Saturday, December 31, 2022

The Economic Realities We Face at the End of 2022

"For decades, wealth and income have been redistributed upward - with minimal protest by the working classes who were harmed by that redistribution. During 2022, working classes in many countries were no longer willing to defer their needs in the wake of that redistribution. Labor militancy, unionization, and strikes all have been renewed with remarkable energy and enthusiasm. Increasing numbers of workers are unwilling to wait and see whether or not long sluggish center-left and center-right governments and parties would do anything adequate to change the deepening inequalities, instabilities, and injustices of contemporary capitalism." The Economic Realities We Face at the End of 2022

by Richard D Wolff

https://www.counterpunch.org (December 19 2022)

https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IMG_4790-1536x1152.jpeg

Photograph by Nathaniel Saint Clair

Economies around the world were shocked and damaged over the course of 2022. Global capitalism had been brewing conflicts among the major powers (the United States, China, and the EU) for some time as their relative strengths and vulnerabilities shifted. US capitalism and its empire are widely perceived as waning. Europe's role as a US ally and, indeed, its economic future became correspondingly riskier as a result. China's economic growth encountered problems but continued to be remarkably positive and often crucially supportive of world economic conditions in ways that were once more closely associated with the role of the United States. China's deepening alliance with Russia, as well as its burgeoning global economic reach, frightened many in the United States. Years of increasingly aggressive competition, tariff and trade wars, and bans and subsidies, mostly initiated by the United States, culminated this past year in global economic warfare.

The key fact is not the military war between Russia and Ukraine, so far a limited, secondary affair except for the massive on-the-ground suffering of the Ukrainian people and the soldiers on both sides of the conflict. The year's key reality is rather the economic warfare between the United States and the EU versus Russia and China: sanctions and countersanctions. Their ramifications (energy price spikes, supply chain disruptions, and massive market shifts) worsened the inflation already troubling many countries. These, in turn, provoked central bank interest rate increases that added more disruptive and costly shocks to an already problematic 2022 global economy.

For decades, wealth and income have been redistributed upward - with minimal protest by the working classes who were harmed by that redistribution. During 2022, working classes in many countries were no longer willing to defer their needs in the wake of that redistribution. Labor militancy, unionization, and strikes all have been renewed with remarkable energy and enthusiasm. Increasing numbers of workers are unwilling to wait and see whether or not long sluggish center-left and center-right governments and parties would do anything adequate to change the deepening inequalities, instabilities, and injustices of contemporary capitalism.

Capitalism's victims increasingly rediscovered and resumed alliances with its critics. Thus, they know that stagflation, not recovery, may well be the result of inflation plus interest rate hikes. The emergence of the Global South as an important player in great power politics and its current realignments took further steps during 2022. Widespread feelings that an old capitalist world is falling apart are not fading.

Those feelings emerge into public view during a period of massive contradictions - for example, the resurgence of both white supremacy and anti-fascism, or the blows against abortion access in the US following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade in contrast with France's enshrining of abortion access {1} in its constitution. Chinese workers demand better wages and working conditions while the dishonesty of global capitalist polluters gets increasingly exposed.

Meanwhile, global changes in great power alignments risk being misunderstood or undervalued because clashing capitalisms disguise themselves, yet again, in great principles. Russia versus Ukraine gets rewritten as anti-Russian North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) expansion versus Ukrainian self-determination. US capitalism's shift from neoliberal globalization to government-led economic nationalism to counter China's rise in the global economy gets rewritten as required by "national security". The further fracturing of Europe's unity gets rewritten, in truly upside-down fashion, as a rebuilt US-EU-Nato alliance. Proliferating delusions need deciphering.

Global capitalism has already stumbled badly three times in this new century: the dot-com crisis in 2000, the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, and the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. Calling each crisis by a different, conjunctural name thinly disguises a cyclic instability intrinsic to and as old as capitalism. The capitalist system that dominates globally today organizes 99 percent of its workplaces/enterprises with a small minority of employers who direct the large majority of employees. It forces today's great powers (the United States, the EU, and China) to mobilize their allies and compete to shape the decisions of the Global South. The post-World War Two years of US hegemony governed and held together a particular global arrangement of economies. The culmination of short-term instabilities and long-term trends inside and outside the great powers has undermined US hegemony. A struggle to shape the emerging "new world order" is underway. That struggle is the economic reality as 2022 ends.

The hegemonic war of maneuver is our context now; it will last until or unless a new global arrangement arrives. The French think tank Ecole de Guerre Economique (EGE) has for 25 years been studying the shadow wars for dominance over the global economy with interesting, provocative results {2}. In October 2022, EGE released a book, Guerre economique: Qui Est l'Ennemi? (Economic War: Who Is the Enemy?) {3}, which presented the findings of a survey of French business experts that was conducted by EGE's Centre de Recherche 451 (CR451) in July 2022. Respondents were asked to name five foreign powers that most threaten France's interests. They answered {4} that the United States was France's greatest threat, with China, Germany, Russia, and the UK following, in descending order.

It would be wishful thinking to mistake this result as peculiar to the French. Many leaders and influencers around the world criticize and resent the last 75 years of economic hegemony wielded by the United States. That perspective on current events has only strengthened in recent years as the US global empire has lost power, the United States lost wars in Asia, and China emerged as the first serious economic competitor against the United States since at least 1945. The Ukraine war has so far served mainly to validate and thus harden that perspective.

The US-China conflict has provoked ongoing changes and shifts among all players in the global economy. After more than two decades of doing poorly in competition with China, the United States has shifted from a policy of neoliberal globalization to one of economic nationalism. The presidencies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and now Joe Biden illustrate the shift (even as orthodox economics finds it awkward having celebrated laissez-faire for so long). Objections from European, Canadian, and other corners flood {5} into Washington against new US subsidies for automobiles produced inside the United States. Those self-serving US policies are said to threaten deindustrialization elsewhere. Europe's traditional subordination to and alliance with the United States since 1945 is fraying, notwithstanding the loud claims to the contrary coming from the United States and the EU. The deep economic and political decline of the UK before and especially after Brexit has the United States considering reliable, alternative agents for its European interests. Germany is the likeliest candidate if it could play that role without jeopardizing its dependence on exports to China. Maneuvers inside Europe force the UK and each EU member to strategize how best to respond to them as well as to the United States and China. Oil and gas price inflation resulting from the US-EU sanctions against Russia intensified all these conflicts because they disadvantage Europe relatively more compared to the other players in the world economy and also European nations vis-a-vis one another.

Secondary themes distract many from grasping the global reorganization now underway. Among these are principles like "national self-determination", "freedom of the seas", and "rules-based international order". They serve mostly to hide the global reorganization as if, suddenly, such principles were the dominant reality requiring protection. The principles, rather, provide convenient veneers for another period of great power realignments like those witnessed in capitalism before.

Before 1914, contesting capitalisms fought over their respective colonial possessions amid those capitalisms' shifting relative strengths. A declining British empire struggled with the major aspiring contestants to replace that empire (the United States and Germany) and the minor aspirants (France, Russia, and Japan). Caught up in their global power struggles were a disintegrating China and a Global South that was prioritizing decolonization above all else. Within each nation, class struggles - especially a rising socialism challenging capitalism - further complicated their external power maneuvers. Those conflicts culminated in World War One. That war also changed everything: the global power configuration and, likewise, the internal class struggles.

The US empire replaced the British empire. The USSR replaced Russia. Germany's empire was erased. Japan tried to build an Asian empire and splinter China. Anti-imperialism gained strength everywhere. But so did the capitalist economic system - the structure of production that positions a tiny minority of owners/directors - the employers - over a vast majority of workers - the employees. True, the USSR led global movements against capitalism, but they mostly focused on displacing private employers with state officials as employers. For most in that generation, capitalism meant private employers, whereas socialism meant state employers. Capitalism's basic workplace structure - employers versus employees - persisted in both its state and private forms. Capitalism's two forms contested and worked their profound influences everywhere, culminating in World War Two.

Britain, Germany, Japan, and Russia were all deeply damaged and weakened, leaving the United States to expand and solidify its empire for the next 75 years. The USSR was strong enough to provide some counterweight to US military power, chiefly by creating space for the emergence of replicas of its socialism (state employers rather than private employers, in conjunction with state-planned distributions rather than free markets). China took advantage of that space but soon diverged into its own version of socialism, a hybrid of Soviet-style state enterprises and private capitalist enterprises, both with similar employer-employee structures.

Now, yet again, capitalism's contradictions are driving toward another war that would, likely, once again change everything. But now we can discern a certain pattern that would likely be repeated, more or less. An old empire (the United States) is now clearly in decline, and a new one (China) is emerging. The only other potential major power is the EU, but the disunity among its members greatly weakens its competitiveness relative to the United States and China. Secondary global powers are Japan and Russia, which are aligned with the United States and China, respectively. Lagging behind the major and secondary powers by varying degrees, there are other countries, including many in the Global South, that have become economically stronger but whose economic power remains relatively limited given their own divisions and divisiveness, as some play the major powers against one another (or try to).

The collapse and disappearance of Eastern European socialism after 1989 and China's major opening to both Chinese and foreign private capitalist investments in recent decades have combined to produce a broad crisis in socialism. European social democracy has steadily lost support across the continent. Neoliberalism had undermined social democracy ideologically even as economic realities provoked socially divisive immigration, automation, and job exports. Much the same had happened in the United States to the center-left represented by the Democratic Party, thereby paving the way for Trump. China's rise has challenged the declining US empire and provoked it to adopt increasingly desperate economic nationalism in response. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and other related international blocs reflect and advance the rising strength and voice of many in the Global South who are moving toward alliances with China and Russia (accelerated by the Ukraine war and sanctions regime).

Propaganda, trials, and errors characterize efforts by all sides to navigate a dangerous, tension-filled time of change. One side's "freedom fighters" are characterized by the opposing side as agents of domination by major powers. One side's expansion of its international trade and capital is branded "aggressiveness" by another side rattling its swords. Shifts from neoliberal globalization to assertive economic nationalism are all rationalized as requirements of "national security". Decades earlier, devotees of neoliberalism celebrated its contributions to "peace" by merely existing as a passive contrast to economic nationalism and its characteristic propensity for wars. The less fantastic propaganda has its traces of truth, but they are faint. Repression of internal dissent occurs in all powers, more or less. Efforts by socialists and other working-class advocates are repressed or barely tolerated if carefully disconnected from global power politics.

Socialists were split by World War One. On one side were those (Rosa Luxemburg, Eugene Debs, and Vladimir Lenin) who upheld the primacy of the anti-capitalist class struggle and transition to a post-capitalist economic and social system. On the other side were those who took sides in the global power struggles of capitalist powers and found convenient socialist-sounding rationales for doing so. World War One split socialists even as it strengthened a broadly defined socialism. World War Two did the same. It not only hardened the splits within socialism (such as social democracy and Soviet socialism) but also extended the social reach of socialist variants of anti-capitalism, especially to the former colonies and China.

Capitalism has been the context and ultimate cause of world history's two worst wars. Many had thought, hoped, and worked so that those horrific wars might enable and empower first the League of Nations and later the United Nations. The goals of these organizations were to secure peace in place of global power politics moving toward war. They tried to achieve that goal without fundamentally challenging capitalism, the organization of an economy whose production entails a powerful minority (private or state) owning and operating enterprises. These organizations seem to have failed, but their failure left a lesson we can learn and build on.

A truly internationalist socialism would not tolerate the inequalities within and among the nations of the world. Drastically reducing those would be the top priority. Providing full guarantees of food, clothing, and housing for all - across each individual's lifetime - would be the second-highest priority. Democratizing not only political life (one person, one vote for all major community decisions) but also economic life (ensuring each employee has one vote on all major workplace decisions) would be the third key priority. A world committed to these goals - the concrete meaning of "going beyond capitalism" or "socialism" - could overcome causes of capitalist wars and hopefully also of wars in general.

Links: {1} https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221124-%F0%9F%94%B4-french-national-assembly-approves-bill-enshrining-abortion-rights-in-the-constitution

{2} https://portail-ie.fr/analysis/4111/conversation-christian-harbulot-guerre-economique-qui-est-lennemi

{3} https://www.nouveau-monde.net/catalogue/qui-est-lennemi/

{4} https://portail-ie.fr/analysis/4111/conversation-christian-harbulot-guerre-economique-qui-est-lennemi

{5} https://www.politico.eu/article/joe-biden-ira-inflation-reduction-us-ignores-eu/

_____ Richard Wolff is the author of Capitalism Hits the Fan (2009) and Capitalism's Crisis Deepens (2016). He is founder of Democracy at Work.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/19/the-economic-realities-we-face-at-the-end-of-2022/

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Special Report-Boy Scouts, Catholic dioceses find haven from sex abuse suits in bankruptcy

Special Report-Boy Scouts, Catholic dioceses find haven from sex abuse suits in bankruptcy C poses for a portrait at a state park in Sacramento, California By Kristina Cooke, Mike Spector, Benjamin Lesser, Dan Levine and Disha Raychaudhuri (Reuters) - Lawmakers around the United States have tried to grant justice to victims of decades-old incidents of child sexual abuse by giving them extra time to file lawsuits. Now some of the defendants in these cases, including church and youth organizations, are finding a safe haven: America’s bankruptcy courts. In New York, nearly 11,000 cases flooded state courts, many seeking to hold Catholic dioceses responsible for sexual abuse by clergy, after a 2019 law suspended statutes of limitations that would have otherwise barred many of the lawsuits. In response, four New York dioceses that collectively faced more than 500 sexual-abuse claims filed for bankruptcy. That halted the cases — and blocked those from anyone who might sue later — and forced the plaintiffs to negotiate a one-time settlement for all abuse claims in bankruptcy court. The pattern has taken hold across the United States, a Reuters review of bankruptcies precipitated by mass child sexual-abuse litigation found. Many of the defendants turning to bankruptcy court are nonprofit organizations. In court filings dating back to 2009, the Boy Scouts of America, a New York boys & girls club and 13 separate Catholic institutions each have cited state laws extending abuse victims’ right to sue as factors in their decisions to seek bankruptcy protection. Such bankruptcies are “the counterpunch” to the state laws enabling more victims to seek justice and compensation through lawsuits, said Stephen Rubino, a lawyer who’s represented clergy abuse victims for more than 30 years. In all, 23 states, two territories and Washington, D.C., have passed laws that suspend statutes of limitations for sexual-abuse victims who were previously prevented from suing over older cases. The suspensions typically last a year or more, allowing plaintiffs to file new lawsuits involving old abuse cases during that period. California, New York and several other states passed such laws in 2019. Bankruptcy courts are undermining the impact of the statutes, some legal experts and victims’ advocates say. Judges overseeing these Chapter 11 filings set their own deadlines to file a sexual-abuse claim for compensation from the bankruptcy settlement. Victims who miss the bankruptcy claims-filing deadline receive nothing or are forced to compete for limited funds set aside for unknown future claimants, the Reuters review of bankruptcies found. “As we dramatically increase access to justice through statutes-of-limitations reform, we have more organizations going into bankruptcy because, frankly, bankruptcy law favors the organizations,” said Marci Hamilton, the founder of Child USA, a group that has advocated for laws expanding sexual-abuse victims’ rights to sue. Child sexual-abuse victims often don’t come forward until much later in life, sometimes past the age of 50, according to several victims’ lawyers and studies on abuse disclosure. Some are not aware of bankruptcy proceedings that affect them until it is too late. Bankruptcy claims-filing deadlines can force victims to come forward before they are ready, Hamilton said. And abuse claimants have limited leverage in Chapter 11 cases that halt their litigation and shield organizations such as dioceses, schools or youth organizations from current and future lawsuits, she said. “The federal bankruptcy law is just defective when it comes to sexual-abuse victims,” Hamilton said. “Their voice is just stolen from them.” Reuters identified settlements in 23 bankruptcies precipitated by child sexual-abuse scandals that halted current and future lawsuits and forced claimants to seek compensation from a trust. The cases involved the Boy Scouts, 21 Catholic organizations and USA Gymnastics. The youth gymnastics organization filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2018 amid a surge of lawsuits alleging abuse by convicted child sexual abuser Larry Nassar. (Now in prison, Nassar could not be reached for comment.) The Boy Scouts and USA Gymnastics did not comment for this story. The Boy Scouts and others have argued that their bankruptcy plans seek to pay claimants fairly and equitably, whereas civil litigation can result in some victims winning large jury verdicts and others receiving smaller judgments or nothing. USA Gymnastics has said it sought bankruptcy protection “to pave the way toward a settlement” with abuse survivors, who last year approved a plan paying them $380 million. The organizations also often conduct extensive marketing campaigns to ensure that potential victims know they can seek compensation in the Chapter 11 cases, a review of the cases shows. The Boy Scouts, for instance, said on a website the group set up for restructuring that it launched a “comprehensive noticing campaign” in the media. The Madison Square Boys & Girls Club in New York City referred Reuters to a bankruptcy-court declaration filed in June by its chief financial officer, Jeffrey Dold. Dold said the organization sought Chapter 11 protection after trying and failing to resolve about 140 pending claims of sexual abuse by club employees and volunteers between the 1940s and 1980s, all filed after the passage of New York’s claims-revival law. The club filed bankruptcy, Dold said, “to provide a forum to address those claims fairly and equitably.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had no comment on the new state laws or their impact nationwide on Catholic organizations facing sexual-abuse lawsuits. In a statement to Reuters, it said it defers to state and local catholic leadership organizations on state laws and bankruptcies. The conference noted the importance of “pastoral outreach” to abuse victims and said that local dioceses have victim assistance coordinators to “assist survivors and accompany them as they seek healing.” The nonprofit organizations’ bankruptcies don’t protect the individual abusers themselves, whom victims can still sue. But they do grant lawsuit immunity to the entities that oversaw employees or volunteers accused of abuse. Lawyers defending organizations targeted by sexual-abuse claims, along with some plaintiffs lawyers, say bankruptcy provides a fair way to compensate victims, many of whom want to avoid the ordeal of a lawsuit and a potential trial. Moreover, organizations and insurers paying the settlements won’t agree to any deal that doesn’t shield them from additional liability, said Susan Boswell, a retired lawyer who represented dioceses in bankruptcies from Arizona to Minnesota. “If you can’t have finality,” she said, “then you are not ever going to be able to get one of these cases done.” America’s federal bankruptcy courts play a critical role in justice and commerce by giving businesses overwhelmed by debt an orderly process to settle with creditors during a reorganization or liquidation. Those debts can include liability from lawsuits over deadly products, fraud, sexual abuse or other wrongdoing. The power of U.S. bankruptcy courts to grant lawsuit immunity to organizations in bankruptcy, their leaders and affiliated entities has expanded over time. And so have the legal tactics of entities seeking Chapter 11 protection: Some corporations engulfed in scandals are now creating subsidiaries solely to absorb their lawsuit liability and declare bankruptcy. Nonprofit organizations facing sexual-abuse lawsuits have pulled another page from the corporate bankruptcy playbook: In striking settlements, they typically seek “nondebtor releases” for their associated entities, such as religious schools and individual parishes. Such releases shield people and entities from lawsuits over issues taken up in bankruptcy settlements. By piggybacking on a nonprofit’s Chapter 11 filing, its affiliated organizations or leaders often get these liability shields without having to file for bankruptcy themselves. Judges often appoint someone to advocate for the interests of potential victims who have not yet sued or made a claim in bankruptcy court. Known as future claims representatives, these appointees are often lawyers or financial professionals who are paid by the debtor and tasked with estimating the number of future claims and the funds needed to cover them. The reality, however, is that late filers often end up competing for smaller amounts than those who meet the deadline, according to court records reviewed by Reuters and attorneys involved in the proceedings. Unknown claimants become “numbers on a chart,” Rubino said. JUSTICE DENIED A former Boy Scout, C, alleges a Scout leader abused him when he was a teenager. Reuters agreed to identify the former Scout, now 40, only by his first initial. He sought compensation in the Boy Scouts bankruptcy in June, long after a deadline of November 16, 2020 for filing claims. C is now unlikely to recover much, if anything, from the $2.46 billion settlement the Boy Scouts reached with claimants alleging sexual abuse, his lawyer said. That’s because claimants who miss the deadline face a gauntlet of additional hurdles and conditions, according to C’s lawyer and a review of the Boy Scouts settlement terms. The Boy Scouts bankruptcy reorganization plan, approved by a judge in September, halts all lawsuits against the Boy Scouts, local councils, churches and other organizations that chartered scouting activities. The bankruptcy’s claims-filing rules take precedence over a recent law passed in California, where C says he was abused, that expanded sexual-abuse victims’ rights to sue. The bankruptcy proceedings generally trump state laws because bankruptcy courts are federal, and typically have the power to override state statutes and halt state lawsuits or court orders. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein reasoned in approving the Boy Scouts settlement that it was a better solution for victims than seeking compensation in trial courts. Silverstein declined to comment for this story. In a July opinion approving aspects of the Scouts’ reorganization plan, she noted that insurance carriers, local Scouts councils and chartered organizations would not contribute to the settlement without receiving nondebtor releases from liability. She agreed with lawyers for the Boy Scouts and some claimants that the only alternative to a settlement was a “‘death trap’ of litigation with minimal recoveries in sight.” “These boys–now men–seek and deserve compensation,” the judge wrote, for “abuse which has had a profound effect on their lives and for which no compensation will ever be enough.” Beyond questions of fair compensation, C said the bankruptcy is preventing him from getting his day in court against the Boy Scouts to present what happened to him. C grew up in an unstable home in northern California. His mother considered the Boy Scouts a safe environment for her son. For years after a Scout leader allegedly abused him and other boys, C struggled with acknowledging that what had happened to him was wrong, he told Reuters. He had trusted his Scout leader. Within the past couple of years, he spoke at length with another former Scout about the leader’s behavior, he said. The emotional conversation prompted C to reflect on the damage in his own life stemming from the abuse. He said in an interview that his own struggles relating to others began to make more sense. C lives with his mother, sometimes sleeps in his car and has struggled to find a steady career. “I’m waiting to stand in front of a judge,” C said, and hoping for that judge to say: “‘What happened to you was wrong.’” ‘THE PRIEST WOULD NEVER DO THAT’ Some plaintiffs’ attorneys say bankruptcy proceedings can provide a better way to compensate many sexual-abuse victims than trial courts. Victims often don’t want to go through the ordeal of suing their abusers or the organizations that may have enabled them, said Dan Lapinski, a Motley Rice LLC lawyer representing Boy Scouts claimants. For them, seeking compensation through bankruptcy can allow victims to file a claim confidentially and avoid reliving their trauma in open court. “I have clients who fall into that category” in the Scouts matter, Lapinski said, noting that these victims might not have pursued their claim at all outside of bankruptcy court. Financial coffers of individual dioceses are usually smaller than those of large corporations, said Boswell, the retired lawyer who has represented dioceses facing abuse allegations in bankruptcies. Expensive litigation cuts into the money available for compensation, she said, but a bankruptcy reorganization can attempt to pay all claimants equitably. Still, there is often little left for claimants who come forward later, after bankruptcy filing deadlines pass. In January 2020, a 59-year old former altar boy named Henry attended a church service in Minnesota on a visit back to the state to see family. After the service, Henry said, the priest spoke to parishioners about the financial impact of the 2018 bankruptcy of the local Winona-Rochester diocese, caused in part by sexual-abuse claims. Henry knew the abuse first-hand. When he was 17, a priest assaulted Henry in a pool shower after swimming, he said in an interview. He had kept what happened to himself in part because he thought nobody would believe him, said Henry, who spoke on condition that he be identified only by his middle name. Before clergy sexual-abuse scandals emerged worldwide, his community’s attitude was “the church would never do that, the priest would never do that,” he said. “You’re kind of squelched from the get-go.” Finding out about the bankruptcy in church that day emboldened Henry to come forward, too, he said. Two days after the priest’s comments, he contacted a lawyer who filed a late claim on his behalf. But relatively little money — a maximum of $750,000 — had been set aside for claimants who came forward after a 2019 deadline. Henry received $20,000, which he described as “an almost laughable“ amount. Henry could receive more money later, depending on how many additional claims are filed and how a trustee who determines payouts views his claim. But a final determination won’t be made until a deadline for filing late claims passes several years from now, according to documents Reuters reviewed. The judge in the case declined to comment. By comparison, the settlement covering the 145 sexual-abuse claimants who filed on time was nearly $28 million. That would equate to about $190,000 per victim. The amount individual claimants might receive varies, depending on factors including the duration, severity and impact of their alleged abuse, according to court documents. “What I don’t like is that they put some arbitrary cap on anybody who filed after” the deadline, Henry said. Peter Martin, a spokesperson for the Winona-Rochester diocese, declined to comment on its bankruptcy proceedings. Martin did not respond to inquiries about Henry’s allegations of sexual abuse. POWER AND TRUST Statutes of limitations exist for good reason, some legal scholars say. Historically, states enacted them to encourage plaintiffs to file timely lawsuits based on “reasonably fresh” evidence, said Marie T. Reilly, a professor at Penn State Law in University Park, Pennsylvania. Reilly argues that allowing victims to sue long after their alleged abuse threatens the integrity of the legal system in the name of exacting retribution against institutions such as Catholic dioceses. Over time, memories deteriorate, witnesses die and documents can go missing, she said. “The ability to mount a defense deteriorates with the passage of time,” Reilly said. New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, a Democrat, sponsored the state’s bipartisan legislation reviving child sexual-abuse claims. He told Reuters he pushed the bill because it can be especially difficult for individuals to come forward with allegations against abusers who are often “in positions of power and trust.” For thousands of victims with revived legal rights to seek accountability from institutions in trial courts, bankruptcy filings can be crushing. Doug Kennedy was a teenage Boy Scouts camp staffer in upstate New York when a camp director raped him repeatedly and forced him to engage in other sexual activity, according to a lawsuit he filed. His case was halted by the Boy Scouts bankruptcy. In the years after the assaults, he told Reuters, he buried his memories of the abuse. The man Kennedy accused of abuse, Bruce DeSandre, declined to comment through his attorney. In a court filing, DeSandre denied Kennedy’s allegations of sexual abuse and argued that New York state’s revival law was unconstitutional. When Kennedy, now a college professor, finally came to grips with his abuse, the statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit had passed. In January 2019, he retreated to his office at Virginia Wesleyan University, drew the shades and watched a streaming feed of the New York state legislature’s vote to change the law and allow victims like Kennedy to file lawsuits over abuse that occurred long ago. “I broke down, completely broke down,” he said. He thought he would finally get a chance to get accountability for what was allowed to happen to him. Later that year, in August, he filed his lawsuit against defendants including a Boy Scouts local council and DeSandre. About six months later, the Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy. Kennedy said his feeling of hope drained away when he heard the news. “Bankruptcy is not justice,” he said. “Bankruptcy is business.” (Reporting by Kristina Cooke, Benjamin Lesser, Dan Levine, Mike Spector and Disha Raychaudhuri; editing by Janet Roberts and Brian Thevenot.)

Friday, December 30, 2022

Fascist Republican

Mike Lee (R-UT) joins the Koch brothers’ crusade to castrate the Federal government. It never fails that the party responsible for divisive rhetoric and violence as a matter of course always threatens violence against other Americans because Democrats were successful in an election. The midterm elections were barely a week old, and as if on a predetermined schedule, a Republican senator was warning of civil war because Democrats are unwilling to toe the Koch brothers line and work towards castrating the Federal government. This is not the first time Republicans have beat their prone-to-violence base to the punch and threatened bloodshed if they fail to get what they want. In 2012 the Virginia Republican Party threatened that conservatives would launch a violent, bloody rebellion if President Barack Obama won re-election, and no small number of Trump advocates have warned of a violent civil war if the cretin was ever held accountable for the many high crimes and misdemeanors he and his family are involved in. Mike Lee, besides being a typical Republican, is a Utah Libertarian malcontent in the mold of those filthy rich Libertarian malcontents Charles and David Koch. Anyone familiar with the Utah Mormon attempts to seize public land owned by the Federal government (see Bundy Ranch Standoff: Oregon wildlife refuge takeover) may believe that federal land ownership issue is the extent of Lee’s close affiliation with the Koch brothers, but that belief would be dead wrong. Lee’s distorted view of the U.S. Constitution, and the legitimacy of the Federal government, is shared by the Koch brothers. And like the Koch brothers, Lee demands, and expects, a quick end to most of the Federal government’s agencies, departments and programs; he claims it is the only prescription to prevent civil war. In that sense, Lee is a Koch acolyte of the first order. It is true the Koch brothers do not threaten violence or warn of civil rebellion against the government, but they did co-create and contribute handsomely to the teabagger movement and Republicans who warned of civil war if they did not get their way. Two weeks ago, barely eight days after the midterm elections, Lee addressed the uber-conservative Federalist Society. It was during that address that he warned that if the federal government is not neutered, including the wholesale elimination of most Federal government programs, agencies and departments, then there “will be civil war.” Lee’s claim is that unless Democrats join Republicans and “move to a system granting de facto sovereignty to the states and eliminate massive federal programs like public education and interstate highways there will be a civil war.” Such a system Lee calls for would be patently unconstitutional in the United States, but legal in a by-gone and very short-lived “sovereign nation.” Lee warned that the only way Democrats can avert violence is if they end their support for a long list of federal programs, agencies, and departments that also happen to be on the Koch brothers hit list going back three decades. Just a sampling of what Democrats have to willingly help eliminate to stave off a violent civil war according to Lee includes, but is not limited to: The interstate highway system, funding for K-12 public education, federal higher education accreditation, early childhood education, the Department of Commerce, housing policy, workforce regulations, and what the typically-Mormon Lee labeled the illegal “huge glut of federally owned land.” Lee also believes that federal child labor laws, Social Security, and Medicare are patently unconstitutional. According to his mind, the only means of avoiding civil war is ignoring that part of the Constitution granting authority to Congress to appropriate funds for the general welfare and establishes the federal government as a legitimate governing entity. Lee claimed that opposition to conservative policies, such as eliminating the federal government, is what he called “angry political rhetoric driving our politics toward violence,” stating emphatically:: “Ultimately, this will come down to a binary choice: federalism or violence.” Any American with a pulse understands the choice Lee proffers is “my way or civil war.” And to be abundantly clear, what Mormon Lee is claiming is that unless the federal government and everything connected to it is eliminated, including forfeiture of its public land to states like Utah to sell to the Kochs, there will be violence – not unlike the Bundy message. It is noteworthy that Lee places the blame for his impending civil war on the people unlikely to ever support eradicating the Federal government or eliminating domestic programs or end Congress’ spending on the general welfare – Democrats. Lee claims that “every federal law that liberals support violates the Constitution.” He even believes the “federal ban on child labor is unconstitutional because the Constitution was ‘designed to be harsh.’” The only thing Lee claims the federal government can legally be allowed to do under his reading of the “constitution” is enforce immigration laws - everything else is unconstitutional. However, since the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws and levy taxes for the nation’s general welfare, such as highways, public schools et cetera, there is nothing on Lee’s, or the Koch brothers’, hit list that is remotely unconstitutional; it is why liberals support all those things Lee and the Kochs despise – they are constitutional. It is worth noting that in another era of American history Lee’s claim that those so-called “unconstitutional” things liberals support were indeed “unconstitutional.” However, they were “unconstitutional” according to the Constitution of the Confederate States, not the United States Constitution Lee swore a “so help me god” oath to support, preserve and defend – an oath he seems more than willing to violate or he would not threaten a civil war if he fails to get what he and his nasty ilk demand. No-one enjoys losing elections, and for sure those that do are ultimately disappointed. However, it is only the Republicans and their ugly base that go directly to threatening violence towards the opposition; in Lee’s case it is violence against the Federal government. That is what civil war is. Democrats were certainly disappointed after the 2016 election loss where their candidate earned about 3-million more votes than the criminal Republicans supported, but they never threatened violence or civil war. Instead, they embraced their constitutional rights to protest and verbally “resist” that became a “Blue Wave” that incited a sitting Republican senator to warn of civil war against the government; something that really is unconstitutional. |

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Book Review: AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Reviewed by: Vaughn Mitchell

10/11/2022 Native Education Now! - Book Review: AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Reviewed by: Vaughn Mitchell 0 COMMENTS Picture ​A video from the early 2021-22 school year displays a California math teacher teaching the popular trigonometry acronym SOH-CAH-TOA with a demonstration that clearly mocks Native dresses and dances. Her loud stomping, high-pitch chanting, and drawings of teepees on the whiteboards that represent right triangles could not serve as a more offensive caricature of Indigenous culture. Yet, more broadly, plenty of colonialist myths have permeated throughout American society that are acquired earlier on in school. “Maybe the Native Americans were destined to be overpowered, just look at how advanced their conquerors were.” “If anything, the Native Americans needed to be colonized; they weren’t civilized.” “You want to teach these kids about Native history? That’s Critical Race Theory!” These erroneous claims are a product of a culture that ignores the struggles of Native Americans felt throughout history and on reservations today. Perhaps one of the most genocidal campaigns of the United States was the forced assimilation and movement of Native Americans, a history of conquest seldom taught in today’s schools. In fact, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz aptly fills these gaps by describing the sophisticated languages, government structures, agricultural techniques, and living conditions of Native Americans pre-colonization in her book An Indigenous People’s History of the United States. For the future of understanding the colonialist project built on murder, torture, rape, war, stolen land, and myths to colonize Indigenous nations, a widespread revamp of educating American students is imperative to understand the truths about how Native people lived and how the U.S. government destroyed thriving cultures. The typical argument against expanding the teaching of Native history is that such material is too violent and morbid for children to process and that it places indirect blame on the students for the unchangeable actions of the past. The extent to which Native history is taught in grade school mainly includes Columbus’ arrival and Thanksgiving, speaking from personal experience. As children, processing the dense history of Native conquest would be both cumbersome and tough to digest, but outright bans on such material have no place in realms of education. Governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis have signed anti-CRT legislation under the reasoning that it would make students feel “guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” for learning about the actions of those who share their race or national origin. While this notion concedes the U.S. government’s role in the slaughter of Indigenous people, further education of students is necessary to clear simplistic understandings of Native history. In fact, disappointing research from Reclaiming Native Truth found that only 36% of Americans surveyed believe that Native people are significantly discriminated against. To put it simply, a lack of inclusion of Native history creates unintentional bias against Native Americans from people who don’t understand their struggle. In the case of many high schools throughout the country, a comprehension of what the Trial of Tears was simply does not suffice to understand the severity of their treatment over time. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers historical evidence beyond what’s included in the school curriculum that documents the brutal magnitude of Andrew Jackson’s operation. For instance, she includes a primary source from a Confederate general who described watching the forced migration when he was a younger volunteer as worse than anything he saw in the Civil War. “I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew,” (Dunbar-Ortiz 113). These minor tweaks added to school curriculum when teaching Native history are perfect for understanding the development of U.S. colonialism. They also hold great power in clearing cultural misconceptions about terms that find themselves woven into American culture. Dunbar-Ortiz examines the origins of the name “redskins”, the name of Washington’s NFL team until it was changed in 2020, which comes from the skinned bodies of Native people when colonial governments would place bounties on targeted natives (Dunbar-Ortiz 64-65). Bounty hunting in the early colonies acted as a lucrative trade wherein colonists were reimbursed if they showed proof of decapitation. Other myths such as placing false hostility on Native people to justify their assimilation and domination are also prevalent. Later in history, as land was slowly taken by the U.S. government in the name of Manifest Destiny, assimilation campaigns began with the introduction of Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Created to “kill the Indian and “save the Man”, this boarding school entailed rampant sexual assault and forced assimilation of Native students according to Dunbar-Ortiz's primary sources from previous students. They were forced to forget their languages, wear Anglo-American clothes, and convert to Christianity. Former student Sun Elk testified, “We all wore white man’s clothes and ate white man’s food and went to white man’s churches and spoke white man’s talk,” (Dunbar-Ortiz 212). On the sexual assault topic, Indigenous women remember “We had many different teachers during those years; some got the girls pregnant and had to leave,” (Dunbar-Ortiz 213). Ultimately, elements essential to Natives and Native history were deliberately erased by the United States government, even to the extent of bodily autonomy. Because the current teaching of Native history is purposely simplistic to vindicate blame from the U.S. government, a new approach such as including Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous People’s History of the United States in today’s curricula is indispensable for a better understanding of how Native Americans live today resulting from the colonial actions of the past. With regards to how Native Americans are subject to abysmal living conditions in the modern day, an enhancement of modern curriculum to include Indigenous teachings is necessary. Sure, it can be understood that Native Americans face overwhelmingly low life expectancies, low standardized test scores, high unemployment rates, and high crime rates on reservations, but such statistics are meaningless without a historical analysis that provides a framework for understanding how they came to be. Take the current state of the Pine Ridge Reservation discussed by PBS Newshour. Nestled in the southern part of South Dakota’s Black Hills, the Pine Ridge Reservation faces among the worst socioeconomic barriers compared to the rest of the United States. Males, on average, live to about 48, and females live to about 52. Nearly half of people aged above 40 have diabetes, and unemployment rates lie above 80% throughout the region. Further evidence corroborates these statistics and characterizes the issue as all-encompassing of Native people instead of limiting to one reservation. According to the Economic Policy Institute, their analysis of the 2016 American Community Survey found that median household income was 69% of the national average and the share of Native people in poverty was 26% compared to the total population share of 14%. A historical analysis cannot be avoided to explain these socioeconomic disparities that Natives face, though, and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers just that. She outlines a model of colonial progression that begins with economic penetration, then establishing a sphere of influence and protectorate status and finally progressing into eventual annexation. Her model fits best with the Great Sioux Nation, coincidentally the single largest inhabitants of the Pine Ridge Reservation that was discussed by PBS Newshour. Dunbar-Ortiz explains that as the United States began westward expansion, the fur trade quickly became lucrative because it was demanded so much in the eastern part of the country, so the Sioux picked up bison hunting to sell to merchants who would in turn provide them with manufactured goods like tobacco, tools, liquor, and clothing. Trading posts were soon transformed into U.S. Army outposts, which formed protectorate status of the Sioux (Dunbar-Ortiz 191). A key component of this colonial progression, both of which Dunbar-Ortiz and Vox explain briefly, was the U.S. Army’s campaign to exterminate bison. The purpose of this campaign was twofold: to deplete the Sioux’s main food source and to reduce trade that provided the Sioux with necessary resources. This bison extinction campaign was crucial in the annexation of Indigenous territory. Because their means of trade were diminished, the Sioux were dependent on U.S. rations and commodities granted by treaties which preceded military occupation and violence that manifested in situations such as the Battle of Wounded Knee and imposed citizenship like the establishment of Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The United States had justified their claims on Indigenous lands under new rhetoric that made it an imperative to dominate them under the guise of “protection” by highlighting the appalling living conditions that the government was responsible for creating in the first place. This typical narrative has also contributed to prevailing stereotypes of Native Americans today. Talking points such as how Native people are “uncivilized” and “need to be protected” can lend themself in part to how the United States was successful in creating the environment of immense poverty experienced today that remains the basis of their occupation. Such analysis never finds itself taught in America’s schools today and therefore is necessary to dispel both these beliefs and a one-dimensional understanding of how Native Americans live today. A more comprehensive teaching of past treatment of Native Americans implies the creation of new methods to assist Indigenous people in the future. While there is no instant remedy for Indigenous living spaces being set aflame as the Cherokee were forced to embark on the Trial of Tears, for past trauma of Cheyenne children being stripped away from their reservations and shipped to boarding schools, for Sioux families brutally slaughtered as the Battle of Little Bighorn commenced, the United States government could take necessary steps that improve the current material conditions of Native Americans shaped by the past. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz raises the idea of restitution instead of reparations: directly giving land back to respective nations instead of paying them for past mistakes on behalf of the U.S. government. This distinction is very important according to many Indigenous nations. Washington Post writer Daniel R. Wildcat in his “Why Native Americans don’t want reparations” explains that Native Americans don’t view land as a natural resource like the United States does; rather, they view it as a natural relative. Any monetary compensation is thus inappropriate not only because they hold a spiritual connection with the land, but also because the land was never for sale in the first place. Dunbar-Ortiz exemplifies this with her mentioning of the Black Hills. Taken after violation of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the ownership of the Black Hills was settled in the 1980 Supreme Court case Sioux Nation v. United States in which an agreement of $102 million was set aside for the wrongful seizure of their land (Dunbar-Ortiz 208). That sum has earned interest over the years because the Sioux had never claimed it, and it totals to about $1.3 billion today. It sits in the Department of the Treasury waiting to be collected. The refusal to claim the reparation is reflective both of Indigenous resistance to succumb to U.S. colonialism and a steadfast opposition to validating colonial control. Had this sum been collected, the Sioux would have conceded their land holdings and recognized the U.S. government as the rightful holder, the legitimate buyers of this land. And a history of resistance cannot end abruptly in conceding land that was fought for tirelessly by their ancestors, so Native Americans today keep fighting. With education that offers knowledge on why the United States government should prioritize land restitution instead of reparations, other American people can participate in the struggle for Native liberation from colonial chains. Recently, movements such as Land Back have gained momentum and serve as proof that Native struggle is not a remnant of the past and that education prevents future exploitation. Claire Elise Thompson describes the growing movement that features the restoration of land, dismantling of white supremacy, and improvement of the environment. Although the central focus of the movement is restitution, the broadened goals of Land Back can attract a variety of organizers. NDN Collective, the formal organization that coined the Land Back movement, even offered “a free, comprehensive, online learning platform to engage in political education and discussions on topics critical to the Indigenous movement to reclaim land and relationship to land” in June 2021. Their goal is to educate interested organizers on the history of colonization to promote action that advocates for land restoration. The Land Back movement has seen remarkable success with this goal as evidenced by Thompson’s description of Land Back protests in the Black Hills that advocate for their total restoration. ​ Without a robust education on the history of Native conquest and their resistance, new avenues of activism could not otherwise be discovered; hence, the inclusion of Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous People’s History of the United States would be perfect for an audience that seeks to assist and advocate for Indigenous self-determination. Luckily that California math teacher was fired quickly after the video became viral, and accountability was the most appropriate action to take. But on a larger scale, no accountability lies in the U.S. government’s calculated genocide against Native Americans. From the earlier slaughter of Native Americans in colonial times with King Philip’s War, violation of agreements like the Treaty of Fort Laramie that claimed the Black Hills once gold was discovered, fast-forwarded to forced assimilation campaigns with the introduction of the Carlisle school, U.S. history is characterized by the domination of Indigenous people and settler-colonialism. Because it is a history frequently untouched in today’s schools, Native authors such as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz deserve their work featured in modern curricula. With the inclusion of An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, the average school body will be equipped with a nuanced and complex understanding of the suffering of Native people at the behest of the U.S. government. To provide the stability and safety of Native populations for the foreseeable future, more people must be educated to deal with the inevitable challenges the United States will pose to Indigenous nations. Our ability to assist marginalized populations is by no means an option, it is an obligation. ​Works Cited ACE1918. “Soh Cah Toa Riverside, California School Full Video.” YouTube, 21 Oct. 2021, https://youtu.be/Bu4fulKVv2c. Inbody, Kristen. “Survey: People Think Native Americans Don't Exist/Aren't Discriminated Against.” Great Falls Tribune, Great Falls Tribune, 21 Aug. 2018, https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2018/08/07/survey-people-think-natives-dont-exist-arent-discriminated-against/923250002/. Khaled, Fatma. “DeSantis Bans CRT from K-12 Classrooms despite Absence from Curriculum.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 22 Apr. 2022, https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-bans-crt-k-12-classrooms-florida-1700255. Lowndes, Coleman. “Why the US Army Tried to Exterminate the Bison.” Vox, Vox, 2 Aug. 2021, https://www.vox.com/2021/8/2/22605868/us-army-exterminate-bison-buffalo. “NDN Collective Launches ‘Landback U’: A Curriculum on How to Join the Fight to Return Land to Indigenous Hands.” NDN Collective, 15 June 2021, https://ndncollective.org/ndn-collective-launches-landback-u-a-curriculum-on-how-to-join-the-fight-to-return-land-to-indigenous-hands/#:~:text=LANDBACK%20U%20is%20a%20free,land%20and%20relationship%20to%20land. Sreenivasan, Hari. “For Great Sioux Nation, Black Hills Can't Be Bought for $1.3 Billion.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 24 Aug. 2011, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-the-sioux-are-refusing-1-3-billion. Thompson, Claire. “What Is the Indigenous Landback Movement - and Can It Help the Climate?” Grist, 25 Nov. 2020, https://grist.org/fix/indigenous-landback-movement-can-it-help-climate/. Wildcat, Daniel R. “Why Native Americans Don't Want Reparations.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 7 Oct. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/10/why-native-americans-dont-want-reparations/. Wilson, Valerie, and Zane Mokhiber. “2016 ACS Shows Stubbornly High Native American Poverty and Different Degrees of Economic Well-Being for Asian Ethnic Groups.” Economic Policy Institute, https://www.epi.org/blog/2016-acs-shows-stubbornly-high-native-american-poverty-and-different-degrees-of-economic-well-being-for-asian-ethnic-groups/. Author ​​​Vaughn Mitchell is a high school senior living outside Chicago. His political interests include the development and origins of labor unions, abolition movements in the 20th century, and the Land Back movement. After his final year of high school, he hopes to study data science and political science on the East Coast. Author Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. SHARE 0 COMMENTS Leave a Reply. 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Massachusetts doctor may have thrown away her career for Trump

# 726 Jacquelyn Starer whaling away at a DC Metro Police officer Jacquelyn Starer whaling away at a DC Metro Police officer A week after the Jan. 6 insurrection, The Atlantic noted that there were quite a few “respectable people” in the horde that descended on the Capitol— business(wo)men, real estate agents, and police officers. In other words, quite a few people threw good careers away in the name of The Messiah, Lord Donald Trump, The Most Merciful. Well, the bill came due for another “respectable” member of that mob on Tuesday. A doctor from the Boston suburbs was arrested on a litany of charges—including, most seriously, assaulting a Metro Police officer. She’s already lost her job, and stands to lose a lot more. Top Stories George Santos admits to some major lies, but a $700,000 mystery remains CLICK TO READ In rural California, farmworkers fend for themselves for health careUkraine update: If NATO wants to send Ukraine a modern tank, this is a good choiceRight-wing hypocrisy is never hypocrisy. It's a coherent belief systemUkraine update: Revisiting the Day One war updateI will not wave the white flag for Elon Musk George Santos admits tosome major lies, but a $700,000 mystery remains RELATED STORY: 'I plead the Fifth': Some of the findings in the first wave of Jan. 6 committee transcripts Jacquelyn Starer, a 68-year-old addiction recovery specialist from Ashland, west of Boston, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of assaulting a federal officer, civil disorder, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building, engaging in disorderly conduct on the Capitol grounds, engaging in physical violence on the Capitol grounds, and parading in the Capitol. According to an affidavit by Jennifer Morin, an FBI agent based in Worcester, the most serious charge comes from bodycam footage showing Starer punching a female Metro Police officer on the side of the head on the west side of the Rotunda. Watch footage from WBZ-TV here. Starer is easily spotted with her red jacket and red “TRUMP 45” toboggan. According to the affidavit, someone dropped a dime on Starer five days after the insurrection. According to a tipster, Starer bragged to a friend that she was going to the Capitol and was “prepared” for things to get heavy—to the point of wearing “a mesh knife-proof jacket” and carrying several bottles of pepper spray. Earlier this year, one of Starer’s former co-workers identified Starer from several photos sampled from bodycam footage and open-source video of the insurrection. Yes, that’s right—a former co-worker. According to both WBZ-TV and WCVB-TV, Starer was a per diem doctor at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain in Boston, but she is no longer employed there. Starer was arrested on Tuesday morning and made her first appearance later that day. Watch footage of that appearance from WCVB here. WCVB interviewed a number of Starer’s neighbors. Understandably, they were stunned that she would sink to such a low level. In marked contrast to her demeanor on Jan. 6, she wasn’t willing to talk at all to reporters. The obvious question—why did it take almost two years to arrest Starer? Well, considering Starer’s profession, on paper she has the wherewithal to stretch things out. One would hope that another reason would be that she finally had the good sense to turn herself in and plead guilty. After all, according to NBC Boston, she faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted on all charges. Plus, even one felony conviction would spell the end of her medical career; most states will not grant a medical license to a convicted felon. Starer is apparently pretty well respected in the New England medical community; according to NBC Boston, she was once president of the Massachusetts Society of Addiction Medicine. Perhaps now she’s starting to realize she threw all of that away for the sake of Trump. RELATED STORY: Jan. 6 committee: Report summary leaves open questions about security, intelligence failures MERCHANDISE Shirts GET OUT THE VOTE Ways to get involved in the 2022 Election Daily Kos moves in solidarity with the Black community. LEARN MORE

Right wingers headed to shrinking to size of the 2000 Green Party Independent Party Trumpy leads Republicans off the cliff Knock yourselves out , GOP !

Right wingers headed to shrinking to size of the 2000 Green Party Independent Party

Trumpy leads Republicans off the cliff

Knock yourselves out , GOP !



With 'uniparty' rants, Trump-supporting losers double down on alienating their fellow Republicans

Trumpies: tens of millions scoundrels , fake Christians, liars , fascists

The Times finally gets to the bottom of Trump supporters: It turns out they're garbage human beings

Image of Hunter, author by Hunterfor Daily Kos Daily Kos Staff Wednesday, July 04, 2018 at 3:00:33p EDT

Recommend Story 788 ELKHART, IN - MAY 10: Supporters wait in line to attend a campaign rally with President Donald Trump on May 10, 2018 in Elkhart, Indiana. The line to enter the event, which has a 7,500-person capacity, circled the block. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Go team adultery / child detention / fake charities / money laundering / sexism / racism / actual genuine treason. Sign This Petition Add your name: I really DO care. Do you?

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In the New York Times' quest to get to the bottom of what makes every last Trump supporter in America tick, we have been treated to endless interviews, loving tributes to downtrodden towns in which nary a non-white person is ever seen, and one particular day when the op-ed pages were turned over to Trump supporters to argue for Trump's genius directly. But this is still not enough, and so Sunday's paper included a zoological analysis from a journalist who grew up among them.

It is meant to be flattering, or at least neutral, but the short version is that the people who have been bleating about "family values" for the last half-century do not actually give a flying damn about family values and never did. It was all garbage from the get-go. While people from "college" or "in New York" or "religiously conservative" or "liberal" or take-your pick all had harsh words for the crooked, lying, adulterous, misogynist trash-heap of a human being, the salt-of-the-earth Trump supporters back in Nebraska could not possibly care less about the bullshit-laden values attributed to them in fawning tributes to the heartland's common clay.

Top Stories Ukraine update: If NATO wants to send Ukraine a modern tank, this is a good choiceGeorge Santos admits to some major lies, but a $700,000 mystery remainsRight-wing hypocrisy is never hypocrisy. It's a coherent belief systemUkraine update: Revisiting the Day One war updateI will not wave the white flag for Elon MuskCartoon: 'Politicized' CLICK TO READ Cartoon: 'Politicized'

To hell with it all: Go team adulter-crook!

In contrast, almost all of the people I know in my hometown in Nebraska proudly supported him. They glossed over his infidelities and stressed that he seemed to be a good father. They were impressed by his “respectful” sons and admired the success of his daughters. “Glossed over” is a fine phrase. “Good father” is quite the phrase itself. And this new notion of “respectful,” which apparently consists of “glossing over” his sons’ histories of charity fraud, public attacks on black politicians, and that whole ‘met Russian agents in Trump Tower’ thing, is doing quite the heavy lift.

Reading between the lines, what we have here is a group of people who practice what is known in the rest of the world as aggressive ignorance. You can’t say that Trump’s behavior bothers you if you drive wooden stakes into both ears and swear you didn’t hear about any of it.

The author goes through some trouble and many paragraphs to explain this phenomenon of Trump support despite Trump’s grotesque family-values-averse behaviors via a mix of sociology and class, because we are not allowed to point out that these people are simply dishonest bullshitters. When you grow up in Nebraska, you are apparently expected to bleat about family values and the corruption of the elites, to be sure—but, socioeconomically speaking, it is apparently all a ruse meant for the children and whatever gullible reporters wander through town. In reality, when it comes to the churches and the voting booths, you can be as adulterous as you want, cheat your neighbor eagerly and gleefully, lie to everyone about everything and—if you are in the right tribe, and only if you are in the right tribe—it is expected.

We're not supposed to say it, but that is what the sociological modal boils down to. I think all of us have ample experience with these sorts of human beings, and it is not necessarily political. I believe I have pointed out multiple times that in my own experiences, for example, if any business owner mentions Jesus within the first 10 minutes of meeting you you can be absolutely, 100 percent assured they are out to scam you, good and hard, which is an interesting metric of what so-called Christianity has been reduced to in many subsets of the American psyche. But in general, journalists and other neutral observers are not supposed to notice that wide swaths of society are, in fact, Not Good People. Even if there are entire churches or towns filled with them.

And so we instead get it explained to us in very neutral, analytical terms. Can't very well take to the pages of the New York Times to explain that Trump voters are wife-beating fascists who admire Trump's ability to build a golden tower for himself by cheating other people out of their money, but even in its most anodyne formulation the message is clear: Trump's version of "family values" plays well to people who themselves have none.

Baffling as it may be to elites, Mr. Trump embodies a real if imperfect model of family values. People familiar with the purple family model tend to view his alienation from his children’s mother as normal and his closeness to his children as exceptional and admirable. I saw this among my acquaintances in Nebraska. Even those from red families were more likely than my acquaintances in New York to know someone who has had a child out of wedlock or is subject to a restraining order. See there? By God, being a do-nothing father with no apparent love for his kids is the downright admirable way to raise a family. And who, among Trump's base, has not had a restraining order slapped on them at some point in their lives? Oopsies have been made.

The only way Trump could connect with these fine upstanding voters any deeper than he has, I tell you, is to start a meth lab in his basement.

Yes, yes, this is all very rude—but strip the roundabout talk of religious denominations and average family incomes and the rest of the ancillary smoke tossed into the piece and you are left with the blunt notion that Trump's supporters absolutely Do Not Care about his adultery, his misogyny, his lies, his crookedness, his racism, or the possibility that he committed treason against his nation in order to sit at the desk he now sits at. That is what they, themselves, will eagerly tell you.

And from a moral point of view, rather than a socioeconomic one, there's no "but economic status" or "but particular sub-denomination of Jesus" that justifies that.

Plainly put: These are the hallmarks of terrible human beings. People who you would not trust with your children. People you would go out of your way to avoid, if you did care about honesty or family values. These are the people who press their mistresses for abortions but who also are not vexed by abortion-providing doctors being murdered in their Kansas churches; they are confederate flag-wavers in Union states, miffed that new civil rights laws a half century ago slighted their own ne’er-do-well families in some never-quite-describable way; these are people who are so obsessed with the thought that someone better is looking down on them that they are willing to punch whatever kittens need punching in order to prove they're at least better at kitten-punching than the rest of you. The opioid epidemic is centered in Trump-supporting counties. The demand that brown-looking children be placed in detention camps for fear that a terrified 8-year-old might be a hardened gang leader is a phenomenon of Trump-Supporting counties. The insistence that Treason Might Be Good Now is peddled by Fox News celebrities to die-hard Trump supporters who will repeat and retweet it willing and eagerly; it was Trump supporters, Jesus-punchers every one, who gave Alabama crapsack Roy Moore their votes even after his exposure as a child molester—complete with Bible citations from “conservative” pastors arguing that Roy Moore trolling the malls for a child bride was, in fact, in fine Old Testament tradition.

There is an obsessive need, in our journalistic culture, to explain bad behavior away. Donald Trump is not an amoral cesspool of lies, he is merely engaging in a particular brand of political rhetoric that seeks to persuade via the creative denial of the world everyone else can see with their own two eyes—and it's not for we keepers of the truth to judge. Donald Trump's supporters are not themselves dismal human beings who have open contempt for anyone not in their own small tribe, people who are forever obsessed with harming every other tribe in every other way, regardless of how it is done or how many family values rules need to be broken to do it, but are waving their little rebel flags and demanding child internment camps because their economic anxiety has gotten their stomachs all a-knotted of late.

But the acts speak for themselves. Trump's supporters do not care about his values, his lies, the means by which he achieves his ends, or whether or not he burns the Constitution in a barbecue pit so long as he can make them feel better about their own lot in life. This is not our construction, but their own; you need not look very far in any interview to find it. They are not good people. They are not good Americans, and their so-called morals are reptilian at best. We are allowed to say it.

You want to find good people, look for the people who are just as poor but care for others anyway, or who are under just as much economic stress but do not use it as excuse for cheating and stealing their way through it—or offering up eager praise for those that do. Good people don't claim to have family values and then discard those values at the drop of a hat when a rich, shouting hatebag they saw on their television set tells them to ignore all that. Good people don't soak themselves in transparent lies about immigrants or minorities, then declare everyone else to be “elites” arrayed against them in “elite”-minded conspiracy when some newspaper, somewhere, points out that those things were, in fact, cheap and tawdry lies.

The more we hear from Trump defenders, the more transparent it is that they are indeed, well, bad. It's terribly rude to say, and the press cannot say it, but the rest of us can. If you still support Trump at this late date, you are a terrible human being. You should, in fact, feel bad about yourself.

Yes, the rest of us do indeed look down on these people. Those of us with actual family values do; those of us who care about honesty in government do; those of us who are not furious bulging-eyed racists do; those of us who believe thousands of years of scientific discoveries are worth more than the dribbling pronouncements of a street-corner charlatan do; those of us with actual religious convictions do; those of us who are actual patriots do.

And we're not sorry. Get your act together, you losers. You voted for a two-bit conman you saw on a television show, and you did it because you either didn't care, didn’t pay attention, or because you wanted to be conned good and hard. But that was then, this is now, and you are allowed to change your mind and remember all the things you supposedly believed in before this glowing orange lunatic arrived on the scene to Make Sleaze Great Again.

You want to be respected, then do something worthy of respect. It’s as simple as that.

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Sunday, December 25, 2022

Criticisms of t-ideology/ thought policing

The Harry Potter author was joined by Professor Kathleen Stock, Respect My Sex co-founder, Maya Forstater and several other activists https://www.gbnews.uk/news/jk-rowling-has-lunch-with-respect-my-sex-feminists-as-they-unite-for-womens-rights/269340 Criticisms of t-ideology/ thought policing Dear Prof. Stock, I discovered a number of your essays on t-ideology after reading this article : https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/19/divide-over-scholarly-debate-over-gender-identity-rages In recent years , I have been astonished by the widespread acceptance of t-ideology including its seizing legal power in the US and Britain (!) , its authority on email lists and social media , its ability to censor and slander criticism of it. I’m astonished by it because t-ideology is fundamentally irrational. It is a violation of the most basic rules of human society , language and culture. It is ignorant of basic biology and evolution. It’s widespread acceptance exposes ignorance in much of the population, especially the academic population. Please let me share with you some of my criticisms of this nonsense . There is a sense in which t- ideologists are just trying to change the definitions of the words “woman” and “man” in order to abolish gender . An analogy would be if someone wanted to be allowed to call their right hand their left hand and their left hand their right hand . Just because those are their hands , doesn’t mean an individual has the authority to change the socially established, conventional definitions of right and left for other people . Similarly just because it is someone’s body doesn’t mean they have the authority to change the definition of woman and man with respect to their body for other people ( except in the UK, evidently ) . With respect to the goal of abolishing binary gender , I disagree that we should . We must abolish male supremacy, not binary gender. Binary gender was invented at human origins in the Stone Age, hundreds of thousands of years ago . Stone Age society had gender equity or equivalence , not male supremacy. So, it is possible to abolish male supremacy; it originates circa 6,000 years ago in complex with private property and the state ; the complex is not genetically based. Denial that a man who thinks he is a woman is a woman is not hate speech . It’s slander , a lie , to call it hate speech or bigotry . It is a statement of social scientific fact. Society defines what it is to be a woman or a man . Individuals do not have the authority to make up their own definitions and demand that other people use their definition . ( except in Britain where evidently the state power, on this issue , has been seized by the insane ; looks like advanced decay of bourgeois society) I repeat : society has named one hand a left hand and the other hand a right hand . An individual does not have the authority to demand that other people call that individual’s left hand their right hand and vice versa even though it is that individual’s hand. They may “ feel” that their left hand is their right hand ; they can call it that themselves, but cannot require it of others ; and it would be slander to call someone who adheres to society’s rules on words for hands a hater or invidious discriminator . Similarly an ( insane ) individual might decide that they are a cat or a cockroach or Napoleon. But it would be absurd to require other people to treat them as one of those . Also it’s racist to compare denial of t- ideology to racist discrimination. T’s are unilaterally trying to change and violating fundamental rules of human society by claiming they are the gender that doesn’t correspond to their sex. They are sociopaths and legitimately criticized and corrected. Black people are not changing or violating any human social rules by existing ; so they are not legitimately discriminated against , oppressed. Nor is it dehumanizing to call a male a man . Men are humans . Another symptom of insanity is to think one can declare no debate or criticism of these claims on a charge of “ hate “ speech or invidious discrimination. It’s not hate speech to follow conventional semantic nprinciples of what defines gender. It’s truly astonishing arrogance and ignorance to think an individual can redefine the meaning of such socially fundamental and ancient words . /// post to a Marxist email list Transgender Trouble: 40 Years of Gender Essentialism and Gatekeeping ❧ Current Affairs From: Charles Brown Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 21:19:40 EST Actually , gender essentialism has existed for 2.5 million years , and is pretty much the first organizing principle of human society; human species-being , in Marx and Feuerbach’s terminology . It is the “ direct and natural species relationship” . It is humanity’s fundamental cultural binary and dialectical opposition. An example is the famous yin/ yang of Chinese culture ; or French “ viva la difference ! “ Levi-Straussian structural anthropology has proven that all human culture and language are built out of symbolic binary oppositions; dialectical oppositions, Gender is a human invention 100,000’s of years old. Human society defines gender based on objective physical characteristics , not subjective, individual feelings . Whatever feelings are unique to a gender are the feelings one gets from one’s biological sex characteristics- like the feeling of a period for a woman , or the feeling of being pregnant . A male/man can’t have these feelings. Clearly the writer ( of Transgender Trouble ) is a subjective idealist / solipsist , an egomaniac; not a materialist, not a Marxist . We Marxists are gender essentialists ( contra post-modernists and post-structuralists , anti-essentialists) . Gender , a cultural category, is a reflection of biological sex following Marx’s lead here : “ In the approach to woman as the spoil and hand-maid of communal lust is expressed the infinite degradation in which man exists for himself, for the secret of this approach has its unambiguous, decisive, plain and undisguised expression in the relation of man to woman and in the manner in which the directand natural species-relationship is conceived. The direct, natural, and necessary relation of person to person is the relation of man to woman. In this natural species-relationship man’s relation to nature is immediately his relation to man, just as his relation to man is immediately his relation to nature – his own natural destination. In this relationship, therefore, is sensuously manifested, reduced to an observable fact, the extent to which the human essence has become nature to man, or to which nature to him has become the human essence of man. From this relationship one can therefore judge man’s whole level of development. From the character of this relationship follows how much man as a species-being, as man, has come to be himself and to comprehend himself; the relation of man to woman is the most natural relation of human being to human being. It therefore reveals the extent to which man’s natural behaviour has become human, or the extent to which the human essence in him has become a natural essence – the extent to which his human nature has come to be natural to him. This relationship also reveals the extent to which man’s need has become a human need; the extent to which, therefore, the other person as a person has become for him a need – the extent to which he in his individual existence is at the same time a social being.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm cb at 1:57 PM Sent from my iPhone

Chinese Marxist genius creativity in China

Marx and Engels don’t seem to envision the end of the market in the socialist , first stage of Communism, and they’re talking about an advanced capitalist countries . ( see below )China didn’t have capitalism. They tried to find a road to socialism bypassing capitalism, but it didn’t work. It needed to develop the forces of production, and it did pulling 100’s of millions out of poverty which only capitalist relations of production could do. The capitalists were under a level of control by which there was no business cycle , no anarcy of production ; because Marxists understand capitalism better than capitalists ! Also, they learned from the Soviet Union that the forces of war defense had to be developed because imperialism would invade and annihilate. Advanced Military forces could only be had by capitalist development of the forces of production. Deng had Marxist genius creativity . “ Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.” Communist Manifesto (Chapter 2) marxists.org favicon.ico

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Buchanan : white supremacist line

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/2011/10/17/a-d-2041-end-of-white-america/comment-page-1/ //// This is a white supremacist ideologist right there in the mainstream media. The American Conservative » A.D. 2041 — End of White America? www.theamericanconservative.com John Hope Franklin, the famed black historian at Duke University, once told the incoming freshmen, “The new America in the 21st century will be primarily non-white, a place George Washington would not recognize.” Like · · Share · Yesterday at 9:47am Charles Brown It is important to recall that Buchanan is reported to have been one of the authors of Nixon's Southern Strategy, which was to appeal to white supremacist sentiments that resented the civil rights movement and urban rebellions of the sixties as a critical component of electing Nixon in 1968. Reagan augments this white supremacist strategy with special emphasis on demagogic welfare for Black people; Reaganism develops code language of "Tax and Spend , Big Government Liberals" = "N-loving , white politicians who "give" our money to Blacks" This was already there in the Nixon Southern strategy, but the political fall of the New Deal/War on Poverty Liberals and actual reductions in welfare and general poverty programs ( at state and federal levels; for example Englerism in Michigan) didn't start until Reaganism. The anti-government spending attack as code for anti-Black follows right through Gingrich/Clinton ( by Clinton's period, the Dems are significantly Reaganized) ; and the Tea Party attacks on welfare and social service working class programs, from social security to unemployment insurance, and now union rights. Yesterday at 9:54am · Like
Reaganism is not good for white workers ; reversal of central statistic of white supremacist system .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-group-of-middle-aged-american-whites-is-dying-at-a-startling-rate/2015/11/02/47a63098-8172-11e5-8ba6-cec48b74b2a7_story.html

Obamaism is Neo-FDRism

So-called Neo-liberalism is better termed Reaganism. "Liberal" in the US since FDR represents proletarian victories in the contested state power . So, it is confusing and academically sectarianism terminology, counter-intuitive politically for the great mass of American voters to label Reaganism , neo- "New Dealism"/Liberalism. The proletariat's main political task for 30 years has been to reverse Reaganism, Reaganonmics. Bring back LIBERALISM . That's why neo-liberal for Reaganism is academic disconnect to mass consciousness. It is also academic ultra-leftism , taking a sneaky swipe at the Democratic Party. Of course, Bill Clinton was significantly Reaganite; that's how bad Reaganism got to be. The worse is at the state level in many cases , as in Michigan , Englerites, now Snake Snyder.

With Obama , change has come; the Reaganite direction in the Presidency has been halted , and its reversal begun; the Tea Party struck back; but the All Peoples front and anti -Monopoly Coalition majority persists ; Obama , despite many Pickett's charges by the Neo-Confederates, has accelerated reversal of Reaganism at the Presidential level. So, Obama is a Neo-Rooseveltian.


Someone: LBJ as a 'landmark' of a working class dominated Democratic Party? This is patently absurd. I do agree that there is a continuous class struggle within the Democratic Party (I'd say this predates even the New Deal), but the working class has never dominated it--and further had no more institutional power in the party under Johnson than they had under Truman (Truman actually tried to enact Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights, but was blocked by an increasingly reactionary Congress).

CB: War on Poverty , Great Society , Civil Rights Act, much of what today's Left complains is being attacked by so called neo-Liberalism ( Reaganism) . Think about it : "neo-Liberalism is anti-LBJism. Johnson did more against white supremacy than FDR. Given the centrality of Black liberation to the US working class liberation , technically Johnson's legislation represents greater influence in working class interests than FDR. The War on Poverty was in response to the 120 urban rebellions , a direct demand from Black working class masses. LBJ sacrificed the DP to the Nixon/ Reagan Southern strategy , the working class influence on Johnson was so strong.
No all discriminations are not equally oppressive. It is white supremacist to compare the history of oppression of Black people, which includes slavery , Jim Crow and Reaganism , to the social alienation of men who think they are women, nor homosexuals . The instance in Germany is atypical . From the time of Greece and Rome, through British colonialist sailors, homosexuality has been a privilege of upper classes in Europe, a repressing not repressed group. Today homosexual men are very represented in leaders of the Catholic Church , Hollywood/Broadway/Performing Arts bosses and Wall Street. Someone on the other page researched that homosexual men have on average higher income. It's outrageous to compare oppression of gays to oppression of Black people.
I criticize the criticizers of Obama. The shortcomings which remain in Obama's actions are way, way overwhelmed by his historic achievements ( no war on Iran, Obamacare, two women and only women appointed to Supreme Court, ended War on "Drugs.", on and on). And as importantly halting the Reaganite ( so-called neo-Liberal) march and beginning the reversal of Reaganism, the central political task of the working class in this period.

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2020/04/we-must-reverse-reaganism-by-abolishing.html

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2020/04/we-must-reverse-reaganism-by-abolishing.html

Reaganism is a counter-reform movement; Reaganism is a mass rightwing movement countering facially at first the radical reform movement of the 1960's and ultimately the New Deal and Great Society , War on Poverty .

Reaganism is literally killing us Reverse Reaganism https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kpu1b4y_hBA&fbclid=IwAR3qj3PSSTmveJMiVMG6mOoLtcMlNm27rCvWNw6id0q1qR68l52BEZhZWqA


Hey Uncle Sam, Trump is the latest symptom of the Republican Southern Strategy , Powell Memo and Reaganism. The Grand Ole Party has created a monster.

Campaign for Democratic votes everyday some kinda way. Abolish the Grand Ole Party as we know it.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/05/i-d-rather-have-roosevelt-in-wheelchair.html

Trumpism is a species of the genus Reaganism. What is Reaganism in 2016 ? It is rightwing government continuing the War on the Poor, neo-White Supremacy, escalation of the nuclear arms race and warmongering, union busting. It was initiated by Reagan's Presidential leadership , but politically metastasized among millions of Americans , and was continued after Reagan's Presidency in the Gingrich Gang in Congress with its Contract on America; Bill Clinton's ending welfare as we know it, even, sadly; Bush's Crimes Against Peace in Iraq and Afghanistan and tax cuts for the rich;the tea Republicans and all current Republican Party Presidential nominees, and most Republican politicians with power , and Blue Dog Democrats for 35 years . One of Obama's greatest political achievements is halting and reversing the federal War on the Poor with the first War on Poverty program since LBJ: Obamacare and opposing tax cuts for the rich. Obama has UNstayed the Reaganite course in the Presidency; Reagan's action was only in the Presidency at first; there were Democratic majorities in Congress for all his term. Reaganism spread to Congress and the states later. Reaganism is all around anti-99% policies of government fraudulently presented as pro-working class; it is tragically successful demagogy.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/09/30/reaganism-has-been-problem-bernie-sanders-solution

Sunday, December 18, 2022

[a-list] Xi Jinping's Visit to Saudi Arabia and the overthrow of Atlanticism

Xi Jinping's Visit to Saudi Arabia and the overthrow of Atlanticism The historic China-Arab Summit currently underway in Riyadh symbolizes the emerging Eurasianism in the Persian Gulf. by Matthew Ehret https://thecradle.co (December 08 2022) https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Mbs-and-Xi-meeting.jpg Photo Credit: The Cradle As Atlanticists continue their commitment to a future shaped by energy scarcity, food scarcity, and war with their nuclear-capable neighbors, most states in the Persian Gulf that have long been trusted allies of the west have quickly come to realize that their interests are best assured by cooperating with Eurasian states like China and Russia who don't think in those zero-sum terms. With Chinese President Xi Jinping's long-awaited three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, a powerful shift by the Persian Gulf's most strategic Arab state toward the multipolar alliance is being consolidated. Depending on which side of the ideological fence you sit on, this consolidation is being viewed closely with great hope or rage. Xi's visit stands in stark contrast to US President Joe Biden's underwhelming 'fist bump' meeting {1} this summer, which saw the self-professed leader of the free world falling asleep {2} at a conference table and demanding more Saudi oil production while offering nothing durable in return. In contrast, Xi's arrival was greeted by a multi-cannon salute and Saudi jets painting the red and yellow colors of China's flag in the skies over Riyadh. Beijing's delegation of political and business elites, in the following days, will continue to meet with Saudi counterparts to strike long-term strategic deals in cultural, economic, and scientific domains. The visit will culminate in the first-ever China-Arab Summit {3} on Friday, 9 December, where Xi will meet with 30 heads of state. The Chinese foreign ministry described {4} this as "an epoch-making milestone in the history of the development of China-Arab relations". While $30 billion in deals will be signed between Beijing and Riyadh, something much bigger is at play which too few have come to properly appreciate. Riyadh's steps toward the BRI since 2016 Xi Jinping last visited the kingdom in 2016, to advance Riyadh's participation in China's newly unveiled Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A January 2016 policy report {5} by the Chinese government to all Arab states reads: In the process of jointly pursuing the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative, China is willing to coordinate development strategies with Arab states, put into play each other's advantages and potentials, promote international production capacity cooperation and enhance cooperation in the fields of infrastructure construction, trade and investment facilitation, nuclear power, space satellite, new energy, agriculture and finance, so as to achieve common progress and development and benefit our two peoples. It was only three months later that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) inaugurated Saudi Vision 2030 {6}, which firmly outlined a new foreign policy agenda much more compatible with China's "peaceful development" spirit. After decades of serving as an Atlanticist client state with no viable manufacturing prospects or autonomy beyond its role in supporting western-managed terror operations, Saudi Vision 2030 demonstrated the first signs of creative thinking in years, with an outlook toward a post-oil age. On the energy front, China Energy Corp is building a sprawling 2.6-gigawatt solar power station in Saudi Arabia, and Chinese nuclear developers are helping Riyadh develop its vast uranium resources while also mastering all branches of the nuclear fuel cycle. In 2016, both nations signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) {7} to build fourth-generation gas-cooled nuclear reactors. This follows the UAE's recent leap into the 21st century with 2.7 gigawatts of energy now constructed {8}. By early 2017, Riyadh had firmly bought its ticket on the New Silk Road with a $65 billion agreement {9} integrating the Saudi Vision 2030 and BRI with a focus on petrochemical integration, engineering, refining, procurement, construction, carbon capture, and upstream/downstream development. In the new post-American epoch, signs of this spirit of cooperation and bridge-building have increasingly come to be felt, even while its effects have been forcibly restrained - as millions of Yemenis suffering under seven years of war can testify. Unlike the Atlanticist fixation on Green New Deals {10} which threaten to annihilate industry and farming, Riyadh's post-oil outlook is much more synergistic with China's idea of "sustained growth" that demands nuclear power, continued hydrocarbons, and robust agro-industrial development. China's trade with Saudi Arabia rose to $87.3 billion in 2021, which saw a 39 percent increase over 2020, while US-Saudi trade collapsed from $76 billion in 2012 to only $29 billion in 2021. Some of this Beijing-Riyadh trade may now be conducted in the Chinese Yuan {11}, which will only undermine the US-Saudi relationship further. In the first 10 months of 2022, China's imports from Saudi Arabia were $57 billion, and exports to the kingdom rose to $30.3 billion. China is additionally building 5G systems and cultivating a vast technology hub with a focus on selling electronic goods, all while helping Saudi Arabia build up an indigenous manufacturing sector. A trend of Harmonization Despite the continued chaos in Yemen, and economic devastation in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, Beijing's subtle trend has nonetheless been one of healing with Saudi Arabia - and regional power Turkiye. Saudi Arabia and Turkiye have often acted as rivals and front two distinct foreign agendas with broad regional ambitions that overlap on many fronts. But despite this competitive past, higher necessities have induced both nations to harmonize their foreign policy outlooks with a new "look east" focus. This was expressed during the Saudi crown prince's visit to Ankara in June 2022, where the two heads of state called for {12} "a new era of cooperation" with a focus on political, economic, military, and cultural cooperation outlined in a joint communique. Only days after MbS's return from Turkiye, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited Jeddah {13} to promote regional stability stating in a press release, "they changed points of view on a number of issues that would contribute to supporting and strengthening regional security and stability". Iraq and Saudi Arabia had only re-established diplomatic ties in November 2020 [that had severed] due to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait 30 years earlier. Between 2021 and 2022, Iraq had worked hard to host bilateral talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with five rounds of talks held and Kadhimi stating its belief that "reconciliation is near". Tehran-Riyadh diplomatic ties were cut in the aftermath of the 2016 execution of outspoken Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, prompting the storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran by angry protestors. In March 2022, MbS stated that {14} Iran and Saudi Arabia "were neighbors forever" and stated that it is "better for both of us to work it out and to look for ways in which we can co-exist". By August 23 2022, the UAE and Kuwait created a new milestone by restarting diplomatic relations with Iran. And although nearly every Persian Gulf state (plus Turkiye) had devoted years to supporting regime change in Syria, a new reality has imposed itself {15} with all Arab parties veering toward the Chinese BRI model of regional integration and economic development. The Key Role of Iran Not only is Iran a key player in the Greater Eurasian Partnership, serving as a strategic hub for the southern route of China's BRI, but it is also a keystone of the Russia-Iran-India-led International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), which has become a major force synergizing with the BRI. Iraq and Iran themselves are in the final stages of building the long-awaited Shalamcheh-Basra railway {16}, which will unite the two nations by rail for the first time in decades while also offering a potential extension to the already existent 1500-kilometer railway through Iraq to Syria's border. The climate for cooperation was undoubtedly made possible by the presence of Chinese economic diplomacy, which established a 25-year, $400 billion energy and security deal with Iran - but also Russia, whose similar but smaller $25 billion, twenty-year deal with Tehran may easily expand to $40 billion in Russian investments {17} in Iran's vast oil and natural gas fields in the coming years. Saudi Arabia and Russia's relationship with OPEC+ demonstrated its potency this summer when Riyadh won the ire of Washington by not only denying Biden's requests for increased oil production but also cutting overall oil production and driving up global prices of oil. Saudi Arabia benefited by vastly increased imports of discounted Russian oil which were then sold to a desperate Europe. Furthermore, Saudi plans to join the global hub of multipolarity itself, BRICS+ (alongside Turkiye, Egypt {18}, and Algeria {19}), in addition to recently becoming a full-fledged Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) dialogue partner {20}, have placed its destiny ever deeper into the growing Multipolar Alliance. With the increased potential for stability and harmonization of interests across various power blocs, an atmosphere more conducive to long-term economic investments is finally presenting itself to Chinese investors who had long looked upon conflict-ridden West Asia with justifiable trepidation. In August 2022, the Saudi state oil company Aramco and China's Petroleum and Chemical Corporation Ltd signed an MoU {21} expanding on the aforementioned $65 billion cooperation deal of 2017, which involves the construction of Fujian Refining and Petrochemical Company (FREP) and Sinopec Senmei Petroleum Company (SSPC) in Fujian, China, and Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (YASREF) in Saudi Arabia. Rail and interconnectivity Perhaps most exciting are prospects for interconnectivity that play directly into the development corridors tied to the BRI. In Saudi Arabia, this train has moved steadily apace with the 450-kilometer high-speed Haramain Railway {22} built by China Railway Construction Company connecting Mecca to Medina completed in 2018. https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Railways-in-Arabian-Peninsula.jpg Photo Credit: The Cradle Discussions are well underway to extend this line to the 2400-kilometer North-South Railway from Riyadh to Al Haditha {23} completed in 2015. Meanwhile, 460 kilometer of rail connecting all Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members is currently under construction, which is driving reforms in engineering, trade schools, and manufacturing hubs across the Arabian Peninsula. In 2021, all GCC states gave their full support to a $200 billion Persian Gulf-Red Sea high-speed railway dubbed "The Saudi Landbridge", which also dovetails another $500 billion megaproject with vast Chinese investments, dubbed the futuristic NEOM mega-city on the Red Sea. The Eurasianists stand to gain It can only be hoped that this new chemistry of harmonization and win-win cooperation may soon provide a key to ending the fires of conflict in Yemen and other regional states. Further, with Russia and China both helping to broker diplomatic backchannels, and with Iran playing an active role in this process, perhaps negotiations for reconstruction can begin in this war-torn zone of conflict. It is not an extreme stretch of the imagination to see the new Persian Gulf-Red Sea rail project extending north into Egypt and south into Yemen. Looking at a map of the region, one can imagine the reactivation of the "Bridge of the Horn of Africa {24}", first unveiled in 2009, that would have extended rail across the 25-kilometer Bab el Mandeb strait connecting pipelines and rail lines into Djibouti and East Africa, more broadly. While a western-manipulated Arab Spring derailed that concept in 2011, and the Saudi war against Yemen drove it further underground since 2015, perhaps this new spirit of inter-civilizational cooperation under a new economic architecture liberated from the Atlanticist-dominated dollar system may provide just what it takes to revive the idea once again. Links: {1} https://thecradle.co/Article/News/13110 {2} https://www.tiktok.com/@bobbyus_b2bedge/video/7126131890842537217?is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7126131890842537217 {3} https://thecradle.co/Article/News/19002 {4} https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/xi-arrives-saudi-arabia-mbs-red-carpet-treatment-milestone-3-day-summit {5} http://www.scio.gov.cn/32618/Document/1462465/1462465.htm {6} https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2016/09/04/Prince-Mohammed-to-explain-Vision-2030-to-G20-leaders {7} https://gulfnews.com/business/energy/saudi-arabia-china-sign-mou-to-build-nuclear-reactor-1.1656541 {8} https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/united-arab-emirates.aspx {9} https://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-03-16/china-saudi-arabia-sign-deals-worth-65-billion-101066872.html {10} https://www.globalresearch.ca/carney-green-bonds-vs-hamiltonian-greenbacks/5754142 {11} https://thecradle.co/Article/news/7977 {12} https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2022/06/23/Saudi-Arabia-and-Turkey-hail-new-era-of-cooperation-after-Crown-Prince-visit {13} https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220626-saudi-crown-prince-iraq-pm-discuss-regional-stability {14} https://shafaq.com/en/Iraq-News/Iran-Saudi-tensions-could-ease-very-soon-Iraq-s-PM-says {15} https://thecradle.co/Article/investigations/4371 {16} https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/468566/Iran-Iraq-now-more-serious-to-complete-Shalamcheh-Basra-railway {17} https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/russia-signs-us-4-billion-contract-to-develop-seven-iranian-oil-fields-establishes-supply-chain-routes-via-instc-to-india.html/ {18} https://maps.southfront.org/brics-expanding-turkey-saudi-arabia-and-egypt-willing-to-join-the-group/ {19} https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202211/1279047.shtml {20} https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2021/09/01/egypt-saudi-arabia-to-join-shanghai-cooperation-organisation-as-dialogue-partners/ {21} https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/energy/2022/08/04/saudi-aramco-signs-deal-with-chinas-sinopec-to-boost-collaboration-in-new-projects/ {22} https://constructalia.arcelormittal.com/en/news_center/2018/10/haramain-high-speed-rail-project {23} https://www.railway-technology.com/projects/northsouthraailwayli/ {24} https://www.hiiraan.com/news2_rss/2011/Feb/the_bridge_of_the_horns_linking_yemen_and_djibouti.aspx The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle. Matthew Ehret is a journalist, Senior Fellow at the American University of Moscow, and BRI Expert for Tactical Talk. He is a regular author on several political/cultural websites, including the Los Angeles Review of Books: China Channel, Strategic Culture, and Oriental Review. He has also authored three books from the Untold History of Canada series. https://thecradle.co/Article/Analysis/19283 https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/ https://www.ashisuto.co.jp/ --- To unsubscribe: List help: