Global

By April 15, the number of Americans who died from coronavirus causes was officially tabulated at about 31,000. 

Failing to take control of the public health situation, what were they thinking in the White House? Maybe something like: OK, let’s see, what would be a really good distraction from everyone pointing their fingers at us – how about a deeply meaningful way to honor medical personnel who have risked their lives and suffered higher mortality than the rest of us for the past three months and, probably, well into the future?  

How about a whole bunch of flyovers across the nation by military warplanes designed to kill millions in moments? Perfect! And no chance of infection of the pilots! As President Trump put it on April 22: 

The killing of black man George Floyd by white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has produced the highest level of national unrest seen in the United States since the 1960s. Tens of thousands of protesters are demonstrating against racism and perceived police brutality. As it also comes at a time of coronavirus pandemic and record unemployment, it has the potential to change the U.S. in fundamental ways. The core issue is that many on the left, as well as some on the right, see America’s police as something like an “occupying force,” increasingly self-serving enemies of the people rather than careful protectors of the taxpayers’ lives and property.

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."-- Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

“It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.”  --Noam Chomsky

The mass marches against racism and police brutality have changed us all.

But they’re not enough.

All these gatherings need voter registration tables with detailed information on how to save the election currently scheduled for November 3.  

Too many uprisings have shaken the nation, then faded away. 

We all must vote. But this year, there’s much more to do. 

Stripped voter rolls, a sabotaged vote by mail system, a flipped vote count … these chokeholds can kill American democracy. Come November 3, unless we act, we can’t breathe.  

Millions of election protection activists must work every precinct, county, and state election center. Grassroots networks must protect how this election will be conducted. Our very survival depends on making sure there’s a national vote this fall that truly reflects the will of the American people.

That means dealing with 2020’s “election protection trinity”:

Registration rolls  

Sixteen million Americans have been stripped from our voter rolls. We need to get them re-registered. 

Already we’ve seen, as a result of people taking to the streets in the United States:

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Southeast Asia is resisting the harsh U.S.-China
blame game over COVID-19, preferring to maintain financial links with
both, but Beijing appears to enjoy a better image among the region's
hearts and minds.

"Southeast Asian countries are standing on the sidelines of the
Washington-Beijing COVID-19 quarrel, not taking sides with one or the
other," Paul Chambers, an international affairs lecturer at Naresuan
University in northern Thailand, said in an interview.

"Given that China is the region's leading trading partner and provider
of new foreign investment, and China came out of the coronavirus
pandemic earlier than the U.S., Beijing has an edge over the
Washington right now.

"The continuing COVID-19 problems in the U.S. shows Southeast Asians
that the U.S. political system is not a good model for dealing with
the virus," Mr. Chambers said.

Southeast Asian countries often try to balance relations with the U.S.
and China to avoid endangering extensively interconnected business,
military and other links.

Now that Trump is sending actual troops into our streets, the shape of his planned coup d’état is becoming ever clearer.

A critical piece will be an outright armed assault on the polling places during this fall’s election.

Trump’s GOP has already raised $20 million for anti-democracy lawsuits. While claiming the fall election will be “rigged,” Trump’s minions say they’ll raise a 50,000-strong vigilante army to terrorize “suspicious” (i.e., young, non-white, non-millionaire) voters at the polls.

Here’s the premise: 

On November 3, thousands of KKK/Gestapo-style “Trump volunteers” will swarm over the usual long lines in critical swing state/minority-heavy precincts. We’ve seen their neo-Nazi ilk in Charlottesville, among the Proud Boys, etc.

Many will be armed and dressed in military garb. Lacking legal credentials, but likely at gunpoint, they’ll demand ID and other “proof” of voter qualifications. 

Their purpose will be to drive away potential anti-Trump voters and turn the election into chaos.

Here’s what should happen now, judging by what I see on social and other media.

The U.S. Military and the National Guard and other war-making outfits should clear out of the streets of the United States, get on some airplanes, and head off to properly murder lots of men, women, and children very far away. It’s simply inappropriate to kill people in this enlightened land where we’ve figured out that lives all matter.

War making should not be based on lies about protesters being violent or black people being savages or Trump needing his religion fix. Wars should be based, as established by long tradition, on lies about foreign governments and terrorists and fossil fuels and babies in incubators and WMDs and phantom missiles and chemical attacks and impending massacres.

There is apparently no limit to what the United States and Israel can get away with without any consequences. The United States has been waging devastating economic warfare against Iran and Venezuela while also blaming China for a global health crisis that it is unwilling to help address due to its withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Israel meanwhile is planning on illegally annexing significant parts of the Palestinian West Bank in July, with a green light from the Trump Administration, and no one in Europe or elsewhere is even interested in initiating serious sanctions that might lead to the postponing of that decision. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even stated flatly that the remaining Palestinians who would be annexed will not become Israeli citizens – they will instead be “subjects” of the Jewish state with no guaranteed rights or privileges.