U.S. President Donald Trump is touting a ceasefire deal between Israel and Iran, despite what he said were violations of the deal by both sides shortly after he announced it. Trump said he was especially angry with Israel and urged the country to stand down as he faces mounting criticism over the prospect of another U.S. war in the Middle East. “Part of the reason why Trump also was quite eager to get to a ceasefire, why he’s so frustrated with what the Israelis are doing right now, is precisely because he’s very much aware of the strain that all of this has caused within his own support base,” says political analyst Trita Parsi. Parsi says the breakdown of the global Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear weapons could lead to dangerous consequences, as countries like Iran see incentive to build their own nuclear deterrence.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Despite tons of out-of-state money flowing into his campaign Sheehy apparently thinks the increasingly befuddled Donald Trump will come to his rescue in Bozeman next week.

What’s puzzling, of course, is why any of this is necessary. Just look at the facts. Every statewide elected office in Montana is held by Republicans except Tester’s Senate seat.  One might think, given the obvious, that Mr. Sheehy could probably settle for doing his own campaigning and presenting himself to Montana’s voters without the brash accompaniment of Trump’s tidal waves of lies, insults and threats.

But apparently this “American hero” as Trump calls him, isn’t confident that he can pull this one off on his own and needs another out-of-stater to tell Montanans how to vote.

Or maybe it’s to convince us that Sheehy, who has never run for elected office and remains in far too many ways, an unknown quantity, should replace Montana’s senior Senator because his total lack of experience at public policy or governing will serve the state so much better than Tester.

Whether you like Tester or not, one has to acknowledge that he was a State senator for eight years, during which time he rose to be elected President of the Montana Senate by his colleagues. After winning in 2006, Tester has now been negotiating the sharp teeth of the U.S. Senate for 18 years.  If there’s one thing Tester lacks, it’s certainly not extensive experience in making law, appropriating funds, implementing programs, and overseeing the vast spectrum of the federal government.

But here’s the rub — Sheehy’s hoped-for reinforcement has been having a rather rough go of it lately.  Trump’s pick of J.D. Vance as his vice president candidate has not exactly thrilled the GOP’s top dogs.  In fact, just the opposite as Vance keeps stumbling over his own words and positions, including his incredible statement that the country is being run by “childless cat ladies.”

They say when you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.  But Vance has in fact, dug the hole much deeper by doubling down on his belief that unless you have kids, you’re a liability to society because you won’t care as much about the future.  Apparently that would include Dolly Parton, who made a conscious decision not to have children but is certainly one of the most accomplished, caring, generous, and much-loved women in the world.

Yet, while Vance brings unneeded negative coverage to the campaign, Old Donald is having a very rough ride of his own. Just this week he had what can only be described as a disastrous interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in which his racism and sexism were on full display.

There may be places an increasingly confused Donald Trump feels he can get away with claiming Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black” several years ago — but not at a convention of Black journalists. Since Harris’ mother is Indian and her father is Jamaican, she is rightfully both Indian and Black — and assailing her race is just another low in the very low life of the ex-president.

One thing Sheehy should hope is that Trump actually remembers what seat he’s running for.  Just this week in another bid to prop up a candidate in Pennsylvania, Trump’s old and tired brain mis-fired again, and he twice claimed his support for “the future governor” of Pennsylvania.  But the candidate, David McCormick, is running for the Senate. It would be funny were it not so pitiful — and just another in the growing evidence of Trump’s declining faculties.

The post Shaky Sheehy Calls for Dubious Reinforcements appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by George Ochenski.

Labour’s landslide victory in Thursday’s U.K. election gives the party a “wide but thin” mandate, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik, who says the new government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer has to work hard to solidify its gains “if it’s not going to be a temporary win.” She also discusses her new piece, “Pro-Palestine votes aren’t 'sectarian'. Dismissing them would be a dangerous mistake for Labour.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Image by Planet Volumes.

On June 30, South Africa’s leader Cyril Ramaphosa announced his new Government of National Unity (GNU), including 31 ministers in his Cabinet. In the national and provincial elections that had taken place a month earlier, Ramaphosa’s African National Congress won 40% of the vote and the white-led Democratic Alliance won 22%, following which a variety of horse-trading scenarios were then tested. The two largest parties’ centre-right forces, respectively holding 20 and 6 ministries, managed to consolidate across racial lines in spite of their very different traditions of liberalism: ANC democratic-enlightenment (in common with most anti-colonial liberation movements) and DA corporate neo-liberalism. (The other five ministerial positions were spread out between parties ranging from the leftwing PanAfricanist Congress to the Freedom Front Plus of hard-core right-wingers.)

The two core parties’ elites converge on an economic policy characterized by steady privatisation and outsourcing, budget cuts, extremely high interest rates and deregulatory finance, which have held sway in most periods since the society’s 1994 escape from apartheid. (And since Ramaphosa came to power in 2018, add attacks on labor rights.) The GNU deal’s 60% ‘sufficient consensus’ minimum allows DA leaders John Steenhuisen and Helen Zille to enjoy what is an effective veto on state policies decided in the Cabinet, thus probably derailing the two main progressive (albeit hollow, unfunded) promises Ramaphosa had made in May to opportunistically catch votes: a National Health Insurance programme and a Basic Income Grant.

But all of this has played out in a manner that ultimately jettisoned the third and fourth parties: former president Jacob Zuma’s MK Party (15%) and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF, 10%). Both had wanted Ramaphosa to resign and insisted that any GNU exclude the DA as their two negotiating conditions. This left a strong residue of grievance and indeed a sense of the ANC anti-apartheid tradition’s betrayal.

That tradition is indeed formidable, for two of the parties that the EFF had attracted into a so-called Progressive Caucus – later joined by MK – were ANC spinoffs: the PanAfricanist Congress (which split from the ANC in 1959) and United Democratic Movement (1997), which bolted into the GNU as plum positions were dangled by Ramaphosa, as had the Inkatha Freedom Party (whose founder – dating to 1975 – also left the ANC). The EFF had split from the ANC in 2013 and MK leadership left in 2023.

Against a potential unification of African nationalists, the DA leadership and negotiating team apparently had several objectives:

* to swing state policy in an even more neoliberal, Western-gazing and low-intensity-democracy direction;

* to gain sufficient national ministries so as to impose such policies on line departments, and likewise take provincial ministry slots (in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal – which hold 44% of the country’s residents) and also demand restructured metropolitan and municipal coalitions that include local leadership and allow a slightly different version of crony patronage to begin;

* to position DA cadres for more effective attacks on ANC elites (e.g. through resumption of parliamentary investigations into various scandals), in preparation for major 2026 municipal and 2029 national electoral gains; and

* to help the ANC’s centrist and openly neo-liberal factions to push the EFF and MK back into parliamentary irrelevance, and to suppress civil society resistance.

The DA can therefore be expected to emphasize its version of a so-called “Basic Minimum Programme” by highlighting select parts of the GNU deal: “Rapid, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, the promotion of fixed capital investment and industrialization… infrastructure development, structural reforms and transformational change, fiscal sustainability, and … Macro-economic management must support national development goals in a sustainable manner… Building state capacity and creating a professional, merit-based, corruption-free and developmental public service. Restructuring and improving state-owned entities to meet national development goals… Strengthening law enforcement agencies to address crime, corruption and gender-based violence, as well as strengthening national security capabilities… Foreign policy based on human rights, constitutionalism, the national interest, solidarity, peaceful resolution of conflicts, to achieve the African Agenda 2063, South-South, North-South and African cooperation, multilateralism and a just, peaceful and equitable world.”

These words will provide DA entry points in attempts to attract more multinational corporate investors, in part through lower taxes (e.g. the Special Economic Zone level of 15%) and more parastatal privatisation and commercialisation, price hikes on crucial services (electricity and water/sanitation), and intensified austerity (except when it comes to already-generous corporate subsidies such as the ones long enjoyed by Mercedes before this month it fires ¼ of its workforce). And the DA will stress Law & Order, and a stronger sub-imperial military capability.

However, given the declining standard of living, an elite transition of this sort won’t stick nearly as well as Nelson Mandela’s 1994-99 reign. It may be a matter of just months before the centre can no longer hold, due to a wide variety of local and especially international divisions that could shatter the core ANC-DA deal.

Five international wedge issues

Although early rumours (from News24) suggested that pro-Palestine foreign minister Naledi Pandor would be reappointed as foreign minister, instead that position went to Ronald Lamola, who has been minister of justice and who gave voluble support to South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court since January. For Palestine solidarity, this is extremely good news, because most alternative candidates do not have such a firm commitment to the ANC’s long-standing alliance with Palestinian Authority elites.

Of interest, though, are how the new government addresses four main sites of armed conflict and the BRICS+ scene, which itself suffers worsening internecine military friction: on the Sino-Indian border, and between Iran and traditional U.S. West Asian allies. And there are also profound intra-BRICS+ ideological, economic and practical contradictions that the DA will exploit. These five hotspots are:

1) Gaza: against DA objections, Pandor valiantly led the “genocide!” charge, resulting in both the empowerment of Palestine solidarity across the world, but also in Tel Aviv’s “Hague Schmague“ reply and heightened bombings, plus threats from U.S. Congressional imperialists to end South Africa’s membership in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (with its slight trade preferences). But with the limitations of international court action now evident, heightened Boycott Divestment Sanctions activism and Pretoria’s state commitment are vital, especially following the recent commitments to cut trade by governments in Ankara and Bogota. However, one very serious contradiction in South Africa is the ongoing export of thermal coal from mines an hour’s drive east of Johanneburg to the Richards Bay harbour and onwards around West Africa and Gibraltar to Israel. Already in the first half of 2024, SA was the third largest supplier behind Colombia and Russia, ahead of China. But Colombia is apparently no longer exporting as of June 22, so that may mean traditional South African coal exporters like Glencore and Thungela (formerly AngloCoal) will help fill the gap, as an Israeli official told Ynet in early June.

2) Vast methane gas fields offshore northern Mozambique’s war-torn Cabo Delgado province: 1200 SA soldiers served unceremoniously, with occasional controversies, for three years as part of a regional team. They were deployed immediately after French President Emmanuel Macron visited Ramaphosa (and Paul Kagame in Kigali) in May 2021, so it is widely understood that the regional mission aimed to protect the $20 billion in existing and planned facilities built to process a huge gas field – by TotalOil, ExxonMobil (in a joint venture with China National Petroleum Corporation) and a few other oil firms – against attacks by a local Islamic insurgency that began in 2017. Hopes were even expressed to Parliament by Pandor in September 2020 that in return for military assistance, South Africa might gain access to more fossil fuels – notwithstanding the (unmentioned) climate catastrophe whose cyclones had laid waste to the area 18 months earlier (“Great opportunity also exists for SA to import natural gas from Mozambique, thus the security of Cabo Delgado is of great interest to SA…”).

3) The eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo: 3000 SA troops (which include many from Mozambique) are now replacing UN peacekeepers, to be based mainly in Goma in the vicinity of at least six million ‘resource curse’ civilian deaths since the late 1990s, and millions more refugees. We can blame the carnage partly on predatory corporations from the West and BRICS+ – especially China and South Africa – extracting enormous amounts of natural resources, more often than not entailing child labor (and to some extent favouring SA mining houses which operated there even during the worst warlordism and mass murder, e.g. AngloGold Ashanti when it was still SA-based during the early 2000s)

4) The Russian invasion of Ukraine: Moscow’s move is tacitly – sometimes openly – supported by Pretoria, along with many other nationalist and ‘left’ forces (e.g. in the MK Party, Economic Freedom Fighters, SA Communist Party, Congress of SA Trade Unions, and National Union of Metalworkers of SA), but which is opposed by the DA and SA’s weakened liberals, and for different reasons, by the anti-imperialist independent left (e.g. SAFTU, GIWUSA and other social critics, who also oppose NATO’s eastward creep).

5) Debilitating BRICS+ controversies: the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa bloc began its annual talk shops in 2007, and at the 2023 Johannesburg leadership summit, five new governments – Iran, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and likely Saudi Arabia – were invited to join. But contradictions scream out, with the most extreme example being the New Delhi, Cairo, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi capitalist class actively supporting Tel Aviv’s military. The former do so through Delhi-Tel Aviv geopolitical and trade alliances as well as via bulldozers and bombs that kill Gazans directly. In the wake of Yemen’s attacks on Red Sea shipping, the latter now reroute containers sent from Asia to Israel along their own highways. Alongside Jordan, on April 13 they also provided intelligence used by the U.S. and Israel (“with the support of Russia” according to Seymour Hersh) to defend an Israeli military base under attack by Iran (in the wake of Israel bombing that country’s Syrian embassy on April 1). And along with Egypt, military leaders from Saudi Arabia and the UAE also met generals from the U.S. Pentagon’s Centcom and the Israeli Defense Forces on June 11. As Haidar Eid wrote on June 28, “Neighbouring Arab regimes have done nothing more than issue timid statements of condemnation, while mediating between oppressor and oppressed. Indeed, Arab regimes have let Palestinians down since 1948, through a combination of cowardice and hypocrisy.”

Such BRICS+ hypocrisy is partly explained by the profits their companies are enjoying, e.g. India’s Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone and the Shanghai International Port Group which both facilitate lethal arms imports through (privatized) Haifa Port berths (although these now appear highly vulnerable to disruption by drone attacks). And Moscow, Pretoria and Beijing still (in 2024) allow coal shipments amounting to millions of tonnes. Brasilia hosts an Israeli Elbit arms company branch, albeit an activist-inspired pause was imposed on one recent deal. Even Ethiopia typically votes ‘abstain’ on UN resolutions condemning Israel.

Of the BRICS+ capitals, only Tehran consistently opposes the genocide. Will the DA’s look-West versus the ANC’s look-South perspectives come into increasing conflict, especially as Putin hosts the BRICS+ in October, or does the BRICS+ tilt towards Israel tell us that an overarching sub-imperial agenda is actually in play, so DA Zionists can relax?

However, it is also important to observe that new disincentives are rising thanks to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. Russian coal was apparently unloaded from the MV Tutor ship in Israel’s south-Jordanian port neighbour of Aqaba on June 9, and three days later the bulk carrier was sunk in the Red Sea (en route to India), after being hit by a small Houthi fishing vessel remote controlled (carrying three mannequins to disguise its intent). And on June 22, the Transworld Navigator coal ship was attacked twice (having in 2022 traversed from a Russian coal export terminal to Israel). With the Houthis also claiming to have capacity to hit long-range shipping targets in the Mediterranean, and Hezbollah easily capable of firing on the Ashdod and Hadera terminals next to the Rutenberg and Orot Rabin coal-fired power stations, no shipments to Israel can now be considered safe. (One Russian load of iron and steel was reported to have been hit by Hezbollah while in the Haifa Port on June 12, but it turned out to have been an engine room fire caused by inadequate maintenance.)

These problems of mixed BRICS+ loyalties may be exacerbated by DA leader Steenhuisen’s Zionist posturing. Although now merely the new minister of agriculture, Steenhuisen had in March expressed open support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza, blurting, “One side’s genocide could be another side’s freedom fighting.” Typical of white South African liberals, he is against Russia’s role in Ukraine, and the DA also opposes troop deployment in the DRC. (This contrasts to the DA’s opportunistic support since 2021 for South African troops’ deployment in Mozambique, given the DA’s desired contracts not only for Blood Methane gas imports, but also for a resumption of TotalEnergies’ procurement deals there with white South African subcontractors.)

In other foreign policy hotspots in Africa, the Horn (especially Sudan and South Sudan) and West Africa are also roiled by conflict. But these are considered too far afield to entail a major commitment by Pretoria.

Hence in spite of Lamola’s ascent, vital struggles lie just ahead over SA’s schizophrenic anti-imperialism (i.e. against the U.S. and Israel in the Middle East and against NATO expansion), alongside Pretoria’s sustained (apartheid/post-apartheid) sub-imperial agenda favouring multinational extractive-industry corporates as well as most forms of Western-dominated multilateralism. For example, South African financial elites successfully led the campaign within BRICS against de-dedollarisation at the Johannesburg summit last August, in spite of some rhetoric to the contrary – and in spite of the world’s desperate need for an alternative to U.S. monetary and currency hegemony.

For Palestine activists, the most obvious site of tension is the ANC’s leadership’s long involvement in Glencore coal exports to Israel: Ramaphosa’s Shanduka Coal was until 2014 (when he became deputy president) Glencore’s main South African black-empowerment partner, and his brother-in-law Patrice Motsepe is the Swiss firm’s current lead partner, dating to profitable exports during the era of Xstrata (later swallowed by Glencore) when the firm bragged: “Outside of Europe, Israel was the largest purchaser of the South African operations’ coal production” of 20 megatons annually. Glencore senior board member Gill Marcus was formerly Nelson Mandela’s early -1990s spokesperson, but on May 24 at the firm’s annual general meeting in Switzerland she ignored a shareholder’s plea to stop fuelling Israeli genocide.

A vibrant review of some of these sites of struggle can be seen on the SABC Big Debate tv show last Thursday, regarding Pretoria’s inconsistent human-rights advocacy. Indeed the participants there generally agreed that civil society will have to work far harder to get genuinely consistent state support given the incoming Government of Neoliberal Unity’s propensity to serve big capital. On this front, like others, we can expect an Elite Transition 2.0 in which Lamola will help Pretoria with talking left, yet simultaneously the walking right will logically speed up, unless tripped up by international-solidarity activists.

After the GNU cracks

Those who are unhappy (mainly from the left but also the populist right) are apparently stymied and increasingly appear to fall into three fractions:

* the Progressive Caucus parties outside the GNU, led by Zuma’s MK and Malema’s EFF, initially had 28% of MPs (though that fell to 26% as several small ones were assimilated by Ramaphosa since mid-June), and their leaders will be grumbling in frustration at how little the period immediately ahead will serve their interests, and hence they will be permanently located outside this GNU, even if it means losing a share of municipal ruling coalitions in which they are junior members;

* the internal Tripartite Alliance of the ANC-SA Communist Party-Congress of SA Trade Unions forces are opposed to Ramaphosa’s DA deal-making but lack a way to let off steam aside from grudgingly quitting the Alliance (a highly unlikely scenario); and

* the independent left which will probably thrive in a milieu in which the Ramaphosa-Steenhuisen pairing fumbles in imposing austerity, service delivery cuts (e.g. Johannesburg’s current extreme morning-evening electricity load-reduction in black neighbourhoods) and more intense labor battles (in the tradition that life sometimes has to get worse, before anger rises and gains are won through struggles).

In sum, as ANC neoliberal-nationalism must give way to an uncomfortable black-white limping-zebra politics – even more neoliberal than at present, and likely a bit less ‘anti-imperialist’ on the foreign policy front – the ruling crew requires a renewed version of talk-left, walk-right. If this deal breaks, as can be reasonably expected, a more complicated version of Ramaphosa’s assimilation politics lies ahead, if the ANC ditches the DA and instead imposes neo-liberalism through the MK and EFF as his Plan B. But that prospect is on the distant horizon.

Agriculture: Minister: John Steenhuisen (DA); Deputy Minister: Rosemary Capa (ANC)

Basic Education: Minister: Siviwe Gwarube (DA); Deputy Minister: Reginah Mhaule (ANC)

Communications and Digital Technologies: Minister: Solly Malatsi (DA); Deputy Minister: Mondli Gungubele (ANC)

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs: Minister: Velinkosi Hlabisa (IFP); Deputy Ministers: Dickson Masemola (ANC), Zolile Burns-Ncamashe (ANC)

Correctional Services: Minister: Pieter Groenewald (Freedom Front Plus); Deputy Minister: Lindiwe Ntshalintshali (ANC)

Defence and Military Veterans: Minister: Angie Motshekga (ANC); Deputy Ministers: Bantu Holomisa (UDM), Richard Mkhungo (ANC)

Electricity and Energy: Minister: Kgosientsho Ramokgopa (ANC); Deputy Minister: Samantha Graham (DA)

Employment and Labour: Minister: Nomakhosazana Meth (ANC); Deputy Ministers: Jomo Sibiya (ANC), Phumzile Mgcina (ANC)

Finance: Minister: Enoch Godongwana (ANC); Deputy Ministers: David Masondo (ANC), Ashor Sarupen (DA)

Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment: Minister: Dion George (DA); Deputy Ministers: Narend Singh (IFP), Bernice Swarts (ANC)

Health: Minister: Aaron Motsoaledi (ANC); Deputy Minister: Joe Phaahla (ANC)

Higher Education: Minister: Nobuhle Nkabane (ANC); Deputy Ministers: Buti Manamela (ANC), Mimmy Gondwe (DA)

Home Affairs: Minister: Leon Schreiber (DA); Deputy Minister: Njabulo Nzuza (ANC)

Human Settlements: Minister: Mmamoloko Kubayi (ANC); Deputy Minister: Tandi Mahambehlala (ANC)

International Relations and Cooperation: Minister: Ronald Lamola (ANC); Deputy Ministers: Alvin Botes (ANC), Tandi Moraka (ANC)

Justice and Constitutional Development: Minister: Thembi Nkadimeng (ANC); Deputy Minister: Andries Nel (ANC)

Land Reform and Rural Development: Minister: Mzwanele Nyhontso (PAC); Deputy Minister: Chupu Stanley Mathabatha (ANC)

Mineral and Petroleum Resources: Minister: Gwede Mantashe (ANC); Deputy Minister: Judith Nemadzinga-Tshabalala (ANC)

Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation: Minister: Maropene Ramokgopa (ANC); Deputy Minister: Seiso Mohai (ANC)

Police: Minister: Senzo Mchunu (ANC); Deputy Ministers: Polly Boshielo (ANC), Cassel Mathale (ANC)

Public Service and Administration: Minister: Mzamo Buthelezi (ANC); Deputy Minister: Pinky Kekana (ANC)

Public Works and Infrastructure: Minister: Dean Macpherson (DA); Deputy Minister: Sihle Zikalala (ANC)

Science, Technology and Innovation: Minister: Blade Nzimande (ANC); Deputy Minister: Nomalungelo Gina (ANC)

Small Business Development: Minister: Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams (ANC); Deputy Minister: Jane Sithole (ANC)

Social Development: Minister: Sisisi Tolashe (ANC); Deputy Minister: Ganief Hendricks (Al Jama-ah)

Sport, Arts and Culture: Minister: Gayton McKenzie (Patriotic Alliance); Deputy Minister: Peace Mabe (ANC)

Tourism: Minister: Patricia De Lille (Good); Deputy Minister: Maggie Sotyu (ANC)

Trade, Industry and Competition: Minister: Parks Tau (ANC); Deputy Ministers: Zuko Godlimpi (ANC), Andrew Whitfield (DA)

Transport: Minister: Barbara Creecy (ANC); Deputy Minister: Mkhuleko Hlengwa (IFP)

Water and Sanitation: Minister: Pemmy Majodina (ANC); Deputy Ministers: David Mahlobo (ANC), Isaac Seitlholo (ANC)

Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities: Minister: Sindisiwe Chikunga (ANC); Deputy Minister: Mmapaseka Steve Letsike (ANC)

The post South Africa’s ‘Government of Neoliberal Unity’ is Constructed on Shaky Ground appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Patrick Bond.

As former President Donald Trump is expected to be arrested in New York on charges related to paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign, we speak with The Nation's justice correspondent Elie Mystal, who says the case against Trump is far from a slam dunk. Trump is reportedly facing about 30 criminal counts related to business fraud, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has yet to release the exact charges, which reportedly include at least one felony. Mystal says it's clear that Trump “did the deed,” but the timing of the charges could undermine the case, due to the statute of limitations that may have elapsed and because of the looming 2024 election campaign. “Why wasn’t he held accountable for that earlier, when it might have been easier to do so?” asks Mystal.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Members of Congress have begun drafting the 2023 "Farm Bill," and they’ll be wrangling over it through most of the year. This legislation, passed into law anew every fifth year or so since the 1930s, has had far-reaching influence on food and farming in the United States. Each version of the bill is given its own name; the previous one, for example, was called the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. Given the nature of the early debate over this bill-in-the-making, it might end up deserving to be called the Food and Climate Bill of 2023.

Over the next two years, any legislation explicitly aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions will be dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. By default, the Farm Bill may now be the playing field for the only climate game in town, according to Washington-watchers such as Peter Lehner, who represents the group Earthjustice. He told Politico last month, “The farm bill is probably going to be the piece of legislation in the next two years with the biggest impact on the climate and the environment.”

Last year’s Inflation Reduction Act beefed up several of the Farm Bill’s climate-related conservation programs to the tune of an additional $20 billion. And the Washington Post has reported that a task force of more than 80 “climate-conscious House Democrats” is working to further extend the bill’s green impact, with additional protection for existing forests; planting of new stands of trees; conservation of soil, water, and biodiversity; and research on protecting crops against climatic disasters, including drought.

Meanwhile, March 6–8, a coalition of 20 sustainable ag and farmworker groups under the banner Farmers for Climate Action held a “Rally for Resilience” in D.C. Their message: “The next Farm Bill needs to explicitly empower farmers to address climate change, by providing resources, assistance, and incentives that will allow them to lead the way in implementing proven climate solutions.”

Climate politics get dirtier

Because there are farmers and ag-related industries in every state, whether red, blue, or purple, Farm Bills routinely pass with broad bipartisan support. It’s typical, therefore, for Congress members representing rural red states to make common cause with those who represent populous blue states with big ag economies, such as California, Illinois, and Michigan. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly “food stamps”) and the Women’s, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program also are parts of the Farm Bill, further extending its political base of support.

Controversy arises nonetheless, most often in debates over the bill’s conservation provisions. Agribusiness, for example, often sees protection of soil, air, water, and biodiversity in rural areas as detracting from or interfering with the Farm Bill’s focus on boosting production of the major commodity crops and keeping food prices low. And now that climate action is increasingly finding a home in the conservation section, pushback from the right has increased.

The chair of the House Agriculture Committee, G. T. Thompson (R-PA) has vowed to minimize climate policy in this year’s Farm Bill, while cutting other conservation programs in favor of traditional industry-friendly spending. According toEENews, “Some Republicans are eyeing the farm bill as a chance to redirect climate money to other agriculture programs, such as crop subsidies, while other conservative lawmakers want across-the-board spending cuts.” The hardliners may even try to rescind the $20 billion for climate mitigation that the Inflation Reduction Act has directed toward the Farm Bill.

Climate denial is alive and well in Congress. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), who now chairs the conservation subcommittee of the ag committee, told Politico, somewhat fuzzily, that “CO2 is not responsible. Especially American-produced CO2, I mean we’re a tiny part of the whole thing.” Rep. John Boozman (R-AR) is trying to divert attention to just about any remotely ag-related issue that doesn’t involve climate protection. Pointing his colleagues toward a couple of favorite targets of right-wing hostility, he has called for investigations into the purchase of U.S. farmland by Chinese interests and for cuts in SNAP benefits to low-income families. Meanwhile, five House members led by Matt Gaetz (R-FL) got even meaner, with a letter to President Biden urging him to “enact work requirements” for SNAP recipients.

Feed people, not steers and SUVs

Farm Bill debates are often complex, technical, and littered with clumsy acronyms, commodity-market arcana, and bureaucratic jargon. Only the nerdiest Congress-watchers have the attention span and patience to go deep enough into the weeds (literally, in some parts of the bill) to understand what it’s all about. Even in Congress, only a minority of members and staff have solid familiarity with the issues. This year, nearly half the members of the House of Representatives have almost zero Farm Bill experience, as they were not in office during the last debate, five years ago. But with climate at the center of this year’s debate, members on both sides of the aisle, whether well-schooled in ag issues or not, are now wading into the fray.

Most of the policies that are needed to flip U.S. agriculture’s climate impact from deleterious to beneficial are good and necessary in their own right. Even if there were no climate emergency, the nation should be adopting agricultural policies that, along with cutting emissions, can improve soil health; prevent erosion and water pollution; curb the ongoing wipeout of biodiversity; and prevent agriculture from further disrupting the global nitrogen and phosphorous cycles.

The first step would be to stop doing things that not only generate greenhouse-gas emissions but also wreak ecological havoc of other sorts. If you don’t mind taking just a few steps into those weeds with me for a moment, I’d like to cite scientists at the University of Georgia and the University of New Mexico who have argued convincingly for deep cuts in the production of fuel ethanol and meat—especially grain-fed beef—actions that, they show, could achieve the greatest reductions of fossil energy use (and therefore of greenhouse gas emissions) in agriculture. The quantity of energy contained in the fossil fuels used to produce feed grains for cattle exceeds by an order of magnitude the amount of energy contained in the beef that’s produced by those cattle and sold. And the production and delivery of fuel ethanol, from the cornfield to the gas pump, requires as much or more energy (mostly from fossil fuels) as the ethanol will supply to a vehicle’s engine.

Beef and ethanol also have a broad range of other disastrous environmental impacts.

Therefore, the most effective action Congress could take is to stop using the Farm Bill’s conservation funds to support these and other ecologically harmful, climate-busting agricultural practices. For example, the 2018 Farm Bill supported one such practice: confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), such as cattle feedlots and factory farms for swine and poultry. These super-polluting facilities have deeply negative impacts on both local environments and the global climate. The 2023 bill should end all support for CAFOs. And rather than pursue the expansion of ethanol production, as the Department of Agriculture is requesting, Congress should flush ethanol completely out of ag policy.

We can’t get there with annual crops

Agriculture generates only 11 percent of total U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, so reducing emissions from the farm sector, important as it is, can go only so far toward driving total U.S. emissions toward zero quickly and steeply. However, unlike other sectors of the economy, farming also has the potential to help mitigate climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through nature’s preferred method of carbon sequestration: photosynthesis.

To use U.S. farmlands and forests as reservoirs for atmospheric carbon would help to reverse a massive loss of soil carbon that began long before the age of mechanized agriculture. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, native grasslands and forestlands across North America were plowed up to make way for corn, wheat, cotton, and other annual crops—replacing vast, biodiverse, perennial ecosystems with plantings of annual monocultures. Extensive root systems, alive year-round, were killed off across hundreds of millions of acres, to be replaced by the sparser, ephemeral root systems of crops that had to be resown with every growing season. For much of the year, there were now only spindly seedling roots or no living roots at all to support the soil ecosystems that had thrived before the arrival of the plow. Consequently, over subsequent decades, countless tons of carbon that had been captured by plants over millions of years went back up into the atmosphere.

Accumulating enough carbon in the soil to mitigate climate change effectively will require switching from annual to perennial crops across most of U.S. farm country, to get soils even part way back to their robust state. Fortunately, the necessity for perennial agriculture is being expressed more widely in this year’s Farm Bill discussion than in previous years, with both the scientific community and grassroots climate and sustainable-agriculture groups calling for more perennial farming systems.

For example, a coalition called Farm Bill Law Enterprise, “a national partnership of law school programs working toward a farm bill that reflects the long-term needs of our society,” is arguing that perennial agriculture must be one of the highest priorities in the 2023 bill. In its report, titled simply, “Climate and Conservation,” the group pushes for perennial forage crops; interplanting of tree crops with annual crops; “forest farming and multi-story cropping”; perennial fruits and vegetables; and perennial cereals, grain legumes, and oilseeds. The group goes on to urge more funding for research and development of perennial agriculture in the U.S. Department of Agriculture itself, especially on grain crops, and for “research on the economic and social conditions critical to development of perennial agriculture systems and markets.”

Needed: A fifty-year Farm Bill

Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture by ditching products such as fuel ethanol and grain-fed beef would mesh nicely with the use of perennial crops to capture more atmospheric carbon and store more of it in living roots deep in the soil. If U.S. farmers were to stop producing the bazillions of bushels of corn and soybeans that go into feeding cattle and biofuel plants, tens of millions of acres would be newly available for growing perennial range, hay, and pasture crops. From those, more modest quantities of grass-fed beef and dairy products could be produced. And each year, more and more of the lands liberated from annual feed grains could be sown to perennial food-grain crops.

Wes Jackson and Fred Kirschenmann envisioned this sort of grand transition in their proposal for a “Fifty-Year Farm Bill” in 2009. But at the time, the breeding of perennial food-grain crops (which would be necessary to achieve that last step in the transition) was just getting started. That process is now well underway.

Over the past two decades, efforts to domesticate and breed perennial grain-producing crops have progressed from their beginnings at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas (where I work), to be taken up by research networks worldwide. These networks now include more than 50 researchers across North America and five other continents, and solid results are emerging. Development of perennial wheat is accelerating. A perennial cousin of wheat known as Kernza® is under pilot production in the U.S. Plains, the upper Midwest, and Europe. Highly productive perennial rice varieties are being grown on tens of thousands of acres in China and on a smaller scale in East Africa as well. Breeding and ecological work are continuing, with perennial food legumes and perennial grain sorghum under development, in addition to the wheat and rice.

* * *

The need to start a precipitous phase-out of oil, gas, and coal is more acute than ever, but federal legislation will remain out of reach as long as there’s a climate-hostile House majority. So, as the struggle against fossil fuels carries on in our states and communities, the quest for serious action in Washington on climate and ecological renewal will focus largely on the national push for a radically new kind of Farm Bill.

It is essential both to purge fossil fuels and to perennialize agriculture. No two policies are more crucial to preventing ecological meltdown.

The original version of this article was published by City Lights Books as part of their ‘In Real Time’ series and appears at Common Dreams with permission.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Stan Cox.

The post Climate Policy’s on Shaky Ground in the Farm Bill appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Stan Cox.

For both Pro-Life groups, the moment of conception is definitive. For the Pro-Choice voices, the moment of conception is an underlying issue, but not a definitive one.

The religious Pro-Life affiliation is primarily Christian and addresses procreation through two essential concerns: God’s proclaimed will or directive for humankind, and the perceived moment of ensoulment (when a spiritual soul unites with a biological body). Currently, ensoulment and conception are accepted as simultaneous (or possibly simultaneous) events that conjointly create a human being. After conception, purposeful obstruction of embryonic or fetal development is thus deemed to be generally immoral and likely murderous.

Secular Pro-Life evades conjecture of ensoulment, but stands on the premise that human life is unlocked at conception. The resulting zygote is immediately declared a human being and is therefore instantly endowed with all human-based rights and considerations.

The secular Pro-Choice argument contends that conception initiates the process of becoming a human, but does not herald the event as being intrinsically definitive. Conception is viewed as merely the first biological step in the developmental process of becoming a human being. As there is no sudden and unequivocal moment of recognition in that process, it is deemed permissible to intercede in embryonic and fetal development before human being status is arguably conferred.

Religiously based Pro-Choice is primarily Judaic and like its faith-based Pro-Life counterpart, addresses procreation through the proclaimed will of God and the perceived moment of ensoulment, but differs with Christian understanding on both counts. God is understood to hold fetal development as secondary to the health of the woman carrying it, and ensoulment is firmly believed to occur at the end of pregnancy rather than at the beginning.

The religious Pro-Life and the religious Pro-Choice camps advocate from a position of certainty, as does the secular Pro-Life camp. Both religious camps lay claim to the certainty of God’s will, while secular Pro-Life lays claim to the certainty of human declaration (it is because I say it is). It’s only the secular Pro-Choice camp that admits to uncertainty.

The Christian Pro-Life camp is certain that ensoulment happens (or potentially happens) at conception, so the moment of conception must be accepted as the recognizable moment in which a human being is formed. The secular Pro-Life camp is certain that the moment of conception immediately creates a human being that will pass through developmental stages on the way to being born. The Judaic Pro-Choice camp is certain that a fetus becomes a human being upon leaving the womb. Secular Pro-Choice is admittedly uncertain in conferring status: a human being is considered not present at the moment of conception, but is present at the moment of birth. Somewhere in between, in the developmental process, an ambiguous threshold is passed, and human life becomes recognized as a human being.

The Comfort of Knowing

There’s comfort and confidence to be had when advocating from a position of certainty, but is it really justified? Where does it come from; upon what is it based?

The certainty of Christian-based Pro-Life advocacy comes as an adjunct to the belief of knowing and expressing God’s will. Certitude of God’s will might be acquired in several ways: receiving a direct communication from God, faith in another (living or dead) who claims a direct communication from God, faith that an accepted sacred text (i.e. Bible) accurately reflects the will of God, or faith in one’s own or another’s ability to interpret or project God’s will in the absence of a clear directive. Christian Pro-Life advocacy relies primarily upon the conjecture of God’s will through Biblical interpretation, and/or the recognition of God’s will through some who are deemed worthy of declaring it. It hasn’t been a constant; procreation conjecture and declarations of God’s intent have changed profoundly through the years. Presumably, God’s will has not changed, but those declaring it certainly have.

Abortion and contraception are not explicitly mentioned in Biblical text, nor is the moment of ensoulment precisely addressed. Because the Bible does not provide clear articulation with regards to abortion or contraception, inference is drawn upon to determine the will of God. Likewise, as it is not explicitly pinpointed in sacred text, human speculation rather than a pronouncement from God is used to ascribe the moment of ensoulment.  It’s particularly noteworthy that while the Christian and Judaic faithful share much in recognition of sacred text (the Old Testament), they differ in its interpretation. If pious and learned theologians can view the same text and draw different procreation conclusions, it should be clear that the given source of God’s word is either not clear, or is purposely misconstrued by some who are supposedly pious.

The Judaic procreation stance has been the more consistent. Citing Exodus 21: 22-23, ensoulment has long been deemed to occur at birth, along with full recognition of a human being. Fetal development issues then have been considered secondary to the health of the woman carrying it. It’s the Christian stance, particularly with the recognized moment of ensoulment that has been wildly inconsistent.

It’s not exactly clear when Christian thought on the moment of ensoulment began to diverge from the Judaic stance, but the influence of early Greek philosophy is clear. Even before the birth of Christ, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and probably others had opined on the existence of a human soul. Aristotle postulated that ensoulment occurred in the womb and somehow calculated that it happened about 40 days after conception for males, and 90 days after for females. Aristotle’s questionable timetable took hold among Christian theologians and was still maintained centuries later by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Accordingly, while abortive procedures were considered sinful, they weren’t thought to be murderous until the human soul (and thus a human being) was present.

Shifting Sands

For more than 15 centuries, Christian (Catholic) thought held to the Aristotle/Aquinas schedule of ensoulment. It changed briefly in 1588 when Pope Sixtus V declared that all abortions were murderous. But just three years later, Pope Gregory XIV reversed the decision, reinstating the position that abortion was homicidal only if it took place after ensoulment. He also declared that ensoulment occurred at “quickening” (first perception of fetal movement), about 166 days after conception. His declaration held for the next 278 years before being overturned by Pope Pius IX in 1869. Pope Pius IX declared all acts of abortion to be excommunicable, not because ensoulment clearly happened at the moment of conception, but rather that conception conferred the potential for ensoulment, and therefore the potential must be protected from the first moment of conception.

“Potential” appears to be the current Catholic fallback with regards to ensoulment. Ensoulment certainly takes place in the womb, but the precise moment of ensoulment need not be pinpointed. Biblical and/or scientific evidence provides no confirmation for that moment, nor is any required. Rather, it’s only the potential that now needs to be recognized. The potential to become a fully developed human being begins at the moment of conception, and with it, at that same moment, the potential to receive a human soul. Therefore, from the moment of conception, an embryo must be protected as if it were a human being, regardless of the immediate presence of a soul.

It’s a subtle, but profound change of stance. For centuries, Christian doctrine held that it was ensoulment, recognized as occurring long after conception that created a human being. It was considered a forgivable sin, but not murderous, to abort before ensoulment. The 1869 decree of Pope Pius IX drastically changed that position. By declaring that ensoulment might happen at conception, it suddenly became both sinful and murderous to willfully abort at any time in a pregnancy. His pronouncement had ramifications beyond stark abortive considerations. As became evident years later, it would also require pharmaceutical advances in contraceptive means to be seen as abortive and judged accordingly: the use of pharmaceutical contraceptives would be deemed sinful and murderous.

Nothing Biblically had changed; it was the same as it ever was. The 1869 declaration by Pope Pius IX could have been a simple admission that the precise moment of ensoulment was scripturally indeterminate had he left it at that, but he didn’t. In decreeing that ensoulment might actually occur at the moment of conception, he inserted his personal opinion to contravene the small bit of guidance that the Bible did provide. While it never indicates the precise moment that ensoulment takes place, a verse of the Bible does indicate a moment when it clearly hasn’t taken place:

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, as according the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.  And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. (Exodus 21: 22-23)

The verse clearly shows that a woman’s life is considered more significant than that of an unborn fetus, revealing that the fetus has not yet been ensouled to attain full status as a human being. So why, after two thousand years of Christian acceptance that it occurs after conception, did Pope Pius IX disregard Biblical text to assert that ensoulment might actually happen at conception? The long answer would require an investigational study, the short answer is that “why” doesn’t really matter. What matters is the recognition that he was opining on (rather than pointing to) Biblical text. In effect, the Pope was manipulating Church doctrine by supplanting what was considered to be God’s word with his own personal opinion.

It’s not like he was the first (or the last) to do so. It’s long been Christian tradition for its hierarchy to expand on (or beyond) Biblical vagueness to reach surety of position (Papal Infallibility, Papal Primacy, Natural Law). Thomas Aquinas confidently pushed Aristotle’s weird ensoulment timetable (40 days for males, 90 days for females) into Catholic doctrine that was accepted for centuries. The Church was equally confident (for 3 years) when Pope Sixtus V pulled the timing back to conception, and then became even more confident (for 278 years) when Pope Gregory XIV pushed the moment of ensoulment back out to 166 days. Perhaps sensing that confidence in Papal authority might waver if it kept declaring new ensoulment timetables, Pope Pius IX adroitly declared that its timing need not be pinpointed at all. He proclaimed that it wasn’t the precise moment of ensoulment that need be recognized, but rather the potential for that moment. Pope Pius IX confidently declared that the potential for ensoulment occurred precisely at the moment of conception. Maybe it didn’t actually happen at that moment, but it absolutely could! Artfully, without truly declaring a newly recognized moment of ensoulment, Pope Pius IX tied it to the moment of conception. With complete confidence, the Church would henceforth recognize the need to see conception and the moment of ensoulment as simultaneous events, even if they weren’t … or put another way, the Church would now recognize that a human being is created at conception, even if it isn’t.

More Certainty, Less God

It may have sounded innocuous, to seemingly address Biblical ambiguity with the word “potential,” as if in acceptance of that ambiguity. But it wasn’t innocuous, and it wasn’t in acceptance. Declaring that ensoulment might potentially occur at conception was a direct refutation of the guidance provided by Exodus 21: 22-23. Arousing hardly a ripple of institutional opposition (or even recognition), Pope Pius IX had subtly pushed aside the accepted word of God and replaced it with his own. Since 1869, the Church has used his declaration rather than Biblical guidance for its near total prohibitive stance on contraception and abortive measures.

It wasn’t just the Catholic Church that would take liberties with espousing God’s will. Much of the Protestant/Evangelical world would eventually follow Vatican precedent to establish its own brand of certainty. In the 1980’s blossoming of network Evangelicalism, Jerry Falwell redirected early Evangelical ambivalence and began espousing that “The Bible clearly states that life begins at conception.” He cited Luke 1:39-44 and Psalm 139: 13-16. Does an actual reading of the King James Bible provide the clarity that Falwell implies? Not really; in the cited text there is mention of human life in the womb, but there is no mention as to when life in the womb should be first recognized as a human being. Likewise, there’s absolutely no mention of conception or the moment of ensoulment. Like Pope Pius IX, Falwell was supplanting the vagueness of God’s word with the clarity of his own opinion and presenting it as the will of God.

It’s a big deal, or at least it should be. When a pope or priest replaces the given ambiguity of God’s word with the certitude of personal opinion, something quite significant takes place: a new god is created. Pope Pius IX desired a god that clearly tied ensoulment to conception, so he used his papal authority to recognize one. Jerry Falwell wanted a god who articulated the simultaneity of conception and ensoulment, so he used his Evangelical prominence to declare one. Both were making new gods in their own image and presenting them as the known God of their sacred book. Believers believed accordingly and now worship a distorted god that provides dynamic procreative clarity: recognition that a human being is formed (or potentially formed) at the moment of conception, and that abortion and contraceptive measures are thus sinful and likely murderous.

So, if one accepts the proclamations of Jerry Falwell and Pope Pius IX, one can be certain that God explicitly forbids contraception and abortion. Therein lays the surety of Christian-based Pro-Life advocacy: the supposition that one is upholding the will of God. It doesn’t really matter that it was derived from clerical fabrication — to a true believer, it’s still the will of God.

Like its Christian counterpart, secular Pro-Life also enjoys certainty, but without recourse to the supposed will of God or the concept of ensoulment. It simply asserts that a human being is created at the moment of conception. Its immediate personhood is deemed obvious and entitled to the full recognition and protection afforded all human beings. The surety of secular Pro-Life advocacy lies in the absolute acceptance of that assertion — it’s an asserted opinion, but one accepted as fact.

The Virtue of Not Knowing

Facing the certainty held by Pro-Life advocacy, it would seem that the secular Pro-Choice voice is doubly disadvantaged. It makes no claim to the will of God in its stance and offers no precise moment of certainty as to when fetal life becomes recognized as a human being. What it does have though, is acceptance — a virtuous acceptance of apparent ambiguity. What exactly is a human being? When does the growing amalgam of human cells become a human being? Where is the transitional Rubicon that will surely be crossed? Pro-Choice feigns no precise answer, but does acknowledges the existence of that crossing. On one side are biological human cells; on the other side is a human being. Like the minority of Christians who do recognize the ambiguity of Biblical procreation guidance, Pro-Choice adherents recognize the ambiguity of fetal development. A human egg cell at the moment of conception is not seen as a human being, but nine months later a human being presents itself. Somewhere in that interlude, the Rubicon is crossed; a single cell has multiplied and grown to irrefutably become a human being.

So, where is that crossing? Any answer to that question evades universal acceptance. To extremists, the only acceptable answers are at conception or at birth. For others, it’s somewhere in between, but the whereabouts is equivocal and evades consensus — there’s no scientifically held precise moment of recognition to be had, and there’s no clear scriptural guidance to ascertain that moment. The grey area of “crossing” then is based on conjecture — admitted conjecture derived without pretense to either scientific or spiritual exactitude. It’s an ambiguity that Pro-Choice accepts as a given reality, an ambiguity that needs to be admitted when making moralistic procreation decisions.

It may seem disadvantageous to hold onto the ambiguous position that Pro-Choice accepts. Christian clerics certainly saw it that way when they replaced Biblical vagary with opinionated clarity. There’s visible irony in that artifice: The secular Pro-Choice camp now finds itself more closely aligned with the given (but vague) Biblical word of God, than does the Christian Pro-Life camp that has adopted the certainty of clerical opinion. Whatever its positional disadvantage, Pro-Choice acknowledges the nebulous nature of human development — that grey transitional area of crossing, where living human cells become irrefutably recognized as a living human being. The Pro-Choice challenge is to conservatively recognize the proximity of that crossing in making moralistic decisions that respect a woman’s right to choose and a human’s right to live.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vern Loomis.