Posts that I especially recommend today and some commentaries: Thursday, April 30, 2020

• Public Health and Private Profits Under COVID-19 Pandemic by Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism. 

• Dr. Ioannidis on Results of Coronacirus Studies from Journey Pictures via YouTube. (Note: Stanford University professor Dr. John Ioannidis reports on data from various parts of the world and their implications for coping with such a virulent virus as Covid-19.)

My comments: According to early data from this higlyly qualified source and other competent sources, Covid-19 is not more fatal than influenza. You should behave rationally to protect yourself from suffering from this virus. However, if you believe what media corporations, which have a record of spreading lies, are telling you that you should fear for your lives, then I have several fine bridges to sell you.

I am 84 years old with chronic bronchitis, and I see myself as extremely vulnerable to this virus. Thus, I am observing carefully all social distance advisories as should all people in my condition. (Edited comment for clarity of my views based on date between 4:30 PM and 6:45 PM CT.)

• Latest Stimulus Screwing Of America Explained w/Dylan Ratigan from The Jimmy Dore Show (via YouTube).

• Douglas Valentine Interview - How The COVID-19 Police State Was Born In Vietnam conducted by Whitney Webb in a 1:20:25 interview posted on The Last American Vagabond. (Note: I have only had the time to listen to some of this one hour plus interview. I will listen to it in full later.)

Next day commentary: I don't see that Valentine's thesis that the ruling class used the Phoenix Program, which they used in Vietnam, has been used to suppress dissent in the USA. Our masters have used a variety of sources to increase their control of society, but they have done this while perserving the ideology of a "democratic" society that has a number of civil liberties. The use of propaganda through the infiltration of media corporations was primarily applied in the USA and to lessor extent to the European countries of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. Vietnam's society was not the same as US's society. Thus, they have used a variety of means, including their experience in Vietnam, to exercise more control over dissidents in the USA. The only transfer of the Phoenix Program was the use of computers to identify dissidents, but that was perfectly logical to use updated technology to track dissidents. His observations did describe the growing militarization of US society to control dissent that have occurred over many recent decades, but again that was only logical and the roots go back to all fascist regimes. All of these methods were designed to control populations under their control to counter any threats to their capitalist system.

• Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism, Not Covid-19 by Lauren Smith from Internationalist 360°. (This is a call to action.)

• Backing the Wrong Horseman by Craig Murray (Scotland) from his weblog. (Note: You will need to know about the "Four Horsemen".)

• The Gates Foundation and the War on Cash by Colin Todhunter from Off-Guardian.

• Welcome to the era of the Great Disillusionment by Jonathan Cook from his weblog. (Note: I hope that this is the "era of the Great Disillusionment", but I have doubts. We have been lied to for many decades since WWII. Media corporations lied before this, but their lying was not as systemized and consciously controlled as it is today.)

• Fed’s Powell Tells Reporters Fed Has Only “Lending Powers” – So How Does It Own $5.5 Trillion of Securities? by Pam Martens and Russ Martens from their weblog Wall Street on Parade.

• Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s Anti-China Campaign Strategy is Part of a Broader Imperialist War Against China by Danny Haiphong from Black Agenda Report.

• The Victory America Won for Fascism and Nazism After WWII by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

My commentary: I've spent entirely too much time on this article, and I advise you to avoid it in the interests of efficiency of your time to understand current monumental issues that confront humans. Zuesse's tremendous efforts in this article is to establish, once and for all, his social-democratic understanding of these these current issues. His views are a product of a post-war education in which social-democractic views were still fashionable on college campuses and those espousing them were amply rewarded. To hold his social-democratic views is to ignore the innumerable historical events of capitalist exploitation of workers that preceded WWII. Some of these events I have written about in my "best posts" category.

I only draw attention to this article because this perspective still exists among American intellectuals, and its influence is pernicious to say the least. To restore capitalism as it was before WWII is impossible, but that is what many American bloggers like Paul Craig Roberts, old-fashion conservatives like Pat Buchanan, and historians like Eric Zuesse want to do. If, on the other hand, you see capitalism as a system that evolves or develops over time into complete capitalist class rule (fascism), you will see social-democracy as a dead end, and work for system change.

• Turkey courts Washington as disillusionment with Russia grows by Ragip Soylu from Middle East Eye.

“Recent developments in our region, particularly in Syria and Libya, have once again demonstrated the importance of upholding the Turkish-US alliance and cooperation at full strength,” Erdogan wrote.

One Turkish official, speaking anonymously, told Middle East Eye that Ankara’s calculation has been changing since its military clashed with the Syrian government in the country's Iblib province, where nearly 60 Turkish soldiers had been killed in February.

My question: Could the unpredictiable Erdogan simply be playing USA and Russia off against each other (def.) similar to the prime ministers of India?