Meanwhile in Palestine: Darkening Skies, Storm or Nightfall?

The Darkening Sky over Palestine: Storm Clouds or Nightfall?

by Richard Falk - Palestine Chronicle

June 4, 2020

Looking upward, the sky above Palestine has darkened, but whether portending a storm or nightfall is uncertain.

If de jure annexation will go forward, then the sky is likely to emit thunder and lightning. When the storm passes, nothing will seem changed. Annexation is being discussed as if a game changer yet ‘annexation’ has already taken place in the form of settlements, the separation wall, denial of building and residence permits to Palestinians living in Area C, and long-affirmed Israeli sentiments of biblical entitlement solidified by continued tradition of affirming ‘Palestine’ as ‘the promised land’ of the Jewish people. 

Police Low Down in Mile High

Attorney Resigns From Use of Force Committee After Being Shot, Gassed by Denver Police

by Alan MacLeod  - MintPress News

June 4, 2020

While police nationwide have been escalating violence against protesters, Denver law enforcement appear to be some of the worst offenders.

Elisabeth Epps, a Colorado-based attorney and bail activist, publicly resigned from the Denver Police Department’s Use of Force Committee last night after being shot and tear gassed by the same force she was trying to regulate. “Plenty of Black folks will shuck & jive for ya, it just can’t be me anymore,” Epps said via Twitter, sharing pictures of the welts across her body and legs from police gunshots.

A Proud Day for Democracy: "America, Your Reality is Showing!"

We Are Watching The Story Of America Crash Headlong Into The Reality Of America

by Caitlin Johnstone - via Medium

June 3, 2020

I have a bedtime story for you.

Once upon a time a brave nation liberated itself from the tyranny of the British empire and birthed freedom and democracy into the world. With the help of heroes like the abolitionists, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X it overcame systemic racial inequality, and now it is a shining exemplar of human rights, the respected friend of free democracies around the world and the hated foe of all tyrannical regimes. It is not without its faults and its past mistakes, but it is the best leader and protector of the liberal world order that we could possibly hope to have.

I also have a waking up story for you.

Transcending Incompetence: Britain's Judiciary Breaks Bad on Skripals Case

BRITISH CORONER HIDES BRITISH POLICE EVIDENCE IN THE NOVICHOK CASE, AS BBC PREPARES TO BROADCAST NEW LIES

by John Helmer, Moscow

@bears_with

June 3, 2020

The Wiltshire county coroner investigating British Government allegations that Russian military agents using a Russian-made poison called Novichok caused the death of a woman, Dawn Sturgess, on July 8, 2018, has lied in his report of the inquest into her death. This has been revealed by evidence gathered by the Wiltshire police two years ago, and recovered this week.

Senior Coroner David Ridley (lead image, right) has also concealed evidence from the coroner’s court inquest file and withheld it from the Russian Government after promising “to assist with the Russian Federation’s investigation of Ms Sturgess’ death…if the Russian Federation were to be supplied with a copy of the coronial investigation file which focuses on Ms Sturgess’ death.”

Neither Fake, Nor Real: Microsoft News Opts for Robot Reporters

Microsoft to replace MSN news production workers with artificial intelligence

by Mike Ingram  - WSWS

3 June 2020

Microsoft is firing dozens of news contractors after June 30 and replacing them with artificial intelligence (AI). Around 50 journalists and editors in the US contracted though Aquent IFG and MAQ Consulting and 27 in the UK contracted through PA Media (formerly the Press Association) will lose their jobs. These workers operate MSN news pages, curating content and in some cases rewriting headlines and editing content to fit the format.

MSN was launched as Microsoft’s news portal in 1995. At its launch, MSN published original content as well as links to news, weather and sports updates. In 2014, the site was relaunched as a partner with other news sites, paying them to redistribute their content.

"You Will Be Fired Upon"

LAPD: “You will be fired upon” & Floyd Eyewitness

by Greg Palast for Buzzflash

June 1, 2020

[Los Angeles; Minneapolis. Saturday.] The cop raised his weapon shouting, “Forty millimeter up! Curfew! YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON.”

Olympic Street near LA Police headquarters in downtown LA was lit up by a bright blue and purple disco light-show from about 40 police cars, all with sirens braying. It was just past the 8pm curfew meant to stop the riot.

America's Other Pandemic: Why We're Responsible for Yemen's Humanitarian Crisis

Our Disaster - Why the United States bears responsibility for Yemen’s humanitarian crisis

by Kathy Kelly - VCNV.org

June 1, 2020

An entire generation of Yemeni children has suffered the traumas of war, many of them orphaned, maimed, malnourished, or displaced. The United Nations reports a death toll of 100,000 people in that nation’s ongoing war, with an additional 131,000 people dying from hunger, disease, and a lack of medical care.

A report from Save the Children, issued in November 2018, estimated at least 85,000 children had died from extreme hunger since the war began in 2015.

From Gap to Chasm: America's Failing Cred

How the Credibility Gap Became a Chasm in the Age of Trump... And a New Generation Gap Grew Wider

by Rebecca Gordon - TomDispatch

June 2, 2020

These days, teaching graduating college seniors has me, as the Brits would say in the London Underground, “minding the gap.” In my case, however, it’s not the gap between the platform and the train I’m thinking of, but a couple of others: those between U.S. citizens and our government, as well as between different generations of Americans. The Covid-19 crisis has made some of those gaps far more visible than usual, just as my students leave school with many of their personal expectations in tatters.

The chasms illuminated by the coronavirus are many: the gender pay gap; the wealth gap between African Americans and Latinos on one side and white Americans on the other, not to speak of the gap in their healthcare access and health outcomes; the gap in the amount of domestic work and childcare done by women and men; and that’s just to start down a longer list. Covid-19 has exacerbated all of these gaps in very concrete ways. To take just one example, the children of families with the fewest resources will be the ones most affected by missing almost half a school year or more.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Pablo Ouziel, Elisabeth Tova Bailey, Janine Bandcroft June 4, 2020

This Week on GR

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

June 4, 2020

 Welcome to GR. We are as yet NOT broadcasting live from the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but instead recording live-to-Skype this day, May 13th, 2020.

Fitting it’s been a late Spring here; Winter’s intransigence keeping us indoors longer than we’d like, confined to leaving the greeting rituals of the new season overlong under wraps. But nature won’t be denied, and sure as God made green apples and bright flowers, our deliverance from the power of the pestilence that’s held much of the World at bay is waning. Or, so we’re told.

The green lamp is lit – sort of – with Spain, one of the countries worse-effected by Covid, announcing last month its “deconfinement plan” roll out, beginning in earnest Monday, May 11. It’s the first stage of a phased emergence from the virus, and as elsewhere it’s a policy fraught with doubt and controversy.

Listen. Hear.

Pablo Ouziel is a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria’s Political Science Department and Centre for Global Studies whose Fellowship Project at UVic, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The Exemplary Case of Spain’ was interrupted by the Covid-19 closure of the University. He is currently in his native Barcelona.

Dr. Pablo Ouziel in the first half.

And; what can we take away from this weird moment when the World stood uncertainly on its axis? Perhaps from our time in collective isolation we can understand better what it means for others forcibly removed by circumstance from their lives and an agency taken as granted, until just taken?

Elisabeth Tova Bailey is an intimate acquaintance of solitude, having experienced years of patient recuperation from a randomly encountered debilitating disease. The product of her long estivation is the book, ‘The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating’. The multi-award garnering chronicle of her bed-side companion and its special history has now metamorphosed too as the short film of the same title.

Elisabeth Tova Bailey and life at a snail’s pace in the second half.

And; long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with this week’s Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things you can get up to in and around our town – both real and virtual – in the coming week. But first, Pablo Ouziel and Spain’s planned emergence from crisis.

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/

One Beautiful Law (and Order): Trump Declares Abstraction "Domestic Terrorists"

Coup d’état in Washington: Trump declares war on the Constitution

Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (US)

 via WSWS

2 June 2020

In an act unprecedented in American history, Donald Trump has repudiated the Constitution and is attempting to establish a presidential dictatorship, supported by the military, police and far-right fascistic militia acting under his command. The Socialist Equality Party appeals to the working class and all those committed to the defense of democratic rights to oppose this criminal action.

Speaking on national television, Trump proclaimed: “I am your president of law and order… Our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, arsonists, looters, criminals, Antifa and others.”

Continuing Education? Campus Life and Class Actions

US universities and colleges appeal for legal immunity from coronavirus lawsuits as campuses plan to reopen in fall

by Anthony del Olmo - WSWS

1 June 2020

In a letter to Congress, the American Council on Education, a policy group for universities and colleges in the US, pleaded on Thursday for legal liability protections ahead of potential lawsuits brought by students, faculty and staff as campuses plan to reopen in the fall in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The letter was co-signed by 70 other higher education associations.

The move comes as over a dozen campuses currently face class action lawsuits from students demanding a partial reimbursement in tuition costs as schools moved instruction online due to campus closures in response to the pandemic.

Shooting the Medico: America's War Against Cuba's Medical Brigades

US Campaign Against Cuba’s Medical Brigades Targets Healthcare, Not ‘Forced Labor’

by Joe Emersberger - FAIR

May 31, 2020

For decades, Cuba has sent tens of thousands of its medical professionals abroad to work in countries where natural disasters or poverty have left people without healthcare.

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the catastrophic US response to it, the absurdity of a propaganda war against Cuban medical missions has become more obvious than ever. But you can’t rely on corporate media to explain why. 

America's Disintegration in Pictures

George Floyd Protests: Police Escalating Violence Across America

by Alan Macleod  - MintPress News

May 31, 2020

While some in media have condemned the protests as violent “looters” imposing “tyranny” upon the country, much of the violence is being deliberately instigated and propagated by an out of control police force that appears to have gone berserk over the widespread public challenge to their authority and their impunity to act as they wish.

A policeman aims a shotgun at protesters during a demonstration  next 

to the city of Miami Police Department, May 30, 2020, downtown in Miami.

Six days after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, asphyxiating him by keeping his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes, America is still burning with outrage. Violent clashes have broken out across the nation as the killing has proven to be a catalyst for protests against a racist justice system.

America on Fire: New York Times' "Duck Reporters" Quack Back with Another "Russia Did It" Story

RUSSIAN-DEATH-TO-DUCK REPORTERS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TOLD TO LIE ABOUT RUSSIAN ROLE IN AMERICAN POLICE VIOLENCE BY SEVEN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

by John Helmer, Moscow

@bears_with

May 30, 2020

Just over a year ago, five New York Times reporters published lies about the dead ducks they were told had been killed by Russian assassins running amok in the English town of Salisbury with a poison they called Novichok.

Two of the reporters, called Julian Barnes (lead image, centre) and 

Adam Goldman (right), refused to explain, retract or apologise for 

repeating Haspel’s lie as if it was the truth. 

This was a lie which came from the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Gina Haspel. She told her lie to President Donald Trump, who promoted her to head the CIA a few days later. She then handed the lie to the reporters to print as proof of how much the President trusted her.

Recovering A Lost Future

Oligarchy, Xenophobia, & Soul-Crushing Surveillance

by Yanis Varoufakis - Project Syndicate

May 27, 2020
 

To exorcise my worst fears about the coming decade, I chose to write a bleak chronicle of it. If, by December 2030, developments have invalidated it, I hope such dreary prognoses will have played a part by spurring us to appropriate action.

Before our pandemic-induced lockdowns, politics seemed to be a game. Political parties behaved like sports teams having good or bad days, scoring points that propelled them up a league table that, at season’s end, determined who would form a government and then do next to nothing.

In a Time of Unjust War and Oppression America Must Ask: "What Will Rise Us?"

Beating Swords to Plowshares

by Kathy Kelly  - VCNV.org

May 30, 2020

Inscribed on a wall across from the United Nations in New York City are ancient words of incalculable yearning: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” – Isaiah 2:4

I’ve stood with activists in front of that same wall singing Down by the Riverside, a song promising we’ll lay down our swords and shields, -“and study war no more, no more.”

Covid Psychosis: A Media Infection

GORILLA RADIO TALKS BACK AT THE ALIENS FORCING YOU TO LISTEN TO LIES, BELIEVE EVIL

by John Helmer, Moscow

@bears_with

May 27, 2020

Covid-19 and corona psychosis are parallel attacks on your health, pandemic in scale for both at the moment.

Among the recognised symptoms of Covid-19 in the central nervous system, there is ageusia (loss of taste) and anosmia (loss of smell). Newly discovered, there are also symptoms affecting eyesight, such conjunctival hyperemia, chemosis, and epiphora. 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, David Swanson, Andy Worthington, Janine Bandcroft May 28th, 2020

This Week on GR

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

May 28, 2020

Welcome to Gorilla Radio’s continuing efforts, NOT broadcast live from CFUV Radio, located in the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but emanating instead live-to-tape via Skype from our home-based … studios on this date, April 27th, 2020.

After, how many, months of this Corona virus aren’t we all sick of hearing about it? I know I am. So finally, this show is NOT about the Covid-19 outbreak…except it is. For those paying attention there are cracks in the media’s wall-to-wall pandemic coverage, allowing the light of truth still get in. And, what that spotlight reveals is the efforts made by the usual bad actors to leverage this emergency for their best advantage.

From big money for big business, to the erasure of rights and freedoms for the little people, corona is the new crisis bonanza. But, there are two sides to that sword. Just as the disaster capitalists and crypto fascists are doing their damnedest to make more Hell of this on Earth, others see the opportunity presented by the pause in the economic paradigm to reorder global priorities, and perhaps make of the moment a better future.

Listen. Hear.

David Swanson is a peace, justice, and political activist. The journalist, broadcaster, essayist, and executive director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org, is too a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, and host of Talk Nation Radio. His book titles include: ‘War Is A Lie’, ‘When the World Outlawed War’, and ‘War No More: The Case for Abolition’. He blogs at WarIsACrime.org, and DavidSwanson.org, where I found his recent article, ‘The Economic Benefits of a Global Ceasefire’.

David Swanson in the first half.

And; before Covid-19 Britain’s national healthcare system, the NHS, was under attack. Vaunted as the first and best promise of a societal shift in favour of the common people following the Second World War, the NHS has suffered economic debasement by successive governments, and has been especially and habitually traduced by the conservative Tory party and its friends in the elite-dominated press. Over the last ten, terrible years of Tory rule though, the NHS has been ruthlessly savaged. Little wonder then that when the emergency did come they were ill-equipped to respond.

Andy Worthington is an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. He is too, co-founder of the ongoing Close Guantánamo campaign, and successfully completed, We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15. Worthington’s book titles include: ‘The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’. His articles appear at his website, AndyWorthington.co.uk, where I found his recent piece, ‘The Coronavirus Lockdown, Hidden Suffering, and Delusions of a Rosy Future’.

Andy Worthington and health, wealth, and lessons recently learnt 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. But first, David Swanson and ceasing fire to take hold of the moment.

 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/

Seeing Connections with Cummings' Trip to the Country

Why Barnard Castle 

by Craig Murray

24 May, 2020 

Now it may be entirely a coincidence that the place to which he chose to drive for his eyesight test happened to be the site of the major factory of GlaxoSmithKline. It may be an entire coincidence that two days later, on the very day Cummings actually started work back in Downing Street he has stated was “to get vaccine deals through”, GlaxoSmithKline announced an agreement to develop the vaccine. 

One red flag to me is the number of trolls claiming GlaxoSmithKline only has a small and remote office in Barnard Castle. This is not the entire site, and in a further £96 million investment two new blocks are in construction or recently finished 

It is however plainly not crazy to ask the question. This astonishing Twitter pile-on against Clive Lewis for retweeting my piece says something very worrying, when you consider that the large majority of those piling in are supposedly part of the “opposition” and include many journalists. 

UPDATED: Dominic Cummings specifically stated now in the press briefing that he had been eager to “get back to work to get vaccine deals through, move regulations aside” and that is why he drove to Barnard Castle to test his eyesight. 

Donne with Covid: Begging the Misery of Neighbours

MAROONED AT HOME — CORONA PSYCHOSIS RESCUE IN RUSSIA

by John Helmer, Moscow

@bears_with

May 24, 2020

Pandemic or no pandemic, misery always and everywhere craves company.

After he had been running a high fever with diarrhoea and other symptoms, scribbling notes on the progression of his illness — London’s typhus plague of 1623 — John Donne not only wrote, famously, “no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” He also added that publishing his fear shouldn’t be called “a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours… for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.”