Human Rights

Disease, poverty, and hunger encircle the globe. Even U.S. citizens (we are special, aren't we?) are marked as chattel for the corporate monster consuming lives like a meat grinder on steroids.

Ten companies dominate the market in food production and other companies consolidate without anti-trust enforcement, kowtowing to their hedge fund managers and vulture capitalists pushing for politically "nuanced" gains wherever they can grab them. 

Some are denying science, threatening lives and property of private citizens for oil and fracking rights. (see PA/OH/AUS). The call came down, drill baby drill, while they only wanted to make America free from oil imports. It now has become a huge profit-making export market forcing pipelines through private property by eminent domain as a "public utility."

I have previously explained how the COVID-19 infection is being used to frighten us into submitting powerlessly to the global elite’s latest move to take much greater control of our lives and how those who can perceive this, and wish to resist it, can do so effectively. See ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear: COVID-19, Propaganda and Knowledge’ and ‘Defending Humanity Against the Elite Coup’.

In this article I want to document a sample of the rapidly increasing evidence of how this coup is taking shape and to reiterate a strategy for defeating it.

Progressive friends who are used to gathering on the second Saturday for the Free Press salons met together through Zoom on April 11 from 7-9pm for a "Cyber-Salon." About 37 people were able to tune in to hear speakers, announcements and music. The idea was proposed by Free Press Board President Pete Johnson and our video production/technical support guru Trane DePriest hosted and produced the Zoom event, available here at the Free Press YouTube Network.

After the welcoming remarks and a bit of Free Press history, the first speaker was Torin Jacobs, reporting on his new initiative to give grocery gift cards to people in need now that there is COVID-19 and many of our neighbors and friends are out of work. The local Mutual Aid group will distrbute most of the $50 gift cards and the Free Press will be accepting nominations of people who need them - send an email to: colsfreepress@gmail.com to nominate someone, and put "Gift Card" in the subject line.

The devastating impact of the coronavirus on Italy has sparked considerable speculation as to why the country appears to have suffered so disproportionately from the disease. Some initial theories suggested that the deaths might be due to lower standards and ill-advised practices in the Italian national health system, but the reality is that northern Italy, where the virus has struck hardest, has by most metrics better and more accessible health care than does the United States overall.

By one reckoning, the claimed number of dead is too high because anyone who tested positive and died had his or her death attributed to the virus even if it was actually due to other unrelated causes. And that argument has also been flipped on its head to demonstrate that the numbers are too low, using the fact that many Italians have not been tested for the virus to assert that many dead were actually caused by coronavirus. Since those dead were not medically confirmed positive for COVID-19, the deaths were erroneously attributed to other causes.

The film “Prosecutor,” tells the story of the International Criminal Court, with a focus on its first chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, with lots of footage of him in the year 2009. He held that office from 2003 to 2012.

The film opens with the Prosecutor helicoptering into an African village to inform the people that the ICC is bringing its form of justice to locations all over the world, not just their village. But, of course, we all know it isn’t true, and we know now that even in the decade since the film was made, the ICC has not indicted anyone from the United States or any NATO nation or Israel or Russia or China or anywhere outside of Africa.

Moreno-Ocampo had successfully prosecuted top officials in Argentina in the 1980s. But when he began at the ICC the focus was on Africa. This was in part because African nations asked for these prosecutions. And some who argued against a bias toward Africa were, of course, criminal defendants whose motivations were far from selfless.

Federal Judge in Southern District of New York Finds Detention Under Unsafe Conditions was Unconstitutional; Holds ICE Accountable for Failure to Consider Release for People Most at Risk.

Professionals who work on the front lines of protecting the rights of people held in Ohio detention centers, jails, and prisons are calling for swift action to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks.

“U.S. immigration detention facilities are the perfect arrangement to cause an explosion of COVID-19 cases,” said Dr. Laura Chambers-Kersh, a family physician based in Beavercreek. Detainees live in “cramped, overcrowded quarters with limited access to basic preventive measures like soap and water, hand sanitizer, and the ability to social distance,” she said in a March 24 press conference.

Last Sunday at 11 a.m. I went for a walk. Even if it’s nothing special, a walk isn’t a normal thing to do these days. But this brief walk — around the block, consuming maybe ten minutes of my time — had a transcendent dimension to it that continues to awe me, and I’m going to do it again.

It was a prayer walk: my response to Marianne Williamson’s call for two minutes of global prayer on that day, set for 4 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time and meant to include the whole world.

In the midst of this terrible Pandemic, three absolutely essential items must be made immediately available to all Americans:  masks, testing and ventilators.

Congress must drop all other business—-including its in-fighting over a multi-trillion economic stimulus package—-and do everything in its power to make these three things immediately available to all Americans. 

The masks of course must first go to all First Responders, along with gloves, protective clothing and whatever else is needed to guarantee the safety of our doctors, nurses and other health professionals.  It’s wrong on all fronts to expect these brave citizens to put their lives at risk while treating others.

The testing must be made universally available with no charge.  Only a tiny percentage of our population knows with any certainty if they have this disease.  Early detection and treatment are exponentially more effective than waiting even a day or two. 

The urgent need for a vaccine

Public health experts say that if the COVID-19 epidemic is not successfully contained, it could become a global pandemic, perhaps spreading to 80% of the world's population. With a 1% mortality rate, this would mean that 70 million people would die of the disease. With a 2% mortality rate, the total number of deaths would be twice that number, 140 million people. Comparable numbers of people have died in the tragic wars and pandemics of the past. There is a serious danger that it might happen again.

Perhaps the best way to avoid such a tragedy would be to quickly develop an inexpensive and effective vaccine against the COVID-19 virus, and to distribute it very widely, free of charge, with the support of government funds. The most promising techniques for doing so, in my opinion, are the methods of monoclonal antibodies and gene-splicing.

Monoclonal antibodies