Streets of Atlanta
31 Tuesday Aug 2021
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31 Tuesday Aug 2021
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29 Sunday Aug 2021
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The War in Afghanistan Was a Scam
The New Republic – August 21, 2021 – Jason Linkins
https://newrepublic.com/article/163323/afghanistan-war-military-industrial-complex-scam
Buildings adorned with the logos of military contractors are a monument to the timeless relationship between hustlers and marks. As many have pointed out in recent days, the war in Afghanistan has been a colossal boom time for the military-industrial complex, mostly at the expense of the military operation’s ostensible goals. As Harvard public policy professor Linda Bilmes told Marketplace this week, “the whole system was set up in a way to enable contractors to rip off the government.” And Foreign Policy’s C. Christine Fair described the “bewildering corruption by U.S. firms and individuals working in Afghanistan,” in which Afghans were, in many instances, straight-up defrauded… In the end, this two decade–long calamity was the very thing General Butler described back in 1935: “Conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many,” only “a small inside group” ever really knew what this war was about.
Who’s to blame for the Afghanistan chaos? Remember the war’s cheerleaders
The Guardian – August 25, 2021 – George Monbiot
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/25/blame-afghanistan-war-media-intervention
There is a frantic determination in the media to ensure that none of the blame is attached to those who began this open-ended war without realistic aims or an exit plan, then waged it with little concern for the lives and rights of the Afghan people: the then US president, George W Bush, the British prime minister Tony Blair and their entourages… To acknowledge the mistakes of the men who prosecuted this war would be to expose the media’s role in facilitating it… Any fair reckoning of what went wrong in Afghanistan, Iraq and the other nations swept up in the “war on terror” should include the disastrous performance of the media. Cheerleading for the war in Afghanistan was almost universal, and dissent was treated as intolerable… For all the current breastbeating about the catastrophic defeat in Afghanistan, nothing has been learned. The media still regale us with comforting lies about the war and occupation. They airbrush the drone strikes in which civilians were massacred and the corruption permitted and encouraged by the occupying forces. They seek to retrofit justifications to the decision to go to war, chief among them securing the rights of women.
The Unfolding Tragedies in Afghanistan and in America
Robert Reich’s Website – August 22, 2021
https://robertreich.org/post/660250770148605952
Afghanistan is an unfolding tragedy, and we should do everything in our power to take in Afghan refugees. But we also need to focus on issues that need and deserve our attention now but for which the window of opportunity to respond will close sooner than we expect. If we don’t take action now on COVID and the critical importance of vaccinations and masks, on climate change and Biden’s $3.5 trillion package, and on voter suppression and the necessity of the For the People and the John Lewis Voting Rights Acts, we may never. And that would be a tragedy.
Peeling the American Onion
Michael Moore’s Website – August 21, 2021
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/peeling-the-american-onion
Most won’t say it, so I will: America has thankfully lost another war. Let’s make this the last. This is nothing here to celebrate. This should only be a monumental gut-check moment of serious reflection and a desire to seek redemption for ourselves… I do not want to hear how we “need to study” what went wrong with this Taliban victory and our evacuation because (switching to all caps because I can’t scream this loud enough): WE ARE NEVER GOING TO FIND OURSELVES IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS AGAIN BECAUSE OUR DAYS OF INVADING AND TAKING OVER COUNTRIES MUST END. RIGHT? RIGHT!!
The Media Is Blowing the Afghanistan Story—Again
The New Republic – August 25, 2021 – Alex Shephard
https://newrepublic.com/article/163357/media-coverage-afghanistan-withdrawal-failure
The abysmal coverage of the U.S. withdrawal is a sharp reminder of how two decades of failure were foisted on us in the first place… The war in Afghanistan was unwinnable almost from the get-go; after the Bush administration refused to end it in 2001, failure became a fait accompli. The ostensible U.S. mission—some hoped-for combination of democracy, liberalization, and equal rights—proved possible in certain pockets of Afghanistan, but in most of the country, corruption and chaos remained a fact of life… The media remains abysmal at covering long, slow-moving crises; American foreign policy typically lives in those blind spots, but inequality and climate change seem to reside there as well. It’s possible to be just as outraged by these matters—and it’s easy to implicate a handful of presidential administrations as well. But as with the civilian death toll in Afghanistan and the staggering cost to the United States in terms of dollars spent, the elite press mostly doesn’t care. The withdrawal from Afghanistan has been messy, tragic, and outrageous, yes. The media played an outsize role in making this inevitable.
The Endless Shadow of the War on Terror
Tom Dispatch – August 22, 2021 – Karen J. Greenberg
https://tomdispatch.com/the-endless-shadow-of-the-war-on-terror/
It would, in fact, be wise for this country to pause, review the uses of the post-9/11 powers granted to such domestic institutions, and revise the policies that allowed for their seemingly endless expansion at home and abroad in the name of the war on terror. It would be no less wise to place more confidence in the country’s ability to keep itself safe by embracing its foundational principles. At home, that would mean honoring fairness and restraint in the application of the law, while insisting on limits to the use of force abroad. If only. At present, it looks as if those forever wars have created a new form of forever law, forever policy, forever power, and a forever-changed America. And count on one thing: if changes aren’t made, we in this country will find ourselves living forever in the shadow of those forever wars.
The history of the Taliban is crucial in understanding their success now – and also what might happen next
Informed Comment – August 28, 2021 – Ali A. Olomi
https://www.juancole.com/2021/08/taliban-crucial-understanding.html
The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban left many surprised. To Ali Olomi, a historian of the Middle East and Islam at Penn State University, a key to understanding what is happening now – and what might take place next – is looking at the past and how the Taliban came to prominence… If you look at how the Taliban came to be a force in the 1990s, you realize they are doing the same thing now. They are saying to Afghans, “Look at the corruption, look at the violence, look at the drones that are falling from U.S. planes.” And again the Taliban are offering what they say is an alternative based on stability and security – just as they did in the 1990s. And again they are leveraging localism as a strategy.
A War’s Epitaph
The Intercept – August 26, 2021 – James Risen
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/26/afghanistan-america-failures/
Americans have hungered for a simple storyline, with heroes and villains, to make sense of the longest war in U.S. history. They have wanted stories like “12 Strong” to make them feel good. But at the very edge of the American empire, the war was nasty and brutish, and brought out in Americans the same imperial arrogance that doomed the U.S. involvement in Vietnam… This month, as the Taliban swiftly took control of Kabul and the American-backed government collapsed, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the government’s watchdog over the Afghan experience, issued his final report. The assessment includes remarkably candid interviews with former American officials involved in shaping U.S. policy in Afghanistan that, collectively, offer perhaps the most biting critique of the 20-year American enterprise ever published in an official U.S. government report… The report reads like an epitaph for America’s involvement in Afghanistan.
Police shootings are not letting up. Congress must act.
The Washington Post – August 20, 2021 – Editorial Board
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/20/police-shootings-are-not-letting-up-congress-must-act/
There are more than 15,000 local police and sheriff departments, each with its own policies, practices and training, and that has made it difficult to bring about the wholesale change that is needed. It is inexplicable that it is still the exception for mental health teams, rather than armed officers, to be deployed to deal with people in crisis. Or that only 20 percent of the officers involved in fatal shootings were equipped with body cameras. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act could help bring about some needed reforms, but it is stalled in the Senate and its future is uncertain.
The All-Seeing “i”: Apple Just Declared War on Your Privacy
Edward Snowden’s Substack – August 26, 2021
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/all-seeing-i
Apple’s new system, regardless of how anyone tries to justify it, will permanently redefine what belongs to you, and what belongs to them. How? The task Apple intends its new surveillance system to perform—preventing their cloud systems from being used to store digital contraband, in this case unlawful images uploaded by their customers—is traditionally performed by searching their systems… Under the new design, your phone will now perform these searches on Apple’s behalf before your photos have even reached their iCloud servers… Why is this so important? Once the precedent has been set that it is fit and proper for even a “pro-privacy” company like Apple to make products that betray their users and owners, Apple itself will lose all control over how that precedent is applied…. Apple gets to decide whether or not their phones will monitor their owners’ infractions for the government, but it’s the government that gets to decide what constitutes an infraction… and how to handle it… How long do we have left before the iPhone in your pocket begins quietly filing reports about encountering “extremist” political material, or about your presence at a “civil disturbance”? Or simply about your iPhone’s possession of a video clip that contains, or maybe-or-maybe-not contains, a blurry image of a passer-by who resembles, according to an algorithm, “a person of interest”?… This is not a slippery slope. It’s a cliff.
There’s no escape from Facebook, even if you don’t use it
The Washington Post – August 29, 2021 – Geoffrey A. Fowler
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/29/facebook-privacy-monopoly/
Facebook has become too big to escape. We’re rightly becoming more skeptical of Big Tech monopolies, and that should include the sheer volume of data they collect… It isn’t just the Facebook app that’s gobbling up your information. Facebook is so big, it has convinced millions of other businesses, apps and websites to also snoop on its behalf. Even when you’re not actively using Facebook. Even when you’re not online. Even, perhaps, if you’ve never had a Facebook account.
The Real Socialism in America Isn’t What You Think
Robert Reich’s Blog – August 27, 2021
https://robertreich.org/post/660532471195189248
We do have socialism in this country — but it’s not Democrats’ policies. The real socialism is corporate welfare. Thousands of big American corporations rake in billions each year in government subsidies, bailouts, and tax loopholes – all funded on the taxpayer dime, and all contributing to higher stock prices for the richest 1 percent who own half of the stock market, as well as CEOs and other top executives who are paid largely in shares of stock. Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, defense contractors, and big banks are the biggest beneficiaries of corporate welfare… It’s more socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for the rest.
Here Come the Terrorists. Again
Global Research – August 27, 2021 – Philip Giraldi
https://www.globalresearch.ca/here-come-terrorists-again/5754131
America’s war on those parts of the world that resist following its self-defined leadership is not about to go away. An interesting recent article in the foreign policy establishment The Hill written by a former senior CIA operations and staff officer Douglas London sees an Orwellian unending war against major adversaries Russia and China. Derived from his own experience, he concludes that sustained and enhanced clandestine actions should now replace conventional military forces confrontation… Some of the clandestine activity he appears to recommend would undoubtedly fall under cover of classic espionage “plausible denial,” i.e. that the White House could disavow any knowledge of what had occurred, but sabotage and cyber-attacks, particularly if implemented aggressively, would quickly be recognized for what they are and would invite commensurate or even disproportionate retaliation. This would amount to an all-out semi-covert war against powerful adversaries which could easily escalate into a shooting war.
Single-use plastic plates and cutlery to be banned in England
The Guardian – August 27, 2021 – Damian Carrington
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/27/single-use-plastic-plates-and-cutlery-to-be-banned-in-england
“We’ve all seen the damage that plastic does to our environment,” said the environment secretary, George Eustice. “It is right that we put in place measures that will tackle the plastic carelessly strewn across our parks and green spaces and washed up on beaches. We have made progress to turn the tide on plastic, now we are looking to go a step further.”… We need to address the root of the problem, redesigning the system and tackling the throwaway society once and for all.”
Code Red to Apocalypse: Change Immediately, Or Humanity Will Perish
Global Research – August 27, 2021 – Carla Stea
https://www.globalresearch.ca/code-red-apocalypse-united-nations-intergovernmental-panel-climate-change-presents-drastic-ultimatum-change-immediately-humanity-perish/5754133
Although UN Secretary-General Guterres optimistically allows for drastically altered human behavior by 2040 to avert the worst outcome, the refusal to reverse course, and eschew the use of fossil fuels and other substances and practices contributing to this deadly climate warming, it is almost categorically unlikely that the deadly dynamic of capitalism will permit the .00001% to accept the life-saving transformation of thinking and priorities which are imperative for the survival of the planet. The pathological narcissism of the .00001% will almost inevitably doom us all, and especially those in the developing world who bear no responsibility for this destruction of our planet.
The US is inching closer to passing a game-changing climate policy
Vox – August 25, 2021 – Rebecca Leber
https://www.vox.com/22579218/clean-energy-standard-electricity-infrastructure-democrats
A time when the United States runs mostly on wind- and solar-powered electricity could be a reality in only a few years. It wouldn’t require any scientific breakthroughs or technological leaps for clean energy to overtake coal and natural gas, which still dominate 60 percent of the US power sector. What it would take to challenge a century of fossil-fuel dominance in record-breaking time is one sweeping, underappreciated policy: a clean electricity standard. This policy could be “the biggest change in our energy policy since the lights went on,” Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith told Vox in a July interview. She called it the “centerpiece” of Democratic climate policy under President Joe Biden… In other words, to seriously slash pollution, the country needs to multitask. As the electric vehicle market booms and buildings upgrade to electric heating and cooling, their sources of electricity will also be modernizing in what could be a virtuous cycle: Electricity becomes a bigger share of US energy use, and clean electricity becomes a bigger share of electricity as a whole.
Imagine a World of Climate Solutions
Yes! Magazine – August 26, 2021 – Lynn Fitz-Hugh
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2021/08/26/imagine-climate-solutions-book
“Imaging a World Without War” is a conceptual tool co-created by Elise Boulding, a founder of the academic discipline of peace studies in the United States. Participants in the exercise create a mental image of a world without war, particularly without nuclear weapons. They start by imagining the existence of such a world, 30 years in the future, and then go backwards to our present time, mapping out what actions and events could create that world. The exercise frees up pessimistic mental roadblocks, allows a sense of possibility to emerge, and helps participants identify what Boulding called “pry points”—crises or catastrophic events that could force big changes for the common good, if people are prepared to act… Like Boulding and Macy, the novelist Kim Stanley Robinson urges us to imagine the series of actions that could save the world and achieve the future we want, rather than the future we’re bumbling toward. His latest novel, “The Ministry for the Future,” is a must-read for climate activists and of real significance to the climate movement. But it’s a good read for anyone, and a riveting fictional introduction to the task of pulling back global warming, the ultimate true-life adventure of our time.
28 Saturday Aug 2021
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he Atlanta Homeless Union sent out a press release to the media to warn that the City of Atlanta plans to send the Atlanta Police Department’s HOPE (Homeless Outreach and Proactive Enforcement) team to destroy all the tents on the sidewalk outside Central Presbyterian Church on August 26 at 8:00 AM. Several media outlets showed … Continue reading
22 Sunday Aug 2021
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This Is the World Being Left to Us by Adults
The New York Times – August 19, 2021 – Greta Thunberg, Adriana Calderón, Farzana Faruk Jhumu and Eric Njuguna
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opinion/climate-un-report-greta-thunberg.html
Humans are making irreversible changes to our planet and extreme weather will only become more severe. This news is a “code red for humanity,” said the United Nations secretary general. It is — but young people like us have been sounding this alarm for years. You just haven’t listened… Tomorrow we will mark three years since Greta Thunberg’s strike. Even earlier, brave young people from around the world spoke out about the climate crisis in their communities. And today, millions of children and young people have united in a movement with one voice, demanding that decision makers do the work necessary to save our planet from the unprecedented heat waves, massive floods and vast wildfires we are increasingly witnessing. Our protest will not end until the inaction does… We are in a crisis of crises. A pollution crisis. A climate crisis. A children’s rights crisis. We will not allow the world to look away.
The UN report is scaring people. But what if fear isn’t enough?
Grist – August 12, 2021 – Kate Yoder
https://grist.org/protest/the-un-report-is-scaring-people-but-what-if-fear-isnt-enough/
Underlying most efforts to push for action on climate change is the belief that some combination of awareness, concern, and worry will be enough to inspire people. But what if that premise is flawed?… The threat needs to feel personal and directed at you, and solutions to the problem must feel concrete, doable, and meaningful in removing that threat… The percentage of people who are acting, while seemingly small, translates to millions upon millions of Americans who are already calling up their representatives and signing petitions. And the more visible these actions become, the more likely others are to follow. Social norms come up over and over again as key to affecting people’s behavior… In other words, peer pressure could help save us all.
Why is life on Earth still taking second place to fossil fuel companies?
The Guardian – August 19, 2021 – George Monbiot
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/19/life-earth-second-place-fossil-fuel-climate-breakdown
The human tragedy is that there is no connection between what we know and what we do. Almost everyone is now at least vaguely aware that we face the greatest catastrophe our species has ever confronted. Yet scarcely anyone alters their behaviour in response… Unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground, any commitment to stop climate breakdown is merely gestural. The atmosphere does not respond to gestures. It is unmoved by promises, unimpressed by words. It has no factions that can be set against each other, no voters who can be fobbed off and distracted. This is one of the reasons why governments hate and shun what climate science tells them. If they took it seriously, they would tailor policy to scientific advice… No government, even the most progressive, is yet prepared to contemplate the transformation we need: a global programme that places the survival of humanity and the rest of life on Earth above all other issues. We need not just new policy, but a new ethics. We need to close the gap between knowing and doing. But this conversation has scarcely begun.
Welcome to the Pyrocene
Grist – August 18, 2021 – Stephen J. Pyne
https://grist.org/wildfires/welcome-to-the-pyrocene/
We have created a planetary fire age. Now we have to live in it… Industrial combustion has restructured the dynamics of fire on Earth. Fossil fuel combustion acts as an enabler, as a performance enhancer, and by its disrupting effects on the atmosphere as a globalizer. It has ensured that little of the Earth will be untouched by fire’s reach if not its grasp… What we have made, even with all its unanticipated consequences, we can unmake, even accepting more unanticipated consequences. But however the Pyrocene evolves, we have a lot of fire in our future.
The Planet Is in Peril. We’re Building Congress’ Strongest-Ever Climate Bill
The Guardian – August 18, 2021 – Bernie Sanders
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/18/planet-peril-congress-reconciliation-climate-bill
Just take a look at what’s happening right now… In the past, these disasters might have seemed like an absurd plot in some apocalypse movie. Unfortunately, this is now reality, and it will only get much worse in years to come if we do not act boldly – now… The good news is that the $3.5tn budget resolution that was recently passed in the Senate lays the groundwork… More than any other legislation in American history it will transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy… No wavering. No watering down. This is the moment. Our children and grandchildren are depending upon us. The future of the planet is at stake.
Farmers reap double benefits with solar power in fields
Deutsche Welle – August 14, 2021 – Gero Rueter
https://www.dw.com/en/farmers-reap-double-benefits-with-solar-power-in-fields/a-58284134
Solar panels generate electricity in the fields, helping both farmers and climate protection. DW visits a German solar farm — and looks at other places this combination is paying off. How widely can agrovoltaics spread?
‘Ten years ago this was science fiction’: the rise of weedkilling robots
The Guardian – August 14, 2021 – Pádraig Belton
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/14/weedkilling-robots-farming-pesticide-use-sustainable
The makers of robot weeders say the machines can reduce pesticide use and be part of a more sustainable food system… The global market for these agricultural robots – which can also be designed to perform tasks such as seeding, harvesting and environmental monitoring – is predicted to increase from $5.4bn in 2020 to more than $20bn by 2026. “Things scale up very quickly in agriculture,” said Myers.
Tennessee Teacher Fired After Teaching on White Privilege
The Atlantic – August 17, 2021 – Emma Green
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/08/matt-hawn-tennessee-teacher-fired-white-privilege/619770/
Tennessee recently passed anti–Critical Race Theory legislation, banning educators from teaching students that any individuals are “inherently privileged, sexist, or oppressive” based on their race or sex. This may have shaped the environment around Hawn’s firing; the bill was approved by the legislature shortly before Hawn received notification of his dismissal.
What the Hell Were We Doing There?
Esquire – August 16, 2021 – Charles P. Pierce
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37316869/afghanistan-us-leave-taliban/
For 20 years, we propped up an army that was an illusion and a government that was a mirage. For 20 years, as the Washington Post illustrated in a criminally unremarked-upon series of brilliant reports in 2019, our government lied to us and it lied to itself… In Vietnam, we should’ve learned that the only people who really want the places in which we choose to make war are the people who live there. But we didn’t, and Afghanistan is further proof of that… What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan? Leaving, the way everyone always has.
Afghanistan – “We Tried to Tell You”
Reader Supported News – August 16, 2021 – Mort Rosenblum
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/71006-rsn-afghanistan-qwe-tried-to-tell-youq
I’ve seen this, over and over, from Vietnam in the 1970s to Iraq not long ago. Players differ, but not the plot. Societies react badly to uninvited foreign saviors. However noble your intentions, you can’t deliver democracy at gunpoint… Next time, America risks bumbling into another unwinnable war with an adversary that can hit back hard – and closer to home. Seasoned reporters are out there snuffling for early signs of impending calamity. More people – many more people – had better be listening.
The ugly exit in Afghanistan is happening because America spent decades denying reality
The Daily Kos – August 16, 2021 – Mark Sumner
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/8/16/2046180/-The-ugly-exit-in-Afghanistan-is-happening-because-America-spent-decades-denying-reality
The idea that the Afghan military was ever going to play an effective role in stopping the advance of the Taliban was always a fiction. What the United States did in Afghanistan over the last few years was spent hundreds of billions of dollars to provide a window of false hope, an illusion of progress, and provide massive training and equipment for the Taliban army.
The Fall of Kabul
The Intercept – August 15, 2021 – Nick Turse
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/15/afghanistan-taliban-kabul-fall-saigon/
The Afghan collapse was far more precipitous than that of the South Vietnamese armed forces. But Biden ignores the clear parallels between that past moment of defeat and the current one at his own peril and that of the United States as a whole… Without a true reevaluation this time around, the U.S. risks falling into well-worn patterns that may, one day, make the military debacles in Southeast and Southwest Asia look terribly small.
Rather than focus on how the U.S. got out of Afghanistan, focus on how it got in
The Washington Post – August 17, 2021 – Katrina vanden Heuvel
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/17/rather-than-focus-how-us-got-out-afghanistan-focus-how-it-got/
Rather than focusing on how we got out, it would be far wiser to focus on how we got in. The accounting can draw from the official record exposed by The Post’s Afghanistan Papers project [https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/]. The papers come from an internal investigation by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, based on interviews with hundreds of officials who guided the mission. Their words are a savage and telling indictment… “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
A Hell Of Our Own Making
Edward Snowden’s Substack – August 16, 2021
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/kabul
For all the talk of democratizing Afghanistan, it was never clear that it was Afghanistan we were fighting. Weren’t we fighting the Taliban? Or Al-Qaeda? And weren’t they backed by Pakistan? And what about Saudi Arabia? Ultimately, we Americans were fighting ourselves, or our own governance, as we came to understand how the agony of 9/11 had been politicized. Of all the great cliches to be revived by this new lost war—“Afghanistan: the grave of empires,” “never get involved in a land war in Asia”—the most banal was also the truest: We are our own worst enemies… If there are any lessons to be learned from this tragic sequel to Saigon, you can be assured, we will not learn them. We will just sit by as the people of Afghanistan—many of whom were as deluded by American promises as Americans themselves—cling to hopes and cling to planes and fall, lost to the desert of theocratic rule. Some will say, they didn’t fight! They get what they deserve! To which I say, “And what do we deserve?”… Today, the country this describes is Afghanistan. Tomorrow, the country this describes might be my own.
How Low Can They Go? The Media’s Afghan Coverage
The American Prospect – August 20, 2021 – Eric Alterman
https://prospect.org/world/altercation-how-low-can-they-go-medias-afghan-coverage/
To assess the withdrawal, mainstream media go to the ‘experts’ who were wrong or lied about the war for the past 20 years… One could write an entire doctoral dissertation on the multiple, overlapping failures that have characterized most of the mainstream media coverage of the collapse of the 20-year war in Afghanistan… The most obvious among the myriad failures of mainstream coverage of the crisis is its stubborn ahistoricism. The Biden administration may have screwed up the exit of U.S. troops and the friendly Afghans who helped them, but hey, this was a 20-year, nearly $2.4 trillion war effort that was built on lies and self-delusion and that we didn’t really want to win in the first place.
Not Everyone Wanted War in Afghanistan. We Should Listen to Them Now.
Portside – Foreign Policy in Focus – August 20, 2021 – Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies
https://www.portside.org/2021-08-20/not-everyone-wanted-war-afghanistan-we-should-listen-them-now
Rep. Barbara Lee, Noam Chomsky, and Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz issued prescient warnings about the war before it was launched…. The drumbeat of war pervaded the airwaves, twisting 9/11 into a powerful propaganda narrative to whip up the fear of terrorism and justify the march to war. But many Americans shared the reservations of Rep. Barbara Lee and Ben Ferencz, understanding enough of their country’s history to recognize that the 9/11 tragedy was being hijacked by the same military-industrial complex that produced the debacle in Vietnam and keeps reinventing itself generation after generation to support and profit from American wars, coups, and militarism… We humbly submit that the media and politicians should start listening to the voices of peace and sanity instead of lying, delusional warmongers. What leads to catastrophes like the U.S. war in Afghanistan is not the absence of convincing anti-war voices but that our political and media systems routinely marginalize and ignore voices like those of Barbara Lee, Ben Ferencz, and ourselves… Finally reining in America’s out-of-control militarism would be a wise and appropriate response to its epic defeat in Afghanistan — before the same corrupt interests drag us into even more dangerous wars against more formidable enemies than the Taliban.
More Than 750 US Military Bases Remain Around the World
Tom Dispatch – August 19, 2021 – Patterson Deppen
https://tomdispatch.com/the-all-american-base-world/
With the U.S. military having withdrawn many of its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, most Americans would be forgiven for being unaware that hundreds of U.S. bases and hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops still encircle the globe. Although few know it, the United States garrisons the planet unlike any country in history, and the evidence is on view from Honduras to Oman, Japan to Germany, Singapore to Djibouti… Patterson Deppen offers the latest look at that global imperial structure, still standing despite the recent American disaster in Afghanistan, and for so many on this planet (as it isn’t for Americans), symbolic of the nature of the U.S. presence globally… in the midst of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden announced an end to American “combat” operations in Iraq. To many Americans, it may have appeared that he was just keeping his promise to end the two forever wars that came to define the post-9/11 “global war on terror.” However… this country’s “forever wars” may not really be coming to an end either. Rather, they are being relabeled and seem to be continuing via other means.
The elephant in the room
The Rag Blog – SAugust 19, 2021 – Harry Targ
http://www.theragblog.com/harry-targ-foreign-policy-the-elephant-in-the-room-2/
Contrary to the shifts toward a transnational capitalist system and the concentration of wealth and power on a global level, the decline of U.S. power, relative to other nation-states in the twenty-first century, has increased. China’s economy and scientific/technological base have expanded dramatically. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the spreading violence throughout the Middle East have overwhelmed U.S. efforts to control events. Russia, Iran, China, and even weaker nations in the United Nations Security Council have begun to challenge U.S. power and authority. Mass movements increasingly mobilize against regimes supported by the United States virtually everywhere (including mass mobilizations within the U.S. as well). However, most U.S. politicians still articulate the mantra of “the United States as the indispensable nation.” The articulation of American Exceptionalism represents an effort to maintain a global hegemony that no longer exists and a rationale to justify the massive military-industrial complex which fuels much of the United States economy… As millions of Americans struggle to survive poverty, inadequate access to healthcare, homelessness, a variety of environmental disasters it is time to include visions of a non-interventionist, anti-militaristic foreign policy back into our progressive political agenda.
Stop the Insane Nuke Bailout
Reader Supported News – August 21, 2021 – Harvey Wasserman
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/71091-rsn-stop-the-insane-nuke-bailout
Buried deep in Joe Biden’s various infrastructure deals is a bailout every bit as insane as the original decision to stay in Afghanistan – up to $50 billion in handouts to keep old nuke reactors operating … at least until they blow up… The cost of the inevitable explosion at one or more of these crumbling jalopy nukes could be millions of lives and trillions in both destroyed property and an irradiated ecosphere. Throughout the globe, the Solartopian technologies of wind, solar, batteries, and efficiency are skyrocketing in production while their prices plummet. But Biden’s proposed bailout would take a huge amount of capital away from clean, job producing renewables and put it into expensive, dangerous, obsolete reactors.
New Bill Says: Cut Pentagon, Fund Global Vaccines
Portside – Common Dreams – August 20, 2021 – Jake Johnson
https://www.portside.org/2021-08-20/new-bill-says-cut-pentagon-fund-global-vaccines
Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin introduced legislation this week that would cut billions of dollars from the Pentagon’s massive budget and invest those funds in global coronavirus vaccination efforts, which are badly lagging as rich countries continue to hoard doses and rush ahead with booster shots…. We can’t bomb our way out of a global pandemic. Shifting funds from weaponry and military contractors to producing Covid vaccines will save hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of lives around the world.
How to Prevent Crime Without Relying on Police
Yes! Magazine – August 20, 2021 – Luis J. Rodriguez
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2021/08/20/crime-prevention-america-without-police
Poverty is a major source of crime. Bad housing, bad schools, bad infrastructure, including the “poverty of access.” Poverty destroys families, their dignity, and hope. Most criminality is of want—because of lack of income, food, and other necessities. If you end poverty, you end most crime… All violence, even the most “senseless,” makes sense. Get to the core. Fill the gaps in economic, health, mental health, and skills development with real resources, or they end up getting filled with increased illegal drug use (and more crime to get money for the drugs), gang warfare, and violence. Domestic violence, the No. 1 violence concern among the poor, is hardly ever investigated or treated… Crime is not solely a police issue. We do police agencies a terrible disservice when we place this squarely in their laps. Most police are not trained for the multifaceted and multidimensional aspects of crime. Law enforcement officers are also subject to attack and stress, making them more susceptible to suicide or substance abuse than other professions. We must—going to the root again—deal fully with the front end of crime as a societal, and mostly preventable, malaise. I’m convinced this would be nowhere near as costly as law enforcement, courts, and prisons now are.
Our War Against Nature. Humanity’s March Toward Extinction?
Global Rsearch – August 20, 2021 – David Skripac
https://www.globalresearch.ca/our-war-against-nature-humanitys-march-toward-extinction/5750321
The species known as Homo sapiens is the only one on this planet that is actively seeking to eradicate itself and its habitat. All of the earth’s life support systems—soil, water, and air—are in decline as a direct result of our current economic activity, which is geared to extract as much from the sacred earth as possible without any regard for the consequences that ensue. By embracing such an intolerable economic paradigm, we fail to respect ecological and ethical limits. Our consumption-driven economic model, which we have designed and are now enslaved by, causes perpetual deficiencies—resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and contamination by toxic substances, all of which wreak perpetual havoc on the entire ecosystem and its surrounding environment. Megacorporations continue to propagate the ideology of endless economic growth, which they intend to squeeze out of a planet with finite resources and from which they alone will benefit financially.
15 Sunday Aug 2021
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Rethinking Money as a Force for Equity
Yes! Magazine – August 10, 2021 – Oscar Perry Abello
https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2021/08/10/money-equity-policy
Redistributing wealth or income isn’t a new idea, but what if redistribution wasn’t necessary at all? What if the system that created money did it in a way that was more fair or more responsive to everyone up front?
When Less Is More
Yes! Magazine – August 12, 2021 – David Korten
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2021/08/12/consumption-climate-change-earth
The primary cause of our crises is well known. According to the Global Footprint Network, humans currently consume at a rate 1.7 times what Earth can sustain. Yet, we have only one Earth and no hope of finding another soon—if ever. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed what we already know: we’ve run out of time and must now take drastic action to avert an even worse catastrophe.
Enough for Everyone
Yes! Magazine – August 10, 2021 – Stan Cox
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/how-much-is-enough/2021/08/10/what-is-enough
Given the current climate emergency and the broader ecological breakdown that looms, there are few issues more pressing than that expressed by the single word: enough. Yet, it is possible to satisfy humanity’s universal needs fairly—and keep the world livable… In a society devoted to continuous economic growth, there is no way to answer the question, “How much is enough?” because continuous growth implies there is never enough.
Olympic medals: An alternative table – with US 15th
BBC – August 10, 2021 – Robin Levinson-King
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58143550
The Olympics medals table was again dominated by the biggest countries like the US, which finished top. But how would the table look if population and wealth were taken into account?
The Solutions to the Climate Crisis No One Is Talking About
Robert Reich’s Blog – August 9, 2021
https://robertreich.org/post/659059767907680256
First, create green jobs. Investing in renewable energy could create millions of family sustaining, union jobs and build the infrastructure we need for marginalized communities to access clean water and air… Second, stop dirty energy…Stop digging up and burning more oil, gas, and coal… Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics… Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from environmental injustice to compensate the communities they’ve harmed.
Climate change: Five things we have learned from the IPCC report
BBC – August 9, 2021 – Matt McGrath
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58138714
“Climate change is not a problem of the future, it’s here and now and affecting every region in the world,” said Dr Friederike Otto from the University of Oxford, and one of the many authors on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. It is the confidence of the assertions that the scientists are now making that is the real strength of this new publication. The phrase “very likely” appears 42 times in the 40-odd pages of the Summary for Policymakers. In scientific terms, that’s 90-100% certain that something is real… The clearest of these points is about the responsibility of humanity for climate change. There’s no longer any equivocating – it’s us.
New IPCC Report Is a Wake-Up Call for All About the Escalating Climate Emergency
Democracy Now! – August 9, 2021 – Ami Goodman interviews Greta Thunberg
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/8/9/greta_thunberg_ipcc_report
We are not talking about the root cause itself, the things that is actually fueling these events. We are not holding people in power accountable. We are not talking about the current, best-available science, what it says, and how the situation looks like now. And we are especially not talking about the gap between what politicians are saying and what they are actually doing. …
Greed and Consumption: Why the World Is Burning
Common Dreams – August 13, 2021 – Ramzy Baroud
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/08/13/greed-and-consumption-why-world-burning
If we continue to talk about global warming without confronting the capitalist menace that generated much of the crisis in the first place, the conversation will continue to amount to nil… This leads us to think about the existential relationship between our insatiable consumption habits and the irreparable damage we have inflicted upon mother earth… Global warming is, in large part, the outcome of a destructive pattern instigated and sustained by capitalism. The latter can only survive through unhindered consumption, inequality, greed and, when necessary, war… In the final analysis, all the conferences, pledges and politicking will not put out a single fire.
How the Internet Transforms the Individual Into a Conspiracy of One
Edward Snowden’s Substack – August 5, 2021
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/conspiracy-pt2
The easier it becomes to produce information, the harder that information becomes to consume — and the harder we have to work to separate the spurious from the significant. Humans are meaning-making machines, seeking order in the chaos. Our pattern recognition capabilities are a key determinant in defining intelligence. But we now live in a dystopian digital landscape purpose-built to undermine these capabilities, training us to mistake planned patterns for convenient and even meaningful coincidences… To manufacture meaning from mere coincidence is the essence of paranoia, the gateway to world-building your own private conspiracies—or else to an epiphany that allows you to see the world as it actually is. I want to talk about that epiphany, about taking back control of our atomized, pre-conspiracy world… Once you wake up to the idea that the world has been patterned, intentionally or unintentionally, in ways you don’t agree with, you can begin to change it.
Marty Baron on truth, democracy, and the press in an age of distrust
Vox – August 9, 2021 – Sean Illing
https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/2021/8/9/22605855/vox-conversations-martin-baron-washington-post-media-democracy
The former executive editor of the Washington Post on what worries him about America’s future — and why defeatism is not an option… In order to have democracy, I think we do have to agree on a common set of facts, basic facts. We can’t seem to do that. I mean, we can argue over the policies. We should argue. We should argue over what the problems are. We should argue over how to solve those problems. But fundamentally, we have to agree on some basic facts. We seem incapable of doing that today… I think the greater threat to society is just a lack of trust in institutions. How do we get that back? With regard to the press specifically, a lot of it has to do with the rise of the internet. People can now turn to something that reinforces their preexisting view. They live in their own echo chamber and they want that. The internet allows that. It facilitates that. It even rewards that commercially.
How Hippies Won the Culture War…and Drove the Evangelicals to Fascism
Reader Supported News – August 9, 2021 – Harvey Wasserman
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/70883-rsn-how-hippies-won-the-culture-warand-drove-the-evangelicals-to-fascism
Back when Paul Weyrich partied like it was 1999, he made a monumental admission that explains the ferocity of today’s evangelical right. In an open letter to his extreme conservative cohorts, he acknowledged that they “probably had lost the culture war.”… Weyrich was a 1630s Puritan, a medieval relic. He demanded that rich, straight, white, male, evangelical theocrats run a “Christian” state … but without all that turn-the-other-cheek / love-thy-neighbor / feed-the-poor hippie stuff that Jesus was always spouting. In fact, if Jesus Himself had spoken up at any Weyrich-style rallies, he would have been immediately re-crucified… Weyrich’s culture war surrender two decades ago resonates today with the demographic declines of America’s extreme right wing, in both general population and evangelical troop strength. It helps explain the desperation of their assault on democracy… Thus the ferocity of the White Supremacist, straight male, “Christian” assault on the right to vote. Having lost America’s youth and culture, only a dictatorship can keep this Lost Cause minority in power.
Making Sense of Our (Republican) Backlash Moment – “Generations of Struggle, Lessons on Defending Democracy”
Tom Dispatch – August 10, 2021 – Liz Theoharis
https://tomdispatch.com/generations-of-struggle/
My father, Athan G. Theoharis, passed away on July 3rd. A leading expert on the FBI, he was responsible for exposing the bureau’s widespread abuses of power. He was a loyal husband, dedicated father, scholar, civil libertarian, and voting-rights advocate with an indefatigable commitment to defending democracy. He schooled his children (and anyone who would listen, including scholars, journalists, and activists from a striking variety of political perspectives) to understand one thing above all: how hard the powers-that-be will work to maintain that power and how willing they are to subvert democracy in the process. His life is a reminder that much of American politics in 2021 is, in so many ways, nothing new.
Follow the money: Understanding the deep roots of Donald Trump’s coup attempt
Salon – August 10, 2021 – Chauncey DeVega
https://www.salon.com/2021/08/10/follow-the-money-understanding-the-deep-roots-of-donald-trumps-coup-attempt/
Trump and his regime debased America’s democracy and political culture, elevating neofascism and white supremacy in an attempt to create a new form of apartheid. The damage Trumpism caused to American society has created a full-blown political and social crisis. Matters are so dire that many observers, including President Biden, have described the Age of Trump and beyond as the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War. Of course there were also the events of Jan. 6, with Donald Trump’s coup attempt and his followers’ lethal attack on the Capitol… To fully expose and unravel the conspiracy to overthrow American democracy — in which Jan. 6 was just one element — will require that investigators follow the money. Jane Mayer of the New Yorker has already begun that necessary work. In her new essay “The Big Money Behind the Big Lie,” Mayer details how a small number of billionaires and elite right-wing interest groups and activists are working across the country to overthrow America’s multiracial democracy.
Donald’s Plot Against America
The New Republic – August 12, 2021 – Mary L. Trump
https://newrepublic.com/article/163115/donald-trump-plot-against-america
Now, he and his GOP enablers are peddling the Second Big Lie: that January 6 was just legitimate protest. It’s the crucial ingredient in convincing America to return them—and him—to power… On November 7, after Joe Biden was declared the winner, Donald began peddling the Big Lie—massive voter fraud and cheating by Democrats had turned Donald’s landslide victory into a loss. The phrase “the Big Lie,” coined by Adolf Hitler, describes the technique of saying something so outrageously false that people will believe it simply because they think nobody would have the audacity to lie so brazenly. This has been a specialty of Donald’s.
Bill Gates Should Stop Telling Africans What Kind of Agriculture Africans Need
Scientific American – July 6, 2021 – Million Belay and Bridget Mugambe
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bill-gates-should-stop-telling-africans-what-kind-of-agriculture-africans-need1/
The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), which represents more than 200 million farmers, fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, women, consumers and others across all but five African countries, holds that agroecology is what our continent needs. Small-scale, ecofriendly cultivation methods using indigenous knowledge and inputs and cutting-edge science increase the variety, nutritive value and quantity of foods produced on farms while stabilizing rural economies, promoting gender equity and protecting biodiversity.
The total health and climate consequences of the American food system cost three times as much as the food itself
The Washington Post – July 16, 2021 – Laura Reiley
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/16/true-cost-of-american-food-system/
The United States spends $1.1 trillion a year on food. But when the impacts of the food system on different parts of our society — including rising health care costs, climate change and biodiversity loss — are factored in, the bill is around three times that, according to a report by the Rockefeller Foundation, a private charity that funds medical and agricultural research… “This report is a wake-up call. The U.S. food system as it stands is adversely affecting our environment, our health and our society,” said Rajiv Shah, president of The Rockefeller Foundation. “To fix a problem, we need to first understand its extent. The data in this report reveals not only the negative impacts of the American food system but also what steps we can take to make it more equitable, resilient and nourishing.”… Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, who was an adviser on the new report, said that the pandemic, coupled with Black Lives Matters and the reawakening around racial justice, has been a “Sept. 11 moment around food.” “We’re at a tipping point. People widely recognize that the food system is broken,” Mozaffarian said, adding that most current public policies around food and agriculture are based on the 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health. Yet, 52 years later much of it doesn’t make sense.
America Needs to Start Telling the Truth About Israel’s Nukes
The New York Times – August 11, 2021 – Peter Beinart
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/opinion/biden-israel-nuclear-program.html
In warning that Iran could turn the Middle East nuclear, American politicians imply that the region is nuclear-free now. But it’s not. Israel already has nuclear weapons. You’d just never know it from America’s leaders, who have spent the last half-century feigning ignorance. This deceit undercuts America’s supposed commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and it distorts the American debate over Iran. It’s time for the Biden administration to tell the truth… Perhaps a more honest American discussion of Israel’s nuclear arsenal will breathe new life into the distant dream of a nuclear-free Middle East. Even if that doesn’t happen, it will be bracing, after a half-century of lying by omission, simply to hear America’s leaders tell the truth.
The Child Tax Credit: A Political and Policy Triumph
The American Prospect – August 10, 2021 – Robert Kuttner
https://prospect.org/education/child-tax-credit-a-political-and-policy-triumph/
The child tax credit, by reducing child poverty, produces substantial savings in Medicaid, food stamps, and foster care. Looked at more broadly, the credit produces gains to children who grow up to become productive citizens and thus gains to the economy. Studies show that the child tax credit returns $8 to the economy for every dollar spent… The child tax credit needs to be permanent.
How to fix our rigged tax system
The Washington Post – August 12, 2021 – Elizabeth Warren
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/12/elizabeth-warren-tax-system-infrastructure/
Americans understand that our tax system has been rigged to reward the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. So let’s fix it. First, it’s time to start taxing wealth, not just income… [Add] a two-cent wealth tax that applies only to the wealthiest 100,000 U.S. households — with a few cents more for the billionaires. Such a wealth tax would raise roughly $3 trillion in revenue over the next decade, without raising taxes on 99.95 percent of Americans. It’s supported by 68 percent of the country, including a majority of Republicans. And there are lots of ways to advance this principle — including a one-time wealth tax that would raise over $1 trillion… I’ve put these three proposals — a wealth tax, a tax on real corporate profits and closing the tax gap — on the table. There are other ideas worthy of consideration, but the standard should be writing rules that target wealthy freeloaders and corporate grifters and then enforcing those rules.
“Nobody Is Above the Law”—Except the Biggest Corporate and Goverment Criminals
Common Dreams – August 14, 2021 – Ralph Nader
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/08/14/nobody-above-law-except-biggest-corporate-and-goverment-criminals
When it comes to the crimes of large corporations and their bosses, immunity or impunity is what they expect. When, once in a while, they’re caught in the act, the company pays the dollar penalties and the company’s rulers and backers get off with no “personal responsibility.”… Next time you hear any prominent person announce that “Nobody is above the law,” you can ask: “Really, with all the corporate and government lawbreaking we read about, tell us just how many of these big-time crooks are in orange suits serving time?”
Here’s Why Democrats’ $3.5 Trillion Budget Plan Could Impact Every Single American
Forbes – August 11, 2021 – Jonathan Ponciano
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/08/11/heres-why-democrats-35-trillion-budget-plan-could-impact-every-single-american/
The Senate on Wednesday set the stage for the biggest expansion of the federal social safety net since the advent of modern-day food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, approving a blueprint for a massive $3.5 trillion budget bill aimed at “restoring the middle class” through a slew of government initiatives—including universal preschool, tuition-free community college and a new federal health program—while combating climate change and hiking taxes for the ultrawealthy.
What We Got Wrong in Afghanistan
Atlantic Magazine – August 12, 2021 – Mike Jason
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-america-failed-afghanistan/619740/
We failed to establish the necessary infrastructure that dealt effectively with military education, training, pay systems, career progression, personnel, accountability—all the things that make a professional security force. Rotating teams through tours of six months to a year, we could not resolve the vexing problems facing Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s armies and police: endemic corruption, plummeting morale, rampant drug use, abysmal maintenance, and inept logistics… For more than 20 years, no matter what was reported, what we read in the headlines, efforts to build and train large-scale conventional security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have mostly been an aimless, ham-fisted acronym soup of trial and error that never became the true main effort, and we are to blame for that.
The Anti-MAGA Movement: Rev. William Barber’s Quest to Make America Great, For Once
Portside – The Root – August 7, 2021 – Michael Harriot
https://www.portside.org/2021-08-07/anti-maga-movement-rev-william-barbers-quest-make-america-great-once
The reverend’s Poor People’s Campaign is working to build an America that is the exact opposite of Donald Trump’s immoral white nationalist oligarchy… Barber is intent on building a movement based on what he calls the five interlocking injustices: systemic racism, poverty and ecological devastation, denial of healthcare, the war economy, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism… He sees nonviolent direct action as the key to grabbing back the reins of power from white nationalists, wealthy corporations and people who believe they can overturn elections with bear spray, cattle prods and legalized voter suppression. His Moral Mondays have enlisted religious, community and political leaders who exclusively represent poor and low-wealth Americans to take direct action to make America great, for once.
12 Thursday Aug 2021
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Earlier this year, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms unexpectedly initiated a deal with the Atlanta Police Foundation to lease the old Prison Farm property for a police training center on Key Road in Southeast DeKalb County. Mayor Bottoms’ action violated an existing ordinance and was undemocratic since there was no public input. Who Gets The Old … Continue reading
08 Sunday Aug 2021
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Global economic policies driving toward a climate crisis
Phys.org – Autonomous University of Barcelona – August 6, 2021
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-global-economic-policies-climate-crisis.html
“In the article, we propose an alternative approach to avoiding dangerous climate change which does not depend on the success of dystopian ‘technofixes'”, explains Aljoša Slameršak, researcher at the ICTA-UAB. He adds that “post-growth calls for rich countries to move away from economic growth and focus instead on provisioning for human needs and well-being, such as by reducing inequality, ensuring living wages, shortening the working week to maintain full employment, and guaranteeing universal access to public healthcare, education, transportation, energy, water and affordable housing.”
Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse
The Guardian – August 5, 2021 – Damian Carrington
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientists-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse
Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points… Such an event would have catastrophic consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa; increasing storms and lowering temperatures in Europe; and pushing up the sea level off eastern North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets… The world may already have crossed a series of tipping points, according to a 2019 analysis, resulting in “an existential threat to civilisation”. A major report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due on Monday, is expected to set out the worsening state of the climate crisis.
The Best Climate Solutions Start with Listening to Communities
Yes! Magazine – August 3, 2021 – Ezra David Romero
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2021/08/03/climate-solutions-listen-to-communities
The listening project is led by Violet Wulf-Saena, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Climate Resilient Communities. Her group advocates for climate change solutions that integrate the communities most affected by warming temperatures in the Bay Area. “There’s a lot of power in the community,” she said. “They are the ones who are being impacted. They’re the ones who live in East Palo Alto, they know more than me. They are the experts. … Success is really about bringing the community together and finding ways where they can also be part of the process.”
Biden’s Climate Plans Are Stunted After Dejected Experts Fled Trump
The New York Times – August 1, 2021 – Coral Davenport, Lisa Friedman and Christopher Flavelle
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/01/climate/biden-scientists-shortage-climate.html
President Donald J. Trump’s battle against climate science — his appointees undermined federal studies, fired scientists and drove many experts to quit or retire — continues to reverberate six months into the Biden administration. From the Agriculture Department to the Pentagon to the National Park Service, hundreds of jobs in climate and environmental science across the federal government remain vacant. Scientists and climate policy experts who quit have not returned. Recruitment is suffering, according to federal employees, as government science jobs are no longer viewed as insulated from politics. And money from Congress to replenish the ranks could be years away… The problem is made worse by a feeling among young scientists that federal research can be derailed by politics.
How Replanted Seagrass Is Restoring the Ocean
Yes! Magazine – August 2, 2021 – Laura Paddison
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2021/08/02/replanted-seagrass-is-restoring-the-ocean
McGlathery, an environmental sciences professor at the University of Virginia, is part of a team running the largest seagrass restoration project in the world in these coastal bays—and one of the most successful. The two-decade-long project is a “blueprint for restoring and maintaining healthy ecosystems,” according to a 2020 research paper, and proof that marine habitats can be brought back to life in a way that’s self-sustaining.
Why Planting Mangroves Can Help Save the Planet
EcoWatch – August 3, 2021 – Tiffany Duong
https://www.ecowatch.com/planting-mangroves-benefits-2654415551.html
“Mangroves are often under-appreciated, with most people not realizing their true value to the overall health of our communities and our entire planet,” said Tod Hardin, COO of Plastic Oceans International. In partnership with Plastic Oceans International, EcoWatch wants to highlight how mangroves protect our planet and how we can help them through restoration and replanting efforts… Mangroves are shrubs or small trees that grow along coastlines and in brackish water, or water that is part salt and part fresh. In fact, these trees have adapted to grow in low-oxygen soil, where saltwater intrudes several times a day and where slow-moving water introduces fine sediment and particulates, NOAA reported… Hardin told EcoWatch, “Very few flora can claim to be as important to the overall health of our planet as mangroves are ? thus making them the perfect model for demonstrating the interrelationship between trees and seas… between land and water of any kind.”
Old and new solutions pave way to net-zero emissions farming
Mongabay – July 30, 2021 – Claire Asher
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/old-and-new-solutions-pave-way-to-net-zero-emissions-farming-studies-show/
A host of new and emerging agricultural technologies lie on the horizon that could revolutionize how we think about food production, but a separate report published in the journal One Earth suggests that low-tech solutions could be just as effective… The final step in the agri-tech transition would involve a full redesign of the agricultural system, making use of swarms of small agricultural robots to practice automated precision agriculture with high-performing crop varieties, guided by distributed sensors. An advanced agricultural system like this might reduce carbon emissions by more than 1,700 kilograms per hectare, according to the study… With a century of investment in the current industrial agricultural system, it won’t be easy to radically change course, but “there are moments in history where you are forced to change paradigm and that’s urgent now because of the climate urgency, and biodiversity loss,” said Billen. Fortunately, he believes the tide of opinion is starting to turn, concluding, “I am an optimistic guy.”
The Big Money Behind the Big Lie
The New Yorker – August 2, 2021 – Jane Mayer
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/the-big-money-behind-the-big-lie
Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy are being promoted by rich and powerful conservative groups that are determined to win at all costs… The Big Lie has become a “grift” used to motivate Republican voters and donors to support conservative candidates and political groups. The sad thing is that there are probably millions of people—hardworking, good Americans, maybe retired—who have paid their taxes, always followed the law, and they truly believe this, because of what they’ve been fed by their leaders… And what’s so dispiriting is that the people who are pushing it from the top? They know better.
Expert roundtable on Jan. 6 and Trump’s Big Lie: “Fascism in its pure ideological form”
Salon – July 28, 2021 – Chauncey DeVega
https://www.salon.com/2021/07/28/trump-arizona-fascism-hearings-roundup/
Expert panel unpacks Trump’s rhetoric: “Dangerously anti-democratic,” “thoroughly corrupt,” “vengeful and sadistic”… He is inciting political persecution against his critics by promoting delusions of persecution among his armed, white supremacist, violence-loving base. It can be tempting to write off white grievance politics as a joke, but as Trump’s own DHS acknowledged, it remains among the top threats to homeland security, as embodied in conspiracy theories about white genocide that Trump is openly embracing.
The Fight to Protect Voting Rights Enters the Next Round
Yes! Magazine – August 6, 2021 – Mark Allan Williams
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2021/08/06/protect-voting-rights-congress-members-arrested
When three Black Congressional leaders were handcuffed and arrested recently while protesting voter suppression, they were doing more than drawing attention to legislation to protect and expand voting rights. They were taking a stand against an anti-democratic movement, led by Republican-controlled state legislatures, to keep away from the polls voters whose beliefs and interests don’t align with theirs. That entire movement has been built on the foundation of not just one big lie, but several. It is fueled by the White identity politics that is at the heart of Trumpism and that has shaped much of U.S. political history.
It is time for Congress to act again to protect the right to vote
The Washington Post – August 5, 2021 – Merrick B. Garland, attorney general of the United States
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/05/merrick-garland-voting-rights-act-anniversary-congress/
Our society is shaped not only by the rights it declares but also by its willingness to protect and enforce those rights. Nowhere is this clearer than in the area of voting rights… On this anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we must say again that it is not right to erect barriers that make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote. And it is time for Congress to act again to protect that fundamental right.
The Capitol Rioters Attacked Police. Why Isn’t the FOP Outraged?
The Atlantic Magazine – August 5, 2021 – Adam Serwer
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/blue-wall-silence/619612/
The laws have changed, but many Americans have never abandoned the belief that police are obligated to enforce America’s racial hierarchies. The role of American policing, in their view, is less to uphold the law than to act as a kind of sectarian militia for “real Americans,” which is to say, Trumpist Republicans… The officers at the Capitol who fulfilled their oath by protecting lawmakers from a mob in thrall to a dangerous fantasy—that they could change the outcome of the 2020 election through violence—are now being attacked as traitors… The apparent discrepancy is simple to explain. The officers were seen as treasonous by the rioters because they were supposed to join the mob in overthrowing the constitutional order and casting down the liberal usurpers, as well as the illegitimate multiracial coalition that brought Democrats to power. They viewed the officers holding to their vow to defend the Constitution as betraying their true obligations, as Trump and the mob understood them.
Tech Giant Took $2.7 Million From Trump The Day After Jan. 6 To Send More Of His Emails
Huffpost – August 5, 2021 – S.V. Date
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-salesforce-emails_n_610c3d0de4b041dfbaa71051
Salesforce.com later denounced the violent attack on the Capitol. But it’s once again helping Trump raise money as he ramps up his lies about a “stolen” election.
The Media’s Failure on Agent Orange
The History News Network – August 1, 2021 – Ron Steinman
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/180818
This story is so seriously underreported that for many it hardly exists. But it does exist in a multitude of ways that are impossible to count. It has a continuing and important effect on people’s lives, including unborn children, in South East Asia, mainly Vietnam, and in the United States, particularly among veterans. Until we solve the ills Agent Orange caused—and still does—the press gives it the coverage it demands and deserves, many people will continue to suffer in unimagined ways. It is media neglect of the worst sort… Keeping the public in the dark what Agent Orange is, has done, and continues to do will never allow people the benefit of understanding it and what we can do to make sure we never see its like again.
Cruelty toward wolves is erasing conservation efforts
The Washington Post – August 3, 2021 – Daniel M. Ashe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/03/wolves-idaho-montana-cruelty-conservation/
Now, consider what the Idaho and Montana legislatures have done. In a fervor to reduce wolf populations — by as much as 90 percent in Idaho — they are directing the professional wildlife managers in their states to authorize methods of giving every conceivable advantage to the hunter… Idaho’s anti-wolf virus is epidemic. It is threatening one of our nation’s greatest conservation success stories, and is a significant risk to the well-being of wolves and all predators. The vaccine is federal leadership.
MacKenzie Scott’s giving starkly contrasts with the approach of early white funders of HBCUs
Generocity – August 2, 2021 – Tyrone Freeman
https://generocity.org/philly/2021/08/02/mackenzie-scotts-giving-starkly-contrasts-with-the-approach-of-early-white-funders-of-hbcus/
In his guest column, historian of philanthropy Tyrone Freeman outlines the history of paternalism of white funders, including those who helped many historically Black colleges and universities open their doors.
If You Paid Your Debt to Society, You Should Be Allowed to Work
The New York Times – August 4, 2021 – Jamie Dimon
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/opinion/clean-slate-incarceration-work.html
One in three American adults — more than 70 million people — have some type of arrest or criminal record. To put this in perspective, about the same number of Americans have college degrees right now. Unfortunately, these Americans, who were incarcerated or have a conviction on their record, are essentially unable to secure good jobs in this country. Nearly half of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed one year after leaving prison. That is a moral outrage. This group is ready to work and deserves a second chance — an opportunity to fill the millions of job openings across the country. Yet our criminal justice system continues to block them from doing so… Jobs bring dignity and lay a foundation for stability. Employment with a living wage leads to better social outcomes — stronger households, less crime and even better health and well-being. An inclusive economy — in which there is equal access to opportunity — is a stronger, more resilient economy. That’s something we should all get behind.
It’s Time to Give Domestic Workers the Protections They Deserve
Portside – August 5, 2021 – Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Ai-Jen Poo
https://www.portside.org/2021-08-05/its-time-give-domestic-workers-protections-they-deserve
The National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, reintroduced on July 29, would establish a new set of standards for the people who work in our homes and take a vital step towards racial and gender equity… This is the moment when we get to shape what an equitable society looks like—to make sure women and women of color are not only included, but at the forefront, of how we think about a fair and just economy; to design jobs of the future that can meet the changing needs of our society and support families; and to prioritize racial equity as a fundamental element of our economy. That’s why today we’re re-introducing the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which would ensure that the essential workers in our homes—the nannies, the house cleaners, and the home care workers (e.g. personal care aides and home health aides) who do the work that makes all work possible—have the rights and protections they need and deserve. Currently, there’s no national law granting basic labor protections to domestic workers, and only 10 states have implemented statewide initiatives.
Health Care in the U.S. Compared to Other High-Income Countries
The Commonwealth Fund – August 4, 2021 – Eric C. Schneider, Arnav Shah, Michelle M. Doty, Roosa Tikkanen, Katharine Fields and Reginald D. Williams II
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly
The top-performing countries overall are Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia. The United States ranks last overall, despite spending far more of its gross domestic product on health care. The U.S. ranks last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes, but second on measures of care process.
The Red/Blue Divide in COVID-19 Vaccination Rates is Growing
Kaiser Family Foundation – July 8, 2021 – Jennifer Kates, Jennifer Tolbert and Kendal Orgera
https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/the-red-blue-divide-in-covid-19-vaccination-rates-is-growing/
One of the main factors driving differences in COVID-19 vaccination rates across the country is partisanship. Our surveys consistently find that Democrats are much more likely to report having been vaccinated than Republicans, and Republicans are much more likely to say that they definitely do not want to get vaccinated… There is a hardcore group of vaccine resisters who are disproportionately Republican and will be difficult to move.
US Peace Groups Call for Biden and Congress to Adopt ‘No First Use of Nuclear Weapons’ Policy
Common Dreams – August 4, 2021 – Kenny Stancil
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/04/us-peace-groups-call-biden-and-congress-adopt-no-first-use-nuclear-weapons-policy
The 76th anniversary of the U.S. military’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is coming up, and in an effort to prevent such mass murder from reoccurring, a broad coalition of peace, religious, and community groups launched a national campaign on Wednesday to urge President Joe Biden and Congress to adopt a policy of “No First Use of Nuclear Weapons.”… According to the coalition, the risk of nuclear war, which Daniel Ellsberg and others have warned would “kill billions of people and end civilization as we know it,” is increasing because the Trump and Biden administrations decided to withdraw from arms control treaties and pursue a new Cold War with Russia and China… What is needed is the universal acceptance of the recent United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, banning the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons.
The Enduring Myth of Hiroshima
Global Research – August 5, 2021 – John LaForge
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-enduring-myth-of-hiroshima/5395102
The U.S. atomic destruction of 140,000 people at Hiroshima and 70,000 at Nagasaki was never “necessary” because Japan was already smashed, no land invasion was needed and Japan was suing for peace. The official myth that “the bombs saved lives” by hurrying Japan’s surrender can no longer be believed except by those who love to be fooled… Official censorship of what the two bombs did to people and the reasons for it has been so successful, that 25 years of debunking hasn’t managed to generally topple the official narrative.
‘Fallout’ Tells The Story Of The Journalist Who Exposed The ‘Hiroshima Cover-Up’
NPR – Fresh Air – August 6, 2021 – Dave Davies in for Terry Gross
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/06/1025059199/fallout-tells-the-story-of-the-journalist-who-exposed-the-hiroshima-cover-up
Lesley M.M. Blume’s book tells the story of John Hersey, whose on-the-ground reporting in Hiroshima, Japan, exposed the world to the devastation of nuclear weapons… The scale of the destruction and suffering was eventually told in the book “Hiroshima” by journalist John Hersey, which became an international bestseller. What many don’t know is that Hersey’s book was originally a lengthy article that took up an entire issue of The New Yorker magazine a year after the bombing. It became one of the most influential pieces of journalism ever written… When President Harry Truman announced that America had detonated the world’s first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, he was announcing a new – not only a new weapon but the fact that we had entered into the Atomic Age. And Americans had no idea about the nature of these then-experimental weapons, namely that these are weapons that continue to kill long after detonation. And it would take quite a bit of time and reporting to bring that out.
A Hiroshima grandmother’s plea to Americans
Waging Nonviolence – August 5, 2021 – Rev. John Dear
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/08/hiroshima-grandmother-plea-nuclear-weapons/
Today, the Doomsday Clock of “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists” stands at 100 seconds to midnight — the closest it’s ever been since that world-shattering Hiroshima day 76 years ago. In other words, we are closer to nuclear war right now than we have ever been. Some 14,000 nuclear weapons stand ready to go. Weapons have proliferated. Many nations, possibly other terrorists groups, have them, and conflicts around the planet — particularly between India and Pakistan — hold us teetering on the brink of another Hiroshima holocaust… I wonder why, in the face of our global crises — from environmental destruction and catastrophic climate change to the COVID pandemic to extreme poverty and deepening racism — why so few seem to speak out against this unspeakable, existential threat that we continue to inflict upon ourselves and the whole planet… Dan and Phil Berrigan taught me that the best way toward the fullness of life, toward the God of life and peace, is through our public nonviolent resistance to the idols of death. That’s why many of us commemorate Hiroshima every year, to say “no” to the idolatry of nuclear weapons, and “yes” to the possibilities of new life. Our resistance helps us exercise our faith and hope.
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Renewables overtake coal, but natural gas still dominates as the nation’s power generator
NPR – WHYY – July 31, 2021 – Susan Phillips
https://whyy.org/articles/renewables-overtake-coal-but-natural-gas-still-dominates-as-the-nations-power-generator/
Renewable energy has inched above both coal and nuclear power for the first time, to become the second-highest source of electricity in the United States behind natural gas… The shift stems from an increase in renewable sources, but also a steep decline in coal usage, which dropped 20% from 2019. Wind remains the dominant source of renewable energy in the U.S., and grew 14% in 2020.
Cutting carbon pollution quickly would save millions of lives, study finds
NPR – WHYY – July 29, 2021 – Rebecca Hersher
https://whyy.org/npr_story_post/cutting-carbon-pollution-quickly-would-save-millions-of-lives-study-finds/
Climate change is deadly to humans, and that the benefits of transitioning to a cleaner economy could be profound. In recent years, the connection between a hotter planet and human death and disease has become clearer, thanks to a series of research papers. A study published in 2021 found that about a third of heat-related deaths worldwide can be directly attributed to human-caused climate change. A 2020 Lancet report warned that climate change is the biggest global public health threat of the century.
We Love You, Alberta – Just Not Your Tar Sands
The New Yorker – July 28, 2021 – Bill McKibben
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/we-love-you-alberta-just-not-your-tar-sands
Alberta has an enormous amount of carbon beneath its soil. If it gets dug up and burned, then it will be calculably harder to limit the damage from climate change. The best estimate for economically recoverable oil in the province is about a hundred and seventy-three billion barrels. Burning that much, according to one calculation, would produce about a hundred and twelve billion tons of carbon dioxide, which is twenty-eight per cent of the world’s total remaining carbon budget if we want to have a fifty-per-cent chance (not a guarantee—a fifty-per-cent chance) of meeting the climate goals we set in Paris.
The truth behind corporate climate pledges
The Guardian – July 26, 2021 – Jocelyn Timperley
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/climate-crisis-green-light
Across a slew of sectors from food and fast fashion to construction and heavy industry, companies have helped drive climate chaos. As climate impacts accelerate – the world is boiling, burning, flooding and melting – there is unprecedented pressure on all companies to start taking their own role in the crisis far more seriously. This pressure is translating into action. A record number of companies are making climate pledges, but experts warn the pace of action remains glacially slow in the face of a barreling climate crisis… Reaching a net-zero world will entail “wholesale transformation” in both infrastructure and how things are done, said Steven Clarke, director for corporate clean energy leadership at non-profit Ceres. “Some people refer to it as on the scale of a second industrial revolution.”… “If business leaders truly grasped the seriousness of this crisis, they would immediately pivot their entire business models and resources toward scaling climate solutions full stop.”
Biden should reject the infrastructure plan written by Exxon and invest in saving the climate instead
MarketWatch – July 28, 2021 – Basav Sen
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-should-reject-the-infrastructure-plan-written-by-exxon-and-invest-in-saving-the-climate-instead-11627493086
Any plan that doesn’t lay the groundwork for tackling the climate crisis with urgency isn’t worth taking seriously. Unfortunately, measured this way, the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan now before the Senate is not a serious plan… The bipartisan plan cuts Biden’s proposed mass transit funding by 44%. It cuts vehicle electrification funding by a stunning 91%. And it cuts renewable energy by 100%—right on down to $0. In the face of such an obvious crisis, how could these senators get it so wrong? Part of the answer, simply, is money.
Beetles, drought, and fires are a ticking time bomb in the West
Vox – July 29, 2021 – Benji Jones
https://www.vox.com/2021/7/29/22594137/bark-beetles-wildfire-california-oregon-climate-change
Extreme drought. Soaring temperatures. Decades of fire suppression. It’s a perfect recipe for the kinds of wildfires now tearing through the West. But there’s another ingredient that could make fires even more severe, and it’s just the size of a grain of rice: bark beetles. These tiny insects prey on a large number of tree species, which can make some forests, especially in the American West, more susceptible to severe wildfires. In fact, there’s some indication that beetle-killed trees have helped fuel the Bootleg Fire currently raging in Oregon. Now climate change stands to add fuel to the problem. Rising temperatures are causing the populations of bark beetles to balloon, while also worsening droughts that make trees more susceptible to beetle attacks. Beetle infestations may in turn be contributing to climate change, by transforming forests from carbon sinks to carbon emitters.
The Battle Lines Are Drawn
Reader Supported News – Dan Rather’s Facebook Page – July 25, 2021
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/70626-the-battle-lines-are-drawn-as-they-have-been
The ideal of freedom can inspire. But it also can be co-opted to justify oppression… The narrative of this nation, of its “freedom,” is a complicated one. It is the story of a chasm between ideals and reality. It is the story of a nation created with the DNA of change built into our government and national ideals, so that it can progress to a “more perfect union.” It is the story of how, time and again, Black Americans have stood up to strengthen American democracy, not weaken it. You have marched and knelt, prayed and organized, protested and voted. You have done so in the face of lynchings, police dogs, and firehoses. And you have done so in spite of laws that were created using formal legal niceties to mask vile bigoted impulses.
White supremacist propaganda hit an all-time high in 2020, new report says
USA Today – March 17, 2021 – Will Carless
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/03/17/white-supremacist-propaganda-hits-all-time-high/4721323001/
Three organizations were responsible for more than 90% of the propaganda incidents. The most active group by far was Texas-based Patriot Front, headed by white supremacist Thomas Rousseau, which was behind 4,105 of the incidents. Patriot Front masks its racism in vague phrases like “America First” and “Reclaim America,” but the group’s official manifesto makes its white supremacist goals clear… The increase in white supremacist propaganda mirrors an overall national increase in both the number of hate groups in the United States and hate crimes over the last few years.
The Insecurity Industry
Edward Snowden’s Blog – July 26, 2021
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/ns-oh-god-how-is-this-legal
The greatest danger to national security has become the companies that claim to protect it… I can’t help but regard the arrival of the Pegasus Project as a turning-point—a well-researched, exhaustively-sourced, and frankly crazy-making story about a “winged” “Trojan Horse” infection named “Pegasus” that basically turns the phone in your pocket into an all-powerful tracking device that can be turned on or off, remotely, unbeknownst to you, the pocket’s owner… In technology as in public health, to protect anyone, we must protect everyone. The first step in this direction—at least the first digital step—must be to ban the commercial trade in intrusion software. We do not permit a market in biological infections-as-a-service, and the same must be true for digital infections… If we don’t do anything to stop the sale of this technology, it’s not just going to be 50,000 targets: It’s going to be 50 million targets, and it’s going to happen much more quickly than any of us expect. This will be the future: a world of people too busy playing with their phones to even notice that someone else controls them.
The Hidden Victories in Daniel Hale’s Sentence
Reader Supported News – July 30, 2021 – John Kiriakou
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/70707-rsn-the-hidden-victories-in-daniel-hales-sentence
Daniel was arrested in 2013 after telling Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept that, as a drone operator, he had participated in the murder of an unknown number of civilians who were later reported to be legitimate attacks on “enemy combatants.” He provided Scahill with some 150 pages of documents related to the drone program, appeared on stage with the Intercept co-founder, and sat for an interview in the highly-acclaimed documentary National Bird… Daniel, who is painfully introverted and has difficulty speaking before crowds, took to the podium and delivered one of the finest and most impassioned defenses of personal morality and ethics I have ever heard. He told the judge how his ancestor Nathan Hale had been caught by the British and sentenced to death for espionage. His final words, as every schoolchild knows, were “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Daniel said that he took strength from his ancestor. And like his ancestor, Daniel was a patriot. It was his love of country that compelled him to speak out against the government’s illegal activities. He was sorry he broke the law, he said. But he could not condone murder.
‘May his light continue to guide us’: Civil rights leader Bob Moses dies at 86
Mississippi Today – July 25, 2021 – Kayleigh Skinner and Bobby Harrison
https://mississippitoday.org/2021/07/25/may-his-light-continue-to-guide-us-civil-rights-leader-bob-moses-dies-at-86/
“We honor his vision, tenacity, and fearlessness. His deep belief in people who find themselves in the socio/economic bottom made a fundamental difference for millions of his fellow Americans,” the SNCC Legacy Project said in a statement… “At the heart of these efforts was SNCC’s idea that people—ordinary people long denied this power—could take control of their lives,” the SNCC statement continued. “These were the people that Bob brought to the table to fight for a seat at it: maids, sharecroppers, day workers, barbers, beauticians, teachers, preachers and many others from all walks of life.”… “So may his light continue to guide us as we face another wave of Jim Crow laws. His example is more important now than ever…Rest in power Bob.”
Bob Moses Deserves a Statue in the United States Capitol
Esquire Magazine – July 26, 2021 – Charles P. Pierce
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37131470/bob-moses-obituary-freedom-summer-algebra-project/
The life of Bob Moses, who died in Florida over the weekend at 86, was in every sense an American history. In the early 1960s, before all the big speeches and the TV coverage, he left Harvard and a teaching career and moved to Mississippi to register Black voters in some of the most dangerous places in the country. He went there at the urging of another unsung American hero, Ella Baker, and was mentored in the ways of Mississippi by veteran local activist Amzie Moore. In an interview found in Charles Payne’s magisterial history of the period, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, Moses recalled meeting Moore in a way that possesses a lot of resonance today.
Bob Moses, civil rights leader, led us to imagine the end of racism
Religion News Service – July 26, 2021 – A. James Rudin
https://religionnews.com/2021/07/26/bob-moses-civil-rights-leader-led-us-to-imagine-the-end-of-racism/
When I returned to Kansas City, I wrote an article that appeared in the “Jewish Frontier,” a national magazine, about my Mississippi experiences. I concluded the piece with two predictions: There would be violence in Mississippi during the summer of 1964, and “total integration” would come to the United States within 10 years. I was tragically correct about the potential for violence and much too optimistic about the end of racism in the United States. In those days, listening to men like Moses, it was possible to believe it. May his memory and legacy always be an inspiration and a challenge for all Americans.
Georgia GOP will steal the next election. Senate Democrats have to end the filibuster to stop them
The Daily Kos – July 26, 2021 – Joan McCarter
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/26/2042082/-Georgia-GOP-will-steal-the-next-election-Senate-Democrats-have-to-end-the-filibuster-to-stop-them
Realization might be dawning on at least some filibuster-loving Democrats that this status quo is not sustainable for democracy. Virginia Democrat Mark Warner told Fox News this weekend: “If we have to do a small carve out on filibuster for voting rights—that is the only area where I’d allow that kind of reform.” This isn’t actually a new position for Warner. He told The Washington Post back in March: “When it comes to fundamental issues like protecting Americans from draconian efforts attacking their constitutional right to vote, it would be a mistake to take any option off the table.”
Ben and Jerry’s Is Shunning Israeli Settlements. The US Should Too
Informed Comment – July 27, 2021 – Sari Bashi
https://www.juancole.com/2021/07/shunning-israeli-settlements.html
Jerry’s decision is the latest indication of growing U.S. public understanding that the Israeli government is violating Palestinian rights, and that Americans should avoid complicity in those abuses.
State and Local Child Tax Credit Outreach Needed to Help Lift Hardest-to-Reach Children Out of Poverty
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – July 29, 2021 – Kris Cox, Roxy Caines, Arloc Sherman and Dottie Rosenbaum
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/state-and-local-child-tax-credit-outreach-needed-to-help-lift-hardest-to-reach
The Rescue Plan’s changes to the Child Tax Credit are estimated to reduce the number of children in poverty by more than 40 percent. To reach that goal, government agencies, community-based organizations, and advocates will need to conduct aggressive outreach and provide hands-on assistance to the lowest-income families with children, whom the IRS traditionally has had a hard time reaching.
Pandemic Aid Programs Spur a Record Drop in Poverty
The New York Times – July 28, 2021 – Jason DeParle
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/us/politics/covid-poverty-aid-programs.html
The most comprehensive study yet of the federal response to the pandemic shows huge but temporary benefits for the poor — and helps frame a larger debate over the role of government… The finding — that poverty plunged amid hard times at huge fiscal costs — comes at a moment of sharp debate about the future of the safety net… “Wow — these are stunning findings,” said Bob Greenstein, a longtime proponent of safety net programs who is now at the Brookings Institution. “The policy response since the start of the pandemic goes beyond anything we’ve ever done, and the antipoverty effect dwarfs what most of us thought was possible.”
An Old Idea for a Guaranteed Income Is Back in Style
In These Times – July 26, 2021 – Max B. Sawicky
https://inthesetimes.com/article/guaranteed-income-negative-tax-basic-economy
A timely paper has reopened an old debate with a new proposal for a guaranteed national income, in the form of a negative income tax (NIT). The NIT, first proposed in the 1970s, is one type of income guarantee. It provides a cash benefit to individuals—an income floor?—?that declines as their income from other sources increases. The authors claim that their plan would completely eliminate poverty in the United States, which would be a very big deal.
Why we need to stop Warehousing the Mentally Ill in Jail: Only Private Prison Corps. Profit
Informed Comment – July 28, 2021 – F. Douglas Stephenson
https://www.juancole.com/2021/07/warehousing-mentally-private.html
Today, the U.S. has over 1 million behind bars for crimes that could have been avoided had they received proper community mental health treatment. They are mostly incarcerated for non-violent, nuisance crimes that are the result of society’s neglect, not evil/criminal intent.The rate of overall institutionalization for mental health patients has stayed fairly constant for the past 80 years, but the institution of choice has shifted them from hospitals to prisons. County jails and state prisons, ill equipped at providing treatment, have become home to more and more prisoners suffering from mental health issues… Everyone interested in the welfare of mental health patients should join all state and local efforts to end privatization. profiteering and barbarous inappropriate imprisonment.
US churches reckon with traumatic legacy of Native schools
AP News – July 23, 2021 – Peter Smith
https://apnews.com/article/canada-religion-e25769edc81d8e1e6639c8960be613d7
The discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential schools for Indigenous children in Canada have prompted renewed calls for a reckoning over the traumatic legacy of similar schools in the United States — and in particular by the churches that operated many of them. U.S. Catholic and Protestant denominations operated more than 150 boarding schools between the 19th and 20th centuries. Native American and Alaskan Native children were regularly severed from their tribal families, customs, language and religion and brought to the schools in a push to assimilate and Christianize them… Such information is crucial given how little most Americans know about the schools, both in their impact on Indigenous communities and their role as an armament toward acquisition of Native lands.
A Tale of Two Countries
Portside – July 31, 2021 – Greg Godels
https://www.portside.org/2021-07-31/tale-two-countries
At great costs, Cuba has escaped the plight of Haiti, successfully holding off the domination of the North American behemoth. Should US imperialism succeed, Cuba will be swarmed by US agencies, corrupt aid packages, World Bank and IMF carpetbaggers, and the other counterparts to the sanctimonious missionaries of the Colonial era. Haiti and Cuba have the same enemies. They are victimized by the same opportunistic politicians, the same jaded journalists, and the same spies, who all work to maintain or turn both into neo-colonies.
Cuba: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise
Portside – El Cohete – July 29, 2021 – Frei Betto
https://www.portside.org/2021-07-29/cuba-hell-purgatory-and-paradise
Only those who knew the reality of Cuba before 1959 know why Fidel had so much popular support to bring the Revolution to victory. The country was known by the nickname ‘Caribbean brothel’. The mafia dominated banks and tourism (there are several movies about this). The main neighborhood of Havana, still called Vedado, has this name because blacks were not allowed to circulate there… The United States was never satisfied with having lost Cuba subjected to its ambitions. Therefore, shortly after the victory of the Sierra Maestra guerrillas, they tried to invade the island with mercenary troops. They were defeated in April 1961. The following year, President Kennedy decreed the blockade of Cuba, which continues to this day.
The biggest threat to democracy isn’t coming from China. It’s coming from within.
Vox – July 28, 2021 – Zack Beauchamp
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22590777/biden-china-democracy-voting-india-doctrine
Inasmuch as there is a Biden doctrine, the notion that the US needs to protect democracy from China’s authoritarian model is at the center of it. “Biden’s administration [is] framing the contest as a confrontation of values, with America and its democratic allies standing against the model of authoritarian repression that China seeks to impose on the rest of the world,” Yaroslav Trofimov writes in the Wall Street Journal. Biden’s thinking captures an important insight: that the struggle over democracy’s fate will be one of the defining conflicts of the 21st century. But his analysis is crucially flawed in one respect: China is not an especially important reason why democracy is currently under threat — and centering it is not only wrong, but potentially dangerous… If you take the notion that democracy’s crisis is emerging from within seriously, then it follows that very best thing that Biden could do for democracy’s global future has nothing to do with China or even foreign policy. It’s arresting creeping authoritarianism at home.