Regime change on the US agenda

 In 2018, Kenneth Wollack bragged to the US Congress that the NED had given political training to 8,000 young Nicaraguans, many of whom were engaged in a failed attempt to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. Wollack was praising the “democracy-promotion” work carried out by NED, of which he is now vice-chair. Carl Gershman, then president of the NED and giving evidence, was asked about Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, who had been re-elected with an increased majority two years prior. He responded: “Time for him to go.”

Seven years later, Trump took office and it looked as if the NED’s future was endangered. On February 12, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk froze disbursement of its congressionally approved funds. Its activities stopped and its website went blank. On February 24, Richard Grenell, special envoy to Venezuela, declared that “Donald Trump is someone who does not want to make regime changes.”

Washington’s global regime-change operations were immediately impacted and over 2,000 paid US collaborating organizations temporarily defunded. A Biden-appointed judge warned of “potentially catastrophic harm” to (not in her words) US efforts to overturn foreign governments. The howl from the corporate press was deafening. The Associated Press cried: “‘Beacon of freedom’ dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither.”

However, the pause lasted barely a month. On March 10, funding was largely reinstated.  The NED, which “deeply appreciated” the State Department’s volte face, then made public its current program which, in Latin America and the Caribbean alone, includes over 260 projects costing more than $40 million.

US “soft power”

Created in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan following scandals involving the CIA’s covert funding of foreign interventions, the NED was to shift such operations into a more publicly palatable form under the guise of “democracy promotion.” As Allen Weinstein, NED’s first acting president, infamously admitted in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” In short, NED functions as a “soft power arm” of US foreign policy.

The NED disingenuously operates as a 501(c)(3) private nonprofit foundation. However, it is nearly 100% funded by annual appropriations from the US Congress and governed mainly by Washington officials or ex-officials. In reality, it is an instrument of the US state—and, arguably, of the so-called deep state. But its quasi-private status shields it from many of the disclosure requirements that typically apply to taxpayer-funded agencies.

Hence we encounter verbal gymnastics such as those in its “Duty of Care and Public Disclosure Policies.” That document loftily proclaims: “NED holds itself to high standards of transparency and accountability.” Under a discussion of its “legacy” (with no mention of its CIA pedigree), the NGO boasts: “Transparency has always been central to NED’s identity.”

But it continues, “…transparency for oversight differs significantly from transparency for public consumption.” In other words, it is transparent to the State Department but not to the public. The latter are only offered what it euphemistically calls a “curated public listing of grants” – highly redacted and lacking in specific details.

NED enjoys a number of advantages by operating in the nether region between an accountable US government agency and a private foundation. It offers plausible deniability: the US government can use it to support groups doing its bidding abroad without direct attribution, giving Washington a defense from accusations of interference in the internal affairs of other countries. It is also more palatable for foreign institutions to partner with what is ostensibly an NGO, rather than with the US government itself.

The NED can also respond quickly if regime-change initiatives are needed in countries on Washington’s enemy list, circumventing the usual governmental budgeting procedures. And, as illustrated during that congressional presentation in 2018 on Nicaragua, NED’s activities are framed as supporting democracy, human rights, and civil society. It cynically invokes universal liberal values while promoting narrow Yankee geopolitical interests. Thus its programs are sold as altruistic rather than imperial, and earn positive media headlines like the one from the AP cited above.

But a look at NED’s work in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba suggests very much the opposite.

Venezuela

 Venezuela had passed an NGO Oversight Law in 2024. Like the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act, but somewhat less restrictive, the law requires certification of NGOs. As even the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) – an inside-the-beltway promoter of US imperialism with a liberal gloss –  admits: “Many Venezuelan organizations receiving US support have not been public about being funding recipients.”

The pace of Washington’s efforts in Venezuela temporarily slowed with the funding pause, as US-funded proxies had to focus on their own survival. Venezuelan government officials, cheering the pause, viewed the NED’s interference in their internal affairs as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. In contrast, the US-funded leader of the far-right opposition, Maria Corina Machado, begged for international support to make up for the shortfall from Washington.

WOLA bemoaned that the funding freeze allowed the “Maduro government to further delegitimize NGOs” paid by the US. Hundreds of US-funded organizations, they lamented, “now face the grim choice of going underground, relocating abroad, or shutting down operations altogether.”

With the partial reinstatement of funding, now bankrolling at least 39 projects costing $3.4 million, former US senator and present NED board member Mel Martinez praised the NED for its “tremendous presence in Venezuela… supporting the anti-Maduro movement.”

Nicaragua

 Leading up to the 2018 coup attempt, the NED had funded 54 projects worth over $4 million. Much of this went to support supposedly “independent” media, in practice little more than propaganda outlets for Nicaragua’s opposition groups. Afterward, the NED-funded online magazine Global Americans revealed that the NED had “laid “the groundwork for insurrection” in Nicaragua.

One of the main beneficiaries, Confidencial, is owned by the Chamorro family, two of whose members later announced intentions to stand in Nicaragua’s 2021 elections. The family received well over $5 million in US government funding, either from the NED or directly from USAID (now absorbed into the State Department). In 2022, Cristiana Chamorro, who handled much of this funding, was found guilty of money laundering. Her eight-year sentence was commuted to house arrest; after a few months she was given asylum in the US.

Of the 22 Nicaragua-related projects which NED has resumed funding, one third sponsor “independent” media. While the recipients’ names are undisclosed, it is almost certain that this funding is either for outlets like Confidencial (now based in Costa Rica), or else is going direct to leading opponents of the Sandinista government to pay for advertisements currently appearing in Twitter and other social media.

Cuba

 In Latin America, Cuba is targeted with the highest level of NED spending – $6.6 million covering 46 projects. One stated objective is to create “a more well-informed, critically minded citizenry,” which appears laughable to anyone who has been to Cuba and talked to ordinary people there – generally much better informed about world affairs than a typical US citizen.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez criticized the NED’s destabilizing activities, such as financing 54 anti-Cuba organizations since 2017. He advised the US administration to review “how many in that country [the US] have enriched themselves organizing destabilization and terrorism against Cuba with support from that organization.”

Washington not only restored NED funding for attacks on Cuba but, on May 15, added Cuba to the list of countries that “do not fully cooperate with its anti-terrorist efforts.”

 The NED: Covert influence in the name of democracy

 Anyone with a basic familiarity with the Washington’s workings is likely to be aware of the NED’s covert role. Yet the corporate media – behaving as State Department stenographers and showing no apparent embarrassment – have degenerated to the point where they regularly portray the secretly funded NED outlets as “independent” media serving the targeted countries.

Case in point: Washington Post columnist Max Boot finds it “sickening” that Trump is “trying [to] end US government support for democracy abroad.” He is concerned because astroturf “democracy promotion groups” cannot exist without the flow of US government dollars. He fears the “immense tragedy” of Trump’s executive order to cut off funding (now partially reinstated) for the US Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of the Voice of America, Radio Marti, and other propaganda outlets.

Behind the moralistic appeals to democracy promotion and free press is a defense of the US imperial project to impose itself on countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. Those sanctioned countries, targeted for regime change, need free access to food, fuel, medicines and funding for development. They don’t need to hear US propaganda beamed to them or generated locally by phonily “independent” media.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Perry and Roger D. Harris.

As Trump-Musk take a hatchet to American higher education, I marvel at the thought that there are hundreds if not thousands of Curtins (maybe not as good) across the vast US, most at small liberal arts colleges, all in love with words and wisdom, all teaching their students lovingly, urging them to THINK. That is surely the beauty of America, the promise to take the world’s poor and reviled and give them the chance to be someone, do something worthwhile.

Curtin, from his earliest memories, saw that conventional life was a provocation because it hid more than it revealed; that it harbored secrets that could not be exposed or else the make-believe nature of normal life would collapse like a cardboard set. Like everyone, I was ushered onto this Shakespearean stage and have acted out many roles assigned to me, but always with the inner consciousness that something was amiss. Everyone seemed to be playing someone, but who was the player? Is the role playing us? Are we marionettes in some pipe dream, and is there an author behind it? God? The devil? Capitalism?

Curtin’s postmodern credo comes from Thoreau: We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. There are no neutral observers.

His goal: to oppose these scoundrels and their ilk who kill and wage endless wars against innocents around the world, in a way that will delight and last a little while.

Writing as music

Curtin admits he is obsessed with words. That they play him. He, in turn, uses them to produce both astute political analyses and art in luminescent words and sentences that pulsate. I think of them as intertwined lovers. AI is taking capitalism to its Faustian apotheosis, to mechanize us all, to eliminate passion and will. Reduce thought to dead words. Curtin compares his writing to composing, hoping to leave a fresh song in your heart, something to help you see the pageant of our lives in more than just dead words.

In The End of the Speed Limit on the Highway to Nowhere, he compares us to Sisyphus but without the illusion of ascent, merely going in a circle, returning to the same grey reality of the freedom-to-choose-what-is-always-the-same, seen as a mediated, rootless reality that is no reality at all. Yes, you can fly anywhere in the world (if you are part of SWIFT), but you will find the same McDonald’s and box stores, more or less the same sandy beaches, and souvenirs made in China. Fake diversity. Fake news, to quote our fake king-of-the-world.

We are flooded with unneeded techno ‘miracles’, but without roots we are swept away by them, our mediated reality providing no signposts for where we are headed, no warnings of pitfalls that threaten our real Reality and us, allowing us to pause, to take a stand. Root in Latin is radix, i.e., radical, which today means extreme, as if we unconsciously mold our thinking to beware of rootedness in our rootless world, where having roots is suspect, even reactionary. We celebrated rootlessness, the dream of travel, and escape as the best experience. How many of us live/die where we were born?

How language betrays us! Betray as in reveal and subvert. Curtin calls himself a contrarian and relishes contronyms (e.g., betray, fast, sanction, wear, weather, wind up). I’m big on antonyms that our mediated reality turns into identities, e.g., war = peace, progress = regress, bad = good. We see how language reveals much about our muddled thinking, storing clues from the past, and warning us of our illusions.

Guy Debord begins The Society of the Spectacle with a tongue-in-cheek parody of Marx’s opening of Kapital: In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Like Marx’s commodities, spectacles are ‘use values’, but even more removed from the consumer than bubble gum or a sports car, as they happen only in your mind, illusion pure and simple, reality so artfully mediated that you pay your money, enjoy, and blissfully forget and move on to the next instalment.

No Virgil to guide us

Today’s ‘great reset’ just may succeed because we have lost the most important roots, our spirituality, buried beneath a heap of commodity-spectacles. Walking through the forest to the genuinely spectacular Taughannock Falls, Curtin gloomily ponders the massacre of Iroquois two centuries ago and asks: Is there any place on this blood-soaked earth where a semi-conscious person can rest easy?

He sees our descent into our current Hell/abyss as starting with Reagan, enshrining illusion in the White House, his assigning communism to the trash heap of history, his attack on social welfare, and his ignorance of the environment. All the presidents since have been variations on his MAGA—even Clinton and Obama credit Reagan as their inspiration. Reagan certainly helped collapse the Soviet Union, but he turned the US into a one-party state, taking his lead from the moribund communists.

And we accept it, as we are trapped in a simulacrum reality, a closed system, a solipsism.

We have no Virgil to guide us through Hell and set us on the road to enlightenment. Wait! We have AI to do that for us. Our worship of the machine is such that as the machine ‘matures’, we have let it take our place, to think for us, even to simulate emotions, speaking as if emoting. The Turing test. The machine’s goal is Darwinian, too: survival of the fittest. Unless we rediscover the miracle of life, root ourselves in a genuine experience of Reality, take back control from the machine, and even ban or dismantle it where it is harmful.

Curtin is a postmodernist, drawing inspiration from the French Debord and Baudrillard. And looks to Joyce for a way forward. In The Contronymal Cage, he quotes Joyce on the language of Joyce’s English-born Jesuit dean of studies, who speaks a different English from that of the Irish rebel. We must take control of our language, be conscious of where it came from, its roots, and how it is used to keep us trapped now in a simulacrum hyperreality, as language constitutes reality as much as it describes it.

Red pill time

There is no ‘heppi end’ to the stories we weave (or rather that weave us) in the Matrix. Poetry is an escape route, unashamedly subjective, rebellious, and questioning. Another way is the essay, as Curtin knows well, and Edward Said, who argued that his nation, Palestine, is a narrative; that we must tell our stories of distorted reality and oppression to escape the Matrix and root ourselves in unmediated Reality. Throw off Blake’s ‘mind-forged manacles’. Recognize that life is not a dead mechanism but is conscious, that we are part of a conscious universe, not as Sisyphus repeating his tortured, pointless circle of unreality, but as Dante, guided in his spiritual quest by the great minds of the past, teaching us to distinguish the devil from God.

What about virtual reality? It sounds ominous, blurring the line between reality and fantasy, but not if we are aware. That goes for all techno miracles. And I for one would much prefer to take a virtual reality trip to visit Mecca in the 7th c than to squash Nature with a huge carbon footprint just to say ‘Kilroy was here’ in a dystopian 21st c Mecca. We can use technology wisely, even reject it if it destroys Nature, undermines society, and kills my soul.

Though raised a Christian, and admiring Jesus, King, Romero, and all those who have died trying to make peace and justice a reality, Curtin is a secular humanist, not looking to traditional religions for answers to ‘why?’ today. He bemoans our loss of spirituality but doesn’t urge Christians to revive their faith, as I suspect he sees it threadbare. That’s where I point my finger. We need faith! That vacuum in my life led me to Islam as the only faith that is still alive, meaningful in a meaningless late capitalism.

Islam was supposedly backward compared to the progressive West. But looking back now, I would suggest we would be much better off if the age of technology had arrived much more slowly, with a spiritual quest still the goal. The West lost its ailing Catholic spirituality with the Protestant Reformation, as it embraced capitalism and became a false spirituality, a materialism masquerading as spirituality, a treacherous inversion of our most fundamental, radical truth. Islam is slowly breaking its shackles, inflicted by the ‘progressive’ capitalist imperialist countries, which occupied Muslim lands, did the usual rape-and-pillage, and even attempted to erase millions of Muslims in Palestine, stealing their land, their spiritual heritage, which is rooted in the Real. Islam does not need Debord or Baudrillard to tell us that our reality is an illusion, that the ‘modern’ world has lost its soul, that the truth lies in the ‘backward’ world, the precapitalist, spirit-based civilizations. Islam’s immunity to ‘progress’ is its saving grace, as it answers our need for meaning in life, which is timeless, technologyless.

Beware the counterinitiations

René Guénon is the 20th-century thinker who first deconstructed the embrace of modernism in The Crisis of the Modern World (1927). He converted to Islam in the 1930s and embraced a traditional lifestyle, rejecting for the most part the illusory technology of the 20th century for ‘spiritual technologies’, even as our capitalist/ socialist societies pushed ahead to carry out greater and greater monstrosities. We have lost our highest faculty, intellectual intuition, i.e., direct apperception or gnosis. We have lost the very possibility of spiritual realization. The Soviet secular spirituality was the first to collapse, and Russia has returned to its Christian Orthodoxy roots, i.e., there is an exit ramp ‘back to the future’.

Gueon coined the term ‘counterinitiation’, movements that are spiritual doppelgangers that mimic authentic spirituality. Protestantism’s embrace of capitalism is the greatest such ruse, which explains the thousands of evangelical sects all claiming to be true. Now you can fashion your own spirituality with a dash of tarot, yoga, and mindfulness. No! We must rediscover the wisdom of traditional religions, which have been discarded on our highway to nowhere. We need a great cosmic reset. Curtin sees himself as a contrarian, infatuated with contronyms. Language is a powerful repository of wisdom, embedded in great literature, especially poetry. But he doesn’t go the extra mile.

Without a love, not just of words, but of spirituality, sacred words, essays like Curtin’s just depress me. In Hindu lore, we are in the declining period of civilization, known as the Kali Yuga (the Age of Darkness). It began with the rise of agriculture in 3000 BC, which unmoored us from our spiritual roots, embracing money, private property, and slavery. Three thousand years is a long nightmare, but it is also the necessary precursor to renewal, the cosmic reset.

The Arts (I like to use caps for the ‘Real thing’) is our avenue for spiritual truths. Our screeds help us see the world in 4d (virtual reality a gimmicky version of this serious path), connect us with our Real environment, not the phony mediated environment of consumer capitalism. As for sacred vs profane, no, no! Everything is sacred, alive, to be connected with meaningfully, loved/hated. There is no neutral observer. I write with passion, or my writing is dead. And as for mindless rituals. No, no! The ritual of prayer is an active form of knowledge, a path to participate in eternal truths, our metaphysical roadmap, showing us the exit ramp from our highway to know-where. (Don’t you love language?)

JFK and 9/11 litmus tests

Curtin includes a long article about JFK. The Life and Public Assassination of John F Kennedy, one on JFK and Dulles, and The Assassination and Mrs. Paine. His great courage in the face of an assassination he expected can inspire us to oppose the systemic forces of evil that control the United States and are leading the world into the abyss. And one on Bob Dylan (‘our Emerson’) and his 2020 song about the assassination Murder Most Foul (thank you, Hamlet), whose lyrics about the conspiracy are ignored or mocked by our doppelganger media. Neither Dylan nor Walberg is going ‘gentle into that good night’, to quote Bob’s model and namesake Dylan Thomas.

I like Curtin sharing personal experiences. There aren’t any independent, neutral observers or observations. He’s not dogmatic. A 9/11 essay at the Berkshire Edge (not included, a shame as the litmus test these days is where you stand on that elephant-in-the-room) dismisses the official story, assumes a conspiracy of the elite directed by the CIA. As for charges of Israel and Mossad, he’s skeptical both here and on JFK, arguing the CIA is too powerful to let that happen ‘outside the box’. I would point to many instances from the King David Hotel in 1948 to many, many assassinations of Palestinian — any — leaders it doesn’t like (Arafat and hundreds of guerrilla leaders). There is an unspoken hit list always in the creation, much like Ukraine’s Myrotvorets. No group, official or unofficial, comes near to Israel. Bin Laden, eat your heart out.

Personally (remember, no neutral writers!), I think only Israeli terrorists are cynical and smart enough to do such a thing, using Saudi youth as patsies. Funny, Jews have been the world’s leading terrorists since Israel was created, and are exonerated, pointing the finger at the Muslim victims, defending themselves as the real terrorists. Curtin’s mild dissidence/apostasy went unpunished, except for a few comments ridiculing him as another conspiracy nut. I suspect he would have been treated much more severely if he had labeled Israelis, i.e., secular Jewish fanatics, as the perpetrators of JFK’s murder and/or 9/11.

My sense is that Americans are too spooked, too afraid to point the finger at Israel as the villain-in-chief in the world today, largely responsible for our descent into Hell. US-Israel is tattooed on American minds. A spiritual mark of Cain in our dystopia, making sure we are ready for the mental gas chamber. Are tattoos removable? It’s very hard, painful, and leaves a scar. But, hey!, purging yourself of society’s inhumanity is worth it. Down with tattoos! They are haram in Islam with good reason. Our only identity needed to live a good life is identifying with God, trying to perfect ourselves, and getting as close to Him (not ‘him’) as possible. The world and our special place in it are the only proof we need of who we are and where we’re going.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Walberg.

The bombed remains of automobiles with the bombed Federal Building in the background, April 19, 1995.

In other circumstances, we don’t have to wonder. We know.

It happens to writers a lot. It’s often our and stock-in-trade.

I know exactly what I was thinking after the Oklahoma City bombing thirty years ago today, and it was not popular. But I recorded it in the April 25, 1995 edition of The Shorthorn at the University of Texas-Arlington. And the math sucks. It’s aged much better than the author.

In the Aftermath

To terrorize is to dominate or coerce by intimidation, the threat of violence, or the calculated perpetration of destruction, catastrophe, assassination, murder, etc. In the popular mind, terrorism is qualified by additional connotations. People recognize it as a vicious, cold-blooded attack on defenseless civilians or bystanding innocents. Few crimes are judged with such an unchallenged sense of vehement righteousness. Perpetrators of terrorism are hounded with unparalleled sanctimony and fanatic zeal. I read President Clinton’s pledge in the newspaper: “Nobody can hide any place in this country; nobody can hide any place in this world from the terrible consequences of what has been done.”

Indeed, I think . . . unless they are American.

Reports of the Oklahoma City bombing shock, enrage, and sadden me, but an ancient adage haunts my conscience: Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

For the last four decades, the United States has perpetrated terrorist activities around the world. Our remorseless work in Vietnam, before and during the war, provided a chilling catalogue of American terrorism. The CIA-planned and CIA-executed assassination of the democratically-elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, evidenced a harrowing propensity for terrorist realpolitik. And the United States has repeatedly installed and/or subsidized puppet dictators around the world who perform terrorist acts on their own constituencies.

On a subtler level, in cases such as Israel and, until recently, South Africa, we support governments that permit, if not directly sanction, terrorist enterprises against their own indigenous populations, ranging from summary executions to simple violations of the most basic human rights.

I see tattered infant-victims of the bombing in Oklahoma City and cringe, rueful and angry.

But my jaw also stiffens as I recall the Guatemalan and El Salvadoran “Death Squads,” the genocidal military wings of regimes we encouraged and assisted in rises to power in Central America.

In Guatemala, we supported the coup against and eventual overthrow of democratically elected president Jacob Arbenz. The faction we bet on—and invested in—began an incomprehensible reign of terror, decimating over 440 indigenous villages, conducting an estimated 100,000 political killings (more than 40,000 termed “disappearances”), and leaving over 200,000 children orphaned. And our man in Chile, General Augusto Pinochet, upstaged his Guatemalan counterparts, employing tortures that included inserting sabers in vaginas and disemboweling female victims while their families watched.

And who can forget the “fraidy-Eighties” under Ronnie Reagan?

No one in Nicaragua can.

Men, women and children no different than the citizens of Oklahoma City were afraid all the time, and not just over one incident, but several every week. Besides funding and arming the Contras, we also published and distributed a terrorist handbook for their training. The CIA called it a “Freedom Fighters Manual,” but it included, among other things, detailed instructions (with illustrations) for making and utilizing Molotov cocktails.

And these are just are just a few of the examples where U.S. involvement in terrorist activities actually became public. There were no doubt countless others. In fact, by popular definition, the largest single terrorist atrocity in human history was the allied firebombing of Dresden, Germany in World War II. Although it occurred during wartime, it was a vicious, calculated attack on a virtually defenseless civilian community.

The second and third largest terrorist atrocities in world history were probably our nuclear strikes in Japan. These incidents pale in comparison to the widespread pogroms of Hitler, Belgium’s King Leopold, and the Catholic Church, but genocide is not a single act or terrorism—it constitutes a regimen of terrorism (of which our nation could be accused of domestically regarding indigenous people and Blacks and also in much of the Third World in general).

As Americans, we are largely and more recently unaccustomed to displays of first-hand terrorist bloodshed, but, for much of the rest of the world, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. They live with it every day.

I shudder at the scenes from Oklahoma City; but I also quake at our bloody ignorance. Did we think our acts of terror would never be reciprocated? Or that our fellow citizens were incapable of them?

Did we really think we could be immune from terrorism after having so long been one of its chief contagions?!

American terrorism has, however, evolved. Now, it’s openly encouraged and sanctioned by our commander-and-chief.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by E.R. Bills.

In its current iteration, it is inspired by the Israeli “Iron Dome” multilayered defensive shield, a matter that raised an immediate problem, given the trademark ownership of the name by the Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Given the current administration’s obsession with all things golden, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has dubbed this revived endeavour “Golden Dome for America”. The renaming was noted in a February 24 amendment to request for information from industry. Much sniggering is surely in order at, not only the name itself, but the stumbling.

Reagan, even as he began suffering amnesiac decline, believed that the United States could be protected by a shield against any attack by Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. The technology intended for that endeavour, much of it requiring a space component, was thin on research and non-existent in development. The envisaged use of laser weapons from space and terrestrial components drew much derision: the President had evidently been too engrossed by the Star Wars films of George Lucas.

The source for this latest initiative (“deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield”) is an executive order signed on January 27 titled “The Iron Dome for America”. (That was before the metallurgical change of name.) The order asserts from the outset that “The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles and other advanced aerial attacks remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.” It acknowledges Reagan’s SDI but strikes a note of disappointment at its cancellation “before its goal could be realized.” Progress on such a system since the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 had been confined to “limited homeland defense” efforts that “remained only to stay ahead of rogue-nation threats and accidental or unauthorized missile launches.”

The Secretary of Defense is also directed, within 60 days, to submit to Trump “a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield.” Such a shield would defend the US from “ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles and the other next-generation attacks from peer, near-peer and rogue adversaries.” Among some of the plans are the accelerated deployment of a hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor layer; development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors and the development and deployment of capabilities that will neutralise missile assaults “prior to launch and in the boost phase”.

The original SDI was heavy on the intended development and use of energy weapons, lasers being foremost among them. But even after four decades, US technological prowess remains unable to deploy such weapons of sufficient power and accuracy to eliminate drones or missiles. The Israelis claim to have overcome this problem with their Iron Beam high energy laser weapon system, which should see deployment later this year. For that reason, Lockheed Martin has partnered with Israeli firm Rafael to bring that technology into the US arsenal.

To date, Steven J. Morani, currently discharging duties as undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, has given little away about the herculean labours that have been set. “Consistent with protecting the homeland and per President Trump’s [executive order],” he told the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington earlier this month, “we’re working with the industrial base and [through] supply chain challenges associated with standing up the Golden Dome.” He admitted that this was “like the monster systems engineering problem” made even more difficult by being “the monster integration problem”.

The list of demerits to Golden Dome are many, and Morani alludes to them. For one, the Israeli Iron Dome operates across much smaller territory, not a continent. The sheer scale of any defence shield to protect such a vast swathe of land would be, not merely from a practical point but a budgetary one, absurd. A space-based interceptor system, a point that echoes Reagan’s Star Wars fantasy, would require thousands of units to successfully intercept one hefty ballistic missile. Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute has offered a calculation: a system of 1,900 satellites would cost somewhere between US$11 and US$27 billion to develop, build and launch.

A study for Defence and Peace Economics published this year goes further. The authors argue that, even if the US had appropriate ballistic missile defence technology and a sufficient number of interceptors to be distributed in a two-layer defence with an efficiency return of 90%, 8 times more would have to be spent than the attacker for a bill between US$60 and US$500 billion. If it was assumed that individual interceptor effectiveness was a mere 50%, and the system could not discriminate against decoys, the cost would be 70 times more, with a staggering bill of US$430 billion to US$5.3 trillion.

The most telling flaw in Golden Dome is one long identified, certainly by the more sober members of the establishment, in the annals of defence. “The fundamental problem with any plan for a national missile defense system against nuclear attack,” writes Xiaodon Liang in an Arms Control Association issues brief, “is that cost-exchange ratios favor the offense and US adversaries can always choose to build up or diversify their strategic forces to overwhelm a potential shield.” As Liang goes on to remark, the missile shield fantasy defies a cardinal rule of strategic competition: “the enemy always gets a vote.”

Monster system; monstrous integration issues. Confusion with the name and trademark problems. Strategically misguided, even foolish. Golden Dome, it would seem, is already being steadied for a swallow dive.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Woman at rally supporting peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Berlin, Germany.  (Photo: Reuters)

When European Union leaders met in Brussels on February 6 to discuss the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron called this time “a turning point in history.” Western leaders agree that this is an historic moment when decisive action is needed, but what kind of action depends on their interpretation of the nature of this moment.

Is this the beginning of a new Cold War between the U.S., NATO and Russia or the end of one? Will Russia and the West remain implacable enemies for the foreseeable future, with a new iron curtain between them through what was once the heart of Ukraine? Or can the United States and Russia resolve the disputes and hostility that led to this war in the first place, so as to leave Ukraine with a stable and lasting peace?

Some European leaders see this moment as the beginning of a long struggle with Russia, akin to the beginning of the Cold War in 1946, when Winston Churchill warned that “an iron curtain has descended” across Europe.

On March 2, echoing Churchill, European Council President Ursula von der Leyen declared that Europe must turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine.” President Zelenskyy has said he wants up to 200,000 European troops on the eventual ceasefire line between Russia and Ukraine to “guarantee” any peace agreement, and insists that the United States must provide a “backstop,” meaning a commitment to send U.S. forces to fight in Ukraine if war breaks out again.

Russia has repeatedly said it won’t agree to NATO forces being based in Ukraine under any guise. “We explained today that the appearance of armed forces from the same NATO countries, but under a false flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags, does not change anything in this regard,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on February 18. “Of course this is unacceptable to us.”

But the U.K. is persisting in a campaign to recruit a “coalition of the willing,” the same term the U.S. and U.K. coined for the list of countries they persuaded to support the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. In that case, only Australia, Denmark and Poland took small parts in the invasion, Costa Rica publicly insisted on being removed from the list, and the term was widely lampooned as the “coalition of the billing” because the U.S. recruited so many countries to join it by promising them lucrative foreign aid deals.

Far from the start of a new Cold War, President Trump and other leaders see this moment as more akin to the end of the original Cold War, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik in Iceland in 1986 and began to bridge the divisions caused by 40 years of Cold War hostility.

Like Trump and Putin today, Reagan and Gorbachev were unlikely peacemakers. Gorbachev had risen through the ranks of the Soviet Communist Party to become its General Secretary and Soviet Premier in March 1985, in the midst of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and he didn’t begin to withdraw Soviet forces from Afghanistan until 1988. Reagan oversaw an unprecedented Cold War arms build-up, a U.S.-backed genocide in Guatemala and covert and proxy wars throughout Central America. And yet Gorbachev and Reagan are now widely remembered as peacemakers.

While Democrats deride Trump as a Putin stooge, in his first term in office Trump was actually responsible for escalating the Cold War with Russia. After the Pentagon had milked its absurd, self-fulfilling “War on Terror” for trillions of dollars, it was Trump and his psychopathic Defense Secretary, General “Mad Dog” Mattis, who declared the shift back to strategic competition with Russia and China as the Pentagon’s new gravy train in their 2018 National Defense Strategy. It was also Trump who lifted President Obama’s restrictions on sending offensive weapons to Ukraine.

Trump’s head-spinning about-turn in U.S. policy has left its European allies with whiplash and reversed the roles they each have played for generations. France and Germany have traditionally been the diplomats and peacemakers in the Western alliance, while the U.S. and U.K. have been infected with a chronic case of war fever that has proven resistant to a long string of military defeats and catastrophic impacts on every country that has fallen prey to their warmongering.

In 2003, France’s Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin led the opposition to the invasion of Iraq in the UN Security Council. France, Germany and Russia issued a joint statement to say that they would “not let a proposed resolution pass that would authorize the use of force. Russia and France, as permanent members of the Security Council, will assume all their responsibilities on this point.”

At a press conference in Paris with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, French President Jacques Chirac said, “Everything must be done to avoid war… As far as we’re concerned, war always means failure.”

As recently as 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, it was once again the U.S. and U.K. that rejected and blocked peace negotiations in favor of a long war, while France, Germany and Italy continued to call for new negotiations, even as they gradually fell in line with the U.S. long war policy.

Former German Chancellor Schröder took part in the peace negotiations in Turkey in March and April 2022, and flew to Moscow at Ukraine’s request to meet with Putin. In an interview with Berliner Zeitung in 2023, Schröder confirmed that the peace talks only failed “because everything was decided in Washington.”

With Biden still blocking new negotiations in 2023, one of the interviewers asked Schröder “Do you think you can resume your peace plan?”

Schröder replied, “Yes, and the only ones who can initiate this are France and Germany… Macron and Scholz are the only ones who can talk to Putin. Chirac and I did the same in the Iraq war. Why can’t support for Ukraine be combined with an offer of talks to Russia? The arms deliveries are not a solution for eternity. But no one wants to talk. Everyone sits in trenches. How many more people have to die?”

Since 2022, President Macron and a Thatcherite team of iron ladies – European Council President von der Leyen; former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock; and Estonia’s former prime minister Kaja Kallas, now the EU’s foreign policy chief – have promoted a new militarization of Europe, egged on from behind the scenes by European and U.S. arms manufacturers.

Has the passage of time, the passing of the World War II generation and the distortion of history washed away the historical memory of two world wars from a continent that was destroyed by war only 80 years ago? Where is the next generation of French and German diplomats in the tradition of de Villepin and Schröder today? How can sending German tanks to fight in Ukraine, and now in Russia itself, fail to remind Russians of previous German invasions and solidify support for the war? And won’t the call for Europe to confront Russia by moving from a “welfare state to a warfare state” only feed the rise of the European hard right?

So are the new European militarists reading the historical moment correctly? Or are they jumping on the bandwagon of a disastrous Cold War that could, as Biden and Trump have warned, lead to World War III?

When Trump’s foreign policy team met with their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia on February 18, ending the war in Ukraine was the second part of the three-part plan they agreed on. The first was to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia, and the third was to work on a series of other problems in U.S.-Russian relations.

The order of these three stages is interesting, because, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted, it means that the negotiations over Ukraine will be the first test of restored relations between the U.S. and Russia.

If the negotiations for peace in Ukraine are successful, they can lead to further negotiations over restoring arms control treaties, nuclear disarmament and cooperation on other global problems that have been impossible to resolve in a world stuck in a zombie-like Cold War that powerful interests would not allow to die.

It was a welcome change to hear Secretary Rubio say that the post-Cold War unipolar world was an anomaly and that now we have to adjust to the reality of a multipolar world. But if Trump and his hawkish advisers are just trying to restore U.S. relations with Russia as part of a “reverse Kissinger” scheme to isolate China, as some analysts have suggested, that would perpetuate America’s debilitating geopolitical crisis instead of solving it.

The United States and our friends in Europe have a new chance to make a clean break from the three-way geopolitical power struggle between the United States, Russia and China that has hamstrung the world since the 1970s, and to find new roles and priorities for our countries in the emerging multipolar world of the 21st Century.

We hope that Trump and European leaders can recognize the crossroads at which they are standing, and the chance history is giving them to choose the path of peace. France and Germany in particular should remember the wisdom of Dominique de Villepin, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder in the face of U.S. and British plans for aggression against Iraq in 2003.

This could be the beginning of the end of the permanent state of war and Cold War that has held the world in its grip for more than a century. Ending it would allow us to finally prioritize the progress and cooperation we so desperately need to solve the other critical problems the whole world is facing in the 21st Century. As General Milley said back in November 2022 when he called for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, we must “seize the moment.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.

Twenty years ago this month, on December 10, 2004, former San Jose Mercury News investigative reporter Gary Webb died by apparent suicide, following a stretch of depression. The subject of the 2014 film Kill the Messenger, Webb had left the newspaper in 1997 after his career was systematically destroyed because he had done what journalists are supposed to do: speak truth to power.

Journalist Gary Webb (1955–2004)

In August 1996, Webb penned a three-part series for the Mercury News (8/18–20/96) that documented how profits from the sale of crack cocaine in Los Angeles in the 1980s had been funneled to the Contras, the right-wing, CIA-backed mercenary army responsible for helping to perpetrate, to borrow Noam Chomsky’s words, “large-scale terrorist war” against Nicaragua. At the same time, the crack epidemic had devastated Black communities in South Central LA—which meant that Webb’s series generated understandable uproar among Black Americans across the country.

But Webb’s revelations should hardly have been a newsflash. As FAIR’s Jim Naureckas (10/21/14) noted in a 2014 dispatch, the CIA was informed

as early as September 1981 that a major branch of the Contra “leadership had made a decision to engage in drug-smuggling to the United States in order to finance its anti-Sandinista operations,” according to the CIA inspector general’s report.

Not that the CIA was any stranger to drug-running—as indicated by, inter alia, a 1993 op-ed appearing in the New York Times (12/3/93) under the headline “The CIA Drug Connection Is as Old as the Agency.” The essay traced CIA ties to narco-trafficking back to the Korean War, while the Vietnam War reportedly saw heroin from a refining lab in Laos “ferried out on the planes of the CIA’s front airline, Air America.” The piece went on to emphasize that “nowhere…was the CIA more closely tied to drug traffic than it was in Pakistan” during the Afghan/Soviet war of 1979 to 1989.

Decade-long suppression of evidence

Norman Solomon (Extra!, 1–2/97): “Besides self-serving denials, journalistic critics of the Mercury News offered little to rebut the paper’s specific pieces of evidence.”

And yet, in spite of such established reality, Webb was subjected to a concerted assault by the corporate media, most notably the New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times, as detailed in a 1997 intervention by FAIR’s Norman Solomon (Extra!, 1–2/97). The media hit job relied heavily on denials from the CIA itself—as in “CIA Chief Denies Crack Conspiracy” (11/16/96), one of the examples cited by Solomon—which is kind of like saying that the bear investigated the sticky goo on his paws and determined that he was not the one who got into the honeypot. In December 1997, the same month Webb left the Mercury News after being discredited across the board and abandoned by his own editors, the New York Times (12/19/97) reassured readers that the “CIA Says It Has Found No Link Between Itself and Crack Trade.”

As Solomon argued, “The elite media’s attacks on the series were clearly driven by a need to defend their shoddy record on the Contra-cocaine story—involving a decade-long suppression of evidence” (Extra!, 7/87; see also 3–4/88). Time and again, the nation’s leading media outlets had buried or obstructed news suggesting Contra-cocaine links; Naureckas (10/21/14) pointed out that the Washington Post

ignored Robert Parry and Brian Barger’s groundbreaking AP article (12/20/85), which first revealed the involvement of Contras in drug-running, and then failed to follow up as smaller papers reported on Contra-related cocaine traffic in their backyards (In These Times, 8/5/87).

As a senior Time magazine editor acknowledged to a staff writer whose 1987 story on Contra-related cocaine traffic was ultimately scrapped (Extra!, 11/91) : “Time is institutionally behind the Contras. If this story were about the Sandinistas and drugs, you’d have no trouble getting it in the magazine.”

‘Hospitable to the most bizarre rumors’

In addition to attacking Webb, many media commentators took care to suggest that the reason Black Americans were so up in arms over the Mercury News series was that they were simply prone to conspiracy theories and paranoia. In October 1996, for instance, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen (10/24/96) declared pompously that “a piece of Black America remains hospitable to the most bizarre rumors and myths—the one about the CIA and crack being just one.” Bizarre, indeed, that Black folks might be not so trusting of the government in a country founded on, um, slavery—where to this day, racist persecution remains standard operating procedure rather than rumor.

Furthermore, much of the CIA’s behavior over the years beats any conspiracy theory hands down. The agency’s mind-control program MKUltra comes to mind, which operated from 1953 until the early 1960s and entailed administering drugs like LSD to people in twisted and psychologically destructive experiments. Stephen Kinzer, author of Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, described in an interview with NPR (11/20/20) how MKUltra

was essentially a continuation of work that began in Japanese and Nazi concentration camps. Not only was it roughly based on those experiments, but the CIA actually hired the vivisectionists and the torturers who had worked in Japan and in Nazi concentration camps to come and explain what they had found out so that we could build on their research.

In 2012, NBC News reported on a lawsuit against the US federal government by the “sons of a Cold War scientist who plunged to his death in 1953 several days after unwittingly taking LSD in a CIA mind-control experiment.” In short, who needs conspiracy theories when you have the CIA?

Connecting the dots

Peter Hart (FAIR.org, 5/20/13): “If accountability for genocide is an important value, then it would stand to reason that US media would pay some attention to a genocide that our own government facilitated.”

The question remains, however, as to why Webb underwent such a vicious assault when, at the end of the day, Contra drug-running was no more nefarious than anything else Washington was up to in the Americas. Objectively speaking, reports of the infliction of “large-scale terrorist war” against Nicaraguan civilians should have raised the same alarms, and prompted as extreme an establishment backlash, as narco-activity by CIA mercenaries. Plus, the whole Iran/Contra scandal should have already alerted Americans to their government’s propensity for lying—not to mention violating its own laws.

Around the same time that the US was enabling Contra crimes, of course, it was also backing genocide in Guatemala, facilitating mass slaughter by the right-wing Salvadoran military and allied paramilitary groups, and nurturing Battalion 316, “a CIA-trained military unit that terrorized Honduras for much of the 1980s”—as the Baltimore Sun (6/13/95) put it. In December 1989, the US went about bombing the living daylights out of the impoverished Panama City neighborhood of El Chorrillo, killing up to several thousand civilians and earning the area the moniker “Little Hiroshima.”

While Contra drug-running thus cohered just fine with imperial foreign policy, it seems that Webb’s fundamental crime was connecting the dots between US-backed wars on civilians abroad and the US war on its own domestic population, which continues to disproportionately target Black communities. After all, under capitalism, all men are not created equal, and the institutionalized overlap of racial and socioeconomic inequality partially explains why African Americans have a lower life expectancy than whites—and how we’ve ended up in a situation in which white police officers regularly shoot unarmed Black people.

But there we go again with those “bizarre” conspiracy theories.

Now, two decades after Webb’s death, the US government obviously hasn’t managed to kick the habit of wreaking lethal havoc at home and abroad—including in the Gaza Strip, where US funding of the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians has been accompanied by a calculated media campaign to obscure reality. Rather than speak truth to power, journalists have lined up to faithfully spout one untruth after another on power’s behalf, rendering themselves effectively complicit in genocide itself. And as the major outlets trip over each other to toe the establishment line, the corporate media is more of a conspiracy than ever.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Belén Fernández.

Carter’s administration behaved much like most of the Democratic presidencies to follow him. Translated: sucking up to Wall Street and the War Cabal to the detriment to working stiffs. If you wanted progressive politics, then get on HG Well’s time machine and go back to FDR’s presidency. Clinton and Obama, and now Biden could not cut the cord from the Military Industrial Empire. Factoring out the indigent, which Democrats always bandage a bit, the Two Parties remain closer than ever. In the 1950s, one third of private sector workers belonged to unions. Since that time it has declined to the 6.3 % it was as of 2023. Sadly, the Democrats, whenever in power, did squat to strengthen that. What both parties have done is to continue to increase military spending to the kazoo. Thus, phony wars like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 1 and 2 and Afghanistan just took away the safety net and gave it to the War Economy.

Having said all of this, I sadly saw so many of my working stiff fellow citizens either not voting at all or pulling  the lever for Trump and his reactionaries. I  voted for and stood by the utterly flawed Democrats and watched their ship sink. Clinton’s support for the Welfare Reform Bill and Telecommunications Act, Obama’s life support for the Subprime bandit banks and insurance companies, and Biden’s handouts of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel and Ukraine, while working stiffs get stiffed. So, beginning in January of 2025 Welcome to Reaganland 2!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Philip A. Faruggio.

When faced with two adverse unethical options, a person may try to avoid the more harmful immoral choice. This is ancient strategy people have talked and written about, and applied in various situations. In the US political parlance, the term “lesser of two evils,” is choosing the evil that will be less damaging.

There is talk about voting for the “lesser of two evils.” The rationale behind this thinking is to prevent the greater “evil” from gaining power and thus causing more havoc. This is an intelligent thing to do especially in countries where million of peoples’ future is at stake — but when the United States is involved, the well being of the entire planet is at stake.

In the US, it is understood by many that the greater evil is the Republican Party or the proverbial Charybdis. Noam Chomsky once said, “Republican Party is the most dangerous organisation in human history.” The lesser evil’s title goes to the Democratic Party or the proverbial Scylla.

In dire situations, one could accept voting for the lesser evil – Democrats. But when the Democrats don’t want to address the root causes then voting for them election after election turns into a futile exercise, while the sick state keeps on deteriorating. This is a serious problem. It’s like a person who has a tumor that in initial stages is ignored due to carelessness. However, a timely realization as to the consequences rushes in emergency for treatment as if he/she had not headed for the doctor, the malignancy would have proved fatal.

The above example is equally applicable to the United States — a Sick Empire — physically, that is, in economic decline and mentally, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” to use Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s words spoken on April 4, 1967. The US has steadfastly held on to the title of “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” as if it doesn’t want to prove Dr King wrong in his assessment.

The Republican Party openly supports the capitalist class by lowering taxes for the rich, opposing unions, resisting pay raises, waging foreign wars or domestic ones, such as “war against drugs,” etc. In return, they get favors and election campaign contributions.

But there is something to be said about the lesser evil of the two choices.

Democratic Party is not that naked — it uses a fig leaf to cover up its hypocrisy, it pretends to be what it is not; it claims it is working for the common folks, complains about rich not paying taxes (but does not do anything), and so on. In reality, they do very little for the general public because they too get lots of money from the big donors to contest elections. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman (worth $2.5 billion), in 2024 gave $10 million to Biden-Harris campaign donated another $7 million to Kamala Harris (after Biden quit the presidential bid and nominated Harris as the Democratic candidate, without any intra-party election). Hoffman wants Harris to fire Lina Khan, the FTC chair who is fighting big corporate mergers and monopolistic corporate practices. This is what Hoffman said:

“I do think that Lina Khan is a person who is not helping America in her job in what she’s doing. And so, I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace her.”

Expedia Chairman Barry Diller (worth $4.5 billion) called Khan a “dope,” but then he said he misspoke; he wants her fired. Who knows, may be Harris would listen to her paymasters, as has been the custom.

It is sad that people like Lina Khan, who are honest, incorruptible, and are working for the welfare of the majority, and are rare to find in government, have to face so much opposition from the billionaire class. Lina Khan and people like her are hated by the rich, like Hoffman because they try to enforce laws which assist most people rather than fattening the already obese (financially) like Hoffman and his ilk.

The Young Turks put it rightly: “… we don’t have a democracy. We have an open auction 100%.“

Biden, when he was running for president, had told the wealthy donors:

“I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.” “The truth of the matter is … nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”

One cannot not sympathize with the Democratic presidential candidates who are (or aiming to be) multimillionaires, who hobnob with billionaires, are mostly interviewed by anchors making millions of dollars, who have to feign they are for ordinary people, in order to get their vote.

But the problem with this line of strategy is that it is simply prolonging the onset of the overdue implosion rather than trying to eliminate the rot in the system. If you watch or read the news and various commentaries or watch late night shows in the liberal news media, many a times they are making fun of Donald Trump, his wife and children and portray him as an evil person and thus imply Biden/Harris are virtuous people. (In the mid 1980s, then President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” hinting that the US is a sanctimonious entity.) These same people never accuse Biden or his cabinet, as bloodthirsty murderers.

So why go for the lesser evil?

The Democrats and the Republicans are almost twins,¹ as far as warring against foreign countries or overthrowing their governments is concerned. It’s within the US, where the slight difference comes into play. Democrats would not want to go total fascist at home — they permit some freedom to maintain the facade of the US being “the greatest democracy.” On the other hand, the Republicans want to treat, actually mistreat, most people indiscriminately, within and without the US, in the same fascist manner. Many people in the US don’t mind foreign countries becoming victim of US imperialistic fascist policies, either due to their ignorance or indifference or are misled by Republicans’ and Democrats’ warmongering or news media’s and think tanks’ fear inducing presentation etc. On the other hand, many people are frightened now that, it seems if Trump wins, fascism is going to hit most people in the US. That’s why most people prefer the lesser evil.

Mind you, fascism has never been absent in many people’s life in the US, such as incarcerating a huge segment of population, people who are victims of police violence (injured or killed), PTSD-(Post traumatic stress disorder) traumatized soldiers returning from fabricated bloody wars, homeless people, and so on. Most Democrats haven’t created meaningful improvement in the lives of these people.

The Democrat and Republican led governments have overthrown many governments and are still trying to overthrow many more but Democrats don’t want Trump to do that in the US, such as the purported January 6, 2021 attempt.² It was an unorganized, clumsily executed foolish attempt. Trump should have consulted the experienced hands from both parties and also the CIA before the January 6 attempt. He would have succeeded, for sure.

Q: Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington?

A: Because there’s no American embassy there.

Is there a difference between Trump and Harris etc.?

Without a second thought, one has to admit that Trump’s virile oral member is long and ejects idiocies and hate on a non-stop basis. Trump is a very cruel person, indeed. But the question is: are Biden, Harris, Anthony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, Harris’ supporter greater evil Dick Cheney any less cruel?

No.

In fact, they are more cruel and have excessively more blood of innocents on their hands than Trump has, that is, until now. His next term will be full of vengeance and who knows, greater bloodshed. Isn’t Biden too full of hate for Palestinians, Lebanese, and Iranians or anyone fighting for their rights and want to go their separate ways? Biden, a grandfather, who still grieves for his son Beau Biden’s death in 2015 due to glioblastoma has neither shed a tear nor has grieved for the 42,511 Palestinians (including 16,660 children) plus 1974 [A Lancet article from 10 July 2024 reported a much higher estimate: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death⁹ to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.” — DV ed.] (which includes 127 children) Lebanese killed by Israel with US encouragement, arms and ammunition, money, personnel, and intelligence –without which Israel could not have caused such incredible loss of lives. The opposition to war within the US is squashed by the Israel Lobby.

At this juncture in human history, who deserves more loathing, Trump or Biden and Harris? Of course, today the answer is the Biden/Harris team.

• See also a related article: “A Moral Imperative for the 2024 US Elections.”

ENDNOTES:

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

Let’s leave aside the existential threats of climate change or nuclear war. However important, these issues are not on the November 5 ballot. Nor are they addressed in even minimally meaningful ways by the platforms of either of the major parties.

The USA, with its first-strike policy and upgrading its nuclear war fighting capacity, bears responsibility for Armageddon risk.  And, in fact, the land-of-the-free has contributed more greenhouse gases to the world’s stockpile than any other country.

But the US electorate never voted these conditions in, so is it realistic to think that we can vote them out? The electoral arena has its limits. Nevertheless, we are admonished, our vote is very important.

But do the two major parties offer meaningful choices?

Apparently, the 700 national security apparatchiks who signed a letter endorsing Kamala Harris think so. They fear that Trump is too soft on world domination. They find a comforting succor in Harris’s promise “to preserve the American military’s status as the most ‘lethal’ force in the world.” And oddly so do some left-liberals who welcome the security state, largely because they too don’t trust Trump with guiding the US empire.

Although a major left-liberal talking point is the imminent threat of fascism, their fear is focused on Trump’s dysfunctionality and his “deplorable” working class minions; not on the security apparatus of the state, which they have learned to love.

But fascism is not a personality disorder. The ruling class – whether its nominal head wears a red or blue hat – has no reason to impose a fascist dictatorship as long as left-liberals and their confederates embrace rather than oppose the security state.

Not only were the left-liberals enamored with the FBI’s “Saint” Robert Mueller, but they have welcomed the likes of George W. Bush and now Dick Cheney, because these war criminals also see the danger of Trump.

The Democratic Party has been captured by the foreign policy neoconservatives who are jumping the red ship for the blue one. It’s not that Donald Trump is in any way an anti-imperialist, but Kamala Harris is seen as a more effective imperialist and defender of elite rule.

The ruling class is united in supporting US imperial hegemony, but needs to work out how best to achieve it. The blue team is confident that the empire has the capability to aim the canons full blast at both Russia and China at the same time. And they tend to take a more multilateral approach to empire building.

The red team is a little more circumspect, concerned with imperial overreach. They advocate a staged strategy of China as the primary target and only secondarily against Russia. This suggests why Ukraine’s president-for-life, who is at war with Russia, in effect campaigned for Kamala in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

The inauthenticity of the left-liberals

 While some left-liberals support a decisive Russian defeat in Ukraine, their overall concern is beating Trump.

The Democratic Party was transformed some time ago by the Clintons’ now defunct but successful Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which advocated abandonment of its progressive constituencies in order to more effectively attract corporate support.  While both parties vie to serve the wealthy class, the Democrats are now by a significant margin the ones favored by big money.

The triumph of the DLC signaled the demise of liberalism and the ascendency of neoliberalism. Much more could be said about that transition (viz the Democratic Party has always been capitalist with neoliberalism being its most recent expression), but suffice it to say the Democratic Party is the graveyard of progressive movements.

Liberals no longer even pretend to have an agenda other than defeating Trump. Their neglect of economic issues that benefit working people has created a vacuum, which opens the political arena for faux populists like Trump.

The now moribund liberal movement is thus relegated to two functions: (1) providing a bogus progressive patina to reactionary politics and (2) attacking those who still hold leftist principles. “Progressive Democrat,” sociologist James Petras argues, is an oxymoron.

Left-liberals have the habit of prefacing their capitulations with a recitation of their former leftist credentials. But what makes them inauthentic is their abandonment of principles. No transgression by the Democrats, absolutely none – not even genocide – deters this inauthentic left from supporting the Democratic presidential candidate.

We can respect, though disagree, with the right-wing for having principled red lines, such as abortion. In contrast, left-liberals not only find themselves bedfellows with Cheney, but they swallow anything and everything that the Democratic wing of the two-party duopoly feeds them.

Consequences of supporting the lesser of the two evils

 Although today the Democratic Party is arguably the leading war party, we would have cold comfort with the Republicans in power. And domestically the Democrats talk a better line on some social wedge issues that don’t threaten elite rule, such as women’s reproductive rights, although – as will be argued – their walk is not as good as their talk.

Getting back to “this year more than ever we have to support the Democratic presidential candidate,” the plea contains two truths. First, the “more than ever” part exposes a tendency to cry wolf in the past.

Remember that the world did not fall apart with the election of Richard Nixon in 1968. No lesser an authority than Noam Chomsky is nostalgic for Tricky Dick, who is now viewed as the last true liberal president. Nor did the planet stop spinning in 1980 when Ronald Reagan ascended to the Oval Office. Barack Obama now boasts that his policies differed little from the Gipper’s.

Which brings us to the second truth revealed in the plea. The entire body politic has been staggering to the right regardless of which wing of the duopoly is in power. This is in spite of the fact that the voting public is well to the left of them on almost every issue, from universal public healthcare to opposition to endless war.

Moreover, the left-liberals’ lesser-evil voting strategy itself bears some degree of responsibility for this reactionary tide.

The genius of the Clintons’ DLC was that the progressive New Deal coalition of labor and minority groups that supported the Democratic Party could be thrown under the bus with impunity, while the party courts the right. As long as purported progressives support the Democrats no matter what, the party has an incentive to sell out its left-leaning “captured constituents.”

Thus, we witnessed what passed for a presidential debate with both contestants competing to prove who was more in favor of genocide for Palestinians and an ever expanding military.

The campaign for reproductive rights aborted

 But one may protest, let’s not let squeamishness about genocide blind us to the hope that the Democrats are better than the Republicans on at least the key issue of abortion.

However, this is the exception that proves the rule. As Margaret Kimberley of the Black Agenda Report noted, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, there were protests everywhere but at Barack Obama’s house, “the person who could have acted to protect the Roe decision.”

When Obama ran in 2008, he made passage of a Freedom of Choice Act the centerpiece of his campaign. Once elected with majorities in Congress, he could have enshrined abortion rights into law and out of the purview of the Supreme Court. Instead, he never followed through on his promise.

This was a direct outcome of the logic of lesser evilism in a two-party system. The folks who supported abortion rights had nowhere to go, so they were betrayed. Why embarrass Blue Dog Democrats and antagonize pro-lifers when the progressive dupes will always give the Democrats a pass?

Angst is not a substitute for action

 The Republican and Democratic parties are part of the same corporate duopoly, both of which support the US empire. Given there are two wings, there will inevitably be a lesser and greater evil on every issue and even in every election.

However, we need a less myopic view and to look beyond a given election to see the bigger picture of the historical reactionary trend exacerbated by lesser-evil voting. That is, to understand that the function of lesser-evil voting in the overarching two-party system is to allow the narrative to shift rightward.

If one’s game plan for system change includes electoral engagement, which both Marx and Lenin advocated (through an independent working class party, not by supporting a bourgeois party), the pressure needs to be applied when it counts. And that might mean taking a tip from the Tea Party by withholding the vote if your candidate crosses a red line. But that requires principles, which left-liberals have failed to evidence. Angst, however heartfelt, is not a substitute for action.

The left-liberals’ lesser-evil voting, which disregards third-parties with genuinely progressive politics, contributes to the rightward trajectory of US politics. It is not the only factor, but it is a step in the wrong direction. As for November 5, we already know who will win…the ruling class.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Roger D. Harris.

One of the most victimized countries has been Nicaragua. In this article, I will review the different types of aggression used by Washington against Nicaragua. This is not ancient history; the interference continues to today. The methods change but the purpose remains the same: to subjugate nominally independent countries and use them in the interests of US corporations, elites and government. When nations resist domination and insist on independence, the US goal becomes to prevent them from succeeding.

July 19, 2024

On July 19 Nicaragua will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. On that day, Nicaraguans overthrew the US backed Somoza dictatorship. In Managua, Nicaraguans will honor the day and re-assert their sovereignty and independence. Nicaraguan leaders will likely denounce US interference and their right to have friendly relations with any country they choose to. At the same time, we will surely see negative comments about Nicaragua from Washington and US media.

There have been eight distinct types  of  US interference and aggression against Nicaragua.

1 – Conquest 1855-56

In 1855, with a small army of US and European soldiers, William Walker arrived in Nicaragua. The country was in the midst of a civil war and the foreign military turned the tide. When Walker’s forces seized control of the Nicaraguan city of Grenada, he declared himself  President of Nicaragua.  Walker’s presidency was quickly recognized by US President Franklin Pierce. Supported by southern slave holding US states, one of Walker’s early actions as Nicaraguan president was to re-legalize slavery which had been outlawed in 1832. Nicaraguans did not accept this. Within a couple years, Walker’s forces were defeated, and in 1857 he was executed in neighboring Honduras.

2 – Military occupation 1909-1933

Beginning in 1909, US Marines invaded and occupied Nicaragua when US financial interests were not being considered paramount. Nicaraguans were considering borrowing money from European countries to finance a canal running across the isthmus. For the next three decades, the US Marines were ever present to ensure Washington and Wall Street controlled major decisions. USMC Major General Smedly Butler later reflected on his role:  “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers.” Beginning in 1927, US foreign military dominance was increasingly challenged by a peasant army led by Augusto Cesar Sandino. Sandino’s July 1, 1927 manifesto denounces the collaborators and commits to “defend the national honor and redeem the oppressed.” By 1930, Sandino’s army was 5,000 strong and inflicting serious blows. In 1933 the last US Marines left Nicaragua following the election of Juan Batista Sacasa.

3 – US-backed dictatorship 1934-1969

The US Marines departed but left behind trained surrogates. In 1934, the “National Guard” reneged on a peace agreement with Sandino and murdered him, his brother and two generals.  They proceeded to destroy Sandino’s army and then overthrew the elected government.  With US support, the Somoza family dominated the country for the next forty-five years. Poverty and illiteracy were widespread while corruption was rampant. In 1961,  armed opposition to the Somoza dictatorship was formed under the banner of  the Sandinista Front for the Liberation of Nicaragua (FSLN).  After fifty thousand deaths, the Somoza dictatorship was overthrown on 19  July 1979.

4 – Terrorism 1969-1980

Under the FSLN, Nicaragua made huge improvements with land reform and a very successful literacy campaign.  For the first time, medical help was made available in remote communities and schools were open to all children.  But in Washington, the Reagan administration could not accept an independent Nicaragua. US President Reagan was obsessed with overthrowing the Sandinista government.  They tried to do this by creating a “Contra” army which attacked community clinics, bombed gas pipelines and infrastructure and killed healthcare and rural cooperative members. They even killed foreign aid workers such as young US engineer Ben Linder who was constructing a small hydroelectric dam to provide electricity to a remote village.

In the face of such obvious crimes, Nicaragua filed charges against the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They won their case and the US was ordered to pay compensation for the damages caused. Flaunting the ruling of the highest court in the world, the Reagan administration refused to pay damages to Nicaragua and continued to support the terrorist army. Under popular pressure, Congress passed the Boland amendment outlawing US assistance to the terrorist Contras. The Reagan administration ignored this as well, funding the Contras through a scheme where weapons were sent to the Contras in small private airplanes. The same planes were used to bring Colombian cocaine into the US.  The profits went to the Contras while crack cocaine flooded poor and largely Black communities. A recent book from a CIA “Black Ops”agent documents the creation, training and financing of the terrorist Contras.

5 –  Economic warfare 1985 to 1990

In 1985, an economic embargo was applied by the US against Nicaragua. US products could no longer be exported to Nicaragua and Nicaraguan products were barred from entering the US.  The goal was clearly to hurt the Nicaraguan economy and pressure the Nicaraguan people to turn against the government.  The justification stated: “I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, find that the policies and actions of the Government of Nicaragua constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”  (underline added) The truth was the exact opposite: the policies of aggression by the United States was an extreme threat to Nicaragua.

6  – Election interference 1984 to today

The first democratic election in Nicaragua’s history took place in 1984. The FSLN won against a very divided opposition. Chuck Kaufman analyzed what happened then and afterward:

Already in 1984, we saw the United States place itself as the final judge and jury as to whether or not an election was legitimate… Delegitimizing elections is one of the primary overt tools used by the United States to subvert democracy around the world…. The 1990 election is where the US game plan for election intervention was written, perfected and victorious…. Through the use of money and pressure, the US took advantage of Nicaragua’s lack of laws controlling foreign money in its elections to create a unified 14 party anti-Sandinista coalition … The US then spent more money per Nicaraguan voter than George H W Bush and Michael Dukakis combined spent per US voter in our 1988  presidential election. At the same time the US warned Nicaraguan voters that the Contra War, which had cost them 40,000 sons and daughters, would continue if Daniel Ortega won reelection.

US intervention was “successful” in bringing  the US-supported team into power in Managua. A slim majority of Nicaraguans cried uncle in the face of  US aggression and threats. The US and western media was surprised when Daniel Ortega and the FSLN peacefully left office and passed on the leadership.

Neoliberal policies reigned for the next 16 years. While they were good for the wealthy and elites, they were a disaster for the majority of Nicaraguans.  Health care and education was again privatized. Land reform measures and the literacy campaign were ended. Illiteracy again became widespread.  State controlled infrastructure including roads, water and electricity was not improved. It was in disrepair and decline.

In the elections of 2006, Daniel Ortega and the FSLN won a plurality. There were multiple reasons: first, the economy and deteriorating infrastructure was a disaster.  Second, the US failed to unite the right. Third, US election interference was publicly revealed after the US ambassador unwisely told some visiting activists how many millions were allotted for interfering in the election.

7 –  Subversion through NGOs and “color revolution”

After 16 years in opposition, the FSLN came back to power in 2007 under the leadership of Ortega.  With ever increasing electoral support, they have governed since then. The reasons for their popularity are practical.  Healthcare and education are provided free.  Roads and highways have been greatly improved and now extend across the country to the Caribbean. Electricity and running water have been continuously expanded and are now available throughout 98% of the country. Nicaragua is in the world top 10%  in gender equality and renewable energy. Nicaragua actively assists small farmers and is 90% food sovereign.

Washington has not rushed to congratulate Nicaragua on their successes. On the contrary, this success has been noted with displeasure and Nicaragua has returned to the list of countries targeted for destabilization.

Over the past decades, the US has developed a softer approach to undermining governments which are deemed to be “adversary”. A key component of this is funding “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs). These organizations may have innocuous or even progressive sounding purposes but inevitably serve US goals. The NGOs receive much of their funding from US government related organizations such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. As documented by Max Blumenthal in June 2018, the NGOs proudly boasted of their role in “laying the groundwork for insurrection” and “nurturing the current uprisings”.

With salaries which are high in comparison to local standards,  the NGOs attract and influence ambitious students and youth. The directors of the NGOs learn which youth are promising to their objectives and what issues motivate them.  In Nicaragua there were dozens of NGOs with a mission of  “democracy promotion”.  In essence, these were training sessions in anti-government activism.  Other focal points were journalism and the use of social media. There was little or no monitoring of these foreign funded activities.

In the spring of 2018, there was an attempt to overthrow the elected Sandinista government. The coup attempt was driven by youth influenced by US funded NGOs with muscle provided by mercenary thugs and gangs. The coup attempt, from beginning to end, is described in a series of articles by Nicaraguan resident and journalist John Perry and author Dan Kovalik. This was similar to “color revolutions” carried out in numerous other countries on US target list.  The common characteristics are: youth mobilized by US funded NGOs, heavy use of social media, false or exaggerated accusations of government violence, false claims that the protests are strictly “peaceful” when there are actually widespread provocations and violence.

Nicaragua passed through this stage from April to July 2018. The insurrection died when it became clear the violence was instigated by the protesters and the average Nicaraguan was being deeply hurt by the continued disruption and roadblocks.  Dozens of police and hundreds of civilians were killed in the confrontations. Hundreds of government buildings, police stations and schools were attacked and the economy severely disrupted.

Ultimately, the insurrection and coup attempt collapsed.  With police ordered to stay in their barracks, it was clear who was responsible for the violence. The public became increasingly angry at the protesters because their roadblocks and violence were ruining lives and the economy. The silver lining is that it sparked a realization in the FSLN that they needed to be more vigilant about education of youth and monitoring foreign funded organizations.

8 –  Information warfare and extreme sanctions

Beginning with the 2018 coup attempt in Nicaragua, the US information war on Nicaragua escalated dramatically.  In 2020, Nicaragua started regulating foreign-backed organizations.  Given that  foreign supported organizations played a big role in the insurrection resulting in hundreds of deaths and billions in economic damage, the need to do this was clear.  The new regulations require foreign-backed organizations to document where their funding comes from and how it is spent. The US has the same requirement known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but that does not stop western media from claiming that these laws are “dismantling civil society”.  On the contrary, many NGOs registered and continued as before. Those who refused to register were denied a permit, just as they would be in the United States.

US government influence extends to many “human rights” groups and some branches of the United Nations. For example, the UN’s Human Rights Council established a “Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua” to investigate alleged Nicaraguan human rights violations and abuses since April 2018. Their mandate was extended until February 2025 but they have issued two preliminary reports that claim Nicaragua is committing crimes, violations and abuses including “persecution of  any dissenting voice”, torture and the “deprivation of Nicaraguan nationality.”

The reports by three “experts”, none of whom is Nicaraguan, are extremely biased.  They have been rebutted in a detailed article co-written by international legal scholar Alfred de Zayas. It is endorsed by 85 different organizations and over 450 individuals including Nicaraguan citizens and residents. The article reveals that the “experts” failed to comply with their own mandate to gather information from all sides. The report of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) is solely based on the opinions and accusations of the dissidents and is a mockery of what should be an objective report based on evidence from all sides.

Along with the drumbeat of negative accusations based on subjective or no evidence, the US keeps adding more and more sanctions on Nicaragua. Unknown to most Americans, sanctions (called ‘unilateral coercive measures’) have been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations General Assembly.  They are considered to be in violation of international law and the UN Charter. Ignoring the opinions of 75%  of the world, the US Treasury Department has recently issued a slew of sanctions on Nicaraguan officials, state corporations, judges, mayors and attorney general.

While trying to hurt the Nicaraguan economy, the US has started offering easy immigration to the US for Nicaraguans. They are even using Facebook and social media to lure Nicaragua youth. The goal seems to be to undermine the economy and encourage “brain drain” where youth with skills and ambition will be tempted to leave the country.  After all, despite the positive gains and accomplishments, including free health care and education, most Nicaraguans are still poor. This phenomenon has been well documented in articles such as  “New US Immigration Policies Effect on Nicaragua: Brain Drain and Deportation” and “US government exploits animosity toward migrants to demonize socialist countries”.

Summary

In late 2021, three years after the coup attempt, Nicaragua held its national election.  Western criticisms of the election were refuted in this article. International observers were impressed with organization, large turnout and enthusiasm. The US administration and media falsely claimed the main opposition candidates had been imprisoned. In fact, the few imprisoned individuals represented no parties or significant base of support. They claimed to be “precandidates” not because they were viable contenders but because they sought to avoid prosecution while slandering the Nicaraguan government.

On the contrary, there were five opposition candidates representing genuine parties and movements. The voters had a real choice. With 66% of the electorate voting, 75% voted for Daniel Ortega and the FSLN over the competitors.  The theme of the election was “Soberania”, beautifully sung by a young Nicaraguan patriot at the house where Cesar Augusto Sandino grew up.

Nicaragua continues to assert its sovereignty and pursue its own foreign policy. In September 2021, Nicaragua cut ties with Taiwan and established diplomatic relations with China. In October 2022, Nicaragua refused to condemn Russia for its intervention in Ukraine, blaming the US and NATO for having provoked the conflict. On Oct 24 2023, Nicaragua called for an emergency session of the UN General Assembly to consider “protection of the Palestinian civilian population.” Later, Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said the Palestinian cause is one of the most just causes of our times.  In January 2024, Nicaragua filed charges at the International Court of Justice against Germany for being an accomplice to genocide in Gaza.

In June the results of an extensive poll conducted by the independent and well regarded M&R Consultants were released. They indicate high satisfaction with the direction and leadership of the country. Confidence in the “stability, security, and economic progress” of the country has risen from 36.8% in 2018 to 74.8% today.

Nicaragua has good reason to be wary of the United States. In the eight different ways described above, the US has interfered with Nicaragua’s independence for 170 years.  The vast majority of Nicaraguans continue to  resist, calmly insisting on their independence and sovereignty. As the song “Soberania” says, “Respect my flag or go away.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Rick Sterling.

One of the most victimized countries has been Nicaragua. In this article, I will review the different types of aggression used by Washington against Nicaragua. This is not ancient history; the interference continues to today. The methods change but the purpose remains the same: to subjugate nominally independent countries and use them in the interests of US corporations, elites and government. When nations resist domination and insist on independence, the US goal becomes to prevent them from succeeding.

July 19, 2024

On July 19 Nicaragua will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. On that day, Nicaraguans overthrew the US backed Somoza dictatorship. In Managua, Nicaraguans will honor the day and re-assert their sovereignty and independence. Nicaraguan leaders will likely denounce US interference and their right to have friendly relations with any country they choose to. At the same time, we will surely see negative comments about Nicaragua from Washington and US media.

There have been eight distinct types  of  US interference and aggression against Nicaragua.

1 – Conquest 1855-56

In 1855, with a small army of US and European soldiers, William Walker arrived in Nicaragua. The country was in the midst of a civil war and the foreign military turned the tide. When Walker’s forces seized control of the Nicaraguan city of Grenada, he declared himself  President of Nicaragua.  Walker’s presidency was quickly recognized by US President Franklin Pierce. Supported by southern slave holding US states, one of Walker’s early actions as Nicaraguan president was to re-legalize slavery which had been outlawed in 1832. Nicaraguans did not accept this. Within a couple years, Walker’s forces were defeated, and in 1857 he was executed in neighboring Honduras.

2 – Military occupation 1909-1933

Beginning in 1909, US Marines invaded and occupied Nicaragua when US financial interests were not being considered paramount. Nicaraguans were considering borrowing money from European countries to finance a canal running across the isthmus. For the next three decades, the US Marines were ever present to ensure Washington and Wall Street controlled major decisions. USMC Major General Smedly Butler later reflected on his role:  “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers.” Beginning in 1927, US foreign military dominance was increasingly challenged by a peasant army led by Augusto Cesar Sandino. Sandino’s July 1, 1927 manifesto denounces the collaborators and commits to “defend the national honor and redeem the oppressed.” By 1930, Sandino’s army was 5,000 strong and inflicting serious blows. In 1933 the last US Marines left Nicaragua following the election of Juan Batista Sacasa.

3 – US-backed dictatorship 1934-1969

The US Marines departed but left behind trained surrogates. In 1934, the “National Guard” reneged on a peace agreement with Sandino and murdered him, his brother and two generals.  They proceeded to destroy Sandino’s army and then overthrew the elected government.  With US support, the Somoza family dominated the country for the next forty-five years. Poverty and illiteracy were widespread while corruption was rampant. In 1961,  armed opposition to the Somoza dictatorship was formed under the banner of  the Sandinista Front for the Liberation of Nicaragua (FSLN).  After fifty thousand deaths, the Somoza dictatorship was overthrown on 19  July 1979.

4 – Terrorism 1969-1980

Under the FSLN, Nicaragua made huge improvements with land reform and a very successful literacy campaign.  For the first time, medical help was made available in remote communities and schools were open to all children.  But in Washington, the Reagan administration could not accept an independent Nicaragua. US President Reagan was obsessed with overthrowing the Sandinista government.  They tried to do this by creating a “Contra” army which attacked community clinics, bombed gas pipelines and infrastructure and killed healthcare and rural cooperative members. They even killed foreign aid workers such as young US engineer Ben Linder who was constructing a small hydroelectric dam to provide electricity to a remote village.

In the face of such obvious crimes, Nicaragua filed charges against the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They won their case and the US was ordered to pay compensation for the damages caused. Flaunting the ruling of the highest court in the world, the Reagan administration refused to pay damages to Nicaragua and continued to support the terrorist army. Under popular pressure, Congress passed the Boland amendment outlawing US assistance to the terrorist Contras. The Reagan administration ignored this as well, funding the Contras through a scheme where weapons were sent to the Contras in small private airplanes. The same planes were used to bring Colombian cocaine into the US.  The profits went to the Contras while crack cocaine flooded poor and largely Black communities. A recent book from a CIA “Black Ops”agent documents the creation, training and financing of the terrorist Contras.

5 –  Economic warfare 1985 to 1990

In 1985, an economic embargo was applied by the US against Nicaragua. US products could no longer be exported to Nicaragua and Nicaraguan products were barred from entering the US.  The goal was clearly to hurt the Nicaraguan economy and pressure the Nicaraguan people to turn against the government.  The justification stated: “I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, find that the policies and actions of the Government of Nicaragua constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”  (underline added) The truth was the exact opposite: the policies of aggression by the United States was an extreme threat to Nicaragua.

6  – Election interference 1984 to today

The first democratic election in Nicaragua’s history took place in 1984. The FSLN won against a very divided opposition. Chuck Kaufman analyzed what happened then and afterward:

Already in 1984, we saw the United States place itself as the final judge and jury as to whether or not an election was legitimate… Delegitimizing elections is one of the primary overt tools used by the United States to subvert democracy around the world…. The 1990 election is where the US game plan for election intervention was written, perfected and victorious…. Through the use of money and pressure, the US took advantage of Nicaragua’s lack of laws controlling foreign money in its elections to create a unified 14 party anti-Sandinista coalition … The US then spent more money per Nicaraguan voter than George H W Bush and Michael Dukakis combined spent per US voter in our 1988  presidential election. At the same time the US warned Nicaraguan voters that the Contra War, which had cost them 40,000 sons and daughters, would continue if Daniel Ortega won reelection.

US intervention was “successful” in bringing  the US-supported team into power in Managua. A slim majority of Nicaraguans cried uncle in the face of  US aggression and threats. The US and western media was surprised when Daniel Ortega and the FSLN peacefully left office and passed on the leadership.

Neoliberal policies reigned for the next 16 years. While they were good for the wealthy and elites, they were a disaster for the majority of Nicaraguans.  Health care and education was again privatized. Land reform measures and the literacy campaign were ended. Illiteracy again became widespread.  State controlled infrastructure including roads, water and electricity was not improved. It was in disrepair and decline.

In the elections of 2006, Daniel Ortega and the FSLN won a plurality. There were multiple reasons: first, the economy and deteriorating infrastructure was a disaster.  Second, the US failed to unite the right. Third, US election interference was publicly revealed after the US ambassador unwisely told some visiting activists how many millions were allotted for interfering in the election.

7 –  Subversion through NGOs and “color revolution”

After 16 years in opposition, the FSLN came back to power in 2007 under the leadership of Ortega.  With ever increasing electoral support, they have governed since then. The reasons for their popularity are practical.  Healthcare and education are provided free.  Roads and highways have been greatly improved and now extend across the country to the Caribbean. Electricity and running water have been continuously expanded and are now available throughout 98% of the country. Nicaragua is in the world top 10%  in gender equality and renewable energy. Nicaragua actively assists small farmers and is 90% food sovereign.

Washington has not rushed to congratulate Nicaragua on their successes. On the contrary, this success has been noted with displeasure and Nicaragua has returned to the list of countries targeted for destabilization.

Over the past decades, the US has developed a softer approach to undermining governments which are deemed to be “adversary”. A key component of this is funding “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs). These organizations may have innocuous or even progressive sounding purposes but inevitably serve US goals. The NGOs receive much of their funding from US government related organizations such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. As documented by Max Blumenthal in June 2018, the NGOs proudly boasted of their role in “laying the groundwork for insurrection” and “nurturing the current uprisings”.

With salaries which are high in comparison to local standards,  the NGOs attract and influence ambitious students and youth. The directors of the NGOs learn which youth are promising to their objectives and what issues motivate them.  In Nicaragua there were dozens of NGOs with a mission of  “democracy promotion”.  In essence, these were training sessions in anti-government activism.  Other focal points were journalism and the use of social media. There was little or no monitoring of these foreign funded activities.

In the spring of 2018, there was an attempt to overthrow the elected Sandinista government. The coup attempt was driven by youth influenced by US funded NGOs with muscle provided by mercenary thugs and gangs. The coup attempt, from beginning to end, is described in a series of articles by Nicaraguan resident and journalist John Perry and author Dan Kovalik. This was similar to “color revolutions” carried out in numerous other countries on US target list.  The common characteristics are: youth mobilized by US funded NGOs, heavy use of social media, false or exaggerated accusations of government violence, false claims that the protests are strictly “peaceful” when there are actually widespread provocations and violence.

Nicaragua passed through this stage from April to July 2018. The insurrection died when it became clear the violence was instigated by the protesters and the average Nicaraguan was being deeply hurt by the continued disruption and roadblocks.  Dozens of police and hundreds of civilians were killed in the confrontations. Hundreds of government buildings, police stations and schools were attacked and the economy severely disrupted.

Ultimately, the insurrection and coup attempt collapsed.  With police ordered to stay in their barracks, it was clear who was responsible for the violence. The public became increasingly angry at the protesters because their roadblocks and violence were ruining lives and the economy. The silver lining is that it sparked a realization in the FSLN that they needed to be more vigilant about education of youth and monitoring foreign funded organizations.

8 –  Information warfare and extreme sanctions

Beginning with the 2018 coup attempt in Nicaragua, the US information war on Nicaragua escalated dramatically.  In 2020, Nicaragua started regulating foreign-backed organizations.  Given that  foreign supported organizations played a big role in the insurrection resulting in hundreds of deaths and billions in economic damage, the need to do this was clear.  The new regulations require foreign-backed organizations to document where their funding comes from and how it is spent. The US has the same requirement known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but that does not stop western media from claiming that these laws are “dismantling civil society”.  On the contrary, many NGOs registered and continued as before. Those who refused to register were denied a permit, just as they would be in the United States.

US government influence extends to many “human rights” groups and some branches of the United Nations. For example, the UN’s Human Rights Council established a “Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua” to investigate alleged Nicaraguan human rights violations and abuses since April 2018. Their mandate was extended until February 2025 but they have issued two preliminary reports that claim Nicaragua is committing crimes, violations and abuses including “persecution of  any dissenting voice”, torture and the “deprivation of Nicaraguan nationality.”

The reports by three “experts”, none of whom is Nicaraguan, are extremely biased.  They have been rebutted in a detailed article co-written by international legal scholar Alfred de Zayas. It is endorsed by 85 different organizations and over 450 individuals including Nicaraguan citizens and residents. The article reveals that the “experts” failed to comply with their own mandate to gather information from all sides. The report of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) is solely based on the opinions and accusations of the dissidents and is a mockery of what should be an objective report based on evidence from all sides.

Along with the drumbeat of negative accusations based on subjective or no evidence, the US keeps adding more and more sanctions on Nicaragua. Unknown to most Americans, sanctions (called ‘unilateral coercive measures’) have been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations General Assembly.  They are considered to be in violation of international law and the UN Charter. Ignoring the opinions of 75%  of the world, the US Treasury Department has recently issued a slew of sanctions on Nicaraguan officials, state corporations, judges, mayors and attorney general.

While trying to hurt the Nicaraguan economy, the US has started offering easy immigration to the US for Nicaraguans. They are even using Facebook and social media to lure Nicaragua youth. The goal seems to be to undermine the economy and encourage “brain drain” where youth with skills and ambition will be tempted to leave the country.  After all, despite the positive gains and accomplishments, including free health care and education, most Nicaraguans are still poor. This phenomenon has been well documented in articles such as  “New US Immigration Policies Effect on Nicaragua: Brain Drain and Deportation” and “US government exploits animosity toward migrants to demonize socialist countries”.

Summary

In late 2021, three years after the coup attempt, Nicaragua held its national election.  Western criticisms of the election were refuted in this article. International observers were impressed with organization, large turnout and enthusiasm. The US administration and media falsely claimed the main opposition candidates had been imprisoned. In fact, the few imprisoned individuals represented no parties or significant base of support. They claimed to be “precandidates” not because they were viable contenders but because they sought to avoid prosecution while slandering the Nicaraguan government.

On the contrary, there were five opposition candidates representing genuine parties and movements. The voters had a real choice. With 66% of the electorate voting, 75% voted for Daniel Ortega and the FSLN over the competitors.  The theme of the election was “Soberania”, beautifully sung by a young Nicaraguan patriot at the house where Cesar Augusto Sandino grew up.

Nicaragua continues to assert its sovereignty and pursue its own foreign policy. In September 2021, Nicaragua cut ties with Taiwan and established diplomatic relations with China. In October 2022, Nicaragua refused to condemn Russia for its intervention in Ukraine, blaming the US and NATO for having provoked the conflict. On Oct 24 2023, Nicaragua called for an emergency session of the UN General Assembly to consider “protection of the Palestinian civilian population.” Later, Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said the Palestinian cause is one of the most just causes of our times.  In January 2024, Nicaragua filed charges at the International Court of Justice against Germany for being an accomplice to genocide in Gaza.

In June the results of an extensive poll conducted by the independent and well regarded M&R Consultants were released. They indicate high satisfaction with the direction and leadership of the country. Confidence in the “stability, security, and economic progress” of the country has risen from 36.8% in 2018 to 74.8% today.

Nicaragua has good reason to be wary of the United States. In the eight different ways described above, the US has interfered with Nicaragua’s independence for 170 years.  The vast majority of Nicaraguans continue to  resist, calmly insisting on their independence and sovereignty. As the song “Soberania” says, “Respect my flag or go away.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Rick Sterling.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

President Kennedy was furious at the CIA for having misled him. Waiting several months before he compelled CIA Director Allen Dulles to resign, Kennedy told him, “Under a parliamentary system of government it is I who would be leaving. But under our system it is you who must go.”

Thus John F. Kennedy defended the illusion that the Anglophile dominated US government had transcended its British aristocratic-monarchical roots. Allen Dulles resigned from his office as Director of Central Intelligence to preside over the committee that would disprove Kennedy‘s naive belief in an American system of responsible government in the hands of popularly elected representatives.

A Conservative friend of the Thatcher regime in Great Britain created a series called “Yes Minister” (with a sequel “Yes Prime Minister”) in which the power of the permanent civil service over elected parliamentary government was lampooned. Yet behind the sarcasm with which Sir Humphrey exhibits his scarcely concealed contempt for the “barbarians” – meaning His Majesty’s ordinary subjects- lies the admission of simplicity in what has been recently called the “Deep State”. Denied by most in the West, the existence of what Prouty called “the secret team” is so obvious to the scriptwriters of the aristocratic- monarchist British Broadcasting Corporation that it could be advertised in prime time. The history of the current regime in the Federal Republic of Germany, ignored by most of occupied Germany’s licensed “free media”, was so obvious that GDR prime time TV broadcast a series in the 1970s which dramatized the US-Nazi cooperation in the remilitarization of Germany (west) to fight the war now actually impending against Russia. Das Unsichtbare Visier told the story of secret rearmament using the core of the SS and reliable Wehrmacht officers and the use of CIA Gladio operations to create pseudo-Left terrorism in the strategy of tension against the nominally legal Left in the NATO-occupied countries.

The best the US could do was House of Cards, which follows the Dallas template with some cynical steroids. However while the British and the GDR series admit this is a system, the US version is unable to transcend celebrity and the superficiality of daytime soap operas. All three series were devised as entertainment. They therefore have aesthetic attributes, which permit the viewer to suspend belief. However the difference in context is remarkable. While the GDR version fictionalizes history and the British version reeks of the smugness in the senior common room, Americans at their most cynical cannot transcend the Disneyland/ Leave it to Beaver (even if Beaver now would be a trannie) exceptionalism by which only the individual is good or bad. Despite the candid asides and opportunism of the players, the story is always about corruption. The politicians are dishonest and greedy for wealth and power. But so is everyone else. House of Cards conceals the interests of power inherent in the system by making all the participants sinners with varying degrees of indulgence and grace. The clever are the elect (or elected). Calvinism is affirmed.

While I was searching for Kennedy’s words to Allen Dulles (not knowing who would have recorded the original exchange), I listened to some of Kennedy‘s press conferences. I can recommend them highly. They are remarkable for their studied candour, lacking that vacuous, manipulative staging by the handlers of subsequent POTUS. John F Kennedy campaigned among other things on alleged indicators of US weakness in comparison to the Soviet Union- the so-called missile gap. This persisted in his speeches about the space program. However as POTUS he also implied the Soviet Union or the communist countries were ahead of the US in social welfare. In his 21 April 1961 press conference he replied to a question by saying not that the US was better or more successful than the USSR but that he believed it was “more durable”.

At this point one could have asked what virtue lies in a durable yet inferior system? Needless to say this question was not asked. Sixty years after his assassination the US system has proven resilient and reactionary. Despite almost quadrennial changes in the executive branch the resilience of the Reaction continues to amaze while innumerable analysts draft obituaries for the expected demise of the great empire. Meanwhile long-term rises in living standards are only found among the enemies (Russia and China).

To put this in perspective the Soviet Union accomplished the equivalent of two industrialisation phases between 1917 and 1962 (45 years) despite a world war, civil war, foreign invasion and “cold war” that lasted from 1910 until 1989. All that was accomplished based on domestic resources. China accomplished similar development between 1949 and 1989. The US required a century with African and Chinese slave labour, the extermination of a whole continent of indigenous people and some 182 wars fought to dominate the Western hemisphere. Russia and China out produce the US quantitatively and qualitatively despite latter having the highest armaments expenditure in the world. Clearly durability does not translate into human welfare. Kennedy was oblique but somehow aware that the US system would be durably unattractive if something essential did not change in the country whose chief executive he had become.

The press conferences reveal a man who knew how the formal machinery of Congress worked but seemed oblivious to the operation of government itself. His hesitancy and caution betrayed that novitiate status. One need only compare him to Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower or Richard Nixon. His seniors in the business all clearly understood how precarious elected office was. Eisenhower’s farewell may not have been cynical but it suggested that there was actually a choice between elected government and the permanent state. As a career Army officer and high functionary in the permanent bureaucracy he must have known that no later than the machinations that made Truman the new tenant in the White House the POTUS had become a cupid doll for the cultic rituals of entrenched power. The patriotic (loyal) opposition chronically overvalue this speech.

If one believes the government is only corrupt – although that is bad enough – then it is very tempting to believe that if only the right, honest people get elected then change or even salvation is in sight. However if one begins with the questions what do ordinary people need to live decent lives? And how are those needs satisfied? Then the constant threat that those needs will not be met can be openly addressed. Instead of abstract, negative freedom (Isaiah Berlin) where one is more or less free to sleep under bridges in default of eternal debts, one might judge a government by its willingness to spend maybe half of what it appropriates for killing people to keeping people alive. Then with such a modest proposal one might assess the willingness and ability of one’s government to facilitate well-being for all instead of deliberately preventing it. That could lead to questions about who makes decisions if not the elected representatives (sometimes pretending to be leaders)?

Until the mid-19th century the US had no permanent civil service like the British had developed. In history books one can read deprecatory discussions of the “spoils system”. Whenever there was a change in elected office, the new officer or his party exercised patronage privilege to hire and fire the civil servants to fit the taste or priorities of the incoming officeholders. Even letter carriers and secretaries owed their posts to the officeholder’s pleasure. In the Reform Era leading into the 20th century the US adopted a competitive civil service system with permanent appointment regardless of party. The only posts that remained discretionary were cabinet-level and those subject to Senate confirmation. This rational improvement and professionalization was intended to give daily government and administration quality and efficiency. However it also created a class of officials whose primary interest was career promotion and not professional implementation of government policy. The very security which was to keep them out of politics created a political subculture insulated from expressions of the popular will. This clerical caste operated like its cultural predecessors in the Latin clergy. The prelates, i.e. cabinet officials and agency directors relied on the senior and ambitious junior civil servants to implement policy but also to defend ministerial/ cabinet secretary turf. While the British filled these ranks from the aristocratic families, new and old, the Americans filled these preferments from the plutocracy. Thus the civil service was socially reproduced like the British service with the US equivalent of titled privilege. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was not the first to call attention to industry “capture” of the regulatory agencies. As serious and justified as that critique is it misses the class component of capture entirely. The “revolving door” which amplifies “capture” is not merely corruption. It is a direct reflection of how the American class system works. There is no better head of NIH or Dr Anthony Fauci’s fief just waiting for an honest selection to confirm his appointment. The DIE dogma is not a solution but a further obfuscation of the problem. There is no “better CIA” or “cleaner FBI” any more than there was a better Inquisition or Gestapo to be had. Philip Agee was clear about that point, as was David Atlee Phillips. Moshe Lewin in his discussion of the eternally maligned Soviet government under Joseph Stalin (The Making of the Soviet System, 1994) pointed out that from the start of the October Revolution the Soviet Union was dependent on the vast majority of Tsarist civil and military servants simply because there were never enough educated Communist cadre to fill all the administrative positions for the vast Russian territory. This Tsarist civil service was even more rigid than those of the “modern” Western states. The only way to change policy was to change personnel. Hence throughout the Stalin era the so-called purges were mainly the punishing or serial replacement of recalcitrant and entrenched bureaucrats with those schooled and tested to enforce the new policies. The bulk of those purged according to Lewin were CPSU cadre and functionaries. Aggravated by war, the Politburo had few direct ways to communicate policy and assure its implementation—using one bureaucracy against the rest. Such periodic “draining of the swamp” is an allusive task, especially in countries like the US, Great Britain and France where the senior civil service is entirely dominated by the ruling class and its aristocratic-corporate cadre.

The term “deep state”, an expression Peter Dale Scott used to describe the “continuity of government” apparatus that expanded massively under Ronald Reagan, is a meaningful cliché. In increasingly common parlance it directs us to the failure of electoral politics as a means of democratic social management. Electoral politics is in fact a strategy applied by the ruling oligarchy through the permanent state apparatus to manage the population. However it is not something mysterious, secret or transcendental. The term has arisen to poorly substitute for a term and concept still prohibited in serious political action, namely class power. Perhaps the last American to seriously describe this phenomenon both empirically and theoretically was the renegade sociologist C Wright Mills. Mills called it the “power elite”. Today that insight has been distorted beyond recognition by obsession first with the “rich and famous“ and then celebrity. In fact the genre “reality TV” is the paramount vulgarization of the concept. That a former and aspirant POTUS enjoys such celebrity also shows the impact of fantasy on the political unconscious. The term “deep state” is a weak if concerted attempt to reformulate the question: if the people as electors have no power, then who does? Call it a class or the “power elite“ or as George Carlin said the big club – and you ain‘t in it. And it’s also the club they beat you with… till your own deep state is six feet underground.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by T.P. Wilkinson.

The crème de la crème had to then be Dutch Reagan, informer for the HUAC ( House Un-American Activities Committee) and friend of the California Super Rich Mafia. Already going senile, Reagan actually used the moniker that Trump later stole: MAGA (Make America Great Again) to convince many Two Party/One Party suckers… sorry, voters, to make him the quintessential front man for the Super Rich corporate predators. While his wife’s war on drugs was going on, the CIA, handled by his VP and former CIA boss Bush #1, was making sure plenty of crack cocaine was flowing into the US, especially Southern California. Ronnie baby meanwhile made sure the super rich got lower tax rates as the nation saw less and less private sector unions. The great illusion was when states passed the contradictory Right to Work laws, which meant having to work with NO union to protect you. None!

Reagan did his job, which meant acting like a commercial pitchman (which he knew from experience) and napping while Bush #1 ran the corporation… sorry, the country. Then, when Governor and Democratic Party presidential candidate Michael Dukakis wore that silly helmet while foolishly riding on top of a tank as his numbers dissipated, we got Bush #1. He was there when the Deep State wanted to punish Saddam Hussein for not staying on his side of the reservation and getting too big for his britches. So, Saddam became Hitler and the Brits and us destroyed Iraq with the asinine “Coalition of the Willing… to do Uncle Sam’s bidding” with mostly our firepower. One surmises that the economy under #1 was enough to turn off the suckers… sorry, voters. Even the yellow ribbon BS on this Wag the Dog phony war (Go and get that film by Barry Levinson) could not save the day. So, we got Mr. Bill….

If there was ever a professional bullshit artist better than Billy Clinton, show me! This guy could BS his way out of any scrap. “I did not inhale,” is as good as it gets. The funny thing is that he did what the professional card players call a tell. They can read a person’s hand by how he or she gestures or looks. Books have been written on that skill in reading body language. Well, Billy boy would tell while having a conversation by giving a “shit eating grin” or pausing before finishing a thought. You could just know this guy was about to BS, and did he! “I did NOT have sex with that woman!” Gold, pure gold.

Bush #2 or Junior as his dad referred to him, was a true piece of work. This spoiled frat boy who supported our phony war in Vietnam while conveniently using #2’s influence to fly with the Texas Air National Guard. For you novices on history out there, during the 60s and 70s the last military personnel to ever get sent overseas into any hornet’s nest was our National Guard and Reserves. You would need an attack by North Vietnam on our shores to see those guys in action. After all his personal peccadilloes and failures as a (so called) businessman, Junior got to work for the Texas Rangers. Bush #1 sure did have lots of friends. Then, after a failed attempt at Congress, the Super Rich Texas Deep State got Junior into the governor’s mansion. From there, with the help of an army of right wing movers and shakers, Junior became President… in name only. They made sure Tricky Dick Cheney would run things as his Veep. The increasing suspicions as to what really went down on 9/11 led Junior to sign off on War on Iraq 2, to perhaps wash some of that **** away from the public’s attention. Junior became the idiot emperor who just didn’t have any clothes. He ruled MoronAmerika during the absolute worst foreign policy maneuver our nation has ever made.

The damage that the Bush/Cheney Cabal had done just opened the door to the need for “Hope and Change.” Enter Barack Hussein Obama, advertised as a true activist for progressive change. He was handled so well by the Democratic Party movers and shakers that mega millions of suckers… sorry, voters, put this guy into the Oval Office. His greatest foreign policy maneuver was to increase drone missile attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan by tenfold of what the Cheney/Bush Cabal did. How many innocent civilians happened to be near where the **** happened is a tragedy in itself. Barack also continued the bailout AKA gift to the Wall Street banksters on the taxpayer’s dime. He was the reverse front man to Reagan’s own servitude to the Super Rich.

What can one say about The Trumpster that hasn’t been covered by serious researchers? Put it this way: If we were back in the days of the Old West, The Donald would have been the epitome of the con man pushing his medicinal remedies from the back of a wagon. He took the (rightful) anger of millions of working stiffs (mostly white, by the way) and mesmerized them with his populist rhetoric. A man who stood up to his knees in the Deep State **** his whole career convinced them that he was anointed to save them. The real twist is that most of them still follow his tune right over the cliffs of reason.

Finally, we have Lunchbox Joe, who they now have to guide to and from the podium. This guy was always a piece of work his entire career. He helped break the railroad workers strike and then had the audacity to stand on the picket line with auto workers. Biden destroyed Anita Hill 32 years ago when she told the world the truth about Clarence Thomas. Biden also supported the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq in ’03. Before that he supported Billy Boy’s welfare reform bill, which took us back closer to the Gilded Age. Now, he follows the orders of the Deep State and keeps sending our tax dollars down the rabbit hole in support of a Neo Nazi infiltrated Ukraine. Read my lips: If they run this guy again he will lose… even to a crook like Trump.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Philip A. Faruggio.

Kovalik includes his own experiences from several decades visiting Nicaragua.  The first time was with a Veterans for Peace (VFP) convoy of trucks bringing aid to Nicaragua in 1987. Incredibly, for two months the US government blocked the aid trucks from exiting the US en route to Nicaragua.  The story has a happy outcome. After months of effort, the antiwar activists succeeded in exiting the US and reaching Nicaragua where they were greeted with open arms and celebrations. That experience triggered a lifelong interest in Nicaragua by Kovalik, who has worked for decades as an international human rights lawyer and is a retired attorney for the United Steel Workers.

The book describes key periods of US intervention.  In 1855, William Walker declared himself president of Nicaragua. Backed by a small army of European and US soldiers, he seized control of the Nicaraguan city of Grenada. Walker re-introduced slavery, arguing that it was introduced in the Americas “in a spirit of benevolence and philanthropy.” With the US Civil War on the horizon, he was also supported by southern US states.  Within a couple years, Walker’s forces were defeated, and he was executed.

Beginning in 1909, US Marines invaded and occupied Nicaragua. They dominated the country for the next three decades. The US occupation led to armed resistance organized by Augusto Cesar Sandino.

In 1934, the “National Guard” of Nicaragua (trained by US Marines) reneged on a peace agreement with Sandino and murdered him and his staff.  The Somoza family dominated the country for the next forty-five years. They were notoriously corrupt and even robbed international donations following the devastating 1972 earthquake. Kovalik describes how Puerto Rican baseball great Roberto Clemente died while trying to bring relief aid to Nicaragua.

In 1961,  armed opposition to the Somoza dictatorship was formed under the banner of  the Sandinista Front for the Liberation of Nicaragua (FSLN). After fifty thousand deaths, with many caused by blanket bombing, the Somoza dictatorship was overthrown in July 1979.  Under the FSLN, the country made huge strides toward eliminating illiteracy and peasant impoverishment.  For the first time, medical help was made available in remote communities. For the first time, schools were open to all children.

Angered by the threat of a popular government outside their control and allied with Cuba, the Reagan administration was hell bent to stop the Sandinistas.  They did this by creating a “Contra” army, which attacked Nicaraguan infrastructure such as gas pipelines, killed healthcare and rural cooperative members, and even killed foreign aid workers such as young US engineer Ben Linder. Nicaragua was forced to divert scarce resources into defending itself. Kovalik describes how Reagan kept funding the Contra war through a diabolical scheme whereby weapons were sent to the Contras and cocaine brought back, to be sold in crack form in poor and largely Black communities.

Despite the Contra war, the Sandinistas held national elections. In 1984 the FSLN won decisively. In 1990, with Washington explicitly threatening to continue the illegal war while the Sandinistas remained in power, the majority voted for the US-promoted candidate. Many Nicaraguans were exhausted from the continuing Contra war. The death toll was thirty thousand dead and many more injured in a country of only 3 million.

The US establishment and media was surprised when the Sandinistas acknowledged the electoral defeat and stepped down. Neoliberal policies reigned for the next 16 years.  Public institutions were privatized. Unemployment and poverty increased dramatically. Government spending on healthcare was slashed, while illiteracy spread once again. Kovalik gives us that statistics and summaries from Oxfam, the UN and other sources.

The Sandinistas went through internal debates, including a split, but did not go away.  In 2006, Nicaraguans voted Daniel Ortega and the FSLN back into power.  Ever since then, they have gained increasing levels of support. Kovalik describes how they have invigorated the economy and prioritized policies favoring the working class and farmers. The FSLN re-instituted free education and healthcare plus small loans with “zero usury” for businesses. They made major infrastructure improvements with roads and a highway to the east coast. They have steadily expanded reliable and renewable electricity to all parts of the country. Nicaragua is now ranked #1 in the western hemisphere for gender equality.

Unfortunately, the popularity and effective management of the FSLN continues to be seen as a “threat” by Washington. In the spring of 2018, something close to a “color revolution” took place.  With extensive quotes and descriptions from people who were on the ground, Kovalik analyzes and gives evidence showing that the turmoil was prepared and promoted by the US using social media techniques with support from conservative church, business and political rivals.

Kovalik describes how the Ortega administration took the unusual step of ordering police to stay in the barracks. They had to endure attacks and watch as the “peaceful protesters” attacked schools, clinics, and government offices. Ultimately the Sandinista strategy exposed who was instigating the violence and harming the economy with roadblocks.  With minimal conflict, the uprising and “regime change” effort collapsed. The roadblocks were taken down and the economy slowly restored.  Some coup leaders left for Costa Rica and others for the US.

Kovalik addresses  the criticisms of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas which are sometimes heard in the West.   Regarding the opposition “Sandinista Renovation Movement” (MRS), Kovalik shows that their policies have little popular appeal. They are more popular in the West than in Nicaragua where their support is minuscule. Many western critics of Nicaragua and the Sandinistas have not been there for many years or even decades.

Opponents of the Sandinistas were hoping the FSLN would not do well in the November 2021 election. Instead, FSLN candidates Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo received 75% of the vote against five competing parties. This international observer was impressed with the high turnout, efficiency and authenticity of the election.

Kovalik covers all these topics with a good level of depth including sources.  There are many references and interesting quotations from North Americans and Europeans who live in Nicaragua. The book also includes many references to movies, songs and poetry. Poets are still revered and music is still a big part of Nicaragua. At the recent 44^th celebration of the Nicaragua revolution, the first two hours were devoted to songs.

Kovalik’s book on Nicaragua is highly relevant because US interference in Nicaragua and Central America continues. For years there has been a drumbeat of biased and false claims in western media about Nicaragua. Washington is steadily increasing sanctions on Nicaragua.

What happens in Nicaragua is important for other countries in Central America. Neighboring Honduras is currently trying to escape US dominance. Both Honduras and Nicaragua recently broke relations with Taiwan and established relations with China. That is, of course, their right as sovereign nations. But the US does not approve. The 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine has not been rescinded  and we can safely predict US intervention in Nicaragua will continue.

Told in an engaging and persuasive way, this book presents the history of a small nation that has resisted continual efforts to dominate and control it. It is truly a David vs Goliath tale.  Anyone interested in Latin American history or US foreign policy should add this book to their reading list.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Rick Sterling.

Romero started life and ministry as a conservative. But, after his friend Rev. Rutilio Grande was assassinated to discourage other faith leaders from supporting Salvadorian peasants, Romero underwent a political and theological conversion. Picking up where Grande left off, Romero embraced a “theology of liberation,” a perspective that espouses G-d’s preference for the poor and oppressed. His visibility as archbishop elevated his voice and the credibility of his critique of the conditions faced by peasants in El Salvador.

A month before his assassination, Romero wrote President Jimmy Carter requesting a halt to U.S. military assistance to the Salvadoran government.

Over 250,000 people attended Romero’s funeral demonstrating the love of the Salvadoran people and echoing his demands for justice. Tragically, however, they were swimming against a historical current of meddling and manipulation which included murder, often orchestrated or at the very least condoned from the U.S.

Intentionally ignoring two U.S. embassy cables naming the general who ordered his personal bodyguard to carry out the assassination of Romero, in 1982, Elliot Abrams, the newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, said, “anybody who thinks you’re going to find a cable that says that Roberto d’Aubuisson murdered the archbishop is a fool.” Thanks to Abrams and his ilk’s support, U.S. military assistance to the Salvadoran regime was dramatically increased that year. The following year, the U.S. gifted the Salvadoran military and government with U.S. advisors.

Last week, President Biden nominated Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s pick to join the State Department Bipartisan Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Elliot Abrams. If you’re not already outraged and infuriated, keep reading.

Under Abrams’ watch, over the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush Sr. administrations, 75,000 Salvadorians were killed. In the village of El Mozote, the army’s Atlácatl Battalion herded women and children into a church convent and opened fire with U.S.-supplied M-16 automatic rifles before burning the building down. One hundred and forty children, average age six, were killed. In 1994, with blood still dripping from his hands, Abrams referred to the U.S.’s record on El Salvador as a “fabulous achievement.”

In addition to supporting the Salvadorian junta, Abrams was a defender of the Guatemalan Montt regime which oversaw the mass murder, rape, and torture of scores of Indigenous Ixil Mayan people in the 1980s. The Montt regime was so brutal that it was later classified by the United Nations as genocidal. From his conviction for lying to Congress during the Iran-Contra affair, to his roles supporting the Iraq war, scuttling the Iran nuclear deal, and attempting to orchestrate a coup in Venezuela as recently as 2019, one thing is clear: Abrams doesn’t have a diplomatic bone in his body.

Abrams epitomizes an extreme form of American biblical nationalism, dressed in the distortions of Christianity and Judaism that ironically echo the papal bulls of 1452. These papal decrees, known as the “Doctrine of Discovery,” codify the rights of white nations to acquire and dominate any lands they “discovered.” Similarly, Abrams speaks the language of the Global North proclaiming that their hegemony is the natural order of the world, as G-d wills it to be.

The Doctrine of Discovery inspired the Monroe Doctrine, which declared the “right” to exploit and plunder Latin America to be exclusive to the U.S. “We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety,” President James Monroe said. This served as a philosophical justification for the ideological boots Abram’s wore to stomp all over Latin America, the Middle East and other places. Abrams has left bloody footprints across the globe.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ariel Gold and Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler.

To most — encouraged by the capitalist media — the left is the Democratic Party. But that must undoubtedly be mistaken. To be left, one surely has to be outside of the centers of power, looking in; and that certainly is not true of the Democrats and their leaders. Since the beginning of the modern two-party system, the Democrats have been the Pepsi to the Republican Coke, taking its turn in ruling. There may be an estranged left wing of the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party itself is not a left organization. Only deranged columnists for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal could believe that fantasy.

Aside from dismissing the Democratic Party as an example of the left, it remains difficult to capture what is left in today’s political life. Historically, the thread that united the “left” politics of the last millennium was its rejection of existing political and/or socio-economic formations. Looking back or forward from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, opposition to the existing order generally defined the left, whether that opposition was broadly democratic, liberal democratic, anarchist, or socialist.

Today, that is no longer true in the US.

Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, self-proclaimed US leftists had lowered their designs from advocacy of a new order to a defense of the more “progressive” old order: The New Deal, the Great Society, and a human rights-based foreign policy.

James Carter’s presidential administration was perhaps the high point of and the point of departure from expanding the social democratic vision of a better world. Carter’s electoral platform captured the highest aspirations of the non-revolutionary left to date, with job guarantees, national healthcare, and reduced militarism. Within two years of his presidency, Carter had jettisoned his platform and Ted Kennedy picked up the tattered banner.

Since the election of Ronald Reagan, the broad left has been in retreat, engaged in a defensive posture, lowering its expectations with every electoral cycle.

Marginalized by the Red Scare, ostracization, official repression, and petty-bourgeois self-indulgence, the radical, revolutionary left clung at the margins of political life, advocating a new world against the cynicism and despair fostered by the rout of the “progressive” hordes.

Of course, the fall of the Soviet Union only added to the difficulties of the radical left with the flight of careerists, opportunists, and fair-weather friends from the Marxist-Leninist left.

“Lesser-of-two-evils-ism” became the guiding light of most of the left from the Reagan era onward. With an emboldened, more radical Right emerging, this posture had some merit. The idea of thwarting the rightward march above all other considerations appealed to many. But far too many equated a new Republican-initiated aggression against the gains of working people with Mussolini’s march on Rome.

But nearly half a century later, it has only hardened into a policy of settling for any concession– no matter how small or of little consequence– that the ruling elites will grant. “Lesser-of-two-evils” has inexorably moved the US left to begging for a place within the respectable tent, into a role as the loyal opposition. Too much of our left substituted “please” for “we demand.”

We see this in recent lows in left journalism and commentary. The website Portside — a creation of 1991 dissidents from the Communist Party USA, recovering members of the New Communist Movement, and assorted other activists — illustrates this decline. Portside proves the futility of combining loyal opposition to the Democratic Party mainstream with nostalgia for the New Deal and the Great Society.

While the war in Ukraine has exacerbated and exposed the weaknesses of the US left, there has been slow, but encouraging move toward opposition to the war and the demand to negotiate an end (nearly the entire organized US left picked a side early on and hesitated in calling for the war’s end, with the notable exception of Code Pink).

So it was disappointing, but not surprising to see that Portside recently reposted a provocative article, “The Surprising Pervasiveness of American Arrogance,” from Foreign Policy in Focus. Author John Feffer attacks those within the generic left who dare to challenge the rigid narrative on the Ukraine war established by the US State Department and slavishly followed by the mainstream media.

Feffer finds arrogance because the US left — undoubtedly justified in believing that the US manufactures consensus — does not embrace the views of the Ukrainian “left” (part of an equally manufactured consensus). Feffer suggests that first hand, authentic opinions of those who are living in Ukraine trumps the opinion of outsiders, while concealing the well-known fact that the Ukrainian government suppresses those who oppose the war. With eleven parties banned in Ukraine, it is surely likely that public opinion in Ukraine is stifled by this reality. It would be equally silly to value the opinion of the Russian left on the war over what we can independently establish, given similar official pressure.

Feffer’s argument is pure sophistry — a variation on the fallacious argument from authority (ad Verecundiam) as taught in beginning logic textbooks.

Further, Feffer denies that there is a place for US pressure in ending the war. He mocks those who may well exaggerate the possibility of a quick, decisive end to the war, but asks us to believe that it could continue indefinitely without US material aid and encouragement. To promote this view, Feffer pictures the US as a mere ineffective leaf blowing in the global political winds — a vulgar reversal of the real US situation. He conveniently forgets the consequential effects of the international anti-war movement in the 1960s.

If Feffer mounts the best case for Portside’s siding with the US State Department, the editors have no case at all.

But a week later, Portside stoops even lower.

Reposting an incendiary article worthy of Hedda Hopper, Walter Winchell, or Red Channels, the editors returned to the era of guilt by association and Moscow Gold. “People’s Media” Network, but Pro-Russia and Pro-China — taken from The Daily Beast, the self-described “high-end tabloid” — purports to connect a media outlet and a number of left groups and personalities to a wealthy funding source, Neville “Roy” Singham.

Author William Bredderman desperately wants to foster the impression that these entities take the positions that they take because they are directly or indirectly on the payroll of the Russian Federation and/or the People’s Republic of China, that they are Putin’s or Xi’s puppets. His sole evidence is a two-year old raid and accompanying allegations by the Indian authorities that Singham served as a conduit for foreign money to an Indian opposition media outlet. Even the two-year-old Times of India article cited by Bredderman puts the “link” between Singham and the PRC in quotation marks.

But of course, a link between foreign monies and the Indian medium, NewsClick — should it be established with Singham as an intermediary — would have little evidentiary bearing, other than innuendo, upon the relationship between US leftists and the RF or the PRC. No further evidence is introduced.

Bredderman goes to great lengths to show that the organizations and individuals cited all oppose US foreign policy toward the RF and the PRC. He wants the reader to conclude that this opposition is due to influence, rather than principle, despite the well-established fact that these groups and individuals have long been consistently critical of US foreign policy!

The experts that Bredderman surfaces are all deeply hostile to the left, including the discredited Alexander Reid Ross, the popularizer of the laughably imaginary Red/Brown alliance — a particularly nasty notion that served to divide the left since the 1930s.

Many of us have seen this before: the charge that the civil rights movement was directed and funded by Communists, that the anti-war movement was guided by Moscow, that opposition to US foreign and domestic practices must have insidious origins kept from the general public.

The temptation to point to the source of support is especially tempting when power and wealth bear such overwhelming influence through think tanks, institutes, foundations, grants, non-profits, and a host of other ruling-class fronts posing as “independent” voices. Exposing their hypocrisy is a useful service to those who naïvely take their products at face value.

However, “Gotcha” journalism can be an impediment to critical thinking, a diversion from the substance of unconventional views. Since we cannot know if donors support the left because they agree with them, because they insist on compliance for their donations, or if they are solicited by those they fund, we cannot judge the effect upon the recipient’s independence, nor should we be obsessed with it. To be sure, the money won’t come from the US ruling class to seriously subvert  itself!

And that should have crossed the minds of the editors of Portside who posted this scabrous assault on the left. And it should be understood as an attack on the left, since it serves no purpose beyond casting a shadow on a section of the left and raising distracting questions about the rest of the left.

Are the editors still mired in the nonsense of RussiaGate? Do they still see foreigners under our political bed?*

History will decide many of our differences, without help from ruling-class apologists and hucksters.

* While this was being written, Portside reposted an hysterical, crude revival of the RussiaGate nonsense and related conspiratorial gibberish by radio host and spiritualist, Thom Hartmann. By revisiting every discredited, distorted, and misleading claim, Portside demonstrated that it will stop at nothing to get a Democrat elected President in sixteen months. 

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.

But Reagan's assumption of ever-rising life expectancy in the U.S. turned out to be false, according to a new analysis, a fact with painful consequences for those who saw their Social Security benefits pared back thanks to the 1983 law's gradual increase of the full retirement age—the age at which one is eligible for unreduced Social Security payments.

As Conor Smyth wrote Monday for the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank, the Social Security Amendments of 1983 hiked the full retirement age "from 65 in 2000 to 67 at the end of 2022."

"What this actually meant was not that the age at which people could retire and start drawing Social Security benefits changed—that remained at 62," Smyth explained. "Instead, by raising what's called the full retirement age (FRA) by two years, the law effectively cut benefit levels across the board, regardless of the age that any particular individual began claiming Social Security benefits. The result is that those retiring at 62 today face a 50% greater penalty for retiring before the change than they would have before 2000."

The 1983 law was an outgrowth of a special presidential commission headed by Alan Greenspan, a right-wing economist who would go on to serve as chair of the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades.

Smyth noted that before final passage of the measure—which cleared the House and Senate with bipartisan support, including from then-Sen. Joe Biden—"a popular argument for raising the retirement age was that life expectancy had increased, so people should work for longer."

"The presumption was that the increase in life expectancy since Social Security's implementation would continue as the retirement age rose. But, in reality, something peculiar happened," Smyth wrote. "Over the same period during which the 1983 law forced the retirement age up from 65 to 67, life expectancy in the U.S. actually declined. In 2000, U.S. life expectancy was 76.8 years. According to data released last December, life expectancy in 2021 was 76.4 years. This was the second consecutive year of significant life expectancy decline."

"That's a drop of 0.4 years over a time span when the FRA rose by nearly two years," Smyth observed. "So not only have Americans seen their benefits cut by an increase in the FRA, they now also face a particularly morbid version of a benefit cut in the form of shorter lives."

(Image: People's Policy Project)

The new analysis comes as some congressional Republicans are openly advocating further increases in the retirement age, with one GOP lawmaker recently declaring that people "actually want to work longer."

In a policy agenda released last year, the House Republican Study Committee (RSC) echoed Reagan-era arguments in favor of raising the full retirement age to 70—a change that would cut Social Security benefits across the board at a time when many retirees are struggling to afford basic necessities.

The RSC agenda states that Republican legislation known as the Social Security Reform Act would "continue the gradual increase of the normal retirement age that current law has set in motion at a rate of three months per year until it is increased by three years for those reaching age 62 in 2040, 18 years from now."

"This adjustment," the document claims, "would begin to realign the Social Security full retirement age to account for increases in life expectancy since the program's creation."

President Biden and congressional Democrats have pledged to reject any proposed cuts to Social Security, which Republicans have threatened to pursue in exchange for a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

In addition to urging Biden and Democratic lawmakers to stand firm against Social Security cuts, advocates are calling on the president to embrace a Social Security expansion plansuch as the one recently proposed by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, which would fund benefit increases by raising the payroll tax cap so that wealthier Americans contribute a more equal share to the program.

"President Biden campaigned on a promise to expand Social Security's modest benefits, while dedicating more revenue to it. Most Democratic senators and members of the House support that as well. Yet the mainstream media fails to take those proposals seriously," Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams last week.

"If the Biden administration championed an expansion plan, unveiled at a White House event with major stakeholders in attendance," Altman added, "that could not be ignored."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Kevin McCarthy just came back from a press trip to our southern border, full of talk about how bad the Biden administration is doing with asylum and immigration. Today, another group of House Republicans are “holding a hearing” at the Mexican border. If you watch Fox “News” you know all about it.

Republicans have figured out how to have it both ways. They get cheap labor for their big business buddies, while stoking the hate and fear of their white racist base, claiming that Democrats are responsible for increasing numbers of undocumented or “illegal” immigrants living and working in the United States.

While it’s true that two factors have driven a lot of migration over the past few decades (climate change wiping out farmland, and political dysfunction and gangs caused by the Reagan administration devastating the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) the main driver of would-be immigrants and refugees into the US over the past 40 years has been the Republican Party itself.

“But,” you may say, “Republicans have been screaming about ‘illegal immigration’ for as long as I can remember! How can they be responsible for it?”

There are two parts to this nefarious scheme.

The first part has been running continuously for 40 years; the second part is more recent, having started in the early 1990s. Here are the details.

First up was the GOP’s longest con regarding immigration. While they claim they don’t want “illegals” in the US, that’s the opposite of the situation the Reagan administration and Republicans in Congress set up back in the day.

Most countries don’t demagogue immigration: they regulate it with real laws that have real teeth against employers who hire non-citizens to exploit them for cheap labor. The logic, which generally works out all around the world, is that when the jobs dry up, the immigrants just stop coming.

I lived and worked in Germany for a year, and it took me almost four months to get a work-permit from that government to do so. I also worked in Australia (although I didn’t live there), and the process of getting that work-permit, just like with Germany, also took a couple of months.

In both cases, it was my employers who were most worried about my successfully getting the work permits and did most of the work to make it happen.

I wasn’t personally so worried about it, though: there’s an important reason why my employers took on the responsibility and did the work to make sure my work permits were in order.

The way that most countries prevent undocumented immigrants from disrupting their economies and causing cheap labor competition with their citizens is by putting employers in jail or hitting them with huge fines when they hire people who don’t have the right to work in that country.

We used to do this in the United States.

In the 1920s, the US began regulating immigration and similarly put into place laws regulating who could legally work in this country and who couldn’t.

Because there was so much demand for low-wage immigrant labor in the food belt of California during harvest season, President Dwight Eisenhower experimented with a program in the 1950s that granted season-long passes to workers from Mexico.

Millions took him up on it, but his bracero program failed because employers — not government — controlled the permits, and far too many unscrupulous employers used the threat of canceling people’s work permits to silence workers who objected to having their wages stolen, or to intimidate workers who objected to physical or sexual abuse.

A similar dynamic is at work today because of an “innovation” Reagan put into place.

Employers get cheap labor from undocumented immigrants in the United States, using — like they did with the Bracero program back in the day — the threat of deportation and the violence of ICE as a cudgel. Undocumented immigrants working here even end up afraid to call the police when they’re the victims of, or witnesses to, crime.

The result is unsafe communities, a terrorized undocumented immigrant workforce, and easy pickings for predators who regularly rob, rape, and inflict violence on immigrants and asylum seekers.

Everybody loses except the employers, who have a cheap, pliable, easily-threatened source of labor that is afraid to talk back or report abuses.

Which is exactly what the GOP wanted. The system is working just the way Reagan envisioned it.

It started in 1986, when Ronald Reagan decided to stop enforcing the laws against wealthy white employers hiring undocumented people.

It wasn’t that Reagan had suddenly discovered he liked nonwhite people. He’d opposed both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1966, running for California governor, he supported a ballot initiative to end “Fair Housing” laws in the state, saying:

“If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so.”

Similarly, when running for president in 1980, Reagan’s biographer Lou Cannon notes on page 520 of his book that Reagan called the 1965 Voting Rights Act “a humiliation of the South.”

But by 1986 President Reagan was deep into a campaign to de-fund the Democratic Party, and the Democrats’ main donor was organized labor. What better way to crush unions than to replace their members with non-union workers who were legally invisible?

For example, prior to the Reagan administration two of the most heavily unionized industries in America were construction and meatpacking. These were tough jobs, but in both cases provided people who just had a high school education with a solid entry card into the American Dream.

They were well-paid jobs that allowed construction and meatpacking workers to buy a home, take vacations, raise their kids and live a good, middle-class life with a pension for retirement. The meat packers in Wisconsin were doing so well that they sponsored what became the only non-billionaire-owned NFL football team — the Green Bay Packers — from day one.

Reagan and his Republican allies — with unionized companies across the country making healthy “donations” legalized by the 1978 Bellotti Supreme Court decision — wrote the 1986 Immigration Reform Act in a way that made it harder to prosecute employers who invited undocumented workers into their workplaces.

They abandoned systems like I had to engage so I could work in Germany and Australia in 1986/87 and the early 2000s, or like Canada and other developed countries have had in place for decades.

Instead, under Reagan’s new law, employers could easily avoid sanctions by simply having undocumented immigrants give them paperwork (often supplied by the employers themselves) that met the new requirement that it “reasonably appears on its face to be genuine.”

Further reducing the “burden” on employers, an amendment to the law under the guise of preventing discrimination “penalized employers for conducting overly aggressive scrutiny of workers’ legal status on the basis of their nationality or national origin.”

The law also held companies harmless if they simply fired all their unionized American workers and replaced them with undocumented immigrants who were employed by a subcontractor.

This led to an explosion of fly-by-night and immigration-law-skirting subcontractors providing cheap undocumented labor for everything from construction to fieldwork to cleaning factories (like the most recent charge of child labor violations in Nebraska).

As Brad Plumer noted in The Washington Postabout Reagan’s 1986 immigration “reform”:

“[T]he bill's sponsors ended up watering down the sanctions on employers to attract support from the business community, explains Wayne Cornelius of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at U.C. San Diego. ‘The end result was that they essentially gutted the employer sanctions,’ he says.”

After Reagan stopped enforcing our labor and immigration laws with respect to wealthy white employers, the next 20 years saw a collapse of American citizens working in both the meatpacking and construction industries, among others.

Forty-dollar-an-hour American-citizen unionized workers were replaced with seven-dollar-an-hour undocumented workers desperate for a chance at a life in America for themselves and their children.

From the Republican point of view, an added bonus was that levels of unionization in both industries utterly collapsed, increasing profits and executives’ salaries while gutting the ability of unions to finance Democrats’ political campaigns.

Reagan pulled off a double: he succeeded in transforming the American workplace and simultaneously set up decades of potential anti-Hispanic hysteria that Republicans like Trump and McCarthy could use as a political wedge.

Without acknowledging that it was Reagan himself who set up the “crisis,” Republicans today hold serious-sounding conferences and press availabilities about how “illegals” are “trying to steal Americans jobs!” They’re all over right-wing hate radio and in the conservative media on a near-daily basis.

But it’s not poor people coming here in search of safety or a better life who are impacting our labor markets (and, frankly, it’s a small impact): it’s the companies that hire them.

And those same companies then fund Republican politicians who pushed under-the-radar social media ads at African Americans and blue-collar whites in 2016 and the last election saying that Democrats wanted Hispanic “illegals” to come in to “replace them” and take their jobs.

America, it turns out, doesn’t have an “illegal immigrant” problem: we have an “illegal employer” problem.

Which is why every single effort by Democrats to engage Republicans on “comprehensive immigration reform” runs into a brick wall: the GOP wants things just as they are.

Which brings us to the GOP’s second grand immigration con job.

When Marjorie Taylor Greene was on Tucker Carlson’s show this week to pitch her “divorce” between red and blue states (another grand distraction from the GOP’s plans to gut Social Security and Medicare), he said, speaking of the alleged differences between Republicans and Democrats:

“How do you reconcile secure borders and wide-open borders?”

We shouldn’t be surprised by lies about “open borders” coming out of Fox “News” after the Dominion revelations, but this is part of a much larger story that’s worth examining.

As I detailed on the HartmannReport at length back on December 20^th, whenever a Democrat takes up residence in the White House literally hundreds of Republican politicians step up to the microphone or tell their local newspapers and radio stations how the Democratic president has suddenly “opened up America’s southern border!!!”

They did it to Clinton, they did it to Obama, and they’re doing it to Biden now. And every time they do, word travels from these GOP politicians and publications to desperate people south of our border.

As any Republican will proudly tell you, there were huge surges of desperate would-be immigrants and asylum seekers during each of the last three Democratic presidents’ administrations.

What they won’t tell you is that none of those Democratic presidents “invited” anybody or “loosened” border restrictions: people showed up because Republican politicians had told them the border was now open.

Democrats don’t say our borders are open, and, as far as I can tell, never have.

In March of 2021 the rightwing Washington Examiner newspaper went on a search for Democrats proclaiming that we’d “opened!” the southern border in the first months of Joe Biden’s presidency.

They found nothing. (Well, they found that both Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema had called the situation on our southern border “a crisis,” as well as a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan who was merely acknowledging the surge of immigrants. And a single Democratic mayor in Texas who also said it was a crisis. But that’s it.)

But literally hundreds of Republican politicians, just like they do every two years, have spent the two-plus years since Biden’s inauguration proclaiming to every despairing potential refugee south of our border that the door is wide open.

Just google “open border” and “congressman,” “congresswoman,” or “senator” and you’ll get a list too long to print.

At the top of that list just from the past few months, of course, you’ll find the most contemptible Republican demagogues:

— Ted Cruz wants everybody south of our border to know that the “Biden Open Border Policy [is] A Very Craven Political Decision”;
— Rick Scott wants everybody to know that “Americans Don’t Want [Biden’s] Open Borders”;
— Marco Rubio says there’s “Nothing Compassionate About Biden’s Open Border Policies”;
— Rand Paul is so extreme he tells us Senator Rubio “is the one for an open border”;
— Josh Hawley says “Biden’s Open Border Policy Has Created a Moral Crisis”;
— Tom Cotton “Insists the Border is Wide Open”;
— Ron Johnson wants the world to know that “Our National Security is at Risk Because Democrats have Turned Border Security into a Partisan Issue”;
— Marjorie Taylor Greene “BLASTS Open Border Hypocrites”;
— Mo Brooks opposes “Socialist Democrats’ Open Border Policies for Helping Kill Americans”;
— Lauren Boebert says the “Root Cause” of the open border crisis “is in the White House”;
— Matt Gaetz “revealed a complex and deceitful agenda by Joe Biden’s Democrat administration to evade our Southern Border law enforcement”;
— Gym Jordan says “Biden’s Deliberate Support of Illegal Immigration Could Lead to Impeachment”;
— Kevin McCarthy says the Biden Administration has “Utterly Failed” to secure the “open border”;
— Elise Stefanik proclaims “Biden’s Open Border Policies have been a Complete Disaster.”
— Tom Cole’s website features “Biden’s Open Border America”;
— Bob Goode brags about introducing legislation named the “Close Biden’s Open Border Act”;
— John Rose “Calls Out Biden’s Open Border Policies”;
— Paul Gosar claims Biden is “Destroying America with His Open Border Policies”;
— Roger Williams complains about the “Democrats’ Open Border Problem”;
— Tom Cole wants the world to know that Biden’s “open border policies have given the green light to migrants and bad actors from around the world…”;
— Gus Bilirakis “Denounces Dangerous Open Border Policies on the House Floor”;

The list goes on and on, and these messages have spread all across Central and South America, just as Republicans hoped they would. Based on a lie.

And the small percentage of migrants who actually get through our border and survive the trek across deadly deserts provide more cheap labor for Republicans’ big donors’ factories and construction sites, along with more Brown-skinned people they can demonize as “replacing” white Americans on Fox “News.” Win-win.

The tragedy is in the lives of the desperate people who listen to these Republican lies and try to make it here.

They pack all their belongings into a single backpack, bid tearful goodbyes to friends and family, and begin a grueling journey facing dangers of death, kidnapping, rape, and violence. They are fathers, mothers, and children.

Quite literally taking their lives in their hands because they believed cynical, unfeeling, uncaring, sociopathic Republican politicians who are lying for political gain.

Now, in response to the most recent surge caused by all the politicians listed above, the Biden administration may revive a rule turning away asylum seekers who didn’t first pre-register with our immigration system in another country before showing up here.

Predictably, he’s being slammed for “too little, too late” by Republicans and sued by immigration advocates who are frustrated with almost 40 years of unsuccessful attempts to reform our immigration laws.

Immigration issues are riling the entire developed world, as refugees flee war and climate change looking for safety and better lives. And it’s turning the politics of developed countries upside-down, ushering in hardcore rightwing governments from Sweden to Hungary to Italy.

Immigration that’s too rapid or comes in waves invariably produces a local and typically racist/xenophobic backlash.

We saw that here in the US with Irish immigrants in the 1840s following the potato famine that set the stage for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gangs of New York story; with Chinese in the mid-1800s, leading to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; and the wave of Italian immigrants starting in the 1880s leading to “No Dogs, No Italians” signs here, as northern Europe also saw.

Immigration has historically been a powerful positive force for America, but it must be regulated in a way that’s both fair to immigrants/asylum seekers and not disruptive of citizens’ work and lives.

It’s way past time for our media to call out Republican exploitation and demagoguery of this issue so we can finally and comprehensively reform our immigration laws.

While once again jailing employers who break our immigration laws — instead of the desperate people they invited here — so they have to exclusively hire American citizens and Green Card holders may cut into big business’ profits (which they can easily afford), everybody else in our society will be the better for it.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Thom Hartmann.

Friends,

I’m honoring Presidents’ Day by sharing with you some thoughts about Jimmy Carter, who is now in hospice care.

Carter’s administration marked the end of 45 years of democratic capitalism, whose goal had been to harness the private sector for the common good.

It’s important to understand what happened and why.

For years, the rap on President Carter has been that his presidency failed yet his post-presidency was the best in modern history.

This is way too simplistic.

Carter’s life after his presidency was exemplary for the same reason he was elected president after the disasters of Richard Nixon and Nixon’s vice president, Gerald Ford (who unconditionally pardoned Nixon for any crimes he may have committed): Carter’s modesty, decency, and humanity.

Not only were these traits the opposite of Nixon’s, but they would shine even brighter 40 years later in contrast to the loathsome Donald Trump.

One-term presidents are always presumed failures because voters didn’t reelect them. But Carter lost his reelection bid (as would George H.W. Bush 12 years later) not because his presidency failed but because the Federal Reserve Board hiked interest rates so high as to bring on a recession. Recessions do not just choke off inflation; they also choke off presidencies.

During Carter’s term of office, the OPEC oil cartel raised oil prices from $13 a barrel to over $34, resulting in double-digit price increases across the economy. Paul Volcker, Carter’s appointee as Fed chair, was determined to “break the back of inflation” by hiking interest rates to nearly 20 percent by 1981, bringing on a deep recession and causing millions of people to lose their jobs — including Carter.

It was not Carter’s fault that democratic capitalism ended with him. To the contrary, he appointed many consumer, labor, and environmental advocates to his administration.

Full disclosure: I was a Carter appointee, but met him only twice, once at a Rose Garden ceremony and years later at a dinner party at the home of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. (He was uncharacteristically late for dinner but made a surprise entry, coming down the stairs from a bedroom where he had taken a nap. He apologized profusely, making two un-Trump-like concessions in a single sentence: “I’m getting old and need my nap,” he said with a self-effacing grin, “but I should have told someone I was heading upstairs.”)

Many of his initiatives — ending funding for the B-1 bomber, seeking a comprehensive consumer-protection bill, proposing broad-based tax reform, opposing traditional “pork barrel” spending, establishing a “superfund” to clean up toxic waste sites, and deregulating the airline, trucking, and railroad industries (resulting in lower transportation costs for industry and consumers) — were commendable.

But much of what he did seemed to justify Lewis Powell’s warning to corporate America in a 1971 memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that corporations must bulk up their lobbying muscle in Washington or suffer political defeat.

The untold story of the Carter years is the vast increase in corporate political firepower during this time. Trade associations, law firms, lobbying firms, political operatives, and public-relations specialists swarmed Washington, offering executives so much money that most retiring members of Congress also became lobbyists.

The city went from being a sleepy if not seedy backwater to the hub of America’s political wealth — replete with tony restaurants, upscale hotels, expensive bistros, and 25-bedroom mansions (one of them now owned by Jeff Bezos), and bordered by two of the richest counties in the nation.

With the defeat of Carter’s consumer protection legislation in 1978 at the hands of corporate lobbyists, Richard Lesher, then president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, presciently boasted that: “30 to 40 years from now people will look back and say ‘These were the years when the transition took place.’ … We're waking up. And big business is going to be in the forefront of this drive.”

Perhaps Carter could have staved this off had he been more politically cunning, but I doubt it. After 45 years playing defense, corporate America was eager to grab back the reins of power. Despite his best efforts, Carter paved the way for Ronald Reagan — and America’s return to the corporate capitalism that had dominated the nation before the Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Robert Reich.

Why are America’s plutocrats funding efforts to weaken our democracy and replace it with plutocracy and oligarchy? Is it just about money? Or is there something much deeper that most Americans rarely even consider?

An extraordinary investigative report from documented.net tells how morbidly rich families, their companies, and their personal foundations are funding efforts to limit or restrict democracy across the United States.

In an article co-published with The Guardian, they noted:

“The advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, the powerful conservative think tank based in Washington, spent more than $5m on lobbying in 2021 as it worked to block federal voting rights legislation and advance an ambitious plan to spread its far-right agenda calling for aggressive voter suppression measures in battleground states.”

Their efforts have had substantial success, as you can read in Documented’s article.

This effort, of course, is not unique to the one think tank they called out. From Donald Trump all the way down to the lowest Republican county official, efforts to make it harder for what John Adams called “the rabble” to vote and otherwise participate in democracy are in full swing across America.

But why? Why are some wealthy people so opposed to expanding democracy in America?

Most Americans — and lots of editorial writers — are convinced it’s simply because rich folks want to influence legislation to benefit themselves and keep their regulations and taxes down. I proposed a motive like that in yesterday’s Daily Take.

And surely, for some, that’s the largest part of it. But that’s not the entire story.

I can’t claim (nor would I) to know the exact motives driving the various wealthy individuals funding efforts to reduce the Black, Hispanic, senior, and youth vote. But history does suggest that many are trying to “stabilize” America rather than just pillage her.

They are worried that America is suffering from too much democracy.

The modern-day backstory to this starts in the early 1950s when conservative thinker Russell Kirk proposed a startling hypothesis that would fundamentally change our nation and the world.

The American middle-class at that time was growing more rapidly than any middle-class had ever grown in the history of the world, both in terms of the number of people in the middle class, the income of those people, and the overall wealth that those people were accumulating.

The middle-class was growing in wealth and income back then, in fact, faster than were the top 1%.

Kirk and colleagues like William F. Buckley postulated that if the middle-class and minorities became too wealthy, they’d feel the safety and freedom to throw themselves actively into our political processes, as rich people had historically done.

That expansion of democracy, they believed, would produce an absolute collapse of our nation’s social order — producing chaos, riots, and possibly even the end of the republic.

The first chapter of Kirk’s 1951 book, The Conservative Mind, is devoted to Edmund Burke, the British conservative who Thomas Paine visited for two weeks in 1793 on his way to get arrested in the French revolution. Paine was so outraged by Burke’s arguments that he wrote an entire book rebutting them titled The Rights of Man. It’s still in print (as it is Burke).

Burke was defending, among other things, Britain’s restrictions on democracy, including limits on who could vote or run for office, and the British maximum wage.

That’s right, maximum wage.

Burke and his contemporaries in the late 1700s believed that if working-class people made too much money, they’d have enough spare time to use democratic processes to challenge the social order and collapse the British kingdom.

Too much democracy, Burke believed, was a dangerous thing: deadly to nations and a violation of evolution and nature itself.

Summarizing his debate with Paine about the French Revolution, Burke wrote:

“The occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a working tallow-chandler [candle maker], cannot be a matter of honour to any person—to say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. Such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or collectively are permitted to rule [by voting]. In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.”

That was why Parliament passed a law making it illegal for employers to pay people over a certain amount, so as to keep wage-earners right at the edge of poverty throughout their lives.

It was explicitly to avoid too much democracy and preserve the stability of the kingdom. (For the outcome of this policy, read pretty much any Dickens novel.)

Picking up on this, Kirk’s followers argued that if the American middle-class became wealthy enough to have time for political activism, there would be similarly dire consequences.

Young people would cease to respect their elders, they warned. Women would stop respecting (and depending on) their husbands. Minorities would begin making outrageous demands and set the country on fire.

When Kirk laid this out in 1951, only a few conservative intellectuals took him seriously.

Skeptics of multiracial egalitarian democracy like William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater were electrified by his writings and line of thinking, but Republicans like then-President Dwight Eisenhower said of people like Kirk and his wealthy supporters:

“Their numbers are negligible and they are stupid.“

And then came the 1960s.

— In 1961, the birth control pill was legalized and by 1964 was in widespread use; this helped kick off the Women’s Liberation Movement, as women, now in control of their reproductive capacity, demanded equality in the workplace. Bra burning became a thing, at least in pop culture lore.

— By 1967, young people on college campuses were also in revolt; the object of their anger was an illegal war in Vietnam. Along with national protest, draft card burning was also a thing.

— The labor movement was feeling it’s oats: strikes spread across America throughout the 1960s from farm workers in California to steel workers in Pennsylvania. In the one year of 1970 alone, over 3 million workers walked out in 5,716 strikes.

— And throughout that decade African Americans were demanding an end to police violence and an expansion of Civil and Voting Rights. In response to several brutal and well-publicized instances of police violence against Black people in the late 1960s, riots broke out and several of our cities were on fire.

These four movements all hitting America at the same time got the attention of Republicans who had previously ignored or even ridiculed Kirk’s 1950s warnings about the dangers of the middle class and minorities embracing democracy.

Suddenly, he seemed like a prophet. And the GOP turned on a dime.

The Republican/Conservative “solution” to the “national crisis” these movements represented was put into place with the election of 1980: the project of the Reagan Revolution was to dial back democracy while taking the middle class down a peg, and thus end the protests and social instability.

Their goal was, at its core, to save America from itself.

The plan was to declare war on labor unions so wages could slide down or at least remain frozen for a few decades; end free college across the nation so students would study in fear rather than be willing to protest; and increase the penalties Nixon had already put on drugs so they could use those laws against hippy antiwar protesters and Black people demanding participation in democracy.

As Nixon‘s right hand man, John Ehrlichman, told reporter Dan Baum:

“You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. Do you understand what I’m saying?
“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
“We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

While it looks from the outside like the singular mission of the Reagan Revolution was simply to help rich people and giant corporations get richer and more powerful (and that’s certainly been the effect), the ideologues driving the movement also thought they were restoring stability to the United States, both socially, economically, and — most important — politically.

The middle class was out of control by the late 1960s, they believed, and something had to be done. There was too much democracy, and it was tearing America apart.

Looking back at the “solutions” England used around the time of the American Revolution (and for 1000 years before) and advocated by Edmund Burke and other conservative thinkers throughout history, Republicans saw a remedy to the crisis. As a bonus, it had the side effect of helping their biggest donors and thus boosting their political war-chests.

If working people, women, minorities, and students were a bit more desperate about their economic situations, these conservative thinkers asserted, then they’d be less likely to organize, protest, strike, or even vote. The unevenness, the instability, the turbulence of democracy in the 1960s would be calmed.

— To accomplish this, Reagan massively cut taxes on rich people and raised taxes on working-class people 11 times.

— He put a tax on Social Security income and unemployment benefits and put in a mechanism to track and tax tips income, all of which had previously been tax-free but were exclusively needed and used by working-class people.

— He ended the deductibility of credit-card, car-loan and student-debt interest, overwhelmingly claimed by working-class people. At the same time, he cut the top tax bracket for millionaires and multimillionaires from 74% to 27%. (There were no billionaires in America then, in large part because of FDR’s previous tax policies; the modern explosion of billionaires followed Reagan’s massive tax cuts for the rich.)

— He declared war on labor unions, crushed PATCO in less than a week, and over the next decade the result of his war on labor was that union membership went from about a third of the American non-government workforce when he came into office to around 10% today.

— He brought a young lawyer named John Roberts into the White House to work out ways to overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision. His VP brought in his son, George W., to build bridges between the GOP and the most fanatical branches of evangelical Christianity, who opposed both women’s rights and the Civil Rights movement.

— He and Bush also husbanded the moribund 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT, which let Clinton help create the WTO) and NAFTA, which opened a floodgate for American companies to move manufacturing overseas, leaving American workers underemployed while cutting corporate donor’s labor costs and union membership.

And, sure enough, it worked.

— Reagan’s doubling-down on the War on Drugs shattered Black communities and our prison population became the largest in the world, both as a percentage of our population and in absolute numbers.

— His War on Labor cut average inflation-adjusted minimum and median wages by more over a couple of decades than anybody had seen since the Republican Great Depression of the 1930s.

— And his War on Students jacked up the cost of education so high that an entire generation is today so saddled with more than $1.7 trillion in student debt that many aren’t willing to jeopardize their future by “acting up” on campuses.

The key to selling all this to the American people was the idea that the US shouldn’t protect the rights of workers, subsidize education, or enforce Civil Rights laws because, Republicans said, government itself is a remote, dangerous and incompetent power that can legally use guns to enforce its will.

As Reagan told us in his first inaugural, democracy was not the solution to our problems, but democracy — government — instead was the problem itself.

He ridiculed the once-noble idea of service to one’s country and joked that there were really no good people left in government because if they were smart or competent they’d be working in the private sector for a lot more money.

He told us that the nine most frightening words in the English language were:

“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, wealthy people associated with Kirk’s and Reagan’s Republicans built a massive infrastructure of think tanks and media outlets to promote and amplify this message about the dangers of too much democracy.

As the reporting from documented.net indicates, they’re working at it with as much enthusiasm today as ever.

It so completely swept America that by the 1990s even President Bill Clinton was repeating things like, “The era of big government is over,” and “This is the end of welfare as we know it.” Limbaugh, Hannity and other right-wing radio talkers were getting millions a year in subsidies from groups like the Heritage Foundation, the group documented.net wrote about yesterday.

Fox News today carries on the tradition, warning almost daily about the danger of “people in the streets” or political movements like anti-fascism and BLM.

When you look at the long arc of post-Agricultural Revolution human history you discover that Burke was right when he claimed that oligarchy — rule by the rich — has been the norm, not the exception.

And it’s generally provided at least a modicum of stability: feudal Europe changed so little for over a thousand years that we simply refer to that era as the Dark Ages followed by the Middle Ages without detail. It’s all kind of black-and-white fuzzy in our mind’s eye.

Popes, kings, queens, pharaohs, emperors: none allowed democracy because all knew it was both a threat to their wealth and power but also because, they asserted, it would render their nations unstable.

These historic leaders — and their modern day “strongman” versions emerging in former democracies like Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Egypt, The Philippines, and Russia — are the model for many of today’s conservatives. And not just because they were rich.

Understanding this history gives us clues to how we can revive democracy in America. Step one is to help people realize that instability, like labor pains before birth, is not a bad thing for a democracy but most frequently is a sign of emerging and positive political and social advances.

Hopefully one day soon our vision of an all-inclusive democracy — the original promise of America, to quote historian Harvey Kaye — will be realized. But first we’re going to have to get past the millions of dollars mobilized by democracy’s skeptics.

I believe it’s possible. But it’s going to take all of us getting involved to make it happen. As both Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama were fond of saying: “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”

Tag, we’re it.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Thom Hartmann.

The corporate takeover of American politics started with a man and a memo you’ve probably never heard of.

In 1971, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked Lewis Powell, a corporate attorney who would go on to become a Supreme Court justice, to draft a memo on the state of the country.

Powell’s memo argued that the American economic system was “under broad attack” from consumer, labor, and environmental groups.

In reality, these groups were doing nothing more than enforcing the implicit social contract that had emerged at the end of the Second World War. They wanted to ensure corporations were responsive to all their stakeholders — workers, consumers, and the environment — not just their shareholders.

But Powell and the Chamber saw it differently. In his memo, Powell urged businesses to mobilize for political combat, and stressed that the critical ingredients for success were joint organizing and funding.

The Chamber distributed the memo to leading CEOs, large businesses, and trade associations — hoping to persuade them that Big Business could dominate American politics in ways not seen since the Gilded Age.

It worked.

The Chamber’s call for a business crusade birthed a new corporate-political industry practically overnight. Tens of thousands of corporate lobbyists and political operatives descended on Washington and state capitals across the country.

I should know — I saw it happen with my own eyes.

In 1976, I worked at the Federal Trade Commission. Jimmy Carter had appointed consumer advocates to battle big corporations that for years had been deluding or injuring consumers.

Yet almost everything we initiated at the FTC was met by unexpectedly fierce political resistance from Congress. At one point, when we began examining advertising directed at children, Congress stopped funding the agency altogether, shutting it down for weeks.

I was dumbfounded. What had happened?

In three words, The Powell Memo.

Lobbyists and their allies in Congress, and eventually the Reagan administration, worked to defang agencies like the FTC — and to staff them with officials who would overlook corporate misbehavior.

Their influence led the FTC to stop seriously enforcing antitrust laws — among other things — allowing massive corporations to merge and concentrate their power even further.

Washington was transformed from a sleepy government town into a glittering center of corporate America — replete with elegant office buildings, fancy restaurants, and five-star hotels.

Meanwhile, Justice Lewis Powell used the Court to chip away at restrictions on corporate power in politics. His opinions in the 1970s and 80s laid the foundation for corporations to claim free speech rights in the form of financial contributions to political campaigns.

Put another way — without Lewis Powell, there would probably be no Citizens United — the case that threw out limits on corporate campaign spending as a violation of the “free speech” of corporations.

These actions have transformed our political system. Corporate money supports platoons of lawyers, often outgunning any state or federal attorneys who dare to stand in their way. Lobbying has become a $3.7 billion dollar industry.

Corporations regularly outspend labor unions and public interest groups during election years. And too many politicians in Washington represent the interests of corporations — not their constituents. As a result, corporate taxes have been cut, loopholes widened, and regulations gutted.

Corporate consolidation has also given companies unprecedented market power, allowing them to raise prices on everything from baby formula to gasoline. Their profits have jumped into the stratosphere — the highest in 70 years.

But despite the success of the Powell Memo, Big Business has not yet won. The people are beginning to fight back.

First, antitrust is making a comeback. Both at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department we’re seeing a new willingness to take on corporate power.

Second, working people are standing up. Across the country workers are unionizing at a faster rate than we’ve seen in decades — including at some of the biggest corporations in the world — and they’re winning.

Third, campaign finance reform is within reach. Millions of Americans are intent on limiting corporate money in politics – and politicians are starting to listen.

All of these tell me that now is our best opportunity in decades to take on corporate power — at the ballot box, in the workplace, and in Washington.

Let’s get it done.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Robert Reich.

Vexilla regis prodeunt Inferni

— Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: The Inferno

Try to look ahead and see if you can see what’s been coming for decades.  Try to climb higher and see the beautiful things that Heaven bears, where we came forth, and once more see the stars and raise a banner of resistance to the King of Hell and all his henchmen. For they are here, and working hard as usual, and indifference will only strengthen their resolve.  Don’t be deceived by these digital demons.  They want to make you think they don’t exist.  They wish to get you to suspend your disbelief and get lost in the endless looping movie they have created to conceal their real machinations.

For we are living in a world of endless propaganda and simulacra where vast numbers of people are hypnotized and can’t determine the difference between the real world of nature, the body, etc. and digital imagery.  Reality has disappeared into screens. Simulation has swallowed the distinction between the real world and its representations.  Meaning has migrated to the margins of consciousness. This process is not yet complete but getting there.

This may at first seem hyperbolic, but it is not.  I wish to explain this as simply as I can, which is not easy, but I will try.  I will attempt to be rational, while knowing rationality and the logic of facts can barely penetrate the logic of digital simulacra within which we presently exist to such a large extent.  Welcome to the New World Order and artificial intelligence which, if we do not soon wake up to their encroaching calamitous consequences, will result in a world where “we will never know” because our brains will have been reduced to mashed potatoes and nothing will make sense. The British documentary filmmaker, Adam Philips, has said in his recent film, Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World, that it’s already “pointless to try to understand the meaning of why things happen” and we will never know, but this is a nihilistic claim that leads to resigned hopelessness.  We must get such sentiments “out of our heads.”

We do not, of course, live in the middle ages like Dante.  Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to be beyond our ken.  Our imaginations have withered together with our grasp on reality.  Up/down, good/evil, war/peace – opposites have melded into symbiotic marriages.  Most people are ashamed, as the poet Czeslaw Milosz has said, to ask themselves certain questions that the seething infinity of modern relativity has bequeathed us.  Space and time have lost all dimensions; the experience of the collapse of hierarchical space and time is widespread.  For those who still call themselves religious believers like Dante, “when they fold their hands and lift up their eyes, ‘up’ no longer exists,” Milosz rightly says.  The map and the territory are one as all metaphysics are almost lost.  And with its loss go our ability to see the advancing banner of the king of hell, to grasp the nature of the battle for the soul of the world that is now underway.  Or if you prefer, the struggle for political control.

One thing is certain: This war for control must be fought on both the spiritual and political levels. The centuries’ long rise of technology and capitalism has resulted in the degradation of the human spirit and its lived sense of the sacred.  This must be reversed, as it has fundamentally led to the mechanistic embrace of determinism and the disbelief in freedom. Logical thought is necessary, but not mechanistic thought with the deification of reason.  Scientific insight is essential, but within its limitation.  The spiritual and artistic imagination that transcends materialist, machine thinking is needed now more than ever.  We emphatically need to realize that the subject precedes the object and consciousness the scientific method.  Only by realizing this will we be able to break free from the trap that is propaganda and digital simulacra, whose modi operandi are to dissolve the differences between truth and falsity, the imaginary and the real, facts and fiction, good and evil.   To play satanic circle games, create double-binds, whose intent and result is to imprison and confuse.

It is akin to asking what is the antonym to the word contronym, which is a word having two meanings that contradict each other, such as “cleave,” which means to cut in half or to stick together.  There are many such words.

“What is the opposite of a contronym?”  I asked my thirteen-year-old granddaughter, a great reader and writer raised far away from the madding crowd of flickering and looping electronic images.  To which, after thinking a few minutes, she correctly replied, “The antonym to a contronym is itself, because it has two opposite meanings. It contradicts itself.”

Or as Tweedledee told Alice: “Contrariwise, if it were so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t.  That’s logic.”

And that’s the logic used to trap a sleeping public in a collective  hallucination of media and machines.  A grand movie in which all “opposites” are integrated to tranquilize all anxieties and amuse all boredom so that the audience doesn’t realize there is a world outside the Wonderland theater.

A Place to Start

Let me begin with a little history, some fortieth anniversaries that are occurring this year.  In themselves, and even in their temporal juxtapositions, they mean little, but they give us a place to anchor our reflections.  A sense of time and the progression of developments that have led to widespread digital cognitive warfare and twisted simulations.  Widespread unreality rooted in materialist brain research financed by intelligence agencies.  Spectacles of spectacles.  As Guy Debord puts it in The Society of the Spectacle:

Where the real world changes into simple images, the simple images become real beings and effective motivations of hypnotic behavior.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the U.S. President.  He was a bad actor, of course, which meant he was a good actor (or the reverse of the reverse of the reverse…) in a society that was becoming increasingly theatrical, image based, and dominated by what Daniel Boorstin in his classic book, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, had earlier termed “pseudo-events.”  Reagan was the personification of a pseudo-event, a walking illusion, a “benign” Orwellian persona presented to the public to conceal an evil agenda.  He was a masked man, one created by Deep-State forces to convince the public it was “morning in America again,” even as the banner of an avuncular good guy concealed, right from the start with the treacherous “October Surprise” involving the Iranian hostage crisis, an evil opening act to start the charade.  Reagan received overwhelming popular support and served two terms as the acting president.  The audience was enthralled. In crucial ways, his election marked the beginning of our descent into hell.

Halfway through his two terms, Gary Wills, In Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home, introduced Reagan as follows:

The geriatric ‘juvenile lead’ even as President, Ronald Reagan is old and young – an actor, but with only one role. Because he acts himself, we know he is authentic. A professional, he is always the amateur. He is the great American synecdoche, not only a part of our past but a large part of our multiple pasts. This is what makes many of the questions asked about him so pointless. Is he bright, shallow, complex, simple, instinctively shrewd, plain dumb? He is all these things and more. Synecdoche, just the Greek word for ‘sampling,’ and we all take a rich store of associations that have accumulated around the Reagan career and persona. He is just as simple, and just as mysterious, as our collective dreams and memories.

A few weeks after Reagan was sworn in, his newly named CIA Director William Casey (see Robert Parry’s book, Trick or Treason: The 1980 October Surprise Mystery), made a revealing comment at a meeting of the new cabinet appointees. Casey said, as overheard and recorded by Barbara Honegger who was present, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

Thirdly, in August of 1981, the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard published his seminal book, Simulacra and Simulation, in which he set out his theory of simulation where he claimed that a “hyperreal” simulated world was replacing the real world that once could be represented but not replaced.  He argued that this simulated world was generated by models of a real world that never existed and so people were living in “hyperreality,” or a totally fabricated reality.  This was a radical notion, and his claim at the time that this was already total was no doubt an exaggeration.  But that was then, not now.  Forty years have allowed his nightmarish theory to take on reality.  I will return to this subject later.

Technology and the Trap of the Machine Mass Mind

In his classic work, Propaganda, Jacques Ellul writes that “An analysis of propaganda therefore shows that it succeeds primarily because it corresponds exactly to a need of the masses…just two aspects of this: the need for explanation and the need for values, which both spring largely, but not entirely, from the promulgation of news.”  He wrote that in 1962 when news and world events were rapidly speeding up but were nowhere near as technologically frenzied as they are today.  Then there were radio, many newspapers, and a handful of television stations.  And yet, even in those days, as the sociologist C. Wright Mills said, the general public was confused and disoriented, liable to panic, and that information overwhelmed their capacity to assimilate it.  In The Sociological Imagination he wrote:

The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of people to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. And which values? Even when they do not panic, people often sense that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of moral stasis. Is it any wonder that   ordinary people feel they cannot cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That – in defense of selfhood – they become morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private individuals? Is it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap?

This trap has been progressively closing ever since.  To say this is false nostalgia for the good old days is intellectual claptrap. The evidence is overwhelming, and honest minds can see it clearly and a bit of self-reflection would reveal the inner wounds this development has caused.  There are various reasons for this: many intentional, others not: political machinations by the power elites, technological, cultural, religious developments, etc., all rooted in a similar way of thinking.  Whereas the wealthy elites have always controlled society, over the recent decades the growth in technological propaganda has increased exponentially. But the machines have been built upon a technical way of thinking that Ellul describes as ‘the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency in every field of human activity.” This way of thinking is the opposite of the organic, the human.  It is all about means without ends, self-generating means whose sole goal is efficiency.  Everything is now subordinated to technique, especially people.  He says:

From another point of view, however, the machine is deeply symptomatic: it represents the ideal toward which techniques strives.The machine is solely, exclusively technique; it is pure technique, one might say. For, wherever a technical factor exists, it results, almost inevitably, in mechanization: technique transforms everything it touches into a machine.

If only cell phones shocked the hands that touched them!

I think it is beyond dispute that this sense of entrapment and confusion with its concomitant widespread depression has increased dramatically over the decades and we have come to a dark, dark place.  Lost in a dark wood would be an understatement.  In the inferno would perhaps be more appropriate.

Who will be our Virgil to guide us through this hell we are creating and to show us where it is leading?

The massive use of psychotropic drugs for living problems is well known.  The sense of meaninglessness is widespread.  The shredding of social bonds with the journey into a vast digital dementia has resulted in panic and anxiety on a vast scale.  The fear of death and disease permeates the air as religious faith wanes.  People have been turned against each other as an hallucinatory cloak of propaganda has replaced reality with the black magic of digital incantations.

I remember how, in 1975, when I was teaching at a Massachusetts university and, sensing a vast unmet need in my students, I proposed a course called “The Sociology of Life, Death, and Meaning.”  My colleagues balked at the idea and I had to convince them it was worthwhile.  I sensed that the fear of death and a growing loss of meaning was increasing among young people (and the population at large) and it was my responsibility to try to address it.  My colleagues considered the subject not scientific enough, having been seduced by the positivist movement in sociology. When the enrollment for the course reached 220 plus, my point was made. The need was great.  But it was a small window of opportunity for such deep reflections, for by 1980 the Cowboy in the white hat had ridden into Washington and a rock star was enthroned in the Vatican and all was once again well with the world.  Delusory orthodoxy reigned again.  Until….

For the last forty-one years there has been a progressive dissolution of reality into a theatrical electronic spectacle, beginning with the push for computer generated globalization and continuing up to the latest cell phones.  Science, neuroscience, and technology have been deified.  Cognitive warfare has been waged against the public mind.  The intelligence agencies, war departments, and their accomplices throughout the corporations, media, Hollywood, medicine, and the universities have united to effect this end.  Neuroscience and medicine have been weaponized.  The objective being to convince the public that they are machines, their brains are computers, and that their only hope is embrace that “reality.”

After the actor Reagan rode off into the sunset, his Vice-President and former Director of the CIA (therefore a supreme actor), George H. W. Bush, took the reins and declared the decade of the 1990s the decade of brain research, to be heavily financed by the federal government. In 1992, boy wonder William Clinton, straight out of the fetid fields of Arkansas politics, was elected to carry on this work, not just the brain research but the continuous bombing of Iraq and the slaughters around the world, but also the work of dismantling welfare and repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, reuniting commercial and investment banking and opening the door for the rich to get super rich and normal people to get screwed.  So Clinton fulfilled the duties of the good Republican President that he was, and the right-wing played the game of ripping him for being a leftist.  It’s funny except that so many believed this game in which all the players operated within the same frame (and of course still do), the play within the play whose real authors are always invisible to the fixated audience.

What is the antonym to a contronym?

When George W. Bush took over, he  continued the brain research project with massive federal monies by declaring 2000-10 as the Decade of the Behavior Project.

Then under Obama, whose role model was the actor Reagan, and under Trump, whose role model was the guy he played on reality television and whose official role was playing the bad guy to Obama’s good guy, the money for the mapping of the brain and artificial intelligence continued flowing from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Science and Technology Project (OSTP).

Three decades of joint military, intelligence, and neuroscience work on how to understand brains so as to control them through mind control and computer technology might suggest something untoward was afoot, wouldn’t you say?

Create the Problem and Then the “Solution”

If you are still on this twisted path with me, you may feel an increased level of anxiety.  Not that it is new, for you have probably felt it for a long time. We both know that free-floating anxiety, like depression and fear, has been a stable of life in the good old USA for decades. We didn’t create it, and, as C. Wright Mills has said, “Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.”  For our biographies, including anxiety and meaninglessness, take place within social history and social structures, and so we must ask what are the connections.  And are there solutions?

There are drugs, of course, and the caring folks at the pharmaceutical companies who want to see us with Smiley Faces, perky in mind and body, are always glad to provide them for an exorbitant price, one often well hidden in the ledgers of their insurance company partners-in-crime.  But still, there is so much to fear: terrorists, viruses, bad weather, bad breath, my bad, your bad, bad death, etc.

Is there a place upon which to pin this anxiety that floats?

Professor Mattias Desmet, a clinical psychology professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium, has some interesting thoughts about it, but they don’t necessarily lead to happy conclusions.  I think he is correct in saying that for decades there has been a situation brewing that is the perfect soil for mass formation with a hypnotized public embracing a new totalitarianism, one that has now been made real through COVID 19 with the lockdowns and loss of liberties as we descend with Dante to the lowest depths of the Inferno.

These background developments are the breakdown of social bonds, the loss of meaning making, its accompanying free-floating anxiety, and the absence of ways to relieve that anxiety short of aggression.  You can listen to him here.

These conditions didn’t just “happen” but were created by multiple power elite actors with long range plans.  If that sounds conspiratorial, that’s because it is.  That’s what the powerful do.  They conspire to achieve their goals.  The average person, without the awareness, will, inclination, or ability to do investigative sociological research, often falls prey to their designs, and through today’s electronic digital media is mesmerized into feeling that the media offer solutions to their anxieties.  They provide answers, even when they are propaganda.

As Ellul says, “Propaganda is the true remedy for loneliness.”  It draws all lost souls to its benevolent siren song.  CNN’s smiling Sanjay Gupta sedates many a mind and The New York Times and CBS soothe untold numbers of Mr. and Mrs. Lonelyhearts with sweet nothings straight from the messaging centers of the World Economic Forum and Langley, Virginia. They draw on the need to obey and believe, and provide fables that give people a sense of value and belonging to the group, even though the group is unreal.  These media can quite easily, but usually subtly, turn their audiences’ frenetic, agitated passivity into active aggression towards dissidents, especially when those dissidents have been blamed for endangering the lives of the “good” people.

As has occurred, censorship of dissent is necessary, and this must be done for the common good, even when it is carried out in allegedly democratic societies.  In the name of freedom, freedom must be denied.  Thus Biden’s declaration of war against domestic dissent.

Mattias Desmet it right; we are far down the road to totalitarianism.

Simulation and Simulacra

When I was a boy, I did certain boy things that were popular in my generation.  For a short period I constructed model ships and planes from kits.  It was something to do when I was constrained to the house because of bad weather.  These kits were replicas of famous battle ships or planes and came with decals you could paste on them when you were done. The decals identified these historical vehicles, which were very real or had been.  I knew I was making a miniature double of real objects, just as I knew a map of New York City streets corresponded to the real Bronx streets I roamed.  The map and my models were simulacra, but not the real thing.  The real things were outside somewhere.  And I knew not to walk on the map for my wanderings.

When Baudrillard wrote Simulacra and Simulation, he  was telling us that something fundamental had changed and would change far more in the future. He wrote:

Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of the territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra – that engenders the territory….

Translated into plain English (French intellectuals can be difficult to understand), he is saying that in much of modern life, reality has disappeared into its signs or models.  And within these signs, these self-enclosed systems, distinctions can’t be made because these simulacra contain, like contronyms, both their positive and negative poles, so they cancel each other out while holding the believer imprisoned in amber.  Once you are in them, you are trapped because there are no outside references, the simulated system of thought or machine is your universe, the only reality.  There is no dialectical tension because the system has swallowed it.  There is no critical negativity, no place to stand outside to rebel because the simulacrum encompasses the positive and negative in a circulatory process that makes everything equivalent but the “positivity” of the simulacrum itself.  You are inside the whale: “The virtual space of the global is the space of the screen and the network, of immanence and the digital, of a dimensionless space-time.”

So if that plain English (Ha!) doesn’t do it for you, here’s Baudrillard again:

It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes. Never again will the real have a chance to produce itself – such is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection, that no longer gives the event of death a chance. [my emphases]

In the case of my model airplanes, there were real planes that my replicas were based on.  I knew that.  Baudrillard was announcing that the world was changing and children in the future would have a difficult time distinguishing between the real and its simulacra.  Not just children but all of us have arrived at that point, thanks to digital technology, where to distinguish between the real and the imaginary is very hard. Thus the purpose of video games: To scramble brains.  Thus the purpose of all the brain research funded by the Pentagon: To control brains via the interface of people with machines. This is a fundamental reason why the ruling elites, under the cover of Covid-19, have been pushing for an online digitized world through which they can amass even greater control over people’s sense of reality.  Are we watching a video of the real world or a video of a model of the real world?  How to tell the difference?

The weather report says that there is a 31% chance of rain tomorrow at 2 P.M., and people take that seriously, even though only a genuine blockhead would not realize that this is not based on reality but on a computer model of reality and a reality that is unreal a second degree over since it has yet to occur.  Yet that everyday example is normal today.  It’s a form of hypnosis.  The map precedes the territory.

But it gets even weirder as a regular perusal of the news confirms.  A very strange warped sense of reality unconnected to digital technology is widespread.  There recently was a news report about the sale of a Mohammed Ali drawing that sold for $425,000.  The drawing could have been done by a child with a marker.  It depicts a stick figure Ali in a boxing ring standing with arms raised in victory over a fallen opponent.  From the fallen boxer’s head a speech bubble rises with these words: “Ref, he did float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”  It is factually true that Ali knocked many opponents on their asses and raised his arms in victory.  So when he drew his stick drawing he was probably remembering that.  Therefore his drawing, a representation of his memory of reality and imagination, is two degrees removed from the real.  For no opponent uttered those words from his back on a canvas.  They are Ali’s signature words, how he liked to present himself on the world’s stage, part of his act, for he was a quintessential performer, albeit an unusual one with courage and a social conscience.  Obviously his drawing is not art but a crude little sketch.  Whoever spent nearly half a million dollars for it, did so either for an investment (which raises one question concerning reality and illusion) or as a form of magical appropriation, similar to getting a famous person’s signature to “capture” a bit of their immortality (the second question).  Either way it’s more than weird, even though not uncommon.  It is its commonness that makes it emblematic of this present era of copies and simulacra, the mumbo jumbo magic that disappears the real into simulated images.

Take the recent case of the TV actor William Shatner, who played a space ship captain named Captain Kirk on a very popular television series, Star Trek, a show filled with kitsch wisdom loved by hordes of desperadoes. All unreal but taken close to the fanatics’ hearts.  He’s been in the news recently for taking a ride into earth’s sub orbit on a spacecraft owned and operated by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.  Bezos gave the ninety-year-old actor a comp ride up and away supposedly because he was a big Star Trek fan.  In keeping with the pseudo-spiritual theme of this business venture and PR stunt, the spacecraft was called the New Shepard, presumably to distinguish it from the Old Shepard, whom we must assume is dead as Nietzsche said a few years ago. Sometimes these billionaires are so busy making money that they forget to tune in to the latest news. Bezos was announcing his new religion, a blending of P. T. Barnum and  technology. Anyway, pearls of “spiritual” wisdom, like those uttered on the old TV series, greeted the public following Shatner’s trip.  Ten minutes up and down isn’t three days and nights, but he was up to the task.  A guy playing an actor playing a space ship pilot playing a TV personage on a public relations business stunt flight.  “Unbelievable,” as he said.  Who is copying whom?  Tune in.

Baudrillard offers the example of The Iconoclasts from centuries past :

…whose millennial quarrel is still with us today. This is precisely because they predicted the omnipotence of simulacra, the faculty the simulacra have of effacing God from the conscience of man, and the destructive annihilating truth that they allow to appear – that deep down God never existed, even that God himself was never anything but his own simulacrum – from this came their urge to destroy the images.

We are now awash in epiphanies of representation, as Daniel Boorstin noted in The Image in the 1960s and which everyone can notice as those little rectangular boxes are constantly raised everywhere to capture what their operators might unconsciously think of as a world they no longer think is real, so they better capture it before it fully evaporates.  Such acquisitive image taking bespeaks an unspoken nihilism, secret simulations that signify the death sentence of their referents.

So let’s just say simulacra are traps wherein the real is no longer real but a hyperreal that seems realer than real, while concealing its unreality.

This goes much further than the use of digital technology.  It involves the entire spectrum of techniques of mind control and propaganda.  It includes politics, medicine, economics, Covid-19, the lockdowns and vaccines, etc. Everything.

Let me end with one small example.  A trifle, you’ll agree.  I began by noting the election of the actor Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Then the quote from the CIA Director Casey: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

Then came the CIA actor George H. W. Bush, the two-faced Bill Clinton, George W. Bush the son of the CIA man, Obama, Trump, and Biden.  Rather shady characters all, depending usually on your political affiliations.  Suppose, however, that these seven men are an acting troupe in the same play, which is a highly sophisticated simulacrum that plays in loops, and that the object of its architects is to keep the audience engaged in the show and rooting for their favorite character.  Suppose this self-generating spectacle has a name: The Contronym.  And suppose that at the very heart of its ongoing run, one of the lead characters, who had been reared from birth to play a revolutionary role, one that demanded many masks and contradictory faces that could be used to reconcile the personae of the other six actors and perhaps reconcile the Rashomon-like story, suppose that character was Barack Obama, and suppose he was reared in a CIA family and later just “happened” to become President where he became known as “the intelligence president” because of his intimate relationship with the CIA.  And suppose he gave the CIA everything it wanted.

Would you think you were living in a simulacrum?

Or would you say Jeremy Kuzmarov’s report, “A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA” was a simulation of the most scurrilous kind?

Or would you feel lost in the wood in the middle of your life with Dante?  Heading down to hell?

“’I was thinking,’ said Alice very politely, ‘which is the best way out of this wood.  It’s getting so dark.  Would you tell me, please?’

But the fat little men [Tweedledee and Tweedledum] only looked at each other and grinned.”

Yet it is no laughing matter.  If we want to get through this hell we are traversing, we had better clearly recognize those who are carrying the Banner of the King of Hell.  Identify them and stop their advance.  It is a real spiritual war we are engaged in, and we either fight for God or the devil.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Edward Curtin.

But at some point, markets become saturated, demand rates fall and overproduction and overaccumulation of capital becomes a problem. In response, we have seen credit markets expand and personal debt increase to maintain consumer demand as workers’ wages have been squeezed, financial and real estate speculation rise (new investment markets), stock buy backs and massive bail outs and subsidies (public money to maintain the viability of private capital) and an expansion of militarism (a major driving force for many sectors of the economy).

We have also witnessed systems of production abroad being displaced for global corporations to then capture and expand markets in foreign countries.

The old normal

Much of what is outlined above is inherent to capitalism. But the 1980s was a crucial period that helped set the framework for where we find ourselves today.

Remember when the cult of the individual was centre stage? It formed part of the Reagan-Thatcher rhetoric of the ‘new normal’ of 1980s neoliberalism.

In the UK, the running down of welfare provision was justified by government-media rhetoric about ‘individual responsibility’, reducing the role of the state and the need to ‘stand on your own two feet’. The selling off of public assets to profiteering corporations was sold to the masses on the basis of market efficiency and ‘freedom of choice’.

The state provision of welfare, education, health services and the role of the public sector was relentlessly undermined by neoliberal dogma and the creed that the market (global corporations) constituted the best method for supplying human needs.

Thatcher’s stated mission was to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit by rolling back the ‘nanny state’. She wasted little time in crushing the power of the trade unions and privatising key state assets.

Despite her rhetoric, she did not actually reduce the role of the state. She used its machinery differently, on behalf of business. Neither did she unleash the ‘spirit of entrepreneurialism’. Economic growth rates under her were similar as in the 1970s, but a concentration of ownership occurred and levels of inequality rocketed.

Margaret Thatcher was well trained in perception management, manipulating certain strands of latent populist sentiment and prejudice. Her free market, anti-big-government platitudes were passed off to a section of the public that was all too eager to embrace them as a proxy for remedying all that was wrong with Britain. For many, what were once regarded as the extreme social and economic policies of the right became entrenched as the common sense of the age.

Thatcher’s policies destroyed a fifth of Britain’s industrial base in just two years alone. The service sector, finance and banking were heralded as the new drivers of the economy, as much of Britain’s manufacturing sector was out-sourced to cheap labour economies.

Under Thatcher, employees’ share of national income was slashed from 65% to 53%. Long gone are many of the relatively well-paid manufacturing jobs that helped build and sustain the economy. In their place, the country has witnessed the imposition of a low taxation regime and low-paid and insecure ‘service sector’ jobs (no-contract work, macjobs, call centre jobs – many of which soon went abroad) as well as a real estate bubble, credit card debt and student debt, which helped to keep the economy afloat.

However, ultimately, what Thatcher did was – despite her rhetoric of helping small-scale businesses and wrapping herself in the national flag – facilitate the globalisation process by opening the British economy to international capital flows and allowing free rein for global finance and transnational corporations.

Referring to the beginning of this article, it is clear whose happiness and well-being counts most and whose does not matter at all as detailed by David Rothkopf in his 2008 book Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making. Members of the superclass belong to the megacorporation-interlocked, policy-building elites of the world and come from the highest echelons of finance, industry, the military, government and other shadow elites. These are the people whose interests Margaret Thatcher was serving.

These people set the agendas at the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, G-7, G-20, NATO, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.

And let us not forget the various key think tanks and policy making arenas like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute and Chatham House as well as the World Economic Forum (WEF), where sections of the global elite forge policies and strategies and pass them to their political handmaidens.

Driven by the vision of its influential executive chairman Klaus Schwab, the WEF is a major driving force for the dystopian ‘great reset’, a tectonic shift that intends to change how we live, work and interact with each other.

The new normal

The great reset envisages a transformation of capitalism, resulting in permanent restrictions on fundamental liberties and mass surveillance as livelihoods and entire sectors are sacrificed to boost the monopoly and hegemony of pharmaceutical corporations, high-tech/big data giants, Amazon, Google, major global chains, the digital payments sector, biotech concerns, etc.

Under the cover of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, the great reset is being rolled out under the guise of a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ in which smaller enterprises are to be driven to bankruptcy or bought up by monopolies. Economies are being ‘restructured’ and many jobs and roles will be carried out by AI-driven technology.

The WEF says the public will ‘rent’ everything they require: stripping the right of ownership under the guise of a ‘green economy’ underpinned by the rhetoric of ‘sustainable consumption’ and ‘climate emergency’.

At the same time new (‘green product’) markets are being created and, on the back of COVID, fresh opportunities for profit extraction are opening up abroad. For instance, World Bank Group President David Malpass has stated that poorer countries will be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet after the various lockdowns that have been implemented in response to the Covid-19 crisis. This ‘help’ will be on condition that neoliberal reforms and the undermining of public services are implemented and become further embedded.

Just a month into the COVID crisis, the IMF and World Bank were already facing a deluge of aid requests from developing countries. Scores of countries were asking for bailouts and loans. Ideal cover for rebooting the global economy via a debt crisis and the subsequent privatisation of national assets and the further ‘structural adjustment’ of economies.

Many people waste no time in referring to this as  some kind of ‘Marxist’ or ‘communist’ takeover of the planet because a tiny elite will be dictating policies. This has nothing to do with Marxism. An authoritarian capitalist elite – supported by their political technocrats – aims to secure even greater control of the global economy. It will no longer be a (loosely labelled) ‘capitalism’ based on ‘free’ markets and competition (not that those concepts ever really withstood proper scrutiny). Economies will be monopolised by global players, not least e-commerce platforms run by the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Facebook and Google and their multi-billionaire owners.

Essential (for capitalism) new markets will also be created through the ‘financialisation’ and ownership of all aspects of nature, which is to be colonised, commodified and traded under the fraudulent notion of protecting the environment.

The so-called ‘green economy’ will fit in with the notion of ‘sustainable consumption’ and ‘climate emergency’. A bunch of billionaires and their platforms will control every aspect of the value chain. Of course, they themselves will not reduce their own consumption or get rid of their personal jets, expensive vehicles, numerous exclusive homes or ditch their resource gobbling lifestyles. Reduced consumption is meant only for the masses.

They will not only control and own data about consumption but also control and own data on production, logistics, who needs what, when they need it, who should produce it, who should move it and when it should be moved. Independent enterprises will disappear or become incorporated into the platforms acting as subservient cogs. Elected representatives will be mere technocratic overseers of these platforms and the artificial intelligence tools that plan and determine all of the above.

The lockdowns and restrictions we have seen since March 2020 have helped boost the bottom line of global chains and the e-commerce giants and have cemented their dominance. Many small and medium-size independent enterprises have been pushed towards bankruptcy. At the same time, fundamental rights have been eradicated under COVID19 government measures.

Politicians in countries throughout the world have been using the rhetoric of the WEF’s great reset, talking of the need to ‘build back better’ for the ‘new normal’. They are all on point. Hardly a coincidence. Essential to this ‘new normal’ is the compulsion to remove individual liberties and personal freedoms given that, in the ‘green new normal’, unfettered consumption will no longer be an option for the bulk of the population.

It has long been the case that a significant part of the working class has been deemed ‘surplus to requirements’ – three decades ago, such people were sacrificed on the altar of neo-liberalism. They lost their jobs due to automation and offshoring. They have had to rely on meagre state welfare and run-down public services.

But what we are now seeing is the possibility of hundreds of millions around the world being robbed of their livelihoods. Forget about the benign sounding ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and its promised techno-utopia. What we are witnessing right now seems to be a major restructuring of capitalist economies.

With AI and advanced automation of production, distribution and service provision (3D printing/manufacturing, drone technology, driverless vehicles, lab grown food, farmerless farms, robotics, etc), a mass labour force – and therefore mass education, mass welfare, mass healthcare provision and entire systems that were in place to reproduce labour for capitalist economic activity – will no longer be required. As economic activity is restructured, labour’s relationship to capital is being transformed.

In a reorganised system that no longer needs to sell the virtues of excessive individualism (consumerism), the levels of political and civil rights and freedoms we have been used to will not be tolerated.

Neoliberalism might have reached its logical conclusion (for now). Making trade unions toothless, beating down wages to create unimaginable levels of inequality and (via the dismantling of Bretton Woods) affording private capital so much freedom to secure profit and political clout under the guise of ‘globalisation’ would inevitably lead to one outcome.

A concentration of wealth, power, ownership and control at the top with large sections of the population on state-controlled universal basic income and everyone subjected to the discipline of an emerging biosecurity surveillance state designed to curtail liberties ranging from freedom of movement and assembly to political protest and free speech.

Perception management is, of course, vital for pushing through all of this. Rhetoric about ‘liberty’ and ‘individual responsibility’ worked a treat in the 1980s to help bring about a massive heist of wealth. This time, it is a public health scare and ‘collective responsibility’ as part of a strategy to help move towards near-monopolistic control over economies by a handful of global players.  

And the perception of freedom is also being managed. Once vaccinated many will begin to feel free. Freer than under lockdown. But not really free at all.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Colin Todhunter.

Live not by the lie! is a great sound byte, but lacks any prescription about how to live, and how to get rid of the lies. His prescription was to break up the Soviet federation, keep only the Slavic bits, ethnically cleanse the whole complex web of life, privatize everything (slowly!), keep the safety net, and cut the military budget. That’s more or less what happened, but everyone (except US-Israel) was unhappy with the results. Amazingly, he insisted all the time that he was not interested in politics, that he was ‘above politics’, but, oh yes, politics must be based on morality and don’t forget to destroy communism. Let the reader who expects this book [Gulag] to be a political expose slam its covers shut right now. The lady doth protest too much.

Yes, morality trumps politics. But that is the US liberal rally cry, too. Biden would agree, though US presidents despised Solzhenitsyn, and from Ford (Solzhenitsyn is a goddam horse’s ass), to Reagan (Solzhenitsyn loved him), right up to Bush II, refused to fete him at the White House. And who has a good word for US pious human rights activism? The results of US ‘morality’ in politics has been a disaster. Solzhenitsyn was blind to his own highly politicized life and work, even as he fired off diatribes to the Central Committee, the Writers Union, sundry western media, blinded by intense anticommunism, which did nothing to improve the lot of his people, a biblical figure like Samson, who brought the temple crashing down around, killing one and all.

Solzhenitsyn led a truly remarkable life: humble beginnings, university, war, prison camps, return to Moscow, writer, dissident, Nobel prize, celebrity abroad, triumphal return, the ear of Putin. When I first heard his voice when he hit the world stage in 1974, he was a bete noire for me, expelled in 1974 by the Soviets, celebrated by imperialists, THE angry anticommunist. A dour, unpleasant face, scraggly beard. Women were attracted to his grim, macho, crusader energy, but I suspect he didn’t have any real friends.

Babyboomer truth

The 1970s for my generation were heady days: the liberation (not ‘defeat’) of Vietnam brought a long overdue realism to East-West relations, the flowering of detente. Though the Soviet Union by then did not attract the fervent left-wing enthusiasts of the 1930s-40s, its longstanding policy of peace and disarmament was finally embraced, not only by young people, but even by US politicians! The Soviets had been proven right: imperialism is nasty business, and mercifully the US was in a rare period of remorse, even repentance, for its warlike behavior. Solzhenitsyn would have none of this.

Despite his hysterical soap opera, I ‘caught the bug’ and became a sovietophile, fascinated at the real, live experiment to build a noncapitalist modern society. I learned Russian, studied Russian/ Soviet history, trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. No question, lots of chaff, but lots of nuggets of a better way too. Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago was jarring and so full of anticommunist hatred, it felt like, it was a replay of the odious McCarthyism of the 1950s. When he was soon dismissed by everyone as a reactionary crank, I put him aside, wanting to see and judge Soviet reality for myself. I did, and was both disturbed and, despite misgivings, confirmed in my belief that socialism was the way forward, and that the Soviet Union, though flawed, was the key to that future, hardly ‘radiant’ but not a prison full of unhappy slaves. Then Afghanistan, Gorbachev, and — poof! — the Soviet Union was gone. No key. No future. Thatcherism. TINA. The collapse of the left, invasions, wars, arms race ad infinitum.

What went wrong? One of the worst things about the Soviet Union had been its state-imposed atheism. I witnessed the Soviet Union at its most smug, prudish, and at the same time, paranoid in the 1970s. Revolutions were succeeding, mostly, in Africa (Ethiopia, Angola), Asia, but Maoist China and the dissident movement challenged Sovietism. Though economic frustrations were pressing, there was no room for debate about the radical reforms which clearly were needed. Intellectual life required lip-service to orthodoxy. Yes, lies. But what politicians speak the truth?

Roschild-Clausewitz truth

Despite all this evidence, I knew that any positive future for mankind required some kind of socialism. Marx (Solzhenitsyn’s advice to Soviet leaders was to chuck Marx) taught me that. But how to get there? Russia’s revolution ultimately failed. Christianity was already down there with the Russian revolution as a failure, reduced to irrelevance under capitalism. My own journey since then led me to Islam, as much a radical shift as becoming a communist. Unlike Christianity and Judaism (at least in their present form), Islam is still against usury. And reading about the Prophet while in a hospital bed in Tashkent in the 1990s, after ‘the Fall’, showed me a world figure almost for the first time, as our western upbringing, whether Christian or secular, has no room for such a real life revolutionary.

The Judaic prophets, followed by Jesus and Muhammad, and the nineteenth century secular prophet of revolution Marx, rejected usury and interest, as representing ill-gotten gain, with good reason. Marx condemned this mode of extraction of surplus as the highest form of fetishism, based on private property and exploitation of labor. They all rejected this exploitation on a moral basis as unjust, insisting that morality be embedded in the economy, a principle which was abandoned when capitalism took hold. While Judaism and Christianity adapted, Islam did not. (All of this seems to have passed Solzhenitsyn by.)

Interest, and today’s money based on US military might alone, are the root cause of the current world financial crisis; A corollary to Rothschild’s dictum about money and politics (Give me control of a nation’s currency and I’ve got control of its politics), and Clausewitz’s dictum about politics and war (War is the continuation of politics) is: Bankers determines politics in the interest (sic) of waging war. Interest is the primary instrument facilitating (and benefiting from) the wars today in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the world political crisis. QED.

And what stands in the way? However beleaguered? Islam. AND it is under intense pressure, subversion, occupation where necessary, to destroy Islam. Just as the socialist world was, from the get-go, under intense pressure, subversion, occupation where necessary, to destroy any shred of communism. I finally started to read some Solzhenitsyn. (I’m a sucker for Nobel prizes.) Cancer Ward (1965) was thought-provoking, well written, critical but without Solzhenitsyn’s hatred of the system swamping the text. It turns out it was almost published in 1966 in the Soviet Union, but the neoStalinists in the leadership stalled it until Solzhenitsyn gave up and went into high gear with his jeremiad.

Then I struggled through some of Gulag. Solzhenitsyn’s first wife Natalia Reshetovskaya in an interview with Le Figaro in 1974, called Gulag merely a collection of camp folklore, an unscholarly study of a narrow theme blown out of all proportion in West. Solzhenitsyn used facts that supported his preconceived notions. Gulag is very uneven, hardly a text worthy of the highest literary award. I dare anyone to read Gulag‘s three volumes. This Nobel gift is surely the most underread, especially by Russians. It does have merit, but more as the story of how suffering leads to transcendence, belief in God. Solzhenitsyn is a born-again Orthodox Christian and his subsequent work is infused with this spirituality. Gulag was just something Solzhenitsyn had to do before he got on to his real love – Russian history. His August 1914 is up there with Tolstoy’s War and Peace, but was dismissed in the West as ‘medieval rubbish’.

Yes, Stalinism was a blight on humanity. But that one tyrant doesn’t disprove the iron logic of socialism. The things that Hitler did right (full employment, control of the economy and money supply, connection with the land, uniting the nation) are all socialistic. I was more struck by Solzhenitsyn’s transformation in prison, his and other prisoners’ belief that prison is where they felt free-est, that they are grateful for it. Freedom is not ‘more consumption’. On the contrary, it is freedom from things. The key to freedom and happiness is self-restraint. The paradox of the golden rule: liberty points the way to virtue and heroism. Liberty devoid of responsibility is the road to ruin. If we shirk responsibility, evil triumphs. Great message, but Solzhenitsyn is now remembered, if at all, as the dour Gulag guy. Without the hope.

Could i keep it up? The day when I deliberately let myself sink to the bottom and felt it firm under my feet–the hard, rocky bottom which is the same for all–was the beginning of the most important years in my life, which put the finishing touches to my character. Life is more than just the physical day-to-day reality. Our relationships take place on a different level too. The fortunate few are graced with this kind of insight.

Suddenly, the reactionary crank who shouted ‘live not by the lie!’ until the Soviet walls came tumblin’ down, loathed and despised by both communists and capitalists, was making sense. His message of spirituality and hope is universal.

Default to truth

Truth sayers are never popular, and are usually unpleasant people. Harry Markopolos, the man who exposed Madoff, is a classic example. A ‘quant guy’, only numbers, so as not to make a ‘Neville Chamberlain mistake’. He had solid proof of the financial theft going on, but was dismissed as a crank until Madoff had, well, ‘made off’ with millions, and the whole banking system collapsed in 2008. All his efforts had little effect and no one remembers him. Unlike Markopolos, Solzhenitsyn had the trump card of anticommunism that allowed this unpleasant truth teller his (brief) moment of fame in the West.

We have an inner program in our make-up to default to truth.You give the benefit of the doubt, often accepting lies in the interest of social harmony, the compassion gene. A survival mechanism. People are excellent judges of who is telling the truth (90% of the time). Only 10% of the time do we mistakenly accuse someone of lying. Solzhenitsyn came to believe that everything was a lie in the Soviet Union, that citizens were too stupid or brainwashed to see that. One of those 10%.

Solzhenitsyn is the classic truth sayer. But his truth was flawed. He was even sued (successfully) for libel in 1983 for implying that a notorious American publisher of smut, Alexander Flegon, had KGB connections. He was fixated on destroying the Soviet system, to replace it with what? a theocracy? Certainly not western consumerism. The result of his Reagan-like anticommunism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, was worse than he imagined it would be, and led to the ‘third time of troubles’ 1985-2000 (no 1 in 1600, no 2 in 1917). Mr Truthie whined, went home in the aftermath, was politely ignored, then became a grudging fan of Putin. So Solzhenitsyn and I came to the same view, but mine from a Marxist perspective, which according to Solzhenitsyn is evil and wrong.

Solzhenitsyn’s rapid eclipse in post-Soviet Russia suggests that Russians were/are quite capable of seeing the great lie that lay at the root of his great ‘Truth’: communism was not all bad and was superior to the West in many ways. 60% of Russia believe that 30 years after its collapse. Solzhenitsyn became a comical figure in Moscow — a sort of The End Is Nigh, sandwich-board old man with feet of clay.

Enlightenment truths

Solzhenitsyn was right about the real problem being the Enlightenment, ‘materialism’ and godlessness. Yes, communism was/is the logical end of the Enlightenment game. Get rid of the exploiters and we all live happily ever after (or, for Solzhenitsyn, as prisoners in a living hell). And it’s wrong to divorce morality from political, to dismiss categories of Good and Evil from our discourse. There are fundamental truths. My Rothschild-Clausewitz clincher in the first place.

But his understanding of Marx must have been from rigid Stalinist textbooks, because Marx’s ‘materialism’ is an indictment of capitalism, a freeing of humanity from material cares, needs. And that’s precisely what Solzhenitsyn is after too. Solzhenitsyn was a communist true believer but a bad Marxist. His prescription from his retreat in Vermont was ‘defeat the godless communists’. No room for detente, no tolerance for the Evil Empire. Ironically, Reagan was talked out of any special meeting with Solzhenitsyn at the White House by Kissinger, despite Solzhenitsyn’s approval of Reagan. (By then, Solzhenitsyn’s fervent Orthodox Christianity was an embarrassment to everyone, including evangelical Bush II.)

So the Soviet critique — that Solzhenitsyn was a dupe of the imperialists — was more or less true, as Solzhenitsyn had no use for imperialism of any kind and yet relied on the imperialists to destroy communism. He loathed communism and approved of capitalism. Solzhenitsyn was wrong about communism = evil, but not about his broader critique of the Enlightenment.

Islamic truths

Solzhenitsyn gave no thought to Islam, even though it was clear to all that a genuine theocracy, Solzhenitsyn’s implied ‘good society’, came about on the Soviet Union’s southern border, even as the faux communist utopias (both the Soviet Union and Afghanistan) were disintegrating. Shia Iran pretty much fills Solzhenitsyn’s checklist. Though persecuted, Iran was distant enough and with a strong enough culture to resist the capitalist trap, and its 1979 revolution was overwhelmingly popular, unlike the mini-revolution in Afghanistan in 1978, which was really more a palace coup.

On the contrary, Solzhenitsyn was recommending that the Soviet government abandon its Muslim republics and unite only the ‘good’ Slavs. No room for Islam in Solzhenitsyn’s god’s earthly kingdom. The most Solzhenitsyn did was to taunt the West after 9/11, describing radical Islam as an understandable reaction to western secularism and inequalities of wealth. But by then no one was listening.

Contrast this with Iran at the time, where the revolution reached out to likeminded (i.e., anti-imperialist) nations, including the Soviet Union. In 1988, just a year and a half before he died, Ayatollah Khomeini reached out to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, in a gesture of anti-imperialist solidarity. This was at a time of war against Iraq and continued subversion of Iran by the US and Israel. The Soviet Union was the first nation to recognize the new Islamic government in 1979, but Khomeini ruled that close relations with atheist Soviet Union were not Islamic, and then the Soviet Union sold arms to both Iraq and Iran during the 1980s Iraq-Iran war, as if to prove his point. But as religion became acceptable in Gorbachev’s perestroika, Khomeini sent Gorbachev his only written message to a foreign leader. An Iranian delegation to Moscow brought a sincere offer of support to the faltering Soviet leader. The Ayatollah warned him not to trust the West, which should have been crystal, crystal to Gorbachev, as the last Soviet troops were retreating in a hail of US-made bullets, as Afghan basmachi (the Soviets’ term for 1920s mujahideen) were downing Soviet helicopters with Reagan’s gift of Stinger missiles. Khomeini: “If you hope, at this juncture, to cut the economic Gordian knots of socialism and communism by appealing to the center of western capitalism, you will, far from remedying any ill of your society, commit a mistake which those to come will have to erase.” Gorbachev dismissed the offer as interfering with Soviet internal affairs.

What was Solzhenitsyn doing then? He was exhorting Reagan to kill as many commies as possible. So who is the religious leader genuinely committed to peace? Solzhenitsyn had fewer illusions about the West at this point, but his illusions about socialism/ communism were alive and well. He was soon bemoaning the post-Soviet oligarchy, but his tears were crocodile tears. Meanwhile, Russia and Iran are already playing key roles in establishing a new anti-imperialist reality, building on the first step taken by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1988. The world’s problems will only be solved based on a new geopolitical reality with Russia and Iran at its heart, the kernel of truth in the Ayatollah’s historic gesture in 1988. No thanks to ‘apolitical’ Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn was wrong about socialism, wrong about nonSlavs and non-Christians, but right about the godless West, and the need for morality to be the foundation of our economics, politics, art. His writings are ‘true’ only if you believe that (and if you ignore his anticommunism). The West couldn’t abide Solzhenitsyn’s fire-and-brimstone Orthodox Christianity, his denunciation of western society’s decadent materialism (though it loved his anticommunism). The West can’t abide Iran’s fire-and-brimstone Islam, its denunciation of western society’s decadent materialism, and, what’s worse, its enmity with US-Israel. Which, to remind the reader, was the basis of Soviet foreign policy, which was why it had to be destroyed. And just like communism, Islamic resistance to imperialism must be destroyed. Solzhenitsyn’s vision was of a religious leadership of society. But Solzhenitsyn is no perennialist. It’s my (Slavic Orthodox) road or no road.

Solzhenitsyn denounced the West for its immorality and said we must return to a truly Christian society. Everyone laughed at him. Couldn’t he see that the West was godless? But the current crises are making it clearer every day that Solzhenitsyn was right about a moral foundation for our society. And it is Iran that is an important experiment in building a new world order with spirituality at its core, much like the secular Soviet Union was in its day, but minus God. Both have a wealth of experience to share. They were/are not the ‘enemy’. We are our own worst enemy, and we must repent and atone for our sins. Amen.

Is Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979 more robust than Russia’s 1917? Is it perhaps the logical end of the Enlightenment journey from capitalism to communism? That nagging suspicion of mine about legislating atheism being, well, wrong suggests to me that Iran has a fighting chance. That is if US-Israel don’t succeed in destroying it first. As for Solzhenitsyn’s hope for a Christian moral Russia, that’s at least as iffy. By the late 1980s, Christianity was restored and Russians flocked to churches to be baptized. But interest soon waned. Since 2017, atheists have gone from from 7% to 14% of the population. Is it the fault of Soviet godlessness or just the same drift to godlessness everywhere (except the Muslim world)? After an initial flurry of baptizing in the 1990s, Orthodoxy never really caught on. But both nationalism and Islam are alive and well in Russia.

My biggest gripe with Solzhenitsyn is the way he interprets Truth as a thing, an end, that a Word can vanquish Evil. No! Truth is the process of bring thought, action into harmony with the divine will (Stoicism), the dialectic of history (Marxism). There are moral values underlying our actions, and if the actions are in harmony with God, with the world, that correspondence will be true. But Solzhenitsyn’s equating the Soviet Union with Evil, and (once he had experienced it) the West too, and then the new Russia, suggests the flaw, the great lie, in his thinking. In his Nobel prize speech, Solzhenitsyn whines about solipsistic writers, exhorting writers to imitate in microcosm the original creator’s making of the real world, to sense more keenly the harmony of world, the beauty and ugliness of man’s role in it, to communicate this to mankind. Great stuff, but he’s hoisted on his own (anticommunist) petard. His rueful attitude to post-Soviet Russia suggests his truth was conditional, subjective, after all. Where is God’s will in post-Soviet reality, Russian or the West? His fetishizing the old (Russian, of course) saw: ‘One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world’, my foot. How about ‘5 chess moves ahead well analyzed’, ‘don’t shake the boat’, ‘a stitch in time’?

Peasant truth

Solzhenitsyn was a master of media manipulation. He delayed his return to Russia until 1994 and then came via Alaska to Magadan, considered the capital of the gulag, as a member of the zek nation-within-a-nation. He kissed the ground and intoned: “Under ancient Christian tradition, the land where innocent victims are buried becomes holy ground. The need for purification comes from repentance for both individual and national transgressions of the Soviet era.” Then by train, with lots of pit stops along the way, the BBC in tow.

But he was given a dose of his own truthiness at one Siberian stop by a babushka: “It is you and your writing that started it all and brought our country to the verge of collapse and devastation. Russia doesn’t need you. So go back to your blessed America.”

Unfazed, Solzhenitsyn shot back: “To my dying day I will keep fighting against the evil ideology that was capable of slaying a third of my country.” Solzhenitsyn saw — with horror — that communism has remained in our hearts, in our souls and in our minds. But Russians complicit in Soviet ‘evils’ (i.e., everyone) resent this self-righteous jeremiad.

Heritage Foundation’s Ariel Cohen strips Solzhenitsyn’s vision bare: “This revived orthodox world view makes Russia closer to China and the Muslim world. The Polish pope was shunned, but the ayatollahs, Hamas and even Chinese Godless Communists are embraced. Catholicism and Protestantism are declared alien, while Islam is hailed as an ‘authentic’ religion of Russia.”

There are bits of truth in both these thrusts, and self-serving lies. Use your own judgment of who’s really telling the truth.

And compare Solzhenitsyn’s fate with Vaclav Havel, whose life had a similar trajectory as writer, dissident and underminer of socialism, and who became figurehead president of a Disneyland NATO satrap. In contrast, and to his credit, Solzhenitsyn refused such token public political plums (he refused Yeltsin’s offer of the Order of St Andrew from a state authority that had brought Russia to its present state of ruin) and predicted: “If we look far into the future, one can see a time in the 21st century when both Europe and the US will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.”

My truth — thinking 5 chess moves ahead to try to align with the universal moral truth – tells me he’s finally got it right.

This article was posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2021 at 7:46pm and is filed under Capitalism, Christianity, Communism/Marxism/Maoism, History, Islam, Judaism, Russia, Socialism, The Soviet Union.

OK, it’s true that stupid, self-defeating policy toward Iran is an American tradition of more than 70 years standing. And yes, it has had some short-term benefits, enriching the Shah’s thugocracy and its American supporters like the Rockefellers and other oil interests. That’s a plus in some books, just not in Iranian books. There it looks more like colonial exploitation laced with crimes against humanity.

Wait a minute: didn’t they take our diplomats hostage in 1979? As well they might. Get over it. Some of you should be particularly grateful for that hostage-taking, since Iran did the US the great “favor” of holding the hostages till their captivity helped elect Ronald Reagan. Ever since then, most Americans have been the hostages of the American right.

Once in power, Reagan showed US gratitude by supporting Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran. Iraq had invaded Iran in September 1980 and the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s eight-year war against Iran. Iraq sometimes used chemical weapons, with US blessing.

Over the last thirty years, US policy has largely consisted of a cold war typified by demonization of anything Iranian and by repeated sky-is-falling cries of Iran getting nuclear weapons as soon as next month. That it never happened has done nothing to quell the cries of wolf. From time to time the US and Israelis assassinate Iranian officials and nuclear scientists, but we don’t call that terrorism. What we call terrorism is any Iranian support for its allies in the region.

The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1979 and has not attempted to restore normal diplomatic dialogue since then. No wonder, then, that American policy toward Iran has long since lost touch with anything resembling intellectual integrity, never mind moral authority. American policy toward Iran is little more than chauvinistic resentment supported by tenacious bigotry against non-white Shia Muslims with a civilization millennia older than ours.

The present moment, the early Biden administration, presents the US with a rare opportunity to re-think our Iran policy and at least attempt to create a relationship with Iran based on mutual respect, honesty, and a recognition of our own historical culpability. This is an opportunity that is not likely to last for long. And it will likely lead nowhere unless the US takes the initiative. So far, that appears unlikely.

At the core of the present moment is the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed on July 14, 2015, by the US, China, France, Germany, Russia, UK, the European Union, and Iran, after almost two years of negotiation. The joint treaty established limits on Iranian nuclear development, enforced by inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In exchange for signing the agreement, Iran was to be relieved of various sanctions imposed by the other parties. (Only three countries in the world opposed the JCPOA at the time – Saudi Arabia, United Arab Republic, and Israel.)

In October 2017, the Trump administration unilaterally violated the agreement by refusing to lift agreed-upon sanctions. In May 2018, the Trump administration violated the agreement again, by unilaterally withdrawing from it despite opposition from all the other signatories. No other signatory has withdrawn from the JCPOA. The US has acted in bad faith toward Iran at least since 2017, and that bad faith continues under the Biden administration.

According to the IAEA, Iran remained in compliance with the agreement through May 2019. Two months later, Iran announced that it had breached its limit on low-level enriched Uranium, which the IAEA confirmed: Iran had 205 kg of enriched Uranium, 2.2 kg above the agreement’s level of 202.8 kg. This is not a significant difference, it was self-reported, and it is meaningless in relation to nuclear weapons.

In January 2020, the Trump administration assassinated an Iranian general at the Baghdad airport in Iraq, deemed a violation of international law by the UN. In response, Iran said it would not continue to comply with the agreement without US assurance that it would rejoin the agreement and lift the sanctions it had previously agreed to lift. The Trump administration maintained its hard line. The IAEA has maintained a partial verification with Iran through March 2021. The Biden administration has maintained the Trump administration’s hard line. Despite President Biden’s expressed intention to rejoin the JCPOA, he has taken unilateral inaction to maintain President Trump’s unilateral action to disrupt the agreement.

In addition, in late February, Biden used disputed assertions of “Iranian influence” to launch a dubiously-legal attack on a base in Syria said to be the source of attacks in Iraq on US mercenaries there. The US attack came in the midst of intensified Israeli bombing of “Iran-backed” forces in Syria, along with Israel’s announced contingency plans for bombing nuclear facilities in Iran. For more than two years, Israel has carried on an undeclared war on Iranian shipping (according to Haaretz and the Wall Street Journal): “several dozen attacks were carried out, which caused the Iranians cumulative damage of billions of dollars, amid a high rate of success in disrupting its shipping.” Haaretz has also reported two unconfirmed “Iranian missile” attacks on Israeli ships in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.

US intelligence on Iran has been politicized and unreliable for decades. Iran is a country of fifty million people on the other side of the world, ringed by US military bases and the US Navy. Iran is under the threat of nuclear attack from US forces every minute of every day. Iran is struggling under crippling economic sanctions imposed and enforced by the US. Despite this longstanding reality, US senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently wrote to President Biden affirming the deep-seated lie that “Iran continues to pose a threat to US and international security.” Whatever sliver of truth may lurk in that assertion, it’s minuscule compared to the threat the US continues to pose to the rest of the world.

Official American paranoia about Iran became hilarious on March 21, as dutifully and uncritically reported by the Associated Press (AP) under the headline:

AP sources: Iran threatens US Army post and top general

The breathless lead gave no clue that the “threats” were already two months old, as well as virtually impossible to carry out:

Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, an Army post in the U.S. capital, and against the Army’s vice chief of staff, two senior U.S. intelligence officials said.

The most serious question raised here is why the AP, much less anyone else, should take seriously a story leaked by anonymous sources offering no evidence of any credible military threat by a country thousands of miles away from a US fort on an inland waterway in Washington, DC. How scared are we supposed to be? Intelligence agencies refused to respond to press queries. The local military commander, Gen. Omar Jones, had already managed to reduce the threat to absurdity: “The only specific security threat he offered was about a swimmer who ended up on the installation and was arrested.”

In a rational world, a story like this would go unpublished. Or it would be written in its real context: a local zoning dispute between the city and the Pentagon.

The same day that the AP was indulging in Iranophobia, Iran was reiterating its position with regard to US sanctions and entering new negotiations. As reported by Al Jazeera, Iran said that, first, the US should restore the JCPOA to its pre-Trump status and lift all Trump-imposed sanctions, then Iran would return to full compliance. In an hour-long address marking the Persian new year that coincides with the spring equinox, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in part:

… that previous fool [Trump] … went away in that infamous way, bringing disgrace to his country…. [The US] must know ‘maximum pressure’ has failed so far, and if the current US administration wants to continue, it will also fail.

This was not widely reported in US media. Reuters omitted mention of Iran’s stated position on the JCPOA, but mentioned Biden’s empty gesture of sending the Iranians greetings and hope for the new year.

Loss of trust in the US is the crux of the Trump legacy. The US has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to abide by international agreements. The US has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to protect its own citizens from a pandemic. Biden cannot evade this multifaceted reality by pretending it doesn’t exist. Restoring trust is not likely to be quick or easy, but it won’t be possible without determined effort.

The Biden administration has made some progress on the pandemic front. So far, some of the Biden administration’s cold war mentality hardliners seem to have stymied progress on Iran. There can be no break with the past as long as the US continues Trump’s policies, which are themselves breaks with the past.

Biden’s special envoy to Iran provides reason for hope. Robert Malley is generally respected for his nuanced understanding of Middle East politics. He is a veteran diplomat and mediator who served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. His appointment sparked right-wing accusations that he has too much sympathy for Iran and an “animus towards Israel,” even though he is of Egyptian Jewish descent. Malley has a record of challenging Washington orthodoxy. In a lecture in 2008, Malley acknowledged that US actions abroad have often been “destructive,” and that the US:

… anoints preselected leaders, misreads local dynamics, misinterprets local balances of power, misuses its might, misjudges the toxicity of its embrace, encourages confrontation, exports political models and plays with the sectarian genie.  

Although that analysis has been true since long before 2008, it still raises hackles in that part of US leadership still guided more by ideological fantasy than complex reality.

That reality added a new complexity March 27, when China and Iran announced a new economic agreement for the next quarter-century. Five years in negotiation, the pact provides $400 billion in Chinese investments in Iran in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil at a discounted price. At a minimum, this agreement seems to offer Iran some breathing room and stability as well as real relief from economic sanctions.

The Biden administration continues to take positions designed to assure failure to resolve the issue. Maybe that’s the Biden goal, in which case all the posturing is time-wasting theatre. When the US Secretary of State is publicly saying, “The ball is really in their court,” he sounds like he’s mired in mindless denial, not making any gesture to restore broken trust. But if Biden actually wants rapprochement of some balanced nature, he has to decide just how long it’s in US interests to continue to accept the damage of prolonging Trump policies. How is that such a hard choice?

This article was posted on Sunday, April 4th, 2021 at 7:44am and is filed under Anti-war, Iran, Joe Biden, Media, Terrorism (state and retail).

It’s easy to trace the proximate cause of this assault, a president who has long cultivated the lie that the 2020 election was somehow stolen.  Prior to the capitol assault, he exhorted his “Save America” rally on the Mall to “stop the steal” and “fight much harder,” asserting “You have to show strength, you have to be strong.”

Much has been made of the fascist overtones of Trump’s efforts, but it is important to understand how we got to such a place.  It goes well past Trump to forty years of dysfunctional, neoliberal American politics, and beyond that to the racism deeply embedded in this nation’s history.  Both political parties share responsibility for our current condition.

Republicans

The Republican Party role is the most obvious.

In 1968, President Nixon rode a law and order campaign into the White House, appealing to a so-called “silent majority” frightened, if not alienated, by the images of antiwar protesters, inner-city “rioters,” and counterculture “freaks” during the 1960s.

The corporate mass media, of course, fed this dynamic by refusing to take seriously the actual claims of black, antiwar, New Left and feminist activists, instead, making sure the public saw the most inflammatory examples of their behaviors and appearances.  In mass mediaspeak, “radical” was used to describe militancy, whereas any system-challenging argument vanished from mainstream discourse – sound familiar?  That’s a story I have documented elsewhere.

Nixon’s racist “southern strategy” set in stone the future of the Republican Party, although it remained for Ronald Reagan to seal the deal.  Reagan’s rhetoric about basic “decency” and “family values,” effectively played on the feelings of those disaffected by the 60s.

Yet Reagan’s actual policies focused on eliminating ways the government addresses public needs, cutting taxes on the wealthy, rebuilding a huge military complex, regenerating an aggressive foreign policy, and deregulating the economy.

However, the people drawn to Reagan’s so-called “conservative” rhetoric and his tax-cut pitch – whether religious traditionalists, rural folks, or members of the white working class — actually lost more and more ground, economically, under Reagan’s and the Republicans’ neoliberalism.  They got symbolic gratification while their attention was diverted to the Democrats, liberals, and “Eastern elites” who allegedly caused their problems.

That’s the Republican path that leads directly to Trump and his True Believers.  It also echoes the post-Reconstruction Democrats’ austerity pitch that reinforced white supremacy in the South.

What, then, of the Democratic Party?

Democrats

Smarting from Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984, Democratic centrists – names like Dick Gephardt, Sam Nunn, and Bill Clinton — took steps to move the Party away from its more liberal wing, into the corporate-dependent center.  In its more liberal moments the Party voiced hopeful rhetoric about defending the rights of minorities, women, and LGBTQ people, defending the environment, etc.  The reality has consistently fallen far short of the rhetoric.

Indeed, the two “liberal” Democratic presidents of the neoliberal era – Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — were responsible for a host of repressive and “free market” (e.g., neoliberal) policies.  Clinton’s contributions are perhaps better known: the “end of welfare as we know it,” NAFTA, financial and telecommunications deregulation, and the 1994 Crime Bill that accelerated mass incarceration, among others.

Riding a campaign of “hope” and “change” into the White House, none of Obama’s “liberal” accomplishments – the Affordable Care Act, Supreme Court appointments, the negotiated settlement with Iran, and initial steps on climate — diverged from the neoliberal playbook.  At the same time, Obama pushed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other so-called ‘free trade” agreements, escalated both domestic surveillance and drone killings abroad, supported the anti-democratic coup in Honduras, and withdrew the public option for health insurance, among others.

The right-wing Republican attack machine kept its rank-and-file in line with attacks on Clinton’s “60s-style” licentiousness and Obama’s being of African descent.  For their part, the corporate media repeatedly turned the 60s era into a “good sixties” of a romanticized civil rights movement and a hopeful John Kennedy administration, and a “bad sixties” of violence and narcissistic rebelliousness  — the latter a useful hook for selling entertainment and commodities to younger generations.

Dysfunctional Neoliberal Politics

Republicans, in short, have been all about giveaways to the rich while manipulating the emotions of less well-off white Americans.  Democrats have ignored the latter populations, becoming increasingly dependent on corporate money while effectively manipulating the aspirations of marginalized communities.

In their more liberal moments, what Nancy Fraser has called “progressive neoliberalism,” Democrats embrace what is often called “identity politics” – race, gender, and sexuality in particular.  Republicans use Democrats’ rhetoric to cement the emotional attachment of their rank and file supporters.  As Republican “reactionary neoliberalism” becomes more and more outrageous, Democrats gain popular support.  The corporate center, with all its sanctimonious rhetoric, is reinforced when something like the Capitol assault occurs.

As Fraser has observed in The Old is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born, “To reinstate progressive neoliberalism [e.g., Joe Biden and the Democratic mainstream] … is to recreate –indeed to exacerbate—the very conditions that created Trump.  And that means preparing the ground for future Trumps –ever more vicious and dangerous.”

Thus the country remains stuck in a see-saw battle that utterly fails to address the deep crises we face.  Neither party speaks a word against a capitalist system that feeds inequality, threatens the planet’s ability to sustain life, and generates a foreign policy marked by militarism and war.  The “problem” is always the “other party.”  Such are the boundaries of what Noam Chomsky called “legitimate discourse.”

And neither party dares to confront class inequality.  Unlike identity concerns about white supremacy, hate speech, harassment and abuse, and the like – all profound problems — class analysis reveals the systemic forces that keep both parties’ rank-and-file in their place at the margins of American politics.

Ultimately, the only way out of this will occur when enough people become aware, not only of the seriousness of the crises facing us, but of the need to come together in a well-mobilized mass movement addressing systemic concerns.  We already can see where we’re heading if we don’t do this.

This article was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2021 at 7:57pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Capitalism, Democrats, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Identity Politics, Joe Biden, Media, NAFTA, Neoliberalism, Politics, Republicans.

This article originally appeared on Salon.

The nature of punditry makes it hard to tell which myths media personalities earnestly believe in, and which they perpetuate in bad faith. Consider the “welfare queen,” a villainous trope popularized by Ronald Reagan in stump speeches in the 1970s, and which never actually existed. Despite being a clear fiction, the idea was tantalizing both to politicians and pundits, and hence the welfare queen became embedded in culture. Pundits and politicians today still invoke the racist caricature, often through dog-whistles.

Why do some myths persist, or remain uncorrected by the media, while others dissipate? The short answer seems to be that when they serve a media narrative, or play on existing stereotypes, they grow to possess a power that goes beyond fact or truth. To this list of indefatigable myths, one might add the pernicious “BernieBro” — so ubiquitous a concept that it has its own Wikipedia article. The self-explanatory neologism was coined by Robinson Meyer in an Atlantic article in 2015 before being distorted by the Twittersphere and the punditry — something that Meyer later came to regret, as he felt the term he reified suffered from “semantic drift.”

But that was five years ago, before we had as much data on Sanders’ support base — which, as it turns out, should be sufficient to debunk the stereotype that Sanders’ support base consists entirely of a mythic tribe of entitled, pushy young millennial men. To wit: young women make up more of Sanders’ base than men. He polls especially high with Hispanic voters, far more so than with white voters; Hispanic voters also donated more money to him than any other Democratic candidate. Polls consistently show that nonwhite voters prefer him over the other candidates. Notably, the demographic group that likes Sanders the least is white men.

Moreover, of all the candidates, Sanders has taken in the most money from women. Many of Sanders’ female supporters bemoan how they are ignored by the mainstream press. “The ‘Bernie Bro’ narrative is endlessly galling because it erases the women who make up his base,” writer Caitlin PenzeyMoog opined on Twitter. “To paint this picture of sexism is to paint over the millions of women who support Sanders. Do you see how f**ked up that is?”

And yet. Even with all this demographic data on Bernie Sanders’ support base, many intelligent pundits and politicians persist with the myth. How do they justify it? They just know, apparently. But specifically, they feel it on Twitter.

Just one week ago, New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens published a column with the headline “Bernie’s Angry Bros.” The column did not contain a shred of the aforementioned demographic data about Sanders’ support base, but rather was driven by a series of anecdotes supposedly proving his point about the irascible fans of the Vermont senator. Stephens’ main evidence, aside from social media anecdotes, was a story about Sanders supporters getting angry during or after the 2016 Nevada caucuses, believing they had been rigged against their candidate. (The idea that people might grow angry at being disenfranchised is horrifying to Stephens, probably because he is a well-insulated upper-middle class pundit for whom political decisions have no real material impact on his life — unlike the people in Nevada he disparages.)

The Daily Dot has a long feature listing pundits who have helped perpetuate the BernieBro narrative long after demographics showed his support base to be a multiracial, working-class coalition. Hillary Clinton apparently still believes that Sanders is tailed by a horde of “online Bernie Bros” who issue “relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women,” as she said in a Hollywood Reporter interview just last month.

What could compel otherwise intelligent people to perpetuate a false and harmful narrative that essentializes Sanders supporters and erases their real and diverse identities?

Again, the answer to that is Twitter. Specifically, how Twitter is understood by journalists and pundits, and how it is wielded by angry people online.

The skewed demographics of Twitter

Twitter, unfortunately, informs the worldview of many of the country’s most elite pundits, and some of its politicians too. Opinion columnists like David Brooks and Bret Stephens (both of the New York Times) are excellent examples of pundits who, at various times, seem to see the world as refracted through the bluebird’s drinking glass.

The problem is, Twitter is very much not a representative sample of the world. It is not a zeitgeist; it is not a cross-section of the population.

It is hard to understand this, even for very smart people, because the corporation that runs Twitter tries very hard to make it seem like Twitter is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of every cultural and political conversation.

But it is not true. However, the eponymous corporation behind Twitter profits from this perception of its platform as a zeitgeist. After all, the president is on it! Still, Twitter (the company) promotes this narrative of itself as where the conversation lives. They make money off of the lie that it is a representative cross-section of the world’s opinions and thoughts.

But a study of Twitter demographics say otherwise.

Pew Research polls from 2019 found that about 22% of the US population is on Twitter, and 44% of users are in the 18-24 age range. Linger on that for a second: a substantial proportion of the people getting in Bret Stephens’ mentions and making him upset may be scarcely older than children. Interestingly, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine — a pundit with whom I rarely agree — is on the mark here.

“It is hard to exaggerate the degree to which the platform shapes the minds of professional political observers,” he wrote in a recent column. “Part of Twitter’s allure to insiders is that it creates a simulacrum of the real world, complete with candidates, activists, and pundits all responding to events in real time. Because Twitter superficially resembles the outside world’s political debate — it does, after all, contain the full left-to-right spectrum — it is easy to mistake it for the real thing.”

Here’s another stat from Pew that helps explain why Twitter is non-representative, a fount of professional-managerial class opinions: Thirty-one percent of Twitter users in the U.S. make more than $75,000, though only 23% of the country makes that much money. Likewise, 20% of U.S. Twitter users make less than $30,000, though about 28% of the country makes that much. The social media site is skewed towards wealthier Americans.

It’s too bad there aren’t as many statistics about who is active on the site. I’ve often suspected that people with white-collar office jobs and higher incomes (and thus more leisure time or computer time) are more steady tweeters, while those with manual labor jobs are not constantly perusing feeds and inserting themselves into the commentariat.

Angry people and angry brands

But the demographics of Twitter’s user base only say so much about the site’s distorted commentariat. There’s also the question of how people behave online, and why they behave so differently than they do in real life. There is a psychological reason why even very nice people are more likely to behave like assholes online. It is called the online disinhibition effect, and it is a big source of misery from pundits who do not understand it. The combination of three factors — the anonymity and pseudonymity of being online, the lack of accountability, and the indirect nature of online communications — make it so that online communication is dehumanizing, and often cruel.

Demographics and “real” users aside, Twitter — like most social media sites — has a huge number of accounts that aren’t even individuals. A great deal of Twitter users are instead are brands, spam accounts or bots who behave like actual people.

Because of this, getting in arguments with “people” on Twitter — or even just seeing Twitter as the so-called public sphere — is akin to arguing politics with a clown in a funhouse mirror. It is so heavily distorted — by corporate PR and marketing, by the way that people behave differently online, and even by powerful bad actors (whether state or individual) who can wield Twitter armies quickly and easily — as to be effectively useless as any sort of gauge of public opinion. It is a terrible place to gauge human behavior, or make broad pronouncements of what humans are like. And it’s an even worse place to get a sense of a politician’s support base.

I have a modest proposal for my peers in the journalism world: I would like to propose that anyone writing about a Twitter “mob” of any political ilk be required to include the previous paragraph in an asterisk at the bottom of their story. We should all be forced to include a disclaimer to clarify that it is impossible to make any kind of quantitative assessment of human behavior on Twitter because of how deeply skewed it all is — by hackers, PR professionals, paid influencers, intentional government or corporate misinformation campaigns, and the way the online disinhibition effect makes people act.

The reactionary mind at work

After reading all this, someone with a personal story of a (purported) Sanders supporter being cruel to them online might still object. The Bernie Bro is real! This anecdote proves it. 

But to say “a single candidate’s follower was mean, therefore I don’t support this candidate’s policies regardless of their actual political implications,” is a rhetorical fallacy. There are definitely individual assholes out there. Likewise, assholes can believe in good causes, and nice people can support terrible causes. It is a reactionary mistake to oppose a candidate — who represents a set of specific political positions poised to help or harm different social classes — on the basis of another’s individual behavior.

That means that the normalization of the BernieBro also diminishes the experience of those who are bullied by other candidates’ supporters. A video went around of an Elizabeth Warren supporter accosting two Sanders fans at the Iowa caucus; yet it didn’t get a lot of play because it didn’t reinforce existing stereotypes that we have about Warren’s supporters. Plenty of stories about online bullying by other candidates’ supporters are ignored because we lack a comparable stereotype to bundle them.

It would be one thing if Bernie Sanders — or any popular politician — told their supporters to be angry and menacing and threatening online, and then that behavior was reified on Twitter and in real life. But that has not happened with Sanders, nor with anyone else among the current crop of Democrats. You cannot draw a line from Sanders’ rhetoric to any of the stereotypes of BernieBros, because his rhetoric and voting records speaks to him being an egalitarian, a civil rights advocate and a compassionate progressive voice.

Nearly four years after the 2016 primaries, tensions that arose within the Democratic Party during the last presidential election cycle remain largely unresolved. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is partly to blame, as she recently opened old wounds with comments about Bernie Sanders, one of the Democrats’ current front-runners. Telling the Hollywood Reporter that “nobody likes” her former opponent, she also criticized his supporters and refused to commit to backing him were he to win the nomination. The comments led to a much-needed conversation about the Democratic Party’s direction and whether it’s possible for the progressive wing of the party, led by Sanders, to reform a party that’s largely controlled by an elitist establishment.

In the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence,” former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a lifelong progressive, speaks with Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer about the conflicts tearing at the Democrats as they enter the final months in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

“I want to begin with sort of a basic question,” says Scheer. “Is this battle between Hillary and Bernie Sanders — which of course was the subject of the last Democratic primary, in 2016 — is this really the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party?”

“Well, that assumes that the Democratic Party has a soul,” responds Kucinich, who has himself run for president as a Democrat twice. “I don’t know if we could grant that. But I would say it is certainly a battle for what the Democratic Party ought to stand for.

“Bernie Sanders has been able to delineate some very progressive points of view and policies during his time as a member of the House and as a member of the Senate. His campaign would take the Democratic Party in a new direction with respect to health care and education, hopefully a new direction in foreign policy. And Hillary Clinton, you have to remember, has been a singular spokeswoman for the national security state and for war.”

To the former congressman, who served alongside many of the Democrats currently running for president, his party began to lose its direction quite a long time ago.

“At its apex, [the Democratic Party has] been, for the last 30 years, the party of plutocracy,” he asserts. Kucinich goes on to highlight policy failings that have spanned recent decades, including the Financial Services Modernization Act, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, NAFTA and perhaps most important, the bailout of banks after the 2008 financial crash, all of which left communities across the U.S. economically devastated.

“You know, I’m talking to you from Cleveland, Ohio, which was the epicenter of the subprime meltdown, where no-doc and low-doc loans were circulated primarily in African American communities and in poor white neighborhoods,” Kucinich says. “And the whole place looks like a bomb hit it, because you have neighborhoods that are just destroyed. And this was a bipartisan effort, by the way. So the Democratic Party has failed to distinguish itself since the days of, since the policies of FDR.”

Pointing to a controversial point in Kucinich’s career, Scheer asks about his decision to support President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, despite being an avid supporter of universal health care.

“I remember a moment when you had a kind of decisive vote on Obamacare, and that had to do with a public option,” says the Truthdig editor in chief. “Do you want to discuss that a little bit? Because that really goes to what the party can do when it demands loyalty.”

“Though I had many misgivings about the bill that President Obama was supporting,” Kucinich explains, “and I made it very clear it was not in any way to be confused with single-payer health care, I voted for it — not only because of my constituents but also because I saw it as holding a space, at least, for health care reform on a much larger scale, for the reform that I continue to push for, which is single-payer, not-for-profit.

“But look, I never had any illusions about what was going to happen once that passed, and that the insurance companies would cash in, and that the pharmaceutical companies would continue to cash in, as they had under [George W.] Bush.”

“I think health care ought to be a defining issue in this election,” Kucinich concludes. Despite his progressive credentials, however, the Democrat seems to agree with Noam Chomsky’s statement in a recent episode of “Scheer Intelligence” regarding the 2020 election and the lesser of two evils.

Listen to the full discussion between Scheer and Kucinich as the former congressman offers an insider’s view of the Democratic Party he’s worked in for much of life. You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player and find past episodes of “Scheer Intelligence” here.

—Introduction by Natasha Hakimi Zapata

RS: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where the intelligence comes from my guests. In this case an old friend, Dennis Kucinich, I’m sure well-known to people listening to this program. I first met Dennis when he was the mayor of Cleveland and called out the big financial interests and had big battles over the rights of people to control their resources, very early on in the environmental movement. And I’ve known him through a career on City Council and, obviously, in the U.S. Congress and as a congressional candidate. I believe, Dennis, it’s been about 40 years, has it not? When were you mayor?

DK: Well, we have known each other for, to be exact, 41 years.

RS: Oh, OK. [Laughs] So the reason I tracked down Dennis today is because it’s the day on which I read a story from The Hollywood Reporter — carried elsewhere, and there’s a documentary also connected with it — in which Hillary Clinton takes down Bernie Sanders. And she takes him down, she says that he had no friends in Congress, he could get nothing done, no one liked him. And then she did [what] I thought was the unpardonable thing — in, you know, given the Democratic Party and the loyalty and everything–she didn’t even indicate whether she would support Bernie Sanders. She hesitated, and would not say that she would support him if he is the Democratic candidate. And I just thought, there’s one person that would be able to help me understand this situation, and that would be Dennis Kucinich, who knew both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Congress. And I want to begin with sort of a basic question: is this battle between Hillary and Bernie Sanders — which of course was the subject of the last Democratic primary, in 2016 — is this really the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party?

DK: Well, that assumes that the Democratic Party has a soul. I don’t know if we could grant that. But I would say it is certainly a battle for what the Democratic Party ought to stand for. Bernie Sanders has been able to delineate some very progressive points of view and policies during his time as a member of the House and as a member of the Senate. His campaign has — it would take the Democratic Party in a new direction with respect to health care and education, hopefully a new direction in foreign policy. And Hillary Clinton, you have to remember, has been a singular spokeswoman for the national security state and for war. She was on board for regime-change wars in Iraq and Libya, and in Syria. Ukraine — as her assistant Victoria Nuland said, “Yats is the guy;” they wanted to throw out the leader of Ukraine at that point. And finally, Bob, the response of the Clinton campaign to the 2016 election results brought Russia into a whole new role as, allegedly, the agent provocateur of the 2016 election, and blamed — the Clinton campaign blamed Russia for the defeat. So what you have when you look at Hillary Clinton, you have her as being central to the activities of the State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon over a period of time, that puts her really as being the singular figure in democratic politics today who stands for interventionism, regime change and the primacy of the American military-industrial complex. And so Bernie — and Bernie Sanders does not stand for that.

RS: So let me — that’s right, but let me take it away from that a bit. Because when I talked about the, mentioned the soul of the Democratic Party — and it’s a party that’s had great contradictions. You know, after all, it was also the party of Southern racist Dixiecrats who defended segregation and, you know, opposed the progress of people of color in this world. And so I know all the failings. But when I think of the soul of the Democratic Party, at the very least, it should be the party of working people, of poor people, of dispossessed people. And I think of the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And I think of that set of issues, which now, at the time of billionaire power — you have the Oxfam report, where 2,200 billionaires have as much wealth as 4.3 billion people in this world. We’ve had very sharp class division within the United States since Bill Clinton was president. And what I really had in mind was elitism and plutocracy, and that what Bernie Sanders clearly stands for is the concern of the average person, the working person. And Hillary Clinton seems to embody the elitism, going back to her husband’s administration, where it’s the opening to Wall Street, to financial deregulation — that’s really what I meant. Is this the party of the billionaire class, or is it the party of the working class?

DK: Well you know, since you frame it that way, you’ve drawn, I think, and delineated very sharply, the differences between Hillary Clinton’s view of the political economy and the role of the Democratic Party, and Bernie Sanders’. If the party, if the Democratic Party had a soul, when it started to take corporate contributions from the same interests the republicans were taking contributions from about 30 years ago, that soul was put on auction. The fact is that you cannot separate foreign policy, which has resulted in the transfer of trillions of dollars of wealth out of this country, and for destructive purposes, but also to — you know, defense contractors have cashed in handsomely — that’s part of the equation, and it needs to be part of every discussion when you’re talking about domestic priorities. Because you cannot talk about health care for all while you’re spending trillions abroad on war; you cannot talk about free education for all when you’re spending trillions abroad for war. And so I think, generally speaking — it’s not true in every regard, but generally speaking, there is a sharp contrast with what Hillary has traditionally stood for and what Bernie Sanders stands for.

And I think you have to give some credit to another candidate in this race who has taken a strong position against interventionism, and that’s Tulsi Gabbard, who also — to the ire of Hillary Clinton, when Hillary smeared her as a Russian asset, Hillary’s campaign having tidily built the case, falsely built the case about Russia manipulating the 2016 election against Hillary. And then later on, having built that sand Kremlin, goes ahead and accuses Tulsi Gabbard of being part of it. And this all happens in the last month, which raises questions as to whether or not Secretary Clinton’s experience in the 2016 election was so traumatic that it’s made her — it’s caused her to lose her perspective.

RS: Well, let me push on this question of the soul. Because I think at least — or if not the soul, the mythology of the party is that it’s the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And I’m talking to Dennis Kucinich, who started life living in a car, right? With a bunch of brothers and sisters.

DK: Well, my — you know, that was one of the places that my parents and our family lived, out of 21.

RS: Yeah. So you come from — you come from the hard-knocks school of American life. And as mayor and as a congressman, I think you have an impeccable record of showing a concern for the victims of rampant monopoly capitalism. And so what I’m trying to get at here is because I understand the Democratic Party has often been a warmongering party. I mean Lyndon Johnson, you know, gave us the Vietnam War, and we can go right down the line. But you would have thought–and given the appeal to minority voters, given the language of the party, and you’ve been at these conventions and so forth — you would think that this issue of economic justice and fairness would be critical. And I do think, I mean, whenever–and we’ll get to the personal in a minute. And as I said, you were in Congress, you were in the House of Representatives with Bernie Sanders; you were in Congress where Hillary Clinton was a senator from New York. You’ve watched, you know something about — a great deal about the legislative process.

But what I think is so odd here is that the issue that is drawn between these two is really the plutocrat versus the common interest. And in the case of Hillary Clinton, I admire her chutzpah in a sense, because here’s somebody whose husband released Wall Street greed, enabled it, overturned the basic legislation that came out of the New Deal controlling Wall Street, that gave us the Great Depression. And because of that legislation — the Financial Services Modernization Act, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act–we had the Great Recession. And I use the word chutzpah — or arrogance, if you like a more Anglo term — and here is Bernie Sanders she’s denouncing, who has actually made these issues of economic fairness, and the concerns of the average person, front and center to the political debate. And she’s now taking that away from him. I don’t get it, frankly.

DK: But she’s not the one to take that away. Because since that was not the ground that she worked during her career as a senator, and certainly during her career as a secretary of state.

RS: Well, let me combine the two, because — let me, I’m sorry, I won’t interrupt after this. But there is a real connection here, because you brought up the Russian interference and so forth, OK? And the great crime of Russian interference is supposed to be, you know, WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who is rotting in jail. You know, so there’s bipartisan support for destroying whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and publishers like Julian Assange, who dare print their work. But the big crime of Russian interference is not manipulating technical detail out on the internet. It was two specific things: it was getting the documents on how the Democratic — this is the alleged thing, that the Podesta files showing how the Democratic National Committee had sided with Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders. And more important, really, revealing what it was that Hillary Clinton said in those speeches, for which she got three quarters of a million dollars, to Goldman Sachs. And what she said in those speeches was that she was going to bring these financial geniuses from Wall Street with her to Washington to straighten out the economy. And that was explosive, because these are the people who messed up the economy. So it does get back to this basic issue of: is this the party of plutocracy, or is this the party of working people?

DK: At its apex it’s been, for the last 30 years, the party of plutocracy. With the — you cited the Financial Services Modernization Act, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act — you also have to look at the trade deals, NAFTA and the Democrats who went along with trying to trade. We have sold out working-class people in this country. And we — and Obama came in and basically blessed the bailout of Wall Street while millions of Americans lost their homes. And that was well known it was going to happen, because Tim Geithner came to a caucus of Democrats and said, “Yeah, we’re going to straighten this out, but millions of people are going to lose their homes.” Not that “We will save millions of people’s homes,” but “They’re going to lose their homes.”

And you know, I’m talking to you from Cleveland, Ohio, which was the epicenter of the subprime meltdown, where no-doc and low-doc loans were circulated primarily in African American communities and in poor white neighborhoods. And the whole place looks like a bomb hit it, because you have neighborhoods that are just destroyed. And this was a bipartisan effort, by the way. So the Democratic Party has failed to distinguish itself since the days of, since the policies of FDR. Kennedy didn’t have enough time to do something, and Johnson got tied up in the war. Johnson had the Great Society; there were some good things that he tried to do. But the archetypal role of a political party — as was described in the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt starting with the ’32 election, and then put into place in ’33 and on — all that has melted away like some insubstantial pageant faded, leaving less than a rack behind.

And you would think that the Democrats would rally under a platform that would say “health care for all.” In the year 2000, I went to the Democratic Convention platform committee in Cleveland, where I was there with Laila Garrett from Southern California, Tom Hayden, Gloria Allred and myself. And we pushed for a universal health care program, and I was told by the Gore campaign, don’t do this, because you know, this — we’re not going in this direction. And we know that Democrats as well as Republicans have sold the American people’s health interests out. So you know, we now are at a divide. And this 2020 election will show us whether or not a political party is capable of bringing about the kind of economic and political reforms which are so needed in this country right now to raise up the standard of living for people, to raise wages, to raise — to give everyone access to quality healthcare, to give everyone access to a quality education. We’re going to find out if that Democratic Party, once the nominee is known, if the Democratic Party actually has it in them, or if we’re in for another same old, same old. But the American people are getting impatient, and they’re not going to continue to be slow-walked into an economic hardship while the titans of the party line their pockets.

RS: Well, but you know, Dennis — and for people who don’t know the full history of your political journey, you’ve been fighting this battle for your whole life. And when I went and I interviewed you for both the L.A. Times and for Playboy magazine, when you were mayor of Cleveland — and there you have all the ingredients that are at stake now. You were in favor of public power and the wise use of power; you were against the big-power interests, you were against the big banks that were in bed with them. You were trying to protect a public interest in how we use utilities, how we use energy. You were very early to the conservation and environmental concerns, and attacking the waste society and talking about economic justice. And as was pointed out in a recent terrific interview with you at Rolling Stone magazine, you are the guy who was way ahead of your time. And you were a Democrat; they can’t say, hey, he’s like Bernie Sanders, was an independent — you’re a Democrat, you’ve been a loyal Democrat. And in fact, I think it’s fair to say you lost your congressional seat, not because voters rejected you in your old district; they supported you — but you were gerrymandered out in a deal that the Democratic Party brokered.

DK: By the Democrats, right. That’s exactly right. The Democratic Party was responsible for a redistricting that eliminated a congressional district in Cleveland, which I held. Now, think about that. Why? Because I’m not the guy who was here for the plutocrats. I’m, you know, I understand that the shift of wealth that’s been going on — think about this, Bob. The U.S. government admits it’s spent at least $80,000 per average family of four since 2001 on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. That’s, like, over $6.4 trillion. And then the actual figure is much higher; it’s closer, I think, closer to $150,000 per family, for just our regime-change wars in those two countries. And you know Chris Hedges; well, I’ve read some of his stuff. He’s pointed out that our society is going to crumble, lives will be lost, disease and despair will rise to keep the Empire afloat and the world in fear if we keep these wars going on. So we’ve got — what we’re experiencing now is the cost of a plutocratic approach blessed by both political parties, which accelerates wealth to the top, and an economic pyramid, top of the economic pyramid. And it’ll be catastrophic for our economy and our democracy unless we reverse it.

RS: OK, but I want to get it back to Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Because I do think that this is a clarifying, a decisive moment that cuts through a lot of illusions. Because, yes, Donald Trump is a center of evil disruption and cynicism and what have you. But the problem is that he is effective in harnessing anger and fear and concern out there of decent, ordinary people who feel betrayed by the economy. And then he talks a tough game on trade, and maybe even on NAFTA; he might have improved NAFTA, there are some better things in the new trade agreement than were there before. But the fact is, we have right-wing populism not just here, but throughout the world. We have right-wing populism. And populism is important not because populism is a bad thing, but because people have real concerns that are not being addressed by their establishment of these different societies. Now, what happened in the ’16 election, the democrats had a populist candidate in Bernie Sanders who could have had the debate with Donald Trump that this country has to have. And instead you got Hillary Clinton, got the nomination with a lot of Wall Street establishment support, and that debate didn’t happen. We had a populism of the right, and we had a plutocracy and an establishment view from the Democrats.

DK: I would agree with that.

RS: Well, I’m wondering now — now, here is Hillary Clinton, who says she would not — she would not commit to supporting Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump. Noam Chomsky, in my last podcast, he says he’s going to go for the lesser evil, you got to stop Trump. Hillary Clinton wasn’t willing to take that position, right, with The Hollywood Reporter or in that documentary that’s going to be shown. She hesitated; she would not back Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump. So for all the talk about party loyalty, the need to stop Trump, where she evidently draws the line is a serious progressive populist who wants to take on the banks.

DK: Yeah, I would say that that says more about Secretary Clinton than it does about Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has very clearly laid out a program for economic reform. He has talked about it almost to the exclusion of foreign policy, I might add, but nevertheless he has laid out a platform that — look, essentially, on the economic side, I agree with him. You know, I actually wrote the bill in I think it was 2007, for universal single-payer, not-for-profit health care, H.R. 676. And Bernie and I worked together on that, as we worked together to try to avert war in Iraq. And so you know, I — and I’ve known him, you know, full disclosure, I’ve known him since 1979, when he was the mayor of Burlington. I’ve known Secretary Clinton since the time that she was the first lady of Arkansas. You know, and there’s a lot to be said about her earlier career, and particularly in the areas of education and children’s care. But I think that something has happened in her ascent, which caused her to basically throw in her lot with the interest groups who control the country for their own benefit, and not for the benefit of the American people.

RS: Well, this is not new. After all, we had welfare reform. I mean, I’m assuming Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton; she was an active member of his administration. She was working on healthcare, and you had these programs — the imprisonment of a large number of people, the crime bill; you had the welfare reform, which basically ended the poverty program, the national poverty program, social welfare program. You had many of these things that happened, so it’s not just recently. But what I wanted to ask you about in particular, since you keep bringing up health care, I remember a moment when you had a kind of decisive vote on Obamacare, and that had to do with a public option. Do you want to discuss that a little bit? Because that really goes to what the party can do when it demands loyalty.

DK: I was part of about five meetings that took place with President Obama with increasingly smaller groups of people, until finally I had a chance to talk to him on Air Force One on a flight from Washington to Cleveland. And what was astonishing to me is that President Obama was prepared to take the entire health care bill down unless it went through without any changes whatsoever. I pushed for a public option, had 75 Democrats agree, and I was the last man left standing, along with a member of Congress from New York. And basically, the moment of decision came, where I had to decide based on the pleas of my constituents, who were adamant about having a healthcare plan which treated pre-existing conditions, which took care of children who lived at home, age 25 and under. And though I had many misgivings about the bill that President Obama was supporting, and I made it very clear it was not in any way to be confused with single-payer healthcare, I voted for it — not only because of my constituents, please, but also because I saw it as holding a space, at least, for healthcare reform on a much larger scale, for the reform that I continue to push for, which is single-payer, not-for-profit. But look, I never had any illusions about what was going to happen once that passed, and that the insurance companies would cash in, and that the pharmaceutical companies would continue to cash in, as they had under Bush.

So, you know, health care, again, we’re led to believe that Obamacare, as it’s termed, is the sine qua non of health care, and we can’t do any better. And that’s baloney. We can and should have a single-payer, not-for-profit system. People — you know, Bernie Sanders was trapped initially on the discussions about, well, you know, you’re going to take away people’s health care that they get from their jobs. But the basic question is, if you’re paying over $15,000 to $20,000 a year on your present health insurance policies for your family, and you can get the same coverage for a fraction of that, what would you take? That’s really the question that needs to be posed to the American people. And I think health care ought to be a defining issue. In this election, it ought to be a defining issue.

RS: But let me — the reason I’m pushing this is because Hillary Clinton, in her attack on Bernie Sanders, raised the question of effectiveness. She said Bernie Sanders had no friends, had no support in Congress and couldn’t get anything done. And then there’s two questions. One, of course, is what are you getting done? If you’re getting support for wars that make no sense, then you don’t want that kind of effectiveness. If you’re getting support for programs like increasing the prison population or deregulating Wall Street, then that’s negative. And so you’re a person of great experience within the belly of the beast, if you like. You’ve been there. You’ve been in the negotiations, you’ve been on the committees, you’ve worked through Congress. What do you make of her attack on Bernie Sanders as someone who is just, you know, had no positive impact at all?

DK: Well, you know, first of all, if the measure of effectiveness is being an interventionist and using the resources of the United States to push for regime change which resulted in the deaths of over a million innocent people in the last two decades — then, you know, Hillary Clinton’s very effective. But if you talk about effectiveness in terms of a real commitment to people who are trying to survive, who are concerned about what they pay for health care, who are concerned about access to healthcare, who are concerned about their children being able to afford school — you know, that’s a measure of effectiveness. You know, the average — think about this, Bob — the average American family of four pays about $30,000 a year for health care, and $15,000 a year for keeping our 800 bases open around the world. I mean, what are our priorities? So effectiveness, in Secretary Clinton’s view, is a statement that her priorities are firmly aligned with a political establishment which is denying the practical aspirations of hundreds of millions of Americans while an elite profits from the activities of established figures inside the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA and all the groups that surround them in the various foundations.

RS: But let me — I mean, just you know, because people — we don’t know, most people don’t know how the sausage is made. And so they get very impressed when people like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton say they get things done. After all, Joe Biden’s still the front-runner for the Democratic Party, and that’s going to be his claim. And then — so then, but how is the sausage made? And is it good for us? Is it good for us?

DK: Well, Bob — Bob, it’s a good question to put to me. Because I know how the sausage is made, and that’s why I’m a vegan. I’m a non-interventionist, because I know wars are based on lies. I believe in peace, not coercive diplomacy that Secretary Clinton has championed, but strength through peace, peace as the primary purpose of the instruments of government. The country has a right to defend itself, but we’ve seen that twisted and used over and over and over. So when we talk about the diet of the nation, the people are getting skinny while certain cats are getting fat. And we need to change the priorities of the country, to realign them with the sensibilities and the spirit of FDR and that New Deal. And to come forward with a restoration of the American polity, to make sure people have decent roofs over their heads, and a place for their children to go to school in a safe neighborhood, and never have to worry about losing what they’ve worked a lifetime for because somebody in the family gets ill, and a secure retirement. And I mean, all those things ought to be birth rights to every American, but they are certainly not today. And frankly, that is not just because of a Republican Party — no way. It’s also because a Democratic Party has failed to provide true choices for the American people. And it remains to be seen whether in 2020 the Democratic Party will provide such choices. And finally, if it doesn’t, Bob, I think that 2024 we’ll see a realignment in American politics, where people will be fed up with both political parties, and they will truly be ready to look at something different that aligns more closely with their aspirations.

RS: But I want to go back to the sausage, and I appreciate that you’re a vegan, but you’ve been involved with the sausage-making of legislation. You’ve been on committees, you’ve been in the debates. And you know, most of us who are sympathetic to your progressive outlook haven’t been there. You know, I watched you in Congress; I witnessed it. I interviewed people in different legislative — I remember the Financial Services Modernization Act, which is what repealed Glass-Steagall and freed Wall Street, you know, to run wild. And I remember Barney Frank was pushing that; he was head of the banking committee, and he was supposedly a good progressive. I remember even members of the Black Caucus supported it. And the fact of the matter is, as a result of the Great Recession, which was ushered in by that legislation, black people in America lost 70% of their wealth; brown people lost 60% of their wealth. So I’m interested in the sausage-making, and I got you here, because you’ve been the witness to it, and you’ve been a well-intentioned person. And yet, you know what the lobbyists do; you know — I remember Barney Frank telling me, oh, it’s complicated, go talk to so-and-so. And so-and-so turned out to be a lobbyist. You know, but he’s a good guy, you know. And that’s what we need to know. Is this whole thing about to be — Bernie Sanders is not effective because he was an outsider. You know? Well, what did the insiders do? Democrat and Republican?

DK: Let me give you a story that can help put it in perspective. When I first came to Congress, I was escorted around the Capitol grounds by an old friend and somebody who had served the Cleveland seat that I took, ended up taking. And that was former Congressman Jim Stanton. And Jim took me around the campus, and we were between the Longworth and the Rayburn buildings, and he pointed to another member of Congress across the street. And he said, you see that guy there? I said yeah. He said, that guy thinks this place — he extended his hands to the whole of the campus — that guy thinks this place is on the level.

So you know, Washington has the pretense of serving the masses of American people. But in fact, it’s a machine that works for interest groups. And if the people are able to get some crumbs, well, that’s a surprise. And you know, we have a — I think it was [name unclear] who said that we have a winner-take-all society, with more and more being left behind. So you know, this is not the greatest economy ever; it’s a crumbling society where families sink deeper into debt, where most Americans have no wealth, where they function as indentured servants. Are we going to change that? Well, that ought to be the purpose of our politics. I’ve just been notified by the studio that we have all of — well, we just have a few minutes left here. So I just —

RS: So take the few minutes, Dennis. Is it better — let’s take even her characterization. Is it better to be a provocative truth-teller about the concentration of wealth and power in America, like Bernie Sanders? Or is it better to be an insider like Hillary Clinton, who works with the most powerful, and yet claims that she’s on the progressive side? Which path, if you had to choose between the two, do you think is more useful to the American public?

DK: Well, I mean, that’s easy —

RS: Well, it’s not easy, because the —

DK: Well, it is. Because it’s not — the way that you structure it, it’s an easy answer. But let me just say this, that you can actually understand how the system works, and make sure that the mass of the American people are, their interests are served. I mean, that’s what the New Deal was all about. We haven’t had the kind of organization of government power on behalf of the American people since then. And that’s what we need. We need a restructuring of our political economy, and a restructuring of our government, so we can focus on using the power and the leverage of government on behalf of all the people of the United States, not on just behalf of a 1%.

RS: But that’s what we’ve been saying for all this time. I mean, since Roosevelt was president. And the fact of the matter is, and particularly since the Reagan-Clinton years — that’s where it really started — we’ve had the most extreme redistribution of income back to the rich that we had since the roaring ’20s.

DK: Well, what’s going on is that the political system has been structured to continue that. That’s what Buckley v. Valeo was about; that’s what Citizens United’s about. They legalized the purchase of government. And, you know, he who pays the piper calls the tune. And I’ve just been told I have one minute for this tune.

RS: [Laughs] OK, Dennis, and you’re back there in Cleveland, I hope you’re going to consider a political future — or not, I don’t know, ah —

DK: Well, I’m actually thinking of a career in politics, but I, you know, I’m just mulling it over.

RS: Oh, OK. [Laughs]

DK: But listen, Bob, I appreciate being on. And, you know, people — we’re ginning up our website again at Kucinich.com, people can follow me on Facebook and a few other places. But I’m getting back in the mix. I took some time away, but let me tell you, I’m going to be involved in support of a candidate in the general election. Hopefully it’ll, you know, it’ll be someone who aligns with my values. And right now in the primary, I just came back from New Hampshire, where I was working for an unheralded non-interventionist by the name of Tulsi Gabbard.

RS: OK. Well, that’s a good promo. But would you have trouble supporting either or any of these candidates? I mean, Hillary Clinton hesitated to say whether she would support Bernie Sanders. I know you —

DK: I’m going to help the Democratic Party make whoever the candidate is the best candidate that can be, let’s say that. And that candidate, then, hopefully, will be able to serve the public. I’ve always been involved in the election, whether I agreed with who was getting the nomination or not.

RS: So you would support even a Biden.

DK: Yeah. Look, I’ve known Joe Biden since ’72. I don’t have any problem with Joe Biden except, you know, his foreign policy.

RS: Oh, OK. [Laughs] All right. And he did support the deregulation of Wall Street, and ah —

DK: I know what Joe — listen, I’ve known Biden since ’72. I like Joe Biden. If he gets the nomination, I’ll be happy to help him out and give him some advice on foreign policy.

RS: Oh, OK. So there’s a — Dennis Kucinich will support Joe Biden. Hillary Clinton couldn’t commit to supporting Bernie Sanders. Maybe that’s the tale of the party and how people line up. But thanks again, Dennis, it’s a pleasure having you here, and take care. And that’s it for this edition of Scheer Intelligence. Our producer here at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism has been Sebastian Grubaugh. Joshua Scheer is the overall producer of Scheer Intelligence, and truth be told, he actually worked in Dennis Kucinich’s office once as a young staff person. Christopher Ho at KCRW gets these things up on their site, which has been our host. And see you next week with another edition of Scheer Intelligence.

Chris Hedges is off and will return with a new column Tuesday afternoon. Below, reposted as the Senate conducts the impeachment trial of President Trump, is a Hedges column from Sept. 26, 2019. It was written in the week that Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the start of impeachment inquiries in the House, roughly three months before the lower chamber voted to impeach.

Impeaching Donald Trump would do nothing to halt the deep decay that has beset the American republic. It would not magically restore democratic institutions. It would not return us to the rule of law. It would not curb the predatory appetites of the big banks, the war industry and corporations. It would not get corporate money out of politics or end our system of legalized bribery. It would not halt the wholesale surveillance and monitoring of the public by the security services. It would not end the reigns of terror practiced by paramilitary police in impoverished neighborhoods or the mass incarceration of 2.3 million citizens. It would not impede ICE from hunting down the undocumented and ripping children from their arms to pen them in cages. It would not halt the extraction of fossil fuels and the looming ecocide. It would not give us a press freed from the corporate mandate to turn news into burlesque for profit. It would not end our endless and futile wars. It would not ameliorate the hatred between the nation’s warring tribes—indeed would only exacerbate these hatreds.

Impeachment is about cosmetics. It is about replacing the public face of empire with a political mandarin such as Joe Biden, himself steeped in corruption and obsequious service to the rich and corporate power, who will carry out the same suicidal policies with appropriate regal decorum. The ruling elites have had enough of Trump’s vulgarity, stupidity and staggering ineptitude. They turned on him not over an egregious impeachable offense—there have been numerous impeachable offenses including the use of the presidency for personal enrichment, inciting violence and racism, passing on classified intelligence to foreign officials, obstruction of justice and a pathological inability to tell the truth—but because he made the fatal mistake of trying to take down a fellow member of the ruling elite.

Yes, Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to give him dirt on Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, and there probably is some. Yes, it appears the U.S. president withheld roughly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in order to exert leverage over that government. Yes, he attempted to block the release of the whistleblower report that detailed his conduct. Yes, this is a violation of the law, one that many Democrats in Congress see as an impeachable offense.

But this kind of dirty quid pro quo is the staple of politics and international relations. Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence official, was hired to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia by Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm under contract to investigate Trump by Perkins Coie, a law firm working for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Four decades ago, Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager, William Casey, asked the Iranians not to free the American hostages held in Tehran until after the November presidential election to hurt incumbent Jimmy Carter, according to Gary Sick, Carter’s chief aide on Iran. The American hostages were released the day Reagan was inaugurated, in January 1981.

Hillary Clinton, as far as we know, was never on the phone to Steele. Reagan, as far as we know, was never on the phone to the Iranian president. Trump’s fatal mistake was that he was overt in his request and he made it himself. This kind of underhanded pressure to damage political opponents requires skillful hints, secret meetings, carefully calibrated pressure and total deniability. Trump is too clueless to play the game. Because of this he looks set to join the exclusive club of presidents who were impeached—Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.

Trump, however, will not go quietly into this good night. He will attempt to bring the whole rotten edifice down with him. And he may succeed.

“The Democrats thrive on silencing and intimidating his supporters, like YOU, Friend,” reads a fundraising appeal for Trump that was sent out immediately after the impeachment inquiry was announced this week. “They want to take YOUR VOTE away. President Trump wants to know who stood with him when it mattered most.”

But fundraising from a looming impeachment proceeding will be benign compared with what I think will come next. Trump’s rhetoric, as the pressure mounts, will become ever more incendiary. He will, as he has in the past, openly incite violence against the Democratic leadership and a press he brands as “the enemy of the people.”

There is no shortage of working-class Americans who feel, with justification, deeply betrayed and manipulated by ruling elites. Their ability to make a sustainable income has been destroyed. They are trapped in decaying and dead-end communities. They see no future for themselves or their children. They view the ruling elites who sold them out with deep hostility.

Trump, however incompetent, at least expresses this rage. And he does so with a vulgarity that delights his base. I suspect they are not blind to his narcissism or even his corruption and incompetence. But he is the middle finger they flip up at all those oily politicians like the Clintons who lied to them in far more damaging ways than Trump. Trump was weaponized to stick it to the man. Polls in the 2016 presidential election showed that 53 percent of Trump supporters were motivated by dislike of Hillary Clinton and only 44 percent said they were motivated by support for Trump.

“People no longer voted for candidates they liked or were excited by,” Matt Taibbi writes in “Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus.” “They voted against the candidates they hated. At protests and marches, the ruling emotions were disgust and rage. The lack of idealism, and especially the lack of any sense of brotherhood or common purpose with the other side (i.e., liberals and conservatives unable to imagine a productive future with each other, or even to see themselves as citizens of the same country), was striking.”

Impeaching Trump would be seen by his supporters as an effort to take away this primal, if ineffectual, form of defiance. It is yet another message to the disenfranchised, especially those in the white working class, that their lives, their concerns, their hopes and their voices do not matter. This huge segment of the population, as Trump is aware, is heavily armed. There are more than 300 million firearms in the hands of U.S. civilians, including 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles and 86 million shotguns. The number of privately owned military-style assault weapons—including the AR-15 semi-automatic rifles used in the massacres at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.—is estimated at 1.5 million. The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, an average of 90 firearms per 100 people. Mass shootings in the U.S. take place at a rate of one or more per day.

Economic, social and political stagnation, coupled with a belief that our expectations for our lives and the lives of our children have been thwarted, breeds violence. Trump, fighting for his political life, will use rhetorical gasoline to set it alight. He will demonize his opponents as the embodiment of evil. He will seek to widen the divisions and antagonisms, especially around race. He will brand his political opponents as irredeemable enemies and traitors. He will demand omnipotence, the power of a dictator. Many of those for whom he is a cult leader will seek to give it to him. For when the magical aura of Trump’s power is attacked, those in the Trump cult feel attacked. He is an extension of them. Trump embodies the yearning by millions of Americans, especially those in the Christian right, for a cult leader.

The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to remove Trump from office, as if our problems are embodied in him, will backfire. Our social, cultural, economic and political crisis created a demagogue like Trump. These forces will grow more virulent if Trump is impeached. The longer we fail to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for the misery of over half the U.S. population and our broken democracy, the more the disease of cultism will spread. It was the seizure of power by corporations that vomited up Trump. And it will be only by freeing ourselves from corporate rule, by rebuilding our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, that we can roll back from the abyss.

If we do not succeed in overthrowing corporate power, the explosive devices mailed to Trump critics and leaders of the Democratic Party, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, along with George Soros, James Clapper and CNN, allegedly by Cesar Sayoc Jr., an ex-stripper and fanatic Trump supporter who was living out of his van, will become an acceptable form of political expression. Such assassination attempts will, if left unchecked, eventually succeed. Anarchic lawlessness and tit-for-tat forms of political murder will swiftly turn the United States into a failed and terrifying state.

He used his speech to attack Democrats as embracing “radical and extreme positions” on abortion and praised those attending the event, saying they were motivated by “pure, unselfish love.” He also recited actions he’s taken as president that were sought by social conservatives, including the confirmation of 187 federal judges.

“Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,” he declared.

Trump once declared in a 1999 interview that “I am pro-choice in every respect.” Now, as he heads into the 2020 election, Trump continues to reach out to the white evangelical voters who have proven to be among his most loyal backers.

“Every life brings love into this world. Every child brings joy to a family. Every person is worth protecting,” Trump said, prompting loud cheers from the many thousands attending the march.

Trump is counting on the support of his base of conservative activists to help bring him across the finish line.

“I think it’s a brilliant move,” said Ralph Reed, chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and one of Trump’s most prominent evangelical supporters. Reed said the president’s appearance would “energize and remind pro-life voters what a great friend this president and administration has been.”

It also shows how much times have changed.

Past presidents who opposed abortion, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, steered clear of personally attending the march to avoid being too closely associated with demonstrators eager to outlaw the procedure. They sent remarks for others to deliver, spoke via telephone hookup or invited organizers to visit the White House.

Over the last 10 years, however, the Republican Party has undergone a “revolution,” displaying a new willingness to “embrace the issue as not only being morally right but politically smart,” said Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the Susan B. Anthony List and Women Speak Out PAC. The group is planning to spend $52 million this cycle to help elect candidates opposed to abortion rights. Its president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, will serve as national co-chair of a new campaign coalition, “Pro-life Voices for Trump.”

According to Pew Research Center polling in 2019, roughly 6 in 10 Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Over time, though, both the Republican and Democratic parties have taken harder-line positions for and against abortion rights.

“There used to be a middle in this country and candidates would not want to alienate the middle,” said Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary under President George W. Bush. “And it just seems that that is over and that both parties play to their bases to get maximum turnout from their base.”

During his first three years in office, Trump has embraced socially conservative policies, particularly on the issue of abortion. He’s appointing judges who oppose abortion, cutting taxpayer funding for abortion services and painting Democrats who support abortion rights as extreme in their views.

“President Trump has done more for the pro-life community than any other president, so it is fitting that he would be the first president in history to attend the March for Life on the National Mall,” said White House spokesman Judd Deere.

This is not the first time Trump has given serious consideration to an appearance. Last year, he wanted to go and came close to attending, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning. But the trip never came together because of concerns about security so Trump joined the event via video satellite from the White House Rose Garden instead.

Trump’s thinking on the matter was simple: If he supported the cause, “why wouldn’t he show up to their big event?” said Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union and a close ally of the White House. He said the appearance would be deeply significant for those in participants.

“I’ve had people be moved to tears over the fact that he’s going,” said Schlapp. “It’s a big deal.”

During his video address last year, Trump sent a clear message to the thousands of people braving the cold on the National Mall. “As president, I will always defend the first right in our Declaration of Independence, the right to life,” he said.

The rhetoric underscored Trump’s dramatic evolution on the issue from his days as a freewheeling New York deal-maker, when he described himself as “very pro-choice” in a 1999 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

During his 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination, Trump said his views had changed and that he was now opposed to abortion, but for three exceptions: In the case of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk.

Yet Trump’s unfamiliarity with the language of abortion activism was clear, including when he offered a bungled response during a televised town hall and was forced to clarify his position on abortion three times in a single day.

Asked, hypothetically, what would happen if abortion were outlawed, Trump said there would have to “be some form of punishment” for women who have them, prompting a backlash that managed to unite abortion rights activists and opponents, including organizers of the March for Life.

Asked to clarify his position, Trump’s campaign initially issued a statement saying he believed the issue should rest with state governments. He later issued a second statement that said doctors, not women, should be punished for illegal abortions.

Critics, for their part, accuse Trump of using the march to try to distract from his impeachment trial in the Senate.

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, called it “an act of desperation, plain and simple.” Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, accused Trump of carrying out “a full-out assault on our health and our rights.”

Views of abortion have remained relatively stable over two decades of polling, and it’s a minority of Americans who hold extreme opinions — that abortion should be legal or illegal in all cases. But polling does suggest a widening partisan gap on the question of support for abortion rights in all or most cases, along with some movement on both sides of the aisle further into their extreme positions.

The first march took place on the west steps of the Capitol in January 1974, the year after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established a woman’s legal right to abortion.

Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut contributed to this report from Washington.

A toxic compound that doesn’t belong anywhere near medicine known as NDMA was first discovered in some blood pressure medications in 2018, and the FDA issued an alert and wrote a complaint letter to the raw materials supplier to Big Pharma companies. It turns out the meds follow the very common pattern of being made in India with raw ingredients coming from China. And they are sold by big companies for obscenely high prices to U.S. consumers.

More recently, NDMA contamination provoked a nationwide recall of the popular anti-heartburn medication Zantac and all its generic versions.

And now the world’s most widely prescribed drug of all, which is used to treat and prevent Type 2 diabetes called metformin, is contaminated with NDMA.

NDMA (N-Nitrosodimethylamine) is, according to the World Health Organization, produced by “the degradation of dimethylhydrazine (a component of rocket fuel) as well as from several other industrial processes. It is also a contaminant of certain pesticides.”

And it’s one of the world’s most potent carcinogens, at least for humans and other mammals. Our livers produce an enzyme that converts it to methyldiazonium that then leads to O6-methylguanine, both of which alter a process at the cellular level called methylation that is a cancer turbocharger.

Because it’s such a potent biological agent, NDMA is also extremely poisonous; a Chinese medical student put a few drops in his roommate’s water and killed him. Ditto for a Canadian grad student, who injected it into a colleague’s apple pie.

It’s so poisonous that the FDA has set the “acceptable” amount for human daily intake at 96 nanograms, or 0.000096 of 1 milligram (a single grain of salt is about a milligram). In some of the generic brands of the blood pressure medication, just one tablet was found to have NDMA levels almost 20 times higher than the “acceptable” 96 nanograms, and nearly all were drugs that are taken daily.

Once it gets into groundwater, NDMA is wicked hard to get out, as citizens of numerous California cities found out in the late 1990s. Its “miscibility” (rapid solubility) with water is extreme, meaning that a few drops of it rapidly spreads through miles of underground aquifers or other water supplies in a matter of hours or days at most. Because of this, it’s nearly impossible to isolate the contamination once it happens, the only solution then being radical and expensive water treatment everywhere in the aquafer, principally using ultraviolet light.

Ever since 1987 when Congress and the Reagan administration cut a corrupt deal with Big Pharma to ban the retail import of pharmaceuticals into the U.S., Democrats have pushed to allow Americans to get their prescription drugs from other countries when they’re too expensive here (which is nearly always the case; we pay about twice as much for drugs as any other country in the world).

In 2000, Congress passed a law to allow imported retail drugs, but the Clinton administration, heavily funded by the health care industry, killed it administratively.

Nonetheless, progressive Democrats have pushed for years for the elimination of the ban. I first met Bernie Sanders when I lived in Montpelier, Vermont, around the turn of the century and he was organizing busloads of Vermont seniors to travel the two hours to Montreal to fill their prescriptions.

And now, in another popular policy position “borrowed” from progressive Democrats (who have also opposed neoliberal trade deals for decades), the Trump administration is talking about letting American consumers buy drugs from Canada or overseas.

The downside of this is that generic drugs sold in Canada are just as likely to be made in India and China, and thus just as contaminated, as drugs sold here. The upside is that because Canadian drugs will be cheaper, some of us can afford to buy the name-brand versions made in Germany, Switzerland or Ireland and sold in Canada, and not worry about getting cancer from NDMA in our generic drugs. (Yes, I mean this sarcastically.)

There was a time when virtually all drugs sold in the U.S. were manufactured here, including generics, or in Switzerland and Germany. Congress passed a special tax break for American drug manufacturers who’d move their factories to Puerto Rico, and for decades that was the hub of U.S. drug manufacturing. But in past decades neoliberalism has won out, and only a fraction of the pharma facilities in and around San Juan remain in operation.

Trump ran on the traditionally Democratic and progressive position of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., a project that progressive senators including Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders have worked on their entire modern political careers.

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

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of “The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America” and more than 25 other books in print. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute.

In 1981, William Greider, who died this week, wrote “The Education of David Stockman,” an essay for The Atlantic that, as Katherine Q. Seeley wrote in her New York Times obituary, “caused a national uproar.” Greider, through his own analysis, and careful, direct questioning over a series of interviews, got Reagan’s budget director, David Stockton, to admit that the president’s vision of low taxes for corporations and the rich had caused immense confusion even within Reagan’s own administration. “None of us really understands what’s going on with all these numbers,” Stockton admitted to Greider.

The quote, Stockton later admitted, got him “taken to the woodshed” by Reagan, who was unsurprisingly dismayed to read his close adviser admitting to flawed economic policies. It also cemented Greider’s reputation as an incisive, clear-eyed journalist willing to speak truth to power. It was a role he’d continue to play for years, as a writer and editor for multiple outlets, including Rolling Stone, The Nation and The Washington Post, where he was, at various times, national correspondent, an assistant managing editor for national news and a columnist.

Greider died Wednesday, leaving a legacy of articles, books and documentaries that revealed the inner workings of political and economic power in America, offering sharp criticism of our capitalist system, and even more importantly, a vision for how to improve it.

In the year after the Atlantic essay, Greider wrote a book, “The Education of David Stockman and Other Americans” (1982), using the essay as a jumping off point for a broader critique of Reaganomics. Since the 2016 election Reagan has received a rosy reception among establishment Democrats; perhaps his style of slashing social programs for the poor is more palatable to them than Trump’s. Even former President Obama called Reagan a patriot, and said in 2008 that “Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” Greider’s work is a stark reminder of the perils of that revisionist history.

Other well-known Greider books include “One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism” (1997), an early look at the perils of globalization; “Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country” (1987), which challenged the idea that the Federal Reserve should relentlessly fight inflation; “Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal of American Democracy” (1993), which Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel called “the bible for small-d democrats”; and “The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy” (2003).

Perhaps Greider was able to challenge conservative orthodoxy so well because he once was one. “I grew up a conservative Republican in the Robert Taft mold,” Greider told the Princeton Alumni Review in 2009. “What changed me was after graduation, when I went out as a reporter and quickly began to experience the broader world. That led me to appreciate things I had once despised, such as the New Deal and liberal economics.”

Annie Shields, who edited Greider’s blog at The Nation, called him “a political early alert system,” who saw clearly, when others didn’t, how Trump could easily beat Hillary Clinton, in an article whose title suggested just that. Within that piece, as he did many times, Greider warned Democrats of the dangers of relying on the centrism of the Third Way and New Democrats popular during the Clinton administration:

The nation’s circumstances cry out for bold and radical departures from the past. So far, Hillary has mostly stayed with careful, baby-step gestures. She has only a few months to clean house and change all that. New Dems have passed their sell-by date.

In her tribute to Greider, vanden Heuvel offers addition examples of that “early alert system” foresight:

He was prescient in forecasting the disasters of corporate globalization, the financial crisis of 2008, the ramifying influence of Occupy. He was early, and clearthroated, in calling for banksters to be held accountable; he laid out realistic and visionary alternatives to capitalism; he argued against endless wars, always understanding that America’s role as global policeman undermined democracy at home.

For his prescience, his willingness to speak truth to power, and the unparalleled interviewing skills that got a Reagan adviser in trouble, William Greider is our (sadly departed) Truthdigger of the Month.

Here’s a striking exception, though, one thing that decidedly hasn’t changed for the better in all these years: the staggering number of tax dollars that persistently go into what passes for national security in this country. In our case, of course, the definition of “national security” is subsidizing the U.S. military-industrial complex, year in, year out, at levels that should be (but aren’t) beyond belief. In 2019, Pentagon spending is actually higher than it was at the peak of either the Korean or Vietnam conflicts and may soon be — adjusted for inflation — twice the Cold War average.

Yes, in those four decades, there were dips at key inflection points, including the ends of the Vietnam War and the Cold War, but the underlying trend has been ever onward and upward. Just why that’s been the case is a subject that almost never comes up here. So let me try to explain it in the most personal terms by tracing my own history of working on Pentagon spending and what I’ve learned from it.

From the Anti-Apartheid Movement to Battling the Military-Industrial Complex

I first began analyzing this country’s weapons-making corporations in the mid-1970s while still a student at Columbia University and deeply involved in the anti-apartheid movement of that moment. As one of my topics of research, I spent a fair amount of time tracing how some of those outfits were circumventing the then-existing arms embargo on (white) South Africa by using shadow companies, shipping weapons through third countries, and similar deceptions.

One of the outlets I wrote for then was Southern Africa magazine, a collectively produced, independent journal that supported the liberation movements in that part of the world. The anti-apartheid struggle was ultimately successful, thanks to the efforts of the global solidarity movement of which I was a small part, but primarily to the courageous acts of South African individuals and organizations like the African National Congress and the Black Consciousness Movement.

As it happens, there has been no such luck when it comes to reining in the Pentagon.

I started working on Pentagon spending in earnest in 1979 when I landed a job at the New York-based Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), an organization founded on the notion that corporations could be shamed into being more socially responsible. Armed with a BA in Philosophy — much to the chagrin of my father who was convinced I would be unemployable as a result — I was lucky to get the position.

Even then I had my doubts about whether encouraging social responsibility would ever be adequate to tame profit-hungry multinational corporations, but the areas of research pursued by CEP were too important to pass up. One of their most significant studies at the time was a report identifying the manufacturers of anti-personnel weaponry used to grim effect in the war in Vietnam. And Gordon Adams, who went on to be the top defense budget official in the Clinton White House in the 1990s, wrote a seminal study, The Iron Triangle, while I was at CEP. That book laid out in a memorable fashion the symbiotic relationships among congressional representatives, the arms industry, and the Pentagon that elevated special interests above the national interest and kept weapons budgets artificially high.

My initial assignment was as a researcher for CEP’s Conversion Information Center — not religious conversion, mind you, but the conversion of the U.S. economy from its deep dependence on Pentagon spending to something better. The concept of conversion dated back at least to the Vietnam War era when it was championed by figures like Walter Reuther, the influential head of the United Auto Workers union, and Seymour Melman, an industrial engineering professor at Columbia University who wrote a classic book on the subject, The Permanent War Economy of the United States. (I took an undergraduate course with Melman which sparked what would become my own abiding interest in documenting the costs and consequences of the military-industrial complex.)

My work at CEP mostly involved researching subjects like how dependent local and state economies were — and, of course, still are — on Pentagon spending. But I also got to write newsletters and reports on the top 100 U.S. defense contractors, the top 25 U.S. arms-exporting corporations, and the companies advocating for and, of course, benefiting from President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense initiative. (That vast program was meant to turn space into a new “frontier” of war, a subject that has recently lit the mind of one Donald Trump.) In each case, CEP’s goal was to push public interest and indignation to levels that might someday bring an end to the most costly and destructive aspects of the military-industrial complex. So many years later, the results have at best been mixed and, at worst, well… you already know, given the sky-high 2020 Pentagon budget.

During my years at CEP and after, work on economic conversion was pursued at the national level by groups like the National Commission on Economic Conversion and Disarmament and, when it came to projects in defense-dependent states, by local outfits from Connecticut to California. Yet all of that work has been stymied for decades by a seemingly never-ending pattern of rising Pentagon budgets. The post-Vietnam dip in such spending briefly made the notion of conversion planning more appealing to politicians, unions, and even some corporations, but the military build-up in the early 1980s under President Ronald Reagan promptly reduced interest again. With that gravy train back on track, why even plan for a downturn?

From the Nuclear Freeze to the 1991 Gulf War

There was, however, one anti-militarist surge that did make progress during the Reagan years: the Nuclear Freeze Campaign. I worked closely with that movement, authoring a report, for instance, on the potentially positive economic impacts of an initiative to reduce U.S. and Soviet nuclear forces. Although President Reagan never agreed to a freeze of any sort, that national grassroots movement helped transform him from the president who labeled the Soviet Union “the Evil Empire” and joked that “the bombing will start in five minutes” to the one who negotiated the elimination of medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe and declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” As Frances Fitzgerald documented in Way Out There in the Blue, her history of Reagan’s missile defense initiative, by 1984 key presidential advisers were concerned that the increasingly mainstream anti-nuclear movement could damage him politically if he didn’t make some kind of arms-control gesture.

Still, the resulting progress in reducing those nuclear arsenals brought only a temporary lull in the relentless growth of the Pentagon budget. It peaked in 1987, in fact, before dipping significantly at the end of the Cold War when Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell famously claimed to be “running out of demons.” Unfortunately, the Pentagon soon fixed that, constructing a costly new strategy aimed at fighting “major regional contingencies” against regimes like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and North Korea (as Michael Klare so vividly explained in his 1996 book Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws).

President George H.W. Bush’s 1991 intervention in Kuwait to drive out Iraqi forces would provide the template for that new strategy, while seeming to presage a veritable new way of war. After all, that conflict lasted almost no time at all, seemed like a techno-wonder, and succeeded in its primary objective. As an added bonus, most of it was funded by Washington’s allies, not American taxpayers.

But those successes couldn’t have proved more illusory. After all, the 1991 Gulf War set the stage for nearly four decades of never-ending war (and operations just short of it) by U.S. forces across the greater Middle East and parts of Africa. That short-term victory against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in fact, prompted a resurgence of imperial hubris that would have disastrous consequences for the greater Middle East and global security more broadly. Militarists cheered the end of what they had called the “Vietnam Syndrome” — a perfectly sensible public aversion to bloody, ill-advised wars in distant lands. Had that “syndrome” persisted, the world would undoubtedly be a safer, more prosperous place today.

The Merger Boom, Iraq War II, and the Global War on Terror

The end of the Cold War resulted, however, in that rarest of all things: real cuts in the Pentagon budget. They were, however, not faintly as deep as might have been expected, given the implosion of the other superpower on the planet, the Soviet Union. Still, those reductions hit hard enough that the weapons industry was forced to reorganize via a series of mega-mergers encouraged by the administration of President Bill Clinton. Lockheed and Martin Marietta formed Lockheed Martin; Northrop and Grumman became Northrop Grumman; Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas; and dozens of other firms, large and small, were scooped up by the giant defense contractors until only five major firms were left standing: Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. Where dozens of firms had once stood, only the big five now split roughly $100 billion in Pentagon contracts annually.

The theory behind this surge in mergers was that the new firms would eliminate excess capacity and pass on the savings in lower prices for weapons systems sold to the U.S. government. That, of course, would prove a fantasy of the first order, as Lawrence Korb, then at the Brookings Institution, made clear. As I’ve also pointed out, the Clinton administration ended up essentially subsidizing those mergers, providing billions of taxpayer dollars to cover the costs of closing factories and moving equipment, while actually picking up part of the tab forthe golden parachutes given to executives and board members displaced by them.

Meanwhile, the companies laid off tens of thousands of workers. Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) dubbed this process of subsidizing mergers while abandoning workers to their fate “payoffs for layoffs” and pushed through legislation that prevented some, but not all, of the merger subsidies from being paid out.

Meanwhile, those defense mega-firms began looking to foreign arms sales to bolster their bottom lines. An obliging Clinton administration promptly stepped up arms sales to the Middle East, making deals at a rate of roughly $1 billion a month in 1993 and 1994. Meanwhile, despite promises made at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Washington oversaw the expansion of NATO to the Russian border, including the addition of Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic to the alliance.  As Tom Collina of the Ploughshares Fund has written, that helped scuttle the prospects for the kind of U.S.-Russian rapprochement that could have delivered a true “peace dividend” (the phrase of that moment) and accelerated reductions in global nuclear arsenals.

For companies like Lockheed Martin, however, such new NATO memberships looked like manna from heaven in the form of more markets for U.S. arms. Norman Augustine, that company’s CEO at the time, even took a marketing tour of nascent NATO members, while company Vice President Bruce Jackson found time in his busy schedule to head up an advocacy group with a self-explanatory name: the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO.

The 1990s also saw the beginnings of movement towards a second war with Iraq, pushed in those years by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an advocacy group whose luminaries, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, would all too soon become part of the administration of President George W. Bush and the architects of his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

You won’t be surprised to learn that they were joined at PNAC by Lockheed Martin’s ubiquitous Bruce Jackson. Nor, at this late date, will you be shocked that those merger subsidies, NATO expansion, and the return to a more interventionist policy helped get military spending back on a steady growth path until the 9/11 attacks opened the spigots, launched the Global War on Terror, and sent a flood of new money pouring into the Pentagon and the national security state. The budget of the Department of Defense would only increase for the first 10 years of this century, a record not previously matched in U.S. history.

New World Challenges: Prospects for Shrinking the Pentagon Budget

Why has it been so hard to reduce the Pentagon budget, regardless of the global security environment? The power of the arms lobby, strengthened by the merger boom of the 1990s, was certainly one factor. Fear of terrorism generated by the 9/11 attacks, which set the stage for 18 years of ill-advised military adventures, including the never-ending (and disastrous) war in Afghanistan, is certainly another. The political fear of losing elections by being seen as either “soft” on defense or unconcerned about the fate of military-industrial jobs in one’s home state or district made many Democrats view taking on the Pentagon as the true “third rail” of American politics. And the military itself has blindly adhered to a strategy of global dominance that’s essentially been on autopilot, no matter the damaging consequences of near-endless war and preparations for more of it.

Still, even decades later, hope is not entirely lost. It remains possible that all of this might change in the years to come as a war-weary public — from progressives to large parts of Donald Trump’s base — has tired of the country’s forever wars, which have minimally cost something like $6.4 trillion, while resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, according to the latest analyses by Brown University’s Costs of War project.

As even Donald Trump has acknowledged, those trillions could have gone far in repairing America’s infrastructure and doing so much else in this country. In truth, as Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project has pointed out, that sort of money could have underwritten significant parts of major initiatives like the Green New Deal or Medicare for All that would change the nature of this society rather than destroying other ones.

But that money’s gone. The question is: What will the nation’s budget priorities be going forward? Both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have called for reductions in Pentagon spending, with Warren singling out the Pentagon’s war budget, the so-called Overseas Contingency Operations account, or OCO, in particular for elimination. OCO has been used as a slush fund not only to pay for those wars, but also to fund tens of billions of dollars in Pentagon pet projects that have nothing to do with our current conflicts. Eliminating it alone could save up to $800 billion over the next decade for other uses.

There has recently been a surge of proposals aimed at cutting the soaring Pentagon budget in significant ways. My own organization, the Center for International Policy, for example, has created a Sustainable Defense Task Force made up of ex-White House and congressional budget experts, former Pentagon officials and military officers, and analysts from think tanks across the political spectrum. Our group has already outlined a plan that would save $1.25 trillion from current Pentagon projections over the next decade.

Meanwhile, a group of more than 20 progressive organizations called #PeopleOverPentagon has proposed $2 trillion in cuts over that decade and the Poor People’s Campaign, working from an analysis done by the Institute for Policy Studies, would up that to $3.5 trillion, while investing the savings in urgent domestic needs.

Whether any of this succeeds in breaking the pattern of ever-rising budgets remains an open question. The most urgent threats to the safety of the planet today are climate change, nuclear weapons, epidemics, the rise of extreme right-wing nationalism, poverty, and grotesque levels of inequality. As a recent report from the organization Win Without War noted, none of these challenges can be addressed through military means. The rationale for spending more than $700 billion a year on the Pentagon — and well over $1.2 trillion for national security writ large — simply does not exist.

There are, of course, no guarantees that the Pentagon budget will finally be downsized, but 40 years after beginning my own work on this issue, I’m not giving up and neither is the growing network of organizations and individuals working to demilitarize foreign policy and impose budget discipline on the Pentagon. Unfortunately, neither are the giant defense contractors and those who run the national security state.

The proposed rule change was first published in the Federal Register last month but has received scarce attention in the national media. Last week, the Social Security Administration extended the public comment period on the proposal until January 31, 2020.

Alex Lawson, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams that the rule change “is the Trump administration’s most brazen attack on Social Security yet.”

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“When Ronald Reagan implemented a similar benefit cut, it ripped away the earned benefits of 200,000 people,” Lawson said. “Ultimately, Reagan was forced to reverse his attack on Social Security after massive public outcry—but not before people suffered and died.”

Patient advocate Peter Morley, who lobbies Congress on healthcare issues, called the proposal “a national disgrace.”

“This is not over,” said Morley. “We will all need to mobilize.”

The process for receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is already notoriously complicated, and the Trump administration is attempting to add yet another layer of complexity that critics say is aimed at slashing people’s benefits.

As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week, “those already receiving disability benefits are subject to so-called continuing disability reviews, which determine whether they are still deserving of compensation for an injury, illness, or other incapacitating problem as their lives progress.”

Currently, beneficiaries are placed in three separate categories based on the severity of their disability: “Medical Improvement Not Expected,” “Medical Improvement Expected,” and “Medical Improvement Possible.” People with more severe medical conditions face less frequent disability reviews.

The Trump administration’s proposed rule would another category called “Medical Improvement Likely,” which would subject beneficiaries to disability reviews every two years.

According to the Inquirer, “an estimated 4.4 million beneficiaries would be included in that designation, many of them children and so-called Step 5 recipients, an internal Social Security classification.”

Step 5 recipients, the Inquirer noted, “are typically 50 to 65 years of age, in poor health, without much education or many job skills [and] often suffer from maladies such as debilitating back pain, depression, a herniated disc, or schizophrenia.”

Jennifer Burdick, supervising attorney with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, told the Inquirer that placing Step 5 recipients in the new “Medical Improvement Likely” category and subjecting them to reviews every two years would represent “a radical departure from past practice.”

Lawson of Social Security Works said “Donald Trump and his advisers know that this will kill people, and they do not care.”

“Every current and future Social Security beneficiary must band together to defeat this horrific proposal,” added Lawson, “or else all of our earned benefits will be next.”

In addition to lack of coverage from the national media, most members of Congress have also been relatively quiet about the Trump administration’s proposal.

Two Pennsylvania Democrats—Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Brendan Boyle—condemned the proposed rule change in statements to the Inquirer.

The proposal, said Casey, “appears to be yet another attempt by the Trump administration to make it more difficult for people with disabilities to receive benefits.”

Boyle said the “changes seem arbitrary, concocted with no evidence or data to justify such consequential modifications.”

“This seems like the next iteration of the Trump administration’s continued efforts to gut Social Security benefits,” Boyle added.