AMERICAN DUPLICITY

The Indian Ocean lies at the centre of global oil transport networks, and is also a vital trade route for China, linking it to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to boost infrastructure and trade, includes a “maritime silk road” that passes through the South China Sea and Malacca Strait before entering the Indian Ocean. The PLA Navy has become increasingly active in the region in recent years, starting with anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden in 2008.

GARY OLSON—Our culture of rugged individualism has privatized the idea of caring and minimized the emotional needs of others. It allows for individual expressions of concern but brackets off any notion of social empathy. This exemplifies what sociologists term “feeling rules” that are shaped by ideology and class and include the idea that thinking only about oneself is just “common sense.”

MARC NORTON—But we don’t really know. We don’t know because there hasn’t been anywhere enough testing to know. And we don’t know how many non-symptomatic people are wandering around infecting those who haven’t met the virus yet.

We are all aware that this problem starts in the Very White House, where Trump and his cohorts are trying to wish away the pandemic. But wouldn’t you expect our state and local government leaders to be shouting to the rafters that we need more testing? You would think the Democrats especially would be eager to point the finger at the murderer-in-chief in Washington.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—As The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald notes, both parties advancing the amendment cited in their arguments the completely unsubstantiated intelligence leak that was recently published by credulous mass media reporters alleging that Russia has paid bounties to Taliban fighters for killing the occupying forces in Afghanistan. Yet another western imperialist agenda once again facilitated by unforgivably egregious journalistic malpractice in the mass media.

LEE CAMP—So when this story first came out, I thought, “You know, Trump has been stopped from withdrawing troops in the past by ridiculous propaganda that seems to land like a giant turd right after he announces his intentions. Maybe I’ll check what happened in the days preceding this jaw-dropping story.”

So just days after Trump goes against the military industrial complex and against the ruling establishment by announcing he’ll be withdrawing about a third of our troops from Germany, and just weeks after announcing an early withdrawal from Afghanistan, a seemingly mind-blowing story drops about Russia paying the Taliban to kill American troops.