2020

Pandemics as the Revenge of Mother Earth: Human-Caused Climate Change Impels Mass Migrations of Humans and Animals

( Tomdispatch.com ) – As the coronavirus sweeps across the planet, leaving death and mayhem in its wake, many theories are being expounded to explain its ferocity. One, widely circulated within right-wing conspiracy circles, is that it originated as a biological weapon developed at a secret Chinese military lab in the city of Wuhan that […]

Donald Trump

Threatening Iran: Mired in Incompetence on Covid-19 at Home, Trump Tests Wagging the Dog

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – AFP quotes Trump as saying at a news conference and then on Twitter: “”We don’t want hostility, but if they are hostile to us, they’re going to regret it like they’ve never regretted anything before . . . If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price, indeed! . […]

Donald Trump

The World Can’t Afford Washington’s Pet Wars and Sanctions in a Time of Plague

John Feffer

(Foreign Policy in Focus) – During World War I, soldiers all along the Western front held a series of informal truces in December 1914 to commemorate Christmas. It was early in the war, and opposition had not yet hardened into implacable enmity. The military command, caught by surprise, could not impose complete battlefield discipline. An […]

Banking

The US Tax System is a vast Ponzi Scheme that only Benefits the Wealthy

F. Douglas Stephenson

( Gainesville Sun ) – There are no easy answers to financing U.S. health insurance, mental health care, social services, public health and other services for nearly 330 million individuals. The USA is a very large country and financing services must be tailored to this reality. Accordingly, funding government programs requires us to muster the […]

Bashar al-Assad

2 reasons – and 1 disease – that make peace in Syria so difficult

The Conversation

By Ora Szekely | – Despite many attempts at negotiations, the Syrian war – a conflict with a complicated and constantly changing cast of characters that has killed as many as 585,000 people and displaced over half of Syria’s prewar population – has proved extremely difficult to resolve. As the war grinds on, conditions are […]

Donald Trump

Iran Covid-19 Deaths Rival US as Trump Blockade blocks Medical Supplies; and Europe Defies Washington

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Union has activated the Instex trading mechanism for the purpose of sending medicine and medical supplies to Iran to fight the coronavirus outbreak. Instex operates in Euros rather than dollars and avoids US banks, so that the US Treasury Department cannot claim jurisdiction over it. The Instex bank […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis will also be Killing 250K / year Soon, and Needs same Planetary Swift Action as Covid-19

The Conversation

By Eric Galbraith and Ross Otto | – In the past few weeks, governments around the world have enacted dramatic measures to mitigate the threat of COVID-19. It’s too soon to know whether these measures will prove too little to limit mass mortality, or so extreme that they set off economic catastrophe. But what is […]

Donald Trump

How we gave up our Health, Environment and Diplomacy for Wars, Walls and Plutocracy

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, MA (Special to Informed Comment) -Budgets are moral documents (or immoral, depending on priorities). So also is tax policy. Consider Trump’s proposed $1.3 trillion discretionary budget for 2021. In snapshot, the Pentagon gets 55% and every other need of 331 million people–from health, education, agriculture, transportation, environmental protection to housing–is left with 45%. As […]

Epidemics

The Future May be Female, but the Pandemic is Patriarchal

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com) – Before I found myself “sheltering in place,” this article was to be about women’s actions around the world to mark March 8th, International Women’s Day. From Pakistan to Chile, women in their millions filled the streets, demanding that we be able to control our bodies and our lives. Women came out in […]

Archives for 2020