Only Medicare For All Can Beat Covid

 AUGUST 21, 2020

by EVE OTTENBERG

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/21/only-medicare-for-all-can-beat-covid/

The U.S. has coped with Covid-19 far worse than any other country on the globe. Though much, much of this catastrophe of over 170,000 dead can be laid at Trump’s door, some of it has to do with the uniquely awful American system of for-profit health care. Those words, “for profit,” mean that the U.S. public health infrastructure, always stunted, had completely shriveled by the time the plague struck. Other countries dealt better with covid because they have different health care systems – single payer or Medicare for All systems, in other words, ones that are, to varying degrees, socialized.

Two clicks to midnight

 By: Ken Leslie    August 21, 2020

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55482.htm

While I was absent from this esteemed blog focusing on other things, an extremely dangerous situation started to develop and I found myself reaching for the keyboard again. If some of my previous writings were a bit alarmist, the tone was motivated by a genuine angst before an unfeeling and unstoppable machine of conquest and destruction the likes of which the world had never seen. And angst it is—anybody with an ounce of common sense can see that the World is hurtling towards some kind of catastrophe. Whether this occurs in a year or five is less relevant. The point is that we are witnessing a process of rapid implosion of the current global system and are not able to see what will replace it. There is no compelling vision of the future—a universal vessel of hope that would transport us across the turbulent waters of fundamental change. This time I am not anxious but resigned. Resignation does not imply learned helplessness—unlike most people around me I am grateful for the ability to be aware of the danger and to articulate what I see as the truth without fear or self-censorship.

Oh, and if the post sounds like a rant, that’s because it is one.

Lights! Camera! Kill! Hollywood, the Pentagon and Imperial Ambitions

AUGUST 14, 2020
by MATTHEW HOH

Link: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/14/lights-camera-kill-hollywood-the-pentagon-and-imperial-ambitions/

There’s a sickness that comes with the certainty of those who view the world in so black and white, so good and bad, so us versus them terms, that killing is often a morally defensible act. More so, such killing often goes beyond just simple self defense, to a level of retributive necessity, a preventive act that makes the act of killing practically an act of altruism. “If I hadn’t killed the bad guy, the bad guy would have killed other people” so the reasoning goes. The myth of redemptive violence, is clearly espoused and expressed in our explanations of American history: we had to kill the British to be free; in America’s majority Christian religion: Jesus had to die in the most painful way possible, on the cross, for mankind to be saved; and in the United State’s greatest popular culture: Luke had to destroy the Death Star to save the galaxy…

Cornel West and Tricia Rose Talk AOC

 Link: https://therealnews.com/stories/cornel-west-and-tricia-rose-talk-aoc-racial-justice-and-more

Story Transcript

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Kim Brown: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Kim Brown. As we stand here at the midpoint of 2020 of what has already been a tumultuous year, it’s so important that we take moments to memorialize, observe, reflect, and analyze all of the things that have our society, and by extension, our world in a state of flux right now. And that is exactly what The Tight Rope hopes to achieve. It’s the brand new podcast hosted by professors and doctors Tricia Rose and Cornel West, and their inaugural episode features an in-depth and revealing conversation with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Let’s take a look.