CHINESE WAY OF LIFE

JEFF J. BROWN—If the Great Firewall were not in place, the CIA-MI6 complex and all its umpteen NGOs would create thousands of bogus Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, vomiting fake news and sensational Big Lie propaganda targeted to the Mainland. Chinese citizens defiantly reject all this color revolution sabotage against them, which has been going on nonstop, since 1949, when China gained its liberation, freedom and independence from Western imperialism and colonialism.

PEPE ESCOBAR—Soft power is paramount. Beijing sent an Air China flight to Italy carrying 2,300 big boxes full of masks bearing the script, “We are waves from the same sea, leaves from the same tree, flowers from the same garden.” China also sent a hefty humanitarian package to Iran, significantly aboard eight flights from Mahan Air – an airline under illegal, unilateral Trump administration sanctions.

At 10 a.m. on January 23, Wuhan went into lockdown. This was done to stop a deadly virus from spreading further across the nation. It was one day before Chinese New Year’s Eve, a major travel day for people planning to return home for the holidays. This documentary is dedicated to all those who’ve been battling tirelessly against the COVID-19 virus in order to keep the epidemic at bay. Their efforts in safeguarding humanity from the virus will always be remembered.

A critical unknown is how many mild or asymptomatic cases occur. If large numbers of infections are below the radar, that complicates attempts to isolate infectious people and slow spread of the virus. But on the positive side, if the virus causes few, if any, symptoms in many infected people, the current estimated case fatality rate is too high. (The report says that rate varies greatly, from 5.8% in Wuhan, whose health system was overwhelmed, to 0.7% in other regions.)

SLAVOJ ZIZEK—Another weird phenomenon that we can observe is the triumphant return of capitalist animism, of treating social phenomena like markets or financial capital as living entities. If one reads our big media, the impression one gets is that what we should really worry about are not thousands who already died (and thousands more who will die) but the fact that “markets are getting nervous.” The coronavirus is increasingly disturbing the smooth running of the world market and, as we hear, growth may fall by two or three percent.