Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The specter of plague haunts our world, and it brings with it not only the ghouls of disease and death but vast economic and social uncertainty of a sort only the most elderly among us remembers (the Great Depression and World War II). My father is 90 and when I […]
Archives for March 2020
The Dem Primary is Over, and we need Bernie Sanders to lead on Health Care from the Senate
Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – On Tuesday, I cast a joyless vote for the very much politically doomed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Illinois primary, in an elementary school where hushed whispers and fearful glances had replaced the normal din of an election day. There was no one standing just outside the perimeter […]
Trumpandemic: Trump Spreads the Germs of Racial Hatred and Xenophobia
Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – President Donald Trump has systematically focused on a xenophobic rebranding of COVID-19 as a “Chinese virus” to help cover up his disastrous response to the pandemic. In a mistake-filled, zombie-like Oval Office address last week, Trump looked into the camera with sickly eyes and warned Americans of an enemy […]
Blues in the time of Pandemic, 1919 — “In a few days influenza would be controlled”
Middlebury, Vt. (Special to Informed Comment) – The great influenza pandemic of 1918-19 , which raged in the aftermath of the 1914-18 World War, killed and incapacitated over 50 million people worldwide. In the U.S. over 600, 000 people died in the pandemic. Survivors of that pandemic have left us a rich cultural legacy , […]
Trump Admin. in “Historic” withdrawal of Troops from 3 Iraq Bases amid Ongoing Rocket Attacks
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – AFP is reporting that the US military is withdrawing US troops from 3 Iraqi bases. They are al-Qa’im in the far north on the Syrian border, Qayyarah near Mosul, and Kirkuk. AFP quotes Coalition Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III as saying “A transfer ceremony is taking […]
That time America used to have Draconian Censorship of Just the sort Trump Dreams of
By Adam Hochschild | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Every month, it seems, brings a new act in the Trump administration’s war on the media. In January, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo exploded at National Public Radio reporter Mary Louise Kelly when he didn’t like questions she asked — and then banned a colleague of […]
Why the ‘herd immunity’ route to fighting coronavirus is unethical and potentially dangerous
By Arindam Basu | – As most of the world tries to suppress the coronavirus spread, some countries are going it alone – trying to manage the pandemic through so-called “herd immunity”. Herd immunity means letting a large number of people catch a disease, and hence develop immunity to it, to stop the virus spreading. […]
Is Covid-19 Iraq’s Next Desert Storm? The American-Built State was already a Violent Shambles with Little Healthcare
Detroit (Special to Informed Comment) – Iraq has endured decades of destabilizing political and military turbulence that has threatened its survivability as a nation-state. Its political infrastructure has been coopted by sectarianism and horrendous levels of corruption, its military is weak and disoriented, the country has endured years of war, occupation, terrorism, and civil strife, […]
“A Seller’s Market for Bankruptcy Talent:” The Beginning of the End of Methane-Producing Fracking?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Monday, the price of West Texas Intermediate petroleum fell below $30 a barrel for the first time in four years. Elliot Smith at CNBC reports that BP CFO Brian Gilvary is braced for petroleum demand actually to contract in 2020. This prediction is very bad news for US fracking […]
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