Heating up the planet: An update
Bob Sheak, July 30, 2018

We are living in a geological epoch of human-generated increasingly disruptive and catastrophic climate changes that pose an existential threat to humanity. The International Union of Geological Sciences is considering the evidence on whether the earth has entered a new geological epoch, one often referred to as the Anthropocene. This is an epoch in which the activities of humans have become the dominant force, an increasingly deleterious one, in shaping the planet. The concept was first introduced by climatologist Paul Crutzen in 2000. Ian Angus, author of the 2016 book facing the Anthropocene: fossil capitalism and the crisis of the earth system, was interviewed about the concept on The Real News. (http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&ltemid=74&jumival=17159). He gives us some context.

“ANGUS: Well, geologists divide the history of the entire Earth, the billions of years that our planet has been here, into various divisions which mark the different stages of life and the conditions of life in the history of our planet. We have for the last 12,000 years been in what’s called the Holocene, that came about when the Ice Ages ended. All the glaciers retreated, and we’ve had 12,000 years of relatively stable climate. Everything’s been very predictable. It’s the period in which agriculture was invented and all large civilizations were born, and that’s called the Holocene epoch. It basically means the area of recent human activity.

“What became clear in the late 20th century to some scientists was that humanity’s activities have become so great that they were actually changing the way that the world functions. Not just changing individual environments or ecosystems but changing fundamental things about the way the world works. Global warming being the best known of those, but of course the destruction of the ozone layer, and so on. So, the Holocene epoch, scientists began to argue, was coming to an end. We had moved out of that period of long-term stability and we’re moving into a very different time.

In short, human activities have come to represent the dominant forces in shaping the earth’s ecosphere. And, insofar as global warming goes, the principal proximate causes stem from the emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. But the deeper causes lie in our political economy, dominated by those who run the mega corporations in a never-ending race for profits, the rich whose thirst for wealth and power is never sated, elected officials who end up representing the few over the many, and a narcissistic President who surrounds himself with right-wing ideologues who reject or disregard the warnings of scientists about global warming. Amidst it all, the problem of global warming and its many effects are accelerating and causing increased devastation of ecosystems and enormous harm to more and more of the planet’s human population and other living things. While the issue of climate change, which at its fundamental level is about global warming, is not an issue that gets much attention in the media or in politics, it is an issue that taking humanity toward civilizational collapse, if not species extinction.

This dire situation was given dramatic confirmation last November when, as reported by Sydney Pereira for Newsweek, 15,000 scientists signed a letter “pleading for humans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, phase out fossil fuels, reduce deforestation, and reverse the trend of collapsing biodiversity.” The letter also said we are running out of time: “‘Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out.” And: “We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing institutions, that Earth with all of its life is our only home” (http://www.newsweek.com/how-save-humanity-15000-scientists-urge-action-vast-human-misery-takes-over-709403).

Greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere

Perhaps the most important – and direct – example of human-generated climate change is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere. The greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide [the most widespread greenhouse gas], methane, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and ozone. The buildup of these gases in the earth’s atmosphere heat up the planet beyond what is normal, leading to a plethora of increasingly disruptive and catastrophic effects that threaten to destroy the basis for anything like complex social organization while seriously disrupting the lives of many millions of people and worse.

Let’s focus on carbon dioxide, CO2. Joseph Romm writes: “At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago, CO2 levels in the atmosphere were approximately 280 parts per million (ppm) (Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, pp. 1-2). Indeed, he writes, “going back a total of 800,000 years – CO2 levels generally never exceeded 280-300 ppm” (p. 16). Now, as reported by Doyle Rice in USA Today on May 4, 2018, carbon dioxide comprised 410 ppm. Rice cites the Scripps Institute of Oceanography as his source and notes that, according to Scripps, this quantity is the “highest in at least the past 800,000 years.” Be clear, there is agreement on this mind-boggling point by major scientific sources on climate change, with virtual unanimity among climate scientists.

Global temperature continues to rise

According to evidence compiled through 2016 by Al Gore in his recent book, AnInconvenient Sequel Truth to Power, “16 of the last 17 hottest years ever measured with instruments (a practice that dates back to 1880) have occurred in the past 17 years. And the hottest of all was 2016. The second hottest was the year before, and the third hottest was the year before that.” Well, the pattern continues.

The staff at Climate Central report on data for the first six months of 2018 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They write: “Globally, the past four years have been the hottest on record, and 2018 so far is coming in as the 4th hottest. All time record heat has peppered the Northern Hemisphere this summer” (http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/2018-global-heat-so-far).

NOAA reports on July 2018:

“Record heat felt across the continents. Record-warn YTD [Year to date, June 2018] average temperatures dominated across the world’s oceans, New Zealand and some areas of North America, Asia, and Australia. Europe had its second-warmest June on record, with several countries logging average temperatures among the sixth warmest on record for the month. Africa, Europe and Oceania had a YTD average temperature ranking among the five highest since continental records began in 1910” (http://www.noaa.gov/news/june-2018-was-5th-warmest-on-record-for-globe).

A growing number of hot days

The number of extremely hot days is on the rise, according to Climate Central’s analysis of 244 cities across the country. The chief finding: “73 percent experience more extremely hot days than they did a half-century ago. This is happening in both rural and urban locations. And often there is not much of a breeze to help cool people, ‘meaning the body does not get a chance to recover from the heat of the day which increases the risk of heat-related illnesses like heat stroke’” (http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/extremely-hot-days-on-the-rise).

There are more hot nights

Along with hotter days, nights are getting hotter as well. Georgina Gustin writes that temperatures are rising during the night around the world. She refers to a 2015 NOAA report: “As the world warms, nighttime temperatures are slightly outpacing daytime temperatures in the rate of warming” (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09072018/heat-waves-global-warming-overnight-high-temperatures-impact-health-wildfire-wildfires-agriculture).

The consequence is that homes and people have “little chance to cool off,” so that “when external temperatures stay above 80 degrees, internal body temperatures don’t have a chance to cool.” And, Gustin adds, “If humidity is also high—as was the case in Quebec this week—the body perspires more, but the humidity means sweat can’t evaporate, cranking up internal temperatures even more. Recent research has shown that higher nighttime temperatures can also mean less sleep, potentially adding more physical stress on the body.” There is also an impact on some crops, as “warmer nighttime temperatures also increase transpiration from some crops, drying them out, introducing health problems and lowering yield.” Accompanying the higher temperatures, various molds and rusts on plants like cotton and wheat “are more likely to flourish in warmer conditions.” Higher nighttime temperatures also intensify wildfires, according to the U.S. Forest Service scientists. Gustin quotes Park Williams, researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who says “Warmer nights, especially when combined with dry conditions, can allow fires to continue spreading quite rapidly after sunset.”

The effects of global warming are truly worldwide

There is a lot more being reported from progressive media on the present manifestations of global warming, not so much on mainstream media. For example, Julia Conley writes for Common Dreams as follows: “Climate scientists sounded alarms on Tuesday [July 24] as reports circulated of extreme weather and record-breaking high temperatures all over the globe, with dozens of deaths and thousands of hospitalizations reported in some countries.” Conley quotes Caroline Rance of the Friends of the Earth Scotland: “There is no doubt that the prolonged extreme temperatures and floods we are witnessing around the world right now are a result of climate change.” Rance also believes that the temperature records that are being broken across the globe are “exactly as climate science has long warned, and with devastating consequences.” Here are examples of the effects of unbridled climate change from Conley’s report.

“Greek Interior Minister Panos Skourletis called the wildfires that have killed at least 74 people “a biblical disaster” in an interview with Sky News. The fires began late Monday afternoon near Athens, and have injured nearly 200 and sent thousands of people racing toward the Aegean Sea to escape in boats, makeshift rafts, and even by swimming.

“Entire towns have been wiped out by the blazes, which have been made worse by a recent drought and heatwaves that have sent temperatures into the hundreds.
“In Japan, at least 65 people have been killed in the past week by an “unprecedented” heatwave, according a weather agency spokesperson. Temperatures as high as 106 degrees have sent more than 22,000 people to hospitals—more than any other year since the country began recording cases of heatstroke in 2008.

“In southern Laos, hundreds of people went missing on Monday after flooding caused by heavy rains resulted in a collapsed dam. Thousands of homes were destroyed and an untold number of people were killed as the equivalent of two million Olympic swimming pools of water burst into several villages.
“And in northern Sweden, above the Arctic Circle, more than 50 wildfires have raged in the past several days, forcing dozens of people to evacuate their homes.

“The climate action group Friends of the Earth noted that record-breaking high temperatures have been recorded in a number of other regions and cities in recent days, including the United Kingdom; Ottawa, Canada; Southern California; Ouargla, Algeria; Tibilisi, Georgia; and Sydney, Australia.”

Al Gore’s book, alluded to earlier, is loaded with informative graphs on the pervasive and increasingly catastrophic effects of global warming. Rising ocean temperatures lead to increased water vapor rising from the ocean and contribute to more volatile hurricanes and other severe weather events. There is an unending flow of information on extreme temperatures, draughts, wildfires, floods, mudslides, and storms. Here is another example from Gore’s book:

“The crops we eat today were patiently selected over hundreds of years during the Stone Age. These food crops thrive in the natural conditions in which they evolved. Now that we are changing those conditions, many of these crops are becoming stressed, especially by higher temperatures. And they are not giving us the same yields or nutrient quality” (p. 102).

Temperatures, already high, are projected to go up faster than ever

Given current rising levels of greenhouse emissions, continued heavy reliance on fossil fuels, along with soil-destroying agribusiness, unprecedented deforestation, methane-generating landfills, warming oceans, temperatures around the world will continue going up. In one of his regular in-depth reviews of scientific studies dealing with the changes accompanying global warming, Dahr Jamail finds that ample research indicates that “global temperature projections could double as the world burns” (https://truthout.org/articles/global-temperature-projections-could-double-as-the-world-burns).

The consequences

As indicated, there are already – and increasingly will be – dire consequences. For example, Jamail refers to studies of how high and rising temperatures will reduce food production. He refers to two new studies investigating corn and vegetables, “both published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” which show that “anthropogenic climate disruption” (ACD) “will increase the risk of simultaneous crop failures for the four biggest corn exporters (US, China, Brazil, Argentina) suffering yield losses of 10 percent or greater increases from 7 percent at 2degreeC [Centigrade] warming of 86 percent at 4degreeC.” Another study “showed that global crop yields could be reduced by nearly one-third with a 4degreeC temperature increase.”

The problem is already apparent in the “drying wells and sinking land at the heart of the most productive farmland in the US, the Central Valley of California,” where

“[l]arge portions of the San Joaquin Valley have already sunk nearly 30 feet since the 1920s, with some areas having dropped a staggering three feet over just the last two years. All of this is the result of farmers’ relentless pumping of groundwater to offset the lack of snowpack and rainfall, both of which stem largely from ACD. It is important to note that the groundwater the farmers are using accounts for between 30 to 60 percent of the water that all Californians use each year, depending on how much rain and snow the state gets. The US Geological Survey stated that the pumping and resultant sinking of the San Joaquin Valley is ‘one of the single largest alterations of the [planet’s] land surface attributed to mankind.’”

Jamail gives further examples of the threatening effects of rising temperatures. Here are just a few.

“Nearly 1 billion people across South Asia are at risk of seeing their already desperate plight worsen, according to a recent World Bank Report. The report pins the cause on increasing temperatures and precipitation changes stemming from ACD, if major changes are not made to current global emission rates.

“Baobab trees that live for millennia and are common throughout sub-Saharan Africa are now rapidly dying off, and scientists are pointing to ACD as the cause. A recent report showed that of the 13 oldest baobab trees, four have died in just the last dozen years, and five others are on their way out, given that they have already lost their oldest stems.

“A very disconcerting study coming out of Northwestern University has warned that even slight increases in temperatures could lead to the extinction of bees across the US Southwest in the very near future. Over a two-year period, the study simulated the predicted warmer future climate, and the results are shocking: 35 percent of the bees died the first year, and 70 percent died the second year.

“Adding insult to injury, another recent report warned of something we’ve known for years now: that warming temperatures could increase the spread of bark beetles, which are well-known for how effectively they decimate forests.

“Meanwhile, Atlantic puffins, which were nearly decimated by hunters about a century ago, had made a comeback thanks to a protection program run by the National Audubon Society. But now, according to a recent report, they are likely on their way out again due to ACD impacts.”

“In the US, the Rio Grande River (the fourth-longest river in the country) is vanishing before our eyes. Authorities recently warned that the river likely won’t make it out of Colorado into New Mexico this summer, let alone further down into Texas or Mexico. This means that farmers in the already drought-prone region will be struggling with their crops through a summer of extreme drought.”

“Another report on the ramifications of sea level rise in the US warned that more than 150,000 homes and businesses could face more frequent high tide flooding within 15 years, and the number of homes and businesses impacted by this could well double by 2045. It is worth noting that these projections are not based on worst-case sea level rise estimates, which have thus far themselves not been keeping pace with reality.”

“Wildfires in California this summer have already scorched more than two times the five-year average of land burned this year, and that is only as of July 1.”

“To underscore everything in this month’s dispatch, an international team of researchers from 17 countries recently published their findings in Nature Geoscience, which showed that global temperatures could eventually double those that have been predicted by climate modeling. According to their findings, sea levels could rise by six meters or more, even if the world meets the 2°C maximum temperature rise level set by the Paris climate agreement.”

It becomes increasingly unlikely that global warming and its effects can be curtailed, let alone reversed?

If unmitigated, and mitigation seems less and less likely, the unfolding climate changes threaten to destroy more and more habitats, more and more species, and generate economic, social, and psychological havoc for and massive dislocations of billions of people. This is happening already. Such conditions, under current political and economic arrangements, are likely to continue to unfold and be irreversible. For many of us, this may not be new information, especially for those who pay attention and try to be informed, including those who been active in parts of the broad environmental sustainability movement, or involved in organic agriculture, diets for a healthy planet, renewable energy, and efforts to build resilient communities. We’ll see whether these pro-environmental activities make enough of a difference to forestall system-wide collapse. At the present, unfortunately, they do not.

What is clear is that opportunities for mitigation and the achievement of a durable world are diminishing. According to some researchers, the human species is facing a prospect of extinction if current economic and political institutions are not soon transformed (e.g., Roy Scranton, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene). We seemed to be increasingly locked into a political economy that revolves around the profit-first policies of mega-corporations in a capitalist system predicated on the assumption that there is no viable alternative to ever-more growth, regardless of the environmental consequences. The government, most important the federal government, works to advance the interests of the mega-corporations and business enterprises generally, dismissing or ignoring environmental crises. Economic power is translated into political power. Ashly Dawson provides a fitting one-sentence summary of what is happening in our political-economic system in his book, Extinction: A Radical History: “As capitalism expands…it commodifies more and more of the planet, stripping the world of its diversity and fecundity” (p. 13).

Of course, human-generated climate disruption is not the only ominous issue before us. It may be, for example, Trump will foment nuclear war anytime he feels like it and destroy much of human life – and more. This nuclear-nightmare is discussed by experts in the recently published book, Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump. Here the focus is on climate changes.

You can be sure of one thing. Donald Trump doesn’t believe that humans play a significant role in the changing climate, which is contrary to the scientific evidence and to the mounting manifestations of global warming. He is a premier climate denier. Reporting for the Washington Post in March 22, 2016, during Trump’s primary campaign to be the Republican presidential nominee, Brady Dennis points to some of Trump’s statements on the climate. Trump said that he is “‘not a believer’ that humans have played a significant role in the Earth’s changing climate.” On one of the “Fox and Friends” programs in early 2016, he said that “climate change ‘is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money.’” Dennis also alludes to the now infamous Trump tweet that climate change is a “hoax…created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” Then, at the end of Trump’s visit with the Washington Post editorial board on March 2016, he repeated his basic belief, namely, that “I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change.” Of course, Dennis points out, we know that my-facts-are-the-only-facts Trump is unconcerned that his views put him “at odds with the vast majority of the world’s scientists” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/22/this-is-the-only-type-of-climate-change-donald-trump-believes-in/?utm_term=.3d7bea7576dc).

In the meantime, Trump and his administration, along with his right-wing supporters in the Republican Party, the rich, the bulk of the corporations, and most of his grassroots supporters either deny that there is human-caused climate change altogether or say that we cannot deal with it now because it would be too economically expensive and disruptive to do so. They also sometimes justify their position by thinking of nature as something humans are destined to control and as a virtually unlimited cornucopia of resources from which to draw for profit and consumption.

Sophia Tesfaye reminds us in a report for Salon (March 30, 2018) that Trump once called global warming a “‘hoax’ manufactured by the Chinese” during his presidential campaign. In then in a tweet on December 28, 2017, he said: “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!” Tesfaye also refers to evidence that climate change/global warming denial is not limited to the White House, referring to how “Trump has pushed Republicans to be more extreme on issues concerning the environment, specifically climate change.” She also refers to a Gallup poll, writing as follows.

“Only a third of Republicans said they worry about climate change or even acknowledge that it is already happening, down 3 percentage points from the year prior. Just 35 percent of Republicans believed global warming was caused by humans, compared with 40 percent at about this time in 2017, a few months before Trump took office.”

“In 2017, 53 percent of Republicans agreed that most scientists believe climate change is occurring. That number declined 11 percentage points during Trump’s first year in office to 42 percent in 2018. Just to clarify: A majority of Republicans now reject not merely the idea that climate change is real, but the idea that most scientists believe it is real. That suggests an imperviousness to fact that goes well beyond unorthodox opinion into outright delusion.”

Tesfaye also points out:

“Although last year was the second warmest year on record, behind only 2016, nearly 70 percent of Republican respondents told Gallup that the threat of climate change is ‘exaggerated,’ an increase from 66 percent last year. Only 4 percent of Democrats shared that view.”

Such denialist positions are clearly reflected in the U.S. Congress, where, Tesfaye writes, “more than 59 percent of Republicans in the House, and 73 percent of Republicans in the Senate, doubt humans’ impact on climate change…. During Trump’s first 100 days, the House and Senate voted against environmental protection 42 times. Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt [no longer there], has removed numerous references to climate change from EPA documents, and reportedly ordered staffers to cast doubt on the scientific consensus about climate change and mankind’s role in the crisis.” As a result of Trump’s leadership, “the Republican Party [has] become the only major party in the developed world to reject the science on climate change….”
And, to the detriment of most people, the fossil fuel industry could not have a greater champion that Trump. Steve Cohen of Earth Institute provides a telling summary, pointing out as well that Obama could also be faulted (https://phys.org/news/2018-02-trump-energy-dominance-future-fossil.html).

“The Trump Administration is doing everything it can to encourage drilling for fossil fuels on federal lands and everywhere else. They are reversing regulations on methane release, deep-sea drilling rigs and anything else they can think of to lower the cost of drilling and decrease its occupational and environmental safety. Trump and his folks want to achieve the global macho goal of being the biggest fossil fuel exporter in the world. Big oil exports, big nuclear button, big crowds–there seems to be a theme. In real terms, the policy of encouraging exports of fossil fuels is similar to one that was more quietly pursued as “energy independence” by the Obama administration. According to CNBC’s Tom DiChristopher:

“In substance, energy independence and dominance are not so different. And while the Trump administration has sought to differentiate itself from the Obama White House, its position on U.S. energy exports is very similar in some regards… There is no doubt that Trump touts this revolution more stridently than Obama. But while the messaging is different, U.S. energy posture has not changed much between administrations… To be sure, the Obama administration tried to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector. It also stopped issuing leases for coal mining on federal land and scaled back plans for offshore drilling auctions following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But Obama also lifted a 40-year ban on exporting U.S. crude oil in 2015, paving the way for a surge in shipments. Oil and gas industry employment boomed under Obama’s watch, until a protracted oil price downturn led to mass layoffs.”

More evidence on how Trump and his administration are unrelenting and systematic in taking the country and the world toward the edge of collapse

#1 – Cutting the budgets of agencies created to protect the environment.

Brady Dennis reports that the White House is seeking to cut more than $2.5 billion from the fiscal 2019 budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. This represents “an overall reduction of more than 23 percent.” This proposed cut follows how the agency’s personnel have already been reduced by buyouts and retirements and that “staffing is now at Reagan-era levels.” Trump reduced EPA’s budget by 31 percent in 2018, while “cutting 3,200 positions, or more than 20 percent of the agency’s workforce.” ” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/12/trump-budget-seeks-23-percent-cut-at-epa-would-eliminate-dozens-of-programs/?utm_term=.c485a84041fb).

According to environmental groups, the goal of the Trump administration is to “gut federal environmental safeguards.” Dennis quotes Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, who said “this budget shows the administration doesn’t value clean air, clean water, or protecting Americans from toxic pollution.” Some EPA programs would be eliminated, others would have their budgets severely reduced. Here’s what Dennis writes:

“The administration’s plan would cut several dozen programs altogether. Among them: funding for state radon-detection initiatives; assistance to fund water system improvements along the U.S.-Mexico border; and partnerships to monitor and restore water quality in the Gulf of Mexico, Puget Sound and other large bodies of water. Funding for the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay would fall from $72 million to $7 million, and a similar program for the Great Lakes would be cut from $300 million to $30 million — although neither would be wiped out.”

With respect to climate change specifically, the Trump budget “would eliminate — or very nearly eliminate — the agency’s programs related to climate change. Funding for the agency’s Office of Science and Technology would drop by more than a third, from $762 million to $489 million. And funding for prosecuting environmental crimes and for certain clean air and water programs would drop significantly.”

#2 – Trump administration eviscerates and dismantles environmental regulations
One of the most impressive decisions of the Obama administration was to increase the federal fuel-efficiency standard and to allow states like California to institute even higher standards.

Now the Trump administration wants to eliminate these progressive initiatives. Juliet Elperin, Brady Dennis and Michael Laris report for the Washington Post on July 24, 2018, that the Trump administration officials “are preparing to issue a proposal within days to freeze fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks for six years and challenge the right of California and other states to set their own tailpipe standards.” If actually implemented, it “would amount to one of the biggest regulatory rollbacks of the Trump presidency” (https://www.macomldaily.com/news/nation-world-news/trump-administration-to-freeze-auto-fuel-efficiency-standards/article_781a52af-f82d-596c-8ef3-5127fd3ebc13.html). The pending proposal is based on an analysis by the Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Environment Protection Agency.

The proposal will recommend freezing miles-per-gallon-standards “at Model Year 2020 levels through 2026,” which “translates into maintaining a fleetwide average of 35 mpg for six years, rather than raising it to about 50 mpg by 2025.” The chief public justification of Trump’s agencies is that higher standards would drive the price of new cars up, making them unaffordable for many people. There is a debate over how much the cost of cars and trucks would rise because of the Obama’s fuel-efficiency standards. But, fundamentally, the move reflects the administration’s right-wing ideology, namely, the desire to achieve wholesale deregulation of the economy and its complete disregard of how carbon emissions from cars and light trucks contribute to global warming.

Furthermore, the agencies plan to “take comment on whether to block California’s right under the Clean Air Act to set its own emissions limit on cars and light trucks and require the sale of a certain number of electric vehicles in the state each year.” According to Elperin and her colleagues, “California, 16 other states and the District are challenging the federal government’s push to revisit the existing emissions standards, which represent the first federal carbon limits on vehicles.” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is quoted: “The Trump administration’s assault on clean car standards risks our ability to protect our children’s health, tackle climate change, and save hard-working Americans money” (at the pump).
Kieran Suckling, executive director and a founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, provides additional information on the Clean Air Act and California’s fuel-efficiency policy. When interviewed on Democracy Now on July 25, 2018, about what the Trump administration is proposing, she replied as follows.

“Yeah, this is really outrageous, because the way our Clean Air Act works is it allows states to set standards if they’re higher than the federal government. And so, for 48 years running now, California has had a higher standard. It’s had that through administrations Democratic and Republican, conservative and liberal. No one’s had a problem with it, until Trump. And so, partly, this is his effect—efforts to reduce any attempt to control global warming, but it’s also clearly a personal agenda to attack California, which he believes is just generally a hostile element to him personally, and so, consequently, we have this incredibly irrational act, especially when, for example, you’ve got Barrasso [Republican] talking about state’s rights: “Let’s empower the states.” Well, these Republicans only want to empower the states when the states have a lower protective standard. The second a state has a higher standard, all of a sudden all concerns about state rights go out the window, and we have to go to a federal single authority that’s going to reduce environmental protection” (https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/25/trumps_war_on_the_environment).

#3 – the privatization of public lands
In the interview on Democracy Now, Kieran Suckling also commented on this situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Kierán, what about the record of the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke? You have ThinkProgress saying documents released by the Department of Interior, then retracted a day later, revealed the agency officials dismissed evidence that public lands provide numerous benefits in favor of prioritizing fossil fuel interests, along with ranching and logging, and then CNN reporting Zinke is meeting with people that are not on the public record. For example, met with Congressman Chris Collins, a New York Republican, who was the first in Congress to endorse Trump’s presidential candidacy. That was according to the official calendar. But Zinke’s calendar didn’t show who else was in the room: three representatives of a company that do business with the National Park Service—one of about of a dozen instances uncovered by CNN of Zinke’s calendar omitting who he’s actually meeting with.

KIERÁN SUCKLING: Yeah. Zinke, I think, is going to go down as one of the worst interior secretaries in history. And his actions are very, very similar to what Scott Pruitt was doing over at EPA before he was forced to resign. And that is that he’s aggressively trying to avoid all environmental laws. He’s meeting with industry groups constantly and then hiding that, rather than simply admitting to what he’s doing in public. And the agenda is always the same: You know, what can he do to allow public lands to be destroyed? What can he do to allow more oil and gas drilling, even if it’s polluting local communities, poisoning children? It’s really a disaster.

He has turned this agency, which is supposed to be in charge of America’s land, air, water and species, into a handout program for industry, and then going so far as to just erase all this from his calendar, from his meeting notes, to take decisions from lower officials who are trying to do their job and erase all references to issues which harms their agenda. And in particular what you’ll see is that protecting public lands, especially on national monuments, is really good for local economies, but instead they’ll erase all that information and say, “Oh, this is hurting local economies.” And it’s not just immoral, it’s illegal. And it’s the reason why this agency gets sued so much.

#4 – Opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Here is more of what Kieran Suckling had to say on Democracy Now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And staying on the Interior Department and Zinke, the department has also commissioned an expedited environmental review of the impact of leasing part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Now, this is a decades-long battle that the industry, the oil and gas industry, has not been able to win. What is happening here? And what could be the potential impact of this new expedited review?

KIERÁN SUCKLING: Yeah, this is very concerning. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, off the coast of Alaska, has been sought after by the oil industry for many, many decades now and has always been stopped, because it’s such a crown jewel of environmental protection, and there are so many other areas available for drilling. So, Zinke now has expedited efforts to review proposed drilling up there, brought on millions of dollars of new money, which apparently don’t exist to do anything else in government, more staff, and he wants to push through, at a very rapid clip, a decision to open this up to more drilling. And he’s throwing all the environmental standards, review processes out the window. And I think it’s partly because he knows time is limited up there for him, and he wants this to become his legacy, the guy who opened up America’s biggest, most important wildlife refuge to oil drilling.

#5 – Loading the Supreme Court with right-wing justices
The Trump administration is systematically filling the federal judiciary with “conservative” justices. This means that his pro-corporate, pro-rich, anti-regulatory (e.g., little regulation of fossil fuels) will be further consolidated with the capture by Trump reactionary agenda of the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court. See a current, list as of July 29, at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump. Currently, the news is about Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to fill an opening on the Supreme Court. Basav Sen, who directs the Climate Justice Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, writes:
“Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh isn’t just a likely vote against Roe, or an enabler of brash executive authority. He’s also a vocal supporter of a conservative legal ‘philosophy’ that’s designed to block action on climate change” (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/19/brett-kavanaugh-would-be-a-disaster).

Sen gives these examples to illustrate his concerns.

“As a D.C. appeals court judge, he argued against the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, and wrote the majority opinion striking down the EPA’s attempt to regulate hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are potent climate pollutants used in cooling applications. He even wrote a majority opinion overturning EPA regulation of air pollution that crosses state lines.”
Kavanaugh believes that Congress, not the courts, should be responsible for environmental regulation, that is, as long as Republicans control the U.S. Congress. As it now stands, Congress is controlled by Republicans who support unregulated markets (profits) over the environment and tend to reject the scientifically-established facts that global warming is an significant threat.

#6 – Reducing support for programs to assist low-income countries in dealing with the effects of climate change

In an article in July 7, 2018 issue of The New Yorker, Natalie Meade reports on how the Trump administration and the Republican Congress are cutting support for programs aimed at assisting low-income countries to reduce their greenhouse emissions and cope with the impacts of climate change (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-cuts-in-climate-change-research-spark-a-global-scramble-for-funds).

Meade describes how the administration is cutting financial support for the Climate Change Adaptation Program, a program, initiated under the Obama administration, to help minimize the impacts of climate change for Central American countries. Similarly, it is reducing the US pledge to the Green Climate Fund, which was created to “among other things, help developing countries invest in renewable and low-emissions technologies. And, in Africa, “the Trump Administration has moved to eliminate all funding for climate-related or environmental projects across the continent.” It also is cutting support for environmental projects in Indonesia, “one of the largest carbon emitters in the world.”

Concluding thoughts

Global warming is not an issue that is likely to sway any election in November 2018 or in 2020. Indeed, we are amid a fossil-fuel boom, which has enabled the U.S. to reduce its reliance on imported oil. The slogan “energy independence” will sit well with many voters. While renewable energy grows in the energy-mix of the economy, it still represents a small portion of all U.S. energy use.

And, very disconcertingly, US consumers are now in the process of driving a lot more fuel-inefficient vans than cars. Consumers want more things at affordable prices, often without much consideration of the environmental impacts. Business interests “develop” every available space and extract every exploitable resource, destroying habitats with little restraint. As temperatures go up, more and more people want air-conditioning, usually from electricity generated by coal or gas. And there are a host of other issues that dominate the news and political narratives.

At the same time, coastal properties will be increasingly vulnerable to rising ocean levels, wildfires will consume more and more forests and destroy many thousands of homes, food prices will be affected by droughts and floods, more and more communities will have trouble accessing fresh water, the air will become more polluted, and the general environmental contexts in which we live will be degraded, faster in some places than others. It is impossible to predict how these conflicting developments will pan out.

However, to address adequately the unfolding and accelerating crises emanating from global warming, there will have to be major transformative institutional changes in our economy encompassing a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, a political party that makes the issue of curtailing global warming a priority, a massive social movement educating and organizing people around the issue (and a progressive agenda), and a majority of citizens who see the issue as pressing and are willing to vote for candidates who prioritize it.

Trump’s legally questionable, ill-advised, and cruel attacks on refugees
Bob Sheak – July 12, 2018

The displacement of people from their homes and communities is a worldwide problem, one that is growing in scope and likely to continue disrupting the lives of many millions of people so long as current political, economic, and environmental trends continue. In an article for The Nation magazine (July 16, 2018, p. 23), Madeline Rose offers this unsettling summary of current evidence.

“Today we face a global humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. Almost 66 million people are refugees, asylum seekers, internally displace, or stateless. Conflicts rage from Yemen to Syria to South Sudan. Over the past 15 years, 3.3 billion people – almost half of the world’s population – have been exposed to political violence. And still darker clouds loom on the horizon. By 2050 a total of 1 billion people could be displaced by climate change, while 40 percent of the world’s population could suffer from water shortages. Inequality, population growth, and corruption add to the complexity, with the poorest of the poor increasingly left behind” (The Nation, July 16, p. 23).

Lauren Markham cites “global relief agencies” which estimate there are presently “over 68 million people worldwide [who] have been forced to flee their homes because of war, poverty and political persecution” (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/opinion/sunday/immigration-climate-change-trump.html). Markham also points to the effects of climate change on forced immigration and writes:

“As a writer, I focus largely on issues of forced migration. The hundreds of migrants I’ve interviewed in the past few years — whether from Gambia, Pakistan, El Salvador, Guatemala, Yemen or Eritrea — are most often leaving because of some acute political problem at home. But I’ve also noticed something else in my years of reporting. If you talk to these migrants long enough, you’ll hear about another, more subtle but still profound dimension to the problems they are leaving behind: environmental degradation or climate change.

“The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that since 2008, 22.5 million people have been displaced by climate-related or extreme weather events. This includes tragedies like the widespread famine in Darfur, monsoons and flooding in Bangladesh and the catastrophic hurricane in Puerto Rico. The more out of whack our climate becomes, the more people up and leave their homes. As our world heats up and sea levels rise, the problem of forced migration around the world is projected to become far worse.” ….

“Many things are exacerbating the effects of the drought in Central America, including pervasive deforestation and farmers overtaxing their land. But according to Climatelinks, a project of the United States Agency for International Development, the average temperature in El Salvador has risen 2.34 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1950s, and droughts have become longer and more intense. The sea has risen by three inches since the 1950s and is projected to rise seven more by 2050. Between 2000 and 2009, 39 hurricanes hit El Salvador, compared with 15 in the 1980s. This, too, is predicted to get worse.”

Aside from climate, the number of refugees worldwide has been climbing for a host of seemingly unstoppable reasons presently. At the same time, compounding the problem, there is a trend unfolding in which more and more governments in Europe and other “high income” countries are closing their borders to refugees and introducing more stringent overall immigration policies. Writing in Foreign Policy in Review (June 20, 2018), John Feffer reports that the “world is experiencing the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. There are 22.5 million people who have fled their countries to seek refuge elsewhere. In 2016, a mere 189,000 were resettled” (https://fpif.org/world-to-refugees-go-to-hell).

Where do they go?

In the Middle East, parts of Asia, and Africa, most refugees end up remaining in their home country and are referred to as internally displaced people. Or they flee to a nearby country, sometimes referred to as a “haven” country, where they typically end up in camps set up for migrants or in cities where they struggle on the margins of the economy and with little help from the host country. Alexander Betts, Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, and Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Oxford University, analyze the refuge crisis comprehensively in their book, Refugee: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World. They illustrate the point about “haven” countries and extensive documentation on all aspects of the refugee problem.

Countries such as Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo did not become haven countries because, as Betts and Collier put it, they did not put up ‘welcome’ signs at railway stations. They became haven countries by default; refugees flocked to them because they were close by” (p. 31).

Also: “…fewer than 1 per cent of the world’s refugees get access to resettlement in third country beyond their regions of origin” (p. 49).

Many refugees would like to go to the richer countries in Europe, though Europe is becoming less welcoming. Betts and Collier point out this: “While the refugee issue shot up to the top of the European agenda, its content was all about Europe rather than about refugees. Which country should accept how many refugees; which country was closing its borders; what should be expected of those refugees in Europe; which European politicians should be taking which decisions. Syrian refugees themselves [which represent the largest number of all refugees] suffered the neglect of the heartless head. While a small minority reached Germany, the vast majority remained in the neighbouring havens, where they received little international support” (p. 93).

Most countries, whatever their level of economic prosperity, do not usually permit refugees to work. So, refugees are typically forced into the “informal” (i.e., unregulated, low-wage, irregular) economy just to get by. Again, here is what Bett’s and Collier’s research indicates.“Of 500,000 refugees who arrived in Germany able to work in 2015, just 8 percent were employed by mid-2016…” (p. 123)

Most refuges do not make it to Europe but remain “internally displaced” in their own countries (e.g., Iraq, Syria) and in nearby countries (e.g., Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Kenya and other less-than-rich countries). There they end up stranded in refugee camps. Here’s an example of perhaps the largest refugee camp in the world from Betts and Collier’s book.

“In Kenya…the Dadaab refugee camps were created in 1993 to host the mass influx of Somali refugees who arrived following the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 1991. The cluster of three camps were designed with a maximum capacity of 120,000 people, but in 2011 the combined populations swelled to hose over 500,000 Somali refugees and today it hosts over 300,000 in dire conditions, after some went home or moved onwards. The camps are located in the remote border region of the North Eastern Province and are the subject of violent cross-border incursions from warring factions and terrorist groups operating in Somalia. Concerned with security and competition for resources, the government has adopted a strict encampment policy, generally requiring Somalis to remain in the camps and denying them access to the formal economy. The international community provided seemingly indefinite humanitarian assistance, which was inevitably inadequate. A funding model based on short-term emergency response is being used to pay for permanent needs” (p. 53).

Betts and Collier propose solutions based on their analysis.

“At the heart of our approach is the creation of safe havens in the countries of the developing world that neighbor conflict and crisis [e.g., Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan]. This is because it is where the overwhelming majority of refugees are, because remaining there creates the greater likelihood that people will ultimately go back and rebuild their own countries, and because it offers a far more efficient and sustainable way to allocate scarce resources” (p. 234).

But there are a number of challenging preconditions that must fall in place for there to be better options for refugees. Better and Collier propose:
“…new forms of partnerships are needed [among donor nations themselves and including the business communities]. Donors have to be prepared to commit the resources needed to address haven countries’ concerns relating to refugees’ right to work. They need to open up their markets in order to entice businesses to invest [in haven countries]. Business investment has a central role to play. And new organizational models are need to economically and politically to facilitate these partnerships.”

It is good that there are expert analysts, humanitarian organizations, U.N. agencies, and government officials collecting and analyzing information on refugees. They document the complexities and enormous challenges of the growing refugee crisis and make proposals that, if ever implemented, would ameliorate the situations that generate refugees. But, unfortunately, the conditions that spawn growing waves of refugees remain festering and intensifying. Thus, the refugee population worldwide grows as a result of various combinations of violent conflicts in the shape of war, civil war, terrorist encroachment (and the plentiful availability of weapons), environmental degradation (e.g., growing scarcity of clean potable water), unsustainable living conditions, weak and ineffective states, foreign interests controlling vital resources for profit (e.g., oil, lumber, diamonds, land for growing food to export), weak international humanitarian or economic development assistance, and the absence of women’s rights. And the governments in high-income nations are not only unwilling to provide adequate economic assistance but they are now, increasingly, focusing on how to keep refugees from coming into their countries.

The growing refugee crises are but one manifestation of patterns in which national governments increasingly prioritize their own interests in a world of declining resources, intensifying international competition, and soaring inequality, and where increasingly powerful economic and political elites advance their own self-serving interests at the expense of others. Certainly, refugees don’t figure in their calculations and plans. Rather they are viewed, as Trump appears to view refugees, as people who are of little worth, who are said to be responsible for their own plight, who can be considered expendable or, in some cases, politically useful as scapegoats.

U.S. immigration policy lurching rightward with some exceptions

The focus of U.S. immigration policy has changed with circumstances historically.

Examples of Immigration policies during the Obama years

In recent years, Obama’s policies were more supportive of increasing the number of refugees permitted to be resettled in the U.S. Obama also and in extended the stay of unauthorized youth who were brought to this country by their parents illegally and who have lived in the U.S. for many years. Obama increased the number of refugees to be permitted resettlement in the country from 85,000 in FY 2016 to 110,000 in FY 2017. He also announced the creation of the program titled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on June 15, 2012, “and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting applications for the program on August 15, 2012”. It’s a program, according to Wikipedia, “that allows some individuals who were brought to the United States illegally as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit in the U.S. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals).

Here is more from Wikipedia on what next transpired.

“As of June 2016, USCIS had received 844,931 initial applications for DACA status, of which 741,546 (88%) were approved, 60,269 (7%) were denied, and 43,121 (5%) were pending. Over half of those accepted reside in California and Texas.[27] According to an August 2017 survey, most current registrants (called “Dreamers” in a reference to the DREAM Act bill) are in their 20s, and about 80% arrived in the United States when they were 10 or younger.[28]

“In November 2014, Obama announced his intention to expand DACA to make more people eligible.[29][30] However, in December 2014, Texas and 25 other states, all with Republican governors, sued the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas asking the court to enjoin implementation of both the DACA expansion and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans,(a similar program).[31][32][33] In February 2015, Judge Andrew S. Hanen issued a preliminary injunction blocking the expansion from going into effect while the case, Texas v. United States, proceeded.[34][35] After progressing through the court system, an equally divided (4–4) Supreme Court left the injunction in place, without setting any precedent.[36]

DACA produced good results. Here is Wikipedia’s summary.

“Research has shown that DACA increased the wages and labor force participation of DACA-eligible immigrants[7][8][9] and reduced the number of illegal immigrant households living in poverty.[10] Studies have also shown that DACA increased the mental health outcomes for DACA-eligible immigrants and their children.[11][12][13] There are no known major adverse impacts from DACA on native-born workers’ employment, and most economists say that DACA benefits the U.S. economy.[14][15][16] To be eligible for the program, recipients cannot have felonies or serious misdemeanors on their records. There is no evidence that individuals covered by DACA are more likely to commit crimes than the general population of the United States.[17]

At the same time, Obama deported a record number of undocumented people during his time in office. Reporting for the New York Daily News, Meg Wagner reports that there were more deportations of unauthorized people during President Obama’s time in office than under any other president (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/obama-deported-record-number-immigrants-trump-claim-article-1.2774180).

She gives the following example.

“Between 2009 and 2014, 2.4 million people were deported from the U.S., according to a Pew Research data analysis released Wednesday.
While full data from 2015 and 2016 isn’t available, if those years keep pace with previous ones, about 3.2 million people will have been deported under the Obama administration.

“Under the previous Bush administration, about 2 million people were deported between 2001 and 2008.”

Trump’s immigration policy goals

Trump aims to reduce both legal and illegal immigration, institute harsh measures for detaining those who are caught trying to enter the country illegally, separating children from parents, more aggressively removing an increasing number of undocumented people already living in the U.S., and attempting to end DACA unless other restrictive parts of his immigration agenda are accepted by the Democrats in the U.S. Congress. There are other policies advanced by Trump that I won’t examine in this post, such as the travel ban on mostly Muslim-majority countries, a ban that has just been upheld by a recent Supreme Court decision. I also don’t go into the huge issue of how the Trump administration is increasing efforts to remove as many of the 11 million unauthorized persons who already reside in the U.S. as it can. There have been informative articles published in the New York Times on this population, their demographic characteristics, how they gained entrance (e.g., overstayed their visas) where there are located, how long they have been here. The focus here is largely on Trump’s policies concerning refuges arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border who are seeking asylum in the United States.

Some definitions and the normal but corrupted process for getting asylum in the U.S.

When is someone a refugee?

What’s the difference between refugees and asylum seekers? According to Jie Zong and Jeanee Batalova of the Migration Policy Institute, “refugees are usually outside of the United States when they are screened for resettlement, whereas asylum seekers submit their applications while they are physically present in the United States or at a U.S. port of entry. They “also differ in admissions process used and agency responsible for reviewing their application.” But they are similar in that they “are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin or nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution” (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/refugees-and-asylees-united-states).

I’ll use the terms interchangeably. In a sense, refugees come in two categories, those attempting to enter the U.S. through legal channels and those who, perhaps kept from entering legally or trying to skirt border security, try to enter the country illegally. Under the current Trump immigration policy, there appears to be an attempt to keep all refugees out of the country, whether they are attempting to go through legal channels or not.

Limiting who can qualify as a legitimate refugee

One of the issues raised by the Trump administrators is over what “persecution” Means. Currently, the U.S. government rejects the idea that fleeing from gang violence or domestic abuse/violence fits what they define as persecution, and therefore do not require the government to allow for their resettlement in the U.S. John Feffer reports on this in early June at https://fpif.org/world-to-refugees-go-to-hell.

“The Justice Department announced… that asylum-seekers couldn’t claim gang warfare or domestic violence as reasons to stay in the United States. This comes at a time when displacement because of violence is climbing rapidly in Central America, a trend affecting 16 times more people at the end of 2017 than in 2011. Indeed, many of the people desperately trying to get across the U.S. border, including unaccompanied minors, are escaping not just general violence but very specific death threats.”

In these cases, refugees would only be able to enter the country illegally.

The “normal” process for being allowed to resettle in the U.S. is now being diminished

Immigration lawyer Jennifer Harbury, interviewed on Democracy Now, describes the process for legal resettlement into the U.S, pointing out that the U.S. is a party to various treaties on refugees (https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/9/human_rights_lawyer_jennifer_harbury_on).

Here is what she next said.

“…under 8 U.S.C. 1225, [a person] goes up to the port of entry, knocks on the door and literally says, ‘I’m in danger. I need to apply for asylum.’ And as I said earlier, they then go to a credible fear interview [no criminal record] and then to a detention center, initially, and they’ll be put in proceedings before an immigration judge. The way – the norm that has always been in place for either group of people, whether they went by the river or went across the bridge – is that if they’ve got perfectly good identification, they’ve never committed a crime, they’re not a threat to anyone, they’re just on the run from the cartels, and they have legal status relatives, citizen or LPR [legal permanent resident of the U.S.], who will take them in and sponsor them and pay all their expenses.”

At that point in the process, a person or parent and children would pre-Trump have “always been released” on conditional approval of resettlement. Zong and Batalova point out, “Once granted U.S. protection, refugees and asylees are authorized to work and may also qualify for assistance (including cash and medical, housing, educational, and vocational services) to facilitate their economic and social integration into society.”

Trump makes it worse

This has changed under Trump. Even if a person asks for asylum and passes the credible fear test and other administrative hurdles, she/he and children are being detained, and, for a time, children were separated from their parents. Now, after massive outrage and a federal court ruling, Trump has ended the separation rule, but his administration is now enmeshed in further problems. They don’t have good information on the whereabouts of all the parents and children so they can be reunited, and they are facing legal challenges on how long children who have been reunited with their parents can be detained. I’ll have more to say about these unfolding issues below in this post.

Consider the general trend of refugees seeking resettlement in the U.S.
“After the most recent peak of 142,000 refugees admitted for resettlement in 1993 (largely in response to the Balkan wars), the annual admission ceiling steadily declined. In 2008, the ceiling was raised by 10,000 to accommodate an expected increase in refugees from Iraq, Iran, and Bhutan. From 2008 to 2011, the annual ceiling remained at 80,000; it was reduced to 76,000 in 2012, and further reduced to 70,000 in 2013, where it remained until 2016.”

“The Obama administration’s increase to 85,000 resettlement places for FY2016 and 110,000 for FY2017 marked the largest yearly increases in refugee admissions since 1990. The proposed ceiling for FY2017 would include 40,000 resettlement places for refugees from the Near East and South Asia (up 4,000 from 2016), 12,000 from East Asia (down 1000); 35,000 from Africa (up 10,000); 5,000 from Latin America and the Caribbean (up 2,000); and 4,000 from Europe and Central Asia (no change). The unallocated reserve also increased from 6,000 in 2016 to 14,000 in 2017.”

Avoiding the legal entry process

Those seeking entrance into the U.S. may try to avoid the whole process and, often with the help of a paid coyote, navigate their way into the U.S. illegally. Indeed, according to a report by Marcia Aleman and Joshua Goodman in USA Today (June 21, 2018). “The number of families entering the U.S. illegally at the southwest border jumped six-fold in May to 9,485 compared with the same month in 2017. Since October, more than 58,000 have arrived, the bulk from Guatemala, followed by Honduras and El Salvador.” In addition, the flow of drugs across the board, even under Trump, appears to be undiminished.
Christopher Woody finds evidence on how Trump’s immigration policies are missing most of the drug smuggling (http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-increasing-border-security-overlooks-smuggling-2018-4).

One challenge for U.S. border security is that there are 48 official land crossings along the Mexico-U.S. border, and millions of people, vehicles and cargo pass through them every day. Amidst this immense traffic, Woody reports that border agents say they are “undermanned and, at times overwhelmed by the traffic” at their checkpoints and often have less than ten seconds to decide which vehicles shout be referred for further inspection. The highly stressful work has made it difficult for Customs and Border Protection fill positions vacated by retirement or quitting. The drug cartels are well organized, often with transnational ties, can use private planes to cross the border, have passengers or crew on commercial planes carry the drugs, or us parcel services for some types of drugs. Trump’s “wall,” remote video surveillance, and ground sensors may help to stem somewhat the tide of those who attempt to carry or drive the drugs on backroads across the border, but his current preoccupation with refugees seems to miss the drug issue.

Why do the refugees from Central America keep making the trek to the U.S.-Mexico border in hopes to being resettled in the U.S.?

While most want work and a better life, this is not the principal reason for the costly and dangerous trek from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, the three countries, known as “the Northern Triangle of Central America” and the biggest source of refugees arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. The principal reason is, as Pitt describes it, “[t]hey are trying not to die.” Rocio Cara Labrador and Danielle Renwick identify the causes in an article for The Council on Foreign Relations (https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-violent-northern-triangle).

Echoing Pitt, their central point is that refugees from these countries are fleeing “violence and fragile institutions.” Migrants from these countries “cite violence, forced gang recruitment, and extortion, as well as poverty and the lack of opportunity, as their reasons for leaving.” And “the region remains menaced by corruption, drug trafficking, and gang violence despite tough police and judicial reforms” and despite billions of dollars in aid from the United States over the past decade. These countries “consistently rank among the most violent countries in the world.”

The chaos in these countries has its roots in decades of war in the region, described as follows by Labrador and Renwick.

“In El Salvador, fighting between the military-led government and leftist guerrilla groups (1979-92) left as many as seventy-five thousand dead, and Guatemala’s civil war (1960-96) killed as many as two hundred thousand civilians. Honduras did not have a civil war of its own, but nonetheless felt the effect of nearby conflicts; it served as a staging ground for the U.S.-backed Contras, a right-wing rebel group fighting Nicaragua’s Sandinista government during the 1980s.

“At war’s end, a large pool of demobilized and unemployed men with easy access to weapons morphed into organized criminal groups, most notably in El Salvador. In Guatemala, groups known as illegal clandestine security apparatuses and clandestine security apparatuses grew out of the state intelligence and military forces.”

There are now a plethora of criminal groups in all three countries.

“Criminal groups in the Northern Triangle include transnational criminal organizations, many of which are associated with Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs); domestic organized-crime groups; transnational gangs, or maras, such as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the Eighteenth Street Gang (M-18); and pandillas, or street gangs.”

Labrador and Renwick note that “90 percent of documented cocaine flows into the United States now pass through the region.”

With respect to extortion,

“A 2015 investigation by Honduran newspaper La Prensa found that Salvadorans and Hondurans pay an estimated $390 million, $200 million, and $61 million, respectively, in annual extortion fees to organized crime groups. Extortionists primarily target public transportation operators, small businesses, and residents of poor neighborhoods…and attacks on people who do not pay contribute to violence.”

Along with drug trafficking and extortion, “criminal groups in the region also profit from kidnapping for ransom and human trafficking and smuggling.”

On top of it all, the governments are weak and marked by extensive corruption. There are weak partly because tax revenues in the three countries are among the lowest in Latin America. With the respect to corruption, Transparency International, “a global anticorruption watchdog, documents that “all three countries [are] in the bottom half of its corruption perceptions rankings.” Most crimes go unpunished in many areas.

In short, we can expect the flow of refugees from these countries to continue, unless somehow the causes are effectively addressed. Trump pays no attention to the causes.

Trump and his administration are doing their utmost to keep most refugees out

Trump made the issues of immigration reduction and border security two of his main messages during his campaign for the presidency. His promises resonated with his supporters and was one of the main reasons for his success in his election. Elaine Kamarck and Christine Stenglein provide evidence from polls that show that Trump supporters mentioned Trump’s immigration policies as the most frequent reason they voted for him (https://www.brookings.edu/research/when-policy-is-cut-off-from-reality-donald-trump-immigration-problem).

In one of many moves to reduce the number of emigrants entering the country, legally or otherwise, the Trump administration announced early in 2017 that the number of refugee admissions would be limited to 45,000, a ceiling that is the lowest since 1980 (John Feffer, https://fpif.org/world-to-refugees-go-to-hell).

Why Trump’s anti-immigration policies appeal to so many Americans?

In the United States, a growing number of people are understandably focused on their own precarious situations and are concerned that refugees pose threats to their jobs, that many refugees are criminals, welfare cheats, and, for the white-supremacists and hyper-nationalists among the right-wing anti-immigrants forces, they are not white. Many citizens are manipulated by a duplicitous president and other right-wing political voices that endlessly repeat these claims, as they scapegoat immigrants for allegedly taking jobs from American, for not speaking English, for not being Christians, for being free-riders on welfare, and for simply being “different.”

In this situation, some interests in the U.S. clearly benefit from the chaotic immigration/refugee policy of the Trump administration. Political and economic elites and various business interests benefit from Trump’s well publicized efforts to tighten immigration policies and practices that have yet to prove to be effective. Many sectors of the U.S. economy continue to employ undocumented workers. The elites also benefit as many millions of citizens are distracted by the demeaning and fear-generating portrayals of refugees, while the profits from setting up detention facilities and from a continuing flow of vulnerable immigrant workers continues. They benefit as well because the public attention on other issues (e.g., rising inequality, stagnating wages) are given less emphasis.

Are the anti-immigrant/refugee claims valid?

There is substantial evidence refuting the anti-immigrant claims. Karmack and Stenglein (cited above) review the evidence. They find little support for the claim that immigrants commit a lot of crime. For example, they present graphic evidence that from 2002 to 2016, only 1.7 percent of all immigrants who were deported were charged with aggravated felony,” that is, for such crimes as rape and murder. They also cite evidence from research by the Cato Institute, which found that between 1975 and 2015, terrorists killed 3,423 people in the U.S. Most of these acts were caused by visitors (e.g., from Saudi Arabia), not refugees from Mexico or Central America – and “that the risk of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist incident is 1 in 3.6 billion per year.”

Trump railed in July 2015 that “They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking our manufacturing jobs.” In an article for The Brookings Institute, Brennan Hoban notes that as much as anything else Trump focused on the jobs’ issue in his anti-immigration speeches. He claimed that immigrants take jobs away from American workers and are generally bad for the U.S. economy. Trump’s solution was to stop them from entering the U.S. and that this “will help improve the U.S. economy and job market” (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/08/24/do-immigrants-steal-jobs-from-american-workers). Hoban refers to research by Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown that finds “undocumented workers often work the unpleasant, back-breaking jobs that native-born workers are not willing to do.” He elaborates on what she uncovered.

“Felbab-Brown explains that many of the jobs occupied by undocumented workers in the United States are physically demanding jobs that Americans do not want, such as gutting fish or work on farm fields. She argues, ‘fixing immigration is not about mass deportations of people but about creating a legal visa system for jobs Americans do not want. And it is about providing better education opportunities, skills-development and retooling, and safety nets for American workers. And to date, Trump hasn’t offered serious policy proposals on many—if any—of these areas.’”

Research by Brookings Senior Fellow Dany Bahar identifies “a positive link between immigration and economic growth,” “explaining that while immigrants represent about 15 percent of the general U.S. workforce, they account for around a quarter of entrepreneurs and a quarter of investors in the U.S. and that over one third of new firms have at least one immigrant entrepreneur in its initial leadership team.” Bahar draws the following conclusions: “by cutting on immigration, the country will miss an opportunity for new inventions and ventures that could generate the jobs that the president is so committed to bring back. Thus, if the current administration wants to create jobs and ‘make America great again,’ it should consider enlisting more migrants.”

There are other economic benefits that stem from immigrants. When they have paid jobs, they often pay the wage tax that finances and keep viable Social Security and Medicare. Refugees and immigrants generally help to fund these government programs at a time when, as a headline from the Columbus Dispatch indicates, “American fertility drops to record low” (July 8, 2018, pp. A17, A20). That is, there are fewer Americans paying into these funds as time passes. Immigrants help to keep them financially afloat.

William Rivers Pitt provides further examples of the benefits of immigrant labor in a Truthout article title “Capitalism, Politics and Immigration” on June 23, 2018 (https://truthout.org/articles/capitalism-politics-and-immigration-a-tale-of-profitable-suffering). Among other evidence, Pitt refers to the views of “legendary celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.

“In a blog post titled “Under the Volcano”… Bourdain also eloquently summed up these uncomfortable truths about the United States and its chaotic, cruel immigration policy as it pertains to people coming from south of the border: ‘Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes towards immigration, we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our lawns, wash our dishes, look after our children.’

“‘As any chef will tell you,’ Bourdain continued, ‘our entire service economy — the restaurant business as we know it — in most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers. Some, of course, like to claim that Mexicans are ‘stealing American jobs.’ But in two decades as a chef and employer, I never had ONE American kid walk in my door and apply for a dishwashing job, a porter’s position — or even a job as prep cook.’

Pitt then refers to a Pew Research Center estimate “that some 11 percent of workers in restaurants and bars, some 1.3 million people, are undocumented. According to Pew, 19 percent of the nation’s dishwashers and 17 percent of its bussers are undocumented.” Indeed, in big cities, “labor activist Saru Jayaraman told The Washington Post, ‘you’re talking about a restaurant workforce that is maybe 75 percent foreign-born, and maybe 30 to 40 percent undocumented. The restaurant industry in major cities would absolutely collapse without immigrants.’

The same is true in the US agriculture industry, as documented by a comprehensive study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which determined: “Over the past several decades, the farming sector has grown increasingly dependent on a steady supply of workers who have entered the country illegally, despite the unlimited availability of visas for foreign agricultural guest workers.” Unfortunately, many of these vulnerable workers are exploited. Pitt points out: “If unauthorized workers were replaced by authorized workers at the higher average wage rate authorized workers currently earn, farms in the fruits, nuts, and vegetable sector would experience a total labor cost increase of 10 percent, and the increase for the field crops and grains sector would be 6 percent.

But, Pitt informs us, the “issue is not just with undocumented workers.” It also involves workers who have been granted temporary (H-1B and H-2B) visas to find seasonal employment. On this point, he writes:

“Big Ag, along with the landscaping, seafood and meat processing industries, rely heavily on workers who have been granted temporary (H-1B and H-2B) visas to find seasonal employment. Thanks to the chaotic approach to immigration reform taken by Trump and his Republican allies in Congress, compounded by a long history of failure across the political spectrum, finding enough legal temporary workers has become an entirely unreliable process, which only serves to increase dependency on undocumented labor.

Pitt draws the conclusion that U.S. immigration policy reflects the interests of capitalist employers in certain industries who want continuing access to cheap, vulnerable, easily-exploitable undocumented workers, or, it should be added, in high-tech industries where highly educated people from countries like India are in high demand, that is, where there is an insufficient supply of similarly highly trained workers. He surmises the following.

“There is far more to this ongoing mess than politically expedient racism. This is a problem created and exploited by the fundamental cruelty of capitalism. To keep profits high and prices low, major US industries like agriculture do not want undocumented workers to have a path to citizenship, as that would require paying them a living wage and even providing benefits like health insurance. That, you see, would be expensive. Simultaneously, they do not want to see the flow of undocumented workers into the country stopped, as such an act would deprive them of the huge pool of cheap labor they have come to depend on.

“Essentially, the industries making money on the backs of undocumented workers don’t want a solution to the problem, making an already complicated situation almost completely intractable. Adding to the mayhem are politicians who rail against immigrants while cashing campaign donation checks from the very entities that thrive on cheap labor.

“’Illegal immigrants are some of the most exploited workers in history,’ writes immigration activist Garrett S. Griffin. “’Capitalists can increase their profits by taking advantage of millions of people, again whether intentionally or as a natural, inadvertent consequence. Capitalism benefits from a steady flow of illegal immigrants. It is very interesting to note that in this case the ideology of anti-immigrant conservatives does not align with the interests of capitalist power.’

So, there cruel irony of Trump’s immigration policy. On the one hand, he advances his anti-immigrant policies to satisfy his populist base of support. On the other hand, immigrants, including the current waves of refugees, play an important role or potentially important role in helping some American capitalists in making profits they otherwise would not. It may be, however, that Trump has gone too far for even some of his most stout supporters by introducing an immigration policy that takes children from their parents.

Zero Tolerance

In early May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the administration’s new rule, including the requirement that refugees entering the US will have their children separated from the parent or parents until and unless they are granted asylum to resettle in the U.S.

“I have put in place a zero-tolerance policy for illegal entry on our Southwest border. If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple. If you smuggle illegal aliens across our border, then we will prosecute you. If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, as required by law” (https://www.democracynow.org/2018/2018/6/14/trauma_at_the_texas_mexico_border).

Over the months of May and June, up to 3,000 children were separated from their parents and held in custody, according to an announcement by the Health and Human Services (HHS) administrator on July 5, 2018. Here is what Democracy Now reported.

“The Trump administration said Thursday [July 5] that it was holding ‘under 3,000’ immigrant children separated by their parents by immigration officers after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The admission by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar increased the number of separated children known to be in U.S. custody by nearly 1,000 [the early estimates was about 2,000]” (https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/6/headlines/hhs_refuses_to_say_how_many_separated_children_remain_in_custody).

Deterrence?

The administration several justifications for the separation policy and for the detention of both children and parents in different facilities. Most prominently, it claims that the policy would deter refugees from coming to the U.S. Trump’s advisers believe that this policy sends a discouraging message to potential refugees, so that when emigrants hear that their children will be taken from them and they all, parent(s) and children, will be detained if they attempt to cross the border illegally, they won’t travel to the border. As it turns out, even those fleeing from persecution, war, or poverty and having an authentic claim to asylum in the U.S. are being affected by the policy of separation and detention.

Ana Campoy quotes Katharina Obser, senior policy advisor for migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, a non-profit advocacy group, who says that Trump’s policy represents something that is more cruel and inhumane than immigration policies under previous administrations (https://qz.com/1275997/trumps-family-separation-policy-the-legal-logic-behind-taking-children-from-their-mothers).

Moreover,evidence referred earlier indicates that the flow of refugees across the U.S.-Mexico border continues in even larger numbers than before Trump took office. They continue to come seeking refuge legally or illegally because they are fleeing from violent or severely impoverished conditions that often threaten their lives.

The separation-detention policy violates a prior legal consent decree or settlement decided in 1997, titled the Flores v. Meese case. Here is a summary of the case by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

“In 1997, a California federal court approved the Flores settlement agreement that sets national policy regarding the detention, release, and treatment of children in INS custody. Many of the agreement’s terms have been codified at 8 CFR §§236.3, 1236.3. The agreement defines a juvenile as a person under the age of 18 who is not emancipated by a state court or convicted and incarcerated due to a conviction for a criminal offense as an adult. It requires that juveniles be held in the least restrictive setting appropriate to their age and special needs to ensure their protection and wellbeing. It also requires that juveniles be released from custody without unnecessary delay to a parent, legal guardian, adult relative, individual specifically designated by the parent, licensed program, or, alternatively, an adult who seeks custody who DHS deems appropriate. The Flores agreement and INS policy also mandate that ‘juveniles will not be detained with an unrelated adult for more than 24 hours.’ The Flores agreement applies to all children apprehended by DHS” (http://immigrantchildren.org/Flores_Case.html).

Campoy gives another example, referring to the “asylum seekers’ right under the U.S. Constitution’s due process clause that prohibits the government from taking young children away from their parents.”

Under Trump’s policy of separation and detention, thousands of children have been detained for weeks and now months and often in the most gruesome facilities. In 2015, Campoy reports, “a federal court ruled in another case that deterrence is not a valid reason to detain immigrant families and children seeking asylum,” that is, doing it within the rules.

Trump and other administration officials offer other dubious justifications, contrary to prior law or evidence, for separation and detention

They claim that most of the refugees coming across the border a “poorly educated.” Campoy cites how Homeland Security secretary John Kelly has “suggested the reason to dissuade them from coming is that they are poorly educated and wouldn’t assimilate into the US.” On June 19, 2018, according to a report by David A. Graham in The Atlantic, Trump described unauthorized immigrants as an “infestation” and as “animals.” Graham elaborated on what these words mean.

“‘Infest’ is the essential, and new, word here. (Also popping up in the tweets is the older coded word ‘thugs.’) It drives full-throttle toward the dehumanization of immigrants, setting aside legality in favor of a division of a human us and less-human them. What are infestations? They are takeovers by vermin, rodents, insects. The word is almost exclusively used in this context. What does one do with an infestation? Why, one exterminates it, of course” (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2018/06/trump-immigrants-infest/563159).

And they administration invokes the claim that many or most immigrant parents have criminal records. Campoy quotes a segment of an interview that Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen did on NPR. Nielsen contends, ignoring the Flores settlement, that many of the separated children are taken from parents who had criminal records.

There is at least one other justification for the separation and detention policy, that is, the administration’s assumption that, according to Keven Applyby, a senior director at the Center for Migration Studies, that “80 percent of the people crossing the border illegally would stop appearing at their court hearings and remain in the country.” Applyby says: “Despite these claims, the Center for Immigration Studies has found that over the past 20 years 63 percent of immigrants did show up for their immigration hearings” (https://www.juancole.com/2018/06/executive-order-reversing-separation.html).

There is another aspect to this story of refugees that deserves a comment. That is, border security officials have made it hard for those who fit the definition of a person is fleeing from persecution, war, violence, and unsustainable poverty to be given asylum and resettled in the country. This comes out in an interview on Democracy Now with Linda Rivas on July 5, 2018 (https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/5/from_separating_families_to_jailing_asylum).

Rivas is the executive director and lead attorney of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, an organization working with asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border. She gives an example of how US border authorities are forcing some or many refugees who have a legal right to claim asylum in the U.S. to enter the country illegally. The example comes from the port of entry at El Paso.

“…we have one young mother that we met at the [El Paso] detention center just last week. She is a great example of how this administration criminalizes migration at all levels, at all stages. She comes in as a single mother with her 3-year-old child, and she’s attempting to cross at a port of entry, seeking asylum in an official wa. And she is turned away, not once, not twice, but numerous times over the course of three days. She’s along with a baby who is sick and fussing. And she finally get to the point where she is sick and tired of being turned away. And she does – in her own desperation, goes around the actual port of entry. And the minute she does that, she is [arrested] and prosecuted for illegal entry. She is separated from the 3-year-old little girl, and she [the mother] is detained.”

In short, the justifications for separation and detention bellowing from Trump and his administration not only violate the law but lead to cruel and inhuman practices by the border security forces. The implication is that Trump’s policies have led to rampant law-breaking.

Detention, separate or together, violates international law

But there is more to the legal case against Trump and his administration. Marjorie Cohn, professor emeritus at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and prolific author, makes the case that the Trump administration’s separation and detention immigration policies violate international laws as well as domestic law (https://truthout.org/articles/indefinite-detention-of-migrants-violates-international-law).

Cohn refers to “the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Refugee Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” She then discusses how Trump policies conflict with these international agreements. I’ll focus here on her analysis of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” but, be advised, the Trump policies also violate the other two conventions as well. But there is one point related to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that is worth identifying. Cohn writes on this:

“A primary object and purpose of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is to protect the best interests of the child. Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, stated that, ‘Detention is never in the best interests of the child and always constitutes a child rights’ violation.”

Now to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” The U.S. government is obligated to abide by this agreement because the U.S. has ratified it, “making its provisions part of US law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which says treaties ‘shall be the supreme law of the land.” Compliance to the is given to the U.N. Human Rights Committee. And the committee “has stated that detentions are arbitrary if they do not accord with due process and are manifestly disproportional, unjust or unpredictable.” Cohn contends that the separation and detention policy of the Trump administration violates this treaty for several reasons.

“Keeping families locked up for months with no good reason is unjust and inappropriate. It denies them due process and a timely resolution of their legal claims. And their time of release is unpredictable.”

“Moreover, the Human Rights Committee has said that even if detention is initially legal, it could become ‘arbitrary’ if unduly prolonged or not subject to periodic review.”

“People deprived of their liberty are entitled to a speedy trial. When they are arbitrarily detained, they have a right to compensation under the covenant. The covenant’s provisions are not limited to citizens, but apply in cases of immigration control as well. Parties to the covenant may refuse to comply with them only ‘in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation.”

Cohn adds: “Even brief detentions can result in permanent physical and mental harm to children.” She continues: “The American Academy of Pediatrics wrote a 2015 letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security, which stated, ‘The act of detention or incarceration itself is associated with poorer health outcomes, higher rates of psychological stress, suicidality, making the situation for already vulnerable women and children even worse.” What disgrace Trump brings to the U.S.

Trump reverses the separation part of his shameful policy

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw issued a nationwide injunction on June 26, 2018, blocking officials from separating any more families, “unless a parent ‘affirmatively, knowingly, and voluntarily declines to be reunited with the child…or there is a determination that the parent is unfit or presents a danger to the child.” Jessica Corbitt paraphrases and quotes part of Sabraw’s rationale for her ruling. Corbett writes: “The Trump administration’s family separation policy was implemented without any standards for adequately tracking detained children taken away from their parents, so as Sabraw noted, the ‘startling’ and unfortunate reality is that under the present system migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property” ( https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/27/ripping-trump-treating-children-worse-than-siezed-property-judge-orders-reunification.).

Judge Sabraw mandated in her ruling that “the government establish phone contact between separated children and their parents within 10 days.” Further, the judge ordered that the children separated from their parents under the Trump “zero tolerance” policy must be reunited with their families within two weeks if the children are under age 5 and with 30 days for the other children [under 18].

Trump’s policy is further challenged

The law-neglected immigration policy continues and manifests newly recognized, or acknowledged, problems

After this ruling, and after weeks of protests and international outcry against the separation policy, Trump signed an executive order on June 27ending family separations. However, there are two major problems with the new policy. One, it allows for indefinite detention of the reunited families. Two, the administration does not have adequate records on where many of the parents and children who were separated are presently located. Thus, the administration is having great difficulty in reuniting the children with their families.

On the first point, as reported by Jessica Corbitt (already cited), the attorney generals in 17 states and the District of Columbia “filed suit with the U.S. District Court in Seattle over President Trump’s recent executive order that called for an end to the policy, but which critics say trade ‘one form of child abuse for another.” That is, under the executive order, both children and parents remain now together in indefinite detention, violating both domestic and international laws. For example, it violates the Flores settlement, which “prohibits immigration authorities from keeping children in detention for over 20 days.” Under Obama’s administration, both children and parents were released, “trusting they would appear would appear at the court hearing on their immigration cases.”

A second lawsuit has been brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights First and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, in five jurisdictions where asylum seekers were facing 90-plus percent detention rates. The plaintiffs maintained that the government cannot arbitrarily detain people seeking asylum. According to Eunice Lee, interviewed on Democracy Now on July 5, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled that the law “requires the government to do what it should have been doing all along, which is provide a meaningful opportunity for individuals who are asylum seekers in immigration detention to be released after they pass the credible fear interview” (https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/5/asylum_seekers_win_in_court_as).

On the second point, Trump and his administration has been wantonly remiss in their shoddy record-keeping when it came to keeping track of where children and their parents were located while the separation policy was in effect and is now having difficulty in effectuating reunification. Some parents have been deported and their whereabouts are unknown. The administration failed to meet Judge Sabraw’s order that 102 children under 5 who had been separated from their parents must be reunited with them by July 10, 2018. The government officials expected to reunite only 34 by the end of the day. Revealing his ignorance of immigration law, Trump blamed the problem of separated children on the migrants who “don’t come to our country legally.” However, as Jake Johnson reports, Judge Sabraw remains focused on the real issue that the government has an obligation to reunite the children with their parents and apparently expects to take some legal action against the government (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/10/judge-asks-aclu-possible-punishment-ideas-after-trump-misses-deadline-reunite).

It’s not clear what action that court may take that will compel the Trump administration to reunite the children and parents, given the abysmal lack of foresight and planning in the whole separation calamity. Nonetheless, the judge is not relenting, according to Johnson’s report.

“Federal judge Dana Sabraw—who issued the ruling that set the Tuesday deadline—asked the ACLU to “submit a proposal for possible punishment” against the Trump administration for failing to meet the target date.
“Rebuffing White House requests, Sabraw also declined to extend the deadlines for reunification, declaring that they are “firm deadlines” not “aspirational goals.”

Concluding thoughts

There is no final resolution to the refugee crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border in sight. As Trump and his administration respond to outrage and legal suits, the separation and detention policy has now morphed into an indefinite family detention policy, which is being challenged in the courts. In the meantime, the current policy emphasizes indefinite detention for asylum seekers. This process may take weeks or months, as applications are being examined helter-skelter by an understaffed, poorly trained border security service. The havoc and misery of asylum seekers who are legally entitled to resettlement in the U.S. are often left in buildings or camps, many owned and managed by for-profit enterprises,that are often as much like prisons or refugee camps as anything else. For example, see the article by Andrea Pitzer, “Concentration Camps in the U.S. Tent Cities for Detaining Kids Without Trial” (https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/5/concentration_camps_in_the_us_andrea).

Otherwise, refugees generally are left with bad options. They may either return to the dangerous places from which they fled, live in makeshift camps or dwellings on the Mexican-side of the border, or join those seeking to enter without authorization. One thing is clear. Trump will do everything he can to reduce the number of refugees permitted to enter the country. He doesn’t give a whit about the refugees, their basic humanity, the children, the law. None of these matter as long as he thinks that his policy is not hurting him politically.

With Republicans in control of the White House and the executive branch, both houses of the U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court, more than of half of all state governments, with continuing support from Trump’s core supporters seemingly as strong as ever, and with right-wing media and right-wing think tanks churning out news and studies that support the thrust of his anti-refugee rhetoric, it will take extraordinary effort by Democrats, groups like the ACLU, activists, and Trump’s opponents generally to change in fundamental ways Trump’s policy on refugees or his general immigration policies. But you can bet on one thing. As long as we have the freedom of dissent, of association, of some freedom of the press, of constitutional protection of such rights, as long as we can access verifiable evidence and information from our education, media, and literature, and as long as we have the ability to empathize with insight and a generosity of spirt with those in less fortunate circumstances than our own, then there are still reasons to hold onto some hope about meaningful changes in such policies as I’ve discussed in this post. But the obstacles are great – and its a problem that is likely to grow here and around the world.

What kind of change?
Bob Sheak
June 21, 2018

We have a capitalist system that is dominated by mega-corporations. And they make the economic rules that generally prevail, that is, other businesses must go along or risk failure. The most important rule is that profits take precedence over other considerations. In the process of pursing profits, corporate executives strive to keep the price of their corporate stocks on Wall Street exchanges as high as they can, viewing shareholders as their principal constituency or stakeholder and benefiting personally as well. Of course, the corporate executives benefit from rising stock prices in their corporations as a major part of their compensation is in “stock bonuses.” (Check out Marjorie Kelly’s Owning Our Future for an excellent critique of the shareholder primacy position and arguments in favor of a reconstitution of corporate boards that would include all stakeholders, not just top executives and major shareholders. This would have an affect, for example, of helping to make the distribution of salaries/wages less unequal, protecting jobs, improving the quality of services and products, reducing outsourcing, giving more attention to the reducing the harmful environmental effects of the corporation)

The profit-first obsession is a central aspect of capitalism and that has been so throughout U.S. history, especially with the onset of industrialization, but with one important exception. During the New Deal era, from the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 until the 1970s, there were relatively high and progressive tax rates at the federal level that reduced profits somewhat. Though law firms and lobbyists found ways to reduce the amount of tax corporations paid. Nonetheless, the overall distribution of income became more equal than either before and after this period because of New Deal policies, WWII, the rapid growth of the post-war economy, and the expansion of the public sector.

The government played a significant role. Banks were regulated. The inter-state highway system was built, which was – and still is – the largest infrastructure project in U.S. history. Manufacturing jobs were plentiful, as civilian production replaced military production. Farmers received government support payments. Government financed major educational, housing, and income benefits for millions of veterans. This period also saw the introduction of government housing programs. Early in this period, the National Housing Act of 1934 was passed to make housing and mortgages more affordable, establishing the Federal Housing Administration and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (Thomas M. Shapiro, Toxic Inequality, p. 158). Historian Anthony J. Badger provides an extensive analysis of the early months of the Roosevelt administration in his book, FDR: The First Hundred Days. He writes:

“By June 16 [1933], after one hundred days of frenzied activity, sixteen pieces of major legislation gave the federal government the power to decide which banks should or should not reopen, to regulate the Stock Exchange, to determine the gold value of the dollar, to prescribe minimum wages and prices, to pay farmers not to produce, to pay money to the unemployed, to plan and regenerate a whole river basin across six states, to spend billions of dollars on public works, and to underwrite credit for bankers, homeowners, and farmers” (p. xiii).

The Social Security Act of 1935 introduced a pension system for the elderly and public assistance for female-headed families. The National Labor Relations Act of the same year strengthened and encouraged the growth of unions. Unemployment insurance was included. In 1938, labor standards on minimum wage and maximum hours became law. Medicare and Medicaid came into being under the Johnson administration. Under Nixon, payments for social security participants were increased and then indexed. This system had already been expanded in 1938 to include the children and wives of deceased fathers (i.e., survivors’ benefits), and in 1953 the disabled.

The programs were far from perfect. African Americans were typically kept from obtaining anything like equal benefits. For example, Shapiro writes: “the implementation of the National Housing Act [in 1934] legitimated and hardened the residential segregation, inner-city concentrated poverty, and spatial isolation that characterized America’s housing patterns.” He writes further that administrators classified “integrated neighborhoods as unstable.”

Later, in 1970, the first environmental laws were passed into law. The officially-estimated poverty rate fell from in the 60 percent range in 1939 to about 12 percent in 1969.

The growth of the economy, with a relatively shared distribution of the opportunities and benefits, was made possible, in the final analysis, by the unique conditions in which the U.S. found itself at the end of WWII. The U.S. war economy had thrived, managed by government agencies, while countries in Europe were still suffering from the ravages of the war. So, there were abundant foreign markets for U.S. products. Consumption was up. The combination of full employment and rationing during the war years created enormous pent-up consumer demand that was unleashed after a short hiatus following the war. Unions were strong. Military spending grew during the Korean War and continued afterward as the Cold War unfolded.

There were also international efforts to extend new deal principles to all nations. On July 22, 1944, according to Robert Kuttner, “representatives of forty-four nations met at the Mount Washington resort in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to plan the postwar monetary and financial structure.” He continues: “The idea was to create a global currency system that would insulate domestic full-employment economies from the deflationary pressures of private finance – a global counterpart to the economic and financial assumptions of the New Deal” (Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism, p. 44). As it turned out, the post-war economic recovery “relied on the anomaly of American economic supremacy,” which used its economic surplus to finance the initial recovery of Europe through the Marshall Plan and, to a lesser extent, other countries through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (p. 47). Kuttner summarizes:

“Between 1948 and 1952, the Marshall Plan would spend some $13 billion, about 5 percent of America’s GDP. In Europe, the IMF never played more than a token version of its proposed role, and with the Marshall Plan delivering grants in aid that dwarfed the World Bank’s resources, the World Bank soon shifted its activities from European reconstruction to third world development” (p. 52).

There was also a military aspect to U.S. international relations, as “leader” of the “free world.”

“When Marshall Plan aid ended in 1952, rising military spending took over, to play both a capital-supply and a Keynesian role. American military aid to NATO countries increased from $211 million in 1949 to $4.2 billion in 1953 – more than the annual level of Marshall Plan aid at its peak” (p. 58).

Fast Forward

During the 1970s, the New Deal system began to be challenged from increasing economic competition from Europe and Japan, the first signs of deindustrialization, a rise in financial speculation as exchange rates and capital controls weakened. The pressure to reverse the New Deal also stemmed in the 1970s from inflation pushed by rising fuel and food prices, tight money policies by the Federal Reserve, and the political mobilization of the corporate community, accompanied by an increasingly effective multi-prong strategy to reduce labor costs and beat back unions. The globalized economy, made possible by advances in sea and air transportation and worldwide electronic/digital communication, increased the leverage and profitable opportunities for corporations, while leaving the domestic workforce at a growing disadvantage. Not the least of it, corporations and the rich translated their enormous economic power into political power in ways to shape legislation to satisfy their interests.

By the turn of the century and especially after the elections of Bush and then, even worse, the election of Trump and with Republican-controlled Senate and House, there is the question of whether democracy can survive. Some even raise the specter of fascism. (See Alexander Reid Ross’s book, Against the Fascist Creep.) The federal government is dominated by right-wing forces and pervasive corporate influence. There is an unstable President in the White House. There are ominous trends involving war, particularly the potentiality of nuclear war, the steady increase in the disruptive and catastrophic effects of climate change, and the depletion of vital natural resources. Michael T. Klare cogently analyzes this latter issue in his book, The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources. Here’s some of what he writes.

“…the major industrial powers have embarked on an extended, calculated drive to gain control over the world’s remaining preserves of vital natural resources. Governments and giant corporations – or the two acting in conjunction – have adopted ambitious plans to explore uncharted areas, pursue legal claims to disputed territories, acquire exploration and drilling rights in promising resource zones, introduce new technologies for extractive operations in extreme and hazardous environments, and develop military forces that can operate in these regions.”

For example:

“All five of the Arctic powers have devised detailed blueprints for the exploration and demarcation of their northern territories and the eventual exploitation of any hydrocarbon and mineral resources detected there.”

“National and corporate leaders are painfully aware that existing reserves of many vital resources are disappearing and that urgent action is needed to ensure that their country or their company will have sufficient supplies to survive. They are determined, therefore, to put in place whatever measures are needed in the coming decades to replace existing reservoirs with new sources of supply” (pp. 14-15)

There are other reasons to be concerned. Nations ravaged by war and poverty create the conditions for the un-stymied growth of violent and extremist movements. Amidst it all, healthy soil, one of the prerequisites for human life, is being depleted by a monocultural, industrialized agriculture. Deforestation continues unabated. Fresh water sources are being drained and/or contaminated. The oceans suffer acidification and become enormous waste dumps for plastics and other debris. Jeff Goodell provides an in-depth analysis of how, because of unabated global warming, the seas are rising and coastal cities are at risk of being inundated in the not-distant future. See his book The Water Will Come. Here are some of his concluding words.

“The sheer economic chaos that looms for some coastal regions is hard to grasp, much less anticipate and prepare for. Nor do these initiatives begin to grapple with the political and psychological trauma of losing entire cities and coastlines, as well as the hopes and dreams that adhere to those cities and coastlines” (p. 295).

At the same time, there are economic and political developments that have serious and sometimes disastrous impacts on a growing majority of Americans. The U.S. population is experiencing soaring inequality and stagnating wages amidst an expanding insecure, lower-wage, no-benefit job situation, an assault on all programs that provide benefits to most Americans, the shrinking of the middle class, and the continuation of poverty for 50 million or so Americans, along with tens of millions without health insurance or access to affordable housing.

Politically, the Republican Party, with support of substantial wings of the corporate community and most of the rich, have been able to create an increasingly biased electoral system in their favor through vast campaign contributions, the election of right-wing candidates to political office at all levels of government, massive lobbying, favored appointments to decision-making positions in government, pervasive political ads smearing opponents, the creation of faux grassroots organizations, gerrymandering, and voter suppression. (See Zachary Roth’s book, The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on Democracy.)

And their efforts have been augmented by a right-wing, reactionary populism, reflecting various mixes of xenophobic, anti-immigrant, racist, white supremacist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-public assistance, low-tax beliefs, and an unquestioning patriotism. There is also a violence-prone, armed, ultra-nationalist, white-supremacist segment of this right-wing. Kathleen Belew analyzes it in her book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.

At the same time, goaded on by Fox News and other right-ring media, the rank-and-file right-wingers often dismiss the evidence from scientists and experts, claiming that their own views are as good as any others. This is troublesome because it feeds into and hardens the present ideological and political divisions in the society and makes compromise rare. Tom Nichols takes up this issue of evidence in his book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters and writes: “…when democracy is understood as an unending demand for unearned respect for unfounded opinions, anything and everything becomes possible, including the end of democracy and republican government itself” (p. 238).

Is there an alternative?

Robert Kuttner thinks there is. One of his basic assumptions in his 310-page book, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?, is that the capitalist system, domestically and internationally, can be reformed and made more just and equal and environmental sustainable, while also rebuilding and strengthening democratic institutions – expanding voter access and participation in the political system, strengthening unions and opportunities for workers’ influence in workplaces, diminishing the impact of corporations and the rich on government, aiming for a “mixed economy,” and creating or re-fashioning the global economy and international relations in ways that reduce conflict and war, corruption, and the enormous inequalities that exist.

But, before any of this can happen, Kuttner argues, Democrats must take the U.S. House and Senate in 2018 and the White House in 2020 and to do so based on a “pocketbook-populist program” that produces real benefits for broad constituencies, contains the power of elites (especially financial ones), revives the power of the common people, rebuilds democracy, expands the realm of decommodified forms of social income that are not dependent on market wages, and teachs durable lessons about the failures of laissez faire (p. 296). That’s not all. There is a second condition that must be satisfied, that is, “the Republican Party needs to fragment along several axes – into Tea Party/Trump versus establishment factions on domestic policy; Putin-apologist and traditional national security factions on foreign policy; and white-nationalists America First versus Wall Street globalist factions on economics” (p. 292).

However, it will take more than the election of a Democratic majority and a Democratic president. To save democracy and to ensure that a progressive, leftist agenda is implemented, it will take well-organized social movements addressing on a sustained basis a host of important issues – and continuously mobilizing and educating citizens. Naomi Klein considers the possibilities in her book, NO Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. She offers reasons to be optimistic.

“…progressive transformational change is popular- more than many of us would have dared imagine as recently as just one or two years ago.

“…the spell of neoliberalism has been broken, crushed under the weight of lived experience and a mountain of evidence. What for decades was unsayable is now being said out loud by candidates who win millions of votes: free college tuition, double the minimum wage, 100 percent renewable energy as quickly as technology allows, demilitarized the police, prisons are not place for young people, refugees are welcome here, war makes us all less safe. With so much encouragement, who knows what’s next?” (p. 263).

It appears that unless there are strong pressures from social movements of all kinds to bring pressure on elected officials, coupled with Democrats who have the courage and integrity to stand up for truly progressive and radical policy initiatives, the tide of right-wing policies will not be reversed. Bear in mind that challenges of those holding political office at the national level. Democrats are facing a political situation that consumes them, as they deal with the torrent of Trump’s lies, daily tweets, reactionary policy initiatives, threats of nuclear war, the evisceration of the State Department, a cornucopian view of the environment, and all the while Trump’s cabinet acts to gut as many government regulations as they can and the Republican Party in the U.S. Congress dances to the leader’s whims and make sure that the Democrats achieve very little of their agenda. (See the Democrat’s most recent platform at http://www.democrats.org/party-platform.)

There is so much to contest: the cuts in social/welfare programs, the attacks on Obamacare without an alternative or concern for the tens of millions who don’t even have health insurance, the brutal anti-immigrant initiatives, the further weakening of collective bargaining, the tax policies favoring the rich, the growing concentrated power of corporations in all sectors of the economy in the absence of anti-trust enforcement, the disregarding of how the Wall Street banks have grown even bigger and more reckless, the threatened end of net neutrality, the efforts to privatize the public schools and everything about government that is potentially profitable, the counter-productive tariffs and looming trade wars, and so on.

An agenda to think about

Within the political chaos and reactionary policies that emanate from Washington – and many state houses across the nation – Kuttner offers some provocative ideas, a framework of analysis and policy goals, on policies that might guide those who resist Trump, the Republican Party, their corporate and rich allies, and their know-nothing (or is it “everything”) core rank-and-file supporters. The value of his proposals is that they may help shore up the commitments and clarify the purposes of those who are working to restore democracy and move the society toward a sustainable economy, more equality, social justice, and a more diplomatically-focused foreign policy.

Kuttner offers six proposals that, he hopes, will help Democrats and those on the political left to identify useful pathways to a better future. They serve to widen and deepen political dialogue and even open possibilities beyond those Kuttner proposes.

#1 – Finance as a Public Good – Kuttner wants banks to be “turned back into something like public utilities, under either explicit public ownership or drastic regulation.”

There are precedents.

“…New Deal public and non-profit institutions such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the Federal Home Loan Bank System literally recapitalized entire sectors of the economy that had been paralyzed by private financial collapse. Government electrified rural America with public power. North Dakota has had a state-owned development bank for a century. DARPA has functioned as an investment bank for new technologies need for the national defense, many with commercial and public-good spillovers, such as the Internet. We need to reclaim this tradition” (p. 298).

The idea of public banks is explored in-depth by Ellen Brown in her book, The Public Bank Solution: From Austerity to Prosperity. Public banks would get their revenues from local sources as deposits, offering modest interest rates, and invest the money locally. It is not the whole solution to the financial problems that presently exist, but it would be a significant step in diminishing the interest payments on what we buy, reducing the speculative and reckless practices of the mega-banks (there would be alternatives to dealing with them), and curtailing the tens of trillions of dollars in offshore tax havens, “between one-third and one-half of the global economy – and a majority of these dollars emanate from Wall Street” (p. 10).

Brown also discusses several other public-bank options, including having bank functions in an expanded U.S. postal system and the creation of a “national development bank,” which would “have a mandate to provide finance to the private sector to promote development, insuring investment in areas in which the market would not otherwise invest sufficiently.” She points out that there are successful development banks in Brazil, China, Japan, India, and Germany from which the U.S. can learn. She also discusses how the U.S. Federal Reserve system could be freed from control by the large private bankers and mandated to encourage investment in the “real” economy and in large projects that are in the public interests (e.g., infrastructure).

#2 – Green Infrastructure on a Serious Scale – The evidence that the U.S. infrastructure is in bad shape and needs major investments to repair it is not controversial. Donald Trump recognizes the problem and has proposed a private-sector approach that would end up with major segments of the highways, ports, and bridges, passing the cost onto those who use the infrastructure in user fees, tolls, and rents. This is not what Kuttner has in mind. The American Society of Civil Engineering provides a more authoritative view of the infrastructure problem and assumes that the government will budget the money to pay for it. The ASCE puts the bill “for deferred maintenance in basic infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, public buildings, and the like at $4.6 trillion, and the gap in available funding at over $2 trillion.” Kuttner adds: “That doesn’t even count the need to move to ‘smart grid’ electric power systems, to devise new strategies of resilience to defend against coastal flooding, and transition to a post-fossil fuel economy” (p. 298). However, the investment would yield benefits to the public, including modernizing the economy’s infrastructure, providing millions of good domestic jobs, accelerating the transition to an economy based on renewable energy, and generating new technologies. It could be financed by bond via a federal capital budget and progressive taxes (p. 298).

#3 – Positive Nationalism and Different Global Rules – The money spent on “rebuilding and transitioning to a post-carbon economy would require complementary changes in trade rules.” Kuttner proposes that one way to protect American workers from unfair trade is “to impose social tariffs against the products of exploitative production.” The massive offshoring of U.S. manufacturing to Mexico, China, and other countries, for example, has in significant ways been related to the desire of corporations to avoid relatively high-wages, unions, and other employee protections, and environmental regulations, while getting tax abatements from their foreign hosts. From this perspective, the consequences in the U.S. have been negative on balance, as good jobs and taxes are lost, both of which have destabilizing repercussions for the displaced workers, their families, and communities. Thus, the answer Kuttner offers is not the open-ended kind of tariffs currently being instituted by the Trump administration, but selective tariffs designed specifically to protect American jobs from highly exploited labor and governments that don’t have strong environmental regulations. The social tariffs recommended by Kuttner would not apply to countries where such issues labor and environmental issues don’t apply.

At the same time, Kuttner does not consider the conditions of workers in low-wage, developing countries as relevant for his consideration and how their prospects, however bad, would be made worse by his proposed social tariffs than they already are. And he does not consider the fact that the lower prices charged for the imported products from these countries benefit U.S. consumers and some producers would increase or not be available for domestic consumption.

The point is that there are limits to Kuttner’s proposal on trade. John Smith delves into the complexity of the international trading system in his book, Imperialism in The Twentieth-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis. Unlike Kuttner, Smith argues that it cannot be reformed within the current global, capitalist system. He writes on this point as follows.

“In just three decades, capitalist production and its inherent contradictions have been utterly transformed by the vast global shift of production to low-wage countries, with the result that profits, prosperity, and social peace in imperialist countries have become qualitatively more dependent upon the proceeds of super-exploitation of living labor in countries like Vietnam, Mexico, Bangladesh, and China…. It is a crises of imperialism” (p. 314).

#4 – Restore Regulation of Market Abuses – There has been a major and effective Republican effort to advance wholesale deregulation of the executive branch, thereby enhancing the already extraordinary power of the rich and powerful and allowing the private sector to invest and carry out business operations increasingly without regard to or any significant penalty for any harmful consequences to the public, the commons, the environment, or the economy. Kuttner gives the example of how anti-trust regulation was all but eliminated under Reagan. The effects have been to more “concentration, price gouging, anticompetitive predation, deteriorated consumer service, and downward pressure on wages.” He points to the negative effects in the airline industry, where “worsening conditions for passengers are the logical consequences of increased concentration and the lack of meaningful competition wrought by deregulation.” Concentrated, oligopolistic control in the electronic industry has allowed Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apply to fend off competitors and make astronomical profits, while “abusing intellectual property protections, buying out potential rivals, and demanding that vendors in their supply chains sell only to them and not to their competitors.” The solution? Enforce anti-trust laws and other regulations and break up the mega-corporations. Another example. Rather than have banks and other private firms make excessive charges on student loans, have the government control the administration of the loans with the goal of making them less burdensome or eliminating them altogether in some cases. Allowing those with student loans to declare bankruptcy to make their financial situation manageable should also be considered.

#5 – The Conundrum of Income, Work, and Wealth – Here Kuttner addresses the challenge of the growing robotization/automation of industries and how to assist workers who are displaced in the process. This requires large scale public intervention. What could government do to avoid a situation in which “millions of people [are] underemployed, badly compensated, or idle” (p. 299). There is and will be “plenty of work to be done caring for the young, the old, and the sick,” and government can help to ensure that their services are provided in the public sector by workers who received decent wages, job security, and benefits, or in the private sector with the same. The standard of a full-time job can be reduced to 30 hours and thereby increase the number of such jobs. And, for all citizens, programs can be instituted that supplement earned income.

Kuttner gives the example of the Alaska Permanent Fund that is funded by the oil corporations. The result: “Every Alaskan gets a check…. In 2015 the check was $1,884 for every resident of the state” (p. 302). Peter Barnes proposes that all corporations that extract minerals or profit from other parts of the commons should pay into a fund that provides “dividends” to the citizens of that state. Barnes puts it this way: “The idea is that all citizens have a right to income from wealth we inherit [from nature] or create together.” It is not a new idea. Thomas Paine proposed the basic idea back in the eighteenth century. His proposal was to create “a National Fund to pay every man and woman fifteen pounds at age twenty-one and ten pounds a year after age fifty-five. (These sums are roughly equal to $17,500 and $11,667, respectively, today.)” According to Paine’s plan, as explained by Barnes, “Revenues for the fund would come from ‘ground rent’ paid by landowners, the privatizers of natural wealth.” (See Barnes book, With Liberty and Dividends For All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough).

Something like this is already being considered or happening in a few places. Here are some of Kuttner’s examples. “In Vermont, legislators are considering a bill to create a state Common Assets Trust that would earn income from pollution permits, groundwater extraction, and other fees.” It’s estimated by a research team at the University of Vermont “that the trust could pay dividends to every state resident of about $2,000 a year.” Then, in North Carolina, “a band of Cherokees elected to pay half the profits of a tribally owned casino to its members in equal dividends, which last year totaled $8,000 per person.” In Sherman County, Oregon, “residents are reaping a windfall from the wind itself.” Barnes continues: “Using taxes and fees on several large wind farms, the county pays a yearly dividend of $590 per household.” (p. 128). Dividends could by paid by to all citizens by Google and Facebook for their use of the “public infrastructure – the Internet,” or by big fossil fuel companies for the privilege to extract oil and gas, or by pharmaceutical corporations for the public investment in the basic research for many of the drugs they sell.

There are also experts and authors who are exploring the option of a guaranteed basic income. Professor Steven Pearlstein considers this option in a Washington Post article, in which he reviews the book by Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght entitled A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinion/how-to-ensure-everyone-a-guaranteed-basic-income/2017/03/24/69883d14-05a1-11e-69fa-ed7277644a0b_story.html).

Pearlstein says that over the last three decades “robots and intelligent software are quickly becoming so sophisticated and so ubiquitous that they are about to take over the work done by millions” of workers. The question then is how the society will deal with a world “where there aren’t enough good-paying jobs to go around?” A growing number of experts both on the libertarian right (e.g., Charles Murray) and on the left (Robert Reich) have addressed this question. Switzerland put the issue to its citizens in a nationwide referendum and three quarters of the voters turned it down. But it was a national issue. A first step perhaps. There are also “well-funded, large-scale, long-term experiments in Finland and Kenya to examine “whether providing a guaranteed income is an effective way to relieve poverty and cushion the effects of economic dislocation without encouraging idleness and sloth.”

The simplest form of a guaranteed income is one in which “the government sends every citizen an annual check in an amount sufficient to keep the wolf from the door when misfortune strikes but not large enough to satisfy anyone’s idea of a good life.” The program would be paid for with taxes that would have the effect of “clawing some or all of the money back from most households while hitting up the wealth for even more.” It would allow some people the freedom “not to work for a time in order to take care of family members, purse a passion, acquire education or contribute to a worthwhile community project. The guaranteed income would also give people the freedom to start a new business with an uncertain future, or “the freedom to say yes to a job that pays little but yields job and satisfaction.” The proposal is strongest when the guaranteed income is framed as an economic dividend to which all citizens are entitled, along the lines of Peter Barnes idea of basic income.

Like Kuttner’s other proposal it would take a major political upheaval favoring progressive Democrats to make the idea of a basic income or guaranteed income politically viable. Even then, it’s an idea that may not have priority, given its radical implications and given the plethora of other pressing issues. One thing is clear though, that is, that there is a growing shortage of good jobs and, as robots and artificial intelligence systems take over more jobs, either alternative sources of income are made available or poverty and misery will grow. What are some of the alternatives? An income policy that supplements the incomes of all citizens. A labor policy that reduces the hours of the workday or workweek with the goal of sharing employment. There are other proposals that are being discussed such as doubling the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to join unions, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, and direct government job creation.

#6 – Reclaim the Public Realm – Kuttner opines that “good public services that are superior to private ones provides another teachable moment.” Here are two of his examples.

First, he refers to the problems with our current health care system. Indeed, there is a lot to say on that subject, especially the rising costs of health care and prescribed drugs and the tens of millions of people who are under-insured and without insurance. Kuttner likes the policy option of “Medicare for All.” He believes that it can be reached in stages, if the right political conditions exist. Here’s what he writes.

“It might be accomplished state by state. Alternatively, my colleague Paul Starr has suggested beginning with a subsidized buy-in option for people over fifty, called Midlife Medicare. We could next give Medicare cards to all children under twenty-one, who are cheap to insure, and finally bridge over to include young adults and extend Medicare to the entire population. The savings in the wild inefficiencies and middleman costs of the current health care system would more than cover the incremental costs of this transition” (p. 303).

We can learn from other “developed” countries, all of which provide some form of universal health coverage as a basic right of citizenship. Kuttner’s approach, if ever successful, would get us to universal health coverage eventually. As with most other of the policy recommendations advanced by Kuttner, there are vibrant movements advancing this cause nationally and in Ohio. Check out, for example, the website of the Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources) and the website of Ohio’s Single-Payer Action Network (http://spanohio.org) for in-depth information and initiatives.

Second, Kuttner offers a way to deal with the college debt problem, which has reached $1.3 trillion. He proposes that public universities and community college should be tuition-free, that is, completely subsidized. He also proposes that living expenses for moderate-income students should be partly subsidized. In addition, student debt for those who are out of college should be phased out. He likes what Bernie Sanders advanced during his presidential campaign.

“The Sanders’ campaign calculated that it would cost $75 billion a year to end the system of student deb, and that the program could be underwritten by a tax on speculative financial transfers” (p. 304).

Concluding Thoughts

It can be argued that we have done it before, that is the New Deal, therefore we can do it again. But the conditions today are very different from what they were then. For example, Republicans now control the federal government and over 30 state governments. There is a highly-organized network of billionaires lead by the Koch Brothers. Corporations, financial and nonfinancial, are bigger, whatever the measure, and more politically powerful than ever. The Democratic Party is internally divided between accommodationists, who favor modest reforms that don’t much rattle their corporate and rich funders, and those who want to keep the spirit of the Sanders’ “revolution” alive. (Take a look at Bernie Sanders’ book, Our Revlution: A Future to Believe In.)

There is no doubt that there are plenty of people on the left who are engaged in movements for change on a wide range of issues. And there are promising and committed people running for congressional seats, many of them women. The question is whether progressives in the Democratic Party and movement activists will be able to radically change the political landscape over the next two elections? If, ideally, they do win, there is another question. Will they champion and be able to enact policies that will reverse what the right-wing juggernaut is doing to us? One thing is clear. What is needed? It’s easy to say, but hard to do. Good ideas, educating, organizing, winning elections, and advancing a radical agenda politically – that might do it.

Continue reading “What Kind of Change?” →

What kind of jobs?
A profits-first economy, afloat with low-wage, no-benefit, insecure jobs, going where?
Bob Sheak
June 4, 2018

Is the jobs situation in the United States good or bad? Are there enough jobs available for those who want and need them? Are they regular jobs that pay a decent wage? Bear in mind that wages and salaries are often the only source of income or the largest portion of income people have. People are likely to be poor if they have a low-wage job. They are likely to be rich if they are a CEO or executive of a Fortune 500 company. In April, there were over 153 million people employed in all sorts of jobs, in different industries and occupations, some full-time and some less than that, a growing number are contingent workers, the conditions of work vary greatly, with varying degrees of control over work activities. A recent study of the CEO-worker pay ratio, finds that the gap, which has been growing for decades, is higher now than ever. Reported by Edward Helmore for The Guardian, the study, titled Rewarding or Hoarding, was released by Minnesota’s US congressman Keith Ellison on May 16, 2018 (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/16/ceo-workers-pay-ratio-america-first-study).

Helmore reports that the central finding in this “first comprehensive study of the massive pay gap between the US executive suite and average workers…found that the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio now reached 339 to 1, with the higher gap approaching 5,000 to 1.” The data on which the study is based includes wage information on “almost 14 million workers at 225 US companies with total revenues of $6.3 trillion.” The gap would probably be even wider if contracted workers had not been excluded. The pay gap in the US. is far higher than other “major world economies,” with US CEOs making “more than four times his or her counterpart in the other [19] countries recently analyzed by Bloomberg.

Another indication of the jobs’ situation is reflected in the distribution of income in the US, which is the most unequal among the economically rich countries. This reflects significantly the wide range of jobs in the economy and how earnings related to these jobs are rising at the higher end and stagnating or falling for the majority of workers. Jake Johnson reports on a recent study on U.S. inequality and poverty by Philip Alston, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Johnson quotes Alston as follows:

“It is no secret that the United States has among the worst levels of inequality, poverty, and infant mortality of all wealthy nations, but a scathing new United Nations report concludes that President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress are “deliberately” working to make these already devastating crises worse by waging war on the poor while lavishing the rich with massive tax cuts (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/01/scathing-un-report-condemns-trump-and-gop-deliberately-driving-already-devastating).

Inequality and the job situation

To repeat: Much of the inequality in the U.S. reflects changes in the kind of jobs – and wages – that are available. Focusing on the lower half of the job supply gives you a glimpse of the how problematic the job situation is. Chuck Collins refers to the following evidence in his new book, Is Inequality in America irreversible?

“Half of US jobs pay less than $15 an hour and 41 million workers earn under $12 an hour, or less than $25,000 per year. These workers are disproportionately black and Latino. Most of these low-wage jobs have few or no benefits, including no sick leave, vacation days, childcare, or retirement plans. These are the workers who clean hotel rooms, take care of children and the elderly, serve food, and work at retail counters and as janitors and security guards. This fuels a difficult work-life balancing act for many individuals and working families attempting to survive” (pp. 18-19).

A press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals more generally that “real average hourly earnings” barely increased by 0.3 percent over the previous year, from April 2017 to April 2018 (https://www.bls.gov/news/release/pdf/realer.pdf).

The stagnation of wages stretches back to the 1970s. Wages in manufacturing, where the relatively highest nonsupervisory wages can be found, have been stagnant since the 1970s. Robert Kuttner writes: “In January 1979, the average manufacturing wage was $20.83 in inflation-adjusted dollars. In July 2017, it was $20.94” (Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism, p. 191). The percentage of manufacturing jobs in the economy has been declining most years since the 1960s: “Between the 1960s and the current era, US employment in manufacturing declined from over 25 percent of total jobs in 1965 to just under 8 percent by 2016” (p. 191).

More recent estimates by the BLS indicate that manufacturing jobs increased from May 2017 to May 2018 by 259,000, or an increase of 2.1 percent (https://www.bls/gov/web/empsit/cehighlights.pdf). We must wait to see whether this trend continues. But there is reason to be skeptical that manufacturing employment will ever climb back to double digits (as a percentage of total employment), let alone to 25 percent. This would require a number of presently unlikely conditions, namely, that corporations like GM, Ford, GE, stop outsourcing their investments in the rising consumer markets of China and Southeast Asia, that the US government invest massively in a major infrastructure project, that corporations use the increased billions in revenues from the Trump/Republican Party tax cuts to invest in new or expanded domestic production, that the federal government increase – rather than decrease – support of green technologies, and that government support a National Labor Relations Board that supports the right of workers to join unions and for fair collective bargaining.

The importance of jobs beyond wages and salaries

Paid employment has implications that go beyond earnings. Jobs provide people with opportunities to acquire and develop skills – or not. The jobs people have shape their core identities and how they think about themselves and how others think about them. That is, jobs have status implications. Jobs often consume a major chunk of time. If the job is stressful and/or the job environment is unhealthy, there are consequences for the physical and mental wellbeing of workers. And there are larger economic effects. Communities thrive or fall on whether there are good jobs available for residents. In the aggregate, the overall wages earned have a major effect on how much people can spend on consumption. Lower levels of consumption have a significant impact on the economy. If many consumers have limited earnings then sales, revenues, and profits suffer.

The disciplining of workers through stigmatization of government “welfare”

There is an invidious aspect of U.S. culture that says any job, however low the wages and poor the conditions, is better than public assistance or welfare. Alternatives to paid employment are stigmatized and made difficult administratively to obtain. So, welfare recipients are viewed as wanting a free ride, for being lazy, or for lying about their eligibility. One implication of such stigmatizing is that it “disciplines labor,” that is, it conveys the cultural message that even the lowest-paid work is better than going on public assistance and pressures workers at the lower end of the labor market to accept the poorest jobs. There is a long history in the U.S. about such stigma. I recommend historian Michael B. Katz’s book, The Undeserving Poor, 2nd edition, for an in-depth analysis of the issue. Such stereotyping is good for employers who pay low wages or don’t want to raise wages.

Presently, Trump and the Republicans are stoking this cultural stigma, as they push policies that will require welfare recipients getting food stamps and in certain situations getting Medicaid benefits to work a certain number of hours each month to pay for their meager public assistance. Hannah Katch and her colleagues offer documentation that Medicaid work requirements “will reduce low-income families’ access to care and worsen health outcomes (https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicaid-work-requirements-will-reduce-low-income-families-access-to-care-and-worsen).

Recent Jobs’ data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

A lot of what we know about the jobs’ situation comes from the estimates by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of employment, unemployment, and non-participants in the labor force. There is substantial evidence that they underestimate the true extent of a jobs’ situation that is highly problematic, in which there is a lack of opportunities for tens of millions of people to find employment with decent wages, benefits, security, and that are safe from occupational hazards of various sorts. What is clear, though, the official BLS job categories and estimates have great importance politically. For example, all presidents and all political parties include in their platforms the goal of creating more good jobs than exist when they take office and promise to do better than the opposition or previous president did. Trump was unsurprisingly no exception and has always been cognizant of the importance of jobs to voters. His own record in real estate suggests that, as an employer, he was hardly generous to his workers. David Cay Johnston writes: “He has been sued thousands of times for refusing to pay employees, vendors, and others” (The Making of Donald Trump, p. xiii). He is a person with few scruples whose main aim in life is to win in whatever he does. Consider that when he was campaigning for the presidency back in 2016, he argued that the official estimate of unemployment widely underestimated the true extent of the problem and that if elected he would create more jobs than any previous president. Writing for the Washington Post, Philip Bump reminds us of Trump’s blather at the time, as follows:

“On the campaign trail, Trump consistently argued that the unemployment numbers being touted by the administration of President Barack Obama failed to capture the true weakness in the economy. The “real” unemployment rate was somewhere over 20 percent, he argued repeatedly during the campaign — even as the official figure continued to slip downward. As president, that official figure coupled with the increase in the stock indexes have been a centerpiece of Trump’s arguments for his own presidency” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/20/why-trump-should-be-more-wary-of-below-4-percent-unemployment-than-he-seems-to-be/utm_term=.95f6574ffbe8).

Now, however, Trump has done one of his regular flip-flops and has come to embrace the official unemployment estimate, now that it is down to 3.9 percent in April 2018 (https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000). This is the lowest it has been since 1999, according to the BLS estimates cited by Bump.

The civilian labor force

Let this soak in. If you just look at unemployment estimate of the BLS, then the economy is doing well, people are finding employment, and even the conservative Federal Reserve is beginning to worry, as the corporate and political elites do, about a tight labor market, rising wages, and a specter of inflation. Consider the BLS employment estimate, which is that an amazing 96% of those counted in the “civilian” labor force, which includes the employed plus unemployed. Here are the raw numbers. There were 153,161,000 persons aged 16 and over who were employed and 7,021,000 who were unemployed, that is, actively looking for work. Together they add up to a civilian labor force of 160,181,000. The BLS considers actively looking for work to include doing at least one of a wide range of activities, from having a job interview, contacting a public or private employment agency, submitting resumes or filling out applications, and some other form of active job search. Those in job training programs are not considered unemployed. Those who are “expecting to be recalled from temporary layoff are counted as unemployed.” The unemployed include more than people who have lost their jobs, as explained by the BLS as follows.

“They include people who have quit their jobs to look for other employment, workers whose temporary jobs have ended, individuals looking for their first job, and experienced workers looking for jobs after an absence from the labor force (for example, stay-at-home parents who return to the labor force after their children have entered school). Information also is collected for the unemployed on the industry and occupation of the last job they held (if applicable), how long they have been looking for work, their reason for being jobless (for example, did they lose or quit their job), and their job search methods” (https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#employed).

The civilian non-institutional population – those not employed or unemployed according to BLS definitions

Then there is another BLS category that helps us to understand the job situation, that is, the “civilian non-institutional population.” This category includes all persons (legally) residing in the 50 states and the District of Columbia who are not in the Armed Forces or in jail or prison or other otherwise institutionalized (e.g., mental facilities, homes for the aged). There were in April 254,588,000 people in this category.

If you subtract the number of people in the civilian labor force, or 160,181,000, from the number in the civilian non-institutional population, that is 254,588,000, the result is 94,407,000. These are people 16 years and older who are not employed in paid work or who have not actively looked for employment in the four weeks prior to the April survey. They are fulltime homemakers, or single parents who do not have access to daycare for young children. They are attending school. They are unable to work due to a mental or physical health disability, discouraged from continuing to look for work because of their unsuccessful previous efforts to find work, in a situation where there are no jobs for which they are qualified, or have a criminal record that makes employers unwilling to hire them. They may have a substance abuse problem that makes it impossible for them to find a regular paid job. Steven F. Hipple reports on BLS data on those not in the labor force that are generalized and devoid of context but do refer to gender and age differences for the population outside of the labor force. Here is Hipple’s summary:

“From 2004 to 2014, there was an increase in the proportion of the population 16 years and older that was not in the labor force and that cited school attendance, illness or disability, or retirement as the main reason for not working. The percentage of people who were not in the labor force and the reasons they gave for not working varied by age and gender. Among younger people, the percentage not in the labor force rose sharply and the most often cited reason for not working was school attendance. The percentage not in the labor force also rose for both men and women 25 to 54 years, and nearly all reasons cited recorded an increase. Women in this age group were more likely than men to cite home responsibilities as the main reason for not working. Men and women 25 to 54 years with less education were more likely to be labor force nonparticipants than their counterparts with more education. From 2004 to 2014, the increases in the percentage of men and women not in the labor force were larger for those with less education. People with less education were more likely than those with more education to cite illness or disability as the main reason for not working. The proportion of older adults who were not in the labor force declined from 2004 to 2014. Older adults were most likely to cite retirement as the main reason for not working, although the percentage who cited this reason fell. The older adult population saw an increase in the proportion who cited illness or disability as the main reason for not working.”

Racial discrimination

There are many institutional factors that continue to put the majority of African Americans at a disadvantage in the US job markets. Economist Joseph Stiglitz provides a telling summary. The summary comes from a chapter he wrote for the edited book titled Healing our Divided Society: Investing in America Fifty Years After the Kerner Report.

“…the changing structure of America’s economy has disadvantaged African Americans because it has disadvantaged those with lower levels of educational attainment. But, then as now, America’s discrimination in housing, dysfunctional health care system, and weak public transportation system have had repercussions in the labor market. There is a mismatch between jobs and workers that disadvantages African Americans. If anything, matters may have become worse, as more jobs moved to largely white suburbs, the distance between African Americans and jobs may have increased” (pp. 131-132).

Unreported employment

There is another consideration that adds to the complexity of the jobs’ situation in the United States. That is, there is some unknown, but probably considerable, unreported employment, referred sometimes as working under the table, or off the books, or in the underground economy. That is, this is paid work that is not reported to the government and where payments are generally in cash (https://en-wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreported_employment). Such unreported employment commonly includes domestic work such as housekeeping, babysitting, or foodservice, construction work, landscaping, farm work, taxicab service, various types of self-employment, such as plumbing, electrician, window cleaning, painting and decorating, street market trading, and gardening, short-term work and day laborers, short-term youth employment, restaurant work, human trafficking, prostitution, and fixing cars, motorcycles, and mopeds. There are obviously no official estimates of such work. And there are no official data on the characteristics of the people who are engaged in such work.

In some cases, those in the officially identified labor force may also work for cash “under the table to supplement earnings from a regular job. In other cases, unreported work is the sole source of income. Generally, with respect to unreported employment, we are talking about people who have limited income. These are people who are a hidden part of the jobs’ situation in the country and another indication of how the official employment and unemployment estimates underestimate the extent to which people cannot find a regular and stable jobs that pay a decent wage with benefits; for example: health care, vacation time, pay for overtime work, paid maternal leave.

Out of the complexity of the jobs’ situation comes Trump claiming credit

Of course, in the mind of the president, he claims credit for the low “unemployment” of 3.9 percent and whatever else is good about the economy, like the record-breaking stock market. What is the basis for his questionable claims that his policies are the reason for the low unemployment rate?

The tax reform – whither the trickle down?

The Trump/Republican tax reform, the gold-star, the magic bullet, of Trump’s non-military policies, reduced the corporate and income tax rates from 35 percent to 21 percent. Where have the tax savings gone? It’s too early to reach a final conclusion, but based on early results and previous trends, the lion share of the proceeds will go to executives and shareholders, not to employees. Jeff Cox reports on research by Trim Tabs, which compiles market and economic data and operates an ETF [exchange traded fund, often index funds] that focuses on firms with high levels of free cash flow (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/17/tax-cut-windfalls-has-gone-to-executives-than-to-workers-trimtax.html).

Purchasing their own stock vs. new employment and wage increases

The research found that in the first quarter of 2018, “corporate America dedicated $305 billion to stock buybacks and cash takeovers comparted with $131 billion in pretax wage growth. David Santshi, director of liquidity research at TrimTabs, is quoted: “The recently enacted corporate tax cut is likely to deliver far more benefits to top management and investors than to typical American households.” This continues a long-term trend, according to Santshi, of U.S. companies “spending far more money on cash mergers and stock buybacks… to boost disproportionately the compensation of top management – than on hiring new workers and paying existing workers more.” Finally, “[i]f the first-quarter numbers were extrapolated over a five-year period, they would show $6.1 trillion in buybacks and deals to $2.6 trillion in wages, or only slightly above the previous five-year pace for worker raises.”

Employee bonuses – not wage increases

The tax cuts were also going to be shared with employees, not just top executives. Some corporations announced they were going to do this. Economist Dean Baker comments on the early information on this issue in an interview on The Real News on March 15, 2018 (http://therealnews.com/t2/story:21368:Economic-Benefits-of-Tax-Cuts-Should-Have-Arrived—Where-Are-They%3F).

“BAKER: Well, they’ve touted bonuses. You’ve had a lot of companies that have announced bonuses. AT&T announced bonuses of $1000 for most if not all of its employees. Boeing announced bonuses, Disney, a number of major companies announced bonuses. And they said, see, this is the dividend from the tax cuts. And that’s good to see. I’m glad to see workers at AT&T, people who get $60,000, $70,000 a year will get a $1000 bonus, that’s good. I mean, that’s something.

“But two points. One is that these are bonuses, these are one-time payments. They’re not pay increases. We’d like to see permanent pay increases. The other is if you look at the size of the tax cut relative to the amount they’re paying out in bonuses, typically the size of the annual tax cut, in other words, they’ll get it this year, next year, the year after, it’s going to be continuing, that’s about ten times the size of the bonus. I know I looked at that in the case of AT&T, and they’re looking at a tax cut on the order of $2 billion. Their bonuses were going to cost them in the neighborhood of $150 million-$200 million. This is by their own reckoning, I have no independent way to verify how much they actually pay out in their bonuses.

“So those don’t look very good. They’ve been touted in the business press, you’ve got a lot of companies have gotten good public relations out of it, but the reality is when you look at it a little more closely, they don’t look very good.”

New investment?

Baker also finds little in the data in the first months of 2018 that support the claim that the tax reform has led to a surge in new investment in the domestic economy. Here’s what he had to say.

“… when we’re actually looking post-tax cut, you know, what has happened since the tax cut was passed or was known it would be passed, we look at the data we have from January and February, and there’s nothing going on there. The data on durable goods or capital goods orders, so this is what companies are ordering by way of new investment equipment, that’s actually down slightly in January and February. I wouldn’t make a big point of it being down. But the point is they had projected, the Trump administration had projected a huge rise in investment, and we are certainly not seeing that.

“Another measure, the National Federation of Independent Business, has a monthly survey of its members that they have been doing for more than 30 years now, and they asked them, do they expect to increase capital expenditures over the next 3 to 6 months? And again, here, too, we have data, January and February, nothing. It’s maybe a very, very modest uptick, but it’s back to levels we saw last year, as far back as 2014.

Bringing offshore cash back to U.S.

U.S. corporations have an enormous offshore cash trove of 1.6 to 2.6 trillion, the impetus for which has been the business tax rate of 35 percent that prevailed for the years. It reflects massive tax avoidance. Bringing that money back under the previous 35 percent business tax would have cost corporations hundreds of billions in taxes each year. To induce corporations to bring that cash back to the U.S., ideally for investment and job creation, the Trump/Republican tax reform reduces the tax on repatriated cash, taxing it, according to veteran financial editor and reporter Larry Light, at “just 15.5 percent [rather than 35 percent] on offshore profits invested in liquid assets and 8 percent in harder-to-sell assets like real estate.” And the future tax will be even lower: “Any foreign-generated cash in the future is subject to a 10 percent U.S. tax, but the formula for that levy makes it effectively only a few percent, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center think tank”

However, Light offers some reasons for why not to be optimistic about a rush of offshore cash to the U.S.(https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-companies-offshore-cash-wont-rush-home).

First, there is a precedent that “isn’t inspiring.” He writes: “In 2004, when George W. Bush was president, the U.S. offered a similar tax holiday to attract overseas corporate cash, charging the returning money a low 5.25 percent tax rate. That resulted in $299 billion brought back by U.S. companies, raising hopes in some quarters that a slew of jobs would be created.” However, “the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found in a 2011 study that very few jobs were produced, and most of the offshore money went to mergers, stock buybacks and dividends. In fact, 10 of the 15 largest corporate repatriators ended up cutting jobs.”

Second, U.S. companies don’t need the money. Why? Two reasons. There is a lack of “good investment opportunities.” And most of the large corporations with large offshore cash have been making record-high, after-tax profits and, if need, can borrow money a super-low interests rates. So, Light writes:
“Companies have all the domestic cash and borrowing ability they need. Interest rates remain very low. One-year LIBOR, the benchmark rate for what banks charge each other, was 3.1 percent at the end of 2004 (the year of the last repatriation) and is 1.9 percent now. Seven-year AA corporate bonds paid 4.6 percent interest rates at year-end 2004, and now they pay 2.9 percent.”
Those corporations that did repatriate offshore cash are unlikely to invest it job-creating investments, and if they do it won’t amount to many jobs. Light gives this example.

“Apple (AAPL), which has 80,000 U.S. employees, holds $252 billion in offshore cash. Does it need that money to fund domestic purposes? Hardly. Awash in earnings, the company raised $7 billion in a bond sale earlier this year. The tech giant has pledged to spend $1 billion on manufacturing in the U.S. Apple recently announced a $390 million investment to revamp an old plant in Texas for Finstar, which makes its facial recognition lasers. That would create 500 jobs.”

Third, a lot of the money is in the U.S. economy anyway. Light cites a 2011 Senate study which estimated that close to 50 percent “of the offshore cash is invested in various American financial instruments, ranging from Treasury notes to corporate bonds to mutual funds. A lot of it is in U.S. bank accounts.” This is money that is already available to “contribute to investment and capital formation in the United States.” However, it sits in these financial instruments because the corporations fail to see many profitable opportunities.

Fourth, incentives to keep the cash offshore remain. While the tax on profits earned overseas will fall, eventually to 10 percent, there are lower corporate tax rates in some other countries (e.g., Ireland, Hungary) and no taxes in tax havens like Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Caymans.
So after the IRS takes its one-time bite of offshore profits, and once the small U.S. tax kicks in on profits earned overseas from 2018 forward, why would American multinationals need to bring back money to their native soil? While U.S. corporate tax rates now are much lower, they aren’t the lowest by far. Aside from Ireland, Liechtenstein charges 12.5 percent as well, and Hungary 9 percent, per the Tax Foundation. In addition to Bermuda, nations that tax companies nothing include the Bahamas and the Caymans.

Other reasons to be skeptical of a pending surge in good jobs

Here are just a few. There is that rampant deregulation making it easier for businesses to invest and grow, but, in the absence of the enforcement of anti-trust laws, corporations increasingly grow not by innovating but through acquisitions and mergers, leading to more concentration of economic power while leading to the loss of jobs. Trump’s cabinet appointments come from Wall Street, corporate suites, circles of right-wing ideologues, and former generals. Trump, his appointees and advisers are all in effect neoliberals, promoting policies of low taxes, deregulation, privatization, and less government non-military spending on programs designed to benefit most Americans. Only libertarian economists believe this will lead to enhanced job creation. Trump and his cohorts are, in the final analysis, opposed to unions. One example. Trump issued an executive order in November 2017 that further weakened collective bargaining, requiring the labor disputes be resolved by “compulsory arbitration” and ruling out class action suits. Kuttner discusses the ramifications of such arbitration. They create a situation in which large employers “require both contract labor and regular payroll employees to sign contracts that steer virtually all complaints to impartial arbitrators in cases of union collective bargaining with management.” The Supreme Court has upheld these requirements. The research of Professor Katherine Stone of the UCLA School of Law documents how compulsory arbitration undermines the right of employees. It has been used, as summarized by Kuttner,

“to deny workers a broad range of rights and remedies legislated by Congress, including protection from race, sex, and age discrimination; from being cheated out of pay; and from abuses of workers’ compensation claims. The arbitrator, who is retained and paid by management, invariably sides with managements. Penalties, when levied are usually so minimal as to deter the use of arbitration altogether” (Kuttner, p. 108).

It remains to be seen whether their America-first trade policies will be job creators or destroyers. The Trump/Republican juggernaut has done all it can to undermine federal government support for green businesses and jobs and fancied that employment in the coal industry would come back. There is another worrisome prospect, that is, the specter of increasing displacement of human labor by robots and automated systems. JP Sottile provides an in-depth view of developments taking the economy toward such systems (http://truth-out.org/news/40495-the-robot-economy-ready-or-not-here-it-comes).

Scottile cites and draws from an academic paper by Carl Benedikt Grey and Michael A. Osborne published by Oxford University in 2013 titled “The Future of Employment,” among other sources. The evidence is astounding.

• “47 percent of all jobs in the United States may be lost to automation over the next two decades”
• “This is an economy where manufacturing jobs require a college degree, artificial intelligence replaces administrative works, automated kiosks dislodge food service workers and driverless vehicles threaten the livelihoods of up to 10 million Americans who take the wheel for a living.”
• A “grocery business with almost human-free stores.”
• “Even low-paying farming jobs could be completely upended by robotic fruit pickers….”
• “…an economy where there is ‘an 83% chance that workers who earn $20 an hour or less could have their jobs replaced by robots in the next five years’ and “those in the $40 an hour pay range face a 31% chance of having their jobs taken over by machines, according to a 2016 report by the then-President Obama’s White House.”
• Artificial intelligence “is starting to lay waste to college-educated workers in non-manual jobs previously thought to be exempt from automation.” For example: “Goldman Sachs ‘employs’ Marcus – a fully automated lending platform that’s part of an industry-wide AI-makeover displacing humans in equities ‘sales, trading, and research.’”
• “As more and more jobs are turned over to AI, robots and algorithms, more and more wealth will accumulate in the hands of those already at the top of a steep pyramid. Like the pharaohs of old, these masters of the universe will profit as the cost of labor declines precipitously thanks to the robots they ‘employ.’”

Concluding thoughts

The present jobs situation is not nearly as good as the Trump administration proclaims or as the compliant media report. The policies of the current administration is unlikely to contribute to improving the present employment in any significant or permanent way. This means that a large and growing percentage of the workforce will have jobs that don’t pay a decent or living wage and without stability or job benefits. The best hope is that progressive Democrats are elected to office in large numbers in 2018 and 2020, a progressive President is elected in 2020, and that policies that create the conditions for an economy of good jobs are put in place. If the Republicans or moderate Democrats are elected, prepare for the worst on the jobs’ front. However, beyond the employment questions, we may be faced in the not-distant future with a highly automated economy that does not require so much employment. The alternative to a society in which there is less need for employment may involve what seems political outrageous now, that is, the passage of legislation that provides a guaranteed or basic income for all citizens.

Attacking Iran, Part 2
Bob Sheak
May 23, 2018

I focus in this post on Trump’s long-standing bellicose and war-supporting views regarding Iran, views that appear to bring the U.S. closer to waging on war with Iran than ever before. A war with Iran would produce more devastation, death, and instability in the Middle East, with unknown repercussions worldwide, than the U.S. involvements altogether in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Syria, in Afghanistan (which has spilled over into Pakistan), or in its military involvements in Africa, especially in Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen (supporting Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war there). And yet, Trump, his chief advisers, and too many others on the ideological and political right, view it as a walk in the park with everything eventually coming up roses. There is another possibility. They don’t pay attention to the consequences of what they do – and focus on grabbing as much wealth, power, as glory as they can while they can, and be the last ones “walking.”

Trita Parsi, author, expert on Iran and Middle, and President of the National Iranian Council, gives us a dose of realism as he reviews potential destruction associated with such a war (https://www.huffington.com/entry/opinion/parsi-war-with-iran_us_5abd46fde4b055e50acc2e82).

He makes four points. First, he refers to a classified Pentagon study completed in 2002 and costing $250 million that is based on a war game called Millennium Challenge. The exercise “envisioned U.S. Navy facing a coordinated Iranian assault in the Persian Gulf using swarming boats and missiles.” In this scenario, the “Iranians sank a total of 16 American ships – including an aircraft carrier.” Second, Parsi points out that Iran is “estimated to have the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East,” and they are “well positioned to target both ports and airfields in the region” and can make the whole region unsafe. Third, the Iranians can target the tens of thousands of U.S. troops already stationed in the region, pushing “Shia militias in Iraq to renew their attacks on U.S. troops and attacking U.S. personnel in Syria and in the “hundreds of U.S. installations throughout the region – from Jordon, to Kuwait to Afghanistan.” The Iranians know how sensitive Americans are to casualties. Fourth, Iranian forces could close the Strait of Hormuz, which is “a strategic choke point through which roughly 30 percent of the world’s oil supply passes.” This would cause “oil prices to skyrocket” and create turmoil throughout the global economy.

Be reminded that the U.S. government has spent trillions of dollars on wars and military engagements in these regions of the world, and that whole cities and areas have been reduced to rubble, millions of people have died or been maimed, millions have become homeless as internal or external refugees, the governments emerging after U.S.-led or supported-wars have been unable to quell disorder or meet the basic needs of vast segments of their societies, and the conditions arising from all this have created the spawning grounds for the proliferation of networks of terrorists. The record of U.S. interventions, going back at least to Vietnam, has not yielded democracy or justice, but mayhem, bloodshed, and contaminated environments. Indeed, U.S. military interventions have been among the world’s most de-stabilizing forces. Now we are faced with the increasing likelihood that the U.S. will attack Iran. Tom Engelhardt summarizes it well as follows.

“…one thing couldn’t be clearer: the planet’s sole superpower, with a military funded and armed like none other and a ‘defense’ budget larger than the next seven countries combined (three times as large as the number two spender, China), has managed to accomplish absolutely nothing. Unless you consider an expanding series of failed states, spreading terrorist movements, wrecked cities, countries hemorrhaging refugees, and the like as accomplishments” (A Nation Unmade by War, p. 21).

“…the massive destruction of Iraq or Syria; or what it’s meant for the ‘world’s greatest military’ to unleash its airpower from Afghanistan to Libya, send out its drones on assassination missions from Pakistan to Somalia, launch special operations raids across the Greater Middle East and Africa, occupy two countries, and have nothing to show for it but the spread of ever-more viral and brutal terror movements and the collapse or near-collapse of many of the states in which it’s fought these wars” (p. 49).

Alternatives to waging war on Iran?

There are alternatives, but they might as well be in another universe from what the Trump administration and other right-wing forces in the U.S. government want. What are they? Stop threatening Iran with war and burdening the Iranians with horrendous economic sanctions, some of which extend back to 1979. Stop supporting terrorist groups, like the MEK (People’s Mujahedeen of Iran) which has assassinated nuclear scientists in Iran, conducted suicide bombings that blew up civilians, and, according to Medea Benjamin’s sources, “took their attacks overseas, targeting Iranian diplomatic missions in 13 countries” (Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic Of Iran,p. 164). Engage in diplomacy with the representatives of other countries and with Iran to address other concerns about Iran’s foreign activities.

Honor the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which went into force in 1970, then extended indefinitely in 1995, with 191 states joining the treaty, including, among many others, the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, and France – and Iran, but not Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea (https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt). The U.S. may be in violation of Article VI of the treaty which requires that nations with nuclear weapons undertake steps to reduce and ultimately eliminate them.

Alternatives? Take seriously the proposal to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, which has been endorsed by Iran and most other Arab countries and member nations of the United Nations but blocked by the U.S. with the enthusiastic encouragement of Israel. While the idea of nuclear-free zones may receive virtually no interest among U.S. politicians and little coverage in the media, it does have an international stamp of approval and represents, according to the United Nations’ Office of Disarmament Affairs, “a regional approach to strengthen global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament norms and consolidate international efforts towards peace and security,” and is consistent with “Article VII of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) [which] states: ‘Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories.’” There are currently five “nuclear-weapon-free zones in Latin America and the Caribbean, South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central Asia. Mongolia has declared itself to adhere to nuclear-free status. There are three international treaties that prohibit testing of nuclear weapons in Antarctic, prohibit placing nuclear weapons in orbit around the earth, installing or testing these weapons on the moon, or in outer space, and prohibit nuclear weapons on the seabed or ocean floor (https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/nwfz).

Bear in mind as well that there are powerful democratic and secular forces in Iran that want peace and that would gain political influence if the U.S. joined other countries in genuine diplomatic negotiations. U.S. bellicosity and efforts to destabilize Iran serve only to strengthen the hardliners in Iran. Elect leaders in our own country who are not so damn hypocritical and deceptive about how they want to bring freedom and democracy to Iran, after they have invaded the country. The record is oh so clear that the U.S. has not only failed to advance freedom and democracy anywhere in the Middle East or Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, etc., but also that the U.S. supports the most authoritarian, religious dictatorships such as the one in Saudi Arabia, lavishing this culturally retrograde country with huge weapons’ agreements. And who benefits in the U.S., but the “defense” contractors and the Pentagon. When you sort it all out, U.S. policies have been about achieving dominance in Middle East with the principal goal of keeping the oil flowing from the region. One obvious alternative is to reduce the need in the U.S. and world for fossil fuels by a major increase in support for renewable sources of energy, as proposed, for example, by economist Robert Pollin in his book, Greening the Global Economy.

U.S. militarism intensified

The military-oriented foreign policy of the U.S. did not begin with Trump and his administration, but they are taking it to unprecedented levels, adopting a reckless and muddling view of what the U.S. military can accomplish, increasing funding for an already bloated “defense” budget bringing enormous profits for military contractors, promoting the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia and other countries around the world, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal (i.e., the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement with Iran), supporting Israeli bombing raids into Syria, continuing the modernization (and expansion?) of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, conducting military exercises on the border of North Korea while threatening to nuke it, and continuing the expansion of NATO into Eastern European countries on the borders of Russia. Additionally, David Cay Johnston reminds us that diplomacy is being further demoted and marginalized under Trump. He writes:

“Donald Trump proposed to cut more than $14 billion from the $50 billion State Department budget, a 29 percent reduction. Only the Environmental Protection Agency would be cut more. The Trump budget would essentially end foreign aid, most of which benefits American companies by buying goods and services from them and giving them to poor countries. While Congress is unlikely to approve such cuts, their significance lies in showing where Trump would put federal money. He asked for $54 billion for the military” (It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America, p. 160).

The recklessness of Trump

Now, the headlines are that Trump has withdrawn from the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, appointed a premier foreign policy hawk John Bolton to be his national security adviser, re-imposed (and continued) sanctions, and threatened to attack Iran if it should re-start and increase its capacity for generating nuclear fuel. Bolton has long advocated regime change in Iran, doesn’t pay any attention to the overwhelming evidence that Iran has not violated the nuclear deal, and advances the idea that the Iranian people are waiting for the U.S. to free them from an autocratic regime. Consider what Gareth Porter’s in-depth investigations have found, as quoted here from an article published in The American Conservative on March 22, 2018.
“Bolton’s been obsessed for many years with going to war against the Islamic Republic, calling repeatedly for bombing Iran in his regular appearances on Fox News, without the slightest indication that he understands the consequences of such a policy.”

“More than anyone else inside or outside the Trump administration, Bolton has already influenced Trump to tear up the Iran nuclear deal. Bolton parlayed his connection with the primary financier behind both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump himself—the militantly Zionist casino magnate Sheldon Adelson—to get Trump’s ear last October, just as the president was preparing to announce his policy on the Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He spoke with Trump by phone from Las Vegas after meeting with Adelson.

“It was Bolton who persuaded Trump to commit to specific language pledging to pull out of the JCPOA if Congress and America’s European allies did not go along with demands for major changes that were clearly calculated to ensure the deal would fall apart (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-a-john-bolton-appointment-is-scarier-than-you-think-mcmaster-trump).

Note: The majority of Americans wanted the nuclear deal with Iran to continue

Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams, reports that a poll finds that the majority of Americans support the nuclear accord and don’t want to risk war with Iran and end up enmeshed in another war of choice. This time, Trump’s choice. Johnson writes:

“With President Donald Trump expected to deliver a huge gift to his administration’s “parade of warmongers, cretins, and outright liars” Tuesday afternoon by withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, a new CNN poll shows support for the agreement is continuing to rise, with an all-time high 63 percent of Americans saying Trump should uphold the accord. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/08/trump-set-spark-war-risking-crisis-killing-iran-deal-poll-shows-63-us-support

Rebuttals to the arguments of Trump and his advisers

Trump, Bolton and the others in their corner rest their case on the argument that the nuclear deal is flawed because it does not eliminate Iran’s capacity to produce enriched uranium. But they also posit several additional arguments not included in the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with Iran, namely, that Iran’s military poses a military threat to the region, that Iran’s leaders supports terrorist groups, and that the Iranian government represses its own people who are said to yearn for America to bring them “freedom.” On May 21, Trump’s new Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation where he laid out a long-list of demands, far beyond what the JCPOA required, and that Iran must fulfill them all before the U.S. will lift its sanctions. You can see Jake Johnson’s report on Pompeo’s speech at: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/21/iraq-war-playbook-returns-pompeo-replaces-diplomacy-threat-crush-iran. The point is that the Trump administration is doing all it can to avoid a peaceful settlement with Iran.

The principal argument – the flawed deal. Trump and Bolton make about the nuclear deal is that it allows Iran to continue producing some enriched uranium. Binoy Kampmark quotes Bolton as calling the agreement “fundamentally flawed” and that it “allows Iran to continue technologies like uranium enrichment…” (https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/10/withdrawal-symptoms-trump-and-the-iran-nuclear-deal).

There are technical issues involved in this claim. What’s clear, though, is that a country can only produce deliverable nuclear weapons if it has sufficient enriched uranium and the related technological capacity – which has to do with the number of centrifuges and other relevant components. (For a short explanation, go to Science and the article “What’s a uranium centrifuge?” at https://science.howstuffworks.com/uranium-centrifuge.htm.)

The issue raised by Bolton concerns the nuclear technology dealing with the process for enriching uranium. Trump and Bolton want to eliminate all of Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium. However, contrary to their interest in total elimination, the agreement permits Iran to produce some, but not nearly enough, to make a nuclear bomb. Bear in mind, that the goal of Iranian’s leaders has always been to build a peaceful nuclear power system designed for civilian, not military, purposes, that is, for the generation of electric power. This is permitted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There is overwhelming evidence substantiating that Iran has complied with the agreement. Consider some examples.

According to 11 investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the agency empowered to undertake regular highly intrusive inspections wherever and whenever it wants, Iran is in full compliance with the agreement. On May 9, 2018, the Director General of the IAEA, Yukia Amano, issued the following statement, affirming Iran’s compliance.

“The IAEA is closely following developments related to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). As requested by the United Nations Security Council and authorised by the IAEA Board of Governors in 2015, the IAEA is verifying and monitoring Iran’s implementation of its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA. Iran is subject to the world’s most robust nuclear verification regime under the JCPOA, which is a significant verification gain. As of today, the IAEA can confirm that the nuclear-related commitments are being implemented by Iran” (https://www.iaea.org/newsletter/statements/statement-by-iaea-director-general-yukia-amano-9-may-2018).

But it is not only the IAEA that validates Iran’s compliance. In an article for Salon, Paul Rosenberg reports on other corroborating evidence of Iran’s compliance https://www.salon.com/2018/05/13/donald-trump-goes-full-neocon-embracing-torture-and-war-with-iran-why-should-we-be-surprised.

Rosenberg writes: “Trump’s top intelligence officials have likewise confirmed that the Iran deal was working. In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Angus King, I-Maine, asked Dan Coats, the director of National Intelligence, ‘Is it the judgment of the intelligence community that Iran has, thus far, adhered to the deal’s major provisions?’ Coats replied, ‘Yes. It has been — the judgment is there’s been no material breach of the agreement.’ And, one other example. “During his confirmation hearings last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (then the CIA director) said that ‘Iran wasn’t racing to a weapon before the deal, [and] there is no indication that I am aware of that if the deal no longer existed that they would immediately turn to racing to create a nuclear weapon.’

So, Trump and Bolton are asking for Iran to do more than the agreement requires it to do. This is a specious argument, motivated by the desire to find some reason to justify the imposition of additional crippling sanctions, if not to justify some military action. You can see a more technical analysis of this issue by Scott Ritter at http://truthdig.com/article/the-truth-about-the-iran-nuclear-deal-lies, where, among other points, he notes that the limits imposed by the agreement on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium apply until 2030. The withdrawal of the U.S. from the multilateral deal with Iran, along with the re-imposition of economic sanctions, increases the chances that Trump will use the military option. As I noted earlier, this would have catastrophic consequences for the region and perhaps the world, while costing the U.S. hugely in U.S. military casualties, taxpayer dollars and rising national debt related to military spending, and vast destruction throughout the Middle East and surrounding regions.

For the time being, Kampmark reports that Iran will continue its participation in the nuclear deal but only if Britain, France and Germany continue to honor its terms. That means doing what they can to integrate Iran into the global economic system and not interfering with the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran. At the same time, Iran has the option, if the agreement breaks down, to restore the country’s enrichment capabilities. Kampmark quotes Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani: “I have ordered the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran to be ready for action if needed so that if necessary we can resume our enrichment on an industrial level without any limitations.’ In a note of mild reassurance, Kampmark adds, Rouhani claimed that the agreement would still remain in place provided its “goals in cooperation with other members of the deal could be achieved.”

Presently, the situation remains uncertain and the future of the nuclear deal depends on the decisions of the other participants to the agreement. There is some good news. Julia Conley reports that the EU and Iranian officials have reaffirmed their commitment to continue their respective adherence to the agreement (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/19/eu-and-iran-will-attempt-to-salvage-nuclear-deal-following-trumps-breach-agreement).

“The European Union and Iran signaled on Saturday,” Conley writes, “that they would not permit President Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal to deteriorate their own involvement in the agreement.” She quotes Manuel Areias Canete, the EU’s top energy official” who told reporters in Tehran that the Europeans “are sticking to the agreement [and] the Europeans will…fulfill their commitment.” The heads of state of Britain, Germany and France independently affirmed their commitment to abide by the deal. Rob Price quotes from the official statement.

“‘Together, we emphasize our continuing commitment to the JCPoA,’ the leaders of Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement, referring to the deal by an acronym. ‘This agreement remains important for our shared security.’

“‘We urge the U.S. to ensure that the structures of the JCPOA can remain intact, and to avoid taking action which obstructs its full implementation by all other parties to the deal,’ said the statement, provided by British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office after she spoke by phone to France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

And China and Russia, the other signatories to the agreement, are most likely to adhere to it – and fill some of the economic gaps left by the withdrawal of the US. One example reflecting such a course of events is reported by Julian Girault, who learned that China is picking up a major gas deal with Iran, after the French oil giant total gave it up because of threats from the U.S. (https://juancole.com/2018/05/picking-frances-dollars.html). Iran is already connected to China in significant ways. Benjamin mentions that China is seeking a partnership with Iran “in implementing its Silk Road Economic Initiative and is trying to build a transportation network that connects China to Europe, bypassing the Red Sea and Mediterranean.” There are mutual benefits. China is a market for Iran’s rich energy resources, while Iran has received “critical investment and help in modernizing its oil and natural gas sector.” And they have together, Medea Benjamin writes, “slowly built a solid military relationship, including weapons sales, training, and joint naval exercises in the Persian Gulf” (p. 191).

Similarly, Russia has shared interests with Iran in Syria and seeing that the Assad regime is not overthrown. They both, Benjamin points out, “want to push back against Sunni extremism globally. They have “extensive trade links.” Russia is also involved in the “development of Iran’s oil and gas fields,” and recently investing in “telecoms and agriculture” (p. 190).

By withdrawing from the nuclear deal, the Trump administration risks alienating America’s European allies and strengthening the influence of China and Russia. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will be able to cripple Iran’s economy through its enhanced system of sanctions or create the conditions that will lead Iran to resume is nuclear capacity. On the one hand, the sanctions imposed by Trump will make it unlawful for U.S. banks and corporations to invest in businesses in Iran and discourage European companies from continuing to operate in the country. On the other hand, some European companies may remain in Iran, China and Russia will increase their economic ties to the country, and perhaps trade and economic relations with other countries will be started, maintained, or be enhanced. For now, the governments of Britain, Germany, and France have pledged to honor the nuclear deal with Iran, as are China and Russia. In the background, however, is the threat by Trump and his advisers that the U.S. will launch a war on Iran.

Argument #2 – Kampmark also reports that, according to a Bolton press briefing, President Trump has made “a firm statement of American resolves to prevent not only Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but a ballistic missile delivery capability” as well (https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/10/withdrawal-symptoms-trump-and-the-iran-nuclear-deal). This is another argument that must be put into context. And note, while it is not part of the nuclear deal, it could be open to negotiations without ending the nuclear deal.

The main point is that there are good reasons, sadly, for Iran to arm itself with missiles and to maintain a relatively large military force. Here are three.

First, the U.S. has meddled in Iran’s internal affairs for decades. In 1953, the US helped to orchestrate a coup overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mosaddegh, then installed the Mohammad Reza Shah in power, who built a centralized, militarized state. Benjamin points out that Mosaddegh is “remembered by his people as a nationalist leader in the mold of India’s Gandhi, Indonesia’s Sukarno, and Egypt’s Nasser” (p. 27). In September 1980, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein attacked Iran (with the encouragement of the Carter administration), initiating a war that lasted eight years. Iraq used chemical and biological weapons. Both sides conducted extensive aerial bombardment. Estimates indicate that there were from 400,000 and 1 million casualties (See Benjamin, p. 42). Guess what? And here’s the kicker. The U.S. supplied both sides with weapons and hoped they would destroy one another. Jumping to recent times, Bush Jr. and now Trump have publicly stated they want regime change in Iran. The message they sent to Iran is clear and unmistakable: surrender to our demands or we will crush you.

Second,Iran is surrounded by countries occupied by U.S. troops and Arab countries, most prominently Saudi Arabia, that are antagonistic toward Iran. The point is that, in the absence of peaceful initiatives, it would be foolhardy for Iran not to maintain a strong military force, including advanced weapons systems. Michael T. Klare argues that conditions exist that could easily lead to a “Third Gulf War.” The Middle East is fraught with tension and conflict. And the U.S. is a major factor in this. Consider the main points in Klare’s analysis.

“A Third Gulf War would distinguish itself from recent Middle Eastern conflicts by the geographic span of the fighting and the number of major actors that might become involved. In all likelihood, the field of battle would stretch from the shores of the Mediterranean, where Lebanon abuts Israel, to the Strait of Hormuz, where the Persian Gulf empties into the Indian Ocean. Participants could include, on one side, Iran, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and assorted Shia militias in Iraq and Yemen; and, on the other, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). If the fighting in Syria were to get out of hand, Russian forces could even become involved. (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/14/gearing-third-gulf-war)

Third, Saudi Arabia and Israel, two of Iran’s greatest adversaries, have far greater military forces than Iran. And Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them anywhere in the region. If for no other reason, Iran believes it needs a military force that includes advanced weapons systems, including ballistic missiles for defensive reasons. Though for now, Iran is committed to not developing its capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

The solution is not to threaten Iran with war but to find the diplomatic steps to reduce the hostilities in the region. This may be pie-in-the-sky, but U.S. policies in the Middle East have thus far proven to be counterproductive and threaten to engulf the region in even more death and destruction.

Argument #3 – Iran is said to support terrorist groups and to be responsible for causing instability and turmoil in the Middle East. But there is a big question. Do the groups identified by the U.S. as terrorists deserve to be so labeled? Before addressing this question, keep in mind that Saudi Arabia, a great U.S. ally and the biggest market for U.S. arms’ sales, is the source of much of the extremism and violence in the Middle East. David Cay Johnston offers some evidence on this point, something the Trump administration – and previous ones – fail to acknowledge.

“…the Saudis are the world’ largest sponsor of terrorism, far exceeding the Iranian government that Trump frequently denounces for its support for terrorism. The State Department lists sixty-one terrorist organizations, all but two of which are aligned with Sunnis and the extreme Wahhabi sect that is officially endorsed in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis fund fifty-seven of those terrorist groups” (It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America, p. 157).

And Benjamin adds the following information that challenges the U.S. claim that Hezballah is the main terrorist organization in the Middle East is absurd. Here’s what she writes.

“According to the Global Terrorism Database of King’s College London, more than 94 percent of the deaths caused by Islamic terrorism from 2001 to 2016 were perpetrated by ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other Sunni jihadists. Iran is fighting those groups, not fueling them. Iran is a Shia nation combatting Sunni jihadists who consider Shia, and Westerners, infidels. Not one Iranian has ever been linked to a terrorist attack in the United States” (p. 201).

Back to the administration’s contention that Iran is the major source of support for groups identified as terrorist by the U.S. In his recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo list 12 demands for Iran, including this one: “…Iran must end support to Middle East terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hezballah (sometimes spelled Hizballah), Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” (See the report by Jon Wolfsthal and Julie Smith for details at http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/21/pompeo-iran-nuclear-plan-is-a-pipe-dream-trump.) I’ll focus on Hezballah.

Hezballah has its roots in the Lebanon Shia community going back to the late 1970s, particularly in the south and parts of Beirut, according to Benjamin. These were areas of Lebanon in which there were thousands of Palestinian refugees and the headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Army. Hezballah emerged in 1982 and was officially formed in 1985. Benjamin describes some of its activities, which can be viewed from a very different lens than the one used by the Trump administration.

“In 1982, Israel invaded south Lebanon to attack the Palestinian militants. Shia leaders, looking for a way to resist the Israeli occupation, challenged the mainstream Shia Amal movement and formed an armed movement that would later become Hezbollah. Early on, they sought support from Iran, and their targets were the Israelis and their American backers.”

“Hezbollah continued its guerilla war against Israeli forces in South Lebanon, but also began to play an active role in Lebanese politics. While the U.S. portrays Hezbollah as an Iranian agent, for Lebanese it is one of the most popular political parties in the country, where it routinely wins among the highest number of votes in the parliament, and where it is widely viewed as a legitimate political party, with an armed wing that succeeded in liberating and defending the country from Israel twice: in 1982 and 2006” (p. 186).

Hezbollah has also been involved in Syria and, along with the Lebanese Army, “fought a three-year battle to uproot the rebels [fighting against Assad], including ISIS forces, and succeeded in dislodging ISIS from the border areas in August 2017” (p. 187).

Gary Leupp provides more details in an article for Counter Punch on May 15, 2018. Leupp reports on the political popularity of Hezbollah, writing that in the elections in Lebanon on the previous Sunday, “Hizbollah and its allies (mostly Maronite Christians, actually)” won a majority in Parliament, winning 67 out of 128 seats. This doesn’t sound like the accomplishment of a terrorist movement. And, addressing the issue of terrorism directly, Leupp makes the following points.

“Why has Hizbollah been designated a “terrorist” organization by Israel and the U.S., followed (somewhat reluctantly) by the EU in 2013 under U.S. pressure? Germany continues to refuse to designate Hizbollah “in its entirety” as terrorist; like the EU in general it distinguishes between the “military wing” and the political party. Neither Russia nor China see it as terrorist. They realize that Hizbollah is a large political movement based in the Shiite community but enjoying an alliance with Christian and other minorities. It maintains a robust militia, more powerful than the Lebanese Army. It also maintains radio and TV stations, charities, hospitals. It has a genuine social base in Lebanon; that, rather than Iranian aid, is the key to its success. But instead of examining it in its specificities, successive U.S. administrations have simply condemned it while emphasizing its Iranian ties.”

Argument #4 – The Trump administration also asserts that the anti-Iran policies of the U.S. grows out of how the U.S. has a “moral” obligation to free the Iranian people from the authoritarian and repressive government of Iran. This argument may ring a bell, since it is one that was used in Iraq and in virtually every other place that the U.S. military has invaded in the Post-WWII era. While the Iranian people suffer dearly from economic hardships, most due largely to U.S. imposed sanctions, and from oppressive and discriminatory laws, they favor the nuclear deal and fear and oppose U.S. threats of war. Also, it is important to note that Iranian citizens have overall more freedom than the citizens of one of the chief U.S. allies in the Middle East, that is, Saudi Arabia. In short, any claims by the Trump and his advisers that they are concerned about the freedom of Iranians or about bring democracy to their land ring hollow. I’ll expand on these points with quotes from two sources.

In an article for Common Dreams, Trita Parsi puts to rest the idea that Iranians yearn for liberation by the U.S. and that the U.S. failure to lift sanctions and then its withdrawal from the nuclear deal may reduce the likelihood of democratic reforms in Iran (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/08/trumps-reckless-decision-puts-us-path-war-iran).

“Perhaps the most absurd aspect of President Trump’s Iran policy is his attempt to claim solidarity with the Iranian people, even as he bans Iranians from the U.S. and his top advisors openly support the MEK terrorist group that is universally reviled by Iranians. The Iranian people overwhelmingly supported the nuclear deal, at least until the sanctions relief that was promised failed to materialize and will be the party most impacted by Trump’s decision.

“Many were hopeful that the nuclear deal would facilitate broader change in Iranian society over time by empowering moderate forces in their demand for social and economic justice. By diminishing the excuse of sanctions and raising expectations for economic improvement, the nuclear deal appears to have added pressure on Iran’s leaders to meet the public’s political expectations. However, a potential opening for accelerated progress in Iran has now been slammed shut by Trump, an action that will redirect attention from the Iranian government to the United States. This will not just empower hardliners, it will force Iran’s political elite to paper over fissures on key social and political issues while cracking down further on any dissent. This is potentially the biggest crime of Trump’s decision – limiting the agency of Iran’s own people to choose peaceful political evolution in order to address their grievances.”

Medea Benjamin compares the social and political conditions of Saudi Arabia with those in Iran and finds less “freedom” in the former than the latter.

“The Iranian government is certainly guilty of many abuses, including gross violations of free speech and assembly, restricting the rights of women, imprisoning dissidents, and executing people for nonviolent offenses. But when juxtaposed with Saudi Arabia, the U.S. ally is far more repressive internally. Iran has flawed elections; Saudi Arabia doesn’t have national elections at all. Iran’s women are restricted, but Saudi Arabia is a much more gender-segregated society. The West applauded the 2017 Saudi announcement that it would allow movie theaters (albeit segregated), while Iran has had a thriving film, theater, and music industry for decades” (p. 3).

Concluding thoughts

The Trump’s thundering against Iran is typical of his militarized foreign policy and of the double-standards, hypocrisy, and immorality of this policy. It is also consistent with the positions of past administrations, though Obama’s did support the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). However, now we are in the worst situation vis-à-vis Iran than we have ever been, as Trump and his advisers actively and with great determination look for reasons to wage what would be a counterproductive and horrendous war on Iran that could easily escalate to the whole region and even beyond. Why? Part of the reason is that they are blinded by false assumption that the U.S. military can triumph wherever it intervenes when it has the full support of the administration, all the resources it needs, including, if deemed necessary, nuclear bombs. There are also geopolitical reasons. Like other presidents going back to President Carter, Trump believes that the fossil fuels of the Middle East should be controlled by allied countries, and the U.S. is prepared to wage war to make it so. And there are increasing concerns in the higher circles of the U.S. that the nation’s power should be used to curtail the growing influence of China in the Middle East – and elsewhere. Destroying Iran through war or extreme sanctions is apparently viewed by those in the White House as one way of achieving its goals. In the meantime, Trump’s policies increase the hardships of Iranian citizens and weaken the influences of those who want diplomacy to succeed.

Getting Ready to Attack: 2006 and 2018

Part 1

THE IRAN DILEMMA:
GOING BEYOND MILITARISM AND NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION
For Athens’ People for Peace and Justice
May 8, 2006
Bob Sheak

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Introduction (5-15-18)

I am sending out as the first of a two-part post the following presentation notes, though I compiled them 12 years ago, because they have relevance and provide some background for understanding and opposing the current saber-rabbling of Trump and his war-mongering advisers as they look for an opportunity to justify a military attack on Iran. George Bush II was then in the White House and he and his neoconservative advisers were also looking for an excuse back in 2006 to launch a military attack on Iran. This is exactly what Trump, Bolton, Pompeo, and others close to the president want now. They are contending that Iran cannot be trusted to abide by the unprecedented multilateral agreement signed on July 14, 2015 by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Britain, France, Russia, China and the US) plus Germany, because, they claim, it has too many loopholes. And, following in the steps of Bush, the present Trumpian White House crew raises other issues designed to demonize Iran’s regime, arguing that the country’ leaders support terrorist groups in Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen, that it supports the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, that the Iran government represses its people, and that it is a threat to Israel and the stability of the region. This is all part of the neocon narrative, which represents the right-wing segment of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. The record of Iran’s government is open to criticism that is factually accurate and in context, but don’t expect that from an administration that creates its own facts as part of a self-serving rationale for war. While Trump’s lackeys claim that Iran has not lived up to its side of the agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency has verified in 11 reports since January 2016 that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal. The IAEA has the responsibility under the 2015 agreement for conducting intrusive inspections of Iran’s nuclear energy facilities. Just one last point. Trump seems closer in 2018 to launching a war with Iran than Bush did in 2006.

I refer in parentheses in a few places to pages from a larger document that identifies the sources and evidentiary support for these notes. If you would like a copy, let me know.

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My 2006 PRESENTATION NOTES

While I am not an expert, I read and try to keep informed about our international policies in those parts of the world where the US government is intervening militarily or threatening to do so. I am also concerned about nuclear weapons, nuclear weapon proliferation, and the cataclysmic specter of nuclear war.

The military intervention and nuclear issues come together in a bellicose response by the Bush administration over what the administration is defining as a major crisis involving Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

I am opposed to any US military intervention against Iran. My reading has led me to believe that it would be foolhardy and very costly to the US economically and militarily, would provide momentum for the further consolidation of an imperial presidency and the stifling of democracy here in the US, would have devastating consequences for Iran, would likely generate more conflict across the Middle East, and would likely strengthen the position of Islamic fundamentalists in Iran and across the Middle East.

I think that Iran has a right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop the capability to generate nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Personally, though, I don’t like the idea of nuclear power to generate electricity, because of the dangers of accidents at nuclear plants, the accumulation of highly radioactive waste at these plants, the lack of effective means to dispose of nuclear waste, the contamination of soil and water sources around nuclear plants, the lack of options for what to do with highly contaminated nuclear plants when they are too old to go on operating, the vulnerability of nuclear facilities to terrorist attacks, and the increased chance that terrorists will be able to obtain materials for the construction of nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, the NPT is the foundational document internationally for stopping nuclear weapons’ proliferation and for phasing out the nuclear weapons stockpiles that exist.

As I’ve tried to understand this Iranian crisis, I’ve done what I usually do, that is, I try to identify the main issues, understand how they are logically interrelated, and assemble information on these issues. In the process, I formulate a personal position, one that I feel comfortable in defending, at least until there is persuasive evidence to the contrary.

There are three main sections of the larger outline and notes that I have assembled. At this point, the work is still in need of a careful editorial scrutiny and continual updating. Nonetheless, I think there is some value in its present form. It identifies many key issues in a logical format and thus provides some background for making decisions about what stance and action from peace groups may be appropriate. Here I present a short outline with highlights from the larger work.

The first section of my presentation focuses on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and some related issues. I think that we have to have some understanding of this treaty, since, whatever its limitations, it provides the basic legal framework for limiting, reducing, and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons, while at the same time allowing for the development of peaceful nuclear power. (pp. 1-8) [Distribute copies of the treaty.]

• 188 countries have signed it (p. 1)
• The International Atomic Energy Agency is given the authority to monitor the nuclear facilities of signatories
• The NPT has no enforcement provision, although violations may be referred to the UN Security Council for action if there is concern that there is an imminent threat to other countries
• Article IV of the NPT allows signatories to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
• Article VI – the disarmament provision – requires countries with nuclear weapons to eliminate these weapons (p. 2). It can be argued that the US is in violation of this provision.
• There are at least four nuclear powers that have not signed the NPT – Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. The US has diplomatic relations and other relations with three of the four illegal nuclear powers. Even though India is a nuclear renegade, the Bush administration has recently entered into an agreement with India to provide it with nuclear components for its nuclear power plants. India has the capacity to enrich uranium for both peaceful and military purposes. There is no way to keep India using nuclear components for military purposes, even when an agreement prohibits this. And the Bush administration could care less in India’s case.
• The Associated Press reported on Sunday (May 7, 2006) that Iran has threatened to quit the NPT, which it has a right to do under Article X of this treaty.

What stands stand out for me about the NPT and the controversy over Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

• 1) Iran is entitled to develop nuclear energy for peaceful ends, although “it did not declare its uranium enrichment activities and heavy water production, discovered in 2002, to the IAEA” (Thierry de Montbrial, “Bush’s Failure in the Middle East,” http://www.truthout.org May 3, 2006).
• 2) The Bush administration contends that Iran cannot be trusted for various reasons, and therefore Article IV of the NPT should not apply to Iran and the country should be kept from developing a nuclear power capability. In identifying Iran as an untrustworthy rogue state, the Bush administration seeks to divert attention from its hypocritical, double-standard approach to countries that have nuclear weapons.
• 3) The US has been hoping to legitimate its belligerent stance toward Iran within the framework of the NPT and through the UN. Administration officials claim that Iran is hiding its nuclear developments from the IAEA.
• 4) From what we read about the administration’s approach to Iran, it does not matter to Bush and his advisors whether Iran is in compliance with the NPT (Article IV) or not, and, in the final analysis, it does not matter what the Security Council decides. The administration appears determined to use whatever means it can to prevent Iran from having any nuclear capability.
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The second, and largest, section of the presentation focuses on the Iran crisis. It begins on page 8 and goes to page 64. There are two parts. The first part (pp. 8-24) provides in a chronology of key developments that have produced the Iran “crisis.” The second part (pp. 24-64), addresses nine questions/issues, some of which I have already touched on.

The chronology – I’ll leave it up to those who have an interest in this to check it out themselves. There are several points about the chronology, especially very recent developments, which are worth quickly referring to. The recent developments include:
• The IAEA has not found any evidence of an Iranian capacity to build nuclear weapons after lengthy and extended inspections.
• Nonetheless, the US is trying to persuade the UN Security Council to invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter and impose sanctions, while keeping open the possible use of military force later. Chapter VII would make compliance by Iran mandatory and punishable by sanctions if violated.
• The Russian and Chinese delegates at the Security Council oppose sanctions or military options.
• The Iranians have improved slightly their ability to enrich uranium for its nuclear power program, but they are still far from having the capability to enrich uranium that would be for nuclear weapons.
• In anticipation of a stalemated Security Council, the US, with Britain, and France are developing an agreement independently of the Security Council to support a resolution to impose economic sanctions on Iran, and to keep the door open to military intervention. In this case, the US would mobilize another “coalition of the willing” to toe the line of US belligerency.

The basic analysis: Nine questions and tentative answers for why we should oppose any US military action against Iran as well as economic sanctions.

1) What is the status of Iran’s nuclear program? Many experts believe that Iran is five to ten years away from being able to build nuclear weapons. Some Israelis think Iran could have nuclear bombs in less than five years. The Iranians are obviously making technological progress and are now able, for the first time, to enrich small quantities of uranium, which moves them closer to the point of being able to produce energy for peaceful purposes. They are still a long way from being able to enrich weapons grade uranium. (pp. 24-25)

2) Within the present NPT framework, does Iran have the right to develop a nuclear power capacity? Yes. Article IV of the NPT is the operative provision.

3) Iran has consistently claimed that it will not divert materials from its non-military nuclear facilities for the development of nuclear weapons. Can we believe them? (pp. 25-26)
• Diversion is possible at some point in 5-10 years to come.
• The US says, if Iran has the opportunity, it will divert. The IAEA say it doesn’t know. How do US officials know? They don’t.
• There is no hard evidence at present that Iran is in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty itself. All of its known activities with respect to nuclear research conform to what is permitted under the treaty.

4) Whatever Iran’s goals for the future, there are understandable reasons why Iran would want to develop a nuclear-weapons capacity at some future point. What are they? (pp. 27-29) Here are just four examples:

• “It is surrounded by countries with weapons of mass destruction: including Russia, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan, all of which have nuclear weapons (as well as chemical and probably biological weapons capabilities), Syria and Egypt, both of which have chemical weapons, and Turkey, with its NATO-based nuclear weapons and massive military capacities.”
• “There are now [2006] 200,000 US and allied troops in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. The US has military bases almost completely ringing Iran in Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgzstan.”
• “…US nuclear weapons deployment in and around the Persian Gulf, especially through the presence of the US Fifth Fleet in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, represent a constant threat to Iran.”
• “The US declared Iran a member of the ‘Axis of Evil’ in 2002 and claimed it has a right to ‘preventive war’ against such ‘evil’ states. This threat was subsequently carried out in the case of Iran’s neighbor Iraq.”

5) Why do the US and the others insist that Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear capabilities? (pp. 29-37). I refer here to a series of contentions being made by officials from the Bush administration and neo-conservatives and refer to commentary and/or evidence that challenge these arguments. Let me refer to just one of them. The contention says that Iran is especially dangerous – a rogue state – “and will use nuclear weapons against Israel once it has them” and/or give them to terrorists to use against the US itself. Randal Mark disagrees with this view and offers the following reasons (source: Randal Mark, “Nonproliferation: From Noble Lie to Pretext for War,” http://www.antiwar.com March 21, 2006) and offers the following rebuttals:

• “…the modern Iranian regime has never invaded any other country”
• “Such support as it has given to Hezbollah and other resistance groups fighting Israel should be compared with US support for the Contras in Nicaragua” – such activities have been very focused and will be evaluated variously depending on one’s perspective.
• [Iran has never transferred any of its more potent weapons to its fighting friends….Hezbollah has received more than 10,000 Katyusha rockets…as well as long-range mortars that can hit Haifa, and even an unmanned aerial drone. These weapons can and have drawn Israeli blood. But the blister, choking and nerve agents in Iran’s arsenal have been withheld, as have longer range, more accurate missiles” (Steven Simon and Ray Takeyh, “Cautious Iran,” The Christian Science Monitor, www,csmonitor.com/2006/0503/p09s02-coop.htm, May 5, 2006).]
• [MSNBC headlines a May 3 report, “Iranian military rejects statement that Israel would be first target if US attacks,” May 4, 2006.]
• “It is a very unpleasantly authoritarian, but moderately democratic and reasonably stable, regime.”

On pages 34-37, I ask the question of what effect the administration’s position has had on public opinion. The most recent poll I have is from CNN (April) found that “Nearly two thirds (63 percent) urged that only economic and diplomatic efforts be undertaken; 21 percent recommended taking no action at all and 3 percent said they had not opinion.” Only 13% of those polled recommended military action now. (p. 37)

6) Does the US have a “hidden agenda”? (pp. 37-40). There is no definitive answer to this question. Nonetheless, I refer to sources that examine plausible reasons for why the Bush administration has not given up the option of military intervention in Iran.

• Divert the public’s attention away from Iraq.
• Control the region’s oil.
• Protect the dollar as the currency for trading in oil
• Ideological zealotry – there is an example on pp. 39-40 from Gareth Porter of how an attempt to develop a formal Iran policy was thwarted in 2002-2003
• [Attempt to eliminate a potential rival to Israel.]
• [Eliminate a state that is defined as unfriendly and prevent it from consolidating its control of a major source of oil and limit its agreements with China to develop some of the Iranian oil fields]

7) What are the near-term options open to the US and others who don’t want Iran to have any nuclear capability? (pp. 40-52). The Bush administration has seemingly already rejected #1, #2, and #3.
• 1) continue diplomatic efforts in hopes of persuading Iran from acquiring any nuclear capability;
• 2) continue diplomatic efforts, combined with inspections and monitoring by the IAEA, with the goal of limiting Iran’s nuclear capability;
• 3) let Iran develop its nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes.

The Bush administration has pretty much given up on diplomatic solutions to the crisis and would like now to have the UN Security Council impose economic sanctions on Iran. However, the Bush administration has not been willing to become directly involved in negotiations with Iran, so it hasn’t put the diplomatic option to a real test. But there are many sources that believe that diplomacy is a viable option. For example, The Nation editors advance this position in the May 22, 2006, issue of the magazine, and “Carnegie Endowment President Jessica Tuchman Matthews laid out in a march 21 New York Times editorial what the US has to do to get negotiations going on the nuclear question; most importantly, dropping preconditions on negotiations and dropping regime change ambitions” (cited in Elizabeth Spiro Clark, “Slouching Toward Tehran,” http://www.tompaine.com/print/slouching_towards_tehran.php).

At the same time, the administration has never given up the military option, which the President believes is a decision he can make independently of the US Congress. This raises serious constitutional questions. With diplomacy all but dismissed, the options of “regime change,” sanctions, and/or some sort of military intervention remain on the table as far as the Bush administration is concerned.

• 4) have the Security Council impose sanctions at some point if Iran fails to convince the IAEA that it has any uranium enrichment capabilities;
• 5) provide support to opposition groups within Iran with the goal of regime change;
• 6) intervene militarily in Iran with selective air strikes;
• 7) intervene militarily with a full-scale attack;

On pp. 42-52, I discuss the evidence that the Bush administration is seriously considering the use of the military option.

• The Bush administration keeps saying the military option for Iran remains under consideration.
• Some evidence that the US military is already making incursions into Iran.
• The Bush administration has not ruled out a preventive-strike against Iran.
• The US is prepared to launch an air attack against selected targets in Iran.
• Some think the US might even use nuclear bombs in an invasion of Iran. There is contingency planning in the DOD regarding the use of nuclear weapons in an attack on Iraq.
• The US military is going ahead with testing of large bombs that are related to the development of tactical nuclear weapons. According to a report by Robert Gehrke for The Sale Lake Tribune, “A powerful blast scheduled at the Nevada Test Site in June is designed to help war planners figure out the smallest nuclear weapon able to destroy underground targets.” The planned detonation is called Devine Strike, and has the goal of generating data to allow military authorities to select “’the smallest possible nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage,’ according to Defense Department budget documents.”
• [The human costs of dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on Iran are “astronomical”: “The National Academy of Sciences studied these earth-penetrating nuclear weapons last year. They could ‘kill up to a million people or more if used in heavily populated areas,’ concluded the report, which was sponsored by the US Department of Defense.” See the article for further studies. (Matthew Rothschild, “The Human Costs of Bombing Iran,” http://progressive.org.node/3268 April 11, 2006 – Original source: The Progressive magazine.)

8) What are the potential costs to the US of a military assault on Iran? (pp. 52-60)

• Further loss of US credibility. The Editors of Monthly Review point out “There is every reason to believe that opposition to a US ‘preventive war’ against the people of Iran is almost universal outside the US, while tens of millions of people inside the US itself oppose such an expansion of the Middle East Conflict” (April 2006).
• Threatening or attacking Iran would violate international law
• An attack on Iran would likely be unconstitutional, without the support of Congress.
• Iran is in much better position than Iraq was to respond to a US attack (consider the following two points).
• E.g., Iran has the means to launch a devastating retaliation with conventional weapons, including its Shahab-3 missiles, which can reach targets in Israel with reasonable accuracy. And Iran has other military options, including intervention on the Shiite side in Iraq, which could turn the disastrous US occupation there into a worse nightmare, with skyrocketing casualties. Iran could also vastly increase its support to Islamist resistance forces in the Palestinian territories and to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
• E.g., An Israeli or US attack on Iran would almost certainly strengthen Islamist tendencies throughout the region as well as put intense pressure on Arab governments to react much more strongly against the United States and Israel. And heightened threats against Iran would only strengthen the hard-liners there. By all accounts, Iranians–even those who detest the mullahs–overwhelmingly support their country’s nuclear ambitions.
• A US attack on Iran would be costly and destabilizing and lead to a protracted war in the region.
• A US invasion of Iran would drive oil prices soaring.
• US military is already over-stretched and is not prepared for another extended conflict.
• A US attack on Iran would strengthen China’s growing influence in the region.

9) Can we live with an Iran that has nuclear weapons? Can the world tolerate it? (pp. 60-64). It’s better to live with an Iran that seems determined to develop a nuclear capacity than to intervene militarily against Iran.

• We must bear in mind that Iran is some years away from having the capability to build nuclear bombs.
• What effect would Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons have on the proliferation of such weapons? (a) Saudi Arabia and Syria might want them but neither country has the resources – and they would likely be pressured to give up the idea; (b) Turkey might feel pressure to match Iraq and acquire its own nuclear weapons – “but EU pressure would almost certainly prevent any movement in that direction”; (c) It might make the US less reckless in its use of military force in the Middle East; (d) It might force Israel to the negotiating table for real.
• Iran’s has demonstrated moderation and pragmatism in its foreign policy of recent years, as national interests and strategic calculations have taken precedence over ideology. (See examples on pp. 61-63.)

—————————————————————————–
The Third Section: Some positions worth defending and advancing.

We don’t want Iran or any other non-nuclear country to build or retain nuclear bombs. We also don’t want the US to invade or bomb Iran? What then do we want? It may be useful to clarify what we think are reasonable goals that would redirect US policy way from the sanctions and military options and that would pave the way for the reversal of nuclear proliferation.

(1) Set an Example. The US must take the lead and set an example by reducing its nuclear stockpile, ceasing development of new nuclear weapons, and opening itself up to independent international inspections. – “… non-proliferation by cooperation and consent, cannot succeed as long as the United States is insistent on retaining and improving its nuclear arsenal and allowing its allies to have these weapons. By what argument can others be persuaded to give up, or not acquire, nuclear weapons? The only hope lies in a mutual recognition that all nuclear weapons are created equally evil, and there should be no room in our world for such weapons of mass destruction.”

(2) Diplomacy. In the meantime, support initiatives for genuine diplomacy with Iran – rather than sanctions or military intervention
Michael Klare says, further, that genuine negotiations on the U.S. side “means accepting Iran as a legitimate negotiating partner and approaching the issues in a professional manner. Negotiating with Tehran doesn’t mean endorsing the clerical regime; it simply means being prepared to reach a compromise that’s in everyone’s best interest. It requires shunning all talk of “regime change” and any inclination to use force.”
Another source: The U.S. and Iran should enter direct negotiations. It is simply absurd for the U.S. and the most important nation in the Middle East not to communicate directly. The Bush administration should not be seduced by exile groups with no support in Iran. Developing democracy is an internal affair.

(3) Support legislation that forces the Bush administration to consult with the US Congress before ever launching a military attack on Iran. For example, Congressman Peter DeFazio’s H.Con.Res.391 expresses “the sense of the Congress that the President should not initiate military action against Iran with respect to its nuclear program without first obtaining authorization from Congress.”

(4) Support the idea of a nuclear bomb free Middle East – I refer selected paragraphs of a plan quoted on pages 68-71 as follows:
• There are historical precedents, going back thirty or so years, for consideration of a nuclear-free Middle East region.
• “All nuclear weapons, weapons technology, weapons-usable material, and machinery that could produce such material would be prohibited. Outside powers would be prohibited from introducing weapons into the zone, and dual-use technology would be subject to IAEA safeguards. Nuclear power would not be excluded from the region, but each plant would have a resident international inspector who also could assume responsibility for monitoring the safe operation of the plant. Custodial responsibility for fresh fuel would rest with the provider country, which would repatriate the spent nuclear fuel.”
• “The IAEA would furnish first-tier enforcement through a new nuclear contraband elimination authority. In order to build confidence in the zone, inspectors’ responsibilities would be broadened. Each country or cluster of countries would be assigned resident inspectors, who would be free to visit declared, undeclared, or suspected nuclear sites and also sites containing dual-use technology. They would be granted the right to interview a country’s nuclear scientists as well. The authority would command its own fleet of surveillance aircraft modeled after the planes dedicated to the Open Skies regime, which the former Soviet Union and NATO negotiated, or the aerial surveillance that flew over Iraq. This surveillance would supplement intelligence provided by IAEA member states. These aircraft would have sensors capable of ferreting out suspect activity, which ground inspectors could then verify. Inspectors would have the authority to destroy or export contraband to disposal sites in the United States, Europe, or Russia.”
• But why should Israel bear the burden of Iran’s violation of the NPT? The sacrifice only makes sense if it is compensated appropriately. The challenge is to fashion a strategy to supplement the NWZ with compensation that will benefit all parties.
• NATO membership would offer Israel a key to increased security. For the first time in the Jewish state’s history, it would find itself under the strategic umbrella of a family of nations formally dedicated to its survival, an ambition that goes back to the founding of the state. [10] This, in turn, would ease the way for Israel to make territorial concessions with the Palestinians and Syrians and end the state of war.
• ….For the Mideast NWZ to work, Israel must be reassured. Under this proposal, NATO’s commitment to Israel’s nuclear defense would precede full membership and provide a nuclear deterrent. NATO-manned aircraft and ballistic missile defenses could counter Iran’s growing capacity. Full membership would add ground forces to assist in the defense of Israel’s permanent borders, once they were established as part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The lure of full membership would encourage this achievement. Following the precedent of excluding nuclear weapons on the territory of NATO’s new central European membership, the alliance would not place nuclear weapons on Israeli soil or territorial waters, hence preserving the NWZ.

(5) A long-term goal of ridding the world of nuclear power, civilian and military: The only solution at this stage is to impose a worldwide moratorium on the production of weapons-grade fissionable materials, and those materials already produced should be placed under strict international controls in all countries including our own. This would mean revising the NPT or replacing it with a stronger treaty.

(6) Support the proposal for an International Sustainable Energy Agency.

Source: Richard Falk and David Krieger, “The Non-Proliferation Treaty is Failing: What Now?” http://www.wagingpeace.org April 10, 2006
“….an International Sustainable Energy Agency should be immediately established and generously funded to extend aid to poorer countries to develop various types of sustainable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, tidal). Such a step would both ease the prospects of a global energy crunch, and would contribute to environmental protection.

(7) Become informed, speak out, and educate others about the recklessness of the Bush administration’s policy on Iran.

(8) Become informed, speak out, and educate others about the importance of not only stopping nuclear proliferation but also eliminating existing stocks of nuclear weapons.

Can the EPA become a force for genuine environment protection and enhancement without systemic change?

Bob Sheak, May 4, 2018

Trump is advancing policies that serve to consolidate the powerful right-wing coalition of which he is the accommodating – and self-promoting – public leader.

One of Trump’s most prominent and disturbing policies is reflected in the administration’s energy policy, but it should be noted that his initiatives and appointments related to energy are just one part of the administration’s – and Republican Party’s – wholesale deregulation goal. I will focus on the environment and the EPA.

The right-wing regulatory policy is aimed at weakening government enforcement of environmental laws, by appointing agency administrators who will advance this goal, and by vigorously pursuing deregulation to eliminate or weaken those environmental policies and practices that put limitations on corporate profit-seeking. Contrary to Trump, we want and need strong regulatory agencies that protect citizens, consumers, and the environment from the excesses built into our corporate-dominated capitalist system. Such agencies would ideally initiate and enact plans and rules, based on solid scientific research, and enforce them. Effective regulatory agencies are obviously those that encourage at all levels of government environmental protection, reclamation, and enhancement not only through rule-making and enforcement but also through grants and expert assistance.

There is conflicting evidence over how the EPA has done prior to the Trump administration.

The positives

The editors of the Environmental Magazine remind us of the origin, purposes, and early accomplishments of the EPA (March 15, 2017, http://www.spiritofchange.org/green-living-environment/What-Good-Has-The-EPA-Done-For-The-Environment).

“the EPA was created via Executive Order by Republican President Richard Nixon in December 1970 in response to rising concerns about pollution in an increasingly industrialized United States.” Its purpose, then and now, is to ensure that all Americans are protected from significant risks to their health and the environment where they live, learn and work. To accomplish this, the EPA develops and enforces environmental regulations based on laws passed by Congress; monitors environmental quality across the country; funds states, non-profits and educational institutions to address local and regional problems; and educates the public about how to avoid and mitigate environmental risks. Laws implemented and enforced by the EPA to protect our land, air and water save hundreds of thousands of Americans from premature death every year and keep our ecosystems healthy in the face of innumerable threats.

“The EPA’s very first major accomplishment back in the early 1970s was setting standards on common air pollutants plaguing urbanized and industrial areas across the U.S. Other highlights from the EPA’s first decade include: banning the pesticide DDT and requiring extensive environmental reviews of all pesticides; establishing the first fuel economy standards for cars and trucks on American roads; overseeing the phase-out of PCBs, chlorofluorocarbons and leaded gasoline; and setting nationwide benchmarks for drinking water quality.”

Scientific American offers a positive view of the EPA in an article titled “Environmental Enforcer: How Effective Has the EPA Been in Its First 40 years,” or through 2010 (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-epa-first-40-years). The answer given by the editors is that the agency “has been very effective.” It is the “first dedicated national environmental agency of its kind” in the world, and has been “instrumental in setting policy priorities and writing and enforcing a wide range of laws that have literally changed the fact of the Earth for the better.” They refer to a study by the Aspen Institute and compiled by a group of more than 20 environmental leaders unveiling a list of “10 ways the U.S .Environmental Protection Agency has strengthened America over the past 40 years.” Here’s what they say.

“…banning the widespread use of the pesticide DDT, which was decimating bald eagles and other birds and threatening public health; achieving significant reductions in Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen emissions that were polluting water sources via acid rain; changing public perceptions of waste, leading to innovations that make use of waste for energy creation and making new products; getting lead out of gasoline; classifying secondhand smoke as a known cause of cancer, leading to smoking bans indoor public places; regulating toxic chemicals and encouraging the development of more benign chemicals; establishing a national commitment to restore and maintain the safety of fresh water, via the Clean Water Act; promoting equitable environmental protection for minority and low-income citizens; and increasing public information and communities’ ‘right to know’ what chemicals and/or pollutants they may be exposed to in their daily lives.”

There is also recent evidence that the EPA has had beneficial impacts on protecting people from industry pollution. David Cay Johnston points to the following evidence in his book, It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America.

“For the three decades from 1990 to 2020, the EPA calculated, the direct costs of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments will come to $380 billion. The benefits, depending on assumptions, range between $1 trillion and $35 trillion. The Central estimate was $12 trillion” (p. 118).

Johnston adds: “That is a return of $35 of benefits for each dollar spent on compliance, using the middle estimate.” He further points out that this research does not count the reduced “asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, and premature death caused by pollution.”

The negative

There is other evidence that reveals that the EPA has colluded with manufacturers in establishing what the safe limits of various chemicals and pollutants are and doing so in a way that set the limits too low. The Poison Papers, “a trove of rediscovered and newly digitized chemical industry and regulatory agency documents stretching back to the 1920s,” according to an outline of the papers published on the website EcoWatch (https://www.ecowatch.com/the-poison-papers-2465841261.html).

The papers were released to the public in July 2017. The research, done by the Bioscience Research Project and the Center for Media and Democracy, is based on “a compilation of more than 20,000 documents obtained from federal agencies and chemical manufacturers.” The analysis of the papers shows that regulators typically went along with the demands of industry, “setting up secret committees, deceiving the media and the public, and covering up evidence of human exposure and human harm. These secret activities extended and increased human exposure to chemicals they knew to be toxic.”

Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., director of the Poison Papers project, is interviewed on The Real News, an outstanding news and opinion program you can find on the internet (May 3, 2018). Let me quote his opening statements.

“What they show is that, either actively or implicitly, that regulatory agencies, but most especially the EPA, have been colluding with the manufacturers and the organizations that they’re supposed to regulated in all kinds of different ways. So this is for the approval of new products, this is for the enforcement of all products, this is for the suppression of data, showing evidence of harm. Denying the public this information that they need to protect themselves, an opportunity to find our more about products, for example.”

There are also many books that criticize the EPA for weak regulatory assessments and enforcement and how the agency has been too willing to accommodate corporate interests in industries being regulated. For example, Philip Shabecoff and Alice Shabecoff published the book Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children in 2009, in which they document that there has been “a steep increase of a variety of serious chronic childhood illness over the past half century.” They continue: “These include childhood cancer, asthma, birth defects, and a range of neurological problems.” These illnesses have been:

“paralleled by an increase in the volume and range of toxic substances into the environment that we perceive as astonishing in magnitude. These substances pervade our habitat – our air, our water, our soil, our homes, our schools, and our places of work. They not only come from toxic waste sites, industrial sites, power plant smokestacks, automobile tailpipes, and pesticide-sprayed field, but can also lurk in our food and many (if not most) of our commonplace produces as cleaning products, cosmetics, plastic bottles, and clothing…. There is not a human on earth who is not exposed to toxic pollution. But it is the children who are most vulnerable” (p. xii).

Author David Kirby cites the EPA as a source that identifies environmental problems that are vast in their effects. In his book, Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment (2010), Kirby writes that “the EPA said farming operations of all types had contaminated some fifteen hundred miles of state rivers, more than twice the amount polluted by manufacturing and city sewage plants combined” (p. 55). But Kirby then points out that the EPA did little, writing that “[o]n January 21, 2005, the EPA announced an unprecedented programs that granted amnesty to large CAFO [Confined Animal Feeding Operations] that violated the federal Clean Air Act. In return, the offenders would participate in a voluntary program of monitoring air emissions at some, but not all, of the participating farms” (p. 300).

The take-away and what’s to come

The EPA has done some good but not enough. The roots of the problem are systemic, in the sway of profit-based corporate power, political stalemate and increasingly right-wing government, an economy that knows no limits, and a culture in which the good life is often measured by what people can consume. In this context, it is surprising that the EPA has accomplished as much as it has. What’s clear now is that under the Trump regime environmental regulation is likely to see an EPA starved of resources and under the leadership of administrators who don’t believe in and want to sabotage regulation. David Cay Johnston quotes Betsy Southerland, the EPA administrator who preceded Scott Pruitt, who said we can expect there will “increased public health and safety risks and a degraded environment.”

A caveat?

Michael Grunwald pens an article for Politico, the main point of which is that the EPA rules and rule-making processes are so complex and take so much time to be completed that it is unlikely that Trump’s administration or the EPA administrator are likely to do much harm (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/07/scott-pruitt-epa-accomplishments-rollback-217834). The thrust of this article is captured in this quote.

“…so far he’s [Pruitt] only managed to delay a few rules that hadn’t yet taken effect. His supporters, critics and boss have all promoted the perception that he’s repealed Obama’s legacy and shredded American environmental rulebook – and not one has promoted that perception more energetically that Pruitt, who frequently sued Obama’s EPA when he Oklahoma’s attorney general. Nevertheless, the perception is wrong.

“Pruitt’s problem is that major federal regulations are extremely difficult and time-consuming to enact, and just as difficult and time-consuming to reverse. The rulemaking process can take years of technical and administrative work that Pruitt and his team have not yet had time to do.”

Grunwald has not read the Poison Papers. The massive environmental problems that afflict the United States do not begin with the Trump administration. And the bad news keeps coming. Michelle Chen reports on in-depth evidence from the recently published study by the American Lung Association titled “State of the Air.” The central point is that 133.9 million Americans live in cities that exceed acceptable levels of smog, pathogens, and toxins. You can find Chen’s report at: https://thenation.com/article/133-9-million-americans-live-in-areas-with-unhealthy-levels-of-air-pollution. Whatever good work the EPA has been doing is being eclipsed by the amount of pollutants that are being produced by the economy, from the fossil-fuel based transportation system, the electrical power systems, the wildfires related to climate change, and other sources.

Trump’s Energy Policy

This is a policy that wants to foster the maximum extraction, processing, distribution and use of oil, gas, and coal, with absolutely no concern about the environmental or health consequences. Trump is doing his part in implementing this lethal policy ideologically by denying the indisputably- scientifically-documented reality of global warming and the huge role played by fossil fuel emissions in this existentially-threatening climate-altering process. In the Trump, right-wing world, verifiable and authoritative evidence has no meaning or can be cavalierly dismissed if it interferes with investment and profits. This way of thinking resonates well with the network of billionaires headed by the Koch brothers, the big fossil fuel corporations, the American Petroleum Institute, and other big Republican donors. Then there are tens of millions of Americans among Trump’s core supporters, most of whom will believe virtually anything the leader says. They don’t salute with a straight arm him yet, but they wear his hats and other paraphernalia and shout his praises at the rallies of adoration that his compliant staff organize to boost the leader’s spirits. Indeed, why should they not cheer this president who tells them he is the greatest, a self-proclaimed “stable genius,” and one who will offer them security against their worst fears.

Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement

Beyond ideology, Trump has taken specific steps to buttress the fossil-fuel based energy systems. He withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Accord or Agreement on June 1, 2017(https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-paris-climate). The Paris agreement was the world’s first comprehensive international climate agreement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement). By May 2018, despite Trump’s action, government officials of over190 countries had signed the agreement, the aim of which was to have each government agree to reduce their emissions enough so that collectively the global temperature will not rise about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). The agreement rests on the willingness of countries to voluntarily reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and for the “rich” countries to pony up extra funds to support the development of sustainable energy systems in poor countries. It is not an ideal agreement. There are concerns that the agreement does not go far to keep temperatures from rising about 3.6 degrees and there is no binding enforcement mechanism. But it is an agreement that provides the cooperative framework on which to build.

In his statement withdrawing from the agreement, Trump maintained that it would cost Americans jobs, require cuts in the production of paper, cement, iron and steel, oil, and coal, causing astronomical economic upheavals, and give China unfair advantages. He also said he would do better and talked about introducing a new deal for the world’s nations to consider sometime in the future. In the meantime, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere at levels the earth has not experienced for many thousands of years. And time is running out before the increasingly destructive effects of anthropogenic climate change overwhelm humanity and threaten the very survival of the human species.

The Climate Crisis grows

Julia Conley reviews some of the evidence on climate change and its effects in an article for Common Dreams, citing authoritative sources (http://commondreams.org/news/2018/01/18/trump-denies-science-terrifying-trend-continues-2017-among-hottest-years-ever). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA report that, as she summarizes, “17 of the 18 hottest years since preindustrial times have occurred since 2001.” This is a reference to the average global temperature. The last four years have been the hottest four on record. Conley adds: “In 2017, as scientists observed wildfires throughout California; an Atlantic hurricane season that saw three major storms sweep through the Caribbean and the southern U.S., killing an untold number of people and causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage; and the extent of sea ice at both the North and South Poles reaching a record low due to melting after a warm 2017 winter.”

Obama’s Clean Power Plan

But there is a lot more going on in the Trump administration than withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. Trump and his administration have moved to undermine existing environmental laws opposed by his major corporate supporters in the fossil-fuel and auto industries and the right-wing coalition generally. In May 2017, Trump issued an executive order on climate policies, the main target of which was the EPA’s Clean Power Plan which had only been finalized by the Obama White House in August 2016. Scott K. Johnson of Arstechnica provides some useful background. “The goal of the Clean Power Plan was to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030” (https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/trumps-executive-order-on-climate-change-finally-drops). The most important rule in the plan included emission-reduction targets for each state to meet. The states were to decide how to reach their respective targets, though some or many coal-burning plants would not have been able to comply and would had to have closed (as many are anyway). Some states would have been affected more than others.

With the seeming termination of the Clean Power rule, Trump’s EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, was given the job of taking the plan back to the drawing board, with no time-table. In the meantime, some of the older-coal burning power plants will continue operating. Johnson also points out that there are provisions in Trump’ executive order that will open up additional opportunities generally for fossil fuel mining on federal land and specifically for easing restrictions on fracking for oil and gas on federal land. For environmentalists, the bad news piles up.Johnson writes: “the federal government is directed to stop using EPA-developed ‘social cost of carbon’ calculations to determine the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions when making policy decisions,” and “to stop considering climate change when reviewing infrastructure projects,” ignoring “things like sea level rise and increasing flash flooding.” There is, though, one remaining obstacle that Trump’s EPA faces, as Johnson points out.

“Some form of regulation is still required because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA was legally obligated to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, so long as the agency determined that greenhouse gas emissions threatened ‘public health and welfare.’ In 2009, the Agency concluded they did – a key decision know as ‘endangerment finding.’ As a result, the EPA is now legally required to put out some sort of regulation like the Clean Power Plan.”

Given the unqualified commitment of the Trump administration to deregulation, I am inclined to think that any replacement regulation will do little to curtail emissions from coal, oil, and gas production.

Scott Pruitt’s EPA – something to be whittled down

Now there’s a lot more to say about Trump’s energy policy. David Cay Johnson makes this relevant point about Trump’s attitude toward the EPA, that is, the EPA is “an agency Trump has promised he would smash into ‘tidbits” (It’s Even Worse Than You Think, p. 115). Trump’s policy is encapsulated in his choice of Scott Pruitt to run the EPA. Pruitt agrees with Trump that fossil-fuel extraction and production should be maximized and that any government regulations that stand in the way of the fossil-fuel-based electrical power and a gasoline-dependent transportation system should be changed, side-stepped, or ignored. In line with this way of thinking, it is widely reported that Pruitt discourages and penalizes agency experts and staff for referring to global warming in their reports. This may help to explain why hundreds of EPA employees are leaving the agency (https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/22/epa-trump-administration-new-york-times/index.html). Pruitt’s EPA has also removed climate change information from its website. Reporting for CNN on April 29, 2018, Rene Marsh writes: “The EPA removed most climate change information from its website Friday, saying in a press release that language on the website is being updated to ‘reflect the approach of the new leadership’” (https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/29/politics/epa-climate-change-website/index.html).

Pruitt: CO2 emissions may not be a bad thing

Pruitt himself has denied the reality of global warming, or human-induced disruptive climate change (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/09/epa-scott-pruitt-carbon-dioxide-glob). Recently, however, he has acknowledged that carbon dioxide emissions are having an impact on the environment but that it “may not be a bad thing,” as reported by Nick Visser for the Huffington Post on February 7, 2018 (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scott-pruitt-global-warming-good_us_5a7ba9bce4044b3821922dc). Here is some of what Visser reports:

“Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, alluded earlier this week that global warming may be beneficial to humans, once again questioning the world’s leading scientists who have declared the phenomenon one of the greatest known threats to humanity.

‘In an interview that aired Tuesday on KSNV, a Nevada television station, Pruitt questioned how accurately scientists could predict the planet’s ideal temperature in 2100, or even this year, and said humans had “flourished” in times of past warmth.

“We know humans have most flourished during times of what, warming trends,” Pruitt said during the interview. “I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing. Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, in the year 2018?”

He continued: “That’s fairly arrogant for us to think that we know exactly what it should be in 2100.”

The view is a new iteration of Pruitt’s antagonism toward established climate science, but it flies in the face of such research all the same. Scientists have long held a near-unanimous consensus that the climate is changing and that humans are the primary cause. World leaders and global organizations have declared the phenomenon one of the most pressing threats to humanity and have warned that unless the world works to halt greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, a host of climate-related effects could devastate the world.

The reaction of scientists to Pruitt’s claim about CO2 emissions being “not so bad” is reported by John Bacon in a USA Today article (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/08/epa-chief-scott-pruitt-global-warming-may-good-thing/318850002).

Bacon quotes the responses of three scientists to Pruitt’s statement. Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Penn State, pointed out: “As the evidence becomes ever more compelling that climate change is real and human caused, the forces of denial turn to other specious argument, like ‘it will be good for us.'” Stanford environment professor Chris Field, “who oversaw a United Nations and World Meteorological Organization scientific report on climate change,” is quoted as follows: “thousands of studies document that a warming planet causes a host of problems, not just from high temperatures but also from heat waves, higher seas, heavier downpours, and more frequent destructive hurricanes and wildfires.” And Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University,” told Field that “the impact of global warming on health and the sustainability of the food supply are ‘not good.” While there are some locations where warming has a benefit, overall “things are worse.”

Making the Obama administrations fuel-efficiency standards disappear
Pruitt appears to shrug off criticisms and is relentless in his efforts to ignore global warming/climate change. This attitude is further reflected in the EPA’s decision to undo the historic fuel-efficiency standards instituted by the Obama administration in August 2012. What are these standards? A White House press release announcing the standard claimed that the “groundbreaking standards…will increase fuel economy to the equivalent of 54.5 mpg for cars and light-duty trucks by Model Year 2025” (https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/28/obama-administratin-finalizes-historic-545-mpg-fuel-efficiency-standard).

The new standards were said to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save consumers more than $1.7 trillion at the gas pump, and reduce U.S. oil consumption by 12 billion barrels.” The administration also expected that the new standards would encourage manufacturers to make investments in “clean, innovative technologies.” California was subsequently given a waiver to institute even higher standards, if they chose to. All this is good. Now, however, Pruitt’s EPA has terminated the standards. Why? It reflects so brazenly the Trump administrations goals of wholesale deregulation, climate-change denial (more or less), and the unqualified commitment of Trump and his right-wing allies to eliminate all obstacles to the profit visions of the fossil-fuel corporations, big auto makers, and their powerful corporate and political allies.

Pruitt made the announcement terminating the fuel-efficiency standards on April 3, 2018, as reported by Arlette Saenz for ABC News (http://abcnews.com/Politics/epa-administrator-scott-pruitt-announces-rollback-obama-era/story?id=54202466). Here’s the gist of her report.

“’Those standards are inappropriate and should be revised,’ Pruitt said at the EPA. The change in policy relaxes fuel efficiency and emissions standards for vehicles manufactured between 2022 and 2025. Pruitt did not outline any new standards, saying they are still under evaluation.”

This decision by Pruitt for the right-wing to end and replace (no specified date) the Obama administration’s fuel-efficiency standards may be the most potentially climate-damaging move by Pruitt’s EPA so far, according to Marianne Lavelle and John H. Cushman Jr of Inside Climate News (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042018/climate-change-car-fuel-efficiency-cafe-standard-epa-pruitt-auto-pollution-gas-mileage-california-global-warming).

The standards seem to have had some success initially. Lavelle and Cushman point out that the auto industry “outperformed the federal vehicle standards until last year. But then in 2017 “[c]arbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector…reached their highest level since the 2008 economic downturn.” Now emissions are rising as the auto industry sells an increasing number of SUVs and light trucks, as sales go up, and as people drive more miles. Lavelle and Cushman write that such emissions now account for 37 percent of U.S. emissions from energy consumption, citing as their source the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Vehicle emissions now exceeds those from the electric power sector. There is concern also that, in the absence of any reasonable fuel-efficiency standards, the auto corporations will curtail their moves toward manufacturing electric cars.

The seriousness of Pruitt’s decision to abandon the fuel-efficiency standards of the Obama administration led to an enormous outcry. Jessica Corbett’s headline captures it: “States Representing 44% of US Population Sue Trump’s EPA for Blocking Auto Emissions Standards” (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/01/states-representing-44-us-population-sue-trumps-epa-blocking-auto-emissions). Here is some of what she reports.

“A coalition of 17 states and the District of Columbia is suing the Trump administration for blocking greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles that aimed to reduce air pollution and curb U.S. drivers’ contributions to the global climate crisis.

“In what critics called an “indefensible and frankly embarrassing decision,” last month Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt caved to automobile industry lobbyists’ demands and announced that his agency is drafting relaxed manufacturing rules for vehicles made between 2022 and 2025.

“’Enough is enough,’ California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Tuesday. ‘The evidence is irrefutable: today’s clean car standards are achievable, science-based, and a boon for hardworking American families. But the EPA and Administrator Scott Pruitt refuse to do their job and enforce these standards.’

“Becerra, California Gov. Jerry Brown, and the California Air Resources Board are leading the coalition that filed suit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. According to a statement released by Becerra’s office, the lawsuit alleges that Trump’s EPA “acted arbitrarily and capriciously, failed to follow its own regulations, and violated the Clean Air Act” when rolling back the regulations.

“’This coalition represents approximately 43 percent of the new car sales market nationally and 44 percent of the U.S. population,’ the statement noted. States attorneys general or agencies from Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia have signed on to lawsuit (pdf).”
It remains to be seen whether even such massively organized opposition can effectively challenge Pruitt’s decision.

What is Scott Pruitt’s role really all about?

There is something bigger involved in Pruitt’s decisions. Aside from seemingly irrational policies and administrative practices, Scott Pruitt is playing a role in a larger political drama orchestrated by Trump and his right-wing allies. Bear in mind, they are committed to strengthening a free-wheeling version of corporate-dominated capitalism that is oriented to profits, wherever, however, and whatever. They want a political-economic system that is highly deregulated and privatized, low federal taxes, corporate-friendly in every way, highly militarized, and hawkish on foreign policy. The administration disregards concepts of the public interest, the common good, or environmental protection and renewal. And it is particularly punitive toward those with low-incomes who need public assistance. I have discussed these issues in previous posts.

Here’s the answer. The appointment of Pruitt as EPA administrator is an example of how Trump choses ideologically compatible people to important policymaking positions in his administration, paying little attention to their competence or character. Trump wants loyalty and compliance and opportunities thus to demonstrate his own superiority and power to his principal constituencies, the mega-corporations and the rich. There is little attention paid to Pruitt’s incompetence, his authoritarian administrative approach, and his far-right ideological bent. What matters? Pruitt’s ability to deliver a more depleted and ineffective EPA than he started with. This remains to be seen. However, Pruitt may have gone too far in some ways, that is, in his willingness to use his lofty position to personally benefit himself and his friends and to be caught at it. This may be his ultimate undoing. We can be sure, there are plenty of like-minded replacements waiting in the wings. In the final analysis, we need, though the chances are not great, a government in Washington D.C. that is committed to environmental protection, reclamation, and enhancement. That requires elected officials who are progressive and committed to truly radical institutional change.

Pruitt’s a committed right-wing ideologue and a bit of an opportunist

When Pruitt first introduced himself to EPA by video over the agency’s computer network, he “revealed his one-sided approach to EPA’s mandate,” according to David Cay Johnston.

“His only stated concerns were those of industries EPA regulates.”

“Pruitt did not talk about why environmental regulations exist: to protect human health and safety, to make sure children are not drinking water laced with lead as happened in Flint, Michigan; to minimize the damage of industrial processes, such as ensuring that fumes from electric power plant smokestacks are not so toxic that they turn the rain falling on northeastern forests acid, killing trees and trout; to make sure that a century of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland catching fire because of chemical dumping remains history; to ensure that fish caught in the Great Lakes and the Hudson River and the coastal seas are not laced with man-made chemicals that cause cancer in humans how eat the fish; to protect the wildlife and plant life that create enormous amounts of economic value for mankind all on their own” (It’s Even Worse Than You Think, p. 116).

His previous record of support for and close ties to fossil-fuel interests

John Nichols provides the following information on Pruitt’s past record as Oklahoma’s attorney general in his book Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to The Most Dangerous People in America.

“As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt used template language provided by lobbyists to help advance the agendas of those lobbyists. According to the watchdog group[Center for Media and Democracy]: ‘The oil and gas lobby group American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) coordinated opposition in 2012 to both the Renewable Fuel Standard Program (RFS) and ozone limits with Pruitt’s office. While AFPM was making its own case against the RFS with the American Petroleum Institute, it provided Pruitt with a template language for an Oklahoma petition, noting ‘this argument is more credible coming from the state. Later that year, Pruitt did file opposition to both the RFS and ozone limits.”

“‘In a groundbreaking New York Times Pulitzer-winning series in 2014, Eric Lipton exposed the close relationship between Devon Energy and Scott Pruitt, and highlighted examples where Devon Energy drafted letters that were sent by Pruitt under his own name….In one email, Devon Energy helped draft language that was later sent by Pruitt to the EPA about the limiting of methane from oil and gas fracking.”

Pruitt’s mischief in his personal dealings

The mounting evidence indicates that Pruitt has violated his “ethics pledge.” Michael Biesecker reports: “Ethics rules covering federal officials say they must remain impartial when making regulatory decisions and can’t show favoritism. Pruitt also signed an ethics pledge when joining the Trump administration in which he promised not to accept gifts from lobbyists. (Biesecker) (https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2018/04/04/epa-chief-gets-support-from-trump-warning-from-white-house).

Guess what? Alex Formuzis, Environmental Working Group (EWG), April 9, 2018 reports: “David J. Apol, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, sent a scathing letter to the EPA’s ethics office, saying that Pruitt’s actions ‘may constitute a violation of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch,’ The New York Times reported today. The letter cites Pruitt’s $50-a-night rental of a condominium tied to an energy lobbyist, his frequent government-funded flights home to Oklahoma, and his reported firing or demoting EPA staff who raised concerns about his actions (https://www.ewg.org/release/are-possible-violations-federal-law-enough-finally-send-scott-pruitt-packing#.WucYVOSWzlU) (You can see Apol’s letter at: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4433878.pdf.) There are calls by members of the U.S. Congress for investigations and 91of members want Pruitt fired.

Formuzis lists the scandals that have engulfed Pruitt and raised serious questions about his ethical failures while being EPA administrator.

• Paying rock-bottom rent to live in a condo linked to a fossil fuel lobbyist.
• Spending $3 million in taxpayer money on a 20-person security detail.
• Ignoring White House protocol and giving senior aides massive pay raises.
• Demanding unsuccessfully that his motorcade turn on the sirens to blow through traffic en route to lunch at a fancy French restaurant.
• Demoting and firing EPA employees who questioned his extravagant spending of taxpayer dollars.
• Proposing spending $100,000 per month for private plane charter service.
• Asking to spend $70,000 on two desks, including one that would be bulletproof. (Formuzis)

The pundits are asking whether Trump will dismiss Pruitt. Whether he goes or stays, and beyond Trump and his administration, the larger and dire environmental trends continue. Only radical reform will do.

I sent the post out to an email list back in December. It’s just as relevant now as it was then. The right-wing juggernaut continues to advance its agenda and simultaneously there is opposition. The big question remains whether the opposition will grow enough to stymie, or, in other words, whether democratic forces in society will be further diminished or enhanced.

As we near the end of 2017and the first year of Trump’s presidency, there is the oh-so dispiriting reality that we have a mentally imbalanced, authoritarian, torture-in-chief, prevaricating, shallow President beguiled by the power and celebrity of his office who denies the existence of climate change, who believes that nuclear weapons are just another weapon that should be used to defeat or destroy “enemies,” who favors threats and military power over diplomacy in international relations, who likes policies that will further enhance the power of the mega-corporations and the rich, who represents “the leader” for white supremacists and the alt-right, who consolidates his right-wing populist base with a ban on immigration, the unending promise to build a “wall,” forced deportations, racist-infused law enforcement policies, complete deregulation of gun laws, more restrictions on women’s reproductive rights, and draconian welfare reform. Moreover, as a further outrage, Trump lost the popular vote in the presidential election and, as we follow the evidence, needed the support of Russian interference in the election to win finally in the un-democratic, out-of-date electoral college. Of course, his election was also helped by Republican sponsored voter suppression and gerrymandering. The mis-steps of Hillary Clinton’s campaign hurt her campaign – and her Wall-Street connections, a platform that was viewed as not addressing the interests of workers, and a hawkish foreign policy record.

And, as if to kick dirt in our wounds, there is evidence that Trump and his family are, with a wink and a nod, financially benefiting from the prestige and power of his presidency. Jeet Heer summarizes some of this corrupt self-dealing – and how the Republican Congress unsurprisingly goes along with it.
“Trump’s transformation of the presidency into a kleptocracy has unfolded at a dizzying and dismaying pace(https://newrepublic.com/article/142389/donald-trumps-enduring-corruption-presidency).

“The Trump family and assorted cronies are using the highest office in the land to stuff their pockets,” Tim Egan wrote Friday in the Times. “The presidential sleaze involves everything from using public money to promote and enrich Trump properties to pay-to-play schemes that allow companies to buy influence at many levels.”

“There are near-daily examples of such corruption: the use of his private resort, Mar-a-Lago, both as a presidential social club and insecure diplomatic compound (one that was promoted on a State Department website, no less, and which doubled its membership fee after Trump became president); the refusal to keep a log of who is visiting Mar-a-Lago; the nepotistic hiring of son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump as White House employees; the hawking of Ivanka’s products by Trump aide Kellyanne Conway; the expansion of Trump’s brand (and Ivanka’s brand) into countries that he is also negotiating with; Kusher’s 400 million dollar partnership with the Anbang Insurance Group (described by Bloomberg as a firm whose “murky links to the Chinese power structure have raised national security concerns over its U.S. investments”); Trump’s failure to disentangle himself from his businesses, including the unannounced modification of the terms of Trump’s trust, allowing him to withdraw funds from his businesses without public disclosure; and the relentless financial secrecy, so that the public can’t even gauge conflicts of interest.

“Worst of all, Trump’s corruption of the presidency isn’t confined to just his actions, but envelopes the entire Republican Party. Trump has a powerful ally in the GOP Congress, which has thwarted challenges to Trump’s emerging kleptocracy—by, for instance, blocking efforts to make him disclose his finances and any potential conflicts of interest”

Trump is not alone, as noted. We are currently stuck with an ideologically right-wing administration whose top administrators are billionaires, generals, and neo-conservative ideologues, who pursue the goal of hollowing out executive-branch agencies that have anything to do with protecting the environment, workers, consumers, the elderly, and the poor. John Nichols provides a detailed profile of Trump’s cabinet and various key advisers in his book Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America.

Then, there is the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress, which owes its success in large part to the financial support of a predatory, self-serving corporate sector and rich donors. Among many book on the subject, law professor Richard L. Hasen’s account is illuminating on this subject, that is, his book Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections.

In the meantime, Trump fills vacancies in the federal judiciary with appointees who have a right-wing bent who, facilitated by a “conservative” Supreme Court, will further curtail the reproductive rights of women, support government repression of dissent, sanctify discriminatory immigration bans, and do other harm to the citizen rights and protections. See, for example, the interview on Democracy Now with Zephyr Teachout, US constitutional and property law professor at Fordham University on How Trump’s Supreme Court pick Neil Gorsuch “sides with big business, big donors and big bosses https://www.democracynow.org/2017/03/20/zephyr_teachout_supreme_court_pick_neil).

And, not least of all, there are Fox News and Sean Hannity and Info Wars and Alex Jones, and a host of right-wing think tanks that indoctrinate and misinform his mass base with truly deceptive and false information. One good source on this topic is Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America, authored by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney.

We mustn’t forget the ground troops of the Trump ascendance to power. This story of the historical roots and broad reach of the alt-right, including the advancement of white supremacy, hyper-nationalism, a yearning for an ultimate “leader,” along with the desire to reverse the gains of African-American rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, the embrace of armed militias, and more, is told in detail by David Neiwert in his new book Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump.

Among a wealth of documented evidence, Neiwert also identifies “nine ‘mobilizing passions’ that have fed the fires of
fascist movements wherever they have arisen,” and that appear to inspire major segments of the alt-right and many, not all, of Trump’s core supporters. These mobilizing passions include:

• “A sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solution.”
• “The primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether universal or individual, and the subordination of the individual to it.”
• “The belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against the group’s enemies, both internal and external.”
• “Dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effect of individualist liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences.”
• “The need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or be exclusionary violence if necessary.”
• “The need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s identity.”
• “The superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason.”
• “The beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success.”
• “The right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or devine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess in a Darwinian struggle” (p. 359).

The Resistance

The chances of upending this reactionary movement and government diminish, though are not eclipsed, as Trump and his allies and supporters implement their agenda and consolidate their control. At the same time, the growing resistance to Trump’s reactionary government will, no doubt, be unrelenting, spurred out of some combination of fear, hope, and a sense of justice and decency. And there is the undying anticipation that the right-wing policies of Trump and his allies will be so damaging to the basic economic interests of their core supporters that some of them will jump ship and either not vote or vote for democratic candidates. There is also the anticipation among opponents to Trump and the Republican Party that their policies on health care and taxes will encourage non-voters to join in the opposition as well.

The Compromised Democratic Party

A lot depends on whether the Democratic Party can offer an attractive and persuasive alternative. It’s not good news that the Bernie Sanders’ wing of the Party appears to be kept outside of the mainstream of the party. See Normal Solomon’s analysis on the divisions in the Democratic Party (http://therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/185-more-blog-posts-from-norman-solomon/3411-battle-for-democratic-party).

At the same time, it’s heartening that there is a progressive wing of the Democratic party and a progressive movement among Democratic mayors and the Democrats in the House and Senate have held the line in their opposition to Trump’s health-care “reform” and tax proposals. Along with the Republicans in Congress, however, the dominant wing of the Democratic Party is not progressive on some important issues.

The mainstream national Democratic Party includes a majority who support large increases in military expenditures. Erik Sherman reports for Forbes that 89 percent of Senate Democrats helped pass the $696.5 billion defense bill in September. The House passed the bill in July, with 60 percent of Democrats supporting the legislation (https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/09/19/91-of-senate-democrats-help-pass-the-696-5b-defense-bill/#6668cc404802).

Democrats appear generally to have no difficulty in letting the Pentagon build and maintain a far-flung network of US military bases throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and have turned a blind eye toward the massive sale of US weapons abroad. The Democrats support the modernization of the US nuclear weapons arsenal. The party should be given credit for the Iran nuclear deal. Overall, though, it has relied on force in the Middle East, with heavy reliance on devastating air power and drones, with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the intensification of ethnic and religious division, and the massive destruction of economies and infrastructure.

Hillary Clinton’s state department fostered a policy that created chaos in Libya and a “failed state” in which extreme Islamic groups have flourished. The Democrats have failed to find a way to ease tensions with Russia. Along with Republican, Democrats support policies that legitimate corrupt and un-democratic foreign regimes when they have resources that we want, with Saudi Arabia as one outrageous example. And, not the least of it, the Obama administration helped to destroy a democratically-elected government in Honduras. To be fair, give Obama high marks for opening diplomatic channels with Cuba, channels that are about to be closed by Trump.

Obama and the party have supported an “all-of-the-above” energy policy that includes the continuing dominance of fossil fuels, especially reflected in support for fracking and the opening of coastal regions to drilling. It has not been progressive on immigration policy, as reflected in Obama’s unprecedented number of deportations. The Party does not have a full-employment policy, rejects universal health care, as well as having given free-reign to big pharma and having failed to address well the long-existing deprivations of the poor, especially of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. It bailed out the big banks and watched them grow even bigger, even after the banks were shown to be the major cause of the Great Recession of 2007-2009. It has a record of supporting “free trade” policies that have undermined US sovereignty and workers’ rights. It does little to stem the offshoring of corporate profits to avoid taxes. And, in general, it offers no alternatives to our present mega-corporate dominated, growth-by-whatever-means, environmentally disrupting economy.

The challenges for the left and progressives

So, it’s not easy to avoid the conclusion that the deck is being increasingly stacked against the kind of progressive, transformative change that we need. Given the scope and magnitude of environmental crises, the insanely reckless nuclear-war rhetoric of Trump, other major threats emanating from or exacerbated by his administration and the Republican dominance of the US Congress, then combine all this with a divided and vision-challenged Democratic Party, we don’t have a lot of time to avoid a growing host of cataclysmic outcomes. As it stands now, the Trump White House is taking us toward colossal and unprecedented environmental devastation, undermining our already limited and tenuous democracy, and going about all this in a seemingly methodical way to fulfill a vision of domestic and international domination that benefits the mega-corporations and rich.

The best hope on the horizon – ideally not-too-far in the future – is that the myriad progressive movements in the US and abroad continue to grow, that they coalesce somehow domestically and internationally, that truly visionary political candidates and governments are elected, and that they have the have the supportive political conditions to foster peace, solidarity, justice and environmental rejuvenation. Naomi Klein documents some of these movements in her book No is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. And Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams offer a comprehensive analysis of what an “ecological” society would look like and how to move toward realizing it in their book Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation.

In the meantime, let the new year bring you meaningful and energizing moments and achievements that sustain you in your endeavors and lives.
Just one final point. Chris Hedges writes that there are some on the left who take “resistance” to exploitative and tyrannical power to extraordinary and exemplary levels. Such resistors and fighters for progressive, sometimes revolutionary, change, follow often little-traveled and personally costly paths. But, Hedges argues, there are benefits in not submitting to such power and their examples serve often to enlighten and strengthen the resolve of others of us who have less clarity, courage, and commitment. I’ll close by quoting excerpts from Chris Hedges essay on “resistance”:

“Resistance entails suffering. It requires self-sacrifice. It accepts that we may be destroyed. It is not rational. It is not about the pursuit of happiness. It is about the pursuit of freedom. Resistance accepts that even if we fail, there is an inner freedom that comes with defiance, and perhaps this is the only freedom, and true happiness, we will ever know. To resist evil is the highest achievement of human life. It is the supreme act of love. It is to carry the cross, as the theologian James Cone reminds us, and to be acutely aware that what we are carrying is also what we will die upon.

Later in the essay:

“Resistance is not only about battling the forces of darkness. It is about becoming a whole and complete human being. It is about overcoming estrangement. It is about the capacity to love. It is about honoring the sacred. It is about dignity. It is about sacrifice. It is about courage. It is about being free. Resistance is the pinnacle of human existence.”

The Context

For the past four decades, since at least when Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, right wing (ultra-conservative) forces in the country have grown stronger politically and economically. In previous posts, I’ve written about these right- wing forces. They include, most importantly, the corporate community led by the mega-corporations in all sectors of the economy and the massive political influence they have on the federal government and many state governments. They include Trump, his advisers, cabinet, and other decision-making positions in his administration. The highly partisan Republican Party is a crucial player. They all push for policies that are favorable to corporate interests and the wealthier strata in society. They are sometimes assisted by centrist segments of the Democratic Party. They have the support of billionaires, networks of the rich, their lobbyists, think tanks, and experts. And the right-wing power brokers can count on the support of tens of millions of Trump’s core supporters, that is, 35 to 39 percent of the adult population, according to recent polls.

The economic ideology of the right-wing is neoliberalism? This is an ideology that idealizes the corporate-dominated private sector of the economy, says that government is mostly inefficient and wasteful in what it does, and that the country will prosper most when taxes are low, especially for the corporations and the rich, when the economy is little regulated, when government functions are privatized (e.g., prisons, schools, student debt), and when government support and/or spending on social insurance and public assistance programs are reduced. The right-wing also supports large military budgets, a hawkish foreign policy, a celebratory patriotism, and the marginalization of scientific knowledge and evidence-based exchanges that challenge its economic interests (e.g., regarding climate change). To hold onto their populous voting constituencies, Trump and the Republican party support only weak and ineffective gun control regulation, anti-abortion restrictions, and anti-immigrant policies.

Attacks on the poor

In this post, I’ll focus on the attacks from the right, especially from Trump
and the Republican Party, on programs designed to assist the poor. Such attacks are justified, they insist, by claims that most poverty reflects the choices of the poor, a culture of poverty that transmits values that make a stable family life, educational achievement and employment unlikely. In some cases, these attacks claim some of the poor are in this situation because of genetic inferiority reflected in low intelligence. Historian Michael B. Katz describes how views of the undeserving poor come in two varieties in his book, The Undeserving Poor: America’s Enduring Confrontation with Poverty.

“The idea of poverty as a problem of persons comes in both hard and soft versions. The soft version portrays poverty as the result of laziness, immoral behavior, inadequate skills, and dysfunctional families. The hard version views poverty as the result of inherited deficiencies that limit intellectual potential, trigger harmful and immoral behavior, and circumscribe economic achievement” (p. 3).

The implication of the right-wing/conservative view is that many, if not the majority, of the people who are poor have only themselves to blame. Their impoverished circumstances are assumed to be of their own making. They are said to be lazy, want to avoid work, and want a free ride at the taxpayers’ expense. They claim that there are always jobs available somewhere in industry, in construction, in mines, in services, on farms, on ranches available for those who really want to work. There is also a rich historical literature on the “rags to riches” theme, or the idea that through hard work and ingenuity people can rise out of the most impoverished circumstances to become rich. This narrative on the undeserving/deserving poor fits well into a view of a political economy that generates vast inequalities.

In this context, those who have power often claim they have earned their status through hard work, superior intelligence, and making the right choices in life. They think that they are not only deserving of their power and wealth, but that society’s prosperity depends on their superior personal qualities. Nancy MacLean provides evidence on how the rich and powerful came to have their conception of superiority reinforced and acclaimed in her book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of The Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. I raised the issue in my last post sent out on March 31, “The consolidation of right-wing, anti-democratic, power by corporate and wealthy elites.” And there is something else. The narrative that says poverty is the result of individual inadequacies deflects attention away from how being born into an affluent or rich family and built-in institutional biases of the system (e.g., a highly stratified educational system, family connections, inherited wealth) allow them to gain their lofty positions. Depictions of the poor in the most negative terms and the stigmatizing of public assistance also serve to “discipline labor,” that is, to convey the message abroad in the society that there is no good alternative to employment, however bad the conditions and wages. Accept the low-wage job or suffer the stigma of poverty.

In the end, it’s all about a society that creates institutional structures and enormous inequalities that allows the accumulation of advantages at one end, and accumulation of disadvantages at the other. Here’s how Robert Kuttner describes the former in his new book, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism.

“A child born to affluent parents has a mother and father who are likely to engage in conversation far more than their working-class counterparts do – a practice that is good for both social and cognitive development. The child is likely to be sent to a high-quality preschool, and then a good public or private elementary and secondary school, all of which contribute to educational success. Expensive enrichment activities are part of the package, while public schools are dropping programs in art, music, and foreign language. And when the child attends college, affluent parents pay the tuition, sparing the new graduate crippling debt. In an age when unpaid summer internships are key to networking, the wealthy child can afford to partake of them, while the poorer student must take paid summer jobs, as well as part-time jobs during the school year, at the expense of academic performance. Then the young graduate of means benefits from parental contacts, as well as the subsidy of an apartment or a starter home. And so it goes into the next generation, when grandparents often subsidize the costs of grandchildren. No such family welfare state benefits the nonrich student, who is sometimes working part-time to subsidize parents and younger siblings” (pp. 118-119).

A Little History

Pre-New Deal

These self-serving views of poverty and of their own powerful and privileged positions justify policies that limit public assistance to those in need, and then providing only minimal assistance. The key to defining the deserving poor is that they are viewed as unable to work. Even in the case of those deemed deserving, assistance is organized in ways that make it hard to obtain. Indeed, before the New Deal programs of the 1930s, public assistance was limited to white widows. Poor children were often or periodically housed in public or religious orphanages. Many jobs paid poverty-level wages, were insecure, involved long hours. There were no minimum wage or maximum hour laws. In 1929, steel workers worked 60 or more hours a week and, on average, earned poverty-level wages. The pace of work was intense. Employers could fire their employees “at will,” whenever and for whatever reason they chose. Most workers were non-unionized and had no organization to represent their interests. In industry, industrial spies were hired to identify union sympathizers, and scabs, or strikebreakers, were hired to replace any workers who were identified as troublemakers or who went on strike. Additionally, the poor and many others had no health insurance, no old-age pensions, no support for housing, or assistance with food. Their only recourse was the typically inadequate and inconsistent charity offered by some municipalities and religious organizations. Michael B. Katz tells this story in great depth in another of his books; this one titled In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America.

The New Deal Era

In the post-World War II decades through the 1960s, a unique set of economic and political conditions ameliorated the employment-poverty problem, as millions of jobs that paid better-than-poverty wages were created. During these atypical decades in the history of U.S. capitalism, the U.S. economy experienced high levels of investment and productivity, and overall economic growth of 4.5 percent growth between 1939-1940, 3.9 percent between 1949-1959, and 4.4 percent between 1959 and 1969 (Bluestone and Harrison, Growing Prosperity, 2000, 31) and correspondingly poverty estimates based on one authoritative source from 68.1% in 1939, to 39.8% in 1949, 22.1% in 1959, and roughly 12.0% in 1969 (Smolensky et. al., chapter in The Vulnerable,ed. By John L. Palmer, et. al., 1988, 33).

Alleged character, cultural, and genetic deficiencies do not explain this massive exodus from poverty. It’s incredulous that a sudden tens of millions of poor people found themselves in supportive and stable families, in culturally supportive community environments, and able to overcome their limited education. These are not the causes of poverty, as conservatives claim. Rather, there were opportunities that facilitated the dramatic decline in the number of poor people and in the poverty rate were the increase in the jobs that paid a better-than-poverty wages. And these opportunities resulted from tight labor markets during WWII, the worldwide economic dominance of the US economy after the war, high rates of investment in the civilian economy, the pent-up savings of consumers after the rationing of WWI, the growth of the federal government and government spending on education (e.g., the GI Bill) and other parts of the welfare state, the building of inter-state highway system, high-levels of military spending, and a union movement that helped to insure that millions of ordinary workers were able to share in the robust economic growth of the 1940s-1960s. In other words, an explanation that appears to be consistent with the dramatic decline in poverty is structural rather than individual, cultural, or genetic. A structural explanation is one that focuses on the opportunities that exist in a society for jobs, health care, education, housing, and other institutional sectors that are important to the general population, including in the lower rungs of society, and tries to explain why these opportunities are sufficient or not by looking for the causes in political and economic arrangements of the society. Of course, there was racism that kept black Americans from participating in the expanding economy as much as their white counterparts did.

Some black Americans did better than ever before, but most blacks still suffered the effects of institutional racism. Ta-Neihisi Coates reminds us that housing segregation and job discrimination continued to be the rule in most places. See his book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. Just as black migrants from the South to northern cities had made some progress, factories began to move to the South – and then later to Mexico, China, and other “developing” countries where low-wage labor was abundant. Coates gives this example of Detroit, quoting a passage from Thomas J. Sugrue’s book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit: “Between 1947 and 1963, Detroit lost 134,000 manufacturing jobs, while its population of working-age men and women actually increased.” During these years, Detroit suffered 4 major recessions. Coates continues:

“Black residents of Detroit had to cope not just with the same structural problems as white residents but also with pervasive racism. Within a precarious economy, black people generally worked in the lowest-paying jobs. They came home from those jobs to the city’s poorest neighborhoods, where most of them used their sub-standard wages to pay inflated prices for inferior housing. Attempts to escape into white neighborhoods were frustrated by restrictive covenants, racist real-estate agents, block associations, and residents whose tactics included, as Sugrue writes, ‘harassment, mass demonstrations, picketing, effigy burning, window breaking, arson, vandalism, and physical attacks.” Some blacks were richer than others. Some were better educated than others. But all were constricted, not by a tangle of pathologies, but by a tangle of structural perils.” (pp. 269-270).

The resurgence of the right-wing

The New Deal era and the strides toward more equality, a middling-class life style began to erode in the 1970s. By the 1970s, Western Europe and Japan had made great strides in rebuilding their economies. American manufacturers faced increased increase in foreign competition, as the global economy expanded. These developments threatened profits. At the same time, however, the globalized economy gave corporations and other businesses increased advantages over workers, as they were now to move their facilities from one region of the country to another, or to other countries. Workers typically do not have such mobility. The lure of foreign markets and, in developing (or third world, underdeveloped) countries an untapped supply of low-wage workers, low taxes, and minimal government regulation, was enough for many corporations to close facilities in the U.S. and invest abroad.

At the same time, the corporate community and many of the rich were mobilized in the early 1970s on to use their vast resources to influence government policies that threatened or curtailed profits. The mobilization was precipitated by the power of unions, occupational safety laws, environmental laws, and government regulation in all its aspects (e.g., on the financial sector), the indexing of Social Security benefits and generally the continued increased government spending on social insurance and anti-poverty programs, and high corporate and income taxes. The goal was to limit the impact of government whenever it negatively affects profits or threatens the political forces on which the power of corporations and the rich depend.

They have been successful on virtually all counts. Union membership has drastically fallen. Wages have stagnated. Taxes have been reduced. The unequal distribution of incomes and wealth have grown to new heights. There are now more millionaires and billionaires than ever. Economic power has become ever-more concentrated in fewer and fewer mega-corporations. Republicans control the White House, the U.S. Congress, and have a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. The public sector has been strapped for revenues by a no-new-taxes narrative that has gained support. Consequently, there has been a deterioration in the country’s infrastructure, and many school districts lack the funds to offer an adequate education. Notions of the public or common good have been overshadowed by a rhetoric of individualism and scorn of government. The poor are increasingly vilified. With Trump, all these developments are intensified, along with heightened xenophobic rhetoric, increasingly militarized police, racial scapegoating, and encouragement of a radical white-power movement. We now have an unprecedented number of people in jails, prisons, on probation or parole, many of whom will never be able to find regular employment or a stable life. To top it off, Trump’s core supporters, mostly affluent whites but also a considerable number of working-class whites, seem to believe to be true whatever he tells them, despite his widely reported stream of lies and contradictions.

Renewed attacks on the “poor”

As the audacious and voracious greed of the powerful and rich reach new heights, attacks on the alleged welfare abusers intensifies. The Socialist Worker argues that these are “crude attempts to finish off the social safety net,” or at least to take another step in that direction (https://socialistworker.org/2018/04/17/trump-preaches-honest-work-for-the-poor). On April 10, “Trump signed an executive order titled Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility. It calls on the Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Education departments to use the next 90 days to submit a report with their recommended policies to the White House, as reported by Tara Golshan (https://www.vox.com/2018/04/18/17221292/trump-welfare-executive-order-work-requirement).

Golshan continues that Trump and his advisers are looking for a “’coordinated’ effort across federal and state agencies to reform the welfare system.” But there are clearly drastic prospective changes being considered. They want to add work requirements, change the federal assistance programs into block grants, consolidate duplicative programs, and encourage the involvement of the private sector, that is, more privatization. One principal objective is institute more stringent work requirements. They want to force more recipients of Medicaid, food stamps and public housing, and other public assistance programs to work for their benefits – and to force those already working to work more.” Two days later, after Trump’s signed the executive order, “House Republicans pushed a plan inside the 2018 Farm Bill that will expand ‘workfare’ requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – better known as food stamps – by eliminating exemptions for people living in states with high unemployment and for parents of children over five years old.”

There is little evidence that work requirements accompanying public assistance lift people out of poverty. The Socialist Worker cites a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that finds “roughly 60 percent of non-elderly Medicaid enrollees have jobs today,” but the jobs pay so little they still qualify for the benefit. Under the new work requirements, if they lose their job, they lose their benefits. One important characteristic of the current labor market is that there is an increasing percentage of all jobs pay low wages, provide no benefits, offer no security. Robert Kuttner documents this situation in a chapter, “The Global Assault on Labor,” in his book, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? Here are some of his summary paragraphs.

“In the decade between 2005 and 2015, literally all of the net US job growth was in nonstandard, contingent work, according to economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger. Total employment during that decade increased by 9.1 million jobs. But in the same period, nonstandard employment grew by 9.4 million. In other words, during a decade that included a steep recession followed by what appeared to be a strong recovery, all of the net job growth – and more – was in jobs that most people would take only as a last resort.

“Temporary, part-time, contract, or on-demand jobs typically have no benefits, no stability, and scant prospects of something better. Employers have largely ceased offering the standard package of a general earlier: payroll employment with regular raises, plus health insurance and pensions. Treating employees as contingent allows employers to avoid minimum wage, overtime, and antidiscrimination laws. This strategy also exempts employers from contributing their share of Social Security, Medicare, workers’ compensation, and unemployment taxes, as well as from the employer obligations in the Affordable Care Act” (p. 100).

There are two faulty assumptions underlying Trump’s public assistance reform, both of which reflect the notion that “work requirements would encourage more people to get out of the cycle of poverty.” First, the executive order cites President Bill Clinton’s 1996 reforms embodied in The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) legislation as a successful precedent. TANF replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a program that provided some inadequate cash assistance to mostly poor mothers and their children. Clinton’s welfare reform added work requirements to the new law, gave states a lump sum, allowing states to allocate their funding as they saw fit, and additionally limited the number of years a family could receive assistance. Over the years, TANF has served fewer families because states did not use all the funding for the program and because of the time limit. And most of the women who leave TANF do not leave poverty but end up relying on other welfare benefits, particularly food stamps, or in low-wage jobs. In some cases, they depend on relatives whose resources are already stretched. Sasha Abramsky reviews some of the research findings related to TANF in his book, The American Way of Poverty. Here’s one of his examples.

“’In 1994-95, for every 100 families with children in poverty, the AFDC program served 75 families,’ researchers from t he Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) concluded in September 2011. ‘In 2008-09, only 28 families with children participated in TANF for every 100 families in poverty.’ In Arkansas, that number was a mere 9 percent by the end of 2009; in Mississippi, 12 percent; in Alabama, 15 percent” (p. 107).

And cash benefits fell. “By the end of 2011, the real value of TANF was lower than it was in 1996 in every state except Maryland and Wyoming” (p. 107).

Second, most of the recipients of the programs of these programs are children (living with mothers), the elderly, or disabled people. Golshan gives the example of SNAP, once known as food stamps.

“…food stamp recipients are mostly children and elderly or disabled people. The number of able-bodied adults without dependents is slim, and not nearly enough to make up the numbers in savings that the projections for this proposal indicate. Waste and fraud in the program are also relatively inconsequential.

“There is strong evidence that SNAP reduces food insecurity and improves health outcomes, especially among children, who make up the majority of SNAP beneficiaries. But the evidence from randomized studies of work requirements shows that they have little or no effect on poverty — and leave many people who aren’t induced to work without a safety net.”

The documented benefits of programs like SNAP and TANF, however meager, are ignored or dismissed by conservative lawmakers. Golshan refers to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as an example of the right-wing’s brutish views of public assistance. He has “proposed harsher requirements at the federal level, like tightening the window individuals have to find a job from three months to one month, increasing the number of hours they have to work per month from 80 hours to 100, and extending the requirements to able-bodied adults with dependents.”

The emergence, or re-emergence, of a poor people’s movement, and a counter narrative

Jake Johnson reports on the plans of the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) “to revive Dr. King’s radical moral vision” of a campaign against poverty, militarism, and racism, plus environmental degradation (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/10/decrying-systems-favors-war-and-wealthy-poor-peoples-campaign-unveils-agenda-combat). The PPC views these societal problems as interconnected and, according to Johnson’s report, “all must be confronted if justice for the disenfranchised is to be achieved.”
The PPC’s own document, “A Moral Agenda Based on Fundamental Rights”, was unveiled on April 10 (https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/index.php/demands). It opens with an account of how the document was created.

“Over the past two years, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has reached out to communities in more than 30 states across the nation. We have met with tens of thousands of people, witnessing the strength of their moral courage in trying times. We have gathered testimonies from hundreds of poor people and we have chronicled their demands for a better society. The following moral agenda is drawn from this deep engagement and commitment to these struggles of the poor and dispossessed. It is also ground in an empirical assessment of how we have come to this point today. The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America report reveals how the evils of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy and militarism are persistent, pervasive, and perpetuated by a distorted moral narrative that must be challenged.”

The Souls of Poor Folk, produced by the PPC in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), was released at the same time as the PPC’s “moral agenda.” In addition to the analysis and demands identified in the moral agenda, the Souls of Poor Folks identifies in more detail the research findings that evidence “the widespread destitution and collapsing living standards that make such an ambitious agenda necessary.” Johnson reports that, according to the Souls of Poor Folks document, “more than 40 million Americans subsist below the poverty line and closer to 140 million people are dealing with some combination of structural racism, economic inequality, and ecological degradation every day.” Johnson quotes IPS director John Cavanagh on the meaning of this report.

“Here we’re proving – with data and analysis spanning 50 years – that the problem is both structural barriers for the poor in hiring, housing, policing, and more, as well as a system that prioritizes war and the wealthy over people and the environment they live in….It is unfathomable, for example, that in the wealthiest nation in the world, medical debt is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy filings, and one and a half million people don’t have access to plumbing.”

The Moral Agenda Based on Fundamental Rights

There are two parts to this 17-page document. The first part is titled “Declaration of Fundamental Rights and Poor People’s Moral Agenda.” The second part has the title “History and Moral Justification. In Part 1, the PPC addresses five systemic problems that are fostering racism, poverty and inequality, ecological devastation, the war economy and militarism, and a religiously fundamentalist stream of influence that is gaining influence in the higher circles of society. In each case, there is a review of the evidence that establishes the validity of the problem, followed by “demands” on how to ameliorate each of them. Here are examples of the demands.

On systematic racism, the PCC demands “the full restoration and expansion of the Voting Rights Act, an end to racist gerrymandering and redistricting, the implementation of automatic registration to vote at the age of 18, early voting in every state, same-day registration, the enactment of Election Day as a holiday, and a verifiable paper record.”

On poverty and inequality, the document demands, among others, “federal and state living wage laws, guaranteed annual incomes, full employment and the right for all workers to form and join unions,” along with “fully-funded welfare programs for the poor.”

On ecological devastation, one of the demands is for “100 percent clean, renewable energy and a public jobs program to transition to a green economy.”

On the war economy and militarism, the PCC call for “an end to military aggression and war-mongering,” “a stop to the privatization of the military budget and a reallocation of resources from the military budget to education, health care, jobs and green infrastructure needs, and strengthening a VA system that remains public.”

On national morality, the PCC identify the maintain that the religious right constitutes a threat of the Constitution and justice. The document reads: “Today these influences – the Christian and religious organizations, religious capitalist and prosperity gospel movements, and independent charismatics – have access to the current administration in the form of its ‘Court evangelicals.’ The Values Voter Summit has become an important focus point for this coalition and its narrative. Through federal contracts and student aid, Liberty University has become the largest private Christian University in the Country.” The PCC demands “that all policies and budgets are based on whether they serve the general welfare and lift up lives and the environment.”

In Part 2, there are references to Martin Luther King’s admonitions for a “revolution in values” to “stand together against the ‘triplets of evil – militarism, racism, and economic injustice.’” There are quotes from religious texts from the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, and from the Qu’ran that emphasize our obligations to assist the poor, to be responsible for one another, to fight against oppression. And then the document refers to the “moral values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution,” that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and that citizens have a right to alter or abolish governments that violate these values and institute a new Government. The PCC then cites the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution calling for the establishment of justice and the due process and equal protection of the law.

Concluding thoughts

The emergence of the Poor People’s Campaign is heartening. It includes an analysis of evidence and demands that are familiar to progressives and those on the left of the political spectrum. There is no doubt that the campaign covers a lot of important issues that have profound moral, economic, environmental and foreign policy implications.

But the PPC assumes that our corporate-dominated form of capitalism (never uses the term) can be transformed in ways to make it more just, more equal, less racist, less militaristic, a force for peace in the world, and so on. While there are historical precedents for the success of social movements and grassroots protest, their success has been limited in scope and vulnerable to reversal. It remains to be seen whether the PPC can gain traction in communities, politically, and in media coverage.

The one big historical exception is the New Deal Era, when unique confluence of conditions allowed for the institution and growth of the welfare state, a robust economy, increasing economic equality, and some success in the institution of civil rights, women’s rights, and, late in this era, the passage of a host of environmental laws. Such conditions do not apply now. And, furthermore, even during the New Deal era, the military-industrial complex grew, corporate power became more consolidated and concentrated, leftists were hounded by the government, black Americans continued to face discrimination, nuclear war was only one major accident away, and President Johnson led us into the Vietnam War based on a lie.

The best we can hope for now is that the Poor People’s Campaign grows and adds to a budding coalition of progressive movements that strengthens the political prospects of candidates who reflect at least some of the demands of the campaign in the 2018 mid-term elections and in the 2020 general election.

The right-wing attack on the Veterans’ Health Administration:
One example of efforts to eclipse democracy,April 15, 2018

I’m going to focus on the issue of privatization in this post, but also frame it as just one part of a larger strategy by big business, the rich, the Republican Party and their allies to reshape government. Privatization is something that began to catch on after WWII and over the last 40 years as accelerated – at both the federal and state levels. Privatization is utilized most often in ways to advance the special interests of a corporation to the detriment of democratic values and influence, with negative effects on basic aspects of the lives of the great majority of Americans.

Privatization is just one part of the strategy of big business and the rich.
Donald Cohen describes privatization “as a standard conservative response to tight public budgets, a key pillar of attacks on government, and a lucrative market opportunity for domestic and global corporations” (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/features/privatization/one).

Tight budgets and rising government/public debt stem from over a trillion dollars of expenditures a year on military-related spending, lowered tax rates for corporations and the rich, coupled with massive tax avoidance by them. Additionally, the tight budgets and rising government debt reflect increasing expenditures on climate-related extreme weather incidences, most disturbingly exemplified in the number of such events annually costing a billion dollars or more. The list goes on. The tight budgets and rising debt also significantly reflect the costs related to the government bailouts and quantitative easing policies of the Federal Reserve, all in the wake of the Great Recession of 2007-2009, and largely to the benefit of the big Wall Street banks.

Privatization: why it is so attractive to the powerful and rich

Privatization is a method by which large corporations and other businesses hope to increase their profits by acquiring public assets (e.g., oil and gas leases), owning and controlling what were public responsibilities (e.g., for-profit prisons, charter schools), or contracting with government to carry out what was formerly done by government itself (e.g., food and maintenance services on military bases). Cohen writes: “Large corporations operate virtually every type of public service including prisons, welfare systems, infrastructure, water and sewer, trash, and schools.” He could have added to his list the large array of Pentagon consultants and contractors who provide extensive intelligence and military services in the U.S. and abroad, providing special forces in battle zones, and security at foreign embassies. Corporations and their powerful allies never cease looking for profitable opportunities to take over yet more government functions. For example, there are ongoing efforts by corporate interests and conservative legislators in the US Congress to privatize the Post Office, the Veterans Health Administration, Medicare, Social Security, the collection of student debt. In other words, corporations and big businesses want to privatize as much of what is potentially profitable in the public sector. The results are not so good. Privatization often means that the quality of the services diminishes, the costs of these services go up, and access to them becomes problematic for a growing part of the population.

Profits always a top priority

The CEOs and top owners and executives of big businesses, including corporations, family-owned businesses, hedge funds, private equity funds increase and consolidate their enterprises – and their power – in a multiplicity of ways, always with the goal of increasing profits unless forced politically or by organized employee power to do otherwise. This is true of all sectors of the economy. The life blood of business in a capitalist system is the bottom line. Businesses, especially the biggest, must grow through the unending and successful acquisition of profits. Otherwise, the CEOs are in trouble. With low profits, CEOs may be replaced by their boards, or the business they head may be taken over by a private equity firm and broken up, or the business may be acquired by another more financially viable corporation (the big fishes eat the little fishes), or it may just disappear after bankruptcy, as, for example, many of the manufacturing plants did in the Midwest rustbelt over the past 40 years.

The challenge for the biggest businesses, most prominently the large corporations, the ones you see listed in the Fortune 500 or 1000, the ones that have tens of billions in assets or more, the ones that also reap enormous sales and revenues, is to maintain their profitability, meet the expectations of shareholders, line the pockets of the top executives, have enough revenue to attract and retain the experts and experienced managerial staff they need, and improve productivity through technological innovation (e.g., automation, new versions of cell phones, updated appliances). And they do all this in a globalized economy in which the production of goods and services tends to exceed the demand as markets verge on becoming saturated, as vital resources become depleted, and as more and more consumers have wages and income that that limit what they can purchase.

Privatization is one of the policy tools capitalists support to keep profits flowing. In a reasonable system, the issue would be how to maintain a balance between the interests of businesses and the public interest, or what Robert Reich refers to as the common good. See Reich’s book by that name. In this case, public services and assets would be strengthened rather than sold off. Unfortunately, what we see happening is a growing imbalance in favor of businesses – and this largely reflects the power of big business in all sectors of the economy as well as in the right-wing domination of government at the federal and in many state governments.

Privatization: historical roots and examples of the present situation

The roots of privatization in the U.S. go back to the post-WWII era. Cohen offers this cryptic but illuminating explanation:

“The post-WWII era was a tough time for conservative economists, academics, intellectuals, and business leaders. Social Security, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Securities and Exchange Act, and other New Deal programs represented a dangerous expansion of government’s role in the economy and society – nothing short of a frontal assault on freedom [of big business and the rich] and the beginnings of socialism in the U.S.” (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/features/privatization/one).

He illustrates his point on how privatization grew in the following years as follows:

“Private prisons didn’t exist thirty years ago. Today, publicly traded, billion-dollar corporations are key players in prisons and immigrant detention. Privatized immigration facilities now house over two-thirds of all detained immigrants.

“In 1988 AFT president Al Shanker proposed a new idea: To create charter schools where teachers could experiment and innovate and bring new ideas to the nation’s public schools. Today, nearly 3 million children attend charters, and large corporate chains and billionaires are funding the rapid growth of privatized, publicly funded charters.

“Former defense contractors, IT corporations and publicly traded corporations are running welfare, food assistance, and other safety net systems in many states across the country.

“Today the federal government employs more than three times as many contract workers as government workers, and state and local governments spend a combined $1.5 trillion on outsourcing.”

The Veterans Health Administration: Highlights

I’ll spend the rest of this post discussing the Veterans Health Administration, the health arm of the Veterans’ Administration. The budget for the VHA in 2015 was 65 billion. This fact alone makes it an enticing target for privatizers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Health_Administration).

Suzanne Gordon, who has studied and reported on the VHA for 30 years, points out in an interview on Democracy Now that “the VHA is the nation’s largest (and only publicly funded)” healthcare system, that is, one that funds its own healthcare facilities and programs (https://www.democarcynow.org/2018/03/30/david_shulkins_firing_at_the_va).

It’s fair to say that the VHA is a socialist healthcare system.
It is a huge part of the U.S. healthcare system, serves millions of vets, and should serve even more. Gordon said in the interview: “The Department of Veterans Affairs is the federal government’s second-largest department, with 360,000 employees.” They are all on salary. In her book, The Battle for Veterans Healthcare, Gordon notes the significance of this fact, namely, there is less incentive to order treatments that are unnecessary. She writes:

“Because VHA physicians and other staff are on salary, they have little financial incentive to either over- or undertreat their patients and thus use medical equipment and treatments more judiciously than their counterparts in the private sector” (p. 33)

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the “Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, providing care at 1,240 health care facilities, including 170 VA Medical Centers and 1,061 outpatient sites of care of varying complexity (VHA outpatient clinics) to over 9 million Veterans enrolled in the VA health care program” (https://www.va.gov/health/aboutVHA.asp). Put slightly differently, Suzanne Gordon writes that “VHA includes “150 hospitals, 819 clinics, 300 mental health centers, and other facilities – many located in rural areas that the private sector ignores – care for more than 230,000 people a day” (The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Policy Making and Patient Care, p. 22)

Overall, VHA serves 9 million of the 22 million living veterans. Gordon writes: “Because Congress has not allocated funds sufficient to provide healthcare for all 22 million or more Americans who served in the military, the VHA must enforced eligibility rules that restrict care to the sickest and poorest veterans, while excluding more affluent and healthy ones. To be among the nine million vets who currently qualify for the VHA’s full Medical Benefits Package, applicants must have an honorable discharge and must have evidence – if they served after 1980 – of a ‘service-connected disability’” (p. 27). These numbers don’t include the family members of the veterans who help to care for them. However, the VHA does provides, among many other services, residential and respite care services for family members. Gordon describes it:

“In 2010 the VHA launched a program to support home-based caregivers. In our larger healthcare system, family caregivers are essentially on their own when they care for a loved one who has a major mental health or physical disability. Many are rewarded for their service by loss of jobs or promotions and may eventually sacrifice their own health because of the emotional and physical stress of their caregiving burden. The program provides these caregivers with training, supportive services – including mental health counseling – and even financial stipends to help them shoulder their burdens” (p. 27).

Some of the 125,000 vets who have received “other than honorable discharges” would in a rational and just system be allowed to get medical benefits from the VHA. Some were “mustered out unfairly – during the era of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell or before it – because of their sexual orientation” (p. 28). Some commanders failed to consider whether the veteran had service-related PTSD or another mental health problem. And there are conditions that probably have led to less-than-honorable discharges, such as when a female soldier because “a victim of military sexual trauma who drank because of the abuse” and failed to fulfill her duties fully. Or a situation in which a woman reports harassment or rape by a senior officer and get kicked out of the service on trumped-up charges.”

VHA provides a wide array of programs in a single-payer, fully-integrated healthcare system

The VHA pays for all its services out of its budget and offers fully-integrated care. Gordon describes it: “…the VHA is a model of a fully integrated healthcare delivery system. Genuine integration affords veterans a level of care unavailable to most Americans, who remain subject to our fragmented private-sector healthcare system. A VHA patient moving from Boston to San Francisco can get uninterrupted care from professionals with access to his or her medical records. When the same patient sees his or her primary-care practitioner to discuss health problems – diabetes, say, or PTSD – he or she can then walk down the hall and talk to a nutritionist about a diet, a pharmacist about how to correctly administer insulin, or a mental health professional” (p 31).

In addition to its 1,240 to 1,260 facilities, the VHA offers a wide range of programs, including “traditional acute and ambulatory services, institutional services for those not able to live independently, palliative care and hospice care, nursing home and adult day health care, hospital-based home care, domiciliary and community residential care, and respite care” (p. 23).

The VHA provides more geriatric services than any other healthcare system in the U.S. This is not surprising since the average age of the veterans who are treated is 62. There is no other healthcare system in the United States that offers, manages, and coordinates anything like this. While Medicare and Medicaid also provide financial support for millions of Americans, VHA offers programs directly to patients in its own network of medical staff, hospitals, clinics, mental health centers. There are no intermediaries such as for-profit insurance corporations involved. Gordon reports that the VHA offers “pioneering treatments” in “cognitive behavioral therapy and prolonged exposure therapy” for those with mental-health issues. There are also programs that address drug addictions and suicide prevention. On the latter, there is a Veterans Crisis Line and “suicide-prevention coordinators at every VHA medical center train every employee” on how to recognize the signs that a veteran is at risk of suicide” (p. 24). Mental health care is given great attention, unlike in many private-healthcare systems. This is so because “16 to 30 percent of combat veterans have post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD),” while 80 percent of female veterans have been victims of some sort of sexual trauma-sexual assault (p. 24). On the latter point, the VHA has created “a system of women’s health clinics located within larger facilities” (p. 25).

In an interview Gordon did on Democracy Now, she offers further details on VHA patient.

“It has probably the best mental health system in the country, because our mental health system in the private sector is a disgrace. It has the best geriatric care in the country. It has incredible end-of-life care. It has amazing rehabilitation services—blind rehabilitation centers, stroke centers, spinal cord injury centers. And these don’t just treat veterans who have been in combat” (https://www.democarcynow.org/2018/03/30/david_shulkins_firing_at_the_va).

Teaching and Research

The VHA has two other missions in addition to patient care. It is affiliates with major academic teaching hospitals and, Gordon writes, “and now trains over 70 percent of American physicians as well as students and trainees in forty other healthcare professions.” And then there is the research mission. Here are three examples of the research done by the VHA, in partnership with the National Institute of Health.

• Partnered with the National Institute of Health – “conducted the studies to prove that the shingles vaccine – which millions of seniors now take – was indeed safe for all Americans” (p. 22).
• “VHA researchers also did pioneering work documenting a reduction in post-surgical mortality when patients with known cardiac risk were given beta blockers before surgery. Now this is standard practice not only for veterans but for all patients who undergo surgery.” (p. 23)
• “The VHA performed the first successful liver transplant and developed the nicotine patch” (p. 23).

Lower costs

Gordon cites 1999 data that found “the full range of services the VHA provided would have cost 21 percent more in the private sector. Inpatient care in the private sector would have cost 16 percent more, outpatient care 11 percent more, and prescription drugs a whopping 70 percent more” (p. 30). The lower costs of the VHA reflect several factors that distinguish it from for-profit health care systems. The VHA negotiates prices with pharmaceutical corporations and physicians rather than letting them set their own prices. The VHA has lower administrative prices than the for-profit health care systems because they do not provide patient care through a for-profit insurance-based system. They “do not waste taxpayer dollars on high executive salaries or expensive marketing and advertising” And, very importantly, “VHA care is…more focused on prevention, early treatment, and the patient’s ability to function as independently as possible” (p. 30)

The VHA is not problem-free

There is a continuing problem of underfunding. There has been a outcry of criticism that at a few VHA healthcare facilities wait times have been too long. There is a well-funded and powerful movement that is pushing for the privatization of the VHA, despite evidence that the VHA delivers healthcare services in a well-integrated patient-care system that has institutionalized a culture and practices in dealing with the health needs of veterans that exceeds that of the private sector.

The problems of underfunding, wait times reported by the media in some VHA facilities in 2014, and the push to privatize the VHA, are all tied together. The Republican-dominated U.S. Congress strongly wants to privatize the VHA, and thus is inclined to underfund it and highlight problems of patient care in the VHA that help them justify the reduction of funding. What do the Republicans and their powerful right-wing allies want? In the final analysis, they want to shrink the VHA budget and its ability to provided health care services to veterans. Then, as the VHA is forced to reduce services and amidst outcries from healthcare deprived or under-served veterans, they want to replace the VHA with for-profit insurance corporations that will reimburse healthcare providers in the private-sector for the more limited and more expensive services available. There will be insufficient restraint on what the insurers charge for their coverage, if historic and current practices continue. This will result in fewer veterans with any kind insurance or with insurance that has high deductibles and copayments for limited coverage. The Republicans and the other privatizers don’t care that veterans’ costs will increase, don’t care if access to health care for low-income and female veterans is sharply curtailed, don’t care if the integrated healthcare system of the VHA will decline, don’t care if mental- and physical- health problems of veterans are not adequately addressed. And, just to add one other examples, they don’t care that privatization of the VHA will mean the eventual end of negotiations for drug prices and the resultant increase in these prices for veterans. Gordon summarizes it succinctly:

“The long-term Republican goal is to privatize the VHA, a policy that would cap costs, increase the middleman profits, reduce the efficiencies of a fully-integrated system, and drastically cut care” (p. 37).

Wait times and how they are employed to advance the argument for privatizationGordon –

“…conservatives have exploited the wait-time problems and delays uncovered in 2013 in Phoenix and some other VHA facilities. They saw this an opportunity to “argue that the entire VHA system is broken and the VHA should no longer provide health care services.” They want “to eliminate the VHA and transfer veterans to the private-sector healthcare system, with the government serving as payer, rather than provider, of care” (Gordon’s book, p.33). Subsequently, the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs blocked Senator Bernie Sanders request for a $24-billion appropriation for the Department of Veterans Affairs (mostly for healthcare).” “After the Phoenix wait-time controversy was exposed, Sanders brokered a deal with Republican Senator John McCain, and Congress grudgingly gave the Department $16 billion – $8 billion less than requested.” By the end of 2016, the VHA had corrected its wait-time issues and attracted many new enrollees

There are, Gordon points out, 4 studies that examined the controversy over wait times. One study “compared the outcome for 700,000 California cancer patients who were treated the VHA with patients covered by private insurance or Medicare and Medicaid. The chief finding: “although veterans has to wait longer for access to care than those covered by the other insurance programs, they received more appropriate treatment and better outcomes” (p. 43). The RAND Corporation conducted an independent assessment and documents “that the VHA outperforms the private sector on many measures, is equivalent on some, and marginally worse on only a few” (p. 31). Gordon also refers to a study published in JAMA that “reported that men with heart failure, heart attacks, or pneumonia were less likely to die if treated in a VHA hospital than a non-VHA hospital” (p. 31). And she describes a fourth study that “reported that women veterans have higher rates of screening for cervical and breast cancer whey they a specially designated women’s health provider” (p. 31). It should also be noted that these accomplishments occurred despite a shortage of primary-care physicians in the overall U.S. healthcare system.

In the meantime, after the wait-time controversy, “the VHA has so successfully addressed wait-time problems that it added 7 million more patient appointments and increased the number of patients receiving treatment, in some places by almost 20 percent. As a result, costs went up. The VHA then requested an additional $2.5 billion, which it eventually received, but at the same Republican Senators criticized the VHA for not operating efficiently, being mismanaged, and that it was a dysfunctional agency. In other words, it laid the ideological and political groundwork for the Republican privatizing line in the future (p. 37). Among other reasons, the major for-profit healthcare and pharmaceutical corporations have enormous influence on how the Congress acts. Indeed, this has been true under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The big healthcare insurers, Big Pharma, private-sector hospitals, and medical equipment companies – all want more customers, subsidized and paying, and a free hand in determining the prices of their services to augment their already high profits. If Republicans had their way, the government would spend less on health care with the privatization of the VHA, but more of what is spent would go into the coffers of the big for-profit healthcare corporations. There is also another issue that spurs the privatization forces, that is, they want a healthcare system devoid of unions. VHA employees are unionized. Get rid of the VHA and you eliminate yet another group of unionized workers.

Who is leading the push for the privatization of the VHA?

The forces for privatization include the leading corporations in all parts of the for-profit healthcare industry, the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress, the Republican Party in general, the billionaire Koch brothers, and a group called the Concerned Veterans for America (CVA),which is funded by the Kochs, and hedge fund insider trader Steven Cohen “who’s trying to set up an alternative mental health system to compete with the VA.” While the CVA is designated as a veteran’s group, it has no veteran members and provides no veteran services, according to Gordon (p. 34). Genuine veterans’ organizations such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion have opposed privatization proposals (https://www.democarcynow.org/2018/03/30/david_shulkins_firing_at_the_va).

Gordon describes the CVA:

“This group is central to the Koch brothers’ anti-government agenda and has been lobbying not only for partial and ultimately full privatization of the VHA but also against Obamacare and other government programs. In 2016 it launched a website. My VA Story, soliciting bad stories about the VHA from veterans” (p. 3

What specifically do the Koch brothers want? Suzanne Gordon offers one answer in her interview on Democracy Now. Here’s her full answer.

SUZANNE GORDON: “Well, they would like the VA [VHA] to be like TRICARE, which is the military insurance program, an insurance provider that pays for care, not delivers care. And the VA has great health outcomes. And really, it’s important for people to understand that in every single study—and they keep coming out, day after day after day—every single scientific study shows that the VA, in most areas, is equal or superior to the care delivered in the private sector, for much lower costs. So, if we were to privatize, veterans would lose integrated care.

“Now, it’s true that many veterans who live in rural areas have to travel to get to a facility where they can have surgery. But this is true for anybody in a rural area. And when they’ve studied the problem of would veterans get more expeditious care if they lived in rural areas under privatization, they found that they probably wouldn’t, because there just aren’t the doctors and specialists. I mean, Amy, if you look at the stats on mental healthcare in this country, 55 percent of American counties, all of them rural, have no psychiatrist, no psychologist or no social worker. There is no excess capacity out there to take care of these veterans. In San Francisco during flu season, University of California, San Francisco Hospital had people stacked up in the ER waiting for 60 hours for a bed, because there wasn’t enough capacity. Imagine adding 100,000 veterans, who now are cared for in veterans’ facilities, to those people in those ERs in flu season. It would be a disaster. The whole idea of privatization is based on this myth that we have excess capacity.

“Now, what they really want is, they don’t want to take—these hospitals and the Koch brothers and the hospital chains that are fighting for more veterans, they don’t want people with chronic illnesses and mental health problems and primary care. They don’t have enough people to take care of the patients that are already on their books. What they want is they want, you know, to do the colonoscopy, the high-cost colonoscopy, or the hip replacement. But why—that would cost more money, and veterans wouldn’t get integrated care.”

The privatization efforts of the Kochs and the Republicans are reflected notably in recent legislative initiatives and in the appointment of a physician with no administrative experience or experience treating veterans as Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs, that is, White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson, Trump’s physician, a rear admiral in the Navy. He has no experience running a large agency.

Legislative initiatives

Michael Corcoran reports on the legislative issues in an article for Truth Out on April 3, 2018 (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/44041-trump-s-new-va-pick-appears-poised-to-rubber-stamp-privatization-of-veterans-affairs). According to Corcoran,

“Among the legislation the Kochs are pushing is the Veterans Community Care and Access Act (S.2184, which was introduced by Sens. John McCain and Jerry Moran), the Veteran Empowerment Act (HR.4457, introduced by Rep. Doug Lamborn), which seek to privatize much of the VHA, and the Vet Protection Act (HR.1461), which would weaken the rights of VA employees.

Nikki Wentling of the Stars and Stripes reported is quoted by Corcoran that the Veterans Community Care and Access Act would “create a network of community medical providers that veterans could use at taxpayers’ expense.” If this bill is passed, the VHA would still act as a gate keeper determining when the care needed by a veteran is not available in VHA facilities. The Veteran Empowerment Act goes further than this. It would “create a government-chartered organization to operate a new veterans’ health insurance system.” In this case, the VHA would be replaced or on the road to being replaced altogether. Corcoran reports, “The Kochs, who, according to The Wall Street Journal, are spending millions to influence this debate, praised the bill. In an op-ed for The Hill, Dan Caldwell, executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, said the bill would ” truly expand veterans’ health care choice in an effective and sustainable way.”

Aside from the added costs of the bills, there is recent evidence that “the private sector is not ready for the specific health needs of veterans, according to a Rand Report published in March, which studied New York State providers. The report found that private providers knew ‘little about the military or veterans’ and are ‘not routinely screening for conditions common among veterans,’ among other critiques,” as reported by Corcoran.”

In an article published in The American Prospect, Suzanne Gordon describes the findings of the Rand study, along with two other research studies that come to the same conclusion (http://prospect.org/blog/tapped/studies-show-private-sector-providers-are-not-ready-care-veterans). Given the importance of this research, let me quote her at length.

“As Congress moves ahead with plans to outsource more and more veteran health care to the private sector, three high-profile studies should urge lawmakers to pump the brakes. The studies, published in recent weeks by RAND Corporation, Federal Practitioner, and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, spotlight serious flaws in private-sector veterans’ care compared with the VHA, from suicide prevention to overall health care. In so doing, the reports underscore a critical fact: Despite their best intentions, few private-sector physicians, hospitals, mental health, and other health-care professionals have the knowledge, experience, and skill to provide the level of care veterans need and deserve.

“Perhaps the most damning of those studies comes from the RAND Corporation. In a report entitled “Ready or Not?” researchers examined whether private-sector health professionals in New York state had the ‘capacity’ and ‘readiness’ to deal with that state’s 800,000 veterans in need of care. Such patients, the study noted, are on average older, sicker, poorer, and far more complex than the ordinary civilian-sector patient.

“The conclusion? Only 2 percent of New York state providers met RAND’s ‘final definition as ready to provide timely and quality care to veterans in the community.’

“While the majority of providers said they had room for new patients, less than 20 percent of them ever asked their patients if they were veterans. Fewer than half used appropriate clinical practice guidelines to treat their patients, and 75 percent didn’t use the kind of screening tools commonly deployed in the VHA to detect critical problems like PTSD, depression, and risk of suicide.

“Most providers had no understanding of military culture and less than one-half said they were interested in filling such knowledge gaps. Mirroring a similar study conducted by the VA and Medical University of South Carolina in 2011, RAND found that New York state providers had little understanding of the high quality of VHA care. Informed by media reports rather than medical journals, they had a negative view of the VHA and would be unlikely to refer eligible veterans to the VHA for needed care in programs in which the VHA actually excels.”

There is a third bill, backed by the anti-union Republicans and the Koch brothers, called “The Vet Protection Act.” It is designed to “protect” veterans who seek healthcare services in the VHA system against unions. If ever enacted, the proposed legislation would have several effects. It would make it easier to fire employees, weaken public sector unions, monitoring and limiting the amount of time VA employees devote to union activities during working hours. The National Federation of Federal Employees said that the legislation serves only one purpose, that is to “weaken federal employee unions.” Another unstated implication of this legislation is that it would have reduce the already modest salaries of VHA employees, increase turnover, diminish the emphasis on quality of treatment, and end up giving the opponents of the VHA more reasons to privatize it. The other loser in this process would be the veterans who need healthcare.

What is it all about? In the final analysis, it is about how the Republican and right-wing groups not only want to push for the privatization of the VHA, but also about getting the government completely out of the management and regulation of health care, while continuing to pony up funds for it.

Trump fires Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin who insisted the VA would not be privatized on his watch and replaces him with White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson, a rear admiral in the Navy. Dr. Jackson has no experience running a large agency.

The Trump administration adds a new element in the privatization efforts of the Republican Party and groups like those funded and shaped by the Koch Brothers. Trump has the power to choose who will run important executive-branch agencies, sometimes with the consent of the Republican-dominated Senate and sometimes on his own initiative. Well, arch-privatizer Trump has just chosen his personal physician to fill the position of Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs, after firing the incumbent, David Shulkin who opposed privatization of the VHA.

Here’s what Suzanne Gordon had to say on Democracy Now about this blatantly self-serving, right-wing political decision who, needless to say, want a political system that is subordinate to the corporate-dominated economy and where their profits take precedence over democracy – and, in this case, over the interests of veterans.

“Well, the doctor has no administrative experience. He has very limited clinical experience. He was a combat military doctor in Iraq. He’s familiar with military medicine, which is basically get them up, get them out quickly, get them in line and get them fighting again. The VA medicine is entirely different. It’s dealing with veterans with multiple, complex, chronic conditions. His medical experience is, as I said, within—in the White House, with largely well-to-do people, who probably eat right, with the exception of the president, and maybe get enough exercise and so on. But veterans, the Veterans Affairs—the Veterans Health Administration, which he will be administering, is dealing with older, sicker, poor veterans who bear no resemblance to the kind of patients one treats in the White House.
“I mean, you know, basically, Jackson is just a doctor. That’s his qualification. He curried favor with Trump by minimizing Trump’s weight-related and diet-related problems. But I think he’ll be a puppet that will put the VHA and the VA on a starvation diet, rather than putting the president on the much-needed diet that he should have been on a long time ago.”

Concluding thoughts

As I’ve maintained throughout this post, relying heavily on the in-depth research of Suzanne Gordon, the efforts to privatize the VHA are just one manifestation of the more general right-wing goal of privatizing everything about government that has profit-making potential in the voracious eyes of the corporate CEOs and their allies. And, further, privatization is just one means by which they hope to go on diminishing democratic institutions and values, while generating opportunities for the consolidation of corporate power and for the rich continue to accumulate an ever-larger share of the society’s wealth and income. So, what’s the point? Curiosity. Education. Clarity. Having the information to know when you are being fed lies. Sharing the information. Perhaps, consequent engagement in the political process and support of progressives in or running for government. Hope that amidst the chaos of events, here and abroad, democratic and egalitarian values, peace and diplomacy, policies that foster a sustainable domestic and global economy, will come to prevail – before it’s too late. I’ll end with these encouraging words on the VHA privatization front from Corcoran:

“However, while the Kochs have enormous resources invested in their effort to dismantle the VA, there is organized resistance from most Veterans Service Organizations, as well as from progressives like Bernie Sanders, who seek to defend government-run health care on principle.

“With the Koch brothers’ role in trying to privatize the VHA now a matter of national debate, the best way to maximize opposition to their agenda is to make sure the US public knows who is most hurt by it: veterans.” (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/44041-trump-s-new-va-pick-appears-poised-to-rubber-stamp-privatization-of-veterans-affairs)