Photograph Source: Government of Thailand – CC BY 2.0

Fallout from the leaked Signal messages between top U.S. cabinet officials is just the latest in an increasing trend of carelessness surrounding national security issues. High-ranking officials who mishandle classified information go unpunished as the political class considers it too politically damaging to enforce harsh penalties. This negligence ensures there will be more careless mishandling in the future.

Neither party is eager to crack down on this issue, and the reason is as simple as human nature: keeping classified material on classified servers at all times takes longer and is less convenient. That’s precisely why several cabinet officials are now in hot water over their use of the app Signal for texting classified information. Yet whenever the party in charge gets caught cutting corners with security, their own come to their defense.

This isn’t a new pattern. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Democrats in the past rallied to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s defense, dismissing many accusations surrounding her use of a privately hosted email server as politically motivated. While they were damaging to her standing with the public, she ultimately was let off from any prosecution in 2016.

It’s clear with the benefit of hindsight—and to many at the time—that her behavior was not just a risk to national security, but illegal as well. Former FBI Director Jim Comey’s now-infamous statement during the summer of 2016admitted as much: “There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”

So, why wasn’t she charged? The FBI essentially focused on whether there was “intent” to break the law, as well as hesitation to recommend prosecution of the Democratic candidate for president.

This decision has haunted us ever since. Consequences for irresponsibly handling classified information are pointless if they’re never enforced, or only enforced when lower-level officials violate them. Secretary Clinton hired people to install a private server for her emails to be hosted in her basement—there is no shortage of “intent” there.

Similarly, several Trump officials knew better than to discuss war plans on an app like Signal. If you don’t believe me, you need look no further than Secretary Hegseth’s own words just a day ago: “Nobody’s texting war plans.” This, of course, turned out to be a lie.

And just like that, we’re back to discussing Hillary’s handling of her emails. Some have pointed out the hypocrisy of those who called for her prosecution yet defended Hegseth and Walz during this Signal-gate—and they’re right to do so. Others have pointed out the hypocrisy from the left in giving Hillary a free-pass and then calling for action now when the opposite party is in power. They are also right to do so.

Classified material is classified for a reason. Leaks from classified documents have real-world implications. Just look at the damaging fallout from organizations such as WikiLeaks.

National security and lives are at stake when classified information is mishandled, and it’s high time for both parties to hold themselves to account. A key component of Trump’s movement has always been anti-establishment rhetoric and action. Letting these cabinet officials off the hook simply because Hillary received more favorable treatment sends a clear message to future officials: Laws surrounding classified material are merely suggestions, so long as your party is in charge.

The post Hillary Got Off For Her Emails ButThat Doesn’t Make Signal-gate Okay appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kyle Moran.

Israel has justified bombing a Gaza hospital, killing civilians, because an injured Hamas politician was there. The laws of war only ever seem to be forgotten when it is Israel violating them.

Israel and its genocide cheerleaders are claiming Israel’s air strike on the Nasser Hospital in Gaza last night – which killed several patients and staff – was justified because a Hamas politician was being treated there for injuries from an earlier Israeli strike.

Israel has also seized on the fact that a Hamas official was in the hospital to retroactively rationalise its destruction of Gaza’s entire health sector, leaving more than 2 million Palestinians with barely functioning medical care in the midst of Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign.

At the weekend, the Israeli army blew up the entire Turkish Hospital in Gaza and did so without any possible military justification. Its soldiers had been occupying the hospital, using it as a military post, for much of the past year.

The hospital had served its purpose for Israel – and Israel sees no purpose for Palestinian hospitals actually serving the Palestinian population. After all, Israel’s goal is to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, and that is made easier if Palestinians have no surviving medical facilities in the enclave.

Once again, Israel’s “justification” for the latest attack on Nasser Hospital doesn’t even bother to suggest it accords with any known principle of international law.

Here are a few reminders about the long-established laws of war that only ever seem to be forgotten when it is Israel violating them.

Even fighters are considered non-combatants – that is, not legitimate targets for military attack – when they are injured and no longer engaged in combat. That rule applies even more obviously to politicians.

All Israel’s hospitals, such as Rambam in Haifa, regularly treat Israeli soldiers injured in combat. Israeli hospitals are doing so right now – Israel makes no secret of this.

No one, least of all the people defending last night’s attack on Nasser Hospital in Gaza, would for one moment consider it legitimate for Hamas to bomb Rambam Hospital, killing patients and staff there, to hit an injured soldier being treated at the facility.

But what Israel did is even more clearly a violation of the laws of war because it bombed the hospital to hit an injured Hamas politician, not a fighter.

That is the equivalent of Hamas striking a hospital in Israel, killing Israeli staff and patients, to assassinate an Israeli politician.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently spent several days in the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem for a prostate operation.

Had Hamas hit the hospital, can one imagine Israel and its supporters – or western politicians and media – accepting that as legitimate grounds for a military attack? The question doesn’t even need asking.

The only reason it is okay for Israel to attack a Palestinian hospital, killing Palestinian civilians, to assassinate a Palestinian politician is because the western political and media class are out-and-out anti-Palestinian racists.

Palestinian life is meaningless to them. Israel calls Palestinians ‘human animals’ – and western leaders secretly concur.

Once Jews were seen that way – as human animals. Their lives were worthless. They were killed on an industrial scale across Europe.

Today’s Europe is no different, nor is the US. It’s just that Jews are no longer the objects of the West’s institutional racism and its structural violence. Palestinians are.

The West’s racism that led to the Holocaust is still with us. We have not learnt from history. Our politics has not evolved beyond that of our great-grandparents’ generation. The Gaza genocide is our generation’s Holocaust. And we are equally complicit.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

A recent visit to Canada by Israel’s minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, highlights a subject that requires far more critical attention. The Israeli Embassy Twitter account noted, “The purpose of Minister Chikli’s visit is to study unique examples of Jewish education in Canada and how this can be replicated across North America. Investment in Jewish education is an investment in the future of Israel — and the Jewish people.”

Last month Chikli launched an initiative to substantially increase Israel’s investment in North American Jewish schools. He announced $53 million in funding for the Aleph Bet project, which he said, “will be focused on schools in North America with a focus on training teachers for Jewish education and Israel studies as well as principles for Jewish day schools.”

During his trip Chikli visited Canada’s largest private school. TanenbaumCHAT says “Israel engagement pervades our curricular and extra-curricular programming and is a shared vision — part of the consciousness of all our teachers and educators.” The Toronto school even organizes “IDF days”. After being taught to support apartheid, many of the Torontonians join the Israeli military or move there. Many more TanenbaumCHAT alumni speak, vote, fundraise, etc. in a manner that reinforces Palestinian subjugation.

Other Toronto schools also promote Zionism. During his recent trip to Toronto former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke at Bnei Akiva. The school promotes the Israeli military in a slew of ways. Bnei Akiva honours alumni who served in the IDF and its LinkedIn profile notes, “upon graduation, students typically spend at least one or more years of study in Israel, and many serve in the IDF.”

An Israeli flag flies in front of Leo Baeck elementary school and its publicity says it “instills” a “love of Israel” and  “a deep  and meaningful connection to … the State of Israel” among students. The school has an Israel Engagement  Committee and in 2012 it received United Jewish Appeal Toronto’s inaugural Israel Engagement Community Award. That same year the Israeli Consul General in Toronto, DJ Schneiweiss, attended the launch of a new campus at Leo Baeck.

In Montréal a significant proportion of the crowd at the annual Israel Day consists of children bused in from the city’s Jewish schools. Montréal’s Hebrew Foundation School openly promotes the IDF and Israeli control of the West Bank. One post on the elementary school’s Facebook page included a big board with the emblem of the IDF and multiple photos of Israeli soldiers. Another post mentions students assisting a charity supporting injured Israeli soldiers while another notes, “Our students and staff were enthralled with Eli’s story as a soldier during the Yom Kippur war.” The grade-schoolers often sing Israel’s national anthem and participate in events put on by the explicitly racist Jewish National Fund, which has played an important role in the colonization of Palestine. A large map shown to the grade schoolers at a recent JNF Day included the illegally occupied West Bank as Israel.

In the paper “Good Jewish Citizens: Israel or Zionist education the key to saving North American Jewish Identity?” Bonnie K. Goodman holds up Montréal Jewish schooling as a successful model. “To combat the crisis,” Goodman writes, “American Jews might look up north to Montreal, Quebec. The second-largest Jewish community in Canada has the lowest intermarriage rates and the highest number of students attending day schools and summer camps. The city is also home to an Israel engagement program arming their high school graduating class with the tools necessary to confront the anti-Israel college world and advocate for Israel. The curriculum creates a Zionist education that fosters its graduates to not only be knowledgeable Jews but good citizens versed in one of the most critical elements of Civil Judaism support and ties to Israel.”

The just released film Israelism highlights the issue in the US. According to the summary of a documentary focused on two young people who go through a profound political transition, “in their Jewish day schools they are taught to unabashedly love and support Israel, and the Jewish state becomes central to their Jewish identity. They’re taught that Israel represents the strength and pride the Jewish people were denied for so long. Simone, Eitan and their classmates sing the Israeli national anthem, drape themselves in Israeli flags” and participate in various initiatives linked to the IDF. One of the two protagonists, Simone Zimmerman, says “10% of my Jewish high school joined the Israeli army” and that she was led to believe Palestinians were “people who want to kill Jews.”

It is imperative to disrupt the ‘school to apartheid promotion pipeline’. It is not okay that kids are being indoctrinated to promote apartheid.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.

I’ve been very much in motion without thinking about it too much since when I started out, which is I guess almost 10 years ago now. I think it had to do with my age, because I was in my early twenties then. It’s changing a bit, but I do think I’ve adapted for better and for worse. I feel like I can work everywhere and write songs on airplanes and record in friends’ bedrooms.

It must be useful to not have to stop whatever you’re doing to work out your creativity. Does that leave you with any preciousness for your craft? Is that concept even in your art and in your work?

Until I have a conversation with someone about it like we’re doing now, I don’t have a lot of words for the creative process. It’s something that I do all the time, that I want to do all the time, maybe have to do all the time, a bit compulsively. It’s also what keeps life precious in a way, but it’s this shifting orb. It is the thing that is precious and giving, but also can be quite depleting and frustrating.

When you’re young, it comes more fluidly because you’re not hampered by knowledge of the industry. You don’t realize what’s at stake. But then as you focus on practice and process, it can become more academic. Listening to your work, it feels like you have that strength but still find a purely creative inspiration.

You have to. It’s fortunate to be able to sit down and amplify something through oneself, and that can be esoteric in many ways, spiritual, but I like to base it all also in just the human experience of being alive and having to eat food, sleeping or not sleeping, these kinds of mundane things. I guess I like to think a lot about really boring shit. [laughs]

The whole nexus of boredom and creativity is fascinating. Well, maybe it’s just trying to pass off procrastinating as creativity, but I find when I’m truly bored and able to rest that I can tap into creativity.

Yeah, totally. And if that’s what happens once your body rests and resets, then you’re never really bored. So it’s a bit of a blessing by your body.

You have so many different practices. Do you ever wonder what might have happened if you were to have chosen only one art form over the others?

I have. I’ve been pulled towards work that I can do alone a lot, or it’s more contemplative, which is music and the more visual aspects of the practice. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and we were talking about how it’s very common now to be a “multi-hyphenate” kind of artist. He was mentioning that that’s also based on necessity in terms of being able to financially have a career. Making songs that mention the word yeast infection, maybe I have to do a bit more modeling to [make a living]. I would easily just write about the yeast infection, but…I’m completely fine with doing lots of things!

Looking at your Bandcamp page, you’ve described your new album as “a concept album about consciousness.” That’s particularly interesting considering what we’ve been talking about. But at the same time, the record felt so physical and very in the moment, very visceral, which makes sense considering you’re in constant motion.

Yeah. But I do wonder whether I would need a bit more routine in my life just to add a bit more balance. I go on these crazy tours where I’m traveling all over the place and there’s a lot of transference of energy between myself and the people who come to see the shows, and that’s really inspiring. But then the next few months, I try to just lock myself away again. I’m wondering if there’s a more balanced way of doing that, but I’m not sure. It’s working for now. It’s just quite extreme.

I love the word that you used: transference. You’re amplifying your work, and then those lyrics are going to be sung right back at you. That transfer is happening in a massive way, and then you’re going to be living your life.

It all moves like this wave. It just doesn’t stop. But the minute it’s out, I’m a bit like, “Well, what else do I have to deal with? What else is funny to think about?”

Does creating music help you unlock your creativity in your acting or visual arts or modeling? Or when you get stuck creatively, does that only apply to one realm, or is it all-encompassing?

I’m not sure. I haven’t actually felt very stuck creatively or sonically. And when I think about it in hindsight, it’s just been on the forefront of my mind and what I think about. That has meant that I haven’t really thought about a lot of the other things that I do. But I think knowing that I have this thing that I can come back to that is interesting for me in my time here on Earth is healing for me, and makes me able to go out and do a lot of other things. It’s a bit of a lifeboat. So it helps having creation in music, but I don’t know if it’s implemented in the other practices. It’s like I have a sweet little invisible cat on my lap that I can stroke in the real world.

What are the things that you do every day to make sure that you are as open as possible with yourself, with your work? How do you keep your brain out of the gunk and the darkness?

A lot of body movement stuff I think has been helping a lot. Really weird strength exercises. It keeps me out of the gunk, but I also make a lot of stuff when I’m gunky. And that’s what keeps me out of the gunk again. Health is really important for everyone, so I guess these little routines and rituals where you grab a little sweat and feel your own breath [are important]. And reading. I just read a lot of fiction. I can lose myself. I think that was my escape in my upbringing as well.

What’s your music listening like on a daily basis?

It’s all over the map. I really enjoy making mixes and playlists. Right now, I’m hung up on this song from 1997. It was a huge pop song in London and it’s so fucking good. Cornershop, remember them?

“Brimful of Asha”?

“Brimful of Asha”, yeah. I’ve been listening to it four times a day. Sometimes I get a bit upset when I’m doing a lot of creation or recording, especially because then I can’t listen to that much music. I feel a bit robbed after a while.

Is it that you’re worried that what you’re listening to would seep into your own work? Or just that you’d be distracted?

I get hyper-focused. I’m a bit sensitive to sound, so I can’t work with sound six to eight hours and then just listen to music because it overstimulates me and makes me less happy. There’s a fine medium of stimulation that my body and brain wants.

It’s very hard to constantly have that stimulation around you all the time. People don’t notice what’s happening to their system and they’re irritable, and you’re like, “Okay, well, how loud are your headphones? Are you wearing AirPods?”

I fucking hate AirPods. It’s living inside your brain. It’s that close.

It seems obvious, but having that understanding is really important. It’s part of putting boundaries onto your consumption. You don’t have to listen to every album, read every book, listen to every podcast.

Yeah. There are just so many options. It’s just a lot of listening back to the body for what it actually wants. It’s a hard practice, probably harder now than ever, because all of these easy satisfactions are so readily available and they do make us feel good. But sometimes I like a good podcast, even if they get in the way of my music listening time.

Your “Brimful of Asha” time.

Yeah, sorry, it’s my “Brimful of Asha” time. Do you listen to music with lyrics when you write?

Most of the time I can’t listen to anything. But when I do, it depends on what I’m writing about, what I’m feeling.

Certainly. Sometimes if I match music with my moods or feelings they cancel each other out, like a battery thing. Listening to pretty severe black metal can feel like therapy or something. And that’s pretty funny. Like crawling out of a hole by digging deeper and getting to the other side.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Lior Phillips.

I’ve been very much in motion without thinking about it too much since when I started out, which is I guess almost 10 years ago now. I think it had to do with my age, because I was in my early twenties then. It’s changing a bit, but I do think I’ve adapted for better and for worse. I feel like I can work everywhere and write songs on airplanes and record in friends’ bedrooms.

It must be useful to not have to stop whatever you’re doing to work out your creativity. Does that leave you with any preciousness for your craft? Is that concept even in your art and in your work?

Until I have a conversation with someone about it like we’re doing now, I don’t have a lot of words for the creative process. It’s something that I do all the time, that I want to do all the time, maybe have to do all the time, a bit compulsively. It’s also what keeps life precious in a way, but it’s this shifting orb. It is the thing that is precious and giving, but also can be quite depleting and frustrating.

When you’re young, it comes more fluidly because you’re not hampered by knowledge of the industry. You don’t realize what’s at stake. But then as you focus on practice and process, it can become more academic. Listening to your work, it feels like you have that strength but still find a purely creative inspiration.

You have to. It’s fortunate to be able to sit down and amplify something through oneself, and that can be esoteric in many ways, spiritual, but I like to base it all also in just the human experience of being alive and having to eat food, sleeping or not sleeping, these kinds of mundane things. I guess I like to think a lot about really boring shit. [laughs]

The whole nexus of boredom and creativity is fascinating. Well, maybe it’s just trying to pass off procrastinating as creativity, but I find when I’m truly bored and able to rest that I can tap into creativity.

Yeah, totally. And if that’s what happens once your body rests and resets, then you’re never really bored. So it’s a bit of a blessing by your body.

You have so many different practices. Do you ever wonder what might have happened if you were to have chosen only one art form over the others?

I have. I’ve been pulled towards work that I can do alone a lot, or it’s more contemplative, which is music and the more visual aspects of the practice. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and we were talking about how it’s very common now to be a “multi-hyphenate” kind of artist. He was mentioning that that’s also based on necessity in terms of being able to financially have a career. Making songs that mention the word yeast infection, maybe I have to do a bit more modeling to [make a living]. I would easily just write about the yeast infection, but…I’m completely fine with doing lots of things!

Looking at your Bandcamp page, you’ve described your new album as “a concept album about consciousness.” That’s particularly interesting considering what we’ve been talking about. But at the same time, the record felt so physical and very in the moment, very visceral, which makes sense considering you’re in constant motion.

Yeah. But I do wonder whether I would need a bit more routine in my life just to add a bit more balance. I go on these crazy tours where I’m traveling all over the place and there’s a lot of transference of energy between myself and the people who come to see the shows, and that’s really inspiring. But then the next few months, I try to just lock myself away again. I’m wondering if there’s a more balanced way of doing that, but I’m not sure. It’s working for now. It’s just quite extreme.

I love the word that you used: transference. You’re amplifying your work, and then those lyrics are going to be sung right back at you. That transfer is happening in a massive way, and then you’re going to be living your life.

It all moves like this wave. It just doesn’t stop. But the minute it’s out, I’m a bit like, “Well, what else do I have to deal with? What else is funny to think about?”

Does creating music help you unlock your creativity in your acting or visual arts or modeling? Or when you get stuck creatively, does that only apply to one realm, or is it all-encompassing?

I’m not sure. I haven’t actually felt very stuck creatively or sonically. And when I think about it in hindsight, it’s just been on the forefront of my mind and what I think about. That has meant that I haven’t really thought about a lot of the other things that I do. But I think knowing that I have this thing that I can come back to that is interesting for me in my time here on Earth is healing for me, and makes me able to go out and do a lot of other things. It’s a bit of a lifeboat. So it helps having creation in music, but I don’t know if it’s implemented in the other practices. It’s like I have a sweet little invisible cat on my lap that I can stroke in the real world.

What are the things that you do every day to make sure that you are as open as possible with yourself, with your work? How do you keep your brain out of the gunk and the darkness?

A lot of body movement stuff I think has been helping a lot. Really weird strength exercises. It keeps me out of the gunk, but I also make a lot of stuff when I’m gunky. And that’s what keeps me out of the gunk again. Health is really important for everyone, so I guess these little routines and rituals where you grab a little sweat and feel your own breath [are important]. And reading. I just read a lot of fiction. I can lose myself. I think that was my escape in my upbringing as well.

What’s your music listening like on a daily basis?

It’s all over the map. I really enjoy making mixes and playlists. Right now, I’m hung up on this song from 1997. It was a huge pop song in London and it’s so fucking good. Cornershop, remember them?

“Brimful of Asha”?

“Brimful of Asha”, yeah. I’ve been listening to it four times a day. Sometimes I get a bit upset when I’m doing a lot of creation or recording, especially because then I can’t listen to that much music. I feel a bit robbed after a while.

Is it that you’re worried that what you’re listening to would seep into your own work? Or just that you’d be distracted?

I get hyper-focused. I’m a bit sensitive to sound, so I can’t work with sound six to eight hours and then just listen to music because it overstimulates me and makes me less happy. There’s a fine medium of stimulation that my body and brain wants.

It’s very hard to constantly have that stimulation around you all the time. People don’t notice what’s happening to their system and they’re irritable, and you’re like, “Okay, well, how loud are your headphones? Are you wearing AirPods?”

I fucking hate AirPods. It’s living inside your brain. It’s that close.

It seems obvious, but having that understanding is really important. It’s part of putting boundaries onto your consumption. You don’t have to listen to every album, read every book, listen to every podcast.

Yeah. There are just so many options. It’s just a lot of listening back to the body for what it actually wants. It’s a hard practice, probably harder now than ever, because all of these easy satisfactions are so readily available and they do make us feel good. But sometimes I like a good podcast, even if they get in the way of my music listening time.

Your “Brimful of Asha” time.

Yeah, sorry, it’s my “Brimful of Asha” time. Do you listen to music with lyrics when you write?

Most of the time I can’t listen to anything. But when I do, it depends on what I’m writing about, what I’m feeling.

Certainly. Sometimes if I match music with my moods or feelings they cancel each other out, like a battery thing. Listening to pretty severe black metal can feel like therapy or something. And that’s pretty funny. Like crawling out of a hole by digging deeper and getting to the other side.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Lior Phillips.

After a decade in the climate movement, one tends to get pretty good at avoiding the clawing hands of despair. It’s not that they’re not there, of course—the fear and anxiety that come with knowing that we’re living through the most consequential years in history, and that we’re doing nowhere near enough with them, are always there, lurking in the background of one’s consciousness. But, most of the time, that’s where those gremlins stay: in the background. Compartmentalization as survival skill, as an active and informed choice. It’s the only way that many climate organizers can get up every day, never mind carry on doing the critical work of building a movement broad enough to end the fossil fuel era.

This week, however, the doors were blown off my compartmentalization and the fears and anxiety came flooding in.

Not only is it okay to be angry at the institutions and people pushing us toward irreparable ecological breakdown, it’s essential.

For those of us working to get banks to stop financing fossil fuel expansion, pushing the banks’ investors to support climate action has emerged as a key strategy in recent years. Developing that strategy requires taking a long, hard look under the hood of capitalism. It requires learning things such as the fact that just seven companies—BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley—collectively own 24% of Citibank, 36% of Bank of America, and 27% of Wells Fargo. It requires learning that state pension funds own substantial shares in fossil fuel-financing banks. The Washington State pension fund, for example, has $1.4 billion in the four largest US banks that make up the world’s four largest funders of fossil fuels; the two big Californian pensions have $9 billion.

At the 2022 shareholder meetings of the big U.S.-based fossil banks between 9% and 13% of investors supported a shareholder resolution urging the banks to immediately end financing for fossil fuel expansion. It was a demand that was in line with what the International Energy Agency has stated is required to give us a 50 percent chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

This year, the resolutions were reintroduced but, based on feedback from shareholders, they were substantially modified. The resolutions no longer called for an immediate cessation of financing for oil and gas expansion. Instead, they called for the banks to plan a “time-bound, phase-out” of such financing. The timeline for the phaseout and the particulars of the policy were to be left to bank management. These changes were made in order to garner increased support from investors. Instead, the opposite happened. Investor support declined at Citi from 12.8% to 9.49%; at Bank of America support plunged from 11% to 7%—which if every investor voted would mean $9.4 billion fewer Bank of America shares voted to end funding for fossil expansion in 2023 than in 2022.

In the last twelve months, one-third of Pakistan has been submerged in flooding that killed thousands and displaced millions. Prolonged heat waves and drought have exacerbated a global food shortage that has raised the number of people living with food insecurity from 440 million to 1.6 billion. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a desperate warning of approaching climate cliffs, and fears have emerged of the impending collapse of oceanic currents critical to Earth’s climate system.

The fact that fewer investors support ending fossil fuel expansion should appall anyone paying attention.

Given this context, the fact that fewer investors support ending fossil fuel expansion should appall anyone paying attention. It’s a sign that our current economic system is fundamentally flawed, that it’s incapable of adapting to the demands of a heating planet, and that investors, the people and institutions at the very heart of our economic system, are incapable of thinking about anything other than the most short-term of profits.

I know this is the part of the article where I’m supposed to pivot to hope, to leave the reader feeling that there’s something they can do, an action they can take that will make a difference. But today, I’m finding solace not in hope, but in anger.

Anger is the rawest of emotions, an emotion uniquely capable of destruction―destruction of both the self and broader society. But anger, properly channeled, is also one of the great motivating forces of social movements. In the face of injustice, we can and we must be angry. Not only is it okay to be angry at the institutions and people pushing us toward irreparable ecological breakdown, it’s essential.

Anger at the institutions hurtling us toward climate breakdown is not only okay and understandable. In the fight to rein in the climate crisis, it might just be our best hope.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Alec Connon.

As soon as today, President Biden is expected to sign into law a budget reconciliation bill with historic climate provisions. Writing these words brings an almost surreal mixture of sheer joy and relief that I know many of you share. Yes, the bill has some real flaws and there’s lots more that will be needed in the years to come; but for today, let’s savor this long-awaited and hard-fought progress, and give thanks for the tremendous effort of so many millions of people that it’s taken to secure it.

On August 7, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 won passage in the Senate along party lines, 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote. The House is expected to pass the bill within days, and it will then move swiftly to the President’s desk for his signature. After decades of delay and inaction, this is a momentous breakthrough for US federal climate action. It’s a breakthrough many of us have fought for and desperately hoped for, for far too long.

This momentous step forward belongs to you, too—each of you who called and wrote letters to your senators and representatives urging them to vote yes for this bill, marched in the streets for climate action, brought home the urgency of the science, and called out the duplicity of fossil fuel interests.

What makes the Inflation Reduction Act historic? Quite simply, the bill puts in place policies and investments that will drive significant cuts in heat-trapping emissions across our economy—the power sector, the transportation sector, buildings, industry, and agriculture. Together with additional EPA pollution standards; additional agency and executive actions; state, local and regional policies; and private sector initiatives, this groundbreaking bill puts the US within striking distance of meeting our climate goal of cutting emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Provisions of the bill would also create good-paying jobs in the US clean energy manufacturing sector, invest billions of dollars toward environmental justice, reduce air and water pollution in communities across the country, and make farmlands and our food supply more resilient. This is in addition to critical healthcare and tax provisions that are also part of the broader budget reconciliation bill. 

My colleagues have been blogging on different aspects of the bill, and you can find those blogs here.

We now have fresh reason for hope at a time when dangerous extreme weather—heatwaves, floods, wildfires, drought and more—is exacting a terrible human and economic toll around the world. The world’s biggest contributor to cumulative heat-trapping emissions is finally taking meaningful action to address the rapidly worsening climate crisis. That will also give wind to the sails of global efforts to curtail heat-trapping emissions, with the potential to spur greater ambition from other major emitters. The overall bill is a big win for climate, jobs, and justice. And it gives us a firm basis to fight for more in the months and years to come.

Nevertheless, given the steep political obstacles along the way, the final bill is imperfect. It includes some provisions that could expand fossil fuel use or delay a transition away from them. We will fight in coalition to fend off the worst outcomes—especially those that put a disproportionate burden on low-income communities and communities of color. The scope of the climate and clean energy investments in the Senate-passed bill was also reduced from earlier iterations, although it still represents the single largest federal investment in climate action to date.

This win did not come easy. Fossil fuel companies and their allies, who have fought progress and spread disinformation for decades, came out in full force against this bill as it wended its way through Congress—and managed to secure some harmful concessions in the final version. Fully half the Senate—the entire Republican caucus—stood on the sidelines even as they had an opportunity to take action to address one of the biggest challenges of our time.

There were many times in the past year when it felt like the odds were too long. When we scrambled to salvage scraps of hope. When we couldn’t bear the thought of telling our children we had failed them, yet again.

That we are at this incredibly hopeful juncture today is a testament to the vision, leadership, and grit of many. First and foremost, this would not have happened without the large and diverse climate movement—including environmental, justice, labor, youth, faith, and business groups—and its strategic, patient (and sometimes appropriately impatient!), and hard work to join forces and push for the most ambitious legislation possible. While we did not succeed on every front, the scope and ambition in the bill owes everything to the broad coalition that pushed for it.

This momentous step forward belongs to you, too—each of you who called and wrote letters to your senators and representatives urging them to vote yes for this bill, marched in the streets for climate action, brought home the urgency of the science, and called out the duplicity of fossil fuel interests.

Thanks are due, too, to Congressional leadership and to the President for continuing to push for dialogue and agreement even when things seemed at an impasse.

Yes, WE did this, together. Together, we are powerful. And we will need to keep working together to fend off the damaging elements included in the bill, while pushing for more action on climate and environmental justice in the years ahead.

I find myself thinking back to when the Paris Agreement was secured in 2015 and the environment minister from South Africa quoted Nelson Mandela in the closing plenary:

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”

Indeed, there is a lot more left to do to secure a truly just and equitable world where all communities can thrive, a world that runs on clean energy, where climate change is no longer an existential threat to people and the planet. The environmental and climate justice movements will need to continue to deepen solidarity and keep up the good fight to make that powerful vision a reality.

With this bill’s passage, let’s take a moment to rest, to give thanks, and to recharge ourselves for the long walk ahead.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Rachel Cleetus.