Tale of Two Lockdowns: Swedish vs UK Policy Response to Covid

A Comparison of Lockdown UK With Non-Lockdown Sweden

by Rob Slane - The Blogmire

April 12, 2020

So far as I am aware, Sweden remains the only major Western country that has not imposed a strict lockdown on its citizens to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak. Other than a ban on gatherings of 50 or more people, and advice such as over-70s being urged to stay at home, Swedish schools, shops, restaurants and pubs all remain open. It almost seems to me that the Government there has decided to treat grown adults like they are … well grown adults.

However, despite being a sovereign nation, with the right to set its own policy, it appears that this is not acceptable to the “international community”, and the Swedish Government is coming under huge pressure to change course. 

From The Edge Of The Narrative

The Real Conspiracy: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

by Caitlin Johnstone - Rogue Journalist

April 10, 2020

Some conspiracy-type people say the world is messed up because we’re ruled by illuminati or reptilians, but I’m way more out there than that: I say our entire society is made of imaginary thought stories with little relation to objective reality, and some clever manipulators have figured out how to exploit this.

[Recommended reading accompanying track: Lookee Here - Transglobal 
Underground - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhifRnxI9a4 -ape]

I say even what we take to be our very self is an ultimately illusory narrative construct made up of a disconnected network of thought, language and memories; look hard for a solid “me” entity and you’ll never find one. Same is true of most things people value in this world.

The Palestinian Guide to Surviving Quarantine: Short Version

A Palestinian Guide to Surviving a Quarantine: On Faith, Humor and ‘Dutch Candy’

by Ramzy Baroud - PalestineChronicle.com

April 9, 2020

Call it a ‘quarantine’, a ‘shelter-in-place’, a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew’, we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.

Personally, the first 23 years of my life were lived in virtual ‘lockdown’. My father’s ‘quarantine’ was experienced much earlier, as did his father’s ‘shelter-in-place’ before him. They both died and were buried in Gaza’s cemeteries without ever experiencing true freedom outside of their refugee camp in Gaza.

America's Imprisoned Heroes: Steve Kelly's Ordeal of Conscience

“He’s Got Eight Numbers, Just Like Everybody Else”

by Kathy Kelly  - Voices for Creative Nonviolence

April 3, 2020

Trident nuclear disarmament activist Steve Kelly, a Jesuit priest, begins his third year imprisoned in a county jail as he and his companions await sentencing.

On April 4, 2020, my friend Steve Kelly will begin a third year of imprisonment in Georgia’s Glynn County jail. He turned 70 while in prison, and while he has served multiple prison sentences for protesting nuclear weapons, spending two years in a county jail is unusual even for him. Yet he adamantly urges supporters to focus attention on the nuclear weapons arsenals which he and his companions aim to disarm.

“The nukes are not going to go away by themselves,” says Steve.

The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 now await sentencing for their action, performed two years ago inside the Kings Bay Trident Submarine base in southern Georgia.

They acted in concert with many others who take literally the Scriptural call to “beat swords into plowshares.”

Meeting the New Boss: BlackRock Takes America

BlackRock Takes Command 

by Joyce Nelson - CounterPunch

April 8, 2020  
 

The mainstream financial press has been remarkably quiet about the Federal Reserve’s appointment (March 24) of BlackRock to manage its massive corporate debt purchase program in response to the Covid-19 crisis. That silence might have a simple explanation: you don’t slag your boss if you know what’s good for you.

BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink may now be the most powerful man in the world, overseeing not just the Fed’s new (potentially $4.5 trillion) corporate slush-fund, but also managing $27 trillion of the global economy (even before the March appointment). As the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock already was managing $7 trillion for its global corporate investor-clients, along with another $20 trillion for clients through its financial risk-monitoring software (called Aladdin).

Measuring the Scope of Assange Court's Hypocrisy

Beyond Words

by Craig Murray

April 8, 2020

Yesterday Mark Sommers QC, the extremely erudite and bookish second counsel for Julian Assange in his extradition hearing, trembled with anger in court. Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser had just made a ruling that the names of Julian Assange’s partner and young children could be published, which she stated was in the interests of “open justice”. 

Pieter Evert sent me this rather good cartoon, for which many thanks.

His partner had submitted a letter in support of his Covid 19 related bail application (which Baraitser had summarily dismissed) to state he had a family to live with in London. Baraitser said that it was therefore in the interests of open justice that the family’s names be made public, and said that the defence had not convincingly shown this would cause any threat to their security or well-being. It was at this point Sommers barely kept control. He leapt to his feet and gave notice of an appeal to the High Court, asking for a 14 day stay. Baraitser granted four days, until 4pm on Friday.

Albert Camus' The Plague

Albert Camus: The Plague

by The School of Life

April 2, 2020

There is no more important book to understand our times than Albert Camus's The Plague, a novel about a virus that spreads uncontrollably from animals to humans and ends up destroying half the population of a representative modern town. Camus speaks to us now not because he was a magical seer, but because he correctly sized up human nature.

As he wrote: ‘Everyone has inside it himself this plague, because no one in the world, no one, can ever be immune.’ 

Maintaining Distance: Russia Demonization Runs Apace During Covid Response

THE SKRIPAL AND MH17 LIES ARE CAMOUFLAGE FOR STOPPING COOPERATION WITH RUSSIA TO FIGHT COVD-19 — GORILLA RADIO GOES VIRAL

by John Helmer, Moscow

@bears_with

Late last week the 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) agreed unanimously on a statement of “solidarity of countries in the fight against the pandemic”. They also agreed unanimously there is “no place for any form of discrimination, racism and xenophobia in the response to the pandemic.”

On the explicit opposition of Ukraine, Georgia, the US, the UK, and the European Union, the UN did not agree on “the rejection of trade wars and the use of unilateral sanctions adopted in circumvention of the UN Security Council to ensure urgent access to food and medicine, as well as countering financial speculation with essential goods.” This was the language of a resolution drafted by Russia.

Recognizing the Enemy: The Renters Strike Back!

Congressional Candidate Urges Rent Strikes To Protect Tenants

by TRNN

 

April 7, 2020

Washington DSA member Joshua Collins' digital campaign is courting pissed off young voters.

As a record number of Americans filed for unemployment due to millions of jobs being lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, rent was still due April 1st and it’s going to be due again on May 1st. However, there are dozens of grassroots organizations planning and executing rent strikes and rent freezes nationwide. 

Trapped with Covid-19: Migrants in Greek Detention Camps Abandoned to Disease

Refugees left to die as COVID-19 spreads across Greece

by George Gallanis  - WSWS

7 April 2020

Nearly 42,000 refugees housed in overcrowded, festering detention camps remain trapped on Greece’s islands as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across Greece. With refugees lacking access to soap and water—as part of a lack of basic health care—and crammed into clustered living quarters, the camps on the islands Lesbos, Chios, Kos, Samos and Leros are the perfect breeding grounds for the virus.

Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (far right)

Yet, the right-wing New Democracy (ND) government has stalled moving refugees off the islands to mainland Greece, allowing for the virus to infect and possibly kill thousands.

Caring Less for Canada's Elders in Care

Mounting coronavirus death toll in Canada’s elderly care homes

by Penny Smith  - WSWS

7 April 2020

Across Canada, care facilities for seniors are being devastated by the deadly spread of COVID-19. More than 600 nursing and retirement homes nationwide have reported a rapidly growing number of infections and fatalities, with Quebec and Ontario in Central Canada, and the west coast province of British Columbia hardest hit.

The abject failure of all levels of government to prepare for this foreseeable and foreseen viral pandemic, their criminal incompetence in combating the virus, and the decades-long ravaging of the public healthcare system have left care-home facilities especially vulnerable to COVID-19, and enabled the virus to spread like wildfire. To this must be added the fact that wide swathes of elderly care have been privatized, resulting in a race to the bottom in working conditions, and the running of facilities on tight budgets so as to boost corporate profits.

Springtime for Ecofascism: Conservation Industry Declares 2020 "Super Year"

New Deal for Nature: Paying the Emperor to Fence the Wind 

by Stephen Corry - CounterPunch

February 24, 2020

The conservation industry says 2020 is its “super year.”[1] It wants to set aside thirty percent of the globe for wildlife, and divert billions of dollars away from reducing climate change and into “natural climate solutions.”[2] This would be a disaster for people and planet. Conservation was founded in the racist ideology of 1860s USA but it committed thirty years ago to becoming people-friendly. It hasn’t happened. 

Petroglyphs, Klamath River Basin. (Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair)

There will be more promises now, if only to placate critics and funders like the U.S. and German governments, and the European Commission, which are paying for conservation’s land theft, murder and torture.[3] More promises will be meaningless. No more public money should go for “Protected Areas” until the conservation bodies recognize their crimes, get rid of those responsible, and hand stolen lands back, with compensation. Conservation NGOs must also stop cozying up to mining, logging, oil, and plantation companies.

Gorilla Radio Covid-Shock Special with Chris Cook, Dr. Pablo Ouziel April 5, 2020

This Time on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

April 5, 2020

Due to entirely foreseeable but unacted upon circumstance, we are NOT recording live from the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but continuing the broadcast via Skype interviews, taped live on this day, April 5th, 2020, to be broadcast over-air at CFUV 101.9FM in Victoria, and at CFUV.ca on the internet around the world.

Well, Winter has yet to relent in Victoria, throttling the neck of Spring like a miser's purse-string death grip. Fitting the weather be bleak and stark and uninviting through the gray glass of the Western World's "new normal". Which will be the dictionary pick for the word of this year, I wonder. "Covid", or perhaps "Lockdown", or possibly Donald Trump's doubtless most dearly hoped for: "Remission"? Just time will tell.  

Listen. Hear.

I spoke to my next guest in October of last year. Nearly six months, and a seeming life-time ago.Way back then, we discussed the political situation in his home-country, Spain; or more specifically, Catalonia. For the intro to that interview, I wrote:

"Thousands have nightly filled the streets, while an estimated 2 million came out in protest in Barcelona to demonstrate against the court’s heavy-handed rulings. Hong Kong-style disruption tactics have spread too to Barcelona’s El Prat airport, while last Friday a general strike paralyzed the heart of Spain’s richest region."

Hard to imagine a sight like that today, as the masses in Europe, the Americas, and beyond huddle in their houses, homes, and hovels fearful of a death-dealing bug they can't see.  

Dr. Pablo Ouziel is Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria’s Political Science Department and Centre for Global Studies. His Fellowship Project at UVic is, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The Exemplary Case of Spain’.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

From the Garden: Expelling Ecofascists

It’s Time to Clean Ecofascism Out of Environmentalism 

by Stephen Corry - CounterPunch

April 2, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is lethal, but could there be a silver lining beyond the pain? Social media is awash with how the newly cleaned environment is hosting wildlife not seen for years. Dolphins are swimming in Venetian canals: except they aren’t, they’re really near Sardinia as usual. Swans? Yes, but they’ve always been there. The canals may be cleaner but the story’s fake.

Facts matter less than our ache for an unpolluted globe. We yearn for a lost world of childhood innocence, and so project our hope onto juvenile activists. But there clearly are benefits in the reduced use of fossil fuels as flights are cancelled and car journeys shrink to levels last seen on distant Sundays when the shops were shut. Some are reporting easier breathing during an epidemic which attacks the lungs.

Tallying the Covid-19 Actuarial Ledger

The Covid-19 Debate: Economies Really Are Made up of Real People

by Rob Slane - The Blogmire

April 3, 2020

The headline of this piece is admittedly very, very dumb. It’s dumb because everyone knows that real people work in economies. As such, it’s on a par with news that paper is made from wood pulp, apples grow on trees and fire is hot.

But the reason it needs to be stated is that the past couple of weeks has convinced me that many people actually don’t seem to know this at all. Judging by comments I have seen in numerous articles, and the pushback I and many others have received from questioning the proportionality of the measures put in place to deal with the outbreak of Covid-19, there seem to be many people who think that the economy is all about money and commerce and wealth. Well, there is that, but principally it is about people.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Kay Gimbel, Janine Bandcroft April 9, 2020

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

April 9, 2020

If you haven't heard Vladimir Putin invented Covid-19 yet you likely will soon if you follow the Western corporate press.

I'm being only slightly facetious; in the mainly American press Russia is in turn responsible for: The outcomes in French and Italian elections, Brexit, the Ukraine civil war and Crimea's secession, assassinating still-living journalists, and attempting to murder a former KGB double-agent, once released from Russian jail and now held incommunicado by Britain, dividing the United States along racial lines, and of course crowning Donald Trump Idiot King of America.

These are just some among other things, (another of which being alleged complicity in the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17); the only problem is, these allegations against "Putin's" Russia consist of lots of media smoke with little evidentiary fire.

Listen. Hear.

John Helmer’s a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to governments, and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. He’s also one of the most widely read Russia specialists in the business world for his news-breaking stories on Russian base and precious metals, diamonds, mining, shipping, insurance, food trade, and business policy.

Helmer’s book titles include: ‘The Deadly Simple Mechanics of Society’, ‘The Jackal’s Wedding – American Power, Arab Revolt’, (co-authored with Claudia Wright) the political memoir, ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’, and his latest, ‘Skripal in Prison’.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; while the global pandemic has made the World standstill, its done little to slowdown America's belligerence towards its perceived enemies in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia, China, and Venezuela, where the latest excuse offered for regime change is Covid-19-related drugs smuggling, allegedly employed by Nicolás Maduro to undermine the United States. You couldn't dream this stuff up; except when you could.

Kay Gimbel is a retired seaman, union executive and human rights activist. He's spent years observing the effects of Canadian mining operators on the lives and lands of the people of Central America.

From his first human rights delegation with Rights Action to Guatemala, through Honduras, to take testimony from the family and compadres of murdered activist, Berta Caceres, to his latest sojourn with The Asociation de Trabajadores del Campo to witness Nicaragua's resistance to El Norte's pernicious efforts to undermine its socialist evolution, Kay is all too familiar with the dark forces threatening peasant and indigenous communities in the countries of our southern neighbours.

Kay Gimbel and keeping vigilant on issues other than corona in the second half.

And; long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Bulletin of some of the good things still left to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, John Helmer and the West's trouble with Russia.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Doomsday Race: Pandemics Scary, But Climate Change Will Finish Us All

‘Can I Keep You Safe? Your Future Is Uncertain’: Climate And The Fate Of Humanity

by Media Lens

March 31, 2020

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, the most immediate objective is to slow its spread, minimise the death toll and help people through the crisis. But, despite government promises to support citizens who are now losing their jobs and income, the underlying establishment concern will be as it always has been: to preserve the global inequitable system of wealth and power.

Private interests, including airlines, fossil fuel industries and sinister-sounding ‘businesses crucial to national security’, have been busy lobbying governments for taxfunder-paid bailouts. Notoriously, Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic even asked its employees to take eight weeks of unpaid leave, while hundreds of thousands in the UK are struggling to access benefits after becoming unemployed.

Alternatives with No Choices: All Covid Response Roads Lead to Home

FOLLOW CHINA, FOLLOW RUSSIA, FOLLOW AMERICA — THE POLITICS OF COVID-19 ALTERNATIVES WITHOUT CHOICE

by John Helmer, Moscow

@bears_with

March 30, 2020

“The immediate priority is to prevent the quick spread of this disease”, President Vladimir Putin (lead image, top left) declared in his state speech on the corona virus last week.

This is the point on which there is no disagreement, not now at least. But how restrictive for the economy the anti-contagion measures should be, and at what cost compared to the cost of the virus impact on life and death, is a point of considerable debate, inside Russia as everywhere else. That is the point which Putin avoided. He is not alone among the heads of state or government in the rest of the world. What is the difference then between Putin and all of them?

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Alan Hirsch, Taylor Scollon, Janine Bandcroft March 31, 2020

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

March 31, 2020

Those praying the US presidential campaign would finally end already may have found a receptive ear above, (or wherever these kinds of entreaties are heard). But, as the old saw warns, they might want now to have more carefully wished.

With the Democratic Party postponing 14 state primaries, (as of this writing) there are now growing calls for both parties to cancel national conventions and end campaign appearances.

It would be an unprecedented move that could well effect the way democracy is done in America for this election, and beyond 2020.

Listen. Hear.

Alan Hirsch, is an Instructor in the Humanities and Chair of the Justice and Law Studies program at Williams College, and author of numerous works of legal scholarship and many books, including 'For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights', 'Impeaching the President: Past, Present, and Future', and the just released, 'A Short History of Presidential Election Crises (and How to Prevent the Next One)'.

His articles appear at, among other places, the Washington Post, LA Times, Newsday, and Common Dreams, where I found his recent article, Is America Prepared for a Presidential Election Crisis? Hirsch asks “what if” Covid-19, or some other external forces, drive November's poll into the shadows, or worse, onto the internet?

Alan Hirsch in the first half.

And; even before the latest crisis the news cycle was moving way to fast to follow. Every day, miles of newsprint and incomprehensible amounts of - whatever online journalism is measured in – spun and roiled, confounding the senses of Jane and Joe Blough. Fake or not, it seems there's simply just too much news to choose from. But, can we citizens afford to take our eye off the direction in which our society is careening?

Taylor Scollon, publisher and co-founder of Passage, the new Canadian publication “offering left-wing perspectives on politics, economics, and culture,” I'm confident would say, “Hell, no!”

Taylor Scollon and Canada amidst the media maelstrom in the second half.

And; long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week, (yes, there are still things to be done). But first, Alan Hirsch and American election crises past, present, and prescient.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Don't Worry, Things Could Always Get Stranger (and they will)

It's Okay to Be Uncertain About What's Happening and Where This is All Going

by Caitlin Johnstone - Rogue Journalist

March 29, 2020

There was a kids’ game show on Nickelodeon in the early nineties called Get the Picture where contestants would be shown an image that is obscured in some way and slowly made more clear. First one to guess the image correctly got the points.

That’s kind of how our whole situation feels right now. No one really knows exactly what’s going on just yet, and those of us who are interested in figuring it out are intensely peering at the screen trying to make out what we’re looking at.