At President Trump’s April 18 press briefing on the Covid-19 Pandemic, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the US response to the outbreak, criticized China’s reports on the Covid-19 data. She did so by showing a chart with data from the following countries. (I have updated the chart with data* from the New York Times of April 19, but the two data sets differ by only a small and negligible amount.)
American Surgeon General Jerome Powell’s recent announcement that America would begin using real data and real trends instead of the World Health Organization-Bill Gates driven ‘predictive models’ came as a breath of fresh air for many who were beginning to lose hope that reason had been banished from world policy. When compared with reality, the WHO/Gates-funded narrative justifying the total shutdown of global economies falls apart like a house of cards as outlined perfectly by the Swiss Propaganda Research Institute’s Facts of COVID-19.
Powell’s announcement opens up a larger discussion on the nature of the human mind, and how the oligarchy has …
They were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.
— Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
I have never known any government to put the best interests of its people first, and this COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.
Now this isn’t intended to be a debate over whether COVID-19 is a legitimate health crisis or a manufactured threat. Such crises can—and are—manipulated by governments in order to expand their powers. As such, it is possible for the virus to be both a genuine …
It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. It is a bright cold day in April and clocks are striking thirteen. You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
Gary and Yves Engler, father and son authors, discuss being funny, being serious, cancelled book tours, exploding sacred myths, pandemics, their latest books, and writing in the time of COVID-19.
(This conversation has been edited, because that’s what happens to writers.)
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / April 22nd, 2020
Although we do not tie our organizing to the election cycle, the 2020 election is an opportunity for the people to set the agenda for the 2020s. We need to show that whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden are elected, the people will rule from below. We need to build our power to demand the transformational we need.
We are living in an opportune time, as has existed previously in the United States when many of the issues people have fought for have come to the forefront, but the two parties …
Fifty years ago, the first Earth Day brought out 20 million Americans across the land – to parks, schools, college campuses, stadiums, the Mall in DC, and for hundreds of river/beach/trail clean-ups.
“Our Space Ship is Burning” From the series XR #7
( XR – Greta Thunberg’s movement Extension Rebellion)
20”x30” Oil, college and gold leaf on canvas. See more art at : www.AnjaAlbosta.com
In 1970, I was 13, still living in Europe with my military family. But from age 17 on, however, I have …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / April 21st, 2020
Little by little, Americans are understanding just how badly our government has let us down by its belated and disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and how thousands more people are dying as a result. But there are two other crises we face that our government is totally unprepared for and incapable of dealing with: the climate crisis and the danger of nuclear war.
Since 1947, a group of scientists with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have warned us about the danger of nuclear war—using their …
By the Way, Wall Street to Gain from COVID-19 Deaths Through Dead Peasant Life Insurance
by John Stanton / April 21st, 2020
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Donald Trump is no George Washington, but his descent from commander-in-chief to vector-in-chief is nonetheless dizzying. Trump’s narcissism, mendacity, bullying, and malignant incompetence were obvious before the coronavirus crisis and they have been magnified rather than moderated in his surreal response to a catastrophe whose full gravity he failed to accept until March 31, when it had become horribly undeniable.
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream we’ve both seen
– John Prine, Hello inThere, from his debut album entitled “John Prine”, 1971
Without the ability to forget, we become imprisoned within a collective mental habit that induces us to repeat things that are as hard to escape as is trying to unlearn how to ride a bicycle. This results in the experience of boredom that John Prine captures in the above epigraph from his moving song, “Hello In There,” where the daily news reports seem so old to an elderly couple because they are so repetitive and …
There is surprisingly a certain degree of optimism around at the moment, despite virtually entire populations and economies on lockdown. Although things are really bad for millions right now due to the effects of lockdown, economist Mariana Mazzucato believes that the Covid-19 crisis will shine light on societal and economic systems all across the world, exposing some of the deep-rooted flaws of capitalism.
After lockdown ends, Mazzucato believes societies can be reshaped to become more inclusive. She says an overly financialised business sector has been siphoning value out of the economy by rewarding shareholders through stock-buyback schemes, rather than shoring up …
A central bank-financed UBI can fill the debt gap, providing a vital safety net while preventing cyclical recessions.
According to an April 6 article on CNBC.com, Spain is slated to become the first country in Europe to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) on a long-term basis. Spain’s Minister for Economic Affairs has announced plans to roll out a UBI “as soon as possible,” with the goal of providing a nationwide basic wage that supports citizens “forever.” Guy Standing, a research professor at the University of London, told CNBC that there was no prospect of a global economic revival without a …
The neoliberal Council on Foreign Relations through its journal Foreign Affairs has amped up its criticisms of China. United States president Donald Trump and American officials have orchestrated a gambit to deflect unwanted attention from the miserable US response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the souring US economy. The Trump administration has directed its invective at China which elsewhere has been praised for its handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, getting back to business, and helping out other countries to fight the virus.
The recent weekend email from Foreign Affairs warned of threats to chairman Xi Jinping’s leadership and the Chinese …
Things are getting dizzy in the White House on what, exactly, is being done to “open the economy”. Cranky advocates for the financial argument over the restrictions of public health have been attempting to claw back some ground. As Jonathan Chait puts it, “The anti-public health faction either believes the dangers of the coronavirus have been exaggerated, or that the cost of social-distancing requirements is so high that the economy should simply be opened, regardless of medical danger.”
Officials such as US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow have been busy pushing the …
Some years ago, the then vice-president of Monsanto Robert T Fraley asked, “Why do people doubt science”. He posed the question partly because he had difficulty in believing that some people had valid concerns about the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture.
Critics were questioning the science behind GM technology and the impacts of GMOs because they could see how science is used, corrupted and manipulated by powerful corporations to serve their own ends. And it was also because they regard these conglomerates as largely unaccountable and unregulated.
We need look no further than the current coronavirus issue to understand …
“But what of the price of peace?” asked Jesuit priest and war resister Daniel Berrigan, writing from federal prison in 1969, doing time for his part in the destruction of draft records. “I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for the peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm in the direction of their loved ones, in the direction of …
Counting your lucky stars is many times a matter of perspective. I am so honored to have traveled to El Salvador in 1984. I was not happy with the death and destruction I witnessed.
I met beautiful people there. However, there was rampant killing by military death squads. Just four years earlier, March 24, 1980, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, while giving mass, was murdered by US-backed military.
For Madras, Oregon, mother of four, Ana Maria Mejia, her husband’s deportation to El Salvador earlier this year – right before the …
Mail-in Voting puts Millions of Minority Ballots at Risk
by Greg Palast / April 18th, 2020
I get it: We all must vote by mail—or we die. There is really no other safe choice.
But there is much to fear, especially for minority and young voters, with a switch to all-mail voting—unless our broken absentee ballot system is fixed.
Here’s what the “Go Postal” crowd doesn’t tell you: In 2016, 512,696 mail-in ballots—over half a million—were simply rejected, not counted. That’s official, from the federal Elections Assistance Commission (EAC).
But that’s just the tip of the ballot-berg of uncounted mail-in votes. A study by MIT, Losing Votes by …
In 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 55 million Americans were gig economy workers, making up 34% of the working population. At that time, it was expected for the number to rise to 43%, but due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the gig economy is changing.
Currently, about 95% of Americans are on some form of lockdown. That has dramatically increased the need of delivery services for food, …
by Andre Vltchek and Mira Lubis / April 18th, 2020
Indonesia’s new shining city of the hill
An old road between Balikpapan and Samarinda passes through the poor villages, through rural slums, as well as stalls selling second-rate local fruits. The cheap, unhygienic eateries are now half-empty. While the traffic is still heavy here, the ‘real action’ is somewhere else; a few kilometers away, where the new motorway is being constructed; a motorway which will eventually connect Balikpapan, Samarinda and potentially the new Indonesian capital city which is expected to rise somewhere around the now dirt poor Sepaku …
On 4 March 2018, both Sergei Skripal and his daughter who was visiting from their shared home country of Russia, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned in Salisbury England, and — though both survived — neither of them has been allowed to communicate to the public except under the watch of their British court-appointed ‘guardians’. They also have been prohibited to communicate with any Russians. Repeated efforts by the Russian Embassy to be allowed to communicate with them have been rejected by the UK Government. The BBC reported on 18 May 2018, that, “Ms Skripal was …
The US president is in a warring mood. Having declared himself a president at war, a meaningless gesture given that the US is always, somewhere in the world, at war, finding necessary enemies in distraction was always going to be a priority. Donald Trump already had the “China virus” in his artillery, attaching nationality to pathogen. Now, and it took some time in coming by his standards, is the World Health Organization, a body which has, as its utopia, an idea of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of …
The Trump administration and the Republican’s policy towards China and the WHO is nothing short of blackmail. They are trying to pressure China into easing up debts and suppressing the country’s growing influence in international institutions.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic a careening, confused President is fibbing, flailing, breaking laws, and mishandling money. As the domino effect of this crisis mounts, the public is asking: “Where is the Congress?” Our Senators and Representatives have been home since March 20 and won’t be back until May 4th, not on the job inside the Capitol. Shameful!
Worse, some lawmakers want a remote Congress so they can remain AWOL and pretend to deal with the many crises remotely.
Why? Fear of the pandemic? Escaping rollcall responsibility? No matter that Congress can follow all the CDC guidelines and more for …
With millions forced out of work and many more stuck at home, Canadians need to ask tough questions of organizations receiving billions of dollars to protect them from foreign threats. The country’s intelligence/security sector has done little to respond to the ongoing social and economic calamity. Even worse, their thinking and practices are an obstacle to what’s required to overcome a global pandemic.
A recent Canadian Press article highlights the failure of intelligence agencies to warn of the COVID-19 outbreak. They largely ignore health-related threats despite receiving huge sums of federal money.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s (CSIS) has more than …
The IMF now predicts that China next year will have the highest rate of economic growth since 2011, which was the last time when China’s GDP growth-rate exceeded 9% (at 9.6%). China’s growth-rate had averaged around 9% between 1978 and 2011, then slid to around 6.5%. If the IMF is correct, then 2021 will be the first time in a decade that the country’s GDP growth-rate is restored to its former long-time norm.
The proxy war that Saudi Arabia and Iran have been waging in Yemen for the past five years goes beyond the pale of human capacity for extreme cruelty and ruthlessness, and against the spirit and the letter of the Quran. Ironically, whereas Saudi Arabia has many reasons to end the war, which prompted its decision to declare a unilateral ceasefire, Islam’s forbidding of the killing of innocent people was never considered a reason to halt the fighting. The Saudis continued to engage in a merciless war against Iran-backed Houthis, …
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
As the global pandemic grips world attention, completely unnoticed by mainstream media was the release of a final report of an academic study pertaining to another previously calamitous event of international significance. On March 25th, the conclusion of a four year investigation by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was published which determined that the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on …
The Great Gray Hope has bowed out of the presidential primary race, leaving tottering Joe Biden as the last Democrat standing. What Bernie Sanders accomplished electorally was remarkable, revealing both how far a progressive can venture and the limits proscribing further advancement to the left within the Democratic Party.
Sanders pushes the limits of the system
That Sanders was once the frontrunner and might have swept the Democratic primaries is an indicator of the neoliberal order’s decay. The coronavirus pandemic was both the final blow to the Sanders campaign …
Leaked report shows that staff worked relentlessly to damage the party’s leader, including by exploiting antisemitism
by Jonathan Cook / April 16th, 2020
The findings of a leaked, 860-page report compiled by the British Labour Party on its handling of antisemitism complaints is both deeply shocking and entirely predictable all at once.
For the first time, extensive internal correspondence between senior party officials has been revealed, proving a years-long plot to destroy Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader who recently stepped down.
The report confirms long-held suspicions that suspected cases of antisemitism were exploited by head office staff to try to undermine Corbyn. Anyone who was paying close attention to events in the party over the past five years already had a sense of that.
In Part I of this article I discussed how when Vygotsky’s work was exported to the United States it was narrowly defined as encompassing his work in child-development and cooperative learning. His interest in art history, European history and his commitment to Marxian political economy is barely mentioned. Secondly, I contrasted the differences between capitalist psychology and socialist psychology across the categories of psychological disorders, attitude towards social class, what is consciousness, motivation, emotions, intelligence, the place of the unconscious, consumptive patterns, work, free will and therapy. Then I showed how Marxian theories of individual human development differed from bourgeois …
