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COVID-19: Why are Some Countries Succeeding & Other Countries Failing?

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker is joined by KJ Noh, a peace activist and scholar on the geopolitics of Asia, and a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissident Voice.
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China two weeks ago announced that it had a Covid-19 hotspot in an outdoor market in Beijing. The government quarantined the area and snuffed out the virus. South Korea dealt with the coronavirus as soon as it hit and was able to control infections. Australia barely had any coronavirus infections after it went into lockdown. And Greece had a lower Covid-19 infection rate than any other country in the European Union. Why are other countries so good at addressing this pandemic and the US is so bad?

President Trump’s much-touted kickoff campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday ended up having not the hundreds of thousands of people the campaign expected, but a grand total of 6,611. It turned out that the campaign was trolled by children and teenagers, who reserved nearly a million tickets and then didn’t show up. The President is reportedly furious. He blamed “radical leftists,” demonstrators, and the “fake media” for the debacle. But on a serious note, this colossal failure has to call into question the current state of the campaign, just four-and-a-half months before the election. Ted Rall, an award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist, whose work is at www.rall.com, joins the show with John Kiriakou.

For generations, African-Americans have been told they have what is now said to be more than one trillion dollars of "buying power." But a new book argues that commentators have misused this claim largely to blame Black communities for their own poverty based on squandered economic opportunity. “The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power” exposes the claim as both a marketing strategy and myth, while also showing how that myth functions simultaneously as a case study for propaganda and commercial media coverage of economics. Brian speaks with Dr. Jared Ball, a professor of communication studies at Morgan State University, the editor of “A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X” and the new book “The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power,” and his writings are at www.IMixWhatILike.org.

Monday’s segment “Education for Liberation with Bill Ayers” is where Bill helps us look at the state of education across the country. What’s happening in our schools, colleges, and universities, and what impact does it have on the world around us? Bill Ayers, an activist, educator, and the author of the book “Demand the Impossible: A Radical Manifesto,” joins Brian and John.

In this segment, The Week Ahead, the hosts take a look at the most newsworthy stories of the coming week and what it means for the country and the world. Sputnik News analysts and producers of this show Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek join the show.

Monday’s regular segment Technology Rules is a weekly guide on how monopoly corporations and the national surveillance state are threatening cherished freedoms, civil rights and civil liberties. Web developer and technologist Chris Garaffa and software engineer and technology and security analyst Patricia Gorky join the show with John.

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