Global Research

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.

“Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.”   – Shakespeare, King Lear

Many thousands of New Yorkers have temporarily moved into the small Massachusetts town (permanent population approximately 7,000) where I live because of fear and panic created by fraudulent disease and death data gathered and disseminated under the umbrella term Covid-19. 

Such deceitful, fear-inducing news concerning diseases is old hat, but this time it’s part of perhaps the biggest propaganda campaign in modern history, resulting in an unprecedented government crackdown on people’s freedom, a massive transfer of trillions of public dollars to the banks and corporations, and crumbs for average Americans.  In my little town, second vacation homes,

Airbnbs, room rentals, and hotel rooms are packed. It is a flight to “safety” reminiscent of the months following the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent anthrax attacks that originated from a U.S. government bioweapons laboratory.  In the years immediately following those attacks, McMansions were built throughout these hills and local houses were bought up like penny candy as New Yorkers flooded the area.  Now as then, the wealthy refugees absconding on the road of flight accept official explanations and arrange their lives accordingly. Little is learned as repetition compulsion rules and the latest terror alert has them cowering in fear, playing their parts in a theatrical production conceived by master dramatists. 

Let’s call it “The Operation.”

During the day, you can see small numbers of them out walking, yards apart, on the country roads. The downtown streets are deserted day and night. This in a town that over the past twenty years has become an upscale movie set catering to tourists and second-home owners who have brought great wealth with them, making it very difficult for regular people to afford the town and survive on jobs in the service economy.

Now that the country has been brought to a halt by the government shutdown, the regular people are screwed big-time. Many small businesses will never again open. The town’s largest employer, Jane Iredale cosmetics, the perfect employer for life the movie, has just laid off forty-seven employees. Make-up for the psycho-social drama might run short now, even though the theater has temporarily gone indoors. I don’t know if Iredale’s mascara (Italian, maschera, mask) is still available.

In normal times, the town would be filled with people frequenting the restaurants, cafes, and boutiques, parading down the streets dressed like movie stars in SoHo. Black clad actors.  Now it is a ghost town without many ghosts.  The few you do see wear cloth or paper masks.

The word mask comes from Latin, larva, a ghost, specter, a disembodied spirit – a mask.  Larvatus, masked, a personality, or person, an actor, one who wears a mask. Person, Persona, a mask, a false face – personare – to sound through the hole in the mask.

Shakespeare was right.  To grasp the social play, one must be a theater critic.  There is a reason ghosts play such important parts in his plays.  If life is but a walking shadow, a poor player, then what are we the cast?  Are we but seldom masters of our fate but usually only underlings, dancing to the tunes our masters play for us?  It seems tis so.

For the paper and cloth masks people are wearing are just a second layer of masking, the first being what sociologists – diminutive descendants of Shakespeare – call status/roles and regular people just call roles, even when they don’t know they are playing them, which is most of the time. Most people associate playing a role with being phony, while failing to notice that social life is comprised of such play-acting, “as if” the play were natural.  To admit that it is fictitious and that one is performing in a play written and directed by someone else is to open a trapdoor beneath one’s feet. 

The sociological term status refers to the very many positions one occupies in a lifetime such as occupational titles, family positions, even racial statuses that society imposes on people.  So a person could, for example, be categorized as a medical doctor who is a father and an uncle.  Each status – doctor, father, uncle – would have socially imposed expectations attached to it that are called roles that one is expected to play or else one is considered an oddball at best.  To treat them as playful simulations in a life of experimentation, and to treat social titles and statuses as comical, results in one not being considered a team player or actor in the social play.  Only children and crazy people do that.

Imagine you are an impostor and dress in the uniform of an airline pilot.  To pass for a pilot you must know how to perform the role.  In other words, to be a good actor in the role and pass yourself as the “genuine” thing.  This is what Shakespeare meant by all the world’s a stage, with the wooden stage where Hamlet and Othello are performed just being another artificial form of the “naturally” occurring fabricated life of society.  So social life is phony in that sense, which raises the basic question of what then does it mean to be genuine, to be real.

The philosopher René Descartes once said, “As an actor, to conceal his blush of embarrassment, enters the stage masked, so I step forth onto the stage of the world, masked.”

But to be masked is to be hidden, to be a ghost that no one can see, a cipher. So Descartes and Shakespeare were asking us that fundamental question: Who are we?  Are we? 

Nietzsche asked it this way:

Are you genuine?  Or merely an actor?  A representative?  Or that which is represented?  In the end, perhaps you are merely a copy of an actor.”

Most people, as good underlings do, have now obeyed the director’s instructions and retreated into their Plato’s caves where they huddle fearfully around the flickering screens that have become their well-nigh reality, and which will become even more so in the future as the powers-that-be push their digital agenda.  It’s still showtime but of a different sort with the performers receiving the director’s cues all electronically. That the cast didn’t write the play and doesn’t know who did doesn’t seem to bother many.  They see it as the only show in town and they’re playing it, and while the anonymity of the digital life adds to the comedy of errors, it may be what many desire.

We live in the culture of the copy in every sense of the term.  There is rarely one of anything, even people.  Long ago Walter Benjamin wrote a famous article called “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”  In it he says that the mechanical reproduction of a work of art eliminates its “aura.”  “By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence,” he wrote.  In the age of film and digital screen existence, this is very true for people as well. Uniqueness is fading. The more people live in and by screen images and the propaganda such technology affords to the powerful, the more they can be reproduced.  This of course has happened.  Once the masses had to be gathered into a herd in one place and induced to act in unison. Today place has been replaced with cyberspace and the masquerade ball can be directed without movement.

Welcome.  “The Operation” is just beginning.

You don’t need to read Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics to understand that neoliberalism – in deep crisis since at least 2008 – is a control/governing technique in which surveillance capitalism is deeply embedded.

But now, with the world-system collapsing at breathtaking speed, neoliberalism is at a loss to deal with the next stage of dystopia, ever present in our hyper-connected angst: global mass unemployment.

Henry Kissinger, anointed oracle/gatekeeper of the ruling class, is predictably scared. He claims that, “sustaining the public trust is crucial to social solidarity.” He’s convinced the Hegemon should “safeguard the principles of the liberal world order.” Otherwise, “failure could set the world on fire.”

That’s so quaint. Public trust is dead across the spectrum. The liberal world “order” is now social Darwinist chaos. Just wait for the fire to rage.

The numbers are staggering. The Japan-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), in its annual economic report, may not have been exactly original. But it did note that the impact of the “worst pandemic in a century” will be as high as $4.1 trillion, or 4.8 percent of global GDP.

This an underestimation, as “supply disruptions, interrupted remittances, possible social and financial crises, and long-term effects on health care and education are excluded from the analysis.”

We cannot even start to imagine the cataclysmic social consequences of the crash. Entire sub-sectors of the global economy may not be recomposed at all.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) forecasts global unemployment at a conservative, additonal 24.7 million people – especially in aviation, tourism and hospitality.

The global aviation industry is a humongous $2.7 trillion business. That’s 3.6 percent of global GDP. It employs 2.7 million people. When you add air transport and tourism —everything from hotels and restaurants to theme parks and museums — it accounts for a minimum of 65.5 million jobs around the world.

According to the ILO, income losses for workers may range from $860 billion to an astonishing $3.4 trillion. “Working poverty” will be the new normal – especially across the Global South.

“Working poor,” in ILO terminology, means employed people living in households with a per capita income below the poverty line of $2 a day. As many as an additional 35 million people worldwide will become working poor in 2020.

Switching to feasible perspectives for global trade, it’s enlightening to examine that this report about how the economy may rebound is centered on the notorious hyperactive merchants and traders of Yiwu in eastern China – the world’s busiest small-commodity, business hub.

Their experience spells out a long and difficult recovery. As the rest of the world is in a coma, Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura in Hong Kong stresses that China faces a 30 percent decline in external demand at least until next Fall.

Neoliberalism in Reverse?

In the next stage, the strategic competition between the U.S. and China will be no-holds-barred, as emerging narratives of China’s new, multifaceted global role – on trade, technology, cyberspace, climate change – will set in, even more far-reaching than the New Silk Roads. That will also be the case in global public health policies. Get ready for an accelerated Hybrid War between the “Chinese virus” narrative and the Health Silk Road.

The latest report by the China Institute of International Studies would be quite helpful for the West — hubris permitting — to understand how Beijing adopted key measures putting the health and safety of the general population first.

Now, as the Chinese economy slowly picks up, hordes of fund managers from across Asia are tracking everything from trips on the metro to noodle consumption to preview what kind of economy may emerge post-lockdown.

In contrast, across the West, the prevailing doom and gloom elicited a priceless editorial from The Financial Times. Like James Brown in the 1980s Blues Brothers pop epic, the City of London seems to have seen the light, or at least giving the impression it really means it. Neoliberalism in reverse. New social contract. “Secure” labor markets. Redistribution.

Cynics won’t be fooled. The cryogenic state of the global economy spells out a vicious Great Depression 2.0 and an unemployment tsunami. The plebs eventually reaching for the pitchforks and the AR-15s en masse is now a distinct possibility. Might as well start throwing a few breadcrumbs to the beggars’ banquet.

That may apply to European latitudes. But the American story is in a class by itself.

For decades, we were led to believe that the world-system put in place after WWII provided the U.S. with unrivalled structural power. Now, all that’s left is structural fragility, grotesque inequalities, unpayable Himalayas of debt, and a rolling crisis.

No one is fooled anymore by the Fed’s magic quantitative easing powers, or the acronym salad – TALF, ESF, SPV – built into the Fed/U.S. Treasury exclusive obsession with big banks, corporations and the Goddess of the Market, to the detriment of the average American.

It was only a few months ago that a serious discussion evolved around the $2.5 quadrillion derivatives market imploding and collapsing the global economy, based on the price of oil skyrocketing, in case the Strait of Hormuz – for whatever reason – was shut down.

Now it’s about Great Depression 2.0: the whole system crashing as a result of the shutdown of the global economy. The questions are absolutely legitimate: is the political and social cataclysm of the global economic crisis arguably a larger catastrophe than Covid-19 itself?  And will it provide an opportunity to end neoliberalism and usher in a more equitable system, or something even worse?

 ‘Transparent’ BlackRock

Wall Street, of course, lives in an alternative universe. In a nutshell, Wall Street turned the Fed into a hedge fund. The Fed is going to own at least two thirds of all U.S. Treasury bills in the market before the end of 2020.

The U.S. Treasury will be buying every security and loan in sight while the Fed will be the banker – financing the whole scheme.

So essentially this is a Fed/Treasury merger. A behemoth dispensing loads of helicopter money.

And the winner is BlackRock—the biggest money manager on the planet, with tentacles everywhere, managing the assets of over 170 pension funds, banks, foundations, insurance companies, in fact a great deal of the money in private equity and hedge funds. BlackRock — promising to be fully  “transparent” — will buy these securities and manage those dodgy SPVs on behalf of the Treasury.

BlackRock, founded in 1988 by Larry Fink, may not be as big as Vanguard, but it’s the top investor in Goldman Sachs, along with Vanguard and State Street, and with $6.5 trillion in assets, bigger than Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank combined.

Now, BlackRock is the new operating system (OS) of the Fed and the Treasury. The world’s biggest shadow bank – and no, it’s not Chinese.

Compared to this high-stakes game, mini-scandals such as the one around Georgia Senator Kelly Loffler are peanuts. Loffler allegedly profited from inside information on Covid-19 by the CDC to make a stock market killing. Loffler is married to Jeffrey Sprecher – who happens to be the chairman of the NYSE, installed by Goldman Sachs.

While corporate media followed this story like headless chickens, post-Covid-19 plans, in Pentagon parlance, “move forward” by stealth.

The price? A meager $1,200 check per person for a month. Anyone knows that, based on median salary income, a typical American family would need $12,000 to survive for two months. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, in an act of supreme effrontry, allows them a mere 10 percent of that. So American taxpayers will be left with a tsunami of debt while selected Wall Street players grab the whole loot, part of an unparalleled transfer of wealth upwards, complete with bankruptcies en masse of small and medium businesses.

Fink’s letter to his shareholders almost gives the game away: “I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.”

And right on cue, he forecasted that, “in the near future – and sooner than most anticipate – there will be a significant reallocation of capital.”

He was referring, then, to climate change. Now that refers to Covid-19.

Implant Our Nanochip, Or Else?

The game ahead for the elites, taking advantage of the crisis, might well contain these four elements: a social credit system, mandatory vaccination, a digital currency and a Universal Basic Income (UBI). This is what used to be called, according to the decades-old, time-tested CIA playbook, a “conspiracy theory.” Well, it might actually happen.

A social credit system is something that China set up already in 2014. Before the end of 2020, every Chinese citizen will be assigned his/her own credit score – a de facto “dynamic profile”, elaborated with extensive use of AI and the internet of things (IoT), including ubiquitous facial recognition technology. This implies, of course, 24/7 surveillance, complete with Blade Runner-style roving robotic birds.

The U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Canada, Russia and India may not be far behind. Germany, for instance, is tweaking its universal credit rating system, SCHUFA. France has an ID app very similar to the Chinese model, verified by facial recognition.

Mandatory vaccination is Bill Gates’s dream, working in conjunction with the WHO, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Big Pharma. He wants “billions of doses” to be enforced over the Global South. And it could be a cover to everyone getting a digital implant.

Here it is, in his own words. At 34:15: “Eventually what we’ll have to have is certificates of who’s a recovered person, who’s a vaccinated person…Because you don’t want people moving around the world where you’ll have some countries that won’t have it under control, sadly. You don’t want to completely block off the ability for people to go there and come back and move around.”

Then comes the last sentence which was erased from the official TED video. This was noted by Rosemary Frei, who has a master on molecular biology and is an independent investigative journalist in Canada. Gates says: “So eventually there will be this digital immunity proof that will help facilitate the global reopening up.”

This “digital immunity proof” is crucial to keep in mind, something that could be misused by the state for nefarious purposes.

The three top candidates to produce a coronavirus vaccine are American biotech firm Moderna, as well as Germans CureVac and BioNTech.

Digital cash might then become an offspring of blockchain. Not only the U.S., but China and Russia are also interested in a national crypto-currency. A global currency – of course controlled by central bankers – may soon be adopted in the form of a basket of currencies, and would circulate virtually. Endless permutations of the toxic cocktail of IoT, blockchain technology and the social credit system could loom ahead.

Already Spain has announced that it is introducing UBI, and wants it to be permanent. It’s a form insurance for the elite against social uprisings, especially if millions of jobs never come back.

So the key working hypothesis is that Covid-19 could be used as cover for the usual suspects to bring in a new digital financial system and a mandatory vaccine with a “digital identity” nanochip with dissent not tolerated: what Slavoj Zizek calls the “erotic dream” of every totalitarian government.

Yet underneath it all, amid so much anxiety, a pent-up rage seems to be gathering strength, to eventually explode in unforeseeable ways. As much as the system may be changing at breakneck speed, there’s no guarantee even the 0.1 percent will be safe.

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This article was originally published on Consortium News.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

When revolutionary change is most needed, it’s nowhere to be found in the US land of the free and home of the brave in name only — a fantasy democracy, never the real thing, so-called elections part of the charade.

Sanders pretended to be a serious presidential contender in 2016 and in the current race to become Dem nominee.

It was Hillary’s turn to pursue the brass ring twice before. Now it’s Biden’s time, both rock solid establishment figures — their anointment as party standard bearers pre-determined by party bosses. Voters have no say whatever.

That’s how the US system works. If elections produced positive change, especially when most needed like now, they’d be banned.

Throughout his House and Senate tenure in Congress since 1991, Sanders’ voting record belied his public advocacy, largely along Dem party lines.

Like the vast majority of others in Congress, past and present, his soul was and remains for sale at the right price.

He fools many people some of the time, his supporters most always.

A progressive socialist in name only, he’s never been the real thing throughout his public life, including as Burlington, VT mayor in the 1980s.

Abandoning his 2020 campaign, Sanders said:

“I have concluded that this battle for the (Dem) nomination will not be successful. So today I’m announcing the suspension of my campaign.”

“I could not in good conscience continue to mount a campaign that cannot not win and which would interfere with the important work required by all of us in this difficult hour.”

“Today I congratulate Joe Biden, a very decent man (sic) who I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward.”

A formal endorsement of Biden will follow. It’ll likely be similar to his announced support for Hillary in 2016, saying at the time:

“I am endorsing Hillary Clinton…(S)he must become our next president.”

She “understands that we must fix an economy in America that is rigged and that sends almost all new wealth and income to the top one percent.”

Hillary and Biden are two unacceptable sides of the same coin — pro-war, pro-business, anti-government of, by, and for everyone equitably.

In 2016, Sanders falsely added that that the Dem party platform was “the most progressive in the history of the (Dem) party (sic).”

Dem New Deal, Fair Deal, and Great Society programs are a shadow of their former forms, regressive, not progressive — social justice in the US targeted for elimination by both right wings of the one-party state, notably since the neoliberal 90s.

When most needed at a time of growing mass unemployment, human misery, and public angst, compounded by a public health crisis, progressive rule in America is more urgently needed than any time since the 1930s decade-long Great Depression.

Franklin Roosevelt led the nation at the time. Today it’s Trump, an anti-populist serving privileged interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary Americans he’s dismissive toward.

FDR and Congress established an alphabet soup of progressive policies — designed to help Americans in need and revive the economy. They included:

The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) to refinance homes and prevent foreclosures.

The Blaine Act that repealed Prohibition, a failed experiment.

Something similar today is vitally needed to end the war on drugs that’s largely a war on Blacks, Latinos, and the poor that created the humanly destructive US prison/industrial complex, the world’s largest by far.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that gave unemployed workers jobs to build roads, bridges, dams, state parks, plant trees, and pursue various forestry and recreational programs.

The Civilian Works Administration (CWA) to provide funds to states to reduce unemployment — later replaced by the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), an initiative to revive economic growth, encourage collective bargaining, set maximum work hours, minimum wages, at times prices, and forbid child labor in industry.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) to provide emergency relief for the unemployed.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) — federally controlled to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, economic development, and promote agriculture in the depression-impacted Tennessee Valley area covering most of Tennessee as well as parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) — a counterproductive initiative to decrease supply when badly needed to raise prices.

The Farm Credit Act to help farmers refinance mortgages at below-market rates so they could stay solvent.

The National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act that let labor bargain collectively on equal terms with management for the first time in US history — its benefits largely gone today.

The landmark Social Security Act — the single most program ever enacted for ordinary Americans along with Medicare in the 1960s for seniors and others who qualify.

The Revenue Acts of 1934, 35, and 36 established tax rates for high-income households and corporations to pay their fair share.

The Revenue Act of 1937 aimed to curb tax evasion.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) established a minimum wage, a 40-hour week, and time-and-a-half pay for overtime.

The National Housing Act aimed to make housing and mortgages more affordable through FHA and Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) financing.

The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) aimed to bring electrical power to rural and remote areas.

A later in the decade Housing Act provided subsidies to local public housing agencies.

The Railroad Retirement System, separate from Social Security, administered a social insurance program for railroad workers and their families.

The National Youth Administration (NYA) provided grants to high school and college students in return for work, along with on-the-job training.

The Securities and Exchange Act enforced securities laws and the industry. The aim fell far short of fulfillment.

The Bank Act (Glass-Steagall) created the FDIC, insured bank deposits up to $5,000, and separated commercial from investment banks and insurance companies, among other provisions to curb speculation.

Clinton co-presidency era Gramm-Leach-Bliley legislation repealed Glass-Steagall.

Along with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) around the same time, a Pandora’s Box of unregulated Wall Street excesses became the new normal that contributes to creating artificial booms and busts like what’s unfolding now.

While New Deal initiatives didn’t end the Great Depression because greater spending was needed, they provided important financial and other support at a time when only government had the resources to help millions of people in dire need.

Dismissive toward public need, Trump and Congress provided little for ordinary people in the corporate bailout bill.

Based on his record in Congress since the 1970s, Biden is like Trump with a rhetorical difference.

While a Sanders presidency would surely fall short of his lofty rhetoric, instead of dropping out of the race at a time of unprecedented economic duress for ordinary people, he should have stepped up his campaign and stayed the course.

Like the 1930s, now is the time for leadership that’s dedicated to helping ordinary Americans in need with a current-day alphabet soup of progressive policies when most needed.

Trump or Biden are neanderthal politicians whose records show indifference toward public need in deference to privileged interests they support exclusively.

A progressive giant is needed to guide the US through unprecedented troubled waters.

Sadly, there’s no one in the race for the White House that remotely meets this standard.

While NATO countries are mostly being devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, a statement by the Alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about deepening partnerships with Ukraine and Georgia demonstrates that pressure on Russia will continue unabated and remains a priority. Despite the provocative attitude of the NATO head, many European states such as Italy, France, Serbia are still taking steps to become closer with Russia, ignoring the frustrations of the U.S.

While Atlanticist U.S. and United Kingdom claim there is a Russian threat, we can now see increasing efforts among European countries to improve relations with Russia, which is, of course, to the dismay of Washington. NATO has now completely transformed into an organization to try and completely control its members and run them according to their own geopolitical program and ambitions.

One should not forget the comment by French President Emmanuel Macron who declared NATO is “brain dead.” This is as he continues his ambition for a European Army to act independently of the U.S.-controlled NATO alliance. We also remember the condemnation that European states levelled against U.S. President Donald Trump for his unilateral withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal, calling the action unnecessary and provocative. This shows that Europe are taking steps to become more independent and sovereign from U.S. domination.

There is little doubt that the liberal globalized order is collapsing under pressure from coronavirus, however, despite this reality, NATO will continue to fight for its domineering position on the global stage. NATO has lost its unity in terms of its own sense of security. It becomes increasingly obvious there is no future in NATO.

Despite this reality, NATO continues on its ambition to encircle and isolate Russia by wanting to advance Georgian and Ukrainian membership into the Alliance. This is another desperate attempt by NATO to appear relevant in a changing world system that is no longer Atlanticist. Although the U.S. and United Kingdom continue to behave in an Atlanticist manner, European leaders are increasingly accepting the reality that the 21st century is Eurasianist. Both Ukraine and Georgia desperately want to attain NATO membership, but there is a high risk that NATO in the coming decade will become obsolete.

As the world’s system is shifting its power poles from the West to the East, Ukraine and Georgia have more to gain by having strong relations with its immediate neighbors, including Russia, that can serve the basis for a Black Sea cooperation. Russia, Ukraine and Georgia are all Black Sea states, as well as neutral Moldova and NATO members Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey – and all have much to gain by creating a peaceful ‘lake’ in the middle of Eurasia. The Black Sea plays an important role as it is connecting Europe with Western Asia and the U.S. needs full access to it to pressurize Russia.

It is for this reason that the issue of Ukraine and Georgia is also important for NATO, but especially for Washington. NATO members have been completely unwilling to help Italy as over 16,000 people have died. Ironically, it was Russia who sent health specialists, doctors, nurses and medical specialists to Italy who is not only a NATO member, but also a European Union one. Therefore, while NATO does not have a unity in itself, its expansion efforts are not only futile when the system it protects inside has collapsed. Rather it is an attempt to regain legitimacy and credibility to other future potential members of the Alliance.

If Black Sea states created a harmonious region, it will become one of the main economic, transportation and energy hubs in the 21st century. By wilfully serving NATO interests, Ukraine and Georgia only merely delay, rather than prevent, a new guiding and rules-based system. With the U.S. having over 10,000 deaths and over 130,000 coronavirus cases, it will not slow down or begin ignoring the structures of NATO to achieve its anti-Russian goals. As the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated NATO is unwilling to help its own allies in times of crisis, who have instead had to rely on Russia for medical assistance.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Yesterday Mark Sommers QC, the extremely erudite and bookish second counsel for Julian Assange in his extradition hearing, trembled with anger in court. Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser had just made a ruling that the names of Julian Assange’s partner and young children could be published, which she stated was in the interests of “open justice”.

His partner had submitted a letter in support of his Covid 19 related bail application (which Baraitser had summarily dismissed) to state he had a family to live with in London. Baraitser said that it was therefore in the interests of open justice that the family’s names be made public, and said that the defence had not convincingly shown this would cause any threat to their security or well-being. It was at this point Sommers barely kept control. He leapt to his feet and gave notice of an appeal to the High Court, asking for a 14 day stay. Baraitser granted four days, until 4pm on Friday.

I am in lockdown in Edinburgh, but received three separate eye witness reports. They are unanimous that yet again Baraitser entered the court carrying pre-written judgements before hearing oral argument; pre-written judgements she gave no appearance of amending.

There have been two Covid-19 deaths in Belmarsh prison so far. For obvious reasons the disease is ripping through the jail like wildfire. The Department of Justice is admitting to one death, and refuses to give statistics for the number of cases. As even very sick prisoners are not being tested, the figures would arguably not mean much anyway. As the court heard at the bail application, over 150 Belmarsh prison staff are off work self-isolating and the prison is scarcely functioning. It is the most complete definition of lockdown.

The Prison Governors’ Association submitted to the House of Commons Justice Committee (which yesterday morning considered prisoner releases in closed session) that 15,000 non-violent prisoners need to be released to give the jails any chance of managing COVID-19. The Department of Justice has suggested releasing 4,000 of whom just 2,000 have been identified. As of a couple of days ago, only about 100 had actually been released.

The prisons are now practising “cohorting” across the estate, although decisions currently lie with individual governors. Prisoners who have a cough – any cough – are being put together in segregated blocks. The consequences of this are of course potentially unthinkable. Julian has a cough and chronic lung condition for which he has been treated for years – a fact which is not in dispute.

Yesterday Baraitser again followed her usual path of refusing every single defence motion, following pre-written rulings (whether written or merely copied out by herself I know not), even when the prosecution did not object. You will recall that at the first week of extradition hearing proper, she insisted that Julian be kept in a glass cage, although counsel for the US government made no objection to his sitting in the body of the court, and she refused to intervene to stop his strip searching, handcuffing and the removal of his court papers, even though the US government joined the defence in querying her claim she had no power to do this (for which she was later roundly rebuked by the International Bar Association).

Yesterday the US government did not object to a defence motion to postpone the resumption of the extradition hearing. The defence put forward four grounds:

1) Julian is currently too ill to prepare his defence
2) Due to Covid-19 lockdown, access to his lawyers is virtually impossible
3) Vital defence witnesses, including from abroad, would not be able to be present to testify
4) Treatment for Julian’s mental health conditions had been stopped due to the Covid-19 situation.

Baraitser airily dismissed all these grounds – despite James Lewis QC saying the prosecution was neutral on the postponement – and insisted that the May 18 date remains. She stated that he could be brought to the cells in Westminster Magistrates Court for consultations with his lawyers. (Firstly, in practice that is not the case, and secondly these holding cells have a constant thoughput of prisoners which is very obviously undesirable with Covid19).

It is worth noting that the prosecution stated that the US government’s own psychiatrist, appointed to do an assessment of Julian, had been unable to access him in Belmarsh due to Covid 19 restrictions.

This is getting beyond me as it is getting beyond Mark Sommers and the defence team. Even before Covid 19 became such a threat, I stated that I had been forced to the conclusion the British Government is seeking Assange’s death in jail. The evidence for that is now overwhelming.

Here are three measures of hypocrisy.

Firstly, the UK insists on keeping this political prisoner – accused of nothing but publishing – in a Covid 19 infested maximum security jail while the much-derided Iranian government lets Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe out and hopefully will release her altogether.
Which is the inhumane regime?

Secondly, “open justice” allegedly justifies the release of the identities of Julian’s partner and kids, while the state enforces the secrecy of Alex Salmond’s busted accusers, even though the court heard evidence that they specifically colluded to destroy him using, as a deliberate tool, the anonymity afforded to people making sexual accusations.

Thirdly, nobody cultivates her own anonymity more than Vanessa Baraitser who has her existence carefully removed from the internet almost entirely. Yet she seeks to destroy the peace and young lives of Julian’s family.

Pieter Evert sent me this rather good cartoon, for which many thanks:

Keep fighting for Julian’s life and for freedom.

Originally published in September 2016:

Parliamentary Report Confirms What the Alternative Media Has Been Saying for Years

The UK Parliament just confirmed what the alternative media has been saying for years.

Specifically, a new report from the bipartisan House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee – based on interviews with all of the key British decision-makers, review of documents, and on-the-ground investigations in Africa – found that Libyan war was based on lies, that it destroyed the country, and that it spread terrorism far and wide.

The War Based On Bogus Intelligence … Like the Iraq War

Initially, the report finds that the threat to civilians from Libyan  government forces was dramatically overstated:

Former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, who introduced Resolution 1973 [imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, and laying the groundwork for overthrowing the government], asserted in his speech to the Security Council that “the situation on the ground is more alarming than ever, marked by the violent re-conquest of cities”. He stressed the urgency of the situation, arguing that “We have very little time left—perhaps only a matter of hours.” Subsequent analysis suggested that the immediate threat to civilians was being publicly overstated and that the reconquest of cities had not resulted in mass civilian casualties.

***

The proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi  [which was the basis for the West’s war to overthrow Gaddafi]was not supported by the available evidence. The Gaddafi regime had retaken towns from the rebels without attacking civilians in early February 2011 ….Gaddafi regime forces targeted male combatants in a civil war and did not indiscriminately attack civilians. More widely, Muammar Gaddafi’s 40-year record of appalling human rights abuses did not include large-scale attacks on Libyan civilians.

***

On 17 March 2011, Muammar Gaddafi announced to the rebels in Benghazi, “Throw away your weapons, exactly like your brothers in Ajdabiya and other places did. They laid down their arms and they are safe. We never pursued them at all.” Subsequent investigation revealed that when Gaddafi regime forces retook Ajdabiya in February 2011, they did not attack civilians. Muammar Gaddafi also attempted to appease protesters in Benghazi with an offer of development aid before finally deploying troops.

***

An Amnesty International investigation in June 2011 could not corroborate allegations of mass human rights violations by Gaddafi regime troops. However, it uncovered evidence that rebels in Benghazi made false claims and manufactured evidence. The investigation concluded that

much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge.

***

In short, the scale of the threat to civilians was presented with unjustified certainty. US intelligence officials reportedly described the intervention as “an intelligence-light decision”.

Just like the ginned up intelligence used to justify the Iraq war. And the “humanitarian wars” waged over the last couple of decades.

The Libyan Government Was Fighting Terrorists

The report also notes that the Libyan government really was – as Libyan dictator Gaddafi claimed at the time – fighting Islamic terrorists:

Intelligence on the extent to which extremist militant Islamist elements were involved in the anti-Gaddafi rebellion was inadequate.

***

Abdelhakim Belhadj and other members of the al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group were participating in the rebellion in March 2011.

Secret intelligence reports from 2011, written before and during the illegal US-led attack on Libya and recently obtained by the Washington Times, state:

There is a close link between al Qaeda, Jihadi organizations, and the opposition in Libya…

Indeed, the Libyan rebel commander admitted at the time that his fighters had links to Al Qaeda.  And see this.

We reported in 2012:

The U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. According to a 2007 report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda’s main headquarters – and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq – prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi:

The Hindustan Times reported last year:

“There is no question that al Qaeda’s Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition,” Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times.

It has always been Qaddafi’s biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi.

***

(Incidentally, Gaddafi was on the verge of invading Benghazi in 2011, 4 years after the West Point report cited Benghazi as a hotbed of Al Qaeda terrorists. Gaddafi claimed – rightly it turns out – that Benghazi was an Al Qaeda stronghold and a main source of the Libyan rebellion.  But NATO planes stopped him, and protected Benghazi.)

The Daily Mail reported in 2014:

A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn’t been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier.

‘The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,’ Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline.

She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants.

‘Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,’ Lopez claimed. ‘They were permitted to come in. … [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed..

‘The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.’

***

‘The White House and senior Congressional members,’ the group wrote in an interim report released Tuesday, ‘deliberately and knowingly pursued a policy that provided material support to terrorist organizations in order to topple a ruler [Muammar Gaddafi] who had been working closely with the West actively to suppress al-Qaeda.’

‘Some look at it as treason,’ said Wayne Simmons, a former CIA officer who participated in the commission’s research.

The West and Its Allies Directly Supported and Armed the Rebels

The UK report confirms that the West and its allies directly supported and armed the rebels:

The combat performance of rebel ground forces was enhanced by personnel and intelligence provided by states such as the UK, France, Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. For example, Lord Richards told us that the UK “had a few people embedded” with the rebel forces.

Resolution 1973 called on United Nations member states to ensure the “strict implementation of the arms embargo”. However, we were told that the international community turned a blind eye to the supply of weapons to the rebels. Lord Richards highlighted “the degree to which the Emiratis and the Qataris … played a major role in the success of the ground operation.” For example, Qatar supplied French Milan anti­tank missiles to certain rebel groups. We were told that Qatar channelled its weapons to favoured militias rather than to the rebels as a whole.

The REAL Motivation for War

The real motivation for the war?  The Parliamentary report explains:

A further insight into French motivations was provided in a freedom of information disclosure by the United States State Department in December 2015. On 2 April 2011, Sidney Blumenthal, adviser and unofficial intelligence analyst to the then United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reported this conversation with French intelligence officers to the Secretary of State:

According to these individuals Sarkozy’s plans are driven by the following issues:

1. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production,
2. Increase French influence in North Africa,
3. Improve his internal political situation in France,
4. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world,
5. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi’s long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.

The sum of four of the five factors identified by Sidney Blumenthal equated to the French national interest. The fifth factor was President Sarkozy’s political self-interest.

Gaddafi Tried to Step Down … But the West Insisted On Violent Regime Change

Gaddafi had offered to hand over power, but the West instead wanted violent regime change. (The British report notes: “By the summer of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change.”)

The Parliamentary report notes that Gaddaffi may have been attempting to flee the country when he was killed:

Muammar Gaddafi might have been seeking an exit from Libya in February and March 2011. On 21 February 2011, for example, Lord Hague told reporters that he had seen credible information that Muammar Gaddafi was on his way to exile in Venezuela. Concerted action after the telephone calls conducted by Mr Blair might have led to Muammar Gaddafi’s abdication and to a negotiated solution in Libya. It was therefore important to keep the lines of communication open. However, we saw no evidence that the then Prime Minister David Cameron attempted to exploit Mr Blair’s contacts.

***

Political options were available if the UK Government had adhered to the spirit of Resolution 1973, implemented its original campaign plan and influenced its coalition allies to pause military action when Benghazi was secured in March 2011. Political engagement might have delivered civilian protection, regime change and reform at lesser cost to the UK and to Libya. If political engagement had been unsuccessful, the UK and its coalition allies would not have lost anything. Instead, the UK Government focused exclusively on military intervention. In particular, we saw no evidence that it tried to exploit former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s contacts and influence with the Gaddafi regime.

The U.S. and France were also hell-bent on regime change.  And the New York Times confirms thatHillary Clinton is largely responsible for the violent regime change in Libya.

Why Should We Care?

Why should we care?

Well, the House of Commons report confirms that the Libyan war has wrecked the country:

The Libyan economy generated some $75 billion of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010. This economy produced an average annual per capita income of approximately $12,250, which was comparable to the average income in some European countries. [The former Indian representative to the U.N. notes that, before the war, Libya had less of its population in poverty than the Netherlands.  Libyans had access to free health care, education, electricity and interest-free loans, and women had great freedoms that were applauded by the U.N. Human Rights Council]. Libyan Government revenue greatly exceeded expenditure in the 2000s. … The United Nations Human Development Report 2010—a United Nations aggregate measure of health, education and income—ranked Libya as the 53rd most advanced country in the world for human development and as the most advanced country in Africa.

***

In 2014, the most recent year for which reliable figures are available … the average Libyan’s annual income had decreased from $12,250 in 2010 to $7,820.  Since 2014, Libya’s economic predicament has reportedly deteriorated. Libya is likely to experience a budget deficit of some 60% of GDP in 2016. The requirement to finance that deficit is rapidly depleting net foreign reserves, which halved from $107 billion in 2013 to $56.8 billion by the end of 2015. Production of crude oil fell to its lowest recorded level in 2015, while oil prices collapsed in the second half of 2014. Inflation increased to 9.2% driven by a 13.7% increase in food prices including a fivefold increase in the price of flour. The United Nations ranked Libya as the world’s 94th most advanced country in its 2015 index of human development, a decline from 53rd place in 2010.

***

In 2016, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that out of a total Libyan population of 6.3 million, 3 million people have been impacted by the armed conflict and political instability, and that 2.4 million people require protection and some form of humanitarian assistance. In its World Report 2016, Human Rights Watch stated that Libya is

heading towards a humanitarian crisis, with almost 400,000 people internally displaced and increasing disruption to basic services, such as power and fuel supplies. Forces engaged in the conflict continued with impunity to arbitrarily detain, torture, unlawfully kill, indiscriminately attack, abduct and disappear, and forcefully displace people from their homes. The domestic criminal justice system collapsed in most parts of the country, exacerbating the human rights crisis

People-trafficking gangs exploited the lack of effective government after 2011, making Libya a key transit route for illegal migration into Europe and the location of a migrant crisis. In addition to other extremist militant groups, ISIL emerged in Libya in 2014, seizing control of territory around Sirte and setting up terrorist training centres. Human Rights Watch documented unlawful executions by ISIL in Sirte of at least 49 people by methods including decapitation and shooting. The civil war between west and east has waxed and waned with sporadic outbreaks of violence since 2014. In April 2016, United States President Barack Obama described post-intervention Libya as a “shit show”. It is difficult to disagree with this pithy assessment.

The Parliamentary report confirms that the Libyan war – like the Iraq war – has ended up spreading terrorism around the globe:

Libyan weapons and ammunition were trafficked across North and West Africa and the Middle East.

***

The United Nations Panel of Experts appointed to examine the impact of Resolution 1973 identified the presence of ex-Libyan weapons in Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Gaza, Mali, Niger, Tunisia and Syria. The panel concluded that “arms originating from Libya have significantly reinforced the military capacity of terrorist groups operating in Algeria, Egypt, Mali and Tunisia.” In the 2010-15 Parliament, our predecessor Committee noted that the failure to secure the Gaddafi regime’s arms caches had led to “a proliferation of small arms and light weapons, and some heavier artillery, across North and West Africa”. It identified that Libyan small arms had apparently ended up in the hands of Boko Haram militants.

***

In January 2014, Egyptian Islamist insurgents used an ex-Libyan MANPAD to shoot down an Egyptian Army helicopter in the Sinai.

***

The FCO told us that “Political instability in Libya has led to a permissive environment for terrorist groups in which to operate, including ISIL [i.e. ISIS] affiliated groups”.  Professor Patrick Porter, Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Exeter, agreed with the FCO analysis, stating that “a lack of effective government is creating opportunities for the Islamic State.”

***

ISIL has used its presence in Libya to train terrorists. For example, Sefeddine Rezgui, the gunman who killed Western holidaymakers in Tunisia in June 2015, was trained by ISIL at its base in Sabratha along with the two gunmen who killed 22 tourists at the Bardo museum in Tunis. ISIL’s plans may extend beyond terrorism. Vice-Admiral Clive Johnstone, a Royal Navy officer and NATO commander, commented that

We know they [ISIL] have ambitions to go offshore … There is a horrible opportunity in the future that a misdirected, untargeted round of a very high quality weapons system will just happen to target a cruise liner, or an oil platform, or a container ship.

And the UK report confirms that the Libyan war has created a tidal wave of refugees:

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that some 1 million migrants were present in Libya in June 2016. This estimate comprised 425,000 internally displaced Libyans, 250,000 non-Libyan migrants and 250,000 returnees. Most non-Libyan migrants travelled from West Africa, the Horn of Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. The most common countries of origin for non-Libyan migrants were Niger, Egypt, Chad, Ghana and Sudan. Between 1 January and 31 May 2016, 47,851 migrants arrived in Italy after crossing the Mediterranean from Libya. A similar number of migrants attempted the crossing over the same period in 2015. Despite the increased resources committed to Operation Triton, however, crossing the Mediterranean is becoming increasingly hazardous for migrants transiting through Libya. The IOM recorded 2,061 migrants as dead or missing between 1 January and 31 May 2016, which showed a 15% increase in fatalities compared with the same period in 2015.

In other words – just like the Iraq war – the Libyan war was based on fake intelligence, was carried out for reasons having little to do with national security or protecting civilians, destroyed a nation and created a “shit show”, spread terrorism far and wide, and created waves of refugees.

Click Screen to view Video

Humor from Cheers TV Series

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To gauge the transformation in the response by the U.S. military, the mainstream media and the public to a U.S. war crime, one need only compare the reactions to two of the most heinous American crimes:  the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the gunning down of innocent Iraqis on a Baghdad street in 2007.

The latter was captured on a cockpit video from attacking Apache helicopters and revealed in a video released by WikiLeaks ten years ago today. Wikileaks obtained the video from a conscientious U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning.

The My Lai incident was revealed to the public in Nov. 1969 through the reporting of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. An army veteran whistleblower, Ronald Ridenhour, had first written in early 1969 to the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and members of Congress revealing credible details about the massacre. It lead to a military investigation.

The probe found that U.S. Army soldiers had killed 504 unarmed people on March 16, 1968  in the village of My Lai, including men, women and children. Some women were gang-raped by the soldiers.  The military investigation led to charges against 26 soldiers.  Just one, Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a C Company platoon leader, was convicted. He was found guilty of the premeditated murder of 109 villagers. (Given a life sentence, he ultimately served only three and a half years under house arrest.).

But Calley’s conviction was largely covered up by the military.  The New York Times ran only a short Associated Press story on Sept. 7, 1969, with few details. Hersh, however, heard something about the incident from a military source in Washington and started poking around. Eventually he got to see Calley in his cell in Georgia and was even allowed to look through classified notes on his case.  Hersh had his story. He pitched it to Look and Life Magazines, but was turned down. Eventually the freelancer published his story at the obscure Dispatch News Service.

Hersh’s Dispatch News Service story picked up by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Nov. 14, 1969.

There was a public outcry after Hersh’s revelation. It was picked up by newspapers across the nation, including on the front pages of The New York Times and Washington Post.  It fueled anti-war sentiment and hatred of President Richard Nixon. Two days following Hersh’s story about 250,000 anti-war protestors gathered at the Washington Monument. “It surpassed in size the civil rights March on Washington in 1964 and was easily the largest — and was perhaps the youngest — antiwar crowd ever assembled in the United States,” the Post reported.

Forty years after the My Lai incident, Apache helicopter gunships patrolling the skies of Baghdad on July 12, 2007 opened fire on a group of civilians on a street below, killing a number of people, including two Reuters journalists, and the driver of a van who had come to pick up the wounded.

During the My Lai incident one brave American serviceman, Hugh Thompson, landed his helicopter between cowering civilians and advancing GIs and told the Americans his gunship would fire on themif they didn’t stop. In Baghdad, one U.S. soldier, Ethan McCord, saved the lives of two Iraqi children over the orders of his superiors.

Where the Similarities End

Some similarities between the two incidents are uncanny. But the outcomes were wholly different.  Both were stories of a U.S. military massacre of innocent civilians, just two instances of many such massacres across Vietnam and Iraq. Both began with a whistleblower, Ridenhour on My Lai and Manning on Baghdad. Both stories were turned down by major media, and later accepted by obscure publications (which then made WikiLeaks well-known). (Manning was first turned down by the Timesand The Washington Post).

But that’s where the similarities end. The My Lai story led to a military investigation and a conviction of a U.S. soldier for mass murder. It caused a global outcry when all the facts became known. It contributed to the growing anti-war movement in the U.S. And it catapulted Hersh into prominence. As a result of his story, the freelancer was hired by The New York Times. 

The Baghdad massacre led to no military investigation or charges against any soldier involved, despite video evidence that was stronger than what came out of My Lai. (The Army photographer who took the photo up top admitted to destroying pictures of the murders being committed.) The whistleblower was not jailed, as Manning was, but was listened to, and it led to an investigation.  The ‘Collateral Murder’ video caused a stir, but hardly a global outcry, and it did not contribute to a U.S. anti-war movement. While WikiLeaks was catapulted into prominence, its publisher did not win a Pulitzer Prize, as Hersh did, but instead is languishing in a London prison on remand pending an extradition request by the United States to stand trial for espionage.

It bears repeating:  At least one American soldier was imprisoned in My Lai. Hersh and the whistleblower did not go to jail.  Not one U.S. soldier has gone to jail for the Baghdad massacre and the whistleblower and the journalist who revealed the crime were both imprisoned.

Manning’s 35-year sentence was commuted in 2017. She was again imprisoned for more than 250 days for refusing to testify to a grand jury against Assange, before she was released last month. Assange remains in a maximum security prison for doing the same job Hersh did.

These fundamentally different outcomes to a strikingly similar situation shows how far American society has sunk into the mire of authoritarianism and obedience.

Ellsberg and Assange

There is another Vietnam-era story that contrasts sharply with WikiLeaks, demonstrating how much the U.S. has changed for the worse in half a century. During the 1973 trial of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers it became known that the government had broken into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office and bugged his phone to dig up dirt on him. The judge in the case was also offered the FBI directorship if Ellsberg were convicted.

When this serious prosecutorial misconduct became known, Ellsberg’s case was immediately thrown out and he was a free man.  Fast forward nearly 50 years to Assange’s case. It is now publicly known that a Spanish company, UC Global, was contracted by the Ecuadorian government to conduct 24/7 video surveillance of Assange in the London embassy and that this audio and video–including of privileged conversations between Assange and his lawyers–was sold to the Central Intelligence Agency.

In other words, the prosecuting government eavesdropped on the defense preparations. This is even more egregious misconduct than in Ellsberg’s case, though it has not led to the extradition request on espionage charges being immediately tossed out.

At a rally for Assange in London in February I asked Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, why this was so. “The difference is that Dan was tried in a normal court,” he said. “Julian will never be given this opportunity. Julian is going to disappear into a system where not even his lawyers will know what the charges are. Habeas Corpus does not exist for him.  Things are getting worse. Far worse.”

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Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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: Photo by United States Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle on March 16, 1968 in the aftermath of the My Lai massacre. (Wikipedia)

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House “coronavirus response coordinator,” said on Saturday all plebs must stay out of grocery stores. She didn’t offer an alternative. Instead, she repeated the hand washing and 6-foot “social distancing” mantra.

“This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe and that means everybody doing the 6-feet distancing, washing their hands,” said the life-long bureaucrat. 

I am reminded of President George H.W. Bush confronting a grocery store scanner on display at the National Grocers Association convention in D.C. in 1992. Bush probably hadn’t seen the inside a grocery store in decades and this new technology struck him as remarkable. He was bedazzled by that red scanner light, part of a mundane reality for millions of Americans.

I seriously doubt Ms. Birx does her own shopping. As a top-level flunky of the state and its preferred transnational corporate crony clients, Brix likely dispatches servants to do the shopping and cooking. She has more important tasks at hand, such as frightening the public into subservience with scary worst-case speculation minus hard data, pushing house arrest, and repeating ad nauseam the hand-wash-social-distance mantra. 

Lineup outside Walmart when I had to grab groceries a little bit ago, still can’t believe this is the world we’re living in right now 😦 #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/xGSEUHYG5X

— Chelsey⚡️ (@chelseyynicol) April 5, 2020

Like Bush, this woman is seriously out of touch. How many Americans will now be frightened out of their wits by the necessity to buy food and feed their families? Does she believe all Americans have the ability and money to employ others (maybe adorned in hazmat suits) to buy food and deliver it—that is if the delivery services have not gone on strike for fear of the virus, an unknown quantity we are told blows in the wind, lays in wait on all surfaces and effuses invisibly from toilet bowls. 

Birx’s insane suggestion—with the full weight of the state behind it—is naturally ignored by millions of Americans that have no choice but to queue up inside grocery stores and pharmacies, daring a virus they are propagandized into believing is everywhere, lethal as the Black Death. 

The Centers for Disease Control, where Ms. Birx formerly worked, has told the nation all Americans must wear face masks, never mind you would be hard-pressed to actually find a medical mask (and if you did, be scorned for denying an N95 mask to “frontline” doctors and nurses). Instead, the CDC wants you to DIY masks out of cloth, or buy one online. 

My doctor mom & sis share how to make DIY #facemasks. While NOT a medical mask, it's intended as a precautionary tool for the public when going out for essential tasks or isolating from others. Continue to stay in & social distance as your primary methods of containment. #covid19 pic.twitter.com/kVoFgIrCDq

— Janet Li 😷 #masks4all (@janetnotjackson) March 23, 2020

According to Dr. Dena Grayson—praised by the globalist Aspen Institute for her work with big pharma—the DIY homemade mask craze may help spread the virus.

⚠️Please use CAUTION with DIY #masks. Simple cloth is NOT very effective. And people not used to wearing a #mask risk touching their face MORE, increasing the risk of being infected.😷#coronavirus #COVID19
pic.twitter.com/fKUuKhrRFt

— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) April 4, 2020

Like her counterpart Birx, Ms. Grayson—who is married to former Florida Democrat “representative” Alan Grayson—does not offer an alternative. Maybe she is simply too busy playing politics like everyone else in the swamp (she is, after all, a failed Democrat candidate).

Wow. What a difference between the #fact-based press conferences by @NYGovCuomo versus the propaganda-laden circus shows by @realDonaldTrump.#coronavirus #COVID19 #CoronavirusPandemic

— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) April 5, 2020

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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 CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey

For many millions of Christians, Easter is a time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Others may celebrate the arrival of spring and the promise of new life. Whatever one’s beliefs, after several weeks of mandatory “stay at home” orders and the complete shutdown of the US economy over the coronavirus, this self-destructive hysteria must end and we must reclaim the freedom and liberty that has provided us so much opportunity as Americans.

To do that we should first understand that much of the hysteria is being generated by a mainstream media that has long prioritized sensationalism over investigating and reporting the truth. Government bureaucrats are also exaggerating the threat of this virus and appear to be enjoying the power and control that fearful people are willingly handing over to them. One “coronavirus” bureaucrat even told us that we can no longer go to the grocery store! So we should just starve?

It is certainly possible to believe that this virus can be dangerous while at the same time pointing out that radical steps are being taken in our society – stay-at-home orders, introduction of de facto martial law, etc. – with very little knowledge of just how deadly is this disease.

On March 24th, the CDC issued an alert stating that doctors should classify “probable COVID-19” or “likely COVID-19” as Covid-19 deaths. Perhaps that explains the seeming drop-off of pneumonia deaths this year and the simultaneous spike in Covid-19 deaths as some researchers have reported.

The BBC reported last week that, “At present in the US, any death of a Covid-19 patient, no matter what the physician believes to be the direct cause, is counted for public reporting as a Covid-19 death.”

Does that sound like a scientifically sound way of determining how deadly Covid-19 really is?

What is most dangerous is that although this virus will eventually disappear, the assault on our civil liberties is not likely to be reversed. From this point on, whenever local officials, county officials, state governors, or federal bureaucrats decide there is sufficient reason to suspend the Constitution they will not hesitate to do so. Anyone who challenges the suspension of the Constitution “for our own good” will be labeled “unpatriotic” and perhaps even reported to the authorities. We have already seen hotlines springing up across the country for Americans to report other Americans who dare venture outside to enjoy the sun and build up their vitamin D protection against the coronavirus.

The government is justified in cancelling the Constitution, we are told, because we are in an emergency situation caused by the Covid-19 virus. But do people forget that the Constitution itself was written and adopted while we were in an “emergency situation”?

Did the framers of the Constitution fail to add an 11th Amendment to the Bill of Rights saying, “oh by the way, none of this counts if we get sick”? Of course not! Those who wrote our Constitution understood that these rights are not granted by the government, but rather by our Creator. Thus it was never a question as to when or under what conditions they could be suspended: the government had no authority to suspend them at all because it did not grant them in the first place.

Our country is far less at risk from the coronavirus than it is from the thousands of small and large authoritarians who have suddenly flexed their muscles across the country. President Trump would do well to end this ridiculous shutdown so that Americans can get on with their lives and get back to work.

Americans should remember the tyrants who locked them down next time they go to the ballot box. Let’s demand an end to the shutdown so we can resurrect our economy, our lives, and our liberties!

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Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is releasing a series of dispatches from Palestinians and Palestine solidarity activists reflecting on life in Gaza and the West Bank under the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world grapples with the outbreak, and as we organize mutual aid and solidarity in many cities, we must keep Palestine in both our minds and hearts.

We can inspire ourselves and draw important lessons from experiences of Palestinian life under military curfew, siege and travel restrictions. Far from drawing an equation between self-isolation and occupation, we hope to learn from the strategies Palestinians have employed for decades, and hear their advice for the world in these difficult times.

Now more than ever, Palestine must be free. The brutal siege of Gaza, and the ongoing occupation of the West Bank, are tinderboxes for the Coronavirus. The Gaza Strip just confirmed its first cases of the virus. Medical aid must get in, people must have access to testing, and Israel must end its daily restrictions on Palestinian life.

The first dispatch here comes from Asmaa Tayeh. Asmaa lives in the Jabalia Refugee Camp in the north of the Gaza strip, and works as the Operations Manager for We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a citizen journalism project for Palestinian youth in Gaza.

The second dispatch comes from Weeam Hammoudeh. Weeam is a professor and researcher at the Institute of Community and Public Health of Birzeit University, just outside of Ramallah. She coordinates the mental health unit within the institute, and much of her work relates to well-being and quality of life issues within populations. Her research interests are focused on how broader structural and political factors affect health and well-being. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic began, Weeam was part of a research team looking at the concept of uncertainty in the Palestinian context, and how uncertainty impacts people’s lives and mental health.

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Curfews and Mutual Aid: Asmaa Tayeh

Aaron Lakoff (AL): How are you feeling? Are you scared with the Coronavirus now in Gaza?

Asmaa Tayeh (AT): For at least two months, we’ve been hearing news about the whole world suffering from COVID-19. When we first started hearing the news about it from China, I was sure it wouldn’t be a problem for us, because China is so far away, and it would take so much time to get here. Maybe by then there will be a cure.

Then the whole world started to suffer from the Coronavirus, and people started to envy us, saying that the Gaza Strip is one of the only places with no reported cases. They started to say that maybe this is an advantage of the Israeli blockade. I really hated this notion, because the whole world was thinking we were safe, while we’re actually not. Just because you’re in an enclosed place doesn’t mean you’re safe. Because if we have any cases inside the Strip, our enclosure will help the virus spread even more.

We live in a very crowded area, especially in my camp, Jabalia. In each building or flat, there are a minimum of 5-10 people living there. This helps the virus to spread. The world thinks we’re safe, but I really don’t. It means that if we get one case, we could all die.

AL: She says this with a laugh, which I imagine is a coping mechanism in these grim times.

AT: We don’t have the capacity or equipment to keep us safe from this virus. It will spread very easily, and we will start to see the numbers here that we’ve been seeing in Italy and Spain. And after the world thought of us as the luckiest people on Earth, they will think of us as the unluckiest. Because all these other countries at least have emergency plans, the technology and the medicine to fight it.

So I was in fear, to be honest. But I kept going to work, and tried to convince myself that we are going to be safe. Most of us are religious people. We thought, ‘God is merciful. He won’t make us live under two things at once: the Israeli blockade and the Coronavirus.’ One problem at a time!

I actually wanted to stay home, to be honest, but it’s so hard. We’re not used to this. The Gaza Strip is the only area where we can go. We can’t go outside of it. So how can we cope with not moving around inside of it? We can’t just lock ourselves inside our rooms and get used to it. I know it’s hard for other people around the world right now, but it’s much harder for us.

AL: It’s hard for many of us to imagine life in Gaza – being confined to a territory 365 square kilometers in size. That’s smaller than Toronto or the Island of Montreal. Many have called Gaza the world’s largest open-air prison.

At some point in the interview, she mentions casually that today is her birthday.

AT: I just turned 24 today, and for 24 years, I have never been outside of Gaza. I have never seen the world beyond. So it’s gonna be much harder for me to stay home rather than those in the West who are used to getting around and then have to stay in one place. It’s different.

AL: Asmaa said that she celebrated her birthday today with a friend who came over to her place, although her friend said they would soon be quarantined. Her sister did go out and get a birthday cake, and they managed to have a little celebration in the evening.

Are any protective measures being taken in Gaza? For example, are people being asked to not leave their homes?

AT: To be honest, before the first two cases were reported, most people in Gaza used to think about the Coronavirus like me: this is far away from us, we’re safe, and we don’t need to go crazy with protective measures. But after these first cases were reported, we can see some people getting serious about it. We see some people wearing medical masks, using hand sanitizer, or not going to work. But there are still huge amounts of people who are still going out because they think the virus is a lie. I’m trying to understand their psychology. Maybe it’s because they’re used to being unsafe for so long. Maybe they’re numb. They have no feelings of fear because they are just used to this.

AL: Gaza has been under blockade for over a decade, and it’s been such a struggle for people to meet their daily needs. How have the people of Gaza dealt with meeting their day to day needs over the years?

AT: We have this proverb in Arabic that says, loosely translated in English, ‘dying with others makes death easy’. So when you live in these hard circumstances and everything is deteriorating around you, you have to think that you’re living with two million other people [in Gaza] who are also experiencing this, so you have to cope like they do.

I don’t like thinking that people around the world are suffering. It sucks, and I don’t want this for anyone. But to be honest, a part of me is happy that maybe after we’re done with the Coronavirus, people will understand us more.

What saddens me though is also that once this is over, each country will try to come to the aid of its citizens. Maybe through economic aid, and they will again have the ability to move around, buy things, and get on with their daily lives. But we in Gaza will still suffer because nothing will change. The blockade will stay in place, the high unemployment rate will remain, there will be less goods and the prices will be higher.

AL: Do you have advice for people in other parts of the world who are facing isolation and quarantine?

AT: People need to seize this opportunity to be better people. Quarantine is giving us more chances to sit with ourselves, to understand ourselves, and to try to figure out what we need to develop or change so that we can be better people. It’s a really good chance to get in touch with the people we have quarrels or problems with, and make up with them. It’s also a chance to develop better relationships with our families, because at the end of the day, it makes you realize how important your family is. So sit with your family, understand them, and develop your relationships with them.

Finally, it is a good chance for you to study more, and learn more about the world. If you’re in quarantine right now and have access to the internet, you can seize the opportunity to learn and read more about other people who are suffering. But we must think of them as humans. Because once this is over the whole world is going to need to work together to solve these problems.

For me, I’m going to read more. I’m going to learn a lot, and study! It’s a chance from God to do the things I have delayed.

I also really love writing. For me, it releases stress. So I would advise everyone to write something. Some people might think that they don’t know how to write, but if you just try to write what’s on your mind, it can be a great way to release stress, make you feel better, and discover some new things about yourself.

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Curfews and Mutual Aid: Weeam Hammoudeh

Weeam Hammoudeh (WH): We had just started doing the analysis, and then the whole COVID-19 situation broke out, so we might need to go back and do more data collection.

AL: Uncertainty is certainly a phenomenon being experienced by many around the world right now, from borders being closed, to schools being shut down, to thousands upon thousands of people losing their jobs.

What is the atmosphere like in Ramallah and the broader West Bank?

WH: I think there is a lot of uncertainty, and people are starting to get more worried. Yesterday, there was a woman who died of COVID-19. She was diagnosed the same day, and died later that evening. This heightened a lot of the worries and fears.

In the beginning, people didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the problem. But ever since the first cases were confirmed in Bethlehem on March 5th, you could sense people were starting to get more worried. But that was also when the Palestinian Authority (PA) began to take stricter measures to try to contain the spread. They wanted to contain the problem before it got out of hand, because we don’t actually have the infrastructure to deal with a wide scale spread.

The PA took strict preventative measures early on, which I think was responsible. It’s also a recognition of how things could get if the virus were to be left alone, such as has been suggested by other global leaders.

AL: We can think of leaders like Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, who balked at concerns around COVID-19 earlier on in the outbreak.

We know about the difficulties in Gaza with the blockade… what is the situation in the West Bank with hurdles due to the Israeli occupation?

WH: If you look at the development of the healthcare system broadly speaking, it has faced a lot of obstacles related to the political context. We don’t have control over our borders, so Israel dictates what’s allowed in and what isn’t. There are certain services, and certain medical equipment, that are prohibited. Israel designates certain items as ‘dual use’. So if there is anything that could potentially be used to breach security, then it isn’t allowed. For example, if we’re talking about oncology services within the West Bank or Gaza, Palestinians are only allowed to have equipment for chemotherapy. Anything related to radiotherapy or radiation isn’t allowed, because the equipment is prohibited. Therefore patients need to be transported to East Jerusalem, Jordan, Israeli hospitals, or Egypt. This is one example of constraints on the healthcare system, aside from the broader challenges to health. And because of these constraints and structural issues, we have a fragmented, aid-dependent health system unable to fully realize its potential.

Some might say that with regards to health conditions, Palestine is in a better situation than other countries in the Middle East. But as the occupying power, under international law, Israel has the responsibility for the health and well-being of the occupied population. So the point of comparison shouldn’t be other countries in the region, but rather with the Israeli health system, which is actually allowed to thrive.

You see differences in the Israeli and Palestinian populations in terms of life expectancy, child mortality and maternal mortality rates. There is a discrepancy in the quality of the services. Even among Israeli citizens, you often see many disparities between the Palestinian-Israeli population, and the Jewish-Israeli population. These disparities are entrenched within that system.

AL: How are you coping with the changes brought on by the Coronavirus?

WH: They closed down the schools and universities in the West Bank as soon as the first cases were discovered in Bethlehem. For me, I had to shift all my classes online. It was difficult, but I think it was very important they did this. They also closed down places where there could be large gatherings of people, such as mosques. It’s hard to focus on work, just because there’s a lot of uncertainty and anxiety about how things can go moving forward.

Everyone is worried. I’m constantly tracking the news on the ministry’s website. It’s taking a lot of headspace. But at the same time, you do see people trying to support each other, even if it’s remotely. My colleagues and family are very supportive, and we all check in with each other. We’re seeing initiatives such as people preparing food baskets for families in need.

A situation like this lays bare a lot of the inequities that exist on a global scale. It’s highlighting who is more vulnerable. I think it’s important not simply to say who is more vulnerable, but also to recognize why these vulnerabilities exist. These vulnerabilities exist because of structural issues – the way that economies function, and the way that society is set up.

Here in Palestine, it’s very much intertwined with the political context of ongoing occupation, settler colonialism, and apartheid. It’s important to keep this in mind. But also, we can’t lose sight of the source of all of this. What happens in these situations is that you get caught up in the urgency of the situation, in either containing the problem, or providing quick solutions to the immediate problems. And I think this is important. It’s important to take all the measures that we can to save people’s lives, or to stop this disease from spreading.

There are more immediate needs, such as providing testing, or building up our emergency infrastructure to deal with this situation. But in the end, it would be very unfortunate if we only focused on the emergency response without asking ourselves why these vulnerabilities and structural inequities continue to exist. That’s why we need to shift the focus of the conversation to justice and freedom. There are a lot of lessons that need to be learned on a global scale, and the solution needs to exist beyond national borders. Global solidarity needs to push agendas that have the well-being of populations as a key priority, rather than discrimination and profit.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin tried yesterday to inspire his fellow citizens by ensuring that the situation with the spread of Covid-19 in the country “is complicated, but not hopeless.” Putin held a new meeting by videoconference with members of the Government, which this time also included virologists and medical experts. In his words: “Russia will go through this difficult stage with minimal losses, if we act competently, orderly and disciplined.”

According to the data provided today, in the last 24 hours in Russia 1,175 new cases of coronavirus have been detected, 21 more than the previous day, bringing the total to 8,672 infected. The death toll now rises to 63. In Moscow, the territorial entity most affected by the pandemic in all of Russia, 660 new infected have been registered since yesterday, giving a total of 5,841. In the Russian capital the death toll reaches 31.

On March 26, the top Russian leader said that it would be possible to defeat the coronavirus in less than two or three months. However, on April 1, he recognized that the spread of Covid-19 in Russia was sharpening and, the next day, extended non-working days until April 30 inclusive. “We are carefully monitoring the situation and taking into account the positive and negative experiences of other countries,” Putin said yesterday before the participants in the videoconference. He also underlined the fact that “we have not yet reached the peak of the epidemic and it is very important now to avoid mistakes made by others.”

In the opinion of the head of the Kremlin, the opinion of the experts is essential “to determine whether the number of days with closed companies can be reduced” and the total confinement decreed in most regions of the country, starting with Moscow, which was the first to introduce the measure on March 29.

Putin was also interested in the progress of the investigations to find a vaccine. “I know that our industry institutions along with virologist scientists, pharmacists and doctors work on a special prophylaxis system, including the creation of a vaccine and effective treatment methods,” he said.

During the meeting, the director of the scientific center “Vector” in Novosibirsk, Rinat Maksiútov, announced that three different vaccines will start to be tested on 180 volunteers starting in June. There are also another 120 people, he assured, who also want to participate in the experiment and will remain in reserve for the moment. However, the director of the Federal Agency for Medicine and Biology, Veronica Skvortsova, has pointed out that the vaccine will not be available to users until at least the end of the year.

Putin chaired the meeting by videoconference from his residence in Novo-Ogariovo, on the outskirts of Moscow, where he has been confined since the beginning of the month and from where he leads the country and the entire operation to fight the coronavirus and its economic and social consequences. He has taken such precautions after a case of Covid-19 occurred in the Kremlin Administration, suspicions arose regarding the spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, who attended a party with people who tested positive, and, above all , after meeting with Denís Protsenko, director of the main Russian health center for the fight against coronavirus, the hospital on the Moscow periphery of Kommunarka, who also turned out to be infected. That meeting took place precisely in Kommunarka.

According to Peskov, all people who are currently in direct contact with Putin have previously undergone a coronavirus test. The president himself, said his spokesman, “is also regularly undergoing tests to detect the virus when doctors deem it appropriate.” “All precautionary measures are being taken,” he added in telephone statements to the Russian media.

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Responsibility for pandemic preparation was privatized under the Obama and Trump administrations. It’s time to face down the national security state that wasted trillions on imperial wars and abandoned Americans to fight coronavirus alone.

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Donald Trump’s failure to act decisively to control the coronavirus pandemic has likely made the Covid-19 pandemic far more lethal than it should have been. But the reasons behind failure to get protective and life-saving equipment like masks and ventilators into the hands of health workers and hospitals run deeper than Trump’s self-centered recklessness.

Both the Obama and Trump administrations quietly delegated state and local authorities with the essential national security responsibility for obtaining and distributing these vital items. The failure of leadership was compounded the lack of any federal power center that embraced the idea that guarding for a pandemic was at least as important to national security as preparing for war.

For decades, the military-industrial-congressional complex has force-fed the American public a warped conception of US national security focused entirely around perpetuating warfare. The cynical conflation of national security with waging war on designated enemies around the globe effectively stifled public awareness of the clear and present danger posed to its survival by global pandemic. As a result, Congress was simply not called upon to fund the vitally important equipment that doctors and nurses needed for the Covid-19 crisis.

At the heart of the growing coronavirus crisis in the US is a severe shortage of N95 respirators and ventilators. Those items should have been available in sufficient numbers through the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), which holds the nation’s largest supplies necessary for national emergencies. But the stocks of crucial medical have not been maintained for years, largely because Congress has not provided the necessary funding. 

Congress has been willing to dole out load of cash after pandemics hit the US. When the H1N1 flu crisis hit the United States in 2009, and close to 300,000 Americans were hospitalized, Congress appropriated $7.7 billion in special funding, including support for building up the SNS. That allowed the stockpile to provide 85 million respirators and millions of ventilators to hospitals around the country, especially during the second half of the yearlong crisis. 

But since that 2009-10 crisis ended, the stockpile of such vital equipment has never been replenished. In 2020 the stockpile holds only 12 million N95 respirators – as little as 1 percent of what is now needed by health workers – and just 16,000 ventilators, compared with the estimated 750,000 people at minimum who will need a ventilator because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

These numbers are so scandalously low in relation to what is needed that senior officials Department of Health and Human Services have refused to reveal publicly how many they have in stock.

The failure to maintain those items in the stockpile was not the result of any lack of warning about the serious risk of a global pandemic that could be worse than any since the 1918 Spanish flu. It has been obvious that the frequency and ferocity of such rapidly spreading flu pandemics has been steadily rising throughout the 21st century.

The parade of recent pandemics began with SARS in 2002-3, continued with the much more serious H1N1 pandemic in 2009, and escalated with the spread of MERS IN 2012. Each one involved influenza viruses.

The H1N1 pandemic infected nearly 61 million Americans and hospitalized 274,000, causing 12,500 deaths. Another epidemic of the Ebola virus spread across much of Africa in 2014-16 but made only a slight appearance in the United States.

George Poste, a former director of Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute with close ties to the US military-intelligence apparatus, warned in 2018 that even though the horror of the 1918 flu epidemic had not been repeated, it was “inevitable that a pandemic strain of equal virulence will emerge.”

The awareness of the threat of a pandemic even reached into the National Security Council. In 2015, once the Ebola crisis had passed, the Obama administration’s departing Ebola coordinator convinced the White House to create an National Security Council (NSC) office for the threat from pandemics.

Then, a week before Trump’s inauguration, Obama’s outgoing homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, organized a simulation based on how the administration would respond to what she called a “nightmare scenario”: a flu pandemic that forces a halt to international travel and causes a stock market crash and for which there is no effective vaccine.

In May 2018, Luciana Borio, the director for medical and biodefense preparedness on the NSC staff, declared publicly that a flu pandemic that we “know cannot be stopped at the border” was the leading health security threat, and that the United States was not prepared for it.

But neither the NSC office nor the NSC itself produced a major initiative to focus political attention on the pandemic threat. The office’s role, as described by Beth Cameron, who oversaw it, was limited to closely monitoring global health threats to provide early warning of any potential pandemic.

So when arch-militarist John Bolton promptly downgraded the office after becoming Trump’s national security adviser, it made little difference.

Responsibility for domestic preparedness for a pandemic has always belonged not to NSC but to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS organized a month-long simulation in 2019 involving a number of federal offices that ultimately demonstrated how seriously unprepared the government was to cope with a pandemic. Following such an exercise, it should have been obvious that a new stockpile of necessary medical gear was urgently needed.

However, the HHS made no serious effort to replenish the country’s diminished stockpiles of masks, ventilators, and other critical supplies. And even if it had, it would have had to have competed with a much more powerful military-industrial complex for funding, and almost certainly would have failed.

Deeply entrenched bureaucracies and defense contractors dominate the federal government. Thanks to hefty campaign contributions and other benefits to members of Congress who control budgetary decisions, the national security state is easily able to secure its demands. In contrast, no such lobbying complex exists to ensure the country is adequately prepared for a pandemic.

In fact, as Greg Burel, the director of the US strategic stockpile from 2009 to 2021, explained, HHS and the Strategic National Stockpile lost all responsibility for sending N-95 masks and ventilators to state and local health services and hospitals in a national health emergency. Hospitals and state and local health departments must therefore compete with one another to obtain limited commercially available suppliers after they are already knee-deep in a pandemic. 

Responsibility for the preparation for the most significant threat to US security – a pandemic that would upend the economy and society as a whole – was thus privatized under both the Obama and Trump administrations.

At the same time, a bipartisan consensus emerged around shoveling $15 trillion in taxpayer money into wars that had little to do with national security in any true sense, and focused instead on the perpetuation of American empire.

The catastrophic human consequences of the failure to provide these essentials for a minimally adequate response should become the basis of nationwide political movement that takes on the national security state and its deadly grip on Congress.

Multi-billion-dollar weapons systems may have provided lucrative kickbacks to members of Congress and spacious Northern Virginia McMansions to arms industry lobbyists, but they have not provided an iota of security from coronavirus.

Such a movement would have seemed impossible only a few weeks ago. But after decades of preemption of resources for the parochial interests of a self-serving national security bureaucracy and its elite political allies, it is clear that most Americans have been abandoned before a pandemic their leaders dismissed and ignored.

A simple insistence that the actual security interests of the American people be served, rather than those of militarists who have hijacked the concept of national security for their own self-interest, is paramount.

A movement demanding this radical shift could be driven by very reasonable expectation that untold hundreds of thousands could die during a series of viral outbreaks throughout the next decade. As Dr. Peter Daszek, the president of the EcoHealth Alliance and a leading expert in predicting their impact of pandemics, recently told the Wall Street Journal, “We’re going to be hit with a much bigger one sometime in the next 10 years.”

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Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist who has covered national security policy since 2005 and was the recipient of Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2012.  His most recent book is The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis co-authored with John Kiriakou, just published in February.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

As we previously warned, this pandemic will bankrupt and kill more people from suicide than the virus will. When you sacrifice people’s livelihoods, you create a difficult situation of desperation for many who will see no other way out.

We are about to have a mental health crisis during an economic depression that will be tough to live through.  The virus is no longer the problem.  The government’s reaction has been the problem and even some politicians have figured it out. Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs revealed in a weekly update that our solution to this pandemic has not been a good one.

“Thus far, our reaction to COVID-19 has been to sacrifice the global economy,” said Jacobs. “The truth is: a sick economy produces sick people.”

Most people don’t want to hear the truth, unfortunately, and the longer state governments insist on businesses being closed and an economy shut down to combat what’s looking like a fairly insignificant virus for most of the population, the aftermath will worsen.  Each day that drags on will make the next few years more difficult.

“Last year, our medical examiner performed autopsies for 199 confirmed or suspected suicides from across the region, with 83 of those coming from Knox County. Over the past 48 hours, that office has now examined nine suspected suicides, eight of which are from Knox County alone. For Knox County, that’s almost ten percent of last year’s total number in the past two days alone,” Jacobs added.

We’ve said it before and it needs to be said again, we should no longer be preparing for a pandemic, but social unrest, violence, and economic depression, the longer the economy is shut down, the more horrific the future social unrest will be. Jacobs is questioning the tyrannical measures and authoritarian power grabs by politicians.

Jacobs called the suicide numbers “utterly shocking” and said he is questioning if the government is taking the right approach in responding to COVID-19.

“Is what we are doing now really the best approach? How can we respond to COVID-19 in a way that keeps our economy intact, keeps people employed, and empowers our people with a feeling of hope and optimism, not desperation and despair?” he said.

“That’s startling and disturbing and really, really challenging to think about how some of the things we have to do as a community right now could be contributing to these things,” he said. “The more important message today that I want to deliver is that now more than ever we need to be kinder and gentler with ourselves and with each other. If there’s anybody out there who’s struggling, I encourage you to reach out.”

We want to thank Jacobs for standing up against all the other tyrants out there using this virus as an excuse to commit economic suicide and impoverish millions of people. Now let’s face reality: it’s time to reopen the economy and salvage what’s left if we can.  The longer this drags on, the direr our situation becomes.

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For many years on Wall Street, stock prices and true valuations diverged sharply — according to a Sanford Bernstein report.

When companies spend billions of dollars on earlier issued stock, their valuations are artificially inflated.

It’s one of the performance metrics used to determine executive compensation comprised of salaries, bonuses and stock options, including for directors.

According to Investopedia, bonuses linked to performance encourage executives to work harder for shareholders that includes themselves.

Stock options encourage short-term performance, including by manipulating numbers to meet targets.

When CEOs ask finance executives how profits look for the current quarter, the response is likely to be how much do you want?

When stock valuations rise, executives profit greatly, giving them an incentive to elevate them artificially.

Investopedia: “Worse still, the incentive to keep the share price motoring upward so that options will stay in the money encourages executives to focus exclusively on the next quarter and ignore shareholders’ longer-term interests.”

“Options can even prompt top managers to manipulate the numbers to make sure the short-term targets are met.”

On Monday, Bloomberg News headlined: “The No. 1 Source of Stock Demand Is a Goner, for Years to Come,” saying:

According to Sanford Bernstein (SF), the biggest driver of higher stock prices for many years is now sidelined because of current economic and market conditions that negatively affect bottom line performance.

Because sales and profits are down, companies are less able to issue high-yield debt that enables them to buy back stock that inflates valuations.

SF believes buybacks could become “socially unacceptable” though it’s too soon to tell.

“For at least several years, buybacks will be severely curtailed,” SF predicts, adding:

Stocks will “unlikely return to their pre-crisis valuation multiples” any time soon.

For at least the past five years, buybacks added up to 1.5% to earnings-per-share growth, boosting their price that’s unrelated to true value based on performance.

Further, “(a)s governments take a larger role in economies, this could turn the tide away from shareholders-first views of economies for some time.”

“Government’s role in financial markets cannot just be packed back into the box once this is all over.”

“The absence of risk-free instruments that can deliver positive real return and at least a risk of higher inflation further bolster the case for gold.”

Buybacks were the key driver behind rising markets since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, around $730 billion were spent on buybacks last year alone. In 2018, a record $806 billion was spent, fueled by the great 2017 GOP tax cut heist.

Big business got hundreds of billions of dollars in free money – used mostly for stock buybacks and generous handouts to executives.

Workers got shortchanged. Thousands got pink slips the past two years. Now it’s millions, while handouts to business is elevating the federal deficit exponentially.

The corporate bailout enacted last month is another restraint on buybacks that could be short-or-longer-term.

In return for free government money, corporate recipients are not to use it for buybacks or dividends until one year after borrowed amounts are repaid or written off, the latter option the most likely.

Whether recipients intend following this stipulation is another matter entirely. Hindsight will explain best.

Companies hurt by downturn will be forced to use government and Fed money to stave off bankruptcies and possible shutdowns in some cases.

As in 2008-09 and earlier economic crisis periods, strong companies will likely consolidate to greater size by buying weaker ones at fire sale prices.

SF said in recent days, buybacks “moved from being a purely economic question to an ethical question,” stigmatizing repurchases.

Companies not in need of government bailout help that are cash-strong will likely maintain buybacks, others in weaker condition likely to delay them for years, SF believes.

The Wall Street Journal quoted S&P Dow Jones Indices senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt, saying buybacks are “an endangered species. During bad times, you don’t do discretionary spending.”

Chief market strategist Brian Reynolds of the firm bearing his name said buybacks were the only net source of money entering the market since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

He estimates that they added about $4 trillion in market valuation since 2009.

The Journal reported that “(i)n the decade through 2019, S&P 500 companies poured $5.29 trillion into buyback programs, according to data from S&P.”

“That was more than double the $2.59 trillion from the (prior) 10 years. Dividends saw a similar increase, nearly doubling to $3.53 trillion from $1.89 trillion.”

Other sources combined “netted out to roughly zero,” said the Journal, citing him, based on the Fed’s quarterly flow of funds reports.

“It’s going to be like riding a bucking bronco in the stock market for the next six months,” Reynolds believes.

The Journal quoted Economics Professor Emeritus William Lazonick, saying:

“Companies that retain and reinvest profits, that have an incentive to build better products, they do better.”

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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.

We are all shocked by the Covid-19-related carnage in Western Europe and the US in particular and fervently hope for an early end to the disaster. However it is timely to note huge avoidable deaths from deprivation in the Developing World (minus China) prior to the coronavirus pandemic. Best-case Covid-19 Suppression scenarios for the rich UK and rich Australia  predict “annual Covid-19-related deaths as a percentage of population” of  about 0.03% pa. In contrast, “annual avoidable deaths from deprivation as a percentage of population” is already a shocking 0.30% pa for the Developing World (minus China), 0.60% pa for indigenous Australians, and variously about 0.1% pa – 0.4% pa for  Developing Countries  that have been popular holiday destinations for relatively rich British and Australian tourists.  

(1) Covid-19 Case Fatality Rate (CFR), Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), and age-specific risk

The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) measures the deaths  as a percentage of diagnosed cases per unit time. However there are shortcomings  in Covid-19 testing, sampling, diagnosis and other matters.  A better quantification  is Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) which measures deaths as a percentage of all those with infection i.e. those with detected disease (Cases) plus those with an undetected disease (asymptomatic and not tested people) [1, 2]. Thus the IFR is always lower than the CFR. However the media typically report each day on the number of deaths and the numbers of Cases detected, this allowing calculation of  the Case Fatality Rate (CFR).

Indeed the  Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM) sets out a very useful critique of its own CFR reportage:

“It sets out the current Case Fatality Rate (CFR) estimates, the country-specific issues affecting the CFR, and provides a current best estimate of the CFR, and more importantly, the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR)… What is affecting the case fatality rate? The number of cases detected by testing will  vary considerably by country; Selection bias can mean those with severe disease are preferentially tested; There may be delays between symptoms onset and deaths  which  can lead to underestimation of the CFR; There may be factors that account for increased death rates such  as coinfection,  poorer healthcare, patient demographics (i.e., older patients might be more prevalent in countries such as Italy); There may be increased rates of smoking or comorbidities amongst the fatalities; Differences in how deaths are attributed to Coronavirus: dying with the disease (association) is not the same as dying from the disease (causation)… In China,  CFR was higher in the early stages of the outbreak (17% for cases from 1 to 10 January) and reduced to 0.7% for patients with symptom onset after 1 February” [1].

While deaths are accurately reported, the total number of symptomatic and asymptomatic infections is difficult to determine for a whole population (although one supposes that this would be possible through very large, sophisticated, inclusive and expert sampling of populations). Nevertheless the CEBM provides useful CFR-based data for all countries and in particular the following useful CFR-based estimates for China (21 March 2020):

“The CFR was 2.3% (1023 deaths/44 672 confirmed cases). Reported CFRs by age were ≤ 9 years, 0%;   10 to 19 years, 0.18%; 20 to 49  years, 0.32%;   50 to 59 years, 1.3%; 60 to 69 years, 3.6%; 70 to 79 years, 8.0%; ≥80 years, 14.8%… Patients with comorbid conditions [multiple illnesses] had much higher CFR rates. Those with no comorbidities had a CFR of 0.9%. Critical cases had a  CFR of 49%, no deaths occurred among those with mild or even severe symptoms” [1].

As a 75-year old I am in a high risk group but, ever the optimist,  I take some comfort from these CFR statistics because I am in reasonable health and am self-isolating at home, washing my hands, coughing into my elbow, and only going out to buy food and other necessities while strictly maintaining social distancing orders (1.5 metres between people outside  and 4 square metres of personal space inside).

(2) Annual avoidable mortality from deprivation

The Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that people grow old and eventually die. Consequently in rich countries that can afford top quality medical services there is an increasingly older population with an increased overall death rate because of this demographic imbalance.  Thus annual mortality in Australia as a percentage of age-based sub-group population is 0.15% (0-4 years), 0.02% (5-9), 0.02% (10-14), 0.06% (15-19), 0.08% (20-24), 0.09% (25-29), 0.12% (30-34), 0.17% (35-39), 0.24% (40-44), 0.36% (45-49), 0.52% (50-54), 0.78% (55-59), 1.18% (60-64), 1.85% (65-69), 3.05% (70-74), 5.38% (75-79), 10.00% (80-84), 27.12% (80+) [3]. These age-specific mortality statistics  for Australians parallel the Covid-19 age-specific statistics for China  set out above in section 1 i.e. the annual probability of dying increases with age after infancy,  and the annual probability of dying from Covid-19 increases with age [1].

In wealthy countries there is a high life expectancy because of top medical services and in many cases universal health care for everyone. However in poor Developing  Countries deprivation through war or hegemony can have a big impact on mortality rate. Avoidable mortality from deprivation (avoidable death, excess death, excess mortality, premature death, untimely death, death that should have happened)  can be defined  as the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics (i.e. birth rate and percentage of children). Using UN Population Division data  it is possible to estimate avoidable mortality for all countries (for a detailed account of the methodology as applied to Developing Countries or Developed Countries see Chapter 2 [4]).

The “annual avoidable mortality from deprivation” can be expressed as a percentage of the population and has been estimated as follows for various parts of Humanity (2003): 0.0% (Overseas Europe), 0.01% (East Asia),  0.03% (Latin America and Caribbean), 0.05% (Western Europe), 0.25% (Arab North Africa and Middle East ), 0.26% (Central Asia, Iran and Turkey), 0.26% (South East Asia), 0.31% (Eastern Europe),  0.38% (South Asia), 0.39% (Pacific), and 0.97% (Non-Arab Africa).

The “annual avoidable mortality from deprivation as a percentage of the population” is effectively about 0% for Overseas Europe (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Apartheid Israel), China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, the wealthy Arab Gulf States and Cuba. In contrast, this parameter is 0.35% for India (2003 data) [4]. Assuming a baseline mortality of 4 deaths per 1,000 of population per year one can calculate from current UN data that  presently each year 15.2  million people die avoidably from deprivation in the Developing World (minus China), this representing 15.2 million x 100/ 5,050.2 million = 0.30% pa [4]. Annual avoidable deaths from deprivation presently total 4.55 million for capitalist ostensible democracy India i.e. 0.33% pa. In contrast annual avoidable death from deprivation as a percentage of population is 0.0% pa  for pluralist and One Party State China (2020) and 0.04% pa for the UK (2003 data).

Covid-19 is theoretically largely preventable with rapid total lockdown, testing, contact tracing,  and the very best medical intervention. The following section compares expertly predicted Covid-19 deaths in the UK in various scenarios with   pre-Covid-19 avoidable mortality in the UK and other regions.

(3) UK annual Covid-19 death rate (as percentage of population per year) versus “annual avoidable mortality from deprivation as a percentage of the population”

On 16 March 2020 eminent epidemiologist  Professor Neil Ferguson and his colleagues at Imperial College, London,  released an important  research document  entitled “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and health care demand” [3]. This research paper  has compelled the UK Government to take drastic action to suppress the COVID-19 epidemic via a “Suppression” scenario involving hygiene and social distancing, case detection and isolation, household quarantine, and the closing of schools and universities.  This “Suppression” strategy is modelled to result in much fewer  Covid-19-related UK deaths over 2 years  (circa 40,000) as compared to a less stringent “Mitigation” strategy not involving  school and university closure  (210,000 deaths) or Inaction (510,000 deaths) [5-7].

Assuming that everyone eventually gets the Covid-19 disease then the 1-year deaths per 1,000 of population for the UK are predicted to be (1) about  0.02 million  x 1,000/67.5 million = 0.30 per thousand (0.03% pa; aggressive Suppression), (2) 0.105 million x 1,000 0/67.5 million = 1.56 per thousand (0.16%; less aggressive Mitigation), and (3)  0.255 million  x 1,000/ 67.5 million =   3.78 per thousand  of population. (0.38%, Inaction).

It has been estimated that annual avoidable deaths from deprivation per 100 of population were 0.04% pa(UK), 0.05% pa (Western Europe), 0.36% pa (South Asia) and 0.97% pa  (Non-Arab Africa) (2003 data) [4]. Presently in 2020 annual avoidable deaths from deprivation per 100 of population are 0.11% pa (Morocco), 0.30% pa (Developing World minus China) and 0.33% pa (India).

Thus in terms of UK Covid-19 deaths as a percentage of total population per year, (1) aggressive Suppression would yield an awful 0.03% pa (similar to  the 0.04% pa avoidable mortality in the UK in 2003),  (2) less aggressive Mitigation  would yield a disastrous 0.16% pa (as compared to the  0.11% pa present avoidable mortality in cheap British holiday destination Morocco), and (3) Inaction would yield  0.38% pa avoidable mortality (as compared to the 0.33% pa present avoidable mortality for impoverished India, a nation that is still recovering from 2 centuries of genocidally exploitative  British rule [8-14]).

Thus aggressive Suppression of Covid-19 in rich First World  UK (per capita GDP $42,491 [15]) would yield a death rate (0.03% pa) similar in magnitude to the existing very low avoidable mortality rate occurring in the UK (0.04% pa) (2003 data).   However mere Mitigation of Covid-19  would yield a Covid-19-related  death rate in the UK  of 0.16% pa,  about 50%  higher than the avoidable death rate of 0.11% pa in relatively  poor Morocco (per capita GDP $3,238 [15]). Inaction would yield a catastrophic Covid-19-related death rate in the UK of 0.38% pa, comparable to the present avoidable death rate of 0.33% pa in impoverished ostensible democracy but corrupt plutocracy India (per capita GDP $2,016 [15])

The Covid-19 pandemic has been spread throughout the world by international travel and specifically largely by air travel. The irony of the present catastrophe is that while aggressive Suppression will yield a death rate comparable to the 2003 avoidable death rate in the UK,  insufficient Mitigation will yield a UK death rate 50% higher than the pre-Covid-19 avoidable death rate in the cheap UK tourist  destination of Morocco. Inaction (a policy initially contemplated by a sangfroid UK Tory Government) would yield an even higher  death rate similar to the present huge avoidable death rate in the distant UK tourist  destination of  impoverished India.

In our new  Coronavirus World the adage that “You are what you eat” is in danger of becoming “You are who you visit” for  rich, tourism-mad European countries.

(4) Australia, Indigenous Australians  and tourism contribution to Covid-19 deaths

Australia (population 25 million, per capita GDP $51,663) is culturally and politically  similar  to the UK (population, per capita GDP $42,491) [15], and it would be reasonable in the absence of other data  to assume  much the same epidemic outcomes of Covid-19-related death rates as a percentage of population of  0.03% pa (aggressive Suppression), 0.16% pa (less aggressive Mitigation) and 0.38% pa (Inaction). Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, on  a global comparative basis the overall Australian avoidable death rate was  about 0.02% pa but the Indigenous Australian avoidable death rate was a shocking 0.6% pa, this lying between that in impoverished India (0.33% pa) and that in Non-Arab Africa (1.0% pa) [4] but occurring in one of the richest countries on earth [15]. Thus the Indigenous Australian avoidable death rate (0.6% pa) (for detailed analysis see [16]) is already 50% bigger than the overall Australian Covid-19-related death rate expected in the absence of any emergency action (0.38% pa) and 30 times greater than that for Australia as a whole (0.02% pa). In addition to this huge avoidable mortality disparity,  overcrowded housing and other huge socio-economic and health deficits [16] already put Indigenous Australians  at a much higher risk from Covid-19 than non-Indigenous Australians.

The Australian Government reports (7 April 2020):

“As at 6:00am on 7 April 2020, there have been 5,844 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia. There have been 100 new cases since 6:00am yesterday. Of the 5,844 confirmed cases in Australia, 42 have died from COVID-19. More than 304,000 tests have been conducted across Australia” [17].

Australians love travelling notwithstanding the inherent expense, inconvenience and pointlessness of the pursuit. Covid-19 infections in Australia have primarily derived from plane-borne or boat-borne travellers from overseas. Calla Wahlquist of the Guardian reports (31 March 2020):

“The age group most represented in Australian statistics for confirmed cases of Covid-19 are people in their 20s, because they are the group most likely to travel or party with returned travellers, experts have said. Data updated daily by the federal health department shows that 11.3% of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Australia are among people aged 25 to 29, followed by 9.5% in those aged 60 to 65 – the cruise ship cohort – and 9.3% in those aged 20 to 25. People aged 80 and older account for just 2.7% of the confirmed cases of Covid-19 but 47% of the deaths” [18].

As a person aged 75 and thus in one of the higher risk groups I am modestly indignant that people such as myself who travel rarely are now at high risk because of this pointless national obsession with overseas travel in rich but “culturally cringing” Australia. The disastrous world-wide coronavirus epidemic illustrates the dangers of the modern mass travel obsession in rich countries like Australia  with international or intranational travel for travelling’s  sake. Australian Literature Nobel laureate Patrick White condemned this  pointless and indulgent mass movement in a 1988 speech at La Trobe University on the occasion of national celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the genocidal British invasion of Australia in 1788: “They are flogging camels from East to West and from West to East, and running from the  City to Surf and from the Surf to City.  Why don’t they just stay home, cook themselves a nice meal and curl up with a good book?” [19].

Resolutely ignored are the deadly consequences  of this endless travelling. Thus 9 million people die annually from air pollution, about 50% from indoor pollution (cooking and heating) and 50% from outside pollution (electrical energy and transport). About 10,000 Australians die annually from air pollution and a further 75,000 people die annually around the world from the long-term effects of toxic pollutants from the  burning of Australia’s world-leading coal exports [20]. However now we have the mounting death toll in Australia from Covid-19 infection brought to island continent Australia  by Australian and non-Australian travellers. Notwithstanding being an atheist, I tell my travelling friends and relatives: “You can’t escape your immortal soul … stay home and read a good book”.

Remote Indigenous communities are at risk from Covid-19 spread by endless touring Australian retirees (“Grey Nomads” ) from the cities,  just as Australia as a whole has been impacted by hundreds of thousands of returning Australian travellers. These “grey nomads”  obsessively touring remote parts of “outback” Australia with their caravans and campervans have been given the descriptive SAD  (“See Australia and Die”) , most memorably in Tim Winton’s novel “Dirt Music” [21]. Indigenous Australian’s have a life expectancy about 10 years less than that for non-Indigenous Australians and have a disproportionately  greater burden of chronic disease [16].

On a global comparative  scale the “annual avoidable mortality as a .percentage of population” is 0.6% pa for Indigenous Australians as compared to about 0.0% pa for non-Indigenous  Australians, 0.02% pa for Australians as a whole, 0.26% for neighbouring Indonesia (a major tourist  destination  for Australians),  0.33% pa for impoverished India (an exotic tourist destination for Australians), and 0.44% pa for Fiji  (another major tourist destination for Australians).  One notes by way of comparison that the “annual Covid-19 deaths as a percentage of population” if they are the same for Australia and the UK – 0.03% pa (aggressive Suppression), 0.16% (less aggressive Mitigation) and 0.38% (Inaction). On this basis, as observed with the UK, Australia’s “best case” Covid-19 action Suppression scenario” yields a death rate similar to the avoidable death rate for Australia, Mitigation yields a death rate similar to the avoidable death rate of tourist destination Indonesia,  and the worst case of Inaction yields a death rate similar to the avoidable death rate of Indigenous Australians, and of popular tourist destination Fiji.

Look-the-other-way Australians are happy to holiday in remote Australia, Indonesia and Fiji but ignore the huge differential avoidable mortality in these places (just as the findings of this analysis will be censored  by the mendacious Mainstream journalist, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes as coming from an Australian scholar rendered “invisible” by the Establishment and its presstitute  lackeys).  Australians have no formal legal obligations towards its neighbours Indonesia and Fiji but it does have a legal and moral  responsibility for its Indigenous subjects, noting that a Treaty has never been signed between the European  invaders and the First Peoples of Australia. Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War unequivocally state that an Occupier must provide its conquered Subjects with life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” [22].

Indigenous Australians from the arid region of northern South Australia want to remove their Elders to safety from the extreme threat from Covid-19 infection to  the city of Adelaide,  but their urgent request has been denied by the Coalition South Australian government . Thus Stephanie Boltje of the ABC (Australia’s equivalent of the UK BBC)  reports (31 March 2020):

“Vulnerable Indigenous elders wishing to leave the remote South Australian Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands to self-isolate amid the coronavirus pandemic have been denied support from SA Health.” [23].  Ellen Fanning of the ABC reported (19 March 2020): “Indigenous health leaders are urging the Federal Government to declare special isolation zones patrolled by the police or the army in a radical move to prevent COVID-19 devastating remote Indigenous communities” [24].

The first case of Covid-19 in China may have been on 17 November 2019 but the Chinese Government notified the WHO that the first  confirmed case had been diagnosed on 8 December 2020,  and notified the world about human-to-human transmission of coronavirus on 21 January 2020 [25]. The first cases were detected in the UK in January 2020 but  were predicted because of regular flights to the UK from Wuhan that had been noted as a Covid-19 disease cluster by 31 December 2019. The UK Government adopted stringent controls after mid-March 2020 and UK schools were closed from 20 March 2020 [26]. The first case of Covid-19 in Australia was detected on 25 January 2020, 6 weeks ago [27]. However the incompetent, anti-science and neoliberal Coalition Government adopted an “evolving” response and has still declined to close schools in the face of mounting concern from numerous medical experts  [7]. If island continent Australia had acted in January 2020  to ban all foreign entries and to quarantine and test all Australian entries then Australia today would have zero cases of Covid-19. Such “ifs” aside, it is clear that action should ideally have been maximal and as early as possible given human-to-human transmission and exponential  growth of infection that threatens to overwhelm medical services.

Final comments

One fervently hopes that the stringent Suppression approach belatedly adopted by the UK Government on about 20 March 2020 will restrict annual  Covid-19 deaths to the 0.03% pa of the UK population as predicted by expert epidemiologists, a death rate commensurate with the 0.04% pa of avoidable deaths from deprivation in 2003. However the less aggressive Mitigation  approach would yield a disastrous 0.16% pa deaths (as compared to the  0.11% pa present avoidable mortality in cheap British holiday destination Morocco), and Inaction would yield  0.38% pa deaths (as compared to the 0.33% pa present avoidable mortality from deprivation for impoverished India). While Westerners are rightly concerned about potentially huge death rates from Covid-19 in European countries, there is no practical concern for high, pre-Covid-19 avoidable death rates from deprivation in the Developing World. Indeed Westerners are happy to holiday in poor countries such as Morocco and India suffering huge, pre-Covid-19 rates of annual avoidable  deaths from poverty of 0.11% pa and 0.33% pa , respectively.

European countries have closed down their economies and committed trillions of dollars to contain Covid-19 deaths but have effectively ignored the horrendous, continuing reality that 15 million people die avoidably from deprivation each year on Spaceship Earth with the rich First World in charge of the flight deck [4]. It was estimated in 2014 that  an annual  Global Wealth Tax of 4% would lift all countries to the modest, circa world average per capita  GDP enjoyed by China and Cuba, countries  for which avoidable mortality is zero [29, 30]. When this pandemic is over, rich European countries will no doubt renounce the current flood of Keynesian economic humanitarianism, attempt to restore their economies along neoliberal lines, consign immense government debt to future generations already saddled with $200-250 trillion of inescapable Carbon Debt [28],  and even more assiduously ignore horrendous avoidable death rates from deprivation  in the Developing World (minus China) as exemplified by 0.4% of population pa in South Asia and 1.0% of population pa in non-Arab Africa.

Australia under an anti-science, effective climate change denialist, neoliberal and Trumpist Coalition Government has adopted a strengthening “Mitigation”  approach to the Covid-19 pandemic that balances “lives” versus “livelihoods” and excludes variously medical expert-advocated and UK-adopted school  closure as a policy [7].  Nevertheless belated but stringent border control measures may mean that Continent Australia will escape the carnage happening in Western Europe.  However in an extraordinary  bungle Australian officials allowed 2,700 passengers to freely disembark in Sydney on 19 March from the “Ruby Princess” cruise ship despite passengers on board showing signs of respiratory illness – at least 662 people linked to this cruise ship have been diagnosed with Covid-19 throughout Australia, more than 10% of Australia’s total detected cases, and about 5 have died [31, 32].

As an Australian I fervently hope that Australia’s  unique island Continent nature and presently strong social distancing measures will save us from high Covid-19 death rates comparable to the pre-Covid-19 avoidable death rates from deprivation in neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Fiji in which look-the-other-way Australians happily holiday. However the pre-Covid-19 avoidable death rate from deprivation of 0.6% pa for Indigenous Australians means about 4,000 Indigenous avoidable deaths from deprivation each year and a continuing  life expectancy “gap” of about 10 years between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Successive Liberal Party-National Party Coalition and Labor Party (aka Lib-Lab) Governments have been unable or unwilling to close “the gap”. Covid-19 disproportionately threatens Indigenous Australians who disproportionately suffer from huge comparative health deficits and socio-economic deficits (notably crowded and substandard housing in remote communities).  Australia must act immediately to protect Indigenous Australians from the Covid-19 threat  –  the world is watching.

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Dr Gideon Polya taught Biochemistry at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, including a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/).

Notes

[1].  Jason Oke and  Carl Heneghan, “Global Covid-19 Case Fatality rates”, Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM), 17 March 2020: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/ ).

[2]. “Case fatality rate”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate .

[3]. “Your odds pf dying by age”, Finder, 3 March 2020: https://www.finder.com.au/life-insurance/odds-of-dying .

[4]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, this including an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since Neolithic times and now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality_05.html .

[5]. Neil M. Ferguson and 30 colleagues. “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and health care demand”, Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, 16 March 2020: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf.

[6]. Chelsea Bruce-Lockhart, John Burn-Murdoch and Alex Barker, “The shocking coronavirus study that rocked the UK and US”, Financial Times, 19 March 2020:  https://www.ft.com/content/16764a22-69ca-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75 .

[7]. Gideon Polya, “COVID-19 Pandemic & Coronavirus Suppression – Should Australian Schools Close? ”, Countercurrents, 22 March 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/covid-19-pandemic-coronavirus-suppression-should-australian-schools-close .

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008 that  is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  .

[9]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Inglorious Empire. What the British did to India” by Shashi Tharoor”, Countercurrents, 8 September 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/09/08/review-inglorious-empire-what-the-british-did-to-india-by-shashi-tharoor/ .

[10]. Shashi Tharoor, “Inglorious Empire. What the British did to India”, Scribe, 2017.

[11]. Utsa Patnaik in Arindam Banerjee and C. P. Chandrasekhar, editors, “Dispossession, Deprivation, and Development. Essays for Utsa Patnaik, Columbia University Press,  2018.

[12]. Gideon Polya, “Economist Mahima Khanna,   Cambridge Stevenson Prize And Dire Indian Poverty”,  Countercurrents, 20 November, 2011: https://countercurrents.org/polya201111.htm .

[13]. Gideon Polya, “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”,  Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: https://countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm .

[14]. “Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Bengal Famine) writings of Gideon Polya”, Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/bengali-holocaust .

[15]. “List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita .

[16]. “Aboriginal Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ .  

[17]. Australian Government Department of Health, “Coronavirus (COVID-19) current situation and case numbers”, 31 March 2020: https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers .

[18]. Calla Wahlquist, “Australians in their 20s have more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any other age group”, Guardian, 31 March 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/australians-in-their-20s-have-more-confirmed-cases-of-coronavirus-than-any-other-age-group .

[19]. Gideon Polya, “Melbourne’s North East Link super-highway project – environmental vandalism and Australian-killing perversion””, Countercurrents, 9 March 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/melbournes-north-east-link-super-highway-project-environmental-vandalism-australian-killing-perversion .

[20].“Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths .

[21]. Donell Holloway, “See Australia and Die: shifting discourse about Grey Nomads”, Research Gate, January 2005: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270704183_See_Australia_and_Die_Shifting_discourses_about_Grey_Nomads .

[22]. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War: https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/Geneva%20Convention%20IV.pdf .

[23]. Stephanie Boltje, South Australian Government refuses calls from APY Indigenous elders to relocate amid corona virus outbreak”, ABC News, 31 March 2020: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-31/south-australian-health-coronavirus-indigenous-request-denied/12103434 .

[24]. Ellen Fanning, Aboriginal health organizations want Defence to contain coronavirus, warn PM of specific dangers” “”, ABC News, 19 March 2020: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-18/aboriginal-health-organisations-call-for-defence-help/12068920 .

[25]. Helen Davidson, “First Covid-19 case happened in November [2019], China Government records show – report”, Guardian, 13 March 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/first-covid-19-case-happened-in-november-china-government-records-show-report .

[26]. “2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom .

[27]. “2020 coronavirus pandemic in Australia”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Australia .

[28]. Gideon Polya, “Inescapable $200-250 trillion global Carbon Debt increasing by $16 trillion annually”, Countercurrents, 27 April 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/inescapable-200-250-trillion-global-carbon-debt-increasing-by-16-trillion-annually-gideon-polya .

[29]. Gideon Polya, “4 % Annual Global Wealth Tax To Stop The 17 Million Deaths Annually”, Countercurrents, 27 June, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya270614.htm .

[30]. “1% ON 1%: one percent annual wealth tax on One Percenters”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/1-on-1 .

[31]. Matilda Boseley, “Criminal investigation launched into Ruby Princess cruise ship coronavirus disaster”, Guardian, 5 April 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/criminal-investigation-launched-ruby-princess-cruise-ship-coronavirus-disaster .

[32]. “Ruby Princess”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Princess

The US gulag prison system is the world’s largest by far, the largely unreported in the mainstream shame of the nation. 

Official numbers significantly understate the true number of incarcerated inmates annually.

According to a Prison Policy Initiative analysis, nearly five million people in the US are behind bars in prisons, jails, or other lockup facilities annually.

Around two-thirds of the US prison population is comprised of poor Blacks and Latinos.

Around 25% of US prison inmates are jailed two more times annually. Most individuals imprisoned in the US are behind bars for nonviolent offenses, many minor, many illicit drug related, many wrongfully convicted.

Prisons are breeding grounds for infectious and other diseases. They’re far more prevalent than in the general population.

Even when seriously ill, inmates can wait days for woefully inadequate treatment.

Mentally ill prisoners exceed numbers in state psychiatric hospitals tenfold, according to one estimate, their numbers increasing, their condition worsening for lack of proper treatment.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly half of US inmates suffer from some form of mental illness. Over one-fourth have a severe condition.

Half or more of inmates are prescription or illicit drug addicted or dependent, notably from opioids.

Prison healthcare providers Corizon Health and Wellpath have been sued about 1,500 hundreds times in the past five years for medical neglect, negligence, and malpractice.

Numerous cases were for wrongful injury or death. In some US states, class-action lawsuits were brought against the entire system for inadequate healthcare, amounting to malpractice.

Arizona was held in contempt by a federal district court for “widespread and systematic failure” to provide proper healthcare for inmates.

In the US nationwide, inmates are vulnerable to healthcare neglect and malpractice.

In Estelle v. Gamble (1976), Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshal stated for an eight-to-one majority ruling that “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners” was inconsistent with Eighth Amendment guarantees against cruel and unusual punishments.

Even though this landmark ruling upheld the right of US prison inmates to proper healthcare, it’s not provided at a time of national indifference toward the nation’s most disadvantaged.

An American Medical Association survey of US prison conditions found dismal healthcare facilities, including poor equipment, none for emergencies, some prisons even lacking first-aid kits, an untenable situation.

A National Commission on Correctional Health Care established in 1983 failed to correct serious problems even though the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1987 that “adequate” care at a level “reasonably commensurate with modern medical science” must be provided to inmates.

It’s not throughout the US prison system at the federal, state, and local levels.

According to ACLU National Prison Project director David Fathi, private companies providing healthcare to prison inmates prioritize bottom line considerations over human health.

They commonly “deny care in what is literally a captive market,” adding:

“I don’t mean to suggest that government-run prison health care is perfect. It’s often appallingly deficient. But, at least when a government is providing the service, there is some measure of oversight.”

“You don’t have that with the private companies” — why firms are repeatedly sued for negligence and malpractice.

“Market forces don’t operate in the prison context for the reason that prisoners have absolutely no consumer choice.”

According to Prisoner Legal News, “(p)risons are incubators and spreaders” of infectious and other diseases.

They flourish because of over-crowding, poor sanitation, and unsatisfactory medical care.

Despite modern-day knowledge of what’s required for public health, improper healthcare for inmates threatens others incarcerated, especially because of prison population growth.

Social distancing is impossible to maintain. Tuberculosis (TB), influenza, and coronavirus strains, and other infectious can spread among prisoners if outbreaks occur.

In the US, around 90% of TB cases are in prisons. An estimated 40% of US prisoners are infected with Hepatitis C, many inmates with HIV/AIDS. Yet treatment is woefully inadequate.

During the US 2017-18 seasonal flu season, around 4,000 people died weekly — with no screaming headlines like currently about COVID-19 that caused about 12,800 deaths this year, about 43% of them in NY.

Along with 1,232 reported deaths in neighboring New Jersey, both states account for about 52% of US fatalities from the disease. Only 277 people died from COVID-19 in neighboring Connecticut.

Despite the risk of epidemic levels in US prisons, federal, state, and local facilities aren’t following guidelines for controlling outbreaks or properly treating infected inmates, risking the spread of the disease to others.

Prisoners are especially vulnerable to contagion from COVID-19 outbreaks.

Numbers of infected inmates are in low single digits so far in most parts of the country, Rikers Island, NY, an exception.

Other prisons could be affected the same way before numbers of infections nationwide decline significantly.

Infectious diseases are especially worrisome in closed prison environments.

According to ACLU criminal justice project director for northern California Lizzie Buchen, most inmates are housed two to a cell, though many are in open dormitories because of overcrowding.

“They sleep and live in very close proximity, sharing toilets, sharing showers. It is extremely unsanitary.”

Soap can be in short supply, hand sanitizers considered contraband because of high alcohol content.

In 2018, a new San Quentin inmate infected with influenza caused a mass outbreak in the prison population.

Prisoners are more likely to be in poor health overall, so are more susceptible to diseases than the general population.

If COVID-19 outbreaks occur in prisons, they’re ill prepared to treat them because of lack of proper equipment, including limited respiratory support.

Most California prisons are under federal medical receivership because of inadequate treatment for inmates.

Prisons nationwide and abroad aren’t properly equipped to handle outbreaks of infectious or other diseases.

Large numbers of nonviolent prisoners are being released in the US because of concern about spreading COVID-19 outbreaks.

Yet seasonal flu/influenza is a far greater problem gone unaddressed.

Britain is releasing low-risk/nonviolent prisoners because of concern about spreading COVID-19 — Julian Assange not among them.

On April 5, WikiLeaks reported the following:

Assange “isn’t eligible to be temporarily released from jail as part of the UK government’s plan to mitigate coronavirus in prisons.”

“The Ministry of Justice confirmed with AAP that Julian Assange who is being held on remand in Belmarsh prison, will not be temporarily released because he’s not serving a custodial sentence and therefore not eligible.”

The “Coronavirus (Scoland) Bill contains a ‘Julian Assange clause’ which excludes prisoners in custody under the Extradition Act 2003.”

London’s maximum security Belmarsh prison where Assange is incarcerated under harsh conditions reported its first COVID-19 death.

According to WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson,

“(a) third of (Belmarsh prison guards) are not showing up to work either because they have the virus or because they are in isolation.”

Prison population COVID-19 outbreaks are “undoubtedly higher than reported” because no adequate testing is being conducted, Hrafnsson added.

“Assange is in very bad shape. He is a very vulnerable individual, especially to a virus like COVID-19.”

“He has an underlying lung condition and would be considered at great risk even if living normally in society.”

“He is in a situation when his life is in danger every day and every hour.”

His lawyers lost contact with him for several weeks.

If extradited to the US and tried in open judicial proceedings, lack of credible evidence against him would likely make for a messy affair the Trump regime might wish to avoid by letting him fester and perish behind bars in London.

Because judicial proceedings in  London’s Westminster Magistrates Court may continue into June or longer, Assange may not survive his ordeal because of deteriorated health gone improperly treated for months.

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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.

Introduction

What is the future for architecture in these times of climate change and economic crises? Should sustainability and affordability be a major factor in the design and development of future buildings? What about aesthetics? There are many individual examples of modern buildings today that have positive aesthetic qualities, but can major future problems, like climate change, be resolved by individual efforts? Or will it take the role of the state with grand visions for the future? While architecture may not seem to be an important issue compared with unemployment or poverty, it is one of the most important of the arts in terms of longevity, function and expense. And its meaning can go beyond mere buildings to symbolism of the state and national values.

The question of aesthetics is complex as modern architectural design is “caught between the diminished architecture of the 99% and the austere architecture of the 1%”, while at the same time architecture is pulled between popular opinion of what is good design and elite views that often contradict.

It is also well know that the production of cement is polluting. Therefore, many architectural projects now emphasize sustainability, like housing schemes to be built from cross-laminated timber and powered by renewable energy, bricks made of recycled construction waste, schemes that will be carbon neutral and function off-grid, plans for the world’s first wooden football stadium, and other housing schemes that will be made from sustainably harvested local wood and save 100s of megatons of carbon in the process.

However, no matter how sustainable these projects are, there is no escaping the aesthetic values of design which will ultimately sustain the building into eternity or see it eventually blown up to the smiles of hordes of ill-wishers.

So why is design so important for something which is ultimately functional? Is it because we have to look at these buildings for a very long time once they are constructed? How do we decide what is beautiful and why?

The whole history of architecture is riddled with controversies. Often what is considered beautiful now was criticized during its own time. Buildings have been knocked down and blown up in many different kinds of situations. Indeed, some have even been rebuilt exactly as before under controversial circumstances or post-war.

Today the debate still goes on about aesthetics and architecture with functional styles overtaking decorative styles only to be overtaken by decorative styles again. What determines these changes? Do political and economic systems play an important role in the kind of aesthetics which become preeminent? And if so, why? Did socio-political-economic systems such as hierarchical feudalism, industrialized capitalism, or state socialism play important roles? Does Neo-liberalism today? How relevant have the opinions of the users and builders of these edifices been?

Maybe more than all the other arts, architecture has been highly affected by the conflict between Enlightenment and Romantic ideas ever since the Italian architect and designer Brunelleschi visited Rome to study the ancient ruins of classical Roman architecture in 1432. The Romantic reaction to Neoclassical architecture materialized later in the form of Neo-Gothic architecture from the 1740s onwards.

Renaissance architecture

The rise of the bourgeoisie in the form of the Medicis in Italy guided a major change in architecture from the Romanesque and Gothic styles of earlier times to the new Renaissance designs based on ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The earlier medieval styles had been largely used by feudal kings, and bishops of the powerful Catholic church for their castles and cathedrals. Gothic had grown organically out of Romanesque designs over time, for example, the small roof on medieval belfries became taller and thinner until it was eventually incorporated into the belfry as a Gothic spire.

The revival of Classical learning in Rome went along with Renaissance humanism and the development of science and engineering. It is interesting to note that Brunelleschi’s first architectural commission was the Ospedale degli Innocenti (1419–c. 1445), or Foundling Hospital, designed as a home for orphans. His next project was the Basilica of San Lorenzo the location of the tombs of the Medici family who sponsored the church – rather than castles or cathedrals.

The study of the ancient ruins in Italy (Rome and Pompeii) and Greece (Athens) led to a clearer understanding of the difference between Greek and Roman architecture and subsequently to consciously Greek, Roman and Greco-Roman hybrids of Neoclassical design.

This knowledge was expressed in the Renaissance style, a style which was consciously brought to fruition through learning and a desire to revive the ideas of the ‘Golden Age’. The humanistic learning of the time set forth a positive conception of man (in opposition to the ‘fallen man’ of the established church) and was seen in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (7 CE), where he describes the lost Golden Age as a time in which nature and reason were aligned and produced naturally good men:

“The Golden Age was first; when Man, yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted Reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc’d by punishment, un-aw’d by fear.”

This view reflected the new learning that man could have an optimistic view of the future and control nature to create a better life for all. In Renaissance architecture, “symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts”, would reflect a more dignified mode of existence combined with concepts of equality, citizenship and republican organization of society. Renaissance architecture depicted “orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters [rectangular columns] and lintels [horizontal supports], as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches [shallow recesses] and aediculae [small shrines] replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings.”

Palais des études of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1830

Neoclassical architecture

By the mid eighteenth century Renaissance architecture developed into full blown Neoclassicism and became an international style as it was adopted by progressive circles in other countries particularly for the design of public buildings. The Neoclassical style incorporated many decorations such as mascarons [symbolic faces], cartouches [oval or oblong designs], festoons [wreaths or garlands], corbels, various leaves and branches, rustications [contrasting textures], trophies, horns of abundance, lion heads and female faces or from other applied arts. An important form of Neoclassicism was the Beaux-Arts architecture which originated in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It was very popular in the United States from 1885 to 1920, and its very last, large public projects included the Lincoln Memorial (1922), the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (1937), and the American Museum of Natural History’s Roosevelt Memorial (1936). The most important aspect of Beaux Arts architecture, aside from its study of Greek or Roman models, was its sculptural decorations which (aside from its balustrades, pilasters, festoons, and cartouches) included “statuary, sculpture (bas-relief panels, figural sculptures, sculptural groups), murals, mosaics, and other artwork, all coordinated in theme to assert the identity of the building.”Neoclassicism also influenced city planning as “the grid system of streets, a central forum with city services, two main slightly wider boulevards, and the occasional diagonal street were characteristic of the very logical and orderly Roman design” as well as highlighting important public buildings.The growing secularism and the rise of evangelicalism in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries did not go unnoticed by philosophical movements associated with Catholicism and high church or Anglo-Catholic beliefs. The influence of Romanticist medievalism and anti-industrialism could be seen in the Gothic Revival that began in the late 1740s in England. Figures like the conservative architect, Augustus Pugin, believed that Christian values were being destroyed by Classicism and industrialization. These reactionary ideas took on political connotations:

“with the “rational” and “radical” Neoclassical style being seen as associated with republicanism and liberalism (as evidenced by its use in the United States and to a lesser extent in Republican France), the more spiritual and traditional Gothic Revival became associated with monarchism and conservatism, which was reflected by the choice of styles for the rebuilt government centres of the UK Parliament’s Palace of Westminster in London, the Canadian Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, and the Hungarian Parliament Building.”

However, by the beginning of the twentieth century the “academic refinement of historical styles” was beginning to be perceived as the architecture of a declining aristocratic order. The move away from Gothic decoration could be seen in the Modernist architects favouring of functional details over historical references. Their designs exhibited and revealed functional and structural elements such as steel beams and concrete surfaces.

Modernist architecture

As Romanticism changed into Modernism, the Romantic interest in the medieval and feudal craft form of production changed into its opposite as formalism and an anti-human aesthetic took its place instead. Modernism, in its dismissal of tradition, rejected classical notions of form in art (harmony, symmetry, and order) and, like Romanticism, rejected the ‘certainty’ of Enlightenment thinking. Modernism emphasized form over political content and rejected the ideology of Realism and Enlightenment thinking on liberty and progress.

The Bauhaus school building in Dessau, Germany, 1919

The epitome of this style in architecture became most developed in the Bauhaus art and design movement that began in 1919 in Weimar, Germany. It was a style which “championed a geometric, abstract style featuring little sentiment or emotion and no historical nods”, an austere aesthetic which threw the baby out with the bathwater:

“The Bauhaus style of architecture featured rigid angles of glass, masonry and steel, together creating patterns and resulting in buildings that some historians characterize as looking as if no human had a hand in their creation. These austere aesthetics favored function and mass production, and were influential in the worldwide redesign of everyday buildings that did not hint at any class structure or hierarchy.”

The Bauhaus style (also known as the International Style) was consciously cosmopolitan in its ahistorical designs and principles of mass production. Many Germans of the time had been influenced by the cultural experimentation that was happening in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution, particularly Constructivism which had originated in Russia beginning in 1913.

Constructivist architecture

Constructivism was a form of Modernist architecture that developed in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. It emerged out of broader art movements movements such as Futurism and Suprematism. Russian Futurism was a movement of Russian poets and artists who rejected the past and celebrated “machinery, violence, youth, industry, destruction of academies, museums, and urbanism”. These ideas were based on Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s (Italian poet, editor, art theorist) Futurist Manifesto, which was written and published in 1909. Marinetti wrote:

“We want to glorify war – the only cure for the world – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill”, and later, in 1919, co-wrote the Fascist Manifesto with Alceste De Ambris. Suprematism was “characterised by basic geometric forms, such as circles, squares, lines and rectangles, painted in a limited range of colours”.

Thus we can see that Constructivism grew out of the highly individualistic, anti-historical, nihilistic, pared-down forms of Modernist art, typical of Romantic ideas.

Intourist Garage by Konstantin Melnikov, 1933 

By the end of the 1920s, Constructivism was the dominant architecture of the Soviet Union. Gradually a reaction to Constructivism started with a combination of Art Deco influenced Classicism and elements of Constructivism. However, in 1932, a major competition to design the Palace of the Soviets was won by Boris Iofan in a style which became known as Stalinist Architecture or Socialist Classicism.

The move away from Constructivist pared-down forms and back to decoration and craft could already be seen in Europe and America with the introduction of Art Deco influences from the mid-1920s. Art Deco buildings featured a lot of surface decoration around windows and doors, and especially around the tops of skyscrapers. This decoration was done in low relief and combined many geometric patterns and figures.

Thus the move to Classicism was not surprising as criticism of Modernist austerity took hold. The major projects of the time, skyscrapers, the Moscow Metro and apartment blocks, were all designed with Classical features that included much art and craft elements. These included sculpture, friezes, mosaics, molding, stucco, carved wooden panels, frescoes, bass relief, and carved wooden panels. After the death of Stalin the ‘luxurious’ style of Socialist Classicism was replaced by Khrushchyovka, the name given to a type of low-cost, concrete-paneled Modernist building style supervised by Nikita Khrushchev.

By the late 1960s Modernism was falling out of favour in the West with many Modernist apartment blocks being eventually blown up. The harsh lines of Modernist architecture did not age well and something more artistic was in demand. The austerity, formality, and lack of variety in Modernist architecture was generally criticized for having no relation to architectural history, street plans, or the culture of individual cities. This also led to the re-introduction of craft and historical design elements into a new architectural philosophy called Postmodernism.

Postmodernist architecture

Unfortunately, Postmodernism, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, relativism, irreverence and parody, and a general suspicion of reason, was not not too different from the subjectivism, relativism  and general suspicion of reason in Romanticist and Modernist ideas. Postmodernist architects approached architecture with eclectic non-contextualized ideas resulting in diverse aesthetics, colliding styles, and form for its own sake producing some very self-indulgent designs. Asymmetric forms were one of the trademarks of Postmodernism as large buildings were broken into different structures and forms, ‘Camp’ humor was used on the basis that something could appear so bad that it was good, and the theatricality of absurd and exaggerated forms were common. As a style Postmodernist architecture has been criticized as vulgar and populist.

The Dancing House, Prague, Czech Republic, 1996

However, this diversification of styles subsequently led to varieties of architecture that reflect global political, economic and environmental issues with differing attitudes towards Neoliberalism, climate change, sustainability. These diverse architectural styles reflect the triumph and wealth of the 1%, but they also reflect the growing anxiety around climate chaos and they reflect those who want to design and build a better society into the future for all.

Neoliberal architecture

The influence of free market Neoliberalism on architecture globally has been critiqued by Douglas Spencer as “refashioning human subjects into the compliant figures – student-entrepreneurs, citizen-consumers and team-workers – requisite to the universal implementation of a form of existence devoted to market imperatives.” Spencer believes that the architecture of neoliberalism “serves mechanisms of control and compliance while promoting itself, at the same time, as progressive.” It does this through the social processes these “buildings enforce – displacement of the poor, privatisation of public space, the decimation of social housing.”

Reflections at Keppel Bay apartment complex in Keppel Bay, Singapore by Daniel Libeskind (2011)

It is not surprising that the Neoliberal privatization of the public housing stock on behalf of plutocrats could lead to a push for the privatization of all public space (including Hyde Park in London as suggested by one architect), just as when in the 18th century the aristocracy gradually enclosed the commons. As Bertrand Russell wrote:

“Each enclosure required an Act of Parliament, and the aristocrats who controlled both Houses of Parliament ruthlessly used their legislative power to enrich themselves, while thrusting agricultural labourers down to the verge of starvation.” [1]

Sustainable architecture

Other forces were concerned with the negative aspects of untrammeled capitalism and the environment. The desire to bring architecture in line with other ‘green’ movements since the late 1980s has led to the concept of sustainable architecture:

“Sustainable architecture designs and constructs buildings in order to limit their environmental impact, with the objectives of achieving energy efficiency, positive impacts on health, comfort and improved liveability for inhabitants; all of this can be achieved through the implementation of appropriate technologies within the building [and] making the space and materials employed completely reusable.”

Indeed in the United States “a vast ecosystem of green commerce has grown” up around sustainable architecture “spurring sales in products ranging from solar panels to low-VOC paints and low-flow toilets. “Green building is now a $1 trillion global industry,””

Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) is an environmentally friendly housing development in Hackbridge, London, England 2000–2002.

It is in the London Borough of Sutton, 2 miles (3 km) north-east of the town of Sutton itself. Designed to create zero carbon emissions, it was the first large scale community to do so. The distinctive roofscape with solar panels and passive ventilation chimneys.

However, this still leaves the problem of aesthetics, as the Neoliberal designs are highly individualistic architectural enterprises generally in post-modern states which do not have, or desire to have, ultimate control of the ownership or design of such projects.It is the public realm where the state does have the most control, despite Neoliberal desire to reduce it to nothing. The public realm generally refers to “those areas of a town or city to which the public has access. It includes streets, footpaths, parks, squares, bridges and public buildings and facilities.”

The public realm is a contested realm where aesthetics are lauded or criticised according to the inclination of the state or the desires of the public but at least broader integrated planning designs can be implemented, unlike Neoliberal ideology which “maintains that ‘the market’ delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.” Neoliberalism also “sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations [and] redefines citizens as consumers.”

Such ideology tries to naturalise the logic of capitalism by redefining people in its own image. However, it also reflects the power of elites and their political and economic grip on society as a whole. Styles of art and architecture in society also reflect elite hegemony. This can be seen in the very expensive apartments of luxury condominium towers (designed by ‘starchitects’) that have very little relationship with their urban neighbourhoods. It can be seen in the designs of skyscrapers for expensive hotels or headquarters of multinational companies. Contemporary designs for concert halls and art museums have had their praisers but also critics of some overwrought designs such as architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff’s comment on the Denver Art Museum that: “In a building of canted walls and asymmetrical rooms—tortured geometries generated purely by formal considerations — it is virtually impossible to enjoy the art.” Frank Gehry’s business school building at the University of Technology Sydney has been described as “a creased building […] which resembles a “squashed brown paper bag”.

Like the earlier Modernist designs of the Bauhaus, contemporary architectural design can be austere and alienating (or in some cases just asinine) reflecting the confidence and egoism of wealthy elites. It also reflects the economics of our time as the wealthy get to decide the individualistic designs of their residences, work places and entertainment centres much like the aristocracy of the eighteenth century.

Conclusion

It has been suggested that the world’s most popular architect is Antoni Gaudí (if measured by ticket sales for the Sagrada Família in Barcelona). As Edwin Heathcote notes, “It is not an accident that Gaudí is also the most obsessively decorative architect of modernity.” Ornament and decoration in architecture has been a popular aesthetic throughout the centuries. Heathcote also writes:

“Ornament is not essential to architecture but people continue to like it. Perhaps architects need to begin thinking why, after their best efforts to educate them otherwise, they still do. Perhaps the people are right and it is indispensable.”

Is it because people appreciate ornament, reflecting their love of applied arts and crafts, and respect for the skills that go into making them? We must not forget that decorative arts form an important part of national museum exhibitions around the world. As with any art it can be hard to understand what is popular and why, and what is considered alienating or ‘human’ in architecture. But it does seem that the Greeks and Romans hit on something in their combinations of art and architecture that has struck a chord with many people over time. As Rebecca Solnit writes:

“Italian cities have long been held up as ideals, not least by New Yorkers and Londoners enthralled by the ways their architecture gives beauty and meaning to everyday acts.” (Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking)

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. 

Notes

[1] Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (Unwin, London, 1984)  p 611

Infighting among Turkish-backed groups has erupted near the town of Ras al-Ayn. According to local sources, conflicts over the captured houses and looted properties became the main reason of the conflict between members of the Sultan Murad armed group which attacked other Turkish-backed rebels. The situation rapidly escalated to the extent when the Turkish Army had to deploy additional troops and equipment in the area in order to put an end to the infighting. At the same time, the Turkish Army continued deploying additional troops and military equipment in the province of Idlib.

Last night, nearly 30 trucks and military vehicles entered Syria and reached the countryside of the town of Jisr al-Shughur, controlled by al-Qaeda-linked militants. Two days ago, the Turkish Army established 3 new observation points there.

A US military convoy consisting of 35 trucks laden with military and logistic supplies entered Syria from northern Iraq. The convoy entered the country via the al-Walid border crossing controlled by the US military and US-backed Kurdish armed groups and moved supplies to US military facilities in the countryside of al-Hasakah. According to Syrian sources, the US military is now working to reinforce its positions near the Khrab al-Jeer military airport.

Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen TV claimed that a US soldier and several members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had been killed in an attack by radical militants on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, in the province of Deir Ezzor. Earlier, similar claims were made by several pro-Kurdish and pro-opposition sources. The situation remains unclear. However, over the past 2 months ISIS cells have ramped up their operations in the provinces of Homs and Deir Ezzor.

On April 6, a barrage of rockets struck near the oil-rich area near Iraq’s southern city of Basra. The strike hit the Zubeir oil field operated by the US company Halliburton in the Burjesia area. According to state-run Basra Oil Co., which oversees oil operation in the south, the attack had not affected production and export operations.

The April 6 strike became the first such attack since June 2019 and came only 2 days after Iraqi resistance groups released a joint statement calling US forces in Iraq occupants and in fact threatening them with a military action.

Since January 2020, there has been an increase in rocket attacks on US forces and facilities in Iraq. However, until now, all attacks were aimed against the sites affiliated with the US military and intelligence. The April 6 attack indicates that US energy giants that operate in Iraq are also in danger.

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Scribes covering the Julian Assange case must surely gawk with a sense of horrified wonder at each proceeding unfolding at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London.  Assange is in a battle that can only be described as titanic, seeking to avoid the clutches of the US Justice Department, not to mention its legal system, and convince District Judge Vanessa Baraitser about the merits of that argument.  The gigantic canvass confronting all participants in this squalid tale of vexation and oppression is the nature of journalism itself, and the central point of sharing confidential state information that sheds light on impropriety, atrocity and corruption.

That canvas, however, eludes the judge.  Baraitser has insisted through the entire process, including the four days of extradition hearings now passed, that Assange deserves to remain caged and monitored.  The farcical show of hobbled justice must go on, including the risk posed to his frail being by the coronavirus.

On Tuesday, April 7, during the course of yet another court duel, Assange’s legal team attempted to convince the judge to grant legal anonymity to the WikiLeaks publisher’s partner.  As with so many efforts, it ended in heroic failure, which could only be put down to a judge who does her work in a hermetic chamber mute to the world.

The line taken by the defence was bog standard.  Both Mark Summers QC and Edward Fitzgerald QC insisted that the identity of Assange’s partner continue to be suppressed. This would also protect the privacy of her two young children yet to attend school.  Then came that unsettling issue of US officials having attempted to take a DNA sample from one of the children’s nappies. Surely, their safety would be compromised. 

The defence lawyers had not noticed a change in Baraister’s mood, whose hostility against fair proceedings in this matter is becoming legend.  There was a strong public interest, she found, in having contemporaneous reporting of extradition hearings.  She had become a transparency advocate.  Nor need Assange and his team have any worry at all about malicious intent on the part of the United States and its emissaries to his family.  “There is no evidence before court that any US agency intends harm to Assange’s partner.”  Along with this astonishing assessment resistant to history, Baraitser took to the grounds of pedestrian normality, holding firm to the idea that this entire extradition case is business as usual.  “The evidence provided by the witness is the sort routinely provided by a witness in application bail.  In my judgement, the balance falls in favour of open justice.”

The issue of furnishing Assange with adequate legal representation also remained a bone of contention.  As he has done so often before, Fitzgerald rallied and put the case for a delay of May’s proceedings that remain singularly unmoved before world events.  “This is not a case where second best will do, where we try to muddle through – it is a case where we are entitled to have his instructions.”

A delay till September was suggested, though even that might be looking optimistic.  “We say the only way he could have a fair hearing is to be present in court, and to see the witnesses.”  Globally, events have been cancelled and postponed with regularity in response to COVID-19; engagements, facilities and institutions are being put into hibernation.  “It is an exceptional situation we find ourselves in,” urged Fitzgerald.  “We cannot do justice to Mr Assange if the case goes ahead in May.”  Not in Baraitser’s court, where muddled existence remains unchanging despite the court itself being thinly occupied. 

In what can only be regarded as a reasonable point, the defence linked the poor access and means of putting their client’s case before the court with the coronavirus lockdown. “We have not been able to have any reasonable communications with him at present,” explained Fitzgerald despairingly.  “We can’t have access to him physically, can’t have any realistic access by video, and sending in correspondence involves long delays and – in some cases – he does not get it.”  The lockdown conditions meant that the defence team had not been able to take instructions.  Assange had been deprived of legal access, and the opportunity to see friends, family and his therapist. 

Going ahead with the case during the lockdown, argued the defence, would also violate the spirit of open justice.  Journalists could not be present in number.  The public would be effectively excluded. Keeping a court process open, something which chimes with the spirit of WikiLeaks’ own publication agenda, is not a trivial matter.  Many in the common law legal system wax lyrical about it.  Emma Cunliffe supplies a useful formulation: “Accessibility of information about courts and their activities is a necessary correlate to the principle that it should be possible to know the law, and helps safeguard the principle that citizens should be equally subject to law.”   

This did not concern the judge, whose reading of the equal-before-law idea has been generously tilted in favour of the prosecution.  She saw little problem revealing the identity of Assange’s partner to the glare of public and prosecutorial scrutiny in the name of open justice, but proved very much against the argument favouring postponement.  The case should be heard as a matter of haste, she insisted with reasoning most skewed, and Fitzgerald and the legal team need not be too worried: the second part of the extradition hearings were still five weeks away.  In this Baraitser showed the sort of confidence that’s very Trump-like: we shall all be open for business by Easter, or at any rate soon after.  Keep your barrister wigs and gowns handy, boys and girls; no postponement will be countenanced.   

Fitzgerald was quick to remind the judicial head of the sheer improbability of this, and any cavalier assessments of how brief the state of emergency would be.  “We know the Prime Minister had predicted that the lockdown might continue as much as 12 weeks.  That will take us well beyond the start of the hearing, and any time we could reasonably prepare for a full hearing.” 

But the judge had been bitten by a sense of urgency, even having the temerity to feel she was doing the publisher a favour.  “It is my current contention to hear as much of this case as possible in May.  Mr Assange is in custody, there is some urgency for this to be heard.”

The impediments to justice cited by the defence had failed to impress the bench, though not the prosecuting team led by James Lewis QC.  “We recognise,” admitted Lewis, “there are considerable difficulties for defence, and considerable practical difficulties.”  It was another instance of the judge disagreeing with both sides.  For Baraitser, the patent inadequacies offered by restricted video links were simply not patent at all; Assange and the witnesses would still be able to participate.  “If there is a need for a third and final hearing that can take place in July.”  The reasoning of lockdown injustice, laid bare.

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

Featured image: Julian Assange court sketch, October 21, 2019, supplied by Julia Quenzler.

We, the undersigned organizations and prominent individuals, condemn the false claims of criminal charges by the US government against the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and other high-ranking officials with the pretext of their alleged involvement in international drug trafficking.

The US government is offering a $15 million bounty for information that would lead to the arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro. Bounties of $10 million are offered for the National Constituent Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, retired generals Hugo Carvajal and Clive Alcala, Minister for Industry and National Production Tareck El Aissami, and other Venezuelans. The US government indictments accuse the Venezuelan officials of participating in a “narco-terrorism conspiracy” with the Colombian guerrilla group FARC to “flood the United States with cocaine.”

The US has refused to recognize the democratically elected Venezuelan President Maduro and has been seeking to install one to its liking, currently Juan Guaido. What the US is doing is ordering the arrest of world leaders it does not approve of, putting a bounty on their heads.

This decision of the US constitutes a further escalation in coercive measures against a sovereign country, which has included sanctions so extreme as to create a blockade, costing Venezuela 40,000 lives in a period of just over a year and $116 billion in lost revenue.

It is well-documented that two close and long-time US allies in Latin America, the governments of Colombia and Honduras, have been heavily involved in narco trafficking. The last Latin American leader the US charged with drug trafficking was Panama’s Manuel Noriega (who was running drugs with the CIA). The US then invaded his country and later imprisoned him in Miami.

Actual evidence of Venezuela involvement in drug trafficking

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), which is unfriendly to the Venezuelan government, finds:

“CCDB [US interagency Consolidated Counterdrug Database] data does not justify many of the claims made by those who advance the ‘narcostate’ narrative to describe organized crime in Venezuela today and to argue against efforts to achieve a negotiated path to democratic governance in Venezuela. As noted, US authorities estimate that 93 percent of US-bound cocaine is trafficked through Western Caribbean and Eastern Pacific routes, not through Venezuela’s Eastern Caribbean coast.”

The WOLA study found that the US government data suggests that, despite these challenges, Venezuela is not a primary transit country for US-bound cocaine. The State Department reports that over six times as much cocaine passed through Guatemala in 2018 than through Venezuela. Around 90 percent of all US-bound cocaine is trafficked through western Caribbean and eastern Pacific routes⁠, not through Venezuela’s eastern Caribbean seas.

The US Department of Justice has not presented evidence to substantiate their narco-trafficking indictment. Washington’s case looks politically motivated. In the wake of over six years of US sanctions and over a year of failed attempted coups, the majority support of the Venezuelan people for their democratically elected government has not been shaken.

We the undersigned demand that the US government:

• Drop the groundless indictments against President Maduro and others.
• Lift the sanctions so that Venezuela can purchase life-giving medicines and medical equipment to fight the coronavirus pandemic that is threatening the entire world.
• Restore normal relations with Venezuela based on peace and respect for national sovereignty.

Sincerely,

Chuck Kauman, National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice

Terri Mattson, Latin America Coordinator, CODEPINK

Susan Sarandon

John Pilger

Noam Chomsky

Medea Benjamin

Ray McGovern

and 3000 other organizations and individuals

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Featured image is from AGJ

This week I spoke to Congolese native Jean-Claude Maswana, economics professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, about COVID-19 in DRC.

ANN GARRISON: Jean-Claude, reporting on your homeland, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is always daunting. It’s not easy to contemplate so much suffering and so much international indifference, and now DRC is facing the COVID-19 pandemic with as little health infrastructure as any nation on earth.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in February 2020, there are five million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and half a million refugees from neighboring countries in DRC. Living in tent cities, they’ve neither any easy way to “social distance” nor to wash their hands off and on all day. And they’ll be the last to receive tests, masks, hand sanitizer, or medical care.

On top of all that, many in Congo’s cities and towns lack the most basic infrastructure. President Félix Tshisekedi’s government promised to ensure electricity and running water throughout the pandemic, but according to Energypedia, only 19.09% of Congolese have electricity in the first place, and a 2011 UN report—the most recent I could find—said that 3/4 of the population lack access to clean water, “even though the country holds over half of Africa’s water reserves.”

Before we talk about the national and global context of this, tell me what you’ve done to help from there where you teach in Japan.

JEAN-CLAUDE MASWANA: One of the most critical challenges in addition to everything you have just outlined is the lack of information, especially accurate information. So I have been trying to relay accurate information and correct the fake news that has been spreading around in social media about COVID-19. I see DRC’s lack of preparation and vulnerability during this pandemic as an extension of the ongoing violence and resource wars there. Most victims of this violence have been surviving thanks to humanitarian assistance, both local and international.

Actors including Nobel Prize winner Dr. Denis Mukwege have been at the front of the battle, as have the Congolese diaspora whose remittances keep families and refugees alive. I have been involved in many of these because of my deep conviction that a humane, truly civilized society is committed to the dignity and survival of all its members.

Those of us living in the industrial nations have been more fortunate than most Congolese people and we do this work quietly, without the publicity that often serves self rather than others. In recent weeks, I have been involved in ongoing efforts to connect actors preparing a response to the pandemic on the ground and organizations that can help.

AG: Dr. Mukwege no doubt sees what a hell within hell this could become. What are his best hopes of preventing it?

JCM: First, since early March, as the pandemic started reaching Africa, Dr. Mukwege has been relentlessly campaigning and inviting local folks to follow the protocols and hygiene recommendations that can help reduce the spread of the coronavirus in their communities. He has also called on the international community to work together to overcome this global and unprecedented health challenge.

Second, as the number of known coronavirus infections has climbed towards 200, he has again urged the Congolese to mobilize and urged them to prepare for the worst in order to avoid a massive spread of the virus.

AG: Did he have any hope that DRC might be less vulnerable than northern climes because of its tropical climate?

JCM: Here I can only speak for myself. Generally, as everyone can confirm, Dr. Mukwege is a man of hope. He would not have taken on the risky endeavor of treating women victims of sexual violence used as a weapon of war if he did not have hope that there is light at the end of the dark tunnel that DRC has been passing through since Rwanda invaded in 1996. Whether the DRC might be less vulnerable because of its tropical climate is not a question that such a man can ask. Rather, to me, his recent calls regarding the pandemic suggest that he is hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.

AG: Could you talk about how the danger differs in the east, west, and central provinces? I believe that the greatest number of cases by far are still in Kinshasa, the capital, which sits on the Congo River, where it enters the Atlantic, and on DRC’s western border with the Republic of Congo.

JCM: In the east, the pandemic is coming into a zone that has already been fragile for decades because of violent clashes over its immense natural resources. In both the eastern and central provinces, the state is virtually absent. It is an area where roads, hospitals, and even a population census, are barely existent. This means that deaths caused by the pandemic are likely to occur without assistance of any kind, without any administrative record, and without acknowledgment in the news cycle.

Moreover, yes, the known cases of COVID-19 are in Kinshasa, but this does not necessarily reflect the reality in the country. There is much happening beyond Kinshasa that we cannot know because the only testing facility in the country, the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB), is in Kinshasa, where Japanese aid has recently been able to upgrade testing and research equipment.

Dr. Mukwege

AG: And what do you expect of the Tshisekedi government, which promised to sustain electricity to the 19.09% who have it, and running water to the 25% who have that? Can they do any better and, if so, will they?

JCM: Not much, unfortunately. Your question already suggests that there is not much one can reasonably expect from an executive branch which promises to provide electricity and water to the people while knowing that state utility companies are underfunded, operating at around 25% of their capacity, with outdated equipment, and thus barely able to provide services to the small segment of the population connected to a power grid or water pipes.

AG: In May 2007, the International Rescue Committee published a study in which they said that 5.4 million Congolese people had died of either military violence or hardship while fleeing their homes or sheltering in refugee camps since Rwanda and Uganda invaded DRC in August 1998. That figure and the IRC’s methodology have been questioned—one agency said the correct figure was closer to 3 and some million—but it’s hard to fathom either way. Nevertheless, the violence and resource theft has continued, and now the internally displaced population has risen to 5 million. (The last time I reported it here, just last year, the UNHCR was still estimating it at 4+ million.) Do you expect the “international community” to respond with any more compassion to COVID-19 in DRC, possibly even sweeping through the IDP and refugee camps?

JCM: It all depends on the severity of the death tolls in IDP and refugee camps and the extent to which they reach the international news cycle. So long as the media is silent, the tragedy will continue.

AG: It’s been reported that both DRC and Rwanda will participate in vaccine tests, as will some other African countries. This of course raises alarm about the possibility of African people being used as guinea pigs, although vaccine tests will also be carried out all over North America and Europe. What do you think?

JCM: One thing that this pandemic has revealed is that coronavirus is less deadly than “fake news” and the fears that spread it. I’m not an epidemiologist, but I am a scientist and I do understand the need for safeguards and ethical standards when carrying out research that involves human beings or animals. Uncertainty around this pandemic is telling us that we badly need to improve our knowledge about the nature of the coronavirus and its transmission in various settings.

AG: Renowned geographer Mike Davis seemed to agree when he wrote, in “COVID-19: The Monster is at the Door,” that the virus is constantly mutating and that ”the unknown consequences of interactions with malnutrition and existing infections — should warn us that COVID-19 might take a different and more deadly path in the slums of Africa and South Asia. The danger to the global poor has been almost totally ignored by journalists and Western governments.”

JCM: Yes, and as I said, the response will likely be a consequence of media coverage. It is hard to believe that researchers in Europe or the USA are hoping to use only Africans for testing the vaccine and the whole process in an unethical fashion without anyone noticing it. It is even more absurd when one considers the very simple fact that most, if not all, vaccines currently or recently used throughout Africa are made and tested in Africa too. So we cannot argue for the existence of a plot against Africans, insist that tests for the vaccine should not involve Africans, and paradoxically wait to receive vaccines and medicine in the forms of international assistance. We cannot close our borders like North Korea and claim the rest of the world is out there to get us. Or we should address our concerns by putting in place regulations, controls and rigorous standards when it comes to vaccine testing.

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On April 1, the Trump administration hijacked a COVID-19 press conference to announce the deployment of U.S. Navy vessels and other military assets towards Venezuela. According to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, “included in this force package are Navy destroyers and littoral combat ships, Coast Guard Cutters, P.A. patrol aircraft, and elements of an Army security force assistance brigade”, while General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that there are “thousands of sailors, Coast Guardsman, soldiers, airmen, Marines involved in this operation.” The pretext is a counter-narcotics operation to follow up on the Department of Justice’s March 26 indictment of President Nicolás Maduro and 13 others on narcoterrorism charges. This indictment is politically motivated and has been critiqued in depth.

In between the sticks of indictments and the deployment, the Trump administration seemingly offered a carrot: a proposed “democratic transition framework” that would progressively see the sanctions lifted after the resignations of Maduro and Juan Guaidó, the installation of a “Council of State” and elections in which neither Maduro nor Guaidó can participate. This proposal, which is more of a poison pill than a carrot, was immediately rejected by Venezuelan opposition politicians and the government. The plan is unconstitutional, it violates Venezuelan sovereignty (insofar as it is a tacit acceptance that illegal sanctions imposed on the U.S. should be allowed to dictate the country’s domestic affairs), and it runs counter to the ongoing dialogue in Venezuela that is getting closer every day to establishing a new National Electoral Council and setting a date for legislative elections. Henri Falcón – a former opposition presidential candidate – criticized the plan and said an agreement cannot be imposed, that a “solution in Venezuela is between Venezuelans.” It was also called into question by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel, who called the approach “an utterly incoherent policy”, as it came days after the Department of Justice said nothing would stop them from moving forward with the narcoterrorism case.

The Distraction from and Weaponization of COVID-19

It seemed as though Venezuela was finally moving forward towards a negotiated solution to its political crisis, yet the naval deployment may sabotage the dialogue, as it was partially designed to do. The other purposes of the deployment were to distract from COVID-19 at home and to take advantage of the epidemic in order to increase the pressure on the Maduro government.

It was a bizarre scene that played out on April 1 during the press conference announcing the deployment. CNN was covering the conference live, believing it to be about the pandemic; this belief was reasonable, as it was marketed as a coronavirus briefing and it came a day after that the government released an estimated COVID-19 death toll of anywhere between 100,000 to 240,000. As the White House argued that drug traffickers might exploit the virus, CNN cut away from the discussion of the “seemingly unrelated counternarcotics operations.” That night Twitter was flooded with #WagTheDog tweets, a hashtag indicating that Trump was trying to drum up a war to distract from the incompetent handling of the pandemic.

A senior Pentagon official even told Newsweek that Trump was “using the operation to redirect attention.” By April 3, the White House was pitching the idea that fighting the drug trade would somehow help fight the coronavirus, leading military officials to express “shock” at the conflation between the war on drugs and COVID-19. Of course, as shown by recent events onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, whose captain was dismissed after the virus rapidly spread amongst his sailors, U.S. service members are being exposed to greater risk of contagion by this massive deployment to the Caribbean. They are exposed on crowded ships and they are exposed on land at the nine U.S. military bases in Colombia. This is especially true considering that in Colombia, the COVID-19 response has been so poor that in late March, one of the country’s two machines for analyzing the results of coronavirus testing was knocked offline for 24 hours.

Apparently, this risk is acceptable to the Trump administration, as it sees an opportunity to weaponize the pandemic, using the instability and chaos it is causing to further its regime change goals. William Brownfield, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and one of the architects of the regime change policy, characterized “the sanctions, the price of oil, the pandemic, the humanitarian crisis” and the migration of so many Venezuelans as a “perfect storm” to pressure Maduro with the “non-negotiable” offer that he must leave.

The Possible Consequences of the Naval Deployment

The Trump administration has not given details as to what “counter-narcotics operations” might look like off Venezuelan waters, but it is very clearly a provocation. There is also the possibility of false flag or false positives, in which any incident between the U.S. and Venezuelan navies could be used as a pretext to war, much like the Gulf of Tonkin incident was used to draw the U.S. into Vietnam.

There are other possible scenarios that could have devastating economic consequences. The Venezuelan government is concerned that everything from imports to oil exports could be intercepted or seized by the U.S. Navy. This is a valid concern, as the Pentagon has claimed – without offering any evidence – that drugs are trafficked “using naval vessels from Venezuela to Cuba.” Given the U.S. government’s targeting and sanction of ships that transport oil from Cuba to Venezuela, it hardly beggars belief that Venezuelan oil tankers could be boarded by the U.S. military.

As piracy is apparently back in fashion, with the U.S., among other countries, seizing COVID-19 equipment that has already been paid for by smaller countries, it would not be surprising to see the U.S. seize Venezuelan oil or other assets on the high seas, particularly given Trump’s penchant for saying that other countries will pay for U.S. military expenditures (whether it’s the wall on the Mexico border, NATO security spending or the threatened plundering of Iraqi or Syrian oil). It is an open question whether the world would allow the Venezuelan people to essentially be starved by this type of blockade.

The Danger of Military Action

Trump has been threatening military action against Venezuela since August 2017 and a naval blockade since August 2019. The deployment of the Navy towards Venezuela is the first step in backing up both threats. According to the AP, it is “one of the largest U.S. military operations in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama to remove Gen. Manuel Noriega from power and bring him to the U.S. to face drug charges.” The indictment of Maduro also draws comparisons to Noriega, himself indicted on similar charges. Senator Marco Rubio – arguably the biggest backer of violent regime change in Washington – tweeted pictures of Noriega in a not-so-veiled threat to President Maduro last year. The ties to Panama go even deeper: Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s Special Representative on Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, both worked for the Bush administration as it ramped the pressure up on Noriega.

Yet the overthrow of Noriega wasn’t achieved with sanctions, indictments or a naval deployment, it was achieved by a U.S. invasion. Furthermore, Venezuela isn’t Panama. It is a substantially bigger country, it is stronger militarily, it has important allies in China and Russia, and it counts with a 3-million-person militia.

This latter point is often overlooked or dismissed but understanding the seriousness of this militia is key to understanding the political landscape of Venezuela. In February 2019, as rumors swirled of a possible invasion from Colombia, members of the militia occupied key bridges along the border, fully prepared to risk their lives, as one militia member said in a recent documentary. The militia is part of the identity of chavismo, the left-wing revolutionary movement that backs Maduro and takes its inspiration from former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. For most on the left in Venezuela, there are no more than two degrees of separation from the militia: they either form part of it, they know someone in the militia, or they know someone who knows someone in the militia.

The implications of this should be evident: Venezuela has a substantial population that will resist any invasion or coup. This isn’t mere rhetoric; the biggest popular uprising in Venezuela of the past 30 years occurred on April 12 and 13, 2002, when Venezuela’s poor, working class, black, brown and indigenous people took to the streets to demand the return of ousted president Hugo Chávez, reversing a right-wing coup within 48 hours. (Of note: Elliott Abrams was in the George W. Bush administration at the time and “gave a nod” to the coup, according to The Guardian.)

What this all means is that Venezuela won’t be like Panama, where there was little resistance. If the worst happens and a war breaks out, more apt comparisons would be Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq, countries in which the U.S. spent billions for regime change at a disastrous cost to human lives and regional stability. The Trump administration’s dangerous deployment should be challenged by Democrats and Republicans alike, but so far, no major politician has criticized the maneuver. Hopefully the American people will read the message of peace sent by President Maduro and urge the U.S. government to fight covid, not Venezuela.

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Leonardo Flores is Latin American policy expert and campaigner with CODEPINK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Venezuelan soldiers prepare for war… against COVID-19. Photo: Twitter @Planifica_Fanb

Coverage of the COVID-19 epidemic in Nicaragua has become yet one more psy-warfare  battleground between supporters of the US government supported right-wing opposition and the country’s Sandinista government.

In the UK, “the Lancet” has long been a leading propaganda outlet for suppporters of Nicaragua’s right wing political opposition, making a mockery ot its status as a leading scientific medical journal. In 2018, it published two propaganda articles supporting the proponents of that year’s violent failed opposition coup attempt.: “Criminalisation of health care in Nicaragua’s political crisis” and “The Politicised and crumbling Nicaraguan health system“.

The context of the lies, distortions and omissions in those propaganda articles has been broadly addressed here and  here and also elsewhere on specific issues such as: violent damage to health infrastructure along with opposition attacks on hospitals and the health system’s experience of the coup attempt. More generally, Nicaragua’s health system has been highly praised internationally for its vaccination programs, its epidemiological work against mosquito borne diseases and for its maternal care programs that have dramatically cut maternal mortality rates since 2007.

However, rather than acknowledging the undeniable successes and advances of Nicaragua’s public health system and hospital infrastructure, the Lancet’s editors have decided to continue unjustified defamation of Nicaragua’s public health system with another deceitful hit piece called “Love in the time of COVID-19: negligence in the Nicaraguan response”. The article’s authors lazily repeat false opposition propaganda from US government funded opposition propaganda outlets like Confidencial.

They make no attempt to source possible contradictory evidence or views, preferring to write the same kinds of lies, misrepresentations and omissions that have become standard  practice now in practically all Western reporting on Nicaragua. For a true picture of Nicaragua’s response to the COVID-19 epidemic, this article and also this one offer a strong, well-sourced antidote to the Lancet’s venomous falsehoods. The first lie in this latest Lancet article is that the Nicaraguan government’s response to the COIVD-19 epidemic has been erratic.

To the contrary, the health authorities have been the most consistent, determined and serious in the whole region in terms of coordination with the World Health Organization, with other countries and with regional authorities like the Central American Integration System, in terms of applying protocols appropriate to national social and economic realities, preparation of infrastructure and material resources, education policy and preventive mobilization of hundreds of thousands of health workers and volunteer health promoters. All this has been thoroughly reported in multiple local news media whose reports the Lancet has chosen to omit.

The second lie the Lancet falsely asserts is that “contradicting mitigation strategies recommended by WHO, President Daniel Ortega has refused to encourage any physical distancing measures”. In fact from the very outset of the health alert in February the government has stressed proper handwashing, taking care to protect others when sneezing or coughing and keeping a physical distance of at least 1.5 metres as well as carefully cleaning constantly-used surfaces. People wanting to self-isolate have been free to do so, including school and university students. Even so, the Lancet has chosen to omit this reality or to note any of the abundant printed and audio-visual educational material that has proliferated in Nicaragua especially since February.

The Lancet article makes great play of the projected estimates of the Health Ministry’s Protocol for addressing the COVID-19 epidemic produced in February, but fails to acknowledge that this self-same document of over 50 pages of detailed analysis and exposition makes nonsense of the article’s opening claim and central argument that Nicaragua has been unprepared, erratic and negligent in addressing the epidemic. The Lancet states that the Protocol’s projected statistical estimates suggest the possibility of up to 813 fatalities, with possibly up to 1016 patients needing intensive care and the Lancet again cites the Confidencial opposition propaganda outlet, this time reporting that Nicaragua does not have enough ventilators to attend that number of patients.

Confidencial’s claim of a serious lack of ventilators is unsourced hearsay typical of opposition propaganda in Nicaragua, but the Lancet uses it anyway. However, in the first place, Nicaragua’s health authorities have clearly planned a strategy to spread out the number of any possible infections so that should the virus spread then affected patients will not all need attention in the country’s health system at once. Secondly, the health authorities are coordinating the resources of the public health system with all health care institutions in Nicaragua, including the well resourced private sector hospitals, the country’s Social Security health care system and the Nicaraguan army’s superbly equipped health facilities. The Lancet omits that crucial fact.

The Lancet goes on to express approval of neighboring countries like Honduras and El Salvador that have much worse health, social and economic outcomes to date in terms of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. The populations in both those countries are suffering acute economic hardship as a result of the suppression model applied there. This is in sharp contrast to the relative economic normality in Nicaragua, where the outcomes of its mitigation and monitoring model are undeniably optimal so far, given the overall context. But the scientific geniuses at the Lancet want the same failed policies adopted by its neighbors to be applied to people in Nicaragua.

In the end, the Lancet does finally get one thing right when the article states “This situation underscores the need for resource-limited countries to focus on early prevention and containment efforts as their main strength in the fight against COVID-19.” And that is exactly what the Nicaraguan authorities have done in the most successful way. To date, they have prevented the COVID-19 virus from breaking out into the general population and have successfully contained it.

Nicaragua is the only country in Central America that has mobilized its health workers and volunteer health promoters to undertake over 2.3 million house-to-house visits  educating people and monitoring the development of the COVID-19 virus. One might speculate that what aggravates the Lancet and its writers so much is that impoverished  Nicaragua’s community health care model has so far made rich-country health systems look disorganized and inadequate. That hypothesis is certainly more scientific than the Lancet’s drivel in support of Nicaragua’s right wing opposition.

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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal.

Featured image is from TCS

This comparative analysis by a prominent physician and scholar should reassure people. The media fear campaign tends to describe COV-19 as a dangerous and life threatening infection.

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Influenza (the flu) and COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, are both infectious respiratory illnesses. Although the symptoms of COVID-19 and the flu can look similar, the two illnesses are caused by different viruses.

Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H., senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins, explains how the flu and COVID-19 are similar and how they are different.

Similarities: COVID-19 and the Flu

Symptoms

• Both cause fever, cough, body aches and fatigue; sometimes vomiting and diarrhea.
• Can be mild or severe, even fatal in rare cases.
• Can result in pneumonia.

Transmission

• Both can be spread from person to person through droplets in the air from an infected person coughing, sneezing or talking.
• A possible difference: COVID-19 might be spread through the airborne route (see details below under Differences).
• Both can be spread by an infected person for several days before their symptoms appear.

Treatment

• Neither virus is treatable with antibiotics, which only work on bacterial infections.
• Both are treated by addressing symptoms, such as reducing fever. Severe cases may require hospitalization and support such as mechanical ventilation.

Prevention

Both may be prevented by frequent, thorough hand washing, coughing into the crook of your elbow, staying home when sick and limiting contact with people who are infected. Social and physical distancing can limit the spread of COVID-19 in communities.

Differences: COVID-19 and the Flu

Cause

COVID-19: Caused by one virus, the novel 2019 coronavirus, now called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2.

Flu: Caused by any of several different types and strains of influenza viruses.

Transmission

While both the flu and COVID-19 may be transmitted in similar ways (see the Similarities section above), there is also a possible difference: COVID-19 might be spread through the airborne route, meaning that tiny droplets remaining in the air could cause disease in others even after the ill person is no longer near.

Antiviral Medications

COVID-19: Antiviral medications and other therapies are currently being tested to see if they can address symptoms.

Flu: Antiviral medications can address symptoms and sometimes shorten the duration of the illness.

Vaccine

COVID-19: No vaccine is available at this time, though it is in progress.

Flu: A vaccine is available and effective to prevent some of the most dangerous types or to reduce the severity of the flu.

Infections

COVID-19: Approximately 1,131,713 cases worldwide; 278,458 cases in the U.S. as of Apr. 4, 2020.[1]

Flu: Estimated 1 billion cases worldwide; 9.3 million to 45 million cases in the U.S. per year.

Deaths

COVID-19: Approximately 59,884 deaths reported worldwide; 7,159 deaths in the U.S., as of Apr. 4, 2020.*

Flu: 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide; 12,000 to 61,000 deaths in the U.S. per year.

The COVID-19 situation is changing rapidly. Since this disease is caused by a new virus, people do not have immunity to it, and a vaccine may be many months away. Doctors and scientists are working on estimating the mortality rate of COVID-19, but at present, it is thought to be higher than that of most strains of the flu.

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Note

[1] This information comes from the Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases map developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

I cannot say “I told you so” because I did not.  But I can say “They told us so” because they did.  “They” being the alternate media that provided news and views that the mainstream media (MSM) would not touch because it harmed their veneer of the world that all was running smoothly.

Certainly there were signs in the MSM that all was not well.  For a while forest fires were the rage in Brazil and Australia and California, soon to be forgotten as other news was created by the MSM. Greta Thunberg became a climate star or a conspiracy victim depending on how you wanted your views heard, but that only lasted for a short while.

A few mass murders here and there were big enough to make it into the MSM and the politicians and Hollywood were excited for a few days before gun fever died down.  A  few war threats flared up and died down, some rather serious political grandstanding that could have led to much worse but fortunately died down rather quickly.

The biggest distraction was and still is Donald Trump and his supposed Russian connections (hey, he’s a businessman, he’s bound to have some) and his impeachment on something that even now I cannot think of, and his many tariffs and sanctions being used to keep the supposed nastys of the world under control.  The sad part is, a lot of citizens could care less as long as their cozy distracted lives were allowed to proceed more or less as they had learned to live within the limits of their consumer oriented lives.

Otherwise, everything was copacetic, moving along nicely.  Unemployment numbers were at record lows, the stock market was at record highs, inflation was under control and was supposed to be even a bit higher for the neoliberal capitalist order to function properly.  The U.S. was the exceptional nation and its western allies in NATO, Israel, and the EU were more than willing and more or less able supporters.

Who told us so?

But then something happened and as if out of the blue skies a meteor struck earth, everything changed within weeks.  But this was not a strike out of the blue – it was foreseen and foretold numerous times by numerous authors and researchers working for numerous alternate websites that were ignored by the MSM.  There are many alternate websites that warned that what has happened was due to happen any time soon, although what also surprised many of them was how long the powers that be were able to sustain the veneer that all was well.

Those that I have followed over the last decade or more fall into two categories: those focused on political/global affairs; and those focused on domestic or foreign financial affairs.  The political ones include Counterpunch, Palestine Chronicle, Global Research, Countercurrents, USA Watchdog, Fort Russ News, RT News, and Axis of Logic.  There is often frequent overlap between these sites as they copy and print articles from each other, and from many other perfectly good alternate sites that others may have as their main sources.

The financial sites started with Max Keiser on RT News.  From there I started looking at other sites, again many which copy and print related articles from other good sites.  Among those on the alternate scale who speak most intelligently are people such as Egon von Greyerz, Peter Schiff, Bill Holter, Michael Pento, Jim Sinclair, Michael Hudson, Alasdair MacCleod – all on their own sites and quoted frequently on other sites.

I do not always understand what is being said as much of the financial world is filled with its own arcane lexicon, much of it meaningless except to those who have worked the system, as most of those listed above have.  Also I have a very dim view of economics anyway, there is nothing scientific about it, and its economic formulas have about as much legitimacy as astrology – which at least has the mathematical legitimacy of knowing where the stars and planets are at any given time.  But the fundamental message was consistent….

…what did they tell us (it is not the Covid-19 virus).

We were told it was all a great big bubble, built on the foundations of previous bubbles and all it needed was something to poke the bubble and drain it of air – or in this case phony digital money.  They hesitated to tell us when, although last fall some of the more observant saw something happening well before the COVID-19 virus hit.

And that is the main news – the economic woes most people are now facing have not been caused by the virus but by the economic bubble(s) popping rather loudly and quickly as the newly laid off ten million U.S. citizens and the many millions elsewhere can attest to.

But the bubble received a double prick.  The first was the Covid virus.  The second was the free for all in oil production instigated by our friends in Saudi Arabia who need a higher oil price in order to sustain their economy and their terror activities throughout the region and beyond.

And yes, they told us so.  The financial bubble was all ready to burst.  Covid and oil did the pricking.

So what now are they telling us

The MSM is concentrating as usual on the short term.  The virus will go away.  The markets will rebound.  The government will keep things going with their trillions of dollars of support.  Life will go on in a few weeks, a few months, maybe next fall.

Reading the alternate media presents a different story.  According to the financial analysts mentioned above, this is the start of the Greatest Depression.  The virus may go away – and then return in waves like the flu does seasonally.  The markets will have a few dead cat bounces (after all cats do have nine lives) and then fail almost completely.  Trillions of new dollars are and will be added to the debt to contribute to the largest future forecast of all – the demise of the U.S. dollar.

That is the really big news and it is both awful to consider and also awesome to consider.  As the U.S. does its best to reinflate the economic bubble, they are adding trillions of dollars to the already immense and unpayable global debt.  Of the many variations of what this then causes, all the analysts tend to agree that the US$ will become worthless, maybe not right away, but in a few years as more and more artificial fiat money is pumped into the system.

The implications are profound.

The U.S., already on its way to becoming a third world country, will dive deeper into that realm.

Many/most large corporations and banks will be bankrupt, taking along all the money robbed from the common masses over the years.

With a useless US$, bribery, graft, sanctions on the bad side and trade, investment, and payrolls on the good side will have to take place with another currency – thus the U.S. loses most if not all of its global financial power to control others.

Oil will no longer be sold in dollars, cratering the economies of a few countries (Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Canada) but not others (Russia, in particular as they are mostly clear of foreign debt and have large gold reserves and have elevated their domestic infrastructure and agricultural production).

Unfortunately, having one of the most belligerent, aggressive, egotistical militaries in the world, the U.S. could decide to go ballistic – literally – just to deprive everyone else of the ability to carry on without them.

The environment will receive a bit of a break as commercial and industrial demands fall off dramatically but it will probably be too little too late.  When it comes to short term demands for survival, the environment will probably not be much of a consideration.

I told you so.

Lastly, this will not be an “I told you so” statement.  It has already been postulated in different forms by the alternate media personnel.  We are entering a new world order, and it will be quite different from what it looks like now – let’s hope collectively we can learn from it and create a better world rather than an even more belligerent one.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Coronavirus is indiscriminate. We have seen young and old affected, rich and poor. In the UK alone, we have seen the Prime Minister himself succumb to it and even Prince Charles. But this pandemic has repercussions beyond our nation states. In a short time, it has paralysed the ‘developed’ world and threatened its very existence.

The unipolar world as we know it is being questioned like never before. Nations demonised in the West – Russia, China and Cuba – have been the very countries sending aid to the West.

Never has one witnessed a more ironic act than the US accepting aid from Russia, its arch geopolitical enemy and ‘the primary threat to American interests’ – according to a survey published last year by a US think-tank. The Antonov An-124-100 cargo plane delivered vital medical equipment and masks from Moscow to the US on Wednesday at a time when the country is struggling to cope with coronavirus. There are already 333,173 cases and 9536 deaths in a nation whose leader Donald Trump initially refused to recognise the severity of the situation, claiming it was ‘like the flu’ before excusing his administration’s inaction by saying ‘Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion’.  The outlook is pretty grim for the US.

Russia has, on the other hand, as have many Asian countries so far, dealt with the virus efficiently and effectively – so much so that Russian watchers got suspicious and began penning articles on the subject that the country was covering up the real figures. There are still articles in western mainstream media claiming there is a cover-up, with people at a loss as to why the country of 146 million has fewer cases than Norway. In fact there are various possible reasons why Russia has reacted to the virus more slowly than other nations. Firstly, it closed its border with China very early in the crisis – back on 30th January – even before any cases were reported. Secondly, it set up strict quarantine rules to ensure that anyone travelling from abroad was isolated for two weeks. In addition, the government has undertaken a thorough approach to testing.  Although only just over 4000 infected to date, according to official statistics, over 575,000 tests have been carried out in Russia (there is an official website devoted to the outbreak where people can get up to date information and advice). In this regard the Russian government could not be more transparent. This number of tests could be compared to the UK at present, where only 150,000 tests have been carried out, despite the number of cases reaching over 47,000. Thirdly, it has been speculated that Russians may have greater immunity to the virus as a result of the Soviet vaccination programme for tuberculosis; it has been noted that in eastern parts of Germany there have been fewer cases, and suggested this is down to greater immunity which dates back to when German Democratic Republic existed.

Whatever the reason is for the delay of the pandemic in Russia, the country’s strict measures have clearly played a role. China, although initially unable to determine what it was dealing with, swiftly moved to implement a nationwide lockdown and massive testing programme. This has enabled the country to overcome the worst of the pandemic and drastically reduce the number of cases it sees on a daily basis – on Friday it was as low as 31.

The country has also taken part, as has Russia, in sending aid to other parts of the globe such as Italy, which is struggling to manage the disease, with over 15,000 deaths to date. The equipment came with a message ‘The friendship road knows no borders’, which very much expresses the spirit of this cooperation. And despite all sorts of theories being espoused by mainstream media as to the motivation behind China and Russia’s actions, politics and propaganda ought to be set aside at a time like this, and such gestures taken at face value. This is not a time for political points to be scored; people’s lives are at stake.

But even after this is over – and it will be, eventually – surely governments will have to rethink their strategies. For years now the security services in the US and UK have been obsessed with the ‘Russian threat’. But by focusing on this almost mythical monster of ‘Putin’s Russia’, painted as poised to invade Europe at any second and begin World War Three, real threats have surfaced and materialized to our detriment. Terrorism being one, pandemics another. It emerged recently that the British security services were aware that Taiwan was testing for coronavirus back in December, but failed to act – why? Why have western governments been so ill-prepared for a pandemic that epidemiologists have been warning about for years?

Surely, after this international effort to save our populations, governments will have to reassess their priorities. Surely, after this struggle, and the spirit of cooperation which has been generated, the West will have to recognize Russia, China and others as equal partners, and not nations to be sanctioned when they take geopolitical decisions the West doesn’t agree with. Surely, after this is over, the multipolar world will be born.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Although there seems to be a passive acceptance by citizens of the measures imposed due to the fake coronavirus epidemic, this resignation is largely the consequence of the absence of leaders leading an effective resistance against the disguised coup d’état. As always, the mainstream media does not cover anyone who challenges the official narrative. In Spain, many defied and violated the confinement order at first and were met with a resounding response from the repressive police forces.

I violate the quarantine myself on a daily basis, although I have not had the bad luck to meet with the police forces. I completely ignore the ins and outs of my country’s legal system or any other, but I wonder if it would not be possible to create a global platform to take legal action against illegitimate authorities, (illegitimate since they have betrayed the interests of their respective countries for the benefit of a reduced international elite) for conspiracy and arbitrary confinement.  It would not be very difficult to collect evidence of the existence of such a conspiracy since the criminals have not bothered in the least to erase the traces of their crimes. Those affected by the imposed curfew and martial law are legion and would surely welcome such a measure.

What we are living seems like the script for a bad catastrophic science fiction movie (in the same line of thought, most scientists seems to be now science fiction novelists). Could a Hollywood screenwriter be involved in the conception of the fiction that we are living against our will? Who is the ghost writer behind the ghost pandemic? It seems crazy but our daily life has become already crazy.

It is impossible to underestimate the role of the factory not of dreams, but of nightmares as a hypnotic platform for mass indoctrination and a source of propaganda at the service of global tyranny, the supervisory role and the censorship that the CIA, the Mossad or both exerts on Hollywood productions is notorious. In fact we could consider Hollywood as a front company of the Agency. The coronavirus epidemic is nothing more than an immense fiction in which the citizens are not more than involuntary extras. But I am afraid that when we wake up from this bad dream we will have become the extras of some ridiculous peplum working as slaves of the occasional pharaoh.

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On April 5, a series of large explosions rocked the village of al-Kastan in southwestern Idlib injuring 8 people, including 3 members of the so-called White Helmets. According to local sources, an ammunition depot located in the civilian area inside the city became the source of the explosion.

Al-Kastan is located near the town of Jisr al-Shughur, controlled by the Al-Qaeda-linked Turkistan Islamic Party. The exploded weapon depot likely belonged to the terrorist group or persons affiliated with it.

On the same day, the Turkish military established three new ‘observation posts’ around Jisr al-Shughur. They are located at the villages of Baksariya, al-Z’ainiyah and Furaykah. Idlib militants see Turkish positions as an important defense line that would allow containing possible Russia- and Iran-backed anti-terrorist operations in the area.

The 46th Regiment Base of the Syrian Army in western Aleppo came under Turkish artillery shelling. In response, Syrian forces struck position of Turkish-backed militants near Kafr Amma. The attack on the 46th Regiment Base became a third incident between the Turkish military and Syrian troops in less than a week. On April 3, two Syrian soldiers were killed in a Turkish artillery strike on their positions near Tell Abyad.

On April 4, Iraq’s largest resistance groups released a joint statement calling the US military “occupation forces” that “respect the language of force only”. In the statement, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Kata’ib al-Imam Ali, Harakat al-Awfiy’a, Saraya Ashura, Harakat Jund al-Imam and Saraya al-Khurasani added that recent attacks on US forces and facilities in Iraq were only a “minor response” to the US aggression and the decision to carry out full-scale attacks was not taken then.

Two days earlier, on April 2, Usbat al-Tha’ireen, the armed group that claimed responsibility for rocket strikes on Camp Taji and other US positions, released a 3-minute long drone footage of the US embassy in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone. This is the largest and most expensive embassy in the world, and is nearly as large as Vatican City.

The US Central Command officially confirmed deployment of Patriot air defense systems in Iraq. However, the US military announced that it will not provide “providing status updates as those systems come online” for security reasons. At least two Patriot batteries are now located in at the US military bases of Ayn al-Assad and Erbil. Two more Patriot batteries will reportedly be deployed soon.

As part of its plan to redeploy forces to larger, more fortified bases, the US evacuated its troops from the al-Taqaddum Air Base in the province of al-Anbar. It became the fourth US military facility abandoned in Iraq within the last few weeks. The previous ones were located in al-Qaim, Kirkuk and al-Qayyarah.

Iraqi sources say that the US actions demonstrate that Washington is preparing for a new round of military confrontation with Iran and its allies in the region. Recently, President Donald Trump stated that the US was expecting attacks by Iranian-led forces on US troops and facilities, claiming that Iran will ‘pay price’ for this. Following the statement, Iran deployed additional anti-ship missiles and multiple rocket launchers on the Qeshm Island in the Strait of Horumz.

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Below are excerpts from an important article published by Maclean’s

Fifteen years ago, a medical researcher named Michel Chrétien and his longtime collaborator Majambu Mbikay, a Congolese scientist, unhatched a theory in their Montreal laboratory. In the aftermath of the SARS epidemic that infected 8,000 patients in 26 countries, Chrétien and Mbikay, researchers at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal (IRCM), began testing their idea that a derivative of quercetin, a plant compound known to help lower cholesterol and treat inflammatory disease—and common, at low doses, in over-the-counter medication—was a “broad spectrum” antiviral drug that could fight a range of viruses.

When an Ebola outbreak struck West Africa in 2014, the two scientists teamed up with the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg to test quercetin’s effectiveness on mice infected with Ebola—and found it effective even when administered only minutes before infection. It still needs to undergo clinical trials.

But when a new global health crisis erupted in Wuhan, China late last year, Chrétien and his team once again got to thinking. They believed the drug might work on COVID-19, which has infected more than 130,000 people and killed 4,700, according to the World Health Organization. They knew a Swiss drug manufacturer, Quercegen Pharmaceuticals, could rapidly produce doses of the treatment in the hundreds of thousands.

Michel Chretien with his team in Montreal. From left to right: Jeremy Carver, Richard Mayrand and Majambu Mbikay (Photograph by Will Lew)

Chrétien’s team says their treatment would cost only $2 a day. They’ve spent weeks pursuing officials at Global Affairs Canada, including senior staff in the office of Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne. The Lazaridis Family Foundation has already contributed $1 million to the cause, enough to start clinical trials. There’s no time to waste, says Chrétien.

“I’ve been doing science all my life. I’ve stumbled on things my entire career, and this is probably the most urgent one I’ve been confronted with,” he says.

Quercetin isn’t the only possible treatment for COVID-19; Nature reported that 80 clinical trials on potential treatments are underway in China. But it remains one of the biggest potential leaps in finding a treatment for the deadly coronavirus strain; if it works, it could save thousands of lives.

Chrétien, who has spent most of his extensive medical career wearing a lab coat and testing hypotheses, simply touts the benefits of academic freedom as he and his team go about their work.

“Basic science is worth doing for the sake of doing it, not knowing what the results will be in the short term or medium term,” he says. “Long-term returns can be big.”

To read the complete article on Macleans.ca click here

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Featured image: Michel Chretien with his team in Montreal. From left to right: Jeremy Carver, Richard Mayrand and Majambu Mbikay (Photograph by Will Lew)

Global inequality and injustice have been heated topics and of deep social concern throughout human history.

In January 2020, OXFAM (Oxford Committee for Famine Relief), a reputable confederation of charitable organisations, declared in a widely circulated report “2,153 billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population”.

Debates about the statistical tools utilized by OXFAM has been widely discussed and circulated, but many of these are moot when faced with the considerable truth and challenge that there is a widening gap and disconnect between the rich, the middle class, and the poor.

The globally shared struggle against the Covid-19 crisis is a humbling reminder to everyone that the challenges we face in the 21^st century, affect these groups in strikingly different ways, and at different levels of severity.

The homeless and the poor

While the Movement Control Order (MCO) and city-wide lockdown have been issued in numerous countries, many on social media have been quick to denounce and openly criticize those who have not adhered to this order.

In various instances this has been well justified, with people going out of their localities with poor reasons to do so, further endangering the health of the general public for what can only be described as selfish and inconsiderate reasons, and apathies towards the severe impact of the crisis at large.

But what of those who do not feel they have a choice on the matter?

While the order to stay home and lounge about within the comforts of one’s abode seems like a non-issue for many, the sobering reality is the unsustainable ability to stay at home for an extended period of time without earning an income. This is an unsupportable luxury for the majority, a problem more acute the poorer the economy.

The most obvious group affected are those whose households are living hand to mouth, where their income is measured on a daily workload basis. This is a reality for many low wage earners in various countries now caught in a hard situation where they cannot go out to earn for their household, which must impact adversely on the well-being of their family later down the line.

On this matter, Malaysia’s government has pledged a significant sum of money to help these affected groups. However, in order to assure that everything is coordinated effectively in a just manner, politicking and posturing need to be put aside in the interest of ensuring  the aid provided will alleviate the crisis. To do otherwise is not only disingenuous, but will further erode trust between the people and the government, a guaranteed  powder keg that will inevitably result in chaotic civil disobedience.

It also must be noted in light of recent cases, that it is of no help to anyone when even the Civil Society Organizations are facing difficulties exercising their duties and mission to aid the poor and homeless due to the MCO.

Order must be maintained through trust.

Another group that has been equally disenfranchised are the many small and medium enterprises (SME) and their owners who are also seeking more financial assistance to lift them from the dire circumstances that have befallen them.

Wider impacts on the economy aside, as many have already eloquently pointed out ad nauseam, many business owners and the wage earners are tied together in a relationship that is adversely impacted by the pandemic.

Should business owners find themselves unable to keep their businesses afloat, then the employees will not only be facing unemployment , but they may face the difficult prospect of seeking employment again post-pandemic. Failed businesses are not easily redeemed.

Crime and the victims of violence

What is an equally disconcerting topic is how the present Covid-19 crisis has purportedly marked an increase in various crimes including violent ones.

Domestic abuse has especially seen a marked increase eversince the MCO was announced.

As an example, in Malaysia, as of 26 March 2020, the Talian Kasih, a hotline which was introduced to provide counselling and assistance for women and children experiencing abuse and mental health problems saw a drastic markup of over 1,800 calls to the helpline, recorded since the MCO began. This is a whopping 57 percent increase.

This problem was especially noted after the fact that the Women and Family Development Ministry (KPWKM) had been criticized by various NGO groups, for initially suspending the hotline during the Movement Control Order.

In the United Kingdom, similar instances in the surging of domestic abuse cases have also been recorded, with many groups appealing to the government for a “separate emergency fund for local authorities to ensure they are able to adequately house survivors of domestic abuse in appropriate locations”.

Some have speculated that there might actually be a higher number of unreported cases as many would probably be far too fearful to reach out for help, as their abusers are now forced to stay within the household in close proximity to their victims.

This is a particular concern for watchdogs who are disturbed that many children are also in vulnerable circumstances during the period of the MCO.

In Australia, for example, Julia Inman Grant, Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner, stated that there were 13,000 reports investigated last year alone and that she had already seen a significant spike in the past two weeks.

It is to the commendable credit of individuals, organizations, and law enforcement officials who constantly monitor and respond as best they can to these issues when they do arise, but as it stands many resources have been spread thin to cover the crisis in various areas.

The need to evolve social security

Each of the previously highlighted issues showcase some serious faults in the safety nets of our social security structures, out of the many other numerous issues.

But what more can we do immediately to help those under duress in this crisis?

To be frank, nothing truly meaningful.

Many of the challenges we are now recognizing are done so on hindsight and the MCO has effectively impaired many from extending a helping hand. Well-meaning intentions cannot effectively be actualized, because we need to adhere to the present order to combat the infection rates of Covid-19.

All of these unintended consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic may only be truly exposed later on, but they do offer a valuable insight to the many gaps that society needs to fix so that we may be better prepared for when another crisis hits, whether it be in the near or distant future.

We should emphasize on focusing nation-building towards securing more social systems that benefit the poor and marginalised  communities, with protocols and procedures that ensure they are not only given the assistance to overcome the problem but to also lift them from poverty to further cushion the impact when another crisis hits.

Businesses, especially SMEs which function as the backbone of developing nations will need to be given a larger degree of protection in order to ensure the survival of the wider economy, and also protect every person whose  proverbial rice bowl is dependent on such economic activities  as well.

More funding should also be given and allocated towards civil-society groups and organizations that also provide various aspects of social security, especially those who directly deal with cases of domestic abuse and children’s welfare.

For this to come to fruition, we must build a society and a governance system that recognize our many social security failings as arguably traceable back to two factors: public apathy and corruption.

This has long plagued the upper echelons of leadership in our political and social sectors and we are now seeing that the ineffectiveness of our present social security systems is due to these ailments.

We must focus on building and strengthening our shared social security for the sake of our communities, and if we put more effort into strengthening it, we will be more able to weather the next crisis that befalls us, with nobody left in the lurch.

And, with that, further heights of prosperity may be possible for everyone.

*

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Hassanal Noor Rashid is Programme Coordinator of the International Movement for a JUST World (JUST).

Today April 05, 2020 marks the 10th anniversary of the WikiLeaks publication of the Collateral Murder video.

The video shows how two Apache helicopters murdered 11 Iraqi people including two Reuters journalists.

This is one of the publications Julian Assange is being indicted for espionage.

He faces 175 years in a US jail if extradited from the UK.

.

Analysis: Kristinn Hrafnsson, Dr. Nozomi Hayase

An interesting analysis by Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell, emergency medicine physician based in Brooklyn,  New York, affiliated with the Maimonides Medical Center.

According to Dr. Kyle Sidell, COVID-19  is an “Oxygen Deprivation Disease” dissimilar from Pneumonia

“I am a physician working closely with COVID-19 patients.

This comes from my observations.

“I fear that we are using a false paradigm to treat a new disease. …”

.

Video

FROM NYC ICU: IS COVID REALLY ARDS?!!! from Cameron Kyle-Sidell on Vimeo.

*

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Os 30 Ministros dos Negócios Estrangeiros da NATO (Luigi Di Maio, em representação da Itália), que se reuniram, em 2 de Abril, por videoconferência (1) encarregaram o General norte-americano Tod Wolters, Comandante Supremo Aliado na Europa, de “coordenar o apoio militar necessário para combater a crise do coronavírus”.

É o mesmo general que, no Senado dos Estados Unidos, em 25 de Fevereiro passado, declarou que “as forças nucleares apoiam todas as operações militares USA, na Europa” e que ele é “um defensor de uma política flexível do primeiro uso” de armas nucleares, ou seja do, ataque nuclear de surpresa. (2) (“ O Doutor Strangelove cuida da nossa saúde”, il manifesto, 24 de Março). (3)

O General Wolters é o Comandante Supremo da NATO, na qualidade de Chefe do Comando Europeu dos Estados Unidos, portanto, faz parte da cadeia de comando do Pentágono, que tem prioridade absoluta. Quais são as suas regras rígidas, confirma-o um episódio recente: o Capitão do porta-aviões Roosevelt, Brett Crozier, foi afastado do comando porque, perante a propagação do coronavírus a bordo, violou o segredo militar ao solicitar o envio de ajuda. (4)

Para “combater a crise do coronavírus”, o General Wolters tem “corredores preferenciais para vôos militares através do espaço aéreo europeu”, onde os vôos civis quase desapareceram. Os corredores preferenciais também são usados pelos bombardeiros americanos do ataque nuclear B2-Spirit: em 20 de Março, decolaram de Fairford, em Inglaterra, juntamente com caças noruegueses F-16, rumo ao Árctico, em direcção ao território russo (5). Deste modo – explica o General Basham, da Força Aérea dos EUA na Europa – “podemos responder, rápida e eficazmente, às ameaças na região, demonstrando a nossa determinação em levar o nosso poder de combate para qualquer lugar do mundo”. (6)

Enquanto a NATO está comprometida em “combater o coronavírus” na Europa, dois dos principais aliados europeus, a França e a Grã-Bretanha, enviam os seus navios de guerra para as Caraíbas. O navio de ataque anfíbio Dixmund partiu de Toulon para a Guiana Francesa, em 3 de Abril, para o que o Presidente Macron define como “uma operação militar sem precedentes”, denominada «Resiliência» no contexto da «guerra ao coronavírus». (7) O Dixmund pode desempenhar a função secundária de navio hospitalar com 69 camas, 7 das quais para terapia intensiva. O papel principal deste navio enorme, de 200 m de comprimento e com uma ponte de voo de 5000 m2, é o de ataque anfíbio: ao aproximar-se da costa inimiga, ataca com dezenas de helicópteros e meios de desembarque que transportam tropas e veículos blindados. Características semelhantes, embora em menor escala, tem o navio britânico RFA Argus, que zarpou, em 2 de Abril, para a Guiana Britânica (8)

Os dois navios europeus posicionar-se-ão, nas mesmas águas das Caraíbas, perto da Venezuela, onde está a chegar a frota de guerra – com os mais modernos navios de combate costeiro (construídos, também, pela Leonardo italiana, para a Marinha dos EUA) e milhares de fuzileiros navais – enviados oficialmente pelo Presidente Trump para impedir o tráfico de drogas. Ele acusa o Presidente da Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, “de se aproveitar da crise do coronavírus para aumentar o narcotráfico com o qual ele financia o seu narco-Estado”. (9)

O objectivo da operação, apoiada pela NATO, é fortalecer o aperto do embargo para estrangular economicamente a Venezuela (um país com as maiores reservas de petróleo do mundo), cuja situação é agravada pelo coronavírus que começou a espalhar-se. O objectivo é depor o Presidente Maduro, eleito regularmente (sobre cuja cabeça os USA colocaram uma recompensa de 15 milhões de dólares) (10) e instaurar um governo que conduza o país para a esfera de domínio USA. Não se pode excluir que possa ser provocado um incidente que sirva de pretexto para a invasão da Venezuela.

A crise do coronavírus cria condições internacionais favoráveis a uma operação deste tipo, talvez apresentada como “humanitária”.

Manlio Dinuci

Artigo original em italiano :

La Nato in armi per «combattere il coronavirus»

il manifesto, 7 de Abril de 2020

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

Notes

(1)http://www.rfi.fr/en/europe/20200402-nato-coronavirus-covid-19-defence-budget

(2)https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wolters_02-25-20.pdf

(3)https://ilmanifesto.it/alla-nostra-salute-ci-pensa-il-dottor-stranamore/

(4)https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/captain-crozier-captain-crozier-videos-show-sailors-sending-off-ousted-uss-roosevelt-commander-with-cheers-1.624732

(5)https://www.businessinsider.com/b2-stealth-bomber-flight-over-iceland-with-f15s-norwegian-f35s-2020-3

(6)https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/us-allies-test-air-and-missile-defense-in-southern-europe-1.584823

(7)https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/depart-du-porte-helicopteres-dixmude-vers-la-zone-antilles-guyane-819320.html

(8)https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/rfa-argus-sails-for-the-caribbean-ready-to-provide-medical-support-if-needed/

(9)https://nypost.com/2020/04/02/us-to-deploy-navy-near-venezuela-to-stop-drug-trade 

(10)https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52133500

Não há assim tanto tempo, o “Wall Street Journal” insultou a China, apodando-a de “verdadeiro homem doentio da Ásia”. A China retaliou, e depois os EUA contra retaliaram. As emoções têm estado ao rubro, e foram deportados jornalistas.

Subitamente, vários funcionários chineses exprimiram em público o que muitos na China e na Rússia já há semanas vinham a comentar em sotto voce: se calhar foi o sistema militar dos EUA que trouxe o novo coronavírus (COVID-19) para Wuhan, com o intuito de afectar a China e recuperar o controlo do mundo para o Ocidente, recorrendo a complexas vias paralelas.

Subitamente, o mundo sente-se extremamente desconfortável. O modo como é governado é claramente perverso. As pessoas nem sempre sabem porquê, cingem-se a sentir-se assustadas, irritadiças e inseguras. De certo modo, na realidade, ao longo das últimas décadas sempre se sentiram assim, mas de algum modo começa a “ser demasiado”.

Os países não confiam uns nos outros. As pessoas não confiam umas nas outras. As pessoas não confiam nos seus governos. Despreza-se o capitalismo, mas as nações foram furtadas de quaisquer outras alternativas.

Trabalho à volta do mundo, e constato tudo isto. E o que vejo, não me agrada.

Cada vez mais, receio que o que foi colocado em marcha por Washington e Londres, possa não terminar bem. Que mesmo ao virar da esquina nos aguarde uma tragédia.

***

Há muitos anos que venho a alertar que o imperialismo está a assassinar dezenas de milhões de pessoas, todos os anos. Predominantemente o imperialismo ocidental, mas também as suas sequelas em sítios onde as elites aprenderam com os seus ex-mestres colonialistas a brutalizar territórios conquistados, tais como Jakarta, Nova Deli ou Tel Aviv.

Os genocídios e o esclavagismo moderno tornaram-se nos mais vis reflexos da modernidade. Não são os únicos, claro, mas os mais vis.

Recentemente escrevi aqui (NEO), que nunca tinha visto o mundo tão fragmentado.

As viagens, a Internet, as redes sociais – eram todos supostos tornar o mundo melhor, e aproximar as pessoas umas das outras. Não o fizeram. Em meu redor só vejo confusão e desinformação. As pessoas viajam mas não observam nem compreendem. Olham para os ecrãs dos computadores horas a fio todos os dias, como antes costumavam olhar para os ecrãs das televisões, mas nem fazem ideia de como funciona o mundo.

As pessoas costumavam vir até nós, filósofos, à procura de conselhos. Costumávamos interagir. Mas já não. E olhemos para a própria filosofia: cingiu-se a uma disciplina universitária seca, controlada pelo regime. Antes, ser filósofo equivalia a ser-se um pensador. Agora, pateticamente, o filósofo é um indivíduo com um grau académico em Filosofia, emitido por algumas universidades que fazem parte do sistema.

Seja como for, hoje todo e cada indivíduo, pelo menos no Ocidente, acredita ser um filósofo; auto-absorto, a posar e a publicar nas redes sociais, a tirar selfies, com egos grotescamente inchados.

Algo correu mal. Quase tudo correu mal. A humanidade debate-se com um perigo imenso. Porquê? Porque não se compreende a si mesma. Os seus sonhos foram reduzidos a uma qualquer espécie de tristonhas e patéticas ambições. Os seus ideais altivos forjados ao longo dos séculos viram-se diminuídos pela narrativa niilista ocidental.

***

E depois, fomos atingidos por um novo coronavírus.

Não subestimem o coronavírus! Pode ter a taxa de mortalidade de uma gripe comum, mas é muito mais perigoso que esta. O seu perigo é predominantemente psicológico e filosófico, muito mais que médico.

Chegou, inesperadamente, e ilustrou ao mundo que já não há qualquer união global, nem qualquer solidariedade.

Os países estão a agir e a reagir de modos extremamente brutais. É assustador. Parece que estamos num mau filme de terror de segunda categoria produzido em Hollywood.

Os governos apontam o dedo uns aos outros, irracionalmente. As linhas aéreas estão a mentir e a roubar os seus clientes, e ao mesmo tempo afirmam que os estão a proteger.

Recentemente “escapei” de Hong Kong, depois da Korean Air ter cancelado os voos para a China sem qualquer cerimónia, não fazendo nada para reencaminhar os passageiros que ficaram retidos. Voei durante 5 dias para a América do Sul, meu lar, por intermédio de vários aeroportos asiáticos, pelas rotas mais bizarras, para Norte e Sul e novamente para Norte, depois via Amesterdão e Suriname, ziguezagueando pelas cidades brasileiras, antes de chegar ao Chile. Peculiarmente, algures neste caminho, fui parar a Seul, onde logo me disseram não ser suposto estar, experienciando na pele o proverbial racismo sul-coreano, e tendo sido sujeito a atrozes humilhações e interrogatórios após desabafar, no portão de embarque antes de partir para Amesterdão, que os norte-coreanos definitivamente tratam as pessoas com muito mais respeito e dignidade que Seul.

Irei escrever muito mais acerca disto, no futuro mais próximo, mas não é esse o tema principal deste peça.

O essencial é o colapso da própria lógica. O comportamento de muitos países tornou-se irracional, e o racionalismo é suposto ser sinónimo de desenvolvimento da humanidade e aperfeiçoamento das vidas dos seres humanos. Agora as coisas só fazem sentido quando as vemos da perspectiva do desejo de controlo e usurpação, de pilhar e humilhar.

E o coronavirus?

Estão os Estados Unidos a tentar aproveitar a situação, monopolizar a cura, salvar a sua economia e moeda, à custa de milhares de milhões de pessoas à escala mundial?

A 15 de Março de 2020, o “The Sun” reportou:

“Assessores de Donald Trump ‘ofereceram somas gigantescas a empresa alemã numa tentativa de obter a vacina do coronavírus exclusivamente para os americanos’.”

Um dia depois, a 16 de Março de 2020, o “Mail Online” detalhava a história:

“Os governantes alemães estão a tentar que a administração Trump atraia a biofarmacêutica CureVac para os EUA para obter as suas vacinas experimentais para o coronavírus em exclusivo para os americanos.

O presidente Donald Trump ofereceu fundos para atrair a empresa CureVac para os EUA. O governo alemão efectuou contrapropostas para convencer a empresa a ficar, de acordo com uma notícia no jornal alemão ‘Welt am Sonntag’.

Uma fonte não identificada do governo alemão revelou ao jornal que Trump está a tentar assegurar que os cientistas trabalhem a título exclusivo, e faria tudo para obter a vacina para os Estados Unidos – ‘mas só para os Estados Unidos.’”

O comportamento do Império mais facilmente nos deixa mais indispostos que o próprio coronavírus.

***

Os Estados Unidos ocupam e antagonizam países e depois pune-os quando estes tentam proteger-se. Israel faz o mesmo. E também o fazem a Indonésia, a Índia e a NATO em bloco. A Turquia está a tornar-se uma maníaca. O Irão, a Venezuela e outros gritam, brutalizados sem qualquer razão pelas sanções e pelos embargos. A Rússia é constantemente vilipendiada, só por auxiliar as nações feridas, no Médio Oriente, em África e na América Latina.

Constato tudo isto e pondero: quanto mais pode isto durar? Irá todo este banditismo e idiotice continuar de agora em diante, e será sempre aceite com normalidade?

Mas voltando ao coronavírus. Tem tudo a ver com o que menciono acima, não tem? Milhares de milhões de pessoas estão agora a ser despojadas dos seus direitos e vontades, empurradas e completamente controladas, tudo justificado por uma doença com a taxa de mortalidade de uma gripe comum? E as pessoas terão reparado que as vítimas agora estão a ser tratadas como animais, algo que teria sido inimaginável há um par de décadas atrás.

A China, infectada ou não pelos EUA, está a ser perpetuamente insultada, isolada e caluniada. A propaganda ocidental anti-chinesa instalou-se, quase desde o princípio da pandemia. Quão feio; quão monstruoso!

Os propagandistas ocidentais estão alerta, à espera, a monitorizar o mundo. Como piranhas, atacam com velocidade fulminante, onde quer que se derrame sangue, ou fique exposto um pedaço de carne.

Quando o desastre atinge, aproveitam-se ao máximo das fraquezas do seu oponente. Entram a matar. E não há nada de humano no seu comportamento. É uma investida calculada contra a vítima. É o movimento cirúrgico de um bisturi, concebido para matar, do modo mais aterrorizante.

Por contraste a China reagiu de modo exactamente oposto: quando a Itália foi infectada, os médicos chineses ofereceram o seu apoio. Voaram para Itália com medicamentos e equipamento.

E a China não está só. Onde quer que o desastre assole, em qualquer ponto do mundo, os médicos cubanos e comandos de resgate arrancam logo, desde que lhes permitam viajar e ajudar.

A Venezuela também. Costumava fornecer combustível barato, até mesmo a pessoas necessitadas que por acaso eram cidadãos do seu arqui-atormentador – os Estados Unidos.

E a Rússia, em qualquer das suas formas (como a maior república soviética, ou como a Federação Russa), tem auxiliado dezenas e dezenas de nações dizimadas: ao tratar os seus doentes, ao educar os seus estudantes, construindo infra-estruturas, disseminando cultura através de livros e música, tudo nas línguas locais.

A Rússia não fala muito: faz, desempenha, ajuda. Tal como a China, Cuba e outros.

***

Quero ver o mundo unido. Quero testemunhar a humanidade a embarcar num projecto belo: melhorar o planeta, pesquisar, junta, um sistema mais igualitário, sem miséria, sem doenças incuráveis, sem depravação.

Mas não sou ingénuo. Vejo o que o Ocidente e o seu capitalismo e imperialismo extremos estão a fazer ao mundo.

E estou convicto de que só os ismos clássicos são capazes de evocar compaixão e solidariedade nas pessoas. Os propagandistas em Washington e em Londres dizem-vos o oposto; irão mentir-vos e dizer-vos que o comunismo e o socialismo estão mortos, ou pelo menos completamente ultrapassados. Não confiem neles; estejam cientes que os objectivos destes nada têm a ver com o aperfeiçoamento da vida no nosso planeta. O quer que ouçam da parte deles, acreditem no oposto.

Neste momento, a nossa raça humana é como uma pessoa doente, muito doente. Não graças ao coronavírus, mas devido à reacção ao coronavírus.

A China não é de todo o verdadeiro homem doentio da Ásia. Não importa como aconteceu, a China contagiou-se, mas depois ergueu-se, combateu com grande determinação e coragem, e começou a obliterar a doença. Os médicos chineses, as pessoas chinesas de modo geral, agora comemoram. Estão em êxtase. Estão a vencer, os primeiros hospitais para pacientes de coronavírus estão a ser fechados em Wuhan. O seu sistema é nitidamente vitorioso, criado para o povo.

Quase em simultâneo, a China começou a ajudar outros países.

Na realidade, a China e o seu povo estão a comportar-se como é suposto seres humanos comportarem-se. E, se tal é apodado de “doentio”, então o que é “sadio”?

Andre Vltchek

Original em inglês: It is Not China, but the Western World that should be Defined as the “Real Sick Man”, New Eastern Outlook, o 24 de Marco de 2020.

The intense politicization over the topic of experimenting with the promising drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients strongly suggests that the “deep state” has intensified its Hybrid War on Trump’s America at its most vulnerable moment in modern history, all for the sake of ruining his re-election prospects even if this also results in the collapse of the economy and America’s attendant displacement abroad by its rivals.

In greeting you, with affection, I take the liberty of addressing you on the occasion of denouncing the severe events taking place against the peace and stability of Venezuela, at a time when the concern of the States and Governments should be focused on the protection of the life and health of their citizens, due to the acceleration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As it is publicly known, last March 26, the government of the United States announced a very serious action against a group of high officials of the Venezuelan State, including the Constitutional President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro.

This action consisted in the presentation of a formal accusation before the American judicial system, which is not only by illegal in itself, by also seeks to support a false accusation of drug trafficking and terrorism, with the sole objective of simulating the alleged judicialization of the Venezuelan authorities.

This American performance includes the unusual offer of an international reward to anyone who provides information about the President and the high Venezuelan officials, leading to a dangerous moment of tension in the continent. I, therefore, consider it necessary to make an account of the facts, which reveal the perverse plot behind the accusations of the Department of Justice.

Just one day before, on March 25, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela denounced before national and international public opinion the development in Colombian territory of an operation aimed at attempting against the life of President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro Moros, his family members, and high State officials; as well as attacking civil and military objectives in our country, accusing Mr. Clíver Alcalá, a retired general of the Venezuelan armed forces, of being the military chief of that operation.

This denouncement was made with all responsibility, after a control operation in the road to the north of Colombia, near the border with Venezuela was announced on March 24, in which the police of that country captured a batch or war weapons in a civilian vehicle.

The investigations revealed that it was a sophisticated arsenal aimed at a group of former Venezuelan and Colombian military and paramilitary personnel who were training in camps located in Colombian territory.

On March 26, the aforementioned Clíver Alcalá, gave a statement to a Colombian media outlet -from his residence in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia- in which he confirmed his participation in the reported events, confessing to being the military leader of the operation and revealing that the weapons were purchased by order of Mr. Juan Guaidó, national deputy, who calls himself interim President of Venezuela and serves as Washington’s operator in the country. He also confirmed that the weapons were intended to carry out a military operation to assassinate senior members of the Venezuelan State and Government and to produce a coup d’état in Venezuela.

Mr. Alcalá clarified that the weapons were purchased through a contract signed by himself, Mr. Juan Guaidó, U.S. advisors and Mr.Juan José Rendón, political advisor to President Iván Duque, and carried out with the knowledge of Colombian government authorities.

In the face of this confession, the unusual response of the United States government has been the publication of the accusations mentioned at the beginning of this letter, with the extravagant inclusion of the name of Mr. Alcalá, as if he were part of the Venezuelan authorities and not a mercenary hired by the United States to carry out a terrorist operation against the Venezuelan government.

As a demonstration of this statement, I need no more proof than to mention the alleged capture of Mr. Alcalá by Colombian security forces and his immediate surrender to U.S. DEA authorities, in a curious act in which the prisoner, without handcuffs, was shaking hands with his captors, right in front of the stairs of the plane that would take him on a special VIP flight to the United States, which shows that in reality, this whole set-up is about the rescue of someone they consider a U.S. agent.

It must be stressed that the unsuccessful armed operation was originally designed to be executed at the end of this month, while all of Venezuela is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Actually, this is precisely the main battle that concerns humanity today.

A battle that our nation is successfully waging, having managed to stop the contagion curve, reinforcing health provisions and keeping the population in a massive quarantine, with a low number of positive cases and deaths.

For all these reasons, the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela alerts our brothers and sisters of political organizations and social movements around the world about the reckless and criminal steps being taken by the administration of Donald Trump which, despite the frightening acceleration of the growth of COVID-19 affecting the American people, seems determined to deepen its policy of aggression against sovereign states in the region, and especially against the Venezuelan people.

During the pandemic, the U.S. government, instead of focusing on policies of global cooperation in health and prevention, has increased unilateral coercive measures, has rejected requests from the international community to lift or make flexible the illegal sanctions that prevent Venezuela from accessing medicines, medical equipment, and food.

At the same time, it has banned humanitarian flights from the United States to Venezuela to repatriate hundreds of Venezuelans trapped in the economic and health crisis in the northern country.

By denouncing these serious facts, Venezuela ratifies its unwavering will to maintain a relationship of respect and cooperation with all nations, especially in this unprecedented circumstance that forces responsible governments to work together and put aside their differences, as is the case with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under such serious circumstances, I request your invaluable support in the face of this unusual and arbitrary persecution, executed through a new version of that rancid McCarthyism unleashed after World War II. At that time, they willingly labeled their adversaries as Communists in order to persecute them; today they do so by means of the whimsical categories of terrorists or drug traffickers, without having any evidence whatsoever.

Condemning and neutralizing today these unjustifiable attacks against Venezuela will be very useful to prevent Washington from launching similar campaigns against other peoples and governments of the world tomorrow. We must all adhere to the principles of the United Nations Charter, to prevent excessive unilateralism from leading to international chaos.

Brothers and sisters of the world, you can be absolutely sure that Venezuela will stand firm in its fight for peace and that, under any circumstances, it will prevail. No imperialist aggression, however ferocious it may be, will divert us from the sovereign and independent path that we have forged for 200 years, nor will it distance us from the sacred obligation to preserve the life and health of our people in the face of the frightening global pandemic of COVID-19.

I take this opportunity to express my solidarity and that of the people of Venezuela to all the peoples who today also suffer serious consequences from the effects of the pandemic. If we are obliged to draw any lesson from all this difficult experience, it is precisely that only together we can move forward. The political and economic models that advocate selfishness and individualism have demonstrated their total failure to face this situation. Let us firmly advance towards a new World with justice and social equality, in which the happiness and fullness of the human being is the center of our actions.

I appreciate the solidarity that you have permanently expressed towards my country and my people, denouncing the criminal blockade to which we and many other nations are subjected. I take this opportunity to reiterate my respect and affection, and to invite you to continue united, plowing a future of hope and dignity.

*

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He was known as “the Riddler.” Even “the Dark.”  Heraclitus of Ephesus was one of a kind. 

In his heart of hearts a contemptuous aristocrat, this master of paradox despised all so-called wise men and the mobs that adored them. Heraclitus was the definitive precursor of social distancing.  

We, unfortunately, owe the “pre-Socratic” reductionist label to 19^th century historians, who sold to modernity the notion that these thinkers were not so preeminent because they lived before Socrates (469-399 B.C.) throughout the 6^th and 5^th century B.C., in assorted latitudes found in today’s Greece, Italy and Turkey.

Yet Nietzsche nailed it: the pre-Socratics invented all the archetypes of all the history of philosophy. And if that was not enough, they invented science as well. Their Grandmaster Flash was, unequivocally, Heraclitus.

Perpetual detective story

Only around 130 fragments of Heraclitus’s thinking managed to survive – prefiguring Walter Benjamin’s intuition that the beauty of knowledge is encapsulated by the fragment.

Let’s start with “Nature loves to hide.” Heraclitus established that nature and the world are ambiguous par excellence, in a never-ending film noir. As nature is a nest of riddles, he could only use riddles to examine it.

It’s tempting to imagine Heraclitus as a doppelganger of the famous Delphic oracle, which “neither declares nor conceals, but gives a sign.” He’s certainly a precursor of Twin Peaks (the owls are not what they seem). Legend has it that the only copy of his book was consigned to a temple in Ephesus in the early 5^th century B.C., shortly after the death of Pythagoras, so the mobs wouldn’t have access to it. Heraclitus, a member of the Ephesus royal family, would not have settled for less.

So we, as a race, are essentially a misguided bunch.

“Men are deceived in the recognition of what is obvious, like Homer who was wisest of all the Greeks,” Heraclitus wrote. “For he was deceived by boys killing lice who said: ‘What we see and catch we leave behind; what we neither see nor catch we carry away.’”

Heraclitus compared our lot to beasts, winos, deep sleepers and even children – as in, “Our opinions are like toys.” We are incapable of grasping the true logos.

History, with rare exceptions, seems to have vindicated him.

There are two key Heraclitus mantras.

1) “All things come to pass according to conflict.” So the basis of everything is turmoil. Everything is in flux. Life is a battleground. (Sun Tzu would approve.)

2) “All things are one.” This means opposites attract. This is what Heraclitus found when he went tripping inside his soul – with no help of lysergic substances. No wonder he faced a Sisyphean task trying to explain this to us, mere children.

And that brings us to the river metaphor. Everything in nature depends on underlying change. Thus, for Heraclitus, “as they step into the same rivers, other and still other waters flow upon them.” So each river is composed of ever-changing waters.

If you step into the Ganges or the Amazon one day, that would be something completely different compared with stepping in on another day.

Thus the notorious mantra Panta rhei, “Everything flows”. Flux and stability, unity and diversity, are like night and day.

One river may consist of many waters, and even if there are many waters, it’s still one river. That’s how Heraclitus reconciled conflict and unity into harmony – quite an Eastern philosophy concept.

No fragment tells it explicitly. But what’s fascinating is that flux in unity and unity in flux do look like moving parts of the logos, the guiding principle of the world, which no one before him had managed to understand.

Next to your fire 

Everything flows. And that brings us to war – and once again Heraclitus meets Sun Tzu: “War is father of all and king of all.”

That also brings us to fire. The world is “fire ever living” and “fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods.” Here Heraclitus seems to be equating gold, as a vehicle of economic exchange, to fire as a vehicle of physical change. He would have despised fiat money; Heraclitus was definitely in favor of the gold standard.

No wonder Heraclitus fascinated Nietzsche because he was essentially proposing a cyclical theory of the universe – Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence – with everything turning into fire in serial cosmic bust-ups.

Heraclitus was a Taoist and a Buddhist. If opposites are ultimately the same, this implies the unity of all things.

Heraclitus even foresaw the reaction we should have towards Covid-19: “It is disease that makes health sweet and good; hunger, satiety; weariness, rest.” Lao Tzu would approve. In the Heraclitus framework of serial cosmic recycling, disease gives health its full significance.

This collective attitude could go a long way to explain the relative success of Eastern societies in the fight against Covid-19 compared with the West.

And once again, all this Heraclitean interconnectivity could not be more Eastern – from Tao to Buddhism. No wonder the grandmasters of Western civilization, Plato and Aristotle, didn’t get it.

Plato distorted Heraclitus like there was no tomorrow. Plato based his analysis on Cratylus, a philosopher who misunderstood Heraclitus in the first place. Because Plato and Aristotle basically regurgitated Cratylus’s reductionist interpretation everyone afterward followed them, not the original Riddler.

For Plato and Aristotle, it was impossible to understand Heraclitus because they seemed to have taken “You cannot step into the same river twice” literally.

Heraclitus in fact discovered, for all humanity to see, that rivers and everything else in nature change constantly. They’re all about flux, even when they seem still. Call that a definition of history.

At least Plato’s misguided interpretation raised a key question we are still debating 2,500 years later: How is it possible to have certain knowledge of an ever-changing world? Or as Nietzsche famously put it: There are no facts, only interpretations.

So because of Plato’s misunderstanding, Heraclitus the genuine article became a sideshow in the history of thought. The Riddler would not have given a damn. It’s up to us to do him justice in these anguished times.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”—Martin Luther King Jr. (A Knock at Midnight, June 11, 1967)

In every age, we find ourselves wrestling with the question of how Jesus Christ—the itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist who died challenging the police state of his time, namely, the Roman Empire—would respond to the moral questions of our day.

For instance, what would Jesus do in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic?

Would he disregard social distancing guidelines to visit and tend to the sick and dying?

Would he take the assets belonging to those massive megachurches—the expensive real estate, the lucrative bank accounts—and put them to work where they can do the most good right now, tending to the sick, housing the homeless, and providing for the needy?

Would he advocate, as so many evangelical Christian leaders have done in recent years, for congregants to “submit to your leaders and those in authority,” which in the American police state translates to complying, conforming, submitting, obeying orders, deferring to authority and generally doing whatever a government official tells you to do? Or would he defy government shutdowns to hold church worship services as some have done?

It’s a quandary, all right: what would Jesus do?

Suddenly, that evangelical message of abject compliance to the government, no matter how immoral or unjust that government may seem, is running up against government mandates that test not only how far the religious community will go to exercise its religious freedoms but what that even means in a COVID-19 world.

As the world prepares to spend Holy Week and Easter Sunday in a state of near-isolation, varying degrees of lockdowns imposed by world governments to blunt the deadly impact of this novel coronavirus pandemic have all but ensured that there will be no massive Easter Egg hunts, no Easter parades, and no flower-bedecked church services this year.

We can debate and litigate and legislate whether churches have a lawful right to remain open during this pandemic and allow their congregants to worship in person, but surely Jesus would have us fight an altogether different battle.

Study the life and teachings of Jesus, and you may be surprised at how relevant he is to our modern age.

A radical nonconformist who challenged authority at every turn, Jesus spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire, and providing a blueprint for standing up to tyranny that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him.

Those living through this present age of militarized police, SWAT team raids, police shootings of unarmed citizens, roadside strip searches, invasive surveillance, and government lockdowns might feel as if these events are unprecedented, but the characteristics of a police state and its reasons for being are no different today than they were in Jesus’ lifetime: control, power and money.

Much like the American Empire today, the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day was characterized by secrecy, surveillance, a widespread police presence, a citizenry treated like suspects with little recourse against the police state, perpetual wars, a military empire, martial law, and political retribution against those who dared to challenge the power of the state.

A police state extends far beyond the actions of law enforcement.  In fact, a police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”

Indeed, the police state in which Jesus lived and its striking similarities to modern-day America are beyond troubling.

Secrecy, surveillance and rule by the elite. As the chasm between the wealthy and poor grew wider in the Roman Empire, the ruling class and the wealthy class became synonymous, while the lower classes, increasingly deprived of their political freedoms, grew disinterested in the government and easily distracted by “bread and circuses.” Much like America today, with its lack of government transparency, overt domestic surveillance, and rule by the rich, the inner workings of the Roman Empire were shrouded in secrecy, while its leaders were constantly on the watch for any potential threats to its power. The resulting state-wide surveillance was primarily carried out by the military, which acted as investigators, enforcers, torturers, policemen, executioners and jailers. Today that role is fulfilled by the NSA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the increasingly militarized police forces across the country.

Widespread police presence. The Roman Empire used its military forces to maintain the “peace,” thereby establishing a police state that reached into all aspects of a citizen’s life. In this way, these military officers, used to address a broad range of routine problems and conflicts, enforced the will of the state. Today SWAT teams, comprised of local police and federal agents, are employed to carry out routine search warrants for minor crimes such as marijuana possession and credit card fraud.

Citizenry with little recourse against the police state. As the Roman Empire expanded, personal freedom and independence nearly vanished, as did any real sense of local governance and national consciousness. Similarly, in America today, citizens largely feel powerless, voiceless and unrepresented in the face of a power-hungry federal government. As states and localities are brought under direct control by federal agencies and regulations, a sense of learned helplessness grips the nation.

Perpetual wars and a military empire. Much like America today with its practice of policing the world, war and an over-arching militarist ethos provided the framework for the Roman Empire, which extended from the Italian peninsula to all over Southern, Western, and Eastern Europe, extending into North Africa and Western Asia as well. In addition to significant foreign threats, wars were waged against inchoate, unstructured and socially inferior foes.

Martial law. Eventually, Rome established a permanent military dictatorship that left the citizens at the mercy of an unreachable and oppressive totalitarian regime. In the absence of resources to establish civic police forces, the Romans relied increasingly on the military to intervene in all matters of conflict or upheaval in provinces, from small-scale scuffles to large-scale revolts. Not unlike police forces today, with their martial law training drills on American soil, militarized weapons and “shoot first, ask questions later” mindset, the Roman soldier had “the exercise of lethal force at his fingertips” with the potential of wreaking havoc on normal citizens’ lives.

A nation of suspects. Just as the American Empire looks upon its citizens as suspects to be tracked, surveilled and controlled, the Roman Empire looked upon all potential insubordinates, from the common thief to a full-fledged insurrectionist, as threats to its power. The insurrectionist was seen as directly challenging the Emperor.  A “bandit,” or revolutionist, was seen as capable of overturning the empire, was always considered guilty and deserving of the most savage penalties, including capital punishment. Bandits were usually punished publicly and cruelly as a means of deterring others from challenging the power of the state.  Jesus’ execution was one such public punishment.

Acts of civil disobedience by insurrectionists. Starting with his act of civil disobedience at the Jewish temple, the site of the administrative headquarters of the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish council, Jesus branded himself a political revolutionary. When Jesus “with the help of his disciples, blocks the entrance to the courtyard” and forbids “anyone carrying goods for sale or trade from entering the Temple,” he committed a blatantly criminal and seditious act, an act “that undoubtedly precipitated his arrest and execution.” Because the commercial events were sponsored by the religious hierarchy, which in turn was operated by consent of the Roman government, Jesus’ attack on the money chargers and traders can be seen as an attack on Rome itself, an unmistakable declaration of political and social independence from the Roman oppression.

Military-style arrests in the dead of night. Jesus’ arrest account testifies to the fact that the Romans perceived Him as a revolutionary. Eerily similar to today’s SWAT team raids, Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night, in secret, by a large, heavily armed fleet of soldiers.  Rather than merely asking for Jesus when they came to arrest him, his pursuers collaborated beforehand with Judas. Acting as a government informant, Judas concocted a kiss as a secret identification marker, hinting that a level of deception and trickery must be used to obtain this seemingly “dangerous revolutionist’s” cooperation.

Torture and capital punishment. In Jesus’ day, religious preachers, self-proclaimed prophets and nonviolent protesters were not summarily arrested and executed. Indeed, the high priests and Roman governors normally allowed a protest, particularly a small-scale one, to run its course. However, government authorities were quick to dispose of leaders and movements that appeared to threaten the Roman Empire. The charges leveled against Jesus—that he was a threat to the stability of the nation, opposed paying Roman taxes and claimed to be the rightful King—were purely political, not religious. To the Romans, any one of these charges was enough to merit death by crucifixion, which was usually reserved for slaves, non-Romans, radicals, revolutionaries and the worst criminals.

Jesus was presented to Pontius Pilate “as a disturber of the political peace,” a leader of a rebellion, a political threat, and most gravely—a claimant to kingship, a “king of the revolutionary type.” After Jesus is formally condemned by Pilate, he is sentenced to death by crucifixion, “the Roman means of executing criminals convicted of high treason.”  The purpose of crucifixion was not so much to kill the criminal, as it was an immensely public statement intended to visually warn all those who would challenge the power of the Roman Empire. Hence, it was reserved solely for the most extreme political crimes: treason, rebellion, sedition, and banditry. After being ruthlessly whipped and mocked, Jesus was nailed to a cross.

As Professor Mark Lewis Taylor observed:

The cross within Roman politics and culture was a marker of shame, of being a criminal. If you were put to the cross, you were marked as shameful, as criminal, but especially as subversive. And there were thousands of people put to the cross. The cross was actually positioned at many crossroads, and, as New Testament scholar Paula Fredricksen has reminded us, it served as kind of a public service announcement that said, “Act like this person did, and this is how you will end up.”

Jesus—the revolutionary, the political dissident, and the nonviolent activist—lived and died in a police state. Any reflection on Jesus’ life and death within a police state must take into account several factors: Jesus spoke out strongly against such things as empires, controlling people, state violence and power politics. Jesus challenged the political and religious belief systems of his day. And worldly powers feared Jesus, not because he challenged them for control of thrones or government but because he undercut their claims of supremacy, and he dared to speak truth to power in a time when doing so could—and often did—cost a person his life.

Unfortunately, the radical Jesus, the political dissident who took aim at injustice and oppression, has been largely forgotten today, replaced by a congenial, smiling Jesus trotted out for religious holidays but otherwise rendered mute when it comes to matters of war, power and politics.

Yet for those who truly study the life and teachings of Jesus, the resounding theme is one of outright resistance to war, materialism and empire.

Ultimately, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this is the contradiction that must be resolved if the radical Jesus—the one who stood up to the Roman Empire and was crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be—is to be an example for our modern age.

After all, there is so much suffering and injustice in the world, and so much good that can be done by those who truly aspire to follow Jesus Christ’s example.

We must decide whether we will follow the path of least resistance—willing to turn a blind eye to what Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as the “evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive men of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence”—or whether we will be transformed nonconformists “dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood.”

As King explained in a powerful sermon delivered in 1954, “This command not to conform comes … [from] Jesus Christ, the world’s most dedicated nonconformist, whose ethical nonconformity still challenges the conscience of mankind.”

We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians, who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word and refused to shape their witness according to the mundane patterns of the world.  Willingly they sacrificed fame, fortune, and life itself in behalf of a cause they knew to be right.  Quantitatively small, they were qualitatively giants.  Their powerful gospel put an end to such barbaric evils as infanticide and bloody gladiatorial contests.  Finally, they captured the Roman Empire for Jesus Christ… The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood.  The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.  In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!

…Honesty impels me to admit that transformed nonconformity, which is always costly and never altogether comfortable, may mean walking through the valley of the shadow of suffering, losing a job, or having a six-year-old daughter ask, “Daddy, why do you have to go to jail so much?”  But we are gravely mistaken to think that Christianity protects us from the pain and agony of mortal existence.  Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear.  To be a Christian, one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tragedy-packed content, and carry it until that very cross leaves its marks upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way that comes only through suffering.

In these days of worldwide confusion, there is a dire need for men and women who will courageously do battle for truth.  We must make a choice. Will we continue to march to the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds?  Will we march only to the music of time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soul saving music of eternity?

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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].

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Bread Lines in the US

By Stephen Lendman, April 07, 2020

It happened in the US before. It’s happening again in various ways at a time when perhaps harder than ever hard times may be just beginning.

First some background and related thoughts.

The Great Depression of the 1930s in the US followed prosperity marred by excesses in the 20s. The October 1929 stock market crash changed everything, ordinary people hit hardest.

“Orders to Kill” Dr. Martin Luther King: The Government that Honors MLK with a National Holiday Killed Him

By Edward Curtin, April 07, 2020

Very few Americans are aware of the truth behind the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Few books have been written about it, unlike other significant assassinations, especially JFK’s. For almost fifty years there has been a media blackout supported by government deception to hide the truth.

And few people, in a massive act of self-deception, have chosen to question the absurd official explanation, choosing, rather, to embrace a mythic fabrication intended to sugarcoat the bitter fruit that has resulted from the murder of the one man capable of leading a mass movement for revolutionary change in the United States.  Today we are eating the fruit of our denial.

A Tale of Two Stockpiles: Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Anniversary of His Murder in a Pandemic Year

By Brian Terrell, April 07, 2020

The United States Strategic National Stockpile of essential medical supplies maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, seems unable to respond to the present COVID-19 crisis.  There is much discussion in today’s news about who is responsible for the shortcomings. Did Trump find the shelves empty or full when he took office after President Obama? Is the stockpile meant to support local governments in dealing with shortages in such a crisis, as the DHHS website said until last Friday, or is it specifically meant for use by the federal government, “our stockpile… not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use,” as White House senior advisor Jared Kushner insists, a view supported by the newly amended DHHS website?

Coronavirus: Sanctions and Suffering

By Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, April 07, 2020

By looking at three well-known victims of US sanctions, we shall show how the coronavirus crisis has helped to bring to the fore some of the issues that challenge them. Iran has been under comprehensive sanctions which have become increasingly harsh since 1980. There is no need to emphasise that it is because Iran after the Islamic Revolution of February 1979 refused to yield to US dictates and chose to champion the Palestinian cause through deeds rather than words that it found itself the target of the superpower of the day. Iran has made it very clear that though it is going through great difficulties as a result of the Coronavirus it will not accept any assistance from the US unless the US lifts the sanctions. It has however applied for financial help from the IMF which according to some sources has been blocked by the US government that exercises considerable influence over that multilateral institution. China and other countries from the European Union have come to Iran’s aid.

Ecuadorian Humanitarian Catastrophe Amidst Pandemic

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, April 07, 2020

Among the countries affected by the global pandemic, it is undeniable that there is a certain imbalance in media coverage, with some very affected countries being scarcely followed by the news, while in other locations the situation is overestimated. An example of what is being said here is the case of Ecuador, about which little or nothing has been said in the mainstream mass media around the world. The collapsed South American country began the biggest crisis in its recent history. The fragile Ecuadorian public health structure was not efficient to deal with even the first cases of COVID-19, causing the infection to spread quickly. The government’s slowness in taking action to control the crisis was also a key factor in building the current scenario: Ecuador, in a very short time, became the country with the highest number of deaths per capita due to the new coronavirus in Latin America.

Nicaragua and COVID-19 – Western Media’s Best Kept Secret

By Jorge Capelan, April 07, 2020

One of the best hidden secrets amidst the cacophony of panic and media terrorism caused by the current COVID-2019 pandemic has been how successfully Nicaragua, a small, impoverished country in one of the most climate change-prone regions on the planet, has been tackling the arrival of the new coronavirus.

With 6.5 million inhabitants, Nicaragua had as of April 5th only 6 cases of COVID-19, all imported, of which 3 were active, 2 were recovered and one, ill with AIDS, had died. At the same time, the authorities kept under close surveillance some 10 people who, despite having tested negative, continue to be monitored as a precaution.

COVID19 Distance-Learning Rules Help Big Tech Shut Down Brick-and-Mortar Public Schools, Replace Human Teachers with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

By John Klyczek, April 07, 2020

The DeVos Department of Education’s new “Proposed Rules” for federal regulations of “Distance Education and Innovation” (85 FR 18638) will effectively open the floodgates for online education corporations to put public brick-and-mortar schools out of business by streamlining “adaptive-learning and other artificial intelligence” technologies that replace “human instructors” with “competency-based education (CBE)” software which provide “direct assessment” through “subscription-based” courseware that data-mine students’ cognitive-behavioral algorithms to “personalize” digital lessons.

The crazy thing about the COVID-19 “crisis” is how easy it is for the state and its media to frighten the public and manipulate ill-informed citizens into embracing economic and social decapitation. 

Blinded by scary headlines based on irrational speculation—subsequently revised downward and published on page C-23 of corporate newspapers demanding a bailout—the American people have embraced authoritarian measures supposedly imposed to win a battle against an invisible enemy. 

We are now beyond the point of no return. The inflicted economic and social damage has already taken a heavy toll and it will get worse the longer health bureaucrats, state governors, and a remarkably clueless president and his apparatchiks demand we stay imprisoned in our homes, frightened of a bug the state and its media have fictionally rendered as an insatiable and inescapable Gorgon of Doom. 

The COVID-19 crisis has been engineered by Bill Gates from seasonal flu in order to crash the global economy, normalise authoritarianism, and further the elites' goal of one world government. https://t.co/UVoOTB6OZE

— Barbara McKenzie (@BarbaraMcK42) April 3, 2020

Scott C. Tips, president of the National Health Federation, writes:

In February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO)—never known for its accuracy or consistency—declared a “Pandemic” for the coronavirus and claimed that the mortality rate for the novel coronavirus disease now designated as COVID-19 was 3.4%, while that for the seasonal flu was 0.1%. Of course, the news media ran with those numbers and splashed scary headlines across the World stating how much more deadly this new virus was than the seasonal flu. The problem with WHO’s statement, however, was that they applied two different formulas for the two viruses. For the COVID-19 disease, for example, they simply didn’t count any of the mild cases of COVID-19 that resolved themselves; yet, they did with the seasonal flu. If WHO were to apply the same formula to seasonal flu cases as it did with COVID-19 cases, then the seasonal flu is revealed more truthfully as being twice as deadly as the COVID-19 virus.

In other words, the globalist WHO—essentially a PR group for transnational Big Pharma and what should be considered the health-industrial complex—is engaged in massive fraud. 

The COVID-19 aggrandizement and propaganda campaign is not simply a public relations scheme for Big Pharma and its highly dubious—and often deadly—vaccines. It also serves as a cover for authoritarian measures the ruling elite have schemed to put in place for decades, measures designed to monitor and control everything you do. Orwell’s helicopters peering in bedroom windows in search of sex offenders—or drones in search of the infected and suspected vaccine scofflaws—are now a stark reality. 

Here French historian Mathilde Larrère compares the current political context with Orwell's famous dystopia, 1984, thanks to a subtle pun based on the disease's name (Covid 19) https://t.co/hm40OQnics

— Zalasta (@Zalasta) April 4, 2020

9/11 wasn’t sufficient. The reach of that false flag event’s fear quotient and authoritarian measures were limited and ultimately muted. The fairy tale prospect of cave-dwelling terrorists plotting dirty bomb attacks on kindergartens and other nefarious acts of deviltry had limited effectiveness and relatively short shelf life. 

However, an invisible virus portrayed as a pandemic on par with the Black Death is far more effective than a cartoon nemesis like Osama bin Laden in the ongoing effort to move cattle—as our rulers consider us—in the preferred direction. 

In addition to “smart” surveillance and control of the populace, the virus panic is being manipulated to cover and shift blame for a ransacked economy. 

“The economy was already faltering. The false boom stimulated by a decade of monetary meth was likely turning to bust even before the virus,” writes Keith Weiner. 

The real culprits pushing for economic collapse—the globalist financial class and kindred corporate fascists—want to attribute slamming on the economic brakes and toppling an already precarious house of cards to a virus that so far is little worse than seasonal flu, if that. 

It is now obvious a thoroughly propagandized populace will readily accept what amounts to an open-ended house arrest and the nonsensical authoritarian demands of the state—don’t go outside, don’t go to the grocery store or pharmacy, fashion DIY masks out of t-shirts and furnace filters, snitch on your neighbors if you suspect an infection, condemn the preppers as selfish hoarders, et cetera. 

Our future is no longer in doubt. The psychopathic control freaks are steering us toward world totalitarianism. Henry Kissinger recently advocated as much in the War Street Journal, following up a similar call for by the former “Right Honorable” Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. 

Henry Kissinger calls for a New Post-Covid World Order: https://t.co/YDHiUAhF4D pic.twitter.com/f0OTgjiYl6

— Aphorist 🌺 (@People1stPlanet) April 6, 2020

A virus has accomplished what the war on manufactured terror was unable to pull off—driving us with nary a bleat of complaint toward the rocks of economic and social destruction. 

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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.

A NATO teleconference last week saw Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu engage in a mini war of words, with accusations made by both sides against each other. Çavuşoğlu took the Council of Foreign Ministers of NATO meeting as an opportunity to push accusations that Greece tortured and killed illegal immigrants as they attempted to enter the European country illegally with Turkish support.

Dendias was quick to highlight that Turkey was blatantly violating the Alliance’s supposed core ‘values,’ prompting Çavuşoğlu to rise from his seat and demand that he be able to respond, which was quickly rejected by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The Turkish Foreign Minister even made another demand to be the final speaker of the teleconference, which was again rejected by Stoltenberg, prompting Çavuşoğlu to abruptly leave the meeting early.

In the aftermath of the meeting, Dendias went to Twitter to say

“There is a very basic misunderstanding on the part of Turkey. Alliance and solidarity between allied countries is not an option. They are not separate issues. It is total.”

He continued to highlight that it is well known that Turkey orchestrated the migrant crisis in March, but that Athens still wants to have positive relations with Ankara.

Although this may seem like a minor victory in Dendias’ eyes against the ‘Old Enemy,’ there is no suggestion that this has placed Greece on any higher pedestal than Turkey within NATO. Both Greece and Turkey became NATO members in 1952, becoming the first new members of the alliance since its formation with 12 original founders. Despite technically becoming NATO ‘allies,’ relations have remained hostile between Greece and Turkey, mostly notably during the 1955 Istanbul pogrom when the Greek population of the city decreased from 116,108 to 49,081, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the 1996 Imia Islet crisis.

A February 2020 poll by the highly-reliable Pew Research Center found that the majority of people in Greece (51%) and Turkey (55%) viewed NATO unfavourably – the only states of the 16 NATO members surveyed to view the U.S.-led organization in this way. For the Greek people, their frustration with NATO is that in 2019 alone, war planes belonging to NATO ‘ally’ Turkey violated Greece’s airspace 4,811 times and Ankara redrew the maritime borders of the Eastern Mediterranean on a map that claimed large swathes of Greece’s maritime space, including inhabited islands. From the Turkish perspective, they are frustrated that the U.S. openly supports the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party, that Ankara claims is a terrorist organization, and NATO not backing Turkey’s invasion of Idlib because of Greece’s veto.

However, the key difference is that Ankara attempts to manipulate NATO to achieve its geostrategic goals by also pandering to Russia. The Greek leadership on the hand takes a completely subservient role regarding NATO and makes little effort to improve its relations with Russia or become an independent state in the new multipolar system. Although only 37% of Greeks are favourable to NATO, successive governments since the collapse of Yugoslavia have hedged its bets behind the Alliance, despite having little reason to.

Turkish air violations against Greece continue unabated on a daily basis, migrants continue to try and illegally enter Greece from Turkey, and challenges to the sovereignty of Greek islands are always made, yet there has been little to no condemnation from NATO for Turkey’s actions.

In fact, only last week Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the appointment of a group of 10 experts to support his work in a reflection process to further strengthen NATO’s political dimension. This “reflection group” included the participation of Turkey, but not Greece, once again demonstrating that the Alliance will always favour Turkey to Greece as it occupies one of the most geostrategic locations in the world.

Athens will once again be compliant and not push its stake to serve Greek interests. Although the Greek people are overwhelmingly anti-U.S. and pro-Russia, it has not been reflected on government policy. This has become especially apparent since the 2008 financial crisis that crippled Greece. The country has been ruled by governments subservient to not only NATO demands ever since, but also European Union ones to ensure that the crippling IMF debt can continue to be imposed.

Effectively Greece has been hijacked by a ruling elite that continues on the same path of subserviency to NATO – no matter the political party in power. So long as Athens refuses to acknowledge the world’s power structures are changing from U.S. global hegemonic unipolarity to a balanced multipolar system, it will continue to serve NATO and have none of its interests recognized or met by the Alliance.

Meanwhile, Turkey will continue its attempts to play both Washington and Moscow for its own interests. Ankara has acknowledged the changing world system, but rather than use this new reality to seek balance in the region, it is using it to project its own influence and power in an aggressive manner. Although it failed in its invasion of Idlib and Libya, and to flood Greece with illegal immigrants in March, it will continue its pursuit of regional hegemony.

Rather, it serves both Greece and Turkey well to truly accept multipolarity for what it is – a system of balanced power.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to an intensive care unit at St. Thomas’ hospital in London, it was revealed last night. The PM had been suffering from coronavirus and had self-isolated for over a week, before being admitted to hospital on Sunday for ‘tests’ to be carried out. However, it was reported on Monday evening that the decision had been taken to move Johnson into an ICU in order for his care to be more closely monitored. A source has said that he has required oxygen, suggesting breathing difficulties, although a spokesperson said he was moved ‘as a precaution, should he require ventilation’.

The announcement came as rumours began circulating that Johnson’s condition was indeed worse than was being reported. At the daily coronavirus press briefing at 5pm on Monday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that the PM was in ‘good spirits’ and was still leading the government, but this did not tally with his admission that he hadn’t spoken to Johnson since Saturday.  Speculation that something was afoot proved correct when a Downing Street spokesperson released a statement:

“Over the course of this afternoon, the condition of the Prime Minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital.”

The UK has no formal succession plan in the instance that a prime minister becomes incapacitated, indeed it is the first time in history a sitting PM has been admitted to intensive care. Nevertheless, Boris Johnson, aged 55, has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputize for him in the meantime. There must be concern however it is only a matter of time before other ministers in the cabinet start exhibiting symptoms. After all, Johnson must have already been experiencing mild symptoms of the virus as he continued to meet with his cabinet on a daily basis.

Leaders from across the globe – from Trump to Merkel – joined UK politicians from all parties in wishing Johnson a speedy recovery. There could not be more of a symbol of just how serious this virus is, when a country’s leader succumbs to it himself. And yet, to this day there are those espousing theories that governments are exaggerating, that in fact, flu kills as many people as coronavirus each year, and it is simply a way for our governments to enforce authoritarian measures. I hope that as time goes on, people will see just how virulent this disease is and how many people from across the social spectrum are suffering.  We can only hope that then such people will begin to rethink these conspiracy theories and be more responsible in their statements.

This pandemic is of historic proportions. There are already 1,240,296 cases worldwide and the death toll sits at over 69,346. Healthcare systems are being swamped by the amount of cases. For all our modern technology, it doesn’t feel as if we are much better placed for fighting Covid-19 than we were for grappling with the Spanish influenza of the early 20th century. It is estimated that it killed between 17 and 50 million people. We can only hope that through social distancing measures now in place in many of the affected countries, that we can somehow slow down the speed of the pandemic. But it’s important we realize that we’re in it for the long haul.  We don’t yet have a vaccine for this disease; it could be months and months before social distancing measures can be rolled back. Spanish influenza lasted for 2 years, and even if we manage to ‘flatten the curve’, as it is said, we are in danger of exacerbating the pandemic once again when measures are relaxed.

The economic consequences of this pandemic for the UK are beginning to be felt.

Not only travel and aviation companies are struggling, but retail, which was already suffering due to uncertainty over Brexit. Department store chain Debenhams, a high-street brand which can trace its history as far back as 1778, has now filed for administration.

Other retailers such as Primark have opted to cancel orders with their suppliers in order to try to save their brands. We will no doubt see many more casualties to the virus in the business world. It was reported last week that 6 in 10 UK firms have no more than 3 months of funds left. Indeed as many as one million small businesses across the country could collapse over the next month.  Chancellor Rishi Sunak has promised unprecedented levels of government support to businesses, including tax holidays, loan guarantees, and paying 80% of workers wages, but some employers have said this is not enough. It is said that gaps remain in the government’s proposals and that companies need urgent financial aid now, and cannot wait weeks and months.

Uncertain times for Britain lie ahead. With the PM in intensive care, the potential for other ministers and politicians to follow suit, and more coronavirus cases every day, it is clear that this crisis has the potential to escalate even further. And yet, even when the pandemic is over, we may still feel the economic aftershocks for years to come…

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Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from TruePublica

The United States has just declared war against the coronavirus, with President Donald Trump self-proclaiming that he is now a “wartime president.” Whether one believes that the virus must be confronted with maximum aggression by effectively shutting down the country or that the measures already in place are already an overreaction hardly seems to matter as developments over the next several months will likely demonstrate what could have/might have/should have been done. But meanwhile extreme views are proliferating, with Rush Limbaugh detecting a conspiracy by Democrats and communists to destroy capitalism under “the guise of saving lives” while a more restrained but ideologically driven libertarian Ron Paul meanwhile chose to pen an article entitled “Coronavirus Hoax” that personally pilloried as a “chief fearmonger” the government’s widely respected expert on the origin and spread of the disease Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Stalin famously said that the death of one person was a tragedy while the death of a million is a statistic. For both Limbaugh and Paul an epidemic that could kill tens or even hundreds of thousands Americans produces a statistic, of lesser importance than retaining a completely corrupt Wall Street and the individual’s “liberty” to go shopping. Indeed, if greed driven American “vulture” capitalism must be preserved in its current form to protect and empower the rich, radical change might be welcomed by most Americans to include a long overdue genuine health infrastructure safety net.

Meanwhile, more rational and legitimate concerns are being raised by those who are worried about what kind of American democracy and economy will emerge on the other side. They urge the public to be particularly alert to the continuation of emergency practices at both the federal and state levels, permitting respective governments to act autocratically with little in the way of transparency or accountability.

One particular step that has been implemented is the use of cell phone tracking, without the permission of the device owners, to monitor whether separation and isolation measures are being observed by individuals who are out and about, determining whether or not they are obeying the rules in place to penalize congregating in public. It appears that the government and even at least one private presumably Israeli company now have the capability to track hundreds of thousands if not millions of phones simultaneously. This “emergency” abuse of privacy rights amounts to an illegal search and should be challenged on its constitutionality, but the real danger is that the tools used to monitor locations of phones can also be used after the claimed crisis is over to monitor perfectly legal activities of citizens. There should also be the concern that once the technology is developed to track phones a bit more tweaking might well integrate that feature into the National Security Agency’s well-established ability to intercept and record private conversations.

To be sure a different world will emerge post-coronavirus, but one might observe ruefully that some things never seem to change even in the midst of a full-blown global health crisis. Indeed, one might actually suspect that the United States, far from putting its own house in order, has actually used the virus as cover for intensifying its aggressive activities in Asia and Latin America. Along the way, it has also deliberately exploited the disease to punish those countries with which is has an adversarial relationship.

Those promoting the Trump administration’s preferred regime change “maximum pressure” policies are the top White House civilians, namely Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien. The generals, to include Secretary of Defense Mike Esper and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, view the military as already overextended and have so far resisted some of the crazier suggestions but that does not mean that the jingoistic proposals have gone away. They are still on the table being pushed most particularly by Pompeo, and as the president is remarkably easily convinced to take military action, they should be considered to be still viable.

The two proposed courses of action that recently surfaced that must be considered borderline insane both related to Iran. One of them is remarkable in that it creates two new active enemies simultaneously. It consists of a Pentagon order to regional commanders to make preparations to attack and destroy the Iraqi Shi’ite militia Kataib Hezbollah that the O’Brien/Pompeo twofer believe to be tied to Iran and responsible for recent attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq.

Lt. General Robert P. White, the U.S. top commander in Iraq responded immediately to the order, objecting that such a move would risk war with Iran while also increasing pressure on the government in Baghdad to expel American forces from the country. White also observed that he did not have sufficient forces in Iraq and any attack on an Iraqi militia that is technically part of the Iraqi Army would produce open warfare within the borders of a country that is technically an ally. If other militias, to include the numerous and well-armed Badr Army, were to join in the attacks on U.S. bases there would be no way to defend them.

The order is a compromise due to strong disagreements inside the Trump administration over how to punish Iran and its proxy Iraqi militias. Pompeo and O’Brien see the coronavirus, which has hit Iran hard, as an opportunity to destroy the militias while Iran is in no position to react. Per the New York Times, Esper approved the planning only to create options for dealing with Iraq and Iran based on the possibility that attacks against U.S. forces will increase. So far, Donald Trump has warned that Iran or a proxy militia is planning a “sneak attack” on American bases in Iraq and has stated that Iran itself would “pay a very heavy price” if it were carried out. Nevertheless, the president has only agreed to letting the planning continue, though he has also threatened to “go up the food chain,” implying that he is prepared to attack Iran directly if there is any escalation against American troops.

Pompeo and O’Brien, joined by recently appointed Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, have also been promoting a more serious endeavor, namely attacking Iran without warning and without any pretext while it is in its weakened state from the health crisis. Pompeo, O’Brien and Grenell argued that a direct attack on Iran, possibly to include hitting its naval vessels, would so weaken the regime over its inability to defend the country that its leaders would be forced to open negotiations, i.e. to surrender to Washington.

Washington has both increased sanctions and denied medicines to Iran, as well as to Venezuela, to put additional pressure on their governments vis-à-vis the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump Administration has been able to block $5 billion emergency International Monetary Fund loans to both countries while also sending warships to the Caribbean and Persian Gulf to back up the message with force if necessary. The argument being used to punish Venezuela is that it is not clear who represents the legitimate government in the country, whether it is Nicola Maduro, the president, whom Pompeo has labeled a “drug trafficker,” or Juan Guaido, the aspirant to the position of head of state being promoted by the State Department.

Much of Washington’s maneuvering has been taking place under the radar given the cover provided by the crisis over coronavirus. Venezuela aside, most of the planning has focused on Iran, the Trump White House’s most hated adversary and also, perhaps not coincidentally, the perpetual number one enemy of Israel. In another move, on March 27^th, the U.S. State Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency has announced approval of an $2.4 billion deal with Israel to buy eight KC-46A Pegasus aerial tankers.

The agreement is the first time the United States has sold actual purpose-built tanker aircraft to Israel. The KC-46A Pegasus is can carry 106 tons of fuel to refuel jet fighters and has a range of more than 6,000 miles. It will enable the Israeli Air Force to have sufficient refueling capability to directly attack Iran, its principal regional target. Israel has frequently stated its willingness to attack Iranian nuclear sites and might also exploit the opportunity afforded by the coronavirus and its aftermath to do so.

So, at a time when the American public is clamoring for assurances that everything possible is being done to deal with the coronavirus, some officials in the White House are planning new wars. If one were seeking evidence of just how dysfunctional the Trump Administration is, it would not be necessary to look any further.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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].

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

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One of the best hidden secrets amidst the cacophony of panic and media terrorism caused by the current COVID-2019 pandemic has been how successfully Nicaragua, a small, impoverished country in one of the most climate change-prone regions on the planet, has been tackling the arrival of the new coronavirus.

With 6.5 million inhabitants, Nicaragua had as of April 5th only 6 cases of COVID-19, all imported, of which 3 were active, 2 were recovered and one, ill with AIDS, had died. At the same time, the authorities kept under close surveillance some 10 people who, despite having tested negative, continue to be monitored as a precaution.

By comparison, in the Central American region, at that same date there were 4,598 confirmed cases of COVID-19 of which 4,360 were active, 167 dead and 71 recovered. In Central America, only Belize, with less than 400,000 inhabitants, has fewer confirmed cases than Nicaragua, with 5, all active.

In terms of cases per million inhabitants, Nicaragua has the lowest number of cases in the entire region, with 0.93 cases. It is followed by Guatemala, with 4.22 cases; El Salvador, with 9.56 cases; Belize, with 12.24 cases; Honduras, with 32.54 cases; Costa Rica, with 89.76 cases; and Panama, with 471.22 cases per million.

Note that the two countries with which Nicaragua has extensive and porous borders (Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south) have much higher levels of infection.

Likewise, in two countries characterized by draconian confinement and curfew measures to address the pandemic (El Salvador and Honduras), infection rates per million inhabitants are also much higher than in Nicaragua.

Sectors linked to the violent, failed 2018 opposition coup attempt in Nicaragua claim that the government figures are false and that it is not really doing anything to combat the pandemic. They say that there are so few confirmed cases because massive testing of COVID-19 has not been applied to the population.

These arguments are only viable for consumption abroad and for certain groups well out of touch with domestic opinion in the country, effectively living an illusion, since for any normal person living in Nicaragua the situation is obviously not like that.

Clearly, no health center in Nicaragua is overwhelmed with people with respiratory symptoms. According to statements by the Director General of the Ministry of Health, pneumonia cases this April, which generally increase nationally, show lower levels than last year. Last year, the population was given about one million vaccines against influenza (B, H1N1 and H3N2), while the pneumococcal vaccine was given to the elderly and to people suffering from chronic diseases.

On the other hand, where are the street protests against alleged lack of government action on the pandemic? Nowhere, only in cyberspace, in the fevered minds of people based in Miami and in some European Union countries.

The Sandinista Government’s response to the COVID-19 emergency is based on a number of pillars:

Firstly, the development of a social state based on the rule of law that has prioritized as central the social and economic rights of the population, especially health, education and the right to food. In Nicaragua, contrary to the propaganda of the Western media, there is no antagonistic relationship between the State and the population, which in the vast majority (even among a great many of the opposition minority) is confident that the police and health authorities are seeking the public good.

The secondl pillar has been the broadest possible development of public health. It should be no secret that genuine public health policy in Nicaragua only began with the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution. Before July 19th 1979, the poorest popular sectors were forced to sell their blood to the Plasmapheresis company in order to survive while endemic diseases were widespread in a country where more than half the population could not read or write.

With the first stage of the Sandinista Revolution in the 1980s came massive vaccination, prevention and hygiene campaigns, as well as training of health personnel and development of health infrastructure, all in the midst of and despite a bloody terrorist war promoted by the United States. This was because this policy was a fundamental part of the historic programme of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, formulated many years before the 1979 triumph. All that human infrastructure formed during the 1980s, based on valuing health as a basic and inalienable right, resisted the neoliberal counter-reform of 1990-2007, which sought to totally privatize health. So when the Sandinista Front returned to government in January 2007 it was able to implement the successful community health model that today confronts the emergence of COVID-19.

During the last 13 years, the Sandinista Governent has built 18 hospitals: 15 primary, 1 departmental and 2 national, all of them operating free of charge. In the medium term, there are plans to build 15 more hospitals, six of which are already under construction, including two major ones in León and in Ocotal. In addition, countless health centers and heath posts have been built from scratch or else refurbished throughout the country, as well as Maternal Shelters in Nicaragua’s prize winning system of maternity care for women from rural areas. Also, and as if this were not enough, there is a massive year round program that  actively visits urban barrios and rural communities week-in week-out providing information and free medical attention to the population who, for different reasons, cannot go to a health center.

To all this we must add the recent inauguration of a WHO approved modern molecular biology laboratory capable of analysis and testing for various diseases, including COVID-19. This laboratory is the second most advanced in the region.  In addition, since the end of 2018, Nicaragua has a drug plant with the capacity to produce 12 million influenza vaccines per year. The Cuban drug Interferon Alfa-2B, which has been successfully used to treat patients with COVID-19, is planned to be produced there.

Along with the development of this material base, the Sandinista Family and Community Health Model, conceptually formulated as early as 2008, has a broad social infrastructure in the form of sectoral, municipal, departmental and national networks that articulate public, community and private health resources that have been promoting all kinds of health campaigns for many years, especially to prevent diseases such as dengue, zika and chikungunya, in addition to all their other routine health tasks.

Several months before the alert about COVID-19, in July last year, the government had already declared an epidemiological alert to combat the above-mentioned diseases. In fact, for many years Nicaragua, due to its geographical location, has been in a permanent situation of epidemiological alert that the authorities have addressed together with local communities, giving the country better evels of health  at grass roots along with wide experience in dealing with this type of threat.

Due to its physical characteristics, Nicaragua is obliged to have a warning system for all types of threats including epidemiological, climatic (e.g. hurricanes), tectonic (seismological and volcanic) in preparation for which for many years the Sandinista government has been carrying out gigantic civil defence exercises involving millions of citizens.

As can be seen on the website of the Ministry of Health, it is false that the Government does not report on the progress of the pandemic in the country, in addition to the daily press conferences offered by its representatives and the abundant information provided through the media. Just as, in Nicaragua, there is also unrestricted freedom of disinformation, since not a single one of the deceitful right-wing media outlets has been shut down, so too there is genuine information communicated via the country’s Citizen Power media.

Since the end of February, the Nicaraguan Government has been announcing the policy to be followed in the face of the coronavirus:

• Nicaragua has not established, nor will it establish, any kind of quarantine.
• People who have symptoms of COVID-19 and also have some link to someone with the proven disease will be admitted to a health unit for study and follow-up.
• Those who also test positive for COVID-19 will be admitted to one of the centres for the treatment of patients with the disease.
• People who are admitted from countries at risk (as defined by WHO) will not be restricted from moving within the country, but will be alerted to the precautionary measures to be taken and asked for a contact number and address to follow up by phone and visits.

On January 21st, the day after Chinese authorities reported a third death from COVID-2019 and 200 infected people in Hubei province, as well as dozens of infected people in other Asian countries, the Nicaraguan Health Ministry, together with Pan American Health Organization, announced the epidemiological alert.

Ten days later, the Inter-Institutional Commission in charge of dealing with the emergency had drawn up a detailed protocol, based on its own experiences and those of the WHO, covering all aspects of the strategy for dealing with the pandemic, which is updated month by month as knowledge of the new coronavirus and COVID-19 advances.

The protocol contains detailed measures on epidemiological surveillance, laboratory and sampling procedures, organization of health services, inter-institutional organization, communication plans, etc.

During the first weeks, all health personnel were trained and all the medical infrastructure necessary to deal with the pandemic was prepared, including the inauguration on March 3rd of the molecular biology laboratory mentioned above, which allows testing for the new coronavirus.

Already on March 12th, the presidents of Central America (except Bukele of El Salvador) participated in a virtual conference to coordinate actions in the face of the pandemic. In addition, the Nicaraguan government held meetings with its border neighbours Costa Rica and Honduras to coordinate efforts against the pandemic. Certainly, Nicaragua has not adopted strident and conflictive attitudes, but rather total collaboration in the common effort to confront the pandemic.

A country like Nicaragua, dependent on foreign trade and labour income, without major natural sources of income in the form of hydrocarbons or other energy resources, cannot afford to “close” the economy lightly, much less in a situation when, at the time, there had not even been any imported cases of COVID-19.

In Nicaragua most families live from self-employment and depend on their daily income. This is similar to Honduras and El Salvador, where the draconian quarantine measures implemented have led to strong popular protests and breaches of the quarantine decreed by those governments. In El Salvador, the disruption of the delivery of $300 support payments led to protests and looting. In Honduras, the failure to deliver promised food to the population forced people to take to the streets.

With similarities to Sweden’s successful strategy to tackle the pandemic, Nicaragua bases its strategy on confidence in the population’s ability to take preventive measures while avoiding restrictions on economic activity to the greatest extent possible.

In addition, Nicaragua combines this work of public health education with a system of detection of possible cases of COVID-19, ranging from customs posts, ports and airports to work with border populations both to the north with Honduras and to the south with Costa Rica, and too with the activities of health centers and posts throughout the country as well as civil society structures in all neighborhoods and regions.

Nicaragua is a small country, it is very difficult to hide a situation of the seriousness of a COVID-19 infection. The health authorities have so far been able to track down any suspicious cases, not so as to restrict the freedom of the affected person, but to follow up and help them.

One event heavily manipulated by the Western press, and by the coup media within Nicaragua, was the “Love in the Time of COVID-19” walk held on Saturday, March 15th. This national event was interpreted in a tendentious way as a show of contempt for public health and for the protection measures against the coronavirus, when in fact the Citizen Power media supportive of the government had been covering COVID-19 promoting preventive measures against it for a couple of months.

The message conveyed by thousands of Sandinistas and people who support the Sandinista government who marched to all Nicaraguans that Saturday was that we should not lose our heads and “shut down” the country, that we should continue working but take the precautionary measures recommended in the media for weeks.

It was not until March 18th, with the report of the first case of coronavirus from a citizen who had been in Panama, that Nicaragua left the initial phase of preparation to enter the phase of imported cases, in which it currently still is. Since then, five more cases have been reported, of which two have recovered, one has died and three are under treatment.

On March 19th, now that Nicaragua has entered phase two of the pandemic, Vice President Rosario Murillo reported on the training of 250,000 volunteer health brigadistas who will visit more than one million homes throughout the country. By now, most Nicaraguan households have been visited more than once to follow up on the situation of the COVID-19 in the country.

It should be noted that all this work is by no means limited to informing the population and preparing the health system for COVID-19. The regular programs of the health system are still in place, as well as the days of free operations for the people who need them, etc. At the same time, the COVID-19 prevention campaign is also carried out alongside prevention of influenza, dengue, zika, chikungunya and other diseases that threaten the population.

At present, the Nicaraguan people are enjoying the Easter holidays in peace and with great responsibility. Many people have stayed in their neighborhoods with their families, which can be seen when they go out to the streets, which in many cases have become a space for socialization for the neighbors. However, many others have preferred to go to the different bathing spas in the country, or even in religious activities, also avoiding large crowds and observing the rules of hygiene.

For Easter Week, state employees have been given a break from April 4th to April 15th or April 17th (depending on the activity), and students until April 20th, in a kind of soft quarantine for the entire sector, which also serves to care for people in groups at risk from COVID-19 without burdening family members who are self-employed.

The future development of the pandemic in Nicaragua is not yet known. It could be, as indicated by some U.S. researchers, that the higher levels of vaccination of the population with BCG against tuberculosis compared to those of the Euro-American countries as well as Latin and Central American countries, will translate into a lower impact of COVID-19 in Nicaragua. If so, this would become a tribute to the massive vaccination campaigns that Sandinismo has promoted over the past 40 years.

Another element to be taken into account to explain the lower incidence of this pandemic in Nicaragua so far is the decline of Euro-American tourism following the defeated violent coup attempt in April 2018. In any case, there are a number of factors at play in this regard, especially the attentive operational activity, devoid of hysteria that the Sandinista government has shown in facing this emergency.

One thing is certain, however: If the Sandinista Government had acted before the COVID-19 as its neighbors in Honduras and El Salvador, the economic losses would have been enormous even before entering the peak of the pandemic in our region. Let us remember that the levels of contagion per million inhabitants in Central America are still much lower than those in Europe or North America. By the end of Holy Week, both Honduras and El Salvador will have suffered enormous losses, incurring unpayable debts and irretrievable damage to their relationship with the population.

Meanwhile, Nicaragua is still waiting for the pandemic to develop, so far without local community contagion, with all the resources of its health system intact, with valuable experience accumulated in treating the few cases that have occurred and with a strengthened relationship with the civilian population.

The Sandinista Front, and especially under the leadership of President Comandante Daniel Ortega together with Vice President Compañera Rosario Murillo, is expert in the art of mass political manoeuvring, or in other words, in rapid, operational political manoeuvring involving organised, disciplined and broad masses of people.

There are many historical examples of this, for example: the organization in a few months of the award-winning National Literacy Crusade in 1979-80; the organization of the Patriotic Military Service in the 1980s; the exchange of the entire national currency in less than 24 hours in 1988 (which deprived the Contra of billions of córdobas that had fled to Honduras); the years of disciplined restraint when faced with unremitting right wing government provocations, right up to the defeat of the failed “soft coup” of 2018, when many people outside Nicaragua believed that the Sandinista Front was defeated.

To the changing scenarios of COVID-19 the Sandinista Government will respond in a flexible but decisive manner, prioritizing the most vulnerable sectors so as to affect the popular economy as little as possible, aware that, more than a disease to be defeated, COVID-19 is a challenge to the ability of society as a whole to function, more a virus of society than a virus of the individual.

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Featured image: 250,000 volunteer health promoters have made 2.3 million house to house visits to educate about COVID-19, just one of many activities undertaken by the Sandinista government to address the pandemic. (Photo El 19 Digital)

The DeVos Department of Education’s new “Proposed Rules” for federal regulations of “Distance Education and Innovation” (85 FR 18638) will effectively open the floodgates for online education corporations to put public brick-and-mortar schools out of business by streamlining “adaptive-learning and other artificial intelligence” technologies that replace “human instructors” with “competency-based education (CBE)” software which provide “direct assessment” through “subscription-based” courseware that data-mine students’ cognitive-behavioral algorithms to “personalize” digital lessons.

What Is Computerized CBE? No More Classrooms, No More “Credit Hours”:

As I have documented in several articles, “CBE” is a euphemism for educational methods that deploy computer modules based on Harvard Psychologist B. F. Skinner’s “teaching machines,” which implement operant-conditioning methods to “shape” student learning into “competent” behaviors geared toward college or career readiness. The terms “competency-based education” and “CBE” are used 147 times in the new Proposed Rules for 85 FR 18638, which is a total of 64 pages long. Compare this to the 392-pages of federal legislation that cover the entire Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which only contains 6 references to “competency-based education.”

According to Skinnerian CBE advocates, competency-based computer learning at home is better than human instruction in a classroom because the one-to-one student/computer ratio enables each student to learn at his or her own pace. 85 FR 18638 states “CBE programs . . . measure student progress based on their demonstration of specific competencies rather than sitting in a seat or at a computer for a prescribed period of time. Many CBE programs are designed to permit students to learn at their own pace.” Stated differently, when a student enrolled in CBE courseware is ready to move on to the next lesson, he or she can click on the next learning module without having to wait for the teacher to deliver the next lecture. And if a CBE student is not ready to move on to the next virtual lesson, he or she can remediate by repeating the same digital learning module without being “left behind” when the teacher moves on to the next lecture.

“Subscription-Based” Distance Learning, Pay-as-You-Go

To facilitate “self-paced” CBE learning, online education corporations and other software companies are offering “subscription-based” e-learning services that enroll students on a pay-as-you-go basis. These self-paced CBE courses allow a student to “subscribe” for enrollment into virtual-learning modules which can be rolled over with monthly subscription fees for as long or as soon as it takes for the student to demonstrate “competency” in the course.

Now that basically every US school has converted to virtual “distance learning” through computers, 85 FR 18638 is attempting to loosen federal requirements for self-paced CBE courseware so that online education corporations can rake in federal funding for delivering more subscription-based “competency” lessons through digital platforms:

[c] urrent regulations require an institution to evaluate a student’s pace of completion by dividing completed credits over attempted credits. This calculation is difficult to apply in competency-based programs, including subscription-based programs, because there is often no set period of time during which a student “attempts” a competency in such programs; rather, the student works on a competency until he or she can demonstrate mastery of it. Given the limitations in this proposed definition on a student’s eligibility to receive additional disbursements [of federal funds], we believe it is unnecessary and needlessly burdensome for an institution’s SAP policy to include pace requirements for subscription-based programs.

In other words, these new (de)regulations will relax the legal requirements for online education corporations to receive federal funds, such as financial aid grants, as payments for students’ CBE subscription fees. It should be noted that “subscription-based” e-learning is referenced 112 times in these new Proposed Rules.

Adaptive Learning = Post-Human Artificial Intelligence

As I have documented in numerous articles, self-paced CBE subscriptions and “adaptive-learning” software basically go hand in hand. CBE “courseware” subscriptions “personalize” lessons for students through “adaptive-learning” computers, which are nothing less than modern digitalized versions of the “Skinner box,” or “teaching machine.” Adaptive-learning software revamps B. F. Skinner’s “programmed instruction” with “artificial intelligence” that automates “stimulus-response” methods of educational psychology to train students for academic and career “competences.”

Essentially, adaptive-learning courseware enables “self-paced” learning because the psychological-conditioning software “adapts” its lessons based on how the student “responds” to the virtual “stimuli,” such as multiple-choice or short-answer modules on digital windows. The faster the student responds with correct answers, the faster the learning stimuli will progress the student towards full “competence” at the end of the subscription-based course’s module sequence.

Incentivizing broader enrollment in subscription-based adaptive-learning courseware, 85 FR 18638 expands the definition of accreditable “academic engagement” as ” participation by a student in . . . an online course with an opportunity for interaction or an interactive tutorial, webinar, or other interactive computer-assisted instruction. . . . Such interaction could include the use of artificial intelligence or other adaptive learning tools.” Under this revised definition of “academic engagement,” schools will be given expanded flexibility to accredit a vast range of self-paced CBE curriculums delivered by online education companies through adaptive-learning AI that programs students with operant-conditioning algorithms.

Moreover, “academic engagement” is being further expanded to give adaptive CBE courseware the greenlight to phase out certain requirements for human instruction: “[a]ctive engagement . . . could include the use of artificial intelligence or other adaptive learning tools so that the student is receiving feedback from technology-mediated instruction. The interaction need not be exclusively with a human instructor.” Indeed, adaptive AI can deliver “feedback” on student learning through “direct assessment,” which is referenced 226 times in the new Proposed Rules.

Of course, in a bankrupt economy where people are locked down under emergency pandemic pretenses, such adaptive AI courseware will be more convenient since the software can be available for the student 24-hours a day (unlike a human teacher). In addition, the non-human AI bots will be much cheaper than human instructors who need to be fed and housed. So it looks like the proposed (de)regulations will set up incentives which will ensure that the virtual-learning industry is able to swallow up federal education funds while public brick-and-mortar schools and human teachers are starved out into obsolescence.

To be sure, AI adaptive-learning algorithms are evolving faster than legislators can deliberate on new regulations for such new “machine learning” innovations. Thus, to get out of the way of “progress,” 85 FR 18638 is basically writing a blank check for AI corporations to sell schools and students new e-learning products and ed-tech “updates” without preliminary regulatory permission from the federal government:

[t] he current regulations [which] do not address subscription-based programs or consider programs made possible through artificial intelligence-driven adaptive learning. . . . Because of the time it takes to implement new regulations, it is unlikely that the Department will be able to keep pace with developing technologies and other innovations in real time. These proposed regulations attempt to remove barriers that institutions face when trying to create and implement new and innovative ways of providing education to students, and also provide sufficient flexibility to ensure that future innovations we cannot yet anticipate have an opportunity to move forward without undue risk of a negative program finding or other sanction on an institution.

To put it another way, AI-learning algorithms evolve faster than legislators can regulate, so these new federal rules will “remove barriers” to AI ed-tech progress by allowing educational institutions the “flexibility” to rubberstamp new AI courseware programs without prior regulatory approval from the US Department of Ed.

But if the federal government allows AI ed-tech to develop faster than Congress can regulate, then the Department of Ed will render itself into a mere ceremonial bureaucracy that has abdicated its authority to AI algorithms, which means artificial intelligence will be in the driver’s seat taking control of the future of education policy as virtual distance learning becomes the mainstream mode of schooling in a post-corona economy.

It should be noted that Edgar McCulloch, who is a Government Relations representative of the IBM Corporation, sat on the “Accreditation and Innovation negotiating committee” involved in the proposal of these new federal rules. This is worth noting because IBM develops AI ed-tech through its Watson artificial-intelligence program which partners with the globalist Pearson Education LLC: the “world’s largest education company,” which also runs online schooling companies including Connections Academy.

How much stimulus money will be vacuumed up by online education corporations and AI courseware companies under these new federal rules? Will brick-and-mortar schools be able to survive in a post-corona economy in which people are either heavily travel restricted or too poor to pay for school buildings and human employees? Will human teachers, or even human ethics, survive in a world in which the total deregulation of technocratic advancement exalts AI as the judge, jury, and executioner of human learning?

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This article was originally published on OpEdNews.com.

John Klyczek has an MA in English and has taught college rhetoric and research argumentation for over eight years. His literary scholarship concentrates on the history of global eugenics and Aldous Huxley’s dystopic novel, Brave New World. He is the author of School World Order: The Technocratic Globalization of Corporatized Education (TrineDay Books); and he is a contributor to the Centre for Research on Globalization, OpEdNews, the Intrepid Report, the Dissident Voice, Blacklisted News, the Activist Post, News With Views, The Saker, Rense News, David Icke News, Natural News, and the SGT Report. He is also the Director of Writing and Editing at Black Freighter Productions (BFP) Books. His website is schoolworldorder.info.

I 30 ministri degli Esteri della Nato (per l’Italia Luigi Di Maio), riunitisi il 2 aprile in videoconferenza, (1) hanno incaricato il generale  UsaTod Wolters, Comandante Supremo Alleato in Europa, di «coordinare il necessario appoggio militare per combattere la crisi del coronavirus».

È lo stesso generale  che, al Senato degli Stati uniti il 25 febbraio, ha dichiarato che «le forze nucleari sostengono ogni operazione militare Usa in Europa» e che lui è «sostenitore di una flessibile politica del primo uso» delle armi nucleari, ossia dell’attacco nucleare di sorpresa. (2) («Alla nostra salute ci pensa il dottor Stranamore», il manifesto, 24 marzo). (3)

Il generale Wolters è comandante supremo della Nato in quanto capo del Comando Europeo degli Stati uniti. Fa quindi parte della catena di comando del Pentagono, che ha la priorità assoluta. Quali siano le sue rigide regole lo conferma un recente episodio: il capitano della portaerei Roosevelt, Brett Crozier, è stato rimosso dal comando perché, di fronte al diffondersi del coronavirus a bordo, ha violato il segreto militare sollecitando l’invio di aiuti.(4)

Per «combattere la crisi del coronavirus» il generale Wolters dispone di «corridoi preferenziali per voli militari attraverso lo spazio aereo europeo», dove sono quasi scomparsi i voli civili. Corridoi preferenziali vengono usati anche dai bombardieri Usa da attacco nucleare B2-Spirit: il 20 marzo, decollati da Fairford in Inghilterra, si sono spinti, insieme a caccia norvegesi F-16, fin sull’Artico verso il territorio russo(5). In tal modo – spiega il generale Basham delle Forze aeree Usa in Europa –  «possiamo rispondere con prontezza ed efficacia alle minacce nella regione, dimostrando la nostra risolutezza a portare ovunque nel mondo la nostra potenza di combattimento».(6)

Mentre la Nato è impegnata a «combattere il coronavirus» in Europa, due dei maggiori Alleati europei, Francia e Gran Bretagna, inviano loro navi da guerra nei Caraibi. La nave da assalto anfibio Dixmund è salpata il 3 aprile da Tolone verso la Guyana francese per quella che il presidente Macron definisce «una operazione militare senza precedenti». denominata «Resilienza»,  nel quadro della «guerra al coronavirus».(7)  La Dixmund può svolgere la funzione secondaria di nave ospedale con 69 letti, 7 dei quali per terapie intensive. Il ruolo primario di questa grande nave, lunga 200 m e con un ponte di volo di 5000 m², è quello dell’assalto anfibio: avvicinatasi alla costa nemica, attacca con decine di elicotteri e mezzi da sbarco che trasportano truppe e mezzi corazzati. Caratteristiche analoghe, anche se su scala minore, ha la nave britannica  RFA Argus, salpata il 2 aprile verso la Guyana britannica.(8)

Le due navi europee si posizioneranno nelle stesse acque caraibiche nei pressi del Venezuela dove sta arrivando la flotta  da guerra – con le più moderne navi da combattimento litorale (costruite anche dall’italiana Leonardo per la US Navy) e migliaia di marines – inviata dal presidente Trump ufficialmente per bloccare il narcotraffico. Egli accusa il presidente venezuelano Maduro di «approfittare della crisi del coronavirus per accrescere il traffico di droga con cui finanzia il suo narco-Stato».(9)

Scopo dell’operazione, appoggiata dalla Nato, è rafforzare la stretta dell’embargo per strangolare economicamente il Venezuela (paese con le maggiori riserve petrolifere del mondo), la cui situazione è aggravata dal coronavirus che ha iniziato a diffondersi. L’obiettivo è deporre il presidente Maduro regolarmente eletto (sulla cui testa gli Usa hanno posto una taglia di 15 milioni di dollari) e instaurare un governo che porti il paese nella sfera di dominio Usa. Non è escluso che possa essere provocato un incidente che serva da pretesto per l’invasione del Venezuela.

La crisi del coronavirus crea condizioni internazionali favorevoli a una operazione di questo tipo, magari presentata come «umanitaria».

 Manlio Dinucci

Notes

(1)http://www.rfi.fr/en/europe/20200402-nato-coronavirus-covid-19-defence-budget

(2)https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wolters_02-25-20.pdf

(3)https://ilmanifesto.it/alla-nostra-salute-ci-pensa-il-dottor-stranamore/

(4)https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/captain-crozier-captain-crozier-videos-show-sailors-sending-off-ousted-uss-roosevelt-commander-with-cheers-1.624732

(5)https://www.businessinsider.com/b2-stealth-bomber-flight-over-iceland-with-f15s-norwegian-f35s-2020-3

(6)https://www.stripes.com/news/europe/us-allies-test-air-and-missile-defense-in-southern-europe-1.584823

(7)https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/depart-du-porte-helicopteres-dixmude-vers-la-zone-antilles-guyane-819320.html

(8)https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/rfa-argus-sails-for-the-caribbean-ready-to-provide-medical-support-if-needed/

(9)https://nypost.com/2020/04/02/us-to-deploy-navy-near-venezuela-to-stop-drug-trade/

In the midst of the most horrendous crisis to confront the entire human family in recent decades, the United States elite, it appears, is hell-bent on perpetuating massive sanctions against certain states and affecting regime change in some of them. Sanctions cause much pain and suffering and even death on a wide scale.  One would have thought that given what the global Coronavirus pandemic has wrought in the US, its elite would seek to lift sanctions it has imposed upon societies determined to protect their independence and sovereignty.

By looking at three well-known victims of US sanctions, we shall show how the coronavirus crisis has helped to bring to the fore some of the issues that challenge them. Iran has been under comprehensive sanctions which have become increasingly harsh since 1980. There is no need to emphasise that it is because Iran after the Islamic Revolution of February 1979 refused to yield to US dictates and chose to champion the Palestinian cause through deeds rather than words that it found itself the target of the superpower of the day. Iran has made it very clear that though it is going through great difficulties as a result of the Coronavirus it will not accept any assistance from the US unless the US lifts the sanctions. It has however applied for financial help from the IMF which according to some sources has been blocked by the US government that exercises considerable influence over that multilateral institution. China and other countries from the European Union have come to Iran’s aid.

It is significant that citizens’ organisations in Iran have extended a hand to the poorer segment of US society which is bearing the brunt of the pandemic that has now crippled the country. Cuba is yet another country under US sanctions for much longer — since 1961 — which has also reached out to the people of the US. The entire world as demonstrated year in, and year out, in the UN General Assembly   —- with the exception of the US and Israel — wants the sanctions against Cuba lifted. And yet the US government arrogantly perpetuates the blockade even in the midst of the Coronavirus that has killed more than 10,000 Americans. It is worth noting that Cuba with its limited resources has done more than most other countries in trying to assist other virus stricken countries in various parts of the world.

Venezuela is a third country under severe mainly US sanctions that has been forced to pay a huge price for its legitimate desire to protect its independence and sovereignty.  As with Iran and Cuba, it is not just sanctions that are employed to suffocate Venezuela. There was a coup in April 2002 against then Venezuelan president, the late Hugo Chavez in order to affect a regime change which failed because of people power. Now in 2020 the adversaries of the Venezuelan people have hatched a bizarre tale of current president Nicolo Maduro’s involvement in international drug trafficking with the aim of flooding the US market with cocaine. An utterly baseless and ludicrous charge if one knows anything at all about drug routes and production centres in the region, this is the latest attempt to oust the democratically elected president in Caracas in the midst of a health pandemic.

It is obvious that the US elite’s geopolitical machinations are as malicious as ever in spite of a crisis that has brought so much devastation and death to so many. It is because human suffering is so rife and rampant even in the US and the Western world that many of us are hoping the US elite will show some compassion and eliminate sanctions which have also caused so much pain and misery and loss of life to hundreds of thousands of human beings in almost every continent for decades. It is the same concern for human suffering that prompted some NGOs to call for a global ceasefire as the Coronavirus took its toll. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Gutteres has endorsed the plea. Many governments have also supported the call but they have not translated rhetoric into action.

The Coronavirus pandemic demands action. And many have acted to demonstrate global solidarity. In geopolitical terms, lifting sanctions and observing ceasefires in all the conflict zones would be convincing proof of our common humanity. They would reflect the truth of the wisdom embodied in the immortal lines of the 14^th century poet Sheikh Saidi:

The human race is a single being

Created from one jewel

If one member is struck

All must feel the blow

Only someone who cares for the pain of others

Can truly be called human.

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Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), Malaysia.

Featured image is from podur.org

Among the countries affected by the global pandemic, it is undeniable that there is a certain imbalance in media coverage, with some very affected countries being scarcely followed by the news, while in other locations the situation is overestimated. An example of what is being said here is the case of Ecuador, about which little or nothing has been said in the mainstream mass media around the world. The collapsed South American country began the biggest crisis in its recent history. The fragile Ecuadorian public health structure was not efficient to deal with even the first cases of COVID-19, causing the infection to spread quickly. The government’s slowness in taking action to control the crisis was also a key factor in building the current scenario: Ecuador, in a very short time, became the country with the highest number of deaths per capita due to the new coronavirus in Latin America.

In order to be aware of the exponential growth of the infection in the country, Ecuador reported its first positive of new coronavirus on February 29 and, today, already confirms almost 3,700 cases and more than 180 deaths. However, these figures are far from representing the reality of the country’s infection. With the rapid expansion of the disease, the huge number of people in hospitals caused the national health system to collapse in a few days, generating such a situation that many people become ill and even die without ever going to a hospital, making it impossible to identify the actual number of patients in the country.

“It is a sum of several factors, but the main thing is that in Ecuador we have not strictly followed all the measures that must be taken to face an emergency of this magnitude, nor have people paid attention to government alerts,” said Esteban Ortiz, an Ecuadorian epidemiologist from the University of the Americas, in an interview with the BBC Spanish edition. The same researcher relates the emergence of the disease in Ecuador to the close ties between the country and Spain – with a constant flow of people – in addition to the failure in closing the airports and adopting the mandatory quarantine.

“[Patient zero] came from Spain and spent several days at her family’s house, participating in social gatherings, where he infected other people, including his sister, who also died due to the coronavirus in a few weeks (…) And there was, at that time, no strict control after his arrival (…) It is true that this [the delay in closing airports and adopting quarantine] is a factor that influenced the number of infections – although not the only one – especially in Guayaquil and Quito, where are the international airports and where most cases occurred,” said Ortiz.

However, in order to better understand the Ecuadorian crisis, we have to analyze it deeply, studying mainly the political turmoil in the country. Current President Lenín Moreno has recently become the West’s best bet for Ecuador. Moreno had previously been Vice President of Rafael Correa. Having ruled the country for a decade, Correa created the moment of greatest social and political stability in Ecuador, starting the process he called the “Citizen Revolution”, reducing poverty and increasing the country’s middle class. Moreno was, for a long time, his ally, but things changed completely in 2017, when the current president was elected, supported by Correa and his constituency in a sphere of “continuity” that was broken immediately after Moreno took office.

Moreno immediately started an internal coup in the party, allying himself with the neoliberal right and initiating a policy of scrapping and dismantling the entire legacy of Rafael Correa, approving measures of “economic austerity”, liberalization, privatizations and reducing the country’s social indexes. On the international stage, Moreno’s capitulation to the liberal hegemonic forces is even clearer, considering that it was he who betrayed Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, handing him over to Interpol.

The result of Moreno’s neoliberal alignment has clear effects on the way the country deals with the pandemic. The arrival of the coronavirus in Ecuador was combined with a profound social factor: extreme mass poverty and scrapped public services. Within days, the failed Ecuadorian public health structure gave way to a massive demand for tests and treatments for the new coronavirus. With the immediate collapse, most of the Ecuadorian population is left to their own devices. Still, not even the funeral market is being effective in dealing with the demand for services, which, added to the impossibility of a good part of the poor population to pay the funeral costs, is generating a scenario of sanitary catastrophe, with bodies being abandoned or burned in the streets of the country’s popular neighborhoods.

With a good part of the population thrown into poverty and unable to pay for a test to discover if they are infected, how can we trust the official data? If the figures reported by the government are already alarming, in fact, the actual figures for COVID-19 in Ecuador must be even more catastrophic. All of this is the result of the liberalization and scrapping policies promoted by Moreno to encourage privatization and submission to the financial market. Now, who will help Ecuador? With practically the whole of South America facing serious problems of infection and the USA, Moreno’s main ally, being the country most affected by the disease in the world, Ecuador may be left alone with the catastrophe, paying the price of its own political, geopolitical and economic decisions.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

The United States Strategic National Stockpile of essential medical supplies maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, seems unable to respond to the present COVID-19 crisis.  There is much discussion in today’s news about who is responsible for the shortcomings. Did Trump find the shelves empty or full when he took office after President Obama? Is the stockpile meant to support local governments in dealing with shortages in such a crisis, as the DHHS website said until last Friday, or is it specifically meant for use by the federal government, “our stockpile… not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use,” as White House senior advisor Jared Kushner insists, a view supported by the newly amended DHHS website?

The United States maintains other strategic stockpiles, more carefully and at a far greater expense. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a stockpile of oil and gasoline and in 2009, President Obama announced the “Stockpile Stewardship Program,” pledging more than a trillion dollars to ensure the “safety, security, and reliability” and the “life extension” of the deteriorating nuclear weapons stockpile. A common dictionary definition of the word “stewardship” is an ethic that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources for the future, but in 2009, President Obama was not speaking of stewardship over the fragile environment, nor over the crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges and tunnels, nor hospitals or schools, nor even stewardship for our national parks and forests, but stewardship for a stockpile of nuclear weapons. The “life extension” he called for was not for the world’s elderly increasingly at risk, but for the aging arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that threaten the obliteration of all life.

President Trump’s determination to purge his predecessor’s legacy does not apply to Obama’s Stockpile Stewardship Program. With unique bipartisan support, the life extension of nuclear weapons has been kept safe from Trump’s budget cuts that decimated the United States’ ability to respond to a pandemic.

On this day in 1967, one year before he was killed, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech at New York’s Riverside Church titled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” that speaks to the present situation where weapons of mass destruction have priority over instruments of healing.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift,” Dr. King declared, “is approaching spiritual death.”

In this speech Dr. King labeled the “triple evils of militarism, racism, and materialism” and he lamented that “adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube” while human needs, especially those of the poor, went unmet.

Among the synonyms for the word “stockpile,” along with “cache,” “hoard,” “store” and “lay-away” is the word “treasure.” We stockpile what is valuable to us, the things that we treasure, what we want to keep for the future. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Judging by our budget priorities, preserving the threat of nuclear destruction is closer to our collective heart than even our health and our lives and we have arrived at the spiritual death Dr. King warned of 52 years ago.

While there is life, there is hope, though, and we are at a critical moment. As horrible as the COVID-19 pandemic is, it will run its course and humanity will go on. The same cannot be said, however, of the imminent threats of nuclear destruction and climate collapse. We will not survive on this planet so long as stewardship over stockpiles of fossil fuels and nuclear weapons takes priority over ventilators and surgical masks. So long as what “life extension” means is keeping nuclear weaponry up to date and not healthcare, housing, education, the peace and wellbeing of all, there can be no hope.

“I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values,” said Dr. King.

52 years later, our very existence as a species is at risk and the radical revolution of values that he preached is our best hope.

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Brian Terrell is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and is sheltering-in-place at a Catholic Worker Farm in Maloy, Iowa.

Featured image is from VCNV

In a letter issued on Sunday, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro warned the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump against making any unwise military decisions against the Bolivarian Republic. 

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza read a letter on Sunday that Venezuelan President Maduro sent to the people of the United States, following Washington’s recent threats toward the Bolivarian Republic.

In the letter, the head of state indicated that “in Venezuela we do not want an armed conflict in our nation, we cannot accept war threats,” and urged the American people not to believe in the reasons that Trump indicates for attacking Venezuela.

President Maduro urged the people in the United States to not believe Trump’s statements about “fighting drug trafficking”, calling these claims by the U.S. leader false and unfounded.

In the text, President Nicolás Maduro rejected the threats of the Trump administration against Venezuela that seek to lead the region to an expensive, bloody and indefinite armed conflict.

“We in Venezuela do not want an armed conflict in our region. We want fraternal relationships, cooperation, exchange and respect, “he said.

He stated that the country cannot accept war threats, or blockades, nor the intention to install an international guardianship that violates sovereignty and ignores the advances of the last year in the political dialogue between the government and a large part of the Venezuelan opposition.

After showing solidarity with the U.S. people that are suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, he called on the people of the country to hold their leaders accountable and compel them to focus their attention and resources on the necessary and urgent fight against the pandemic.

Furthermore, he requested the cessation of military threats, the end of illegal sanctions and the blockade that restricts access to humanitarian supplies, which are so necessary today in the country to combat this virus.

“I ask you, with your heart in your hands, not to allow your country to be drawn, once again, to another endless conflict, another Vietnam or another Iraq, but this time closer to home,” the letter highlights.

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Featured image: Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza reads the letter President Nicolas Maduro penned to the people of the United States. | Photo: MCPPI

Cash has been the target of the banking and financial elites for years. Now, the coronavirus pandemic is being used to frighten the masses into accepting a cashless society. That would mean the death of what’s left of our free society.

CBS News, CNN, and other mainstream outlets are fearmongering again. Alarmism is nothing new in the media world, but this time, it’s not about triggering panic buying or even pushing a political agenda.

The war on cash is about imposing a new meta-narrative. As economist Joseph Salerno explains, the cashless society forces all payments to be made through the financial system. It doesn’t end with monopoly control over transactions, though.

Being bound to computers for transactions kicks the door wide open to hardcore surveillance of personal activity and location data. Being eternally on the grid means relentless taxation and negative interest rates, which the Federal Reserve is already gearing up for.

None of this bothers the well-heeled boosters of a cashless society or their lackeys in the media. They want Americans reading about the threat of coronavirus cooties on their cash, which is absurd.

Germs, of course, can loiter all over credit and debit cards, smartphones, ATMs, and every other cash alternative device. Too bad implanted microchip technology isn’t further along, the banksters must be thinking.

In another CNN article, readers are practically shamed for withdrawing cash to save during a crisis. Every sentence, every word, every letter of the article is nuts.

It begins by reassuring the reader that their bank account is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). There’s no mention of moral hazard from CNN. The fact that the federal government guarantees every bank account up to $250,000 encourages reckless financial and banking behavior. Not worth mentioning, CNN?

Prior to the end of World War II, there were $500, $1,000, and $10,000 bills in wide circulation. This cash was dissolved by the Federal Reserve in the name of fighting organized crime. This same argument is now being made against $50 and $100 bills by Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff.

In the Wall Street Journal, Rogoff also wrote that a cashless society would offer such benefits as “greater flexibility for the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy when necessary.”

He wrote those words in 2017. And these too:

“The Federal Reserve should be able to implement negative nominal interest rates vastly more effectively in the absence of large bills, which could prove quite important as a stimulative tool in the next financial crisis.”

Prophetic. And indeed, negative interest rates would require the assistance of outlawing cash, so that banking customers don’t cheat by simply drawing out on their accounts.

Pardon the pun, but it’s absolutely sick how COVID-19 is being used now as a launching pad for this cashless agenda. There’s nothing to fear about using cash during this time of social distancing.

Wash your hands after handling cash, but don’t give up your moolah. Preserve your health, your privacy, and your liberty.

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It happened in the US before. It’s happening again in various ways at a time when perhaps harder than ever hard times may be just beginning.

First some background and related thoughts. 

The Great Depression of the 1930s in the US followed prosperity marred by excesses in the 20s. The October 1929 stock market crash changed everything, ordinary people hit hardest.

Earlier goods times left out America’s underclass. Prosperity in the 1920s didn’t include most Blacks, other people of color, a new immigrant generation, poor southern sharecroppers and tenant farmers, nor many others in the US nationwide.

Throughout its history, America, Land of Opportunity has always been overshadowed by inequality between the haves and have-nots.

Unemployed men standing in line outside a depression soup kitchen in Chicago 1931. (Public Domain)

In 1962, Michael Harrington’s “The Other America” exposed the nation’s dark dark side enough for Jack Kennedy to ask White House Council of Economic Advisor chairman, Walter Heller, to do something about it.

Following JFK’s state sponsored assassination in November 1963, Lyndon Johnson (on January 8, 1964) “declare(d) unconditional war on poverty in America.”

It fell way short of addressing the extent of the problem nationwide. Today, Washington’s bipartisan criminal class is going the other way — marginalizing the rights and wealth of ordinary people so privileged ones can be richer and more powerful.

Almost 60 years ago, Harrington said the following:

“In morality and in justice, every citizen should be committed to abolishing the other America, for it is intolerable that the richest nation in human history should allow such needless suffering.”

“But more than that, if we solve the problem of the other America we will have learned how to solve the problems of all of America.”

It didn’t happen in the 1960s. Today, things are on a slippery slope toward becoming a ruler/serf/totalitarian society that’s more intrusive, unsafe and unfit to live in than earlier — what only a grassroots national convulsion can have any chance to stop and shift things in a positive direction.

Change always comes bottom up, never top down. Privileged classes don’t change unless pushed hard.

In times like now, reality hits home hardest when many US workers above the poverty line are added to its underclass.

It happened during the Great Depression. It appears to be happening again now.

While growing mass unemployment won’t be a permanent state, what will follow when current crisis conditions end?

Will the US return to pre-COVID-19 conditions or is permanent transformation underway that will change the lives of ordinary Americans irreparably?

As explained in an earlier article, crises are times when ruling authorities convince people to sacrifice personal freedoms for greater security — not realizing that both will be lost.

Ruling authorities take advantage of times like now by instituting draconian policies they’re unable to introduce during normal times without risking mass rebellion.

The US is permanently at war abroad against invented enemies, what the scourge of imperialism is all about.

Most people are unaware that what’s happening abroad is ongoing at home by other means.

Post-9/11, human and civil rights were sharply curtailed. Enormous amounts of wealth were transferred from ordinary people to the nation’s privileged class.

A secretive military, industrial, national security state threatens everyone everywhere — a scheme for unchallenged global dominance by eliminating whatever stands in the way of achieving this diabolical objective.

Anyone challenging what’s going on risks being treated as a national security threat, including investigative journalists like Julian Assange and whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden for exposing US wrongdoing.

Speech, press, and academic freedoms in the US are more greatly threatened than ever before, most people none the wiser.

The US needs enemies at home and abroad to advance its agenda so they’re invented to justify what’s unjustifiable.

The Global War on Terror is the greatest hoax in modern times – along with the no-peace/Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Big Brother is real watching everyone. The nation I grew up in no longer exists. One-party rule with two extremist right wings today threatens virtually everything just societies hold dear.

In my 9th decade, I may never be around enough to know how things turn out longer-term.

Will ordinary people be transformed into serfs to serve the interests of the rich and powerful?

Will America be consumed by its arrogance and hubris? Will it destroy planet earth and its life forms?

America was never beautiful when I was young. Today its ruling class may enslave the majority, eliminate nonbelievers, or kill us all by its rage to dominate unchallenged.

Image on the right: An impoverished American family living in a shanty, 1936 (Public Domain)

Pre-1930s poverty in the US became far greater after the 1929 stock market crash. Many in the middle class and some high-income families experienced it for the first time.

The American dream became a national nightmare for the great majority in the country.

Unemployment increased from 3% to 25%. Today it may go much higher.

In the 1930s, some US cities experienced up to 80% unemployment because of lost manufacturing and construction activity — dropping 54% and 78% respectively.

Around 80% of auto manufacturing halted. Suicides increased. Politicians and businessmen feared rebellion.

FDR’s New Deal was largely motivated by wanting to save capitalism at a time when echoes of 1917 revolution in czarist Russia were still audible.

Roosevelt reportedly said: “If I fail, I shall be the last one.” He took office when the US was in upheaval.

NGOs were overwhelmed with requests for help and needed it large-scale, the same true for states and local communities.

A national solution was needed then and again now. During the Great Depression, Roosevelt partly delivered.

There was New Deal leadership. Today there’s Donald Trump, and a dubious cast of characters surrounding him. They and most congressional members are largely indifferent to growing public needs.

It took buildup for war and WW II to end hard times in the 1930s because federal programs spent too little, why Great Depression years continued for a decade.

An alphabet soup of programs were initiated to revive the economy and help the unemployed.

Lots of jobs were created but not enough to end hard times. A small-scale food stamp program was established for needly federal workers, not all Americans in need.

Charitable organizations distributed free bread and soup to impoverished Americans in New York, Chicago and elsewhere.

Mobster Al Capone fed the hungry on the city’s south side under a banner that read:

“Free Soup Coffee & Doughnuts for the Unemployed.”

In December 1931, the Chicago Tribune headlined: “120 000 meals are served by Capone Free Soup Kitchen” — a PR triumph for Big Al at the time, who also was public enemy No. 1.

He showed up at times to shake hands and offer encouragement to the downtrodden.

Like other soup kitchens at the time, his served three meals a day. On a Thanksgiving Thursday, he served free beef stew for everyone. The site is now a parking lot.

The term breadline refers to poor, hungry people lining up for free food. During the Great Depression, some stretched for blocks daily.

Initially run largely by private organizations and churches, government got involved because of overwhelming public need.

They operated in cities and towns nationwide. They offered little nutritional sustenance but something was better than nothing.

During his 1928 presidential campaign, Herbert Hoover said the US was “nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”

In their book titled “A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression,” Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe discussed feeding the hungry at the time.

Beginning in early 1930s, breadlines grew in number and size to feed the hungry without jobs.

In 1931, growing numbers of hungry Americans belied Hoover’s claim that “nobody is actually starving.”

Ziegelman and Coe documented grim subsistence diets nationwide in urban and rural areas.

Malnutrition caused large-scale outbreaks of pellagra, rickets and other diseases.

In the run-up to WW II, large numbers of draft-age US men failed their physicals because of the ravages of the 30s on human health.

In 1932, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company dismissively said “(a)s a people, we are given normally to overfeeding.”

(We should) not be surprised if, under the present conditions of enforced moderation, many have enjoyed better health than ever before.”

Cold hard reality was polar opposite. Hoover and FDR were similar and different at the same time.

Both figures had great reservations about people living on the dole. Hoover was largely unbending. Roosevelt adapted to the notion that desperate times call for desperate measures.

Eleanor Roosevelt was far more than first lady. She was a social welfare/human and civil rights champion and integral part of New Deal programs — publicly and behind the scenes.

Along with helping the poor, unemployed, and hungry during the Great Depression, she believed civil rights for all was the litmus test for society.

Last week, Bloomberg News headlined: “The Recession Bread Lines Are Forming in Mar-a-Lago’s Shadow,” saying:

“In Palm Beach, a diner races to feed laid off workers. Food banks and pantries (are) see(ing) surge in demand and long-term need.”

With growing millions of unemployed nationwide, breadlines are becoming the new normal, including near Trump’s Florida white house.

“(A) brutal new hunger crisis is emerging among laid-off workers that has begun to overwhelm the infrastructure that normally takes care of the needy,” Bloomberg reported.

Some hunger in America facts:

According to Feeding America before COVID-19 emerged, “1 in 7 people struggle(d) with hunger in the US.”

Millions of families with children are food insecure, not sure of obtaining enough food to get by.

Households with children are most vulnerable. The problem affects virtually “every community in the country” in urban and rural areas.

Many food insecure households don’t qualify for food stamps because of large-scale cuts to the program approved by Dems and Republicans.

Food banks and other hunger relief programs support them as much as possible.

Hunger affects young and old, including the underemployed, especially when teetering on possible unemployment.

Millions of US households struggle daily with tough choices — between feeding their families, paying rent or servicing mortgages, seeking medical help when ill, heating homes in winter, and finding a way to handle other essential needs.

Pre-Covid-19, Feeding America’s south Florida director said her operation fed over 700,000 people in four counties, including wealthy Palm Beach County.

Now “growth is exponential,” she stressed, a three-fold increase in funding needed to feed the hungry in south Florida alone.

Local food banks and pantries had no contact from the Trump Organization, the White House, or DJT’s Mar-a-Lago — despite multiple requests for help from Feeding America.

With hunger, unemployment and poverty growing exponentially in the US, how will ordinary people cope if harder than ever hard times are long-lasting?

Things are developing into a far greater crisis than during the Great Recession of 2008-09.

Feeding America and other food banks are hard-pressed by inadequate funding at a time of burgeoning need nationwide.

Many can’t keep pace with growing demand that’s likely to increase ahead.

US policymakers and major media scared most people to death over COVID-19. When lockdowns, shelter in place, and social distancing end, their lasting effects will remain.

When perfect storms erupt, their effects are long-lasting after calm returns.

This storm may have considerable upside before subsiding, including possible multiple waves of COVID-19 outbreaks.

Likely economic and financial pain will hit ordinary Americans hardest, along with likely further erosion of human and civil rights.

Once policies are in place, they’ll likely be hard to reverse short of national rebellion.

What’s unfolding today may be looked back on ahead as a time when the nation entered the abyss of lost rights and well-being for the majority of its people.

Perhaps things will never be the same for them in their lifetimes. An unacceptable new normal may become the new status quo.

With most Americans living from paycheck to paycheck, sharply rising unemployment may cause an unprecedented level of long-lasting deprivation in the country, and its harmful effect on human and emotional health.

None of what’s unfolding should have happened. If the nation was run by government of, by, and for everyone equitably, Americans would be in good hands to deal effectively with whatever situations arise.

Sadly, polar opposite is true. COVID-19 isn’t the great crisis of our time, not by a long shot.

It’s government of, by, and for the super-rich and their cronies, by scheming self-serving politicians.

US governance is composed largely of white men who operate extrajudicially — who lie, connive, misinterpret and pretty much do things ad libitum in discharging their duties as they see fit for themselves and deep-pocketed funders.

It’s a nation of men, now laws, equity or justice. As unacceptable as things have been pre-COVID-19, they’re likely to get much worse ahead.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The Boris Johnson government have clearly demonstrated they are not the people to run the country in a crisis. Their refusal to partake in an EU procurement programme for desperately needed life-saving medical equipment is a last-gasp expression of their tribalism in a situation which demanded so much more. It shone a light on exactly who they are and they failed us all in our time of need. The reality was that they made the wrong decisions and then lied about it. Now the cover-ups begin.

And whilst they engage in that, Britain is now facing not just a crisis but a catastrophe in the making.

In June 1976, the British pound reached a record low against the US dollar at 1.24 USD to 1 GBP – today’s exchange rate (as at 05/04/20) is 1.23USD to 1 GBP. It has just gone lower than that of a crisis which saw the PM ousted as Britain went with its begging bowl to the IMF for the biggest loan in its history. America wouldn’t agree to it unless Britain paid it back within six months and strangled its economy on the way. The loan was finally agreed on better terms but only if heavy cuts to public expenditure took place. On 15th December 1976 – the government announced a massive 20 per cent cut in public spending (source – national archives/ cabinet papers). What followed was a painful fight against inflation that eventually changed everything.

The IMF crisis reinforced a change in policy orientation away from full employment and social welfare towards the focus of controlling inflation and expenditure. Britain was partially shielded by increased oil prices and North Sea oil revenues at the time – something it no longer has (because A- it doesn’t have as much oil anymore and B- the price has collapsed now anyway).

The Labour Party began unravelling into camps of social democrats and left-wing supporters, which caused bitter rows inside the party.

Eighteen months later, as the country was feeling the grip of fierce new austerity measures it entered the coldest winter in nearly two decades and the ‘winter of discontent’ arrived. This was driven by a government who capped public sector pay to control inflation and also set an example to the private sector. Widespread strikes organised by the unions eventually led to the fall of the Labour leader James Callaghan and in 1979, that situation contributed significantly to Margaret Thatcher’s victory. She then ushered in a new form of economic policy called neoliberal capitalism (trickle-down economics), the end-game of which we are witnessing right now four decades later.

The reason for telling this widely known story is that Britain faces, in the near future, a worse situation even than that.

Debt defaults

In 1976, the national debt, as a percentage of GDP stood at around 45 per cent. Today it is 87 per cent. Just before the financial crisis in 2008, the national debt had fallen to 38 per cent after ten years of Tony Blair’s government. From there, the national debt skyrocketed by £1trillion. This is how much it has cost to save the banks. Half went to save them from their failed gambling operations – the other half was intravenously injected into the economy to save it from recession. The growth that was heralded by George Osborne at the time was to some reasonable extent false because it was funded from debt, not productivity.

The coronavirus crisis, when all said and done, will add at least another £300 billion (quite possibly double that), to the national debt which is already costing the taxpayer nearly a £1billion a week to service the interest charges alone.

Despite the government’s effort to cushion the blow to business, there is a wave of collapses on the horizon. Out of a total of 5.8 million small businesses, one million are already facing closure. An astonishing 62 per cent of British Chamber of Commerce members have confirmed they are just twelve weeks from collapse. One million people have already applied for Universal credit having lost their jobs. You can be really conservative here and double it over the next three months – but reality says it’ll probably be triple that if the lockdown continues for another month or so. Just that alone will cost the treasury over £2billion a week in job seekers allowance, let alone the other benefits to be claimed when keeping a roof going. In addition, there are 200,000 businessesthat started inside this tax year, who qualify for no government support at all.

The bank of England has reduced interest rates to a historic low. It is now back on its quantitative easing programme. The bond markets have backed off, the exchange rate is a disturbing dicator that investors are on the run.

Today, corporate and household debt is at an all-time high. Higher in fact, than it was just before the financial collapse. In 1976 neither was anything like this. In those days, house prices (and therefore mortgages) were pegged to average earnings, today they are not. In those days, investors raised money through a balance of shareholders and bank equity to acquire or build businesses with moderated debt ratios – today thousands of businesses have restructured debt models that depend entirely on growth and up to the teeth in multi-funded debt obligations. Today, we have a ‘pass-the-parcel’ model and you’re going down if it’s you when the recession hits. A wave of defaults is on the brink. Household credit card debt defaults suddenly shot up in 2019 and a crisis was already building in auto debt and unsecured loans.

The music just stopped

If the lockdown continues for another month, by the end of the year, we will be witnessing an economic downturn not seen in Britain before. Some economists have already been punching the numbers and said that in Britain what we’re facing is worse than 2008. The range of decline is lockdown dependent but either way, GDP will fall somewhere between 15 per cent and 25 per cent in Q2 alone.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicts a staggering 15 per cent crash in GDP in the second quarter. Forecasts already suggest that business investment has already dramatically declined as a result of Brexit and the Covid crisis and it will take more than a decade for business investment to catch up.

One of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and business managers has predicted Britain is on the brink of a depression to match that of the 1930s. Luke Johnson said – “If you look at the misery and ill health that caused and the damage to society as a whole there is a serious debate to be had to see if we are relentlessly pursuing the right course of action.”

In 2008, Britain had the ability to hit the printers and create money. If it did the same today, the national debt would soar to 120 per cent of GDP. Some will tell you that because the Bank of England can do this as we have our own currency, it is no big deal. It is. However, in so doing the government could lose control of inflation, from there, another catastrophic domino effect on top of the one that went first would likely happen.

Following the government’s pledge to cover 80 per cent of a worker’s pay packet up to £2,500 a month, the BCC said a third of survey respondents planned to furlough between 75 per cent and 100 per cent of their workforce over the following week. But in little more than three months, two-thirds of them say they are facing financial ruin anyway.

Dark choice

There is a nonsense that prevails in Britain – that we are a stoic, take it on the chin, stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on lot. No, we are not. If people lose their incomes and food goes short in fridges – they will come out (lockdown or not) and take it. The police are already reporting a surge in business burglaries.

There’s a stark choice, one between really bad and utterly dreadful.

Luke Johnson continues –

“I think there is a terrible trade-off the country will have to make at some point in the very near future about the damage to our whole standard of living and whether we are willing to accept the suicides and all the collateral damage of the shutdown, as opposed to protecting the NHS so it can keep people with the virus alive.”

There’s a truth about this crisis. The government were warned about it. They tested the health service. They read the report of its findings and subsequent warnings – and ignored them all two years ago. They were given early warnings by the Chinese, by the WHO and by other countries over this Covid – and ignored them all. They were given offers of assistance from the EU and ministers turned the other way. The Coronavirus could kill tens of thousands of Britons, and we had only one chance to stop it. The government is not ahead of this crisis and now simply chasing headlines – because of its own actions.

Now, the country will have to make a choice – sacrifice people to save the economy or sacrifice the economy to save people. In both scenarios, people will die needlessly. It is the government who put the country into this position in the first place – because they knew better didn’t they? The trouble is – they didn’t. After this crisis, there will be unemployment crisis, company collapses, the debt crisis and all of its fallout.

Soon it will become clear in the mortality statistics against how other countries performed in this crisis that Britain executed its plan very badly and the worst of both worlds happened – that people died unnecessarily and damage to the economy was worse than it should have been.

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Featured image is from TP

Agora, que a maior parte de nós, em todo o mundo, fomos obrigados a estar naquilo que facilmente pode ser descrito como prisão domiciliária, de repente temos imenso tempo para ler livros, assistir a grandes filmes e ouvir música esplêndida.

Muitos de nós andam, há anos, a repetir tristemente o mesmo: “se eu tivesse tempo…”

Agora temos imenso – imenso tempo. O mundo parou. Está a acontecer algo horrível; algo que nunca quisemos que ocorresse. Sentimo-lo, estamos aterrorizados, mas não sabemos exactamente o que é. Não já, ainda não.

A ficção tornou-se realidade. Albert Camus e a sua “Peste”. José Saramago e o seu “Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira”.

Não sabíamos que algo do género podia acontecer; mesmo aqueles entre nós que não têm qualquer confiança na sabedoria da civilização ocidental.

Ainda hoje, mais uma vez, leio os mesmos argumentos que me fazem sentir arrepios na espinha sempre que os repetem. E repetem-nos, de modo frequente agora, pelo menos na Europa. Ali, nota-se que regressou o fascismo. Citando o Dr. Luboš Motl, físico teórico checo, professor assistente na Universidade de Harvard entre 2004 e 2007:

“E acreditam que as estruturas que lhes permitem sobreviver – os governos, os bancos e por aí fora – são ‘maléficas’. Alguns são só analfabetos financeiros. Mas outros estão cientes do que afirmam e regozijam-se a exigir que se sacrifiquem triliões para evitar numa proporção infinitésima a probabilidade de que alguém com mais de 90 anos não seja infectado e viva um pouco mais. Não aceitam de todo quão dependentes estão da sociedade e do sistema. Não percebem que os seus valores morais, os seus ‘direitos humanos’, só existem se forem pagos por sociedades prósperas.”

Um doutor… Deus meu! Uma “sociedade próspera” significa, como é óbvio, uma sociedade capitalista, ocidental. Imperialismo, neo-colonialismo! Para pessoas como ele, é claro, as vidas humanas não são todas iguais. O seu ‘valor’ depende da idade, e talvez da raça?

Sempre foi assim, no Ocidente, mas pelo menos era, de certa maneira, dissimulado. Agora está à vista. E tremo. Não de medo, mas de repulsa. Definitivamente não quero viver no “mundo de Motl”.

Mas regressemos ao tema central desta peça.

Agora finalmente temos o proverbial tempo para ler, para ver filmes e para ouvir música. Involuntariamente, mas tempo não nos falta, seja como for. Temos também imenso tempo para pensar, pensar e pensar.

O grande agora falecido escritor uruguaio, ícone da esquerda, Eduardo Galeano, disse-me uma vez, no seu adorado Café Brasileiro em Montevideu:

“Para podermos ser grandes escritores, primeiro temos que ser grandes ouvintes.”

E devo acrescentar: e sermos grandes leitores, observadores.

Só podemos produzir grandes livros, filmes e ensaios, depois de ouvirmos o que milhares de pessoas dizem; pessoas ricas e pobres, brilhantes e disparatadas. Depois de lermos centenas de livros, e termos visto centenas de excelentes filmes.

É impossível mudar o mundo para melhor, quando só se consumiu a pop e a pornografia mais baratas.

A minha mãe russa/chinesa, pintora e arquitecta, sempre me disse, desde muito novo:

“Mesmo que te tornes num pintor abstracto, não podes fugir ao mais básico: primeiro tens que aprender a desenhar um rosto, um corpo humano. Tens que conhecer os clássicos, filosofia… só então podes deixar-te levar pela fantasia.”

Agora, com a repulsiva era do COVID-19, estamos todos sitiados.

É altura de nos pormos a par do que andamos a negligenciar, no que diz respeito às absorções intelectuais.

Estamos sentados nos nossos sofás, abrimos os portáteis, prontos a sacar grandes filmes e música e… e… nada!

Vão à Netflix e tentem alugar algo muito básico, como os filmes do brilhante cinema japonês da Nova Vaga. Tentem assistir ao mais recente e incrível filme iraniano contemporâneo, ou a alguma maravilhosa peça mestra checa como “No Telhado” [“Na Strese”], ou “A Senhora Terrorista” (“Teroristka”, em checo).

Não conseguem.

Vão à Apple TV, e irão encontrar o mesmo resultado, “quase nada”.

Claro, ainda podemos ver alguns excelentes filmes internacionais se voarmos na Emirates, ou na Air France, mas recorde-se, estamos sitiados.

Em pânico, corremos para o YouTube, só para descobrir que caso falemos russo, checo, espanhol ou chinês, podemos ver os melhores filmes desses países, a maior parte de graça, mas só na sua língua original, sem legendas. Mas se quisermos partilhá-los com os nossos amigos e familiares, que só dependem do inglês, só conseguimos encontrar trailers e excertos curtos.

Quantas línguas dominam os meus leitores? Eu compreendo 8, quanto muito 9. Como tal, não posso ver filmes em vietnamita, chinês ou persa. Todas línguas com excelentes realizadores.

Países como a Rússia e a China estão a disponibilizar os seus filmes clássicos, e para todos, ali, online. Mas os EUA-RU censuram-nos e os distribuidores gananciosos asseguram-se de que nunca os conseguiremos ver de graça, ou até mesmo por um certo valor, em inglês ou com legendas em inglês.

É suposto vermos porcarias de Hollywood, e sitcoms desdentadas e sobrevalorizadas da BBC. Não gosta? Azar!

A determinada altura, começamos a procurar freneticamente outras formas de obter essas importantes formas de arte.

Muitos, depois de várias e fúteis tentativas, simplesmente desistem e começam a ver a merda que estiver disponível.

Há anos e décadas, como um castor, tenho vindo a acumular DVDs e CDs, de todo o mundo. Actualmente tenho cerca de 800 CDs, entre a Ásia e a América Latina, e centenas de DVDs, até VHS.

Há uma razão para tal – e sempre soube que haveria. Não confio no regime.

Nunca confiei nos formatos electrónicos para filmes e música, ou em arquivar as minhas coisas numa qualquer ‘nuvem’ e em pens, ou esperando que o que quero estivesse sempre disponível através da Amazon, YouTube, Netflix, Apple TV e outros negócios brutais.

Neste preciso momento, as minhas previsões concretizaram-se: nem conseguimos ver “La Dolce Vita” de Fellini na Apple TV! Ou, esquecendo os melhores filmes feitos por Pasolini, os primeiros filmes (de realismo socialista) de Kurosawa, a Nova Vaga dos anos 30 de Xangai, ou quase todas as obras mestras de Tarkovsky.

Sim, amealhei uma tremenda cinemateca e discoteca, em todos os formatos.

Repito: pura e simplesmente não confio no regime ocidental.

Principalmente agora, quando tornar a população mundial cada vez mais burra, cada vez mais complacente, se tornou, parece-me, no principal objectivo dos apparatchiks ocidentais.

Lembram-se de quando criaram “zonas” para os DVDs? Foi só o princípio. O nosso planeta foi fragmentado, a bem dos negócios e dos direitos de autor. Mas, na realidade, a razão era completamente clara: não era suposto que as pessoas se compreendessem umas às outras. Não era suposto que compreendessem de modo directo o modo como os outros viam o mundo. Só os “hubs” de Londres, Nova Iorque ou Paris puderam decidir e pré-mastigar como a parte conquistada da humanidade podia interagir intelectual, cultural e ideologicamente.

Os livros; ó sim, os livros!

Não começaram a queimar livros, ainda, como no romance “Fahrenheit 451” de Ray Bradbury. Repito, ainda.

Mas o sistema assegurou-se de que os livros com as mais ínfimas refutações no que toca ao sistema sejam de difícil acesso ao público.

Escusado será dizer que me assegurei de que contava com duas imensas bibliotecas pessoais, tanto na Ásia como na América Latina.

Recordem, disseram-vos quão ‘anti-ecológica’ é a edição de livros em papel? Tem piada, nunca vos disseram quão tóxicos são os tablets, os computadores e os telemóveis. O que também  nunca vos disseram é que quando começamos a depender exclusivamente de livros electrónicos, essa torneira pode ser fechada, a qualquer altura, e que quando o fizerem ficará sem acesso à informação.

Na Ásia e na América do Sul, acumulei milhares de livros essenciais (e não tão essenciais). E sou co-editor de uma pequena, mas vigorosa, editora, a Badak Merah (‘Rinoceronte Vermelho’). E nunca concordei em publicar nenhum dos meus mais de 20 livros, em 35 línguas até à data, em formato digital antes de serem primeiro editados em papel.

Actualmente, por paradoxal que seja, a não ser que vivamos em Londres, Paris, Nova Iorque e também em Moscovo, Pequim ou Havana, são poucas as probabilidades de obtermos os nossos livros de eleição naquelas cadeias gigantescas de livrarias, pelo menos à primeira tentativa.

Seremos bombardeados desde o momento em que entramos na loja, com lixo, pop, e coisas de auto-ajuda, até que este nos distraia de todos os temas sérios e essenciais.

Aliás, já nem estou certo de que no Ocidente, hoje em dia, ainda seja possível construir uma grande biblioteca pessoal do nada.

Contudo, é quase impossível analisar “emergências” (tanto reais como ‘injectadas’) como o coronavírus, sem consultar filósofos e os romancistas acima mencionados, como Saramago, Camus e Bradbury.

Compreender os filósofos chineses e russos seria algo muito útil para compreender porque é que estes países obtiveram tanto sucesso a combater o vírus, e estão agora a auxiliar dezenas de nações em todo o mundo; até mesmo aquelas que há anos os atormentam. Ler os pensadores revolucionários e internacionalistas cubanos, também traria alguma luz à actual situação.

Mas a probabilidade é de que tal não lhe seja permitido.

Sim, as torneiras estão a fechar, e os ocidentais assemelham-se cada vez mais a zombies ou, mais precisamente, ao EIIL.

Em grande parte, não conseguem obter livros cruciais que os fariam pensar, analisar e compreender. Mas na maior parte do tempo, as pessoas já nem sequer têm qualquer vontade de ler, ver ou ouvir coisas que os ajudem a compreender o que está a acontecer à sua volta.

Em vez de darem ouvidos a seres humanos de todos os continentes, os indivíduos, principalmente aqueles que vivem no Ocidente, só ouvem predominantemente coisas acerca deles próprios. É uma espécie de interacção ao “estilo selfie” com o mundo.

Os indivíduos que vivem neste tipo de ambiente, aprendem a aceitar ordens simples, a reagir sem pensar demasiado e, acima de tudo, a obedecer.

Entretanto, aproxima-se o colapso intelectual; ou já terá até chegado.

Agora, pessoas como eu, apercebem-se de que já não lhes é permitido ler, assistir ou ouvir o que querem. Mas pelo menos já ouvimos muita coisa, antes. E temos uma grande munição de livros, filmes e música.

Ainda estamos a escrever sobre o que está a acontecer.

Mas em breve, talvez muito em breve, a vasta maioria dos indivíduos irá deixar sequer de se preocupar com estas questões. Irão meramente aceitar: calar-se e aceitar, e ler, ver e ouvir o que lhes empurrarem garganta abaixo. Ou, para utilizar uma nova terminologia – irão entrar numa auto-quarentena, intelectual.

Se tamanho cenário se concretizar, será irrelevante se o COVID-19 ou qualquer outra pandemia estiver a destruir a nossa raça humana. Pois já não seria a raça humana.

É por essa razão que, neste preciso momento, temos que defender todo e cada ser humano, cada vida, doente ou saudável, mesmo que a pessoa tenha 90 ou 100 anos. E temos que defender os grandes livros, obras e música, pois neles reside o nosso conhecimento, a nossa humanidade, bem como a chave para a nossa sobrevivência.

Andre Vltchek

Artigo em inglês:

COVID-19 and, We Are Not Allowed to Watch, Listen and Read What We Want, Anymore

Artigo publicado originalmente na New Eastern Outlook

Tradução: Flávio Gonçalves

Andre Vltchek é jornalista de investigação, filósofo, romancista e cineasta. Já cobriu guerras e conflitos em dezenas de países. Entre as suas obras encontramos estas quatro: China and Ecological Civilization com John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, o romance revolucionário “Aurora” o e best seller de não ficção política, “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. Pode consultar aqui as restantes obras. Veja Rwanda Gambit, o seu documentário inovador sobre o Ruanda e a República Democrática do Congo e o seu filme/diálogo com Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek reside actualmente no Oriente asiático e no Médio Oriente, continuando a trabalhar em todo o mundo. Pode ser contactado através do seu portal, do seu Twitter e do seu Patreon.

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The coronavirus pandemic is exposing the cruelty of US imperialism to the world as Washington’s crippling economic sanctions remain in full effect. The decades-old US embargo on Cuba blocked a coronavirus aid shipment from a Chinese entrepreneur last month, another example in a long list of US policies hampering the world’s efforts to combat the virus. On top of the blocked aid, the State Department is urging other countries not to accept help from Cuba’s state-run international medical program.

Jack Ma, the founder of the Chinese company Alibaba, included Cuba in a list of countries that his foundation was going to supply with coronavirus aid. Ma’s foundation was going to send Cuba 100,000 facemasks, 10 COVID-19 test kits, and other aid, including ventilators and gloves. The Colombia-based Avianca Airlines refused to carry the aid to Cuba since the company’s major shareholder is US-based and subject to the US trade embargo. As of Sunday, Cuba has over 300 confirmed coronavirus cases.

The Trump administration has been especially hawkish towards Cuba and reversed most of President Obama’s efforts to normalize relations with the island-nation. Most recently, the US added sanctions over Cuba’s support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Cuba and Venezuela are part of what former National Security Advisor John Bolton dubbed the “Troika of Tyranny,” Nicaragua being the third country. Bolton may be gone, but the Trump administration continues to ramp up economic warfare against the three left-wing governments.

In the first weeks of March, the Trump administration added sanctions on Nicaragua, and the House passed a bill that will add even more if signed into law. On March 26^th, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment on Maduro and other Venezuelan government officials, accusing them of “narco-terrorism.” The indictment put a $15 million bounty on Maduro, and the administration later announced it was deploying Navy ships off the coast of Venezuela – the largest US military buildup in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.

The presence of Cuban doctors in Venezuela is something Washington likes to point to as evidence of Cuba’s efforts to keep Maduro in power. Cuba’s medical diplomacy is a key aspect of the country’s foreign policy, and there are currently around 37,000 Cuban medical workers deployed in 67 countries. Some of the medical professionals are part of free humanitarian aid missions, but most are part of missions paid for by the host government. Cuba brings in around $6 billion a year from exporting its medical services, a vital revenue stream the Trump administration is working to impede.

The Trump administration has been persuading countries to not hire Cuban doctors on the grounds of bad labor practices. When governments friendlier to Washington come into power in Latin America, Cuban doctors are one of the first things to go. After the US-backed coup in Bolivia last year, Cuban doctors were expelled, and some even arrested. Ecuador’s government of Lenin Moreno also cut ties with Havana’s medical program last year.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro terminated the country’s medical program with Cuba when he won the election in 2018. Bolsonaro’s decision was a huge blow to the program, and almost 9,000 doctors were expelled from Brazil. But in the face of a coronavirus, the Brazilian government requested for thousands of Cuban doctors to return. Dozens of other governments have asked for the help of Cuban doctors to help control the outbreak of coronavirus, including Italy, one of the countries hit hardest by the virus.

The pandemic has not stopped Washington from discouraging other countries from using Cuban medical professionals. “Cuba offers its international medical missions to those afflicted with #COVID–19 only to make up the money it lost when countries stopped participating in the abusive program. Host countries seeking Cuba’s help for #COVID–19 should scrutinize agreements and end labor abuses,” the State Department said on Twitter on March 24^th, just a few days after doctors started to arrive in Italy.

The allegation against Cuba is that the government only pays its doctors 25 percent of the money made on the overseas medical program, and they are forced to work long hours in unsafe conditions. But these accusations ring hollow while US policy blocks coronavirus aid and exacerbates outbreaks in countries like Iran. Regardless of questionable labor practices, right now, Cuba is sending the world doctors as the US is sending warships and missiles.

Barack Obama’s only decent foreign policy achievements were the steps to normalize relations with Cuba and the Iran nuclear deal. President Trump sabotaged these efforts and is now waging an economic war against both countries. History shows that the US embargo on Cuba will do nothing to change the country’s government and will only hurt its people. As the world faces this pandemic, now is the time to lift the embargo and end all economic sanctions or history will remember the US as the country that weaponized the outbreak.

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Yesterday marked 10 years since WikiLeaks published the Collateral Murder video, showing US soldiers in an Apache helicopter indiscriminately firing upon unarmed civilians and journalists in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The footage, filmed by the US military on July 12, 2007, shows the gunship circling above a group of 10 men, going about their business in the suburb of Al-Amin al-Thaniyah. In increasingly exasperated tones, those on board ask whether they have been given permission to open fire on the individuals, who pose no conceivable threat.

When the signal has been given, they let loose with 30 mm cannon fire. The viewer’s horror at the massacre is matched only by revulsion at the glee of the American soldiers.

As the 10 men lie catastrophically wounded or dead, a US soldier expresses his hope that one of them will pick up a non-existent weapon, so that the fusillade may be resumed. A van pulls up to give assistance to the wounded. It is fired upon, killing the driver and inflicting horrific wounds on his two young children.

At the end of the carnage, as many as 18 lie dead. They include Reuters journalists Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. Congratulations and more blood lust are the response from within the Apache.

The video has had an indelible impact on the consciousness of millions of people around the world. Its 39 minutes of footage exposed the real character of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as an illegal, neo-colonial operation involving the perpetration of war crimes and an assault on the social and democratic rights of an entire population, unprecedented since the horrors of the Nazi regime.

A decade on and none of those responsible for the 2007 massacre depicted in the video, or for the illegal invasion which resulted in the deaths of over a million people, has been brought to justice.

Some, such as former US President George Bush and then Australian Prime Minister John Howard, are enjoying a quiet retirement. Others, including former British PM Tony Blair, remain politically influential and powerful figures, while still more are at the helm of the US and allied militaries as they continue to perpetrate crimes in the Middle East, and plot new wars, including against China and Russia.

The only individuals who have suffered any repercussions as a result of Collateral Murder are Chelsea Manning, the courageous US army private who leaked the video, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published it.

Most recently, Manning was released from six months imprisonment last month, after refusing to give false testimony against Assange before a secret US Grand Jury. Behind bars without charge or conviction, she was again driven to attempt to take her own life.

Assange, after almost a decade of arbitrary detention, faces the prospect of extradition from Britain to the United States, where he would be hauled before a kangaroo court, convicted on espionage charges and sentenced to life in a supermax prison. Assange’s only “offence” is having exposed the war crimes, global diplomatic conspiracies and mass spying operations of the American and allied governments.

Even before he has been extradited, all of the WikiLeaks founder’s rights have been trampled upon by a corrupt British judiciary and political establishment. After years of abuse, his life is in imminent danger. The British government and the courts have refused to release him as the coronavirus pandemic hits British prisons, despite the fact that Assange is on remand and has been convicted of no crime.

The very individuals responsible for the crimes exposed in Collateral Murder are spearheading the attempt to destroy Assange. They include the US military and intelligence agencies, the American ruling elite’s political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, and their allies in the British Tory and Labour Parties and the Australian political establishment.

The video revealed, not only the crimes of individuals, but the systemic criminality of the entire occupation of Iraq, implicating the military commands, governments and a pliant corporate media.

On July 13, 2007, the US military issued a statement which declared that the Reuters employees Chmagh and Noor-Eldeen, had been “killed during a firefight with insurgents.” An August 2007 Freedom of Information request for the footage, lodged by Reuters, was denied by the US government and the military.

Perhaps most damningly, the publication of Collateral Murder exposed the corporate press as an adjunct of the military as it was wantonly committing war crimes. All of the major publications in the US, from the New York Times to the Washington Post, had promoted the lies about weapons of mass destruction used to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Manning had contacted those outlets, and others, but never received a reply, prompting her to turn to WikiLeaks.

At least some corporate journalists, however, were already intimately familiar with the crimes that politically radicalised Manning. During the invasion of Iraq they were “the embedded ones,” integrating themselves into the military and filing breathless reports hailing the decimation of Iraq’s civilian and military infrastructure and the catastrophe that befell its population.

In a 2009 book, David Finkel, a Washington Post journalist, described a scene that bore striking similarities to the 2007 Apache attack in Baghdad. His book was titled, unironically, The Good Soldiers. Finkel’s follow-up work was headlined Thank You for Your Service.

According to some sources, Finkel and the Washington Post had had access to the video since at least 2009. There are even allegations that the reporter showed it to friends and colleagues at dinner parties held in his plush Washington DC home.

The response of WikiLeaks, a tiny organisation with extremely limited resources, was very different.

Assange and a group of colleagues spent months decrypting the video, studying its contents and investigating the events it depicted. This alone should put paid to the claims of the corrupt corporate stenographers of the intelligence agencies that Assange is “not a journalist.”

Current WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hraffnson risked his life to track down the victims of the attack, travelling to Iraq two years after a secret US military document had outlined a strategy to destroy WikiLeaks.

Hraffnson met the widow of Matasher Tomal, the man who was killed while attempting to help those wounded in the first barrage of artillery fire. He spoke to Tomal’s children Sayad, who was 10 at the time of the attack, and Doaha who was just 5-years-old. Both suffered wounds that will affect them for life.

In an interview at the time, Hraffnson commented on the experience of speaking to Sayad: “When I was watching his eyes [I felt] I was looking into the eyes of my own son. I think I have never been as touched by anything I’ve seen. The sorrow of a child who loses his father is so deep, so devastating. I really wanted to get that to the public.”

Asked by the interviewer if it had not been dangerous for him to travel to Iraq, Hraffnson commented: “Yes, but journalism should be dangerous. Journalists are becoming, and have been, a part of the military propaganda machinery—easily manipulated.”

For his part, Assange unveiled the footage at the US National Press Club, despite the clear danger that he would be targeted by the CIA and the US military.

All of those credited on the Collateral Murder video, including those who ended their collaboration with WikiLeaks many years ago, have been subjected to harassment and surveillance by the military intelligence complex, including having their personal details and correspondence subpoenaed from major internet conglomerates.

The Collateral Murder video will be remembered for decades as testimony to the barbarity of imperialist war. Its contents are more significant than ever, amid stepped-up inter-imperialist tensions and preparations for new and catastrophic military conflicts.

Workers, students and young people must do everything they can to fight for Assange’s freedom and for the safety and security of all those involved in this historic exposure of militarism and war.

Yesterday, WikiLeaks held an online meeting marking the anniversary of Collateral Murder, at which Hraffnson and others spoke. It can be viewed here.

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The “Corona crisis” is a transnational crisis fabricated on a bedrock of unreliable evidence.

People and institutions are making decisions in crisis based on unreliable data. People and institutions have been hoarding medical supplies, in panic, thus creating shortages elsewhere.

People were prematurely admitted to hospitals in crisis mode early in the crisis, which made some hospitals (especially in Italy) hotbeds for coronavirus, thus making the situation worse.

Tests do not differentiate deaths as being WITH Corona or BY Corona. Hence, they are all but meaningless. (1)

In the UK, a medical practitioner can legally declare Covid -19 as cause of death even when the test results have not been received. (2)

The statistics that form the basis of this fabricated crisis are unreliable. Everything is happening in crisis-mode and through panic — the opposite to what should be happening.

Who is “winning” and who is “losing”?

“Parliaments, courts, tribunal are suspended, government is by decree,” writes John Pilger, “The police determine whether our presence in a street, a park, is legitimate.  The media ensures a state of fear.  Surveillance is routine.  Protest, if any, is virtual.  How does history describe such a society?” (3)

Human rights are losing, and the police state is winning on domestic fronts.

Imperialists have always used fake humanitarian pretexts to advance their war crimes. The Corona crisis is serving imperialists well.  Britain is offering 100 million to al Qaeda-dominated Idlib, “to help with the Coronavirus threat” (4) even as the West and its allies strangle all of Syria with a criminal economic embargo.

Destroyed economies and destroyed livelihoods are certain to exact a horrible toll on all of us.  Vulnerable peoples and countries will suffer disproportionately.

The final tally of who will benefit and who will lose is yet to be fully determined, but there is one certainty.  If the Lie prevails, humanity will lose.

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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) John P.A. Ioannidis, “Video: Perspectives on the COV-19 Pandemic, A Fiasco in the Making.” Journeyman Pictures/ Global Research, 27 March 2020, Journeyman Pictures, 24 March 2020.

(https://www.marktaliano.net/video-perspectives-on-the-cov-19-pandemic-a-fiasco-in-the-making-dr-john-ioannidis-stanford-university-by-john-p-a-ioannidis-and-journeyman-pictures-global-research-march-27-2020-journeyman/) Accessed 6 April, 2020.

(2) Office for National Statistics/HM Passport Office. “Guidance for doctors completing Medical Certificates of Cause of Death in England and Wales FOR USE DURING THE EMERGENCY PERIOD ONLY.”

(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877302/guidance-for-doctors-completing-medical-certificates-of-cause-of-death-covid-19.pdf) Accessed 6 April, 2020

(3) Twitter commentary, 3 April, 2020.

(4) Speech “Protecting Syrians amidst the COVID-19 outbreak/ Statement by Ambassador James Roscoe at the Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Syria.” 30 March, 2020. (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/protecting-syrians-amidst-the-covid-19-outbreak) Accessed 6 April, 2020.

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