Trump: kool-aid, snake oil & genocide

Trump: kool-aid, snake oil & genocide 

or: Thou shalt not Covid thy neighbour

By Ranting Panda, 17 May 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed just how poor Donald Trump's leadership skills are and how vulnerable the general population is to his madness. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed more than 100,000 people in the United States and Trump is yet to display any real compassion. He has been more concerned with spinning the numbers to make it look like he is a war-time president who has kicked the virus's sorry ass. More snowflake than man, Trump is prone to puerile Twitter tantrums when someone dares to challenge his incompetence. Sadly, his hyperbole and hubris have contributed to the massive numbers of casualties experienced in the United States.

Republicans screamed blue murder during the Obama presidency, when four Americans were killed in a terrorist attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. Yet, many of these same Republicans now deny Trump has any involvement in the 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, while blaming Obama for the horrendous death toll, even though he hasn't been president for three years. They are too ignorant, too partisan and too gullible to accept that their president is a shit leader who is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. But why be non-partisan, when Trump mocked former President, George W. Bush, for daring to suggest that Americans need to ditch partisanship and work together during this crisis (Starks 2020). GWB was not the sharpest tool in the shed, but is a genius compared to the childish and petulant Trump. And just like a petulant little boy, Trump has refused to unveil a portrait of the previous president, Barack Obama. This breaks a 40 year tradition where the new president would unveil a portrait of the previous president (Haltiwanger 2020). Why? Because Obama was far more popular, intelligent and articulate than Trump will ever be, so Trump makes unfounded accusations of an unspecified crime ... just like a little kid envious of a classmate getting better marks.

Before he was elected, Trump said that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and people would still vote for him. Well, here we are ... and it's not just one death, but more than 100,000 ... and his supporters still defend him. It's one of the few things that Trump told the truth about. Despite claiming to be patriots, it is clear that his followers have no concern for their fellow Americans, and even less concern for anyone who is not American.

Trump's incompetence and arrogance has resulted in a death toll on a genocidal scale. There is a call for Trump to be tried for crimes against humanity over his handling of the pandemic (Da Silva 2020). Throughout the early stages of the crisis, Trump took little action and instead was more snake oil salesman than president, when he peddled a 'miracle treatment', the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine. Trump fiddled as thousands of Americans died.

The hypocrisy of Trump's supporter base is they claim that politicians should take responsibility for their actions (except Trump), that politicians should tell the truth (except Trump), that politicians should not be corrupt (except Trump), that presidents should be impeached (except Trump) and that even given all of Trump's moral failures ... abortion! Trump banned abortion, which therefore justifies his corruption, moral turpitude, lies, and ineptitude. It is tragically ironic that his supporters still claim to be pro-life, when they clearly don't give a stuff about the 100,000 innocent victims of Trump's incompetence.

Trump claims that Obama left no plans for dealing with such a pandemic. Yet, Obama left a quaint document entitled, 'Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents' (Wilson 2020). You can see what the problem with this document is, can't you? It uses big words ... far too big for Trump's grade 4 vocabulary (Burleigh 2018).

Trump has shown exceptionally poor leadership. He has no emotional intelligence. Instead of caring about people, he is more concerned with firing people who he disagrees with. He has shown incredibly juvenile pettiness at seeking revenge on people he doesn't like. He is corrupt and deceitful. His lack of leadership has cost thousands of lives. He can't argue that this was unexpected, as his January and February 2020 intelligence briefings repeatedly warned of the threat of a virus (Miller & Nakashima 2020). Trump's reaction? Tell the public that it isn't a threat, while failing to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic. Trump's actions since he became president in 2017, have exacerbated the impact of COVID-19 in the United States, and potentially globally. Even though Obama left a guide for dealing with such an issue, Trump failed to make any preparations.

Throughout February 2020, Trump failed to take any significant action to limit the spread of the virus. Instead, he went golfing, he continued his juvenile hate tweeting, and firing people who disagreed with him or on whom he was seeking revenge. For the first six crucial weeks after he was notified of the pandemic, he did nothing. This was the time for him to knuckle down and work with health professionals, state governors, to rally the troops; but he did nothing other than procrastinate and deny (Pilkington & McCarthy 2020).

Republican Steve Schmidt compared Trump's press conferences to those of the Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, otherwise known as 'Baghdad Bob' or 'Comical Ali', who became somewhat of a minor celebrity for the ridiculous claims he would make in press conferences during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. For instance, Trump's denial of the virus's impact is on par with Baghdad Bob, who would often deny the US invasion was occurring, even as US tanks could be seen in the background (Deprang 2013).

Schmidt told MSNBC's Ari Melber that COVID-19 the biggest crisis the world has faced and goes on to describe Trump's response to it as 'the most inept response by the Executive, by the President, I think with regard to any crisis in American history, but certainly any crisis in our lifetimes. And we look at a president who is so clearly in over his head and out of his depth, who has been dishonest, who's been imprecise, who's been inaccurate, and who's deadly indecision will be paid for with the lives of tens of thousands of Americans as this virus escalated to a place where it never need have gone. And that is all because of the wasted month of February where the president was hate-Tweeting, firing people that he was angry with over impeachment, going on campaign rallies and golfing, and now the country is paying the price for that. We should be careful to understand that when the same guy says, 'well, it'll be back in September, but we'll make it go away real quick', is the same guy when there were 15 cases in the country said soon it would be gone to zero and it would disappear like magic. The lack of credibility in these evening news events, is epic and unlike anything we have ever seen. It's a Baghdad Bob show every night of the week. Day after day, the airing of the grievances, the airing of his anger issues, the attacks on the governors we see every night; all the qualities you never, ever want to see in a leader in a crisis where lives are at stake' (Schmidt 2020).

To reinforce Schmidt's caustically correct analysis, Trump tweets about his popularity while more than 100,000 are dead from his dereliction of duty.

Trump accuses his critics of being unhinged and corrupt, yet it is him who is clearly unhinged and blatantly corrupt. Again, with more than 100,000 dead from coronavirus, he claims that he will take down Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google because the 'radical left' are in control of those platforms. (The 'radical left' are clearly very tolerant as they must be providing the platform for his deranged tweets).

As the pandemic was taking hundreds of thousands of lives across the globe, and many thousands of lives in the US, Trump denied it was a problem. He suggested just getting a flu shot to treat coronavirus. Incredibly, he even suggested that perhaps people could ingest bleach and irradiate their bodies with UV light, because bleach and sunlight kill viruses (BBC 2020). Following this particularly doltish comment, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to people not to ingest disinfectant (Christensen 2020). Not surprisingly, there was a spike in people ingesting disinfectant because of Trump's statement (Sanders & Sommerfeldt 2020).

Drink bleach he says ... more like drink the kool-aid ... and his followers are gullible enough to do it.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as the old adage goes, and nowhere is it more evident than the oafish Trump family. If you thought Donald Trump had an intellect deficiency, then I give you his son ... Eric. Eric Trump believes that coronavirus is a hoax perpetuated by the Democratic Party and it will all go away after the US election on 3 November 2020 (Hawkins 2020). One really has to wonder about the level of stupid in the feral first family. As Forest Gump said, 'Stupid is as stupid does' ... And Trump does a lot of stupid!

Trump has normalised ignorance, manifested by a contempt for education and science. He has ushered in a new Dark Ages, in which the religious right-wing are no better than the superstitious tribes of centuries past. It is ironic that we live in an age with instantaneous access to more information than any society before us and yet ignorance is fashionable, even patriotic. These 'patriotic' followers are whipped into a frenzy through mindless groupthink based around nationalism and religion. It demonises those who are 'different'. It glorifies stupidity over science. It places the bible as the highest law in the land, yet many of Trump's Christian followers completely ignore the very words of the bible ... those things about treating others as you would like to be treated (they call that 'Political Correctness gone mad'), the bible says to share wealth by taking from those who have much and giving to those as they have need (they call this the 'socialist agenda'), the bible says to care for the refugee (they demonise the refugees as terrorists, criminals, rapists, and screech for their imprisonment, torture and banishment).

These same Christians will bang on about how the Book of Revelation warns that the anti-Christ will deceive God's chosen ... and bam! Right in front of our eyes we see them being deceived by a selfish, narcissistic, hate-monger that preys on the vulnerable and boasts incessantly of his own vainglory; clearly anti-christian in his behaviour but supported by Christians the world over. They're not the chosen, they're the deceived.

Just to show how demented some of his followers are, televangelist Pat Robertson claims that COVID-19 is sent by God to punish the world for marriage equality (Quinlan 2020). Yep. The same God who so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to die in our place for our transgressions, is so filthy about people in love getting married that he has unleashed a pestilence to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Wow!

Forget the faux Christianity of Robertson, let's go to a real Christian. German theologian and anti-fascist, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, penned a letter entitled, 'After ten years'. In it he gives a blunt assessment of groupthink and stupidity that is as appropriate for Nazi Germany, as it is for Trump's America. It isn't just the level of stupid in Trump or his family, or his administration, but also in those who treat Trump as though he is their saviour. How stupid does a person have to be to follow a cretin like Trump! Bonhoeffer's words are incredibly poignant in this post-intellectual world where ignorance and idiocy are glorified:

'Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind at least a sense of unease in human beings. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reason falls on deaf ears; facts that contradict one's prejudgement simply need not be believed - in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical - and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous'. (Barnett 2017, p. 22)

'Facts ... are pushed aside as inconsequential' ... remember, when Trump was caught out lying & his press secretary dismissed the facts and tried to spin the lies as 'alternative facts' ... the gullible swallowed this, hook, line and sinker. It was like Bonhoeffer was thinking of Trump when he wrote this: 'In all this the stupid person ... being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack'. I can feel another Trump Twitter-storm coming!

Trump dismisses findings of scientists as 'not being balanced' ... think about that ... take all the time you need. Based on Trump's logic, if you're going to teach that the world is round, then you should also teach that it is flat. Whether it be COVID-19, climate change, clean energy, or vaccinations, Trump's anti-intellectual followers have the gall to tell people to do their own research. Of course, research is good ... if it is grounded in actual scientific findings, but their idea of research is to find another anti-intellectual with a dodgy Youtube channel and a moronic conspiracy theory. So let me put it this another way ... all the research conducted by scientific bodies such as the CDC, World Health Organization, NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, can be disproven with a simple Google search conducted by an intrepid half-wit who has been guzzling Trump's kool-aid? I think I'll stick to the quantified, peer-reviewed scientific research, thanks very much. Trump's anti-intellectual idiocy has now extended to him withdrawing funding from the World Health Organization that would have been used to help develop a vaccine against COVID-19 (Woodward 2020). This in itself, is clear evidence of Trump's disdain for science and disregard for human life. His policies are genocidal, but at least his ego gets stroked by showing 'he's the boss'.

How many more lives will this feckless cretin kill because of his incompetence, arrogance, ignorance & corruption. The Trump name will forever be synonymous with moronic behaviour, ineptitude & snout-in-the-trough corruption. Trump didn't drain the swamp, he is the swamp. He rules through nepotism and corruption, firing those who disagree with him and promoting his incompetent family into positions previously reserved people who actually knew what they were doing (Abramson 2018). In the middle of the crisis, rather than showing empathy for the victims of COVID-19, he takes time out to unleash on people who tried to impeach him, even stating, 'The top of the FBI was scum ... human scum' (Connolly 2020). How truly fucked in the head do you have to be to act like this in the worst crisis the world has seen in generations.

Rather than address the horrendous death toll, Trump incites his followers to civil disobedience. While other countries are locking down and socially distancing to prevent the spread of the disease, Trump's followers have marched in large groups to protest the lockdown, putting themselves and others at risk. In a time when we are being warned of the importance of social distance ... to not Covid our neighbour ... these mental giants are getting up close and personal, Covidding their neighbours, putting everyone at risk.

Trump even praised these protesters, describing them as 'good people', when they abused a reporter, accusing him of being an 'enemy of the people' (Lim 2020). This should be a concern to anyone who believes in democracy and free speech. Trump has constantly accused the media of being fake news if they dare to criticise him or his supporters. Trump's presidency has been likened to Hitler's Germany in the early 1930s, when Germans were turned against each other through 'us versus them' hate-speech. By turning Americans against each, Trump isn't a patriot, he is a traitor.  Presidential historian, Jon Meacham, describes Trump as the 'most dangerously ignorant president in history' (Colarossi 2020).

Trump is a wealthy man with the temperament of a five year old child. This is evidenced in his many tweets, where he will often claim to be the 'best in the world, EVER'! He is sexist, racist and bigoted, boasts of sexually assaulting women, demonises refugees, disparages people from other cultures, dog-whistles to white supremacists, is a pathological liar, a bully and a narcissist with an exceptionally fragile ego who can't handle criticism and is always tearing other people down to cover up for his insecurities and incompetence. He is driven by greed rather than a desire to help others, he always has a scapegoat for his shortfalls, he blames others for his misfortunes and mistakes, he hides behind the bible or the flag to justify his bigotry and ignorance, he deals in absolutism and can't grasp nuance or relativism.

So, what sort of people support a person like this?

People just like him.

These people will continue drinking the Trump kool-aid, blaming everybody else for tens of thousands of American deaths ... while Trump treats them like the fools they are, and tragically Americans continue to die because of his benightedness, empowered by the gullible sheep who follow him.

References

Abramson, J 2018, 'Nepotism and corruption: the handmaidens of Trump's presidency', The Guardian, 7 March, viewed 17 May 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/nepotism-corruption-handmaiden-trump-presidency.

Barnett, VJ 2017, After Ten Years: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and our times, Fortress Press, Minneapolis MN.

BBC 2020, 'Coronavirus: Outcry after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment', BBC News, 24 April, viewed 15 May 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177.

Burleigh, N 2018, 'Trump speaks at fourth-grade level, lowest of last 15 U.S. presidents, new analysis finds', Newsweek, 8 January, viewed 17 May 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/trump-fire-and-fury-smart-genius-obama-774169.

Christensen, J 2020, 'Don't eat or inject yourself with disinfectant, warns FDA commissioner', CNN, 23 April, viewed 23 April 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-04-23-20-intl/h_1d2d1c2779b624b151a1f72557aabe0d.

Colarossi, S 2020, 'Presidential historian calls Donald Trump the most dangerously ignorant president in history', Politic USA, 18 April, viewed 19 April 2020, https://www.politicususa.com/2020/04/18/presidential-historian-calls-donald-trump-the-most-dangerously-ignorant-president-in-history.html.

Connolly, G 2020, 'Trump brands FBI top brass ‘human scum’, calls CNN reporter ‘brainless’, and says he’s ‘not a fan’ of Mitt Romney in freewheeling press conference', Yahoo News, 20 April, viewed 21 April 2020, https://news.yahoo.com/trump-brands-fbi-top-brass-104641147.html.

Da Silva, C 2020, 'Trump should be tried for 'crimes against humanity' over hydroxychloroquine remarks, says Ohio state rep.', Newsweek, 6 April, viewed 7 April 2020,
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-crimes-against-humanity-hydroxychloroquine-fauci-coronavirus-tavia-galonski-1496280.

Deprang, E 2013, ''Baghdad Bob' and His Ridiculous, True Predictions', The Atlantic, 21 March, viewed 26 April 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/baghdad-bob-and-his-ridiculous-true-predictions/274241/.

Haltiwanger, J 2020, 'Trump is refusing to unveil Obama's portrait at the White House, breaking a 40-year tradition', 20 May, viewed 20 May 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-refusing-to-unveil-obama-portrait-at-the-white-house-2020-5.

Hawkins, D 2020, 'Eric Trump claims coronavirus is Democratic hoax, will ‘magically’ vanish after 2020 election', The Washington Post, 18 May, viewed 18 May 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/17/eric-trump-coronavirus/.

Lim, C 2020, 'Trump praised anti-lockdown protesters after they berated and harassed a local reporter', BuzzFeed News, 16 May 2020, viewed 18 May 2020, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/clarissajanlim/reporter-kevin-vesey-harassed-coronavirus-protest.

Miller, G & Nakashima, E 2020, 'President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat', The Washington Post, 28 April, viewed 28 April 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/presidents-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-cited-virus-threat/2020/04/27/ca66949a-8885-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html

Pilkington, E & McCarthy, T 2020, 'The missing six weeks: how Trump failed the biggest test of his life', The Guardian, 28 March, viewed 15 May 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-politics-us-health-disaster.

Quinlan, C 2020, 'Deplorable and bigoted: Televangelist Pat Robertson, COVID-19 is punishment for marriage equality', Buzzflash, 21 April, viewed 22 April 2020, https://buzzflash.com/articles/televangelist-pat-robertson-covid-19-is-punishment-for-marriage-equality.

Sanders, A & Sommerfeldt, C 2020, 'A spike in New Yorkers ingesting household cleaners following Trump’s controversial coronavirus comments', NY Daily News, 24 April, viewed 26 April 2020, https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-new-yorkers-household-cleaners-trump-20200425-rnaqio5dyfeaxmthxx2vktqa5m-story.html.

Schmidt, S 2020, '"Baghdad Don: Trump blasted for most inept response to 'any crisis in history'', MSNBC, aired 16 April, viewed 22 April 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_e7QPuNaZo.

Starks, J 2020, 'Trump mocks George W. Bush's call to push aside partisanship', AOL, 3 May, viewed 18 May 2020, https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/05/03/trump-mocks-george-w-bushs-call-to-push-aside-partisanship/24187828.

Wilson, C 2020, 'McConnell puts blame for 2020 coronavirus failure on Barack Obama, in office 2009-2017', Yahoo News, 13 May, viewed 15 May 2020, https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-trump-mcconnell-blame-obama-pandemic-140217286.html.

Woodward, A 2020, 'Coronavirus: US will not participate in WHO vaccine project after Trump turned against it', The Independent, 24 April, viewed 24 April 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-vaccine-who-project-trump-us-covid-19-a9483421.html.

Updated 31 May 2020

Michael Moore's Planet of the Humans - fact, fiction & the future

Michael Moore's Planet of the Humans - fact, fiction & the future

By Ranting Panda, 17 May 2020

American filmmaker, Michael Moore, has produced another controversial documentary. This one is called Planet of the Humans. Jeff Gibbs provides the dulcet narration.

The film makes several claims which have angered environmentalists and warmed the cockles of right-wing hearts across the globe. Many of those claims are false or misrepresentations. However, Moore also makes a number of claims which are spot on, but which his new-found friends of the right-wing conveniently ignore.

In summary, Moore claims that renewable energy, particularly solar, wind and biomass, are as damaging for the environment as coal-fired energy generation. He does make some good points, particularly around mining practices and slavery, as well as the fact that humans cannot continue exploiting the world's non-renewable resources. He correctly points out that current attempts by governments and industrialists to introduce renewable energy is aimed at continuing unsustainable and exploitative production practices in the name of consumerism and capitalism. However, much of his claims about the environmental costs of renewable energy are either false, reference old technology or lack consideration of life-cycle assessment.

Ronnie Brakels has provided an excellent critique of Moore's claim that renewables are as damaging as fossil fuels, by stating that it is tantamount to claiming that bicycles are as bad for the environment as cars (Brakel 2020). After all, bicycles are manufactured using coal, iron ore and environmentally damaging mining and production processes; bikes can only be ridden on sunny days for relatively short distances, so riders will often have a car as a back-up form of transport; and the people who ride bikes need food, which causes environmental damage through agricultural practices. Even the most sceptical anti-environmentalist would find it difficult to seriously argue that bikes are as environmentally damaging as cars, or that they produce as much pollution. Yet, this is the nature of Moore's claim when he states that renewable technologies consume iron ore and coal, and that they require existing electricity grids to supplement their usage on cloudy days.

Moore misses the point that while fossil fuels and mining may be involved in the production of renewable energy products, such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, once they are in operation their consumption of fossil fuels is negligible compared to the operation of coal fired power plants and fossil-fuel powered cars; not dissimilar to the push-bike example provided by Brakels.

The key thing lacking in Michael Moore's argument is Life-cycle Assessment (LCA), which is a cradle-to-grave analysis of the environmental impact of a product. At its most basic, LCA calculates how much carbon is produced in the manufacture and operation of a product with the amount of carbon removed or offset by the product. Moore embraces the climate change denialist rationale that all green technology is claimed to be carbon-free, while failing to understand the basic concept of carbon neutral or carbon negative. That is, that green technology is not carbon free, but that the carbon dioxide emitted in its production and operation is much less than the carbon removed or offset by the product or the carbon-free energy generated over the life of the product, thus reducing the amount of electricity required to be produced by coal-fired power stations.

Moore makes the outdated claim that the energy generated by solar panels over their life-time does not cover the energy taken to produce them in the first place. He also argues that solar panels have a life expectancy of 10 years. Both of these claims are false. Solar panels have a life expectancy of up to 30 years, with an energy payback period of two years (Parkinson 2013). So it takes two years for a solar panel to recoup the energy taken to produce it, while then generating at least another 28 years of clean energy without further consumption of coal. How can that possibly be as bad as a coal-fired power plant that continues consuming coal and producing dirty energy for those 28 years? Many solar panel manufacturers offer 25 year warranties (Energy Informative n.d.). Even after 25 years, the panels' output is around 80% (Stahley 2019).

Solar panel payback period, life expectancy and energy output (Adapted from Parkinson 2013)

Moore tries to justify his inaccurate claims by highlighting a couple of concerts that promoted sustainability, yet ended up being powered by the coal-generated electricity grid. He seems to not grasp the concept that at this point, solar and wind are not yet capable of completely replacing coal-fired power stations ... but we are getting there. Moore has this short-sighted view that renewables will not replace coal, that they are always going to be dependent on coal for meeting demand. This is not true. Many countries and states are increasingly utilising renewable energy for electricity generation and greatly reducing their reliance on fossil fuels. Many countries have committed to 100% renewable energy for electricity generation by 2050, including Costa Rica, Denmark, Bangladesh, Kenya, Philippines, Portugal, Sri Lanka and Sweden (REN21 2019, pp 194-196). Scotland has achieved 98% use of renewables through wind power, while Uruguay is almost at 100% renewables, and Denmark is generating more than half its electricity from renewables (Climate Council 2019).

Raconteur (2018)

One thing of crucial importance that Moore did identify, was the matter of unethical mining practices. The world is currently experiencing more people in slavery that at any time in history, with more than 40 million people in slavery and more than 150 million exploited through child labour (International Labour Organization 2017). Moore's documentary does show that mining is an industry that has significant levels of slavery in it. This is an issue that must be addressed regardless of whether the products manufactured from it are solar panels, components in coal-fired power stations, batteries, cars or mobile phones. Every supply chain is at risk of modern slavery and there are efforts underway to address this.

Moore does make a good point about bio-mass, however, not all bio-mass comes from living trees; some of it is from waste wood that is decaying and therefore, releasing carbon anyway. Nonetheless, wood chipping forests as a form of renewable energy is not sustainable, as plants and forests absorb carbon. While biomass is not an acceptable form of renewable energy, Moore's focus on it blows it way out of proportion. In 2019, biomass accounted for 1% of the United States energy mix and 5% of Europe's energy mix (Yale Climate Connections 2020). If the world wishes to continue using biomass and biogas, it can be done far more efficiently with less environmental damage, through the use of hemp. This is a crop that is fast growing, requires less land, causes less environmental damage and yields up to 120% more energy than other forms of biomass (Prade et al 2011).

For all of its hyperbole, the doco provides little in the way of alternative solutions. In relation to energy alternatives, it seems to suggest continuing the use of fossil fuels. The world is being destroyed by the use of unsustainable fossil fuels, and Moore appears to advocate for continuing these practices.

One thing that Moore does get right is the need to reduce consumption. Capitalist economies are driven by consumerism, at the expense of other people and the environment. Slavery is the worst it has ever been as capitalists pursue excessive profits at the expense of the world's most vulnerable, through ever-increasing consumerism that is driven by greed for unnecessary products designed for short life expectancy through obsolence or perceived obsolence.

By the year 2000, consumption of iron ore had increased more than 1000% over the previous 100 years. In the first, 20 years of the 21st century, it increased a further 2000% (Callier 2018). During this time, carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 1500%, while water use, coal production and crop harvests increased between 500% and 1000%. These increases are unprecedented in history. Apart from increasing waste and environmental degradation, the dramatic increase in demand for raw materials is likely to result in resource scarcity, resulting in conflict and war (Callier 2018).

Callier (2018)

Some may see the documentary as championing fossil fuels, discrediting renewable technology and
justifying climate change denialism. However, the documentary's criticism of unfettered consumerism demonstrates the need for the planned international economy envisioned by Karl Marx. Our modern society has more knowledge of people's needs than ever before. Big data combined with artificial intelligence can be used to forecast production requirements to address everyone's needs and temper excess consumption. Robotics and additive manufacturing can produce those requirements efficiently using green technology. While robotics and additive manufacturing could cost jobs, ultimately, people will not need to work in such a world where their needs are forecast and met. This will fulfil another of Marx's ideas around a planned economy not requiring money. Yes, we could provide everyone a minimum living wage, however, this would just be a step on the path to doing away with money altogether. Why have money when our needs are already met through the power of big data, AI and robotics.

Moore states that renewable technology will not save the world. He is correct: renewable energy alone will not save the world, however, renewables must replace fossil fuels and be coupled with managing demand and reducing excessive consumption to ensure that the world remains liveable for future generations.

The world cannot continue exploiting people or the environment. It cannot continue using fossil fuels, which are limited resources, damage the environment and drive climate change through carbon emissions. The documentary may have been music to the ears of industrialists, climate change denialists and fossil fuel warriors, however, the puerile claim that renewable energy is as environmentally damaging as fossil fuels is naive and ignorant.

The world must continue developing and improving renewable technology to reduce social and environmental impacts, while society needs to reduce demand for unnecessary products that drive environmental degradation through their production and waste. At the same time, we must address abusive labour practices, in which more than 40 million people are in modern slavery, more than 150 million in child labor, and millions more exploited for low wages and horrendous working conditions.

References

Brakel, R 2020, 'Michael Moore attacks renewable industry by detonating his own credibility', Solarquotes Blog, 1 May, viewed 3 May 2020, https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/planet-of-humans-review/.

Callier, V 2018, 'The quickening pace of global metabolism', Knowable Magazine, 29 June, viewed 16 May 2020, https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/sustainability/2018/quickening-pace-global-metabolism.

Climate Council 2019, '11 countries leading the charge on renewable energy', 13 January, viewed 11 May 2020, https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/11-countries-leading-the-charge-on-renewable-energy/.

Energy Informative n.d., 'The real lifespan of solar panels', viewed 16 May 2020, https://energyinformative.org/lifespan-solar-panels/.

International Labour Organization 2017, '40 million in modern slavery and 152 million in child labour around the world', 19 November, viewed 4 May 2020, https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_574717/lang--en/index.htm.

Parkinson, G 2013, 'Graph of the Day: Myth of solar PV energy payback time', Renew Economy, 15 March, viewed 10 May 2020, https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-myth-of-solar-pv-energy-payback-time-22167/.

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COVID-19 Stimulus shows that Socialism is gazing at us from all windows of capitalist society

COVID-19 Stimulus shows that Socialism is gazing at us from all windows of capitalist society

By Ranting Panda, 11 April 2020

Ronald Reagan stated that 'the most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help'. Reagan is the grandfather of neo-liberal economics that aims for small government, to minimise government intervention.

So, it's kind of funny to see neo-liberals calling for greater government intervention to provide public health services and to support people who've lost their jobs. They are lauding Keynesian economics, while criticising the very capitalism that has caused much of the issues the world is now facing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Neo-liberal voters bagged the heck out of the 2008 Rudd/Swan stimulus package that saved more than 500,000 jobs and prevented Australia sinking into recession during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, while many other first-world countries adopted austerity measures, that destroyed jobs and sunk their economies into recession. Now, many of these neo-liberal voters are lauding Morrison for his $300 billion stimulus package, which will plunge Australia into recession and likely result in significant tax increases: the very things that these voters feared that Bill Shorten would have done had he won the 2019 federal election. Morrison is looking for the Australian government to take over a portion of private hospitals, he is looking to garner support from banks to delay mortgage repayments, to have electricity companies reduce prices ... in other words, he is looking to nationalise many of these services. This is an endorsement of the importance of socialism and a discrediting of capitalism and the neo-liberal concept of small government.

Will all those retirees who are championing this stimulus and who voted to keep their franking credits in the 2019 election, now give them up to help pay for the stimulus that they claim to support? You know those franking credits on which no tax is effectively paid ... (it's paid by the company, who then pay a dividend to retirees, who pay no tax on the dividend, so the government gives these retirees a tax return when they've paid no tax ... yeah, not a bad rort huh? How good is it to get a tax return on dividends that you didn't pay any tax on? Contrast this with how franking credits are supposed to work: Company pays tax, then pays dividend to the shareholder, who also pays tax, so the government refunds the shareholders tax to avoid double taxation). Funnily enough, many of those retirees are quick to criticise welfare recipients for being a drain on the economy, while putting their hands out for unwarranted franking credits to the tune of $12 billion at a time when the government is releasing the biggest public spending program in Australia's history in an attempt to protect the economy.

Morrison's stimulus package is not predominantly aimed at supporting workers who have lost their jobs. When will workers realise that their continued support of neo-liberal politicians is in fact-anti-worker? After all, it's not like Morrison is reviving the economy and protecting workers in order to establish a worker-friendly state. He is only using some elements of socialist economics to shore up the economy so Australia can continue as a capitalist nation, empowering big business to exploit workers and reduce worker pay and conditions. As the leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese pointed out in an address to Parliament on 8 April 2020, Morrison's stimulus package is based on the 'structure of the business, not the needs of the workers'. So workers will be treated differently, depending on their employer.

Morrison's stimulus package does not cover every worker in Australia. There are more than one million Australian workers not covered by the Jobkeeper stimulus (Taylor 2020). Further, there are more than one million migrant workers in Australia, who Morrison has explicitly stated will not be eligible for either job-seeker or job-keeper benefits (Pupazzoni 2020). That's more than two million people who lost their jobs and have no income whatsoever. How are they expected to buy food, pay rent, or pay energy bills? The reason that so many are missing out on government support is because Morrison's stimulus is based on the business structure, not people's needs. It is estimated that it would cost a further $25 billion to extend the Jobkeeper program to cover casual and migrant workers (Duke & Bagshaw 2020). That equates to a further 20% increase to the current $130 billion Jobkeeper program. Sound like a lot? Consider the cost of not supporting these people as this crisis drags on. Australia is facing a humanitarian crisis if 2 million people are unable to afford food, accommodation and electricity.

In relation to migrant workers, conservatives have argued they should not have access to the same benefits as Australian citizens. Yet, Australia has been happy to take the $34 billion a year that international students pay for education (Tehan 2019). That amount already outweighs the $25 billion billion increase required to JobKeeper. Australia has been happy to employ migrant workers in jobs in which they are often underpaid and overworked, many receiving less than half the minimum wage (Davey 2018). We've been happy to take their taxes. But now, when the going gets tough and we should be showing compassion to international students and migrant workers, Australia is kicking them into the streets to starve, to suffer from illnesses that they are unable to have treated in Australian hospitals because they can't access Medicare. Morrison has stated that they should just return home if they can't support themselves. Really? If they can't afford to buy food or pay rent, they certainly can't afford a plane ticket. Additionally, many countries have now banned international travel, so how are migrants supposed to return to their country of origin? Morrison stated that international students are required to have the capacity to support themselves for 12 months. Yet, they have lost the jobs they rely on and some of their financial support comes from their families overseas, who are facing the same circumstances of job losses and lack of government support in their own nations.

Is Australia really the country of the fair go?

In the meantime, Melbourne City Council is looking to provide support for the 200,000 international students in Melbourne (Topsfield 2020). Further, the International Education Association of Australia is calling for a hardship fund to help students, with the fund to take contributions from universities and all levels of government. Hopefully, these programs will be established very quickly, because many international students are facing homelessness within weeks (O'Brien 2020).

A stimulus program is necessary, but Morrison's is not comprehensive enough and is not directed at the real needs of many people. Australia is facing a major crisis of poverty, homelessness, starvation and the subsequent social, crime and health issues this causes. Then there are the issues with social isolation, which if it continues too long, will result in civil disobedience and mental health issues as people become more frustrated and desperate to return to a normal life.

And this is just the situation in Australia.

The bigger issue is not just how Australia cares for its own people, but how developed nations look after people in developing countries who do not have the ability to provide welfare as Australia or the UK or New Zealand have. More than one million garment workers in Bangladesh have lost their jobs and now face extreme poverty and starvation (Frayer 2020). Thousands of call centre workers in the Philippines have lost their livelihoods and face extreme poverty. Researchers at UNU-WIDER estimate that the global effects of economic shutdowns could lead to a further half a billion people living in poverty (Sumner, Hoy & Ortiz-Juarez, 2020). They found that most of the poverty will be concentrated in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, with significant increases in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. They further conclude international fiscal support is necessary for these countries to provide health services and avoid poverty, starvation, homelessness, and the subsequent issues this leads to.

There is also the risk that with such a huge increase in poverty, there will be a corresponding increase in slavery. Currently, there are more than 40.3 million people enslaved globally, but this is anticipated to increase significantly, because of poverty and opportunism (Smith & Cockayne 2020). With both workers and business-owners losing livelihoods, there will be an increase in the numbers of desperate people vulnerable to exploitation, and of course, an increase in business-owners willing to exploit them to recover their own losses during and following this crisis. With education systems closed down, there is an increased risk of child labour and trafficking. COVID-19 restrictions have disrupted anti-slavery efforts, so there is less monitoring and response efforts to combating slavery.

For people in developed nations, deaths in developing nations often mean very little. But let's bring this home for a minute. During the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, neo-liberal governments implemented austerity measures. Australia did not. Australia's Labor government ran with a stimulus package, as it's conservative government is now. This saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and prevented Australia from recession. In contrast, the austerity measures implemented by the UK resulted directly in the deaths of more than 130,000 people (Helm 2019). Those are preventable deaths, some of whom died because the austerity policies cut funding to health services. Now, just three weeks into the lockdowns in the UK, reports are emerging of millions of people facing a hunger crisis, with more than 1.5 million having already gone a full day without food (Lawrence 2020). And the lockdowns are expected to last months! This is not going to end well.

It is tragically ironic that in countries such as Australia, the UK and the USA, the population is expecting public health services to treat COVID-19 cases, to save people's lives, and yet much of the population has supported the neo-liberal policies that have gutted funding of public health in favour of privatised, user-pays systems. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson contracted COVID-19 and was admitted to an Intensive Care Unit for treatment. Meanwhile, for years, both Labour and Tory governments in the UK stripped funding from the National Health Service (Pilger 2020).

The United States under Donald Trump, specifically dismantled Obamacare, which would have helped cover the costs of treatment, now patients are left to pay their own way. In developing countries, such as the Philippines, people are expected to pay immediately for their health treatment, yet many people are too poor to, and now that many workers have lost their jobs because of COVID-19, there are even more people unable to pay for health treatment, risking the likely spread of the virus and increasing death rates.

It is clear from this crisis, that there needs to be socialised medicine. There needs to be socialised welfare systems to protect the unemployed from poverty and homelessness. Energy companies need to be nationalised as many once were. There needs to be socialised education systems, so that anyone can afford a good education, not just the rich. It is clear that privatising essential services and utilities has increased the risk of failure of all these systems during the COVID-19 crisis. The very companies that these services have been outsourced to are now putting their hands out for government subsidies and support. Clearly, this shows the failure of neo-liberal economics.

It is clear that capitalism is just window-dressing for a degenerate society that glorifies wealth accumulation built on a foundation of social inequality and extreme exploitation. But ... when the going gets tough, capitalism is a dismal failure that screams for socialist intervention.

Lenin stated, '... socialism is now gazing at us from all the windows of modern capitalism; socialism is outlined directly, practically, by every important measure that constitutes a forward step on the basis of this modern capitalism' (Lenin 1917).

Socialism is gazing at us from all the windows of our modern capitalist society. Socialism is a necessity. Society cannot be run by the anarchy of the market. Socialism requires an international effort to combat global wealth inequalities, exploitation, and poverty.

Exacerbating the issues in the US, is the feckless President Donald Trump, who essentially requires states to beg him for ventilators. In the worst example of public corruption and moral abandonment, Trump is only dispatching life-saving ventilators, medicines and masks to loyalists, to those who suck up to him, rather than distributing them based on needs ... he even instructed the head of the Coronavirus Task Force, Mike Pence, 'not to call governors in states that are not appreciative'. (Denver Post 2020). Trump has led a bungled response to the crisis, not just in America, but globally. After a 2018 warning that a pandemic was the biggest security threat to the US, Trump dismantled the world's best global pandemic response system because it was set up by Obama (Shesgreen 2020). In China, he removed an expert from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who would have helped in advising on the containment of the virus (Derysh 2020). In this context, it is not surprising the USA has the world's highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 (Smith 2020) and the world's highest death toll (Maxouris & Andone 2020). Professor Bandy Lee of Yale University, is leading the World Mental Health Coalition, who is calling for Trump's removal on the grounds that he is not psychologically fit for office. They argue that he is battling reality, rather than the virus. The group has stated that, 'We have a presidency that is incapable of protecting lives but is making a global pandemic worse — not just through incompetence and ignorance, but through a dangerous detachment from reality, a need to convey false information, and other symptoms' (Derysh 2020).

The world will recover from COVID-19, however, it isn't the world's first pandemic and it won't be the last. As with any disaster, the recovery stage will take much longer than the response stage. The recovery stage will require addressing the global tragedy of poverty and all the consequences of that, which will include homelessness, starvation, sickness and death. Not to mention, increased crime as desperate people try to feed themselves and their families. The world, more than ever, must work together to address this tragedy. While this will impact developing countries more, it will also have a significant impact in developed countries as described earlier.

Ironically, we've seen some benefits from this crisis. With fewer people travelling, there has been a reduction in pollution and carbon emissions (Gardiner 2020). Many workers have been fortunate enough to keep their jobs and work from home. Once the crisis is over, telecommuting practices should be adopted permanently by businesses. Even if their staff telecommute a couple of times a week, this would dramatically reduce carbon emissions. The world must reconsider its consumption of unnecessary products, the destruction of habitats, its renewable energy mix. Because if these things continue unabated, then so will climate change. Just because the world's recent focus has been on the immediate impacts of COVID-19, doesn't meant that the existential threat of climate change has ceased. All that's happened is that we now have a bigger societal issue to contend with in the form of significant increases in unemployment and poverty.

Using cleaner energy would have saved lives during the COVID-19 crisis. COVID-19 is a respiratory illness. Analysis has shown that there is a link between air pollution and increased death rates. This includes in northern Italy and New York, where high death rates correlate with higher air pollution (Carrington 2020).

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been worsened because of pollution and social inequality. Prior to COVID-19, pollution was killing up to seven million people a year, including more than 100,000 in the United States (Gardiner 2020). Yet, ignorantly, the United States government is using the pandemic as justification to roll-back pollution reduction policies and Obama-era policies on auto-mileage standards (Gardiner 2020). New York in particular, has exposed its inherent social inequalities, with most victims coming from poorer communities, which are predominantly African-American or Latino (Pilkington & Rao, 2020). One poignant observation about the reason for this is from urgent care physician, Uché Blackstock, who states, 'This pandemic is laying bare the inequities that have always existed in New York City ... We don’t invest in people, we don’t invest in neighborhoods, and this is what we get'.

There are three key priorities over the short-term, medium-term and long-term, which require an international response supported by sharing of wealth, putting people and environment ahead of wealth accumulation and exorbitant profits. The short-term priority is addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. The short to medium term priority is addressing the economic and social issues from shutting down economies globally in response to COVID-19. The long-term priority is to address climate change, which will continue unabated, posing an existential threat to society as we know it if we do not stop the waste, the emissions, and the exploitation of people and natural resources.






References

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Davey, M 2018, 'A third of Australia's foreign workers paid less than half minimum wage – study', The Guardian, 29 October, viewed 13 April 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/29/a-third-of-australias-foreign-workers-paid-less-than-half-minimum-wage-study.

Denver Post Editorial Board 2020, 'Editorial: Trump is playing a disgusting political game with our lives', The Denver Post, 9 April, viewed 11 April 2020, https://www.denverpost.com/2020/04/09/coronavirus-editorial-trump-gardner-polis-supplies/.

Derysh, I 2020, 'Yale psychiatrist: Trump endangers lives by waging war on reality, not the coronavirus', Salon, 2 April, viewed 11 April 2020, https://www.salon.com/2020/04/02/yale-psychiatrist-trump-endangers-lives-by-waging-war-on-reality-not-the-coronavirus/.

Duke, J & Bagshaw, E 2020, 'Expanding JobKeeper to visa workers, casuals could cost $25 billion', Brisbane Times, 12 April, viewed 13 April 2020, https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/expanding-jobkeeper-to-visa-workers-casuals-could-cost-25-billion-20200412-p54j50.html.

Frayer, L 2020, '1 Million Bangladeshi Garment Workers Lose Jobs Amid COVID-19 Economic Fallout', NPR, 3 April, viewed 11 April 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/03/826617334/1-million-bangladeshi-garment-workers-lose-jobs-amid-covid-19-economic-fallout.

Gardiner, B 2020, 'Pollution made COVID-19 worse. Now, lockdowns are clearing the air', National Geographic, 8 April, viewed 11 April 2020, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/pollution-made-the-pandemic-worse-but-lockdowns-clean-the-sky/.

Helm, T 2019, 'Austerity to blame for 130,000 ‘preventable’ UK deaths – report', The Guardian, 2 June, viewed 10 April 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/01/perfect-storm-austerity-behind-130000-deaths-uk-ippr-report.

Lawrence, F 2020, 'UK hunger crisis: 1.5m people go whole day without food', The Guardian, 11 April, viewed 12 April 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/11/uk-hunger-crisis-15m-people-go-whole-day-without-food.

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Maxouris, C & Andone, D 2020, 'The United States is reporting 20,000 coronavirus deaths, more than any other country', CNN, 11 April, viewed 12 April 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/11/health/us-coronavirus-updates-saturday/index.html.

O'Brien, A 2020. 'Australia's international students are 'weeks away from homelessness' due to coronavirus', SBS News, 10 April, viewed 10 April 2020, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-s-international-students-are-weeks-away-from-homelessness-due-to-coronavirus.

Pilger, J 2020, 'EP.867: John Pilger-What Governments Aren't Telling You About the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)', Going Underground, 8 April, viewed 11 April 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt58it26jCs&fbclid=IwAR39L_BmCIPt8DIwancTu58mjvkoWcGwmGv5pd5tWpMQeXDuyepTO8Ilh1I.

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COVID-19, the failure of capitalism & the collapse of society

COVID-19, the failure of capitalism & the collapse of society

By Ranting Panda, 20 March 2020

The year 2020 has been marked by disasters of biblical proportions. Within the first three months, we've seen catastrophic bushfires in Australia, locust infestations in Africa and Pakistan, earthquakes in Iran and Turkey, floods and mudslides in Brazil, a volcano in the Philippines and then, just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, a global pestilence in the form of COVID-19, a type of Coronavirus that we've never seen before.

Within weeks the entire world was brought a halt as the virus rapidly turned into a pandemic. International travelled all but stopped. Numerous countries forced people to quarantine themselves in their homes. Businesses either laying staff off or requiring them to work from home. Large gatherings banned. Sporting events played to empty stadiums. Many countries not having enough testing kits and their hospitals unable to cope with the influx of victims. But perhaps the most bizarre response, people in Australia panic buying toilet paper even though diarrhoea is a very rare effect of COVID-19.

Those panic-buying hoarders, some of whom got into violent altercations over dunny paper, were rightly and roundly criticised by many others. It was ironic though, that much of this criticism came from ardent capitalists, yet capitalism is all about survival of the fittest and lauding those who accumulate the most wealth and possessions. Apparently hoarding toilet paper at an inopportune time is not acceptable, even though its ok to hoard millions of dollars while failing to pay living wages to the workers who made the rich successful. Ironic then, that these capitalists, wringing their hands in despair of their fellow citizens, were lamenting why don't people share their wealth, why don't people care about their neighbours ... why don't those who have much, help those who have little ... why aren't people sharing 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need'?

Is there anything more sanctimonious than capitalists criticising the greed in others?

COVID-19 is a deadly virus with currently no known cure. It has killed thousands of people and shows no sign of letting up at this stage. The virus is of grave concern and quite rightly, governments are prioritising the health and safety of people through travel bans and social isolation. As a result, it almost feels like the zombie apocalypse has struck. Cities which are normally packed with people are practically deserted. Roads that are often gridlocked and public transport that is overflowing, are almost empty. It is an eerie feeling.

However, there is potentially a much larger threat than COVID-19 and that is the social catastrophe that this may cause. Many people are unable to go to work because of social isolation measures. No work = no pay. No pay means that mortgages, rent, bills can't get paid. It means that people can't afford to buy essential items. It potentially means homelessness and lawlessness. Large companies have laid off thousands of staff. Qantas for instance, who made $1.3 billion profit in 2018/19, has laid off 20,000 staff.

Australia has a welfare system that will help some people, however, the welfare payments won't pay the bills for those who were earning significantly more prior to this and have large mortgages and other financial commitments.

What about countries without safety nets, Philippines for instance? President Duterte ordered everyone on the island of Luzon to be confined to their houses. The Philippines capital, Manila, is located on Luzon. Also located there are numerous call-centres used by many companies in western countries. These call centres employ many Filipinos. They have shutdown. Of course, its not just call-centres that are affected. Every worker on Luzon is impacted. This is an island of 48 million people and without a welfare safety net, many of these people will not be paid. Imagine the social catastrophe of millions of people suddenly unable to feed themselves and their families, to pay for their food, accommodation, utilities, health care and education.

This is a scenario that will likely be played out across the globe.

The world is potentially facing a catastrophic economic collapse, with millions, perhaps billions, out of work and unable to afford basic necessities. If we thought the fights over toilet paper were bad, this will be exponentially worse. It has the potential to reduce society to utter lawlessness, as desperate people beg, borrow and steal, steal, steal to ensure survival. It may not be the zombie apocalypse that has featured in so many movies and TV shows, but it is going to be close as people fight and kill to access food and essential resources.

COVID-19 isn't just a health threat. Social isolation & quarantine may cost millions of jobs, potentially causing a societal collapse if people can't pay for food or necessities. This could cause a global collapse, lawlessness, anarchy.

The phrase of the year will be 'social distancing' ... perhaps it should be 'Pyrrhic Victory', because shutting down the world to protect against COVID-19, will save some lives, but has the potential to destroy society as we know it. The victory over the virus may cost us more than we would have lost if we didn't shut society down, destroying jobs, business, charities, people's lives.

In many countries, people are banned from going to work, banned from socialising, banned from celebrations. What could possibly go wrong?

It is well known that boredom and desperation make for a violent concoction amongst prisoners. The social distancing measures to counter COVID-19 have turned the entire world into a prison, which will create significant desperation and boredom. The Purge movies revolved around one night a year of civil disobedience and lawlessness. It is entirely possible, that the longer these social isolation measures are enforced, we will see lawlessness on an unimaginable scale and it won't just be for one night a year. It could well become the norm.

In addition to this, there is the pain, suffering, malnutrition, starvation, significant health impacts as health systems across the globe are unable to cope, not just with COVID-19, but the results of extreme poverty and homelessness caused by the loss of millions of jobs. Not every country has a publicly funded health care system; in many countries it is user pays.

We beat the virus and destroy society.

Buckle up, buttercup!

This single event, the COVID-19 crisis, illustrates why capitalism is an abject failure. For years, neo-liberal governments have been privatising essential services, including health, education and energy, resulting in these services being delivered by companies that are only interested in the balance sheet, not in service delivery to the community. Now that we are on the eve of a cataclysmic economic collapse, these companies are expecting governments to bail them out. Clearly, they acknowledge that socialism is ultimately the only way that society can be protected against such disasters. Private industry isn't going to save us.

Australia's neo-liberal LNP government extracted years of political mileage out of criticising the stimulus package that former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Treasurer, Wayne Swan, implemented early on in the Global Financial Crisis during 2008. This stimulus ensured that Australia was one of only a few western nations that did not go into recession during the GFC. And the LNP condemned it.

Now, Prime Minister Scott Morrison's LNP government has announced a stimulus package to try to rescue jobs and businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. This small act of socialism to share the wealth with the most needy, must gall the ultra-conservative, neo-liberal LNP. 

When the world recovers from COVID-19, it has the opportunity to reform economic systems to be more sharing and caring, to ensure that workers rights are protected and that companies don't go on chasing ultra-high profits while exploiting people. 

The COVID-19 crisis should be a wake-up call to the world. Capitalism promotes individuality, not community. Capitalism idolises private accumulation of wealth at the expense of others. Capitalism is founded in exploitation and slavery, treating workers as disposable resources to be used, abused and discarded. This virus has exposed the spirit of capitalism for what it is: self-serving, individualistic, uncaring. Socialism promotes a community-minded spirit of cooperation and sharing. Socialism protects workers from the predatory, profit-driven nature of private industry. 

Certainly, there needs to be social distancing, but the desperation that will be caused through destroying people's livelihoods, homes, families, could be avoided through wealth redistribution: from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. 

It is socialism that will save the world, through ending exploitation and more equitably sharing of wealth. Then we can get back to fighting the other capitalist disaster that is threatening the world and future generations: anthropogenic climate change. 

  

Facts, alternative facts & the psycho-ceramic-crackpot-in-chief

Facts, alternative facts & the psycho-ceramic-crackpot-in-chief

By Ranting Panda, 25 February 2020

Trump is a Psycho-Ceramic.

What are pyscho-ceramics? They are 'the cracked pots of mankind' ... as described in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which went on to observe that 'perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become, Hitler for example'. Trump is testament to this. He is mentally deranged & morally derailed, yet holds the most powerful office in the world ... meanwhile, the increasingly desperate, delusional & degenerate right-wing continue making excuses for him, justifying him and completely ignore the truth.

Take Senator Lindsey Graham for instance, who bizarrely stated that Trump shouldn't be removed from office, because 'he did nothing wrong in his mind' (Moye 2020). So what if his mind is a cracked pot.

There's a lot wrong inside Trump's mind ... If the right tolerate this behaviour, what will they tolerate next?

Trump is a demagogue: he appeals to his voters through manipulating their fears and prejudices, rather than by making rational arguments. His speeches are devoid of facts, heavy on lies and barely more than an incoherent, rambling, alphabet soup of puerile insults and bigotry.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey goes on to observe, 'mental illness could have the aspect of power, power'. Now, this isn't an attack on people with mental illness, it is questioning whether Trump's particular mental illness makes him unsuitable to lead a nation. Psychologists from all ideological persuasions have determined that Trump has 'narcissistic personality disorder' (Psychology Today, n.d.).

This may explain some of his more concerning behaviours, such as gas-lighting, compulsive lying, distortion, disregard and denial of facts, erratic and contradictory statements, paranoia and his snowflake sensitivity to criticism. Most concerning is how this plays out in the lives of innocent people. He has not only imprisoned people seeking asylum in the United States, but torn their children from their arms and separated them from their families. There are at least 26,000 children, many of whom will never be reunited because Trump did not have plans for recording the children's details before separating them (Blitzer 2019). This is the man who represents 'family values' to his followers.

Trump was impeached for extorting Ukraine to provide dirt on one of his political opponents. The Republican-dominated Senate was so sure of his innocence that they refused to allow new witnesses and evidence to be presented. One of the religious nutters who supports Trump, called for an 'angelic army with flaming swords' to protect Trump  from impeachment (Hamilton 2020).

Trump was accused of colluding with Russia in fixing his 2016 election win. Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, is currently fighting extradition to the United States on espionage charges. In 2016, Wikileaks published emails that were damaging to Hillary Clinton's election campaign. The lawyer acting for Assange has asserted in court, that Trump offered Assange a presidential pardon if he stated that the emails were not leaked by Russia (Borger 2020).

These are not the actions of an innocent man.

It's not just that Trump is a crack-pot. He is a dangerous crack-pot. He has unbelievably managed to herd Christians behind his corrupt, bullying, abusive agenda. He has done this through the equivalent of slapping a 'fish' sticker on his car. In this case, the fish sticker is his abortion policy, which blind, unquestioning Christians think makes Trump a good Christian, while excusing every other immoral, amoral, corrupt, deceitful, bullying action. All these people defending Trump and claiming he is a Christian, claiming he has family morals and values. Yet would they really want their children behaving like Trump?

Even more disturbing is the correlation of increased hate crimes since Trump's election. The FBI reported attacks against Latinos was at a 16-year high (Hassan 2019). Furthermore, a study examining hate crime trends since 1992, concluded that not only was Trump's election win associated with a 'statistically significant surge in reported hate crimes across the United States, even when controlling for alternative explanations', but that this increase was most evident in counties that voted for Trump (Edwards & Rushin 2018). The report was comprehensive and concluded that it wasn't just Trump's 'inflammatory rhetoric throughout the political campaign that caused hate crimes to increase', but that Trump's election 'validated this rhetoric in the eyes of perpetrators and fuelled the hate crime surge'. Further to this, Trump's influence as holder of the most powerful office in the world, has normalised racism globally and legitimised the rise of far-right political parties and their policies of intolerance, prejudice and discrimination (Giani & Meon, 2019).

Then there's Trump's so-called 'peace plans' for Israel. This particularly appeals to Zionist Christians, and of course, Israel. Meanwhile, it legitimises Israel's war-crimes and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Firstly, he relocated the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested area of Jerusalem. Trump stated, 'God decided Jerusalem was the capital of Israel more than 3,000 years ago during the time of King David' (Usher 2018). Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers were shooting Palestinian protesters, leaving more than 50 dead (Davis 2018). More recently, Trump proudly unveiled his 'peace plan', which has an uncanny resemblance to the apartheid of South Africa, of which Israel was the greatest contributing external party, providing diplomatic support, financial aid, military weapons, and other resources for building and maintaining the bantustans (Liel 2020). Trump's peace plan was developed without any Palestinian input. Instead of returning land to Palestinians, which had been illegally taken and occupied by Israel, Trump's plan will create enclaves in the West Bank for Palestinians. It is no different to the bantustans of South Africa. All of this plays into the hands of Israel and Zionist Christians who have white-washed Palestinians from history, claiming they don't exist and have no rights over the land. The very creation of modern Israel was based on the myth of a 'land without people for a people without a land'. The land did have people and they had occupied it for thousands of years (Brownfield 1998). Trump's rhetoric, actions and 'peace plan', legitimise the ethnic cleansing of Palestine from history and the land ... all in the name of God.

Trump claims to be a Christian, but the bible does state, 'by their fruits you shall know them'. Trump's fruit is racism, hate-speech, hate-crimes, apartheid, war-crimes and the justification of ethnic cleansing.

To quote the 1971 song 'One Tin Soldier':

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.

It is from the movie, Billy Jack. The song, One Tin Soldier, tells the story of an age-old battle for a buried treasure, and the blood spilled in pursuit of it. The song ends with the treasure being revealed. Rather than the treasure being gold, silver or jewels, it is simply a message: 'Peace on earth'.

This message reflects Carl Sagan's powerful, poignant, perceptive observation of the 'Pale Blue Dot'. Sagan describes the Earth as a 'mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam'. Sagan goes onto to poignantly observe:

'The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds'.

War has existed for millenia, with people fighting for power, for control, for land. Yet, underpinning the belief-systems of many of these warriors are religions that claim they want 'peace on earth'.

There are Christians who follow Trump, yet cheered him on as he took the world to the brink of war against Iran (Grant 2020). Christians supported President George W. Bush and the 'Coalition of the Willing' in their illegal invasion of Iraq that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Christians supported Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in their wars in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. Christians supported the wars in Vietnam and Korea. Christians supported Adolf Hitler in the wars he waged and his persecution and genocide of Jews, communists, gypsies, unionists and many others.

Why is this so important? Because many of these same people will criticise Islam for being inherently violent because of terrorist attacks waged by Muslim extremists. Meanwhile, these Christians fail to understand that Christian-led wars have killed far more people than any other religion. This inability and unwillingness to self-critique provides a firm platform for Trump and his ilk to harvest votes from xenophobic messaging and politics.

These behaviours are described so eloquently by French philosopher, Blaise Pascall, when he stated, 'Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction'.

For many years, right-wing voters have been seduced by fear-mongering messages aimed at 'othering' to create division and hatred between people. The following message is similar to that presented by many right-wing parties across the globe. They create an enemy, they create fear, and then they use this to remove people's rights. It turns the people against each other, rather than against those people who promote hate and fear. And from this, war is justified, persecution of minorities is justified, authoritarianism is justified ... exactly what we are seeing with Trump.

'The streets of our country are in turmoil. The Universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might and the republic is in danger. Yes, danger from within and without. We need law and order. Yes, without law and order our nation cannot survive. Elect us and we shall restore law and order'.

By the way, that statement was made by Adolf Hitler, but it echoes the messages of politicians, such as Donald Trump and his ilk, which includes Australia's Scott Morrison. It is a message being reflected by right-wing parties across the globe, such as the German far-right party, Alternative for Germany, which has broken decades old laws about curtailing Nazism, in Spain there is the far-right Vox party, Austria's Freedom Party, France's National Front led by Marine Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats, Finland's Finns Party, the Conservative People's Party of Estonia, Poland's Confederation Party, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Slovenian Democratic Party led by former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, and in Greece there is the Greek Solution and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn (BBC 2019). All of these parties and politicians have common messages and policies around anti-intellectualism, anti-socialism/communism, anti-unionism, anti-migration, stronger law and order. They do so through messages of fear that demonise Muslim refugees as terrorists and blame them for destroying the economy, or that socialism is infiltrating schools and universities through science, climate change, gender-fluidity, and political correctness.

Have we forgotten the lessons of Nazi Germany? The Germans in Nazi Germany did not realise just how far Hitler would take them, however, they embraced his message and did his bidding. We should be concerned when these parties are elected into positions of power.

In the United States, Trump ran a similar message in his electioneering and was installed into the highest office in the land. He is not articulate, his messages are rambling and irrational, but while they lack substance, they appeal to his supporters. This is not unlike Hitler, who was also rambling and irrational. In Australia, it is very similar with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has no substance to his policies, but continues the irrational and rambling messages of his predecessors, such as Tony Abbott and John Howard. The messages of each of these appeal to the masses because they invoke fear and hatred of the 'other'. They demonise minorities and blame them for economic ills, while providing greater freedom to the wealthy who continue to exploit minorities and the poor.



In the opening scene of the movie, Billy Jack, Billy confronts the sheriff for trying to shoot horses on Indian land. The sheriff declares 'We have the law here'. Billy Jack retorts, 'When policemen break the law, then there isn't any law; just a fight for survival'. This could be modernised to reflect Trump's approach to the law. He has consistently broken it, then criticises police for investigating it, while pardoning criminals with connections to him (Baker et al, 2020).

Ironically, those who support the idiocracy of Trump, claim they support democracy. They don't understand that democracy has died through the division of society, through turning the people against each other, through making some people less human or less deserving of rights than others. Dare I quote Padme from 'Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith', when she stated, 'So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause . . .'


The hate-speech of the far-right is often masked in neo-liberal economics, which argues for free-market trade, deregulation, privatisation, small government, user-pays systems for health and education, and no welfare. The victims of neo-liberalism are the poor, so it is inherent in neo-liberal strategies to turn the population, including the poor, against a common enemy. That common enemy should be the neo-liberal politicians and big businesses who are only interested in profit over people. However, the common enemy becomes minorities in western countries, such as refugees, LGBTIQ+ people, Muslims, and even the poor themselves. Neo-liberalism is intimately entwined with neo-fascism, neo-Nazism and racism.

Why are these simplistic messages of hate so powerful? Abbott and Morrison both used three-word slogans, such as 'stop the boats', 'lifters not leaners', 'debt and deficit', 'axe the tax'. (Quiggin 2015). These slogans had no substance, no explanation, and were aimed at spreading fear and division. Most people did not go beyond the superficial messaging. Trump is the same. He spreads a simple message of hate. He declared that all Mexicans are murderers and rapists (Jacobs 2018). He continues to wage prejudicial campaigns against Muslims, declaring that 'Islam hates us'. He banned all Muslims from entering the USA. Following the mosque terrorist attacks in New Zealand that killed 51 Muslims and injured many others, he tweeted a link to far-right site Breitbart that had declared Muslim refugees were 'rapefugees'. Trump has retweeted hate speech videos by neo-fascists who wage campaigns of violence against Muslims while claiming to be Christians (Klaas 2019). While Trump claims he isn't racist, his language and actions have empowered Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists (Simon & Sidner 2019). Hitler also used these simplistic, rambling messages of hate, fear and division. Hitler claimed he was doing the 'work of the Lord' in attacking communists, Jews and others. Each of these leaders wrapped their messages in Christian beliefs to mask their terrible agendas while seducing Christians into thinking they are defending moral values.

The common theme in these simplistic messages of intolerance and fear is absolutism.

Right-wing politicians will deplore 'moral relativism'. Yet the opposite of relativism is absolutism. Relativism looks at context and nuance. Absolutism does not. Absolutism fails to recognise the differences in people, societies, cultures, perspective. It rejects science because science requires relativism. Absolutism finds fertile ground in religion, because it is easy to manipulate the religious into a superstitious fear of judgement and condemnation by their supreme being if they dare to question. For example, Trump appointed a spiritual adviser, Paula White-Cain, who proclaimed that 'To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God' (Thomas 2019). Wow! Talk about feeding the superstitious fears of the gullible.

Staying with the Star Wars quotes, Obi Wan Kenobi stated 'Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. I will do what I must'. Ok, we don't have Sith Lords, but we do have powerful politicians claiming they are doing the work of the Lord. We have politicians dealing in absolutes, because that makes it easier to demonise and divide. It makes it easier to control the gullible to do their bidding. The key though is fear. Send the message that there is an attack on their freedoms, create an imaginary enemy, and the gullible are ripe for manipulation.

Truth and facts? Nah. What use are these when being told what to believe by Trump or other clowns.

Remember when Press Secretary Sean Spicer grossly inflated the attendance numbers for Trump's inauguration? Counsellor to the President, Kelly-Anne Conway decided to cover for him by declaring that these were 'alternative facts'. Chuck Todd, of Meet the Press, explained to Conway, 'Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods' (Blake 2017).

For instance, when politicians or commentators are called out for racism or bigotry, they will either deny it or gaslight it. There may be video footage of the exact statement and they will say that they never said it. Or, they will indignantly declare that their freedom of speech is being attacked by politically correctness 'gone mad', by socialist snowflakes. It is reminiscent of Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, 'The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command'.

Another great quote from Billy Jack, is when Billy states, 'It's funny isn't it? Only the white man wants everything put in writing. And only then, so he can use it against you in court. You know among the Indians, a promise is good enough'. 

Trump throws even this on its head. It doesn't matter whether it is in writing or there is video evidence of what he has said, he will blatantly lie and deny. It's not just that he is corrupt, but that he treats people with contempt and knows that his supporter base are so gullible, they will defend him no matter what he does. He is the embodiment of corruption and his supporters are complicit, easily-led and ... suckers.

Unbelievably, his supporters will deny facts simply because Trump tells them to. Speak to the brain-washed Trump fans and they will claim he is an amazing president who has turned the economy around. Many of the economic indicators show that Trump has just continued on Obama's trajectory without staging any miraculous economic recovery. For example, the following chart shows unemployment rate by racial and ethnic category. Apart from the dates, can anyone show when Trump took over and 'turned this around'? Of course not. Obama had already established policies that had reduced unemployment following the highs of the Global Financial Crisis which occurred under President George W. Bush.

Source: Jacobson 2020

Clearly, truth does not matter to Trump or many of the other right-wing politicians on the international stage. When people defend Trump or Morrison or any of the others who propagate a culture of deceit, hatred, fear, and division, they are taking their respective nations down a slippery slope that we have seen leads to fascism, authoritarianism and gross human rights abuses.

Trump is a crack-pot.

A dangerous neo-liberal, narcissistic crack-pot.

So how do we counter this threat to democracy?

The left-wing needs to mobilise and unite. Instead of factional in-fighting, it needs to fight against the horrid policies and behaviours of the intolerant right-wing. While Trump and many of those on the right-wing are sensitive to criticism, this shouldn't stop anyone challenging their racist, irrational, damaging politics. Realise that they will attempt to gas-light, they will claim they are victims of political correctness 'gone mad'. Hold them to account for their shallow policies, ask them to explain them and what evidence they have. Sadly, as we have seen, evidence and truth plays no part in their rationale, but they still must be challenged. Identify alternatives to their intolerance and absolutism that still address moral issues, such as caring for the persecuted, creating jobs and establishing living wages. This may be difficult, as many on the right have a warped sense of morality, thinking they are already defending family values and the morals of the bible, and sadly see any assistance for the poor or marginalised as socialism.

It can be discouraging and demoralising trying to hold a rational discussion with the irrational far-right. There could be a case for not holding these discussions. After all, as some anonymous pundit observed, 'Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. It'll just knock over all the pieces, shit on the board, and strut about like it's won anyway'.

Nonetheless, the less anonymous Martin Luther King provides an explanation of why it is so important to challenge the intolerance and harmful politics of neo-liberals, neo-fascists and the far-right. 'In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends'.

Let's not be silent in the face of fascism, intolerance, hatred, fear-mongering and bigotry.

Stand up against bullying by the likes of Trump and challenge the irrational claims of the far right.


References

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Updated 29 February 2020