Category: Uncategorized
We should exit the pandemic and the economic chaos of these months with less inequality, not a further entrenched oligarchy.
via U.S. Billionaire Wealth Surges as Covid-19 Pandemic Worsens | The Smirking Chimp
The RIGHT of INCREASED DEBT & THE SECOND COMING OF THE GFC = BAILOUT THE BANKS AFTER THEY HAVE TAKEN THEIR PROFIT.
via Small Business Owners Sign PPP Loans Without Clear Terms
This isn’t a “will snub” this is a REAL Snub unlike all the ” We will promises” Trump makes daily that never occur (ODT)
While Trump is “promising” America and the world he will save it what he is doing is hidden from Americans and generally the world. (ODT)
via U.S. Airstrikes Hit All-Time High as Coronavirus Spreads in Somalia
When people are ill En masse, as is the case now, they cannot go about their daily lives. Thus our only option is to do as we are doing, namely stop everything, stem the spread of the illness and remove the threat of the virus infecting the citizenry. Developing a vaccine is a hallowed grail, but until this is achieved, it is the role of government to sustain the populace no matter the cost. To not do so is to flirt with social chaos.
If we remain calm and ignore the lunatic demands of the far right, we just might avoid the formation of hundreds of hungry miles snaking across the roads and highways of the United States.
So no more calls about tax reform please Mr Roskam. Instead demand a fair wage for our public health workers, our teachers, our internet technicians, our police officers and the underpaid workers in local grocery stores, who are keeping us fed, healthy and connected.
via Hungry miles – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Victorian Liberal Party is considering asking for federal government JobKeeper payments to keep its staff employed after donations to the party “fell off a cliff” during the coronavirus crisis.
The Liberals, who say they are considering their options, may lodge the claim for economic hardship despite selling their former headquarters for $37 million less than two years ago.
via State Liberals may apply for JobKeeper as virus leaves party finances ailing
There’s China the doers and the along came the dumber than (ODT)
“Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?” Trump asked Bryan from Homeland Security.
He then asked Deborah Birx, the physician co-ordinating the White House’s coronavirus taskforce: “I would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way you can apply light and heat to cure. You know? If you could. And maybe you can, maybe you can’t.”
Birx said she had not seen any evidence that heat or UV rays could be used as a treatment for the virus.
Health experts immediately warned that sunlight was not a “miracle cure” for COVID-19 and that people should not try to treat it by tanning – especially given the risks of developing skin cancer.
On Friday, China announced it donated a further $US30 million ($47 million) to the World Health Organisation following Donald Trump’s decision to halt funding, amid concerns the UN agency is too “China-centric”.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the extra funds would help the WHO contain the virus and support developing countries in improving their public health systems.
“At this critical moment, support for WHO helps to strengthen multilateralism and the UN,” Shuang said.
via Coronavirus: Trump reveals Homeland study claiming COVID-19 struggles to survive in sunlight, heat
This is the Canary in the coalmine. The Canary protests before it dies too. These are Trump’s expendables protesting the failure of Trump’s People’s Bailout measures which actually favour the major Corporate controlled Industries Oil, Airlines and Hotels. The $500 billion shouldn’t just be a temporary measure and trickle down to insufficiently placate the needy but like universal health should be a sign that a Universal Basic Income is necessary. (ODT)
While supporters of the protests are a distinct minority, that might not last. The longer the lockouts last without a mass bailout for workers, the more ordinary people will be inclined to side with the protesters. Progressives and democratic socialists need to make the case that there’s a third alternative to business-as-usual centrists running the states Trump wants to “liberate” and the cynical demagogues who want to feed low-income workers to the capitalist death machine by prematurely ending the lockouts. Fortunately, the two can be separated by means of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) combined with a complete rent freeze that made sure no one had to pay back rent when they returned to work.
With a UBI-plus-rent-freeze, even truly essential workers would have the financial security to refuse to go back to any workplace that hadn’t been certified by representatives of the workers themselves as sufficiently safe. They could fall back on their UBI payments until this demand had been met. And with everyone getting an unconditional monthly check, public and private employers would have to provide those workers with decent pay and conditions to make sure that workers continued to show up to perform these essential functions.
The pandemic can be an opportunity for the Left if we’re prepared to fight for bold measures. But the anti-lockdown protests should serve as a warning that much more sinister forces will flourish if we do not.
The Corona virus certainly doesn’t understand discrimination, but oppressive social and political structures governed by caste biases certainly add on to the multiple vulnerabilities of the marginalized communities in India. Caste is allotted at birth, it defines the role of a Hindu at birth, defining their social position irrespective of their acquired economic status. Caste is rigid to the extent that it can never be changed, even if a Hindu choses to convert to Islam or Christianity or any other religion, the Caste identity remains. Be it in choosing life partners, jobs or now in dealing with a global ‘pandemic’, where we cannot even spare the First Citizen of our country, Caste discrimination and atrocities seem like they are here to stay, irrespective of Corona.
The problem no addressed here is the involvement and irresponsible incitement by Murdoch Media to incite back to work demonstrations in the English speaking world. The demand to go back to the normal rather than progress to a very different economy. The talk of 28 years of GDP growth doesn’t begin to address the increasing income and wealth gap that helped generate it and the public austerity measures that accompanied it leaving us ill-equipped to deal with emergencies we face. Yes, Australia has fared better but I’d suggest it’s more a sake of good fortune than intent. We have always been some years behind first following the British and now the Americans last in line but nevertheless over that cliff. We aren’t our own masters we do have a level of solidarity but when the Oligarchs, LNP IPA and News Corp hold the wealth and power and are now assisted by the ALP what chance is there of a progressive peoples bailout and not just a corporate one in the future? (ODT)
Morrison government setting itself for an aggressive pro-business plan for our post-pandemic economy. Specifically, that means tax breaks for businesses and even a big swing at industrial relations. It’s the road that leads to lower wages, worse conditions and limited tax revenue. And while some of that might end up being an economic necessity, if that’s not done perfectly, it’s a road of austerity and increasing inequality that has proven so destructive elsewhere.
Obviously, all that will depend on the detail. But we should take this chance to heed the warning from those nations that are presently unravelling. Sacrifice a basic level of equality for economic growth and you risk social and political fracture. There will be much we can’t afford after this, but one of them is losing the threads of social solidarity we still have left, because we’ll need them desperately when the next crisis hits.
via Coronavirus Australia: The US and UK response should make us heed warnings about COVID-19
He made the following observation about political staffers:
Over the last 30 years politicians’ staff has increased dramatically. At federal level there are now some 17 hundred personal staff to ministers and members. The states probably account for over two thousand more. Add to this the direct political infiltration of federal-state public services and quangos with hundreds more jobs for the boys and girls, there is now a well-established political class.
This has provided the political parties with a career path for members. In many cases it often produces skilled, partisan, “whatever it takes” warriors with a richly rewarded life through local state and federal governments to a well-funded retirement. Unfortunately while this career path, as Tony Fitzgerald states, does include principled well-motivated people … it also attracts professional politicians with little or no general life experience and unscrupulous opportunists, unburdened by ethics, who obsessively pursue power, money or both.
Exhibit A: Alex Hawke; Exhibit B: James Patterson; Exhibit C: Tim Wilson, Exhibit D: James McGrath.
In the name of “Ensuring Integrity”, either political staffers should be accountable to parliament and the law, or the Minister who employs them should take responsibility. The Sergeant Shultz defence is not credible.
via The unaccountable Ministers’ advisers – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Who was dutifully promoting and playin wingman to this bullshit none other than Andrew Bolt (ODT)
After my essential journey to the supermarket to buy chocolate, I couldn’t help noticing the front page headline on “The Australian” which blared:
TEACHERS DEFYING VIRUS SCIENCE
Quite a neat trick rely, I thought. How does one “defy” science? Is it like defying gravity? Or is it like defying your boss and announcing that there’s no way you’re going to perform that task without the correct safety equipment?
No, what I find amazing is the sheer hypocrisy of a newspaper that can switch from an “everyone has a right to an opinion and scientists have been wrong in the past” position to a “you don’t have the right to question because you’ve been told by the PM so shut up and do what you’re told” stance.
And, of course, this completely overlooks the fact that teachers are doing what they’re told. In some states, teacher unions are pushing to ensure safety, but to the best of my knowledge none have suggested teachers refusing to attend school. Except for private schools, it’s state governments who’ve made the decisions about schools, not the teachers themselves.
Still, Rupert’s editors have never let the truth get in the way of the story.
Trump or Fox News won’t be reporting this or the fact the Chinese have provided assistance, (ODT)
Murdoch Media the voice of Trump have shut up promoting Chloroquine
After aggressively promoting an anti-malaria drug as a “miracle” in the fight against COVID-19—a push that flew in the face of repeated warnings from experts—President Donald Trump and Fox News personalities suddenly appear to be cooling on hydroxychloroquine just as a new study reports the drug could lead to a higher death rate.
via Trump and Fox News Are Suddenly Silent on Their “Miracle” Drug Hydroxychloroquine – Mother Jones
Ordinary folks can make bad decisions in extraordinary times. But there are those who should know better who don’t do better
Despite 60+ years of blockade by America Cuba’s health system runs rings over Americas.
They called it internationalism and said it was their revolutionary duty to repay their debt to society. They quoted Che Guevara: “The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.”
via We Should Applaud the Cuban Health System — and Learn From It
Australians are social distancers by design. Londoners, NewYorkers, don’t have that luxury. However, it doesn’t mean we can stop social distancing until we have sufficient testing and quarantine stations available. The problem is exacerbated with the flu season coming on. However, Murdoch Media insists it’s time to lift bans and get back to work their generalising of that call offer no specifics or how a global economy can be stopped from crashing. Their call for a drop in bans and self-reliance is not only counter to expert advice but grossly irresponsible. (ODT)
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Sensationalism has focused on fistfights over toilet rolls, but the real story is the withdrawal of democratic oversight, and how little public resistance there is to the declaration of martial law. Power granted is power conceded; and power relinquished is power reclaimed with difficulty. John Keane reports.
via Democracy and the Great Pestilence: understanding the mess we’re in – Michael West
While China provides Foreign Aid for 89 nations during this global pandemic Trump is weaponising Covid-19 against nations whose resources he wants or for some domestic political gain. Meanwhile, families suffer and die. Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Syrian Libya etc
Intensifying Sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, Trump Is Weaponizing Coronavirus | The Smirking Chimp
The massive oil price crash we’ve seen this week is an opportunity for governments to do what we have long needed to do: keep the remaining fossil fuels in the ground and invest in a Green New Deal to save the planet and stimulate the economy.
via The Oil Industry Is Dying Right Now. Don’t Resuscitate It.
Fact or fiction it’s of no matter to Trump and GOP it will be the center of their 2020 campaign because Covid -19 is bringing the US down and it can’t on any front be seen as Trump’s fault Sinophobia is their weapon of choice. (ODT)
The New Anti-China Campaign Is Built On Lies – The Greanville Post
My thought for the day
This Government’s performance over its time in office has been like a daily shower of offensiveness raining down on society.
Surely performance or lack of it must mean something.
The Shovel
Should — the gods and statistics forbid — Trump win reelection this November, we’ll have a real-life example of a system that is locally unstable, but globally horribly stable for the next four years. In his case, of course, we’re talking about how a “very stable genius” will be able to spin the chaos he creates into an ever more authoritarian regime.
She won’t be blackmailed or Shanghaied by the GOP political weaponising of COVID-19
via Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says She’ll Vote Against Stimulus Bill Without Changes | HuffPost Australia
EU is what the USA isn’t (ODT)
It was a Cold War against the USSR, Afghanistan,Liya,Iraq,Syria Cuba Venezuela and now the same propaganda is being applied to China all for political advantage and power.(ODT)
In February, the Trump regime “designated five Chinese media entities in the US as ‘foreign missions’ and imposed a cap on the number of their employees, in effect expelling Chinese journalists from the US.”
Beijing imposed “reciprocal measures” on US correspondents because of “unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the US” — what the Times and other establishment media failed to explain, including the following Chinese Foreign Ministry remark:
“What we reject is ideological bias against China, fake news made in the name of press freedom, and breaches of ethics in journalism.”
“Should the US choose to go further down the wrong path, it could expect more countermeasures from China.”
US fake news about China and other sovereign independent countries on its target list for regime change is longstanding.
A WaPo editorial last week falsely accused China of spreading COVID-19 globally, along with “cover(ing) up the truth as the virus spread (sic).”
A WSJ report was similar, quoting Senator Rick Scott, calling for a congressional investigation into the alleged WHO’s “role in helping Communist China cover up information regarding the threat of the coronavirus.”
Over the weekend, Trump warned of “consequences” if China was “knowingly responsible” for spreading COVID-19, adding:
“It could have been stopped in China before it started and it wasn’t, and the whole world is suffering because of it (sic).”
His weekend and earlier remarks were all about falsely shifting blame to China for his own failings and malfeasance.
via COVID-19: A Diabolical US Anti-China Plot? – Stephen Lendman
olddogthoughts 
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