Opinion
I have previously explained how the COVID-19 infection is being used to frighten us into submitting powerlessly to the global elite’s latest move to take much greater control of our lives and how those who can perceive this, and wish to resist it, can do so effectively. See ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear: COVID-19, Propaganda and Knowledge’ and ‘Defending Humanity Against the Elite Coup’.
In this article I want to document a sample of the rapidly increasing evidence of how this coup is taking shape and to reiterate a strategy for defeating it.
Donald Trump’s “Perfect Plan” to become dictator in November now runs through 30 Republican-controlled state legislatures, with the pivot in 12-18 swing states.
Anyone hoping for any remnant shreds of human rights and personal freedom has just seven months to stop the terminal destruction of what’s left of American democracy. Nothing is hidden or a surprise. There are no excuses.
Trump’s path to dictatorship is simple…and no secret.
Its primary foundation is the stripping from the voter rolls some 17 million American citizens. Using a wide range of pretexts, the Republicans have made it clear that “voter fraud” means any ballot cast by anyone who is not rich, white, old or a member of the Republican Party.
There has been no effort to hide this. Trump has worried in public that if all eligible voters get a ballot in a Vote by Mail system, the Republicans “will never win another election.”
News reports proclaim that the Governor of Virginia has signed into law a bill allowing localities in Virginia to remove Confederate statues. In reality, this new law allows Virginia cities and counties to remove, alter, or relocate any war monuments – something Virginia law had forbidden for 15 wars, including the U.S. Civil War.
The law up until now fairly clearly did not apply to several war monuments in the City of Charlottesville and at the University of Virginia in Albemarle County, which encircles Charlottesville. It arguably did not apply to any of them. But the new law erases any doubts. Charlottesville and UVA can now act without any legal concern, should they choose to.
Progressive friends who are used to gathering on the second Saturday for the Free Press salons met together through Zoom on April 11 from 7-9pm for a "Cyber-Salon." About 37 people were able to tune in to hear speakers, announcements and music. The idea was proposed by Free Press Board President Pete Johnson and our video production/technical support guru Trane DePriest hosted and produced the Zoom event, available here at the Free Press YouTube Network.
After the welcoming remarks and a bit of Free Press history, the first speaker was Torin Jacobs, reporting on his new initiative to give grocery gift cards to people in need now that there is COVID-19 and many of our neighbors and friends are out of work. The local Mutual Aid group will distrbute most of the $50 gift cards and the Free Press will be accepting nominations of people who need them - send an email to: colsfreepress@gmail.com to nominate someone, and put "Gift Card" in the subject line.
When it comes to hitting the doors and dealing directly with the people on the other side, when you rap your knuckles on the wood, you need to remember that you are employing a very powerful weapon effectively and responsively. Meeting people directly is persuasive, so know what you are doing.
Doorknocking to build an organization is not simply canvassing.
Canvassing is a valuable, but abbreviated way to distribute a message with the specific result of either moving a vote or producing a donation. The response to the visit is highly structured to achieve maximum impact in these directions.
There is certainly a structure to a home visit on the doors, but at its core, listening is still the primary requirement. The outcome is uncertain and exciting. The visiting team or organizer needs to be able to hear the issues and interests of the person on the other side of the exchange in order to be able to respond effectively about whether the organization and collective action is possible. At the same time, the organizing team needs to communicate effectively what the organization is and, equally important, what it is not, who should belong, and who should not.
The devastating impact of the coronavirus on Italy has sparked considerable speculation as to why the country appears to have suffered so disproportionately from the disease. Some initial theories suggested that the deaths might be due to lower standards and ill-advised practices in the Italian national health system, but the reality is that northern Italy, where the virus has struck hardest, has by most metrics better and more accessible health care than does the United States overall.
By one reckoning, the claimed number of dead is too high because anyone who tested positive and died had his or her death attributed to the virus even if it was actually due to other unrelated causes. And that argument has also been flipped on its head to demonstrate that the numbers are too low, using the fact that many Italians have not been tested for the virus to assert that many dead were actually caused by coronavirus. Since those dead were not medically confirmed positive for COVID-19, the deaths were erroneously attributed to other causes.
The film “Prosecutor,” tells the story of the International Criminal Court, with a focus on its first chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, with lots of footage of him in the year 2009. He held that office from 2003 to 2012.
The film opens with the Prosecutor helicoptering into an African village to inform the people that the ICC is bringing its form of justice to locations all over the world, not just their village. But, of course, we all know it isn’t true, and we know now that even in the decade since the film was made, the ICC has not indicted anyone from the United States or any NATO nation or Israel or Russia or China or anywhere outside of Africa.
Moreno-Ocampo had successfully prosecuted top officials in Argentina in the 1980s. But when he began at the ICC the focus was on Africa. This was in part because African nations asked for these prosecutions. And some who argued against a bias toward Africa were, of course, criminal defendants whose motivations were far from selfless.
For Donald Trump’s GOP followers, the real issue in the 2020 election is democracy itself.
They want it abolished.
Their primary allies are the Coronavirus, state legislatures like those in Ohio and Wisconsin, and the US Supreme Court.
The campaign just hit a new level in Wisconsin. Using the Pandemic, its gerrymandered GOP legislature made voting in the April 7 primary as dangerous as possible. The US Supreme Court, with its usual 5-4 death hammer, has backed them up.
That 5-4 margin selected George W. Bush (Bush v. Gore) in 2000, and cemented the corporate purchase of our elections with Citizens United (2010), Arizona Clean Elections (2011), Shelby County (2013) and McCutcheon (2014).
After I circulated yesterday’s excerpts of statements from a TED Talk interview of Bill Gates (Mr. “Vaccinate Everybody on the Planet for Every Known [or suspected] Virus”), an internet contact of mine asked me a couple of questions:
“Gary, are you an advocate of the herd immunity? Do I understand correctly that this means letting the virus run its course and kill as many people as necessary including many doctors and nurses who are treating the sick?”
Here is what I wrote back, thinking that some other readers of my columns might benefit from the answers..
No, but most bacterial or viral infections – even the most contagious ones (whether mild, moderate or severe) will, if they don’t kill the victim, result in life-time immunity because they are acquired naturally. Vaccinations, a very abnormal way of causing an infection or infectious response, will only result in partial, incomplete or NO immunity.