Probiotic Grace before meals

"Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?" the King asked.
"At supper."
"At supper? Where?"
"Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A banqueting party of shrewd worms are dining with him as we speak. The worm has a regal appetite. We fatten the animals to fatten ourselves and we fatten maggots. Your fat king and your skinny beggar seem like two very different dishes, but they end up on the same table. That's the end." 

Hamlet, Act Four, Scene 3

At my first post-retirement job someone came across the word probiotic and asked me what it meant. I dug around in my memory, noticed a couple of scientific names nearby, and recalled it was the opposite of antibiotic. In the same way that antibiotics kill off populations of bacteria that make us sick, they also destroy in their indiscriminate task whole populations of "good" microbes that keep our bodies working smoothly.

Here is a prayer before meals giving thanks for their good work.

Bless me, O Lord, and these your gifts, your emissaries: bacillus, yeast, and virus, protozoa and metazoa — all who receive me as their gift. I thank you for this, our Holy Commensalism. 

Blessed art thou, oh Mothers and Fathers among you, both ecto and endo. I thank you for your hungers and for this beautiful day. Thank you for not leaving me to waste and to rot, for paring away the dead and excessive, for cleansing away the discarded and decayed, for working amongst yourselves toward the kingdom of my immunity. Thank you for your hungers, for your impeccable work. That which does not destroy me, indeed makes me endure. Take of this, my body, feast and be sheltered. 

Thank you oh my many phagocytes, my hungry warriors of the blood, keen-nosed Neutrophlis, mighty Eosinohil, and the sturdy T-cell. Thank you for your vigilance, your unflagging courage, for keeping our enemies at bay. 

Thank you, oh legion of predacious microbes both aerobic and anaerobic, for sharing your feast with me, for living in balance within and upon me, never being greedy. As you will someday convert me to the soil, as you will someday ferry my cells across the dark waters, I celebrate each day of our mutual existence, and thank you for another day without constipation. 

Entero, Staphylo, and Strepto.
Oh my Coccuses, I celebrate you! 

Bacillus and bacterium all: Lacto, Bifido, Propion, Cornye, and Fus, I celebrate you!
Citro & Enterobacter, Shigella, Klebsiella, Neisseria, I celebrate you! 

Hemophilus, Proteus, Treponema and the mighty Diptheroids, I praise you!
Clostridium, Pityrosporum, Pseudomonas and Trichomonas, I praise you! 

Ever ubiquitous Candida, and the esteemed E-coli, thank you time and again for your blessings. I celebrate you! 

Thank you, tooth amoebae, that my gums are scrubbed by your cytoplasm.
Thank you, Demodex Folliculorum, that my eyelashes are groomed by your mandibles. 

And lastly, oh abundant dust mite, thank you that my excess dander is raked by your forelegs, consumed by the diligence of your prodigious appetite. 

Givers of life, thank you for choosing me to be the fruit of much hard work. We each hunger to live another second, to eat and to become food. May I join you someday to feast at another table. Until then, in the name of the compassionate and beneficent and omnivorous God, I offer my flesh with love and gratitude. 

Amen

Florence Owens Thompson (1903-1983)

Migrant Mother, taken by

Dorothea Lange in 1936

One of the most iconic images of the Great Depression is a photo by Dorothea Lange tagged simply "Migrant Mother". The backstory was mentioned by Garrison Keillor in this morning's Writer's Almanac since May 26 is Dorothea Lange's birthday (1895). His narrative is often more interesting than his notes and his telling of this famous photograph is especially good. The Wikipedia link is quite moving.

Her name is Florence Owens Thompson.

Florence Owens Thompson was born Florence Leona Christie on September 1, 1903, in Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. Both her parents were of Cherokee descent. Her father, Jackson Christie, had abandoned her mother, Mary Jane Cobb, before Florence was born, and her mother remarried Charles Akman in the spring of 1905. The family lived on a small farm in Indian Territory outside of Tahlequah.

Seventeen-year-old Florence married Cleo Owens, a 23-year-old farmer's son from Stone County, Missouri, on February 14, 1921. They soon had their first daughter, Violet, followed by a second daughter, Viola, and a son, Leroy (Troy). The family migrated west with other Owens relatives to Oroville, California, where they worked in the saw mills and on the farms of the Sacramento Valley. By 1931, Florence was pregnant with her sixth child when her husband Cleo died of tuberculosis. Florence then worked in the fields and in restaurants to support her six children. In 1933 Florence had another child, returned to Oklahoma for a time, and then was joined by her parents as they migrated to Shafter, California, north of Bakersfield. There Florence met Jim Hill, with whom she had three more children. During the 1930s the family worked as migrant farm workers following the crops in California and at times into Arizona. Florence later recalled periods when she picked 400–500 pounds (180–230 kg) of cotton from first daylight until after it was too dark to work. She said: "I worked in hospitals. I tended bar. I cooked. I worked in the fields. I done a little bit of everything to make a living for my kids."

(The family settled in Modesto, California, in 1945. Well after World War II, Florence met and married hospital administrator George Thompson. This marriage brought her far greater financial security than she had previously enjoyed.)

On March 6, 1936, after picking beets in the Imperial Valley, Florence and her family were traveling on U.S. Highway 101 towards Watsonville "where they had hoped to find work in the lettuce fields of the Pajaro Valley." On the road, the car's timing chain snapped and they coasted to a stop just inside a pea-pickers' camp on Nipomo Mesa. They were shocked to find so many people camping there—as many as 2,500 to 3,500. A notice had been sent out for pickers, but the crops had been destroyed by freezing rain, leaving them without work or pay. Years later Florence told an interviewer that when she cooked food for her children that day, other children appeared from the pea pickers' camp asking, "Can I have a bite?"

While Jim Hill, her partner, and two of Florence's sons went into town to get parts to repair the car, Florence and some of the children set up a temporary camp. As Florence waited, photographer Dorothea Lange, working for the Resettlement Administration, drove up and started taking photos of Florence and her family. She took seven images in the course of ten minutes. Lange's field notes for the Resettlement Administration were typically very thorough, but on this particular day she had been rushing to get home after a month on assignment, and the notes she submitted with this batch of negatives do not refer to any of the seven photographs she took of Thompson and her family. It seems that the published newspaper reports about this camp were later distilled into captions for the series, which explains inaccuracies on the file cards in the Library of Congress.

For example, one of the file cards reads:

Destitute peapickers in California; a 32 year old mother of seven children. February [sic: March] 1936.

Twenty-three years later, Lange wrote of the encounter with Thompson:

I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was 32. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food.

Troy Owens, one of Thompson's sons, recounted:

There's no way we sold our tires, because we didn't have any to sell. The only ones we had were on the Hudson and we drove off in them. I don't believe Dorothea Lange was lying, I just think she had one story mixed up with another. Or she was borrowing to fill in what she didn't have.

In many ways, Migrant Mother is not typical of Lange's careful method of interacting with her subject. Exhausted after a long road-trip, she did not speak extensively to the migrant woman, Florence Thompson, and may not have recorded any notes.

According to Thompson, Lange promised the photos would never be published. Lange did send them to the San Francisco News even before sending them to the Resettlement Administration in Washington, D.C. The News ran the pictures almost immediately and reported that 2,500 to 3,500 migrant workers were starving in Nipomo, California. Within days, the pea-picker camp received 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) of food from the federal government. Thompson and her family had moved on by the time the food arrived and were working near Watsonville, California.

While Thompson's identity was not known for over 40 years after the photos were taken, the images became famous. The image which later became known as Migrant Mother, "achieved near mythical status, symbolizing, if not defining, an entire era in United States history." Roy Stryker called Migrant Mother the "ultimate" photo of the Depression Era: "[Lange] never surpassed it. To me, it was the picture ... . The others were marvelous, but that was special ... . She is immortal." As a whole, the photographs taken for the Resettlement Administration "have been widely heralded as the epitome of documentary photography." Edward Steichen described them as "the most remarkable human documents ever rendered in pictures."

Thompson's identity was discovered in the late 1970s. In 1978, acting on a tip, Modesto Bee reporter Emmett Corrigan located Thompson at her mobile home in Space 24 of the Modesto Mobile Village and recognized her from the 42-year-old photograph. Florence was quoted as saying "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did." As Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, the image was public domain and Lange was not entitled to royalties. However, the picture did help make Lange a celebrity and earned her "respect from her colleagues."

While the image was being prepared for exhibit in 1938, the negative of the photo was retouched to remove Florence's thumb from the lower-right corner of the image.

George Washington, herd immunity & vaccination

This is a Facebook post backup for future reference.

Garrison Keillor notes that on this day, May 14, 1796, Dr. Edward Jenner inoculated an eight-year-old boy with a vaccine for smallpox, the first safe vaccine ever developed. Jenner inserted pus taken from a cowpox pustule and inserted it into an incision on the boy's arm. He was testing his theory, drawn from the folklore of the countryside, that milkmaids who suffered the mild disease of cowpox never contracted smallpox, one of the greatest killers of the period, particularly among children.

What made it so remarkable was that Jenner accomplished this before the causes of disease were even understood. It would be decades before anyone even knew about the existence of germs. Jenner submitted a paper about his new procedure to the prestigious Royal Society of London, but it was rejected. The president of the Society told Jenner that it was a mistake to risk his reputation by publishing something so controversial.

This reminded me of the account of George Washington's vaccination of the Continental Army some time prior to that in order to give them a strategic advantage against the British army at a time when smallpox was a raging disease. As a smallpox survivor himself, Washington actually broke the law to use what was then called variolation. At the time, variolation was technically outlawed by the Continental Congress, so Washington was openly flouting the law.

The following link has the story.

How George Washington Used Vaccines to Help Win the Revolutionary War

By Ross Pomeroy

September 25, 2016

THE UNITED STATES' victory over the British Empire in the Revolutionary War is our country's quintessential tale of David overcoming Goliath. Birthed as an underdog, we embrace that mindset still.

Winning independence was not an easy task. It was a success that hinged on pivotal moments. The Continental Army's narrow escape across the Delaware River, the British surrender at Saratoga, and foreign intervention from Spain and France are a few of those moments. But lesser known is George Washington's bold decision to vaccinate the entire Continental Army against smallpox. It was the first mass inoculation in military history, and was vital to ensuring an American victory in the War of Independence.

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S first brush with smallpox came long before he was a military commander. At the age of nineteen, he was infected with the disease while traveling in Barbados with his brother. For twenty-six days, Washington battled headache, chills, backache, high fever, and vomiting. He developed the horrific rash and pungent pustules that are the hallmarks of smallpox. At times, his brother wasn't sure he'd make it. In those days, smallpox mortality rates ranged from 15 to 50 percent.

Washington did not succumb, but the infection left him permanently pocked for life. The scars granted Washington the grizzled look that would later contribute to his image as a leader. They also served as a constant reminder of the danger of smallpox.

As a result, the disease was never far from Washington's mind after he took command of the Continental Army in summer 1775. Making the matter all the more prescient was the fact that a smallpox epidemic was just beginning to crop up. It would rage for seven more years in the nascent United States, eventually reaching the Pacific. Tens of thousands would die.

Over the ensuing months after taking command, Washington witnessed the great burden of disease upon his men. None was worse than smallpox. As a result, Washington went to great lengths to minimize its spread, particularly during the nine-month siege of Boston in 1775 and 1776. At the time, the city was reeling from the epidemic.

"Washington restricted camp access, checked refugees, and isolated his troops from contagion to avoid the spread of the disease," historian Ann Becker wrote in 2005.

In an even clearer example, when Washington ordered one of his generals to take the heights outside the city in March 1776, he specified that every single one of the thousand soldiers in the attacking force must have already survived smallpox, and thus have immunity.

Washington's cautious approach to smallpox absolutely helped keep his army healthy and functional. To the north, however, American patriots experienced what happens when smallpox is left to run amok.

AN OFT-FORGOTTEN fact: during the Revolutionary War, American forces invaded Canada. Their aims were to drive British troops from Quebec and even convince Quebec's citizens to bring their province into the American colonies. The effort, however, met with miserable disaster, which is perhaps why it doesn't cling to public remembrance. The chief reason for the defeat? Smallpox.

Approximately ten thousand American troops marched on Canada in fall of 1775, and at one point, nearly three thousand of them were sick. Brutally handicapped, the invasion never stood a chance. Officers fell victim, too. Major General John Thomas died of smallpox during the retreat the following spring.

"By spring [of 1776] the condition of the American soldiers in Canada had deteriorated severely due to continuous outbreaks of smallpox... Approximately half of the soldiers were ill. The majority of the new recruits were not immune to the disease, and reinforcements sent to Canada sickened quickly." Becker recounted. "Contemporary evidence is overwhelming: smallpox destroyed the Northern Army and all hope of persuading the Canadians to join the Revolution."

"Our misfortunes in Canada are enough to melt a heart of stone," John Adams wrote in June 1776. "The small-pox is ten times more terrible than Britons, Canadians, and Indians together."

FULLY AWARE of the disaster in the north, George Washington realized that merely evading smallpox would no longer suffice; he wanted to prevent it altogether. Inoculation was already available, although the procedure -- called variolation -- was not without risks. The vaccines we're accustomed to today were not invented yet, so doctors would simply make a small incision in the patient's arm then introduce pus from the pustules of an infected victim into the wound. Variolation often resulted in a minor smallpox infection with a speedier recovery and vastly lower fatality rates, around two percent. Survivors were granted lifelong immunity.

At first, Washington simply required new recruits to be inoculated. Then, in February 1777, he bit the bullet entirely.

Finding the smallpox to be spreading much and fearing that no precaution can prevent it from running thro' the whole of our Army, I have determined that the Troops shall be inoculated. This Expedient may be attended with some inconveniences and some disadvantages, but yet I trust, in its consequences will have the most happy effects.

This was a bold move. At the time, variolation was technically outlawed by the Continental Congress, so Washington was openly flouting the law. Whole divisions were inoculated and quarantined en masse, a process that would continue for months. Strict secrecy was maintained to prevent the British from uncovering the program, lest they launch an attack upon the recovering troops. By year's end, 40,000 soldiers were immunized.

The results were stunning. The smallpox infection rate in the Continental Army rapidly fell from 17 percent to one percent, prompting the Continental Congress to legalize variolation across the states.

With the threat of smallpox vanquished, George Washington and the Continental Army were able to entirely focus on the real enemy: the British. As Becker summed up:

Due in large part to [Washington's] perseverance and dedication to controlling smallpox, the Continental Army was able to survive and develop into an effective and reliable fighting force, unhampered by recurring epidemics of that disease.

President Trump and the Cult of the Shining City

Yet another thread explaining the backstory of the Donald Trump phenomenon.

Reviewing white terrorism, apocalyptic evangelicalism and the pandemic

This informative thread by Jared Yates Sexton is a rich review of the white terrorist movement, apocalyptic evangelicalism and NRA/GOP propaganda fuel a poisonous sector of American politics, and how they see Trump and the pandemic as their chance to overthrow America.

 

Starvation in the name of Capitalism

Noah Smith's twitter thread starts with this:
"OK, just for fun, let's talk about capitalism starving millions of people to death!"

Are face masks for safety or symbolism?

Trump hosted nearly 20 House Republicans at the White House for more than an hour to talk about the coronavirus -- and not one of them wore a mask or stayed apart. We should know in a few days what that might mean.

Expert Opinions about COVID-19

This thread by Noah Smith is the richest collection of expert opinion re COVID-19 I have come across.

Who are the Doomers?

Noah Smith brought this thread to the attention of those who follow his Twitter account. 

~~~~

I’m a small account so I don’t know who will read this, but here’s a @noahpinion-style thread on the documentary TFW NO GF. I’ll be referring to the community of 20-something men it covers as doomers.

Born from the internet, the phrase "TFW NO GF" was originally used online to describe a lack of romantic companionship. Since then, it has evolved to symbolize a greater state of existence defined by isolation, rejection and alienation. The meme's protagonist, "WOJAK," has become the mascot to a vast online community consisting of self-described "hyper-anonymous twenty somethings" and "guys who slipped between the cracks." TFW NO GF asks: How has the zeitgeist come to bear down on a generation alienated by the 'real world'? Meet the lost boys who came of age on the internet- places like 4chan and Twitter, where they find camaraderie in despair.

There was a lot the documentary did right with covering (in a fair light) the struggles of 20-somethings in despair — especially related to their behavior online, their feelings of despair, and their place in society.

But to get a minor criticism out of the the way, there were a couple bits that might’ve communicated partisan messaging unclearly, such as a pro-Trump doomer ranting about Trump raising a sunken city or flashing a Texan doomer’s Confederate flag ring. 

There were also Tucker Carlson saying “something ominous is happening to men” and Trump talking about hardships of young men today. Both of these are in different contexts (changing gender dynamics) from the topics of the doc, but again, a minor issue.

Trump: "Somebody could accuse you of something and you're automatically guilty."

A main point, though, was that for people who are struggling in life, online communities have provided havens for them. “I realized there was other people who were going through the same shit and not really knowing what to do with their lives…” said one doomer in the doc.

With younger adults now growing up on the internet, places such as 4chan or Twitter may only grow in importance for people’s developmental years and we should be wary of this.

As two doomers said, “I wouldn’t necessarily say that I prefer the internet over anything else. It’s just that’s where I felt most was offered to me”. “People will compare and say ‘stuff online vs stuff in real life'. It is real life you can’t really decouple the two anymore.”

For disaffected NEETS (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), the internet is a haven from their real despair. It’s part of why 4chan can be so toxic. “People will call you a f***** and then they’ll join in” when you post about your dead-end life. It’s how they cope.

The doc conveyed how much of what people see as serious tweets from “toxic incels” (one of them had a gf) are from doomers being committed to “the bit” of being edgy/misogynistic/bigoted. But as one pointed out, it can be very unclear where the bit ends and seriousness begins.

With this very vulnerable population, that is when there’s a large threat that these doomers can become radicalized… poisoned on their own irony. This combination of placing desperate blackpilled people with others who have taken up extreme ideologies is dangerous.

This is how radicalization can happen, by taking people who feel marginalized/displaced and feeding them radical values. What the documentary did well, though, was making people understand how much of their behavior was a byproduct of their dejection.

This tweet was featured in the doc. Some believe this is what’s turning people to the alt-right, which one doomer pointed out as counterproductive. He argued that our neglected education system and importance of healthy childhoods is more to blame.

Do you have white teenage sons?

Listen up.

I've been watching my boys' online behavior & noticed that social media and vloggers are actively laying groundwork in white teens to turn them into alt-right/white supremacists.

Here's how:

— joanna schroeder (@iproposethis) August 13, 2019

Much of the struggles that doomers face can be rooted in loneliness. It’s epidemic that has hit them hard. There’s visceral emotional pain that’s often hidden from public even though it is a public health problem — and younger people are the loneliest.

Being a NEET, as doomers often are, exacerbates their struggles. Being a lower income person with no social life or community is connected to loneliness isolation.

“I’m tired of just wallowing with a bunch of other miserable guys. What’s the point? There’s no point. You can either try to get your shit together or you’ll die…. It seems like people before had it better, they had more to work for”, was how one doomer described his life.

A consistent issue among doomers is their lack of relationship success. Many have never had a gf. But they’re not looking for just hookups. “It’s less that not having a girlfriend, it’s more like just being alienated from everyone else in general, not being close to anybody.”

The struggle to be in intimate relationships is also a greater trend. Young people aren’t getting in relationships as much, even though they likely still want to be in them just as much as before.

These struggles with loneliness/relationships are important to pay attention to now, because cultivating emotional wellbeing is like working muscles — being perpetually isolated makes it more difficult later, especially as people in your age group progress with their lives.

“When you’re a man it’s like you just blend in. some days the only people who will talk you is a cashier. A lot of incels feel like they could just go along forever with their lives and nobody will notice them, they feel completely abandoned.” They live with hopelessness.

Doomers often feel personally hopeless, fallen between the cracks of society. “It’s a full-time job to fight the effects of modernity and atrophy. We live in the most wealthy country in the world, in the most powerful country in the world. But you wouldn’t know it.”

You can see their sentiment echoed in data on young people’s fortunes. They’re not buying homes. They have a lower share of the wealth as previous generations did at their age. They’re facing poor health at a younger age.

Many doomers never graduate college, while young adults without college degrees are falling the furthest behind. They have lower incomes, often live with parents, and aren’t in the position to develop long-term relationships.

This sums up how they feel: ”You’re trying to desperately reach out to different people online to try to form connections that you’re not able to form in the real world, because by all possible measures you’re a failure, you’re a loser, and embarrassed about yourself..."

But many leaders and policy makers don’t seem to understand how multi-faceted their issues are. There's also a general lack of consideration for the impacts our economic policies have on communal wellbeing. We have severely neglected the health of our communal institutions.

There is a coming crisis with our institutions at ever level, from politics to spirituality to social connections. “Graph goes up” can be generally true, but we shouldn’t ignore the parts of life that are hard to quantify such as happiness and fulfillment.

It’s interesting how doomers might have realized this before policy makers. "They’re the ones who are preparing for the demise of these institutions, which we know are no longer supporting the synthesis or unity of our society as a whole." 

What’s frustrating, though, is how this has been talked about by some people for decades. But it often feels like we are either ignoring the consequences of social decay or are shifting responsibility onto individuals to address it. muse.jhu.edu/article/16643

Doomers are a byproduct of our current system, and many are developing coping mechanisms to deal with the realization that institutional decay can stunt their potential. Some are unhealthy, but they’re also making efforts to be supportive of each other in positive ways.

But, especially if you’ve watched the documentary, I don’t think you want a society of doomers. It is very depressing and dystopian. What’s worrisome, though, is that we’re seeing a spike in suicide rates among teens, an indicator of things to come.

The growing group of desperate souls hurts everyone. Either more will fall through cracks as communities splinter, or we can rebuild institutions to be more inclusive/supportive. We need more research, but I really think the future wellbeing of the US depends on it.

(end)

COVID-19 Warnings

For future reference here are a few links citing warnings about pandemics generally and Corona variants specifically. This easy to find information is being drowned out by a surge of distractions swirling about by the Trump administration.

Obama warned Americans about preparing for a global pandemic back in 2014 pic.twitter.com/y5POSneuvg

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 8, 2020

The Obama administration prepared and left behind a detailed plan of action for future threats. It is actually called a Playbook of what to expect and how best to react.

This was tossed aside by the incoming administration as part of a pro-active effort to "drain the swamp" and defeat the so-called "deep state".

This Politico link published the story:

The Trump administration, state officials and even individual hospital workers are now racing against each other to get the necessary masks, gloves and other safety equipment to fight coronavirus — a scramble that hospitals and doctors say has come too late and left them at risk. But according to a previously unrevealed White House playbook, the government should’ve begun a federal-wide effort to procure that personal protective equipment at least two months ago. 

“Is there sufficient personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical care?” the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials should address when facing a potential pandemic. “If YES: What are the triggers to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO: Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?” 

The strategies are among hundreds of tactics and key policy decisions laid out in a 69-page National Security Council playbook on fighting pandemics, which POLITICO is detailing for the first time. Other recommendations include that the government move swiftly to fully detect potential outbreaks, secure supplemental funding and consider invoking the Defense Production Act — all steps in which the Trump administration lagged behind the timeline laid out in the playbook. 

“Each section of this playbook includes specific questions that should be asked and decisions that should be made at multiple levels” within the national security apparatus, the playbook urges, repeatedly advising officials to question the numbers on viral spread, ensure appropriate diagnostic capacity and check on the U.S. stockpile of emergency resources.

NPR noted the creation of a number of stockpiles of supplies in preparation for future pandemic threats.

President Bush warned about pandemics as early as 2005.
The arrival of a new strain of Corona virus is not a big surprise to those who have been paying attention.
But all these warnings were tossed aside when Donald Trump came into office.

While I'm at it, here's a sample of what is being done as of this posting regarding the coming of summer and opening the crippled economy.

Syria Snapshot via Josh Landis

Landis is the dean of all things Syrian. His latest Twitter thread indicates the Assad regime is at an inflection point. This collection of threads and links is part of the picture.

Thread by Landis...

The Rami Makhlouf affair: Fine thread by Asser Khattab setting out quotes from the highly staged plea from the Mr. 10% of Syria. Rami's slowly progressing alienation from cousin Bashar al-Assad, seems to be reaching an inflection point.
We have seen this before: Rifaat al-Assad

Rami Makhlouf, Bashar al-Assad's cousin and Syria's richest businessman, complained in a very rare live video about his "suffering". Addressing Assad, he said: "I will not embarrass you ... when I saw that I was a burden on you, I gave up my businesses..."
"Mr President ... send whoever you want to validate the documents. But I swear to God, I'm fed up with the existing cadre, who are always accusing me, always framing me as the one who is in the wrong, as the bad one," Makhlouf continued.
In the video, titled "be with God and do not care about anything else" Makhlouf repeatedly implored the president, his cousin, not to let his company, Syriatel, collapse, due to the huge sums of money he alleges that he is being asked to pay.
"Has Syriatel, for example, not been committed to paying its due taxes? Not at all! Has it failed to pay its dues to the treasury through the sharing of revenues that we do with the state ... which constitutes around 50% of revenue. If we get one lira, the state gets one lira."
"So what is the state asking from us today? And are they being reasonable? Of course not. Because they are going to contracts that were completed with the approval of both parties and no one has the right to change that ... we have the right to sue them, of course," Makhlouf said
Makhlouf: "Let's say that I am paying our employees 10 million liras, for example, he [someone from the state] is supposing that I should pay 5 million. Brother! I have 5000-5300 employees in this company, for example, they need their salaries, they have their expenses!"
"Am I not paying the salary of so-and-so and so-and-so, and paying such expenses, those ar real expenses, I swear! They are not fake. Examine them if you want. This is one of our issues," an agitated Makhlouf said.
Makhlouf said that he is paying around 10 billion liras each year in taxes. "Last year we paid 12 billions ... I implore you, people, we're not evading taxes, we are not manipulating the state and the country, because you are our people, does anybody steal from himself?"
"Those companies serve you [the people], and not me. I'm merely a small and simple part of this. I'm managing this work today, and this is a great honour that god has bestowed on me," said Makhlouf. "Mr President, I beg you, this is the truth."
This is Rami Makhlouf saying he's given up his businesses and turned to charity in 2011, a moment he made sure to remind Assad of in his video today. The words did not flow out of his mouth as seamlessly then as they did today. I wonder why.
"Why is it that when the giving increases, indignation increases too?" Rami Makhlouf wondered in a Facebook post a couple of days ago. He said that he had been threatened that all his businesses will be shut down.
Rami Makhlouf said "please" to his cousin Bashar al-Assad 13 times during the 15:25-minute-long video. He said that if this money must be taken away from him, then it should go to the poor, and that Assad must supervise it personally, because he doesn't trust anyone anymore.

BEIRUT (AP) — A cousin who has been a bulwark of support for President Bashar Assad posted a video on Facebook late Thursday pleading with the Syrian leader to prevent the collapse of his major telecommunication company through what he called excessive and “unjust” taxation.

The unprecedented video pries open what has been rumored as a major rift in the tight-knit Assad family, which has ruled Syria for nearly 50 years.

Rami Makhlouf, cousin of Assad and one of
the country's wealthiest businessmen.
File photo, 2010

Disputes and intrigue are not new to the family, including feuds and defections within its inner circle, particularly in the course of the country’s nine-year war. But the public airing of grievances is extremely rare, perhaps a reflection of the multitude of players vying for influence in the fractured country.

The cousin, Rami Makhlouf, was once described as central to Syria’s economy and a partner to the president. His video, posted on a new Facebook page, seems to be a running public diary of the widening rift — and the fall from grace of a once-powerful tycoon.

Media reports by pro and anti-government sites suggested a campaign was being pursued against Makhlouf, possibly at the behest of Russia, a powerful patron of Assad that sought to undermine an influential businessman. Russian media reports in recent weeks have published criticism of corruption in Syria.

Others view the rift through the lens of the Assad family.

“The dispute is between Makhlouf and Bashar’s wife, Asma Assad, over who controls the economy,” said a former Syrian diplomat, Bassam Barabandi, who defected in 2012.

Barabandi said Makhlouf’s financial holdings and charities have played a central role during the war in financing and ensuring patronage, particularly among Syria’s minority Alawite community — from which Assad hails.

Assad’s wife has her own charity and has built herself a major public role.

Others researching Syria’s complex business networks say the rivalry is with Assad’s younger brother, Maher, an army general who also has expansive financial dealings and ties with Iran.

Makhlouf, who is four years younger than the 54-year-old Assad, had declared that he was stepping aside from business to focus on charity work in 2011, at the start of Syria’s conflict. But he remained associated with the government. For the opposition, he has been the face of government hard-liners and the decision to crack down on dissent.

The European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions on Makhlouf for his role in supporting Assad’s regime.

In his 15-minute video, Makhlouf denied allegations that he evaded paying taxes for one of his largest business ventures, Syriatel, the biggest telecommunication company in the country. Syriatel has 11 million subscribers, with 50% of revenues going to the state.

“By God we are not evading tax or cheating the country and the state,” Makhlouf said. “How can someone steal from his own family?”

Makhlouf complains about a campaign pursued by people he doesn’t name who he says always paint him “as the one who has done wrong, who is bad.”

At times he pleads, halts and repeats himself. And in an indication Makhlouf has no access to Assad, he addresses the leader: “Mr. President, I implore you, this is the truth.”

“Here I want to address the president, to explain to him the circumstances of what is happening, to explain to him some of the sufferings that we are going through,” Makhlouf said, remarks that could be considered tone-deaf in a country where nearly 80% of the people are poor.

A Western diplomat who follows Syria, and who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the video reflects a deepening family feud in which Makhlouf has been pushed out after “he overplayed his hand.”

Reports first surfaced last year of troubled relations as news of a government campaign against Makhlouf and his businesses began to trickle out. Initial reports said he was under house arrest, and then a series of stories appeared about him being fined and having his holdings confiscated.

Last month, a shipment of dairy products from one of Makhlouf’s businesses was confiscated in Egypt, reportedly with drugs hidden in the cargo. On his Facebook page, Makhlouf called the incident a set-up aimed at “defaming” him.

Then, in late April, Makhlouf was told to pay the equivalent of $180 million purportedly owed to the government by his telecom companies, according to The Syria Report, which follows the country’s economy. That claim appeared to be the trigger for Thursday’s video.

In response to Makhlouf’s video, the claiming authority said the money was for overdue operational costs since 2015 and urged him to reach a restructuring deal. Tax evasion, the statement said, is handled by another body— indicating more is yet to come.

At the end of the video, Makhlouf says he will pay what he is asked but calls on Assad to oversee how it is spent.

Barabandi said Makhlouf appeared to be trying to remind Assad that he still holds some influence. “In other words, if you lose me you lose the Alawite community,” the former diplomat said.

“This is something unheard of before, for someone (from the family) to speak out in this manner publicly.”
___
Associated Press writer Zeina Karam contributed to this report.

Landis continues...

Rami has two trump cards, which may save him yet. He is family & he controls a vast array of Syrian businesses. The Makhlouf family is important. They are know to be more refined than the Assad side, even if Rami depended on coercion & thuggery to acquire his vast wealth.
His businesses, particularly Syriatel, is important to Syria's economy. When Rami threatens that thousands of Syrians dependent on him, he is right. A messy fight over control of his companies will hurt many at a time when Syria's economy is in shambles.
It is too early to count #ramimakhlouf out. We saw how Hafiz allowed Rifaat back from exile in an attempt to keep him close, even as he clipped his wings. I imagine that Bashar will do everything he can not to allow a complete break with Rami & the Makhlouf side of the family.