March 19: Some good news.........

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/19/us-healthcare-industry-working-class-deaths
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And some, possibly, bad.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/tip-of-the-iceberg-is-our-destruction-of-nature-responsible-for-covid-19-aoe
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/19/ivanka-trump-coronavirus-brand
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https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/mar/19/how-donald-trump-changed-course-on-coronavirus
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/19/us-healthcare-industry-working-class-deaths

Capitalism doesn't work. Get used to it.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/revealed-the-great-european-refugee-scandal
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...and another piece of good news.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus
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And another....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2020/mar/10/wuhan-closes-last-makeshift-coronavirus-hospital-video
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/coronavirus-covid-19-canada-world-march19-1.5502505
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ohio-primary-coronavirus-1.5499987

The U.S. is crashing itself. It now seems certain that either Biden or Trump will be the next president. Both of them are in the tradition of American politics going back to 1776 and even earlier. Both of them are servants of the super rich. Both of them are dedicated to plundering the world. Both of them support the constant wars that have been the mark of U.S. capitalism.

Expect the super rich to become even more so. Accept the spread of poverty that has become a characteristic of the U.S. Accept the many wars to come. Accept the violence and murder that has long been a characteristic of American life.

Accept the refusal to recognize climate change.

Accept the certainty that other other world powers will have to unite to deal with American aggression.
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https://rabble.ca/columnists/2020/03/federal-support-package-pros-cons-and-next-shoe-drop
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And let's remember the long term effects of this crisis.

https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/03/bill-morneaus-covid-19-response-economic-and-health-crisis-no
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Don't expect to see the story below in American (or most Canadian) news media.

https://rabble.ca/columnists/2020/03/cuba-teaching-world-lessons-sustainability
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https://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2020/03/watch-coronavirus-capitalism-and-how-beat-it
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https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/coronavirus-stimulus-pelosi-bill/

Too true. The Republicans are on the far right and the servants of the super-rich. The Democrats are one the far, far right - and the servants of the super-rich.
I would not wish to be an American now - and I'm not crazy about being it's neighbour..
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/here-are-51-republican-senators-who-just-voted-against-expanding-paid-sick-leave-all

As a rule, U.S. politicians, both Republican and Democrat, will probably leap to give "relief" payments to billionaires, while ignoring the needs of the rest of the population.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/economists-demand-trump-immediately-lift-iran-cuba-and-venezuela-sanctions-are

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/bolsonaro-out-balconies-and-windows-millions-demand-ouster-brazilian-president-over

President Bolsonaro of Brazil has been wildly irrresponsible in environmental destruction and a killer of native peoples. But he's a    friend of Trump  - and so he's also a friend of Canada's Trudeau. (Anybody who's a friend of Trump and of American billionaires is also a friend of Canada's Liberals and Conservatives.
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/18/literally-weaponizing-coronavirus-despite-one-worlds-worst-outbreaks-deadly-virus-us

This is the kind of war - as in Venezuela and Cuba - that Trump likes - the mass murder of people, mostly civilians, without using troops or requiring political approval.
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https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/18/an-exceptional-nation-fails-its-people-as-cns-editor-first-learned-20-years-ago/

Under American capitalism, the purpose of doctors and hospitals is not to heal the sick. It is to make profits for the billionaire owners of the medical industry.
That's why so many Americans die younger than Canadians do.
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-china-and-cuba-send-medical-teams-equipments-and-medicine-to-countries
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/19/under-capitalism-every-plague-has-a-silver-lining/
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https://theantimedia.com/iraq-and-russia-prepare-to-boost-military-ties-as-us-threatens-sanctions/

Would the U.S. be foolish enough to start a war over this - or even create a situation that would lead to a war?.  Quite possibly.
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https://theintercept.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-vaccine-medical-supplies-price-gouging/
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https://thesaker.is/china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us/
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https://www.voltairenet.org/article209489.html
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I found today's news not as helpful as it should have been in understanding what is happening. That, of course, was very true of the commercial news media - but it was also noticeable in the other sources I use.

For a start, I haven't seen any analysis of how the super rich with their many, many billions in taxes they don't pay.

It's bad enough that they take this money while forcing the rest of us to hand out the money to pay for the wars of the super rich. We have now lived through decades of the super rich stealing our money. And watch.  They'll be demanding even more of our money in government handouts - just like Canada's 25 billion dollar gift for an oil pipeline.

Think of what that means as you're figuring out your income tax. Think of what it costs you to pay for essential services, services that are steadily declining because our taxes really can't cover them. We are already suffering from economiic decline, have been for many decades.

What kind of greed and insanity is this to wave stacks of money to the super rich, a process that will become even more destructive as the months pass?

I'm a child of the dirty thirties. I still remember what that was like. My parents couldn't afford to heat our small flat. Breakfast was, to say the least, limited. And when I began school in 1939, it was common to have no lunch. Only occassionally would any of us get a free half pint of milk at school.

Friends began dropping out of school between grade four and grade seven. They couldn't earn much. But their families needed it. 

We're heading into another time like that.  Probably a worse time.  So that billionaires can escape paying taxes. Are we crazy?

Even in the better times after the war, very few would finish high school. And university? Forget it. We wore clothes that had to last even as we outgrew them.
To this day, I have toes that bend in - a result of shoes that HAD to be worn as long as possible.

It was bad. But what's coming may well be worse.

We are crazy. We let the super rich avoid billions in taxes. We freely offer them gifts - like the oil pipeline. We're headed for nothing for us, and nothing for our children. In the U.S., it's even worse as both political parties are servants of the very, very rich.

There is every possibility - well, certainty - of violence and quite dreadful suffering. (Every country will face this).

All this is made worse by the our wars of the super rich because the super rich no longer (if they ever did) cannot fight wars and operate nations. Get used to it.
Either we cooperate with each other or we all die in the final war.

Our politicians and our commercial news media have long encouraged international hatreds and war. We have to get off that. As it is, most politicians and news media encourage international hatreds. The Chinese are evil? The Russians are aggressive? In fact, the leading killers of the last few hundred years have been the western powers.                       

China is evil? Hey! If it's evil you want, take a look at the years of British power in China. And think of how, say, the U.S. would have been just as bad. I could certainly wish that China were more democratic. But the reality is that China has advanced remarkably after years of British plundering and murder and American threats.

Russia's a threat? Well, it's not Russia that has murdered and plundered all over Latin America and the middle east.

We are at a turning point in history. Either we break the power of the super rich and get rid of capitalism and stop ALL wars - or it's game over.
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Forgive me. I've been working on this blog for ten hours. I really don't feel like spell-checking. (Okay. Report me to Donald Trump.)