Op-Ed

In a recent article I reported existing evidence on the way in which COVID-19 is being used to implement, but also divert attention from, initiatives being taken by the global elite to consolidate and expand its power in significant ways, and perhaps to make the final drive to take total control of global society. See ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear: COVID-19, Propaganda and Knowledge’.

Every day now we’re waking up into an extreme real-life nightmare, while responses are still routinely lagging far behind what’s at stake. Urgency is reality. The horrific momentum of the coronavirus is personal, social and political. In those realms, a baseline formula is “passivity = death.” The imperative is to do vastly better.

Trump is moving in the direction of another upper class New Yorker who also became president in an era of extreme crisis. It’s time for some “bigly” Federal government action - again.

Facing a global pandemic, America’s very existence hasn’t been this threatened since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration confronted the Great Depression and World War II. The coronavirus is challenging the USA with a double whammy that combines both dangers: Economic collapse and an invasion causing massive loss of life. To combat these twin perils requires a response on a par with Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Allied war effort against fascism.

The night before Super Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren spoke to several thousand people in a quadrangle at East Los Angeles College. Much of her talk recounted the heroic actions of oppressed Latina workers who led the Justice for Janitors organization. Standing in the crowd, I was impressed with Warren's eloquence as she praised solidarity and labor unions as essential for improving the lives of working people.

Now, days later, with corporate Democrat Joe Biden enjoying sudden momentum and mega-billionaire Mike Bloomberg joining forces with him, an urgent question hovers over Warren. It's a time-honored union inquiry: "Which side are you on?"

How Warren answers that question might determine the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. In the process, she will profoundly etch into history the reality of her political character.

"The urgency of Warren's decision can hardly be overstated."

“Excuse me, occasionally it might be a good idea to be honest about American foreign policy.”

I don’t think I’ve heard that much honesty from a mainstream-party presidential candidate in virtually half a century. And suddenly this race begins to matter in a way that seems like . . . oh my God, a return of democracy? Suddenly I don’t feel utterly marginalized as a voter, as an American, left with nothing but cynical despair as I wait to learn which “lesser evil” the Dems will serve up for me as a candidate.

The words are those of Bernie Sanders, of course, standing up to the red-baiting the moderators and some of the other candidates were slinging at him during the latest debate, trying their best to bring him down.

This overview of the Mexico’s context in the last year of the 21st century’s second decade was drafted at the request of a North American comrade who shares the socialist, feminist, and environmentalist ideals, and who knows that the only thing that is realistic is to fight for the impossible.

Contexts

Mexico’s foreign context continues to be dominated by its dependence on the United States, a country led by an unstable aristocrat whose manner of rule is by threat. He often evokes a chauvinist discourse in which Mexico plays the scapegoat.

Once upon a time there was a Constitution of the United States. In Article II, Section 2 it stipulated that only the U.S. Congress has the power to declare war, which means the American president has to go to the legislative body and make a case for going to war against an enemy or enemies. If there is a vote in favor of war, the president is empowered as commander-in-chief to direct the available resources against the enemy.

There is also something called international law. Under international law there are situations in which a head of state or head of government can use military force defensively or even preemptively if there is a substantial threat that is imminent. But normally, a country has to go through a procedure similar to that in the U.S. Constitution, which means making a case that the war is justified before declaring war. The Nuremberg Tribunals ruled that starting a war of aggression is the ultimate crime.

Without former Cambridge University professor Alexander Kogan’s desire to obtain Facebook data for his research, Cambridge Analytica would never have had access to the 87 million profiles they used to elect Trump in 2016. But Dr Kogan was not the only academic who worked with parent company SCL and Cambridge Analytica itself as they developed methods for data gathering, analytics and rolled out unethical campaigns, for Donald Trump, the UK’s Brexit campaign and worldwide. Many of the firm’s academic and commercial collaborators remain unknown, and some universities are actively obscuring their staff’s involvement.

With the holidays approaching, few want to think about their weight. It will certainly go up not down before 2020 arrives. People will probably start thinking about their weight on January 2 –– and joining gyms.

It is true that in much of the world, people have never been bigger. The average American man todayweighs 194 pounds and the average woman 165 pounds. The growing girth has led to the creation of special-sized ambulances, operating tables and coffins as well as bigger seats on planes and trains.

NOTE: This is the debut of a new occasional column pointing out factual inaccuracies, misstatements, falsehoods, disinformation, misrepresentations, propaganda and lies in the mass media - from cable news to talk radio to movies and beyond. In our Orwellian era of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” when journalists are vilified as “enemies of the people,” truth - and the ability to discern it - is becoming increasingly endangered. This “post-truth” climate threatens is corrosive to our social discourse. Indeed, something I’ve noticed is that the very word “fact” itself is frequently used incorrectly on the airwaves.