Corruption and the Coronavirus

There is garden-variety corruption, at which the Trump administration excels, and then there is serious corruption, at which capitalists combine with government to excel.

The U.S. government, using taxpayer money, is paying two companies, plus the National Institutes for Health, to develop and test a vaccine for the coronavirus.

The government won’t release the terms of the agreement with the two corporations involved, but you can rest assured that profit is baked into the cost estimates. There will be production and distribution costs, but after the initial batch, those will be minimal.

Yesterday the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, told Congress that not everyone will be able to afford the vaccine, because drug companies need to make a profit.

We’re paying them to develop a vaccine, yet not everyone will be able to afford it.

As I wrote this, I suddenly realized the behavior of our government and the corporations involved is beyond corruption: it is pure evil.

Notalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be, Or What the Russians Didn’t

I’m seeing a lot of “We just need to get back to the way it was before Trump was elected” lately, mostly from liberals/Democrats. It’s a kind of panicked nostalgia, and they blame the Russians for interfering in our elections.

The Russians probably did attempt to interfere; we certainly interfere in the elections of other nations. Sadly, though, the only reason to believe our intelligence agencies’ claims about the Russians is because Trump doesn’t believe them.

But really? You want to go back to the way it was? To the conditions that created the opportunity for Trump to be elected? Do you know what that means? And you’re really blaming the Russians?

The Russians didn’t open the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic by noting that some people won’t be able to afford the vaccine (or, presumably, medical care). Trump’s administration did.

The Russians didn’t create racism, sexism, and xenophobia; it’s endemic to America. But our underfunded education system has failed to effectively combat it.

The Russians didn’t create science denial, our religions did, and our underfunded education system has failed to effectively combat it.

The Russians didn’t create the perversion of Christianity called the prosperity gospel, American religious leaders did.

The Russians didn’t manipulate and warp the religious beliefs of many Americans so they felt justified in their support of Trump. Americans religious leaders did.

The Russians didn’t cause the opioid crisis. Capitalism, supported by every president since Clinton, did. Capitalism created economic despair by moving jobs overseas, driving desperate people into addiction.

The Russians didn’t create the conditions in which at least 90 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford a $500 emergency. Every president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t tilt our tax system to favor the rich, but every president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t allow the growth in productivity to be captured by the wealthy, but American shareholders, supported by every president since Reagan, did.

The Russians didn’t allow CEO pay to exceed worker pay by 300 to 500 percent. American shareholders, supported by every president since Reagan, did.

The Russians didn’t cause wages to stagnate. But every president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t force Americans to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, but very president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t create a housing market in which someone working full time can’t afford a two bedroom apartment, but every president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t let our infrastructure fall apart. Every president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t create massive student debt, but three U.S. presidents did.

The Russians didn’t make health care in America unaffordable. Capitalists and very president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t kill Americans who can’t afford medical care or their prescriptions. Capitalists and every president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t cynically enrich health insurance companies. Obama did.

The Russians didn’t open concentration camps on our southern border. Trump did.

The Russians didn’t create a revolving door system of government that biases legislation by allow government officials, generals, and lobbyists to move seamlessly between corporations and government positions. Our politicians and capitalists did.

The Russians isn’t the biggest arms dealer in the world, but the U.S. is. Just one American company, Lockheed Martin, sells more weapons (by dollar value) than the Russians.

The Russians didn’t create 800 military bases around the world. Our failed foreign policy did.

The Russians didn’t invade Iraq and Afghanistan. Our failed foreign policy did.

The Russians didn’t send over 4,500 American soldiers home in body bags. Our failed foreign policy did.

The Russians didn’t psychologically damage our soldiers, causing permanent, debilitating moral injuries in many. Our failed foreign policy did.

The Russians didn’t wound thousands of American soldiers. Our failed foreign policy did.

The Russians didn’t destroy Libya. Our failed foreign policy did.

The Russians didn’t support coups in Central and Latin America. Our failed foreign policy did.

The Russians didn’t create a massive war budget that starves American of needed services. Every president since Reagan did.

The Russians didn’t turn America into a giant shopping mall, in which the solution to every problem is to buy something. Capitalism did.

The Russians didn’t commodify everything, put a price on everything, including human beings, who have become wage slaves. Capitalism did.

The Russians didn’t decide that it’s okay for Americans to ignore climate change. Corporations and every president since Carter did. They are guilty of crimes against humanity.

The Russians didn’t put our democracy up for sale. The U.S. Supreme Court did.

The Russians didn’t create a fascist state in America. Trump and the Republican party did.

I could go on, but you get my point. We can’t afford to “go back to the way it was before Trump.

One last thing.  All of this happened not only because of presidents, Congress, or capitalists – it happened because we allowed it to happen.

“Us, Not Me” and the Promises of Bernie Sanders

This is a response I wrote when someone accused Sanders of making big promises on which he won’t deliver. That’s always a possibility, of course, because that’s what politicians frequently do.

But Sanders has three things going for him. (1) He’s been advocating for many social welfare benefits for a long time. He knows they are important to us, so they are important to him. (2) He provides non-overlapping funding mechanisms for his proposals. (3) He’s always said that he can’t enact major legislation without a broad, persistent social movement pressuring Congress and corporations. He literally needs “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆” to succeed. So, we’re part of his success or his failure.

Specifics:

First, let’s not mischaracterize Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal. He’s not offering free medical, dental, and eye care; he’s saying that we won’t pay for it at the point of service (i.e., when you go to the doctor, dentist, or hospital). But we will pay premiums on a sliding scale (the more you make, the more you pay, up to a limit) and taxes will increase. In return, everyone will have health care as a human right.

This isn’t pie in the sky stuff, because it comes with funding mechanisms. What’s required is an intensive “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆” movement to pressure legislators, hospitals, and drug companies for change. Sanders, working alone, will not accomplish any of our goals.

Second, Sanders’ health care plan includes cost reduction proposals, which are crucial. Obamacare fails precisely because it makes no attempt to control costs.

Prescription drug costs are an example. Sanders’ has specific benchmarks against which costs are measured, and the government will intervene if they exceed them. Prescription drugs will involve point of service costs for consumers, but the federal government will negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to reduce drug costs by at least 50 percent.

And don’t think pharmaceutical companies need to charge outrageous prices so they can invest in research for new drugs (they don’t in other countries), because they spend more on publicity and marketing than they do on drug research. And they won’t voluntarily undertake drug development, no matter how critical it might be, if they can’t make a profit, which is why the federal government is paying for coronavirus vaccine development.

Sanders has similar cost benchmarks for hospital stays and most medical procedures. We pay far more than people in other countries pay for medical care, yet we consistently lag in evaluations of the overall accessibility and quality of care (lack of accessibility drives lower quality care numbers).

Sanders’ proposals were recently reviewed by two separate analyst groups. Both groups agreed that Sanders’ cost proposals will fund his health care policy proposals; one found that Sanders’ proposals will increase availability and care quality for less than Americans currently pay.

Can Sanders’ achieve this by waving a magic wand or lecturing lawmakers? No, he can’t. Again, that’s why “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆” is important.

Second, Sanders has a specific proposal to fund college for all (which includes trade schools) and the elimination of student loan debt. “It will cost $2.2 trillion to make public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition-free and to cancel all student debt over the next decade. It is fully paid for by a modest tax on Wall Street speculation that will raise an estimated $2.4 trillion over ten years.”

Wall Street, of course, will object, so “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆.”

Third, the jobs creation and renewable energy proposals are part of the Green New Deal, which is the largest and most important of Sanders’ proposals ($16.3 trillion). It also has funding mechanisms.

• Raising $3.085 trillion by making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies.
• Generating $6.4 trillion in revenue from the wholesale of energy produced by the regional Power Marketing Administrations. This revenue will be collected from 2023-2035, and after 2035 electricity will be virtually free, aside from operations and maintenance costs.
• Reducing defense spending by $1.215 trillion by scaling back military operations on protecting the global oil supply.
• Collecting $2.3 trillion in new income tax revenue from the 20 million new jobs created by the plan.
• Saving $1.31 trillion by reducing the need for federal and state safety net spending due to the creation of millions of good-paying, unionized jobs.
• Raising $2 trillion in revenue by making large corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
Also:
• By averting climate catastrophe, we will save: $2.9 trillion over 10 years, $21 trillion over 30 years and $70.4 trillion over 80 years.
• If we do not act, the U.S. will lose $34.5 trillion by the end of the century in economic productivity.

But, really, all of this is of secondary importance, because if we don’t act quickly and on a large scale to address climate change, organized human civilization will not endure until the end of the century. The cost of the Green New Deal exceeds WWII and the Marshall Plan-level spending, but those efforts show that we can pivot toward problems and focus resources on their solutions.

Again, “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆.”

Note that Sanders also has major proposals for expanding Social Security, housing for all, universal childcare, and eliminating medical debt. Obviously, some priorization is required – battling climate change is priority number one – but each of his proposals has specific funding mechanisms.

John A. Smith, War Story

When John A. Smith – he always signed his name that way, because that’s what the army expected – appeared St. Mary’s church on Ash Wednesday, the first evening of Lent, a murmur of shocked conversations, barely whispered, rolled through the congregation, from the back of the church, where John stood talking to Father Jim, to the front, near the altar, where people craned their necks to see him.

Father Jim looked pleased as he shook John’s hand.

John sat in the last pew, near the door.  No one sat near him, but a few people smiled and nodded from a safe distance.  John occasionally nodded back, but mostly he looked straight ahead.

John was born and grew up in the community, so he knew most of the people in the congregation.  Most of them knew him, or they used to know him.

John lived at the edge of town, on the farm he inherited from his parents.  Growing up, it was the last place he wanted to be, so when he graduated from high school, he joined the army and went off to see the world.

And see it he did.  Over twenty-five years, he had been deployed to 15 different countries.  He had completed two college degrees and acquired a taste for books.  As a member of the Special Forces, the Green Berets, he fought in Operation Desert Storm and in smaller, unacknowledged conflicts, usually masquerading as a “trainer.”  His parents died. He married, had a son, and eventually returned home to the farm, for lack of a better place to go.

For a while, he tried to fit in.  He raised purebred cattle, showed up at Marcy’s Diner for breakfast with the old timers, and dropped by for an occasional Friday afternoon beer at the American Legion.  That’s when things began to unravel a bit.

Desultory conversations drifted from crops and cattle to football teams and politics.  Always Republican politics, of course.  John wasn’t a Republican, but he wasn’t a Democrat either.  He just said, “I’m an independent” and let it go at that, because what he really was would scare the hell out of people.  And being an independent was acceptable, so no one really pressed him for his views.  But when the conversation veered to military service, as it would naturally would at an American Legion bar, John would begin to tense up. When his bar mates, Vietnam veterans and a few, like him, from Operation Desert Storm, started swapping war stories, John would quickly finish his beer, look at his watch and say, “Oh, Cathy expects me home,” and then leave.  After he did this a few times, the other men noticed.

“You know, John’s got a problem with war stories,” Dale, a former classmate of his who also served in the Gulf.  “I know he went to Saudi and Iraq, but I wonder what he did, because he always leaves when we start talking war.”

“Yeah, I noticed that too,” a Vietnam veteran said, “but I know lots of guys like that.”

Clint, a social worker who had deployed to Riyadh but did not see combat, said, “Well, some guys see things no one should ever see, and they don’t want to talk about it.”

The three of them silently contemplated what they imagined they knew about John for a minute or so.

The Vietnam veteran gripped his beer mug tightly.  “Well, if he isn’t going to talk, then sitting in a bar is exactly what he shouldn’t do. Because that’s how you become an alcoholic.”  He lifted his mug and drained it in one big gulp. “Another, Dave, if you please,” he said to the bartender. “And let’s talk about something cheerful,” he said to his friends, “like how the Green Bay Packers are gonna’ beat those Bears.”  The conversation moved on, and John’s odd behavior over war stories was forgotten.

Father Jim signaled to the choir director, who signaled to the organist, who began to play.  As the first notes from the organ rose toward the peaked roof and out into the night sky, the choir director asked everyone to stand and encouraged them to sing.

Father Jim and altar servers processed to the front and Mass began.

The last time John had entered this church was for the funeral of Cathy, his wife.  And that was only two months after they had been there for John Junior’s funeral.  That was three years ago.  John, looking up the nave, could still see the coffins, placed in the aisle in front of the altar, Cathy’s draped in black, John Junior’s covered by an American flag.

John was breathing deeply, seeking to avoid a panicked run for the door.  He closed his eyes and saw his son in uniform.  Against John’s advice, his son had joined the army after 9/11.

“Dad,” John Junior had said when he was home on leave before he deployed to Iraq, “I know how you feel about the army and war, especially this war, but I want to participate in what will certainly be the defining event of my generation.  And I want to give back, to America and to you.”

“If you wanted to give back to me,” John replied, “You would not have signed up.”

“I know, dad, I know,” John Junior continued, “but that’s not good enough for me.  And I’m an intel officer, not a Special Forces NCO, so I’ll be in far less danger than you were.”

John Junior was killed by a roadside bomb.  He was eleven-and-a-half months into a twelve-month rotation, and he had been on his way to the Baghdad airport to pick up his replacement.

John and Cathy struggled with grief.  John had the animals to care for, so he stayed busy during the day, and Cathy, a teacher, also worked.  But then one day John went into the house in the middle of the day and found Cathy at home.

“Is everything all right?” He asked.

“I took a leave of absence,” his wife replied without looking at him.

“Is that a good idea?  I mean, staying busy helps,” John said, although he wasn’t certain that was true.

“I just need some time, John” Cathy replied.  “Just some time.”

Days passed, then weeks, all with an intolerable sameness, as if they had been cursed not only with the loss of their son, but with a kind of vegetative existence.  They were desiccated plants in a semi-arid environment,  not alive, but not allowed to die.  They merely waited for a rain that never came.

John worked on the farm and Cathy was silent, bearing a wound that was beyond John’s ability to heal.  Her Gothic, impenetrable silence, worried him, so he made it a point to go into the house once or twice a day, claiming that he needed something to drink or eat, to check on her. He usually found her in John Junior’s bedroom, staring out of the window.

After two months, his anxiety about her became unbearable, and he decided they needed to talk.  Cathy was withdrawn, pale, and losing weight, so something needed to change.  Perhaps counseling would help.

He went into the house at lunch time that day, only to discover that she wasn’t home.  He took that to be a good sign, because wherever she went, the mere fact that she went out was a sign of progress.

Then a deputy sheriff pulled up to the house. “John Smith?” He asked from his open car window.

“Yes,” John said, calmly, but every nerve in his body was screaming.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” the deputy said.

Cathy had driven to the recruiting office where John Junior had signed up for the army.  She walked into the recruiting office, pulled one of John’s pistols from her purse, put the barrel in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.

The parishioners read Joel 2:1-2 and 12-17, and then Isaiah 58:1-12.  The prophets thundered at Israel for her pride and neglect.  John, if anyone had turned around to look, seemed to pay careful attention to these readings, and to Psalm 51:1-17, which followed.  But he scarcely heard a word.

He was even less interested in the 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 reading, which was, in his opinion, really nothing more than one of Paul’s humble brags.  But when Father Jim read the Gospel, Matthew 6:1-6 and 16-21, John concentrated, not for the text, but because he had a decision to make.

Perhaps I should just leave.

Father Jim finished the Gospel reading, then stood at the lectern for a few seconds, looking at his parishioners.

“Tonight,” he began, “is Ash Wednesday. It’s the beginning of our preparation for Easter, when the Risen Lord welcomes us into his Kingdom.”

If I’m going to leave, I should leave now.

“Before we continue,” Father Jim said, “I want to welcome back a returning member of our congregation, John A. Smith, who has graciously agreed to say a few words about repentance tonight.”

Everyone turned to look at John.

Too late.

John took a deep breath and stood up.  As he walked toward the front of the church, he felt light, as if he were floating.

Cathy and John Junior, this is for you.

He remembered to bow at the altar before walking to the lectern.  He nodded to Father Jim, who had taken a seat between the altar servers.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” John began, “Most of you know who I am, and my story, or at least parts of my story.  I won’t dwell on that, because we’ve all experienced tragedies of one sort or another.  What I would like to do, as the prophets demanded of us tonight, is to issue a call for repentance.”  As he reached into his inside coat pocket, every adult in the church grew tense, suddenly remembering news reports about church shootings carried out by loners.  But John only pulled out some typed pages. “It won’t take long,” he said.

He smoothed the papers flat on the podium and began reading.

“These are the wars fought in our names:

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Somali, and many other nations across Africa.

“Repeat them on your prayer beads and your rosaries. Meditate on them in the morning and in the evening, when you are going out and when you are coming in. Our personal histories are forever intertwined with the histories of our wars, with what we did and what we failed to do. Their violence is in our souls.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.

“My name, your name, all our names fill churches, mosques, and synagogues at each funeral, like silent lost souls, because all that we failed to do led to the moment when a young woman, a wife and a mother, places a rose on the coffin. In her prayers, our names, the names of “someone who should have stopped the wars.” are curses.”

He took a deep breath and glanced at the congregation before continuing.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.

“Never forget, the military seeks out our sons and daughters, especially our poor or working-class sons and daughters, to be wounded, to suffer, and to die in the wars fought in our names. Our education and economic system ensure their options are limited, so training to kill and die becomes attractive.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.”

Two members of the parish, Gold Star parents, if he remembered correctly, recited the refrain with him.

“We don’t tell them about dying, of course, at least not of their own dying. We indulge in war to make someone else’s son or daughter die. Death is just something in the background that happens to someone else – especially the someone else’s our duly elected politicians say deserve to die.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.”

“We have no way of verifying that they deserve to die; we take the word of politicians because we believe it relieves us of responsibility. Obviously, someone must die for all that’s wrong in the world, so it may as well be the people over there, or perhaps those on that spot, or maybe whoever lives in that other place. And what does it mean when we’re told “someone deserves to die?” Who makes that kind of judgment? Why do we listen to them?

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.”

He heard Father Jim, sitting behind him, repeat the refrain.  Many others did as well.

“Some of our sons and daughters will survive physically but experience so much mental anguish they will wish they had died. Of course, we don’t tell them about that. How can we? What’s it like to be18 years old and have someone’s brains dribble into your lap while you yourself are concussed and bleeding from the ears?”  He looked up at the congregation.  “Are there are places where even God dares not wander?”

No one said anything.  Momentarily ignoring his typed script, he said, “You know what I think? I think military recruiters should be required to take potential recruits to a VA hospital, to visit wounded veterans on the medical and mental health wards.”  He looked back to his script.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.

“Never forget that our sons and daughters travel around the globe to fight wars in our name. Our children torture, wound, and kill ordinary men, women, and children who wish us no harm. Our children do this because we allow, even encourage, them to do so.”

John’s voice cracked and he paused to gain control of his breath.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.”

“Our society pays our children in advance for dying, but in the cheapest way possible. It gives them flyovers at football games, flag ceremonies, smart uniforms, a small paycheck, and a ‘thanks for your service.’ Some tears are shed when their flag-draped coffin returns. A mother or young wife receives a tri-folded flag, but she is encouraged to get on with her life, because, really, we don’t want to be burdened with the burden of her loss.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.

“If our children are wounded, physically or mentally, we are embarrassed and look away. Reluctantly, we fund their care, but frequently not to the level required. If our children suffer a moral wound, we assume they’re malingering so they can live on government benefits.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.”

John felt he was floating near the ceiling, looking down on the people in the pews.  His voice sounded different, stronger and deeper, and certainly more controlled, than he felt.

“Never forget that all Americans suffer from a lack of investment in infrastructure, education, and health care due to the wars fought in our name.  Some people die because they can’t afford medical care or their prescriptions, all so the government can use our tax money to send our sons and daughters to another other country to kill and be killed.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.

“The Military-Industrial Complex didn’t ask for our permission, but it’s murdering our fellow humans in our name. Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, presidents no longer bother even asking for Congress’ permission. The president has become a kind of scapegoat for our neglect. We let them have free rein over the lives of our teenagers for eight years, then we load up presidents with our sins and send them away to get rich by sitting on corporate boards. Jesus will make them pay for everything – including our sins, we hope – when as rich men they try to pass through the eye of that proverbial needle.

He was amazed that Father Jim allowed him to go on like this.

“Repent of indifference and act to end these wars.

“No one in the military, in industry, or in the government wants these wars to end because, directly and indirectly, there’s too much money being made. Wars drive up the war budget, most of which goes to war contractors. War contractors contribute to war politicians, who keep the wars alive and the war budget full of taxpayer money. Military officers need wars to advance in rank, and generals need wars to gain retirement jobs with war contractors. Ending war, my friends, is bad for business.

“Repent of indifference and act to act to end these wars.

He began to read faster, wanting to be finished and away from the church.

“Since we don’t pay attention, because we don’t insist that this self-sustaining tragedy cease, wars will continue until we exhaust ourselves economically, physically, mentally, and morally.

He took a final deep breath.

“Never forget, these are the wars fought in our names:

“Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Somali, and many other nations across Africa.

“Repeat them on your prayer beads and your rosaries. Meditate on them in the morning and in the evening, when you are going out and when you are coming in.

“These are the wars for which we must repent.”

He finished, out of breath, and looked up.  Several women were silently crying.  He, too, had tears in his eyes.  Everyone looked as stunned as he felt.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time.”  He picked up his papers and hurried down the aisle.  Father Jim called out to him. “John, please wait!” But he didn’t turn around.  He was done, and he wanted to get back home while he still felt he could drive.  If he stayed in the church, he would have fallen apart.  He did not want that to happen.

Hours later, he was sitting at home staring out the front window.  He saw a car slow down on the road, then turn up his driveway.  He wasn’t surprised.  After his performance at the church, he assumed someone would feel compelled to check on him.

He walked out onto the front porch and waited for the car to stop near to the house.  He walked over to it, rather than allowing whoever was in it to get out.

It was Steve and his wife Pearl.  They were the Gold Star parents who first joined him in saying the refrain at church.

“Hello, Steve, Pearl.”  John said.

“Hi, John,” Steve replied.  “We thought we’d just check to make sure …”

“That I didn’t kill myself?” John said ungraciously.

“Well, that you’re okay,” Steve said.

“I’m sorry, Steve, that was uncalled for on my part,” John said.  “But, yes, I’m okay. How are the two of you doing?”

“Oh, John,” Pearl began, “Thank you for tonight. It’s the first time we’ve felt listened to since Dave di…”  Her voice quavered, “Was killed in Iraq.”

“But why, John,” Steve interrupted.  “Why take that big of a risk?  That could have backfired.”

“Yes, I thought about that, Steve. But I, I don’t know…”  John looked up at the night sky.  It was clear, so hundreds of stars were visible.  “I just…” His voiced grew strained and he began breathing heavy.  “I just…Damn it!  I’m sorry.  He clinched his fists and began beating his legs.  “Damn it, damn it, damn it!”  He yelled.  “Somebody has got to bear witness, has got to say stop!”  He was crying.  “God damn it, just stop, okay?  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“John, we are sorry about Cathy and your son,” Pearl said, in a quiet voice.  “But no one knew how to tell you that.”

John couldn’t speak, but he waved his hand as if to brush away her words.

“Now you listen to me, John Smith,” Pearl said angrily.  “We lost our son, too, so don’t go brushing us off.”

John abruptly stopped crying.  He took a few deep breaths, but continued looking – no, glaring – at the stars. “Yes, you did.  I’m sorry.  And it was rude of me to deflect your sympathy.”  He looked away from the sky and toward them, surrounded by the darkness in their car. “Because that’s all we have, isn’t it?  I mean, sympathy.  And witness.  Sympathy for being human and bearing witness for our victims.”

The three of them were quiet for a few minutes.  John could think of nothing else to say.

“Well, John, as long as you’re okay, we’ll head home,” Steve said.  “But don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“Sure, Steve, I’ll try.”  He bent down and looked through the driver’s door window. “And thanks again Pearl, for reminding me that other people feel grief.”

“You take care of yourself, John,” Pearl said.  “And come to dinner sometime.”

He smiled, then stepped back from the car.  “Thanks again for stopping by.”

Steve did a three-point turn and drove back up the driveway.  John watched as they turned right onto the highway and headed toward town.

Standing alone in the darkness, he looked up at the stars again.  “God damn you!” He shouted.  He bent down and picked up a rock and threw into the air.  “God damn you!”

 

 

 

Iran Sanctions and the Coronavirus Pandemic

Photo by David Dibert on Pexels.com

The global spread of the coronavirus means now is the time for the U.S. to end sanctions against Iran. Thousands of people could needlessly suffer and hundreds of lives could be lost.

While it is technically true the sanctions don’t cover medicines, in practice most nations and companies are afraid of working with Iran, due to threats of U.S. retribution. “[T]he U.S. measures targeting everything from oil sales to shipping and financial activities have deterred several foreign banks from doing business with Iran, including humanitarian deals. Imports of grain have been slowed as well. As oil exports fall, it could result in higher inflation and affect the affordability of medicine.” (1)

Only since the end of January 2020 has the U.S. allowed a Swiss humanitarian group to deliver some medicines and food to Iran (2).  A pandemic changes the nature and urgency of the Iran’s need, so the U.S. should act swiftly to end sanctions.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has issued a Level 2 Alert for Iran, which means there is “sustained community transmission” and that “special precautions for high-risk travelers” should be taken (3). The coronavirus outbreak is a global pandemic in all but name (4), so the U.S. must act humanely and responsibly and allow Iran to treat its citizens as part of the global effort to contain the virus. It is unconscionable that the U.S. would add to the distress of Iranians by preventing Iran from purchasing food and medicine on global markets.

Sanctions are a form of economic warfare that punishes ordinary people rather than the elites, whose control over resources allows them to escape the effects of most sanctions. The macabre “hope” is that increasing the misery experienced by non-elites will cause them to revolt and overthrow their government, thereby “achieving” a U.S. policy goal. But the U.S. has no legal or moral basis for its actions; it is simply a rogue nation exercising imperial power. There has been unrest against the government of Iran, but Iranians understand that the U.S. is part of the problem, not the solution, and any new government is unlikely to be friendly to the U.S. (5).

Of course, civilized nations do not deliberately cause people – their own or those of other nations – to needlessly suffer. The U.S. long ago violated that basic norm of humanity and international law by imposing sanctions on Iran. Worse, the sanctions were imposed for the behavior of the U.S., not Iran. The U.S. re-imposed sanctions when it, not Iran, walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran’s nuclear program in 2015. It seems the sanctions are imposed on the wrong nation (6).

“[The] AALCO [the Asia-African Legal Consultative Organization, of which Iran is a member] has concluded that unilateral sanctions violate various international law obligations . . . In the recent Iran-US sanctions case, the ICJ [International Court of Justice] has claimed prima facie jurisdiction over US re-imposition of sanctions against Iran.” (7) The UN has ruled the sanctions violate human rights (8).  An ICJ ruling could declare U.S. sanctions illegal, but the U.S. refuses to recognize the validity of the court’s rulings, primarily so U.S. political and military figures cannot be tried for crimes against humanity, but avoiding international jurisdiction over sanctions and other forms of warfare (landmines, for example(10).) is a strong secondary reason for avoiding the ICJ (11).

Humanitarian concerns for lifting sanctions should suffice, but they do not. So it’s important to note that it is in the self-interest of the U.S. to prevent a severe pandemic, since it will disrupt both the U.S.’ and the global economy, possibly leading to a recession. Government reactions to the virus have already disrupted global supply chains (12) , and more severe disruptions await as the virus spreads.

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1. Reuters. 2019. “U.S. sanctions on Iran threaten access to certain medicines: report.” October 29. https://www.reuters.com/…/u-s-sanctions-on-iran-threaten-ac…

2. Reuters. 2020. “U.S. says first shipments of medicine to Iran delivered via Swiss humanitarian channel.” January 30. https://www.reuters.com/…/u-s-says-first-shipments-of-medic….

3. Centers for Disease Control. 2020, “Coronavirius in Iran.” February 23. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/alert/coronavirus-iran

4. Bacon, John and Alltucker, Ken. 2020. “Can a coronavirus pandemic even be stopped? US warns of ‘severe’ disruptions. USA Today, February 25. ” https://www.usatoday.com/…/coronavirus-pandemic…/4865934002/

5. NPR. 2018. “Iranians Blame Trump And The Their Country’s Government For Sanction Effects.” November 19. https://www.npr.org/…/iranians-blame-trump-and-the-their-co…

6. Landers, Mark. 2018, “Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned,” The New York Times, May 8. https://www.nytimes.com/…/midd…/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html

7. Akhtar, Syed Ali. 2019, “Do Sanctions Violate International Law?” Economic and Political Weekly, April 27. https://www.epw.in/…/article/do-sanctions-violate-internati…

8.  United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR). Undated. “US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct, UN expert says.” https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx…

9. Global Policy Forum. Undated. “US Opposition to the International Criminal Court.” https://www.globalpolicy.org/…/us-opposition-to-the-icc.html

10.  Malanczuk, Peter. 2000. “The International Criminal Court and Landmines: What Are the Consequences of Leaving the US Behind?” European Journal of International Law. http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/11/1/522.pdf

11. Mulligan, Sephen P. Mulligan. 2018. “The United States and the ‘World Court.'” Congressional Research Service.  October 17. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/LSB10206.pdf

12. Jaffe, Amy M. 2020. “The Coronavirus, Oil, and Global Supply Chains.” The Council on Foreign Relations. February 24. https://www.cfr.org/…/coronavirus-oil-and-global-supply-cha…

The Real Threat to a 2020 Democratic Party Victory is the DNC

I’m still reading a lot of “Democrats need to appeal to centrists” articles. I think they’re wrong.

For one thing, Sanders is a New Deal social democrat, not a socialist. He’s not talking about nationalizing industries or giving workers control over the means of production. He’s not even talking about ending American Exceptionalism in foreign policy. Medicare for All, his most ambitious proposal, is merely an extension of an existing program that Americans like. It’s a big extension, but it’s not a radically new proposal.

That Sanders is considered radical instead of merely liberal speaks volumes about the success of American propaganda and the poor quality of our political discourse. Our education system, the media, and both political parties relentlessly propagandize for American Exceptionalism, for the myth of rugged individualism vs. communal flourishing, and for the neoliberal market system, which commodifies everything, including human beings, and offers them for sale*. Sanders isn’t seeking to change any of that; he is merely attempting to smooth the rough edges of a brutal system.

Chris Matthews’ pathetic performance on his show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, last week illustrates the success of American propaganda while it not so subtly reinforced it. Matthews plaintively mused that if Sanders were elected president there will be public executions in New York’s Central Park and that he, Chris Matthews, will be one of Sanders’ victims.

Sorry, Chris, but that’s a poor, red-baiting prophecy. Democratic socialists don’t execute people, but capitalism-loving fascists do, so you might want to shift your concern to the ever more problematic reelection of Trump and the continued Republican Party majority in the Senate.

As far as the election itself is concerned: (1) Recent studies show that only about 5 percent of voters are swing voters. Watering down proposals in the hope of capturing one or two percent of these voters risks alienating the Democratic Party’s base. An enthusiastic base is more likely to turn up in greater numbers than swing voters on election day. (2) In 2016, Trump ran an “energize the base” campaign and won the electoral college; he did not appeal to swing voters. Bush Jr. did the same in 2004. (3) Clinton attempted hold the Obama coalition together but failed. Her appeal to swing voters failed, and the Democratic base in at least three important electoral college states were not enthusiastic about her and stayed home. (4) The biggest theoretical danger of appealing to your base is that it energizes the other side’s base. I say theoretical, because that did not happen in in 2004 or 2016. The Democratic Party’s base did not respond to Trump or Bush by turning out in overwhelming numbers for lackluster Democratic centrists.

Establishment Democrats like Chris Matthew and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are the real threat to a 2020 Democratic Party victory.  They are not presenting an argument of fact but of emotion and privilege.  They are ignoring the party’s base and seeking to preserve their own power and to please their real base, which is composed of Wall Street financiers and corporate barons.

Don’t fall for it.

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*The “free” market, which requires government action to even exist, isn’t free or disinterested; rather, it is controlled by corporations, which seek to maintain information disparity between themselves and consumers, because, although it’s contrary to the principles of free markets, it allows corporations to charge higher prices. Corporations also work to reduce or eliminate competition, another violation of free market principle. And corporations evade, whenever possible, the cost of externalities, like pollution or birth defects, shifting the burden of negative corporate behavior onto individuals or the government. American propaganda – in education and in the media – then conflates this “free” market myth with personal and political freedom, because that reduces the threat that Americans will change the system.

Democratic socialists seek to break up this corporate love fest by decentralizing economic and political power.  Corporations are bastions of authoritarianism, and democratic socialists will devolve power away from capitalists and the government toward workers.

Why shouldn’t the workers make production decisions, since they will experience the positive or negative effects of them? Why should the benefits of increased productivity flow out of communities and toward anonymous shareholders, who merely own stock? Most stock sales are between individuals and institution and, after an IPO, don’t benefit companies or their workers.

Fossil fuels are the big exception to the “no nationalization” mantra of democratic socialists. The exigencies of climate change will force the government to nationalize fossil fuel companies to: (1) Stop the damage companies are causing to the environment by quickly ending most production. (2) Provide institutional support for the cost of the draw down.  Fossil fuel companies threaten human lives and human civilization, so extreme action is warranted.

 

From War Resister to Green New Deal Revolutionary: A Book Review

I possess Dee Knight’s memoir, From War Resister to Green New Deal Revolutionary, honestly.  I wrote an article that Dee found overly pessimistic, so he chastised me and sent a review copy of his book (so no Verified Purchase) as a response.  He signed it “With hope and optimism for the future.”

The book is divided into three parts, “Resisting the U.S. War in Vietnam,” “Transitioning to Anti-Imperialism,” and “Socialism and the Green New Deal.”  Part I is history, but of a valuable kind: it’s a first-hand report of what is possible.  Part II contains some history, as when Dee describes his experiences in Nicaragua during the Reagan years, but the fight against anti-imperialism is far from over.  Part III is about acting now so that humanity has a future.

While all three parts are interesting, I found Part I to be especially fascinating, because Dee describes his gradual awakening to the murderous nature of American imperialism.  It’s a journey of disenchantment that every activist travels despite the disapproval of family, the propaganda of our education system, and the relentless boosterism of the media in times of war.  Sometimes it’s a lonely journey, especially early on, but if you persist, you’ll meet comrades who’ve not only made the journey themselves, but who are glad to welcome you into the fight.  I know that I have gained much from many in-person and online collaborators, and now I’ll add Dee to the list of people who have helped me.

Dee has been involved in the anti-war, anti-draft, and anti-imperialism movements since the mid-1960s, and he has personally experienced many of its ups and downs.  We met each other online because we’re members of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Anti-Imperialism Network, which I co-founded and of which Dee was an early and active member.  I posted an article, An Open Letter to Us to the discussion group, the first few sentences of which are a summary of my concerns:

“I’m making a plea for action now. We – our republic – are in a very dangerous place. We must step up and step out and align ourselves with family, friends, and action groups and decide how to resist. There is no time left to wait more information, for additional confirmation, to wait and see, to hope for the normal.”

Dee’s response to the letter was, “A bit bleak, Mark. I would counsel more revolutionary optimism.” And he sent me a copy of his book.

In Part I, “Resisting the U.S. War in Vietnam,” Dee describes his journey from a conservative family and worldview in Oregon to a lifelong commitment to radical politics.  It wasn’t an all-at-once conversion; it took time for him first to become aware of the war, then of racism (there were few Black people in rural Oregon), then of his own privilege. The need for anti-imperialist activism flowed from his anti-war activities.  But once he became aware, he acted.

After a mercifully brief excursion in a seminary, Dee I-don’t-have-a-calling-to-be-priest-despite-what-my-teachers-said, enrolled in the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit school.  A priest-professor there extolled the “holy war in Vietnam.”  But his friends gradually made him aware of the less than holy aspects of the war in Vietnam.  One day, as the 1967 Spring anti-war mobilization wound its way past his apartment, he made a choice.

“I literally sat on the fence in front of the building, watching until a classmate waved me into the flow.  I jumped off the fence – literally and figuratively – and marched with the throng that jammed Kesar Stadium.”

It would be the last time that he sat on the fence.  At that moment, Dee made a commitment that would last a lifetime.

Not too long after the march, he sold his books and bought a plane ticket to travel to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, to participate in anti-war actions.  He informed his parents only after he landed in Madison; his mother, plaintively replying to his abrupt, even shocking, decision, said, “I just hope you don’t get in trouble with the government.”

Dee soon began crisscrossing the country, working for Eugene McCarthy’s doomed presidential campaign.  He’d come a long way already, because as a high school senior he had proudly supported Barry Goldwater.

For Dee, as for many people, 1968 was a watershed year.  The McCarthy campaign ended in disaster.  The Tet Offensive confirmed the futility of the Vietnam War.  The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were moments of agonizing grief.

As I mentioned above, I received a copy of Dee’s book because of a pessimistic article that I wrote.  In 1968, Dee could have gone beyond pessimism and into despair. The Tet Offensive proved LBJ and his generals liars, because the war was obviously not turning some “corner” towards it’s end, as they so often assured Americans. Body bags in ever greater numbers were returning to the U.S. from Vietnam, while young American men traveled in the opposite direct to die.  At home, a great leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was murdered.  Another man, who inspired hope among the young, Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a restaurant kitchen.  It was a terrible year.  But on page 22 of his book, Dee steadfastly refuses despair – or even to indulge in pessimism.  “I have never ceased to be optimistic,” he writes, “and I stubbornly continue to believe that the force of solidarity and struggle is the force of life itself, and that it will prevail.”

He briefly participated in the events at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, but Dee had something more in mind.  He was frustrated by his small-town draft board’s failure to act on his conscientious objector status, so he decided to force the issue.  A friend, on his way to New York, agreed to drive Dee to Canada.  He would become a draft resister, living in exile from the empire.

In Canada, Dee quickly made contact with the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, found a job and a place to live, and then reached out to the Union of American Exiles.  He began writing for The American Exile in Canada, a magazine devoted to the war and war resisters in Canada.  He joined a community of activists working with the Canadian government to ensure American draft resisters could legally remain in the country.  Sadly, not everyone qualified, and some resisters, in despair, committed suicide.

One day Dee received a letter from his Oregon draft board.  Due to technicality, the case against him was dropped.  He was free to return to the U.S.!  What Dee did next speaks volumes about his character and commitment.  He did not drop everything and return “home,” even though he was legally able to do so.  He did make a brief visit to see his parents, and he traveled Reno, Nevada to marry Carol, a Canadian woman he met in resistance circles.  After that, he remained an exile, continuing to fight for draft resisters and amnesty.  If anything, since he could travel without fear of arrest in the U.S., he became more useful to the amnesty movement.  And that leads up to one of the more spectacular moments of protest and resistance that I’ve ever encountered.

Dee was part of a small team of draft resisters who worked at the 1976 Democratic National Convention to gain attention to the demand for amnesty for draft resisters in Canada and elsewhere, soldiers Absent Without Leave (AWOL), and soldiers in military prisons for refusing orders to fight in Vietnam.  And amnesty was a demand, not a request:  the government of the U.S. was committing war crimes, forcing men of conscience to refuse to serve. These men had done nothing wrong; rather, the actions of the government had forced them into exile and jail.

The goal of the protesters at the convention was to pressure Jimmy Carter into granting amnesty if he was elected president.  One draft resister, Fritz Efaw, was an alternate delegate to the convention.  A Gold Star mother, Louise Ransom, who was also active in the draft resister movement, was present, as was Ron Kovic, the now-famous Vietnam War veteran (Born on the Fourth of July) and anti-war activist.  I’ll let you read the book for the details, but at the Democratic National Convention, Dee and a small group worked together to garner 15 minutes of television time for a Gold Star mother and a wounded Vietnam veteran to speak about the war and the need for amnesty.  And speak they did, before an audience of 60 million television viewers. The activist group even managed to gather enough delegate signatures to nominate Fritz Efaw, the draft resister, to be Vice President of the United States! He wasn’t old enough, so he graciously informed Jimmy Carter that he must decline.

Dee’s description of what a small group of determined people accomplished at the convention is worth the price of the book, because it’s a good reminder to activists that sometimes you can achieve the impossible.  It’s no wonder that Dee is optimistic.

In Part II, “Transition to Anti-Imperialism,” Dee’s narrative continues. Dee and his wife Carol traveled to Portugal in 1974 to witness that nation’s anti-fascist revolution.  Dee’s intense focus on resistance activities took a toll on his marriage, though, and he and his wife divorced – a real and painful sacrifice.

Dee spent several years in Nicaragua, working for the Sandinistas as a media specialist while the Reagan Administration supported the contras in their efforts to overthrow the Sandinistas.  Dee enjoyed the people, the food, and the police officers, who called themselves “the sentinels of the people’s happiness.”  He also found a bit of humor, albeit with himself as the object.  Like everyone else, Dee participated mandatory defense training, preparing to fight the contras.

“The closet I ever came to ‘armed struggle,’ he writes, “was jamming an antique M1 rifle during an evening militia practice.  We were on guard duty when we heard a noise that turned out to be a mix of family feud and drunken brawl.  My other main direct ‘war-like’ experience,” he continues, “was the loud BANG! of mangoes falling on our zinc roof: the first time I heard it I thought the war had finally landed in Managua.”  Later he notes, ruefully, “I wasn’t exactly Che Guevara.”

I don’t want to make Dee’s book seem like an action novel, because it’s not.  There are important sections in which he reflects on socialist history and thought, U.S. imperialism, what works and what doesn’t for activists, and what’s needed for the future.  He writes, for example:

 “Revolutionary leadership is needed.  We need to combine forces and tactics [with the environmental movement], to sustain and multiply the popular forces in motion, and move beyond the ‘politics of the possible’ [Think back to what he and a small group achieved at the 1976 Democratic National Convention].  This emphatically does not mean we should never run candidates for office or build a mass socialist party.  We definitely should, and thus win as many people as possible to understand and support socialism.  But we must be clear that to actually achieve socialism, there must be more.”

But, of course, the world doesn’t stop and wait for us to be ready, and in 1991 Dee is re-engaged in anti-war activities during run-up to the First Gulf War, known to me as Operation Desert Storm. I was on active duty in England at the time, and I provided support to nervous soldiers as they flew to the war zone and to quietly relieved soldiers making their way home from the war zone (I would go to Riyadh after the war a representative of the Red Cross). War for oil disgusted me, and that, combined with 11.5 years of frustration with government bureaucracy, caused me to leave the Air Force later that same year.  That decision set me on my own path to anti-war resistance.

Part III, “Socialism and the Green New Deal,” begins with a warning from Noam Chomsky:

“It is impossible to exaggerate the awesome nature of the challenge we face: to determine, within the next few years, whether organized human society can survive in anything like its present form.  Global warning is already a prime factor in destroying species at a rate not seen for 65 million years.  There is no time to delay changing course radically to avert major catastrophe.”

This section is the most didactic of the three, but it is still very readable. Dee describes the dangers we face as a species, the failures of capitalism to address them, and how the Green New Deal and socialism can help us rise to the challenge of survival.  He also surveys the state of the resistance:  The Occupy Movement, Black Lives Matter, Code Pink, the anti-war and anti-imperialism movements, and others, who must coalesce into a broad and insistent movement for change.

As always, the American penchant for imperialist war, this time George Bush Jr.’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, attracts Dee’s attention and comment.  The wars are responsible not only for the immediate deaths of Iraqis and Afghanis and the destruction of the farms, villages, and cities on which they depend, but also for the immense quantities of air, land, and water pollution (chemical and radioactive) military operations emit. The U.S. military is responsible for more pollution than many nations.  Once again, Dee acts.

       “As socialists in the homeland of imperialism, we don’t just look on anxiously –    we mobilize.  We do it so often we can be considered a permanent anti-war movement. Whether it’s a picket line of a dozen people or a thundering march and rally, we view it as our internationalist duty – and our patriotic duty – to mobilize to stop the warmakers.  Yes, patriotic!  Over time, more and more people will get it: the warmakers are not patriotic – we are!”

I can think of no better way to end this review than as I – and Dee – began:  with an admonition for optimism.

“In my own case, the experience [of amnesty work] not only radicalized me but provided an opportunity to develop skills and knowledge as a revolutionary organizer, which ultimately determined the direction for the rest of my life.  It’s true there were sacrifices.  I was over thirty when our amnesty campaign ended.  It took most of another decade for me to ‘settle down’ to a more or less normal lifestyle.  ‘More or less,’ for me, meant dedicating myself to the endless task of stopping the U.S. war machine and fighting for a better world.  Forty years later I haven’t stopped, and I hope I can continue indefinitely.  But now I see the task is larger.  Now it’s clear we need a revolution.  And while the odds seem long at the moment – after roughly four decades of reaction – I remain optimistic and confident.

Buy the book.  Read it.  Bolster your sense of optimism.  It certainly helped mine.

 

MIC in Madison

Note:  This might be an exercise you want to try on your hometown.  It involves identifying the elements of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) that are embedded into your everyday lives.

              The Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) is alive and flourishing the U.S.  This article looks first at MIC in the U.S., followed by the Military Side of MIC in Madison.  Next, the Industrial (Business) Side of MIC in Madison is outlined.  The article concludes with some thoughts on the Significance of MIC in Madison.

MIC in the U.S.

We’re all aware of the gargantuan size of the U.S. military industrial-complex.  President Eisenhower warned that it was a threat to democracy as he left the White House.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

We may have liked Ike for two terms, but it seems we didn’t listen to him carefully as he was on his way out the door.  The military-industrial components of President Trump’s 2021 Budget of the United States are startling, inducing both anger and despair.  The president’s budget allocates $740.5 billion for the Department of War, funding imperialist military operations ($20.5 billion for current operations; $32.5 billion for “enduring requirements”; $16 billion for other programs), an updated and expanded nuclear program ($28.9 billion, a 19 percent increase), and $15.4 billion to begin the destabilizing process of militarizing space through the creation of a Space Force.  Trump’s military planners have even included $20.3 billion for something akin to the Reagan-era “Star Wars” program, now called, more prosaically, “Missile Defeat and Defense.”  There are hypersonic weapons, tanks, ships, bombers, and $11.4 billion for the F-35, which may soon pollute the groundwater and the skies over Madison.

According to David Vine, author of Base Nation, the U.S. military has around 5,000 bases, 800 of which are in someone else’s country.  Statista.Com reports that slightly over 1.1 million Americans are on active duty with the Army (largest branch), Navy, Air Force, and Marines; another 1 million people are in the Guard and Reserve, and the Coast Guard has 48,837 active duty and reserve personnel.

Of course, these numbers, large as they are, under-report military expenditures, because many overseas contingency operations are funded separately.  Much of the budget of the Department of Homeland Security ($49.8 billion for operations, plus $5.1 billion for disaster relief) is, by definition, for “defense of the homeland,” a fine, authoritarian sounding phrase that includes brutalizing people who migrant in concentration camps.  Money for nuclear weapons development ($19.8 billion, a 18.4 percent increase) is buried in the Department of Energy’s budget.   The National Intelligence Program, which includes the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and six other black box agencies (but not military intelligence) has a 2021 budget of $61.9 billion. The Department of Veterans Affairs, the sometimes forgotten “backside” of our military adventurism, receives $243.3 billion in President Trump’s budget, a 10.2 percent increase.  The VA serves approximately 18.2 million (and counting) veterans, and its current budget makes it the second largest component of discretionary spending, second only to the source of its clientele, the Department of War.

So, the total budget for war and its aftermath is really a combination of all these sources, and it totals $1.1 trillion ($1,115,300,000,000) for fiscal year 2021.  Admittedly, this isn’t the standard way of presenting the budget, which focuses on the top line of each department without adding them together.  But add them we must if we’re to have a clear understanding of the enormous costs of the American empire.  Plus, total expenditures present a jaw-dropping amount of opportunity cost, as economists say, for action on climate change, infrastructure projects, universal health care, and education.  And when a drone attack on a wedding in Afghanistan kills 30 men, women, and children, how many young men vow to join the fight against U.S. imperialism?  Ten in Afghanistan, plus 10 in the tribal areas of Pakistan, plus 20 somewhere in the Middle East, plus 10 scattered across Europe and the U.S.?  Who knows, but the War on Terror facilitated by large war budgets creates terrorists as least as fast as we kill them.  This obscene amount of military spending, repeated year after year since 9/11, under both Democratic and Republican regimes, has not made us safer.  One could even argue that it has made us more vulnerable.

We’re often told the U.S. has the finest, best trained, and best equipped military in the world; certainly, we have the most expensive.  CNBC reports that the U.S. accounts for 37 percent of the world’s military spending, and the National Priorities project notes that the U.S. war budget is larger than the combined budgets of the next seven nations – which includes our new/old Cold War competitors China and Russia.

Opensecrets.org reports that the U.S. is home to five of the 10 largest defense contractors in the world, and American companies account for at least 57 percent of all arms sales, racking up $398 billion in global sales.  In comparison Russia, the second largest arms dealer, sold $37.7 billion in weapons (China isn’t included because reliable data doesn’t exist).  General Dynamics ($19.5 billion), Northrop Grumman ($22.4 billion), Raytheon ($23.9 billion), Boeing ($26.9 billion), and Lockheed Martin ($44.9 billion) are the top five U.S. weapons manufacturers.  It’s worth nothing that just one company, Lockheed Martin, sells more weapons than Russia.

It might seem reasonable to ask what we’re getting for our money.  Well, it turns out that we’re not getting as much as we should for a gushing spigot of dollars.  The U.S. has not won a war since it was part of the Allied Forces in World War II, and the only “war” our arms build-up might be said to have prevented is a nuclear war.  The Cold War period of our history wasn’t cold; there were dozens of hot wars around the world, many of which involved the U.S.  Korea and Vietnam are merely the largest and best known, but there were wars and coups in Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia in which the U.S. participated, if not precipitated.  In more recent times, we’re involved, directly and indirectly, with wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and an unknown number of countries in Africa.  But we’re still faced by conundrum of why the best armed and trained military in the world cannot win, or even reliably end, a war.  It seems that we have incompetent generals and mad politicians, and the rest of us are fools for tolerating them.

Why are we doing this?  The short answer is money.

Defense contractors make money, a lot of money, when we’re at war, so they have no interest in ending them.  According to Open Secrets.Org, lobbyists for defense contractors, 73 percent of whom are former government employees, spent $111,295,096 on Washington politicians in 2019, so it’s not in the interest of politicians to seek an end to war.  Generals, the men and women charged with prosecuting war, know their retirement incomes improve significantly if they sit on a defense industry corporate board.  Ending a war makes generating profits more difficult, and the winning general might not be offered a post-retirement board seat, so generals have strong motive for not ending wars that are the source of profits for their corporate masters.

George Orwell was right:

“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance . . . In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”

The “ruling group” of the 21^st century are capitalists and their profits, and our endless discretionary wars are not Eurasia against East Asia, as Orwell’s novel has it, but the working class of the U.S. against the working classes of nearly every non-European country on the planet.

Military Side of MIC in Madison

What of the military industrial complex (MIC) in Madison, a medium-sized, comparatively liberal city in the midwestern heartland of America?  Surely it has little to do with the vast grasping octopus of militarism and defense sales.  Surely.

Ah, no.  Madison, as the self-help mantra goes, “leans in” to the military industrial complex.  Let’s begin with the most obvious artifacts.

Truax Field, home of the Wisconsin Air National Guard’s 115^th Fighter Wing and its F-16 aircraft, tops Madison’s list.  A frequent source of noise complaints, and a contributor to air and PFAS pollution, the wing is subject to new controversy because of a U.S. Air Force proposal to base F-35 fighters in Madison.  In addition to being a grossly over-priced ($78 million per plane) and minimally functioning aircraft (800 unresolved software flaws, 13 of which are “must fix,” and a 25mm rotary cannon doesn’t shoot straight), the deployment of F-35s to Madison will increase noise levels (50 percent after-burner use) and air pollution, and construction at Truax Field will stir up PFAS in the soil, contributing to water pollution (one well in Madison is already closed).  The greatest impacts will be felt by working class neighborhoods around the airport.

In addition to the Air National Guard, the headquarters detachment of the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s 64^th Troop Command, along with the 54^th Civil Support Team, is based in Madison.  The Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs, commanded by Adjutant General Brigadier General Joane Mathews (who reports to Governor Evers), which supports Guard units statewide, is also in Madison.  There are three U.S. Army Reserve Centers and U.S. Naval and Marine Reserves components in the city.

Casting a wider net, there are seven military recruiting stations in Madison:  three Army, two Air Force, and one each for the Navy and Marines.  The University of Wisconsin in Madison also recruits students for the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs it offers for each branch of service.  The military pays tuition, room and board, and a monthly stipend to students enrolled in any of the programs, which makes it attractive to students from low income families.  Students in ROTC earn a military officer commission while completing an undergraduate degree, and after graduation they enter the military for at least five years (guaranteed employment is a valuable benefit in today’s economy).  To support ROTC, the university has a Military Science program (Army), an Aerospace Studies program (Air Force), and a Naval Science program (Navy and Marines).  Non-ROTC students can also take courses, which have titles that might appeal to a larger audience:  Leadership, Leadership and Teamwork, Leadership and Ethics, etc.  To the extent such courses appeal to non-ROTC students, they are points of recruitment and an opportunity to normalize the military and its way of thinking into everyday life.

There are no Junior ROTC programs in Madison High Schools, so military recruiters do not have a “primed” source of recruitment in schools.  However, recruiters do have access to students during career and college days, and, as part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, schools are required to provide military recruiters with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of high school students.

Finally, the William S. Middleton Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital in Madison is a major employer in the Madison area.  It serves 180,000 veterans in Wisconsin and Illinois.  In addition to the main hospital, it also operates a primary care clinic in Madison West.

Industry (Business) Side of MIC in Madison

That’s the explicitly military half of the military-industrial complex, but what about the industrial half?  It’s . . . rather large, given the size of Madison’s economy.  According to the latest data available on GovernmentContractsWon.com, between 2000 and 2018 there were 336 defense contractors in Madison, working on 5,358 contracts valued at $1,856,584,086.  Even though it’s spread over eight years, it indicates that the military makes a significant financial contribution to Madison’s economy.

In 2018, the latest year for which data is available, Madison companies won 769 defense contracts, for a total of $96,515,973.

Some of the contracts are tiny, such as a $3,600 contract awarded to the American Society of Agronomy, or a $6,895 contract awarded to a construction engineering company.  In fact, a typical 2018 defense vendor in Madison has one to 10 contracts worth less than (sometimes significantly less than) $500,000.

In terms of the number of contracts won, the largest defense vendor was Wisconsin Aviation Madison, which was awarded 523 contracts valued at $1,244,372.  The company provides general aviation services, most likely for the Wisconsin Air National Guard.

The largest dollar value of defense contracts in 2018 were issued to the Wisconsin Physicians Services Insurance Corporation.  It received only two contracts, but their combined value was $71,816,527.  Over the entire reporting period (2000 to 2018), the value of Wisconsin Physicians contracts was $1,290,551,122!

Other items of interest.  The University of Wisconsin System (presumably not just Madison, but significantly Madison) won defense contracts worth $38,796,563 between 2000 and 2018.  Madison Area Technical College won three contracts worth a total of $54,477.  The City of Madison had nine contracts worth $763,325.  More ominous, perhaps, is the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s 28 contracts for $199,495.

Significance of MIC in Madison

The Military-Industrial Complex is embedded in Madison’s economy, on both the military and the industrial (business) sides of the equation.  This opens potential new avenues for protest and pressure to reduce the war budget.

Opportunities: (1) Regular picketing at military recruiting stations and coordinated picketing at all of them simultaneously on select days (Armed Forces Day, during a build-up to U.S. military action) will help raise awareness of the ubiquity of the military in our lives.  The anniversary of the establishment of a branch of the military is also good day to picket specific locations.  Counter-recruitment materials can be distributed.  (2) Military recruiters have an advantage not available to counter-recruiters:  the names, addresses, and phone numbers of students.  As part of counter-recruitment efforts, it might be useful to reach parents of students as early as the 8^th grade, to let them know they can opt out of the military recruiter notification system when their child enters high school.  (3) Although the businesses in Madison receiving defense contracts are small and diffuse, an informational picket of the offices of Wisconsin Physicians Services Insurance Corporation might be useful, although as part of Medicare for All rather than for anti-militarism purposes.  A private insurance company reaping a billion dollars in taxpayer money might raise questions in many people’s minds.

Although significant cuts to the war budget are long overdue, activists need to be aware of the local impacts of budget cuts and, if possible, develop strategies to mitigate the negative effects on the city.

Impacts from budget cuts: (1) An excess supply of commercial real estate as defense companies reduce their size, shut down, or move away.  An excess supply will depress the commercial real estate market. (2) An excess supply of homes and apartments, as defense contractor employees move.  This will depress the housing market and if you’re a homeowner, that’s bad news, because the value of your home will decline.  However, if you’re a homebuyer, it’s good news and for the same reason.  A glut of vacant apartments will reduce rental rates, which is good news for renters but bad news for owners.  (3)  A decline in employment.  Fewer defense contracts means fewer jobs, and if defense employees without jobs remain in Madison, the city’s unemployment rate will rise.  Total wages and salaries will fall, which will negatively impact retail sales, potentially causing a new downward spiral.  (4) Sales tax revenue will decline, affecting services dependent on them.  (5)  Small defense contractors will fail.  Although they may only have small defense contracts, they are likely important to the profitability/viability of the small businesses who receive them.

Militarism has invaded Madison, creating a mostly unnoticed presence in our lives.  Activists can make this presence obvious through actions at military recruiting stations and select defense contractor offices.  Joining forces with environmental groups, and even Medicare for All advocates, can increase our impact.

But the war industry also pumps a significant amount of money into Madison’s economy.  Activists – and business owners and city planners – need to be aware of the likely impacts of a long overdue reduction in the war budget.  Planning for alternative uses of the capabilities of small businesses – and the expertise of their employees – will help mitigate negative impacts.

The Oligarchs Speak

If Michael Bloomberg, billionaire, becomes the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, he will confront Donald Trump, billionaire, the Republican incumbent.  The capture of the political system by wealth will be nakedly apparent, and it will serve as a stark warning:  the ruling class won’t allow their wealth or dominion to be threatened by the electoral process.

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The Democratic Party is contorting itself to accommodate what I initially thought to be Michael Bloomberg’s vanity run for president. It doesn’t appear to be a vanity run anymore; rather, it seems more like Bloomberg was recruited, if not by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) directly, then by major Democratic Party donors, who won’t countenance a threat to their investments in health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, tax breaks, government contract largess, and offshore stashes of cash. The rubber-legged DNC leadership changed various rules to accommodate Bloomberg, and they can certainly change a few more to make sure he’s the nominee.

Remember, political parties are private organizations; they are not part of the government. And while there are Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules they must obey, most of which barely regulates funding, the parties are free to make their own arrangements as to how they select candidates.

Republicans, at the moment, are considering eliminating primaries altogether, mostly to protect Trump from a primary challenger’s spin on Trump’s policies, which might provide embarrassing cannon fodder to the Democratic Party’s nominee. I’m not sure if Republicans need to worry, though, because Trump is a narcissist and a reflexive liar, and he’s never embarrassed. He’ll simply commit some outrageous throw-away behavior to distract attention, resort to Fox News and wee-hours Twitter to descry facts as fake news, slather lies on his policies until the weight of untruth suffocates them, or project his own behavior onto his opponents.

I’d say there are other Republicans who desire to avoid Trump’s embarrassments, but Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky senator and Senate Majority Leader, obstructs and lies so much, and he isn’t embarrassed in the least by his own undemocratic, self-aggrandizing behavior, that I doubt he’s worried about embarrassing news dribbling from Trump. And the behavior of Republicans during the House impeachment inquiry and subsequent faux Senate trial makes it extraordinarily clear that even run-of-the-mill politicians, afraid of being primaried by Trump’s base, are willing to accept an aggressive Trump’s daily embarrassments.

So, there are no laws or administrative rulings at the federal level, or red-faced shame anywhere, to stop the Democratic Party’s leadership from changing the rules to ensure their preferred candidate is nominated. They’ve done it before.

“The idea [of caucuses and primaries] was to listen to the voice of the people, but the reality was that party leaders still controlled who was nominated to be president. This became painfully obvious in 1968, when the Democrats nominated Hubert Humphrey for president despite the fact he had not run in a single primary. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago that August was a horror show, with protestors demonstrating and police spraying them with mace and tear gas.” – Historian Heather Cox Richardson

The rules have changed since 1968, but that’s not an insurmountable obstacle. There are already backroom murmurs among the DNC Illuminati of changing the rules at the convention if Sanders is the likely nominee. There would be a fight, but it would be a fight the DNC could win. Deprecations will fly wildly and widely about purity tests versus practical politics, about ideals versus money, and about the poorly sketched unicorn of electability, but no one will be tricked into believing the DNCs sincerity. John Milton, the poet, was also a fearsome political and ecclesiastical polemicist who once accused the Anglican bishops of his day of not being very Christ-like. Milton himself immediately failed that awesome endeavor by accusing the bishops of wearing smelly socks.

Of course, heavy-handed intervention by the party leadership means the party would lose a generation or two of Democrats and Trump would be reelected. But: (1) The party doesn’t want a populist or a socialist to lead its ticket, because the DNC (filled with Obama- and Clinton-era veterans) would lose control of the party and, just as important, its Wall Street donors would be unhappy. (2) The DNC will rely on “they have no place else to go” thinking about Sanders (and Warren) supporters. This is the same “thinking” (actually, it’s an assumption, which is “unthinking”) the Democratic Party has used for labor and People of Color for decades.

There is some truth to it, especially for union leadership and People of Color, but not necessarily union rank and file members. Individual union members can and do vote against union-endorsed Democratic candidates in primaries and for Republicans in general elections. They can certainly vote third party or stay home. People of Color can stay home as well, which they sometimes do, and they also have third-party options. And many People of Color live in states which make it difficult to vote (ID requirements), so an unpopular/imposed presidential candidate isn’t going to motivate them to jump through a lot of hoops before election day.

Sanders and Warren supporters won’t vote for Trump, but they, too, may exercise their right to stay home (which, as they painfully know, is a shadow vote for Trump). Disillusionment leads to anger, anger leads to despair, and despair leads to passivity.

Third parties, like the Green Party if it’s smart, will welcome the new, even angry energy of disaffected Democrats to the forever quest of achieving ballot access with a full slate of candidates in all 50 states. I’ve been a member of the Green Party off and on for most of my adult life, and while the party has issues, it’s definitely an alternative to the Democratic Party. Numbers matter, and an influx of disappointed young people could change the Green Party’s future.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), while not an electoral party itself (it doesn’t offer its own slate of candidates), does endorse candidates and encourages its members to support them. Plus, the DSA provides an opportunity for ongoing activism in addition to its election year endorsements (the Democratic Party, aside from rather boring monthly meetings, offers options for activists only every two or four years). The DSA grew from 3,000 or so members in 2015, to 60,000 members after Sanders lost the 2016 Democratic Party’s nomination. A new influx of voters appalled by the DNC’s machinations in 2020 is possible.

What all the foregoing means is that the DNC’s antics may well secure Trump a White House victory and Republicans an ongoing majority in the Senate. We will become an unfree, fascist nation thanks to the reluctance of the Obama-Clinton clique to relinquish power and of corporations loathe to lose their tax dodges. Power does indeed corrupt – Democrats as well as Republicans.

Free Speech and Transgender Rights

I’m always leery of cases like Merrywether vs. Shawnee State University, in which a professor claimed the university infringed on his free speech and religious rights by ordering him to stop referring to Transgender students by the gender he perceived them to be, regardless of student preference.

I have an absolutionist view of free speech rights that doesn’t easily accommodate limitations. I equate free speech with freedom to think, so if the government limits free speech it is also asserting hegemony over thought, which is a mark of a totalitarian society and an unfree people. On free speech/thought grounds, I want to side with the professor, but he’s obviously and intentionally forcing students to submit to his religious beliefs, something I also find repugnant. And, because he’s teaching at a state university, he is in some sense a representative of the state.

To be clear: l believe – I assert – that individuals have the right to exist as they choose to exist, independent of the opinions of other people, religions, or the state. The laws emanating from the Civil Rights movement are rightfully the laws of the land, and I believe they apply to LBTQ+ people, even if the Supreme Court has not yet issued an explicit ruling to that effect. Just as it’s no longer legal to discriminate against People of Color, it should not be legal to discriminate against LBTQ+ people.  And the right of individuals to exist as they choose to exist trumps free speech rights, even as I worry about those rights.

But – and this is a big “but” as far as this case is concerned – it’s not illegal to insult a Black man by calling him a n**ger, even if it’s socially unacceptable; calling a transitioning man a woman is an equivalent insult, with equivalent legal protection (or lack thereof).

Freedom of speech and religion are constitutionally protected, but, despite Civil Rights laws, it’s not clear to me that the freedom to determine one’s gender is also protected. I think the judge ruled correctly as far as the university, the students, and our culture are concerned, but it’s unclear that the implicit extension of a constitutional right to be a Transgender person will survive the Supreme court (this case is really just a setup for a Supreme Court ruling).

Given that the Supreme Court’s majority is composed of conservative Catholics, if the professor makes a free speech and a religious freedom argument, he might win, as the bakery/wedding cake controversy indicates. In fact, I think this is the most likely outcome. If the university loses, freedom of speech will be protected; however, the unwanted intrusion of religion into contemporary life will receive a boost, which is undesirable. A loss will also mean that the students’ Transgender status is not constitutionally protected.

If the university can demonstrate that students had no reasonable opportunity to take the course from a different professor – that they were, indeed, being held captive to the professor’s religious beliefs – the university might win. That’s in the best interests of students as individuals, because Transgender people will receive some assurance that their existence is constitutionally protected. It’s also good for contemporary culture, because it throttles back the imposition of religion on society. Still, I have a reservation: a victory for university (and Transgender people) is problematic for free speech rights, because it involves yet another court-ordered limitation.  As I wrote above, though, the right of individuals to exist as they choose to exist overrides free speech rights.

In other words, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules, the result will be messy and unsatisfactory.