PATRICE GREANVILLE—HBO comic John Oliver files a scathing broadside against American fundie televangelists, and we applaud. But we serve warning that one good deed does not make him a figure to be unconditionally trusted.
DEB DELLA PLANA—Good Morning, Ungovernables! Please. Do NOT give me some of that old time spirituality. I don’t give a shit who it is, I trust nobody who is suggesting we have a new political awakening under the leadership of a self-help author. I’m wondering how we’ll bring about this “transformation.” Judging by her book sales, we should have a nation of empaths. We don’t. Not even close. Before you know it, Dr. Phil will be Surgeon General, Dr. Oz will be the Director of Health and Human Services, and Oprah Winfry will be the fucking VP. No thanks.
GLEN FORD—The U.S. 5G eclipse by China is permanent, rooted in the systemic mayhem of the imperial economic (dis)order. Although the U.S. virtually invented the Internet as a byproduct of military technology, the early U.S. global hi-tech lead was squandered in the chaotic and criminally wasteful corporate capitalist game of all-or-nothing. As recounted by the South China Morning Post (“How US went from telecoms leader to 5G also-ran without challenger to China’s Huawei”) the U.S. refused to set national standards for mobile carriers, allowing tech companies to choose between wireless networks like TDMA, CDMA and GSM.
Germany’s rightwing populists are embracing climate change denial as the latest topic with which to boost their electoral support, teaming up with scientists who claim hysteria is driving the global warming debate and ridiculing the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as “mentally challenged” and a fraud.The Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) is expected to launch its biggest attack yet on mainstream climate science at a symposium in parliament on Tuesday supported by a prominent climate change denial body linked by researchers to prominent conservative groups in the US.