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Taking care of my health, and yours
Taking care of my health, I take care of yours
People over 59 years old and children under one year old are essentially symptomatic, but the rest can carry the disease without being suspected. That is why it is vital to respect to the letter the established biosecurity norms
Author:
Ana María Domínguez Cruz
anamaria@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Young people are the ones who most often transit as asymptomatic. Author: Abel Rojas Barallobre Published: 19/01/2021 | 12:03 am
Where were you? Who did you meet? These and many other questions make up the survey that, with rigor and specificity, is carried out on each person who, confirmed as positive to COVID-19 or as a suspect, arrives at a hospital in our country.
It seems routine, but it can be very overwhelming, both for the patient, who suffers from that indescribable mixture of fear, uncertainty and anxiety; and for the health personnel who, with the required clothing, approach him/her without wanting to violate the health protocols, although with the desire to make him/her feel better.
This is what Niurka Molina Aguila, a specialist in II degree in Hygiene and Epidemiology, tells us, who carried out numerous surveys of this type as part of her work at the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK).
“Do you know what is the most important and, at the same time, most overwhelming, especially for the patient? It is necessary to answer these questions by appealing to the memory as accurately as possible because it is urgent that the answers refer to the 14 days prior to detection. This is the only way we can properly follow the transmission chain,” she assures us.
It is hard to imagine, but this is the day-to-day work of epidemiologists and other specialists who have been working for months in the midst of a scenario as hostile as the one imposed by COVID-19 on the world.
“The greatest danger of this disease lies not only in the very act of suffering it, but in asymptomatic people who, precisely because they do not feel anything that alarms them, carry out their usual activities and have contact with others, and become carriers with the same risk of transmission as those who do manifest the symptoms.
“Who are these asymptomatic people? You, me, that one, her…, but fundamentally the young people. People over 59 years and children under one year are essentially symptomatic, the rest, adolescents, young people and adults of less age, can carry the disease without suspicion. Til/khat is why it is vital to respect to the letter the established biosecurity norms”.
I do not feel, but I suffer
Based on research carried out at the IPK since last year (which has not been published), when cases of the disease began to be reported in the country, it has been assessed during all this time that about 63 percent of the people identified as positive were asymptomatic. This figure, logically, increases as contact searches are carried out through active surveillance, that is, through research.
The also Master in Infectious Diseases specifies that this study covered Havana, fundamentally, but it will continue to evaluate the results according to a better work of prevention and control of COVID-19. “The disease has been known gradually, as people have become sick.
“Much is still unknown, and so describing symptoms is complex. We already see that sometimes the loss of taste and smell are the only symptoms, even, of the disease. Until it was proven in several patients, it could not be described as an associated symptomatology, and this has happened with other aspects.
“The main thing is to respect the established sanitary norms. We cannot get tired of repeating them and enforcing them, because it is the only way we have to make it clear that this disease will not disappear completely, but rather that we will live with it as a seasonal disease, like H1N1 or others.
-Even if they are asymptomatic, can these people suffer from the sequelae of the disease?
-Yes, it is possible. The sequelae left by COVID-19 have already been described in healthy people who suffered from it. Having symptoms or not, does not necessarily condition the appearance of the sequelae, but when in doubt it is better to avoid contagion.
-The vaccine is the hope…
-Because of our human condition, we need hope to move forward. Certainly, we are anxiously waiting for the vaccine, but the population must know that every vaccine has a time to raise the immunity of the organism. That we vaccinate ourselves today does not mean that tomorrow we are already immune to the virus, especially when new strains are reported from time to time.
“There are vaccines that require two doses, and completing the cycle is essential. However, from the appearance of new strains, it is preferred in not few cases to delay the application of the second dose, and this prolongs the immunization process”.
The doctor, also researcher and assistant professor, underlined that until there is not a high number, very high of vaccinated and immunized people, one will not be out of the greatest danger and never absent completely.
The Cuban population must be informed and correctly oriented, based on the results of the researches carried out and the patients’ reactions when they receive the vaccine.
“I do not intend to alarm, but it must be taken into consideration that another new strain of the virus may emerge and the vaccine may not have the capacity to face it, so it will be necessary to continue studying and creating.
“The health measures that are so much repeated today in the different media are for life, because from now on the world will no longer be the same as the one we knew before the pandemic.
“The family must insist on their children and demand that they respect these measures, because one of the greatest dangers of this pandemic is that health services will collapse, as has happened in other nations. Not only do they collapse because people get sick, but because they don’t avoid getting sick.
Niurka Molina Aguila, specialist in II degree in Hygiene and Epidemiology, researcher at the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee
Molina Águila also mentioned the process of surrendering patients as convalescents. “Many times it is the time to complete the questionnaire that, when they first arrived at the institution, they could not continue with its completion”.
She emphasized that we should not go to closed places or places where crowds predominate, that the nasobuco should be worn correctly, that frequent hand washing should be deep, that when coughing or sneezing we should protect ourselves with our forearms, that we should maintain distance between one person and another.
“You, me, him, her… any one of us can transmit the disease without knowing it, and that’s what you have to understand. To the extent that someone who lives with other people takes better care of their health, their love and integrity cannot be questioned. These are not times to love as in the old days, but to demonstrate that by taking care of our life, we take care of the lives of others.
Domestic Terrorism?
Domestic Terrorism?
This is like saying “homemade terrorism,” almost always made for export, only this time the three cups of broth were in the halls of the U.S. Congress
January 18, 2021 00:01:54
Photo: Taken from the Internet
This is what Joe Biden called the occupation, by force, of the Capitol in the United States. This is like saying “homemade terrorism,” almost always made for export, only this time the three cups of broth were in the halls of the U.S. Congress.
But this act of “domestic terrorism” had an agitator: Donald Trump, the president who reluctantly leaves the White House chair.
After that disaster, he called them intruders. The fact is that they played their part, or left the script; they no longer serve the game of lies; the change in attitude reminds us of the scene of the president throwing rolls of toilet paper at a Puerto Rican crowd after a hurricane on that neighboring island.
And it all happens in a country that extends the Cesarean finger to give or take life, issue certificates of democracy, or make spurious lists of countries that sponsor terrorism. Now they have no other honorable way out than to tear up the nomination sheet and sign up first.
However, President Trump only uncorked the bottle full of old demons: one of the flags that was carried by the “domestic terrorists” carried the symbols of 19th century slavery and racism.
José Martí, who lived in that country for 15 years, observed with concern the division and hatred. He learned of a marriage that was stoned to death because it was a white woman married to a black man. He saw children selling newspapers in the cold of New York. He saw the struggles between Democrats and Republicans and the role of money in the elections. He felt with pain the separation between rich and poor, and the imperial appetites for devouring other peoples. He did not hesitate to affirm that the United States of America was not the model to follow for the emerging Republics of Our America, since that giant already had feet of clay.
When he prepared for the Necessary War, he knew that this one is not only for Cuba and Puerto Rico, but “to save the already doubtful honor of English America”. Martí was not only a revolutionary for Cubans, he is also a revolutionary for the American people.
The images of the assault on the seat of American democracy confirm the future of José Martí’s thinking, that which opens the door to the spirit of Lincoln and closes the way to the dangers of the adventurer Cutting, the ancient face of those who now feed the supremacy of some men over others.
Many of those who attack Cuba, and tear their clothes in the name of freedom, now keep a strange silence. They turn their faces away, as if this matter were of minor importance, something very domestic that does not deserve to raise its voice, much less to fill its head with ashes.
Only this time, from the pages of Don Quixote, an old certainty jumps out: “The truth thins, but does not break, and always walks on the lie like oil on water”. This is one of the realities that floats: the shamelessness of “domestic terrorism”, made in the very house of the empire.
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Two Countries Competing in the USA
In the United States, two countries are competing
By Manuel Yepe Menéndez
January 1, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
Southern map of the Confederate states.
In the middle of the 19th century, the Republican Party, representing the interests of the nascent U.S. industrial capital, won the military battle against the Southern Democratic Party, which represented and defended the slave plantation and slavery itself.
However, the southern institutions-including its religious system that justified slavery and defined whites as superior social beings-did not disappear. The defeat suffered by the South permeated southern society, which since then has seen the North as foreignizing, secularizing, and foreign: an enemy to be fought. The civil war, which for the North ended in 1865, had just begun for the South.
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln by a Southerner in that year meant the first questioning of the power of the North. This situation has continued until today.
The South, since then, has been discriminated against by the power of the North. As the family farm became extinct, replaced by agribusiness, those displaced farmers who opposed the new capitalism – which, by paying low wages to Mexicans, made it impossible for the farmers to prosper – became allies of the South.
A southern nationalism opposed to the north developed in the south. If one thinks of the United States as a single nation, this phenomenon may go unnoticed. But, in reality, they are two nations with different dynamics.
The southerners were free traders because the plantations in the south depended on cotton exports to Europe. Those in the north who industrialized were protectionists, influenced by an ideology of self-employment oriented to depending on the work of farmers in the field, with or without slaves. In the south, which extended along the east coast to Virginia and reached the gates of Washington, it dominated the plantation.
The South’s military defeat in the Civil War did not mean the defeat of the South’s institutions, nor its ideology. The North became industrialized and today depends on finance, banks and mortgages since the industries disappeared when they were sold to the Third World. The South, on the other hand, continued to be agricultural until the 1920s when large-scale oil extraction began in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. Therefore, it was in the South where, little by little, the powerful oil power group developed.
In the south, whites were mostly poor but considered superior to slaves. There the Ku Klux Klan emerged in 1866, which soon became the terrorist organization that channeled white supremacist hate in the United States and whose function was to keep alive those practices that the new anti-slavery laws prohibited. The ban on voting for Blacks was maintained and only after a new intervention by the North with federal troops a century later were the civil rights of Blacks legally recognized.
Nationalist and conservative ideology spread in the South as part of the tradition of identifying with the past. The “founding fathers” recognized slavery and did not question it. Even the text of the Constitution, in its original version, allowed slavery.
One element that cannot be ignored is the religious aspect. The ideology of revanchism is based on the religion of Southern Baptists, for whom the South had been God’s chosen people in their struggle against the North. For them, they lost the civil war because God was testing them. The expansion of the country before and after the civil war was led by Southerners. And the same thing happened in the states bordering Canada, where a northern European Lutheran tradition joined with local racist attitudes. Many Southerners left for Alaska. The state of Utah is populated by Mormons, a racist theology with southern bases from that right-wing Arizona tradition.
Blacks and ethnic groups have been influenced by this ideology through the “prosperity gospel” that this movement has emphasized since the 19th century.
When people in North America talk, especially during election periods, about blue states and red states they are referring to two nations.
That’s why it was said that, according to the Southern view, Barack Obama embodied the interests of the North as a northerner (from Chicago), Black, and an ally of the world of finance – the three elements that the Southern right identified in the struggle against the North. On the other hand, to Donald Trump, who was defeated in 2020, was attributed the status of defender of the interests of the red states, because he had assured majority electoral support in the most industrialized states.
On the incoming Biden administration
Some opinions and many questions regarding the incoming Biden administration
By Fernando M. García Bielsa
JANUARY 17, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
The new President of the United States, Joseph Biden, when he takes office will have to face numerous challenges, and in the immediate future he is obliged to pay attention to severe and serious problems such as the pandemic, the recession, climate change and serious fiscal tensions in order to solve urgent social and economic needs. It will also need to obtain some tangible results in its first months, especially in the economy and in the fight against the coronavirus, and show that once again bipartisan action is possible.
He is called to govern a country whose international credibility has been damaged by the ups and downs of its politics and the unstable management of the outgoing president. Likewise, the United States suffers serious structural problems, and is in a moment of serious political, economic and health crisis, with a very polarized society, the discredit and dysfunctionality of many of its institutions and the prospect of obstruction in Congress, where it has a tiny majority. In addition, given the loss of reputation of the electoral system and Trump’s sustained campaign on alleged fraud, part of the citizenry considers Biden’s presidency illegal.
In addition, President Biden’s powers may be somewhat diminished, as he may not be considered to have a strong “mandate” due to the narrow margin of his electoral victory. During this next four years he will face a strong Republican action to obstruct his administration, despite the fact that he and his government will not move away from the neoliberal political orientation shared by both parties of the system, the Democrat and the Republican.
A short list of the challenges facing U.S. society, along with the urgency and severity of the impact of the pandemic and the worrisome trends that are emerging, includes the endless wars that are bogging down the country, the economic crisis, the huge fiscal and trade deficits, a serious deterioration of infrastructure, persistent racial hatred and tensions, the flawed approach to immigration policy, the dangers of growing inequality, environmental degradation, the loss of citizen privacy and the loss of legitimacy of the institutions of the system.
But also the high degree of financialization of that society, which does not work for the real and productive economy, the big financial bubbles linked to an enormous public debt waiting to unleash a major disaster with dire consequences for society as a whole; a flawed and outmoded electoral political system and a two-party system that is full of divisions, far removed from the real problems of the people and overwhelmed by the fractures in society; the growing ineffectiveness and stagnation of the political and legislative game in Washington.
The situation is equivalent to a crisis of political representation.
Massive inequality has made the struggle for survival a central and daily component for millions of people. The public consciousness of many of them has become twisted by their own situation, by their fears and fanaticism, because they have felt repeatedly deceived and abandoned by both parties in the system, and by the manipulative action of the right wing media and their social networks.
Likewise, there is a widespread desire for change and the rebirth, expansion and ramification of forces and tendencies that feed the divisions in the country, while racial and other forms of violence, white supremacist hate groups and heavily armed militias and paramilitary groups with connections in the police and other security bodies are spreading. According to imprecise figures such groups have some 50,000 members.
This is a reality that the new President will have to deal with. He has no easy task ahead of him and in some areas he would have to confront the oligarchic elite and the entrenched interests in both parties, something that is highly unlikely given his political background.
The shameful episode of the violent takeover of the Capitol by the hordes of Trump sympathizers of a fascist nature has exposed the false illusions and cracks in the country. It is striking how little resistance, bordering on complicity, was encountered by the rioters among many of the security guards as they marched into the hall. Although unusual and logically rejected by the vast majority of citizens, according to some polls, these actions were viewed with sympathy by almost one in five respondents in the nation. Along with these events, hundreds of people demonstrated outside legislative buildings in several states across the country against Biden’s confirmation.
This episode shows the seriousness of the legitimacy crisis that has been eating away at the U.S. political system for decades. Political violence has been an enthroned feature of U.S. affairs since its inception, but in recent years there has been a renewed receptivity to it, along with an erosion of confidence in the institutions and in the supposedly democratic channels.
Such developments may be mere precursors of more serious events; of a violent and turbulent period. Clearly the institutional breakdown that is taking place is not resolved by Trump’s departure. Some analysts go so far as to say that the country has not experienced a crisis of this intensity and magnitude since the years before the Civil War in the second half of the 19th century.
At the same time, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted in conjunction with the Center for Policy at the University of Virginia, one-third of Americans believe that “the United States must preserve the predominance of its white European heritage. There has always been a wide range of resentment in the country, with political expressions that cannot tolerate the growing diversity in that society.
These and other problems are not only projected into the future, but are a present reality, including the great differences between regions of the country, the economic, ethnic, and cultural imbalances, and the sense of abandonment and hopelessness of tens of millions. Such problems are part of the explanation and conditions that made it possible for a demagogue like Donald Trump to become President in 2016.
Many of these problems and tendencies are derived from or related to the process of decline that is manifested in the economy and in the degree of predominance of the United States in the concert of nations, to a great extent derived from the negative impact accumulated by decades of gigantic military expenditures, of endless wars and the disproportionate over-expansion of imperialism in all corners of the planet, as well as the consequent imbalances and growing inequalities generated by neo-liberal globalization within that society.
In the immediate term, some recent events should presumably improve Biden’s possibilities for management and for promoting his legislative program to some extent. Among them, the loss by the Republican Party of its majority in the Senate and the many cracks that exist within it, catalyzed during the catastrophic end of the government of Donald Trump, stand out in the first place.
Despite this, it is to be expected that the magnate will dedicate part of his time to hindering the new President’s administration. Trump has had to leave the government but the latent weight of the 74 million Americans who voted for him is there. They will continue to be a tremendous political base, with tendencies to reject Washington’s elites and the status quo, destabilizing and potentially manipulable for right-wing political projects. What we now call Trumpism will remain even if Trump’s figure is ultimately damaged, to a greater or lesser extent, or discredited by his involvement in the unprecedented revolt at the heart of the Capitol.
Recently some notorious Republican politicians have been abandoning the ship driven by Trump, but mostly they do it measuring consequences with a view to eventually inheriting his mantle. They cannot disengage much from their agenda without alienating the eventual support of the tens of millions who fervently follow the former President.
Aside from the not inconsiderable spread and entrenchment of violent right-wing groups, the xenophobic agenda and rejection of political and financial elites that Trump has exploited remains extremely popular with his broad base of supporters. Many are following him, inside and outside the institutions. An imminent battle over the future direction of the Republican Party and even its eventual division is predicted, which could in the medium term generate consequences and even question the continuity of the two-party oligarchic system.
The electoral victory and the correlation of internal forces do not constitute a clear mandate
Despite all the hype of the US electoral process and the decisive impact of the money spent, there is no doubt that Joseph Biden was elected in 2020 largely because of the massive rejection of Donald Trump, further weakened by the economic and health crisis just before the election. The usual formula of voting for the lesser evil was imposed on millions of people.
The announced and expected blue wave (pro-democracy) did not happen. Biden’s victory was relatively narrow in several states, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives was reduced, and although a functional predominance is assumed in the Senate, this body, which by its nature is eminently conservative, has been divided with its seats distributed equally, with 50 senators from each party. Its advantage is quite small and fragile, especially when both right-wing Democrats and liberal Republicans could occasionally join the opposing party in voting on measures that do not suit their preferences. This makes the projection of the legislative program more complex.
More than half of the states in the Union have Republican-dominated governors and/or legislatures. There is concern about the role that the Supreme Court and the judicial body can play at various levels, all of which are clearly conservative.
Given Trump’s role as a catalyst for many of the nation’s rifts, Biden made his point by emphasizing that he would, on the one hand, reverse Trump’s right-wing policies while, at the same time, promising the very difficult task of restoring unity in the nation and governing for all Americans, regardless of their partisan color.
This now appears to him as a straitjacket. The President will have to move between two opposing waters: between his alleged courtship with Republican sectors that supported him, and on the contrary he will have to avoid alienating himself from the combative progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the followers of Bernie Sanders and the traditional party base among workers, African Americans, environmentalists and others.
In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, it became clear that it is the traditional elite who are in charge. Favored by it are the bulk of those chosen for the cabinet and the most important positions. For the moment, there is a great deal of ignorance and contempt for the progressive sector.
Biden is an accomplished politician of the oligarchic elite who comes into office with the remarkable gravitation of a class of billionaire donors from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. He was the most conservative of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in the recent election. He will have to govern a country in decline, with many tears, and during a long period of economic recession and fiscal stress. He will be governing with a divided Democratic Party and one in which reconciling differences with the progressive wing presents him with the challenge of not alienating other sectors of his coalition and avoiding a collapse in the parliamentary elections of 2022.
Maintaining the continuity of neoliberal capitalism and the corporate profit rate will be a central concern of the economic policy of the Biden Administration, in part due to the influence on it of the financial sector, the giants of advanced technology, the transnationals and the Democratic establishment.
Domestically, despite enormous levels of debt and an untouchable increase in the military budget, there is a marked need for increased federal spending on health care, aid for the unemployed and businesses, and support for troubled state and local governments. It is believed that given the existing level of inequality and the low dynamism of the economy, Biden could attempt to soften the edge of neoliberal policies through monetary manipulation, without abandoning the general neoliberal orientation characteristic of the spheres that control the Democratic Party.
Even after the pandemic is over, he is likely to face persistent economic weakness and a desperate need for more public investment. The massive injection into the economy of fiat money, of large issues of paper money without real backing, will surely continue, which would increase in the medium term the risks for the stability of the dollar and of the economy itself.
Several important analysts consider the orthodox centrist policies that the Biden administration is likely to adopt as anachronistic and unsustainable, given the growing fractures and conflicting trends in the country and the erosion of the credibility of neoliberalism. The next period of Biden’s government could well be a mere interval in the trajectory of continued ascent and empowerment of extreme right-wing positions in the country.
In matters of foreign policy there will surely be more space for multilateralism, diplomacy and some accommodation with allies, while continuing the United States’ claim to recover its global primacy and domination by threat and force. It is above all in this sphere that the new president has nominated some notorious neoconservatives and interventionist liberals. With Biden, the military budget will be increased, troops will be maintained in the Middle East and, in an adverse geopolitical framework, a hard line will be maintained towards China. The United States will continue to be the biggest exporter of arms, and new military and subversive interventions abroad could be expected.
At first sight, Biden is favored to begin his administration when he succeeds a government like that of Trump, which generated so much controversy, so much polarization and a mediocre performance in a period in which the divisions in the country were sharpened. However, the many expectations generated for a new administration could soon work against him.
Joe Biden measures for his first days in office
Joe Biden prepares measures for his first days in office
In a memo circulated among the major U.S. media, Biden’s advisors describe such executive actions as an urgent readiness to address the most serious crises in the nation’s modern history
Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
January 17, 2021 10:01:43
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: EFE
Amidst preparations for the inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is today preparing a set of urgent measures for the first 10 days of the administration.
In a memo circulated Saturday to the major U.S. media, Biden’s advisers describe such executive actions as an urgent readiness to address the most serious crises in the nation’s modern history.
Ron Klain, the incoming chief of staff to the next White House chief, wrote in that document that the orders will focus on ‘the Covid-19 health crisis, and its resulting serious impact, climate change and racial equity.
The official said the provisions will be accompanied by a ‘strong’ legislative agenda and are intended to provide relief to the millions of Americans struggling with these serious issues.
He added that the president-elect will take steps not only to reverse the worst damage of Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, “but also to begin to move our country forward.”
The new head of state will begin implementing the measures on Wednesday, the day he takes office, with what Klain said would be about a dozen executive orders on the issues mentioned.
The president-elect also plans to bring the country back into the Paris climate change agreement and undo the ban on travel to the United States by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, a measure implemented by Trump.
Biden will also issue a provision for mandatory use of masks as a requirement for staying on federally owned land or facilities and on interstate travel, and will also extend a pause on evictions and mortgages.
He even plans to take steps to mitigate the spread by expanding Covid-19 testing, protecting workers, and establishing clear health standards.
The White House will spend the remaining eight days instructing its cabinet to push for economic assistance to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and to take executive action on issues such as reunification of children separated from their families after crossing the border, among others.
The effort comes as the Senate prepares for President Trump’s second impeachment, in the early days of the Biden administration.
Although the transition team has not outlined many components of its upcoming legislative agenda, the next White House chief implemented a $1.9 trillion plan to combat the damage from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, a top priority for the new administration.
(Source: Prensa Latina)
Hitler returns from the afterlife
Hitler returns from the afterlife
One of the last crimes of the multimillionaire Donald Trump has triggered worldwide and domestic condemnation, at the same time as it once again proves those who warned that Hitler was back because of the racist, ultra-right-wing, xenophobic, nationalist and isolationist positions of Trump were right
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
An angry crowd caused disorder in the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6. Photo: EFE
Five fatalities, at least a dozen injured police officers, 70 people charged, more than 125 files opened, rewards of up to $50,000 for information about fugitives from justice, damages in the millions for the multiple destructions inside the facilities of the U.S. Congress, a newly-militarized city with more than 25,000 troops and walled up in the face of new threats, are the results of the quantitative analysis of the scandalous assault on the Capitol on January 6.
One of the latest crimes of billionaire Donald Trump has triggered world and internal condemnations, while giving reason, once again, to those who – since his unexpected electoral victory in 2016 – warned that Hitler was back due to his racist positions, ultra-rightists, xenophobes, nationalists and isolationists of the new president, who associated him so much with the fascist, that he also made intentional use of lies to trap the will of millions in Germany and try to bring the world to its knees.
A January 14 Los Angeles Times editorial reflected that, although Trump has never really led the far right, it fell in love with him after finding common ground in his rhetoric, which explains why 74 million supported him in 2020 after seeing his “authoritarian impulses” on display for four years in office.
One week after what many have called “a historic act of domestic terrorism,” media around the world are alternating news of the global pandemic’s resurgence and its current increased threats. These are impacting Americans with record numbers of 4,300 deaths a day, and with the horrors surrounding the acts of violence that shook Washington and U.S. democracy, following the president’s call to prevent, by force, the legislative recognition of Joe Biden’s triumph as president-elect.
While the sessions in Congress for the second impeachment against Trump are taking place in a Capitol that looks like a military camp, with soldiers sleeping in hallways, rooms and staircases, police closures are proliferating throughout the city, in response to indications, detected by the FBI, of new armed rallies before Joe Biden’s inauguration, not only in Washington, but in all 50 states.
The proclivity to allow disorder and let it go has generated suspicions and accusations. It was clear in recent days that the mobilization would attract thousands of people, the security apparatus was surprisingly small. Some wondered whether it was “mere incompetence or a strategy” that was premeditated. Then came the version that when the Capitol Police asked for help from the Department of Defense, led by people with no credentials other than their total loyalty to Trump, it imposed severe restrictions on the mission of the District National Guard, which had no riot gear or ammunition.
Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy alleged that Congress did not ask for riot control assistance and was concerned about the image that the presence of uniformed personnel in the building might convey, despite the fact that, until then, President Trump had not shaken his hand in sending in the military when those protesting are Black Lives Matter supporters.
This time the Pentagon took almost three hours to authorize the deployment of riot police and National Guard reinforcements,. While congress members and senators were being evacuated, the building ended up being taken over by the rebels. Among the garbage and the disorder caused, racist insignias and symbols appeared next to Trump’s hats and flags, and a large gallows with the rope prepared: “Let them cut off their heads,” read a banner, according to local correspondents.
OLD SUSPICIONS
Two months before the Trump’s coup against Congress, US columnist and Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Krugman, analyzed in his commentary The United States: A Failed State, the possible impact of Trump’s electoral failure. He predicted “that we are in serious trouble. Trump’s defeat would mean that, for the time being, we would have avoided falling into authoritarianism; and yes, the risks are that great, not only because of who Trump is, but also because the modern Republican Party is that extreme and undemocratic.”
Krugman denounced, during the 2020 election campaign, the Republican strategy based on false conspiracies and trying to scare voters by talking about bad things that are not happening, through “damn lies and Trump rallies.”
The day after the election, another New York Times commentator, Thomas Friedman, wrote an article entitled In the Election, There Was a Loser: America, a view that held that “we have just lived through four years of the most divisive and dishonest presidency in American history, one that attacked the two pillars of our democracy: truth and trust. Donald Trump has not spent a single day of his term trying to be the president of all the people and he has broken the rules and shattered the norms in a way that no president has dared; like last night, when he falsely warned of electoral fraud and called on the Supreme Court to intervene and stop the vote, as if such a thing were even remotely possible.
Using the social network platforms, the stands as President and the freedom of expression as an alibi, Trump and his serial manipulators fomented hatred, attempted against migration, undermined confidence in the democratic processes and fed populism and authoritarianism, taking advantage of the macabre techniques of Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda of Adolph Hitler’s Germany. Goebbels used the media to offer biased information, to multiply invented, unreal things, and to make people believe them as unquestionable truths, to expand, to inflame and to manage the genocidal Nazi ideology. More than seven decades later, Trump’s media terrorism took advantage of the fact that today lies reach further, faster and more people than ever before, with technologies.
The end? A broken country, a questioned democracy, a diminished, isolated international authority; a polarized, nervous, fractured society, which appeals more and more to drugs and medicines in the face of so much stress. It is no less concerned with the violence and terrorism generated by the hatred engendered and fueled by Trump, who lived by the lie. The fascists of yesterday and today confirm that delirium is also a deadly virus.
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If the Capitol Assailants had been Black?
TODAY IN HISTORY
What if the assailants at the Capitol had been African Americans?
In the 1940s and 1950s, the segregationists adopted the flag as the emblem of their battle to prevent movements that emerged to advance the rights of African Americans. In essence, it represents the racist southern culture
It was not by chance that a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump, all of them white-skinned, razed the Capitol’s fences, pounced on the police guarding the building and, with little resistance, forcibly entered the compound. Nor was it by chance that one of them walked through the corridors waving an enormous “confederate” flag.
This was possible because hours earlier, Trump had incited them in the Save America march, to support him in a desperate and last attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s already recognized victory.
It was, moreover, a racist assault. No African Americans participated in that violent demonstration, and the Confederate flag, a historic symbol of racism and the defense of slavery in the United States, was flown for several hours without being stopped by any police officer.
Photo: Reuters
Some of the leaders of the demonstration, identified as members of extreme right-wing conspiracy theory and white supremacist organizations, are trying to distance themselves from the vandalism, claiming that the destruction was caused by anti-fascists.
But the police have already located and arrested Jacob Anthony Chansley, known as Jake Angeli, who is considered the “shaman” of the QAnon. Members of the QAnon movement, which appears to have begun in October 2017, consider Trump a hero.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Its militants believe an unfounded theory. They say that President Trump is waging a secret war against pedophiles from the elite of the U.S. government, business and media who worship Satan, and that one day there will be a reckoning among political figures like former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In this case, Jake Angeli is the man photographed inside Congress with his face painted and dressed in a bearskin and horns on his head. In addition, he carried a spear with an American flag tied to the blade, and who calls himself “The Wolf of Yellowstone.”
Richard Barnett, a follower of President Trump, is also in custody. He is pictured sitting in the office of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Adam Johnson, who was photographed taking Pelosi’s lectern, also remains in police custody.
WHAT IF THE ASSAILANTS AT THE CAPITOL HAD BEEN AFRICAN-AMERICANS?
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, an international and decentralized movement originating within the African American community, stated:
“When African Americans protest for our lives, we often encounter National Guard troops or police armed with assault rifles, shields, tear gas, and combat helmets.
“When whites attempt a coup, they run into a small number of agents who can’t do anything and who even take selfies with the terrorists,” they said.
A statement on Twitter was written by Michelle Obama, wife of Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States:
“To those who criticize others as unpatriotic for simply kneeling in protest, to those who wonder why we even have to remember that Black lives matter, it has become painfully clear that some Americans are, in fact, allowed to degrade the flag and symbols of our nation. What do they have to say now?”
What do Joe Biden and Donald Trump think about January 6?
NBA legend LeBron James was blunt in his denunciation:
“We live in two Americas. “If people like me – African Americans – had stormed the Capitol, what would have been the result? I think we all know. We know what would have happened to them if they had approached the Capitol, let alone entered the offices and the hallways.”
Photo: Reuters
Florida Senator Marco Rubio released a video on Friday comparing the attack on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald J. Trump with protests by Black Lives Matter, the racial equality and justice movement.
Rubio said the invasion of Congress was similar to the protests the left had been “justifying” last summer in cities across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, an African American who died in Minneapolis police custody.
So far, more than 80 people have been arrested and four died in the assault on the Capitol. Police found 11 Molotov cocktails on an Alabama man.
THE CONFEDERATE FLAG CARRIED BY THE CONGRESSIONAL ASSAILANTS
Between 1861 and 1865 a civil war developed in the United States that confronted the southern states (Confederates) that defended, contrary to the foundations of the northerners whose leader was Abraham Lincoln, the maintenance of slavery in the states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
After the defeat of the Confederate states, the banner carried by their troops in the civil war reduced its public presence but reappeared in the mid-twentieth century with racial segregation.
The first Confederate flag was composed of two red bars and a white one in the middle, with a blue box in the upper left that had a circle formed by stars. However, its successor, the red one, which contains a blue cross with white borders and stars, was the one that became popular. It was the symbol of the Battle of Virginia.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
In 1863, the Confederate Congress recognized the Northern Virginia flag as its official symbol.
The descendants of Civil War veterans placed it on the nation’s monuments, so it gradually became an icon of Southern culture
In the 1940s and 1950s, segregationists adopted the flag as the emblem of their battle to prevent movements that emerged to advance the rights of African Americans. In essence, it is the representation of Southern racist culture.
Some time ago, the U.S. Navy decided to ban this flag from all Navy facilities, including ships, planes and submarines.
Sources: (not translated)
El significado sureño y racista de la bandera ondeada durante el asalto al Capitolio en EEUU. Publicado en Yahoo Noticias el 7 de enero de 2021.
La herida racial vuelve a sangrar en el asalto al Capitolio. Publicado en El Periódico el 8 de enero de 2021.
Toma del Capitolio, ejemplo de desigualdad racial. Publicado en Sun Sentinel el 7 de enero de 2021.
¿Qué significa la bandera confederada y por qué causa polémica en EU?. Publicado en Vive USA el 12 de junio de 2020.
Biden and Trump on January 6, 2021
What do Joe Biden and Donald Trump think about the violent demonstrations in Washington? ( + Photos )
U.S. lawmakers were meeting Wednesday to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election amid protests by Trump supporters both outside and inside the Capitol
Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
January 6, 2021 19:01:25
Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump called on his extremist supporters to stop violent demonstrations in Washington, but insisted there was “election fraud.:
“I don’t want anyone to be hurt (…) I love you, you are very special, but go home. I know you are hurt. We have an election that was stolen from us, and you know it, especially from the other side,” said Trump according to Telesur TV.
The outgoing president warned that this is a very difficult time, “there was never a time like this, where something like this happened, that something was stolen, from everyone, from you, from me, from the country. It was a fraudulent election”.
Trump’s call came after a group of extremists stormed Congress to prevent certification of Biden’s election victory. At that time, the congress members left the Capitol in the custody of the authorities.
Photo: Internet
On Wednesday, president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, repudiated the violent invasion by supporters of Donald Trump in the Capitol that caused the cancellation of the certification of the votes.
Photo: Internet
“Attacking the capitol, destroying the US Senate, endangering security. This is not a protest, it is an insurrection … I call them mafiosi, they are not attacking democracy,” Biden said.
The president-elect rejected the position of Trump’s fanatics who attacked the certification of last November’s votes, “we are seeing a small number of extremists who are dedicated to breaking the law. This is chaos and it must end now,” he added.
“The job in the coming years is to restore democracy, honor and respect. Solve the problems by looking at ourselves without stoking hatred,” the new White House tenant said.
Finally, he urged all leaders to work together to recover democracy in the country of the North, “democracy is fragile and to preserve it we need people of good will, courageous leaders, who are not dedicated to power, but to the common interest,” he concluded.
U.S. Congress meets Wednesday to certify Biden’s victory
U.S. lawmakers were meeting Wednesday to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election amid protests by Trump supporters both outside and inside the Capitol itself.
A session that, every four years, goes unnoticed by most people has as an ingredient this year the announcement of some Republican senators and representatives, who have pledged to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the result through a formal sessional objection, in an attempt that is almost certain to fail.
The two houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, in a joint session this Wednesday will open sealed certificates from all 50 U.S. states containing a record of their electoral votes.
Photo: Internet
Photo: Internet
Under the U.S. system, people cast their votes for “electors,” who in turn formally vote for candidates weeks after the election, which occurred on December 14, when Biden received 306 votes under the electoral college system, compared to 232 under Trump.
Photo: Internet
Cuban journalist Albor Ruiz has passed away
Cuban writer and journalist Albor Ruiz has passed away
He worked hard from the United States to achieve the Dialogue of 1978, a space that marked the beginning of an irreversible process of rapprochement between Cuba and its emigrants
Author:
Web Editor | digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
He had, in the words of the Progreso Semanal editorial, “a life rich in many adventures and deep commitments” with the Homeland. Author: Internet Published: 09/01/2021 | 05:10 PM
his Friday night, January 8, Albor Ruiz Salazar died of severe pneumonia at Homestead Hospital in Florida.
He left Cuba at the age of 20 on November 20, 1961. He studied Political Science and Philosophy in Florida. He was a columnist for the Daily News and El Diario La Prensa in New York, writing about issues related to the Latino community in the United States, while he lived in that city, and more recently, for AL DÍA News Media. He is a member of the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in the U.S. But his most prolific work was in defense of the land of his birth and his people. Albor Ruiz, who turned 80 years old on Nov. 27, had, according to the Progreso Semanal editorial, “a life rich with many adventures and deep commitments” to the Homeland.
He played an outstanding role in organizing the movement of young Cubans who gathered around Areito. He was one of those who worked hard from the United States to achieve the Dialogue of 1978, a space that marked the beginning of an irreversible process of rapprochement between Cuba and its emigration. In this regard, Albor himself said: “Returning to Cuba was to remove a huge, gigantic weight that had been crushing me all along. It was a brutal change. Even more so when, without realizing it, the kind of propaganda that they make in the United States about Cuba is getting through to you, even though you know it is a lie, and you do not agree. But when I arrived and saw that, despite the tremendous problems, people were going to the movies, eating ice cream, having parties in the blocks with the children, the old people, the Chinese, the blacks, etc. For me it was a tremendous relief, I don’t really know how to explain it. I felt that these were my people.
As a result of that love and deep commitment to Cuba, he published his book of poems “In case I die tomorrow.
“Back to the Soil, Cuban Land
I am a foreigner and she calls me
Everyone knows that Cuba claims me
In case I die tomorrow”
(excerpt from the poem “Por Si Muero Mañana”, by Albor Ruiz)
Please accept our condolences to his family and friends.
A truck full of explosives in Washington, D.C.
Police found a van full of explosives and weapons near the Capitol on the day of the riots
A 70-year-old man is charged with possession of eleven Molotov cocktails, as well as an assault rifle and three handguns
By Russia Today
digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Led by Trump, his followers forced their way into the Capitol in Washington. Photo: Reuters Published: 01/06/2021 | 11:02 pm
The District of Columbia Attorney’s Office has filed charges Friday against an Alabama man who allegedly parked a van with 11 Molotov cocktails and other weapons near the Capitol on Wednesday, the same day of the congressional riots.
According to the statement from the Attorney General’s Office, on January 6, Capitol Police officers were warned of the possible presence of explosive devices in the area surrounding the legislative seat. During a protective sweep of the area, agents observed the handle of what appeared to be a firearm in the passenger seat of a pickup truck, which, according to their database, belonged to Lonnie Leroy Coffman, a 70-year-old man from Falkville, Alabama.
When they proceeded to search the vehicle, the police found a pistol, an assault rifle, as well as rifle clips loaded with ammunition and components for the manufacture of eleven Molotov cocktails (glass jars filled with flammable substances, rags and lighters).
Later, Coffman was stopped near his truck when he tried to return to his vehicle. When he was searched, he was found to be carrying two other guns.
The man has been charged with illegal possession of a destructive device, which carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 10 years, as well as carrying an unlicensed gun, which carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 5 years. Coffman remains in custody pending a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, January 12.