Tainted As Sick Folk, Colltalers

It’s disturbing how President Trump’s knowingly contaminating supporters and cabinet members with the coronavirus. It’s execrable he’s spreading it to the press corps and White House staffers too. But it’s downright despicable that the GOP and those invested in his reelection remain oblivious to it all.
A domestic far-right terrorist plot caught by the FBI, to kidnap and harm a sitting governor, or 220,000 American lives lost on the president’s watch are not of their concern. Although history is never kind to lack of moral compass, sycophants and enemies of democracy are seldomly bothered about that.
We begin in Guatemala our news roundup with the calls for justice for Laura Daniela Hernández and Litzy Cordón, kidnapped and murdered a week apart from each other. 350 women are estimated to have been victims of femicide so far this year. Defined as ‘a sex-based hate crime,’ the term coined by author Diana E. H. Russell in 1976 identifies one of the most serious consequences of domestic abuse, which is rising throughout Latin America.
‘Why Do They Want To Kill Us?‘ The Amnesty report published last week is about the murder of activists in Colombia and the lack of action by the government. Some 223 social leaders fighting for human, environmental, and land rights have been assassinated only in 2020 with no relief in sight.
And a referendum on Oct. 21 will determine whether Chile will finally bury its dictatorship-era constitution and start writing a new one. According to polls, Chileans are likely to approve it, and the process may take up to two years to complete. It’s an overdue move to cleanse the county from a bloody legacy left by the U.S.-backed 1973 military coup that killed many of estimated 30,000 people by simply dropping them from helicopters into the sea.
Devastating climate fires in California, Australia, and Brazil; floods in Southeast Asia, and now in Lousiana and surroundings, brought by Hurricane Delta. All on the account of climate change which made September the hottest on record. Again. It was 0.05C hotter than last year’s, then the record high for the month. In response, tech companies have increased investments in solar power since 2019, according to the Solar Means Business group.
That’s good news. Meanwhile, a House of Representatives report calls for four of these same corporations, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook, to be restructured and anti-trust laws to be reformed. Lawmakers want to break them up in ‘structural separations,’ to prevent them from abusing their monopoly of power, and grow bigger by swallowing smaller companies. But the plan will draw opposition by ‘sponsored’ officials and politicians.
Outside of Michigan, few had heard of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer before June, when she correctly ordered an extensive shutdown of most businesses in her state, to prevent the spread of Covid-19. But by April, alarmed with the rise of cases, lack of protective equipment for healthcare workers, or help from the federal government, she ordered a lockdown that would place her literally in the crosshairs of right-wing terrorist militias.
Fortunately, the FBI stepped in and arrested six members, accused of a plot to kidnap Whitmer, occupy the legislative, and even blow up some bridges to delay responders. Apparently, this particular group had been planning it for quite some time. It’s a good exercise of law enforcement used against the ‘very bad hombres‘ Trump refuses to denounce. But it won’t end there and there’s a chance that all may be dismissed if he gets to remain in charge.
And that’s the scariest part: that one day we may have such organizations operating directly from the White House, which in a sense, they already are. The rise of vigilantism, of armed extremists, and ideologically repressive groups is yet another sight of a dictatorship in the making. A Trump legacy.
The picture doesn’t improve much with the prospects of the Nov. 3 presidential election. Despite being behind in the polls by several points in crucial so-called swing states – just like he was four years ago – Trump and the Republicans may have already succeeded in implanting two false narratives that will have a dramatic impact on voters: that the Post Office won’t be able to handle mail-in votes, and that voter fraud is so rampant to nullify votes cast.
They’ve been relentlessly working on all fronts, be it by removing mailboxes and sorting machines in USPO branches, by gerrymandering districts in Democrat-dominant areas, by spreading falsehoods about voting accountability, or by, of course, loading the Supreme Court with judges attuned with White House’s wishes. Thus the former party of Abraham Lincoln resumes today its attempt to jam on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination process.
They’re preparing for the fact that Americans may just want this president to fade into the dustbin of history, along with his ever-growing entourage of wealthy hacks and spineless lackeys by voting him out. Given all the intricacies and surprisingly uncertain terms determining who can be the winner of a chaotic presidential election (See Florida, 2000, chad votes et al), they’re counting on a partisan court to give them what the people may not: power.
It’s astonishing that, given the million people worldwide killed by Covid-19 and 37 million cases still in progress, the president has been allowed to campaign while sick with no mandated-protection to anyone but him, who’s just had a first-class, taxpayer-funded drug therapy to rid of his symptoms. For as far we know, everyone who has ever caught the virus has infected others. And in the case of Trump, through tracing, there’s even proof he did.
Don’t waste your breath telling it to his supporters but even at this late in the game, the president shows that his first priority from Jan. 1, 2017 on was to be reelected, and nothing will stop him now from pursuing that. Unless, of course, his symptoms take a turn. Or you and you and you vote. In fact, never mind how it’s beginning to look like; the apparent chaos he speaks of at his rallies is a smoke and mirrors trick to get us to give up and surrender.
But we won’t do it, not if we’re still breathing a few weeks for now and beyond. While the Democratic Party contently surveys its focus groups, just as certain of victory as they were in Oct. 2016, grassroots movements are left with the gigantic task of bringing those who never voted or don’t usually vote to cast their will, knocking on every door, and patrolling every poll and post station, so no one is left out. Except for the Spreader-in-Chief of course.
It’s Indigenous People’s Day. Take a look at this still beautiful planet and the youth we brought to this world to enjoy it. See how much wonder and wisdom will be lost if we drop the ball. That’s a realm of existence essential to all living beings, but invisible to the likes of Trump and his henchmen, alien to Putins, Johnsons, and Bolsonaros. Kids, the Amazon, the Great Barrier Reef, they count on us. Let’s answer their call and fight the good fight. WC

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