A gift from a former student – face masks from China
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It came via UPS – a tiny timely care package so to speak, face masks. The masks come from China to help ease the Coronavirus mask shortage! from China. The package has about a dozen face masks, a gift from a former student, a graduate of, of all places, Wuhan University prior to continuing her education at the University of Denver where she was one of my students.
A dozen face masks to her retired teacher! She was worried about me. It’s things like this that remind me of how wonderful a career teaching was/is. The human connection. In the end it’s an exchange as are most meaningful human relations. I did offer her something once upon a time – of no marketable value whatsoever – a perspective on the global economy. She’s responded by making a career for herself as an international economic analyst for a time with the World Bank. Now she’s headed for South Africa once this pandemic downs and allows travel. And yesterday, a package of masks in the mail!
My former student’s personal response reflects broader Chinese global concerns to fight the Coronavirus pandemic. While it’s true that there will be a second, third and maybe a forth wave of COVID-19, the way that manner by which China addressed this first wave, first at home and then abroad has been both impressive and deeply humanitarian. The “reward,” “acknowledgement” that China is getting for this in the United States? Vicious, racist anti-Chinese campaign…a new and dangerous environment, not just for Chinese in the USA, but for Asians in general, led by none other than the country’s president, Donald Trump, nicknaming the Coronavirus “The Chinese Virus.”
It’s an old tactic – rather than accept responsibility for failure – scapegoat some one else, some other country, institution.. Nazis blamed Jews and Communists, American right-wingers blame undocumented immigrants, etc. etc. Just after 9-11, the Bush Administration struck out at Moslems. Go back to the 1930s and see how Charles Lindberg blamed the country’s problems, a la Hitler, on the Jews. Read more…
During better times. Members of ColoradoWINS – state employees union; These women worked at a state nursing home at the time.
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There are some suggestions – at this point anecdotal – that the Colorado nursing home staffing shortage has resulting in facility managers to stay on the job even after they have tested positive. Similar reports have surfaced all over the country in hospitals and nursing home facilities.
Such claims need investigation and if proven to be the case, these facility managers should be indicted from where I’m sitting.
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After a rough decade, the situation at one Colorado state-run nursing home improved…
Over the past decade, in large measure because my wife worked in one of these facilities until her retirement a year ago – a state-run nursing home for veterans – I have tried to keep up on the state of nursing home conditions her. Hers, the Colorado State Veterans Home in Aurora was rife with problems/crisis from its inception until a year or so ago, when finally, it appeared, the situation improved and settled down some.
A combination of an overworked and underpaid staff, an unstable (and in my view impressively incompetent and at times repressive management) along with a dysfunctional state social services department resulted in a sea of problems, many of which should have been and could have been handled better. The governor for most of the time that ‘Fitz’ lurched from crisis to crisis was John Hickenlooper, whom bears a lot of responsibility for the how poorly things were run there – and throughout the system. His head of Social Services, one Reggie Bicha, has to have been one of the worst administrators in the state’s history.
But now Hickenlooper has gone – or trying to go to – greener pastures – he’s running for the U.S. Senate after a pathetic effort to win the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency. His whole campaign was little more than an attack on Bernie Sanders’ program of “Medicare For All” with his constant parrot-like repetition of “I’m not a socialist; I’m not a socialist.” For his mismanagement of the Health and Human Services Department alone he should be retired from office. I hope he loses the senatorial nomination although the conservatives and monied elements in Colorado’s Democratic Party are supporting him. A lose as a governor, whose main claim to fame is drinking fracking water and claiming it was safe – he’d make an even worse U.S. Senator. Read more…
Imperialism in Denial ~ Daniel Lazare
Imperialism in Denial ~ Daniel Lazare
— Read on piazzadcara.wordpress.com/2020/04/08/imperialism-in-denial-daniel-lazare/
Wonderful piece – the complete irrelevance of the US military machine to counter the COVID-19 pandemic
Year of the Plague – 10 – Religious Exemptions Undercut Colorado Governor Jared Polis’ Effort to Contain COVID-19
Messiah Baptist Church on 44 Ave and Irving in Northwest Denver, open “until the Rapture”
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Although legal, it is a terrible mistake on Governor Polis’ part to grant such an exemption and yet another indication of the insidious role of the Religious’ Right’s growing influence over life in the country. He should have respected the separation of Church and State and banned church services and activities in the same manner that public school attendance and sporting events has been banned. It represents a danger to the public health and welfare of the state and a possible incubator to intensify the pandemic – something that should be obvious to everyone.
Religious fanatics everywhere are taking advantage.
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I went out walking in the neighborhood today for several hours in the early afternoon. Passed by the local Safeway; there were cars in the parking lot, but not that many. And then I strolled past Messiah Baptist Church…
While all hell continues to break loose with the Coronavirus nation-wide, the situation here in Colorado might have started to slow a tiny bit; That was a part of the mixed message of Governor Jared Polis’ remarks tonight (Monday, April 6, 2020).
On the one hand, the state wide Stay-At-Home order will be extended for two weeks until April 26; on the other Polis claims we’ve made some kind of turn around in fighting the virus.The doubling rate for those infected has gone from 1.5 days to 6 days. Things are getting better but all the indications are – the Governor’s optimism aside – they are getting worse as they are throughout the country.
A regional hub with its world famous ski industry, Colorado is getting hit much harder by the Coronavirus than any of the surrounding states (Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, (a touch of) Oklahoma, New Mexico and Utah.
That the epidemic is not at the level of New York, Louisiana, Texas, etc. in large measure as a result of the efforts of Governor Polis who has, with certain limitations, tried to take the bull by the horns and do so early on. Still, there have been some of the same problems that have nagged other places: shortages of hospital space, ventilators, overworked medical personnel, people and commercial establishments ignoring the Stay-At-Home order (this includes a number of bars, restaurants in my neighborhood from what I can tell, and a failure on the part of the state to enforce violations in the Stay-At-Home ruling as well as loopholes in the ruling itself… Read more…
Coronavirus Self-Isolation New Orleans’ style. Early March, during the Coronavirus pandemic
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For all that, in the end, the differences between Bill Gates and Donald Trump are essentially those of style, not content. OK, one is smoother than the other; no doubt Trump is “rougher around the edges.” They both in their different ways are working for the privatization of healthcare, not just in the United States but globally, and to undermine government administrated public healthcare research and delivery systems. Their deep opposition to government administrated healthcare binds them closely together. As Trump’s ineffectiveness – and world wide embarrassment for the United States grows, the powers that be carefully, but systematically, cart out Bill Gates to make up for lost ideological ground. They are not ideological opponents in the end but partners. Beyond the personal element in which both are, in their different ways intensely competitive, in the broader sense, they are on the same team..
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Trevor Noah plays tennis with Bill Gates. Maybe that’s why Noah failed to ask Gates any tough questions.
I expect that the video of The Daily Show host , Trevor Noah, interviewing Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, – and depending on the year either the richest or second richest person in the world – will go viral, if it hasn’t already. People should study it – both for what it says and I would suggest for what it means (to be elaborated below).
Many friends, including some who read this blog regularly look to Bill Gates and his foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in positive manner – to put it mildly. I am not with you on this – as mentioned in a recent blog entry – but let’s not quibble about this as of yet. We’ve (we = Humanity) have a pandemic to deal with whether we’re in Denver or Dakar, New Orleans nor Nigeria. Still, in the end we have to deal with two crises – the immediate short term crisis of how to neutralize this pandemic.
That’s obvious enough all. But then there is the longer term structural crisis (which I will get to), that is less apparent.
Let’s put to rest that it’s bogus, a fraud, or that, it’s just another flu. The bodies piling up in the streets and morgues of northern Italy, Iran and now NYC, speed with which, even considering all the statistical inaccuracies that the Coronavirus is spreading worldwide, are ample evidence that this is a savage global pandemic that before it’s finished will reap a deadly harvest, even more so than it has done already. Given the seriousness of this pandemic. does it matter which institutions comes up with a COVID-19 vaccine, be it a government (as long as it’s not Cuba!) or private foundation. Read more…
photo credit: Sarah Gerard
1. As NYC goes…
I am not one who reads the NY Times regularly.
Don’t think much of its international reporting which in the end dovetails with the Obama and Trump Administrations’ foreign policy war plans, especially where it concerns the Middle East. But during this Coronavirus crisis I have re-subscribed to the on-line edition. Yesterday The Times ran a good, predictable but deeply disturbing story on the city’s homeless, the headline of which was “New York City Has Done Almost Nothing to Protect 70,000 People in its Homeless Shelters from Coronavirus Spread” by Tana Genava.
The story featured Johanna Garcia, a 27 year old “former” (meaning laid off, I wonder?) pre-school teacher with 4-year old daughter, Abigail and a 10 month old son, Logan. At 10 months Logan as asthma, a condition liked to fibromyalga. The three of them live in a homeless shelter where social distancing is next to impossible.
Quoting from the article:
There are no cooking facilities except for a single microwave, shared by almost 70 adults and 55 children. Each family has only one room, meaning that if a family member gets sick, quarantine — what medical experts recommend to prevent spread of the highly contagious disease — is not an option. The facility’s case managers, like countless people across the country, are working from home — leaving Garcia and others in the shelter behind.
Journalist Tana Ganeva goes to note that as of yesterday (April 1, 2020) that already 99 people living in NYC homeless shelters tested positive for COVID-19. Of the approximately 75,000 homeless people in the city, as many as 63,000 of them live in shelters, “a result,” Ganeva cites, “of years of poor policy decisions, including by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose handling of the pandemic has inspired nationwide adulation.”
Cuomo might be handling the current pandemic as well as any U.S. governor and certainly better than the President who this Easter time is, as the line from the Bob Dylan song goes “lost in the rain in Juarez.” But keep in mind that like Trump he hesitated to order a full lock down until the pandemic had already spread, and just as worrysome, at the same time he’s fighting the Coronavirus he’s lobbying for budget cuts that would trim Medicaid financing. Nor is this new, as Ganeva points out:
During his (Cuomo’s) three terms as governor, which have overlapped with the tenures of mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio, homelessness in New York City skyrocketed. The mayors and governor failed to coordinate and fund policies to stem the rise and even actively worsened it. In 2011, Cuomo, who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton, pulled state funding for Advantage, a rent subsidy program, prompting Bloomberg to abruptly end it. The move sent at least 8,500 families back into shelter.
So Cuomo’s valiant effort to counter Trump’s chaotic response to the pandemic has its limits; the homeless are left out of the fight to fend for themselves.
… So Goes Denver.
Not much different – if at all – here in Colorado.
Yesterday I received an email from “Denver Out Loud”- the city’s both thoughtful and militant grassroots organization of homeless folk who defend homeless folk, a political force par excellence. The email announced a suit filed by the group and other organizations concerned about the plight of Colorado’s homeless. It included a copy of the submitted brief. I posted it on this blog earlier – and will re-post parts of it again today.
The overcrowdedness Ms. Garcia and 63,000 others have to contend with in NYC shelters parallels the situation in Colorado shelters, Nor is this anything new.
All of Colorado, not only Denver, has treated its homeless shabbily for a very long time. Every major city in the state has “a homelessness problem’ due in large measure to the state’s neglect. Too many homeless, not enough shelters. Not enough beds under normal circumstances. Virtually no facilities – public bathrooms, showers, that might mitigate some of the worst extremes of having to spend life out on the street.
All of Colorado, not only Denver, has treated its homeless shabbily for a very long time. Every major city in the state has “a homelessness problem’ due in large measure to the state’s neglect. Too many homeless, not enough shelters. Not enough beds under normal circumstances. Virtually no facilities – public bathrooms, showers, that might mitigate some of the worst extremes of having to spend life out on the street.
Despite decades of promises to address the problem – when he was Mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper made the empty promise to eliminate homelessness in Denver in a decade and then did what he was/is famous for doing: nothing. Empty words, no content. Current Mayor Michael Hancock is no better and in some ways, given the ban on camping he put in place under pressure from local merchants, he’s a shade worse. From Hickenlooper’s Road Home policy, to urban camping and tent cities – homelessness in Denver has only accelerated and is worse than ever.
And now this,…Coronavirus, the toxic icing on an already rotten cake – Denver’s homelessness policies, or lack there of.
Given the housing shortage in the city, exorbitant rents, a state wide law prohibiting rent control and virtually no public housing planning to any measurable extent, and now the spike in unemployment as a result of the Coronavirus, the homelessness crisis – for that is what it is – is likely to get that much more severe in the big cities, in the Colorado mountains and out on the plains as well.
Denver is an exceedingly rich city and Colorado nothing short of a filthily rich state, This neglect – and not only neglect but utter contempt – for the homeless is inexcusable. Both Colorado and Denver have the money, but not the political will to address the problem that won’t go away. Denver’s most effective organization fighting for homeless rights, Denver Out Loud! – has been fighting for homeless rights and the improvement of homeless conditions for almost a decade now.
If not for the efforts and the pressure Denver Out Loud! continues to place on the city’s (till now) brain-dead-to-this-issue city council and mayor, the situation would even be worse. In the recent election for Denver City Council, a more liberal, Democrat – people oriented council came to the fore, including an avowed and talented Socialist, Candi CdeBaca. Let’s see if anything changes.
Then every once in a while a federal or state investigation underlines just how serious the crisis has become.
For a more detailed look at homelessness neglect in Colorado, read yesterday’s blog entry.
Denver Out Loud – Spearhead for Homeless Rights in Colorado
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A brutal Hobson’s choice, where homeless can either sleep in overcrowded shelters in beds inches from people exhibiting classic symptoms of the disease, or out on the streets where they are often the victims of abuse and violent crime.
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From Denver Out Loud
LEGAL ACTION FILED FOR HOUSING TO BE OPENED FOR HOUSELESS IN THIS COVID-19 CRISIS
Writ of Mandamus Filed TODAY — Press Release Below
Denver, CO—Homeless advocacy groups have come together from around the State to address the nightmare confronting thousands of Colorado homeless during this pandemic crisis. A brutal Hobson’s choice, where homeless can either sleep in overcrowded shelters in beds inches from people exhibiting classic symptoms of the disease, or out on the streets where they are often the victims of abuse and violent crime.
The conditions in shelters and state mismanagement of homelessness in the time of pandemic, not only affects Coloradans suffering homelessness, but towns and cities across Colorado as the shelters serve as ideal hotspots for spread and retransmission of the virus. As of press time, at least ten homeless persons in shelters have tested positive for Covid-19. The number is almost certainly much higher as testing has been widely unavailable.
In a rare move, these groups courageously advocating for the invisible, voiceless and most vulnerable in our society are demanding, through this Extraordinary Petition, that the State fulfill its obligations with regard to public health and take steps to immediately mitigate the conditions in the shelters by providing housing to the homeless during this crisis. Cities and states around the country are stepping up to provide housing in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, e.g. Santa Fe, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Connecticut. Colorado must follow and go beyond by protecting every person in this state.
The Extraordinary Petition was filed this morning, a part of it found just below: Read more…
Aurelia Mane Estrada and her mother. Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York. July, 2010
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But there were other, broader societal worries, as the shadow of fascism spreads over much of the world, certainly both in both our countries, Spain and the USA. It’s not here in either place, but growing in both.
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(I continue with my series – just musings, odd thoughts mixing personal experience with the current Coronavirus pandemic. )
1. A dear friend, met on the internet (I think) 25 years ago
I did manage to take a walk today in the neighborhood in the early evening. There is a middle school across the street from where I live – we used to call them “junior high schools” back East. On the school’s athletic grounds, a baseball field, a place to practice soccer, a man with a United Arab Emirates t-shirt was practicing soccer shots, shooting into a net. He had such a powerful and accurate kick that I wondered if perhaps he’s not a professional player just trying to stay in shape during the Coronavirus crisis. I saw him last night as well; tonight I said hello, he nodded in return. I have a feeling he’ll be there tomorrow. Maybe he is just trying to stay in practice shape during the pandemic? I might try to extend our greetings each day by two, three words.
It was a busy day, won’t go into all the details but among the more pleasant parts of it – an hour discussion with my Spanish friend from Barcelona Dr. Aurelia Mane Estrada – one of the more fascinating and close long time connections. A professor of Political Economy at the University of Barcelona and some kind of Dean there in change of international students… we have been fast friends for 25 years. What brought us together, oddly enough, was a common interest in the modern history of Algeria. She was writing her doctoral thesis on Algeria since independence. For my own personal reasons, I have woven the Algerian Revolution and post colonial Algeria into most of my courses and on occasion, to this day, still write about it.
We met on-line. It was “mutual interest at first sight”… and our intellectual and personal relationship has only grown from there. We hadn’t spoken to one another for a good two years, time to reconnect I thought. She felt likewise.
Israel confiscating tents meant to establish a Coronavirus clinic in the Northern West Bank, Khirbet Ibzig. March 26, 2020
The Coronavirus and: Weaponizing Pandemics in the Middle East: Is the Pandemic Accomplishing What Targeted Assassinations Couldn’t?with Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince. KGNU 1390 AM, 88.5 FM – Hemispheres, Middle East Dialogues. Tuesday, March 31, 2020. 6 pm Mountain Time. Hosted by Jim Nelson.
Now in its eleventh year.
Rather than dealing with its own burgeoning Coronavirus crisis – which is emerging as worse than what has happened in China, Italy and Iran and offering add needed to other countries, the Trump Administration is fixated on using this crisis to push a very aggressive foreign policy tightening sanctions against countries (Iran, Venezuela) and unremittingly pushing for regime change.
To put it bluntly..People are sick and dying in Iran and the U.S. is to tighten sanctions and to seriously consider bombing the country. Then it can’t quite decide whether to bomb Iran…or for a major military intervention in Iraq.
This warmonger admin has no strategy beyond imposing sanctions or planning for war., thinking it can do what it wants. It shows no respect for humankind In the midst of a Pandemic.
This and more… Tune in, 6-7 Mountain States Time…Tuesday, March 31, 2020 on KGNU
Iranian women wear masks in the streets of Tehran. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
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The embargo on Gaza has resulted in an “extra-critical” situation. They cannot get help from anyone. They are forced to deal with what little they have on hand in the way of medical supplies, or to find ways to spirit in those supplies from somewhere else which makes treatment extremely expensive and unavailable for almost everyone.
In an interview many years ago, Pompeo – during the time he was director of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A) – he said something along the lines of “We lied, we cheated, we stole.” For somebody who has admitted publicly to being a habitual liar, what can we expect from him?
(Concerning Pompeo’s claim that the U.S would lift sanctions to help Iran deal with the Pandemic)
Ibrahim Kazerooni
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Yes, when I saw that statement that the U.S. would lift some of the sanctions in order to send humanitarian aid, I looked into it.
The key here is that while a pharmaceutical company in Germany or wherever has been told that it can send supplies to Iran and that the sanctions in this regard were lifted, at the same time – the sanctions on the Bank of Iran, that would purchase such supplies is still sanctioned. No Western company or bank can thus do transactions with Iran without fear of retaliation.
It’s a cynical trick – yes, Washington says, a country can send medical aid ot Iran but… if the transaction is paid for in dollars, there will be retaliation.
Rob Prince
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Part Two (continued from Part One)
KGNU – Hemispheres – Middle East Dialogues – March 24, 2020 (This section begins 27 minutes and 3 seconds into the audio tape)
Rob Prince: Let’s turn to the Middle East in general prior to zeroing in on the situation specifically in Iran. Ibrahim, can you give us an overview of what the Coronavirus is doing throughout the region. How serious is it?
Ibrahim Kazerooni: It is very serious although immediately after it broke out in China I was surprised that one of the main places that the Coronavirus appeared was in Qom (Iran) – of all places.
Rob Prince: Why Qom?
Ibrahim Kazerooni: There are some unsubstantiated explanations given as to the number of Chinese students that are studying in the theological school or the seminaries in Iran. They might be responsible for it.
But I don’t believe these Chinese students had returned home during the specific period of the outbreak and then brought the virus to Iran. It only took two or three days after the initial announcement of a number deaths in China that very quickly people (in Iran) got the virus and died.
So this is one of those enigma’s for which we have no answer. I believe it will take some time before history will be able to unravel it. But certainly it took off in Iran.
As soon as it started from Iran the United States immediately began attacking Iran for not doing enough to protect its population. Countries hostile to Iran such as Saudi Arabia and even political parties within Lebanon also joined the United States in doing so.
Unfortunately for these countries it took only a week before the virus literally spread across the Middle East. All the Gulf States from Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrein, the Emirates and Oman all saw cases appear. Within a week of the virus first appearing, the number of deaths from the virus began to increase.
On the heels of the outbreak in the Gulf, the Coronavirus appeared in Iraq, Lebanon and other places. Whether it’s due to the inability of the central government to provide the statistics or that its war-torn nature has pushed people to the periphery where interaction (with the virus) doesn’t take place – the only country where the Coronavirus has shown up to date (March 24, 2020) is Syria. It was only yesterday or the day before yesterday that the Syrian government first reported a few cases. So far there have not been any virus-related deaths in Syria although these initial cases have now come to light.
The numbers contaminated in Turkey has suddenly increased.
Rob Prince: Considerably correct? The figure of Coronavirus infected there that I saw was close to 1000 cases and that was a couple of days ago.
Ibrahim Kazerooni: Yes. More within the region. The numbers for Afghanistan and Pakistan have continued to jump, although the Pakistani government is trying to work with the Chinese., to see if they can get assistance from China.
For the past three weeks the Iranian government has been asking for help but those who could provide it were hiding behind the sanctions. Ultimately the Chinese and the Russians decided to ignore the sanctions and provided the needed aid because this is a humanitarian issue.
This is what the Foreign Policy article we cited talks about – that regarding China, Russia and Cuba – that the response to the pandemic is pushing many countries in the region towards China rather than towards the United States in the urgency of getting pandemic aid because the Unites States itself is unable to provide such aid at this time.
Rob Prince: I have also been reading there are a number of cases in Israel as well as in Gaza and the West Bank. Given the situation in Gaza that was chilling news. I have not heard of any Israeli efforts – in light of the pandemic situation – to lift the blockade. It could be awful
Ibrahim Kazerooni: Unfortunately Rob in terms of what is happening in Israel that Jimmy Carter described as “an apartheid state.” The Israeli government under Netanyahu has focused the government’s entire attention to the situation of the Jewish Community there at the expense of the Arab Community, even the Arab Community “of 1948″ within Israel. Thus, there is a huge crisis in Israel now regarding the treatment of the Arab Community. They are not receiving the needed help and medical attention.
The embargo on Gaza has resulted in an “extra-critical” situation. They cannot get help from anyone. They are forced to deal with what little they have on hand in the way of medical supplies, or to find ways to spirit in those supplies from somewhere else which makes treatment extremely expensive and unavailable for almost everyone.
Yesterday I saw a picture in which the Israeli government showing special treatment of the Coronavirus for Orthodox Jews. As they refuse to go to hospitals, the Israeli government was disinfecting them – they were being washed with medication – in the middle of the street.
Rob do you want to add anything?
Rob Prince: Main point – the region is starting to explode with the Coronavirus and not just Iran and it is unclear how the region will be able to deal with this given all the other problems it is facing – That’s my main point.
I’d like to turn now and concentrate on the Iranian situation itself and look at it in some detail. Obviously, it’s well known that Iran is one of the countries most devastated by the Coronavirus pandemic.
∙ It has the highest rate of per capita infections in the region, the Middle East.
∙ The death toll continues to rise
∙ There was a study done by Sherif University of Technology in Teheran. It ‘warned of an unspeakable catastrophe with projections that infections won’t peak until late May and estimates that the death toll could reach as high as 3.5 million people.” – Pretty chilling
∙ US sanctions on Iran have played a devastating role during the pandemic – preventing the import of medicines and medical equipment and overall weakening Iran’s healthcare system
Ibrahim Kazerooni: Rob, can I interrupt here?
When people talk about U.S. sanctions, they think that this is something new. I would like to briefly address this.
Iran and the Iranian people have been under sanctions from the moment that the Islamic revolution in Iran succeeded and the Shah was kicked out. Since 1979 when the whole regime change that took place.
The United States was not prepared to forgive the Iranian people or the Iranian government for what they had done – two things:
1. The United States lost the economic benefits that Iran provided to Washington. It was a military bulwark of U.S interests in the region. Now Saudi Arabia has taken its place in this regard. It was the military and security aspect in the northern part of Iran against the Soviet Union – part of the U.S. effort to encircle Moscow – that was lost. Iran has been under sanctions from that time
2. Then there are the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war that was imposed on Iran. In that war, the United States supported Iraq against Iran. After that there was one pretext or another for increasingly imposing more sanctions.
Back in 1979 – 1980, during the Algerian negotiations concerning the release of the (American embassy) hostages, there was some discussion of possible removal of the sanctions, but again nothing happened. Within a few months, Ronald Reagan began to re-impose sanctions against Iran. After Reagan, George Bush (the father) added on as did Bill Clinton and so on.
Any and all administrations that have come to power since the Iranian Revolution not only did not remove the sanctions, but each one has added to them, imposing harsher and harsher measures.
As a consequence, few hospital or research center in Iran are capable or equipped to deal with such an unexpected medical crisis as this. Had the Iranian medical profession known something about the Coronavirus previously, they would have prepared for it.
But because it was unexpected, the medical profession was caught by surprise, the medical industry was as well as the health industry. To establish a plan, organize themselves and literally put something together takes a considerable amount of time. The Iranian population has paid a huge price.
As I have told you within the last couple of weeks a number of my friends – they are around my age and even younger – as well as some professors that I had – they lost their lives.
Rob Prince: You mentioned to me that some forty acquaintances, friends, professors have died of COVID-19.
Ibrahim I want to add something here.
Under pressure from the world, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a statement a few days ago claiming that the United States was willing to lift the sanctions so as to be able to provide humanitarian aid.
But what I’m seeing happening is that instead of dropping the sanctions that the Trump Administration has added new ones even in the midst of this pandemic.
What can be made of Pompeo’s statement?
Ibrahim Kazerooni: In an interview many years ago, Pompeo – during the time he was director of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A) – he said something along the lines of “We lied, we cheated, we stole.” For somebody who has admitted publicly to being a habitual liar, what can we expect from him?
This is another lie on top of everything else.
To divert attention from the pressure it has been under to lift the sanctions against Iran, the United States paid lip service to reducing sanctions – yes, we will lift certain sanctions – but I have talked with friends in Iran – doctors, physicians – and they have said that not an iota of help has come from Washington – far from it!
To the contrary, the United States has done just the opposite – putting pressure on European countries prohibiting them sending trucks loaded with medical equipment from bringing aid to Iran. The Trump Administration has promised to punish those countries that do.
Rob Prince: Yes, when I saw that statement that the U.S. would lift some of the sanctions in order to send humanitarian aid, I looked into it.
The key here is that while a pharmaceutical company in Germany or wherever has been told that it can send supplies to Iran and that the sanctions in this regard were lifted, at the same time – the sanctions on the Bank of Iran, that would purchase such supplies is still sanctioned. No Western company or bank can thus do transactions with Iran without fear of retaliation.
It’s a cynical trick – yes, Washington says, a country can send medical aid ot Iran but… if the transaction is paid for in dollars, there will be retaliation.
To be continued
Year of the Plague – 7 – China and (to a modest extent) the Trump Administration Come to their Senses.
Asian Americans Protest The Current Wave of anti-Asian Xenophobia
Yesterday I wrote about the need for the U.S. and China to put their differences aside at least temporarily and to find a way to cooperate to fight the Coronavirus as a part of a needed international effort, that no country can “win this war alone. This is not a time for isolation. And then Xi Jingping came through at the G20 Extraordinary Virtual Leaders’ Summit.
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As the situation in the United States deteriorates by the day – not only the number of infected and dying from the Corona virus and the overall shabby response – the economic stimulus aside – there is also a breakdown of social and political bonds as the states fight with the federal government and with each other and municipalities for medical supplies, antidotes – a growing overall anarchy boarding on collapse, the United States needs help! And as Americans of Asian descent are being spit upon, cursed, slashed with razor blades and clubbed, it is China that has stepped for and offered a helping hand.
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Chinese President Xi Jinging had just finished given a talk oat the on-line G20 Extraordinary Virtual Leaders’ Summit organized by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. It was entited “Working Together To Defeat The COVID-19 Outbreak.”
There was not a word – not even a hint – of the angry rhetoric that the Chinese have used recently targeting the Trump Administration. Instead the speech – once again revealing the growing maturity of Chinese diplomacy called for a coordinated global campaign to fight and defeat the pandemic. Xi offered a four point plan:
- that the G-20 health ministers coordinate to fight the virus
- noting that the virus “respects no borders” that the fight against the pandemic be a coordinated on between nations
- that international organizations (the World Health Organization was cited) “be supported” in the effort in terms of cadre, supplies, I assume
- to accomplish this, “macro-economic coordination” needs to be enhanced (at a moment when it is collapsing into a free-for-all) so that the global system of production and demand can be maintained and not totally breakdown
The full text – it is a brief and “to the point” talk can be read at the link above.
As Indian retired diplomat Bhadrakumar Melkulangara aptly noted on social media, by these remarks, China essentially took the global leadership in the global effort to defeat the pandemic, leaving the Trump Administration far behind. U.S. President Donald Trump, busy to bribe German scientists to move to the United States and threatening countries not to accept increasingly highly respected emergency medical aid, had no choice but to praise Xi’s remarks.
Although the speech has global significance – calling for precisely the kind of coordinated effort that might limit the pandemic’s damage – it had significance for badly bruised U.S.-China relations. Xi was offering the Trump Administration “a fig leaf” after the war on words between China and the U.S. had intensified , a relations seemed to be deteriorating that much more. China had accused Washington of having started the pandemic (complicated story that I will write about later). Trump responded by calling the Coronavirus “the Chinavirus” and included Washington firing five “loaded” missiles in China’s direction from a base in the Philippines.
Russian trucks delivering humanitarian aid to Iran
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Even with regards to the Foreign Affairs article, the article is based on the assumption that China was the source of the pandemic – thus the early critique of China. As I recall, the Wall Street Journal called the Chinese “the sick man of Asia” but as time goes on it appears that it is the United States that is “the sick man” because they are the least prepared country when it comes to fighting this pandemic.
Yesterday the Chinese were able to celebrate the third or forth day without reporting any cases at all. Yet in the United States we are just at the tip of the ice berg. As time goes on we are having more and more exposed cases and more and more people dying all the time.
China, Russia and Cuba are certainly benefiting from the medical solidarity they are offering different countries while the Americans are virtually not doing anything – not offering aid to other countries. The United States is not in a position to do anything about it.
Ibrahim Kazerooni
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Ibrahim, something else has come to mind.
Here, in the United States we have the militarized country in the world, a minimum of 800 military bases abroad, a trillion dollar annual military budget and yet this powerful country with its bulging military apparatus is essentially helpless to address the Coronavirus pandemic – it’s irrelevant – and what also comes to mind is that the U.S. with its military is not going to be able to deal with the global economic recession and depression which looks to follow at all.
So we begin how ludicrous – how useless – the main thrust of U.S. foreign policy is.
Rob Prince
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KGNU – Hemispheres – Middle East Dialogues – March 24, 2020 – Soundcloud audio recording
Jim Nelson: Good evening Rob from your home. This evening we’re going to be talking about the Coronavirus or COVID-19 and how it might be weaponized in the Middle East, specifically towards Iran. You had a Foreign Affairs article attached to a blog commentary. It referred to the current tensions between China and the USA as it concerns the virus. Is this a good place to start our program?
Rob Prince: Funny that you mention it Jim because it’s a part of my introduction.
Dear friends and listeners – I hope you’re all weathering the storm in what more and more is seeming like a global free fall.
As you all know, this pandemic is global – there is virtually no place in the world that is untouched. A global free fall
In terms of what we’re going to be talking about tonight, this is the first of two programs in which we’re going to look at the pandemic in the Middle East, tonight and then next week on March 31 there will be a follow up program.
We’re not going to go over the details of the situation as it exists here in the USA; most of you are well aware of them as we all together try to come to grips with the seriousness of the crisis and what to do about it
Nor go into the details of – I don’t know how else to put it – the hypocrisy and utter recklessness that has characterized the Trump Administration response to the Coronavirus.
Needless to say there are growing questions both about origins and also the dangers involved, the numbers of those infected due to testing limitations
For openers I want to make some comments of a general nature to set the scene.
1. With this pandemic, the Coronavirus, it up there with climate change and the movement to eliminate nuclear weapons, that fighting and defeating the Coronavirus is going to take a worldwide effort, global cooperation and that in much of the world – minus the USA – that is already happening and growing – which is an encouraging sign.
In terms of the article in Foreign Affairs to which Jim just referred: It’s entitled “The Coronavirus could reshape the global order” by Kurt M. Campbell and Rush Doshi.
What it argues that in the interest of countering the Coronavirus pandemic the Trump Administration and China should stop their feuding – make peace – and work together to defeat this pandemic. The article does make some criticisms of Chinese actions, particularly early on in the pandemic, the main thrust of the article is a critic of the Trump Administration’s bizarre and mean-spirited behavior. It’s worth reading.
Needless to say we are far from such cooperation. Read more…
Year of the Plague – 6 – The Right to Life… for the Elderly!
Immature bald eagle at Jim Baker Reservoir – March 25, 2020
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But dying so that some jack-ass like Texas’ Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick or others like him can make a few extra million? Uh-uh. No way, etc. etc.
Maybe they’ll come up with an age of mandatory euthanasia for the elderly? I mean this is a pretty sick society anyway and has been for a long time. So… besides putting on our silver sneakers, us old folks is gonna have to fight for – you’ll love this – the right to life! plain and simple. Has quite a different meaning than the anti-abortionists and other right wing yahoos suggest.
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1. Jim Baker Reservoir
Four of us met at Jim Baker Reservoir in S. Adams County for a walk. David and Molly each came separately, Nancy and I together. We walked around the reservoir – a 1. 4 mile distance – twice being careful to stay more than six feet apart. The first time round, very few people, the second time round more so as it was approaching noon and the air was warming up. The four of us are pretty strict about maintaining our social distance of six feet – actually somewhat more and most of the others on the path were pretty considerate in that respect, but not everyone. Still it was nice to get out.
Often there are large groups of ducks on the water, but not today, it was almost empty. Still early on the walk I looked up to see two redtail hawks circling overhead and wondered if they weren’t the pair that hangs out on the cell phone tower on Tennyson St. across from Clear Creek Valley Park nearby. They circled around very high in the sky and then flew off in a northwesterly direction.
Then, as we rounded the first bend close to Lowell Blvd, some kind of raptor flew by. Couldn’t make it out at first, but it turned out to be an immature bald eagle. He (or she – I wasn’t certain) glided by and then perched itself on a telephone pole on Lowell Blvd. I took a bunch of photos – my camera has a rather large lens both of the eagle in flight and perched on its pole – not knowing how they turned out until processing on my computer. They came out ok actually.
Back by the car an “old timer” – I guess about my age – was sitting in his big red pick up truck. I’d noticed him earlier. He asked if we had seen the eagle and I told him – from a distance of 10 feet or so – that yes we had. He comes to Jim Baker often, sits there for hours in his truck as a way to get out of the house. And so I got the five minute history of Jim Baker raptors: there wasn’t just one bald eagle but a pair of them and they had their nest further down Clear Creek where the creek bends to the north – know the spot pretty well. And that they often fish together at Jim Bakker but that today it was only the male. He was pretty sure it was the male, more so than myself.
And that was not all.
Moutnain bluebird among the grasses at Clear Creek Valley Park.
1. Clear Creek Valley Park
We have tried to go for a walk every day for the past ten days or so that we have been self-isolating. We’ve taken the suggestion – now a legal directive – seriously. The walks have been 2-3 miles, an hour, hour and a half in different parts of the Metro area, mostly near our home.
Yesterday we went over to Clear Creek Valley Park where I have frequently taken photos of bird life of which there is a good deal at different times of the year. To get out of the house or apartment for an hour or two, people are streaming into Denver area parks, although there were very few others out at Clear Creek Valley Park yesterday; those who were there – four or five – were careful to keep their distance as were we.
The park sits just north of Cherry Creek – for those familiar with the area between Lowell Blvd and Tennyson Street at approximately W. 59 Ave in southwest Adams County a few blocks north of the Denver city line. It’s not “a beautiful” park because it’s bereft of trees. Essentially it’s a series of former gravel pits, the dirt and gravel of which was used to build the nearby highway I-76.
After the gravel was removed the pits were filled with water from Clear Creek making a series of ponds that bird life, especially ducks and other water birds – herons, egrets, avocets – thrive in. Lately Adams County has added a playground, peers jutting out from the main pond for fishermen, of which there are almost always some. It is starting to be frequented by more people. Three miles from our home in northwest Denver, we’re out of the city – I wouldn’t overstate it – but somewhat out there in Nature, and since my retirement I spend a good deal of time here.
As so we walked.
The bird life is picking up. First we saw a group of five mountain blue birds with their blue blacks, striped black tails and gray underbellies. There were a large group, twenty or more, gadwells in one pond, a few American wigeons and ringnecked ducks in another. The female redtailed hawk, a part of a couple that often perches on a cable tower was there too. I looked to see if a nearby osprey nest on Lowell is occupied. Not yet.
Was able to get a few decent shots.
At one point we ran into neighbor-friends, Marie and Doug Edgar, who were out getting their walking in. We talked – I’d say at a distance of ten feet for a few minutes and then each went our separate ways. We talked briefly about how difficult – but important self-isolation is. Later I learned across the backyard fence – again carefully distanced at more than ten feet – that other neighbors had visited the same part earlier in the day.
Of course all the emphasis is put on our responsibility as individuals to self isolate and very little to nothing is mentioned about the responsibility of the state to organize an active response, with the Trump Administration floundering to find an effective antidote to the growing pandemic. Fear is everywhere, in large measure because our knowledge of the pandemic and how to address it is weak, information contradictory.
2. Something is fishy (again) in Washington DC
The mainstream narrative concerning the origin of the Coronavirus widely reproduced in the US media – and beyond – is simple and direct – that it originated “by animal-to-human transmission in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, that it spread from there internationally. From the outset I have wondered about that.
Having a certain experience with dissembling mainstream narratives appearing in the media from the very outset I wondered about “the China-did-it” finger pointing.
Another curious thing – the suggestion that the Trump Administration was not aware of the Coronavirus threat earlier was not credible. A number of credible reports are surfacing in sources like the NY Times and Washington Post that both the President and Congress have been briefed repeatedly on its potential damage as early as January but did nothing to either alert the public or prepare for an active medical response.
While some Congresspeople in the know were dumping stock, the public was kept essentially in the dark as to the dangers that were about to burst on the scene. With certainly the most expensive, and probably one of the best intelligence services in the world that includes medical intelligence, it is not illogical to have thought that the threat would have both been identified earlier and a serious public warning announced to the American people and the world. Those who claim that the Coronavirus pandemic is the most far-reaching global crisis since World War II are proven more accurate each day.
But none of that happened.
By now the Trump Administration’s fumbling lack of preparedness – which continues – is obvious to all as are its devastating consequences. No doubt the task at hand is to bring the pandemic under control worldwide, including here in the USA where the extent of its impact is yet to be felt. Nothing could be more important.
Now a few weeks into the active part of the crisis, questions are being raised about how it all began. Scott Ritter, a former UN Weapons inspector who was apart of the team that looked into the Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” allegation has written a well documented piece that uncovers the bureaucratic bungling that was going on in the nation’s intelligence apparatus.
The article is revealing in two ways:
- It shows a decay in U.S. security medical monitoring and a shrinking transparency about pandemic research, which contributed to a delay in the public’s understanding of the the seriousness of the pandemic
- It suggests – although does not prove – that the mainstream narrative as to the virus’ origin – is perhaps inaccurate and that it is possible that the virus did not originate in China
The Trump Administration has become increasingly defensive in responding to the increasingly insistent Chinese claim that the Coronavirus did not originate in China, but was instead brought into Wuhan Province from the outside. They are pointing their finger at the USA. As Ritter’s article notes:
“The importance of this date as it relates to the NCMI is that in mid-October 2019 a delegation of 300 U.S. military athletes arrived in Wuhan to participate in the 2019 Military World games. China has suggested that these personnel might have introduced the coronavirus infection to Wuhan, citing their own research that suggests that the virus was introduced into China from elsewhere, and Japanese and Taiwanese studies that point to the U.S. as the likely source of the virus.
There is, however, no independent evidence to support these allegations.
The fact that there is, at the time, “no independent evidence” suggests we should hold our fire for the
Clear Creek Valley Park’s Redtail Hawk atop a cell tower where it is often perched
time being on drawing too many conclusions, but at the same time not that the countries corroborating the Chinese allegation are important U.S. allies – Japan and Taiwan. There is another aspect of this article that I found curious – that the delegation of several hundred U.S. military athletes who participated in October, 2019 Military World Games – who ever heard that that? – did not the standard medical exams when returning to the USA. Again, more of a curiosity than an outright formal allegation… but still.
The main point of republishing Ritter’s article – with this allegation – is that it calls into question the mainstream narrative as to how the Coronavirus pandemic initially began. It is not necessary to say the Chinese are innocent – they sat on this pandemic for too long – as did the Iranians, the French and the Trump Administration – not taking the threat seriously until it was already far along. This is the common feature of all governments’ to date: they have procrastinated and then themselves, panicked when they could no longer hide the seriousness of the issue.
Here is a link to the article in full. Good stuff.
Scott Ritter: The Staggering Collapse of U.S. Intelligence on the Coronavirus
Iranian healthworkers, on the front-line against the Coronavirus pandemic
The Coronavirus and: Weaponizing Pandemics in the Middle East: Is the Pandemic Accomplishing What Targeted Assassinations Couldn’t?with Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince. KGNU 1390 AM, 88.5 FM – Hemispheres, Middle East Dialogues. Tuesday, March 24, 2020. 6 pm Mountain Time. Hosted by Jim Nelson. Now in its eleventh year.
At the same time that China is sending Iran 30 tons of medical cargo, 250,000 masks to Iran and dispatched medical teams there to fight COVID-19 along with dozens of specialists, the Trump Administration is tightening its anti-Iranian sanctions and seriously considering bombing the country.
Interestingly enough, some of the nations that the Trump Administration is most vilifying – China, Cuba are making sizable contributions to the global common good, the contrast between these two countries are doing and what the Trump Administration is not could not be greater. Like climate change and the movement to eliminate nuclear weapons, fighting and defeating the Coronavirus is going to take a worldwide effort, global cooperation and that in much of the world that is already happening and growing.- minus the USA
With the Coronavirus, the world is not only fighting a pandemic, but a new kind of warfare, hybrid warfare or fifth generation warfare as it is called. We’ve talked about in recent programs but will, over the course of tonight’s broadcast and the one next week delve into it in much more detail.
All that and more – On Tuesday evening, March 24, at 6 pm Mountain States Time.
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 