Before the US-Mexico border was closed down for the coronavirus, many human rights activists & social service groups independent of either the US or Mexican governments were crossing the border daily to provide food & medical services to the refugees forced to live in squalid camps on the Mexican side whilst they wait to be processed for asylum. It was difficult for the aid workers & for the refugees because that part of Mexico (near drug transportation points) is a drug cartel war zone. Now with the borders hermetically sealed, refugees are left without even the minimal care they received from the kindness of strangers.
It may sound sensible to seal the borders to vulnerable refugees during a deadly epidemic but not without providing them food, medical care, & safe housing. Not to provide for their care is an excuse for governments to employ the final solution for refugees.
(Photo of refugee kids living in camp near Tijuana, Mexico by Pedro Pardo/ATP, November 2018)
As an example of how opportunistic & pernicious the coronavirus is, eight sailors out of 5,000 on the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier deployed in the South Pacific have tested positive for coronavirus. Fifteen days ago, the ship made a port call to Da Nang, Vietnam but no port calls since. However aircraft have been coming & going off the ship to deliver personnel & supplies.
This isn’t just a matter of doing the forensics on one ship. The US Navy has over 285 ships, including 11 aircraft carriers, in a constant state of deployment, all of them making port calls around the world. That should answer the question of whether armies can be carriers of coronavirus.
This refugee at the Turkey-Greece border crossing in Edirne, Turkey is attempting to cross into Greece to seek asylum in Europe. Here he is protecting his little boy from tear gas fired by Greek border police. How does a father explain to a child that men in military uniforms are firing tear gas, live ammo, stun grenades, & assaulting men, women, & children? How does a wee child process such barbarism?
(Photo by Elif Ozturk/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Trump is such a narcissist & psychopath that he believes the coronavirus is all about him. He threatens to withhold coronavirus funding from states if governors ‘are not nice to him’ & wants the country reopened by Easter so the economy won’t tank & effect his reelection. Only Trump could make Biden look like a lesser evil.
A 48-year-old medical worker at the prestigious Mt. Sinai Hospital in NYC has died from coronavirus. Due to the shortage of gowns, masks, & other protective gear, medical staff had resorted to using trash bags or reused gowns & masks.
Photo is nurses at Mt. Sinai in plastic bag protective gowns.
Our heartfelt condolences to the Sikh community for the ISIS killing of 25 worshippers at morning prayers in the temple in Kabul, Afghanistan. The generosity of Sikhs toward Rohingya fleeing genocide in 2017 & toward Kashmiris & Indian Muslims fleeing the Hindutva genocide in northeast Delhi speak to their spirit of social solidarity, making them the antithesis of the ISIS death cult & the US-NATO occupation. May our brothers & sisters Rest In Peace.
What kind of mentality uses a deadly epidemic to ratchet up campaigns against Muslims?
A valuable post by Syed Asrar Qadri.
“Meanwhile #The_Hindu has published this Islamophobic Rasict Cartoon depicting Muslims wearing ( turbans ,kurta/Pajamas/Khan dresses) peculiar to Pakistan/Kashmir and Afghanistan as Epidemic for the whole World….
It shows how the National newspapers of India have a strong Bias against Muslims of these places .They never published such an article or view condemning the killing of Innocent Muslims by Mobs and by armies of other religions ..
Yesterday’s attack on innocent Sikhs in Kabul is the handiwork of same agencies of the world who have in the past killed them in places like #chattisinghpora etc to be alleged on Muslims ….
#The_Hindu should be pulled down for this cowardly blasphemous cartoon damaging the image of Innocent Muslims around the Globe and hurting their Souls ….
#Shame_The_Hindu”
Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh has taken a page out of Modi’s manual by banning the internet in Rohingya refugee camps during a deadly worldwide epidemic.
When something monumental–like the coronavirus epidemic–happens in the world, let me tell you, the first authority I do not leap to is Slavoj Zizek. Inexplicably he has become the go-to man for RT, the media venue of those who overthrew the USSR but allow Zizek to tout a new kind of communism coming off the heels of the epidemic. Let me say it to you straight: there’s no there-there to Zizek thought. He’s an empty vessel, a windbag who spits platitudes when he talks & makes chopped liver out of the dialectic. The future of socialism is not promising if the young cannot tell the difference between a profound political theoretician & a racist, xenophobic buffoon.
