ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
Monday, June 13, 2016, Issue #228
Contact us or subscribe to Newsletter at
jacdon@earthlink.net
The Hudson Valley Activist Calendar: click on 06-01-16 JUNE CALENDAR
———————
CONTENTS:
1. Photo of The
Month
2. The Champ has
Left the Ring For the Last Time
3. The Next
U.S. Foreign/Military Policy
4. Weak Unions Mean
Richer Top 10%
5. Spectacular
Finding in French Cave
6. The Neuro Weapons
Threat
7. Will U.S. Escalate the Afghan Wars?
8. Washington's Middle
East Wars To Nowhere
9. Top World Leaders
Ignore Humanitarian Summit
10. Biodiversity Loss: An Existential Matter
11. Gov. Cuomo Punishes Israel Boycott Movement
12. A Look at Three of Hillary's Big Donors
13. CBO Warns of
Climate Change's Budget Impact
14. Suffragette, the Movie
15. God Admits Stealing Idea of a Messiah
———————
Dear readers: We are leaving for vacation in a few days and will be tied up much of July and parts of August with an important project. My co-editor and partner Donna Goodman has written a book on the American women's movement and there are certain pre- and post publication tasks. I'll try to get the Activist Newsletter and our regional activist events calendar online sometime in July but it may not make it until August. If you have an interest in the feminist movement and where its going as well as where it should go from an activist point of view, make sure to order a copy when it is published. Have a good summer. Jack
1. PHOTO OF THE MONTH
What's going on in this picture? First it must be understood
that the Sunni Islamic State harbors multitudes of hatreds but members of the
minority Shi'ite branch of Islam top the list. Iraq is a majority Shia country,
and after a number of setbacks it's regular army and Shi'ite militias are on
the offensive. IS is fighting back on the battlefield but is losing ground. The
photo shows Shi'ite militiamen in the battle for Fallujah enjoying a brief respite from shelling IS
positions to take a selfie. (Photo: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images.)
2. THE CHAMP HAS LEFT THE RING
[Muhammad Ali, three-time world heavyweight champion boxer, died June 3 at the age of 74. He was a victim of Parkinson's disease for the last 32 years of his life. The following appreciation of Ali concentrates on his political influence during the opposition to the Vietnam War and antiracist struggles of the 1960s.]
By Dave
Zirin
The reverberations. Not the rumbles, the reverberations. The
death of Muhammad Ali will undoubtedly move people’s minds to his epic boxing
matches against Joe Frazier and George Foreman, or there will be retrospectives
about his epic “rumbles” against racism and war. But it’s the reverberations
that we have to understand in order to see Muhammad Ali as what he remains: the
most important athlete to ever live. It’s the reverberations that are our best
defense against real-time efforts to pull out his political teeth and turn him
into a harmless icon suitable for mass consumption.
When Dr. Martin Luther King
came out against the war in Vietnam in 1967, he was criticized by the
mainstream press and his own advisors who told him to not focus on “foreign”
policy. But Dr. King forged ahead and to justify his new stand, said publicly,
“Like Muhammad Ali puts it, we are all—black and brown and poor—victims of the
same system of oppression.”
When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, he said
that Muhammad Ali gave him hope that the walls would some day come tumbling
down.
When John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists on the
medal stand in Mexico City, one of their demands was to “Restore Muhammad Ali’s
title.” They called Ali “the warrior-saint of the Black Athlete’s Revolt.”
When Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
volunteers in Lowndes County, Alabama launched an independent political party
in 1965, their new group was the first to use the symbol of a black panther.
Beneath the jungle cat’s black silhouette was a slogan straight from the champ:
“WE Are the Greatest.”
When Billie Jean King was aiming to win equal rights for
women in sports, Muhammad Ali would say to her, “Billie Jean King! YOU ARE THE
QUEEN!” She said that this made her feel brave in her own skin.
The question is why? Why was he able to create this kind of
radical ripple? The short answer is that he stood up to the United States
government… and emerged victorious. But it’s also more complicated that that.
What Muhammad Ali did — in a culture that worships sports
and violence as well as a culture that idolizes black athletes while
criminalizing black skin — was redefine what it meant to be tough and
collectivize the very idea of courage. Through the Champ’s words on the streets
and deeds in the ring, bravery was not only standing up to Sonny Liston. It was
speaking truth to power, no matter the cost. He was a boxer whose very presence
and persona taught a simple and dangerous lesson: “real men” fight for peace
and “real women” raise their voices and join the fray. Or as Bryant Gumbel said
years ago, “Muhammad Ali refused to be afraid. And being that way, he gave
other people courage.”
My favorite Ali line is not him saying, “I hospitalized a
rock. I beat up a brick. I’m so bad I make medicine sick” or anything of the
sort. It was when he was suspended from boxing for refusing to be drafted into
the Vietnam War. Ali was attending a rally for fair housing in his hometown of
Louisville when he said:
"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go
10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam
while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied
simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and
burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave
masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils
must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me
millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real
enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or
myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own
justice, freedom and equality…. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom
and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d
join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go
to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years."
Damn. This is not only an assertion of black power, but a
statement of international solidarity: of oppressed people coming together in
an act of global resistance. It was a statement that connected wars abroad with
attacks on the black, brown and poor at home, and it was said from the most
hyper exalted platform our society offered at the time: the platform of being
the Champ. These views did not only earn him the hatred of the mainstream press
and the right wing of this country. It also made him a target of liberals in
the media as well as the mainstream civil rights movement, who did not like Ali
for his membership in the Nation of Islam and opposition to what was President
Lyndon Johnson’s war.
But for an emerging movement that was demanding an end to
racism by any means necessary and a very young, emerging antiwar struggle, he
was a transformative figure. In the mid-1960s, the antiwar and antiracist
movements were on parallel tracks. Then you had the heavyweight champ with one
foot in each. Or as poet Sonia Sanchez put it with aching beauty, “It’s hard
now to relay the emotion of that time. This was still a time when hardly any
well-known people were resisting the draft. It was a war that was
disproportionately killing young Black brothers and here was this beautiful,
funny poetical young man standing up and saying no! Imagine it for a moment!
The heavyweight champion, a magical man, taking his fight out of the ring and
into the arena of politics and standing firm. The message was sent.” We are
still attempting to hear the full message that Muhammad Ali was attempting to
relay: a message about the need to fight for peace.
Full articles can and should be written about his
complexities: his fallout with Malcolm X, his depoliticization in the 1970s,
the ways that warmongers attempted to use him like a prop as he suffered in
failing health. But the most important part of his legacy is that time in the
1960s when he refused to be afraid. As he said years later, “Some people
thought I was a hero. Some people said that what I did was wrong. But
everything I did was according to my conscience. I wasn’t trying to be a
leader. I just wanted to be free.” Not the fight, the reverberations. They are
still being felt by a new generation of people. They ensure that the Champ’s
name will outlive us all.
Bill Russell said it best in 1967. “I’m not worried about
Muhammad Ali. I’m worried about the rest of us.” That is more true than ever.
— From the Nation,
June 4, 2016. Dave Zirin, the Nation’s
sports editor, is the author of eight books on the politics of sports, most
recently, Brazil’s Dance with the Devil:
The World Cup, The Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy.
3. THE NEXT U.S. FOREIGN/MILITARY POLICY
 |
| U.S. fleet patrols South China Sea on behalf of allies who contest China's territolrial claims. |
From Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, October 2011 as the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan appeared to be ending:
"There are those on
the American political scene who are calling for us not to reposition [to Asia],
but to come home. They seek a downsizing of our foreign engagement in favor of
our pressing domestic priorities. These impulses are understandable, but they
are misguided. Those who say that we can no longer afford to engage with the
world have it exactly backward — we cannot afford not to.... Rather than
pull back from the world, we need to press forward and renew our leadership. The
Asia-Pacific represents such a real 21st-century opportunity for us to
secure and sustain our leadership abroad."
President Obama's recent journey to Japan and the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam, beyond visiting Hiroshima and being welcomed by crowds in
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, was primarily aimed at strengthening his
administration's most important foreign policy objective — the political,
commercial and military encirclement of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Now that Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic Party
nominee, Obama may rest assured that if she defeats Republican Donald Trump in
November, as expected, his "rebalance" to Asia will continue apace.
Indeed, a Clinton administration may move faster and more decisively.
Clinton was a strong advocate of the rebalance and
thoroughly agrees with Obama that Beijing must never be allowed to diminish
Washington's global hegemony, even within China's own South Asian region, and, like Obama, she
always uses the code words "American leadership" in place of "American
domination."
 |
|
Hillary
Clinton and Chinese
President
Xi Jinping in 2012.during his U.S. vist.
|
Obama announced what he first termed a "pivot" to
Asia in the fall of 2011 just after a 5,500-word article by Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton titled "America's Pacific Century" appeared in Foreign Policy magazine. It began:
"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to
withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot
point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two
theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where
we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to
sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of
the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will
therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment — diplomatic,
economic, strategic, and otherwise — in the Asia-Pacific region." The "otherwise"
meant military.
While in Japan, Obama told the newspaper Asahi Shimbun May 26:
"Renewing American leadership in the Asia Pacific has
been one of my top policy priorities as President, and I’m very proud of the
progress that we’ve made. The cornerstone of our rebalance strategy has been
bolstering our treaty alliances — including with Japan, the Republic of Korea,
the Philippines and Australia — and today each of these alliances is stronger
than when I came into office. We’ve forged new partnerships with countries like
Vietnam, which I just visited, and with regional institutions like ASEAN and
the East Asia Summit. With the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the highest-standard
trade agreement in history, we have the opportunity to write the rules for
regional and global trade for decades to come. I believe that America’s
position in the region has never been stronger, and I’m confident that the next
U.S. President will continue to build on our progress."
A week later in San Diego Clinton delivered a foreign policy
speech. Its purpose was to show that she would be much better than Republican
Donald Trump in furthering America's global interests. Accusing Trump of not
understanding that Russia and China "work against us," she declared:
“If America doesn’t lead, we leave a vacuum — and that will
either cause chaos, or other countries will rush in to fill the void. Then
they’ll be the ones making the decisions about your lives and jobs and safety —
and trust me, the choices they make will not be to our benefit. Now Moscow and
Beijing are deeply envious of our alliances around the world, because they have
nothing to match them. They’d love for us to elect a president who would jeopardize
that source of strength. If Donald gets his way, they’ll be celebrating in the
Kremlin. We cannot let that happen.”
Instead of defining the November election as a contest
between the right/far right Republicans and the center right Democrats, Clinton
depicted it as a choice between "a fearful America that’s less secure and
less engaged in the world [under Trump], and a strong, confident America that
leads to keep our country safe and our economy growing.”
Clinton has thus committed herself to a continuation of
Washington's decades-long imperial foreign/military policies, replete with cold
war rhetoric, the notion of an indispensible America, the commitment to
"lead" the world, and targeting China and Russia as virtual enemies.
There was no hint of making any efforts to reduce world tensions peacefully. As
a result of Obama-Clinton policies the relationship between Beijing and Moscow
has become considerably closer in recent years.
Meanwhile the Bush-Obama Middle East wars are expected to
continue indefinitely, at least throughout the next administration and maybe
much longer. If Clinton gains the White House she is expected to intensify U.S.
involvement in these conflicts, particularly in Syria and Libya. Her primary
rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, is significantly to Clinton's left in domestic
politics but only moderately less hawkish in foreign affairs. Trump is a
dangerous enigma, correctly identified by Clinton as “temperamentally unfit to
hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility.”
U.S. arms for Vietnam
 |
|
President Obama plunges into happy crowd in Ho Chu Minh City. He walked over and shook hands.
|
President Obama was warmly received by the Vietnamese
Communist Party, the government and it seems by the people as well during his
three-day visit starting May 22. A number of U.S. news articles marveled at the
fact that Washington appeared to be totally excused for its brutal two-decade
intervention to prevent the unification of temporarily divided North and South
Vietnam. After all, some to 3.8 million Vietnamese people died from the
American air and ground war, as did nearly two million in Cambodia and Laos
combined due to U.S. led attacks on suspected North Vietnamese trails and
hideouts in these neighboring countries. U.S. war deaths were 58,193 between
1955-1975.
Part of the reason Vietnam doesn't hate the U.S. is that it
won the long war against the world's most powerful military state following
Hanoi's victory against French colonialism and the earlier Japanese invasion
and occupation. Vietnam was exhausted and in economic difficulty after 30 years
of continual conflict when the Americans finally fled South Vietnam in April
1975.
Another reason for cautiously partnering with the U.S. is
the existence of China on Vietnam's northern border. Chinese dynasties
dominated Vietnam for over 900 years between 111 BCE and 1427 CE. Both Russia
and China supported Vietnam in the fight against U.S. aggression but grave
tensions and even the possibility of an armed conflict between the two giant
nations was an additional worry for Hanoi, which needed their material support
to pursue the war. On Dec. 25, 1978,Vietnam invaded and occupied adjacent Cambodia
in order to drive out the ultra-left Khmer Rouge government after a number of
border clashes between them. In February 1979, China — which had supported the
Khmer Rouge — invaded northern Vietnam in a brief but bloody one-month war,
with both sides claiming victory. Several short skirmishes took place until
1989 when Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia. Since then relations between the two
neighboring countries with governments that seem to share the same socialist
ideology have been peaceful but distant.
During his stay in Vietnam, Obama was publicly critical of
what he considered Vietnam's human rights shortcomings, as though killing five
million people in Indochina, millions in the contemporary Middle East, and uncritically
supporting dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia gave Washington the international
standing to wag its finger in Hanoi's face.
But Obama's criticisms of the country were primarily for show,
paving the way for him to announce the ending of he 41-year ban on lethal arms
sales to Vietnam. In Hanoi, Obama told a press conference that "we already
have U.S. vessels that have come here to port [at Cam Ranh Bay and] we expect
that there will be deepening cooperation between our militaries."
According to The
Diplomat May 31: "Uncorroborated Vietnamese sources in Hanoi [state
that] prior to Obama’s visit, U.S. officials proposed to their hosts the
possibility of raising their comprehensive partnership to a strategic partnership
[an important upgrading]. Vietnamese officials reportedly got cold feet at the
last minute and politely left this proposal for future consideration. At the
same time, although U.S. officials, including the president, described
bilateral relations as entering a new phase, no new adjective was placed in
front of comprehensive partnership in the official joint statement issued by
the two presidents to indicate that relations had advanced significantly since
2013."
China's Global Times,
a party daily tabloid that tends to speak directly, argued May 26 in reference
to the U.S. decision to sell arms to Vietnam: "This is a new move by the U.S.
to advance its rebalance to the Asia-Pacific strategy, displaying Washington's
desire to reinforce military cooperation with China's neighboring countries....
Now, Washington is ironically trying to manipulate Vietnam's nationalism to
counter China. U.S. Senator John McCain, a prisoner in the Vietnam War and now
Chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee, plays a key role in rescinding the
ban on the sale of lethal arms to Vietnam, believing it will rope in Hanoi to
counter China's rise."
In the same issue of Global
Times, Nguyen Vu Tung, acting president of the Diplomatic Academy of
Vietnam in Hanoi, wrote an op-ed that expressed his "personal" views,
stating: "In July 2013, Vietnam and the U.S. agreed to elevate their
relationship to a 'comprehensive partnership' designed to further promote
bilateral ties in all fields.
It is noteworthy that the enhancement of
Vietnam-U.S. relations ran parallel with Vietnam's forging its relations with
China, a big neighbor that is of increasing importance to Vietnam's peace,
stability and prosperity.... Vietnam-U.S.
relations are not developing at the expense of the links between Vietnam and
China. Instead of choosing sides, Hanoi tries its best to promote relations
with both China and the U.S. and sees its relations with them in positive-sum
terms.....
"The independent posture of Vietnam's foreign policy
applies especially to Vietnam's defense policy where Vietnam strictly follows a
'three-no principle.' Vietnam will not
enter any military pact and become a military ally of any country, will not
allow any country to set up a military base on its soil, and will not rely on any
country to oppose any other country. Recently, Hanoi has been under some
domestic pressure to review this principle. Yet, adhering to it is still the
policy mainstream."
With the arms sales Vietnam is now considered an allied
member of the informal U.S. coterie of East Asian and Southeast Asian nations,
six of which are contending with China's claims to most of the South China Sea,
with Washington's backing. Beijing says it is willing to negotiate with the six
on a one to one basis but the U.S insists on multilateral talks. In addition to
Vietnam the countries involved in the claims include Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei,
the Philippines and Japan.
China's claim is based on two points: 1. Implicitly, its
long history — about 4,000 years, nearly all of it under Chinese dynastic
imperial rule until 104 years ago. 2. Explicitly, the 1947 "nine dash
line" map produced by the Chinese Nationalist government in 1947, two
years before the success of the Chinese communist revolution replaced the
semi-capitalist/semi-feudal Nationalist enterprise called the Republic of China
with the People's Republic of China. The Nationalist government, army and many
civilians fled to Taiwan, an offshore province of China that still maintains
that the nine dash line is absolutely legitimate, as does the PRC. The U.S. —
which supported the Nationalists to the extent of keeping Taiwan in China's
permanent Security Council seat until 1971 — did not question China's claims
until fairly recent years. U.S. support for the six claimants is an important
political part of the containment of China by increasing the number of regional
allies and dependencies that will support Washington's political goals.
 |
| China's original nine dash line. It begins on the upper right with three small marks that go down and around. It's not very complete. |
There are military and commercial aspects of the rebalance
to Asia in addition to using allies to strengthen opposition to China.
The U.S. has militarily dominated the East Asia region since
the end of World War II in 1945 but it has been significantly increasing its
military might since launching the pivot to Asia. More Army and Air force units
have been ordered to existing bases in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines,
Guam, and other nearby locations, as well as a new base in Australia. Up to
90,000 U.S. military personnel are in the vicinity. Navy aircraft carriers,
other warships and submarines have been shifted from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Oceans. An aircraft carrier battle group is patrolling the East China
Sea. Some U.S. ships navigate extremely close to small Chinese islets that are
being upgraded — a practice that could inadvertently spark an armed
confrontation.
The principle commercial element of the effort to contain
China is the corporation-dominated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) —
Washington's neoliberal free-trade proposal for 12 Pacific Rim countries that
is intended to enlarge U.S. economic influence in the region at the expense of
China, which has not been invited to join. The 12 signatories to the TPP
agreement in 2010 included Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia,
Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam.
Ratification of the trade pact the may not happen, not least
because recent political developments in the U.S. may bury this major Bush-Obama
initiative. Hillary Clinton, once a strong advocate as secretary of state,
turned against the TPP during the Democratic primary in order to
opportunistically convey the impression she was as radical as Sanders in order
to attract his constituency. She also wanted to retain the support of the
AFL-CIO, which strongly opposes the pact. Trump rejects the TPP because many
working class supporters believe that such trade deals take away American jobs,
which they do. Some commentators suggest Obama may be able to get it passed
after the elections and before the new president assumes office, but it's a long
shot.
Vietnam supports the TTP because its economy stands to gain
from increased trade. It is of interest that China is Vietnam's biggest trading
partner and will remain so, as is true of most regional nations aligning with
the U.S. superpower. Beijing's rise over the last 20 years has benefitted all
these states, not to mention the transfer of reasonably priced reliable goods
throughout area.
U.S. President visits
Hiroshima
 |
| President Obama made an anti-nuclear weapons speech in Hiroshima but wherever he goes a subordinate always carries his codes for instantly launching a U.S. nuclear attack. |
Obama arrived in Japan May 25 to attend a Group of Seven
meeting and to further strengthen Japan's commitment to help in the effort to
surround China, but the international media focused entirely on the first
American presidential visit to Hiroshima in the 71 years since the United
States obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons.
He didn't apologize to Japan because that would be unpopular
with many Americans and also with Korea and China, countries that suffered
woefully from the vicious and racist Japanese invasion and occupation. They
believe Japan hasn't sufficiently atoned for its numerous wartime atrocities.
Instead Obama delivered a quite moving speech: "We come
to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not-so-distant past. We come to
mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children,
thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner. Their souls speak to us.
They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are...."
His address was hypocritical, particularly when he declared:
"We may not be able to eliminate man’s capacity to do evil. So nations and
the alliances that we formed must possess the means to defend ourselves. But
among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the
courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them. We may not
realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the
possibility of catastrophe. We can chart a course that leads to the destruction
of these stockpiles. We can stop the spread to new nations and secure deadly
materials from fanatics. And yet, that is not enough, for we see around the
world today how even the crudest rifles and barrel bombs can serve up violence
on a terrible scale. We must change our mindset about war itself."
In reality Obama is not only slower than his three
predecessors in reducing nuclear weapons but he has initiated a trillion dollar
effort to upgrade America's entire nuclear arsenal and delivery systems.
In his Asahi Shimbun interview Obama also said: "I
believe that we’ve substantially enhanced America’s credibility in the Asia
Pacific, which is rooted in our unwavering commitment to the security of our
allies. We continue to modernize our defense posture in the region, including
positioning more of our most advanced military capabilities in Japan. As I’ve
said before, our treaty commitment to Japan's security is absolute. With our
new defense guidelines, American and Japanese forces will become more flexible
and better prepared to cooperate on a range of challenges, from maritime
security to disaster response, and our forces will be able to plan, train and
operate even more closely. I’m very grateful for Prime Minister Abe’s strong
support of our alliance."
Abe is a hawk about China. "No one country is more
enthusiastic than Japan to advocate containing China," according to a May
19 commentary by Zhang Zhixin, the head of American Political Studies at
China's Institute of American Studies. He continued:
"The strategic competition between the [U.S. and China]
is becoming more apparent. In economic and trade areas, the EU and U.S. denied
granting market economy status to China. In the South China Sea, where China is
trying to secure its maritime sovereignty and rights, the U.S. believes China
is challenging its regional hegemony and military dominance in the area. As
deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said, the U.S. is intensely focused
on China’s 'assertive and provocative behavior.' Therefore, the U.S. Navy is
pushing for a more aggressive policy of patrolling close to Chinese-fortified
islands and caused more dangerous encounters between the U.S. reconnaissance
aircraft and Chinese jet planes.
"What makes the situation more complicated is that
Japan, as an outsider in the South China Sea issue, is trying to insert itself
into the conflict. At the end of last year, the Japanese Foreign Minister
talked about the possibility of joint patrol with the U.S. Navy in the [South
China Sea] area. This year, Japan is becoming increasingly aggressive in
charging that China's a threat in the Asia Pacific region. It is understandable
for the Prime Minister Abe to do so to the domestic audience to sell his
proposal of revising the pacifist Constitution, but when he was selling his
viewpoint to the EU countries, that’s too much. Japan is allied with the U.S.,
but the latter never restrained Japan’s anti-China rhetoric. Furthermore, Japan
actively sold advanced weapons to countries around the South China Sea,
participated in more multilateral military exercises, and conducted more port
calls in the area, which just made the regional situation more tense."
Big vacant rocks of contention between China and Japan in East China Sea.
Another area of sharp Chinese-Japanese dispute is in the
East China Sea. Both countries claim rocky, uninhabited protuberances known as
Senkaku by Tokyo and Diaoyu by Beijing. China scrambled jets to meet Japanese
military aircraft in disputed airspace May 21. Japanese officials said it was
the closest Chinese jets had flown to their planes. It came as China was
holding air-sea naval exercises with Russia in the region. Tokyo officially
protested to Chinese ambassador Cheng Yonghua June 9 about a "Chinese and
three Russian warships" that entered what Japan called the
"contiguous zones" near the disputed Islands. The Chinese Defense
ministry responded June 9 calling the navigation legal and reasonable, insisting
"China's naval ships have every right to navigate in waters under its
jurisdiction." The reply came a day a before the June 10 beginning of a large-scale
eight-day joint military drill in the western Pacific involving the U.S., Japan
and India.
According to Stratfor in a June 10 analysis: "Japan
under Abe has upset Beijing by broadening the geographic and functional scope
of the operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, which Japan's postwar
pacifism long limited. Perceptions of Chinese expansionism have prompted Japan
to prioritize responding in the South China Sea. In 2015, Japan announced the
start of talks with the Philippines on a Visiting Forces Agreement that would
permit Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force personnel to rotate through Philippine
bases. Later that year, Japan secured an agreement with Vietnam to allow
Japanese warships to make port calls at Cam Ranh Bay, which they did in April
of this year. Even more ambitiously, Japan has responded that it might be
amenable to U.S. calls for regional powers to join freedom of navigation
operations in waters far beyond the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's
traditional domain in Japan's near seas. Though these steps are incremental,
they represent slow and steady progress toward a clear endpoint most unwelcome
in Beijing — the routine presence of Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
operations in the South China Sea."
The 42nd G7 summit meeting in Japan May 26–27
accomplished little. It was "an opportunity lost" according to
Montreal Star columnist Thomas Walkom, who wrote June 1: The leaders of seven
important countries had a chance to do something that would rekindle the
sputtering global economy. Some, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
and Canada’s Justin Trudeau urged their fellow leaders to foreswear austerity
and, among other growth-inducing measures, spend money to stimulate the world
economy.
"They failed. Italy’s Matteo Renzi was on side with
Canada and Japan, as were France’s François Hollande and U.S. President Barack
Obama. But Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s David Cameron insisted that
debt and deficit control were more important than fiscal stimulus. The final
communiqué from the session said essentially that each nation would continue to
do what it thought best. So what do we make of the G7? In some ways, its time
has passed. It no longer represents the world’s major economies. China is
conspicuously absent. Russia, briefly a member of what was then called the G8,
was summarily expelled in 2014 for annexing Crimea."
The importance of
India
 |
|
Indian Prime Minister Modi surrounded by admiring members of
Congress before giving his speech June 8. Whether India will truly align with
the U.S. regarding China is unknown.
|
As soon as President Obama returned home he put aside time
to work out plans for ensnaring rising India more deeply into Washington's
informal anti-China coalition. He met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the White House June 7. This was their
seventh meeting in the two years since the Indian leader was elected in May
2014, which must be some kind of record. Modi addressed Congress the next day
and his speech was received with great applause. Earlier Indian governments,
while friendly to the U.S. were closer to Russia (and the USSR in earlier days)
and nonaligned countries than to America.
Modi is campaigning for a much closer relationship with Washington,
which is exactly what the Obama administration wants.
The Economist noted June 11: "China worries about signs that Western countries are
cozying up to its giant neighbor. It fears that Modi will exploit better ties
with America as a source of advantage. For years the Pentagon has pursued India
as part of an effort to counterbalance growing Chinese strength, but only in
recent months have Indian military officials begun to show eagerness for
co-operation. This month the two countries will hold their annual naval exercises
not in Indian waters, but in the Sea of Japan, with the Japanese navy, near
islands claimed by both Japan and China. In a wide-ranging speech before a
joint session of Congress on June 8 Modi said that America was India’s
“indispensable partner.” An outright military alliance between India and
America remains unlikely, but even the remote prospect of one will concentrate
Chinese minds.
In her pivot to Asia article referred to earlier, Clinton
foresaw intense U.S. involvement in the region "stretching from the Indian
subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas.... Among key emerging
powers with which we will work closely are India and Indonesia, two of the most
dynamic and significant democratic powers of Asia, and both countries with
which the Obama administration has pursued broader, deeper, and more purposeful
relationships." India and Indonesia are second and fourth ranking
countries in population. (China is first, U.S. third.)
According to the Center for International Studies
"Washington has made it clear that Jakarta is central to the U.S.
rebalance, toward the Asia Pacific, both in its own right and as a leader in
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN.)" It is also the
largest Muslim country by far.
India, however, is the big prize. As a result of U.S-Indian
talks after the Modi government took power
India has been designated a
"Major Defense Partner" by Washington, although it is not entirely
understood what this unusual title obligates India to do. For its part the U.S.
is supplying India with technology, loans, equipment and other means of
enhancing India's economy and military.
Commenting on the Obama-Modi meeting June 7 the Associated
Press reported "The two governments said they had finalized the text of a
defense logistics agreement to make it easier for their militaries to operate
together. The U.S. and India share concern about the rise of China, although
New Delhi steers clear of a formal alliance with Washington.
In an article published by the Cato Institute April 29 and
titled Persistent Suitor: Washington
Wants India as an Ally to Contain China, Ted Galen Carpenter wrote:
"A growing number of policymakers and pundits see India
not only as an increasingly important economic and military player generally,
but as a crucial potential strategic counterweight to a rising China.... Strategic
ties have gradually and substantially deepened. President Barack Obama has
characterized the relationship between the United States and India as 'a
defining partnership of the 21st century,' and Indian Prime Minister Modi has
termed it 'a natural
alliance.'” Perhaps more significant, India has contracted to
receive some $14 billion in supposedly defensive military items from the United
States in less than a decade. Washington has now edged out Moscow as India’s
principal arms supplier.
"Bilateral strategic ties received an additional boost
in mid-April 2016 with the visit of U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to
Delhi. That trip generated considerable uneasiness in China, where opinion
leaders noted not only was it Carter’s second trip to India during his relatively
brief tenure as Pentagon chief, but that he cancelled a previously scheduled
trip to Beijing so that he could make this latest journey. That move, they
feared, suggested a rather unsubtle tilt against China in favor of one of its
potential regional geostrategic competitors. The agreement that came from
Carter’s visit would do nothing to reassure the Chinese....
"Moreover, India maintains an important economic
relationship of its own with China. Indeed, according to most
calculations, China has now emerged as India’s largest trading partner. Trade
between the two Asian giants topped $80 billion in 2015. In addition to the
economic stakes, there are bilateral security issues, primarily unresolved
border disputes, as well as security issues throughout Central Asia of concern
to Delhi that could be exacerbated if relations with Beijing deteriorated. Shrewd
Indian policymakers may well conclude that the best position for their country
is one of prudent neutrality (perhaps with a slight pro-American tilt) in the
growing tensions between the United States and China."
U.S.-China Relations
 |
| Presidents Xi and Obama in Beijing. They address each other carefully and with respect. Each is the others' most important relationship. |
The contradiction between Washington's words and deeds is no
better exemplified than in its relations with China. U.S. rhetoric rarely
includes threats, except occasionally regarding the South China Sea. Most
though not all its multitude of discussions with Chinese leaders are soft
spoken and civil. From time to time the U.S. speaks of China as a
"partner." Never stated openly is the fact that Washington will continue
pressuring Beijing until it learns how to behave in a fashion acceptable to the
world's only military and economic superpower. Part of that pressure consists
of continual exaggerations of China's military power, which is far behind that
U.S.
The Beijing government never threatens the U.S. It is well
aware of the meaning behind Washington's friendly words because it is
surrounded by U.S. military power and Washington's obedient allies in the
region, by exclusionary trade deals, the rejection of its claims in the South
China Sea and innumerable efforts by the White House to undermine China in all
the political and economic associations and coalitions in the East Asia region.
Beijing rarely mentions this publicly and works to develop a
cooperative "win-win" relationship with Washington. China clearly
recognizes the U.S. as the world's great power and occasionally appears
slightly deferential.
The following June 6 report from Xinhua news agency about
the annual China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue held in Beijing that day
is typical example of the Chinese approach:
"President Xi Jinping urged China and the United
States to properly manage differences and sensitive issues and deepen strategic
mutual trust and cooperation at a high-level bilateral dialogue. The
differences between China and the United States are normal, Xi said.
"As long as the two sides tackle differences and
sensitive issues in the principle of mutual respect and equality, major
disturbances in bilateral relations can be avoided, Xi said, adding that China
and the United States should strengthen communication and cooperation on
Asia-Pacific affairs.
"The broad Pacific Ocean, Xi said, 'should not become
an arena for rivalry, but a big platform for inclusive cooperation. China and
the United States have extensive common interests in the region and should
maintain frequent dialogues, cooperate more, tackle challenges, jointly
maintain prosperity and stability in the region, and "cultivate common
circles of friends' rather than 'cultivate exclusive circles of friends.'
"The Chinese president also called on the two sides to
expand mutually beneficial cooperation, uphold the win-win principle, and raise
the level of bilateral cooperation.... [He] stressed that China will
unswervingly pursue the path of peaceful development and promote the building
of a new model of international relations with win-win cooperation at its
core."
At the same time, as we have written at length [1], China
openly rejects in principle the existence of a unilateral global hegemon — a
position the U.S. has occupied for the last quarter century since the implosion
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Beijing advocates a form of shared
global leadership. Washington is convinced that it deserves the right to in
effect rule the world and has no intention of dismantling its shadow empire.
This is the principal contradiction between the U.S. and China.
Beijing is doing what it can to avoid a major clash with the
United States, short of appearing to kowtow to Washington. The U.S. does not
want a clash as well. Both sides fear
the possibility of war and each is aware that one may eventually take place.
That is certainly one of the reasons the Obama administration has launched its
decades-long program costing a trillion dollars to modernize America's nuclear
arsenal.
China, for all its progress since the 1980s, is still a
developing country and behind the U.S. in many ways, but is destined to become
a major power in a few decades at most. The U.S. cannot but accept China's
inevitable growth. At issue is whether Beijing will eventually subordinate
itself to the U.S. as have other powers, such as Germany, UK, France and Japan,
have done, or in any other acceptable fashion.
There are current and historical reasons why China will not
do so. At this point the U.S. is drawing upon all its resources to contain and
surround the growing giant. This can only lead to big trouble in time, for both
countries and the world.
Unfortunately, both U.S. neoliberal capitalist political
parties are absolutely dedicated to world domination and ultimately to the use
of terrible violence to defend American "leadership." Unless this
changes substantially imperialism eventually will lead to global calamity. This
is a matter that goes far beyond the Hillary, Donald, and Bernie political
preoccupation of the moment. None of them would substantially transform the
existing foreign/military policy. Only a genuinely left wing mass movement has
a chance of changing direction.
— [1] For article "The Hegemony Games — USA v. PRC,"
click on 5-31-15 Newsletter Hegemony Games
4. WEAK UNIONS MEAN RICHER TOP 10%
By Lawrence
Mishel and Jessica
Schieder
As union membership has fallen over the last few decades,
the share of income going to the top 10% has steadily increased. Union
membership fell to 11.1% in 2014, where it remained in 2015. The share of
income going to the top 10%, meanwhile, hit 47.2% in 2014 — only slightly lower than 47.8%t in 2012,
the highest it has been since 1917 (the earliest year data are available). When
union membership was at its peak (33.4% in 1945) the share of income going to
the top 10% was only 32.6%.
Insert pix here
The single largest
factor suppressing wage growth for working people and suppressing
union membership over the last few decades has been the erosion of collective
bargaining. This erosion has affected both union and nonunion workers alike,
contributing to wage stagnation and growth in inequality. To boost wages for
working people, policymakers
need to intentionally tilt power back to working people by
strengthening their rights to stand together and negotiate collectively for
better wages and benefits, raising and improving labor standards, and achieving
persistent low unemployment.
Strong unions and employee organizing rights foster a
vibrant middle class because the protections, rights, and wages that unions
secure affect union and nonunion workers alike. Unfortunately, eroded labor
standards, weakening unions, changing norms, guestworker policies that undercut
wages, and monetary policies that prioritize controlling inflation over
lowering unemployment have helped depress wages and erode living standards for
all workers.
— From the Economic Policy Institute, May 24, 2016:
http://www.epi.org/publication/as-union-membership-has-fallen-the-top-10-percent-have-been-getting-a-larger-share-of-income/?utm_source=Economic+Policy+Institute&utm_campaign=2d5d3dc0d7-EPI_News_05_27_20165_27_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e7c5826c50-2d5d3dc0d7-55919529
5. SPECTACULAR FINDING IN FRENCH CAVE
 |
A scientist takes measurements for the archaeo-magnetic survey in the Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France. (Photo:Etienne Fabre / SSAC via Reuters.)
|
By the Activist Newasletter
Scientists have revealed that ring-shaped structures made of stalagmites located in a cave in southern France date back 176,500 years, much older than previous estimate of 47,600 years. The rings in the Bruniquel Cave, first discovered in 1990 and teeming with artifacts, are older than any known cave painting. Scientists had already determined the structures were made by early humans, but the new findings confirm they were built by Neanderthals, so often considered dimwitted, and not Homo sapiens.
Scientists have revealed that ring-shaped structures made of stalagmites located in a cave in southern France date back 176,500 years, much older than previous estimate of 47,600 years. The rings in the Bruniquel Cave, first discovered in 1990 and teeming with artifacts, are older than any known cave painting. Scientists had already determined the structures were made by early humans, but the new findings confirm they were built by Neanderthals, so often considered dimwitted, and not Homo sapiens.
These discoveries are part of the Neanderthals’ ongoing
rehabilitation. Since their discovery, scientists have tried to understand why
they died out and we did not, with the implicit assumption that they were
inferior in some important way. Indeed, to describe someone as a Neanderthal
today is to accuse them of unsophisticated brutishness.
— A fascinating
article about this extraordinary discovery is at: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/05/the-astonishing-age-of-a-neanderthal-cave-construction-site/484070/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-052516
———————
6. THE NEURO WEAPONS THREAT
[Here is one more situation — neurotechnology in this
case — where brilliant scientific
discoveries that can help humankind also possess military and other negative
applications that could lead to human disaster. The author of this article is a
professor of neurology, chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program, and
co-director of the O’Neill-Pellegrino Program in Brain Science and Global
Health Law and Policy at Georgetown University Medical Center. He is also a
member of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s panel on neuroethics,
legal, and social issues, and serves as a senior science advisory fellow to the
Joint Staff at the Pentagon. Author’s note: The views expressed in this article
do not necessarily reflect those of DARPA, the Joint Staff, or the United
States Department of Defense.]
 |
| Weapons to potentially be used by the military in behavior modification and mind-control are remotely operated electromagnetic frequency weapons. These weapons use microwave, ELF (Extremely Low Frequencies) and acoustics frequencies to covertly manipulate the minds of persons under attack. |
By James Giordano
Nearly two years ago, Juliano Pinto, a 29-year-old
paraplegic man, kicked off
the World Cup in Brazil with the help of a brain-interface machine
that allowed his thoughts to control a robotic exoskeleton. Audiences watching
Pinto make his gentle kick, aided as he was by helpers and an elaborate rig,
could be forgiven for not seeing much danger in the thrilling achievement.
Yet like most powerful scientific breakthroughs,
neurotechnologies that allow brains to control machines — or machines to read
or control brains — inevitably bring with them the threat of weaponization and
misuse, a threat that existing UN conventions designed to limit biological and
chemical weapons do not yet cover and which ethical discussions of these new
technologies tend to give short shrift.
It may seem like science fiction, but according to a
September 2015 article
in Foreign Policy, “The same brain-scanning machines meant to diagnose
Alzheimer’s disease or autism could potentially read someone’s private
thoughts. Computer systems attached to brain tissue that allow paralyzed
patients to control robotic appendages with thought alone could also be used by
a state to direct bionic soldiers or pilot aircraft. And devices designed to
aid a deteriorating mind could alternatively be used to implant new memories, or
to extinguish existing ones, in allies and enemies alike.”
Despite the daunting complexity of the task, it’s time for
the nations of the world to start closing these legal and ethical gaps — and
taking other security precautions — if they hope to control the neuroweapons
threat.
The technology on display in São Paulo, pioneered by Miguel
Nicolelis of Duke University, exhibited the growing capability of neurorobotics
— the study of artificial neural systems. The medical benefits for amputees and
other patients are obvious, yet the power to read or manipulate human brains
carries with it more nefarious possibilities as well, foreshadowing a bold new
chapter in the long history of psychological warfare and opening another front
in the difficult struggle against the proliferation of exceptionally dangerous
weapons.
The full
range of potential neuroweapons covers everything from stimulation
devices to artificial drugs to natural toxins, some of which have been studied
and used for decades, including by militaries. Existing conventions on
biological and chemical weapons have limited research on, and stockpiling of,
certain toxins and “neuro-microbiologicals” (such as ricin and anthrax,
respectively), while other powerful substances and technologies — some
developed for medical purposes and readily available on the commercial market —
remain ungoverned by existing international rules. Some experts also worry
about an ethics lag among scientists and researchers; as the Foreign Policy article
pointed out, a 200-page report put out last spring on the ethics of the Obama
administration’s BRAIN Initiative didn’t once mention “dual use” or
“weaponization.”
In America, federally funded medical research with potential
military applications can be regulated by Dual-Use
Research of Concern policies at the National Institutes of Health,
which reflect the general tenor of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Yet these policies do not account for
research in other countries, or research undertaken (or underwritten) by
non-state actors, and might actually create security concerns for the United
States should they cause American efforts to lag behind those of other states
hiding behind the excuse of health research or routine experimentation, or
commercial entities sheltered by industry norms protecting proprietary
interests and intellectual property.
n addition to a more robust effort on the part of scientists to better understand and define the ethics of neuroscience in this new era, one obvious solution to the neuroweapons threat would be progress on the bioweapons convention itself. In preparation for the biological weapons convention’s Eighth Review Conference at the end of this year, member states should establish a clearer view of today’s neuroscience and neurotechnology, a better understanding of present and future capabilities, and a realistic picture of emerging threats. They should also revise the current definitions of what constitutes a bioweapon, and what is weaponizable, and set up criteria to more accurately assess and analyze neuroscience research and development going forward.
I would also argue that the United States and its allies
should take the proper security precautions in the form of increased
surveillance of neuroscience R&D around the world. As a preliminary
measure, government monitors can develop a better understanding of the field by
paying attention to “tacit knowledge” — the unofficial know-how that
accumulates among individuals in labs and other venues where a particular
science is practiced or studied. (For more on tacit knowledge and arms control,
see Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley’s recent Bulletin article
about its crucial importance for the bioweapons convention.) In a similar vein,
authorities should also follow the neuroscience literature in an effort to
assess trends, gauge progress, and profile emerging tools and techniques that
could be enlisted for weaponization.
Of course these are only preliminary measures, easily
stymied by proprietary restrictions in the case of commercial research and
state-secret classifications in the case of government work. Thus deeper
surveillance will require a wider effort to collect intelligence from a variety
of sources and indicators, including university and industrial programs and
projects that have direct dual-use applications; governmental and private
investment in, and support of, neuroscience and neurotech R&D; researchers
and scholars with specific types of knowledge and skills; product and device
commercialization; and current and near-term military postures regarding
neurotechnology. This type of surveillance, while requiring more nuanced and
more extensive investigations, could produce highly valuable empirical models
to plot realistic possibilities for the near future of neuroscience and
neurotechnology. These could then be used to better anticipate threats and
create contingency plans.
It’s important to note the danger of this type of
surveillance as well. As a 2008 report
by the National Academies in Washington warned, increased surveillance could
lead to a kind of arms race, as nations react to new developments by creating
countering agents or improving upon one another’s discoveries. This could be
the case not only for incapacitating agents and devices but also for
performance-enhancing technologies. As a 2014 report
by the National Academies readily acknowledged, this type of escalation is a
realistic possibility with the potential to affect international security.
The United States and its allies should therefore be
cautious if they deem it necessary to establish this kind of deep surveillance.
And on the international front, they should simultaneously support efforts to
improve the Biological Weapons Convention to account for neuroweapons threats
in the offing.
Finally, they should keep in mind just how hard it is to
regulate neuroscience and neurotechnology during this time of great discovery
and expansion. Ethical ideals can be developed to shape guidelines and policies
that are sensitive to real-world scenarios, but the flexibility of these
approaches also means that they are not conclusive. Those charged with
monitoring potential threats must be constantly vigilant in the face of
changing technologies and fuzzy distinctions between medical and military uses,
all while navigating the complexities of the health-care industry, political
and military ethics, and international law. In light of the work ahead, it
remains to be seen just how well the nations of the world will rally to face
the neuroweapons threat.
— From the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists May 31. James Giordano's latest book is Neurotechnology in National Security and
Defense: Practical Considerations, Neuroethical Concerns (CRC Press).
———————
7. WILL U.S. ESCALATE THE AFGHAN WAR?
 |
|
Afghan troops mount army vehicle
as smoke billows from a building after a Taliban attack in Helmand Province on
March 9. (Photo: Abdul Malik / Reuters.)
|
Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of America’s forces in
Afghanistan, this month completed a review of what will be needed to contain
the growing insurgent threat posed by the Taliban and its allies. After reading
his recommendations, President Obama will have to make a decision he surely
hoped to pass on to the next president: whether to ramp up American troop
numbers in Afghanistan again.
Nicholson has probably asked Obama at least to halt his
planned reduction of America’s troop levels from 9,800 to 5,500 by the end of
the year. Obama has often seemed to think he could end the war in Afghanistan
simply by declaring it over. But the enemy has not cooperated. Afghan forces
have fought bravely since the end of 2014, when NATO combat troops formally
left. But they were not ready to cope with the sudden departure of their
allies, while the Taliban remained resilient and capable.
The Afghans are suffering losses that American commanders
warn are .tainable Not since 2001 have the Taliban held as much territory as
they now do. Civilian casualties are mounting, as Afghan soldiers have been
stretched thin across multiple fronts. Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings
Institution says that the loss of American air power has particularly hampered
the Afghan army’s ability to carry out attacks.
Even current troop levels — 6,954 Americans to train and
help Afghan forces and 2,850 on separate counter-terrorism missions, with NATO
contributing a further 5,859 soldiers — appear inadequate. The Obama
administration understands this, at least tacitly. The House Armed Services
Committee recently revealed that 26,000 military contractors are in Afghanistan
— an unusually high number. They do a lot of jobs that troops would normally
do, allowing Obama to hold the headline figure for troops deployed below
10,000.
Nor is it just a question of numbers: what the White House
lets its soldiers do also matters. American Special Forces go discreetly into
action with their Afghan counterparts. But most troops in the “train and
assist” mission are not embedded with Afghan combat units, where they would be
in harm’s way but also of most practical help.
Restrictions on air power are even more frustrating for
field commanders. American combat aircraft may only be used against designated
terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State, or when either NATO
troops are imperiled or “strategic collapse is imminent” (for example, if a big
city is about to be captured).
David Petraeus, a former commander in Afghanistan, and
O’Hanlon recently urged the president to change the rules of engagement. They
pointed out that America is dropping and firing 20 times more bombs and
missiles in Iraq and Syria than in Afghanistan. Anthony Cordesman of the Center
for Strategic and International Studies says that “U.S. and allied air power is
critical” to prevent the Afghan army’s defeat.
Note: A related article is directly below.
———————
8. WASHINGTON'S
MIDDLE EAST WARS TO NOWHERE
 |
Families flee the city of Fallujah last week with the help of Iraqi
forces. The
Iraqi military, backed by Shia militias and U.S. airstrikes, have launched a
operation to retake Falluja from Islamic State, which has used the city as
a redoubt within reach of Baghdad for more than two years.
|
We have it on highest authority: the recent killing of
Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour by a U.S. drone strike in
Pakistan marks “an important milestone.” So the president of the United States
has declared, with that claim duly echoed and implicitly endorsed by media
commentary -- the New York Times reporting, for example, that Mansour’s death
leaves the Taliban leadership “shocked” and “shaken.”
But a question remains: A milestone toward what exactly?
Toward victory? Peace? Reconciliation? At the very least,
toward the prospect of the violence abating? Merely posing the question is to
imply that U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Islamic
world serve some larger purpose.
Yet for years now that has not been the case. The
assassination of Mansour instead joins a long list of previous milestones,
turning points, and landmarks briefly heralded as significant achievements only
to prove much less than advertised.
One imagines that Obama himself understands this perfectly
well. Just shy of five years ago, he was urging Americans to “take comfort in
knowing that the tide of war is receding.” In Iraq and Afghanistan, the
president insisted, “the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance.”
“These long wars,” he promised, were finally coming to a
“responsible end.” We were, that is, finding a way out of Washington’s dead-end
conflicts in the Greater Middle East.
Who can doubt Obama’s sincerity, or question his
oft-expressed wish to turn away from war and focus instead on unattended needs
here at home? But wishing is the easy part. Reality has remained defiant. Even
today, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that George W. Bush bequeathed to Obama
show no sign of ending.
Like Bush, Obama will bequeath to his successor wars he
failed to finish. Less remarked upon, he will also pass along to President
Clinton or President Trump new wars that are his own handiwork. In Libya,
Somalia, Yemen, and several other violence-wracked African nations, the Obama
legacy is one of ever-deepening U.S. military involvement. The almost certain prospect of a further
accumulation of briefly celebrated and quickly forgotten “milestones” beckons.
During the Obama era, the tide of war has not receded.
Instead, Washington finds itself drawn ever deeper into conflicts that, once
begun, become interminable -- wars for which the vaunted U.S. military has yet
to devise a plausible solution.
Once upon a time, during the brief, if heady, interval
between the end of the Cold War and 9/11 when the United States ostensibly
reigned supreme as the world’s “sole superpower,” Pentagon field manuals
credited U.S. forces with the ability to achieve “quick, decisive victory -- on
and off the battlefield -- anywhere in the world and under virtually any
conditions.” Bold indeed (if not utterly delusional) would be the staff officer
willing to pen such words today.
To be sure, the United States military routinely
demonstrates astonishing technical prowess -- putting a pair of Hellfire
missiles through the roof of the taxi in which Mansour was riding, for example.
Yet if winning -- that is, ending wars on conditions favorable to our side --
offers the measure of merit by which to judge a nation’s military forces, then
when put to the test ours have been found wanting.
 |
| Syrian security forces and residents gather at the site of 2 euicide bombings in the area of a revered Shi'ite shrine in the town of Sayyida Zeinab, on the outskirts of Damascus. The first blast was caused by a car bomb that went off at a bus station by a public transport garage near the Sayyida Zeinab shrine. Two suicide bombers then set off their explosive belts when people gathered at the scene, according to official SANA news agency. |
In this one respect at least, an endless parade of three-
and four-star generals exercising command in various theaters over the past
several decades have earned high marks. In terms of effort, they deserve an A.
As measured by outcomes, however, they fall well short of a
passing grade. However commendable their willingness to cast about for some
method that might actually work, they have ended up waging a war of attrition.
Strip away the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel reassurances regularly heard at
Pentagon press briefings or in testimony presented on Capitol Hill and
America’s War for the Greater Middle East proceeds on this unspoken assumption:
if we kill enough people for a long enough period of time, the other side will
eventually give in.
On that score, the prevailing Washington gripe directed at
Commander-in-Chief Obama is that he has not been willing to kill enough. Take,
for example, a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed penned by that literary odd
couple, retired General David Petraeus and Brookings Institution analyst
Michael O’Hanlon, that appeared under the pugnacious headline “Take the Gloves
Off Against the Taliban.” To turn around the longest war in American history,
Petraeus and O’Hanlon argue, the United States just needs to drop more bombs.
The rules of engagement currently governing air operations
in Afghanistan are, in their view, needlessly restrictive. Air power
“represents an asymmetric Western advantage, relatively safe to apply, and very
effective.” (The piece omits any mention of incidents such as the October 2015
destruction of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the Afghan provincial
capital of Kunduz by a U.S. Air Force gunship.) More ordnance will surely
produce “some version of victory.” The path ahead is clear. “Simply waging the
Afghanistan air-power campaign with the vigor we are employing in Iraq and
Syria,” the authors write with easy assurance, should do the trick.
When armchair generals cite the ongoing U.S. campaign in
Iraq and Syria as a model of effectiveness, you know that things must be
getting desperate.
 |
| Five-year-old Sheima, who lost both eyes when hit by a stray bullet in Syria, sits on her hospital bed in a small clinic near the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern city of Kilis, Turkey, on Feb. 9, 2016. (Photo Osman Orsal/Reuters.) |
Petraeus and O’Hanlon characterize Afghanistan as “the
eastern bulwark in our broader Middle East fight.” Eastern sinkhole might be a
more apt description. Note, by the way, that they have nothing useful to say
about the “broader fight” to which they allude. Yet that broader fight --
undertaken out of the conviction, still firmly in place today, that American
military assertiveness can somehow repair the Greater Middle East -- is far
more deserving of attention than how to employ very expensive airplanes against
insurgents armed with inexpensive Kalashnikovs.
To be fair, in silently passing over the broader fight,
Petraeus and O’Hanlon are hardly alone. On this subject no one has much to say
-- not other stalwarts of the onward-to-victory school, nor officials presently
charged with formulating U.S. national security policy, nor members of the
Washington commentariat eager to pontificate about almost anything. Worst of
all, the subject is one on which each of the prospective candidates for the
presidency is mum.
From Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford on down to the lowliest blogger,
opinions about how best to wage a particular campaign in that broader fight are
readily available. Need a plan for rolling back the Islamic State? Glad you
asked. Concerned about that new ISIS franchise in Libya? Got you covered. Boko
Haram? Here’s what you need to know. Losing sleep over Al-Shabab? Take heart --
big thinkers are on the case.
As to the broader fight itself, however, no one has a clue.
Indeed, it seems fair to say that merely defining our aims in that broader
fight, much less specifying the means to achieve them, heads the list of issues
that people in Washington studiously avoid. Instead, they prattle endlessly
about the Taliban and ISIS and Boko Haram and al-Shabab.
Here’s the one thing you need to know about the broader
fight: there is no strategy. None. Zilch. We’re on a multi-trillion-dollar
bridge to nowhere, with members of the national security establishment more or
less content to see where it leads.
May I suggest that we find ourselves today in what might be
called a Khe Sanh moment? Older readers will recall that back in late 1967 and
early 1968 in the midst of the Vietnam War, one particular question gripped the
national security establishment and those paid to attend to its doings: Can Khe
Sanh hold?
Now almost totally forgotten, Khe Sanh was then a
battlefield as well known to Americans, as Fallujah was to become in our own
day. Located in the northern part of South Vietnam, it was the site of a
besieged and outnumbered Marine garrison, surrounded by two full enemy
divisions. In the eyes of some observers, the outcome of the Vietnam War
appeared to hinge on the ability of the Marines there to hold out -- to avoid
the fate that had befallen the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu slightly more
than a decade earlier. For France, the fall of Dien Bien Phu had indeed spelled
final defeat in Indochina.
Was history about to repeat itself at Khe Sanh? As it turned
out, no... and yes.The Marines did hold -- a milestone! -- and the United
States lost the war anyway.
 |
| U.S. Army soldiers and Special Forces will remain indefinitely in Afghanistan. |
Today the United States finds itself in a comparable
situation. What to do about the Taliban or ISIS is not a trivial question. Much
the same can be said regarding the various other militant organizations with
which U.S. forces are engaged in a variety of countries -- many now failing
states -- across the Greater Middle East.
But the question of how to take out organization X or put
country Y back together pales in comparison with the other questions that
should by now have come to the fore but haven’t. Among the most salient are
these: Does waging war across a large swath of the Islamic world make sense?
When will this broader fight end? What will it cost? Short of reducing large
parts of the Middle East to rubble, is that fight winnable in any meaningful
sense? Above all, does the world’s most powerful nation have no other choice
but to persist in pursuing a manifestly futile endeavor?
Try this thought experiment. Imagine the opposing candidates
in a presidential campaign each refusing to accept war as the new normal.
Imagine them actually taking stock of the broader fight that’s been ongoing for
decades now. Imagine them offering alternatives to armed conflicts that just
drag on and on. Now that would be a milestone.
— Andrew J. Bacevich was a former U.S. Army colonel during
and after the Vietnam war and then a Professor of History at Boston University.
In recent decades he has written a number of books critical of U.S military
policy, including his most recent America’s
War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History.
— From TomDispatch.com:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176147/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_america%27s_sinkhole_wars/#more
————————
9. TOP LEADERS IGNORE HUMANITARIAN SUMMIT
 |
|
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan at the Humanitarian conference hailed the gathering as a “turning
point” that has “set a
new course” in humanitarian aid. “We have the wealth,
knowledge and awareness
to take better care of one another.” Ban said.
|
By the Activist Newsletter (based on various press reports)
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized the leaders of
the world's wealthiest countries May 24 for failing to attend a pivotal
humanitarian summit in Istanbul, Turkey, that culminated with a long list of
commitments and question marks over their implementation.
At the closing of the two-day first World Humanitarian
Summit — an event the UN has been preparing for three years — Ban said it was
"disappointing that some world leaders" couldn't attend, singling out
the Group of 7 countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United
Kingdom, and the United States. Only German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended
the summit.
Ban also criticized the five permanent members of the UN
Security Council who have prevented progress "not only in critical issues
of war and peace, but even on humanitarian affairs," stressing that the
absence of these leaders didn't "provide an excuse for inaction."
The countries Ban criticized are not only among the richest
and most powerful states in the world but a few of them are deeply involved in
the wars that have caused much of today's humanitarian crisis.
The summit, which aimed to boost humanitarian responses to
global crisis, drew the participation of 10,000 participants, 173 countries
(including 65 heads of state) and hundreds of NGO aid organizations. Despite
the absence of global heavyweights, Ban was encouraged by the results of the
conference saying that more than 1,500 commitments were made by 400 government
representatives, humanitarian organizations and other groups in line with the
conference's priorities.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian clock is ticking away faster
than ever, with over 130 million of the world’s most vulnerable people —
including millions of war refugees — in dire need of assistance that will cost
billions of dollars that are not yet forthcoming.
Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the aid group Oxfam
International, declared "It is shameful that rich countries are moaning,
complaining, sending refugees back, cutting deals behind their backs.... We
want to see rich countries step up to the plate, absorb refugees and give them
opportunities in their own
countries."
"The summit highlighted major gaps in the way the
international community approaches crises," said Elhadj As Sy,
secretary-general of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies.
While galvanizing strong participation, the summit has also
come under sharp criticism — particularly from rights groups who questioned the
record of host country Turkey — and many parties from the humanitarian and
development communities concerned by the non-binding nature of the commitments
made.
Sara Pantuliano, managing director at the Overseas
Development Institute, called the conference a "missed opportunity,"
saying the commitments that came out of it "fell short in substance and
ambition."
Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International,
described the conference as being "one with principles and broad
statements, which is simply not good enough. People are suffering. We need
action."
———————
10. BIODIVERSITY LOSS: AN EXISTENTIAL MATTER
 |
| Even the most widespread and globally common species will not avoid biodiversity loss. |
By Phil Torres
According to the Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists, the two greatest existential threats to human
civilization stem from climate change and nuclear weapons. Both pose clear and
present dangers to the perpetuation of our species, and the increasingly dire
climate situation and nuclear arsenal modernizations in the United States and
Russia were the most significant reasons why the Bulletin decided
to keep the Doomsday Clock set at three minutes before midnight earlier this
year.
But there is another existential threat that the Bulletin overlooked in its Doomsday
Clock announcement: biodiversity loss. This phenomenon is often identified as
one of the many consequences of climate change, and this is of course correct.
But biodiversity loss is also a contributing factor behind climate change. For
example, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and elsewhere reduces the
amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by plants, a natural
process that mitigates the effects of climate change. So the causal relation
between climate change and biodiversity loss is bidirectional.
Furthermore, there are myriad phenomena that are driving
biodiversity loss in addition to climate change. Other causes include ecosystem
fragmentation, invasive species, pollution, oxygen depletion caused by
fertilizers running off into ponds and streams, overfishing, human
overpopulation, and overconsumption. All of these phenomena have a direct
impact on the health of the biosphere, and all would conceivably persist even
if the problem of climate change were somehow immediately solved.
Such considerations warrant decoupling biodiversity loss
from climate change, because the former has been consistently subsumed by the
latter as a mere effect. Biodiversity loss is a distinct environmental crisis
with its own unique syndrome of causes, consequences, and solutions — such as
restoring habitats, creating protected areas (“biodiversity parks”), and
practicing sustainable agriculture.
The sixth extinction:
The repercussions of biodiversity loss are potentially as severe as those
anticipated from climate change, or even a nuclear conflict. For example,
according to a 2015 study
published in Science Advances, the
best available evidence reveals “an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity
over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already
under way.” This conclusion holds, even on the most optimistic assumptions
about the background rate of species losses and the current rate of vertebrate
extinctions. The group classified as “vertebrates” includes mammals, birds,
reptiles, fish, and all other creatures with a backbone.
 |
| Endangered. |
The article argues that, using its conservative figures, the
average loss of vertebrate species was 100 times higher in the past century
relative to the background rate of extinction. (Other scientists have suggested
that the current extinction rate could be as much as 10,000 times higher than
normal.) As the authors write, “The evidence is incontrovertible that recent
extinction rates are unprecedented in human history and highly unusual in
Earth’s history.” Perhaps the term “Big Six” should enter the popular lexicon —
to add the current extinction to the previous “Big Five,” the last of which
wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
But the concept of biodiversity encompasses more than just
the total number of species on the planet. It also refers to the size of
different populations of species. With respect to this phenomenon, multiple
studies have confirmed that wild populations around the world are dwindling and
disappearing at an alarming rate. For example, the 2010 Global Biodiversity Outlook report found
that the population of wild vertebrates living in the tropics dropped by 59%
between 1970.
The report also found that the population of farmland birds
in Europe has dropped by 50 percent since 1980; bird populations in the
grasslands of North America declined by almost 40 percent between 1968 and
2003; and the population of birds in North American arid lands has fallen by
almost 30 percent since the 1960s. Similarly, 42 percent of all amphibian
species (a type of vertebrate that is sometimes called an “ecological
indicator”) are undergoing population declines, and 23 percent of all plant
species “are estimated to be threatened with extinction.” Other studies
have found that some 20% of all reptile species, 48% of the world’s
primates, and 50% of freshwater turtles are threatened. Underwater, about 10%
of all coral reefs are now dead, and another 60% are in danger of dying.
Consistent with these data, the 2014 Living Planet
Report shows that the global population of wild vertebrates
dropped by 52% in only four decades — from 1970 to 2010. While biologists often
avoid projecting historical trends into the future because of the complexity of
ecological systems, it’s tempting to extrapolate this figure to, say, the year
2050, which is four decades from 2010. As it happens, a 2006 study
published in Science does precisely
this: It projects past trends of marine biodiversity loss into the 21st
century, concluding that, unless significant changes are made to patterns of
human activity, there will be virtually no more wild-caught seafood by 2048.
Catastrophic
consequences for civilization: The consequences of this rapid pruning of
the evolutionary tree of life extend beyond the obvious. There could be
surprising effects of biodiversity loss that scientists are unable to fully
anticipate in advance. For example, prior research has shown that localized
ecosystems can undergo abrupt and irreversible shifts when they reach a tipping
point. According to a 2012 paper
published in Nature, there are
reasons for thinking that we may be approaching a tipping point of this sort in
the global ecosystem, beyond which the consequences could be catastrophic for
civilization.
As the authors write, a planetary-scale transition could
precipitate “substantial losses of ecosystem services required to sustain the
human population.” An ecosystem service is any ecological process that benefits
humanity, such as food production and crop pollination. If the global ecosystem
were to cross a tipping point and substantial ecosystem services were lost, the
results could be “widespread social unrest, economic instability, and loss of
human life.” According to Missouri Botanical Garden ecologist Adam Smith, one
of the paper’s co-authors, this could occur in a matter of decades — far more
quickly than most of the expected consequences of climate change, yet equally
destructive.
Biodiversity loss is a “threat multiplier” that, by pushing
societies to the brink of collapse, will exacerbate existing conflicts and
introduce entirely new struggles between state and non-state actors. Indeed, it
could even fuel the rise of terrorism. (After all, climate change has been linked
to the emergence of ISIS in Syria, and multiple high-ranking U.S. officials,
such as former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
and CIA director John Brennan,
have affirmed that climate change and terrorism are connected.)
The reality is that we are entering the sixth mass
extinction in the 3.8-billion-year history of life on Earth, and the impact of
this event could be felt by civilization “in as little as three human
lifetimes,” as the aforementioned 2012 Nature paper notes. Furthermore, the
widespread decline of biological populations could plausibly initiate a
dramatic transformation of the global ecosystem on an even faster timescale:
perhaps a single human lifetime.
The unavoidable conclusion is that biodiversity loss
constitutes an existential threat in its own right. As such, it ought to be
considered alongside climate change and nuclear weapons as one of the most
significant contemporary risks to human prosperity and survival.
— From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April
11, 2016, Phil Torres is the founder of the X-Risks Institute, an
affiliate scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging
Technologies.
———————
11. GOV. CUOMO HITS ISRAEL BOYCOTT MOVEMENT
By Activist Newsletter (based on various news reports)
New York Gov. Cuomo signed an executive order June 5 banning
the state from doing business with any group that formally cuts ties to the
state of Israel as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
“We are against the BDS movement.... If you boycott against
Israel, New York will boycott you,” Cuomo said at an event in Manhattan where
he signed the executive order.
Cuomo made his move hours before the annual Salute to Israel
parade in Manhattan — as part of a
broader effort to firm up the Democratic Party’s alliance with Israel. The
governor — a longtime supporter of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton —
took a swipe at her opponent in the primary, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders,
who has questioned Israel’s disproportional attacks on Gaza.
Hudson Valley
Readeres: Wednesday, June 15, ALBANY: A protest will take place here
today starting at 12 noon against Gov. Cuomo's executive order banning the
state from doing business with any group that formally cuts ties to the state
of Israel as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. BDS is a
global movement committed to fighting nonviolently to end the illegal
occupation of Palestinian land and the subjugation of the Palestinian people in
the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The organization has been under
increasing attack by those threatened by the support for human rights it has
galvanized worldwide and for shining a critical light on the abusive policies
of the Israeli government when it comes to the treatment of Palestinians. The
event is sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace (Albany chapter), Palestinian
Rights Committee of Upper Hudson Peace Action, CodePink, Bethlehem Neighbors
for Peace, Middle East Crisis Response and others.
———————
12. A LOOK AT THREE OF
HILLARY'S BIG DONORS
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
In April, the Washington
Post compared the state of U.S. political campaigns to that of the Gilded
Age, noting that 41% of the money raised by SuperPacs by the end of February
came from just “50 mega-donors and their relatives.”
New evidence suggests that tax avoidance may be at the
center of what some of these mega-donors are expecting in return for that
largess to Presidential and Congressional candidates.
Take the case of Priorities USA, the SuperPac supporting
Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It has already raised $67 million and just four
hedge fund billionaires have ponied up 40% of that amount.
Hedge funds already receive a perverse form of taxation
known as “carried interest” that allows their winnings to be taxed at rates
lower than those paid by some plumbers and nurses. This cozy tax scheme allows
managers of hedge funds and private equity funds to have much of their income
taxed as long term capital gains rather than the almost double tax rate that
would be applied if it were treated as wage income.
Now, new questions are being asked about why some of these
hedge fund billionaires are turning up in the notorious Panama Papers leak. The
leak resulted from a whistleblower turning over 11.5 million files from the
Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, relating to offshore accounts in secrecy
jurisdictions. The documents were provided to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which then shared
the information with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
(ICIJ). A searchable public
database for a portion of the leaked documents has been set up by
the ICIJ, leading to almost daily new revelations.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) notes
“while not all of the transactions and accounts arranged by the [Mossack
Fonseca] firm were illegal, many helped extremely wealthy individuals dodge
billions of dollars in taxes through the use of offshore ‘shell’ companies and
other methods.” ICIJ has noted that 36 Americans implicated in fraud or
other financial crimes show up in the database.
Three of Hillary Clinton’s largest donors to the Priorities
USA SuperPac have turned up in the Panama Papers database or earlier leaked
documents pertaining to offshore companies now housed in the ICIJ database.
Hedge fund billionaire George Soros has donated $343,400 to
the Hillary Victory Fund, a controversial
joint fundraising effort between Hillary, the Democratic National
Committee and state committees, as well as donating a whopping $7 million to
her SuperPac, Priorities USA. The Panama Papers show George Soros tied to Soros Holdings Limited,
whose agent is Mossack Fonseca, and lists the British Virgin Islands for its
registration. Another company tied to Soros is Soros Finance Inc., which
shows registration in Panama and also lists Mossack Fonseca as its agent.
Employees of hedge fund Paloma Partners have donated $4
million to Hillary’s SuperPac, Priorities USA. At least $2.5 million of that
came in two checks written in 2015 by S. Donald Sussman, the founder of the
hedge fund. Sussman also gave $343,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund. Sussman and
Paloma Partners turn up in the ICIJ offshore database from a document leak in
2013. Both he and his hedge fund are shown as connected to a company called Simply Radiant
Limited which was registered in the British Virgin Islands with an
agent called Portcullis Trustnet.
Billionaire hedge fund owner, David E. Shaw, wrote a check
for $750,000 to Hillary’s SuperPac, Priorities USA, on March 31, 2015 and
another in the identical amount on February 12, 2016 according to Federal
Election Commission records. Three entities tied to Shaw
turn up in the earlier leaked offshore accounts in the ICIJ database: an
account in the name of David E. Shaw, a Shaw Family Trust I, and Mid Ocean
Company.
Executives, employees and family members of Citigroup are
the second largest lifetime donors to Hillary Clinton’s political campaigns
over the course of her career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
On May 16 Wall Street On Parade reported on
the octopus of ties that Citigroup’s Private Bank in Miami has to
the Panama Papers, with dozens of offshore corporations showing Mossack Fonseca
as their agent while using the address of “Citigroup Private Bank, 201 South
Biscayne Blvd., Suite 3300, Miami, Florida 33131″ as their official address,
according to the ICIJ database.
In January and March of this year, hedge fund billionaire
James Simons wrote two checks to Hillary’s SuperPac, Priorities USA, for $3.5
million each, matching the $7 million Soros has also contributed. Simons is the
founder of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and also runs a so-called
“family office” where he manages his own wealth, known as Euclidean Capital. We
could not find Simons in the ICIJ database but we did find his hedge fund, Renaissance
Technologies, in the Wall Street
On Parade database — and not in a good way.
Renaissance Technologies became the target of an
investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,
culminating in a charge of avoiding $6.8 billion (that’s billion with a “b”) in
taxes. The Senate Subcommittee took
testimony at the July 22, 2014 hearing from Steven M. Rosenthal, a
Senior Fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Rosenthal explained the scheme as follows:
“I have been asked to evaluate the character of the gains of
the Renaissance hedge funds based on my review of materials provided by the
Subcommittee staff. The Renaissance hedge funds traded often, more than 100,000
trades a day, more than 30 million trades a year, and they traded quickly,
turning over their portfolio almost completely every 3 months. Because the
hedge funds adopted a short-term trading strategy, we would expect their gains
to be short term. But the hedge funds, with the help of Barclays and Deutsche
Bank, wrapped derivatives around their trading strategy in order to transform
their short- term trading profits into long-term capital gains. This tax
alchemy purported to reduce the tax rate on the gains from 35% to 15% and
reduced taxes paid to the Treasury by approximately $6.8 billion. I believe the
hedge funds stretched the derivatives beyond recognition for tax purposes and
mischaracterized their profits as long-term gains.”
Forbes currently puts James Simons’ net worth at $15.5
billion, making his political donations a very cheap investment in the overall
scheme of things.
Hillary Clinton was asked about the revelations in the
Panama Papers. According to the Guardian newspaper, Clinton responded:
“Some of this behavior is clearly against the law and anyone
who violates the law anywhere should be held accountable. But it is also
scandalous how much is actually legal. That is why last year I proposed a plan
to shut down the so-called private tax-system for the mega wealthy. We are
going after all these scams and making sure everybody pays their fair share in
America. I am going to hold them accountable.”
Anyone who thinks Hillary Clinton is going to hold her
mega-donors accountable should probably put their campaign contributions under
their pillow for the tooth fairy. Those who care to pursue a more positive
path might want to sign the
petition set up by USPIRG, supporting their plan to raise billions
of dollars in public financing of campaigns.
— From Wall Street on Parade, May 18, 2016. (www. (http://wallstreetonparade.com).
———————
13. CBO WARNS OF CLIMATE CHANGE'S IMPACT
The Congressional Budget Office is warning lawmakers about
the fiscal risks of climate change, putting the studiously non-partisan agency
at odds with Republican Party orthodoxy.
The report, released as hurricane season begins, warns that
hurricane damage will “increase significantly in the coming decades” due to
climate change. The agency added that humans are playing a role in fueling
rising temperatures and a shifting climate.
“Human activities around the world — primarily the burning
of fossil fuels and widespread changes in land use — are producing growing
emissions of greenhouse gases,” the report
states. “Experts in the scientific community have concluded that a portion of
those emissions are absorbed by the oceans, but a substantial fraction persists
in the atmosphere for centuries, trapping heat and warming the Earth’s
atmosphere.”
Most Republicans remain unconvinced that climate change is
real, with the party’s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, calling it “a total
hoax” and “pseudoscience.” His previous rival for the nomination, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, has
called climate change a “pseudo-scientific theory.” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said
the science is inconclusive. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.)
famously threw a snowball on the Senate floor in February 2015 to argue that
climate change is not real.
The CBO report included possible policies that Congress
might enact to mitigate the rising costs of increased hurricane damage. Among
those was a “coordinated effort to significantly reduce global emissions.”
— From Politico June 2.
———————
14. SUFFRAGETTE, THE MOVIE
 |
| A scene from the film. |
By Lara Vapnek
London, 1912. Breaking windows. Blowing up mailboxes. Bombing the home of the British Prime Minister. Crimes we might associate with anarchists were, in fact, perpetrated by militant British suffragists. Suffragette, a new film directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan, dramatizes their movement. The film tells the story of laundress Maud Watts (played by Carey Mulligan), a composite figure, who stands in for the tens of thousands of women in Britain and in the United States who risked jobs, relationships, and respectability to demand their right to vote.
Until now, the cinematic figure of the suffragette has been
limited to the comic Mrs. Banks, the mother in Mary Poppins, who leaves
her children in a nanny's care to march in favor of votes for women. Maud Watts
is her polar opposite. A working mother, devoted to her young son, George, Maud
gets drawn into the militant suffrage movement out of her concern for her co-workers
and her hope for a better world.
Although Maude initially rejects the label
"Suffragette" as too subversive, like her, we come to see how
gender-based political disabilities have defined her life. Testifying before
Parliament in a scene shot on site, Maud describes minimal wages, long hours,
and frequent burns from the iron. She has spent her life in the laundry, having
been brought there as a baby by her mother, who died of lung disease when Maude
was a small child. Maud does not divulge the prevalence of sexual harassment in
her workplace, but that is soon revealed by her boss's lecherous looks and
unwanted caresses.
Maud faces steep barriers in pursuing her right to vote as a
simple matter of equity, enduring police violence, force-feeding in prison, and
disapproval from neighbors for breaking the rules of respectability. Cast out
of her home by her husband as punishment for being arrested during a protest,
Maud finds a new family in the cross-class Women's
Social and Political Union (WSPU). Members of the East London
contingent include a female pharmacist (Helena Bohnam Carter) frustrated by her
inability to attend medical school. Maud's friend from work, Violet (Anne-Marie
Duff), drops out of the group when she discovers she is pregnant, a plot twist
that underlines working-class women's lack of access to birth control.
 |
| The actual British suffragists over 100 years ago. |
Suffragette is the first feature-length, dramatic film to
capture the passion, the violence, and the repression that surrounded women's
long struggle for equality. In dramatizing the civil rights movement, Hollywood
films like Selma have gone for big personalities and boldface names. In
contrast, these British filmmakers trace how the suffrage movement arose
organically from women's daily lives. Working women's particular experiences of
poverty are brought to life by watching Maud toil at home and at work. We see
the strain of the "double day" in her cough, her slightly hunched
back, and her perpetual exhaustion.
Despite many strengths, from a historical perspective, the
movie falters at a few points. First: the problem of class. In one scene, Alice
Houghton, a wealthy suffragist in the WSPU, is bailed out of prison by her
husband, but he refuses to bail out the working-class women who have been
arrested along with his wife. Later in the film, it seems discordant when Maud
rescues a young laundry worker from sexual harassment by finding her a job in
Mr. and Mrs. Houghton's home. True, working-class women had few options for
employment, but many left domestic service for work in laundries and factories
because they felt even more vulnerable to mistreatment and sexual abuse within
wealthy homes.
Second, we are missing the labor movement as conduit for
working-class women's suffrage activism. The Women's Trade Union League,
which had British and American branches, worked to make these two social
movements mutually reinforcing. Third, most working-class women who became
activists had the support of family, coworkers, and friends. Thus, the need for
a heroic journey may have stripped the fictional Maud of the community support
her historical counterparts most likely received.
American viewers may wonder about similarities and
differences with the British suffrage movement. For the most part, Americans
eschewed violence, and working-class women seemed reluctant to be arrested.
Like Maud, most could not afford bail, nor could they risk their jobs, or leave
their children unattended. Equally as significant, the arrest of working-class
women did not generate the headlines drawn by the incarceration of more elite
women, like Alice Paul,
whose class, race, and gender made them seem entitled to the bodily integrity
routinely denied to working class women and women of color a century ago.
Suffragette's vivid depiction of working women's daily lives and the drama
of their public protest make this film a "must-see" for anyone interested
in women's history. The filmmakers capture the physical vulnerability and abuse
that so many female activists suffered at the hands of their employers as well
as the police. In the densely textured visual storytelling that provides so
much of this film's drama, this violence fuels the fight, and inspires at least
some women to stand up to authority and received wisdom against long odds.
Here, the film feels contemporary, referencing, and perhaps helping us to
appreciate women's ongoing struggles for equality throughout the world.
— http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/160804#sthash.p5uCiUNn.dpuf.
———————
15. GOD ADMITS STEALING IDEA OF A MESSIAH
By The Onion
Under pressure from scholars, who for centuries have pointed
out strong similarities between certain aspects of the two religions, God
finally admitted Tuesday that He had stolen the idea for the Messiah from
Zoroastrianism and used it as a major feature of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
“Look, maybe they came up with the thing about the Messiah
being conceived by virgin birth, but c’mon—that’s just one minor detail. I
added plenty of new stuff in there,” said God Almighty, Our Lord and Heavenly
Father, adding that the concept of Saoshyant, the savior of Zoroastrianism, was
“barely fleshed out” and that He had “really put [His] own spin on it and
humanized [His] Messiah” by having Jesus Christ physically walk the earth and
interact with other people.
“I mean, how many ideas are truly original when you think
about it? And anyway, I made my guy a carpenter — gave him a nice real-world
job. That’s so much more relatable than their mysterious, magical man who lives
for decades without eating anything. Okay, okay, I may have also taken the part
about him raising the dead and being the judge of all humankind, too, but
that’s it. The rest is all me.”
God attempted to silence further criticism by announcing
that there were some “big surprises” in store for the upcoming Apocalypse,
assuring reporters it would be “totally different” than Frashokereti, the
Zoroastrian description of the final battle between good and evil.
End.
End.
