Declaring War on an Internal Enemy Hiding in Plain Sight: The ❛Deep State❜

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Media & Communications, Military history, National politics, Political History, Politics, Public health,

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In the fiercely combative arena of Washington DC politics, one term that gets bandied about a lot—before and continuing through the time of pandemic—is the notion of the existence of a “Deep State”. Whenever the expression gets publicly uttered, it’s purpose is to serve as the answer to some or other momentous development or outcome. Left there hanging in the air, vague, nebulous, mysterious and unelaborated but always unambiguously pejorative – the innuendo of conspiracy.

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Alternately called “a state within a state”, the “shadow government” or “the permanent state”, the Deep State connotes images of shadowy individuals talking in soto voco, practicing the political dark arts.

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So, what actually is a deep state? In get to the essence of this concept let’s survey a cross-selection of responses to the question:

⌱ a type of governance made up of networks of power operating independently of the state’s political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals [Wikipedia]

⌱ a conspiracy theory which suggests that collusion and cronyism exists within the US political system and constitute a hidden government within the legitimately elected government [Wikipedia]

⌱ a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy [Oxford English Dictionary].

⌱ the idea that a cabal of unelected security officials across a number of government bodies maintain influence over elected politicians [Will Worley, The Independent (UK)]

⌱ (“the seed for many tantalising conspiracy theories”…the existence of a premeditated effort by certain federal government employees or other persons to secretly manipulate or control the government without regard for the policies of Congress or the President [Robert Longley]

⌱ an underworld of unaccountable authority [Peter Dale Scott]

⌱ belief in an informal or parallel government that exists to countermand legitimate, usually more democratic, institutions (whose usage includes) a catch-all term applied to any number of extraordinary, usually violent, episodes, eg, JFK assassination, 9/11, etc. [Ryan Gingeras]

⌱ a massive informal government comprising untold thousands of bureaucrats, technocrats and plutocrats committed to driving president-elect Trump from power [Breitbart]

⌱ (how it functions) when elected governments threaten the deep state’s domestic or international interests, actors aligned to this coalition (the military, the clandestine service, the mafia and far-right activists) employ any means to reverse the state’s political course…these coalitions within the government work to ‘veto’ or ‘fine tune’ policies related to national security [Ola Tunander]

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The topicality of the Deep State as a conspiracy theory and as a form of politics in practice, as I indicated at the start, resides within, indeed permeates, the present US political realm, but the political phenomena itself did not start in the US. Let’s first look at the modern origins of the deep state – in early 20th century Turkey.

Turkey: volatile zero-sum-game
The notion of an unofficial para-authority, a deep state within the nation’s polity, has probably existed since the time of antiquity, but as a normative concept it can be traced back to the rise of the Young Turks movement in Turkey (revolution of 1908). In the struggle for power in the vacuum created by the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks, and Kemal Ataturk who would become the ‘architect’ of the modern Turkish Republic, used criminal elements to eliminate political opponents. Ataturk’s group, through a violent, intra-government resistance to the ruling clique in Turkey, destabilised and undermined it (from within), eventually establishing control over state and society for itself. Turks called this secret network, derin devlet (literally the “deep state”). Since then, the phenomena has been replicated elsewhere, eg, Soviet Union/Russia, Egypt, Pakistan❈, with the tradition maintained in Turkey up to the (present) Erdogân era, eg, the failed military coup in 2016 seeking to overthrow the Erdogân autocracy [‘Turkey’s “Deep-State” and the Ergenekon Conundrum’, (H Akin Ünver), Middle East Institute, 01-Apr-2009, www.mei.edu].

↴ Erdogân state (Source: www.time.com)

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Deep state sans conspiracy
Drawing together the different threads of responses, a deep state exists when a network of different groups covertly coalesce, forming a power base independent of and parallel to the legitimate government, with the purpose of pursuing its own objectives. In practice it tends to exercise soft power (rather than the more violent type seen in Turkey) by undermining and discrediting the legitimate government, with the aim of subverting its operation and bringing it down. The collusive elements of the network or cabal is typically drawn from the state’s security services, the bureaucracy, the military, the media, the private sector, even from organised crime.

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The deep state in America
It was general-turned-GOP governor Dwight D Eisenhower who first alerted America to the dangers of a deep state emerging…at his farewell address in 1961 he said: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex”. A couple of years later the assassination of Eisenhower’s successor John F Kennedy provided conspiracy theory obsessives with endless material for imaginative speculation. Inevitably some of that speculation has joined the dots between the never-satisfactorily explained Kennedy murder and the Deep State. A perusal of the web turns up numerous posts with titles like ‘JFK was Murdered by the Deep State’ and ‘JFK Was Assassinated by LBJ, Establishment, Deep State’…fairly self-explanatory but these generally fact-thin ‘revelations’ detail a deep state hit squad of assassins and conspirators which includes Lyndon B Johnson and a coterie of southern Democrat politicians, the American mafia, Texas oil tycoons, Fidel Castro, the CIA, the KGB and a host of other nominated suspects⊠. And of course popular movies like Oliver Stone’s 1991 JFK was a further shot-in-the-arm for political conspiracy buffs and the perpetuation of the Deep State/JFK thesis (portraying “a cabal of shadowy officials as the puppet masters behind Kennedy’s assassination”)◘. As Professor Paul Musgrove remarked, “the deep state is catnip for conspiracy theorists” [‘How a Conspiracy Theory Went From Political Fringe to Mainstream’, (Tom Porter), Newsweek, 08-Feb-2017, www.newsweek.com].

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Deep State rhetoric: How to vilify your opponents and turn back criticism, it’s all a conspiracy by the enemy!
The term finally acquires staying power and everyday currency in the US political lexicon with Donald Trump’s transition to the presidency in 2016/2017. Trump, a self-acknowledged outlier of Washington politics, came to office promising to “drain the swamp in DC”, his avowed aim, to ditch the old, distrusted model of federal government. With Trump doing things very much his own (peculiarly idiosyncratic) way in the White House, this caused waves, there was a “natural pushback” from a bureaucracy accustomed to a very different approach under Obama. This is a normal part of the process of regime change in parliamentary democracies universally – a residual if usually temporary feature of the culture of resistance to government change. [‘President Trump’s Allies Keep Talking About the “Deep State”. What’s That?’, (Alana Abramson), Time, 08-March-2017, www.time.com].

The practice of leaking information
From within the president’s fold, warnings of “covert resistance” from within to the president, emerged. Talk of a “Deep State” was heard from the far-right✪, Trump strategist Steve Bannon among the voices. The complaint was that elements within the bureaucracy, the State Department, Pentagon, wherever, were leaking damaging information to a media hostile to Trump (eg, New York Times, Washington Post), to which Trump’s “knee-jerk” reaction was to label it as “fake news”⍤. Two points need to be made about the leaking of information from democratic governments: as Abramson has noted, this is “not a new dynamic” or unique to the US, career civil servants—who are extra-political—have always leaked information to the press. The (legitimate) government from time to time itself will leak favourably information to the media (Abramson).

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Watching the president
The second point is that the various federal government agencies, being non-partisan, see a component of their role to act as a check on wayward and irresponsible behaviour by an incumbent chief executive that would be harmful to the nation. Previous directors of the CIA have stated that the military would refuse to follow orders given by Trump which are unlawful [‘US Military to Disobey Trump’s ‘Illegal’ Nuclear Strike Order’, Sputnik News, 15-Nov-2017, www.sputniknews.com]. In such a scenario, the “permanent national security apparatus” has a right to act, as “a check on the civilian government” (Musgrave).

Another Deep State linkage with the coronavirus for conspiracy fans? The “Covert-19” pandemic? ↴

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Using the Deep State catch-phrase to your own advantage
Opposition to Trump, to his style of presidency and approach to government, in the form of hostility from almost the entirety of the mainstream US media, the leaking of information from within the ‘citadel’ such as the charge that Russian interference in the 2016 elections assisted a Trump victory, have provided the ammunition for the Trump’s enablers and supporters to construct a narrative of a deep state, a ‘conspiracy’ of anyone seeking to subvert the presidency, including foreign powers (like China) and many bureaucrats they see as loyal to the former president (Obama).

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Trump has turned internal criticism of himself into an excuse to fire officials, creating scapegoats for the shortcomings of the administration he heads. Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Michael Atkinson, sacked after alerting Congress of Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine’s leader into investigating the president’s domestic political opponents, remarked pointedly that he was dismissed, not for failing to do his job but for doing it properly [‘Trump’s safari into the wilderness of the deep state’, (Jacob Heilbrunn), Spectator (America), 08-Apr-2020, http://spectator.us]. Numerous other subalterns from the White House staff, Pentagon, Homeland Security, FBI, Treasury, Attorney General, etc have suffered the same fate after earning Trump’s ire. As Professor Timur Kuran, an economist who has studied the deep state concept in both Turkey and the US, said: in many authoritarian regimes, dictators often blame their failures on a “deep state enemy” within the legitimate state [‘Deep State: Inside Donald Trump’s Paranoid Conspiracy Theory’, (Michael Hanford), Rolling Stone, 09-Mar-2017, www.rollingstone.com].

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Connecting coronavirus to the Deep State conspiracy
In the turmoil of the COVID-19 crisis in America, it didn’t take long for a number of Trump’s cronies and followers to play the pandemic conspiracy card. TV commentator Rush Limbaugh has labelled the coronavirus a deep state hoax⍝ (calling health experts fighting the virus outbreak functionaries of the deep state). The right-wing “shock jock” has said the crisis was being used by as a political weapon to destabilise and undo the Trump presidency [‘Rush Limbaugh: coronavirus a “common cold” being “weaponised’ against Trump’, (Martin Pengelly), The Guardian, 26-Feb-2020, www.theguardian.com]⦿. Other “true-believers” of the DS conspiracy myth see the coronavirus crisis as a plot to destabilise global markets and cripple the US economy, or alternately a Deep State plan to suppress dissent and impose “mandated medicine” on to the unsuspecting masses [‘Right-wing conspiracy theorists see coronavirus as a plot against Trump’, (Mikael Thalen), The Daily Dot, 26-Feb-2020, www.dailydot.com; ‘Scientist with 4 Degrees from MIT Warns ‘Deep State’ Using Coronavirus Fear-Mongering To Suppress Dissent’, (Carmine Sabina), The Western Journal, 17-Mar-2020, www.westernjournal.com].

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❈ there have been numerous other Deep State scenarios internationally, a classic one in recent history was the 1973 Chilean coup where foreign elements, the American CIA and IT&T, combined with a right wing military clique in Chile to overthrow the democratically-elected Allende government
⊠ many of the conspiracy hypothesisers who accept that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, depict the gunman as having been an agent of the Deep State
◘ with hindsight we can see earlier instances of the (unnamed) deep state in American politics, beavering away to undermine a US president – in the Thirties and early Forties the Dulles brothers, Foster and Allen, exploited their key diplomatic roles in arms of the Roosevelt administration to covertly pursue their own agendas which were at variance with FDR’s policies, David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government (2015)
✪ one of the wildest is the QAnon Deep State conspiracy which alleges that a “cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles” have joined up with Hollywood liberals and Democrat politicians to try to overthrow the Trump regime
⍤ sometimes hitting back with his own brand of fake news, such as his unsubstantiated tweet claim that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower before the election
⍝ a view with popular backing among sections of the Alt-Right, patriot-militia groups in the US
⦿ Limbaugh last month, looking to cloak the ‘conspiracy’ in an even more sinister light, suggested to his viewers that there were eighteen earlier strains of the disease which he has likened to the common cold, therefore COVID-19 was nothing to be concerned about, he reasoned. Limbaugh’s woeful ignorance—the 19 in the disease’s name refers to the year it was first identified, 2019—earned him much scorn and derision from liberal America (although amazingly it didn’t deter a Trump lackey from repeating the gross misinformation in a “Fox & Friends” rant against WHO) , ‘Coronavirus skeptic Rush Limbaugh thinks COVID-19 means there were 18 other COVIDS’, (Brian Niemietz), Daily News, 12-Mar-2020, www.nydailynews.com

The National Health Emergency ‘Tyranny’: The Lockdown Through Libertarian Eyes

Posted on by Sloane Snodgrasse
Medical history, National politics, Politics, Society & Culture

The majority of countries where coronavirus infection rates have experienced an upward curve have resorted to locking down the community to varying degrees. In the USA, more than elsewhere, this has tested the faith of those of a libertarian disposition. In recent weeks we have seen the mega-massive jolt to the economy and enforced closures of businesses resulting in millions of workers finding themselves in the dole queues. Many libertarians, albeit with reluctance, accept the inevitability of the present state intervention as the only means available of providing the fiscal stimulus to keep people and businesses afloat.

8B2670AB-5F2C-43D3-A075-CE2FDBE664E5Its when it comes to the matter of mandatory quarantine as a counter-virus measure, that the issue becomes more thorny for libertarians. The classic libertarian position would see voluntary self-isolation as the ideal solution in an ideal (ie, libertarian) world… compulsory quarantine is the last resort to them. Some of a libertarian mind would reject it outright – on ideological grounds, while also claiming it to be an ineffective measure as a social curative. Others accept it as a legitimate move given the uniqueness of the Covid-19 crisis situation, but with a very clear rider that the measures taken need to be temporary only. As shown below, this aspect of  libertarianism is a “hot-button” issue currently for many in the US with skin in the game [‘What libertarians would do in response to coronavirus’, (Bonnie Kristian), The Week, 13-Mar-2020, www.theweek.com]. 

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Gadsden flag: associated with libertarianism & the American Tea Party

Social distancing as an imposed, mandated practice during the pandemic, fails the libertarian test. The pure libertarian much prefers to see voluntary compliance by the individual, in the expectation (or hope) that most people will ultimately do the right thing [‘Libertarianism and the Coronavirus Pandemic’, (Andy Craig), Cato Institute, 25-Mar-2020, www.cato.com]. Accordingly, a small minority of  US states (five?) have not enforced the distancing and stay-at-home edicts, their leaders pledging to hold fast to the “sacred liberties” of their citizenries. But most everywhere else the pandemic has hit, certainly in urban areas, the civil authorities have gone for some form of lockdown.

Escape from Lockdown 13
For the average “Joe and Joanna Citizen” in Main Street, Anywheresville, being locked down inside four walls indefinitely is one of the hardest things to cop. For most people “cabin fever” will inevitably set in…confined at home, unable to congregate and socialise in cafes, eateries and bars with friends and colleagues or do road trips. In First World societies such as the US, Western Europe or the Commonwealth of Nations, freedom of movement is such an inherently natural expectation, once deprived, resistance to these rigid controls can reach a tipping point which easily spills over into increasingly bold attempts to subvert or defy the government’s edicts. Recently we have witnessed this perhaps at its apogee in the Midwest and Southern states of the US. Protest groups, the new scofflaws of Trumpian America, have mushroomed in particular in “rust-belt” states such as Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia✷.

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(Photo: AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

As the lockdowns extend from weeks into months bunches of pro-Republican conservatives∎ have more and more blatantly violated the stay-at-home orders of mostly Democratic governors (in contrast serving GOP governors like South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, continue to play the libertarian card, steadfastly refusing to implement a stay-at-home order regardless of virus outbreaks within the state). For the protesters, egged on by the schizophrenic tweets❂ of President Trump, a call to “Liberate Michigan” (Virginia, etc) and amplified by the Fox press, one prime target of their vitriol has been Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer who has mandated a strict ”stay home, stay safe” executive order to counteract the virus. This month organised gatherings of protesters have assembled outside the Capitol building and the governor’s home, flaunting the restrictions and demonstrating their displeasure at Whitmer’s policies. Some of the dissenters have been armed with AR-15s and AK-47s, very few wearing face masks but brandishing Confederate and Gadsden flags and even Nazi emblems (loosely equating the state “governor/tyrant” with Nazis). Some protesters have held up signs such as “The cure is worse than the virus” (which, if you have watched the president’s coronavirus press briefings ‘sideshow’, has a faintly familiar ring to it).

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(Photo: REUTERS/Alyson McClaran)

This orchestrated “Operation Gridlock”, in Michigan and elsewhere, is organised by a conservative patriot/militia group with connexions to Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos. One of its objectives (successful) was to grind city centre traffic down to a standstill, including the blocking of ambulances conveying patients. Protesters in various states have also tried to intimidate health workers engaged in the frontline of the fight against the pandemic. So far Whitmer has remained resolute in maintaining  a strict state lockdown, pointing to the gravity of the state’s health predicament (Michigan has had 37,778 confirmed cases and 3,315 deaths due to coronavirus, as at 27-April-2020) [‘Conservative group linked to DeVos family organises protest of coronavirus restrictions in Michigan’, (Igor Derbyshire), Salon, 16-Apr-2020, www.salon.com; ‘Trump Supporters Are Staging Armed Protests to Stick it to Coronavirus’, (Caleb Ecarma), Vanity Fair, 16-Apr-2020, www.vanityfair.com].

🔻 Gov. Whitmer (Photo: U.S. News & World)

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What’s motivating the scofflaw behaviour?
Researchers at the University of Maryland have concluded that “quarantine fatigue” has set in. Increasing numbers of fed-up or plain bored Americans are venturing outside of “the box” in defiance of state stay-at-home orders. Many of these are exercising, or as the weather gets warmer, going to the beach (most of the escapees are doing these things without bothering to practice safe distancing)⌖ [‘Quarantine fatigue is setting in: Smartphone data shows thousands are fed up after weeks under lockdown’, (Ralph R Ortega), Daily Mail, 27-Apr-2020, www.dailymail.com].

The inalienable right to be ‘selective’ 
The gatherings of those discontented with the status quo in America have exercised their right to protest against their state’s political leaders. Interestingly, their decision to protest on this occasion, as has been noted, does not signify their endorsement of the right to protest per se – a perfectly admirable and consistent libertarian trait. Previously when sectors of the Left in America took to protesting issues such as climate change and police brutality, these Right-wing elements were vigorously supporting the conservative politicians’ endeavours to bring in legislation to outlaw protests [’The hypocrisy of the anti-lockdown protests’, (Anthony L Fisher), Business Insider Australia, 22-Apr-2020, www.businessinsider.com.au]. 

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🔺The ‘tyranny’ avengers
(Photo: Nikolaus Kama/AFP via Getty Images)

These insurrectionists and those who facilitate and encourage them, argue that they are motivated, nay compelled, by the (temporary) loss of their basic liberties… evoking the First Amendment and the Founding Fathers, they portray Whitmer and other governors as tyrants, preventing their right to come and go as they wish, to work and leisure untrammelled. Thus, it comes back to that same nub at the core of libertarian values, the right to do as one pleases — (with the rider)…so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. This added qualifier is fundamental to the credo of libertarian theory.

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“Inviolable freedom”…so long as it doesn’t harm harm anyone else
The casualty toll of the Covid-19 health crisis in the US—the worse in the world by far—is rapidly overtaking that of the total of American lives lost in the ten-years of the Vietnam War. Disproportionally, the pandemic everywhere is killing the older and the most vulnerable, people with co-morbidities. Coronavirus, the epidemiologists have shown us, is transmitted from a human host to a human recipient, the more people interacting with each other, the more likelihood of transmission, the greater the incidence of morbidity and mortality from the virus, simple as that!

An unavoidable trade-off
The temporary suspension of liberties is the price to pay to preserve lives. Yes, the measures are inconveniences and hardships on individuals, but they’ve been imposed on the population for a health safety reason – the greater good of the community and the health of all. Yes, the libertarians have some grounds to quibble, a few of the measures taken have been over-the-top and seem disproportionate. Even Gov. Whitmer, a rising Democrat star on the national political scene, has at times pulled the wrong rein (eg, barring people from purchasing garden equipment and baby restrainers for cars seems to be over-zealous)  [‘Quarantine Protesters Are No Heroes of Civil Disobedience’, (Jonah Goldberg), National Review, 22-Apr-2020, www.nationalreview.com].

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🔺 Colorado protesters visualising a totalitarian pivot by their governor?
(Photo: AP)

FN: Heat in the kitchen
Democrat governors in “swing states” like Gov. Whitmer—caught in a pincer of intimidatory Scofflaw defiance, demands from business to re-open and constant sniping from a divisive chief executive at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave—are not the only ones feeling the mounting pressure of the moment. Florida’s GOP governor, Ron DeSantis, has copped plenty of flak himself. He was very late in issuing stay-at-home orders, having rejected calls to close Florida’s crowded beaches, citing the libertarian manta of free choice. When the lockdown finally came, church services got a “go free” card from the restrictions. Consequently, the state’s coronavirus ‘scorecard’ is now 32,138 confirmed cases and 1,088 deaths (27-April-2020). The current virus “hot spots” in Florida don’t augur well for a lifting of it’s restrictions any time soon. On top of this gloomy prognosis, Florida, being a ‘bellwether’ state, Trump will be expecting DeSantis to deliver it to the Republicans in the November elections [‘Anti-quarantine protests, Trump pressure on governors on political tightrope over coronavirus’, (Deidre Shesgreen & Maureen Groppe), USA Today, 23-Apr-2020, www.amp.usatoday.com].

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✷ the protests have by no means been confined to these states – such happenings have been increasingly the done thing from Pennsylvania to Nebraska to California. Nor have lockdown protests been confined to America, ‘Berlin police anti-lockdown protestors accusing Angela Merkel of “banning life”’, SBS News, 25-Apr-2020, www.sbsnews.com.au
∎ the same kind of pro-Trump people that Hillary Clinton (unwisely) labelled a “basket of deplorables” in the 2016 presidential campaign
❂ ”schizophrenic” because at the same time the president at his daily podium is officially asking Americans to adhere to the prescribed Covid-19 safety measures
⌖ there’s obviously other underlying factors in the tendency towards civil disobedience in Midwestern states and perhaps more so in the South – greater religiosity (and associated with that) scepticism towards scientific evidence and government experts, and even the “Siamese twins” attachment of many Americans to car culture (especially in suburbia and rural regions), ‘The American South has resisted social distancing measures — and we’re all going to pay the price’, Raw Story, 03-Apr-2020, www.rawstory.com

Behind the Coronavirus Counts, How well do the Numbers Stack up?

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
International Relations, Media & Communications, Medical history, Natural Environment, Politics, Public health,

Every day we are reminded of the global reach of the novel coronavirus crisis. We know it’s a pandemic because WHO and other health agencies publish data showing that 211 countries and territories have been affected by the disease. The international media coverage tends to focus largely on the unenviable “big five” chart-toppers who have been most affected – the US, Italy, Spain, France and the UK. A number of sites publish constantly updated lists of the growing toll of Covid-19 casualties, a sort of sombre “score card” listing all the countries who have recorded instances of the disease.

Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Globally tracked, country-by-country – as @ 23-Apr-2020

Country Total casesTotal deaths Region
USA850,00047,700Americas
Italy 188,00025,500Western Europe
Spain 208,50021,750Western Europe
France 160,00021,500Western Europe
UK134,00018,300Western Europe
Sources: WHO http://covid19.who.int/;
http://worldometers.info/

When we scroll through the world tables of where the pandemic has landed, it’s instructive to look at the comparative totals by continent – Europe has a bit over 1.28 million confirmed cases recorded, and the Americas, 995,510 (predominantly from the US), compare these to South-East Asia, a bit more than 38,572 and Africa, a mere 18,234 cases✺✺.

(Source: www.vietnamcredit.com.vn)

From a statistical standpoint we might wonder if the published data gives a true impression of the extent of of the pandemic? It needs to be kept in mind that the numbers we have are those that have been reported to the World Health Organisation. Population differences aside, it is clear that the low numbers in South-East Asia and Africa (examples: Cambodia 122 cases, zero fatalities✺✺, Myanmar 139 cases, five fatalities✺✺, Ghana 1,279 cases, 10 fatalities✺✺, Ethiopia 117 cases, three fatalities✺✺) mask the full impact of the catastrophe. They are a product of limited testing by countries in these regions … widespread poverty, surplus populations, lack of resources and infrastructure mitigate against the capacity to take corrective, safety monitoring measures.

(Photo: www.theborneopost.com)

Limited testing capacity and weak surveillance
The small numbers of recorded cases and handful of reported deaths in Africa and S.E. Asia (the Caribbean is another such case in point) can engender a false security and justify a lack of action by such already economically and health-challenged countries, thus the risk of infections spreading is magnified. In the early phases of the outbreak some S.E. Asian states were slow to acknowledge the risks…even as late as mid-March, Myanmar’s government was still attributing it’s low number of cases to the superior “lifestyle and diet” of the locals. The fight against Covid-19 by Third World countries is further retarded by a failure to test widely and in the numbers necessitated by the crisis. It shouldn’t be overlooked that some of these countries have quite repressive regimes that don’t rank the goal of a universal healthcare system as their highest priority [‘Experts Doubt Low Coronavirus Counts of Some Southeast Asian Countries’, (Zsombor Peter), VOA, 29-Mar-2020, www.voanews.com].

(Photo: www.upnews.info.com)

For the bulk of African countries the story is similar. A by-product of their lack of development is that their health systems are fragile before the onset of coronavirus hits them. Awareness of the inability to cope with a full-blown health crisis, had led some leaders to advocate so-called “miracle cures” for the virus (eg, Madagascar’s president’s championing of untested traditional plant remedies). Nigeria (Africa’s largest nation by population)  shows only 981 confirmed cases and 31 deaths✺✺ to date but is looking as vulnerable as anyone in Africa. Oil exports are the hub of Nigeria’s economy and the fall of the world’s crude oil price to a record low will hamstrung the country’s efforts to contain any future eruptions of the disease [‘Coronavirus: How drop in oil price affects Nigeria’s economy’, (Michael Eboh), Vanguard, 17-Mar-2020, www.vanguardngr.com]. The outbreak of pandemic hotspots in Nigeria could be devastating, especially in the north, given the country’s population of nearly 200 million people and it’s inadequate healthcare capacity⋉.

(Photo: www.newswirenow.com)

Too good to be …
Some countries have reported being lightly or relatively lightly touched by the onslaught of the coronavirus, these results have surprised outside observers. One such country that raises eyebrows in this respect is Russia. The republic has 146 million people and shares long borders with China⤱, yet it fesses up to having had only 68,622 cases✺✺ (well under half of that of the UK) and suffered only a comparatively low 615 deaths✺✺ from the epidemic (most of those since the start of April). If you cast aside the anomalies, on paper it’s an excellent result! But whether Soviet or post-Soviet, there’s always an air of suspicious doubt about Russian information. The Russian Bear has had form in the past with cover-ups…a prime example—the Soviet Union throwing a tarpaulin over the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980s —indicative of a less than honest response to major disasters [‘The Very Low Number of Russia’s Reported COVID-19 Cases Raises Questions of a Cover-Up’, (Rick Moran), PJ Media, 22-Mar-2020, www.pjmedia.com].

Image: www.asianews.it

Russia, if it so erred, is not “Robinson Crusoe” in deliberately underreporting the pandemic’s effect. China for nearly three months from the initial outbreak didn’t include asymptomatic patients in the official stats, and only rectified this oversight on April Fools Day [‘China acknowledges underreporting coronavirus cases in official count’, (Mark Moore), New York Post, 01-Apr-2001, www.nypost.com]. For six weeks after WHO declared a global health emergency Indonesia did not report a single Covid-19 case (unlike most of it’s S.E. Asian neighbours). Considering the republic’s population size (more than 270 million) and it’s close links with China, this aroused widespread suspicion of underreporting and criticism in a Harvard University study which seemed to belatedly jolt Indonesia into disclosure. The first notification by Djakarta of coronavirus cases occurred on 2nd March, and from then on Indonesia’s curve has been on an upward trajectory – currently 8,211 cases, 689 deaths✺✺ [‘Why are there no reported cases of coronavirus in Indonesia?’, (Randy Mulyanto & Febriana Firdaus), Aljazeera, 18-Feb-2020, www.aljazeera.com].


Doubting a hermetically-sealed “Hermit Kingdom”
North-East Asia’s renegade, secretive state, North Korea, can be added to the list of countries purporting to be Covid-19–free. Pyongyang‘s official line has been met with disbelief from several external sources such as South Korea and Radio Free Europe which asserts that disclosures from within North Korean military circles confirm the occurrence of coronavirus cases in the border areas [‘What Is the Coronavirus Doing to North Korea’, (Nicholas Eberstadt), New York Times, 22-Apr-2020, www.nytimes.com]

Addendum: (Coronavirus as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-April-2020)
USA 890,200 cases | 50,403 deaths
Italy 189,973 cases | 25,549 deaths
Spain 219,764 cases  | 22,524 deaths
France 158,183 cases | 21,856 deaths
UK 143,464 cases | 19,506 deaths

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
✺✺ figures as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-Apr-2020
⋉ just over the last week the African continent experienced a sudden surge in infections, ‘Africa’s 43% jump in virus cases in 1 week worries experts’, (Gerard Zim Rae), ABC News, 23-Apr-2020, www.abcnews.go.com
⤱ although Russia did close its eastern border with China after the virus breakout  

 

Elite Sport in the Age of COVID-19: A Sporting World in Hibernation

Posted on by Bonza Rottwheeler
Society & Culture, Sport

The spectacle of sport—either viewed from the bleachers, the corporate box, or beamed into punters’ lounge rooms—is in a COVID-induced drought just about everywhere in the world. The sports’ governing bodies find themselves in the “Twilight Zone”, sustaining a massive hit to their revenue sources and at the same time desperately trying to keep their sport relevant to the aficionados. How well they’ve managed to keep their heads above water varies from sport to sport and from country to country.

All the world’s domestic cricket leagues are in indefinite abeyance and all upcoming test fixtures have had the red-ink drawn through them. National bodies like the ACB (Cricket Australia), suddenly with time on their hands, have more carefully examined their finances and discovered worrying “bottom-lines”. Many are anxiously pondering how they are going to connect all the dots moving forward (as they say). Meanwhile, international cricket’s online bible, ESPN Cricinfo, has taken to filling its content with nostalgia trips  – substituting the now non-existent live scores with scoresheets of some of the more memorable past world cups.

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Boxing has also delved back into the sport’s history, not to re-project grainy footage of epic bouts from the pugilistic past onto screens, but to stage simulations of the fights that could never be …pitting the heavyweight greats of different eras against each other in contests to ‘decide’ who is boxing’s GOAT, leaving fans to agree or disagree with the computerised outcome. The overriding objective, to keep the fans’ appetites whetted – until the actual thing becomes a reality again. Motorsport, with the Formula One series a non-starter, has followed boxing into simulation substitution, staging its first “Virtual Grand Prix”, E-racing proving a real hit for for the “petrol-head” fandom [‘Coronavirus: The sports turning to gaming during lockdown’, (Joe Tidy), BBC News, 26-Mar-2020, www.bbc.com/]. In contrast to boxing, the theatricality of professional wrestling in the US gets the go-ahead…in Florida at least that’s the case, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has deemed WWE wrestling an “essential service” to Floridians and has has given the ‘sport’ his gubernatorial blessing✱ [‘Pro wrestling company WWE is an essential business during the coronavirus pandemic, Florida Gov. DeSantis says’, (Yelena Dzhanova), CNBC, 14-Apr-2020, www.cnbc.com].

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(Image: virtuair.com)

The rugby codes have pulled down the shutters everywhere the game with the odd-shaped football is played. In Australia the 15-a-side game, rugby, has had its ongoing revenue source cut off, like everywhere else, but the difference is the ARU (Rugby Australia) was already in a parlous financial situation…before the virus hit. Now the code in Australia is undergoing an existential crisis, its own trial-by-fire. For the bedevilled ARU, massive player pay-cuts plus a wholesale bail-out from the IRB is the most likely end-game. The rugby league variant of football is in a state of flux as well. With the NRL, the sport’s national body, discovering that, despite its annal multi-million dollar TV and Foxtel revenue streams, it has found its cash reserves are sorely depleted. The NRL at least has a plan for restarting games, which it has styled the “Apollo Mission”. Mustering up the unilateral front of a Donald Trump, it announced early in April that it’s target date to resume playing was 28th May. Unfortunately, it didn’t consult with the relevant government authorities before taking this solo step. Given that, a) the state borders remain closed in Australia, and b) rugby league is a heavy body contact sport, the NRL’s 28th May quest may just turn out to be “mission impossible”. South of the Murray River, the AFL, custodian of the football code known colloquially as “Aussie Rules”, having formed a coronavirus ‘cabinet’ to chart the way forward is thinking aloud about different options for a possible winter restart (another “watch this space” scenario) [‘Mid-winter return likely for AFL restart after coronavirus shutdown’, (Mark Duffield), The West Australian, 17-Apr-2020, www.thewest.com.au].

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(Source: ESPN.com)

Interestingly, about the only sport in Australia at the elite level given the green-light to continue is horse-racing (and it’s offshoot harness racing) – sans on-course spectators❂. This is perhaps surprising considering that horse-racing seems to fail the social distancing test (involving as it customarily does a conga-line of 16 jockeys in pretty close proximity). But the so-called “Sport of Kings”, if no longer seeped in the landed aristocracy, is intimately connected with the corporate “Mr Bigs” of society. Considering this and the kind of very serious money thoroughbred racing attracts, that it’s managed to secure a special exemption shouldn’t really surprise. Money talks, as the cliche goes [‘Why racing is so keen to avoid shutting its doors’, (Damien Ractliffe), Sydney Morning Herald, 25-Mar-2020, www.smh.com.au].

The sports calendar’s prospects for the rest of 2020 are looking at the moment pretty much a blank slate. Most of the sporting tournaments around the globe once the COVID-19 crisis, were catapulted into a state of suspended animation… some not officially abandoned at this stage but just kind of hovering in the ether, nothing really happening. After much hand-wringing Japan and the IOC finally swallowed a bitter dose of reality and pulled the plug, postponing the Tokyo Olympics for 12 months (although it’s still going to be called the 2020 Olympics whatever year it’s done). This year’s Wimbledon has been cancelled, so the strawberries and cream set will need to find another diversion for June-July. US basketball and baseball were among the first franchises to be halted. The US Masters has been canned for the year and the remaining golf majors have been postponed to a (fingers-crossed) TBA date. The IPL was postponed indefinitely but the scale and magnitude of India’s struggle against the coronavirus doesn’t bode well for its 2020 chances. The cricket T20 World Cup for later this year, a case of wait and hope.

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🔺 In a game in Brazil in March before pro-football was suspended, the Gremio team took the field wearing masks to protest the dangers players were exposed to during the pandemic 

What of the world game, football, what’s it’s current state of play? Well, just as gloomy in the main, all of the world’s major leagues have been suspended. The showcase EPL is optimistically hoping to resume in summer, none of the clubs more so than Liverpool FC, which having dominated the season up to the disruption, sit tantalisingly close but still short of claiming the league title. But world soccer is not entirely without ‘premier’ league football in the time of coronavirus. A handful of maverick countries have ploughed on regardless, or should I say, in disregard (or even denial) of the virus crisis. Belarus, with it’s “gung-ho” president, continues to play football⊰ – in stadiums with supporters in attendance, shoulder-to-shoulder, despite having recorded nearly 4,800 corona cases to date. The Vysshaya Liga, virtually unknown outside Belarus prior to the crisis, has by default, been elevated implausibly to the centre of the football universe. Fans from other soccer-starved countries like England have adopted Belarusian teams and now keenly follow the fortunes of these proxy clubs from afar. Both Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, the governments of which have buried their heads in the sand over the COVID-19 pandemic, have followed Belarus’s lead in keeping their peoples sated with bread and association football [‘In Belarus, unlike most places, soccer plays on despite virus’, (Yuliya Talmazan), NBC News, 20-Apr-2020, www.nbcnews.com].

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🔺 Taiwanese baseball: synthetic “seat-fillers”, creating the illusion of making the stadiums look less empty during games (Photo: Cronkite News)

Some mass-supported sports played a few games behind closed gates before calling a halt to the season due to the pandemic. Many of the players commented on the strangeness and the flatness, the lack of atmosphere in the games. Taiwan, one country which has managed an effective response to coronavirus, has come up with a novel and innovative way of countering this problem. The country’s new baseball season opened a week ago with a ban on spectator attendance…in a bizarre move the organisers  have installed dummies and cardboard cut-outs of fans in the bleachers, a contrivance intended, I guess, to make the players out on the diamond feel like they’re not all alone [‘Dummies replace fans at baseball in Taiwan’, Reuters, 14-Apr-2020, www.mobile.reuters.com].

Postscript:  Odd man out in the Americas
All the football-obsessed countries of Latin America have suspended their 2020 competitions due to the Covid-19 crisis except one, Nicaragua. The refusal of the Central American state’s president, Daniel Ortega, to halt Liga Primera soccer games (and other sporting events) is in keeping with his general, ‘ostrich’ stance of not taking any preventive measures against the pandemic✧ [‘Nicaragua Not Backing Down Despite Criticism Over Lax Measures During Pandemic’, (Carrie Kahn), NPR, 18-Apr-2020, www.npr.org] .

⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳⬳

✱ which no doubt pleased President Trump, a longtime friend of WWE head ‘honcho’ Vince McMahon
❂ horse-racing has been suspended in New Zealand, the UK, Ireland and South Africa among others, but still receives the thumbs-up in horseracing-crazy Hong Kong and California
⊰ and ice hockey, another favourite game of the president
✧ the only other country that didn’t close down it’s domestic football competition, the tiny African nation of Burundi, finally called a temporary halt to matches earlier in April