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(To view a far more visually attractive, easily readable version of this report -- with essays dating back to 2009, and portfolios of relevant photographs -- all without the obvious, vexing, impossible-to-solve-in-less-than-two-hours formatting conflicts between Typepad and Blogger -- please go here.)
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Stay Home, Don't Vote -- or Risk Drowning in Your Own Snot
Wisconsin Horror Ends All Remaining Pretense of U.S. Humanitarianism as
Regime and Robbers' Court Weaponize Covid-19 to Kill the 2020 Elections
THOUGH IT SEEMS no one else dares say it, what the PluPreds -- plutocratic predators -- have done to us in Wisconsin provides a potent preview of how they intend to use Covid-19, death from which is typically an agonizing process in which one is slowly suffocated by one's own mucus, to terrify most of us into self-disenfranchisement.
They can't do that to us in Washington state because for many years now we vote entirely by mail. But what they did to Wisconsin -- especially what they did with their Robbers' Court -- should alert us to the fact they can damn sure do it to us just about anywhere else they please.
And then of course they will do again what they have always done. They will denounce us whatever path we choose. If we remain at home to preserve our health, they will say we willingly abandoned our right to vote. If we vote in their kamikaze face-to-face elections and then sicken and die, they will stand atop our corpses and blame us for spreading the virus just as they now falsely and maliciously blame us -- criminalize us, in fact -- for the ever-worsening wretchedness they inflict upon us by their ecogenocidal greed. As, all the while, they inflame the Moronic Majority's blame-the-victim lynch-mob fury to ever more deadly intensity.
Thus the PluPred perpe-traitors do to us what their ancestors did to our First Nations forebears. They recruit Ted Bundy
sociopaths to police us; they murder us with disease; they assassinate
our leaders; they kill us or imprison us whenever we dare effectively
resist. And they speak, as my Iroquoian ancestors might have said, only with "forked tongues."
Such is the quintessence of "change we can believe in" -- no matter the chief perpe-traitors this time are in the Republican (ChristoNazi) half of the one eternally ruling Socialism-for-Plutocrats-Only Party.
But what happens if -- as seems ever-more-likely -- the PluPreds turn off the money long before the pandemic abates?
No doubt they'll try to take maximum advantage of the fact the quarantine that's essential to preserve our lives hopelessly isolates those of us -- including a few of my neighbors -- who are so desperately poor we cannot even afford telephones, much less the high-tech stuff the profiteers have made essential for participation in modern Neoliberal/Capitalist society.
(As I recall, that's about 10 to 12 percent of all U.S. families, though I've seen no-electronic-media-access numbers as high as 27 percent amongst reservation families.)
Fortunately for the rest of us, we have computers and cell-phones -- which I have been dragged kicking-and-screaming to learn more about in the past few weeks than I ever wanted to know. But these are the machines by which we can communicate -- at least until the PluPreds decide it's cheaper and more effective to switch off the total-surveillance network they o-so-seductively peddle as our stay-in-touch Internet -- which at least for now gives us partial transcendence of our physical separation. Apart from that we are more forcibly separated than any allegedly "free" population on this Earth ever before.
(I wonder: will our solitude merely intensify our solidarity-prohibiting Ayn Randified self-obsession? Or will it at long last enable us to evolve the empathetic mindfulness that is the wellspring and cornerstone of effective resistance?)
Meanwhile, as if in adulation of John Gacy,
the Regime hides its Evil -- Evil of such apocalyptic malignancy it
has no counterpart in our species' history -- behind the greasepaint
skullduggery of clownishness and boorish ineptitude.
Hence the following, including the link to the unabashedly fascist National Review, which gives us a glimpse of the emergent campaign by which the Republicans and their Democratic (sic) Party fifth-columnists have begun damning Sen. Bernie Sanders as a malicious virus-vector, claiming his refusal to surrender enlarges the voter turnout -- and therefore the deadly risk to the public -- in any state that continues to deny us mail-in voting.
Which -- since so many are part of Mitch the Malignant's Greater Confederacy -- it appears most of these states intend to do.
Supreme Court's Wisconsin Election Decision: Fast Cases Make Bad Law
The National (Fascist) Review piece I mentioned above.
The National (Fascist) Review piece I mentioned above.
SCOTUSblog - The Supreme Court of the United States blog
A most useful permanent reference -- for which my thanks to Mary Plante -- that often scoops the world on summaries of Supreme Court cases.
A most useful permanent reference -- for which my thanks to Mary Plante -- that often scoops the world on summaries of Supreme Court cases.
AS
I FINISH THIS brief report it comes to me that what the Regime and its
Robbers' Court did to us in Wisconsin is -- with no disrespect to the
"Bush v. Gore" hypothesis above -- far more unabashed in the
obvious viciousness of its oppression than either that judicial coup or
the Robbers' Courts subsequent elevation of the aristocracy to economic
and therefore political omnipotence by its Citizens United ruling.
It is also far more overtly Evil. It is, I believe, a de facto
declaration of war, a flinging down of the proverbial iron gauntlet, a
public stripping-away and abandonment of former restraint, the PluPreds'
make-no-mistake-about-it warning to us, the rest of the world be
damned, of their unspeakably malevolent intent to use the virus to herd
us into the high-tech equivalent of slave pens -- pens which in no
doubt terminal irony might turn out to have been our own dwellings.
Welcome
to the 21st Century United States, where it seems ever more likely
Hitler and his henchmen have risen from their graves to rule again./LB
*****
(Some
of the reports linked below -- each marked "RLS" or "relevant to the
lead story" -- elaborate on the socioeconomic and political
circumstances that enable and perpetuate the PluPreds' tyrannies and
thus the broader Class-War context in which they inflict them on us.
Alas, it is context far too often obscured by our own detrimental
refusal to acknowledge the diabolical potency of their cunning, much
less the apocalyptic magnitude of their Evil. )
*****
General news, all relevant to the lead story:As always, scan by scrolling down -- it'll take only minutes at most -- read whatever is relevant1 to you and yours, share it if appropriate and skip the rest:
Reliable anthologies of pandemic reports (scroll for whatever you deem relevant):
Virus Outbreak
Updated constantly by the Associated Press.
Updated constantly by the Associated Press.
Black Agenda Report
Updated regularly. In my opinion, the best, most informative, most relevant political website on the U.S. Internet.
Updated regularly. In my opinion, the best, most informative, most relevant political website on the U.S. Internet.
RT - Breaking news, shows, podcasts
Democratic (sic) Party Big Lies and Republican censorship not withstanding, this site provides what is often the most truthful reporting available to us in the United States. Updated often.
Democratic (sic) Party Big Lies and Republican censorship not withstanding, this site provides what is often the most truthful reporting available to us in the United States. Updated often.
TASS Russian News Agency
Just as Propagandamaster Bezos' WaPo gives us the Predatory Plutocrats' perspective, so does this site -- formerly Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (Телегра́фное аге́нтство Сове́тского Сою́за, Telegrafnoye agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) -- give us, in English, the often-radically different Russian government's perspective. (It's history, dating from 1904, makes interesting reading for mediaphyles.) Updated often.
Just as Propagandamaster Bezos' WaPo gives us the Predatory Plutocrats' perspective, so does this site -- formerly Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (Телегра́фное аге́нтство Сове́тского Сою́за, Telegrafnoye agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) -- give us, in English, the often-radically different Russian government's perspective. (It's history, dating from 1904, makes interesting reading for mediaphyles.) Updated often.
Coronavirus Updates from The Washington Post
Probably not "fake news" and updated often -- but listed last because Propagandamaster Bezos's corporate crown jewel is nevertheless best known for its censorship2 and warmongering lies.
Probably not "fake news" and updated often -- but listed last because Propagandamaster Bezos's corporate crown jewel is nevertheless best known for its censorship2 and warmongering lies.
Indications of the pandemic's true magnitude and consequences:
‘Take me back!’ NYC patients ‘crying & screaming’ not to be sent to overcrowded hospitals during Covid-19 — doctor
Other relevant pandemic-related indications:
Petition to: President Donald Trump by National Nurses United
The mere fact such petitioning is necessary damns the government and shames us all for tolerating its malfeasance. (Yes I signed, as I hope you too will do.)
The mere fact such petitioning is necessary damns the government and shames us all for tolerating its malfeasance. (Yes I signed, as I hope you too will do.)
Vindictive vectors:
Also worth reading:
Useful references:(No snake-oil sales or medicine-show huckstering allowed.)
After brief coronavirus closure, Seattle immigration court reopens to backlashRelevant to the lead story.
Daughter's boyfriend charged in killings of doctor, husband
Initially I suspected the perpetrators had seized upon the pandemic's chaos as an opportunity to snuff an obviously progressive-minded female obstetrician; hence my promise last week to post more on it as it came to light. But now it seems they may have been victims of a murderous quest for wealth triggered by their insistence their daughter and his lover abide by the quarantine. Hence this report and the report immediately below.
Initially I suspected the perpetrators had seized upon the pandemic's chaos as an opportunity to snuff an obviously progressive-minded female obstetrician; hence my promise last week to post more on it as it came to light. But now it seems they may have been victims of a murderous quest for wealth triggered by their insistence their daughter and his lover abide by the quarantine. Hence this report and the report immediately below.
Teen arrested in fatal shooting of Wisconsin doctor, husbandIntuition
tells me these two reports are also relevant to the lead story -- and
that their relevance goes far beyond geography -- though the notion has
evolved no further.
Especially for Washingtonians:
‘Collateral Murder’ and the My Lai MassacreRLS. Vital to understanding why the U.S. government's response to the deadly Covid-19 pandemic is genocidal rather than protective.
Contrasting the U.S. population's long-ago outage at Vietnam war crimes
with its present-day enthusiasm for atrocities against Muslims (and all
other peoples of color) reveals how decades of Ayn Rand indoctrination
purged the United States of any pretense of humanitarianism and reduced
it to a thoroughly Nazified white-racist realm in which self-obsessed
moral imbecility is the ruling ethos and revolution (or even effective
resistance) is thus rendered psychologically impossible. Additional
details here.
Lives Lost: A mismatched pair's love story ends with virus
Held over because it is fine unusually sensitive reporting, the sort of work that proves AP still hires real journalists -- those of us for whom it is a way of life rather than just another job.
Held over because it is fine unusually sensitive reporting, the sort of work that proves AP still hires real journalists -- those of us for whom it is a way of life rather than just another job.
A Family’s Fetid Week With CoronavirusHeld
over because it is the most outspoken, most emotionally honest, most
implicitly life-supportive and by far the best reporting I have read in many
years. Indeed, Reyhan Harmanci is a writer whose talent I'd have
recognized with a full-time general-assignment staff-job (way, way) back
when "editor" was the key part of my job-title. (For more of her work,
click on her "Family's Fetid Week" byline.)
Important stuff to bear in mind:(All
this is relevant to today's lead story because it helps us understand
more about what the PluPreds are doing to us now and what they might
intend to do to us in the future.)
FOCUS: This White House Doesn't Give Two Shits About You
I am no fan of Michael Moore, but in this short piece he speaks bitter truth for us all.
I am no fan of Michael Moore, but in this short piece he speaks bitter truth for us all.
Trump Admits Easy Voting Would Defeat Republicans
How gerrymandering and methodical voter-suppression have reduced our elections to meaningless charades.
How gerrymandering and methodical voter-suppression have reduced our elections to meaningless charades.
Goldman Sachs warns that curing patients may not be 'sustainable'
Outright acknowledgment from the deadliest Neoliberal predators that curing disease with a single treatment is bad for profits. A report from 2018 that explains what's being done to us today, hence given knife-edged relevance by the pandemic
Outright acknowledgment from the deadliest Neoliberal predators that curing disease with a single treatment is bad for profits. A report from 2018 that explains what's being done to us today, hence given knife-edged relevance by the pandemic
Average U.S. Citizens Have “Little Or No” Influence On Government Policy
Another "old" report given new relevance by what's being done to us today.
Another "old" report given new relevance by what's being done to us today.
The Truth About the United States' "Continuity of Government" Plans & The Coronavirus Perfect StormScroll
down to the 12th graf to learn how at least eight million U.S. citizens
are on the PPs' enemies lists and will be disappeared.
Military, Trump administration ready plans for domestic crackdown as virus spreads across US
From the report: "'a senior military planner working on coronavirus but not authorized to speak on sensitive planning matters [...] says that deployment of federal troops in support roles is being prepared,' including to conduct traffic stops, home searches and seizures and arrests." Scroll to Footnote3 to learn what atrocities could thus be inflicted on us.
From the report: "'a senior military planner working on coronavirus but not authorized to speak on sensitive planning matters [...] says that deployment of federal troops in support roles is being prepared,' including to conduct traffic stops, home searches and seizures and arrests." Scroll to Footnote3 to learn what atrocities could thus be inflicted on us.
Avenger Planet: Is the Covid-19 Pandemic Mother Nature's Response to Human Transgression?
Excellent question -- though as a (solitary-practice) Gaian Pagan, I would cite the scientific hypothesis that bears the Earth Goddess' name and answer "almost certainly yes." (One of the innumerable reasons the ChristoNazis so despise us is the majority of our beliefs are based on science -- the ultimate terminator of all patriarchal religion.)
Excellent question -- though as a (solitary-practice) Gaian Pagan, I would cite the scientific hypothesis that bears the Earth Goddess' name and answer "almost certainly yes." (One of the innumerable reasons the ChristoNazis so despise us is the majority of our beliefs are based on science -- the ultimate terminator of all patriarchal religion.)
CARES Act Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for FreelancersNew:
specifically for writers and editors. (Disclosure: I am a longtime
National Writers Union member and co-chaired one of their local writers'
workshops c. 2009-2011.)
Handling mail amid coronavirus: Low risk but wash your handsMy
practice is to assume everything from outside is potentially
contaminated, hence I wash my hands thoroughly after handling any
incoming packages and sanitize any surface upon which they might have
rested or been unwrapped.
_________________1I
select these stories on the basis of my news judgment as it evolved
during my 64 years as a writer, photographer and editor, three decades
of which were in the working press. (Despite an on-and-off involvement
with the alternative press that began in 1963, all but about three of
those first 30 earning-years were primarily in the Mainstream Media
Propaganda Machine, at least half in decide-what's-news jobs ranging
from sports editor and associate editor to city editor, news-and-picture
editor and editor-in-chief. (Though as my colleagues moved stealthily
Rightward, so did I move ever-more-openly Leftward, until eventually I
was Left...outside.) Beyond that -- and in keeping with today's
(unequivocally apocalyptic) context -- it is a matter of relevance plus
probability of censorship. I ask myself three questions: firstly, is a
given story useful – a term in this context I use as synonymous with
relevant. If the answer is yes, I than ask, secondly, how likely is it
to be suppressed by the MMPM, the PPs’ first ever privately owned,
for-maximum-profit copy of Josef Goebbels’ infamous Reich Ministry of
Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. And here my rule is one of inverse
returns: the less
likely I think I am to see the story disseminated via the National Daily
Wipe and Audiovisual Psychodemonic Zombification Monopoly, (NDWAAZPM,
with apology to Henry Miller for the Psychodemonics), the more likely I
am to include it in these summaries. Reports that pass the first two
tests are each then subjected to the third and final test: do they
include indications from which we might evolve estimates of our
situations accurate enough to facilitate effective response? If the
answer here is also affirmative, the report in question will always be
included in the daily update. Meanwhile the first two criteria generate a
lengthy list of possibles I winnow down to probables and thence to
musts, a process that takes approximately seven or eight hours each day.
2As to what prompts my sudden skepticism of virus coverage by The Washington Post, note how quickly Bezos or one of his zero-tolerance subordinates imposed paywall censorship on this pivotally important 20 March story (scroll down to "U.S. intelligence reports"), which for only a very few short minutes appeared as part of WaPo's
non-paywalled daily virus report. Pretending to be real journalists
rather than the Regime's scribes -- a mental downgrading inflicted as
much by the clerical drudgery necessitated by computers as by the chief
Josef-Goebbels-wannabee Bezos himself -- is a form of moral imbecility I
cannot abide.
3Be aware that "home searches and seizures"
could include not only confiscation of all real or potential weapons
but -- given the ChristoNazi Regime's anti-marijuana fanaticism --
confiscation of, and arrest for possession of, all the (still federally
illegal) medical marijuana upon which such a huge number of
opiate-denied chronic-pain victims are now forced to depend. Too --
given the Regime's even more fanatical hatred of women and female
sexuality -- such raids might also be used to confiscate all
birth-control devices and criminalize all unwed women who possess them,
thereby fulfilling still more of the PPs' ChristoNazis objectives. Thus
-- by such mass arrests -- could the Regime give its plutocratic owners
the ultimate "gift" of permanently enslaving millions of U.S. citizens
for brutally hard, typically deadly labor, thereby granting our Masters'
wish of exterminating "surplus workers" while following the German
Nazis' model of amassing unlimited profits from mass murder.
(As always, headlines are reproduced in their original up-style and down-style formats.)
*****
YEAH
I KNOW I'M late again, and I apologize for any inconvenience, but I
learned long ago it is better to be right and late than on time but
wrong. Which -- by the way -- was much applauded by all my
editors...that is, until newspapers and magazines were reduced to
sweatshops.
May
we all remain healthy and unshackled by despair amidst the humanitarian
challenges and Neoliberal outrages of this sickest and most frustrating
of all human times.
LB/8 April 2020 05:16PDT
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