The health care workers have to beg – and people have to die – because their mal-developed country lacks the most basic. It’s a country which, at least since 1945, has created human history’s largest military machine, sees itself as “the policeman of the whole world” – a country that conducted wars virtually every day, built 600+ bases in 130+ countries, deploys its CIA and Special forces virtually everywhere, destroyed societies and killed millions of people around the world in warfare and economic sanctions, a country that kills single individuals it doesn’t like in faraway lands with drones and precision-guided rockets, a country that committed the crime against not only Japan but against humanity when it dropped its nuclear bombs.
A country that never regretted, that never apologized.
Indeed, America, you are too arrogant! And indeed it feels as if God is punishing America now. Even it believes it had God on its side, as Bob Dylan expressed it.
A neurotic country that increasingly sees enemies everywhere and friends nowhere and consumes itself, like a drug addict, with militarism.
That all-mighty country, however, is unable to do one basic thing: to care for the welfare of its own people, particularly the poor, the handicapped, the old, the black, the minorities – the Damned of the Republic and the Empire!
It’s not even able to provide body bags for the mass deaths of its own people. (As I’m writing this, 45 000 Americans have died, 15 times more than on September 11, 2001).
Of course, even a benign America wouldn’t have avoided the effects of the Coronavirus. But much fewer would have died had it cared for its own people, cared for human security.
Someone should be held accountable. Someone is responsible for those perverse priorities. Not single presidents, not even Trump. No, the responsible is the elitist MIMAC – the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi and all advocates of nonviolence were right: Those who use violence harm not only others, they harm themselves.
Everybody wants to be friends with the United States, but it doesn’t seem to want to be friends with anyone anymore.
It threatens everyone around the world but no one threatens it.
Militarism has eaten it up from the inside, like a cancer – psychologically, culturally, politically and economically. The US has become the biggest threat to itself.
It is no longer a free country, it’s fearfully dependent on violence in general and militarism in particular. On the drug called ever more power that invariably ends in insecurity and ill-health.
And now dependent on body bags for its own civilians.
I am so grateful to MLK for having been there and prophesizing it.
Grateful that – a lifetime later – we may remember when there were great intellectual and moral leaders in America. Grateful that MLK warned us, although in vain, about what would happen when militarism, empire and warfare were given free hands and suffocated civil society and killed laws and ethics.
In the best of cases, the Coronavirus is the last wake-up call for the United States. This is a terminally ill system and not a matter of who is Presiding over it. Neither Trump nor Biden is able to hear that call and change the destiny.
Sad to say for somebody who has never been anti-American – but admittedly anti-Empire and anti-War – the manifest destiny is now decline and fall until the US becomes a normal country without an Empire and without its Militarism.
Pray that that process doesn’t create an even higher demand for body bags.
•
If you found this relevant and informative, please reward TFF with the equivalent of a cup of coffee…
Jan Oberg May 15, 2026 Go to this Fox News page and scroll the whole way down: President Donald Trump tells the world that his meeting with President Xi Jinping yielded a lot of very concrete political and economic results – of course, only where the Chinese side, according to him, agreed with him. He does not mention the Taiwan issue, but Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, says that it did not feature prominently in their talks and that the US policy on Taiwan has not changed. Then go to China Daily – or Global Times – and you will see that for the Chinese it is framework, principles, structure of cooperation etc. that matters – all embedded in the overall idea of “constructive bilateral relationship of strategic stability.” Nowhere is any concrete agreement or deal – all that Trump refers to – mentioned. At the general level, this gives you insights into the very different social...
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The MIMAC – Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex – drives the world’s rampant militarism and wars without end. Here is a short reflection of how it works against all interests of humanity. #5 deals with why there is no real enemy or threat images/analysis. It’s all ex-post constructions. And, btw, theTFF Peace Pulse is now on Rumble.
“En dag som berättigar till fest”, utropade den London-baserade al-Quds al-Arabi efter FN:s eldupphörresolution, “eftersom detta är första gången som Israel accepterar ett FN-beslut från en position som besegrad och inte som segrare”. Att ett arabisk-israeliskt krig för en gångs skull slutat med arabisk seger, är en helt dominerade åsikt i arabiska medier. Al-Quds al-Arabi tillåter sig att drömma om att det israeliska nederlaget skall leda till massflykt från Israel. Men i nästa andetag påminner tidningen om att Israel aldrig brukar genomföra sina internationella åtaganden och varnar för att förlorarna, liksom tidigare, kan hämnas genom att provocera fram inbördeskrig i Libanon. Med tanke på de otaliga massmediala vittnesmålen om det libanesiska folkets eniga motståndskraft förefaller risken för inre stridigheter i det sargade landet just nu liten. Men visst kan man urskilja nyansskillnader i libanesiska tidningar. Vänsterorganet al-Safir uppfattar FN-resolutionen som en komplott i syfte att rädda Israel från ännu större...
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Jan Oberg’s storyof how he met Sir Paul Liverpool – where else to meet Paul McCartney? Paul’s old class mate and TFF Associate, Jonathan Power introduced me to Paul McCartney in Liverpool at an informal reception. It was held at what used to be their school, now the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and we were there to celebrate that Jonathan had written Amnesty International’s 40th Anniversary book. This happy event for “righting wrongs and writing songs” gave me an opportunity to meet Paul and tell him about TFF and get straight to the matter: would he consider making a donation in support of our work for peace? While I was probably the only one with such a wish that day, I was certainly not the only one who wanted to shake hands and talk with him. In the last minutes before Paul was to leave, Jonathan brought us together and we got about three...
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Discover more from TFF Transnational Foundation & Jan Oberg.
“En dag som berättigar till fest”, utropade den London-baserade al-Quds al-Arabi efter FN:s eldupphörresolution, “eftersom detta är första gången som Israel accepterar ett FN-beslut från en position som besegrad och inte som segrare”. Att ett arabisk-israeliskt krig för en gångs skull slutat med arabisk seger, är en helt dominerade åsikt i arabiska medier. Al-Quds al-Arabi tillåter sig att drömma om att det israeliska nederlaget skall leda till massflykt från Israel. Men i nästa andetag påminner tidningen om att Israel aldrig brukar genomföra sina internationella åtaganden och varnar för att förlorarna, liksom tidigare, kan hämnas genom att provocera fram inbördeskrig i Libanon. Med tanke på de otaliga massmediala vittnesmålen om det libanesiska folkets eniga motståndskraft förefaller risken för inre stridigheter i det sargade landet just nu liten. Men visst kan man urskilja nyansskillnader i libanesiska tidningar. Vänsterorganet al-Safir uppfattar FN-resolutionen som en komplott i syfte att rädda Israel från ännu större...
Greenland – the world’s largest island, a continent of its own with only 57.000 inhabitants. I visited it for the first time in May 2005. I flew across the inland ice to Nuuk, the tiny capital with some 14.000 inhabitants. I was overwhelmed by the pride and kindness of everyone I met as well as by the unique natural beauty. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions during my ten-day stay I could get nowhere else but Nuuk. Fortunately, however, among those I met was Gitte Arvegaard, a Danish lawyer and negotiator employed by the local government, Greenland Home Rule. She turned out to be an enthusiastic photographer with a lot of pictures taken during various trips around Greenland. So this Greeland series is the result of our cooperative effort. We both hope you enjoy it and are stimulated to visit Greenland – about which you may read more here. Finally, if you want to...
Jan Oberg’s storyof how he met Sir Paul Liverpool – where else to meet Paul McCartney? Paul’s old class mate and TFF Associate, Jonathan Power introduced me to Paul McCartney in Liverpool at an informal reception. It was held at what used to be their school, now the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and we were there to celebrate that Jonathan had written Amnesty International’s 40th Anniversary book. This happy event for “righting wrongs and writing songs” gave me an opportunity to meet Paul and tell him about TFF and get straight to the matter: would he consider making a donation in support of our work for peace? While I was probably the only one with such a wish that day, I was certainly not the only one who wanted to shake hands and talk with him. In the last minutes before Paul was to leave, Jonathan brought us together and we got about three...
“En dag som berättigar till fest”, utropade den London-baserade al-Quds al-Arabi efter FN:s eldupphörresolution, “eftersom detta är första gången som Israel accepterar ett FN-beslut från en position som besegrad och inte som segrare”. Att ett arabisk-israeliskt krig för en gångs skull slutat med arabisk seger, är en helt dominerade åsikt i arabiska medier. Al-Quds al-Arabi tillåter sig att drömma om att det israeliska nederlaget skall leda till massflykt från Israel. Men i nästa andetag påminner tidningen om att Israel aldrig brukar genomföra sina internationella åtaganden och varnar för att förlorarna, liksom tidigare, kan hämnas genom att provocera fram inbördeskrig i Libanon. Med tanke på de otaliga massmediala vittnesmålen om det libanesiska folkets eniga motståndskraft förefaller risken för inre stridigheter i det sargade landet just nu liten. Men visst kan man urskilja nyansskillnader i libanesiska tidningar. Vänsterorganet al-Safir uppfattar FN-resolutionen som en komplott i syfte att rädda Israel från ännu större...
Greenland – the world’s largest island, a continent of its own with only 57.000 inhabitants. I visited it for the first time in May 2005. I flew across the inland ice to Nuuk, the tiny capital with some 14.000 inhabitants. I was overwhelmed by the pride and kindness of everyone I met as well as by the unique natural beauty. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions during my ten-day stay I could get nowhere else but Nuuk. Fortunately, however, among those I met was Gitte Arvegaard, a Danish lawyer and negotiator employed by the local government, Greenland Home Rule. She turned out to be an enthusiastic photographer with a lot of pictures taken during various trips around Greenland. So this Greeland series is the result of our cooperative effort. We both hope you enjoy it and are stimulated to visit Greenland – about which you may read more here. Finally, if you want to...
Jan Oberg’s storyof how he met Sir Paul Liverpool – where else to meet Paul McCartney? Paul’s old class mate and TFF Associate, Jonathan Power introduced me to Paul McCartney in Liverpool at an informal reception. It was held at what used to be their school, now the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and we were there to celebrate that Jonathan had written Amnesty International’s 40th Anniversary book. This happy event for “righting wrongs and writing songs” gave me an opportunity to meet Paul and tell him about TFF and get straight to the matter: would he consider making a donation in support of our work for peace? While I was probably the only one with such a wish that day, I was certainly not the only one who wanted to shake hands and talk with him. In the last minutes before Paul was to leave, Jonathan brought us together and we got about three...
1942James Paul McCartney is born in Liverpool on June 18th. 1956Paul writes his first song, I Lost My Little Girl. 1957Paul meets John Lennon at St. Peter’s Church Fete, Woolton, Liverpool. He joins his first group, The Quarrymen and performs in his first gig at The New Clubmoor Hall, Liverpool, on October 18th. 1960Formation of The Beatles, who play residencies in Hamburg and at The Cavern in Liverpool. 1961First Beatles recordings issued in Germany, as the backing group for Tony Sheridan. 1962The first Beatles Parlophone recording, Love Me Do, reaches number 17 in the British charts. 1963The birth of Beatlemania. Please Please Me gives the group their first British Number 1. She Loves You cements their success. Please Please Me and With The Beatles albums released. 1964First triumphant American tour. The Beatles perform at the Royal Command Performance and release their first film, A Hard Day’s Night. Their single I...
By JONATHAN POWER August 16, 2000 LONDON – Remember the summer of ’98? In the sweltering, torpid heat of a Roman august, charged with exhaust fumes, the international community gave its overwhelming approval to the establishment of an International Criminal Court that will enable those accused of “crimes against humanity” to be tried and, if convicted, sentenced. Only seven nations opposed or abstained from the motion, including Israel, China, India and the U.S.A. where the Pentagon had successfully waged bureaucratic guerrilla war to undermine the initially sympathetic stance of President Bill Clinton. Two years on we can now see what an epochal event that was. In a the stroke of 120 pens it changed the climate on political thuggery. After numerous half-starts and false starts ever since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials that convicted the war criminals of the Second World War, the world at last had agreed en masse a common...
ObergComment: Ravaged by its empire and militarism, the US now doesn't have enough body bags for its own
Remember this?
It seems that God is saying: “America, you are too arrogant and I will break the backbone of your power!” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Listen!
MLK’s strong prophecy came to me today when I read this article in TIME magazine today – “Begging for Thermometers, Body Bags, and Gowns: U.S. Health Care Workers Are Dangerously Ill-Equipped to Fight COVID-19.”
The health care workers have to beg – and people have to die – because their mal-developed country lacks the most basic. It’s a country which, at least since 1945, has created human history’s largest military machine, sees itself as “the policeman of the whole world” – a country that conducted wars virtually every day, built 600+ bases in 130+ countries, deploys its CIA and Special forces virtually everywhere, destroyed societies and killed millions of people around the world in warfare and economic sanctions, a country that kills single individuals it doesn’t like in faraway lands with drones and precision-guided rockets, a country that committed the crime against not only Japan but against humanity when it dropped its nuclear bombs.
A country that never regretted, that never apologized.
Indeed, America, you are too arrogant! And indeed it feels as if God is punishing America now. Even it believes it had God on its side, as Bob Dylan expressed it.
A neurotic country that increasingly sees enemies everywhere and friends nowhere and consumes itself, like a drug addict, with militarism.
That all-mighty country, however, is unable to do one basic thing: to care for the welfare of its own people, particularly the poor, the handicapped, the old, the black, the minorities – the Damned of the Republic and the Empire!
It’s not even able to provide body bags for the mass deaths of its own people. (As I’m writing this, 45 000 Americans have died, 15 times more than on September 11, 2001).
Of course, even a benign America wouldn’t have avoided the effects of the Coronavirus. But much fewer would have died had it cared for its own people, cared for human security.
Someone should be held accountable. Someone is responsible for those perverse priorities. Not single presidents, not even Trump. No, the responsible is the elitist MIMAC – the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi and all advocates of nonviolence were right: Those who use violence harm not only others, they harm themselves.
Everybody wants to be friends with the United States, but it doesn’t seem to want to be friends with anyone anymore.
It threatens everyone around the world but no one threatens it.
Militarism has eaten it up from the inside, like a cancer – psychologically, culturally, politically and economically. The US has become the biggest threat to itself.
It is no longer a free country, it’s fearfully dependent on violence in general and militarism in particular. On the drug called ever more power that invariably ends in insecurity and ill-health.
And now dependent on body bags for its own civilians.
I am so grateful to MLK for having been there and prophesizing it.
Grateful that – a lifetime later – we may remember when there were great intellectual and moral leaders in America. Grateful that MLK warned us, although in vain, about what would happen when militarism, empire and warfare were given free hands and suffocated civil society and killed laws and ethics.
In the best of cases, the Coronavirus is the last wake-up call for the United States. This is a terminally ill system and not a matter of who is Presiding over it. Neither Trump nor Biden is able to hear that call and change the destiny.
Sad to say for somebody who has never been anti-American – but admittedly anti-Empire and anti-War – the manifest destiny is now decline and fall until the US becomes a normal country without an Empire and without its Militarism.
Pray that that process doesn’t create an even higher demand for body bags.
•
If you found this relevant and informative, please reward TFF with the equivalent of a cup of coffee…
[paypal-donation]Please use and spread #coronaissecuritypolitics
Peace & future researcher + Art Photographer
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