2 May 2020 — theplanningmotivedotcom
The incompetent and disorganised response by the US and UK government to the pandemic poses a deeper question than simply the personnel involved. Is this response accidental or predictable in so far as it has occurred in the two countries where neo-liberalism is most advanced, financialization most extreme and the state most disrupted. This article addresses this question.
2 May 2020 — Public Reading Rooms
Public Reading Rooms is publishing these theses – on the pandemic, the nature of the crisis and the necessary next steps. We want to initiate a wide-ranging discussion on the left. Please send us any comments, thoughts or longer pieces to transform@prruk.org
1 May, 2020 — RT
Maybe the moment has come to take a step back from our exclusive focus on the pandemic, to allow ourselves to consider what coronavirus and its devastating effects reveal about us as a society.
1 May 2020 — Anti-Capital
1. You’re heroes, don’t you know? You’re heroes for doing all the things you do when you’re scorned, ignored, mocked, abused, harassed, and exploited. Now you’re heroes for delivering food by bicycle, by cart, by hand; for delivering packages by truck or dolly or backpack. You’re heroes now for filling prescriptions; for selling paper towels; for running lab tests; for handling cash and charges on the check-out line while people with more income than you fill their carts with cartons of pasta, cans of beans and tuna, fill them with the precious chicken and sainted ground beef. You’re heroes for nursing those with the virus, while the governments-plural-can’t even organize a testing program much less a treatment protocol.
1 May 2020 — Off Guardian
Who is Bill Gates? A software developer? A businessman? A philanthropist? A global health expert?
30 April 2020 — — Origin: Strategic Culture Foundation
Robert Bridge
Occasionally, humanity is confronted with a series of events, oftentimes accompanied with tremendous human suffering, that appear to be so intricately linked and coordinated that to explain them as mere coincidence or conspiracy theory is not only reckless, but potentially criminal in itself.
1 May 2020 — FAIR
Framing a massive corporate bailout as a “rescue package” (NPR, 3/27/20) was a PR coup.
For a perfect illustration of how corporate media function as ruling class propaganda, watch how they spin a titanic upward redistribution of wealth as a “rescue plan” for the US economy, and paint a robber baron like US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as a “savior” of the American public.
1 May 2020 — 21st Century Wire
The data and numbers are now pouring in and it’s looking increasingly harder for leading lockdown governments to maintain their official narratives. While the rest of the world are approaching normal, the UK and US continue to report shocking casualty numbers, now the most in Europe and globally, respectively. What is driving these unlikely trends? All this and more.
Co-hosts Mike Robinson and Patrick Henningsen bringing you the latest Coronavirus updates. Watch:
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27 April 2020 — Global Research
By Peter Koenig
First comes the farce, an (almost) universal government lie around the globe about a deadly virus, WHO named COVID-19. The decision for a global lockdown – literally for the collapse of the world economy – was already taken at the WEF conference in Davos, 21 – 24 January 2020. On January 30, WHO declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). At that time, there were only 150 known COVID-19 cases outside of China. No reason whatsoever to declare a pandemic. On March 11, Dr. Tedros, DG of WHO converted the PHEIC into a pandemic. This gave green light for the start of implementing “The Plan”.
1 May 2020 — In Gaza
During my hours-long daily walks all around Damascus, I’ve been delighted to note (as always) the calm and people interacting as normal on the streets, but also the re-opening of stores. That started over a week ago, with shops (non-essential) re-opening on alternate days. As of some days ago, they are allowed to open daily till 5 pm.
1 May 2020 — Drone Wars
Behind the scenes, the UK is developing a range of military autonomous systems. Image: Crown Copyright
In November 2018 Drone Wars UK published ‘Off The Leash’, an in-depth research report outlining how the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was actively supporting research into technology to support the development of armed autonomous drones despite the government’s public claims that it “does not possess fully autonomous weapons and has no intention of developing them”. This article provides an update on developments which have taken place in this field since our report was published, looking both at specific technology projects as well as developments on the UK’s policy position on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS).
1 May 2020 — True Publica
By Rob Woodward – TruePublica: Britain’s NHS has become the latest target for big tech to stick its money funnel into and harvest our most personal and private data. It was bad enough that the state illegally and secretly stole our privacy, captured our secrets, recorded our conversations, filmed our private moments, took images of our children and invited in the biggest crooks on the planet to exploit the swag. But now, there’s a plan to capitalise, abuse, manipulate and profit from our physical and mental vulnerabilities.
30 April 2020 — 21st Century Wire
Robin Kayser
It’s April 2020, and since March, the UK has swiftly commissioned and built vast, temporary, intensive care hospitals, in readiness for a predicted epidemic number of severe COVID-19 cases.
They are called NHS Nightingale Hospitals, and to date there are seven of them, either open or planned. The first one was announced on 24 March by the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, and was opened almost immediately on 3 April at the London Excel Centre. It has a capacity of some 4,000 beds. The other temporary field hospital sites are in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Exeter, Harrogate, and Washington.
Additionally, over the last month, some 8,000 beds in private hospitals have been re-assigned for Covid-19 use, along with other NHS beds in hospitals all over the UK. By the beginning of April, one third of all non-ICU NHS beds had been converted into potential ICU beds for possible Covid-19 patients. Yet, by 12 April, the London Nightingale had treated just 19 patients, and to date, only 41 patients have been treated.
30 April 2020 — Tricontinental
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
On 30 June 1958, Mao Tse-tung read in Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) that schistosomiasis – or bilharzia – had been eradicated in Yukiang (Jiangxi Province). He was so inspired that he wrote a poem called ‘Farewell to the God of Plague’:
30 April 2020 — True Publica
By TruePublica: There’s an irony being played out – a cruel one really. The COVID-19 crisis has unearthed some stark truths about how our country should be governed. One of those truths was just how important our key workers really are. Right now, the most dangerous job and most dangerous place in the country to practice it is to be a frontline medic in a hospital. This is closely followed by all other key workers that keeps the infrastructure of daily life moving. It is only in the face of a crisis that threatens us all do we remember this.
30 April 2020 — True Publica
By TruePublica: On 3 February, (remember how long ago that was) political journalists walked out of a Downing Street press briefing en masse after a Dominic Cummings associate attempted to ban selected reporters from attending. The Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, Lee Cain, tried to prevent journalists from the Independent, the i, the Mirror, HuffPost, PoliticsHome, and others from covering the briefing, on the grounds that they had not been specifically invited. A handful of media had received invitations to a “No10 technical background briefing on the UK’s future relationship with the EU;” however, the journalists who had been invited walked out in protest to the barring of access for their colleagues.
30 April 2020 — Off Guardian
Following up his original interview, Prof Knut Wittkowski discusses the mainstream coverage of his opinions, recent studies on the numbers of infected in New York, and the Swedish government’s approach and much, much more.
29 April 2020 — Craig Murray
Nobody knows how many people died as a result of the UK/US Coalition of Death led destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, by proxy, Syria and Yemen. Nobody even knows how many people western forces themselves killed directly. That is a huge number, but still under 10% of the total. To add to that you have to add those who died in subsequent conflict engendered by the forced dismantling of the state the West disapproved of. Some were killed by western proxies, some by anti-western forces, and some just by those reverting to ancient tribal hostility and battle for resources into which the country had been regressed by bombing.
29 April 2020 — Dr. Malcolm Kendrick
I have found, I suspect like almost everyone else, that it is almost impossible to keep track of what is going on with COVID. Stories swirl and multiply, and almost everyone seems to be trying to get something out of it. People are claiming miracle cures and success – but it is difficult to verify any such claims.
28 April 2020 — F. William Engdahl
By F. William Engdahl
Since late in January the world has undergone staggering changes which in many cases may be irreparable. We have given decisions over every aspect of our lives to the judgment of tests and to the projections of computer models for the coronavirus first claimed to have erupted in Wuhan China, now dubbed SARS-CoV-2. With astonishing lack of transparency or checking, one government after the other has imposed China-model lockdowns on their entire populations. It begins to look as if we are being led like sheep to slaughter for corrupted science .
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