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American Burlesque
As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents in recent history.
Trump’s failure to secure a second term has come as a result of his erratic, divisive, and controversial behaviour; his apparent reluctance to condemn far-right militants; alleged corruption, and his disastrous inaction to control the covid19 pandemic that – at time of writing – has claimed 354,000 American lives out of 21 million cases.
The Presidential election results have taken much longer to resolve with narrow margins separating Trump and Biden. Far from a “blue wave” of total repudiation that many – myself included – expected, surprisingly just under half of voters still cast their ballot for the Republican incumbent.
America has barely dodged the fascist bullet – this time.
But the underlying causes that created the fertile ground for a vacuous, reactionary, lying, corrupt narcissist like Donald Trump still exist.
Make no mistake, free trade agreements – the cornerstone of the Neo-liberal Experiment – still export jobs from the United States to low-wage nations like China, Vietnam, India, etc. The same has occurred in other western nations, including our own Aotearoa New Zealand.
Globalisation – one of the mainstays of neo-liberalism (the others being de-regulation, tax cuts, and privatisation) began in earnest in the 1980s with Thatcherism in the UK, and Reaganomics in the United States.
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Thatcher and Reagan – Apostles of the neo-liberal “revolution”
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Check your shoes: they almost certainly originate from China. As do the clothes you are wearing. Or the electronic devices in your home. Probably even the peanut butter in your pantry (unless its “Sanitarium”, “Pics”, etc).
In the United States, once high-paying jobs, industries, and services have been “exported” to low-wage societies. Manufactured goods from those same industries are then re-imported into the US to sell to American consumers.
Unfortunately, as those high-paying jobs – especially in the “rust belt” states – vanished, so did workers’ spending power. Meanwhile, corporate profits increased, leading to higher shareholder’s dividends and share buybacks. The much-vaunted, promised rewards of trickle-down economic theory never eventuated, except for a privileged few.
Writing for Investopedia, Will Kenton and Charles Potters point out;
Trickle-down policies typically increase wealth and advantages for the already wealthy few. Although trickle-down theorists argue that putting more money in the hands of the wealthy and corporations promotes spending and free-market capitalism, ironically, it does so with government intervention. Questions arise such as, which industries receive subsidies and which ones don’t? And, how much growth is directly attributable to trickle-down policies?
Critics argue that the added benefits the wealthy receive can distort the economic structure. Lower income earners don’t receive a tax cut adding to the growing income inequality in the country. Many economists believe that cutting taxes for the poor and working families does more for an economy because they’ll spend the money since they need the extra income. A tax cut for a corporation might go to stock buybacks while wealthy earners might save the extra income instead of spending it. Neither does much for economic growth, critics argue.
This has led to a steadily widening chasm between worker’s wages and corporate profits, with the trend accelerating from the 1980s onwards. As this graph, constructed by Robert B. Reich, Thomas Piketty, and Emmanuel Saez demonstrates;
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The Great Prosperity, The Great Recession
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The worsening trend continues unabated;
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Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, corporate profits continue to soar. When comparing Employee Compensation/GNP with Corporate Profits/GNP, the disparity is glaring;
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Note where recessions are marked with gray columns. Note how the immediate consequence of each recession – on the main – are wages down and corporate profits up.
Similar infographics abound throughout the internet.
As Erik Sherman writing for Forbes.com put it succinctly;
“…every financial crisis somehow manages to become an additional upward transfer of wealth. At least it isn’t the downward transfer that so many fear from a coming “socialism” that never arrives.”
Yes, socialism. The great bogeyman of American politics, as current Republican senatorial candidate, Kelly Loeffler recently “warned” her countrymen and women on the Georgian campaign trail;
“We’ve got to hold the line. We’re the firewall to stopping socialism in America.”
Except… Trump is not in office to serve the common wage-earning man and woman. His policies have continued to enrich corporations and the wealth of the top 1%;
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As Ben Steverman wrote in the above article;
Millionaires and billionaires had far more to celebrate. A Republican overhaul of the tax code left wealthy investors and corporations paying lower overall tax rates than most working professionals. It’s also never been easier to avoid the U.S. estate and gift tax, and pass on wealth to heirs. When Covid-19 hit, the Treasury and Federal Reserve propped up markets, primarily benefiting the top 1%, who own the majority of stocks held by U.S. households.
Rex Nutting, writing for “Marketwatch“, was even more blunt;
With unemployment still in the stratosphere, wages and salaries are depressed. Fewer people are working, and the ones who are working aren’t getting raises. According to separate report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wages in the private sector have increased just 1.7% in the past year, only half as fast as prices have been rising.
So Friday’s news is grim, but it’s not really news, is it? Everybody knows the fight is fixed, as the poet has sung. “The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. That’s how it goes, everybody knows.”
And that, readers, is at the core of the social crisis that allowed a corrupt, amoral, semi-intelligent human being like Trump to be elected; “Everybody knows the fight is fixed… That’s how it goes, everybody knows“.
74,223,251 Americans certainly know it and were prepared to vote for a man many acknowledged as deeply flawed and repellent to them.
The rage from Trump supporters is not on their President’s behalf. It is a deep rage that “the fight is fixed” and even the power of their vote appears insufficient to change the system and improve their lot. The slogan “Stop the Steal” is ubiquitous at Trump rallies.
Of all the analysts who have examined how a parody of a human being could be elected to be a parody of a US President, American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges‘ insights are worth considering. He has looked into the soul and psyche of his country and his findings are troubling.
As he recently pointed out with brutal crystal clarity;
“The physical and moral decay of the United States and the malaise it has spawned have predictable results. We have seen in varying forms the consequences of social and political collapse during the twilight of the Greek and Roman empires, the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires, Tsarist Russia, Weimar Germany and the former Yugoslavia. Voices from the past, Aristotle, Cicero, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joseph Roth and Milovan Djilas, warned us. But blinded by self-delusion and hubris, as if we are somehow exempt from human experience and human nature, we refuse to listen.
The United States is a shadow of itself. It squanders its resources in futile military adventurism, a symptom of all empires in decay as they attempt to restore a lost hegemony by force. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Libya. Tens of millions of lives wrecked. Failed states. Enraged fanatics. There are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, 24 percent of the global population, and we have turned virtually all of them into our enemies.”
As the empire wanes;
“The virtues we argue we have a right to impose by force on others — human rights, democracy, the free market, the rule of law and personal freedoms — are mocked at home where grotesque levels of social inequality and austerity programs have impoverished most of the public, destroyed democratic institutions, including Congress, the courts and the press, and created militarized forces of internal occupation that carry out wholesale surveillance of the public, run the largest prison system in the world and gun down unarmed citizens in the streets with impunity.
The American burlesque, darkly humorous with its absurdities of Donald Trump, fake ballot boxes, conspiracy theorists who believe the deep state and Hollywood run a massive child sex trafficking ring, Christian fascists that place their faith in magic Jesus and teach creationism as science in our schools, ten hour long voting lines in states such as Georgia, militia members planning to kidnap the governors of Michigan and Virginia and start a civil war, is also ominous, especially as we ignore the accelerating ecocide…
…I speak to you in Troy, New York, once the second largest producer of iron in the country after Pittsburgh. It was an industrial hub for the garment industry, a center for the production of shirts, shirtwaists, collars, and cuffs, and was once home to foundries that made bells to firms that crafted precision instruments. All that is gone, of course, leaving behind the post-industrial decay, the urban blight and the shattered lives and despair that are sadly familiar in most cities in the United States.
It is this despair that is killing us. It eats into the social fabric, rupturing social bonds, and manifests itself in an array of self-destructive and aggressive pathologies. It fosters what the anthropologist Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the communal intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, suspicion, envy and the lust for vengeance and violence. Nations in terminal decline embrace, as Sigmund Freud understood, the death instinct. No longer sustained by the comforting illusion of inevitable human progress, they lose the only antidote to nihilism. No longer able to build, they confuse destruction with creation. They descend into an atavistic savagery, something not only Freud but Joseph Conrad and Primo Levi knew lurks beneath the thin veneer of civilized society. Reason does not guide our lives. Reason, as Schopenhauer puts it, echoing Hume, is the hard-pressed servant of the will.”
Chris Hedges understands the problem will not go away;
“Those overwhelmed by despair seek magical salvations, whether in crisis cults, such as the Christian Right, or demagogues such as Trump, or rage-filled militias that see violence as a cleansing agent. As long as these dark pathologies are allowed to fester and grow–and the Democratic Party has made it clear it will not enact the kinds of radical social reforms that will curb these pathologies–the United States will continue its march towards disintegration and social upheaval. Removing Trump will neither halt nor slow the descent.”
And therein lies the problem; the essential crisis confronting us, but which few have considered.
Trump is but a symptom of the decay of the United States. As with the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1920s and 1930s, with social and economic upheavals brought on by the Great Depression; high levels of unemployment; defeat in World War One with humiliating loss of national pride, and punitive Treaty of Versailles demands – likewise Trump is the culmination of decades of corruption; political self interest; rising poverty and inequality, and worsening social and economic stresses.
The very fabric of American society is unravelling – and we are watching the spectacle in Real Time.
The election of Joe Biden will not make the poisoned soil that spawned Trump go away. Far from it, this is but a momentary respite.
Trump ended his political career and torpedoed his chances of a second term only because of a lack of self-awareness; self-discipline; and intelligence. He was an unsophisticated, ill-mannered, man-child trying to fill an adult’s shoes.
His successor, Trump 2.0, will likely have none of his obvious weaknesses.
The next Trump 2.0 will be less Chaplainesque and more shrewdly subtle at manipulating the American public at doing his bidding. If Trump could convince 74,223,251 Americans that he was fit for the most powerful role in the world – what could a competant, credible authoritarian figure achieve?
It is worth recalling that the US President who enacted neo-liberalism, minimal government, de-regulation, and globalisation was Ronald Reagan – a Republican.
The US President, who railed against neo-liberalism and globalisation, was Donald Trump – also a Republican.
The first offered neo-liberalism as a “solution” to America’s ills.
Twentyseven years later, his successor offered a “solution” to the ills caused by neo-liberalism.
What will the next Republican president offer as a “solution” to Trumpism?
If Donald J. Trump 1.0 was the prototype, the next upgrade is already on its way. And the fertile ground of discontent has been well prepared.
References
Wikipedia: 2020 United States presidential election
CNN: Trump condemns ‘all White supremacists’ after refusing to do so at presidential debate
Republic Report: Ten Reasons Trump is the Most Corrupt President in U.S. History
Wikipedia: Thatcherism
Investopedia: Reaganomics
Investopedia: Share Re-purchase (buy-back)
Investopedia: Trickle Down Theory
New York Times: The Great Prosperity, The Great Recession
The Economic Policy Institute: The Productivity–Pay Gap
Naked Capitalism: Corporate Profit Margins vs. Wages in One Disturbing Chart
Forbes.com: Corporate Profits Skyrocket As Post-Holidays Look Grim For Millions
NBC News: Trump throws grenades into high-stakes Georgia Senate runoffs in final stretch
Bloomberg Wealth: U.S. Billionaires Got $1 Trillion Richer During Trump’s Term
Marketwatch: Corporate profits’ share of pie most in 60 years
The Atlantic: Why People Who Hate Trump Stick With Him
Wikipedia: Chris Hedges
Youtube: Chris Hedges – The Politics of Cultural Despair (transcript: Scheerpost)
Additional
Bellingcat: The Making of QAnon: A Crowdsourced Conspiracy
Feminist Giant: Feminist Killjoy Here To Wreck Your Parties
Washington Post: Federal judge rejects GOP request to intervene in Clark County ballot-processing
Youtube: President-Elect Joe Biden & Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris Address the Nation
Previous related blogposts
The Rise of Great Leader Trump
The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election
Trump escalates, Putin congratulates
Trumpwatch: Voter fraud, Presidential delusions, and Fox News
Trumpwatch: Muslims, mandates, and moral courage
Trumpwatch: The Drum(pf)s of War
Trumpwatch: “… then they came for the LGBT”
Trumpwatch: How Elon Musk can overcome Trump’s climate-change obstinacy
Trumpwatch: One minute closer to midnight on the Doomsday Clock
Trumpwatch: What’s a few more nails in the planet’s coffin?
2020: Post-mortem or Prologue?
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Acknowledgement: Mr Fish
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= fs =
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The unthinkable has happened.
US, French, and British military forces attacked various targets in Syria.
The attack took place (Saturday, 14 April) at around mid-day-1.00PM local time;
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Trump described the attack with flowery words that served only to compound the horror of his actions;
“So today, the nations of Britain, France, and the United States of America have marshaled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality.”
As the planet faced the apocalyptic nightmare of atomic war, Trump invoked supernatural assistance from his deity;
“We pray that God will bring comfort to those suffering in Syria. We pray that God will guide the whole region toward a future of dignity and of peace.
And we pray that God will continue to watch over and bless the United States of America.”
If his god exists, now would be a good time for it to intervene.
As predicted by many, Trump has not waited for an investigative team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to carry out it’s work. This despite an OPCW team having already landed in Damascus to conduct it’s investigation.
This is a repeat of the U.S. launching it’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 despite the U.N. tasked with locating alleged weapons of mass destruction in that country.
The Russians have replied, predictably threatening consequences to the American, French, and British attack;
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It seems that Fox News commentator, Tucker Carlson’s overt message to Donald Trump not to attack Syria has fallen on deaf ears;
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It is now ten seconds to midnight. Our civilisation; our species; our entire planet stands on the brink of annihilation.
What will happen next will depend on the wisdom of men and women in Moscow. All notions of common sense and self-preservation apparently having deserted the fools who currently reside in the White House.
If you believe in your own deity – pray. Pray very hard.
If not, well, try it anyway. We have bugger all to lose.
But whether or not you subscribe to supernatural intervention, now would be a good time to gather your family close and share one of our species’ greatest virtues. It’s called hope.
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References
Radio NZ: Trump orders strikes in Syria over chemical attack (Live Feed)
Military Times: President Trump’s statement on the U.S. military action in Syria
RT News: ‘They can go anywhere they want in Douma’: OPCW team arrives in Syria to investigate alleged attack
CNBC News: Russia warns of ‘consequences’ for US-led strike on Syria
Youtube: Fox News – Tucker Carlson – Would war against Assad make US safer?
Previous related blogpost
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Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. – The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
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It is now two minutes to midnight. – The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
At the time of this blogpost being written, the US has not initiated a military response in Syria. As at midnight of 12 April, a little blue marble called Planet Earth is still in one piece…
The latest alleged poison gas attack in Syria has brought the planet closer to the unimaginable: a full-scale military confrontation between the United States and the Russian Federation.
The alleged gas attack in Douma, the last rebel-controlled town in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta, has supposedly killed between forty to 180 Syrians;
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There has been no independent verification of the alleged attack. There has been zero evidence as to who launched the chemical attack – if it happened at all. Video of the supposed event has not been verified by independent sources;
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As international tensions rose, and the racket of rattling sabres reverberated globally, our own Foreign Affairs Minister, Winston Peters stood as a lone voice of reason, calling for an impartial investigation;
“ New Zealand calls for an independent investigation into the attack by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and for the perpetrators to be held to account. We call on the parties to the conflict in eastern Ghouta to urgently allow OPCW inspectors access to the area.
We also call on the international supporters of the Syrian Government to work to uphold the cessation of hostilities promised in UN Security Council Resolution 2401 and to prevent further attacks of this nature.”
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At the U.N. Security Council, Trump-appointed US Ambassador, Nikki Haley spoke with language that was far from diplomatic and unambiguously hostile to the Assad regime;
“ We are on the edge of a dangerous precipice. The great evil of chemical weapons use that once unified the world in opposition is on the verge of becoming the new normal. The international community must not let this happen.
Only a monster does this. Only a monster targets civilians, and then ensures that there are no ambulances to transfer the wounded. No hospitals to save their lives. No doctors or medicine to ease their pain. I could hold up pictures of all this killing and suffering for the Council to see, but what would be the point? The monster who was responsible for these attacks has no conscience to be shocked by pictures of dead children
Russia and Iran have military advisers at the Assad regime’s airfields and operations centers. Russian officials are on the ground helping direct the regime’s ‘starve and surrender’ campaigns, and Iranian allied forces do much of the dirty work. When the Syrian military pummels civilians, they rely on the military hardware given by Russia. Russia could stop this senseless slaughter, if it wanted. But it stands with the Assad regime and supports it without hesitation.
The United States is determined to see that the monster who dropped chemical weapons on the Syrian people held to account.”
US ally, Britain, voiced it’s support for a US sponsored resolution at the UN Security Council, couched in unashamedly critical terms. UK Ambassador, Karen Pierce, said;
“ Russia’s credibility as a member of the council is now in question. We will not stand idly by and watch Russia continue to undermine global norms which have ensured all our security, including Russia’s, for decades. As a [permanent council] member, the United Kingdom will stand up for international peace and security. It is our moral duty.”
France’s Ambassador, François Delattre, was also condemnatory;
“ Allowing people to use chemical weapons allows the genie of weapons of mass destruction out of the bottle, and weapons of mass destruction pose an existential threat to all us.”
Russia’s UN Ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, described a proposed US resolution as a prelude to a Western strike on Syria;
“ I would once again ask you, once again beseech you, to refrain from the plans that you’re currently developing for Syria.”
Nebenzia warned;
“ If you take the decision to carry out an illegal military adventure – and we do hope that you will come to your senses – then you will have to bear responsibility for it yourselves.”
Memories of a US sponsored resolution in the United Nations Security Council – and subsequently used as a pretext to invade Iraq in 2003 – were most likely still fresh in the minds of Russian leaders.
Trump, though, was having none of it. Uncharacteristically, his reaction was scathing toward his former Russian ‘besties‘;
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Blaing his predecessor’s refusal to bomb Syria, raised this Twitter comment from Trump’s not-too-distant past;
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As Trump threatened Syria with a “big price to pay”, the Russians issued their own clear warning that any attack would elicit a military response against US missiles – and the “platforms” from which they were launched.
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After Trump’s “big price to pay” tweets, Chairman of the State Duma’s Defense Committee, Colonel General Vladimir Shamanov warned the West;
“ The double standard policy has overstepped all possible boundaries. At this point, the [pro-Putin parliamentary majority] United Russia party must responsibly state that we are going to take all political and diplomatic measures, and also military measures if such need arises. Not a single unlawful action will be left without response.”
Shamanov’s reputation from his tour of duty in Chechniya suggests he is not a person to be trifled with;
As Gennady Troshev, another Russian commander in Chechnya, wrote in his book My War, Shamanov “was too hot-tempered and direct in his relations with the Chechen population” [preferring] “to choose the shortest way to victory (…) [which] resulted in numerous casualties among Russian soldiers.”
Aslambek Aslakhanov, a retired MVD general who was Vladimir Putin’s advisor on Chechnya, called Shamanov a “butcher” and a “one-man curse on the Chechen people”: “Chechens talk about Shamanov like a plague that has descended on their heads, a disease like AIDS. He is drowning in blood. He cynically believes that all Chechens – men and women, even children – are bandits.”
On the same day, following a request from Russian and Syrian governments, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was invited into Syria to investigate the alleged chemical attack;
“ Today, the OPCW Technical Secretariat has requested the Syrian Arab Republic to make the necessary arrangements for such a deployment. This has coincided with a request from the Syrian Arab Republic and the Russian Federation to investigate the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma. The team is preparing to deploy to Syria shortly.”
Whether or not the OPCW is permitted to carry out its mandated duty to investigate the alleged attack in Douma remains to be seen. If Damascus is indeed innocent of perpetrating such an attack – or even that such an attack ever happened at all – it would be in Bashar al-Assad’s and Russia’s interests to facilitate the investigation.
According to Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, Eastern Ghouta has been “almost-fully liberated” from rebels. There should be no reason why an OPCW investigative group should be prevented from scouring the area, looking for relevant evidence.
Zasypkin also repeated Shamanov’s dire warning to the West – this time with greater clarity. And with an added threat of retaliation;
“ If there is a US missile attack, we – in line with both Putin and Russia’s chief of staff’s remarks – will shoot down US rockets and even the sources that launched the missiles.”
US ‘rockets’ – Tomahawk cruise missiles – are usually launched from American naval warships in the region. Zasypkin was giving a crystal clear warning that not only would US cruise missiles be shot down – but US warships would be attacked.
Not since Israel attacked the USS Liberty in 1967 has an American warship been deliberately targetted by another sovereign state in the Middle East. In that instance, the premeditated attack was covered up by both Israeli and US governments.
A direct attack on a US warship by Russian forces would have predictably catastrophic consequences.
Seemingly oblivious to the spiralling madness, Trump, ‘upped the ante’ with more bellicosity;
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Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 have the planet’s two greatest military powers faced off – perhaps the closest that we as a species ever came to World War Three. Thankfully, there were saner men in both the Kremlin and White House at the time.
Fiftysix years later, the planet may have to rely on the wits of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to avert the Last World War.
Russia has surprising support from one segment of the US establishment: Fox News. Around 9/10 April, Fox News’ host/commentator, Tucker Carlson, questioned and excoriated Washington’s rush-to-judgement and chilling sabre-rattling. Carlson seemed to be one of the few Establishment media voices urging restraint.
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Carlson also questioned why Syria had been “convicted” of the alleged chemical attack without any evidence. He was scathing;
“ All the geniuses tell us that Assad killed those children, but do they really know that? Of course they don’t really know that. They’re making it up. They have no real idea what happened.
Actually both sides in the Syrian civil war possess chemical weapons.”
Carlson also pointed out that Syrian government forces were actually already winning in Eastern Ghouta. As late as 4 April Trump stated publicly that he wanted all US forces out of Syria;
“ I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home. It’s time.”
Four days later – “gas attack” hits the global headlines. Trump was ‘forced’ to change his mind;
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Carlson asked pointed questions;
“ How would it benefit Assad using chlorine gas last weekend? Well, it wouldn’t. Assad’s forces had been winning the war in Syria. The [Trump] Administration just announced its plans to pull American troops out of Syria, having vanquished ISIS. That’s good news for Assad. And about the only thing he could do to reverse it and to hurt himself would be to use poison gas against children. ‘Well he did it anyway!’ they tell us, ‘He’s that evil!’. Please. Keep in mind this is the same story they told us last April!
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At the time this show asked what seemed like the obvious question, ‘Are we really sure that Assad did that?’. It seemed wierdly timed and counter-productive to him.”
Carlson was referring to the previous so-called sarin-gas attack at Khan Shaykhun, in the Idlib Governorate, in April last year. This blogger also questioned that veracity of assigning responsibility to the Assad regime;
Which suggests that the only other ‘player’ in the Syrian civil war capable of deploying chemical weapons would be a sovereign state.
If not rebels, who?
In a June 2013 story, the BBC reported on who was supplying the myriad ‘players’ in the Syrian conflict. One of the arms traffickers in the region was Saudi Arabia;
In late 2012, Riyadh is said to have financed the purchase of “thousands of rifles and hundreds of machine guns”, rocket and grenade launchers and ammunition for the FSA from a Croatian-controlled stockpile of Yugoslav weapons.
These were reportedly flown – including by Royal Saudi Air Force C-130 transporters – to Jordan and Turkey and smuggled into Syria.
Note the link: Croatian-controlled stockpile
Follow the link and it leads to a February 2013 story in the New York Times, which stated;
Saudi Arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to anti-government fighters in Syria in a drive to break the bloody stalemate that has allowed President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power, according to American and Western officials familiar with the purchases.
The weapons began reaching rebels in December via shipments shuttled through Jordan, officials said, and have been a factor in the rebels’ small tactical gains this winter against the army and militias loyal to Mr. Assad.
So, what sort of weapons was Croatia selling on the open market? Interrogate Google with the parameters ‘Yugoslavia Croatia chemical weapons’. It offers this April 1999 story in the UK Guardian;
After months of prevarication, Nato launches a ground war against Slobodan Milosevic’s forces in Kosovo. But no sooner do British and US troops begin to move in and threaten Serb army units than Milosevic unleashes his secret weapons sarin nerve gas and BZ, a psychochemical incapacitant.
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According to former Yugoslav chemical weapons officers, Milosevic’s arsenal is far larger than previously thought. Besides sarin and BZ, it includes the blister agent sulphur mustard and the choking agent phosgene. And it is thanks to scientists in Britain and the US that he could use them on Nato troops.
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In total, the Serb army may have as many as 5,800 122mm sarin-filled shells and 1,000 mustard gas shells, say these sources. In addition, Serbia is also known to have been developing a multiple rocket delivery system for sarin and a bomb capable of delivering 20 litres of the nerve gas to the battlefield.
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Even the Pentagon, which is sceptical about Croatian estimates of the numbers of chemical shells and rockets in the Serb arsenal, accepts that Milosevic inherited from the JNA a programme capable of producing a deadly 3,000 rockets filled with sarin and 100 shells filled with mustard gas.
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Although the Pentagon says it has no evidence that Serbia has continued to manufacture and test chemical weapons since the break-up of the Yugoslavia federation, officials told the New York Times they were ‘concerned’ about the stockpiles.
The Pentagon would be right to be “‘concerned’ about the stockpiles“. Where would they end up?
There is no proof that amongst the weapons purchased from Croatia there was included chemical weapons such as sarin gas. But the facts are clear;
Former-Yugoslavia developed massive quantities of poison gas weapons, including sarin gas
After the break-up of Yugoslavia, Croatia sold plane-loads of weapons to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia supports rebel forces in Syria
Sarin gas was used in the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun
It is all circumstantial, of course. But it seems plausible that Saudi Arabian military/intelligence agents could have transported sarin gas shells/rockets to Idlib Governorate where, under close supervision, they were launched against a defenceless city.
The plan was simple; to provoke a politically unsophisticated, naive, and impressionable Donald Trump into military retaliation by blaming the attack on the Syrian regime.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, which supports rebel groups fighting the Assad regime, and is engaged in a conflict with Iran to gain regional supremacy, has declared that it will join any retaliatory action that the United States takes against the Syrian government;
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Make no mistake: it would benefit Saudi Arabia if the US re-engaged in the Syrian civil-war and launched a crippling strike against the Assad regime.
Saudi Arabia – engaged in a proxy war with it’s regional rival, Iran.
Saudi Arabia – which purchased plane-loads of weapons from Croatia, which once belonged to the defunct Jugoslav National Army, and which may have included stockpiles of sarin gas.
As Fox News’ Carlson Tucker rightly pointed out; there is zero evidence that the so-called “gas attack” was carried out by Assad’s forces. There was no rational reason for Assad to consent to such an attack – he was winning the civil war anyway.
And drawing the US back into the Syrian conflict would benefit: Saudi Arabia.
Mr Trump – you are being ‘played’.
Let’s hope someone in the White House can explain this to the buffoon sitting at the Oval Office desk. Preferably before Planet Earth is incinerated.
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References
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Editor’s Note
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: 2018 Doomsday Clock Statement., Science and Security Board
Radio NZ: Syria – Toxic gas attack kills at least 70 in Douma
BBC: Syria ‘chemical attack’ – Russia and US in fierce row at UN
Fairfax media: NZ expresses ‘strongest condemnation’ of chemical attack on Syrians
Reuters: U.S., Russia clash at U.N. over chemical weapons attacks in Syria
The Guardian: Syria chemical attack – US and Russia fail to reach UN agreement as tensions rise
Twitter: Donald Trump – Chemical attack in Syria – 9 April 2018 (1)
Twitter: Donald Trump – Chemical attack in Syria – 9 April 2018 (2)
Twitter: Donald Trump – Chemical attack in Syria – 9 April 2018 (3)
Twitter: Trump – Do not attack Syria – 5 September 2013
RT News: Duma defense chief says Russia may respond with military force to US strike on Syria
Wikipedia: Vladimir Shamanov
RT News: OPCW to send chemical weapons investigators to Syria’s Douma – statement
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons: OPCW Will Deploy Fact-Finding Mission to Douma, Syria
Al Jazeera: Russia threatens to shoot down any US missiles fired at Syria
Al Jazeera: Remembering USS Liberty – When Israel attacked America
Twitter: Donald Trump – Missiles at Syria – 11 April 2018
New York Times: Mattis Expresses Caution on Imminent Strike Against Syria
RT News: Tucker Carlson slams US foreign policy in no-holds-barred monologue on Syria, social media explodes
Youtube: Fox News – Tucker Carlson – Would war against Assad make US safer?
Washington Post: Even as Trump urges Syria exit, the military says it’s not finished with ISIS
New York Times: As Trump Seeks Way Out of Syria, New Attack Pulls Him Back In
BBC: Who is supplying weapons to the warring sides in Syria?
The Guardian: UK link to Serb poison gas
Reuters: Saudi could take part in military response in Syria – Crown Prince
Additional
Radio NZ: Expert – ‘Moscow seeking comeback as a great power’
Previous related blogposts
The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election
Trump escalates, Putin congratulates
Trumpwatch: The Drum(pf)s of War
Trumpwatch: One minute closer to midnight on the Doomsday Clock
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Fun Fact #1: “According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8° Celsius (1.4° Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade.” – NASA, Earth Observatory
Fun Fact #2: “Atmospheric CO2 concentration started to increase at the time of the Industrial Revolution and has been increasing rapidly since 1900. This increase is in proportion to the usage of fossil fuels. Therefore, reducing consumption of fossil fuels in order to reduce CO2 emissions has become a crucial countermeasure for global warming.” – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Fun Fact #3: In 2011/13, China had 78 million cars. In 2014, there were 154 million cars in China. By 2015, that number had risen to 172 million. A year later, another 28.3 million were sold, taking the figure to around 200.3 million private cars. By 2050, the estimated number of private vehicles in China is estimated to be between 464.9 to 557.7 million.
Fun Fact #4: “The global number of cars on the road and kilometers flown in planes will nearly double by 2040 […] Cars are projected to reach the two billion mark by 2040.” – World Economic Forum
Fun Fact #5: “A typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.” – US Environmental Protection Agency
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Until recently, Canadian-American businessman, engineer,and inventor, Elon Musk was an Advisor on Donald Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum.
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Elon Musk
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Musk’s appointment to this Forum on 14 December last year joined the likes of;
A formidable Who’s Who of American capitalism’s “Captain’s of Industry”.
Trump’s propaganda website, “Great Again” stated;
Members of the Forum will be charged with providing their individual views to the President — informed by their unique vantage points in the private sector — on how government policy impacts economic growth, job creation and productivity. The Forum is designed to provide direct input to the President from many of the best and brightest in the business world in a frank, non-bureaucratic and non-partisan manner.
Trump was more effusive;
“ You’re doing well right now and I’m very honored by the bounce. They’re all talking about the bounce … Anything we can do to help this go along, and we’re going to be there for you. And you’ll call my people, you’ll call me. It doesn’t make any difference. We have no formal chain of command around here.”
Musk’s appointment to the Forum had been unforeseen, as he had voiced criticisms of Trump and his victory at the elections;
The announcement came as a big surprise to many, considering Musk has been very critical of Donald Trump before and after the election. Before Trump became President-elect, Musk said in an interview with CNBC that the Republican nominee was “not the right man for the job” and that “he doesn’t seem to have the character that reflects well on the States.” After the business tycoon won more electoral votes than Hillary Clinton, Musk also lamented that the outcome “not the finest moment in our democracy in general.”
Before the election took place, Musk also stated that Hillary Clinton’s economic and environmental policies were better. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering Musk has made much of his fortune from harnessing renewable energy. He’s also a proud advocate of environmental sustainability. Trump, on the other hand, believes climate change is a “hoax” invented by the Chinese.
Musk holds strong views regarding human civilisation’s impact on the planet’s environment;
“ We’re running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere … can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.” – 17 April 2013
“ We are going to exit the fossil fuel era. It is inevitable. Right now we have an incentive structure that is designed to slow it down [transition from fossil fuels]. If countries decide to do a carbon tax or cap and trade, and it is real and not watered-down and weak, I think we can see a transition that is in the 15 to 20 years time frame as supposed to 40 to 50 years time frame. By putting a price on carbon, we are fixing a pricing error in the market. Any price will be better than the close to zero we have right now. ” – 2 December 2015
“ Burning oil is like taking furniture from your house and setting it on fire for heat.” – 1 July 2016
“By definition, we must at some point achieve a sustainable energy economy or we will run out of fossil fuels to burn and civilization will collapse. Given that we must get off fossil fuels anyway and that virtually all scientists agree that dramatically increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon levels is insane, the faster we achieve sustainability, the better.” – 20 July 2016
“ CO2 isn’t exactly pollution, but it does cause warming and slight acidification of water if very large quantities are dug from deep underground and added to the surface cycle. The problem is the age-old tragedy of the commons. The common good being consumed is atmospheric and oceanic carbon capacity, which currently has a price of zero. This results in an error in market signals and far more CO2 is generated than should be. We won’t ever go to zero CO2, but the rate over time should be dropped far below what it is today.” – 26 January 2017
Musk’s views are clear. They are also in direct stark contrast to Trump’s own, stated belief, that global warming was a “hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to hobble American industry“. By participating in Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, Musk appears to be an optimistic believer in being inside the enemy’s tent pissing out, rather than vice versa.
At best, it was a naive belief.
On 27 May, Trump used his favourite medium to announce that he was going to… make an announcement;
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On 28 May, rumours began to circulate that Trump had already made up his mind and was going to make good on his threat to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord;
President Trump has privately told multiple people, including EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, that he plans to leave the Paris agreement on climate change, according to three sources with direct knowledge.
Publicly, Trump’s position is that he has not made up his mind and when we asked the White House about these private comments, Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks said, “I think his tweet was clear. He will make a decision this week.”
The same report claimed that “… the EPA staff are quietly working with outside supporters to place op eds favoring withdrawal from Paris“. Evidently, the more unpopular/unreasonable a political decision is, the more ‘spin’ is required to ‘massage the message’ and lull the masses back to sleep.
Trump’s appointee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and fellow climate-change denier, Scott Pruitt, had been advocating since April for the US to withdraw from the Paris Accords;
Scott Pruitt, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, has said that the US should back out of its commitment to the Paris climate agreement, the landmark plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to limit global warming to below 2˚C.
This follows President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to cancel the agreement, with a decision on whether he will do so expected within the next month.
“It’s a bad deal for America,” Pruitt told cable news show Fox & Friends last week. “China and India had no obligations under the agreement until 2030.”
Pruitt was being willfully disingenuous (ie; lying his head off);
“That statement is either deliberately misleading or woefully uninformed about what the Paris agreement is and what it does,” says Alden Meyer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
China and India have already taken action to reach the goals they set for 2030, and China has committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by a higher percentage than US commitments. “Pruitt is really off the mark here,” Meyer says. “It’s very clear that China is going to overachieve its Paris objectives.”
Han Chen of the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York says that China implemented its first mandatory national cap on coal consumption last year and added three times as much wind capacity as the US in 2016.“China already suspended over 100 planned or under-construction coal projects last year,” says Chen. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration wants policies that favor highly polluting fossil fuels. It’s no question which country is more ambitious on climate action at the moment.”
On 31 May, just days before Trump was due to officially announce what the entire world already knew, Elon Musk issued his own announcement;
Tesla CEO Elon Musk threatened Wednesday to stop advising President Donald Trump if the White House withdraws from the Paris climate accords.
Asked on Twitter what he would do if Trump pulled out of the landmark global deal to curb emissions, Musk said…
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Musk, who also founded SpaceX, is on Trump’s manufacturing jobs council, his strategic and policy forum, and his infrastructure council. Musk has defended his role advising Trump in the face of some criticism from anti-Trump activists, arguing that they should want his voice in the discussions to offer views that differ from those of the president’s other advisors.
Sure enough, on 2 June (New Zealand time), Trump did not fail to disappoint an entire planet of 7.3 billion humans;
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Without any hint of self-awareness of irony, Trump stated;
“ The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction, on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.”
Trump’s arrogance was such that even the North Korean leadership (who are also a signatory to the Paris Accord) was moved to say the right thing at the right time;
A spokesman for the North Korean government described the move as the “height of egotism and moral vacuum seeking only their well-being even at the cost of the entire planet, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“[The US] is ignorant of the fact that the protection of the global environment is in their own interests,” the spokesman added.
“The selfish act of the US does not only have grave consequences for the international efforts to protect the environment, but poses great danger to other areas as well.”
Following on from Trump’s announcement, Elon Musk made good on his warning that he would not be a collaborator to any undermining of the Paris Accord;
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Musk further tweeted;
Under Paris deal, China committed to produce as much clean electricity by 2030 as the US does from all sources today
Musk was correct. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, declared China’s intention to persevere with the Paris Accord;
“ Climate change is a global challenge. No county can place itself outside of this. At the same time, we will continue to resolutely be a protector and promoter of the global climate system process, proactively participating in the multilateral climate change process. We are willing to work with all sides to jointly protect the Paris agreement process, promote the actual rules and regulations of the agreement in follow-up talks and effectively enact them, and promote global green, low carbon, sustainable development.”
China has strong motivation to reduce atmospheric pollution generated by human industrial activity;
China had fought previous attempts by foreign governments to limit carbon emissions, claiming it should be allowed the same space to develop and pollute that industrialized nations had.
But with its capital often choked by smog and its people angry about the environmental degradation that rapid development has wrought across the country, Beijing has become a strong proponent of efforts to halt global warming.
The consequences of runaway climate change could be devastating for China, it’s people, and it’s economy. According to Climate Scientist, Benjamin Strauss;
“ Roughly a quarter of the world’s people who live on land at risk from 4C warming are living in China. That is more that twice as many as who live on vulnerable land in Europe and the US combined. The Shanghai region by itself has more than 20 million people living on land that could be lost. ”
Spokesman for the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, added his country’s voice to endorsing the Paris Accord;
“ President Vladimir Putin signed this convention when he was in Paris. Russia attaches great significance to it. At the same time, it goes without saying that the effectiveness of this convention is likely to be reduced without its key participants.”
Meanwhile, many Trump supporters; alt. right purveyors of lies and conspiracy-theories such as ‘Infowars‘ and ‘Brietbart‘; and assorted right-wing conservatives like Anne Coulter and Mark Levin were falling over each other in their scramble to praise their Dear Leader for taking the planet closer to ecological melt-down. The American Right seem to be the only ones supporting Trump.
Ironically, big corporations have parted company with Trump and the American Right, siding instead with the science community;
Major U.S. corporations and leading business figures are raising an eleventh-hour appeal to President Donald Trump, urging him to not pull the country out of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tweeted Wednesday an image of an earlier joint open letter from over 20 top companies based in the U.S. or having business stateside, in which they made a business case that the U.S. should remain a part of the accord.
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In the face of an intransigent anti-science cabal that now occupies the White House, aided by Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the rest of Planet Earth has no choice but carry working to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, nitrous oxide, and methane).
People of influence such as Elon Musk must now reassess their options.
By fortuitous coincidence, one option is already available to Musk and is stated on his Tesla website;
Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.
Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.
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Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.
We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.
Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.
Musk has given away his electric car patents, promising “not [to] initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.“
He has indeed joined the Open Source movement. Open Source is described as “a decentralized development model that encourages open collaboration“. There is an element of socialist co-operative behaviour with OS.
However, simply stating that Musk will not stand in the way of anyone who “wants to use [Tesla] technology” is not enough. This is an opportunity for Musk to counter Trump’s refusal to act decisively on climate change. This is Musk’s opportunity to show leadership where Trump – and other Republicans and conservatives – will not.
This is the proposal I have sent to Elon Musk, via Twitter;
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Frank Macskasy
New Zealand/Aotearoa – @fmacskasy
Kia Ora Mr Musk,
I wish to congratulate you on your principled decision to withdraw from Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum. Withdrawing the United States from the Paris Accord on climate change shows a disturbing lack of understanding by Trump and a refusal to understand the science behind climate change, and it’s impact on Planet Earth.
By rejecting the science and claiming that climate change is a “Chinese orchestrated hoax” implies that the Chinese government has exercised full-spectrum dominance and control over NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), American Geophysical Union (AGU), American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society, Geological Society of America, and many others. This is patently laughable.
Mr Musk, you are in a unique position to take a measure of leadership on this critical problem confronting humanity and the entire planet.
On your Tesla website, you have stated that you intend to allow people to use your electric car technology without any impediments created by patent-rights;
“Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.
Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.”
Your generosity in removing patents to Tesla technology is the seed to which the Paris Accord can move forward with a giant leap.
Instead of just allowing access to Tesla technology, I propose that you engage with the Chinese government to set up Tesla car-manufacturing plants throughout the Chinese People’s Republic. You could stipulate that the only two provisos would be;
1. Each plant must be powered by renewable energy. No fossil fuel energy sources to be used.
2. All electric vehicles will be for domestic consumption only (if you so wish).
With the number of private vehicles in China estimated to each 464.9 to 557.7 million by 2050 (ref: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251560842Modeling_future_vehicle_sales_and_stock_in_China) and with each typical car emitting approximately 4.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year (ref: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle-0), it does not take much maths to work out how much extra CO2 will be pumped into the atmosphere by just one nation alone.
Your leadership on this problem would rival that of your SpaceX programme and ambitions for Mars.
You can achieve what Trump has failed in such a dismal fashion.
This would be a spectacular act of international co-operation with the future of the entire planet and our species at stake.
Mr Musk, you can be the visionary. If China is to have 557.7 million cars by 2050, let them be electric. Let them all be Teslas.
Best wishes,
-Frank Macskasy
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Solving the crisis of climate change will take a titanic, collective effort from us all.
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References
NASA: World of Change – Global Temperatures
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries: History of Fossil Fuel Usage since the Industrial Revolution
Huffington Post: Number Of Cars Worldwide Surpasses 1 Billion – Can The World Handle This Many Wheels?
Wall Street Journal: China Soon to Have Almost as Many Drivers as U.S. Has People
News.Cn: China’s car ownership reaches 172 million
South China Morning Post: China 2016 car sales surge at fastest rate in three years
Researchgate: Modeling future vehicle sales and stock in China (p26)
US Environmental Protection Agency: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle
World Economic Forum: The number of cars worldwide is set to double by 2040
Wikipedia: Elon Musk
The Hill: Trump names Elon Musk, Uber CEO to advisory team
The Guardian: The Minute – Trump promises Silicon Valley ‘bounce’
True Activist: Donald Trump Appoints Elon Musk As Strategic Presidential Advisor
Twitter: Donald Trump – global warming Chinese hoax
USA Today: Icons – Elon Musk doesn’t let up at Tesla, SpaceX
Reuters: Tesla’s Elon Musk says transition from fossil fuels inevitable
Twitter: Elon Musk – burning fossil fuel
Tesla: Master Plan, Part Deux
Gizmodo: Gizmodo Chats With Elon Musk About Climate Change And Donald Trump
Twitter: Donald Trump – global warming Chinese hoax
Twitter: Donald Trump – Decision on Paris Accord
Axios: Scoop – Trump tells confidants U.S. will quit Paris climate deal
New Scientist: Environment chief says US should exit Paris climate agreement
CNBC: Elon Musk threatens to leave White House advisory councils if Trump drops Paris accord
Twitter: Elon Musk – will have to resign from councils
Radio NZ: Donald Trump withdraws US from Paris climate deal
RT News: ‘Height of egotism’ – North Korea blasts US withdrawal from Paris climate accord
Twitter: Elon Musk – departing presidential councils
Twitter: Elon Musk – China committed to producing clean electricity
Scientific American: Ahead of Trump Decision, China Says It Will Stick to Paris Climate Deal
China Dialogue: Chinese cities most at risk from rising sea levels
RT News: Russia confirms commitment to Paris climate change agreement amid fears of US pullout
Media Matters: Right-wing media cheer Trump withdrawing United States from the Paris climate agreement
Fortune.Com: Top CEOs Are In a Last Ditch Bid to Persuade Trump to Stick with the Paris Climate Deal
Twitter: Marc Benioff – Decision on Paris Accord
Tesla: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
Wikipedia: Open Source Model
Twitter: Frank Macskasy – sharing Tesla
Previous related blogposts
Trumpwatch: One minute closer to midnight on the Doomsday Clock
Trumpwatch: What’s a few more nails in the planet’s coffin?
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Wellington, NZ, 6 June 2017: Global warming has not entirely eliminated cold, wet Wellington wintry-days. With the capital city shrouded in grey cloud-cover, and washed with a constant chilly drizzle, New Zealanders ignored their discomfort to stand on Parliament’s grounds. They were protesting the visit of US secretary of State and former Exxon-Mobil CEO, Rex Tillerson.
The lunch-time protest started with a small handful of hardy souls;
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The very first placard came from Jo;
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‘The Bern‘ is indeed not a happy fellow after Trump’s announcement to pull out from the Paris Accords;
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“ President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement is an abdication of American leadership and an international disgrace. At this moment, when climate change is already causing devastating harm around the world, we do not have the moral right to turn our backs on efforts to preserve this planet for future generations.
The United States must play a leading role in the global campaign to stop climate change and transition rapidly away from fossil fuels to renewable and more efficient sources of energy. We must do this with or without the support of Donald Trump and the fossil fuel industry.”
Jo was joined by Max and Barbara with their home-crafted placards;
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Others were arriving and the protest group numbers swelled, despite the rain. Chad and Jack voiced their views clearly on their placards;
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Note the hashtag, #exxonknew – more on that point shortly.
Journalists from the msm started to arrive;
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(Another) Jack, and Kate, with one sign adapting Trump’s election-campaign slogan to better effect. Would it be asking too much from Bill English and Gerry Brownlee to take Kate’s hint?
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There was a wide range of ages, reflecting the reality that climate change affected us all, and none are exempt;
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Nearly every placard was individually hand-made. Very few were mass-produced printed. Clustered around a sign written obviously by grandparents, Robbie and Keith (holding “Grandkid’s earth sign) and Eva and Lynn, charging Tillerson to be a climate criminal;
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An appearance by The Donald himself. Or a doppelgänger. Hard to tell the difference;
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This woman reminded us of the struggle by Native American tribe Standing Rock Sioux to oppose the Dakota Keystone XL oil pipelines;
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As reported by The Guardian;
After more than a year of protests at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, thousands of Native Americans and activists brought the fight to the nation’s capital to demand indigenous rights and raise awareness about issues affecting the communities.
The event, the culmination of a four-day protest in the capital, was led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been involved in a longstanding dispute with authorities over the construction of an oil pipeline in North Dakota, culminating in a two-mile march through Washington and rally in front of the White House.
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Opponents of the $3.8bn pipeline say the project threatens their water supply from the Missouri river, crosses sacred land and was approved without proper consultation with tribal leaders and without a thorough study of impacts.
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LeeAnn Eastman, of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate tribe on the Lake Traverse Indian reservation in South Dakota, doubted Trump was standing at the window watching their protest – but she said their message was breaking through.
“They woke up a giant when they told us they were just going to put this pipeline through our land, our sacred land,” she said. “We do everything peacefully, prayerfully, but we’re not going to let him just walk all over us like that and contaminate our water.”
Within half an hour, numbers had swelled to a couple of hundred people. Not bad for a miserable day;
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The Green Party was very much a visible presence. For the Green movement, confronting atmospheric pollution and subsequent climate change is their raison d’être;
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Labour’s Grant Robertson and Green Party co-leader, James Shaw, sheltering under a green umbrella. This was perhaps more symbolic than intended, suggesting the evolving ‘greening’ of political parties worldwide;
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Hugh held up a sign which held more relevance than most people might have been aware of;
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According to a report from Scientific American, Exxon has known for the last forty years that fossil fuels were leading to climate change. They kept it a secret;
Exxon was aware of climate change, as early as 1977, 11 years before it became a public issue, according to a recent investigation from InsideClimate News. This knowledge did not prevent the company (now ExxonMobil and the world’s largest oil and gas company) from spending decades refusing to publicly acknowledge climate change and even promoting climate misinformation—an approach many have likened to the lies spread by the tobacco industry regarding the health risks of smoking. Both industries were conscious that their products wouldn’t stay profitable once the world understood the risks, so much so that they used the same consultants to develop strategies on how to communicate with the public.
Experts, however, aren’t terribly surprised. “It’s never been remotely plausible that they did not understand the science,” says Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University. But as it turns out, Exxon didn’t just understand the science, the company actively engaged with it. In the 1970s and 1980s it employed top scientists to look into the issue and launched its own ambitious research program that empirically sampled carbon dioxide and built rigorous climate models. Exxon even spent more than $1 million on a tanker project that would tackle how much CO2 is absorbed by the oceans. It was one of the biggest scientific questions of the time, meaning that Exxon was truly conducting unprecedented research.
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One thing is certain: in June 1988, when NASA scientist James Hansen told a congressional hearing that the planet was already warming, Exxon remained publicly convinced that the science was still controversial. Furthermore, experts agree that Exxon became a leader in campaigns of confusion. By 1989 the company had helped create the Global Climate Coalition (disbanded in 2002) to question the scientific basis for concern about climate change. It also helped to prevent the U.S. from signing the international treaty on climate known as the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 to control greenhouse gases. Exxon’s tactic not only worked on the U.S. but also stopped other countries, such as China and India, from signing the treaty. At that point, “a lot of things unraveled,” Oreskes says.
But experts are still piecing together Exxon’s misconception puzzle. Last summer the Union of Concerned Scientists released a complementary investigation to the one by InsideClimate News, known as the Climate Deception Dossiers. “We included a memo of a coalition of fossil-fuel companies where they pledge basically to launch a big communications effort to sow doubt,” says union president Kenneth Kimmel. “There’s even a quote in it that says something like ‘Victory will be achieved when the average person is uncertain about climate science.’ So it’s pretty stark.”
Rex Tillerson joined Exxon in 1975 and rose through the ranks, becoming CEO of ExxonMobil from 2006 to 2016.
On 2 June this year, CNN announced;
The office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says it has evidence that ExxonMobil misled shareholders about how carbon regulations may impact the company’s business.
And possibly even more damaging, the prosecutor says company document indicate that ex-CEO Rex Tillerson, who is now Secretary of State, knew all about it.
In documents filed in court Friday, investigators say they found “secret, internal figures” that indicate the company purposefully understated the financial damage that climate change regulations could have on its business, and potentially did so as far back as 2007.
The filings also allege there is evidence that appears to confirm Tillerson knew about the deception, and condoned it.
The CNN report contained an unusual revelation about Tillerson’s alleged shady activities;
Tillerson has been a big part of Schneiderman’s probe into the oil and gas company since it began in 2015. One of its bombshell revelations was that Tillerson used a fake email under the name “Wayne Tracker,” to discuss climate change internally.
A new filing posted Friday suggests that the new Exxon chief, Darren Woods, also has an alias corporate email account. He allegedly goes by the name of J.E. Gray. Exxon confirmed the account was set up for Woods, but it was intended to “manage a high volume of messages” and has never been used.
So much for Trump “draining the swamp”. New species of swamp-critters have well and truly returned to the White House.
Protestor, Frances, held no illusions as to the nature of Trump and his appointee, Rex Tillerson;
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Frances remarked that far from being “anti-establishment”, the Trump Administration was a continuation of the Establishment owning politicians in the US.
Roger’s sign became even more appropriate under the circumstances. Note the small print;
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‘350’ organisers Allan and Jesse welcomed the people and thanked them for turning up on such a cold, miserable day;
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First speaker was Mahinarangi Baker – Te Atiawa, Ngatoa, Raukawa;
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Mahinarangi warned of the effects of climate change here in Aotearoa, with more extreme weather events; increasing coastal erosion; and environmental disasters such as Edgecumbe. She said that climate change put all our communities at great risk and demanded that government put the safety of our people before the interests of the fossil fuel industry.
Mahinarangi was contemptuous of the response from government representatives, which she described as “atrociously weak”. Mahinarangi was not impressed with Climate Change Minister, Paula Bennett saying “she respected the decision that Trump has made”; Foreign Affairs ministers, Gerry Brownlee saying he would help Trump renegotiate the Paris agreement, and nothing but total silence from Prime Minister, Bill English.
Mahinarangi criticised government subsidies for the oil exploration industry.
Mahinarangi was followed by Green Party co-leader, James Shaw, who received strong applause from the crowd;
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Shaw told the protesters;
“ New Zealand is at risk of more fires, more floods, and longer and deeper droughts. That is a risk to us and to our way of life here in New Zealand and in the Pacific and around the world. It’s not good enough merely for our government to stand around and say, ‘well, they’re a democratically government, they can pull out if they want to’. ”
He added,
“ As a country with an independent foreign policy we have an ability to stand with our close friends, the Americans, and take them aside and to say, ‘this isn’t good enough, you know’. And we should have the strength of character to do that. ”
Shaw told the protesters that he was inspired by them, especially for coming out on such a cold, wet day to make a point. He said he condemned the actions of the American administration and referred to Tillerson as ‘T-Rex, the climate dinosaur’.
Shaw was followed by Grant Robertson;
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Robertson described the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Accords as immoral and a crime against future generations. He said,
“ In this country today we have a government that is not taking climate change seriously, that put up a pathetic offer at the Paris agreement. So the one good thing we can take out of today and what the US has done, that it is a chance for NZ to say once and for all, we will have a low carbon future; we will do what it takes to reduce our emissions; we will play our part, as we have before on the world stage as a leader. So the clear message I am sending on behalf of the Labour Party today, to the United States, ‘you are on the wrong side of of history, you need to get on the right side of the Future for every generation to come. ”
His speech was met with loud cheers and clapping and was in stark contrast to the muted response that National had thus far given. Grant Robertson’s speech harked back to the 1970s when New Zealand took to the world stage to oppose French atomic-bomb testing and the apartheid regime in South Africa.
As the speakers and protesters inter-acted, another event was taking place on the Parliamentary forecourt, where three policemen stood. Note what one of them held in his hands, covered by a blue cloth;
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It was a camera with what appeared to be a long telephoto lens;
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The policeman was obviously taking surreptitious photos of the protesters;
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As the policeman noticed that he was being observed, and his actions photographed, he turned and walked away, escorted by one of his colleagues;
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Governments that fear or distrust their own people often use their security forces to monitor and record details of dissident citizens. New Zealand has obviously become one of those nations.
Tasers and and surreptitious photographing? The former Stasi would nod approvingly at these unnecessary methods.
The question arises; what will the police do with those images?
Tim held up the the one word Trump loves to use in his Twitterings. It also happens to sum up Trump’s presidency and his apparent total abdication to address critical problems confronting the environment;
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Meanwhile, back at Wellington Airport…
Tillerson’s jet was parked on the tarmac, adjacent to the RNZAF terminal;
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The high-pitched whine of the parked aircraft’s engines could be clearly heard from a distance. Perhaps the engineers were keeping the turbines warm in the cold, damp air for optimum performance.
Or a fast getaway.
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References
The Independent: Bernie Sanders tears into Trump for pulling out of Paris Agreement – ‘It is a disgrace’
The Guardian: Native Americans take Dakota Access pipeline protest to Washington
Scientific American: Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago
Wikipedia: Rex Tillerson
CNN: Under Tillerson, Exxon may have misled investors on climate change, NY claims
Additional
BBC: US diplomat in China quits ‘over Trump climate change policy’
Contact
Previous related blogposts
Anti-Deep Sea Drilling Wellingtonians Take To The Streets (part tahi)
Key’s challenge to Deep Sea Oil Drilling Protesters
Anadarko: Key playing with fire
Citizens face Police armed with tasers at Wellington TPPA protest march
Citizens march against TPPA in Wellington: Did Police hide tasers at TPPA march?
Trumpwatch – What’s a few more nails in the planet’s coffin?
Copyright (c) Notice
All images stamped ‘fmacskasy.wordpress.com’ are freely available to be used, with following provisos,
» Use must be for non-commercial purposes.
» Where purpose of use is commercial, a donation to Child Poverty Action Group is requested.
» At all times, images must be used only in context, and not to denigrate individuals or groups.
» Acknowledgement of source is requested.
Acknowledgement
Thank you to Deborah L for allowing me to use her Nikon D3200 camera for the event.
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Trump’s First 100 Days can boast of several “achievements”. But not the variety that progressive-minded people – especially those concerned with global environmental problems and threats to peace – would welcome with a cheer.
Pimping for Coal
On 28 March, Trump signed another of his many Executive Orders – the sort of Presidential Executive Orders that in the past he railed against when Obama was President of the United States. As he ‘tweeted’ in 2012;
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This time, Trump was signing an Executive Order over-turning Obama’s policies of moving America away from using CO2-producing coal for energy production. To avoid any accusation of “fake news” from Trump’s supporters, these are his actual words from the White House website;
“ Today, I’m taking bold action to follow through on that promise. My administration is putting an end to the war on coal. We’re going to have clean coal — really clean coal. With today’s executive action, I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion, and to cancel job-killing regulations. (Applause.) And, by the way, regulations not only in this industry, but in every industry. We’re doing them by the thousands, every industry. And we’re going to have safety, we’re going to have clean water, we’re going to have clear air. ”
Trump’s fairy-tale fantasies on “clean coal — really clean coal” and promising that Americans (and the rest of us on Planet Earth) would enjoy “clean water, we’re going to have clear air” was parroted by the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and self-confessed climate-change denier, Scott Pruitt;
“ I believe that we as a nation can be both pro-energy and jobs, and pro-environment. We don’t have to choose between the two. ”
Trump’s appointment of Pruitt was scandalous by any measure, especially as the former Republican Oklahomas attorney general sued the Environmental Protection no less than thirteen times.
Little wonder than the Sierra Club called for Pruitt’s resignation for mis-leading the US Congress on increasing levels of carbon dioxide leading to worsening climate change.
Just as bad as Pruitt’s head-in-the-sand attitude toward anthropogenic climate change, is Trump’s reference to “clean coal”. There is no such thing, as Fortune magazine reported in October last year;
As for Trump, he failed to mention that no U.S. major clean coal plant is operational. He also neglected to say that the U.S. coal industry has been struggling partly because of the economics involved. The rise in low cost U.S. natural gas, as well as cheap wind and solar, has done as much to hurt the coal industry as have environmental regulations. When power companies close an aging coal plant, it makes more economic sense for them to build a new natural gas plant, or even solar and wind ones.
The article by Fortune’s Katie Fehrenbacher mentions two “clean coal” power plants that, after years of Federal taxpayer-funding and delays, have never become operational. A third “clean coal” power plant was due to be operational by the end of 2016 – but according to it’s builders is no longer economic.
Any notion of “clean coal” appears to be a wishful fantasy in Trump’s mind.
Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists summed up Trump’s vandalism of the environment;
“ The wrecking ball that is the Trump presidency continues. The executive order undercuts a key part of the nation’s response to climate change, without offering even a hint of what will replace it. ”
US National Parks: See it; Love it; Mine the #@$?%!*&$ out of it!
In a piece of cunningly written euphemistic double-speak and jargon, Trump’s Executive order on 26 April announced plans to review Monument lands (similar to National Parks) with an agenda for “economic growth”;
Designations of national monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906, recently recodified at sections 320301 to 320303 of title 54, United States Code (the “Antiquities Act” or “Act”), have a substantial impact on the management of Federal lands and the use and enjoyment of neighboring lands. Such designations are a means of stewarding America’s natural resources, protecting America’s natural beauty, and preserving America’s historic places. Monument designations that result from a lack of public outreach and proper coordination with State, tribal, and local officials and other relevant stakeholders may also create barriers to achieving energy independence, restrict public access to and use of Federal lands, burden State, tribal, and local governments, and otherwise curtail economic growth. Designations should be made in accordance with the requirements and original objectives of the Act and appropriately balance the protection of landmarks, structures, and objects against the appropriate use of Federal lands and the effects on surrounding lands and communities.
Though couched in nebulous bureaucratese, alarms bells begin to ring with certain key phrases peppered throughout the Executive Order: “the importance of the Nation’s wealth of natural resources to American workers and the American economy“; “Monument designations … may also create barriers to achieving energy independence“; “Monument designations … and otherwise curtail economic growth“; “appropriate use of Federal lands“; “including the economic development“; “properly manage designated areas“; etc.
Here in New Zealand, National’s half-arsed proposal seven years ago to open up Schedule 4 DoC conservation-land to mining was met with over-whelming public protest;
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Two and a half months later, National’s ministers caved to public anger. Their proposals sank without a trace.
Trump is yet to be confronted with similar fury from outraged Americans. In the meantime, his Executive Order has called for the re-classification of landmarks of a historic or scientific nature;
“In making those determinations, the Secretary shall consider:
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(ii) whether designated lands are appropriately classified under the Act as “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, [or] other objects of historic or scientific interest”
Once re-classified as “non-historic landmarks, non-historic and non-prehistoric structures, [or] other objects of non-historic or non-scientific interest” – then it’s “Drill baby, Drill!”
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Trump’s Executive Order sought “consultation” with “the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Energy“, the “Assistant to the President for Economic Policy“, and strangely, “the Secretary of Homeland Security“.
The Trump Administration was seeking “consultation” with the Secretaries of Defense, Agriculture, Commerce, and Energy for obvious reasons: Trump was planning to commercially exploit the Monument parks.
What possible purpose could there be for Trump to be consulting the Secretary of Homeland Security?
Simple: Crowd control.
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Trump was already making plans to react with an iron fist when Americans realised what their Glorious Leader was about to do to their Monument parks.
Protest would be met by force. Just ask the Native Americans who protested the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
Trump takes a Dump on the Arctic’s Rump
On 29 April, Trump did the unthinkable (aside from launching the nukes and starting the Last World War) – he signed yet another Executive Order, the ‘America-First Offshore Energy Strategy’, authorising oil exploration in Chukchi and Beaufort Seas – both in the Arctic Ocean;
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. 1331 et seq., and in order to maintain global leadership in energy innovation, exploration, and production, it is hereby ordered as follows:
[…]
…as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, including the procedures set forth in section 1344 of title 43, United States Code, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, give full consideration to revising the schedule of proposed oil and gas lease sales, as described in that section, so that it includes, but is not limited to, annual lease sales, to the maximum extent permitted by law, in each of the following Outer Continental Shelf Planning Areas, as designated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) (Planning Areas): Western Gulf of Mexico, Central Gulf of Mexico, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea, Cook Inlet, Mid-Atlantic, and South Atlantic.
As Trump stated on the White House website;
This executive order starts the process of opening offshore areas to job-creating energy exploration. It reverses the previous administration’s Arctic leasing ban. So hear that: It reverses the previous administration’s Arctic leasing ban, and directs Secretary Zinke to allow responsible development of offshore areas that will bring revenue to our Treasury and jobs to our workers. (Applause.) In addition, Secretary Zinke will be reconsidering burdensome regulations that slow job creation.
The Order effectively reverses Obama’s final act of his Presidency, in December last year, where he placed large marine areas under Federal protection from commercial development;
President Barack Obama on Tuesday moved to indefinitely block drilling in vast swaths of U.S. waters.
The president had been expected to take the action by invoking a provision in a 1953 law that governs offshore leases, as CNBC previously reported.
The law allows a president to withdraw any currently unleased lands in the Outer Continental Shelf from future lease sales. There is no provision in the law that allows the executive’s successor to repeal the decision, so President-elect Donald Trump would not be able to easily brush aside the action.
[…]
The lands covered include the bulk of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in the Arctic and 31 underwater canyons in the Atlantic. The United States and Canada also announced they will identify sustainable shipping lanes through their connected Arctic waters.
Canada on Tuesday also imposed a five-year ban on all oil and gas drilling licensing in the Canadian Arctic. The moratorium will be reviewed every five years.
[…]
Environmentalists say drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic puts the waters at immediate risk, for oil and gas that would not come online for years, after a transition to cleaner energy sources could be under way.
“The Arctic Ocean is ground zero for the impacts of climate change, and any oil production there would be decades away and inconsistent with addressing climate change before it is too late,” the League of Conservation Voters said in a statement after the announcement.
Obama’s Executive Order was a complete 180-degree turn-around from his previous decision to allow Shell to test-drill in the Chukchi sea in August 2015. Shell’s exploration programme folded a month later, citing “the disappointing results of an initial well, the high costs of development and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska“.
After he has finished despoiling the land, air, and waterways of the Continental United States, Trump’s decision to overturn Obama’s Executive Order and allow oil exploration in the Arctic places one of the most fragile eco-systems at risk from environmental degradation;
Concerns have been raised over Shell’s ability to clean up a spill, should one occur, in an area covered by sea ice for much of the year. If one considers the example of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it took 87 days to cap, even though it happened in a fairly accessible region. In the Arctic, which is virtually impenetrable in winter, a similar gusher would be far more difficult to tackle. More to the point, the region’s ecology is about the most fragile on the planet and would be far more vulnerable to the impact of a major spill.
However the legality of Trump’s Executive Order attempting to overturn his predecessor’s Executive Order is questionable, with the increasing likelihood of environmental groups launching legal challenges;
It’s unclear whether a new president has the authority to reverse those bans without Congress, says Robin Craig, an environmental law professor at the University of Utah. If, following this executive order, the Trump administration decides to go ahead and open up those areas, environmental groups will likely sue. But because there’s no precedent, it’s unclear what the outcome of those lawsuits will be. “Who knows whether they’ll win or lose,” Book says. “It hasn’t been litigated yet.”
But groups like Oceana are ready to fight. Drilling in Arctic waters is dangerous and there’s no proven way to clean sea ice from potential oil spills, Pyne says. “It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s stormy, and it’s covered in sea ice,” she says. And drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts is unpopular with businesses and residents in coastal states. Oil spill can negatively affect fishing and tourism, and states just don’t want to risk it. “Regardless who’s in the White House coastal communities and businesses do not want offshore drilling off their coast,” Pyne says.
More of Trump’s anti-environmental and pro-business, pro-exploitation policies can be found on the Forbes and National Geographic websites. The picture painted by Trump’s policy enactments (through one Executive Order after another) and appointees makes for disturbing reading.
This is not a happy time for Planet Earth.
Battle of the Bizarro Hair-Monsters
What is it with sovereign leaders with little hands and appalling hair styles?
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Not content with planning to ravage his own country’s environmental heritage, Trump’s provocative bellicosity toward North Korea could spark a catastrophic regional conflict where millions might be killed, and the global economy sent spiralling into another debilitating recession.
In the past, Trump has resolutely condemned America’s involvement in international conflicts;
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Four years later, he has bombed Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan – and threatening war with North Korea;
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This is a man-child confronted with complex international crisis; with minimal political experience (except what he ‘consumes’ from US movies such as ‘Rambo‘, ‘The Green Berets‘, ‘Red Dawn‘, etc); with access to an arsenal of atomic weapons.
The world is still having to contend with the violent aftermath of America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Trump is apparently hell-bent on more military adventurism?
Each day we wake up and the planet is still intact – is a miracle.
Words of Wisdom from a Trump Supporter
From Former Representative Joe Walsh (Republican, Illinois) comes this brutally candid admission;
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“ As a Trump supporter I do my best not to pay attention to what he says. If I pulled my hair out for every nutty thing he said, I’d be bald.”
Nothing further need be said.
The only questions that remain to be asked are;
There have to be solutions to the failed experiment of neo-liberalism and globalisation that does not require madmen (and women) to be elevated to power.
As the 1930s showed us, demagoguery is a false road toward solving our very real problems.
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Postscript
On 30 April, Trump held a public rally in Nuremburg Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There were no torch-light processions of goose-stepping Aryan-types in tight, gleaming, spit-polished, black jack-boots. It was a more informal affair.
Dress code, WASP-casual;
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For Trump, the ego-massaging rallies of last year’s election campaign have become an on-going campaign to keep his supporters ‘pumped’. Where have we seen that before…?
Oh yeah;
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Good old Big Bruvver and his Two Minute Hate sessions. (Just substitute Hillary Clinton for Goldstein; scream “Lock her up, lock her up!” instead of “Traitor, traitor!”, and you’ve nailed it. ‘1984’ or 2017, it makes no difference.)
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References
White House: Presidential Executive Order on the Review of Designations Under the Antiquities Act
Wikipedia: National Monuments
NZ Herald: Huge protest says no to mining on conservation land
Fairfax media: Government confirms mining backdown
Grist: Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump, resurrects “drill, baby, drill” theme
Chicago Tribune: Dakota Access oil pipeline camp cleared of protesters; dozens arrested
Vogue: 6 Things President Trump Criticized Barack Obama For and Is Currently Doing Himself
Twitter: Trump – Obama’s Executive orders – 11 July 2012
White House: Remarks by President Trump at Signing of Executive Order to Create Energy Independence
The Guardian: New EPA head Scott Pruitt – ‘We can be both pro-jobs and pro-environment’
The Atlantic: Trump’s EPA Chief Denies the Basic Science of Climate Change
Fortune: What Donald Trump Didn’t Mention About Clean Coal
Huffington Post: Scott Pruitt Has Sued The Environmental Protection Agency 13 Times
Common Dreams: The Sierra Club – Pruitt Misled Congress on CO2, Senators Should Demand He Be “Removed from His Position.”
Time: President Trump Signs Executive Order Rolling Back Obama-Era Environmental Regulations
White House: Presidential Executive Order Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy
Wikipedia: Chukchi Sea
Wikipedia: Beaufort Sea
Wikipedia: Cook Inlet
White House: Remarks by President Trump at Signing of Executive Order on an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy
CNBC: Obama invokes 1953 law to indefinitely block drilling in Arctic and Atlantic oceans
The Guardian: Shell gets final clearance to begin drilling for oil in the Arctic
The Seattle Times: Obama protection of Arctic, Atlantic meant to thwart Trump desires to drill
The Guardian: Nature’s last refuge: climate change threatens our most fragile ecosystem
The Verge: Trump signs executive order to expand offshore oil and gas drilling in Arctic and beyond
Forbes: The 4 Worst Things Trump Has Done For The Environment In His First 100 Days – And 1 Good
National Geographic: A Running List of How Trump Is Changing the Environment
Middle East Eye: 13 tweets Donald Trump sent warning US not to attack Syria
CBS News: U.S. bombs al Qaeda suspects in Yemen for 2nd night
New York Post: US unleashes dozens of missiles on Syria in response to chemical attack
The Guardian: Devastation and a war that rages on: visiting the valley hit by the Moab attack
The Week: Former GOP Rep. Joe Walsh: ‘As a Trump supporter I do my best not to pay attention to what he says’
Additional
ABC: Experts – Long road ahead for Trump offshore drilling order
Radio NZ: Trump signs Arctic oil drilling order
The Verge: Trump signs executive order to expand offshore oil and gas drilling in Arctic and beyond
NASA: NASA Releases Detailed Global Climate Change Projections
NASA: 2016 Climate Trends Continue to Break Records
Other Blogs
Redline: Trump and how the ruling class rule
The Daily Blog: Andra Jenkin – One in a Million – Donald Trump’s Administration Achievements
The Daily Blog: Andra Jenkin – The Powers that Be
The Standard: The patriotic millionaires
The Standard: Poor Donald
The Standard: Donald Trump and Florida
Your NZ: Trump wants ‘really clean coal’
Previous related blogposts
Trumpwatch: The Drum(pf)s of War
Trumpwatch: One minute closer to midnight on the Doomsday Clock
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7 April 2017 – A Day of Infamy
Along with 7.5 billion other humans on this planet, I was dumbfounded when the newsflash came over Radio New Zealand that the US had launched cruise missiles against Syria, nearly obliterating a military airfield at Shayrat airbase;
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Only an hour and a half earlier, Trump has been “considering retaliatory action” over the Syrian government’s alleged use of sarin gas at Khan Shaykhun, in the Idlib Governorate.
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That was fast work. A cynic might suggest that the attack had been planned well in advance.
Despite my many reservations about Trump’s fitness to be the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet; despite his gullibility in listening to dubious “news” sources; despite his slavishness toward Israel; despite his racist diatribes against ethnic groups; despite his stated intention to squander billions on the military; despite gagging aspects of family planning services; and despite his covert right-wing agenda to pare-back healthcare, environmental protections, and slash critical government services for the poor – there was one thing about him that stuck in my mind. His willingness to “do deals” to overcome problems;
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Trump made no discernible attempt to deal with the Russians – Syria’s main sponsor – to determine who had launched the poison gas attack on Khan Shaykhun. There was no “deal making” in evidence as Trump gave the order to unleash the destructive firepower of 59 American ‘Tomahawk’ cruise missiles.
In fact, Trump’s decision to attack Shayrat airbase contradicts his own warning from 12 November last year when he cautioned;
“…if the US attacks Assad, “we end up fighting Russia, fighting Syria.”
So it is hardly surprising that Australian Green Party senator, Scott Ludlum, spoke for many when he admonished Trump’s cowboy adventurism;
“The horror of the chemical weapons attack in Syria this week requires a credible, independent investigation, not a random barrage of missiles ordered by a clueless President.”
It’s OK when our ‘side’ does it
Despite a previous poison gas attack in Ghouta, Syria in 2013 – for which the Assad regime was implicated, but not proven – there is little actual firm evidence that the Syrian government was responsible for the gassing at Khan Sheikhoun on 7 April. Whilst it is known that Syria does (or did) indeed posses sarin gas – so does Israel. (Though Israel has signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, to date it has not ratified it.)
It is, however, not unknown for middle east despots to use poison gas to suppress rebel groups, as Saddam Hussein did in March, 1988, in Halabja. Saddam’s target at the time were Kurdish rebels fighting for independence. Some 6,800 men, women, and children were killed outright, and estimates put the eventual civilian death toll at 12,000.
Iraq used poison gas in it’s war with Iran without sanction. The West continued to support Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime despite the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi villages as well as Iranian combatants;
In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.
Means, Motive, and Opportunity
When considering a crime and it’s possible perpetrator(s), law enforcement officials take into account motive, means, and opportunity. The Assad regime certainly has two of the criteria: means and opportunity.
Fellow blogger and political commentator, Chris Trotter, recently questioned what would motivate Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to launch an attack using banned weapons that would earn near-universal condemnation from the international community – and possibly embarrass and alienate critical support from Moscow. Chris asked;
… “Why would Assad do such a thing?” Syria was en route to a new round of peace talks. More importantly, she was about to enter negotiations in which the usual American, British and French demands that “Assad must go!” were to be, for the first time since the Syrian Civil War broke out in earnest, quietly put to one side. Having won the war on the ground, the Assad regime was on the brink of clearing away its enemies’ unrealistic preconditions. Finally, a serious conversation about Syria’s future could begin.
And yet, we are being invited to believe that, with all this at stake, President Assad ordered the use of Sarin gas on his own citizens. Somehow, instigating a reprehensible war crime against women and children was going to strengthen his moral authority. Somehow, by revolting the entire world, he would improve his chances of being accepted as Syria’s legitimate ruler. Somehow, by embarrassing the Russian Federation, his country’s most valuable military ally, he would enhance Syria’s national security. The whole notion is absurd.
Fair questions.
Did Assad believe that he could get away with it? Did he feel that Russia’s success in East Ukraine and Crimea, and the West’s unwillingness to challenge Moscow’s flexing of its “hard power” gave him free license to use whatever means he had at his disposal? Did Assad feel emboldened at Trump’s “close relationship” with Russia’s President Putin?
But why chemical weapons, which, in this case resulted in no appreciable military gains for Assad’s military? Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons adviser to NGOs (and former commanding officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment and NATO’s Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion) offered one possible rationale;
The fear of chemical weapons is the real terror of war. Less than 0.5 percent of casualties during World War I were attributed to chemical weapons, yet the Great War has become synonymous with their use. The current conflict in Syria and Iraq depicts a similar picture.
ISIL employs a morbidly brilliant psychological warfare, and chemical weapons are the ultimate psychological weapon against all their enemies.
It would seem unlikely to engage in such a risky gamble. Especially for such little military advantage. It would be a colossal mis-judgement on Assad’s part if he thought that reliance on Western inertia and Trump’s isolationistic worldview would pay off.
According to Russian government-aligned RT News, Syria’s Foreign Minister, Walid Muallem;
…denied claims that the military used chemical weapons in the western city of Idlib. Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Muallem said an airstrike by Syrian military had targeted an arms depot where chemical weapons stockpiles were stored by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Al-Nusra Front militants.
He said it’s impossible that the army – which has been making significant gains in almost all theaters of the Syrian war – would use banned chemical weapons against its “own people” and even terrorists.
The lack of clear motive on Assad’s part raises real doubt as to who launched the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun.
If not Assad, who?
There have been suggestions that rebel groups operating in Syria to overthrow Assad’s regime launched the gas attack as a ‘false flag’ operation to draw the U.S. into the conflict.
I have doubts on this.
Until Trump’s ascendancy to the White House, the United States has been reluctant to supply Syrian rebels – including the Free Syrian Army – for fear they could end up in the wrong hands;
In theory, the embargo aims to prevent anti-aircraft weapons getting into the hands of terrorists who might down civilian planes. Yet such weapons exist on the black market; since the US has gone out of its way to prevent the FSA from getting any – even from there – the weapons that do get snapped up end up in the hands of anyone but the FSA.
Even anti-tank weaponry supplied to certain rebel groups was closely monitored;
While warplanes and helicopters had replaced tanks as the main form of regime slaughter by mid-2012, this US embargo blocked not only anti-aircraft but also anti-tank weaponry. Thus only small arms and ammunition were allowed, in the face of a massively armed regime continually supplied by Russia and Iran.
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US pressure is clear: Only “vetted” groups get TOW [anti-tank] missiles, sometimes only three or four at a time, they have to apply for them for specific operations, and they have to return the shells to make a claim for more. Even favoured groups soon found supplies dwindling, and the program diminished by late 2014.
By December 2016, after Trump’s inauguration, the US government softened it’s policy forbidding anti-aircraft weaponry being sold to Syrian rebels;
The House voted for the first time today to explicitly authorize the incoming Donald Trump administration to arm vetted Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.
While the language in the annual defense bill also creates restrictions on the provision of the controversial weapons, it represents a win for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., a fervent advocate of helping the rebels resist President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.
[…]
Trump was outspoken about his reluctance to get dragged into the Syrian civil war throughout the presidential campaign. He has since picked hawkish advisers and candidates for Cabinet positions, including retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense.
[…]
Mattis is well known in military and foreign policy circles for his aggressive determination to take on America’s foes, notably Iran, including in Syria and Iraq.
[…]
The new provision “would require the secretary of defense and secretary of state to notify the congressional defense committees, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee should a determination be made to provide MANPADs to elements of the appropriately vetted Syrian opposition,” according to the explanatory statement accompanying the compromise bill. “The conferees expect that should such a determination be made, the requirement for the provision of such a capability and the decision to provide it would be thoroughly vetted by and receive broad support from the interagency”.
At least one US lawmaker realised the lethal consequences of allowing anti-aircraft missiles into rebel hands. Representative John Conyers (Dem-Michigan) warned;
“I am disappointed that the House of Representatives’ explicit prohibition on the transfer of these dangerous weapons into Syria was reversed — behind closed doors — by the conference committee. This brazen act shows that some in Congress still hope to further escalate the civil war in Syria. Sending these weapons would only prolong this horrific conflict — and endanger civilian airliners across the region, including in Israel.”
Writing for the Huffington Post,
“Somehow, the Americans found out and our purchase was blocked.”
To date, use of anti-aircraft weaponry by rebels forces has been minimal.
If the US was wary of handing over anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry to Syrian rebel groups – from where they could disperse to who-knows-where – it is hard to believe that even more deadly weapons such as poison gas would be permitted into rebel hands.
If anti-aircraft missiles could be used by ISIS operatives to bring down civilian passenger jets – imagine those same operatives with poison gas in subways in New York, London, Paris, Moscow.
And remember the comment made by Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, above;
“The fear of chemical weapons is the real terror of war… chemical weapons are the ultimate psychological weapon against all their enemies.”
Which suggests that the only other ‘player’ in the Syrian civil war capable of deploying chemical weapons would be a sovereign state.
If not rebels, who?
In a June 2013 story, the BBC reported on who was supplying the myriad ‘players’ in the Syrian conflict. One of the arms traffickers in the region was Saudi Arabia;
In late 2012, Riyadh is said to have financed the purchase of “thousands of rifles and hundreds of machine guns”, rocket and grenade launchers and ammunition for the FSA from a Croatian-controlled stockpile of Yugoslav weapons.
These were reportedly flown – including by Royal Saudi Air Force C-130 transporters – to Jordan and Turkey and smuggled into Syria.
Note the link: Croatian-controlled stockpile
Follow the link and it leads to a February 2013 story in the New York Times, which stated;
Saudi Arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to anti-government fighters in Syria in a drive to break the bloody stalemate that has allowed President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power, according to American and Western officials familiar with the purchases.
The weapons began reaching rebels in December via shipments shuttled through Jordan, officials said, and have been a factor in the rebels’ small tactical gains this winter against the army and militias loyal to Mr. Assad.
So, what sort of weapons was Croatia selling on the open market? Interrogate Google with the parameters ‘Yugoslavia Croatia chemical weapons’. It offers this April 1999 story in the UK Guardian;
After months of prevarication, Nato launches a ground war against Slobodan Milosevic’s forces in Kosovo. But no sooner do British and US troops begin to move in and threaten Serb army units than Milosevic unleashes his secret weapons sarin nerve gas and BZ, a psychochemical incapacitant.
[…]
According to former Yugoslav chemical weapons officers, Milosevic’s arsenal is far larger than previously thought. Besides sarin and BZ, it includes the blister agent sulphur mustard and the choking agent phosgene. And it is thanks to scientists in Britain and the US that he could use them on Nato troops.
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In total, the Serb army may have as many as 5,800 122mm sarin-filled shells and 1,000 mustard gas shells, say these sources. In addition, Serbia is also known to have been developing a multiple rocket delivery system for sarin and a bomb capable of delivering 20 litres of the nerve gas to the battlefield.
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Even the Pentagon, which is sceptical about Croatian estimates of the numbers of chemical shells and rockets in the Serb arsenal, accepts that Milosevic inherited from the JNA a programme capable of producing a deadly 3,000 rockets filled with sarin and 100 shells filled with mustard gas.
[…]
Although the Pentagon says it has no evidence that Serbia has continued to manufacture and test chemical weapons since the break-up of the Yugoslavia federation, officials told the New York Times they were ‘concerned’ about the stockpiles.
The Pentagon would be right to be “‘concerned’ about the stockpiles“. Where would they end up?
There is no proof that amongst the weapons purchased from Croatia there was included chemical weapons such as sarin gas. But the facts are clear;
It is all circumstantial, of course. But it seems plausible that Saudi Arabian military/intelligence agents could have transported sarin gas shells/rockets to Idlib Governorate where, under close supervision, they were launched against a defenceless city.
The plan was simple; to provoke a politically unsophisticated, naive, and impressionable Donald Trump into military retaliation by blaming the attack on the Syrian regime.
Clinton – Not helping!
Hillary Clinton’s remarks on the Syrian regimes alleged poison gas attack on Khan Shaykhun do her no favours;
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Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears on stage at the Women in the World Summit in New York, US, 6 April 2017. The interview took place a few hours before the attack was launched on Syria. Acknowledgement: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
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“Assad has an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of these civilian deaths as we have seen over the years and as we saw again in the last few days. And I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them.
I still believe we should have done a no-fly zone. We should have been more willing to confront Assad.”
Her strident jingoism confirms her critic’s description of her as a warmonger.
We can excuse Trump’s political inexperience, naivete, and unsophisticated view of the world around him. This is a man who gets his “news” from the Republican Party-mouthpiece, Fox News, or the far-right Brietbart website. His political development appears arrested and not to far from that of an adolescent.
Trump may blunder into WWIII but a President Hillary Clinton would apparently have egged it on. With decades of political experience behind her, Clinton should know better. She has no excuse for her simplistic jingoism.
She should also have deeper insights into Middle East politics than this. Her willingness to perpetuate the Syria-Is-Guilty narrative cannot be excused as easily as Trump’s stupidity.
Which means she is manipulating current events for her own agenda.
With the planet edging closer to WWIII, whatever ‘game’ she is playing is a dangerous one.
World War III – Are we there yet?
Moscow’s unofficial mouthpiece, RT News, relayed a chilling message to Washington’s power-establishment (not Trump) to ‘back off’. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that the illegal missile attack the Syrian airfield was putting the US “on the verge of a military clash” with Russia.
Not since the Cuban missile Crisis in October 1962 have the two nuclear-armed super-powers faced off, bringing the planet to the verge of atomic annihilation.
At that time, the Cold Warriors of the former USSR and USA still remembered the destruction caused by WWII. The Soviets, in particular, understood what Total War meant.
Alarmingly, though Putin has some understanding of military service, Trump has never served in the armed forces. Trump’s understanding of war most likely comes from brief news clips and popular entertainment from Hollywood;
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Hopefully someone in his national security council is advising Trump that real war is not like ‘The Green Berets’ or ‘Hogan’s Heroes‘.
Sanders – the voice of calm sanity from a President the Americans never had
Former Democrat-candidate, Bernie Sanders, apparently accepts the official Washington narrative that the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun was orchestrated and executed by Assad’s military;
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Though hours later he issued a statement highly critical of of Trump’s unilateral use of military force against Syria. In a statement, later that day, Sanders said;
In a world of vicious dictators, Syria’s Bashar Assad tops the list as a dictator who has killed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens to protect his own power and wealth. His regime’s use of chemical weapons against the men, women and children of his country, in violation of all international conventions and moral standards, makes him a war criminal.
As the most powerful nation on earth, the United States must work with the international community to bring peace and stability to Syria, where over 400,000 people have been killed and over 6 million displaced. The horror of Syria’s civil war is almost unimaginable.
If there’s anything we should’ve learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which the lives of thousands of brave American men and women and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians have been lost and trillions of dollars spent, it’s that it’s easier to get into a war than get out of one. I’m deeply concerned that these strikes could lead to the United States once again being dragged back into the quagmire of long-term military engagement in the Middle East. If the last 15 years have shown anything, it’s that such engagements are disastrous for American security, for the American economy and for the American people.
The Trump administration must explain to the American people exactly what this military escalation in Syria is intended to achieve, and how it fits into the broader goal of a political solution, which is the only way Syria’s devastating civil war ends. Congress has a responsibility to weigh in on these issues. As the Constitution requires, the president must come to Congress to authorize any further use of force against the Assad regime.
Further, the US must work with all parties to reinforce longstanding international norms against the use of chemical weapons, to hold Russia and Syria to the 2013 deal to destroy these weapons and to see that violators are made accountable.
There appears to be mixed-messaging from Sanders on this issue.
The only positive from Sanders is that he would (apparently) “work with all parties to reinforce longstanding international norms against the use of chemical weapons“. Though naming Syria and Russia in the same breath ignores the reality that these weapons still exist in American stockpiles and Israel has refused to ratify treaties to eliminate them.
However, anything that pulls Moscow and Washington back from the brink of the abyss of WWIII must be viewed positively. At this point, Sanders appears less insanely unstable than Trump, and certainly less insanely hawkish than Clinton.
By the way, Mr Trump…
Israel also possesses atomic bombs – which seems not to concern Washington one bit. It would not be an over-statement to point out that detonating an atomic weapon over the Middle East would set the planet on fire.
Game over.
New Zealand’s Response to an Illegal Attack
Hours after the US attack, Bill English responded by explaining;
“We’ve seen the atrocities with the use of chemical weapons … We support action that is proportionate to the requirement to stop further atrocities.”
Which raises four questions and an observation;
#1 How can bombing a Syrian government airbase “stop further atrocities” when it has not been clearly established who was responsible for the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun? Is that not “jumping the gun” (excuse the inappropriate metaphor) before guilt/innocence is proven?
#2 Considering that English refuses point-blank to initiate a Commission of Inquiry into a 2010 SAS raid in the Tirgiran Valley, in Afghanistan – despite a former Minister of Defence confirming that there were civilian casualities – is the National government in a moral position to endorse a potentially illegal bombing of Shayrat airbase?
#3 There is no firm evidence that the Assad regime is guilty of using poison gas on Khan Shaykhun – why has English rushed to judgement and pre-determined guilt?
#4 There is evidence that the SAS may have committed war crimes in 2010 in the Tirgiran Valley – why has English rushed to judgement and pre-determined innocence?
#5 English’s “moral compass” is highly dubious, to put it politely.
Chaos in Trump’s Administration?!
Washington’s renewed appetite for military adventurism in the Middle East (which, by the way, rarely ends well) has cloaked two recent events that the White House wanted off the nation’s front pages and lead-bulletins.
#1: Bannon
Arch far-right activist, Steve Bannon has been quietly removed from Trump’s National Security Council a day before the missile strike on Shayrat airbase. According to a New York Times report;
…White House officials said, the ideologist who enjoyed the president’s confidence became increasingly embattled as other advisers, including Mr. Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, complained about setbacks on health care and immigration. Lately, Mr. Bannon has been conspicuously absent from some meetings. And now he has lost his seat at the national security table.
In a move that was widely seen as a sign of changing fortunes, Mr. Trump removed Mr. Bannon, his chief strategist, from the National Security Council’s cabinet-level “principals committee” on Wednesday. The shift was orchestrated by Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, who insisted on purging a political adviser from the Situation Room where decisions about war and peace are made.
Bannon, though, was not taking his removal from the NSC quiety, threatening to resign if his removal went ahead.
But Bannon will still be present at certain meetings, on an “ad hoc”* basis, according to this report;
“He is off the memo as a member of the principals committee,” said the source familiar with Wednesday’s meeting, “but the president or McMaster can invite him to attend at any time.”
Asked why Bannon attended a meeting on the same day his departure was being announced, the source said, “He is one of the president’s closest and most trusted advisors.”
Asked whether Bannon would continue to regularly attend NSC meetings, the source said, “I don’t know. It’s going to be ad hoc, I think.”
(* Ad Hoccery appears to be the defining basis upon which the Trump Administration is predicated.)
One does not have to be political scientist to realise that a power struggle is taking place in the White House – a struggle for ascendancy over a President who appears easily influenced.
On the day of the attack on Shayrat airbase, Bannon (circled in red) was present at the National Security Council meeting held at Trump’s ad hoc “Situation Room” at his private resort at Mar-a-Lago in Florida;
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#2: Nunes
Another event which has slipped well under the political radar is the “voluntary temporarily stepping down” (aka, removal) of Devin Nunes (Republican-Tulare), from the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes is (was?) Committee Chairperson until it was discovered that he had inappropriately leaked information obtained from the White House regarding an investigation into possible collusion with Russia by Trump associates during last year’s election campaign;
In short, the new chronology is this: White House officials leaked intelligence information to Nunes, who then announced them last Wednesday as fresh revelations, saying that he had received them from an unnamed source and that the White House was unaware. Nunes then made a show of going to the White House to brief President Trump on revelations that had come from his staff in the first place. The administration finally used the information to claim vindication on its still-evidence-free claims that President Obama surveilled then-candidate Trump.
Nunes blamed unnamed “left-wing activists” for his “voluntary stepping down”.
Devin Nunes is the second (third? I’ve lost count) casualty from Trump’s erratic presidency, following on from the resignation (not “voluntarily temporarily stepping down”) of national security adviser Michael Flynn on 13 February.
Hey! Look over there!
If ever Trump needed a diversion to deflect public attention away from ongoing turmoil in his Administration, what better than a spectacular show of American military muscle in a country he had previously said the US had no interest in intervening;
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Of course, Trump gave his explanation for changing his mind;
“ Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”
Trump added;
“When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, little babies… that crosses… many lines.”
Laudible and noble. What righteous person doesn’t love children?
Everyone, of course. Everyone except the vile villains who launched the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun (whoever they might be). And this person;
One man said he lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, where [Donald] Trump has a home, and there were plans to relocate Syrian refugee families there.
He asked Mr Trump if he could “look children aged five, eight, ten, in the face and tell them they can’t go to school here”.
Mr Trump did not hesitate and said he could, which brought applause from the crowd.
He said: “I can look in their faces and say ‘You can’t come’. I’ll look them in the face.”
It is a shame that Mr Trump wasn’t considering “beautiful babies” and “children of God” during his election campaign last year.
Even Breibart ‘News‘ reported Trump’s comments.
Breitbart ‘News’
Meanwhile, Breibart ‘News’ has been an ongoing cheerleader supporting military action against the Assad regime, in 2012, as well as more recently. On both occasions, unsubstantiated allegations of Assad using poison gas against civilians and rebels was reported as ‘facts’ by Breitbart;
2012:
Rebel forces in Syria report that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is now using chemical weapons on them. Moreover, intelligence operatives from the West have confirmed those reports as well. But there has yet to be a peep out of the Obama administration over it.
2017:
The strike was aimed at deterring another chemical weapons attack by the regime.
This is the same far-right Breitbart ‘News’ where Steve Bannon – Trump’s current Chief Strategist – once held the position as Executive Chairperson.
Profitting from the attack on Syria
The PAC which raised money for Trump’s election campaign last year has capitalised on the attack on Shayrat airbase. As reported on the ‘Daily Beast‘ and elsewhere;
President Trump ordered a military strike on Syria Thursday night in response to a recent chemical attack. By Friday afternoon, a supportive PAC was fundraising off of the strike.
“Last night, President Trump ordered military action against Syria in response to their chemical weapons attack,” an email from the Great America PAC, first flagged by Dave Levinthal at the Center for Public Integrity, read.
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“59 United States tomahawk missiles destroyed the airfield used to store Syria’s toxic weapons and aircraft involved in the Sarin gas attack.
What are your thoughts?”
The message asks respondents to vote on whether they approve of the strike and subsequently includes a request for money. The email was signed by Ed Rollins, currently the national co-chair of the PAC who joined the group in May of 2016.
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In case the wording on the second image is too difficult to read, it says;
Thank you for your vote. President Trump sent a message to the world by striking Syria. Help us support our Commander-in-Chief by making a special contribution below.
It should come as no surprise. There has always been money to be made from war, especially in the American Empire where industries such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Bell Helicopter Textron, and many others have made billions in profits making weapons for the US military.
But it must be a novelty (or new low, depending on which way your moral compass is pointing) that a political fund-raising organisation has exploited death and destruction to raise cash for their candidate/office-holder. Especially when that death and destruction may be predicated on a lie.
This must give even the most ardent Trump supporter pause for thought.
Infowars Turns on Trump
…And at least one previous Trumpista has indeed paused, thought, and turned his back on the Orange One.
Infowars editor, Paul Watson recently ‘tweeted’ his defection from the Trump Camp;
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Although this may be fake news/false flag/deception/deep-state conspiracy and the real Paul Watson is safe aboard the Mothership, along with JFK, Trotsky, Elvis, and Doris Day.
Israel – the Red Flag to Middle East Bulls
Israel has voiced it’s support for the US attack. As reported in the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – himself no stranger to aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank – congratulated the US for it’s missile attack on Shayrat airbase;
“Israel supports the recent US missile attack in Syria because it is morally right and because it makes clear there is price for the use of chemical weapon. We are doing this because of moral reasons in light of the difficult images from Idlib, and also so that it will be clear that there is a price for the use of chemical weapons.”
Israel has also violated Syrian airspace to attack and destroy so-called terrorist groups such as Hezbollah. In March this year, Netanyahu stated;
“When we identify attempts to transfer advanced weapons to Hezbollah and we have intelligence and it is operationally feasible, we act to prevent it. That’s how it was yesterday and that’s how we shall continue to act.”
Days later Netanyahu revealed that he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin point blank;
“We attack if we have information and the operational feasibility. This will continue.”
Israel’s arrogant sense of entitlement extends it’s military operations from Gaza and the West Bank to another sovereign state – Syria.
Syria, predictably has exercised it’s legal right to attempt to shoot down Israeli warplanes that crossed into it’s airspace. Just as Turkey exercised it’s right to shoot down a Russian warplane that crossed into Turkish airspace in November 2015;
Vladimir Putin has called Turkey “accomplices of terrorists” and warned of “serious consequences” after a Turkish F-16 jet shot down a Russian warplane on Tuesday morning, the first time a Nato country and Moscow have been involved in direct fire over the crisis in Syria.
The Russian president, speaking before a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan in Sochi, said the plane had been shot down over Syrian airspace and fell 4km inside Syria. Putin said it was “obvious” the plane posed no threat to Turkey.
The Syrian conflict is a quagmire with multiple players – both state and various armed factions.
The complexity of the conflict – coupled with information that may or may not be true – creates a potential powder-keg. In some ways, I am reminded of Europe, in 1914; an interwoven web of imperial powers jostling for supremacy; strategic alliances; revolutionary groups; unstable monarchies; and ethnic tensions.
Sound familiar?
The drums of war are beating, and they are getting louder. This time, we may have to rely on the stability of the Russian leadership to deliver us from another Sarajevo, 1914.
That stability appears dangerously lacking in Washington right now.
Postscript – The Curious Case of Peter Thiel
Writing for Mediaworks, veteran journalist and media-host, Mark Sainsbury, had this to say in February of this year;
Citizenship rightly should be prized and earned. It is not a commodity to be traded.
Which brings us to the curious case of Peter Thiel, the controversial American billionaire whose “exceptional circumstances” somehow allowed him to become a citizen of this fine country.
[…]
He apparently had a strong desire to be a citizen of a country he hardly visited – certainly not enough to qualify for an application in normal circumstances.
So was it the fact that citizenship enabled him to bypass the Overseas Investment Office’s scrutiny when he bought his Wanaka property? You’d have to say given all his amazing qualities, that shouldn’t have been a problem anyway.
I listened to Xero boss Rod Dury – a strong supporter of Mr Thiel’s application – not surprising given Mr Thiel made a significant investment in Xero. Mr Drury accepted that many successful people like Peter Thiel want a bolt hole in case it all goes pear-shaped in the Northern Hemisphere. And if you could afford it, why wouldn’t you?
But is that what it really comes down to? That we are a convenience, a Hobbit-themed panic room for the super rich?
Let’s just call it for what it is: We are a haven for sale.
The great irony, of course, is that any implosion in the Northern Hemisphere could likely be triggered by another of his influential friends; the man he backed for the US presidency: Donald J Trump.
Perhaps Mr Thiel knew something we didn’t?
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References
Radio NZ: Afternoons – US launches strikes on a target in Syria
Radio NZ: Midday News for 7 April 2017
Wikipedia: Khan Shaykhun
Wikipedia: Sarin Gas
The Guardian: ‘Global gag rule’ reinstated by Trump, curbing NGO abortion services abroad
Twitter: Donald Trump – Deals – 21 May 2015
RT News: Trump warns that by attacking Assad, US will ‘end up fighting Russia’
Sydney Morning Herald: Malcolm Turnbull ‘knew in advance’ of US strike on Syria, called for a ‘strong response’
NTI: Israel
New York Times: Halabja – America didn’t seem to mind poison gas
Al Jazeera: Remembering Halabja chemical attack
Foreign Policy: Exclusive – CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran
Al Jazeera: Remembering Halabja chemical attack
RT News: Syria denies & condemns use of chemical weapons – foreign minister
The New Arab: Anti-aircraft missiles could be a game-changer in Syria
Al-Monitor: Congress authorizes Trump to arm Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles
Huffington Post: Russia’s Intervention in Syria: Protracting an Already Endless Conflict
BBC: Who is supplying weapons to the warring sides in Syria?
The Guardian: UK link to Serb poison gas
CNN: Hillary Clinton – US should ‘take out’ Assad’s air fields
RT News: America’s Syria strike ‘on verge of military clash’ with Russia – PM Medvedev
Twitter: Bernie Sanders – Syria – 7 April 2017
Politicususa: Bernie Sanders Shows America How A President Should Handle Syria And The Middle East
Radio NZ: NZ told in advance about US Syria strike
Radio NZ: Little on SAS claims – ‘We need to know what the truth is’
Radio NZ: Afghan raid – Ex-minister accepts reports of civilian deaths
New York Times: Trump Removes Stephen Bannon From National Security Council Post
The Independent: Steve Bannon threatened to quit if removed from National Security Council, say reports
CNBC: Bannon attended National Security Council meeting after his removal from top committee
New York Times: Who Was in the Room? These Advisers Joined Trump for the Syria Strike
Los Angeles Times: Devin Nunes says he’s temporarily stepping aside from Russia probe
The Atlantic: The Call Was Coming From Inside the White House
Bloomberg: Trump Asked for Flynn’s Resignation After ‘Eroding’ Trust, Aide Says
Twitter: Trump – Do not attack Syria – 5 September 2013
CNBC: Trump explains why he launched missile attack on Syria
Radio NZ: Syria chemical killings ‘cross many lines’ – Trump
The Telegraph: Donald Trump – ‘I’ll look Syrian children in the face and say they can’t come’
Breitbart ‘News’: Trump – I can look into face of Syrian children and say ‘You can’t come here’
Breitbart ‘News’: Obama Yawns As Syria Uses Chemical Weapons, Crosses ‘Red Line’
Breitbart ‘News’: Trump Orders Strikes Against Syrian Regime Airbase in Response to Chemical Attack
Wikipedia: Steve Bannon
Great America PAC: Home page
The Daily Beast: Pro-Trump PAC Raising Money Off Syria Strikes
Wikipedia: List of United States defense contractors
Wikipedia: Paul Watson
Jerusalem Post: Netanyahu – Israel backs US attack on Syria on ‘moral’ basis
Al Jazeera: Netanyahu – Strikes in Syria targeted Hezbollah arms
Jerusalem Post: Netanyahu – Israel clarified to Russia that IDF will continue Syria strikes
The Guardian: Putin condemns Turkey after Russian warplane downed near Syria border
BBC: Syria war – A brief guide to who’s fighting whom
Mediaworks: Mark Sainsbury – Peter Thiel’s made NZ a haven for sale
Additional
The Boston Globe: Trump and the Doomsday Clock
Other Bloggers
The Daily Blog: Gas Attack In Khan Sheikhoun! But why would Bashar al-Assad blow himself up?
Previous related blogposts
Trumpwatch: The Drum(pf)s of War
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The Art of Deflection
The Right make a big thing out of Personal Responsibility. It is core to their philosophy of the primacy of the Individual, as National’s website points out again* and again* and again;
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With the Cult of Hyper Individualism, “taking Personal Responsibility” is the corollary of the “Small State” and reduced government services. The Right demand Personal Responsibility from everyone. (So when an individual ‘fails’, the fault – and responsibility – must lie with him/her, rather than the State’s tilting the playing field toward the rich and the powerful.)
The leadership of the National Party have demonstrated on numerous occassions how ‘dedicated’ they are to their philosophy of Personal Responsibility;
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When faced with a failing policy and worsening social and economic indicators, National automatically defaults to three standard deflections;
#1 Blame the previous Labour government
#2 Blame ‘welfare abuse’/Release a ‘welfare abuse’ story in the media
#3 Blame Global Financial Crisis or similar overseas event
If the problem is Auckland housing-related, there is a fourth default-deflection the Nats can rely on;
#4 Blame Auckland Council/RMA/both.)
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Works a treat!
Doing it right-wing style – why take personal responsibility when there are perfectly good scapegoats available?
The newly-elected right-wing Donald Trump administration appears to have taken lessons from National’s strategy for blame-gaming over the last eight years;
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Trump’s three default positions appears to be;
#1 Blame the media
#2 Blame Obama/Clinton/government departments
#3 Blame the rest of the world
Blaming Hillary Clinton also appears to be a personal favourite of some Trump’s supporters. Faced with their hero – an unstable, thin-skinned narcissist in the White House busily tweeting bizarre comments in the early hours of the morning – pointing to Clinton as a “worse alternative” is the only possible strategy remaining to mitigate Trump’s increasingly irrational behaviour.
Without the bogey(wo)man of a “worse alternative”, one is ultimately left with assessing Trump’s actions and utterances on it’s own merits of what is, or isn’t, acceptable behaviour.
After all, for most left-wingers and liberals in New Zealand, it can be generally agreed that our former Dear Leader, John Key, is nowhere as bad as odious characters throughout history such as Franco, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Pinochet, et al…
But, would you still vote for him?
As with National, the Republican Party is also big on personal responsibility;
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Taking personal responsibility – the Right-wing way.
Time for a beer…
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References
National Party: Our values
National Party: Speech to National Party Central North Island regional conference – John Key
NZ Herald: Transcript – John Key’s speech at the National Party conference
New York Post: Trump blames military for SEAL’s death
NDTV: Donald Trump Blames Oscars Fail On Show’s Political Tone
BBC: Trump blames Obama for town hall protests and security leaks
TVNZ News: Trump blames FBI for failing to stop media leak
Daily KOS: Trump Blames Jews for Anti-Semitic Attacks on Cemeteries and Elsewhere
NPR: Trump Blames Media For Downfall Of National Security Adviser Flynn
CBS News: Trump blames media for rift with intelligence community
ABC News: Donald Trump defends travel ban, blames computer glitches, protesters for airport chaos
The Australian: Trump blames fraud for popular vote
The National Herald: Trump Blames China Over North Korea Nuclear Program
The Economist: Blame Mexico!
New York Post: Trump blames Clinton for media reports on his Russian ties
Fairfax media: Republican Party office firebombed, Donald Trump blames Hillary Clinton
The Week: Donald Trump on blaming Hillary Clinton for everything: ‘Why not?’
The Guardian: Trump blames sexual assault claims on collusion between Clinton and media
Previous related blogposts
Trumpwatch: The Drum(pf)s of War
Trumpwatch: “… then they came for the LGBT”
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One of Donald Trump’s most bitter and constant complaints is mainstream media reporting of his election campaign last year, and his first couple of months in the White House.
Any reporting of Trump which shows him in a negative light is referred by him as “fake news“. This, despite the actual definition of fake news being closer to Wikipedia’s opening statement on the issue;
Fake news is a type of hoax or deliberate spread of misinformation, be it via the traditional news media or via social media, with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically.
Trump’s mis-use of the term “fake news” – to attack and dismiss as untrue, actual news stories – is a corruption of the term for his own purposes.
Trump’s actions, statements, tweets, and behaviour has all received media attention – and quite rightly so. Trump is no longer a private individual and his actions and words are no longer unimportant. As the elected leader of the United States, much of what he says and does will be reported.
Often, that reporting will be highly critical.
Sometimes, it will be damaging to his reputation.
It goes with the ‘territory’.
Attacking various msm such as CNN and labelling it as “fake news” because he is thin-skinned and upset by their stories does not make the news outlet “fake”;
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It simply makes him look petulant, unprofessional, and unable to cope with the rigours of his Office.
This, is fake news;
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So is this;
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Mostly likely this;
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And maybe even this;
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(Loving that blue dress, by the way…)
And yet, on at least two occassions, Trump has had valid justification to attack and criticise the msm over stories published.
The first, in late February. There was faux-outrage when the media reported that – SHOCK! HORROR! – Donald Trump’s senior advisor, Kellyanne “Alternative Facts” Conway, was caught in a series of photos kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office of the White House;
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For some inexplicable reason (actually, not so inexplicable at all), this was considered “newsworthy”, and the planet’s media went nuts;
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I had no desire (or spare time) to check the remaining 309,000 results.
This was not so much “Fake” News as Non-News. There was nothing remotely informative, insightful, or politically meaningful about that (non-)event.
As many pointed out, it was not so different to former President Obama putting his feet up on the Oval Office desk, after a hard day running the American Empire;
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(Tough day at the office.)
The next instance of Non-News reporting by the msm was this incident;
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The News Corp story above (re-published in the NZ Herald) went on to describe Donald Trump’s speech at Congress;
While her father President Donald Trump spoke about saving American jobs, Ivanka stood at his State Of the Union address in the expensive frock, which costs about NZ$4238 (US$2995).
There was no mention of what Ms Trump’s father wore on the day.
Yet again, the mainstream media appeared to run out of real stories, as the ‘net filled with millions of words written about ‘that dress’;
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As referenced briefly above, it is not totally ‘inexplicable’ that the msm have gone barking mad on the two Non-News ‘stories’ above.
There is an on-going war-of-words between Trump – aided and abetted by his faithful White House minions – versus the mainstream media. The animosity has never been so bitter since the days of the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s secret list of enemies.
The Conway Shoes-on-Sofa and Ivanka Dress “scandals” were a petty attack on Trump. It was a mis-use of media power for no reason except journalists, editors, newsroom producers, et al, have a dislike of Trump.
The media need to get over themselves. Non-News stories like these only add to Trump’s hysterical fear and rage against media institutions. They also add to his narrative that the media are “out to get him”. In these two cases, that ‘paranoia’ might well be justified.
If the media are to regain the trust and credibility that has been badly dented in last year’s presidential campaign, pathetic Non-News “stories” like the ones above cannot continue.
The media are supposed to hold truth to power. Shoes on sofas and fashion critiques simply don’t cut the mustard.
We, the people deserve better.
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References
Wikipedia: Fake News
Politico: Trump calls CNN ‘fake news,’ as channel defends its reporting on intelligence briefing
Linked In: Pope Francis endorses Donald Trump
The Independent: What is Pizzagate? The Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory that led to a man opening fire in a restaurant
Google: Search – Kellyanne conway shoes on couch
NZ Herald: Ivanka Trump wore a $4000 off-the-shoulder dress to Congress
Google: Search – Ivanka Trump dress at father’s speech
PBS: Nixon’s Enemies List
Additional
The Guardian: What is fake news? How to spot it and what you can do to stop it
Previous related blogposts
Trumpwatch: The Drum(pf)s of War
Trumpwatch: “… then they came for the LGBT”
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Context:Discrimination
By 2015, the situation of transgender students using toilets in US schools became a major contentious social issue. States such as Kentucky, Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi , Nevada, North Carolina, and Texas attempted to pass legislation that would have “legally required schools to ensure that children follow anatomical conventions when using gender-segregated school facilities: that children who were born boys but identify as girls use the boys’ restroom, and vice versa“, as The Atlantic pointed out in July 2015.
The original version of the “Kentucky Student Privacy Act” would have allowed students to sue “offenders” (transgendered students using toilets assigned to opposite gendered students) in a state court for “damages” up to US$2,500 each.
In April last year, North Carolina passed legislation that removed protection of LGBT from discrimination based on sexual orientation and a requirement that, in public buildings and schools, transgendered people use bathrooms corresponding to their genetic gender at birth.
There was a public outcry against what was perceived as unjust discrimination against transgender students.
Companies such as PayPal, Deutsche Bank, and others cancelled investment in the state; singer Bruce Springsteen cancelled a rock concert; and dozens of planned conventions were withdrawn, in protest. One hundred and thirty other companies signed a letter to North Carolina’s lawmakers demanding they repeal the anti-transgender law.
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Then: Obama
Last year, in a follow-up to an earlier 2014 directive, former President Obama, responded to discrimination against transgendered students in federally-funded schools.
Then-Attorney General, Loretta Lynch was unequivocal in condemning transphobia;
“There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex. ”
The directive – in the form of a letter from the Departments of Justice and Education – was sent to all Federally-funded schools. It stated, in part;
“A school may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex, but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity.
A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so.
As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”
In issuing a new directive not to engage in transphobic policies, Obama said;
“What happened and what continues to happen is you have transgender kids in schools. And they get bullied. And they get ostracized. And it’s tough for them.
My best interpretation of what our laws and our obligations are is that we should try to accommodate these kids so that they are not in a vulnerable situation.
We should deal with this issue the same way we would want it dealt with if it was our child and that is to try to create an environment of some dignity and kindness for these kids. ”
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Then: Trump
During last year’s presidential election campaign, Trump appeared to side firmly with the LGBT community.
In June, he tweeted;
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In October, at a rally in Colorado, he borrowed a LGBT flag from a supporter in the crowd, and waved it on-stage;
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And in November, two activists from the so-called LGBTrump group wrote glowingly of Trump’s pro-LGBT credentials.
“ There are no signs that the LGBT community will be in the crosshairs of a Trump administration. In fact that evidence is just the opposite.
In the 1980s & 1990s Trump donated heavily to charities that focused on the AIDS outbreak. When he floated a third party presidential run in 1999 he went on record saying he would consider adding sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act. Trump is also believed to be the first private club owner in Palm Beach — in this case Mar-a-Lago — to admit a gay couple. This is not the resume of an LGBT foe.
[…]
… Trump, thus, was telling evangelicals he was with them on the issue of life — our most fundamental right — but was not willing to do battle over civil marriage. This was the surest signal to the LGBT community that Trump was not a foe, but a friend.”
And Christopher R. Barron echoed his fellow Trumpista’s sentiments;
“ Donald Trump’s announcement on “60 Minutes” Sunday night, that he supports marriage equality, shocked almost as many on the left as his stunning victory at the polls last week. If they would have been paying attention, however, neither of these events would have come as a surprise.
Despite the left’s attempts to demonize Donald Trump as a homophobe during the campaign, the truth was and is that Donald Trump is unquestionably, the Republican Party’s most pro-gay presidential nominee in history. ”
Trump’s vice-President, Mike Pence, however was less supportive of the LGBT community;
Pence’s LGBT record doesn’t get much better either. On his website in 2000 he suggested that money used to support those with HIV should be directed to organisations “which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Pence supports gay conversion therapy.
(Pence’s comments were confirmed by Snopes.com.)
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Now: Trump
On 22 February, the Trump Administration announced to Federally-funded schools that Obama’s instructions banning transphobic policies was to be rescinded;
By the time he left office, Barack Obama had taken several steps to support transgender people, moves that “thrilled” advocates and outraged social conservatives still stinging from a same-sex marriage loss before the Supreme Court. But the tide is now heading in a new direction, and the Trump Administration on Wednesday took what LGBT rights groups view as a big step back, one they are describing as “bullying” transgender kids.
In a joint action, the departments of Justice and Education rescinded instructions that schools nationwide must respect the gender identities of transgender students, allowing them access to bathrooms and other facilities or single-sex programs that align with their sense of self. “The prior guidance documents did not contain sufficient legal analysis or explain how the interpretation was consistent with the language of Title IX,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement Wednesday. ” The Department of Education and the Department of Justice therefore have withdrawn the guidance.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a Republican who has expressed conservative positions on various issues;
Sessions has earned a 20% approval-rating from the ACLU, on his anti-civil rights voting record; 7% by the NAACP, revealing his anti-affirmative-action stance, and 0% by the Human Rights Campaign, for displaying an openly anti-gay-rights stance on issues.
This is the reactionary homophobe appointed by a supposedly “LGBT-friendly Trump” as America’s Attorney General.
In a surprising development, fellow conservative Republican; businesswoman; Charter Schools proponent, and Trump appointee as the new Secretary for Education, Betsy DeVos, opposed rescinding Federal protection for transgendered students. She was over-ruled by self-declared “LGBT-friendly Trump”;
But Ms. DeVos initially resisted signing off and told Mr. Trump that she was uncomfortable because of the potential harm that rescinding the protections could cause transgender students, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the internal discussions.
Mr. Sessions, who has opposed expanding gay, lesbian and transgender rights, pushed Ms. DeVos to relent. After getting nowhere, he took his objections to the White House because he could not go forward without her consent. Mr. Trump sided with his attorney general, the Republicans said, and told Ms. DeVos in a meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he wanted her to drop her opposition. And Ms. DeVos, faced with the alternative of resigning or defying the president, agreed to go along.
Ms. DeVos’s unease was evident in a strongly worded statement she released on Wednesday night, in which she said she considered it a “moral obligation” for every school in America to protect all students from discrimination, bullying and harassment.
White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, denied there was a split between DeVos, Trump, and Sessions, but a ‘tweet‘ from her suggested otherwise;
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In revoking Obama’s order to “allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity“, Trump has made life more difficult for transgendered young people. His decision to allow Jeff Sessions to impose his moralistic agenda to deny transgendered students to be in a safe environment to use bathroom facilities, puts extra stresses on people who are already facing a difficult time in their lives.
When a segment of American society yearns for a quasi-mythical, mind-numbingly simpler time of “mom, dad, and the kids”;
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– they are craving an era inimical to anyone who was not white, heterosexual, and patriarchal. That is the vision that Trump is buying into by refusing to respect the rights of LGBT Americans.
Far from his committment to the LGBT community to “fight for them”, as he tweeted on 14 June 2016, Trump is complicit in turning his back on transgendered students.
Muslims, Mexicans, LGBT – Trump (and his groupies in the White House) is sectioning-of American society.
Who is next?
More than ever, German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller’s statement rings truer and truer every day…
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References
The Atlantic: The K-12 Binary
The Guardian: Leading businesses take stand against states’ new anti-LGBT laws
The Advocate: Here’s All the Business N.C. Has Lost Because of Anti-LGBT Bill
Reuters: Obama says transgender bathroom directive based on law
The Guardian: Obama orders public schools to allow transgender students access to restrooms
Twitter: Trump – Thank you to the LGBT Community
The Independent: Donald Trump’s running mate thought HIV funding could be better spent on gay conversion therapy – time to put the rainbow flag down
The Hill: Memo to the LGBT community – Donald Trump is not your enemy
Fox News: Donald Trump will be a friend, an ally and an advocate for the LGBT community
Snopes.com: Shock Treatment
Time: President Trump Just Rolled Back Guidelines That Protected Transgender Students
Wikipedia: Jeff Sessions
On The Issues: Jeff Sessions on Civil Rights
Wikipedia: Betsy DeVos
New York Times: Trump Rescinds Rules on Bathrooms for Transgender Students
The Guardian: Trump administration revokes transgender students’ bathroom protections
Twitter: Betsy DeVos
Other bloggers
The Daily Blog: Family Fist exploiting transphobia for political moralistic point scoring is far more destructive than transgender toilet use
The Spinoff: Four things you can do when hate groups like Family First attack children
Previous related blogposts
Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?
The Rise of Great Leader Trump
The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election
Trump escalates, Putin congratulates
Trumpwatch: Voter fraud, Presidential delusions, and Fox News
Trumpwatch: Muslims, mandates, and moral courage
Trumpwatch: The Drum(pf)s of War
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The Trump Era: A New Cold War, on multiple fronts:
Not since Bush launched a propaganda war against three nations (Iran, Iraq, and North Korea) with his jingoistic “Axis of Evil” rhetoric in 2002, has a U.S. president so successfully instigated Cold War II on so many fronts.
Barely a month into his “presidency”, and Trump has achieved what no other US President has in history. Winding back international relations to pre-Perestroika days, Trump (or his operatives in the Occupied White House) has shown belligerence toward;
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— Iran
After Iran test-fired a missile on 31 January, the American Empire has responded with bellicose threats from the Trump-occupied White House. In a press release, National Security Advisor, Michael T. Flynn – a Trump appointee – issued this threat;
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and engages in and supports violent activities that destabilize the Middle East. This behavior seems continuous despite the very favorable deal given to Iran by the Obama Administration. These sanctions target these behaviors.
Iran’s senior leadership continues to threaten the United States and our allies. Since the Obama Administration agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran in 2015, Iran’s belligerent and lawless behavior has only increased. Examples include the abduction of ten of our sailors and two patrol boats in January 2016, unwarranted harassment of vessel traffic and repeated weapons tests. Just this week, Iran tested a ballistic missile, and one of its proxy terrorist groups attacked a Saudi vessel in the Red Sea.
The international community has been too tolerant of Iran’s bad behavior. The ritual of convening a United Nations Security Council in an emergency meeting and issuing a strong statement is not enough. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate Iran’s provocations that threaten our interests.”
The days of turning a blind eye to Iran’s hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over.
At a White House press briefing, Flynn added;
“As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.”
Pentagon spokesperson, Christopher Sherwood, stoked the flames;
“The U.S. military has not changed its posture in response to the Iranian test missile launch.”
Unsurprisingly, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was scathing of the militaristic knee-jerk reaction from the Trump White House;
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Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, rejected claims that the Iranian missile test contravened a 2015 UN resolution which prohibited tests of ballistic missiles potentially capable of carrying atomic warheads;
“We do not see any special problems in this area. We want to stress again that missile launches with the use of missile technologies are not a breach of the [Joint Comprehensive] Plan of Action and UN Security Council Resolution 2231. We have brought this position to the notice of the US side as well.”
Trump is scheduled to meet Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – a sworn enemy of Iran – at the White House on February 15. With Trump’s slavish support for Israel, this will not bode well for peace in the Middle East.
A US war with Iran, coupled with on-going civil wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, would disrupt any remaining stability in the entire Middle East and possibly spark a third world war.
— China
Not quite two weeks after his inauguration, Trump created an international incident when he spoke with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, on 2 December.
The phone call angered the Chinese leadership in Beijing, as the UK’s Guardian explained;
The US closed its embassy in Taiwan – a democratically ruled island which Beijing considers a breakaway province – in the late 1970s following the historic rapprochement between Beijing and Washington that stemmed from Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China.
Since then the US has adhered to the so-called “one China” principle which officially considers the independently governed island part of the same single Chinese nation as the mainland.
It seems improbable that Trump was not briefed by the US State Department that such a phone call would raise alarm bells with the Chinese government in Beijing. But according to the Taipei Times article;
Trump reportedly agreed to the call, which was arranged by Taiwan-friendly members of his campaign staff after his aides briefed him on issues regarding Taiwan and the situation in the Taiwan Strait, sources said.
Would one of those “Taiwan-friendly members of his campaign staff” be Steve Bannon?
Steve Bannon – far-right media-blogger, political activist, and executive chairperson of far-right website, Breitbart News.
The same Steve Bannon who – one month after Trump spoke with Taiwan’s president – made this startling statement to the world’s media;
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The same Steve Bannon who is now a close advisor to Trump;
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Another Trump stooge, White House media spokesperson, Sean Spicer, announced;
“The U.S. is going to make sure that we protect our interests there [in the South China Sea].”
When US “interests” are threatened, the American Empire reacts in the only way it understands: war. Especially as our American cuzzies see themselves as Hollywood-style “good guys” in international conflicts;
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As
“Washington policymakers seem addicted to intervention and war, unable to imagine there is any international problem they cannot solve.
[…]
The claim that the United States could have provided just the right amount of assistance to just the right groups [in Syria] to yield just the right outcome is a fantasy, belied by America’s failure to get much of anything in the Middle East right.”
By December, the Chinese government had had enough, issuing this warning through it’s mouthpiece, the state-owned Global Times;
In response, the Global Times, a state-run tabloid that sometimes reflects views from within the Communist party, said on Thursday that China should rebalance its stance towards Taiwan to “make the use of force as a main option and carefully prepare for it”.
“The Chinese mainland should display its resolution to recover Taiwan by force,” the paper wrote in an editorial. If Taiwan were to declare formal independence, it went on, “the Chinese mainland can in no time punish them militarily”.
As tensions increased, in response to US demands over the South China Sea, China unequivocally told the Americans to ‘butt out’. By the end of January, Beijing’s senior Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Lu Kang,issued a more direct warning;
“There might be a difference [of opinion] over the sovereignty of these islands but it’s not for the United States. That might be between China and some other countries in this region. The South China Sea is not the United States territory or the international territory…”
Update: On 10 February, Trump informed China that his Administration will honour the “One China” policy. The Chinese government – again through it’s organ, the Global Times – concluded;
“Since assuming office, Trump and his team have changed their rhetoric about China. Trump has stopped openly challenging China’s core interests, and instead showed respect to Beijing.
[…]
The change creates an impression that Trump is learning about his role in the realm of Sino-US ties. He’s now sending a new message that he does not want to be a disruptor of the Sino-US relations.”
Saner heads have seemingly prevailed somewhere within the dimly-lit coridors and back-rooms of the American Deep State.
Let’s hope that Trump learns the intricacies and dangers of international relations before he inadvertently blunders into an irretrievable crisis and triggers an atomic apocalypse.
World War I started with less.
— Yemen
During the presidential elections last year (and earlier), Trump made no secret of his inclination to keep the US out of “other people’s wars;
“Now we’re supposed to get involved with Syria? I would say stay out.”
In March 2016;
“I do think it’s a different world today and I don’t think we should be nation-building anymore. I think it’s proven not to work. And we have a different country than we did then. You know we have $19 trillion in debt. We’re sitting probably on a bubble, and, you know, it’s a bubble that if it breaks is going to be very nasty. And I just think we have to rebuild our country.”
In April 2016;
“We can’t be the policeman of the world. What we do get out of it?”
In May 2016;
“I would have stayed out of Syria and wouldn’t have fought so much for Assad, against Assad because I thought that was a whole thing. You have Iran, which we made into a power. Iran now is a power. Because of us, because of some of the dumbest deals I have ever seen. So now you have Iran and you have Russia in favor of Assad. We’re supposed to fight the two of them. At the same time, we’re supposed to fight ISIS, who is fighting Assad.”
On 30 January – ten days after the world witnessed Trump’s inauguration – US Navy Seal forces mounted a raid in Yemen to attack an alleged Al Qaeda base;
Washington, DC: A US commando died and three others were wounded in a deadly dawn raid on the al-Qaeda militant group in southern Yemen, which was the first military operation authorised by US President Donald Trump.
The US military said 14 militants died in the attack on a powerful al-Qaeda branch that has been a frequent target of US drone strikes.
[…]
The gunbattle in the rural Yakla district of al-Bayda province killed a senior leader in Yemen’s al-Qaeda branch, Abdulraoof al-Dhahab, along with other militants, al-Qaeda said.
As usual, civilians were caught up in the gun-battle;
Medics at the scene, however, said around 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.
[…]
Eight-year-old Anwar al-Awlaki, the daughter of US-born Yemeni preacher and al- Qaeda ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki, was among the children who died in the raid, according to her grandfather. Her father was killed in a US drone strike in 2011.
“She was hit with a bullet in her neck and suffered for two hours,” Nasser al- Awlaki told Reuters. “Why kill children? This is the new (US) administration – it’s very sad, a big crime.”
Two days later, the US military confirmed that civilians had been killed in the attack;
US Central Command (CENTCOM) on Wednesday confirmed that a raid carried out in Yemen earlier this week “likely killed” civilians, including possibly children.
“A team designated by the operational task force commander has concluded regrettably that civilian non-combattants were likely killed in the midst of a firefight during a raid in Yemen January 29. Casualties may include children,” said a statement from CENTCOM.
Noticeable, however, the story had changed from an “al-Qaeda militant group” to this;
In what was the first confirmed military raid under President Trump, commandos targeted three tribal chiefs with links to al Qaeda in the central province of Bayda.
More obscene still;
Trump on Wednesday paid a surprise visit to the family of the soldier, Chief Special Warfare Operator William “Ryan” Owens, 36, from Illinois. Afterwards, Trump described the visit as “something very sad, very beautiful.”
Though probably not as “beautiful” as one local Yemeni’s description of the brutal violence from the US attack;
“The operation began at dawn when a drone bombed the home of Abdulraoof al- Dhahab and then helicopters flew up and unloaded paratroopers at his house and killed everyone inside,” said one resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Next, the gunmen opened fire at the US soldiers who left the area, and the helicopters bombed the gunmen and a number of homes and led to a large number of casualties.”
For a man committed not to become involved in “other people’s wars”, Trump was quick of the mark to authorise this latest adventurism in the Middle East.
Update: Former national security official for President Barack Obama, Colin Kahl, has rejected claims that the Navy Seal attack in Yemen had been planned by the previous Administration. In a series of tweets, Khal said;
“1/DoD worked up GENERAL proposal for OVERALL set of expanded authorities for these types of raids at end of Obama admin
[…]
5/And, critically, Obama made no decisions on this before leaving office, believing it represented escalation of U.S. involvement in Yemen”
Even if Trump’s White House officials were being truthful (which is dubious), and the Navy Seal mission had been planned by the Obama Administration, the obvious question remains: why did Trump permit the attack to proceed?
Short answer: because very little has changed within the Deep State of the American Empire.
— Russia/Ukraine
The “bromance” between Trump and Russian President, Putin, is well known. There appears to be a “detente” between Putin and the Trump Administration, with the suggestion last year that the Russians could be given a “free hand” in Syria.
As far back as September 2015, then-Republican candidate, Donald Trump told Bill Reilly on Fox News that he would – in essence – be giving Putin suzerainty over Syria;
“Well, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over, and Putin is now taking over what we started, and he’s going into Syria, and he frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing. You know, I said that a year ago and everybody said oh, that’s terrible. If he wants to fight ISIS, let him fight ISIS. Why do we always have to do everything. But he wants to go in. He wants to fight ISIS. Now, he wants to keep, as you know, he wants to keep your leadership, your current leadership, Assad in Syria. Personally I’ve been looking at the different players, and I’ve been watching Assad, and I’ve been pretty good at this stuff over the years, cause deals are people. And I’m looking at Assad and saying, ‘Maybe he’s better than the kind of people that we’re supposed to be backing.’ Because we don’t even know who we’re backing.”
O’Reilly probed further;
“Once Putin gets in and fights ISIS on behalf of Assad, Putin runs Syria. He owns it. He’ll never get out, never.”
Trump replied,
“Alright, okay, fine. I mean, you know, we can be in Syria. Do you want to run Syria? Do you want to own Syria? I want to rebuild our country.”
Putin took up the offer, deploying Russian naval and air-power to support Assad’s forces to retake Aleppo.
But Trump’s willingness to carve up the world, Yalta Conference-21st Century style, delineating “spheres of influence”, does not seem to extend to the Ukraine which lies on Russia’s doorstep.
On 2/3 February, Trump’s appointee as the US’s ambassador to the UN, former-Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, launched a blistering attack on Russia for it’s activities in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea;
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“ I consider it unfortunate that the occasion of my first appearance here is one in which I must condemn the aggressive actions of Russia. We do want to better our relations with Russia. However, the dire situation in eastern Ukraine is one that demands clear and strong condemnation of Russian actions.”
The sudden increase in fighting in eastern Ukraine has trapped thousands of civilians and destroyed vital infrastructure and the crisis is spreading, endangering many thousands more. This escalation of violence must stop.The United States continues to condemn and call for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea,” said Nikki Haley, President Donald Trump’s envoy to the world body. “Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine.”
The Ukraine’s Ambassador to the UN, Volodymyr Yelchenko, pitched in, holding up a photo of a slain Ukrainian serviceman;
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The Ukrainian Ambassador addressed the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Yelchenko, accusing;
“You killed him.”
The Russian ambassador, though, was having none of the United States’ grandstanding, but responded with noticeable restraint;
“The essence of those events is quite clear: Kiev is trying to use the armed clashes that it provoked as a pretext for a complete rejection of the February 12, 2015, Minsk agreements, sealed by the UN Security Council resolution 2202.
Any serious intensification of hostilities in Donbass miraculously coincides with foreign visits of the Ukrainian leadership. Apparently, this is how Kiev expects to keep the crisis that it had provoked on the international agenda.
And, of course, the Ukrainian leadership needs money today, that can easily wheedle out of the European Union, some European nations, the United States and international financial institutions when they pretend to be a victim of ‘aggression’.”
Later, the Russian ambassador appeared conciliatory toward Ambassador Haley;
“I think it was friendly enough, given the circumstances, and given the subject which we were discussing. We may have some differences on some individual issues from time to time, but the fact remains that she is going to play a very important role in whether or not the SC will be able to play a role as a collective international body carrying the main responsibility for international peace and security.”
It is not hard to guess why.
Putin wants to maintain the positive relationship that appeared between himself and Trump during last year’s election campaign. No doubt the Russian leadership is hoping to get Trump back “on board” with some skilled diplomacy. A few sugar-coated words from the Russian president should appeal to Trump’s ego.
Putin may have his work cut out for him as Trump has already been in contact with the Ukrainian leadership, at about the same time Ambassador Haley was busily denouncing the Russians;
President Donald J. Trump just had [5 p.m. Saturday] a very good call with President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine to address a variety of topics, including Ukraine’s long-running conflict with Russia. “We will work with Ukraine, Russia, and all other parties involved to help them restore peace along the border,” said President Trump. Also discussed was the potential for a meeting in the near future.
The new American leadership is hyper-Nationalistic and has more in common with the Ukrainian nationalistic government than it does with Moscow.
It may be a matter of time before Putin and Trump’s “respect for each other” dissolves into acrimony. The president of Mexico and Prime Minister of Australia can testify to how fractious Trump can be when he doesn’t get his own way;
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There is no way that Russia will surrender it’s interests in the Ukraine. Just as the American Empire considered Cuba to be well within it’s “sphere of influence”, and blockaded the island during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Russia will not abandon it’s influence on it’s western borders.
Like the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula, the Ukraine is a dangerous flash-point. It is one mis-calculation away from war.
— Doomsday Clock
Recognising the dangerous situation posed by a volatile Trump and the new Nationalist regime in Washington, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the Doomsday Clock forward by thirty seconds. It is now two and a half minutes to Doomsday.
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![The atomic scientists say the world had edged closer to doomsday [EPA]](https://fmacskasy.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/doomsday-clock-donald-trump.jpg?w=595&h=335)
The atomic scientists say the world had edged closer to doomsday [EPA]
Leading scientists, who are the clock’s keepers, say the world has edged closer to apocalypse in the past year amid a darkening security landscape and comments by US President Donald Trump.
[…]
In a report, the BPA said Mr Trump’s statements on climate change, expanding the US nuclear arsenal and the questioning of intelligence agencies had contributed to the heightened global risk.
It is the closest the clock has come to midnight since 1953, when the minute hand was moved to two minutes away following hydrogen bomb tests by the US and Russia.
The minute hand on the Doomsday Clock is a metaphor for how vulnerable the world is to catastrophe.
No wonder Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Executive Director, Rachel Bronson appealed to world leaders to “calm rather than stoke tensions that could lead to war”.
The last time the hands of the Doomsday Clock were so close to mid-night (Doomsday) was in 1953, when the US test-detonated it’s first Hydrogen Bomb.
We live in dangerous times.
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References
BBC: Who’s who in the ‘axis of evil’
The White House: Statement by National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn on Iran
Reuters: Trump adopts aggressive posture toward Iran after missile launch
Press TV: New US sanctions on Iran unacceptable – Russia
The Jerusalem Post: Trump’s UN envoy – Israel will ‘never again’ question US support
Taipei Times: Tsai-Trump telephone call scheduled
The Guardian: Trump’s phone call with Taiwan president risks China’s wrath
Wikipedia: Steve Bannon
The Guardian: Steve Bannon – ‘We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt’
The Huffington Post: Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable
The Independent: US would go into any war with China with ‘unparalleled violence’, warn experts
The Daily Star: ‘We’re going to war with China – no doubt’ says Trump’s right-hand man
The IB Times: Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon – ‘We’re going to war in the South China
TV3 News: Trump advisor Steve Bannon warned of war against China
The Nation: Donald Trump Could Be the Military-Industrial Complex’s Worst Nightmare
The Guardian: Donald Trump on North Korea going to war – ‘Good luck, enjoy yourself folks’
Politico: Trump pledges to hit Islamic State, not Assad
Sydney Morning Herald: US raid on al-Qaeda compound in Yemen Donald Trump’s first military engagement as president
DW News: US confirms Yemen raid ‘likely killed’ civilians
The White House Archives: Vice President Biden Announces Dr. Colin Kahl as New National Security Advisor
Salon: Former Obama official – Trump’s deadly Yemen raid wasn’t planned under Obama’s watch
Sputnik News: Trump on Putin Controlling Syria: ‘OK, Fine,’ Him Fighting ISIS ‘Wonderful Thing,’ ‘Very Little Downside’
The Independent: Largest Russian military deployment since Cold War passes through British waters en route to ‘crush’ Aleppo
Wikipedia: Yalta Conference
Washington Post: Trump nominates two prominent GOP women: DeVos as education secretary, Haley as U.N. ambassador
CNN: UN Ambassador Haley hits Russia hard on Ukraine
RT News: Russia’s Churkin cites US constitution after ambassador Haley’s rant at UNSC over Ukraine
The White House: Readout of the President’s Call with President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine
Complex.com: Did Donald Trump Piss Off Two of Our Biggest Allies?
Radio NZ: Doomsday Clock moved closer to midnight
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: Timeline
Additional
Fox News: Trump unveils plan to boost US military
Other Blogs
Bowalley Road: Political Paradoxes
Brian Edwards: Profile of Leader of the Free World
Cafe Pacific: Colourful, vibrant Aotearoa rally condemns Trump’s ‘racist, Islamophobic’ bans
Imperator Fish: The fascism of facts
Gordon Campbell on NZ’s silence over Trump’s anti-Muslim agenda
Local Bodies: Trump’s Muslim ban exposes stupidity
Mars2earth: you are the resistance
Mars2earth: uglytrump
Mars2earth: the start of the peel
No Right Turn: Outright corruption in the US
Pundit: When Donald calls Bill… make him an offer
The Standard: New Zealand Second?
The Standard: Postcards from the Trumpocalypse
Previous related blogposts
Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?
The Rise of Great Leader Trump
The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election
Trump escalates, Putin congratulates
Trumpwatch: Voter fraud, Presidential delusions, and Fox News
Trumpwatch: Muslims, mandates, and moral courage
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Muslims…
Trump revealed his extraordinary Executive Order on 28 January. With the flourish of a pen, he banned refugees and demanded travellers from seven predominantly muslim nations be subjected to “extreme vetting” (whatever that is). Seven countries were singled out;
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Acknowledgement: Martyn Bradbury, “The utter madness of Trump’s #MuslimBan”
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Of those seven two (Iraq and Somalia) have been invaded by the American Empire; one has been the target of sanctions for supposedly working toward developing an atom bomb (Iran, not Israel); and two others are currently experiencing vicious civil wars (Syria and Yemen).
Interestingly, as others have pointed out, several countries are noticeable by their absence – chiefly Saudi Arabia.
This is ironic in the extreme as, the entire world is aware, the worst terrorist atrocity on US soil was committed by fifteen Saudi nationals, on 11 September, 2001. The late-leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, was also a Saudi citizen – a so-called “prince”. The remainder were from the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt (1) and Lebanon (1).
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon do not appear on Trump’s “Sinful Seven”.
Also omitted from the above list: Israel – 34 Americans killed on 8 June 1967, when Israeli motor-torpedo boats and a warplane attacked the USS Liberty, whilst it lay in international waters.
Making matters worse, on a Christian TV channel, Trump threw petrol onto the bonfire he had lit by stating that there would be an exemption to the ban of refugees from Syria;
Worsening the damage, he also signalled, in an interview with a Christian television channel, that the ban would not apply to Christians. Syrian Christians, claimed Mr Trump, were “horribly treated” by his predecessor. “If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible,” he said. “I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them.” This was not merely incendiary but untrue: last year America accepted 37,521 Christian refugees and 38,901 Muslims.
It is peculiar that the worst offender, Saudi Arabia, is not on the list. Especially since Trump made specific mention of the September 11 attack in the second opening paragraph of his Executive Order;
Section 1. Purpose. The visa-issuance process plays a crucial role in detecting individuals with terrorist ties and stopping them from entering the United States. Perhaps in no instance was that more apparent than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when State Department policy prevented consular officers from properly scrutinizing the visa applications of several of the 19 foreign nationals who went on to murder nearly 3,000 Americans. And while the visa-issuance process was reviewed and amended after the September 11 attacks to better detect would-be terrorists from receiving visas, these measures did not stop attacks by foreign nationals who were admitted to the United States.
So having referenced (albeit indirectly) the fifteen Saudi terrorists – Trump studiously ignored them.
Yet, Saudi Arabia is home to “Wahabism” – an extreme form of Islam. Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk described Saudi Arabia as;
“…a Wahhabist state whose 18th-century puritan morality defined the Taliban – which received moral and financial support from Saudis – and whose misogyny and grotesque public beheadings after unfair trials parallel the cruelty of Isis punishments.”
Fisk wrote of the relationship between the American Empire and the Saudi regime;
Under Obama, Saudi Arabia will continue to be treated as a friendly “moderate” in the Arab world, even though its royal family is founded upon the Wahhabist convictions of the Sunni Islamists in Syria and Iraq – and even though millions of its dollars are arming those same fighters. Thus does Saudi power both feed the monster in the deserts of Syria and Iraq and cosy up to the Western powers that protect it.
Bloomberg business news revealed recently that Trump has personal business dealings in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt;
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Source: Bloomberg
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According to Bloomberg’s research, Trumps business interests are;
Egypt
Trump lists two companies on his FEC filing possibly related to business in Egypt: Trump Marks Egypt and Trump Marks Egypt LLC.
Saudi ArabiaTrump lists companies on his FEC filing possibly related to a development project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-biggest city, located outside Mecca: DT Jeddah Technical Services Manager LLC, DT Jeddah Technical Services Manager Member Corp., THC Jeddah Hotel Manager LLC and THC Jeddah Hotel Manager Member Corp.
United Arab EmiratesThe Trump Organization has a licensing and management deal in Dubai with Damac Properties Dubai Co. for a golf course and luxury villas currently under construction. Another Trump-branded golf course, designed by Tiger Woods, is under development with Damac nearby.
According to the same report, Trump also has interests in Israel – which may explain his closeness to that country’s rulers;
Israel
Trump lists two companies on his FEC filing possibly related to business in Israel : Trump Drinks Israel LLC, Trump Drinks Israel Member Corp.
Trump also has ‘had’ (he claims to have sold his share holdings) US$3,900,010 in oil, gas, and coal companies:
Chevron, Total Capital, Occidental Petroleum, Phillips 66, Halliburton, Exxon Mobil, EOG Resources, Schlumberger, Energy Transfer Partners
On top of Trump’s personal business interests in Saudi Arabia – the United States maintains close economic and military ties with the Saudi kingdom. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the US sold billions of dollars worth of sophisticated, lethal weaponry to the Saudis;
Saudi Arabia was the top destination for U.S. arms in 2011–2015, purchasing 9.7 percent of U.S. exports. Recent sales approved by the U.S. State Department include Black Hawk helicopters worth a total of $495 million and Patriot Missiles worth $5.4 billion, as well as a $1.3 billion sale of air-to-ground munitions meant to replenish stocks used in Yemen. That has drawn criticism from human rights groups and a couple of U.S. lawmakers, who have cited the high civilian toll of the Saudi-led air campaign. Saudi Arabia’s total arms imports increased by 275 percent over 2006–2010, according to the research organization SIPRI (PDF). The United States also helps Saudi Arabia secure its oil assets by providing training and advisers to Saudi security forces.
And US-Saudi business interests are closely intertwined;
Saudi government officials and businessmen, both royals and commoners, have deep ties to the United States. Saudi finance, economy, and petroleum ministers all have degrees from U.S. universities. Fahad al-Mubarak, the central bank governor who controls over $700 billion in reserves, mostly in U.S. Treasuries, was previously chairman of Morgan Stanley’s unit in Saudi Arabia. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the kingdom’s most famous billionaire investor, owns stakes in Citigroup and Twitter.
[…]
As the kingdom’s economy expanded over the past decade and its stock market opened up to investors in 2015, many U.S. and European banks are expanding operations in Saudi Arabia. Bank of America has been preparing for the Saudi market opening for years, and Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse have shifted staff from Dubai to Riyadh. U.S. investment funds such as Providence Equity Partners and Apollo Global Management are also seeking to acquire stakes in Saudi companies.
Saudi Arabia’s influence within the US economy has recently taken a sinister turn;
There’s growing bipartisan support for a Senate bill, sponsored by Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican John Cornyn, to allow victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks to sue the Saudi government for recompense for any involvement it may have had in the event. The bill has been motivated by the suspicion that Saudi officials or prominent citizens helped fund the attack, which was perpetrated mostly by terrorists from Saudi Arabia.
This bill is giving Saudi officials serious pause, leading the Saudi finance minister Adel al-Jubeir to warn members of Congress and Administration officials that, if the bill passes, it would be forced to sell off $750 billion worth of U.S. Treasury debt and other American assets, a move that the New York Times said could trigger “economic fallout.”
No wonder that Yemen and Somalia make it on to Trump’s List – but Saudi Arabia does not.
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Mandates…
On 7 December 2015, on the election-trail, Trump issued his now-infamous state calling for a ban of muslims entering the United States;
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countries representatives can figure out what is going on.”
Trump’s Executive Order on 28 January seemingly fulfills that so-called “election promise”. Trump’s supporters have justified the issuing of that Order on the premise that Trump was simply meeting his promises.
On this issue, we should refer to the lessons of history. Specifically, the rise of nazism in Germany in the 1930s, where Adolf Hitler made certain promises to the electorate;
Hitler offered something to everyone: work to the unemployed; prosperity to failed business people; profits to industry; expansion to the Army; social harmony and an end of class distinctions to idealistic young students; and restoration of German glory to those in despair. He promised to bring order amid chaos; a feeling of unity to all and the chance to belong. He would make Germany strong again; end payment of war reparations to the Allies; tear up the treaty of Versailles; stamp out corruption; keep down Marxism; and deal harshly with the Jews.
[…]
On election day September 14, 1930, the Nazis received 6,371,000 votes – over eighteen percent of the total – and were thus entitled to 107 seats in the German Reichstag.
Hitler Made many promises to the country of Germany in order to come to power. Most of the promises he made, he did not keep. After WWII Germany signed the Treaty of versailles which was the main cause of Germany’s economic problems at the time. The U.S. made loans to Germany to help with its failing economy. But when the market crashed in 1929, the U.S. could not continue to help out Germany. This helped set up Hitler perfectly. The people of Germany wee looking for someone who could help fix all of the ongoing problems they were facing in Germany. At the time they had lost faith in their governments ability to take care of its citizens. Hitler believed he could help the people in Germany and he promised them all relief. He also promised jobs for the unemployed and a market for the farmers goods. Hitler began to appeal to peoples emotions instead of their reason. The people of Germany heard what they wanted to hear and ignored the violence of the Nazi party. Hitler blamed Germany’s problems on the “corrupt” politicians, communists, and Jews. He told Germany that if they got rid of them, all of Germany’s problems would vanish and the whole country would improve. Many people in Germany protested Hitler’s ideas and reasoning.
If a candidate vilifies a minority and is subsequently elected to office by a majority, does that confer the right to attack that minority from a position of power conferred by that office? Is an abuse of political power permissable under the guise of “carrying out an election promise”? Do we confer a cloak of respectability to bigotry and racism if it is elected to office?
If the answer is ‘yes’, this must constitute a subversion of democracy and universal human rights by allowing a “tyranny of the majority” to oppress a minority.
It means no minority is safe. It means that mob rule trumps Constitutional safeguards and Declarations of Human Rights built up over the centuries.
1930s Germany offers a clear, chilling lesson where that leads.
Sometimes, the minority voice is the morally righteous one;
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Questions also arise regarding political agendas here in New Zealand. National and John Key campaigned in 2014 on concluding a successful TPPA. National won the election.
If Trump has carte blanche to promote his muslim-ban; unimpeded, because it was an election promise – does that imply that New Zealanders were wrong to protest against the TPPA because National had a mandate?
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Moral courage…
The growing resistance to Trump’s increasingly fragile administration took a dramatic turn today (31 January). In a move straight out of The West Wing, Madame Secretary, or any other political drama, Attorney General, Sally Yates took a step of moral courage that is a rarity these days;
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Why was Ms Yates’ refusal to carry out Trump’s Executive Order an act of heroism?
Because sometimes, the only way to stand up to an unjust law is to say, “No”.
To participate in unjust law – and taken to extremes – leads humanity down dark paths of evil, whether fascism, stalinism, apartheid, etc.
Ms Yates could have followed Trump’s orders – but would that have been the morally right thing to do? Can a human being justify injustice by asserting they were “only following orders”?
Again, 20th Century history offers guidance for us;
It was impossible for Eichmann to deny his role in the killing of Europe’s Jews. Servatius adopted the defense strategy that had been used at Nuremberg. Since he could not disavow the crime, he disavowed the responsibility for them. “He was just following orders” Eichmann’s defense was designed to let the SS Officer fade from the stand and replace him with the benevolent bureaucrat, a man whose actions had been misrepresented by the prosecution. He even went so far as to claim that his early actions during the period of forced emigration had been for the benefit of the Jews.
Humanity made a conscious decision in 1945-49 that “following orders” could not be a justification for perpetrating injustice.
Ms Yates believed Trump’s Executive Order to be unjust and possibly illegal, and she took the only possible step. She said “No”. Ironically, Trump’s Executive Order makes provision for just this scenario;
This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
Ms Yates was following Trump’s Executive Order – perhaps the only part of it that made sense.
History may judge Attorney General Yates, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, etc; as people who chose to follow their conscience rather than orders.
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Meanwhile…
Recent events within the American Empire has moved the world closer to Doomsday, according to the planet’s leading scientists – the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BPA). The Doomsday Clock – made famous in popular culture in the 1986 Watchmen graphic novel and 2009 movie – has moved from three minutes to midnight, to two and a half minutes to midnight;
Scientists have moved the minute hand of the symbolic Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to midnight for the first time.
Leading scientists, who are the clock’s keepers, say the world has edged closer to apocalypse in the past year amid a darkening security landscape and comments by US President Donald Trump.
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The atomic scientists say the world had edged closer to doomsday [EPA]
The clock now says the world is 2.5 minutes from apocalypse.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BPA) chief Rachel Bronson urged world leaders to “calm rather than stoke tensions that could lead to war”.
In a report, the BPA said Mr Trump’s statements on climate change, expanding the US nuclear arsenal and the questioning of intelligence agencies had contributed to the heightened global risk.
It is the closest the clock has come to midnight since 1953, when the minute hand was moved to two minutes away following hydrogen bomb tests by the US and Russia.
The minute hand on the Doomsday Clock is a metaphor for how vulnerable the world is to catastrophe.
The Trump Administration has led humanity into uncharted waters. Looming on the dark horizon may be the inevitable;
Given the sheer danger to the Republic as well as to the Republicans, Trump’s impeachment will happen. The only question is how grave a catastrophe America faces first. – Robert Kuttner, Huffington Post, 29 January 2017
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References
The Guardian: Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration – the full text
Wikipedia: Hijackers in the September 11 attacks
Wikipedia: September 11 attacks
Wikipedia: USS Liberty incident
Belfast Telegraph: War with Isis – If Saudi Arabia isn’t fuelling the militant inferno, who is?
The Independent: Iraq crisis: Sunni caliphate has been bankrolled by Saudi Arabia
The Economist: Donald Trump gets tough on refugees
Bloomberg: Trump’s Immigration Ban Excludes Countries With Business Ties
Bloomberg: Tracking Trump’s Web of Conflicts
New York Times: Trump Speaks With Netanyahu, Seeking to Thaw U.S. Relations
Council for Foreign Relations: U.S.-Saudi Relations
Fortune.com: Could Saudi Arabia Trigger an American Debt Crisis?
Fortune.com: Donald Trump Wants to Stop All Muslim Immigration
The History Place: The Rise of Adolf Hitler – Germans elect Nazis
The Rise of Hitler & Nazism: Hitler’s Promises to Germany
Interest.co.nz: Election 2014 – Party Policies – Trade
Al Jazeera: US attorney general Sally Yates fired in Muslim ban row
Holocaust Research: The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
Radio NZ: Doomsday Clock moved closer to midnight
Huffington Post: The Inevitability Of Impeachment
Additional
The Independent: Obama knows 9/11 was linked to Saudi Arabia – its massive oil reserves are behind his official visit
Other Blogs
The utter madness of Trump’s #MuslimBan
Previous related blogposts
Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?
The Rise of Great Leader Trump
The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election
Trump escalates, Putin congratulates
Trumpwatch: Voter fraud, Presidential delusions, and Fox News
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Trump’s campaign and presidency has been marked by a series of exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies. One of Trump’s most recent lies is his allegation of massive voter fraud in the US 2016 presidential elections;
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On 25 January, he told ABC News;
“You have people who are registered who are dead, who are illegals, who are in two states,” Trump told ABC’s David Muir. “You have people registered in two states. You have people registered in New York and New Jersey. They vote twice.”
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This has been disputed, as explained for The Intercept;
For two months now, Donald Trump has appeared unable to accept the verdict of November’s election: that he is more popular than many of us wanted to believe, but less popular than Hillary Clinton.
As a result of this fixation, he is now promising “a major investigation” into the election that made him president, putting the full weight of the federal government behind his quest to prove that at least three million ballots were cast against him by “those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even, those registered to vote who are dead.”
In an interview with David Muir of ABC News broadcast on Wednesday night, Trump tried to suggest that a 2012 Pew study on problems with people being registered in two states, or the voter rolls not being updated as soon as people die, was proof that illegal voting was taking place.
When Muir pointed out that the author of the Pew study, David Becker, had said that his work did not show any voter fraud, Trump, who clearly had not read the study, suggested, wrongly, that he had somehow retracted his research. Specifically, Trump accused Becker of “groveling”, just as he had when attacking Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times for undercutting his lie that thousands of Arab-Americans celebrated 9/11 in New Jersey.
As several observers quickly noted, members of Trump’s own family and senior White House staff are also registered in two states.
Trump’s bogus allegations have been backed up by an equally bogus “alternative news” website, “Infowars“. An article headed “Report: Three Million Votes in Presidential Election Cast by Illegal Aliens” made explosive allegations of wide-spread voter fraud in last year’s presidential election;
Three million votes in the U.S. presidential election were cast by illegal aliens, according to Greg Phillips of the VoteFraud.org organization.
If true, this would mean that Donald Trump still won the contest despite widespread vote fraud and almost certainly won the popular vote.
“We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens,” tweeted Phillips after reporting that the group had completed an analysis of a database of 180 million voter registrations.
Phillips said in another ‘;tweet’;
“Number of non-citizen votes exceeds 3 million. Consulting legal team,” he added.
On closer investigation, it appears that “Greg Phillips” has no connection to VoteFraud.org, as the organisation made clear shortly after Infowars’ “story”;
We at Votefraud.org and ElectionNightGatekeepers.com had never heard of Greg Phillips when infowars.com carried an article circa November 14, 2016 reporting that Phillips had stated in a Twitter Tweet that, — claiming to having analyzed a database of 180 million voters, — 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton.
[…]
Hillary did call for registering 3 million new voters a few months before the election. While we believe that it’s a reasonable claim that the Democrats succeeded in helping millions of illegals to vote for Hillary, — which is why almost all prominent Democrats, including Hillary and Obama, oppose voter ID laws, — we can find no proof that Hillary made an overt call to register illegal immigrants, or that this actually happened.
We would urge Mr. Greg Phillips to publish how his group made this determination (and we hope he can!).
Apparently, Trump is resting his ‘case’ on fake news, from an alt.right bogus-news website, quoting a non-existent member of another organisation, to assert unsubstantiated allegations of non-existent wide-spread voter fraud.
There is nothing even remotely credible about this farce.
Pro-Republican TV broadcaster, Fox News was equally unimpressed with Trump’s latest foray into the political Twilight Zone;
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When even the right-wing, pro-Republican Fox News calls “Bullshit Alert!” on one of their own, you know it’s time for a healthy dose of mama’s reality-check elixir.
If anyone is in any doubt of Trump’s delusions on this issue, note the part where he says;
“Of those votes cast, none of ’em came to me. None of ’em came to me. They would all be for the other side. None of ’em came to me.”
Which – if true – would indicate that Trump was somehow able to look at each and every vote cast in “two states and some cases maybe three states” and determine which candidate the ballot was cast for.
This would be extraordinary.
How would he know “none of ’em came to me“? Voting in the United States is supposed to be secret.
Postscript
On 9 January, Trump accepted the CIA and FBI’s allegations that Russia engaged in cyber attacks during the U.S. presidential election last year. Trump, however, did not accept that the hacking interfered in the final results;
“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our government institutions, businesses and organisations including the Democrat (sic) National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”
Perhaps Trump should ask “Greg Phillips“?
Final Word
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, 1995
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References
Twitter: Donald J. Trump – “voter fraud”
Youtube: Watch The Terrifying Way Trump Reacts When A Reporter Points Out He’s Wrong To His Face
The Intercept: Just 5 Clicks on an Internet Survey Inspired Trump’s Claim Millions Voted Illegally
Infowars: Report – Three Million Votes in Presidential Election Cast by Illegal Aliens
Youtube: Even A Fox News Anchor Just Called Out Trump’s Voter Fraud BS
Financial Times: Trump says hacking did not influence US election
Indy100: Carl Sagan’s terrifyingly accurate prediction about the future has resurfaced
Additional
Buzzfeed: Here’s A Running List Of All Of President Trump’s Lies
Previous related blogposts
Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?
The Rise of Great Leader Trump
The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election
Trump escalates, Putin congratulates
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It started…
It started on 23 December, when President-Elect, Donald Trump made this unexpected, alarming “tweet”;
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With 115 characters, Donald Trump declared a return to a global nuclear arms race.
It started on 9 November, when Trump – described by BBC journalist
It started in 1949, when George Orwell’s Nineteen Eightyfour was published, an alternative reality of a world ruled by three totalitarian superpowers, constantly at war with each other;
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It started in 1948, with the beginning of the “Cold War”…
The Scene is set…
Trump’s 23 December “tweet” that the US will resume a build-up of its atomic weapons arsenal should come as no surprise. On 8 September, on the campaign trail, he announced;
“History shows that when America is not prepared is when the danger is greatest. We want to deter, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military dominance.
I’m gonna build a military that’s gonna be much stronger than it is right now. It’s gonna be so strong, nobody’s gonna mess with us.”
The Military Times assessed Trump’s promised build-up of US forces;
Trump wants an active-duty Army with another 60,000 soldiers in the ranks, an unspecified number of additional sailors to man the 78 ships and submarines he intends to see built in coming years. He wants up to 12,000 more Marines to serve in infantry and tank battalions, and at least another 100 combat aircraft for the Air Force.
If Trump’s administration can accomplish even a portion of this, it could have sweeping effects on rank-and-file military personnel, touching everything from individual advancement opportunities to the number of U.S. troops stationed overseas and overall operational tempo. The scope of growth being suggested would require many more officers and noncommissioned officers, influencing, over the course of several years, how each service recruits, promotes and retains its workforce.
It could reshape how many American troops find themselves assigned to geopolitical hot spots, including the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. And all of this, in theory, would ease the pace at which service members are deployed or actively preparing to go overseas, which amounts to time away from their homes and families.
Curiously, none of Trump’s hyper-jingoistic election rhetoric seemed to faze Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. On the contrary, Putin remained zen-like and complimentary of the billionaire-turned-politician. In December 2015, Putin was reported in state media, Sputnik, as saying;
“He is a very bright person, talented without any doubt. It is not our business to assess his worthiness, but he is the absolute leader of the presidential race. He says he wants to move to a different level of relations — a fuller, deeper [level] — with Russia, how can we not welcome this? Of course we welcome this.”
Putin’s comments were also reported in Russian state-controlled media, RT News.
A veritable “love-fest” of compliments were exchanged between the two men. A “bro-mance” had obviously developed between the Oligarch and the Billionaire;
Both Putin and leader of the far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, congratulated Trump on his presidential success.
Their relationship continued, even as Trump ‘tweeted’ on 23 December that the “the United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability“.
Putin seeming remained utterly unperturbed at Trump‘s sabre-rattling;
“I was a bit surprised by the statements from some representatives of the current U.S. administration who for some reason started to prove that the U.S. military was the most powerful in the world.
Nobody is arguing with that.
In the course of his election campaign he (Trump) spoke about the necessity of strengthening the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and strengthening the armed forces. There’s nothing unusual here.”
“We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defence systems.
We must carefully monitor any changes in the balance of power and in the political-military situation in the world, especially along Russian borders, and quickly adapt plans for neutralising threats to our country.”
So Who is the enemy?!
If, as Putin and Trump are at pains to assert, their relationship is on firm, cordial grounds – why the need for a massive modernisation and build-up of both superpower’s military force? A build-up that could cost both nations billions of dollars and rubles?
Who is the enemy?
Relations between Russia (formerly Soviet Union), China, and the US has always been a “balancing act”. The three have constantly played each other off against each other.
In Nineteen Eightyfour, Orwell took the three-superpower rivalry to its ultimate, destructive, insane conclusion;
On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns — after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.
There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy…
[…]
Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
Our own three super-powers
In 1972, then Republican-president, Richard Nixon made his historical trip to the People’s Republic of China. As History.com portrayed the momentous event;
The American fear of a monolithic communist bloc had been modified, as a war of words—and occasional border conflicts—erupted between the Soviet Union and the PRC in the 1960s. Nixon, and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger saw a unique opportunity in these circumstances—diplomatic overtures to the PRC might make the Soviet Union more malleable to U.S. policy requests (such as pressuring the North Vietnamese to sign a peace treaty acceptable to the United States). In fact, Nixon was scheduled to travel to meet Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev shortly after completing his visit to China.
Nixon’s trip to China, therefore, was a move calculated to drive an even deeper wedge between the two most significant communist powers. The United States could use closer diplomatic relations with China as leverage in dealing with the Soviets, particularly on the issue of Vietnam. In addition, the United States might be able to make use of the Chinese as a counterweight to North Vietnam. Despite their claims of socialist solidarity, the PRC and North Vietnam were, at best, strongly suspicious allies. As historian Walter LaFeber said, “Instead of using Vietnam to contain China, Nixon concluded that he had better use China to contain Vietnam.” For its part, the PRC was desirous of another ally in its increasingly tense relationship with the Soviet Union and certainly welcomed the possibility of increased U.S.-China trade.
That increased trade eventuated with then-President Jimmy Carter consenting to China gaining a “Most Favoured Nation” in 1980; re-affirmed by Bill Clinton in 1994, and later by George W Bush in 2001.
However, in recent times, China has flexed its military muscle and increased its presence in the South China Sea. This has set it on a collision course with other regional neighbours, as well as the United States;
Chinese expansion in the South China Sea is bringing conflict between Beijing and its neighbours – Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam – closer than it has been for decades. Vietnam has fortified several islands it controls, while Japan has been publicly rebuked by Beijing over its ‘interference’ in the sea – most of which China claims. The Philippines has called for “restraint and sobriety” as its own dispute with Beijing rumbles on.
But the South China Sea and a lesser-known spat with Japan over islands near Taiwan has not only brought talk of a regional war in the Pacific to the fore, but raised the prospect of the US being dragged into open warfare with China. Beijing’s expansionism threatens not only the interests of US allies in East Asia but also global trade, given that some 40% of all shipping passes through the disputed area of ocean.
“As horrific as a Sino-US war could be, it cannot be considered implausible,” warned the authors of the RAND Corporations August report, War with China: Thinking through the Unthinkable.
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But in reality US-China relations have been strained for some time, as demonstrated by the scrutiny of Barack Obama’s visit to Hangzhou, where American reporters scuffled with Chinese security staff and Beijing was widely accused of snubbing the US president on his final international visit. Chinese hacking of US companies has been widespread, leading to America’s indictment of five senior Chinese army officers in May 2014.
Meanwhile in the South China Sea and East China Sea, Chinese expansion has come at the expense of major US allies, including Japan. Japan’s ownership of the Senkaku Islands, north of Taiwan, is enshrined in the US-Japan Treaty that was signed after the end of the Second World War. China’s increasingly hostile stance towards its neighbour over the islands risks dragging the US into a conflict between Beijing and Tokyo.
This has already resulted in confrontations between the two nuclear super-powers;
A U.S. navy destroyer sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Friday, drawing a warning from Chinese warships to leave the area.
The U.S. action was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, U.S. officials said.
The Chinese Defense Ministry called the move “illegal” and “provocative,” saying that two Chinese warships had warned the U.S. destroyer to leave.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Decatur challenged “excessive maritime claims” near the Paracel Islands, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has territorial disputes with its neighbors, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The latest U.S. patrol, first reported by Reuters, is expected to anger Beijing and could further escalate tensions over the South China Sea. The destroyer sailed within waters claimed by China, close to but not within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limits of the islands, the officials said.
The U.S. shows little sign in backing down, as Chief of U.S. Naval Operations Admiral, John Richardson, said during a trip to China in July this year;
“The U.S. Navy will continue to conduct routine and lawful operations around the world, including in the South China Sea, in order to protect the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of sea and airspace guaranteed to all. This will not change.”
A spokesperson for the incoming Trump Administration, Sean Spicer was equally belligerent (without specifically mentioning China);
“I think it’s putting every nation on notice that the United States is going to reassert its position in the globe.”
Trump himself has made antagonistic and disparaging remarks about China;
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The CNN report continued;
Trump has repeatedly accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports more competitive on the global market and has claimed that China is “killing” the U.S. on trade.
Sunday marks the first time in this campaign that Trump has used the term “rape” to refer to what he views as China’s dominance in trade with the U.S.
“We’re going to turn it around. And we have the cards, don’t forget it. We’re like the piggy bank that’s being robbed. We have the cards. We have a lot of power with China,” Trump said Sunday before referring to China’s relationship with the U.S. as rape.
Trump added that he is not “angry at China,” but with U.S. leaders whom he accused of being “grossly incompetent.”
Trump previously claimed in 2011 that “China is raping this country” as he toured a defense manufacturer in New Hampshire.
Many considered the doomed Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement to be designed to contain China;
From its inception, the TPP has been considered by many as a strategic instrument to isolate or contain China. Given the country’s ambitions, its leaders are understandably concerned about the concerted effort by the U.S. and other Asia-Pacific countries to curtail its economic growth and geopolitical influence.
China’s outsider status could also be seen as an indictment of its inadequacies, such as limited intellectual property protection and a lack of government procurement standards. The exclusion of China not only has caused the country to lose face, but has also provided a painful reminder of its continued struggle to gain an equal status in the international community. Finally, the lack of TPP membership will prevent China from enjoying new tariff reduction and preferential market access. If this regional pact is to operate according to design, it will divert trade and manufacturing from China to TPP members.
Our own expert and campaigner, Jane Kelsey, also remarked on the anti-China nature of the TPPA;
“In the past month both US presidential candidates have positioned the TPP at the centre of their strategy to neutralise China’s ascendancy in what they call the ‘Pacific’ region.
New Zealand already faces the prospect of being piggy in the middle, with potentially conflicting rules and foreign policy pressures from agreements with China and the USA.
Tim Groser is kidding himself if he thinks China will sit quietly by and allow us to play both sides. This is a high-risk game and we need to have an honest debate about its long-term implications for the country.”
Note President Obama’s statements over China’s increasing geo-political influence;
“And we believe China can be a partner, but we’re also sending a very clear signal that America is a Pacific power, that we are going to have a presence there.
We are working with countries in the region to make sure, for example, that ships can pass through, that commerce continues.
And we’re organizing trade relations with countries other than China so that China starts feeling more pressure about meeting basic international standards. That’s the kind of leadership we’ve shown in the region. That’s the kind of leadership that we’ll continue to show.
As part of his populist campaigning this year, Trump publicly rejected the TPPA. This left him to devise other options to “contain China”.
The Trump Deal between Russia and US
The new-found rapprochement between Russia and the US could be based on mutual interest. With Trump’s penchant for deal-making, the U.S. and Russia would have much to gain by stitching together a secret deal.
In return for the U.S. gaining Russian support against growing Chinese influence in the South China Sea, Trump would allow Russia a free hand in supporting its ally, Syria (where U.S. interests are minimal anyway, unlike the Pacific).
This would explain why the U.S. and Russia have been ‘cosying’ up together.
More critically, it answers the perplexing question as to why Russia seems utterly unperturbed at American plans to build up its military. And why the U.S. seems to have stepped back from taking action over Syria.
Nixon went to China.
Trump may be going to Moscow.
Oceania has always been at war with Russia China.
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References
Twitter: Donald J Trump
BBC: US Election 2016 Results – Five reasons Donald Trump won
Wikipedia: Nineteen Eightyfour
CNN: Trump calls for military spending increase
Military Times: Trump’s military will have more troops and more firepower — if he can find more money
Sputnik: Putin Welcomes Trump’s Words of Readiness to Improve Russia-US Relations
RT News: Putin says ‘talented’ Trump is ‘absolute front-runner,’ welcomes pledge to work with Russia
Business Insider: Here’s a look at what Trump and Putin have said about each other
The Independent: Vladimir Putin congratulates US President Donald Trump as Russian leaders celebrate
RT News: ‘So correct’: Trump responds to Putin’s holiday letter
Reuters: Putin shrugs off Trump’s nuclear plans, says Democrats sore losers
ITV News: Trump and Putin both hint at expansion of nuclear arsenal
Ebook: Ninetween Eightyfour
History: 1972 – Nixon arrives in China for talks
CNN: Clinton Proposes Renewing China’s Most-Favored Trade Status
China.org.cn: Chronology of China-US Relations
The Tech: Clinton Grants China MFN, Reversing Campaign Pledge
International Business Times: Could the South China Sea dispute trigger a Sino-US war?
NY Times: Trump Says U.S. Would ‘Outmatch’ Rivals in a New Nuclear Arms Race
CNN: Trump – ‘We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country’
Fortune: How China’s exclusion from the TPP could hurt its economic growth
It’s Our Future: Obama casts TPP as Challenge to China
Washington Times: Inside the Ring – Obama, Romney on China
Previous related blogposts
Taiwan FTA – Confirmation by TVNZ of China pressuring the Beehive?
The Rise of Great Leader Trump
The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election
Protestors condemn Russian involvement in atrocities in Aleppo
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On 9 December, a CIA report concluded that Russia covertly interfered in the recent US elections. The Washington Post’s , Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima, and Greg Miller wrote;
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
An un-named senior US intelligence official was blunt in blaming Russia;
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favour one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected.”
Obama’s counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, said;
“We may have crossed into a new threshold and it is incumbent up on us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned.
Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, rejected the allegations that Russia was the source of the Democratic Party email leaks/hacks;
“The Clinton camp has been able to project a neo-McCarthyist hysteria that Russia is responsible for everything. Hillary Clinton has stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 US intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That’s false – we can say that the Russian government is not the source.”
Trump’s transition team retorted with a massive ‘burn‘ to the CIA;
“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” (click here for CIA reference to Iraq’s alleged WMDs)
Oblivious to the excruciating irony of his response, Trump rejected any suggestion of a conspiracy to undermine the US election;
“I don’t believe it. Every week it’s another excuse. Nobody really knows, and hacking is very interesting. Once they hack, if you don’t catch them in the act you’re not going to catch them. They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place.”
Senior Republican senator and past Presidential candidate, John McCain, was more certain;
“This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country. It’s clear the Russians interfered. Whether they intended to interfere to the degree that they were trying to elect a certain candidate, I think that’s a subject of investigation. But facts are stubborn things. They did hack into this campaign.”
Outgoing US Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, was happy to point to Russian cheating in the Olympics as evidence of their meddling in US politics being more than likely;
“Russia has a pretty good way of cheating. Look at what they did with athletes.”
Reid was scathing of FBI Director James Comey, who he blames for withholding explosive information (revealed in CIA report) that Russian intelligence agents gave hacked Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks;
“The FBI had this material for a long time but Comey, who is of course a Republican, refused to divulge specific information about Russia and the presidental election.
[…]
I am so disappointed in Comey. He has let the country down for partisan purposes and that’s why I call him the new J Edgar Hoover, because I believe that.
[…]
I think he should be investigated by the Senate. He should be investigated by other agencies of the government including the security agencies because if ever there was a matter of security it’s this … I don’t think any of us understood how partisan Comey was.”
And yet another un-named ‘official’ warned about;
“…the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”
This blogger agrees. Meddling by foreign powers in other countries election processes is indeed, a threat.
Especially when it is the American Empire engaged in “unprecedented meddling … in [other countries’] election process“…
Herein is a (partial) list of United States’ meddling in other countries’ affairs. Several resulted in democratically-elected governments being ousted and replaced by military regimes sympathetic to American imperial interests:
(Re-printed from: Wikipedia and Foreignpolicy.com)
As J. Dana Stuster succinctly wrote in a 2013 piece for Foreignpolicy.com;
The era of CIA-supported coups dawned in dramatic fashion: An American general flies to Iran and meets with “old friends”; days later, the Shah orders Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh to step down. When the Iranian military hesitates, millions of dollars are funneled into Tehran to buy off Mossadegh’s supporters and finance street protests. The military, recognizing that the balance of power has shifted, seizes the prime minister, who will live the rest of his life under house arrest. It was, as one CIA history puts it, “an American operation from beginning to end,” and one of many U.S.-backed coups to take place around the world during the second half of the 20th century.
Several national leaders, both dictators and democratically elected figures, were caught in the middle of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War — a position that ultimately cost them their office (and, for some, their life) as the CIA tried to install “their man” as head of state. The U.S. government has since publicly acknowledged some of these covert actions; in fact, the CIA’s role in the 1953 coup was just declassified this week. In other cases, the CIA’s involvement is still only suspected.
Of course, when Washington orders intervening in another country’s internal governance, it is euphemistically referred to as “regime change”.
It is only “meddling” when someone does it back to the Americans.
This hypocrisy/irony was noted by both The Washington Post and Huffington Post. Staff writers pointed out that Russia has (allegedly) done to the US what the US has been doing for decades to other nations.
While the days of its worst behavior are long behind it, the United States does have a well-documented history of interfering and sometimes interrupting the workings of democracies elsewhere. It has occupied and intervened militarily in a whole swath of countries in the Caribbean and Latin America and fomented coups against democratically elected populists.
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For decades, these actions were considered imperatives of the Cold War, part of a global struggle against the Soviet Union and its supposed leftist proxies. Its key participants included scheming diplomats like John Foster Dulles and Henry Kissinger, who advocated aggressive, covert policies to stanch the supposedly expanding threat of communism. Sometimes that agenda also explicitly converged with the interests of U.S. business: In 1954, Washington unseated Guatemala’s left-wing president, Jacobo Arbenz, who had had the temerity to challenge the vast control of the United Fruit Co., a U.S. corporation, with agrarian laws that would be fairer to Guatemalan farmers. The CIA went on to install and back a series of right-wing dictatorships that brutalized the impoverished nation for almost half a century.
When Chinese interests were alleged to have supported Democratic Party campaign financing, Tharoor pointed out;
Meanwhile, the threat of foreign meddling in U.S. elections is not restricted to fears of Russian plots. In the late 1990s, the specter of illicit Chinese funds dominated concerns about Democratic campaign financing. But some observers cautioned others not to be too indignant.
“If the Chinese indeed tried to influence the election here . . . the United States is only getting a taste of its own medicine,” Peter Kornbluh, director of the National Security Archive, which is affiliated with George Washington University, said in a 1997 interview with the New York Times. “China has done little more than emulate a long pattern of U.S. manipulation, bribery and covert operations to influence the political trajectory of countless countries around the world.”
For the Huffington Post, Ryan Grim said;
…Russia appears to be meddling in the U.S. presidential election, but for some supporters of Bernie Sanders, it’s just turnabout.
Lakewood, Colorado, delegate Kim Netherton said it’s beside the point whether agents of Russian President Vladimir Putin hacked the Democratic National Committee’s emails, as reported this month. And it may come with a little poetic justice for Hillary Clinton, according to Netherton.
“Isn’t it interesting that her campaign is now experiencing the same thing that she perpetrated on other countries,” Netherton told The Huffington Post, as she awaited Sanders’ speech Monday night.
“She did this in Haiti, she did this in Honduras, and now it’s coming back on her and she’s all verklempt about it,” Netherton added. “It’s a little bit of her own medicine, but unfortunately I don’t think she’s open minded enough to see that for what it is.”
Indeed, meddling in foreign politics is a great American pastime, and one that Clinton has some familiarity with. For more than 100 years, without any significant break, the U.S. has been doing whatever it can to influence the outcome of elections ― up to and including assassinating politicians it has found unfriendly.
Grim’s ‘parting shot’;
The phenomenon is so prevalent, there’s even a running joke in Latin America that goes like this:
Q: Why has there never been a coup in the United States?
A: Because there’s no U.S. embassy in Washington.
It is unsurprising that most of the world looks upon American grievances of (alleged) Russian “meddling” with risable scorn. Whether true or not – and most probably harbour a secret hope that it is true – the Americans richly deserve what they have been meting out to other nations throughout the 20th, and first decade of, the 21st century.
They are getting a taste of what countries in Latin America, Middle East, and elsewhere have suffered. And as Ryan Grim pointed out;
“It Doesn’t Feel Good.”
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References
The Washington Post: Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House
The Independent: Russia ‘tried to help’ Donald Trump win the election, CIA concludes
CIA: Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs
The Guardian: Donald Trump says CIA charge Russia influenced election is ‘ridiculous’
The Guardian: FBI covered up Russian influence on Trump’s election win, Harry Reid claims
Wikipedia: United States involvement in regime change
Foreignpolicy.com: Mapped – The 7 Governments the U.S. Has Overthrown
The Washington Post: The long history of the U.S. interfering with elections elsewhere
The Huffington Post: The U.S. Has Been Meddling In Other Countries’ Elections For A Century. It Doesn’t Feel Good.
Previous related blogposts
Trump – the cultivation of demagoguery
Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?
The Rise of Great Leader Trump
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Whatever policies Trump intends to enact during his presidential term is unknown. He has back-tracked; evaded; back-flipped; side-stepped and often contradicted himself. The most recent case-in-point was when he condemned/congratulated Americans protesting at his ascendancy to power – all within a short period of time;
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The MSM is reporting that he has begun to moderate his extreme views and comments made during the bitter election campaign. He now appears to be a supporter of free trade, according to a recent Herald story.
In effect, he is becoming more ‘presidential’.
Perhaps even “mainstream”.
However, the same cannot be said of his supporters.
Whether it is the appointment of far-right businessman, media executive, and pro-Israel mouthpiece, Steve Bannon (aka, America’s version of Cameron Slater) as Trump’s ‘Chief Strategist’, or, Reince Priebus, lawyer, careerist-politician, and Chairman of the Republican National Committee, appointed as Trump’s White House Chief of Staff – there is a pronounced cabal of right-wing conservatism colonising the new administration.
Far from “draining the swamp”, as Trump has promised on numerous occasions, he is replacing it with one of his own making. As former Democratic Party candidate, Bernie Sanders pointed out;
“Mr. Trump described himself as a populist taking on the establishment, someone who would ‘drain the swamp. Unfortunately what we’re beginning to see is what I feared, which is a lot of what Mr. Trump said to get votes is not what he intends to do as president of the United States.”
In other words: same swamp, different muck.
More frightening still are comments from Trump’s other supporters. Supporters like Omarosa Manigault.
One-time contestant on Donald Trump’s “reality” TV show, ‘The Apprentice‘, Manigault was appointed as as the Trump-campaign’s director of African-American outreach in July of this year.
In August this year, on a PBS ‘Frontline‘ Election Special, Manigault uttered what must be one of the most creepiest, chilling comments in American political history;
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Not since Kryptonian super-villain General Zod trashed the White House in a ‘Superman‘ movie, have such threats been uttered;
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Given a chance on ABC’s ’20/20′ current affairs show to minimise her “bow down to President Trump” comment, Manigault dug the hole deeper still.
But more critically, note her passing reference to a “list of critics” which the interviewer seems not to pick up on;
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Three months later, on 8 November, Manigault made this astonishing and disturbing admission to the Independent Journal Review;
“It’s so great our enemies are making themselves clear so that when we get in to the White House, we know where we stand. If [Sen. Lindsey Graham (Republican-SC)Graham] felt his interests was with that candidate, God bless him. I would never judge anybody for exercising their right to and the freedom to choose who they want. But let me just tell you, Mr. Trump has a long memory and we’re keeping a list.”
Her ordination as a minister of religion in 2012 does not appear to have mitigated her tendency to spitefulness. (Brian Tamaki would probably see her as a “kindred spirit”.)
Journalist Sunny Hostin confirmed Trump’s vindictive nature;
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‘Late Show‘ host Stephen Colbert summed up the revelation of Trump’s Enemies List, saying;
“Wow, an enemies list. They went from zero to Nixon in no time flat.”
Colbert was referring to disgraced former US President, Richard Nixon. In 1973 it had been revealed during Senate hearings into the Watergate Scandal that Nixon had kept a secret Enemies List.
One of Nixon’s “enemies” was eminent journalist, the late Daniel Schorr.
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Daniel Louis Schorr (August 31, 1916 – July 23, 2010)
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In 2009, Schorr recounted to Jordy Yager from ‘The Hill‘;
[Schorr] has worked at CBS, The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor, among other organizations. Though he has received three Emmys, numerous decorations from heads of state and countless journalism awards, there is one honor above all that makes Schorr beam with pride.
The distinction came during the 1973 Senate Watergate committee investigation into Nixon and his administration. In his testimony to the committee, John Dean, Nixon’s former White House counsel, mentioned that the president had kept an “Enemies List” — for those for whom the president “mean[t] some harm” and whom he did not like.
After waiting throughout the day, Schorr, who was covering the event, got his hands on the list of 20 people and began to read it live on-air.
“I got to No. 17, and I said, ‘No. 17, Daniel Schorr, a real media enemy,’ ” Schorr recalled.
“I almost collapsed on the air. I had never read it before, never seen it before, never expected it. But I continued and said, ‘No. 18, Paul Newman. No. 19, Mary McGrory [the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Washington Post].’ It was such a distinguished list,” he said, joking that the notoriety of the list made him more popular. “My lecture fees went up.”
Schorr continued to infuriate Nixon with his critical coverage and was no stranger to the president’s wrath. He is listed in the three articles of impeachment brought against Nixon. It is a badge Schorr wears with honor.
Though Schorr was dismissive of Nixon’s Enemies List, there remained the dangerous reality that a President of the most powerful nation on Earth; Commander-in-Chief of America’s armed forces; privy to information from a multitude of intelligence agencies, and access to the nuclear launch-codes – was compiling a list of personal enemies.
The Nazis had their own “Black Book“ – a list of enemies in Great Britain who were to be rounded up after the successful German invasion and occupation of that nation;
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But only fascist regimes indulge in real Lists of Enemies; people who displease despots, and either end up dead, disappeared, or having “unfortunate accidents” in their lives.
Who is to say that the incoming Trump Administration is fascist?
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Acknowledge for above images: US Government
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References
CNet: Trump dials back anti-protest tweets
New York Times: Donald Trump Appears to Soften Stance on Immigration, but Not on Abortion
The Guardian: Donald Trump appears to soften on Obamacare and Clinton emails
NZ Herald: Trump softens tone on trade policy
The Intercept: Steve Bannon Made Breitbart a Space for Pro-Israel Writers and Anti-Semitic Readers
Wikipedia: Steve Bannon
Wikipedia: Reince Priebus
The Independent: Bernie Sanders – Donald Trump is already breaking his pledge to ‘drain the swamp’
Wikipedia: Omarosa Manigault
USA Today: Omarosa Manigault named head of black outreach for Trump campaign
The Hill: Omarosa – Critics will have to ‘bow down’ to President Trump
Youtube: Omarosa – ‘Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump’
Youtube: Rise Before Zod, Kneel Before Zod
Youtube: Omarosa on ‘Bow Down to President Trump’ Comment
The Hill: Omarosa – Trump camp keeping list of enemies
The Grio: Reality TV star Omarosa has been ordained as ‘Rev. Manigault
Independent Journal Review: Omarosa – Republicans Who Vote Against Donald Trump Will Be Put On “A List”
Youtube: Omarosa Suggests Trump Campaign Keeping List of Enemies – The View
Youtube: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – Trump And Obama, Sitting In DC, A-W-K-W-A-R-D
Wikipedia: Nixon’s Enemies List
The Hill: Journalist recalls the honor of being on Nixon’s Enemies List
Wikipedia: The Black Book
US Gov: Make America Great Again
Previous related blogposts
Donald Trump and the lessons of history
Dumber and dumber, scarier and scarier
When Fact Follows Fiction – The Weird World of U.S. Politics
Trump – the cultivation of demagoguery
Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?
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Fun Fact #1: Between 2006 and 2013, the number of homeless grew by 25%. Based on Census data; one in 100 were homeless in 2013; one in 120 in 2006, and one in 130 in 2001.
Fun Fact #2: In 1986, home ownership in New Zealand stood at 73.5%. By 2013, Census data showed home-ownership had fallen to 64.8%.
Fun Fact #3: In August this year, Auckland’s average house price reached – and passed – the $1,000,000 mark.
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Make no mistake, housing has become a crisis in New Zealand as this May poll for a TV3/Reid Research Poll highlighted;
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Even 61% of National voters accepted the new reality in our once-egalitarian nation. Housing unaffordability (for the middle classes) and homelessness (for beneficiaries and the working poor) could no longer be ignored.
Stepping back to 20 August 2007, National’s newly-elected leader, John Key, made an impassioned speech to the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Contractors Federation. In it, he excoriated the then-Clark-led Labour government;
“Over the past few years a consensus has developed in New Zealand. We are facing a severe home affordability and ownership crisis. The crisis has reached dangerous levels in recent years and looks set to get worse.
This is an issue that should concern all New Zealanders. It threatens a fundamental part of our culture, it threatens our communities and, ultimately, it threatens our economy.
The good news is that we can turn the situation around. We can deal with the fundamental issues driving the home affordability crisis. Not just with rinky-dink schemes, but with sound long-term solutions to an issue that has long-term implications for New Zealand’s economy and society.
National has a plan for doing this and we will be resolute in our commitment to the goal of ensuring more young Kiwis can aspire to buy their own home.”
Nine years later, Key’s description of New Zealand’s housing crisis has changed markedly. It is now a “challenge“, as he painfully tried to explain on TVNZ’s Breakfast programme;
“I don’t think it’s a crisis, but prices are going up too quickly. There are plenty of challenges in housing, and there have been for quite some time.”
On 9 November, a Hibiscus Coast couple were the incredibly lucky couple to win the latest multi-million dollar Lotto prize;
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The Radio NZ story further reported;
The man’s wife said at first she thought her husband was joking about the win.
“My head started spinning, my heart was racing and I got the shakes.”
The couple claimed their prize at Lotto’s head office on Thursday afternoon.
“As we sat in the winner’s room, he kept turning to me and saying ‘Am I in a dream?’ and I kept turning to him and saying ‘is this real?'” the woman said.
“We’ve been busting our guts trying to buy our first home,” the winner said.
“We just went to the mortgage broker earlier this week to see what they could do to help. But they just couldn’t make anything work for us.
“We were absolutely gutted and I just said ‘maybe that ship has sailed’.
“But my wife tried to stay positive and said ‘don’t worry, something good will happen for us’.
“I don’t think either of us thought that the something good would be $44 million.”
Note what the woman said here;
“We’ve been busting our guts trying to buy our first home. We just went to the mortgage broker earlier this week to see what they could do to help. But they just couldn’t make anything work for us. We were absolutely gutted and I just said ‘maybe that ship has sailed’.”
When couples have to rely on winning Lotto to be able to afford to buy their first home, there is something seriously askew in society.
Remember Dear Leader Key’s own words;
“We are facing a severe home affordability and ownership crisis. The crisis has reached dangerous levels in recent years and looks set to get worse. This is an issue that should concern all New Zealanders. It threatens a fundamental part of our culture, it threatens our communities and, ultimately, it threatens our economy.”
In the United States, commentators from the msm, politics, dissident community; and further afield, have rapidly come to the realisation that Donald Trump’s unlikely, unforeseen, and up-till-now improbable victory in the 2016 Presidential race was predicated on the belated understanding that globalisation and neo-liberalism have left behind millions of people.
In the Voting Booths across the United States, Consumers became Citizens again, and cast their ultimate sanction against the political establishment and those who supported the neo-liberal orthodoxy. The status quo of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (the latter, ironically a Republican like Trump) was utterly repudiated.
The disenchantment and alienation of the Working and Middle classes germinated during the 2008 Global Financial crisis and resulting Great Recession – the effects of which are still with us, eight years late. In the United States, millions of Americans lost their homes.
More than four million Americans have lost their homes since the housing bubble began bursting six years ago. An additional 3.5 million homeowners are in the foreclosure process or are so delinquent on payments that they will be soon. With 13.5 million homeowners underwater — they owe more than their home is now worth — the odds are high that many millions more will lose their homes.
Most telling was this criticism by
Housing remains the biggest impediment to economic recovery, yet Washington seems paralyzed. While the Obama administration’s housing policies have fallen short, Mitt Romney hasn’t offered any meaningful new proposals to aid distressed or underwater homeowners.
Writing for the Huffington Post a year later,
“… the vast majority of those four million lost their homes because they lost their jobs, not because they had in better times taken out mortgages that they could not afford.
[…]
It is not the rich who are being foreclosed. It is those on the margin of the core middle class. It is particularly middle class minorities who have taken the greatest hit on both their personal wealth and their associated credit scores. Falling house prices since 2008 have pulled median white net-worth down by 27 percent but median black net-worth down by anywhere between 40 percent and 53 percent.”
All the promises of neo-liberalism had come to nought. Instead millions had lost their jobs and those lucky enough found new work in low-paid service industries. Take-home pay was cut – and Humiliation applied in abundance as ‘compensation’.
The Working and Middle Classes not only lost their job and homes – their new status in low-paid work was precarious.
Events post-2008 hastened the demise of the American Dream and the rise of the Precariat, as Richard McCormack wrote, in February of this year for the Manufacturing and Technology News;
The effects on the U.S. economy caused by 30 years of offshore outsourcing of production and jobs is starting to drive major changes in the American political system. The rise of a “precariat” class of Americans — those who are living “precarious” lives — has created a populist movement that shows no sign of acquiescing to the “establishment” in both the Democratic and Republican parties.
The new precariat comprises a growing class of people who are going nowhere in their jobs, who are insecure and unstable. The group is “experiencing the breaking apart of the American Dream, which is what historically held the country together — the rise of the middle class, with everyone doing better,” notes visiting scholar John Russo of Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. “It’s not working that way any more.”
Driving the rise of the precariat is a society that is not generating enough wealth. De-industrialization, the shift of major goods-producing industries to foreign nations, and both the Republican and Democratic establishment’s embrace of free trade, are leading to a populist uprising.
The precariat is becoming one of the largest classes of Americans, encompassing far more than blue-collar workers who have been slammed by economic forces outside of their control. It now includes millions of Americans with college degrees who are under compensated or can’t find full-time employment with benefits.
As white-collar jobs have been outsourced, Americans with more than high-school degrees are starting to see their prospects “mirror those of the working class,” says Russo. “That insecurity and instability is now part of their life. That is why this new group is not yet a class in itself. It hasn’t defined what it is going to be.”
It is fragmented, but it is big, and much of it is angry.
In his article, McCormack quotes John Russo from the Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor;
“As steady formal work has been disappearing over time, informal work began to move beyond traditional concepts such as consulting, internships, subcontracting, privatization and intermittent employment,” Russo explains. “Rather than the continued rise of the formal economy, it is the informal economy that is growing.”
The precariat is “potentially all of us united by the fear of insecurity,” he notes. It is made up of “individuals living precarious and insecure existences lacking employment security, job security, income security, skill security, occupational security and labor market security.”
This is no longer the underground economy, but includes displaced individuals from the public and private sectors, millennials dealing with mountains of student debt, and baby boomers forced into early retirement without enough savings to support themselves.
There is little public assistance for the precariat class and “they’re not making demands to get better wages or improved benefits [because they] are replaced easily,” Russo notes.
Three years after Coates’ story, and nine months after McCormack’s insightful analysis of the public mood, Trump’ ascendance as America’s 45th President was complete. Trump won the States where blue-collar workers had suffered the most.
The story of globalisation and neo-liberal “reforms” of our own economy has followed a familiar story; loss of long-term employment; ever-increasing need for re-training; the rise casualisation and contract piece-work; and the increase of lower-paid service-work.
Depressingly, economist Shamubeel Eaqub has predicted;
“The workplace is likely to be further casualised. “
Which adds further hopelessness to New Zealanders increasingly locked out of what was once known as the Great Kiwi Dream of home-ownership.
The National government ostensibly understands the notion of aspiration, as Dear Leader Key said six years ago;
“I want New Zealanders to be aspirational – to want more for themselves and their families, and to know that they have opportunities to do that.”
Those words ring hollow as National scrambles frantically to make itself “look busy”, trying to alleviate the dual crisis of worsening home ownership and homelessness.
Bennett’s suddenly-announced policy of bribing state house tenants with (up to) $5,000 was widely seen as a panic-driven, ad hoc policy. It certainly caught Finance Minister Bill English by surprise, having no forewarning of Bennett’s media announcement on the issue.
The twin tsunami-waves of homelessness and housing unaffordability appears to have utterly over-whelmed National Ministers.
As Trump’s victory in the US Presidential election has demonstrated with crystal clarity, Consumers can easily become Citizens again, re-discovering the power of their Vote. When Citizens’ anger becomes focused, and a perceived solution (or even just an opportunity to say “FUCK YOU!” to the Establishment) is put before them – they will vote for it.
Especially when they have lost so much, and have little left to lose.
Such was the case of the US presidential elections, and before that, the ‘Brexit’ Vote.
As New Zealanders become more and more conscious of how much they have lost in the last thirty years, they too, will find themselves pissed off.
The opening lines of the song from ‘Les Miserables’ – Do You Hear The People Sing? – should serve as a reminder to the political establishment in this country;
“Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?”
The Great Kiwi Dream of home ownership was never predicated on the long-odds offered by a little yellow piece of paper;
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Home ownership should not be a Lottery.
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References
Otago Daily Times: Homelessness increasing in NZ
Fairfax media: NZ home ownership at lowest level in more than 60 years
Radio NZ: Auckland’s average house value tops $1 million
TV3 News: Government gets thumbs down on housing
Scoop: Key – Speech to New Zealand Contractors Federation
TVNZ: Is there a housing crisis? John Key fails to say yes or no after being put on the spot
Radio NZ: Claimed – $44 million lotto prize
NY Times: The One Housing Solution Left – Mass Mortgage Refinancing
Huffington Post: America’s Half-Forgotten Housing Crisis
Manufacturing and Technology News: The Rise Of The American ‘Precariat’ – Globalization And Outsourcing Have Created A Combustible Political Culture
Chicago Tribune: How Trump won the presidential election – Revenge of working-class whites
Fairfax media: Shamubeel Eaqub – Job casualisation a global phenomenon
NZ Herald: John Key’s speech to the National Party convention
Interest.co.nz: Paula Bennett announces plan to offer $5,000 to homeless Aucklanders and state house tenants to leave Auckland
TV3 News: Govt to help fund Auckland homeless to move
Metrolyrics: Les Miserables – Do You Hear The People Sing?
Previous related blogposts
Can we do it? Bloody oath we can!
Budget 2013: State Housing and the War on Poor
Budget 2013: State Housing and the War on Poor
National recycles Housing Policy and produces good manure!
Government Minister sees history repeat – responsible for death
Housing Minister Paula Bennett continues National’s spin on rundown State Houses
Letter to the Editor – How many more children must die, Mr Key?!
National under attack – defaults to Deflection #1
National Housing propaganda – McGehan Close Revisited
Housing; broken promises, families in cars, and ideological idiocy (Part Tahi)
Housing; broken promises, families in cars, and ideological idiocy (Part Rua)
Housing; broken promises, families in cars, and ideological idiocy (Part Toru)
Another ‘Claytons’ Solution to our Housing Problem? When will NZers ever learn?
National’s blatant lies on Housing NZ dividends – The truth uncovered!
National and the Reserve Bank – at War!
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The 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the latest research from Moody’s Analytics. That should come as no surprise. Our society has become more and more unequal.
When so much income goes to the top, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly.
[…]
The real reason for America’s Great Regression was political. As income and wealth became more concentrated in fewer hands, American politics reverted to what Marriner S. Eccles, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, described in the 1920s, when people “with great economic power had an undue influence in making the rules of the economic game.” With hefty campaign contributions and platoons of lobbyists and public relations spinners, America’s executive class has gained lower tax rates while resisting reforms that would spread the gains from growth.
Yet the rich are now being bitten by their own success. Those at the top would be better off with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than a large share of one that’s almost dead in the water. – Robert Reich, New York Times, 3 September 2011
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“Neoliberalism as never been, and is not, a coherent set of economic principles, the presence or absence of which in any given policy prescription determines the strength or weakness of its ideological credentials. Indeed, neoliberalism, far from being some sort of neo-classical economic crusade, is what it has always been: the fearsomely coherent political project of global capitalism’s ruling elites.
Its anti-state/free market propaganda notwithstanding, neoliberalism’s purpose has always been to use the coercive power of the state to thwart and/or reverse any and all attempts to empower the many at the expense of the few.
As Professor David Harvey notes in his A Brief History of Neoliberalism:
“Redistributive effects and increasing social inequality have in fact been such a persistent feature of neoliberalisation as to be regarded as structural to the whole project. Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy, after careful reconstruction of the data, have concluded that neoliberalisation was from the very beginning a project to achieve the restoration of class power”.” – Chris Trotter, Bowalley Road, 30 May 2015
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“…the share of population living in poverty is at a very high level. The latest data shows almost 15 percent of the American population of 46.7 million people living in poverty, and those numbers are even higher, if you concentrate on certain groups, particularly minority, single parents, especially female-headed families, and it is heavier for young people and those with disability.
So, with such large share of the population living below the poverty line, this has important macroeconomic issues, let alone the concern that is of a more political nature, which we will not address. But if we look at the macroeconomic impact, not only does poverty create significant social strains, it also eats into labor force participation, and undermines the ability to invest in education, to invest in health, to invest in training, and by holding back economic and social mobility it creates not only a poverty impact on this generation, but it certainly can make it more sustainable inter-generationally.” – Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF, 22 June 2016
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In America, the full impact of a neo-liberal agenda hit Kansas so harshly that comedian/commentator, Seth Meyer, was unflinching with his scathing, mocking, satire at the travesty that had resulted;
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After his election in 2010, Republican Kansas state governor, Sam Brownback, made massive cuts personal and business income taxes on the neo-liberal premise that low (and in some cases, nil) taxes would result in massive job-creation and increased economic activity by local businesses.
The tax-cuts were heavily supported by right-wing billionaire Koch Brothers;
Kansas also completely erased the income tax bills for the owners of certain “small” businesses, totaling 330,000 by this year and including a host of subsidiaries of Wichita-based Koch Industries. The Koch-funded organization Americans for Prosperity helped Brownback push the bill and has remained a staunch defender of the changes.
The result was utterly predictable;
The predicted job growth from business expansions hasn’t happened, leaving the state persistently short of money. Since November, tax collections have fallen about $81 million, or 1.9 percent below the current forecast’s predictions.
[…]
Last month, Brownback ordered $17 million in immediate reductions to universities and earlier this month delayed $93 million in contributions to pensions for school teachers and community college employees. The state has also siphoned off more than $750 million from highway projects to other parts of the budget over the past two years.
School teachers, college employees, the State University, schools, poverty-programmes, medicare, and other services all faced budgetary cuts.
The business website, Bloomberg, was less than impressed;
Kansas has lagged Nebraska in job creation since 2011, and the gap has widened since late 2014. Instead of adding the 25,000 jobs a year that Brownback promised, Kansas actually lost 5,400 jobs over the 12 months ending in February.
The author, Justin Fox, made the eye-brow-raising under-statement of the year by declaring;
This doesn’t look great for Kansas.
There’s an age-old saying for such under-statements. Click here.
Little wonder that Fox headed his article; “Kansas Tried Tax Cuts. Its Neighbor Didn’t. Guess Which Worked“.
The owners/editor of Bloomberg appeared to ‘freak out’ at the prospect of publishing a story so utterly revealing of such an epic fail of neo-liberal dogma. The editor/owner posted at the bottom of Fox’s article;
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Of course not. That might be embarrassing. Having to admit to the Masses that one of neo-liberalism’s main tenets is actually bullshit, is not a good look.
Even Governor Brownback’s fellow Republicans were panicking, as they faced re-election this month, and the wrath of voters;
Now many of the same Republicans who helped pass Brownback’s plan are in open revolt, refusing to help the governor cut spending so he can avoid rolling back any of his signature tax measures.
[…]
“Let him own it,” Republican Rep. Mark Hutton said. “It’s his policy that put us there.”
[…]
“We’re growing weary,” said Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Republican from Wichita. While GOP legislators still support low income taxes, “we’d prefer to see some real solutions coming from the governor’s office,” she said.
In an example of how Republican’s take personal responsibility, Governor Brownback told journalists who was to blame for his “real live experiment“;
“You’ve got some global issues that are going on that we have absolutely no control over.”
That’s how you take Personal Responsibility: blame others.
As Kansas is slowly bankrupted, Trump appears not to have learned from Brownback’s economic ineptness, saying;
“Under my plan, I’ll be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35 percent to 15 percent for companies, small and big businesses. That’s going to be a job creator like we haven’t seen since Ronald Reagan. It’s going to be a beautiful thing to watch. Companies will come. They will build. They will expand. New companies will start. And I look very, very much forward to doing it.” – Donald Trump
Trump’s plan to cut taxes mirrors the Republican “experiment” in Kansas. It simply remains unclear why Trump believes the results will be any different.
Meanwhile, here in New Zealand, the re-distribution of wealth up-ward, through successive tax-cuts for the richest, echoed that taking place thousands of kilometres away in a central US state.
In 2009 and 2010, National cut taxes and increased gst. (There have been seven tax cuts since 1986.) This shifted wealth up-ward to higher-income earners.
As government revenue fell, budget cuts to spending on services followed;
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Even as recent tax cuts resulted in wealth re-distributed upward; wage growth remaining low or stagnant; and social services reduced – New Zealanders are still not facing the dire economic and social hardship faced by our American cousins.
In September 2011, forward-thinking American economist Robert Reich explained how a worsening economic crisis in the US was affecting the middle classes;
Some say the regressive lurch occurred because Americans lost confidence in government. But this argument has cause and effect backward. The tax revolts that thundered across America starting in the late 1970s were not so much ideological revolts against government — Americans still wanted all the government services they had before, and then some — as against paying more taxes on incomes that had stagnated. Inevitably, government services deteriorated and government deficits exploded, confirming the public’s growing cynicism about government’s doing anything right.
Some say we couldn’t have reversed the consequences of globalization and technological change. Yet the experiences of other nations, like Germany, suggest otherwise. Germany has grown faster than the United States for the last 15 years, and the gains have been more widely spread. While Americans’ average hourly pay has risen only 6 percent since 1985, adjusted for inflation, German workers’ pay has risen almost 30 percent. At the same time, the top 1 percent of German households now take home about 11 percent of all income — about the same as in 1970. And although in the last months Germany has been hit by the debt crisis of its neighbors, its unemployment is still below where it was when the financial crisis started in 2007.
How has Germany done it? Mainly by focusing like a laser on education (German math scores continue to extend their lead over American), and by maintaining strong labor unions.
THE real reason for America’s Great Regression was political. As income and wealth became more concentrated in fewer hands, American politics reverted to what Marriner S. Eccles, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, described in the 1920s, when people “with great economic power had an undue influence in making the rules of the economic game.” With hefty campaign contributions and platoons of lobbyists and public relations spinners, America’s executive class has gained lower tax rates while resisting reforms that would spread the gains from growth.
Yet the rich are now being bitten by their own success. Those at the top would be better off with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than a large share of one that’s almost dead in the water.
The economy cannot possibly get out of its current doldrums without a strategy to revive the purchasing power of America’s vast middle class. The spending of the richest 5 percent alone will not lead to a virtuous cycle of more jobs and higher living standards. Nor can we rely on exports to fill the gap. It is impossible for every large economy, including the United States, to become a net exporter.
Reviving the middle class requires that we reverse the nation’s decades-long trend toward widening inequality. This is possible notwithstanding the political power of the executive class. So many people are now being hit by job losses, sagging incomes and declining home values that Americans could be mobilized.
And mobilised they have been.
Whatever one thinks of Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, he has tapped into the psyche of the disaffected; the disenchanted; and the dispossessed. And they are legion in number.
According to US Census Bureau, there are some 43.1 million Americans currently living in poverty – 13.5%. (The Bureau states that poverty has fallen by 3.5 million people since 2014.)
The lives of ordinary Americans is now stressed and wretched, as Australia’s ABC journalist, Elle Hardy recently reported;
When fun-loving 34-year-old George Tabor died suddenly in the town of Tifton in America’s Deep South, his family was bereft.
It confirmed again that the American Dream is a vision that’s moved beyond the reach of millions of its citizens.
George’s family struggled with the immense grief of his loss, but they were also plunged into a financial crisis, not knowing how they could fund his funeral or medical bills.
“The very first day, as we were dealing with the fact that he’s gone, the first thing that was in my mind was that all these bills were about to fall on us,” his older sister Doris Stafford, 36, said.
George and his sisters all worked. Their mother had worked her whole life too. Yet, as workers on minimum pay rates, just coping with weekly needs is an endless treadmill.
George Tabor was in goodhealthbefore he suddenly fell ill.(Supplied: Doris Stafford)Having savings to buffer sudden emergencies, or even a plan for a more secure future, is a story from Fantasyland for this family, and for up to nearly 70 per cent of Americans, according to a recent survey.
In this election year, as the anger of the marginalised and threatened has taken centre stage, it’s rocked the established verities of American political culture.
The IMF warned in June of social strains if the US fails to address soaring rates of poverty, in this richest of First World economies.
On the ground, it’s the immediate daily strains that occupy people’s minds.
George’s sister Sherry Smith, 31, began receiving George’s medical bills at the apartment they’d shared. Meanwhile, Doris was working out how to come up with $US5,100 ($6,610) for his funeral.
For workers earning about $US290 ($375) a week, the challenge is astronomical.
Robert Reich’s simple infograph (below) demonstrates convincingly that pay rose with productivity until the late ’70s /early ’80s. At that point in our global history, Thatcherism and Reaganism impacted on their respective nations, the UK and USA.
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New Zealand followed half a decade later. We now face our own social fall-out from the introduction of neo-liberalism; high-unemployment; under-employment; unaffordable housing; low wages; student debt; growing child poverty; and a widening wealth/income gap;
In its latest survey of household wealth, Statistics New Zealand found the country’s richest individuals – those in the top 10 percent – held 60 percent of all wealth by the end of July 2015. Between 2003 and 2010, those individuals had held 55 percent.
It is little wonder that with increasing globalisation, corporations have shifted jobs to developing nations where wages are low and working conditions next-to-nil.
Western workers have lost out to their counterparts in China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, etc.
That has meant vast swathes of US industries closing down until major cities such as Detroit – once a major economic powerhouse for the nation – went bankrupt in 2013. Millions of workers have lost their jobs or have taken lower-paid employment.
The story of George and his family continues;
If there was any mercy in George’s death, it was that when it came, it was immediate. But in the weeks leading to it, there was much that was preventable.
When a persistent cough started nagging, he put it down to smoking. When the hacking began, a doctor’s charges and medicine costs were off-putting.
Finally, coughing and unable to breathe, he asked friends to take him to hospital. Some laughed it off as another prank.
“We didn’t find out he was sick until he’d been in hospital for three days,” Doris says. “We found out on Facebook.”
George had pneumonia. As he lay in a coma, the family assumed he was insured through his job and contacted his employer. Low-wage workers rely on employer-provided health care, or they go without.
“Applebee’s said he wasn’t eligible for insurance until next January, even though he’d been working there a year and a half,” Sherry said.
Frequent visits from the hospital’s “financial people” compounded their stress.
The family believe that if George had medical insurance, the hospital would have let him stay. Tests revealed he had an abnormal swelling in a heart blood vessel. Corrective surgery was scheduled for November 1, but the hospital sent him home.
“He was sent home with no medication,” Sherry says. “He couldn’t walk, his feet were still swollen. He tried to stand and he fell over.”
Private health insurance costs thousands of dollars a year in the US. Even the much-vaunted Obamacare seems to miss its targets.
“At first I thought Obamacare would be a good idea,” Doris says. “When they told me the price, $57 a week — it was $57 I didn’t have in the first place.”
The family has always voted Democrat. But this time it’s different. With worries about jobs, and living in quiet despair, the Republican candidate is winning her over.
George Tabor’s family was not alone. There were millions of George Tabor Families throughout the United States. And they were no longer listening to the political establishment.
In a moment of prescience, Billionaire investor Warren Buffett warned;
Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country’s fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness. That feeling can create its own reality.
Buffett wrote his words in August, 2011.
Since the late 1970s, both Republican and Democrat parties have failed to address the growing threat to Middle Class stability, and to Working Class aspirations in the US. Both parties had deserted their constituents, leaving people stressed, desperate, and fearful.
The forces of globalisation/neo-liberalism/free market has robbed millions of American families of what they considered their birthright – a high standard of living unparalleled in the world, and opportunities for their children.
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There was a vacuum left by the political establishment, and Donald Trump shrewdly colonised that space. Trump had created the new “reality” that Buffett warned us about.
The feeling of desperation and alienation from both Working and Middle classes is now so palpable that mainstream media are finally coming to terms with that disaffection and understand what constituted the almost-irresistable force that propelled an ego-driven, political novice to the White House.
Despite Trump being a seriously flawed, undisciplined individual who has alienated large numbers of American voters; women, blacks, Hispanics, LGBT, disabled – I think we all underestimated the anger of the Masses that Trump was feeding off.
I glimpsed a miniscule fraction of that anger last week when I watched ‘Sixty Minutes‘. A journalist was talking to five disaffected blue-collar workers in Ohio.
These were supposedly Democrat-voting, Union-loyal, workers.
But at least three openly declared their intention to vote for Trump (story starts at 25:12);
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It was at that point that I finally understood what inexorable force was propelling a bloated billionaire to the most powerful position on this planet.
As former Republican Party operative, Mike Lofgren, wrote in September 2011;
It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.
[…]
What do the Democrats offer these people? Essentially nothing. Democratic Leadership Council-style “centrist” Democrats were among the biggest promoters of disastrous trade deals in the 1990s that outsourced jobs abroad: NAFTA, World Trade Organization, permanent most-favored-nation status for China. At the same time, the identity politics/lifestyle wing of the Democratic Party was seen as a too illegal immigrant-friendly by downscaled and outsourced whites.
While Democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, Republicans went to work.
Lofgren‘s entire piece is worthwhile reading.
So the ground was fertile for someone who would supposedly articulate the feelings of betrayal and loss for millions of disaffected, confused, resentful Americans.
People are pissed off, and they ain’t going to take it any more. They are fighting back. Like their British counter-parts during the “Bexit/EU” referendum, a considerable segment of American voters lashed out at “The Establishment”. It’s as if millions of Americans suddenly woke up, realising the supreme power of their vote.
The system could take away their jobs; their standard of living; their aspirations – but their right to vote was cast in granite-stone. Like their right to “bear arms” and casually shoot each other at whim, it was guaranteed by their Constitution.
Early last century, when Russians lashed out at the autocratic Establishment of the Russian royal family, they installed a far-left regime, the Bolsheviks.
But Americans don’t do left-wing revolutions.
When Americans revolt en-masse, they lurch to the Right.
In this case, a dangerously nationalistic, reactionary Right that is closer to the French National Front than the US Republican Party. (Though many would assert that the only real difference between the French National Front and the US Republican Party is that the latter is willing to tolerate immigrants for cheap, exploitable labour.)
Those who voted for Trump have done so for a myriad of reasons, many of which are fluid and inter-changeable. They see Trump as someone outside the political Establishment; someone who will be their champion.
But Donald Trump will not be that champion. Demogogues with simplistic answers to complex problems rarely are. History is replete with demagogues who have exploited peoples’ legitimate discontent to gain power and subsequently wreaked havoc.
If Americans think they have just elected the solution to their problems, they are sadly mistaken.
Their problems have only just begun.
Meanwhile, from a global perspective, the Left is confronted with a serious crisis of confidence: when Working Class people turn to jingoistic demagoguery for solutions, why is our message not getting through?
Perhaps that is the real crisis confronting us.
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References
New York Times: The Limping Middle Class
International Monetary Fund (IMF): Transcript of a Press Conference on the Conclusion of the 2016 Article IV Consultation Mission with the United States
Youtube: Kansas Tax Cuts – A Closer Look
Motherjones: Trickle-Down Economics Has Ruined the Kansas Economy
The New Yorker: Covert Operations
CBS News: Kansas loses patience with Gov. Brownback’s tax cuts
Kansas City Star: Gov. Sam Brownback cuts higher education as Kansas tax receipts fall $53 million short
Bloomberg: Kansas Tried Tax Cuts. Its Neighbor Didn’t. Guess Which Worked
Democracy Now: Expanding the Debate – Jill Stein “Debates” Clinton & Trump in Democracy Now! Special – Part 1
NZ Kindergartens Inc: Funding cuts take effect
NBR: Leaked document shows 10 District Health Boards face budget cuts – King
Fairfax media: Police shut 30 stations in effort to combat budget cuts
Radio NZ: Patients suffering because of surgery waits – surgeon
NZ Family Violence Clearinghouse: Lead up to Budget 2016 – Govt announces funding cuts, increases and reprioritising
Radio NZ: Funds cut from parents-as-teachers scheme
TVNZ News: Kiwi charities and NGOs face closure with impending funding cuts
Radio NZ: Unemployment rises, wage growth subdued
ABC News:US election: Life and death in Georgia and the end of the American Dream
US Census Bureau: Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage – 2015
USA Today: Detroit becomes largest U.S. city to enter bankruptcy
Radio NZ: 10% richest Kiwis own 60% of NZ’s wealth
Truthout: Goodbye to All That – Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult
The New York Times: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich – Warren Buffett
Prime TV: Sixty Minutes
Other Blogposts
Bowalley Road: Clever Strategy vs Desperate Tactics – Hillary Clinton Allows Donald Trump To Survive The Second Presidential Debate.
Bowalley Road: Raising Nixon’s Ghost
Bowalley Road: Why the Greater Good requires Americans to vote for the Lesser Evil – Hillary Clinton
Bowalley Road: The Better Angel: Why Birgitte Nyborg Beats Donald Trump
Gordon Campbell: on the US election home stretch
Kiwipolitico: Social origins of the Politically Absurd
No Right Turn: This is not what democracy looks like
Public Address: The Long, Strange Trip
The Daily Blog: LaQuisha St Redfern vs Donald Trump
The Daily Blog: The horror of Clinton winning vs the horror of Trump winning – voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil
The Daily Blog: American Demockery
The Daily Blog: The latest Trump/Clinton machinations and why gender is the real societal fault line this election
The Daily Blog: Fear And Loathing Of A Democratic Presidency: Where To For The American Left
The Standard: Trump final campaign ad
The Standard: Donald Trump is good
The Wireless: Uncovering the art of an ugly election
Previous related blogposts
Letter to the editor – Donald Trump and the lessons of history
Dumber and dumber, scarier and scarier
When Fact Follows Fiction – The Weird World of U.S. Politics
Trump – the cultivation of demagoguery
Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?
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Two days ago (28 October), FBI Director, James B. Comey, sent a letter to the US Congress disclosing that the Bureau was investigating newly-discovered emails from disgraced former US Congressman, Anthony Weiner.
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FBI Director James B. Comey
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The new material “appeared relevant” to the Hillary Clinton private-server/email case, according to Comey. In an explanatory email to FBI employees, Comey wrote;
“This morning I sent a letter to Congress in connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation. Yesterday, the investigative team briefed me on their recommendation with respect to seeking access to emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case. Because those emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them.
Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.”
The political version of an atomic-bombshell came eleven days before the US Presidential Election (early voting in several states notwithstanding) on 8 November.
Interestingly, Comey himself admitted;
“Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations…”
Comey tried to justify his disclosure to Congress;
“I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record…”
But in his rambling note, he then revealed;
“…however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails…”
And then pointed out the blindingly obvious;
“I don’t want to create a misleading impression…”
Director Comey had already created “a misleading impression“. By publicly announcing the “re-opening” of the investigation and referencing a “connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation“, irreparable damage had been done to Clinton’s campaign and Trump’s presidential chances suddenly took on new life.
As former Attorney General, Eric Holder, pointed out;
“Justice Department officials are instructed to refrain from commenting publicly on the existence, let alone the substance, of pending investigative matters, except in exceptional circumstances and with explicit approval from the Department of Justice officials responsible for ultimate supervision of the matter,” the letter says.
They are also instructed to exercise heightened restraint near the time of a primary or general election because, as official guidance from the Department instructs, public comment on a pending investigative matter may affect the electoral process and create the appearance of political interference in the fair administration of justice.”
Current US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, also opposed Comey’s decision to formally write to Congress;
Lynch expressed her preference that Comey follow the department’s longstanding practice of not commenting on ongoing investigations, and not taking any action that could influence the outcome of an election, but he said that he felt compelled to do otherwise.
The response from both Republicans and Democrats has been unrestrained anger. Senate minority leader Harry Reid was unequivocal in condemning Comey’s behaviour;
“Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another.
My office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Through your partisan action, you may have broken the law.”
What is even more startling is that at the time that Comey made his disclosure to Congress (28 October), it was not until two days later that the FBI obtained a warrant to actually look at the emails on Weiner’s computer.
So on what basis did Comey feel the need to advise Congress?
When Comey sent that letter, he had no way of knowing what the emails contained. For all he knew, they could have been recipes for apple pie.
In which case, Comey has single-handedly interfered in an election process by using the power of his position.
Which would be an abuse of power.
Which would be a situation that we here in New Zealand would be intimately familiar with;
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As the NBR reported over this incident in November 2014;
Security Intelligence Service director Rebecca Kitteridge has made a formal apology to former Labour leader Phil Goff for the way in which the SIS released “incomplete, misleading and inaccurate information” in response to an OIA request from Whale Oil Blogger Cameron Slater.
In 2011 Mr Goff said he hadn’t been briefed about alleged Israel spies being caught in the Christchurch earthquake earlier that year, a contention Prime Minister John Key and then-SIS director Warren Tucker disputed.
Dr Tucker’s briefing notes were declassified, then swiftly released to Mr Slater after he requested them under the Official Information Act.
The notes appeared to confirm Mr Goff had been briefed on the matter but Ms Gwyn’s investigation has established this was not the case.
The apology to Mr Goff is one of the recommendations in the report of inspector-general of intelligence and security Cheryl Gwyn, which stated “These errors resulted in the misplaced criticism of the then leader of the Opposition, Phil Goff. Phil Goff is owed a formal apology by the Service.”
Although Ms Gwyn found no evidence of political partisanship by the SIS, its actions did have a politically partisan effect and she found the agency had failed to take adequate steps to maintain political neutrality.
The NZ Herald reported;
Prime Minister John Key is “in denial” over a report which backs Dirty Politics allegations his staff used information from the SIS to orchestrate a smear campaign against former Labour leader Phil Goff, the Opposition says.
Inspector General of Security Intelligence Cheryl Gwyn’s report yesterday found primarily that former SIS director Warren Tucker was at fault for supplying “misleading” information about Mr Goff to the Prime Minister during a 2011 war of words between the pair.
Mr Goff claimed he had not been briefed by Dr Tucker about suspected Israeli agents in Christchurch at the time of the earthquakes earlier that year. However, based on the information supplied by Dr Tucker, Mr Key said he had been briefed.
The report found Mr Key’s former senior communications adviser Jason Ede helped attack blogger Cameron Slater obtain that misleading information from the SIS which Slater then used to embarrass Mr Goff in blog posts.
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Ms Gwyn’s report said the information supplied by Dr Tucker about the briefing was “incomplete, inaccurate and misleading” and “resulted in misplaced criticism” of Mr Goff. It also found that after learning of the information, Mr Key’s deputy chief of staff and primary point of contact with the SIS, Phil de Joux, suggested to Mr Ede the information “might prompt an OIA request”.
Mr Ede then gave that information to Slater, discussed how an Official Information Act request should be worded, and provided Slater with draft blog posts attacking Mr Goff.
Ms Gwyn’s inquiry found Mr Ede was on the phone to Slater when Slater emailed his OIA request to the SIS.
Patrick Gower from TV3 was his usual ‘delicate’ self when he expressed his assessment of the politicisation of the NZSIS by the National government;
3 News understands the spy agency and Prime Minister John Key’s office were found to be in cahoots with Slater to get the information out.
It was sensitive information that embarrassed Mr Goff, pertaining to the issue of supposed Israeli spies Mr Goff said he didn’t know about, though he had been briefed about it.
The report deals with how the information got out, and that is through former SIS director Warren Tucker. Mr Tucker is found have been unfair and politically partisan in the way he dealt with the Prime Minister’s office to get it out, according to 3 News’ understanding of the report.
Then-head of the SIS, Warren Tucker, used his position to embarrass the Leader of the the Labour Party, just months out from the 2011 General Election. It was done with the full knowledge of members of John Key’s staff. Our esteemed Dear Leader was probably fully aware of the plot.
No wonder the Comey Affair seemed so hauntingly familiar when news of it broke.
Because FBI Director Comey has his own political affiliations;
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Even though he has been a registered Republican for most of his adult life, FBI Director James Comey testified Thursday that he is no longer a registered member of the GOP.
“Although our politics are different — I gather you’re a Republican — that correct?” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) asked Comey in prefacing his remarks.
Comey responded, “I have been a registered Republican for most of my adult life, not registered any longer.”
The FBI director, who previously served as deputy attorney general in George W. Bush’s administration before President Barack Obama appointed him to his current position, donated to the presidential campaigns of John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
Mr Comey – meet Mr Warren Tucker.
You two would appear to have a bit in common.
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References
Washington Post: Read the letter Comey sent to FBI employees explaining his controversial decision on the Clinton email investigation
Wikipedia: Anthony Weiner
Politico: Polls show battleground map tightening
The Hill: Holder, ex-Justice officials question Comey’s ‘breach of protocol’
The New Yorker: James Comey Broke with Loretta Lynch and Justice Department Tradition
The Guardian: Clinton emails inquiry – FBI gets warrant as Comey told he may have broken law
NBR: SIS report equals egg all over Key’s face – Goff
NZ Herald: Dirty Politics – John Key ‘in denial’ over SIS report
TV3: SIS to say sorry for Whale Oil OIA release
Politico: FBI director says he’s no longer a registered Republican
Additional
Radio NZ: Phil Goff receives apology from SIS over release of information to Whaleoil
Other Blogs
The Standard: Timeline – Key responsible for SIS release
Wheeler’s Corner: SIS Forced to Apologise to Phil Goff says leaked report
The Pundit: John Key – The buck doesn’t stop with me
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In a brilliant essay, published on ‘Buzzfeed‘, McKay Coppins offers his insights into what motivates a man like Donald Trump to ascend the greasy pole of politics to take on the Republican candidacy in the up-coming U.S. Presidential elections.
It is the sort of insightful analysis that allows one to have a glimmer of understanding what motivates a man to enter into what is most likely the most vicious politics on this planet. Also probably the most expensive.
But whilst Coppins paints a reasonable picture of Donald Trump the person, he glosses over what has made him so popular with up to 45% of American voters, according to a recent NBC poll.
Trump has stunned people by defying not just the odds, but the powerful, entrenched Republican establishment. He fought off sixteen other candidates – including seasoned politicians.
He has used the mainstream media and gained free publicity not accorded to any other candidate. According to either the New York Times or MarketWatch, that free publicity is valued at anywhere between US$2 billion to US$3 billion.
His most effective strategy has been to make outrageous statements;
These vocalised opinions, and others fit perfectly with the typical American right-winger/conservative. They are views more often than not expressed by supporters of the US Republican Party.
Republican political figures – especially those on the far-right – have often endorsed right-wing sentiments that appeal to their right-wing/conservative constituents. Sentiments that are usually reactionary when it comes to misogyny; homophobia; hostility toward ethnic groups; xenophobia; religious bigotry; pro-gun; etc.
This is the very essence of the right-wing constituency of the Republican Party.
This is what Donald Trump has tapped into. It is red-neck territory that other Republican Presidential contenders have never dared venture into.
In September 2012, Republican candidate Mitt Romney was caught off-guard with a secret video-tape of comments he made at a closed door fund-raising event;
“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.
All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.
These are people who pay no income tax.”
The comments were the sort of conservative bigotry parroted by the uninformed; the resentful; the judgemental – in short right-wingers who believe the nonsense that Romney was spouting.
But by October, Romney had apologised for those comments on the Fox Channel’s Hannity programme,
“Clearly in a campaign with hundreds, if not thousands of speeches and question and answer sessions, now and then you’re going to say something that doesn’t come out right. In this case I said something that was just completely wrong.”
Trump does not apologise. He ratchets up his outlandish invective because a sizeable chunk of the American public thinks and often expresses similar reactionary views.
Which makes it deeply ironic that the Republican Party hierarchy so despises Trump, and has tried every ‘trick in the book’ to undermine his chances to become the Republican candidate. Ironic, because Trump not only verbalises what many in the Republican Party think – but is also willing (according to his rhetoric) to act on it.
After decades of right-wing, reactionary sentiments endorsed and exploited by the Republican Party, they now have a candidate who publicly expresses those views.
That is the “secret” of the rise and rise of Donald Trump. There was fertile ground, carefully prepared after decades of conservative, reactionary intolerance. Decade after decade of bigoted, moralistic views.
Donald Trump simply planted himself in that fertile ground. And grew and grew and grew.
The real surprise is that the Republican hierarchy are themselves surprised. Did they never foresee that one day a shrewd, manipulative operator would make full use of the fertile soil of conservatism that had been so carefully laid over the years?
Donald Trump is not some alien outsider to the Republican Party – he embodies the naked spirit of the Republican Party, with all the P.R. spin stripped away. Donald Trump is the Republican Party.
The Republican hierarchy are powerless to stop their own political scion – a product of their own right-wing bigotry. He is their “Frankenstein’s monster”; a creature of their conservative values.
And the creature is loose.
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References
Buzzfeed: How the Haters made Trump
NBC: Poll – Clinton and Trump Now Tied as GOP Convention Kicks Off
New York Times: Who Is Running for President?
New York Times: $2 Billion Worth of Free Media for Donald Trump
Marketwatch: Trump has gotten nearly $3 billion in ‘free’ advertising
Online Daily Mail: Donald Trump ridiculed for blaming Charlie Hebdo massacre on France’s strict gun laws
The Guardian: Mitt Romney under fire after comments caught on video
International Business Times: Romney Apologizes For ’47 Percent’ Comment – ‘I Care About The 100 Percent’
Previous related blogposts
When Fact Follows Fiction – The Weird World of U.S. Politics
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Truth is stranger than fiction, they say. This has been proven time and again, and perhaps none so aptly as the 2016 US Election primaries, where a billionaire has risen to political prominence;
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Ooops, wrong billionaire.
I meant this one;
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After all, one is supposedly “real” and the other is supposedly “fiction”. Sometimes, it’s just so damned difficult to tell which is which.
The only thing missing?
This guy;
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After all, if the Universe is going to foist super-villains on us, is it too much to expect a counter-balance?
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Sarah Palin.
Donald Trump.
Sarah Palin endorsing Donald Trump.
If the spectre of a neo-fascist demagogue ruling the most powerful nation on Earth – bristling with an arsenal of city-smashing atomic bombs and other advanced, lethal weapons – wasn’t chilling enough, the prospect of a political moron endorsing a billionaire clown-presidential-candidate would be like a Hollywood political satire.
Team America, The Omen III, and Wag the Dog meet Reality.
If people cannot fathom how Adolph Hitler came to power, they need only pay close attention to current events in the Land of the Free. Even without ISIS raping Iraq and Syria, a post-anti-biotic world, or man-made global warming, we are now living in scary times.
One can only hope that the American people – or at least a sufficient voting number of them – are better than the seductive malevolence that Trump represents and offers as his ‘Final Solution‘. For Americans, their one and only means to reject the rise of fascism lies not in their Constitutional Second Amendment “right” to bear arms – but in the ballot box.
For all our sakes, let’s hope they use their vote wisely.
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References
Radio NZ: Donald Trump gets Palin backing
Previous related blogposts
Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult
Palin: Will Not Seek 2012 Nomination
Letter to the editor – Donald Trump and the lessons of history
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The editorTime
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I don’t know know if Donald Trump really believes the things he says, or is simply saying them to get elected.
But what kind of person appeals to the most base instincts of human beings to achieve power?
And once he has achieved that power – what will he do with it?
Unfortunately, the previous century is replete with examples of demagogues who wreaked havoc once they gained the power they craved.
Just how many times do the violent lessons of history have to be drilled into us?
-Frank Macskasy
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Keeping an eye on dodgy government appointees, crony-by-crony!
Frankly Speaking... 
