Another coincidence.
A 2003 episode of the TV show “Dead Zone” entitled “Plague” involved the cast battling a respiratory virus that originated from China.
“Coronavirus” is even mentioned in the show, along with Chloroquine being discovered to inhibit the virus and save everyone.
Interesting coincidence, huh?
So here we are

Posted by: Skeletor | May 5 2020 18:44 utc | 3

Any take in this fine forum about the recent developments in Venezuela? The apparently failed infiltration by venezuelan desertors and american mercenaries linked to Guaidog ?
Thanks
Elijah Magnier reports about this:
Pics of captured americans

Trump denies role in Venezuela incursion
Maduro says americans among mercenaries captured

Posted by: ColombiA | May 5 2020 19:05 utc | 5

Was the CIA involved ? or Eliot Abrams
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/05/01/ex-green-beret-led-failed-attempt-to-oust-venezuelas-maduro/
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/05/04/ex-green-beret-claims-he-led-foiled-raid-into-venezuela/

Posted by: Yul | May 5 2020 19:28 utc | 7

Alleged contract between ex-Green Beret and Guiado:
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14861

Posted by: Yul | May 5 2020 19:38 utc | 9

Deniability is usually built into a covert operation, which is what the mercenary action in Venezuela is. But the money trail will either lead to one of Abrams’ schemes, or more likely from the seized CITGO accounts which are now Guaido slush funds. Arresting Guaido is apparently a red line which will prompt direct US action, but that position may have to be revised if this mercenary operation can be tied directly Guaido or his close associates.
What is different between this and the capture of Hasenfus in Nicaragua back in the 1980s, is hostility towards Venezuela has wide bipartisan congressional support, whereas the Contra program was illegal and in defiance of specific legislation.

Posted by: jayc | May 5 2020 20:08 utc | 11

America’s proxy war threats against Venezuela are heating up.
There has been a second assault on Venezuela by armed commandos.
The first attack involved a group including a “former” American Green Beret named Jordan Goudreau and the mercenary company Silvercorp. America tried to cover its ass and distance itself from this attack.
Now, after this second attack, can the USA still hide behind “plausible deniability”?
Second Mercenary Incursion Against Venezuela in 48 Hours Fails in Chuao
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2020/05/05/second-mercenary-incursion-against-venezuela-in-48-hours-fails-in-chuao/
Amb. Moncada: “AP Want to Convince US That 300 Mercenaries Were Training in Colombia to Kill President Maduro Without US and Colombian Support”
https://orinocotribune.com/amb-moncada-ap-want-to-convince-us-that-300-mercenaries-were-training-in-colombia-to-kill-president-maduro-without-us-and-colombian-support/

Posted by: ak74 | May 5 2020 20:14 utc | 13

On house arrest…lockdown. Is it tyranny?

“My question for you is, where in the constitution did the people of Wisconsin confer authority on a single, unelected cabinet secretary to compel almost 6 million people to stay at home and close their businesses and face imprisonment if they don’t comply, with no input from the Legislature, without the consent of the people?” Justice Rebecca Bradley said during oral arguments heard via video conference, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
“Isn’t it the very definition of tyranny for one person to order people to be imprisoned for going to work, among other ordinarily lawful activities?” she added. [.]
Bradley offered the remark after Assistant Attorney General Colin Roth of Wisconsin said “people will die” if the order is repealed with nothing to replace it.[.]
Bradley, along with Kelly, who was defeated in last month’s election, continued to hammer at Roth about the authority for creating the order, where the limits of authority exist for the DHS and its secretary-designee, Andrea Palm, and how the agency derives the power to punish those who violate the order. Roth appeared flustered at moments but said the power is in statutes created by the Legislature, which the Legislature could amend if it felt the need to do so.
“If you look at the statute, it’s in there,” Roth told Bradley.
The court will decide two issues: Whether Palm violated state law governing the issuance of emergency rules by ordering the extension of “safer at home” and whether the order exceeded the authority DHS has under state law by closing nonessential businesses, ordering state residents to stay at home and forbidding nonessential travel.
The Legislature is asking the court to suspend enforcement of the order past its original April 24 expiration, but suggesting that the court stay the enforcement of the suspension for six days to allow DHS enough time to create a new emergency rule with the participation of the Legislature.
But justices wondered why the court should suspend its ruling instead of simply invalidating the order, if it is an improperly created rule.[.]
Link

Just the tip of litigations. Wait for the legal actions on suspension of medical care – cancer surgeries, et al.

Posted by: Likklemore | May 5 2020 20:38 utc | 15

B how about a dicussion of Trump’s failed attempt at a coup in Venazula?

Posted by: dp | May 5 2020 20:50 utc | 17

OK let’s see what we have on today’s menu:
#1 “Non-Covid-19 news & views (with a side of Bat Soup, gone viral)”
#2 “2020 Presidential Election Thread 09 (with a side of Hope & Change, slightly beyond shelf life)”
These things really cheer me up! What about tomorrow’s “War With China topped with Untelevised Economic Depression (over bad Bat Soup, and with a side of Proxy Venezuelan ‘Revolution’)”? Really warms my heart on a beautiful spring day!

Posted by: blues | May 5 2020 21:19 utc | 19

Man, the Empire’s last attempt in Venezuela is beyond ridiculous. The mercs had all their I.D’s on them, even ones linking them to Silvercorp and a signed contract? This is a fail of epic proportion and makes one wonder how can that be..

Posted by: Lozion | May 5 2020 21:35 utc | 21

Russia, Russia, Russia now….China, China, China It started with Oboma administration, and now Trump administration continue….
Sad isn’t it? It make me wonder as the sound grow louder and louder each passing day. It’s only a matter of time they (Americans) hunt down every commie they find in every States. I’m sure every Chinese or Chinese-look-alike is a Chinese and every Chinese is a commie.. Just like my neighbor thinks Chinese never invents anything, they steal, cheat and lied.
ZeroHedge published UC Davis severed ties with “China funded Yet Another University Shuts Down Chinese Communist Party-Funded Confucious (Confucius) Institute”. First Kansas State University, then the University of Kansas and now the University of Missouri are dumping their Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes.
More University cutting ties with commies regime (Confucius Institute). “The University of Missouri is closing its Chinese government-funded Confucius Institute. Mandarin classes taught to Columbia public school children by teaching interns from China will stop at the end of the school year.”
Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article239321233.html#storylink=cpy

Posted by: JC | May 5 2020 21:39 utc | 23

@ karlof1 18
Keeping in mind Bitcoin’s ‘halving’ coming up in about a week or so, the one facet any crypto like bitcoin should have inbuilt is scarcity. Keizer really flogs Bitcoin hard, but there is real beauty in a coin that unable to be debased – even Nero’s precious metals could not escape horrific debasing. The halving (the dropping of the rate of available mined coins by age one half) will continue until the last bitcoin is produced around the year 2140. By that time there will have been 41 million coins mined, circumventing debt backed fiat and governments. There will be some great amount disappearing into the ether, though another of its strengths is its divisibility. A currency driven by the demand of the people, and in cases like the Cyprus Bail In, some measure on global instability. With that said, there has been a good bulk confiscated over the years by the feds re: The Silk Road etc so I’m sure they’ll have enough Bitcoin in stock to figure out a way to game it if they wish… or if they were so inclined, use it for good as they feed it back into the community.
Been thoroughly enjoying the discussion re: MMT in recent threads. Economist David McWilliams had Stephanie Kelton on his podcast today and by the sounds of it, MMT is in the pretty good place to have a seat at the big boys and girls table going forward, which should bring massive clarity to economic theory. You should have a listen to that one karlof1, I have a sneaking suspicion you’ll fully enjoy it during these times.

Posted by: MadMax2 | May 5 2020 21:51 utc | 25

Posted by: JC | May 5 2020 21:39 utc | 23
Zerohedge has gone full blown anti-China, parroting daily the Mike Pompeo outburts. It is now Trump reelection media instead of anti-empire media and this will lead to its undoing.
This is why i said many times than Trump followers and libertarians are not anti-imperialists.
They are mostly white men and thus they are going crazy due to the “chinks”, the “yellow peril”, “chicoms” and “communists” overtaking the USA.
Libertarians are not to be trusted due to their connections with Trump. This has now trapped them into anti-China crusade and thus warmongering and empire mongering. You can see that happening to Colonel Pat Lang too.
Their connection to Trump, as well as dormant racism, now caused them to morph into anti-China craziness.
You now can see how the “libertarians” are morphing into imperialists and warmongers.
This is caused by their connection to Trump and white male syndrome (hidden racism, which causes violent outbursts when the “chinks” end up having a “bigger dick” than the superior and more advanced white man, something that wasn’t supposed to happen).
Their anti-China, anti-Iran hatred now makes it very different to receive support from Russia, which is allied to those two, and isolates them into racist hatred against the whole world. Into fighting everyone.
The only way for them to be saved, their only way to redemption, is to reject Empire and agree to multipolarity, even though in that multipolarity the white man will no longer be dominant, but apparently this is too much for white male dominated organisations.
In this way, they chose the path of hatred against the whole world, and this is why they will be destroyed. They had a choice to make (i made that choice too) and they made the wrong choice.

Posted by: Passer by | May 5 2020 22:12 utc | 27

Haven’t heard from Iranian FM Zarif in awhile. Here he is calling Pompeo illiterate or so it seems:
“.@SecPompeo pretends UNSCR 2231 is independent from #JCPOA.
“He should READ 2231.
“JCPOA is PART of 2231. That’s why it’s 104 pages—& why he’s not read it.
“2231 for Dummies:
“-It would NOT EXIST w/o JCPOA
“-US violated it & prevented others from complying
“-US has NO standing.”

Posted by: karlof1 | May 5 2020 22:22 utc | 29

Yes, curious developments in the US/Trump’s Southern War on Drugs 2.0
FT on operation Gideon”, and drug charges ironically against both Maduro and Alcalá (follow link at reference in article)
http://archive.fo/yhN2u
“They are dangerous lies because they may be used as a pretext to arrest or harm interim president Juan Guaidó,” a US state department official told the FT, adding that close advisers and relatives of Mr Guaidó had been targeted by greatly increased “violent repression” in past weeks.
Elliott Abrams, the US special representative for Venezuela, said claims that Mr Guaidó had contracted Mr Alcalá to dispose of Mr Maduro were clearly a lie, describing them as “despicable and quite dangerous”.
Mr Alcalá’s claim came just hours after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) charged him, Mr Maduro and a dozen other Venezuelans in connection with “narco-terrorism” and other crimes. The DoJ offered $15m for information leading to Mr Maduro’s arrest and $10m for Mr Alcalá.

Posted by: Vig | May 5 2020 23:04 utc | 31

Skeletor | May 5 2020 18:44 utc | 3
SARS was in early 2003. Hydroxychloroquine was thought to be effective in SARS. Which is a coronavirus like the virus causing COVID-19
I’m guessing the Dead Zone episode was fall of 2003. If it preceded the SARS outbreak thats interesting

Posted by: Pft | May 5 2020 23:24 utc | 33

Lozion @ 24
Welcome back. Good to see you surface.
Abrams did not read the memo.
March 28, 2020. Rosneft sells Venezuelan assets to Russia after U.S. sanctions ramp up Link

The change of ownership announced on Saturday means any future U.S. sanctions on Russian-controlled oil operations in Venezuela would target the Russian government directly.[.]

So in effect the clowns were punching at Putin. You know up against those little Green Men of Crimea fame, 2014. They ain’t getting the oil. Putin protects his assets.
=========
@ karlof1 20
Yes. I agree with your observation on tyranny vs public health. In the courtroom judges lean on statues- what is the governing authority; if it is not in statue, your arguments and submission will fail.

Posted by: Likklemore | May 5 2020 23:41 utc | 35

Walter @32–
Thanks for your reply! Saw a report about some of the counties proximite to your Anoxia reopening against the governor’s wishes. Cute! Of course, economics isn’t just about money, coin, finance and all that. Read the link at 34, especially that last paragraph, and you’ll see what I mean. Your rehabilitating capital equipment is an economic task most wouldn’t recognize as such, but it is. Indeed, the term Homo economicus deals with cost but not with money. For example, to economize or to be thrifty relates to cost and effort, same with efficiency. Yes, eventually monetary terms are attached to them but they exist independent of money as do many things. Value is another term that’s been bent all out-of-shape. I’m sure we both value things to which a money price couldn’t be attached. Gonna watch some videos now. Hasta Manana!

Posted by: karlof1 | May 6 2020 0:01 utc | 37

Karlof1@34
“Real capital is grounded in the production of real things of real value, of course, and when it’s detached from all that, it’s no longer real capital. Money represents capital, and when the capital isn’t real, the money represents…nothing! And ceases to be real money”
I disagree with the limited definition “production of real things of real value”
To me Real Capital includes land, resources, agricultural capacity, labor potential of the population, and intellectual property holdings. The US is rich beyond belief when measured in these terms.
Put it this way. What would you say would be the market value of the entire US (public and private). Whatever the number it is its pretty large, greatly exceeding the amount of debt owed to other countries which is in a currency a US entity controls.
Money is simply a medium of exchange. If you have a monopoly on the money, and have the means and will to protect the monopoly using military, debt, oil and food as weapons, there are no limits on how much you can create.
I do believe that the global elite who control the US are ready to plunder the US. For this they will want to move the means of money creation from a national to a globalized entity, outside the control of any nation, much like in much of the EU.
Austerity for all is coming, except the 0.1% global elite as it will be business as usual for them. Tech and Terror will allow them to control the disgruntled masses. AI and robotics will allow for a culling of the herd. Robots don’t get sick and don’t need freedom. When they break they get recycled.

Posted by: Pft | May 6 2020 0:21 utc | 39

I usually don’t read The Atlantic, but I was shocked its staff writer George Packer wrote this: “We Are Living in a Failed State: The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.” It’s a special preview of the June issue, so I don’t know how long it’ll be at the link. Yes, the title foretells the content!

Posted by: karlof1 | May 6 2020 0:29 utc | 41

augusto | May 6 2020 0:21 utc | 40 (silly amateur invasions)
Maybe they are as seems. and maybe somebody read Mao…”Hullabaloo in west, attack in east”, Comrade Mao was a pal of Stillwell…who turned down operational control of the CPA ((!) Tuchman)..and Mao read Sun Tsu… But yeah, maybe a cigar is just a cigar.
Dr K, Yes I remember the Asimov…and agree.
It’s astonishing how nearly universal the beliefs in mythic suspensions of disbelief exists. An old union sister of mine just today were discussing how intelligent brother believe utter nonsense…
Later brother.
Time for “pure grain alcohol and rain water…gotta conserve those precious bodily ….fluids…
Hell’sbells, maybe it is the fluoridation…I mean lookit these thuggish pigs! Is this normal?

Posted by: Walter | May 6 2020 0:39 utc | 43

This is from uncle tungsten’s link to zeroanthropology.net on the last open thread, second page #190 – which I much enjoyed with its colorful linkage of the three possibly reconfigured states of being. This is from the third possible post-crisis permutation:
“…In all cases where climate and topography permit, governments should distribute a wide range of seeds to citizens, and perhaps even small farm animals (chickens, goats), and mandate that everyone who is able should contribute something toward national food supply. Even public spaces should be planted, such as the land that stretches beside highways, or public parks…”
If you are minded to send me a goat, government, I’d like a miniature nanny, preferably pregnant – any species would do though I love one of the lop-eared ones. And not to eat, just for the milk and/or manure plus companionship of course. I don’t have much space, and it’ll be tricky turning my garage into a shed as the only access from my property out back is through the livingroom, but I’m sure that can be made to work.
Do go have a read if you missed it. Some of it cracked me up. Well done, Maximilian, and thanks, Uncle!

Posted by: juliania | May 6 2020 2:30 utc | 45

>We Are Living in a Failed State
Not yet. Uncle Sam still has a near-monopoly on violence. But civilians with 400 million guns (really, more guns than people) might have something to say about that in the near future. Meanwhile, sheriffs in Arizona have announced that they will not arrest or fine people who violate the governor’s virus diktats. Police always have discretion to charge or ignore any crime, but this is a direct challenge to the governor.
If an individual directly challenges the police, over anything at all, they will be abruptly dealt with. Failure to Obey is the second worst crime, right next to killing a cop. So what can a governor do, call out the National Guard against the sheriffs? That would be a big deal. But he can’t let a direct challenge to his authority go unanswered. That is unthinkable in a rigid hierarchy.

Posted by: Trailer Trash | May 6 2020 3:25 utc | 47

Posted by: Passer by | May 5 2020 22:12 utc | 27
Many thanks for your comments. China will not permit Trump or any American’s presidents to bully her like a century of humiliation (Western powers, Russia and Japan between 1839 and 1949). Xin will back down if unprepared.
My main objective bring awareness/attention, South China Morning Post hidden agendas. Earlier posted “What the world can learn from China’s response to the coronavirus” TED Whitney Pennington Rodgers, Gary Liu CEO South China Morning Post and another “Artificial Intelligence at Heart of Alibaba Ecosystem together” Gary Liu and Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai. repost again below:
Filter rich: Jeff Bezos owner Washington Post, Rupert Murdoch’s news empire Wall Street Journey, Pierre Omidyar Intercept and SCMP Joe Tsai Alibaba.
“What the world can learn from China’s response to the coronavirus | Gary Liu”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGcD8CTlDEc
“Artificial Intelligence at Heart of Alibaba Ecosystem”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGcD8CTlDEc
Joe Tsai behind SCMP anti China and NOT Gary Liu (front man) using SCMP, corresponded/writers based in Beijing, Shenzhen in China for inside china’s classification informations where no Westerners or intelligent able to obtain…SCMP also has corresponded/writers in Canada, UK etc.
Read every SCMP controversial article. Before reading find out: writers, where, China mainland, HK, NY, Canada… sometimes one or more writers sometime HK desk or News Agencies…
“Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai discusses artificial intelligence and the future of mass media with SCMP CEO Gary Liu at the 2017 RISE Conference. (video courtesy of RISE) Learn more about Joe Tsai’s insights at: https://bit.ly/2KGBJeN Joseph Chung-Hsin Tsai, dual citizenships Canada and Hong Kong. The Tsai family escaped to Taiwan as part of the Kuomintang exodus after the Chinese Communist Party took over control of mainland China in 1949. Owner of Long Island Nets… “

Posted by: JC | May 6 2020 4:33 utc | 49

Posted by: Kadath | May 6 2020 0:11 utc | 38
Well, why should we care about what those cowards think? If they are so fervently against China than they should personally do something about it, rather then keep crying like manbabies while hoping someone else is gullible and stupid enough to take up their slack.

Posted by: JW | May 6 2020 4:51 utc | 51

OH how they hates China, China, China….
Global firms push US to research 5G tech that would minimise Chinese influence and allow multiple vendors
“Meanwhile, the US has been struggling to come up with its own alternative to replace the products provided by companies such as Huawei.”
https://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/3083017/31-global-tech-firms-form-5g-coalition-push-software-based-networks

Posted by: JC | May 6 2020 5:37 utc | 53

Posted by: JC | May 6 2020 5:37 utc | 54
Funny that their lame 5G narrative is now Huawei is too expensive, as well as embracing the usual Western always-fail approach of “solving own problems by outsourcing responsibility”.

Posted by: JW | May 6 2020 6:02 utc | 55

Posted by: Krollchm | May 6 2020 6:00 utc | 55
The Senate vote was 81 for lifting the confinement and 89 against, with an amazing 174 abstentions. If Macron tries to ignore the Senate vote the President of the Senate can remove the president of the republic and temporarily assume the role of president.
I guess the 174 are so scared of the Yellow Vests that they fear even to vote to continue the totalitarian lockdown whose primary purpose is to destroy that movement.

Posted by: Russ | May 6 2020 6:07 utc | 57

The Yemen war is heating up as Turkish warships have been offloading Muslim brotherhood element on Socotra Island. Saudi forces have also been transported to the island to assist the Turkish forces in eliminating Southern Transitional Council forces (STC).
https://www.uprising.today/new-report-claim-turkish-forces-have-invaded-yemen/
https://www.uprising.today/new-saudi-reinforcements-arrive-on-socotra/
Perhaps the STC leader’s call to take over all institution in Yemen’s southern city of Aden has triggered this Saudi/Turkish offensive.
https://www.uprising.today/stc-leader-calls-for-full-takeover-of-aden/
The STC forces on the island are backed by UAE.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/clashes-erupt-uae-backed-southern-transition-council-stc-yemen-socotra
This unusual alliance is due to the fact that both Saudi Arabia and Turkey support the Islah (Yemeni Congregation for Reform) Party which linked to the Muslim brotherhood, but also supports Hadi.
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/25490/
Not to be left out, hundreds of US and UK troops have arrived in Aden with plans to deploy 3,000 troops in coordination with the UAE. The forces will include Patriot missile batteries as a defense against the Houthi missiles. https://www.fort-russ.com/2020/03/major-hundreds-of-us-uk-troops-arrive-in-southern-yemen/
Meanwhile, the Houthi led Yemeni army and Popular Committees forces have launched an offensive on positions of Saudi-led mercenaries in Bayda (desert) province.
https://www.uprising.today/yemeni-forces-advance-in-bayda/
On March 1st the Houthi forces retook al-jawf province in Northern Yemen and shifted their offensive to the oil-rich province of Marib
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/03/yemen-houthis-jawf-marib-saudi-government-battles.html
Coincidentally, Saudi Arabia is deporting over 700 Yemenis and African residents of Saudi Arabia back into Yemen in hopes of spreading the COVID-19 pandemic into Yemen. There is a massive COVID-19 outbreak in Mecca among other cities.
https://www.uprising.today/saudi-arabia-deporting-hundreds-of-people-into-yemen-in-hope-of-causing-further-corona-virus-outbreak/
The COVID-19 epidemic in conjunction with the collapse of the oil market is beginning to weaken the Saudi regime which should eventually allow the Houthi’s to drive the Saudi forces out of its territories.
https://www.mei.edu/publications/covid-19-oil-price-war-and-remaking-middle-east
Somehow the western troops will try to stop Houthi advances while keeping the UAE, STC, Saudi and Turkish forces from killing each other while not dying of COVID-19.
Oman (the center of the third wing of Islam) has been trying to stay neutral in this multidimensional Yemen conflict but faces a potential Yemen refugee influx that would overwhelm the small country. https://www.mei.edu/publications/yemen-war-and-qatar-crisis-challenge-omans-neutrality

Posted by: Krollchem | May 6 2020 7:08 utc | 59

https://apnews.com/79346b4e428676424c0e5669c80fc310
In le Monde et le Figaro they try to confound readers by omitting the arrest of Goudreau on drug charges in the US,and only presenting the venezuelan border guards second intervention as being some kind of maduro-hoax like all the attacks on his life.In comment section,I find it always astonishing that of any hundred comments over ninety are anti-Maduro and very disinforming about Venezuela.This points to heavy paid trolling on a subject that is not of great interest to France,so it is clearly american -and zionist,a lot of commentators being anti-hezbollah.
But I’m still wondering about the avalanche of details in the original AP reporting.
Anyways,it seems american intelligence blunders its way around the world,maybe counting too much on “tactical medicine” I suppose this is the part of teaching how to use captagon,amphetamines,heroin,ketamine and all their antidotes in a way to pursue colored revolution.(Try to find out if Goudreau was on the Bildzeitung 100-Jahrfest).If you remember well,the expression on the alleged rebels faces said it all,you know those over-excited democrats putting fire on trucks that instead of humanitary aid,transported barbed wire,roadblocks and heavy metal bars,on that february day in Cucuta,the Branson concert,the bridge between Colombia and Venezuela.Pity AP does not mention the hospitalization that day of a close to Guaido parliamentary aid,and a party member of his by name of Freddy Superlano,both of them poisoned by scopolamine,from common henbane,dangerous drug that makes one lose ego-conscience for some time -one of them died.I find it very reassuring to understand from this reporting that a lot of those mercenary havegun willtravel types can’t even handle their own drug-abuse…even less than their sissie idiot masterminds..,you know the ones that may take coke everyday without being charged by police officers.

Posted by: willie | May 6 2020 7:52 utc | 61

@karlof1 | May 5 2020 21:05 utc | 18
There was an amusing quote from somewhere, something like:

Bitcoin brings together
everything people don’t understand about money with
everything people don’t understand about technology.

Posted by: Deltaeus | May 6 2020 9:29 utc | 63

Posted by: iano | May 6 2020 9:39 utc | 66
I’ll offer a simpler theory: This laughable operation was designed to siphon taxpayer money into the pockets of corrupt CIA personnel right from the very start.

Posted by: JW | May 6 2020 9:52 utc | 65

PJB @ 68
The dystopian horror movie you mention has – as far as I know – yet to be made, but if it is, the maker could do worse than base it on the great Jack Vance trilogy “The Faceless Man” (originally published as “The Anome”). It is a about a world where all adults have to wear coded torcs, fitted at puberty, through which they are wirelessly monitored by the anonymous leader of that world, the Faceless Man, who can, as an ultimate sanction, activate an explosive in the torc, thus “taking the head” of the person who offended him/her. I highly recommend it. Vance is a wonderfully inventive writer, at his best among the very best science fantasy/fiction authors.

Posted by: Montreal | May 6 2020 11:48 utc | 67

Interestingly, and sadly too, George Szamuely @ RT ( CrossTalk, QUARANTINE EDITION: Unexceptional? , 06 May) opines and Lavelle agrees just at the end, that if Byeden the senile wins in November ‘gainst the Clown, then “there will be armed uprising”. They also discussed the mutinies going on in US – 100 guys with simis stopping a texas cop from arresting a gal who opened her bar…and I myself can say that I have recently seen what are essentially vigilance committees militia begin to form…and a nearby Sheriff recently announced he’s not enforce any law he saw as unconstitutional…
If the State is not a failed State, it begins to look like a looted State, and I believe the classical view is that looting is the last phase of the failure process, followed by reorganization, which is often (they tell us) violent, and named according to sympathies either revolution or rebellion or civil war of foreign interference…and so on. Very disagreeable.

Posted by: Walter | May 6 2020 13:28 utc | 69

Hello,
How long until the NATO allies supplying Ukraine pays off? When will she sign a trade deal, with EU, with independent UK, with Turkey, and what of those drones? Seems to me there is as much that many here turn a blind eye to as there is illuminated, Ukraine has a large population, well educated, a sense of history and place within the Western world, not to mention Russian diplomat’s recent admission that they wouldn’t mind if Ukraine joined EU, only NATO would bother them, so it appears that changes are well on their way, what say all you pro Russia barflies? Projections of strength will always contain another side.
Do pobachennya!

Posted by: I | May 6 2020 14:01 utc | 71

vk
good that you brought the Nazis; i was wondering recently why two of the most political books written about Nazism by direct witnesses were hardly translated and hardly known… I speak of “Les Jours de Notre Mort” by David Rousset and of “Vaterland” by Heinz Liepman/Liepmann.
I have been unable to find pdf-s, of course.

Posted by: Mina | May 6 2020 14:13 utc | 73

Beijing reports no new COVID-19 cases for 20 days
South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong (!!), Taiwan (!!!), Singapore…
But why is nobody talking about Beijing? A city with almost half the total South Korean populatin (21 million inhabitants vs 50 million) at the gates of Wuhan, with no new cases for 20 days in a row now.

Posted by: vk | May 6 2020 14:23 utc | 75

vk | May 6 2020 14:09 utc | 72 While I agree with and or bow to your expertise generally, Friend, I believe G W Bush was a Texas critter…born WASP yes, but heavily influences by the rogue Provence of Northern Mexico…Texas. I believe he himself professes a pseudo christian ideology of some sort of end-times mystical nonsense, so the “Protestant” qualification might be argued, rather tortuously I think, to qualify as “Protestant”, but it’s pretty far from the Episcopal Church or the Quakers, eh?
Since the nazis is mentioned in context, I would remark that Prescott Bush, the grandpappy was, I recall, liable to be prosecuted by the FDR administration as soon as the war was resolved – for trading with the enemy, and also perhaps for the coup plot of ’33…withal some people might form the idea, the “insane” notion that the Bushie clan might be an ongoing criminal crypto-nazi family of sociopathic thugs…obviously that’s a crazy idea…

Posted by: Walter | May 6 2020 14:42 utc | 77

as my city/state reopens it’s interesting to see the political messaging deployed. before the pandemic we were dealing with sky rocketing housing costs and rampant gentrification facilitated by the use of public money (tax increment financing). none of this appears to have been impacted yet, and the pro-development cheerleading is trying to keep things on track. I wrote a post about it citing an article that opened with this:

As Missoula’s economy emerges from a months-long slumber and businesses establish a new normal, city leaders and those in the building industry are using optimism to define the future.

I just wanted to share this with all the enlightened commenters and alleged trolls here that you have a choice: you can either look to historical patterns of how centralized power exploits/creates crisis to further consolidate power, or you can USE OPTIMISM TO DEFINE YOUR FUTURE.
the choice is yours.

Posted by: lizard | May 6 2020 15:21 utc | 79

Grieved @ 52, your post is very important, and forgive me for asking some very stupid questions. I am not an economist, and so far haven’t read the Escobar piece. Are you saying that the IMF’s Special Drawing Right will become the new yard stick, the new way of measuring all currencies? So that the term ‘reserve currency’ no longer has meaning? (Something similar to having an international court of justice, only for currencies?) You say that the capitalist system will continue with some very rich, etc. However in saying that ‘all existing debt will be absorbed into it’ and that the US dollar will be measured against this yardstick, doesn’t that mean that the US dollar, having so much debt on its balance sheet, will indeed make some who are now very rich paupers?
This sounds different in many ways from Michael Hudson’s debt forgiveness scenario. Is there a way in which the two scenarios can co-exist?
Or am I completely misunderstanding? I am sure others here can help interpret your post, and I thank you very much for your explanation so far.

Posted by: juliania | May 6 2020 15:31 utc | 81

@ Posted by: c1ue | May 6 2020 15:26 utc | 81
The article also mentions other fast food and supermarket chains. It mentions Kroger (“the largest supermarket chain in the United States”), Costco (don’t know what that is), Wegmans and Hy-Vee (“grocery stores”).
However, McDonald’s declared it wasn’t suffering from any shortage of ground meat (probably because it has its own, private and exclusive supply chain).
It also seems that Wendy’s uses fresh beef and grind it at the place of consumption, probably for propaganda purposes (to sell the narrative its fast food is “always fresh”).
The beef is affecting the Northeast more heavily than in the rest of the USA, probably because it is the epicenter of the pandemic in the USA. The article mentions only 500,000 cattle was slaughtered in the whole country, a record low, and that, even for the chains that aren’t affected by supply, price is rising (Shake Shack’s case).

Posted by: vk | May 6 2020 15:44 utc | 83

I’m sure this has been mentioned, but Angus Deaton talking about his “Deaths of Despair” work Boston review article

JC: In the book you focus on these deaths of despair: 158,000 in 2018, about 100,000 of which are above and beyond what we would normally expect, an excess that is almost entirely among white non-Hispanic men and women without a college degree. The category covers three different causes of death: alcohol, opioids, and suicide. Could you talk about why you group them together?
AD: Initially, “deaths of despair” was a label of convenience. It helped express the sense that these deaths were sort of caused by your own hand—unlike COVID-19, say.
…
these previous drug epidemics—in the United States after the Civil War, or in China when the empire was disintegrating—tended to arise during periods of social disintegration. The simplified story is that some bad Big Pharma manufacturers started pushing opioids on all of us. But in reality, Purdue Pharmaceuticals and other companies went to places where there was already lots of despair. They were looking for despair. They were looking for regions where you could harass doctors into prescribing these drugs.
Our claim in the book is that without this underlying despair—pain, morbidity, people not going to church, people’s lives coming apart—there wouldn’t have been this open field for opioids. On the other hand, if the FDA had not been so much in the hands of the industry, and if we were not operating a rent-seeking, capitalistic health care system, then we wouldn’t have got those efforts to capitalize on the despair. Other countries didn’t get them to anything like the same extent.
…
JC: One of the issues that you emphasize in the book is the generational aspect of deaths of despair: how it keeps getting worse for younger generations. The idea that this is a process that is worsening over time resonates strongly with Raj Chetty’s account of the fading American dream. I am thinking of the study by Chetty and colleagues about absolute mobility, guided by the question: Are you going to do better than your parents? When I was born in 1951, there was a 90 percent chance of doing better than your parents. If you were born in 1980, chances had fallen to 50 percent.
…
The Democrats largely decided to abandon the working class and build a coalition of educated elites and minorities (including working-class minorities), and the Republicans basically followed business and religious organizations.
And the health care crises make things worse. Health care costs were 5 percent of GDP back in 1970, and now they’re 18 percent of GDP. Everything is heaping up on these people.
…
The pillars that structured working-class life seem to have gone, or at least been eroded. And we see the fundamental force of that in the labor market. Decent wages and jobs help to bring respectability and meaning into life. We’re not against some of the explanations that focus more on social norms. I think the birth control pill was very important, changing the norms about when and whether you could have children, whether you’d live together without being married. We write about how the pill was very socially divisive. For women who could get educated, it enormously enhanced opportunities to have relationship fulfilment and children as well as really good jobs. But for many working-class women for whom college was not an option, it did the opposite.
But declining wages were an incredibly important part of the loss.
…
But there’s a much more negative scenario, too, which economic historian Robert Allen writes about. In the early nineteenth century in Britain, real wages stagnated for fifty years. Handloom weavers were being replaced by machines in factories in the Industrial Revolution, and wages could only rise when they were all gone, and the way of life and around handloom weaving had been destroyed.
[c1ue note: the putting out system was a major cause of the above]
…
A lot of evidence suggests that in recessions, mortality rates typically go down. The Great Depression was a very good time for life expectancy. But suicides do go up. It’s not a simple story. They say in New York that what would normally be filling hospital beds would normally be filling with traffic and construction accidents, and there aren’t any.

Posted by: c1ue | May 6 2020 15:54 utc | 85

@ Posted by: juliania | May 6 2020 16:02 utc | 87
Yes.
The problem with India is that it is – compared to China – a very primitive country. 30% of its entire population still doesn’t have access to electricity (therefore, don’t have a bank account). This would throw a huge chunk of its population out of the monetary system.
Not to speak the fact India still is a capitalist nation, so all the tyranny implied in a full-digital monetary system are included.

Posted by: vk | May 6 2020 17:00 utc | 87

“The long-suppressed official report on US biowarfare in North Korea” tinyurl[dt]com/y9fwjwln The full report can be found at that locus. Full report 764 pages.
Posted by: Walter | May 4 2020 11:59 utc | 107
Thanks for that Walter, it was engrossing and timely.
Here by the way is the direct link to the report – this is the full report with all the appendices. I downloaded the report without appendices a few years ago (also linked from MoA), but it is the raw punch-in-the-face details in the appendices that give the more forceful impression of the real nature of US biological warfare during the Korean war. The report itself is written in very genteel and restrained academic English style, whereas the appendices describe the actual atrocities in raw plain English).
Also important and worthwhle is the accompanying article here.
I was in southern China for most of March, and commented here on my impressions after my return. On reading in the appendices of the actions of the Chinese (and North Korean) officials and even civilian villagers in meticulously collecting and preserving evidence; identifying, cordoning and neutralising infective materials and sites etc, it had a certain deja vu feeling with respect to my experiences in China in March.
Here were the North Korean and Chinese militaries and local village communities being subjected to terrifying biological warfare, yet calmly and methodically neutralising it with breathtaking steadfastness. According to CIA and Pentagon reports declassified in the 1990’s, the US top brass were disappointed in the lack of massive and debilitating epidemics in North Korea and China, after releasing truly massive volumes of a wide variety of lethal infective agents spread over a huge area – including at least 45kg of bubonic plague infected flees (25 million fleas) – you would never guess from the report itself that the bioweapons attack was made on such a scale (and be sure to read the appendic of the Wu Zhi Li link)! They even sent spies to record the effects of the supposed epidemics, how quickly people died, how devastating the epidemics were (doesn’t that remind you of November 2019 suggestions of huge epidemics in China???), and how the victims were treated; (5 out of the nine spies were captured and interrogated).
(The Chinese/Koreans were also mystefied why there were so few negative results, evidently underestimating the significance of their own countermeasures and overestimating the competence of the US war criminals).
No wonder the Chinese take Covid-19 so seriously, and no wonder they have developed and perfected and exhaustively deployed such rigorous and effective countermeasures to contain the virus.
But there are further twists and convolutions and repeats to the story. Very interesting to read the reports of Dr Chen Wen Kwei in appendices K and L (original pages 195 to 216, pdf pages 220 to 241). Dr Chen was centrally involved in investigating the biowarfare attacks made by the Japanese in 1941, and reported again for the ISC commission report. The links are astounding.
In 1940 some of the fleas dropped from the Japanese plane flying over the city of Ningpo city were found floating on the water of a resident’s goldfish bowl.

After the raid, one
of the inhabitants found many fleas .on .the water-surface of the goldfish
tank.in his courtyard. These fleas were sent to the Chekiang Provincial
Health Institute. Cultures were not made, as there was no bacteriologist
at that place.· Those specimens were then forwarded to the suDerior
office together with a due official covering note from the Public Health
Department of the provincial government. Later the Central Bureau
of Health of the Kuomintang government declared that only the covering
note was received without the specimens of fleas, which were said (?)
to have been lost on the way.
…
I suggested at the same time that .. the
health authorities should issue orders to put people on the alert, and
to watch closely for the dissemination of fleas from enemy planes. Not
only was this not accepted, but I received a severe warning as well as an
order that I should not reveal top military secrets.
At that time, neither the Kuomintang Government nor the majority
of the hygiene specialists took any responsibility to relieve such distress
among the people,

What Dr Chen concludes is that the US Americans were bribing the corrupt Kuomintang officials to suppress the evidence and the news of the Japanese using biological weapons to kill Chinese civilians and not caring about the danger to their citizens (ring any bells of Covid-19?). No doubt the flees “got lost on the way” because the US bribed the Kuomintang to give them to them instead, so that they too can gain these weapons.
Fast forward to 1952, the US make a rushed deployment of massive volumes of biological agents across hundreds of square kilometers of North Korea and China, expecting huge epidemics (yea, like those CIA predictions in November 2019 …) and massively debilitating effects. It flopped. Partly because the weather was so cold, partly because the half-baked American scheming was unrealistic and ineffective … and partly because Chinese and Koreans worked so effectively to contain and neutralise the infective agents. Fast forward again to 2019/2020 and the astounding success of the Chinese in containing the virus.
Thus, as I read the matter-of-fact descriptions in the appendices of the ISC report describing how villagers and military and government officials responded to each incident, the words echo in my ears with respect to my experiences in China in March – the same rigorously scientific approach to eliminating the source of danger, the same cooperation between villagers/government/military – based on a fundamental sharing of interest in the common welfare, the same genuine concern of the government for the welfare of the citizens. And what a contrast to the psychopathic attitudes of Western failed states to their citizens [enemies]!

Posted by: BM | May 6 2020 17:36 utc | 89

-Euro economies like a Volvo w/ lots of steel and airbags safety nets; slow but safe recovery.
-US economy like high-powered but flimsy Mustang; serious wipe-out after crash.
-China somewhere in between but helped by diversified (manufaccturing/export plus consumer driven) base and command-control govmt powers.
Posted by: gm | May 6 2020 15:49 utc | 85
The first two are right but the third is a total miss! China’s economy has already started to bounce back to life and will no doubt benefit economically from Covid in the long term.
The rule of thumb is this – whatever the US tries to do to destroy China/Russia/Iran, the end result in each of those three cases is to their own considerable advantage and the US’s own loss.

Posted by: BM | May 6 2020 17:48 utc | 91

@ Posted by: Walter | May 6 2020 17:39 utc | 91
I only know about the history of the fascist coup attempt against FDR through a Brazilian historian (Moniz Bandeira).
The demonization of nazifascism is a postwar propaganda construct. At the time both ideologies were born, they were taken very seriously and were widely respected and admired by large swathes of the western population – specially among members of the elites.
The apex of the fascist movement in the USA was 1930-1934. The coup was scheduled to happen in 1934 and involved a substantial militia made of veterans, which would be commanded by some hired high officials of the US Army itself. The coup was aborted still in its planned stage when the official to command the militia refused the whistleblowed to a local newspaper. After that, the fascist movement in the USA begun to gradually get out of fashion, until it basically disappeared when the USA entered WWII against Japan.

Posted by: vk | May 6 2020 17:54 utc | 93

Pft | May 6 2020 0:21 utc | @ 39

”To me Real Capital includes land, resources, agricultural capacity, labor potential of the population, and intellectual property holdings. The US is rich beyond belief when measured in these terms.”

There’s need to distinguish between “capital” and “assets” to step outside limited perspective of neoclassical economics for more encompassing, revealing vision of our dilemma.
Sources of capital:
dispossessions
extractions from nature
extractions from productive processes of labour
externalizations of % of cost of production and services onto society
Assets: private property holdings held by individuals, corporations, or state, within specific legal framework. Assets are not 100% fungible with capital as the social process of capital accumulation does not encompass/devour all aspects of life although capital system reproduction has that tendency, thus our dilemmas.
Capital invests in:
1) productive processes
2) extractions
3) dispossessions leading to further accumulation via 1 and 2
The goal of capital is more capital accumulation ===> this is a social process !!! and includes “creative” financialisation, or the creation of fictional capital (looting).
Power prefigures and shadows capital accumulations.
The state’s legitimized use of violence (and threats of violence) has been used to ensure market expansions, access to natural resources and labour markets, and to secure favorable (near monopoly) operating environments. When national and empire systems clash, war of some form results.

Posted by: suzan | May 6 2020 18:07 utc | 95

@ Posted by: Walter | May 6 2020 18:04 utc | 95
Just checked the book again (it’s in Portuguese), and yes, you’re right: the Bushes were Nazi sympathizers. Prescott Bush donated money to Hitler’s regime (among many other American industrialists – Ford being the most famous of them). About Prescott Bush’s pivotal role in propping up Hitler’s regime, you can read the George H. W. Bush biography written by Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin. Also, see New York Herald-Tribune’s Fac-símile. (about one of Prescott Bush’s business with Hitler)
The name of the American fascist organization involved in the coup was the American Legion.
The whistleblowers were major-general Smedley D. Butler (who was offered USD 100,000 – an astronomic quantity of money for the time), lt.-colonel James E. Van Zandt and captain Samuel Glazier. The militia would have 500,000 ex-soldiers.
The coup would be financed by a coterie of what we would call today “billionaires”, Prescott Bush among them. The goal of the coup was to install a fascist dictatorship on the molds of Mussolini’s Italy.
There was an investigative commission (McComarck-Dickstein Committee), which contains the whistleblowers’ confessions. You can find it on the internet, but Moniz Bandeira warns us it omitted a lot of important names involved in the coup attempt in order to “preserve the image of the USA as a democracy”.
I found one little inconsistency in Moniz Bandeira’s text. In it, he gratuituously mentions that the end the New Deal was also one of the objectives of the coup (and gives us no sources for that information). The problem is that the New Deal was only born after the 1937 recession – well after the coup was planned and aborted. But this doesn’t invalidate his research, as the mere ascension of nazifascism, the crisis of 1929, the socialist rise in the USA and FDR’s heavily progressive political propaganda gave more than enough motivation for the coup.
If you want to check the sources for more information in English, you can still get Moniz Bandeira’s book, which is called “A Desordem Mundial: o espectro da total dominação”. The coup attempt is right in Chapter 1.

Posted by: vk | May 6 2020 18:44 utc | 97

>“deaths of despair” was a label of convenience. It helped express
>the sense that these deaths were sort of caused by your own hand
… while society cheers and jeers with shouts of “Useless Eater!” and withdraws all social and financial support. Once a year there are crocodile tears: “Why are people killing themselves? They must be lazy and stupid”, then it is back to the business of the new eugenics, which I call “social apoptosis”.
In other words, we are constantly getting messages both subtle and blunt, that society would be better off if Useless Eaters would just get it over with and kill themselves. This is the implied message every time people apply for any kind of social support. It has been the explicit message inflicted every day on people living on the street or locked in prisons. And now it is explicit in the policies inflicted on people in care homes.
Instead of trying to find all who qualify and need help, the role of official gatekeepers is to exclude as many as possible. That is why the process is known as “Delay, Deny, and Hope They Die”. One example: when people apply for Social Security Disability, almost everyone is denied at the initial review. Only those with the strength to persist through the appeal process will win their claim, if they can stay alive that long.
This has been my personal experience, over and over, for the past 15 years. Somehow I have managed to hang on, being stubborn as a mule and twice as mad. One needs anger to survive, and plenty of it. As Alex Cockburn would’ve said, my hate is pure.

Posted by: Trailer Trash | May 6 2020 19:14 utc | 99