Rights Action
April 24, 2020
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“The most misleading cliche about Covid19 is that it treats us all the same. It doesn’t, neither medically nor economically, socially or psychologically. In particular, Covid-19 exacerbates preexisting conditions of inequality wherever it arrives. Before long, this will cause social turmoil, up to and including uprisings and revolutions.”
(Andreas Kluth)
Rights Action’s priority work continues to be providing emergency funds to partner group in Guatemala and Honduras. Their Covid19 response work is about saving lives. The funds we are sending are drops in a bucket, and they are important.
Our work is also to contribute to discussion and hopefully empower political activism premised on the basic notion that: We are not “all in this together” / There should be no “getting back to normal”.
- Here: Another batch of arbitrarily selected stories.
- Below: How to donate to Rights Action’s Covid19 Response Fund
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@ Counterpunch article
43,000 U.S. millionaires will get $1.6 million “stimulus” each
@BenjaminNorton: In the coronavirus "bailout" fraud (ie, corporate handout) passed by Congress, more than 43,000 US millionaires will get a "stimulus" averaging $1.6 million each Meanwhile working-class Americans get one $1,200 check (which immediately goes to landlords).
“Over 43,000 US millionaires will get ‘stimulus’ averaging $1.6 million each”
By Lee Brown, April 16, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/43k-us-millionaires-will-get-stimulus-averaging-1-6m-each/
Canada sells weapons to Saudi Arabia regime that will result in more deaths in Yemen, as work goes on Canada to save lives, in times of COVID
“Canada Resumes Selling Arms To Saudi Warmongers”
April 22, 2020, TheRealNews, https://therealnews.com/stories/canada-lifts-embargo-resumes-selling-arms-saudi-arabia
"Getting back to normal" means prioritizing Canada's economy, knowing this will contribute directly to more death and destruction, exploitation and poverty in other countries.
Trudeau refuses calls to exclude tax haven companies from COVID-19 bailout
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/04/22/trudeau-refuses-calls-to-exclude-tax-haven-companies-from-covid-19-bailout.html
By Marco Chown Oved, April 22, 2020
“Poland is doing it. Denmark, too. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would not deny bailout funds to companies that operate in offshore tax havens.”
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“I’m going around with this little cart dying of hunger”
Juan Francisco Figueroa, 71 year-old brickworker, breaks down crying with nothing to eat!
"Children, adolescents, older adults and even entire families can be found sleeping on the sidewalks of Guatemala City, denounced the director of Casa Alianza, José Guadalupe Ruela."
http://www.radioamerica.hn/en-aceras-duermen-familias-desalojadas-de-apartamentos-por-falta-de-pago-durante-crisis-por-covid-19/
Guatemalan regime harrassing journalist investigation Swiss mining company and water shortages in Maya Q’eqchi’ region
Guatemalan authorities must immediately investigate the robbery at the house of journalist Carlos Ernesto Choc of Community Press and determine if it was related to his work in El Estor, the Committee for the Protection of CPJ Journalists indicated.
https://medium.com/@PrensaComunitar/roban-en-la-casa-del-periodista-carlos-choc-al-sureste-de-guatemala-df0995d05313
Pandemic of corruption in Honduras
"Let’s just stop talking crap. We are in a struggle against the pandemic of corruption.” … (the corruption of the Honduran narco-military regime fully supported by the U.S., Canada, World Bank, IMF, global companies, etc.
Dejemonos de papadas. Luchemos contra la pandemia de la corrupcion." ... (la corrupcion del regimen narco-militar de Honduras, aliado de y apoyado por los U.S.A., Canada, Banco Mundial, BID, FMI, ...)
HRN, Por Damaris Torres, 15/04/2020
https://radiohrn.hn/obispo-de-copan-dejemonos-de-papadas-luchemos-contra-la-pandemia-de-la-corrupcion
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It bears repetition that the Honduran and Guatemalan regimes are fully supported by the U.S. and Canadian governments, the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and IMF, and global companies and investors that all contribute to corruption, exploitation and violence, so as to operate mines and hydro-electric dams, to produce ‘for-export’ coffee, sugarcane, African palm, bananas and pineapples, and to operate garment ‘sweatshop’ factories and tourism businesses.
Canada, U.S. and the so-called ‘international community’ are happy to do business-as-usual with these regimes that have little interest to support their most vulnerable communities in “normal” times, let alone during a pandemic such as Covid19.
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Trump Accused of 'Actively and Knowingly' Spreading Coronavirus to Central America Through Deportations
Guatemalan health minister claims 75% of people on a recent deportation flight from the U.S. tested positive for the virus.
April 15, 2020, Common Dreams, by Julia Conley
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/15/trump-accused-actively-and-knowingly-spreading-coronavirus-central-america-through
“US deportation flights risk spreading coronavirus globally”
April 14, 2020, By Monica Campbell
https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-04-14/us-deportation-flights-risk-spreading-coronavirus-globally
Immigrant detention center in North Texas erupts in COVID-19 cases
Lawyers win nationwide review of vulnerable detainee populations in separate legal action as Alvarado center reports 24 infections
By Dianne Solis, April 20, 2020
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/04/20/immigrant-detention-center-in-alvarado-erupts-in-covid-19-cases
Virus Is Twice as Deadly for Black and Latino People Than Whites in N.Y.C.
Officials revealed that disparity on Wednesday as they announced that 779 more people in the state had died of the virus, the second straight day that deaths spiked to new highs.
By Jeffery C. Mays and Andy Newman, April 14, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/nyregion/coronavirus-race-deaths
The Black Plague
Public officials lament the way that the coronavirus is engulfing black communities. The question is, what are they prepared to do about it?
By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, April 16, 2020
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-black-plague
The old African-American aphorism “When white America catches a cold, black America gets pneumonia” has a new, morbid twist: when white America catches the novel coronavirus, black Americans die. Thousands of white Americans have also died from the virus, but the pace at which African-Americans are dying has transformed this public-health crisis into an object lesson in racial and class inequality. According to a Reuters report, African-Americans are more likely to die of covid-19 than any other group in the U.S. It is still early in the course of the pandemic, and the demographic data is incomplete, but the partial view is enough to prompt a sober reflection on this bitter harvest of American racism.
Family ravaged by coronavirus begged for tests, hospital care, but was repeatedly denied
Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press, April 19, 2020
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2020/04/19/coronavirus-racial-disparity-denied-tests-hospitalization/2981800001/
Gary Fowler, 56, went to the emergency rooms of three metro Detroit hospitals in the weeks leading up to his death, begging for a coronavirus test, begging for help because he was having difficulty breathing, but was repeatedly turned away, Keith said. "My dad passed at home, and no one tried to help him," Keith, 33, of northwest Detroit said through tears. "He asked for help, and they sent him away. They turned him away."
Navajo Nation Has Lost More Lives to COVID-19 Than 13 States Combined
The nation has reportedly had 1,197 confirmed cases since March 17
By Rachel DeSantis, April 20, 2020
https://people.com/human-interest/navajo-nation-lost-more-lives-coronavirus-than-13-states
"You’re telling people, ‘Wash your hands for 20 seconds multiple times a day,’ and they don’t have running water,” she told NBC News. “Or you’re saying, ‘Go buy groceries for two or three weeks and shelter in place and don’t come out,’ but people can’t afford groceries for two or three weeks."
Why are Americans So Servile to a Clown President?
By Heather Mallick, April 20, 2020, Toronto Star
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2020/04/20/why-are-americans-so-servile-to-a-clown-president.html
Grahame Russell responds: While I agree with questions posed and sentiments expressed by Heather Mallick, I offer two beefs – one narrow, one broad.
“We take our desire for equality to extremes.” This self-serving nicety about “Canada” is false. “This old myth will not die”, indeed. Canada is a deeply unequal, class-demarcated country and society, inequalities and injustices that cut clearly, not solely, across race lines.
On a broader level, Mallick does not ask a vital follow-up question, pertinent for most of her Canadian audience: Why does Canada support and participate in just about every important economic and military policy decision and action that the U.S. government – led by Mallick’s “clown president” – carries out around the globe?
Mallick’s article is one more example of one of “mainstream Canada’s” favourite past-times, to criticize the U.S. while ignoring that there is no country as deeply intertwined with the U.S. economically, militarily, politically and ideologically – past and present – as Canada; there is no country that supports U.S. military and economic aggression as much as Canada.
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Lawfare and Asymmetric Warfare on Venezuela
By Carlos Fazio, April 6, 2020
Original Spanish: https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/mundo/2020/04/04/lawfare-y-guerra-asimetrica-vs-venezuela-8860.html
As we face the so-called “epidemic of the century,” the US has decided to use war diplomacy to escalate its unconventional, asymmetric war against Venezuela. With a series of successive actions intended to spread shock and awe in the “enemy” ranks, on March 26 the Trump administration activated the miserable plan designed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams. Its ultimate goal is to bring about “regime change” in the country that has the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
We Should Applaud the Cuban Health System — and Learn From It
By Medea Benjamin, April 22, 2020, Jacobin Magazine
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/cuba-healthcare-coronavirus
Poor and blockaded Cuba not only has better health indicators than the United States, but its international medical efforts save thousands of lives a year. We should be applauding the Cuban health system — and learning from it.
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Calling Me a Hero Only Makes You Feel Better
I work in a grocery store. All this grandiose praise rings insincere.
April 18, 2020, The Atlantic, by Karleigh Frisbie Brogan
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/i-work-grocery-store-dont-call-me-hero/610147
Cashiers and shelf-stockers and delivery-truck drivers aren’t heroes. They’re victims. To call them heroes is to justify their exploitation. By praising the blue-collar worker’s public service, the progressive consumer is assuaged of her cognitive dissonance. When the world isn’t falling apart, we know the view of us is usually as faceless, throwaway citizens. The wealthy CEO telling his thousands of employees that they are vital, brave, and noble is a manipulative strategy to keep them churning out profits.
More than 120 cars line up for Krispy Kreme doughnuts in Mississauga
https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/more-than-120-cars-line-up-for-krispy-kreme-doughnuts-in-mississauga
“Pandemic be damned. When you having a craving for doughnuts, you hop in your car and go get doughnuts. That’s what dozens of people recently decided to do at a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts location in Mississauga, creating a massive lineup that snaked around the parking lot like dominoes, in order to get their hands on some those glazed desserts.”
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We are not “all in this together”
There should be no “going back to normal”
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Recommended daily news:
Democracy Now’s “Coronavirus Report”
www.democracynow.org
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- Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
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