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MEDICAL FREEDOM- Doctor Becomes Patient Rights Activist

Bill Collier July 18, 2021

Health coverage is expensive, but medical care isn’t? How is this and what can we do?

Dr. Marion Mass went through a metamorphosis from a physician to a patient rights advocate when she saw how money and politics, not patient needs, were adding multiple layers of complication and costs without benefiting patients. Her story and recent podcast transcends partisan labels and is a fresh way to approach medical care instead of playing politics with “health care” that may provide “coverage” but is too expensive and doesn’t serve patient needs.

Dr. Marion Mass joins other doctors in a PODCAST where this is all explored in depth.

The cartoon above is a simple story about the evolution of a doctor into a patient’s rights activist.

Dr. Mass serves as the vice-chairman of Practicing Physicians of America whose mission includes protecting the ability of all practicing physicians to serve as their patients’ primary health care advocate and to confront unnecessary and overbearing regulation that limits any physicians’ ability to serve their patients.

See more about this below:

How Health Care #Middlemen are:
Emptying America’s pockets,
Replacing physicians
What you can do.

Give 🇺🇸 transparency
Had so much fun on this podcast! ❤️

Kudos @notaproviderMD and @GallaherCaren
https://t.co/nHCEgaaAuI

Drs. Nikki Johnson, Caren Gallaher, and Marion Mass expose the truth about medication and device rebates and how this ties in to increasing healthcare costs and unsafe patient care. We give you actionable items to advocate for yourself and demand transparency.

Visit https://practicingphysician.org /, https://physiciansforpatientsofficial.org /, and https://www.patientrightsadvocate.org / to learn more.

Statement On The White House’s Misinformation Bogeyman

Bill Collier July 17, 2021

Publisher, Bill Collier- People who spread misinformation are a bane to our existence, especially when they do so knowingly and also when they don’t do the basic due diligence necessary to screen out ridiculous claims. The problem is that the definition of misinformation, like other bogeyman fears being used to perpetuate authoritarianism, gets all too broad and the response becomes both immediately draconian, canceling the malefactors from the digital commons, and unforgiving, never giving a path to redemption or rehabilitation.

Democrats have more concern for rehabilitating gangs and criminals than they do for people who they deem worthy of digital banishment within a society whose best opportunities and social activities exist mostly within and through the digital commons.

The digital commons is, like it or not, essential to equal opportunity and prosperity in our society and banishing people from this commons for anything less than absolutely criminal conduct, and banishing them for life, deprives them of equal access to all this society offers. It should be considered very seriously and with hesitation and no longer be treated as just removing someone from a private space and not a big deal. This old civilization with its latter-days authoritarianism (so typical of old civilizations) is literally creating the disaffected “internal proletariat” whose ideas and philosophy become the basis of a new civilizational paradigm.

The latest gambit by yet about President to resort to fear-mongering and broad generalizations in order to throttle discourse, wherein platforms are being nudged by government to do what it cannot do and ruin the lives of people whose speech the Democrats (in this case) don’t fancy, is likely to be nuked from orbit by the courts. Making a private entity an agent of a government policy that seeks to punish, albeit not through legal means, anyone they deem to be spreading misinformation is not going to survive many court proceedings.

What is more, the creators of a new web 3.0 digital commons are bound to look askance at any government telling them and their digital communities who to banish! Within 20 years, we predict, all those platforms that “cooperate” in digital banishment for too weak a cause will be left behind in the coming digital age. Digital communities with maximum participatory self-governance and fraternal connections as their basis will eventually, slowly but surely, replace platforms as the new digital commons.

The national pastime of labeling everything you and your Party disagree with “misinformation” is too well established for most fair-minded people to think anyone, including a privately owned platform, is standing on strong moral ground when they arbitrarily label content disinformation and use it to do real social and economic harm to people through banishment from the digital commons.

Even if we agree a private platform has great latitude in who it banishes, this doesn’t mean we think their trigger-happy approach to banishment using opaque standards that cannot be consistently applied with rigor is a good idea morally or for the long-term health of the platform. We certainly think it is a good idea to view any “collaboration” between massive, near-monopoly platforms where the digital commons mostly exists (and outside of which individuals will increasingly face a reduction in opportunities and social connections), with grave concern.

Not all cooperation is bad. But too much can blur the line between state and platform in such a way that an essentially private digital commons is de facto, even if not de jure, molded by a state controlled by a Party with strong authoritarian leanings.

It is true, actual misinformation can harm people. If you put it out there that everyone from one demographic are a hazard to justice or equity or anything, when that’s a gross exaggeration or generalization, that’s misinformation. It’s wrong. It should be called out and confronted and if a direct link between the propagation of that misinformation and real harm to other can be proven, then criminal persecution isn’t off the table. A tort has occurred.

People saying patently false and provably inaccurate things that cause harm to others, where a direct link can be proven, should face consequences, including civil lawsuits.

But we know Democrats today, and it could be Republicans tomorrow, tend to paint a rather broad stroke when they invoke the accusation of misinformation. This is the reason why one Jen Psaki, the Press Secretary, doubling down on the government “working with” (pressuring) platforms to banish people from the digital commons for anything the White House deems “misinformation” is such a hyperbolic non-starter.

The otherwise charming and adroit Press Secretary has clearly become divorced from that strong American tradition of tolerance: e.g. “I might not like or agree with what you say but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.”

The Press Secretary could have clearly stated that if people are illegally spreading falsehoods to gain profit (and clicks are profit) that are harming people that the government urges platforms to be proactive in flagging that. But we know that talk of the possibility a certain virus had its genesis in a lab in China became prima facae evidence of misinformation that was banishable! Now that theory is revived and is not misinformation. Sadly, those already banished for stating that theory remain banished.

The administration has a few hobby horses such as “muh white supremacy” and racism, the election, the January 6th “insurrection”, climate change, and the virus all of which include some degree of accusing anyone who disagrees of “misinformation.” It is therefore a bad faith claim to say that the spirit behind such nonsensical and untenable rhetoric about banishing people for misinformation is at all about public safety.

We would perhaps be more worried if this wasn’t just more rhetorical flash to appease the authoritarian base of the Democratic Party and if it wasn’t so laughably untenable both from a legal and public support perspective. We would not be surprised to find such “collaboration” is anything more than happy talk and that no real collaboration is happening.

The public aren’t ready to let Jen Psaki, or even Donald Trump, become the arbiter of what is or isn’t misinformation and the trend toward banishment from the digital commons is going to boomerang “bigly” on the technocrats and their Democratic Party pals. Web 3.0, the digital commons built around diverse digital communities within a decentralized but compatible ecosystem, is coming and it couldn’t come soon enough.

European Floods Become New Justification For Climate Change Authoritarianism

Bill Collier July 17, 2021

By Bill Collier- Flooding in Europe is the new excuse for climate change authoritarianism. As people hope to rebuild their lives, the EU and other governments in Europe are focused less on people’s needs and more on new ways to impoverish them and reduce their freedom.

Citing the “obvious” connection between massive rainfall and hotter climate, once again climate change authoritarianism is asserting itself before the dead and wounded can even be sorted out in a major disaster. The speed with which any event, be it rain or draught, hot or cold temperatures, is blamed on climate change, coupled with more calls for yet more authoritarian responses, far outpaces the speed of recovery from such events.

Journalists, ideologically drawn to authoritarianism as most are thanks to their poor educations in schools of journalism, unquestionably repeat every claim without seriously questioning why the climate change theory, unlike other scientific theories, presents anything that would disprove itself. In short, everything that happens unpleasant is counted to the same cause without question.

Meanwhile, over 1300 people are missing and over 125 dead in a torrential outburst that dumped some two months worth of rain in 24 hours over mostly northwest Germany and parts of Holland and Belgium. Flooding in other areas, ranging from Switzerland to areas in northern and eastern Germany was also reported. The floods in western Germany were particularly dangerous because they came suddenly with walls of water pouring through towns and villages, in some cases collapses houses or simply tearing through them.

German Minister of the Environment Svenja Schulze announced, “These are the harbingers of climate change that have now arrived in Germany.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the flooding “a clear indication of climate change” and “something that really, really shows the urgency to act.”

The EU is busy promoting rather draconian and authoritarian measures to allegedly mitigate climate change, such as literally banning all but electric cars within 20 years, a shocking move that would lead to economic devastation but also render the population less mobile and more controllable.

Serious proposals focused on house portable and house affordable energy, loosening zoning and codes rules to allow for more sustainable building technologies and for home-based hydroponics, gardens, and graywater recycling, for instance, are off the table. The entire focus is on more authoritarian and draconian measures that create a One Big System (OBS) approach wherein 100% of the cost and loss of freedom falls on working people without impacting the ruling class.

The propensity of “climate scientists” to regularly and shamelessly don the mien of totalitarian ideologues is most certainly one of the chief reasons many view their preachments with suspicion. For the German government to, at this very hour, leap to conclusions simply because it serves their increasingly authoritarian agenda, is a gross disservice to victims of this flooding.

The issue is less about whether we need to reduce polluting emissions that can harm the environment and lead to climate change and more about the fact every proposed solution impoverishes billions of souls and reduces their freedom while, at the same time, this theory brooks no dissent and offers no example where a prediction not happening or other unpredicted events happening would disprove it.

Climate change, like other hobgoblins, may have a basis of truth, but the problem lies in the oversimplification of its effects, in the exploitation of every disaster, in the authoritarian proposals for dealing with it, and with how it’s claims of proof know no bounds and are contradictory.

Impoverishment and totalitarianism won’t solve a changing climate, especially if the changes aren’t totally man-made. These measures will lead to societal instability and ruin without appreciably effecting outcomes but all to further increase the power and wealth of the ruling class.

Real solutions to mankind’s baneful impact on the planet are available and would increase individual wealth and freedom, because they would shift resources from OBS to the homes and communities controlled by average workaday people.

OUR THOUGHTS-

Most of those who claim to care about climate change offer only rather authoritarian responses which impoverish people, make them less free, and don’t make a dent on the climate itself. The truth is, they don’t care about the bogeyman they are using to scare you into submission, their objective is the radical global transformation of society into an authoritarian regimen ruled by the few at the grave expense of the many.

If you’re really serious about climate change, abandon OBS model and embrace a “house portable and house affordable” solution that seriously reduces negative impacts through human activities but also makes average people wealthier, more free, and healthier.

Free people from the many backwards and technology-suppressing rules, regulations, and “codes” that keep them from creating local food, energy, and housing independence through locally renewable resources. Invest in technology to advance food and energy independence at the level of the home primarily and the local neighborhood or town. Provide tax and regulatory waiver incentives to those seeking food and energy independence and sustainable home design.

The left authoritarians don’t propose these things, they propose draconian measures like banning all combustion engines and leaving people high and dry without affordable transportation or taxes and regulations that drive energy costs into the stratosphere. Their “solutions” are inhumane power grabs and massive wealth redistribution schemes that rob from the working class and feed the ruling class.

It’s hard to take climate change seriously when so many of those who bang the drum of alarm offer very non-serious proposals that truly read almost exclusively like a recipe for an authoritarian hellscape than an earth-friendly and humane approach to reducing humanity’s impact on the environment.

As for the Freedomist, we do not think all climate change is man-made or bad, but we do think the impact of human activity on the planet needs a serious rewrite. This begins with a strong emphasis on house-portable and house-affordable solutions, as opposed to OBS, that will make people more wealthy and free and devolve power from the top and center to individuals, families, and communities.

Enabling people to build affordable, sustainable housing and obtain food and energy independence at the very local level would dramatically reduce the environmental cost of human activity without threatening human flourishing.

The OBS approach won’t fix any problems, it will lead to instability, it decreases freedom and increases poverty, and, in the end, delays a truly effective response to a growing negative environmental and climate impact from human activity. None of the EU’s proposals do anything more than create a society of poor, working class cogs in the wheels of a neofeudal machine run by and for the ruling class at everyone’s expense but their own.

This Is Not How To Gain Acceptance of Vaccines

Bill Collier July 16, 2021

For the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that the vaccine against this pandemic is perfectly fine. We may ignore the fact Israel is now issuing a third vaccine as the old one isn’t stopping the new varient. We can also ignore the whole fear of new varients that may render the first vaccine, which many reported gave miserable symptoms after injection of the second dose, useless. Also ignore the lack of longevity research possible for any new vaccine.

The authoritarian and arrogant way the Biden administration is handling this, almost as if it is a wedge issue designed to make Republicans look bad, has backfired. Far from being browbeat into submission, Americans are responding with suspicion and resistance.

The basic idea is, “if this is so good, why do you have to try to shame and bully me to do it?” What is more, while the vaccine is practically being forced on everyone, the accountability for negative side effects or long-term problems is gone. Nobody, from manufacturers to the government, accepts any responsibility if taking this proves, in the long-term, causes harm. And nobody can guarantee there won’t be any long-term negative effects.

The issue isn’t that the vaccine is available, the issue is threefold: people don’t like being bullied, people aren’t sure if this is useful against new varients or of its long-term effects, and nobody is on the hook if it doesn’t work or has ill effects.

The issues with the vaccine tend to be common with any new vaccine. And the need for vaccines means that new vaccines must be rolled out sooner rather than later. But it also means that every new vaccine has unresolved questions as to its efficacy or possible ill effects. The difference is in the fact nobody is willing to take responsibility if this doesn’t work or causes harm and yet you are being bullied and shamed and your concerns are being ridiculed in a partisan and over-the-top manner.

By showing such disrespect and condescension and using rabid partisan attack language against people who have concerns, while shifting 100% of the risk on the person being bullied into getting the shot, you make it harder, rather than easier, to say yes.

This seems to be the only default now for Democrats: bully, shame, and defame while belittling and ignoring legitimate debate and questions and suppressing discourse and scientific exploration outside their agenda of preconceptions. If the vaccine is going to help, which also requires accountability for manufacturers and government if they get this wrong, then the present hubris shown by proponents needs to end now.

Take away all the rabid language and bullying and add accountability if this doesn’t work, and our rate of vaccination would be much higher.

The old line “the beatings will stop when morale improves” is funny, but not when it’s the entire establishment beating down on anyone who has a concern, anyone who has questions, anyone who wants someone to take responsibility for this if it fails, and exploration of ongoing science as to alternatives.

Why Won’t Republicans Name and Confront Woke Communism?

Bill Collier July 16, 2021

Whether the term is woke communism or progressive authoritarianism, Republican leaders and top officials have consistently watered-down their talking points while every day Democrats lambast Republicans as Nazis, racists, phobes, and the like without even attempting any sense of honesty or civility.

Let’s stick with woke communists as our term. It’s a modern term, not coined by us per se, that describes what we also refer to as “neocomms”, new communists who have evolved into a Party-controlled duopoly of woke corporations with near monopoly power and the state. Unlike the Stalin model, these woke communists, woke because their use of racist and gender-bending “wokeness” as their cudgel, don’t want to destroy the corporations, they choose to harness them. And unlike the Chinese communists who use the state to control the corporations, the Democrats seem to prefer to have their totalitarian party control both the corporations and the state separately, at least for now.

The Republicans are having none of this. They know that if they lay this legitimate charge on their opponents, the DNC Press will viciously attack them with smears and slanders meant to destroy, or cancel, them from life. It’s an internal banishment that leaves you a broke pariah.

But without the courage to stand up now, when some legal protections for speech remain, these same Republicans are courting disaster as the march away from a Bill of Rights society toward authoritarianism continues. Their fecklessness and collaboration in the face of blatant authoritarianism and gross violence against the Bill of Rights by this totalitarian party becomes more and more inexcusable.

When will Republicans name and confront woke communism and expose the fact the Democratic Party has become wholly captured by this modern manifestation of totalitarianism?

The reaons run from fear to just wanting the trappings of office without the responsibility or the risk, to perhaps even having sympathy at least for the corporate side of the woke communist duopoly. The woke communist war on freedom is well documented and their rhetoric against all things decent and noble is also well known.

The ability of Republicans to stand up to, name, and confront woke communism for what it is and who it is should become a litmus test in every primary. If you won’t confront the woke communists, then you shouldn’t be in office.

New Alliance Tackles Pandemic In Face of Political Headwinds

Bill Collier July 16, 2021

The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), a group of highly published, world-renowned critical care physicians and scholars are striving to find ways to effectively mitigate the effects of Covid-19 through early treatments. Their website is here- FLCC

The FLCCC Alliance – with the academic support of allied physicians from around the world – works to research and develop lifesaving protocols for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in all stages of illness. Their MATH+ Hospital Treatment Protocol, introduced in March 2020, has saved thousands of patients who were critically ill with COVID-19. Now, the FLCCC’s new I-Mask+ Prophylaxis and Early At-Home Outpatient Treatment Protocol with Ivermectin has been released – and is a potential solution to the global pandemic.

Political headwinds are the only real hindrance to further advancing the treatment options for patients and their efforts are meant to publicize research and findings while documentation successful treatments.

The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance was initially formed as a working group under “emergency” conditions of the early COVID-19 pandemic in response to multiple early reports of COVID patients with an inexplicably high need for prolonged mechanical ventilation and an excessive mortality associated with the prevailing “supportive care only” recommendations disseminated by the majority of national and international health care organizations.

Tioga County PA Commissioners Defy Voters, State Senate Over Audit

Bill Collier July 14, 2021

Bill Collier- Tiny, in population, Tioga County PA, where, coincidentally, The Freedomist is based, is at the center of efforts to audit Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results, which, it is alleged, are suspect. Every court so far has denied this, but it is still alleged an audit is needed.

The amazing thing about Roger Bunn, Mark Hamilton, and Erick Coolidge is that their county, the county where the Publisher of the Freedomist (myself) lives, 74.7% voted for Trump and one can gather well over 50% of all voters likely want an audit.

These three Commissioners are an interesting phenomenon where even the most conservative areas surrender their line offices to people who lack the vigor and passion of their own voters. What is more fascinating is that these usually cardboard cutouts for local officials who make no waves usually also lean in the opposite direction of their voters. But, because local politics are usually more about potholes than principles, they never show their true nature or beliefs.

So, while a County of over 40,000 may by as much as 74.7% demand an audit, the Republicans they elected to lead them, for so long and without any real challenge, have proven to not really be Republicans at all.

Having myself watched these men since the first time I came to the County in 2009, I am not even slightly surprised that these three all agreed to disagree with almost every single person who ever voted for them in order to avoid rocking the boat. They’re not bad guys, really, they just got elected by sleepy voters who didn’t vett the people who would lead their County, assuming that of they were Republicans that was good enough.

Again, let’s be clear, whatever one feels about their decision, they have their reasons no doubt, the issue is that we all keep letting people into office who don’t, when push comes to shove, reflect our beliefs and values and nor are they informed by them.

Cuban-Americans Demand US Action, Democrats Exposed As Pro Communist

Bill Collier July 14, 2021

Cuban-American protestors shut down the Palmetto Expressway near Miami amid demands the US end comminism in Cuba shouting, “Estados Unidos, acaba el comunismo!”

The Cuban connunity in Florida numbers 1.53 million and plays a significant role in swaying elections at the state level, including presidential races. The community are generally unhappy with the tepid response from the current US President who is barely giving lip service to the Cuban protestors and who is doing nothing as the Cuban regime clamps down on dissent.

Despite Biden’s open-door policy for migrants to the US from Central America and Mexico, migrants known for supporting Democrats and socialism according to some, the New York Post reported his DHS has issued warnings to Cubans and Haitians not to come to the US.

According to The Post:

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had a stern warning Tuesday for Cubans and Haitians thinking of escaping the ongoing unrest in both countries by sailing to the US: Don’t even think about it.

“The time is never right to attempt migration by sea,” Mayorkas said during a news conference. “To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking. Allow me to be clear: If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.”

In other words, “if your community isn’t reliably supportive of Democrats, you aren’t welcome in America.”

Famed chess champion Garry Kasparov, generally a supporter of Democrats and the current President, was not amused with the Administration’s response.

“Bad news for the Biden admin when I agree with Rubio & Cruz!” he posted on Twitter. “The people of Cuba deserve vocal support from a US government that isn’t worried about offending its Socialist members by speaking for freedom.”

The Democrats’ collective penchant toward totalitarianism, witness their overblown histrionics about the January 6th riots at the Capitol, which they use to label all legitimate dissent as sedition, is welle established. Their brand of woke communism through a cancel America crusade is still not waking Americans up to this quisling threat to their very national existence as a free country.

At the same time, Florida’s governor DeSantis is vocal in supporting the Cuban community but the recent law passed to make it a felony to shut down roadways and to not prosecute drivers who push through crowds rather than be surrounded and attacked, could be used against these protestors. No arrests were reported and no incidents took place. But the irony this kneejerk law in response to BLM riots may be used against a group favored by the governor wasn’t lost on anyone.

The Biden response to the Cuban protests exposes a bedeviling problem for Democrats in Florida and among Hispanics, who generally oppose actual forms of communism, including modern woke communism, and the divisive social issues/cancel culture extremism that controls that Party.

According to an opinion piece in the Hill, “Biden won Miami-Dade County by just 7 percent, compared to Hillary Clinton’s 30 percent margin in 2016, a decline that put Florida’s electoral votes well out of reach. Democrats also lost two House seats that they thought were safe. Trump won more than 60 percent of the Cuban American vote – the most since Bush in 2000.”

Biden’s current inaction on Cuba may be an admission that the Democrats have essentially given up on Florida for the foreseeable future. If Democrats don’t think this seals their brand as pro-communist, then someone needs to wake them from their wokeness and show them reality.

While it isn’t America’s job or responsibility to free the Cuban people, it is within our rights and interests to more robust support them and to demand the Cuban regime refrain from further abuses or face real action, including potentially arming the dissenters.

Is The Post Office Waging An Online War On The Right?

Bill Collier July 13, 2021

The political weaponization of every institution they can get their hands on is the playbook of the woke communist core who run the Democratic Party and it appears, according to this report in REASON, that the woke communists have captured the United States Post Office for their political ends.

The report details an ongoing use clones, fake people posing as real people, hacking, and facial recognition software to focus on “the right”, especially on platforms they might frequent to both monitor and disrupt their activities. Literally, if this report is true, the Post Office is acting as a paramilitary cadre to the Democratic Party to disrupt their political foes.

It seems a sensational claim and we would caution more evidence and investigation is required, certainly by Republicans who are the alleged target of this rogue effort, if indeed all this is accurate reporting.

If indeed it turns out the Post Office, a private entity chartered by the government, is acting as an agent of the Democratic Party to not only spy on Americans but to target and disrupt opponents of the Democratic Party, then this would be sedition and rebellion against these United States by virtue of the gross assault upon the Bill of Rights liberties that are being violated.

Reputationally, the Post Office, having allegedly aligned itself with only Democrats as their special institution, would lose massively and if or when Republicans gained power again serious efforts to dismantle such a rogue entity would likely be considered.

The Post Office has some explaining to do and if anyone was using its resources to violate the rights of any American, those people should be tried and, of found guilty, sent to jail for treason.

South Africa Is Not Collapsing Despite Violent Looting In Two Provinces

Bill Collier July 13, 2021

In a rambling speech, President Ramaphosa sought to calm the situation as looters raged throughout numerous locales in an apparent protest against the jailing of fomer President Zuma. While the looting is a serious problem, causing the call-out of the Army and a meeting of all political party heads to develop a unified repsonse, the sensational headlines that claim South Africa is collapsing are inaccurate.

South Africa is in crisis, and all such crises CAN lead to an unraveling, but the forces of civil unity appear to have the upper hand overall, at least for now. Troops have been called out in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, with the latter being Zuma’s homeland. But the looters can hardly be said to be legitimately “protesting” and many doubt this is more than an opportunistic event than an actual public outpouring of support for the former President.

Perhaps real blame lies with Economic Freedom Fighters Party head Julius Malema, a fireband radical neocommunist agitator who has threatened genocide against whites and the rich. Malema’s party has promised to “join” the looters if the Army was called out of barracks. The EFF have been working hard to destabilize South Africa and conduct their own revolution which would plunge the country into race war, not just whites against blacks, but all the racial identifies with one another, and the rich against the poor.

While it is too soon to see if the looters themselves were organized, as it is alleged, by payments from EFF backers to key agitators, it is certainly something that authorities will have to investigate.

Former President Jacob Zuma on 29 June 2021 became the first South African president since the end of white-minority rule in 1994 to receive a prison sentence. South Africa’s Constitutional Court issued a 15-month sentence for contempt of court after Zuma defied an earlier court order to return and testify before the Zondo Commission.

On 7 July 2021, Zuma handed himself over to the police and was admitted to the Estcourt Correctional Centre in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Zuma still has his backers, and some say this current dustup is really an internal power srruggle, but the former President was widely believed to be corrupt during his almost 9 years as President, from 2009 to 2018.

President Ramaphosa’s speech, in which he urged calm, was widely panned but all parties save the EFF agreed to back his present measures and to do their part to calm their supporters. But with the army deployed, the looting continued.

KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala told the press on Tuesday morning, “Yesterday’s events brought a lot of sadness. The number of people who have died in KwaZulu-Natal alone stands at 26. Many of them died from being trampled on during a stampede while people were looting items.”

The total death toll stands at 32.

The looting and violence are mostly limited to Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

“What we are witnessing now are opportunistic acts of criminality, with groups of people instigating chaos merely as a cover for looting and theft,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a late-evening address on Monday.

Looting is bad, and it could get worse, it may be insitgated by the EFF and/or the Zuma wing of the ANC, as he challenges his sentencing, but South Africa isn’t “collapsing” and most of its people are standing against the madness.

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