Dear Friend,
The world’s only Superpower is painfully learning, that natural phenomenon like climate change or pandemics, cannot be fought by fighter aircraft or nuclear weapons or with all the money in the world. And though POTUS will never acknowledge this, he surely understands today, it is not he but COVID-19 that wears a crown, because in fact, the virus is the real ‘king’ of the planetary jungle.
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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
King Covid Rules
by Satya Sagar
The world’s
only Superpower is painfully learning, that natural phenomenon like climate change or pandemics, cannot be fought by fighter aircraft or nuclear weapons or with all the money in the world. And though POTUS will never acknowledge this, he surely understands today, it is not he but COVID-19 that wears a crown, because in fact, the virus is the real ‘king’ of the planetary jungle.
It is a capricious little virus with a funny crown and a flimsy protein coat, zipping across the planet, leaving behind a trail of utter confusion, death and destruction.
And as nations rush to prevent exposure to COVID-19’s deadly effects, the virus is in turn exposing each one of them for whatever they are – good, bad or ugly. Depending on their responses to the deadly pandemic – humane or cruel, systematic or clumsy – the very innards of their systems are today open for everyone to see – like in a public autopsy.
At another level altogether, COVID-19 is stripping the human species itself of its various pretensions- of being in command of Planet Earth, muscular enough to beat any foe or clever enough to manage any crisis. Or for that matter even being ‘human’, as societies respond to the crisis with a mix of panic, prejudice and quest for self-preservation over others.
Sure, this is not the first time our world has faced a pandemic – the history of deadly infectious diseases like small pox or the plague going back several millennia. Despite all the devastation wrought, humans have not just survived such microbial assaults, but also developed clever ways to prevent or overcome them repeatedly – and will perhaps do so in future too.
However, COVID-19 has arrived when, more than any time before in history, technological prowess has created the illusion, that our species is immune to the laws of nature itself. From captains of industry to the politicians who front their cause and even among large sections of the general population, hubris about human achievements has been the dominant sentiment for a long time now.
A good example is the sheer arrogance with which anyone trying to mobilize global action to deal with the problem of climate change -potentially an even bigger crisis than the current pandemic – was being dismissed by those in power for the last decade or more.
‘Don’t you dare interrupt my orgasm!’ was the refrain of climate-change deniers along with those who benefit from the way industrial capitalism is set up in the world today – of a tiny minority of humans consuming endless amounts of energy while destroying the ecology and very future of the planet. (Thanks to COVID-19 much of the globe is today in lockdown mode, which is what may be needed to mitigate climate change!)
The malaise in the modern human mindset stems from the belief they are above all evolutionary and ecological processes, which stretch back millions of years. While this is true of those who deny Darwin’s ideas on how life arose on Earth, even those who endorse it in theory, seem to believe ‘Yes, evolution happened in the distant past, but today we are in the driver’s seat’. This is due to their almost blind conviction, that tomorrow’s science can always overcome every problem created by the one from yesterday.
What COVID-19 is really telling us in a spectacular and scary way is – the story of evolution – a non-linear process driven by many chance events – is not over yet and never will be. To understand why not, one needs to consider that for much of its existence, our planet, formed 4.7 billion years ago, has been essentially run by microbes like bacteria and viruses. Homo Sapiens, our species, emerged just 200,000 years ago and while we seem to dominate the visible world, we are nobodies compared to the invisible one, which is stupendous in antiquity, diversity and sheer scale.
Bacteria are better known and recognised for their role in a very wide range of essential phenomenon from fertilizing the soil, recycling waste, regulating atmospheric gases and even running critical functions within the human body. Viruses, poorly understood and studied till recently and not even considered a form of ‘life’, are as important as bacteria, if not more, and the most abundant biological entities on Earth.
The best current estimate is that there are a whopping 1031 virus particles in the biosphere. If all the viruses on Earth were laid end to end, they would stretch for 100 million light years. And in every adult human body, while there are 30 trillion human cells and also around 39 trillion bacterial cells, that is nothing compared to the 380 trillion viruses that live inside us (COVID-19 has come to visit its in-laws).
More significantly, their huge population, combined with rapid rates of replication and mutation, make viruses the world’s leading source of genetic innovation and key drivers of the evolutionary process. They are the ones who have since time immemorial ‘invented’ new genes that find their way into other organisms, affecting all life on Earth and often determining what will survive.
In other words, what we face in COVID-19 is essentially a force of nature – like an invisible tsunami- that cannot be stopped. Yes, ‘infection control’ or ‘lockdowns’ can buy some time to prepare better, but in the absence of a vaccine the virus will find a way to infect a very large section of the human population. The only thing we can do now is deal with the consequences (still not clear in the fog of media-driven panic), to the best of our abilities and wait till much of the global population acquires herd immunity, as part of a natural ebb and tide of all viral pandemics in history.
Ultimately, COVID-19 is also reiterating something that all humans know very well, but don’t like to acknowledge because they lack humility – we are just perishable biological creatures, like any other plant or animal. In the larger context of our planet and certainly the universe, we are so minuscule as to be just like microbes themselves (one more reason to treat bacteria and viruses with greater respect).
Even more fundamentally, we are products of nature and not ‘above’ it in any way. We will be again and again subject to both its creative, productive cycles as its sometimes whimsical, destructive ways. That is why preservation and enabling of life in all its forms – using mutual cooperation, human solidarity and all resources at our command – can be the only meaningful goal for societies, instead of chasing GDP growth or accumulation of wealth and military might.
Nowhere is this more tragically clear, than from the current plight of the United States, the planet’s ‘top dog’, being ferociously wagged by its tail in the ongoing pandemic. The world’s only Superpower is painfully learning, that natural phenomenon like climate change or pandemics, cannot be fought by fighter aircraft or nuclear weapons or with all the money in the world.
And though POTUS will never acknowledge this, he surely understands today, it is not he but COVID-19 that wears a crown, because in fact, the virus is the real ‘king’ of the planetary jungle.
Satya Sagar is a journalist and public health activist who can be contacted at sagarnama@gmail.com
Venezuela: Community organisation key to fighting COVID-19
by Federico Fuentes
It’s not easy. We are surviving on the efforts of the commune, which are increasingly harder to maintain. That’s is why international solidarity has become key. Any support we can receive from abroad today could be critical to not only saving, but transforming, lives.
Venezuela has been under a nationwide quarantine since mid-March as the government battles to quash the coronavirus before it overwhelms its health system.
In this endeavour, the government of President Nicolas Maduro faces many challenges, not least of which is the state of its embattled health system that has suffered from years of economic sanctions and the return of thousands of Venezuelans from neighbouring countries fleeing the horrors the pandemic has inflicted in the region.
While, by April 9, Brazil to its east had registered more than 16,000 cases and 822 deaths and Colombia to its west, had seen its tally climb above 2000 cases and 54 deaths, Venezuela had only recorded 167 cases and 9 deaths.
* * *
First, can you give us an idea of what the Alto de Lidice Commune is?
Our commune, one of several thousand in the country, is a small commune. It encompasses about 5000 people, 2000 families, and is located high up in the mountains, in the north-west of Caracas, in a barrio called Altos de Lidice. A commune is like a small government, a community-based government that exists within a defined area.
In June, the commune will turn two. Since its establishment we have elected a communal parliament, which is the legislative and executive power of the commune. The commune has its own communal bank, seven communal councils and different working groups that operate essentially like mini-ministries: there is one for health, one for food, one for services, one for education, etc.
Despite being young, the commune already has a number of projects up and running, such as our communal pharmacy through which we provide medicines to the community. The pharmacy is the result of international solidarity in that organisations from various parts of the world send us the medicines we need, which in many cases are too expensive or we can’t get due to the blockade, and we provide them to the community.
We also have an urban agriculture project and our own little textile factory, where we produce and run workshops for the community.
We have a dining hall where we provide meals for the most needy, we have a project to provide childcare for those that need it, and a brigade that cleans the streets and carries out public works, such as fixing pot holes, etc. All of this occurs under the principle of self-management. And the projects are largely funded by the community who make a financial contribution to the commune every month.
It’s impressive what we’ve been able to achieve. We have been able to do this with a lot of effort, a lot of unity, a lot of consciousness, a lot of respect and a lot of understanding.
Ours is a commune that emerged among adversity, in the hardest times of the Bolivarian Revolution, during which we’ve had to face a blockade, the collapse in oil prices, where a lot of our nation’s wealth that was held in international banks has been stolen, where inflation has been brutal and the economic attacks intense.
It’s been very difficult, but despite all these problems we have not stopped. Every day we are doing something, inventing something, thinking about how we can promote self-management, self-government in the community.
How is the commune dealing with the threat of COVID-19?
Given the level of organisation that the commune has achieved to date, we are better prepared for this situation, more so when you consider everything we have had to deal with in the past three or four years of constant foreign aggression and economic sanctions.
We are better prepared, psychologically and organisationally, to confront any situation that might arise, including COVID-19.
Of course, it has not been easy, but we have faced so many problems, had so many struggles; we have already had to deal with ensuring the distribution of services and food, but this means the commune already has existing mechanisms to deal with everyday issues and any emergency that might arise. We have grassroots structures that allow us to organise to deal with any situation.
For example, we have done a lot of grassroots work on the issue of health care; we have a health committee that is dedicated to that. This committee, together with local doctors, have been going door-to-door, taking note of the health situation in each house and delivering any medicines that are needed.
There is also a committee that deals with the distribution of gas. We also have Local Committees for Supply and Production, CLAPs, which ensure food is distributed in an organised manner and that hygienic practices are respected.
All of this has been key to the success of the nationwide quarantine at the local level. Unless there is a plan and the organisation at the local level to address the needs of the most vulnerable, it is unlikely that we will be able to maintain the current situation.
That is why grassroots organisation is what has enabled us to repel this pandemic so far.
How has the commune interacted with the state in terms of implementing its national measures in the local area?
Grassroots organisations working together with a state to deal with COVID-19 has been the key to success so far. We have been working closely with the state and I believe the measures that the government has taken to date have been appropriate.
But, importantly, these measures have been accompanied by the work of the different organisations of popular power. Without that we would not have had the success that we’ve had until now. I think that’s the key: popular power and the state working together.
The state not only allows us to exist but has given us instruments to carry out our work. We work hand in hand: they give us some of the tools we need and we devote all of our organisation to the task of defeating COVID-19.
At the local level, it is grassroots organisations that are orientating the state’s action and deciding the steps that need to be taken to protect everyone, making sure that not a single neighbour is left alone to have to look after their food or health needs by themselves.
The state has made a big effort to try to contain the virus and I think many people, whether they support the government or the opposition, acknowledge this. People have respected the government’s declaration of a nationwide quarantine.
There is a high level of consciousness of what it means to prevent the spread of this virus. People have, by and large, followed the rules that the state has outlined and implemented without any repression.
Grassroots organisations coordinating with the state to confront the pandemic from day one, has meant we are in a much better situation compared to other countries in Latin America, such as Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, that face big problems in regards to the coronavirus.
Here the government confronted the issue with a lot more seriousness and responsibility in comparison to those countries.
What importance do you give to the international solidarity Venezuela has received?
Logically, we would not have been able to do what we have done to date without the help of countries such as Cuba, Russia and China. Who knows what would have happened if we had not received their support?
International solidarity is key in these moments, particularly for countries that face constant aggression from the US government, which has been ferocious in its attacks, everyday continuing to put up more barriers, more blockades, more sanctions.
These sanctions have dealt a big blow to the people of Venezuela. They have also dramatically affected grassroots organisations that are trying to promote alternative projects, and in some cases promote an alternative to the state.
We have been heavily impacted by the sanctions because we have been unable to acquire the resources and materials we need to carry forward our social programs, our economic programs. None of this is easy when a country is being blockaded. We never imagined it would be this difficult.
And now the US is talking about a naval blockade. It’s something that distresses us, but we will remain standing on our feet and continue to look forward towards our goal.
The sanctions, COVID-19 and now the threat of a naval blockade, all of this has dealt a big blow to the Venezuelan economy and to projects such as our commune.
That is why we have initiated an international campaign seeking resources and materials to be able to sustain the projects we have initiated within the commune. We are looking for all the different ways we can get financing to keep moving forward.
It’s not easy. We are surviving on the efforts of the commune, which are increasingly harder to maintain. That’s is why international solidarity has become key. Any support we can receive from abroad today could be critical to not only saving, but transforming, lives.
[To help support the Alto de Lidice Commune contact Gsus Garcia via WhatsApp: +58 416 902 6783 or email gsus2012@gmail.com.]
Originally published in Green Left
Is Social Distancing a Misleading Term?
by Suraya Haidar
To me, the term
“social distancing” is a misnomer. “Physical distancing” is a better term than “social distancing.” My argument is based on two things. One, that social connections are crucial to human development and mental health.
The Coronavirus State: New Zealand and Authoritarian Rumblings
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
It’s all about the lever of balance. Laws made for public protection, within which public health features prominently, provide grounds for derogation authorities can exploit. Like plasticine, the scope of power during times of an emergency extends. But at what point does a state of public health become a police state? In time, we may find these to be not only indistinguishable but synonymous; the body will be the site where liberties are subordinate to regulation, movement, medical testing, and directives made in the name of health.
It’s all about the lever of balance. Laws made for public protection, within which public health features prominently, provide grounds for derogation authorities can exploit. Like plasticine, the scope of power during times of an emergency extends. But at what point does a state of public health become a police state? In time, we may find these to be not only indistinguishable but synonymous; the body will be the site where liberties are subordinate to regulation, movement, medical testing, and directives made in the name of health.
Across countries, the “lockdown” as a term has come to keep company with “social distancing”, now retouched as “physical distancing”; “self-isolation” along with a host of numbing words such as “unprecedented” and “rapidly evolving”. Such lockdowns naturally vary in terms of how the coronavirus will be dealt with.
In New Zealand, the focus of the lockdown has been on suppression and elimination. Thoughts of mitigating COVID-19 have been cast aside. On March 23, the country was openly committed to the elimination strategy. A piece in the New Zealand Medical Journal authored by the country’s notable epidemiologists in justifying the approach, insisted on a departure from the management strategies of old. Mitigation had been used in Europe, North America and Australia. Suppression, resulting in flattening the curve of infection, had also been adopted. But these did not adequately appreciate the nature of COVID-19, which was “not pandemic influenza.” It had a longer incubation period (5-6 days) relative to influenza (1-3 days).
Rather than increasing the measures in progressive response to the spread of the virus, the focus would be on imposing firm measures from the start, including border controls, case isolation and quarantine. Mass community measures might be needed to stop community transmission: physical distancing, internal travel restrictions, mass quarantining. While intrusive, the authors extol the virtues of a hard approach from the outset: “if started early it will result in fewer cases of illness and death. If successful it also offers a clear exit path with a careful return to regular activities with resulting social and economic benefits for New Zealand.”
On March 23, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delivered a statement warning New Zealanders that they had 48 hours to get their affairs in order. “Right now we have a window of opportunity to break the chain of community transmission – to contain the virus – to stop it multiplying and to protect New Zealanders from the worst.” By March 25, a state of emergency had been declared, with “level 4” lockdown measures closing schools, non-essential workplaces, banning social gatherings and imposing travel restrictions. Two 14-day incubation cycles have been factored into it.
Tributes from the public health sector followed. Professor Michael Baker of the University of Otago, a co-author on the NZMJ piece justifying the elimination method, gave his assessment of the slowdown of cases: “a triumph of science and leadership”. The prime minister “approached this decisively and unequivocally and faced the threat.”
A slew of items are now in circulation glowing for the approach taken by the Ardern government. New Zealand, goes the line, is on to something, though care should be taken from which source they come. The Guardian, for instance, ran an article of congratulation for the elimination formula, but you only had to realise the authors: Baker and his colleague Nick Wilson. Unsurprisingly, it is effusive: “New Zealand now appears to be the only ‘western’ nation following an articulated elimination strategy with the goal of completely ending transmission of COVID-19 within its borders. The strategy appears to be working, with new case numbers falling.”
The Washington Post was similarly brimming with admiration. “New Zealand isn’t just flattening the curve. It’s quashing it.” Qualifications are, however, forthcoming. “In New Zealand’s case, being a small island nation makes it easy to shut borders. It also helps that the country often feels like a village where everyone knows everyone else, so messages can travel quickly.”
Shifting away from the pure health dimensions of the response, and a less praiseworthy image emerges. The legal cognoscenti have been lukewarm, albeit admitting that emergency measures are necessary. The police, for instance, have discretionary powers unseen since the 1951 waterfront strike. The Health Act 1956 has been used to deem COVID-19 a “quarantinable disease”, thereby giving “medical officers of health” vast powers, backed by the police use of reasonable measures, to impose conditions of isolation, quarantine or disinfection.
Barrister and journalist Catriona MacLennan, in an irate open letter to the New Zealand Police, wrote of how it was “hard to get our heads around the extent of these [emergency] powers. They are not something most New Zealanders have ever imagined.” There was, for instance, no legal obligation for any New Zealand citizen to have letters from their employers or work identity cards. The regulations on when people could or could not leave their homes needed to be standardised. “Contradictory messages and over-the top enforcement will rapidly erode public goodwill and result in increasing failure to comply.”
This has seen various altercations. One featured police berating former broadcaster Damian Christie for delivering video equipment to a client’s food producing business as a needless act and in breach of the lockdown. Armed with a letter showing otherwise, and outlining that the video gear would be used to share information to employees on COVID-19, the response to Christie was absolute: He could only leave the house for medical necessaries.
This distant island has become a fledged police state, perhaps not quite fully but well on the way. Some of this has to with confusion between the State of National Emergency as distinct from the lockdown itself. These have been blended into an authoritarian mix. Police may, without warrant, enter premises and rummage through possessions. Indefinite detention may be imposed on those who have no good reason to leave their home, though this is very much down to a loose reading of power.
Another by-product of these measures is a willingness to turn citizens into accessories of the state, small time agents and spy enthusiasts. They are the tittle-tattles, or, to use the vernacular, dobbers, the do-good brigade enlisted in public health’s calling. It first came in the form of an online email address run by the Ministry of Health regarding breaches of self-isolation and mass gathering directions. The emergency police line was then choked by hundreds of the dedicated.
This saw the establishment of an online site which was swamped with reports within an hour of its activation, crashing it. (Some 4,200 reports are said to have been lodged, many snarling about joggers and walkers.) The continued level of interest shown by the users in reporting on their fellow citizens has seen police calls for patience. “If you are having difficulty, please try again later.” Something to be truly proud of.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Physics in the pandemic: ‘I
hope the rest of the world can see hope from my experience’
by Tao Wang
Tao Wang is an experimental physicist in the School of Materials Science & Engineering at Wuhan University of Technology in Wuhan, China writes about his experience in the lockdown
Caught between the devil Coronavirus and deep sea communalsim
by Mustafa Khan
There is a high water mark of the tide of the deluge that has swept through India in the name of coronavirus currently raging in India. From Assam to Kernataka and Delhi to Telangana. More than the pandemic it is hatred that is sown far and wide.
UN Ceasefire Defines War As a Non-Essential Activity
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies
At least 70 countries have signed on to the March 23 call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a worldwide ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like non-essential business and spectator sports, war is a luxury that the Secretary General says we must manage without for a while. After U.S. leaders have told Americans for years that war is a necessary evil or even a solution to many of our problems, Mr. Guterres is reminding us that war is really the most non-essential evil and an indulgence that the world cannot afford—especially during a pandemic.
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies
At least 70 countries have signed on to the March 23 call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a worldwide ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like non-essential business and spectator sports, war is a luxury that the Secretary General says we must manage without for a while. After U.S. leaders have told Americans for years that war is a necessary evil or even a solution to many of our problems, Mr. Guterres is reminding us that war is really the most non-essential evil and an indulgence that the world cannot afford—especially during a pandemic.
The UN Secretary General and the European Union have also both called for a suspension of the economic warfare that the U.S. wages against other countries through unilateral coercive sanctions. Countries under unilateral U.S. sanctions include Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe.
In his update on April 3rd, Guterres showed that he was taking his ceasefire call seriously, insisting on actual ceasefires, not just feel-good declarations. “…there is a huge distance between declarations and deeds,” Guterres said. His original plea to “put armed conflict on lockdown” explicitly called on warring parties everywhere to “silence the guns, stop the artillery, end the airstrikes,” not just to say that they would like to, or that they’ll consider it if their enemies do it first.
But 23 of the original 53 countries that signed on to the UN’s ceasefire declaration still have armed forces in Afghanistan as part of the NATO coalition fighting the Taliban. Have all 23 countries ceased firing now? To put some meat on the bones of the UN initiative, countries that are serious about this commitment should tell the world exactly what they are doing to live up to it.
In Afghanistan, peace negotiations between the U.S., the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Taliban have been going on for two years. But the talks have not stopped the U.S. from bombing Afghanistan more than at any other time since the U.S. invasion in 2001. The U.S. has dropped at least 15,560 bombs and missiles on Afghanistan since January 2018, with predictable increases in already horrific levels of Afghan casualties.
There was no reduction in U.S. bombing in January or February 2020, and Mr. Guterres said in his April 3rd update that fighting in Afghanistan had only increased in March, despite the February 29th peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban.
Then, on April 8th, Taliban negotiators walked out of talks with the Afghan government over disagreements about the mutual prisoner release called for in the U.S.-Afghan agreement. So it remains to be seen whether either the peace agreement or Mr. Guterres’ call for a ceasefire will lead to a real suspension of U.S. airstrikes and other fighting in Afghanistan. Actual ceasefires by the 23 members of the NATO coalition who have rhetorically signed on to the UN ceasefire would be a big help.
The diplomatic response to Mr. Guterres’s ceasefire declaration from the United States, the world’s most prolific aggressor, has mainly been to ignore it. The U.S. National Security Council (NSC) did retweet a tweet from Mr. Guterres about the ceasefire, adding, “The United States hopes that all parties in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere will heed the call of @antonioguterres. Now is the time for peace and cooperation.”
But the NSC tweet did not say that the U.S. would take part in the ceasefire, essentially deflecting the UN’s call to all the other warring parties. The NSC made no reference to the UN or to Mr. Guterres position as UN Secretary General, as if he launched his initiative just as a well-meaning private individual instead of the head of the world’s foremost diplomatic body. Meanwhile, neither the State Department nor the Pentagon have made any public response to the UN’s ceasefire initiative.
So, unsurprisingly, the UN is making more progress with ceasefires in countries where the U.S. is not one of the leading combatants. The Saudi-led coalition attacking Yemen has announced a unilateral two week ceasefire beginning on April 9th to set the stage for comprehensive peace talks. Both sides have publicly supported the UN ceasefire call, but the Houthi government in Yemen will not agree to a ceasefire until the Saudis actually halt their attacks on Yemen.
If the UN ceasefire takes hold in Yemen, it will prevent the pandemic from compounding a war and humanitarian crisis that have already killed hundreds of thousands of people. But how will the U.S. government react to peace moves in Yemen that threaten the U.S.’s most lucrative market for foreign arms sales in Saudi Arabia?
In Syria, the 103 civilians reported killed in March were the lowest monthly death toll in many years, as a ceasefire negotiated between Russia and Turkey in Idlib appears to be holding. Geir Pedersen, the UN’s special envoy in Syria, is trying to expand this to a nationwide ceasefire between all the warring parties, including the United States.
In Libya, both the main warring parties, the UN-recognized government in Tripoli and the forces of rebel general Khalifa Haftar, publicly welcomed the UN’s call for a ceasefire, but the fighting only worsened in March.
In the Philippines, the government of Rodrigo Duterte and the Maoist New People’s Army, which is the armed wing of the Philippines Communist Party, have agreed to a ceasefire in their 50-year-old civil war. In another 50-year civil war, Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) has responded to the UN’s ceasefire call with a unilateral ceasefire for the month of April, which it said it hopes can lead to lasting peace talks with the government.
In Cameroon, where minority English-speaking separatists have been fighting for 3 years to form an independent state called Ambazonia, one rebel group, Socadef, has declared a two-week ceasefire, but neither the larger Ambazonia Defense Force (ADF) rebel group nor the government have joined the ceasefire yet.
The UN is working hard to persuade people and governments everywhere to take a break from war, humanity’s most non-essential and deadly activity. But if we can give up war during a pandemic, why can’t we just give it up altogether? In which devastated country would you like the U.S. to start fighting and killing again when the pandemic is over? Afghanistan? Yemen? Somalia? Or would you prefer a brand new U.S. war against Iran, Venezuela or Ambazonia?
We think we have a better idea. Let’s insist that the U.S. government call off its airstrikes, artillery and night raids in Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and West Africa, and support ceasefires in Yemen, Libya and around the world. Then, when the pandemic is over, let’s insist that the U.S. honor the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force, which wise American leaders drafted and signed in 1945, and start living at peace with all our neighbors around the world. The U.S. has not tried that in a very long time, but maybe it’s an idea whose time has finally come.
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, is the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.
Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK, and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
A Palestinian Guide to Surviving a Quarantine: On Faith, Humor and ‘Dutch Candy’
by Dr Ramzy Baroud
I hope that under no circumstances you will ever hear these ominous words: “You are now under curfew. Anyone who
violates orders will be shot immediately.” I also hope that this COVID-19 quarantine will make us kinder to each other and will make us emerge from our homes better people, ready to take on global challenges while united in our common faith, collective pain and a renewed sense of love for our environment. And when it’s all over, think of Palestine, for her people have been ‘quarantined’ for 71 years and counting.
The Four Horsemen of the ‘ New’ Apocalypse
by Philip A Farruggio
As our republic drifts further away from the democracy it was supposed to entail, this new pandemic offers time for reflection. Working stiffs, wanabee working stiffs and retired working stiffs are suffering. As Mom and Pop businesses are shut down and armies of unemployed seek answers, the Truth is right there before your eyes: This current system has failed…
Release Dr GN Saibaba in the wake of Covid 19
Press
Release
Release Dr. G. N. Saibaba from Nagpur Central Jail in the face of an imminent threat to his life exacerbated by the COVID-19. Release all the incarcerated voices of democracy and uphold their right to life
Islamophobia is a harmful misnomer for anti-Islamism
by Akshat Jain
If framing anti-Islamism and anti-homosexualism as phobias had been merely been a benign wrong, it would be okay to let it pass. But, it is positively hurtful to the two communities (Muslims and homosexuals) when we frame the problems in this way. It is therefore imperative that we recognize that there is no such thing as mental illness and that these problems are thus not mental illnesses but problems of living together that can only be solved politically.
The Economy, Lemurs And Us
by Sally Dugman
The underlying human horror and destruction from the nearly worldwide coved-19 disease is truly daunting. Not to undercut the seriousness of the devastation, but this type of happening is hardly new. For example, consider the Black Plague that wiped out half of Europe and the fact that many British people are immune to Smallpox unlike many Native Americans whose ancestors were never exposed to the disease.
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is on fire and radiation levels are spiking
by Countercurrents Collective
Part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone where the infamous power plant explosion occurred in 1986 is on fire, and radiation in the area is spiking- reported Live Science.
Part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone where the infamous power plant explosion occurred in 1986 is on fire, and radiation in the area is spiking- reported Live Science.
The report said,
The fire covers about 50 acres (20 hectares) near the abandoned village of Vladimirovka in Ukraine’s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, according to CNN. In a Facebook post, Yegor Firsov, head of Ukraine’s ecological inspection service, showed a Geiger counter near the fire reading 2.3 microsievert per hour, a measurement of ambient radiation. The normal reading in the area is 0.14 μSv/h, which is significantly higher than typical radiation levels in other places.
The environmental conditions around Chernobyl are not fully understood, but a 1996 paper in the journal Science of the Total Environment showed that key radiation-carrying elements — cesium, iodine and chlorine — can get picked up by plants and animals in the region and end up in ash when they burn. “But this is only within the area of the fire outbreak,” Firsov wrote.
In the city of Chernobyl itself, and in more distant Kiev, radiation levels remain normal, according to CNN.
Fires in the exclusion zone aren’t uncommon, according to Firsov’s post. The 1,000-square-mile (2,500 square kilometers) area around the power plant has been largely abandoned since the 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. And in that time, trees and other plants have colonized the area.
Firsov blamed humans for the periodic fires in the zone.
“The problem of setting fires to grass by careless citizens in spring and autumn has long been a very acute problem for us,” he wrote. “Every year we see the same picture — fields, reeds, forests burn in all regions.”
The Significance of Bernie Sanders
by Hasan Abdullah
After
secession of the presidential campaign by Bernie Sanders on April 8, 2020, seven progressive groups made up of young activists, including NextGen America, Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, issued the Biden campaign a series of platform demands, saying, “The organizations … will spend more than $100 million … but we need help ensuring our efforts will be backed-up by a campaign that speaks to our generation,” they said. And, so, the movement is ON!
Tarred And Feathered Bernie Sanders Runs Out Of U.S. Election On A Rail
by Irwin Jerome
Amidst the horrific COVID-19 Pandemic, that has all but over-shadowed and sidelined the U.S. Presidential election process, the progressive movement that Bernie Sanders had fostered represented a strong sentiment among elements of the American electorate but not nearly enough to withstand and overcome the massive media onslaught
of biased, vituperative reporting, misinformation and disinformation of America’s established right-wing Wall Street corporate press, from the New York Times and Washington Post to the far-reaching octopi behemoth of Fox News.
The Truth in the Garden
by Philip A Farruggio
A musing on Jesus' time in Gethsemane
On Passion
by T Vijayendra
Actually, the concept of Passion keeps on reappearing. When we come across the fast of Irom Sharmila, which has been going on for 14 years now, or the incarceration of Dr. Binayak Sen, we are reminded of it. These are gentle people advocating peace and human rights. There have been and still are, a large number of people, poor people, middle class people, teachers, doctors, lawyers, poets, authors, painters and musicians who have been incarcerated and punished for their ideas. Again and again people are being jailed and punished for
their thoughts and not for their actions. This is what human rights are all about – you cannot be punished for your thoughts, period!
As Satish Bids Farewell, Unseen By Anyone
by Mustafa Deshamangalam
Satish who embraced death last noon leaves today, unseen by anyone. As per the Covid protocol his last rites will be attended by a handful. There are many friends who are eager to see him to bid farewell. In the fear of the great epidemic, Satish bids us a lonely farewell. Like the solo journeys he made to the North East or Himalayas in his bike often in a not so good condition.
Walter Benjamin, the Jewish Question and Theses on the Philosophy of History
by Gaither Stewart
German-Jewish intellectuals, the alienated hommes de lettres of early twentieth century German-speaking Central
Europe, constituted a class within that complex and multi-layered Jewish society against which a few of them rebelled, a rebellion which however could not prevent the dark disaster awaiting them in the German madness of the 1930s and 40s. Walter Benjamin was one of those rebels.
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