At the NATO summit in the Hague, almost all European nations reached an agreement to raise military spending to 5% of each county’s GDP. This comes as President Trump said the U.S. would not come to the defense of other NATO nations unless they hit 5% in military spending. “Trump wants to move towards a much, much more instrumental and crudely material, transactional politics,” says Richard Seymour, writer, broadcaster and activist. “I think this is a version of imperial decline that Trump is trying to manage.”

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

The post Disinfo, Decline, and Dysfunction appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

China’s mixed and managed economy is designed to match its stage of development and is well managed. The U.S. non-managed economy has no design and does not match its advanced stage of economic development. China uses exports to grow its economy and limit debt. The U.S. runs severe deficits in its trade balance and needs a growing debt to finance the trade deficit and to increase the GDP. The rapidly growing debt portends economic decline, and there is no certified way to escape the predicament. U.S. hegemony and world leadership appears doomed. The sooner the U.S. leaders recognize the dangers and readjust the economy, the less will be the slide. More on this later. Facts and statistics supply the proof that the PRC has successfully met the challenges.

Overly contentious USA

Using sanctions from legislative directives, rather than pursuing cooperative efforts to combat China’s rise to the world’s number one industrial power, the U.S motivates China to become self-sufficient in technological applications, temporarily interrupts China’s advances, and eventually causes havoc to American companies

Citing security concerns, the U.S. Congress, in 2019, passed the National Defense Authorization Act and essentially banned use of telecommunication equipment from 5G network pioneer Huawei and smartphone manufacturer ZTE. In June 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated ZTE a national security threat. The security concerns proceeded from a possibility that the Chinese government could demand the habits of American citizens, similar to the information that Google and a host of advertising firms gather from internet searchers.

Huawei is of more major significance, but ZTE’s shrugging off the sanctions deserves mention. Its steady revenue growth until facing competition from other companies, relates its success.

This telecom company entered the smartphone market in 2010 and now has the 12th spot in the listing of the Largest Smartphone Manufacturers & Brands in the World. ZTE is also the 6th largest supplier in the Global 5G Infrastructure Market.

Huawei, global leader in development of 5G networks and China’s technology powerhouse, reeled from U.S. sanctions and stumbled as a boxer from an unaware punch. Predictions had Huawei barely surviving. Labelled as a company the U.S. could not do with, Huawei is now the company the world cannot do without. Refuting U.S. attempts to restrict its advances, Huawei expanded into new markets, into new industries, and developed unique alternatives to the denied technologies.

After years of “barely surviving,” Huawei is a leading network company on the globe, having constructed approximately 30% of worldwide 5G base stations, and is fourth in global smartphone manufacturing. After losing access to Google’s Android and Oracle’s software, Huawei developed its own operating system, Harmony OS, which has become the second most popular mobile operating system in China and, by 2025, was installed in over 900 million devices.

In 2022, the Commerce Department informed NVidia and AMD to restrict exports of AI-related chips to China, and informed chip equipment makers — Lam Research, Applied Materials and KLA — to restrict sending tools to the PRC for manufacturing advanced chips. China’s tech giant responded by challenging NVidia artificial intelligence dominance with its Ascend 910D AI processor chip, which “reflects China’s strategic push to develop indigenous semiconductor capabilities.” The U.S. did not respond to Huawei’s advance with its own technology advancements and again responded with threats. On May 15, 2025, the Trump administration warned that using Huawei’s AI chips might violate US export laws.

Ignoring U.S. threats, Huawei expanded use of its chips into the automotive industry and set a new standard for smart driving and self-driving technology.

Huawei’s ambitious undertaking includes the introduction of cutting-edge smart vehicles equipped with advanced autonomous driving technologies. The company is leveraging its prowess in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to enhance vehicle performance and safety features. With a focus on seamless connectivity and user experience, Huawei is positioning itself as a significant player in the highly sought-after smart driving space, previously dominated by traditional automotive giants and tech firms like Tesla.

In August 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order “Addressing United States Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products in Countries of Concern.” The order prohibited U.S. investments in semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence technologies in China. In November 2024, “The U.S. reportedly ordered TSMC to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers that are often used in artificial intelligence applications.”

As a result, Xiaomi, a leading smartphone manufacturer, which has expanded into electric SUV car production, developed its 3-nanometre XRing O1 system-on-a-chip (SoC). Following Apple, Qualcomm, and MediaTek, Xiaomi became the fourth tech company in the world to design a 3-nanometer mobile SoC for mass production. A Chinese company can now compete with American companies in selling the unique chips, and Qualcomm, which has been a long-standing supplier of mobile chips to Xiaomi, might have its sales disrupted.

Statistics tell the story

What have all these underhanded means to stifle the Chinese economy accomplished? Statistics in the following table tell the story. The Chinese economy surpassed the U.S. economy in 2022 and is leaving Uncle Sam far behind.

The U.S. has a higher GDP than China. China has a higher GDP/PPP. Unlike nominal GDP, which uses current exchange rates, GDP/PPP adjusts for differences in price levels between countries and provides a more realistic measure of the value of goods and services produced. Another consideration is the value given to components of the GDP. Capital, hard goods, and agriculture supply the most needed wants to a community, and their purchases play a more significant role in the economy. The service economy, a paramount feature of the U.S. economy, exaggerates its GDP. One dollar of purchase in goods production requires time for feedback to the manufacturer before other goods are replenished and additional purchases augment the GDP. Purchases in the service economy quickly pass the same money from one service provider to another and elevate the GDP. Industrial output, whether for domestic or foreign use, more appropriately demonstrates the robustness of an economy. China leads the United States in industrial output and demonstrated robustness by becoming the leading manufacturer and exporter of automobiles.

A comparison between two dynamos of each nation, U.S. Tesla and China BYD, automobile manufacturers and innovators that rose rapidly against established competitors, complete the story. BYD, which started at about the same time as Tesla, has surpassed Tesla in automobile sales.

BYD Revenue

Tesla Revenue

<

More than that, BYD has accomplished what was never considered possible; with a fully charged battery and a full tank of gas, unbiased testing of its new hybrid auto technology showed a driving range of 1,305 miles before charge or fill up. Its fully electric models use advanced sodium ion batteries and, in 5 minutes, can be charged to obtain a 250 mile range. A vertically integrated company, which manufactures its parts and is a leading provider of electric car batteries, BYD sells its autos at the lowest prices in China.

Revisions by BYD include paring the price of its Seagull hatchback to 55,800 yuan ($7,780), a 20% reduction to a model that was already the carmaker’s cheapest and one that had garnered global attention for its sub-$10,000 price tag. The Seal dual-motor hybrid sedan (direct competitor to the $37,000 Tesla Model 3) saw the biggest price cut at 34%, or by 53,000 yuan to 102,800 yuan ($14,333). (ED: These may be temporary price cuts.)

Fatal Decline of the Imperial Power

The U.S. cannot compete with or contain China. Using China as a scapegoat for its global economic decline has proved counterproductive. Better for the U.S. to cooperate with the PRC, realistically examine its economy, become aware of its limitations, and take decisive action to prevent a fatal decline.

The hindrances to economic progress is fourfold:

(1) Debt drives the economy and the debt has become unmanageable.
(2) Manufacturers have established offshore facilities to open new markets and to compete more effectively.
(3) Off shore production and having the dollar as an international currency has produced a high trade deficit.
(4) U.S. markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have eroded.

Debt drives the U.S. economy and, the two charts indicate that without increasing the exorbitant debt, the economy will stagnate.

GDP/PPP

All Sectors Debt

Given a money supply to purchase goods and services, how can production and eventual sales of goods and services advance without increases in the money supply? One way is to increase the velocity of money, which occurred with on-time inventory, credit card purchasing, and computer speedup of financial transactions. These phenomena occurred during past decades and exploded the GDP. Another means is by having a positive trade balance; selling goods externally. If these means are not occurring, and they no longer are, increases in the money supply are required to increase production and sell additional goods.

U.S. goods trade deficit increased in 2024 to a record $1.2 trillion, and, although many economists excuse the trade deficit, saying that,

a trade deficit can only arise if foreigners invest more in the US than Americans invest abroad. In other words, a country can only have a trade deficit if it also has an equally sized investment surplus. The US is able to sustain a large trade deficit because so many foreigners are eager to invest here,

is more a rationalization than a reality. The trade deficit arose because American industry found it more profitable to produce overseas and made the dollar the international currency. As an international currency, the dollar is in demand and its exchange rate is high compared to other currencies. The strong dollar raises the prices of U.S. goods, makes its exports expensive and its imports cheap. Yes, the balance of payments must be equalized, and the dollars return as either purchase of government securities ─ one principal reason for rise in government debt ─ or purchase of U.S. assets. The former has become unwieldly, leading to high interest rates and the latter gives foreign interests increased power in the American system. Having a positive balance of trade reduces government debt and foreign influence.

Government debt is not the total problem. A system that exists by debt is the real problem. For a free wheeling and profit first economy that generates huge trade deficits to grow, the money supply must grow. Because money is created by either bank loans (debt) or Federal Reserve borrowings from the Treasury (debt), all money is debt. For the economy to continually grow, debt must continually grow. Soon, financing the debt and its increasing interest rates will be a difficult problem. Credit will freeze, loans will default, and the money supply will shrink. Boom will become bust. The United States has no choice but to have its economy more managed and align government and industry in common goals that correct the trend to a fatal decline.

Tariffs as a government money raiser and incentive to produce locally will be another tax on the American consumer and will not stimulate private investment in internal production to replace foreign imports. So, why not maintain low priced imports and tax the consumer for another goal ─ government investment in competitive industries. Cooperation between government and industry, rather than free-wheeling economics will enable more rational decisions and predictable operations.

The United States pioneered the global economy but globalization is no longer a perfect fit for the economically mature nation. Markets once lost are usually lost for a long time. Preserving present markets and finding niche markets for specialized goods, which the omnipresent U.S. economy has many, will stabilize exports.

History shows that private industry has never been the source of solutions to economic lapses. Changes in life style and a return to the cohesion and social legislation that characterized the Franklin Delano Roosevelt era might solve the economic, social, and political declines predicted for America’s future. The democratic socialization of America is begging to begin.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

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In the past six months, two babies in Louisiana have died of pertussis, the disease commonly known as whooping cough.

Washington state recently announced its first confirmed death from pertussis in more than a decade.

Idaho and South Dakota each reported a death this year, and Oregon last year reported two as well as its highest number of cases since 1950.

While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak concentrated in the small, dusty towns of West Texas, cases of pertussis have skyrocketed by more than 1,500% nationwide since hitting a recent low in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths tied to the disease are also up, hitting 10 last year, compared with about two to four in previous years. Cases are on track to exceed that total this year.

Cases had been decreasing in the years before the COVID-19 outbreak and dropped further when schools were closed in response to the pandemic.

Doctors, researchers and public health experts warn that the measles outbreak, which has grown to more than 600 cases, may just be the beginning. They say outbreaks of preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and the Trump administration slashing spending on the country’s public health infrastructure.

National rates for four major vaccines, which had held relatively steady in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, have fallen significantly since, according to a ProPublica analysis of the most recent federal kindergarten vaccination data. Not only have vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella fallen, but federal data shows that so have those for pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B and polio.

In addition, public health experts say that growing pockets of unvaccinated populations across the country place babies and young children in danger should there be a resurgence of these diseases.

Many medical authorities view measles, which is especially contagious, as the canary in the coal mine, but pertussis cases may also be a warning, albeit one that has attracted far less attention.

“This is not just measles,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor in New York City and author of the book “Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health.” “It’s a bright-red warning light.”

At least 36 states have witnessed a drop in rates for at least one key vaccine from the 2013-14 to the 2023-24 school years. And half of states have seen an across-the-board decline in all four vaccination rates. Wisconsin, Utah and Alaska have experienced some of the most precipitous drops during that time, with declines of more than 10 percentage points in some cases.

“There is a direct correlation between vaccination rates and vaccine-preventable disease outbreak rates,” said a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. “Decreases in vaccination rates will likely lead to more outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in Utah.”

But statewide figures alone don’t provide a full picture. Tucked inside each state are counties and communities with far lower vaccination rates that drive outbreaks.

For example, the whooping cough vaccination rate for kindergartners in Washington state in 2023-24 was 90.2%, slightly below the U.S. rate of 92.3%, federal data shows. But the statewide rate for children 19 to 35 months last year was 65.4%, according to state data. In four counties, that rate was in the 30% range. In one county, it was below 12%.

“My concern is that there is going to be a large outbreak of not just measles, but other vaccine-preventable diseases as well, that’s going to end up causing a lot of harm, and possibly deaths in children and young adults,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, a professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who has spent her career studying vaccines. “And it’s completely preventable.”

The dramatic cuts to public health funding and staffing could heighten the risk. And the elevation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic, to the secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, several experts said, has only compounded matters.

The Trump administration has eliminated 20,000 jobs at agencies within HHS, which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s public health agency. And late last month, the administration also cut $11 billion from state and local public health agencies on the front lines of protecting Americans from outbreaks; the administration said the money was no longer necessary after the end of the pandemic.

Several city and county public health officials had to move quickly to lay off nurses, epidemiologists and disease inspectors. Some ceased vaccination clinics, halted wastewater surveillance programs and even terminated a contract with the courier service that transports specimens to state labs to test for infectious diseases. One Minnesota public health agency, which had provided 1,400 shots for children at clinics last year, immediately stopped those clinics when the directive arrived, court records show.

A federal judge temporarily barred HHS from enacting the cuts, but the ruling, which came more than a week after the grants were terminated, was too late for programs that had already been canceled and employees who had already been laid off. Lawyers for HHS have asked the judge to reconsider her decision in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Department of Education to terminate grants for teacher training while that case is being argued in lower courts. The judge in the HHS case has not yet ruled on the motion.

But in tiny storefronts and cozy homes, at school fairs and gas stations, many residents in West Texas, near where the measles outbreak has taken hold, appear unfazed.

“I don’t need a vaccine,” one man sitting on his porch said recently. “I don’t get sick.”

“It’s measles. It’s been around forever,” said a woman making her way to her car. “I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

When asked why they weren’t planning on vaccinating their baby, a husband walking alongside his wife who was 27 weeks pregnant simply said, “It’s God’s will.”

In word and deed, Kennedy has sown doubt about immunizations.

In response to the measles outbreak, Kennedy initially said in a column he wrote for Fox News that the decision to vaccinate is a “personal one.” HHS sent doses of vitamin A alongside vaccines to Texas, and Kennedy praised the use of cod liver oil. Only the vaccine prevents measles.

About a week later, in an interview on Fox News, while Kennedy encouraged vaccines, he said he was a “freedom of choice person.” At the same time, he emphasized the risks of the vaccine.

Only after the second measles death in Texas did Kennedy post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the “most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.”

But even that is not the unequivocal message that the head of HHS should be sending, said Ratner, the infectious diseases doctor in New York. It is, he said, a tepid recommendation at best.

“It gives the impression that these things are equivalent, that you can choose one or the other, and that is disingenuous,” he said. “We don’t have a treatment for measles. We have vitamin A, which we can give to kids with measles, that decreases but doesn’t eliminate the risk of severe outcomes. It doesn’t do anything for prevention of measles.”

In the past, Kennedy has been a fierce critic of the vaccine. In a foreword to a 2021 book on measles released by the nonprofit that he founded, Kennedy wrote, “Measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear that in turn forces government officials to ‘do something.’ They then inflict unnecessary and risky vaccines on millions of children for the sole purpose of fattening industry profits.”

A spokesperson for HHS said, “Secretary Kennedy is not anti-vaccine — he is pro-safety, pro-transparency and pro-accountability.” Kennedy, the spokesperson said, responded to the measles outbreak with “clear guidance that vaccines are the most effective way to prevent measles” and under his leadership, the CDC updated its pediatric patient management protocol for measles to include physician-administered vitamin A.

Kennedy, the spokesperson added, “is uniquely qualified to lead HHS at this pivotal moment.”

Late last month, leaders at the CDC ordered staff to bury a risk assessment that emphasized the need for vaccines in response to the measles outbreak — in spite of the fact the CDC has long promoted vaccinations as a cornerstone of public health. While a CDC spokesperson acknowledged that vaccines offer the best protection from measles, she also repeated a line Kennedy had used: “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”

Among the approximately 2,400 jobs eliminated at the CDC was a team in the Immunization Services Division that partnered with organizations to promote access to and confidence in vaccines in communities where coverage lagged.

The National Institutes of Health, which is also under HHS, recently ended funding for studies that examine vaccine hesitancy. In early April, researchers, the American Public Health Association and one of the largest unions in the country sued the NIH and its director, Jay Bhattacharya, along with HHS and Kennedy, alleging they terminated grants “without scientifically-valid explanation or cause.” The government hasn’t filed a response in the case.

The NIH cancellation notices stated that the agency’s policy was not to prioritize research that focuses on “gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment.”

“These grants are being canceled in the midst of an outbreak, a vaccine-preventable outbreak,” said Rupali Limaye, an associate professor at George Mason University who has spent the past decade studying vaccine hesitancy. “We need to better understand why people are not accepting vaccines now more than ever. This outbreak is still spreading.”

That vaccines prevent diseases is settled science. For decades, there was a societal understanding that getting vaccinated benefited not only the person who got the shot, but also the broader community, especially babies or people with weakened immune systems, like those in chemotherapy.

An investment in public health and a sustained, large-scale approach to vaccines is what helped the country declare the elimination of the measles in 2000, said Lori Tremmel Freeman, the CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

But she has watched both deteriorate over the last few months. Nearly every morning since notices of the federal funding cuts began going out to local public health agencies, she has woken up to texts from panicked public health workers. She has led daily calls with local health departments and sat in on multiple emergency board meetings.

Freeman has compiled a list of more than 100 direct consequences of the cuts, including one rural health department in the Midwest that can no longer carry out immunization services. That’s vital because there are no hospitals in the county and all public health duties fall to the health department.

“It’s relentless,” she said. “It feels like a barrage and assault on public health.”

More than 1,600 miles away from Washington, D.C., in Lubbock, Texas, the director of the city’s health department, Katherine Wells, sighed last week when she saw the most recent measles numbers. She would have to alert her staff to work late again.

“There’s a lot of cases,” she said, “and we continue to see more and more cases.”

She didn’t know it at the time, but that night would mark the state’s second measles death this year. An earlier death in February was the country’s first in a decade. Both children were not vaccinated.

Kennedy said he traveled to Gaines County to comfort the family who lost their 8-year-old daughter and while there met with the family of the 6-year-old girl who died in February.

He also visited with two local doctors he described as “extraordinary healers,” he said in his post on X. The men, he claimed, have “treated and healed some 300 measles-stricken Mennonite children” using aerosolized budesonide — typically used to prevent symptoms of asthma — and clarithromycin — an antibiotic. Medical experts said neither is an effective measles treatment.

State health officials have traced about two-thirds of the measles cases in Texas to Gaines County, which sits on the western edge of the state.

Seminole, one of the county’s only two incorporated towns, has emerged as the epicenter of the outbreak, with Tina Siemens acting as a community ambassador of sorts.

Siemens, a tall woman with glasses and a short blonde bob, runs a museum that combines the area’s Native American history and Mennonite community with traditional skills like calligraphy and canning fruit.

On a recent Tuesday, atop the museum’s dark coffee table, notes scrawled onto white paper listed the latest shipments of vitamin C and Alaskan cod liver oil.

The supplies, Siemens said, were for one of the local doctors who met with Kennedy.

As measles tears through the community, Siemens said families have to decide whether to get vaccinated.

“In America, we have a choice,” she said, echoing Kennedy’s messaging. “The cod liver oil that was flown in, the vitamin C that was flown in, was a great help.”

Dr. Philip Huang, director and health authority for the Dallas County Health and Human Services Department, is working to keep the measles outbreak from reaching his community, just five hours east of Seminole. He wrote letters to the public school superintendents and leaders of private schools that had large numbers of unvaccinated or undervaccinated students offering to set up mobile vaccine clinics for them.

“Overall, the rates can look OK,” he said, “but when you’ve got these pockets of unvaccinated, that’s where the vulnerability lies.”

Huang has had to lay off 11 full-time employees, 10 temporary workers and cancel more than 50 vaccine clinics following the HHS cuts. The systemic dismantling of the CDC and other federal health agencies, he said, will have a grave and lasting impact.

“This is setting us back decades,” Huang said. “Everyone should be extremely concerned about what’s going on.”

Across the country, pediatricians are petrified, said Dr. Susan Kressly, who serves as president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the largest professional organization of pediatricians in the country.

“Many of us are losing sleep,” Kressly said. “If we lose that progress, children will pay the price.”

She’s carefully watching the spread of several vaccine-preventable diseases, including an increase in whooping cases that far outpace the typical peaks seen every few years. Although the whooping cough vaccine isn’t as effective as the ones for measles and protection wanes over time, the CDC says it remains the best way to prevent the disease.

Babies under the age of 1 are among the most at risk of severe complications from whooping cough, including slowed or stopped breathing and pneumonia, according to the CDC. About one-third of infants who get whooping cough end up in the hospital. Newborns are especially vulnerable because the CDC doesn’t recommend the first shot until two months. That’s why experts recommend pregnant mothers and anyone who will be around the baby to get vaccinated.

The number of whooping cough cases dropped significantly during the pandemic, but it exploded in recent years. In 2021, the CDC reported 2,116 cases; last year, there were 35,435.

The numbers this year appear set to eclipse 2024. So far in 2025, 7,111 cases have been reported, which is more than double this time last year. Cases tend to spike in the summer and fall, which adds to experts’ concern about high numbers so early in the year.

States on the Pacific Coast and in the Midwest have reported the most cases this year, with Washington leading the country with 742 cases so far, more than five times as many as at this time last year.

The Washington child who died of whooping cough had no underlying medical conditions, according to a spokesperson for the Spokane Regional Health District. The death was announced in February but occurred in November.

While Washington’s overall vaccination rate for whooping cough has remained relatively steady over the last decade at around 90%, pockets of low vaccination rates have allowed the disease to take root and put the wider community at risk, said Dr. Tao Sheng Kwan-Gett, a pediatrician and chief health officer of the Washington State Department of Health.

This is the time to strengthen the public health system, he said, to build trust in those areas and make it easier for children to get their routine vaccines.

“But instead, we’re seeing the exact opposite happen,” he said. “We’re weakening our public health system, and that will put us on a path towards more illness and shorter lives.”

Washington was one of 23 states and the District of Columbia that sued HHS and Kennedy following the $11 billion cuts, which rescinded approximately $118 million from the state. Doing so, the state said in court records, would impact 150 full-time employees and cause an immediate reduction in the agency’s ability to respond to outbreaks.

Washington’s Care-A-Van, a mobile health clinic that travels across the state to provide vaccinations, conduct blood pressure screenings and distribute opioid overdose kits, was a key element in the department’s vaccination efforts.

But that, too, has been diminished.

An alert on the department’s website cataloged the impact.

“Attention,” it began.

As a result of the unexpected decision to terminate grant funding, “all Care-A-Van operations have been paused indefinitely, including the cancellation of more than 104 upcoming clinics across the state.”

The department had anticipated providing approximately 2,000 childhood vaccines as part of that effort.

The frustration came through in Kwan-Gett’s voice. Many people think that federal cuts to public health mean shrinking the federal workforce, he said, but those clawbacks also get passed down to states and cities and counties. The less federal support that trickles down to the local level, the less protected communities will be.

“It really breaks my heart,” he said, “when I see children suffering from preventable diseases like whooping cough and measles when we have the tools to prevent them.”

Agnel Philip contributed data analysis.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Duaa Eldeib and Patricia Callahan, and photography by Sarahbeth Maney.

As President Trump finally unveils his global tariff plan — setting a baseline 10% tariff on all imported goods, with additional hikes apparently based on individual countries’ trade balances with the United States — economists like our guest Richard Wolff warn it will have grave economic effects on American consumers and lead to a recession. Wolff says the Trump administration’s tariff strategy is borne out of an ahistorical “notion of the United States as a victim” despite the fact that “we have been one of the greatest beneficiaries in the last 50 years of economic wealth, particularly for people at the top.” In response to the growing economic fortunes of the rest of the world and the associated decline in U.S. hegemony, Trump and his allies are “striking out at other people” in desperation and denial of an end to U.S. imperial dominance. “[It’s] not going to work,” says Wolff.

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

South Korea has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates and its population of 51 million is expected to halve by the end of the century.

Yeongyang, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) from Seoul in North Gyeongsang Province in the east of the country, has the smallest population of any county in South Korea, excluding islands, with about 15,000 residents.

To make up its numbers, Yeongyang is working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on a plan to accept some members of the Karen ethnic minority, who make up approximately 6.5% of Myanmar’s population.

Many Karen people from eastern Myanmar have been displaced during decades of fighting between a Karen insurgent force seeking self-determination and the Myanmar military. About 100,000 Karen people have been living for years in camps on the Thai side of the border with Myanmar.

Yeongyang said it would initially accept 10 families, totaling about 40 people, as early as the second half of this year, but added that it was still discussing details with the South Korean government.

According to the county, there are plans to convert unused buildings, such as former schools, into residential spaces to accommodate people from Myanmar.

Other initiatives to increase Yeongyang’s population include encouraging family members and relatives to register their addresses in the county and offering childbirth incentives of up to 100 million South Korean won (US$69,000).

Largest refugee group in South Korea

Myanmar nationals make up the largest group of officially recognized refugees in South Korea, with 474 individuals granted refugee status, in 2024, said the justice ministry.

In addition, 55 Myanmar nationals, though denied refugee status, have been granted humanitarian stay permits due to the risk of persecution or harm if returned to their home country.

Among the 122,095 asylum applications filed in South Korea by foreign nationals of all countries, 94,391 cases have been processed, while 27,704 remain pending.

The most common reasons for seeking asylum included political persecution, religious beliefs, and membership in specific social groups. However, 42% of applications were dismissed as they did not meet the criteria under the Refugee Convention, including cases based on economic hardships or private threats.

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The Karen people, many of whom are Christian, have faced decades of persecution and conflict.

The Karen National Union, Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority insurgent force, took up arms to fight for autonomy soon after Myanmar, then known as Burma, gained independence from Britain in 1948.

(David Longstreath/AP)

Following a 2021 military coup in Myanmar, the junta intensified attacks on Karen areas with airstrikes, forced displacement and other abuses, rights groups say.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

The economy continues to atrophy, with even more pronounced energy shortages, less foreign exchange, and an even larger share of the budget allocated to the military.

The battlefield losses are staggering, as the opposition has withstood Chinese pressure to stop their offensives, and continues to hand the over-stretched military defeat after defeat. Opposition forces now control two of the 14 military regional commands.

According to the National Unity Government (NUG) Ministry of Defense, the opposition is in full control of 95 of 330 townships, while the State Administrative Council (SAC), as the junta calls itself, had full control over 107 townships.

By the junta’s own admission, they are only able to conduct a census and safely organize elections in 161 of Myanmar’s 330 townships.

Losses on all battlefronts

Having taken 15 of 17 townships in Rakhine state, the Arakan Army is now in almost total control of the key western state. They’ve surrounded the Rakhine capital of Sittwe and come up to the border of Kyaukphyu where China’s special economic zone and port are located.

Although the capture of Buthidaung and Ann were neither quick nor easy, the AA was able to sustain sieges of over a month at each, and in the case of the former, tunneled beneath the last military outpost in a stunning display of grit.

Having captured the southern city of Gwa, the Arakan Army has now crossed into Ayeyarwaddy, taking the fight into the Bamar ethnic majority heartland.

(Arakan Princess Media)

In the north, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has shrugged off extensive Chinese pressure, and taken the strategic junction town of Mansi, which will make the overland resupply of the besieged city of Bhamo from Mandalay very hard for the junta.

Fighting is ongoing in Bhamo, Kachin’s second largest city. The KIA is now in control of well over half of Kachin, including most of the resource rich regions.

Although they are known for fractiousness, Chin opposition forces are now in almost full control of that state that borders India and Bangladesh, holding five of nine townships, roughly 85% of the territory.

In Shan state, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) temporarily succumbed to Chinese pressure to stop their offensive in November, but they’ve neither surrendered Lashio nor ceded territory, despite airstrikes.

Citing a new military offensive in Naungcho township, the TNLA, which controls nine townships, announced an end to the ceasefire on Jan. 9.

(AFP)

In eastern Myanmar, Karenni resistance have continued to battle, despite concerted military regime efforts and airstrikes, and their acknowledged ammunition shortages. The Karenni National Defense Force and allied People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) militias claim to control 80% of Kayah state.

Further south, the Karen National Liberation Army and allied people’s defense forces (PDFs) are slowly taking pro-junta border guard posts along the frontier with Thailand.

In Tanintharyi, local PDFs have increased their coordination and are pushing west from the Thai border towards the Andaman Sea coast, diminishing the scope of the military-controlled patchwork of terrain in Myanmar’s southernmost state.

Some of the most intense fighting of late has been in the Bamar heartland, including Sagaing, Magway, and Mandalay.

The military has stepped up their bombings, artillery strikes, and arson, intentionally targeting civilians for their support of the opposition forces. A number of PDFs have expanded their operations into the dry zone.

Mounting troubles

The Myanmar military regime faces severe headwinds as the fourth anniversary of the Feb. 1, 2021 coup approaches.

Prisoners of war from multiple fronts have recounted that the military’s ability to resupply and reinforce troops in the field has all but broken down.

They have a limited number of heavy lift helicopters, including three new Mi-17s that entered service in December. But even those are vulnerable: Some six Mi-17s and two other helicopters have been lost since the coup.

In some cases, the military has tried to parachute in supplies, but those often fall into the hands of the opposition forces.

(AFP)

Nothing demoralizes troops more than the feeling that the headquarters has abandoned them.

The military has always treated Myanmar as a country under occupation, with thousands of remote outposts scattered throughout the country. The NUG claims that opposition forces have captured 741 of these through 2024, and they continue to fall.

The military is increasingly short of manpower. Over a thousand POWs have been taken in recent months, more have surrendered and others have deserted.

The military has now taken in nine tranches of conscripts, amounting to roughly 45,000 troops, and is increasingly dragooning men. But they are deployed almost immediately and are untrained and poorly motivated, in sharp contrast with ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) and PDFs.

That loss of manpower includes senior officers. The NUG claims that in 2024, 53 senior officers, ranked colonel to major general, were killed, captured or injured.

The military is so broke that they recently announced that they would no longer pay death benefits to conscripts. At the same time, the military is often labeling their dead as “MIA”, rather than “KIA”, to avoid paying benefits.

(Military True News Information Team via AP)

While the junta fumbles, the degree of tactical battlefield coordination between the legacy ethnic armies and the new PDFs is unprecedented.

Every major offensive outside of Rakhine, entails cooperation between them, and even there, the AA was assisted by Chin PDFs who blocked the military’s resupply from Magway.

The increased PDF operations have been made possible by increased assistance from EROs. The AA and Chin PDFs are pushing in from the west and assisting local PDFs in the Bamar heartland.

The AA’s foray into Ayeyarwaddy was done in concert with local PDFs. The United Wa State Army appears to be defying China by arming and equipping the Mandalay PDF and others that are operating in Mandalay, Magway, and Sagaing.

In its favor, the military has finally caught up to the opposition and effectively employed unmanned aerial systems down to the tactical level.

These include drones that can drop munitions, kamikaze drones, and those for intelligence gathering or for more accurate targeting of artillery.

This has proven costly for the opposition and impeded some of their offensives. Nonetheless, their deployment of drones has been too little too late, and will not fundamentally alter the battlefield dynamics.

The military continues to use air power. Indeed, they put their fifth and sixth SU-30 imported from Russia and three more FTC-2000Gs imported from China into service in December.

It’s the economy

But air power is primarily used as a punitive weapon against unarmed civilian targets, not in support of ground forces.

For example, the Jan. 9 bombing in Rakhine’s Yanbye township that killed 52, wounded over 40 and destroyed 500 homes, had no military utility.

Finally, the state of the economy is even more precarious given the loss of almost all border crossings.

RELATED STORIES

Chinese aid cannot overcome Myanmar junta’s declining finances and morale

Perhaps it would be better if Myanmar’s civil war became a ‘forgotten conflict’

Myanmar’s junta answers rebel proposal for talks with week of deadly airstrikes

Although the SAC technically still controls Muse and Myawaddy, which links them to China and Thailand, respectively, opposition forces control much of the surrounding territory.

While Karen forces have not made a bid to take Myawaddy, the main border crossing, they are pinching in along Asia Highway 1 to Yangon.

On Jan. 11, some 500 reinforcements in 30 armored personnel carriers were deployed from Hpa-An to Kawkareik in Kayan state near the Thai border to keep the last main overland trade artery open.

To sum it up, the junta is entering the fifth year of military rule with its power rapidly slipping away.

Although they still control one-third of the country – land that holds two-thirds of the population – their mismanagement of the economy has left the military regime broke.

Spread too thin across too many fronts simultaneously, it’s hard to see the SAC doing anything to arrest their terminal decline in 2025.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zachary Abuza.

The economy continues to atrophy, with even more pronounced energy shortages, less foreign exchange, and an even larger share of the budget allocated to the military.

The battlefield losses are staggering, as the opposition has withstood Chinese pressure to stop their offensives, and continues to hand the over-stretched military defeat after defeat. Opposition forces now control two of the 14 military regional commands.

According to the National Unity Government (NUG) Ministry of Defense, the opposition is in full control of 95 of 330 townships, while the State Administrative Council (SAC), as the junta calls itself, had full control over 107 townships.

By the junta’s own admission, they are only able to conduct a census and safely organize elections in 161 of Myanmar’s 330 townships.

Losses on all battlefronts

Having taken 15 of 17 townships in Rakhine state, the Arakan Army is now in almost total control of the key western state. They’ve surrounded the Rakhine capital of Sittwe and come up to the border of Kyaukphyu where China’s special economic zone and port are located.

Although the capture of Buthidaung and Ann were neither quick nor easy, the AA was able to sustain sieges of over a month at each, and in the case of the former, tunneled beneath the last military outpost in a stunning display of grit.

Having captured the southern city of Gwa, the Arakan Army has now crossed into Ayeyarwaddy, taking the fight into the Bamar ethnic majority heartland.

(Arakan Princess Media)

In the north, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has shrugged off extensive Chinese pressure, and taken the strategic junction town of Mansi, which will make the overland resupply of the besieged city of Bhamo from Mandalay very hard for the junta.

Fighting is ongoing in Bhamo, Kachin’s second largest city. The KIA is now in control of well over half of Kachin, including most of the resource rich regions.

Although they are known for fractiousness, Chin opposition forces are now in almost full control of that state that borders India and Bangladesh, holding five of nine townships, roughly 85% of the territory.

In Shan state, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) temporarily succumbed to Chinese pressure to stop their offensive in November, but they’ve neither surrendered Lashio nor ceded territory, despite airstrikes.

Citing a new military offensive in Naungcho township, the TNLA, which controls nine townships, announced an end to the ceasefire on Jan. 9.

(AFP)

In eastern Myanmar, Karenni resistance have continued to battle, despite concerted military regime efforts and airstrikes, and their acknowledged ammunition shortages. The Karenni National Defense Force and allied People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) militias claim to control 80% of Kayah state.

Further south, the Karen National Liberation Army and allied people’s defense forces (PDFs) are slowly taking pro-junta border guard posts along the frontier with Thailand.

In Tanintharyi, local PDFs have increased their coordination and are pushing west from the Thai border towards the Andaman Sea coast, diminishing the scope of the military-controlled patchwork of terrain in Myanmar’s southernmost state.

Some of the most intense fighting of late has been in the Bamar heartland, including Sagaing, Magway, and Mandalay.

The military has stepped up their bombings, artillery strikes, and arson, intentionally targeting civilians for their support of the opposition forces. A number of PDFs have expanded their operations into the dry zone.

Mounting troubles

The Myanmar military regime faces severe headwinds as the fourth anniversary of the Feb. 1, 2021 coup approaches.

Prisoners of war from multiple fronts have recounted that the military’s ability to resupply and reinforce troops in the field has all but broken down.

They have a limited number of heavy lift helicopters, including three new Mi-17s that entered service in December. But even those are vulnerable: Some six Mi-17s and two other helicopters have been lost since the coup.

In some cases, the military has tried to parachute in supplies, but those often fall into the hands of the opposition forces.

(AFP)

Nothing demoralizes troops more than the feeling that the headquarters has abandoned them.

The military has always treated Myanmar as a country under occupation, with thousands of remote outposts scattered throughout the country. The NUG claims that opposition forces have captured 741 of these through 2024, and they continue to fall.

The military is increasingly short of manpower. Over a thousand POWs have been taken in recent months, more have surrendered and others have deserted.

The military has now taken in nine tranches of conscripts, amounting to roughly 45,000 troops, and is increasingly dragooning men. But they are deployed almost immediately and are untrained and poorly motivated, in sharp contrast with ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) and PDFs.

That loss of manpower includes senior officers. The NUG claims that in 2024, 53 senior officers, ranked colonel to major general, were killed, captured or injured.

The military is so broke that they recently announced that they would no longer pay death benefits to conscripts. At the same time, the military is often labeling their dead as “MIA”, rather than “KIA”, to avoid paying benefits.

(Military True News Information Team via AP)

While the junta fumbles, the degree of tactical battlefield coordination between the legacy ethnic armies and the new PDFs is unprecedented.

Every major offensive outside of Rakhine, entails cooperation between them, and even there, the AA was assisted by Chin PDFs who blocked the military’s resupply from Magway.

The increased PDF operations have been made possible by increased assistance from EROs. The AA and Chin PDFs are pushing in from the west and assisting local PDFs in the Bamar heartland.

The AA’s foray into Ayeyarwaddy was done in concert with local PDFs. The United Wa State Army appears to be defying China by arming and equipping the Mandalay PDF and others that are operating in Mandalay, Magway, and Sagaing.

In its favor, the military has finally caught up to the opposition and effectively employed unmanned aerial systems down to the tactical level.

These include drones that can drop munitions, kamikaze drones, and those for intelligence gathering or for more accurate targeting of artillery.

This has proven costly for the opposition and impeded some of their offensives. Nonetheless, their deployment of drones has been too little too late, and will not fundamentally alter the battlefield dynamics.

The military continues to use air power. Indeed, they put their fifth and sixth SU-30 imported from Russia and three more FTC-2000Gs imported from China into service in December.

It’s the economy

But air power is primarily used as a punitive weapon against unarmed civilian targets, not in support of ground forces.

For example, the Jan. 9 bombing in Rakhine’s Yanbye township that killed 52, wounded over 40 and destroyed 500 homes, had no military utility.

Finally, the state of the economy is even more precarious given the loss of almost all border crossings.

RELATED STORIES

Chinese aid cannot overcome Myanmar junta’s declining finances and morale

Perhaps it would be better if Myanmar’s civil war became a ‘forgotten conflict’

Myanmar’s junta answers rebel proposal for talks with week of deadly airstrikes

Although the SAC technically still controls Muse and Myawaddy, which links them to China and Thailand, respectively, opposition forces control much of the surrounding territory.

While Karen forces have not made a bid to take Myawaddy, the main border crossing, they are pinching in along Asia Highway 1 to Yangon.

On Jan. 11, some 500 reinforcements in 30 armored personnel carriers were deployed from Hpa-An to Kawkareik in Kayan state near the Thai border to keep the last main overland trade artery open.

To sum it up, the junta is entering the fifth year of military rule with its power rapidly slipping away.

Although they still control one-third of the country – land that holds two-thirds of the population – their mismanagement of the economy has left the military regime broke.

Spread too thin across too many fronts simultaneously, it’s hard to see the SAC doing anything to arrest their terminal decline in 2025.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zachary Abuza.

Democracy Now! co-host Juan González has co-authored a major new report for the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago titled “Fuerza Mexicana: The Past, Present, and Power of Mexicans in Chicagoland,” which takes a deep look into Chicago’s Mexican community. Constituting one-fifth of the city’s population, Chicago’s Mexican residents are significant contributors to the area’s economy, but the workforce is disproportionately concentrated in some of the most dangerous, difficult, low-paying jobs. “The character of the Chicago working class has dramatically changed and is heavily Mexican,” says González. He adds that “Mexican migration saved Chicago” from the kind of post-industrial decline plaguing other cities like Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland.

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

Trident II (D-5) missile underwater launch. Photo: Department of Defense.

Last month, I reported on the Biden administration’s new nuclear doctrine to prepare the United States for a coordinated nuclear challenge from Russia, China, and North Korea.  The Biden doctrine revives the concept of “escalation dominance,” one of the main drivers of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s.  

President Biden’s neglect of arms control and disarmament means that the next president will inherit a nuclear landscape that is more threatening and volatile than any other since the Cuban missile crisis more than 60 years ago.  The Cuban missile crisis, however, was a wake up call for both President John F. Kennedy and General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, leading to a series of arms control and disarmament treaties beginning with the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963.  

We need another wake up call.

Currently, there is little discussion of reviving arms control and disarmament.  Instead the mainstream media and many commentators are making the case for additional nuclear weaponry and the modernization of weapons currently in the nuclear arsenal.  The influential British newsweekly, The Economist, is leading the way in this campaign, arguing that the concept of deterrence demands that the United States build up and modernize its nuclear arsenal.  An oped in the New York Times this week, written by the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, argues that credible deterrence will prevent our adversaries from “even considering a nuclear strike against America or its allies.”

Deterrence requires that nuclear weapons must be in a high state of readiness in order to address the danger of surprise attack, which increases the possibility of unintentional use of nuclear weapons.  We need a discussion of alternatives to deterrence, such as negotiations for confidence-building measures as well as arms control and disarmament.

Instead, we are getting a discussion of the need for low-yield nuclear weapons.  The Economist and others have been making the case for such weapons—20 kilotons of explosive power, roughly Hiroshima-sized—that can be delivered with “extreme precision and less collateral damage.”  U.S. think tanks, such as the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), have argued that the “line between low-yield tactical nuclear weapons and precision-guided conventional weapons in terms of their operational effects and perceived impact is blurring,” and that “nuclear arms are more efficient at destroying large-area targets.”

The current discussion is dangerously reminiscent of the nuclear discussion of the 1950s, which was dominated by false notions of a vast Soviet superiority in deployed nuclear ballistic missiles, the so-called “missile gap,” as well as the so-called “bomber gap” regarding strategic aircraft.  The conventional wisdom in the defense community was that we were facing a powerful enemy that was undertaking costly efforts to exploit the potential of nuclear weapons in order to gain unchallenged global dominance.  Is history abut to repeat itself, particularly in view of exaggerated concerns regarding greater threats from both China and North Korea as well as the possibility of Sino-Russian collusion?

Henry Kissinger, the most famous and most controversial American diplomat of the 20th century, was responsible for initiating the idea that nuclear powers could wage a war that would involve limited use of nuclear weapons.  In his “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy,” Kissinger made the case for limited uses of nuclear weapons, which attracted him to Richard Nixon who made Kissinger the national security adviser in 1969.  It was fifteen years before a U.S. president—Ronald Reagan— and a Soviet leader—Mikhail Gorbachev—agreed that a “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” and that the two sides must not “seek to achieve military superiority.”  The initiative for these statements originated with Gorbachev, and they received greater attention in Soviet media than in their U.S. counterparts.

Now, we are facing a disturbing situation that finds the United States modernizing its nuclear arsenal at great cost; China ending its doctrine of limited nuclear deterrence and expanding its nuclear arsenal, and Russia threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and issuing warnings of a World War III.  Russian publications are discussing the possibility of placing a nuclear weapons in space.  U.S. defense analysts project that China could have as many as 1,000 nuclear warheads over the next ten years.  

Washington’s “Nuclear Employment Guidance” is based on the threat of nuclear coordination between Moscow and Beijing, but there is no evidence of such coordination and it’s unlikely that these former adversaries are formalizing their nuclear and strategic plans.  U.S. guidance is based on worst-case analysis, but there needs to be a recognition of similar worst-case analyses in Moscow and Beijing. In view of greatly expanded U.S. defense spending over the past several years as well as the discussion of a strategic missile defense, Russia and China have much to worry about.  Even worse, the United States quietly announced in July that it will deploy conventionally armed ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Germany on a rotational basis beginning in 2026.  This is madness.

Iran’s nuclear program is also expanding in size and sophistication, and North Korea has a nuclear arsenal that rivals three nuclear powers—Israel, India, and Pakistan—that were never part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Iran’s Ayatollah has indicated a readiness to open discussions with the United States on nuclear matters, but the Biden administration has turned a deaf ear to such a possibility.  North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has similarly indicated an interest in discussing nuclear matters with the United States.

The only remaining nuclear disarmament treaty—the New START Treaty—expires in February 2026, and there is no indication that U.S. and Russian officials are planning for talks to renew the treaty.  The election year predictably finds Kamala Harris and Donald Trump boasting about maintaining and improving U.S. military prowess.  Next to nothing is known about Harris’s view of nuclear matters, and the thought of facing a new nuclear age with Trump back in the White House is positively frightening.  We are confronting this difficult situation because the Bush and Trump administrations abrogated two of the most important disarmament treaties in history: the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

It’s time for the nuclear experts of the nine nuclear powers as well as the general public to read M.G. Sheftall’s “Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses.”  These first-person accounts educate and re-educate the global community on the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago.  The accounts of gut-wrenching recollections should be enough to make any sane individual reject the notion of “modernizing” nuclear weapons or discussing “tactical” uses of nuclear weapons.  

The post Biden’s Legacy: the Decline of Arms Control and Disarmament appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melvin Goodman.

President Biden’s neglect of arms control and disarmament means that the next president will inherit a nuclear landscape that is more threatening and volatile than any other since the Cuban missile crisis more than 60 years ago.  The Cuban missile crisis, however, was a wake up call for both President John F. Kennedy and General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, leading to a series of arms control and disarmament treaties beginning with the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963.  

We need another wake up call.

Currently, there is little discussion of reviving arms control and disarmament.  Instead the mainstream media and many commentators are making the case for additional nuclear weaponry and the modernization of weapons currently in the nuclear arsenal.  The influential British newsweekly, The Economist, is leading the way in this campaign, arguing that the concept of deterrence demands that the United States build up and modernize its nuclear arsenal.  An oped in the New York Times this week, written by the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, argues that credible deterrence will prevent our adversaries from “even considering a nuclear strike against America or its allies.”

Deterrence requires that nuclear weapons must be in a high state of readiness in order to address the danger of surprise attack, which increases the possibility of unintentional use of nuclear weapons.  We need a discussion of alternatives to deterrence, such as negotiations for confidence-building measures as well as arms control and disarmament.

Instead, we are getting a discussion of the need for low-yield nuclear weapons.  The Economist and others have been making the case for such weapons—20 kilotons of explosive power, roughly Hiroshima-sized—that can be delivered with “extreme precision and less collateral damage.”  U.S. think tanks, such as the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), have argued that the “line between low-yield tactical nuclear weapons and precision-guided conventional weapons in terms of their operational effects and perceived impact is blurring,” and that “nuclear arms are more efficient at destroying large-area targets.”

The current discussion is dangerously reminiscent of the nuclear discussion of the 1950s, which was dominated by false notions of a vast Soviet superiority in deployed nuclear ballistic missiles, the so-called “missile gap,” as well as the so-called “bomber gap” regarding strategic aircraft.  The conventional wisdom in the defense community was that we were facing a powerful enemy that was undertaking costly efforts to exploit the potential of nuclear weapons in order to gain unchallenged global dominance.  Is history abut to repeat itself, particularly in view of exaggerated concerns regarding greater threats from both China and North Korea as well as the possibility of Sino-Russian collusion?

Henry Kissinger, the most famous and most controversial American diplomat of the 20th century, was responsible for initiating the idea that nuclear powers could wage a war that would involve limited use of nuclear weapons.  In his “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy,” Kissinger made the case for limited uses of nuclear weapons, which attracted him to Richard Nixon who made Kissinger the national security adviser in 1969.  It was fifteen years before a U.S. president—Ronald Reagan— and a Soviet leader—Mikhail Gorbachev—agreed that a “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” and that the two sides must not “seek to achieve military superiority.”  The initiative for these statements originated with Gorbachev, and they received greater attention in Soviet media than in their U.S. counterparts.

Now, we are facing a disturbing situation that finds the United States modernizing its nuclear arsenal at great cost; China ending its doctrine of limited nuclear deterrence and expanding its nuclear arsenal, and Russia threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and issuing warnings of a World War III.  Russian publications are discussing the possibility of placing a nuclear weapons in space.  U.S. defense analysts project that China could have as many as 1,000 nuclear warheads over the next ten years.  

Washington’s “Nuclear Employment Guidance” is based on the threat of nuclear coordination between Moscow and Beijing, but there is no evidence of such coordination and it’s unlikely that these former adversaries are formalizing their nuclear and strategic plans.  U.S. guidance is based on worst-case analysis, but there needs to be a recognition of similar worst-case analyses in Moscow and Beijing. In view of greatly expanded U.S. defense spending over the past several years as well as the discussion of a strategic missile defense, Russia and China have much to worry about.  Even worse, the United States quietly announced in July that it will deploy conventionally armed ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Germany on a rotational basis beginning in 2026.  This is madness.

Iran’s nuclear program is also expanding in size and sophistication, and North Korea has a nuclear arsenal that rivals three nuclear powers—Israel, India, and Pakistan—that were never part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Iran’s Ayatollah has indicated a readiness to open discussions with the United States on nuclear matters, but the Biden administration has turned a deaf ear to such a possibility.  North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has similarly indicated an interest in discussing nuclear matters with the United States.

The only remaining nuclear disarmament treaty—the New START Treaty—expires in February 2026, and there is no indication that U.S. and Russian officials are planning for talks to renew the treaty.  The election year predictably finds Kamala Harris and Donald Trump boasting about maintaining and improving U.S. military prowess.  Next to nothing is known about Harris’s view of nuclear matters, and the thought of facing a new nuclear age with Trump back in the White House is positively frightening.  We are confronting this difficult situation because the Bush and Trump administrations abrogated two of the most important disarmament treaties in history: the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

It’s time for the nuclear experts of the nine nuclear powers as well as the general public to read M.G. Sheftall’s “Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses.”  These first-person accounts educate and re-educate the global community on the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago.  The accounts of gut-wrenching recollections should be enough to make any sane individual reject the notion of “modernizing” nuclear weapons or discussing “tactical” uses of nuclear weapons.  

The post Biden’s Legacy: The Decline of Arms Control and Disarmament appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melvin Goodman.

General Motors HQ, Detroit. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The evidence suggests that empires often react to periods of their own decline by over-extending their coping mechanisms. Military actions, infrastructure problems, and social welfare demands may then combine or clash, accumulating costs and backlash effects that the declining empire cannot manage. Policies aimed to strengthen empire—and that once did—now undermine it. Contemporary social changes inside and outside the empire can reinforce, slow, or reverse the decline. However, when decline leads leaders to deny its existence, it can become self-accelerating. In empires’ early years, leaders and the led may repress those among them who stress or merely even mention decline. Social problems may likewise be denied, minimized, or, if admitted, blamed on convenient scapegoats—immigrants, foreign powers, or ethnic minorities—rather than linked to imperial decline.

The U.S. empire, audaciously proclaimed by the Monroe Doctrine soon after two independence wars won against Britain, grew across the 19th and 20th centuries, and peaked during the decades between 1945 and 2010. The rise of the U.S. empire overlapped with the decline of the British empire. The Soviet Union represented limited political and military challenges, but never any serious economic competition or threat. The Cold War was a lopsided contest whose outcome was programmed in from its beginning. All of the U.S. empire’s potential economic competitors or threats were devastated by World War II. The following years found Europe losing its colonies. The unique global position of the United States then, with its disproportional position in world trade and investment, was anomalous and likely unsustainable. An attitude of denial at the time that decline was all but certain morphed only too readily into the attitude of denial now that the decline is well underway.

The United States could not prevail militarily over all of Korea in its 1950–53 war there. The United States lost its subsequent wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The NATO alliance was insufficient to alter any of those outcomes. U.S. military and financial support for Ukraine and the massive United States and NATO sanctions war against Russia are failures to date and are likely to remain so. U.S. sanctions programs against Cuba, Iran, and China have failed too. Meanwhile, the BRICS alliance counteracts U.S. policies to protect its empire, including its sanctions warfare, with increasing effectiveness.

In the realms of trade, investment, and finance, we can measure the decline of the U.S. empire differently. One index is the decline of the U.S. dollar as a central bank reserve holding. Another is its decline as a means of trade, loans, and investment. Finally, consider the U.S. dollar’s decline alongside that of dollar-denominated assets as internationally desired means of holding wealth. Across the Global South, countries, industries, or firms seeking trade, loans, or investments used to go to London, Washington, or Paris for decades; they now have other options. They can go instead to Beijing, New Delhi, or Moscow, where they often secure more attractive terms.

Empire confers special advantages that translate into extraordinary profits for firms located in the country that dominates the empire. The 19th century was remarkable for its endless confrontations and struggles among empires competing for territory to dominate and thus for their industries’ higher profits. Declines of any one empire could enhance opportunities for competing empires. If the latter grabbed those opportunities, the former’s decline could worsen. One set of competing empires delivered two world wars in the last century. Another set seems increasingly driven to deliver worse, possibly nuclear world wars in this century.

Before World War I, theories circulated that the evolution of multinational corporations out of merely national mega-corporations would end or reduce the risks of war. Owners and directors of increasingly global corporations would work against war among countries as a logical extension of their profit-maximizing strategies. The century’s two world wars undermined those theories’ appearance of truth. So too did the fact that multinational mega-corporations increasingly purchased governments and subordinated state policies to those corporations’ competing growth strategies. Capitalists’ competition governed state policies at least as much as the reverse. Out of their interaction emerged the wars of the 21st century in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, and Gaza. Likewise from their interaction, rising U.S.-China tensions emerged around Taiwan and the South China Sea.

China presents a unique analytical problem. The private capitalist half of its hybrid economic system exhibits growth imperatives parallel to those agitating economies where 90–100 percent of enterprises are private capitalist in organization. The state-owned-and-operated enterprises comprising the other half of China’s economy exhibit different drives and motivations. Profit is less their bottom line than it is for private capitalist enterprises. Similarly, the Communist Party’s rule over the state—including the state’s regulation of the entire Chinese economy—introduces other objectives besides profit, ones that also govern enterprise decisions. Since China and its major economic allies (BRICS) comprise the entity now competing with the declining U.S. empire and its major economic allies (G7), China’s uniqueness may yield an outcome different from past clashes of empires.

In the past, one empire often supplanted another. That may be our future with this century becoming “China’s” as previous empires were American, British, and so on. However, China’s history includes earlier empires that rose and fell: another unique quality. Might China’s past and its present hybrid economy influence China away from becoming another empire and rather toward a genuinely multipolar global organization instead? Might the dreams and hopes behind the League of Nations and the United Nations achieve reality if and when China makes that happen? Or will China become the next global hegemon against heightened resistance from the United States, bringing the risk of nuclear war closer?

A rough historical parallel may shed some additional light from a different angle on where today’s class of empires may lead. The movement toward independence of its North American colony irritated Britain sufficiently for it to attempt two wars (1775–83 and 1812–15) to stop that movement. Both wars failed. Britain learned the valuable lesson that peaceful co-existence with some co-respective planning and accommodation would enable both economies to function and grow, including in trade and investment both ways across their borders. That peaceful co-existence extended to allowing the imperial reach of the one to give way to that of the other.

Why not suggest a similar trajectory for U.S.-China relations over the next generation? Except for ideologues detached from reality, the world would prefer it over the nuclear alternative. Dealing with the two massive, unwanted consequences of capitalism—climate change and unequal distributions of wealth and income—offers projects for a U.S.-China partnership that the world will applaud. Capitalism changed dramatically in both Britain and the United States after 1815. It will likely do so again after 2025. The opportunities are attractively open-ended.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The post The Decline of the U.S. Empire: Where Is It Taking Us All? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard D. Wolff.

Bonfire Night, St. John’s Eve

Traditional summer festivals have always revolved around the solstice and bonfires on the feast of St. John (24 June) in many countries. Maypole dancing was also an important aspect of some rural and agricultural summer events, and other summer festivals like Ferragosto (15 August), involved celebrating the early fruits of the harvest and resting after months of hard work. The summer solstice was seen as the height of the powers of the sun which has been observed since the Neolithic era as many ancient monuments throughout Eurasia and the Americas aligned with sunrise or sunset at this time. In the ancient Roman world, the traditional date of the summer solstice was 24 June, and “Marcus Terentius Varro wrote in the 1st century BCE that Romans saw this as the middle of summer.”

Saint John’s Fire with festivities in front of a Christian calvary shrine in Brittany, 1893

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Caoimhghin O Croidheain.

New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3.

This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its usual place in the top 10.

However, New Zealand is still the Asia-Pacific region’s leader in a part of the world that is ranked as the second “most difficult” with half of the world’s 10 “most dangerous” countries included — Myanmar (171st), North Korea (172nd), China (173rd), Vietnam (175th) and Afghanistan (178th).

• READ MORE: The full 2024 RSF World Press Freedom Index
• Silencing the messenger: Israel kills journalists while the West merely censors them – David Robie
• RSF calls on NZ Prime Minister to reaffirm his government’s commitment to press freedom
• Timor-Leste makes top ten in 2023 World Press Freedom Index

New Zealand is 20 places above Australia, which is ranked 39th.

However, NZ is closely followed in the Index by one of the world’s newer nations, Timor-Leste (20th) — among the top 10 last year — and Samoa (22nd).

Fiji was 44th, one place above Tonga, and Papua New Guinea had dropped to 91st. Other Pacific countries were not listed in the survey which is based on performance through 2023.

Scandinavian countries again fill four of the world’s top countries for press freedom.

No Asia-Pacific nation in top 15
No country in the Asia-Pacific region is among the Index’s top 15 this year. In 2023, two journalists were murdered in the Philippines (134th), which continues to be one of the region’s most dangerous countries for media professionals.

In the survey’s overview, the RSF researchers said press freedom around the world was being “threatened by the very people who should be its guarantors — political authorities”.

This finding was based on the fact that, of the five indicators used to compile the ranking, it is the ‘political indicator’ that has fallen the most , registering a global average fall of 7.6 points.

Covering the war from Gaza.    Video: RSF

“As more than half the world’s population goes to the polls in 2024, RSF is warning of a
worrying trend revealed by the Index — a decline in the political indicator, one of five indicators detailed,” said editorial director Anne Bocandé.

“States and other political forces are playing a decreasing role in protecting press freedom. This disempowerment sometimes goes hand in hand with more hostile actions that undermine the role of journalists, or even instrumentalise the media through campaigns of harassment or disinformation.

“Journalism worthy of that name is, on the contrary, a necessary condition for any democratic system and the exercise of political freedoms.”

Record violations in Gaza
At the international level, says the Index report, this year is notable for a “clear lack of political will on the part of the international community” to enforce the principles of protection of journalists, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2222 in 2015.

“The war in Gaza has been marked by a record number of violations against journalists and media since October 2023. More than 100 Palestinian reporters have been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces, including at least 22 in the course of their work.”

UNESCO yesterday awarded its Guillermo Cano world press freedom prize to all Palestinian journalists covering the war in Gaza.

“In these times of darkness and hopelessness, we wish to share a strong message of solidarity and recognition to those Palestinian journalists who are covering this crisis in such dramatic circumstances,” said Mauricio Weibel, chair of the international jury of media professionals.

“As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to freedom of expression.”

Palestinian journalists covering Gaza awarded the 2024 @UNESCO / Guillermo Cano World #PressFreedom Prize.https://t.co/9Zt7qge6yo #WorldPressFreedomDay pic.twitter.com/4liqPSdXtJ

— UNESCO #Education #Sciences #Culture (@UNESCO) May 2, 2024

Occupied and under constant Israeli bombardment, Palestine is ranked 157th out of 180
countries and territories surveyed in the overall Index, but it is ranked among the last 10 with regard to security for journalists.

Israel is also ranked low at 101st.

Criticism of NZ
Although the Index overview gives no detailed explanation on the decline in New Zealand’s Index ranking, it nevertheless says that the country had “retained its role as a press freedom model”.

However, last December RSF condemned Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters in the rightwing coalition government for his “repeated verbal attacks on the media” and called on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to reaffirm his government’s support for press freedom.

“Just after taking office . . . Peters declared in an interview that he was ‘at war’ with the media. A statement that he accompanied on several occasions with accusations of corruption among media professional,” said RSF in its public statement.

“He also portrayed a journalism support fund set up by the previous [Labour] administration as a ’55 million dollar bribe’. The politician also questioned the independence of the public broadcasters Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and Radio New Zealand (RNZ).

“These verbal attacks would be a cause of concern for the sector if used to support a policy of restricting the right to information.”

Cédric Alviani, RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director, also noted at the time: “By making irresponsible comments about journalists in a context of growing mistrust of the New Zealand public towards the media, Deputy Prime Minister Peters is sending out a worrying signal about the newly-appointed government’s attitude towards the press.

“We call on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to reaffirm his government’s support for press freedom and to ensure that all members of his cabinet follow the same line.”

Pacific Media Watch compiled this summary from the RSF World Press Freedom Index.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Janine Jackson interviewed filmmaker Rick Goldsmith about his documentary Stripped for Parts for the March 22, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Janine Jackson: Documentary filmmakers don’t start when the camera rolls. The work involves not just gathering knowledge on a topic, but establishing relationships—sometimes with people who have no reason to trust that a camera in their face will lead to anything good for them.

Likewise, documentary filmmakers are not done when the film is finished, especially in the media-everywhere-all-the-time world we live in now. Simply creating something is not the same as guiding it to who might want or need to see it, to helping it have impact.

Among his other work, Rick Goldsmith is the filmmaker behind two important films about journalism in the United States: Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press and The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. His newest film is the third in this focused trilogy; it’s called Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink. And he joins us now to talk about it. He’s joining us from Oakland, California. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Rick Goldsmith.

Rick Goldsmith: Hi, Janine, thanks so much for having me on the show.

JJ: Smart as we all are nowadays, I think the idea of capitalism as market-based, which seems to mean based on human choices—that’s been sold so well as a story that there are people thinking, well, as much as I relied on my local newspaper, I guess it was just losing so much money that it wasn’t a sustainable business. And so it had to die.

The layoffs, the closures, what many people see as news media moving from “far from perfect” to “what the hell,” is presented as sad but somehow inevitable. And I think this film intervenes in that storyline. But was there a particular spark or a particular question that set you off to make Stripped for Parts?

FAIR.org (4/11/22)

RG: There was an event that happened about six years ago, now, and it was called the Denver Rebellion. And what happened was the newspaper men and women at the Denver Post kind of rose up against their owner, who was a hedge fund. And it was newly understood that hedge funds had a really bad effect on journalism. And they criticized their own owners, they took it upon themselves. And this kind of decline in local journalism was noticed, first by the journalists themselves. And they were the canaries in the coal mine to tell the story to everybody else.

So when I found out about this uprising, the Denver Rebellion, there were several things that jumped out at me. One was, why would somebody try to intentionally run down journalism? And two, the hedge funds were taking on a business that was failing: Why would they do that, and how would they make money? And then, three, was, here were the journalists who usually don’t even report on their own industry, and they were the ones telling the story. So for me, that was rich enough to get into it and say, “What the heck is going on here? And can I add something to this story?”

JJ: I think that’s especially interesting, because accounts of what Amazon is doing, or what the auto industry is doing, they’re almost always about what the owners and shareholders are doing. And if it’s a story about the workers, that’s going to be another day, on another page. And it’s especially, maybe, true in media, in that, as you’ve just said, workers, reporters, photographers usually don’t feel that they can or should speak as workers. For a journalist, “making yourself the story,” so-called, is anathema. So it wasn’t so much…what you’re saying, you didn’t have to get reporters to talk. Reporters were like, “No, we want to get this story out.”

RG: That’s right. And that was unique about their story, but I still had to—I think that the thing you said at the top, about gaining their trust, I think was really, really important. And maybe it was because of my background, and maybe it was just because of the approach, or maybe it was because of the passion and the anger that they were feeling at the time at being downsized by this hedge fund, that they were open to talking to me. And I think those first interviews after the Denver Rebellion were very, very rich, because it was so fresh in their mind, and they were so fired up about it.

JJ: What did you learn? If you had to explain to someone, why would a profit-interested corporation buy a paper and destroy it, essentially, run it into the ground? How does that make sense? Does that make sense?

Rick Goldsmith: “They could buy the newspaper for a song, sell the building, maybe sell the printing press…and they’ve already made their money back.”

RG: Well, it makes sense if you understand what this particular hedge fund, and many like it, are in the business of. And the key phrase here is “distressed asset investing,” which is maybe a kind of Wall Streetish term. But what it means is they could buy something on the cheap that was a failing business, and then figure out what their assets were. And like a used car that is basically junk, they could strip it for parts.

And in this case, it was usually the real estate. The newsroom itself was downtown, was centrally located, and they could buy the newspaper for a song, sell the building, maybe sell the printing press and move the printing operations out of town, and they’ve already made their money back, and then everything else is gravy.

So then the next key step is, let’s cut the staff, because we don’t need these—Heath Freeman, who’s the president of Alden Global Capital, he walked into the newsroom and he famously said, “What do all these people do?” So he had a certain disdain for the people that worked for the newspapers, but it was a gleam in his eye, because he said, “We can make some money, we can make lots of money out of this.” And that’s exactly what they did.

JJ: And the public facing part of it, when Alden Global Capital or any hedge fund takes over a paper, they never say, “We’re going to strip this for parts.” That’s never the PR move. It’s, in fact, grotesque, because it’s often, “We’re going to save this failing outlet.”

RG: That’s exactly right. And in fact, after I got into the business, I mentioned the Denver Rebellion. Well, there were many, many events that then unfolded in the several years that followed. And one was that Alden Global Capital went after Gannett, which was the largest publicly owned newspaper chain in the country. USA Today was their flagship paper, but they had local newspapers all around the country. And Alden Global Capital, that was in their materials to the shareholders: “We saved newspapers.”

The Nation (2/8/19)

Unfortunately for them, at the time, people like Julie Reynolds, who was an investigative reporter that’s highlighted in our film, had done a lot of reporting, and by now she’s done over a hundred articles just on Alden Global Capital and newspapers. And what Alden didn’t see coming was they were going to lose the public relations battle, and they tried to take over Gannett in 2019, and they failed.

Now, there were other events that followed that, that made it not so great for the public, but at that time, that was a big victory for journalists, and it was because now the news about Alden Global Capital and what they were about was out in the public, and they couldn’t just do their machinations behind closed doors.

JJ: That sunshine or that transparency is, maybe it’s the baseline or the bottom line, but it’s a necessary starting point. Clearly, this work is of particular meaning for people who work in journalism, sure, but also for everybody who sees and cares about the effects of media coverage on the whole range of issues that shape our lives, and on the relationship, as we at FAIR always talk about, between the business of media and journalism’s actual and potential societal impact.

So I want to ask you about the Impact Campaign. What is the work that is going with this film that’s different than just having a series of screenings of the film around the country? What do you hope to be adding with the Impact Campaign?

RG: Our Impact Campaign is just underway, and we’re going to be in New York in this coming week with a couple of screenings at the Firehouse Cinema DCTV on Tuesday, March 26 and Wednesday, March 27. And we’re going to be following that up with going to Minneapolis and Santa Cruz and Vancouver, Washington, and later Baltimore, New England, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, all over the country.

What’s the point of all that? Well, the film itself is a jumping off point for discussion about journalism. And we show, not only the causes of the hedge fund takeover of newspapers, which is massive in this country, but also some of the solutions that are happening, with startups—there’s over 400 nonprofit newspapers, with newsrooms from two to three people to maybe ten or 20 people. Not exactly taking the place of newspapers, but very, very substantial. There’s also movements to get public funding of local journalism.

And so we have the showings of the film followed by Q&A with, generally, I might be there, either in person or virtually, and maybe somebody from the local community who’s been paying attention to the local journalism crisis, talking about it, and interacting with the audience.

And what can you do? It might be getting in touch with your local representative, because some legislation is addressing this problem, or it’s expanding your knowledge of what are the local journalism outlets in your community that you’re not even thinking about? And it’s a way of getting people who are from the community and the journalists from that community to interact, get them in the same room, get them talking.

And I think it’s only by raising the public consciousness, and raising the amount of discussion about this crisis in local journalism, and how it affects democracy, that we’re going to find our way out of it. And the solutions in each community are somewhat different, because of the particulars of that community. And I think that’s actually a wonderful thing, because then the solutions become somewhat locally generated.

JJ: And how can folks learn more about this, or maybe even bring it to their town?

RG: Great question. Come to our website, StrippedForPartsFilm.com, just like it sounds. If you somehow have trouble reaching it, just Stripped for Parts and google it. You’ll get to our website. You can get in touch with us if you want to help arrange a screening in your community. We are here, and we have the ways to make that happen. And we can do that with you and with your help.

JJ: All right, then; we’ve been speaking with documentary filmmaker Rick Goldsmith. You can learn more about the film Stripped for Parts, and the Impact Campaign that goes with it, at StrippedForPartsFilm.com. Thank you so much, Rick Goldsmith, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

RG: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for reaching out to me.

The post ‘This Decline in Local Journalism Was Noticed First by Journalists Themselves’  appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate. So it was with the British, French, and Soviet empires; so it now is with imperial America.

Great Britain confronted serious colonial crises in India, Iran, and Palestine before plunging headlong into the Suez Canal and imperial collapse in 1956. In the later years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union faced its own challenges in Czechoslovakia, Egypt, and Ethiopia before crashing into a brick wall in its war in Afghanistan.

America’s post-Cold War victory lap suffered its own crisis early in this century with disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, looming just over history’s horizon are three more imperial crises in Gaza, Taiwan, and Ukraine that could cumulatively turn a slow imperial recessional into an all-too-rapid decline, if not collapse.

As a start, let’s put the very idea of an imperial crisis in perspective. The history of every empire, ancient or modern, has always involved a succession of crises — usually mastered in the empire’s earlier years, only to be ever more disastrously mishandled in its era of decline. Right after World War II, when the United States became history’s most powerful empire, Washington’s leaders skillfully handled just such crises in Greece, Berlin, Italy, and France, and somewhat less skillfully but not disastrously in a Korean War that never quite officially ended. Even after the dual disasters of a bungled covert invasion of Cuba in 1961 and a conventional war in Vietnam that went all too disastrously awry in the 1960s and early 1970s, Washington proved capable of recalibrating effectively enough to outlast the Soviet Union, “win” the Cold War, and become the “lone superpower” on this planet.

In both success and failure, crisis management usually entails a delicate balance between domestic politics and global geopolitics. President John F. Kennedy’s White House, manipulated by the CIA into the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, managed to recover its political balance sufficiently to check the Pentagon and achieve a diplomatic resolution of the dangerous 1962 Cuban missile crisis with the Soviet Union.

America’s current plight, however, can be traced at least in part to a growing imbalance between a domestic politics that appears to be coming apart at the seams and a series of challenging global upheavals. Whether in Gaza, Ukraine, or even Taiwan, the Washington of President Joe Biden is clearly failing to align domestic political constituencies with the empire’s international interests. And in each case, crisis mismanagement has only been compounded by errors that have accumulated in the decades since the Cold War’s end, turning each crisis into a conundrum without an easy resolution or perhaps any resolution at all. Both individually and collectively, then, the mishandling of these crises is likely to prove a significant marker of America’s ultimate decline as a global power, both at home and abroad.

Creeping Disaster in Ukraine

Since the closing months of the Cold War, mismanaging relations with Ukraine has been a curiously bipartisan project. As the Soviet Union began breaking up in 1991, Washington focused on ensuring that Moscow’s arsenal of possibly 45,000 nuclear warheads was secure, particularly the 5,000 atomic weapons then stored in Ukraine, which also had the largest Soviet nuclear weapons plant at Dnipropetrovsk.

During an August 1991 visit, President George H.W. Bush told Ukrainian Prime Minister Leonid Kravchuk that he could not support Ukraine’s future independence and gave what became known as his “chicken Kiev” speech, saying: “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.” He would, however, soon recognize Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia as independent states since they didn’t have nuclear weapons.

When the Soviet Union finally imploded in December 1991, Ukraine instantly became the world’s third-largest nuclear power, though it had no way to actually deliver most of those atomic weapons. To persuade Ukraine to transfer its nuclear warheads to Moscow, Washington launched three years of multilateral negotiations, while giving Kyiv “assurances” (but not “guarantees”) of its future security — the diplomatic equivalent of a personal check drawn on a bank account with a zero balance.

Under the Budapest Memorandum on Security in December 1994, three former Soviet republics — Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine — signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and started transferring their atomic weapons to Russia. Simultaneously, Russia, the U.S., and Great Britain agreed to respect the sovereignty of the three signatories and refrain from using such weaponry against them. Everyone present, however, seemed to understand that the agreement was, at best, tenuous. (One Ukrainian diplomat told the Americans that he had “no illusions that the Russians would live up to the agreements they signed.”)

Meanwhile — and this should sound familiar today — Russian President Boris Yeltsin raged against Washington’s plans to expand NATO further, accusing President Bill Clinton of moving from a Cold War to a “cold peace.” Right after that conference, Defense Secretary William Perry warned Clinton, point blank, that “a wounded Moscow would lash out in response to NATO expansion.”

Nonetheless, once those former Soviet republics were safely disarmed of their nuclear weapons, Clinton agreed to begin admitting new members to NATO, launching a relentless eastward march toward Russia that continued under his successor George W. Bush. It came to include three former Soviet satellites, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (1999); three one-time Soviet Republics, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (2004); and three more former satellites, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004). At the Bucharest summit in 2008, moreover, the alliance’s 26 members unanimously agreed that, at some unspecified point, Ukraine and Georgia, too, would “become members of NATO.” In other words, having pushed NATO right up to the Ukrainian border, Washington seemed oblivious to the possibility that Russia might feel in any way threatened and react by annexing that nation to create its own security corridor.

In those years, Washington also came to believe that it could transform Russia into a functioning democracy to be fully integrated into a still-developing American world order. Yet for more than 200 years, Russia’s governance had been autocratic and every ruler from Catherine the Great to Leonid Brezhnev had achieved domestic stability through incessant foreign expansion. So, it should hardly have been surprising when the seemingly endless expansion of NATO led Russia’s latest autocrat, Vladimir Putin, to invade the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, only weeks after hosting the Winter Olympics.

In an interview soon after Moscow annexed that area of Ukraine, President Obama recognized the geopolitical reality that could yet consign all of that land to Russia’s orbit, saying: “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.”

Then, in February 2022, after years of low-intensity fighting in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, Putin sent 200,000 mechanized troops to capture the country’s capital, Kyiv, and establish that very “military domination.” At first, as the Ukrainians surprisingly fought off the Russians, Washington and the West reacted with a striking resolve — cutting Europe’s energy imports from Russia, imposing serious sanctions on Moscow, expanding NATO to all of Scandinavia, and dispatching an impressive arsenal of armaments to Ukraine.

After two years of never-ending war, however, cracks have appeared in the anti-Russian coalition, indicating that Washington’s global clout has declined markedly since its Cold War glory days. After 30 years of free-market growth, Russia’s resilient economy has weathered sanctions, its oil exports have found new markets, and its gross domestic product is projected to grow a healthy 2.6% this year. In last spring and summer’s fighting season, a Ukrainian “counteroffensive” failed and the war is, in the view of both Russian and Ukrainian commanders, at least “stalemated,” if not now beginning to turn in Russia’s favor.

Most critically, U.S. support for Ukraine is faltering. After successfully rallying the NATO alliance to stand with Ukraine, the Biden White House opened the American arsenal to provide Kyiv with a stunning array of weaponry, totaling $46 billion, that gave its smaller army a technological edge on the battlefield. But now, in a move with historic implications, part of the Republican (or rather Trumpublican) Party has broken with the bipartisan foreign policy that sustained American global power since the Cold War began. For weeks, the Republican-led House has even repeatedly refused to consider President Biden’s latest $60 billion aid package for Ukraine, contributing to Kyiv’s recent reverses on the battlefield.

The Republican Party’s rupture starts with its leader. In the view of former White House adviser Fiona Hill, Donald Trump was so painfully deferential to Vladimir Putin during “the now legendarily disastrous press conference” at Helsinki in 2018 that critics were convinced “the Kremlin held sway over the American president.” But the problem goes so much deeper. As New York Times columnist David Brooks notedrecently, the Republican Party’s historic “isolationism is still on the march.” Indeed, between March 2022 and December 2023, the Pew Research Center found that the percentage of Republicans who think the U.S. gives “too much support” to Ukraine climbed from just 9% to a whopping 48%. Asked to explain the trend, Brooks feelsthat “Trumpian populism does represent some very legitimate values: the fear of imperial overreach… [and] the need to protect working-class wages from the pressures of globalization.”

Since Trump represents this deeper trend, his hostility toward NATO has taken on an added significance. His recent remarks that he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO ally that didn’t pay its fair share sent shockwaves across Europe, forcing key allies to consider what such an alliance would be like without the United States (even as Russian President Vladimir Putin, undoubtedly sensing a weakening of U.S. resolve, threatened Europe with nuclear war). All of this is certainly signaling to the world that Washington’s global leadership is now anything but a certainty.

Crisis in Gaza

Just as in Ukraine, decades of diffident American leadership, compounded by increasingly chaotic domestic politics, let the Gaza crisis spin out of control. At the close of the Cold War, when the Middle East was momentarily disentangled from great-power politics, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the 1993 Oslo Accord. In it, they agreed to create the Palestinian Authority as the first step toward a two-state solution. For the next two decades, however, Washington’s ineffectual initiatives failed to break the deadlock between that Authority and successive Israeli governments that prevented any progress toward such a solution.

In 2005, Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw his defense forces and 25 Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip with the aim of improving “Israel’s security and international status.” Within two years, however, Hamas militants had seized power in Gaza, ousting the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas. In 2009, the controversial Benjamin Netanyahu started his nearly continuous 15-year stretch as Israel’s prime minister and soon discovered the utility of supporting Hamas as a political foil to block the two-state solution he so abhorred.

Not surprisingly then, the day after last year’s tragic October 7th Hamas attack, theTimes of Israel published this headline: “For Years Netanyahu Propped Up Hamas. Now It’s Blown Up in Our Faces.” In her lead piece, senior political correspondent Tal Schneider reported: “For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.”

On October 18th, with the Israeli bombing of Gaza already inflicting severe casualties on Palestinian civilians, President Biden flew to Tel Aviv for a meeting with Netanyahu that would prove eerily reminiscent of Trump’s Helsinki press conference with Putin. After Netanyahu praised the president for drawing “a clear line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism,” Biden endorsed that Manichean view by condemning Hamas for “evils and atrocities that make ISIS look somewhat more rational” and promised to provide the weaponry Israel needed “as they respond to these attacks.” Biden said nothing about Netanyahu’s previous arm’s length alliance with Hamas or the two-state solution. Instead, the Biden White House began vetoing ceasefire proposals at the U.N. while air-freighting, among other weaponry, 15,000 bombs to Israel, including the behemoth 2,000-pound “bunker busters” that were soon flattening Gaza’s high-rise buildings with increasingly heavy civilian casualties.

After five months of arms shipments to Israel, three U.N. ceasefire vetoes, and nothing to stop Netanyahu’s plan for an endless occupation of Gaza instead of a two-state solution, Biden has damaged American diplomatic leadership in the Middle East and much of the world. In November and again in February, massive crowds calling for peace in Gaza marched in Berlin, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Istanbul, and Dakar, among other places.

Moreover, the relentless rise in civilian deaths well past 30,000 in Gaza, striking numbers of them children, has already weakened Biden’s domestic support in constituencies that were critical for his win in 2020 — including Arab-Americans in the key swing state of Michigan, African-Americans nationwide, and younger voters more generally. To heal the breach, Biden is now becoming desperate for a negotiated cease-fire. In an inept intertwining of international and domestic politics, the president has given Netanyahu, a natural ally of Donald Trump, the opportunity for an October surprise of more devastation in Gaza that could rip the Democratic coalition apart and thereby increase the chances of a Trump win in November — with fatal consequences for U.S. global power.

Trouble in the Taiwan Straits

While Washington is preoccupied with Gaza and Ukraine, it may also be at the threshold of a serious crisis in the Taiwan Straits. Beijing’s relentless pressure on the island of Taiwan continues unabated. Following the incremental strategy that it’s used since 2014 to secure a half-dozen military bases in the South China Sea, Beijing is moving to slowly strangle Taiwan’s sovereignty. Its breaches of the island’s airspace have increased from 400 in 2020 to 1,700 in 2023. Similarly, Chinese warships have crossed the median line in the Taiwan Straits 300 times since August 2022, effectively erasing it. As commentator Ben Lewis warned, “There soon may be no lines left for China to cross.”

After recognizing Beijing as “the sole legal Government of China” in 1979, Washington agreed to “acknowledge” that Taiwan was part of China. At the same time, however, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, requiring “that the United States maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force… that would jeopardize the security… of the people on Taiwan.”

Such all-American ambiguity seemed manageable until October 2022 when Chinese President Xi Jinping told the 20th Communist Party Congress that “reunification must be realized” and refused “to renounce the use of force” against Taiwan. In a fateful counterpoint, President Biden stated, as recently as September 2022, that the US would defend Taiwan “if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.”

But Beijing could cripple Taiwan several steps short of that “unprecedented attack” by turning those air and sea transgressions into a customs quarantine that would peacefully divert all Taiwan-bound cargo to mainland China. With the island’s major ports at Taipei and Kaohsiung facing the Taiwan Straits, any American warships trying to break that embargo would face a lethal swarm of nuclear submarines, jet aircraft, and ship-killing missiles.

Given the near-certain loss of two or three aircraft carriers, the U.S. Navy would likely back off and Taiwan would be forced to negotiate the terms of its reunification with Beijing. Such a humiliating reversal would send a clear signal that, after 80 years, American dominion over the Pacific had finally ended, inflicting another major blow to U.S. global hegemony.

The Sum of Three Crises

Washington now finds itself facing three complex global crises, each demanding its undivided attention. Any one of them would challenge the skills of even the most seasoned diplomat. Their simultaneity places the U.S. in the unenviable position of potential reverses in all three at once, even as its politics at home threaten to head into an era of chaos. Playing upon American domestic divisions, the protagonists in Beijing, Moscow, and Tel Aviv are all holding a long hand (or at least a potentially longer one than Washington’s) and hoping to win by default when the U.S. tires of the game. As the incumbent, President Biden must bear the burden of any reversal, with the consequent political damage this November.

Meanwhile, waiting in the wings, Donald Trump may try to escape such foreign entanglements and their political cost by reverting to the Republican Party’s historic isolationism, even as he ensures that the former lone superpower of Planet Earth could come apart at the seams in the wake of election 2024. If so, in such a distinctly quagmire world, American global hegemony would fade with surprising speed, soon becoming little more than a distant memory.

This column is distributed by Tom Dispatch.

The post The Decline and Fall of It All? American Empire in Crisis appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Alfred W. McCoy.

Пераправа цераз раку Бярэзіну (Biarezina)

When Napoleon engaged Russia in a European land war, the Russians mounted a determined defense, and the French lost. When Hitler tried the same, the Soviet Union responded similarly, and the Germans lost. In World War 1 and its post-revolutionary civil war (1914-1922), first Russia and then the USSR defended with far greater effect against two invasions than the invaders had calculated. That history ought to have cautioned U.S. and European leaders to minimize the risks of confronting Russia, especially when Russia felt threatened and determined to defend itself.

Instead of caution, delusions prompted ill-advised judgments by the collective West (roughly the G7 nations: the U.S. and its major allies). Those delusions emerged partly from the collective West’s widespread denial of its relative economic decline in the 21st century. That denial also enabled a remarkable blindness to the limits that decline imposed on the collective West’s global actions. Delusions also flowed from a basic undervaluation of Russia’s defensiveness and its resulting commitments. The Ukraine war starkly illustrates both the decline and the costly delusions it fosters.

The United States and Europe seriously underestimated what Russia could and would do to prevail militarily in Ukraine. Russia’s victory—at least so far after two years of war—has proven decisive. Their underestimation stemmed from a shared inability to grasp or absorb the changing world economy and its implications. By mostly minimizing, marginalizing, or simply denying the decline of the U.S. empire relative to the rise of China and its BRICS allies, the United States and Europe missed that decline’s unfolding implications. Russia’s allies’ support combined with its national determination to defend itself have so far defeated a Ukraine heavily funded and armed by the collective West. Historically, declining empires often provoke denials and delusions that teach their people “hard lessons” and impose on them “hard choices”. That is where we are now.

The economics of the U.S. empire decline constitutes the continuing global context. The BRICS countries’ collective GDP, wealth, income, share of world trade, and presence at the highest levels of new technology increasingly exceed those of the G7. That relentless economic development frames the decline of the G7’s political and cultural influences as well. The massive U.S. and European sanctions program against Russia after February 2022 has failed. Russia turned especially to its BRICS allies to quickly as well as comprehensively escape most of those sanctions’ intended effects.

UN votes on the ceasefire issue in Gaza reflect and reinforce the mounting difficulties facing the U.S. position in the Middle East and globally. So does the Houthis’ intervention in Red Sea shipping and so too will other future Arab and Islamic initiatives supporting Palestine against Israel. Among the consequences flowing from the changing world economy, many work to undermine and weaken the U.S. empire.

Trump’s disrespect for NATO is partly an expression of disappointment with an institution he can blame for failing to stop empire’s decline. Trump and his supporters broadly downgrade many institutions once thought crucially central to running the U.S., empire globally. Both the Trump and Biden regimes attacked China’s Huawei corporation, shared commitments to trade and tariff wars, and heavily subsidized competitively challenged U.S. corporations. Nothing less than a historic shift away from neoliberal globalization toward economic nationalism is underway. An American empire that once targeted the whole world is shrinking into a merely regional bloc confronting one or more emerging regional blocs. Much of the rest of the world’s nations—a possible “world majority” of the planet’s people—are pulling away from the U.S. empire.

U.S. leaders’ aggressive economic nationalist policies distract attention from the empire’s decline and thereby facilitate its denial. Yet they also cause new problems. Allies fear that economic nationalism in the United States already has or will soon adversely affect their economic relations with the United States; “America first” targets not only the Chinese. Many countries are rethinking and reconstructing their economic relations with the United States and their expectations about those relations’ futures. Likewise, major groups of U.S. employers are reconsidering their investment strategies. Those who invested heavily overseas as part of the neoliberal globalization frenzies of the last half century are especially fearful. They anticipate costs and losses from policy shifts toward economic nationalism. Their pushback slows those shifts. As capitalists everywhere adjust practically to the changing world economy, they also quarrel and dispute the direction and pace of change. That injects more uncertainty and volatility into a thereby further destabilized world economy. As the U.S. empire unravels, the world economic order it once dominated and enforced likewise changes.

“Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogans have politically weaponized U.S. empire’s decline, always in carefully vague and general terms. They simplify and misunderstand it within another set of delusions. Trump will, he promises repeatedly, undo that decline and reverse it. He will punish those he blames for it: China, but also Democrats, liberals, globalists, socialists, and Marxists whom he lumps together in a bloc-building strategy. There is rarely any serious attention to the economics of the G7’s decline since to do so would critically implicate capitalists’ profit-driven decisions as key causes of the decline. Neither Republicans nor Democrats dare do that. Biden speaks and acts as if the U.S. wealth and power positions within the world economy were undiminished from what they were across the second half of the 20th century (most of Biden’s political lifetime).

Continuing to fund and arm Ukraine in the war with Russia, like endorsing and supporting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, are policies premised on denials of a changed world. So too are successive waves of economic sanctions despite each wave failing to achieve its goals. Using tariffs to keep better, cheaper Chinese electric vehicles off the U.S. market will only disadvantage U.S. individuals (via such Chinese electric vehicles’ higher prices) and businesses (via global competition from businesses buying the cheaper Chinese cars and trucks).

Perhaps the greatest, costliest delusions that follow from a denial of years of decline dog the upcoming presidential election. The two major parties and their candidates offer no serious plan for how to deal with the declining empire they seek to lead. Both parties took turns presiding over the decline, yet denial and blaming the other is all either party offers in 2024. Biden offers voters a partnership in denial that the empire is declining. Trump promises vaguely to undo the decline caused by bad Democratic leadership that his election will remove. Nothing either major party does entails sober admissions and assessments of a changed world economy and how each plans to cope with that.

The last 40 to 50 years of the economic history of the G7 witnessed extreme redistributions of wealth and income upward. Those redistributions functioned as both causes and effects of neoliberal globalization. However, domestic reactions (economic and social divisions increasingly hostile and volatile) and foreign reactions (emergence of today’s China and BRICS) are undermining neoliberal globalization and beginning to challenge its accompanying inequalities. U.S. capitalism and its empire cannot yet face its decline amid a changing world. Delusions about retaining or regaining power at the top of society proliferate alongside delusional conspiracy theories and political scapegoating (immigrants, China, Russia) below.

Meanwhile, the economic, political, and cultural costs mount. And on some level, as per Leonard Cohen’s famous song, “Everybody Knows.”

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The post Empire Decline and Costly Delusions appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard D. Wolff.

Photograph Source: European Commission (Dati Bendo)

A group of young people in Paris are enjoying a drink in a café on an unseasonably warm evening. The conversation drifts into politics, but—as one young woman says—“Let’s not talk about France.” The others nod their assent. They focus on the U.S. presidential election, a slight bit of Gallic arrogance at play as they mock the near certainty that the main candidates will be President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Biden is 81 years old and Trump is 77. A Special Counsel in the United States has called Biden an “elderly man with a poor memory,” hardly the words required to inspire confidence in the president. Trying to defend himself, Biden made the kind of gaffe that is fodder for online memes and affirmed the report that he tried to undermine: he called President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt the “president of Mexico.” No new evidence is required, meanwhile, to mock the candidacy of Trump. “Is this the best that the United States can offer?” asks Claudine, a young student at a prestigious Parisian college.

These young people are aware enough that what appears to be comical on the other side of the Atlantic—the U.S. presidential election—is no less ridiculous, and of course less dangerous, in Europe. When I ask them what they think about the main European leaders—Olaf Scholz of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France—they shrug, and the words “imbecilic” and “non-entity” enter the discussion. Near Les Halles, these young people have just been at a demonstration to end the Israeli bombing of the Rafah region of Gaza. “Rafah is the size of Heathrow Airport,” says a young student from England who is spending 2024 in France. That none of the European leaders have spoken plainly about the death and destruction in Gaza troubles them, and they say that they are not alone in these feelings. Many of their fellow students feel the same way.

The approval ratings for Scholz and Macron decline with each week. Neither the German nor the French public believes that these men can reverse the economic decline or stop the wars in either Gaza or Ukraine. Claudine is upset that the governments of the Global North have decided to cut their funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN Palestine agency, although another young person, Oumar, interjects that Brazil’s President Lula has said that his country will donate money to UNRWA. Everyone nods.

A week later, news comes that a young soldier in the United States Airforce—Aaron Bushnell—has decided to take his own life, saying that he will no longer be complicit in the genocide against the Palestinians. When asked about the death of Bushnell, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the President is “aware” and that it is a “horrible tragedy.” But there was no statement about why the young man took his life, and nothing to assuage a tense public about the implications of this act.

Eating an ice cream in New York, U.S. President Joe Biden said that he hoped that there would be a ceasefire “by the beginning of the weekend” but then moved it to “by next Monday.” The meandering statements, the pledge for a ceasefire alongside the prevarication, and the arms deliveries do not raise the confidence of anyone in Biden or his peers in Europe.

With the Emir of Qatar beside him, France’s President Emmanuel Macron called for a “lasting ceasefire.” These phrases—“lasting ceasefire” and “sustainable ceasefire”—have been bandied about with these adjectives (lasting, sustainable) designed to dilute the commitment to a ceasefire and to pretend that they are actually in favor of an end to the war when they continue to say that they are behind Israel’s bombing runs.

In London, the UK Parliament had a comical collapse in the face of a Scottish National Party (SNP) resolution for a ceasefire. Rather than allow a vote to show the actual opinions of their members, both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party went into a tailspin and the Parliament’s speaker broke rules to ensure that the elected officials did not have to go on the record against a ceasefire. Brendan O’Hara of the SNP put the issue plainly before the Parliament before his words and the SNP resolution was set aside: “Some will have to say that they chose to engage in a debate on semantics over ‘sustainable’ or ‘humanitarian’ pauses, while others will say that they chose to give Netanyahu both the weapons and the political cover that he required to prosecute his relentless war.”

Global desire for an immediate stop to the Israeli bombing is now at an all-time high. For the third time, the United States vetoed a UN resolution in the Security Council to compel the Israelis to stop the bombing. That the United States and its European allies continue to back Israel despite the widespread disgust at this war—exemplified by the death of Aaron Bushnell—raises the frustration with the leadership of the Global North.

What is so particularly bewildering is that large sections of the population in the countries of the North want an immediate ceasefire, and yet their leaders disregard their opinions. One survey shows that two-thirds of voters in the United States—including majorities of Democrats (77 percent), Independents (69 percent), and Republicans (56 percent)—are in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza. Interestingly, 59 percent of U.S. voters say that Palestinians must be guaranteed the right to return to their homes in Gaza, while 52 percent said that peace talks must be held for a two-state solution. These are all positions that are ignored by the main political class on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The qualifications of “lasting” and “sustainable” only increase cynicism among populations that watch their political leadership ignore their insistence on an immediate ceasefire.

Clarity is not to be sought in the White House, in No. 10 Downing Street, or in the Élysée Palace. It is found in the words of ordinary people in these countries who are heartsick regarding the violence. Protests seem to increase in intensity as the death toll rises. What is the reaction to these protests? In the United Kingdom, members of parliament complained that these protests are putting the police under “sustained pressure.” That is perhaps the point of the protests.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

The post The Remarkable Decline in the Global North’s Leadership appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

Photograph Source: U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv – CC BY 2.0

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a dead man walking.  He needs to continue the war in Gaza in order to maintain his position as prime minister.  When the war ends, Netanyahu’s record-setting years of rule in Israel will also end.

Along with Netanyahu, the Israeli nation is in decline legally, morally, and economically.  The actions of the International Court of Justice reflect the legal and moral decline.  Foreign investment is down, and Moody’s Investors Service (Moody’s) has downgraded Israel’s foreign currency and local currency ratings.  One outstanding question is whether Netanyahu’s fall and Israel’s decline will lead to the political defeat of President Joe Biden as well in November’s election.

Even before the large-scale Israeli ground invasion of Gaza on October 27th, Netanyahu had transformed from a risk-averse conservative to a right-wing reactionary.  A decade ago, it was obvious that Israel’s image as a progressive and largely secular nation had become badly tarnished with Netanyahu at the helm.  Last year, Netanyahu had to bring into the government the worst kind of right-wing reactionaries, led by Bazalel Smotrich (Finance Minister) and Itamar Ben-Gvir (Minister of National Security).  The country was moving to the right, and Netanyahu moved to the right along with it.

In its first 75 years of existence, Israel had no fascists such as Smotrich or Ben-Gvir in its government.  Both men were disciples of the late Meir Kahane, whose fascist party was banned in Israel in 1994.  Kahane’s party, Kach, was banned by the Israeli cabinet under the 1948 anti-terrrorism laws following its statements of support for Baruch Goldstein who massacred 29 Palestinians at the Cave of the Patriarchs.  Kahane himself was banned from Israeli politics in 1988, but in the last Israeli election six extremists of the Kahane variety won seats in the Israeli Knesset.

The transformation of Israel over the past ten-years means that Israeli leaders and their followers have become less interested in Israel as a democratic state and far more interested in Israel as a Jewish state.  The government has no interest in protecting the civil rights of the two million Arab citizens within Israel’s borders, who make up around 20 percent of Israel’s population.  Netanyahu also has no interest in respecting Israel’s Supreme Court and its essential role of judicial review.  His campaign to neuter the Supreme Court led to the huge protest campaign that was interrupted by the Hamas attack on October 7th.  As far back as 2016, a Pew public opinion survey determined that 80 percent of Jewish Israelis favored “preferential treatment” for Jews, indicating the acceptance of discrimination against Arabs.

It seems bizarre for U.S. leaders to continue to emphasize the importance of a two-state solution, when Netanyahu and his cohort have stressed that there will be no negotiations toward such a solution.  For the past ten years, again before the Gaza War, Netanyahu has been moving to make permanent the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.  The Trump administration supported these steps, moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and supporting Israel’s policies of occupation.  Trump and Netanyahu’s recklessness and moral perversity are quite similar.  Now, the Israeli government is in the process of making Gaza totally uninhabitable.  The Biden administration  is complicit in the excesses and war crimes of the Israeli military campaign.

There is no justification or explanation for the horrors that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have brought to Gaza, which include the deaths of as many as 12,000 Palestinian children.  The fact that Israeli Jews, who have been united around “never again” in the wake of the Holocaust, are responsible for this tragedy is particularly ironic.  I grew up in a Jewish ghetto in Baltimore as a Zionist who believed that the IDF was a progressive force playing a major role in transforming Jewish immigrants from the world into a national force.  I traveled to Israel for the first time as a teenager, and met Jews from America and Europe who had volunteered to work in Kibbutzim where they joined with the warrior-pioneers who had made their way to Israel in the wake of the Holocaust.

There is no indication that the Israeli assault against the Palestinians will diminish in intensity, let alone pause, and the weaker security environment will ultimately create greater security risks for Israel itself.  The potential of renewed war on the northern border with Lebanon is certainly possible, particularly in view of the terrible strategic decisions Israel made in 1982 and 2006 regarding Lebanon.  A weaker security environment will create greater social and political risks as Netanyahu becomes even more beholden to the right-wing zealots in his coalition.  At the same time, Israelis may become more aggressive in order to keep Netanyahu in power.

It is ironic that President Biden has put his reelection chances at risk on behalf of Netanyahu who has no respect for the president or the United States.  Unlike other Israeli prime ministers, Netanyahu has displayed no interest in trying to satisfy or even address U.S. demands or requests, and Israel in general appears to believe that it can go it alone without any international support.  President Barack Obama gifted Israel with the greatest military aid package in U.S. history in 2016, but he was regularly vilified by the Israeli press and received a lower favorability rating in Israel than almost anywhere else in the world.

Biden has shown deep concern about the fate of the hostages, particularly the American hostages, but very little concern about the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.  Netanyahu has never been concerned with the five million Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza, and rarely demonstrates concern with the hostages.  His goal is to make Gaza uninhabitable.  The Biden administration doesn’t seem to understand that, which explains the feckless missions of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA director William Burns, and the more feckless conversations Biden keeps having with Netanyahu.

I know what Israel gains from the United States in terms of billions of dollars worth of lethal weaponry and political cover.  I wonder what the United States gains from Israel.

The post Netanyahu and Israel in Decline and May Take Biden Down With the Them appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melvin Goodman.

CBMs have a history in offices, businesses, and all human organizations. It used to be that chats around the coffee machine or water cooler were central to the effective functioning of interpersonal institutions. The question “How are things going?” often meant more than just reviewing the current or next project. In the informal setting, the question would often refer to someone’s health, children, or spouse.

Networking at conferences also meant more than just making small talk with another participant about what the last speaker really meant.  Chatting with someone new was an important first step before following up the friendly, brief interaction at the meeting with an email or call. Team-building exercises were also part of this equation. So, whether in the office, at a larger meeting or at a retreat, face-to-face was a crucial part of CBMs.

But face-to-face interaction is in decline.

The worlds of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and all are dooming the face-to-face. The growth of social media has been hailed for bringing people closer together. Turn on your internet connection and you have instant access to millions if not billions of people around the world. However ever-changing technology has opened never-ending possibilities of electronic connectivity, the art of face-to-face interaction can never be replaced. Face-to-face interaction is the foundation of creating trust.

Schmoozing represents the best of face-to-face interaction. The verb to schmooze comes from the Yiddish schmuesmeaning to talk. More than merely talking, its origins connote informal verbal interaction in a warm, friendly manner. Today, some would use the verb to mean discussing to gain something, an informal way of convincing someone to agree to what you want. More positively, schmoozing means informally shooting the breeze between people, an important step in creating a confident atmosphere.

Now why am I talking about schmoozing when the world is being confronted with horrors in the Middle East, continued war between Russia and Ukraine as well as catastrophic climate change? How can informal “shooting the breeze” help solve our current polycrises?

Two recent articles caught my attention to show the positive elements of schmoozing at the highest diplomatic levels. If you think the world’s problems can be solved at formal dinners with tuxedos and evening dresses or long-table negotiations with translators, the two articles are worth highlighting.

The first described the informal schmoozing mentioned above between the Chinese leader and Biden on the side-lines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit. As described by Robbie Gramer; “`There is no substitute to face-to-face discussions,’ he [Biden] told Xi on Wednesday, as the two met for a working lunch.”

Among the successes of American presidents’ personal diplomacy, Gramer notes:

Roosevelt clinched the 1905 peace deal that ended the Russo-Japanese War only after senior Russian and Japanese delegations spent a month together with him in New Hampshire. Nixon spent an entire week in China with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during his historic 1972 visit that paved the way for the United States and China to later formally reopen ties. Carter only finalized the vaunted Camp David Accords after devoting two full weeks to negotiations with Israeli and Egyptian leaders at the remote presidential country retreat in Maryland.

The second article is Peter Coy’s New York Times description of a meeting on the side-lines of the climate talks in Dubai. According to Coy, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, president of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, explained the turning point in the negotiations that might have broken the deadlocked COP 28 as follows: “`And then we became the first COP to host a change-makers majlis,’” Jaber said. “A majlis is both a place and an event,” Coy wrote. “It is the place in an Arab home where people sit with guests…In a majlis, people don’t rush to do business. Sociably sitting is part of the experience.” Majlis are also important in Islamic contract law; contract reports include the discussions which led to the conclusion of the contract.

Coy reports how Jaber and others praised the role of the Dubai majlis; “`You reconnected with your spirit of collaboration, you got out of your comfort zones and started speaking to each other from the heart.’” “`That,’ he said, “`made the difference.’” The Environment News Service confirmed the Dubai majlis’ importance: “`The gathering seemed to evoke a more personal, tone, and confidences were shared.’”

Coy also cites Nobel Prize economics winner Elinor Ostrom when she praised “cheap talk.” “`More cooperation occurs than predicted, ‘cheap talk’ increases cooperation,’ Ms. Ostrom wrote in her Nobel lecture.’” “Video calls make face-to-face easier,” Gramer points out. “But there’s no business like the business of showing up.”

Face-to-face, is declining for several reasons. The first and most obvious is the Covid pandemic. We were told to stay at home and avoid unnecessary contacts with others. Plus, it’s not conducive to gaining confidence when the people conversing are wearing masks.

And following the pandemic isolation, people grew accustomed to working from home. End of water cooler/coffee machine chit chats. End of small talk at large meetings and conferences. End of team-building exercises. Schmoozing, CBMs and electronics are apples and oranges. Zoom or Skype are not conducive to confidence-building measures. Negotiations over the net have obvious limitations.

Face-to-face, schmooze, cheap talk, shooting the breeze, majlis, the idea is all the same; confidence-building measures based on human, direct contact. In a world of social media and quantitative measuring, the qualitative may be declining, but the human element can never be replaced. Long live the schmooze. Cheap talk is priceless.

The post The Unfortunate Decline of the Art of Schmoozing appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Daniel Warner.

The post The Morbid Decline of the Republican Party appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Alan Kanner.

Photograph Source: 朱華龍 – Zhu Hua Long – CC BY 2.0

In early 2023, India surpassed China as the most populous country in the world with the latter having 850,000 fewer people by the end of 2022—marking the country’s first population decline since famine struck from 1959 to 1961. While this reduction may seem modest considering China’s 1.4 billion population currently, an ongoing decline is anticipated, with UN projections suggesting that China’s population could dwindle to below 800 million by 2100.

Populations fluctuate through immigration, emigration, deaths, and births. China’s previous one-child policy, enforced from 1980 to 2015, and the resulting gender imbalance slowed its birth rate. The Chinese government is now trying to boost birth rates, including by discouraging abortion.

The Malthusian population growth model, proposed in the 1700s, suggested that populations grow exponentially and outpace resource availability until inevitable checks, such as famine, disease, conflict, or other issues, cause it to drop. During the high global population growth rates of the early 1960s, these concerns abounded. Yet around the world, population growth has slowed dramatically, and in China and many other countries, natural decline is already underway.

A 2020 study published in the Lancet medical journal revealed that based on current population trends, more than 20 countries are on track to halve their populations by 2100. The Pew Research think tank, meanwhile, declared that 90 countries will see their populations decline by 2100, while the Center of Expertise on Population and Migration (CEPAM) predicts the global population will peak at 9.8 billion around 2070 to 2080.

The fear of a shrinking and aging population looms over governments and economists alike. Increased payments toward pension and social welfare systems will strain a reduced labor force, while younger populations also contribute more to economic growth and innovation. Countries may also experience a reduction in their global influence—not least because of a smaller population available for military service.

Various metrics gauge fertility and birth rates, but the total fertility rate (TFR), which measures the number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, is the most common. Yet achieving replacement level fertility rates, typically 2.1 children per woman, has proven challenging.

The decline in global fertility rates can be attributed to societal and cultural shifts, family planning initiatives, wider access to contraception, improved infant mortality rates, increased cost of child-rearing, urbanization, delayed marriages and childbirth due to educational and career pursuits, and social welfare systems reducing reliance on familial support.

A case in point is Japan, whose population peaked at 128 million in 2008 and has since shrunk to below 123 million. It is poised to decrease to 72 million by century’s end, its decline sustained by a low fertility rate, an aging population (almost 30 percent of the population is 65 or older), and limited immigration. Initiatives to slow this decline include changing immigration laws and government-sponsored speed dating.

Remarkably, despite hitting a record low in 2022, Japan’s TFR is now higher than China’s and South Korea’s. Since 2006, South Korea has invested more than $200 billion in establishing public daycare centers, free nurseries, subsidized child care, and other initiatives to boost its TFR. But at 0.78, South Korea’s TFR remains the world’s lowest. South Korea’s government also introduced immigration reforms in the early 21st century, all while leading the world in automation with 1,000 robots per 10,000 employees—more than double of second-ranked Japan.

In Europe, efforts to boost populations have occurred for decades. For instance, Romaniacriminalized abortion and banned contraception except for certain medical conditions in 1966. Consequently, illegal abortions increased, and Romania had the highest maternal mortality rate in Europe in the 1980s as a result of this. While Romania’s TFR stabilized at 2.3 by the late 1980s, it collapsed in the 1990s, alongside a population exodus through emigration that has been sustained after Romania joined the EU in 2007.

Other Eastern European nations have experienced similar TFR declines and emigration. Contrastingly, Western European countries have managed to grow slightly since 2000, but largely only due to immigration. Even so, countries like Italy have seen population declines, spurring initiatives by the government to offer houses to foreigners for as little as 1 euro in an effort to repopulate small towns.

The U.S. has a lower average age than most European countries and saw a rebound in TFR rates in the 2000s. But this dropped after the recession in 2008 and it has never recovered. And unlike European countries, life expectancy continued to decline after COVID-19. Immigration has mitigated these issues, but as in Europe this has become increasingly political, and the U.S. population growth rate has slowed considerably. While there is no official policy to boost birth rates, the U.S. promotes family planning initiatives abroad. Republican and Democrat administrations have meanwhile oscillated since 1984 between enforcing and rescinding the Mexico City Policy, requiring foreign NGOs to not “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning” in order to receive U.S. government funding for family planning initiatives.

Russia’s TFR faced a rapid decline following the collapse of the Soviet Union, reaching a low of 1.16 in 1999, and causing a population decline. However, government initiatives saw it rebound to 1.8 in 2014 before falling again. The Kremlin announced a desired TFR of 1.7 in 2020, and increased payments for parents of at least two children. To further stabilize its population, Russia has also relied on immigration and taking parts of Ukraine.

Iran’s birth rate policies have fluctuated over the last few decades. During the 1950s, Iran implemented fertility controls but abolished them after the 1979 Islamic revolution. However, they were reintroduced in the late 1980s to release pressure on the economy. Once seen as a “success story,” Iran’s TFR fell faster than anticipated to 1.6 in 2012. That year, the government began attempts to boost the birth rate by limiting access to birth control, abortion, and vasectomies.

Although India now holds the mantle of the world’s most populous country, its TFR is now below replacement level. Nonetheless, its population will continue to grow, fueled by a large, youthful population—a demographic feature increasingly common across the Global South. While India’s population is eventually projected to begin declining by the 2060s, India is currently managing its youthful population through initiatives such as promoting employment opportunities abroad.

The perils of not utilizing a large working population extend beyond unrealized economic potential. Without economic prospects, large youthful populations can generate significant social and political upheaval. Neighboring Pakistan is trying to reduce its population growth to avoid exacerbating strains on resources, infrastructure, education, and health care systems.

Pakistan’s concerns are similar to much of Africa. Aside from Afghanistan, the top 20 countries with the highest TFR are all located in Africa. Nigeria’s population is projected to grow from 213 million currently to 550 million in 2100, while some projections see half of all births in Africa between 2020 and 2100. Even so, family planning programs have helped slow growth in recent years across the continent.

Contrastingly, the experience of countries where campaigns supporting fertility have seen some success (including Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary) suggests direct financial incentives, tax breaks, cheap/free child care centers, generous maternity/paternity leave, housing assistance, and more flexible approaches to work-life balance are successful at interrupting decline.

While gender equality has often been cited as a barrier to higher birth rates in the past, this no longer seems to be the case. Highly educated women had the lowest fertility rate in the U.S. in 1980, for example, but this was not true in 2019. Additionally, Mongolia’s TFR declined from 7.3 kids per woman in 1974 to under two by 2005. But Mongolian birth rates then increased to around three children per woman by 2019, despite Mongolian women becoming better educated, increasingly represented in traditionally male-dominated fields, and having access to improved rural maternal health services.

Nonetheless, Mongolia’s recent population boom has resulted in school crowding, pollution, housing problems, and other issues, and points to the need for flexible approaches to population growth, decline, and stabilization.

With a median age in Europe of 44.4 years old and a median age of about 19 in Africa, different parts of the world will require different measures to deal with fluctuating population numbers this century. China is not alone in the perception that it will grow old before it grows rich, and such countries will develop their own methods to deal with aging societies. Seeking the creation of long-term sustainable approaches to population management, which avoid coercion but also provide help for those raising children, should be prioritized.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John P. Ruehl.

Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad has called on the Fiji Football Association to address the problem of the decline of the Fiji’s men’s global football ranking.

He made the request to the national governing body while welcoming FIFA president Gianni Infantino to Fiji at the weekend.

Infantino was in the country as part of his visit to Oceania member countries.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji sport reports

The Fiji men’s football team, known as the “Bula Boys”, is ranked 168 — seventh out of the 11 teams in the Oceania Football Confederation.

Fiji is ranked below New Zealand (103), Solomon Islands (133), Papua New Guinea (159), New Caledonia (161), Tahiti (162) and Vanuatu (165).

Professor Prasad said that while FIFA’s financial support had been invaluable, it was vital to reflect and determine why Fiji’s performance was not on par with its glorious past.

‘All-time low’
“We all are wondering why our men’s football ranking has plummeted to an all-time low despite an abundance of talent and football in our country,” he said.

“We were ranked in the 1990s before the turn of the century. We used to defeat every nation in our region. We chalked up two wins over Australia in 1977 and 1988. We either beat or were on par with New Zealand.

“And that was in an era when football wasn’t even semi-professional. We are now professional according to our standings of player fees and transfers. But we aren’t improving despite what we are told are three football academies, primarily funded by FIFA.”

Professor Prasad raised questions about the effectiveness of the football academies established with FIFA’s funding and asked whether the talent was being nurtured adequately, and if the infrastructure and guidance provided were enough to support the aspirations of young players.

The Deputy Prime Minister also brought up concerns about the governance within Fiji FA, and stressed the importance of transparent and accountable leadership.

He said decisions should always be made in the best interest of football and the athletes.

‘It is the reality’
“What I said isn’t about recrimination. It is the reality where football descended to in the last 16 years. But it will change. And change for the better. Our conscience must be clear when dealing with governance issues.”

Responding to Professor Prasad’s criticism on Fiji’s poor ranking, Fiji FA president Rajesh Patel said they were not worried about the rankings as it was something that had declined when the side played more international matches.

He said in Fiji’s bid to compete at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, they had been playing quality opposition during FIFA international windows.

Patel said the under-20s participation at the under-20 World Cup in Argentina was proof of progress in the development of the sport in Fiji.

Rodney Duthie is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

*****

“28 million Americans still lack health insurance.”

“21 million workers are still paid less than $15 per hour.”

“The federal minimum hourly wage is just $7.25 and has not increased since 2009.”

“69% of Americans in Cities Live Paycheck to Paycheck.”

“More than 200,000 Dallas [Texas] residents are 60 or older, and at least 30,000 of them live on incomes of less than $1,000 per month.”

“1 in 10 low-income households had a retirement account balance in 2019, compared to 1 in 5 in 2007.”

“In America’s “internal colonies,” the poor die far younger than richer Americans.”

“At the beginning of 2023, the top ten percent of earners in the United States held 69 percent of total wealth. This is a slight increase from the fourth quarter of 2022 when the top ten percent held 68.2 percent of total wealth.”

“Amazon Fresh lays off hundreds of grocery store workers, reports say.”

“Microsoft confirms more job cuts on top of 10,000 layoffs announced in January [2023].”

“Economic growth to slow and unemployment to rise, CBO projects.”

“U.S. Leading Economic Index Falls Again in June [2023].”

“U.S. gas prices hit 8-month high.”

“Cost of living: High prices leading to poor nutrition in people.”

“Fed approves hike that takes interest rates to highest level in more than 22 years.”

“Big Bankruptcies Rise at Faster Pace This Year.”

“New York Fed Reports Surge In Credit Application Rejections.”

“Now You Can’t Get A Car Loan.”

“Young People Are Missing Auto Loan Payments At Near Record Numbers.”

“Price of Used Houses now the Same as Price of New Houses.”

“House sales plummet to their lowest level in over a DECADE as families in large suburban homes cling to cheap mortgage deals – with just 1% of US properties changing hands in 2023.”

“It’s Getting Even Harder to Afford a ‘Starter’ Home in the US.”

“Atlanta-area evictions surpass 70,000 in first half of year.”

“Experts shine a light on the invisible toll of informal evictions.”

“A majority of Harris County [Texas] renters are ‘cost burdened’ by rising rent prices, report says.”

“The average tuition at US private colleges grew by about 4% last year to just under $40,000 per year, according to data collected by US News & World Report. For a public in-state school, that cost was $10,500, that’s an annual increase of 0.8% for in-state students and about 1% for out-of-state.”

“Many [Tampa] Bay area [Florida] families unable to access early childhood education, causing childcare crisis.”

“High cost makes child care inaccessible for many Iowans, report finds.”

“Millions more Americans [100 million] have medical debt than student debt.”

“62% Of Food Derived From Forced Labor Is ‘Likely Produced In The U.S.’”

*****

Is this what a booming, resilient, humane economy looks like? The reality is that economic conditions are also awful in Europe and other countries. Globally, millions are worse off now than they were a few years ago.

The current downward economic spiral has been going on for some time now and it is clear that the powers that be are unable and unwilling to solve any problems, they just keep making things worse while hoping people believe disinformation about a “great economy.” The rich became historically superfluous long ago; they are a huge cost, burden, and obstacle to society.

Only working people and their allies can turn around the situation. Relying on the rich and their politicians to develop an economy that provides for the needs of all is not working.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Shawgi Tell.

Children going to a 12-hour night shift in the United States (1908). Photograph Source: Preus museum – CC BY 2.0

An aged Native-American chieftain was visiting New York City for the first time in 1906. He was curious about the city and the city was curious about him. A magazine reporter asked the chief what most surprised him in his travels around town. “Little children working,” the visitor replied.

Child labor might have shocked that outsider, but it was all too commonplace then across urban, industrial America (and on farms where it had been customary for centuries). In more recent times, however, it’s become a far rarer sight. Law and custom, most of us assume, drove it to near extinction. And our reaction to seeing it reappear might resemble that chief’s — shock, disbelief.

But we better get used to it, since child labor is making a comeback with a vengeance. A striking number of lawmakers are undertaking concerted efforts to weaken or repeal statutes that have long prevented (or at least seriously inhibited) the possibility of exploiting children.

Take a breath and consider this: the number of kids at work in the U.S. increased by 37% between 2015 and 2022. During the last two years, 14 states have either introduced or enacted legislation rolling back regulations that governed the number of hours children can be employed, lowered the restrictions on dangerous work, and legalized subminimum wages for youths.

Iowa now allows those as young as 14 to work in industrial laundries. At age 16, they can take jobs in roofing, construction, excavation, and demolition and can operate power-driven machinery. Fourteen-year-olds can now even work night shifts and once they hit 15 can join assembly lines. All of this was, of course, prohibited not so long ago.

Legislators offer fatuous justifications for such incursions into long-settled practice. Working, they tell us, will get kids off their computers or video games or away from the TV. Or it will strip the government of the power to dictate what children can and can’t do, leaving parents in control — a claim already transformed into fantasy by efforts to strip away protective legislation and permit 14-year-old kids to work without formal parental permission.

In 2014, the Cato Institute, a right-wing think tank, published “A Case Against Child Labor Prohibitions,” arguing that such laws stifled opportunity for poor — and especially Black — children. The Foundation for Government Accountability, a think tank funded by a range of wealthy conservative donors including the DeVos family, has spearheaded efforts to weaken child-labor laws, and Americans for Prosperity, the billionaire Koch brothers’ foundation, has joined in.

Nor are these assaults confined to red states like Iowa or the South. California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire, as well as Georgia and Ohio, have been targeted, too. Even New Jersey passed a law in the pandemic years temporarily raising the permissible work hours for 16- to 18-year-olds.

The blunt truth of the matter is that child labor pays and is fast becoming remarkably ubiquitous. It’s an open secret that fast-food chains have employed underage kids for years and simply treat the occasional fines for doing so as part of the cost of doing business. Children as young as 10 have been toiling away in such pit stops in Kentucky and older ones working beyond the hourly limits prescribed by law. Roofers in Florida and Tennessee can now be as young as 12.

Recently, the Labor Department found more than 100 children between the ages of 13 and 17 working in meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses in Minnesota and Nebraska. And those were anything but fly-by-night operations. Companies like Tyson Foods and Packer Sanitation Services (owned by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm) were also on the list.

At this point, virtually the entire economy is remarkably open to child labor. Garment factories and auto parts manufacturers (supplying Ford and General Motors) employ immigrant kids, some for 12-hour days. Many are compelled to drop out of school just to keep up. In a similar fashion, Hyundai and Kia supply chains depend on children working in Alabama.

As the New York Times reported last February, helping break the story of the new child labor market, underage kids, especially migrants, are working in cereal-packing plants and food-processing factories. In Vermont, “illegals” (because they’re too young to work) operate milking machines. Some children help make J. Crew shirts in Los Angeles, bake rolls for Walmart, or work producing Fruit of the Loom socks. Danger lurks. America is a notoriously unsafe place to work and the accident rate for child laborers is especially high, including a chilling inventory of shattered spines, amputations, poisonings, and disfiguring burns.

Journalist Hannah Dreier has called it “a new economy of exploitation,” especially when it comes to migrant children. A Grand Rapids, Michigan, schoolteacher, observing the same predicament, remarked: “You’re taking children from another country and putting them almost in industrial servitude.”

The Long Ago Now

Today, we may be as stunned by this deplorable spectacle as that chief was at the turn of the twentieth century. Our ancestors, however, would not have been. For them, child labor was taken for granted.

Hard work, moreover, had long been considered by those in the British upper classes who didn’t have to do so as a spiritual tonic that would rein in the unruly impulses of the lower orders.  An Elizabethan law of 1575 provided public money to employchildren as “a prophylactic against vagabonds and paupers.”

By the eighteenth century, the philosopher John Locke, then a celebrated champion of liberty, was arguing that three-year-olds should be included in the labor force. Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, was happy that “children after four or five years of age could every one earn their own bread.” Later, Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, would opt for four, since otherwise, society would suffer the loss of “precious years in which nothing is done! Nothing for Industry! Nothing for improvement, moral or intellectual.”

American “founding father” Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 Report on Manufacturing noted that children “who would otherwise be idle” could instead become a source of cheap labor. And such claims that working at an early age warded off the social dangers of “idleness and degeneracy” remained a fixture of elite ideology well into the modern era. Indeed, it evidently remains so today.

When industrialization began in earnest during the first half of the nineteenth century, observers noted that work in the new factories (especially textile mills) was “better done by little girls of 6-12 years old.” By 1820, children accounted for 40% of the mill workers in three New England states. In that same year, children under 15 made up 23% of the manufacturing labor force and as much as 50% of the production of cotton textiles.

And such numbers would only soar after the Civil War. In fact, the children of ex-slaves were effectively re-enslaved through onerous apprenticeship arrangements. Meanwhile, in New York City and other urban centers, Italian padrones expedited the exploitation of immigrant kids while treating them brutally.  Even the then-brahmin-minded, anti-immigrant New York Times took offense: “The world has given up stealing men from the African coast, only to kidnap children from Italy.”

Between 1890 and 1910, 18% of all children between the ages of 10 and 15, about two million young people, worked, often 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Their jobs covered the waterfront — all too literally as, under the supervision of padrones, thousands of children shucked oysters and picked shrimp. Kids were also street messengers and newsies. They worked in offices and factories, banks and brothels. They were “breakers” and “trappers” in poorly ventilated coal mines, particularly dangerous and unhealthy jobs. In 1900, out of 100,000 workers in textile mills in the South, 20,000 were under the age of 12.

City orphans were shipped off to labor in the glassworks of the Midwest. Thousands of children stayed home and helped their families turn out clothing for sweatshop manufacturers. Others packed flowers in ill-ventilated tenements. One seven-year-old explained that “I like school better than home. I don’t like home. There are too many flowers.” And down on the farm, the situation was no less grim, as children as young as three worked hulling berries.

All in the Family               

Clearly, well into the twentieth century, industrial capitalism depended on the exploitation of children who were cheaper to employ, less able to resist, and until the advent of more sophisticated technologies, well suited to deal with the relatively simple machinery then in place.

Moreover, the authority exercised by the boss was in keeping with that era’s patriarchal assumptions, whether in the family or even in the largest of the overwhelmingly family-owned new industrial firms of that time like Andrew Carnegie’s steelworks. And such family capitalism gave birth to a perverse alliance of boss and underling that transformed children into miniature wage-laborers.

Meanwhile, working-class families were so severely exploited that they desperately needed the income of their children. As a result, in Philadelphia around the turn of the century, the labor of children accounted for between 28% and 33% of the household income of native-born, two-parent families. For Irish and German immigrants, the figures were 46% and 35% respectively. Not surprisingly, then, working-class parents often opposed proposals for child labor laws. As noted by Karl Marx, the worker was no longer able to support himself, so “now he sells his wife and child. He becomes a slave dealer.”

Nonetheless, resistance began to mount. The sociologist and muckraking photographer Lewis Hine scandalized the country with heart-rending pictures of kids slaving away in factories and down in the pits of mines. (He got into such places by pretending to be a Bible salesman.) Mother Jones, the militant defender of labor organizing, led a “children’s crusade” in 1903 on behalf of 46,000 striking textile workers in Philadelphia. Two hundred child-worker delegates showed up at President Teddy Roosevelt’s Oyster Bay, Long Island, residence to protest, but the president simply passed the buck, claiming child labor was a state matter, not a federal one.

Here and there, kids tried running away. In response, owners began surrounding their factories with barbed wire or made the children work at night when their fear of the dark might keep them from fleeing. Some of the 146 women who died in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village — the owners of that garment factory had locked the doors, forcing the trapped workers to leap to their deaths from upper floor windows — were as young as 15. That tragedy only added to a growing furor over child labor.

A National Child Labor Committee was formed in 1904. For years, it lobbied states to outlaw, or at least rein in, the use of child labor. Victories, however, were often distinctly pyrrhic, as the laws enacted were invariably weak, included dozens of exemptions, and poorly enforced. Finally, in 1916, a federal law was passed that outlawed child labor everywhere. In 1918, however, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

In fact, only in the 1930s, after the Great Depression hit, did conditions begin improving. Given its economic devastation, you might assume that cheap child labor would have been at a premium. However, with jobs so scarce, adults — males especially — took precedence and began doing work once relegated to children. In those same years, industrial work began incorporating ever more complex machinery that proved too difficult for younger kids. Meanwhile, the age of compulsory schooling was steadily rising, limiting yet more the available pool of child laborers.

Most important of all, the tenor of the times changed.  The insurgent labor movement of the 1930s loathed the very idea of child labor. Unionized plants and whole industries were no-go zones for capitalists looking to exploit children. And in 1938, with the support of organized labor, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal administration finally passed the Fair Labor Standards Act which, at least in theory, put an end to child labor (although it exempted the agricultural sector in which such a workforce remained commonplace).

Moreover, Roosevelt’s New Deal transformed the national zeitgeist. A sense of economic egalitarianism, a newfound respect for the working class, and a bottomless suspicion of the corporate caste made child labor seem particularly repulsive. In addition, the New Deal ushered in a long era of prosperity, including rising standards of living for millions of working people who no longer needed the labor of their children to make ends meet.

Back to the Future

It’s all the more astonishing then to discover that a plague, once thought banished, lives again. American capitalism is a global system, its networks extend virtually everywhere. Today, there are an estimated 152 million children at work worldwide. Not all of them, of course, are employed directly or even indirectly by U.S. firms. But they should certainly be a reminder of how deeply retrogressive capitalism has once again become both here at home and elsewhere across the planet.

Boasts about the power and wealth of the American economy are part of our belief system and elite rhetoric. However, life expectancy in the U.S., a basal measure of social retrogression, has been relentlessly declining for years. Health care is not only unaffordable for millions, but its quality has become second-rate at best if you don’t belong to the top 1%. In a similar fashion, the country’s infrastructure has long been in decline, thanks to both its age and decades of neglect.

Think of the United States, then, as a “developed” country now in the throes of underdevelopment and, in that context, the return of child labor is deeply symptomatic. Even before the Great Recession that followed the financial implosion of 2008, standards of living had been falling, especially for millions of working people laid low by a decades-long tsunami of de-industrialization. That recession, which officially lasted until 2011, only further exacerbated the situation. It put added pressure on labor costs, while work became increasingly precarious, ever more stripped of benefits and ununionized. Given the circumstances, why not turn to yet another source of cheap labor — children?

The most vulnerable among them come from abroad, migrants from the Global South, escaping failing economies often traceable to American economic exploitation and domination. If this country is now experiencing a border crisis — and it is — its origins lie on this side of the border.

The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-2022 created a brief labor shortage, which became a pretext for putting kids back to work (even if the return of child labor actually predated the disease). Consider such child workers in the twenty-first century as a distinct sign of social pathology. The United States may still bully parts of the world, while endlessly showing off its military might. At home, however, it is sick.

This column is distributed by TomDispatch.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Steve Fraser.

Noam Chomsky Interviewed by Sputnik 

May 31, 2023. Sputnik. 

Europe will experience a likely decline and deindustrialization if it chooses to stay within the system dominated by the United States, renowned US academic and philosopher Noam Chomsky told Sputnik.

“Europe has a major decision to make: Will it stay within the US-dominated system, facing likely decline and even, some predict, deindustrialization?” Chomsky said. “Or will it accommodate in some fashion to its natural economic partner to the East, rich in mineral resources that Europe needs and a gateway to the lucrative China market?”

Chomsky noted that these questions have arisen in one form or another since World War II.

When asked whether he thinks we are on the threshold of a new world order and if the Ukrainian conflict can be a catalyst for major changes, Chomsky said: “There is much controversy about the shape of the emerging world system.”

Chomsky explained the basic alternatives are a multipolar United Nations-based system or a unipolar “rules-based” system, where the United States sets the rules and as the record reveals, disregards them when it chooses to.

“There are many uncertainties as to how these tensions will be resolved,” he said.

Earlier in May, US investor Jim Rogers told Sputnik that political unions like the European Union have never survived in history and this bloc is already experiencing problems.

The renowned US academic and philosopher further told Sputnik that he is hopeful Europe will be inclined toward the vision of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ‘From Lisbon to Vladivostok’ before it gets worse.

“I also think there is considerable merit in Gorbachev’s proposal for a ‘common European home’ from Lisbon to Vladivostok with no military alliances and common efforts to move toward a social democratic future,” Chomsky said.

The United States chose to pursue the Atlanticist option, based on NATO, which has recently been expanded to the Indo-Pacific region in a Washington-led effort to enlist Europe in its confrontation with China, Chomsky said.

None of the actions taken by the successors of former US President George H.W. Bush in violation of the agreements between him and then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on NATO should have taken place, Chomsky said.

Chomsky noted that Bush and Gorbachev agreed that Germany should be unified and join NATO, but the military alliance should not extend “one inch to the East” of Germany.

However, Chomsky said Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, violated the agreement, overriding the strong objections of high-level US diplomats and a wide range of political analysts, who warned that actions to expand NATO were reckless and provocative.

“His successors went further, also abrogating major arms control agreements that had significantly reduced the threat of war. None of these actions should have taken place, in my opinion,” Chomsky said.

This content originally appeared on chomsky.info: The Noam Chomsky Website and was authored by anthony.

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

It is unclear why 100-year-old Henry Kissinger has been elevated by Western intelligentsia to serve the role of the visionary in how the West should behave in response to the Russia-Ukraine war.

But does the centenarian politician have the answers?

Every major global conflict that involved the US and its NATO allies in the past had its own state-sanctioned intellectuals. These are the people who usually explain, justify and promote the West’s position to their own countrymen first, then internationally.

They are not ‘intellectuals’ in the strict definition of the term, as they rarely use critical thinking to reach conclusions that may or may not be consistent with the official position or interests of Western governments. Instead, they advocate and champion stances that are dominant within the various strands of power.

Quite often, these intellectuals have the privilege of time. In the case of Iraq, for example, neoconservative intellectuals, the likes of Bernard Lewis, worked tirelessly to promote war, which ended in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Though the neocons continued to strongly support greater involvement in Iraq and the Middle East through military surges and the like, they were eventually – though not permanently – sidelined by a different group of intellectuals, who supported a stronger American military presence in the Asia-pacific region.

The West also had its own intellectuals who dominated news headlines during the so-called ‘Arab Spring.’ The likes of French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy played a disruptive role in Libya and labored to shape political outcomes in the whole Middle East, posing as a dissident intellectual and a great advocate of human rights and democracy.

From Lewis, to Levy, to others, the powerful Western intellectual practiced more than mere intellectualism. They have traditionally served a fundamental role in politics without being politicians per se, elected or otherwise.

Kissinger, however, is an interesting and a somewhat different phenomenon.

He is the quintessential US-western politician, who defined a whole era of realpolitik. Such notions as human rights, democracy and other moral considerations were rarely factors in his hawkish approach to politics throughout his stints as a Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and other official or non-official political roles.

For Kissinger, what ultimately matters is Western hegemony, particularly the sustaining of the current power paradigm of Western global dominance at any cost.

Thus, Kissinger’s intellect is the outcome of real-life experiences related to his long expertise in US diplomacy, the Cold War and other conflicts involving mainly the US, Russia, China, the Middle East and a host of NATO members.

Another difference between Kissinger and other state-sponsored intellectuals is that the man’s wisdom is now being sought regarding an event that has not, per the West’s own claims, been instigated by US-NATO actions. Indeed, many Western countries believe that they are in a state of self-defense.

Usually, this is not the case. Western foreign policy intellectuals typically shape policies in advance, promote and justify them while these policies are being carried out.

In the case of Kissinger, Western intelligentsia sought his wisdom as a result of their palpable desperation, reflecting their own failure to read and respond to events in Ukraine, in a unified and strategic manner.

It is as if Henry Kissinger is a 100-year oracle, whose prophecy can save the West from the supposed invasion of the hordes coming from the East. This claim is substantiated by the infamous statement made by the EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell, when he said that “Europe is a garden … (but) most of the rest of the world is a jungle.”

The problem, however, is that the oracle does not seem to make up its mind regarding the proper course of action.

In a recent interview with the Economist, Kissinger sharply contradicted earlier comments he made last September at a forum organized by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Back then, Kissinger stated that the “expansion of NATO beyond its present context seemed to me an unwise measure.”

Relative to Kissinger’s legacy, that position seemed sensible enough as a starting point for future dialogue. The response to Kissinger’s comment from Western analysts and ideologues, however, forced him to alter his position.

In an article in The Spectator in December, Kissinger articulated his own peace plan, one that ensures the “freedom of Ukraine” within a new “international structure”, one that would allow Russia to “find a place in such an order.”

As for Ukraine and NATO, Kissinger proposed that some kind of a “peace process should link Ukraine to NATO, however expressed.”

That too was rejected, and loudly so, by many.

Almost a year after the start of the war, Kissinger shifted further away from his original position, by declaring that Ukrainian membership in NATO was the “appropriate outcome” of the war.

And, finally, in his long interview with the Economist, Kissinger linked Ukraine’s membership in NATO to the very “safety of Europe”.

It would be convenient to claim that the apparent inconsistencies in Kissinger’s position were necessitated by new events on the ground. But little has changed on the ground since Kissinger made his first statement. And the possibility of a global, even nuclear war, remains a real one.

The problem, of course, is not Kissinger himself. The crisis is twofold: The West is unwilling to accept that war, for once, will not solve its problems; but it also has no alternative to ending conflict, except through the triggering of yet more conflicts.

This time around, Kissinger does not have the answer.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

It is unclear why 100-year-old Henry Kissinger has been elevated by Western intelligentsia to serve the role of the visionary in how the West should behave in response to the Russia-Ukraine war.

But does the centenarian politician have the answers?

Every major global conflict that involved the US and its NATO allies in the past had its own state-sanctioned intellectuals. These are the people who usually explain, justify and promote the West’s position to their own countrymen first, then internationally.

They are not ‘intellectuals’ in the strict definition of the term, as they rarely use critical thinking to reach conclusions that may or may not be consistent with the official position or interests of Western governments. Instead, they advocate and champion stances that are dominant within the various strands of power.

Quite often, these intellectuals have the privilege of time. In the case of Iraq, for example, neoconservative intellectuals, the likes of Bernard Lewis, worked tirelessly to promote war, which ended in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Though the neocons continued to strongly support greater involvement in Iraq and the Middle East through military surges and the like, they were eventually – though not permanently – sidelined by a different group of intellectuals, who supported a stronger American military presence in the Asia-pacific region.

The West also had its own intellectuals who dominated news headlines during the so-called ‘Arab Spring.’ The likes of French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy played a disruptive role in Libya and labored to shape political outcomes in the whole Middle East, posing as a dissident intellectual and a great advocate of human rights and democracy.

From Lewis, to Levy, to others, the powerful Western intellectual practiced more than mere intellectualism. They have traditionally served a fundamental role in politics without being politicians per se, elected or otherwise.

Kissinger, however, is an interesting and a somewhat different phenomenon.

He is the quintessential US-western politician, who defined a whole era of realpolitik. Such notions as human rights, democracy and other moral considerations were rarely factors in his hawkish approach to politics throughout his stints as a Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and other official or non-official political roles.

For Kissinger, what ultimately matters is Western hegemony, particularly the sustaining of the current power paradigm of Western global dominance at any cost.

Thus, Kissinger’s intellect is the outcome of real-life experiences related to his long expertise in US diplomacy, the Cold War and other conflicts involving mainly the US, Russia, China, the Middle East and a host of NATO members.

Another difference between Kissinger and other state-sponsored intellectuals is that the man’s wisdom is now being sought regarding an event that has not, per the West’s own claims, been instigated by US-NATO actions. Indeed, many Western countries believe that they are in a state of self-defense.

Usually, this is not the case. Western foreign policy intellectuals typically shape policies in advance, promote and justify them while these policies are being carried out.

In the case of Kissinger, Western intelligentsia sought his wisdom as a result of their palpable desperation, reflecting their own failure to read and respond to events in Ukraine, in a unified and strategic manner.

It is as if Henry Kissinger is a 100-year oracle, whose prophecy can save the West from the supposed invasion of the hordes coming from the East. This claim is substantiated by the infamous statement made by the EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell, when he said that “Europe is a garden … (but) most of the rest of the world is a jungle.”

The problem, however, is that the oracle does not seem to make up its mind regarding the proper course of action.

In a recent interview with the Economist, Kissinger sharply contradicted earlier comments he made last September at a forum organized by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Back then, Kissinger stated that the “expansion of NATO beyond its present context seemed to me an unwise measure.”

Relative to Kissinger’s legacy, that position seemed sensible enough as a starting point for future dialogue. The response to Kissinger’s comment from Western analysts and ideologues, however, forced him to alter his position.

In an article in The Spectator in December, Kissinger articulated his own peace plan, one that ensures the “freedom of Ukraine” within a new “international structure”, one that would allow Russia to “find a place in such an order.”

As for Ukraine and NATO, Kissinger proposed that some kind of a “peace process should link Ukraine to NATO, however expressed.”

That too was rejected, and loudly so, by many.

Almost a year after the start of the war, Kissinger shifted further away from his original position, by declaring that Ukrainian membership in NATO was the “appropriate outcome” of the war.

And, finally, in his long interview with the Economist, Kissinger linked Ukraine’s membership in NATO to the very “safety of Europe”.

It would be convenient to claim that the apparent inconsistencies in Kissinger’s position were necessitated by new events on the ground. But little has changed on the ground since Kissinger made his first statement. And the possibility of a global, even nuclear war, remains a real one.

The problem, of course, is not Kissinger himself. The crisis is twofold: The West is unwilling to accept that war, for once, will not solve its problems; but it also has no alternative to ending conflict, except through the triggering of yet more conflicts.

This time around, Kissinger does not have the answer.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021 almost 60 percent of girls encountered depressive sadness, and one-third seriously considered attempting suicide.

Child labor — and particularly labor in dangerous conditions — is rising rapidly among immigrant children.

Child poverty, which had declined as a result of spending programs during the Covid crisis, is again increasing, in the richest nation on earth.

Sometimes we are so concentrated on specific large issues — Ukraine, global warming, racism — that we ignore the largest dimension of what is happening around us: What is happening to our children, who are the nation's future.

The United States of America is in a state of perilous decline. Our young people can no longer cope adequately with the lives they must live; they are increasingly ignored by our laws and corporations; more and more, they seem unworthy of our collective spending.

When large-scale phenomena, indicators of the health of a society, point toward a difficult future, people should pay attention. But we do not.

There has been substantial commentary on why the young are so depressed and hopeless. There are good reasons to believe that contemporary forces have propelled this rising incidence of depression and suicidal thinking: the rise in social media (and its capacity of bullying), the huge and seemingly uncontrollable forces shaping our society and planet (global warming, racism, sexism), the lack of social cohesion (the decreasing importance of schools-as-communities, the erosion of cultural mores about marriage and sexuality), the decline of community values in a time of concern about individual freedoms.

But lost in these discussions of causality is the simple fact of greed. "If it makes money, it is good." Superficial economic values — individual wealth — have subsumed all other values, be they the good of the community, long-term economic growth, or even long-held ethical concerns like honesty, justice, compassion, and generosity. Greed dominates every consideration. The driving force is always whether a policy will make money for someone.

Superficial economic values — individual wealth — have subsumed all other values, be they the good of the community, long-term economic growth, or even long-held ethical concerns like honesty, justice, compassion, and generosity.

And meanwhile, we drift from strength to weakness, from building a future to undermining it.

It is simple and yet difficult to figure out how to respond to the crisis of an America in decline. Simple, in that making decisions that take "health" rather than individual gain into account is, in fact, simple. Difficult, in that we all disagree about how to go about making such decisions.

Should we pass legislation to require that Facebook and TikTok and Twitter do not allow harassment, bullying, and sexism? Should we limit gun sales and aggressively pursue those who push drugs, including pharmaceutical behemoths? Should we really, aggressively, try to prevent global warming and the proliferation of racial and sectarian hatred? Should we rethink schools, and how they work and what values they inculcate in their students?

There is much to prevent us from moving forward. The anti-vax campaigns, with their successes, show that all too often individual autonomy is more important than communal well-being, that the needs of the individual trump the welfare of the community. The move to limit educational initiatives against racism and sexism, now so highlighted in Florida, show that many are unwilling to limit their boundless autonomy in order to provide dignity and justice to their neighbors.

But everywhere, there is greed. "Cui bono?" Who benefits? That, not "justice for all," not "honesty and truth," not "compassion," seems to determine how our society is shaped, and for whom.

I myself am a well-educated intellectual, a former professor and former chief of staff to Sen. Bernie Sanders. And yet I have no answers, no answers. I see an America in savage decline, and have no idea of how we should go forward. Limit corporations and corporate power, yes. Control our carbon emissions, ditto. Help the young recognize and love one another: for sure.

But what we need, most desperately, is a change in values. We need a value to replace greed as our highest goal. Compassion? Justice? Love of truth? We do not know how to name it precisely, but that does not mean we cannot strive for something that can guide us, other than concerns with money.

The young know this, which is why they so frequently are depressed and even suicidal. We care about the wrong things, and there are consequences. There are consequences.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Huck Gutman.

But over the last decade, the U.S. energy sector has made a dramatic pivot away from the greenhouse gas-spewing fossil fuel. Research shows it continues to do so at an astonishing pace. Nearly half of the generating capacity seen in 2011 is expected to vanish by the end of 2026, according to a report published Monday by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a nonprofit think-tank focused on the global energy transition.  The analysis also found that coal use by U.S. electric-power producers could hit just 400 million tons this year. And roughly 40 percent of the country’s current coal-fired capacity is set to close by 2030. 

“People were not predicting it was going to happen that quickly,” Seth Feaster, the report’s author and a data analyst at the institute, told Grist. “This is a long term structural decline. This is not an economic cycle that is simply going to go away. It is a real phaseout across the industry of the use of coal.” 

The country’s current coal-fired electricity capacity is 184 gigawatts. That’s down 42 percent from the 318 gigawatts produced in 2011. As another 173 coal-fired power plants close or stop using coal in coming years, capacity is projected to hit 116 gigawatts by 2030.

Coal’s precipitous decline has resulted in large part from the natural gas boom and the rise of renewable energy. Their falling costs — owing to technological innovations and government incentives, like those in the Inflation Reduction Act — have made it cheaper to replace 99% of operating U.S. coal plants with solar and wind farms, according to a recent study from climate and energy think-tank Energy Innovation. Last year, more electricity came from renewables than from coal for the first time in U.S. history. 

“Coal is unequivocally more expensive than wind and solar resources. It’s just no longer cost competitive with renewables,” Michelle Solomon, a policy analyst at Energy Innovation, told the Guardian. 

While coal consumption has been falling for a decade and hit a low during the first months of the pandemic, some industry observers thought it would rebound when natural gas prices jumped following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That didn’t really happen, Feaster said. Although consumption saw a slight resurgence in 2021, it again fell in 2022. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects power generators to use less coal this year than in 2020. 

“What’s most surprising about this decline is how many factors — including soaring gas prices, spurts of very high power demand from heat waves, and a robust post-pandemic economic recovery — should have aligned in 2022 to provide one of the better opportunities for a coal rebound,” Feaster wrote. “Instead, it appears to have slipped away in the face of railroad-based delivery troubles; labor shortages; a resistance or inability to ramp up production; and the apparent reluctance of utilities to switch back to coal from gas.” 

Still, even as renewables usurp some of coal’s market share — which the EIA projects to drop from 20 to 17 percent this year — some analysts say the transition isn’t happening fast enough to meet the climate goals outlined in the Paris Agreement. Not only is natural gas, a fossil fuel, still the dominant source of electricity in the U.S., but globally, coal use has increased in recent years. The International Energy Agency expected it to reach an all-time high last year as countries like India and China continue to rely heavily on it.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline From peak to plummet in 15 years: Coal continues its precipitous decline on Apr 4, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Max Graham.

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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sarah Anderson.

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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Daniel Warner.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have declared a “new era” in Chinese-Russian relations after meeting in Moscow earlier this week. The two leaders reportedly discussed China’s 12-point proposal to end the war in Ukraine, with Putin stating that China’s plan could be the basis for a peace agreement. Though he has not yet met with Xi himself, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has recently also expressed a willingness to consider China’s peace plan. For more, we speak to Andrew Bacevich, co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the rise of China, as well as the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Bacevich is professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University and the author of On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century.

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

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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard Heinberg.

Note: This is from the Newport News Times Friday 1/27. I’ll leave it as a stand alone. There will be a note at the end.

My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see.

— Joseph Conrad, The Task of the Artist

I’ve been a wordsmith since my late teens: sports reporting intern in Tucson for the evening daily newspaper.

My first magazine gig was with Skin Diver magazine, and that was an interesting journey into 25 cents per word, but $50 for each photo. I was diving in Baja; I waited out a hurricane that wiped out a small village where I had spent time before and after the storm. Two shots of mountains of hammerhead jaws drying in the sun and sharks underwater; two photos of the village (before and after); shots of some of the villagers digging out; and a photo of me hanging onto a humpback whale landed me more cashola than the 1,000-word article.

I ended up in Bisbee, Tombstone, Nogales, Cochise’s Stronghold and all along the U.S.-Mexico border (La Frontera) as a reporter filing stories on all manner of cool, odd, and sometimes boring stories around planning and zoning, city council and school board meetings.

Words, accuracy, research and inventiveness were everything to me, even before the newspaper gigs in Southern Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and elsewhere. The Daily Wildcat was my home at the University of Arizona. Words and deploying more than just an inverted news triangle were powerful, and accuracy was a must since everyone on and off campus was reading my work.

I took this gig seriously enough to end up at the University of Texas teaching college composition while finishing a master’s degree. My entire career around words has been anchored to the power of the word to not only transform a community, but oneself.

This isn’t an arcane belief. To be, say a marine biology student (I was one of those), doing some deep reef work AND then writing a report on the findings, but also on the reason for the experiment in the first place, that is the power of the word. We had to write about the cultural history, too — the people and the sea.

Literacy is somewhat new in the USA, that is, reading and writing. Unfortunately, functional illiteracy is high. I ended up teaching U.S. military members at Fort Bliss a week-long writing class with the goal of getting some of the less literate students to at least a seventh grade reading level.

Nationwide, on average, 79 percent of U.S. adults were literate in 2022. Conversely, 21 percent of adults in the U.S. are illiterate. However, more telling, 54 percent of adults have literacy below sixth grade level. Worse still is that up to 80 percent of Americans in all demographic categories can’t follow eighth grade instructions on correctly installing a child car seat.

As a college instructor, I taught Jonathan Kozol’s work, including his book, Illiterate America. One of the passages is telling about the foundation of America: “One hundred years before the present government existed, a powerful leader, Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, stated his views in clear, unflinching terms: ‘I thank God,’ he said, that ‘there are no free schools nor printing [in this land]. For learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing hath divulged them … God save us from both!’”

After decades teaching/mentoring students in the art of writing — composition, business writing, technical writing, fiction, poetry, news writing — I have arrived at a new baseline of absurdity and danger:

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a program that generates sophisticated text in response to any prompt a person can imagine. This artificial intelligent application signals the end of writing assignments altogether.

Again, writing is a way of gauging skills and understanding the fine art of whichever field one may end up in. If a student or specialist can explain the process of ocean acidification for both post-doctoral students and laypersons, then the author is ahead of the game. Literacy is key for cultures to both thrive and move ahead.

A deeply researched book on China, say Jeff J. Brown’s 44 Days Backpacking in China: The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass (2013), is worth more than 44 days of watching mainstream news reporting on China.

Additionally, some of the best writing comes from scientists like Peter Ward, Under a Green Sky, or a seasoned journalist like Elizabeth Kolbert, who wrote The Sixth Extinction.

There is this belief in elite circles humanity in the future will be split into two major camps — those with power, money and connections, and then the rest of us, who will be dubbed as useless workers-eaters-humans. Yuval Noah Harari believes AI and robotics will render workers in the main unnecessary, useless. This is the philosophy of the World Economic Forum, Aspen Institute and others throughout industry and government.

We are now reading machine-generated (AI) “news” stories. We are in a great reset where data of every sort is collected and then sold to the digital gods who feed that information into computers to learn what it is to be, think, dream, hope, do as humans. And how to write!

We can feed ChatGPT software a writing prompt close to my heart — What does Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” mean to a young person in the 21st century? The program will produce a competent essay, even replicating the student’s level of articulation.

This is Cliff Notes and plagiarism on steroids. It is a slippery slope, one of a thousand deaths by ten million digital cuts. Nothing good comes from this smoke and mirrors and scamming technology. Having every nanosecond of our lives monitored, every survey we answer and bit of data we send out captured by big business will move us closer to that critical point of big brother everywhere pulling us farther away from what it is to be a thinker, doer, debater, creator and writer.

First Note: The Medford Mail Tribune has closed its door after 113 years in business. I will be writing about the death of newspapers and concomitant death of critical thinking/debate in America in another column.

Second Note: I did not know this piece was running today, “The Power of the Written Word.” I am not in the newsroom, as I am just the guy who pens these longish (for a small newspaper) columns discussing the issues of the day and the things on my mind. Again, I have many hats as a writer, and much on DV that is original to DV is all rant, polemics, humor, and flipping the scripts (more on that in another piece).

But the front page news for this rag is terrible:

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

The global capitalist economy is at an historical juncture.  The global economic restructuring that began roughly four decades ago—often associated with the term Neoliberalism—has run its course. Three crises in succession in roughly the past decade has disrupted it to its core: the Great Recession and financial crash, the Covid Crisis, and the NATO-Russian war in Ukraine and its associated global sanctions and emerging bifurcation of the global capitalist economy.

Originating in the American-Anglo economies in the late 1970s—thereafter spreading to a lesser degree to other advanced capitalist economies—the Neoliberal restructuring of the capitalist economy began in the late 1970s/early 1980s, occurring as a response to the prior global economic crisis of the 1970s. Neoliberal restructuring sought, and largely succeeded, in reordering inter-class economic relations domestically between capital and labor within the advanced capitalist economies—the US and UK in particular—as well as intra-class between capitalist classes globally.  The Neoliberal economic restructuring thereby re-established the dominance of US Capital over Labor and popular movements at home, while restoring firmly the hegemony of US Capital over its capitalist competitors abroad.

These relative shifts in inter- and intra-class relations expanded and deepened over the next three decades from roughly 1980 to 2007-08, largely to the benefit of US capitalists. Neoliberal restructuring is thus best understood as a class-based consequence of the US Imperial project—and not as a form of ‘globalization’—the latter a term which obfuscates the essential class-based imperialist nature of the Neoliberal regime with its unique historical mix of fiscal, monetary, industrial, and external (trade/currency) policies.

During its expansion phase from roughly 1980 to 2008, however, contradictions associated with Neoliberalism’s specific policy mix and class relations also deepened.  Those contradictions intensified after 2000, thereafter visibly erupting in the global financial and economic crisis (aka Great Recession) in 2008-10 in the US, in 2008-15 in Europe and Japan, and in other near-advanced capitalist economies at different times between 2008-15.

The decade 2010-2019 that followed the Great Recession and financial crash was characterized by chronic slow rates of real growth compared to the prior decades; growing debt levels (sovereign, corporate & household) and debt-servicing problems; a widening shift toward financial asset investment relative to real asset investment; global trade wars and inter-capitalist competition; growing  income and wealth inequality between classes; intensifying exploitation of working classes and weakening of working class unions and parties; and a decline in the efficiency and effectiveness of traditional monetary, fiscal, and other economic policy ‘tools’ in stabilizing and growing the economy.

The weak and uneven global recovery of 2010-19 subsequently hit another, second wall with global Covid health crisis and deep recession of 2020-21. Neoliberalism became further unstable and its  contradictions—rooted in the trends above—intensified further. A third shock to the global capitalist economy quickly followed the Covid crash. Just as a recovery of the global economy tentatively began in mid-2021, the Ukraine war and US/G7 economic sanctions on Russia and its economic partners erupted in 2022 further destabilizing global supply chains, goods trade and money capital flows.

The global capitalist economy has yet to realize the full consequences of its triple crisis of its past long decade—i.e. the slow partial economic recovery post-2010, the immediately subsequent Covid economic crash of 2020-21overlaid on that weak recovery of 2010-19, followed by the third shock to global capitalist trade and financial relations that occurred in 2022 in the form of war and sanctions which continue.

Some Key Longer Term Economic Trends

To place in context the current juncture of the global capitalist economy, it is necessary to understand some of the more important Capitalist trends and conditions of the past four decades. These eight trends include:

+ Global capitalism never fully recovered from the Great Recession that erupted in 2008. In the advanced capitalist economies in particular real annual GDP growth was roughly half the average growth of the preceding quarter century, 1982-2007. Growth post-2008 was characterized by repeated short, shallow recessions followed by weak, partial economic recoveries.

+ The decade 2010-19 was quickly followed by the deeper Covid precipitated global economic shutdowns—occurring from March 2020 to April 2022 in the G7 economies and until December 2022 in China. The Covid economic crisis in turn resulted in major structural changes in product and labor markets globally, further restraining long term economic recovery while simultaneously generating inflationary pressures not seen since the final stage of the crisis of the 1970s.

+ During the post-2008-10 period and the Covid crisis overlay, it has become increasingly evident that Capitalism’s traditional economic tools (fiscal, monetary and trade/currency exchange rate policies) for stabilizing business cycles and ensuring financial stability have become progressively less efficient in achieving their official targets. Inefficiency in this regard refers to the condition that it takes a greater amount of fiscal-monetary stimulus to generate a smaller positive response in economic growth over time; and, conversely, a greater amount of fiscal-monetary contraction is required to generate slower rate of inflation. In short, the Covid crisis and recession of 2020-21 further exacerbated the growing inefficiency of fiscal-monetary policy responses.  So too has the subsequent shock of war and sanctions that commenced in 2022 and the apparent objective of US/G7 to bifurcate the global economy goods and money flows.

+ Capitalism has become increasingly financialized during the Neoliberal era (1979-2022), shifting in relative terms toward financial asset investing—i.e. creating money capital profits—at the expense of real asset investing that creates goods & services that produces jobs, real income, and profits from non-financial activity. The financialization of global capital has spawned an accelerating array of new forms of financial instruments, new financial institutions to buy and sell those instruments, and a new economically and politically powerful global finance capital elite as the agents behind it. Financialization results in the crowding out real investment in goods and services by diverting money capital to financial asset markets (stocks, bonds, forex, derivatives, etc.).

+ Technological change is becoming the pre-eminent ‘Force of Production’ in late 20^th century-early 21^st century capitalism. It has enabled the global financialization, launched new product lines, begun replacing fiat money with digital, and has radically changed economic relations at work to the detriment of working classes by enabling widespread precarious employment, gig work and, most recently, what will be the displacement of tens of millions more workers who have been engaged in simple decision making occupations. Software machines capable of self-maintenance, self- educating, communicating in natural language, and reproducing themselves will displace decision making by human labor. By 2030 no less than 30% of all occupations world wide will be negatively impacted.

+ Capitalist exploitation of the working class has been intensifying, expanding both traditional as well as new forms of labor exploitation. Traditional forms of exploitation have been intensifying. So too have forms of secondary exploitation as capitalists develop new ways to claim and take back wages previously paid. Real wages are compressed over time and the average standard of living reduced. The magnitude of the income transferred from labor to capital in the US alone is reflected in Fortune 500 corporations returning to their shareholders from 2010 through 2019 an amount of no less than $15 trillion in stock buybacks and dividend payouts.

+ The chronic slower growth trend post-2008, the bouts of financial markets instability, and the multiple recessions—moderate and deep—have weakened the hegemony of US imperialism. As more national economies seek economic independence or dare challenge that hegemony, US elites have responded increasingly aggressively and violently—engaging in domestic political destabilization of regimes, employing direct asset seizures, economic and other sanctions, and initiating wars either directly or by proxy. These responses by US imperialists are resulting in further drag on global economic growth and are destabilizing global trade and currency flows.

+ As the global capitalist system has become more unstable economically, political instability has followed in turn—both within and between capitalist nation states. Rightward shift in political parties, movements, media, and capitalist states’ governments are occurring in more countries world-wide. Democratic political relations are deteriorating. Forms of even limited capitalist democracy are increasingly less tolerated by elites and are being neutralized or removed. As the Neoliberal economic order unravels, so too do the social and political relations based upon it.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jack Rasmus.

• GDP increased 3% in 2022
• Historic population decline
• Nearly 60,000 COVID-19 related deaths in the last month
• The ‘Three Body Problem’ debuts on TV

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dongsheng News.

The post Living in a Ghost Town: the Decline of Western Liberalism appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Susan Roberts.

The working class, particularly the sector in industrial production, had significance for the left not because workers are progressive in their thinking, but because they possess the power no other social forces have: they can vanquish the rule of capital by halting production, shutting off the capitalists’ ability to generate surplus value, life blood of their system. The entire economy halts if these workers, those engaged in manufacturing (primarily factory workers), but also construction, electric power and utility workers, miners, dockworkers, truck drivers, warehouse workers – amounting to 20% of the US working class – stop working. That is why Marx, Engels and Lenin regarded the working class as the revolutionary force in this phase of human history, and the paramount task of the left is to fight to win its leadership.

In the US, the trade unions are the only mass self-defense organizations of the working class, built through painful and bloody class struggles against the bosses and their government. Gains for human rights result from struggles by the exploited and oppressed, including the organizing of unions, the fight for improved living standards, greater rights for Blacks and women, often won through strike battles that were a class vs class civil war.

The Working Class Left Wing

There has always existed a militant layer of workers who resisted, committed to destroying the main cause of their torments, the capitalist class. Most of these fearless organizers of the workers movement found their guide to action in Marxism, which clarified the proletariat’s pivotal role in transforming society.

These activists exemplified the class struggle left wing of the workers movement, where we would find what is now called “the left” 75-130 years ago, in the Industrial Workers of the World, the Socialist Party, Communist Party, and others.

Today’s left has long been separated from leading working class struggles against the bosses. While imposed on us through US government purges, the isolation continues today seemingly almost by choice.

Before, leftist leaders were working class activists: Big Bill Haywood, Gene Debs, Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons, Elizabeth Gurley Finn, William Foster, Joe Hill. They risked everything to help organize and lead workers battles, including the Colorado, Lawrence and Paterson strikes, and the 1919 steel strike. The “Red Scare” repression of 1917-1920 and the Palmer Raids crushed the movement, with some 6,000 deported or imprisoned.

A generation later, in 1934, four strikes shook the country: longshore and maritime workers on the west coast, the textile workers in the southeast, the Toledo Auto-Lite workers, and the Minneapolis Teamsters. Those labor battles were virtual civil wars, pitting the workers against the bosses and their government, and led in part by working class left wing organizations — the Communist Party, Muste’s American Workers Party, and the Trotskyist Communist League of America. Soon came the labor struggles creating the CIO, which relied heavily on the exemplary work of Communist organizers. (Whose class character difference from much of the left today is seen in the first part of Seeing Red).

These working class leftists formed the backbone of the new stewards organizations of industrial unions, shared information and analysis across union and industry lines, and collectively pushed for broader mobilizations. All through these periods, the left meant the left wing leadership element in the working class movement.

 The Ruling Class Purges the Trade Union Left Wing

With the ending of World War II, came a massive strike wave: 3.5 million trade unionists in 1945, then 4.6 million in 1946, the most in US history. US capitalist rulers responded with a ferocious counterattack against the working class and peasant upsurge around the world and at home.

In 1947 the US government imposed the Taft-Hartley Act, preventing solidarity strikes or secondary boycotts (crucial in forging the unions), denied federal employees the right to strike, and outlawed Communists and their defenders from the labor unions. The trade unions as a whole did not challenge this witch hunt.

Then in 1949, shortly after the people’s victory in China, the CIO leadership launched its own purge of the working class left wing, expelling eleven unions, including its third largest, the United Electrical Workers, totaling one million members. This soon brought a halt to the growth of the CIO and the labor movement. The trade unions, by condoning and participating in this purge, were making themselves irrelevant as the force to remake society.

What is called the McCarthyite Red Scare went far beyond targeting Communists. The Chamber of Commerce “said that the real danger came from non-Communists, ‘those who engage in pro-Communist activities’ such as fighting for higher wages, housing, or the repeal of the thought-control Smith Act” (Labor’s Untold Story, p. 349fn). All those who struggled for social and economic justice and civil liberties could be targets.

Herman Benson, a Workers Party union activist at the time, noted “In those days [the 1930s-40s], radical intellectuals and radical workers were bound in a fraternity…They shared more than common ideals; they often shared membership in the same party or group.” But because of the witch hunt, “Around 1950, intellectuals and union dissidents went rocketing off in opposite directions.” (The World of the Blue-Collar Worker, p. 221)

Not only government destruction of the trade union left wing undermined the workers struggle against capitalist assaults. Prosperity also acted as a conservatizing force. The US, the only industrialized nation not destroyed in World War II, dominated world markets, enabling the bosses to grant continual wage increases to placate the working class. The average yearly increase (now completely unheard of) was 3.4% in real wages for unionized industrial workers, combined with ever better health coverage and vacation time. The trade union movement grew increasingly bureaucratized and went into political retreat, ruled over by pro-imperialist layer. As Kim Scipes pointed out:

Labor’s foreign policy leadership is wedded to the idea of Empire: they believe that the United States should dominate the world, that unlimited financial resources should be dedicated to ensuring this, and that all other considerations are secondary or less. (p. 113) …one more “service” the AFL-CIO provides to the Empire…it undercuts opposition to the imperial project from within the United States, and especially limits the power of the most organized section of American society, organized workers…the AFL-CIO’s foreign policy program neutralizes arguably the key leadership in our society that has the ability to mobilize American workers against the imperial project. (p. 119)

The unions were blunted as fighting instruments for the 99%. Workers control over production (job conditions on the floor, control over the pace of work, control over work safety conditions) was rolled back. The needs of unorganized workers, women, Blacks, immigrants, the fight to win broad social programs such as health care for all, and opposition to US overthrow of foreign governments were neglected. The trade unions often no longer led important social and political struggles.

Popular Movements Detour Around the Tamed Trade Unions

With the left wing purged from the unions, fighters in the 1950s – 60s Black rights struggles, against the US war on Vietnam, the environmental movement, the Chicano, gay and women’s liberation struggles lost their most powerful ally and had to detour around these working class mass organizations. The trade union bureaucracy generally opposed participating in these struggles, sometimes even attacking them.

As a result, these political movements won significant concessions from the ruling class without mobilizations by organized labor. To new generations arising since the 1960s it seemed that the working class and its trade unions were not the foundation for building a left wing leadership, nor even necessary to advance social struggles. For generations of youth, including industrial workers, the trade union movement did not appear as the fundamental class enemy of the capitalist class, but as part of the Establishment.

Some politicized youth from the 60s did recognize its revolutionary power and sought jobs in industry, becoming activists in the trade union movement. However, even during the 1970s labor upsurge, Labor Notes Kim Moody points out,

there were no nationally recognized leaders or organizations that straddled the movement as a whole. Nor was there the sort of radical core of organized leftists that has provided so much of the indispensable grassroots leadership, at the shop-floor level and across the movement as a whole, as there had been in earlier labor upheavals. Socialists and other radicals played important roles in some rank-and-file organizations  [Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), Miners for Democracy (MFD), United National Caucus (UNC) in the UAW, Steelworkers Fightback] but their numbers were few, and none of their organizations were strong enough to provide anything like national leadership and direction to the movement as whole….Nor did the leading rank-and-file organizations of the era, like TDU, MFD, UNC, or Steelworkers Fightback, make serious attempts to relate to one another, let alone organize umbrella organizations that might help them to provide mutual support. (Understanding the Rank-and-File Rebellion in the Long 1970s, in Rebel Rank and File, p. 144)

No organized working class left wing coalesced, providing national grassroots leadership during the 1970s labor upsurge. Since then we refer not to the working class left wing, but to a disembodied “left,” with no substantial connection with the industrial working class.

Era of Trade Union Defeats and Concessions Began in the 1980s

Two major ruling class assaults on the workers movement put an end to the labor upsurge of the 1970s, beginning an era of significant setbacks. The UAW leadership swallowed the Carter administration’s Chrysler “bailout,” settling for a contract that broke the Big Three pattern agreement covering workers at GM, Ford and Chrysler.

Reagan’s firing of all 13,000 striking PATCO workers in 1981 followed. This evoked only a tepid response from AFL-CIO chiefs, leading to a devastating defeat for the workers movement. Soon to follow were defeats such as the Greyhound strikes, Phelps-Dodge (1983-86), Hormel and UFCW P-9 (1985), Eastern Airlines (1989), and the Bridgestone-Firestone, Caterpillar and Staley strikes (1992-95).

Kim Scipes comments:

this belief in the U.S. Empire has prevented AFL-CIO leadership from even attempting to address the worsening economic conditions and resulting social situation that has been developing in this country since the early 1970s….The only thing the AFL-CIO leadership has done in response to the worsening economic conditions is to spend millions and millions of dollars to elect Democratic politicians, especially presidents, into political office. (p. 113-114)

The working class struggle was paying a heavy price for its lack of an organized left wing leadership, in contrast to the early 1900s and the 1930s.

Yet some battles were successful, such as the UPS (1997) and Verizon strikes (2016), and A Day Without Immigrants (May 1, 2006). While the 2011 Madison, Wisconsin labor occupation of the State Capitol inspired working people around the country, it was derailed, with state public sector unionization plunging from 50% in 2011 to 22% by 2021. The 2012 Chicago teachers strike won by championing issues benefiting both its members and the communities they serve, igniting a series of teacher strikes elsewhere.

These labor battles could not have succeeded without some class struggle left wing presence pushing them forward. But the different struggles produced no way to coordinate, no recognized national leaders. There was no organized connection between this current in the labor movement and what is called the left today.

The Myth of US Deindustrialization

The capitalist effort to extract more and more surplus value from the working class has not let up since Marx’s writing of Capital. For instance, US auto companies sought to replace the lax standard of 45-52 seconds of actual work per minute in car assembly with Toyota’s model of 57 seconds of actual work per minute by extracting 5-12 more seconds of work per minute, which increased the surplus value produced per worker by $29,215 a year (Moody, US Labor in Trouble and Transition, p. 34- 35). We may overlook it, but the capitalist class has never stopped increasing the rate of exploitation of the US working class.

The inaccurate leftist view that the US empire is declining is partly based on alleged US deindustrialization. That would imply the industrial working class is losing its central revolutionary role for Marxists. Moody disputes this deindustrialization story: while manufacturing employment has decreased 40% just between 1979-2014, this has been offset by continual increases in labor productivity, a higher rate of surplus value extraction through “lean production.” The workforce in steel production did fall 65% from 1980-2017, yet work-hours to produce a ton of steel fell more, 85%. The US still produces 75% of its own steel. The overall national industrial production index grew from 52 in 1979 to 105 now, with the 2017 level being the reference point of 100. The US is actually manufacturing more than ever, even though its world share has dropped from 22% in 2004 to 16.8% in 2020.  What has declined is the number of unionized private sector workers: just under 7.0% today, down from almost 35% in 1953.

The Left Goes Off Course and Marginalizes Itself

Now, long after the left wing’s purge from the trade union movement, there has been no campaign to rebuild it. Today’s left exists in a separate domain from the industrial working class, more oriented to the university than to the shop floor, further enfeebling it. Today’s left does focus on issues such as US foreign interventions, Black, women’s, and immigrant rights — not as part of the trade union movement, but outside it, which vastly weakens these movements’ social weight. Only a very small percent of those who identify as Marxist, whether in left groupings or not, are part of the industrial working class, or even seek to be. Yet Marx explained here the working class left wing must be to inflict terminal damage to the relentless capitalist class warfare against workers at home and abroad.

Lenin said the task of the party is “to organize the class struggle of the proletariat and to lead this struggle, the ultimate aim of which is the conquest of political power by the proletariat and the organization of a socialist society.” (my emphasis; Collected Works, v. 4, p. 210-21). When leftists are not there, part of the class struggle left wing of the labor movement, they abdicate the most essential task for Marxists. Moreover, not being a trade union left wing activist disorients your worldview on what social forces today we consider can change society. We would be orienting ourselves not towards broadening the class consciousness and self-confidence of working class fighters who produce surplus value, Marx’s approach, but instead towards what he explained were less impactful sectors of the US population.

This inevitably causes leftists to sideline ourselves in leading the struggle for basic social change. No longer a working class left wing, we have become reduced to leftist groupings and circles. Lenin pointed out that left groupings – all that we have today — “they are not a party of a class, but a circle.” (CW, v. 31, p. 57), and insisted that “we are the party of the revolutionary class, and not merely a revolutionary group…” (CW, v. 31, p. 85). He adds, “our parties are still very far from being what real Communist Parties should be; they are far from being real vanguards of the genuinely revolutionary and only revolutionary class, with every single member taking part in the struggle, in the movement, in the everyday life of the masses.” (CW, v. 32, p. 522-523).

Today’s left and liberal-left intellectuals have become so disconnected from the working class movement that they no longer regard our working class as the great countervailing power to corporate America. Too many feel the working class may be the force that will overthrow capitalism and build a more just society, but not the working class we have: it is too backwards, bought-off, too white privileged. The left made their estrangement from the working class evident in their hostility to the protests of working people in Ottawa against dysfunctional covid restrictions.

Since we do not orient in practice to the industrial working class as the agent of social change, it follows we are turning elsewhere. In the last half century we found it in mass movements, in the progressive or “left of center” sector of the US population. These the Democrats also appeal to, making the Democrats seem the “lesser evil,” and leftists have reciprocated by looking for ties with seemingly progressive Democratic politicians. This “leftist” approach became pronounced as fear of Trumpism grew.

This progressive milieu is seen by much of the left as a pressure group to push Democrats “left” against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) bosses and the Republican Party. That puts the left in a position of weakness, especially as mass movements, such as Black Lives Matter, dwindle. Inexorably, the left has steadily shifted rightwards over the years.

Ruling Class Control over the Movement

While there is widespread sentiment for a party that represents the 99%, we must confront the corporate elite, their national security state and their Democratic and Republican machines having US society under lockdown. The corporate rulers do not intend to allow a working peoples party and possess many tools to prevent it.

With their Democratic and Republican party machines, they control the state apparatus of rule: the legal system, the open and covert police agencies, the military, the mass media, most of the country’s wealth, and the national security state — the actual government. They control elections through funding, deciding who gets media airtime, who gets favorable press and who smeared.

The rulers are ingenious at neutralizing movements independent of their two parties, whether the anti-Iraq war movement, the Occupy movement, the MeToo Marches, Tea Party protests, Black Lives Matter, or the Ottawa trucker protests. They can even control the left through selective repression and corporate foundation funding of a “compatible left.”

Ruling Class Police State Continuous and Unconstitutional Repression

In Democracy for the Few “The Repression of Dissident,” Parenti notes the “boundless” resources of the “law” to derail mass protest movements. Activists can be spied on, victimized by grand jury witch hunt investigations, by serious beatings and death threats, arrested on trumped up charges, faced with exorbitant bail and long jail time (Obama used against whistleblowers, Leonard Peltier), by confiscation or freezing of their funds ($64 million imposed UMWA because of a 1989 strike), by offices being raided and destroyed (Black Panthers), by government run media smear campaigns (Russiagate against Trump, or against Gary Webb), by constant police harassment (Malcolm X), by government murder (Martin Luther King), by police death squad murders (as with 34 Black Panthers), or by FBI front groups (KKK killing four anti-Klan activists in Greensboro), by bannings from internet media (many of our alternative media groups and writers today), jailed for constitutional free speech (Julian Assange, Eugene Debs), by bans from using the mails (Margaret Sanger’s Woman Rebel), denied any speaking engagements (Paul Robeson), by revoking passports (Robeson), by being banned from entering the United States (Charlie Chaplin, Arnold August), by mass deportations (IWW, Palmer Raids), death sentence frame-ups (Mumia Abu Jamal, Sacco and Vanzetti, Joe Hill, Haymarket martyrs), with blacklisting (Hollywood Ten), and jailings (Communist Party members), funding “compatible” leftists to smear you, FBI infiltration and disruption (such as Cointelpro, now under a different name), denial of ballot status (Green Party), exclusion from election campaign debates (all non-corporate candidates), drug frame-ups, by freezing of bank accounts (Ottawa protest leaders), time-consuming trials that paralyze their organizations, exhaust their funds, consume their energies, destroy their leadership (Socialist Workers Party, 1940; Communist Party 1949). Or being publicly threatened with mass execution: The Los Angeles Times wrote in September 1917, “The IWW conspire against the government of the United States and…every day commit actual treason…and ought to be shot as actual traitors to the country which has given them life and liberty.” These are but a sampling of ruling class police state methods to crush working class opposition.

Activists in movements that do threaten the status quo learn they are not free but live under a police state. Lefties know at some level that building a progressive party and a new leadership means the more effective you are, the more the above methods will be used to stop you.

Consequently, we opt for something safer and seemingly more feasible: working for any social changes that we feel are viable under the present system – or diverted into peripheral issues such as identity politics. This may be why most leftists have not committed ourselves to the working class fight for national health care or a livable minimum wage. Exercising your First Amendment rights – never actually upheld¹ – means you give up your somewhat comfortable and safe life for one of combating government operations out to destroy you. Bernie Sanders clearly recognized this, given his capitulation from his previous views calling for a new, progressive political party.

The Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns did show mass attraction for socialism. Hundreds of thousands attended his events around the country, millions were organized to vote for him. Here was a base that could help build a mass opposition party to oligarchic rule. (But he stayed loyal to the DNC, did not use his huge supporter lists to launch a new party, instead turning it over to the party bosses).

Pressing issues do exist to unite left forces and the working class in a collective fight for demands we all benefit from: the labor campaign for national health care, or for a livable minimum wage. The left today has not focused on these basic needs, yet what could more galvanize working people than gaining health care for all?

 Reconstructing a Working Class Left Wing

The trade unions have the tools to fund and build a working people’s party. In 2020, organized labor spent more than $1.8 billion to help elect candidates of the two corporate parties, besides mobilizing thousands of foot soldiers to campaign. The unions possess $29 billion in net assets. Consequently, the consciousness is there, the willingness, and the funding, where we fail is in reconstructing a working class left wing.

Our left that is declining, step-by-step surrendering to the Democratic Party, becoming “left” propagandists for their anti-Trumpism or for their regime change wars, is the left that arose disconnected from the working class. It has never been possible to build a left wing that didn’t arise directly from the battles of the working class. Building a left outside of that arena is a pointless Sisyphean task, like reforming the Democratic Party.

Kim Moody noted, “For half or three-quarters of a century, socialists have been over on one side, and unions have been on the other, and there hasn’t been much interconnection.” What we have witnessed has been a too-long detour from our home base. As long as we delay and keep our focus in other social milieus, not on the producers of surplus value, we only continue to sideline ourselves. Working people become active when no longer endurable work or life conditions propel them to act, assuming they feel meaningful change can result. A new, qualitatively different left wing from today will re-emerge, as it had previously, growing out of inevitable working class fightbacks forced upon them by the capitalist class driven to relentlessly increase their exploitation. We should be there preparing.

1. There are endless examples of how much the First Amendment has been dismantled, given it states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stansfield Smith.

Chooz nuclear power plant in France by Raimond Spekking/Wikimedia Commons.

The annual goldmine of empirical data on nuclear power that is the World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) was duly rolled out on October 5th, this year in Berlin. The 2022 edition is available for download here and is an indispensable reference source, updated each year.

While delivering an in-depth overview, as its title suggests, of the status of nuclear power worldwide, the report also provides sections focused on particular areas of the technology or on certain countries or regions of the world.

As its principal author, Mycle Schneider, pointed out during the rollout, the report’s authors are big fans of empirical data. Indeed, many of the findings in the report are taken from the nuclear industry itself. Facts and physics are pretty much immutable when it comes to nuclear power, and neither favor the industry very well.  No amount of nuclear industry aspirational rhetoric can hide the truth about a waning and outdated technology.

The over-riding finding of the 2022 edition of the report is that nuclear power’s share of global commercial gross electricity generation in 2021 dropped to below 10 percent for the first time ever, sinking to its lowest in four decades.

As in past years, if you take China out of the picture — a country with 21 new reactors under construction as of mid-2022 — the decline of nuclear power worldwide is even more dramatic.

At close to 400 pages, the WNISR is a tome, but it is packed full of essential detail on every important topic related to nuclear power and its declining place in the world. Whether you are interested in new builds or closure, decommissioning or small modular reactors, or a specific country, there is something in the report that will flesh out the details.

And this year, there is an important chapter late in the report — Nuclear Power and War— dealing with the fate of nuclear power plants caught up in the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the warfare that is exploding around them.

We have of course been talking, writing and warning about the perils of reactors in a war zone since the time a Russian invasion was first intimated late in 2021. But the WNISRhelpfully lays out all the possible causes and consequences of a nuclear disaster in Ukraine. It answers the many questions we have about the robustness, or not, of reactors, fuel pools and radioactive waste casks to withstand and survive a bombardment or even a prolonged power outage.

As former IAEA director of nuclear safety, Aybars Gurpinar, told Bloomberg when addressing the risks to reactors in Ukraine: “Even if structures are extremely well designed, you cannot expect them to withstand a military-style attack. They are not designed for this.”

The WNISR concludes, on page 259: “Nuclear power plants are immediately vulnerable in war situations. This is directly due to the constant and permanent need for cooling. Extensive failure of the necessary electrical power or destruction of the cooling systems would lead to overheating of the reactor core. It is relatively unimportant whether this damage is intentional, unintentional, or of indeterminate cause and motivation.

“On the other hand, with increasing duration, the specific stress on the personnel and poorer maintenance worsens the operating conditions which also increases the probability of triggering serious accidents.”

In addition to covering the most obviously disastrous impacts, such as loss of coolant leading to fires and meltdowns, the report also explores some of the other essentials that could be lost during war but that are less often discussed.

These include lack of access to the plant due to the destruction of roadways; absence of diesel fuel supplies for backup generators; the continued presence of a fire department with necessary equipment and access; the availability of a skilled operating personnel and the consequences of staff working under duress or takeover; and the necessity of continued maintenance, repairs and inspections.

These add to the already long list of technical things that could go wrong at a reactor under war conditions. This makes it particularly important to focus on the prevention of such a disaster, rather than speculating about who is at fault.

Speculation is not to be found in the WNISR. Accordingly, the authors chose to point out in conclusion that the reports coming in about who is firing on what and why are not necessarily reliable. All they, and we, can assess, is what the damage might be and what the consequences of that damage could lead to.

“In a war situation, it is particularly difficult to verify whether certain reports cover indisputable facts, are exaggerated, or false,” the WNISR authors write. “The warring parties, as well as organizations and individuals interacting with them, have an interest in a representation that is not necessarily objective.”

Wars will happen and the fog of war will mask and confuse what is actually going on. But the one abiding problem is the nuclear power plants being there in the first place. And that’s the one thing we do have the power to change.

This first appeared on Beyond Nuclear.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Linda Pentz Gunter.

Years of grinding austerity, underinvestment in public services, frozen wages and staggering levels of incompetence have culminated in the unmitigated mess we see before us: A country in terminal decline, poverty growing, inequality entrenched, and  to cap it all The Wicked Witch of the raving Right, Liz Truss, has now been elected leader of the Conservatives, and, as they are in office, the new Prime Minister. A totally undemocratic electoral process, but hey, ‘that’s the way it’s always been’.

She was voted in, in a country of around 69 million people, by 81,326 (57.4% of the total gaggle) Conservative members. A tiny group, overwhelmingly old, posh, white, male, anti-Europe, anti-immigrant, anti-environment – pro-fossil fuels, backward-looking nationalists. A crazy bunch operating within  a dysfunctional system that, like much of the UK parliamentary structure and the primordial electoral model, desperately needs reforming.

The revolting campaign rhetoric spouted by Truss, was we hoped, just that, ranting rhetoric aimed solely at the conservative golf club nobs. Alas, in her first pronouncements as PM, surrounded by baying Tory sycophants, it was clear that Truss lives not in the real world at all, but in a crumbling castle for one, built on a foundation of Neo-Liberal doctrine, situated further to the right than any UK Prime-Minister in recent years.

Despite decades of disappointment, whenever a new PM/government takes office, naivety gives rise to a prickle of optimism: surely now things will improve, surely social justice will be prioritized, peace and environmental action imperatives. Well, PM Truss swiftly crushed any such childish hopes with her first speech in parliament and her wooden responses during Prime Minister’s Questions. Arrogance masquerading as certainty imbued every cruel statement of policy intent, and, as opposition parties shook their heads in disbelief, people around the country, millions of whom are struggling to pay rising energy bills and increased food prices, were again crushed.

Truss, her cabinet, and thanks to a purge of moderate voices undertaken by Boris Johnson to quieten dissent, most, if not all of the parliamentary party, is now firmly wedded to an extreme version of Neo-Liberalism and the failed doctrine of Trickle Down economics. After forty years of most boats being sunk by the rising tide, the Ideology of Injustice has been shown to deepen inequality, intensify poverty and further concentrate wealth in the pockets of The Already Wealthy.

In addition to economic plans designed to benefit corporations and, by her own admission, intensify inequality (‘I’m not interested in re-distribution’ she told the BBC), she plans to increase military spending, allow global energy companies to restart gas extraction in the North Sea, end the moratorium on fracking and abolish green levies, which are used to fund energy efficiency and renewable electricity. She despises labor rights and the Trades Union movement, peaceful public protest and immigrants, all of which she is threatening to criminalize or clutter with so much bureaucracy as to make such human rights unenforceable.

Her policies, dogmatism and the doctrine that underpin them are, in many ways, terrifying. And with the  suspension of parliament and consequently, any form of scrutiny, resulting from the death of The Queen, there is a danger, or for her, an opportunity, that she attempts to introduce legislation under cover of national mourning. If Truss and her gang get their way, the limited form of democracy that exists in the UK will become a distant memory, rather as ethics and honesty in public office, compassion and honoring international commitments have in recent years.

Rising misery

The list of national crises that the Truss government inherits, most if not all of which she had a grubby hand in causing, is long, and growing. As is public anger. It is a list resulting from ideological obsession, gross incompetence and absenteeism.

The National Health Service (NHS) is in crisis – years  of underfunding, lack of training and Brexit, which saw thousands of NHS workers from Europe leave the UK, have led to around 135,000 vacancies, including 40,000 nurses and over 8,000 doctors in England alone. The service has the longest waiting lists for routine treatments on record; if you dial 999 for an ambulance, it could be hours, or in extreme cases, days before it arrives. Social care is dysfunctional; there is a housing crisis, property prices are sky high, rents are unaffordable, tenancies offer no security, homelessness is increasing – according to Government figures, “between January to March 2022, 74,230 households were assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness,”up 5.4% in the same period in 2021, a further 38,000 were regarded as at “risk of homelessness”.

Inflation is at 10.1% and rising, recession predicted, poverty booming. Thousands of people/families (many of whom are in full-time employment) rely on food banks for basic supplies – over two million people visited a food bank last year, and this doesn’t include independent providers – local charities, churches etc. Ten years ago food banks barely existed in the UK, now there are estimated to be 2,572, and constitute a growth area.

The privatization of utility companies including water in 1989 under Thatcher, has led to energy and water companies making huge profits for shareholders (£72bn in dividends), but neglecting consumers and failing to invest. Since water was privatized no new reservoirs have been commissioned (in 33 years), and, The Guardian reports,“2.4bn liters [of water] a day on current estimates have been allowed to leak away.” Airports including Heathrow, have had to limit the number of flights due to lack of staff; the airport authorities and airlines use the ‘It’s not us, it’s Covid’ excuse, so loved by companies and government agencies who laid off too many employees during the pandemic and either haven’t re-hired enough, or employees refused to return unless wages and conditions improved.

The judiciary is in crisis, as is the prison system and the police, particularly in London; childcare and nursery education is shambolic, unaffordable for most, hard to find, limited places, particularly for those on average incomes; again due in part to lack of properly trained staff. It is, it seems, an endless list, shameful and intensely depressing, There may, however, be a glimmer of light within the storm; a positive effect of this cacophony of chaos is a growing movement of resistance to economic injustice, and Trades Union industrial action.

Enough is Enough

Wages for most people in the UK have been effectively frozen for years; and now, with rising inflation income is reducing in value, economic hardship intensifying, fury rising. Unions, which have been greatly weakened in the last thirty years through restrictive legislation, have rediscovered their courage and purpose, and in response to members’ demands have organised strikes in a number of areas. Most notably, railway and Transport for London workers have withdrawn their labor on a number of occasions in disputes over pay and conditions; refuse workers in Scotland have been on strike over pay; postal workers have also been striking; junior barristers are on indefinite strike over pay; workers at the UK’s largest container port, Felixstowe, recently withdrew their labour for eight days in another dispute about pay. Nurses and doctors working in the NHS are threatening industrial action, as are teachers.

The leader of the RMT union, Mick Lynch, who has emerged as a leading voice for the people, has suggested that, “unions are on the brink of calling for ‘synchronized’ strikes over widespread anger at how much soaring inflation is outpacing wages.” If such a positive step were taken, it would be a powerful act of resistance against  years of exploitation and injustice, and may further empower working people, who for years have been silenced.

In parallel with the workers revolt is a social movement of defiance. Initially triggered by high energy bills, rising costs and low wages, the scope of disquiet is expanding to include outrage at huge profits for energy companies and other corporations, increasing payments to shareholders whilst the majority struggle to feed themselves and their families; i.e., it’s about social injustice, exploitation and greed. Two movements of resistance and change have emerged from the widespread disquiet – ‘Don’t Pay’, which aims to empower people to not pay increased energy bills, and ‘Enough is Enough’, which is a broader social movement founded by union leaders and MPs.

The appearance of these groups is deeply encouraging and could prove to be a pivotal moment. Many people, the majority perhaps, are worn down, ashamed of where the country finds itself, and have had enough. Enough of being ignored and manipulated; of being told to ‘tighten their belts’ and ‘carry on’, whilst corporations, public/private companies including energy firms, pay out huge dividends and government ministers, spineless, unprincipled puppets, who live in the silk-lined pockets of big business, including most notably the media barons, lie and lie and lie again.

In the face of increasing levels of social injustice, government duplicity and economic hardship, eventually the people must unite and revolt. If, after the endless pantomime of the Queen’s funeral, people do come together, refuse to pay rising energy costs; refuse to work, refuse to be exploited and marginalized; refuse to stand by while the natural world is vandalised; if the unions do take coordinated action, and many of us would support such a progressive act, there is a chance, slim, but real, that years of frustration and anger, can be turned into empowerment and hope.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Graham Peebles.

The post UK: Fragmentation and Decline Under Conservative Rule appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Graham Peebles.

In what experts said is an indictment of the U.S. healthcare system and persistent economic and racial inequality, federal health researchers on Wednesday released data showing the U.S. saw the largest decline in life expectancy in nearly a century during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic, with Americans now expected to live nearly three fewer years than they were in 2019.

"Has our failure to provide universal healthcare access contributed to many unnecessary deaths? Yes... Is it finally time to build an effective public health system? Yes."

While life expectancy changes have historically been measured in months instead of years, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported that average life expectancy fell to 76.4 in 2021, dropping a whole year from 2020. That decline comes after life expectancy fell from nearly 79 to 77.4 between 2019 and 2020.

The pandemic drove half of the statistical decline, said the NCHS, but an increase in mortality also grew in cases of unintentional injuries—particularly drug overdoses—by nearly 16%, heart disease by more than 4%, chronic liver disease by 3%, and suicide by more than 2%.

"There is no doubt Covid was a contributor to the increase in mortality during the last couple of years, but it didn't start these problems—it made everything that much worse," Dr. Stephen Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the New York Times.

Chronic inequality helped drive an especially sharp decline in life expectancy among Indigenous people. Since the pandemic began, the average life expectancy of Native Americans and Alaska Natives has plummeted by more than six and a half years, dropping to age 65. Life expectancy for all Americans was 65 years nearly 80 years ago.

Indigenous people have the highest rate of diabetes among any racial or ethnic group in the U.S., and are more likely to live in multigenerational households—both risk factors for severe Covid-19 infections.

The two-year decline in life expectancy in Indigenous communities was so severe, Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the NCHS, had researchers "re-run the numbers to make sure."

"It's a ridiculous decline," Anderson told Stat News. "When I saw a 6.6 year decline over two years, my jaw dropped."

Among both Black and white Americans, average life expectancy is now the lowest it's been since 1995.

Researchers noted that while life expectancy fell in other wealthy nations in the first year of the pandemic, several countries in the Global North have begun to recover from the decline.

Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, suggested the continued drop in life expectancy in the U.S.—despite the wide availability of Covid-19 vaccines—was tied to rampant misinformation about vaccination, the refusal of policymakers to abandon the profit-driven healthcare system and replace it with universal care, and other failures to protect public health.

"Did the politicized rejection of reasonable public health measures put many people in harm's way? Yes," said Sharfstein. "Has our failure to provide universal healthcare access contributed to many unnecessary deaths? Yes... Is it finally time to build an effective public health system? Yes."

Woolf pointed to what public health experts call "the U.S. health disadvantage," with Americans relying on a healthcare system driven by profit motives instead of public health, widespread access to guns, high levels of pollution, and economic inequality as risk factors contributing to the drop in life expectancy and overall poor health outcomes compared to other high-income countries.

"The U.S. is clearly an outlier," Woolf told the Times regarding the country's pandemic response and its falling average life expectancy.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News &amp; Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Crystal Conant was camped for the night on a bluff overlooking the upper Columbia River in northeast Washington, beading necklaces by the glow of a lantern.

The next morning, hundreds would gather at Kettle Falls for the annual salmon ceremony, held since time immemorial to celebrate the year’s first fish returning from the ocean. Conant and fellow organizers needed necklaces for everyone who would come. Honoring the gift of salmon, she said, requires giving gifts in turn.

Behind them, friends and family had formed a drum circle inside the wooden husk of an old Catholic mission. Back when the salmon were still running up Kettle Falls, the sound of dozens of drum circles would have thundered across the plateau.

But there is only one circle now. And there are no salmon.

The fish cannot get past two federal dams, masses of concrete each hundreds of feet tall. The construction of those dams, which began more than 80 years ago, rendered salmon extinct in hundreds of miles of rivers and destroyed the area’s most important fishing grounds.

“The salmon still keep trying to come, and they come and they hit their little noses on the dam, over and over, ’cause they hear us calling,” said Conant, a member of the Arrow Lakes and Sanpoil tribes. “So we’re going to keep having our ceremonies and we're going to keep calling the salmon home until they get here.”

After nearly a century without salmon, Conant and other members of upper Columbia River tribes want to reintroduce the fish into waters long blocked by the dams.

But there’s been something blocking those efforts, too: the Bonneville Power Administration.

The U.S. government promised to preserve tribes’ access to salmon in a series of treaties signed in the 1850s. Upholding those treaties now rests in no small part with Bonneville, a federal agency little known outside the Northwest that takes hydropower generated at Grand Coulee and other dams and sells it wholesale to electric utilities, primarily in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Decades ago, Congress placed the agency at the center of salmon recovery, giving it conflicting mandates: protect fish and fund their recovery, all while running a business off the dams that have reduced fish populations by the millions.

For decades, judges have admonished the federal government over its failure to do more to protect Columbia River salmon. Most recently, the Biden administration in March took the unprecedented step of acknowledging the harm dams have caused to Native American tribes and calling for an overhaul of Columbia River Basin management. Bonneville, the government’s money-making arm on the Columbia, is the federal agency involved in every measure the Biden team is discussing to save salmon.

But an investigation by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica has found that Bonneville has, time and again, prioritized its business interests over salmon recovery and actively pushed back on changes that tribes, environmental advocates and scientists say would offer the best chance to help salmon populations recover without dismantling the entire dam system.

The agency said it has invested heavily in supporting salmon and sacrificed revenue to make dams safer for fish. It said any limitations on its fish and wildlife measures are the result of financial pressures.

In response to the news organizations’ findings, Bonneville spokesperson Doug Johnson said in a statement that the agency and its federal partners “will continue to participate in regional discussions on long-term strategies to address the protection and enhancement of salmon and steelhead,” including the White House efforts.

“Ultimately, the region as a whole must continue to advance collaborative solutions to meet the needs of the Pacific Northwest,” Johnson said. Two other federal agencies that work with Bonneville to manage the region’s dams, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, issued statements identical to Bonneville’s.

In an interview, Johnson said the agency has had to contain its fish and wildlife spending at levels it could sustain. “The statutes direct Bonneville to operate in a business-like manner,” he said. “Like any other business, we monitor projects in our budgets and make appropriate adjustments as needed.”

Columbia River salmon recovery is one of the most expensive endangered species efforts in the country, costing Bonneville more than $20 billion since it started in 1980. But while Bonneville’s net revenues have surpassed targets in the last few years, it flatlined or reduced budgets for fish recovery at a time when, according to salmon advocates, more money is needed than ever to prevent extinctions of more Northwest salmon populations.

Proposals on the table, according to the White House and other participants in the talks, include breaching dams on the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington, funding the reintroduction of salmon into blocked areas and removing Bonneville from salmon management.

“We cannot continue business as usual,” the White House memo said.

But on each of those three issues, interviews and documents show, business as usual is what Bonneville has tried to preserve.

The Bonneville Power Administration began as a federal agency designed to run as a business. And, in many ways, that has never changed.

The agency was created in 1937, when Pacific Northwest hydroelectric dam-building had just begun and federal officials spoke openly about sacrificing salmon runs for the sake of developing cities and farmland. Bonneville was the government’s way to market the dams’ hydropower and electrify the rural West.

The successful harnessing of the Columbia for electricity became synonymous with American pride over settling the West and winning World War II. Massive flows of water rushed down through tunnels, spinning turbines and generating electricity that in turn powered homes and factories, most notably aluminum plants that manufactured bomber planes. Bonneville even hired Woody Guthrie to write folk songs about Uncle Sam putting the river to work for factories and farmers.

Although the dams are owned and operated by different agencies, Bonneville co-manages them, covering construction debts and operating costs with the proceeds from the electricity that the dams generate. Bonneville sells electricity to public utilities, which in turn sell it to homes and businesses. Today, Bonneville’s operating revenues are more than $3.8 billion per year. It manages power from 31 dams and owns about 75% of the Pacific Northwest’s power lines.

But what was good for generating power was devastating for fish. In the mid-1950s, when wild Chinook salmon on the Snake River had to pass just one dam on their journey to the ocean, they numbered about 90,000. By 1980, seven additional dams later, the Snake River population had fallen to around 10,000.

In some places, like the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams in northeast Washington, there is no way for fish to pass through at all, and the salmon are entirely gone upriver from the dams. While the rest of the federal dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers include ways for salmon to migrate past them, these passages still take a toll. Fish can get thrashed by turbines if they pass through the dam’s powerhouse. They suffer in the warm and stagnant reservoirs that replaced free-flowing water when the rivers were dammed. And they fall prey to predators like sea lions, which have thrived in the conditions the dams created. Scientists say many fish that pass through multiple reservoirs and dams end up dying later on from the stress of the journey.

Some dams, including the Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee Dams, completely block the fish, long depended on by Pacific Northwest Tribes, from swimming to the sea.

Faced with the possibility of federal agencies labeling salmon as endangered, Congress took action in 1980: It passed the Northwest Power Act, tethering the fate of salmon to that of the Bonneville Power Administration. The act required Bonneville to fund a comprehensive fish and wildlife program, and to “protect, mitigate, and enhance fish and wildlife to the extent affected by the development and operation of any hydroelectric project of the Columbia River and its tributaries.”

The new law established conflicting mandates for Bonneville: making money from hydropower while helping save salmon from extinction. And by the 1990s, it was clear the measures were failing to rescue salmon. Several populations became listed as threatened or endangered and salmon advocates filed lawsuits over federal dam operations.

As part of an ongoing court case that has lasted decades, judges have ordered federal agencies, including Bonneville, to improve special passageways that allow fish to bypass dams’ turbines. Judges also ordered the agencies to increase their “spill,” meaning the amount of water they allow to flow past a dam instead of into its powerhouse; young salmon on their way to the ocean benefit from that spill, traveling faster past the dam with less likelihood of getting caught in a turbine.

But for Bonneville, every drop that didn’t go through turbines was also wasted fuel and lost revenue — revenue it claimed it could hardly afford to miss out on.

In 2008, Bonneville tried to halt ballooning fish and wildlife costs and lawsuits with a series of funding agreements. The agency doled out $900 million over 10 years to states and tribes for fish and wildlife restoration. But that money came with a catch: Signing the accords required a promise not to sue over management of the Columbia River power system. The accords also required signatories to affirm the adequacy of the federal government’s fish and wildlife mitigation.

Only the Nez Perce Tribe and the state of Oregon declined the money. Along with a dozen fishing and environmental groups, they continued the longstanding challenge of federal dam operations in court.

As the case dragged on, Bonneville faced multiple pressures. It needed to raise its rates to pay for mounting fish and wildlife requirements ordered by the courts, but the Public Power Council, a coalition of consumer-owned public utilities that buy the bulk of its electricity, pushed back. The power council warned Bonneville that it would lose customers if it didn’t curb its rising power costs, a third of which stemmed directly from fish and wildlife measures.

Then, while Bonneville was struggling to improve its finances, salmon fell further into crisis. By 2018, declines in salmon populations triggered an official warning from federal scientists. Scientists had set a threshold that, once crossed, was meant to put the government in urgent action mode to help the fish.

But at the same time, Bonneville was desperate to help itself.

In 2018, the same year salmon declines were triggering federal alarm bells, Bonneville adopted a new strategic plan meant to fix its finances. It aimed to keep the agency’s fish and wildlife spending from exceeding the rate of inflation; in some years, this spending didn’t end up growing at all. Electricity markets also improved; the agency sold surplus power during times of peak demand like summer heat waves. And it kept expenses low.

Since then, Bonneville’s net revenues have soared past agency targets. Last year, the agency’s net revenues were $360 million above its target. Halfway through 2022, it was on pace for an even better year.

“For the past four years, we’ve done fairly well financially,” Johnson, the Bonneville spokesperson, said. “Five, six, seven years ago, our detractors were talking about the potential for us to go bankrupt because we had so much debt and we were doing so poorly financially. This found solid footing that we have financially is a recent development for us.”

The agency used the unexpected revenues to shore up its cash reserves and lower rates for customers. It didn’t put any of the windfall toward fish and wildlife programs.

In fact, after adjusting for inflation, Bonneville’s current two-year budget for fish and wildlife is down more than $78 million from what it was in 2016-2017, before the agency adopted its new strategic plan. That came at a time when scientists said significantly more investment has been needed to give salmon a chance as the climate warms.

“Simply put,” Andrew Missel, attorney for the Idaho Conservation League, wrote in a 2021 brief to Bonneville about its budget process, “in the face of declining salmon and steelhead runs, BPA has decided to starve mitigation projects of needed funds, and has failed to even consider using an expected boon in revenue to help shore up those projects.”

After fish and wildlife agencies told Bonneville its budgets were compromising their efforts, Bonneville announced in June it would increase fish and wildlife spending by about 8% in 2024 based on its assessments of what the program needed to remain viable. That increase would still put it below inflation-adjusted spending levels prior to 2018.

Jeremy Takala, a biologist and member of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council, said the tribe has shovel-ready salmon habitat restoration projects waiting for funding.

“It’s really frustrating,” Takala said in a July speech at a save-the-salmon rally in Portland, Oregon. “BPA basically managing our funding source, it just does not make sense. It’s a really, really huge conflict that frustrates the tribes.”

Bonneville and its spending have factored heavily into negotiations between salmon advocates and the Biden administration.

Jim McKenna, an adviser to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown who is involved in the negotiations, said Oregon, tribes and salmon advocates are asking the administration to greatly increase funding for fish hatcheries and habitat restoration, and to put tribes and other local fish and wildlife biologists directly in charge of how to spend the money.

“The bucket of money is woefully inadequate,” McKenna said. “And, Bonneville is not the agency that should be managing those funds.”

Ultimately, that funding is paramount to whether the government will honor the treaty, signed over 150 years ago, that assured the Yakama tribe of its right to take fish where they always had “at all usual and accustomed places.”

Bill Bosch, who has spent decades working for the Yakama Nation’s fisheries program, said the federal government must fully fund tribes’ hatcheries and habitat efforts, unless it intends to spend the money itself on removing dams and restoring the natural river.

“If you’re not willing to fund one or the other of those,” Bosch said, “then are you basically saying you’re going to abrogate the treaty?”

Two years ago, Bonneville and its partner agencies faced a major turning point. The agencies had been scolded by U.S. District Judge Michael Simon for running a dam system that “cries out” for a new approach. He ordered them to conduct a comprehensive environmental impact statement for the Columbia and Snake River dams that included “all reasonable alternatives” to their current actions. The judge hoped the process could “break through any logjam that simply maintains the precarious status quo.”

By 2020, Bonneville and its dam co-managers, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, released their long-awaited new master plan for the river. Despite Judge Simon’s hopes, the plan mostly preserved the status quo.

The plan hinged on a proposal the federal bodies called “flexible spill.” For years, the courts had been ordering them to spill water past their dams to aid fish migration. Under the flexible spill plan, they’d spill as much water as they could when it wasn’t needed to make electricity. The plan was an experimental concept, but modeling showed it could increase the number of salmon that survive their migration to return as adults by as much as 35%, and the agencies hoped it could become their long-term solution.

For many salmon biologists, the plan wasn’t the solution it purported to be. They argued such measures hadn’t seen enough real-world use to establish how fish actually responded, and said even the predicted 35% increase wouldn’t be enough to halt the decline of salmon populations. And, they said, other aspects of the federal plan gave dam operators leeway to slow or even stop the flow of water behind dams at times, making it harder for salmon to migrate out to sea.

In many regards, the agencies’ plan was a step backward for salmon compared to what courts had already rejected, said Michele DeHart, manager of the Fish Passage Center, a small federal research body funded by Bonneville.

Records show that DeHart provided Bonneville and its co-managers with analyses demonstrating that they were overstating the benefits of their preferred course of action for the Columbia River, and that it would likely lead to a further decline of the river’s fish.

Still, all three federal bodies proceeded with their preferred option, which they said struck a balance between clean energy, economics and fish and wildlife needs.

At the same time, Bonneville and its partners have rejected an increasingly popular suggestion for saving several of the Columbia basin’s salmon populations from extinction: taking four dams on the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington out of operation and restoring the natural flow of water.

The Biden administration is exploring proposals for the removal of the dams, called “breaching,” which would allow more fish to reach the ocean and to make the return trip to spawn.

The Fish Passage Center, the Nez Perce Tribe, and more than 60 scientists have all concluded that breaching the four dams is the only scenario that has a likelihood of allowing Snake River salmon populations to recover. In July, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called breaching the dams “essential” for healthy salmon runs.

The dams generate just 4% of all the power sold by Bonneville, but breaching them is opposed by the public utilities that make up Bonneville’s customer base and by farmers, who rely on the dam-impounded reservoirs to irrigate their crops and barge them downriver. Two separate reports released this year, one by Washington elected officials and the other by the Department of Energy, concluded the services of the four dams could be replaced, with a total cost between $10 billion and $30 billion.

Public utilities have spent millions on public relations campaigns in support of keeping the lower Snake River dams. They have pushed Bonneville to be more aggressive in opposition to breaching any dams. They say the dams are crucial to the region’s goals of reducing carbon emissions and fighting climate change, which presents another major threat to salmon.

Though Bonneville has not vocally opposed dam removal, behind the scenes it worked to sway public opinion in favor of keeping the dams fully operational. The agency drafted talking points in 2019 and distributed them to public utilities for use in conversations about the dams, instructing them that “BPA would prefer to NOT have these statements attributed to the agency.”

In 2020, the agency sent emails to a dozen news organizations “correcting the record” with facts about the importance of the dams, and tried to pitch reporters on an angle about the questionable benefit to salmon of breaching the Snake River dams when compared to the importance of the clean energy the dams produce.

“How many more fish would it actually bring back? Would it be worth it?” an agency communications staffer, Dave Wilson, said in one email to an NPR reporter.

Both Bonneville and its public utility customers have pointed to a handful of studies, funded by Bonneville, that cast doubt on the effectiveness of dam removal.

Asked about the emails, Johnson said Bonneville wanted the public to understand the importance of the dams to public power, and for the region to understand what it would be giving up if the dams are breached.

DeHart, of the Fish Passage Center, said it should come as no surprise when Bonneville protects dam operations.

“It is BPA’s job to protect their interests, and they’re doing a good job,” DeHart said. “They’re protecting their own interests, and their interests are not fish.”

Nowhere are those interests more significant than on the upper Columbia River, where two massive dams produce roughly half of all the power Bonneville sells.

Bonneville and its partners have operated those dams without any way for fish to pass them for more than half a century.

That, the Spokane Tribe argued in court documents, “has been nothing short of an attempt to permanently destroy a culture.”

A year ago, Michael Marchand sat on the banks above the Columbia, his long white hair blowing in the wind as he watched members of his tribe perform a salmon ceremony without any salmon. The former chair of the Colville Tribes grew up hearing stories from his grandparents about sharing the fish from Kettle Falls with tribes across the region. He said they worried, after the falls were inundated, that the tribe’s connection to the salmon would disappear.

In the water below him, Conantand other ceremony organizers and tribal leaders were ankle deep in the current. They stood with a stone in each hand, lifted them into the air and rapped them against each other. The crowd on the banks echoed them, and soon the rhythmic clacking of their salmon call drowned out even the speedboaters in the distance. Before the dam drove them extinct on this part of the Columbia River, the salmon passing Kettle Falls were legendary, growing to the size of an 8-year-old child and capable of hurdling waterfalls and navigating by smell for more than 1,000 miles to reach their home streams.

Upper Columbia tribes have a multiphase plan to restore salmon in those waters: transplanting fish above the dams to establish populations, then creating new systems of fish passage, like trapping fish and trucking them around the dams, a technique already used on other rivers.

It’s not just about restoring the tribes’ own fisheries. The rivers and streams above Grand Coulee Dam offer some of the best remaining coldwater habitat for salmon, and could be a bastion for the fish amid climate change. Reintroduction has been endorsed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which oversees the fish and wildlife program funded by Bonneville, and more recently by NOAA. It’s part of the ongoing negotiations between salmon advocates and the Biden administration, which have also discussed dam breaching and shifting Bonneville’s fish and wildlife responsibilities to states and tribes.

But, so far, tribes in the upper Columbia say they haven’t been able to get the help they need from the federal government, which by treaty and federal doctrine is the trustee of their rights.

“The government’s been fighting us about putting these fish here,” said Marchand, who served on the Colville tribal council when upper Columbia tribes released their plan for reintroduction. “Part of it is energy costs. And part of it’s just, to me, it’s just raw power politics.”

Because salmon are extinct above Grand Coulee Dam, Bonneville doesn’t currently have to worry about how well fish pass the dam and all the costs associated with that. But upper Columbia tribes say they’ve designed their reintroduction plan to work within existing dam operations and have no intention of jeopardizing power production.

Bonneville and its partners have refused to evaluate the idea of bringing salmon back to the upper Columbia. Collectively, Bonneville, the Army Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation told the tribe that fish passage was too complicated and too time-consuming to include in their plan for the river.

“You’re talking about roughly half of the production of the entire system with those two very large dams on the upper Columbia,” Johnson said. “That could introduce fairly high costs and a lot of upward rate pressure for Bonneville's power customers.”

Johnson called it a very complex issue, and one that “warrants a lot of discussion.”

Bonneville has created other obstacles to the reintroduction of fish. The Spokane Tribe told the agency in 2019 that its “lack of funding and stonewalling” put their efforts three years behind schedule. The Colville Tribes say it has been more difficult to get funding for the fish reintroduction than for any other fish and wildlife project. And in 2018, when the Colville Tribes and Bonneville were due to renew their funding accord, the agency included provisions in the new agreement that forbid the use of any accord funding in the tribe’s reintroduction efforts. It also forbade the tribe from using any fish from their Chief Joseph Hatchery for relocation. Two tribes partnering with the Colville on reintroduction efforts asked Bonneville to remove the language: One called it “meddling” and the other said it “directly undermines” its efforts “in seeking cultural restitution for lost resources.” But Bonneville kept the language, and with roughly $68 million in funding — and the many jobs that this money would sustain — riding on the accord, the Colville Tribes signed.

Bonneville said reintroduction above Grand Coulee Dam isn’t what Congress authorized the hatchery for, but that it is working with tribes to find a path forward.

Meanwhile, tribes have worked around the restrictions to try to reintroduce fish.

In 2019, they began to capture adult salmon that were returning from the ocean and relocated them above the dams. Conant, who organizes the salmon ceremony, was among the tribal members who released those captive fish into the water. To her delight, biologists later found salmon from the tribes’ releases spawning in the Sanpoil River, a tributary of the upper Columbia.

“It’s not necessarily like, oh, ‘salmon’s the magic food that saves the Indian!’” Conant said. “But it brings back fishing. It brings back taking care of the fish, cutting and drying it, processing, spending that time with your uncle, spending that time with your grandma. It brings it all back.

“There’s bits and pieces of all of our hearts that are missing,” Conant said. “We’re filling our hearts back up and fighting our way back to our culture.”

Members of the Spokane Tribe were amazed to discover in 2019 that some of the juvenile Chinook salmon they tagged with trackers and released above Grand Coulee Dam somehow not only made it downriver through Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams despite their lack of dedicated fish passageways, but made it more than 600 miles to the ocean.

One of those salmon returned as an adult, swimming all the way back to the Chief Joseph Hatchery at the base of its namesake dam.

But its journey ended there. The federal agencies’ protocols prohibited tribes from relocating the captured salmon above Grand Coulee Dam.

Instead of returning to its home waters, it died below the dam.

Help Us Understand Pacific Northwest Salmon and Treaty Rights

Alex Mierjeski contributed research.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting.

A cropped section of the painting The School of Athens by Raphael – Public Domain

What Westerners call the West or Western civilization is a geopolitical space that emerged in the 16th century and expanded continuously until the 20th century. On the eve of World War I, about 90 percent of the globe was Western or Western-dominated: Europe, Russia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and much of Asia (with the partial exceptions of Japan and China). From then on, the West began to contract: first with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the emergence of the Soviet bloc, and then, from mid-century onward, with the decolonization movements. Terrestrial space, and soon after, extraterrestrial space, became fields of intense disputes.

Meanwhile, what Westerners understood by the West was changing. It began as Christianity and colonialism, then changed to capitalism and imperialism, and then metamorphosed into democracy, human rights, decolonization, self-determination, and “rules-based international relations”—it was made clear that the rules would be established by the West and would only be followed when they served its interests—and finally into globalization.

By the middle of the last century, the West had shrunk so much that several newly independent countries made the decision to align themselves neither with the West nor with the bloc that had emerged as its rival, the Soviet bloc. This led to the emergence, from 1955-1961, of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). With the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991, the West seemed to go through a time of enthusiastic expansion. It was around this time that former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev expressed his desire for Russia to join the “common home” of Europe, with the support of then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush, a desire reaffirmed by Vladimir Putin when he took power in 2000. It was a short historical period, and recent events show that the “size” of the West has since shrunk drastically. In the wake of the Ukraine war, the West decided, on its own initiative, that only those countries applying sanctions against Russia would be considered part of the pro-Western camp. These countries comprise about 21 percent of the UN member countries, which constitute only 16 percent of the world’s population.

Questions

Is contraction decline? One might think that the contraction of the West works in its favor because it allows it to focus on more realistic goals with greater intensity. A careful reading of the strategists of the hegemonic country of the West, the United States, shows, that on the contrary, without apparently realizing the flagrant contraction, they show unlimited ambition. With the same ease with which they foresee being able to reduce Russia (one of the largest nuclear power in the world) to a vassal state or bring it to ruin, they foresee neutralizing China (which is on its way to becoming the first world economy) and soon provoking a war in Taiwan, (like the one in Ukraine) to achieve that purpose. On the other hand, the history of empires shows that contraction goes hand in hand with decline, and that decline is irreversible and entails much human suffering.

At the current stage, the manifestations of weakness are running parallel to those of strength, which makes analysis very difficult. Two contrasting examples help understand this point more clearly: The United States is the largest military power in the world (even though it has not won any wars since 1945) with military bases in at least 80 countries. An extreme case of domination is its presence in Ghana where, according to agreementsmade in 2018, the United States uses the Accra airport without any control or inspection, U.S. soldiers do not even need a passport to enter the country, and enjoy extraterritorial immunity, meaning that if they commit any crime, no matter how serious, they cannot be tried by Ghana’s courts. On the other hand, the thousands of sanctions on Russia are, for now, doing more damage in the Western world than in the geopolitical space being defined by the West as the non-Western world. The currencies of those countries that seem to be winning the war are depreciating the most. The looming inflation and recession led JP Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon to say that a “hurricane” is approaching.

Is contraction a loss of internal cohesion? Contraction can mean more cohesion, and this is quite visible. The leadership of the European Union, i.e., the European Commission, has in the last 20 years been much more aligned with the U.S. than the countries that make up the EU. We saw this with the neoliberal shift and with the enthusiastic support shown by former President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, for the invasion of Iraq, and we are seeing it now with the current commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who seems to be operating as the U.S. undersecretary of defense. The truth is that this cohesion, if it is effective in producing policies, can be disastrous in managing their consequences. Europe is a geopolitical space that since the 16th century has lived off the resources of other countries that it directly or indirectly dominates and on whom it imposes unequal exchange. None of this is, however, possible when the United States or its allies are its partners. Moreover, cohesion is made up of inconsistencies, as seen in the conflicting narratives about Russia. After all, is Russia the country with a lower GDP than many countries in Europe? Or is it a force that wants to invade Europe, and serves as a global threat that can only be stopped with the help of investments provided by the United States for arms and security to Ukraine—already around $10 billion—a distant country of which little will remain if the war continues for a long time?

Does the contraction occur for internal or external reasons? The literature on the decline and end of empires shows that, besides a few exceptional cases in which empires were destroyed by external forces—such as the Aztec and Inca empires with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors—internal factors generally dominate in bringing about contraction, even though decline can be precipitated by external factors. It is difficult to distinguish the internal from the external, and the specific identification is always more ideological than anything else. For example, in 1964 the well-known American conservative philosopher James Burnham published a book titled Suicide of the West. According to him, liberalism, then dominant in the United States, was the ideology behind this decline. For the liberals of the time, liberalism was, on the contrary, an ideology that would enable a new, more peaceful, and just world hegemony for the West. Today, liberalism is dead in the United States (neoliberalism dominates, which is its opposite) and even the old-school conservatives have been totally overtaken by the neoconservatives. That is why former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (for many, a war criminal) upset the anti-Russia proselytes by calling for peace negotiationswhile talking about the Ukraine conflict during a conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May. Be that as it may, the Ukraine war is the great accelerator of the West’s contraction. While the West wants to use its power and influence to isolate China, a new generation of nonaligned countries is emerging. Organizations like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Forum are, among others, the new faces of the non-Western states.

What comes next? We don’t know yet. It is as difficult to imagine the West occupying a subordinate space in the world context as it is to imagine it in an equal and peaceful relationship with other geopolitical spaces. We only know that for those leading the Western states, either of these hypotheses is either impossible or, if possible, apocalyptic. Therefore, the number of international meetings has multiplied in recent months—from the World Economic Forum meeting that took place in May in Davos to the most recent Bilderberg Meeting in June. Not surprisingly, in the latter meeting, of the 14 themes discussed, seven were directly related to the West’s rivals.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

In her landmark 1962 book, Silent Spring, biologist Rachel Carson chronicled the damage — and looming consequences — of human “contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials,” which she called “elixirs of death.” In the book’s spellbinding opening parable, which profiles a fictional town of the future, she wrote:

“It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.”

Silent Spring focused on DDT. During World War II, the U.S. military declared this revolutionary biocide to be “the most powerful of the new weapons the army is now using in its war on insect-borne diseases,” specifically malaria, yellow fever, typhus and bubonic plague.

After the war, planes “broadcast sprayed” leftover stockpiles across the United States and many other countries to kill weeds, crop-eating insects and to control mosquitoes.

DDT was the world’s first modern synthetic insecticide, a chlorinated hydrocarbon that lingers in the environment. It was never safety-tested. Later studies determined that it causes neurological damage, is toxic to wildlife and humans, stores in fatty tissues, and bioaccumulates in greater and greater concentrations up the food chain.

Even the “winners” — birds that have bounced back from the brink — still face myriad, multiple, compounding threats.

DDT sparked a global avian catastrophe. It leached into soil and water, contaminating the rodents, worms, insects, fish and other prey that birds fed on, killing some outright. The biocide also interfered with calcium metabolism in egg production, particularly in birds of prey, which were “catastrophically impacted,” says Alexander Lees, a conservation biologist at Manchester Metropolitan University and an associate of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Thin-shelled, fragile eggs fractured in bird nests, unable to support the weight of a growing embryo. Incapable of reproducing, just 417 bald eagles remained in the lower 48 U.S. states by 1963. The California condor was extinct in the wild by 1987; just 27 were left alive in captivity. Peregrine falcons went missing from parts of North America. Scores of songbirds vanished, too, as did cormorants, pelicans and other waterbirds.

Carson’s legacy: Bird species recoveries since DDT

Birds are beloved by many, and Silent Spring became a bestseller despite brutal industry attacks. Critics called Carson’s claims “more poisonous than the chemicals she condemns” and labeled her “an alarmist, mystic and hysterical woman.” As the 20^th century’s most influential environmental book, it catalyzed the modern environmental movement, and sparked creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and passage of the Clean Air  and Clean Water Acts.

Sixty years have passed since Silent Spring hit the shelves; 50 since the EPA outlawed DDT; and 20 years since most nations banned it and other persistent organic pollutants under the Stockholm Convention. The result: Many of the birds most threatened by DDT made miraculous comebacks.

Peregrine falcons now nest on every bridge spanning New York’s Hudson River. More than 300,000 bald eagles fill U.S. skies. They, along with brown pelicans and ospreys have been removed from the U.S. endangered species list. More than 300 California condors fly wild, and as of this month, they soar over northern redwood forests for the first time in a century.

A range of environmental regulations and protections have brought back both individual species and entire bird groups. However, these are the exceptions amid a broader downward spiral that began centuries before Carson’s book or the advent of synthetic chemical biocides.

Since birds inhabit every ecosystem, they’re affected by every environmental disturbance: lost habitat, climate change, pesticides, pollution of air, water and land, invasive species, and disease. A 2022 update to BirdLife International’s “State of the World’s Birds” reports what co-author Tris Allinson called “a steady ongoing, inexorable decline.”

But “conservation works,” says Brian Rutledge, former vice president of the National Audubon Society: With good science and sufficient investment, it’s possible to reverse the declines.

‘Ongoing declines’

With some 11,000 known avian species worldwide, birds are ubiquitous. They’re present from pole to pole, from high mountains and deserts to remote islands and cities. They play integral roles in every biome, pollinating plants and spreading seeds, including fruit- and berry-bearing varieties that feed many animals. Each year, they consume 400 million to 500 million metric tons of insects that can damage crops and kill trees. A single bird can eat enough bugs to save 29 kilograms (65 pounds) of coffee on a Latin American plantations.

And people love birds: In the U.S. alone, the bird-watching industry is valued at $41 billion per year.

Birds are also important indicators of the state of the planet — and they’re in trouble. Since Carson’s time, numbers have dropped by “many billions,” says Allinson, a senior global science officer at BirdLife International. Nearly half of all species (5,245) are declining. Anyone alive in 1970 in the U.S. or Canada has seen one in four birds disappear during their lifetime, 2.9 billion in all: from robins and sparrows, to blackbirds, finches and other familiar backyard denizens.

Birds are getting hit from all sides: In the Anthropocene, humans are altering the natural world to an “unparalleled degree,” disrupting and devastating ecosystems and driving extinctions. It’s impossible to gauge how many species have vanished globally since the passing of the dodo in 1681 — the first recognized bird extinction.

The best guess comes from the Red List of Threatened Species. This database, maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, tracks wildlife population trends. The list has recorded 159 bird extinctions dating back to 1500 C.E., when the European Age of Discovery began impacting the world. An additional five species only exist in captivity; 22 more are “possibly extinct.” Most of those are flightless or island species.

The trajectory is of “really significant global concern” for about one-fifth of all birds, says Allinson. “Each year, when we reassess [for the ‘State of the World’s Birds’ report], we find slightly more species that are falling. It’s unfortunately often a one-way process.”

But that’s not the whole story. With focused conservation, “we’ve reversed the declines in some rare species,” notes Lees. The 2022 status report, of which he is the lead author, tallied 676 rebounds (6% of all species); another 4,300 (39%) are holding steady.

Many waterbirds, for example, are increasing in North America and Europe. Common cranes and Eurasian spoonbills, once eaten at medieval banquets and gone from Great Britain for centuries, are now breeding on the edges of major cities. Flamingos still mass in such numbers that the landscape turns pink. Massive flocks of starlings — though considered invasive pests in the U.S. — still whirl and shapeshift in a synchronized dance through the sky in almost mystical murmurations.

The threats birds face

The growing avian crisis, like the larger extinction crisis, is driven by increasing human population, overexploitation and overconsumption, says Lucy Haskell, science officer at BirdLife International. Even the “winners” — birds that have bounced back from the brink — still face myriad, multiple, compounding threats.

Avian species collide with power lines and smash into lit-up buildings during nighttime migrations. They’re poisoned when they eat animals shot with lead-based bullets. They ingest plastic. Indian vultures were nearly exterminated by eating carrion from livestock that were treated with a veterinary drug. Rutledge calls poorly sited 120-meter (400-foot) wind turbines “bird Cuisinarts,” and is amazed that safer technology hasn’t hit the market. Domestic cats kill billions of birds each year.

But deforestation is by far the greatest exterminator. Lees calls habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation “the three horsemen of the apocalypse.” Birds are losing space to breed, nest, roost and find food, often left with only tiny, unsuitable scraps of habitat.

Nearly two-thirds of all birds inhabit forests, and “many can’t live anywhere else,” says Haskell. That’s particularly true in the tropics, which lost primary rainforests last year at a rate of 10 soccer fields a minute. Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has hit a 10-year high. Globally, more than 252,000 square kilometers (97,500 square miles) of tree cover vanished from August 2020 to July 2021, an area the size of the U.S. state of Wyoming.

Meanwhile, monoculture reforestation efforts nurture relatively few bird species, and prove inhospitable for specialists like the white-backed woodpecker that needs dead trees for nesting. Boreal forests are being logged for lumber, for toilet paper sold to the U.S., and are falling to harvest the sand beneath them — used to frack natural gas wells and oil wells. Old-growth forests in Canada and native forests in the U.S. are being leveled to produce wood pellet biofuel — a “green energy” climate solution that may emit as much or more carbon as coal.

Land used for agriculture increased sixfold over the past 300 years and now affects more than 1,000 globally threatened avian species, says Haskell. The greatest destruction is in the tropics, driven by commodities: timber, paper, palm oil, soy, sugar, beef and others, produced at industrial scale.

“The fundamental question,” Lees says, “is how we can we feed X billion people, without destroying the planet.”

Changing climate, severe weather, disease

One of the biggest changes since Rachael Carson’s time is increasing damage from human-caused climate change, which didn’t get public or government attention until 1988. It now ranks as the second-greatest threat to birds. The effects on wildlife and ecosystems are only beginning to unfold. But “100-year” floods and storms are now common and extreme drought and unprecedented wildfires are scorching Earth with growing regularity.

We do know that rising temperatures are altering birds’ seasonal rhythms. To successfully raise chicks, timing is everything. Spring migration, breeding and nesting need to be synchronized with peak food abundance. But individual adaptations by plants, insects and animals are uncoupling well-timed systems finely tuned over millennia. It’s an asynchronous cascade that may consign little food for baby birds. Some plants and trees unfurl early and some caterpillars are unable to eat larger, tougher leaves. Ill-timed migrants may hatch their young after edible caterpillars have already metamorphosed into insects.

Birds scramble to adapt. New research documented 72 species that now lay their eggs a month early. Others are nesting further north. This spring, for the first time, all of Rutledge’s 25 bluebird nesting boxes on his land in Colorado remained vacant.

Many birds are on the move, wintering further north, shifting ranges toward the poles, or shifting to higher elevations. “But there’s only so far they can go,” says Haskell. She emphasized the need to protect land in places where birds are likely to be found in coming years.

But as shifting species play musical chairs, they may face competition as they enter new areas. Wildlife photojournalist Steve Winter observed an early example while documenting the resplendent quetzal in a Guatemalan cloud forest in 1997. “Every time I found a nest, the chicks were killed by emerald toucanets,” Winter said. “They’d always lived at lower altitudes.”

It’s particularly challenging for specialists that need particular food. Atlantic puffins that nest on Maine’s coastal islands, for example, aren’t finding enough fish to feed their young amid “marine heat waves” and intense storms. Scientists dubbed survivors “micro puffins”; they’re half the normal size.

The complexity of climate change raises ethical issues, says BirdLife’s Allinson. Conservationists rarely move wildlife beyond their natural ranges, as newly introduced species can devastate ecosystems. But as climate-appropriate habitat shifts, he asks, “do we maintain [bird species] by moving them around the world?”

Meanwhile, existing and emergent diseases are adding risk, culling birds already weakened by climate change or other stressors. Some diseases have reached as far as Antarctica. Salmonella bacteria, for instance, got to Antarctica via cruise ships and are reportedly infecting Adélie penguins. The current avian flu outbreak is killing untold numbers of U.S. birds, including eagles and black vultures.

Invaders

Many island birds evolved in isolation without mammalian predators until humans arrived with the domestic animals and pests they brought along. The invaders took a huge toll on flightless birds: 68% of those known to science are gone. “Introduction of alien species has caused more extinctions to date than anything else,” Allinson says.

On South Pacific islands, rats and mice eat seabird chicks. “It’s impossible to find storm-petrels on Rapa,” says Tehani Withers, who heads island restoration for the Ornithological Society of Polynesia. Shearwater populations have also collapsed.

Locals compound the problem by dumping feral cats on remote islets to control rodents, but the rat-cat combination is doubly deadly. Cats are particularly efficient predators: Tibbles, a single cat owned by a lighthouse keeper, purportedly wiped out an entire species, the flightless Stephens Island wren, off the coast of New Zealand.

The brown tree snake is another notorious invasive. It arrived in Guam in the 1950s, possibly hitchhiking on a cargo ship from New Guinea, and wiped out the island’s birds. Introduced mosquitos that carry avian malaria and pox have made Hawai‘i the “bird extinction capital of the world.”

The greater sage grouse, an icon of the U.S. West, isn’t an island bird, but it’s a species that faces numerous threats, including invasive Asian cheatgrass. The weed thrives in disturbed soil, spreads like wildfire — and burns. “In the past five years, we’ve had over 10 million acres [4 million hectares] of cheatgrass fire in this ecosystem,” says Rutledge, adding that it destroys the sagebrush that grouse need to survive.

Hunting

Hunting ranks as the fourth-largest threat to birds. They are eaten, killed for traditional medicine and sport, eradicated as pests, collected for the pet trade, and caught by fisherfolk as bycatch. Lees points out that, ultimately, “it’s irrelevant from the bird’s perspective whether it ends up in a cage, on someone’s mantle, or in someone’s stomach. It’s still removed from the breeding population.”

More than 50 shorebirds are among the victims, including endangered godwits and curlews, culled mostly for food during long migrations to and from Australia. The dickcissel, a sparrow-like migrant that overwinters in Venezuelan rice fields, has been hunted to near-extermination. Longline fishing rigs, stretching across 60 kilometers (40 miles) of sea and outfitted with 1,800 hooks, catch thousands of albatrosses and other seabirds.

Both the legal and illegal trades have mushroomed over the past three decades and decimated populations. Parrots and macaws are popular pets, prized by European and U.S. collectors. Some birds are still smuggled from the wild. Taped to smugglers’ bodies, stuffed into plastic bottles, drugged inside suitcases, and moved in every way imaginable, up to 80% die in transit. “They can fetch unbelievable sums,” Lees says. One online source quoted prices of up to $4,000 for an African gray parrot or scarlet macaw. The trade has decimated populations.

The so-called “Asian songbird crisis” centers in Java, where “There’s a strong culture of bird-keeping,” says Stuart Marsden, a conservation ecologist at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Trappers catch birds in Indonesia’s forests and sell them for both caged pets and songbird competitions. “There’s potentially more birds in captivity than there are in the wild,” Marsden says. Brazilians also have a long history of keeping pet birds, which they call xerimbabos: “something beloved.”

The once common yellow-breasted bunting is being eaten to extinction as a delicacy in China: numbers plummeted by 90% since 1980. The helmeted hornbill’s huge, solid beak is more valuable than ivory, carved and sold to wealthy Chinese buyers; it is now critically endangered.

Over the past 50,000 years, growing human populations, armed with ever-more sophisticated weapons, have wiped out at least 20% of all bird species — 469 so far.

The passenger pigeon was a high-profile hunting casualty. The species was once North America’s most abundant bird, with flocks so thick they blotted out the sun. That made them easy to shoot. Nobody thought so many could possibly disappear forever. The last one died in 1914.

‘Elixirs of death’

Though Silent Spring brought global attention to DDT and helped get it banned, the world is still awash in manufactured chemicals. In January, researchers determined that the sheer volume of these pollutants — some 350,000 chemicals — has contributed to a global tipping point: Synthetic materials introduced into the environment have become too numerous to be safely controlled, say scientists, and therefore have transgressed the novel entities planetary boundary, threatening the stability of Earth’s operating system.

Though Silent Spring brought global attention to DDT and helped get it banned, the world is still awash in manufactured chemicals.

Pesticides, herbicides and rodenticides still pose major threats to birds’ survival, but there are occasional victories. After 20 years of controversy, the U.S. EPA finally banned the neurotoxic insecticide chlorpyrifos in 2021. The chemical was implicated in harm to 97% of all threatened and endangered wildlife, including more than 100 bird species. However, experts call such regulation a whack-a-mole approach. One biocide is banned; another hits the market.

A 2019 study found that in one year, the U.S. sprayed 322 million lbs (146 million kg) of pesticides that are banned in other countries. The U.S. uses 72 pesticides that are illegal or being phased out in the EU. Among them are widely used neonicotinoids. They poison birds in various ways — by contaminating insects they eat and leaving residues in plants, fruit and nectar. Eating just one “neonic”-coated seed can sicken or impair birds’ ability to navigate, or kill them.

Add in what Lees calls “a massive increase in herbicide use” and rodenticides, and the toll becomes exponential. Brazil, under President Jair Bolsonaro, has approved use of more than 290 pesticides and lowered scientific standards for toxicity. The country now ranks among the highest users of pesticides on Earth. Hyacinth macaws there have died due to “reckless use of pesticides,” but overall bird losses in Brazil are poorly documented.

Even well-meaning bird lovers are unknowingly causing harm. In the U.K., the 150,000 tons of feed people put out each year attracts rodents, which people kill with rat poison, then raptors feeding on the rodents and die. Pest control poisoning of voles, prairie dogs and moles in the U.S. West also eradicates hawks, owls, and even songbirds that eat maggots on carcasses.

Farmland has become inhospitable for many migratory and grassland species as farmers leave less wild habitat and use more pesticides. These bird groups have taken substantial hits in both the U.S. and Europe. Lees uses shrikes — predatory songbirds — as an example. “Being a shrike in the Anthropocene appears to be very difficult,” Lees says. Without large insects to eat, Japan’s red-backed shrike, Europe’s great shrike and the U.S. loggerhead shrike are all disappearing.

The way forward

Amid so much death and loss, it’s important to highlight successes. “Many bird species that are alive today wouldn’t be without conservation action,” Allinson points out; about 32 species have been brought back from near-extinction since 1993.

Despite a voracious market for songbirds in Indonesia, Stuart Marsden has seen comebacks for seemingly hopeless cases like the Bali myna — accompanied by an explosion in environmental activism, with people going from loving caged birds to loving them in the wild. In French Polynesia, Tehani Withers is training locals to trap rats, pull non-native weeds, and cull feral goats — with seabirds again nesting on these islands. Scientists are working with fishing fleets to keep albatross off longline hooks.

Restoring, connecting and protecting the ecosystems birds need to survive — along with targeted strategies to bring species back — could save many more. This dovetails neatly with other environmental goals, says Lees, such as cutting carbon emissions from deforestation and addressing the larger “sixth mass extinction” crisis.

It’s not an insurmountable challenge. There are precedents where global, national and corporate collaboration averted crisis, including the 1987 Montreal Protocol that protected the planet’s ozone layer.

“We can reverse the situation,” says Withers, but it will require political will, public support, and investment. It would cost about $70 billion a year to reverse what the World Economic Forum calls “a catastrophic decline in biodiversity.” While that’s a huge sum, it’s a small amount when compared with environmentally damaging expenditures: In 2020, the world’s governments subsidized coal, oil and gas to the tune of $5.9 trillion. And in 2021, the world’s 10 largest companies brought in $31.7 trillion in profits.

Choosing not to act will have domino-effect consequences, says Allinson. Losing birds “undermines the ability of ecosystems to function, with potentially devastating consequences for all life, including our own.”

While sweeping changes are needed, experts note the many ways individuals can make a difference. Turn out lights in big buildings during migration season. Make climate-friendly energy choices. Stop dousing lawns and gardens with chemicals. Vote for political candidates who prioritize planetary health.

“At this point, every bird makes a difference,” says Rutledge.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News &amp; Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Sharon Guynup.

A new study published in the journal Nature on Monday shows an association between brain size and structure among those infected by the Covid-19 virus.

The study,  led by the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the University of Oxford, found "strong evidence for brain-related abnormalities" in Covid-19 patients who had had their brains scanned prior to their infection and then after they were either hospitalized with the virus or diagnosed as positive.

Comparing images of brains taken before and after infection, according to the study's abstract:

We identified significant longitudinal effects when comparing the two groups, including: (i) greater reduction in grey matter thickness and tissue-contrast in the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus, (ii) greater changes in markers of tissue damage in regions functionally-connected to the primary olfactory cortex, and (iii) greater reduction in global brain size.

Researchers also say the study revealed a cognitive decline in patients, even those who did not become sick enough to need hospitalization.

Professor Naomi Allen, chief scientist at UK Biobank and a co-author of that study, said the study "is the only study in the world to be able to demonstrate 'before vs after' changes in the brain associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Collecting a second set of multi-organ imaging scans from some people who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and from others who had not been infected has generated a unique resource to enable scientists to understand how the virus affects internal organs."

According to the Guardian's reporting on the study:

Compared with 384 uninfected control subjects, those who tested positive for Covid had greater overall brain shrinkage and more grey matter shrinkage, particularly in areas linked to smell. For example, those who had Covid lost an additional 1.8% of the parahippocampal gyrus, a key region for smell, and an additional 0.8% of the cerebellum, compared with control subjects.

Disrupted signal processing in such areas may contribute to symptoms such as smell loss. Those who were infected also typically scored lower on a mental skills test than uninfected individuals. Lower scores were associated with a greater loss of brain tissue in the parts of the cerebellum involved in mental ability.

Dr. Serena Spudich, who serves as chief of neurological infections and global neurology at the Yale School of Medicine but not involved in the study, said the findings are striking.

"To me, this is pretty convincing evidence that something changes in brains of this overall group of people with Covid," Spudich told the New York Times.

While potentially groundbreaking, the researchers involved said that more must be done to understand the long-term impacts of Covid-19 on the brain, including the impacts of more severe cases and the organ's ability to heal after recovery from the virus.

Professor Gwenaëlle Douaud, lead author on the study, said she and her fellow researchers "were in a unique position to look at changes that took place in the brain following mild—as opposed to more moderate or severe—SARS-CoV-2 infection."

"Despite the infection being mild for 96 per cent of our participants, we saw a greater loss of grey matter volume, and greater tissue damage in the infected participants, on average 4.5 months after infection," Douaud added. "They also showed greater decline in their mental abilities to perform complex tasks, and this mental worsening was partly related to these brain abnormalities. All these negative effects were more marked at older ages. A key question for future brain imaging studies is to see if this brain tissue damage resolves over the longer term."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News &amp; Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jon Queally.

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Ruth Conniff.