Sunday Roundup December 28, 2014 - Closing Time

"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

- A.J. Muste

This is the last post at The Left Bank Café.  For those of you who've stopped by over the years, thank you.

I started this blog in November 2010 - outraged at the distortions of truth and at the right-wing propaganda that led to the Republican victories that year. Since the blog's inception, I've tried to separate fiction from fact in the events of the day and, from time to time, to share my thoughts and passions on non-political topics.

Three hundred posts and four years later, it's now closing time at The Left Bank Café.  

Here are some thoughts, inspirations and sentiments that have informed this blog.

The universe is a wondrous, vast place.  The Earth is home to the only known intelligent life in that universe.  This is an awesome responsibility.  As the Native American proverb has it: "Treat the earth well.  It was not given to you by your parents.  It was loaned to you by your children."

The peoples of the world are our brothers and sisters.  The children of the world are our children.  Let's always remember that.  "I wonder how foreign policies would look if we thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children." - Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

Government has a responsibility to develop just policies and provide for the common good. Given the complexity and scale of today's issues, government plays a vital and necessary role. To say that the richest nation on Earth cannot afford the common good, that it cannot provide for the vulnerable in our society, is a lie.

Racism, militarism, and all forms of oppression must be protested and resisted at every turn. Pacifist and activist A.J. Muste spoke of a "revolutionary pacifism" that confronts the injustice that lays at the heart of wars: "We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life."  A pacifist, Muste was, of course, speaking figuratively.  Without justice, there is no true peace.  We must address, resist, and correct the causes of injustice built into the system.

Violence and force of arms are the easy but soul-damaging means to achieve certain ends. Diplomacy is more difficult but, in the end, produces more lasting and more satisfying results.

The distorted "exceptionalism" that places our nation above international law and in violation of our own democratic principles is a repudiation of our values. Our country, if it chooses, can play an "exceptional" role in making the world a better place. What nation is better equipped to address the poverty, disease, and hunger that plague so many?

The American experiment in democracy is in danger - not from any external threat or from foreign terrorists but from within. Racism, militarism, and a distorted concept of American exceptionalism pose, each in its own way, a threat to America's highest ideals. Political spending, given corporate "personhood" and an unlimited ability to influence elections by the Supreme Court, provides an amplifier for the voices of the powerful while muting the voices of the less advantaged. Special interest groups influence domestic laws as well as foreign policy. Legislation for the common good is blocked by right-wing extremists. Laws protecting the rights of all are dismantled by an ideological judiciary, and the essential right of democracy, the right to vote, has been subverted. Such is the state of affairs and such is the degree of disillusionment that, in our last elections, two out of three voters chose not to exercise their most basic democratic right.

Until money is removed from the political system, until the concept of the Other is banished, and until, in the words of President Kennedy, "the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today", inequality, injustice and war will be with us. That should not stop us from trying or caring or working for peace and justice. We need to take our victories when and where we can.

As the outlook for action at the national level becomes bleak, activism and initiatives at the state and community levels become necessary. Already we are seeing the effect of some of the successful state ballot initiatives from the November 4 elections.  For example, just two days after a successful California ballot initiative reclassified some non-violent offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, people were being released from detention.

Where do we go from here?  There is now a website that contains references and resources for the topics covered in the blog - where to go for further information, if you want to become active in an area, etc. The website also has The Left Bank Café posts indexed by topic, which I hope will be helpful.  I'll periodically update the website as new information becomes available. The address of the website is https://sites.google.com/site/leftbankresources/ .

Peace.

(The most recent update of The Left Bank website was on January 19, 2018.For more recent news, comments, and articles please visit the What in the World? website.) 

Sunday Roundup - December 7, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Eric Garner's death, US deportations, Israeli politics, Senator Harkin on Obamacare, Ukraine, and in brief, South Sudan and Gaza.

Correction to December 3 post, "The Death of Michael Brown": The original post gave the distance from the shooter, Darren Wilson, to Michael Brown as 148 feet as estimated by an independent source.  148 feet was the distance from Darren Wilson's SUV to the point where Michael Brown had run as estimated by the independent source.

Eric Garner

Midtown New York, Dec. 5, Credit: REUTERS/Adrees Latif

A grand jury once again failed to indict after the death of an unarmed African-American at the hands of a white police officer.  The victim this time was Eric Garner and the place was New York City.  The case of New York Police Department officer David Pantaleo wasn’t supposed to be like Ferguson. There was a video showing how a simple stop for selling untaxed cigarettes turned into a chokehold — a move prohibited by the NYPD. The medical examiner ruled the incident a homicide. Eric Garner repeatedly shouted “I can’t breathe” just before he died.  Yet, as in Ferguson, the Staten Island grand jury voted not to indict Pantaleo for anything, leaving the nation — even legal experts – exasperated, frustrated, and grasping to understand why. [Think Progress, Dec. 3]  The White House announced a civil rights investigation as protesters took to the streets.  The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has announced a federal investigation into “potential civil rights violations” around the death of Eric Garner after a grand jury decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer who placed the unarmed black man in a chokehold.  Thousands of demonstrators disrupted New York City traffic into the early hours of Thursday after the grand jury verdict. Mostly peaceful protests had sprung up on Wednesday evening at locations throughout Manhattan, including Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and near Rockefeller Center, after the panel returned no indictment. [The Guardian, Dec. 4]  Protests in New York have continued into the weekend.  Protests over U.S. police violence against minorities, sparked by grand-jury decisions not to charge officers in two high-profile cases, were peaceful on their third night in New York although 20 arrests took place, authorities said on Saturday.  Protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic on the city's FDR Drive, a major artery that runs along the eastern side of Manhattan....The wave of angry protests began on Wednesday when a New York grand jury declined to bring charges against white officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black 43-year-old father of six. [Reuters, Dec. 6]

Related
‘I can’t breathe’: Why Eric Garner protests are gaining momentum [Reuters, Dec. 5]  “Black Lives Matter” has become, like an earlier generation’s use of the terms “Freedom Now” and “We Shall Overcome,” an anthem for contemporary civil and human rights activism. The struggle for black equality historically and now, offers us all a chance to transform and save American democracy.

US Deportations
The American Civil Liberties Union released a report on Dec. 4 that underscores a troublesome pattern that has received far less attention [than Obama's immigration plan]: Of the 438,421 people deported in 2013, 83 percent received a summary removal, meaning that they were sent to their country of origin by US officials without a hearing. And according to the ACLU's research, many of these removals were illegal: Asylum seekers, unaccompanied kids, and others who may have qualified for relief routinely have been turned away.  There has been a backlog in the immigration court for many years and the deportations are being made using a 1996 law that, in theory, prevents immigration courts from being completely inundated while also providing safeguards...But according to the ACLU's findings, these protocols aren't often followed...No one, the ACLU included, seems to be able to provide a realistic solution to the immigration court backlog; it's undeniable that if all those requesting asylum were given a trial, the system would be further clogged.  [Mother Jones, Dec.4]

Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu's government collapsed after the ouster of two cabinet ministers who opposed the so-called "Jewish state" bill.  Three days after the Peace Now demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s home in Jerusalem, which featured a call for toppling and replacing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the government did in fact collapse. The Knesset is in the process of dissolving itself and its members have already agreed on a date for early elections.  Israelis will go to the polls on March 17, almost two full years before the end of the term of this government. [Americans for Peace Now, Dec. 3]  I'd like to share APN's optimism that the elections will bring to power an Israeli government committed to a two-state solution, but Israeli politics and public opinion continue to move to the right.  A new poll published Sunday in the Haaretz newspaper showed that while Netanyahu’s popularity is currently down, Israelis continue to support him over other prime ministerial candidates. Asked which politician is most suited to be prime minister, 35% answered Netanyahu....The same poll showed shrinking support for Lapid’s [the fired  finance minister's] centrist party and for the centrist-left-wing parties Hatnuah and Labor. The only parties to show gains are the right-wing Jewish Home and Israel Beiteinu Parties. [BuzzFeed, Dec. 3]
The UN overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution urging Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and put its nuclear facilities under UN supervision and criticizing the country for not being part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Israel possesses an estimated 80 nuclear weapons.  The resolution calls on Israel to "accede to that treaty without further delay, not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons," and put its nuclear facilities under the safeguard of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency...Israel, which is believed to have nuclear arms but has never admitted to it, has long been under fire from Arab countries in the region for not putting its alleged stockpile under international supervision.  The resolution, initiated by Egypt, was approved by 161 nations with only five voting against it and 18 abstentions.  [Russia Times, Dec. 3]

Senator Harkin:  We Should Have Passed Single-Payer
The coauthor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act regrets that the filibuster-proof Senate of 2009 did not pass a single payer healthcare system instead.  Sen. Tom Harkin, one of the co-authors of the Affordable Care Act, now thinks Democrats may have been better off not passing it at all and holding out for a better bill.  The Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, laments the complexity of legislation the Senate passed five years ago.  He wonders in hindsight whether the law was made overly complicated to satisfy the political concerns of a few Democratic centrists who have since left Congress....Harkin, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, says in retrospect the Democratic-controlled Senate and House should have enacted a single-payer healthcare system or a public option to give the uninsured access to government-run health plans that compete with private insurance companies.  “We had the votes in ’09. We had a huge majority in the House, we had 60 votes in the Senate,” he said.  He believes Congress should have enacted “single-payer right from the get-go or at least put a public option would have simplified a lot....  We had the votes to do that and we blew it,” he said....Harkin...believes Obama and Democratic leaders could have enacted better policy had they stood up to three centrists who balked at the public option: Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), a Democrat turned independent, Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). [The Hill, Dec. 3]  

Ukraine
In spite of recent fighting near the Donetsk airport, there is hope for the shaky ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.  Ukraine and the pro-Russian rebels said Thursday they had agreed to halt fire on December 9 under the terms of a truce aimed at ending one of Europe's bloodiest conflicts in decades.  The unexpected announcement provides the latest glimmer of hope that fighting across the eastern rustbelt of the ex-Soviet nation was nearing to a close after eight months that saw 4,300 people killed and shattered Moscow's ties with the West....A source in [Ukrainian President] Poroshenko's office said the president's statement meant Ukraine would begin withdrawing heavy weapons from the eastern frontline on December 10 -- as long as the separatists also observed the truce....Several truce deals announced in the course of the war were broken within days by both rebels and Ukrainian soldiers who refused to listen to their political leaders. The head of the neighbouring self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic said a ceasefire that would begin in mid-December was discussed at the [September] Minsk negotiations. [AFP/ via Yahoo News, Dec. 4]

Related
"How can the West solve its Ukraine problem?" [BBC News, Dec. 3] Russia badly overplayed its hand last year ...The European Union is now risking the same thing by trying to bring Ukraine into the West without reference to economic reality or the willingness of European publics to bear the enormous costs involved.  The author lays out the economic and political reality in the Ukraine and the compromises needed by both sides for a lasting peace.

In Brief
South Sudan
The civil war in South Sudan claimed at least 50 000 lives so far [enca.com, Nov. 15]

"South Sudan: the impact of war and the importance of peace"  [The Guardian, Nov. 26] 
While South Sudan peace talks continue in Ethiopia and Tanzania, bitterly divided communities look for solutions closer to home.  The civil war in South Sudan has so far claimed at least 50,000 lives.

Gaza
U.N. begins inquiry into attacks and weapons in Gaza [Reuters, Dec. 3]

Project launched to clear Gaza rubble: UN begins clearing some 2.5 million tons of rubble from Strip, courtesy of $3.2 million donation from Sweden. [YNet/AP, Dec. 3]

Palestinian engineer has developed a replacement for cement to help the Gaza Strip deal with its housing crisis after the Israeli war [World Bulletin, Dec. 5] 
Since the July-August war, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians and 70 Israelis were killed, barely any progress has been made rebuilding the shattered territory, despite donors pledging $5 billion.  Israel tightly monitors the import of construction materials and equipment into Gaza, arguing that otherwise it could be used to rebuild tunnels used by Hamas who control the strip.  Palestinian officials and critics of Israeli policy say that has made it impossible to rebuild, leaving 40,000 of the strip's 1.8 million residents in temporary shelter and thousands more facing winter in barely habitable ruins. 

The Death of Michael Brown

Photo appeared in The Guardian

We may never know exactly what happened in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9th that led to the shooting death of an unarmed eighteen-year-old African-American named Michael Brown. The shooter, a white policeman, says he acted in self-defense and that he would or could have changed nothing. Eyewitnesses and law enforcement experts both support and repudiate these statements.

What we do know is that the grand jury did not return an indictment, that the proceedings of that grand jury were deeply flawed, and that there is an underlying assumption about the actions of young black men that leads to tragic and unnecessary deaths.

From the start with the release of the shoplifting video and the police account of the shooting that erroneously gave the distance of Michael Brown from where the shooter's SUV was parked as 35 feet (later estimated by an independent source to be 148 feet), the judicial and public relations decks were being stacked against Michael Brown. The usual media suspects created a prejudicial atmosphere towards the victim by character assassination.  For some, the story became less about whether the shooting was justified and more about whether Michael Brown was a boy scout or honor student.

The grand jury proceedings were another blow. The non-indictment decision, as Judd Legum explains in a post at ThinkProgress.org, was "the result of a process that turned the purpose of a grand jury on its head." Legum quotes none other than Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: "It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor. ...neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented." (United States vs. Williams, 1992) Of course, Prosecutor McCulloch took another course. "McCulloch allowed Wilson to testify for hours before the grand jury and presented them with every scrap of exculpatory evidence available...The only reason one would present such evidence is to reduce the chances that the grand jury would indict Darren Wilson." [ThinkProgress, Nov.26]  

And so we come to the inconsistent testimonies, the differences in accounts between what Officer Darren Wilson said happened and what others said happened. Trying to answer five key questions, Mother Jones summarizes the prosecution's statement and the discrepancies between the statements of Darren Wilson and of Dorian Johnson, a friend of Michael Brown's who was with him at the time the officer approached in an SUV. What happened during Wilson's initial encounter with Brown and Dorian Johnson? How did the situation escalate? What exactly happened during Wilson and Brown's "tussle"? Did Wilson shoot at Brown and Johnson as they ran away? What was Brown doing when Wilson shot him? Read MJ's article for yourself but, to me at least, it appears that if the grand jurors believed the account of Dorian Johnson, they should have indicted - at the very least on "wrongful death".  

And it's not just Johnson's account.  Other eyewitnesses support elements of Johnson's testimony. PBS' Newshour did an exhaustive analysis of the 500 pages of testimony released by the prosecutor's office. Here’s a breakdown of the PBS analysis:

•"More than 50 percent of the witness statements said that Michael Brown held his hands up when Darren Wilson shot him.

•Only five witness statements said that Brown reached toward his waist during the confrontation leading up to Wilson shooting him to death.

•More than half of the witness statements said that Brown was running away from Wilson when the police officer opened fire on the 18-year-old, while fewer than one-fifth of such statements indicated that was not the case.

•There was an even split among witness statements that said whether or not Wilson fired upon Brown when the 18-year-old had already collapsed onto the ground.

•Only six witness statements said that Brown was kneeling when Wilson opened fire on him. More than half of the witness statements did not mention whether or not Brown was kneeling."

Protests against the shooting began in Ferguson where Michael Brown's body lay in the street for four hours.  Protests spread through the US and then "became a global story when local police — outfitted in tactical hardware that made them seem more like an occupying army than a force meant to 'protect and serve' the people — cracked down on protesters and detained journalists. Palestinians tweeted advice to Ferguson protesters about how to deal with tear gas, as Israel launched airstrikes on targets in the Gaza Strip.  Hong Kong protesters, who began their pro-democracy demonstrations more than a month after Brown's killing, adopted the "hands up, don't shoot" as a tactic in homage to the Ferguson protesters." [USA Today, Nov. 25] The grand jury decision last week re-sparked protests from Ferguson to London.  International reaction in the world press was quick in coming. Editorials and op-eds from across Europe to China were replete with negative comments on the grand jury decision and what it has to say about justice in the US, a country that likes to think of itself as a champion of human rights. [BBC News, Nov. 26]

What could have been done to prevent this tragic death of an unarmed teenager? A body camera - which some are saying should be mandatory for police - would have provided an accurate depiction of the actual chain of events and, perhaps, changed the response of the officer. The New York Times interviewed law enforcement experts about the shooting and the experts offered several suggestions:

• Had Darren Wilson been carrying a taser, non-lethal force might have been applied (he preferred not to carry one because it is large and not 'very comfortable.')
• In his testimony, Officer Wilson said he never had any thought to fall back, even if only to make a tactical retreat to reassess and perhaps wait for backup officers...“To back up and maybe follow him until backup arrived, in retrospect it might have been a better choice, but we don’t know that Officer Wilson saw that as a valid option,” [Vincent] Henry,[an expert in the use of force by the police] said.
• For some experts, "the shooting and the events that preceded it raised broader policy questions, particularly about how officers engage with communities they patrol. In his initial encounter with Mr. Brown and his friend in the street, Officer Wilson never exited his vehicle, voicing commands through the window of his cruiser instead. “The notion of riding through neighborhoods yelling, ‘Get up on the curb’ or ‘Get out of the street,’ is not where you want your officers to be,” [Fred] Bealefeld, [a former police officer and commissioner] said.

Darren Wilson resigned on Saturday in light of the continuing protests. He had been on the force three years and recognized that his "continued employment may put the residents and police officers of the City of Ferguson at risk."

The Justice Department has opened has opened two civil rights investigations in Missouri -- one into whether Wilson violated Brown's civil rights, the other into the police department's overall track record with minorities. In a speech in Atlanta that was interrupted by protesters, Attorney General Holder also said he plans to announce "rigorous new standards" for federal law enforcement "to help end racial profiling, once and for all." [CNN International, Dec. 2]


Clarification (12/4):  The original post gave the distance from the shooter to Michael Brown as 148 feet.  148 feet was the distance from Darren Wilson's SUV to the point where Michael Brown had run.

Sunday Roundup - November 16, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at the US-China climate agreement, Mexico, immigration reform, Ukraine, the permanent war infrastructure, and the unheralded success of Evo Morales.

US-China Climate Agreement

Graphic from ThinkProgress website

On Tuesday night, the United States and China announced a historic agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions.  The plan...involves a series of initiatives to be undertaken in partnership between the two countries, including: expanding funding for clean energy technology research at the US-China Clean Energy Research Center; launching a large-scale pilot project in China to study carbon capture and sequestration; a push to further limit the use of hydroflourocarbons, a potent greenhouse gas found in refrigerants; a  federal framework for cities in both countries to share experiences and best practices for low-carbon economic growth and adaptation to the impacts of climate change at the municipal level; a call to boost trade in "green" goods, including energy efficiency technology and resilient infrastructure.  [Mother Jones, Nov. 11]
The announcement by the two largest carbon polluters in the world is a welcome signal ahead of the Paris 2015 climate conference.  China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, has agreed to cap its output by 2030 or earlier if possible...Now it has also promised to increase its use of energy from zero-emission sources to 20% by 2030...The United States has pledged to cut its emissions to 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025.  Both represent improved targets over previously announced goals.  [The Guardian, Nov. 12]
The deal was reached after nine months of intense negotiations.  The plan unveiled in Beijing by Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, commits the two countries to ambitious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions after 2020, and could spur other big polluters to similar efforts.  After years of mistrust, the deal began to coalesce last spring after Obama sent a personal letter to Xi suggesting the two countries start to move in tandem to cut carbon pollution, the White House said.  The immediate inspiration for the letter arose from a visit to Beijing by John Kerry, the US secretary of state. Kerry, who had a strong environmental record when he was a senator, raised climate change to a top priority after taking over at State. [The Guardian, Nov. 12]
Related: 
"America's Solar Boom, in Charts"  According to a Deutsche Bank analyst: By 2016, solar power will be as cheap or cheaper than electricity from the conventional grid in every state except three. [Mother Jones, Nov. 7]
"How the Republican-led Congress could kill the climate change deal" [The Guardian, Nov. 12]

Mexico
On September 26 in the southwestern town of Iguala. 43 Mexican college students were detained by police after a protest against what the students considered to be discriminatory hiring and funding practices by the government.   They have not been seen since.  The former mayor of Iguala is under arrest and its police chief is on the run.  Mexico has been facing violent rallies since local authorities revealed that the 43 students were handed over by corrupt police to the Guerros Unidos gang, members of which confessed to murdering them and reducing their bodies to ashes.  On Tuesday, protesters blocked Acapulco Airport.  On Wednesday a crowd of about 500 protesters set ablaze the state congress building in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero in a violent rally over the alleged massacre of 43 college students....Their disappearance has posed the biggest challenge so far to President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration, with many questioning the government’s progress in fighting against drug violence. [Reuters, Nov. 13]
Related:
"Mexicans in ‘Forgotten State’ Hail Arrest of Fugitive Mayor" [Bloomberg, Nov. 4]

Immigration Reform
President Obama is pledging to take executive action on immigration reform before year end. Depending on the specifics, the executive actions may protect between 2 and 5 million immigrants from deportation.  A comprehensive reform bill passed the Senate in 2013 but the Republican-controlled House has refused to act.  At a news conference during a visit to Myanmar, the President said, "There has been ample opportunity for Congress to pass a bipartisan immigration bill that would strengthen our borders, improve the legal immigration system and lift millions of people out of the shadows....I said that if in fact Congress failed to act, I would use all the lawful authority I possess to try to make the system work better."  The executive actions are centered on an extension of the President's "deferred action plan" which was designed to protect young adults who were brought to the US illegally as children from being deported.  The plan is to include parents of children who are US citizens or legal residents.  The action is designed to prevent the break-up of families via deportations.  Other steps reportedly include increasing the number of high-tech workers allowed to live and work in the US, [expanding] the existing deferred action plans [by moving] the cut-off date for children arriving to 2010, and [shifting] border security resources to the US southern border. Republicans are gearing up to fight Obama's actions, and one potential outcome of the showdown is a government shutdown. [BBC News, Nov. 14]

Ukraine
The US and Europe are warning Russia on increased sanctions for Russia's part in "destabilizing" the Ukraine.  Vladimir Putin planned to leave the G20 summit early after the criticism.  Meanwhile, Reuters reported on Thursday of the counter accusations between Russia and Ukraine.  Moscow and Kiev accused each other on Thursday of violating a ceasefire and the United States warned Russia the West might punish it further for its "military escalation" of the Ukraine crisis.  Ukraine accused Russia of sending soldiers and weapons to help separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine launch a new offensive in a conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people. Russia warned Kiev that any resumption of hostilities against the separatists would be catastrophic for Ukraine.  Increasing violence, truce violations and reports of unmarked armed convoys traveling from the direction of the Russian border have aroused fears that a shaky Sept. 5 truce could collapse.  [Reuters, Nov. 13]

In an op-ed piece appearing in The Guardian, Volodymyr Ishchenko warns of the danger of ignoring the far right.  Ukrainian authorities and mainstream opinion in Ukraine continue to show unacceptable ignorance of the danger from the far right and even openly neo-Nazi forces, cooperating with them in elections and allowing them to take positions within law enforcement...It is short-sighted and formalistic to conclude that the Ukrainian far right is insignificant based on the lack of electoral success. The rhetoric of many politicians which could be called centrist or even liberal has moved significantly to the right, competing for the increasingly patriotic and even nationalist voters...Ukrainians have already paid a very high price for ignoring the far right. According to research into systematic protests, members of the far right were the most visibly identified political agents in the Maidan protests, from the very beginning of the movement to the overthrow of Yanukovych.  Moreover, they were relatively more visible in eastern and southern regions where Maidan did not have the majority support, thus pushing the local population even further away from the protest message.  Ishchenko concludes that this tolerance for the far right has already cost Ukraine lost territories, a mass destruction of industry and infrastructure, and thousands and thousands of lives. It is necessary to break with the “it might be beneficial for Putin” logic and start to think what is beneficial for all the people living in Ukraine, and whether the radical nationalist ideas can fit the Ukrainian future to which we aspire.

NATO Map (Wikimedia Commons)

John Mearsheimer has an in-depth analysis of the roots of the crisis in Ukraine in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs.  The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine -- beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 -- were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president -- which he rightly labeled a “coup” -- was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.   Mearsheimer asks us to imagine the American outrage if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico. He proposes the West rethink its Ukraine strategy:  There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however -- although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way. The United States and its allies should abandon their plan to westernize Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer between NATO and Russia, akin to Austria’s position during the Cold War. Western leaders should acknowledge that Ukraine matters so much to Putin that they cannot support an anti-Russian regime there. This would not mean that a future Ukrainian government would have to be pro-Russian or anti-NATO. On the contrary, the goal should be a sovereign Ukraine that falls in neither the Russian nor the Western camp.

The Permanent War Infrastructure
David Vine, writing at tomdispatch.com, discusses the long-standing US military presence in the Middle East  and the consequences of that policy.  Approaching its 35th anniversary, the strategy of maintaining such a structure of garrisons, troops, planes, and ships in the Middle East has been one of the great disasters in the history of American foreign policy. The rapid disappearance of debate about our newest, possibly illegal war should remind us of just how easy this huge infrastructure of bases has made it for anyone in the Oval Office to launch a war that seems guaranteed, like its predecessors, to set off new cycles of blowback and yet more war.  Vine traces the development of our base building policy and the morphing of the Rapid Deployment Force into the U.S. Central Command from 1980 through the present day.  Originally intended to maintain access to the oil-rich region during the Cold War era, the bases have become a "catalyst for anti-Americanism and radicalization” since a suicide bombing killed 241 marines in Lebanon in 1983....The garrisoning of the Muslim Holy Land was a major recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and part of Osama Bin Laden's professed motivation for the 9/11 attacks....Part of the anti-American anger has stemmed from the support U.S. bases offer to repressive, undemocratic regimes....Of course, using bases to launch wars and other kinds of interventions does much the same, generating anger, antagonism, and anti-American attacks....Rather than providing security, the infrastructure of bases in the Greater Middle East has made it ever easier to go to war far from home. It has enabled wars of choice and an interventionist foreign policy that has resulted in repeated disasters for the region, the United States, and the world.  By one estimate, the United States has spent $10 trillion protecting Persian Gulf oil supplies over the past four decades. Vine concludes: The sad irony is that any legitimate desire to maintain the free flow of regional oil to the global economy could be sustained through other far less expensive and deadly means....In addition to the direct damage our military spending has caused, it has diverted money and attention from developing the kinds of alternative energy sources that could free the United States and the world from a dependence on Middle Eastern oil -- and from the cycle of war that our military bases have fed. [TomDispatch, Nov.13]

Bolivia's Evo Morales

Photo of Evo Morales is from greanvillepost.com

While some warn that the rise of a racist far right presents a "clear and present danger "to both Western and Eastern Europe, Sergi Halimi writing in Le Monde Diplomatique wonders why the success of Bolivia's indigenous, leftist president Evo Morales has gone unremarked by the media. In times of crisis, a head of state who gets re-elected in the first round, having already served two terms, is a rarity indeed. One such is Evo Morales, whose win, with 61% of the vote, should have received more attention than it did. All the more so since he pulled off this electoral feat in Bolivia — which had five different presidents between 2001 and 2005. His victory follows a 25% reduction in poverty, an 87% real-terms increase in the minimum wage, a lowering of the retirement age and an annual growth rate of over 5% — all since 2006.  Pointing to the security failures such as the student massacre in Mexico - the students were protesting the neoliberal education reforms proposed by the conservative regime, Sergi Halimi asks us to imagine what would have leapt to mind had the student massacre taken place in Ecuador, Cuba or Venezuela. Or indeed in Bolivia, where President Morales has just been re-elected. [Le Monde Diplomatique, November 2014]

A Red Tide Swamps the US Political Landscape

The polls had it right.  Last night, Republicans swept to control in the Senate, picked up governor seats in blue states, and increased their control of the House of Representatives.  The Democrats' get-out-the-vote effort failed to overcome the dark money, the voter suppression laws, and their own inadequate and defensive explanations of their policies.  Republicans controlled the political debate much as they have since Obama took office: "Everything bad is Obama's fault.  Everything good he had nothing to do with."  For their part, Democrats, from Obama on down, failed to energize their base. The nation will need to live with the result: the most extreme right-wing Congress we have ever had.

Jeff Schweitzer, blogging at the Huffington Post, has one of the best analyses of the election that I've seen.  In his post, "The Price of Failure and Rise of Extremism: How Democrats Blew It", he writes: "the depth, intensity, and institutionalized hypocrisy of the political right has taken our country on a new course; conservatives are writing a new chapter...on cynicism, deceit and delusion. As we contemplate our world dominated by Republicans controlling the House and Senate, we must therefore consider life in the face of deep hypocrisy. Mitch McConnell, with a straight face and no apparent appreciation for irony, said that voters should install a Republican majority in the Senate because his party would 'be able to bring the current legislative gridlock to a merciful end.'...This story highlights the major failure of the left. Democrats have not defined the agenda or narrated the story. This capitulation creates a void of reason such that absurdities like McConnell's claim can take hold without everybody doubling over in laughter. Like frightened children Democrats run from Obama's record, as defined by the right, rather than championing his amazing successes as defined by fact."

One thing is certain.  Before the members of the 114th Congress take their seats in January, Senate Democrats need to push through as many of the 156 pending Federal judicial and executive branch nominations as they can.  Failure to do so will ensure Republican control of the judiciary and make Obama's last two years even more difficult and unproductive than the past four have been.  Hey Mitch, this may be a good place to start showing how intent you are to end gridlock.

What do we have to look forward to from this extremist Congress and a ham-strung moderate President in the next two years?

Some things are clear.

There will be cuts to domestic programs, increases in military spending, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and, if Obama and Congressional Democrats don't go along with their radical agenda, a government shutdown or two.   Any progress on the environmental front will need to come from executive action. The War Powers Act as applied to the Middle East will not be changed and there will be no debate on the current bombing campaign.  Obama will not be able to get any progressive or even moderate appointments to the Federal judiciary through Congress.  One "good news" item: Social Security will not be privatized anytime soon.

Some things are not as clear.

Will Obama have the votes to resist neo-con-inspired congressional actions, such as increasing sanctions on Iran and funding for sectarian wars? Will he have the courage to pursue justice for the Palestinians and the courage to achieve a just Palestinian-Israeli peace?   Will he be able to close Guantanamo, that continuing insult to America's self-proclaimed adherence to the rule of law?

What changes will be made to the Affordable Care Act? Democrats should retain at least 45 Senate seats and Obama still has the veto.  So total repeal will be impossible.  However, Congressional Republicans can certainly reduce the number of people covered by the ACA - by removing the employer requirements and redefining full-time employees, by removing the penalty for non-coverage, and by reducing or ending subsidies for those earning too much to qualify under the Medicaid expansion.

Will Obama take executive action to progress immigration reform?  Will the Republicans threaten impeachment if he does so?  Will any action at all be proposed by Congress other than increased militarization of the US-Mexico border?  Republicans did not need the Latino vote to win these midterms and Obama's deportation policies were not something that would energize Latino voters.

How extensive will changes to Medicare be?  Along with Social Security and the Affordable Care Act, it remains one of the prime examples of what a Democratic Congress and President can accomplish.  That makes it a target for the extremists who now control the Republican Party - no matter how successful and well-liked it is.

Perhaps the best comment I heard during my GOTV calls in the weeks before the election was from a Kentucky voter.  He could not understand how anyone but "the 1%" could ever vote Republican, how people could continually vote against their own economic interests.  He mentioned that Kentuckians were hearing almost nothing about McConnell's opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and a lot about Obama.  That strategy played very well in the South.  Later in my calls that evening, I spoke to another Kentuckian - an older woman, who was going to vote for McConnell because she was "tired of the handouts."  I thought of asking her which handouts in particular she opposed but realizing how thoroughly Republican myths have taken hold, I refrained.

This is the richest nation the world has ever seen.  We have one of the lowest tax rates, one of the highest levels of income inequality, and one of the least generous social safety net programs in the developed world.  To say we cannot afford to meet the basic needs of the most vulnerable in our society or to provide medical care for all is a lie.  But it is a lie that has become deeply ingrained in the political dialogue of the nation over the past three decades - a lie that has no place for "the common good" and promises more and more to those that have the most.

Featured Posts

Democracy: The What's Left of It Edition
(July, 2013)

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The World Series. Halloween, and the Election

The US midterm elections will be held in five days. The Senate is up for grabs and there is a strong possibility that, come January, Republicans will be the majority in both houses of Congress.  The over-riding question for the election is: Will the vast sums of money being spent by the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers and other conservative groups along with voter suppression laws and tactics in Republican controlled states beat back the get-out-the-vote effort being mounted by Democrats and progressive organizations? Too bad US elections aren't more like those in Brazil or Australia where voting is mandatory for citizens of legal age.  Oh, that's right, in our country there are some intent on making sure others do not easily exercise their democratic right to vote or, preferably, at all.

I've been calling progressive voters in swing states in MoveOn's get-out-the-vote effort.  Reactions range from enthusiasm to apathy to weariness to just hanging up the phone.  And these are the progressive voters!  This week I've called voters in Colorado and New Hampshire - two states that voted for Obama in 2012 but whose Senate seats are "in play" and could easily be lost to Republicans.  If, as has been predicted for the past couple of months, the Democrats do lose control of the Senate, at least we know that we tried to get people to the polls.  There are still a few days left and if you want to help out, you can do so at the MoveOn Shift Sign-Up page.  The system uses a "Hub-Dialer" and a brief training session is held at the start of each shift.

Wednesday night, the blue-state San Francisco Giants beat the red-state Kansas City Royals. It was the third time in five years that the Giants had won the World Series.  That they did so was due in large part to their 25 year-old pitching ace, North Carolina native Madison Bumgarner.  Bumgarner now ranks as the all-time World Series ERA leader with an incredible 0.25 Earned Run Average.  For comparison, pitching greats Sandy Koufax, Christy Mathewson and Mariano Rivera have career World Series ERA's between 0.95 and 0.99.  What does this have to do with the elections?  Probably nothing but, like many sports fans and ballplayers, I am slightly superstitious.  Could this Giant victory be an omen of the Dems holding onto the Senate?  Could Kay Hagan retain her North Carolina Senate seat? Or does the Giants' victory predict an outcome similar to the 2010 mid-terms, when the Giants also won the World Series.  That year marked the biggest loss of Democratic Congressional seats in seven decades.

Tomorrow is Halloween.  Halloween is an especially appropriate holiday for Republicans in an election year when their fear-mongering reaches a fever pitch.  Is there anything the Republicans and their media mouthpieces don't want you to be afraid of?  Death panels, a national gun registry, crime, Ebola, Guantanamo closing, immigrants, Muslims, people of color exercising their right to vote, people of color...the list is nearly endless.   No, like most of the Republican agenda, these fears are just bullshit. What I find much more worrisome is the specter of total Republican control of Congress.  Not so much because it will make an immediate, drastic change in our lives - it won't...Republicans already control the House and our centrist President Obama can serve as a firewall against any truly insane actions.  Rather we should worry because of what a Republican victory in the Senate would say about the gullibility and apathy of the American electorate.  True, there have been enormous roadblocks thrown in the path of democracy by way of  Supreme Court voting rights and campaign financing decisions, by rampant gerrymandering, and by voter suppression.  But these all happened because the conservative Republican agenda won in past elections, resulting in the court appointments and state legislatures that have turned American democracy into one that caters to the interests of the ruling class and where income inequality is among the greatest in the developed world.  Republicans have done nothing positive in the four years they have been in the House majority.  Congressional approval ratings are in the 11-12% range.  And yet Republicans are on the doorstep of total Congressional control and all that means for Federal Court appointments.  A scary thought indeed.

In the end, the Senate races may come down to something like the bottom of the ninth in the final game of the World Series.  The Giants up by one run, two outs, a man on third, and Bumgarner  on the mound, pitching his fifth inning of relief on just two days' rest,  Let's hope the result is as good for the country as Bumgarner's final pitch was for the Giants.

Sunday Roundup - October 26, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Iran, climate change, voter suppression, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Iran 
Progress was made in Iran's dilution of its uranium.  Reuters reported on October 20:   Iran is taking further action to comply with an interim nuclear agreement with six world powers, a monthly U.N. atomic agency report showed, a finding the West may see as positive ahead of a November deadline for clinching a long-term deal.  The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)...made clear that Iran is meeting its commitments under the temporary deal, as it and major powers seek to negotiate a final settlement of a decade-old nuclear dispute. It said Iran had diluted more than 4,100 kg of uranium enriched to a fissile concentration of up to 2 percent down to the level of natural uranium. 

From BBC News website

Gareth Porter, in an October 22 Truthout article, lays out the story of the deception behind the Western claim that Iran was "stonewalling" investigations into alleged past nuclear weapons research. The accusation...has been a familiar theme in mainstream media coverage of Iran's relations with the IAEA for years.  What remains virtually unknown, however, is how a brazen deception by the George W. Bush administration and a key official within the IAEA created the false narrative of Iranian refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and was used to justify harsh international sanctions.  Based on conversations with former IAEA officials, Wikileaks documents, and the public record, Porter describes the background.  His article includes the smear campaign against the agency's director Mohamed ElBaredei - who had cleared Iran of six issues of concern in spite of the West's pressure -and the misleading report of meetings between the IAEA's Olli Heinonen and Iranian officials.  In one of those meetings, Heinonen asked Iran's Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, whether various names of people, organizations and addresses found in the documents were correct. Soltanieh confirmed that the people, organizations and addresses did exist, but added, "So what?"....The language in the [IAEA May 2008 report from those meetings] was carefully chosen to mislead the reader without technically telling an outright lie. The report said Iran "did not dispute that some of the information contained in the documents was factually accurate, but said the events and activities concerned involved civil or conventional military applications." ...Iran, in a letter to the IAEA secretariat a few months later, denied that [they] had ever acknowledged the accuracy of anything in the intelligence documents except for those incidental details.  The misleading report formed the basis of the allegations that continue to this day.

The window of opportunity that would bring the Iran "in from the cold" may be closing.  The US Congressional elections are in a couple of weeks and pressure from the hardliners in the Israel lobby to keep Iran isolated will probably ratchet up.  Netanyahu has already started the rumblings with his anti-Iran comments at the UN in September.  Writing in The Guardian. Christopher de Ballaigue notes that Netanyahu's comments may reflect a fear that a rehabilitated Islamic Republic could dislodge Israel from western affections – a process already well advanced by the widespread killing of Palestinian civilians during the recent violence in Gaza.  De Ballaigue stresses the importance of closing the nuclear deal - perhaps the best hope of restoring stability to the Middle East.  A deal that offers Iran a nuclear power industry not exceeding its needs and ambitions, and the rest of the world reassurance through intrusive inspections, would do more than bring Iran in from the cold. It would inaugurate a new relationship between the Islamic Republic and the west that could keep together a region that is, in every other particular, coming apart.  [The Guardian, October 2]

Climate Change
With an eye on the global climate conference in Paris in 2015, the EU agreed on goals for greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency and renewable energy.  The Guardian reported on October 23: European leaders have struck a broad climate change pact obliging the EU as a whole to cut greenhouse gases by at least 40% by 2030.  But key aspects of the deal that will form a bargaining position for global climate talks in Paris next year were left vague or voluntary, raising questions as to how the aims would be realised.  As well as the greenhouse gas, two 27% targets were agreed – for renewable energy market share and increase in energy efficiency improvement.  Informed Comment carried a post on solar energy good news stories.  Morocco, India, Tanzania, and Mexico all have programs to increase the use of solar energy.  Solar will likely be the world’s largest source of electricity by 2050, when some 26% of world energy will come from solar panels. 
Related Link
Spotlight on Green News and Views [Daily Kos, Oct. 23]

Voter Suppression

With Republicans on the verge of taking over the US Senate in November, every vote that might prevent that disaster is important.  Here's some of the past week's news on the status of  voter suppression in two "solid red" states in the midst of a demographic shift.

Poll tax sign- Mineola Texas, 1939 -  Russell Lee/Library of Congress
Appeared in Mother Jones article

Overturning a Federal trial court's earlier decision, the Supreme Court upheld without comment the Texas Voter ID Law, one of the worst in the nation.  The majority decision was unsigned but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg  along with Justices Kagan and Sotomayor authored a blistering dissent. Salon.com carried an Alternet article on Ginsburg's dissent. “Texas did not begin to demonstrate that the Bill’s discriminatory features were necessary to prevent fraud or to increase public confidence in the electoral process,” Ginsburg wrote in her dissent. The article summarizes the key points of Ginsburg's dissent, among them: hundreds of thousands of Texans will have a hard time getting the required ID and  "On an extensive factual record developed in the course of a nine-day trial, the District Court found Senate Bill 14 [the voter ID law] irreconcilable with Section 2 of the [federal] Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it was enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose and would yield a prohibited discriminatory result.” The law could potentially disenfranchise 600,000 Texas voters. [Salon.com, Oct. 21]  The law falls in line with Texas' long history of discriminatory voting practices.  Mother Jones presents a look at that history, based on expert testimony by Orville Vernon Burton, a professor of history at Clemson University, and Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in an October 21 article. [Mother Jones, Oct. 21]

In Georgia, the Republican Secretary of State is delaying approval of tens of thousands of minority applications secured by by the New Georgia Project on the grounds that fraud was involved.  There is little evidence of any such thing.  Republican candidates are hyping voter fraud fears and the reason is fairly obvious.  Republican concerns about large numbers of black voters turning out this year have already roiled politics in the Peachtree State. One GOP state lawmaker said he opposed opening a new early voting location because it was in a heavily minority area. Georgia, which has seen big demographic shifts over the last decade, has nearly 900,000 unregistered minority voters. Mitt Romney’s 2012 margin of victory over President Obama in the state was just 305,000 votes. Michelle Nunn, the Democratic candidate in the U.S. Senate race, is counting on a big minority turnout to propel her to an upset victory. [MSNBC, Oct. 21]  NGP has introduced a lawsuit against 5 counties and has settled with one of them (De Kalb),  The lawsuit is proceeding against the other 4 counties.  Daily Kos reports:  Earlier this month, NGP complained that the registrations in five counties—all of them surrounding large Democratic strongholds in Atlanta, Columbus and Savannah—had not processed some 40,000 of these registrations. Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp said the claim is wrong....Since most of those 40,000 people are likely to be Democrats, the consequences could have a major impact on the election, including the outcome in the tight open-seat Senate contest between Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue. Given the potential for disenfranchisement, the NGP, together with the NAACP, filed suit against Kemp and the county election boards.  [Daily Kos, Oct. 24]

Related Links

Running Scared : Georgia’s Democrats have registered more than 85,000 minority voters (and counting).Republicans never saw it coming. [Slate.com, Sept. 11]

Georgia's Battle for the Ballot Box [New York Magazine, Oct.21] tells the story of Stacey Abrams, the Georgia House minority leader and the woman behind the voter registration drive.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
The Palestinian Territory of the West Bank and Gaza has been under Israeli military occupation for more than 47 years.  The Gaza Strip has been crippled by a land, sea, and air blockade for 7 years. This summer Gaza endured an Israeli assault that left the enclave devastated and more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, dead.  Even before the brutal Israeli siege, Gaza was deemed to become unlivable by 2020, and 80% of its people were receiving humanitarian aid of some type.  The Palestinian Authority laid out its plans to achieve statehood in an address to the United Nations in September - going to the Security Council for a resolution to end the Israeli Occupation by a definitive date and, failing that (for example, because of a US veto), to join the International Criminal Court.  Here are links to some stories relevant to Palestinian statehood and the Gaza War of 2014 that have developed since Abbas' speech at the UN.

October 3:  Sweden announces its intention to recognise state of Palestine [Reuters, Oct. 3]

October 12: Donor conference co-hosted by Egypt and Norway raises 5.4 billion US dollars for rebuilding Gaza.[Al Jazeera, Oct. 12]

October 14: British parliament votes 274-12 in favor of recognizing Palestine [YNetNews, Oct. 14]

October 21: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he was setting up an investigation into the attacks on United Nations facilities [Daily Mail, Oct. 21]

October 22: Democracy Now! interview with Noam Chomsky after his speech at the UN [Democracy Now!, Oct. 22]

October 23: Complicated mechanisms and restrictive measures risk prolonging the Gaza rebuilding effort [Al Jazeera, Oct. 23]

October 24: Irish upper house backs Palestinian state [Haaretz, Oct. 24]

October 24: Croatian Foreign Minister: "Croatia is likely to recognize Palestine as an independent state" [Daily Sabah, Oct. 24]

The Republican War on Science

Loss of the Senate to the Republicans will put both houses of Congress in the hands of a political party that prides itself on scientific ignorance.  What we may have to look forward to can be seen in the ongoing actions of the House's Science, Space and Technology Committee.  Look no further than the head of the committee, climate change skeptic Lamar Smith (R-TX).  "He voted to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, voted no several times on tax credits for renewable energy and incentives for energy production and conservation, voted against raising fuel efficiency standards, and rejected implementation of the Kyoto Protocol." [Daily Kos, October 20]

Besides his climate change position, he's also known for introducing SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in 2011.  The bill was tabled after generating widespread condemnation for its radically harsh policy in dealing with copyright infringement and other issues.  SOPA would have allowed the Justice Department to "pull foreign sites 'dedicated' to copyright infringement out of the DNS system and search engine results — effectively altering the way the internet works. It's a hugely controversial bill that takes a scorched-earth approach to solving the thorny problem of copyright infringement on the web." [The Verge, Dec. 2011]

For the past 18 months, Congressman Smith has spear-headed a program more suited to a totalitarian state than to a democracy.  He has been waging an assault on the peer-review process for granting National Science Foundation grants.  "He’s issued a barrage of press releases that ridicule specific awards, championed legislation that would alter NSF’s peer-review system and slash funding for the social science programs that have supported much of the research he has questioned, and berated NSF officials for providing what he considers to be inadequate explanations of their funding decisions." [Daily Kos, October 20]  It's all part of the Republican attempt to slash non-military funding so they won't have to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Lamar is now applying the "national interest" criterion to his investigation of research grants - that is, national interest in his opinion.  He evidently thinks this is a better way to conduct scientific research than the long-established peer-review process so critical to scientific progress.  

Although Smith directs much of his wrath at research projects in the social sciences, Tim McDonnell points out in an October 17 Mother Jones post, "some of the biggest-ticket items up for public dissection focus on climate change. They include a $3 million grant awarded in 2008 to study how federal agencies can better communicate climate science to the public and a $5.6 million award to a Columbia University team to carry out public education work on the impacts of climate change at the poles. You know, totally frivolous questions that have nothing to do with the 'national interest' on things like rising sea levels, epic releases of methane, US military engagement in the Arctic, new areas for offshore oil drilling, and 35,000 stranded walruses."

What a surprise! Not only do they deny human-induced climate change, they want to make sure money is not "wasted" on giving people the facts.  In the US, climate change has not yet reached the stage where public indignation against a lack of action will decide elections.  For most, its effects are too far in the future - unlike in Brazil, where the record-breaking drought has caused some water reservoirs to drop to 4% of normal level and may decide the presidential election  The Financial Times analyzes the situation in an October 19 article.  São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, is experiencing water shortages, early closings of schools and health centers, and police escorts for emergency water trucks.  FT reports: "...bars and restaurants in tourist areas have been urging their customers not to use the toilets...While the drought has already ravaged Brazil’s coffee and sugar crops and hit local companies,...it could weaken the business-friendly PSDB party ahead of Brazil’s tightly fought presidential elections next week."

Ignorance and misinformation have long been arrows in the quiver of Republican political tools. How else do you explain their ability to have anyone but the very rich vote for them?  How else do you explain their ability to get poor and middle class whites to vote consistently against their own interests as well as the common good?  

While the Republicans were still in the process of selecting a candidate for the 2012 Presidential election, Paul Krugman led off an op-ed piece quoting John Huntsman, Jr., a Republican who was "willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the anti-science party." After Krugman discusses then-candidate Rick Perry's views on evolution and climate change and eventual-candidate Mitt Romney's backtracking on climate change, he concludes that while we don't know who will "win next year's presidential election,...the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect."  [NYTimes, August 28, 2011]

Related

For more on the confrontation between the NSF and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, see: Battle between NSF and House science committee escalates: How did it get this bad? [ScienceInsider, October 2]

For more on the political success of the Republicans' Southern Strategy in spite of the economic downside of their policies, see Where Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S.? [NYTimes, June 26]

Sunday Roundup - October 12, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, America's longest war, Khorasan, gun law reform, Hong Kong, Ebola, and, in brief, recent Federal court decisions on voting rights.

Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize winners Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi.
Photograph: Fabio De Paola for the Guardian

The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to 17 year-old Pakistani child education activist,  Malala Yousafzai, and 60 year-old Indian child rights campaigner, Kailash Satyarthi.   The Nobel Committee noted that it "regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism."  At 17, Malala becomes the youngest recipient ever of the Peace Prize.  The teenager was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for campaigning for girls' education...The Committee spokesman said "Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai, has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education and has shown by example that children and young people too can contribute to improving their own situations...This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls' rights to education."   For more than 30 years, Mr. Satyarthi has been at the forefront in the fight against child slavery and exploitation.  Mr Satyarthi has maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, "focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain," the committee said at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.  The 60-year-old founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or the Save the Childhood Movement, which campaigns for child rights and an end to human trafficking. [BBC News, October 10]

Afghanistan
Thirteen year ago on October 7, the US began bombing Afghanistan.  That step marked the beginning of Bush's "war on terror", and the war in Afghanistan has become the longest in American history. Besides the loss of life, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars will eventually cost the US between $4 trillion and $6 trillion.  This estimate was made before the latest American military operation in Iraq and Syria and assumes that nobody will listen to the Congressional hawks incredibly clamoring for tens of thousands more troops in the area.  Sadly, nearly 40,000 international troops - about three-quarters of them American - are still there.  The US recently signed a Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghanistan, which, as The Guardian reported on September 30, guarantees that US and NATO troops will not have to withdraw by year’s end, and permits their stay “until the end of 2024 and beyond.”  The entry into force of the deal ensures that Barack Obama, elected president in 2008 on a wave of anti-war sentiment, will pass off both the Afghanistan war and his new war in Iraq and Syria to his successor. In 2010, his vice-president, Joe Biden, publicly vowed the US would be “totally out” of Afghanistan “come hell or high water, by 2014.”  Almost 10,000 US troops will remain in Afghanistan after year-end.

Khorasan
Since ISIS was acknowledged to have no intention of bringing its jihad to the US, the Administration was having a hard time justifying its bombing campaign in Syria.  Enter Khorasan - an unheard of jihadist group allegedly with designs to attack the "homeland" - to save the day for the militarists.  Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain in a hard-hitting report in The Intercept disclose how the Administration and the military created a wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded “The Khorasan Group"...Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.”   Greenwald and Hussain document the growth of the "Khorasan threat" in the media. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country. While emotions over the ISIS beheading videos were high, they were not enough to sustain a lengthy new war.  So after spending weeks promoting ISIS as Worse Than Al Qaeda™, they unveiled a new, never-before-heard-of group that was Worse Than ISIS™. Overnight, as the first bombs on Syria fell, the endlessly helpful U.S. media mindlessly circulated the script they were given: this new group was composed of “hardened terrorists,” posed an “imminent” threat to the U.S. homeland, was in the “final stages” of plots to take down U.S. civilian aircraft, and could “launch more-coordinated and larger attacks on the West in the style of the 9/11 attacks from 2001.”... But once it served its purpose of justifying the start of the bombing campaign in Syria, the Khorasan narrative simply evaporated as quickly as it materialized. Foreign Policy‘s Shane Harris, with two other writers, was one of the first to question whether the “threat” was anywhere near what it had been depicted to be...On September 25, The New York Times — just days after hyping the Khorasan threat to the homeland — wrote that “the group’s evolution from obscurity to infamy has been sudden.” And the paper of record began, for the first time, to note how little evidence actually existed for all those claims about the imminent threats posed to the homeland. Besides the exaggerated "imminent threat," there were serious questions about whether the Khorasan Group even exists in any meaningful or identifiable manner.  Tom Englehardt in his October 7 post at TomDispatch "Inside the American Terrordome" takes aim at the terror-phobia and the "soundtrack of hysteria" that has gripped this country since the attacks of September 11.  Referencing the Greenwald/Hussain report, he writes:  the whole Khorasan story began to disassemble within a day or so of the initial announcement and the bombing strikes in Syria.  It took next to no time at all for that “imminent threat” to morph into “aspirational” planning; for reporters to check with their Syrian sources and find that no one knew a thing about the so-called Khorasan Group... As ever, however, pointing out the real dangers in our world was left largely to non-mainstream sources, while the threat to our way of life, to Washington and New York, lingered in the air.

Gun Laws
In its October 6 issue, The Nation asks "Whatever happened to gun control?"  The Newtown tragedy was supposed to change everything about gun politics.  It hasn't.  The Nation considers Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty's (D-CT) Congressional race.  It's close and she is one of 25 Democratic Representatives considered at risk of an upset.  Esty represents the district that includes Newtown and has been a champion of tougher gun control laws.  She co-sponsored a raft of gun-violence prevention bills in the House, including the only gun-control measure to pass Congress after Newtown—a bill to provide $19.5 million to improve the federal background-check system...But twenty-one months after the shootings and with the midterm elections approaching, Esty is facing a situation that would have seemed absurd and even impossible [in the days after Newtown]: her opponent, Mark Greenberg, opposes new federal gun laws.  Newtown was supposed to change everything—and for a moment, it appeared it had. Support inside Connecticut for stricter gun laws approached 60 percent in the months after the shooting. In April 2013, a package of reforms touted as the “toughest gun laws in the country” passed the Legislature with wide bipartisan support and was signed into law by Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy. But now, most polls show Malloy trailing his Republican opponent, Tom Foley, who opposes new gun laws. How did it happen?  And how did the proposals for reasonable measures to prevent gun violence get stymied at the Federal level?  The NRA was even in negotiations on a universal background check bill.  But persistent misinformation and agitation by far-right members of Congress and gun groups even more rigid than the NRA slowly doomed the effort. Republicans who said they’d support background-check legislation started to waver, often citing bogus fears of a national gun registry that the bill explicitly forbade. The NRA began feeling the heat from groups like Gun Owners of America, which urged a no-compromise approach, and its lobbyists dropped out of the negotiations.  In spite of the unlikelihood of any Congressional action on preventing gun violence for the foreseeable, The Nation is encouraged by the laws passed at the state level.  An untold story of the post-Newtown debate over gun control is how much happened at the state level: while the national media deemed gun control impossible after Congress failed to act, eight states made significant or sweeping changes to gun laws, while only four states significantly weakened them, according to analysis by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Mark Follman at Mother Jones crunched the numbers and found that more than half of all Americans now live in a state with stronger gun control laws than existed before Newtown. Washington State, Nevada and Illinois have initiatives on the 2014 ballot so there may be even more progress.  Many people are getting involved outside the electoral and legislative arenas as well by joining a wide-ranging movement to keep guns out of public spaces.  Americans for Responsible Solutions is "micro-targeting" specific groups for support of reforming gun laws and there is real optimism among the various reform groups,  But on the national level, for these mid-terms at least, candidates are treading cautiously with the result that in an election cycle with no overriding theme, gun control occupies a place somewhere alongside farm subsidies or the Export-Import Bank as an issue on the campaign trail. 

Hong Kong
The Hong Kong student protests are petering out.  With numbers shrinking rapidly, and hopes of winning meaningful reform fading even faster, the question now is what lies ahead for these “angry – but peaceful” young men and women. Will the unprecedented protests embolden them to fight for their beliefs in future, or convince them that resistance to Beijing’s will is futile? “People are criticising what we are doing as pointless and saying we won’t achieve anything, but history has shown us that is not the case,” student leader Joshua Wong told the crowd last week. “All our actions are like planting a seed.”...Beijing’s attempts to introduce a draconian national security law in 2003 and “patriotic education” in 2012 were turning points. Then came the decision to tightly restrict the long-promised universal suffrage.  “People are finally saying: This is it – this is the end – and this has fuelled this sudden anger and frustration,” Hong Kong-based author Suzanne Pepper said.  There are economic as well as political reasons for the protests.  The emphasis on tourism and an influx of mainlanders has increased the competition for professional jobs, housing and seats on public transport.   The salaries of young people are down, in real trerms, about 15-20% since 2000 housing prices are soaring, and income inequality is among the highest in the developed world.  [The Guardian, October 7]  Change, if any, will come slowly.  Hong Kong officials had agreed to meet with student representatives but then called off a meeting [scheduled for] Friday with student leaders of the pro-democracy movement.  Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said it would be "impossible to have a constructive dialogue" after protest leaders called for an increase in efforts to occupy main protest areas.  [BBC, October 9]

Ebola
The (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent a team to Nigeria to learn more about how Nigeria managed to contain the outbreak there so effectively.  Ebola first arrived in Lagos, Nigeria—one of the largest cities in the world—on July 20. Global health officials feared the worst, warning that the disease could wreak untold havoc in the country.  But it hasn't turned out that way. To date, Nigeria has reported only 20 confirmed or probable Ebola cases in a nation of 174 million people. Equally remarkable, there have only been eight deaths...In fact, Nigeria could be declared Ebola-free as early as October 12.  The Nigerians' success resulted from early identification, isolation and treatment, a coordinated approach with a center of operations, and fast tracking of contacts of the infected person.  [Mother Jones, October 10]  Meanwhile, Republican Senators are blocking approval of the transfer of $1 billion in funds in the DOD budget to combat the disease - partly because it focuses on Africa rather than the US and partly because of the "thin" Defense budget (Note: the US military budget is nearly 40% of the global total spent on the military. $1 billion is less than 0.2% of our military budget). You can't make this stuff up. Read more on these latest obstructions at The Daily Kos.   And at The Nation.
UPDATE: Senator Inhofe, the Senate Armed Services ranking Republican, lifted his objections and $750 million of the requested $1 billion will be transferred. [Reuters, Oct. 10]

In Brief - Voting Rights
"A Wild Week for Voting Rights" [Liz Kennedy at Demos, October 10] - The Supreme Court began its term by reinstating voting restrictions in Ohio and North Carolina after federal appeals courts put these laws on hold for unfairly burdening voting rights, particularly for people of color...[On October 9], the Court took action to stop Wisconsin’s voter ID requirement from going into effect only weeks before Election Day, and a federal court struck down Texas’s voter ID law after a trial on the merits, ruling for voters in both cases.  
[Update: The US Supreme Court reversed the Texas trial court's decision on Saturday, October 18. The discriminatory Texas ID law will be in effect and could disenfranchise as many as 600,000 voters.]