Marshal Ivan Konev, the famous Soviet general who was responsible for liberating most of Eastern Europe from Nazi Germany and its allies has been a figure of respect. He has been immortalized in a series of busts and statues that can be found throughout Eastern Europe, including Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia. However, Czechia is a country that is beginning to act in a very “un-European” way after removing a monument of Marshal Konev from Prague.

Konev was the first Allied commander to enter the Czechslovakian capital after the Prague uprising in 1945 and was immortalized when a monument to him was erected in 1980. However, this cultural and historical monument was defiled when it was removed on April 3 by Prague District 6 mayor Ondřej Kolář. Kolář used the coronavirus state of emergency to remove the statue to avoid protests from “strange people from both the right and left scum,” as he described the people who opposed the statues removal.

Czech President Miloš Zeman shared outrage over the removed statue as “an abuse of the state of emergency,” but is yet to have the monument reinstated in Prague or delivered to Russia. Although Zeman may be friendly to Russia, there is little doubt he is an anomaly in a country that is continually moving towards Western liberalism.

The actions of Kolář is rather much closer akin to that of authoritarian and historical revisionist Ukraine who has long embarked in a process of removing all traces of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Although Western countries may oppose the Soviet Union and its guiding socialist ideology, even in liberal United Kingdom, the grave and monument to Karl Marx is preserved and not harassed in Highgate Cemetery, along with other communist figures like Mansoor Hekmat and Claudia Jones.

Czechoslovakia surrendered to the Nazi war machine in 1938 without a fight by handing over all their weapons, unlike the Polish who resisted in 1939. Czechoslovakia only had its statehood restored when the Soviet Union expelled the Nazis from the entirety of Eastern Europe.

 

The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated:

“Czechia respects Red Army soldiers, where in addition to the Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and other nations of the then Soviet Union, fought for our liberation. The statue of Marshal Konev is a war memorial and is covered by the 1993 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, but the relocation of the statue does not contradict its wording. The MFA expects the statue to be treated with dignity.”

The Ministry then states

“If the Russian Federation were interested in obtaining a statue of Marshal Konev, it would have to negotiate with its owner. This is not for the MFA. “

Effectively, although the Ministry claims it respects all victims of the Soviet Red Army and expects the statue to be treated with dignity, it is wiping its hands clean of taking any responsibility for the defiled monument. Czechia is not willing to go beyond words to defend its own history and those who died for its own statehood, and rather Mayor Kolář has free reign to do as he wants with no repercussion from the state. Kolář should be restrained at the state level and Prague should not keep aloof under far-fetched pretexts of non-interference in local self-government.

In other European countries – such as Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands – this would be absolutely unthinkable and only political marginals and radicals are capable of this. Yet  Czechia, that has submissively swung towards the West, is acting in a manner that not even the West engages in.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

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There are 2 camps in the Middle East: those countries which work with ‘Israel’, and those who do not.  The countries which have established relationships with ‘Israel’ are Turkey; United Arab Emirates (UAE); Saudi Arabia; Qatar; Bahrain; Oman; Jordan; Egypt. This group of countries is backed up by the US and the EU.

The countries which do not have a relationship with Israel are Syria; Lebanon; Iraq; Iran; Occupied Palestinian; Yemen; Algeria.  This group of countries has established a very good relationship with Russia and China.

The world is split between 2 spheres of influence, with the US and EU on 1 side, and Russia and China on the other.  This situation is very similar to the ‘Cold War’ years when the world was split between the Soviet Union and the US.

The Arab Gulf role in the Middle East conflicts

In Syria, since 2011 the Arab Gulf countries, allied with Turkey and ‘Israel’, have sent and trained terrorists, who are following the political ideology of Radical Islam, which is not a religion, or a sect. These countries have bowed to the pressure of the US sanctions on Syria, and have refused to do business with Syria, even on humanitarian items.  They have also waged political war on Syria, by accepting the removal of Syria from the Arab League, which was proposed by Qatar at the beginning of the conflict.

In Libya, the Arab-Gulf countries have been funding both sides of a civil war, while stealing petroleum resources there.  While Turkey and Qatar are funding and supporting the forces of Prime Minister Sarraj, the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are funding and supporting the opposing forces of Field Marshall Haftar. Recently, it was revealed that the UAE bought Israeli military weapons and sent them to Haftar. Beginning in 2011, these countries participated in the ‘regime change’ project which saw Colonel Qaddafi removed from power, and murdered.

The chaos that exists in Iraq today began with the US military intervention in Iraq, which included 2 wars.  The Arab Gulf countries, with their ally Israel, have funded and supported the Iraqi Kurdish separatists, who have been successful in dividing Iraq.  It was the Arab Gulf countries that nurtured and gave birth to the political ideology we know as Radical Islam. The various terrorist groups, such as ISIS, Jibhat al Nusra, Al Qaeda, and others are all the creation of the Arab Gulf countries.  The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 saw the stealing of petroleum resources, gold bullion from the Central Bank, and antiquities from the National Museum in Baghdad. This looting of Iraqi resources is continuing.  The Arab Gulf countries have funded and supported differing Muslim sects to ensure the various groups will continue to fight, thus keeping Iraq weak and divided.

Lebanon may be a small country; however, it has a big role to play in the region. The Arab Gulf countries have funded and supported the US and the ‘Israel’ during the 2006 war on the Lebanese Resistance movement, and have launched a propaganda war through their media.  On the political side, the Arab Gulf has invested in certain Lebanese politicians who work as their agents. The Arab Gulf countries have deported Lebanese workers who belong to a certain religious sect, which fuels the sectarian conflict in the region. The Arab Gulf countries have waged economical war on Lebanon by freezing bank accounts, under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism’, but in reality, they are fighting the Lebanese Resistance movement.

Saudi Arabia, one of the wealthiest countries on earth, is waging war on one of the poorest countries on earth, Yemen. After many years, and war crimes, they have failed to occupy Yemen. It is Saudi Arabia’s strategic goal to occupy and annex Aden, the main port of Yemen, which sits on the gateway to the Red Sea.  The UAE is the partner in the war on Yemen.

Like a couple who are not invited to the party, Turkey and its ally Qatar, have been singled out of the Arab Gulf alliance.  Differing political ideologies have created the split: with Turkey and Qatar following the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, while the rest of the Gulf adhere to the Salafi and Wahabi strain of Radical Islam.

The US-EU-NATO responsibility in the current Middle East conflict zone

The Arab Spring” was not a grass-roots movement but was a 3 party project designed in Washington and Brussels.  2011 saw ‘regime change’ plans put into action in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, which has also suffered from a US ‘regime-change’ project in 2003. The Arab Gulf: UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar participated in “The Arab Spring” by funding the US-EU-NATO project, at the behest of the ‘western civilized nations’, who used the Arabs as their source of funds.  The Arabs were also used for propaganda purposes, such as Qatar’s “Al Jazeera”, and Saudi Arabia’s “Al Hadath” and “Al Arabia”.

The US is continuing to steal resources from Syria and Iraq, such as the oil and gas wells they have occupied illegally, in the contrivance of international law. The US has made numerous unprovoked military attacks on Syria, and has very severe economical sanctions on Syria which prevent the rebuilding of Syria, and have prevented Syria from buying even the most critical humanitarian items, including supplies to fight the COVID-19.

Turkey-Israel relationship

Turkey has bought stolen Syrian oil, firstly from ISIS, and later from the Syrian-Kurdish separatists.  Turkey then sells the oil to ‘Israel’ through a private Israeli businessman.  Turkey and ‘Israel’ work in tandem, and both have played a major role in the 9-year conflict in Syria. They share intelligence to coordinate attacks on Syria.  Turkey is currently occupying parts of Syria, and ‘Israel’ has been occupying the Golan Heights of Syria since 1967. Both Turkey and ‘Israel’ have plans to annex Syrian lands.  Turkey is occupying the Syrian region of Iskenderun since the end of WW1.

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“The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.”—Lysander Spooner, American abolitionist and legal theorist

Cash may well become a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As these COVID-19 lockdowns drag out, more and more individuals and businesses are going cashless (for convenience and in a so-called effort to avoid spreading coronavirus germs), engaging in online commerce or using digital forms of currency (bank cards, digital wallets, etc.). As a result, physical cash is no longer king.

Yet there are other, more devious, reasons for this re-engineering of society away from physical cash: a cashless society—easily monitored, controlled, manipulated, weaponized and locked down—would play right into the hands of the government (and its corporate partners).

To this end, the government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been waging a subtle war on cash for some time now.

What is this war on cash?

It’s a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

According to economist Steve Forbes,

“The real reason for this war on cash—start with the big bills and then work your way down—is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”

Much like the war on drugs and the war on terror, this so-called “war on cash” is being sold to the public as a means of fighting terrorists, drug dealers, tax evaders and now COVID-19 germs.

Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with the ultimate method to track, control you and punish you.

In recent years, just the mere possession of significant amounts of cash could implicate you in suspicious activity and label you a criminal. The rationale (by police) is that cash is the currency for illegal transactions given that it’s harder to track, can be used to pay illegal immigrants, and denies the government its share of the “take,” so doing away with paper money will help law enforcement fight crime and help the government realize more revenue.

Despite what we know about the government and its history of corruption, bumbling, fumbling and data breaches, not to mention how easily technology can be used against us, the campaign to do away with cash is really not a hard sell.

It’s not a hard sell, that is, if you know the right buttons to push, and the government has become a grand master in the art of getting the citizenry to do exactly what it wants. Remember, this is the same government that plans to use behavioral science tactics to “nudge” citizens to comply with the government’s public policy and program initiatives.

It’s also not a hard sell if you belong to the Digital Generation, that segment of the population for whom technology is second nature and “the first generation born into a world that has never not known digital life.”

And it’s certainly not a hard sell if you belong to the growing class of Americans who use their cell phones to pay bills, purchase goods, and transfer funds.

In much the same way that Americans have opted into government surveillance through the convenience of GPS devices and cell phones, digital cash—the means of paying with one’s debit card, credit card or cell phone—is becoming the de facto commerce of the American police state.

Not too long ago, it was estimated that smart phones would replace cash and credit cards altogether by 2020. Right on schedule, a growing number of businesses are adopting no-cash policies, including certain airlines, hotels, rental car companies, restaurants and retail stores. In Sweden, even the homeless and churches accept digital cash.

Making the case for “never, ever carrying cash” in lieu of a digital wallet, journalist Lisa Rabasca Roepe argues that cash is inconvenient, ATM access is costly, and it’s now possible to reimburse people using digital apps such as Venmo. Thus, there’s no longer a need for cash.

“More and more retailers and grocery stores are embracing Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay,” notes Roepe. “PayPal’s app is now accepted at many chain stores including Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Home Depot, and Office Depot. Walmart and CVS have both developed their own payment apps while their competitors Target and RiteAid are working on their own apps.”

It’s not just cash that is going digital, either.

A growing number of states are looking to adopt digital driver’s licenses that would reside on your mobile phone. These licenses would include all of the information contained on your printed license, along with a few “extras” such as real-time data downloaded directly from your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

Of course, reading between the lines, having a digital driver’s license will open you up to much the same jeopardy as digital cash: it will make it possible for the government to better track your movements, monitor your activities and communications and ultimately shut you down.

So what’s the deal here?

Despite all of the advantages that go along with living in a digital age—namely, convenience—it’s hard to imagine how a cashless world navigated by way of a digital wallet doesn’t signal the beginning of the end for what little privacy we have left and leave us vulnerable to the likes of government thieves and data hackers.

First, when I say privacy, I’m not just referring to the things that you don’t want people to know about, those little things you do behind closed doors that are neither illegal nor harmful but embarrassing or intimate. I am also referring to the things that are deeply personal and which no one need know about, certainly not the government and its constabulary of busybodies, nannies, Peeping Toms, jail wardens and petty bureaucrats.

Second, we’re already witnessing how easy it will be for government agents to manipulate digital wallets for their own gain. For example, civil asset forfeiture schemes are becoming even more profitable for police agencies thanks to ERAD (Electronic Recovery and Access to Data) devices supplied by the Department of Homeland Security that allow police to not only determine the balance of any magnetic-stripe card (i.e., debit, credit and gift cards) but also freeze and seize any funds on pre-paid money cards. In fact, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment for police to scan or swipe your credit card.

Third, as commentator Paul Craig Roberts observed, while Americans have been distracted by the government’s costly war on terror, “the financial system, working hand-in-hand with policymakers, has done more damage to Americans than terrorists could possibly inflict.” Ultimately, as Roberts—who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Ronald Reagan—makes clear, the war on cash is about giving the government the ultimate control of the economy and complete access to the citizenry’s pocketbook.

Fourth, if there’s a will, there’s a way. So far, every technological convenience that has made our lives easier has also become our Achilles’ heel, opening us up to greater vulnerabilities from hackers and government agents alike. In recent years, the U.S. government has been repeatedly hacked. In 2015, the Office of Personnel Management had more than 20 million personnel files stolen, everything from Social Security numbers to birth dates and fingerprint records. In 2014, it was the White House, the State Department, the Post Office and other government agencies, along with a host of financial institutions, retailers and entertainment giants that had their files breached. And these are the people in charge of protecting oursensitive information?

Fifth, if there’s one entity that will not stop using cash for its own nefarious purposes, it’s the U.S. government. Cash is the currency used by the government to pay off its foreign “associates.” For instance, the Obama administration flew more than $400 million in cash to Iran, reportedly as part of a financial settlement with the country. Critics claim the money was ransom paid for the return of American hostages. And then there was the $12 billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills that the U.S. flew to Iraq only to claim it had no record of what happened to the money. It just disappeared, we were told. So when government economists tell you that two-thirds of all $100 bills in circulation are overseas—more than half a trillion dollars’ worth—it’s a pretty good bet that the government played a significant part in their export.

Sixth, this drive to do away with cash is part of a larger global trend driven by international financial institutions and the United Nations that is transforming nations of all sizes, from the smallest nation to the biggest, most advanced economies.

Finally, short of returning to a pre-technological, Luddite age, there’s really no way to pull this horse back now that it’s left the gate. While doing so is near impossible, it would also mean doing without the many conveniences and advantages that are the better angels, if you will, of technology’s totalitarian tendencies: the internet, medical advances, etc.

To our detriment, we have virtually no control over who accesses our private information, how it is stored, or how it is used. Whether we ever had much control remains up for debate. However, in terms of our bargaining power over digital privacy rights, we have been reduced to a pitiful, unenviable position in which we can only hope and trust that those in power will treat our information with respect.

Clearly, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have come full circle, back to a pre-revolutionary era of taxation without any real representation.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Perhaps the most serious revelation to have emerged from the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, is President John F. Kennedy‘s willingness to knowingly increase the possibility of nuclear war by up to 50%.

US General David Burchinal, then a high-ranking planner on the Pentagon staff, recalled how JFK took Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev “right to the brink of nuclear war and he looked over the edge and had no stomach for it”.

In Khrushchev’s critically important correspondence to JFK, which the latter received at 6pm on 26 October 1962, the US president rebuffed complying with its key suggestions. The experienced American author Noam Chomsky noted that,

“Kennedy nonetheless refused Khrushchev’s proposal for public withdrawal of the missiles from Cuba and Turkey; only the withdrawal from Cuba could be public, so as to protect the US right to place missiles on Russia’s borders or anywhere else it chose”. (1)

As the missile crisis was peaking, JFK declared the highest nuclear alert short of launch, DEFCON 2. According to the Harvard University strategic analyst, Graham Allison, president Kennedy authorised “NATO aircraft with Turkish pilots” or of other nationalities “to take off, fly to Moscow, and drop a bomb”.

Allison highlighted that Kennedy “ordered actions that he knew would increase the risk not only of conventional war but also of nuclear war”. Allison estimates that the possible 50% figure is a realistic evaluation pertaining to the increased chance of nuclear war erupting, because of JFK’s hegemonic actions during the missile crisis. His willingness to gamble with the fate of the world, in order to maintain US imperialist goals, has been dispatched to oblivion by the institutions of power.

One of the pivotal factors resulting in the missile crisis was, quite clearly, the major terrorist war launched by the Kennedy administration against revolutionary Cuba, titled Operation Mongoose. This campaign of subversion and terror had the strong backing of Kennedy. He endorsed it in late November 1961 (2). The terrorist attacks on Cuba are euphemistically described as “clandestine operations” or “covert actions”, when in fact they constituted murderous assaults over a sustained period of time.

JFK placed his younger brother, the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in charge of directing Operation Mongoose. RFK pushed ahead vigorously with the plans, assisted by Air Force officer Edward Lansdale. Operation Mongoose included introducing “the terrors of the earth” to Cuba and its leader Fidel Castro, a phrase used by Robert Kennedy’s biographer, Arthur Schlesinger, who was also JFK’s Latin American advisor.

Early in 1962, Robert Kennedy informed CIA and Pentagon officials that ousting Castro “is the top priority of the United States government – all else is secondary – no time, money, effort, or manpower is to be spared”. (3)

The terrors of the earth were brought home through various actions: the bombing of Cuban petrochemical plants and other industrial installations, the sinking of her vessels, poisoning of food crops and livestock, etc.

The Kennedy administration escalated the terrorist assaults against Cuba in August 1962, two months before the missile crisis. On August 23rd, JFK issued National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) No. 181: “a directive to engineer an internal revolt that would be followed by US military intervention” involving “significant US military plans, maneuvers, and movement of forces and equipment” against Cuba. (4)

The day after Kennedy’s directive, August 24th, exile terrorists based in Miami executed a speedboat machine gun attack on a Cuban seaside hotel, killing a number of Cubans and Russians inside. This latest rampage incensed not only the Cuban government, but undoubtedly those in the Kremlin. Also in August 1962, CIA agents contaminated a large Cuban sugar shipment destined for the Soviet Union. Tainting of Cuba’s sugar exports here was not an isolated affair.

More terrorist attacks took place during September 1962, including targeted raids on two Cuban cargo ships and, somewhat incredibly, an attack on a British cargo vessel. The vast majority of these acts were carried out freely from Miami, by right-wing Cuban exile groups.

Fulgencio Batista - Wikipedia

Castro said of the early assaults against Cuba that,

“Well in the first few days and months those terrorist activities were organised by [Fulgencio] Batista elements really – former police officers and Batista people mixed in with some counter-revolutionaries. But even then the US administration, using those elements, was working intensely against Cuba… Cuba has had to face more terrorism than practically any other country on earth”. (5)

Among those engaged in the attacks from almost the beginning, were the Cuban-born mercenaries Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. These men would quickly become two of the most notorious international terrorists in the Western hemisphere, perpetrating outrages not only upon Cuba, but across Latin America, even including assaults on embassies and diplomats. Posada and Bosch were arch-enemies of Castro personally, and the Cuban leader described the pair as “the most bloodthirsty exponents of imperialist terrorism against our nation”.

Bosch fled to Miami in July 1960 with his wife and four children, following the failure of an anti-communist rebellion he helped to organise from the Escambray Mountains, in central Cuba.

Posada joined Bosch in Miami shortly thereafter in February 1961. From the early 1960s, Miami was becoming one of the biggest bases for terrorist planning operations anywhere in the world. Over previous months, Posada had been implementing terror and sabotage acts within Cuba itself, enjoying CIA assistance, as confirmed by him in interviews. Posada said,

“the CIA taught us everything… they taught us explosives, they taught us how to kill, bomb, trained us in sabotage”. (6)

Posada worked as a CIA agent for a number of years from the mid-1960s, as well as being an informant (7). He relocated to Venezuela, spending extensive periods in the South American country, including jail time. Bosch was in contact with the CIA in Miami from January 1962, as declassified files show, and late the following year he met a CIA agent twice in New York City (8). Bosch followed quickly on Posada’s heels, before the former moved to Chile in December 1974, where he (Bosch) received protection from the far-right US-supported dictator, Augusto Pinochet.

Regarding Posada, Chomsky wrote that his “subsequent operations in the 1960s were directed by the CIA. When he later joined Venezuelan intelligence with CIA help, he was able to arrange for Orlando Bosch, an associate from his CIA days who had been convicted in the US for a bomb attack on a Cuba-bound freighter, to join him in Venezuela to organize further attacks against Cuba”. (9)

Just two months after Castro’s assumption to power, in March 1959 the US National Security Council (NSC), under president Dwight D. Eisenhower, was formulating designs to overthrow the new Cuban government. By May 1959, the CIA was already arming anti-communist individuals inside Cuba, including Posada who was still present in his birth country at this point.

Posada remembered how the CIA provided him with “time-bomb pencils, fuses, detonator cords, and everything necessary for acts of sabotage” in Cuba (10). Posada’s early activities were smoked out by the Cuban government and he just evaded capture.

Through 1959, the CIA was supervising bombing and incendiary air raids on Cuba, which increased in frequency during the winter of 1959-1960. In March 1960, the Eisenhower administration made a formal decision in secret to overthrow Castro as soon as possible. Eisenhower would not succeed. In January 1961 his two-term presidency ended, and now the plans would be left for Kennedy to advance.

On 17 April 1961, Kennedy sanctioned a US-run invasion at the Bay of Pigs in western Cuba, which was originally concocted by Eisenhower. Posada himself was involved in organising the Bay of Pigs attack, but he would not be present at the disembarkation point. Posada, though already a terrorist, then had no military experience. He would not receive proper training in arms until 1963 at Fort Benning, the US Army post straddling the Georgia-Alabama border.

Castro, who was present in the frontline at the Bay of Pigs, said of the invasion that, “within about 60 hours, between dawn on the 17th and 6pm on the 19th we defeated them, after a terrible battle in which we lost more than 150 men and had hundreds of wounded. The battle was fought within sight of American ships offshore. We took about 1,200 mercenaries prisoner, almost all of the enemy forces who had been in battle, the exceptions being, of course, the dead”. (11)

The Bay of Pigs invasion was enacted in an atmosphere of “hysteria” relating to Cuba in the White House, as testified to by former Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, in July 1975 before the US Senate’s Church Committee. The mood in Washington immediately following the failed attack degenerated further, and was “almost savage” according to Chester Bowles, a veteran US politician.

Bowles revealed “there was an almost frantic reaction for an action program which people would grab onto” (12). This became the terrorist campaign that was Operation Mongoose. At a National Security Council meeting shortly after, Bowles found the atmosphere “almost as emotional” and he noticed “the great lack of moral integrity” on display.

The Bay of Pigs defeat was not terribly surprising. JFK, with some influence over its implementation, was a military novice who saw intermittent action in the US Navy during World War II. He was honourably discharged before war’s end due to “physical disability”. For reasons such as these, Kennedy was held in contempt by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff – and especially by General Curtis LeMay, the hawkish Air Force commander.

The situation was different in Cuba. By 1961 Castro was an experienced commander of forces in the field, and his authority was unquestioned. For much of the 1950s, he and his units pursued combat primarily through the execution of guerrilla warfare, and often against significantly larger enemy numbers.

Guerrilla tactics require high levels of organisation, planning and imagination. Castro’s guerrillas proved themselves capable of meeting the challenging demands, borne out by their toppling of the tyrant Fulgencio Batista in early 1959, someone who had been propped up by the world’s most powerful country. From the early 1950s, through operations and other campaigns across Cuba, Castro had also acquired an intimate knowledge of the Cuban terrain. His attention to detail was strengthened by having a photographic memory, noticed by those close to him and written about in future decades by historians. (13)

Castro’s knowledge and expertise as a military commander, combined with his familiarity of the Cuban landmass, would prove invaluable in the anticipation of, and reaction to, the Bay of Pigs invasion – and in responding more broadly to other threats later on.

Of president Kennedy, the actual record shows that he was a firm proponent in waging both terrorist campaigns and aggression to attain his ends. These grim realities are overlooked or unknown by delusional admirers glorifying his legacy. In early 1962, JFK requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to attack South Vietnam by sending US aircraft to bomb villages there, which stood as a clear invasion, and that included among other things chemical warfare usage. (14)

In the Caribbean JFK’s terrorist war against Cuba was, as stated, a central factor which resulted in the missile crisis occurring from mid-October 1962. It was hoped that these attacks would undermine Castro’s popularity, before another planned US invasion that was scheduled for October 1962 – as the Cubans and Russians most likely knew, an element behind Khrushchev’s shipping of nuclear missiles to Cuba.

During the years leading up to the missile crisis, from March 1955 until October 1960 Washington had stationed over 3,000 nuclear weapons across Europe, in half a dozen NATO countries (15). The nuclear arsenals were placed there with Moscow in mind, and it was initially implemented during the Eisenhower presidency. Yet by the time the missile crisis was unfolding under Kennedy, there were almost 5,000 US nuclear devices scattered across Europe. The Soviets did not station nuclear-armed weaponry outside their borders, until Khrushchev dispatched his missiles to Cuba in 1962.

The Kennedy presidency swiftly renewed terrorist operations against Cuba, after the missile crisis had officially concluded on 28 October 1962. During 8 November 1962, an exile team sent from America destroyed a Cuban industrial plant, an attack which the Castro government claimed led to the deaths of 400 workers. Ten days before Kennedy was assassinated, the US president approved a CIA plan for “destruction operations” on Cuba by US-backed proxies “against a large oil refinery and storage facilities, a large electric plant, sugar refineries, railroad bridges, harbor facilities, and underwater demolition of docks and ships”. (16)

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

1 John Buell, “President Trump: Nuclear Business As Usual?”, Common Dreams, 29 November 2017, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/11/29/president-trump-nuclear-business-usual

2 L.V. Scott, Macmillan, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Political Military and Intelligence Aspects (Palgrave Macmillan; 1999 edition, 8 Jun. 1999), pp. 23-24

3 Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, Volumes 10-12, p. 42

4 Noam Chomsky, Who Rules The World? (Metropolitan Books, Penguin Books Ltd, Hamish Hamilton, 5 May 2016), p. 109

5 Fidel Castro, My Life: A Spoken Autobiography (Simon & Schuster Ome; Reprint edition, 9 June 2009), p. 252

6 Brett Wilkins, “Luis Posada Carriles, Hemisphere’s Most Wanted Terrorist, Dies Free In Miami At Age 90”, CounterPunch, 28 May 2018, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/28/luis-posada-carriles-hemispheres-most-wanted-terrorist-dies-free-in-miami-at-age-90/

7 The National Security Archive, “Luis Posada Carriles – The Declassified Record”, 10 May 2005, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/

8 The National Security Archive, “Central Intelligence Agency – Washington D.C.”, 20 May 2005, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB157/19761209.pdf

9 Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (Penguin, 1 January 2004), p. 86

10 Ann Louise Bardach, Twilight of the Assassins, The Atlantic, 1 November 2006, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/11/twilight-of-the-assassins/305291/

11 Castro, My Life: A spoken Autobiography, p. 258

12 Thomas G. Paterson, Kennedy’s Quest For Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963 (Oxford University Press; New Ed Edition, 19 Mar. 1992), p. 136

13 Servando Gonzales, The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol (Spooks Books, 1 Jan. 2002), p. 164

14 Noam Chomsky, “Anniversaries From ‘Unhistory'”, Truthout, 6 February 2012, https://truthout.org/articles/anniversaries-from-unhistory/

15 Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin & William Burr, “Where they were [US nuclear weapons abroad]”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 1999, https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/pidb/meetings/where-they-were.pdf

16 Chomsky, Who Rules The World?, p. 109

In No Exit, the translated title of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, Huis Clos, three deceased characters find themselves in a room, ostensibly in Hell, in what transpires as a permanent wait.  Locked after being ushered in by a valet, with quite literally no means of escape, they are confronted with each other’s moods, lies and eventual confessions.  Sadism, cowardice and mendacity figure.  The torment each character subjects the other to leads to that famous observation: L’enfer, c’est les autres (Hell is other people.)  Humans are inventive, and tiringly so, in ensuring that torture or physical requirement need not be necessary in inflicting enduring misery.

The global lockdowns and forced hibernations should not just be seen as measures of imposed isolation.  The Pandemic State has done much to kill off that delicate creature of solitude, the routine of tranquil space essential to life.  Privacy does not merely die before the wizardry of heat sensors, drones and state surveillance; it also vanishes in spaces crowded and crammed, even with your intimates. 

In the context of health and a raging pandemic, paranoia can also be a continuous companion.  Does a cough in bed or a rising fever entail a risk to the entire family? The unfortunate sufferer, whatever the actual illness, risks accusation and banishment.  The converse is also true: using a disease to affect vulnerability, thereby keeping a tormented partner or relation in that space.  The range of human manipulations in that regard are legend and endless.

As Crystal Justice, chief marketing and development officer at the US National Domestic Violence Hotline puts it,

“We are hearing from survivors how COVID-19 is already being used by their abusive partners to further control and abuse, how COVID-19 is already impacting their ability to access support and services like accessing shelter, counselling, different things that they would typically lean on in their communities.”

The British medical journal The Lancet, in a survey on the literature on forced isolation, had few surprises.  “Most reviewed studies reported negative psychological effects including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion and anger.”  Problems arise from the duration of quarantine, leading the authors to warn that such periods should be “for no longer than required”.  Clear rationales for such quarantine, accompanied by “information about protocols” with sufficient provisions, should follow. Such technical formulations, fine as they are to script, do little to alleviate the social an physical constrictions that place people in Sartre’s room of hell.   

If hell is other people, some versions are more hellish than others.  China, the first country to impose lockdown measures in response to COVID-19, saw the immediate social effects: neglect, domestic violence, enervating anxiety.  Retired police officer turned activist Wan Fei claimed that domestic violence reports had doubled since China’s cities had gone into lockdown.  The police station in Jingzhou’s Jianli County had received over triple the number of reports from February 2019 – 162 in total.  “According to our statistics, 90% of the causes of violence are related to the COVID-19 epidemic.”

This has also been accompanied by a certain apathy in some responses from the police authorities, if the observations of Feng Yuang, director of Weiping, a Beijing-based women’s rights non-profit, are anything to go by. “The police can detain people for insulting (leading respiratory disease expert) Zhong Nanshan online and arrest someone for not wearing a mask on the street. If they use the epidemic as an excuse not to deal with domestic violence cases, that’s not acceptable.”

Consulting the statistics on domestic violence is always a dispiriting exercise.  They have become even more telling of late.  The United Nations calls it the “shadow pandemic”.  Following the March 17 lockdown in France, a 30% increase in domestic violence reports has been registered.  Helplines in Cyprus and Singapore have registered an increase in calls – 30% and 33% respectively.  A Women’s Safety New South Wales (Australia) survey found that frontline workers had registered a 40% increase in calls for assistance from survivors, with 70% reporting an increase in the level of complexity in cases during the coronavirus outbreak.  (Rates of domestic violence in Australia – with one in four women experiencing some physical form of it since 15, was already horrendous.)

The impediments for sufferers to access services has also seen social workers and activists turn to more virtual and online methods of communication, a point that can only ever be half-satisfying at best.  Calls to Italian helplines may have dropped (it tends to be difficult to make calls in near presence of an abuser), but the use of emails and text messages has increased.  Lella Palladino of the activist group EVA Cooperativa told the Guardian about the desperation arising from those in confined spaces. “For sure there is an overwhelming emergency right now.  There is more desperation as women can’t go out.”

The Pandemic State is insular and closed.  Technology has given an illusion of proximity to ameliorate this condition, at least to some degree.  It is being praised for connecting people during periods of pandemic isolation.  But you still have to be able to use it.  Unfortunately for those unblessed in their fraught human relations, living in less than commodious accommodation, there may simply be No Exit. 

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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]

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At times like now, ideas lying around dormant on the shelf become reality.

Economic and other crisis conditions are times when most people can be convinced to accept unacceptable policies they’d likely reject otherwise.

During and after 2008-09 economic crisis conditions, Americans were brainwashed to accept force-fed austerity, frozen wages, and loss of benefits when economic stimulus and other government help were needed.

Economic recovery was for the nation’s privileged class exclusively.

Ordinary Americans experienced protracted hard times that may become much worse today looking ahead, the same true in other Western societies.

In his 1995 book titled, “The Rotten Heart of Europe,” noted euro expert Bernard Connolly said the following:

“The true story of the ERM (Europe’s Exchange Rate Mechanism) has been one of duplicity, skullduggery, conflict; of economic harm done to every country and in the caste interests of the elite; of the distortions of economic logic and the dilution of political accountability,” adding:

“The implication is that increasing globalization of economic activity and mobility of production has been purposely implemented in such a way as to render already destroyed ‘nation-state(s)’ meaningless entit(ies) in economic terms.”

Protracted “austerity will lead to social unrest” in Europe, the US or elsewhere. Hard times are fertile ground for revolutions and fascist dictatorships.

Censorship is the new normal in the US and West — speech, press, and academic freedoms at risk. Without them all other rights are threatened.

Social and conventional media, Google, and other tech giants are complicit in a campaign to suppress content conflicting with the official narrative.

Controlling the message is the hallmark of totalitarian rule. Anything conflicting with the official narrative on vital issues is considered “inauthentic behavior.”

The US already is a police state. Is martial law the next shoe to drop? Will Trump declare it if current conditions worsen?

While not included in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 9 mentions suspension of habeas, saying the following:

“The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”

Will Trump invoke “public safety” or another pretext to take this action?

Article 1, Section 8 empowers Congress to call “forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”

The US military and National Guard are today’s “militia.”

Martial law suspends civil rule, replacing it with military authority under the president as commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces — including the National Guard when activated.

During the Civil War, Lincoln assumed dictatorial powers.

He suspended the Constitution and habeas corpus, forcefully closed courts, arbitrarily ordered arrests, conscripted US citizens without congressional consent, and closed newspapers opposing his policies.

His Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free a single slave. He wanted them deported at war’s end to maintain America as a white supremacist society.

History taught in the US at all levels of education conceals the nation’s dark side.

What happened before can happen again by presidential diktat.

According to Constitutional Law Professor Bruce Ackerman, US presidents can institute policies by executive orders, military orders, national security and homeland security presidential directives, along with other ways of circumventing Congress and the courts.

They wage illegal wars without Security Council and congressional authorization.

White House lawyers justify the unjustifiable. “They serve as authoritative judges for the executive branch, providing a legal framework for millions of civilian and military personnel as they implement executive decrees,” Ackerman explained.

Checks and balances don’t work, new ones needed, he stressed — enforced to restrain executive power-grabbing.

Following Japan’s December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, Hawaii, not a US state at the time, was placed under martial law.

After Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, martial law was declared in New Orleans.

Throughout US history, it’s been imposed by federal or state authorities numerous times on the pretext of public safety, restoring order, or another reason.

Will Trump impose it if the US economy is reopened too soon, as apparently planned, and COVID-19 outbreaks increase greatly?

Will larger-scale outbreaks than already if occur be used as a pretext for hardening police state rule, including suspension of the Constitution and imposition of martial law?

Most of the population is locked down. Will Trump by presidential diktat order the extrajudicial arrest and indefinite detention of targeted individuals on the phony pretext of public safety and security?

This type harshness is what fascist tyranny is all about.

Is it coming ahead to the US full-blown in the form of presidential national emergency powers?

The USA Patriot Act was written before 9/11. Is other draconian legislation on the shelf — ready to be rolled out by congressional action or presidential decree?

Is America the way it was pre-COVID-19, warts and all, to be replaced by hardened rule?

If COVID-19 abates and more greatly flares up this summer or fall will November elections be suspended or cancelled?

Whatever may unfold ahead most likely was planned by the nation’s ruling class.

It happened pre-and-post-9/11. It may be happening again now for ill, not good — including draconian mass surveillance more intensive than before, along with other police state policies.

Is a dystopian future coming for ordinary Americans, resisters subject to harsh repercussions — constitutional rights declared null and void?

What’s unthinkable may be planned and inevitable.

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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 konbini.com

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Never before in US history were social distancing, sheltering in place, and lockdowns advised or imposed by states and cities because of a contagious diseases outbreak.

COVID-19 is unique because its outbreak resulted in all of the above in place in most of the US and other countries.

Why this disease and not other contagious ones?

True enough it’s highly contagious so precautions are clearly warranted, especially for the elderly, anyone with a weakened immune system, and others in poor health from other issues.

According to biomedical data scientist Dr. John Ioannidas,

“reliable evidence on how many people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 or who continue to become infected” is lacking including from the WHO and CDC in the US, adding:

Death rates are “buried within the noise of the estimate of deaths from influenza-like illness.”

At least eight coronavirus strains exist. Infection rates worldwide differ markedly, some countries more successful in containing outbreaks than others — the US notably unsuccessful, China very successful with four times the population.

Is its healthcare system more advanced than America’s or other Western countries?

Is it because of increasing US indifference toward public health, its infrastructure unprepared to deal with a widespread outbreak of any infectious disease — including healthcare professionals lacking personal protective equipment (PPE) when most needed?

US public health officials haven’t provided a demographic breakdown on COVID-19 infected individuals and deaths from the disease.

What was the actual breakdown according to age and pre-existing health issues of individuals affected?

What were the personal health habits of infected individuals, including smoking, alcohol consumption, unhealthy diets, lack of exercise, use of illicit drugs, overuse of legal ones, STDs, and hypertension, etc.?

In 2017, data showed that health issues related to smoking alone cost an estimated 168 billion dollars in the US — compared to only 11 billion for illicit drug use.

Overuse of prescription drugs causes far more harm. All pharmaceuticals have potentially harmful side effects — why using no more than necessary as prescribed is vital.

Around one-third of the US population is obese, largely because of unhealthy diets and lack of regular exercise.

US children, youths and adults are poorly educated on good health practices.

US television ads notably promote all sorts of unhealthy junk foods health conscious individuals avoid.

Hazardous to health GMO foods and ingredients infest US supermarket shelves, comprising most foods Americans eat daily.

One Green Planet’s Erin Trauth explained why many US doctors “can’t help you with (proper) nutrition.”

Most US medical schools provide too little nutrition education nor on the dangers of over-medication.

She explained that “the US is one of the most overly medicated countries in the world, yet we can’t seem to get a handle on heart disease, obesity, and allergies.”

Big Pharma provides considerable funding to US medical schools, indoctrinating future doctors to prescribe drugs as the first line of defense in treating illnesses.

An earlier joint American Medical Student Association (AMSA)/Pew Charitable Trusts study found how extensively drug companies influence US medical schools and healthcare in the country overall.

Med school students are taught about what drugs to prescribe for what health conditions. Professors promote their use, some on Big Pharma’s payroll.

Drugs clearly play a roll in treating diseases. Overuse or improper combinations of medications can be harmful to human health.

A sound rule of thumb is getting  reliable medical advice, using drugs in proper amounts, never more than needed.

China’s Zhejiang University School of Medicine’s “Handbook of CoVid-19 Prevention and Treatment” provides reliable information on prevention and containment of COVID-19 — what’s not emphasized in the US.

It stresses the importance of proper nutrition, use of probiotics an herbal formulas, along with traditional Chinese good health practices other than prescription drugs that most Americans rely on predominantly for health issues — instead of sound preventive practices to avoid them.

Scientifically proven good health practices provide the most effective defense against disease and premature aging.

Clearly laid off Americans and others elsewhere want to go back to work.

Doing it prematurely may increase outbreaks instead of continuing all-out efforts to contain them.

China’s draconian two-month lockdown worked. Though data is highly imperfect, they show the current rate of outbreaks in the US is around sixfold what China experienced.

Short-term pain for longterm gain makes sense. Back to work in the US can wait until COVID-19 outbreaks are at least substantially contained.

Reopening the economy too soon could increase their numbers considerably.

The economy can’t function with sick workers. Wellness depends on widespread COVID-19 testing, PPE for medical staff, and treatment for the sick.

A national initiative is needed. States with large and growing numbers of outbreaks can’t do it on their own.

Trump and Joe Biden want worker safety and welfare sacrificed for corporate profit-making at all times under all conditions.

Now is time when universal healthcare is most needed.

Without it in the US makes containing and treating outbreaks of diseases much harder because of affordability.

It’s compounded by US public health getting short shrift — warmaking, corporate handouts, and profit-making prioritized over human health.

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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.

Washington Violates International Space Law

April 13th, 2020 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

The global pandemic is being used by the United States as a smokescreen for illegal actions in the international scenario, which, due to the media focus on coronavirus coverage, are not reported and happen unnoticed. The new American foreign policy target is the outer space. Washington conducted a dangerous legal and political maneuver in the space race of the 21st century, approving measures that violate public international law in its new decree on space mining.

Last week, American President Donald Trump passed a decree establishing the United States’ right to extract mineral resources from the outer space. In the document, it is possible to read:

“Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law. Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global common”.

The American government seems to be once again completely ignoring the fact that outer space has its own law and a specific legal status that cannot be violated by a simple presidential decree. With the emergence of space technology in the 1950s, the collective fear that it would be used for military purposes made international society choose to create an international treaty for outer space, being celebrated in 1957 the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Cosmic Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (or simply “Space Treaty”). According to this document, outer space has the legal status of “international territory”, which means that it is a common space of humanity and of all nations, and a country or individual cannot claim ownership or sovereignty over it.

With these data alone, we can already contemplate the conflicting nature between the presidential decree and the Space Treaty (that was signed by the USA), since the decree does not recognize space as a common global territory. In practice, the American government is unilaterally granting US citizens the right to freely explore space resources, far from the legal domain of Space Law. In addition, the decree provides that partnerships should be sought with other countries and private companies for the conclusion of strategic agreements in the space mining sector, which means that the American plan aims to expand violations of the Space Treaty on a global level, causing Space Law’s reduction to legal insignificance.

The American decree, however, must be analyzed in depth, taking into account other facts and circumstances. Indeed, there is nothing exactly new in this law. The United States has long been tightening its strategic policies on outer space. In 2015, the so-called “Space Act” was approved, an audacious and permissive law that establishes the legal regime for private space exploration in the USA, with a special focus on the issue of mineral resources and water. The private sector already seems to be the dominant one in terms of extraction and industrialization of mineral resources from the outer space, which undoubtedly constitutes a real danger to the security of these operations due to the greater difficulty in controlling private actions at the international level. So, what will it be like to deal with practical issues like space debris, safety and pollution inside and outside the Earth? In fact, the coming scenario is one in which we will take our internal problems out of the Earth, exploiting space resources in disarray and unsustainably polluting the extraterrestrial environment.

It was not in vain that Donald Trump hurried to create a Space Force as a new member of the American armed forces. With this measure, the American government created the force that will support and secure these explorations and future strategic operations. And all these measures appear in a favorable global context: as the resources of our planet become increasingly scarce, with pollution and overconsumption depleting our natural reserves, causing a growing concern for the environment, nothing more strategic than to seek these resources from an abundant source like outer space, where water and minerals seem to be infinite.

With depleted or very weak reserves, we will soon be dependent on resources from space exploration. How will it be if these resources keep in the hands of private multinationals interested only in their own profit? This is the vital importance of the Space Treaty in our time: to prevent space technology from leading us to a future of more inequality, misery and violence. Washington seems to be wanting to expand its hegemonic status beyond the planet, guaranteeing dominance over the most abundant and secure source of natural resources. What is starting now is a true gold rush. Whoever is in a hurry to establish strategic space exploration policies will be above other nations. Our point is that these policies must be established within a legal standard common to all peoples. The Space Treaty is far from being a perfect law, but it is the only way we currently have to prevent the degradation of the outer space.

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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.

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Time for Universal Basic Income Is Now!

April 13th, 2020 by Philip A Farruggio

A man struggled in the desert heat with his mouth as parched as sandpaper. He was fading fast from lack of the basic essentials to exist, number one  being water. Someone hands him a giant bottle of water and he is so appreciative. He drinks the water, but hours later on his journey through the unforgiving sands, he realizes that the water alone cannot save him.

So it is for all we working stiffs who make up the 99+ % of this empire. Yes, we need this thing referred to as the Universal Basic Income or UBI instituted NOW, and not in six months or for only a brief duration. Touted by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and articulately endorsed by Public Banking expert attorney Ellen Brown,  it proposes that ALL citizens would receive a $1000 monthly stipend from the government (Tax Free).

The Spanish government is about to do a similar plan, and keep it going forever if necessary. I say ‘necessary’ because this upside down New Gilded Age our empire has become seems to continually give 10X more of OUR tax money to the super rich each time they throw us working stiffs a bone. In all candor, if the UBI is not instituted we will have a worse situation than during our Great Depression of the 1930s or Dickens’ London from his novel A Christmas Carol. Furthermore, Ellen Brown, in her interview with this writer, explained how a Universal Basic Income would NOT be inflationary. Thus, it is the quickest way for working stiffs and the unemployed or retired working stiffs, and of course the indigent, to breathe some fresh greenback air… before they start eating up each other… and I don’t mean literally.

Economic depressions feed into increased  cases of emotional distress, violent behavior, petty crime, spousal abuse, alcoholism, drug addictions of many types, suicide and streets filled with the homeless ( more than even now ) with more and more ‘ Lost children’. Yet, through all of this from the ‘looking glass’ of past drastic hard times, the Super Rich still live like the kings and queens they are NOT!

Those current gated communities and secured high rises will see armed guards patrolling, chauffeurs with automatics and a new industry of domestic mercenaries to work with the local police. It’ll happen, and soon, if the money doesn’t start funneling down quickly, instead of just the usual way UP. As with my anecdote of the man in the desert, working stiffs need that $1000 bucks each month to go along with  their current salaries (if lucky enough to still have work), a temporary unemployment check or the Social Security check we seniors get. It will not solve this horrific problem, but it will give working stiffs some relief.

Now comes the hard part: When will working stiffs wake up and see the tragic inequality that currently exists between us and that 1/4 of 1%? The following chart from a few years ago is the best this writer could find as to how GREAT is the polarity in compensation. In the enclosed list of CEO pay, check out the last column on the right. That shows the ratio of CEO pay to the pay of a median employee of each company, not even the lowest paid full time employee, but those who earn in the middle:

This is NOT a call for revolution, because things of that nature will NEVER occur here in America.

Sadly, the only such upheaval would most likely be one of a Neo Fascist element. Look at the appeal that the Trump phenomena had four years ago and even NOW to understand the mindset of such a right wing cultural shift.

No, our nation is still meandering around from the successful ‘Dumbing Down’ that our educational system has experienced for over 40 or 50 years. The Super Rich achieved so much from the time of Reagan right up to now. They say, from the Left thinkers I admire, that politics does not get things done; only mass movements in the streets can cause change. Well, how about both actions working together?

A) A shift away, finally, from both phony political parties into a new and viable 3rd party for we socialists/progressives;

B) Outside the offices of our elected officials and on the street corners we need  NON Violent demonstrations, demanding a UBI NOW, repeated weekly for as long as it takes to wake up our sleeping politicians and neighbors. Plus, writers and public figures who support UBI  should get on any such airwaves as possible to continually educate others on what needs be done. This will be, once the current pandemic ceases a bit, a time for action to level the playing fields of our economy. WE working stiffs are, in reality, in this together… whether some out there like it or not!!

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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].

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.

What follows is an excerpt from my 2010 book, ‘Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression’, specifically the chapter 3 entitled ‘The Dynamics of Epic Recessions. (Note: what others called the ‘Great Recession’ I alternatively called ‘Epic Recessions’ to distinguish them from ‘normal’ recessions). In it I explain how excessive liquidity injections by central banks feeds financial instability and excess debt accumulation throughout the economic system. Excess debt build up during the ‘boom’ period makes the economic system ‘fragile’–meaning sensitive and prone to deep contractions. The contractions, when they come, generate deflation in both financial and goods prices that, together with the debt unwinding, lead to widespread defaults, in both financial and non-financial sectors of the economy. That condition drives the economy into a further deeper contraction. Banking and financial crashes follow. All great (aka epic) recessions are made of such dynamics, which differentiates them from ‘normal’ recessions. Great Depressions are when defaults provoke a sequence of multiple financial-banking crashes.

In a number of ways the current 2020 events are increasingly similar to prior ‘great’ recession events.

The process is still, of course, in early stage and evolving. But the special, very severe contraction underway as of spring 2020 portends an especially severe form of Great Recession. The Fed and other central banks are desperately trying to head off a financial-banking crash by throwing unprecedented magnitudes of free money at the financial institutions. And now at the non-financial sector as well for the first time historically. Whether this ‘all in’ strategy can succeed in preventing defaults, deep financial asset price deflation, and a system wide credit crash remains to be seen.

The process will take months, not weeks, to work itself out. But against the system stabilizing as a result of tens of trillions of dollars of free money is the US and world economies were especially weak on the eve of the virus impact–not strong as some politicians like to argue.

Moreover, monetary policy was largely spent stabilizing the 2008-09 crashes, and thereafter in continuing to subsidize capital incomes and profits instead of preparing for the next cycle. Ditto for fiscal policy, that continued to subsidize capital incomes with massive tax cuts for investors and businesses alike–in the US no less than $10 trillion in such tax cuts, to which Trump added another $5 trillion in 2018-19. Budget deficits surged to more than $1 trillion. In short, fiscal policy like monetary policy on the eve of the current crisis was rendered largely ineffective for the coming crisis. The global economy is also decidedly much weaker this time around as well, with a global manufacturing recession the case in 2019 and trade wounded by Trump’s global trade war launched in 2018.

Epic Recession

What follows is the excerpt from my 2010 book, ‘Epic Recession’. Its themes were picked up and developed thereafter further in my 2016 book, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’ concluding chapter. Further excerpts from the 2010 book will follow this posts; and after that the updates in the 2016 book. So here’s Part 1 on liquidity, its role generating excess debt, and what I called at the time in 2010 the ‘debt-deflation-default nexus’.

The Dynamics of Epic Recession

The two preceding chapters addressed static quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Epic Recession. This chapter is concerned with the dynamic characteristics of Epic Recessions—i.e. those characteristics that explain the processes by which Epic Recessions evolve over time.

At the top of the pyramid is the explosion in global liquidity. Liquidity is cash and near-cash forms of liquid assets that can be relatively easily and quickly converted to investment. That investment may take the form of real physical assets, like structures, equipment, inventories of products, etc.; or the form of financial assets, like bonds, commercial paper, stocks, derivatives financial instruments, and so forth. Whichever the form, the point is liquidity is the basis for investment. It is the source for issuing credit and thus debt. The extension of credit becomes the debt of the borrower of that credit. Liquidity enables banks to issue loans, corporations to issue bonds, speculators to purchase derivatives, etc.

There are several major sources responsible for the exploding liquidity in the U.S. and global economy over the last several decades. All have contributed to the growing volume of liquidity, such that today there is now a flood of liquidity awash in the global economy. The unprecedented surge in liquidity is the source of credit and corresponding debt accumulation. And it is that credit and debt acceleration that has fueled and enabled the run-up in speculative investing to historic, record levels in turn.

One source of the global liquidity explosion has been the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve. Since the dollar became the de facto global currency in 1944 (and the virtual de jure global currency since 1971 when the last fiction of a gold standard was abandoned), U.S. monetary policies for more than half a century have been injecting trillions of dollars into the U.S. and global economies. That’s trillions of dollars of excess liquidity that has accumulated globally in the hands of investors public and private, corporate and sovereign, individual and institutional.

It represents a record volume between $20 and $40 trillion of investible money capital that cannot lie idle and must find an outlet.

The Fed enables the expansion of credit in the commercial banking system by means of buying government bonds back from the banks, changing their minimum reserve requirements of those banks, or loaning money to individual banks directly through the Fed’s ‘discount window’. Since December 2007 it has added a fourth new ‘tool’ for injecting liquidity into the economy called targeted ‘auctions’ designed to provide massive bailout funding for banks, shadow banks, and even non-financial corporations. By means of these special auctions over the last two years, the Fed has injected or committed to provide between $2 and $11 trillion, depending on which accounting approach one chooses. But Fed actions since December 2007 constitute only the latest of a long string of liquidity pumping actions by the Fed.

When there’s a recession, the Fed injects liquidity. That occurred in response to the normal recessions that happened in 1966, 1970, 1973-75, 1980, 1982, 1990, and 2001. In addition, every time there’s a financial instability event, the Fed injects still more liquidity to offset banks’ anticipated losses to keep them from insolvency and lending. That occurred 1987-1988 in response to the stock market crash of 1987; in 1989-1992 to bail out the savings and loan and junk bond markets; 1997-1998 to rescue the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund and Asian banks and financial institutions with ties to U.S. banks; in 1999 to counter fears about computers coming to a stop with the change in the millennia (a phony mini-panic called the Y2K or ‘year 2000’); 2000-2001 to counter the tech-driven stock market bust, and 2002-2004 to keep the housing market going as the rest of the economy faltered. On occasion the Fed has even injected liquidity to assist Presidents in their election bids or war policies, such as in 1971-72 in the case of Nixon and 2003-04 for George W. Bush.

In contrast to its long term policy of pumping liquidity into the economy, the Fed has done little in the way of successfully retracting that same liquidity after recessions, major financial instability events, or following the accommodation of Presidents’ political demands. The roughly twenty years of Fed ‘net’ liquidity injections into the U.S. economy, from 1986 to 2006 under the chairmanship of Alan Greenspan, has become known as the Greenspan ‘Put’. Since 2007, an even greater net liquidity injection has occurred under its current chairman, Ben Bernanke. It will no doubt eventually become known as the ‘Bernanke Put’—i.e. a far greater amount in a much shorter period of time.

The Fed’s decades-long, pro-liquidity policies not only contributed to a build-up of liquidity within the U.S. economy, but did so throughout the global economy as well. To the extent easier credit from the Fed was accessible to U.S. banks with operations and dealings abroad—which has become the case increasingly since the early 1990s—some of that Fed-provided liquidity to those U.S. banks was undoubtedly diverted offshore. Similarly, loans to non-bank U.S. companies with foreign subsidiaries no doubt resulted in liquidity flowing offshore to those subsidiaries, as well as for those multinational companies’ growing acquisitions of additional offshore assets since 1990. The latter is called Foreign Direct Investment, or FDI, and that too has been fueled by Fed monetary policies’ creating excess liquidity in the system.

Other U.S. government policies have also contributed to the growth of dollar liquidity globally. U.S. government policies providing foreign aid to sovereign countries for decades increased the flow of dollars and liquidity from the U.S. into the global system. So did funding of U.S. military bases and operations around the world. And policies of free trade, that resulted in chronic and rising U.S. trade deficits since the 1980s. Trade deficits have meant net annual outflows of hundreds of billions of dollars every year from the U.S. economy since the 1980s, culminating in more than $700 billion trade deficits for four years running during the mid-2000s alone. A further consequence of U.S. free trade policies has been the expansion of U.S. companies’ foreign direct investment, or FDI, which, as previously noted, have transferred additional billions of dollars offshore. Then there’s the major structural changes that have occurred in the U.S. tax system since 1980 that have permitted wealthy U.S. investors, individual and institutional, to shift decades of money capital from capital gains, dividends and interest income into offshore tax havens to avoid tax payments to the U.S.—in dozens of small or island nations from Cayman Islands to Seychelles to Vanuatu to Switzerland and beyond. All the above developments have combined to enable a flow of trillions of dollars into offshore venues—going into foreign central banks, private banks and financial institutions, offshore hedge and investment funds, personal and corporate accounts in tax havens, etc. Thus, while the Fed has obviously been a major contributor to the steady growth of liquidity in the U.S. and the global economy, it hasn’t been the only source. U.S. government military, trade and tax policies have contributed as well.

In addition to the Fed, and U.S. military spending, trade and tax policies, at least two other major forces have additionally contributed to the historic expansion of liquidity worldwide in recent decades. One is what is sometimes called the ‘global savings glut’.

There are different interpretations of the meaning of the ‘global savings glut’. For former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, the ‘global savings glut’ represents the accumulated reserves held by foreign central banks, private banks, and investors.

It is the global savings glut, as Greenspan defines it, that caused the flood of liquidity into the U.S. between 2002-2005 that drove down mortgage interest rates, which in turn caused the subprime market boom. It wasn’t the Fed lowering short term rates to 1% and keeping them there for nearly two years that caused the speculative boom in residential housing. The housing bubble occurred worldwide, not just in the U.S. It was the excess global liquidity that flooded into the U.S. housing market that was the culprit. The cause therefore was the glut—sometimes referred to as another sanitized term, ‘global imbalances’—that was responsible. The bubble was thus beyond the Fed’s or any central bank’s control. But even if it is true, as Greenspan maintains, that the post-2002 boom occurred simultaneously in many global markets not just the U.S. and the Fed therefore could not have been responsible; even if one were to agree with him that the global savings glut washing back onto U.S. economic shores circa 2002 was the sole cause the U.S. subprime housing bubble—what then explains the origins of that ‘global savings glut’ itself?

First, data is irrefutably clear that the U.S. housing price bubble began in 1997, not in 2002. The speculation in residential housing markets preceded the Fed’s 2002 lowering of rates as well as the alleged 2002-05 foreign investment inflows by at least five years. Both the Fed’s low 1% rates and the simultaneous global liquidity inflows contributed to the subprime housing bubble. But neither was the originating cause. The subprime boom of 2002-2005 was just the culminating phase of the housing bubble. What set off the start of housing speculation and the beginning of the run-up in housing prices around 1997-1998 is the fundamental question Greenspan must answer, but doesn’t. In addition, Greenspan must explain further why the dot.com technology stocks bubble originated around 1997 as well, and why the speculative bubble in Asian currencies that led to the Asian financial meltdown in 1997-1998 (that in turn spread to Russia and Latin American economies, and required the bailout of the big hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management in 1998) occurred as well circa 1997-1998? What was beginning to happen circa 1997-1998 that precipitated all three bubbles? Was it just coincidental that all three speculative bubbles commenced around the same time? Or is there a common thread and origin to all three?

The global savings glut begins with the river of dollars with which the U.S. flooded the world for decades as a direct consequence of its monetary, fiscal, and military policies. But that flow of dollars was only the start—a kind of priming of the global liquidity pump. The ‘global savings glut’ has been equally important factor contributing to the global liquidity explosion. The glut is the product of the past three decades of unprecedented profits, income and wealth accumulation. But it is not faceless ‘savings’ or ‘reserves’, as Greenspan and others call it. Those are misleading terms that function for the purpose of obfuscating a deeper meaning. The ‘glut’ is in fact the accumulation and concentration of income and wealth among certain strata of investors worldwide, taking the form of excess money and credit capital, that is now increasingly seeking out and flowing into speculative investment opportunities globally at an increasing rate. The glut therefore has a face: the rising global ‘investor elite’ of individuals, funds, investing institutions, corporations, banks, shadow banks and central banks.

The income-wealth accumulated by that elite more than three decades now has derived from both real asset and speculative asset investment, but increasingly in recent years from the latter and decreasingly from the former. The real asset investment has concentrated in manufacturing and infrastructure investment in the so-called ‘BRIC’ countries—i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, and especially China—and to a more limited extent in certain industries like energy extraction and commercial building the petro-economies. The rising share of accumulation of income and wealth from speculative investing has come from commodities, oil, gold, metals, currency and stock speculation, futures and options trading, land and commercial properties, funding of mergers and acquisitions, infrastructure bonds, buying and selling in secondary markets, securitized financial assets, credit insurance, and a host of other derivative based financial instruments.

Once again, the ‘glut’ is therefore not really about ‘savings’ or foreign investors’ reserves. That is a misnomer for what is in essence a concentration of income and wealth among a global strata of investors with a unique control of new, as well as old, forms of money capital. The glut represents global income inequality—not between nations but between the investor classes within most nations and their non-investor countrymen. This investor elite of course includes members in the advanced economies of North America, Europe and Japan, just as it does those in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Soeul, Shanghai, Rio, Bangalore and elsewhere. It is not about third world or ‘emerging markets’ investors. It reflects a global transformation of capital, as well as a restructuring of the various constituent elements of the class in control of that capital.

In addition to the Fed and U.S. military spending, trade and tax policies, and the global savings glut, there is yet a fourth major source of the global liquidity explosion. The policies of the Fed and U.S. government that since 1945 flooded the world economy with dollars, and the policies that since 1980 set in motion the concentration of income on a global scale do not, by themselves, fully account for the explosion of liquidity of recent decades. That record liquidity was also the consequence of the revolution in credit creation that has been unleashed in large part by the shadow banking system.

Normally liquidity is created in the banking system when the central bank of a country injects money into its banking system. That money injection increases the reserves on hand in the banks with which to extend credit to borrowers. As the banks lend the money to customers the money supply increases in the economy. The actual process of credit creation occurs when the private banks actually extend loans—i.e. credit—to borrowers who subsequently make investments. This describes a traditional process by which a central bank (Fed) determines the amount and timing of liquidity injection and credit. But that liquidity creation process has been giving way progressively over recent decades to a different kind of credit creation system that is growing relatively more independent of the central bank and whatever action it may take. Central banks’ injection of money into the banking system may lead to an increase in credit as banks loan out the money to borrowers. But banks’ credit extension is not limited to this process. Banks and shadow banks provide credit, but have been doing so increasingly independent of the money supply and central banks (e.g. Fed) money supply management processes. In other words, credit is becoming unhinged from money.

In the new system of credit, financial instruments themselves are used as the basis of credit extension and thus borrowing and debt. For example, when a financial instrument, like a collateralized debt obligation derivative, is created based on a subprime mortgage, and the market value of that derivative rises, that increased market value is then used as the basis for issuing further credit to purchase yet more financial instruments. Investments are not made based on the central bank increasing or decreasing the reserves banks may have on hand. Loans and credit extension have now little or nothing to do with banks’ existing levels of loanable excess reserves. Because these financial instruments are tradable immediately on secondary markets short term, they are more or less ‘liquid’; that is, can be used like money to purchase other financial assets. And as such financial instruments grow in volume and value, they are in effect increasing the overall liquidity within the system. Such credit financing is especially appropriate for investing in financial instruments. As the value of financial instruments rises (which presumes a continued rise in their price), it enables investing in still more similar financial instruments. The process would not be possible without the development of ‘securitization’ and highly liquid secondary markets for speculative financial instruments. In a sense, therefore, securitization and secondary markets create liquidity for financing still additional speculative investing.

A couple additional concrete examples: credit default swaps (CDS) derivatives and ‘naked short selling’. With CDS an investor may speculate that a company will default, so he ‘buys’an insurance contract (a CDS) to protect against that failure. But the speculator does not actually ‘buy’ in the sense of putting real dollars up to purchase the CDS contract. At most, he may put up a very small share of the actual cost of the CDS and leverage the rest—i.e. owe it as debt. All derivatives financial securities are in a similar way ‘leveraged’. That is, credit (and debt) far beyond what is invested in real money is extended to the borrower. Credit, and corresponding debt, is created independently of bank reserves and Fed efforts to manage levels of bank reserves.

The case of what is called ‘naked short selling’ of stocks by speculators is even more blatant. Short selling has been around for some time. It is associated with stock selling. Professional stock traders borrow to buy stock at its current price with the expectation of selling it later once the price declines and pocketing the difference as pure speculative profits. The borrowing incurs a short term debt for which an interest charge or fee must be paid. The borrowing also creates downward pressure on the stock price in question.

‘Naked’ short selling takes the speculative practice one step further. ‘Naked’ means traders don’t even borrow the funds in order to buy. Naked short selling amounts to buying stock without putting a penny down—i.e. 100% leveraging. Naked short sales amount to selling something you never owned. In other words, it’s another extreme form of speculation, more like pure ‘betting’ or like ‘betting’ when purchasing credit default swaps than buying and selling of a stock per se. Naked short selling results in even greater downward pressure on a stock’s price. Naked short sellers played a major role in the collapse of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Lehman brothers in the intensifying financial crisis during 2008, as speculators turned increasingly toward ‘naked’ short selling.

Naked short selling has the eventual result of causing a rise in corporate debt for those companies targeted by the short sellers. To the extent short selling drives down stock prices it makes it increasingly difficult for corporations to raise capital by means of stock issuance. That forces them to borrow and increase their debt, or to forego real investment activity altogether, which often means a reduction in real investment and jobs. As the recent financial crisis spread globally, the practice of short selling was banned or severely restricted in many places in Asia, Australia, Europe—but not in the U.S. Naked short selling might also be considered a form of ‘financial cannibalism’, in that investors in shadow banks prey upon investors in real asset institutions like non-financial companies.
As shadow banks, hedge funds and their investors have been particular active in naked short selling during the recent financial crisis. According to the premier market research source tracking the hedge fund industry, Hedge Fund Research, hedge funds involved in short selling (including the increasing practice of naked selling) accounted for about 40% of the $3 trillion in global hedge fund assets in 2007-08.

Investing in CDSs and naked short selling represent ‘investment as betting’ and thus an extreme form of speculative investing. But they would not be possible without the new forms of liquidity creation with which they are financed. These new forms of speculative investing typically often result as well in an increase in debt levels for companies with real assets and therefore negative affect levels of real asset investment in those companies. On the other hand, profits and returns to speculators are often significant. Driven by asset price inflation, speculative profits are often several magnitudes greater than profits from investment in real assets, so long as prices continue to rise. Speculative profits also have the added enticement that they can be realized in a much shorter time period. That capital-profit turnover time makes such investments further attractive. And so long as the price of the asset continues to rise, the expectation of profitability is more certain compared, say, to investing in real assets and real products for which demand may or may not materialize at all. Despite the frequency of financial crises in the past twenty years, it appears that profits from speculative investing have grown significantly faster than from real asset investing. For every speculator who waits too long to exit a bubble, and thus loses capital, there are on net more that gain from the run-up and price bubble. That net growth in profits and wealth in turn adds to the ‘global savings glut’ and global pool of liquidity available for subsequent investing.

Financial deregulation has increased the rate and geographic spread of speculative investing. It opened up and accelerated global capital flows. It permitted and stimulated the growth of shadow banking-financial intermediaries as the prime distribution channels for speculative investing and allowed the regulated banking system to play in those same channels and markets. But it did not create the fundamental requirement for speculative investing. That fundamental requirement was the explosion of liquidity. Without that liquidity, and the new forms of leveraging that accompanied it, there would be nothing to speculate with. The new forms of leveraging that expanded it, the new financial instruments that productized it, the new forms of institutions that distributed it, and the new markets in which those financial instruments were sold—are all predicated on the creation of a massive global pool of excess liquidity.

To sum up, there exists today a massive global pool of liquid and near liquid money capital that must find an investment outlet. Estimated roughly in the range of $20 to $40 trillion worldwide, it is thus so excessively large that it cannot find sufficient real, fixed investment opportunities to absorb all of it. There is far more liquidity than real physical asset investment opportunities—notwithstanding the infrastructure growth in China, India, Brazil and the like. More critically, real asset investment may not be as profitable as speculative investing in any event. Meanwhile, that liquidity pool cannot and will not remain idle. It is therefore prone to seek out new price driven speculative opportunities, which are more easily and quickly exploited, with faster turnover and often with greater returns, than physical asset investment in structures, equipment, inventories and such.

The Global Money Parade

The flooding of both the U.S. and global economy with U.S. dollars, the global savings glut, plus new forms of credit creation have produced a historic growth in available liquidity in the global economy. The volume of liquidity is only part of the story, however. Where that liquidity resides and to what uses it is being put are equally important. In what institutions is that liquidity ‘deposited’? In what asset types is it invested? Who are the investors—institutional, corporate, and wealthy individual?

How much of the estimated $20 to $40 trillion in outstanding liquidity today resides in the global network of commercial banks, like J.P Morgan Chase and Bank of America? How much of it in those institutions referred to as ‘shadow banks’ or financial intermediaries—i.e. the investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley? Giant hedge funds, like Citadel, and the hedge fund sector, which grew from just several hundred in the 1990s to more than 10,000 by 2008 with nearly $2 trillion in assets? Private equity firms like Carlyl or Blackstone that controlled several trillions more at their peak? Finance companies like GMAC and GE Credit? GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Or in the allegedly more conservative investing institutions like the $4 trillion money market funds, the multi-trillion dollar pension funds, emerging market funds, sovereign wealth funds of the oil rich economies, etc.?

As noted in a previous chapter, for the U.S. alone it is estimated the network of shadow banking institutions by 2007 accounted for more than $10 trillion, about equal to the assets of the commercial banking sector. And the U.S. share of the global shadow banking network is probably no more than 40% at most. Moreover, the commercial banks have over the last decade merged with shadow banks in various ways—at least the largest of the commercial banks. So it makes less and less sense over time to even refer to the distinction of the two banking sectors. Commercial banks have turned increasingly to the higher profitable speculative forms of investing. And they have long funded the shadow banks to significant extent, set up their own hedge funds and private equity firms, established private bank operations for their wealthiest clients, and acted in part like shadow banks in fact if not in name. So part of the big commercial banks must be considered a segment of the shadow banking sector as well, and a significant amount of their lending activity has no doubt been increasingly speculative.

A testimony to that latter point is the huge amount of lending by commercial banks that has occurred since May 2009 to speculators in foreign currency and emerging markets. The banks borrow from the Fed at 0.25% and loan at substantially higher rates to clients speculating in Asian, Latin American, and Russian currencies. Less involved in highly speculative ventures as general rule are the 8200 or so smaller regional and community banks and thrift institutions in the U.S., although to the extent this group has participated in financing subprime mortgages and highly leveraged commercial property deals they too have forayed into speculative investment in major ways. All these represent a short list of institutional ‘loci’ in which much of the world liquidity resides. Add to these institutionals investing on behalf of clients (as well as on behalf of themselves as institutions), very wealthy individuals who invest directly themselves rather than via institutions, and the thousands of corporations that, to some degree, also invest directly with their companies’ retained earnings.

These investors—individual, corporate, and institutional alike—have been shifting their liquidity increasingly in recent decades into speculative investments; that is, investment opportunities of a short term, price-driven asset nature rather than in longer term enterprise, equipment, and structures that payout with a longer, amortized stream of income. That is, investments in financial asset securities. The profits are greater due to the price volatility, the costs are lower since most speculative investing is in financial securities with no costs of production and low cost of sales, there are no potential supplier bottlenecks, distribution is instantaneous and the market size is global, the turnover in profitability is as short as the investor chooses, and the short term risk is less because the assets can be quickly resold in secondary markets most of the time.

These immense relative advantages in costs of speculative investing in financial securities, compared to investing in real physical assets, combined with the possible quick returns and the potential for excess price-driven profits, together result in a kind of ‘global money parade’ that sloshes around markets internationally seeking speculative opportunities—a financial tornado that causes speculative bubbles wherever it touches down.

That parade consists fundamentally of those investors globally that have become greater in number than ever before, controlling a share of total global liquidity that is at historic record levels, and that exhibit a growing preference for speculative investing. And where has most of the liquidity they control been going? Into foreign exchange trading, over the counter derivatives trading, buying and selling of securitized asset backed securities (ABS), collateralized debt (CDOs), collateralized loans (CLOs), residential and commercial mortgages (RMBS, CMBS), credit swaps (CDSs), interest rate and currency swaps, futures and options trades of all kinds, leveraged buyouts (LBOs), emerging market funds, high yield corporate junk bonds and funds, into stock market speculation world wide, into short-selling of stocks, landed property speculation, and global commodities of all kind from food and metals to gold and oil. A global money parade marching to and fro across global financial markets, from one short term speculative opportunity to another, at times exacerbating asset price volatility, at other times precipitating it, and sometimes even pushing asset inflation to the level of financial bust.

An important dynamic characteristic of Epic Recession is that it is typically preceded by a proliferation of multiple asset bubbles fueled by the global money parade that more or less mature in tandem. When one or more of the bubbles overextends and then collapses, it quickly precipitates similar collapses in other bubbles. The magnitude of the financial bust thereafter evokes a credit contraction well beyond that which may occur in a normal recession. How deep, fast and widespread the contraction depends in part on the degree of financial fragility that has developed at the time of the financial bust; and in part on the degree of consumption fragility as well. Both forms of fragility are a function of debt, debt servicing capability, and income. As debt levels unwind in the Epic Recession, the subsequent trajectory of the Epic Recession depends thereafter on the rate of deflation and defaults, and in turn on the ability or failure of government policies to check and contain the deflation-defaults and/or to reduce debt levels that exacerbate the deflation-default levels and rates.

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Brazilian Democracy Is Dead

April 13th, 2020 by Fernando Horta

The word is that that General Braga Netto is the new “acting president” of Brazil. Firstly, this position does not legally exist. We live in a presidential system, and the power of the executive is in the hands of the President and Vice President, who are elected. Secondly, an “acting president” subverts what was left of the institutions, seals a neo-military authoritarianism in Brazil,  and consolidates the “successive approximations” method, which seems to be all that the military learn in the academy.

There was no need for a doctorate to know that the nefarious and inept Bolsonaro would have no chance of governing the country. The elites bet that he would be tutored by a strong triad composed of Guedes, Moro and Mourão (or Heleno). Everything else was unimportant and it could be left for Bolsonaro to offer positions to clowns; clowns whose only function is to entertain.

That was the plan from the beginning. It turns out that the creators of this plan forgot that Bolsonaro had been expelled from the army precisely because he was incapable of obeying rules and minimally fulfilling the functions he was given. The years as a Congressman, instead of giving him some sense of reality, served only to convince him that he was smart, canny and able to lead the country in “cleaning up communism”. Basically, he convinced himself that he was a new and improved Mussolini, even though he knew nothing of the Italian leader.

Nor did they understand, those who supported the overthrow of Brazil, that Guedes was known in the economic world as technically weak, and to have serious ethical problems. Moro has always been legally incapable, and could only do the damage to Brazilian institutions he has done because our judiciary has about 19 thousand judges, who are anointed to infallibility and omnipotence from a miserable public contest. They can halt the country and companies, arrest or release at their leisure, especially if they have friends and accomplices in the higher ranks. This was the role of TRF4. Moro had no technical legitimacy in Lava Jato. The operation was an example of politically orchestrated institutional violence that will be studied for years, and from it, models of containment and punishment will be developed.

There is a serious problem with the presence of a “military wing” in the government. The Army is not an institution that cultivates any trace of democracy. On the contrary, it is an authoritarian, brutal, elitist institution and – we now know – totally malformed in cognitive terms. Every General is the ripened fruit of that institution, and when a general says that “the Negro is a scoundrel” or refers to the “indolent Indian” we see that the institution was not able to teach even the minimum amount of civility to those who should be the living mirror to the institution’s work. We need to reformulate all of our army’s training or we will be suffering coups for centuries to come. The “Sorbonne line” of the present Armed Forces was removed by Bolsonaro with the fall of General Santos Cruz. Arguably he was the General with the greatest cognitive ability and social understanding of all those who infest executive power. Santos Cruz’s exit represented a lurch towards the barracks; a touch of military discipline to command the population.

Now, in a measure that was already being demanded by the media and wealthy sectors of Brazil, Bolsonaro is removed from power without pomp or circumstance. General Braga Netto – who was in charge when the black musician Evaldo dos Santos Rosa and his family were shot in Rio de Janeiro – takes over Brazil “during the crisis”. International newspapers have reported a “coup” in Brazil, while authorities from other countries have already been informed of Bolsonaro’s “protection” – and who now effectively gives the orders.

Those who think this is a solution are again making serious mistakes.

The first mistake is to believe that Mourão, Heleno and others will accept this coup and conform. The Brazilian Presidency is a very coveted asset, and with the captain out of the effective command line, appearing like a “Queen of England”, we will see the same hatred that Costa e Silva felt for Castelo Branco in 1964 return to the country. From the outside, the army looks like a disciplined and solid institution. Inside, it is a madhouse, with gossip, betrayal, villainy, and low, dirty political disputes. The difference is that everyone dresses almost the same, and do not denounce the absurdities of which they are victims, or that they are part of.

The second mistake is to believe that the democratic process is just a mechanism for choosing who will be President. If democracy is just that, Bolsonaro can be kept as a puppet, waving to people and offending on social networks, leaving the country’s decisions to “adults”. It turns out that democracy is not merely that. There is a couplet in any democracy: representation and participation. And the first point here is key. Whoever voted for the fascist captain did so because they felt REPRESENTED by him. And this feeling is so strong that even the Army will be crushed by the fascists in a complex relationship, which has already been mapped in history. The first opposition to Hitler and Mussolini came from the German and Italian armies. Fascism overthrew the Army with the ease with which it ended the liberal and moderate right in those countries. The PSDB has ceased to exist. Fascism absorbed the electorate of Aécio, Serra and Alckmin. It will do the same with the olive green paper-mache soldiers. It’s only a matter of time.

It is also necessary to consider destabilizing elements such as the neo-Pentecostal evangelicals, and the charlatans fury for power. It will be difficult to accommodate Malafaias, Felicianos and others in their crusade for power. And even if Olavo de Carvalho suddenly “dies” (as was customary in dictatorships) there is a sense of “active participation” in Brazilian fascism that would still need to be tamed by Bolsonaro himself to solidify the regime. Without the leader, these “free radicals” cannot be contained.

Soon enough, the “captain” will be “invited to withdraw” from the government, a term well known in the barracks; armed, uniformed beasts trying to appear polished and educated enough to be accepted by wealthy elites. Bolsonaro, anointed with a controversial stabbing, will be placed into the pantheon of the homeland’s heroes, and will “fall upwards” into a new plan of power in Brazil. The point is that a sanctified fascist is even stronger, and whoever is thinking about this as a solution does not understand that they are creating an even more dangerous monster.

All of this, happening in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, hunger and urban violence that will arise due to the global economic disorganization, and at a time when we have a perverse world leadership. In the past, powerful and wealthy countries became “benevolent leaders” seeking to protect order, life, and capitalist contracts that would allow them to maintain dominance for decades to come. It was like that with England in the 19th century and with the United States after the second world war. Now, Trump is totally unable to understand the role of the U.S. in the world and has already put himself on the road to war with Venezuela, and, in an act of modern piracy, stolen equipment and supplies destined for France, Germany and Brazil. Trump’s “America first” is real and it is a pity that Bolsonaro also saluted the American flag and put Brazil on all fours for the United States.

Now, unlike 1964, it is Bolsonaro – and not the Army – who is allied to the United States. A coup against the fascist has to take into account American opposition to it.

Stay at home. Keep yourself alive.

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Selected Articles: Towards a New World Order

April 13th, 2020 by Global Research News

The US Seeks to Set New Military Base in Syria Amid Pandemic

By Telesur, April 13, 2020

President Donald Trump administration on Friday deployed a military convoy in Syria to establish a new base in this Arab nation.

A caravan of 35 trucks loaded with vehicles and warfare and logistics materials headed for the city of Shadadi, in the southern Hasakeh province, 866 kilometers northeast of Damascus, as reported by outlet Ikhbariya TV.

Cuba – The Endless Cruelty of US Sanctions – The US Intercepts Chinese Medical Supplies to Cuba

By Peter Koenig and Press TV, April 12, 2020

Cuba complained recently that a shipment of test kits, masks and respirators, donated by the Chinese Alibaba group, didn’t arrive because the American company tasked with transportation feared breaching U-S sanction rules. Washington imposed an embargo on Cuba in 19-62 after the island nation nationalized its oil industry. The measures have been denounced by the United Nations 28 years in a row.

Fitting Together the Pieces of the Coronavirus Puzzle

By Mark Taliano, April 12, 2020

The as yet unfolding story of Coronavirus is a story of corruption and conflicts of interest. Some pieces of the puzzle remain missing, but the big picture is increasingly apparent.

The big picture speaks to the unaccountability of Big Monopolies and Big Money, and the fabricated neutralization of the masses, in a world where the truth has been largely deplatformed and suppressed.

Post-Republic “Weimar America”, Here We Come! Virus Hysteria Adds $10 Trillion to the National Debt

By Mike Whitney, April 12, 2020

There’s no doubt that the Coronavirus is a serious infection that can lead to severe illness or death. There’s also no doubt that ‘virus hysteria’ has been used for other purposes. Wall Street, for example, has used virus-panic to advance its own agenda and get another round of trillion dollar bailouts. In fact, it took less than a week to get the pushover congress to ram through a massive $2.2 trillion boondoggle without even one lousy congressman offering a peep of protest. That’s got to be some kind of record.

COVID-19: Coronavirus and Civilization

By Diana Johnstone, April 11, 2020

Today, quite a number of alternative media commentators are ready to believe in the absolute power not of God but of Mammon, of the powers of Wall Street and its partners in politics, the media and the military. In this view, nothing major happens that hasn’t been planned by earthly powers for their own selfish interest.

Mammon is wrecking the economy so a few oligarchs will own everything. Or else Mammon created the hoax Coronavirus 19 in order to lock us all up and deprive us of what little is left of our freedom. Or finally Mammon is using a virus in order to have a pretext to vaccinate us all with secret substances and turn us all into zombies.

Total System Failure Will Give Rise to New Economy?

By Pepe Escobar, April 11, 2020

Nobody, anywhere, could have predicted what we are now witnessing: in a matter of only a few weeks the accumulated collapse of global supply chains, aggregate demand, consumption, investment, exports, mobility.

Nobody is betting on an L-shaped recovery anymore – not to mention a V-shaped one. Any projection of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 gets into falling-off-a-cliff territory.

UN Ceasefire Defines War As a Non-Essential Activity

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, April 11, 2020

At least 70 countries have signed on to the March 23 call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a worldwide ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like non-essential business and spectator sports, war is a luxury that the Secretary General says we must manage without for a while. After U.S. leaders have told Americans for years that war is a necessary evil or even a solution to many of our problems, Mr. Guterres is reminding us that war is really the most non-essential evil and an indulgence that the world cannot afford—especially during a pandemic.

The “Secret Agenda” of the So-called Elite

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, April 10, 2020

Even the active euthanasia of elderly and sick fellow citizens by means of strong sleeping pills and opiates has already set these dark figures on their way. Likewise a worldwide redistribution of general wealth from the bottom to the top, from the poor to the super rich. Should we citizens of this world, remembering these plans of the cabal, not recall to whom the call for the final battle was actually made?

Two of these “world citizens” who are involved in such sinister plans are the former US Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger and the wealthy US entrepreneur and patron of the arts Bill Gates.


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Ukraine Eyes America for Gas but Still Relies on Russia

April 13th, 2020 by Paul Antonopoulos

Despite strong attempts by Ukraine not to buy Russian pipeline gas, they will not be able to receive U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) for at least another five years according to Polish experts from the consulting company ESPERIS. According to the agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine signed in March, the U.S. will sell 6-8 million cubic meters.

The Polish experts say that despite the fact that Ukraine stopped the official importation of Russian gas in 2015, it does not have independence from fuel produced in Russia, since in reality Russian gas still reaches Ukraine via the European Union countries of Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.

The Polish experts explain that “By the end of 2019, all the natural gas imported into Ukraine from the EU was shipped via physical reverse from the direction of Slovakia (since 2016 average 8.7 bcma), Hungary (average 2.7 bcma) and Poland (average 1.1 bcma).”

Physical reverse means that effectively Slovakia, Hungary and Poland will buy gas from Russia then reverse its flow into Ukraine. Through this way Ukraine is not buying Russian gas while receiving Russian gas through other means. The ironic part is that as the ESPERIS report explains,

“Natural gas imported from the European suppliers, such as DXT, RWE or PGNiG, is in fact mostly produced in Russia and then sent via Ukraine to EU. Thus, the ultimate independence of Ukraine from the Russian supplies can be reached only by opening of a new source of supply.”

The problem is that Ukraine does not have its own LNG regasification means. The report explains that

“the Ukrainians tried to build LNG importing terminal in Odessa or Ochakiv for several years, but as for now the project seems to be dead at all.”

Romanian LNG terminals may not be possible as Turkey may refuse tankers with raw and highly explosive materials to pass through the Bosporus. The route through Croatia is not profitable due to transit fees and transportation costs.

Therefore, the only realistic port of delivery available for Ukraine would be at the Swinoujscie regasification terminal in Poland. However, Swinoujscie’s capacity for Ukraine is not enough. Ukraine will be able to receive U.S. gas only through Poland, where the floating regasification terminal is planned to be launched in Gdansk, but these deliveries cannot begin before 2025 and only if the Polish side is ready to invest large amounts of money in this construction.

Warsaw advocates the construction of a new pipeline between the gas transmission systems of Poland and Ukraine. However, the Polish report explains that this project requires large expenditures on the part of Kiev and therefore remains frozen as it cannot afford to do it.

Despite the reality that Ukraine is entirely reliant on Russian gas, on April 8 the head of Ukraine’s new gas transit system operator Sergey Makogon declared that the country was ready for zero gas transit from Russia despite not having the means to do so. On January 31, it was reported that the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine since the beginning of that month had increased its price by 2% and could cost more than $7 billion in five years. According to RBC, the total volume of traffic for five years will be 225,000 million cubic meters and the pumping cost will be $31.72 per 1,000 cubic meters, including all taxes and fees.

On December 31, 2019, it was reported that Gazprom and the Ukrainian operator signed a transit agreement for Russian has to reach Europe. According to the document, in 2020, 65,000 million cubic meters of Russian gas will pass through Ukraine. Then, until 2024, annual deliveries will drop to 40 billion cubic meters. Although Ukraine will become a transit country, it somehow also does not want to use Russian gas for its own domestic consumption.

Russia has the largest reserves of gas in the world and in the future the consumption of natural gas will grow because coal and oil consumption will be reduced. In 2018 alone, Gazprom, Russia’s largest gas company, supplied the European Union with more than 40% of its natural gas imports. Although Ukraine is working towards independence from Russian gas, it is in the vague hope that this move will somehow allow the country to move closer to the European Union despite most of the continent relying on and using Russian gas.

The Polish report concluded that “Without the upgrade of pipelines and import terminals in the region neither Ukrainian energy independence nor U.S. LNG export to Ukraine will develop.” Effectively, as Ukraine has the ambition to become “energy independent” from Russia, it has neither the finances or infrastructure to achieve this.

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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

President Donald Trump administration on Friday deployed a military convoy in Syria to establish a new base in this Arab nation.

A caravan of 35 trucks loaded with vehicles and warfare and logistics materials headed for the city of Shadadi, in the southern Hasakeh province, 866 kilometers northeast of Damascus, as reported by outlet Ikhbariya TV.

Local activists reported on the convoy as it was traveling on the road between Deir Ezzor and Hasakeh provinces. They also mentioned that it was guarded by two helicopters and armed forces from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia.

The U.S. maintains several bases in the Syrian oil and gas fields. Washington sponsors the SDF separatist militia, which controls large areas of the Aljazeera region.

“Over the last week, the U.S. military has sent several reinforcements and supplies to northeastern Syria, despite President Trump’s vow to decrease his country’s forces inside the country,” local outlet AMN recalled.

“The U.S. Coalition forces are mostly concentrated in the eastern part of Syria, but they do control a piece of the Homs Governorate that is located along the Iraqi border.”​​​​​​​

Since the Arab Spring revolts in 2011, Syria has been going through a civil war in which President Bashar al-Assad is facing the so-called “Syrian Opposition.”

Because of the geopolitical importance of the country and its natural resources, however, external actors are also involved in supporting the contending factions in this civil war.

In 2014, the United States established an “international coalition” to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Besides having ordered airstrikes, Washington has deployed special forces and artillery units to engage ISIL on the ground.

Since 2015, the U.S. has been supporting the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria and its armed wing, the SDF.​​​​​​​

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Featured image: A woman wearing face mask walks in Damascus, Syria, March 24, 2020. | Photo: EFE

Education cuts

The Alberta United Conservative Party (UCP) premier and his Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange have announced they are redirecting $128 million dollars of K-12 education funding to the province’s COVID-19 response, following their decision to close schools on March 15. Ms. LaGrange said “COVID-19 has changed both how we provide student learning, and the operational needs of the education system.”

The result will be the layoff of 25 000 education workers across the province, 16 000 of them educational assistants. The Minister’s press secretary said “Any staff who are affected by this temporary funding adjustment are encouraged to apply for the federal government’s enhanced employment insurance program, as well as other support programs for Canadian workers.”  Most of these workers, including office employees, were engaged in preparing online education resources for students. Principals and office workers were reaching out to families to assess the level of technology that families have available. In particular, the educational assistants were working hard preparing learning packages for students with special needs, many of which were going to be delivered to homes of students without access to technology.

“This is pure cruelty,” Sarah Hoffman, NDP Opposition Critic for Education said in a statement. “Jason Kenney is doing harm to students with complex needs, their families, and to tens of thousands of Alberta workers.”

The NDP said this announcement comes just days after the United Conservative Party (UCP) its austerity budget would be cutting funds to post-secondary schools and municipalities in the province, resulting in thousands of layoffs: “Instead of standing by these hardworking Albertans, as he has asked private employers to do, Jason Kenney is pushing thousands of people onto a massively overwhelmed federal program.” They will also lose their benefits and salaries if they are laid off.

Former NDP premier, Rachel Notley said, “The decision to cut education funding is unconscionable – this is going to harm kids. Period. Also you’re asking employers to stand by their employees but you won’t even do it yourself?” The Canadian Union of Public Employees also responded, saying the UCP’s decision was “very dismissive”… “heartless and thoughtless” and would have a “devastating effect.”

A statement from the Edmonton Catholic School Board said, “Our support staff are amazing,” that they were “…blindsided, and it will negatively affect student learning. Some of our students who have special needs, for example, EA’s provide great service and support to these kids. Certainly, we have concerns about how we are going to continue to support these learners.”

Could something like this happen in Ontario? School asked this question of Toronto District School Board (TDSB) media staff who said such a move would be the province’s call. Ministry of Education press officers haven’t responded to enquiries.

Support for the oil industry

The Alberta premier then turned around and committed $7.5 billion in government funding to the oil industry, investing $1.5 billion directly and guaranteeing a $6 billion loan to get the Keystone pipeline built. Its purpose is to ship highly toxic tar sands oil to Texas. This comes at a time when oil is not doing well; the price is crashing to less than $5 a barrel – less than the cost of a pint of beer- and oil insiders predict “energy market “Armageddon.” Andrew Grant, of the influential UK think tank Carbon Tracker, thinks of propping up the oil industry: “It’s not a bet I would make.”

Yet, Mr. Kenney claims the pipeline is a much-needed employment generator during a time of unprecedented economic havoc. This is the climate in which mining giant, Teck Resources, decided not to build its Frontier mine, and is considering closing another one. Premier Kenney said the pipeline would generate 1 400 direct and 5 400 indirect jobs- ironically, far fewer jobs than his education layoffs.

Cuts to health care

A third disastrous measure has been to cut doctor’s salaries by 30%, forcing them to lay off staff in 400 clinics, cut the number of services they deliver and pull back on the subsidies formerly paid for malpractice insurance. Some have been forced to close their practices. The UCP government also wants to pay doctors 20% less for the services they deliver in hospitals. A number of doctors have decided to seek employment in other provinces, and are already receiving offers. This has delivered a real blow to the quality of public healthcare, with a number of vital services, such as obstetrical care, unavailable to many.

Jason Kenney stands alone among Canadian premiers as one who cuts jobs and services in the midst of this pandemic.

Arbitrary powers for cabinet ministers

To top it all off, his United Conservative Party (UCP) just rushed a -very likely- unconstitutional new bill through the Legislature on April 2. Bill 10, the Public Health (Emergency Powers) Amendment Act enables any current Alberta government minister to create and implement laws without consultation. It was introduced on March 31 and pushed through the Alberta Legislative Assembly less than 48 hours later. It stays in place as long as a public health emergency is declared.   

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom (JCCF) says that the new law, “… gives sweeping and extraordinary powers to any government minister at the stroke of a pen. It means that any single UCP politician can now write, create, implement and enforce any new law, simply through ministerial order, without the new law being discussed, scrutinized, debated or approved by the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.” A single cabinet member can, unilaterally, impose laws on Albertans if she or he thinks they are in the public interest. It is a great opportunity for a government to push forward its agenda.

The JCCF adds: “Further, the law can be made retroactive to the time when the public health emergency was declared. It means the government has the right to create new offences without oversight. It also increases the maximum penalties under the Public Health Act from $2,000 to $100,000 for a first offence, and from $5,000 to $500,000 for a subsequent offence. There is no time limit.” The Centre argues that the people of Alberta have a constitutional right to representation, particularly over laws that might affect their civil liberties. Those people haven’t given the UCP government a mandate to go this far.

One legal opinion is that any superior court justice would throw out this law in short order.

Rather than helping people out in the most challenging time of our generation, the UCP government of Jason Kenny prefers to kick people while they are down. This looks a lot like the sort of dictatorial overreach that cynical governments can use when people face the shock of rapidly changing threats like the COVID-19 pandemic. Crises can bring people together, but they also enable unscrupulous governments to turn a bad situation to their purposes. Shockingly, Kenney still plans to lay off as many as 6000 nurses, paramedics and lab technicians after the pandemic crisis passes. It is why we need to keep a close watch on governments at all levels.

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David DePoe is an activist and teacher retired from the Toronto District School Board. 

Featured image is from Chris Schwarz/Alberta Government

On April 11, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin signed a decree on the procedure of processing and using special digital passes in the city. The decision to introduce a special digital pass system to enforce coronavirus lockdown rules in the Russian capital was announced on April 10. Soon, digital passes will become mandatory for all residents of Moscow.

According to the Sobyanin decree, residents will be able to start getting digital passes on April 13, while on April 15 they will become mandatory for trips in Moscow and the region by personal and public transport.

At the current stage of the digital pass system launch, people on foot still can move across the city without passes. However, they still have to comply with the established rules and restrictions of the so-called ‘self-isolation regime’.

    • A digital pass is a special code consisting of numbers and letters. The first four characters of which indicate the expiration date of the pass. The remaining 12 characters will identify its owner and the purpose of the trip. Authorities and security services will be able to use the QIR code of the pass to check the information.
    • A digital pass is required for travel on any type of personal and public transport. Residents moving through Moscow and the region will have to show a passport and a digital pass (show a printout or screen of a smartphone) upon a request by Police. Officers will check the pass using a special program.

Moscow COVID-19 Lockdown: Administrative Self-Isolation, QR Codes And No More Than 2 Personal Trips Per Week

April 11 situation in Russia

Currently, there are 3 categories of digital passes:

  • for travel related to work and official trips. Residents with such passes will be able to go to work and return home without suffering from administrative penalties and fines for the violation of the self-isolation regime;
  • for trips to medical facilities. Passes in this category will be issued for a single day and allow to travel to a particular medical facility;
  • for trips for other personal purposes of the high importance (to visit a store, reach a railway station etc). A digital pass of this category is issued for a single day and allows a trip to the destination and back. A resident can obtain such a pass two times per week only.

On April 10, Moscow authorities announced that they were planning to gradually introduce the digital pass system. Therefore, it’s expected that the limitations of the freedom of movement for residents traveling on foot will be also introduced soon.

According to reports in Russian media, servers of the IT company involved in the Moscow digital pass system development and support are located in the European Union. If this is confirmed, this move will be another public federation of the Russian federal law.

It should be noted that the state of emergency has not been introduced in Moscow yet. Therefore, under the Russian constitution, local authorities have no official right to limit freedoms of the residents. Despite this, the Sobyanin team is employing its levers of administrative pressure to push forward the idea of the digitally-enforced ‘self-isolation’ regime that in fact is the regime of the administrative limitations of residents’ legal rights.

On April 11, Moscow authorities also reinforced security checkpoints at the entrances to the city. Media reports say that they are working to ‘unofficially’ ban a part of people to enter the city. This move raised serious concerns among the local population, which is already disgruntled by the Sobyanin-style ‘self-isolation’ regime. By limiting the freedom of people to enter the city and enforcing the digital pass system for Moscow residents, local authorities are in fact isolating the Russian capital from the rest of the country.

Right now, the official media says that these limitations are introduced for the period until April 30 only. However, the practice around the world demonstrates that such ‘temporary measures’ could last much longer than it’s announced initially.

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The way to defeat a highly infectious disease like COVID-19 is by instituting policies to prevent it from spreading.

Social distancing, sheltering in place, and lockdowns are emotionally draining and anxiety provoking.

According to psychologist Shauna Springer,

“we’re missing the bigger picture of how traumatic recent events are for many people across America,” notably:

People are mostly concerned about survival and having enough income for essentials so they’re greatly stressed.

Priorities “are in flux or…in direct conflict.” Unemployment is hard to bear. So is working in an environment like a hospital that’s high-risk today.

“Doing nothing is harder for many of us than doing something really hard.”

Hoarding supplies is unsustainable. It’s contrary to normal behavior and creates fear of running out of what’s needed that’s always available in normal times.

Instead of interfacing and connecting with others, we’re self-isolated, an emotionally unsettling status that can take a physical toll.

Psychologist Jason Whiting explained that unemployment and hunkering down at home foster domestic violence, even self-harm.

Current conditions are “straining families and relationships,” he stressed, women mostly affected.

Psychologists Tara Thiagarajan and Jennifer J. Newson addressed the tradeoff between risk of COVID-19 infection and stress of unemployment.

Millions of people in the US and worldwide live from paycheck to paycheck.

Only about half of US households have enough financial resources “to cover three months of expenses if laid off,” they said.

“(W)hat level of prolonged unemployment are we willing to trade-off to mitigate risk to life,” they asked?

Based on their research, they “found that the average mental well-being score of those who are unemployed is 35 percent lower than that of those who are employed, and the fraction of unemployed who are at risk of or facing clinical mental health disorders is twice that of those who are employed.”

“More significantly, the mental well-being cost of economic trauma, in terms of the proportion of people at risk of a clinical mental health disorder, was far greater than the mental well-being cost of the death of a close family member or that of a life-threatening or serious health issue.”

It their findings apply to Americans nationwide, emotional well-being depends on “economic success” that includes employment for income even when entailing a health risk like now.

At the same time, illness more serious than a common cold or sniffles risks more serious health issues than hunkering down and following doctor’s orders to get well before resuming normal activities.

At a time when the US has about 30% of COVID-19 [estimated] cases and around 18% of global deaths, at least 2,000 on Friday, Trump wants the economy reopened by May 1.

Publicly he declined to give a specific date this week. Privately he aims to “resum(e) business activity by May 1,” according to the Washington Post, citing unnamed Trump regime officials “familiar with discussions.”

He’s focused solely on getting reelected and serving privileged interests, along with stock market performance, human health and welfare off his radar, never on it throughout his tenure or in private life.

He called for using the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients, its efficacy unproved.

According to independent Thailand Medical News (TMN), hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin “have no effect on COVID-19 patients.”

They’re “no better than a dangerous placebo,” citing a French medical journal study.

Studies claiming otherwise were not peer-reviewed. Earlier studies had many discrepancies.

“Many researchers…warn(ed) that COVID-19 patients taking these drugs have a higher risk of heart failure,” said TMN.

Yet on March 4, the Big Pharma controlled FDA approved these drugs for use in treating COVID-19 patients, as well as chloroquine.

No evidence proves that they are a “game changer” as Trump falsely claimed.

These drugs have potentially serious side effects. A study on use of hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin on 80 patients showed encouraging results.

According to TMN, most patients given these drugs had mild symptoms, “85%” having no fever, suggesting that “these patients likely would have naturally cleared the virus without any intervention.”

A Chinese study also showed positive results for 31 patients whose symptoms were milder 24 hours after receiving treatment.

According to TMN, the study focused more on pneumonia than COVID-19.

Results of another French study involving 11 patients given hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were dismal.

TMN explained that “eight of the 10 patients still tested positive for COVID-19. Of these 10 patients, one patient died, two were transferred to the ICU, and another had to be removed from the treatment due to serious complications.”

Another Chinese study “showed no difference in viral clearance after seven days either with or without the hydroxychloroquine with the patients in the trial.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, side effects of hydroxychloroquine include blistering, peeling, loosening of the skin, blurred vision or other vision changes, chest discomfort, pain or tightness, decreased urination, defective color vision, difficulty breathing, difficulty seeing at night, dizziness or fainting, and age-related harm to the kidneys.

The Mayo Clinic warned that “the risks of taking the (drug) must be weighed against the good it” may do.

It also warned against possible harm from the drug for patients on one or more others on a lengthy laundry list of medications.

TMN warned about volumes of “fake news and misinformation being released by government agencies and health authorities and even so called pharma and drug companies merely for reasons to pacify the public, for political and security reasons and also for reasons of greed and money,” adding:

“To date there are no found drugs or pharmaceuticals that can truly cure or treat Covid-19 effectively. Most of these experimental drugs especially the antivirals are actually toxic and have been known to have caused deaths in Covid-19 patients.”

“There are a number of safer drugs and herbs and TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) preparations being researched and undergoing clinical trials, and we will be covering on these shortly.”

Clearly, unemployed workers need jobs for income to support themselves and family members.

Companies need workers to produce goods and services. They need to be well to perform their duties.

Reopening the economy prematurely, at the expense of protective social distancing, sheltering in place, and lockdowns risks escalation of COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths — forcing a second lockdown.

Inadequate US testing is being done so there’s no accurate number of sick Americans with the virus.

Infections take two to 14, possibly 21, even 24, days for symptoms to appear.

Untested asymptomatic people can unwittingly transmit the virus to others.

Medical experts stress that quarantine management is essential.

Much remains unknown about COVID-19’s transmission and dynamics.

Jump-starting the economy too soon could prove disastrous.

Trump’s indifference toward human health and welfare is why he and regime officials should never be trusted — nor most congressional members from both wings of the one-party state.

America’s ruling class cares only about privileged interests, the toll on human health and well-being considered a small price to pay.

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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.

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COVID-19, Smartphone Surveillance, and the State

April 13th, 2020 by Kurt Nimmo

For the state, there is one primary imperative—to remain in power at all cost. If this imperative is to be successful, the state must impose, by stealth or deception, a system capable of monitoring all individuals who may pose an immediate or future threat to its dominance. 

The COVID-19 “crisis,” produced either deliberately or by an act of nature, provides the state with a nearly airtight pretext for the imposition of further surveillance of the public, in particular political adversaries. 

The largely manufactured “war on terror” following the attacks of 9/11 produced the needed climate of suspicion and fear to make possible the implementation of the Patriot Act, “a domestic-surveillance wish list full of investigatory powers long sought by the FBI,” an agency that has for many decades served as a political police force, a fact made public during the Church Committee hearings in the mid-1970s. 

Much of what we know about technological surveillance in the wake of 9/11 was gleaned from the revelations of Edward Snowden, a former NSA, and CIA employee. Snowden exposed a number of global surveillance programs, including PRISM and XKeyscore, the former in partnership with Microsoft, Apple, and Google. 

“The story of the deliberate creation of the modern mass-surveillance state includes elements of Google’s surprising, and largely unknown, origin,” writes Jeff Nesbit for Quartz. 

The NSA and CIA “research arms” funded “birds of a feather,” including Google, as part of an effort to track and trace individuals across the internet. Funding was provided in part by the National Science Foundation and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as DARPA. 

Human beings and like-minded groups who might pose a threat to national security can be uniquely identified online before they do harm. This explains why the intelligence community found [Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s] research efforts [into search engines] so appealing; prior to this time, the CIA largely used human intelligence efforts in the field to identify people and groups that might pose threats. The ability to track them virtually (in conjunction with efforts in the field) would change everything.

During the development of the Google search engine, Brin was in contract with an employee of the defense contractor MITRE Corp, a corporation “leading research and development efforts for the NSA, CIA, US Air Force Research Laboratory and US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command [and] the CIA’s internal Research and Development department,” according to journalist Kit Klarenberg. 

The advent of social media further increased efforts to profile, track, and trace individuals. “You don’t need to wear a tinfoil hat to believe that the CIA is using Facebook, Twitter, Google… and other social media to spy on people,” CBS News reported almost a decade ago. 

The coronavirus provides an additional pretense to further the already deep reach of the surveillance state and its corporate partners. The national security state has graduated from the exaggerated threat of Muslim terrorists in caves to an invisible pathogen a corporate propaganda media has exploited to frighten an ill-informed public—and thus clear the way for the state to introduce new and more intrusive surveillance. 

Google and Apple have teamed up to create a system that tracks and traces individuals allegedly exposed to the coronavirus. “The technology would rely on the Bluetooth signals that smartphones can both send out and receive,” NPR reports. 

If a person tests positive for COVID-19, they could notify public health authorities through an app. Those public health apps would then alert anyone whose smartphones had come near the infected person’s phone in the prior 14 days… The companies insist that they will preserve smartphone users’ privacy.

Google, however, cannot be trusted to preserve and respect privacy. In September the corporation was ordered to pay $170 million fine after it knowingly and illegally harvested personal information from children on its YouTube platform. Prior to this, the Silicon Vally tech giant was caught sharing its users’ personal information without obtaining consent. In 2014, Google was fined $22.5 million for implementing a workaround that let it spy on the browsing histories of mobile clients.

As Snowden recently pointed out, after COVID-19 runs its course the data collected will still be available to government and it will “use new causes like terrorist threats to justify continually gathering and analyzing people’s data.” 

The expansion of the state’s surveillance network under the guise of protecting the American people from an invisible predator is being led by the son-in-law of President Trump, Jared Kushner. 

“The proposed national network could help determine which areas of the country can safely relax social-distancing rules and which should remain vigilant. But it would also represent a significant expansion of government use of individual patient data, forcing a new reckoning over privacy limits amid a national crisis,” Politico reports. 

Health privacy laws already grant broad exceptions for national security purposes. But the prospect of compiling a national database of potentially sensitive health information has prompted concerns about its impact on civil liberties well after the coronavirus threat recedes, with some critics comparing it to the Patriot Act enacted after the 9/11 attacks.

The state, however, is far less concerned with the health of the American people than it is with enhancing its control over them, in particular those involved in political activism outside predefined parameters set by the state and its political class. 

If a total surveillance system is to be realized, people will be required to submit, not under duress or force but willingly and with open arms. Henry Kissinger declared after the LA riots that presented with the right crisis, people will turn to the state and demand protection. 

“The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government,” said the notorious Rockefeller operative. Kissinger made his remark during a Bilderberg meeting in Evian, France in 1992. 

It is hardly surprising, then, that Kissinger used the exaggerated and media-hyped threat of a seasonal virus killing millions to argue in favor of world government. “Addressing the necessities of the moment must ultimately be coupled with a global collaborative vision and program,” Kissinger wrote for the Wall Street Journal. 

This “global collaborative vision” of a one-world government cannot be effectively realized so long as there are political adversaries warning of lost liberty and the inevitability of totalitarianism inherent in the framework of so-called global governance. If allowed to be implemented, total surveillance will negate all political threats and our natural rights as well. 

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

Today marks 12 months since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by British police and security officers after being illegally expelled from Ecuador’s London embassy, where he had lived and worked as a political refugee for seven years.

The sight of a physically-unwell journalist being manhandled by six British cops in the heart of London shocked millions of people around the world. Assange was carried from the building, wincing at his first exposure to sunlight for some time. The operation appeared to be directed by undercover officers who had been filmed skulking around the embassy for days.

Even as he was being brutalised by the police, Assange was defiant, calling for opposition to his persecution.

“The UK must resist this attempt by the Trump administration,” he declared.

Assange had been subjected to a violent attack, even before the 55 seconds of footage of his expulsion from the embassy was filmed by the sole journalist outside the building, a reporter for the Ruptly news video service.

The German program “Panorama” cited an account by an anonymous WikiLeaks staffer who had been by Assange’s side.

Assange had been called into the embassy’s conference room on the morning of April 11. Ambassador Jaime Marchan walked into the room, flanked by security guards and Ecuadorian secret service personnel. He read aloud a letter declaring that Assange’s asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship had been revoked and that he needed to exit the embassy immediately. Marchan and his security detail walked out of the room.

“Panorama” reported that when Assange and his colleague opened the door of the conference room, they “could see that a group of men and women, including members of the Metropolitan Police, were just outside, apparently waiting for him.

“Assange declared that the reversal of his asylum and citizenship were a violation of the Ecuadorian constitution, and that he wanted to appeal. He got up to return to his room.

“Assange’s assistant was shoved aside; Julian Assange was tackled, handcuffed and brought to the front door of the embassy.”

A year later, there can be no doubt that the assault last April 11 marked the beginning of an attempted US-British political assassination. Assange sits in the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, dubbed the UK’s Guantánamo Bay, as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps through the facility.

In a phone call to his friend Vaughan Smith on Thursday night, Assange said he is held in his cell 23-and-a-half hours a day. His half hour of exercise is in a yard crowded with other prisoners. At least 150 prison staff members have either been infected with COVID-19 or are self-isolating. Assange revealed that there have been more deaths of inmates than the one admitted by prison authorities. He said the virus was “ripping through the prison.”

The WikiLeaks founder has been denied bail, despite the fact that he is on remand and is imperilled by the virus as a result of his raft of serious medical problems. Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser has even decreed that his extradition show-trial will proceed in May, despite a national lockdown, mass coronavirus deaths and Assange’s inability to consult with his lawyers.

This lawless treatment, which recalls the actions of the fascist regimes of the 20th century, and Assange’s arrest, is the culmination of a years-long campaign to destroy the WikiLeaks publisher, spearheaded by the US and supported by all its allies.

As early as 2008, the US military had prepared a secret report detailing the means that could be used to suppress Assange and WikiLeaks.

The WikiLeaks’ 2010 publications, for which Assange has now been charged—including the Collateral Murder video, the US army’s Iraq and Afghan war logs, and hundreds of thousands of damning American diplomatic cables—had been greeted with declarations by senior US political figures that Assange was a “cyber-terrorist” who needed to be “taken out.”

The Obama administration impanelled a secret Grand Jury with the aim of concocting Espionage Act charges against Assange and his colleagues. Members of Obama’s administration, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, publicly called on US allies to initiate criminal proceedings against Assange.

That appeal was answered by the Swedish state and judiciary, which had already collaborated in the US Central Intelligence Agency’s illegal “war on terrorism” program of extraordinary renditions. Swedish police and prosecutors fabricated sexual misconduct allegations against Assange.

One of the complainants was a prominent figure in the country’s US-aligned social-democratic party. Her lawyer, Claes Borgström, who successfully appealed the finding of the initial prosecutor that Assange had no case to answer, had been a senior official in previous Swedish governments with close ties to the US.

Contrary to all legal precedent and to domestic and international legal norms, successive British courts decreed that Assange be extradited to Sweden at the request of a prosecutor, not a judge, merely to “answer questions.” It was never explained why this questioning could not take place in London. The Swedish authorities refused to guarantee that they would not dispatch Assange to the US for prosecution over his publishing activities.

Under these conditions, Assange sought asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy on June 19, 2012. Police besieged the embassy and successive British governments declared that Assange would be arrested if he set foot outside. His status as a political refugee, however, was repeatedly upheld by the United Nations and he was able to continue his work.

The US campaign against WikiLeaks intensified in 2016, when it published evidence of Hillary Clinton’s pledges of loyalty to Wall Street and of the Democratic National Committee’s illegal subversion of the primary campaign of Bernie Sanders.

The US operation was ramped up still more in early 2017, when WikiLeaks exposed the hacking and cyberwar operations of the CIA. Then CIA director and current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and Assange a “demon.” President Correa, who granted Assange asylum in 2012, was replaced by Lenín Moreno in May 2017.

Illegal spying operations against Assange were escalated inside the embassy, including by the CIA. The US put immense pressure on Ecuador to rescind Assange’s asylum. In March 2018, Ecuador’s government responded by severing Assange’s internet access, banning him from receiving visitors and transforming the embassy into a de facto prison, before expelling him from the building a year later.

Assange’s expulsion was an historic crime, carried out in defiance of the internationally-enshrined right to political asylum. It was the high-point of an ongoing campaign to censor the internet and alternative viewpoints being conducted by governments around the world, amid an upsurge of the class struggle and immense social opposition. It marked a turning point in a protracted assault on press freedom and freedom of speech.

As the US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden wrote at the time:

“Images of Ecuador’s ambassador inviting the UK’s secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of—like it or not—award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books. Assange’s critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom.”

The experiences of the past year have proven that Assange’s freedom and the defence of democratic rights cannot be taken forward through appeals to, or support for, any section of the capitalist political, media or state establishment.

The British courts have subjected him to one abuse after another. The corporate media, which has slandered Assange for the best part of a decade, now pretends that he does not exist.

Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the British Labour Party, was held up as the initiator of a new socialist revival. As part of his continuous capitulations to the right-wing of his own party, Corbyn refused to mount any campaign in defence of Assange and promoted the Swedish frame-up. Corbyn has departed the scene, handing the Labour leadership to Keir Starmer, who as head of the British Crown Prosecution Service, played a central role in the international political conspiracy against Assange.

In the US, Bernie Sanders, who claimed to be waging a “political revolution” inside the Democratic Party, refused to say a word about Assange. He has all but endorsed Joe Biden as the Democrats’ presidential candidate. Biden was vice president in the Obama administration which initiated the US pursuit of Assange.

In Australia, all the official parties, including Labor and the Greens, have refused to defend Assange, despite the fact that he is a persecuted Australian citizen and journalist. This is in keeping with the role of every Australian government, and the entire establishment, since 2010 in supporting the US-led vendetta against the WikiLeaks publisher.

It is clear that the fight for Assange’s freedom must be waged by the international working class, the only social force capable of mounting a struggle for the defence of all social and democratic rights.

Over the past two years, the WSWS, the International Committee of the Fourth International, and its sections, the Socialist Equality Parties around the world, have waged an unyielding campaign to defend Assange and to secure his freedom. Amid the imminent dangers to his life, we will intensify this fight over the coming months, and urge all workers, young people and defenders of civil liberties to take part.

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All images in this article are from Massoud Nayeri

Video: Medical Martial Law 2020

April 12th, 2020 by James Corbett

As the lockdowns go into place and the military takes to the streets in country after country, the decades of preparation for medical martial law are finally paying off for the pandemic planners.

Today on this emergency edition of The Corbett Report podcast, James lays out the steps that have led us to the brink of martial law and the steps that are being taken to implement it now.

Please help to spread this important information and to raise awareness of the crisis that we are facing.

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Background

Cuba complained recently that a shipment of test kits, masks and respirators, donated by the Chinese Alibaba group, didn’t arrive because the American company tasked with transportation feared breaching U-S sanction rules. Washington imposed an embargo on Cuba in 19-62 after the island nation nationalized its oil industry. The measures have been denounced by the United Nations 28 years in a row.

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PressTV: What are your views on this?

Peter Koenig: First, there are no words to describe the cruelty of this – and many other similar acts by the United States, to utilize this pandemic to tighten the screws even more on sanctioned countries like Cuba and Venezuela and Iran – and many others, by blocking vital medical supplies from reaching these countries medical staff and hospitals to treat patents. The blockage of this medical supply may cause even more death from a virus that most likely originated in the US.

But did you know that this worldwide pandemic was planned for years, and its last stp before it was launched was Event 201, sponsored by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (created and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation), by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Economic Forum, the club of the ultra-oligarchs that meet in January  in Davos, Switzerland.

The event took place on October 18, 2019, in New York City and produced a number of pandemic simulations, exactly with a corona virus which for the simulation strangely and coincidentally – was called 2019-nCoV. Later the name was changed by WHO into COVID-19. The result of the simulation produced 65 million deaths in 18 months, a stock market collapse of more than 30% and an insane number of unemployment and bankruptcies. What we are living now is exactly that, in fact, we are seeing just the tiny top of the iceberg.

This was a planned worldwide destruction of the socioeconomic fabric and all that depends on it. It was an attempt of the few powerful on top of the pyramid- the Dark Deep State – to plunge bulk of the world population into a never before seen misery – and, of course, as always, it will affect poor countries more than the rich.

Having said this, the illegal US blockage of Cuba for almost 60 years of which we all know is inhuman and cruel and against all international laws and standards.

The UN has voted against this illegitimate blockade against Cuba for almost 30 years in a row. Of the 193 UN members, 191 voted against the continuation of the blockade. The exceptions were the US and Israel.

This entire world body voting against the US sanction, represents more than 99% of the world population. Yet, it does nothing against the US and its sanctions and embargos Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, China, Russia, North Korea – and many more. Currently about 30% of the world population are affected in one way or another by US sanctions. Why doesn’t the entire world collectively sanction the US?

I know, this is a pipe dream. But it’s a possibility. Especially now that the world economy is about to collapse because of the draconian measures almost every government of the globe has taken to fight the corona virus – we have literally created “planet lockdown”. Now that we may enter into an entire new socioeconomic paradigm, is the time for the 99.9% of the population, to apply the shock doctrine in reverse. It would be the moment for the 191 countries of the UN body to take control and start sanctioning the US, until the ruthless empire becomes a normal respectable nation.

PressTV: In December 2014 Obama initiated the “Cuban Thaw” and in July 2015 reestablished diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana. What happened after that?

PK: First, I think we have to see this new overture” by Obama like many other initiatives he took – a dishonest move. It foremost was to put officially US spies and US propaganda agents into the newly reopened US Embassy, because the loosening of the embargo was never  part of the deal. There was not even a plan, when that might happen.

Then came Trump, a ferocious anti-socialist, anti-everything-that-is-not capitalist fanatic. He also immensely disliked Obama and wanted to undo as much as possible of what Obama managed in his 8 years at the helm in Washington. So, instead of talking about the next steps of loosening the embargo, as the Cubans rightly expected, Trump tightened the screws on the sanctions invoking the strengthening of the Helms-Burton act. This US federal law is a mere strengthening of the sanctions and embargo against Cuba.

Then under a ridiculous pretext that Cuba poisoned US embassy staff with an unidentifiable hearing disease, Washington withdrew almost all staff from the Embassy. But the official Cuban Washington relation is still on the records, and the Embassies nominally in place.

Since then, Trump and his various advisors and spokes-people have repeatedly declared that President Trump will not tolerate any socialism in the world, and especially not in “his” Hemisphere; that he will eradicate Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as we know them. That has so far not happened. Will see. These countries resistance is much stronger than the Trump ideologues are capable of imagining. – So much for the Obama “opening” to Cuba.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press, TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

The Venezuelan government announced a series of measures on Sunday in attempts to protect the population from the economic effects of the coronavirus crisis.

Speaking on a live televised address, President Nicolás Maduro instructed that all commercial and residential rent, as well as all capital and loan interest payments, are to be suspended for six months.

Public- and private-sector workers will receive a special government bonus, and wages of small and midsize companies will be paid by the state until September. A pre-existing workplace stability decree has also been extended until the end of the year, outlawing job dismissals as a result of the quarantine.

Loan appeals by small and medium businesses are to be fast-tracked, and a special agricultural investment plan will look to guarantee the contents of the subsidized Local Food Production and Provision Committees (CLAP) food boxes for a reported seven million families. Telecommunications companies have also been barred from cutting off customers for six months.

Upon unveiling the measures, Maduro promised to use “all his power and consciousness to protect jobs” and the most vulnerable in society during the quarantine lockdown.

While grassroots organizations such as the Tenants’ Movement applauded the measures, business leaders such as Alan Celis, president of the Venezuelan Industry Confederation, claimed they “fall short.” Celis also highlighted the need to end the acute fuel shortages in the country in order to restart the economy.

The Federation of Chambers of Commerce (FEDECAMARAS) similarly criticized the government’s response, while also saying it is time for the U.S. government to “relax or dispose of” its sanctions regime against Caracas.

Also in response to the government measures, economic analyst Francisco Rodriguez explained on Monday that U.S.-led sanctions limit the Maduro administration’s ability to inject public funds into the economy. According to Rodriguez, the response to the virus could be improved if the country could access $7 billion USD he alleged are currently blocked in international accounts.

“When international financing is blocked, [countries applying sanctions] aren’t just refusing funds to the government. Society also pays a high price, and the amount which all of the Venezuelans have to pay to confront the pandemic increases,” he explained.

Last week, Venezuela had a $5 billion USD loan appeal to help fight the coronavirus rejected by the International Monetary Fund. The Washington-based organization justified the move by stating that it does not have “clarity on recognition” of the Maduro administration.

4,200 more beds and “all necessary” medical supplies

The latest measures came as the country recorded seven more COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 77, with no deaths reported, by Monday midday.

Venezuela has identified considerably fewer cases than regional neighbors, including Colombia (277 cases, 3 deaths), Brazil (1629, 25) and Ecuador (981,18).

According to government spokespersons, all of the identified cases in Venezuela have been “imported” to the country, with no local transmission registered. The 40 male and 37 female patients are all reportedly isolated and are mostly located in the capital district of Caracas and Miranda State. Only two are in a critical condition, and 15 have recovered from the virus, the government claimed Sunday.

Alongside the economic measures, Maduro also told the country that 4,200 more temporary hospital beds are to be incorporated into the public health system, mostly through an agreement with large hotel chains. He also assured the population that the system has “all the necessary” medical supplies to contain the virus, highlighting the recent international aid from China, Cuba, and Russia.

Venezuela imposed a national lockdown last Tuesday which restricted movement and paralyzed retail activity except food and drug stores. Nearly all flights and mass transport networks have been suspended and land borders closed. Facemasks are obligatory outside of one’s home, and local authorities disinfected a number of city centers over the weekend.

Over 13,000 doctors are currently carrying out house-to-house medical visits and two million diagnosis tests are due to be performed next week. Venezuelans have been asked to use the electronic Homeland Card to report symptoms.

According to government sources, 85% of the population has complied with the lockdown, and over 3,000 cases have been averted by the measure.

Finally, the government has demanded that U.S. authorities lift unilateral sanctions against Venezuela “albeit for 48 hours” to allow for the return of 200 Venezuelans currently stranded in the United States.

According to Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, the state airline CONVIASA is ready to return the passengers, but is restricted by the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions imposed in February.

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Paul Dobson is a Venezuela-based journalist, regional coordinator of the Committee for International Solidarity and Struggle for Peace (COSI), member of the Communist Party of Britain and of the International Department of the PCV.

Featured image is from Cancillería del Ecuador via Flickr

The OPCW Is Used as a Political Tool Against Syria

April 12th, 2020 by Steven Sahiounie

OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) has determined that chemical weapons have been used or likely used in Syria. The first report of the OPCW was released April 8 and points a finger at the Syrian Arab Air Force concerning 3 attacks which occurred in Ltamenah, on March 24, 25, and 30, in 2017.

The report claims the investigation team conducts its activities in an impartial and objective manner. The only reason to believe the conclusion of such a report would be the belief that the team is honest, unbiased, and has no political agenda.

There is no proof presented and the 82-page report clearly states that they are not a legal body with the authority to assign criminal responsibility. The Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) Coordinator, Mr. Santiago Oñate-Laborde remarked that the investigative team has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe a chemical was used in the attacks.  He further added, “In the end, the IIT was unable to identify any other plausible explanation.”

In the report, other plausible explanations were identified, but the report sticks with the personal opinion of one person who has some military experience, though is not identified. The report stated: “a military expert advising the IIT noted the use of chemical weapons in this area would not be inconsistent with a strategy aimed at inflicting terror on both civilians and combatants, at eliminating infrastructure such as the medical facilities required to continue fighting, and at ensuring that no one felt safe even behind the front lines proper. The IIT however also took into account that armed groups opposing the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, on the other hand, might have had an incentive in “staging” a chemical attack against civilians and their own fighters, to blame the Syrian Arab Republic’s authorities.”

The report continued, that the alleged incidents in Ltamenah could potentially be explained through similar scenarios, including the ‘staging’ of an attack with sarin brought from elsewhere.  Also notable in the report, is the fact that the team never visited the site, and only spoke with 20 witnesses.

The Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry released a statement on April 9.  “The Syrian Arab Republic condemns, in the strongest terms, what has come in the report of the illegitimate so-called Investigation and Identification Team, and rejects what has been included in it, in form and content,” the statement said, and added that Syria, at the same time, categorically denies using toxic gases in Ltamenah town or in any city or village, and affirms that the Syrian army has never used such weapons in the most difficult battles carried out against armed terrorist organizations.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation released a statement on April 9.

“The authors of the report, and consequently the leaders of the OPCW Technical Secretariat, have thus become accomplices in the consistent violation of the basic principles and procedures of objective and unbiased investigations stipulated in the CWC, which requires the mandatory dispatch of experts directly to the sites of alleged incidents. The information gathered by the IIT mostly came from anti-government armed groups and pseudo-humanitarian NGOs affiliated with them, including the notorious White Helmets.”

The statement further adds, “We have also noted that the report contains references to certain secret services data – apparently from the same states obsessed with a change of power in Damascus. There is no other word for it but misinformation.”

In March 2011, the US-NATO attack on Syria began with the goal of ‘regime change’.  The plan has cost billions, which was to remove the President Assad administration, which is part of the ‘axis-of-resistance’, and to replace it with a pro-US regime headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, such as was accomplished in Egypt.  However, Syria proved to be stronger than the CIA backed terrorists, and finally, in 2017 President Trump cut off the funding, but the US-NATO plan has not died a natural death.  It is being kept alive by artificial means: such as dubious reports of chemical use, which may illicit US-NATO military intervention, under the ruse of ‘humanitarian intervention’, such as was accomplished in Libya in 2011.

It was President Obama who handed the terrorists following Radical Islam with the scheme of using chemical use in Syria as the reason for a US military intervention.  Obama delivered his famous “Red-Line”speech and the terrorists took the bait. In East Ghouta they staged a chemical attack and filmed a video which was shown around the globe. An un-verified video almost caused the US military to attack Syria in a massive planned intervention.  Obama stopped short of ordering the attack when the UK military lab at Porton Down informed him the sarin used was not from Syrian military sources.  There are still many Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress who are united in their blame of Obama’s inaction. They blame him for being weak, although his actions were based on facts, not opinions.

The OPCW sent a team of experts to investigate allegations that a chemical attack took place in Douma on April 7, 2018. However, the report was discredited after an email was leaked to the well-known journalist Peter Hitchens, who confirmed the email was sent by a member of the team to his superiors, in which he exposes the report was ‘tweaked’ to intentionally misrepresent the facts.

A shocking video purported to show victims being treated in the hospital after the attack went viral, with major western media still showing the video whenever Syrian chemical attacks are mentioned.  However, the symptoms shown in the video are not consistent with what witnesses reported having seen and experienced that day.  This glaring inconsistency was intentionally stricken from the OPCW report.  Seemingly, once again, an unconfirmed video is believable.  If a picture tells a thousand words, a video tells a million.

Ian Henderson, a veteran OPCW inspector and specialist chemical engineer with military experience, visited the Douma site.  His investigation concluded there was a ‘higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed … rather than being delivered from aircraft’. Mr. Henderson stored a copy of his research findings in the ‘Documents Registry Archive (DRA) when it became apparent his work would be excluded from the final report.  After a senior OPCW official became aware of Mr. Henderson’s actions, the official sent an email to his staff saying: ‘Please get this document out of DRA … And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA’.

The OPCW has become a political tool for the US-NATO goal of ‘regime change’ in Syria.  Instead of being an independent investigative body operating on a basis of integrity, it has delivered reports which could have been written before the investigation.

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Steven Sahiounie is a Syrian-American award-winning journalist.

The as yet unfolding story of Coronavirus is a story of corruption and conflicts of interest. Some pieces of the puzzle remain missing, but the big picture is increasingly apparent.

The big picture speaks to the unaccountability of Big Monopolies and Big Money, and the fabricated neutralization of the masses, in a world where the truth has been largely deplatformed and suppressed.

The global economy is crashing beneath our feet, kept alive by public bailouts, and we are in “lockdown”, fearful of an invisible virus that is more of a distraction than a real threat.

The truth lies in the common threads that run through the Coronavirus story, which include Big Money, the billionaire foundations (1), and Big Pharma. These forces, allied with neoliberal ideologies of privatization, deregulation, and the emaciation of the public sphere, have formed toxic alliances that are destroying global economies, as well as the health and welfare of impacted populations.

The U.S Center for Disease Control (CDC), as an example, even as it positions itself as a neutral regulating agency, is actually a for profit, Big Pharma subsidiary. Robert Kennedy Jr. for example, has claimed that the CDC owns patents on at least 57 different vaccines, and profits $4.1 billion per year in vaccination sales (2) Hardly a neutral regulating agency.

Given its ties to Big Pharma, it comes as no surprise that the CDC is the driver behind “manipulated” Death Certificate guidelines (3) that serve to inflate the number of Coronavirus deaths for statistical purposes.

In similar fashion, the propaganda of unreliable evidence is channelled through oligarch-funded agencies such as McKinsey consulting, which become sources for msm, including the New York Times. Author/Journalist Naomi Wolf commented in a April 10, 2020 Twitter post:

Will Big Pharma and other profiteers construct roadblocks to reliable science and real evidence? Time will tell.

Currently, flawed data and vested interests are driving transnational “lockdown” policies. Instead, reliable evidence should be the foundation for public policy.

The hidden agendas and vested interests currently driving public policies need to be exposed as the fear-mongering, anti-public toxins that they are.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.

Notes

(1) the japantimes News, “Gates Foundation announces $100 million for coronavirus response” 6 Feb., 2018.
(https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/06/asia-pacific/science-health-asia-pacific/gates-foundation-announces-100-million-coronavirus-response/#.XpJQ7_1KjIU ) Accessed 11 April, 2020.

(2) NWO Report, “Robert Kennedy Jr.: CDC Is A Privately Owned Vaccine Company.” 2 July, 2018.
(https://nworeport.me/2018/07/02/robert-kennedy-jr-cdc-is-a-privately-owned-vaccine-company/?fbclid=IwAR0YMeBSFr4xRdVH19yakF-ZA7Nyw9YzeVg61yqVsb_73GktCl0RjPSbqqc ) Accessed 11 April, 2020.

(3) Dr. Annie Bukacek, “Video: How COVID-19 Death Certificates Are Being Manipulated. Montana Physician Dr. Annie Bukacek.” Global Research, 08 April, 2020/ Liberty Fellowship MT 6 April 2020.
(https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-montana-physician-dr-annie-bukacek-discusses-how-covid-19-death-certificates-manipulated/5709062?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles)Accessed 11 April, 2020.


Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

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5th UPDATE: At least 150 members of the Saudi royal family have been infected and as a result Riyadh is seeking to end its five-year disastrous assault on Yemen.

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As the coronavirus continues its assault on members of the Saudi royal family, the rulers of  the Kingdom on Wednesday called off its assault on Yemen.

The unilateral ceasefire will begin at noon on Thursday, Saudi time, and is to last at least two weeks. Its stated intention is to prevent an outbreak of the virus in Yemen. Under no existing modeling can a coronavirus outbreak be defeated in two weeks.

Senior members of the royal family, including 84-year old King Salman, and the effective ruler, Muhammad bin Salman, have retreated to an island off the coast of Jeddah in the Red Sea.

Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the powerful governor of Riyadh who is a nephew to the king, is stricken with the disease and is in intensive care, The New York Times reported, citing two doctors “with ties” to King Faisal Hospital and two other sources near to the royal family.

In all, 150 members of the ruling family are reported to have been infected. The Saudi government officially said it is seeking the ceasefire because of its fear that the virus could spread in Yemen, where there are still no reported cases. There are 3,287 cases in Saudi Arabia, with 44 deaths and 2,577 cases still unresolved.

The Times reported that Saudi officials want the ceasefire to “jump-start” UN brokered peace talks to end the war. Joining in the ceasefire would be the nations of the Saudi-led coalition as well as the Yemeni government in exile in the Saudi capital, the Times reported. Coalition spokesman Col. Turki al-Malki said that peace talks would be held “under the supervision of the UN envoy to discuss his proposals on the steps and mechanisms to implement a permanent ceasefire in Yemen.” Al-Malki said the ceasefire could be extended to facilitate “a comprehensive political solution in Yemen.”

The coalition further said in a statement:

“On the occasion of holding and succeeding the efforts of the UN envoy to Yemen and to alleviate the suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people and work to confront the corona pandemic and prevent it from spreading, the coalition announces a comprehensive ceasefire for a period of two weeks, starting on Thursday.”

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a top Houthi official, tweeted an eight-page plan to end the war before the Saudi announcement.  The Houthis control the Yemeni capital Sanaa.  After the truce was to go into effect on Thursday, a Houthi spokesman claimed Saudi attacks continued. “The Saudis are still employing their air, land and naval forces to tighten the siege on Yemen … this is an announcement only to restore (their positions), to close ranks,” said Mohammed al-Bukhaiti.

The unilateral ceasefire could end a vicious five-year campaign by the richest nation in the Middle East against the poorest. It began on March 26, 2015 just as the UN was close to brokering a deal to end the political standoff, as the then UN envoy to Yemen told me at the time.

Martin Griffiths, the current UN envoy, said in a statement: “The parties must now utilize this opportunity and cease immediately all hostilities with the utmost urgency.”

The BBC reported that the two sides would communicate in a video conference to discuss the ceasefire. “The proposal calls for the halting of all air, ground and naval hostilities,” the British national broadcaster said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday urged Houthis to “respond in kind to the coalition’s initiative.” The United States has backed the Saudi war with logistical and material support.

It is in the Saudis’ interests to stop a coronavirus outbreak in Yemen. Riyadh is spending $200 million a day on the war, with oil having fallen to below $30 a barrel. They have allied jihadis, and almost certainly intelligence agents operating inside Yemen, and Yemenis can find their way across the frontier.  On Wednesday, Yemen sealed its last remaining border crossing with Saudi Arabia to prevent a spread of the virus.

An end to the conflict would come as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for a global ceasefire, in which he said some 70 nations have already signed on. Saudi Arabia would appear on Wednesday to have joined that list.

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Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers.  He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe.

Featured image is from Another Day in the Empire

John Pilger is a world-renowned journalist and filmmaker. The author of several books and maker of over 60 documentaries (the latest being The Coming War on China and The Dirty War on the NHS), Pilger has won dozens of prestigious awards and has been honoured by several universities. I asked him about the coronavirus in the context of propaganda, imperialism, and human rights.

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TJ Coles: People are being told to self-isolate because of coronavirus, but Julian Assange has been isolated by successive British governments for years. Can you tell us what’s going on with his case and how he was doing, last time you saw him?

John Pilger: On 25th March, a London court refused Julian Assange bail even though he was convicted of nothing and charged with nothing in Britain. The Trump administration wants to extradite him on a concocted indictment of “espionage” — so ludicrous in law it should have been thrown out on the first day of the extradition hearing in February. It wasn’t thrown out because the magistrate, Vanessa Baraitser (she is described as a judge but is actually a magistrate) has made it clear she is acting on behalf of the British and US governments. Her bias has shocked those of us who have sat in courtrooms all over the world. At the bail hearing, she added cruelty to her repertoire. Julian was not allowed to attend, not even by video link; instead he sat alone in a cell. His barrister, Edward Fitzgerald QC, described how he was at risk of contracting coronavirus. He has a chronic lung condition and is in a prison with people who are likely to be carriers of the disease. The UK Prison Governors Association has warned “there will be deaths” unless the vulnerable are released. The Prison Officers Association agrees; the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, the WHO, the Prison Advisory Service — all have said the virus is set to spread like wildfire through Britain’s congested, unsanitary prisons. Even Boris Johnson’s Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, says, “The virus could take over the prisons … and put more lives at risk.” At the time of writing, nine prisoners have died from COVID-19 in British prisons, including one at Belmarsh: these are the numbers the authorities admit to; there are very likely more. Some vulnerable prisoners are to be released, but not Julian: not in the land of Magna Carta. How shaming.

When I last saw Julian in prison, he had lost between 10 and 15 kilos; his arm was a stick. He is as sharp as ever; his black humor is intact. His resilience astonishes me. But how long can this resilience last? He is a political prisoner of the most ruthless forces, whose goal is to break him.

TJC: In your film The Dirty War on the NHS you expose the British National Health Service’s creeping privatisation and hollowing out, both by Tories and New Labour. What’s the link between the coronavirus and the fragmentation of the NHS?

JP: That the virus has been allowed to sweep through modern, developed societies is a crime against humanity. This applies especially to Britain. In 2016, the Department of Health in London conducted a full-scale pandemic drill, known as Exercise Cygnus. The National Health Service was overwhelmed. There weren’t enough ventilators, emergency beds, ICU beds, protective kits and much else. In other words, it predicated accurately the crisis we face today. The Chief Medical Officer at the time appealed to the Conservative government to heed the warning and begin to restore and prepare the NHS. This was ignored; the documents describing the conclusions of the drill were suppressed.

Why? By 2016, the Department of Health had been reduced to a revolving door of Thatcherite ideologues: privatisers, management consultants, asset strippers, many of them besotted with the “American model” of healthcare, where the current head of NHS England, Simon Stevens, had spent 10 years promoting the private health industry as a senior executive of United Health, a company that exemplifies an infamous system which effectively disbars some 87 million Americans from medical treatment.

In Britain, the Americanising of health care has been accelerating year upon year since a Tory bill, the Health and Social Care Act, welcomed privateers such as Richard Branson and his Virgin Care. In 2019, more of the NHS was sold to private companies than ever before. By last November, the number of public beds had been cut to 127,000, the lowest bed capacity since the NHS was founded in 1948 and the lowest in Europe. Mental health beds were down to a mere 18,000 — and most of mental health services were now in private hands, mostly American. This subversion of the world’s first public health service, established to give all people, regardless of income and class, “freedom from fear”, is surely a crime in what is now a state of fear.

Alas, my film foretold much of this. With the NHS and its clinicians prepared and ready with a national testing programme not unlike Germany’s, I believe Britain could have avoided the worst of the virus and the draconian measures that followed.

TJC: Your 2016 film, The Coming War on China, documents US encirclement and demonisation of China. Can you talk about the propaganda of corona as a ‘Chinese virus’?

JP: Let’s take one example. When the coronavirus emerged in China and Australian tourists of mainly Chinese descent flew home, they were quarantined in a remote mining camp and an offshore detention centre. When a cruise ship, the Ruby Princess, docked in Sydney with mostly white Australians and infested with the virus, the passengers were allowed to disembark without so much as a temperature check, let alone quarantine. As a result, 662 people linked to the ship have fallen ill and at least 11 have died. The difference here is race and racist propaganda. A virulent anti-China campaign has consumed the Australian media in a country whose biggest trading partner is China and the universities depend largely on Chinese students. At the same time, no country is as integrated with the US as Australia: its military and “national security” agencies and bases, its politics and media.

The current US propaganda war on China began in Australia when Barack Obama addressed the Australian Parliament in 2011 and announced America’s “pivot to Asia”. This launched the biggest peacetime build-up of US naval forces in the Pacific since World War Two, all of it aimed at China. Today, more than 400 US bases surround China, from northern Australia, to the Marshall Islands, throughout south-east Asia, Japan and Korea. Such intimidation of China, a nuclear power, is seldom mentioned when China is attacked for building its defences on islands in the South China Sea. As part of the “pivot”, a barrage of China-is-a-threat propaganda is dispensed by travelling Pentagon admirals and generals, who describe the Pacific Ocean as if it is theirs. In a WikiLeaks disclosure, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State under Obama, demanded of a senior Chinese official that his government agree to re-name the Pacific “the American Sea”. She later claimed she was joking.

TJC: What are your thoughts on the US and British elites treating coronavirus as a ‘war’ to be won, even though they cut back on public institutions that might have pre-empted the spread?

JP: A pandemic described as a war to be won is in keeping with the language of “permanent war”. The disabling or “lock down” of populations is routinely described as a “wartime measure”. This is meant to evoke The Blitz in 1940. Of course, to compare the current crisis with the carnage and struggle of the Second World War is profane. The central issue, as I have described, is the ideological destruction of a health service that has been a beacon of a lost world of equity and fairness. How ironic and appropriate that the NHS is currently saving Boris Johnson’s life. If there is a “war”, the weapons ought to be mass testing and tracing the pathways and pattern of the virus, treating people quickly and comprehensively, protecting front line health workers, social distancing and transparency — but most of this is missing.

As for locking down the population and the “forced isolation” of those over 70, to quote one of the British government’s favourite journalists, Robert Peston, there is a salutary lesson to be learned. In 2012, a landmark study on the “disease of isolation” was published in Britain and the US. Researchers from University College, London, revealed that isolation was killing the elderly — not loneliness, but isolation forced on people by circumstances beyond their control. More than “pre-existing” health conditions, isolation was the silent killer.

In my own reporting in Britain in the age of “austerity”, I have seen underfunded voluntary services trying to cope with this killer disease — for example, in the northern city of Durham, devastated by Conservative policies, one volunteer attempted to care for 21,000 people and to save many of them. This is occasionally a local media story, usually when a privatised care home is caught mistreating its elderly occupants, a common abuse. Once a humane extension of the NHS, Britain’s social care of the vulnerable was privatised by both Tory and Labour governments. Many of the care homes are cash cows for ruthless individuals and their precarious companies. The people of Britain deserve better, at the very least their freedom from fear.

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T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author of several books, including Voices for Peace (with Noam Chomsky and others) and  Fire and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks Nuclear War in Asia (both Clairview Books).

Featured image is from Nathaniel St. Clair

There’s no doubt that the Coronavirus is a serious infection that can lead to severe illness or death. There’s also no doubt that ‘virus hysteria’ has been used for other purposes. Wall Street, for example, has used virus-panic to advance its own agenda and get another round of trillion dollar bailouts. In fact, it took less than a week to get the pushover congress to ram through a massive $2.2 trillion boondoggle without even one lousy congressman offering a peep of protest. That’s got to be some kind of record.

In 2008, at the peak of the financial crisis, Congress voted “No” to the $700 billion TARP bill. Some readers might recall how a number of GOP congressmen bravely banded together and flipped Wall Street “the bird”. That didn’t happen this time around. Even though the bill is three times bigger than the TARP ( $2.2 trillion), no one lifted a finger to stop it. Why?

Fear, that’s why. Everyone in congress was scared to death that if they didn’t rush this debt-turd through the House pronto, the economy would collapse while tens of thousands of corpses would be stacking up in cities across the country. Of course the reason they believed this nonsense was because the goofy infectious disease experts confidently assured everyone that the body-count would be “in the hundreds of thousands if not millions.” Remember that fiction? The most recent estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 total. I don’t need to tell you that the difference between 60,000 and “millions” is a little more than a rounding-error.

So we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes, right? Not as bad as congress, but, all the same, we’ve been hoodwinked and we’ve been fleeced. And the people who have axes to grind have been very successful in taking advantage of the hysteria and promoting their own agendas. Maybe you’ve noticed the reemergence of creepy Bill Gates and the Vaccine Gestapo or NWO Henry Kissinger warning us that, “the world will never be the same after the coronavirus”.

What do these people know that we don’t know? Doesn’t it all make you a bit suspicious? And when you see nonstop commercials on TV telling you to “wash your hands”or “keep your distance” or “stay inside” and, oh yeah, “We’re all in this together”, doesn’t it leave you scratching your head and wondering who the hell is orchestrating this virus-charade and what do they really have in mind for us unwashed masses??

At least in the case of Wall Street, we know what they want. They want money and lots of it.

Have you looked over the $2.2 trillion CARES bill that Trump just signed into law a couple weeks ago? It’s pretty grim reading, so I’ll save you the effort. Here’s a rough breakdown:

$250 billion will go for the $1,200 checks that most of us will receive in a couple weeks. And $250 billion will be provided for extended unemployment insurance benefits.

That’s $500 billion.

Working people will get $500 billion while Wall Street and Corporate America will get 3 times that amount. ($1.7 trillion) And even that’s a mere fraction of the total sum because– hidden in the small print– is a section that allows the Fed to lever-up the base-capital by 10-to-1 ($450 billion to $4.5 trillion) which means the Fed can buy as many “toxic” bonds and garbage assets as it chooses. The Fed is turning itself into a hedge fund in order to buy the sludge that has accumulated on the balance sheets of corporations and financial institutions for the last decade. It’s another gigantic ripoff that’s being cleverly concealed behind the ridiculous coronavirus hype. It’s infuriating.

So here’s the question: Do you think Congress knew that working people would only get a pittance while the bulk of the dough would go to Wall Street?

It’s hard to say, but they certainly knew that the economy was cratering and that $500 billion wasn’t going to put much of a dent in a $20 trillion economy. In other words, even if everyone goes out and blows their measly $1,200 checks on Day 1, we’re still going to experience the sharpest economic contraction on record, a second Great Depression.

Maybe they should have talked about that in congress before they voted for this trillion-dollar turkey? Maybe they should have thought a little more about how the money should be distributed: Should it go to the people who actually buy things, generate activity and produce growth, or to the parasite class that blows up the system every decade and drags the economy down a black hole? That seems like something you might want to know before you pass a multi-trillion dollar bill that’s supposed to fix the economy.

It’s also worth noting that the $5.8 trillion is not nearly the total amount that Wall Street will eventually get. The Fed has already spent $2 trillion via its QE program (to shore up the dysfunctional repo market) and Fed chair Jay Powell announced on Thursday that another $2.3 trillion in loans and purchases would be used to buy municipal bonds, corporate bonds and loans to small businesses. The allocation for small businesses, which falls under the, Main Street Lending Program, has been widely touted as a sign of how much the Fed really cares about struggling Mom and Pop businesses that employ the majority of working Americans. But, once again, it’s a sham and a boondoggle. The program is on-track to get $600 billion funding of which the US Treasury will provide the base-capital of $75 billion. The rest will be levered-up by 9-to-1 by the Fed, which means it’s just more smoke and mirrors.

What readers need to realize is that the Treasury has accepted the credit risk for all of the loans that default. In other words, the American people are now on the hook for 100% of all of the loans that go south, and there’s going to be alot of them because the banks have no reason to find creditworthy borrowers. They get a 5% cut off-the-top whether the loans blow up or not. And, that, my friend, is how you incentivize fraud which, as Bernie Sanders noted, “is Wall Street’s business model.”

It also helps to explain why Trump has repeatedly rejected congressional oversight of the various bailout programs. He’s smart enough to know a good swindle when he sees one, and this one is a corker. The government is essentially waving trillions of dollars right under the noses of the world’s most ravenous hyenas expecting them not to act in character. But of course they will act in character and hundreds of billions of dollars will be siphoned off by scheming sharpies who figure out how game the system and turn the whole fiasco into another Wall Street looting operation. You can bet on it.

So, what is the final tally?

Well, according to Trump’s chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, the first bailout installment is $6.2 trillion (after the Fed ramps up the Treasury’s contribution of $450 billion.). Then there’s the $2.3 trillion in additional programs the Fed announced on Thursday. Finally, the Fed’s QE program adds another $2 trillion in bond purchases since September 17, when the repo market went haywire.

Altogether, the total sum amounts to $10.5 trillion.

You know what they say, “A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

Of course, no one on Capitol Hill worries about trivialities like money because, “We’re the United States of America, and our dollar will always be King.” But there’s a fundamental flaw to this type of thinking. Yes, the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, but that’s a privilege that the US has greatly abused over the years, and it’s certainly not going to survive this latest wacky helicopter drop. No, I am not suggesting the US would ever default on its debt, that’s not going to happen. But, yes, I am suggesting that the US will have to repay its debts in a currency that has lost a significant amount of its value. You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that you can’t willy-nilly print-up $10 or $20 trillion dollars without eroding the value of the currency. That’s a no-brainer. Central bankers around the world are now looking at their piles of USDs thinking, “Hmmm, maybe it’s time I traded some of these greenbacks in for a few yen, euros or even Swiss francs?”

So how does this end? Can the Fed continue to write trillion dollar checks on an account that is already $23 trillion overdrawn? Will Central banks around the world continue to stockpile dollars when the Fed is printing them up faster than anyone can count? And what about China? How long before China realizes that US Treasuries are grossly overvalued, that US equities markets are unreformable, that the dollar is backed by nothing but red ink, and that Wall Street is the biggest and most corrupt cesspit on earth?

Not long, I’d wager. So, how does this end? It ends in a flash of monetary debasement preceded by a violent and destabilizing currency crisis. It’s plain as the nose on your face. The Fed knows that when a nation’s sovereign debt exceeds 100% of GDP, “there’s almost no mathematical way to service that debt in real terms.” Well, the US passed that milestone way-back in 2019 before this latest drunken spending-spree even began. It’s safe to say, we’ve now entered the financial Twilight Zone, the Land of No Return. If we add the Fed’s bulging balance sheet to the final estimate, (after all, it’s just another shady Enron-type Special Purpose Vehicle) the national debt will be somewhere north of $33 trillion by year-end, which means that Uncle Sam will be the greatest credit risk on Planet Earth. Imagine how jaws will drop on the day that Moodys and Fitch slash the ratings on US Treasuries to Triple B “junk” status. That should turn a few heads.

So what can we expect in the months to come?

First, the economy is going to slip into a deflationary period as people get back to work and slowly resume their spending. But once demand picks up and the Fed’s liquidity starts to kick in, the economy will rebound sharply followed by steadily rising prices. That’s the red flag that will signal a weakening dollar. Similar to 1933, when Roosevelt took the U.S. off the gold standard and printed money like crazy, economic activity picked up but the value of the dollar dropped by 40%. A similar scenario seems likely here as well. Economist Lyn Alden Schwartzer summed it up like this in an article at Seeking Alpha:

“One of the common debates is whether all of this debt, counteracted by a tremendous monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve in response, will cause a deflationary bust or an inflationary problem…..Fundamentally, evidence points to a period of deflation due to this global shutdown and demand destruction shock, likely followed in the coming years by rising inflation….

In the coming years, the United States will be effectively printing money to fund large fiscal deficits, while also having a large current account deficit and negative net international investment position. This is one of the main variables for my view that the dollar will likely decrease in value relative to a basket of foreign currencies in the coming years….” (“Why This Is Unlike The Great Depression”, Seeking Alpha)

So, after decades of lethal low interest rates, relentless meddling and gross regulatory malpractice, the Fed has led us to this final, fatal crossroads: Inflate or default. From the looks of things, the choice has already been made. Wiemar America, here we come!

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

There Is No Iranian-American Agreement and No Truce in Iraq

April 12th, 2020 by Elijah J. Magnier

Mustafa Al-Kazemi has been chosen Prime Minister after difficult negotiations marked by intra-Shiite disagreement. The President of the Republic, Barham Salih, had exploited this disagreement when he boldly challenged the majority Shia in Iraq by his choice of an anti-Iranian and pro-US candidate, Mr Adnan Al-Zurfi. The nomination of Mr Al-Kazemi is a response to this move; Shiite blocs had already circulated his name several months ago. 

When Mr Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the caretaker Prime Minister, resigned, consultation began among various Shia political leaders to find a candidate enjoying support from most blocs. That is a task that, in the past, had always been given to the Iranian IRGC-Quds commander Major General Qassim Soleimani (treacherously assassinated by President Donald Trump at Baghdad Airport) and Sheikh Muhammad Kawtharani, who represents Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Sayyed Nasrallah enjoys great respect and a close personal relationship with all Iraqi parties of different religions and policies (Shi’a, Sunni, Kurds, tribal, and others) with whom he is in regular contact. Iraqi leaders failed to reach the agreement without outside intervention.

Many Shia groups categorical rejected President Saleh’s candidate (al-Zurfi) and decided to oppose his candidacy. However, Al-Kazemi’s selection as a new Prime Minister did not take place until Tehran asked all the Shi’ite blocs to unify their decision, to disregard al-Zurfi and choose a candidate that all could agree upon.

This is how al-Kazemi reached the premiership:

Sayyed Ammar al-Hakim, supported by Muqtada al-Sadr, was the first to promote Mustafa Al-Kazemi last year following the resignation of Abdel-Mahdi. However, other Shiite blocs refused to accept any counter-terrorism officer, intelligence chief or any other officer belonging to the military-security establishment. Many Shia blocs are apprehensive about any candidate with a similar profile to Saddam Hussein. The experience of Nuri al-Maliki in control – he who refused to share the power with Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds – is still alive in these leaders’ memory.

Due to the disagreement within the Shia bloc, Qusay al-Suhail fell and was followed by the governor of Basra, Asaad Al-Eidani, when President Barham Salih refused to abide by the constitution and nominate the candidate of the largest bloc. Saleh played on the intra Shiite disagreement, mainly between the Al-Fatah bloc headed by Hadi al-Amiri and the Saeroun bloc led by Muqtada al-Sadr.

Because demonstrators rejected any candidate nominated by the dominant political blocs, Sayyid Muqtada tried to ride the wave by considering himself the representative of the demonstrators who in fact refused him as they did other establishment figures. Subsequently, President Saleh was asked by Sayyed Moqtada to reject any name he did not agree with. Moqtada claimed that he, not Al-Amiri, held the largest bloc.

Later on, Muhammad Allawi also failed because he refused to consult the Sunni, the Kurdish blocs, and some Shiites in choosing his cabinet members. Allawi wrongly believed he could rely on the support of Sayyed Muqtada Al-Sadr, who had promised to bring everyone to Parliament by all means to approve Allawi’s cabinet. Moqtada failed to convince the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds, and was unable to bring Allawi to power.

However, President Saleh went further relying on the Iraqi constitution rather the prevailing consensus between Iraqis (Shi’a, Sunni, and Kurd) and nominated Adnan al-Zrafi, who is anti-Iran and pro-American. Many political blocs and Shia organisations announced their rejection of al-Zarfi. At the same time, the Dawa candidate (Adnan al-Zarfi) enjoyed the support of his chief bloc, led by former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Al-Zurfi was also secretly supported by Nuri al-Maliki, who wanted the position of prime minister to return to the Dawa Party (since 2005 and until 2018 al-Da’wa held the position of PM). Al-Zurfi also enjoyed support from Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr, who had been promised control over any ministerial cabinet or any other senior position within the Iraqi state.

Despite Iran’s official statement that it did not oppose the nomination of Al-Zurfi, the reality was different. Al-Zurfi was tacitly accused of burning Iran’s consulate in Najaf and Karbala during last months’ demonstrations. Admiral Ali Shamkhani – who, along with Major General Qassim Soleimani, was in charge of the relationship between Iran and Iraq – visited Iraq, followed by a short visit of General Ismail Qa’ani. Both men carried one message to the Iraqis: “We don’t disagree with the choice of Mr Mustafa Al-Kazemi, if he is your choice, and we enjoy good relations with him.” Iran has never said these words about al-Zurfi.

First Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani announced his support for al-Kazemi, and then Sunni leader, Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi, followed suit. Barzani wanted to send a message to the Shiite blocs, so they would not again choose a candidate for the presidency who does not have a Kurdish authority above him, as happened with President Saleh.

Saleh was Qassem Soleimani’s choice and turned out today to be a mistake from the Iranian and the Shia blocs’ point of view. Fouad Hussein, the Minister of Finance, was Erbil’s choice, but Soleimani considered him at the time the candidate of the American presidential envoy Bret McGurk. This is why Soleimani asked the Shiites, Sunnis, and his allies Kurds in Sulaimaniyah not to vote to Hussein but to promote Barham Saleh. Saleh told Soleimani in 2018 that he would immediately nominate the candidate he wanted. This is how Adil Abdul Mahdi was elected Prime Minister.

There has never been a US-Iranian understanding in Iraq. Instead, when possible candidates have been chosen to attract minimal opposition from the Iranians and the Americans. Al-Kazemi enjoys good relations with Riyadh, Tehran, and Washington, as was the case of the caretaker Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi. Abdil Mahdi had been supported by Washington and yet, a year later, it was he who presented a draft proposal to the Iraqi Parliament demanding the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq.

Al-Kazemi, who promised to support the “Popular Mobilisation Forces” (hashd al-Shaabi), agreed to seek the removal of all US forces from Iraq, as stipulated in the binding constitutional decision of the Iraqi Parliament. Tehran convinced its ally, Kataeb Hezbollah al-Iraq, which had publicly accused Al-Kazemi of responsibility for the assassination of Commander Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, to accept al-Kazemi as a Prime Minister and wait to see his actions before judging him. The price of the assassination of Soleimani and Muhandes is the total withdrawal of the US forces from Iraq, and not al-Kazemi.

This time – after three failed attempts to nominate a prime minister  – Al-Kazemi will be supported to form his cabinet and will have the parliamentary support needed. However, he will face severe difficulties and challenges.

The US is redeploying its forces and not showing any intention of complete withdrawal. Al-Kazemi will not be able to seek an easy US withdrawal and won’t be able to disarm Iraqi organisations as he promised to do. Moreover, he will face a real economic problem because Iraq suffers from a low oil price and external debts. The income of Iraq is just over 30 billion dollars whereas it needs 80 billion to pay salaries and maintain the infrastructure as it is. Al-Kazemi will not be able to respond to demands from the street because he simply does not have enough money.

Iran is not afraid who sits at the top of the Iraqi government; today’s friend may turn out to be tomorrow’s enemy. Tehran enjoys enough connections with political leaders and military commanders and head of organisations in Iraq. Iran has experienced an aggressive Prime Minister in the past, Haidar Abadi, and managed its way in Iraq, a country sensitive to a balance among its political leaders. The US doesn’t have enough leverage in Iraq to match the leverage of Iran.

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Julian Assange: One Year in Belmarsh

April 12th, 2020 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

It should not be a matter of distinction, but Julian Assange is a figure who is becoming the apotheosis of political imprisonment.  This seems laughable to those convinced he is an agent without scruple, a compromiser of the Fourth Estate, a figure best packed off to a prison system that will, in all assuredness, kill him. 

That’s if he even gets there.  Having spent a year at Her Majesty’s Belmarsh prison, the WikiLeaks publisher faces the permanent danger of contracting COVID-19 as he goes through the bone-weariness of legal proceedings.  Even during the extradition hearings, he has been treated with a snooty callousness by District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser, which does not bode well for a favourable finding against the US submission.  As he endures them, he suffers in a facility that is succumbing to the misrule caused by the coronavirus.   

On April 9, Assange’s friend Vaughan Smith gave a description of conditions that gave little cause for Easter cheer. “Julian is now confined alone in a cell for 23.5 hours every day.  He gets half an hour of exercise and that is in a yard crowded with other prisoners.”  Smith also had a shot at the running of the prison.  “With over 150 Belmarsh prison staff off work self-isolating, the prison is barely functioning.”

The UK Department of Justice has adopted a mild approach to the issue of releasing prisoners in the face of the coronavirus epidemic.  Despite the Prison Governors’ Association suggesting the release of 15,000 non-violent prisoners, the Department of Justice has opted for the lower total of 4,000.  To date, a meagre 100 have been released.  Assange insists that the situation is graver at Belmarsh than is otherwise advertised.  Official figures put the number of COVID-19 deaths at one in the maximum security facility.  There are at least two, with the possibility, argues Assange, of more.

By any reasonable assessment, Assange fits the bill of a non-violent prisoner, and one with genuine political credentials.  He was granted asylum by Ecuador, a point of little interest to Baraister.  His condition both physical and mental has appalled friends, acquaintances and a number of officials.  Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has spent much time beating the drum of awareness about his plight.  Since 2010, he stated in May last year, “there has been a relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Mr Assange, not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, Sweden and, more recently, in Ecuador.”

Rather than turning their attention to this state of circumstances, news outlets prefer to gorge themselves on other details, such as the newly revealed identity of his partner, which Judge Baraitser refused to keep concealed.  The writing on this subject is needlessly though predictably tawdry.  “WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange fathered two sons while hiding in embassy,” has been a favourite formulation. The Daily Mail can barely resist stirring the sauce pot, giving Assange the appearance of an international man of fornicating mystery.  “Gabriel, aged two, and his one-year-old brother Max were conceived while their father was hiding out to avoid extradition to America, where he faces espionage charges over the leaking of thousands of classified US intelligence documents.”  But the man who sowed his oats was also, the Mail is thrilled to remind us, “wanted in Sweden where he was accused of rape.”  It was rather good of them to also tell readers that Swedish prosecutors dropped the investigation, though it does so with customary scepticism. 

The old hacks can barely resist regarding the entire matter of Assange having a partner and children as peculiar.  The Mail seemed to think it had uncovered a stunning morsel of information that would shock all.  “The news will come as a bombshell to Assange’s friends and enemies since he was widely understood to have led a near-monastic life since entering the embassy in 2012.”  Monks would surely disagree with that flawed assessment, as would his friends. 

The theme of oddity has also made it across the Atlantic.  The New York Post, for instance, considered it “an even odder twist” that “British rapper M.I.A. is a godmother to the children”.  Hardly – M.I.A, along with a large clutch of celebrities, has been a vocal supporter and barracker.

This mixture of lazy scribbling, creepy curiosity and saccharine interest will do little to aid Assange. His partner, now revealed as lawyer Stella Moris-Smith Robertson, attempted to take some of the edge off perceptions of the publisher in a court statement supporting bail.  “My close relationship with Julian has been the opposite of how he is viewed – of reserve, respect for each other and attempts to shield each other from some of the nightmares that have surrounded our lives.”  Retaining that shield will be an increasingly difficult matter now. 

Assange’s scalp is precious.  The application for bail made by his defence team on March 25 was denied.  Access to him from his legal team is limited, hobbling the case.  Even during a raging pandemic, where entire states have mobilised their resources, there is always room for little bit of vindictiveness.  Scores need to be settled; the balance sheet ordered.  To that end, Judge Baraister and the UK justice system, have not disappointed.

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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]

Below are selected excerpts from Arundati Roy‘s article

As an appalled world watched, India revealed herself in all her shame — her brutal, structural, social and economic inequality, her callous indifference to suffering.  The lockdown worked like a chemical experiment that suddenly illuminated hidden things.

As shops, restaurants, factories and the construction industry shut down, as the wealthy and the middle classes enclosed themselves in gated colonies, our towns and megacities began to extrude their working-class citizens — their migrant workers — like so much unwanted accrual.

Many driven out by their employers and landlords, millions of impoverished, hungry, thirsty people, young and old, men, women, children, sick people, blind people, disabled people, with nowhere else to go, with no public transport in sight, began a long march home to their villages.

They walked for days, towards Badaun, Agra, Azamgarh, Aligarh, Lucknow, Gorakhpur — hundreds of kilometres away. Some died on the way.

They knew they were going home potentially to slow starvation.

As they walked, some were beaten brutally and humiliated by the police, who were charged with strictly enforcing the curfew.

A few days later, worried that the fleeing population would spread the virus to villages, the government sealed state borders even for walkers. People who had been walking for days were stopped and forced to return to camps in the cities they had just been forced to leave.

Among older people it evoked memories of the population transfer of 1947, when India was divided and Pakistan was born.

Except that this current exodus was driven by class divisions, not religion.

Even still, these were not India’s poorest people. These were people who had (at least until now) work in the city and homes to return to.

The jobless, the homeless and the despairing remained where they were, in the cities as well as the countryside, where deep distress was growing long before this tragedy occurred. All through these horrible days, the home affairs minister Amit Shah remained absent from public view.  (Arundati Roy, FT.com, April 3, 2020)

To read complete article on FT click here

 

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Vaccines and the Liberal Mind

April 11th, 2020 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr

This article was originally published in June 2018.

Instead of demanding blue-ribbon safety science and encouraging honest, open and responsible debate on the science, too many online outlets are silencing critics and shutting down discussion on this key public health and civil rights issue.

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Late last year, Slate published an investigative report detailing how pharmaceutical giant, Merck, used “flawed” and “unreliable” pre-licensing safety studies to push through approval of its multi-billion-dollar bonanza, the HPV vaccine. For veteran safe vaccine advocates, like myself, the most shocking aspect of the expose was that Slate published it at all. Slate and other liberal online publications including Salon, Huffington Post and The Daily Beast customarily block articles that critique vaccine safety in order, they argue, to encourage vaccination and protect public health.

Motivated by this noble purpose, the liberal media—the supposed antidote to corporate and government power—has helped insulate from scrutiny the burgeoning vaccine industry and its two regulators, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Both agencies have pervasive and potentially corrupting financial entanglements with the vaccine manufacturers, according to extensive congressional investigations.

Ironically, liberals routinely lambaste Pharma, and its FDA enablers for putting profits over people. Recent examples include Vioxx (100,000 injured—Merck paid more than $5 billion in fines and settlements), Abilify (Bristol Meyers Squibb paid $515 million for marketing the drug to nursing homes, knowing it can be fatal to seniors), Celebrex and Bextra (Pfizer paid $894 million for bribing public officials and false advertising about safety and effectiveness) and, of course, the opioid crisis, which in 2016 killed more Americans than the 20-year Vietnam War.  What then, makes liberals think that these same companies are immune from similar temptations when it comes to vaccines? There is plenty of evidence that they are not. Merck, the world’s largest vaccine maker, is currently fighting multiple lawsuits, brought by its own scientists, claiming that the company forced them to falsify efficacy data for its MMR vaccine.

The Slate article nowhere discloses that FDA licenses virtually all vaccines using the same mawing safety science deficiencies that brought us Gardasil. FDA claims that “vaccines undergo rigorous safety testing to determine their safety.” But that’s not true. FDA’s choice to classify vaccine makers as “biologics” rather than “drugs” opened a regulatory loophole that allows vaccines to evade any meaningful safety testing. Instead of the multi-year double-blind inert placebo studies—the gold standard of safety science—that the FDA requires prior to licensing other medications, most vaccines now on the CDC’s recommended childhood vaccine schedule were safety tested for only a few days or weeks. For example, the manufacturer’s package insert discloses that Merck’s Hep B vaccine (almost every American infant receives a Hep B shot on the day of birth) underwent, not five years, but a mere five days of safety testing. If the babies in these studies had a seizure—or died—on day six, Merck was under no obligation to disclose those facts.

Furthermore, many vaccines contain dangerous amounts of known neurotoxins like mercury and aluminum and carcinogens like formaldehyde, that are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, autoimmune problems, food allergies and cancers that might not be diagnosed for many years. A five-day study has no way of spotting such associations. Equally shocking, FDA does not require vaccine manufacturers to measure proposed vaccines against true inert placebos, further obscuring researchers’ capacity to see adverse health effects and virtually guaranteeing that more subtle injuries, such as impaired immune response, loss of IQ or depression, will never be detected—no matter how widespread. Furthermore, the CDC has never studied the impacts on children’s health of combining 50 plus vaccines.

These lax testing requirements can save vaccine manufacturers tens of millions of dollars. That’s one of the reasons for the “gold rush” that has multiplied vaccines from three, when I was a boy, to the 50 plus vaccines that children typically receive today.

There are other compelling reasons why vaccines have become Pharma’s irresistible new profit and growth vehicle. For example, manufacturers of the 50 plus vaccines on CDC’s childhood schedule enjoy what has become a trapped audience of 74 million child consumers who are effectively compelled to purchase an expensive product, sparing vaccine makers additional millions in advertising and marketing costs.

But the biggest economic boon to vaccine makers has been the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA). In 1986, Congress awash in pharmaceutical dollars—Big Pharma is, by far, the top Capitol Hill lobbying group—passed NCVIA giving pharmaceutical companies what amounts to blanket immunity from liability for any injury caused by vaccines. No matter how toxic the ingredients, how negligent the manufacturer or how grievous the harm, vaccine-injured children cannot sue a vaccine company. That extraordinary law eliminated a principal cost associated with making other drugs and left the industry with little economic incentive to make vaccines safe. It also removed lawyers, judges and courts from their traditional roles as guardians of vaccine safety. Since the law’s passage, industry revenues have sky-rocketed from $1 billion to $44 billion.

The absence of critical attention to this exploding industry by liberal online sites is particularly troubling since pharma, using strategic investments, has effectively sidelined, not just Congress, lawyers and courts, but virtually all of our democracy’s usual public health sentinels. Pervasive financial entanglements with vaccine makers and the other alchemies of agency capture have transformed the FDA and CDC into industry sock puppets.

Strong economic drivers—pharmaceutical companies are the biggest network advertisers—discourage mainstream media outlets from criticizing vaccine manufacturers. A network president once told me he would fire any of his news show hosts who allowed me to talk about vaccine safety on air. “Our news division,” he explained, “gets up to 70% of ad revenues from pharma in non-election years.” Furthermore, liberal activists including environmental, human rights, public health and children’s advocates also steer clear of vaccine safety discussions. On other core issues like toxics, guns and cigarettes, the CDC has a long record of friendly collaboration with these advocates who have thereby acquired a knee-jerk impulse to protect the agency from outside criticism.

In this vacuum, online liberal news sites are the last remaining barrier to protect children from corporate greed, yet they have become self-appointed arbiters against exposing the public to negative information about vaccine manufacturers and regulators. Liberal voices are not just sidelined, they are subsumed in the orthodoxy that all vaccines are always good for all people—and the more the better. Working with Pharma reps and their tame politicians, liberal news reporters and columnists across America are laboring in nearly every state to make the CDC vaccine schedule compulsory for children and to eliminate religious, philosophical and even medical exemptions.

As a result, the government/Big Pharma combination has gained unprecedented power to override parental consent and force otherwise healthy children, and other unwilling consumers, to undergo compulsory vaccinations, a shocking advance along the road to a corporate totalitarianism which seeks absolute control, even of our bodies. Keep in mind that there is no authentic dispute that vaccination is a risky medical intervention. It was the wave of lawsuits arising from injuries suffered from the Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis (DTP) vaccine in the 1980s, that caused Congress to pass the NCVIA bestowing immunity on the pharmaceutical industry, which threatened, otherwise, to stop making vaccines. In upholding that law, the Supreme Court declared NCVIA justified because “vaccines are unavoidably unsafe.” Since then, the Federal Vaccine Court, created by NCVIA, has paid out $3.8 billion to vaccine-injured individuals. That number dramatically understates the true gravity of the harm. A Department of Health and Human Services funded report acknowledges that “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported.”

Supporting a law that forces Americans to relinquish control of their bodies to a corporate/state behemoth is an odd posture for liberals, who once championed the precept of “informed consent,” as the mainstay of the Nuremberg Code and the declarations of Helsinki and Geneva which protect individuals against all coerced medical interventions.

Science suggests that we might have made a big mistake by not aggressively safety testing our mandatory vaccines. Chronic diseases like ADHD, asthma, autoimmune diseases and allergies now affect 54 percent of our children, up from 12.6 percent in 1988, the year NCVIA took effect. And those data measure only the injuries characterized in digital medical records. Health advocates warn that we may be missing subtler injuries like widespread losses in reading and IQ and in executive and behavioral functions.

The suspicion that the neurotoxins in vaccines may be negatively affecting a generation is not wild speculation. Numerous studies point to the once ubiquitous use of leaded gasoline as the cause of widespread IQ loss and violence that bedeviled the generations from the 1960s-1980s.  Is it not possible that dramatically increased infant exposures to aluminum and ethyl mercury—a far more potent neurotoxin than lead—might be significantly debilitating the post NCVIA generation?

The CDC claims that the cause of the sudden explosion in neurodevelopmental disorders, autoimmune illnesses and food allergies that began in the late 1980s, is a mystery. However, vaccine court awards, manufacturers’ package inserts and reams of peer-reviewed science all recognize that many of the chronic diseases that suddenly became epidemic in our children following the passage of NCVIA can be caused by vaccines or their ingredients.

The Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine), the ultimate arbiter of federal vaccine safety science, has listed 155 diseases potentially associated with vaccination and scolded the CDC for failing to study 134 of them. School nurses who have spent decades in their jobs say they are seeing the sickest generation in history. The epidemic has not proven a problem for the vaccine industry. On the back end of the chronic disease explosion, vaccine companies like Merck are making a killing on the EpiPens, antidepressants, stimulants, asthma inhalers and anti-seizure drugs.

Instead of demanding blue-ribbon safety science and encouraging honest, open and responsible debate on the science, liberal blogs shut down discussion on this key public health and civil rights issue, and silence critics, treating faith in vaccines as a religion; the heresy of questioning dogma meets with anathema and excommunication.

The core of liberalism is a healthy skepticism toward government and business. So why do vaccines get a mulligan?

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a longtime environmental campaigner and author of American Values: Lessons I Learned From My Family (HarperCollins) and Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy. Follow him on Twitter: @RobertKennedyJr

COVID-19: Coronavirus and Civilization

April 11th, 2020 by Diana Johnstone

As time goes on in close confinement, even people bound by love may start to find each other unbearable. On a larger scale, in this crazy mass confinement, people brought together by a common rejection of the lies of our criminal rulers may find themselves at each other’s throats because of conflicting interpretations of why who is doing what.

This is happening on alternative media – especially in Germany. It seems that many anti-conformist political analysts believe that the Coronavirus crisis is a fake, perpetrated by media and governments for sinister reasons. They are actually calling for protest demonstrations against confinement.

I can’t help seeing this as an obsession of certain dissidents to prove to themselves that they are good “anti-authoritarian” Germans who would never have bowed to Nazism. But is this assertion of individual freedom appropriate in the midst of a public health crisis?

The Limits of Power

Very clever people naturally want to find motives behind whatever happens. At one time such people might have been theologians, who explained the extremely mysterious ways in which God carries out His cosmic plan. A flood, a plague, an earthquake? There had to be a reason for it, a motivation in human terms. The All-Powerful was punishing his sinful flock and reminding them of who was boss.

Mammon. (Wikipedia)

Today, quite a number of alternative media commentators are ready to believe in the absolute power not of God but of Mammon, of the powers of Wall Street and its partners in politics, the media and the military. In this view, nothing major happens that hasn’t been planned by earthly powers for their own selfish interest.

Mammon is wrecking the economy so a few oligarchs will own everything. Or else Mammon created the hoax Coronavirus 19 in order to lock us all up and deprive us of what little is left of our freedom. Or finally Mammon is using a virus in order to have a pretext to vaccinate us all with secret substances and turn us all into zombies.

Is this credible? In one sense, it is. We know that Mammon is unscrupulous, morally capable of all crimes. But things do happen that Mammon did not plan, such as earthquakes, floods and plagues. Dislike of our ruling class combined with dislike of being locked up leads to the equation: They are simply using this (fake) crisis in order to lock us up!

But what for? To whom is there any advantage in locking down the population? For the pleasure of telling themselves, “Aha, we’ve got them where we want them, all stuck at home!” Is this intended to suppress popular revolt? What popular revolt? Why repress people who aren’t doing anything that needs to be repressed?

What is the use of locking up a population – and I think especially of the United States – that is disunited, disorganized, profoundly confused by generations of ideological indoctrination telling them that their country is “the best” in every way, and thus unable to formulate coherent demands on a system that exploits them ruthlessly? Do you need to lock up your faithful Labrador so he won’t bite you?

If anything, the trauma of this situation might actually awaken a somnolent population to the vital need for basic transformation of society. The notion that this lockdown threatens to be permanent is totally unrealistic, against all evidence from previous lockdowns. On the contrary, prolonged confinement is most likely to lead to explosions. The question is, can these explosions be constructive.

On a wall in Paris: “You will not confine our anger.”

Blinded by Hubris

Rather than deploring the all-powerful nature of Mammon, it would be more constructive to look for the flaws in his armor, for his weaknesses, for the ways he can be massively discredited, denounced and defeated.

Mammon is blinded by its own hubris, often stupid, incompetent, dumbed down by getting away with so much so easily. Take a look at Mike Pompeo or Mike Pence – are these all-powerful geniuses? No, they are semi-morons who have been able to crawl up a corrupt system contemptuous of truth, virtue or intelligence – like the rest of the gangsters in power in a system devoid of any ethical or intellectual standards.

The power of creatures like that is merely the reflection of the abdication of social responsibility by whole populations whose disinterest in politics has allowed the scum to rise to the top.

The lockdown decreed by our Western governments reveals helplessness rather than power. They did not rush to lock us down. The lockdown is disastrous for the economy which is their prime concern. They hesitated and did so only when they had to do something and were ill-equipped to do anything else. They saw that China had done so with good results. But smart Asian governments did even more, deploying masks, tests and treatments Western governments did not possess.

Western governments called for confinement when experts explained the exponential curves to them. They didn’t know what else to do. There is at least enough sense of social responsibility left in our societies to oblige governments to take the basic, classic quarantine methods usual during pandemics.

Of course, in every crisis some are well placed to take advantage of disaster. The vultures didn’t cause the cattle to die so they could eat the carrion. But they will gobble it up when it’s there. Wall Street financial powers could quickly get Congresspeople to vote laws to bail them out while small businesses sink and working people are plunged into despair.

But in the long run, without the small businesses, without the workers now being deprived of income to spend, without normal economic activity, Wall Street itself will have no one to bleed, nothing to exploit. It makes absolutely no sense to believe that dominant economic powers sought this ruinous crisis for some mysterious benefit to themselves.

In the European Union, creditor countries like Germany and the Netherlands refuse to let the European Central Bank issue “Coronabonds” to finance economic recovery of hard-hit countries like Italy and Spain. That means those countries will have to borrow from the private financial system, at high interest rates leading to bankruptcy.

That sounds like a boon to international finance, which, however, will find itself holding an infinite amount of unpayable debt. And the European Union may split apart as a result – not in the interests of any of these powerful masters of Mammon.

Public Health Is Not an Individual Choice

In the West, “human rights”, are conceived in terms of the “rights” of the individual, or of a minority, to go against what we call “the regime” when speaking of countries other than our own. The United States uses the absolute value of “human rights” as a pretext to impose its will through sanctions and bombing on nations that reject its global domination. The defiance of authority is celebrated as resistance, without necessarily examining the details.

However, virtually all key aspects of any civilized society go contrary to the absolutism of individual rights. Every civilized society has some sort of legal system, some basic rules that everyone is expected to follow. Most civilized societies have a public education and (except for the United States) a public health insurance system designed to benefit the whole population. These elements of civilization include constraints on individual freedom.

The benefits to each individual of living in a civilized society make these constraints acceptable to just about everybody. The health of the individual depends on the health of the community, which is why everyone in most Western countries accepts a single payer health insurance system. The only exception is the United States, where the egocentricities of Ayn Rand are widely read as serious thought.

Mammon and His Slave. (Wikimedia Commons)

The arrival of a plague or an epidemic suddenly calls for totally abnormal, extremely unpleasant constraints, such as quarantines. This is a case where the freedom of the individual is sacrificed for the general good: the individual is confined not merely for his own good but for the good of his community and indeed of all humanity.

The paradox of our highly technological societies is that the greater the impossibility of the general public (all of us) to understand crucial functions and issues, the more we depend on experts and authorities, and the more we distrust those experts and authorities and suspect them of using their position to advance secret agendas. There is thus a sort of built-in paranoia in our societies where the power of invisible forces becomes constantly more inscrutable.

This paradox operates forcefully on issues of medicine and public health, all the more in that the authorities themselves are frequently divided in their opinions. In Germany especially, where the crisis has been relatively mild, one can hear a doctor claiming that fear of Covid-19 is artificially created and that nature should be allowed to take its course, since healthy people will be spared and the few who die would have died anyway.

Stay Home and Take a Pill

This opinion is readily accepted by those who suspect every government measure of being an arbitrary assault on personal liberties. But it is hardly a majority opinion in the world medical profession.

Personally, I’ve been there. I’ve seen this virus in action. This is not simply a bad cold, or a seasonal flu. Yes, there are light cases, but there are fatal ones as well. It does not just kill off superfluous elderly people that some commentators seem satisfied to get rid of.

Still, it is quite reasonable to question the usefulness of confinement alone. Here in France, authorities turned to confinement with some delay, only because the illness was spreading and they had nothing else to do about it.

There were no masks; a factory in Brittany that provided the domestic market with masks and other medical equipment had been bought up a while back by Honeywell and closed down. This is an aspect of the deindustrialization of France, based on the assumption that we in the West can live from our brains, our ideas, our startups, while actual things are made for low wages in poor countries.

So there were no masks and no immediate capacity to make them. There was also a shortage of ventilators, even of hospital beds – in fact there was no ability to deal with the epidemic other than to tell people to stay at home and prescribe paracetamol.

Surely there are better ways to deal with it, and one inevitable explosion after confinement will be an outpouring of criticism of the way the government has handled the crisis and demands for drastic improvements in the public health system.

The argument that “oh well, even more people die of ordinary flu, or cancer, or something else” is not valid because this illness comes in addition to all the others that are anticipated: it pushes already largely saturated health facilities over the top, into collapse.

In Italy, Covid-19 has killed off a hundred medical doctors in just over a month. They would not have “died anyway, of something else” without the epidemic.

In France, in normal times, dial the emergency service SAMU 15 and usually a team is there within minutes. During the Covid-19 crisis, you could dial 15 and wait an hour or more for an answer, whatever your health crisis might be, and help might never come.

The main purpose of the quarantine is to reduce the pression on overburdened systems. Without the confinement, the overload would have been even worse. This crisis is exposing the inadequacy of existing facilities and the crucial need for major programs to strengthen public health systems.

Irrational Fear of Vaccination

Jonas Salk’s vaccine wiped out polio in the United States, and he didn’t patent it.  (Wikimedia Commons)

Mass vaccination has always been the surest way to wipe out deadly diseases. It is also an instance where individual freedoms need be sacrificed to the general good. It is deeply disturbing that many intelligent people are more afraid of the vaccine that may be developed to combat this virus than they are of the virus itself.

One objection is that profit-oriented Big Pharma takes advantage of every illness to make money. But the answer is not to reject pharmaceuticals. The main problem with Big Pharma is unleashed neoliberal capitalism in the United States, combined with the absence of a government-run single payer health insurance, which allows pharmaceutical companies to charge outrageous prices for their products, as well as to focus on production of the most profitable rather than the most generally useful medication.

The answer to this is not to give up medication but to demand greater public supervision and price control.

Finally, the pharmaceutical industry should be considered a public utility rather than a business and nationalized so that revenue can be used to finance research rather than to pay dividends to Big Finance.

The prospects are different from one country to another. Achieving social control in the United States looks practically impossible because of the overwhelming belief that “free enterprise” is the only way to do things. In France, which has positive experience of a mixed economy, it could be politically possible to nationalize pharmaceutical companies – if France were not under the domination of the European Union and, less directly, the United States, which is always prepared to do what it can to block socialist measures anywhere in the world.

No Longer the Center

But the West is no longer the center of the world. The Covid-19 crisis has demonstrated the rising capabilities and more human attitudes of East Asia. There will be vaccines developed in China, in Russia, in other countries outside the NATO sphere. Their achievements will break the monopoly of Western “Big Pharma.”

In Europe, and notably in France, Italy and Spain, the total disillusion with the European Union is strengthening the trend toward return of national sovereignty. And sovereign nations, able to respond to their people’s demands can be able to break away from the dictates of Big Finance in order to renew democracy in more appropriate forms.

In France, labor unions and progressives are demanding better protection of the population, starting with all those essential service workers, in hospitals and grocery stores, bus drivers, deliverymen, all those who are increasingly appreciated by their confined compatriots and who need to reap the benefits of their public service.

Yellow Vests protest, March 7, 2020 in Paris before lockdown. (Joe Lauria)

Perhaps because of the long tradition of social struggle in France, including the Yellow Vest movement which is not dead but only on hold, one can be sure that after confinement there will be an explosion of demands to abandon the fantasies of neoliberal globalism and build a system where the welfare of the people comes first.

In contrast, in the context of the corona virus crisis in Germany, someone supposedly “on the left” has initiated a petition calling on persons over 75 to declare that if they are sick, they renounce medical treatment, in order to give preference to younger people. This is a new twist of identity politics, of classifying people by groups, and a step toward revival of the worst eugenics of Nazism.

Which is civilized and which is barbaric: insisting on a system that gives equal care to all, or deciding that the elderly be sacrificed for the others? What is this but a suggestion to resort to human sacrifice to please Mammon?

For Civilization

Sounding the alarm about how horrible our ruling class is gets us nowhere unless we have an idea of a real alternative – not just “resisting” but proposing and fighting for something different and better.

Let’s start with a most concrete practical issue and work from there: vaccination. Like other aspects of public health, this is an issue of collective welfare rather than individual rights. It is an element not of “resistance to oppression” but of the construction of civilization.

The coronavirus has not illustrated the need to get rid of vaccines – on grounds that “they” want to use them against us – but on the contrary, of the need to make sure that vaccines are developed under proper supervision for the public welfare and not as a means for Big Pharma to make bigger dividends for BlackRock.

So the problem with vaccines is not vaccination but American capitalism that has gotten completely out of hand. Once upon time, the Food and Drug Administration was a reliable monitor of pharmaceutical innovations. In recent decades, such control agencies have increasingly been taken over by the companies they are supposed to control and transformed into rubber stamps.

Alarms are also raised about the alleged role of billionaires like Bill Gates whose philanthropic institutions are suspected of manipulating vaccines for hidden nefarious purposes.

The remedy is not to flee medication and vaccination, but to dismantle these overgrown dictatorial powers and build a society that can properly be called civilized because it is balanced between collective and individual welfare. Of course, to say what should be done is very far from knowing how to do it. But without an idea of what should be done, there will not even be any effort to figure out how.

A Mixed Economy

In the United States, it would be necessary to accept the fact that certain essential activities must be considered public services. This requires a wave of reforms equivalent to a revolution, not as prescribed by Marxist revolutionaries to situations that no longer exist. Pharmaceuticals and hospitals are public services and must be socially controlled. Internet has become a public service.

How should that be treated? Innovators who used free market mechanisms to gain virtual monopoly control of their sector should be invited to choose which of their mansions to retain as residence as they are retired to the role of advisor, while their disproportionate accumulated earnings should become part of the public treasury.

What I am advocating is not a “communist revolution,” certainly not for the United States. I am advocating a mixed economy, which can take various forms, from France in the 1960s to China today. The commanding heights of the economy should be under social control, to ensure that major investment has social purpose.

The forms of this control can vary. In the United States, the first task of the commanding heights should be to shift investment away from insanely wasteful military production to domestic infrastructure and measures to integrate all citizens into a genuinely civilized society. Such a mixed economy creates a favorable environment for the proliferation of small independent enterprises free to innovate.

Free from fear of illness and homelessness allows more real freedom than the polarized lottery that passes for capitalism in the United States today. Such a project of civilization should win support from decent and lucid people in all classes of society.

I am perfectly aware that the United States today is ideologically light years away from such a sensible project. But developments are underway in other countries to meet the threat of Big Pharma and meddling American billionaires. The word that sums up these developments is “multipolarization.”

This is the slogan launched by Vladimir Putin in 2007. It drove Western champions of unipolar globalization into a frenzy from which they are far from having recovered – witness the insanely provocative “Defender Europe 20” military games practicing nuclear war right up to the Russian border, stalled temporarily by Covid-19.

The United States and its European satellites are in effect waging war against the Free World – that is, countries free of U.S. domination, in order to perpetuate an imaginary global regime along the lines of neoliberalism: rule of finance approved by manipulated elections.

Nevertheless, unipolar globalization is in the process of disintegration. All the slander against China cannot change the facts. While U.S. propagandists blast their rising rival, most of the world sees that China handled the epidemic with more professional know-how than the West. The United States control of international agencies is being threatened by growing Chinese influence – in particular, the World Health Organization.

This is the greatest threat to Big Pharma: a multipolar world. Bill Gates and U.S. pharmaceutical companies will have no monopoly of vaccine development to combat Covid-19. A dramatic shift from neoliberal globalization to multipolar national sovereignty will restore genuine competition – not only in production of vaccines but in social organization.

Let Western countries look to their own problems and find solutions. Let other countries develop according to models that suit their history, philosophy and popular demands. It is obvious that the vaunted U.S. “free market democracy” is not a model that should be imposed on every country on earth, nor even on the United States itself.

Mixed economies can take various forms. Some could evolve toward something that could be called socialism, others not. Let every small country be as independent as Iceland. Let the world explore different paths. Let a hundred flowers bloom!

Originally published by Consortium News

Diana Johnstone’s latest book is Circle in the Darkness; Memoirs of a World Watcher, Clarity Press, 2020.

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Total System Failure Will Give Rise to New Economy?

April 11th, 2020 by Pepe Escobar

Nobody, anywhere, could have predicted what we are now witnessing: in a matter of only a few weeks the accumulated collapse of global supply chains, aggregate demand, consumption, investment, exports, mobility.  

Nobody is betting on an L-shaped recovery anymore – not to mention a V-shaped one. Any projection of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 gets into falling-off-a-cliff territory.

In industrialized economies, where roughly 70% of the workforce is in services, countless businesses in myriad industries will fail in a rolling financial collapse that will eclipse the Great Depression.

That spans the whole spectrum of possibly 47 million US workers soon to be laid off – with the unemployment rate skyrocketing to 32% – all the way to Oxfam’s warning that by the time the pandemic is over half of the world’s population of 7.8 billion people could be living in poverty.

According to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) most optimistic 2020 scenario – certainly to become outdated before the end of Spring – global trade would shrink by 13%.  A more realistic and gloomier WTO scenario sees global trade plunging by 32%.

What we are witnessing is not only a massive globalization short circuit: it’s a cerebral shock extended to three billion hyperconnected, simultaneously confined people. Their bodies may be blocked, but they are electromagnetic beings and their brains keep working – with possible, unforeseen political and other consequences.

Soon we will be facing three major, interlocking debates: the management (in many cases appalling) of the crisis; the search for future models; and the reconfiguration of the world-system.

This is just a first approach in what should be seen as a do-or-die cognitive competition.

Particle accelerator

Sound analyses of what could be the next economic model are already popping up. As background, a really serious debunking of all (dying) neoliberalism development myths can be seen here.

Yes, a new economic model should be revolving around these axes: AI computing; automated manufacturing; solar and wind energy; high-speed 5G-driven data transfer; and nanotechnology.

China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are very well positioned for what’s ahead, as well as selected European latitudes.

Plamen Tonchev, head of the Asia unit at the Institute of International Economic Relations in Athens, Greece, points to the possible reorganization – short term – of Belt and Road Initiative projects, privileging investment in energy, export of solar panels, 5G networks and the Health Silk Road.

Covid-19 is like a particle accelerator, consolidating tendencies that were already developing. China had already demonstrated for the whole planet to see that economic development under a control system has nothing to do with Western liberal democracy.

On the pandemic, China demonstrated – also for the whole planet to see – that containment of Covid-19 can be accomplished by imposing controls the West derided as “draconian” and “authoritarian,” coupled with a strategic scientific approach characerized by a profusion of test kits, protection equipment, ventilators and experimental treatments.

This is already translating into incalculable soft power which will be exercised along the Health Silk Road. Trends seem to point to China as strategically reinforced all along the spectrum, especially in the Global South. China is playing go, weiqi. Stones will be taken from the geopolitical board.

System failure welcomed? 

In contrast, Western banking and finance scenarios could not be gloomier. As a Britain-centric analysis argues, “It is not just Europe. Banks may not be strong enough to fulfill their new role as saviors in any part of the world, including the US, China and Japan. None of the major lending systems were ever stress-tested for an economic deep freeze lasting months.”

So “the global financial system will crack under the strain,” with a by now quite possible “pandemic shutdown lasting more than three months” capable of causing  “economic and financial ‘system failure.’”

As system failures go, nothing remotely approaches the possibility of a quadrillion dollar derivative implosion, a real nuclear issue.

Capital One is number 11 on the list of the largest banks in the US by assets. They are already in deep trouble on their derivative exposures. New York sources say Capital One made a terrible trade, betting via derivatives that oil would not plunge to where it is now at 17-year lows.

Mega-pressure is on all those Wall Street outfits that gave oil companies the equivalent of puts on all their oil production at prices above $50 a barrel. These puts have now come due – and the strain on the Wall Street houses and US banks will become unbearable.

The anticipated Friday oil deal won’t alter anything: oil will stay around $20 per barrel, $25 max.

This is just the beginning and is bound to get much worse. Imagine most of US industry being shut down. Corporations – like Boeing, for instance – are going to go bankrupt. Bank loans to those corporations will be wiped out. As those loans are wiped out, the banks are going to get into major trouble.

Derivative to the max

Wall Street, totally linked to the derivative markets, will feel the pressure of the collapsing American economy. The Fed bailout of Wall Street will start coming apart. Talk about a nuclear chain reaction.

In a nutshell: The Fed has lost control of the money supply in the US. Banks can now create unlimited credit from their base and that sets up the US for potential hyperinflation if the money supply grows non-stop and production collapses, as it is collapsing right now because the economy is in shutdown mode.

If derivatives start to implode, the only solution for all major banks in the world will be immediate nationalization, much to the ire of the Goddess of the Market. Deutsche Bank, also in major trouble, has a 7 trillion euro derivatives exposure, twice the annual GDP of Germany.

No wonder New York business circles are absolutely terrified. They insist that if the US does not immediately go back to work, and if these possibly quadrillions of dollars of derivatives start to rapidly implode, the economic crises that will unfold will create a collapse of the magnitude of which has not been witnessed in history, with incalculable consequences.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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A New World Is Being Born: What Will It Be?

April 11th, 2020 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

We are hearing from many that the world after Covid-19 will be different.  The question is:  Different in what way?  Will it be better or worse?

Elites are working to make it better for them, and worse for the rest of us.  About that the evidence is clear.  The Big Boys are being bailed out and their debts covered.  Everyone else, except those already marginalized and without a recent work record and fixed address, got a month’s rent and extended unemployment benefits.  

Big Pharma sees massive profits in the virus, Government sees more power to control

But the disparity in economic benefits is only a part of it.  Powerful vested interests, such as Bill Gates and Big Pharma, are determined to vaccinate us all, and to control our movements with an internal passport called “vaccinated, health cleared” or other words to that effect.  New tracking procedures and technologies are to be put in operation reminiscent of the “mark of the beast” to police the access of varous categories of people to various areas and benefits.  

Experts point out that just as we cannot be vaccinated against the common cold, except perhaps for the past year’s version we cannot be vaccinated against Covid-19 and other mutating viruses, but the experts are already being shouted down. No expert opinion is to be permitted to stand in the way of vaccination profits.  

Neither will nutrition and vitamin advocates be allowed to get in the way.  Bill Sardi predicts that orchestrated scares generated by mandatory recalls of “toxic” vitamins await us. Big Pharma is determined to acquire control over vitamins and homeopathic remedies, and the FDA is Big Pharma’s likely pawn.

Vaccination has been elevated above cure, as Big Pharma and its shills such as CNN shout down the positive experience doctors report of successful treatments with Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin, and the effectiveness of Vitamin C, Vitamin D3, and Zinc in strengthening the ability of immune systems to fight off the virus.  Big Pharma-influenced medical orthodoxy cannot get out of the box it has been put into.  When new thinking and experimentation are needed, those capable of thought are hasseled and even blocked by FDA regulations and dogmatism.

The permanent government and its security agencies see in the population’s fear and confusion opportunities to put into place more tyrannical measures, more set-asides of Constitutional Rights, more impairments on free speech.  The ability of freedom to resist oppression is ever diminished.

Various descriptions of the expected dystopia are offered on the Internet.  But it does not have to turn out this way.  It is up to us. Demoralized and fearful, we can accept more government power as we did after 9/11.  Instead, we can collectively recognize the massive failure everywhere of Western leadership and construct a more liveable and sustainable society. 

The failure of leadership is an opportunity for real change

CNN, the New York Times, and the rest of the controlled media tell us every day that President Trump represents the failure of leadership.  But the failure of leadership goes beyond all the leaders of the last 30 years and resides in the system itself.  Global, “self-regulating,” greed-driven, financialized, soulless capitalism cannot unite people into a sustainable community. 

The failure of leadership resides in the long-term failure of leadership that made Western societies vulnerable by moving high-productivity, high-valued jobs offshore in order to raise corporate profits at the expense of domestic consumer incomes.  It means the movement offshore of the ability to produce medicines, N95 masks, and other needed resources for national survival.  It means dependency on foreign powers.  It means the inability to function without massive imports.  However you look at it, globalism is a death sentence.  Its only advantage is to the rich, and the advantage comes to them in the form of cheap labor that swells their profits while it shrinks domestic incomes and the purchasing power of the population.

Without incomes to drive the economy, the elites provided loans and expanded credit in order to provide spending power based in personal debt to absorb the offshored production brought home to sell in American markets. The cost of college education soared as its quality declined.  Education subsidies were cut and student debt substituted in its place.  Inflation was understated in order to deny Social Security pensioners cost-of-living increases. Medicare payments to health care providers were squeezed down.  The social safety net was ripped again and again. More and more people fell out, and homeless populations grew providing fertile breeding grounds for Covid-19.

The income and wealth distribution in the US went from fair to extremely unequal in a short time as the rich profited from the Federal Reserve pumping trillions of dollars into the prices of financial assets and from corporations buying back their own stock, thus decapitalizing the corporation while taking the company into debt, all for the temporary benefit of higher bonuses for executives and more capital gains for shareholders.  The elites killed the economy for short-run benefits to themselves.

These destructive polices were the work of greed-driven short-term thinkers—people whose only vision was “I want even more.”  And it is these unworthy people, not their victims, that Uncle Sam is now rescuing.  The massive unpayable debt bubble that already overhung the economy is being blown larger.  The Federal Reserve and the US Treasury are in the process of destroying the US dollar in futile efforts to save the super-rich from their own greed-driven misbehavior.

In place of this insane approach to the economic crisis, there is a sane approach.  The bailed out corporations and banks are in effect being purchased by the government.  Therefore, they should be treated as the nationalized corporations that they are.  Once nationalized, the government, unlike the corporations, can create the money to pay the salaries and health premiums. The predicted 30 or 40 percent unemployment can be avoided.  It is better to pay salaries than to pay unemployment benefits.  The psychological difference alone is worth a vast amount.

The inability of the high-cost American private health care system to cope with the present medical crisis is apparent.  A profit-driven health care system is the highest cost system to have. 

Profit is built in at every level, which raises costs to levels that private insurance and Medicare refuse to reimburse.  The result is shrinkage, not expansion of the system.  Just look, for example, at the number of hospitals, especially in rural areas, that have recently closed.  

Moreover, the coverage of a private system—and Medicare itself—has massive gaps.  The resistance to a nationalized health service is ridiculous, especially as a nationalized service can coexist with a privatized one.  Two are clearly better than one.

Nationalization has numerous benefits.  It permits the large unwieldly enterprises, created, for example, by the mergers of giant banks like Chase Manhattan and J.P. Morgan, to be broken up and to reestablish the separation of commercial from investment banking.  The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the suspension of enforcement of the anti-trust laws were ignorant policymaking at its worse. Nationalization permits the government to bring home the offshored production of global US corporations and to put the US workforce back to work in middle class jobs.  It is win-win for the American people.

Once the giant monopoly corporations are broken up, they can be privatized and returned to private ownership on a fair value basis, not on the giveaway basis of a pennies on the dollar sale. The money the government receives from their sale can be used to retire government debt.  

For individuals, the life- and economy-suffocating heavy debts should be written down to levels that can be serviced by their incomes.  Michael Hudson and I proposed a “debt jubilee” as a solution:     Others have taken up our call:  https://truthout.org/articles/1200-only-goes-so-far-its-time-to-abolish-debt/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=98cb6aac-8ef8-4e0e-b80e-24a1d1f92ef6 

Currently the Federal Reserve is socializing debt without writing it down.  This is nonsensical as it bails out debt by expanding it.  

In the US there is so much dogmatic prejudice against anything that has a tint of socialism, even as a temporary expedient measure, that thought and sensible action face strong barriers.  If we cannot overcome these barriers, we are destined for far more difficult times.

Can community be restored or will nationality degenerate into the clans and tribalism of Identity Politics?

The greatest challenge we face is to restore the concept of community.  There was a time when  the United States was a community, a unique one as it consisted of a multitude of ethnicities. As each wave of ethnic immigrants arrived, they passed a test on the Constitution, learned the national language, and became assimilated into the American community.  

This community has been destroyed by a variety of forces, the latest being Identity Politics.  Identity Politics prohibits community by breaking down the population into mutually hostile groups by gender, sexual preference, race, and whatever classification can be invented or imagined.  The result is a Tower of Babel.  A Tower of Babel is not a community.  

 

Perhaps the challenge from Covid-19 will force us to come together again in order to prevail over the virus, which in mutated versions might be with us forever.  A coming together would be helped by an economic bailout perceived as fair rather than as the one-sided approach that has been taken. A debt jubilee provides the necessary fairness.  

The elites by thinking only of their interests are in the way of the opportunity that crisis provides to bring people together.  If we can’t be brought back together, we can forget about unity beyond the boundaries of our own victim or identity group.  In place of community, we will be organized in clans of seperate identities.  The absence of unity at home will make us a sitting duck for enemies abroad.  

We know what the Dystopian Wish List is.  Can we come together with an anti-dystopian wish list as a mutually supportive community or have the elites succeeded in atomizing us into disparate tribal hate groups?  

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UN Ceasefire Defines War As a Non-Essential Activity

April 11th, 2020 by Medea Benjamin

At least 70 countries have signed on to the March 23 call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a worldwide ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like non-essential business and spectator sports, war is a luxury that the Secretary General says we must manage without for a while. After U.S. leaders have told Americans for years that war is a necessary evil or even a solution to many of our problems, Mr. Guterres is reminding us that war is really the most non-essential evil and an indulgence that the world cannot afford—especially during a pandemic.

The UN Secretary General and the European Union have also both called for a suspension of the economic warfare that the U.S. wages against other countries through unilateral coercive sanctions. Countries under unilateral U.S. sanctions include Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe.

In his update on April 3rd, Guterres showed that he was taking his ceasefire call seriously, insisting on actual ceasefires, not just feel-good declarations. “…there is a huge distance between declarations and deeds,” Guterres said. His original plea to “put armed conflict on lockdown” explicitly called on warring parties everywhere to “silence the guns, stop the artillery, end the airstrikes,” not just to say that they would like to, or that they’ll consider it if their enemies do it first.

But 23 of the original 53 countries that signed on to the UN’s ceasefire declaration still have armed forces in Afghanistan as part of the NATO coalition fighting the Taliban. Have all 23 countries ceased firing now? To put some meat on the bones of the UN initiative, countries that are serious about this commitment should tell the world exactly what they are doing to live up to it.

In Afghanistan, peace negotiations between the U.S., the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Taliban have been going on for two years. But the talks have not stopped the U.S. from bombing Afghanistan more than at any other time since the U.S. invasion in 2001. The U.S. has dropped at least 15,560 bombs and missiles on Afghanistan since January 2018, with predictable increases in already horrific levels of Afghan casualties.

There was no reduction in U.S. bombing in January or February 2020, and Mr. Guterres said in his April 3rd update that fighting in Afghanistan had only increased in March, despite the February 29th peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban.

Then, on April 8th, Taliban negotiators walked out of talks with the Afghan government over disagreements about the mutual prisoner release called for in the U.S.-Afghan agreement. So it remains to be seen whether either the peace agreement or Mr. Guterres’ call for a ceasefire will lead to a real suspension of U.S. airstrikes and other fighting in Afghanistan. Actual ceasefires by the 23 members of the NATO coalition who have rhetorically signed on to the UN ceasefire would be a big help.

The diplomatic response to Mr. Guterres’s ceasefire declaration from the United States, the world’s most prolific aggressor, has mainly been to ignore it. The U.S. National Security Council (NSC) did retweet a tweet from Mr. Guterres about the ceasefire, adding, “The United States hopes that all parties in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere will heed the call of @antonioguterres. Now is the time for peace and cooperation.”

But the NSC tweet did not say that the U.S. would take part in the ceasefire, essentially deflecting the UN’s call to all the other warring parties. The NSC made no reference to the UN or to Mr. Guterres position as UN Secretary General, as if he launched his initiative just as a well-meaning private individual instead of the head of the world’s foremost diplomatic body. Meanwhile, neither the State Department nor the Pentagon have made any public response to the UN’s ceasefire initiative.

So, unsurprisingly, the UN is making more progress with ceasefires in countries where the U.S. is not one of the leading combatants. The Saudi-led coalition attacking Yemen has announced a unilateral two week ceasefire beginning on April 9th to set the stage for comprehensive peace talks. Both sides have publicly supported the UN ceasefire call, but the Houthi government in Yemen will not agree to a ceasefire until the Saudis actually halt their attacks on Yemen.

If the UN ceasefire takes hold in Yemen, it will prevent the pandemic from compounding a war and humanitarian crisis that have already killed hundreds of thousands of people. But how will the U.S. government react to peace moves in Yemen that threaten the U.S.’s most lucrative market for foreign arms sales in Saudi Arabia?

In Syria, the 103 civilians reported killed in March were the lowest monthly death toll in many years, as a ceasefire negotiated between Russia and Turkey in Idlib appears to be holding. Geir Pedersen, the UN’s special envoy in Syria, is trying to expand this to a nationwide ceasefire between all the warring parties, including the United States.

In Libya, both the main warring parties, the UN-recognized government in Tripoli and the forces of rebel general Khalifa Haftar, publicly welcomed the UN’s call for a ceasefire, but the fighting only worsened in March.

In the Philippines, the government of Rodrigo Duterte and the Maoist New People’s Army, which is the armed wing of the Philippines Communist Party, have agreed to a ceasefire in their 50-year-old civil war. In another 50-year civil war, Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) has responded to the UN’s ceasefire call with a unilateral ceasefire for the month of April, which it said it hopes can lead to lasting peace talks with the government.

In Cameroon, where minority English-speaking separatists have been fighting for 3 years to form an independent state called Ambazonia, one rebel group, Socadef, has declared a two-week ceasefire, but neither the larger Ambazonia Defense Force (ADF) rebel group nor the government have joined the ceasefire yet.

The UN is working hard to persuade people and governments everywhere to take a break from war, humanity’s most non-essential and deadly activity. But if we can give up war during a pandemic, why can’t we just give it up altogether? In which devastated country would you like the U.S. to start fighting and killing again when the pandemic is over? Afghanistan? Yemen? Somalia? Or would you prefer a brand new U.S. war against Iran, Venezuela or Ambazonia?

We think we have a better idea. Let’s insist that the U.S. government call off its airstrikes, artillery and night raids in Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and West Africa, and support ceasefires in Yemen, Libya and around the world. Then, when the pandemic is over, let’s insist that the U.S. honor the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force, which wise American leaders drafted and signed in 1945, and start living at peace with all our neighbors around the world. The U.S. has not tried that in a very long time, but maybe it’s an idea whose time has finally come.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, is the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK, and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.  

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It’s all about the lever of balance.  Laws made for public protection, within which public health features prominently, provide grounds for derogation authorities can exploit.  Like plasticine, the scope of power during times of an emergency extends.  But at what point does a state of public health become a police state?  In time, we may find these to be not only indistinguishable but synonymous; the body will be the site where liberties are subordinate to regulation, movement, medical testing, and directives made in the name of health. 

Across countries, the “lockdown” as a term has come to keep company with “social distancing”, now retouched as “physical distancing”; “self-isolation” along with a host of numbing words such as “unprecedented” and “rapidly evolving”.  Such lockdowns naturally vary in terms of how the coronavirus will be dealt with.

In New Zealand, the focus of the lockdown has been on suppression and elimination.  Thoughts of mitigating COVID-19 have been cast aside.  On March 23, the country was openly committed to the elimination strategy.  A piece in the New Zealand Medical Journal authored by the country’s notable epidemiologists in justifying the approach, insisted on a departure from the management strategies of old.  Mitigation had been used in Europe, North America and Australia.  Suppression, resulting in flattening the curve of infection, had also been adopted. But these did not adequately appreciate the nature of COVID-19, which was “not pandemic influenza.”  It had a longer incubation period (5-6 days) relative to influenza (1-3 days). 

Rather than increasing the measures in progressive response to the spread of the virus, the focus would be on imposing firm measures from the start, including border controls, case isolation and quarantine. Mass community measures might be needed to stop community transmission: physical distancing, internal travel restrictions, mass quarantining.  While intrusive, the authors extol the virtues of a hard approach from the outset: “if started early it will result in fewer cases of illness and death.  If successful it also offers a clear exit path with a careful return to regular activities with resulting social and economic benefits for New Zealand.”

On March 23, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delivered a statement warning New Zealanders that they had 48 hours to get their affairs in order.  “Right now we have a window of opportunity to break the chain of community transmission – to contain the virus – to stop it multiplying and to protect New Zealanders from the worst.”  By March 25, a state of emergency had been declared, with “level 4” lockdown measures closing schools, non-essential workplaces, banning social gatherings and imposing travel restrictions.  Two 14-day incubation cycles have been factored into it.

Tributes from the public health sector followed.  Professor Michael Baker of the University of Otago, a co-author on the NZMJ piece justifying the elimination method, gave his assessment of the slowdown of cases: “a triumph of science and leadership”.  The prime minister “approached this decisively and unequivocally and faced the threat.”

A slew of items are now in circulation glowing for the approach taken by the Ardern government.  New Zealand, goes the line, is on to something, though care should be taken from which source they come.  The Guardian, for instance, ran an article of congratulation for the elimination formula, but you only had to realise the authors: Baker and his colleague Nick Wilson. Unsurprisingly, it is effusive:

“New Zealand now appears to be the only ‘western’ nation following an articulated elimination strategy with the goal of completely ending transmission of COVID-19 within its borders.  The strategy appears to be working, with new case numbers falling.”

The Washington Post was similarly brimming with admiration.  “New Zealand isn’t just flattening the curve.  It’s quashing it.”  Qualifications are, however, forthcoming.  “In New Zealand’s case, being a small island nation makes it easy to shut borders.  It also helps that the country often feels like a village where everyone knows everyone else, so messages can travel quickly.”

Shifting away from the pure health dimensions of the response, and a less praiseworthy image emerges.  The legal cognoscenti have been lukewarm, albeit admitting that emergency measures are necessary.  The police, for instance, have discretionary powers unseen since the 1951 waterfront strike. The Health Act 1956 has been used to deem COVID-19 a “quarantinable disease”, thereby giving “medical officers of health” vast powers, backed by the police use of reasonable measures, to impose conditions of isolation, quarantine or disinfection.

Barrister and journalist Catriona MacLennan, in an irate open letter to the New Zealand Police, wrote of how it was “hard to get our heads around the extent of these [emergency] powers.  They are not something most New Zealanders have ever imagined.”  There was, for instance, no legal obligation for any New Zealand citizen to have letters from their employers or work identity cards.  The regulations on when people could or could not leave their homes needed to be standardised.  “Contradictory messages and over-the top enforcement will rapidly erode public goodwill and result in increasing failure to comply.”

This has seen various altercations.  One featured police berating former broadcaster Damian Christie for delivering video equipment to a client’s food producing business as a needless act and in breach of the lockdown.  Armed with a letter showing otherwise, and outlining that the video gear would be used to share information to employees on COVID-19, the response to Christie was absolute: He could only leave the house for medical necessaries.

This distant island has become a fledged police state, perhaps not quite fully but well on the way.  Some of this has to with confusion between the State of National Emergency as distinct from the lockdown itself.  These have been blended into an authoritarian mix.  Police may, without warrant, enter premises and rummage through possessions.  Indefinite detention may be imposed on those who have no good reason to leave their home, though this is very much down to a loose reading of power.

Another by-product of these measures is a willingness to turn citizens into accessories of the state, small time agents and spy enthusiasts.  They are the tittle-tattles, or, to use the vernacular, dobbers, the do-good brigade enlisted in public health’s calling.  It first came in the form of an online email address run by the Ministry of Health regarding breaches of self-isolation and mass gathering directions.  The emergency police line was then choked by hundreds of the dedicated. 

This saw the establishment of an online site which was swamped with reports within an hour of its activation, crashing it.  (Some 4,200 reports are said to have been lodged, many snarling about joggers and walkers.)  The continued level of interest shown by the users in reporting on their fellow citizens has seen police calls for patience. “If you are having difficulty, please try again later.”  Something to be truly proud of.    

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

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US Doctors and Nurses Becoming Infected with COVID-19

April 11th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

Doctors, nurses, and other medical staff are on the frontlines of combating COVID-19.

What happens if their ranks are infected with the virus?

Who’ll be there in enough numbers to treat patients needing healthcare without them remaining safe on the job?

Perhaps thousands of US doctors and nurses have been infected with COVID-19, most others at risk for lack of enough personal protective equipment (PPE). More on this below.

Last Monday, I spent half a day receiving treatment for a chronic health issue at Illinois’ top rated hospital, one of America’s 10 best, according to US News & World Report.

I was struck by the dedication of the staff to do their jobs effectively and efficiently despite risks to their health from COVID-19 infection.

While everyone I saw wore a mask and surgical gloves, I saw no one wearing an N95 respirator mask that provides the most effective protection from exposure to contaminants other than hazmat attire.

Why? Because the Trump regime isn’t supplying states with PPE from Strategic National Stockpile.

Yet its war department sent around one million surgical masks to Israel for IDF use — while Americans are told to make their own from “quilting fabric or cotton sheets,” according to the CDC, adding:

“T-shirt fabric will work in a pinch.” Instructions to make them aren’t simple for most people, ideally requiring some seamstress skills for a proper fit for protection from contaminants.

When the nation’s healthcare staff and general population lack enough PPE, House Committee on Oversight and Reform chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said the following:

A new HHS document “shows that the federal government has distributed just a fraction of the personal protective equipment and critical medical supplies that our hospitals and medical first responders urgently need,” adding:

States and local communities are “lef(t) to scour the open market for these scarce supplies, and to compete with each other and federal agencies in a chaotic, free-for-all bidding war.”

Trump “failed” to use his Defense Production Act authority to “procure and manage the distribution of critical supplies. He must take action now to address these deficiencies.”

The HHS document shows that “less than 1% of (an estimated) 3.5 billion masks…necessary in the event of a severe pandemic… have been distributed.”

“Only 7,910 ventilators have been distributed from the (national) stockpile (despite) a recent survey of 213 mayors—which did not include New York City, Chicago, or Seattle—identified a total estimated need of 139,000 ventilators.”

Reportedly around 90% of federally stockpiled N95 respirators, surgical and face masks, face shields, gowns, and gloves are depleted — remaining PPE reserved for federal workers.

Why wasn’t the national stockpile replenished with enough PPE for healthcare staff and all Americans when an early 2017 report showed that the Pentagon knew that a novel contagious respiratory disease like COVID-19 could emerge and spread any time?

Why did Trump regime officials fail to prepare what’s happening now?

Why wasn’t FEMA on this issue years ago to be ready to deal with what’s ongoing?

Why is the world’s richest country unprepared when help that only the federal government can properly provide isn’t forthcoming?

Last month, healthcare know-nothing Mike Pence disturbingly said people who’ve been “exposed” to COVID-19 infected individuals can “return to work more quickly…if (show) no symptoms…by wearing a mask for a certain period of time.”

Global health think tank ACCESS Health International president William Haseltine called Trump regime guidance “deadly, deadly advice,” adding:

“This is so bad. If you want to really spread this infection like crazy, that’s what to do. It’s near insanity.”

“No health expert would have ever told them that, unless it’s a Trump sycophant. If you want to kill hundreds and thousands of Americans, he’s found a good way to do it.”

Trump wants the economy reopened as soon as possible because he fears loss of support the longer dismal economic conditions and high unemployment continue.

Polls show support for how he’s handling the crisis is slipping. A new CBS News poll on his job performance found respondent support at 47%, down from 53% two weeks ago.

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll showed 55% of respondents disapprove of Trump’s COVID-19 response, 44% expressing approval, down from 55% in mid-March.

According to a late March Healthline report, increasing numbers of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare staff “are falling ill or being quarantined due to exposure to” COVID-19.

“More and more instances of healthcare workers exposed to the disease appear to be cropping up almost daily.”

On April 3, psychiatrist Jessica Gold reported that fear of COVID-19 infection is affecting the mental health of healthcare staff, explaining:

“I know that their calm surface appearance is the only armor they have left.”

“Underneath it, many health care workers are barely keeping it together.”

“They are anxious and they are afraid. They aren’t sleeping and they find themselves crying more than usual.”

“The overall feeling in my friends, family, and co-workers is one of an impending doom and an existing gloom that is both physically and psychologically palpable.”

Gold stressed that lack of PPE is a major contributor to their emotional angst and fear.

“The risk of infection, especially if it is asymptomatic, instills fear of spreading the virus to their patients and families,” she explained.

Even though fear of possible death is irrational for young healthy healthcare workers, many on the front lines of treating patients for any issues fear it.

“Some health care workers are using words like betrayal and coercion and moral injury to describe this experience,” said Gold, adding:

“They feel betrayed by their employers, the health care system, and the government, all of which were woefully unprepared for a pandemic and then chose to ignore their warnings.”

Some healthcare workers “would rather quit medicine all together” than risk their well-being.

According to the Lancet medical journal, “(f)igures from China’s National Health Commission show that more than 3,300 health-care workers have been infected as of early March” — two dozen deaths reported at end of February.

“In Italy, 20% of responding health-care workers were infected, and some have died.”

“Reports from medical staff describe physical and mental exhaustion, the torment of difficult triage decisions, and the pain of losing patients and colleagues, all in addition to the infection risk.”

Nations with significant numbers of COVID-19 outbreaks are likely affected the same way — notably the US with over 500,000 reported cases and around 19,000 deaths — about 30% of world infections, around 18% of global deaths from the virus.

While it’s unknown how many US healthcare staff are infected with COVID-19, numbers may be thousands.

According to US News & World Report, “(s)tates (and the CDC) aren’t consistently tracking health care workers infected with the coronavirus,” adding:

US reports of infections are “anecdotal.” Yet it’s believed that perhaps “thousands of US medical workers have contracted the virus, with their illnesses ranging from asymptomatic to severe and in some cases fatal.”

US News & World Report contacted 50 state health departments, hearing back from 35.

Ten provided information on how many healthcare staff are infected with COVID-19, “a total of 1,119 across those states.”

If the number represents a small fraction of the national total, there’s potentially significant risk to healthcare professionals and patients they treat for all issues, as well as the general population.

Pennsylvania reported 4.4% of healthcare staff infected with COVID-19, Oklahoma 10.6%, Ohio about 20%, and about one-fourth of Rhode Island medical personnel.

Some states are just beginning to compile infection rate data. New York with over 40% of national COVID-19 outbreaks said information on numbers of infected healthcare workers is “unavailable.”

Numerically it’s highly likely to be largest in the US by far.

Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital, one of the nation’s best, screens medical and other staff on arrival for work, anyone with possible COVID-19 symptoms sent home and told to self-isolate.

If growing numbers of healthcare staff in the US (and elsewhere) become infected with the virus, hospitals and other medical facilities with be hard-pressed to provide proper care to all patients they treat.

It’s why precautionary measures are important to contain the spread of the virus.

Public and personal health matter above all else. The economy can wait.

In the US with virtually unlimited federal resources for militarism, warmaking, and corporate handouts, providing financial help to ordinary Americans at a time of growing millions in need should be prioritized.

Desperate times call for desperate measures to address public health and welfare over all other priorities, including a subsidized living wage for Americans without enough or any income until crisis conditions end.

*

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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.

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Fierce clashes between the Syrian Army and ISIS terrorists erupted near the villages of al-Sukhnah and Wadi al-Waer in the province of Homs on April 9 evening.

According to pro-government sources, the army and local militias backed up by the Russian Aerospace Forces kicked off a wide-scale security operation to crack down on the terrorists hiding in the desert area. Its goal is to put an end to the recently observed increase of actions of the terrorist group against pro-government forces on the western bank of the Euphrates.

Supporters of the so-called ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ immediately claimed that government forces suffered heavy casualties in this operation. They insist that over 20 soldiers were killed. Pro-government sources claim that up to 30 ISIS members were neutralized.

In the coming days, Syrian troops will likely continue developing their anti-ISIS operation along the Sukhna-Deir Ezzor road and in the southern countryside of Mayadeen. ISIS cells infiltrating the government-controlled area from the eastern bank of the Euphrates in eastern Syria and the border area in western Iraq have become a serious security threat recently.

Meanwhile, ISIS announced that it had conducted 29 attacks on government forces across Iraq during the past week. The terrorist group claims that 66 government fighters were killed or injured. These claims remain unconfirmed. After the collapse of ISIS’ self-proclaimed Caliphate in the Middle East, ISIS-affiliated media outlets become used to spreading fake news and dramatically overestimating supposed ‘successes’ of the terrorist group.

The Turkish Army established a new observation post near the village of Jannet Elqora in Syria’s southwestern Idlib. This village is located in a close proximity to the M4 highway, which links the port city of Lattakia with the country’s industrial hub, Aleppo city. Last week, the Turkish military established three similar posts in the towns of Baksariya, al-Z’ainiyah and Furaykah in southwest Idlib.

According to open data, the Turkish military currently has up to 60 ‘observation posts’ across the region of Greater Idlib. Ankara claims that all these positions were established and heavy military equipment were deployed to them in order to put an end to the terrorist threat in the region and observe the ceasefire. However, so far, the only real goal achieve by Turkey has been the increase of security for al-Qaeda terrorists operating in the region.

The US State Department welcomed a new OPCW report accusing the Syrian military of using chemical weapons. According to the new accusations, Syria conducted 3 chemical attacks in the province of Hama in March 2017. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also accused Iran and Russia of conducting a ‘disinformation campaign’ in order to ‘hide’ the usage of chemical weapons by Syrian forces.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the OPCW report “is misleading and contains falsified and fabricated conclusions”, while Russia’s permanent mission to the watchdog described the document as “not trustworthy.”

Since the very start of the conflict, the chemical weapon issue has been deeply polarized and the OPCW’s conclusions on the topic have repeatedly faced a strong criticism from independent experts. Furthermore, recent leaks from the OPCW investigation on the Douma incident demonstrated that the organization is intentionally hiding facts, doctoring investigation results and drawing preplanned conclusions in order to push forward the mainstream agenda designed to demonize the Assad government.

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Jesus of Nazareth. Time for Reflection and Understanding

April 11th, 2020 by Philip A Farruggio

First published on Good Friday 2018

As I write this column it is Good Friday, the most somber day in the Christian religion. This is the day that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. It is a time for reflection and understanding. One need not be devout to recognize that Jesus, according to many various scriptures, was a man who ‘ Spoke truth to power’ throughout his 33 years of earthly life. Regardless of whether one believes that he was God or the son of God, many can ascertain that the many quotes of his were meant to teach and instruct. Writing as a political activist, I will not go into my feelings and beliefs about my own spiritual path at this time. For hundreds of millions on this planet Jesus was a special soul who was as true a role model as one could ever imagine… period!

Among the myriad of great and insightful quotes from his teachings, one sticks out to me, especially during this Easter season, in relation to just how deeply our nation has regressed:  For what shall it profit a man , if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

We have a culture that actually celebrates great wealth, so much so that so many working stiffs continue to elect the super rich to rule us. What better indication than the fact that a billionaire real estate mogul and reality television star is our president?

Trump is only the tip of this dangerous iceberg too. Look at who he and his predecessors chose to help run their governments: Mostly super rich insiders who care not for what that man on the cross was all about! Do you think this one fraction of 1% of our populace understands about the economic dilemmas facing we who work for a living? Worse than that, how about the millions of us who either cannot find viable work or cannot even get up each day to go to work? The cherished safety net has been and will continue to be cut each and every day by these scoundrels. Power and greed are what runs this nation, not empathy and cooperation!

One recalls when we faced that infamous subprime mortgage crisis in 2008-09, caused of course by the greed and selfishness of the banking industry. The Bush/Cheney cabal had recruited Henry Paulson, the just retired CEO of that bankster investment house Goldman Sachs to become Treasury Secretary for we 300 million drones. Henry, in his last year with Goldman, left with a compensation package of .. ready for this… $ 500 million!!Can you imagine how much money that is? If you earn let us say $ 50k a year, it would take you ONE THOUSAND YEARS  to earn that much!! Remember how he stood there, in front of the cameras, with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid from the loyal  Democratic Party and Paulson’s fellow sharks from the Republican Party, giving him comfort. He had this look of such despair on his face as he let all of us know how the deal would be made to ‘ Save our Economy’ by bailing out the banksters… with OUR tax money of course.

Jesus is probably smirking right now up in the heaven that many of us believe in. He knows that those down here who failed to heed his words won’t be able to see him for a long time after they leave this existence. At best the Fat Cats and phony pols will have to spend a great deal of time in Purgatory before they can reach those Pearly Gates! For Mr. Trump: Location, Location, Location!

Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 300 of his work posted on sites like Consortium News, Information Clearing House,  Global Research ,Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected] )

A few weeks ago we reported that, according to the Italian Institute of Health (ISS), only 12% of Italy’s reported Covid19 deaths actually listed Covid19 as the cause of death.

Given that 99% of them had at least one serious co-morbidity (and that 80% of them had two such diseases) this raised serious questions as to the reliability of Italy’s reported statistics.

Prof Walter Ricciardi, advisor to Italy’s health minister, explained this was caused by the “generous” way the Italian government handles death certificates:

The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

Essentially, Italy’s death registration process does not differentiate between those who simply have the virus in their body, and those who are actually killed by it.

Given the amount of fear and panic Italy’s comparatively alarming numbers caused around the world, you would think other nations would be eager to avoid these same mistakes.

Surely all the other countries of the world are employing rigorous standards for delineating who has, and has not, fallen victim to the pandemic, right?

Wrong.

In fact, rather than learning from Italy’s example, other countries are not only repeating these mistakes but going even further.

In Germany, for example, though overall deaths and case-fatality ratio are far lower than Italy’s, their public health agency is still engaging in similar practice.

On March 20th the President of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute confirmed that Germany counts any deceased person who was infected with coronavirus as a Covid19 death, whether or not it actually caused death.

This totally ignores what Dr Sucharit Bhakdi calls the vital distinction between “infection” and “disease”, leading to stories such as this, shared by Dr Hendrik Streeck:

In Heinsberg, for example, a 78-year-old man with previous illnesses died of heart failure, and that was without Sars-2 lung involvement. Since he was infected, he naturally appears in the Covid 19 statistics.

How many “Covid19 deaths” in Germany, fall into this bracket? We don’t know, and will likely never know.

But at least Germany is actually limiting itself to test positive cases.

In the United States, a briefing note from the CDC’s National Vital Statistics Service read as follows [our emphasis]:

It is important to emphasise that Coronavirus Disease 19, or Covid-19, should be reported for all decedents where the disease caused or is presumed to have caused or contributed to death.

“Presumed to have caused”? “Contributed”? That’s incredibly soft language, which could easily lead to over-reporting.

The referenced detailed “guidance” was released April 3rd, and is no better [again, our emphasis]:

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.” In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgement in determining if a COVID–19 infection was likely.

Are careful records being kept to separate “Covid-19” from “presumed Covid-19”? Are the media making sure they respect the distinction in their reporting?

Absolutely not.

Whenever the alleged casualties are referenced we are fed one large all-inclusive number, without context or explanation, which – thanks to lax reporting guidelines – could be entirely false.

Government agencies all across the UK are doing the same thing.

Northern Ireland’s HSC Public Health Agency is releasing weekly surveillance bulletins on the pandemic, in those reports they define a “Covid19 death” as:

individuals who have died within 28 days of first positive result, whether or not COVID-19 was the cause of death

NHS England’s Office of National Statistics releases weekly reports on nation-wide mortality. Its latest report (Week 12 – March 14th-20th)was released on March 31st and made special mention of Covid19, explaining they were going to change the way they report the numbers in future.

The ONS system is predicated on the registration of deaths. Meaning they count, not the number of people who die every week, but the number of deaths registered per week. This, naturally, leads to slight delays in the recording of numbers as the registration process can take a few days.

However, with coronavirus deaths, since its a “national emergency”, they are now including “provisional figures” which will be “included in the dataset in subsequent weeks”. This leaves them wide open to – either accidentally or deliberately – reporting the same deaths twice. Once “provisionally”, and then once “officially” a week later.
That’s just one peculiar policy decision. There are many others.

Up until now, the ONS reported those Covid19 numbers collated by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The DHSC records only those who died in hospital and have tested positive for the coronavirus as Covid19 deaths.

BUT, from now on, the ONS will also include Covid19 deaths “in the community” in their statistics. That “includes those not tested for Covid19”and where suspected Covid19″ [our emphasis] is presumed to be a “contributory factor”.

Here are some screencaps of the relevant sections

The official NHS guidance for doctors filling out death certificates is just as vague [our emphasis]:

if before death the patient had symptoms typical of COVID19 infection, but the test result has not been received, it would be satisfactory to give ‘COVID-19’ as the cause of death, and then share the test result when it becomes available. In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement.

The government is telling doctors it is OK to list “Covid-19” as a cause of death when there is literally no evidence the deceased was infected. That means there are potentially huge numbers of “Covid19 deaths” that were never even tested for the disease.

Further, any possible mistakes will never be noticed or rectified, thanks to recent changes to the law.

Usually, any death attributed to a “notifiable disease” had to be referred to a coroner for a jury hearing.

Under UK law Covid19 is a “notifiable disease”, but the new Coronavirus Bill alters the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, to specifically exempt alleged Covid19 deaths from jury inquests.

Further, according to the office of the Chief Coroner, the Coronavirus Bill means that these deaths don’t have to be referred to a coroner at all, and that medical practitioners can sign off a cause of death for a body they have never even seen:

Any registered medical practitioner can sign an MCCD [Medical Certificate for Cause of Death], even if the deceased was not attended during their last illness and not seen after death, provided that they are able to state the cause of death to the best of their knowledge and belief.

Deaths “in the community” can be listed as Covid19 deaths without being tested for the disease, or even seen by a doctor at all. These deaths will not necessarily be referred to a coroner, and certainly not heard by a jury.

By enacting this legislation the UK government has not only made false reporting of Covid19 deaths more likely, they actively removed the safeguards designed to correct it. Recording accurate fatality numbers in this situation is borderline impossible.

This is, at best, totally irresponsible and at worst incredibly sinister.

Now, before you roll your eyes at the whacky alternate media and their crazy paranoia, the idea deaths are being over-estimated is not a fringe concept or a “conspiracy theory”. It is actually addressed in the mainstream frequently, people just seem to not hear it, drowned out as it is by the fear-inducing headlines.

Dr John Lee, a professor of pathology and retired consulting pathologist with the NHS, wrote in a column for the Spectator:

WHY COVID-19 DEATHS ARE A SUBSTANTIAL OVER-ESTIMATE

Many UK health spokespersons have been careful to repeatedly say that the numbers quoted in the UK indicate death with the virus, not death due tothe virus – this matters.
[…]
This nuance is crucial ­– not just in understanding the disease, but for understanding the burden it might place on the health service in coming days. Unfortunately, nuance tends to be lost in the numbers quoted from the database being used to track Covid-19
[…]
This data is not standardised and so probably not comparable, yet this important caveat is seldom expressed by the (many) graphs we see. It risks exaggerating the quality of data that we have.

In fact, Dr Lee goes out of his way to emphasise:

The distinction between dying ‘with’ Covid-19 and dying ‘due to’ Covid-19 is not just splitting hairs.

The BBC dealt with the same issue in an article on April 1st [again, emphasis ours]:

The death figures being reported daily are hospital cases where a person dies with the coronavirus infection in their body – because it is a notifiable disease cases have to be reported.

But what the figures do not tell us is to what extent the virus is causing the death.

It could be the major cause, a contributory factor or simply present when they are dying of something else.

These absurd rules contributed to this recent example, referenced in the BBC article, but not widely reported at the time:

An 18-year-old in Coventry tested positive for coronavirus the day before he died and was reported as its youngest victim at the time. But the hospital subsequently released a statement saying his death had been due to a separate “significant” health condition and not connected to the virus.

This story is completely true. The boy was widely reported as the UK’s “youngest coronavirus victim” on March 24th, before the hospital issued a statement saying:

[The hospital] had tested for COVID-19 on the day before he died, but this was not linked to his reason for dying.

Despite the hospital correcting the press, the case was still being reported in the tabloids a week later on March 31st.

However, the important detail here is being lost: Going by the current NHS rules, despite the hospital officially saying it was not his cause of death, this boy is still part of the official coronavirus fatality statistics.

How many more people fit that profile? We will never know.

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Italy, Germany, the United States, Northern Ireland and England.

That’s five different governments, across four countries, all essentially saying it’s OK to just assume a patient died of Covid19, and then add that to the official statistics.

Is that really responsible practice during a potential pandemic?

Are any other countries doing the same?

To what extent can we trust any official death statistics at all, at this point?

As Dr Lee points out, Covid19 is not a disease that presents with a unique – or even rare – collection of symptoms. The range of severity and type of presentation is in line with literally dozens of extremely common respiratory infections.

You cannot see “fever” and “cough” and then diagnose “probable covid19” with even the slightest chance of accuracy.

This has become one of those nuggets of information we all know by heart, but between 290000 and 650000 people die of flu, or “flu like illness”, every year. If just 10% of those cases are incorrectly assumed to be “probable” coronavirus infections, then the fatality numbers are totally useless.

At a time when good, reliable information is key to saving lives and preventing mass-panic, global governments are pursuing policies which make it near-impossible to collect that data, whilst stoking public fear.

Due to these policies, the simple fact is we have no reliable way of knowing how many people have died from this coronavirus. We have no hard data at all. And governments and international organisations are going out of their way to keep it that way.

It’s time we started asking why.

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Trump Regime Escalates War on China by Other Means

April 10th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

China is aggressively targeted by Washington because of its growing political, economic and military power on the world stage.

Pompeo falsely accused its ruling authorities of “repression…unfair competition…predatory economic practices, (and) a more aggressive military posture (sic).”

All of the above explain how the US operates, its agenda defined by its war on humanity at home and abroad — COVID-19 used as a pretext to pursue it.

Enactment of the US Secure and Trusted Communications Act last month was the latest anti-China shoe to drop.

It requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish a $1 billion fund to help small telecom firms remove existing Chinese equipment the Trump regime and Congress consider a threat to US security — despite none posed, no evidence suggesting it.

The measure prohibits using US subsidies to buy network communications equipment from Huawei and other Chinese tech companies.

A Justice Department statement said various “Executive Branch agencies unanimously recommended that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoke and terminate China Telecom’s authorizations to provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States,” falsely adding:

The company’s operations in the US potentially lets the firm “engage in malicious cyber activity enabling economic espionage and disruption and misrouting of US communications.”

A joint disinformation statement by House Energy and Commerce Committee co-sponsors said the following:

“Securing our networks from malicious foreign interference is critical to America’s wireless future, especially as some communications providers rely on equipment from companies like Huawei that pose an immense threat to America’s national and economic security (sic).”

The measure has nothing to do with “ensuring the integrity of America’s telecommunications systems.”

It’s all about China bashing, the latest step to weaken the country economically and technologically.

It aims to ban use of products by Chinese tech giants Huawei, ZTE, and other high-tech firms from the US on the phony pretext of national security concerns.

Last year, the US Commerce Department’s so-called “entity list” effectively banned Huawei and scores of other Chinese tech companies from the US market and supply chain.

They include enterprises  involved in producing aviation related products, semiconductors, engineering, as well as other high-tech products and components.

Falsely claiming these enterprises act “contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States” is cover for wanting corporate America to have a leg up on Chinese competition — especially related to the rollout of 5G technology, Huawei leading the race globally.

At stake are trillions of dollars of economic value, why Huawei and other Chinese tech firms are targeted by Washington.

Blacklisted companies are prohibited from purchasing US technology without Washington’s permission, Huawei and its 70 affiliate companies notably targeted.

According to Competitive Carriers Association director Steven Barry, the new law “essentially attempt(s) to rebuild the airplane in mid-flight” by requiring US users of Chinese telecom equipment to remove and replace it while attempting to maintain uninterrupted operations.

On Monday, the US  Semiconductor Industry Association, National Foreign Trade Council, and seven other US industry groups wrote Trump regime Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, saying:

Proposed US changes “result in significant impacts to the semiconductor industry, its global supply chain, and the broader technology sector,” adding:

“Semiconductors drive the functionality in advanced medical equipment used by health professionals to treat the public” and enable telework.

SEMI president Ajit Manocha wrote Trump, saying proposed anti-China changes will disrupt over $20 billion in US industry business annually, adding:

New rules will “serve as a disincentive for further investments and innovation in the US and lead to the design-out of US technology and components.”

They’ll also disrupt supply chains that are “critical to fighting” COVID-19.

New rules aren’t finalized. Industry pushback may not be enough to halt the Trump regime from fully enforcing them along with more of the same to come.

A Final Comment

COVID-19 is a global issue, falsely called the “Wuhan virus” by Trump and other regime officials. Most likely it originated in the US, not China.

On April 7, UK-based Nature magazine apologized for associating COVID-19 with China, saying:

“That we did so was an error on our part, for which we take responsibility and apologize,” adding:

“(W)hen (a viral) outbreak happens, everyone is at risk, regardless of who they are or where they are from.”

“(A)ssociat(ing) a virus and the disease it causes with a specific place is irresponsible and needs to stop.”

Since early COVID-19 outbreaks, “people of Asian descent around the world have been subjected to racist attacks, with untold human costs” — Chinese nationals mostly affected.

“(W)e must all do everything we can to avoid and reduce stigma; not associate COVID-19 with particular groups of people or places; and emphasize that viruses do not discriminate — we are all at risk.”

“Coronavirus stigma must stop — now.”

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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Trump to Reopen US Economy in May?

April 10th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

Social distancing, sheltering in place, and lockdowns are unprecedented and painful for everyone.

The unemployed are harmed most, out of work and unable to freely seek new sources of income needed for essentials to life and welfare.

It’s unclear how long current crisis conditions may last or how many people will be harmed by COVID-19.

Older people with pre-existing conditions and weakened immune systems from age and overall poor health affected further by a cocktail of prescription drugs with harmful side effects are most vulnerable.

When prescribed and used only as needed, drugs are necessary. Time and again they’re overused, risking more harm than good.

Some drugs should never be taken in combination with others. Drug overdoses together with others are a leading cause of death. Opioids are especially dangerous. Yet they’re widely prescribed and overused.

According to Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, around two-thirds of Americans use prescription drugs.

Nearly everyone with diabetes uses them and around 90% of people with arthritis.

Three-fourths of Americans aged-50 or older use them, over 90% of the US population over age-80.

The average number of prescription drugs used in the US increases with age.

Individuals with one or more chronic illnesses, especially if older, are most vulnerable to become a COVID-19 fatality.

If younger otherwise healthy individuals are infected with the virus, their full recovery prospects are overwhelmingly positive.

Older individuals infected by the virus with serious pre-existing conditions like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and/or respiratory issues who perished may have succumbed because of one or more of these issues, not COVID-19.

Yet its rapid spread in the US and elsewhere is a great cause for concern. Extra precautions should be taken to be safe and not sorry.

Trump’s top priorities are getting reelected and serving privileged interests in the country exclusively, no matter the cost to human health and welfare.

According to the Washington Post and other media, Trump aims to reopen most of the economy by May 1, “according to (unnamed) people familiar with the discussions,” WaPo noted.

On Thursday, Trump said “(h)opefully, we’re going to be opening up — you could call it opening — very, very, very, very soon, I hope.”

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin told CNBC the same thing.

Most states are in lockdown. Governors may be reluctant to ease strict measures until comfortable that outbreaks ceased or at least are overwhelmingly under control.

Reopening the economy too soon would risk a new wave of infections, deaths, and public angst.

As long as most people are fearful of contagion, they’ll likely be reluctant to resume normal activities even if eager to go back to work.

A second White House task force is being formed to decide on how the economy will be reopened.

A former unnamed Trump regime official criticized “too many cooks in the (White House) kitchen” without clear leadership and direction in dealing with the health and economic crisis.

Trump admitted that it’s up to state officials to decide when the coast is clear in their parts of the country to begin resuming normal activities.

Governor Cuomo and health officials in hard-hit New York City and state may be reluctant to jump the gun too soon.

“We’ve underestimated the virus from the beginning,” Cuomo said. NY is in lockdown until April 29. Easing or lifting it entirely will depend on whether outbreaks are contained.

This week, updated COVID-19 CDC guidelines were issued for “critical infrastructure” employees — focusing on precautionary measures over current lockdown restrictions “to ensure continuity of essential functions.”

They call for continuation of social distancing, mask wearing, temperature checks, along with cleaning and disinfecting equipment, workplaces and common areas regularly.

Anyone feeling ill should be sent home immediately. Anyone in close contact with an ill employee should be considered exposed and quarantined.

Reopening the economy too soon is high-risk. COVID-19 is highly contagious.

Social distancing and other restrictions appear to be flattening the outbreak curve in various states which is good news.

Boston’s Mass General Emergency Medicine Department chair Dr. Paul Biddinger cautioned that evidence of a flattened peak doesn’t mean that crisis is ending.

“There are many, many more weeks of hard work ahead of us,” he stressed.

According to US News & World Report’s ranking of America’s best hospitals, Boston’s Mass General is second best in the nation after Rochester, MN’s Mayo Clinic.

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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.

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Information Warfare Behind Chloroquine

April 10th, 2020 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

As the new coronavirus pandemic advances around the world, several side questions are raised. Many controversies have been discussed around the treatment of COVID-19, with countless speculations about the efficiency of experimental methods, and defenders and opponents of the application of these methods are emerging everywhere. One clear examples of what we are talking about here is the discussion around the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of people infected by the virus. With results that are still not very accurate, the medicines have been the target of a wide variety of opinions: on the one hand, some support them fanatically due to the fact that they have already shown good results in the treatment of some patients, on the other hand, some reject them completely because they present several side effects. In the midst of this clash, several relevant decisions are made in several countries and on the international stage.

Chloroquine is a drug traditionally used in the treatment of malaria, which is why it is considered an essential drug and of necessary availability by the World Health Organization. Similar in structure, hydroxychloroquine is a drug commonly used in the treatment of chloroquine-sensitive malaria cases, as well as in cases of rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Both drugs have only recently started to be tested in the treatment of COVID-19, as part of several applied scientific research programs aimed at tackling the global pandemic. To date, only a few studies with chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been carried out, and research has been effective mainly in France and China, most of them inconclusive.

In fact, in some of the cases of application of these experimental methods, the results were positive, indicating that the drugs, if properly analyzed and developed, can really indicate improvements for the patients most affected by the disease. In general, the cases with the best results in the application were precisely the most severe, with patients admitted to intensive care units, not being generally experienced in patients with a less advanced state of the disease. The reasons for this are simple: at the same time that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine can – apparently – improve the situation of critically ill patients, they can be a real poison for cases of less aggressive disease, taking into account mainly its side effects, which range from diarrhea, pain and nausea to severe convulsions and significant changes in mental status. In other words, the effects of the wrong or unnecessary application of these drugs can be harmful, especially for a disease like COVID-19, which is, in most cases, totally or partially asymptomatic.

In general, the scientificity of the experiments with both drugs is being neglected in favor of purely political or economic discourses.

The commitment to the truth about the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine is being replaced by the commitment to diverse interests behind the official pronouncements of States and international organizations. In Brazil, treatment with chloroquine was received by the government of Jair Bolsonaro as a “magic formula” against COVID-19. Worse still, rumors were spread that the medicine would also act preventively – contrary to all scientific evidence – which made thousands of people go to pharmacies to look for the drug and take it unnecessarily, many of them being hospitalized because of this. Similarly, in the U.S., President Donald Trump contradicted the recommendations of several experts and issued statements defending the use of chloroquine as a cure for the new coronavirus, which resulted in a huge demand and depleted stocks of this drug in American pharmacies. As a consequence, several cases of hospitalizations due to inappropriate use of the drug have already been recorded, with at least one confirmed death, in the state of Arizona. The US and Brazil have already started international negotiations with India to trade chloroquine raw material.

On the other hand, opinions against the use of chloroquine are also gaining strength in different parts of the world. France imposed extremely restrictive protocols on the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19. In early April, the European Medicines Agency, a member network of the EU, said that both drugs should only be used under medical prescription, warning about the serious side effects that can result from their misuse. Even in Brazil, opinions are not homogeneous about the use: contrary to the president’s speech, the National Health Surveillance Agency vetoed the use of medicines due to little scientific support. In China, a research by the University of Zheijang found that the use of chloroquine is less efficient than the most basic health care and hygiene measures. Comparing patients who received treatment with chloroquine and patients who did not, the researchers found no differences in their final result, concluding that the method is irrelevant.

Finally, what can we conclude from all this? The most realistic conclusion we can reach by analyzing these data is that the doubts and different discourses around the treatment with chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19 are precisely due to the immaturity of scientific research with these treatments. The tests carried out so far are absolutely inconclusive precisely because they have been few and relatively shallow. So what is the reason for the collective hysteria surrounding these drugs? The answer is simple: we are facing the Information War.

With the country devastated by the pandemic in an election year, chloroquine’s speech as a magic formula against coronavirus fits perfectly with Donald Trump’s plans. In Brazil, the situation of Jair Bolsonaro is not different: politically unstable, unpopular and with an exponential growth of the pandemic in the country, the “best” thing to do is to spread rumors about a miraculous cure. In Europe, divergent opinions about treatment are due to the very European political nature, since there is no longer any interest for the EU to adopt any American discourse early, given the unstable relations between both and the serious situation of the pandemic on the continent. China, which already contained the outbreak of the pandemic and resumed stability, is conducting more complex research on treatment and with greater scientific rigor. The trend in India, which is profiting from exportations to the US and Brazil, is definitely to corroborate the treatment efficiency discourse. Thus, decisions are being made on the international scene based on inaccurate, insecure and unstable information.

In the end, who is really interested in the truth about chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine? Is it the truth about the treatment that will move the global political and economic machine in the midst of the pandemic or simply the official opinions of States and world organizations formed on the basis of strategically manufactured information? Apparently, science is not the interest behind the speeches for and against these drugs. In the era of hybrid and information wars, rumors are worth much more than scientific articles.

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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.

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This article was first published on Global Research on October 30, 2017.

For clarity…

…the “Surgeon General’s Report” on the assassination stated that the first bullet entered the President’s throat below the adams apple, clearly showing that two persons were involved with the first shot being fired from the bridge across the park way in front of the car.

To further substantiate this, POTITO said there was a bullet hole in the wind shield of the President’s car

See original FBI report below

***

TruePundit.com warns that one haunting paragraph unearthed from 3,000 never-before-seen documents will shake Patriots to their core about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Or perhaps worse. Make that haunting three paragraphs.

This is not pretty.

But it is likely President Donald Trump understands what Kennedy comprehended, which now appears to have led to his murder:

The out-of-control shadow government in this country threatens the fabric and the future of the United States.

See for yourself.

As a reminder, here is the position of the alleged shooter explained…

So how do ‘they’ explain this…

From Jan 31st 1964 FBI memo

For clarity…

…the “Surgeon General’s Report” on the assassination stated that the first bullet entered the President’s throat below the adams apple, clearly showing that two persons were involved with the first shot being fired from the bridge across the park way in front of the car.

To further substantiate this, POTITO said there was a bullet hole in the wind shield of the President’s car

Not exactly the narrative that was sold to the world – and certainly not the narrative that J. Edgar Hoover proclaimed must be defended to the world.

Here is Douglas P. Horne, via LewRockwell.com, detailing the photographic evidence of a bullet hole in JFK’s limousine’s windshield “hiding in plain sight.”

Photographic Evidence of Bullet Hole in JFK Limousine Windshield ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’

In 2009, I believed I had discovered new evidence in the JFK assassination never reported by anyone else: convincing photography of the through-and-through bullet hole in the windshield of the JFK limousine that had been reported by six credible witnesses. I revisited that evidence today, and am more convinced than ever that the bullet hole in the limousine windshield is what I am looking at in those images. But the readers of this piece don’t have to take my word for it — you can examine the images yourself, and make up your own minds. The evidence is contained in one of the banned, suppressed episodes of Nigel Turner’s The Men Who Killed Kennedy — episode 7 in the series, called “The Smoking Guns,” which was aired in 2003, and then removed from circulation by The History Channel in response to intense political pressure by former LBJ aides Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers.

I’ll tell you about the stunning evidence I have found in that episode at the end of this article, but first we need to set the stage by reviewing the eyewitness testimony about the damage to the windshield observed the day of JFK’s assassination, on Friday, November 22nd, 1963; as well as three days later, on Monday, November 25th, 1963.

Introduction

Before I reveal the details about the “new” photographic evidence I am talking about here, let’s review the Big Picture, the “evidentiary landscape” on this issue (see pages 1439-1450 of Volume V of my book, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, for full details):

(1) Dallas motorcycle patrolmen Stavis Ellis and H. R. Freeman both observed a penetrating bullet hole in the limousine windshield at Parkland Hospital. Ellis told interviewer Gil Toff in 1971: “There was a hole in the left front windshield…You could put a pencil through it…you could take a regular standard writing pencil…and stick [it] through there.” Freeman corroborated this, saying: “[I was] right beside it. I could of [sic] touched it…it was a bullet hole. You could tell what it was.” [David Lifton published these quotations in his 1980 book, Best Evidence.]

(2) St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Richard Dudman wrote an article published in The New Republic on December 21, 1963, in which he stated: “A few of us noted the hole in the windshield when the limousine was standing at the emergency entrance after the President had been carried inside. I could not approach close enough to see which side was the cup-shaped spot which indicates a bullet had pierced the glass from the opposite side.”

(3) Second year medical student Evalea Glanges, enrolled at Southwestern Medical University in Dallas, right next door to Parkland Hospital, told attorney Doug Weldon in 1999: “It was a real clean hole.” In a videotaped interview aired in the suppressed episode 7 of Nigel Turner’s The Men Who Killed Kennedy, titled “The Smoking Guns,” she said: “…it was very clear, it was a through-and-through bullet hole through the windshield of the car, from the front to the back…it seemed like a high-velocity bullet that had penetrated from front-to-back in that glass pane.” At the time of the interview, Glanges had risen to the position of Chairperson of the Department of Surgery, at John Peter Smith Hospital, in Fort Worth. She had been a firearms expert all her adult life.

(4) Mr. George Whitaker, Sr., a senior manager at the Ford Motor Company’s Rouge Plant in Detroit, Michigan, told attorney (and professor of criminal justice) Doug Weldon in August of 1993, in a tape recorded conversation, that after reporting to work on Monday, November 25th, he discovered the JFK limousine — a unique, one-of-a-kind item that he unequivocally identified — in the Rouge Plant’s B building, with the interior stripped out and in the process of being replaced, and with the windshield removed. He was then contacted by one of the Vice Presidents of the division for which he worked, and directed to report to the glass plant lab, immediately. After knocking on the locked door (which he found most unusual), he was let in by two of his subordinates and discovered that they were in possession of the windshield that had been removed from the JFK limousine. They had been told to use it as a template, and to make a new windshield identical to it in shape — and to then get the new windshield back to the B building for installation in the Presidential limousine that was quickly being rebuilt. Whitaker told Weldon (quoting from the audiotape of the 1993 interview): “And the windshield had a bullet hole in it, coming from the outside through…it was a good, clean bullet hole, right straight through, from the front. And you can tell, when the bullet hits the windshield, like when you hit a rock or something, what happens? The back chips out and the front may just have a pinhole in it…this had a clean round hole in the front and fragmentation coming out the back.” Whitaker told Weldon that he eventually became superintendent of his division and was placed in charge of five plant divisions. He also told Weldon that the original windshield, with the bullet hole in it, had been broken up and scrapped — as ordered — after the new windshield had been made.

When Doug Weldon interviewed Whitaker in August of 1993, his witness insisted on anonymity. Weldon reported on the story without releasing Whitaker’s name in his excellent and comprehensive article titled: “The Kennedy Limousine: Dallas 1963,” which was published in Jim Fetzer’s anthology Murder in Dealey Plaza, in 2000. After Weldon interviewed Whitaker in August of 1993, Mr. Whitaker subsequently — on November 22, 1993 (the 30th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination) — wrote down all he could remember about the events he witnessed involving the Presidential limousine and its windshield. After George Whitaker’s death in 2001, his family released his written testament to Nigel Turner, who with their permission revealed Mr. Whitaker’s name, as well as the text of his “memo for history,” in episode 7 of The Men Who Killed Kennedy, “The Smoking Guns.”

In “The Smoking Guns,” the text of Whitaker’s memo can be read on the screen employing freeze frame technology with the DVD of the episode. It said, in part: “When [I] arrived at the lab the door was locked. I was let in. There were 2 glass engineers there. They had a car windshield that had a bullet hole in it. The hole was about 4 or 6 inches to the right of the rear view mirror [as viewed from the front]. The impact had come from the front of the windshield. (If you have spent 40 years in the glass [illegible] you know which way the impack [sic] was from.”

(5) The sixth credible witness to a bullet hole in the windshield of the limousine was Secret Service agent Charles Taylor, Jr., who wrote a report on November 27, 1963 in which he detailed his activities providing security for the limousine immediately after the car’s return to Washington following the assassination. The JFK limousine and the Secret Service follow-up car known as the “Queen Mary” arrived at Andrews AFB aboard a C-130 propeller-driven cargo plane at about 8:00 PM on November 22, 1963. Agent Taylor rode in the Presidential limousine as it was driven from Andrews AFB to the White House garage at 22nd and M Streets, N.W. In his report about what he witnessed inside the White House garage during the vehicle’s inspection, he wrote: “In addition, of particular note was the small hole just left of center in the windshield from which what appeared to be bullet fragments were removed.”

Summary of the Eyewitness Testimony About the Windshield Bullet Hole

Summarizing, six credible witnesses — Stavis Ellis, H. R. Freeman, Richard Dudman, Evalea Glanges, George Whitaker, and Charles Taylor — all reported seeing a bullet hole in the windshield of JFK’s limousine either on the day of the assassination (for five of the six witnesses), or on the following Monday (in the case of Mr. Whitaker, who did not see the limousine and its windshield until he reported to work at the Ford Motor Company’s Rouge Plant, in Detroit, on Monday morning, November 25th, 1963).

Two of these witnesses — Evalea Glanges and George Whitaker — were absolutely positive that the bullet causing the damage had been a shot from the front, which had entered the front surface of the windshield, and exited the inside surface.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? Because if true, the windshield bullet evidence alone disproves the lone assassin myth aggressively promoted by the U.S. government for 49 years now, since the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was supposedly firing from above and behind the limousine as it traveled down Elm Street.

The Windshield Evidence Was Twice Switched-Out — Substituted — By the U.S. Government…

The windshield in evidence today at the National Archives is not the windshield that was in the Presidential limousine on Elm Street, in Dallas, on November 22, 1963. It simply cannot be. Why? Remember, according to George Whitaker, Sr. of the Ford Motor Co., the original was destroyed, per company orders, after it was used as a template to make a replacement on November 25th, 1963.

But it gets much worse than that. The first replacement, the one installed by Whitaker’s two lab technicians in Detroit, was damaged on the wrong side by an incompetent Secret Service organization (incompetent not only at protecting the 35th President, but also in implementing a cover-up). Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman (who rode in the right front seat of the limousine in Dallas) testified before the Warren Commission, in March of 1964, that when he examined the windshield (obviously the replacement, installed by Whitaker’s team in Detroit) on November 27th, it was smooth on the outside, and damaged on the inside. This is consistent with damage caused by an impact on the front side of the windshield. (Safety glass exhibits damage on the opposite side from which it is struck). Researcher Robert P. Smith (as reported by David Lifton in Best Evidence) interviewed a Mr. Bill Ashby, crew leader at the Arlington Glass Company, who told Smith he removed the limousine’s windshield in Washington, D.C. on November 27th; this occurred after Roy Kellerman had felt the interior surface earlier that day and determined it to be damaged on the inside, and smooth on the outside.

But the windshield at the National Archives today exhibits long cracks — not a through-and-through bullet hole — and is damaged on the outside, which is the opposite of what Kellerman noted by physical examination on November 27th.

Co-owner Willard Hess of the automotive firm Hess and Eisenhardt in Cincinnati, Ohio told Doug Weldon that his company also replaced the windshield in the Presidential limousine, and that the glass removed was standard safety glass — consistent with what George Whitaker said his team reinstalled in the limousine in Detroit, immediately after the assassination. Hess and Eisenhardt replaced the standard safety glass with special bullet resistant glass made by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. (Presumably, the windshield removed by Hess and Eisenhardt was the second new windshield installed — by the Arlington Glass Company — on November 27th, 1963, and is the one in the National Archives today.) Mr. Hess told Weldon that the windshield his company removed was not damaged at the time it was removed.

The clear implication here is that the windshield in the Archives today, which exhibits cracks but not a bullet hole, was intentionally damaged by someone involved in the cover-up AFTER its removal by Hess and Eisenhardt.

This distressing (and depressing) tale of cover-up, deceit, and deception mirrors what was going on with the JFK medical evidence (namely, the President’s cranial wounds and throat wound; and the autopsy photographs and x-rays), and the Zapruder film, during the weekend following the assassination — that is, alteration and gross substitution. The pattern is the same, and the pattern is one of lying, and intentionally covering up the truth, by destroying some evidence, and substituting altered evidence in its place. All of this substitution of evidence — tampering with wounds prior to the commencement of the autopsy through clandestine post mortem surgery; the alteration of some of the key autopsy photographs and x-rays (and the destruction of others); and the alteration of the Zapruder film — was all intended to suppress evidence of shots from the front (i.e., proof of conspiracy), so the government could more easily promote its lone assassin cover story.

…And the U.S. Government Later Suborned Perjury in the Matter of the Damage to the Limousine Windshield

Unfortunately for Mr. Charles Taylor of the Secret Service, he — like Galileo Galilei before the Inquisition in the 17th century — was forced to recant, for he had committed heresy when he wrote in his official report on November 27th that he had observed a bullet hole in the windshield of the limousine as the car was closely examined in the White House garage the evening of the assassination, in 1963. In his 1976 recantation, an affidavit prepared for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), Taylor indicated that he changed his mind after examining the windshield stored in the Archives on December 19, 1975. Like Galileo, when prompted by his inquisitors, Taylor reversed himself, saying: “…I never examined this apparent hole [on November 22, 1963] to determine if there had been any penetration of the glass, nor did I even get a good look at the windshield in well-lighted surroundings…”. This is hardly credible. SA Kinney drove JFK’s limousine from Andrews AFB to the White House garage on November 22nd, 1963, and Taylor was the only passenger. The back seat bench (as revealed by horrifying color photographs taken in the White House garage) was still covered with gore, so we know Taylor did not sit there amidst the blood and brain tissue; and it is most doubtful that he sat in one of the uncomfortable jump seats in the middle of the car. Surely, he sat in the right front seat of the limousine all the way from Andrews AFB, to the garage where it was examined that evening — an ideal spot for noticing the bullet hole in the windshield, which would have been within arm’s reach for him. Inevitably, when the interior of the car was disassembled that evening inside the White House garage by FBI and Secret Service agents working together, the lights must have been on for this crucial joint inspection! Taylor reported on their activities in detail in his report, prepared on November 27th, 1963. The report makes clear that the agents could see what they were doing. In that context, consider Taylor’s written statement in his 1976 HSCA affidavit, about thirteen years later, in which he stated: “I have no doubt that the cracks [seen in the windshield placed in the Archives and in official photographs]…cracks in the inner layers of the glass only, are the ones I noticed on the trip from Andrews Air Force Base…it is clear to me that my use of the word ‘hole’ to describe the flaw in the windshield was incorrect.” Taylor’s sworn affidavit in 1976, shortly after he was asked by someone in government to examine the switched-out windshield deposited in the Archives, can only be viewed and described for what it was: perjury.

Previously Known Photographic Evidence of a Windshield Bullet Hole

As I documented in chapter 15 of my book, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, the famous “Altgens photo” taken on Elm Street, the one reported to be equivalent to Zapruder frame 255 in the extant film, appears to many who study it to show a bullet hole in the windshield in some of the versions of that photograph that have been published: namely, in The Torch Is Passed (1964), on page 16; in Groden’s The Killing of a President, on pages 30 and 36; on page 314 of Trask’s Pictures of the Pain; and in the version published in Fetzer’s Murder in Dealey Plaza, on page 149. The apparent bullet hole detected by many viewers in the Altgens photo appears to be just to the right of the rightmost edge of the rear view mirror, as seen from the front. But there is another Altgens photo taken on Elm Street, showing Jackie Kennedy on the trunk of the limousine after the assassination, which also shows damage in the area of the windshield that is left-of-center, as seen from inside the car. Frustratingly, the damage seen in this photograph appears to be some cracks emanating from a frosted white area of the windshield that is left-of-center. It is most clearly seen in The Torch Is Passed, on page 17; in my view, it is unclear whether we are looking at a round bullet hole with two cracks emanating from it, or simply cracks. The poor quality versions of this image published in The Killing of a President (on page 42) and in Pictures of the Pain (on page 316) are useless in resolving this issue.

Therefore, any additional photographic evidence captured the day of the assassination might prove decisive in resolving the windshield debate, once and for all — which leads us back to the headline of this journal entry: “Photographic Evidence of Bullet Hole in JFK Limousine Windshield Hiding in Plain Sight.”

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT SINCE 2003

On pages 1473-1474 of Volume V my book (in chapter 16), I wrote about the circumstances in which The History Channel, in 2003, was forced by political pressure and by threat of legal action to stop airing the remarkably popular seventh, eighth, and ninth episodes of the series The Men Who Killed Kennedy: “The Smoking Guns,” “The Love Affair,” and “The Guilty Men.” Not only did The History Channel agree to stop broadcasting the three episodes (which were getting very high ratings), but it also pulled all of the DVDs from stores (where they were selling like hotcakes), and agreed to stop selling the three episodes, which were packaged together in a two-disc, three episode A & E network video product titled: The Men Who Killed Kennedy: The Final Chapter, Cat. No. AAE-71255. (Thanks to Phil Singer of Chicago, I own a set of these three banned DVDs.)

Not only did former LBJ aides Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers engage in a high-profile publicity campaign against The History Channel, but an enraged Jack Valenti (who had long been the chief lobbyist in the nation’s capital for the motion picture industry) summoned the executive producer of episodes 7, 8, and 9 (including the LBJ episode, “The Guilty Men”) — Dolores Gavin — to Washington, D.C., where she was given the “Valenti treatment,” i.e., browbeaten and intimidated in private, in a rather brutal fashion. (I was informed of this by a Hollywood-based professional who had worked with her on the project; Dolores Gavin herself was the source of the information.) Shortly afterwards, The History Channel succumbed to this overt censorship and all three episodes were added to a new, twenty-first century Index Expurgatorius.

The presumptive cause of this Holy Edict of the American Establishment was the LBJ episode, “The Guilty Men,” which fingered Lyndon Baines Johnson with involvement in the JFK assassination conspiracy. But in retrospect, I now wonder if perhaps the real, principal (but unacknowledged) cause of the suppression was actually the episode titled “The Smoking Guns.” The LBJ episode may have simply been the excuse to ban “The Smoking Guns,” for this episode contains multiple evidentiary proofs of a U.S. government cover-up of the Kennedy assassination evidence.

The Stunning Content of “The Smoking Guns”

There is some “B-roll” in “The Smoking Guns” episode, only a little over two seconds long, which definitely appears to show the bullet hole in the limousine windshield — the through-and-through bullet hole described by the six credible witnesses cited above. This is shown during the segment of the program in which Evalea Glanges was interviewed. This “B-roll” footage appears between the times of 14:02 and 14:04 on the DVD, and consists of a total of 84 video frames (there are 30 video frames per second in a U.S. television broadcast). The black-and-white images appear to come from standard 16 mm B & W newsreel footage, taken by a stocky man wearing a hat who had approached the Presidential limousine as it was parked outside the Parkland Hospital emergency room (and before the bubble top was installed). The point of view (POV) of the camera was that of someone sitting in the limousine, or rather standing just beside it and to the right side. The camera is pointed at the inside surface of the windshield from behind — that is the POV. One man in a suit and tie can be seen standing on the front side, or forward of, the windshield, and two DPD motorcycle patrolmen (are they Ellis and Freeman?) can be seen leaning in and examining the windshield. What looks to me like a through-and-through bullet hole is visible in all 84 video frames, left of center on the windshield (adopting the POV of the camera) and approximately halfway down from the top, although these are only rough approximations. The location appears to be entirely consistent with that described by Charles Taylor and George Whitaker (above).

I wish to make something very clear here: you cannot access the images I am describing above in the U-Tube segment in which this episode has been put up on the internet. First, the timing is different in the U-Tube segment (13:08, vice 14:02), because the U-Tube segment was copied from the broadcast. [The factory DVD location of the clip is at a later point in the program, at 14:02, because of advertising material inserted at the beginning of the DVD.] Second, the size of the U-Tube presentation is so small on one’s computer screen, and the resolution so poor in comparison with a big screen HD television, that you can forget seeing this windshield bullet hole on U-Tube. The viewer needs the factory-produced DVD; a good DVD player with functioning frame-by-frame advance; and a big screen, High Definition (1080p) TV. The bullet hole shows up clearly on my 52″ SONY Bravia television. So anyone concerned with doing research here simply must obtain the factory-produced DVD.

Now, no doubt the “lone-nutter” crowd — both those who are in denial of the reality of an American coup in 1963 (because they can’t handle the truth), and the U.S. government’s third-party surrogates in the midst of the research community (whose job it is to cast doubt on all new research pointing to conspiracy and cover-up) — will react violently to this essay, and that is predictable. But you don’t have to listen to their opinions…EXAMINE THE EVIDENCE YOURSELF AND MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND. Just obtain a factory-produced DVD of “The Smoking Guns,” by hook or crook (or E-Bay); put it in your DVD player; go to the specified time of 14:02 into the program; and then examine the 84 video frames, one at a time, on an HD big screen TV. You will find that video frames 1, 15, 31, 37, 47, 59, and 71 best depict the bullet hole. The 16 mm camera was hand-held, so there is some motion and some blurring of the images, and that is why some video frames are more clear than others. In my opinion, the best frames are #1 and # 71 in the windshield sequence.

Then consider how dangerous this two-seconds of “B-roll” footage is to the U. S. government’s contrived position on the assassination as we approach the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination: a through-and-through hole in the limousine windshield, made by a frontal shot traveling from front-to-back (as stated by George Whitaker and Evalea Glanges), all by itself, demolishes the lone-assassin myth still being perpetuated by the U.S. government and by its surrogates in the mainstream media in America. No wonder the establishment in America felt this episode had to be suppressed.

And consider the other reasons for its suppression. This episode also features Dr. David Mantik, M.D., PhD., eloquently and clearly discussing his conclusion — based on his nine visits to the National Archives to view the autopsy materials — that the autopsy photographs of the rear of JFK’s head are photographic forgeries. It also features former USIA photographer Joe O’Donnell discussing how White House photographer Robert Knudsen showed him two sets of post mortem photos of JFK’s head wounds late in 1963: one set that consisted of authentic, pre-alteration images, showing the true entry and exit wounds in the head (an entry wound high in the right forehead, and a large exit wound in the right rear of the skull); and another set of images that was post-alteration, with the entry wound high in the forehead no longer visible, and the back of the head seemingly intact. It also features Dr. Gary Aguilar, M.D., discussing in convincing terms G. Robert Blakey’s suppression of the content of interviews the HSCA conducted with JFK autopsy witnesses, and Blakey’s intentional misrepresentation of the contents of those interviews in the HSCA’s report; the JFK Records Act resulted in the “premature release” of the suppressed autopsy witness interviews in 1993, and the “Big Lie” in the HSCA report was exposed. (The HSCA report, in volume 7, stated that all of the Dallas doctors had to be wrong about the exit wound they recalled in the back of JFK’s head, since all of the autopsy witnesses the HSCA had interviewed said the wounds they observed matched the autopsy photos which show the back of the head intact. The release of the interview reports in 1993 revealed that the HSCA had lied about what those witnesses had said.) All of this, and more, was presented in this one key episode.

So ask your friends, go on E-Bay, and one way or another, get your hands on the banned episode of The Men Who Killed Kennedy titled “The Smoking Guns,” and see the bullet hole in the windshield yourself. Then compare it to the photographs of the windshield in the National Archives, and ask yourself what this sorry episode says about the integrity of our national government.

President Kennedy was killed in Dealey Plaza by a crossfire, meted out by shooters firing from multiple directions, from both the front and behind — therefore, he was felled by a conspiracy, by definition. The windshield bullet hole evidence, all by itself, proves a conspiracy; and its clumsy and unsuccessful suppression, all by itself, is proof of a government cover-up of the facts in President Kennedy’s assassination, since the U.S. government controlled all of the windshield evidence. The facts contained in this tale prove that we had a coup in America in 1963, and that powerful and influential people were still covering it up in 1975, and 1976, and 1979, and in 2003. Former CIA Director William Colby once said that everyone of any significance in the U.S. media was owned by the CIA. I believe it — otherwise, this windshield nonsense would have been exposed long ago on a show like “60 Minutes.”

I have expressed here my own strong opinion about what is shown in the 84 video frames visible in this documentary. A good follow-on step here would be to obtain the original 16 mm camera footage (presumably a black and white negative, not some multi-generational stock footage), perform a high-resolution digital scan of the film frames in Hollywood, and have them analyzed by motion picture professionals in the film industry who have no axe to grind — not by Gary Mack at the Sixth Floor Museum (who has never been to film school, or worked in the motion picture industry), or by any member of the JFK research community who has espoused a conspiracy or cover-up in the assassination. A true, third-party independent analysis of the camera negative, or of the earliest surviving generation of this newsreel footage, would be a good next step in the process of evaluating these images.

I have sounded the alarm here — and I am not afraid of a truly independent third-party analysis. Let’s do a little honest science here, and “let the chips fall where they may.”

Douglas P. Horne graduated Cum Laude from Ohio State University in 1974, with a B.A. in History. He served for ten years as a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy, and then worked for the Navy for ten more years as a Federal civilian. In 1995 he joined the staff of the President John F. Kennedy “Assassination Records Review Board,” and rose to the position of Chief Analyst for Military Records. In that capacity, he focused on the medical evidence surrounding the JFK autopsy; the Zapruder film; and ensured the release of military records on Cuba and Vietnam. In 2009 he published the extensive five-volume work, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, which documents the U.S. government’s coverup of the medical evidence surrounding JFK’s assassination, and the alteration of the Zapruder film of President Kennedy’s assassination.

All images in this article are from Zero Hedge.

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Jesus Was Born in a Police State

April 10th, 2020 by John W. Whitehead

First published on December 22, 2017

The Christmas narrative of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one. The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable, where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus.

Unfortunately, Jesus was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. And when he grew up, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be.

Yet what if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born and raised in the American police state?

Rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, etc.

Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery.

Had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they would have been turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret.

From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he dared to step out of line while in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses.

Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence.

From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups.

Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.”

While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs.

Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled.

Viewed by the government as a dissident and potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery.

Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored.

Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach.

Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward with no access to family or friends.

Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. Currently, 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books.

Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year.

Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later.

Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs.

Either way, as I show in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state.

Remember, what happened on that starry night in Bethlehem is only part of the story. That baby in the manger grew up to be a man who did not turn away from evil but instead spoke out against it, and we must do no less.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Featured image is from the author.

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The devastating impact of the coronavirus on Italy has sparked considerable speculation as to why the country appears to have suffered so disproportionately from the disease. Some initial theories suggested that the deaths might be due to lower standards and ill-advised practices in the Italian national health system, but the reality is that northern Italy, where the virus has struck hardest, has by most metrics better and more accessible health care than does the United States overall.

By one reckoning, the claimed number of dead is too high because anyone who tested positive and died had his or her death attributed to the virus even if it was actually due to other unrelated causes. And that argument has also been flipped on its head to demonstrate that the numbers are too low, using the fact that many Italians have not been tested for the virus to assert that many dead were actually caused by coronavirus. Since those dead were not medically confirmed positive for COVID-19, the deaths were erroneously attributed to other causes.

A third bit of somewhat more bizarre speculation centers on the fact that in September 2019 Italy made legal euthanasia for those with terminal illnesses seeking to end their suffering, a move strongly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church. Some of those weighing in on the number of deaths have claimed without evidence that a significant percentage of the dead were actually cases of euthanasia, i.e. implying that Italy has been deliberately killing off its elderly. Those seeking an explanation for such bizarre behavior by the national health service have suggested that it would be to ease pressure on the troubled Italian economy by eliminating old age pensions and medical costs.

Be that as it may, there is an interesting backstory developing in the Italian media about why Italy has been hit so hard by the “Chinese” virus in spite of the fact that it has been in lockdown for over one month. Italy’s ties with China, and with the city of Wuhan, where the virus may have originated, run deeper than with any other European country.

Last spring, when my wife and I were traveling in Northern Italy, we noticed the large numbers of Chinese, not only in tourism centers like Venice and Verona, but also in commercial and industrial areas. Italian shop holders we spoke with told us how the Chinese government and individual entrepreneurs were buying up businesses and properties at an alarming rate, penetrating the Italian economy at all levels. One gift shop proprietor in Venice described how even tourist items were increasingly being manufactured in China, a development which he described as “selling cheap junk.” He reached beneath his counter and produced a perfume bottle which looked like a local product but instead of being made in Murano it bore a tiny stamp “Made in China.”

A little less than a year ago Italy became the first G-7 country in Europe to sign a memorandum of understanding formalizing its membership in the Chinese Belt and Road project, part of the Silk Road scheme to create a vast linked commercial network across Asia and into Europe. Two of the main hubs being developed for the project are Genoa and Trieste. The Italian government, confronted with a struggling economy, based the move on “commercial reasons” and “economic advantages,” to include the investment being offered by Beijing, but Rome paid a price for the move with intense criticism coming from both Washington and Brussels. The Atlanticist crowd, which normally applauded a form of globalism and free trade, inevitably insisted that not only were the Chinese seeking to “destabilize” Europe, Beijing was also attempting to divide Europe politically and militarily from the United States.

One of the more interesting, and perhaps coincidental, aspects of the Chinese entry into Italy has been the particular connection between China and the northern Italian fashion houses, centered on Milan, that have shifted their production to Wuhan to take advantage of the cheap labor in China’s own textile industry, largely centered on the city. By all accounts, Chinese investors bought up factories in Northern Italy starting in the early 1990s. By 2016 many major brands had been completely acquired, to include Pinco Pallino, Miss Sixty, Sergio Tacchini, Roberta di Camerino and Mariella Burani while major shares of Salvatore Ferragamo and Caruso were also obtained.

The Chinese owners and investors replaced ageing machinery and brought in, often illegally, tens of thousands of skilled Chinese seamstresses as a labor force. By the end of last year when the virus first struck China, direct flights from Wuhan to Lombardy served the roughly 300,000 Chinese residents of Italy who mostly work in Chinese-owned factories producing Chinese inspired Made in Italy designs. It is widely believed, though not confirmed by the Rome government, that the first infections by coronavirus in Italy, attributed to visiting “tourists,” actually may have taken place in crowded dormitories where Chinese shift workers from Wuhan dined and slept.

In less than a year, however, Italians have come to realize that a tight economic embrace with Beijing also has a downside. Italy’s trade gap with China has gone up, not down and much promised investment in new enterprises has failed to materialize. But even as the dust cleared, the results derived from opening the door to China were not pretty. By 2016, Chinese acquisitions had exceeded 52 billion EUROS, giving them ownership of more than 300 companies representing 27% of major Italian corporations.

The Bank of China now owns five major banks in Italy as well as the major telecommunication corporation (Telecom) and the two top energy utilities (ENI and ENEL). China also has controlling interest in Fiat-Chrysler and Pirelli.

More recently, Italian government views on China’s human rights record in Hong Kong have hardened and the country’s legislature has rejected overtures by the Chinese telecommunications conglomerate Huawei to have a major role in developing the country’s new 5G technology. One might observe, however, that the barn door is being closed after the horse has already escaped.

To limit the damage, the Chinese have sweetened their economic expansion into Western Europe by carefully integrating trade with humanitarian initiatives to make the transformation palatable to the local populations. The Health Silk Road initiative is a major exercise of soft power which has, in the current crisis, provided various forms of emergency medical assistance to a number of European nations. In doing so, it has done more than the European Union or the United States. Italy currently has three Chinese medical teams assisting its doctors in and around Milan and has benefited from airlifted medical supplies to include millions of masks and testing kits.

China is not doing what it does for altruistic reasons. It sees itself as the major economic driver of a new globalism, displacing an increasingly foundering and incapable United States, which has dominated world finance and commerce since the Second World War. For China COVID-19 is seen as an opportunity to reconfigure the playing field in its favor.

The experience of Italy, which may have become an epicenter for the virus due to its close commercial and personal ties to China, is illustrative of how globalism and free trade being promoted by a number of engaged groups in many countries can be exploited to create a new reality. Beijing is shaping that reality while the U.S. and E.U. stand on the sideline and watch.

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This article was originally published on Strategic Culture Foundation.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

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NATO in Arms to “Fight Coronavirus”

April 9th, 2020 by Manlio Dinucci

 The 30 NATO foreign ministers (Luigi Di Maio for Italy), met on April 2 by videoconference, and instructed US general Tod Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, to “coordinate the necessary military support to fight the  coronavirus crisis”.

 He is the same general who declared in the United States Senate on February 25 “nuclear forces are supporting every US military operation in Europe” and   ” I am a fan of a flexible first-use policy” of nuclear weaponsthat is nuclear attack by surprise (“Dr. Strangelove  takes care of our health”, Il manifesto, March 24).

 General Wolters is the supreme commander of NATO as head of the United States European Command. He is therefore part of the Pentagon’s chain of command, which has absolute priority. Its strict rules are confirmed by a recent episode: the aircraft carrier Roosevelt commander, Brett Crozier, was removed from command because he violated military secrecy by urging aid sending, faced with the spread of the coronavirus on board.

To “fight coronavirus crisis“, General Wolters has “fast-track paths through Europe’s airspace for military flights“, while civilian flights have almost disappeared.

Fast-track paths are also used by the US strategic bombers B2-Spirit for nuclear attack: on March 20, they took off from Fairford in England, together with Norwegian F-16 fighters, they flew to the Arctic towards Russian territory. In this way – General Basham, deputy commander of the US Air Force in Europe – explains “we can promptly and effectively respond to threats in the region, demonstrating our determination to bring our fighting power everywhere in the world”.

 While NATO is committed to “fighting coronavirus” in Europe, two of the major European Allies, France and Great Britain, sent their warships to the Caribbean.

The amphibious assault ship Dixmund sailed on April 3 from Toulon to French Guiana for what President Macron calls “an unprecedented military operation“. called “Resilience“, in the framework of the “war to coronavirus“.

Dixmund can perform the secondary function of hospital ship with 69 beds and 7 for intensive care. The primary role of this large ship, 200 m long and with a flight deck of 5000 m2, is that of amphibious assault: approaching the enemy coast, it attacks with dozens of helicopters and landing crafts transporting troops and armored vehicles.

Similar characteristics, albeit on a smaller scale, has the British ship RFA Argus, which sailed on April 2 to British Guyana.

The two European ships will take position in the same Caribbean waters near Venezuela, where the war fleet is arriving – with the most modern coastal combat ships (also built by Italian Leonardo Company for US Navy) and thousands of marines – sent by President Trump officially to stop drug trafficking.

He accuses Venezuelan President Maduro of “taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to increase the drug trafficking, he finances his narco-state with“. The purpose of the operation, supported by NATO, is to strengthen the embargo tightening to economically strangle Venezuela (a country with the largest oil reserves in the world), whose situation is aggravated by the coronavirus that has started to spread.

 The aim is to depose regularly elected President Maduro (on whose head the US has placed a $ 15 million bounty) and to establish a government that will bring the country into the sphere of US domination. It cannot be excluded that an incident could be caused as a pretext for the invasion of Venezuela. The coronavirus crisis creates favorable international conditions for an operation of this type, perhaps presented as “humanitarian“.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto. Translated by Jean Toschi Marazzani Visconti 

Award winning author and geopolitical analyst Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. (CRG)

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“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary” — H.L. Mencken

As the global pandemic grips world attention, completely unnoticed by mainstream media was the release of a final report of an academic study pertaining to another previously calamitous event of international significance. On March 25th, the conclusion of a four year investigation by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was published which determined that the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11th, 2001 was not caused by fire. The peer-reviewed inquiry was funded by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a nonprofit organization composed of more than 3,000 building architects and engineers who are a signatory to the group’s formal appeal calling for a new investigation into the three — not two — WTC skyscrapers destroyed on 9/11. The researchers infer that the collapse of Building 7 was actually the result of a controlled demolition:

“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) and private engineering firms that studied the collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.”

With or without a pandemic, it is likely corporate media would have ignored the study anyway, just as they have anything that contradicts the official story of 9/11. However, it is notable that many have drawn parallels between the COVID-19 outbreak and the 9/11 attacks based on the widespread changes to daily life as a result of the crisis going forward. Already there is talk of nationwide lockdowns as a “new normal” with many rightly expressing concerns over civil liberties, press freedoms, the surveillance state, and other issues just as there were following 9/11.

By the same measure, a false dichotomy is being established by political gatekeepers in order to silence those who dare challenge the official account as to how the coronavirus began. It is a stigmatization that is all too familiar to those who have never believed the conventional narrative that 19 Arab hijackers loyal to Osama bin Laden armed only with box-cutters were solely responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on that fateful day.

There is a common misconception that to believe in so-called “conspiracy theories” is to somehow lose sight of the bigger picture or systemic problems. Behind this phenomenon is a mistakenly presumed conflict between understanding the broader, overarching system versus the sinister motives of those in power who administer it — when they are inextricably linked. Political scientist Michael Parenti, who drew the ire of many of his fellow left-wing colleagues for his work on the Kennedy assassination, refers to it in his lecture “Understanding Deep Politics” as a perceived incompatibility between “the structural and the functional.” The anti-conspiracists wrongly assume that the more impersonal or wider the lens, the more profound an analysis. By this logic, the elite are absolved of conscious intent and deliberate pursuit of nefarious self-interest, as if everything is done by incidental chance or out of incompetence. Not to say efficacy applies without exception, but it has become a required gesture to disassociate oneself from “conspiracies” to maintain credibility — ironically even by those who are often the target of such smears themselves.

This applies not only to mainstream media and academics, but even leading progressive figures who have a mechanical, unthinking resistance to assigning intent or recognizing the existence of hidden agendas. As a result, it disappears the class interests of the ruling elite and ultimately assists them in providing cover for their crimes. With the exception of the Kennedy assassination — coincidentally the subject of a new epic chart-topping song by Bob Dylan — nowhere has there been more hostility to ‘conspiracism’ than regarding the events of 9/11. Just as they assailed Parenti, David Talbot and others for challenging the Warren Commission’s ‘lone gunman’ theory, leading figures on the left such as Noam Chomsky and the late Alexander Cockburn railed against the 9/11 Truth movement and today it is often wrongly equated with right-wing politics, an unlikely trajectory given it occurred under an arch-conservative administration but an inevitable result of the pseudo-left’s aversion to “conspiracies.” If polls are any indication, the average American certainly disagrees with such elitist misleaders as to the believability of the sham 9/11 Commission findings, yet another example of how out-of-touch the faux-left is with ordinary people.

A more recent example was an article by left-wing journalist Ben Norton proclaiming that to call 9/11 a false flag or an “inside job” is “fundamentally a right-wing conspiracy”, in complete disregard of the many dedicated truther activists on the left since its inception. Norton insists the 9/11 attacks were simply “blowback”, or an unintended consequence of previous U.S. foreign policy support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets during the 1980s which later gave birth to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Norton argues “Al-Qaeda’s unofficial strategic alliance with the US eventually broke down” resulting in 9/11 as retaliation, completely overlooking that Washington was still supporting jihadist factions during the 1990s in Bosnia (two of which would be alleged 9/11 hijackers) and Kosovo in the Yugoslav wars against Serbia, even while the U.S. was ostensibly pursuing bin Laden for the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and the USS Cole in 2000.

A 1997 Congressional document by the Republican Policy Committee (RPC) throws light on how Washington never discontinued its practice in Afghanistan of using jihadist proxies to achieve its foreign policy goals in the Balkans. Although it was a partisan GOP attack meant to discredit then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, nevertheless the memo accurately presents how the U.S. had “turned Bosnia into a Militant Islamic Base”:

“In short, the Clinton administration’s policy of facilitating the delivery of arms to the Bosnian Muslims made it the de facto partner of an international network of governments and organizations pursuing their own agenda in Bosnia: the promotion of Islamic revolution in Europe. That network not only involves Iran but Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan (a key ally of Iran), and Turkey, together with front groups supposedly pursuing humanitarian and cultural activities. For example, one such group about which details have come to light is the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization which has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups…”

It was also in Bosnia where a raid was conducted in 2002 by local police at the Sarajevo branch of a Saudi-based purported charitable organization, Benevolence International Foundation, which was discovered to be a front for Al-Qaeda. Seized on the premises was a document, dubbed the “Golden Chain”, which listed the major financial sponsors of the terrorist organization to be numerous Saudi business and government figures, including some of Osama bin Laden’s own brothers. By the 9/11 Commission Report’s own admission, this same fake Islamic charity “supported the Bosnian Muslims in their conflict with Serbia” at the same time as the CIA.

It cannot go without mentioning that the common link between Al-Qaeda and subsequent extremist groups like ISIS/Daesh and Boko Haram is the doctrine of Wahhabism, the puritanical sect of Sunni Islam practiced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and founded in the 18th century by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the religious leader who formed an alliance with the founder of the first Saudi state, Muhammad bin Saud, whose descendants make up the House of Saud royal family. The ultra-orthodox teachings of Wahhabism were initially rejected in the Middle East but reestablished by British colonialism which aligned with the Saud family in order to use their intolerant strain of Islam to undermine the Ottoman empire in a divide-and-conquer strategy. In a speech to the House of Commons in 1921, Winston Churchill admitted the Saudis to be “intolerant, well-armed and bloodthirsty.”

This did not stop the British from supporting the House of Saud so long as it was in the interest of Western imperialism, an unholy alliance which continues to this day. However, U.S.-Saudi relations did come under scrutiny when the infamous 28 redacted pages of the December 2002 report of the “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001” conducted by the Senate and House Select Committees on Intelligence were finally disclosed in 2016.

The section revealed not only the numerous U.S. intelligence failures in the lead-up to the attacks but the long suspected culpability of Saudi Arabia, whose nationals were not the focus of counterterrorism because of Riyadh’s status as a U.S. ally. The declassified pages show that some of the hijackers, 15 of them Saudi citizens, received financial and logistical support from individuals linked to the Saudi government, which FBI sources believed at least two of which to be Saudi intelligence officers. One of those Saudi agents received large payments from Princess Haifa, the wife of Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a stipend from the latter’s bank account which inevitably went from the go-betweens to the sleeper cell.

A key member of the House of Saud and then-Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar has such a long and close relationship to the Bush family he was given the nickname “Bandar Bush.” For obvious reasons, when the congressional joint inquiry report was first published in 2003, the 28-page portion on the Saudi ties to the attacks was completely censored at the insistence of the Bush administration. Yet the Bush family’s connection to the Gulf state kingdom is not limited to the ruling monarchy but includes one of the petrodollar theocracy’s other wealthiest families— the bin Laden family itself. While Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 mostly whitewashed the real conspiracy of 9/11it did reveal that numerous unquestioned members of the bin Laden family were given special treatment and suspiciously evacuated on secret flights out of the U.S. shortly after the attacks in coordination with the Saudi government.

The Bush-bin Laden connection goes all the way back to the beginning of George W. Bush’s business career prior to his political involvement in 1976 with the founding of an oil drilling company, Arbusto Energy, whose earliest investors included a Texas businessman and fellow reservist in the Texas Air National Guard, James R. Bath, who oddly enough was the American liaison for Salem bin Laden, Osama’s half brother. To put it differently, the bin Laden family and its construction fortune helped finance Bush’s start in the oil industry, a relationship that would continue through the 1990s with Harken Energy, later the recipient of an offshore oil contract in Iraq’s reconstruction alongside Dick Cheney’s Halliburton.

The Bush dynasty’s financial ties to both the Saudi royals and bin Laden family went on as co-investors in the Carlyle Group private equity firm where the elder Bush’s previous government service contacts were exploited for financial gain. In fact, on the morning of 9/11, Bush Sr. just happened to be attending a Carlyle business conference where another bin Laden sibling was the guest of honor in what we are supposed to believe is another astounding coincidence. Just days later, Shafiq bin Laden would be spirited off on a chartered flight back to Saudi Arabia in an exodus overseen by Prince Bandar himself.

Osama bin Laden himself also got an evacuation of sorts when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001. It was legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh who first reported that bin Laden and thousands of other Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters were suspiciously allowed to escape to Pakistan in an evacuation dubbed the ‘airlift of evil.’ This was corroborated in a leaked 2009 Hillary Clinton State Department email published by WikiLeaks regarding a Senate report on the Battle of Tora Bora and bin Laden’s escape where Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal is shown discussing the controversial airlift as having been requested by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney — but don’t dare call it a conspiracy:

“Gary Berntsen, the head of the CIA armed operation in eastern Afghanistan, is a major source for the report. I am in contact with him and have heard his entire story at length, key parts of which are not in his book, Jawbreaker, or in the Senate report. In particular, the story of the Kunduz airlift of the bulk of key AQ and Taliban leaders, at the request of Musharaff and per order Cheney/Rumsfeld, is absent.”

Could it have anything to do with just a few years earlier the Taliban visiting Texas when Bush was Governor to discuss with the Unocal Corporation the construction of a gas pipeline through Afghanistan into Pakistan? It is also well known that the Pakistani government and its Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) had supported the Taliban for decades and during the 1980s had been the CIA’s main conduit for supplying arms to the Afghan mujahideen, including bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Maktab al-Khidamat, the organizational precursor to Al-Qaeda. As shown in the documentary 9/11: Press for Truth, little in their relations changed in the years between the Afghan-Soviet war and 9/11, as ISI director Mahmud Ahmed was reportedly busted wiring $100,000 to alleged hijacker ringleader Mohamed Atta not long before the WTC attacks. Throughout 2001 both before and after 9/11, General Ahmed had repeatedly visited the U.S. and met with top Pentagon and Bush administration officials, including CIA Director George Tenet, making Prince Bandar not the only figure to have been caught financing the operation and where a direct line can be drawn between the White House and the hijackers.

While Bandar has thus far eluded justice, one year after the release of the 28 pages a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the families of the victims against the government of Saudi Arabia which presented new evidence that two years prior to the attacks in 1999, the Saudi Embassy paid for the flights of two Saudi agents living undercover in the U.S. to fly from Phoenix to Washington “in a dry run for the 9/11 attacks” where they attempted to breach the cockpit and test flight security. This means the Saudi government was likely involved in planning the attacks from the very beginning, in addition to providing the subsidies and patsy hijacker personnel for the smokescreen of blaming Al-Qaeda and making bin Laden the fall guy, whose links to 9/11 are tenuous at best. After all, the “confession” from supposed planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was extracted only after his being water-boarded 183 times while bin Laden himself initially denied any role in the attacks before questionable videos were released of his admittance.

The Saudi nationals who participated in the hijacking rehearsal were posing as students. However, the Sunni dictatorship was not the only country conducting a mass espionage operation in the U.S. prior to 9/11 under such a front. In the first half of 2001, several U.S. federal law enforcement agencies documented more than 130 different instances of young Israelis impersonating “art students” while aggressively trying to penetrate the security of various government and military facilities as part of a Mossad spy ring. Several of the Israelis were found to be living in locations within the near vicinity of the hijackers as if they were eavesdropping on them. The discovery of the Israeli operation raised many questions, namely whether Mossad had advanced knowledge or involvement in 9/11. Ironically, Fox News of all places was one of the few outlets to cover the story in a four-part series which never re-aired and was eventually scrubbed from the network website.

The Israeli “art student” mystery never gained traction in the rest of the media, much like another suspicious case in the “Dancing Israelis”, a smaller group of Mossad spies posing as furnishing movers who were arrested in New Jersey on the morning of 9/11 taking celebratory pictures with the twin towers burning in the background of the Manhattan skyline. The five men were not only physically present at the waterfront prior to the first plane impact but found with thousands of dollars in cash, box-cutters, fake passports, and Arab clothing after they were reported for suspicious behavior and intercepted at the Lincoln tunnel heading into Manhattan. Initially misreported as Arabs by the media, the men were connected to Mossad by an FBI database and held for five months before their deportation to Israel while the owner of the front moving company fled to Jerusalem before further questioning. It should be noted that if Israel were to have participated in a ‘false flag’ attack on the U.S., it would not have been the first time. During the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israeli Air Force and Navy launched an unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty, a U.S. Navy spy ship that was surveilling the Arab-Israeli conflict from international waters in the Mediterranean, an “accidental” assault which killed 34 Americans in an attempt to blame Egypt and provoke U.S. intervention.

If Israel turned out to be co-conspirators with the Saudis, it too is not as unlikely a scenario as it may seem. Wrongly assumed to be sworn enemies, it is an open secret that the two British-created states have maintained a historical covert alliance since the end of World War I when the first monarch of the modern Saudi state, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, defeated his rival the Sharif of Mecca who opposed the Balfour Declaration. Authored by British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour and presented to Zionist leader Baron Rothschild, the 1917 letter guaranteed a Jewish homeland in Palestine by colonization with European Jews. Once Sharif was out the way, the Zionist movement had the green light to move forward with its colonial project. Although Ibn Saud publicly opposed Zionism, behind the scenes he negotiated with them through an intermediary in his advisor, British agent St. John Philby, who proposed a £20 million compensation to the Saudi king for delivering Palestine to the Jews.

Ibn Saud communicated his willingness to compromise in a 1940 letter from Philby to Chaim Weizmann, the president of the World Zionist Organization and later the first Israeli president. However, Philby himself was an anti-Zionist and sabotaged the plan by leaking it to other Arab leaders who voiced their vehement opposition and it was only after this exposure that the Saudi king claimed to have turned down the bribe, something the Zionists would only solicit if they thought he would accept. Ever since, the ideologies of Saudi Wahhabism and Israeli Zionism have been center to the West’s destabilization of the Middle East which contrary to misperceptions was not uniquely plagued by conflict historically more than the Occident until the West nurtured Salafism and Zionism. Predictably, discussing either the Saudi or Israeli role in 9/11 has been strictly forbidden in corporate media, since both are among Washington’s geo-strategic allies and each hold immense lobbying power over large media institutions.

Less than five months after 9/11, Bush notoriously declared the nations of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as comprising an “axis of evil” in his 2002 state of the union address. In reality, the phrase is better suited to describe the tripartite of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the U.S. government itself who are likely the real trio of conspirators behind 9/11. The infamous choice of words were attributed to neoconservative pundit and Bush speechwriter, David Frum, who claimed to have taken inspiration from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “a date that will live infamy” speech given the day after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. It was a continuation of a theme present in the manifesto of the neoconservative cabal authored one year prior to 9/11 — “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) think tank, whose members included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush. The strategic military blueprint called for a massive increase in U.S. defense spending in order to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars”before ominously predicting:

“The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.

Ten members of PNAC would be subsequently appointed to positions in the Bush White House where their vision of a “new Pearl Harbor” conveniently materialized. Then again, there is plenty of evidence that Pearl Harbor itself was a ‘false flag’, or that U.S. intelligence and President Franklin D. Roosevelt had foreknowledge of an impending Japanese attack on the naval base in Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7th, 1941. As pointed out by the filmLoose Change, it is probable that Roosevelt allowed it to happen on purpose in order to win public support for a U.S. entry into the European theatre of World War II, a move opposed by a majority of Americans prior to the ‘surprise’ Japanese attack. Given what is known about Pearl Harbor and the abandoned Operation Northwoods, which proposed both fabricating and committing terrorist attacks on civilian aircraft to be pinned on Fidel Castro in order to justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba in 1962, there are no grounds to assume that such false flag operations were ever phased out of military procedure before 9/11 or since.

Loose Change also made a useful historical analogy between 9/11 and the Reichstag fire, the 1933 arson attack on the German parliament building that occurred a month after Adolf Hitler was inaugurated as Chancellor and pinned on a 24-year old half-blind Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. While there is no denying the incident was used a pretext by the Nazi regime to consolidate power and suspend law and order, there is still a heated debate between historians as to whether van der Lubbe was the real culprit. However, it was coincidentally in 2001 when a group of historians uncovered evidence that a Nazi stormtrooper who died under mysterious circumstances in 1933 had previously confessed to prosecutors that members of Hitler’s Storm Detachment had set fire to the edifice under orders from paramilitary leader Karl Ernst, lending credence to the widely held suspicion that it was a Nazi-engineered ‘false flag’ all along.

Most Americans are unaware that a similar coup d’etat nearly took place during the same year in the United States in an attempt to remove President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install an authoritarian government modeled on Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany as part of a scheme hatched by an inner circle of right-wing bankers otherwise known as the the ‘Business Plot.’ It was a conspiracy that only became public after it was heroically thwarted by a whistleblower in decorated Marine Corps veteran turned anti-imperialist, Major General Smedley Butler, after he was recruited to form the junta. Incredibly, one of the prominent business figures allegedly involved was  Prescott Bush, George H.W. Bush’s father and George W. Bush’s grandfather, who at the time was the director and shareholder of a bank owned by German industrialist and Nazi financier Fritz Thyssen seized by the U.S. government under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

After his transformation, in 1935 Smedley Butler famously penned War is a Racket and there is perhaps no better phrase that would sum up the so-called ‘War on Terror’ today. Not only did the American Reichstag fire of 9/11 trigger a domestic police state transformation that overrode the U.S. constitution in an American equivalent of the 1933 Enabling Act and the Heimatschutz (“homeland protection”) defense forces with the passing of the USA-Patriot Act and founding of the Department of Homeland Security, but it fulfilled the prophecy of political scientist Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations in a face-off between Islam and Christianity abroad.

The prediction that religion and culture would be the primary source of geopolitical conflict in the post-Cold War world was an apocalyptic paradigm envisioned by right-wing orientalist philosophers like Huntington and Bernard Lewis which the PNAC neocon ideologues put into practice. Today, the ongoing COVID-19 crisis appears likely to have similar broad and long-term political, social and economic consequences and those who have doubts about the official explanation for the pandemic can hardly be blamed for their distrust given this history unless the lessons of 9/11 have gone unlearned.

Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. Max may be reached at [email protected]
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As Russia Sends Aid, US and NATO Sneer and Smear

April 9th, 2020 by Ulson Gunnar

When Russian military planes and trucks arrived in Italy to provide relief for communities hit by the Covid-19 outbreak, the Italian government, elected into power by the Italian people, was thankful for the assistance offered by Moscow.

Named officials within the Italian government, including the foreign minister, the minister of defense and the governor of Apulia, Michele Emiliano, publically expressed thanks to Russia for the aid.

But finding any mention of this across the Western media is difficult, often buried deep within articles aimed entirely at smearing Russia for sending aid and depicting Italians as victims of a publicity stunt.

Reuters, in a smear piece published by the New York Times and aimed at vilifying Moscow, still had to admit regarding Russian aid that Italians were grateful, noting:

There are no new geopolitical scenarios to trace, there is a country that needs help and other countries that are helping us,” Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio was quoted as saying by Italy’s Il Corriere della Sera newspaper on Thursday.

Despite Italy being capable of speaking for itself and bringing up any suspicions (if they had any), the West decided to step in and speak for Italy instead.

Sneering and Smearing 

Western headlines are flooded with scorn for both Russia and the aid they sent, completely indifferent to how Italians themselves perceived the gesture.

Articles like Bloomberg’s “Italy Questions Russians Over Their Goodwill Virus Gestures,” admit several paragraphs in that officially, Italy was grateful for the aid, noting:

“Our country can only be grateful” for the solidarity of many countries, including Russia, the Italian defense and foreign ministries said in a joint statement Friday.

Yet claims that “Italy questions Russia” suggest the entire nation is suspicious of the aid. Upon reading Bloomberg’s article, the only source cited is a single article in the Italian newspaper “La Stampa.” It is hard to believe an article in “La Stampa” constitutes all of “Italy.”

According to the pro-Western Moscow Times in their article, “80% of Russia’s Coronavirus Aid to Italy ‘Useless’ – La Stampa,” also entirely based on the La Stampa article, its admits La Stampa’s information came from an “unnamed source.”

Other articles, like the BBC’s “Coronavirus: What does ‘from Russia with love’ really mean?,” Foreign Policy’s “Beware of Bad Samaritans,” and Forbes’ “From Russia With Love? Putin’s Medical Supplies Gift To Coronavirus-Hit Italy Raises Questions,” all used similarly disingenuous tactics to depict the Russian aid as somehow sinister and unwanted.

The Guardian in its article, “Coronavirus: Russia sends plane full of medical supplies to US,” explains:

Critics likely to claim Moscow will exploit goodwill gesture as public relations coup.

France 24 in headline alone makes Western criticism even clearer, claiming, “Flying aid to virus-hit Italy, Moscow flexes soft power.

So by sending aid to Italy, Russia is somehow supposedly flexing its “soft power.”

So How is the West Using Its Soft Power? 

The West faced a collective decision. They could have used their own, very substantial soft power to one-up Russia by sending even more aid to Italy and other regions of the globe impacted by the spread of Covid-19.

Instead, they mobilized the entirety of their soft power to sneer and smear Russia’s efforts with Western-funded media fronts writing entire articles doing just that.

The West’s attempts to depict the Russian media reporting on the aid as also somehow sinister rather than simply telling the world what Russia is doing is also particularly surreal.

The Western media itself spends the summation of its own time and energy promoting what their respective governments are doing abroad which usually involves illegal invasions, wars, occupations and interventions… not sending aid.

A Missed Opportunity 

Because certain special interests in the West fear some Western governments growing closer to nations like Russia and China in the spirit of cooperation and mutual benefits and derailing the Washington-led “international order” that has prevailed post World War 2, resources have been committed to attacking any development that could spur this process further.

But because these resources have been invested into attacking, even when attacking is not the best option, that is all the West appears capable of doing.

The answer to Russian aid to Italy was Western aid to Italy. The benefit would have been a flood of resources sent to where it was needed and everyone involved enjoying the benefits of lending a helping hand to those who would be grateful in return.

Instead, the West appears to be throwing rocks at a time when others are coming together to help, and throwing those rocks at those who are helping.

Rather than teaching the Italians never to deal with Russia again, it is likely this process is going to remind Italians as to why they’ve diversified their foreign relations outside the West in the first place.

Gunnar Ulson, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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Brazilian Military Plan to Overthrow Bolsonaro

April 9th, 2020 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

The political situation in Brazil worsens day after day. The irresponsible way in which President Jair Bolsonaro is managing the effects of the pandemic has been causing concern and fury in all sectors of Brazilian society. All the bases that have so far guaranteed President Bolsonaro’s power are being shaken by his irresponsible policies. At the same time as its popularity plummets exponentially, the group that guaranteed the inviolability of his mandate – the military – is increasingly distant from the president’s projects.

In fact, the relationship between Bolsonaro and the military lasted a long time until its decline, which in itself is curious when we look at the concrete data. Despite his speech praising the Armed Forces and his apologies for the military dictatorship that prevailed in Brazil between 1964 and 1985, Bolsonaro’s government has been marked by a serious process of scrapping of the Armed Forces. The public budget allocated to the Ministry of Defense in 2020 was the smallest in more than two decades.

Clearly, Bolsonaro’s project has as its main objective the complete subordination of Brazil to the foreign military and economic powers of the western axis and this project requires the definitive bankruptcy of national military institutions. For this reason, the common discourse of the Brazilian political left, stating that Bolsonaro intends to militarize the country, is a flawed and shallow one, which does not understand the real problem of the current government.

Certainly, the great military mass was deceived by the Bolsonarian speeches and thus formed his electoral base. On the other hand, a small group of generals and high-ranking officials agreed to political positions with the neoliberal leadership and agreed to support the regime in exchange for personal benefits. However, these same soldiers are already beginning to realize the serious mistake they made.

Jair Bolsonaro’s neoliberal ideological fanaticism has led him to make serious mistakes that endanger national security itself. Examples of this attitude can be seen in the irresponsible creation of unnecessary friction and tension with Venezuela, at the regional level, and China, at the global level.

With an economically bankrupt country, facing the serious pandemic of the new coronavirus and with the Armed Forces absolutely scrapped, how to manage geopolitical crises of this magnitude? This is the big question that generals are beginning to ask and realizing that the only possible way is the end of the Bolsonaro’s government.

Since then, the military has started a series of moves that indicate they are planning a political intervention. Recently, Vice President Hamilton Mourao met with a group of generals to discuss ways to bring him to power. In practice, this means that the Brazilian military are openly planning a political coup to withdraw Bolsonaro and place Mourao in the presidency of the Republic.

Undoubtedly, the height of tensions between Bolsonaro and the military is being the inertia with which the president has dealt with the serious COVID-19 epidemic that plagues the country. The president’s neglect to take quarantine and social isolation measures has led to the exponential growth of the infection, causing the fury not only of the military, but also of all sectors of the civil society.

In the Parliament, an impeachment request has already been initiated. In The Hague, Bolsonaro has already been reported to the International Criminal Court for encouraging actions that lead to the growth of the pandemic, which could lead to the death of thousands of people. In fact, from all points of view, it seems that Bolsonaro’s tenure as president is almost over. Legally denounced, without popular support and rejected by the Armed Forces, all that remains for the Brazilian president is to count on foreign aid, coming from the nation to which he has sworn allegiance: the US. However, since the US is currently the country most affected by the global pandemic, having to deal with a serious domestic economic and political crisis, is Washington really interested in helping Bolsonaro? In the end, who will save the Brazilian president from the oncoming fate?

Everything indicates that Bolsonaro will fall in a matter of weeks or months. It remains to be seen what will come after him. It is unlikely and even undesirable that Bolsonaro will be brought to international trial. Still, taking into account all the bureaucracy surrounding the impeachment process in the Brazilian system, it is also unlikely that he will fall through the legal channels of the Brazilian Constitution, since the country’s situation is an emergency due to the pandemic. Therefore, it is speculated that the idea of ​​military intervention will gain more and more strength in the coming days.

However, it is also unlikely that a military intervention to remove Bolsonaro will start a military dictatorship. The more realistic scenario indicates that the generals will overthrow the president and surrender the office to the current vice president, without militarizing the country anyway. It is also possible that this is the pretext for the establishment of a new constituent assembly, taking into account that for a long time the most liberal factions of the Brazilian Congress have proposed the installation of a parliamentary system in the country. Another possible scenario is that Bolsonaro gives in completely to the demands of the military and changes his attitudes, becoming a decorative figure in Brazilian politics.

Finally, the situation is one of several doubts and with a single certainty: Bolsonaro is alone and weakened.

Lucas Leiroz, research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

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Social Crisis and the Public Use of Reason

April 9th, 2020 by Prof. Sam Ben-Meir

Presently we face a true crisis – a crisis in the fullest sense of the word.  A crisis is defined not simply by the magnitude of the problem – but rather, by how it compels us to question our basic assumptions and preconceptions; it is a situation that forces us to reevaluate the conditions that made it possible in the first place. This implies that within the darkness of every crisis there lies a seed, a kernel of something from which a new reality, a new way of thinking of ourselves and our duties to each other, can emerge.

Genuine leadership recognizes that in a crisis there is the possibility of positive and profound change. Just as Lincoln used the horror of the Civil War – and particularly the Union’s strategic victory at the awful battle of Antietam – as an opportunity to issue his Emancipation Proclamation, a decree which irrevocably transformed the meaning of the war, and indeed the nation itself. A crisis allows us to challenge and rework the coordinates of the present condition. It invites us, even if just for a moment, to suspend our habitual frame of reference, to create – or perhaps re-create – ourselves and our world, our social bonds; our forms of social unity, our ways of being together; our sense of shared responsibility.

A crisis such as this one demands that we exercise what the philosopher Immanuel Kant called the ‘public use of reason’ – as opposed to merely the ‘private use of reason’ where, briefly put, the expert, the specialist is tasked with resolving a defined problem. The private use of reason is sufficient when we are dealing with a problem that can be solved by simply applying the appropriate expertise. As one would only hope and expect, around the world virologists and epidemiologists are intensely focused on how to resolve the coronavirus.

At the same time however, we cannot afford to overlook the public use of reason: reason that does not simply solve a given problem, but asks further unsettling questions, such as how did this problem arise in the first place? Can we really overlook the fact that in the spring of 2018 the Trump administration began dismantling the team in charge of responding to pandemics, including firing its head, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer. Under Trump’s administration, the team was ultimately disbanded – indeed, the country was already underprepared to face a public health crisis and Trump’s cuts only left us more vulnerable.

The public use of reason asks questions like: What were the underlying conditions and unarticulated assumptions that made the crisis possible? For example, this public health crisis underscores the importance of a universal healthcare system. Our current patchwork system, with high rates of uninsured, and ever-increasing healthcare costs made it more likely for the pandemic to occur, and as a nation has made it harder to fight effectively. The lack of medical equipment, of ICUs and diagnostic testing, of doctors per capita, all point to a general lack of preparedness. This has been exacerbated by a health insurance system that leaves millions uninsured: in the US, healthcare is treated as a commodity and a privilege, rather than as a right.

The public use of reason asks: how we are defining the problem? Is our definition – our conceptualization of the problem – perhaps part of the problem itself? Is this pandemic solely a problem of public health, or is it also a problem of extreme economic inequality? The public use of reason requires that we question the very frame of reference in which we are operating. We know, for example, that social and economic inequalities are exacerbated during a pandemic. By the same token, a 2008 report – published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior – found that “When society develops the capability to prevent or treat disease, health disparities across socioeconomic levels and along racial lines are enhanced.”

Let us use this crisis to begin addressing one of the gravest problems of our time – that is, growing economic inequality, the concentrations of vast wealth, and the ever-increasing gap between those who have and those who have not. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that “the top one percent’s share of income before transfers and taxes has been rising since the late 1970s, and in recent years has climbed to levels not seen since the 1920s.” This increasing concentration of income among the wealthiest one percent means that nearly everyone has seen their piece of the pie shrink.

Since this crisis began, the greatest failure of the administration is not the denial, the lies, the lack of preparedness, but the inability to rally and unify the nation against this common threat, the lack of genuine leadership – Trump’s utter inability to bring the nation together. The president’s irresponsible comments – from his repeated reference to the coronavirus as the Chinese virus, as well as his claim that the government is not “a shipping clerk” – are demoralizing and divisive. History will remember this as the saddest chapter in the story of this disastrous administration. Yet, within every crisis there is opportunity, a chance to change the status quo and emerge with a newfound sense of strength, solidarity, and hope. However, to realize that possibility will require, among other things, a revitalization of the public use of reason.

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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City.

Featured image is from Morning Star

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The water ice and other lunar resources that will help the United States establish a long-term human presence on the moon are there for the taking, the White House believes.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order today (April 6) establishing U.S. policy on the exploitation of off-Earth resources. That policy stresses that the current regulatory regime — notably, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty — allows the use of such resources.

This view has long held sway in U.S. government circles. For example, the United States, like the other major spacefaring nations, has not signed the 1979 Moon Treaty, which stipulates that non-scientific use of space resources be governed by an international regulatory framework. And in 2015, Congress passed a law explicitly allowing American companies and citizens to use moon and asteroid resources.

The new executive order makes things even more official, stressing that the United States does not view space as a “global commons” and sees a clear path to off-Earth mining, without the need for further international treaty-level agreements.

The executive order, called “Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources,” has been in the works for about a year, a senior administration official said during a teleconference with reporters today. The order was prompted, at least in part, by a desire to clarify the United States’ position as it negotiates with international partners to help advance NASA’s Artemis program for crewed lunar exploration, the official added. (Engagement with international partners remains important, the official said.)

Artemis aims to land two astronauts on the moon in 2024 and to establish a sustainable human presence on and around Earth’s nearest neighbor by 2028. Lunar resources, especially the water ice thought to be plentiful on the permanently shadowed floors of polar craters, are key to Artemis’ grand ambitions, NASA officials have said.

The moon is not the final destination for these ambitions, by the way. Artemis is designed to help NASA and its partners learn how to support astronauts in deep space for long stretches, lessons that will be key to putting boots on Mars, which NASA wants to do in the 2030s.

“As America prepares to return humans to the moon and journey on to Mars, this executive order establishes U.S. policy toward the recovery and use of space resources, such as water and certain minerals, in order to encourage the commercial development of space,” Scott Pace, deputy assistant to the president and executive secretary of the U.S. National Space Council, said in a statement today.

President Trump has shown considerable interest in shaping U.S. space policy. In December 2017, for example, he signed Space Policy Directive-1, which laid the groundwork for the Artemis campaign. Two other directives have aimed to streamline commercial space regulation and the protocols for space traffic control. And Space Policy Directive-4, which the president signed in February 2019, called for the creation of the Space Force, the first new U.S. military branch since the Air Force was stood up in 1947.

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Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook

Featured image: Artist’s illustration of mining activity on the moon. (Image: © James Vaughan)

Now that the state and its media have falsely characterized the coronavirus as a pandemic closing in on the 1918 flu pandemic (falsely attributed to Spain), it is time for the global elite and their technocrats to force not only highly-profitable (for Big Pharma) vaccines on the world but biometric IDs as well. 

“As countries begin to lift coronavirus lockdowns, biometric identification can help verify those who have already had the infection, and ensure that the vulnerable get the vaccine when it is launched, health and technology experts said,” reports Reuters. 

A biometric ID system can keep a record of [the infected] and those getting the vaccine, said Larry Dohrs, Southeast Asia head at iRespond, a Seattle-based nonprofit that launched its technology last month.

The pretense for this—as it was for the US decimation of Libya, Syria, and Iraq—is “humanitarianism,” according to iRespond and Simprints, a British NGO partnered with Johns Hopkins University’s Global mHealth Initiative, the latter connected to the US military and its “Dark Winter” and “Event 201” pandemic scenarios (see Whitney Webb: All Roads Lead to Dark Winter). 

Total surveillance requires 24/7 monitoring of individuals—especially those included in the Main Core database of activists and political enemies of the state—and biometric technology introduced during the hysteria of an exaggerated health threat fits the bill. 

ID2020—a project initiated by the Rockefeller Foundation, Bill Gates and Microsoft, transnational pharmaceutical corporations, and technology firms—is pushing the concept that every human on the planet needs biometric verification because “to prove who you are is a fundamental and universal human right,” according to the ID2020 website. 

“What they really want is a fully standardized data collection and retrieval format, and cross-border sharing of identities of the entire population of the planet, in order for the stand-alone AI-powered command center to work without a hitch, and for purposes of calculating everyone’s potential contribution, and threat to the system,” explains OffGrid Healthcare. 

If you believe this is dangerously close to China’s “social credit” system, you’re not far off the mark. 

Introducing this totalitarian technology under the cover of a supposed pandemic rife with speculation and a dearth of hard numbers is a near-perfect cover for “patient ID technology” producing data on individuals shared with the state and its corporate partners. 

A vaccine ostensibly designed to combat COVID-19 will become mandatory and those who resist will be blacklisted as public health criminals. They will be locked out of society, similar to Chinese citizens suffering under China’s totalitarian social credit system. 

Martin Armstrong believes the healthcare-industrial complex and the state will surreptitiously introduce a nanotech ID and tracking chip along with a cocktail of vaccine toxins, or they will sell it to the public as a way to identify those presumably infected.

The proposal is a digital certificate that verifies if you have been vaccinated and was developed by MIT and Microsoft. They are looking at merging this with Bill Gates’ ID2020. It is entirely possible that this scare has been a deliberate plot to get people to accept these digital implants. Refuse, and you will be prohibited from social gatherings. Like 9/11 conditioned us to be x-rayed before entering a plane, now the next stage is to embed digital markers that they have been using in dogs and cats.

COVID-19 is the perfect Trojan horse for a control freak state itching to not only micromanage the lives of ordinary citizens but also ferret out critics and potential adversaries and punish them as enemies of the state. The latter is the primary objective. History is replete with examples—from Stalin and Mao to Hitler and Mussolini, with lesser autocrats and dictators along the way. 

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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We are greatly saddened by the passing of Martin Khor, a long-time friend and colleague, an undaunted fighter for the poor and underprivileged, a passionate believer in a more balanced and inclusive multilateralism, a rare intellectual and eloquent orator, an icon of the Global South worthy of veneration, greatly respected for his struggle for justice and fairness against the dominance and double-standards of big economic powers.   

Martin was born in 1951 in colonial Malaysia, still under British rule, to a family of journalists. After his primary and secondary education in Malaysia, he left for the UK in 1971 to study at the University of Cambridge, where he obtained his B.A Hons and M.A. in economics, before completing his second Masters in Social Sciences at the University of Science, Malaysia in 1978.

In his Master’s thesis, he grappled with the changing nature of external dependence and surplus extraction in Malaysia as it moved from colonial to post-colonial status, with a view to its implications for the scope and limits of industrialization and development; a study which left an indelible mark on his subsequent engagement and activities in a world characterised by increasingly asymmetric power relations.

He started his professional career as an Administrative Officer at the Ministry of Finance, Singapore before joining the University of Science, Malaysia as lecturer in Economics in 1975.

He became the Research Director of The Consumers’ Association of Penang in 1978, an independent non-profit international research and advocacy organization on issues related to development.

The Third World Network (TWN) was created in 1984 at an international Conference on “The Third World: Development and Crisis” organized by the Consumers’ Association of Penang.   In 1990, Martin became the Director of the TWN, perhaps the most important NGO from the developing world with operations globally, both in the North and the South, through offices, secretariats and researchers, including in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Geneva, Beijing, Delhi, Jakarta, Manila, New York, Montevideo and Accra.

Martin’s approach to advancing progressive solutions on all these fronts was always one of quiet determination driven by a passionate commitment to strengthening the voice of developing countries.

He had an envious ability to synthesise and explain complex negotiating issues to a broad audience and in a way that could bring on board activists and policy makers alike

Martin held both positions at the Consumers’ Association of Penang and the TWN until 2009 when he became the Executive Director of the South Centre in Geneva, an intergovernmental organization of developing countries established in 1995 to undertake research in various national and international development policy areas and provide advice and support to developing countries in a variety of international negotiating fora.

Under his leadership, the South Centre became an important voice in discussions on international trade and investment, intellectual property, health, global macroeconomics, finance, sustainable development, and climate change.

During his tenure, the Centre extended significantly the scope and quality of its policy research and advice, building an enhanced reputation and level of trust among developing countries in the struggles to protect and promote their interests.   After leaving the South Centre in 2018, Martin returned to Penang, already suffering from cancer, and acted as Chairman of the Board of TWN until his death on April 1, 2020.

Martin was a staunch multilateralist but not an advocate of globalization, at least in the neo-liberal guise it acquired from the early 1980s.   On the one hand, he was well aware that individually developing countries could not obtain fair deals with major (and minor) developed countries in the international economic system.

On the other hand, he knew that multilateral rules and practices were unbalanced, designed to subject developing countries to the discipline of unfettered international markets shaped by transnational corporations and self-seeking policies of dominant powers in the North, denying them the kind of policy space they themselves had enjoyed in the course of their industrialization.  His efforts focussed on reshaping multilateral rules and practices as a way to bring about systemic changes in the service of development.

Martin did this on three fronts.  From the mid-1980s he focussed mainly on international trade issues, particularly those raised by negotiations during the Uruguay Round, and subsequently in the WTO and the proliferating free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties that accompanied the shift to a neo-liberal international economic order.

Martin was instrumental in bringing the attention of policy makers and activists to the implications of new trade rules for the industrialization and development of the Global South arising from more demanding obligations on tariff and non-tariff measures, industrial subsidies, investment and intellectual property rights.

He made several proposals for reform in these areas to remove imbalances and constraints over industrialization, and economic diversification more generally, in the Global South. He opposed free trade agreements with developed countries on the grounds that, by simultaneously curtailing the policy space available to governments while expanding the space for abusive practices by the large international firms that dominate international trade, they posed an even greater threat to development than the earlier generation of trade rules under the GATT.

In the aftermath of the Marrakech agreement, Martin was a prominent figure blocking efforts by OECD countries to push for a multilateral investment agreement, to extend the neo-liberal agenda at the first WTO ministerial in Singapore and subsequently at the third meeting in Seattle and to water down the Doha Development Agenda at the Cancun Ministerial in 2003.

The second front concerned the issues around the operations of the Bretton Woods Institutions, notably debt and development finance.  Martin had been a long-time critic of the Washington Consensus, and in particular, the use of policy conditionalities attached to lending by the IFIs which sought to push a series of damaging measures on developing countries in the name of efficiency, competitiveness and attracting foreign investors.

But he started to pay greater attention to these after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, arguing against austerity, advocating capital controls, orderly debt work-out mechanisms, multilateral discipline over exchange rates and financial policies of major advanced economies and global regulation and supervision of systemically important international financial firms.

He was a particularly strong advocate of these positions in his role as a member of the Helsinki Group on Globalisation and Democracy.  Martin took the helm of the South Centre just before the 2009 Global Financial Crisis hit and was quick to provide substantive assistance to developing countries during the 2009 UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development, identifying the key issues for them and working to ensure their insertion in the Outcome Document.

He continued to push hard on these issues through the research output from the Centre while adding the related areas of illicit financial flows and international tax issues to its workload as developing countries sought support on these matters.

The third, and increasingly prominent, front was climate change and sustainable development which gained added importance in international discussions in the new millennium. Environmental issues had always been part of Martin’s work as head of TWN and as a member of the Commission on Developing Countries and Global Change.

But this widened significantly after the UN Conference on the Environment and Development in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. Subsequently, Martin became a member of the Consultative Group on Sustainable Development and a regular attendee at the UN Climate Change Conferences that began in 1995 playing a particularly important role in the Copenhagen COP in 2009 where the neglect of the development dimension by advanced economies, their reluctance to acknowledge common but differentiated responsibilities and their naïve belief in market-friendly solutions to the climate challenge led to acrimonious discussions and the eventual collapse of the conference.

While he clearly recognized the need to reduce the pace of emissions and protect the environment, Martin was wary that the measures promoted by industrial countries could become instruments to stem development in the Global South.  Under his leadership an important part of the work in the South Centre focussed on this issue.

During this time Martin was a strong critic of tighter intellectual property rights, particularly through trade agreements, that restricted the transfer of the technologies developing countries needed to help in the fight against rising global temperatures and to mitigate the climate damage they were already experiencing.

This work had a parallel in Martin’s fight to ease the burden of TRIPs on developing countries in dealing with public health emergencies which, thanks to a successful civil society coalition where Martin was a pivotal figure, eventually succeeded in a permanent amendment to the TRIPs agreement in 2017.

Martin’s support to developing countries in the climate change negotiations, carried out through the South Centre and TWN, fostered greater coordination among developing countries in protecting and promoting their development policy space in the climate negotiations, highlighting equity, and stressing the international obligation of advanced economies to provide support to developing countries.

Martin’s approach to advancing progressive solutions on all these fronts was always one of quiet determination driven by a passionate commitment to strengthening the voice of developing countries.

He had an envious ability to synthesise and explain complex negotiating issues to a broad audience and in a way that could bring on board activists and policy makers alike. He became a trusted advisor to policy makers and diplomats across the developing world.

But Martin was equally comfortable engaging in a productive debate with policy makers from advanced countries and in mainstream institutions.   His was a uniquely calming but authoritative voice for increasingly anxious times, one that has been silenced too soon and at a moment when his commitment to building a fairer and more resilient world was needed more than ever.

Yilmaz Akyüz, Former Director, Globalization and Development Strategies Division, UNCTAD; and Former Chief Economist, South Centre, Geneva.

Richard Kozul-Wright, Director, Globalization and Development Strategies Division, UNCTAD, Geneva. 

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The Syrian Army and local self-defense forces have carried out an operation against ISIS cells hiding in the desert area on the administrative border of Raqqah and Deir Ezzor provinces. According to pro-government sources, Syrian forces eliminated up to 10 ISIS members and destroyed their hideouts.

The security operation came in response to the recently increased IED attacks and ambushes conducted by ISIS cells near Deir Ezzor city and the town of Mayadin. At least 5 Syrian service members and 8 civilians were killed during the past 2 weeks alone.

The Afrin Liberation Forces, affiliated with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, conducted a new series of attacks on Turkish proxies in the region of Afrin. The attacks took place in Kafr Hashir and on the road between Chima and Deir Survan. A vehicle was destroyed and several Turkish proxies were killed.

Sources affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other Turkish-backed militant groups are accusing the Syrian Army of violating the ceasefire regime in southern Idlib. According to them, over the past few days government forces have repeatedly shelled their positions near Jisr al-Shughur, Sarmin and al-Barah. They also claimed that over the same few days Russian aircraft have increased reconnaissance flights over this area.

Pro-government sources say that these strikes were retaliatory actions to ceasefire violations by militants. However, it should be noted that the Syrian military is not hiding that it is actively deploying reinforcements and rearming troops on the frontline in southern Idlib. All the sides of the conflict understand that the current status quo in the area cannot last long. Al-Qaeda-linked militants and other radicals remain a constant source of terrorist threat in Greater Idlib and nearby areas.

On April 7, Syrian troops and patriotic activists blocked a US military convoy near the city of al-Qamishly in northeastern Syria and forced it to turn back to its permanent positions. This became the third such incident in the area in the last two weeks.

Since the very first moment of the deployment of the Syrian Army and the Russian Military Police in Syria’s northeast, US forces have been trying to limit their movement by blocking Russian and Syrian convoys. They apparently forgot that two can play at this game. So, now US troops prefer to stay put in their bases and conduct their own ‘patrols’ in a very limited area only.

The situation reached such an extent that the US-led coalition was forced to airdrop supplies to its forces deployed in the Omar oil fields area on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. Another problem is the terrorist threat from ISIS. For a long time, the US coalition and its proxies were turning a blind eye to actions of ISIS cells along the Euphrates because this allowed them to justify the seizure of the oil fields with the need of protecting them from ISIS. As might be expected, this allowed ISIS cells to strengthen their presence in the area and now they regularly conduct attacks on US-backed forces and intimidate locals.

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Ken Loach, one of Britain’s most acclaimed film directors, has spent more than a half a century dramatising the plight of the poor and the vulnerable. His films have often depicted the casual indifference or active hostility of the state as it exercises unaccountable power over ordinary people.

Last month Loach found himself plunged into the heart of a pitiless drama that could have come straight from one of his own films. This veteran chronicler of society’s ills was forced to stand down as a judge in a school anti-racism competition, falsely accused of racism himself and with no means of redress.

Voice of the powerless

There should be little doubt about Loach’s credentials both as an anti-racist and a trenchant supporter of the powerless and the maligned.

In his films he has turned his unflinching gaze on some of the ugliest episodes of British state repression and brutality in Ireland, as well as historical struggles against fascism in other parts of the globe, from Spain to Nicaragua.

But his critical attention has concentrated chiefly on Britain’s shameful treatment of its own poor, its minorities and its refugees. In his recent film I, Daniel Blake he examined the callousness of state bureaucracies in implementing austerity policies, while this year’s release Sorry We Missed You focused on the precarious lives of a zero-hours workforce compelled to choose between the need to work and responsibility to family.

Inevitably, these scathing studies of British social and political dysfunction – exposed even more starkly by the current coronavirus pandemic – mean Loach is much less feted at home than he is in the rest of the world, where his films are regularly honoured with awards.

Which may explain why the extraordinary accusations against him of racism – or more specifically antisemitism – have not been more widely denounced as malicious.

Campaign of vilification

From the moment it was announced in February that Loach and Michael Rosen, a renowned, leftwing children’s poet, were to judge an anti-racism art competition for schools, the pair faced a relentless and high-profile campaign of vilification. But given the fact that Rosen is Jewish, Loach took the brunt of the attack.

The organisation behind the award, Show Racism the Red Card, which initially refused to capitulate to the bullying, quickly faced threats to its charitable status as well as its work eradicating racism from football.

In a statement, Loach’s production company, Sixteen Films, said Show Racism the Red Card had been the “subject of an aggressive campaign to persuade trade unions, government departments, football clubs and politicians to cease funding or otherwise supporting the charity and its work”.

“Pressure behind the scenes” was exerted from the government and from football clubs, which began threatening to sever ties with the charity.

More than 200 prominent figures in sport, academia and the arts came to Loach’s defence, noted Sixteen Films, but the charity’s “very existence” was soon at stake. Faced with this unremitting onslaught, Loach agreed to step down on March 18.

This had been no ordinary protest, but one organised with ruthless efficiency that quickly gained a highly sympathetic hearing in the corridors of power.

US-style Israel lobby

Leading the campaign against Loach and Rosen were the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Labour Movement – two groups that many on the left are already familiar with.

They previously worked from within and without the Labour party to help undermine Jeremy Corbyn, its elected leader. Corbyn stepped down this month to be replaced by Keir Starmer, his former Brexit minister, after losing a general election in December to the ruling Conservative party.

Long-running and covert efforts by the Jewish Labour Movement to unseat Corbyn were exposed two years ago in an undercover investigation filmed by Al-Jazeera.

The JLM is a small, highly partisan pro-Israel lobby group affiliated to the Labour party, while the Board of Deputies falsely claims to represent Britain’s Jewish community, when in fact it serves as a lobby for the most conservative elements of it.

Echoing their latest campaign, against Loach, the two groups regularly accused Corbyn of antisemitism, and of presiding over what they termed an “institutionally antisemitic” Labour party. Despite attracting much uncritical media attention for their claims, neither organisation produced any evidence beyond the anecdotal.

The reason for these vilification campaigns has been barely concealed. Loach and Corbyn have shared a long history as passionate defenders of Palestinian rights, at a time when Israel is intensifying efforts to extinguish any hope of the Palestinians ever gaining statehood or a right to self-determination.

In recent years, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Labour Movement have adopted the tactics of a US-style lobby determined to scrub criticism of Israel from the public sphere. Not coincidentally, the worse Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians has grown, the harder these groups have made it to talk about justice for Palestinians.

Starmer, Corbyn’s successor, went out of his way to placate the lobby during last month’s Labour leadership election campaign, happily conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism to avoid a similar confrontation. His victory was welcomed by both the Board and the JLM.

Character assassination

But Ken Loach’s treatment shows that the weaponisation of antisemitism is far from over, and will continue to be used against prominent critics of Israel. It is a sword hanging over future Labour leaders, forcing them to root out party members who persist in highlighting either Israel’s intensifying abuse of the Palestinians or the nefarious role of pro-Israel lobby groups like the Board and the JLM.

The basis for the accusations against Loach were flimsy at best – rooted in a circular logic that has become the norm of late when judging supposed examples of antisemitism.

Loach’s offence, according to the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Labour Movement, was the fact that he has denied – in line with all the data – that Labour is institutionally antisemitic.

The demand for evidence to support claims made by these two bodies that Labour has an antisemitism crisis is now itself treated as proof of antisemitism, transforming it into the equivalent of Holocaust denial.

But when Show Racism the Red Card initially stood their ground against the smears, the Board and Jewish Labour Movement produced a follow-up allegation. The anti-racism charity appeared to use this as a pretext for extracting itself from the mounting trouble associated with supporting Loach.

The new claim against Loach consisted not so much of character assassination as of character assassination by tenuous association.

The Board and Jewish Labour Movement raised the unremarkable fact that a year ago Loach responded to an email from a member of the GMB union who had been expelled.

Peter Gregson sought Loach’s professional assessment of a video in which he accused the union of victimising him over his opposition to a new advisory definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which openly conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel.

The IHRA definition was foisted on the Labour party two years ago by the same groups – the Jewish Labour Movement and the Board of Deputies – in large part as a way to isolate Corbyn. There was a great deal of opposition from rank and file members.

Resisting new definition

Pro-Israel lobby group liked this new definition – seven of its 11 examples of antisemitism relate to Israel, not Jews – because it made it impossible for Corbyn and his supporters to critique Israel without running the gauntlet of claims they were antisemitic for doing so.

Loach was among the many Corbyn supporters who tried to resist the imposition of the IHRA definition. So it was hardly surprising, given Gregson’s claims and the parallels of his story to many others Loach has been documenting for decades, that the film maker replied, offering his critical opinion of the video.

Only later was Loach told that there were separate concerns raised about Gregson’s behaviour, including an allegation that he had fallen out with a Jewish member of the union. Loach distanced himself from Gregson and backed the GMB’s decision.

That should have been an end to it. Loach is a public figure who sees it as part of his role to engage with ordinary people in need of help – anything less, given his political views, would make him a hypocrite. But he is not omniscient. He cannot know the backstory of every individual who crosses his path. He cannot vet every person before he sends an email.

It would be foolish, however, to take the professions of concern about Loach from the Board and the Jewish Labour Movement at face value. In fact, their opposition to him relates to a much more fundamental rift about what can and cannot be said about Israel, one in which the IHRA definition serves as the key battleground.

Toxic discourse

Their attacks highlight an increasingly, and intentionally, toxic discourse surrounding antisemitism that now dominates British public life. Through the recent publication of its so-called 10 pledges, the Board of Deputies has required all future Labour leaders to accept this same toxic discourse or face Corbyn’s fate.

It is no coincidence that Loach’s case has such strong echoes of Corbyn’s own public hounding.

Both are rare public figures who have dedicated their time and energies over many decades to standing up for the weak against the strong, defending those least able to defend themselves.

Both are survivors of a fading generation of political activists and intellectuals who continue to champion the tradition of unabashed class struggle, based on universal rights, rather than the more fashionable, but highly divisive, politics of identity and culture wars.

Loach and Corbyn are the remnants of a British post-war left whose inspirations were very different from those of the political centre and the right – and from the influences on many of today’s young.

Fight against fascism

At home, they were inspired by the anti-fascist struggles of their parents in the 1930s against Oswald Moseley’s Brown Shirts, such as at the Battle of Cable Street. And in their youth they were emboldened by the class solidarity that built a National Health Service from the late 1940s onwards, one that for the first time provided health care equally for all in the UK.

Abroad, they were galvanised by the popular, globe-spannning fight against the institutional racism of apartheid in South Africa, a struggle that gradually eroded western governments’ support for the white regime. And they were at the forefront of the last great mass political mobilisation, against the official deceptions that justified the US-UK war of aggression against Iraq in 2003.

But like most of this dying left they are haunted by their generation’s biggest failure in international solidarity. Their protests did not end the many decades of colonial oppression suffered by the Palestinian people and sponsored by the same western states that once stood by apartheid South Africa.

The parallels between these two western-backed, settler-colonial projects, much obscured by British politicians and the media, are stark and troubling for them.

Purge of class politics

Loach and Corbyn’s demonisation as antisemites – and parallel efforts across the Atlantic to silence Bernie Sanders (made more complicated by his Jewishness) – are evidence of a final public purge by the western political and media establishments of this kind of old-school class consciousness.

Activists like Loach and Corbyn want a historical reckoning for the west’s colonial meddling in other parts of the world, including the catastrophic legacy from which so-called “immigrants” are fleeing to this day.

It was the west that pillaged foreign soils for centuries, then armed the dictators supposedly bringing independence to these former colonies, and now invade or attack these same societies in bogus “humanitarian interventions”.

Similarly, the internationalist, class-based struggle of Loach and Corbyn rejects a politics of identity that, rather than recognising the west’s long history of crimes committed against women, minorities and refugees, channels the energies of the marginalised into a competition for who may be allowed to sit at the top table with a white elite.

It is precisely this kind of false consciousness that leads to the cheering on of women as they head up the military-industrial complex, or the excitement at a black man becoming US president only to use his power to set new records in extrajudicial killings abroad and the repression of political dissent at home.

Loach and Corbyn’s grassroots activism is the antithesis of a modern politics in which corporations use their huge wealth to lobby and buy politicians, who in turn use their spin-doctors to control the public discourse through a highly partisan and sympathetic corporate media.

Hollow concern

The Board of Deputies and the Jewish Labour Movement are very much embedded in this latter type of politics, exploiting a political identity to win a place at the top table and then use it to lobby for their chosen cause of Israel.

If this seems unfair, remember that while the Board and the Jewish Labour Movement have been hammering on about a supposed antisemitism crisis on the left defined chiefly in terms of its hostility to Israel, the right and far-right have been getting a free pass to stoke ever greater levels of white nationalism and racism against minorities.

These two organisations have not only averted their gaze from the rise of the nationalist right – which is now embedded inside the British government – but have rallied to its side.

In particular, the Board’s leaders – as well as the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who publicly reviled Corbyn as an antisemite days before last year’s general election – have barely bothered to hide their support for the Conservative government and prime minister Boris Johnson.

Their professions of concern about racism and their attacks on the charitable status of Show Racism the Red Card ring all the more hollow, given their own records of supporting racism.

Both have repeatedly backed Israel in its violations of human rights and attacks on Palestinians, including Israel’s deployment of snipers to shoot men, women and children protesting against more than a decade of suffocating Gaza with a blockade.

The two organisations have remained studiously silent on Israel’s racist policy of allowing football teams from illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank to play in its football league in violation of FIFA’s rules.

And they have supported the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund in the UK, even as it finances racist settler projects and forestation programmes that are intended to displace Palestinians from their land.

Their hypocrisy has been boundless.

Truth turned on its head

The fact that the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Labour Movement have been able to exercise such clout against Loach on allegations for which there is no evidence indicates how enthusiastically the Israel lobby has been integrated into the British establishment and serves its purposes.

Israel is a key pillar of an informal western military alliance keen to project its power into the oil-rich Middle East. Israel exports its oppressive technology and surveillance systems, refined in ruling over the Palestinians, to western states hungry for more sophisticated systems of control. And Israel has helped tear up the international rulebook in entrenching its occupation, as well as blazing a trail in legitimising torture and extrajudicial executions – now mainstays of US foreign policy.

Israel’s pivotal place in this matrix of power is rarely discussed –because western establishments have no interest in having their bad faith and double standards exposed.

The Board and the Jewish Labour Movement are helping to police and enforce that silence about Israel, a key western ally. In truly Orwellian style, they are turning the charge of racism on its head – using its against our most prominent and most resolute anti-racists.

And better still for western establishments, figures like Loach and Corbyn – veterans of class struggle, who have spent decades immersed in the fight to build a better society – are now being battered into oblivion on the anvil of identity politics.

Should this perversion of our democratic discourse be allowed to continue, our societies will be doomed to become even uglier, more divisive and divided places.

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This essay first appeared on Jonathan Cook’s blog.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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COVID-19: New Battle in Capitalism’s War on the Black Working Class

April 9th, 2020 by Black Alliance for Peace

“No Retreat, No Compromise: Defeat the War Against the African/Black Working Class,” announced the campaign of the Black Alliance for Peace before coronavirus, before the collapse of the global economy, before the lockdowns and calls for militarization of our communities, before the “discovery” by the country that African Americans had healthcare outcomes even more disastrous than colonized peoples in the global South.

BAP understood then, as we understand today, that structural violence is a permanent feature of the colonial/capitalist system. That understanding helps us to avoid the reformist fantasies held by many that the human rights crisis facing Africans in the U.S. can be resolved through piecemeal adjustments in state policies and expansion of “opportunities” by capitalism in its neoliberal form.

That is why we are not confused or demoralized by the circumstances we face at this COVID-19 moment.  For BAP, and the Black Left in general, the moment reaffirms the strategic prioritization of developing the capacities of the Black left in the U.S. There will be no radical change in the United States without an independent organized Black left.

NO RETREAT, NO COMPROMISE: BAP on the Frontlines of Struggle

There are close to 400,000 cases of coronavirus in the U.S. with over 12,000 deaths. Fear is pervasive and the material deprivation unmistakable with the lines for food pantries and the stories of desperation being shared as people are out of money and food. But as Glen Ford pointed out, it is not the coronavirus that is the culprit but the disease of capitalism that is responsible for the absence of a national healthcare system and the insecurity of millions living paycheck to paycheck, that is if they had a job.

But there is resistance.

BAP individual and organizational members are involved in deep base-building work from Washington D.C. and Baltimore to Oakland, California. Those efforts at building community assistance programs and providing educational materials have been curtailed by the restrictions on movement and travel, but they continue in places like Baltimore where BAP member organization and BAP-Baltimore collective, the Ujima Peoples Party for Progress, is involved in support work with public housing residents in Douglas Homes.

Cooperation Jackson, a BAP member organization, has taken the lead in calling for a general strike for May 1st.  “A Call to Action: Towards a General Strike to End the COVID-19 Crisis and Create a New World,” provides the rationale and the broad demands that Cooperation Jackson says must  ground the strike. The overall principle and strategic goal of the action is that the people must “make demands that will transform our broken and inequitable society, and build a new society run by and for us – the working-class, poor, oppressed majority.”

BAP and Political Education:

Liberals use the diversionary presence of Trump to place the blame for system failure on the mercurial leadership of that one individual. This is a position that oppressed people cannot afford to embrace.
On April 11 and 12th, the Black is Back Coalition for Peace, Social Justice and Reparations will host a national Zoom-based Webinar to build resistance to both the short-term COVID-19 crisis and the longer-term struggle to defeat the colonial/capitalist system that reproduces the conditions and relations of exploitation and oppression generation after generation.

BAP is a member of the BIB, and our National Organizer, Ajamu Baraka, will be a featured speaker. The event will be over two days and will begin at 10am EST on April 11th and 12th.  You can find more information here and here.

Ajamu Baraka, BAP’s National Organizer, argues that COVID-19 has stripped away all pretenses to U.S. exceptionalism. For Baraka, millions are starting to see that the capitalist “emperor has no clothes.” That the coronavirus triggered the latest and most profound systemic failure and has in the process exposed that the interests of the rulers are very different from the interests and needs of the majority of the people.

The message that the interests of Black workers are very different than those of the rulers has not been lost on Black workers. They see the phony and hypocritical appreciation white America is supposed to have for its “essential workers today,” the majority of whom are Black, when before the virus they were being treated like disposables.

In her piece “I Mind Dying,” Erica Caines, BAP member and writer at Hoodcommunist, calls attention to the objective realities of those “heroes” who are out of necessity forced to work and face constant danger for themselves and their families as a result.

Pan African Community Action (PACA) and BAP Coordinating Committee member Netfa Freeman explores an important issue that BAP has been raising since the beginning of the current crisis. “Expect Police-Military Repression Amid the Crisis of COVID-19 and Its Aftermath” examines the likelihood that the state will use the coronavirus emergency to further strengthen its repressive capacity.
BAP continues to make the connection between the national or domestic and the international or global. In fact, an understanding of domestic issues and politics are impossible without contextualizing those issues and politics within that interconnected framework.

Margaret Kimberley, from Black Agenda Report (BAR) and member of BAP’s Coordinating Committee, keeps the focus on the deadly consequences of U.S. sanctions on the people of Venezuela and Iran in her piece, “Standing with Venezuela and Iran.

The fact that these measures constitute crimes against humanity as collective punishments against the civilian population of those countries matters very little to the Trump Administration and its supporters in the Democrat Party because non-European lives have never “mattered.”

But BAP will never abandon the people of Iran and Venezuela. See the BAP statement on Venezuela here.

No Retreat, No Compromise

Coordinating Committee, Black Alliance for Peace

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More than 2,000 people working in the healthcare industry have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 in the Detroit metropolitan area sending further tremors through the already heavily-shaken region which has been identified as a major “hotspot” in the pandemic.

A spokesperson for Beaumont Hospital system said on April 6 that 1,500 of their employees have symptoms consistent with COVID-19. These numbers include 500 nurses.

At Sinai-Grace Hospital, a group of nurses staged a sit-in demanding that additional staff be hired and assigned to their shift. The nurses emphasized that there was not enough personnel to address the needs of the patients.

These nurses were then told to go home. Another nurse two weeks earlier was terminated by Sinai-Grace for raising the same concerns in a social media post.

Henry Ford Hospital announced on April 8 that over 700 of its 31,000 employees had tested positive for COVID-19. 718 patients battling the virus are being treated in the five Henry Ford Hospital campuses across Detroit and its suburbs.

With these two healthcare systems combined, Beaumont and Henry Ford, is where in excess of 2,000 employees have come down with COVID-19. The situation has created much anxiety and anger among workers in the hospital systems.

Nurses at Beaumont Hospital issued a statement during the week of April 6 demanding additional personal protective equipment (PPE), additional pay, free and regular testing, and screening, housing allowances and the hiring of additional staff. A Facebook page group has sprung up in support of these workers called “Stand with Beaumont Nurses.” 

The Facebook page has 1,300 members stating in its mission that: “Beaumont nurses need our help. Nurses at all eight Beaumont hospitals are working without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). They are short staffed due to illness and hospital mismanagement, so they are being forced to work long hours and in situations that might not fit their skill sets. They are putting their families and communities at risk because of their exposure to COVID-19 at work. If they speak out about these issues, they risk losing their jobs.”

Three nurses from the Detroit area have already died from the virus. Others within public safety, emergency medical services and public transportation have also been sickened and died.

Department of Transportation (DDOT) bus driver Jason Hargrove became the face of the plight of municipal workers in late March when he posted a video on Facebook complaining about a passenger coughing on the bus without covering up their face. Within a week the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 26 member was dead from COVID-19.

Hargrove on his post said: “It was about 8 or 9 people on the bus and she stood there and coughed and never covered up her mouth. We out here as public workers trying to do our job, trying to make an honest living, trying to care of our families, but for you to get on the bus and stand on the bus and cough several times without covering your mouth — and you know that we are in the middle of a pandemic — that lets me know that some folks don’t care.”

The DDOT driver left behind a wife and three children. His widow has spoken to ABC News where she recounted the daily distress Hargrove experienced working under the conditions prevalent in the city as the pandemic unfolded.

A rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in Detroit and other areas throughout Michigan has laid bare the social consequences of years of impoverishment, the lack of universal healthcare and dangerous working conditions. The termination of water services and the lack of adequate food outlets have compounded with the high incidences of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other ailments which impact African Americans making the virus a serious threat to the health and well-being of the entire region.

African Americans Disproportionately Affected by Pandemic

As of early April, the United States has the largest number of COVID-19 cases in the world where municipalities such as New York City, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore have been the source of a large number of the 395,000 cases resulting in 12, 800 deaths. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been documenting the number cases and deaths on a daily basis. 

Internationally there were 1,357,000 cases reported as of April 8 while nearly 80,000 have died. COVID-19 cases have been reported in 212 countries. 

Within these statistics the number of African Americans contracting and succumbing to the virus has prompted alarm among community and public leaders locally, statewide and nationally. In almost every city and state where COVID-19 has surfaced on a significant level, African Americans have been disproportionately impacted.

According to a report published on April 7 by Vox.com, it says:

“As of Tuesday, Black people made up 33 percent of cases in Michigan and 40 percent of deaths, despite being just 14 percent of the state’s population. In Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, where Black people represent 26 percent of the population, they made up almost half of the county’s 945 cases and 81 percent of its 27 deaths, according to a ProPublica report. In Illinois, Black people made up 42 percent of fatalities but make up only 14.6 percent of the state’s population. In Chicago, the data is even graver: Black people represented 68 percent of the city’s fatalities and more than 50 percent of cases but only make up 30 percent of the city’s total population.” 

On April 7 the State of Michigan reported more than 5,500 cases of the virus in Detroit with an official death total of 222. These figures may represent an underreporting of cases due to the difficulty people had with testing during the early weeks of the pandemic in the city. Some people have died of symptoms suspected to be COVID-19 prior to being tested. Rapid testing kits have been introduced to Detroit and a trial study of the prescription drug hydroxychloroquine is being conducted at Henry Ford Hospital.

Much controversy has surrounded the medication utilized to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Some physicians have suggested that patients suffering from COVID-19 have shown positive results after treatment while others point out that more research is needed. President Donald Trump has championed the medication in several White House Coronavirus Task force briefings. Many African Americans are weary of utilizing the patient population in Detroit as an experimental group for testing the drug. 

At present drive thru testing facilities are busy every day at the State Fairground and Beaumont Hospital. In the state of Michigan figures released on April 8 said that there were over 20,000 COVID-19 cases and nearly 1,000 deaths.

The southern city of New Orleans has too been a major focal point for the spread of the disease. A pattern of disparate impact is reinforced in the Louisiana city where large numbers of African Americans reside.

Statistics related to comorbidities are also quite revealing. The above-mentioned article from Vox.com notes: “This is also backed up by data released in Louisiana on Monday (April 6). In the state, the leading underlying medical conditions in patients who tested positive for coronavirus are hypertension (66.4 percent), diabetes (43.52 percent), chronic kidney disease (25.1 percent), and obesity (24.7 percent).”

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot spoke to various national media outlets on the crisis inside this Midwestern city of 2.7 million people. Over 50 percent of cases in Chicago are among African Americans while 72 percent of the people killed are from the same demographic.

University of Chicago Medical School faculty member Dr. Monica Peek who studies racial disparities in healthcare said that many of the people considered essential workers in the service industry are African Americans. African Americans, who are more likely to have underlying health conditions, are still expected to come to work.

Dr. Peek said of the situation: “When the city puts out orders for people to shelter in place … the grocery stores are open … public transit is still open. And the people that are working in those jobs are primarily or disproportionately racial or ethnic minorities.” 

Community Response in Detroit

Streets are largely empty in Detroit due to the state of emergency declared by Michigan Governor Gretchin Whitmer on March 12 which has been reinforced by a “state at home” order. Even in grocery stores and pharmacies, managers are limiting the number of people who can enter the establishment.

Lines formed outside of several supermarkets in the Midtown District where customers lined up six feet apart waiting to enter the front doors. The normally bustling restaurants, bars, schools, colleges and universities, churches, mosques and other religious institutions remained closed to public gatherings. Some restaurants have shifted to carry-out and delivery only service requiring far fewer workers.

There is strong solidarity with healthcare workers, bus drivers, grocery store employees and other essential workers expressed through signs and banners located on street corners around the Detroit Medical Center and other hospitals. Many bus drivers remain on the job while a high rate of absenteeism is being reported.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition, a community organization concerned with local, national and international issues, has been holding its regular weekly meetings via conference calls since March 16. Discussions have centered-around the need to guarantee services for the people suffering from the pandemic and threatened by its very existence.

Governor Whitmer in a recent press conference requested volunteers in the medical field from around the U.S. to come to Detroit and assist with pandemic relief. Moratorium NOW! Coalition has told the governor to request the cooperation of Cuban medical personnel. This would be a direct challenge to the six decades-long blockade and an enormous benefit to the healthcare system in the state which is reaching near capacity in regard to hospital space, equipment along with the shortages of personnel and equipment.

Moratorium NOW! Coalition has established a sub-committee to demand Cuban medical relief to Detroit and other areas throughout the state. The Cuba Caravan will be holding a joint event online with Moratorium NOW! Coalition in commemoration of May Day, where there will be a review on the current state of the blockade and U.S.-Cuba relations.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Coronavirus: Europe Can Go “the Italian Way”?

April 9th, 2020 by Paul Antonopoulos

As coronavirus began spreading across China and devastating the once prosperous city of Wuhan, Western countries should have immediately begun preparing to deal with what would later be announced as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).  

The results of the carelessness of the political elite is evident. To date, the United States leads in the number of infected people of 400,000. This is largely because of the inconsistency in the measures taken by the White House, where U.S. President Donald Trump even had the arrogance to announce that lockdowns and normalcy will return to normal after Western Easter.

In Europe, the most dramatic situation is in Italy, where more than 135,000 cases of infection and 17,000 deaths from coronavirus are registered. For the EU, the situation in Italy should have been an occasion to join forces in the fight against the pandemic. However, each European country confronts the coronavirus separately, increasingly distancing itself from the problems of its neighbors, demonstrating that the liberal globalized order which the EU was a supposed champion of is collapsing under pressure. This has created a realpolitik situation where states are now contracting into self-serving agendas.

Probably, a significant share of responsibility for such a catastrophic situation should be placed on Germany, which for many years has sought recognition for its leading role in the EU, claiming the status of a “system-forming state.” But German authorities cannot effectively counter a pandemic even in their own country where over 2,000 people have already died. In terms of the number of infected, Germany is in fourth place in the world, behind the United States, Italy and Spain. In just one day on April 2 6,174 people were infected with the dangerous virus in Germany. The total number of cases is nearly at 110,000. This is the predicament that Germany finds itself in despite having what is considered one the best healthcare system in the world.

Ironically it is little Greece, once the “black sheep” of Europe and considered “lazy” that has been a shining light and embarrassing their European counterparts. Berlin and Brussels decimated the Greek healthcare system with its strict austerity measures imposed since 2010 when the financial crisis began, and saw funding in the sector reduce by upwards of 50%. This reduction saw 35,000 Greek doctors emigrate to Germany alone by 2015 – this does not include doctors who went elsewhere as well. While Germany struggles to contain the coronavirus, Greece has 1,832 cases and 81 deaths. Even when adjusted for per capita, Italy’s fatality rate is almost 40 times greater than Greece. But even when compared to countries with a similar population like Belgium that has 2,035 deaths and a far higher GDP without a devastated healthcare system, it gives an insight in how effective early lockdowns and closure of the borders has been for Greece – something the overwhelming majority of the EU did not do.

But Greece is only one standout case on a continent that has seen the traditional powerhouses like Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK absolutely devasted. The EU in fact recognizes the inability to contain the pandemic on its own. As a result, Italy accepted the help of Russia, which sent several planes to the Mediterranean country with equipment for the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19, with modern disinfection means, as well as teams of high-class medical specialists. At the same time, Moscow confirms its readiness for dialogue with European countries in expanding cooperation in the fight against coronavirus. Russia was able to develop more effective methods to counter the pandemic. While in Germany 288 people died in just one day from complications caused by coronavirus, in Russia, for the entire time of the terrible pandemic, the number of deaths from the dangerous infection is at 63 people.

Of course, when it comes to people’s lives, such statistics is not a reason for pride or gloating. But the countries of the EU could somehow use the experience of Russia in confronting COVID-19 and learn from it despite the bruised egos it may create. After all, only by joint efforts, abandoning political differences and ideological prejudices, the world community will be able to defeat the deadly infection.

Unfortunately, the United States, together with Great Britain, the EU, Ukraine, and Georgia, blocked the Russian draft resolution at the UN General Assembly on countering the pandemic, claiming there were some deceptive purposes in the Russian call to establish closer cooperation between all countries of the world and temporarily abandon mutual trade restrictions, sanctions and profiteering of essential goods.

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Trump Regime COVID-19 Blame Game

April 9th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

The US needs enemies to pursue its imperial agenda. None exist so they’re invented.

Most often they’re sovereign independent nations the US doesn’t control, making them a prime targets for regime change — notably if they’re oil rich like Iran and Venezuela or powerful enough to challenge US hegemonic aims like Russia and China.

Time and again, US regimes falsely blame other nations for their own wrongdoing.

Russia is a prime target, blamed repeatedly by US hardliners for things it had nothing to do with.

The Russians did it Big Lie has a life of its own, notably because US establishment media operate as press agents for the imperial state and other privileged interests — at the expense of truth and full disclosure.

China is a prime target because of its growing prominence on the world stage politically, economically and militarily.

Major Sino/US differences have nothing to do with trade, everything to do with Washington wanting China marginalized, weakened, contained and isolated industrially, technologically, and militarily.

Trump and others surrounding him turned truth on its head, calling COVID-19 the “Wuhan virus.”

Most likely it originated in the US. A Taiwanese virologist suggested it, saying  “Japanese (nationals visited) Hawaii (in September 2019) and returned home infected.”

Since 2018, China also had significant outbreaks of bird flu and African swine flu. Was bad luck responsible or US biowarfare — its specialty throughout the post-WW II period, along with use of chemical, radiological and other banned weapons.

Since gaining independence from US control in 1959, Washington waged war on Cuba by other means — following its humiliating 1961 Bay of Pigs defeat by Cuban revolutionary forces.

US proxies attacked the country’s sugar mills by air. A Belgian ship in Havana was blown up, killing crew members and dock workers.

Stores, theaters and other targets were dynamited. Dozens of bombings and other attacks occurred.

Hundreds of attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro failed. The CIA conducted biological warfare against the country.

Toxic viruses destroyed sugar cane and other crops. A US biological attack contaminated half a million pigs in Cuba with swine fever.

Dengue fever introduced in the country harmed over 340,000 people, killing at least 158, including 101 children.

Cubana flight 455 was terror-bombed in by former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles, killing passengers and crew on board.

Despite all of the above and much more thrown at Cuba by Washington and its proxies, the country remains proudly independent of US control.

It remains on the US target list for regime change along with all other sovereign independent countries — what the scourge of US imperialism is all about, a diabolical plot to achieve unchallenged global dominance, no matter the human cost.

Failure by the Trump regime to address COVID-19 outbreaks in the US responsibly bears full responsibility for growing outbreaks that could have and should have been brought under control by now.

The US knew of the threat since early 2017 but did nothing to prepare. Claiming what’s ongoing was “unforeseen” by Trump is one of many of his bald-faced Big Lies.

If responsible actions were taken at the time, things would likely be under control as China achieved in controlling and largely eliminating outbreaks — even though one or more new waves remain possible in the country and elsewhere.

According to the Daily Beast (DB), citing information from two US officials and a Trump regime cable, “the White House…launch(ed) a communications  plan across multiple federal agencies that focuses on accusing Beijing of orchestrating a ‘cover-up’ and creating a global pandemic.”

Trump’s National Security Council appears to be behind the mass deception campaign.

The cable obtained by DB claims Beijing “hid news of the virus from its own people for weeks, while suppressing information and punishing doctors and journalists who raised the alarm.”

No evidence was presented because none exists. The Trump regime’s anti-China blame game continues spreading disinformation to deflect attention from its own malfeasance.

According to Science Business on April 7, “China (and) its scientists led the way in tackling the virus.”

“They won international praise for hitting several key milestones in understanding the novel, fast-moving virus.”

False accusations against its leadership “became a political weapon in…the US, the UK and Canada.”

Biomedical Sciences Professor Ian Jones explained that “many research findings from the Chinese experience are now appearing,” providing valuable information to other nations.

Lancet editor Richard Horton noted that Chinese scientists “took time to write up their findings in a foreign language and seek publication in a medical journal thousands of miles away.”

“Their rapid and rigorous work was an urgent warning to the world. We owe those scientists enormous thanks.”

University of Southampton senior research fellow Michael Head said “we’re seeing reasonable cooperation between China and elsewhere,” adding:

“The Chinese have been leading the way in publishing open-access evidence on case management, genomics and numerous areas of public health and epidemiology, which has been vital in informing the response in more or less every country.”

The Trump regime is an obstacle to tackling outbreaks domestically by failing to supply states and cities with federal direction, along with enough ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) from the national stockpile.

The Journal of the American Medical Association noted that China “improved its epidemic response capacity” since the 2002–03 SARS outbreak.

The New England Journal of Medicine explained that evidence doesn’t support claims about fake numbers from China.

Science magazine noted that normality is beginning to return to China, saying:

“Three-quarters of China’s workforce was back on the job as of 24 March.”

“China has done what few believed was possible: Bring a blazing epidemic of a respiratory virus to a virtual standstill.”

Most new infections have been imported by incoming air passengers.

China is leading the world in dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks. Falsely blaming its authorities by the Trump regime is an attempt shift attention from its own bungled response.

China’s response was draconian but effective. If other nations followed its example, COVID-19 would likely have been brought under control by now.

China has about 83,000 confirmed cases. Numbers in the US exceed 435,000 and are increasing by many thousands more daily — nearly 30% of world outbreaks.

Given how the Trump regime mishandled things, it’s unclear when outbreaks will be brought under control in the US.

So far about 1% of the US population is infected with the virus. It’s unknown how much further it may spread or for how long.

Trump’s focus on corporate interests, stock market performance, and imperial aggression over human health and welfare at home suggests the issue could fester for some time.

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.

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