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.)

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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)

The consolidation of right-wing, anti-democratic, power by corporate and wealthy elite
Bob Sheak, March 31, 2018

Troubles and hope

Our society is in deep trouble. We are faced with a host of problems domestically and internationally that are growing in scope, intensity, and damaging effects, some of which are likely to be irreparable and of existential dimensions. Some of the problems, such as the threat of nuclear war and the climate crisis, are truly apocalyptic in their implications. The situation is made more terrifying as Trump threatens preemptive war with Iran and North Korea and fills up his administration with war-mongers like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and, all-the-while, denies the significance of global-warming/climate change, appointing people with the same irrational views as his to key environmental and energy posts.

At the same, there are glimmers of light amidst these dark and foreboding clouds. The student-led movement that burst on the scene after the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at Parkland, Florida, is inspiring. As a result, there are now prospects that the NRA’s political dominance may be whittled down, at least in some states. And there was breaking news in late March that there are meetings and negotiations among leaders of North and South Korea that may undercut Trump’s rationale for ordering a nuclear attack on the North. And, looking back, Bernie Sanders’ extraordinary campaign in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary gives hope to those who will work to unseat Republicans in the 2018 mid-term elections. Sanders’ campaign demonstrated that, given the right candidates, there are millions of potential small donors and activists who will contribute to and work for the campaigns of candidates who offer a truly progressive platform, including support for: renewable energy, a green economy and jobs; public education, not charter schools; tuition-free education at community colleges for those who quality; debt-relief for students and graduates; single-payer, universal health care; infrastructure projects, including, as one example, support for fixing and making safe community water treatment and sanitation systems; reduced military spending; a reinvigorated State Department along with a strong emphasis on diplomacy; a revamped immigration system that provides paths to citizenship; reasonable gun control that bans military-type weapons, streamlines universal background checks, requires a waiting period, mandates that all guns are licensed, ends gun-show and other loopholes. The existence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the multi-faceted movement for gender equality, and citizen engagement from the center/left in every imaginable issue, all help to keep hope alive. How we educate ourselves and others, our activism, whether there are good political candidates, and getting out the vote – all this matters. It is also important to have a clear and unifying idea of our values and the kind of society we would like to have.

Robert Reich offers a vision of how a democratic society should be based on values associated with the “common good” and what it takes to achieve it. Reich’s new book, titled The Common Good, examines this concept that is anathema and antithetical to the powerful right-wing forces that are in political ascendance in Washington D.C. and in the majority of state capitols. For him, the common good reflects “a commitment to respecting the rule of law, including its intent and spirit, to protecting our democratic institutions; to discovering and spreading the truth; to being open to change and tolerant of our differences; to ensuring equal political rights and equal opportunity; to participating in our civil life together, and sacrificing for that life together” (p. 45). It is the antithesis of what the right-wing leaders like Trump and his administration want, namely, government by the wealthy, mostly for the wealthy and corporations, based on a highly restricted electoral system.

The threats to democracy

Corporate power moves to the far right of the political spectrum

The crises in the United States are rooted in our economic and political systems that are making the problems ever-worse. Our capitalist economy is dominated by mega-corporations in every sector, along with some privately-owned, multi-billion-dollar companies, like Cargill and Koch Industries. The principal driving force of these giant enterprises, and other business enterprises, is to always put profits and the interests of the top executives and shareholders ahead of all other considerations. The focus of corporate executives is on increasing the size, sales, revenues, and profits of these corporations and doing so in ways that disregard the interests of most employees, the environmental impact of their operations and the effects on communities, and the quality or durability of the goods and services they provide. The corporations are constantly faced with the problem of insufficient consumer demand and the saturation of markets. So, they spend enormous sums of money on pervasive, sophisticated, and manipulative sales efforts to goad consumers to buy their products and services, often on shaky credit.

There are guardians of the system to ensure profits remain paramount in the calculations of CEOs. They have little or nothing to do with the “common good,” and much to do with capturing profits for the wealthy. Wall Street bankers decide whether a given corporation’s profitable outlook is good enough to obtain financial support and how much it will cost. Private equity funds, sometimes referred to as vulture funds, are the contemporary corporate raiders, always poised to mount takeover efforts when a corporation is viewed as not operating profitably enough or is sitting on too much cash. After taking over a company, some raiders then often sell off assets, drain employee’s pension retirement systems, reduce wages, and maximize profits while letting the company eventually go out of business. Others may revive a distressed company, however, usually at the expense of workers’ wages and benefits. Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt provide a comprehensive analysis of private equity firms in their book, Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street. The authors describe how these business enterprises operate.

“Private equity firms have emerged in the last three decades as part of a group of new financial actors – or ‘intermediaries’ – that raise large pools of capital from wealthy individuals and institutions for investment funds. These funds undertake risky investments that promise to deliver higher-than-average returns. Private equity funds buy out companies using high-levels of debt – referred to as ‘leverage’ – that is loaded onto the acquired companies. The use of debt to take over ownership of mature operating companies leveraged buyouts and actively manage them are the characteristics that distinguish private equity funds from venture capital or hedge funds. Venture capital and hedge funds are also investment funds that mobilize private pools of capital, but their business models differ substantially from that of private equity” (p. 1-2).

Hedge funds use the investments of wealthy people to speculate on anything that is deemed potentially profitable, from changes in commodity prices on international markets to changes in interest rates, to the prospects of government spending on the stock value of a given corporation, to buying real estate securities and selling them as their value rises, before it falls. Trades are made at incredible speed based on complex algorithms. They represent a kind of parasitical form of capitalism. Les Leopold analyzes hedge funds in his book, Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away with Siphoning off America’s Wealth.

Coming back to the center of U.S. capitalism, the mega-corporations use their control over vast resources to influence state governments as well as the federal government, through trade associations, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Business Roundtable, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, massive lobbying efforts, campaign contributions distributed through various types of political action committees (some anonymous or secret), political ads that favor their preferred candidates, and through a revolving-door in which corporate executives are appointed to important government positions for awhile and then return to their corporate or other private-sector jobs, and vice versa. While corporations have historically supported both the Democratic and Republican Parties, they have increasingly favored Republicans.

Nancy MacLean’s analysis takes us further into one of the principal dynamics of contemporary capitalism

But even all this does not capture the full extent of corporate and business power. Nancy MacLean, author and scholar, delves penetratingly into this issue in her book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. With extensive documentation, she unveils how a radically libertarian view of society, with strong Social Darwinist overtones, has come to have great influence on corporations. This is a view that wants to “undo democratic governance” and majority rule with a system of governance that is controlled by those of great wealth, who define themselves as being superior in accomplishments and perhaps genetically to most others and thus who deserve to – indeed must -lead the country. They claim that the wealth they create will trickle down, but that people should not expect much – unless they have education and skills that are identified as being important to those in charge.

MacLean traces such views to an obscure but tenacious economic philosopher named James McGill Buchanan who from the 1950s on advanced a “revolutionary” right-wing economic and political philosophy that included, at one time or another, the following proposals: end progressive taxation and replace it with a flat tax; end government intrusion and regulation of the property of the wealthy(personal or business); end the right of workers to collective bargaining; end guaranteed pensions; end occupational and safety laws; end affirmative action laws; privatize Social Security, Medicare, the Veterans’ Administration; reduce spending on and access to public assistance programs (e.g., Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers); privatize virtually all functions of government (e.g., education, welfare, prisons, public media, infrastructure, transportation ….). Additionally, according to MacLean, Buchanan argued that state’s rights should take precedence over federal law and local initiatives because it’s easier to control state governments. What Buchanan and his wealthy backers want is, MacLean writes, “a return to oligarchy [and] to a world in which both economic [and] effective political power are to be concentrated in the hands of a few.” She continues that the dream of the leaders of this movement is:

“to reinstate the kind of political economy that prevailed in America at the opening of the twentieth century, when the mass disfranchisement of voters and the legal treatment of labor unions as illegitimate enabled large corporations and wealthy individuals to dominate Congress and most state governments alike, and to feel secure that the nation’s courts would not interfere with their reign” (p.xxxii).

Along the way, as Buchanan held various academic positions, joining with and supported by like-minded ideologues in academia and with funding by wealthy backers, he argued that the long-term goal was “a constitutional” revolution that would end majority rule. This will be a stealth movement that through incremental successes undermines democracy. MacLean says Buchanan’s efforts have, unfortunately, borne fruit. She writes in her Introduction: “Pushed by relatively small number of radical-right billionaires and millionaires who have become profoundly hostile to America’s modern system of government, an apparatus decades in the making, funded by those same billionaires and millionaires, has been working to undermine the normal governance of our democracy” (p. xxxi).The most influential force in this movement has been the Koch network, which, MacLean reports, “’operates on the scale of a national U.S. political party’ and employs more than three times as many people as the Republican committees had on their payroll in 2015” (p. xxxi). She summarizes the achievements of the Koch network as follows:

“It was occupying the Republican Party, using the threat of well-funded primary challenges to force its elected officials to do the cause’s bidding or lose their seats. It was pushing our radical right laws ready to bring to the floor in every state through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). It was selling those laws through the seemingly independent but centrally funded and operationally linked groups of the State Policy Network. It was leveraging the anger of the local Tea Party groups to move the legislative agenda of Americans for Prosperity and Freedom-Works. Its state affiliates were energizing voter turnout with deceitful direct mail campaigns. Its elected allies were shutting down the federal government; in effect, using its employees and the millions who rely on it as hostages to get what they otherwise could not – and much, much more” (p. 210).

In his book, The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time, Gordon Lafer offers this description of the Koch network.

“…rather than simply contributing to candidates’ campaigns, the Kochs have established a uniquely broad network of related organizations – candidate selection and funding vehicles, think tanks, data firms, communication strategists, and grassroots organizers – that together constitute and integrated and formidable political force. In 2014, Americans for Prosperity alone spent $125 million and had five hundred full-time staffers to organize supporters in target states. Finally, the Kochs not only spend their own money on an unparalleled scale; they also serve as organizers and directors of a network of corporate and private donors. In 2016, this network aimed to spend $1 billion, significantly more than the Democratic or Republican parties raised in the 2012 election cycle” (p. 16).

The vision for our society of this right-wing movement

What has the radically, right-wing movement already accomplished and what is in store for us if we don’t stop it? Very worrisome, it has advanced a “big lie” that “society is split between makers and takers,” repeated endlessly at Tea Party gatherings and in the right-wing halls of discourse. As one example, MacLean refers to Mitt Romney’s statement that “47 percent of voters were, in effect, leeches on ‘productive’ Americans” (p. 211). And then she asks: “Is it true that the wealthiest among us are being fleeced by government?” How then, she replies, can it be that “the secretary of a billionaire will often pay a higher tax rate than her boss?” It happens, of course, because, as noted previously, the corporate CEOs and the wealthy are said to be – and believed to be in many higher circles – superior and more deserving than the great majority of the population.

Charles Koch, one of the richest men in the United States, has argued that “his vision of a good society will bring prosperity to all.” But this vision is really about the good society for a privileged minority of the wealthiest Americans, some of their employees who toe the line, the politicians they have bought, and affluent professionals of various sorts. MacLean refers to statements made by others in the movement to elucidate what Koch has in mind. For example, Economist Tyler Cowan, who now directs one of the base camps of the movement at George Mason University, housed in the Mercatus Center, says that under the “new” social contract poor people will either find ways to work their way out of poverty or stay poor. They won’t have access to Medicaid, they’ll have to find housing on their own. Others in the movement say that there won’t be government health officials “testing small children for lead.” From this despicable viewpoint, those in places like Flint, Michigan, will have to put up with a lead-poisoned water system and the harmful health effects, move, or not have children.

Denying there is disastrous climate change

There is a huge effort by the right-wing movement to dismiss climate change as a problem, despite the accumulating science that documents this change and its myriad harmful effects. They want to maximize the extraction of fossil fuels, wherever they are to be found. This effort, trumpeted by Trump, his administration, the Republican Party, the Koch network, the Chamber of Commerce, Fox News and other right-wing media, and even by mainstream media that insist on “balanced” coverage when the evidence overwhelmingly documents the unfolding of dire climate change, has spent great time and energy attempting to confuse the public, emphasizing the alleged “uncertainty” of climate science. Be that as it may, there is no scientific uncertainty, except among those just listed. But there may be limits to such propaganda.
For example, the Gallup polling organization found that, in a 2016 report, “Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say they are worried a ‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ about global warming, up from 55% at this time last year and the highest reading since 2008” (http://news.gallup.com/poll/190010/concern-global-warming-eight-year-high-aspx).

How can this be? It is indication of the limits the propaganda machine of the right-wing forces, the continuing though increasingly challenged independence of climate scientists, increasing incidences of extreme and chaotic weather, a rising number of weather-linked storms and fires, each costing more than a billion dollars, continuing research that documents the climate changes and their effects, rising ocean levels threatening massive coastal property, increasing insurance rates, robust opposition by environmentalists, etc. It remains to be seen whether a powerful-enough people’s movement can be galvanized in time to overcome those who now have so much power and wealth. It will include, but require much more than, local challenges to fossil-fuel interests, challenges to pipelines, municipal decrees to achieve 100% renewable energy systems, challenges to Trump’s EPA and Energy Department. We need to somehow find ways to challenge and change the capitalist system, the power structure that accompanies it, and to envision something to replace it.

According to author Ian Angus the earth’s entire ecological system is now being shaped by changes that are rooted not in natural variability or sun spots, but in human activities, principally carbon emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels, deforestation, industrial agriculture and ranching, hyper-consumerism, and too many people. There is indeed a rich and increasing research and analytical literature on the new and dangerous stage of planetary evolution that is called the Anthropocene by geologists and other scientists. Angus provides an in-depth account of this view and research in his book, facing the Anthropocene: fossil capitalism and the crisis of the earth system. The implication is that the change that is called for is system-wide – and the time is short.

The right-wing corporate /wealthy forces do not pause and overall are not compromising

This radical right-wing movement does not rest. It’s unrelenting. Here are two other examples.

First, it has “convinced a sizeable segment of the American population that the problems in schools today are the result of those teachers’ unions having too much power.” MacLean considers what is happening to public education in the states were Republicans have gained control.

“In the states where they have won control, like my own state of North Carolina, the [movement’s] cadre’s allied elected officials, pushed by affiliates of the State Policy Network, have rushed to pass laws to debilitate teachers’ unions, one bill being hurried through passage after midnight. The Republican-dominated North Carolina General Assembly then also cut seven thousand teacher assistants, allotted $100 million less than the state budget office said was needed merely to maintain the schools, and budgeted $500 million less to public schools than it has in 2008. Even the school supplies budget was cut by more than half; students can no longer take-home textbooks in some poor communities, for fear they may be lost” (p. 218).

There has just been a relatively successful pushback from teachers’ unions in West Virginia. It remains to be seen whether West Virginia is a forerunner of more to come, or a small example that will prove only to be an exception to the rule.

A “pro-privatization coalition” advocated successfully for privatizing prisons. States have passed anti-union, right-to-work laws, effectively undermining the political clout of unions. The Koch team continues to push for the privatization of Social Security, while U.S. corporations “have nearly all discontinued the defined benefit pensions that a generation ago covered half the labor force.” MacLean continues: “And with wages essentially stagnant for the majority since 1970, very few Americans have 401(k) accounts or other savings equivalent to what has been lost.” In the absence of employee pensions, Social Security “remains the most widespread, effective, secure, and significant source of retirement income’ for the vast majority of Americans” (p. 222).

In addition, there are indications that the VA health care system is becoming increasingly vulnerable to privatization. You can learn how foolhardy and potentially cruel for veterans privatization will be from Suzanne Gordon’s long-term analysis of the VA and related health care issues. She was interviewed on Democracy Now on March 30, 2018. You can watch the interview by going to: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/30/david_shulkin_firing_at_the_va. She also a recently published article in The American Prospect: http://prospect.org/blog/tapped/studies-show-private-sector-providers-not-ready-care-veterans. And she has published an edited book on the subject titled The Battle for Veterans Health Care. I’ll take this important issue up in another email.

Some specific institutional obstacles in the way of moving toward a society based on the values of the common good

The democratic political process in the country have also been undermined, giving the right-wing juggernaut momentum. MacLean refers to the research of Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz, who have compared the number of “stumbling blocks that advanced industrial democracies put in the way of their citizens’ ability to achieve their collective will through the legislative process.” The researchers call the stumbling blocks “veto players.” One of their chief findings is that “the nations with the fewest veto players have the least inequality, and those with the most veto players have the greatest inequality.” The U.S. leads the pack, the only nation in which there are four veto players, namely, “absolute veto power for the Senate, for the House and for the president (if not outvoted by a two-thirds majority), and a Constitution that cannot be altered without the agreement of two-thirds of the states after Congress.” But there are other democracy-weakening features of the American political system that are not taken into account in this research, such as, how the US system “further obstructs majority rule” through a “winner-take-all Electoral College that encourages a two party-systems; the Tenth Amendment, which steers power toward the states; and a system of representation in the unusually potent Senate that violates the principle of ‘one person, one vote,’ to a degree not seen anywhere else” (p. 226).

There are further, and well-documented, efforts to reduce the vote by citizens. MacLean reports that the U.S. “stands 138th of 172 democracies [?] in the world in voter turnout. And there are ongoing efforts by the right-wing movement, including prominently the Republican Party, to make voting harder than it has been through gerrymandering, new voter Id laws. MacLean writes: “In the two-years after Republican candidates swept the 2010 midterm elections, ALEC-backed legislators in forty-one states introduced more than 180 bills to restrict who could vote and how. The measures could reduce the political influence of low-income voters and young people, who had been inclined leftward” (p. 231). Such anti-voter initiatives are covered well in Ari Berman’s book Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and Zachary Roth’s The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on Democracy.

With all these nefarious and anti-democratic efforts, there is more. MacLean notes on the last page of her book that the leaders of this increasingly powerful right-wing movement have “no scruples about enlisting white supremacy to achieve capital supremacy.” Perhaps the best single source of information on the “white-power” movement is historian Kathleen Belew’s new book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. This is a movement that could potentially offer the wealthy and powerful an army of thugs who are willing to harass, injure, and even kill those who stand for democracy, more equality, a green economy, and diplomacy. At the end of her book, Belew offers this warning:

“What is inescapably clear from the history of the white power movement…is that the lack of public understanding, effective prosecution, and state action left an opening for continued white power activism. The state and public opinion have failed to sufficiently halt white power violence or refute white power belief systems, and failed to present a vision of the future that might address some of the concerns that lie behind its more diffuse, coded, and mainstream manifestations” (p. 239).

The outcome?

Still not completely decided, though the political and economic landscapes represent unparalleled, unprecedented developments in our history. It will take an unprecedented and mobilized counterforce to stop and reverse the direction in which we are headed. There is plenty of movement. Will it somehow be nourished, galvanized, and unified in time?

Part 4: “Capitalism, corporations, Trump: Alternatives?

I’ve considered corporate power in a capitalist system in Part 1. Then examined how corporations translate their economic power into political power in Part 2. Then in “Enter Trump.” Part 3, I considered the ways he and his administration are buttressing the power and interests of the mega-corporations and the rich in Part 3.

In this fourth and final part, I want to share some perspectives on how to respond to the profit-oriented corporate power in a capitalist system that requires continual growth, now combined with the ascendance of a right-wing administration in the White House that has authoritarian, if not neo-fascist, components. See in-depth analyses of the ideological thrust and right-wing policies of Trump and his administration in two excellent books: John Bellamy Foster’s Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce, and Brian Klass’s The Despot’s Apprentice: Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy.

The Daunting challenges

Corporate power

As you know, the consolidation of corporate power and the uncompromising positions coming out of the White House and Republican Congress pose profound and systematic threats to democracy, justice, peace and diplomacy, or anything like a sustainable environment. We should bear in mind that the capitalist system gives great power to those who own and control the major means of production for profit. They control vast resources, enjoy oligopolistic positions in markets, have operations in many communities across the country on which local people depend, reach millions of people through massive sales efforts, have a profound effect on the distribution and availability of credit through mega-banks that are bigger than ever, have a global reach through branches and subsidiaries in other countries, and employ internationally complex production chains involving contractors and sub-contractors to keep labor costs as low as they can. (For a general description of supply chains, go to: https://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain.)

Mega-corporations have arrangements with foreign governments of all kinds to gain access to markets, minerals and rare earth materials crucial for electronic devices, to avoid environmental regulations, to avoid unions and collective bargaining, and to sell weapons. Martin Hart-Landsberg provides an in-depth analysis of the inequitable and exploitative global economy in his book Capitalist Globalization.
The U.S. weapons makers sell more weapons to buyers in other countries, including huge sales to the repressive theocratic monarchy in Saudi Arabia, than any other nation in the world. Thom Shanker provides recent evidence on U.S. arms sales in an article published in the New York Times entitled “U.S. Sold $40 Billion in Weapons in 2015, Topping Global Market” (https://www.nytimes.org/2016/12/26/us/politics/united-states-global-weapons-sales.html?_r=0). Here are two key points from the article.

First, “[t]he United States again ranked first in global weapons sales last year, signing deals for about $40 billion, or half of all agreements in the worldwide arms bazaar, and far ahead of France, the No. 2 weapons dealer with $15 billion in sales, according to a new congressional study.” Second, “[d]eveloping nations continued to be the largest buyers of arms in 2015, with Qatar signing deals for more than $17 billion in weapons last year, followed by Egypt, which agreed to buy almost $12 billion in arms, and Saudi Arabia, with over $8 billion in weapons purchases.”

Corporate power and its effects on government

The corporate and government elites use their power to dominate government. And what do they want? By and large, the corporate executives and the rich want government policies that facilitate the profits of the corporations for which they work and in which they are financially invested. This translates into their support for lower taxes and less effective government regulation. They want, further, the privatization of government assets and functions and access to fossil fuels on public land, onshore and offshore. They often favor an “American First” foreign policy militarily but want trade agreements that give extraordinary power to corporate interests over consumers. Certainly, the military-industrial complex wants the government (i.e., taxpayers) to spend ever more money on weapons and a “modern” nuclear bomb force, and the deployment of troops all over the world. And it has been content to go along with the continuation and escalation of brutal and counterproductive wars, directly in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria or indirectly through support of Saudi Arabia’s brutal war on Yemen.

Then there is the increasingly blatant class and “racial” warfare these powerful interests wage, reflected in reduced government support for virtually all programs that provide benefits for the great majority of the population, high rates of inequality overall, the stagnation of wages and increasingly precarious position of most workers, the growth of the security-surveillance state, the militarization of local police forces, the stigmatization and attacks on immigrants, the irrational and punitive “war on drugs,” the high incarceration rates, especially of African-Americans and Latinos for minor drug offenses, and the extreme economic marginalization of former prisoners, disproportionately of color. Note that there “are over seven million Americans who are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records often following them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, housing.” Moreover, “Court-ordered monetary sanctions that compel criminal defendants to pay fines, fees, surcharges and restitution further inhibit their ability to reenter society” (Alexes Harris, A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor)

What can be done?

In this context, what can be done? Well, there is a lot that is being done. There is opposition reflected in electoral politics and efforts to elect progressive candidates to positions in government, spurred by the hope that Democrats can do well in the 2018 elections. Bernie Sanders has been an inspiration for some of this. Some fight against Republican voter suppression and gerrymandering efforts, while others fight for campaign finance reform and public financing of elections. There are continuing demonstrations, rallies, and protests of all sizes as, for example, people protest fossil-fuel pipelines and fracking, and for renewables and a green economy. There are community efforts to better regulate or shut down corporate businesses that pollute the environment and endanger the health of nearby residents, often communities of poor people or people of color. There are organizations that take stands against racial and gender discrimination and for fair and equitable and affirmative government policies. They are countless issues on which people rally: to preserve net neutrality, to strengthen public schools, to protect and enhance important government programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, to end the policies that lead so many people of color to prison and a loss of opportunities afterward, to support alternatives to agribusiness, and to institute a universal health-care system. As extreme weather events occur with increasing regularity, there is also a growing awareness of and related actions on how government emergency in the wake of hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and parts of the Caribbean Sea is insufficient and biased in favor of the interests of corporations and the wealthy. Recently a high-school student movement has emerged in response to the mass murder at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The question that lingers is whether all this activity will be enough for center-left political forces to achieve majorities in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures now controlled by Republicans. There is a question, among many, about what strategic goals are best for bringing together the various reform efforts into a politically effective political force that will have the power to reverse and replace Trump’s irrational climate change policies that dismiss climate change as a hoax?

There are at least two general strategic alternatives, largely still only aspirational. One is focused on reforming parts of the existing system, that is for example, limiting or discouraging particular expressions of corporate power through taxation or regulation. The other is focused on creating alternatives to corporate power in those industries that do great damage to the public or environment.

I’ll use global warming as an example to illustrate the two strategic approaches. As you well know, this is a growing problem of existential proportion that threatens to destroy the conditions that have made our societies and civilization possible. Globally, carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and degradation of soils are steadily rising. Bob Berwyn reports, for example, that global CO2 emissions are going to break all records in 2017 (http://insideclimatenews.org/news/12112017/climage-change-carbon-co2-emissions-record-high-2017-cop23).

The Reform approach – e.g., A carbon tax

The first strategy calls for reforms of the current political/economic system that will fix the various aspects of the system that are problematic without major changes in how corporations are governed and generally operate, with profits as their central goal. Many of the references above are in this category. This is a general approach, with a multitude of variations, that is most familiar and most often pursued. So, with respect global warming, reformists would have government foster through regulatory initiatives, tax incentives and government subsidies by putting a cap on allowable emissions, imposing a carbon tax, promoting energy efficiency, subsidizing solar and wind power, encouraging consumers to by high efficiency appliances. The government may also set an example by installing solar panels on government buildings and military installations. This is not an exhaustive list, but it identifies some of the most discussed “reforms” with respect to the problem of global warming.

Take the carbon tax proposal. According to physicist, author, and blogger Joseph Romm, a carbon tax is “a tax on the carbon content of hydrocarbon fuels or on the carbon dioxide emitted by those fuels when they are converted into energy” (Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, pp. 172-173). He elaborates as follows:

“In economics, the total economic harm caused by a pollutant such as carbon dioxide can be considered an external cost that can be estimated and added to the price of that fossil fuel. If the ‘social cost of carbon’ could fully account for all of the costs to society of emitting hat pollutant, and if the tax were equal to that social cost, then businesses and other entities would reduce their use of fossil fuels in the most optimum and efficient manner… there is a large range in estimates of the social cost of carbon” (p. 173).

“A number of countries have a carbon tax. Norway and Sweden introduced carbon taxes in 1991. Many other European countries also have a price on carbon content of fuel. In 2012, Australia introduced a $24 per metric ton carbon tax for major industrial emitters and some government entities. Much of the money was returned to the public in the form of lower income taxes or increased pensions and welfare payments. By mid-2014, the tax had cut carbon emissions by as much 17 million metric tons, according to one study” (p. 173).

“In 2008, Canada’s province of British Columbia (BC) launched the first economy-wide carbon-tax in North America. It is ‘revenue neutral,’ which is to say that the revenues raised by the tax are returned to consumers and businesses in the form of lower personal and corporate taxes. If some of the revenues were used to pay for government spending, such as increased research and development into clean energy technologies, it would be revenue neutral. The BC tax started at $10 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, and it hit $30 a metric ton in 2012. That translates into approximately $0.25 a gallon of gasoline. From 2008 to 2012, one study found that fossil fuel consumption fell 17% in BC….” (p. 173).

Romm points out that many countries don’t have a carbon tax but “do place a large tax on petroleum-based fuels, such as gasoline and diesel.” He continues: “These taxes are often substantially larger on gasoline than a typical carbon tax would be, but they pay for road repair and offset other externality costs associated with fuel consumption” (p. 174). They lack the redistributive impact on incomes that a revenue-neutral carbon tax would have, but they foster the use of small cars and public transit, which in turn have the effect of lowering carbon emissions.

According to a survey conducted in September and published by Yale University in its Environmental Research Letters, the “majority of Americans support implementing a carbon tax as a way to curb fossil fuel emissions.” The results are based on a nationally representative survey of 1,226 American adults. Respondents were given ten different ways to spend the revenue from a carbon tax. Daniel Oberhaus, reporting on the Yale study, writes that “if a carbon tax were implemented, 80 percent of respondents said they would favor using the revenue from this tax to develop clean energy and improve US infrastructure, such as roads and bridges” (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/j5ge4b/majority-of-us-supports-a-carbon-tax-and-wants-to-spend-the-money-on-renewable-energy).

The study found that “the average American household was willing to pay around $177 per year in a carbon tax on its energy bills, which by itself would amount to $22 billion in revenue annually.” More than 70 percent of those participating in the survey were willing to see “some portion of the carbon-tax revenue to compensate coal miners whose jobs are affected by a reduction in the use of fossil fuels.” One important policy implication is that the survey indicates widespread support for a carbon tax that is used by government for expenditures on desired programs. Ideally, it would be a tax on all carbon-based consumption, both for businesses and individuals.

There is little doubt that a reform such a carbon tax is a positive step in efforts to curb carbon emissions. However, the concern is that the government may not be able to adequately enforce the law. Historically, corporations and wealthy individuals have been adroit in finding ways to avoid the full impact of governmental tax – and regulatory – policies. Keep in mind also that there are other changes that would be included in a reformist approach, namely, encouragements to reduce our individual use of fossil fuels in our everyday activities, to have government subsidize renewables, to cap carbon emissions at their sources, to keep fossil fuel operations out of public land, onshore or offshore, to recycle and reuse the stuff we buy and thus reduce our individual and collective energy use. These are all reforms that are worthy of our support.

There is one surprise, at least upon initially hearing about it. Journalist John Schwartz reports in an article for the New York Times on June 20, 2017, that Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total S.A., all among the large oil corporations in the world, are now supporting “a plan to tax carbon emissions that was put forth this year by a group of Republican elder statesmen” from pre-Trump administrations, calling themselves the Climate Leadership Council (http://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/science/exxon-mobil-tax.html?_r=0).

If implemented, the CLC plan would set the initial tax at $40 per ton of carbon dioxide produced and raise more than $200 billion a year. Over time, the rate would rise, and, if it works, have the effect of dampening demand for fossil fuels. But wouldn’t such a tax have the effect of reducing profits? And aren’t profits what it’s all about in the corporate world? The big oil corporations are attracted to the plan because of is expected positive public-relations effect, while rightly thinking that it has little chance of being implemented by the Republican majorities in the US Congress or signed into law by Trump. Nonetheless, the public statement of support for a carbon tax is good for their reputation and that’s good for business. There are three other attractive aspects of the plan for the oil giants, though not for most of us. The plan “calls for scrapping Obama-era regulations intended to fight climate change.” The oil corporations can “simply pass the cost of new taxes on to customers.” And the plan “also says companies that emit greenhouse gases should be protected from lawsuits over their contribution to climate change.”

In the final analysis, a genuine and fairly constructed and implemented carbon tax is a reform worth supporting, if it does not end up in higher prices and the weakening of government enforcement of clean air and clean water regulations.

Addressing the limits of reform

Of course, it seems to be totally unrealistic to think that any such reforms, conservative or liberal, will be legislated in the present Republican-dominated US Congress and with Trump in the White House. However, even if the Democrats were to win majorities in the US House and US Senate in 2018, and even if there was then a move to implement such reforms, and even if subsequently a relatively progressive president replaced Trump in 2020, the corporations would still retain their power under the reformist agenda to make basic investment decisions as they now do, that is, to make decisions about what is produced (e.g., fossil fuels or renewables), where its produced (e.g., depending on how accommodating government here and abroad are), how its produced (e.g., by fracking or by solar and wind power), how much is produced, and the rate at which renewables replace fossil fuels. And the prospects are awful if the present right-wing juggernaut continues. In this case, corporate power will be intensified. There will be an increasingly de-regulated, tax-adverse, bottom-line obsessed, and grow-or-die capitalist system that requires corporations to give priority to the interests of their stockholders before all other interests, except perhaps when it comes to the salaries and bonuses of the top executives. Climate change deniers and the big oil and gas corporations will prevail, to the detriment of us all.

Now there are those who say that even under the best political circumstances, reform of US energy policy and of the fossil fuel giants is not sufficient to curtail, let alone reverse, the accelerating and increasingly catastrophic climate change that is upon us. They want a structural transformation of the energy industry. They want the big fossil fuel corporations to be de-privatized or nationalized. This is a position that is outside the political mainstream narrative and, under present circumstances, even less likely of success than the reforms already discussed. However, proponents of the nationalization option say that this is the only definitive way to deal with the power of the mega-energy corporations and thereby curtail and reverse disastrous climate changes.

The implication of the nationalization position is that, in the current political-economic situation, one paramount goal is to educate people about four things with respect to the reform proposals. One, reform of the energy system is not sufficient. Two, reform is not going to occur. Three, efforts to reform the system mislead people on what can be accomplished in the present system and keeps them from understanding what genuine change entails and what is necessary to achieve it. Four, only significantly diminishing or eliminating the power of the fossil-fuel mega-corporations will achieve the desired result of sufficiently reducing fossil-fuel emissions to avoid further and accelerating climate-related catastrophes. This means nationalizing the mega-oil corporations.

The nationalization option

This proposal is like the call for a single-payer, universal health care system. In both cases, the power of the government or a democratic structure and the public interest would replace corporate power. That means eliminating the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations in health care and transforming the control of the largest fossil-fuel corporations. There are at least two versions of how to nationalize the big oil corporations. One would be to learn from, considering and perhaps adapting the practices that are most efficient and consistent with a democratic system. According to Wikipedia
“F]ully 65% [of the world’s oil and gas reserves] are in the hands of state-owned companies such as Saudi Aramco, with the rest in countries such as Russia and Venezuela” (https://en.wikipedia.org/Nationalization_of_oil_supplies).

In these cases, the government sets the policies and makes the major investment decisions, while experts and skilled workers who are government employees carry out the actual work of extracting, processing, and distributing the oil and gas. The other position on nationalization, advanced by Bruce Lesnick, among others, is to create an energy industry that is run in a decentralized and “democratic” manner. He says the slogan should be “Nationalize the energy industry under workers’ control.” His key points are as follows:

“Policy, priorities and directions for the new energy sector should be set by a national board comprised of delegates from regional energy committees as well as elected representatives of the workers within the energy industry, workers in other industries affected by energy policy, scientists and engineers” (https://ecology.iww.org/node/1940).
“All energy policy representatives should be elected and subject to immediate recall. For compensation, they should receive no more than the average pay of those they were elected to represent.”

Lesnick argues that such a nationalization project is moral, legal, and can be done.

It is moral because the energy industry owes a huge debt to society. Companies have received “tens of billions of dollars every year in government subsidies.” Publicly supported academic research “has laid the foundation for a great deal of the technology and innovation that allows the energy industry (and others) to turn a profit.” The industry has spawned huge external costs, including “the depletion of resources, destruction of the environment, and poisoning of communities….” A 2010 study by the National Resource Council “put these costs [born by the public] at $120 billion for the year of 2005 alone.” Indeed, the energy industry has “been blithely churning out greenhouse gases” for generations. They owe the public big time. Nationalization of fossil fuels, or of the biggest fossil fuel corporations, is legal because, Lesnick contends, the rights of people and the planet have priority over “the desire by a few for private profit.” It is doable, given that the majority of the oil and gas produced worldwide is carried out by state-owned entities. If they can do it, so can we.

Writing for the In These Times, Carla Shandier also makes a case for the nationalization of the fossil fuel industry (http://inthesetimes.com/article/20700/nationalize-the-fossil-fuel-industry-carbon).

The majority of coal, oil, and gas reserves are owned by for-profit corporations, according to Shandier’s report. She points out that “more than 80 percent of all combined oil and gas production in 2015 came from resources outside of federal control.” Just ten US oil and gas companies “control close to a quarter of all American proven oil and gas reserves.” Given the calamities accompanying and the rapidity of climate change, Shandler argues that “[a] future government may have no choice but to de-privatize control of these reserves, the great majority of which are owned by mega oil and gas corporations. She also offers a method by which such de-privatization could occur.
“While the U.S. has hundreds of such companies [fossil fuel companies], the reality is that only a few of these together control the vast majority of proven reserves in the country. Take oil and gas, for example: Ten U.S.-based, publicly held companies [i.e., owed by stockholders] control close to a quarter of all American proven oil and gas reserves. A targeted buyout of fossil fuel majors would not only make up for lost time, but it could prevent vast amounts of CO2 from entering into the atmosphere through a managed decline in fossil fuel production….”

Shandier refers to precedents. During WWII, the government took over “vast swaths of the national economy.” George W. Bush cut subsidies to tobacco producers “while providing a $10 billion buyout to help farmers replace lost income, retire or transition to growing different crops.” During the Great Recession of 2007-2009, “both Bush and Obama Administrations de facto nationalized a number of companies, including financial institutions, insurance companies and even General Motors.”

Closing thoughts

There are plenty of ideas for reforming and some for radically transforming the U.S. fossil fuel industry. They are to be greatly appreciated. The proposals shine a light on what alternatives are worth fighting for and help to reinforce the commitments of progressive officials in government, scientists, experts and activists, while educating average citizens. There are daunting obstacles. We are faced with a retrograde president and Republican Party, unprecedented corporate power, and billionaires, and tens of millions of Americans who go along with their right-wing, reactionary, counterproductive agenda.

While the reform approach may not target the foundations of corporate power and the profit-first economy for fundamental changes, they do have the value of educating the public, galvanizing the active engagement among some segments of the population, educating many others, and slowing down if not stopping reactionary energy policies. But, in the end, it may take more than such reforms to curtail and reverse the carbon dioxide emissions of the fossil fuel corporations. So, the call for nationalization is appropriate and logically sound, but not widely understood or even recognized.

I pose, finally, two questions. One question is whether the reform agenda and the more radical agenda calling for structural and systemic changes can be complementary or whether they are they inherently contradictory? One tentative answer is that they ideally could be combined, each applied simultaneously to different sectors of the economy. The other question is whether we have the time for enough change to occur, given that the climate is changing so fast and in so many increasingly catastrophic ways. As of now, the climate issue does not appear to be a one that is being highlighted in Democratic primaries. And, generally, there is almost no discussion in government of the nationalism option, with the exception in health care of a single-payer, universal health care system – but that is in in political infancy.

Enter Trump: a boon to his corporate and billionaire supporters, no so good for most of us, Part 3

PART 3: Enter Trump

 

Getting elected

Backed by billionaire Robert Mercer

While Trump did not have to spend a lot of his own money on his presidential campaign due to the extensive media coverage of his rallies and reporting on his twitters, he did have significant support from wealthy and corporate backers. During his presidential campaign, for example, he received crucial financial support from billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebecca. In a documentary on “The Real Story of How Bannon and Trump Got to the White House” this story is told. The documentary was created by The Real News Network and made available on August 18, 2017. (http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19811:TRNN-Documentary%3A-The-Real-Story-of-How-Bannon-and-Trump-Got-to-the-White-House).

Chris Hedges is interviewed in the above-mentioned documentary about the Trump-Mercer connections. Here’s some of what he said.

“HEDGES: The fuel behind Mercer’s influence are the absurd sums of money he approves at the investment company he runs, Renaissance Technologies, based on Long Island. Its famed Medallion Fund is one of the most successful hedge funds in investing history. Averaging 72% returns before fees, over more than 20 years. A statistic that baffles analysts, and outranks the profitability of other competing funds, like the ones George Soros and Warren Buffet run.

“In 2015, Mercer had single-handedly catapulted Cruz to the front of the Republican field. Throwing more than $13 million into a super PAC he created for the now failed candidate. But with the Trump campaign faltering, and struggling for support, there’s a second chance for the Mercers to make a big bet.
The Trump campaign is well aware of this, in fact, sources within Mercer’s super PAC would later tell Bloomberg News that shortly after Cruz drops out of the race, Ivanka Trump and her wealthy developer husband Jared Kushner, approach the Mercers, asking if they’d be willing to shift their support behind Trump. The answer is an eventual, but resounding yes.

“In the months leading up to Trump’s presidential win, the Mercers would prove a formidable force. Beginning after the disastrous Republican Convention in July, they would furnish the Trump campaign with millions of dollars, and new leadership, but they would also furnish it with something more — a vast network of non-profits, strategists, media companies, research institutions and super PACs that they themselves funded and largely controlled.”

The powerful Trumpian allies surface

Support for Trump’s transition team – and the inaugural

Carrie Levine and Michael Beckel report for the Center on Pubic Integrity on how billionaires, lobbyists, and corporations threw in money for Trump’s transition (https://www.publicintegrity.org/2017/02/23/20741/billionaires-and-corporations-helped-fund-donald-trumps-transition). Here are their examples of the corporations who gave financial support. “Among them: Arkansas poultry giant Mountainaire, AT&T, General Electric, Microsoft, Aflac, Devon Energy Corp., MetLife, Qualcomm, Exxon Mobil Corp., the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, JPMorgan Chase & Co., PepsiCo, Hilton, Aetna and Anthem. Some of those companies also gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump’s inaugural committee.” The point is that corporations have cultivated a relationship with Trump since it became clear he would be president.
Trump’s cabinet and chief advisers

During his presidential campaign, Trump liked to say that, if elected, he “would drain the swamp” in Washington D.C. of Goldman Sachs and other big banks and corporations and make the country’s capitol honest again. Trump also claimed that Hillary Clinton was in the pocket of Goldman Sachs. Well, as it turns out again, Trump’s rhetoric is hollow and only meant apparently to give his rallies of core supporters something to shout about. Now by October 2017 Trump’s cabinet and notable key advisory positions are occupied by former Goldman Sachs’ executives and a lawyer who represented Goldman Sachs. Gary Rivlin and Michael Hudson write about how Trump’s administration has been infused by appointments from Goldman (https://theintercept.com/2017/09/17/goldman-sachs-cohn-donald-trump-administration). Here’s what we learn from Rivlin and Hudson.

Until his recent departure, Steven Bannon, a former vice president at Goldman, was Trump’s chief strategist. Steven Mnuchin, who spent 17 years at Goldman, is now Treasury secretary. Dina Powell, another Goldman partner, “joined the White House as a senior counselor for economic initiatives.” Jay Clayton represented Goldman after the financial crisis and now has be the head of the Security and Exchange Committee. And Gary Cohn, former president of Goldman Sachs, is [was] director of the president’s National Economic Council. Cohn is one of the very rich members of Trump’s top cabinet other high-level appointments. Rivlin and Hudson write: “At the end of 2016, he owned some 900,000 shares of Goldman Sachs stock, a stake worth around $220 million on the day Trump announced his appointment. Plus, he’d sold a million more Goldman shares over the previous half-dozen years. In 2007 alone, the year of the big short, Goldman Sachs paid him nearly $73 million — more than the firm paid CEO Lloyd Blankfein. The disclosure forms Cohn filled out to join the administration indicate he owned assets valued at $252 million to $611 million. That may or may not include the $65 million parting gift Goldman’s board of directors gave him for “outstanding leadership” just days before Trump was sworn in.” Cohn will play a central role in formulating Trump’s tax reform proposal and in supporting a big reduction in the corporate tax rate.

Russell Berman gives a full account of Trump’s cabinet in a piece written for The Atlantic magazine titled “The Donald Trump Cabinet Tracker” (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/trump-cabinet-tracker/510527). There are former corporate executives, ex-generals, and rightwing ideologues, some with government experience, others with none – and some who are very wealthy.

Rex Tillerson [was] Secretary of State until early March 2018, had a long career at ExxonMobil. Owns $151 million in ExxonMobil stock. Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury, we have already met. He’s a Goldman Sachs man. Owns $97 million in CIT stock. Jeff Sessions, Department of Justice, has extensive government experience, including 20 years in the Senate. He is hell bent on of deporting undocumented immigrants, likes voter-ID laws, and generally favors the whittling away of the freedom to protest government policies. General James Mattis, Secretary of Defense, a career extending 44-years in the military. with a record in the Senate of being “a staunch critic of illegal immigration and expanded legal immigration. He has “praised the KKK while criticizing the NAACP and the ACLU.” John Kelly was head of Homeland Security and is now Trump’s chief Whitehouse adviser. He has a career of more than 40 years in the Marine Corps. Trump likes his “deep knowledge of border security.” Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services, has served 12 years in the Congress and 8 in the Georgia state Senate. He is leading critic of the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Develop, has no prior government experience and wants to reduce government support for the poor. Rick Perry, Secretary of Energy, was governor of Texas for three-and-a-half terms. He goes along with Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda. Alexander Acosta, Secretary of Labor, played a variety of roles in the George W. Bush Administration and shares the Republican anti- or rather-not-have unions. Elaine Chao, Secretary of the Department of Transportation, has extensive government experience serving two terms as labor secretary under George W. Bush. She’ll push for Trump’s corporate-friendly infrastructure policy. Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, is a “longtime philanthropist and Republican donor. No previous government experience. She is an advocate for expanding charter schools and private-school vouchers. Her family’s wealth is estimated to be $5.1 million. Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, served twenty years in the Navy Seals two years in congress, representing Montana. He is a strong supporter for mining and drilling interests and is skeptical of human-caused climate change. Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce, is a billionaire (est $2.9 billion), has no previous government experience, who spent time in business outsourcing jobs and slashing benefits at companies he restructured. Scott Pruitt, head of EPA, has six years as Oklahoma attorney general and eight years in the Oklahoma state senate. He has been a leader in the fight against Obama’s agenda to combat climate change. Mick Mulvaney, Office of the Management and the Budget, has been “a hard-line conservative in the House and a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. He favors “steep spending cuts across the discretionary and entitlement spending programs, while favoring major increases in military spending. Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA [until being re-appointed Secretary of State in March 2018], spent six years in the U.S. House and served on the Intelligence Committee. Republican stalwart. Nikki Haley, Ambassador to the United Nations, was governor of South Carolina and served six years in the state legislature. She has no relevant experience for this job. She echoes Trump’s aggressive foreign policy proclamations.

Trump’s cabinet – the wealthiest ever

 

CBS News sums it up well.

“President-elect Donald Trump rode the winds of a populist movement into Washington, D.C., promising to root out money from politics. Yet when picking his Cabinet members, Mr. Trump is surrounding himself with a historic level of wealth that’s at least 50 times greater than the Cabinet that George W. Bush led” [and the wealtheist in personal wealth ever].

“So far, Mr. Trump’s Cabinet picks have a combined net worth of more than $14 billion, based on estimates from Forbes and other sources. Given that many positions have yet to be filled, it’s likely that total will increase in the coming weeks” (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/donald-trumps-14-billion-cabinet).

Using presidential power

Executive orders

So far, Trump has been unable to pass his health care reform bills, the courts have stymied his immigration ban of 7 Muslim countries. He had his first and only legislative victory in December of 2017 when he signed into law the Republican-tax reform bill. Be that as it may, Trump has been busy shaping government policy through executive orders. Avalon Zoppo and her colleagues at NBC News have compiled a list of all the executive orders enacted by Trump from January 20, 2017, through Oct 12, 2017 (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/here-s-full-list-donald-trump-s-executive-orders-n720796).

In all, there were 51 executive orders. Wikipedia has this description of “executive orders”:

“Executive Orders are presidential directives issued by United States Presidents and are generally directed towards officers and agencies of the U.S. federal government. Executive orders may have the force of law, if based on the authority derived from statute or the Constitution itself. The ability to make such orders is also based on express or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation).

“Like both legislative statutes and regulations promulgated by government agencies, executive orders are subject to judicial review and may be overturned if the orders lack support by statute or the Constitution. Major policy initiatives require approval by the legislative branch, but executive orders have significant influence over the internal affairs of government, deciding how and to what degree legislation will be enforced, dealing with emergencies, waging wars, and in general fine-tuning policy choices in the implementation of broad statutes.
Here are some examples from the NBC News team’s compilation of Trump’s executive orders.

• January 25 – “The order strips federal money to so-called sanctuary cities.”
• January 30 – “executive departments and agencies must slash two regulations for every one new regulation proposed”
• April 28 – “reverses a ban on Arctic leasing put in place under the Obama administration in December and directs Secretary Ryan Zinke to review areas available for off-shore oil and gas exploration”
• May 4 – “eases IRS enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which bans churches from engaging in political speech. It also gives relief to companies that disagree with the Affordable Care Act mandate on contraception in health care coverage.”
• August 15 – “aims to increase the efficiency of the Federal infrastructure permitting process and revokes an Obama-era Executive Order that created stricter environmental review standards for federal projects in flood-prone areas.”
• August 28 – “revokes Obama-era limits on repurposing military equipment for law enforcement purposes” – including armored vehicles and grenade launchers.

Benefits to the corporations

In an article for The Nation, November 2, 2017, Mike Konczal writes that “Trump is Creating a Grifter Economy,” by which he means an economy “filled with low-grade, penny-ante efforts to allow the scheming and powerful to swindle ordinary people” (https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-is-creating-a-grifter-economy). The Trump administration is doing this despite the promises he made during his presidential campaign at his many rallies where his core supporters turned out by the thousands. Bear in mind that 59,521,401 Americans voted for Trump. Most of them were not rich, though a majority had incomes above the median family income. About twenty-five percent of Trump’s vote came from people whose incomes were under the median. (See the attached item.) What did Trump promise? Konczal reminds us. “Trump sold voters on his promises to invest in massive public-infrastructure projects, take on bad trade deals, and generally fight for workers against the global elites. The pitch was a call to blue-collar nationalism.”
What is his administration delivering? Here are some telling examples on the evolving grifter economy, with handsome benefits for Trump’s growing number of corporate admirers – and beneficiaries. “On October 24,” Konczal writes, “Vice President Mike Pence joined 50 Senate Republicans and cast the tie-breaking vote to give Wall Street its biggest legislative victory in years. Together, they repealed a set of rules by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that allowed consumers to sue their banks and credit-card companies instead of being required to go into arbitration. The financial industry desperately wanted this protection overturned, because it would again give banks control over handling complaints about their own impropriety.”

Konczal also points to And it’s not just the banks who are being showered with Trump policies. “Under the Obama administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services barred nursing homes that receive federal funding—which is almost all of them—from including mandatory-arbitration clauses in their contracts.” This means they those in long-term care could sue their nursing homes and take them to court. Now the Trump administration is in the process of revoking the rule” and allowing disputes to be resolved through mandatory-arbitration proceedings, which are likely to be highly influenced by nursing home operators.
Then there are the actions being taken Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who is in the process of ending Obama administration reforms were “designed to protect borrowers from the student-loan servicing industry.” There is more. “Devos is also rescinding debt forgiveness for students defrauded by for-profit colleges.” And:

“Worse, she has hinted that she will no longer cooperate with the CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] to investigate wrongdoing in the student-loan industry. In the past, the CFPB has policed these markets, fining companies that were trying to improperly collect on debts. DeVos may be able to eliminate this crucial function of the CFPB.”
Trump advancing his fossil fuel agenda and fast

Of course, there is a lot more of involved in the Trump administration’s efforts to change and enhance the economic rules in favor of the mega-corporations, the private sector generally, and the rich, than Konczal’s examples. Michael Klare offers one of his provocative, in-depth articles in analyzing here how Trump “is not only trying to obliterate the existing world order, but also attempting to lay the foundations for a new one, a world in which fossil-fuel powers will contend for supremacy with post-carbon, green-energy states” (http://alternet.org/right-wing/trump-new-world-order-global-alliance-oil-and-gas-producers-and-hell-our-allies-green).” This is a course of action that will advance disruptive and catastrophic climate change and, at least for a time, further buttress the opportunities and profits of the mega oil and gas corporations, along with all participants in the fossil fuel industries. It’s basically an emerging struggle for the life or death of the planet. And Trump and his administration are the most powerful players, are at least among the most powerful. Klare sums up his thesis in these terms:
“Domestically, he’s pulled out all the stops in attempting to cripple the rise of alternative energy and ensure the perpetuation of a carbon-dominated economy. Abroad, he is seeking the formation of an alliance of fossil-fuel states led by the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, while attempting to isolate emerging renewable-energy powers like Germany and China. If his project of global realignment proceeds as imagined, the world will soon enough be divided into two camps, each competing for power, wealth, and influence: the carbonites on one side and the post-carbon greens on the other.”

What has Trump and his administration done in pursuing this vision? Klare illuminates the central pieces of their strategy, as follows.

“The vigor with which Trump is pursuing this grand scheme was on full display during his recent visit to the Middle East and Europe, as well as in his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. In Saudi Arabia, he danced and dined with oil-drenched kings, emirs, and princes; in Europe, he dismissed and disrespected NATO and the green-leaning European Union; at home, he promised to eliminate any impediment to the expanded exploitation of fossil fuels, the planet be damned. To critics, these all appeared as separate manifestations of Trump’s destructive personality; but viewed another way, they can be seen as calculated steps aimed at bolstering the prospects of the carbonites in the forthcoming struggle for global mastery.”
While in Saudi Arabia, Trump signed a $110 billion arms sales agreement with the Saudis. And “Expected additional sales over the coming decade could bring the total to $350 billion.” And it is expected that “many of these arms, once delivered, will be used by the Saudis in their brutal air campaign against rebel factions in Yemen.” Among other actions, Trump “hectored them [NATO allies] about their failure to devote adequate resources to the common defense” and did so “in such a disdainful and dismissive manner.” French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attempted “to convince him of the urgency of remaining in the Paris climate accord, stressing its importance to Euro-Atlantic solidarity, pointing out that pull out would leave the field to the Chinese.” But, Klare writes, “Trump proved unyielding, claiming job promotion at home outweighed environmental considerations.”

At home, Trump has repudiated President Obama pledge to constrain GHG emissions from electrical power generation through his Clean Power Plan and Obama’s “mandated improvements in the efficiency of petroleum-fueled vehicles. If his actions succeed, and this is what Trump hopes, the domestic coal industry will be revived and “the trend toward more fuel-efficient cars and trucks” reversed, in which case the demand for oil will go up.
The potential consequences of the Trump image of an unabated carbon-energy future are nightmarish. Klare concludes his analysis but sketching the two alternative energy futures that are increasingly in competition. The implication is grim, that is, that our president Trump, his administration, his corporate profiteers (especially in the fossil fuel industries), and his millions of hard-core supporters who are moved by misguided beliefs that climate change is a hoax, that Trump’s policies will create lots of good jobs, that right-wing radio and internet outlets tell the truth and the rest of the media are about “fake news,” that Democrats are only good for the educated and professional classes, and that shoveling money into programs for the “undeserving poor” and illegal immigrants should be sharply curtailed. Klare also sees opposition to Trump’s energy policy not only abroad but domestically as well, including even some mega-corporations and executives who are enlightened enough to recognize the impending catastrophes if we fail to rapidly shift away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. Here’s how Klare sums it up.

“One thing is clear: everyone on the planet will be affected by the ways in which such reshuffled alliances and rivalries will play out. A world dominated by petro-powers will be one in which oil is plentiful, the skies hidden by smog, weather patterns unpredictable, coastlines receding, and drought a recurring peril. The possibility of warfare is only likely to increase on such a planet, as nations and peoples fight over ever-diminishing supplies of vital resources, especially food, water, and arable land.

“A world dominated by green powers, on the other hand, is likely to be less ravaged by war and the depredations of extreme climate change as renewable energy becomes more affordable and available to all. Those, like Trump, who prefer an oil-drenched planet will fight to achieve their hellish vision, while those committed to a green future will work to reach and even exceed the goals of the Paris agreement. Even within the United States, an impressive lineup of cities, states, and corporations (including Apple, Google, Tesla, Target, eBay, Adidas, Facebook, and Nike) have banded together, in an effort dubbed ‘We Are Still In,’ to implement America’s commitment to the climate accord independently of what Washington says or does. The choice is ours: allow the dystopian vision of Donald Trump to prevail or join with those seeking a decent future for this and future generations.”

Just how far right will Trump and his corporate and rich allies take the country?

Author, writer, professor Henry A. Giroux addresses something like this question in his article “Dancing With the Devil: Trump’s Politics of Fascist Collaboration” (http://truth-out.org/news/item/40593-dancing-with-the-devil-trump-s-politics-of-fascist-collaboration). The following paragraph from his article provides a succinct framework for his analysis.

“Certainly, Trump is not Hitler, and the United States at the current historical moment is not the Weimar Republic. But it would be irresponsible to consider Trump to be either a clown or aberration given his hold on power and the ideologues who support him. What appears indisputable is that Trump’s election is part of a sustained effort over the last 40 years on the part of the financial elite [and the mega-corporations and rich in general] to undermine the democratic ethos and highjack the institutions that support it. Consequently, in the midst of the rising tyranny of totalitarian politics, democracy is on life support and its fate appears more uncertain than ever. Such an acknowledgment should make clear that the curse of totalitarianism is not a historical relic and that it is crucial that we learn something about the current political moment by examining how the spread of authoritarianism has become the crisis of our times, albeit in a form suited to the American context.”

When Giroux refers to tyranny and authoritarianism he is using them is aspects of fascism. He is careful to say that fascism is not one historical fixed doctrine but rather “an ideology that mutates and expresses itself in different forms around a number of commonalities.” He adds that there is “no exact blueprint for fascism, though echoes of its past haunt contemporary politics.” And fascism does not emerge all at once. There are variations historically. He quotes Adam Gopnick on this last point, as follows:

“[fascism is] an attenuated form of nationalism in its basic nature, it naturally takes on the colors and practices of each nation it infects. In Italy, it is bombastic and neoclassical in form; in Spain, Catholic and religious; in Germany, violent and romantic. It took forms still crazier and more feverishly sinister, if one can imagine, in Romania, whereas under Oswald Mosley, in England, its manner was predictably paternalistic and aristocratic. It is no surprise that the American face of fascism would take on the forms of celebrity television and the casino greeter’s come-on, since that is as much our symbolic scene as nostalgic re-creations of Roman splendors once were Italy’s.”

There is no doubt, though “that Trump is the product of an authoritarian movement and ideology with fascist overtones.” Giroux identifies some of the key characteristics, elements, or tendencies of fascism as they apply to Trump and right-wing politics today. There is not yet a full-fledged expression or manifestation of fascism in the U.S.

First, trust the leader. Trump and his advisers “don’t worry about the facts, don’t worry about logic, think instead in terms of mystical [or symbolic, or theatric] unities and direct connections between the mystical leader and the people.” In a word, Giroux argues, they want “to undo the Enlightenment,” as they attempt to advance policies and reconstitute societal institutions in authoritarian ways that protect, if not vastly improve, the situations of the corporate-dominated private sector of the economy and of the upper levels of the income and wealth distributions, especially of the rich.

Second, Trump’s rallies represent another element of fascism. Giroux refers to Steve Bannon’s “preoccupation” with Mussolini and the Italian fascists of the 1930s as part of the reason Trump held so many rallies during his presidential campaign and continues to do so under Trump’s presidency. The rallies contain a “mix of theater and violence” and a rhetoric “supportive of ultra-nationalism and racial [illegal immigrant] cleansing.” At the same time, the actual practice of Trump’s administration is to accommodate the global economic interests of his corporate backers. One message for his “core supporters,” another for his corporate and rich allies.

Third, the attacks on civil liberties. Giroux identifies how Trump and his administration are becoming increasingly authoritarian in how their policies are eroding civil liberties. He refers to the following examples: “the undermining of the separation of church and state, health care policies that reveal an egregious indifference to life and death, his manufactured spectacles of self-promotion, contempt for weakness and dissent, and his attempts to shape the political realm through a process of fear, if not tyranny itself, as Snyder insists in his book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.”
Fourth, those who fail to know history are in danger of repeating it. Trump is ignorant of history or makes up his own version. Giroux gives the following examples.

“Echoes of Trump’s fascist impulses have been well documented, but what has been overlooked is a sustained analysis of his abuse and disparagement of historical memory, particularly in light of his association with a range of current right-wing dictators and political demagogues across the globe. Trump’s ignorance of history was on full display with his misinformed comments about former president Andrew Jackson and nineteenth-century abolitionist Frederick Douglas. Trump’s comments about Jackson having strong views on the civil war were widely ridiculed, given that Jackson died 16 years before the war started. Trump was also criticized for comments he made during Black History Month when he spoke about Frederick Douglass as if he were still alive, though he died 120 years ago. For the mainstream press, these historical missteps largely reflect Trump’s ignorance of American history. But I think there is more at stake than simply ignorance, given the appeal of Trump’s comments to white nationalists.

Fifth, attacks on the media, “the fourth estate of democracy. Giroux refers to Trump’s continuing disparagement of the media in attempts to repudiate criticisms of him but also to assure his core supporters that he is the source of truth. Here’s how Giroux states it.
“His alleged ignorance is also a cover for enabling a post-truth culture in which dissent is reduced to ‘fake news,’ the press is dismissed as the enemy of the people and a mode of totalitarian education is enabled whose purpose, as Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism, is ‘not to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.’ Trump may appear to be an ignoramus and a clown, but such behavior points to something more profound politically, such as an attack on any viable notion of thoughtfulness and moral agency. His forays into international politics offer another less remarked upon form of fascistic embrace.”

Sixth, Trump has an “affinity for indulging right-wing demagogues” and their admiration is reciprocated. Consider:

“…Donald Trump’s support from and for a number of ruthless dictators and political demagogues. Trump’s endorsements of and by a range of ruthless dictators are well-known and include Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and the [recently defeated] French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front party. All of these politicians have been condemned by a number of human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Freedom House. Less has been said about the support Trump has received from controversial right-wing bigots and politicians from around the world, such as Nigel Farage, the former leader of the right-wing UK Independence Party; Matteo Salvini, the right-wing Italian politician who heads the North League [Lega Nord]; Geert Wilders, the founder of the Dutch Party for Freedom; and Viktor Orbán, the reactionary prime minister of Hungary. All of these politicians share a mix of ultra-nationalism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia and transphobia…. In an age when totalitarian ideas and tendencies inhabit the everyday experiences of millions of people and create a formative culture for promoting massive human suffering and misery, Trump’s affinity for indulging right-wing demagogues becomes an important signpost for recognizing the totalitarian nightmare that marks a terrifying glimpse of the future.”

In short, when you put all these fascist tendencies together and combine them with the power of Trump’s office, his mega-corporate and rich allies, his attacks on all progressive aspects of the federal government, his authority as “commander in chief,” the Republican control of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, the systematic efforts to suppress the vote of opponents, a Supreme Court dominated by “conservative” justices, and many millions of supporters in the general population who accept what Trump tells them with little regard for the facts and who seem to like his xenophobic, ultra-nationalistic, racist and sexist tinged bellicosity and braggadocio, then Giroux and other analysts who identify fascist tendencies in the contemporary United States seem to have a good, if very disturbing, argument.

Trump’s mental instability

But there is another consideration that makes the present situation even more dire. Bandy Lee, M.D., M.Div, edited a book that brings together a “compendium” of the writing of 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts to assess the president’s mental health. The title of the book is The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. Lee also organized the Yale conference by the title, “Does Professional Responsibility Include a Duty to War.” There is now a national coalition, “Duty to Warn,” that has 55,000 signatures” (p. 13). Here’s an overview of the first part of this 360-page book, which captures the thrust of the book.

The first part is “devoted to describing Mr. Trump, with an understanding that no definitive diagnosis will be possible,” that is, without a direct psychiatric evaluation of Trump in a psychiatrist’s office. Still, there are disconcerting observations by psychiatrists and other experts based on relevant research and extensive observations and reading. One contributor argues that Trump “has proven himself unfit for duty by his extreme ties to the present moment, without much thought for the consequences of his actions or the future.” Another contributor argues that Trump is narcissistic and “that pathological levels in a leader can spiral into psychosis, impaired judgment, volatile decision making, and behavior called gaslighting.” A third contributor, who co-wrote Trump’s book, Art of the Deal, that Trump has “low self-worth, fact-free self-justification, and a compulsion to go to war with the world.” Others in this first part of the book develop the following observations on Trump’s behavior and apparent mental instability.

• “…Trump lacks trust in himself, which may lead him to take drastic actions to prove himself to himself and to the world.”
• “…someone who cons others, lies, cheats, and manipulates to get what he wants, and who doesn’t care whom he hurts may be not just repritively immorgal and also severely impaired, as sociopaths lack a central human characteristic, empathy.”
• “…Trump’s presentation “shows signs [of] hypomanic temperament that generates whirlwinds of activity and a constant need for stimulation.”
• “…Trump’s nearly outrageous lies may be explained by delusional disorder”
• “…more frightening are Trump’s attraction to brutal tyrants and also the prospect of nuclear war.”

In a “forward,” renowned psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton worries about the spread of “malignant normality, which has to do with the social actuality with which we are presented as normal, all-encompassing, and unalterable.” He fears that there can be “a process of adaptation to evil,” that is, if and when more and more people come to accept, tolerate, or quietly accommodate to Trump’s presidential practices and policies. Lifton warns that we must resist and oppose the tendency to view what Trump does as “simply a part of our democratic process – that is, as politically and even ethically normal.” With all the dangers to our democracy, including Trump’s mental instability, Lifton closes his statements with an optimistic line from the American poet Theodore Roethke: “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”