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Borrowing from the moniker of horseracing as the ‘Sport of Kings’ this writer is going further into the sewer of media hype. I love sports and acknowledge that I am a fan of many sports, with even some teams as my favorites. Methinks that in the past few years I have been more and more violated by what comes across as the ‘Sports Talk  Media’.

In a word they have ALL become the whores they probably always were at heart. You turn on any channel on ESPN or Fox Sports Network or CBS Sports, or any other I have missed mentioning, and you get this: “How much so and so is going to be paid in mega millions for how long a contract.” Or “How much so and so wants to be paid as a free agent etc.” They don’t even talk about strategy or things of that nature.

Instead it is how much these Fat Cat team owners are going to be paying out from the mega millions, even billions they are earning. Of course, the other culprits here are the media outlets who subsidize this insanity, by the billions they are making from all we suckers! After all, have you looked at your cable bills lately? From $ 30- $ 50 a month for a slew of channels, we now fork out well over $ 150 a month for the same coverage. Then you have the ancillary costs that the ‘fans’ pay out for tickets or licensed products. All those of us who wear the team hats, jerseys, sweatshirts etc pay through the nose for this shit! I for one, with all my faults as a ‘Fan’, made a decision years ago to only buy such things when they were outdated and reduced drastically in price… very drastically.

Here’s the skinny on this: Tens of millions of diehard fans, who are now suffering as this writer by this blackout on almost all sports, should be outraged as I am by this shill sports media.

You have most of those (so called) sports journalists earning mega millions while the overwhelming majority of their audience are now worried about staying financially afloat during this pandemic. Much more importantly, even if there was NO pandemic, it is outrageous that our economic system is such that too many of we ‘Sports fans’ still are lucky to even afford our cable bills, let alone paying the shyster prices for tickets to games or sports paraphernalia.

Many working stiff dads and moms do that as much for their kids as they do for themselves. Yet, there needs to be some Righteous Anger at the piggery and arrogance of the whole professional sports world.. and that of the college coaching profession. By the way, I am sick and tired of hearing coaches, many of whom are NOT even coaching anymore, being interviewed by those sports hype artist media whores and called ‘Coach’. Come on, are these men and women wearing a divinity label or Ph D. moniker? No, they are just coaches and nothing more. But, the whole agenda here is to make them into too much more essential and vital than anyone else.

I remember watching a scene from Chazz Palminteri’s great film ‘A Bronx Tale’ when Sonny, the gangster is speaking with the young boy he likes and counsels on life. The kid mentions how Mickey Mantle is his hero etc. Sonny, played by Palminteri, says to the kid “Does Mickey Mantle pay your rent?” As my old street corner compatriot Walt DeYoung always ended his writings “Nuff Said.”

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

Crises are opportunities for ruling authorities to institute policies not easily introduced during normal times.

Post-9/11 and at other extraordinary times, the public is willfully deceived to believe that by sacrificing personal freedoms, greater security is possible — not realizing that both will be lost.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. The cost of its loss is tyranny — the US and West far advanced toward it’s becoming full-blown.

Protecting public health to prevent COVID-19 from spreading by stay-at-home orders, state and community lockdowns, and social distancing reflect common sense policymaking.

Overstepping occurs if martial law is declared and constitutional rights are suspended — what tyrannical police state rule is all about.

Post-9/11, US hardline rule became reality by presidential executive orders, national and homeland security presidential directives, and enactment of police state laws — along with actions against designated domestic and foreign adversaries, dissent, civil liberties, human rights, and other democratic freedoms.

State-sponsored indefinite detentions, assassinations, extraordinary renditions, military commission trials, torture, mass surveillance, and other extrajudicial actions were instituted and remain in place on the phony pretext of protecting national security at a time when America’s only enemies are invented.

For nearly two decades, the US has been waging war OF terrorism, not on it, at home and abroad — a bipartisan coup d’etat on world peace, equity, justice and the rule of law.

Police state measures were prepared in advance and on the shelf for rolling out in the aftermath of the 9/11 mother of all state-sponsored false flags.

The mother of all establishment media promoted Big Lies left most people unaware that what happened on that fateful day was all about advancing Washington’s imperium, along with cracking down on homeland freedoms.

Will spreading COVID-19 outbreaks in the US be used as a pretext for further hardening of hardline police state rule, including suspension of vital habeas rights?

According to Politico on Saturday,  the Trump regime’s Justice Department “quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies,” adding:

Documents seen by Politico “detail the (DOJ’s) requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted.”

The Trump regime already closed the nation’s borders (except for commerce), imposed restrictions on international and domestic air travel, barred foreign nationals from entering the US who’ve been in China, Iran, and European countries recently, and suspended visa services at US embassies and consulates worldwide.

About a fourth of the US population is locked down following orders by individual state governors, others highly likely to follow, perhaps the entire nation in the days and weeks ahead as COVID-19 outbreaks will likely continue to increase before abating.

Some measures are justified to enhance public safety, others not.

Clearly no justification exists to order indefinite detentions arbitrarily under any circumstances.

If permitted or not, will martial law and suspension of the constitution follow?

According to Politico, one of the documents it saw calls for Congress to empower the attorney general to circumvent judicial proceedings “whenever (a) district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.”

The authority would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings.”

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers executive director Norman Reimer said if indefinite detentions without trial become the law of the land, habeas rights no longer will exist as long as the practice continues.

Anyone for any reason, real or invented, “could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over.”

“I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.”

“This is something that should never happen” anywhere!

The DOJ document also asked Congress to suspend “statute of limitations or criminal investigations and civil proceedings during national emergencies,” said Politico, adding:

The DOJ wants Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure “change(d) to expand the use of videoconference hearings, and to let some of those hearings happen without defendants’ consent, according to the draft legislative text.”

According to Reimer, forced video hearing (without consent of the accused) would violate their civil liberties — “a terrible road to go down.”

“We have a right to public trials. People have a right to be present in court” represented by counsel.

Tahirih Justice Center head Layli Miller-Munro said the DOJ request, if implemented, would block refugees and asylum seekers from entering the US — a way to keep unwanted people of the wrong race, creed, color, or nationality out of the country.

Make no mistake. The DOJ document was likely prepared before or straightaway after the onset of COVID-19 outbreaks.

The 300-plus page USA Patriot Act was written before 9/11, readied to be considered by Congress, passed, and signed into law six weeks after the state-sponsored false flag.

The Trump regime will likely take full advantage of spreading COVID-19 outbreaks for hardened police state rule — instead of prioritizing public health and economic justice actions for ordinary Americans.

The greatest risk to remaining personal freedoms for ordinary Americans will be if martial law and suspension of the Constitution become the law of the land by executive order.

Perhaps it’s coming if Congress and/or the courts don’t intervene to block it.

While extraordinary times call for extraordinary actions, it’s vital to institute them lawfully to protect public health and welfare as top priority.

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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.

“You have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own,” President Barack Obama told hundreds of cheering U.S. troops in Baghdad on April 7, 2009, his first visit to the country after being elected. He added that now, “Iraqis need to take responsibility for their country.”

For brazen hypocrisy and condescension, these words—repeated in essence by virtually all the top civilian and military officials of the Bush and Obama administrations over the past eight years—are hard to beat.

The implication is that before the U.S. invasion and occupation in 2003, Iraq was not able to “stand on its own,” and now the Iraqi people must be prodded to “take responsibility for their country.” This theme is really no different than the racist propaganda used by the colonial powers to justify their murderous exploitation in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East over hundreds of years.

The real history of modern Iraq is deliberately distorted or completely ignored by the corporate media and officials here for the simple reason that it utterly demolishes this colonialist narrative, while at the same time exposing  the actual driving forces behind U.S. intervention in a country half a world away..

July 14, 2011, marks the 53rd anniversary of the Iraqi Revolution. The 1958 revolution ended four decades of British domination and marked the beginning of Iraqi independence. The fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, reduced Iraq once more to colonial status, now under U.S. rather than British rule.

Iraq before the 1958 revolution

Iraq is one of the oldest continually inhabited centers of human civilization, long known as Mesopotamia or the “land between the [Tigris and Euphrates] rivers.” Modern Iraq came into being in the aftermath of World War I (1914-18), a war of empires vs. empires. At the end of the war, the winners took over the colonies of the losers. Britain and France took over much of the Middle East from the defeated Turkey-based Ottoman Empire, and divided it up between them.

The former Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul became the new British “mandate” of Iraq. The British were also awarded Palestine by the just-established “League of Nations.” France was given “mandates” over present-day Lebanon and Syria. All were in reality colonies. The mandate system was justified on the supposed basis that the Arab people needed the tutelage of the British and French to prepare for “self-rule.”

The Arab people did not see it that way. In 1919 and 1920, revolts swept the region, from Egypt (also under British control) to Iraq, where the heaviest fighting took place, leaving thousands dead including the British commanding general. In 1925, another uprising, centered in the predominantly Kurdish region of northern Iraq, was answered by the British dropping poison gas from planes on the population.

Because of the fierce resistance to colonial domination by Arabs and Kurds alike, Britain granted Iraq its nominal independence in 1932. But it was independence in name only. The country was ruled by a British-installed monarchy, and continued to be occupied by British military bases.

Intifadas (uprisings) against the rule of British and their Iraqi collaborators, like Nuri as-Said, continued and intensified after the end of World War II.

To fortify their domination, the British promoted the development of a class of big landowners in Iraq, who exported grain, dates and other products. The peasants, who constituted the majority of the population, were treated as serfs–bound to the land and living in utter poverty.

In the 1950s, life expectancy in Iraq was 28-30 years. Infant mortality was estimated at 300-350 per 1,000 live births. By comparison, infant mortality in England at the time was around 25 per 1,000 births.

Illiteracy was more than 80 percent for men and 90 percent for women. Diseases related to malnutrition and unsanitary water were rampant.

A statistical survey at the time showed income of less than 13 Fils—4 cents—per day for individual peasants in Diwaniya, one of the more prosperous agricultural regions.

According to a 1952 World Bank report, the average yearly income for all Iraqis was $82. For peasants it was $21. (“Revolution in Iraq,” Society of Graduates of American Universities in Iraq, 1959)

Neocolonial and landlord rule was maintained by a ruthless secret police/military regime that tortured, murdered and imprisoned countless thousands of Iraqis. Still, the resistance was strong, as evidenced by the fact that Iraq was placed under martial law 11 times between 1935 and 1954, for a total of nine years and four months.

Underlying Iraq’s extreme poverty was this simple fact: oil-rich Iraq owned none of its own oil.

The United States and Iraq

U.S. involvement in Iraq began after World War I. U.S. corporations were granted 23.75 percent of Iraq’s oil as a reward for having entered World War I on the side of the victorious British and French empires. British, French and Dutch oil companies also each received 23.75 percent shares of Iraq’s petroleum resources. The broker of the deal, an Armenian oil baron named Calouste Gulbenkian, got the remaining five percent.

In the latter stages of World War II (1939-1945), the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, dominated by big banking, oil and other corporate interests, were determined to restructure the post-war world to ensure the dominant position of the United States.

The key elements in their strategy were: 1) U.S. military superiority in nuclear and conventional weaponry; 2) U.S. domination of newly created international institutions like the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and establishment of the dollar as the world currency; 3) control of global resources, particularly oil.

In pursuit of the latter, the U.S. government was intent on taking control of certain strategic assets of the British Empire, the war-time alliance between the two countries notwithstanding. Among those assets was Iraq.

A February 1944 exchange between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes clear that the British were well aware of U.S. intentions. Churchill wrote Roosevelt: “Thank you very much for your assurances about no sheep’s eyes [looking enviously] on our oilfields in Iran and Iraq. Let me reciprocate by giving you the fullest assurance that we have no thought of trying to horn in upon your interests or property in Saudi Arabia.” (quoted in Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War, 1968)

What this note clearly shows is that the U.S. leaders were so intent on taking over Iran and Iraq, both important neo-colonies of Britain, that alarm bells had been set off in British ruling circles.

Despite Churchill’s bluster, there was nothing the British could do to restrain rising U.S. power. Within a few years, the British ruling class would adapt to the new reality and accept its new role as Washington’s junior partner, a position it continues to occupy today.

In 1953, after the CIA coup that overthrew a nationalist government and put the Shah (king) back in power in Iran, the United States took control of that country. And by the mid-1950s, Iraq was jointly controlled by the United States and Britain.

In 1955, Washington set up the Baghdad Pact, which included its client regimes at the time in Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Iraq, along with Britain.

The Baghdad Pact, also called CENTO—Central Treaty Organization, had two purposes. First, to oppose the rise of Arab and other liberation movements in the Middle East and south Asia. And second, to be another in a series of military alliances—NATO, SEATO and ANZUS were the others—encircling the socialist camp of the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, North Korea and North Vietnam.

The Iraqi Revolution

But on July 14, 1958, a military rebellion led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim and the Free Officers movement turned into a country-wide revolution. The king and his administration were suddenly gone, the recipients of people’s justice.

The 1958 revolution put an end to colonial domination and marked the beginning of Iraq’s real independence. Although the Iraqi Communist Party was the biggest organized force among the revolutionary forces, the revolution did not lead to a socialist transformation of the country. The ICP strategy was an alliance with the anti-colonial nationalist bourgeoisie.

Though not a socialist revolution, the Iraqi Revolution created panic in Washington and on Wall Street. President Dwight Eisenhower called it “the gravest crisis since the Korean War.

The day after the Iraqi Revolution, 20,000 U.S. Marines began landing in Lebanon. The day after that, 6,600 British paratroopers were dropped into Jordan.

The U.S. and British expeditionary forces went in to save the neo-colonial governments in Lebanon and Jordan. Had they not, the popular impulse from Iraq would have surely brought down the Western-dependent regimes in Beirut and Amman.

But Eisenhower and his generals had something else in mind as well: invading Iraq, overturning the revolution and re-installing a puppet government in Baghdad.

Three factors forced Washington to abandon that plan in 1958: 1) the sweeping character of the Iraqi Revolution; 2) the announcement by the United Arab Republic—Syria and Egypt were then one state that bordered Iraq—that its forces would fight the imperialists if they sought to invade; and 3) strong support for the revolution from the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union. The USSR began to mobilize troops in the southern Soviet republics close to Iraq.

Over the next three decades, the United States applied many tactics designed to weaken and undermine Iraq as an independent country. At various times—for instance after Iraq completed nationalizing the Iraqi Petroleum Company in 1972 and signed a defense treaty with the USSR—the United States gave massive military support to Kurdish elements fighting Baghdad and added Iraq to its list of “terrorist states.”

Washington supported the more rightist elements within the post-revolution political structure against the communist and left-nationalist forces. For example, the United States backed the overthrow and assassination of President Abd al-Karim Qasim in 1963 by a right-wing military grouping. And Washington applauded the suppression of the left and unions by the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party governments in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the 1980s, the United States encouraged and helped to fund and arm Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, in its war against Iran. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger revealed the real U.S. attitude about the war: “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose.”

Bourgeois governments in both Iran and Iraq pursued the war for expansionist aims. The war was a disaster for both Iran and Iraq, killing a million people and weakening both countries.

Social advances

Despite the numerous internal and external conflicts, Iraq made rapid strides forward in development after the 1958 revolution and particularly following the complete nationalization of oil operations in 1972.

Billions of dollars of oil revenue paid for development of water and sewage treatment facilities, modern roads, ports, railways and airports, and electrification even for many remote areas of the country.

Iraq created the best health care system in the region, and health care was free. So, too, was education through university. Food was subsidized and food imports greatly increased in order to meet the needs of the population.

By virtually all indices that measure social progress—literacy, infant and maternal mortality, life expectancy, etc.—Iraq’s progress was extraordinarily dramatic.

Many students from Africa and poorer Arab countries received scholarships that covered all expenses to attend Iraqi universities. Iraq educated and trained hundreds of thousands of doctors, engineers, nurses, scientists and other personnel needed to lead and operate a rapidly modernizing society. Women, particularly in the urban areas, made major gains.

At the same time, Iraq was still a developing country and highly dependent on one commodity: oil. When the sanctions blockade was imposed on Iraq in 1990, it was importing 65 percent of its medicine, 70 percent of its food and up to 100 percent of infrastructure and other goods, paying for them with oil revenues.

The collapse of the USSR and the Gulf War

Shortly after the Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988, developments in the Soviet Union posed a new threat to Iraq. In pursuit of an illusory “permanent détente” with the United States, the Gorbachev leadership in Moscow was eliminating or sharply cutting back its support for allies in the developing world.

In 1989, Gorbachev withdrew support for the socialist governments in Eastern Europe, most of which then collapsed. This sharp shift in the world relationship of forces, culminating with the fall of the Soviet Union itself two years later, opened the door for the U.S. war against Iraq in 1991—and for more than a decade of sanctions/blockade and bombing that severely weakened Iraq and its people.

It would have been inconceivable even a few years earlier that Soviet leaders would have stood by while the United States sent more than half a million troops to attack a nearby country with which the USSR had a mutual defense agreement.

Rather than ushering in a new era of peace, the counter-revolutionary overturn of the governments of the USSR and the socialist camp was seen in Washington as the green light for a new round of wars and interventions.

In the 1991 war, more than 88,500 tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq. While U.S. leaders justified the war on the basis of Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait after a long and bitter dispute, U.S. military tactics showed that the main aim was to destroy Iraq. The civilian infrastructure throughout the country—water, power, phone and sewage systems, food and medicine production, storage facilities, schools and hospitals, roads and bridges, and more—were targeted, often many times over. Military targets and troops were also hit, with an estimated 125,000 Iraqi soldiers killed.

Blockaded and bombed for 13 years

The sanctions passed by the UN Security Council at the behest of the United States on August 6, 1990, were killing people even before the bombing began five months later. The sanctions on Iraq were the most comprehensive in history; in reality, it was a blockade of the country, enforced by military means that was to last for 13 years, killing more than 1 million people, half of them children under the age of five.

Through the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush up to the 2003 invasion, Iraq was bombed several times per week, with several periods of intense assault. There were numerous coup attempts organized by the CIA. And the death toll from the blockade was relentless, as U.S. officials were well aware.

On May 12, 1996, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright, appeared on the TV program “60 Minutes.” Albright was asked by reporter Leslie Stahl, who had just returned from Iraq, about the impact of the sanctions: “We have heard that a half million children have died, I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Albright’s response was a rare exposure of the real and monstrous thinking of the imperialist policymakers: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it.”

Still, the desired goal of regime change, which became official U.S. policy when Clinton signed the “Iraq Liberation Act” in 1998, was not achieved. It became clear that regime change could only be achieved by a military invasion.

After a protracted public relations campaign—demonizing Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders, attempting to link Iraq to the Sept. 11 attack, fabricating claims that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction,” including nuclear weapons—U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003.

In April 2003, the U.S. and British rulers finally achieved what they had wanted to do since July 1958: counter-revolution in Iraq. While U.S. leaders and their corporate media had relentlessly promoted the idea that their goal of “regime change” simply involved removing the ultra-demonized Hussein and his immediate circle, in reality, Washington’s aim was to destroy everything that made Iraq an independent state.

The entire government and state apparatus was disbanded, from the military to the government ministries to the state-run food-distribution and health-care systems.

Early in the war, U.S. military forces seized the great prize in Iraq, the rich oil fields in the north and south. Iraq holds an estimated 12 percent of the world’s proven petroleum reserves.

In the eight-plus years since, it is estimated that more than 1 million Iraqi “excess deaths”—deaths due to the occupation—have occurred. There have been 4.5 million Iraqis displaced internally or out of the country. The number of wounded remains uncounted, but must also be in the millions. All of this in a country of about 27 million people.

The social fabric of the country has been ripped apart due to the occupation. The occupiers have favored some ethnic and religious groups against others.

In a country where the long summers frequently see temperatures over 120 degrees, electricity is less available than even in the time of the sanctions.

Millions of tons of toxic waste, including depleted uranium used in bullets and shells, have been dumped in Iraq by the occupation forces.

Iraq has suffered extreme looting by the occupiers. Just one example is that, on July 27, 2010, the U.S. Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction released a report stating that the Pentagon cannot account for 95 percent of the Development Fund for Iraq.

The DFI was set up by L. Paul Bremer, who ruled Iraq as virtual dictator for the first 15 months of the occupation. The $9.1 billion in the account came from Iraq’s frozen assets in the United States and other countries, and the sale of Iraqi oil. Of that amount, $8.7 billion is “missing.” No one has been charged with any crime nor is any crime even alleged by the U.S. authorities.

Countering the ludicrous claim that the U.S. occupation has “given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own,” a Mercer Quality of Living survey released on May 26, 2010, ranked Baghdad—one of the truly great and historic cities of the world—dead last in a list of “most livable cities.”

What Iraq needs and deserves from the United States is not more dishonest and insulting speeches, but instead a complete end to the occupation and reparations for the terrible damage done.

Despite all the indescribable horrors they have suffered, the Iraqi people have not given up and will continue their struggle until they regain what they first won 53 years ago—real independence and sovereignty.

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For those who follow the global immunization agenda and its implementation on different continents, the announcement of a new pandemic didn’t come as a surprise.  “Pandemic preparedness” has been well-funded and a buzz word for a long time before becoming a priority at the last G7 summits, the Davos World Economic Forum and other meetings of global governance. The latest simulation for preparedness was Event 201,^[1] a rehearsal of a coronavirus pandemic organized on October 18, 2019 in New York by Johns Hopkins University, the Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum.

The Presidential election campaign in the United States and the controversial mandatory measles vaccination law in Germany provided perfect timing. What better than viral terror to influence public opinion and health policies on vaccine battles raging on both sides of the Atlantic?

Soon after that meeting, the big “measles scare” campaign started in Disneyland in December 2014, leading to the removal of vaccine exemption rights in California. Meanwhile, Italy, which had been designated to be the forerunner of this agenda in Europe, set things in motion to mandate eight additional childhood vaccines.

The movie Vaxxed then came out in April 2016, during the Presidential campaign.  Many American families voted for Donald Trump, hoping that he would create a commission to investigate vaccine safety, as he seemed to have a particular interest. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, repeated that “the science is clear, the earth is round, the sky is blue and vaccines work” throughout her campaign. A few days before the November 2016 vote,^[3] President Obama signed major US funding for the GHSA, together with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Unfortunately, after the election, the vaccine safety commission that was supposed to be led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. never came to pass. On the contrary, draconian vaccine legislation made its way to several states. California, for example, which had already abolished personal belief exemptions, stripped away almost all medical exemptions in 2019, commencing a medical inquisition against doctors who put their patients first.^[4]  Many Californians, realizing that their Eldorado had become a gilded cage, moved to freer states for vaccine choice, like Texas or Idaho.^[5]

A vaccine war

In 2020, vaccines could weigh even more heavily in US elections. In fact, one could almost say that a vaccine war is going on across the US.  After California, states like New Jersey, Maine, Connecticut, Virginia, Hawaii, Colorado and many others are trying to adopt harsher vaccine laws.  But vaccine freedom advocates are getting more organized, too, putting pressure on elected officials and candidates and even introducing their own legislation. For example, after the New Jersey legislature twice failed to pass a repeal of the religious exemption, even though Speaker Steven Sweeney vowed to “go to war” to get it passed, legislators proposed several vaccine safety bills.^[6] The Maryland legislature refused to allow pharmacists to administer vaccines, and in South Dakota, the legislature considered, although rejected, a bill that would have completely prohibited all medical mandates of any kind.^[7]

Europe too is undergoing a similar wave of coercive legislation and pushback.  In Germany, compulsory measles vaccination has just come into force in early March, even though the country has one of the highest coverage rates — 97% one dose, 93% two doses — and very few cases of illness or death.  This vote comes two years after Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that there would be no mandatory vaccinations in Germany,^[8] as informed consent had “solid historical reasons.”

Sadly, informed consent and the Nuremberg Code may now exist only in the museum of democratic values.  The new German law is particularly restrictive.  There is no option for home schooling, and the measles vaccine obligation applies to adults working in the health and education sectors as well. But German citizens may be ready to fight back.  Families and doctors are fighting the mandates in courts,^[9] and protests were planned all over the country for March 21, including a major event in Munich with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and activists from all over Europe – until the coronavirus pandemic intervened.^[10] Everywhere in Europe — in Great Britain, Austria, Belgium, Romania, Slovenia, from Ukraine to Spain — mandatory vaccination bills are being introduced. Faced with the violation of human rights that their Constitutions guarantee, people have filed complaints with the European Court of Human Rights.  The Court, whose jurisdiction covers 49 countries throughout Europe and Eurasia, will hear cases on mandatory vaccination on April 30, 2020 arising from the Czech Republic.

It is undeniable that the coronavirus epidemic has come on the scene at a crucial moment, when people everywhere are in revolt against the power of international financial institutions and multinational pharmaceutical corporations, whose stranglehold on governments is no longer hidden. Many scandals have shaken confidence. The bankruptcy of an aberrant economic system is accelerating, and attempts to start a third world war are multiplying. While it is impossible to know how the “coronavirus pandemic” will influence the redistribution of power, it is certain that many are seeking to have Covid-19 serve the political interests of a global governance project.

Iran

Interestingly, the second largest outbreak started in Iran, a country which, like China, does not bend to the West’s dictates. It is also currently involved with Syria and Russia in a tug-of-war with Turkey, NATO, and its traditional allies.  After having refused all outside help in the management of the pandemic, Iran made a complete about-face by inviting the WHO to its rescue. It seems that the virus had contaminated a number of high-ranking government officials, including those close to Ayatollah Khamenei, and the former Iranian ambassador to Syria, who died in the early days of the epidemic.  Taking an unusual sanitary measure, the Iranian government released  85,000 “uncontaminated” prisoners to avoid contagion in prisons.  At the same time, officials blamed US sanctions, which were reimposed on Tehran after Washington abandoned the Iran 2015 nuclear deal, for “hampering their efforts to fight the coronavirus.”  Iran called again for lifting the ban and asked the International Monetary Fund for a $5 billion loan to fight the outbreak.^[11]

In Europe, as luck would have it, the pandemic first affected northern Italy, namely Lombardy and Veneto, which have by far the largest number of vaccine hesitant people in Europe and probably the world.  Veneto strongly opposed the expansion of vaccine mandates.  Activists demonstrated for months, with rallies of more than 50,000 people. As a result, the regional government appealed to the Council of State, arguing that the law violated constitutional freedoms and demanded autonomy in health matters. Of note, the WHO then decided to move its European headquarters to Venice, the capital of Veneto.

At the beginning of the disease outbreak, the Italian authorities considered it unnecessary to impose a two-week school quarantine on children returning from a trip to China, in order not to “stigmatize” them. (By contrast, unvaccinated children are stigmatized and prohibited from attending school year round.) Officials disagreed on Covid-19 diagnosis and “crisis measures,” reflecting conflicts between regional parties and medical experts. But the WHO soon managed to take control of the situation^[12] and appointed a special advisor, Dr. Gualtiero Ricciardi, who had been forced to resign earlier from the Italian HHS due to a long list of undeclared conflicts of interest, to steer the coronavirus crisis.

Since then, panic and alarm have escalated continuously, as have the Veneto region’s accusations of “anti-scientific”^[13] management. Although the country has been in a complete lockdown for weeks, cases keep increasing and the estimated number of deaths is now nearing 3,000. This sends a frightening signal, but these numbers need to be seen with caution. First, one of the major reasons why Italy is “overwhelmed,”  is because of the crisis its public hospitals were already facing before the epidemic. The number of intensive care units has dropped by half over the last 20 years, dropping from the highest to the lowest number of beds per capita in Europe to around 230 per 100,000 inhabitants. In other words, the situation was already disastrous.

Second, there is a lot of controversy about the number of deaths that can really be ascribed to the epidemic. Testing is not very reliable and suffers many biases. According to Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, who had chaired the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Health Committee that called an emergency debate on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in the declaration of the H1N1 flu pandemic by WHO in 2009,  “the tests are currently not measuring the incidence of coronavirus diseases, but the activity of the specialists searching for them.”^[14] Many experts also disagree on the mortality rate of Covid-19. While the WHO gives estimates as high as 3.4%, renowned epidemiologists such as John Ioannidis^[15] consider the risk is probably much lower, perhaps 0.125%, for which there are no reasons to take such draconian measures.

France

In France, too, declarations of the Covid-19 pandemic seemed to have a flair for strategic time and place. When Minister of Health Agnes Buzyn suddenly left office to replace a candidate who was running for mayor of Paris (he had to step down after a sex scandal), the coronavirus crisis seemed to be reasonably manageable. But the Covid-19 threat arose again at an opportune time — to ban large protests against a highly unpopular law that slashed pensions and on the eve of local March elections. After the first round of voting, a complete lockdown was announced. The former health minister, who wasn’t elected mayor, expressed her regret for leaving office during the coronavirus crisis, saying that she knew from the start that the epidemic would escalate and soon turn into a major catastrophe…

But a disaster in France is easy to predict, as the situation is very similar to Italy. 1,300 public hospital doctors have been on administrative strike for almost a year. They refused to share the responsibility and decisions of a state that no longer provides minimal funds to run public health services. In the last two decades, the available number of beds has been reduced by 100,000 and the remaining facilities are largely understaffed. Patients who died after waiting endless hours in the emergency room were already frequently reported by the media long before the coronavirus epidemic.

So the former health minister, who had received fierce criticism for her inability to solve this lingering hospital crisis, knew perfectly well that the coronavirus situation would further exacerbate the problem. Recently, when President Macron visited doctors fighting the epidemic to show his support, medical staff took the opportunity to express their anger towards his disastrous health policies in front of the camera.

The silent war in the treatment against Covid-19 

Finally, the Coronavirus epidemic reveals the huge discrepancy between the WHO health strategies and the reality for scientists and doctors who put patients’ lives first.

The current power struggle in France about coronavirus strategies between health officials and the country’s leading expert is truly eye opening.  Professor Didier Raoult, who is one of the world’s top 5 scientists on communicable diseases and leads the high tech research center on infectious diseases,  IHU – mediterranée Marseilles, argued that the approach of mass quarantine is both inefficient and outdated and that large scale testing and treatment of suspected cases achieves far better results.

Early on, Dr. Raoult suggested the use of hydroxychloroquine (Chloroquine or Plaquenil), a well-known, simple, and inexpensive drug that has shown efficacy with previous coronaviruses such as SARS.  By mid-February, clinical trials at his institute and in China already confirmed that the drug could reduce the viral load and bring spectacular improvement. The Chinese scientists published their first trials on more than 100 patients and announced that the Chinese National Health Commission would recommend Chloroquine in their new guidelines to treat Covid-19.^[16]

As a member of a similar French committee, Dr. Raoult immediately shared the great news with health authorities.  But they replied that there was not enough scientific evidence to prove efficacy and warned against potential side effects of the drug, preferring to focus their efforts to find new molecules and develop a new vaccine, with France’s Sanofi Pasteur included in the coronavirus vaccine competition.

But Dr. Raoult and 600 members of his institute continued their work and confirmed similar results in a trial of 24 patients that was published March 3, 2020.^[17] Dr. Raoult has recorded daily videos^[18] to share his research and knowledge, sometimes reaching half a million views in a couple of days. Hospitals and general practitioners started to treat their patients with the drug until it quickly went out of stock.

In fact, for an unknown reason, last October, the French minister of health suddenly decided to put this long used over-the-counter drug on the list of  “controlled substances” and make it a prescription drug.

Now, a month later, under the growing pressure of doctors and the media, the government has finally decided to “consider more trials” of this protocol, and Sanofi Pasteur has announced that it will offer enough doses to potentially treat 300,000 patients.^[19]

Although Chloroquine was cited second on the WHO’s original list of drugs to be evaluated for coronavirus treatment as a drug on its list of “essential medicines,” the WHO has not yet released any information about it and has not even mentioned the four clinical trials that received official European Union approval.  While the WHO has repeatedly praised China and South Korea, for their “efficient response” using draconian quarantine measures, there has been no mention of the fact that those countries are using Chloroquine as an efficient Covid-19 treatment. But having used Chloroquine together with quarantine, China is nearing the end of its epidemic.

Interestingly, on February 26, the United Kingdom put Chloroquine on its list^[120] of drugs that can no longer be exported outside the country. In the United States, a white paper,^[21] published on March 13 by researchers from the National Academy of Science and Stanford Medical School, proposes that “the United States of America and other countries should immediately authorize and indemnify medical doctors for prescribing chloroquine to treat COVID-19.”

But so far, the only words we hear from the WHO and Western health officials are “quarantine,” “fast tracking vaccines,” and “the search for new drugs.”  Obviously, there is no real interest in using a generic drug that can provide immediate treatment and prevention for a price around $5. As a financial consultant recently asked in an article, “If a Covid-19 Therapy Doesn’t Benefit A Stock, Does It Event Exist?”^[22] The answer, sadly, is obviously not.

It looks as if the WHO and our Western governments have decided to keep fueling the panic and raising the alert level, pushing the “Global Health Security Threat” narrative to the hilt.  How much longer will we have to wait for effective treatment? How much longer with this global lockdown last? Officials say “until a new vaccine has been developed,” which will probably be in fast track mode by a well-known philanthropist after most courts in the world have ruled that mandatory vaccination does not violate human rights.

Or perhaps until the economy has completely crashed and can be rebuilt on a “healthy basis”? Here is a clue: the European Central Bank has launched a “Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program”^[23] that will last until “the coronavirus Covid-19 crisis phase is over, but in any case not before the end of the year”!

Anything can happen now. No one can know for sure if we will emerge out of the coronavirus crisis as subjects of a techno-communist global government or if a new freedom virus will derail such a program. Certainly the world will not be the same.

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Senta Depuydt is a Belgian freelance journalist with a degree in communications. In 2016, she organized the first European Congress on biomedical treatments in Paris and has hosted debates on the biology of autism and vaccine safety in many French-speaking countries. She arranged for premieres of “Vaxxed” in Brussels, Paris and Cannes and an event at UNESCO. She is a board member of the French League for Free Choice in Vaccination and in the European Forum for Vaccine Vigilance. She works with health freedom organizations across Europe.

Notes

1. Event 201.
2. Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) meeting.
3. Executive Order — Advancing the Global Health Security Agenda to Achieve a World Safe and Secure from Infectious Disease Threats.
4. California vaccine bill exemption rules agreed to by Newsom and lawmakers.
5. ‘California refugees’ move to Idaho for lax vaccine laws. They want lawmakers to know why.
6. ‘We’re ready to go to war on this’: N.J. lawmakers pledge to reintroduce failed vaccine bill.
7. South Dakota Considers First State Bill To Outlaw All Vaccine AND Medical Mandates.
8. Genèse de l’obligation vaccinale contre la
   rougeole en Allemagne.
9. Erste Verfassungsbeschwerden in Karlsruhe übergeben.
10. Invitation to european protest for medical freedom.
11. Coronavirus: Iran frees 85,000 prisoners to combat spread of infection.
12. Joint WHO and ECDC mission in Italy to support COVID-19 control and prevention efforts.
13. Coronavirus, Ricciardi (OMS): “Il Veneto si è comportato in maniera antiscientifica”.
14. W.Wodarg “Without PCR-Tests There Would Be No Reasons For Special Alarms”, 1.3.20, wodarg.com.
15. A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.
16. Expert consensus on comprehensive treatment of coronavirus disease in Shanghai 2019.
17. Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as available weapons to fight COVID-19.
18. mediterranee-infection.com.
19. https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/French-lab-Sanofi-hypothetically-offers-millions-of-doses-of-potential-Covid-19-Plaquenil-anti-malaria-drug.
20. Medicines that cannot be parallel exported from the UK.
21. March 13 White Paper
22. If a COVID-19 Therapy Doesn’t Benefit a Stock, Does it Even Exist?.
23. The Governing Council will terminate net asset purchases under PEPP once it judges that the coronavirus Covid-19 crisis phase is over, but in any case not before the end of the year.

“The test of our [moral] progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd American President (1933-1945); (in his ‘Second Inaugural Address’, Wed., Jan. 20, 1937).

“The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. … By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.” —John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), British economist, 1936.

“Our economic leadership does not seem to be aware that the normal functioning of our economy leads to financial trauma and crises, inflation, currency depreciations, unemployment and poverty in the middle of what could be virtually universal affluence —in short that financially complex capitalism is inherently flawed.” —Hyman Minsky (1919-1996), American economist, 1986.

Here we go again: Another financial bubble burst and another financial crisis threatening to disrupt the real economy! This time the trigger is the health pandemic of the coronavirus crisis, the most serious in a generation, which is paralyzing the real economy and triggering crashes in the financial sector.

The crisis and public measures to fight it (drastic travel restrictions, social distancing, worker quarantines, etc.) have provoked a major global economic meltdown and perturbed supply chains domestically and around the world. Moreover, they have profoundly shaken financial markets already vulnerable, after years of easy money policies and round after round of so-called ‘Quantitative Easing’ (QE) by central banks, which have encouraged unsustainable debt levels by pushing interest rates down at historically low levels, irresponsible large fiscal deficits by governments during prosperous times, which have enriched the very rich, and runaway unregulated financial speculation that have had the same result.

An oil supply glut worldwide has now produced an additional deflationary bias in the world economy, which will be difficult to reverse. To top it all, there are countries that are presently run by inexperienced and/or incompetent leaders.

As a result, the world is presently going through a convergence of health and economic crises that creates a perfect economic storm, for which many countries are not prepared at all to handle.

In the United States, for example, only two years ago, in 2018, President Donald Trump fired his top health official (Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer) who was responsible for the response to pandemics, and he was not replaced. He then shut down the White House National Security Council’s entire global health security unit in charge of preparing for a global pandemic. In so doing, Mr. Trump forgot the precautionary principle in government, which requires preparations to face unforeseen events.

During such a severe health and economic crisis, which touches some people more than others, governments that sometimes create problems are the only collective instruments to fight it in the most ethical way possible.

Of course, besides taking the required measures to prevent the virus crisis from spreading and preventing panics, governments must take, on the economic and financial fronts, some fiscal, regulatory and monetary steps to prevent a deflationary downward spiral of economic activity and to stabilize the financial system. They must, above all, prevent human suffering and help workers, families and communities under financial strain.

What should governments do and not do to minimize the impact of the supply shock and of the demand shock presently hurting their economies?

1- First of all, government priority has to be to get out of the virus health crisis as soon as possible, and to provide medical care and assistance, while preventing shortages. Measures have to be taken to fight the infectious disease and alleviate human suffering, but also to prevent price gouging and other instances of corruption.

Lessons from previous virus outbreaks (Ebola, SARS, H1N1, etc.) can be a guide to action.

The coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis is presently the main cause of economic disruptions and hardships, and traditional monetary and fiscal macroeconomic policies are not geared to solving that type of problem.

2- The second priority is to save the economy from collapsing, and from entering into a deep recession or even into an economic depression. The first step, which is already taken to some extent, is for central banks to make sure that there is enough liquidity in the financial system to keep the latter functioning. This means that they must inject as much liquidity, i.e. cash, as needed to prevent bankruptcies in cascades of otherwise creditworthy and solvent companies, and to allow credit to flow freely.

But it is not acceptable for the government to tap public money to alleviate private banks and private companies’ cash-flow problems. This must not be done at the public expense and to enrich owners of capital, but according to sound business practice. Advances must be guaranteed loans, secured by a bank’s or a company’s assets, physical assets or shares, —and to be repaid at a future date. That is the only way to avoid taxpayers being fleeced by private improvident and risk-taking operators whose motto is “let’s privatize profits, but socialize losses.”

3- However, it must be recognized that monetary policy as such is largely ineffective in correcting a supply shock. It cannot restore perturbed supply chains or prevent companies from stopping production and employment when there is no demand for their products or services. And, it cannot solve a demand shock by simply cutting interest rates, which are already low, when people’s incomes are falling and consumer confidence is absent, or when consumers are unable to get out and spend because they are quarantined.

Moreover, negative real interest rates, the result of attempting to boost economic growth through financial means, as has been tried in Japan and in Europe, are bound to create important economic problems down the road. They are fundamentally deflationary.

They hurt savers and retirees and they contract effective demand from this important group of consumers, and they exert a negative pressure on prices. They also pose a threat to the financial viability of pension funds and insurance companies by forcing them to invest in riskier financial assets. They also encourage companies to invest in projects that would not been profitable otherwise.

4- As a preliminary conclusion, therefore, let us say that from an economic, political and social perspective, injecting liquidity in the economy is not ‘a whether or not question’ during a crisis, but it is how it should be done.

More than a century and a half ago, British economist and banker Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) spelled that out clearly when he wrote that in a time of economic and financial crisis, a central bank must discount heavily, i.e. lend as much money to institutions in need as necessary against collateral, toavoid cascading defaults and bankruptcies.

But this must be done at “punitive rates of lending” in order to avoid enriching distressed banks and their owners with public money, and to create a moral hazard by encouraging foolish risk-taking, with the knowledge of being bailed out in case of trouble.

What does it mean in practice? It means that in a time of crisis, the central bank or the Treasury must lend as much money as necessary, but the weaker and the more risky the collateral is, the higher the lending rates must be.

That is a lesson that was not totally followed in the U.S. during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis when the Fed increased its balance sheet from $870 billion in 2007 to $4.5 trillion by 2015, (a more than a five-fold increase), in order to save some mega banks from bankruptcy by relieving them of their bad debts. The purpose, of course, was to prevent the financial system from collapsing under the weight of a mountain of mortgage-backed securities that had turned sour. But it ended up enriching the already very rich at the expense of the rest of the population.

There is unanimity among economists about the need for fiscal policy responses to the crisis

The need of strong fiscal responses, to help people and companies, especially small and medium-sized businesses, is obvious. But, by what means, at a time when fiscal deficits are already high?

Hundreds of thousands of workers are being temporarily laid off, many with no severance. They find themselves suddenly without paycheques, because their employers cannot produce and sell their goods or services. The criteria and requirements to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits could be relaxed in order to make more unemployed workers temporarily eligible.

But all individuals and families, to different degrees, may see their financial situations deteriorate during the crisis. This is both an economic and social problem. Helping those individuals and families who are the most in need of urgent assistance poses a logistic problem for governments.

For one, some laws or directives by the relevant level of government could be adopted to protect the most vulnerable people from being evicted from their lodgings during the crisis. Small landlords are also facing mortgage payments and would have to be compensated for lost rents.

The simplest fiscal way to quickly deliver cash payments to people in need would be to mail monthly checks of a few thousands dollars to taxpayers whose income in 2018 was below a certain amount, say $50,000, in order to provide them temporarily with a basic guaranteed income to bail them out during the coming months.

The proposal made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to provide emergency government funding (two-thirds of wages while away from work) to reimburse lost paychecks for those workers who are self-quarantining and are missing work or losing jobs amid the outbreak, goes in the same direction. This could be done through the channel of employers or through the Social Security Administration.

There are, however, logistical problems with any simple solution. Indeed, it is not everybody who has a full-time job, a tax record and a mailing address. Some people are self-employed, some are retired, some are seasonal or part-time workers, and some have income too low to file an income tax return. Some are homeless. They could be left out of direct financial assistance if direct assistance is used, even though they are probably among those who need help the most.

For example, there were more than half a million homeless Americans in 2019. These people would have to be reached and helped through different approaches. The number of children in needy households must also be taken into consideration. Possibly, municipalities or other community organizations could serve as aid distributors.

Proposals to resort to payroll tax cuts would not address the problem properly since such taxes are only paid when employees are still working! Similarly, providing direct financial assistance to people with incomes as high as $198,000 a year, as Republican Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate Mitch McConnell has proposed, would be both very costly and unethical.

Whatever the channels used, some direct fiscal assistance from the government has become a necessity, considering the declining incomes of many workers laid off during this crisis.

For example, if federal and state governments in the U.S. were to inject in the economy, this year, an amount equal to about 30% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), this would mean a combined effort of $US 6 trillion.

In Canada, if federal and provincial governments were to do the same, their combined efforts to sustain the economy would amount to some $CAD 550 billion. This is much more than what is under consideration in either country.

We must add that the Covid-19 pandemic is worldwide and that countries should cooperate to stabilize international trade, in order to facilitate an orderly return to prosperity once the health issue has been resolved.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that all efforts should be devoted to stopping the coronavirus pandemic in its tracks. This is an absolute public health priority.

However, in so doing, all must also be done to repair the heavy damage inflicting on the economy by distortions in the supply chains, by workers being laid off in droves, and by deflationary financial crashes, so that the economy can rebound quickly when things get back to normal. And since this is a worldwide crisis, the more international coordination to lay the ground for a quick return to prosperity, the better it will be.

For one, governments should not refrain from relying on monetary, regulatory and especially fiscal policies to inject liquidity and financial assistance where it is needed. However, this should not be done in a way that ends up “privatizing profits, while socializing losses.”

Secondly, it must be said that over the last forty years or so, there has been a curious politico-economic system, which has been imposed upon the people in some countries.

It has translated into being a harsh capitalist system for most of the people and an accommodating socialist system for the owners of capital and the super rich. After the current catastrophe, I do not think that people are going to tolerate such a system much longer.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay.

International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles”, of the book “The New American Empire”, and the recent book, in French « La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018 ».  Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. 

In 1948 the poet, W.H. Auden, published a long poem he titled, The Age of Anxiety, in which four characters express their anxiety about their place in a world that has been destroyed by two world wars and was threatened by a third, and nuclear, world war.

He described the faces in the bars, the people trying to cling to average days that no longer existed, all hoping that the lights wouldn’t go out, that the music would always play, that they could avoid looking at where they were, lost in the dark, “children afraid of the night, who have never been happy or good.”

The entire period, from 1914 until today, has been an age of anxiety created by our common experience of life in the dominant economic, social, and political system that atomises the individual, reduces them to fragment of themselves and constantly threatens them with annihilation.

A tortured humanity cried out for something better and, for a time, during the rise of socialism, during and after the First World War and through to the counter-revolution in what was the Soviet Union, a new human spirit appeared and created conditions that made people aware of their own possibilities and taught them that the other was not an enemy or a competitor, but a friend, a brother, a sister, who, together, could do anything, for when you can do things and know it, anxiety transforms into confidence and calm, into resoluteness and courage. Liberation movements arose against all the imperialist countries, supported by the socialist nations. The possibility of a better world arose, and as Che Guevara wrote, the possibility of a new human being governed by the spirit of cooperation and regard for fellow beings, by love instead of war.

But, though the struggle goes on, the present reality is a return to universal anxiety. Nuclear war is a possibility at any time. The Americans threaten it, the Russians, Iranians, Koreans, Chinese prepare for it, and the rest of us can only bite our nails and hope they will not see that bright flash on the horizon just before they are swept into oblivion.

Human caused climate change alone threatens us with an immediate existential threat. Temperatures are rising faster than expected by the official journals, though as expected by the more astute scientists, climate systems are disrupted, crops are threatened, the oceans acidified, the ice melting, the seas rising. Our industrial civilisation has destroyed the world ecological systems so that the scientific consensus is that we are in the midst of the 6th Mass Extinction event and its ultimate conclusion is not far off; decades at most, much shorter by some estimations, certainly within my life time.

And the daily grind in the capitalist system generates the daily anxiety we all face, worrying about getting the money you need to live in this system, about paying the bills, about losing the job that you probably hate in any event and only do out of necessity, for most of us do work that creates no satisfaction and from which we can see no escape. The alternative is the street, the hunger, the cold, the heat, the loneliness of being poor. Charlie Chaplin expressed it in Modern Times, the human being as human machine, used up and then discarded by the machine system, worse than slaves, now reduced to subhuman slaves.

On top of all this background anxiety we now have the warnings of imminent death from the corona virus and the unprecedented disruption of every aspect of our lives its appearance has created. Now many face the cruel reality of losing their place in the capitalist lottery as the capitalist economic system breaks down, the system ceases to function, and uncertainty and fear are ever-present.

And, as with all states of anxiety, we see the rise of irrationality and superstition, as people try to convince themselves, “like children afraid of the night” that it is not really happening, or that man created it instead of nature, feeling more secure that it was designed than is a random product of nature, which seems to frighten them the more, and that however it came to be, it is much ado about nothing, just another flu.

We have seen several articles lately making these claims. It has been claimed it was a result of a Chinese bio-warfare lab making a mistake and leaking a virus. It has been claimed it was an American Army laboratory that leaked it; that China was attacked by the US Army sports team that went to a competition in China. For none of these claims is any evidence presented, Instead, they use speculation and conjecture based on false facts or coincidence. Some of them contradict themselves in different articles, One wrote an alarming essay the US Army was behind it. Later he wrote another suggesting it was all a plot by Bill Gates and friends. Well, which it it? They don’t know because they don’t know and don’t care about being consistent so long as it is alarming.

But these articles are passed around and soon Trump begins blaming China and China blaming the US exacerbating the already tense situation between the two countries that could lead to nuclear war. These articles fan those flames. While those that claim it is a plot for “world domination” and that it is either not really happening, or, if happening, is nothing to be concerned about, cause people to put themselves and others at risk by ignoring any measures put in place to protect them and the rest of us.

That superstition involved is plain to see. Those making these claims state that world governments are lying to us. Yet they cannot then explain why the Chinese, Russian, Iranians, Cuban, North Koreans and other anti-imperialist nations take it very seriously and have acted to contain it. But they don’t think about that. They are whistling in the dark because their own anxiety levels are so high, so, to comfort themselves, they invent comforting stories so that they can feel in control. But we are not in control. Nature is. For it is probable, as the Chinese have shown with their genetic studies of the virus that it likely came out of nature not out of a lab.

Of course there is no denying the evil intentions and potential of the western war machine, and of course anything is possible, but until someone comes up with some concrete and reliable evidence that, for example, the virus was an attack on China by the USA, a claim which could add the spark to the powder keg of war, I will assume it is something Nature has thrown at us, at the world, and that instead of creating more division between the nations and peoples of the world we must all act together to help each other as humanity unites to overcome this new threat.

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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”  He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

Though it narrowly averted war with Iran this January, the Trump administration is still pushing for all-out military conflict. The architects of the drive to war, Mike Pompeo and Benjamin Netanyahu, have relied on a series of cynical provocations to force Trump’s hand.

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The administration of President Donald Trump may escape the most recent conflict with Iran without war, however, a dangerous escalation is just over the horizon.  And as before, the key factors driving the belligerence are not outraged Iraqi militia leaders or their allies in Iran, but Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long sought to draw the US into a military confrontation with Iran.

Throughout the fall of 2019, Netanyahu ordered a series of Israeli strikes against Iranian allies in Iraq and against Lebanese Hezbollah units. He and Pompeo hoped the attacks would provoke a reaction from their targets that could provide a tripwire outright war with Iran. As could have been expected, corporate US media missed the story, perhaps because it failed to reinforce the universally accepted narrative of a hyper-aggressive Iran emboldened by Trump’s failure to “deter” it following Iran’s shoot-down of a U.S. drone in June, and an alleged Iranian attack on Saudi oil facility in September.

Pompeo and John Bolton set the stage for the tripwire strategy in May 2019 with a statement by national security adviser John Bolton citing “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” implying an Iranian threat without providing concrete details. That vague language echoed a previous vow by Bolton that “any attack” by Iran or “proxy” forces “on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

Then came a campaign of leaks to major news outlet suggesting that Iran was planning attacks on U.S. military personnel. The day after Bolton’s statement, the Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed U.S. officials cited “U.S. intelligence” showing that Iran “drew up plans to target U.S. forces in Iraq and possibly Syria, to orchestrate attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb strait near Yemen through proxies and in the Persian Gulf with its own armed drones….”

The immediate aim of this campaign was to gain Trump’s approval for contingency plans for a possible war with Iran that included the option of sending as many 120,000 U.S. troops in the region.  Trump balked at such war-planning, however, complaining privately that Bolton and Pompeo were pushing him into a war with Iran. Following Iran’s shoot-down of the U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, Pompeo and Bolton suggested the option of killing Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in retaliation. But Trump refused to sign off on the assassination of Iran’s top general unless Iran killed an American first, according to current and former officials.

Screenshot from The NYT

From that point on, the provocation strategy was focused on trying to trigger an Iranian reaction that would involve a U.S. casualty.  That’s when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interjected himself and his military as a central player in the drama. From July 19 through August 20, the Israeli army carried out five strikes against Iraqi militias allied with Iran, blowing up four weapons depots and killing as many Shiite militiamen and Iranian offcers, according to press accounts.

The Israeli bombing escalated on August 25, when two strikes on the brigade headquarters of a pro-Iranian militia and on a militia convoy killed the brigade commander and six other militiamen, and a drone strike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in south Beirut blew the windows out of one of Hezbollah’s media offices.

Netanyahu and Pompeo sabotage Trump and Macron’s attempt at diplomacy

Behind those strikes was Netanyahu’s sense of alarm over Trump toying with the idea of seeking negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu had likely learned about Trump’s moves toward detente from Pompeo, who had long been his primary contact in the administration. On August 26, French President Emanuel Macron revealed that he was working to broker a Trump-Rouhani meeting.  Netanyahu grumbled about the prospect of U.S.-Iranian talks “several times” with his security cabinet the day before launching the strikes.

Two retired senior Israeli generals, Gen. Amos Yadlin and Gen. Assaf Oron, criticized those strikes for increasing the likelihood of harsh retaliation by Iran or one of its regional partners.The generals complained that Netanyahu’s attacks were “designed to prod [Iran] into a hasty response” and thus end Trump’s flirtation with talking to Iran. That much was obviously true, but Pompeo and Netanyahu also knew that provoking an attack by Iran or one of its allies might cause one or more of the American casualties they sought. And once American blood was spilled, Trump would have no means to resist authorizing a major escalation.

Kataib Hezbollah and other pro-Iran Iraqi militias blamed the United States for the wave of lethal Israeli attacks on their fighters. These militias responded in September by launching a series of rocket attacks on Iraqi government bases where U.S. troops were present. They also struck targets in the vicinity of the U.S. Embassy.

The problem for Netanyahu and Pompeo, however, was that none of those strikes killed an American. What’s more, U.S. intelligence officials knew from NSA monitoring of communications between the IRGC and the militias that Iran had explicitly forbidden direct attacks on US personnel.

Netanyahu was growing impatient.  For several days in late October and early November, he met with his national security cabinet to discuss a new Israeli attack to precipitate a possible war with Iran, according to reports by former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Oren hinted at how a war with Iran might start.  ‘[P]erhaps Israel miscalculates,” he suggested, “hitting a particularly sensitive target,” which, in his view, could spark “a big war between Israel and Iran.”

But on December 27, before Netanyahu could put such a strategy into action, the situation changed dramatically. A barrage of rockets slammed into an Iraqi base near Kirkuk where U.S. military personnel were stationed, killing a U.S military contractor. Suddenly, Pompeo had the opening he needed.  At a meeting the following day, Pompeo led Trump to believe that Iranian “proxies” had attacked the base, and pressed him to “reestablish deterrence” with Iran by carrying out a military response.

In fact, U.S. and Iraqi officials on the spot had reached no such conclusion, and the investigation led by the head of intelligence for the Iraqi federal police at the base was just beginning that same day. But Pompeo and his allies, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark A Milley, were not interested in waiting for its conclusion.

A deception brings the US and Iran to the brink of war

The results of a subsequent Iraqi investigation revealed that the rocket barrage had been launched from a Sunni area of Kirkuk with a strong Islamic State presence, and that IS fighters had carried out three attacks not far from the base on Iraqi forces stationed there in the previous ten days. US signals intercepts found no evidence that Iraqi militias had shifted from their policy of avoiding American casualties at all cost.

Kept in the dark by Pompeo about these crucial facts, Trump agreed to launch five airstrikes against Kataib Hezbollah and another pro-Iran militia at five locations in Iraq and Syria that killed 25 militiamen and wounded 51.  He may have also agreed in principle to the killing of Soleimani when the opportunity presented itself.

Iran responded to the attacks on its Iraqi militia allies by approving a violent protest at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad January 31.  The demonstrators did not penetrate the embassy building itself and were abruptly halted the same day. But Pompeo managed to persuade Trump to authorize the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s second most powerful figure, presumably by hammering on the theme of “reestablishing deterrence” with Iran.

Soleimani was not only the second most powerful man in Iran and the main figure in its foreign policy; he was idolized by millions of the most strongly nationalist citizens of the country.  Killing him in a drone strike was an open invitation to the military confrontation Netanyahu and Pompeo so desperately sought.

During the crucial week from December 28 through January 4, while Pompeo was pressing Trump to retaliate against Iran not just once but twice, it was clear that he was coordinating closely with Netanyahu.  During that single week, he spoke by phone with Netanyahu on three separate occasions.

What Pompeo and Netanyahu could not have anticipated was that Iran’s missile attack on the U.S. sector of Iraq’s sprawling al-Asad airbase in retaliation would be so precise that it scored direct hits on six U.S. targets without killing a single American. (The US service members were saved in part because the rockets were fired after the Iraqi government had passed on a warning from Iran to prepare for it). Because no American was killed in the strike, Trump again decided against further retaliation.

Towards another provocation

Although Pompeo and Netanyahu failed to ignite a military conflict with Iran, there is good reason to believe that they will try again before both are forced to leave their positions or power.

In an article for the Atlantic last November, former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, channeled Netanyahu when he declared it would be “better for conflict [with Iran] to occur during the current [Trump] administration, which can be counted on to provide Israel with the three sources of American assistance it traditionally receives in wartime,” than to “wait until later.”

Oren was not the only Israeli official to suggest that Israeli is likely to go even further in strikes against Iranian and Iranian allies targets in 2020.  After listening to Israeli army Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speak in late December, Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel reported that the Israeli army chief conveyed the clear impression that a “more serious confrontation with Iran in the coming year as an almost unquestionable necessity.” His interviews with Israeli military and political figures further indicated that Israel would “intensity its efforts to hit Iran in the northern area.”

Shockingly, Pompeo has exploited the Coronavirus pandemic to impose even harsher sanctions on Iran while intimidating foreign businesses to prevent urgently needed medical supplies from entering the country. The approaching presidential election gives both Pompeo and Netanyahu a powerful reason to plot another strike, or a series of strikes aimed at drawing the US into a potential Israeli confrontation with Iran.

Activists and members of Congress concerned about keeping the US out of war with Iran must be acutely aware of the danger and ready to respond decisively when the provocation occurs.

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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.

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

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The recent re-labeling of the novel coronavirus with xenophobic undertones by some U.S. politicians to stigmatize China has drawn widespread criticism.

As the international community works together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, a few American politicians are shifting blame to China for the virus’ spread by recasting it as a “Chinese virus” or “foreign virus.”

Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, warned on Wednesday against using the phrase “Chinese virus,” saying that

“Viruses know no borders, and they don’t care about your ethnicity, the color of your skin or how much money you have in the bank.”

“So it’s really important we be careful in the language we use,” Ryan said at a news conference in Geneva, giving an example of the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009.

The pandemic “originated in North America and we didn’t call it the North American flu,” he said, calling for solidarity and joint efforts of all countries.

Dr. Michael Ryan (L), executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program, addresses a press conference, in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 18, 2020. (Photo by Chen Junxia/Xinhua)

Ryan was echoed by co-founder of Microsoft Corporation Bill Gates, who wrote on Wednesday in an Ask Me Anything session on the American social news platform Reddit that “we should not call this the Chinese virus.”

The tally of confirmed cases of the COVID-19 pandemic has reached over 220,000 and spans at least 160 countries and regions, according to the latest statistics from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

With the world facing an escalating challenge from the disease, “it’s also an unprecedented opportunity to come together as one against a common enemy,” the WHO wrote on its Twitter feed on Wednesday.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday refuted the White House’s racist remarks on Twitter, saying that “coronavirus does not discriminate.”

“Bigotry against people of Asian descent is unacceptable, un-American, & harmful to our COVID-19 response efforts,” the Massachusetts lawmaker wrote.

U.S. Representative Lois Frankel said on Twitter Wednesday that she was “disappointed, but unsurprised” at the White House’s decision to use xenophobic language during this global pandemic.

She urged the government to promote international cooperation instead of racism to combat the disease.

Public Policy Committee Chairman of the Committee of 100 Charlie Woo said in a statement that any attempt to ascribe the virus to one culture, ethnicity or country can only hinder the global effort to combat the epidemic.

“This crisis requires science, facts and clear language, not fear-mongering, finger-pointing and xenophobia by our public servants,” the statement said, quoted by the New York Times.

John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, a non-profit legal aid organization, told NBC Asian America that the U.S. administration’s words could have negative repercussions.

The usage of such racist terms has “led to a noticeable incline in hate incidents that we are seeing,” Yang was quoted by the NBC report. “I do think that there is a correlation,” he added.

The monitor shows the scene of the video conference attended by Chinese and Italian experts in Shanghai, east China, on March 16, 2020. Shanghai medical experts on Monday held a video conference with their Italian peers, sharing their experience on prevention and control measures, medical treatment and scientific research related to the coronavirus epidemic. (Photo by Wang Xiang/Xinhua)

“Rather than making mockery of the Chinese nation or calling the virus ‘made in China’, the world must learn from the miraculous measures China has adopted to defeat this invisible enemy,” said Yasir Masood, former director of media and publications at the Center of Excellence of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The Pakistani political and international relations analyst believed that such smearing tactics against China or any other country in these depressing times are not conducive to global harmony.

Epidemics have taken millions of lives throughout history and can wreak havoc at a moment’s notice, Masoon said, adding “epidemics and natural disasters have no boundaries and they do not announce their arrival.”

China has achieved great success in its fight against COVID-19, and now it is extending help to other countries to defeat this pandemic, he said.

“In this difficult time of confusion and dismay, the world must work collaboratively to end this pandemic rather than tossing political rhetoric,” he added.

Experts adjust the lab equipment for the COVID-19 nucleic acid test in Baghdad, Iraq, on March 15, 2020. A Chinese team of seven health experts is providing guidance and medical assistance to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in Iraq. (Xinhua)

Regarding the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan, the analyst said the country has a lot to learn from the exemplary steps taken by China to defeat the virus.

Masood, who was in China when the disease broke out in Wuhan, said the government’s efforts to raise awareness by calling on the public to be socially responsible to stem the virus’ spread is commendable.

“The sterilization of public places and collective quarantine were strictly adopted in the country and the suspected cases were taken care of,” he said.

Praising the Chinese government and its people for their resilience, discipline, and unity during the outbreak, he said China’s measures could be followed.

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Featured image: Photo taken on March 1, 2020 shows medical supplies, including masks, gloves and protective suits, donated to Italy by Lishui City, east China’s Zhejiang Province. (Xinhua)

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy already seems to be affecting the companies and businesses of U.S. President Donald Trump and, along with with it, the employment of hundreds of people.

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President Trump’s company — significantly reliant on tourism, conventions, and restaurant income — has been sharply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with at least two properties closing and three hotels laying off staff, according to the Washington Post.

In the wake of the crisis caused by the new coronavirus pandemic in the world, many countries have adopted some strict policies to prevent mass contagion. In the United States, some states ordered the closure of bars and restaurants and imposed special restrictions in some places, which has affected Trump’s businesses and companies in Florida, Las Vegas, New York, Washington, among others.

Places like the famous Mar-a-Lago Club and hotels announced its closure due to the policies that the states imposed to combat the COVID-19. However, the strong impact of all this lies in the dismissal of hundreds of employees, more than 200, according to the Washington Post.

Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas was shuttered in response to a statewide order from Nevada’s governor. It will not reopen until April 17; the hotel told customers. However, some employees at the hotel have already been laid off, the news outlet reported.

One nonsalaried employee in the hotel’s food and beverage department said his manager told him he would receive nothing. “Zero, nothing,” said the employee, who said he had been at the hotel for more than a decade. “We live paycheck to paycheck,”  “We are screwed,” he said to the Washington Post.

In New York, Trump’s hotel on Central Park remained open Friday. However, 51 of the more than 300 employees were fired on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the Trump hotel’s operations.

“Various facilities are temporarily closed given local, state and federal mandates,” Trump Organization spokeswoman Kimberly Benza said in a statement. “We anxiously await the day when this pandemic is over, and our world-class facilities can reopen.”

At the Trump Hotel in Washington, the layoffs were even more drastic. In essence, 160 workers were let go, as the hotel’s occupancy rate plunged to about 5 percent, according to the union that represents the hotel’s employees.

Trump’s D.C. hotel remains open, despite the bar and restaurant being closed by a directive from the D.C. government and almost no guests staying there.

John Boardman, executive secretary-treasurer of the D.C. affiliate of Unite Here, said occupancy is about 5 percent and about 160 of his 174 workers he represents — including housekeepers, dishwashers and bellmen — have been laid off. He said the Trump Organization is “no different than anybody else except that they are staying open, which amazes me.”

And at all of the company’s other large U.S. hotels — in Miami, Honolulu, and Chicago — restaurants were either partially or entirely shut, cutting off a vital stream of revenue, the Washington Post said.

The company does not release profit and loss information, so it is unclear what the downturn has meant to its bottom line.

Also, the company has other lucrative investments in commercial buildings that will not be hurt immediately by the new coronavirus. But many of the company’s largest — and most heavily indebted — businesses are dependent on a travel industry that is now primarily shuttered, with no end in sight. Trump still owns his business empire, so its struggles could affect his wealth.

Trump owns seven U.S. hotels, including three — in Washington, Miami, and Chicago — with outstanding loans from Deutsche Bank. The original value of these loans was more than $300 million. Deutsche Bank declined to comment about the loans, according to the Washington Post.

Many analysts have criticized the lack of preventive policies by the Trump government, who had initially downplayed the COVID-19 threats in March early. Now the impact of this new virus seems to become more real for the world economy as well as the International Labour Organization (ILO) said that the effects of the new pandemic could destroy up to 25 million jobs around the world.

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Israel’s external intelligence agency, the Mossad, joined the country’s battle against the global coronavirus pandemic and has acquired 100,000 test kits for the disease from two countries with which it does not share diplomatic ties, Israeli media reported, adding that the kits were “unusable”.  

The Mossad is expected to get millions of coronavirus test kits, the reports said.

Israel’s health ministry said the kits that the Mossad obtained overnight on Wednesday were “unusable”, and they were missing the swabs needed to conduct the tests.

“Unfortunately, what Mossad has delivered is not what we are in need of,” Itamar Grotto, the deputy director-general of the health ministry, told Ynet.

The sources of the test kits remain unidentified.

Yossi Melman, a security analyst and Middle East Eye contributor, estimates that the Mossad obtained the test kits “probably from the United Arab Emirates”.

“Since Israel refuses to reveal the name of the country that supplied the equipment that is in demand worldwide, it is likely the UAE. Certainly, not another friend of Israel, such as Egypt or Jordan, both of which need it for their own populations,” Melman said.

The equipment includes test tubes for throat checks and must be approved by the Israeli Ministry of Health to ensure they meet the required standards.

Melman added that both the Mossad and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are trying to take visible action against the pandemic.

He added that hundreds of Israeli businessmen and firms are also trying to purchase the needed test kits to meet the shortage in the country.

The Mossad often coordinates with countries with which Israel has no official diplomatic ties, such as Oman, the UAE, Sudan, Bahrain and Qatar.

Israel has recorded 529 coronavirus cases as of Thursday, with six people in serious condition, and no fatalities.

Last week, Netanyahu issued an order requiring that all citizens returning from abroad go into self-quarantine.

Last week, Israel mobilised a cyber spy unit in the internal intelligence agency Shin Bet to monitor and identify people infected with the coronavirus.

There are currently 20 labs in Israel dedicated to testing for the coronavirus infection.

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The actions of prominent US lawmakers, Democrats as well as Republicans, in seeking to secure their personal wealth while concealing from the public the catastrophic implications of the coronavirus pandemic and the measures needed to combat it, sum up the response of the American ruling elite to the unfolding crisis.

According to reports published by the New York Times, the Daily Beast, the Washington Post, National Public Radio (NPR) and ProPublica, and confirmed on the US Senate database for financial disclosures, at least four sitting senators, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Richard Burr, and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, in a textbook example of “insider trading” dumped millions of dollars worth of stock after a receiving a classified briefing on January 24. During the briefing, all members of the US Senate were informed of the “emerging public threat” regarding the novel coronavirus.

In addition to Feinstein and Burr, Republican senators James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who also sits on the Intelligence Committee, and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia sold off large amounts of stock while at the same time misleading the public about the danger of the virus and the lack of preparation on the part of the government. In all cases, the senators completed the sale of their stock well before the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 10,000 points beginning February 21.

The most blatant and criminal example of insider trading comes from the Senate’s newest and wealthiest member Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to fill a vacancy this year. Loeffler is worth an estimated $500 million, in large part due to her role as former executive and stockholder at the Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE. According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, “ICE operates 12 exchanges and other subsidiaries,” including the New York Stock Exchange. ICE’s primary government regulator is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which reports to the Senate Agriculture committee.

ICE was founded in 2000 by Jeffrey Sprecher, whom Loeffler married two years after arriving at the company in 2002. Sprecher is still the company’s chief executive and the largest individual shareholder. After being appointed by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to replace retiring Senator Jonny Isakson without a single vote cast, Loeffler became a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee on January 6, 2020 and was now in charge of regulating her and her husband’s businesses.

After the classified briefings on January 24, which included reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Loeffler tweeted her appreciation for “today’s briefing from the President’s top health officials on the novel coronavirus outbreak.” Loeffler and her husband expressed their appreciation by acting on the classified intelligence they received and hurriedly completing 27 separate sales of stock within 22 days. Between January 24 and February 15, Loeffler reported selling stock jointly owned between her and her husband worth between $1.275 and $3.1 million. Loeffler proceeded to purchase stock in only two companies: Oracle, a major technology company, and Citrix, which specializes in teleconferencing software, both on February 14 in the amount of $100,000 to $250,000, respectively.

When Loeffler wasn’t busy dumping soon to be worthless stock she took to Twitter to defend President Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over 11,300 worldwide, including nearly 300 in the US as of this writing. In a February 28 tweet, Loeffler lied to her followers and the world, stating, “The truth: @realDonaldTrump & his administration are doing a great job working to keep Americans healthy & safe.”

In a video appearance on Fox News Friday morning, Loeffler failed to convince viewers that she was unaware of the transactions and that she played no part in the sale of potentially $3 million worth of stock, stating that “there’s a range of decisions made that I’m not involved in.”

Joining Loeffler in seeking to profit off of the preventable pandemic were high-ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr and James Inhofe, and the former chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein. Members of the committee receive regular classified briefings to which other members of Congress are not privy, including CIA and military reports. The Washington Post reported Friday that the CIA was warning in such briefings as early as January of the outbreak in China mushrooming into a global pandemic. There is no doubt that these senators were well aware of the immense peril COVID-19 posed to the public.

Burr’s disclosures reveal that he and his wife sold 33 different stocks on February 13, worth between $628,000 and $1.72 million, the most stock he’s sold in a single day in the last 14 months. Burr’s largest sales were among companies most affected by recent lockdowns and travel restrictions, including $150,000 worth of shares in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, which has lost two-thirds of its value so far this year, and $100,000 worth of shares in Extended Stay America, whose share value has decreased by 50 percent since Burr sold his stock.

Burr also sold up to $65,000 worth of stock in Park Hotels and resorts, whose stock is now a fifth of what it was before the sale. A week after the sale, the Dow Jones began its rapid descent.

Burr, like Loeffler, did not warn the public after having received the intelligence briefing. Instead, he downplayed the virus and sought to bolster the government’s credibility. In a February 7 opinion piece for Fox News, coauthored with Senator Lamar Alexander, the pair stated that “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress and the Trump administration.”

It was reported this past week that the federal government’s Strategic National Stockpile has approximately 12 million of the vitally important medical-grade N95 masks. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the US will go through approximately 3.5 billion masks if the outbreak lasts the duration of the year. That is, the US government has less than one percent of the masks on hand needed to meet the urgent demand and ensure the safety of health care workers risking their lives to fight the disease. Health care workers in the US have already resorted to reusing equipment and even relying on bandanas to protect themselves.

Burr, however, changed his tune when talking to prominent campaign contributors in his home state of North Carolina. Members of the Tar Heel Circle pay between $500 and $10,000 in dues to “Enjoy interaction with top leaders and staff from Congress, the administration and the private sector,” according to the group’s website.

In recordings obtained by NPR, two weeks before the Trump administration banned travel to Europe, Barr warned the Tar Heel Circle, “…you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they’re making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on the video conference. Why risk it?”

In contrast to his op-ed piece, Burr was more forthcoming to his elite audience in regards to the severity of the virus. “There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” he said, according to the recording of his remarks cited by NPR. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic,” he warned.

Upon news of Burr’s corruption, the senator claimed that his decision to sell a majority of assets was made after watching “CNBC’s daily health and science reporting out of its Asia bureaus at the time.” In an attempt to save his seat and blunt social anger, Burr has requested a Senate Ethics Committee review of his transactions.

Demonstrating that capitalist corruption is a bipartisan affair, multimillionaire Dianne Feinstein and her husband, billionaire investment banker Richard Blum, reported in Feinstein’s senate disclosures the sale of between $1.5 and $6 million worth of California biotech company Allogen Therapeutics stock between January 31 and February 18. A share of Allogen stock sold for $24.25 the day Feinstein dumped the stock. As of today, shares of the stock were trading at $19.25.

Feinstein, like Loeffler, pleaded ignorance of the seven-figure sales, stating on Twitter that she “held all assets in a blind trust of which I have no control.” Echoing Loeffler, she further declared that she “had no input” into any decisions her husband made.

Finally, Senator Inhofe sold as much as $400,000 worth of stock, including in companies such as PayPal, Apple and Intuit on January 31. Inhofe had previously been criticized for buying stock in defense contractor Raytheon while advocating for more defense spending. He is the current chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Inhofe joined his fellow grifters in pleading ignorance, telling the Tulsa World that he did not know about the stock sales and had “no control” of his investments.

There is little doubt that there are more members of Congress who have done the same, exemplifying once again that in capitalist society the first and foremost concern is the wealth of the aristocracy, not the health and safety of the population, even in the face of a global pandemic.

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The International Monetary Fund has rejected a Venezuelan appeal for an emergency US $5 billion loan to face the coronavirus health crisis.

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza revealed on Tuesday afternoon that President Nicolas Maduro had sent a letter to IMF President Kristalina Georgieva requesting funds from the body’s Rapid Financing Instrument to “strengthen [Venezuelan] detection and response systems.”

The Associated Press reported on Monday evening that the Fund was not “in a position to consider” Venezuela’s request. According to a statement, the IMF does not have “clarity on recognition” of the Maduro government.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself “interim president” in January 2019 and was immediately recognized by the US and its allies. With its member states split on recognizing Guaido as the country’s legitimate president, the IMF has not taken a position on the matter.

Venezuela’s healthcare system has been hard hit by years of economic crisis and US sanctions. Officials have repeatedly denounced obstacles in importing medicines and other equipment. Cooperation with the Red Cross and United Nations agencies has increased in recent months in attempts to tend to the most vulnerable sectors.

The Washington-based lending body has allocated $50 billion in loans to countries struggling to deal with the pandemic. Iran reportedly applied for a $5 billion loan as well.

The Maduro government’s request generated intense debate on social media, with critics pointing towards former President Hugo Chavez’s fierce opposition to the IMF over the body’s promotion of neoliberal structural adjustment policies across the continent.

The Venezuelan government has acted swiftly following the confirmation of the first COVID-19 cases in the country last week, declaring a state of emergency followed by national quarantine measures. Authorities have imposed restrictions on movement and commercial activity, with public transport reserved for workers in the health, food retail, and other priority sectors has been halted while public transport is only available for public workers, health officials and other prioritized sectors.

While health officials have warned that the number of confirmed cases is due to grow in the coming days, no new confirmed cases have been registered in the past 24 hours.

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced on Wednesday evening that the number of confirmed cases remains at 36. She stated that the quarantine is being 90 percent enforced, and lauded the “collective discipline” of the Venezuelan people.

Rodriguez likewise revealed that President Maduro had held a telephone conversation with World Health Organization (WHO) President Tedros Adhanom, who reportedly pledged to support the country with coronavirus test kits, supplies and technical assistance.

On Wednesday evening, Venezuelan authorities announced that a massive testing campaign would be deployed during the weekend, asking Venezuelans to fill out an online survey should they have coronavirus symptoms.

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Cuban health authorities announced on Thursday that the country will send 53 health professionals to Lombardy, Italy, to help contain the new coronavirus pandemic.

The 53 doctors and nurses have experience in caring for these types of diseases. In 2014, they traveled to Sierra Leone in West Africa to fight the Ebola virus.

According to Cuban authorities, the arrival in Lombardy will take place next Saturday, March 21.

The regional health counselor Giulio Gallera announced that the European country “requested medical support from Cuba given the shortage of health personnel in Italian hospitals.”

Giulio Gallera, Consejero de Bienestar de la Región de Lombardía (foco de coronavirus en Italia): "Tendremos personal de Venezuela, China, Cuba, son médicos a los que obviamente les daremos un lugar para vivir, pero necesitamos las habilidades de todos". pic.twitter.com/PGcQ5oLSCD

— Misión Verdad (@Mision_Verdad) March 14, 2020

“Welfare Councillor for the Lombardy Region Giulio Gallera said, ‘We will have staff from Venezuela, China, Cuba, they are doctors who will be given a place to live, but we need everyone’s skills.'”

Gallera’s request reached the competent authorities of the Caribbean island through the Cuban ambassador in Italy, Jose Carlos Rodriguez.

The Cuban doctors and nurses will join the ten professionals from China who arrived this Thursday in Milan, Italy.

“Cuban and Chinese medical personnel will be sent to a field hospital in Bergamo, the region of Lombardy most affected by the pandemic.

Italy has recorded more than 3,000 deaths from the spread of the disease, surpassing China as the country with the most deaths.

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Featured image: At the entrance to the hospital, a sign reads: “You are the real heroes”, Bergamo, Italy, March, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/ @orlandoQva

Syria entered the second half of the week with a new spike of tensions in Greater Idlib. This escalation has been widely expected because militant groups are sabotaging key parts of the Russian-Turkish agreement on de-escalation in the area.

Radicals kept their positions along the M4 highway, where a security zone was set to be created, and blocked the planned joint Russian-Turkish patrols there. On March 19, they expanded their strategy with direct actions against Turkish and Russian forces. At least two improvised explosive devices exploded along the route of a Turkish military column near the village of Muhamabal. 2 Turkish soldiers were killed and several others were injured. Opposition sources initially reported that Horas al-Din, one of multiple al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations in Idlib, was behind the attack. Nonetheless, Horas al-Din itself denied responsibility for the incident. There is no surprise that the group indirectly receiving support from Turkey denied such a move. Later, pro-militant media adapted their version of events blaming ISIS cells and even Assad agents. The March 19 developments demonstrated that Ankara does not fully control the terrorist organizations that it is protecting from the Syrian Army in an attempt to solidify its own influence in the region. Therefore, in some conditions, Turkish-backed terrorists become a threat to Turkey and its forces themselves.

The Turkish leadership fully understands that the ceasefire will not survive too long without the neutralization of terrorists. So, the Turkish Army continues its military buildup in the area. Turkish forces set up new positions near Ram Hamadan and al-Jinah. Additionally, three Turkish convoys, consisting of dozens of battle tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers and howitzers crossed the Turkish border with the Syrian province of Idlib.

Turkish units also conducted a modest attempt to de-block the M4 highway by removing earthen mounds left by militants. The situation on the frontline is also escalating. Late on March 19, the Syrian Army repelled an attack on its positions near Hizareen. Syrian state media claimed that militants suffered heavy casualties in the clashes. Wa Harid al-Muminin, a coalition of small al-Qaeda-linked groups, claimed responsibility for the attack. It released its own statement saying that 15 “regime troops” had been killed.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Army and the National Defense Forces started reinforcing their positions in southern Idlib and northern Lattakia with fresh troops and military equipment. Pro-government sources claim that Jisr al-Shughur, the town controlled by the Turkistan Islamic Party, will become the target of the army offensive, if the ceasefire collapses.

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Hoarding as moral aberration and ethical breach: the term has recently become the subject of scorn in coronavirus chatter.  In terms of mental disorders, it is “characterized by persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions”, though the Coronavirus Hoarder is a breed that adds urgent bulk acquisition to the shopping equation. If you part with it, take advantage of making a buck along the way.  

Hoarding products in times of crisis is condemned by those in power as unpatriotic, against the community and just plain rude.  The empty supermarket shelf is considered the devilish outcome of this.  Yet, shelves still remain empty, at least for periods of time.  Despite limits imposed on purchases, the hoarder remains active, fearing the pandemic apocalypse, the lockdown, self-isolation and total quarantine.

The central motivation is fear, but it has worthy fuel.  Do not trust the government; question the authorities.  They, after all, were late to the party.  With COVID-19 being enshrouded in garments of misinformation, or at the very least elements of incomplete information, the tendency is further accentuated.

The pieties against bulk buying are accumulating, inversely proportionate to diminishing opportunities to purchase.  Writing for the Danbury, Connecticut-based News-Times, Chris Powell acknowledges that households should stock up on the necessaries, but only for a few days.  To hoard “for worse than that is antisocial and generates fear.  If serious shortages develop, will people consider themselves Americans, all in it together, sharing as necessary and helping their government as it tries its best, or will patriotism and civic duty dissolve into every man for himself?”

The reaction from authorities has ranged from the imposition of regulations to hectoring unprincipled shopping.  Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has gone so far as to regard panic buying as unpatriotic, a slight against his understanding of the Australian character.  “On bulk purchasing of supplies: Stop hoarding.  I can’t be more blunt about it.  Stop it.”  Such behaviour was nether “sensible” nor “helpful and it has been one of the most disappointing things I have seen in Australian behaviour in response to this crisis.”

Interestingly enough, such scolding attitudes have done little to stem the craze.  As Morrison should himself be most familiar with, any snark directed against voters tends to bite back.  He, after all, was the beneficiary of an election victory in which his opponents were termed smug types prone to woke obsessions, preachy about the environment and condescending to those pro-mining “Quiet Australians”.  Now, Morrison demands “Australia’s common sense cooperation with … very clear advisory positions.  Stop doing it.  It’s un-Australian and must stop.”  Australians, quiet or otherwise, are panicked and not taking much notice.

Australia’s agriculture minister David Littleproud has also taken to the stage of publicity to condemn bulk shopping practices, calling such shoppers parasites.  “I appreciate people are worried about Covid-19,” he wrote in Guardian Australia, “but those fighting in the aisles are more in danger of catching the disease by their actions than we ever are of running out of food.”  Farmers were the noble ones, going about their business of supplying food, in contrast to those “frantic shoppers”.  The decision by supermarkets to restrict purchases on certain products, change shopping hours and suspend online grocery orders, had been sensible.

In Canada, the panic has been sufficiently gripping to cause concern.  The pattern is familiar: a spate of rushed purchases, the emptying of shelves, and the constant warning by those supposedly in the know that all is well in the supply chain.  A survey conducted by Dalhousie University and Angus Reid between March 13 and 15 found that 71 percent of Canadians were concerned about COVID-19, with 41 percent purchasing additional groceries and supplies as a direct response.  Then come the voices of authority, attempting to appease and reassure.  Marc Fontin, president of the Retail Council of Canada in Quebec, claimed that “Canadians do not need to panic”.  Over the weekend, stores would be “back to almost normal.”

This has not been enough.  The panic-driven purchaser and diligent hoarder loom like troubling spectres.  Policies have been introduced by specific drug wholesalers such as McKesson.  Andrew Forgione, a spokesperson for the company, spoke about the taking of “proactive steps to support responsible ordering, including temporarily adjusting daily customer ordering for some medications and certain daily essentials.”  Canadian consumer or retailers, he explained, had little reason to “mass order products.” But order, they do.

Some hoarders have even become accidental, and reviled celebrities.  A Tennessee man, Amazon seller Matt Colvin, went so far as to acquire 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer.  The intention was not so much to hoard as make a killing online, selling the items at marked up prices.  The intention might have been seen as distinctly American, even patriotic: take advantage of adverse conditions, plan ahead and make money from it.  “I’ve been buying and selling things for 10 years now,” he told the New York Times.  “There’s been hot product after hot product.  But the thing is, there’s always another one on the shelf.” 

The interest of the Tennessee attorney general’s office was piqued.  An investigation was commenced into possible price gouging.  As this took place, Colvin had a change of heart, wishing to donate the supplies.  Prosecutors, however, are intent on proceeding with the action.

More militant operations have been recorded in other countries in an effort to rein back the dedicated hoarder.  In Maharashtra’s Jalna city, police and officials of the Food and Drug Administration conducted a joint operation against a shop owner Hastimal Bamb for allegedly hoarding 18,900 masks and possessing 730 bottles of fake hand sanitisers. 

Across the border, similar stories have surfaced.  In Karachi’s Baloch Colony a certain shopkeeper by the name of Zaheer was arrested during the week for hoarding sanitisers then, according to a police statement, selling “them for more than triple the actual price.”

Talk about community, toughing matters out, enduring together, provide salve for the bruised soul.  It does not stop greed, nor does it stem opportunity.  Responding to pandemics, as to conflict, brings its chances for profiteers and the desperate.  No political potentate, whatever the measure, can stem it entirely.  The coronavirus hoarder is here to stay – at least for the near future.

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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]

In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse. The government then pulled out all the stops. To our staunchly capitalist leaders, socialism is suddenly looking good.  

The financial crisis began in late February, when the World Health Organization announced that it was time to prepare for a global pandemic. The Russia-Saudi oil price war added fuel to the flames, causing all three Wall Street indices to fall more than 7 percent on March 9. It was called Black Monday, the worst drop since the Great Recession in 2008; but it would get worse. 

On March 12, the Fed announced new capital injections totaling an unprecedented $1.5 trillion in the repo market, where banks now borrow to stay afloat. The market responded by driving stocks 8% lower.

On Sunday, March 15, the Fed emptied its bazooka by lowering the fed funds rate nearly to zero and announcing that it would be purchasing $700 billion in assets, including federal securities of all maturities, restarting its quantitative easing program. It also eliminated bank reserve requirements and slashed Interest on Excess Reserves (the interest it pays to banks for parking their cash at the Fed) to 0.10%. The result was to cause the stock market to open on Monday nearly 10% lower. Rather than projecting confidence, the Fed’s measures were generating panic.

As financial analyst George Gammon observes, the Fed’s massive $1.5 trillion in expanded repo operations had few takers. Why? He says the shortage in the repo market was not in “liquidity” (money available to lend) but in “pristine collateral” (the securities that must be put up for the loans). Pristine collateral consists mainly of short-term Treasury bills. The Fed can inject as much liquidity as it likes, but it cannot create T-bills, something only the Treasury can do. That means the government (which is already $23 trillion in debt) must add yet more debt to its balance sheet in order to rescue the repo market that now funds the banks.

The Fed’s tools alone are obviously incapable of stemming the bloodletting from the forced shutdown of businesses across the country. Fed chair Jerome Powell admitted as much at his March 15 press conference, stating, “[W]e don’t have the tools to reach individuals and particularly small businesses and other businesses and people who may be out of work …. We do think fiscal response is critical.” “Fiscal policy” means the administration and Congress must step up to the plate.

What about using the Fed’s “nuclear option” – a “helicopter drop” of money to support people directly? A March 16 article in Axios quoted former Fed senior economist Claudia Sahm:

The political ramifications of the Fed essentially printing money and giving it to people – there are ways to do it, but the problem is if the Fed does this and Congress still has not passed anything … that would mean the Fed has stepped in and done something that Congress didn’t want to do. If they did helicopter money without congressional approval, Congress could, and rightly so, end the Fed.

The government must act first, before the Fed can use its money-printing machine to benefit the people and the economy directly.

The Fed, Congress and the Administration Need to Work as a Team 

On March 13, President Trump did act, declaring a national emergency that opened access to as much as $50 billion “for states and territories and localities in our shared fight against this disease.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average responded by ending the day up nearly 2,000 points, or 9.4 percent.

The same day, Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard proposed a universal basic income of $1,000 per month for every American for the duration of the crisis. She said,

“Too much attention has been focused here in Washington on bailing out Wall Street banks and corporate industries as people are making the same old tired argument of how trickle-down economics will eventually help the American people.”

Meanwhile the American taxpayer “gets left holding the bag, struggling and getting no help during a time of crisis.” H.R. 897, her bill for an emergency UBI, she said was the most simple, direct form of assistance to help weather the storm.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who made a universal basic income the basis of his platform, would go further and continue the monthly payments after the coronavirus threat was over.

CNBC financial analyst Jim Cramer also had expansive ideas. He said on March 12:

How about a $500 billion Treasury issue … [at] almost no interest cost, to make sure that when people are sick they don’t have to go to work, and companies that are in trouble because of that can still make their payroll. How about a credit line backstopped by … the Federal Reserve. I know the Federal Reserve is going to say they can’t do that, Congress is going to say they can’t do that, everyone is going to say what they said in 2007, they can’t do that, they can’t do that — until they did it. … [W]e heard all that in 2007 and they ended up doing everything.

And that looks like what will happen this time around. On March 18, as the stock market continued to plummet, the administration released an outline for a $1 trillion stimulus bill, including $500 billion in direct payments to Americans, along with bailouts and loans for the airline industry, small businesses, and other “critical” sectors of the U.S. economy.

But the details needed to be hammered out, and even that whopping package buoyed the markets only briefly. In the bond market, yields shot up and values went down, on fears that the flood of government bonds needed to finance this giant stimulus would cause bond values to plummet and the government’s funding costs to shoot up.

Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Times

There is a way around that problem. To avoid driving the federal debt into the stratosphere, the Treasury could borrow directly from the central bank interest-free, with an agreement that the debt would remain on the Fed’s books indefinitely. That approach has been tested in Japan, where it has not generated price inflation as austerity hawks have insisted it would. The Bank of Japan has purchased nearly 50 percent of the government’s debt, yet consumer price inflation remains below the BOJ’s 2 percent target.

Virtually all money today is simply “monetized” debt – debt turned by banks into something that can be spent in the marketplace – and the ultimate backstop for this sleight of hand is the central bank and the government, which means the taxpayers. To equalize our very unequal system, the central bank and the government need to work together. The Fed needs to be “de-privatized” – turned into a public utility that serves the taxpayers and the economy. As Eric Striker observed in The Unz Review on March 13:

The US government’s lack of direct control over the nation’s central bank and the plutocratic nature of our weak state means that common sense solutions are off the table. Why doesn’t the state buy up majority shares in large corporations (or outright nationalize them, as happened with the short successful experiment with General Motors in 2009) and use the $1.5 trillion at low interest to develop American industrial independence?

Interestingly, that too could be on the table in these extraordinary times. Bloomberg reported on March 19 that Larry Kudlow, the White House’s top economic adviser, says the administration may ask for an equity stake (an ownership interest) in corporations that want coronavirus aid from taxpayers. Kudlow noted that when this was done with General Motors in 2008, it turned out to be a good deal for the federal government.

While traditionally considered “anti-capitalist,” the government taking an ownership interest in bailed out companies may be the only way the proposed bailouts will get approval. There is little sentiment today for the sort of no-strings-attached “socialism for the rich” that the taxpayers shouldered in 2008 without reaping the benefits. Bloomberg quotes Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive officer at DoubleLine Capital:

I don’t think government bailouts of over-leveraged companies that got over-leveraged by share buybacks at all-time highs, enriching executives and hedge fund investors, will sit well with the American people.

The Bloomberg article concludes with a quote from another chief investment officer, Chris Zaccarelli of Independent Advisor Alliance:

I like how [the administration is] thinking a little bit outside of the box. Something big and bold like that could potentially be what turns the market around ….

Long-term Solutions

Rather than just a stake in the profits, the government could think a bit further outside the box and turn insolvent airlines, oil companies, and banks into public utilities. It could require them to serve the people and the economy rather than just maximizing the short-term profits of their shareholders.

Concerning the banks, the Fed could do as the People’s Bank of China is doing in this crisis. The state-run PBoC is giving regional banks $79 billion in stimulus money, but it is on condition that they lend it to small and medium enterprises and forgive late payments, so that economic damage is reversed and production can recover quickly.

Another model worth studying is that of Germany, which also has a strong public banking system. As part of a package for coronavirus aid that the German finance minister calls its “big bazooka,” the government is offering immediate access to loans up to €500,000 for small businesses through its public bank, the KfW (Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau), administered through the publicly-owned Sparkassen and other local banks. The loans are being made available at an interest rate as low as 1%, with interest only for the first two years.

Contrast that to the aid package President Trump announced last week, which will authorize the Small Business Administration to offer business loans. After a lengthy process of approval by state authorities, the loans can be obtained at an interest rate of 3.75% – nearly 4 times the KfW rate. German and Chinese public banks are able to offer rock-bottom interest rates because they have cut out private middlemen and are not driven by the insatiable demand for shareholder profits. They can lend countercyclically to avoid booms and busts while supporting the economy as a whole.

The U.S., too, could create a network of publicly-owned banks backed by the central bank, which could lend into their communities at below-market rates. And this is the time to do it. Times of crisis are when change happens. When the Covid-19 scare has passed, we will have a different government, a different economy and a different financial system. We need to make sure that what we get is an upgrade that works for everyone.

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

Ellen Brown chairs the Public Banking Institute and has written thirteen books, including her latest, Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age.  She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

The COVID-19 “pandemic” is primarily designed to empower the ruling elite and further its authoritarian reach. The primary tool is the innate human fear of death and this fear has been greatly magnified by the corporate propaganda media.

For those able to sidestep the trap of fear-mongering, it is obvious this disease is less of a threat to mortality than the seasonal flu and tuberculosis. COVID-19’s death rate thus far is minuscule by way of comparison, although the state and its media promise the number will rise precipitously and the only option is to “flatten the curve” by imposing authoritarian mandates, including the imposition of martial law, as is now the case in Italy. 

The state has a monopoly on coercion and violence. It has demonstrated repeatedly throughout history that its first reflex during any crisis, real or invented, is to demand the obedience of the masses or they will suffer the consequences—arrest, fines, incarceration, possibly even death. We are witnessing this now in California, the liberal haven now on lockdown, soon to be transformed into martial law as many people refuse to believe COVID-19 is the boogieman the state claims. For the state, it is impermissible to go about our lives as normal. The same is now unfolding on the opposite coast in New York, another bastion of the liberal mindset. 

In addition to furthering authoritarian rule, the state and its owners, banksters and transnational corporations are determined to take down an already sick economy, made so by decades of post-Keynesian economics and the neoliberal creed. In this way, they can reconfigure economies and finally establish a globalist plan for centralized world government, long sought after and admitted to the public at large (search “global governance”). This fascistic, top-down plan is sold as an effort to realize peace, security, justice, and global mediation systems. It is nothing of the sort. 

Recall Henry Kissinger’s remarks following the LA riots. This war criminal and Rockefeller operative said under the circumstances of an appropriate crisis, the people will run to the state and beg to be protected. Increasingly, the people, like helpless children, expect and demand the state to not only protect them but also gift them with all manner of free goodies at the expense of others.

Comedian and actor Chris Rock, during the reign of Barack Obama, said the president is akin to a father demanding obedience from his children. This is how millions of people look at the government—as a beneficent daddy who will take care of all their needs and protect them during crises, either real or invented. 

The COVID-19 “pandemic” will undoubtedly destroy an already debilitated economy and clear the way for a centralized, fascist, and authoritarian world government and an economic reconfiguration that will further enrich the ruling elite.

The philosophy of the neocon guru, Leo Strauss, is certainly applicable. Strauss believed the world needs an enlightened class of rulers modeled after Plato’s Republic. Shadia Drury, professor of political theory at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, wrote during the reign of the Bush neocons: 

This is the endgame of the COVID-19 “crisis”—subordination to the state and following authoritarian diktats handed down without question, complaint, or resistance. 

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published.

Ask Americans who’s commander-in-chief, most will respond: our president. Citizens only think about this just before a presidential election every four years when their final, ‘supreme criteria’ of U.S. leadership is raised: “Does she or he have it:– namely the wisdom (or courage, or resolve) to control the nuclear (war) button?”

It’s a vague term whose specifics are not publicly explored; but I think we can agree it’s singularly associated with military conflict.

I haven’t heard the term commander-in-chief applied to other heads of state, but some variety of it doubtless exists, where a military officer heads a government as Egypt and formerly Pakistan today. Notwithstanding Americans’ first president was a general– one among 12 who became president (of 26 American presidents who’d served in the military).

(Joe Biden, although never a military officer, is clearly projecting this ‘commander-in-chief image’ in debates, invoking his presence in ‘the situation room’, etc. He understands war, he assures the public.)

Leadership was an underlying issue during recent primary debates. They’re essentially over now, eclipsed by the growing pandemic where the focus of leadership has rightly turned to management and moral vision.

Surely our current unprecedented crisis reveals it is time to reconsider the concept. My point here is not Trump’s capacity, but the general underlying American criteria for the nation’s person-in-charge.

Crisis strategists admit this pandemic is a ‘war’, even invoking 911 when Americans perceived they were under siege. (Although– with the exception of immigrants who’ve fled conflicts, by-and-large generated by American bombardments and sanctions on their homelands—most really don’t grasp the realities of siege: economic, diplomatic, medical, cultural or military.)

Now a major health, social and economic crisis—a catastrophe, not to be too alarmist—has arrived in the name of COVID-19.

Whether or not we had doubts about the moral character and management ability of Trump, today we can testify to the gravity of his silliness, racism, ignorance, ugliness, meanness and misplaced priorities. It is far, far more serious that we could possibly have imagined. It forces us to scan the horizon for leadership.

A resident of New York State I’m most closely following the response to this crisis by our governor. (I fervently hope other governors are acting similarly to Andrew Cuomo.) See this. Because, the more I hear from Cuomo day-after-day, the more I feel (along with neighbors, family and friends overseas as well as in the U.S.), we have a profound example of the kind of leadership needed at this moment.

In his presentations Governor Cuomo exhibits no commander-in-chief attitude, but rather that of a capable manager, also someone with –dare I say?—emotion and compassion, approaching that of a ‘father figure’. Perhaps his presence reminds us of President Roosevelt’s legendary fireside chats.

Post-pandemic changes are inevitable. Friends talk about their offices and companies, their universities and hospitals rethinking long-term goals to offer different and better service; one talks about perceiving her neighborhood differently, seeking a new family dynamic, rethinking how we educate our children.

Likewise we need to seriously rethink the concept of commander-in-chief. America’s criterion for presidency is redundant. It is neither a humane concept, nor a relevant one in times of nationwide social crisis. Also absent from this concept is emotion, compassion and morality.

Although not hitherto a particular admirer of Andrew Cuomo, I now perceive him not only as a brilliant manager but also a person with the apparent morality required at this moment. Maybe other governors whose work I am not following are acting likewise. (And please don’t cynically rejoin that Cuomo is working with his eye on the White House in 2024. We’ll talk about that later.)

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Barbara Nimri Aziz is a New York based anthropologist and journalist. In addition to books on Tibet and Nepal, she is author of “Swimming Up the Tigris: Real Life Encounters with Iraq” based on her work in Iraq and the Arab Homelands. For many years a producer at Pacifica-WBAI Radio in NY, her productions and current articles can be found at www.RadioTahrir.org  

Given that some major U.S. media and politicians made groundless claims that the novel coronavirus originates in China, blamed and slandered China, even asked for an apology from China, I  am presenting below 10 questions I have every reason to ask: 10 questions for the United States about its origin too. Better still, unlike the U.S., I did a lot homework and will base my questions on international media coverage of COVID-19.

Question 1

Since the director of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control, Robert Redfield admitted that some Americans seemingly dying from flu were tested positive for the novel coronavirus, can I conclude that those people actually died from the novel coronavirus? Among the 34 million influenza patients, with a death toll of 20,000, how many were misdiagnosed?

When did the misdiagnoses start? And did it actually start from August 2019? These questions are so vital that the world is waiting for an explanation from the United States.

Question 2

When there were some misdiagnoses admitted by U.S. CDC, I’m scratching my head – isn’t the U.S. that owns the best medical technologies in the world? Why did that happen?

As the ground glass opacity (white patches) can be easily seen in CT scans of the lungs of patients with the novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia, it should have been an easy thing to separate the cases of COVID-19 and H1N1 flu. But why were there so many misdiagnoses?

Well, that reminds me of the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s request of controlling all messaging regard to the coronavirus. Why does the White House call for messaging control? Does the U.S. need to hide something? Are they plotting some conspiracy?

Director of the U.S. CDC Robert Redfield (front) speaks during a press conference on the coronavirus at the White House in Washington D.C., U.S., March 4, 2020. /Xinhua

Question 3

Why did the U.S. withdraw from the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) in 2001? Why did it try to prevent a monitoring mechanism for the execution of the Convention? Is it standing in the way of developing biological weapon for the U.S.?

If not, why are there new biological laboratories in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan? Are those labs for biochemical warfare? It’s impossible that they are keeping viruses as pets. If the U.S. is aiming at provoking a biochemical war, who would be the first target then?

Also, how about the swine flu outbreak in China last year? The odd thing is that it broke out in different places simultaneously instead of breaking out separately. Why were drones used to poison the pigs? Was the U.S. behind all that? I heard that it was the pork speculators. But that theory makes no sense – since the swine flu killed millions of pigs in China during the same period of time, pork speculators would suffer great loss instead of profits.

The best possible answer to that was foreign meddling. I was among those who wondered if the U.S. had anything to do with that and hoped for an explanation.

Question 4

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, located on Fort Detrick, Maryland, was shut down in July 2019. Was it because there was a virus leakage incident?

Just one month later, there was an influenza outbreak across the country. Were those two things related in any way?

Were the misdiagnoses simply cooked up to cover up such secrets? Did that also become a motive for the U.S. to shift the blame to other countries by labeling them as the origin of the novel coronavirus?

Was that an epic coincidence or a dirty secret in disguise? Why did the U.S. erase huge number of English news reports on the internet covering the shutdown in March 2020? Is there anything to hide, or is there anything to worry about?

Question 5

At the 7th Military World Games (October 18-27, 2019) held in Wuhan, why did the U.S. team (369 members) win ZERO gold medal? Did that even look like a reasonable record for the world’s leading military power? Did your government do it on purpose?

Was anyone among the 369 participants ever (mis)diagnosed with influenza? Was it possible they were carriers of the novel coronavirus?

The best thing for the U.S. now is to stop burying its head in the sand and give the 369 people PCT tests to see if they are infected.

Question 6

Why did the U.S. hold Event 201, a global pandemic exercise in October 2019? Why was the CIA deputy director participating it? Is it because the U.S. has foreseen a highly-infectious virus is about to cause a pandemic? One month later, cases of pneumonia of unknown cause were detected in China and there was a pandemic three months later. Probably, it’s not just a coincidence.

Question 7

Japan, South Korea, Italy and Iran all reported that many of their first COVID-19 confirmed cases had no exposure history with China but showed connection with the United States. How come?

Genetic research shows that the type of novel coronavirus found in China belongs to Group C, but Group A and Group B viruses – Group C’s parental and grand parental viruses – are both found in the United States. Why? A Japanese patient was diagnosed with influenza in Hawaii but was tested positive for COVID-19 when he returned to Japan. How to explain that?

Some COVID-19 cases in the U.S. had no connection with China whatsoever. So where does it come from?

Question 8

You’ve got no reason to deny that the 1918 Pandemic originated within your territory. But you let Spain bear the blame for as long as a century. Don’t you feel shame on that?

History seems to repeat itself. So, is the U.S. playing the trick again and attempting to label the novel coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus”?

Question 9

The 1918 Pandemic, causing 1 billion infections, with a death toll “estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million… one of the deadliest epidemics in human history,” according to wikipedia, was proven originating in the U.S., but the U.S. has never apologized to the world.

So far, the origin of the novel coronavirus is still unknown, but the United States is requiring China for an apology, how ridiculous is that! Just to remind the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic killing 300,000 people also originated in the U.S., and also the same for HIV AIDS. So why not confess to the world?

Question 10

In movies, the U.S. is fond of playing the role of the world savior. The image of Captain America is one of its most popular symbols. However, in reality, in the face of a disaster like COVID-19, where is Captain America?

The U.S. is not doing enough to protect its citizens at home or on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. It even attempted to make Japan responsible for Americans on Diamond Princess. How does the U.S. have the brass to do all these and accuse China of being irresponsible?

While China bought the world valuable time to battle COVID-19, the U.S. accused China of being passive and lacking transparency. Well, when the White House instructed the CDC to stop tallying the people tested for novel coronavirus, did that count as transparency?

When the U.S. government advised its people not to wear masks, was it not being passive? Just too many questions call for the U.S.’s explanations.

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Featured image is from Xinhua

Netanyahu’s main aims are staying in power and out of prison — no matter how grievously he breaches the rule of law or harms ordinary Israelis and Palestinians by his increasingly dictatorial policies.

On the phony pretext of tracking COVID-19 carriers, he extrajudicially ordered mass surveillance without Knesset or judicial approval.

On Thursday carrying banners with his image saying “CRIME MINISTER” and “No to dictatorship,” hundreds of Israelis protested outside the Knesset, defying his ban on large gatherings.

He virtually shut down judicial proceedings to delay his scheduled March trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust to May, perhaps another delay to follow — a power grab stunt to avoid trial altogether.

New emergency orders were issued by his regime, mandating a near-national lockdown other than for essential services and activities, effective Thursday, a statement saying:

“(C)itizens of Israel are required to stay home. It is no longer a request. It is no longer a recommendation. It is a binding directive that will be enforced by the enforcement authorities.”

On Thursday evening, Israel’s Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction that limits electronic surveillance by Shin Bet, Israel’s security service.

While COVID-19 patients can still be monitored, if a parliamentary oversight committee is not established to monitor the practice by March 24, tracking will be banned, according to the Supreme Court ruling.

It came in response to petitions against police state mass surveillance by the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the Joint (Arab) List party, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

Adalah responded as follows to the ruling, saying:

“We applaud the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision, which stresses that the government is not allowed to act without oversight.”

“Nevertheless, even parliamentary oversight cannot legitimize such a serious violation of human rights.”

“Public health emergencies must not be exploited to grant additional powers to the Shin Bet security service and the Israeli police.”

Likudnik/Netanyahu loyalist speaker Yuli Edelstein dismissed the Knesset on the phony pretext of obeying a Netanyahu diktat that limits public gatherings to no more than 10 people — a fear-mongering/survival as prime minister tactic when Israel only had a few hundred COVID-19 infected people and no deaths.

The real reason for suspending proceedings is to prevent adoption of legislation that could end his tenure as prime minister.

By recorded message, main opposition Blue and White party member Yair Lapid slammed the Netanyahu regime, saying:

“There is no judicial branch in Israel. There is no legislative branch in Israel. There is only an unelected government that is headed by a person who lost the election.”

You can call that by a lot of names” — dictatorship most appropriate.

On Thursday, Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz said he won’t out unity government with Netanyahu, reversing a campaign promise otherwise, adding:

“At the moment, all options need to be on the table. It wouldn’t be responsible on my part not to consider any alternative.”

“Citizens (want) a solution to the political crisis.” Slamming Edelstein, he said:

“It can’t be that we need to turn to the High Court of Justice to jumpstart the Knesset. The…speaker is acting in service of Netanyahu and hindering developments.”

Shortly after the above remarks, he said talks with Likud “were stopped…(T)here are no agreements.”

“What we have seen throughout the day is cynical spin during a great and difficult crisis for Israeli citizens.”

According to Channel 12 news, Gantz supported unity government with Likud. Because key Blue and White party members expressed opposition, it’s off the table, at least for now.

Haartz editors slammed the idea, calling it “capitulation” by Gantz if agreed on with Netanyahu to let him remain prime minister for up to another two years, adding:

“(U)nity government led by a criminal defendant” could hand Netanyahu a stay-out-of-prison pass.

Gantz’s main campaign promise was “Anyone but Bibi.”

Strongly opposing him, Haaretz editors called for “(l)iberating Israel from the clutches of the defendant in the prime minister’s office, and putting an end to his corrupt and corrupting reign.”

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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.

Following a closed-door briefing on the threat of spreading COVID-19 infections — before markets began crashing — at least five US senators cashed in based on inside information unavailable to the public.

The quintet includes Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Byrd, James Inhofe, Kelly Loeffler, Ron Johnson, and Diane Feinstein.

Most likely, other insiders in Washington and elsewhere sold equity holdings before public information about spreading COVID-19 infections caused financial, commodity, and other market turmoil.

Loeffler’s husband is chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange — both co-owners of stocks they dumped, reportedly up to $3.1 million in late January and early February.

Reportedly with a net worth of around $500 million, Loeffler is the wealthiest US senator, a body known as a millionaires club.

In early March, she publicly lied claiming “the consumer is strong. The economy is strong, (and) jobs are growing, which puts us in the best economic position to tackle” COVID-19.

A February 27 audiotape of Burr’s address at a Capitol Hill Club luncheon included the following remark:

“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history. It’s probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

A week before his large-scale stock dump (reportedly between $628,000 and $1.72 million), two weeks after his above private remarks, he said the following in a Fox News op-ed:

“(T)he United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus” — a Big Lie.

On March 20, he falsely said the following:

“I relied solely on public news reports to guide my decision regarding the sale of stocks on February 13.”

“I followed CNBC’s daily health and science reporting out of its Asia bureaus at the time.”

“Understanding the assumption many could make in hindsight…I spoke this morning with the chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee and asked hi to open a complete review of the matter with full transparency.”

On February 12, one day before Burr’s stock dump, US financial markets reached an all-time high.

He had inside information about what likely lay ahead and took full advantage, likely selling all or most of his equity holdings to avoid large financial losses.

The same is true for at least four other US senators.

Market transactions based on inside information unknown to the public are illegal.

If five US senators profited from inside information, did others in both houses benefit the same way?

Will action be taken to hold them accountable? Calls for Burr and perhaps other outed senators to resign aren’t good enough.

Lawbreakers should be prosecuted for their offenses. In America and most other countries, ordinary people alone are punished for wrongdoing.

Privileged ones most often get off scot-free no matter their offenses. Rare exceptions prove the rule.

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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.

No government that had to bow to the power of a financial institution like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) knows the harsh consequences to which it will have to submit. That includes the Venezuelan government. And yet last March 15 president Nicolas Maduro filed a formal request to the IMF for a financing facility of US$5 billion from the emergency fund of the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) with the following words in a letter sent to the IMF director Kristalina Georgieva and that Arreaza published on his Twitter account:

“Only under the spirit of solidarity, brotherhood, and social discipline, we will be able to overcome the situation that comes our way, and we will know how to protect the life and wellbeing of our peoples.”

To no avail. The IMF took the decision to reject the requested loan to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in Venezuela. Although predictable, it is shocking. (We make the side note that while we trust the source of the information, we have not been able to confirm it officially from Venezuela nor have we been able to find the information on the IMF website.)

What makes the IMF decision particularly disgraceful is the fact that the special RFI fund was set up precisely to respond to the current pandemic. Instead the IMF made a politicised decision totally contrary to its purported intentions and Venezuela’s legitimate request.

The Washington-based institution rejected the request with the unprincipled excuse:

“Unfortunately, the Fund is not in a position to consider this request,” claiming that there is “no clarity” on international recognition of the country’s government. “As we have mentioned before, IMF engagement with member countries is predicated on official government recognition by the international community, as reflected in the IMF’s membership. There is no clarity on recognition at this time”.

The IMF has a membership of 189 countries. Venezuela has been a member since 1946 despite its intentions to withdraw in 2007. Only about 50 countries are reported to recognise self-appointed unelected “interim president” Juan Guaidó. The majority of IMF countries have recognised elected president Maduro. This leaves no doubt that the IMF decision responds to political pressure from dominant powers like the US, Canada, and several EU countries.

Iran had recently made a similar  request to the IMF for the same amount. At the time of writing we do not know the decision. A recent  analysis suggests that it will be very unlikely that the IMF will grant a loan to Iran as the IMF is seen as a “soft power tool” of the US. However, the analysis continues,

“This is great PR for the Iranian government, specifically the hardliners. It allows the government to tell the general population that they tried to reach out for help, but that the international community turned their back on them.”

What makes the request for IMF special funding particularly crucial at this time is that these two countries have been forced into an economic situation similar to war time or a siege – despite their wealth in resources – is the fact that they are under severe US unilateral coercive measures (sanctions) that prevent them from purchasing medication and medical supplies ever more necessary in a situation of pandemic. Following the just announced drop of oil price below $25 a barrel, both countries can only expect the situation to get worse even if they were able to freely export oil without US intervention.

Venezuela, has been the object of escalating threats as well as financial and economic blockade by the US since 2017. Despite that, it has been able to confront the crisis with a series of internal policies and the solidarity of countries such as Cuba, China and Russia. Venezuela does not have a critical health situation due to CODIV-19 virus with only 42 confirmed cases to date. All standard prevention programs and recommendation are in place but things can quickly change for the worst.

Venezuela’s heavy reliance on loans would be unnecessary if the government could have access to the financial resources it owns but have been blocked. US has imposed an oil blockade that has blocked the purchase of oil from Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA. It has also confiscated Venezuela’s US subsidiary CITGO, worth $8 billion. This is a huge blow for Venezuela, which receives around 90% of government revenue from the oil industry. The US government has also frozen $5.5 billion of Venezuelan funds in international accounts in at least 50 banks and financial institutions.

We must conclude that the IMF shamefully abandons Venezuelans to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic on a political decision. However, we also must recognise that the US has typically either created national crises or taken advantage of natural crises for its unrelenting regime change goal. There is no other explanation for the additional “sanctions” imposed on Iran at this time.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The response by the government to COVID-19 will turn America into a third world country in short order. Destroying the economy, throwing millions of people out of work, creating air money and thus inflation, and draconian measures to head off a virus that kills far less than the ordinary flu will have serious and unprecedented ramifications. 

The veneer of civilization will dissolve in short order. If practically everyone is ordered by the state to “shelter in place,” there will be few people left to deliver—let alone produce—food and other necessities. Within the first few days of this exaggerated “new plague,” frantic citizens besieged the stores, striping the shelves of toilet paper, canned goods, and bread. This is happening as a result of the corporate media hammering out an apocalyptic message nonstop. 

Fast-forward to next month, or the one after. Millions of people, thrown out of work and confronting poverty, will react in the way humanity always reacts when faced with scarcity and hunger—with food riots, looting, and violence. 

New York City and Baltimore now have troops on the street. We’re told they are being deployed to establish field hospitals and turn commandeered hotels into ICUs to care for the infected.

Behind this noble effort, however, is a plan to enforce an unnecessary lockdown and confront with deadly force rioters, looters, as well as folks outraged over the systematic dismantling of civilization, many whom see this viral outbreak (natural or manmade) for what it is—a cover for an economic reset and the establishment of an elitist-driven totalitarian global authority. 

Posting analysis such as this will likely become a dangerous practice in the months ahead. It is already vividly apparent that the state—and indeed, much of a propagandized population—will not tolerate deviation from the absurd exaggerations and outright lies now foisted upon us. 

The state has long planned for this scenario. It realizes the asset bubble and Ponzi scheme economy cannot be sustained and the crash will be catastrophic. The plan is to blame COVID-19 for the crash. This will not only allow the real culprits—central banks, the Federal Reserve, investment firms, and other scam artists and economic criminals—off the hook but flood them with trillions of bailout dollars.

Trump’s impending bailout of the airline industry, for instance, does not take into consideration the industry squandering billions on stock buybacks instead of protecting themselves from predictable economic headwinds. 

“The Big Four airlines—Delta Airlines Inc, Southwest Airlines Co., American Airlines Group Inc., and United Airlines Holdings Inc.—together repurchased $39 billion worth of stock over the past five years, according to Seeking Alpha, much of it since passage of massive corporate tax cuts in 2017 pushed through by President Donald Trump and Republicans,” reports Benzinga. 

Trump the crony capitalist will spend billions in nonexistent money to prop up transnational corporations and banks while sending small checks of a few hundred dollars to citizens as a token gesture. This will only temporarily mollify Americans and will not buy their loyalty in the long run. Two checks for a thousand dollars or less spread over a couple months will not keep the wolves from the door. 

The plan to exploit what appears to be an average virus in order to re-engineer economies and impose a global totalitarian super-state will usher in a New Dark Age of subservience and privation. The ruling elite considers us little more than serfs and useless eaters, especially the elderly and the underclass. 

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published.

Zhao Lijian, the spokesman of the ministry of foreign affairs in China quite knowledgeably alleged that the US was behind the spread of Corona virus through its military personnel in Wuhan during Wuhan military games late last autumn, 2019. If that be true, then China has just begun the war of challenging the false US narratives on global affairs.

It seems that 2020 will be a year of two phenomena; uncovering conspiracies, less theory and more facts. If so, then it is understandable that Italy may be punished because of defying American orders against joining Belt & Road (BRI). Iran is ever guilty of wrong doing, hence more Corona density, so on and so forth. The purpose of this argument is not to discover the origins of Corona virus but to argue that the US is dead set on subverting the BRI, no matter what means need to be adopted to blackmail and bludgeon China into submission for the sake of its own world domination. With Zhao Lijian’s statement, it seems obvious that China is not likely to capitulate on BRI, rather China is likely to confront the US in conventional and non-conventional ways and to follow through ever more assertively its BRI plans.

Now we turn to Afghanistan. Afghanistan is key to world peace. If the US is beaten out of Afghanistan successfully, it will leave India, Daesh/ISIS, Afghan National Army (ANA) which the Taliban with regional help can easily eliminate. Main regional actors that are likely to do that are Pakistan, China and Russia. But even Iran and Turkey are interested in doing the same.

Pakistanis know very well that after the signing of the so-called peace deal between the US and the Taliban, Afghanistan is entering a very dangerous period of war in which its neighbors must not sit quietly. Islamabad knows too well that the Taliban are about to form a government in Kabul as the Americans leave, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah fight over power and India seeks Daesh/ISIS support to keep Pakistan away from helping the Kashmiri people. Hence, Islamabad only has ONE choice: Support the Taliban’s return to power once again.

Pakistani PM should not have congratulated Ashraf Ghani government under the American pressure because it would mean ill will towards the Taliban. The Taliban on the other hand seek the recognition of their government not Ghani’s puppet government. In all likelihood, the Pakistanis did what they have done before. Most likely, they placated the Americans on the surface but alerted the Taliban that this is only surface level diplomacy. Taliban have given a clear message to Americans. The US was supposed to release 5,000 prisoners. India forbade Ghani government to release prisoners to which Mike Pompeo asserted that Ghani must release prisoners otherwise the Taliban will begin to shoot the retreating American forces. Just in the last two days, the Taliban staged over a hundred attacks on the ANA in ten different provinces. Their deal is only with the US for safe withdrawal of American troops, but the Taliban will show no clemency to Ghani-Abdullah government(s).

The old remnants of so-called al-qaeda’s salafi groups have done a baiyah (oath of allegiance) at the hands of Mullah Haibatullah, the head of the Taliban’s main group, the Mullah Omar group. The salafi group has also promised that they will fight against US and India supported Daesh/ISIS fighters by submitting to the Taliban. The Taliban have declared that their next step is conquest of Kabul. Pakistanis are in full support of that underneath the surface because they still fear America. But at the sub-diplomatic level, Pakistan is in full support for the Afghan Taliban, because without securing the Western borders, it cannot give adequate response to Indian aggression in Kashmir and butchery of Muslims inside India. If America doesn’t keep its promise and fights the Taliban then they will begin a strong offensive against the Americans. While the latter is not likely to happen, but American support for unleashing Daesh/ISIS has happened before and will certainly happen again.

China should consider doing the following to ensure its best interest in the long run:

1. Recognize the Taliban government at its earliest so that the post-Civil war dealings with the Post Ghani-Abdullah Afghan government take place between China and the Taliban government in a medium of support and trust.

2. Consider giving the US a bloody nose for its misdeed in Wuhan and avenge the life of its citizens by supporting anti-American forces in Afghanistan.

3. Consider giving Taliban heavier weapons for their last offensive against Kabul

4. China and Russia should help Taliban weed out the Indians and Daesh/ISIS from the region entirely. This cannot be done without Pakistan.

5. After Taliban’s consolidation of power in Kabul, provide the SCO platform to achieve Intra-Afghan understanding, rebuilt trust so that civil war doesn’t erupt again and propose “one country-multiple system” notion of development for Afghanistan to prevent future polarity within the country while keeping the Afghanistan sovereignty intact.

6. China must continue to cultivate and deepen relations with all its immediate Western neighborhood, i.e., countries of the Muslim world.

Pakistan is still dedicated to BRI and it is committed to continue to do so in the decades to come. However, BRI requires a secure environment for Chinese workers, which requires stampeding the forces that are against BRI (i.e., India, US and its lackeys). Afghan situation is not complex and very easy to understand if one’s narrative is based on truth. The battle is between builders (China) and destroyers (the US), those who promote connectivity (China) and those who disconnect people, families, countries and regions (the US). If Zhao Lijian is right (which all of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan believe to be so), then the Corona virus deadly mischief by America has really disconnected the world from each other. No connectivity even within families, friends, workers, factories, sports, universities, and more. This move by the US has really isolated, disconnected and atomized the world. Not only that the economic loss to China and all economies of the world has been tremendous, it has led to a mutually divorced humanity instilled with fear of future rather than hope.

For Pakistan, peace in Afghanistan is existential. For China success of CPEC in Pakistan existential. In sum, for both China and Pakistan there are no other viable options of peace except for helping the Taliban into power through any means possible. India is the spoiler of peace in Afghanistan and igniter of violence inside its own borders. If China increases its involvement in Afghanistan, the Indians may be misguided to monkey around with China along its border areas. If Indians do make such a mistake, China should be prepared to take an assertive stand against India.

What seems clear in the days to come is that there will be lesser room for diplomacy and an increase in kinetic and non-kinetic warfare. The world is becoming black and white with less grey area, which means that the domain of diplomacy may gradually be shrinking.

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And so we have it. The much-awaited announcement regarding school closures in Scotland has taken place, and once again Nicola Sturgeon has beaten her Westminster counterpart by addressing the nation in relation to Covid-19. Schools are to be shut from Friday onwards, with no guarantee they will re-open prior to the summer break at the beginning of July. Exams will be postponed as young people’s lives are put on hold.

There was huge outcry last week when Sturgeon briefed the nation ahead of Boris Johnson on the next steps to be taken after Thursday’s Cobra meeting. Journalists and commentators were aghast – how could she have abandoned protocol by ‘announcing Johnson’s plan for him’ – it was said. The reality was however that Sturgeon was addressing the Scottish nation, and outlining Scotland’s individual approach to the coronavirus pandemic.  She announced a ban on mass gatherings of more than 500 people – something which Johnson did not – much to the concern of some experts. The government later succumbed to pressure and buckled on this issue over the weekend, stating that mass gatherings would be banned.

There is political significance in Sturgeon not wanting to hang around waiting for Boris Johnson. By being pro-active and making announcements first, it shows that she takes the public health crisis seriously, and wants to inform the public as soon as possible.  It sends a signal that the Scottish government is managing the crisis. But more importantly, by Sturgeon announcing key measures ahead of Johnston, such as closing schools, she implies that Scotland is one step ahead of Westminster.  It’s a clever strategy; if you want to become an independent country then the first stage is to start acting like one.  Sturgeon is sending a subtle message to the nation that her government is ahead of the game.

For Covid-19 has the potential to unite Britain in a way that we haven’t seen since the Second World War. Independence for Scotland now will surely be put on the back burner. With the death toll now standing at over 100, and predictions that we could see at least 20,000 deaths from the outbreak in the UK alone, the gravity of the situation is really starting to be felt here. Life is already changing dramatically.  Streets are deserted in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, with only a handful of people travelling on public transport. Many people are now working for home and keeping children off school. The busiest places at the moment are supermarkets, as the panic buying continues and shelves lie empty. Tesco has already announced it will have to close 24-hour stores for a few hours each day to try to replenish stock and keep up with demand.

People will have to adapt to a totally new way of life. It’s like someone has pressed the ‘pause’ button on the remote. Social distancing means that normal routines and ways of life for the young and old alike will be completely interrupted. Children will have to be amused and entertained at home, while the many elderly people who live on their own could feel increasingly isolated. Thankfully, I’ve heard that local businesses are taking the initiative to offer home deliveries of groceries to the elderly or infirm forced to stay indoors. Neighbours are also playing an important role, offering assistance to those less able. On a positive note, we could see our communities pulling together over this crisis and people helping each other in a way not seen since the war.

And when it’s all over, when we can finally breathe again, we’re sure to start asking if anything could have been done differently. Boris Johnson has assured us that the ‘timing is crucial’ as he has tentatively rolled out his plan. However, criticism has already begun of his approach, with some medical professionals saying his strategy of aiming to generate ‘herd immunity’ is flawed, and will swamp the NHS. Richard Horton, Editor of the Lancet journal, has written a scathing review of it, saying Johnson has taken far too long to react to the Covid-19 outbreak, given the warnings that came thick and fast from China and Italy earlier in the year.  Ominously he believes it is now ‘too little, too late.’

Indeed, with nothing short of a catastrophe unfolding in Italy, the prospects for the UK don’t look good. NHS staff are already complaining that there is a lack of testing for coronavirus amongst health workers, leading to unnecessary staff shortages as some self-isolate at home if they display symptoms. Current efforts to test around 4000 people a day are dwarfed by those in, for example, South Korea, where they manage around 10,000 tests daily. And although the Prime Minister has said he is aiming for 25,000 tests carried out per day, it’s still not clear how soon Britain would be able to achieve this.

We are indeed in unprecedented territory, with each day bringing more questions and fewer answers as to how we can fight the coronavirus…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

U.S. sanctions against Iran, cruelly strengthened in March of 2018, continue a collective punishment of extremely vulnerable people. Presently, the U.S. “maximum pressure” policy severely undermines Iranian efforts to cope with the ravages of COVID-19, causing hardship and tragedy while contributing to the global spread of the pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Iran’s Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif urged member states of the UN to end the United States’ unconscionable and lethal economic warfare.  

Addressing UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Zarif detailed how U.S. economic sanctions prevent Iranians from importing necessary medicine and medical equipment.

For over two years, while the U.S. bullied other countries to refrain from purchasing Iranian oil, Iranians have coped with crippling economic decline.

The devastated economy and worsening coronavirus outbreak now drive migrants and refugees, who number in the millions, back to Afghanistan at dramatically increased rates.

In the past two weeks alone, more than 50,000 Afghans returned from Iran, increasing the likelihood that cases of coronavirus will surge in Afghanistan. Decades of war, including U.S. invasion and occupation, have decimated Afghanistan’s health care and food distribution systems.

Jawad Zarif asks the UN to prevent the use of hunger and disease as a weapon of war. His letter demonstrates the  wreckage caused by many decades of United States imperialism and suggests revolutionary steps toward dismantling the United States war machine.

During the United States’ 1991 “Desert Storm” war against Iraq, I was part of the Gulf Peace Team, – at first, living at in a “peace camp” set up near the Iraq-Saudi border and later, following our removal by Iraqi troops, in a Baghdad hotel which formerly housed many journalists.

Finding an abandoned typewriter, we melted a candle onto its rim, (the U.S. had destroyed Iraq’s electrical stations, and most of the hotel rooms were pitch black). We compensated for an absent typewriter ribbon by placing a sheet of red carbon paper over our stationery. When Iraqi authorities realized we managed to type our document, they asked if we would type their letter to the Secretary General of the UN. (Iraq was so beleaguered even cabinet level officials lacked typewriter ribbons.) The letter to Javier Perez de Cuellar implored the UN to prevent the U.S. from bombing a road between Iraq and Jordan, the only way out for refugees and the only way in for humanitarian relief. Devastated by bombing and already bereft of supplies, Iraq was, in 1991, only one year into a deadly sanctions regime that lasted for thirteen years before the U.S. began its full-scale invasion and occupation in 2003. Now, in 2020, Iraqis still suffering from impoverishment, displacement and war earnestly want the U.S. to practice self-distancing and leave their country.

Are we now living in a watershed time? An unstoppable, deadly virus ignores any borders the U.S. tries to reinforce or redraw.

The United States military-industrial complex, with its massive arsenals and cruel capacity for siege, isn’t relevant to “security” needs. Why should the U.S., at this crucial juncture, approach other countries with threat and force and presume a right to preserve global inequities? Such arrogance doesn’t even ensure security for the United States military. If the U.S. further isolates and batters Iran, conditions will worsen in Afghanistan and United States troops stationed there will ultimately be at risk. The simple observation, “We are all part of one another,” becomes acutely evident.

It’s helpful to think of guidance from past leaders who faced wars and pandemics. The Spanish flu pandemic in 1918-19, coupled with the atrocities of World War I,  killed 50 million worldwide, 675,000 in the U.S. Thousands of female nurses were on the “front lines,” delivering health care. Among them were black nurses who not only risked their lives to practice the works of mercy but also fought discrimination and racism in their determination to serve. These brave women arduously paved a way for the first 18 black nurses to serve in the Army Nurse Corps and they provided “a small turning point in the continuing movement for health equity.”

In the spring of 1919, Jane Addams and Alice Hamilton witnessed the effects of sanctions against Germany imposed by Allied forces after World War I. They observed “critical shortages of food, soap and medical supplies” and wrote indignantly about how children were being punished with starvation for “the sins of statesmen.”

Starvation continued even after the blockade was finally lifted, that summer, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Hamilton and Addams reported how the flu epidemic, exacerbated in its spread by starvation and post-war devastation, in turn disrupted the food supply. The two women argued a policy of sensible food distribution was necessary for both  humanitarian and strategic reasons. “What was to be gained by starving more children?” bewildered German parents asked them.

Jonathan Whitall directs Humanitarian Analysis for Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors without Borders. His most recent analysis poses agonizing questions:

How are you supposed to wash your hands regularly if you have no running water or soap? How are you supposed to implement ‘social distancing’ if you live in a slum or a refugee or containment camp? How are you supposed to stay at home if your work pays by the hour and requires you to show up? How are you supposed to stop crossing borders if you are fleeing from war? How are you supposed to get tested for #COVID19 if the health system is privatized and you can’t afford it? How are those with pre-existing health conditions supposed to take extra precautions when they already can’t even access the treatment they need?

I expect many people worldwide, during the spread of COVID – 19,  are thinking hard about the glaring, deadly inequalities in our societies, wonder how best to extend proverbial hands of friendship to people in need while urged to accept isolation and social distancing. One way to help others survive is to insist the United States lift sanctions against Iran and instead support acts of practical care. Jointly confront the coronavirus while constructing a humane future for the world without wasting  time or resources on the continuation of brutal wars.

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Kathy Kelly ([email protected]) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence. (www.vcnv.org)

Featured image: Protester’s sign decries sanctions, “a silent war”. Photo: Campaign for Peace and Democracy, 2013

For the past three years the new narrative of Russian interference in U.S. elections has bound corporate news media more tightly than ever to the interests of the national security state. And no outlet has pushed that narrative more aggressively – and with more violence to the relevant facts — than The New York Times.

Times reporters have produced a series of stories that loudly proclaim the Russian election meddling narrative but offer no real facts in the body of the story supporting its most sensational claims.

The Times service to the narrative was introduced by its February 2017 story  headlined, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts with Russian Intelligence.” We now know from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign that the only campaign aide who had contacts with Russian intelligence officials was Carter Page, and those had taken place years before in the context of Page’s reporting them to the CIA. The Horowitz report revealed that FBI officials had hidden that fact from the FISA Court to justify its request for surveillance of Page.

But the Times coverage of the Horowitz report in December 2019 failed to acknowledge that the calumny about Page’s Russian intelligence contacts, which it had published without question in 2017, had been an FBI deception.

Two more Times Russiagate stories in 2018 and 2019 featured spectacular claims that proved on closer examination to be grotesque distortions of fact.  In September 2018 a 10,000-word story by Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti sought to convince readers that the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) had successfully swayed U.S. opinion during the 2016 election with 80,000 Facebook posts that they said had reached 126 million Americans.

But that turned to be an outrageously deceptive claim, because Shane and Mazzetti failed to mention the fact that those 80,000 IRA posts (from early 2015 through 2017), had been engulfed in a vast ocean of more than 33 trillion Facebook posts in people’s news feeds – 413 million times more than the IRA posts.

In December 2019, senior national security correspondent David Sanger wrote a story headlined, “Russia Targeted Election Systems in All 50 States, Report Finds,”and Sanger’s lede said the Senate Intelligence Committee had “concluded” that all 50 states had been targeted.  But the Committee report actually reaches no such conclusion.  It quoted President Barack Obama’s cyber-security adviser Michael Daniel as recalling that he had “personally” reached that conclusion, but shows the only basis for his conclusion was remarkably lame: the “randomness of the attempts” and his conviction that Russian intelligence was “thorough.”

The Committee reported that some intelligence “developed” in 2018 had “bolstered” the subjective judgment by Daniel.  But all but one of the eight paragraphs in the report describing that intelligence were redacted, and the one unredacted paragraph suggests that the redacted paragraphs provided no conclusive evidence that Russian intelligence had scanned any state election websites, much less those of all 50 states.  The paragraph said, “However, IP addresses associated with the August 16, 2016 FLASH provided some indicators the activity might be attributable to the Russian government….[emphasis added].”

The Committee report also contained summary statements from six states that the Department of Homeland Security has continued to include among the 21 states it insists were hacked by the Russians in 2016, denying any cyber threat to their systems.  Another 13 states reported only that there was “scanning and probing” by inconclusive IP addresses the FBI and DHS had sent them.  Sanger did not report any of those troublesome details.

In January 2020 the Times began its coverage of the theme of Russian interference in the 2020 election with a story headlined, “Chaos is the Point: Russian Hackers and Trolls Grow Stealthier in 2020.”  The story, written by Sanger, Matthew Rosenberg and Nicole Perlroth, sought to heighten the existing U.S. climate of paranoia about a Russian attack in regard to the 2020 elections.  Once again, however, nothing in the story supports the sinister tone of the headline.

It reported Department of Homeland Security officials’ anxiety about the ransom-ware attacks on 100 American towns, cities and federal offices during 2019, which are clearly criminal operations aimed at large-scale payoffs by cities.  The story informed readers that DHS was investigating “whether Russian intelligence was involved in any of the attacks,” on the apparent theory that the criminals were being used by the Russians.

Since those ransom-ware attacks had been going on for years, the obvious question would have been why DHS would have waited until 2020 to reveal that it was investigating Russian involvement.  Thus, the only fact underlying the story was the DHS desire to find evidence to support its accusations of Russian election hacking.

Still at it in 2020

The Times continued its advocacy journalism in a Feb. 26 report that U.S. intelligence officials had “warned” in a briefing for the House Intelligence Committee on Feb. 13 that “Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to get President Trump elected,” citing five people “familiar with the matter.”

The Times’ team of four writers proceeded to declare, “The Russians have been preparing – and experimenting – for the 2020 election…aware that they needed a new playbook of as-yet undetectable methods, United States officials said.”  But instead of reporting actual evidence of any Russian action or decision for action, the Times writers again cited what their sources suspected could be done.

“Some officials,” they wrote, “believe that foreign powers, possibly including Russia, could use ransom-ware attacks…to damage or interfere with voting systems or registration databases.”  The Times’ sources thus had no actual intelligence on the question and were merely speculating on what any foreign government might do to disrupt the election.

Three days after that report, moreover, the Times backed away from its previous lede after intelligence sources disputed its claim that Russia was intervening to reelect Trump, suggesting that the briefing officer, Shelby Pierson, had overstated the assessment. Sanger sought to limit the damage with a story labeling the problem one of “dueling narratives” in the intelligence community.

Then Sanger admitted, “It is probably too early for the Russians to begin any significant moves to bolster a specific candidate,” which obviously invalidated the Times’ previous speculation on the subject.  But after The Washington Post published a story that the FBI had informed Senator Bernie Sanders that Russia had sought to help his campaign, Sanger quickly returned to the same narrative of Russian interference to advance its favorite candidates.

On the Times’ podcast “The Daily,” Sanger opined that the Russians were now supporting both Trump and Sanders – because Sanders, “like Donald Trump,” has “got a real aversion to interventions around the world.”

The most recent entry in the Times’ campaign to create anxiety about Russian interference in the election focused on race relations.  On March 10, the Times headlined its story, “Russia Trying to Stoke U.S. Racial Tension before Elections, Officials Say.”  In their lede Julian Barnes and Adam Goldman announced, “The Russian government has stepped up efforts to influence racial tensions in the United States as part of its bid to influence November’s presidential election, including trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups and stoke anger among Afro-Americans, according to seven American officials briefed on recent intelligence.”

But true to the modus operandi used routinely to push the Russian election threat narrative, the writers did not offer a single fact supporting such a story line. They even admitted that the officials who were making the claims provided “few details” about white supremacists and “did not detail how” blacks were being encouraged to use violence.

It turns out, in fact, that U.S. officials have found nothing indicating Russian support for violent white supremacists in America. The only fact that they could cite — based on a single source — was that the FBI is “scrutinizing any ties” between Russian intelligence and Rinaldo Nazzaro, the American founder of a “neo-Nazi group,” who lives with his Russian wife in St. Petersburg, Russia, but owns property in the United States. So, the Times’ single source had nothing but a suspicion for which the FBI was trying to find evidence.

The final touch in the piece was the accusation that RT had “fanned divisions” on race by running a story about a video of New York policemen attacking and detaining a young black man that Barnes and Goldman write “sparked outrage” and had also “posted tweets aimed at stirring white animosity.” But the RT article on the video merely reported accurately that the video depicted unprovoked police brutality and that it had already gone viral.  The Times itself had published a much more detailed Associated Press story on the same incident that went into a discussion of the history of police brutality in New York City.  By the Times’ own criterion, the AP was doing far more to stoke racial animosity than RT.

The opinion pieces that RT published attacking The New York Times for its coverage of a video at the University of Wisconsin that offended non-whites and for a Times opinion piece critical of the Apu character on “The Simpsons” echoed views on race and culture that most Americans find offensive. The idea that they were part of a Russian plot to generate racial animosity, however, is a very long stretch.

The descent of The New York Times into this unprecedented level of propagandizing for the narrative of Russia’s threat to U.S. democracy is dramatic evidence of a broader problem of abuses by corporate media of their socio-political power. Greater awareness of the dishonesty at the heart of the Times‘ coverage of that issue is a key to leveraging media reform and political change.

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Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. His latest book, with John Kiriakou, is “The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis: From CIA Coup to the Brink of War.”

Featured image is from Pixabay

In 2017, RAND Corporation published in its associated media Small Wars Journal an article by the researchers Marta Kepe and Jan Osburg, outlining a strategic defense plan for the Baltic countries in the event of a Russian invasion. The authors claim that Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia will manage their weaknesses to face the Russians, overcoming their population and military deficit through the participation of civilians in the conflicts, working with the armed forces to create a “total defense” plan that would make the invasion too costly and laborious for Russia.

Subsequently, the RAND Corporation article was mentioned in a paper by the National Interest magazine, authored by Michael Peck, in which the author studies the Baltic defense strategy, speculating about “total defense” and its efficiency in a possible case of Russian invasion. The researcher, finally, takes a pessimistic conclusion, stating that, despite all efforts, nothing will change the fact that Russia is a large country and the Baltic States are small and weak.

In March last year, the renowned American magazine Foreign Policy published an article by Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of Georgia, claiming that Russia’s next “targets” would be European nations. In the text, Saakashvili considers the possibility of a Russian attack on the Baltic countries, saying that President Vladimir Putin sees them as real threats because they are “functional democracies on the Russian border”. After developing his reasoning, the author comes to the conclusion that this invasion will not occur, pointing other countries as future “targets” of Russia. However, even though Saakashvili does not believe in the possibility of a Russian invasion, rumors about a Russian plan to invade and annex the Baltic nations have generated unfounded tensions in the region.

The height of media alarmism regarding relations between Russia and the Baltic countries was, however, an article published by the American expert Hall Brands on Japan Times website, whose title is “How Russia could force a nuclear war in the Baltics”. Referring again to the studies of the RAND Corporation, the author considers the possibility of a nuclear escalation on the frictions between Moscow and NATO in the Baltics, concluding that the geographic condition of these states would hinder rapid action by the West in the event of Russian action, raising the risks of forced annexation.

Apparently, media agencies aligned with the liberal establishment are working together to spread the idea that there is a Russian interest in invading and annexing the Baltics. For these agencies, the interest is so great that it would even justify a nuclear action. However, when we investigate the reasons for such despair, we found no concrete argument to justify such speculations. The great Western think tanks, such as the RAND Corporation, are spreading this myth with the specific purpose of instilling fear and tension in the Baltic States, so that, in the face of “Russian terror”, they will increasingly align themselves with Washington and NATO.

The concrete data indicate exactly the opposite of the rumors spread by RAND analysts. In January last year, Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas publicly expressed an interest in improving relations between his country and Russia, with a view to pacifying bilateral tensions and envisioning a future of peace and cooperation, despite divergent interests. Also, Latvia remains the only member country of the European Union that is totally dependent on Russian gas – a situation Lithuania has only recently withdrawn from. So why Moscow would be interested in invading and annexing such countries, when the threat they pose to the Russian political structure is absolutely null? In a way, it is much more logical to think that for the Baltic countries it is more profitable and interesting to maintain good relations with Russia than to embark on unfounded conspiracies by Western experts who are extremely ideologically involved. However, there is a second hypothesis.

It is still likely that the Baltic States are simply acting in the interest of increasing their role on the international scene. Unable to form a solid political, military and economic force, even if united, capable of facing the great world powers, these States may be anchoring themselves in NATO’s military apparatus to seek the affirmation of their own interests in Europe and in the world. By this logic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia would be voluntarily adopting the alarmist discourse of the West and reaffirming it in order to, increasing the western military presence on its borders, try to increase its regional and global influence, moving from being small European States to becoming potencies in the global geopolitical game.

Indeed, the Baltic countries are making a big mistake in adopting either of these two stances. Unlike Moscow, for whom the interest in “invading” the Baltic is null, Washington has clear interests in occupying the region, so as to face Russia. That is the main reason for the presence of NATO troops in the Baltic expected for the Defender Europe 2020 drills – now canceled by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Baltic States are adhering to the discourse of Western think tanks, however, under no perspective this opposition to Russia can be profitable for them. Following the interests of Washington, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have too much to lose.

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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.

Israeli security officials said on Tuesday that they expect the operational efficiency of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to decline with thousands of troops quarantined due to the coronavirus crisis, Arab48.com has reported.

According to Wallah news website, 4,267 Israeli soldiers are in quarantine by order of the Ministry of Health. Many have tested positive for the virus, Covid-19. Although some officials denied that operational efficiency has been affected, others expressed their concerns because many senior officers are among those in quarantine.

As of Tuesday, said Arab 48.com, the IDF has imposed a curfew on military bases for 30 days in order to reduce the opportunities for soldiers to associate with others. Furthermore, several security procedures have been suspended as part of precautionary measures against the spread of the virus.

The IDF is worried about relocating troops as this might take the virus from one brigade or unit to another.

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Featured image: Israel fights with coronavirus fears – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

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Sanctions: Unilateral Coercive Measures for Regime Change in Venezuela

By Nino Pagliccia, March 20, 2020

In discussing the issue of “sanctions” there are two main points that need to be made. One is the use of the correct terminology when referring to the government actions that the US, Canada and the EU take in order to achieve regime change. The second is of course the impact that those actions have.

The blame of imposing “sanctions” falls fully on the US government as it currently applies them to 39 countries! However, throughout, when I refer to the US “sanctions”, particularly in the Venezuelan context, I also mean to include Canada as well as the EU as willing accomplices and accountable perpetrators.

The Coronavirus Is Not “The Plague”: It Is the U.S.

By Edward Curtin, March 20, 2020

Now it is all about us and the coronavirus panic.  It is about how many of us might die. It is about stocking toilet paper.  For the rich, it is about getting to their second or third houses where they can isolate themselves in splendor. As I write, 150 or so Americans are said to have died of Covid-19, and by the time you will read this the number will have climbed, but the number will be minuscule compared to the number of people in the U.S.A. and those numbers will be full of contradictions that few comprehend unless, rather than reacting in fear, they did some comprehensive research.

15 Among Brazilian Delegation that Met with Trump Now Have Coronavirus

By Zero Hedge, March 20, 2020

It’s been eleven days since the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his delegation met with Trump and many White House staffers at Mar-a-Lago on March 7. First it was Nestor Forster, Brazil’s Chargé d’Affaires in Washington, and Nelsinho Trad, who both tested positive for Covid-19, and as of early this week it was further announced Brazilian Foreign Trade Secretary Marcos Troyjo has been confirmed for the virus.

As the US Blames China for the Coronavirus Pandemic, the Rest of the World Asks China for Help

By Joe Penney, March 20, 2020

Western Europe and the U.S. are struggling under the weight of the crisis, with cases rising exponentially every day and higher death rates in Italy than anywhere else. China’s private and public sectors are filling in gaps in equipment where other states are failing, although the spread of the disease is such that demand for those materials might quickly outpace China’s supply. The government and Jack Ma, a Chinese billionaire and co-founder of the Alibaba Group, have already sent doctors and medical supplies to France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, and the United States. Chinese citizens living abroad are flying home in large numbers to avoid catastrophic health failures elsewhere. In Massachusetts, a Chinese woman tried and failed to be tested three times for Covid-19 before flying back home to be tested and treated.

Washington Post Photographer Spots Crossed-Out ‘Coronavirus’ in Favor of ‘Chinese Virus’ in Trump Notes

By Eoin Higgins, March 20, 2020

The president’s own handwriting scrawling the term across his notes at a press conference drew outrage on social media as observers like Daily Beast reporter Sam Stein noted the “obvious attempts to start a debate over political correctness” rather than Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, which threatens the lives of thousands if not millions of Americans.

Workers and the Virus: Radical Lessons from Italy in the Age of COVID-19

By Alessandro Delfanti, Beatrice Busi, and Erika Biddle, March 20, 2020

In the face of the mounting coronavirus crisis, we need to start asking a crucial question: who pays for the lockdown? The last three weeks have taught some hard lessons to Italian workers. Indeed, workers have been shouldering the bulk of the crisis. This applies to workers in all sectors, and even more intensely with activities related to care. If the right to work safely cannot be guaranteed, all nonessential activities must be shut down.

A Tale of Two Foreign Policies: The Train-Wreck Abroad Is Bipartisan

By Philip Giraldi, March 20, 2020

Now that the Democratic Party has apparently succeeded in getting rid of the only two voices among its presidential candidates that actually deviated from the establishment consensus, it appears that Joe Biden will be running against Donald Trump in November. To be sure, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard are still hanging on, but the fix was in and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) made sure that Sanders would be given the death blow on Super Tuesday while Gabbard would be blocked from participating in any of the late term debates.

Coronavirus, Vaccines and the Gates Foundation

By F. William Engdahl, March 20, 2020

We must admit that at the very least Bill Gates is prophetic. He has claimed for years that a global killer pandemic will come and that we are not prepared for it. On March 18, 2015 Gates gave a TED talk on epidemics in Vancouver. That day he wrote on his blog, “I just gave a brief talk on a subject that I’ve been learning a lot about lately—epidemics. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a tragedy—as I write this, more than 10,000 people have died.” Gates then added, “As awful as this epidemic has been, the next one could be much worse. The world is simply not prepared to deal with a disease—an especially virulent flu, for example—that infects large numbers of people very quickly. Of all the things that could kill 10 million people or more, by far the most likely is an epidemic.”

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The US media is relentlessly spinning fear, panic and despair, with the endorsement of “authoritative” American scientists. “The new coronavirus could kill millions across the United States”, according to Dr. Kathleen Neuzil a specialist in vaccines at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. (CNBC, March 18). 

The media routinely exaggerate the health impacts as part of their fear and panic discourse.

Lets look at the figures.  The latest  coronavirus data in the U.S released by the CDC on March 18, 2020 are as follows:

• Total cases: 10,442
• Total deaths: 150
• Jurisdictions reporting cases: 54 (50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and US Virgin Islands)

UPDATE: Since the publication of this article, the reported CDC total cases and total deaths have increased substantially.

• Total cases: 15,219
• Total deaths: 201

March 20 figures

According to latest media hype, citing and often distorting scientific opinion (CNBC)

Statistical Models by Washington think tanks predict a scenario of devastation suggesting that “more than a million Americans could die if the nation does not take swift action to stop its spread as quickly as possible”.

One model from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested that between 160 million and 210 million Americans could contract the disease over as long as a year. Based on mortality data and current hospital capacity, the number of deaths under the CDC’s scenarios ranged from 200,000 to as many as 1.7 million. (The Hill, March 13, 2020)

 

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Who to Believe? 

The most commonly reported symptoms [of COVID-19] included fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath, and most patients (80%) experienced mild illness. Approximately 14% experienced severe disease and 5% were critically ill. Early reports suggest that illness severity is associated with age (>60 years old) and co-morbid disease. (largely basing on WHO’s assessment of COVID-19 in China)

 The Hill, March 19, 2020

And then these “mild symptoms” of COVID-19 are used as a public health justification for the closing down of entire countries, precipitating large sectors of the World population into unemployment, poverty and despair.

Bear in mind that, the COVID-19 hits the 60 years+ elderly (most of whom are not part of the labor force), particularly those who do not have adequate health coverage. In the US the COVID-19 deaths are largely recorded in the 70 years + range. The confirmed death rate from COVID-19 is 1.4% of total “confirmed” and “presumed” cases (CDC data).

Compare “the Mild Illness and Recover in Two Weeks” of COVID-19 (barely acknowledged by the media) to the devastating social and economic consequences of the lockdowns ordered by powerful financial interests.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, thousands of small enterprises across the land have been spearheaded into bankruptcy. Millions of families have lost their lifelong savings as a result of the collapse of stock markets. Precipitated into a debt trap, they may lose their homes.

And that scenario will not “recover” in two weeks. It’s a long term depression. What we are dealing with is the destabilization of the US economy and an engineered transfer of billions of dollars of money wealth. 

COVID-19 Recovery Rates

The CDC Data tabulates  both “confirmed” and “presumptive” positive cases since January 21, 2020. Yet what it fails to mention is that among the confirmed and presumptive cases, a large number of Americans have recovered. But nobody talks about recovery. It does not make the headlines.

In China, there is a distinction in the data between “confirmed cases infected” and “confirmed cases recovered”. The  recorded recovery rate in China is of the order of 80% since the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan in early January. (See Xinhua, March 19 2020)

In the US,  the hike in “confirmed and presumptive cases” started in late February to early March (see graph below).

Applying recommended medication, the recovery rate –according to the WHO report cited above– would be of the order of two weeks for most patients under 60 (a longer period of recovery for the population group over  60).

What this suggests is that the COVID-19 public health crisis in America could be brought under control in a matter of months. But if that were to happen, it would undermine the implementation of Big Pharma’s Vaccination project.

There are serious difficulties in the testing process. Reliable test kits are “in short supply”.

Presumptive vs. Confirmed Cases

According to the CDC the data presented for the United States 10,442 cases ““include both confirmed and presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 reported to CDC or tested at CDC since January 21, 2020″.

The presumptive positive data does not confirm coronavirus infection: Presumptive testing involves “chemical analysis of a sample that establishes the possibility that a substance [COVID-19] is present“(emphasis added). But it does not confirm the coronavirus infection. The presumptive test must then be sent for confirmation to an accredited government health lab. A confirmatory testing implies “identification of the specific substance [coronvirus] through further chemical analysis.”

It is worth noting that the WHO does not tabulate presumptive data. Its total confirmed cases figure is significantly lower than the total “confirmed and presumptive” cases presented by the CDC.

WHO figures for the US: 3586 total confirmed cases plus 1822 new confirmed cases. (March 16, 2020)

(discrepancies with CDC data may also be due to delays in data processing).

State and local data are at odds with the figures published by both the WHO and the CDC, they are invariably much higher.

There are flaws in the process of of COV-19 testing and data collection by local, State and CDC.

The CDC data does not include “testing results for persons repatriated to the United States from Wuhan, China and Japan”. Why?  

The above statement suggests discrepancies in the overall assessment of confirmed cases. Why is the publication of the data pertaining to persons repatriated from China and Japan withheld by the CDC? Is that data classified?

Officially, according to the WHO and the CDC the coronavirus takes its origin from China which suggests that all the cases in the US took their origin in China. Why then are these estimates not included?

The White House ordered meetings where officials discussed the coronavirus to be classified, …  Federal health officials were directed to keep dozens of meetings that started in mid-January, including discussions on the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions confidential, … According to the sources, those without security clearances were not permitted in the high-security room, typically used for military and intelligence operations, at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where the meetings took place. (The Hill)

And what do the pathology reports of the lab tests pertaining to imported China viruses reveal? What strains? Classified.

Trump call it the “Chinese virus”: Are the COVID-19 “confirmed case” of imported “foreign” infections from China/Japan the source of “transmission” to those COVID-19 cases recorded across the United States?  There is no available evidence to that effect.

Seattle, “America’s Wuhan”? 

Examine the CDC Map below (March 19). The largest concentrations of confirmed and presumptive positive cases are in New York State (NYC Metropolitan area) and the State of Washington (Seattle).

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Data problem, causality? The State of Washington accounts for more than ten percent of the cases.

44.7% of the recorded COVID-19 deaths in the United States have been recorded in Washington State. Most of the cases and deaths are concentrated in Seattle.

The population of Washington State is 7.5 million, barely 2.2% of total US population (330 million).

We will not speculate on the data issue. It is a matter which has to be carefully investigated.

As of March 15,  67 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in Washington State. (total for USA; 150, according to CDC)

According to Washington state data,  there are 1,187 confirmed cases of COVID-19. (Not including presumptive cases).

“And King County officials said there are now 562 confirmed cases just in King” (March 18). Most of the deaths are elderly (70s to 90s), many of whom mysteriously died at Life Care Center. Out of 67 deaths, 30 were recorded at the Life Care Center.

What is significant is that none of the recent CDC and state level reports intimate that U.S. cases of COVID-19 infection have been transmitted from China directly or indirectly.

Note

Bear in mind the methodology of CDC estimates is defined as follows: State and local public health departments are involved is testing and data collection independently of the CDC. “In the event of a discrepancy between CDC cases and cases reported by state and local public health officials, data reported by states should be considered the most up to date.” (CDC, March 18, 2020)

Following Iraqi president Barham Saleh’s nomination of Adnan al-Zarfi (Zurufi or Zurfi) as the new Prime Minister, Iraq has entered a critical stage.  The Shia block is divided. The 30 days given to al-Zarfi to nominate his cabinet will lead either to a quorum of the parliament recognising his new cabinet and in consequences to a bloody future that could lead to unrest and even partition of Iraq or absence of a quorum. Why did President Saleh nominate al-Zarfi?

In 2018 Speaker Mohamad Halbousi proposed Barham Saleh as President. The proposal was adopted by “Al-Fateh”, the largest Shia coalition, with the agreement of the Sunni. Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and US presidential envoy Brett McGurk were against the nomination of Saleh. It was Iranian IRGC Major General Qassem Soleimani who pushed for Barham Saleh to become president. Saleh, upon his nomination, promised Soleimani to be “better than Mam Jalal” (Uncle Jalal Talibani, one of Iran’s closest allies). Once Saleh was elected, he was asked by the “Al-Fateh” coalition, to nominate Adel Abdel Mahdi as prime minister, and he complied.  One year later, Abdel Mahdi was asked by the Marjaiya in Najaf to resign in response to street demonstrations demanding reforms, necessary infrastructure and better job opportunities.

Soleimani met with Shia leaders who all agreed– with the exception of Hadi al-Ameri, who wanted to be the Prime Minister of Iraq – to nominate Qusay al-Suheil. Al-Fateh forwarded the name to President Barham Salih who refused to appoint al-Suheil and went to Erbil for a few days, enough time for the street to reject the nomination. It was Sayyed Moqtada al Sadr – who rejected the nomination of al Suheil – who then contacted President Saleh and informed him that he represented the largest coalition, called “Sairoon”. Saleh, who feared Moqtada’s reaction, sent a letter to the parliament and the constitutional court asking them to define the “largest coalition”. None managed to respond clearly to this request.

The Iraqi constitution’s definition of the “largest coalition” is elastic and subject to interpretation. President Barham Saleh maliciously threw this apple of discord between the parliament and the constitutional court. It was Nuri al-Maliki who in 2010 introduced a new definition of “large coalition” to beat Ayad Allawi, who had managed to gather 91 MPs and was eligible to form a government. Al-Maliki formed a broad coalition after the MPs took their oaths and established that he was leading the largest coalition, as defined by the final alliances formed after the parliamentary elections, rather than by the poll results.

President Salih told Soleimani that the Shia coalition was divided and that he was not in a position to decide. At the same time, Salih accommodated the Americans who saw that Soleimani’s candidates were failing to win consensual approval. Iran’s Shia allies were effectively contributing to the failure of Soleimani’s efforts to reach an agreement among Shia over a PM nominee.

By forwarding his resignation on November 29, 2019, to President Salih, Adil Abdel Mahdi made it clear he no longer wished return to power. On February 1, Salih nominated Mohamad Allawi on Moqtada al-Sadr’s demand. Moqtada was given the leading role in choosing a candidate following the US assassination of Soleimani at Baghdad’s airport. This leadership was agreed to in Tehran by General Ismail Qaaani, who believed Moqtada should lead all groups because he was the main instigator of the protests. Even if the people in the street no longer welcomed Moqtada, he remained the only one capable of clearing the road and allowing the formation of a new government. Iran’s priority was for the parliament and the government to concentrate on the withdrawal of all foreign forces, led by the US.

Mohammad Allawi failed to achieve a parliamentary quorum because he behaved condescendingly towards some of the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds. Allawi believed that Moqtada’s support was sufficient and that all the other groups and ethnicities would have to accept his choice of ministers. Allawi presented his resignation to Salih on March 2.

According to article 73/3 of the Iraqi constitution, the sole authority for nominating a prime minister belongs to the president, who has 15 days to select a candidate. However, President Salih gave the Shia 15 days to choose a candidate. A coalition of seven members representing all Shia groups was formed—they presented 17 candidates. Three names were offered: Naim al-Suheil, Mohamad al-Soudani and Adnan al-Zarfi. Naim al-Suheil received the most votes but was rejected by Faleh al-Fayad.

Although al-Zarfi is a member of the al-Nasr party led by former PM Haidar Abadi (al-Nasr was formed in 2018), Nuri al-Maliki pushed hard for al-Zarfi (also a member of al-Da’wa party) and sent him to Beirut to convince the Lebanese to bless his nomination. Iran was against the designation of a US national (al-Zarfi holds a US passport). Confronted by Iran’s rejection, Al-Maliki managed to convince Moqtada al-Sadr to nominate al-Zarfi. Al-Maliki managed even if al-Zarfi was the one who fought against Jaish al-Mahdi – with US support – in Najaf in 2004, persecuted Moqtada in the city and expelled him to Baghdad. Moqtada al-Sadr – who recently refused any prime minister holding dual nationality – put his signature on the agreed paper offered to Salih along with Nuri al-Maliki, Haidar Abadi and Sayyed Ammar al-Hakim as per the newly claimed “largest coalition”.

It was a golden opportunity for Salih, with the absence of Soleimani, to please the Americans, the Kurds, the Sunni and a large group of Shia. Salih used his constitutional authority to nominate al-Zarfi as a prime minister. It will be a blow to Iran if al-Zarfi manages to form his government and present it to the parliament.  With the support of such a large coalition of Shia-Sunni-Kurdish MPs, he will no doubt reach the necessary quorum.

One of the main reasons Moqtada al-Sadr supported al-Zarif (apart from al-Zarif’s promise to satisfy Moqtada’s requests in the new cabinet) is the birth of a new group called “Osbat al-Thaereen” (the “Movement of the Revolutionary Association” – MRA). This group claimed twice its responsibility for bombing al-Taji military base where the US and other members of the coalition have a permanent presence. Sayyed Moqtada rejects any attacks on US forces and prefers acting through diplomatic channels (via the parliament). Many Iraqi groups close to Iran swore to seek the withdrawal of the US forces mainly due to the Pentagon’s refusal to discuss a full removal of troops. The US is only willing to relocate troops. Moreover, the US is reinforcing its presence in crucial bases in Iraq (K1, Ayn al-Assad and Erbil) and is about to bring the Patriot interception missile system to its bases in Iraq, without Iraqi government consent.

If al-Zarfi manages to get parliament approval, he may seek to avoid any withdrawal negotiations with the US. He would also merge Hashd al-Shaabi and attempt to disarm the Iraqi groups close to Iran. But al-Zarfi is not in a position to seek a change of the parliament’s decision related to the US withdrawal. That issue will concern the newly elected parliament. However, al-Zarfi, like any new prime minister, is expected to gather a large number of MPs in the forthcoming parliamentary elections, enough to seek the prolonged presence of the US forces in Iraq.

Osbat al-Thaereen warned the US forces in Iraq.

This scenario is only applicable if al-Zarfi manages to reach the parliament in 30 days with a new cabinet and to retain his allies, notably the Shia. Iran will do everything possible to make things difficult for al-Zarfi. The ex-governor of Najaf was accused of burning the two Iranian consulates in Karbala and Najaf last year and is expected to follow the path of his al-Nasr coalition leader (former PM Abadi) in respecting US sanctions on Iran. That would be devastating to Iran’s economy, already suffering from the harshest US sanctions ever.

Al-Zarfi as prime minister will be a major blow to Iran and to those who support its objectives and ideology in Iraq. The coronavirus will not keep Iran away from the Iraqi theatre; Iran will not allow Iraq to fall under US control. If al-Zarfi comes to power, the stability of Iraq will be shaken, and partition will be back on the table. An era of instability can be expected in Mesopotamia under an Iraqi prime minister considered to be an ally of the US, particularly following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani.

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ISIS cells are once again active in eastern Syria. Late on March 17, the Syrian Army and the National Defense Forces repelled an ISIS attack in the area between the town of al-Sukhna and the T3 station. The attack involved over two dozen ISIS members supported by at least 6 vehicles equipped with heavy weapons. Pro-opposition sources claim that at least 20 Syrian soldiers were killed in the clashes. Pro-government sources deny casualties and say that terrorists were forced to retreat after they had been targeted by artillery and mortar fire.

The ISIS presence in the desert area of eastern Syria had been slowly decreasing over the past year. Additionally, government forces carried out several security operations cracking down on the remaining ISIS cells in southeastern Deir Ezzor and eastern Homs. However, the terrorist threat was not removed. Syria and Russia say that ISIS members use the US-controlled zone of al-Tanf as a safe haven to hide from Syrian Army operations.

Five civilians were reportedly killed and 15 others injured in a rocket strike on the city of Afrin on March 18. Pro-Turkish sources say that the rockets were launched by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) or affiliated rebels. The YPG created the brand of the Afrin Liberation Forces in December 2018 in order to distance themselves from regular attacks on the Turkish-controlled part of northwestern Syria. In this way, the YPG, which is the core of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, was seeking to distance itself from operations against Turkish forces. The goal was to continue receiving military and financial support from the United States, while simultaneously using the same resources to carry out attacks on the formal ally of the US under another brandname.

Alaa al-Omar, a commander of one of the largest units in the Turkish-backed Ahrar al-Sham Movement, was assassinated near Jisr al-Shughur in the southwestern part of Greater Idlib. Al-Omar was among commanders of Turkish proxy groups involved in sabotaging joint Russian-Turkish patrols along the M4 highway. Pro-government sources claim that his assassination is a result of the contradiction between al-Omar’s unit and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Turkistan Islamic Party, which controls Jisr al-Shughur. According to this theory, al-Omar was not active enough in organizing protests against the safe zone deal.

Regardless of the contradictions among the Idlib armed groups, the M4 highway remains closed and the Turkish-Russian agreement on the safe zone in the area is not being implemented.

Meanwhile, the US joined al-Qaeda-led efforts to kill the deal on Idlib. US Secretary Mike Pompeo accused Russia of killing “dozens of Turkish military personnel” and promised “additional measures” to support Turkey in the Idlib question. Apparently, somebody in Washington is very sad that no new Russian-Turkish war has yet taken place in early 2020.

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Tulsi and Bernie dropped out. 

On March 19, she made it official, shaming herself and disappointing supporters by endorsing Biden. See below. 

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So will Sanders officially in the coming days (dropping out and endorsing Biden).

He likely privately informed his family and key campaign staff of his decision to end his race for the White House.

Like virtually always before, the choice for US voters this November is between death by hanging or firing squad — in other words, no choice at all.

America’s one-party system with two right wing shuts out independents and others not representing continuity.

Big money controls things. Secrecy and backroom deals substitute for a free, fair and open process.

Key election results are pre-determined. Horse race reporting substitutes for discussing vital issues mattering most.

Voters have little reliable information to guide them from establishment sources, just independent ones largely online if make the effort to follow them.

Voter disenfranchisement is rife — millions of Americans left out because of past criminal records, including innocent people wrongfully imprisoned, others for political reasons or offenses too minor to matter.

Half or more of eligible voters opt out because their needs and welfare aren’t addressed.

Monied interests running things manipulate the process with electronic ease to assure things always turn out the same way — while presenting the illusion of a free and open system.

The US process is what Adam Smith called “the defense of the rich against the poor.”

Democracy is pure fantasy. None whatever exists. Monied interests alone are served, the vast majority of Americans and others abroad exploited to benefit the nation’s ruling class.

In dropping out of the race on Thursday, Gabbard tried having things both ways, saying:

“(T)he best way (she) can be of service at this time is to continue to work for the health and wellbeing of the people of Hawaii and our country in Congress, and to stand ready to serve in uniform should the Hawaii National Guard be activated,” adding:

Biden is Dem party choice to face Trump in November. “Although (she doesn’t) agree with (him) on every issue,” her further remarks left supporters hugely disappointed, saying:

“I know that he has a good heart and is motivated by his love for our country and the American people (sic).”

“I’m confident that he will lead our country guided by the spirit of aloha — respect and compassion — and thus help heal the divisiveness that has been tearing our country apart (sic).”

“…I’m suspending my presidential campaign, and offering my full support to…Biden in his quest to bring our country together (sic).”

Gabbard added that she’ll continue pursuing policies for peace, “mutual respect and cooperation…combatting terrorism, and removing the existential threat of nuclear war which hangs over the heads of all of us.”

She’ll support policies aiming “bring an end to the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, and end regime change wars, which are costing us trillions of dollars, so we can invest these precious resources in the needs of the American people — health care, rebuilding our infrastructure, education, and so much more.”

Why then is she supporting Biden whose agenda is polar opposite what the above remarks say she stands for?

For nearly half a century as US senator, vice president, and presidential aspirant, he supported and still supports US wars of aggression against nonthreatening states.

He’s militantly hostile to people of color, opposes human and civil rights for everyone, backs the worst of Israeli high crimes, champions the humanly destructive war on drugs, is anti-social justice, and has been hostile to the rule of law and other democratic values throughout his years in Washington.

Earlier Gabbard said she won’t seek reelection as House representative for Hawaii’s 2nd district.

Her Thursday remarks left open what avenues she’ll pursue after the 117th Congress is sworn into office without her in January 2021.

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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 combination of crippling American sanctions, the compliance with the aforesaid by the US’ “comprehensive global strategic partner” India (formerly one of Tehran’s top energy partners) out of fear of so-called “secondary sanctions”, the uncontrollable outbreak of COVID-19 in the Islamic Republic, and the authorities’ mismanaged response to all of this has put Iran on the brink of collapse and made it desperate enough to appeal to the IMF for a $5 billion emergency loan for the first time in six decades.

In discussing the issue of “sanctions” there are two main points that need to be made. One is the use of the correct terminology when referring to the government actions that the US, Canada and the EU take in order to achieve regime change. The second is of course the impact that those actions have.

The blame of imposing “sanctions” falls fully on the US government as it currently applies them to 39 countries! However, throughout, when I refer to the US “sanctions”, particularly in the Venezuelan context, I also mean to include Canada as well as the EU as willing accomplices and accountable perpetrators.

First of all I would like to correct the terminology that is used. We often are coopted into the use of the language of the empire but we have to be alerted to the fact that empires write history based on their “vision” of the world as conquerors.

When the empire and the colonial powers to which we have referred above put words in our mouths, they also aim to put thoughts in our minds. This will certainly mislead our perception of the facts.

For example, it is almost inevitable to see references to Cuba in the corporate media as “communist-run Cuba”. But there is never a reference to the US as “capitalist-run United States”. While both statements are correct, the former needs to be emphasised to imply something “wrong”, the latter is ignored as the acceptable norm.

Another example is the use of “regime” to imply an authoritarian or illegitimate government, whereas the term “democracies” is used to describe governments that are close to the neoliberal dominant ideology.

Our first revolutionary act is to be aware and resist any attempt at brainwashing and weakening of our anti-imperialist outlook.

The dominant use of the word “sanctions” for the criminal actions that are being committed under that label is a euphemism. It hides the fact that the so-called sanctions are a crime, are an act of war, are illegal, break all established international laws, and are inhuman, be it in Venezuela or anywhere else.

This is the dictionary meaning of sanctions: “provisions of a law enacting a penalty for disobedience or a reward for obedience”.

“Penalty”! Penalty for what? For not submitting? For resisting domination? Where is the court case? Who is the judge? Where is the evidence that justifies the “penalty”?

“Disobedience”! “Obedience”! To whom? The US? Canada? The EU? The so-called Lima Group?

In the context of US and other powers application of the terminology is simply an outrageous abuse of power. Only the sovereign people can be the judges of their own governments and will “penalise or reward” using their democratic norms. Everybody else should stay out of it.

The use of this language in the geopolitical context is simply old colonial language. It is inconceivable in the 21st century! As it has been inconceivable for the last 500 years of colonialism in this continent.

That can only be interpreted as a demand for submission and surrendering of sovereignty.

If we accept that, we are accepting submission and domination by the dominant powers. Because that’s what “sanctions” imply.

What they call “sanctions” we call them by their proper name: Unilateral coercive measures.

They are “unilateral” because they do not imply a relationship with another as in bilateral or multilateral relations. It is a one-sided decision. There is no negotiation between two or more parties before an action is taken. The bully unilaterally strikes the victim. To give it an appearance of legality both the US and the neo-colonial countries have created their own laws as tools of aggression against the imaginary enemy. They have created enemies to justify their laws. To further justify the untenable position the bully dominant powers join in agreements like in the cases of the US-Canada agreement or the “Lima Group” to ostracise the victim, Venezuela.

And they apply “coercive measures” of their choice to force individuals, governments and institutions to follow their diktat. None of them are the real enemies, except in their own ideologically confused imagination.

More abusively, their laws are applied extraterritorially. And this is against any norm of international relations. Just recently, the US has applied extraterritorial unilateral coercive measures against the Russian oil company Rosneft for buying and shipping Venezuelan oil. The US has also imposed fines against a Swiss company associated with Rosneft.

We have witnessed for almost 60 years one of the longest unilateral coercive measures against any country in the case of the blockade of Cuba. Now the imperial history is repeated in Venezuela and other countries like Nicaragua. US coercive measures have been imposed on Nicaragua police force over ‘violent repression’.

A few days ago we read that the “US House of Representatives pushed through a Nicaragua regime-change bill with zero opposition”. This is a bill sponsored by hardliners that ramps up US economic warfare and regime-change measures against Nicaragua’s elected government.

All seems to indicate that Latin America is still the victim of the US Monroe Doctrine.

Referring specifically to Venezuela. What is the economic impact of US coercive measures on Venezuela?

US has imposed an oil blockade that has blocked the purchase of oil from Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA. It has also confiscated Venezuela’s US subsidiary CITGO, worth $8 billion. This is a huge blow for Venezuela, which received 90% of government revenue from the oil industry.

The U.S. government has also frozen $5.5 billion of Venezuelan funds in international accounts in at least 50 banks and financial institutions.

All sources of international borrowing options like the IMF and World Bank are also out of reach due to the financial blockade. Even if Venezuela could borrow money abroad, the United States has long blocked international trade by threatening “sanctions” on foreign companies for doing business with the country.

What is the human cost to Venezuelans, the ultimate victims?

According to a recent report by authors Weisbrot and Sachs of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, more than 300,000 people are estimated to be at risk because of lack of access to medicines or treatment. That includes 16,000 people who need dialysis, 16,000 cancer patients, and roughly 80,000 people with HIV.

More dramatically, the same authors, in their 2019 paper titled “Economic sanctions as collective punishment: The case of Venezuela”, also claim that “sanctions” have inflicted […] very serious harm to human life and health, including an estimated more than 40,000 deaths from 2017-2018. But the US has imposed escalating measures since 2015.

The authors conclude that “sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation.”

Further, about 15%-20% of Venezuelans have limited access to drinking water in their homes, because the government cannot acquire new foreign-built parts to fix broken pumps and pipes. Water is shipped by trucks weekly to needy communities. But the blockade, and the lack of parts for vehicles, is also impacting the number of water trucks that can be kept running. In some cases the fleet of trucks has been reduced by 75% over the last 3-4 years, to now only a handful of trucks.

The situation is getting worse with the increasing economic and financial blockade that the “sanctions” enforce reaching a limit that borders cruelty and even criminality. In the current circumstances Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab denounced a few days ago that coercive and unilateral measures imposed by the United States prevent the purchase of drugs and supplies to confront the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When foreign minister Jorge Arreaza called on the International Criminal Court last February to open an investigation into coercive measures imposed on Venezuela by the Trump administration he said, “With punishing ‘sanctions’, the Trump administration has given “a death sentence to tens of thousands of Venezuelans per year.”

He also said, “We are convinced that the consequences of the unilateral measures constitute crimes against humanity, against the civilian population.” And the US has violated “international law and human rights”.

In conclusion, we agree and we will continue accusing the empire and all neo-colonial powers.

• “Sanctions” are unilateral coercive measures.
• “Sanctions” kill.
• “Sanctions” are a crime.
• “Sanctions” are an act of war.
• “Sanctions” are a tool of hybrid war on Venezuela and other sovereign countries.

Socialism is NOT hurting Venezuela, the so-called sanctions are.

In fact, if it were not for Venezuela’s determination to implement socialism, Venezuelans would suffer tremendously more. Venezuelans are protected by the policies of the Nicolas Maduro government and the Bolivarian Revolution.

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This article was originally published on New Cold War.

This is based on a speech delivered at a rally against “sanctions” delivered in Vancouver, March 13, 2020

Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from teleSUR

 “Two categories of propaganda must be distinguished.  The first strives to create a permanent disposition in its objects and constantly needs to be reinforced.  Its goal is to make the masses ‘available,’ by working spells upon them and exercising a kind of fascination.  The second category involves the creation of a sort of temporary impulsiveness in its objects.  It operates by simple pressure and is often contradictory (since contradictory mass movement are sometimes necessary).”  – Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society

The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus’ great 1947 novel, The Plague, is a warning to us today, but a warning in disguise.  When he died sixty years ago at the young age of forty-six, he had already written The Stranger, The Fall, and The Plague, and had won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The outward story of The Plague revolves around a malignant disease that breaks out in a town that is quarantined when the authorities issue a state of emergency. After first denying that they have a problem, the people gradually panic and feel painfully isolated.  Death fear runs rampant, much like today with the coronavirus. The authorities declare martial law as they warn that the situation is dire, people must be careful of associating, especially in groups, and they better obey orders or very many will die.  So the town is cordoned off.

Before this happens and the first signs that something is amiss emerge, the citizens of the town of Oran, Algeria remain oblivious, for they “work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich.”  Bored by their habits, heavily drugging themselves with drink, and watching many movies to distract themselves, they failed to grasp the significance of “the squelchy roundness of a still-warm body” of the plague-bearing rats that emerge from their underworld to die in their streets.  “It was as if the earth on which our houses stood were being purged of their secret humors; thrusting up to the surface the abscesses and pus-clots that had been forming in its entrails.”  To them the plague is “unthinkable,” an abstraction, until all their denials are swept aside as the truth emerges from the sewers and their neighbors and families die from the disease.

“Stupidity has a way of getting its way;” the narrator, Dr. Rieux tells us, “as we should see if we were not always so wrapped up in ourselves …. plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”

The American people are wrapped up in themselves.  Nor do they recognize the true rats.  They are easily surprised; fooled would be a better word.

Camus uses a physical plague to disguise his real subject, which is the way people react when they are physically trapped by human rats who demand they obey orders and stay physically and mentally compliant as their freedom is taken from them.

The Plague is an allegorical depiction of the German occupation of France during World War II.  Camus had lived through that experience as a member of the French Resistance.  He was a writer and editor of the underground Resistance newspaper Combat, and with his artist’s touch he later made The Plague a revelatory read for today, especially for citizens of the United States, the greatest purveyor of the plague of violence in the world.

We are all infected with the soul-destroying evil that our leaders have loosed upon the world, a plague of killing that is now hidden behind the coronavirus fear that is being used to institute tight government controls that many will come to rue in the months ahead, just as happened after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Coronavirus is a perfect cover-story for the occupation of the public’s mind by a propaganda apparatus that has grown even more devious over the past 19 years.

Ask yourself: Where is the news about U.S. military operations in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia, etc.?  There is none in the corporate mainstream media, and little in the alternative media as well.  Have those operations ceased?  Of course not.  It’s just that the news about them, little that it was, has disappeared.

Now it is all about us and the coronavirus panic.  It is about how many of us might die. It is about stocking toilet paper.  For the rich, it is about getting to their second or third houses where they can isolate themselves in splendor. As I write, 150 or so Americans are said to have died of Covid-19, and by the time you will read this the number will have climbed, but the number will be minuscule compared to the number of people in the U.S.A. and those numbers will be full of contradictions that few comprehend unless, rather than reacting in fear, they did some comprehensive research.

But arguments are quite useless in a time of panic when people are consumed with fear and just react.

For we live in plague time, and the plague lives in us. But to most Americans, Covid-19 is the plague, because the government and media have said it is.  Like the inhabitants of Oran, the United States is “peopled with sleep walkers,” pseudo-innocents, who are “chiefly aware of what ruffled the normal tenor of their lives or affected their interests.”  That their own government, no matter what political party is in power (both working for “deep-state,” elite interests led by the organized criminals of the CIA), is the disseminator of a world-wide plague of virulent violence, must be denied and divorced from consensus reality.

That these same forces would use the fear of disease to cow the population should be no surprise for those who have come to realize the truth of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the anthrax attacks that followed, both of which were used to justify the endless “wars on terror” that have killed so many around the world. It is a shock for so many people who can’t countenance the thought that their own government could possibly be implicated in the death of thousands of U.S. citizens and the release of the deadly anthrax, which we know came from a U.S. lab and was carried out by a group of inside government perpetrators.

When it comes to the plague-stricken deaths visited on millions around the world for decades by the American government, this must be denied by diverting attention to partisan presidential politics, and now the coronavirus that engenders fear, loathing, and a child-like tendency to believe Big Brother.  The true plague, the bedrock of a nation continually waging wars through various means – i.e. bombs and economic and medical sanctions, etc. – against the world, disappears from consciousness.  As U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said to 60 Minutes Lesley Stahl in 1996 when Stahl asked her if the U.S. sanctions on Iraq that had resulted in the death of 500,000 Iraqi children were worth it: “We think the price is worth it.”

For “decent folks must be allowed to sleep at night,” says the character Tarrou sarcastically; he is a man who has lost his ability to “sleep well” since he witnessed a man’s execution where the “bullets make a hole into which you could thrust your fist.” He awakens to the realization that he “had an indirect hand in the deaths of thousands of people.”  He loses any peace he had and vows to resist the plague in every way he can.  “For many years I’ve been ashamed,” he says, “mortally ashamed, of having been, even with the best intentions, even at many removes, a murderer in my turn.”

The rats are dying in the streets. They are our rats, diseased by us. They have emerged from the underworld of a nation plagued by its denial.  Unconscious evil bubbles up.  We are an infected people. Worry and irritation – “these are not feelings with which to confront plague.” But we don’t seem ashamed of our complicity in our government’s crimes around the world.  For decades we have elected leaders who have killed millions, while business went on as usual. The killing didn’t touch us. As Camus said, “We fornicated and read the papers.”  He knew better. He warned us:

It’s a wearying business being plague-stricken.  But it’s still more wearying to refuse to be it. That’s why everybody in the world looks so tired; everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is why some of us, those who want to get the plague out of their systems, feel such desperate weariness.

Yet the fight against the plague must go on.  Tarrou puts it thus:

All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, as far possible, not to join forces with the pestilences. That may sound simple to the point of childishness; I can’t judge if it’s simple, but I know it’s true. You see, I’d heard such quantities of arguments, which very nearly turned my head, and turned other people’s heads enough to make them approve of murder; and I’d come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.  So I resolved always to speak – and to act – quite clearly, as this was the only way of setting myself on the right track.

These days, I keep thinking of an incident that occurred when I was a young investigator of sexually transmitted diseases, working for the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare through the Public Health Service as an epidemiologist.  My job was to track down sexually transmitted diseases by finding links of sexual contacts. One day I went to interview and take a blood sample from a poor woman who had been named as a sexual contact. I knocked on her door on the third or fourth floor of a walkup apartment building.  She looked through the peep-hole and asked who it was and I told her my name and what government agency I represented. I could tell she was very wary, but she opened the door. She stood there naked, a very heavy woman of perhaps 300 pounds. She nonchalantly welcomed me in and I followed her as she padded down the hall where she took a housecoat off a hook and put it on.

There is, as you know, an old tale by Hans Christian Anderson called “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Although the emperor parades around naked, the adults make-believe he is clothed. Only a child sees the obvious. I was 23-years-old naïve young man at the time of this unforgettable incident, but it echoes in my mind as a reminder to myself that perhaps that woman was unconsciously teaching me a lesson in disguise.  The year was 1967, and when I went out to get into my government car with federal license plates, a white man in a white shirt in a white car in a poor black neighborhood, a hail of bricks rained down toward me and the car from the roof opposite.  I quickly jumped in and fled as the ghettos were exploding. Soon the National Guard would be called out to occupy them.

Intuition tells me that although the emperor has no clothes and a vast PSYOPS occupation is now underway, too many are too grown-up to see it.

It’s an old story continually updated.  Like The Plague.

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

Featured image: Protesters take to the streets of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, for a million-man rally to call for an end to the military presence of the United States in their country. Photo | Mehr

Even as coronavirus spreads rapidly across the globe, causing a health crisis of historic proportions, the U.S. military is engaging in new military attacks in the Middle East. The U.S. must cease all military interventions and redirect its military budget to combat the pandemic.

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Amidst the unprecedented crisis that the world is currently facing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. military is continuing to carry out airstrikes abroad. On March 12th, the U.S. launched several rockets, hitting five targets in southern Iraq, which Iraqi military officials say damaged an unfinished civilian airport and killed three Iraqi soldiers, two police officers, and a civilian worker. The attack was one in a series of retaliations against Iran, begun back in December, which escalated after the killing of Iran’s commander of the elite military Quds Force, Qasim Solemani. Thursday’s strike was in direct retaliation for an attack made the previous day by an Iran-backed militia that killed one British soldier and two American troops.

Even as nearly 4,300 cases of coronavirus (a modest projection due to insufficient distribution of test kits) have already appeared in the U.S. and with deaths projected to be more than 2.2 million, the U.S. continues to redirect funds that could be used for aid to combat the public health crisis towards military intervention. The U.S. military is currently taking extra steps to bolster its bases in the Middle East by sending Patriot antimissile batteries and other weapons to Iraq in the coming weeks. As a result, hundreds of new troops will head into the country to man the missile-defense batteries, despite Iraq’s demand to remove troops from the region. While the U.S. continues to shore up its military strength against Iran, the people of Iran are desperately suffering not only from one of the world’s most severe outbreaks of the coronavirus, but also from crippling drug and food sanctions that have hindered the government’s ability to effectively respond to the pandemic.

Until recently, President Trump referred to the coronavirus as nothing more than the flu, belittling the potentially deadly outcomes for those who contract the virus. The federal government has been incredibly slow to respond to the coronavirus crisis within the United States. Not only does the coronavirus present a serious health crisis, exacerbated by the U.S.’s inadequate healthcare system, but it has also catalyzed a severe economic crisis for workers. As many fear the ramifications of the virus, more than 27 million Americans remain uninsured and could potentially face crippling medical debt. Further, despite Trump’s assertion during his State of the Union address in January that the United States is currently boasting its lowest unemployment numbers in years, many of those jobs are low-paying jobs within the gig economy; they provide little security and no benefits to precarious workers. As a result, 18% of U.S. workers have lost their jobs or are working significantly reduced hours since the coronavirus hit. Meanwhile, the military’s retaliatory response to the attacks were swift and followed by precise action. Despite the many already suffering as a result of the coronavirus, the U.S. continues to bolster its war machine.

The U.S. should not be spending money on setting up new Patriot missile systems on American bases around the world, deploying droves of new troops, or fortifying aircraft carriers in the Middle East. The U.S. must redirect all military funds to an emergency public health response. Rather than occupying, bombing, and oppressing people in other countries, this year’s military budget of $738 billion should be used to build hundreds of makeshift hospitals and provide thousands of ICU beds across the country. Further, the U.S. must close all military bases abroad, cease all military aid, and end economic sanctions. By continuing military interventions, the U.S. is also detracting from Iraq’s ability to combat its own coronavirus crisis, which it is attempting to contain, but is on the rise. The U.S. must get out of Iraq also so that Iraq, and all other countries suffering as a result of U.S. military intervention, can focus on their own public health responses.

A health crisis of this scale and magnitude requires an immediate and tactical response in order to effectively combat the outbreak. The scarcity of products like ventilators, masks, hand-sanitizers, gloves, and other materials needed to stop the spread of the virus only highlights the irrationality of the U.S.’s continued military spending and efforts abroad. If the U.S. has the resources to bomb Iraq, then it has the resources to combat the pandemic.

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Over the course of nearly three-and-a-half months, the novel coronavirus outbreak has infected over 127,000 and left over 4,700 dead. While this has sparked global panic and a WHO-declaration of a pandemic, then death toll is still a far cry from that of starvation, Malaria and war.

This was the point made by BAFTA-award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger who took to Facebook on Thursday, to highlight how, despite the fact that 24,600 people died each day from starvation and 3,000 children from preventable Malaria, no pandemic has been declared for them.

“A pandemic has been declared, but not for the 24,600 who die every day from unnecessary starvation, and not for 3,000 children who die every day from preventable malaria, and not for the 10,000 people who die every day because they are denied publicly-funded healthcare, and not for the hundreds of Venezuelans and Iranians who die every day because America’s blockade denies them life-saving medicines, and not for the hundreds of mostly children bombed or starved to death every day in Yemen, in a war supplied and kept going, profitably, by America and Britain. Before you panic, consider them,” Pilger posted on Facebook.

He also tweeted the same in shorter form.

Pilger’s post attracted a storm of comments on both platforms.

He has been a staunch critic of interventionist US and UK foreign policy. His documentaries have looked at the rebellions within the US army during the Vietnam war, at the atrocities committed by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia and how the US bombing of the country enabled this, as well as films on the devastating impact of US wars and interventions across the world, as well as that of neoliberal globalisation.

A pandemic is declared, but not for 24,600 dead every day from unnecessary starvation, or 3,000 children dead every day from preventable malaria, or the countless daily dead from America's blockade on Venezuela and Iran and its bombs on Yemen. Before you panic consider them.

— John Pilger (@johnpilger) March 12, 2020

He had earlier tweeted that the coronavirus was being used as an excuse by the US and its allies to wage war against China.

“Under cover of coronavirus, the US and its ‘allies’ are waging war against China. The racist travel bans and media hysteria are not approved by WHO. China’s response to the emergency has been a model -unlike the US whose current flu epidemic has killed 10,000 and isn’t news,: he tweeted on February 3.

He tweeted a few days later decrying the growing isolation of China on the international stage.

In 2016, Pilger produced the documentary The Coming War on China warning that the US was increasingly mobilising its forces and allies across Asia for a war with China.

More recently, in 2019, he produced the documentary, The Dirty War on the National Health Service, where he talked about how Britain’s National Health Service was steadily and secretly privatised over the year, with deadly consequences for the country’s poor and working classes.

On 28 January China said it would welcome international help as it struggled to contain coronavirus. No substantial help has come. Instead of solidarity and defying WHO, the US, Australia, Britain seek to isolate China, returning it to a state of siege and the dangers of the past

— John Pilger (@johnpilger) February 5, 2020

He received the Richard Dimbleby Award from BAFTA in 1991, wherein he was described as a “man who in the best sense bears witness”.

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It’s been eleven days since the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his delegation met with Trump and many White House staffers at Mar-a-Lago on March 7. First it was Nestor Forster, Brazil’s Chargé d’Affaires in Washington, and Nelsinho Trad, who both tested positive for Covid-19, and as of early this week it was further announced Brazilian Foreign Trade Secretary Marcos Troyjo has been confirmed for the virus. 

President Bolsonaro reportedly tested negative, and so did Trump; but Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who had shaken hands with many among the Brazilian delegation members during their Florida trip, tested positive last last week and went into quarantine. Senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg Jennifer Jacobs now says at least 15 among the Brazilian delegation that had met with Trump’s team has now been confirmed for coronavirus, citing Brazil’s Globo.

“General Heleno, 72, confirms he has coronavirus… In recent days, the minister went to into quarantine and has kept in touch with staff and authorities,” Globo reports.

And Bloomberg elsewhere confirms “Brazil’s top security official is the 15th member of President Jair Bolsonaro’s recent delegation to the U.S. to test positive for coronavirus.”

“General Augusto Heleno, 72, said he’s undergoing additional testing to confirm the result. He joined Bolsonaro at a dinner with U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on March 7 and has since maintained a normal work schedule, including meetings at the presidential palace,” the report adds.

Newsweek reports the list among the Bolsonaro delegation that have tested positive so far as follows:

In addition to Helano, the other Brazilian delegates that tested positive for the virus include, Federal Deputy Daniel Freitas, the President of the Federation of Industries of Minas Gerais Flavio Roscoe, Special Secretary for Foreign Trade and International Affairs Marcos Troyjo, President of the National Confederation of Industry Robson Braga de Andrade, Bolsonaro’s press secretary Fabio Wajngarten, Brazilian Senator Nelsinho Trad, Brazilian Diplomat Nestor Forster, Bolsonaro’s Special Secretary for Social Communication Samy Liberman, Bolsonaro’s publicist Sergio Lima, Bolsonaro’s lawyer Karina Kufa and four other members of Bolsonaro’s support team.

Some members of the White House staff are already self-quarantining and working from home, including White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, after she came into contact with members of the Brazilian delegation.

Outgoing chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has also been voluntarily self-isolating in South Carolina, awaiting his test results.

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Featured image: Trump and Bolsonaro meeting in Florida on the weekend of March 7, via EPA

As the number of coronavirus infections spirals out of control, the U.S. and countries around the world have reported major shortages of ventilators, respirators, test kits, surgical masks, and other essential health equipment for dealing with the pandemic. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump continued to blame China and doubled down on his use of the racist term “Chinese virus.”

Yet now that the situation in China appears to have stabilized, the country is positioning itself at the head of the global response to Covid-19, adopting a unique leadership position that may alter global power relations, despite the biggest shock to its industrial output and economy in recent history and its coverup in Wuhan at the beginning of the crisis.

Western Europe and the U.S. are struggling under the weight of the crisis, with cases rising exponentially every day and higher death rates in Italy than anywhere else. China’s private and public sectors are filling in gaps in equipment where other states are failing, although the spread of the disease is such that demand for those materials might quickly outpace China’s supply. The government and Jack Ma, a Chinese billionaire and co-founder of the Alibaba Group, have already sent doctors and medical supplies to France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, and the United States. Chinese citizens living abroad are flying home in large numbers to avoid catastrophic health failures elsewhere. In Massachusetts, a Chinese woman tried and failed to be tested three times for Covid-19 before flying back home to be tested and treated.

“The Chinese government has been trying to project Chinese state power beyond its borders and establish China as a global leader, not dissimilar to what the U.S. government has been doing for the better part of a century, and the distribution of medical aid is part of this mission,” said Dr. Yangyang Cheng, a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University who writes the science and China column for SupChina.

The most effective responses to the pandemic thus far have involved very high levels of Covid-19 testing. South Korea’s case is the most notable. The country has conducted roughly 300,000 tests and is able to do 15,000 a day, while flattening its curve and managing to avoid the draconian lockdowns implemented by China that are now taking hold in Western Europe and some American cities. The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom, underlined South Korea’s strategy on Monday. “Our key message is: test, test, test,” he said.

The U.S. has failed to catch on to that message, as only about 60,000 tests have been conducted overall despite a population more than six times that of South Korea’s, according to government officials at a presidential press briefing on Tuesday. Trump called the WHO’s test “a very bad test” at the same briefing. In the meantime, intensive care units at many American hospitals could be overrun with sick patients in a matter of days. Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital in New York City, one of the nation’s top cancer facilities, has only a week’s supply of masks and limited supplies of ventilators and personal protective equipment, according to BuzzFeed News.

Even though American laboratories are beginning to produce larger quantities of Covid-19 tests, they are behind China’s capacity to do so and are unlikely to be able to provide much medical aid to other countries in the short term. In contrast, the Jack Ma Foundation has sent 500,000 testing kits and 1 million masks to the U.S., which will be distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Urgent medical supplies had been blocked by Trump’s trade war with China, and an exemption wasn’t granted until March 6.

China is now in a growing dispute with the U.S. after Chinese and American officials traded accusations over who was responsible for the virus, with Asian-Americans in the U.S. facing greater racism and prejudice as a result. China expelled American journalists on Tuesday following new restrictions on Chinese journalists in the U.S. and a tweet from Trump calling Covid-19 “the Chinese virus.” At a press briefing on Wednesday, Trump said “we’ll see what happens” when asked if he was considering “punishing China.”

U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on Sunday that he would not divulge the number of ventilators in the country for security reasons, but it is clear that the U.S. has a shortage of equipment that the federal government cannot hide. “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” Trump reportedly told American governors on a conference call Monday, before igniting a Twitter spat with Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York. Even though the U.S. needs ventilators, Italy and Germany were the ones scrambling to purchase them from major producers Dräegerwerk and Hamilton Medical, while other firms indicated that they haven’t received an influx of new orders.

Fear is contagious: Fear is more contagious than any virus could ever be, and the media has really fed the fear factor when it comes to the coronavirus.

I am by no means playing down the deadly Covid-19 coronavirus. It is a killer. Depending on the reporting nation, it appears that on average 3.4 percent of every 100 who catch the coronavirus die. Those are not good odds.

Adding to the problem, the Center for Disease Control allowed the virus to spread in the United States out of an act of pure stupidity. The CDC refused to allow testing of those with coronavirus symptoms unless they had visited certain areas of China. And what about those who were exposed at airports, restaurants and stores? People died of the coronavirus in the United States before the CDC diagnosed a single case.

Because most of those infected are asymptomatic the scope of the spread of Covid-19 could only have been accurately measured by random testing. But months after the first actual warning from China there were not even enough test kits produced in the United States to test those with symptoms. Random testing still is impossible. Even citizens returning from hotspots in the first half of March were not tested at airports.

The headlines about seven dead in Seattle the first week of March emptied out stores and brought commerce to a standstill in that city. Shops and restaurants emptied out. With no guidance from federal, state of local officials the panic buying spread throughout the United States endangering the lives of millions of people as they coughed, sneezed and fought each other over toilet paper in Costco stores nationwide.

When the CDC began to test those with symptoms who had not been to China, the numbers exploded. As President Trump pointed out in his announcement most of those coronavirus cases came from Europe. But the CDC did not test anyone coming from Europe with the symptoms of the coronavirus despite the headline news of the virus outbreak there. Why?

Elitism: The problem at every level of the federal, state and local governments is elitism. All the bureaucrats think they are far smarter and superior to those they serve, and as a result they come to very intellectually stupid conclusions. Romans 1:22 describes the government, business and academic elites well: “Professing to be wise, they became fools.” (KJV)

Stock market reactions were bizarre even for that fantasy world. The DOW was down over 1,000 one day, back up over a 1,000 the next, and then on Monday, March 16th down 12 percent, the worst day since 1987. The White House and the Federal Reserve announced the coronavirus would be fought with interest rate cuts.

Interest rates went to zero and the Federal Reserve pumped in $1.5 trillion before March 16th and then another $700 billion the day after.

WHAT? Using interest rate cuts and QE (Quantitative Easing) from the Fed to fight a killer virus?    NO … an interest rate hike to save the stock market from the coronavirus fear factor. The Federal Reserve also doubled down on overnight loans to help banks cover cash shortfall. The markets crashed anyway.

The bank liquidity problem predated the coronavirus. The bank bailout has been going on since last September. The Federal Reserve printed half a trillion dollars to save banks over the last six months. Does that make sense? Most of that money went to cover loans for more stock buybacks and operations of big corporations. The market plunge now requires even more Federal Reserve money printing to cover losses.

The Fed money could not bring the Markets back up because corporations had stopped “buybacks.” It was the buyback of their own stocks by corporations that drove the market up over the last decade or so, not value. Corporations like Exxon – all the big ones – bought back hundreds of billions a dollars a year of their own stock to drive up the share price for investors, and I might add, to increase the bonuses by millions of dollars a year of the CEO’s of those companies.

The collective corporations in the S&P bought back more than 100 percent of their total free cash flow in 2019 and for many years before that. Some companies, even in the DOW, paid out more to buy back stock than they made in profit. They borrowed money to buy back stock and drive up the markets.
Total buybacks in 2018 were $806 billion and in 2019 an estimated $710 billion. All down the tubes now, lost in a few days of panic selling. Not enough left of it to buy a coffee at 7-11.

Remember Boeing Aircraft and the 737 Max problem of two crashes that grounded the planes worldwide? Over a period of six years (2013-2019) Boeing paid out $17 billion in dividends and bought back $43 billion of its own stock to drive up the stock price. That $60 billion came to 140 percent of profit for those years.

The CEO of Boeing received tens of millions of dollars for raising Boeing stock value! When he was finally forced out because of the 737 Max crashes he was given $18 million to leave as a reward for cutting production corners and artificially driving up the cost of the stock.

Corporations, like Netflix, that have never made a profit had shares trading at hundreds of dollars.

The markets are so important to the elites that President Trump along with the House Democrats and Republican Senate will do anything to get people buying and cash flowing so the big corporations can restart the buybacks they had to stop because of Covid-19 loss of business.

United Airlines used over 80 percent of its free cash flow in 2019 to buy back stock and now has gone begging for money from President Trump and the Congress to continue operations.

The elites who run the businesses and the bureaucracies are worried about their status and will do anything to keep the markets flying high. Their wealth is based on a fantasy bubble that something like the coronavirus could pop. The elites were so fearful they pretended there was no problem until the problem was too big to hide. Now the public must suffer.

Some final numbers: As of March 17th, the Fed has tossed $2.2 trillion into the whirlpool sewer of the American stock markets. The money could have gone to rebuild the entire rail network in the United States or to relieve the roads of congestion. The money could have been used to repair and replace the thousands of bridges in the United States that are deficient.

OR … That $2.2 trillion could have been used to increase the number of hospitals beds per 1,000 persons in the United States up to Chinese or Russian numbers. Yes, the United States has just 2.5 or so hospital beds per 1,000 population in the United States, less than even Turkey. The United States ranks 32nd and for the Covid-19 pandemic the tents are starting to go up.

“Greatest nation in the world.” Agreed. We have an unequaled military that can go anywhere and do anything. It should be able to — the government prints nearly a trillion dollars a year to pay for it. “Greatest nation in the world” starts to sound flat when the roads, bridges, rail system and patched together hospital systems are examined under strain.

The Elites, the top 10 percent that own or control 80 percent of the wealth of the nation, have failed us. That includes not just the billionaires, but the Donald Trumps, Joe Bidens, Nancy Pelosis, Mitch McConnells along with the bankers, brokers, CEO’s and academic leaders who have produced so many college graduates who now work at convenience stores.

They built the system to do what it does … Create false value in stocks because capital gain is taxed at a far lower rate than dividend income. The tax system was designed to do what the CEO’s did to raise the value of their stock at the expense of quality, safety and jobs.

The political, financial and educational systems have been broken by blood sucking elites and the time for true populism is now. The nation belongs to the people, not to the elites, and now is the time for the people to take back their nation.

Libertarian populism, the fundamentals as taught by Frederick Hayek in Constitution of Liberty must finally be turned to for the true freedom the people want and deserve.

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William J Murray is the president of the Washington, DC based Religious Freedom Coalition and author of several books, his last, Utopian Road to Hell, details the historic pitfalls of collectivism.

Featured image is from TRPIPP

President Donald Trump’s use of the racist term “Chinese virus” when describing the global coronavirus outbreak is apparently counter to how his aides are presenting information to him to read to the public according to a photo taken Thursday by Washington Post photographer Jabin Botsford. 

“When someone you know dies of this thing, you can find solace in the fact that when the president was supposed to be leading the nation through this pandemic, he was busy making hand edits to speeches so that the Chinese would be adequately scapegoated,” tweeted political journalist Brian Tyler Cohen.

Close up of President @realDonaldTrump notes is seen where he crossed out "Corona" and replaced it with "Chinese" Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force today at the White House. #trump #trumpnotes pic.twitter.com/kVw9yrPPeJ

— Jabin Botsford (@jabinbotsford) March 19, 2020

As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, Trump’s insistence on using the term “Chinese virus” is part of an American history of using racist tropes about disease.

The president’s own handwriting scrawling the term across his notes at a press conference drew outrage on social media as observers like Daily Beast reporter Sam Stein noted the “obvious attempts to start a debate over political correctness” rather than Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, which threatens the lives of thousands if not millions of Americans.

“Aggressively, purposefully, maniacally, loathsomely racist,” tweeted astronomer Phil Plait.

Press Watch editor Dan Froomkin said Trump’s latest embrace of racist hate is another indication the president should be ignored as much as possible.

“This is the extent of Trump’s contribution to the debate,” said Froomkin. “He needs to be routed around, not heeded.”

At his Thursday press briefing on the coronavirus, Trump in response to a question on holding China accountable for the outbreak suggested there would be “repercussions” for Beijing.

“We’re working on that right now,” said Trump.

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

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In the face of the mounting coronavirus crisis, we need to start asking a crucial question: who pays for the lockdown? The last three weeks have taught some hard lessons to Italian workers. Indeed, workers have been shouldering the bulk of the crisis. This applies to workers in all sectors, and even more intensely with activities related to care. If the right to work safely cannot be guaranteed, all nonessential activities must be shut down.

Workers should not be forced to choose between their health and their livelihood. Yet Italian workers are losing their jobs, putting their loved ones at risk, protesting workplace health and safety conditions, and even self-organizing to make up for the lack of state intervention. In this article, we try to document the main takeaways from the early weeks of the Italian crisis, hoping these will be useful resources for workers in other countries currently moving toward an intensified crisis.

Keeping Your Job

Workers need to ensure they will not lose their paycheques. First and foremost, this requires that all workers have the ability to decide to stay at home when they show symptoms or feel unsafe. The immediate introduction of policies granting workers fourteen sick days at full pay – with no doctor’s note requirement – must happen now at a mass scale. In Italy, the crisis exposed the most vulnerable workers to the loss of their jobs: precarious workers in sectors such as social work or restaurants lost their jobs overnight. This has worsened the danger generated by the attriting of sick pay rights for Europe’s workers since the financial crisis. There are simply no safety nets for freelancers, contract workers and casual employees.

The decree issued by the government on March 16 allocates a one-time €600 to freelancers who lost their income due to the crisis. This is not enough. Self-employed workers have achieved a suspension of income taxes, a measure that will also apply to big and small companies. Italian workers are demanding a moratorium for layoffs. Italian social movements are asking for an extension of basic income to all temporary workers and freelancers. In Canada, for example, this would translate into an immediate extension of employment insurance across the board for all workers.

The mandate to work from home has been easy to implement. Companies tend to dislike it, assuming workers will use it to slack off, however its massive application during this crisis has shown this is not the case, as companies have managed to shift to online work without major problems. But online work has its dark sides. There is a class dimension to it, as blue-collar factory workers and pink-collar care workers cannot work from home like white-collar office workers and professionals. Furthermore, freelancers and workers in the creative industries have known for years that digital technology has the potential to extend the workplace to one’s home and to make us work around the clock. Italian workers have reported that some employers use remote work to ask employees to carry out tasks overnight or on weekends. And a person working from home may have others’ care needs to attend to, especially if they are responsible for children who are also home due to school closures or if their circumstances require they provide primary care for elderly or people with disabilities

Caring for Each Other

Closing schools generates the obvious problem of care for children at home. In Italy, grandparents have been mobilized to step in for parents who had to keep working. This increased the risk of exposure to the virus in the most problematic demographic: the country’s seniors. In many other cases, a parent (the mother in virtually all cases) has to make a tough call: could they renounce their part-time or casual low-income jobs to provide care for their children? The disabled, non-autonomous elderly, immunosuppressed people or those who require routine care for pre-existing conditions need augmented support at home too. Working families have demanded special parental leaves and increased support for those who employ personal caregivers. Workers cannot be asked to simply use their vacations to take care of their families. Undocumented labourers and no-income communities are just unable to choose.

Women are disproportionally impacted by the crisis. Care workers, at least in the most-affected areas in Italy, tend to be mostly female people of colour and migrants. Their jobs put them at higher risk than the general population, and many have care responsibilities at home too. Furthermore, care workers are under extreme stress: babysitters, home healthcare providers, domestic workers, tend to be employed casually and may not have access to paid sick leave despite being placed at greater risk by their work. For another example of a high-risk population, social workers are especially overexposed to the virus. According to local social cooperatives in Lombardy (the hardest hit region), up to 30% of social workers are currently sick or quarantined. This directly impacts not only the workers’ lives, but also the vulnerable beneficiaries they serve, which in turn increases pressure on their families or leaves them with no care at all. In the long run, this puts the entire social system under stress, above and beyond a welfare system already weakened by austerity measures.

Mitigating Risk

The need to mitigate risk for those who must keep working is paramount. This means adopting measures for social distancing in workplaces whenever possible. In the event it is not, personal protection such as face masks, hand sanitizer, disinfectant, hand soap and paper towel must be made widely available to workers. But this is not a viable strategy in all workplaces. For instance, cleaners tend to work for small companies that provide services to bigger organizations, like public offices, firms and hospitals. In addition, the intensification of their use of detergents and disinfectants, coupled with the lack of protective equipment and the increased hours they are working with harmful inhalants and large amounts of other toxic chemicals, are putting these workers at much greater risk.

Worker power has proven key in fighting such situations. Italy is currently shaken by a wave of wildcat strikes in factories, warehouses, supermarkets, and ports. Workers in industries that have not been shut down, such as manufacturing or logistics, are protesting the impossibility to maintain social distancing in the workplace or the reckless disinterest shown by their employers. This is particularly crucial in sectors that may increase business in the event of a widespread lockdown, such as e-commerce or home-delivery services. Italian metalworkers, organized by unions such as USB and FIOM, are at the forefront of these struggles. In some cases, stoppings or protests have bypassed unions, as workers have decided not to wait for bargaining procedures to take place.

For example, Amazon workers report tensions. For them, work rhythms have not decreased, as self-isolated customers ramp up their online shopping. Amazon fulfillment centres are some of the most densely crowded workplaces in the Western hemisphere. The company’s warehouses employ hundreds of workers per shift and require continuous physical co-presence and proximity to operate. A petition launched in a New York fulfillment centre has quickly spread to Italy, while unions have been questioning the need for Amazon to keep operating at full capacity. This raises the question of what constitutes an essential economic activity? In a viral video circulating via WhatsApp, a delivery worker for Amazon wearing surgical gloves and face mask says, “Don’t worry, you will still receive your fucking Hello Kitty iPhone cover!” Should manufacturing plants and e-commerce warehouses shut down or at least dramatically reduce their activities? Thus far, this decision has been left to individual companies. The largest Amazon warehouse in the country is in the COVID-19 hotspot of Piacenza. On March 17, unions launched a strike under the banner “No Safety, No Work,” denouncing the company’s lack of compliance with the safety measures imposed by the government.

Self-Organizing

Workers have not been waiting for the state to respond to their needs or for unions to win concessions. Both individual refusal of unsafe work and collective self-organizing are resurging at a level the country has not seen in decades. This includes absenteeism, tactical use of sick leaves, new forms of organizing and grassroots social interventions. The scale of these phenomena has been increasing rapidly, especially in reaction to a number of government measures geared toward helping corporations rather than people. Several unions and workers report increased worker desertion, as people exploit any avenue they have to reduce their exposure to unsafe environments. Amazon warehouses in Italy and other European countries are seeing hundreds of workers using sick leave to avoid walking into an unsafe workplace.

These forms of individual resistance are not the only self-organized response. In Piacenza, one of the main coronavirus hotspots, the radical union SiCobas has swiftly launched a concerted effort to make up for the state’s inability to provide health and safety to workers in specific critical areas. SiCobas organizes the vast majority of warehouse workers in the massive local logistics sector. This organization is purchasing, stockpiling, and distributing personal protection equipment, such as face masks, to Red Cross volunteers and workers in private care facilities who are dealing with shortages. Squats are offering grassroots care-work services, such as babysitting, tutoring, grocery shopping and delivery. Others have opened helplines to provide legal support to workers who have lost their jobs or are confronting health and safety issues at work. A number of grassroots organizations have popped up in Milan and other affected cities to help elderly, immunosuppressed or quarantined people deal with the lockdown by providing basic home care and delivering groceries or drugs.

The Future is Unwritten

We do not know what the outcome of this crisis will be. COVID-19 infections are still mounting in Italy and many other countries are currently entering the phase Italy experienced only three weeks ago. Timeliness and organization seem to be paramount if workers elsewhere want to avoid going through all the same dramatic problems experienced in Italy. But such a troubled situation has given workers a chance to renegotiate power relations. This applies across the board, from workplace democracy to wages, welfare, and obviously health and safety measures.

Workers have been imagining universal solutions based on the radical redistribution of time, resources, money and power. This is the opposite of the temporary, partial and often unjust measures the state has patched up the crisis with. The right to a safe workplace, which is clearly key in the current state of emergency, should become a permanent condition of work everywhere. The future is unwritten, but many Italian workers hope that some of the radical imaginative solutions they have been forced to experiment with are here to stay.

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Now that the Democratic Party has apparently succeeded in getting rid of the only two voices among its presidential candidates that actually deviated from the establishment consensus, it appears that Joe Biden will be running against Donald Trump in November. To be sure, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard are still hanging on, but the fix was in and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) made sure that Sanders would be given the death blow on Super Tuesday while Gabbard would be blocked from participating in any of the late term debates.

It is widely believed that the abrupt withdrawal of candidates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg on the eve of Super Tuesday that targeted Sanders was arranged through an intervention by ex-President Barack Obama who made a plea in support of “party unity,” offering the two a significant quid pro quo down the road if they were willing to leave the race and throw their support to Biden, which they dutifully did.  Rumor has it that Klobuchar might well wind up as Biden’s vice president. An alternative tale is that it was a much more threatening “offer that couldn’t be refused” coming from the Clintons.

Tulsi meanwhile was marginalized after being smeared by Hillary Clinton’s claim that she was a “Russian asset” being “groomed” by the Kremlin. She was then denied her rightful place in the March 15^th debate by a sudden and unexpected rules change in the format which was deliberately designed to exclude her. So much for the internal democracy of the so-called Democratic Party.

Now that the line-up for November seems set, the discussion has moved to specific policy issues. Foreign policy did not play much of a part in the Democratic Party debates, but it is expected to be more visible in the presidential race, particularly in light of some of the more visible blunders committed by Donald Trump and his associates.

The latest mistake by the White House, the January 3^rd airstrike in Iraq that killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani and eight Iraqi associates is still resonating, having just last week produced an attack on a U.S. base that killed two American and one British soldiers, followed by a retaliatory bombing by U.S. forces directed against Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, which is reported to be supported by Iran but has also been integrated into the Iraqi armed forces. The U.S. unilateral action is taking place without Baghdad’s consent and in spite of Iraqi government demands that Washington close its bases and withdraw its remaining troops, numbering approximately 5,000.

Ironically, killing Soleimani and the consequences is unlikely to be a theme picked up on by the genial but muddled Biden as both major parties are firmly in the grip of the Israel Lobby and are unlikely to complain about killing a senior Iranian official. Nor will the next president, whoever he is, reverse the disastrous Trump decision and rejoin the JCPOA agreement of 2015 which was intended to monitor Iran’s civilian use nuclear program.

Both Trump and Biden might reasonably described as Zionists, Trump by virtue of the made-in-Israel foreign policy positions he has delivered on since his election, and Biden by word and deed during his entire time in politics. When Biden encountered Sarah Palin in 2008 in the vice-presidential debate, he and Palin sought to outdo each other in enthusing over how much they love the Jewish state. Biden has said that “I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist” and also, ridiculously, “Were there not an Israel, the U.S. would have to invent one. We will never abandon Israel — out of our own self-interest. [It] is the best $3 billion investment we make.” Biden has been a regular feature speaker at the annual AIPAC summit in Washington.

Trump might be described as both paranoid and narcissistic, meaning that he sees himself as surrounded by enemies and that the enemies are out to get him personally. When he is criticized, he either ridicules the source or does something impulsive to deflect what is being said. He attacked Syria twice based on false claims about the use of chemical weapons when a consensus developed in the media and in congress that he was being “weak” in the Middle East. Those attacks were war crimes as Syria was not threatening the United States.

Trump similarly reversed himself on withdrawing from Syria when he ran into criticism of the move and his plan to extricate the United States from Afghanistan, if it develops at all, could easily be subjected to similar revision. Trump is not really the man who as a candidate indicated that he was seriously looking for a way out of America’s endless and pointless wars, no matter what his supporters continue to assert.

Biden is on a different track in that he is an establishment hawk. As head of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee back in 2002-2003 he green lighted George W. Bush’s plan to attack Iraq. Beyond that, he cheer-leaded the effort from the Democratic Party benches, helping to create a consensus both in Washington and in the media that Saddam Hussein was a threat that had to be dealt with. He should have known better as he was privy to intelligence that was suggesting that the Iraqis were no threat at all. He did not moderate his tune on Iraq until after 2005, when the expected slam-dunk quick victory got very messy.

Biden was also certainly privy to the decision making by President Barack Obama, which include the destruction of Libya and the killing of American citizens by drone. Whether he actively supported those policies is unknown, but he has never been challenged on them. What is clear is that he did not object to them, another sign of his willingness to go along with the establishment, a tendency which will undoubtedly continue if he is elected president.

And Biden’s foreign policy reminiscences are is subject to what appear to be memory losses or inability to articulate, illustrated by a whole series of faux pas during the campaign. He has a number of times told a tale of his heroism in Afghanistan that is complete fiction, similar to Hillary Clinton’s lying claims of courage under fire in Bosnia.

So, we have a president in place who takes foreign policy personally in that his first thoughts are “how does it make me look?” and a prospective challenger who appears to be suffering from initial stages of dementia and who has always been relied upon to support the establishment line, whatever it might be. Though Trump is the more dangerous of the two as he is both unpredictable and irrational, the likelihood is that Biden will be guided by the Clintons and Obamas. To put it another way, no matter who is president the likelihood that the United States will change direction to get away from its interventionism and bullying on a global scale is virtually nonexistent. At least until the money runs out. Or to express it as a friend of mine does, “No matter who is elected we Americans wind up getting John McCain.” Goodnight America!

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Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Fed is reopening its most controversial and despised crisis-era bailout facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility. The Wall Street Journal describes the PDCF as “an overnight loan facility for primary dealers (that) provides round-the-clock backup source of funding to banks.” The WSJ’s description grossly understates the facility’s real purpose which is to transfer the toxic bonds and securities from failing financial institutions and corporations (through an intermediary) onto the Fed’s balance sheet.

The objective of this sleight of hand is to recapitalize big investors who, through their own bad bets, are now either underwater or in deep trouble.

Just like 2008, the Fed is now doing everything in its power to save its friends and mop up the ocean of red ink that was generated during the 10-year orgy of speculation that has ended in crashing markets and a wave of deflation. Check out this excerpt from an article at Wall Street on Parade. Here’s an excerpt:

“Veterans on Wall Street think of the PDCF as the cash-for-trash facility, where Wall Street’s toxic waste from a decade of irresponsible trading and lending, will be purged from the balance sheets of the Wall Street firms and handed over to the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve – just as it was during the last financial crisis on Wall Street.” (“Fed Announces Program for Wall Street Banks to Pledge Plunging Stocks to Get Trillions in Loans at ¼ Percent Interest” Wall Street on Parade)

In other words, the PDCF is a landfill for distressed assets that have lost much of their value and for which there is little or no demand. And, as bad as that sounds, the details about the resuscitated PDCF are much worse.

First, the Fed is going to provide the 24 Primary Dealers (The Fed’s exclusive trading partners) with unlimited zero-rate loans. (0.25 percent)

Second, the loans will be issued for a period of up to 90 days after which they will be rolled over for as long as needed. (which basically transforms a collateralized loan into a permanent cash transfer.)

Third, (and this is from the text of the Fed’s March 17 announcement):

“Collateral eligible for pledge under the PDCF includes all collateral eligible for pledge in open market operations (OMO); plus investment grade corporate debt securities, international agency securities, commercial paper, municipal securities, mortgage-backed securities, and asset-backed securities; plus equity securities.

“Equity securities”? You mean the Fed is going to buy stocks???

Indeed, that is precisely what it means. The Fed is going to load up on stocks during the biggest crash of the decade. That’s what you call a “bailout”, a multi-trillion dollar welfare check gifted to the crooked Wall Street banks in exchange for their dodgy toxic assets. It’s infuriating.

And the Fed plans to load up on other discarded offal too, such as “corporate debt securities… commercial paper… mortgage-backed securities”.

Of course there’s no market for any of this effluvia currently, but that’s not going to stop the Fed. Oh no. The Fed is generously offering infinite-duration loans at whatever amount is requested to preserve the illusion that these corporate and financial zombies are still solvent, which they certainly are not.

It’s worth noting, that the corporate debt market has been frozen for nearly two weeks which means there are no buyers and no new issuance. The market is a ghost-town devoid of anything but the chirping of birds, and yet, the Fed wants to buy debt in this wasteland, trading boatloads of cash for B-rated corporate sludge that may be worth just pennies on the dollar. The Fed has no idea of how it will get rid of these bonds since the market is not likely to rebound in the near future, but, even so, it is willing to accept the loss, even if it undermines its own credibility, even if it adds trillions more to its already-bloated balance sheet, and even if it assumes the credit risk these sketchy securities pose, after all, many of these poorly-managed corporations are likely to go bust in the very near future leaving the Fed with a pile of dreck it will never be able to unload. None of this seems to bother to the Fed who is determined to buy anything that isn’t bolted to the floor. It’s madness.

The Fed has known for more than 3 years that the corporations have been ripping off investors by selling them garbage bonds from which the proceeds would be used –not to develop new products or train workers or build factories or increase productivity— but to boost executive compensation via stock buybacks. That was the whole deal in a nutshell, more loot for greedy CEOs. It was a swindle from the get go. The Fed knew that, because everyone knew that. Now the Fed wants to make these hucksters ‘whole again’ because their bunco scheme blew up in their faces and they can’t tap into the credit markets like they did before. Too freaking bad.

Many of these corporations need to be euthanized which undoubtedly would be their fate if Sugar Daddy Powell didn’t intervene. But that’s why he set up the PDCF, to prevent the market from imposing its own rough justice on these charlatans by thinning the herd.

Why doesn’t the Fed try to find out which corporations are just struggling (due to the coronavirus) and which ones are actually insolvent? Wouldn’t that be the sensible thing to do? Why doesn’t the Fed try to determine which corporations put their money to good use and which ones blew it on stock buybacks? Isn’t that something you’d want to know before you buy their bonds?

And why didn’t the Fed use its regulatory powers to stop the debt-market chicanery before the whole thing went pear-shaped?

The Fed is not going to answer any of these questions, and no one in Congress is even going to ask. Instead, the Fed will simply issue a press release in the media, rev up the printing presses, and flood the system with another 4 or 5 trillion dollars. That’s what they did in ’08 and that’s what they’re going to do now. Here’s more from Wall Street on Parade:

“We learned from the GAO audit that the Primary Dealer Credit Facility was the largest Wall Street bailout program during the financial crisis. It issued 1,376 loans that cumulatively totaled $8.95 trillion. Just as is happening this time around, the Fed spun the story that the program would help American workers and businesses. It did no such thing. It went to bail out the trading and derivative operations of sinking ships on Wall Street as those same firms paid out millions of dollars in bonuses to their derelict executives and traders….
(“Fed Announces Program for Wall Street Banks to Pledge Plunging Stocks to Get Trillions in Loans at ¼ Percent Interest” Wall Street on Parade)

Let’s summarize:

The Primary Dealer Credit Facility is not “an overnight loan facility…that provides a… backup source of funding to banks”, as the Wall Street Journal says. That’s baloney. The PDCF “was the largest Wall Street bailout program during the financial crisis” which issued roughly $9 trillion to underwater banks for their low-grade-dogsh** collateral. The facility was used to bail out the banks casino operations (“trading and derivatives”) while providing lavish multi-million dollar bonuses to voracious, thieving executives.

And, remember, the PDCF is just one of the many bailout facilities the Fed is currently reviving to prevent the market from clearing and to save the gangsters who have the country by the short-hairs. There will be plenty more to come.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor of Global Research

Featured image is from The Unz Review

What’s ongoing worldwide suggests that a redefinition of global depression is in order.

According to classical economics, it’s a protracted economic downturn that lasts several years or longer, domestic or global GDP declining at least 10%.

While ongoing, consumer sentiment and normal business activity plunge, including investments.

According to Investopedia, economic depressions include high unemployment, a credit crunch, diminishing output, rising bankruptcies, sovereign debt defaults, marked slowdowns in trade and commerce, along with sustained volatility in financial and commodity markets, as well wide swings in currency valuations.

Officially, the US experienced depression conditions one time alone in the 1930s.

Unofficially, a protracted main street depression, affecting most Americans, has been ongoing since 2008.

In response to the 2008-09 Wall Street created financial crisis, major banks and other corporate favorites got bailed out.

Ordinary Americans got forced-fed austerity when vital high-level economic stimulus was needed — now more than ever in US history as the nation, the West, and most other countries face potentially unprecedented hard times for an unknown duration a a time of manufactured mass hysteria over spreading COVID-19 when calm and sound government policies are needed.

In US history, there have been 33 recessions — by definition a contraction in economic activity lasting at least two quarters, on average lasting 22 months.

Since 1900, the average US recession lasted 15 months.

The (official) US Great Depression) lasted from late October 1929 to 1939 when buildup at the onset of WW II began — around 10 years of hard times for most people.

The (unofficial) 2nd US depression began in late 2007, remains ongoing, and heads toward potentially unprecedented depths and human deprivation if all-out state-sponsored measures aren’t taken and sustained to help all Americans in need.

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions.

If US governance was like in colonial America long ago, things likely never would have evolved to their current critical stage.

Ellen Brown explained it in her marvelous book titled “Web of Debt,” saying:

“Readily available credit made America ‘the land of opportunity’ ever since the days of the American colonists.”

“What transformed this credit system into a Ponzi scheme, that must continually be propped up with bailout money, is that the credit power has been turned over to private bankers who always require more money back than they create” — manipulating markets for maximum profits.

When federal, state or local governments lend their own money, it’s not done with profit-making in mind.

Publicly-controlled money isn’t beholden to bankers, markets, or shareholders.

Throughout US history, no state ever went out of business, and except for Arkansas during the Great Depression, none ever defaulted on their debt obligations.

As long as money created produces goods and services, not speculative excess like the current system, inflation and deflation are at least largely prevented.

Economic stability is virtually assured like for a generation in colonial America — along with no taxation and no interest paid to bankers.

Lincoln did the same thing with government-created/interest free money during the Civil War.

What followed turned America into an industrial giant by launching the steel industry, a continental railroad system, a new era of farm machinery and cheap tools, along with much more.

Free higher education was established that long ago disappeared nationwide.

Government controlled money frees economies from private bankers and other corporate predators.

Public banking in the US could free federal, state, and local governments from burdensome debt.

Federal income and payroll taxes could be eliminated. America’s manufacturing base could be rebuilt if incentives were provided business to create jobs at home and penalties imposed for offshoring facilities to low-labor cost countries.

Social Security, Medicare for all, and other vital social programs could be funded inflation-free, including tuition-free higher education.

America’s crumbling infrastructure could be rebuilt.

Millions of new good-paying jobs could be created, ending unemployment for everyone able work.

For those willing but unable, guaranteed income and other aid could be provided.

Booms and busts that characterize US history could end. So could economic warfare for private gain.

Government surpluses could replace unsustainable deficits and burgeoning debt.

As in colonial America, sustained prosperity could become reality. It’s not wishful thinking. It happened before in the US and could happen again.

Dismal times like now call for creative solutions, not half-way measures for ordinary people, all-out efforts for corporate favorites and other privileged interests alone — how the US, West, and most other countries operate.

The alternative is likely human wreckage on an unprecedented scale if economic crisis conditions are protracted.

What’s unfolding is testimony to the failure of unfettered capitalism.

Free-wheeling market fundamentalists like Milton Friedman were and remain dead wrong.

He and likeminded ideologues falsely believe markets work best unfettered of rules, regulations, onerous taxes, trade barriers,  and other government interference.

Other than policies relating to national defense and preserving law and order, they believe anything government does private business does better so let it.

Chicago School free market fundamentalism prioritizes unrestrained profit-making and wealth accumulation by privileged interests at the expense of most others — a sink or swim world unsafe and unfit to live in for ordinary people.

Inside the bubble is paradise. Outside is Big Brother surveillance, mass incarceration, loss of human and civil rights, ruler/serf societies, harsh crackdowns on nonbelievers, and forever wars against invented enemies.

In the US, West, and most other countries, a partnership between government and privileged interests runs things for their own benefit exclusively.

According to economist Michael Hudson, “neo-feudal system(s) (worldwide) on the verge of collapse.”

Arguably the most destructive US Supreme Court ruling was granting corporations personhood under the 14th Amendment with all rights and privileges accrued but none of the obligations  — Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886).

Over a century of financial terrorism followed enactment of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act (FSA) in America.

Ahead of its enactment, the 1913 Revenue Act became law — creating a federal income tax, mandating Americans to pay bankers interest on the nation’s money.

Ellen Brown explained that the FSA lets the Wall Street owned and controlled Fed “create money out of nothing” in unlimited amounts.

It lets major banks on the Street control the nation’s money — the supreme power over all others.

For over 100 years, they exploited the system for their own interests at the expense of the public welfare.

In cahoots with supportive government in Washington, they bear full responsibility for today’s dire economic conditions that may get far worse for ordinary people and vulnerable businesses before abating.

Hard times arrived swiftly, getting harder as mass layoffs leave millions of workers on their own with little safety net protections at a time when Washington is beholden to monied interests exclusively, not them.

Effective midnight Thursday because of spreading COVID-19 in the state, California Governor Newsome “issu(ed) a statewide, mandatory STAY AT HOME order” — critical work sectors excluded.

On Wednesday, New York City Major de Blasio said “New Yorkers should be prepared right now for the possibility of a shelter-in-place order…definitely a possibility,” (perhaps) in the next 48 hours” because of spreading COVID-19 outbreaks in the city.

Will other cities and states adopt similar policies for an indefinite period?

Mass shutdown of normal activities nationwide will cause an unprecedented economic collapse in US history — ordinary people hit hardest.

We’re in uncharted waters with no guidance on how bad things may get for how long.

A Final Comment

I yield the last word to Dr. Gabe Mirkin, my boyhood/longtime friend now retired, from his daily Fitness, Health, and Nutrition newsletter available online to everyone.

In dealing with COVID-19, he recommends the following:

• Try to avoid contact with sick people, but if you are exposed to someone with fever or respiratory symptoms, wash your hands and face with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.
• If you develop symptoms that may be COVID-19, check with your doctor or health care provider. Sick people should stay at home (e.g., from work, school or social activities).
• Coughs and sneezes should be covered with a tissue, followed by disposal of the tissue.
• Frequently touched objects and surfaces should be cleaned regularly with an alcohol-based disinfectant.
• Face masks are almost useless for preventing infection, but if you are infected, a mask may decrease spread of the virus to others.
• Hard surfaces such as metal, glass or plastic can remain contagious for about 10 days at normal room temperatures, and at near-freezing temperatures they can remain contagious for about 18 days.”

New information when available is published on his website: https://www.drmirkin.com/health/morehealth/the-current-coronavirus-epidemic.html

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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.

Sun Yang is an Olympic Gold medalist and world record holding swimmer. He was recently ruled to be guilty of an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) and banned from competing for eight years. Unless his appeal to overturn the decision is successful, this will end the swimming career of the 28 year old athlete.

The decision was met with shock and anger among his many fans in China; glee and gloating by some western media and swimming competitors. What lies behind this important decision? Was it upholding ‘fair sport’ or a travesty of justice?  Has it advanced or undermined the cause of anti-doping?  The following article outlines the Sun Yang case and context.

Sun Yang’s first anti doping rule violation

Sun Yang has been punished with an eight year ban because this is his second ADRV. The circumstances of that first offence are important.

Beginning in 2008, Sun Yang’s doctor prescribed a heart medication (trimetazidine) to treat incidents where the athlete had heart palpitations and dizziness. The medication was not prohibited.  In January 2014, trimetazidine was added to WADA’s prohibited ‘In competition’ list.  Sun Yang and his doctor were unaware of the change. If they had been aware, they would have either continued the medication with a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) or discontinued it. They were unaware and thus, four months later, Sun Yang tested positive for trimetazidine.

Authorities agreed that the violation was unintentional and Sun Yang was given a mild three month sanction. But that ruling still counts as a full ADRV.

Accusations by western swimmers

Despite the violation being ruled unintentional, and the medication generally considered not performance enhancing, the incident was taken by some swimming competitors as proof of Sun Yang’s guilt. At the Rio 2016 Olympics, Australian swimmer Mack Horton refused to shake hands with Yang after the 400 metre freestyle. Horton went on to imply Yang was a “drug cheat” in the press conference.

More recently, South African swimmer Chad LeClos condemned Sun Yang and commented on his loss to Yang in the Rio Olympics 200 metre freestyle. “We’ve all known that he’s a dirty swimmer…. I was ahead by a long way with 50m to go in that race, but Sun Yang came past me. He was the only man who did that, and that says it all really. …Sun passed me like I was standing still in the last 25m , which is unheard of.”

The video of the 200 metre freestyle shows what really happened. As the race commentators remarks, Chad LeClos dove too deep in the final turnaround and “had used up much of his energy already”.  Le Clos’s accusations are baseless. He barely hung on to win second place, with Conor Dwyer just three hundredths of a second behind.

Sun Yang’s swimming has been remarkably consistent. For example, his 200 metre freestyle times at world competitions are:

• 2010 Asia Games – 1:46:25;
• 2012 London Olympics  – 1:44:93;
• 2014 Asia Games – 1:45:23;
• 2016 Rio Olympics – 1:44:65;
• 2018 Asia Games – 1:45:43;
• 2019 World Athletics – 1:44:93

Horton has no evidence, but somehow “knows” that Sun Yang is doping. He claims his stance is not personal or due to national prejudice. Yet when it’s an Australian accused, his attitude is very different. . As described here, “Horton was far quieter after Australian swimmer Shayna Jack failed a drugs test on the eve of the World Championships last year”. As shown in the video, Mack walks away when asked about it.

SunYang’s second anti doping rule violation

Although the court ruling has just been released, the incident which it revolves around happened in 2018. At around 10 pm on 4 September 2018, a three person team from International Doping Tests & Management (IDTM) arrived at Sun Yang’s home. Their mission was to collect Out of Competition blood and urine samples from the athlete.

Sun Yang recognised the Doping Control Officer (DCO) from a similar test the year before. That test had been so abnormal that Sun Yang filed a written complaint about the officer. But they proceeded and it was going normally until Sun Yang observed the assistant surreptitiously photographing him during the blood collection. Considering this to be very unprofessional conduct, he asked to review their documentation.

The assistant had no credentials, just a Chinese identity card. The nurse who drew the blood had a junior nursing certificate but nothing to identify her with IDTM or another official agency.

Sun Yang phoned his doctor and swim team captain for advice. They agreed the documentation was inadequate. After hours of debate and argument, it was agreed the test was aborted but what to do about the existing blood sample? The Doping Control Officer said they could not leave without the equipment. Sun Yang and his advisors said they could not allow the blood sample to go to unauthorised persons. So the bottle holding the blood sample container was broken, as the only way for Sun’s advisors to keep the blood sample.

There are conflicting accounts whether the doping control team conveyed the seriousness of the situation and possible consequences. What is clear is that Sun Yang was following the instructions of his doctor (who arrived on site) and the doctor was following the advice of a senior Chinese doctor and doping control expert. Sun Yang believed he was in the right and, moreover, he thought he had agreement from the Doping Control Officer that it was an aborted test.

FINA Doping Panel says Sun Yang did not commit a doping offence

After the incident there were conflicting reports from the collection agency (IDTM) and Sun Yang about what happened. The world swimming federation (FINA) convened a Doping Panel to consider the case.

On 3 January 2019, the world swimming federation FINA (Federation Internationale de Natation) Doping Panel issued its Decision. It agreed that the IDTM team did not have proper documentation and that Sun Yang had NOT been given sufficient warning that his actions could be considered a refusal to comply. The FINA Doping Panel ruled, ‘There is no room for ambiguity’ and determined that Sun Yang had not committed an anti-doping rule violation.

WADA decides to appeal the decision

The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) was reportedly ‘furious’ over the FINA Doping Panel decision to absolve Sun Yang. They decided to file a costly appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The goal was to overturn the FINA Doping Panel decision, and the Agency sought to impose a harsher penalty on Sun Yang.

Why would WADA do that? The headquarters are in Montreal Canada and its officers are predominately European, Canadian and Australian. Is this a factor? Possibly. They also are subject to media pressure. At the 2019 Swimming World Championship, Australian swimmer Mack Horton refused to stand on the podium alongside Sun Yang.  Podium protests and unproved accusations about “cheating” get a lot of press and very little criticism.

Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Decision

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is based in Switzerland. In the Sun Yang case, there was one judge from Italy and two from the UK.

CAS announced its decision on 28 February 2020: ‘Sun Yang is found guilty of a doping offense and sanctioned with an 8-year period of ineligibility’. The following week, it published the 78 page explanation. On the critical areas where FINA determined Sun Yang was not guilty, they said he was.

They said the IDTM documentation was sufficient, the blood sample was valid and by breaking the enclosure to keep the blood container, he ‘tampered’ with it. Furthermore, they said Sun Yang was given adequate warning about the consequences.

They acknowledged the eight year ban is ‘harsh’, but suggested WADA rule changes in 2021 will allow other athletes facing a similar situation to benefit from a reduction in the penalty.

Was the Decision fair? 

This case comes down to the question of whether or not Sun Yang had legitimate cause to interrupt the test. The following are important factors:

1) Sun Yang is one of the swimming world’s most tested athletes. On average, he has been tested every two weeks for the past eight years: 180 times in total. He had negative doping tests shortly before and after the aborted test; he was tested on 15, 19, 20, 21 and 24 August plus 28 September in 2018. The incident on 4 September 2018 is the ONLY time he stopped the test. If he had something to hide, he could have avoided the test and recorded a whereabouts violation (three are allowed in a 12 month period).

2) Sun Yang did not question the team’s authority until the problems began. He began to suspect the test team was not legitimate when the assistant began photographing him. That was proof that the assistant had not been properly trained. Then Sun Yang discovered the assistant had no IDTM documentation and neither did the nurse.

3) There is good reason to require that an entire test team be properly trained and certified. An athlete’s blood sample is precious. A test could be falsified or a blood sample spiked with a prohibited substance. A faulty or manipulated doping test could destroy a career.

4) Sun Yang offered to complete the test with a properly accredited doping control assistant (DCA) . This was an easy way to solve the standoff, but the Doping Control Officer refused, presumably at the instruction of the IDTM supervisor in Sweden.

5) The Doping Control Officer  was a key player in this controversy. Given that Sun Yang had previously complained about this individual, she may have been antagonistic and motivated against Sun Yang. Why did IDTM send the same person?

6) In an era where international sports involve huge amounts of money and politics, there is need for strict regulation of private contractors who are managing the testing. There is possibility of corruption and malfeasance. IDTM is a private Swedish company that merged with a private US company (Drug Free Sport) in 2018. The testimony of a WADA official at the hearing indicates there is little supervision of the testers and little protection of athletes’ rights. They argued that testers do not need to show authorisation for the test of a certain athlete during a certain time period. Theoretically, any of the 500 IDTM Doping Control Officers could show up any time and conduct a test without needing to show anything more. This private company even manages Therapeutic Use Exemptions with “quick turnaround times of less than 48 hours.” The potential for corruption is obvious.

7)  The sensational reports of the blood vessel being smashed are misleading. It was the bottle enclosing the blood container. The blood containers with Sun Yang’s blood from that night are undamaged and still stored under hospital refrigeration. They have been preserved so that they could be tested by appropriate authorities.

8) The CAS panel appeared to make presumptions about Sun Yang. This is evidenced by their gratuitous speculation about his personality. They say, ‘The Athlete appears to have a forceful personality, and seems to have an expectation that his views should be allowed to prevail’. They say, ‘At no point did the Athlete express any regret as to his actions, or indicate that, with the benefit of hindsight, it might have been preferable for him to have acted differently’. Yet Sun Yang was never asked this question. Instead, he was asked why he acted as he did. Finally, the panel accuses Sun Yang of ‘shifting blame’ instead of acknowledging that he was following the advice of  the swim team captain and doctor. Cultural factors may be involved.

9) Sun Yang’s testimony and statement were unclear because of poor translation. Here again, it appears that the CAS panel was unfairly critical of the 28 year old swimmer. The CAS panel castigates Sun Yang for his effort to bring a better translator during his closing remarks. As shown in the video part 4, at 2:29:00, when the translator was struggling with the translation, Sun Yang signalled and a man came forward and said “I was requested by Sun Yang’s team to play a supportive role in translation”. The panel chair says “I hope the parties will not object if you support a better translation. You can go ahead please.”But then there is disagreement and in its Decision, the CAS panel accuses Sun Yang of not respecting ‘the authority of others or established procedures’. In contrast with this wild accusation, Sun Yang’s demeanour appears respectful and sincere.

10) One of the most important witnesses was the WADA staff member who interpreted the Standards. It could be argued he had a conflict of interest, because WADA was the appellant in the case. He stated that it would be “too onerous” to require testers to have documentation specifying the name of the athlete to be tested, the time and the responsible Doping Control Officer. This makes no logical or practical sense. It should be easy to create an appropriate document that also would serve as a receipt for the athlete. The WADA staff member made excuses and confused the situation, pretending that there could not be separate forms depending on whether it is In Competition (when testing is performed on winners not known in advance) or Out of Competition (when the testers go to an athlete’s house or workplace).

Conclusions

There should not be ambiguity regarding the requirements for a collection team. Currently the requirements in the  International Standards for Testing and Investigation (ISTI), written by WADA, are different than those set out in the WADA Guidelines. There is debate and confusion over the semantics in the ISTI. The CAS determined that the accreditation and documentation for the test team was sufficient, while the FINA Doping Panel concluded the opposite. It was not just Sun Yang and his team that believed the test team did not have proper credentials; the FINA Doping Panel agreed with them.

There should not be ambiguity whether an athlete has been warned about a ‘failure to comply’. The CAS determined that the Doping Control Officer issued an adequate verbal warning to Sun Yang. The FINA Panel determined the opposite. It is clear from the proceedings that Sun Yang did not realise this. The FINA panel raised the important point that there is no room for ambiguity on this issue and that is why it is essential to have a written ‘refusal to comply’ form. The Blood Sample Collection Guidelines indicate that a written notice is required. ‘The DCO shall endeavor to obtain Witness signatures to confirm the Athlete’s refusal’, they read. These Guidelines have ISTI on the title page and the introduction says they ‘expand upon’ the ISTI. This confirms it is already a requirement, in contradiction of the CAS ruling.

All test personnel visiting an athlete’s private residence should be trained and certified with appropriate proof. They should also be required to show the mission order including the DCO, the athlete’s name and time period. The idea that a generic letter of certification should be sufficient opens the door to malfeasance.

IDTM has 500 Doping Control Officers with certifications. Without this requirement, any of these DCO’s could go to Sun Yang’s house any time. The test team is on a mission costing thousands of dollars involving the invasion of an athlete’s privacy. The WADA officer statement that it is “too onerous” for test contractors to provide this documentation is not credible.

The ambiguities and unclear requirements specified above played a huge part in this case. The result is that Sun Yang has been unfairly convicted of an anti doping rule violation. This is a travesty of justice that damages the anti-doping movement and Olympic spirit.

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Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at [email protected].

In September 2018 I wrote an article predicting the next economic crisis would occur in 2-3 years. I was wrong. It’s taken only 18 months. What follows are excerpts from that article, then entitled ‘Comparing 1929 with 2008 and the Next’. It is important to understand how the now three great economic crises of the last century are in many ways similar, marked by a joint collapse of financial markets and the real economy, the one determining the other, and vice versa, in a downward general spiral. In other words, how financial cycles and crises precipitate and enable real ‘great’ contractions (not normal recessions) and how, in turn, real economic collapse exacerbates financial collapse as well. It’s not that one causes the other; both cause each other.

What follows is the verbatim reproduction of that article (minus some comments on the then upcoming 2018 midterm elections. For the full article, go to my website)

PART 1

The business and mainstream press this month, September 2018, has been publishing numerous accounts of the 2008 financial crash on its tenth anniversary. This month attention has been focused on the Lehman Brothers investment bank crash that accelerated the general financial system implosion in the US, and worldwide, ten years ago. Next month, October, we’ll no doubt hear more about the crash as it spread to the giant insurance company, AIG, and beyond that to other brokerages (Merrill Lynch), mid-sized banks (Washington Mutual), to the finance arms of the auto companies (GMAC) and big conglomerates (GE Credit), to the ‘too big to fail’ banks like Bank of America and Citigroup and beyond. These ‘reports’ are typically narrative in nature, however, and provide little in the way of deeper historical and theoretical analysis.

Parallels & Comparisons 1929 & 2008

It is often said that the initial months of the 2008-09 crash set the US economy on a trajectory of collapse eerily similar to that of 1929-30. Job losses were occurring at a rate of 1 million a month on average from October 2008 through March 2009. One might therefore think that mainstream economists would look closely at the two time periods—i.e. 1929-30 and 2008-09—to determine with patterns or similar causes were occurring. Or to a deep analysis of the periods immediately preceding 1929 and 2008 to see what similarities prevailed. But they haven’t.

What we got post-2009 from the economic establishment was a declaration simply that the 2008-09 crash was a ‘great recession’, and not a ‘normal’ recession as had been occurring from 1947 to 2007 in the US. But they provide no clarification quantitatively or qualitatively as to what distinguished a ‘great’ from ‘normal’ recession was provided. Paul Krugman coined the term, ‘great’, but then failed to explain how great was different than normal. It was somehow just worse than a normal recession and not as bad as a bona-fide depression. But that’s just economic analysis by adverbs.

It would be important to provide a better, more detailed explanation of 1929 vs. 2008, since the 1929-30 crash eventually led to a bona fide great depression as the US economy continued to descend further and deeper from October 1929 through the summer of 1933, driven by a series of four banking crashes from late 1930 through spring 1933 after the initial stock market crash of October 1929. In contrast, the 2008-09 financial crash leveled off after mid-2009.

Another similarity between 1929 and 2008 was the US economy stagnated 1933-34—neither robustly recovering nor collapsing further—and the US economy stagnated as well 2009-12. Upon assuming office in March 1933 President Roosevelt introduced a pro-business recovery program, 1933-34, focused on raising business prices, plus initiated a massive bank bailout. That bailout stopped further financial collapse but didn’t generate much real economic recovery. Similarly, Obama bailed out the banks (actually the Federal Reserve did) in 2009 but his recovery program of 2009-10, much like Roosevelt’s 1933-34, didn’t generate real economic recovery much as well.

After the failed business-focused recoveries, the differences between Roosevelt and Obama begin to show. Roosevelt during the 1934 midterm elections shifted policies to promising, then introducing, the New Deal programs. The economy thereafter sharply recovered 1935-37. In contrast, Obama stayed the course and doubled down on his business focused recovery program in 2010. He provided $800 billion more business tax cuts, paid for by $1 trillion in austerity programs for the rest of us in August 2011.

Not surprising, unlike Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’, which boosted the economy significantly starting in 1935 after the midterms, Obama’s ‘Phony Deal’ recovery of 2009-11 resulted in the US real economy continuing to stagnate after 2009.

The historical comparisons suggest that both the great depression of 1929-33 (a phase of continuous collapse) and the so-called ‘great’ recession of 2008-09 share interesting similarities. Both the initial period of the 1930s depression—October 1929 through fall of 1930—and the roughly nine month period of October September 2008 through May 2009 appear very similar: A financial crash led in both cases to a dramatic follow on collapse of the real economy and employment.

But the 1929 event continues on, deepening for another four years, while the latter post 2009 event levels off in terms of economic decline. Thereafter, similar pro-business subsidy policies (1933-34) and (2009-11) lead to a similar period of stagnation. Obama continues the pro-business policies and stagnation, while Roosevelt breaks from the business policies and focuses on the New Deal to restore jobs, wages, and family incomes and recovery accelerates. Unlike Roosevelt who stimulates fiscal spending targeting household incomes, Obama focuses on further business tax cutting—i.e. another $1.7 trillion ($800 billion December 2010 plus another $900 billion in extending George W. Bush’s tax cuts for another two years—thereafter cutting social programs by $1 trillion in August 2011 to pay for the business tax cuts of 2010-11.

The policy comparisons associated with the recovery and non-recovery are clearly determinative of the comparative outcomes of 1935-37 and 2010-11, as are the comparisons of the business-focused strategies 1933-34 and 2009-10 that resulted in stagnant recoveries. But the political outcomes of the policy differences are especially divergent and interesting.

No less interesting are the political consequences for the Democratic Party. Roosevelt’s 1934 campaigning on the promise of a New Deal resulted in the Democrats sweeping Congress further than they did even in 1932. They gained seats in 1934 so that by 1935 they could push through the New Deal that Roosevelt proposed despite Republican opposition. In contrast, Obama retained, and even deepened, his pro-business programs before the 2010 midterms which resulted in the Democrats experiencing a massive loss in Congress in the 2010 midterm elections. Thereafter, the Democrats were stymied by a Republican House and Senate that blocked everything. Obama nonetheless kept reaching out and asking for a compromise with Republicans, but the Republican dog bit his hand with every overture.

Obama pleaded with American voters for one more chance in 2012 and they gave it to him. The outcome was more of the same of naïve requests for compromise, rejection, and a continued stagnation of the US economy. Republicans meanwhile also deepened their control of state and local level governorships, legislatures, and local judiciary throughout the Obama period.

The final consequence of all this was Trump in 2016 as the Obama Democrats promised more of the same in the 2016 presidential election. We know what happened after that.

PART 3: The Next Crisis

The next financial crisis—and subsequent severe contraction of the real economy once again—is inevitable. And it is closer than many think, mesmerized by all the talk of a robust US economy that is benefiting the top 10% and not the rest. Why so soon?

The answer to that question will not be provided by mainstream economics. They are too busy heralding the current US economic expansion—which is being grossly over-estimated by GDP and other data and which fails to capture the fundamental forces underlying the US and global economy today, a global economy that is growing more fragile and thus prone to another major financial instability event.

The forces which led to the 2008 banking crash were associated with property bubbles (US and global) and the derivatives markets which allowed the bubbles to expand to unsustainable levels, derivatives which then propagated and accelerated the contagion across financial markets in general once the property bubbles began to collapse.

The 2008 crash was thus not simply a subprime housing crisis, as most economists declare. It was just as much, perhaps more so, a derivatives financial asset (MBS, CMBs, CDOs, CDSs, etc.) crisis.

More fundamentally than the appearance of a collapse in prices of subprime mortgages, and even derivatives thereafter, 2008 was a crisis of excess credit and debt that enabled the boom in subprimes and derivatives to escalate to bubble proportions.

But subprimes and derivatives were still the appearance, the symptoms of the crisis. Even more fundamentally causative, the 2008 crash had its most basic origins in the massive liquidity injections by the central banks, led by the US Fed, that has occurred from the mid-1980s to the present. The massive liquidity provided the cheap credit that fueled the excess debt that flowed into subprimes and derivatives by 2008. (And before than into tech stocks in 1998-2000, and before that into Asian currencies (1996-97), and into Japanese banks and financial markets and US junk bonds and savings & loans in the 1980s, and so forth).

Excessive debt accumulation is not the sole cause of financial crises, however. It is an enabling precondition. Enabling the debt in the first place is the excess liquidity and credit. That liquidity-credit-debt buildup is what occurred in the 1920s decade leading up to the October 1929 stock crash. It’s what occurred in the decades preceding 2008, especially accelerating after the escalation of financial derivatives in the 1990s.

Excessive debt creates the preconditions for the crisis, but the collapse of financial asset prices is what precipitates the crisis, as the excessive debt built up cannot be repaid (i.e. principal and interest payments ‘serviced). So if liquidity provides the debt fuel for the crisis, what sets off the conflagration is the collapse of prices that lights the flame.

The collapse of stock prices in October 1929 precipitated the subsequent four banking crashes of 1930-33. The collapse of property prices (residential subprime and also commercial) in 2006-07 precipitated the collapse of investment banks in 2008, thereafter quickly spilling over to other financial institutions (brokerages, insurance companies, mutual funds, auto finance companies, etc.) after the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank in September 2008.

Today in 2018 we have had a continued debt acceleration since 2008. As estimated by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Geneva, Switzerland, total US debt has risen from roughly $50 trillion in 2008 to $70 trillion at end of 2017. The majority of this is business debt, and especially non-financial business debt. That’s different from 2008 when it was centered on mortgage debt. It is also potentially more dangerous.

The US government since 2008 has also increased its federal debt by trillions, as it continued to borrow from investors worldwide in order to ‘finance’ and cut business-investor taxes and continue escalation of war spending since 2008. US household debt also rose further after 2008, as the lack of real wage and income growth over the post-2008 decade has resulted in $1.5 trillion student debt, $1 trillion plus in auto and in credit card debt, and $7-$8 trillion more in mortgage debt. Globally, according to the BIS, non-financial business debt has also been the major element responsible for accelerating global debt levels—especially borrowing in dollars from US banks and investors (i.e. dollarized debt) by emerging market economies, as well as business debt in China issued to maintain state owned enterprises and to finance local building construction.

So the debt driver has continued unabated as a problem since 2008, and has even accelerated. Financial asset bubbles have appeared worldwide as a result—not least of which is the current bubble in US stocks. This time it’s not real estate mortgages. It’s non-financial business and corporate debt that is the likely locus of the next crisis, whether in the US or globally or both.

Since 2008 US and global debt bubbles have been fueled once again—as in the 1920s and after 1985 by the excess liquidity provided by the US central bank, and other advanced economy central banks. The central bank, the Fed, alone has subsidized US banks and investors to the tune of $6 trillion from 2009 to 2016, as a consequence of its QE and near zero interest rate policies.

Since 2008, excessive and sustained low interest rates for investors and business have resulted in at least $1 trillion a year in corporate debt buildup, as corporate bond issues have accelerated due to ultra cheap Fed money. The easy money has allowed countless ‘junk’ grade US companies to survive the past decade, as they piled debt on debt to service old debt. Cheap money has also fueled corporate stock buybacks and dividend payouts to investors, which have been re-funneled back into stock prices and bubbles. So has the doubling and tripling of corporate profits from 2008 to 2017 enabled record buybacks and dividend distributions to shareholders.

Most recently, in 2017-18 the subsidization locus has shifted to Trump tax cuts that have artificially boosted US profits by a further 20% and more. As data has begun showing in 2018, most of that is now being re-plowed back into stock buybacks and dividend payouts—this year totaling more than $1.4 trillion, after six years of already $1 trillion a year in buybacks and payouts. That’s more than $7 trillion in distribution by corporate America in buybacks and dividends to its wealthy shareholders.

Where’s the mountain of money provided investors all gone? Certainly not in raising wages for workers. Certainly not in paying more taxes to government. It’s been diverted into financial markets in the US and globally—stocks, bonds, derivatives, currency, property, etc.—into mergers & acquisitions in the US, or just hoarded on balance sheets in anticipation of the next crisis approaching. Or sent into emerging markets (financial markets, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, expanding production, etc.) when they were booming 2010-2016.

So where will the financial asset prices start collapsing in the many bubbles that have been created globally and in the US so far—and thus precipitating once again the next financial crisis? The BIS has been warning to watch US corporate junk bonds and leveraged loan markets. Watch out for the new derivatives replacing the old ‘subprimes’ and CDSs—i.e. the Exchange Traded Funds, ETFs, passive index funds, dark pools, etc. Watch also the US stock markets responding to US political events, to a real trade war with China perhaps in 2019, a continuing collapse of emerging market economies and currencies, to a crisis in repayment of non-performing bank loans in Italy, India and elsewhere, or a tanking of the British economy in the wake of a ‘hard’ Brexit next spring, or Asian economies contracting in response to China slowing or its currency devaluing, or to any yet unseen development. Collapsing prices in any of the above may be the origin of the next financial asset contraction that will spread by contagion of derivatives across global markets. And the even larger debt magnitudes built up since 2008 may make the eventual price deflation even more rapid and deeper. And the new derivatives may accelerate the contagion across markets even faster.

The financial kindling is there. All it now takes is a spark to set it off. The next financial crisis is coming. The last decade, 2008-18, is eerily similar to the periods 1921-1929 and 1996-2007.

Only now it will come with the US challenging foreign competitors and former allies alike as it tries to retain its share of slowing global trade; with a US economy having devastated households economically for a decade; with a massive US federal debt now $21 trillion and going to $33 trillion due to Trump tax cuts; with a US crisis in retirement income, healthcare access and costs, and a crumbling education system; with an economy having created only low pay and mostly contingent service jobs; with a virtually destroyed union movement; with a big Pharma initiated opioid crisis killing more Americans per year than lost during the entire 9 year Vietnam war; with a culture allowing 40,000 of its citizens a year killed by guns and doing nothing; with an internal transformation and retreat of the two established political parties; and with a Trump and right wing radical movement ascendant and poised to move to the streets to defend itself.

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

Dr. Rasmus is author of the forthcoming book ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, 2020. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and his twitter handle is @drjackrasmus. (For a more detailed analysis of the similarities and differences between 1929 and 2008, and how Roosevelt and Obama treated the crisis differently, read the except from Dr. Rasmus’s 2010 book, ‘Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression’, Plutobooks, now posted on his website, http://kyklosproductions.com). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

It’s difficult enough to be in the U.S. during the COVID-19 outbreak. And when I think about the conditions in Gaza, I’m absolutely terrified for the Palestinians trapped there.

As of today, Israeli officials have only allowed 200 testing kits into Gaza. [1]

Gaza remains COVID-19 free for now. But after 13 years of embargo, war, and bombings by Israel, Palestinians in Gaza face a severe shortage of resources and medical personnel. Health officials warn that if the virus enters Gaza, containment and treatment under the Israeli blockade will be nearly impossible.

This is an unprecedented moment, and solidarity is more critical than ever. From our homes, we can still act together. Can you take a moment to tell Congress to END THE BLOCKADE?

This crisis is many years in the making. Seven years ago, the United Nations predicted that the Gaza Strip would be uninhabitable by 2020. Today, 95% of the population of Gaza lacks direct access to clean water. A million people rely on food aid to survive. 70% of young people are unable to find employment. And because of the blockade, Gaza’s hospitals and clinics lack 42% of essential drugs and medicines.

These conditions mean that if and when there is a Coronavirus breakout, Gaza’s healthcare system will be rapidly overwhelmed and unable to provide even basic care. And because Gaza is effectively an open-air prison, no one will be able to leave.

We have no more time to waste. Can you take 15 seconds to tell Congress to take action and end the blockade of Gaza NOW?

Instead of rallying to the UN’s urgent call to fix a foreseen man-made crisis, the world – and the U.S. in particular – has neglected Gaza. The Trump administration’s decision to completely gut the UN agencies providing desperately needed aid has added cruelty above and beyond U.S. inaction.

Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe of imprisonment and despair for almost two million people simply because they are Palestinian. It’s so important that we speak the truth about Gaza and lift up the voices of the incredible activists – most of whom are refugees – as they take on Israeli oppression. Please join us and let us speak powerfully together.

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No new infections of the novel coronavirus were reported on Wednesday in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, marking a notable first in the city’s months-long battle with the deadly virus and sending a message of hope to the world gripped by the pandemic.

The Health Commission of Hubei Province, where Wuhan is the capital, said the virus’ death toll climbed by eight in the province, but the total confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan and Hubei remained at 50,005 and 67,800 on Wednesday.

No increase was observed in the province’s number of suspected cases, which fell to zero on Tuesday, in another indication that large-scale transmissions have been suppressed at the epidemic ground zero after a slew of strict measures.

Previously, the central Chinese province had reported single-digit increases of new infections, all of which were from Wuhan, for a week in a row since last Wednesday. A month ago, the figure was several thousand a day.

The province also saw 795 patients discharged from hospital after recovery on Wednesday, reducing its caseload of hospitalized patients to 6,636, including 1,809 in severe condition and 465 in critical condition.

With no new cases in Wuhan, the Chinese mainland on Wednesday reduced the increase in domestic transmissions to zero, according to the National Health Commission. The country now faces a greater threat of infections imported from overseas, which jumped by 34 on Wednesday.

“The clearing of new infections in Wuhan came earlier than predicted, but it is still too early to let down our guard,” said Zhang Boli, one of the leading experts advising on the epidemic fight in Hubei.

Arduous work still lies ahead as China strengthens its defence against imported cases from abroad, treats thousands of patients still in serious or critical condition and rehabilitates those discharged from hospitals, said Zhang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

“Cunning Virus”

The novel coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan in December as a new pathogen facing mankind. Before its traits were fully understood, the virus had cut a swath of infections among Wuhan’s unsuspecting public, before jumping from the transportation hub to other parts of China via the largest seasonal human migration ahead of the Spring Festival.

The Chinese leadership has described the COVID-19 outbreak as the most difficult to contain since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and “a big test” for the country.

Medical experts said the virus is more contagious, though less deadly, than the SARS virus that belongs to the same coronavirus family. Globally, the SARS virus infected 8,422 people and killed 919 between 2002 and 2003.

“We still have insufficient knowledge of the novel coronavirus. What we already know is it’s a very cunning virus with a long incubation period,” said Wang Daowen, a cardiologist at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan.

“We still found the virus from the anus, if not from the lungs, of one patient after he was hospitalized for 50 days,” said Wang, who was among the first medical experts joining the treatment of COVID-19. “Usually, a virus should vanish from one’s body in two weeks.”

Turning Tide

China began to see a drop in the number of COVID-19 patients on Feb. 18, after the number of recovered patients surged and new cases declined. By late February, the virus had withdrawn from most territories on the Chinese mainland, with only single-digit daily increases of infections in areas outside Wuhan.

On March 6, the epidemic epicenter Wuhan slashed the daily increase of confirmed cases to below 100, down from a peak of more than 14,000 in early February. Bruce Aylward, who led the China-WHO joint mission on COVID-19, said the outbreak in China had come down “faster than would have been expected.”

On March 11, the daily increase of locally transmitted infections dropped to single digits for the first time on the Chinese mainland. The virus has so far caused a total of 80,928 infections and 3,245 fatalities, defying earlier predictions by foreign researchers of a more extensive national outbreak.

Behind the downward trends were a raft of strong measures taken by the Chinese government, including canceling mass events, closing scenic attractions, suspending long-distance buses and asking hundreds of millions of Chinese to stay indoors to break transmission chain.

On Jan. 23, Wuhan declared unprecedented traffic restrictions, including suspending the city’s public transport and all outbound flights and trains, in an attempt to contain the epidemic within its territory.

The situation in Wuhan and its nearby cities was grim. Officials said more than 3,000 medics in Hubei contracted the virus at the early stage of the outbreak due to limited knowledge of the virus. Many families lost multiple loved ones.

Following reports of overloaded local hospitals, more than 42,000 medical staff, including those from the military, were dispatched to Hubei from across the country. At the peak of the fight, one in 10 intensive care medics in China were working in Wuhan.

Fleets of trucks carrying aid goods and displaying banners of “Wuhan be strong!” rushed to the city from all corners of the country. Under a “pairing-up support” system, each city in Hubei is taken care of by at least one provincial-level region.

To ensure the timely admission of patients, two hospitals with a total of 2,600 beds were built from scratch in Wuhan within a few days, and 16 temporary hospitals were converted from gyms and exhibition centers to add 13,000 beds. Nucleic acid testing (NAT) capacity in Wuhan reached 24,000 people a day. Testing is made free and treatment fees are covered by China’s basic medical insurance.

Huang Juan, 38, witnessed the first few days of chaos and despair at local hospitals before calm and order gradually set in amid the influx of support.

Huang recalled the hospitals were packed with patients — over 100 patients were waiting for the injection but only one nurse was around. Every day, her mother who had a fever on the eve of the Spring Festival in late January waited 10 hours to be injected.

After a week of imploration, Huang finally found a hospital willing to admit her mother. Ten days later, her mother was discharged upon negative NAT results. “She still had symptoms, but there was no choice, as many patients were waiting for beds,” Huang said.

The situation improved when her father, also diagnosed with the disease, was hospitalized on Feb. 19.

“He was discharged after the doctor confirmed his recovery on March 11. It was apparent that the standards for discharge were raised as Wuhan got sufficient beds,” Huang said.

Cui Cui (pseudonym), 57, also testified to the improving situation. The Wuhan resident was transferred to the newly built Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) Hospital as her sickness worsened on Feb. 10.

The military-run hospital that treats severe cases impressed her with a calm ambiance. “Doctors and nurses there called me ‘auntie’ instead of ‘patient’ and spent time chatting with me to ease my anxiety,” said Cui, who was discharged after recovering on Feb. 26.

Community Control

Outside Hubei, the battle against the epidemic has tested the mobilization capacity of China’s big cities and remote villages alike as they scrambled to prevent sporadic imported cases from evolving into community outbreaks.

Earlier this month, Beijing said about 827,000 people who returned to the capital city after the Spring Festival holiday were placed in two-week home observation. Around 161,000 property management staff and security guards were on duty to enforce the quarantine rules.

Shanghai, a metropolis in eastern China, has demanded its over 13,000 residential communities to guard their gates and take temperatures of residents upon entrance, according to Zeng Qun, deputy head of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.

Quyi Community was among the first Shanghai neighborhoods to adopt closed-off management. Since late January, it has been disinfecting public areas, introducing contactless deliveries and ensuring residents returning from severely affected regions are placed in quarantine.

“For those who are under self-quarantine at home, health workers will provide door-to-door visits every day, and services from grocery shopping to psychological counseling are offered,” said Huang Ying, an official with Hongkou District where the community is located.

Shanghai, with a population of 24 million, is among China’s most populous cities and a commercial hub. It was once predicted as the most susceptible to a coronavirus outbreak.

Mathematical models estimated that without prevention and control measures, Shanghai’s infection numbers would exceed 100,000. Even with some interventions, the figure could still reach tens of thousands, according to Zhang Wenhong, who heads Shanghai’s medical team to fight the epidemic.

“But now, the infection number is just over 300. This means the measures taken by Shanghai over the past month are effective,” Zhang said, describing the city as an epitome of China’s battle against the epidemic.

New Battlegrounds

China’s economy became a new battleground as the war against the virus wore on, delaying the reopening of plants after the Spring Festival holiday and causing a shortage of workers with the nationwide traffic restrictions in place.

China has about 170 million rural migrant workers employed away from their hometowns, many of whom could not return to work as enterprises across the country began to resume production on Feb. 10.

In response, local governments have arranged chartered flights and trains to take workers directly to the factories while issuing subsidies to tide companies over difficulties. By early March, the southern manufacturing heartland Guangdong Province had seen 91.2 percent of firms resume operation.

Almost every sector of Chinese society has chipped in on the anti-virus fight, from barbers offering medics free haircuts to factories revamping their assembly lines to produce medical masks.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China’s output of protective clothing has surged to 500,000 pieces per day from fewer than 20,000 pieces at the beginning of the outbreak. The daily output of N95-rated medical masks rose from 200,000 to 1.6 million, while that of regular masks reached 100 million.

“China’s economic and social development over the past decade has laid a sound foundation for the fight against the epidemic and enabled the society to mobilize more quickly,” said Tang Bei, an international public health researcher at Shanghai International Studies University.

China’s tech boom also made contributions — tech companies rolled out disinfecting robots, thermal camera-equipped drones and AI-powered temperature measurement equipment, which have been rapidly deployed to reduce the risks of cross-infection.

The outbreak has led to what is being called “the world’s largest work-from-home experiment.” The number of online meetings supported by Tencent Meeting on Feb. 10, when most enterprises started resuming work, was 100 times that of its previous average daily use.

Lu Chuanying, a researcher with Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said digital technologies have risen to the fore, not only in the country’s anti-virus efforts but also in the recovery of the virus-hit economy.

“Remote consultations, artificial intelligence and big data were used to contain the epidemic, while telecommuting, online education and online vegetable markets have kept our lives in quarantine going,” Lu said.

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Featured image: People enjoy sunset on a plank road at the Donghu Lake in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, March 18, 2020. No new infections of the novel coronavirus were reported on Wednesday in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, marking a notable first in the city’s months-long battle with the microscopic foe. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

A right-wing Israeli parliamentarian submitted two bills to the Knesset on Wednesday seeking to permanently annex the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea and the Hebron desert in the occupied West Bank to Israel, as well as impose the death penalty on Palestinian political prisoners.

Miki Zohar, the head of the Likud faction in the Knesset, said that the two bills he submitted would “embarrass” former army general Benny Gantz of the Blue and White party and Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beitenu.

Gantz is currently speaking with Israeli parties to form a coalition government after receiving a thin majority last week from Israeli Knesset members.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Likud party, is maintaining contact with Gantz in a bid to form a national unity government, though the chances are slim that the two rivals will find common ground.

Netanyahu is facing corruption charges and he could be sentenced to up to ten years in prison if convicted. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the first court hearing for Netanyahu’s case was postponed this week to May.

Gantz is still examining the possibility to enter an alliance with Lieberman and the Arab Joint List, a political coalition of parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, in order to form a government.

Lieberman has long depicted the Palestinian community inside Israel as a “fifth column” and called them “enemies”. Nonetheless, he agreed with Gantz for the Joint List to provide parliamentary support to the coalition but not participate in the government.

The Joint List opposes the annexation of occupied Palestinian lands and the death penalty.

Newspaper Israel Hayom quoted Zohar as saying that his aim was to weaken Gantz’s bloc.

“Let’s see this wonderful cooperation between the Joint List, Yisrael Beiteinu and Blue and White. We will see how they will work together [with] those who work against the state,” Zohar said. “Shall we see [Gantz and Lieberman] oppose these legislations in order to please their new friends from the Joint List?”

In December 2017, Lieberman – who then served as defence minister – introduced a bill allowing the use of the death penalty against Palestinian prisoners. The bill did not go through the Knesset.

Israel has not carried out any executions since 1962, when Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged.

Israel abolished the use of capital punishment for murder in civil courts in 1954, though it can still in theory be applied for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, treason and crimes against the Jewish people.

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Not one member of the House of Representatives spoke up against a bipartisan bill sponsored by hardliners that ramps up US economic warfare and regime-change measures against Nicaragua’s elected government.

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As the Donald Trump administration’s year-long coup attempt against Venezuela spirals out in failure, the US government has taken aim at Nicaragua with increasing ferocity, in a bid to topple its democratically elected, leftist Sandinista government.

Washington’s pressure escalated further on March 9 when the US House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution in a voice vote without any opposition that demanded more sanctions and aggressive actions against the Nicaraguan government of President Daniel Ortega.

This bill — which received no coverage in the English-language corporate media — refers to Nicaragua’s elected government as the “Ortega regime,” echoing the bellicose rhetoric of the right-wing opposition.

Video of the congressional session, which is embedded at the end of this article, shows that the resolution was pushed through on a voice vote in just around eight minutes. There was no debate of the resolution, and a grand total of zero members of Congress spoke in opposition to it.

The regime-change action in the House followed numerous rounds of suffocating US sanctions on Nicaragua, a small Central American country of just around 6 million people.

In fact, the behavior of US legislators in the latest vote mirrored one in December 2018, when not one member of Congress spoke up against the passage of the Nicaraguan Investment and Conditionality Act (NICA). That bill hit Nicaragua with crippling economic restrictions, preventing international financial institutions from providing loans or  assistance to the country’s government.

US sanctions have already caused the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Venezuela and Iran. Now that Nicaragua is in the crosshairs, the damage of Washington’s economic warfare has only just begun.

Calling for US and international economic war on Nicaragua

The latest regime-change bill passed against Nicaragua, H.Res.754, was introduced in December 2019 by Representative Albio Sires, a Cuban-American Democrat from New Jersey.

His resolution was co-sponsored by 28 members of Congress, 19 Democrats and nine Republicans. These included Florida Democratic Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Shalala and California Democrats Jim Costa and Tony Cardenas.

The bill “urges the United States Government to continue to apply pressure on the Ortega government and consider additional sanctions against those Nicaraguan officials” accused by Washington of human rights abuses or corruption.

The resolution goes on to “urge the international community to hold the Ortega government accountable” and “restrict its access to foreign financing.”

Included in the bill is language demanding the Nicaraguan government “immediately release all political prisoners without conditions.”

However, the Sandinista government has already released hundreds of people on its so-called “political prisoner” list, acceding to pressure from the Nicaraguan opposition and its sponsors in the US and OAS. As The Grayzone reported, this list contained the names of numerous violent criminals who had previously carried out murders and rapes, and resulted in the release of an opposition hooligan who went on to stab his own pregnant girlfriend to death.

The US congressional resolution also expressed support for right-wing Nicaraguan opposition organizations, media outlets, and civil society groups, many of which are funded by the US government.

The House’s unanimous approval of this regime-change legislation arrived just four days after the Trump administration imposed another round of sanctions targeting Nicaraguan state institutions.

On March 5, the US embassy ramped up the pressure with a security alert in Nicaragua, imposing travel restrictions on embassy personnel and advising them to stay away from demonstrations and “large groups or barricades.”

The alert was both a tacit admission that the barricades the opposition had erected around the country posed a threat to the safety of all people, including US citizens, as well as a portent of the chaos and violence that Washington apparently aimed to resuscitate in its bid to topple Nicaragua’s government.

Regime-change bill sponsored by neoconservative Cuban-American Republican-turned-Democrat

The main sponsor of the new sanctions bill against Nicaragua, Albio Sires, is a former Republican who previously ran for Congress as a member of the GOP. He changed his party affiliation and went on to fill the former seat of Democratic Cuban-American hardliner Bob Menendez when he entered the Senate.

Like many elite Cuban-Americans, Sires’ family fled to the US after the Cuban revolution, which removed Cuba’s right-wing, US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista from power.

In Congress, Sires has been a stalwart opponent of Latin America’s leftist governments, teaming up with Republican hawks from Marco Rubio to Ted Cruz to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to destabilize them.

Sires has relentlessly clamored for regime change in Cuba. He staunchly opposed the Barack Obama administration’s partial normalization of relations with Cuba, describing his “plans for a loosening of sanctions” as “naïve and disrespectful to the millions of Cubans that have lived under the Castro’s repressive regime.”

Early on in the Trump administration’s coup attempt against the leftist Chavista government in Caracas, Sires recognized unelected coup leader Juan Guaidó as “the constitutionally legitimate Interim President of Venezuela.” Soon after, Sires met with Guaidó’s wife, describing her as “Venezuelan First Lady Fabiana Rosales.” Meanwhile, he proclaims on official social media accounts, “Maduro and his thugs must go.”

Since the failure of a violent US-backed coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018, Sires has been one of the main figures in Congress pushing for aggressive measures to topple the Sandinista government. He was a co-sponsor of the Nica Act, and took the lead in the latest regime-change resolution.

Zero opposition to the Nicaragua regime-change resolution

After Albio Sires introduced the bill, it was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where it was very slightly amended and then discussed on the House floor on March 9.

On the floor, Sires moved to suspend the rules. The speaker pro tempore, filling in for incumbent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, agreed to suspend the rules, opening up a period of 40 minutes of debate.

But no debate ensued. The only other member of Congress who spoke during the allotted period was right-wing Florida Republican Ted Yoho, who expressed his staunch support for the resolution.

After tirades against the Nicaraguan “regime” by Sires and Yoho, the House speaker pro tempore quickly moved on to a voice vote. A small handful of Congressmembers declared “Aye” in support. Not one representative said no. It was all over in eight minutes.

In a triumphant statement from his office, Sires declared that the resolution “sent a strong, bipartisan message.”

Once again, potentially lethal sanctions on an impoverished nation fighting to develop itself and provide for its people were passed in broad daylight, on a Monday afternoon, and not one member of Congress spoke up against it.

You can watch video of the Congressional proceedings here:

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Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.

Sanders capitulated before the race began. He’s yet to formally announce what’s coming, a repeat of 2016. 

It’s just a matter of days or weeks before he officially concedes, ends his campaign, and endorses dirty business as usual advocate Biden — showing he supports what he falsely claims to oppose.

Biden and Trump are two sides of the same coin, supporters of special interests exclusively, dismissive of public health, welfare, fundamental rights for everyone, the rule of law, and world peace — notions they abhor and don’t tolerate.

Too far behind to catch up in the race to be Dem standard bearer rigged for Biden against him, Sanders faces the near-impossible task of winning around 70% of remaining delegates to be selected before the July Dems nominating convention.

Following Tuesday primaries in Florida, Illinois and Arizona, swept by Biden, giving him an overwhelming delegate count lead, Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir said the following:

“The next primary contest is at least three weeks away…Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign.”

“In the immediate term, however, he is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.”

In or out of the race, he can publicly address the issue and others, calling for policy actions he claims to support.

In 2016 and throughout his current campaign, he knew and now knows that Hillary and Biden would be Dem standard bearers, not him.

So he’s gone through the motions, enjoying his so-called 15 minutes of fame four years ago and now.

For 30 years in Congress, he’s been an undemocratic Dem party loyalist, pretending to be a democratic socialist. His voting record most often along party lines shows otherwise.

If he continues in the race weeks longer, it’ll be for further self-aggrandizement, perhaps another 7-figure book deal, and other benefits accruing to party loyalists — unrelated to upsetting Biden in a race he can’t win because manipulative party bosses won’t permit it.

That’s how the debauched US political process works, voting a waste of time when so-called elections are held.

Outcomes are pre-determined to assure no divergence from continuity. Governance serves privileged interests exclusively at the expense of most others.

Sander wasn’t in the 2016 and 2020 races to change things, only to give the appearance of seeking radical change, what a grassroots revolution alone could possibly achieve — never a US election that always turns out the same way.

Throughout the history of the republic it’s been this way. Until the mid-19th century, Black Americans were considered property, not people with equal rights.

By the end of the century, Native Americans were nearly exterminated, their culture and heritage erased from mainstream textbooks and classroom instruction to the highest levels.

Class divisions to this day show the US is a racist society. Until the 19th Amendment (1920), women were denied suffrage, considered homemakers and childrearers alone.

It took 144 years of struggle after the nation’s founding for gender-free enfranchisement to become the law of the land in a nation where women are still largely treated as inferior in a male chauvinist society.

From the nation’s founding to today, “We the People of the United States,” the Constitution’s opening phrase, meant America’s white male privileged class, not its ordinary people of any race, creed, color, or gender — things much the same today.

Earlier free-wheeling/self-serving politicians reflect how today’s political class operates for much greater stakes globally than when America was founded.

The US political system is structured to prevent radical change.

It’s why when so-called elections are held, things always turn out the same way. Later this year will be no different than earlier.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

Last month, the Trump regime designated five state-run Chinese media in the US as “foreign missions (sic).”

The hostile action requires them to register their locations, properties and staff, including US citizens if among them. 

Affected media include Xinhua, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corporation, and Hai Tian Development USA.

The move is similar to Trump’s hostile actions against RT America in 2017, requiring the news organization to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

At the time, an FBI probe of Sputnik News was initiated to check for FARA violations.

Enacted in 1938 one year before WW II began, it requires agents representing foreign powers politically or quasi-politically to disclose their relationship with other governments, along with information about their activities and finances.

Originally administered by the State Department, FARA later came under Justice Department jurisdiction.

Since 1966, FARA focused on foreign lobbying instead of propaganda. From then to now, no one was convicted of violating the law.

Targeting Russian and now Chinese news organizations may be prelude to censoring or banning them at a future time for truth-telling journalism, notably reports that expose US imperial high crimes.

Pompeo falsely called Trump regime actions against Chinese news agencies retaliation for Beijing’s “increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment and intimidation” of US reporters (sic).

In response to hostile Trump regime actions, China’s Foreign Ministry retaliated against NYT, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal reporters in the country, revoking their press passes and expelling them, including from Hong Kong and Macau. They have 10 days to leave.

Beijing also designated the Times, WaPo, WSJ, Time magazine, and official US propaganda agency Voice of America as foreign functionaries.

Their staff is required to report their personal, financial, and property information to Chinese authorities.

A Foreign Ministry statement said the following:

“These measures are entirely necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experienced in the US. They are legitimate and justified self-defense in every sense,” adding:

“What the US has done is exclusively targeting Chinese media organizations.”

“The US approach to the Chinese media is based on a Cold War mentality and ideological bias, which has seriously tarnished the reputation and image of Chinese media organizations.”

“The US has been massively ‘deporting’ Chinese journalists in a disguised way.”

On Tuesday, Trump falsely slammed what he called the “Chinese Virus” in the US. Pompeo called it the “Wuhan coronavirus.”

China believes a US virus was introduced in the country, likely so along with other nations, notably Iran.

Maybe major outbreaks are planned for other countries on the US target list for regime change.

Global Research editor Michel Chossudovsky explained that “the unspoken objective (of COVID-19 aims) to bring the Chinese economy to its knees,” adding:

“It was an act of ‘economic warfare,’ which has contributed to undermining both China’s  economy as well as that of most Western countries (allies of the US), leading to a wave of bankruptcies, not to mention unemployment, collapse of the tourist industry, etc.”

Beginning last week, the Trump regime also launched “economic war” on Western Europe, banning air traffic from the continent, Britain, and Ireland to the US, “using COVID-19 as a justification,” said Chossudovsky.

He stressed that reverberating economic damage was “made in America,” deliberate actions “by powerful financial interests” — ones that engineered the 2008-09 financial crisis.

It’s a scheme for greater consolidation of affected business sectors, along with transferring wealth from ordinary people to privileged ones.

When crises like what’s ongoing now occur, powerful manipulative hands most often are behind them.

The US is at war on humanity at home and abroad, against allies and adversaries alike — an attempt to more greatly enhance its global power, no matter the human, economic, and financial cost.

Manipulation is behind today’s highly volatile financial, commodity, and other markets that will likely continue until dark forces behind them accomplish their objectives.

It includes greater consolidation of targeted industry sectors, along with a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary people to dark forces.

It’s about making the US and other countries ruler-serf societies, eliminating the middle class.

It’s a financial coup d’etat against the public welfare. A government/business partnership facilitates it.

Market manipulators are enriching themselves as valuations fluctuate up and down — while ordinary Americans and nations on the US target list for regime change get trampled.

Powerful ones like China and Russia are in the best position to protect themselves and retaliate.

Beijing blames US dark forces for the COVID-19 outbreak and spread. Last month, I wrote the following:

Law Professor Francis Boyle drafted the US Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 — signed into law by GHW Bush, revoked by Bush/Cheney on the pretext of rebuilding America’s defenses at a time when the nation’s only enemies are invented. No real ones exist.

Boyle believes the potentially deadly coronavirus is a biowarfare weapon, genetically modified for this purpose.

His assessment contradicts claims about the virus originating from a Wuhan seafood market or being connected to coronaviruses found in bats.

The US has had an active biological warfare program since at least the 1940s.

The Pentagon uses chemical, biological, radiological, and other banned weapons in its wars of aggression against nonthreatening states.

Calling it “An Act of War,” Chossudovsky stressed that COVID-19 is a “pretext (for) economic and social crisis.”

Fueled by media-proliferated fear-mongering, ordinary people and vulnerable businesses are being trampled so manipulators can benefit.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Flickr

Temporary, longer-term, or permanent closure of business enterprises and mass cancellations of public events in cities and towns across the US is unprecedented — with little guidance on how long things may last.

“As of Wednesday morning, only a few national apparel retailers remained open” in New York City, the NYT reported.

Growing numbers of retail stores are closing nationwide until further notice. Ones still open have few customers.

Chicago’s usually bustling upscale Magnificent Mile shopping district is relatively quiet.

On Wednesday, Trump signed into law House and Senate-passed/Orwellian named Families First Coronavirus Response Act — authorizing $1.3 trillion in economic relief.

It includes the following:

• $500 billion in direct payments to US households for sick leave and food aid when multiples this amount is needed as long as economic crisis conditions exist;
• $50 billion in loans to the airline sector that squandered its cash reserves by stock buybacks to artificially inflate their value; and
• $150 billion to undefined “severely distressed (economic) sectors.”

Boeing seeks $60 billion in bailout funding, the company a victim of its own mismanagement, prioritizing profits over air safety, wanting taxpayers to save it from bankruptcy.

A nation without Boeing and other weapons makers would be a boon to world peace at a time of endless wars, vast destruction, human slaughter and misery.

Family and sick leave enacted into law is woefully inadequate. It provides up to 12 weeks of benefits for workers of companies with less than 500 and more than 50 employees — at a time when helping all US households is vitally needed, including workers and the unemployed.

Something is better than nothing. Much more is needed, especially for jobless and low-income Americans — including enough income to get by and government guaranteed healthcare for the sick, injured and disabled.

Follow-up legislation is being considered. Key is inclusion of direct cash payments to ordinary Americans in amounts enough for essentials to life and welfare.

House Speaker Pelosi opposes the idea unless means tested — at a time when legislation helping all US households is needed quickly — the longer delayed, the worse things can get.

There’s no excuse for the world’s richest nation not going all-out at a time of economic and financial duress.

Large-scale aid is needed in regular tranches as long as economic crisis conditions exist — especially for ordinary Americans.

A White House proposal calls for disbursing around $500 billion in means tested financial aid in April to households, a way too inadequate amount — another $500 billion in loans for business perhaps forgiven for favored ones.

The US/Canada border was closed to all nonessential traffic, the scale of economic disruption unprecedented, its duration unknown.

Citing unnamed economists, the NYT said they “fear that by the time the coronavirus pandemic subsides and (normal) economic activity resumes, entire industries could be wiped out, proprietors across the country could lose their businesses, and millions of workers could find themselves jobless.”

The centerpiece of a days earlier proposed White House $850 billion economic relief package is suspension of business and individual payroll taxes through around yearend.

The money is used to fund Social Security and Medicare, the Trump regime’s proposal a way to weaken and hasten the demise of both vital programs, why it’s crucial to prevent enactment of the scheme into law.

Instead of putting vitally needed cash in the pockets of ordinary Americans, Pelosi called for refundable tax credits and expanded unemployment benefits.

Bernie Sanders proposed a $2 trillion package, featuring direct cash payments to US households, along with free COVID-19 testing and treatment, expanding the nation’s healthcare capacity, and using the Defense Production Act to increase production and distribution of essential healthcare supplies.

He also urged the establishment of an emergency economic crisis finance agency and related actions — similar to steps taken during the Great Depression.

Unemployment is increasing exponentially, Q II US GDP projected to be minus 5%, according to some economists, hard times likely to continue for some time.

Has the onset of a second Great Depression begun? Main street Americans endured over a decade of protracted Depression conditions since the 2008-09 Wall Street engineered financial crisis.

Economic and market manipulation adversely changed the dynamic for ordinary Americans and others elsewhere to increase the wealth and power of special interests over the public welfare.

That’s the disturbing reality of what goes on at all times in the US, West, and most other countries, including now looking ahead — governance of, by, and for their privilege class, most others getting crumbs alone.

During the 2008-09 financial crisis, bankers got bailed out, ordinary people sold out — things unfolding in similar fashion today.

Note: The reported number of COVID-19 cases in the US through Wednesday rose to 9,400, including 147 deaths — New York state with 2,382, NYC with 1,339 — 20 deaths in the state, these numbers the highest in the nation.

Unknown is how many infected Americans have yet to be diagnosed because of inadequate testing.

It should be federally funded and available to all Americans seeking it to contain the spread of the virus that’s highly contagious.

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

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 U.S. is ramping up pressure on Australia to support hostilities against China in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Last week in Sydney, the U.S. Ambassador to Australia, Arthur Culvahouse, said that “We’ll be pushing Australia to expand its step-up from the Pacific islands region to south-east Asia and to look north as well.” The U.S., Australia and like-minded countries need to win in this strategic competition, the diplomat said. The Ambassador emphasized that in consultations between American and Australian foreign and defense ministers, the two sides will focus their efforts to further strengthen the Pacific step-up strategy.

The US Ambassador told the gathering of business leaders last Tuesday that Australia “sits on the frontline of the great strategic competition of our time.” “If the security and prosperity enjoyed by our countries and the region is to continue, this is a competition that we must win,” he said in indirect reference to China being the competition that must lose.

Australia’s Pacific strategy was adopted in 2016 under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to assert Australia’s position as the policeman for the U.S. in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. The Pacific step-up strategy defines the Australian government’s approach to economic and strategic interaction with Pacific Island nations. However, this is just the friendly face of the strategy and rather it is primarily aimed at maintaining regional balance to counter China’s growing influence in the region. China signed an Action Program with eight Pacific Island nations at the October 2019 3rd China Economic Development Cooperation Forum and Pacific Islands held in Samoa. These countries’ support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative was confirmed.

As the U.S. is dealing with the growing influence of China and attempting to counter it all over the globe, Washington is relying on Australia to serve as a counterbalance to China in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. However, as the coronavirus continues to grow out of control in the U.S., it is likely that Washington is going to take its focus off the South Pacific for a long while. This will give Australia autonomy to act on Washington’s behalf and it appears that U.S. President Donald Trump immensely trusts the Australians in this role, so-much-so that  he honored the fellow Anglo-settler state by naming a new navy ship the USS Canberra, the only U.S. Navy warship named after a foreign city.

Australia wilfully wants to play a role that the U.S. assigned to them in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific so that it can more strongly assert its power on the region. Australia considers the small island countries of the South Pacific as an area within its sphere of influence. Canberra has a need to expand its weight in Southeast Asia, but finds this challenging as the region includes countries of larger populations and economies, such as Thailand and Indonesia.

Although Canberra wants to serve Washington’s interests in the region, Australia is a completely deindustrialized neoliberal country that does not have the means or capacity to challenge rising Southeast Asian countries and rather serves as a raw resource marketplace for the world. The U.S. is losing influence in Southeast Asia to China, and therefore Washington is relying on Australian support, hedging its bet on a common Anglo colonial-settler history to make Canberra receptive.

In this situation, Australia faces a very difficult choice as there is a clear divide between the economic community and the political class in regards to China policy. China is Australia’s most important economic partner, while the U.S. is Canberra’s most important security partner, so-much-so that Australia followed the U.S. to adventurist wars of aggression in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. China and Australia have established free trade areas and this agreement allows them to quickly increase the volume of bilateral trade. Therefore, the political will of Canberra is certain to face resistance from capitalist interests in the country as it wholly relies on China and other Southeast Asian countries for trade.

However, Australia is bound by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy that aims to use American allies like Australia, Japan, India and others, to counter China’s increasing influence. This is done by enhancing military cooperation between these countries and does not serve any economic role like the Belt and Road Initiative.  As China finds the Indo-Pacific Strategy as an aggressive force aimed against it, it is likely that under economic pressure, Australia will try to balance relations, despite the political will and determination of Canberra to act as the U.S’ policeman in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

“Our fundamental responsibility is to protect the American people, the homeland, and the American way of life.” National Security Strategy of the United States, 2017 (President Donald Trump) 

“The United States government has no greater responsibility than protecting the American people.” National Security Strategy, 2015 (President Barack Obama)

“At home our most important priority is to protect the homeland for the American people.” The National Security Strategy of the United States of Americas, 2002 (President George W. Bush)

The United States’ National Security Strategy is based on foundational Instruments of National Power (INP). The INP consists of Diplomacy, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial, Law Enforcement, Information. Combined with the INP’s support, they combine to protect an economy and society that has an annual Gross Domestic Product of nearly $20 trillion (USD) and a per capita income of almost $60 thousand according to the CIA’s World Factbook. In that publication, the CIA notes that

“US firms are at or near the forefront in technological advances, especially in computers, pharmaceuticals, and medical, aerospace, and military equipment…”

This incredible wealth and power, and the mythical status of America’s technologies, could not stop three disastrous events; two of which could have been prevented (911 and great recession), and the third mitigated (COVID-19).

9/11 2001 Events, 2008 Brutal Recession, COVID-19, 2020

Over the last 19 years, the American people have been exposed to a deadly virus (COVID-19), a brutal economic recession in 2008, and terrorist attacks in 2001 on two symbols of American power. And in each case, the response of the US government was to first pump trillions of dollars into Wall Street’s coffers through bailouts and quantitative easing, while, in comparison, main street got billions of pennies tossed their way.

The national security strategies pushed out by three American presidents (two Republicans and one Democrat) claim the number one priority of the US government is to protect the American people. But as the three shock and awe events of the last 19 years demonstrate, the American people that are protected by the national security strategy are the wealthy and powerful classes and institutions that run the country from their perches on Wall Street, in the White House and Congress, and the Pentagon.

The middle and lower class workers are an afterthought.

Wall Street Mafia

Wall Street is, in fact, a threat to the country. Its focus on increasing return on investment for shareholders has crippled investment in the real economy (infrastructure, retooling, etc.). A better description of Wall Street would be the Wall Street Mafia. An extortion racket if there ever was one. Consider Harvard Business Review’s, The Price of Wall Street’s Power:

“Scholars and executives alike have criticized Wall Street not only for promoting short-term thinking but for sacrificing the interests of employees and customers to benefit shareholders and for encouraging dishonesty from executives who feel they’re being asked to meet impossible demands. The financial sector’s influence on management has become so powerful that a recent survey of chief financial officers showed that 78% would “give up economic value” and 55% would cancel a project with a positive net present value—that is, willingly harm their companies—to meet Wall Street’s targets and fulfill its desire for “smooth” earnings.

Executives often explain their deference to Wall Street by saying they have a “fiduciary duty” to maximize shareholder returns. That’s been an article of faith since 1970, when Milton Friedman wrote in the New York Times that executives’ only responsibility was maximizing profits. The problem, however, is that it’s not true. Whatever your beliefs about the moral responsibilities of executives, a fiduciary duty is a specific legal obligation, and law professor Lynn Stout has shown that as a matter of law American executives simply do not face any such requirement.

From 1998 through 2013 the finance, insurance, and real estate industries spent almost $6 billion on lobbying; the only sector to spend more was health care. In the wake of the 2008 crisis, the financial sector actually intensified its pressure on the government. Look at the 2013–2014 election cycle: As of March 2014 finance, insurance, and real estate had spent almost $485 million on lobbying—more than any other industry—and had donated almost $149 million to the campaigns of federal candidates, nearly three times as much as health care had donated.

Representatives and lobbyists of the financial sector are so entwined with the agencies that are supposed to regulate it that Washingtonians collectively refer to them as “ The Blob.” This is reflected in the résumés of current and former government officials.

The White House and Congress: Self-Quarantine for 10 Years, Please

President Trump’s la-dee-da attitude during the initial spread of COVID-19 should have come as no surprise. A virus himself, Trump’s preference would probably have been to let COVID-19 cull the human herd by not instituting mass testing of the American populace. A dark reading of that thinking being that people infected would continue to travel around the United States passing along COVID-19 to others.

Vox reported that

“Politico reporter Dan Diamond told NPR [National Public Radio] host Terry Gross that, based on his own reporting, Trump “did not push to do aggressive additional testing in recent weeks, and that’s partly because more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak, and the president had made clear — the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president, the better for his potential re-election this fall.”

Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic brings to mind a scene in the movie classic Total Recall (1990 version) where the sinister character Victor Cohagen (played by Ronnie Cox) is told by an engineer that if he cuts off oxygen supply to one of the city sectors, inhabitants there will die.

Cohagen: Yes, what is it?

Underling: Sir, the oxygen level is bottoming out in sector G – what do you want me to do about it?

Cohagen: Don’t do anything.

Underling: But they won’t last an hour sir.

Cohagen: Fuck ’em.

In the US senate, conservative ideology takes precedent over the suffering of the American people. The plebes are being slow-rolled. According to USA Today 

”Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, objected to fast-tracking the legislation. He acknowledged workers are struggling but said businesses are also struggling and that an expensive federal mandate wouldn’t help them.”

The general public might have the impression that the US government had no plan of action for the invasion of the COVID-19 organism. In 2006, President George W. Bush laid down a template for dealing with a pandemic that should have been implemented as China (fast forward to 2020), and subsequently, the rest of the world, coped with the spread of COVID-19. Though the Bush strategy was focused on influenza, all the core steps the US government had to take immediately were well articulated.

“The Strategy provides a high-level overview of the approach that the Federal Government will take to prepare for and respond to a pandemic, and articulates expectations of non-Federal entities to prepare themselves and their communities. The Strategy contains three pillars: (1) preparedness and communication; (2) surveillance and detection; and (3) response and containment. Preparedness for a pandemic requires the establishment of infrastructure and capacity, a process that can take years. For this reason, significant steps must be taken now. The Strategy affirms that the Federal Government will use all instruments of national power to address the pandemic threat.

Up, Up and Away, in My Beautiful Military-Intelligence Balloon

The combined US National Security budget (uniform services, contractors, nuclear weapons development at the Department of Energy, operations, etc.) is roughly $1.25 trillion per year, according to an analysis by the Project for Government Oversight (POGO) and the Center for Defense Information conducted in 2019. 

That is a staggering $1.25 trillion in 2019 and you can bet that going forward that yearly figure is likely to rise. It is the White House and US Congress that sign off on that amount year after year.

“Our final annual tally for war, preparations for war, and the impact of war comes to more than $1.25 trillion—more than double the Pentagon’s base budget. If the average taxpayer were aware that this amount was being spent in the name of national defense—with much of it wasted, misguided, or simply counterproductive—it might be far harder for the national security state to consume ever-growing sums with minimal public pushback. For now, however, the gravy train is running full speed ahead and its main beneficiaries—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and their cohorts—are laughing all the way to the bank.”

And what about the costs for wars on terror, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and its effects on America’s economy? 

According to the The Balance:

“The War on Terror is a military campaign launched by President George W. Bush in response to the al-Qaida 9/11 terrorist attacks. The War on Terror includes the Afghanistan War and the War in Iraq. It added $2.4 trillion to the debt as of the FY 2020 budget.

The War in Afghanistan has lasted longer than the Vietnam War.The War in Iraq killed 4,419 U.S. soldiers and wounded 31,994 more. 59Taxpayers have spent more than $1.52 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

The real cost of the War on Terror is not just what it has added to the debt. It’s also the lost jobs that those funds could have created. By some estimates, every $1 billion spent on defense creates 8,555 jobs and adds $565 million to the economy.61That same $1 billion given to you as a tax cut would have stimulated enough demand to create 10,779 jobs and put $505 million into the economy as retail spending. And $1 billion in education spending adds $1.3 billion to the economy and creates 17,687 jobs.

Using this model, the $2.4 trillion spent on the War on Terror created 20 million jobs and added $1.4 trillion to the economy. But if it had gone toward education instead, it would have created almost 42 million jobs. It would have added $3.1 trillion to the economy. That may have helped end the recession sooner.”

Trump’s Stimulus Package

Trump has proposed about $850 billion in economic stimulus (in addition to the billions in the House of Representatives aid package lingering in the Senate). So that’s a one time shot of about $1 trillion for America’s suffering plebeians.

Sounds good until you realize that one of Trump’s proposals in his stimulus package is to suspend the payroll tax which funds Social Security. Even in the face of a national health and economic emergency, opportunistic Trump seeks to cripple Social Security.

According to the Motley Fool,

“Social Security collected more than $885 billion in payroll tax contributions in 2018, the most recent year for which the Social Security trustees have made information available. That represented the vast majority of the roughly $1 trillion in revenue that Social Security received, and it was enough to pay almost 90% of all the benefits that Social Security recipients got that year.If Social Security stopped receiving that $885 billion, the impact would be immediate. Benefits would have to get funded almost entirely by trust fund balances. With asset levels of about $2.9 trillion, the program could only go for four years before using up its entire savings. Even if a payroll tax cut lasted only for the last nine months of 2020, the roughly $660 billion hit would dramatically accelerate the time at which the trust funds would be empty.”

In 1972, President Richard Nixon compared the average American to a young child in a family. Nothing has changed in 2020. Wall Street, the White House, the US Congress and the Pentagon treat the American people as children.

The lyrics to Woody Guthrie’s song, This Land is Your Land ring true in 2020 just as they did in the original version in 1940:

“As I went walking, I saw a sign there,

And on the sign there, it said “Private Property.”

But on the other side, it didn’t say nothing!

That side was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, in the shadow of a steeple,

By the relief office, I’d seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me? (Woody Guthrie)

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John Stanton can be reached at jstantonarchangel.com. His most recent book is America 2020: A Nation in Turmoil. It is free on Kindle.

Featured image is from rouzer.house.gov

Having paved over the science on pandemics, the Trump administration puts up parking lots. Literally.

It wasn’t enough that President Trump’s Rose Garden declaration of a national coronavirus emergency on Friday disintegrated into a self-congratulatory monologue. It wasn’t enough that he trashed reporters who dared ask him if he bore any responsibility for one of the worst responses to a pandemic by a wealthy country in modern times, driving the United States toward a double collapse of human and economic health and the indefinite shutdown of normal life and movements.

The finishing touch was that Trump was flanked not by a wall of dedicated infectious disease experts, epidemiologists, triage managers, and heads of public university research labs but rather mostly by Fortune 500 CEOs whose hands he shook as they paraded to the podium—violating a primary public health directive to blunt the spread of infection.

The heads of Walmart, Walgreens, Target, and CVS, with a combined 2019 net income of $20 billion, stepped forward to proclaim that they would each do their part in this emergency. But their pledges were glaringly short of vital particulars such as how they planned to protect their workers or what kind of extended sick leave they might offer. Rather, they said they will reserve parts of parking lots for drive-in virus testing.

Dimming the laboratory lights

To be clear, glossing over the fact that access to COVID-19 tests remains woefully limited in the United States, the idea of drive-in testing itself is good. But it was hard to watch some of the wealthiest companies in the country boast on national television as though they were suddenly carrying the torch of Florence Nightingale, such as when Walgreens’ president, Richard Ashworth, said, “When we have natural disasters, our stores are a beacon in the community.”

It is a key part of the Trump administration agenda to be the lighthouse keeper for these corporate beacons, as it dims the laboratory lights of federally funded climate, pollution, food, and health science. Fifty years ago, Joni Mitchell sang about the madness of paving over the environment.

In 2020, we have a White House that has disbanded or paved over scientific advisory panels, disregarded and disparaged its own scientists, and shuttered the pandemic office in the National Security Council. The administration’s appointments of industry lobbyists and political ideologues to top-level positions has driven out thousands of career scientists across several agencies. As recently reported, the administration held classified meetings on the coronavirus during which theyessentially  cut out input from experts who could have helped shape a more orderly response.

Brusque and heartless answers

Beyond the dearth of hard science and the corporate glad handing, Trump’s brusque, heartless answers to reporters were once again on full display. To one of them he refused to take any responsibility for the precious time lost to protect citizens from botched testing. The debacle has been marked by the still-mysterious reluctance of the United States to be among the 60 nations to adopt test kits from the World Health Organization, the defective early test kits  distributed by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, and lack of flexible thinking to greenlight test kit production at university and state medical centers and private labs. For all that, Trump blamed, “rules, regulations and specifications from a different time.”

When Yamiche Alcindor of PBS brought up the elimination of the pandemic office and whether the administration lost valuable time because of that, Trump snapped that she had asked a “nasty question.”

Trump’s nastiness to Alcindor was flagrant on two levels. One is that Trump once more attempted to humiliate a black female journalist as he has done previously by calling their questions nasty, stupid, or—almost laughably—racist. The other is that he knew that the question cut to the core of his administration’s inexcusable dismissal of science.

Alcindor was the only reporter to directly interrogate the president on the White House’s 2018 disbanding of the National Security Council pandemic preparedness office. By extension, the question brought into stark relief the administration’s relentless dismantling of our overall federal public health science infrastructure.

Trump knew if he owned up to that even his most fervent followers would recognize that his White House was responsible for hampering preparedness and enabling the spread of the lethal virus in the United States. In an answer to Alcindor that was either a lie or a bald admission of ignorance and incompetence, Trump told her, “I don’t know anything about it.”

In this life-and-death crisis where we need not just a commander-in-chief, but also a compassionate national consoler, it is noteworthy that Trump did not utter a single sentence of condolence to the families of any of the people who have died so far, nor offer a single best wish or prayer for recovery for the ill as the number of confirmed cases continues to climb.

Exaggerated claims

In a Washington Post guest column that ran the same day of the Rose Garden fiasco, Beth Cameron, a former director of the disbanded pandemic preparedness panel—the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense—wrote that its purpose was to “rally the government at the highest levels” to avoid a six-alarm blaze of viruses that know no borders. She wrote that the absence of the panel now “is all too evident.”

Without scientific evidence to rally the American people, the White House was reduced to showcasing corporate cheerleaders. And there was far less substance to this show of Fortune 500 generosity than even what President Trump proclaimed. He said Google had 1,700 engineers working on a website to direct Americans to the drive-in testing sites. Claiming that the engineers have “made tremendous progress,” Trump promised Americans that the website will be “very quickly done.” Coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx held up a poster showing how the site would work to bring quality testing “to the American people at unprecedented speed.”

Google itself quickly squashed that promise, saying that a subsidiary with only 1,000 employees was merely working on a pilot website for the San Francisco Bay Area, with no timetable for launch. And, so far, none of the companies have yet offered any concrete information on when, where, or how drive-in testing will be done.

Richard Ashworth of Walgreens told those assembled at the Rose Garden event, “These are extraordinary times that call for extraordinary measures.” He’s right on that to be sure. But it will surely take more than pledges of corporate parking lots as a naturally occurring crisis is morphing into a humanmade disaster in the United States because of the Trump administration’s sidelining of science and scientists.

To borrow again from Joni Mitchell, you don’t know what you’ve got until the pandemic panel is gone.

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Derrick Z. Jackson is a UCS Fellow in climate and energy and the Center for Science and Democracy. He is an award-winning journalist and co-author and photographer of Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock, published by Yale University Press (2015).

Featured image is from UCS