WHY BAILOUT THE POLLUTERS WHEN YOU CAN BAIL OUT THE PLANET?

(The newsletter has a different look this week.  Here’s why:)

Of course our leaders want to “re-start” the economy.  As fast as possible please, and damn the torpedoes and all those death statistics. It’s back to work or starve. Because they want to obscure as fast as possible and as much as possible the marvelous changes such as clear skies and the end of oil COVID has wrought. And they’re hoping we won‘t notice. They don’t want to risk giving us any more time to contemplate what We the People might see while we observe social distancing and twiddle our thumbs:

We might see that it’s the most poorly paid workers, many of them immigrants, who are the ones really underpinning the essential economy.

We might see children, claiming they would prefer never eating meat again, advocating for parents working at Smithfield being forced back to work without proper protection.

We might realize that healthcare, specifically Medicare for all, not tied to wage earning is a non-negotiable demand.

We might notice that the guaranteed minimum wage could have the power to restore dignity to the enslaved and hopeless.

We might see the potential in towns and even businesses printing their own currencies.

We might come to see that HR 6666 (aptly numbered?) might lead to a totalitarian state.

We might notice that 29 House Democrats are demanding cuts to the Pentagon budget in favor of budgeting more for virus testing;

We might realize that criminalizing the giving of free food to those in need is no alternative to mutual aid.

We might consider taking up bike riding as both recreation  and a valuable means of transport;

We might begin to realize that by decommodifying work, it might democratize the workplace;

We might realize that culling millions of livestock is no alternative for ending animal agriculture,

We might notice that sparing degradation to the environment by repairing and reusing gadgets and used tech has made a comeback.

We might appreciate car-free roadways with amble room for pedestrian social distancing;

We might notice all the extraordinary happenings world-wide reported by  Avaaz:

            A 100-year-old Britton walking back and forth in his own garden to raise 32 million  pounds to support the UK health scheme;

            Portugal extending full citizenship to refugees and migrants, guaranteeing them access to free healthcare, welfare benefits, bank accounts, and rental contracts;

            Neighbors in Naples leaving solidarity basket on street corners reading: “put ii in if you can, take it out if you need;

            A Syrian refugee volunteering to work as a hospital cleaner, joining 750,000 other Britons volunteering;

            More than 200 Cuban doctors on their way to South Africa leaving their families behind to risk their lives fighting the virus;

            Or thousands of researchers across the entire globe collaborating to identify an  effective vaccine against the virus;

            Or Avaaz volunteers sending the Maasai of Nashulai in Kenya funding for food, health and sanitation in response to their urgent cry;

            Or formerly enemy rival gangs in Cape Town agreeing to a truce in order to bring food to struggling households;

            Or nurses world-over passing out from exhaustion, risking their own lives to nurse others;

            Or restaurants, like the one in Bangalore, feeding more than 10,000 vulnerable people every day;

We might begin to realize that, with a disproportionate number of  black folks falling victim to the virus, their vulnerability more than ever makes the case for reparations;

We might get it at last that prisons and detention centers are no way to treat people, or “rehabilitate” them.

We might notice that megacorporations like Coca-Cola, Carlsberg beer, Danone yogurt  announced they’d be switching to plant-based materials manufactured by Avantium, for biodegradable bottling, bypassing fossil fuels entirely, and avoiding environmental degradation.

We might realize that the world-wide lockdown is providing a huge break for nature:

            Clear skies,

            Crystal-clear water,  

            Unterrified, emboldened birds, animals, and even cetaceans.

            Improved air quality.

            Slowing of arctic melt.

            Repair of the ozone layer,

            Cooler temperatures.

We might come to realize that left to itself, nature can repair itself in less than three months! something that what no human interventions, national governments, or world-wide bodies could accomplish, let alone address, in decades.

Now that Coronavirus has triggered a 17% emissions drop worldwide, experts are pointing to the fundamental structural changes that will have to be emplaced if we are save our future and that of all humanity, including those still unborn, on this Earth.

Will we “get it” in time? And can the military, the corporations, the elites, and governments worldwide, change their business-as-usual ways as already We the People are learning to do?

TAKING STOCK, STOCKING UP

This week for the first time, one of the internet newsletters I read regularly brought up population control with this headline: #45 Nazification of the GOP is why there’s serious discussion of killing off the ‘unfit.’ I consider this a significant event because it’s the first time I read such a headline on a relatively trusted, mainstream internet site. But by no means is it a subject that has not appeared elsewhere, and particularly in the context of the pandemic now upon us, which, in a number of ways, reminds me of 9/11 in that it raises the uneasy question: did “they” know and let it happen because it fit the Project for the New American Century agenda (no link: it’s been scrubbed from the internet), or did “they” take an active part in making it happen?  (or a little of both).

Propagandized TP caddy

The American public is being relentlessly propagandized by the media to imagine that China did it. China is being groomed by the current government as the new and convenient enemy because American tradition just can’t seem to kick its waraholism.  That this corona virus may have been bioengineered or not, although two authorites, Francis Boyle, an American human rights lawyer and drafter of the Bioweapons Act and Dr. Luc Montagnier, sequencer of the AIDs virus (along with Dr. Gallo) give reasons why they think it has been, the question deflects a more important one.

The even bigger picture has to do with Agenda ID2020 brought to you last year at Davos by the rich and infamous who pull the global strings. For the stalwart of heart, read about The Big Roll here. And for an article putting the longer view in deeper perspective go here.

Meantime, the reported U.S. mortality rate continues to climb, U.S. federal, and state prisons, local jails, and ICE continue to keep incarcerated people under lock and key, denying them masks, soap. social distancing, etc. and ICE continues a policy of deportations to Central America in particular, insuring the spread of disease south of the border. And although frequent hand washing with soap ranks high in preventive hygiene, nationwide many local communities (not just Flint) including homeless communities lack clean water.

So-called “essential” workers continue not to receive hazard pay, to be denied hygienic protection, fired for speaking up, and generally viewed as expendable. Begging the question: if they are so essential why are they expendable? and if they are so expendable, what makes them especially essential? Why are doctors performing unapproved procedures being threatened with prison when some of these procedures address emergency conditions? And why are hospitals being paid to inflate mortality numbers? And who is paying them ?

To allege that response to this pandemic continues to be toweringly mismanaged by the United States is an understatement.  Does such apparent bungling support an ID2020 agenda?  Although that assumption might be ascribing entirely too much intelligence to this particular government, to the elites of Davos, the Rich and Infamous, population control, and economic and monetary manipulation is entirely thinkable. And, more to the point, it’s plannable. And that perhaps is where archetypic Evil rears its head.

Two problems bedevil most Americans. They seem incapable of imagining, let alone actively confronting the purely Criminal. Evil is a term so frequently used it seems to have lost all meaning.  Its proper place is on the level of philosophical discourse, particularly in the context of Ethics, and it implies that nothing can be done about it. When they debase the word Evil, what most people mean is Criminal, because they are talking (or writing) on the level of Civics and they are evading responsibility. Civics is the theater where action becomes possible.

The second problem most Americans might want to confront is their Romance With Toilet paper. I monitor my local neighborhood (some 17,000 households) on “Nextdoor.” When the pandemic began to break, the site carried hundreds of frantic posts about America’s Big Romance: Where was it?  Who had it? Where was it to be found? I myself entered a grocery not too long ago to see one shelf labeled “only one to a customer”—and the shelf was bare. I began to suspect that when push came to shove most Americans were scared shitless of taking action.

As a National Shibboleth toilet paper deeply troubled my sense of priorities. I began to imagine TP might substitute for Liberty’s torch. That’s where a bit of foreign travel could act as a Cultural Correction. Many cultures do not use toilet paper. Cultures as disparate as those of North Africa, or Cuba which use water spigots. Or Japan which makes use of unabashed fanny shpritzers. Or Europe which once used newspaper. (The Big Advantage there was that you couldn’t read any headlines imprinted where the sun never shines.)

What would their Great Country look like, I wondered, if Americans went cold turkey on their Big Romance? This may appear not to be such a trivial question after all. In the March/April 2020 issue of Sierra Magazine, on page 40, “Slash & Burn” describes how across the West the Bureau of Land Mismanagement is clearing vast swaths of piñon and juniper forests. Deliberately destroying the lungs that let the planet breathe. The article quotes Chief Johnny Bobb of the Western Shoshone (full disclosure, I am friends with the Chief). Chief Johnny goes on walkabout over the vast Shoshone reserve. He walks to commemorate the disappeared of his people.  He is quoted: “One day you go out, and the forest is gone.  It’s just gone.”

How must that feel?  How must that shatter the soul of a people whose landscape this once was? But is it as the magazine alleges to make room for cows and the meat industry which is one of the great harms to the planet?

Or is it to make toilet paper?

There are better ways. Imagine if 331,000,000 Americans stopped using toilet paper? Whatever was wrong with a simple washcloth, and soap and water. You’d come up smelling roses like never before.

Send a million letters to voters via Daily Kos at  
https://votefwd.org/dailykos?link_id=2&can_id=655968a96e1bce05c463b2f640bf633c&source=email-the-democrats-secret-weapon-ten-million-letters-in-the-mail-2&email_referrer=email_792643&email_subject=donald-trump-is-scared-of-people-voting-join-daily-kos-in-the-big-send

Sign to prevent pony express mail at

https://actionnetwork.org/forms/tell-congress-during-this-pandemic-support-our-public-postal-service?source=direct_link&referrer=group-rethink-trade&link_id=0&can_id=655968a96e1bce05c463b2f640bf633c&email_referrer=email_788199___subject_1061433&email_subject=sign-the-petition-re-us-postal-service

Frontline workers deserve protection at

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-the-petition-become-a-grassroots-co-sponsor-of-an-essential-workers-bill-of-rights?source=20200420_EssentialWorkersCOVID_OCUS&referrer=group-oil-change-us&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fact.oilchangeus.org%2Fcms%2Fthanks%2Fpass-the-essential-workers-bill-of-rights

Unplug water shut offs at

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/sign-now-stop-water-shutoffs-during-covid-19-pandemic-and-restore-water-access-immediately/?source=group-climate-hawks-vote&referrer=group-climate-hawks-vote&redirect=https%3a%2f%2fsecure.actblue.com%2fdonate%2fthankschv%3frefcode%3drtwatermor%26amount%3d4.20%26recurring%3d1&emci=08e3ef66-ef8b-ea11-86e9-00155d03b5dd&emdi=c7dbe79c-7e8c-ea11-86e9-00155d03b5dd&ceid=1604154

Support closure of Indian Point nuke and transition to 100% renewables at 

https://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=27049

Your signature: tell DNC Chair Tom Perez to strip N. Y. State of its convention delegates unless they reinstate the Democratic presidential primary slated to occur later this year at

https://act.berniesanders.com/signup/ny_primary/?source=em200429-1-15&refcode2=7903.4220277.oSRP2J&akid=7903%2E4220277%2EoSRP2J

Shi Zengli provides proof SARS COV-2 was not an accidental release from Wuhan lab.

Lebanese protests return to streets

Virus effectively eliminated in New Zealand following comprehensive approach of Jacinda Ardern’s government.

In Chile teachers reject resuming school year over COVID.

In Brazil’s Javari Valley, evangelist missionaries barred from uncontacted tribes’ land.

Residents in Choloma Honduras, a sweatshop center for U.S. brands, blocked the highway setting fire to tires.

In UK, Oxford University passes resolution banning investment in fossil fuels.

In Cuba policy of not denying anyone assistance during COVID.

Communist Indian State of Kerala shows working class power fighting COVID.

Two weeks after Nova Scotia massacre, Canada bans assault weapons.

Saudi government announces end of flogging and execution of minors forms of punishment.

N. Y. Indian Point Reactor 2 shuts down April 30.

Unit 1 nuclear reactor vessel leaves San Onofre.

Oil market plunge to O a barrel indicative no one is consuming energy at former rates.

Developers put Ohio plastics plant on indefinite hold citing pandemic.

In huge internet win, ICANN announces sale to a private equity firm

of the .org domain has been blocked.

FCC ordered to release data from fake net neutrality comments.

American University announces full financial divestment from fossil fuel stocks.

New Cascadilla solar farm powers 20% Cornell U’s annual electricity usage.

Two Pennsylvania colleges hit carbon neutrality goals.

In big PSR win, lawsuit overturns EPA limit on scientific Advisory boards.

Judge Terry Halter orders ICE to begin releasing detainees at California’s Adelanto detention center.

U.S. Judge Dolly Gee rules administration has been violating decades-long court agreements that would  release kids from ICE detention in family jails all across U.S.

Judge orders ICE detainee release from Florida facilities.

Federal judge recommends release of 13 Louisiana ICE detainees amid pandemic.

Strange bedfellows: ICE facility with worst outbreak among detainees hit with another lawsuit, this time from guards.

Democratic primary Ohio voters give boot to sheriff who collaborated with ICE agents.

Doctors demonstrate support for targeted health department director.

Some 400 doctors and 900 health workers sign open letter to administration urging extreme caution rolling out by Proximus of 5 G.

Scientists announce effective COVID treatment drug, experimental remdesivir.

Bernie’s army redeploys to support frontline COVID frontline workers.

As millions striped of healthcare coverage resulting from COVID, House Dems unveil bill for emergency expansion of Medicare and Medicaid.

DeVos sued for garnishing wages during pandemic of nearly 300,000 student loan borrowers.

As COVID shoots US unemployment to great Depression levels, Europe’s worker safety net stems massive layoffs.

Philly unions call for citywide essential worker bill of rights.

Nearly a quarter of businesses requiring employees be on site such as hospitals and grocers are offering extra pay.

Imokalee workers win major COVID victories in Florida.

Undocumented essential workers lead car protests in 9 cities.

On May Day, hardcore anti-Trump leftists along with flag waving patriots occupy N.Y. C. City Hall Park.

Defying #45 order, Nebraska meatpackers strike.

Amazon, Walmart, FedEx workers strike on May Day.

Tech workers join Amazon workers in warehouse protests.

Citing ‘vein of toxicity’ and firing of whistleblowers, Amazon VP resigns in disgust.

“Protect Amazon workers” mural painted outside CEO Bezos’ Home.

Hundreds of tenants, unhoused residents, workers  and families join forces  may Day demanding local, state, and federal representatives use their power to cancel rent, mortgage and utility payments.

Nursing home workers authorize May 8 strike at 40 facilities.

April 25 sees national day of car rent strike protests in 40 cities.

Oregon governor thanks sister province of Fujian China for 50,000 mask donation.

Maine’s darling Susan Collins sinks 4 points under Sara Gideon’s onslaught.

Races in Colorado and New Hampshire have tilted towards Democrat victories.

Clean air over Los Angeles and Berkeley reminds us what blue sky looks like when cars keep off the road.

Native American Alaska tribes win lawsuit laying sole claim to COVID relief money.

Five major banks refuse to fund Arctic Refuge oil drilling.

Under pressure, JP Morgan Chase demotes former Exxon CEO.

Apalachian collective launches it own green stimulus.

Monuments removed as Southern states continue honoring Confederate holidays.

With world on lockdown, 5.5% emissions reduction in carbon dioxide emissions largest yearly change on record.

In environmentally just move, N.Y.C. will open 100 miles of street to pedestrian traffic as social distancing enters warmer months.

Growing COVID cases in Wisconsin fuel national demands for vote-by-mail.

Bayer shareholder meeting draws protests, and pleas from cancer patients who want Bayer to make amends for the crimes of Monsanto which Bayer bought two years ago.

Senator Feinstein (who dumped stock pre-Covid) responding to your message:

Dear Miss Pineda,

Thank you for contacting me regarding the financial holdings of Members of Congress… and I welcome the responsibility to respond….Like you, I strongly oppose insider trading etc. etc. etc.

Israel may ask for double its usual $3.8 billion from the U.S. this year.

Effective in reopening the economy: Bleach Waterboarding brought to you by Dick Cheney and President Ubu.

Dumping Humpty Dumpty

With his kind permission this week the Newsletter is publishing Harvey Wasserman‘s take on what it will take, with everyone of us applying our collective shoulders to the grindstone to ensure the future of this country in November,

Please think carefully and take his suggestions to heart:

HOW YOU CAN DUMP TRUMP

(Originally Published In Buzzflash).

By Harvey Wasserman

Grassroots action’s immense upset victory in Wisconsin shows we can overcome even a rigged election.

In November, you must do it again.   

When Trump tries to steal or cancel the election, our informed non-violence must rise to protect and win it. 

Neither the human race, nor American democracy, nor the US economy will survive more of this. Our further existence as a species depends on you.  

Much of the upcoming election will be through Vote by Mail (VBM).  Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Hawaii already use it with great success.  

VBM is probably (as Winston Churchill said of democracy) the worst election system there is…except for all the other ones. 

Huge problems are virtually certain.  We need to be prepared to deal with them.

Congress has approved just 1/10th of the $4 billion the Brennan Center says is needed to do VBM right.  Senators Amy Klobuchar and Jeff Merkely have proposed a bill asking for the money.  It needs our support, as well as some serious thought about alternatives.  

Sufficient voting centers need to be maintained to offset the inevitable VBM shortcomings, as Greg Palast has detailed.

The presidency will be won in the Electoral College.  So every state needs a coalition dedicated to contesting every detail of the stripped voter rolls and flipped vote counts we know are coming.  (The Democratic Party can’t be counted on to get this done).

Gerrymandered GOP legislatures consider any ballot cast by someone who is not rich, white, old or Republican to be “voter fraud.”  Your finding (or founding) a local voting rights group to fight back is crucial. Progressive Democrats of America is among them.   

Here are other ways to have a direct impact: 

 X Greg Palast says at least 17 million citizens have been stripped from the voter rolls.  That means you, your kin, someone you know or someone you (hopefully) will call or canvass needs help getting and casting a ballot.

X Do not assume you’re registered just because you’ve lived and voted in the same place for decades.  Everyone must check the voter rolls.  

 X Make sure you get your ballot.  Absentee paper ballots are technically available in all states.  But gerrymandered legislatures don’t want you or anyone like you to get one.

 X So start fighting now!  Anyone who fails to get a ballot in advance may spend many hours in an election day line amidst the pandemic threat, only to have a “provisional” vote pitched in the trash.  

X Help your pro-democracy family, friends, neighbors or those you choose to canvass to get their early ballots…then help get them walked or mailed in. 

X Forget the opinion polls!  Take no chances, make no assumptions.  This work must be done.  

X The Electoral College will swing the presidency in 12 states:  Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Iowa.  

X If you live in none of those states, you can canvass by phone or go there in person.

X West Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Montana and Kentucky could also be in play. 

X All 33 Senate races this year are critical, but especially in Colorado, Montana, Maine (Susan Collins), North Carolina, South Carolina (Lindsay Graham), Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky (Mitch McConnell). 

X As a local poll worker you can help guard against the sabotage we know is coming.  .

X As a local poll worker, you can stay late to guard the vote count. 

X No candidate should concede until every vote is fairly counted and recounted, whatever the apparent initial outcome.  

Two additional points (among the many to be made):

X  Trump’s attack on the US Postal Service means to enrich his billionaire cronies, destroy the unions representing its 700,000 workers, and cripple Vote by Mail.  The USPS is a treasured American institution (dating back to Benjamin Franklin) and must be preserved. 

 X  Legislatures in WI, MI, OH, PA etc. are GOP-weaponized despite statewide Democrat majorities because of gerrymandering done in 2010.  They must be uprooted.  By popular referenda, California won the fight for a fair, functional transparent non-partisan redistricting commission.  Several Wisconsin counties endorsed this vital process last week with 4 to 1 majorities. Such commissions are essential to end the gerrymandering that’s destroying us.  

We have just 6.5 months to save our species.  

Every possible outrage, corporate dollar and dictatorial dirty trick is already being thrown at us.  

It will take the biggest, best-coordinated local-state-national grassroots movement in history to dump the Trump Dictatorship.

You can make the difference.  

There are no excuses. 

Harvey Wasserman’s People’s Spiral of US History is at www.solartopia.org, along with Solartopia!  Our Green-Powered Earth. His Green Power & Wellness Show is podcast at prn.fm; California Solartopia is broadcast at KPFK/Pacifica 90.7 FM Los Angeles.  

Please contact Harvey at solartopia@gmail.com to sign up to dump Trump.  

Solar-powered barges sitting at the mouths of rivers and invented by a Dutch teenager, scoop up to 50 tons of plastic per day.

International Coalition of public health advocates denounces any Big Pharma effort to profiteer of C-19 treatments, vaccines.

France and Germany join ten other EU countries in call for Green recovery.

Milan’s plan to limit cars after C-19 lockdown  lauded as example of #buildbackbetter.

Michael Gorbachev says C-19 pandemic shows that governments that think of security in mostly military terms are wasting money.

Major victory against nuclear: at EBCE (East Bay Community Energy) meeting, board decides not to accept an allocation of nuclear energy.

Citigroup releases updated energy policy that rules out financing for oil and gas exploration and development in the Arctic.

Democrats urged to end shilly shallying and fight like hell for C-19 relief that puts people first.

Citing “utter inability to discharge duties of his office,” MoveOn demands Humpty Dumpty’s removal under 25^th Amendment.

Activists deliver body bags to Trump properties.

AOC takes lonely stand against unconscionable C-19 relief that doesn’t address help for those who hurt the most.

  

As oil prices fall below $0 a barrel, climate advocates urge against fossil fuel industry bailout.

Federal court invalidates key permit for Keystone XL.

In the deliberate absence of labor reporting in the U.S. press, the number of strikes nationwide is going unreported.

Color of Change announces people incarcerated in federal prisons have been granted free phone calls during the pandemic.

SURJ reports thanks to activists, people are being released from jails, prisons and detention centers across the country.

Three “races” have shifted away from red to blue in Colorado, New Hampshire and Maine.

Healthcare workers stand in street to block right-wing protests against Colorado stay-at-home order.

Economist Ellen Brown, writing for Popular Resistance claims universal basic income is essential and will work.

General strike campaign growing in the U.S. set to focus on May Day.

Unions back U.S. Postal service’s $75 billion  pandemic appeal.

New York tenants plan  massive wave of rent strikes.

Largest strike yet as Amazon workers call in sick.

United Farmworkers win two weeks’ extended pay for California farm workers who are ordered to self-quarantine by a medical professional

Nurses protest at White House for mass production of PPE for health care workers.

Immigrant meatpackers fight back against intimidation and death threats.

HIV prison activists lead freedom movement.

Pandemic turns people back to local farms.

Burger chain Shake Shack returns $10 million “stimulus” loan  intended for small business relief.

No more milk dumping as Wisconsin farms give milk to people in need.

Flint prosecutors say investigation on track despite earlier statue of limitations warning.

Pandemic offers opportunity for major economic and societal changes.

Baltimore car caravan demands immediate release of prisoners during C-19 crisis.

The Perfect Trifecta Teaches Vital Lessons

Why is this flu unlike any other flu? That was the Passover-resonating question one writer recently raised. The pandemic in which we find ourselves has some aspects worth separating out if we are to reach some kind of clarity: a braid of the medical, the political, and the wildly successful media- and government-engineered psy-ops, or the psychological dimension of fear, which has most people grounded, frightened, and paralyzed into political inaction.

This flu may be different because its remediation is still under discussion, although from what we have learned from Cuba starting in 1959, where bio warfare introduced dengue fever, it appears that Heberon , or Interferon Alfa 2b, a therapeutic manufactured in Cuba, not a vaccine, has been used to statistically good effect.

From my wide readings, from what world authority epidemiologists are saying, the U.S. approach is the wrong one. To lick a virus, global immunity is the goal. Children ought to be kept in school, because they are the least susceptible to it. The so-called curve may be flattened in order to spare a woefully inadequate oxymoronic U.S.  healthcare system, but that strategy will most likely lengthen it, assuring a second wave of infection, if we are to judge from the three waves of the 1918 pandemic, and that is exactly what we can expect.

What’s playing out in the theater of U.S. administrative politics during this time?  Power is being swiftly consolidated.  Huge bribes are embedded in so-called “stimulus” packages (I am reminded of ants stroking the backs of aphids). These are bribes to various corporations and financial sectors which, through the good offices of “Citizens Disunited” have the leverage to sway the next election. Vote-by-mail is the only avenue assuring democracy in any shape or form during a pandemic. The postal service is being deliberately starved. President Ubu’s announcement that the office of the President supercedes all other imperatives and that he’s planning to adjourn Congress to ram his political appointments through is not to be taken lightly. Nor is the criminalization of dissent  and the divide-and- conquer attempt to deny medicare to the disabled anything but a sign of things to come.

But what really needs to be carefully examined is the psychological manipulation that has society paralyzed.  That is not the virus.  That is fear, and fear that has been very deliberately engineered to keep us safely in our place. Social separation ipso facto denies our right of assembly, and our duty to sue the government for grievance. It may spare a catastrophically underprepared medical system, yes, but it must be weighed against the cost of totalitarian government, and the lifelong installation of President Ubu, the Lord of Misrule, in a permanent Saturnalia. 

Saturn teaching his children how to walk: La Habana, Bellas Artes

If we intend to prevent eternal Saturnalia, we must vote, and risk our lives to vote.  If the vote is denied us, we must drop all pretense at pretense, and hit the streets en masse.

This week produced some good news from Wisconsin: It’s not the first time by any means people have upheld the vote by risking their lives.  Ask any black person in the South, or any one who went South to register voters during the Mississippi summer. An Ubu dictatorship can be defeated, but voters may have to risk their lives to do it.

Manipulators Are Not Your Friends

Fear is as powerful a force as the tides or as an earthquake. It can accomplish what no other force can.  For example: if our societal manipulators had marshaled fear to force us to recognize what a threat to the planet the entire nuclear industry really is, we would have shut down all reactors, and ceased producing plutonium pits or silo-ing nuclear bombs long ago; if our manipulators had brought fear to bear to reveal to us now devastating climate collapse would be to our present and all future generations, we would have kicked the fossil fuel habit decades ago. A discussion of why they didn’t might point to the very obvious: they didn’t BECAUSE IT WASN’T PROFITABLE TO THEM. Societal manipulators are quite happy to socialize our lives, as long as the lives they privatize are their own.

As the planet continues its death spiral, we can expect many more pandemics, far more severe than COVID-19 can ever be because the melting arctic and antarctic ice will release many pathogens which have not plagued this planet for millennia.  And if we tend not to thrive as a species burrowed down like rats, it may be that we will seize this magnificent opportunity to LEARN LESSONS we desperately need to learn.

A LOCAL ROSE:

My new book comes out officially November 15 From U. Georgia Press. It maps a part of my life work against an immigrant background that denied my authentic roots.

PLEASE MAKE TIME TO call your Congress person.

The number toll free is 866-220-0044. (In NorCal Feinstein, 415-393-0707, Harris, 415 981-9369, Lee in Oakland, 510-763-0370, and  Pelosi in SF, 415-556-4862.)

Emphasize your deep concern about three issues:

Do not eliminate the payroll tax deduction.  Protect social security.

Guarantee the vote by protecting our postal services. Provide the needed funding so it can continue serving the public.

Automatically fund  $1200 to SSI, VA, and other low-income beneficiaries so they

can receive their C-19 bribery without needing to file a tax return.

PLEASE DO NOT DELAY

READ  https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/letter-new-left-biden/

READ  https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/05/covid19-death-figures-a-substantial-over-estimate/

READ Coronavirus Death Predictions Bring New Meaning to Hysteria by Charles Rotter at Wattsupwiththat.com

VIEW the Corbett Report at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1trzdmwR2M&feature=youtu.be

As coronavirus spreads, IMF cancels 6 months debt for poorest countries.

Spain moves to establish permanent basic income.

In times of pandemic, peasants of Eldorado de las Carajás  are united to feed the people.

In Brazil, landless workers challenge unequal land distribution and corporate agribusiness.

From AIDS, Dengue and Ebola, Cuba offers palliative for corona: Heberon, or Interferon Alpha-b-2.

As coronavirus sickens growing members of Saudi royals, rulers of Kingdom call off assault on Yemen.

Colombians rejects role as U.S. client state.

In UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria, anti-5G movement prompts vandalism against mobile masts. 

Outrage forces USAA to reverse course, guaranteeing it will not seize coronavirus payment from Vets.

Navy considers reinstating falsely fired Capt. Crozier to his command aboard SS Theodore Roosevelt.

Even  Republicans support $2,000 a month payments during coronavirus crisis.

Enviro groups applaud legislation introduced by Reps. Garcia and Porter to increase oversight of major financial institutions.

Over 30% of US renters didn’t pay April apartment rent.

Tough and angry badger Wisconsin voters defeat Trump agenda.

More than 100 lawmakers demand moratorium of utility shutoffs to ensure access to services ‘essential to survive’ during pandemic.

GE workers protest, demand to make ventilators.

Workers file sex harassment class-action suit against Golden Arches.

As rents soar in Oregon, democratic socialist candidates gain traction with progressive housing agendas.

Virginia Dems enact huge range of voting reforms, including automatic registration.

ICE releases 4 medically vulnerable detainees from Cal facilities following ACLU lawsuit.

Pandemic reason for no March school shooting episodes in US schools.

Michel Che pays rent for everyone in the high rise building his grandmother lived before dying of coronavirus.

 

 

 

 

WE ARE ALL BERNIE SANDERS

It’s 1942.  I am ten years old, living in New York. The Vichy government has ordered the French Navy to scuttle its ships so they won’t fall into German hands.  I’m old enough to know my French godmother feels devastated by the news. She goes out to buy the most stylish hat she can find. She was a quand meme kind of dame. Which roughly translated means “So what?” It’s a toughster’s way of expressing grief. 

When I read that Bernie had conceded, I ought to have gone out to buy a fancy hat last week except I was “sheltering in place” and wearing a mask and gloves when I went out because I don’t want to overwhelm or to help overwhelm the Bay Area health system (that’s an oxymoron, we have a pay-to-play system, like all good capitalists).  But even so, nurses, and even doctors are dedicated people serving on the front lines. They deserve the best treatment our prudence can offer. 

The irony is that in 2016 a well wisher advised Bernie to run on an Independent ticket.  No, said Bernie, (an odd fish, someone who’s so backward he actually loves his country) no, I don’t want to ‘Ralph Nader’ the election. He imagined the DNC  and all its toads and lizards and bottom feeders, including the New York Times, would countenance a Bernie candidacy.  What the hell was he smoking?

The powers that will always be, the two branches of the one-party slavery upholding system, the duopoly of the business party, stopped representing ordinary mortals long ago. It hues to the pantheon of its immortally stupid and greedy gods, the lying media out for profit, the people who hustle in the august halls of government. Those folks have a mansion to upkeep in Pacific Heights, a third yacht to buy, they’re not interested in you or me. They’re not interested (not like the mushy gushy Iranians) in releasing prisoners crammed into their factory-jails body to body, why should they: they’re mostly black and making “product,”  or the ICE detention centers, why should they, they’re mostly brown, all folks who’ll vote Democratic (when there was the vote) or the ghetto-dwellers, or the homeless, or the working stiffs who deliver your food in boxes and bushels, or the home caregivers, or the Mexicans and other browns who get chained to truck beds at night in Florida, or who get to sleep, some of  them in ditches, who stoop over the baking furrows by day growing food to keep the system churning.

In 2005 Katrina changed my life.  I had no way of knowing at the time I helped the terrified and traumatized people of New Orleans I found sheltering on Oakland’s streets that I’d entered a new level of making America grate. I still remember the story one of them told me about the folks trying to leave Jefferson Parish across the city connection, how the national guard had their guns drawn. “They wouldn’t let nobody through. And then a convoy of white folks actually came speeding at 90 mph down that causeway, waving at all of us niggers camped out there, ‘So long suckers.’ They just left us there to die.”

All the establishment is speeding down that causeway now, doing us, our future and our planet incalculable harm the faster they go. And that’s why we have no other choice: We are our own best hope for the things we deeply care about: Medicare for all, reducing the wealth divide, student debt forgiveness, free education, abolish ICE, a guaranteed living wage for all (and that’s lots more than $15 bucks an hour), a sane foreign policy, and a Green New Deal with teeth. These are our banners now.  We’ve gotta wave them as we come.  Because we’re gonna come marchin’ now, make no mistake. Because We Are All Bernie Sanders now. 

Read: https://buzzflash.com/articles/trumps-perfect-plan-to-become-dictator-in-november-runs-through-12-18-swing-state-legislature

Too many actions this week to provide  URLs for each. Here are the actions. Take your pick:

Sign open cease fire letter to UN and Government of the US.

Insist on vote by mail in every state.

Insist Congress pass medicare for all during C-19.

Sign open  letter to stop US war on Venezuela.

Sign open letter damning administration indictment of Venezuelan  officials.

Hold oxymoron #45 accountable for power abuses during C-19 outbreak.

Insist Congress release all incarcerated to end C-19 spread in jail, prisons and detention centers and guarantee healthcare.

Donate to support Diné and HOPI Nations.

Demand Congress institute national moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.

Reinstate fired USS Theodore Roosevelt Capt. Crozier

Implore Congress to include Hispanics in health care and economic relief .

Who knew: UN ceasefire defines war as a non-essential activity.

RIP: Bolsonaro is out, replaced by General Netto.

Five million Nigerians oppose Monsanto plan to introduce GMO crops.

Prioritizing health & welfare of citizens, E. Nigeria researching 5G safety before deployment.

Cambodian garment workers strike over unpaid wages during pandemic.

Navajo (Diné) and Hopi families fund builds movement in response to C-19.

Australian MPs call for Assange release to home detention as C-19 spreads in UK prisons (where Boris Johnson must have sneezed.).

Cuban medical aid in Italy shows positive results.

As reported April 6, ordinary New Mexicans flatten curve with collaboration and solidarity.

With public health and democracy at stake (remember that?) Wisc. governor postpones in-person primary voting until June, but…

Democracy in “gravest danger” warns fired intel IG Michael Atkinson.

In demand for better treatment during outbreak, Target delivery workers walk off job.

Amazon workers walk off job to demand safer conditions during pandemic.

In California, fast foods workers at 30 restaurants go on strike.

Striking McDonald’s workers say their lives are more essential than fast food.

As strikes proliferate, the wave moves to general strike.

Rock star Bon Jovi and wife Dorothea, of the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation wash dishes to feed the hungry.

In effort to reform California’s property tax, activists file new ballot measure.

California Democrats pass resolution supporting local control over 5G and wireless facilities deployment.

California governor Newsom toys with idea state might assist undocumented residents shut out of C-19 relief.

Leading Democrats in both Houses craft bill ensuring immigrant communities are no loner shut out of critical C-19 relief.

Jeopardized LA renters form rolling protest for rent forgiveness.

Wave of rent strikes originally started by Rent Strike 2020, sweeps across country from Crown Heights to Chicago following 10 million new unemployment claims.

Residents at Alexandria VA, prepare to rent strike.

San Francisco leases 945 rooms in eight hotels to receive people quarantined or isolated or those moved from within the shelter population or moved from the street.

City of Berkeley opens test site for vulnerable community members at LifeLong Medical Care, 510 981-4100.

US Customs to seize mask and glove exports amid C-19 pandemic.

Epidemiologists praise aggressive stay-at-home orders in CA,  OR, and Washington States for helping limit spread of C-19.

Sanders and Jayapal advance bill providing no-cost health care for all during pandemic.

Federal Judge Chesney orders ICE to release four immigrants at risk of C—19.

While S.F. Mayor London Breed Disease prepares Moscone megashelter housing homeless in close proximity, Oakland’s mayor Libby Schaaf announces slow streets, designating 74 miles of  neighborhood streets for walking, running and cycling.

California overpass

Climate activists shut down multiple Financial District blocks in call to action | Hoodline Climate activists took to the streets in San Francisco again today, shutting down several adjoining blocks in the Financial District and blocking access to the offices of major banks. Beginning at ... hoodline.com click on:  https://hoodline.com/2019/09/climate-activists-shut-down-multiple-financial-district-blocks-in-call-to-action