[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Trump’s “spiritual adviser” (and head of the White House’s “Faith and Opportunity Initiative” program) Paula White asked for cash during a coronavirus-related prayer session this afternoon: “Maybe you’d like to sow a $91 seed… Or maybe $9. Or whatever God tells you to do.”
Donald Trump touts ‘beautiful timeline’ to lift coronavirus restrictions by Easter and have ‘packed churches’
Donald Trump said he wants his nation “opened up and raring to go by Easter” as he spoke about an end to coronavirus lockdown measures across the United States.
The US President spoke about his desire to loosen guidelines, touting the prospect of “packed churches” for the holiday.
“I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter”, he said in a virtual town hall held by Fox News.
In a later interview on Fox News he said “Wouldn’t it be great to have all the churches full?”
“You’ll have packed churches all over the country. I think it would be a beautiful time. And it’s just about the timeline I think is right”.
Not content with being “the new Cyrus” it appears Trump also wants to be the new James I and own the title of “the wisest fool in Christendom”. - mancinblack
“If trouble comes when you least expect it, then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Writing anything about COVID-19 at this moment is a daunting task since the situation is evolving so rapidly, and in so many different locations. Information contained in this piece could be thoroughly outpaced by transformative events by the time it reaches publication, or even by the time I finish up and click “save.” There is also a glut of information online right now, some of it reliable and fascinating, and some of it misleading and counterproductive. Everywhere there is a mixture of growing apprehension, clashing opinion, and outright confusion. If the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center’s interactive map is accurate, there are currently 284,566 cases of COVID-19 worldwide, a figure that is growing. The “true” number of infections, that includes asymptomatic carriers, will be much higher. Beginning on February 24th, an accelerating number of new transmissions emerged outside China, primarily in Italy which currently has over 47,021 cases. At time of writing, France and Germany are also experiencing rapid increases in affected persons, together totaling over 33,000 cases, and Spain is on the brink of a national lockdown with over 25,374. Almost every European country has now been affected, and COVID-19 is now spreading in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. How will it test the West?
Relations with China
Early speculation on COVID-19, especially in dissident circles, orbited conspiracy theories that the virus was engineered, and that it was either deployed by the United States or was an accidental leak from Wuhan’s Institute of Virology. In recent days, the former theory has been eagerly taken up by the Chinese themselves, with the added detail that COVID-19 may have been unleashed by visiting American soldiers during the Military World Games, which were staged in Wuhan in October 19-27, 2019. According to epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, in the course of a very interesting interview with Joe Rogan, it’s possible to date the origins of human COVID-19 through a process much like carbon dating, and scientists now have data suggesting COVID-19 became active in humans for the first time in mid-November 2019. Ron Unz has asked:
How would Americans react if 300 PRC officers had visited Chicago, and immediately afterwards, a deadly new plague broke out in that city, with a major risk of spreading throughout the country? Isn’t it also rather suspicious that Iran has been hit so hard? So the two countries in the world most subject to current American hostility just tend to be especially “unlucky.” It hit China just before Lunar New Year, the absolutely worst possible time, and the epicenter was Wuhan, a key transport hub. It really seems an *astonishing* coincidence that 300 US military servicemen had been visiting Wuhan just prior to the outbreak, at a peak of international tension.
Other than timing of course, there seems to be little or no evidence that this was a bioweapon attack. Most obviously, one would assume that any attempted bioweapon attack by the United States on China would be much more covert than what has been suggested (a deliberate release by a very public group of soldiers). Also, while we know that SARS-like viruses based on bat coronavirus can be developed in the lab, the genome of COVID-19 has also been examined countless times with the result that there are now over 300 papers on MedRXiv concerning the structure, nature, and origins of the virus. None of these papers have highlighted anything suggesting an artificial origin of any aspect of COVID-19.
Conspiracy theories on the origins of COVID-19 are of course a very convenient and useful tool for the Chinese government, because they deflect attention from the fact the outbreak can easily be attributed to bad government, and to Communism itself. I find the idea that the virus originated in a Wuhan “wild food” market to be utterly compelling (see this documentary by 60 Minutes Australia, and this short piece by Vox), and this has direct consequences for perceptions of Chinese Communism. The consumption of “exotic” foods is itself a legacy of the Great Chinese Famine 1959–1961, after which the government permitted private farming but failed to prevent the monopoly by big companies of the rearing of conventional livestock. The peasantry, priced out of the market, resorted in large numbers to the farming of wild animals, especially, in the initial stages, the farming of turtles. Since this curbed starvation to some extent, the government backed these initiatives, and then in 1988 made the encouragement of domestication and breeding of wildlife an explicit aspect of law. Wildlife farming became an industry overnight. Bears, snakes, rodents, lizards, and bats began to be mass-produced for human consumption, and sold in mass markets in many of the country’s largest cities. In these markets, multiple species, alive and dead, are stacked in cages on top of one another, with the animals soaked in cocktails of urine and excrement—each cage a petri dish for the development new diseases, especially respiratory diseases, with the potential to jump to humans from myriad mammals. Together with its failure to take decisive preventative action in January 2020, and absent conspiracy theory speculation, the origin tale of COVID-19 is ultimately an indictment of Chinese politics and culture.
How that indictment will impact relations between the West and China remains to be seen. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have speculated that while mutual suspicion between the Chinese and the United States will remain high, the coronavirus outbreak will have no meaningful impact on trade between the two countries, and may in fact help de-escalate some prior economic tensions and involve the suspension of tariffs. In the longer term, however, COVID-19 has accelerated discussion about the need to become more independent from China in the production of goods. Several multinational corporations with supply chains based in China, having already considered diversifying their supply chains because of the U.S.-China trade war, are now likely to further their plans. Apple, for example, intends to move some manufacturing of its products (including AirPods and Apple Watches) to Taiwan due to the coronavirus. In Washington, members of Congress have used the outbreak to call for scaling back U.S. reliance on China, especially for prescription drugs, medical supplies, and other critical resources. Since Europe (Germany in particular) is the world’s largest manufacturer of drugs and medicines, we are likely to see a gradual decoupling of the United States from Chinese production, and a greater integration of European-American trade. Brexit Britain, until recently seen by the Chinese as having great potential for a lucrative trade and investment deal, may now present more of a cold house than previously thought. The EU, already resistant to increased Chinese economic influence, is also likely to dig its heels even deeper in the face of Chinese approaches. Some of the lasting challenges of COVID-19 will be how the West can distance itself from economic dependence on Chinese manufacturing, what impact this will have in both the shorter and longer term, and how the Chinese will respond.
Migrant Pressures
The first European outbreaks of COVID-19 fatefully coincided with an aggressive two-week operation by Turkey on its border with Greece, involving the movement of thousands of Syrian and African migrants. Beginning in late February, the Turkish government announced it would no longer stop migrants trying to reach Europe, and then drove thousands to the Greek border, live-streaming the process to encourage more to follow. The move was widely understood as an attempt to force European support for Turkey’s military campaign in northern Syria, and also as an attempt to extort more money from the EU. Although the effort now appears to have concluded with Turkey backtracking in the face of Greek resilience, Europe continues to have this metaphorical human “pistol” pressed to the side of its head.
COVID-19 is going to aggravate the broader migrant problem. Already the clamor is growing that migrant camps on Europe’s borders should be evacuated on health grounds, with the migrants permitted to enter Europe. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have argued that unhygienic and cramped living conditions mean COVID-19 can spread very fast, and that social distancing and hand washing are more difficult. While Europe bans mass gatherings, it’s been said that people in these camps have nowhere to go. Even within European countries, the outbreak has been associated with calls for amnesties and the opening of migrant detention centers. In the UK, lawyers and campaigners have called for hundreds immigration centers detainees to be released “because of fears they will contract coronavirus while locked up.”
The problem with such calls is that they all appear to present COVID-19 as a deadly plague slaughtering all in its path, rather than as something that afflicts the most seriously ill among the old and infirm. As is well known, the average age of Europe’s would-be migrants, particularly those from Syria, is somewhere around the late 20s. Given the known progression of COVID-19 in people in this age category, calls to permit mass influxes of masses of migrants purely because of the outbreak is tantamount to calling for open borders because potential immigrants might otherwise catch the common cold. Such calls are likely to ride the crest of a media-induced wave of panic, however, and the resolve of the West to resist further migrant flows will indeed be tested by twisted forms of moral blackmail in the weeks and months to come.
Life and Death under Liberalism
As stated in my review of Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985), we live in a decaying society that is in terror of death, and pathologically so. This pathology is rooted in mistaken beliefs that our civilization is dying from, or could imminently die from, disease epidemics, climate catastrophes etc., in the midst of willful and ignorant abdication of a future (via self-hate and industrialized abortion) in favor of mass immigration, consumerism, and instant gratification. Just as one has to confront death in order to truly live (or to become “authentic” in Heidegger’s philosophy), our society is in constant flight from death and thus inevitably collapses into inauthentic decay. COVID-19, while not as lethal as media coverage would suggest, is a reminder of our mortality and human fragility and will necessarily have a jarring effect on a Western liberalism that’s become increasingly distant from the confrontation with death.
Life under liberal finance capitalism is largely one of illusion, in which the prospect of real death is pushed far into the distance, both psychologically and culturally. Postmodern Western liberal culture is largely one of perpetual adolescence, in which the primary virtues are acting according to one’s individual will, identifying oneself in a hyper-individualistic manner, and expressing these identities via conspicuous consumption and behavior. We do not “live towards” Death, with a sense of purpose and a feeling that we are part of a much grander civilizational trajectory. We do not understand that Death has shaped our historical path, and that it hangs over us in ways that should direct our actions in the present.
COVID-19, regardless of current confusion over its true mortality rate, is a corrective to illusions that “progressive” Man has overcome Nature and can shape the world according to the human image, and without consequences. Certainly throughout my own lifetime, I’ve grown accustomed to assertions that life expectancy will continue to increase, and that there will be an endless supply of innovations and social projects that will make the mechanics of life easier and more productive. One increasingly expects that one will live a long life, mostly in very good health. Such a sense of security can breed all kinds of arrogance and fantasies, including the recent perverse luxury of the delusion that one can simply decide to be this or that gender. This new virus, however, presents the possibility, both in itself and its inevitable heirs, that Death is much closer than we ever thought, and that for all our technological advancement and self-congratulation, Nature need only tweak one molecule, so small our naked eyes could never perceive it, and the grave opens before us. The Age of Fantasy is confronted with the ultimate reality.
How the West responds to this realization will be a further cultural challenge. We have grown equally accustomed to the idea that we have “advanced” morally as a society, and that we have overcome some of the more “brutish” aspects of human existence that we perceive in the past. But in a world of apparently increasing plenty, such notions can be hard to test. It’s always easy for a man with a full stomach to condemn the actions of the starving. The conceit of the full-bellied West that it has overcome and surpassed itself and its past will now be tested. I, of course, arise from a political and philosophical tradition that insists there is no shame in the past. I see little or no place for morality in the struggle for survival. And I also see the cracks already forming in the Western conceit. This society that is against “hate” and prides itself on “coming together” is already struggling to stop people rioting over toilet paper and bottled water. If civil order breaks down, will the proud feminists be seeking their own resources, or hoping for a strong man to protect them? If the death toll does rise dramatically, and if curfews and lockdowns are imposed and intensified, I ask: How well will your beloved multicultural societies respond? If resources become scarce and tensions rise, who will you trust? These tests are coming.
An Italian virologist says that the country’s attempt not to appear “racist” in the early says of the coronavirus outbreak crippled the ability to properly respond to the pandemic.
Professor of Virology and Microbiology at the University of Padova Dr. Giorgio Pal told CNN that measures imposing travel restrictions and border controls were taken too late due to fears over political correctness.
“There was a proposal to isolate people coming from the epicenter, coming from China,” Pal told CNN. “Then it became seen as racist, but they were people coming from the outbreak.”
Italy is now the hardest hit country in the world in terms of coronavirus deaths, with 3,405 people losing their lives.
The need to minimize potential “racism” and “stigmatization” in response to the coronavirus was a policy endorsed by the World Health Organization itself on numerous occasions and adopted by the left-wing Italian government.
As we previously highlighted, the Mayor of Florence launched a nationwide campaign at the start of February encouraging Italians to hug Chinese people on the street to “stem the hatred.”
Footage of the stunt even shows Italians physically removing a Chinese man’s face mask while closely embracing him.
The Mayor even released a Twitter video of himself hugging an awkward-looking Chinese person to promote the campaign, which was launched to “express solidarity with the Chinese community.”
Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella has suggested residents hug Chinese people to encourage them in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, a member of Associazione Unione Giovani Italo Cinesi, a Chinese society in Italy aimed at promoting friendship between people in the two countries, called for respect for novel coronavirus patients during a street demonstration. “I’m not a virus. I’m a human. Eradicate the prejudice.”
The video was uploaded February 4th
It’s sad to me, really, because in concrete terms, I’d like for there to be good relations between Europeans and Orientals. It is the abstract concept of anti-racism and anti prejudice and its consequences that is the problem.
That video was uploaded February 4th. Three weeks later, Italy had recorded its third death. On March 20th alone, 627 deaths were recorded, bringing the total to over 4,000, with a frightening new trend introducing critical patients in their 40s and 30s.
Italy coronavirus deaths rise by record 475 in a day
The number of people dying from coronavirus in Italy has risen by 475 in one day to nearly 3,000 - the biggest increase since the outbreak.
There are a total of 35,713 confirmed cases in the country, with more than 4,000 having successfully recovered.
Lombardy, the worst-hit region, recorded 319 deaths in one day.
Italy is the world’s worst affected country after China, where the virus originated last year. At least 8,758 people have died, most in China.
The vast majority of the more than 200,000 confirmed cases - 80% - have occurred in Europe and the Western Pacific region, which includes much of Asia, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.
“We cannot clog up our hospitals and their beds with people that are being shot senselessly because we’re going to need those beds for people infected with the coronavirus.”
Amidst the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic that threatens to cause shortages of hospital beds and staffing supplies, Baltimore mayor Jack Young’s pleaded with his city’s inhabitants to stop shooting each other so hospital beds can be used for coronavirus patients.
“I have signed a declaration for a local state of emergency,” Young said in a press conference Wednesday.
The announcement came after news of multiple shootings and hospitalizations in Baltimore Tuesday. A total of seven people were shot during one incident.
While the violence in Baltimore often flies under the media’s radar despite rivaling levels seen in third-world countries, Young noted that this new wave of violence amidst coronavirus is “completely unacceptable.”
“I want to reiterate how completely unacceptable the level of violence is that we have seen recently,” Young stated, adding, “We will not stand for mass shootings and an increase in crime.”
“We cannot clog up our hospitals and their beds with people that are being shot senselessly because we’re going to need those beds for people infected with the coronavirus,” Young concluded. “And it could be your mother, your grandmother or one of your relatives. So take that into consideration.”
According to CBS 13 Baltimore, police are reporting an upswing in violent crime in Baltimore amidst the coronavirus pandemic:
Commissioner Michael Harrison said the city has seen an uptick in violent crimes since Friday, including a mass shooting Tuesday night — where seven people were shot. Five people were transported to area hospitals via medics and two took private cars to the hospitals for treatment. All seven are in serious but stable condition.
Harrison said they are looking for a Silver Honda that was seen in the area.
A city officer who was on patrol in that microzone did engage with a person who’s believed to be a suspect in the shooting as the man was fleeing the scene.
The officer was not armed with the level of “deadly firepower” that the suspect had. The officer did fire his weapon, but Harrison said police don’t know if the officer struck the suspect.
The officer sustained some minor injuries in the incident and was treated.
The police department is increasing staffing in the areas where crime has increased.
Some residents have reportedly called for hospitals to turn away individuals injured in gang-related violence, but such views were quickly castigated as “racist” on social media.
Poland reports first death from COVID-19, to raise epidemic alert level
Poland reported its first death from coronavirus, local authorities in the city of Poznan said on Thursday (Mar 12), as reported by private broadcaster TVN24.
The 57-year-old female teacher, who had recently been hospitalised in critical condition with pneumonia, was put into an artificial coma and on a ventilator but “unfortunately she died not long ago,” Poznan deputy mayor Jedrzej Solarski told reporters.
Poland currently has 46 other confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the health ministry.
The woman’s husband and daughter are among those hospitalised with coronavirus but their conditions are not critical. Other family members, including the woman’s two sons, have not been infected.
“What we feared over the last few days has come about. We have our first death from the coronavirus,” Polish President Andrzej Duda told reporters.
“I offer my condolences to her close ones.”
STATE OF EPIDEMIC THREAT
Poland plans to announce a state of epidemic threat, health minister Lukasz Szumowski said on Thursday.
“Yesterday, the WHO announced a pandemic. Today we will release a decision by the Health Minister regarding the introduction of a state of epidemic threat,” Szumowski told a press conference.
This will allow the government to close chosen places of work or institutions and direct medical workers to places of need, he added.
It is known that the woman has not recently been abroad and had no contact with a person who would have been suspected to have or having been diagnosed with COVID-19 disease. According to preliminary findings, several days ago she had contact with a person who returned from Italy.
Will Trump’s appeal to Christian Zionist base cull 
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