Impossible Future

Clive Hamilton describes a conference from nine years ago that discussed the implications of climate change. Over the course of planning the event, the prospect of four degrees Celsius warmer evolved from an "alarmist" point of view to "realist".

And so a study by lead author Michelle Tigchelaar finds that corn yields under four degrees of warming could decline by 40 to 60 percent.

Increased warming leads to global crop failures because plants are not adapted to really high temperatures. Most of our crops are really well-adapted for our current climate. There is an optimum temperature at which they grow, and beyond that, their yields decline.

Meanwhile, the administration thinks it's fine to cut food stamps because we've "won" the war on poverty. And yet, even with low unemployment there has been no real gain in hourly wages this past year. Plus, administration policy could send oil prices soaring.

Also, multiple outbreaks of disease are happening simultaneously for probably the first time.

Several major factors are to blame for why the world is seeing more of these increasingly dangerous pathogens. The combination of massive widespread urbanization, explosive population growth, increased global travel, changing ecological factors, steady climate change and the exploitation of environments is driving an era of converging risk for outbreaks.

Despite some hopeful signs, politics is still dominated by "dark money" and the IRS just removed a rule requiring certain non-profit groups to identify large donors. Obviously the donor class can't be bothered with climate change or the economic problems of most people if doing something about it goes against their interests.

But Nicole Karlis suggests maybe there is some concern.

Many of the world's richest seem to earnestly believe that some kind of apocalyptic "event" is coming, and have prepared accordingly.

She cites Douglas Rushkoff who thought he was going to discuss the future of technology with some businesspeople.

Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern. Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, "How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?"

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

I guess most of the wealthy don't see themselves as responsible for anyone else but themselves. Maybe a few have a different idea.

Turning Back the Clock

Dear Leader may be more of a wannabe King than a Fascist, but Conor Lynch says it's clear Republicans have an agenda that takes full advantage of the decline of democratic institutions.

Reactionaries explicitly or implicitly reject what liberals, leftists and even modern conservatives call progress. They see progress as more of a terminal decline, and many believe in the reversibility of history.

In today’s GOP, ... the beginning of our decline is the 1960s ... the decade of civil rights, rock 'n’ roll and counterculture. According to this thesis, the '60s [were a time] of moral decline and decadence, and this degeneration has continued unabated since then. Abortion and gay rights are just two issues that, for Republican reactionaries, symbolize the decline of American — and, more specifically, Western — civilization.

They've been waiting for a solid Supreme Court majority.

Now, of course, the GOP is coming for other rights and freedoms that have been gained over the years, whether it’s women’s reproductive rights or marriage equality. Finally it is becoming clear to liberals and centrists, as it has been to those on the left for a long time, that progress can quickly be reversed. The struggle it took past generations to achieve what we now take for granted is easily forgotten, and without similar struggles today, it is not a question of if, but when the far-right will succeed in imposing their illiberal, anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian agenda.

Update (July 22):  Lynch argues further that the neoliberal "project" of the past few decades is being attacked from the left and right with different goals in mind.

The left criticized modernity not because it rejected the modern world, but because it saw the Enlightenment project as incomplete. Karl Marx praised the bourgeoisie and called capitalism a “great civilizing influence,” considering it to be a positive development in history. He also wrote the most influential critique of capitalism to date, and while he acknowledged that capitalism was progress over feudalism, he also believed that it must eventually be replaced with socialism to realize the goals of the Enlightenment. Put simply, Marx and other leftists believed in the idea of progress, long associated with the Enlightenment.

On the right, criticisms of modernity came from a very different perspective. Reactionaries did not see the modern world as progress over the pre-modern world; rather, they saw it as a decline. Driven by nostalgia and resentment, reactionaries romanticized the past and believed that the ills of modernity could be cured by simply turning back the clock and restoring the status quo ante.

Populism is emerging worldwide in response to new anxieties.

Numerous articles have been written in recent years about how the policies of neoliberalism have worsened stress and loneliness, exacerbated mental health problems, driven rising rates of suicide and the opioid crisis, and left people feeling desperate and hopeless in general. Globalization, deindustrialization, consumerism and "financialization"; all these economic trends are contributing to the breakdown of our democratic society, leading some to embrace authoritarian alternatives.

Lynch maintains the left can't simply offer more of the same old policies as the recent past.

It will ultimately come down to which side can offer the more appealing alternative, and the left should recognize that the more realistic and “pragmatic” approach isn’t always the most politically persuasive. One of the most common criticisms of populists has been that they are selling a pipe dream, which to an extent is true -- especially for right-wing populists who base their entire worldview on falsehoods. If the left wants to stop reactionary populism, however, it will have to adopt an unapologetically populist approach of its own, and reject the dogma of neoliberalism once and for all.

Update (December 17):  Andrew O'Hehir sees a common thread running through upheavals in Western democracies--what he calls a "crisis of democratic legitimacy".

Throughout the Western world, we have tied the entire concept of democracy, and all its norms, institutions and machineries, to a specific version of globalized capitalism that keeps on promising universal prosperity and never delivers it.

What we see now, in America, France, Britain and around the world, is the long-delayed and often incoherent blowback for that historic error. If "democracy" now depends on ordinary people constantly making sacrifices to the gods of the market, who after a long process of fattening will one day lead us to paradise, then it needs a new name. Because nobody, anywhere, ever voted for that.

Abolish ICE

These tactics have been going on for awhile and now more Democrats are calling for the end of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand:

I believe that it has become a deportation force, and I think you should separate the criminal justice from the immigration issues, and I think you should re-imagine ICE under a new agency with a very different mission and take those two missions out.

And so we believe that we should protect families that need our help, and that is not what ICE is doing today, and that’s why I believe you should get rid of it, start over, re-imagine it, and build something that actually works.

Cameron Probert tells the story of one local family.

A Basin City woman claims U.S. immigration officers detained her Wednesday to use her as a bargaining chip to get her son to surrender himself.

Mirna Gomez, 49, was going out to find work in the cherry orchards at 4 a.m. Wednesday when she saw police lights behind her.

Mirna Gomez's daughter, Beatriz Gomez, told the Herald that Mirna quietly pulled to the side of Sage Hill Road in Franklin County.

As she sat there, Beatriz Gomez, 20, said her mother began seeing police surround her car.

That's when Mirna Gomez realized they were Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, she said.

"Her vehicle was left right where she was pulled over," Beatriz Gomez said. "To make things worse, she was being detained as 'bait,' or in our lawyer's own words, a hostage."

The person ICE wanted was her brother, Leo Gomez, who was convicted of DUI in 2011.

Beatriz Gomez said her brother and mom have been in the United States since 1991. Leo Gomez was about age 1 when an uncle brought him into the U.S.; his mother followed a month later.

While ICE officials wouldn't release any information about how many arrests took place Wednesday in Basin City, they did address specific arrests.

"On Wednesday, as part of a targeted immigration enforcement action, ICE arrested Leodegario Gomez-Duran, a Mexican national illegally present in the U.S. on immigration violations," said Carissa Cutrell, with ICE Public Affairs. "He has a previous criminal conviction for driving under the influence."

"That same day, ICE also arrested Maria Gomez-Duran, a Mexican national illegally present in the U.S., on immigration violations, after she departed the home of Leodegario Gomez-Duran. ICE released her on an order of recognizance, pending immigration proceedings," Cutrell said.

The story is more complicated than that, said Beatriz Gomez.

She said she and her brother didn't find out Mirna Gomez was in custody until ICE officers called him using his mother's phone.

Officers gave her brother until 3 p.m. to turn himself in — or his mother would be sent over to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

That tactic wasn't necessary, said Leo Gomez's attorney, David Jakeman.

After Leo Gomez's conviction in 2011, an immigration judge closed his immigration case deciding not to pursue deportation, Jakeman said.

All the government had to do was file a motion to place the case back in front of a judge, Jakeman said.

He added that in his 10 years of immigration law, he has not seen such a tactic used to arrest someone.

When the Gomez family arrived in Yakima on Wednesday, they said their goodbyes and traded Leo for his mother, Beatriz Gomez said.

Leo Gomez will be sent to the Tacoma detention center, where he will have have an immigration hearing.

"My mother was with people who had been working their (butts) off in the fields out under the burning sun since yesterday (Tuesday) morning, with no sleep and no food to eat," Beatriz wrote on Facebook. "She was detained with friends of her own and with parents of those peers I went to school with. ... No family deserves this."

Update (July 9):  Data obtain through the Freedom of Information Act by Huffington Post show a changed arrest strategy by ICE under the new administration.

The statistics confirm what the less complete numbers reported by the agency last year already indicated ― ICE is going after people with pettier criminal records than in recent years. Roughly one-quarter of the 143,470 migrants ICE arrested last year had no criminal convictions at all, and 11 percent had no outstanding criminal charges.

By far the most commonly cited offenses in the ICE data were DUI and other, largely unspecified traffic tickets — some dating back decades.