alice would express it, is getting “curiouser and curiouser.” In past capitalist crises, the state intervened to try and get the economy going again. This time, the immediate focus of states is not on how to revive the economy, but how to further restrict it. This is obviously so because the economy hasn’t been brought to its knees by economic factors or struggles from below, but rather, by a mysterious virus. Ending its hold over us is the first priority. In introducing the language of ‘social distancing’ and ‘self-quarantine’ to cope with the emergency, governments have suspended the social interactions that constitute a good part of the world of work and consumption, the world of the economy.

“Something Has Gone Wrong”: UK Government, Banks Screw Up Coronavirus Loans, Small Firms Near Collapse. Better Results in Other Countries

By Nick Corbishley, April 16, 2020

On March 19, the day the economy went into lockdown, the government unveiled £330 billion of emergency measures to help shuttered businesses weather the storm. Those measures included the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), which the Chancellor of Exchequer Rishi Sunak said would be made available to “any good business in financial difficulty who needs access to cash to pay their rent, the salaries of their employees, pay suppliers, or purchase stock”. Yet almost four weeks later, just 4,000 of the 300,000 companies that have applied for the funds have actually received them.

The Russia-Saudi Oil-Price War Is a Fraud and a Farce

By Mike Whitney, April 16, 2020

The Russia-Saudi oil-price war is a fabrication concocted by the media. There’s not a word of truth to any of it. Yes, there was a dust up at an OPEC meeting in early March that led to production increases and plunging prices. That part is true. But Saudi Arabia’s oil-dumping strategy wasn’t aimed at Russia, it was aimed at US shale oil producers. But not for the reasons you’ve read about in the media.

IMF Projects Global Economy in 2020 to Contract by a Mere 3%. Is this a Joke?

By Peter Koenig, April 15, 2020

Yes, the IMF’s call for debt relief is certainly a good thing. But it’s precisely the IMF and the World Bank, who have to start forgiving debt in poor countries, instead of waiting for others to go first. Well, we are seeing that not even in Greece the IMF is capable of writing off the -literally – deadly debt.

Simply back to normal is this time not the case. And its maybe a good thing. All the misery that this – and let me emphasize – this planned destruction of the global economy – will bring to particularly the poorer nations and their people, is barely the tip of the iceberg. – This literal collapse of the global economy is a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to break loose from the predatory and fraudulent dollar-economy  – deglobalize and get out from the fangs of the IMF, World Bank and alike.

Understanding Great Recessions. The Dynamics of Epic Recession

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, April 13, 2020

Much can be learned about the trajectory and nature of the current 2020 Great Recessions 2.0 underway by understanding what went on in similar deep economic contractions that are combined with financial-banking instability and crashes.

The so-called ‘Great Recession of 2008-09’ was one such ‘dual’ crisis. Another occurred in early years of the Great Depression of the 1930s, from 1929 to 1931. Another is the financial crash of 1907-08 and its aftermath of four years of stagnant growth and re-recessions.

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This article was originally published in 2016.

Millions of Nigerians are urging the Nigerian government to reject Monsanto’s attempts to introduce genetically modified (GMO) cotton and maize into the country’s food and farming systems.

One-hundred organizations representing more than 5 million Nigerians, including farmers, faith-based organisations, civil society groups, students and local community groups, have submitted a joint objection to the country’s National Biosafety Management Agency (NABMA) expressing serious concerns about human health and environmental risks of genetically altered crops.

The groups’ petition follows Monsanto Agricultural Nigeria Limited’s own application to NAMBA that seeks to release GMO cotton (Bt cotton, event MON 15985) into the city of Zaria as well as surrounding towns. Another application seeks confined field trials of two GMO corn varieties (NK603 and stacked event MON 89034 x NK603) in multiple locations in Nigeria.

In a press release, the groups said they are particularly alarmed about the commercial release of Bt cotton into Nigeria, which is being phased out in Burkina Faso due to the “inferior lint quality” of the GMO cultivars.

“We are totally shocked that it should come so soon after peer-reviewed studies have showed that the technology has failed dismally in Burkina Faso,” Nnimmo Bassey, the director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, one of the leading opposition groups, said in a statement. “It has brought nothing but economic misery to the cotton sector there and is being phased out in that country where compensation is being sought from Monsanto.”

He asked in the statement:

“Since our Biosafety Act has only recently entered into force, what biosafety legislation was used to authorize and regulate the field trials in the past in accordance with international law and best biosafety practice?”

Former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan signed the National Biosafety Management Bill into law last year, basically opening the doors to GMOs cultivation in the country.

NO GMO AFRICA! @GMOEvidence: Groups in #Nigeria Slam Monsanto Plan 2 Intro GM Crops #SustainablePulsehttps://t.co/wy5gKPOMXz#Monsanto

— 🌱RashidaDavis🍞🍍🍅 (@ReallyNourish) March 28, 2016

The groups noted Monsanto’s crops are genetically enhanced to tolerate the use of the herbicide glyphosate which was declared as a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) last March.

“Should commercialization of Monsanto’s GM maize be allowed pursuant to field trials, this will result in increased use of glyphosate in Nigeria, a chemical that is linked to causing cancer in humans,” Mariann Orovwuje, Friends of the Earth International’s food sovereignty co-coordinator, said in a statement.

“Recent studies have linked glyphosate to health effects such as degeneration of the liver and kidney, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. That NABMA is even considering this application is indeed unfortunate and deeply regrettable, knowing full well about the uncontrolled exposure that our rural farmers and communities living close to farms will be exposed to.”

Besides the potential contamination of local maize varieties, the groups argued that the health risks of introducing GMO maize into Nigeria could be “enormous” considering that maize is a staple food in their diet.

Coupled with a lack of resources to adequately control and monitor the human and environmental risks of GMO crops and glyphosate, the groups argued that Nigeria doesn’t have a platform to test for glyphosate or other pesticide residues in food and food products, nor do they have an agency that can monitor the herbicide’s impact on the environment, including water resources.

On the flip side, GMO-advocates tout that biotechnology is not only safe for human consumption and the environment, it’s also a solution to malnutrition and global food security, as these crops have been genetically tinkered with to provide certain nutritional benefits and/or spliced-and-diced to resist certain pathogens and other roadblocks.

For instance, Monsanto’s Water Efficient Maize for Africa, a five-year development project led by the Kenyan-based African Agricultural Technology Foundation, aims to develop a variety of drought-tolerant maize seeds. The project receives funding from the Gates Foundation, United States Agency for International Development and Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

In an interview with Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Blumenstein, Bill Gates explained his views about GMOs:

“What are called GMOs are done by changing the genes of the plant, and it’s done in a way where there’s a very thorough safety procedure, and it’s pretty incredible because it reduces the amount of pesticide you need, raises productivity (and) can help with malnutrition by getting vitamin fortification

“And so I think, for Africa, this is going to make a huge difference, particularly as they face climate change … The U.S., China, Brazil, are using these things and if you want farmers in Africa to improve nutrition and be competitive on the world market, you know, as long as the right safety things are done, that’s really beneficial. It’s kind of a second round of the green revolution. And so the Africans I think will choose to let their people have enough to eat.”

But in the video below, Bassey objects to the argument that GMOs are necessary to ensure food security and nutrition in Africa and that the continent can feed itself without the aid of multinational biotech companies.

“Genetically engineered crops are not engineered to help anybody,” he says about six minutes into the video. “They are engineered to help the industry that produces the crops.”

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The US Navy charged Wednesday that 11 Iranian vessels had “repeatedly conducted dangerous and harassing approaches against multiple US naval ships operating in international waters.”

The protest, issued by the command of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, represented a further ratcheting up of tensions that have steadily escalated since 2018, when the Trump administration unilaterally and unlawfully abrogated the 2015 nuclear agreement between Teheran and the major powers. Since then, Washington has imposed a “maximum pressure” sanctions regime, tantamount to a state of war, and steadily built up its air, land and sea forces confronting Iran.

The “dangerous” actions consisted of small speedboats belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) allegedly coming too close to a squadron of US warships sailing close to Iranian waters. These warships included the expeditionary mobile base vessel Lewis B. Puller—a ship designed to serve as a platform for a US invasion—the Paul Hamilton, a guided missile destroyer, the coastal patrol boats Firebolt and Sirocco, and two Coast Guard ships, the Wrangell and Maui.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) vessels cross the path of US warships in Persian Gulf.

NAVCENT, the naval arm of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees US military operations throughout the Middle East and in Afghanistan, stated, “The IRGCN’s dangerous and provocative actions increased the risk of miscalculation and collision, were not in accordance with the internationally recognized Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS) ‘rules of the road’ or internationally recognized maritime customs, and were not in accordance with the obligation under international law to act with due regard for the safety of other vessels in the area.”

The claim that the monitoring of a US naval force within striking distance of Iranian shores constitutes a “provocative action” is absurd on its face. One can only imagine the US reaction if an Iranian naval force were to conduct similar operations off the coast of Florida. The provocation that gives rise to any alleged incident is US imperialism’s own aggressive deployment in the Persian Gulf.

As for the invocation of Iran’s “obligation under international law,” Washington is hardly in a position to lecture Teheran on such matters. In January, it carried out the drone assassination of one of Iran’s most senior officials, Gen. Qassem Suleimani, at Baghdad’s international airport, one of the most egregious violations of international law imaginable. It has defied the rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which has found US sanctions illegal.

Moreover, the Trump administration has maintained and intensified the sanctions regime under conditions in which Iran faces one of the worst outbreaks of the coronavirus pandemic on the planet. As of Thursday, the official figures were 76,389 cases and 4,777 deaths. As everywhere, these numbers are a severe underestimation of the true ravages of the disease.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other American officials have cynically claimed that the “maximum pressure” sanctions regime does not affect humanitarian supplies, which are exempt under the language of the punitive US measures. However, this exemption is pure fiction. By labeling Iran’s central bank a terrorist entity and threatening all companies and financial institutions doing business with the country with secondary sanctions, Washington has effectively cut off Iran’s access to critically needed medicines and medical supplies. This murderous sanctions regime has cost the lives of Iranians suffering from cancer and other diseases even before the advent of COVID-19.

On Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif denounced Washington for its decision to withdraw funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) in the midst of the raging pandemic, saying that it had exposed the world to the same criminal policy that had been carried out against Iran.

“The world is learning what Iran has known and experienced all along: US regime’s bullying, threatening & vainglorious blathering isn’t just an addiction: it kills people,” Zarif tweeted. “Like ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran, the shameful defunding of WHO amid a pandemic will live in infamy.”

The Iranian government’s request for a $5 billion emergency credit from the International Monetary Fund to support its fight against the coronavirus—the first such request from the country in half a century—has been blocked by Washington, which exercises a de facto veto over the decisions of the IMF’s governing board.

Washington’s provocative operations in the Persian Gulf are unfolding as the US Navy confronts a deepening crisis over the ever-widening spread of the coronavirus among American sailors. The scope of the problem was first laid bare after the commander of the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, Capt. Brett Crozier, addressed a letter to over 20 senior officers in the Pacific Command demanding that his ship be evacuated and its crew quarantined after dozens of them became sick from the virus.

Crozier’s plea, “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” earned him the wrath of the White House and the Pentagon for cutting across the militarist objectives of US imperialism and exposing the lie that the government had the pandemic under control. His summary firing and subsequent denunciation by the acting US Navy secretary before his crew unleashed a political firestorm that forced the secretary, Thomas Modly, to resign.

The Navy has since been forced to accede to Crozier’s demand, evacuating and quarantining the ship’s crew in Guam. Some 600 of the ship’s sailors have tested positive and the first of them, a 41-year-old chief petty officer, died from COVID-19 on Monday.

Three other aircraft carriers, the Nimitz, the Ronald Reagan and the Carl Vinson are also being held in port because of sailors testing positive, while a fourth, the Truman, is being kept at sea for fear that its crew will become infected if it comes into port.

Former Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who held the post from 2009 to 2017, said Wednesday that the only way to confront the spread of coronavirus was to bring every US Navy ship into port and quarantine the majority of their crews while the vessels are given a deep clean.

“What I think what they need to do is bring every ship in,” said Mabus. “Offload most of the crew … leave a very skeletal force on board, sanitize the ship, quarantine people for two weeks, make sure nobody’s got COVID.” After that, he added, crews would have to be kept on the ships indefinitely until the pandemic is mitigated.

Unless such drastic measures were taken, he warned, “You’re going to see the situation that played out on the Roosevelt play out over and over again, not just on those big ships, but virtually every ship that we have in the Navy.”

That the Pentagon has no intention of taking such steps to protect rank-and-file sailors, disrupting US imperialism’s aggressive operations worldwide in the process, was made clear by the Trump administration’s Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

Referring to 90 other US warships at sea, Esper stated in an interview Thursday, “They’ve had no problems, completely ready, conducting their wartime mission today. This was a special case. We’re going to get it behind us. And I’m sure that T.R. will be back to sea soon, performing its important wartime mission.”

Esper offered no explanation as to what war any of these ships are fighting. His use of the phrase “wartime mission,” however, is an indication that no matter how disastrous the impact of the coronavirus upon the US population, Washington has no intention of curtailing its military aggression abroad or halting its preparation for a third world war.

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How complex is this? If 8 Million people die from air pollution a year, is the virus THE crisis?

Today is 8th of April 2020 and as I type this millions and millions of people have lost their jobs for some weeks now, food is disappearing, they are in lock down conditions in shanty towns, too scared to go out, walking home or trapped in the street crackdowns, India, South Africa, Philippines, all collapsed.

“My family has been struggling to get a meal every day. We cannot go back to our villages as there is a curfew. It will be a miracle if we survive this period,” Pratap Kumar, a construction worker.

“If the virus does not kill us, hunger certainly will. What the government has promised us in terms of remuneration has not reached us,” said Sanjay Deep, an agricultural worker.

India’s government discusses end of lockdown as millions struggle to find food

In India there have been 106 coronavirus deaths as of today, to put things in perspective 3,000 Indian children starve to death each day so that’s roughly 42,000 children since the lockdown began and 300,000 so far this year.

A lockdown seems like an ineffective cure.

Modi is going to keep it going despite the obvious disaster.

There are staggering multi-factors involved and a lot of exaggerating.

The 2017 flu is a good example, in Australia I remember everyone coughed from late 2016 and when I visited the UK in late 2016 everyone was coughing badly there and then everyone in Australia coughed all through 2017, around 1,100 Australians died. I work checkouts so back then I came up with the term ‘Stereo coughing’ as in listening to multiple people coughing in a supermarket.

The American figures for the ‘2017-2018 season was an estimated 45 million influenza illnesses, 21 million influenza-associated medical visits, 810,000 influenza-related hospitalizations, and 61,000 influenza-associated deaths’

38,000 deaths occurred in the USA over the 2016 winter.

12, 857 coronavirus deaths in the USA as of today is the perspective.

This was France back in 2017 with an ‘austerity’ health system in action.

‘flu sufferers, the vast majority of whom are elderly, were sometimes waiting “24 hours on stretchers” for treatment, resulting in a large number of “preventable deaths”.

French hospitals cancel operations amid brutal flu epidemic

Pollution has been an enormous factor

People’s lungs have been fragile enough in Wuhan for people to protest in 2019 so pneumonia, lung cancer, asthma and Tuberculosis are all common problems in Wuhan and other Chinese cities and shouldn’t be dismissed as factors.

‘On June 28, residents of the Yangluo residential district in the central Chinese city of Wuhan took to the streets to protest the construction of a waste-to-energy plant in the district. The protests, which occurred outside the city government’s offices, were met with a large contingent of regular and riot police, according to pictures and comments circulated on Weibo, and the violent response of the police was widely condemned by netizens.

Wuhan, like many cities in China, faces a waste disposal problem, as growing urbanization leads to dense population centers with little room for refuse. Wuhan’s city message board contains several complaints about smells emanating from the landfill currently located in Yangluo, as well as concerns about the construction of the new landfills.’

Environmental Protest Breaks out in China’s Wuhan City

Everyone’s lungs were already damaged in Iran, this was the end of 2019.

“Air pollution forced schools to close on Sunday in parts of Iran including Tehran, as the capital lay under a thick cloud of smog considered hazardous to health.

The pollution level in the capital was “unhealthy for sensitive groups” and officials warned the young, elderly and people with respiratory illnesses to stay indoors, with sporting activities suspended.

Intense smog forces schools to close in Iran, trucks to steer clear of Tehran

Everyone’s lungs were already damaged in Italy

‘It is only the end of February, but air pollution in Milan has already exceeded the legal limit for 2019, and the Po Valley swims in a soupy smog.

“I can really feel when there’s smog, I suffer all winter long,” 45-year old Milan local Fabio Cigognini told AFP, describing the asthma-like symptoms which plague him during the cold months.

“We breathe in poison, but no one tells us anything,” he said.’

‘We breathe in poison’: Why the Po Valley is one of the most polluted places in Italy

Does anyone remember the Killer London Smog in 1952 which killed 12,000 people in 4 days? Milan had the same smog all this winter.

“More than a dozen cities and towns across Italy introduced traffic curbs on Wednesday (Jan 8) in a bid to cut harmful emissions following a spike in pollution.

A prolonged period of sunny weather with little rain or wind has pushed up air pollution across the country, triggering smog alerts in more than 60 municipalities.”

Italy slaps curbs on cars as pollution chokes cities

‘Turin, Milan and Naples are the worst cities in the EU for dangerous particulate pollution, while Italy has the bloc’s highest number of premature deaths from nitrogen dioxide fumes spewed out by diesel vehicles, according to the European Environment Agency.’

These are the 55 most polluted towns in Italy

And France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

‘The Commission warned that citizens in these five countries were being forced to breathe ‘illegal air’ due to the high amounts of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) that were being emitted into the air.

NO2 is primarily emitted through transport and causes serious health issues— including heart disease, wheezing, coughing and bronchitis. Children and the elderly are especially vulnerable. ‘

Italy ranks second on the list of countries with the highest number of premature deaths from particulate matter (the sum of all hazardous solid and liquid particles in the air) pollution in Europe.

The pollution in Italy derives mostly from diesel vehicles and the burning of solid fuels, the report said.

“Air pollution in Lombardy is alarmingly high. It has similar levels of pollution to the most heavily industrialised regions on the continent despite the fact it is one of the richest. It has the means to resolve this crisis but continues to dither,” ClientEarth’s CEO, James Thornton, said.

Italy slapped with air pollution lawsuit

‘The European Commission has threatened legal action against France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK after they failed to protect their citizens’ health against dangerous levels of air pollution.

Limits on NO2 are being broken, which can cause lung infections and heart disease.

In 2013, NO2 killed almost 70,000 people, which was almost three times more people than were killed in road traffic accidents that same year.

Children with asthma and elderly people with heart disease are particularly vulnerable to problems that coincide with breathing air polluted by NO2— such as wheezing, coughing, and bronchitis.’

Five countries face fines after breaking EU pollution laws

In between the smog a sandstorm went over the Canary Islands in late February and then veered North to Ireland with Spain and France on the way.

‘SAHARAN sands were found in many parts of Limerick this weekend, leaving many people dumbfounded – and many cars in need of a wash.

This Sunday, car windshields in Mungret, Dooradoyle and in multiple parts of the county were covered in a fine dusting of a sand-like substance after rainfall the previous night.

“Sometimes you get the dust blowing off the Sahara desert and the particles of that dust are so small that they easily stay up in the atmosphere,” he told the Limerick Leader. “They just get brought up by winds up the Atlantic and then blown on shore here in Ireland.’

Sands From Sahara Make Their Way To Limerick.

Last year there were volcanoes filling the stratosphere and making skies purple. Interesting times.

Cosmic rays are also high enough in my opinion to blow the Ozone hole with Nitric Oxide, if that is possible then add more Nitric Oxide to the smog formula while a prolonged proton/cosmic ray storm is happening during solar minimum.

There is a testing factor, test more people and you will get more deaths attached to a positive test.

‘Some officials also believe Italy, which has already tested over 42, 000 people, may have a higher number of cases as a result of performing more rigorous tests than their European counterparts.

Italy, however, is also reporting an above average mortality rate at 4%. The average age of coronavirus patients who have died because of the virus in Italy is 81, according to the National Health Institute. Italy, which has one the world’s oldest populations, could be facing a higher mortality rate as a result of its above-average elderly population. “Italy is the oldest country in the oldest continent in the world.’

Why Is Italy’s Coronavirus Outbreak So Bad?

There may hardly be a health system in place, after years of austerity and Neo-Liberal cuts to services and outsourcing to the cheapest bidder, a private health system couldn’t cope and it seems there were no supplies in the store rooms

‘The Madrid region, which arguably saw the heaviest wave of privatizations, is now under enormous strain given that it is also the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus outbreak.’

Spain Austerity Legacy Cripples Coronavirus Fight

The stats say we are freaking out and 2017 may still have been worse.

Covid19 yet to impact Europe’s overall mortality

Year-to-date statistics show excess mortality lower than previous years

The coronavirus test may be quite random on what it picks up, in Iceland half of the Corona Poz people had no symptoms.
A Chinese study questioned how accurate it was but that will be getting removed.

The test looks like a scam and a waste of money when we need all the things to treat all causes of pneumonia at the hospital first, that’s the problem.

There is now an end of the supply chain worldwide as well.

“Conclusions: In the close contacts of COVID-19 patients, nearly half or even more of the ‘asymptomatic infected individuals’ reported in the active nucleic acid test screening might be false positives.

[WITHDRAWN: Potential False-Positive Rate Among the ‘Asymptomatic Infected Individuals’ in Close Contacts of COVID-19 Patients]

Coronaviruses are normally found in lung transplant donor lungs so everyone may have them. Dogs get coronaviruses and so do cats.

“Thirty-four studies describing the clinical impact of influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenza, human metapneumovirus, rhinovirus, enterovirus, coronavirus, bocavirus or adenovirus were identified.”

Respiratory Viruses in Lung Transplant Recipients: A Critical Review and Pooled Analysis of Clinical Studies

People who got the flu vaccine may be susceptible to coronaviruses.

“Examining non-influenza viruses specifically, the odds of both coronavirus and human metapneumovirus in vaccinated individuals were significantly higher when compared to unvaccinated individuals”

Influenza vaccination and respiratory virus interference among Department of Defense personnel during the 2017–2018 influenza season

Old people with heart disease are susceptible and drugs may worsen that.

Another Catch 22 here is half of the normal heart care services are being cancelled to deal with viruses.

“We therefore hypothesise that diabetes and hypertension treatment with ACE2-stimulating drugs increases the risk of developing severe and fatal COVID-19.”

Are patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus at increased risk for COVID-19 infection?

Corticosteroid treatment to ‘soothe inflamed lungs’ allows pathogens including bacteria to have a party.

A month after this warning ‘Yet steroids also can impair the immune system’s ability to fight viruses and other infections’ apparently steroid use was still being thrown around like lollies. The antiviral results of steroids are quite plain.

“Our findings suggested “early” corticosteroid treatment was associated with a higher subsequent plasma viral load.’

Effects of Early Corticosteroid Treatment on Plasma SARS-associated Coronavirus RNA Concentrations in Adult Patients

Lack of sunlight also causes immune failure, a lockdown prevents sun exposure.

We are being told to avoid parks, beaches and stay in as much as possible.

“The virus was inactivated by ultraviolet light (UV) at 254 nm, heat treatment of 65 degrees C or greater…”

Inactivation of the coronavirus that induces severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS-CoV

Lots of old people were left in their beds.

‘Soldiers drafted in to help Spain tackle the coronavirus pandemic by disinfecting and running residential homes have found a number of elderly people abandoned and dead in their beds, according to the country’s defence minister.’

Spanish minister says older people found ‘dead and abandoned’

It is guaranteed lots of old people are freaking out at home alone.

A care worker from overseas told me this so multiply the story by thousands.

“I’ve been doing senior caregiving for the last 15 years, not in a retirement home, private home care. One of my clients, an 80-year-old, living alone, is terrified via MSM and wasn’t letting anyone in to her house. She’s on oxygen and a revolving door of meds. She has lost her appetite and is only drinking Ensure. Today I brought some distilled water for her oxygen tank. I had to bring it in, cuz she’s too weak to pick up a gallon container. I suited up and she opened the garage door to the kitchen. Her house all closed-up and dark. The place is a mess and so is she. It’s so frustrating and sad and so wrong!! I’m sure there are millions who don’t have anyone checking or caring.”

Fear raises cortisol which never helps with viral shedding, scaring people is not a cure.

“Basal cortisol production (operationalized as the calculated area-under-the-curve averaged across the 3 days) showed a graded association with infection risk, with those producing higher levels of cortisol being at greater risk. Cortisol also showed a continuous association with duration of viral shedding, an indicator of viral replication and continuing infection, such that higher cortisol concentrations predicted more days of shedding. Cortisol was not, however, related to severity of objective illness. “

Basal Salivary Cortisol Secretion and Susceptibility to Upper Respiratory Infection

Fauci in his own words said this is like flu so should we stop work and be afraid to breathe?

‘On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%.4 In another article in the Journal, Guan et al.5 report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.’

Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted

Does it compare with flu?

Yes.

‘The new coronavirus causing COVID-19 has led to more than 454,000 illnesses and more than 20,550 deaths worldwide. For comparison, in the U.S. alone, the flu (also called influenza) has caused an estimated 38 million illnesses, 390,000 hospitalizations and 23,000 deaths this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That said, scientists have studied seasonal flu for decades. So, despite the danger of it, we know a lot about flu viruses and what to expect each season. In contrast, very little is known about the new coronavirus and the disease it causes, dubbed COVID-19, because it’s so new. This means COVID-19 is something of a wild card in terms of how far it will spread and how many deaths it will cause.

“Despite the morbidity and mortality with influenza, there’s a certainty … of seasonal flu,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a White House press conference on Jan. 31. “I can tell you all, guaranteed, that as we get into March and April, the flu cases are going to go down. You could predict pretty accurately what the range of the mortality is and the hospitalizations [will be],” Fauci said. “The issue now with [COVID-19] is that there’s a lot of unknowns.”’

How does the new coronavirus compare with the flu?

The effect of ‘a lot of unknowns’ is actually catastrophic for people though.

‘Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading voice on the White House coronavirus task force, called the stunning loss of 10 million American jobs in two weeks “inconvenient,” maintaining that the economic hit is a mere side effect of necessary COVID-19 precautions.

“This is inconvenient from an economic and a personal standpoint, but we just have to do it,” Fauci told host Savannah Guthrie, backing what is effectively a national 30-day stay-at-home order.

Dr. Fauci then suggested an upcoming extension of the federal stay-at-home order until there is a vaccine, which could take well over a year or potentially years.

The shutdown “is our major weapon against this virus right now,” he said. “We don’t have a vaccine that’s deployable. This is the only thing we have.”

“We can get through it if everybody really leans forward and pushes on that,” Dr. Fauci added.

The Department of Labor announced Thursday “the highest level” of jobless claims in the history of the United States.

“After 3.3 million people claimed unemployment two weeks ago, which was by far the largest number ever for the country, another 6.6 million filed for new unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total to nearly 10 million in just two weeks. The previous high was 695,000 in a week back in 1982.”

Dr. Fauci: 10 Million Job Losses ‘Inconvenient’ But ‘We Just Have To Do It’

But nurses are losing jobs, don’t we need nurses?

‘An anxious ER nurse in Los Angeles took to Facebook recently to ask whether any of her colleagues nationwide were experiencing layoffs because hospital emergency rooms are virtually empty — one of the most surprising unintended consequences of the coronavirus crisis.

“This doesn’t seem to be talked about at all… People are losing their shifts and paychecks and jobs,” the L.A. nurse wrote. “We only had 5 people in the whole ER when they sent me home. My agency sent out an email blast basically saying that there are a lot of people struggling to find shifts.

“So, I’m curious if any other nurses are experiencing this?”

The response to her post was overwhelming.

More than 140 responses from across the country were posted on the Facebook private group page “All-ER nurses.” Most were concerned about diminished hours — or having no work at all — and the economic distress that would follow.

“Yes, we are dealing with some COVID-19 patients,” he said. “It’s just not nearly the war zone the media is making it out to be.

Unexpected Consequence of COVID-19 Crisis: Empty Emergency Rooms

One of the good signs has been the use of vitamin C in patients, finally.

My suggestion also would be to use vitamin B3 as well with food in low doses of 100mg to 200mg as I use it for asthma, it works and makes you breathe.

I take the full 500mg of B3 to breathe at night but always with dinner, it is bit like Sudafed so people know. B3 also lessens cytokine storm damage.

“The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C,” he said.

“It helps a tremendous amount, but it is not highlighted because it’s not a sexy drug.”

New York Hospitals Treating Coronavirus Patients With Vitamin C

Not sexy alright.

There is a bizarre war going on in health care where any study on the use of vitamin C is contradicted. So our TGA in Australia issued a warning ‘about vitamin C use’ and to ‘not believe in any studies’ the day after this vitamin C suggestion from China.

‘The COVID-19 (SARS-2-Cov) pandemic, first reported in Wuhan, China, is now spreading to many continents and countries, causing a severe public health burden. Currently, there is no vaccine or specific antiviral drug for this deadly disease. A quick, deployable and accessible, effective and safe treatment is urgently needed to save lives and curtail the spreading. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a key factor of fatality. Significantly increased oxidative stress due to rapid release of free radicals and cytokines is the hallmark of ARDS which leads to cellular injury, organ failure and death. Early use of large dose antioxidants, such as vitamin C (VC) may become an effective treatment for these patients. Clinical studies also show that high-dose oral VC provides certain protection against viral infection. Neither intravenous nor oral administration of high-dose VC is associated with significant side effects. Therefore, this regimen should be included in the treatment of COVID-19 and used as a preventative measure for susceptible populations such as healthcare workers with higher exposure risks.’

Can early and high intravenous dose of vitamin C prevent and treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)?

This is not just insane it is quite irresponsible and endangers lives by telling flu sufferers to just use aspirin and ibuprofen with extra fluids.

This is the Australian government in charge of your health. Here.

I am not sure what they are thinking, do they ever want people to get well?

No evidence to support intravenous high-dose vitamin C in the management of COVID-19

I can also say the lemons and orange stands at my supermarket have been largely full for most of the panic shopping because of TGA advice to avoid them.

If you have just read scathing reports on how vitamin C never works, read this.

“Humans have lost their vitamin C-synthesizing capacities during evolution. Therefore, the uptake of this essential compound from external sources is mandatory in order to prevent vitamin C-deficient conditions resulting in severe morbidities such as scurvy. The potent antioxidant, immunomodulatory, and antiinfectious effects of vitamin C are known since the 1930s. We here (i) review the impact of vitamin C on innate and adaptive immune functions, (ii) provide an overview of its antimicrobial, antibacterial, antiviral, antiparasitic, and antifungal properties, and finally, (iii) discuss vitamin C as an adjunct treatment option for the combat of human infections by bacteria, particularly by emerging multidrug-resistant species.” 2019

Immunomodulatory and antimicrobial effects of vitamin C

If 42,000 Indian kids have died from starvation in the last 2 weeks, 300,000 this year?

Where is the main crisis?

Fauci won’t help, Bill Gates won’t help.

9 million people die each year from lack of food.

2.5 billion have no water, taps or toilets for their soap.

Tedros Adhanom the Coronavirus expert from WHO scaring us to death about pneumonia is also a tobacconist hustler, so he has a mansion and can stay in by the pool and self-isolate.

He also has a chauffeur and can drive around too.

Hustling tobacco, running the health agency for pneumonia and TB, cushy jobs.

‘In 2013, The Lancet reported that the Ethiopian Government authorised British American Tobacco (BAT) to post hundreds of posters advertising Rothmans cigarettes in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, an action that seems to have been in breach of Ethiopia’s own laws on tobacco advertising. At that time, Tedros, as Foreign Minister, did not appear to speak out publicly against this advertising.

Indeed, not long after he became Foreign Minister, Tedros attended a meeting in London with William Hague, encouraging BAT, among other UK businesses, to invest in Ethiopia.’

Questions around the candidacy of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for WHO DG

Meanwhile….

“Ashu, 12 | ragpicker

Ashu and his two brothers spend their days in one of Delhi’s largest garbage dumps. They are rag pickers, scavengers looking for scrap metal using a giant, rusty sieve to help them sort the stinky debris.

If Ashu works very hard, he can earn 53 cents a day. He and his brothers have been unable to go to the landfill regularly since the closure was announced because if the police catch them, they will be beaten.

“I miss my friends,” he said, adding that he and four friends would meet in the garbage can every morning, work for a few hours, and then play with the treasures they found: broken toy cars, tattered dolls, and torn clothes.

“I heard that there is a China virus,” Ashu said. “But I am more afraid of the police and not being able to eat.”

For Indian Workers Blocking The Coronavirus Is An Order To Starve

A fiction writer couldn’t make this leadership story up

‘During a radio address on Sunday, Modi encouraged Indians cooped up at home to reach out to childhood friends on social media, dust off old musical instruments and introspect. “Don’t go out but go inside,” said Modi. “Try to know yourself.”

He has also shared some cartoon videos called “Yoga with Modi” for keeping fit, and encouraged people to watch them on a special Modi app.

He has also created a relief fund – PM-CARES – sidelining a decades-old traditional prime ministerial aid fund.

“Why the self-aggrandizing name, PM-CARES? Must a colossal national tragedy also be (mis)used to enhance the cult of personality?” historian Ramachandra Guha, a Modi critic, said on Twitter.’…. The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.

India’s coronavirus lockdown hits poor, tests Modi’s support

Yesterday the Delhi govt handed over the phone numbers of 1,950 Tablighi Jamaat members to the police so the search and crackdown to collect them and ‘isolate’ is going on today and tonight in Delhi with a full moon, ghastly.

This is a recipe for the unspeakable and going on in many countries.

There are critics of this lockdown, the exaggerations, the panic, the laws to stop, block and detain people but the media and government seems to have gone a bit medieval in the 21st Century.

Heads up to all.

Stay safe.

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Featured image is from OneWorld

The liberal media — New York Times and Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC, The Daily Beast, Alternet, Mother Jones, Daily Kos and others—has in Chris Hedge’s words, “betrayed the core values they [liberals] use to define themselves—the rule of law, the safeguarding of civil liberties, the protection of unions, the preservation of social welfare programs, environmental accords, financial regulation, a defiance of unjust war and torture, and the abolition of drone wars.” 

On the flip side, the conservative media such Fox, Sinclair and the Christian broadcasting networks, equally forsakes the most basic principles of human decency and compassion.

During the early decades of the twentieth century, these ideals and causes would have been a standard platform that defined the progressive agenda from a liberal and humanist perspective. Modern progressivism’s roots began with La Follette’s Weekly, a publication founded by Senator Robert La Follette in 1909. Still in print,  but known as The Progressive, it remains a leading voice against war, militarism, oligarchic rule, and corporate interests that have hijacked and increasingly control Congress and the White House. When we consider the mainstream media networks and publications — left and right — how many have publicly expressed opposition to the escalation of America’s wars and regime changes, greenhouse gas emissions, and the lobbying of Big Pharma, the agro-chemical and fossil fuel industries, and Wall Street?  Such corporate media outlets can’t be found because in a full blown oligarchy both the government’s and its private financiers’ partners lay the foundation for a totalitarian nation.

The media is incapable of reporting to Americans the true state of the country’s domestic and cultural affairs and the harsh decline back to a developing nation. Both conservative and liberal media have failed to create a believable story that reflects the actual economic and social conditions of average Americans because it has not been able to move beyond the Red-Blue divide.

All of our institutions today are bereft of ethical and spiritual substance. The right suffers from pre-rational superstition and anti-intellectualism that has turned the US into a laughing stock among developed countries. The left suffers from a highbrow intellect and a poverty of spirit that was once, and could be again, a moral and revolutionary force to relieve suffering and fight on behalf of peace and human and civil rights.

Although most alternative liberal media disagree on particular policies, when election time arrives, all realistic principles are abandoned. Given the ease with which the liberal media betrays its stated ideals, we must call into question the integrity of the entire political establishment altogether and ask whether it is wise to compromise.

If you have bought into the mainstream media and support either of the two parties now dominating Washington, then by extension this is what you have been condoning:

• Across the board the government and corporate America continue to deny the severity of climate change and global warming threats and therefore accept there is no urgency to take drastic measures to curb the rate of greenhouse gas emissions;
• Failure to cover the actual human and environmental risks of hydrofracking, tar sand oil and pipelines and instead only focusing on the spectacle of Standing Rock protests;
• Support the construction of new nuclear power reactors, believing in the myth and propaganda of clean coal, condoning indiscriminate hydrofracking in environmentally sensitive areas and allowing these industries to be subsidized by the taxpayer;
• Has shown to tolerate illegal wiretapping and a systematic surveillance of Americans by government intelligence agencies in allegiance with private cyber-security corporations;
• By ignoring the government’s regressive surveillance efforts it is being complaint with violating privacy laws so that no citizen is protected from monitoring email, mobile phones, the internet, etc, because every citizen in the government’s eyes is a potential threat to the country’s national security
• By completely ignoring the end of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by the Obama administration and now expanded upon by Trump, which forbids the US military from being deployed on domestic soil and acting against American citizens, the media is further advancing the military policing of the populace;
• The media’s silence permits the US to transform into a police state as state, county and township police departments are increasingly militarized by the US armed forces and become extensions of the Department of Defense;
• Rarely does a federal or intelligence whistleblower ever appear on mainstream media. Its negligence in fact supports the silencing and prosecution of whistleblowers in government who come forth publicly to warn about criminal activities and corruption in government agencies;
• As our civil court system is being transformed into a military court model, it erodes the legal rights of citizens against government tyranny upon which our legal system is based;
• Ignoring the corruption and funding behind the entire private prison system that relies upon an infinite growth model of inmates, and the criminalization of poverty;
• Consistently acts against the rights of workers and unions, favoring treaties such as NAFTA, GATT and the forthcoming Trans Pacific and Trans Atlantic partnerships that further sell out American workers in return to greater profits to be overseas for the 1 percent;
• Gives preferential treatment to the medical insurance industry, which contributes nothing to the prevention and treatment of disease, and is silent about the private medical establishment writing the healthcare laws for the country;
• Completely complicit in advancing the pharmaceutical agenda that vaccines are effective and safe and should be mandated nationally;
• Allowing the private agro-chemical industry headed by Monsanto and Dupont to write the agricultural laws in the country so that genetically modified crops and organisms are wrongfully considered safe for human and animal consumption and carry no risk to the environment;
• Denying the Federal Reserve’s role in demolishing America’s middle class and protecting the Wall Street oligarchy’s control over the Fed and US Treasury at the public’s expense;
• Judging Wall Street banks more worthy of forgiveness to receive debt relief and assistance from taxpayers than debt forgiveness to Americans who are underwater in their mortgages, credit, student loans and small business debts;
• Gross failure to independently analyze the adverse effects on the domestic economy and society from trillion dollar bailouts to Wall Street and mega-corporations;
• Increasing America’s military budget at home and abroad rather than feeding the nation’s starving children and dealing with the growing number of homeless who have suffered at the hands of the government’s compliance with Wall Street disaster capitalists;
• Ignoring the need for independent investigations and hearings into the current and past four administrations into the invasions of sovereign countries and covert efforts to fuel regime change;
• Ignoring the thousands of homicides and suicides committed by American soldiers and veterans who have been abused and forgotten by the US government since the launch of the war against terror and failing to make the association that the fundamental problem is war and the US’s imperial ambitions;
• Failure to criticize despotic regimes that the US supports with dismal human rights records such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Israel’s apartheid of Palestine, Brazil, Colombia, India;
• Launching sanctions against Iran that are responsible for untold suffering of Iranian citizens and children without any international proof that Iran poses either a regional or nuclear threat;

From the perspective of universal values and higher spiritual ethics, these are among both Democrats’ and Republicans’ many faults. Many might perceive these charges as indicators of progress. However, since the captured pundits pretend to align themselves with faux and disingenuous progressive values, the media must be held accountable for its blind ignorance in giving voice to the Deep State and thereby undermining Constitutional rights and personal freedoms.

Until Americans summon the courage to stand up and demand an end to the Deep State’s corporate and intelligence stranglehold on our institutions of power, we are almost guaranteed to head further towards a complete cultural and economic collapse.

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On April 15^th, 27 members of Maghawir al-Thawra, a militant group in the Al-Tanf zone, which is both funded and trained by the US-led coalition, surrendered to the Syrian Army with all of their weapons and equipment. These included 9 vehicles, 11 weapons including 4 heavy machine guns and 5 grenade launchers, as well as up to 7,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibers for small arms, more than 20 RPG rounds, and 6 high-tech communication devices.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, while the Maghawir al-Thawra members were moving to surrender, they were attacked by US-controlled forces and lost 3 vehicles.

Oleg Zhuravlev, chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria said militants confessed that “they had been trained by US instructors to commit acts of sabotage at the oil-and-gas and transport infrastructure facilities, as well as to organize terror attacks on territories controlled by Syrian government forces.”

Later on the same day, Russian and Turkish forces conducted a 4th joint patrol along the M4 highway in southeastern Idlib. As on the previous occasions, the patrol took place along a short chunk of the highway west of Saraqib. The rest of the safe zone area agreed by Russian and Turkish leaders on March 5 in Moscow remains in the hands of radical militant groups.

In an official statement released on April 14, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham announced that it had formed 3 new units: the Talhah ibn Ubaydullah Brigade, led by Abu Hafs Binnish, the Ali ibn Abi Talib Brigade, led by Abu Baker Mheen and the Zubayr ibn al-Awam Brigade, led by Abu Mohamad Shura. The group provided no insight into the number of fighters in the new units or their tasks, but the estimated number of the new force is about 1,500.

Last month, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a large recruitment campaign to revive its depleted special forces, the “Red Bands,” as well as its Inghimasi [suicide bombers] force.

Despite the fact that militants profit from the ceasefire regime with direct military protection from Turkey and are using the gained time to re-arm their units and train new fighters, they see any kind of Turkish cooperation with Russia as a direct threat to their interests. In some cases, this even leads to acts of aggression and threats against their sponsor’s forces.

For example, in a video which recently appeared online, members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham were threatening to behead Turkish soldiers moving along the M4 highway and pin their heads to the top of the nearby earth barrier. This is the real face of the so-called moderate opposition that Ankara supports in Greater Idlib.

On April 15, an airstrike targeted an SUV in the town of Jdaidit Yabws right on the border with Lebanon. The vehicle allegedly belonged to Hezbollah, which has become the target of Israeli missiles. The first one missed allowing the passengers to exit the vehicle a few moments before it was hit by the second missile.

The UAE-based Sky News Arabia and al-Arabiya claimed that high-ranking commanders of Hezbollah were the target of the Israeli strike.

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The short answer is it’s unknown — why it’s better to be safe than sorry. More below on what may lie ahead. 

COVID-19 is a more contagious version of seasonal flu/influenza.

According to Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases/Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Mina, the novel coronavirus may be more transmissible than previously believed — including in hospitals, nursing home, and other settings where large numbers of people interact.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 102 nursing homes in the state reported 551 COVID-19 cases over a 24-hour period.

With staff and visitors coming and going from facilities, it’s highly likely that some individuals will be infected and spread the virus to others. The same is true for hospitals.

Symptoms of seasonal flu/influenza and COVID-19 are similar, why misdiagnosis may be widespread.

Mayo Clinic infectious diseases specialist Dr. Gregory Poland explained that seasonal flu in the US and elsewhere “cause(s) many more deaths than COVID-19, and the tragedy is that many people die because they consider it ‘just the flu.’ ”

It happens every year like clockwork with no screaming headlines.

Millions of Americans contract it annually. Hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and tens of thousands die.

In terms of the human toll and cost, it’s far more serious than COVID-19.

Pollard: “Right now, the number of COVID-19 cases pales in comparison to the number of flu cases. Unlike COVID-19, seasonal flu is in every state and every community in the US” — every year.

Symptoms of seasonal flu/influenza and COVID-19 can be mild or severe. Both illnesses can cause pneumonia and are contagious.

Seasonal flu can be caused by any one of a number of different virus strains — COVID-19 by the novel coronavirus.

Person-to-person transmission is similar for both. It’s believed that

COVID-19 droplets linger longer indoors after an infected person leaves the area.

Antiviral medications can ease flu symptoms, short of curing them.

There are no known treatments for COVID-19, claims otherwise exaggerated.

Scientists have been studying seasonal flu/influenza for decades, a considerable body of knowledge about it accumulated.

Because COVID-19 is new, there’s little reliable information on to what extent it can spread, what causes the disease, its seriousness, and number of potential deaths.

Based on what’s known, over 80% of cases are mild. Globally, around 6% of individuals infected with COVID-19 died, about 5% in the US.

Chinese Center for Disease Control and Protection researchers analyzed 44,672 COVID-19 cases from Dec. 31, 2019 – February 11, 2020.

They found 80.9% of cases to be mild, 13.8% severe, and 4.7% critical.

“Critical cases were (called)  those that exhibited respiratory failure, septic shock, and/or multiple organ dysfunction/failure.”

Preliminary US data published by the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report showed about 12% of COVID-19 infected US individuals were hospitalized.

The death rate for seasonal flu in the US is around 0.1%. For COVID-19, it’s 1.4% so far — based on data through late February, published by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Older adults, individuals with weakened immune systems and/or other major health issues are most vulnerable to infection.

Thailand Medical News (TMN) “serve(s) the medical industry (and) laymen interested in…the latest (health-related) developments and news” from the country, region and “around the world.”

Its latest edition believes COVID-19 outbreaks so far are a “dry run” for what likely lies ahead, adding:

Numbers of infected individuals worldwide “are expected to rise even more exponentially in the next few months despite claims by governments that the peak is happening and that ‘curves are being flatten’ as we are actually really just moving into the real first wave of the pandemic.”

It’s suspected that “at least tens of thousands of individuals are…asymptomatic,” who are unwittingly spreading disease to others.

Despite research and published data for the past four months, there’s relatively little scientifically known about the novel SARS-Cov-2 virus and the COVID-19 disease it causes.

TMN: “There has been so much fake news and misinformation about the virus and the disease from day one…”

“(R)ecommendations and guidelines that most countries are now basing their treatments protocols on are turning out be gross and criminal misinformation.”

“(A) lot of deaths could actually be attributed to this from drugs being used that cause cardiac failure in patients, drugs that actually caused toxic reactions, wrong usage of ventilators that actually resulted in deaths etc.”

No scientifically known efficacious COVID-19 treatments exist.

“(M)any diagnostic platforms we are using are actually not accurate especially with emerging new mutated strains,” said TMN.

“(A) new report has emerged that CT Scans might not even be giving the real picture.”

“Many…experimental drugs that are being used are not only toxic but in some cases can have long term (detrimental) effects” to human health.

“(I)n some cases…data (on) experimental drugs (used) are being manipulated by governments and pharmaceutical companies either for diplomatic dominance and leverage or for greed.”

Many natural/non-toxic and other potential treatments for COVID-19, including “certain common drugs… are being deliberately ignored or suppressed by those in power…”

Reports by establishment media are unreliable at best, harmful to human health and welfare at worst.

Officially reported data, especially in the US and West, are questionable.

Much information publicly reported about COVID-19 based on official sources are “based on hearsay and ‘half-baked’ studies,” according to TMN.

There’s little reliable information about mutated COVID-19 strains, how they evolve, and if recovered individuals from the virus are immune to infection from it, other strains, or for how long.

Are current coronavirus outbreaks wave one with others to follow that could be much more widespread?

TMN believes what’s ongoing “is not even the first wave,” adding:

What’s happening is “just starting to begin (and may) worse(n).”

There’s “a global shortage of medical equipment and drugs, and already food chains are being infected.”

If economies are opened too soon, “millions more (people may be) infected…”

Current conditions and what may follow could continue for some time.

Hindsight will explain best, including more knowledge about the novel coronavirus, related strains, and what treatments, if any, are efficacious.

For now, taking precautions to stay safe is sensible advice. Follow reliable independent sources of information, largely found online.

A Final Comment

Establishment media reports about the effectiveness of Gilead Sciences’ experimental remdesivir antiviral drug to treat COVID-19 patients, based on clinical trials, are greatly exaggerated, according to the company.

A Thursday statement said the following:

“We understand the urgent need for a Covid-19 treatment and the resulting interest in data on our investigational antiviral drug remdesivir.”

“The totality of the data need to be analyzed in order to draw any conclusions from the trial.”

“Anecdotal reports, while encouraging, do not provide the statistical power necessary to determine the safety and efficacy profile of remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19.”

“We expect the data from our Phase 3 study in patients with severe Covid-19 infection to be available at the end of this month, and additional data from other studies to become available in May.”

Gilead’s stock price soared on the news. Equity market futures in the US and abroad rose sharply — based on misinformation.

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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 Health.mil

The US president is in a warring mood.  Having declared himself a president at war, a meaningless gesture given that the US is always, somewhere in the world, at war, finding necessary enemies in distraction was always going to be a priority.  Donald Trump already had the “China virus” in his artillery, attaching nationality to pathogen. Now, and it took some time in coming by his standards, is the World Health Organization, a body which has, as its utopia, an idea of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” 

The US tends to contribute a large slice of funding to the WHO – some $400 million a year and ten times, say, what China does.  It has been foot dragging lately: $200 million is still to be paid for the last round.  (As a point of interest, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the second largest donor, with a touch over $200 million based on 2018-9 figures.)  In a flourish of indignation, Trump has decided to freeze the revenue stream.  On Tuesday, he claimed that the WHO had “failed in its basic duty” in responding to COVID-19. 

“I am directing my administration to halt funding while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.”

The White House has been eager to disgorge any material to press outlets keen to understand the nature of WHO villainy and corruption.  Accusations read like mirror portraits, and the headline of one of the factsheets is hysterical: “Delaying world mobilization in the fight against COVID-19: Working with China to cover up the deadly spread of COVID-19, who hindered critical efforts that could have saved lives.” 

The charge list on the White House fact sheet is the usual muddle of slung mud and mild accuracy: the role played by brave Taiwan; the WHO deference to “Chinese propaganda that covered up the virus’ spread and fatalities, praising Beijing for its false efforts and promoting the use of Chinese traditional medicine to treat the disease.”

Nor can we deny the obvious remark that the US was “not alone in its well-founded criticism.  WHO has faced constant critique over its poor coordination, lack of transparency, and finances from multiple parties.”  This would sound like a superb summary of the Trump administration, but the president lacks humour in such matters.

The organisation’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who had previously praised Trump as showing “leadership” in this crisis (we are all entitled to slips), was regretful.  The US had been “a long-standing and generous friend… and we hope it will continue to be so.”

The WHO is the convenient whipping boy of pandemic and epidemic; of premature assessment or over eager commitment.  Uncertainty is its curse, leaving it vulnerable in such instances as the swine flu epidemic, when it was accused of being too quick off the mark in declaring it to be a pandemic; or too foot slow in declaring the West African Ebola outbreak a pressing health emergency.  And forgotten in its current shade of demonization by Washington is the fact that the WHO, for decades, was belittled for being an auxiliary of US foreign policy.  “Like other United Nations (UN) agencies,” comes a sombre assessment in the American Journal of Public Health in 2016, “the WHO quietly abandoned its dreams of a collaborative community of nations and instead began to come to terms with international political realities.  The agency moved closer to US foreign policy and became partially captive to US resources and priorities.”

By no means should the WHO be seen as angelic.  No international organisation is, marked as they tend to by the gravy train effect, the flabby end of upper management more interested in first class travel than fighting healthy problems.  At the same time, it has also operated with one hand tied behind its back, reliant, as it were, on the initial drips and drabs coming from the source country where an infectious outbreak has taken place.  Its chief has, it is true, shown an unsettling tendency to praise the Chinese effort, which has veered between harsh and muscular concealment to harsh and muscular quarantine.  But it is worth casting an eye to the more workmanlike nature of the process of how the WHO formed a picture of what was happening. 

China’s first smidgens of information on COVID-19 reached the WHO on December 31, describing it as “a pneumonia of an unknown cause”.  On January 5, the organisation, based on what was provided by Chinese sources, stated that the material showed “no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission.” No causal agent had been as yet identified or confirmed, and the WHO admitted to having “limited information to determine the overall risk of this reported cluster of pneumonia of unknown etiology.”  The advice given in that note now seem like the haunted warnings of premature assessment: no recommended specific measures for travellers; no application of travel or trade restrictions on China.  Again, the caveat, weighty as ever, was always on what was in the hands of WHO functionaries, who, it should be said, are not entirely shock horrors in the epidemiology department.

In time, the picture became more muddled as information started to clot the canvas. The Wuhan Health Commission refused to rule out the possibility of human-to-human transmission.  The WHO, as January progressed, started drawing parallels, basing its assessments on other coronaviruses.  What this chaotic swirl of information does not seem to show, as Trump alleges, is that Taiwan in its exchanges with WHO, went heavy on the idea of human-to-human transmission.

Then came Trump’s own glorious words of praise, lost in consciousness but retrievable in cyberspace. 

“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus,” he tweeted with boyish enthusiasm on January 25.  “The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.  It will work out well.  In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi!” 

Not exactly hostile.

Trump’s change of heart revolves upon supposed tardiness in sending in that class of individuals he tends to despise: the experts. 

“Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death.” 

Lacking in this resentful assessment is the point that plagues all international bodies: their need to respect the sovereignty of member states. 

The immediate consequences of such funding will have the effect, as has been threatened before, of driving the WHO to bankruptcy.  The front organisation responsible for marshalling the medical side of combating disease and infection will be hobbled.  Trump can at least have one historical comfort: in pulling US funding, he joins the defunct Soviet Union in refusing to pay membership fees for several years after it had “deactivated” its membership.  Grievances with international governance, be it over health, security, even sport, never age.

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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]

John Lennon, prolific as a writer as much as a performer, wrote this:

Working Class Hero

As soon as you’re born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There’s room at the top they’re telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

This was powerful stuff in the 70s as it should be now, 40+ years later. Sadly, nothing has changed for the better for us working stiffs. Matter of fact, it is even worse in 21st Century Amerika!! As this writer and countless other great writers have offered, the disparity between the Haves (1/4 of 1 % of our nation) and Have Nots (the rest of us, especially the working poor or ‘near poor’ is comparable to the Gilded Age (1870s to 1900 approx.).

This Military Industrial Empire has seen corporations literally eating up Mom and Pop America for generations. All one has to do is observe those Amazon delivery trucks flowing through your neighborhoods to realize the impact. Drive by those Wal-Mart Supercenters any hour of the day, even in this pandemic, to see how powerfully these giants control things. How many Wal-Mart Associates (don’t you just love how they call clerks such a nice name?) have to get food stamps and need Medicaid? As it is, over half of the corporation’s employees are Part Time, which means they get less in the way of benefits. Of course, both Amazon and Wal-Mart are NON UNION, thus, not so great for any such benefits that even terrible unions would secure them.

This writer remembers, with a sad prism, of when my late parents were in a nursing home from 2000-04. Of course, this was one of the millions of corporate owned and operated nursing homes, where top mgmt made out like the bandits they were, and the lowest tier employees…. How about the janitor they employed, who earned less than $8.00 an hour? This fellow, with an infirmed mother at home, had to work 33 hours weekly at the place (this was so he would not qualify as a Full Time employee), and then he picked up a 2nd job as janitor at the local hospital (also P/T) at about the same pay. No sick pay, no vacation pay, no holiday pay (I actually wrote about him when I saw him working on Christmas day), no health coverage… no nothing!

One day, when I visited my parents (I went by three times a week) I arrived as an aide was going to give my mom a shower. It was very difficult to move my semi invalid mother in and out of the bathroom and shower. I asked the aide ‘How much do you make an hour?’ He replied ‘Nine dollars an hour’. Nine dollars!! I knew that the nurses at the place were getting around $ 22 and hour… and they deserved more! But $ 9.00 and hour to wipe our parent’s asses clean when they sometimes shit themselves? Can one even imagine how difficult it is to do such work? For $ 9.00 and hour? No union, no real benefits to speak of. I remember, before my mother passed away, and I received, as their legal representative, a printout of the monthly medications she was getting, along the costs billed to Medicaid. It was astounding! What they were pushing into her old and frail body was incredible! Did anyone ever hear of homeopathy? Of course, the elder care doctor assigned to her came and went ‘whenever’ as the nurses and aides did all the grunt work. Her doc did such a great job that my mom died because she got gangrene in her foot from an infection that it seems no one seemed to notice. They finally hospitalized her and had to cut off BOTH her legs from the knee down… and she died a few days later… better for her, believe me.

As the late Edward R. Murrow would say it “This is Amerika” Maybe this tragic pandemic will finally wake up the ‘Sleeping giant’ of our mass of working stiffs. Yes, the Wobblies were correct. We need  ONE BIG UNION  to save us from the vipers of this empire.

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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, Cross Currents 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 400 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 world is now desperate to find ways to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus and to find effective treatments. As of April 6, more than 200 clinical trials of COVID-19 treatments or vaccines that are either ongoing or recruiting patients. New ones are being added every day, as the case count in the U.S. (and globally) skyrockets. The drugs being tested range from repurposed flu treatments to failed ebola drugs, to malaria treatments that were first developed decades ago. Here, we take a look at several of the treatments that doctors hope will help fight COVID-19.

Antiviral EIDD-2801 shows promise

An oral drug called EIDD-2801 has shown promise in test-tube experiments with human lung and airway cells, scientists reported online April 6 in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The drug might even be more efficient at blocking the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, than remdesivir, a drug being tested against COVID-19 in clinical trials that began in March. While remdesivir stops the novel coronavirus from replicating entirely, EIDD-2801 introduces genetic mutations into the virus’s RNA. As the RNA makes its copies, so many damaging mutations accumulate that the virus is no longer able to infect cells, Scientific American reported. The drug also seems to work against several RNA viruses, and as such, the researchers said it could be a multipurpose antiviral.

And unlike remdesivir, which needs to be given intravenously, this drug could be swallowed as a pill. “EIDD-2801 is an oral drug that could be administered at home, early after diagnosis,” lead study author Timothy Sheahan, of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a statement from the journal. “This has the potential to be as ubiquitous as Tamiflu in the future, as long as it proves to be safe and effective in people.”

The research was completed by scientists at Emory University, UNC Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. The Miami, Florida-based  Ridgeback Biotherapeutics has licensed the drug and was just granted permission by the Food and Drug Administration to start human trials of the drug over the next few months, the company said in a statement.

Japan flu drug

A drug developed by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical in Japan is showing promising outcomes in treating at least mild to moderate cases of COVID-19, Live Science previously reported.

The antiviral drug, called favipiravir or Avigan, has been used in Japan to treat influenza, and last month, the drug was approved as an experimental treatment for COVID-19 infections, Pharmaceutical Technology reported.

So far, reports suggest the drug has been tested in 340 individuals in Wuhan and Shenzhen. “It has a high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment,” Zhang Xinmin, of China’s science and technology ministry, said March 17, The Guardian reported.

The drug, which works by preventing certain viruses from replicating, seemed to shorten the duration of the virus as well as improve lung conditions (as seen in X-rays) in tested patients, though the research has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed science journal.

A separate study, published April 8 to the preprint database medrXiv, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, compared favipiravir to another flu drug, umifenovir (Arbidol). In the randomized, controlled study of 240 people, favipiravir did not help people recover faster compared to umifenovir. However, favipiravir did significantly shorten the time that people had fevers or coughs, the study found.

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but preliminary research in human and primate cells suggests that the drugs could effectively treat COVID-19.

A 2005 study found that chloroquine could quell the spread of SARS-CoV when applied to infected human cells in culture. SARS-CoV is closely related to the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and caused an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002. Chloroquine disrupts the ability of the SARS-CoV virus to enter and replicate in human cells, Live Science previously reported. The cell culture studies of SARS-CoV-2 revealed that the drug and its derivative hydroxychloroquine undermine the novel virus’ replication in a similar way.

Doctors in China, South Korea, France and the U.S. are now giving the drug to some patients with COVID-19 with promising, albeit anecdotal, results so far. The FDA is organizing a formal clinical trial of the drug.

As of Feb. 23, seven clinical trials had been registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry to test whether COVID-19 infections could be treated with hydroxychloroquine. In addition, the University of Minnesota is studying whether taking hydroxychloroquine can protect people living with infected COVID-19 patients from catching the virus themselves.

In one heavily referenced study, conducted in France, a small number of patients with COVID-19 received either hydroxychloroquine alone or hydroxychloroquine in combination with an antibiotic called azithromycin. The authors reported that detectable concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 fell significantly faster in the study participants than coronavirus patients at other French hospitals who did not receive either drug. In six patients also given azithromycin, this promising effect appeared to be amplified.

However, the CDC noted that the small, non-randomized study “did not assess clinical benefit[s]” associated with the treatment; in other words, the study did not probe whether the treated patients were more likely to recover and survive their illness. Additionally, the agency advised that doctors should be cautious when giving either drug to patients with chronic disease, such as kidney failure, and especially those “who are receiving medications that might interact to cause arrhythmias.”

A failed Ebola drug

A Gilead Sciences drug that was originally tested in people with Ebola, remdesivir, is being repurposed to see if it can effectively treat COVID-19.

The drug was found not to be effective in Ebola, but in lab studies, it has proven effective at inhibiting the growth of similar viruses, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). In a petri dish, remdesivir can prevent human cells from becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, according to a letter published in the journal Nature in February.

The Food and Drug Administration has currently approved use of remdesivir for compassionate use, meaning only patients with severe COVID-19 disease can be approved for treatment. In other countries, requirements to receive remdesivir may be less stringent.

Five clinical trials in China and the U.S. are currently evaluating whether remdesevir can reduce complications or shorten the disease course in COVID-19 patients, the medical news site STAT reported.

Many doctors are excited about the drug’s potential.

“There’s only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy,” Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization said last month, as reported by STAT. “And that’s remdesivir.”

George Thompson, an infectious disease specialist at UC Davis Medical Center who treated an early, severe case of COVID-19, told Science magazine that their patient got better after getting the drug, about 36 hours after diagnosis. The doctors initially thought the patient would die, Thompson said.

However, such anecdotal evidence can’t demonstrate effectiveness, and the lab has yet to analyze blood samples to show that the patient’s clinical improvement following the administration of remdesivir coincided with a drop in viral load (concentration of viral particles). On the flip side, a study posted to the preprint database medRXiv looked at three patients treated with remdesivir. The study, which was not peer-reviewed, found no clear time-dependent relationship between getting the drug and seeing improvements in symptoms. The patients also experienced rectal bleeding, elevated liver enzymes, vomiting and nausea, which could potentially be tied to the drug.

Another quandary is that antiviral drugs generally work better the earlier patients get them, but because remdesivir is not FDA-approved for general use, only patients with the most severe, and late-stage, disease, qualify for its use in clinical trials, Thompson told Science.

On Sunday (March 22), Gilead Sciences announced that they were temporarily halting compassionate use of remdesivir, due to “overwhelming demand.” Instead, they are focusing on approving previously submitted requests and streamlining the process, while directing people to enroll in clinical trials, STAT reported.

An HIV drug combination

The antiviral drug kaletra, a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir, generated early excitement. However, new data from China, published March 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine, could not detect a benefit when patients took the drug.

A total of 199 people with low oxygen levels were randomized to either receive kaletra or a placebo. While fewer people taking kaletra died, the difference was not statistically significant, meaning it could have been due to random chance. And both groups had similar levels of virus in their blood over time.

However, other studies are still ongoing, and there’s still a possibility this combination could show some benefit. As with other antivirals, this drug would likely work better if given earlier in the disease course.

An immunosuppressant and an arthritis drug

For some patients with COVID-19, the virus itself doesn’t do the worst damage. Rather, in some people their immune system goes into overdrive and launches an all-out assault known as a cytokine storm. That immune overreaction can damage tissue and ultimately kill people.

To quiet such cytokine storms, doctors are now trying an immunosuppressant known as Actemra, or tocilizumab. The drug is approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. It blocks a cell receptor that binds something called interleukin 6 (IL-6). IL-6 is a cytokine, or a type of protein released by the immune system, that can trigger dangerous inflammatory cascades.

On March 19, pharmaceutical company Roche announced that it was launching a trial to see if tocilizumab could improve outcomes in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. One group will receive the drug plus other standard treatments, while another group will receive a placebo, plus standard treatments.

Regeneron is enrolling patients in a clinical trial to test another IL-6 inhibitor, known as sarilumab (kevzara), for treating COVID-19 pneumonia. The logic behind using sarilumab is similar to that for tocilizumab.

A blood pressure drug

Losartan is a generic blood-pressure medication that some scientists are hoping could help patients with COVID-19. The University of Minnesota has launched two clinical trials using the inexpensive, generic drug. The first would evaluate whether losartan can prevent multi-organ failure in those hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia. The second would evaluate if the drug can prevent hospitalizations in the first place, Reuters reported.

Losartan works by blocking a receptor, or doorway into cells that the chemical called angiotensin II uses to enter the cells and raise blood pressure. SARS-CoV-2 binds to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, and it’s possible, the thinking goes, that because losartan might block those receptors, it may prevent the virus from infecting cells.

Complicating things, a paper published March 11 in the journal The Lancet has raised the possibility that common drugs for hypertension, such as ACE inhibitors and so-called angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), which includes losartan, might actually spur the body to make more ACE2, thereby increasing the ability of the virus to infiltrate cells. A recent study of 355 COVID-19 patients in Italy (study in Italian) found that three-quarters of the patients who died had hypertension, and the authors propose this is one reason for their increased susceptibility.

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Sarnia-Lambton’s MP wants Canada to implement COVID-19 cures she claims have been proven in the United States, but are opposed by Canadian health experts.

Marilyn Gladu, the former Conservative health critic, said the Liberals are talking about waiting for a vaccine — but that could take years.

“In the United States, they’ve been successful with the treatment of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc sulphate,” said Gladu. “They’ve tried this on thousands of COVID patients, with nearly 100 per cent recovery rate, and so the FDA has approved this as an emergency measure, but Canada has not.”

Gladu said the prudent thing is to start taking advantage of medication options like the U.S. is.

“So, while our government continues to have, what I would call, ineffective programs to get money to people and businesses that are struggling, I think the real answer is for people that are seniors, for people that have underlying medical issues, yes, they need to be isolating themselves and protecting themselves, but for the rest of the public, we need to get back to work.”

Gladu said she recognizes that people are struggling.

“Every [COVID-19] death is tragic. But, the reality is more people are dying of suicide, more people are dying from cancer and smoking and we don’t shut the economy down for that. So, where we see that there’s a remedy available and we see that for most of the population this is not a concern, people are losing their businesses in Sarnia-Lambton, they’re losing their livelihoods and there’s no end in sight.”

Despite Gladu’s claims, Bluewater Health Chief of Staff Dr. Michel Haddad said there hasn’t been any evidence to show that hydroxychloroquine has been helpful in the prevention or treatment of COVID-19.

“There’s a lot of talk out there about different treatments,” said Haddad. “There’s no single agent that actually kills this virus. The Tamiflu we use for influenza is non-effective. We have been using cocktails of antibiotics, without real evidence to be honest with you.”

Haddad said he’s seen patients die and survive after using hydroxychloroquine.

“The most effective way to control this [COVID-19] is having a vaccine. Then we can control the spread and have hard immunity, but we’re not there yet and that’s going to be months away. So the first step is physical distancing, slow things down, stay away, washing hands, you can’t just stay in for a year of course, but at some point, as we loosen up, we have to be careful how we go back to work again once the government says it’s safe to do so.”

Haddad said he’s very encouraged by the province’s decision to delay things for four more weeks. He said it will give a sense of how many cases we have, if they’re still dropping and if we’re on the other side of the curve locally.

-With files from Stephanie Chaves

The full interview between Melanie Irwin and Marilyn Gladu done April 14, 2020 at 5 p.m. can be heard below:

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Featured image: Sarnia-Lambton MP Marilyn Gladu speaks during Question Period at the House of Commons. December 11, 2019. (Screenshot from video of Question Period)

An old road between Balikpapan and Samarinda passes through the poor villages, through rural slums, as well as stalls selling second-rate local fruits. The cheap, unhygienic eateries, are now half-empty. While the traffic is still heavy here, the ‘real action’ is somewhere else; a few kilometers away, where the new motorway is being constructed; a motorway which will, eventually, connect Balikpapan, Samarinda and potentially the new Indonesian capital city which is expected to rise somewhere around the now dirt poor Sepaku Village, in the area of Penajam Paser Utara.

The government of President Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi) is promising that the new capital will touch the skies, eclipsing places like Brasilia, Malaysian Putra Jaya, or Canberra. Nothing short of Dubai or Manhattan, in the middle of the logged out, monstrously scarred, poisoned island of Borneo, known as “Kalimantan” in Indonesia.

While virtually all Indonesian cities could easily be defined as urbanistic disasters, the new capital is supposed to be totally different, boasting green wide avenues and impressive architectural masterpieces that would be envied by the entire world.

Indonesia has already made one such an attempt in its recent history – it promised to convert its island of Batam which is located just a stone’s throw from Singapore – into something much more impressive than Singapore itself (a city-state with one of the highest quality of life on Earth).

Two years ago, I travelled to Batam, where I discovered a grotesque, bitter reality. I reported it in one of my previous essays entitled, “Batam Island – Indonesia’s Sorry Attempt to Create Second Singapore”. The island had been thoroughly destroyed. Nothing public was left, and nothing, absolutely nothing was built for the people. Precisely just as in all other parts of Indonesia. The ugliness of the urban areas of Batam was unimaginable. Corruption was omnipresent. The feeble attempt to turn the island into an industrial, productive area, collapsed. What survived, at least for some period of time, was the prostitution and gambling. Eventually, the gambling ‘industry’ collapsed, too. Only prostitution, together with some sand exports to Singapore, prevailed.

Presently, there is not one single city in Indonesia, which could be defined as livable. Not one.

Why would the new capital be any different? Why would Indonesian people believe the government, which has been known for lying, for building sand castles, and for many long decades of absolute ineptness?

There is not one elegantly built sidewalk, anywhere in Indonesia. So why  should there, suddenly be, hundreds of kilometers of beautiful avenues and promenades in the middle of Borneo?

All public places, in all the Indonesian cities, have been commercialized, privatized, or outright stolen. Why would it be different now? What is this talk about big parks, green areas? Every big project in Jakarta, Surabaya or Bandung begins like that: endless promises of “city walks”, of malls overflowing with green areas. In the end: nothing! A concrete sprawl, parking lots, and nothing public whatsoever. Maritime cities lacking promenades, urban centers without public parks, concert halls, or first-rate museums. There is no place on Earth like this: absolute extreme corruption, and spite for the people.

So, is there any reason why the new capital would change the entire culture of graft, or lack of productivity and imagination? It will be, after all, constructed by the same individuals, same developers, same companies and the same government, as in all other parts of the country.

Along the old road on which we drive, most of the people live in poverty, or if international standards were to apply: in misery.

At Bukit Suharto (Suharto Hill), a peripheral area of the planned new capital, Ms. Niah, an old woman living alone in her shack, selling traditional rice cakes for a living, is not hopeful about her future. Here, as elsewhere in Indonesia, governments have come and gone, dropping empty promises, leaving people with basically nothing, just wooden walls, stained mattresses, and pasrah, which can be loosely translated as ‘submissive melancholy’.

Ms. Niah living an Indonesian-style ‘middle class’ life (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

(Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

Ms. Niah is not afraid to speak:

“I did not know about the plan to move the capital here, by the government. They tell us nothing. What I know is that I have never felt the benefits of development carried out by the government. For decades, there was no help that I’d receive. I don’t even get that subsidized rice delivery, which each and every poor Indonesian is entitled to, at least in theory. I get nothing. On the contrary, I actually feel disadvantaged by what is called development. Since the government built the toll road not far from here, the traffic of the vehicles on this road has been reduced, and as a result, my rice cakes do not sell.”

A few hundred meters away, Mr. Abdul Gani, a retired civil servant actually worries about his future. The government may force him out of his home, if it felt that his land may be at least of some use for the new capital project.

“A few weeks ago, an officer came to the houses in our village to collect information on the ownership deeds for land, buildings and fields, without giving us a hint of what reasons the data collected is for. Then, there were rumors circulating in this area, that our land would be taken, confiscated by the government, because we do not have ownership certificates. Everything is vague for us. We don’t know what to expect.”

“Dubai? Manhattan? Really? Please be serious. No, we don’t believe that the government could build a city like Dubai here.”

Along the road (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

All along the road, we hardly encounter any native people of Borneo. The entire area is now populated by so called trans-migrants – individuals and families that were injected here, mainly from Java, South Sulawesi and Bali, after the 1965 military coup orchestrated by the West and by the Indonesian right-wing elites and religious cadres. Trans-migrants have been historically placed along the important roads, effectively fragmenting Kalimantan/Borneo. The right-wing, in fact fascist dictator Suharto considered Dayak native people of this island to be ‘Communist’, because of their traditional, communal culture and way of life. He did not trust them. In fact, he busied himself destroying their “long houses”, and their philosophy of life.

Trans-migrants have also been playing an extremely important role in Borneo, which is one of the wealthiest, in terms of natural resources, islands on Earth: their increasing presence has guaranteed that the local people would not be able to one day unite and demand independence from the colonialist Java.

The entire island is now ruined as a result of Jakarta’s rule, as well as the “trans-migration”. It has been devastated, burned, deforested, poisoned. Once resembling paradise on earth, it is now scarred and humiliated. Its original inhabitants are subjugated, kept divided and badly informed, and uneducated on purpose.

Then comes the new capital project.

In an unusually bold report, the Jakarta Globe wrote on December 18, 2019:

“A study has revealed the names of numerous national and local politicians who would reap profits from the capital city relocation mega-project, including the brother of defense minister Prabowo Subianto, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, and the coordinating minister of maritime affairs and investment, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan.

The study, “Who Is the New Capital City For?” was conducted by a coalition of civil organizations; Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi), Trend Asia and Forest Watch Indonesia, and took three months to complete.

It studied the oligarchic connections in the mega-project and its environmental and societal impacts.

The report revealed names of people who have assets and concessions in the extractive industries such as coal, palm oil and lumber as well as energy plants in the area of East Kalimantan where the new capital is going to be built.

It also suggested the project could be used as a smokescreen to brush off the corporations’ dirt for the environmental damage they have done there.

Within the 180,000-hectare area for the new so-called smart city, there are 162 mining, forestry, palm oil, coal and property concessions.

Around 158 of them are coal mines that have left at least 94 deadly-deep holes in the area…”

Indonesian girl phone in a typical village in the area – pollution and misery (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

‘But we’ve got 4G’ (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

We met two leading researchers from the Institut Dayakologi (“Dayakology Institute”), Richardus Giring and Julianto Makmur, in the city of Pontianak, West Kalimantan.

Mainly, we wanted to know, whether the relocation of the capital to Borneo would benefit or harm the local people.

Mr. Giring elaborated:

“Since the issue of relocation of the capital was endorsed by the Jokowi government, I have never come across any open and transparent analysis. All the studies tend to show positive aspects, without considering the risks and negative impacts of the relocation; ignoring the interests of the Kalimantan people. There should be a serious study, analyzing what the relocation of the capital would do to the locals.”

“Aside from seeing the relocation of the capital as a solution to what is happening in Jakarta, this plan should also be seen from the perspective of the impacts on Kalimantan and its people. We do not want this capital relocation to be a kind of escape from the problems that Jakarta is facing; we don’t want to move those problems to Kalimantan.”

“The ecological injustice and the destruction of the social structure of the people of Kalimantan have been occurring since a long time ago. Consistently, various government sectoral (forestry, energy, etc.) have only made Kalimantan an area of plunder, be it its forests or other natural resources. The Kalimantan that we see today is a dreadful legacy of the past and present. Although there are still few areas of pristine tropical forests left on the island, they are only small remnants.”

Map showing relocation of the new Indonesian capital to the island of Borneo (Map: Caitlin Dempsey using Natural Earth Quick Start)

Working all over the island, filming and writing about the dreadful situation, for years, we could only agree. And Mr. Giring continued:

“What’s the point of promising a big, beautiful and magnificent new capital, if it is not preceded by proper and careful planning and study? So far, what they have done is only feasibility studies based on positive predictions. No studies on the risks, or on the negative impacts that may arise. If it is not done carefully, the whole thing will definitely turn out to be a blunder. We know that this is not just a plan: a lot of resources have already been spent. But still, the important thing is to anticipate beforehand what lies ahead; to study risks, the environmental impacts.”

“If not, people will have no sense of ownership. The new capital will only belong to Jakarta’s elites, and to Jokowi. And in the end, it will only move the problems from Jakarta to Kalimantan. It’s beginning to look like a beauty contest, where the important thing is how things look. As long as they appear to look magnificent, great! Short video clips created by designers/architects are shown everywhere by the mass media. But it is irrelevant to the people of Borneo and for the entire Indonesia.”

“I imagine that there will be many potential conflicts that will arise, such as land-grabbing caused by the politics of the state administration. There will also be an exodus of people to the new capital which will certainly trigger conflict with local people.”

“Well, this is our paradigm of development, which tends to sacrifice the interests of small people for the sake of the elites. On many occasions, here, development means sacrificing the poor/small people. In this case, they are being sacrificed solely for the sake of an ‘image or impression,’ as if they were not human beings with dignity.”

While the propaganda that is promoting the new capital is all over the Indonesian mass media, here in Kalimantan there is hardly any information, even about the precise location. The area designated by Jokowi’s regime is enormous. Everything has been hushed up, camouflaged, covered in secrecy. We ask, and people tell us where to go, but they are not sure. We drive back and forth, frustrated and tired.

On the second day, we finally came to a security post. Behind, the enormous and devastated land can be seen. We are told that it belongs to the retired General Prabowo Subianto, a man who ran against President Widodo in the last elections, in 2019, and after being defeated, was elevated to the post of Minister of Defense of the Republic of Indonesia. A former Lieutenant-General, he was accused of countless violations of human rights, in the territories occupied by Java, and in Jakarta itself, where his troops were involved in kidnapping and torturing student protesters.

Several security guards man the post. One of them is called Hambali, a gate security officer employed by the company PT. ITCI, which is owned by Prabowo Subianto himself.

Behind the barrier and the post, there is the vast location of the planned city center of the new capital.

Although in theory, this place is supposed to be “public”, after spotting us, the security personnel immediately go to work, asking us questions, checking IDs, making phone calls to some undisclosed locations. Our documents are photocopied.

“So, is this going to be an Indonesian Dubai?” We ask. “Or perhaps Manhattan, or Canberra?”

The senior guard utters laconically, before lifting up the barrier and letting us pass:

“I just hope that the new capital will be built as planned, although I am not sure that the new city will look like Dubai or Canberra or Manhattan.”

The Grandeur: entrance to the new Indonesia capital site (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

Pay as You Go: A new privately owned toll road (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

What follows is a nightmare, combined with Kafkaesque, grotesque images. Indonesia always manages to surprise, and to shock me.

First, on the road shoulder, there are several broken trucks, full of timber. The drivers and helpers are busy fixing their engines and tires. Flies and other insects are everywhere. Indiscriminate logging is obviously going on, up to now.

Our car moves on; begins climbing the rolling hills. The devastation is appalling, even by the standards of Borneo/ Kalimantan. Entire hills have been deforested, scarred. Huge, monstrous stubs of enormous trees line up the road. There are all sorts of makeshift ‘reforestation’ projects, obviously conducted to impress the local media. The result of all this is terrifying. The higher we get, the greater the scale of destruction: the total ruin of the island can be seen for tens of kilometers, in every direction. If this was once, decades and centuries ago, a paradise, it is now hell.

On top of all this, stands a small metal structure, called Sudarmono Tower, put together in the most amateurish manner. It is supposed to resemble the Eiffel Tower. Local people drive here; they climb it; adults, children, even grandmothers. There is nothing else to do, in this part of the world: the villages are encircled by palm oil plantations, mines and other commercial ventures. Now they have new entertainment – me. They stare, point fingers, repeating, as they always do when they see a foreigner: “bule, bule” (derogatory for “albino”).

Le Tower de Kalimantan Nouveau – at the very center of the new capital (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

We approached Ms. Imah, who was visiting the tower together with her family. She is from Sepaku Dua. She has no idea about politics, or about the ‘colonizing and then plundering’ of Kalimantan. If anything, she is one of the ‘colonizers’, but definitely not one of those who improved their lives by moving to the island. She knows nothing about the ‘grand plan’. Or, she knows very little. All she worries about are insignificant details: noise and possible overcrowding:

“This is my first time visiting the location of the planned center of the capital. Personally, I am worried about the relocation of the new capital to our village. Now, we live in a quiet and peaceful environment. I am sure there will be more and more people coming and it will become crowded.”

She does not know that she is living in thorough misery. Almost nobody around here, or even in the middle of the monstrous Jakarta and Surabaya slums, realize their conditions. ‘Quiet and peaceful’, she describes her environment. Wooden shacks, a medical and education system near the hard sub-Saharan African bottom, an entire island robbed, with more than 100% of its land (yes, you are reading correctly) sold to private businesses.

Ms Ponadi, a shop owner, from Sepaku Village, thinks only about the possible compensation. But she is not even sure that the compensation will be provided by the government:

“We came to this village decades ago, as trans-migrants, who started a new life from scratch. Now I already have enough land to pass on to my daughters and sons. Honestly, I would not be willing if we were told to move, to another place. If we had to move, the government would have to provide adequate compensation, for the hard-earned lives we have built here for decades.”

This land she is talking about used to belong to this island, and to the people of this island. But she does not understand. First, the fascist government sent them here, to spread their culture and religion, all around this island, which used to be inhabited by enormous, advanced and clearly socialist cultures. Now, the Javanese regime wants to cash in on its ‘investment’. Ms. Ponadi concludes, somehow sarcastically: 

“How could they possibly be able to build a city like Dubai here? I am not convinced at all. Tall buildings will immediately collapse to the ground”.

She laughs, loudly. We don’t. All this is not funny. It is, somehow, damn serious.

We drive through Borneo, exhausted, depressed, and with the feeling that something terrible is once again taking place here.

For almost three years we have been filming and talking to people, all over this tremendous island, the 3^rd largest on Earth, after Greenland and Papua. We have been documenting mighty rivers like Kapuas, now poisoned by mercury, hills leveled to the ground by mining companies, tremendous sprawls of land deforested, and converted into palm oil plantations. Chemicals, black carcinogenic creeks, and filth, are everywhere. Coal barges exporting the bowels of the island to all corners of the world. Villages and towns surrounded by monstrous commercial enterprises. Beaches covered by concrete, and then abandoned. Children playing in the middle of the roads. Sick people running, escaping to the Malaysian part of the island, where the medical care is much better and cheaper.

For almost three years, we have been collecting material for a huge documentary film, and a book.

The world knows nothing about Borneo; or almost nothing. Yet, its demise is as important as that of Amazonia. And the destruction is much more rapid here, than anything recorded in Brazil.

Our nerves are stretched. It is all one big insanity, and we are alone, totally alone in this: no support and no backing. And this huge, enormous country all around us, choking us. The Fourth most populous nation on Earth, totally indoctrinated by the pro-Western, pro-business regime, with hardly any diversity, with no mercy, no production and hardly any enthusiasm. A country that only consumes, and which lives off cutting down trees, polluting rivers and selling its riches to multi-national companies.

A Balinese thinker, Gung Alit, wrote a comment for this report:

“I do not agree with moving the capital to Kalimantan, because I prefer the forest to be sustainable. Even now they are already destroyed, so what would the forests look like if they really move the capital? Kalimantan Island would be more devastated. And once it gets more devastated, they will move again. That is ridiculous.”

Yes, they always move again. They come like locust, from Java, supported by Western, foreign, companies. They stay for as long as there is something to plunder. Then, they move again. It is because Indonesia does not produce, it only plunders, and buys toys for the rich, after selling the loot. It is a terribly frightening sight. Everything is make-believe: statistics lie, planners lie. The country has been ransacked, by less than 1% of the population.

Deforestation and desolation marks the new center of the future capital city (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

Rainforests are still being clear cut, with no end in sight (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

Clear cut: making way for the new Indonesia capital city location, the new Kalimantan? (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

In the area of the new Indonesia capital – a palm oil and chemical apocalypse (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

And now, the Indonesian President, a megalomaniac, little businessman from Surakarta (Solo) is dreaming about something really huge. He is like some African king who drains his national resources, in order to build a useless, huge palace or a cathedral in the middle of the jungle.

The Diplomat published an article on April 3, 2020, by By Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat and Dimas Permadi. It contains two interesting paragraphs:

“It is also important to note that domestically Jokowi’s plan to move the capital has been a contentious issue, which has taken a toll on the president’s image. In fact, a survey carried out by the KedaiKOPI survey institute revealed that 95.7 percent of Jakartans reject the plan. Scholars have also argued that the plan is not feasible and would not solve the underlying issues the government aims to address.”

Naturally, to “elevate” the project, Jokowi selected several unsavory individuals:

“To realize this gigantic plan, Jokowi formed a new capital steering board consisting of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.”

Jokowi says he loves business, and he is enamored with the U.S. president Donald Trump. He can hardly believe that from a furniture seller he has gone ‘so far’, meeting the most notorious leaders of the West, shaking their hands, telling them how much they are wanted in Indonesia.

He talks big. He shuts up his critics. Journalists and activists are disappearing, or outrightly getting murdered. Laws muzzling any criticism are being introduced, gradually and consistently. Nobody dares to guess what may come next. New Order (“Ode Baru”) – the fascist pro-business regime of General Suharto, is being re-introduced.

In this political climate; in a climate of fear, intimidation and corruption, the new capital city of Indonesia is expected to rise.

As we sit in a car, in silence, driving towards Balikpapan City, my left eye begins to ache. It is just the beginning of a horror which I will have to face in just two weeks from now. My stomach has been destroyed, as always when I work in Indonesia, particularly in Kalimantan. Soon, both eyes, attacked by a local parasite, will collapse. It will happen in Hong Kong. And I will have to fly home, to Chile, half-blind and ruined after working in Kalimantan. My journey will take 8 days; from Hong Kong to Bangkok, to Seoul, Amsterdam, Surinam, Brazil and Peru.

On board Lion Air – the world’s most crammed and deadliest airline (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

In a few weeks, COVID-19 will come to Indonesia, but instead of mobilizing, Jokowi’s regime will tell its citizens to pray and drink herbal medicine. In such a situation, a tremendous amount of people may die, silently, and as always in Indonesia, unreported.

But now we slowly progressed towards the main regional center, and its airport. Ahead of us, there will be a horrid flight to Pontianak, in two days, on a filthy and overcrowded Boeing 737, so filthy that it resembles an old bus in some collapsed country. Then, a flight to Jakarta on the national carrier Garuda Indonesia, where several people sat around us would be emitting dry, persistent coughs. Unlike in the Philippines, Vietnam and of course China, no temperature checking, no medical checkpoints, until much, much later.

Indonesia is a collapsed country. I depicted it in my documentary film “DOWNFALL!” The fact that it has crumbled is a well-hidden secret. If it does something really well, it obstructs the truth, tricking its own citizens and the world. It shows its true face only when emergencies strike, as basically nothing works there: rescue operations, the medical system, or transportation.

Indonesia: with such workers – good luck building the new capital (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

Before leaving Balikpapan, we talked to several individuals there. Although in Indonesia, more than half of the population lives in misery (if international statistics were to apply), people here apply standardized neocon “logic”. Even in the slums, all over the archipelago, people use stock market jargon. It looks unnatural, terrifying, perverse.

Lusi (known, like most people in Indonesia, by only one name), a housewife, a visitor to the Mall Pentacity, in Balikpapan, readily offered her “analyses”:

“I agree and support the relocation of the capital. It will boost economic development, especially in the property businesses.”

Would she, personally, participate in the “economic development and property business”? When asked, she did not know what to say.

Mr. Arip Harahap, a senior architect, based in Jakarta, declared for this report, that moving the capital from Jakarta to Kalimantan, is “immoral”. He elaborated:

“First, it is not based on a proper planning and design process. All technical, socio-cultural studies are still too shallow. Second, considering the country’s economic situation, it is such a wasteful way of spending a budget. Third, it seems that there are the interests of groups close to the central government that will benefit from the project.”

Apparently, there are many such interests, of many groups close to the government. As the government and such groups are intertwined, forming one system, a regime, which has been, for long decades, cannibalizing the nation.

The Jakarta Globe continued its damning report, naming names:

“The corporations and the oligarchs have a chance to ensure their investments are safe with this project. Meanwhile, they ignore the fact the indigenous Paser Balik tribe had their land taken away by ITCI Hutan Manunggal in the 1960s,” Jatam coordinator Merah Johansyah said at the report’s launch in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The names mentioned in the report include lumber businessman Sukanto Tanoto, the owner of ITCI Hutan Manuggal; Hashim Djojohadikusumo, Prabowo’s younger brother; Rheza Herwindo, the son of corruption convict and ex-House speaker Setya Novanto; Thomas Aquinas Djiwandono, the treasurer of the Gerindra Party and Prabowo’s nephew; lawyer and ex-Justice Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra; and the ubiquitous Luhut.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced the location of the new capital city, at Penajam Paser Utara in East Kalimantan, on April 29, only 12 days after he won the presidential election.

“The government never asked for approval from the people of East Kalimantan. The decision [to move the capital there] was taken 12 days after the presidential election without consulting the public. That was a crime as far as public participation in politics is concerned,” Merah said.”

Investigating oppression against the indigenous people in Indonesia, as well as the destruction of the environment all over the archipelago by the collusion of local oligarchs, foreign multi-nationals and Indonesian government, is an extremely dangerous job, particularly now, under Jokowi’s administration. People get hunted down, killed, arrested and in the case of foreigners, regularly deported.

Recently, Philip Jacobson, 30, was arrested and imprisoned in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, after attending meetings of the indigenous people of Kalimantan, and reporting for Mongabay.

The Environmental science website, Mongabay, is an outspoken publication, that is persistently critical of the situation in Indonesia. Regarding the new capital, it reported on 6 January, 2020:

“The site of the new capital on the island of Borneo is home to 162 existing concessions, most of them for coal mining, according to a report from a coalition of NGOs. This contradicts the government’s claim that the city will be built on vacant land, and raises the prospect of the concession-holders exploiting the opportunity for profit, said Merah Johansyah from the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), one of the NGOs in the coalition.

“If the government says it’s going to be the public who will benefit [from relocating the capital], that’s a big lie,” he said at the launch of the report in Jakarta. “The ones that will benefit are these companies.”

Misery yes, but TV is always there (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

And so, the story goes. Six decades of attempts to move the Indonesian capital, from Jakarta to Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. First, the enthusiastic effort by President Sukarno, to raise the socialist, Soviet-style city of Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan, literally in the middle of nowhere. Then, the U.S.-backed fascist coup put a full stop to all the progressive aspirations and people-oriented development. Recently, after getting re-elected, Jokowi announced his grand plan to abandon the polluted, embarrassingly poor and ‘sinking’ Jakarta, and move the capital city to Penajam Paser Utara in East Kalimantan.

Unlike the left-wing vision of Sukarno, Jokowi’s design is nihilistic, and if implemented, it will benefit only big business and the oligarchs. The great majority of the Indonesian people will gain absolutely nothing.

The great migration of morally and economically corrupt bureaucrats and their butlers from Jakarta to East Kalimantan, would further damage the already extremely devastated island. Native people there will get more and more marginalized and oppressed. If this happens, there will also be very little chance for them to ever regain control of their own island.

Container ships ready to take away loot from Kalimantan, to richer waters (Image: Andre Vltchek © 2020)

As this report is being written, the Indonesian economy is collapsing, due to the COVID-19 epidemy. Even before the lockdowns, the commodity-based economy of the fourth most populous nation was not doing well. Now the situation is truly shattering now.

Statistics in Indonesia are manipulated and are totally incorrect. In reality, the majority of the nation lives below international poverty lines, living in urban and rural slums, lacking basic sanitation, access to clean water, decent medical care, healthy and nutritious food, education and housing.

Can Indonesia afford to waste 33 billion dollars on moving its capital city? And everyone knows that 33 billion will at some point inflate to 50 billion, then perhaps to one trillion, until we will all lose count. If the project goes ahead, it will be nothing more than yet another re-distribution of the national wealth – delivering billions of dollars into the hands of very few corrupt oligarchs and so-called “elites”.

The ‘project’ should stop. It has to stop, but can it still be stopped?

In Indonesia, the greed of the rulers is much greater than logic. Most of the citizens are uninformed, lethargic and submissive. People are resigned.

Will the new capital ever get built? So far, there is only the tiny fake Eiffel Tower sticking up towards the sky, surrounded by plundered nature. Almost nothing moves. There is almost total silence there, as if it were the silence before the storm.

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This article was originally published on 21st Century Wire.

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”, the 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 ground-breaking documentary about Rwanda and DR Congo 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.

Mira Lubis is a professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tanjungpura University, West Kalimantan. She was a researcher at Center for Wetland, People and Biodiversity at the same university. She is currently working on her doctoral research in Architecture, at University of Indonesia, topic The Political Ecology of Riverine Culture and Settlements along the Kapuas River, West Kalimantan.

All images in this article are from the authors

Central Asia is at risk of collapse if the socio-economic consequences of World War C aren’t addressed after much-needed remittance flows from Russia were abruptly cut off as a result of that country’s emergency quarantine measures, which in turn could inadvertently make the already impoverished population there much more susceptible to criminal and terrorist influences unless Russia, China, Pakistan, Turkey, and the US coordinate their existing efforts to turn Central Asia into the connectivity crossroads of the supercontinent so as to give the region’s people credible hope for the future.

“…so many of the out-of-the way things had happened lately, that Alice has begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible” — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Crises – not regular downturns but major crises – are characterized by the uncertainty they bring. They interrupt the normal and require yet-to-be discovered abnormal responses in order for us to move on. In the midst of these periodic calamities, we don’t know how or even whether we will stumble out of them nor what to expect if they do end. Crises are, consequently, moments of turmoil with openings for new political developments, good and bad.

Because each such crisis modifies the trajectory of history, the subsequent crisis occurs in a changed context and so has its own distinct features. The crisis of the 70s, for example, involved a militant working class, a challenge to the American dollar, and a qualitative acceleration in the role of finance and of globalization. The crisis of 2008-09, on the other hand, involved a largely defeated working class, confirmed the central global role of the dollar, and brought new ways of managing a uniquely finance-dependent economy. Like the previous crisis, the 2008-09 crisis yielded more neoliberal financialization, but this time it also opened the doors to right-wing populism alongside an acute disorientation of traditional political parties.

The Crisis This Time: Health Versus the Economy

The crisis this time is unique in an especially topsy-turvy way. The world, as Alice would express it, is getting “curiouser and curiouser.” In past capitalist crises, the state intervened to try and get the economy going again. This time, the immediate focus of states is not on how to revive the economy, but how to further restrict it. This is obviously so because the economy hasn’t been brought to its knees by economic factors or struggles from below, but rather, by a mysterious virus. Ending its hold over us is the first priority. In introducing the language of ‘social distancing’ and ‘self-quarantine’ to cope with the emergency, governments have suspended the social interactions that constitute a good part of the world of work and consumption, the world of the economy.

This accent on health, while putting the economy on the backburner, has brought a rather remarkable reversal in political discourse. A few short months ago the leader of France was the darling of business everywhere for leading the charge to decisively weaken the welfare state. France would become, he heralded, a business-friendly nation that “thinks and moves like a start-up.” Today Emmanuel Macron is gravely proclaiming that “[f]ree healthcare … and our welfare state are precious resources, indispensable advantages when destiny strikes.”

Macron was not alone in scrambling to reverse himself. Politicians of all stripes raised the idea of limiting factory production to socially necessary products like ventilators, hospital beds, protective masks and gloves. Telling corporations what they should produce became commonplace, with the UK’s conservative Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, calling on auto companies to “switch from building cars to ventilators” and President Trump, astonishingly going further and “ordering” GM to make ventilators under the Defense Production Act. In this new world, it’s hard to remember that over the past year any suggestion of doing what political leaders are now themselves demanding was ignored or derisively waved off, and not only by them and by business, but even by some key union leaders.

At the same time, to those who previously turned a blind eye, the crisis graphically exposed the extreme fragility of working-class budgets. With so many people facing severe deprivation and the threat of social chaos, all levels of government have been forced to address people’s basic health and survival needs. Republicans are now joining Democrats in proposing legislation to postpone mortgage payments, tighten rent controls and cancel interest payments on student debt. Their disagreements are generally not over whether to get more money to workers forced to stay home and to radically improve sick pay and unemployment insurance, but how significant these supports should be. During the Great Depression there was a similar political shift that legitimated social programs and labour rights. However that development was a concession to popular mobilization; this time, it is a response to the extent of the health pandemic and the need to keep people away from work.

This is not to say that the ‘economic’ is being ignored, only that its traditional precedence is taking a back seat to the social, i.e., the health threat. There remains a deep and concerted effort to preserve enough of the economic infrastructure (production, services, trade, finance) to facilitate a return to some semblance of normality ‘later’. This is leading to massive bailouts and this time – unlike the crisis of 2008-09 – the money is flowing not just to banks but also to sectors like air travel, hotels and restaurants, and in particular to small and medium sized businesses.

The economy was foremost in the mind of Trump in his initial casual response to the health crisis, leading one exasperated blogger to comment that “if the Martians invaded earth, our first response would be to lower interest rates.” After Trump was convinced by his advisors that this response would not do, a far more sombre Donald Trump appeared on our screens, winning praise for looking and sounding properly presidential and decisive. The Democratic establishment, which had to that point focussed on defeating Sanders – in part because they feared Trump would exploit Sanders’ radicalism electorally, in part because they feared the implications of a Sanders victory for their hold on the party – were now kept awake by another scenario: what if Trump’s emergency measures pre-empts the Dems from the left. “Up is down, north is south” a Democratic Party insider wryly commented.

Consistent in his inconsistency, Trump turned on a dime again, a matter of his own business and populist instincts and reinforced by the stock market, Fox News and the business leaders that had his ear. The lock-down, he announced, will be over in a matter of “days, not weeks or months.” This mindless declaration couldn’t prevail as the body count grew and hospitals were overwhelmed, and we were reminded – not for the last time – that by virtue of America’s place in the world, Trump was not only the most powerful of world leaders, but also the most dangerous.

Contradictions of Money Printing

Governments everywhere have magically found a way to pay for all kinds of programs and supports written off as impossible before. The sky, it seems, is the limit. But leaving aside the crucial issue of whether, after years of cutbacks in funds and skills, states have the administrative capacity to fully carry out such programs, can this all really be paid for by simply printing money?

The common critique is that in economies at or near full employment, such massive injections of funds will be inflationary. Though there will be bottlenecks and possible inflation in certain sectors, in the current reality of record idle capacity the inflationary concern can be ignored. And with every country being disciplined to take the same actions by the pandemic, the usual discipline of capital outflows is inoperable – there is nowhere to run to. Yet, contradictions there are, though in our present circumstances they now take a different form.

First, there is, in fact no free lunch. After the crisis is over, the emergency expenditures will have to be paid for. This will occur in a context in which, having experienced the possibility of programs previously characterized as impractical, people’s expectations will have been raised. As Vijay Prashad defiantly expressed it, “We won’t go back to normal, because normal was the problem.” Once the economy is operating at full tilt again, meeting the new working-class expectations will no longer be possible through reviving the money presses. There is only so much labour and so many natural resources around and choices will have to be made over who gets what; the questions of inequality and redistribution will, given the history before and during the crisis, be intensified.

Second, as the crisis begins to fade this will happen unevenly. So, the flow of capital may restart, and if it flows out of the countries still suffering, this raises large questions about the morality of capital flows. And even when all countries have escaped the health pandemic, they will be eager to move on, and to the extent that financial ‘discipline’ returns, people may not take too kindly to their recovery and development being undermined by self-serving capital flows – not after a second bailout in a dozen years that was ultimately financed by the rest of us. The assumption that financial markets are untouchable may no longer hold; people may perhaps come to think, like Alice, that “very few things indeed were really impossible.” To the rebellion against the extent of inequality might be added a backlash calling for capital controls.

It’s true that the global status of the US dollar allows for a degree of American exceptionalism. In times of uncertainty – and even when, as with the US mortgage crisis of 2007-09, it is events in the US that are the source of that uncertainty – there is generally an increased clamor for the dollar. But, here too, there is a limit. For one, the consequent rise in the US exchange rate can make US goods less competitive and further suppress US manufacturing. But more importantly, the international confidence in the dollar has not only rested on the strength of US financial markets but has been conditional, as well, on the US as a safe haven with a working class that is economically and politically pliant. If that working class were to rebel, the dollar as safe haven would be less definitive. The size and direction of capital flows might become more problematic even for the US (and even if this did not lead to another currency replacing the dollar, it could contribute to a great deal of domestic and international financial chaos).

Openings to the Left?

We don’t know how long this crisis will last; much clearly depends on that contingency. Nor can we say with any confidence how this unpredictable and fluid moment will affect society and influence our notions of what was formerly ‘normal’. In such uncertain and anxious times, what most people likely crave is a quick return to normality, even if what was earlier normal included no shortage of great frustrations. Such inclinations come with a deference to authority to get us through the calamity, something that has some concerned about a new wave of state authoritarianism.

We should of course never underestimate the dangers from the right. And who knows what the dynamics of a crisis extending past the summer may bring. But the contours of this crisis suggest a different possibility: a predisposition, rather, for greater openings and opportunities for the political left. Underlying the examples noted above is that, at least for now, markets have been side-lined. The urgency over how we allocate labour, resources, and equipment has set aside considerations of competitiveness and maximizing private profits, and instead reoriented priorities to what is socially essential.

Moreover, as the financial system heads into uncharted territory again and looks to another boundless bail-out from central banks and the state, a population exasperatedly watching history repeat itself may, as raised above, not be as a passive as it was a dozen years ago. People will no doubt reluctantly again accept their immediate dependence on saving the banks, but politicians cannot help but worry about a popular backlash if this time there is no effective quid pro quo forced on the bankers.

And, as well, a cultural change – still too hard to assess – may be afoot. The nature of the crisis and the social restrictions essential to overcoming it have made mutuality and solidarity, against individualism and neoliberal greed, the order of the day. An indelible image of the crisis this time sees quarantined yet inventive Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese coming out on their balconies to collectively sing, cheer and clap tributes to the courage of the health workers, often low paid, doing the most essential work on the front lines of the global war against the coronavirus.

All this opens up the prospect – but only the prospect – of a reorientation in social outlooks as the crisis, and the state responses to it, unfold. What was once taken for granted as ‘natural’ may now be vulnerable to larger questions about how we should live and relate. For economic and political elites this clearly has its dangers. The trick, for them, is to make sure that actions that are currently unavoidable and whose eventual outcome is unpredictable are limited in scope and time bound. Once the crisis is comfortably over, uncomfortable ideas and chancy measures must be put back in their box and the lid firmly shut. For popular forces, on the other hand, the challenge lies in keeping that box open through taking advantage of the promising ideological prospects that have emerged, building on some of the positive – even radical – policy steps introduced, and exploring the varied creative actions that have been taken locally in so many places.

From each according to ability to pay, to each according to needs

The most obvious ideological shift brought on by the crisis has been in attitudes to healthcare. Opposition in the US to single-payer healthcare today looks all the more other-worldly. Elsewhere, those tolerating healthcare for all but determined to impose cuts that left the healthcare system far overstretched, and those seeing healthcare as another commodity to be administered by emulating business practices rooted in profitability, are in awkward retreat. Their frame has been exposed for how dangerously unprepared it left us for dealing with emergencies.

As we look to consolidate this new mood, we should not be content with the defensive game. This is a moment to think more ambitiously and insist on a far more comprehensive notion of what ‘healthcare’ encompasses. This ranges across long-standing demands for dental, drug, and eye-care programs. It highlights the adequacy of long-term care facilities, particularly those that are private but also those in public hands. It asks why personal care workers who take care of the sick, disabled and old aren’t part of the public health system and unionized and treated accordingly. And, especially given the shortages of essential equipment we now confront, it poses the question of whether the entire chain of healthcare provision, including the manufacture of health equipment, should be in the public domain where present and future needs could be properly planned.

Thinking bigger extends to the connection between food and health; to housing policy and the contradiction between insisting on social distancing and the persistence of crowded homeless shelters; to child care; and to making permanent the temporary sick days now on offer. It extends as well, to taking ‘universality’ seriously enough to extend it to the migrants who work our fields and the refugees who have been forced out of their communities (often as a result of international policies sanctioned by our governments). Most generally, if we win and consolidate the healthcare principle of “from each according to ability to pay, to each according to need” (with ability to pay determined through a progressive tax structure), that victory would be an inspirational and strategic boost to extending socialized medicine’s core principle throughout the economy.

The existential need for antidotes to avoid pandemics places a special responsibility on global drug companies. They have failed us. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and no stranger to making financial decisions, explained this failure in the accounting terms of pandemic products being “extraordinary high-risk investments” – a polite way of saying that corporations won’t adequately address the investments involved without massive government funding. The historian Adam Tooze put this more directly: when it comes to pharma companies prioritizing the social over the profitable, “obscure coronaviruses don’t get the same attention as erectile dysfunction.”

The point is that the provision of medicines and vaccines is too important to leave to private companies with their private priorities. If Big Pharma will only do the research on dangerous future vaccines if governments take the risk, fund the research, find themselves funding the accompanying manufacturing capacity, and coordinate the distribution of the drugs and vaccines to those who need them, the obvious question is why don’t we cut out the self-serving middle-man? Why not place all this directly in the hands of the public as part of an integrated healthcare system?

The Pandemic Next Time

The lack of preparedness for the coronavirus sends the clearest and scariest warning about not just the next possible pandemic, but the one already circling over and around us. The looming environmental crisis will not be solved by social distancing or a new vaccine. As with the coronavirus, the longer we wait to decisively address it, the more catastrophic it will be. But unlike the coronavirus, the environmental crisis is not only about ending a temporary health crisis, but also about fixing the damage already done. As such, it demands transforming everything about how we live, work, travel, play, and relate to each other. This requires maintaining and developing the productive capacities to carry out the necessary changes in our infrastructure, homes, factories, and offices.

As conventional as the idea of conversion is now becoming, it is in fact a radical idea. The well-meaning slogan of a ‘just transition’ sounds reassuring but falls short. Those it is intended to win over rightly ask ‘who will carry out such a guarantee?’ The point is that restructuring the economy and prioritizing the environment can’t happen without comprehensive planning. And planning implies a challenge to the private-property rights that corporations now enjoy.

At a minimum, a National Conversion Agency should be established with a mandate to ban the closing of facilities that could be converted to serve environmental (and health) needs and to oversee that conversion. Workers could call on that agency as whistleblowers if they think their workplace is moving to redundancy. The existence of such an institution would encourage workers to occupy closed workplaces as more than an act of protest; rather than appealing to a corporation that is no longer interested in the facility, their actions could focus on the conversion agency and push it to carry out its mandate.

Such a national agency would have to be twinned with a national labour board responsible for coordinating the training and reallocation of labour. It would also be supplemented with regional tech-conversion centers employing hundreds if not thousands of young engineers enthusiastic to use their skills to address the existential challenge of the environment. And locally-elected environmental boards would monitor community conditions while locally-elected job development boards would link community and environmental needs to jobs, workplace conversions and the development of worker and plant capacities – all funded federally as part of a national plan and all also rooted in active neighbourhood committees and workplace committees.

The Banks: Once Bitten Twice Shy

Everything we hope to do in the way of significant change will have to confront the dominance of private financial institutions over our lives. The financial system has all the earmarks of a public utility: it greases the wheels of the economy, both production and consumption, mediates government policy, and is treated as indispensable whenever it itself is in trouble. We do not, however, have either the political power or the technical capacity to take over finance today and use it for different purposes. The issue, therefore, is twofold: first, to place the question on the public agenda; if we do not discuss it now, the moment will never be ripe for raising it; second, we need to carve out specific spaces within the financial system as part of both achieving particular priorities and of developing the knowledge and skills for eventually running the financial system in our own interests.

A logical starting place is to establish two particular government owned banks: one to finance the infrastructural demands that have been so badly neglected; the other to finance the Green New Deal and conversion. If these banks have to compete to get funds and earn the returns to pay off those loans, little will change. The political decision to establish these banks would have to include, as Scott Aquanno argues in a forthcoming paper, the politically-determined infusions of cash to do what private banks have been doing so inadequately: investing in projects that have a high, if risky, social return and low profits by conventional measures. That initial funding could come from a levy on all financial institutions – payback for the massive bailouts they received from the state. (With a solid financial base in place, these public banks could also borrow in financial markets without being beholden to them.)

Democratic Planning: An Oxymoron?

When the left speaks of democratic planning it is referencing a new kind of state – one that expresses the public will, encourages the widest popular involvement, and actively develops the popular capacity to participate, as opposed to reducing people to commodified workers, data points, passive citizens. Skeptics will scoff, but the remarkable experience we’ve just been going through, indicating how suddenly what was so ‘obviously’ impossible yesterday can be so ‘obviously’ common-sense today, suggests reasons for not writing this off so cavalierly.

It is not so much ‘planning’ itself that scares people. After all, households plan, corporations plan, and even neoliberal states plan. What raises the familiar misgivings, fears, and antagonisms is talk of the kind of extensive planning we are raising here. The unease over this kind of planning cannot be dismissed by simply blaming the bias of corporations and the media and the legacy of cold-war propaganda. Suspicions of powerful states have a material basis not only in failed experiments elsewhere but in popular interactions with states that are indeed bureaucratic, arbitrary, often wasteful, and distant.

Adding the adjective ‘democratic’ doesn’t solve this dilemma. And though international examples may include suggestive policies and structures, the sober truth is that there are no fully convincing models on offer. This leaves us tirelessly repeating our critiques of capitalism; yet, as essential as this is, it is not enough. Skeptics may still fatalistically reply that all systems are inevitably unfair, insensitive to the ‘common man’, and run by and for elites. So why risk the uncertainties of paths that might at best only leave us in much the same place?

What we can do is start with an unambiguous commitment to assure others that we are not advocating an all-powerful state and that we value the liberal freedoms won historically: the expansion of the vote to working people, free speech, the right to assembly (including unionization), protection against arbitrary arrest, and state transparency. And we should insist that taking these principles seriously demands an extensive redistribution of income and wealth so everyone, in substance not just in formal status, has an equal chance to participate.

We should, as well, remind people how far we are from the characterization of capitalism as a world of small property owners. Amazon, to take just one example, was – true to the measures of success under capitalism – already running roughshod over tens of thousands of small businesses before the crisis, driving to maximize its profits and to “control and commodify everyday life.” In the wake of the crisis and the collapse of small retailers, this monopolization is about to become a tsunami. This outcome will be further reinforced by the Canadian government’s recent decision to contract Amazon to be the principal distributor of personal protective equipment across the country, coldly ignoring in the process Amazon’s lack of adequate attention to providing its own workforce with adequate protection against the virus.

The alternative to this mammoth corporation answerable only to itself is, as Mike Davis has suggested, taking it over and making it into a public utility, part of the social infrastructure of how goods get from here to there – an extension, for example, of the post office. It belonging to us, rather than to the richest man in the universe, holds the possibility of its operations being democratically planned to benefit the public.

To realize the democratic side of planning, it’s crucial to address specific mechanisms and institutions that could facilitate new levels of popular participation. In the case of the environment, where it is particularly clear that society-wide planning must be fundamental to addressing the ‘clear and present danger’, a new kind of state would have to include not only new central capacities, but also a range of decentralized planning capacities such as those we referenced earlier: regional research centers, sectoral councils across industries and services, locally elected environmental and job development boards, and workplace and neighbourhood committees.

Notably, the health crisis has highlighted the necessity and potentials of workplace control by those who do the work. This is most obviously so in maximizing their protections from the risks and sacrifices they make on our behalf. But it extends to workers, with their direct knowledge, also acting as guardians of the public interest – using the protection of their unions to act as whistleblowers to expose shortcuts and ‘savings’ that affect product and service safety and quality. Unions have of late come to more widely appreciate the priority of getting the public on side as support toward winning their collective-bargaining battles.

But something more is needed, a step toward more formally linking up with the public in broader political demands (as teachers and healthcare workers are doing informally to some extent). This could, for example, mean fighting within the state to establish joint worker-community councils to monitor and modify programs on an on-going basis. In the private sector, it could mean workplace conversion committees and workplace sectoral councils acting to present their own plans or acting as a counter to national plans addressing planned economic restructuring and conversion to the new environmental reality.

Three points are critical here. First, widespread worker participation demands the expansion of unionization to provide workers an institutional collective to counter employer power. Second, such local and sectoral participation cannot be developed and sustained without involving and transforming states to link national planning and local planning. Third, it is not only states that must be transformed but working-class organizations as well. The failure of unions over the past few decades both in organizing and in addressing their members’ needs is inseparable from their stubborn commitment to a fragmented, defensive unionism within society as it currently exists, as opposed to a class-struggle trade unionism based on broader solidarities and more ambitiously radical visions. This calls for not just ‘better’ unions, but for different and more politicized unions.

Conclusion: Organizing the Class

A particularly important development over the past decade has been the shift from protest to politics: the recognition on the part of popular movements of the limits of protest and the consequent need to address electoral power and the state. Yet we are still struggling with what kind of politics can then, in fact, transform society. In spite of the impressive space created by Corbynism and Sanders via working through established parties, both have run into the limits of these parties, with Corbyn gone and the Sanders ‘insurrection’ seemingly on the wane. The great political danger is that having come this far and been disappointed, and with no clear political home, the combination of individual exhaustion, collective demoralization, and divisions on where to go next may lead to the dissipation of what was so hopefully developing.

Bravado declarations of capitalism’s imminent collapse will not take us very far. They may be popular in some quarters, but in exaggerating the inevitability of capitalism’s approaching breakdown but also obscure what needs doing to engage in the long, hard, indefinite battle to change the world. It is one thing to draw hope from the profound crisis capitalism is experiencing and capitalism’s on-going insanities. But the telling crisis we must focus on is the internal one, the one faced by the left itself. In this particular moment, the following four elements seem fundamental to sustaining and building a relevant left politics.

1. Defend workers through the present crisisDirectly addressing the immediate needs of working people (broadly defined) is a basic starting point, especially given the present emergency. In the US, Bernie Sanders’ “Emergency Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic” is a valuable resource in this regard, even if it doesn’t go as far as Doug Henwood in a socialist direction (see: “Now Is the Time to Fundamentally Transform America”).
2. Build/sustain institutional capacitiesIn the absence of a left political party in the US, and with Sanders’ electoral possibilities fading, the issue for the left that has operated within the Democratic Party is how to maintain some institutional independence from the Democratic Party establishment. The only foreseeable way for the left to do so seems to be to strategically choose two or three national campaigns and focus on them. The environment might be one and the fight for universal healthcare health seems a logical second choice. The third might be labour law reform, this being important not only in itself after how much labour has been kicked around, but crucial to altering the balance of class power in America.
3. Make socialistsThe Sanders campaign demonstrated a surprising potential for raising funds and recruiting tens of thousands of committed activists. Jane McAlevey had argued after Sanders’ defeat in 2016 that this was the time to throw that enthusiasm into establishing regional organizing schools across the US. Building on that, we need to introduce schools that create socialist cadre that can link thinking analytically and strategically to learning how to talk to and organize unconvinced workers and play a role, as socialists did in the 1930s, in not just defending unions but transforming them. The campaigns, the schools, study groups, public forums and news magazines and journals (like Jacobin and Catalyst) would all be infrastructural elements of a possible future left party.
4. Organize the classAndrew Murray, chief of staff at the British/Irish union UNITE has noted the difference between a left that is ‘focused’ on the working class and one that is ‘rooted’ in it. The greatest weakness of the socialist left is its limited embeddedness in unions and working-class communities. Only if the left can overcome this gap – which is a cultural gap as much as it is a political one – is there any possibility of witnessing the development of a coherent, confident, and independently defiant working class with the capacity and capacity-inspired vision to fundamentally challenge capitalism.

When the 2008-09 financial crisis hit many of us saw this as a definitive discrediting of the financial sector, if not of capitalism itself. We were wrong. The state intervened to save the financial system and financial institutions emerged stronger than ever. Capitalism in its neoliberal form rolled on. This time, the crisis was triggered by a health pandemic, and the challenge to capitalism’s authority is coming out of how states have responded. As one capitalist shibboleth after another was swept aside – ceilings on fiscal deficits, the lack of funds for improving employment insurance, the impracticality of conversion of closing factories, the glorification of corporate pursuit of profits over all else, the devaluation of workers who clean our hospitals and care for the aged – surely we were ripe for radical change?

Maybe. But it has never served the left well to imagine substantive change happening out of objective conditions alone, without building the forces we need to take advantage of those conditions. Change rests on our developing the collective understandings, capacities, practices, strategic insights and above all democratic organizational institutions to do exactly that. We need to convince all those who should be with us but aren’t, elevate popular expectations, and ambitions, and stand up with confidence to those who would block us.

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The first measures taken against COVID-19 in the West Bank occurred in early March after the confirmation of seven cases in Bethlehem that were linked to a Greek tourist group. The Palestinian Authority (PA) declared a state of emergency and imposed a lockdown on the city, banning all entry and exit as well as enforcing a curfew on residents. The PA also announced restrictions across the West Bank, including prohibitions on travel between governorates and the shuttering of public spaces and education facilities. On March 22, following a steady increase in cases, the PA declared a curfew. ¹ 

In the Gaza Strip, in mid-March Hamas authorities and UNRWA began converting schools into quarantine centers and clinics in preparation for a possible outbreak. On March 21, two Gazans returning from Pakistan tested positive for the virus and were immediately hospitalized. Twenty-nine people were identified to have come into contact with them and were placed in quarantine.

At the time of writing, the total number of confirmed cases in the West Bank is 247 and 12 in Gaza. Although the figures are relatively low, the worry is that the limited amount of testing available means that the number of infected people is in fact much higher.

COVID-19 Meets the Occupation

The West Bank and Gaza Strip are confronting COVID-19 from a reality of Israeli military occupation, which weakens the ability of the Palestinian authorities and the Palestinian people to respond effectively to the deadly virus. While many health care systems around the world are struggling to deal with the pandemic, the 53-year occupation has seriously depleted medical capabilities in the West Bank and Gaza. The donor-dependent system has shortages in equipment, medication, and staff due to such issues as military raids and restrictions on imports. In the Gaza Strip in particular – deemed unliveable by the UN as a result of over 13 years of blockade and multiple wars – the health care system already struggled to deal with medical cases before the pandemic. Indeed, Gaza currently has only 78 ICU beds and 63 ventilators for a population of two million.

Meanwhile, daily manifestations of the occupation persist, such as the continued demolition of Palestinian homes and military raids on Palestinian villages and towns. There have also been direct Israeli attacks on Palestinian attempts to confront the virus, such as the destruction of a COVID 19 clinic in the Jordan Valley and the arrest of Palestinian volunteers attempting to distribute supplies to impoverished communities in East Jerusalem. The Israeli occupation authorities are also failing to take any preventative measures to protect Palestinian political prisoners, who are being illegally incarcerated within a military prison system that fails to meet even basic health and sanitation standards.

Political Manipulations

The Israeli regime is using this global crisis not only to distract from its ongoing violations of human rights, but also as a political tool to gain diplomatic leverage. Indeed, international bodies have been commending Israel for its “cooperation” with the PA during this crisis; the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, called such coordination “excellent” during a recent speech. In reality, Israeli “cooperation” includes the Israeli Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) “allowing” a minimum of internationally-donated medical supplies to reach the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as was the case with a shipment of 3,000 tests and 50,000 masks from the World Health Organization (WHO) to the PA. This is far below the actual needs of the West Bank.

Those commending the cooperation also point to the issue of the thousands of Palestinian workers in Israel. In an attempt to prevent mass movement and the potential spread of the disease, Israel and the PA reached an agreement that, as of March 18, conditioned Palestinian workers’ continued employment on them staying in Israel for several months rather than returning to the West Bank. Yet the workers were not only deprived of proper protective equipment; Israeli authorities reportedly dumped workers who they suspected of having the virus at checkpoint entrances to the West Bank without informing the PA. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh reversed the decision on March 25, ordering the workers home. The worry is that the PA will not have the capacity to test people upon their return, and Israel has so far not offered to test them.

Shifting the Narrative 

In effect, the Israeli regime, which maintains a violent military occupation and has depleted the capabilities of the Palestinian health care system, is being praised for allowing in tidbits of medical supplies from international actors, despite its responsibility under international law as an occupying power to provide the supplies itself. It is essential that international actors not only support vital humanitarian efforts for immediate medical relief in Palestine but that they also insist on Israel’s responsibility to finance Palestinian medical needs.

It is also imperative to shift the narrative from cooperation and to highlight the Israeli occupation as an instrument of comorbidity. In other words, not only does the occupation exacerbate the conditions that increase Palestinians’ susceptibility to infection, it is also directly responsible for those conditions. It is therefore disingenuous to argue that now is the time for cooperation and dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authorities to confront the pandemic. Now is the time, as it was before, to demand the lifting of the blockade on Gaza and the end of the military occupation of the West Bank.

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Yara Hawari is the Senior Palestine Policy Fellow of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. She completed her PhD in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, where she taught various undergraduate courses and continues to be an honorary research fellow. In addition to her academic work which focused on indigenous studies and oral history,  she is also a frequent political commentator writing for various media outlets including The Guardian, Foreign Policy and Al Jazeera English.

Note

[1] This policy memo was produced with the support of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. The views expressed herein are those of the author and therefore do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) said Wednesday that 74 million people lack access to a basic handwashing facilities to prevent the spread of the coronavirus outbreak in Arab nations, EDNews.net reports citing Yeni Safak.

The Beirut-based agency acknowledged handwashing with soap and water is effective against the virus and said water demand for handwashing is set to increase between 9 to 12 liters per person per day, meaning an average daily increase of 4 to 5 million cubic meters in household water demand.

The situation is aggravated by inadequate piped water supply in 10 of 22 Arab nations, it added.

Highlighting that nearly 87 million people in the region also lack access to an improved drinking water source in homes, the agency said those obliged to provide water from a public source on a daily basis are subjected to greater risk of infection.

“An estimated 26 million refugees and internally displaced persons in the region are also at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 due to lack of adequate water, sanitation and hygiene services,” the statement said.

ESCWA said just 1 in 10 households has access to clean water in the Gaza Strip as it highlighted the difficult conditions Palestinians living under Israeli occupation face.

Since 2006, Israel has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip, where nearly 2 million Palestinians live, and many sectors have been adversely affected including the economy, health, and education.

There are 329 COVID-19 cases in Palestine and the death toll is two.

Globally, the virus has infected more than 2 million patients and has claimed an excess of 132,200 lives, according to figures compiled by the U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

More than half a million have recovered.

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Featured image is from Eurasia Diary

Judge them by their actions, never their rhetoric, a rule of thumb in evaluating others, notably politicians. They all lie with the rarest of rare exceptions.

Warren’s sellout to Dem party bosses followed Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders going the same way — abdicating to wealth and power interests over honor and principles, showing their lofty rhetoric was meaningless, their trustworthiness nil.

Dems falling all over themselves for Biden show they back his pro-war, pro-business, and anti-progressive agenda. The package goes with the man. You can’t have one without the other.

Biden is a Trump clone warmonger/corporatist/racist with a party label and style difference.

As things now stand, US voters in November with get to choose between death by firing squad or hanging — meaning no choice at all, how it always is for high executive or congressional offices when so-called elections are held.

They’re more exercises in mass deception than anything else, always turning out the same way.

In her betrayal message, Warren said the following:

“In this moment of crisis, it’s more important than ever that the next president restores Americans’ faith in good, effective government—and I’ve seen Joe Biden help our nation rebuild (sic).”

“Today, I’m proud to endorse @JoeBiden as president of the United States.”

“Joe Biden has spent nearly his entire life in public service (sic).”

“He knows that a government run with integrity, competence and heart will save lives and save livelihoods (sic).”

“And we can’t afford to let Donald Trump continue to endanger the lives and livelihoods of every American.”

Biden’s near-half century of public life reflects virtually  everything disturbing about dirty politics as usual in Washington.

He never met a US war of aggression against an invented enemy he didn’t wholeheartedly endorse.

Nor a banker’s grand theft through fraud, grand theft, market manipulation, pumping and dumping, front-running and scamming investors he didn’t turn a blind eye to, Wall Street giants operating like shadowy Mafia dons, an interconnected crime family feigning respectability.

Nor has Biden been shy about supporting an enhanced US military, industrial, security, media complex and prison industrial complex while backing neoliberal war on social justice.

He’s hostile to all sovereign independent nations the US doesn’t control, his actions showing contempt for ordinary people everywhere.

His near half-century as US senator and vice president was all about serving wealth and powerful interests at the expense of public rights and welfare.

Warren is an Obama clone with a gender difference, an establishment figure throughout her public life.

Militantly hostile to nonbelligerent Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and other sovereign states on the US target list for regime change, she falsely considers them a threat to US national security.

They’re at peace with other nations, at war with none, polar opposite how the US, NATO and Israel operate  — rogue states threatening everyone.

She backs illegally imposed US sanctions on targeted nations and individuals that’s the prerogative of Security Council members exclusively, never one state against others for any reasons.

Dismissive of Palestinian rights, she one-sidedly backs Israel, ignoring its history of high crimes.

In her own words, “capitalist to the bone” defines her, meaning corporate predation and exploitation for maximum unrestrained profit-making and market power.

Was endorsing Biden a sale pitch to join his ticket as running mate?

Do Sanders and Gabbard have something similar in mind — perhaps a cabinet post if not his number two?

There’s nary a dime’s worth of difference between Biden and Trump.

In November like most often earlier, options for US voters are none at all — dirty business as usual alone on the ballot for the nation’s highest office and key congressional posts.

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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.