via Thursday Morning Notes: Capitalism, Republicans, Elections, Corruption, Biden, Delusion
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Morning Musings:
- The Trump pressers and the now daily appearances are humiliation sessions. Trump regularly demeans and silences the voices of reporters and this morning, a nurse who has first hand experience working with the Coronavirus. This is what authoritarian governments do, normalize the silencing of dissent. Every time Trump silences, demeans, and both demands and receives acquiescence in this silencing, people are taught what’s expected, that submission is a normal way to behave. We need to admit that we live in a culture of cowardice, compliance, and willing submission. We need to stop obsessing about Trump’s behavior and look at ourselves.
- This is a culture that deludes itself into thinking that it is characterized by independent thought and action when in fact, what characterizes most individuals is compliance.
- Every time Trump is allowed to bully and demean others without reaction, Americans become a little bit more compliant with authority.
- It is being reported this morning that guidelines from the CDC about reopening society were ignored by the Trump administration. The CDC, evidently, has been gutted of professionals who will stand up for fact and independent thought. The man in charge of the CDC has been investigated for misrepresenting his own research data.
- It is time to ask what the benefits are to the administration from the virus becoming worse. They include 1) massive profits from the wild west profiteering off medical supplies, 2) reinforcing people’s notion that government can’t work for their benefit, 3) reinforcing the Republican theory of government that we should have no government, 4) driving wages down, 5) providing an excuse for cutting and eliminating social programs, 6) encouraging the free-for-all economy the Republicans have worked to bring about for decades, 7) exacerbating a crisis that will cover other authoritarian moves which will go unnoticed, 8) killing off a large proportion of vulnerable people, 9) justifying closing the borders. These are just a few advantages of the crisis getting worse.
- The corporate media has ceased to be any kind of check on power. They are worse than useless. They don’t even have to be censored, they censor themselves. The feckless questions asked in the presidential pressers is an example of this. The county is in the middle of an economic and health crisis, and reporters ask questions like: Thank you Mr. President. Do you think, Mr. President, that citizens should congregate on the mall?
- The Biden apologia articles arguing that 1) Tara Reade is not credible that her charges are somehow different from those of Blassy Ford, or that 2) the charges are believable, but we should vote for Biden anyway are just astounding. It is astonishing how many women are willing to publicly argue that a presidential candidate with multiple women accusers should be given a pass.
- I am disappointed that a number of women I know who are pleading with me to silence myself about Biden’s obvious failures as a candidate. Please, they ask, don’t speak or write the truth. We have to remain silent and protect our candidate, the candidate the Democratic Party and the corporate media cheated to install as the candidate.
- Equally disheartening is the number of people engaging in a gigantic act of delusion by relying on voting in 2020 to solve our problems. The Republicans have done and will do everything in their power to subvert a democratic vote. They have and will also enable interference in the election on their behalf. There is too much at stake for Republicans to allow a loss. We must move beyond this Cinderella-fiction that we can just vote Trump out in 2020. The Republicans are being so brazen and craven, not even pretending to believe in democracy, because they know they will win. And, the Democrats will blame Bernie Sanders and his supporters and cower in place just as the Democratic Party is doing at the moment.
- Democrats are remaining silent, hoping that Trump will destroy himself over the Corona virus pandemic. Instead of fighting every day, pointing out to the American people every day that what is happening is a textbook example of what happens in a culture where you put people in charge of government who are trying to destroy government. It is a textbook case of what a pandemic looks like managed by people who value profits over everything else. This is unfettered capitalism, no regulations, no rules except that everyone is free to profit off untold misery to their heart’s content.
- Instead of going on television every day to point out what a giant class rip off the bailout bill was, the Democrats went on television trying to make political points for compromising with (caving to) the Republicans in a windfall (yet another one) for the 1%.
- Bernie Sanders has gone silent at a time when every day is an illustration of why the changes he proposed for the country are essential to the survival of working people and democracy.
- Barak Obama seems to stay above the fray unless he has to step in to prevent fundamental social change for working people. Obama refused, refused to prosecute those responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. He helped enable lack of accountability for the wealthy and powerful.
- We have to face the facts. Hiding our heads in the sand will accomplish nothing.
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Deep State Radio Podcast
5/5/20
Interview with Sarah Kenzior about her new book “Hiding in Plain Sight.”
Notes from the interview:
- The Mueller investigation was deeply problematic in that Mueller completely avoided investigating Trump’s finances and the close connection with the Russian Mafia. Mueller also refused to indict or even interview key people like Jared Kushner.
- Mueller made useless deals with people like Michael Flint that yielded nothing.
- Mueller was lionized by the corporate media and assumed to be doing a real investigation. But, he virtually defined out of the investigation certain crucial areas like Trump’s finances.
- The Republicans have no illusions that this will be a free and fair election in 2020. They have no intentions of trying to ensure it is. This should have been investigated from the very beginning. It was not.
- The Trump administration is a continuation of “streamlined corruption.” It is a continuation of a philosophy of government – began decades ago – to make government so small and powerless you could “drown it in a bathtub.”
- Crises make it easier to push authoritarian policies.
- 911 made it easy to carry out extra-legal surveillance activities.
- The economic downturn helped solidify income rampant inequality.
- There is a grave danger that the Coronavirus pandemic will help justify the use of advanced tracking technology that will further invade individual privacy.
- Kenzior discusses the problems already in China with technology that such as facial recognition and social crediting which records purchases and activities. For some people it is a branding system. If you don’t have the right authorization, you can’t get a job, for example. (Note: There is a documentary about this on the Wiegers.)
- Kenzior also is concerned about health data being weaponized, there being classes of people who can and can’t get tested or classes of people identified as “infectious groups.”
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I have to admit that it’s difficult to even get up the energy to write a blog anymore. I know that’s what the Christian nationalist Republican party coup leaders want, but I am still not above admitting I’m having a really hard time.
Normally, I would be glued to CSPAN watching the confirmation hearings for Ratcliff as DNI. But, I just cannot watch another hearing filled with feckless and useless Democrats asking questions like they are at a garden party. There’s no point engaging when you have no dog in the fight.
I hate to say it, but I don’t think normal, ordinary people have a dog in the fight anymore. The Democrats represent their corporate donors, Bernie has dropped out and disappeared, the corporate media covers nothing but coronavirus minutiae and little hero personal interest stories. (Right now Katy Tur is on MSNBC interviewing somebody about some music venue on the beach that is not functioning.) 24-hours a day of coronavirus coverage on two major networks and we’re looking at a freaking music venue disappearing.
Nicolle Wallace last night, when I tried to watch a few minutes, was asking ONCE AGAIN (for what must certainly be the 1K time) if there wasn’t anybody in the White House who could talk sense into Trump.
Now, first of all, I don’t remember her ass talking sense to Bush when he was lying to us and starting a war for profit in Iraq. Nor do I remember her ass standing up against using the OLC as a vehicle for legitimating torture. Nor did she stand up against torture during or after the administration. In fact, she has said that Bush was so proper and moral he wouldn’t even allow her to wear blue jeans to the office on weekends. Isn’t that precious? They make me gag.
Second, this question (like so many others distributed over the corporate media) assumes that the problem is Trump. Like Joe Biden, and others Wallace assumes that as soon as we get rid of Trump, everything will return to “normal.” (They always forget that “normal” is what got us here.)
Perhaps this is true for them. Perhaps they will return to “normal” since they want to see no essential reform, no change, just a return to the trough without having to think badly of themselves.
But, for the rest of us, the corporate media and the Democratic party have become enablers of this presidency.
Joe Biden, Barak Obama and the Democratic Party (after getting all the other corporate candidates to leave the race) have disappeared from public view. They are hiding in their basements. Biden is hiding to keep from making himself look like an ass in public which he (like Trump) is sure to do if they allow him to speak before a camera. The Democrats have made a political decision that they are going to lay low and hope Trump destroys himself over the pandemic. Barak Obama evidently never speaks up unless it is to prevent fundamental change in the country that might help regular people.
This is a perfect opportunity for the Democratic Party to stand up every day before a camera and explain to the American people that what we are seeing (a refusal to organize a response to the virus, profiteering over essential health resources, forcing working class people to go back to work while corporate executives hide in their basements, leaving the states and cities and counties to fend for themselves in the pandemic, using government resources to reward friends and punish political enemies, throwing away massive amounts of food rather than feeding the needy) are all part of Republican government.
This is not an anomaly; this is where the Republican party has been going for decades. This is what they have been working towards for decades. This is government by people who don’t believe in government. This is government by people who believe in health care for the highest bidder. This is government by people who will throw away food before they will give it to somebody for free.
If you ever vote Republican again, this is what you are voting for.
And, Joe Biden wants to bring these Republicans back into his cabinet and administration.
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Friday Notes:
As the corporate media becomes more and more useless, we must turn to other sources.
Podcast: America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio
April 1, 2020 Episode: The risks to meat packing employees of the mandated openings; the complicity of the Democrats in the class rip-off of the stimulus bill; Schumer and fast-tracking judicial appointments; claims of Tara Reade; lawsuits against big banks for discriminating against small businesses; insurance companies who refuse to pay claims because of the pandemic.
tps://www.rt.com/shows/americas-lawyer/
DNC Lawyers Argue DNC Has Right to Pick Candidates in Back Rooms
https://observer.com/2017/05/dnc-lawsuit-presidential-primaries-bernie-sanders-supporters/
When Science Loses Its Voice
Late February, after the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Nancy Messonnier, warned of the coming pandemic, Mike Pance was put in charge of the White House Coronavirus, and the CDC started declining interviews. Federal employees were limited in what they could say publicly. The NYT reported that federal health officials were required to coordinate their statements with Pence’s office. Several lawsuits and complaints and lawsuits have been filed.
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/cdc-pandemic-transparency-comment-access.php
MSNBC public editor: Why pundits and journalists insist on false balance.
There is an illusion the media feels obliged to preserve, even more than the illusion of objectivity. “What broadcast media is really selling—literally selling, to its advertisers and to its viewers—is the illusion of stability and certainty in American life, as well as its own role as a wise, trustworthy leader within that system.”
“National news organizations like MSNBC cannot operate effectively outside the assumption of calm, professional equanimity. Their real stock-in-trade is the impression, the conviction, that they know what is going on in the world; that is the reason viewers tune in and the basis of every ad buy. Normality. Stability, a world that is comprehensible and comprehended.”
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/83510.php
The Senate Corporate Bailout Package Is a ‘Robbery in Progress,’ Warn Critics
“It’s not a bailout for the coronavirus. It’s a bailout for twelve years of corporate irresponsibility.”
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Please, please listen to this interview. This is such an important book.
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The Power Worshipers
Notes on an Interview on CSPAN with author Katherine Stewart
Katherine Stewart in a CSPAN interview, points out that Trump wouldn’t be in office without the “Christina nationalists.” There is a myth that these people “held their noses” and voted for Trump in a transactional way, but that is not true. This is, according to Stewart, “a movement that does not believe in liberal democracy.”
“It’s aim is to smash the table, to overthrow the system as we know it and to create a new type of order one in which its leaders along with member of certain approved religious groups… and their political allies will enjoy positions of exceptional privilege in politics, law and society.”
Most people think of the movement as being “bottom up.” It’s not. “Religious nationalism works from the top down.” Stewart, in this book, points out the real leaders and the real followers and the fact that they are going to be around a lot longer than Trump.
“This is,” she says “a political movement not just a cultural movement.” “It’s about power.”
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Trump and the Republicans are working to establish a Christo-fascist one party authoritarian state. The corporate media refuses to take this situation seriously, acting as if Trump’s personal disdain of science is just that, some kind of personal peccadillo. It’s not. The Republican party has worked for decades to erode public confidence in science and the scientific method.
Crucial people in the Trump administration and the Republican party think they have a religious mission to subvert democracy in this country. Bill Barr (who numerous pundits on MSNBC assured us was an institutionalist) is just one example. These people detest science because science has rules, can demonstrate facts that contradict religious belief. These are people who do not want there to be any objective reality outside their own authoritarian determination of truth. Science is a threat.
The Republican Party has spent decades fighting against science. The science of climate change is a good example. They must discredit science to discredit what is now agreed-upon scientific fact – the planet is warming, disastrously, and it is the effect of man-made (and therefore correctable) behavior. But, acknowledging the reality of climate change means interfering with profits from fossil fuels. The Republicans would rather savage the planet rather than cost the 1% profits.
As Malcolm Nance pointed out this week in an interview, these people are a lot like terrorist fanatics, they think they are protected by God from the effects of their behavior. These folks think they can pursue profits and destroy the planet and they will not be affected.
As just one illustration of this thinking, last week there was video of people coming out of a religious service where people congregated regardless of the Coronavirus. One woman stopped to talk to the reporter, and said: I’ve been washed by the blood of Jesus. What she is saying is that she won’t be affected by the Coronavirus because God is protecting her.
This is dangerous thinking. Extremely dangerous thinking. And, it prevades an entire political party in this country. These are not just a few isolated people.
Trump’s administration is packing the scientific agencies like the CDC with appointees who have no respect for, and positive suspicion of science. Robert Redfield is one example. Redfield has essentially been given a pass by the corporate media.
The following are excerpts from an article about Redfield that took 5 seconds to find on the internet.
Redfield’s “…nomination was considered controversial, and was opposed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which cited Redfield’s lack of experience administering a public health agency, his history of scientific misconduct, and his religious advocacy in response to a public health crisis. Earlier reporting refers to his advocacy of a religious agenda in response to the AIDS crisis.”
In a statement by the President of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Dr. Peter Lurie (published (3/21/18), the CSPI deemed the appointment of Redfield “disastrous” for at least three reasons. 1) Redfield had no experience running a public health agency and has no relationship with state and local public health officials. 2) Redfield had been “credibly accused of scientific misconduct for exaggerating the benefits of a putative HIV vaccine.” Redfield was investigated for this by the military. 3) Redfield had supported a variety of policies related to HIV/AIDS that “are anathema to the great majority of public health professionals: mandatory HIV testing, reporting of positive HIV results to public health without the patient’s consent and quarantining of HIV positive individuals in the military.”
Redfield in this public statement was called “a sloppy scientist with a long history of scientific misconduct and an extreme religious agenda.”
Further excerpts from an article in Mother Jones: Choma, Russ (3/7/2020) “Trump’s CDC director has a history of controversial…”
- Redfield “… also has a long history of being a close ally to conservative politicians and their pet theories on HIV and AIDS.”
- He advocated investigating the sexual histories of those who tested HIV positive.
- Redfield advocated similar ideas outside of the military, aligning himself with a conservative Christian group called Americans for a Sound HIV/AIDS Policy (ASAP) which supported similar steps in the general public (mandatory testing and quarantines) to control the spread of the virus. According to Foreign Policy, in the introduction of a book by ASAP’s founder, Redfield rejected the medical norms for handling the epidemic and called for a more faith-based approach:
- “It is time to reject the temptation of denial of the AIDS/HIV crisis; to reject false prophets who preach the quick-fix strategies of condoms and free needles; to reject those who preach prejudice; and to reject those who try to replace God as judge. The time has come for the Christian community—members and leaders alike—to confront the epidemic,” Redfield wrote.
- Redfield named the breakdown of family values and increasing number of single-parent households as key factors responsible for the spread of AIDS.
- “In the 1990s, Redfield endorsed an unproven HIV vaccine as a huge breakthrough. It wasn’t, and Redfield was investigated for scientific misconduct for his role in continuing to push the vaccine. (He was later cleared of accusations of misconduct.) He also publicly lobbied for legislation sponsored by a conservative member of Congress that would force medical workers to get tested for HIV and AIDS and lose their licenses to practice if they were infected. More recently, in the early 2000s, Redfield remained adamant that the best way to contain the AIDS epidemic in Africa was to encourage abstinence, monogamy, and the use of condoms only as a last resort.”
- Redfield was not the Trump administration’s first choice for CDC director; she resigned after she was found to have traded tobacco stocks while running the CDC. Despite loud calls from CDC watchdogs like the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which accused Redfield of having a bad record “and an extreme religious agenda,” Redfield was appointed in 2018.
- Redfield has enabled Trump’s politicization of the government’s response.
And, Deborah Brix has been a close associate of Redfield’s.
According to information reported by Wikipedia:
“Redfield continued studies of the…vaccine; the results of his 27-author phase II clinical trial were published in the Journal of Infectious Disease in 2000, with Deborah L. Birx as lead author.[22] Redfield’s multi-site study, a collaboration between the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health, laid the groundwork for future vaccine development and provided a better understanding of the biologic basis of HIV infection and its interaction with the host immune system. The work did not, however, result in an effective vaccine.
HIV interventions
“The 1993 investigation did say that Redfield had an “inappropriate” close relationship with the non-governmental group “Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy” (ASAP), which promoted the gp160 vaccine. The group was founded by evangelical Christians that worked to contain the HIV/AIDS outbreak by advocating for abstinence before marriage, rather than passing out condoms — a view Redfield says he’s since changed.[]
Redfield served on the board of ASAP, which gay groups criticized for anti-gay, conservative Christian policies, such as abstinence-only prevention. Redfield also authored the foreword to the book co-written by ASAP leader W. Shepard Smith, “Christians in the Age of AIDS” which discouraged the distribution of sterile needles to drug users as well as condom use calling them “false prophets.” The book described AIDS as “God’s judgment” against homosexuals. At the time of his nomination to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Redfield maintained close ties with anti-gay and anti-HIV activists, although he has publicly supported the use of condoms and denied ever promoting abstinence-only interventions.[11] However, in the 2000s, Redfield was a prominent advocate for the ABCs of AIDS doctrine which promoted abstinence primarily and condoms only a last resort.
These people are dangerous, driven by religious fanaticism, and in charge of government agencies.
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As the corporate media becomes more and more useless in covering the Trump/Republican administration and the coronavirus crisis, we must seek alternative sources of news.
Try the “Trump Watch” Podcast.
In the April 16 episode, they do an interview with John Nichols from the Nation Magazine about the attempt by the Republicans to control voting in Wisconsin in order to assure the election of their hand-picked Supreme Court Judge. They failed, but only because people came out with home-made masks and stood in lines for hours to vote against the Republicans.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the corporate media had covered this win for regular people in Wisconsin? Wouldn’t it be nice if the corporate media actually talked about the attempt by Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, to thwart democracy and manipulate the voting process?
They won’t do it and we have to go elsewhere for our news. The corporate media has ceased to cover any international news at all. They are obsessed with interviewing everybody in the country about the minutiae of the Coronavirus issue. They are obsessed with covering every minute of Trump’s propaganda sessions every afternoon and then talking endlessly about what he says. They are obsessed with providing us inspirational stories about the “heroes” of the crisis and informing us of how we can entertain ourselves while staying at home as if we were children.
The Trump Watch podcast, starts every episode by saying that they cover what Trump DOES not just what he TWEETS.
The Republicans are using the Coronavirus to install a Christo-fascist one-party authoritarian state. While the press is asking Trump is it is a good idea for Americans to congregate on the mall in Washington, D.C., the Republicans are stealing us blind. After this is over, they will tell us we can’t afford Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Head Start…because of the pandemic, not because they robbed us blind and gave the money to their buddies.
I would love to hear of other podcasts you find useful and any comments you might have.
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THE BIGGEST CLASS THEFT IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY
The New York Times is reporting today that a doctor, Dr. Rick Bright , who was Director of the Department of Health and Human Services Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, was removed from his position because he insisted on rigorous vetting of treatments for the Coronavirus, specifically those touted by the Trump administration.
Bright led a federal agency involved in developing a vaccine for the Coronavirus. He was abruptly dismissed. He commented in a statement to the NYT:
“I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the Covid-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit.”
Bright maintains that doing his job responsibly caused clashes with “HHS political leadership.” He was, according to his statements, criticized for his “proactive efforts to invest early into vaccines and supplies critical to saving American lives.” He also, “…resisted efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections.”
Bright was talking about efforts to make chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which, he said “clearly lack scientific merit.”
One of the risks, Bright pointed out of these drugs in clinical trials, was “increased mortality.” That means the drugs are likely to kill you.
The political people have “politicized the work of BARDA” he says and pressured him to “fund companies with political connections and efforts that lack scientific merit.”
This is where we are folks. This Coronavirus effort on the part of the Republican Party and the Trump administration is just one huge feeding frenzy, a free-for-all of profiteering. This is one point of corruption among countless others across the system where the con artists and grifters Trump and the Republicans have put in place are having the time of their financial lives.
The real question is whether we are going to let them get away with it.
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The corporate media is a complete waste of time. They failed us in 2016 and they are spectacularly failing us now. We must turn to other news sources. These are excerpts from The Nation Magazine.
Grey, Rohan, Nation Manazine, April 20/27 2020).
Biden indicated that as president, he would veto Medicare for All legislation because of concern over the price tag. “Biden has been a deficit hawk his entire career. As a Senator, he broke with his party to support a Repubican-sponsored balanced budget amendment, and as vice president he spearheaded efforts to achieve a bipartisan deficit reduction deal that included cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”
“In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the Obama administration allowed millions to lose their homes in order to “foam the runways” for the banking system, while the Republicans cynically weaponized deficit and debt hysteria in order to deny the Democrats the political credit of a more successful recovery.”
“…much of the suffering attributable to this pandemic will not come from people directly contracting the virus, but from our collective failure to provide adequate care and support to the elderly, the physically vulnerable, the poor, and people in less fortunate countries during their hour of need. The virus itself may be a novel twist, but the broader story is regrettably all too familiar.”
Biden, in the debates, “…acknowledged that upon entering office in 2009, he and President Obama were informed by the Department of Defense that climate change was the single greatest threat to American national security—a point Sanders has been making for years. However, when the moderators pointed out that his climate plan was $14 trillion less than Bernie’s, he retreated into defensive bluster and nostalgic promises to restore the 2016 Paris Agreement. Gone was the sense of existential urgency and ambition that had animated his earlier remarks about the coronavirus.
“…whatever it takes means embracing the inevitability of a head-on conflict with the self-interest of concentrated private capital. A few months ago, it would have sounded extreme to propose placing Amazon, Walmart, Netflix, Uber, and American Airlines under public ownership. But today the socially contingent nature of these corporate behemoths—from their financial engine, to their workforce, to the goods and services they provide—has been laid bare. If luxury perfume companies like Christian Dior and Givenchy can be repurposed to make hand sanitizer to save lives, surely we can consider the same for the companies responsible for essential basic staples such as food, ventilators, and toilet paper. We want clean hands. But we also want bread, roses, and the means to wipe our asses.”
