Whose Country?

Howard Lisnoff is dismayed by a "government ... run by war profiteers, racists, misogynists, warmongers, child abusers and worse".

While perusing the Internet after organizing a rally opposing the horrific treatment of immigrant children and their families, it finally dawned on me that I no longer recognize the country in which I live. A Facebook photo of a protester holding a sign brought it all home in a way that words alone often cannot: The sign was written in plain, bold black letters and read: “What Country Is This?”

Simmering fear and rage have found a voice and he's feeding the fire. Chauncey DeVega explores "white anxiety" noting that

Unfortunately, too many white Americans would rather live under an authoritarian regime that supposedly empowers white people like them than a real democracy which provides equal opportunities for all people.

DeVega quotes presidential adviser Michael Anton from before the election.

The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle.

Of course, you can't imply becoming "more democratic" is a bad thing!

I'm not sure ironic is exactly the right word, but these whites also no longer recognize their country. Who wouldn't be fearful if you thought a backlash was coming for everything Western imperialism has done to the rest of the world? Quoting Pat Buchanan:

We are truly dealing here with an ideology of Western suicide. [Von Clownstick] may be on the wrong side politically and emotionally of this issue of separating migrant kids from their parents. But on the mega-issue — the Third World invasion of the West — he is riding the great wave of the future, if the West is to have a future.

The "character of the country" is being lost. DeVega disputes that the fear is justified.

It is not just white anxiety about changing demographics which drives ... white identity politics. It is actually a fear that black people specifically, and nonwhites more generally, will seek revenge against white people once the former are the numerically larger group. This conclusion is based on a very narrow and distorted understanding of power as a type of zero sum game where it is considered "human nature" for one group to dominate another by any means necessary. 

But the fear and anger are there and it builds on both sides. I was once so furious with a friend it felt as if I had blinders on and couldn't recognize where I was.

[T]here are millions of white Americans in [Dear Leader's] camp, and also outside of it, who are terrified that with increasing racial and ethnic diversity they will be victims of racially-motivated revenge and violence. This makes these millions of white voters easily manipulated by racist demagogues who use political sadism to stab at the worst parts of human nature. In response, it will require a united front of black and brown and white folks to save the United States from [Fuckface] and the Republican Party's fascist and authoritarian campaign against democracy.

Yet the divide only seems to get more intense.

Update (June 28):  Motive isn't clear, but this is just days after Fuckface once again referred to the press as "the enemy of the people".

Five people died and two were injured in a “targeted attack” on the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland.

And this sure looks like the kind of intimidation we'd expect in some kind of dictatorship.

In his first television interview, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson James Schwab has opened up about why he abruptly resigned in March. But his interview with CBS News' Jamie Yuccas on Wednesday was unexpectedly interrupted by agents identifying themselves as agents from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's Office.

Update (June 30):  It seems that being a hypocritical asshole tends to pay very well.

Also, Paul Rosenberg reports on several tweets from the Capital Gazette shooting suspect.

[The suspect] wasn’t acting on anyone’s orders, and despite his apparent linkages to white supremacy he never expressed any clear political ideology. But there's little doubt he was influenced and shaped by some of the darkest forces in our society.

Update (July 3):  Kaitlin Byrd thinks Democrats need to wake up.

They offer appeals to morality, norms and shared values as if saying it often enough will make it true.

But there is no salvaging the Republican Party. Its leaders are beyond shame, beyond rules, beyond reason. Democrats can speak in the dialogue of peace, but the only dialect Republicans understand is power.

[I]t would be wrong for the Democrats to seek reconciliation while the Republican Party organizes government to recognize only its ideology as legitimate, systematically assaults Democratic constituents and actively condones the abandonment of international law and the heinous human rights abuses still happening to thousands of asylum-seekers.

Update (July 4):  While the Master Troll is a failure who might yet escape any consequences, Jeremy Sherman offers suggestions for taking on the trolls.

On the left these days, we debate whether to be civil or uncivil, self-controlling or gut-reacting in response. That’s the wrong debate for our times. We’re in the political equivalent of anything goes mixed-martial arts and you’re bringing predictable tai chi or karate. The debate should be about how to surprise them not whether to be gentle or harsh.

Update (August 17):  On Free Press Day, this has become necessary.

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution Thursday confirming that "the press is not the enemy of the people."

Update (February 20, 2019):  What kind of insane lunatic tweets out shit like this before 6 am?

The New York Times reporting is false. They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!

Update (February 21, 2019):  Bob Cesca suggests we need to take these raging tweets seriously.

[E]ver since Robert Mueller was appointed we’ve all wondered out loud whether [Fuckface] would get crazier and more dictatorial as investigators closed in. I think we have a clear answer to this question. The only remaining question is whether he’ll actually take the next step following the threats.

Progressive Wins

Hopefully a sign of things to come--Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of Democratic Socialists of America, defeated the number four House Democrat in the New York primary.

It doesn't help swing control of Congress, but it shows big money has limits. And now every incumbent needs to be afraid.

Also, former NAACP President Ben Jealous won the nomination to run against Maryland's Republican Governor Larry Hogan.

Update (June 28):  Several articles about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's story. And FOX News is freaking out. Sean Hannity calls her agenda "downright scary".

Support seniors? She's a monster!

Hannity went on to say the only difference between Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the Democrats is that she's more honest. So let's own it--anything to the left of Reagan is socialism in their view. So, yes, this is want socialists want--please explain to the voters why Republicans oppose this platform. Let's have a real debate.

Update (July 1):  Andrew O'Hehir says Democrats are "a political party that has spent 30 years or more running away from big ideas and refusing to clarify what it stood for or whom it represented". They have a lesson to learn.

I don’t think it’s true that any young and energetic Latina candidate with an appealing life story could have beaten a 10-term congressman who also leads the once-formidable Queens County Democratic machine. It had to be someone with something to say.

Also, her win is more than "demographics" and don't mess with her. Finally, Mexico elects the left candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Update (July 3):  David Swanson praises Ocasio-Cortez's platform (Hannity left out her support for a peace economy). She summed up democratic socialism concisely on the Late Show.

No person in America should be too poor to live.

Update (July 4):  Progressive candidates around the country are fired up.

Democratic strategists believe an email signed by Ocasio-Cortez would be an instant moneymaker, and that her endorsements and campaign stops could help drive progressives to the polls in November.

And Paul Rosenberg says it's not inconceivable that an American form of socialism may be ready to emerge.

Progressives can win arguments by focusing on meeting specific needs, not by arguing in the abstract. When they frame politics that way, even a majority of conservatives tend to agree.

Issues matter and Rosenberg quotes Matt Taibbi on whether we're just seeing a left-wing mirror of right-wing populism.

Attempts to paint victories by people like Ocasio-Cortez and Jealous as being anything like the rise of [Fuckface von Clownstick] are nuts, of course. A xenophobic, reactionary, science-denying white-power movement has nothing in common with a campaign to give people health care and clean energy. If anything, they're complete opposites. It's asinine.

The only thing the two movements have in common is that both are dangerous to the very tiny group of ineffectual politicians who've been running both parties for decades now.

Update (July 7):  "We have people. They have money."

Update (July 13):  Although he says he supports the Democratic nominee, Joe Crowley remains on the ballot as the Working Families Party nominee.

Update (July 15):  Paul Rosenberg argues Democrats need to stand for something if they want to win.

[D]espite not articulating it, Democrats do have an implicit shared ideology that would greatly strengthen them if they openly embraced: That being the principle that government exists to be a positive force for good, to “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty,” in the words of the United States Constitution.

A restatement of values is needed to combat Republican machinations that keep those representing a minority of Americans in power.

It cannot be an ideology that ignores the coalitional nature of the existing Democratic Party. That’s clearly a non-starter. But it can rearticulate that coalition much more forcefully as a matter of shared values reflected in specific policies — as Bernie Sanders did in 2016, and as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has done this year — rather than transactionally-mediated interests, which is the de facto model for how the party functions today under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

Rosenberg quotes Ocasio-Cortez who "doesn’t flaunt the label [socialism] nor does she shy away from it. She knows that the power of what she stands for lies in the specifics, in values made concrete."

I always go back to how we won this race. And we didn't win this race with labels. We ran this race with our goals and our issues in mind. ... At the end of the day most people want to make sure that everyone has health care, most people want to make sure that every child has access to equitable education, to college. And that's really what we’re talking about.

Update (July 18):  Asshole Joe Lieberman calls Ocasio-Cortez bad for the Democrats and the country and supports voting for Joe Crowley instead.

Update (July 24):  Conservative reporter Virginia Kruta attended a rally at which Ocasio-Cortez spoke and was alarmed to discover she talks about "things that everybody wants".

I saw how easy it would be, as a parent, to accept the idea that my children deserve healthcare and education. I saw how easy it would be, as someone who has struggled to make ends meet, to accept the idea that a 'living wage' was a human right. Above all, I saw how easy it would be to accept the notion that it was the government’s job to make sure that those things were provided.

If you’re not really going to pay attention to how you’re going to pay for it or the rest of that, it’s easy to fall into the trap of, 'My kids deserve this' and 'maybe the government should be responsible for helping me with that'.

And tax cuts for the rich--no need to worry about how we're going to pay for that.

Update (July 25):  In considering whether democratic socialism can find support in deep red parts of the country, Conor Lynch points out that the Midwest and Great Plains have a populist history. That changed when Republicans separated "class" from economics for their own reactionary purposes. Lynch quotes Thomas Frank.

Class, conservatives insist, is not really about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes.

Where the muckrakers of old faulted capitalism for botching this institution and that, the backlash thinkers simply change the script to blame liberalism.

Lynch argues that Democratic Party centrists offer no vision to voters beyond opposition to the current administration.

It is not a mystery why class politics has become relevant again, decades after the Democratic Party adopted a neoliberal stance on economic issues. Since the 1980s, economic inequality has returned to historic levels not seen since before the Great Depression, while a recent UN report documented the extreme poverty found throughout the United States, noting that “the American dream is rapidly becoming the American illusion.” The democratic socialism promulgated by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez offers an alternative to this status quo, while the single-minded politics of anti-[Fuckfaceism] offers nothing more than a return to the previous status quo.

Update (July 28):  Lauren Sandler explains just how remarkable Ocasio-Cortez's journey has been.

[W]e’re missing the real story about her, as it relates to this country, if we don’t talk about her sheer unlikelihood not just as a victorious candidate but as a Bronx-born Latina with a shot at anything. This is no average bootstraps tale; it’s one of a true outlier in a country that has determined Hispanic women must struggle harder than anyone and be valued less than everyone else.

We need many more like her. And Paul Street makes it clear good candidates are only part of the effort.

There are no short-cuts, electoral or otherwise, to the more serious and urgent politics and difficult, day-to-day nuts and bolts organizing work of building an actual American Left – something that would maintain a healthy distance from the seductive siren songs of the narrow and time-staggered major party electoral extravaganzas that are sold to us as “politics,” the only politics that matters.

Update (July 29):  Mark me as one boomer who has no problem with the s-word. It's a way of prioritizing social needs over the requisites of capital.

Update (August 4):  Ocasio-Cortez brings in the crowds. And Conor Lynch recalls when the ruling class understood the appeal of socialism.

Enlightened conservatives were no radicals, but they recognized that discontent breeds radicalism, which led them to cautiously embrace reforms that would limit popular discontent. Today, many conservatives are shocked at the resurgence of left-wing politics, even though the “democratic socialist” candidates who have emerged from this revival are more reformist than revolutionary (at this point, at least). Enlightened conservatives wouldn’t have been surprised. If anything, they would have been surprised that it took this long for socialists to re-emerge in this age of skyrocketing inequality and corporate power. It is doubtful whether the socialist comeback will remind today’s rigidly dogmatic conservatives of what their predecessors once knew, but if history is any guide, the more reform is resisted from above, the more one can expect radicalism to take hold below.

Update (August 9):  Rashida Tlaib is set to become the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress.

And this headline has a nice ring to it:

THE KOCH BROTHERS COMMISSIONED A SURVEY OF AMERICANS AND FOUND MOST LIKE A $15 MINIMUM WAGE, FREE COLLEGE, AND UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

Update (August 11):  Matt Ferner recounts how activists organized to help Wesley Bell defeat Bob McCulloch--the prosecutor who declined to bring charges in the Michael Brown killing.

Update (August 14):  Ilhan Omar is set to become one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress (along with Rashida Tlaib).

Update (August 29):  More results, including a come-from-behind win for Andrew Gillum in Florida.

Update (August 31):  Justin Anderson finds that mainstream media love to report progressive losses.

Update (September 4):  Ayanna Pressley has defeated an incumbent and will become the first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts.

Update (September 14):  Julia Salazar defeated a 16-year incumbent for a New York state Senate seat.

Update (September 15):  Sean McElwee has more about the New York primary.

Thursday’s real story was that more than 1 in 5 New York Democratic state senators were swept out of office, including three-fourths of the turncoat Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) coalition and a machine politician with close ties to developers. It’s a story I’ve written about before: The Democratic Party is changing dramatically down-ballot, and the candidates who won Thursday are part of a wave that will change the party forever. The organizers and activists who beat the IDC are coming to clean up the dirtiest state senate in the country, and they are signs of how the resistance to [Dear Leader] will spill over for years and years to come.

Update (August 9, 2020):  Amid several progressive wins this cycle, Andrew O'Hehir notes that the success is no fluke.

[A] distinctive pattern has become clear since [Sander's 2016 campaign]: When establishment Democrats are paying close attention and have a large canvas to work with — as on Super Tuesday, or in a high-visibility statewide campaign — they can control the media messaging, turn out more moderate voters and generally achieve the desired result. At the more granular, retail-politics level of congressional districts, state legislature seats and local races, establishment candidates are highly vulnerable to grassroots activist campaigns.

O'Hehir sees more going on than just a desire to go "back to normal" as Biden represents.

All the contradictions of 2020 have revealed an immense appetite for change: That is both exciting and dangerous, and offers more reasons for hope than we've had in decades.

National Crisis

Noting a nearly 30 percent increase in suicides in the U.S. from 1999-2001 to 2014-2016, Monica Swahn takes a close look at features of American culture that could be driving this.

[I]t seems that the majority of our U.S. population is currently under the influence of some form of psychoactive substance or drug, whether prescribed or not, or whether legally used or not, that changes brain function, mood, consciousness and behavior.

I believe it’s worth considering whether higher levels of stress are driving more Americans to take psychoactive substances and, in extreme cases, take their own lives. Last year, 8 in 10 U.S. adults reported feeling stressed during their day, and 44 percent reported that their stress levels had increased over the past five years. Most people state their stress is due to concerns about the future, money, work, the political climate, and violence and crime.

Americans stand out from people in other countries with respect to their focus on individualism. Americans believe that success is determined by our own control and that it is very important to work hard to get ahead in life. Perhaps it is this focus on our own achievements, successes and work culture that have created an environment that is no longer sustainable – it has become too stressful.

I would agree that political economy underscores a lot of our distress. Ariän Taher writes about the evolution of the American system.

[T]oday’s version of capitalism — which favors archaic industries, corporate behemoths and big banks — has been the US economic system since its inception.

Hamilton’s system has emerged the US as a world superpower, but it has inextricably given rise to massive unconscionable inequality, inequity and iniquity, both at home and abroad.

Much of our difficulty pre-dates the current administration, but C.J. Polychroniou finds the nation at a crossroad.

The United States has moved unmistakably toward a novel form of fascism that exclusively serves corporate interests and the military, while promoting at the same time a highly reactionary social agenda infused with religious and crude nationalistic overtones, all with an uncanny touch of political showmanship.

Polychroniou interviews Noam Chomsky who notes our Republican leadership has essentially abandoned reality.

Such destructive responses tend to break through the surface during periods of distress and fear, very widespread feelings today, for good reason: A generation of neoliberal policies has sharply concentrated wealth and power while leaving the rest to stagnate or decline, often joining the growing precariat. In the US, the richest country in history with unparalleled advantages, over 40 percent of the population don’t earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone. And this is happening in what’s called a “booming economy.”

Distress is so severe that among white middle-aged Americans, mortality is actually increasing, something unheard of in functioning societies apart from war or pestilence.

Policies are generally in support of private wealth and corporate power, but

Then comes the task of controlling the so-called “populist” base: the angry, frightened, disillusioned white population, primarily males. Since there is no way for [von Clownstick]ism to deal with their economic concerns, which are actually being exacerbated by current policy-formation, it’s necessary to posture heroically as “standing up” for them against “malevolent forces” and to cater to the anti-social impulses that tend to surface when people are left to face difficult circumstances alone, without institutions and organizations to support them in their struggles.

What's next?

[T]he centrist political institutions in the United States, which have long been in the driver’s seat, are in decline. The reasons are not obscure. People who have endured the rigors of the neoliberal assault ... recognize that the institutions are working for others, not for them. In the US, people do not have to read academic political science to know that a large majority, those who are not near the top of the income scale, are effectively disenfranchised, in that their own representatives pay little attention to their views, hearkening rather to the voices of the rich, the donor class.

If the Democratic Party cannot overcome its deep internal problems and the slow expansion of the economy under Obama and [Dear Leader] continues without disruption or disaster, the Republican wrecking ball may be swinging away at the foundations of a decent society, and at the prospects for survival, for a long time.

Update (June 22):  Edward Curtin writes about "slow suicide".

An unconscious despair rumbles beneath the frenetic surface of American society today. ... Most people will tell you they are stressed and depressed, but will often add – “who wouldn’t be with the state of the world” – ignoring their complicity through the way they have chosen compromised, conventional lives devoid of the spirit of rebellion.

Unchristian Evangelicals

Sarah Burris points to polls indicating younger adults are turning away from religion due to intolerant and anti-science attitudes among conservative Christians.

White evangelicals have co-opted mainstream Christianity, and an entire generation has never lived in an world without hypocritical pastors worshiping the almighty dollar and begging the poor to send Jesus their retirement funds.

Update (November 6):  Now we know why immigration is such a big deal for some white people.

[A study] published last Monday by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), suggest many white evangelicals don’t see eye to eye with Protestants of color on issues concerning race, immigration and [von Clownstick's] effect on white supremacists.

PRRI found that unlike members of any other major religious group, most white evangelicals said immigrants represented a threat to America’s customs and values. Fifty-seven percent said that immigrants threatened American society, while 43 percent said immigrants strengthened American society.

Faster Antarctic Melting

When a lead author calls the results "surprising", it's time to worry. A study published in Nature finds "that Antarctica has lost almost 3 trillion tons of ice since 1992. Of that loss, 40 percent took place from 2012 to 2017."

The planet’s largest ice sheet is now losing more than 240 billion tons of ice every year ― a threefold increase from less than a decade ago. The melting is happening so fast that it could cause sea levels to rise 6 inches by the end of the century.

Update (July 3):  Robert Hunziker describes three climatic "asteroids":

The three monsters are: (1) A State Shift in the biosphere; (2) Human-caused greenhouse gases –GHG- alter the planet, disrupting the Holocene Era of 10,000 years of Goldilocks’ climate, not too hot, not too cold, going away fast; (3) Collapsing ecosystems 100% due to human footprint, inclusive of excessive toxic chemicals galore, worldwide.

Also, a computer model using business-as-usual assumptions projects that by 2040 "global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption" according to Aled Jones, the Director of the Global Sustainability Institute.

Update (January 6, 2019):  Antarctic sea ice is at a record low for this time of year. The Ross Sea has become ice free at the earliest time on record.

Update (February 12, 2023):  Antarctic sea ice extent set a new low in January. Robert Hunziker also reports on the possibility of an ice-free Arctic.

Confronting the Dog-Whistle

The one percent have to promote fear among racial groups because the rich themselves are very afraid of the masses. Much is at stake as Dear Leader rages in a way that even causes the Wall Street Journal to complain.

Message matters and Paul Rosenberg highlights a project lead by Anat Shenker-Osorio and Ian Haney Lopez to unify narratives addressing racial justice and economics. The work is presented in a national survey and a messaging guide. Rosenberg quotes Shenker-Osorio:

When we simply lay down a disparity and we do not provide a causal connection, people fill in the cause for themselves. So when we say, "Household wealth has taken this giant hit [and] this is especially true for African-Americans," what does the person conclude about why African-Americans do not have household wealth? Or why communities of color do not have good earnings? … It’s their fault!

That is why I bring you a race-class narrative. ... It is not a "race & class narrative." It is a narrative that weaves together race and class and makes a causal connection between these two issues. It explicitly names the need for cross-racial solidarity in terms of joining together with people of other races, joining together across racial difference. Not some generic, Kumbaya, we-all-need-to-get-on-the-same-page, we-all-need-to-get-together, we-all-need-to-be-as-one. It actually names racial difference -- it says we need to join across it for political change, in order to become, create and be a government that looks like all, reflects all and works for all, toward ... both shared prosperity and racial justice.

Climate Leadership

Paul Rosenberg discusses a report from Oil Change International called "The Sky's Limit California" which proposes steps that state can take to uphold the Paris Agreement as a model for other governments. The plan includes preventing the expansion of oil and gas production, phasing out existing production (along side current plans to reduce consumption), and establish a fee and task force to implement a Just Transition to renewable energy sources.

From the conclusion of the report:

If no major producers step up to stop the expansion of extraction and begin phasing out existing fields and mines, the Paris goals will become increasingly difficult to achieve. Wealthy fossil fuel producers have a responsibility to lead, and this must include planning for a just and equitable managed decline of existing production.

Update (June 4):  A paper published in Review of Environmental Economics and Policy argues that forecasts of the economic impact of climate change are greatly underestimated.

Update (June 17):  Simon Clark points to a paper describing a carbon capture process but argues that even widespread implementation will leave the planet with long term impacts from the carbon dioxide already emitted.