What would your reaction be if scientists were suddenly to
come out with the recommendation that we need to encourage the spread of the
COVID-19 virus by concentrating human populations in extremely tight quarters while
allowing them minimum sanitation facilities in order to incubate the disease. You’d
most likely speculate they’d been recruited by the present administration as
publicists.
In fact that misguidedness is exactly what we confront in
the United States and in other parts of the world as well, namely the
concentration of humans that allows the wildfire spread of a disease that
affects certain at risk populations severely and at times fatally. In the U.S.
we are talking about the most obvious: prisons, jails, detention centers,
homeless encampments and shelters and homes for the aged.
Abroad, we are talking about places like Gaza which has the
most concentrated human population in the world, the West Bank, and countries like
Iran and Venezuela on the U.S. economic war sanctions wish list, and Yemen, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, and a number of others on the Pentagon wish list
of countries convulsed by shooting war. And there’s the White House revenge
list which among others includes Italy whose population is fairly concentrated,
and extended-family oriented.
The U.S. has the
highest percentage of incarcerated people in the world.
•Prisons
and Jails: (“Elected Prosecutors Call for Dramatic Reduction in Prison
Populations”) There are 2.2 million people locked up in American jails, and 11
million go through prison or jail gates every single year as a result of more
people being prosecuted for minor offenses. Many of these people are there
because they cannot afford bail. Already prisoners or guards have tested
positive in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington, forcing inmate
quarantines. Social distancing is not possible in American jails where many are
double, triple and multiple bunked. This is catastrophe waiting to happen. Some
elected
officials, even prosecutors
remind us of that. Punishment may not be such a good idea.
•Immigrant
Detention: (“Because Anne Frank Did not Die in a Gas Chamber, Jewish
Activists Cite Disease in Nazi Death Camps in Call to Free Detained Immigrants”)
As the N.Y. Subway ad read: You don’t have to be Jewish to like rye bread, and
you don’t have to be Jewish to see the obvious: there are 52,000 undocumented
immigrants detained in ICE jails. Concentration camps run by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) threaten to become de-facto death camps for all their
inmates, many of them children, and pregnant mothers. In New Jersey, detainees
staged a hunger strike for soap. Activists are surrounding Governor’s
residences in California and that immigrant jail in New Jersey demanding
immigrants’ release. Fanatic, racist-based border control may bite Americans in
the butt while they’re scrambling for the last roll of TP.
•Homeless
shelters and homeless encampments: (“Governments Say Stay at Home, but
thousands don’t have a home”) Fear of contagion would not apply if as a society,
we had understood that the human biome knows no borders. We are all one flesh.
Literally. Fear of contagion would not apply if we still enjoyed a family
structure that took care of its aged as it still manages to do of its infants.
There are some bright lights:
In LA, Justice LA managed to get hundreds of people released
from LA jails. In Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine ordered a shut down well ahead of all
other states. In New York and California Governors Cuomo and Newsome
respectively are marshaling resources, negotiating directly with private
companies to plug gaps in medical supply chains, ordering creation of
additional hospital spaces, and housing the homeless in SROs and trailers. Read
State Governments Step in as Trump Makes Lethal Mistakes at https://truthout.org/articles/state-governments-step-in-as-trump-makes-lethal-mistakes-in-covid-19-response/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=a7cd6c1a-f174-4d2f-901b-375479054f94.
Designing our wars to
kill others might kill us instead
Abroad, President Assad decreed a general amnesty for crimes
committed before March 22, and Iran, with its bloody history of incarcerating
and torturing political prisoners (Read: Ghosts by Shahla Talebi) temporarily freed
all its prisoners, including political prisoners.
U.S. led coalition troops pulled out of a base in Western
Iraq, France has withdrawn all its troops, and thanks to activists, many of
them Physicians for Social Responsibility, Congress passed legislation in both
houses on a War Powers Resolution that requires congressional approval before
Trump can OK further military action against Iran. Citing the folly of war in a time of
contagion, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a Global Ceasefire.
End Yemen war now before
COVID19 strikes at
https://www.change.org/p/stand-with-dr-aisha-jumaan-war-must-stop-now-to-save-yemen-from-pandemic
https://www.change.org/p/stand-with-dr-aisha-jumaan-war-must-stop-now-to-save-yemen-from-pandemic
Demand COVID19 sanctions on
Iran be suspended immediately at
Release Julian Assange from
Belmarsh prison before C-19 spreads at
Stop the asylum ban and deportations at
https://lawg.salsalabs.org/stopdeportations/index.html?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9be78402-d3da-4ca6-a0ae-a5244b2f2b6a
Release incarcerated people
before infection rates rise further at
#EndCOVIDSanctions on Iran at
Protect incarcerated loved
ones at:
Demand Israel release all
Palestinian child detainees mid COVID19 at:
President Assad
decrees general amnesty for crimes committed before March 22.
UN Secretary General
António Guterres calls for a global cease fire.
Eights countries (Russia,
China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela) write to UN
chief demanding lifting of unilateral illegal sanctions which, along with
Zimbabwe, are impeding their efforts to battle pandemic.
London rough sleepers
given hotel rooms.
UK pledges to pay up
to 80% of individuals’ wages during shutdowns.
UK holds mass applause
for NHS staff fighting C19.
Denmark pledges to pay
90% of hourly workers loss of income.
Ireland nationalizes
hospitals for duration of C-19 crisis.
France pulls their
military out of Iraq.
Although French strike
wane, outrage burns bright.
Cuba leads world
in fight against C-19 (practice makes
perfect.)
China joins Cuba
providing international aid.
Germany extends arms
embargo on Saudi Arabia.
Norway workers win
struggle against bosses, refusing to pay for C-19 with layoffs.
Just think: a year of
U.S. nuclear spending could provide 300,000 ICU beds, 35,000 ventilators and
75,000 doctor salaries.
Magic: #45 uses
Defense Production Act to force General Motors to make ventilators—without a
contract.
40,000 N.Y. health
professionals volunteer to join healthcare force.
US-led coalition
transfers second military base to Iraqi forces.
Iran’s army set up
hospital for C19 patients in 48 hours.
San Francisco DA joins
calls to release ICE detainees during pandemic.
JusticeLA gets
hundreds of people release from jails in response to threat of C-19 spread.
Judge urges release of
migrant children after 4 test positive for C-19 in detention.
U.S. District Judge
Dolly Gee in LA issued temporary restraining order requiring administration to
release all minors and unaccompanied minors from detention and from the HHS’s
Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Standing Rock Sioux
tribe wins as federal court rules DAPL permits violated law.
Conflict brewing in
N.Y.C. over lawyers’ committee grand jury petition to hear evidence of federal
crimes involving the use of explosive and incendiaries at the World Trade
Center on 9/11.
N.Y.C. plans city-wide
clap for essential workers.
Activists force
minimal amendment giving assistance and access qualifying 140 million poor folk
for health care, paid leave, and living wages.
Scientists said to
discover property of coronavirus that will make a long-term vaccine possible,
but not necessarily affordable.
In face of federal
vacuum and #45 blunders, some state governments respond to C-19.
Seattle NPR station
announces no more airing of #45 press briefings.
House and Senate pass
War Powers Resolution enjoining #45 to seek Congressional OK for any further
military action against Iran.
PEN’s lawsuit against
#45 in the defense of journalism can proceed.
New “stimulus package”
(highway robbery) would enjoin #45 or his offspring from lapping up any of that
bailout money, if Mnuchin agrees.
Writing for Popular
Resistance, Michael Hudson suggests a debt jubilee is the only way to avoid
world depression.
Pitzer College
students call for university divestment from BlackRock.
Microsoft divests from
Israeli facial- recognition startup.
In Pennsylvania
township Rights of Nature law forces revocation of fracking permit.
S.F. Gate publishes 23
pieces of good news about COVID19 but blocks reading about it.
Detroit bus drivers
win protections against virus through strike.
Boston school bus drivers
win emergency full pay during school closure.
Strikes and protests spread
as U.S. workers demand protection from C-19.
Colorado repeals death
penalty.
Before selling out, Sanders
fought for worker protections in gonzo $2 trillion “stimulus” (highway robbery)
package.
Parents of son who died of
cancer open their restaurant to School kids who depend on school for food.
Worker strikes over concern
about spread of C-19 reported: Fiat Chrysler Windsor Assembly Plant; Pittsburgh
garbage collectors; Chipotle employees; Perdue university workers, and Whole
Foods.
And here's to the spring we're missing while we stay at home:
Mexican protesters try
blocking Americans from entering Mexico on Arizona border.
Unclogging toilets at $400,00
a pop hits Navy in the pocket.
Old chestnut plane with five
aboard, #45, the Pope, Dr. Fauci, Oprah Winfrey and ten-year-old school girl. Only 4 parachutes aboard. Plane
is about to crash.
Dr. Fauci: "I certainly need
one. I’m on my way to deliver a cure for the global health crisis." He helps
himself and jumps.
Pope: "I need one, too. I have
to guide the flock through the pandemic." He helps himself and jumps.
#45 says: "Gimme. I have to
have one because I am the smartest man in
the universe." He helps himself and jumps.
Oprah turns to the
ten-year-old: “Take the last one, dear. I’ve had a life, yours hasn’t even
started.”
Says ten-year-old: “No
worries. There are 2 chutes left. The smartest man in the universe took my
backpack.”
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