RSN: Bill Moyers | We Hold This Truth to Be Self-Evident: It's Happening Before Our Very Eyes

07 June 20

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Bill Moyers | We Hold This Truth to Be Self-Evident: It's Happening Before Our Very Eyes

Bill Moyers, Moyers on Democracy
Moyers writes: "At 98, historian Bernard Weisberger has seen it all. Born in 1922, he grew up watching newsreels of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler as they rose to power in Europe. He vividly remembers Mussolini posturing to crowds from his balcony in Rome, chin outthrust, right arm extended. Nor has he forgotten Der Fuehrer's raspy voice on radio, interrupted by cheers of 'Heil Hitler,' full of menace even without pictures."

  

Fascist bullies and threats anger Bernie, and when America went to war to confront them, he interrupted his study of history to help make history by joining the army. He yearned to be an aviator but his eyesight was too poor. So he took a special course in Japanese at Columbia University and was sent as a translator to the China-Burma-India theater where Japanese warlords were out to conquer Asia. Bernie remembers them, too.

In time, we became colleagues on a series of broadcasts about the 20th century. As we compared the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler in an episode titled The President and the Dictator, Bernie kept reminding the team that the most cunning demagogues “are never more than a few steps from becoming dictators.” Not surprisingly, the subject came up again when Trump was elected. No, we didn’t think he was Hitler, or the Republicans Nazis, but both of us acknowledged a deep unease over the vulnerabilities of democracy, which had led to Trump’s election in the first place. Inspired by Bernie and unnerved by Trump, I decided to take a deeper look at democracy under stress and began reading what is now more than a dozen books on Europe in the 1930s. The most recent is a compelling and chilling account of Hitler’s First Hundred Days, by the historian Peter Fritzsche – a familiar story revisited by the author with fresh verve and insight.

Hitler was a master of manipulation, using propaganda, violence, intimidation, showmanship, and spectacle — and above all, fear. By demonizing “the other” – Jews, social democrats and communists – Hitler won the hearts and minds of the masses, consolidating his power, and turning Germany into a one-party Nazi state.

I had just finished the book when I received a short email from Bernie, who had been watching on television the events following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. He wrote, “All this open talk by Trump of dominance is pretty undisguised fascism. He’s inciting chaos to set the stage for the strong man to ‘rescue’ the nation.”

There was no doubt who would be Superman riding to America’s rescue. When Trump promised to end what he called “American carnage” – a crisis of “poverty in our inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, crime and gangs and drugs” — he did not ask for our help. He did not ask that we put our faith in each other or in our democratic values or even in God. Donald J. Trump would be our savior, the new Messiah — because “I alone can fix it.”

Bernie’s note triggered a recollection, sending me across the room to retrieve from a file drawer an essay written two years ago in The New York Review of Books by the American legal scholar Cass Sunstein. Reviewing three new books about ordinary Germans and the Nazi regime, he concluded: “With our system of checks and balances, full-blown authoritarianism is unlikely to happen here.”

I had admired Sunstein’s work for years and found reassuring his judgment that the rule of law would check a would-be tyrant. But many found that assurance disquieting. One dissenter was Norman Ravitch, emeritus professor of history at the University of California, Riverside. Responding to Sunstein, he wrote: “The normal concern of people of all sorts with their daily lives, family, work, leisure, and so on indicates that only those in certain areas of work and life could possibly notice the slow but relentless advance of authoritarian and totalitarian policies by the government. The Nazis knew how to appeal to people who did not have the ideological concerns but only normal human concerns. They knew how to conceal their real goals and how to make passive individuals active supporters.”

So does Trump. He understands that most Americans are concerned with little more than the economy, health care and jobs. They respond positively to politicians who promise action on these priorities, whether or not they know if those promises will ever be fulfilled. Ravitch pointed out that like Hitler and like Mussolini, Trump knows how to appeal to a variety of concerns with promises that can be both attractive and contradictory. Because no population is educated enough, sensitive enough, or ethical enough to see through the deception, “the danger is very great indeed. It may in fact be one of the chief weaknesses of democracy that democracy can lead to tyranny just as well or perhaps even more than other political systems.”

Two years have passed since that exchange between scholars, and in those two years Trump has doubled down. This president is no friend of democracy.

He has declared himself above the law, preached insurrection by encouraging armed supporters to “liberate” states from the governance of duly elected officials, told police not to be “too nice” while doing their job, and gloated over the ability of the Secret Service to turn “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” loose on demonstrators — to “come down on them hard” if they get too “frisky.

He has politicized the Department of Justice while remaking the judiciary in his image.

He has stifled investigations into his administration’s corruption, fired officials charged with holding federal agencies accountable to the public, and rewarded his donors and cronies with government contracts, subsidies, deregulations, and tax breaks.

He has maligned and mocked the disadvantaged, the disabled, and people of color.

He has sought to politicize the military, including in his entourage the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs (dressed in combat fatigues), as his orderlies unleashed chemical fumes on peaceful protesters – all so that the president could use them as stage props in a photo op, holding up a Bible in front of a historic church, just to make a dandy ad for his re-election campaign.

He has purged his own party of independent thinkers and turned it into a spineless, mindless cult while demonizing the opposition.

He has purloined religion for state and political ends.

He has desecrated the most revered symbols of Christian faith by converting them to partisan brands.

He has recruited religious zealots for jobs in his administration, rewarding with government favors the electoral loyalty of their followers.

He has relentlessly attacked mainstream media as purveyors of “fake news” and “enemies of the people” while collaborating with a sycophantic right- wing media – including the Murdoch family’s Fox News — to flood the country with lies and propaganda.

He has maneuvered the morally hollow founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, into compromising the integrity of the most powerful media giant in the country by infusing it with partisan bias.

And because truth is the foe he most fears, he has banned it from his administration and his lips.

Yes, Bernie, you are right: the man in the White House has taken all the necessary steps toward achieving the despot’s dream of dominance.

Can it happen here?

It is happening here.

Democracy in America has been a series of narrow escapes. We may be running out of luck, and no one is coming to save us. For that, we have only ourselves.

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A US military UH-72A 'Lakota' hovers low over protesters on June 1, 2020 in Washington, DC, battering them with its rotor wash and sending debris flying. (photo: Sam Ward/Human Rights Watch)

Pentagon Ordered National Guard Helicopters' Aggressive Response in DC
Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times
Excerpt: "Top Pentagon officials ordered National Guard helicopters to use what they called 'persistent presence' to disperse protests in the capital this week, according to military officials."

The high-profile episode, after days of protests in Washington, was a turning point in the military’s response to unrest in the city.

op Pentagon officials ordered National Guard helicopters to use what they called “persistent presence” to disperse protests in the capital this week, according to military officials. The loosely worded order prompted a series of low-altitude maneuvers that human rights organizations quickly criticized as a show of force usually reserved for combat zones.

Ryan D. McCarthy, the Army secretary and one of the officials who authorized part of the planning for the helicopters’ mission Monday night, said on Friday that the Army had opened an investigation into the episode.

Two Army National Guard helicopters flew low over the protesters, with the downward blast from their rotor blades sending protesters scurrying for cover and ripping signs from the sides of buildings. The pilots of one of the helicopters have been grounded pending the outcome of the inquiry.

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Health workers administer a coronavirus test at a drive-thru testing site in Washington DC, on 2 April. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Nearly 600 US Health Workers Died of Covid-19 - and the Toll Is Rising
Christina Jewett, Melissa Bailey and Danielle Renwick, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "Nearly 600 frontline healthcare workers have died of Covid-19, according to Lost on the Frontline, a project launched by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News (KHN) that aims to count, verify and memorialize and every healthcare worker who dies during the pandemic."
READ MORE

Demonstrators in front of Trump Tower in Chicago. (photo: Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images)

Chicago Mayor Says Police Union Is 'Extraordinarily Reluctant to Embrace Reform'
Christianna Silva and Scott Simon, NPR
Excerpt: "With nationwide protests focusing renewed attention and urgency on the issue of police brutality, Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago says that police unions continue to be one of the biggest obstacles to reform."
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Tear gas rises as protesters face off with police during a demonstration on May 31 outside the White House over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police. (photo: Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images)

Tear-Gassing Protesters During an Infectious Outbreak Called 'a Recipe for Disaster'
Will Stone, NPR
Stone writes: "Their widespread use in recent weeks, while an infectious disease continues to spread across the U.S., has stunned experts and physicians."




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A demonstrator raises a sign during a protest against the death of George Floyd who died on May 25 in Minneapolis whilst in police custody, along a street in Oakland, California on June 3. (photo: Philip Pacheco/AFP)

Iraqis Are Sending Solidarity, Warnings and Advice to Demonstrators Across America
AFP
Excerpt: "Seventeen years after US troops invaded their country and eight months since protests engulfed their cities, Iraqis are sending solidarity, warnings and advice to demonstrators across America."

EXCERPT:

Iraqis have fought back online, tweeting "Stop associating Baghdad with turmoil," in response to comparisons with their homeland.

Others have used biting sarcasm.

In response to videos of crowds breaking into shops across US cities, Iraqis have dug up an infamous quote by ex-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"Lawlessness and looting is a natural consequence of the transition from dictatorship to a free country," he said in response to a journalist's question on widespread looting and chaos in Baghdad following the 2003 US-led invasion.

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An ancient yellow cedar in an area of Dakota Ridge that's listed as a new cutblock by BC Timber Sales. (photo: Elphinstone Logging Focus/The Narwhal)

British Columbia Opens Sunshine Coast Forest - Home to Some of Canada's Oldest Trees - to Logging
Judith Lavoie, The Narwhal
Lavoie writes: "A new plan plotting the course of the logging industry on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast over the next five years has placed a treasured forest, home to some of Canada’s oldest trees and an unofficial bear sanctuary, on the chopping block. "

Local conservation group asks province to cancel cutblocks containing ancient yellow cedars and unofficial bear sanctuary

The logging plan for the Elphinstone area, released by BC Timber Sales in late March, includes an abnormally high number of cutblocks for auction for the planning period, according to local conservation group Elphinstone Logging Focus.

“We haven’t seen this many blocks in a five-year period before,” said Ross Muirhead, a forest campaigner with Elphinstone Logging Focus, which counted an unprecedented 29 blocks slated for clearcut logging from 2020 to 2024.  

Because of the area’s sensitivity, BC Timber Sales has usually limited logging to about one block a year. 

Muirhead is calling on the B.C. government to cancel 63 hectares of cutblocks slated for auction on Dakota Ridge, a roadless high-altitude forest west of Port Mellon, where he believes Canada’s oldest tree may be located.

Some of the oldest trees in Canada grow in the 3,361-hectare Dakota watershed, with tree coring showing one yellow cedar is 1,036 years old, Muirhead said.

Last fall in the Dakota area, Muirhead and his colleagues measured a tree that was too big to be cored because boring instruments aren’t made long enough.

“This tree is wider than the oldest recorded tree in Canada,” Muirhead said.

That record-breaking tree was a yellow cedar that grew in the Caren Range on the Sunshine Coast. It was cut by loggers in the 1980s, and a ring count put its age at 1,835 years.

“This tree is the same elevation, same species, and it’s bigger,” Muirhead said.

Black bear dens, ancient yellow cedars at risk

Elphinstone Logging Focus unofficially named the forest on Dakota Ridge the Dakota bowl bear sanctuary after the first black bear den study on the Sunshine Coast, in 2015, found an unusually high number of dens in the area.

The ancient yellow cedars in the Dakota bear sanctuary are the best trees for bear dens as they tend to rot out at the base, providing well-hidden locations, and, as the trees grow in the snow zone, there is insulation for hibernating bears, Muirhead said.

Dakota Ridge is still intact and without formal hiking trails, Muirhead said, adding the area’s five hanging lakes offer a good freshwater supply for bears. “It’s chockablock in wild blueberries.”

“I am of the opinion that black bear den activity may be concentrated on Dakota Ridge not just due to old-growth structural availability, but due to the extensive loss of similar habitat in the surrounding region from clearcut logging,” wrote Wayne McCrory, author of the 2015 study.

The study, which was done by McCrory Wildlife Services, concluded that logging in the approved Dakota Ridge cutblocks would destroy 12 dens in one block and 16 dens in a higher elevation block.

That research is going to be updated after Elphinstone Logging Focus received a grant in late May from West Coast Environmental Law to do further bear den surveying in an expanded area. 

Bear dens are not protected in B.C., except on Haida Gwaii and in the Great Bear Rainforest. In April 2019, wildlife biologist Helen Davis asked B.C.’s Forest Practices Board, the province’s independent forestry watchdog, to launch an investigation into the protection of bear denning trees, primarily old yellow and red cedars in old-growth forests. 

The board found in January that there is a “knowledge gap” on black bear populations and a population assessment could determine whether it is necessary to regulate protection of bear dens.

Black bears rely on old-growth trees as second-growth forests are cut before the trees reach the necessary size for denning, so lack of denning space could affect the population, the board report noted.

Companies given harvesting licences sometimes voluntarily protect dens and “the practice of including bear-den trees in wildlife-tree-retention areas is a best practice that should be encouraged,” the report says.

Logging of old-growth forests has underlined the loss of bear dens, and in August last year more than 20 biologists, First Nations, wildlife businesses and environmental organizations wrote to the provincial government asking for protection of dens, whether occupied or not.

Black bear dens are often used intermittently for decades.

A spokesperson with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development said under the Forest and Range Practices Act, black bear dens can be identified in a forest stewardship plan and protection strategies can be included in the plan.

“As well, as part of BC Timber Sales’ environmental field procedures, if a previously unidentified bear den is identified, work must stop and a plan to deal with it will be developed,” he said.

Culturally modified trees promised protection

Some Dakota Ridge blocks now marked for auction by BC Timber Sales also contain culturally modified trees — trees that have been visibly altered or modified by Indigenous peoples for cultural uses — in addition to the abundance of black bear dens.

“We have three scientific studies clearly showing that [Dakota Ridge] has very high natural and cultural values that wildly supersede any small financial gain from destroying it,” said Hans Penner, a director of Elphinstone Logging Focus.

The Dakota area is in the territory of the Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish) First Nation, which conducted a joint review of identified culturally modified trees with BC Timber Sales. Both parties agreed to exclude those trees from logging.

Elphinstone Logging Focus brought a proposal for the Dakota bowl bear sanctuary to a councillor with the Skwxwu7mesh Nation, where it remains under consideration within the rights and title department, Muirhead said. “I haven’t had a formal reply yet.”

Calls to the Skwxwu7mesh First Nation from The Narwhal were not returned by time of publication.

Culturally modified trees will be buffered with a minimum 10-metre reserve and bear dens will be protected, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Forests told The Narwhal.

“Any tree that meets the definition of a legacy tree will not be harvested,” she said.

Legacy trees include those that are exceptionally large for their species or have been culturally modified.

Muirhead said the McCrory study looked at active, used and potential dens, but BC Timber Sales appears to be looking only at dens that are in use.

“We think at least one forest in the entire province should be set aside for bear den supply. So, no, I’m not confident that they will go to the extent of ensuring the den supply is protected,” he said.

Elphinstone Logging Focus members are also worried the massive trees won’t be given adequate protection.

“They could leave a few of the biggest in clearcuts with no buffer. That’s poor conservation for these ancient trees,” Muirhead said, noting there are problems with the practice of leaving legacy trees uncut within larger cutblocks. 

“Right off the top, leaving single trees standing in an open clearcut is typically a recipe for their quick demise. They’re subject to more windthrow because they’re in an opening, so you get tops breaking off, branches get snapped off and then the whole trunk is more subject to wind conditions.” 

He also expressed concern that BC Timber Sales will be left to make the final determinations about which trees are considered for legacy protections. “And then who is overseeing which trees are being set aside? Is it their own subjective analysis of which are the best legacy trees?”

BC Timber Sales, which was created in 2003 by the Liberal government, manages 20 per cent of the province’s annual allowable cut, making it the biggest tenure holder in B.C.

Two government investigations into BC Timber Sales’ actions in the Nahmint Valley on Vancouver Island found the government agency failed to protect legacy trees from being harvested.  

High-elevation logging a watershed concern

Muirhead is also worried about the safety implications of increased logging in the region. 

The lower slopes around the Dakota Creek watershed were logged in the 1950s and 1960s, and, after a series of landslides, a logging moratorium was put in place in 2000. 

However, BC Timber Sales now claims the steep-walled valley is hydrologically stable, despite a series of flash floods and predictions of increasing extreme rainfall events, Muirhead said.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Forests said BC Timber Sales will continue talking about the proposed logging plans with stakeholders, First Nations and the Sunshine Coast Regional District, which is concerned about the effect of logging on groundwater and stormwater runoff.

Provincial old-growth protections awaited

More than 140,000 hectares of old-growth forests are logged each year in B.C. An independent report released Thursday found that the majority of British Columbia’s productive old-growth forests are gone, and the majority of the old growth remaining is slated to be logged. 

Although the province was slated to table amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act this spring, the timing was set back because of the pandemic.

An independent old-growth strategic review panel submitted its report to the government at the end of April. The province has six months to release the report.

At a time when the pandemic has shocked the world into halting industrial activities, governments must remember they also have to deal with the ongoing climate crisis, said Jens Wieting, Sierra Club BC’s senior forest and climate campaigner, who believes this is the time for a complete rethink of how B.C. deals with its old-growth forests.

“We know some of these trees are older than 1,000 years. This is a legacy. There is a global responsibility to protect trees like this,” Wieting said.

Wieting is not confident new legislation will concentrate on the environment, rather than short-term forestry jobs, and wants the provincial government to stop issuing permits and auctioning logs until there has been an in-depth discussion with communities and First Nations on the future of B.C.’s forests.

“We need time,” he said. “As a society, we need to have a conversation about what kind of future we want for these last intact old-growth forests and biggest trees before it’s too late.”

Lori Pratt, chair of the Sunshine Coast Regional District, is also calling for an expanded  conversation with all involved ministries, rather than only with BC Timber Sales, and a broad look at the cumulative effect of all logging in the area, including logging on private land.

Government ministries tend to operate in silos, with one ministry not knowing what another is doing in the same area, Pratt said. What is needed, she said, is a big-picture look at logging, protection of watersheds and land use plans with local First Nations.

“Whatever you are doing up on the mountain affects everything all the way down to the ocean,” she said. “We see bits and pieces of it, but, when you get some of the torrential rains we get, we need to see how this all fits together.” 

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