CAPITALIST SICKNESS

WAYNE MADSEN—Another leader who did his very best to spread the coronavirus was Brazil’s Bolsonaro. After having spent time with Trump at the U.S. president’s Mar-a-Lago “billionaire’s compound” in Palm Beach, Florida, the close contact between the U.S. and Brazilian delegations resulted in positive coronavirus tests from members of Bolsonaro’s delegation, as well as Trump’s party, including the mayor of Miami, Francis X. Suarez.

After Bolsonaro and his virus-infected delegation returned to Brazil from Florida, Bolsonaro called the quarantine actions of Brazilian state governors and other officials to thwart the spread of the virus, which had already infected 200 people, “paranoia” and “extremism.”

PEPE ESCOBAR—Western corporate media, en masse, have virtually ignored the myriad, devastating economic consequences of Planet Lockdown. Wall to wall coverage barely mentions the astonishing economic human wreckage already in effect – especially for the masses barely surviving, so far, in the informal economy.

PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—The old adage should say : Nothing is certain but death and taxes… and Karma. Karma is as real as it gets. The various holy books made sure to state that ‘ What ye sow so shall ye reap’ AKA ‘ What goes around comes around.’ Karma has many flavors, but the end result is always the same: What one does will eventually come back to revisit in some form or manner. In 1914 the whole of Europe and parts extended were in a world war. This war was not what was advertised as ‘ Good vs. Evil’ . No, it was a war between major imperialist, colonialist nations for increased power and control. The propaganda was such that the USA got itself involved to back up our British ally, or should I say our British ‘ Big brother’ at the time.

MoA—There was a time when I regularly bought the FT weekend edition to read the economic discussions in it. The weekend edition also has a section that is titled “How to spend it”. The newest luxury cars are tested and the greatest estates are discussed in it. I never had a craving to buy any of the things that section promoted. I thought that the snobbish section title was probably meant to be ironic. Now the FT has finally found the right content for that section.

SERGE HALIMI—When this tragedy is over, will everything just go back to the way it was? For 30 years each new crisis has raised unreasonable hopes that the world would return to reason, come to its senses, end the madness. We have dreamed of containing, then reversing, a sociopolitical dynamic whose deadlocks and dangers were finally understood (1). We hoped that the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987 would end runaway privatisation, and that the financial crises of 1997 and 2007-08 would halt happy globalisation. They didn’t.