30 December 20
I For One Do Not Want to Lose RSN at this Crucial Time!!
I don't like getting solicitations for donations any more than anybody else does. Except that for RSN, this seems to be a very "necessary evil" for funding and continuing quality reading. — BUT, RSN is one thing I am TOTALLY WILLING to contribute to! ...BTW, I'm retired, on a fixed income — and not all that much $$ income at that!
So howzabout all you "readers" (but non-donors) becoming REAL SUPPORTERS - send RSN some $$$, PLEASE!! (I for one do NOT want to lose RSN at this crucial time!!) Thanx RSN!
If you would prefer to send a check:
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29 December 20
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Robert Reich | Americans' Acceptance of Trump's Behavior Will Be His Vilest Legacy
Robert Reich, Guardian UK
Reich writes: "Most of the 74,222,957 Americans who voted to re-elect Donald Trump - 46.8%of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election - don't hold Trump accountable for what he's done to America."
Their acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legacy.
Nearly forty years ago, political scientist James Q Wilson and criminologist George Kelling observed that a broken window left unattended in a community signals that no one cares if windows are broken there. The broken window is thereby an invitation to throw more stones and break more windows.
The message: do whatever you want here because others have done it and got away with it.
The broken window theory has led to picayune and arbitrary law enforcement in poor communities. But America’s most privileged and powerful have been breaking big windows with impunity.
In 2008, Wall Street nearly destroyed the economy. The Street got bailed out while millions of Americans lost their jobs, savings, and homes. Yet no major Wall Street executive ever went to jail.
In more recent years, top executives of Purdue Pharmaceuticals, along with the members of the Sackler family that own it, knew the dangers of OxyContin but did nothing. Executives at Wells Fargo Bank pushed bank employees to defraud customers. Executives at Boeing hid the results of tests showing its 737 Max Jetliner was unsafe. Police chiefs across America looked the other way as police under their command repeatedly killed innocent Black Americans.
Here, too, they’ve got away with it. These windows remain broken.
Trump has brought impunity to the highest office in the land, wielding a wrecking ball to the most precious windowpane of all – American democracy.
The message? A president can obstruct special counsels’ investigations of his wrongdoing, push foreign officials to dig up dirt on political rivals, fire inspectors general who find corruption, order the entire executive branch to refuse congressional subpoenas, flood the Internet with fake information about his opponents, refuse to release his tax returns, accuse the press of being “fake media” and “enemies of the people”, and make money off his presidency.
And he can get away with it. Almost half of the electorate will even vote for his re-election.
A president can also lie about the results of an election without a shred of evidence – and yet, according to polls, be believed by the vast majority of those who voted for him.
Trump’s recent pardons have broken double-pane windows.
Not only has he shattered the norm for presidential pardons – usually granted because of a petitioner’s good conduct after conviction and service of sentence – but he’s pardoned people who themselves shattered windows. By pardoning them, he has rendered them unaccountable for their acts.
They include aides convicted of lying to the FBI and threatening potential witnesses in order to protect him; his son-in-law’s father, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion, witness tampering, illegal campaign contributions, and lying to the Federal Election Commission; Blackwater security guards convicted of murdering Iraqi civilians, including women and children; border patrol agents convicted of assaulting or shooting unarmed suspects; and Republican lawmakers and their aides found guilty of fraud, obstruction of justice and campaign finance violations.
It’s not simply the size of the broken window that undermines standards, according to Wilson and Kelling. It’s the willingness of society to look the other way. If no one is held accountable, norms collapse.
Trump may face a barrage of lawsuits when he leaves office, possibly including criminal charges. But it’s unlikely he’ll go to jail. Presidential immunity or a self-pardon will protect him. Prosecutorial discretion would almost certainly argue against indictment, in any event. No former president has ever been convicted of a crime. The mere possibility of a criminal trial for Trump would ignite a partisan brawl across the nation.
Congress may try to limit the power of future presidents – strengthening congressional oversight, fortifying the independence of inspectors general, demanding more financial disclosure, increasing penalties on presidential aides who break laws, restricting the pardon process, and so on.
But Congress – a co-equal branch of government under the constitution – cannot rein in rogue presidents. And the courts don’t want to weigh in on political questions.
The appalling reality is that Trump may get away with it. And in getting away with it he will have changed and degraded the norms governing American presidents. The giant windows he’s broken are invitations to a future president to break even more.
Nothing will correct this unless or until an overwhelming majority of Americans recognize and condemn what has occurred.
Economist Joseph Stiglitz. (photo: Murdo MacLeod/Guardian UK)
Joseph Stiglitz on the Pandemic Economy and Why He Backs Sanders' Filibuster for $2000 Stimulus Checks
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "The House of Representatives has voted to approve a measure that would increase stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000, sending the bill to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain."
The House also voted to override Trump’s veto up the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act.
In the Senate, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to ask for unanimous consent today to override Trump’s veto of the NDAA, but independent Senator Bernie Sanders has said he’ll filibuster to delay the crucial vote unless the Senate also holds a vote on the $2,000 checks. Sanders tweeted, quote, “If McConnell doesn’t agree to an up or down vote to provide the working people of our country a $2,000 direct payment, Congress will not be going home for New Year’s Eve. Let’s do our job,” Sanders said.
Keeping the Senate in session would conflict with the campaigns of Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the January 5th runoff races that will determine the control of the Senate, in Georgia. Their opponents, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are both campaigning in support of the $2,000 checks.
This all comes after President Trump’s delayed signing of the massive COVID-19 relief bill Sunday caused a lapse in unemployment benefits for millions, because that lapsed on Saturday night. He was golfing through the weekend in Florida.
For more on the economic crisis both here in the United States and worldwide, we’re joined by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University professor and chief economist for the Roosevelt Institute. He served as chair of the [Council of] Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton and chief economist at the World Bank. His latest book, People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent.
Professor Stiglitz, welcome back to Democracy Now!
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Nice to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of these checks and what Bernie Sanders is doing today, saying he’s going to filibuster. He will not let McConnell allow this vote not to take place in the Senate, up or down, on the $2,000 check.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, one of the things that he’s pointing out very forcefully is the long history of McConnell not allowing the Senate to take votes on issues, bill after bill, that the House has passed. You know, we think of ourselves as a democracy, but this one person has blocked the ability of the Senate to go on record of saying whether they’re for or against a whole variety of measures that large numbers of Americans think are important.
And this one is very important. This one is whether those at the bottom of our income distribution will have enough money to tide them over to meet their bills. You know, millions and millions of Americans lost their jobs, haven’t been able to pay their rent. There was a stay on eviction, but those bills kept coming in. And now they owe nine months of rent. And without this kind of help, they won’t be able to pay what is due.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, we had Congressman Ro Khanna on yesterday, who was talking about why was it — you know, President Trump saying he wouldn’t sign the COVID relief package unless people got $2,000 instead of the $600. In the end, he gave all that up. But, in fact, Ro Khanna had long tweeted: Why are we not demanding that people get $2,000? So, talk about Trump and him using this, though in the end he didn’t insist on it. And then go into that time period, President Trump signing after Saturday night, which meant this lapse in unemployment benefits that people may then get late, and when you’re on the edge, that could mean no food for your family for a period of time, or you get the money later.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: It was cruel, and it was foolish. While he was playing golf, as you said, about 12 million Americans were about to lose their unemployment insurance. Because he couldn’t make a decision — you know, really amazing, president of the United States couldn’t make a decision — those 12 million people will go for a whole week without any source of income, without their unemployment check — and then, all for naught, because then he signed it. You know, he could have made the decision a day earlier, and that would have avoided an enormous amount of suffering.
AMY GOODMAN: These bills are the largest in U.S. history, these budgets that have been passed, are being fought over. Can you talk about what this will mean and how COVID — and we should step back. It’s not just the virus, because the virus has affected the world. But the U.S. has by far the hugest mortality and morbidity figures, almost 20% of the deaths and the infections in the world, even though we have less than 5% of the world’s population — this on the shoulders of President Trump and how he’s allowed it to rip through this population like no other country. Talk about what this means for what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will inherit and what they need to do, Professor Stiglitz.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, you’re absolutely right that COVID-19 has affected America much worse — in some ways, not a surprise among the advanced countries, because we are the only country among the advanced countries that doesn’t recognize access to healthcare as a basic human right, and the result of that is we have poorer health condition and more health disparities. This is not an equal opportunity virus. It goes after people with poor health conditions. The president, though, mismanaged this, even given that, terribly. And that’s the reason why we’ve been so badly affected.
It is the disease that has the enormous adverse effect on the economy. People don’t want to travel. They don’t want to eat out in restaurants. The remarkable thing is that the United States economically has done a little bit better than Europe, for instance. And one of the reasons for that was precisely the massive assistance that we provided in the spring with the — it was called the CARES Act — almost $3 trillion. And this had an enormously beneficial effect on the U.S. economy.
But it was predicated on the assumption that the economic downturn — the virus, the virus, would last for six weeks, maybe longer that, and then we would bounce back. Well, I always thought that was a fantasy. Anybody that knew about epidemiology knew that that was not likely to happen. But the various provisions ended mid, late June, and Congress, the Republicans, refused to do anything. The House passed what was called the HEROES Act to try to keep money flowing into the economy, but the Senate — talking again about the power of Mitch McConnell — just wouldn’t bring it up.
And so, we are now six months later, the end of the year. The disease didn’t just disappear, and looks like we’re going to face this for months to come, and it is very apparent that we need another large amount of money. And that’s where the additional money, that $2,000, would be of enormous benefit.
AMY GOODMAN: So, also included in the bill, these tax breaks to the wealthy, including increased military spending for about $5 billion. Americans for Tax Fairness put out a report saying the collective wealth of billionaires in the U.S. has jumped by close to a trillion dollars, $931 billion, since mid-March. The report found 22 million U.S. adults reported not having enough food to eat. More than half of those adults had children in their households. Nearly 62 million U.S. residents lost work between March and September. And yet this massive windfall for the country’s wealthiest billionaires.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, that’s a reflection of what is becoming called the K-shaped recovery. When we kept interest rates so low, when those who have access to Zoom and technology can largely avoid the worst effects of the disease, you’re going to get that kind of K-shaped recovery. The low interest rates benefit those who own shares, and those have done fantastically well. And that’s why, in that context of this very unequal incidence of the disease and the incidence of the economic impact, that $2,000, that goes to those at the bottom, is really important, because it — you know, it doesn’t really remedy the K-shaped recovery, but it ameliorates some of the worst consequences.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Stiglitz, you have urged rich countries to provide assistance to developing economies to deal with the aftermath of this pandemic, that has been especially devastating in parts of the Global South. In a recent blog post for the International Monetary Fund headlined “Conquering the Great Divide,” you called specifically for the issuance of $500 billion in special drawing rights, writing, quote, “The provision of SDRs would be of enormous assistance to developing economies and emerging markets — with no or little cost to the taxpayers of developed economies.” Can you explain how this would work and what your concerns are about the impact of this crisis in poor countries?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it’s very simple. You know, the Fed has the power to print money, to create money. That has helped a lot of businesses in the United States. The IMF is sort of like the central bank of the central banks, and it can create a kind of global money, which are called special drawing rights. It was part of the idea that Keynes had when the IMF was created. And we used it in the 2008-2009 crisis. There was a big issuance of these SDRs.
The head of the IMF has called for a $500 billion issuance. You know, the United States, we were talking about, a minute earlier, how we’ve had this massive assistance, over $3 trillion of fiscal and another $3 [trillion] to $3.5 trillion of monetary support. Well, the poor countries just don’t have those kinds of resources. The amount of money that they’ve been able to muster to fight the disease and to fight the economic aftermath has been minuscule. And this $500 billion, given in proportion to what they call the quotas, would be an enormous help to these developing countries and emerging markets.
One person, one person alone, stands between the issuance of these, and that is the secretary of treasury under President Trump, Mnuchin. And he has not given any good reason for not doing it. I hope it’s one of the first things that Biden’s secretary of treasury will do once they take office.
AMY GOODMAN: This pandemic will force many countries into a debt crisis. What is being done to alleviate this?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Almost nothing. You know, I was worried before the pandemic that too many developing countries were getting overly indebted. You know, Wall Street loves to make loans. They make a lot of money out of loans to developing countries and emerging markets. Interest rates are higher. So they push governments to borrow, and — you know, just like they push a lot of poor Americans to borrow too much. So I was worried that there was actually too much debt on the part of too many countries.
Well, once the pandemic happened, their incomes plummeted. And so, many countries are at the brink. And there has to be some response. Now, initially, the G20, which is a group of countries that represented the vast majority of GDP income in the world, got together and said, “We will have a stay on payments, on debt payments, but only for the poorest countries, not the emerging markets, only for the official debt — that is, government-to-government debt — not for private debt, not for multilateral debt.”
And now that the disease has continued for 10 months and is likely to continue, especially in those countries, for much, much more, because they can’t afford the vaccine, won’t get it — they’re at the back of the line — the problem is, what was a temporary problem of inability to pay now is a real problem. There is a need for a debt restructuring. And unfortunately, we don’t have a good framework for that debt restructuring.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, if you can talk about the team that Biden is pulling together and those he hasn’t named yet? You know, the man who says he will filibuster today, Senator Sanders, has been pushing hard to be named labor secretary. We don’t know if that will happen. I’m wondering your thoughts on this. Also, you know Janet Yellen, the new treasury secretary nominee, very well.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yeah, she was my student the first year I taught at Yale back in 1967. She was a first-rate student. I knew she was going to make a real contribution, both academically and then, as she has, to policy.
I actually think we need Bernie Sanders in the Senate. He’s been — the role he’s playing right now in forcing, hopefully, the Senate to take up the issue of $2,000 help is an example —
AMY GOODMAN: Would you endorse this filibuster today?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yes, I think I would. You know, the point is that there will — eventually, the Senate will have to deal with it. And I think the refusal of McConnell to have democratic processes work — let people go on the record of what their view on this $2,000 — seems to me part of the democratic process. There shouldn’t be that much power in the majority leader in the Senate.
AMY GOODMAN: Joe Stiglitz, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Nobel Prize-winning economist, Columbia University professor, chief economist for the Roosevelt Institute.
Symphony 87th Street skilled nursing facility resident Victor Murray receives the Moderna COVID vaccine from CVS pharmacist Kevin Chau on Dec. 28, 2020. (photo: E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
Covid-19 'Not Necessarily the Big One,' WHO Warns
Joseph Guzman, The Hill
Guzman writes: "The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning that the coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 81 million people around the world may not be 'the big one,' and the world will need to prepare for a potentially more severe pandemic."
“This is a wakeup call,” WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan said during the health agency’s final news conference of the year Monday.
“This pandemic has been very severe. It’s been spread around the world extremely quickly, it’s affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one,” Ryan said.
Ryan said that while the coronavirus is very transmissible and has deprived “so many people of loved ones,” its case fatality rate is lower compared to other emerging diseases.
“From our perspective, the planet is fragile. We live in an increasingly complex global society. These threats will continue. If there’s one thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, is that we need to get our act together,” he said.
As COVID-19 vaccines are rolling out around the world, WHO officials also said the likely scenario is the coronavirus will become another endemic that will be a low-level threat to humans for years to come. Ryan said the existence of a vaccine is no guarantee of eradicating the disease, saying “that is a very high bar for us to be able to get over.”
“Fortunately, we have tools to save lives, and these in combination with good public health will permit us to learn to live with COVID-19,” David Heymann, the chair of WHO’s strategic and technical advisory group for infectious hazards, said during the briefing Monday.
It’s been nearly a year since the first reports of the coronavirus began circulating after the virus emerged in China.
The U.S. has been hit hardest by the virus, with more than 19 million people infected and about 335,000 deaths over the course of the pandemic.
President-elect Joe Biden speaks at The Queen Theater on Dec. 28, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. (photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
Biden Accuses Trump Political Appointees of Obstructing Transition Process
Shannon Pettypiece, NBC News
Pettypiece writes: "President-elect Joe Biden accused the Trump administration of continuing to obstruct the transition process, warning that a fumbled handoff could leave an opening for America's adversaries to exploit."
Biden called out the political leadership at the Department of Defense for preventing his team from getting an adequate picture of the military’s operations and posture around the world.
Biden called out the political leadership at the Department of Defense for preventing his team from getting an adequate picture of the military’s operations and posture around the world. He also said his team wasn’t getting enough insight into the government’s budget planning currently underway that he will inherit.
“We’ve encountered roadblocks with the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said during a speech on Monday in Wilmington, Delaware. “Right now we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It is nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.”
Transition team officials have been raising concerns about the Department of Defense for weeks, though Monday's remarks were Biden's most forceful on the issue. Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist who was recently appointed as Pentagon chief of staff, has been controlling the Biden transition's team access to Pentagon officials, NBC News reported earlier this month. A Biden transition official told reporters on Dec. 18 that the Defense Department had abruptly halted meetings.
Following Biden's remarks, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller in a statement denied the department was stonewalling the Biden team.
"Our DOD political and career officials have been working with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities in a compressed time schedule and they will continue to do so in a transparent and collegial manner that upholds the finest traditions of the Department," Miller said. "The American people expect nothing less and that is what I remain committed to.”
Miller has previously disputed that the department had stopped cooperating saying that it was taking a "pause" from meetings for two weeks around the Christmas and New Year's holiday.
After meeting Monday with a group of national security and foreign policy advisers, Biden painted a dire picture of the apparatus he expects to inherit — describing hollowed out agencies and countries that have lost their trust in U.S. foreign policy. He emphasized the need to rebuild alliances with other countries.
“Many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage,” Biden said. “Many have been hollowed out in personnel capacity, and in morale.”
Biden also touched on his plans to unwind Trump’s immigration policies, though he stressed that it would take time. Immigration advocates have said they are concerned about the lack of attention immigration issues have been getting by Biden, who hasn’t listed it as one of his top priorities.
“We are going to work purposely, diligently and responsibly to roll back Trump’s restrictions starting on day one,” Biden said. “But it is not as simple as throwing a switch to turn everything back on especially in a pandemic.”
U.S. Army soldiers during a military exercise in Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland, on August 11, 2020. (photo: Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
How Military Superiority Made America Less Safe
Alex Ward, Vox
Ward writes: "There's a myth Americans tell themselves: After World War II, the United States had no choice but to be the world's superpower and preeminent military force. No other countries were strong enough after years of fighting, and it was solely up to the US, by virtue of its position, to rebuild and reorder the world."
America’s dominance wasn’t by happenstance. It was a choice.
The reason that’s not true, says Stephen Wertheim, author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy, is because the US made a conscious decision to seek military dominance before World War II ended. Such a strategy, forged in the heat of battle, would help the US thwart totalitarian regimes — namely the Soviet Union in later years — while pursuing its own interests.
Wertheim argues the plan made some sense in the moment. After all, Nazi Germany was winning in Europe, and the US didn’t want to live in a world full of brutal dictatorships. But the problem is the US hasn’t shifted its strategy since — and it’s backfired greatly.
Instead of focusing on issues like climate change and pandemic disease, for example, the US has prioritized building and deploying a robust force that has made a plethora of unnecessary enemies. And despite some horrific outcomes like the Iraq War, the US refuses to rethink its game plan, even after the Cold War ended and as domestic appetite for adventurism dwindles.
“Far from contributing to American security, the plan of global military superiority has made America — and Americans — less safe,” Wertheim, who is the deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, DC, told me.
To better understand why Wertheim believes the US should focus less on military superiority, not more, I called him and asked him to expand on his argument in an interview. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.
Alex Ward
Your book makes the case that American leadership wasn’t preordained. It was a choice. Explain what that choice actually was.
Stephen Wertheim
I had a really basic question in mind: When was the choice made to install the United States as the dominant military power across the globe?
It is a consensus, an axiomatic view, that the United States, for its national security interests, needs to be the No. 1 military power in the world, and must have troops in bases in foreign countries to secure its own and global interests. That’s meant to nip any potential aggressors in the bud rather than wait for an attack, or to stop others from gaining dominance in their own regions.
It’s widely believed that this idea came about after World War II when the US was the only real global power left standing. But that’s not true. This idea of “primacy” was forged in the wake of the fall of France to Nazi Germany in 1940.
Alex Ward
Wait — US officials decided the country should strive to be the world’s dominant force before World War II ended?
Stephen Wertheim
That’s right.
By October 1940, just months after imagining that the United States might be confined to an area no larger than a “quarter-sphere” partway down Brazil, postwar planners arrived at a startling conclusion: The United States had to hold “unquestioned power” globally, protecting by force as much of the non-German world as possible.
In his instantly famous essay announcing the arrival of the “American Century” in February 1941 — 10 months before Pearl Harbor — the publishing mogul Henry Luce wrote: “The big, important point to be made here is simply that the complete opportunity of leadership is ours.”
Luce urged his fellow Americans to “accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world and in consequence to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.”
“As we see fit.” The America Firsters were not the only ones who put America first.
Alex Ward
Okay, I wanted to make sure I had that clear since that’s not usually the story Americans tell themselves.
Provocatively, your book is basically a lament of the idea that the US is the world’s foremost power, underwritten by its strong military. In your view, why shouldn’t the US be the world’s preeminent force? After all, it’s helped us get to this place of unprecedented strength.
Stephen Wertheim
Far from contributing to American security, the plan of global military superiority has made America — and Americans — less safe.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the architects of US military dominance. I think they faced difficult circumstances. How could I not sympathize with wanting to rid the Axis powers from the Earth and make sure nothing like that happened again? I have complete sympathy with that goal.
But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reason that brought forth US global supremacy has ceased to exist. There was an original argument for the United States shouldering the immense burdens of global military dominance: Without it, totalitarian powers would conquer much of the Earth. That would be terrible for the world, the thinking went, and it could be bad for the United States.
The problem, though, is the pursuit of military dominance since then has created a lot of enemies of the US that didn’t need to be enemies of the US. We’ve engaged in bad behavior ourselves and stimulated it in others.
I worry that — in a world where the foremost threats to the American people are pandemic disease and climate change — America will continue to define its biggest threats in military terms, even if they aren’t.
Alex Ward
Part of what undergirds that sentiment these days, though, was the notion that the US had arrived at a “unipolar moment” — the US was the unquestioned power and global leader with no clear rival. Implicit in what you’re saying is that that moment is truly and forever gone.
Stephen Wertheim
We’re never going to get the unipolar moment back. It was rightly called a moment at the time in the 1990s. But since then, the United States caused a lot of destruction and grief for itself and for others. I really worry about where this goes as the world gets more challenging.
Alex Ward
Some will read this interview or your book and conclude that what you’re really angry about is high defense budgets. But if I understand your argument correctly, you’re saying that the strategy envisioned before World War II ended may have had some logic then, but it has none now, especially since it’s had the unintended effect of weakening US national security.
Stephen Wertheim
Precisely. Look, I am going to make the hardest possible case for my position: World War II. If there was ever a good argument to be made for the best use of American military power, my God, it’s exactly what my book is about. I’m actually trying to focus us on what I think is the best argument in favor of American military hegemony.
And what I find in that history is that the roots of our current problems are bound up with the best thing we’ve ever done as a nation. I think that’s why we have this problem. I’m trying to understand why military dominance looked attractive to begin with.
But I think if those postwar planners — had they been around today or even in the 1990s — they would say, “Wait a minute.” They would’ve realized how fraught it is to take on a world-ordering role by force, akin to what we understood the British Empire had done in the previous century. After all, they worried to themselves that what they were planning contained a measure of imperialism in it. But at the time, they felt it was better than the alternative, and understandably so.
Alex Ward
You make a case that the focus on military superiority led the US to care less about other elements of power, namely economic well-being. That’s not to say America didn’t care about having lots of money and a strong economy — it did — but your point is that America’s actions have caused widespread harm at home and abroad.
Stephen Wertheim
Since 1991, I think almost everybody has lost out, aside from the major defense firms and some ruling elites. America’s strategy has been incredibly destructive for people throughout the greater Middle East, and of course, the Iraq War resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
And I don’t think the American people have won out, either. I think that we have gotten less safe and more fearful as a society as a result of constantly being told by leaders of both parties that the whole world is out to kill us and that that’s why we’ve got to go to war to kill them first.
Look, the argument that US military power contributed to world order was very real. The Bretton Woods system played an important role in stabilizing global capitalism. But since the 1970s, and especially the 1990s, I think it’s hard to argue that US military dominance somehow underpins everything else.
It’s very difficult to see how applying sanctions on dozens of countries and waging continual warfare in the greater Middle East somehow serves the general interest of capitalism. Maybe it serves the interests of particular firms, but not the system of capitalism.
Alex Ward
The US has clearly made some horrible, deadly mistakes. No one is denying that. How can you say confidently, though, that the world wouldn’t be worse if the US didn’t play such an active role?
Stephen Wertheim
It’s now been three decades since the Soviet Union collapsed. Why haven’t we been able to do everything we want to effectively? It turns out that the enemies are skeptical of working with us to address shared challenges.
Now, it’s true sometimes that the use of hard power can back up diplomacy and make other endeavors more effective. But we have so overshot the mark that it’s more often the case that military dominance gets in the way of the kinds of constructive engagements in the world that I think many people in Washington want to see.
What I’m opposed to, first and foremost, is military dominance as an end in itself. That’s what I think it has become in our own time, and I don’t think it began that way. That doesn’t prohibit the US from being a robust power: It’s going to be a great power and it’s going to have a strong military. We should absolutely be able to defend ourselves. I’m not even closing the door on things like humanitarian intervention, either.
What we have to ask, though, is if the US has used all this power wisely and judiciously. It’s clear that we haven’t, and it’s making all of us in America and around the world less safe. Just think of this: Roughly 80 percent of all US military interventions have occurred after 1991. Can we really say the millions at home and abroad have had their lives improved by that? I don’t think so.
Alex Ward
So if there’s a President Wertheim in the future, how do you change America’s approach to the world?
Stephen Wertheim
I certainly agree with those who would say you don’t undo things in a hurry. You have to act responsibly, but boldly. We do have to break the perpetual war logic of the war on terror. And strangely enough, we’re kind of coming as a society to that view already.
I’d lead a systematic policy of disentangling the US from regions where its interests are either not vital, as in the Middle East, or not really imperiled, like Europe. I absolutely believe in the capacity of Europeans to manage their own affairs. The United States does not need to be the protector of Europe.
Alex Ward
What about China? Would it be wise to wind down America’s military strength while it rises?
Stephen Wertheim
China is a difficult challenge, but I would try to set priorities and act on them. Climate change and pandemic disease are the issues where Chinese behavior is terribly important to the US. They’re threats the American people face where they live and work, and so I would really prioritize those issues and improve the relationship around tackling them. Those issues are not well served by the United States pursuing perpetual military dominance in the Indo-Pacific.
At the same time, I do think we have to be cautious in observing how China continues to rise and how it behaves. It has not had a record of territorial conquest with anything like the record of past US adversaries, like the Axis powers or the Soviet Union. That’s a good thing, though you wouldn’t know it from all the cries about China’s desire to dominate the world emanating from Washington, DC.
A President Wertheim — and please let your readers know I’m rolling my eyes as I say that — would recognize the US has an opportunity to cautiously retrench its position militarily in certain regions as it ramps up cooperation on the issues that really matter. I’d encourage allies and partners in the region to step up to counterbalance China. We still have time to allow that process to happen, and that’d be a good thing since it takes two great powers to make a great-power war.
Alex Ward
Do you really think retrenchment is likely in the near future?
Stephen Wertheim
No. What I am fearful of right now is that it’s almost impossible for many people in the foreign policy community to envision circumstances in which the United States could ever pull back from a region. I worry about the United States putting itself on the front lines of any potential conflict, which could mean a great-power war. We should avoid being in that situation in the first place if we possibly can.
Ofelia Fernandez places emphasis on the need for feminists to assume the struggle against inequality. (photo: Ofelia Fernandez/Facebook)
Argentine Feminists Are About to Win the Fight for Abortion Rights
Nicolas Allen and Ofelia Fernandez, Jacobin
Excerpt: "After years of militant struggle from feminists, Argentina is now poised to legalize abortion rights. With the upper house expected to pass the abortion bill today, nineteen-year-old legislator and activist Ofelia Fernández spoke to Jacobin about the dynamism of Argentina's Green Tide activism and what comes next."
felia Fernández, a rising star of the Left in Argentina, first appeared in the public eye in 2018. That year, the Chamber of Deputies was holding its first — but not its last — congressional hearing to debate a proposed abortion bill. Only seventeen years old, Fernández had already been active in student politics from the age of twelve, and it showed in her speech delivered before the congressional committee: In a week-long session featuring the country’s leading doctors, religious leaders, psychologists, activists, lawyers, and government officials, her speech was head and shoulders above the rest.
Fernández had been swept up in the “Green Tide” — a new wave of feminist activism named after the green kerchief, symbolizing the fight for the right to free, safe, and legal abortions. A year later, that same surge of feminist militancy turned Fernández, still only nineteen years old, into the youngest legislator in Latin America.
For nearly a year in Argentina the abortion debate was at the top of the public agenda: talks were held in schools, on television, in street gatherings, and virtually anywhere where people gathered. A series of related demands began to swirl around the abortion issue — matters of public health, bodily autonomy, freedom, and collective solidarity were drawn into the debate. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers were also drawn into the national discussion, and were politicized through feminist activism.
In 2019, Fernández joined Frente de Todos, an electoral front that backed current president Alberto Fernández in his bid to defeat the neoliberal incumbent, Mauricio Macri. The Frente succeeded, and the prominence of feminist figures like Ofelia among its ranks reflects the growing stature of feminism in national politics in Argentina.
In a matter of days, the Argentine Senate will again vote on a bill that — if passed — would make Argentina one of the few Latin American countries where abortion is legally sanctioned. Fernández feels confident that, this time, the bill will go through.
In conversation with Camila Baron for Jacobin, Fernández discusses the upcoming vote and the future challenges that the feminist movement must tackle once the abortion battle has been won. She places emphasis on the need for feminists to assume the struggle against inequality, and reflects on the challenges of doing legislative work alongside social movements and remaining answerable to her base.
CB: Feminism played a pivotal role in your political development. How do you see the movement today? Two years after the “Green Wave,” do you think it remains strong?
OF: My first introduction to politics actually came before Argentina’s feminist wave. When I first got involved politically in 2013, feminism was not yet at the front of my concerns.
For my generation there were two key political landmarks. The first involved the democratic agenda of presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Among other measures, they passed the student council law [providing students with formal representation in school administrative matters] and gave young people sixteen years or older the right to vote in elections — a measure that drew the youth into the process of political participation and organization. The second landmark was, of course, the feminist wave. I see my own trajectory situated at the intersection of those two tendencies.
I think the feminist movement is as strong as ever. True, it may have been harder to see this past year, given the current circumstances. Especially for a movement whose strength lies largely in in its presence in the streets and in face-to-face gatherings — in the annual Plurinational Gathering of Women, Lesbians, Transvestites and Transgender People, in the workplace, in schools and so on.
But the movement remains strong. The evidence is in the resilience of the movement to keep pushing for the abortion law’s passage — despite all kinds of setbacks (failure to uphold limited cases of legal abortion, for example). When the bill recently passed in the Chamber of Deputies, we were out in numbers.
After the law’s passage in the Senate we’ll need to look toward the next battle and figure out where our focus should be placed. We will always have an important role in terms of calling out injustices — but there needs to be greater clarity among feminists around a program and concrete proposals.
CB: And if you were to win the abortion battle in Argentina, what do you personally feel — or hope — would be the next struggle for the feminist movement?
OF: As soon as abortion is legalized, there needs to be a campaign to guarantee its proper implementation. And that also means the implementation of an Integral Sex Education curriculum — educational institutions are currently still able to opt out of teaching that curriculum.
In my mind, there are three fundamental points. First, we are closing out a year in which levels of inequality have risen starkly, in the context of the pandemic and the economic crisis. So I would say that we need to establish what our main economic struggles will be in the next period. We need to work to create and promote a National System of Care Work that would categorize as “work” the diverse types of existing care labor. During lockdown we have seen that it takes a full day’s work to maintain a household, provide childcare, and so on.
That type of labor extends beyond the household, too. There is a series of vital activities that the state does not recognize as work; these are activities primarily carried out by women in neighborhood organizations, and include maintaining community-run kitchens, food banks, or nursing care. Why is there no law providing economic compensation for community care work?
We need to map out the different types of precarity and with that outline create a ground-level framework of dignity and recognition of economic activity, which means discussing the general distribution of wealth in society.
A second point: we need to implement legal reform from a feminist perspective. Where femicides and gender violence are concerned, it gets tiresome to see the same loop repeated: there are acts of remembrance, homages, denunciations, and so on, but concretely if the responsible institutions are not held accountable it’s hard to see how matters will progress. So we need to see a wave of feminist legal reform that includes something more than mere punishment as the only available tool.
I believe there should be punishment for those who commit femicide, but I’d much prefer that femicide not take place. I’m not saying that it can be solved through purely legal measures either, but by applying things like restorative justice, creating an efficient institutional climate for denouncing these crimes and a responsible preventative agency would go a long way.
A third point is to assume in full seriousness the rights of the transgender population. If you look at the labor market for this group, the numbers are simply scandalous. Ninety percent lack access to the formal job market. And that’s without mentioning the lack of proper housing or shelter, medical care, and so on. They’re a population almost entirely lacking in any kind of basic human rights provisions.
CB: Do you feel there is anything unique about Argentina’s feminist movement?
OF: I’m certainly in contact with feminist movements in other parts of the world, but I don’t have a good enough basis for comparison. One thing that might be distinctive about Argentina’s feminist movement is that it has a very powerful tradition of militancy, which is not to say we’re absolutely unique in that sense, but there is a priority placed on building a solid feminist strategy and developing long-term processes.
It’s not by accident that the symbol of the green kerchief became the feminist symbol for all Latin America. The kerchief representing the struggle for abortion comes from the kerchiefs of the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who represent Argentina’s rich tradition of fighting for human rights.
That symbolism has a clear strategic end: to coordinate a common demand in the absence of any clear coordination from above. Argentine feminism has been pioneering in terms of spurring debates that eventually spread all over. I don’t mean to put feminism in a vanguard role either — although many characterize it as fulfilling that role. But the feminist movement has a capacity for spontaneous growth, of generating broad sympathy.
CB: Feminism is of course a rich and diverse tradition. Is there one current of feminism that you most closely identify with?
OF: If I were forced to choose a category, I would say “popular feminism.” That, at least, is what we call ourselves. Popular feminism is basically defined by its practical orientation, recognizing that while it is complex to be a woman in this world, it is even more so to be a poor woman, a poor migrant woman, a poor trans migrant women, and so on. Some call that perspective “intersectionality,” which as a concept I suppose makes sense, insofar as it implies a type of feminism that can question its own privileges.
In practical terms — which are the terms that most interest popular feminism — it means a type of feminist activity that develops in step with the struggle against different forms oppression from above. It can take the form of self-managed women’s centers or workplaces, or community care work like the popular kitchens I mentioned.
It can take the form of worker cooperatives meant to help recently incarcerated women reenter the workforce, or programs run by political organizations that help women deal with drug and addiction problems, and the ways those types of experience impact women differently from men. The list goes on and on.
CB: What would you say has been the impact of the feminist movement in national politics, specifically institutional politics?
OF: This year we saw a presidential decree establishing a job quota for transgender people in civil service jobs. A program was approved that provides economic assistance to victims of gender violence. There were several important measures passed this year, pointing toward how the state can take part in issues raised by the movement.
The thing is, the inclusion of feminism in the public agenda was very abrupt. One gets the sense that we’ve come a long way in a short time, but I think there’s potential to go much further. What is certain is we wouldn’t see any institutional changes if the movement weren’t so dynamic.
Feminism, as both an institutional tendency and as a movement, has put issues on the agenda that were simply not there before. There were, for example, policies of income distribution before feminism had become a mass movement. But distribution policies specifically framed in feminist terms is a new phenomenon.
The fact that there is a Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity in Argentina is a form of concrete recognition of the feminist agenda and movement. I would prefer that there were feminists in every administration, rather than a specific Ministry. We want to be at the table for a variety of decision-making processes and not be just be left to discuss among ourselves while the biggest decisions are taking place elsewhere. Now that the feminist movement has a place in the halls of power, it’s time to go further.
CB: In 2018, the abortion debate in Congress was criticized for being framed in excessively conservative terms. Has the debate in 2020 shown any changes?
OF: We’re hearing the same barbarous sentiments expressed as in 2018, but it’s worse now because it’s the second time the issue is under discussion and not much has changed.
Two years have passed and underground abortions are still a regular occurrence. The limited cases of legally sanctioned abortions — in cases of rape, for health reasons — are not being upheld as they should, which is a problem because the reactionary sectors of Argentina point to that existing legislation and say that abortion “is already legal.” What that means is that the inability to uphold the most minimal implementation of abortion legislation is blocking the more progressive program.
There are strong reactionary forces mobilizing against any progress, groups who want to restrict the scope of the debate as much as possible. It’s disheartening to see how they can act with such impunity to deny basic rights.
CB: Do you feel concerned about the influence of reactionary politics among younger people?
OF: Yes and no. The current right-wing movement in Argentina is very “reactionary” in the sense that it responds in a very mechanical way to the massive participation of youth in progressive politics.
That is especially true for the small group of young people drawn to right-wing politics. A certain progressive agenda has taken hold so powerfully among a younger generation that a smaller group begins to think that the rebellious thing is to uphold the status quo.
CB: Speaking of generational politics, the environmental movement has become a trademark of a younger generation. How do you think that movement can develop in Argentina, a country characterized by its dependency on the export of agricultural commodities and raw materials?
OF: My first serious interaction with the environmental movement has been with a group called Jóvenes por el Clima (Youth for the Environment) — an environmental organization with a real popular base, not at all liberal.
Then, in Argentina, there are the organizations that are mobilized around environmental causes in a very practical sense: the Unión de Trabajadores de la Tierra (Union of the Workers of the Land) and the Movimiento de Trabajadores Excluidos (Movement of Excluded Workers), two groups that connect environmental issues to broader discussions of structural transformation.
What seems most important to me is to connect the struggle for social and environmental justice — to understand that environmental injustices reinforce existing inequalities. Without connecting those two sides, you can easily promote an environmental policy that maintains the privileges of the few while ignoring the poor quality in which the majority of the population lives.
CB: In your work as a legislator, how have you built up alliances with social movements?
OF: I believe in situated knowledge. There are certain areas where I’m more knowledgeable and capable of thinking of policy from my own experience and that of people like me — questions related to feminism, education. There are other issues where I’m less knowledgeable.
I don’t mean to say that my agenda is just limited to what I know. What I mean is, on housing issues, social policy, and other matters, I prefer to bring in people that are politically active in those areas and put them at the center of my legislative work. I may feel that I have a grasp on the housing issue, for example, and even lend an ear to groups working in that area, but I’m more interested in forms of representation in the first person; when the most sensitive issues are given legislative treatment, I want the groups affected to have their own voice. The key is to bring in people who are responsible to their comrades and their base, and who are responsive to their demands of commitment and efficiency in carrying out proposals.
CB: What has your experience been as the youngest legislator in Latin America? And as a woman? What has it been like to work with the more conservative elements of the alliance of which you form part?
OF: It’s been difficult in terms of what happens internally, more so than what goes on externally with my public figure. I don’t want to be viewed as a victim, as someone subject to constant public attacks from people with a conservative agenda. I don’t need to be treated with kid gloves. There’s so much hostility and violence shown toward me that, internally, some comrades assume a paternal attitude toward me. That’s actually quite stressful to deal with, too.
I also have comrades who take my position seriously and with whom I can debate in an open manner.
CB: Is there one political figure you especially admire?
OF: There are several, and for different reasons. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the current vice president is someone I admire. Juan Grabois, of the Excluded Workers Movement, is the leader of my organization within Frente de Todos. Grabois, who is a close friend of Pope Francisco, is someone with whom I have lots of differences and we go head-to-head sometimes. But Grabois spearheads important policy and is one of the transparent figures today in public debate. I have been following Nora Cortiñas, one of the founders of the Mother of the Plaza de Mayo, since I was twelve years old.
Greta Thunberg is someone with whom I identify, for raising the flag of generational rebellion and a powerful level of commitment to the environmental cause.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is for me an emblem of sorts. She is someone who approaches political representation in the sense that I was speaking about earlier: who contests the established way of doing representative politics. AOC is someone I feel a great sympathy for.
CB: The years 2019 and 2020 were marked by intense levels of political demonstration. In Latin America, Chile was certainly the standout case, but there were powerful anti-racist demonstrations in the United States and around the world. What do these movements mean to you in terms of the future of left-wing politics?
OF: I think they are a powerful expression of the types of political contestation that will exist in years to come. If we think of the crisis as an opportunity for change, I think we can speak of two very real, and opposed, possibilities.
On the one hand, there is the possibility that society will simply accept that the powers-that-be are the most capable of solving our problems, that the concentration of wealth is part of society and that the only thing to do is accept a certain culture of meritocracy and privilege.
The other possibility is that the crisis might force us to question how people can live such degraded standards of living, with such a low standard for dignity. In Argentina we find clear expressions of this: completely privatized neighborhoods with their own lakes and land, and beside them, neighborhoods lacking potable water.
I think the recent wave of protests has raised the stakes on the political imagination: its not simply an abstract dream that we might be able to restructure society and our lives. There is a collective capacity to effect concrete transformations of reality.
CB: In Argentina, what was one important measure passed during the pandemic? What was a measure that should have been passed but wasn’t?
OF: There were many laws passed this year. I would say the most important in terms of setting the tone for future debates was the Tax on Large Fortunes, passed last November. It left a lot to be desired but it passed and will set the stage for further struggles.
CB: What was the last book that you really enjoyed reading?
OF: Una lectura feminista de la deuda, by Lucía Cavallero and Verónica Gago. It’s a short book but it provides a lot of interesting clues on how to think in concrete terms about complex issues around debt, from a feminist perspective.
Joe Biden. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)
What Could Biden's 'Climate Cabinet' Realistically Accomplish?
Zoya Teirstein, Grist
Teirstein writes: "Last week, President-elect Joe Biden announced his 'climate nominees,' the people who will lead executive offices and departments related to energy, environment, public lands, and climate change."
If confirmed by the Senate, Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico will lead the Department of the Interior; former governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm will lead the Department of Energy; Michael Regan, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, will lead the Environmental Protection Agency; and Brenda Mallory, director of regulatory policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center, will head up the Council on Environmental Quality. Gina McCarthy, former head of the EPA under President Obama, will lead the newly formed White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy with Ali Zaidi, a longtime climate adviser to Biden, as her deputy. (Neither of those appointments need senate confirmation.) In November, Biden appointed former secretary of state John Kerry as his special presidential envoy for climate.
“We need to seize the opportunity to build back and build back better than we were before,” Biden said at an event on Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware, introducing his climate team. “That’s what this administration is going to do with the help of these fine people.”
But that’s a tall order. Biden’s Cabinet will inherit agencies in disarray — the Trump administration rolled back environmental protections, suppressed climate science, and pushed career public servants out in droves. Biden wants to hit the ground running on January 20 with a $2 trillion climate plan that seeks to revitalize the economy, significantly ratchet down emissions, and correct environmental injustices across the nation. His “Climate Cabinet” will be tasked with making much of that happen, especially if Republicans retain control of the Senate and Biden is forced to lean on the powers of the executive branch.
“The policy-making processes that are Cabinet-led are critical to what the president’s ultimately going to try to achieve,” John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and advisor to Obama, told Grist. “There’s going to have to be real creativity, real attention to using all the authorities that these agencies have, that the White House has, to get the country on the path that President-elect Biden has promised.”
There’s reason to believe that Biden’s Cabinet will be able to get to work on Biden’s climate agenda, even if Republicans try to hamstring climate progress in the 117th Congress. Carol Browner, EPA administrator under Clinton and director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy under Obama, says agencies can start regulating greenhouse gas emissions immediately and without Congress’ cooperation. “Whether it’s the work that Transportation and EPA can do on cars and trucks, whether it’s the work the Department of Energy can do on energy efficiency, they all have existing legal authority,” Browner told Grist. “There’s a lot they can do without ever talking to Congress.”
During her time in the Obama administration, Browner worked with the Department of Transportation and the EPA to create the framework to regulate cars and trucks on greenhouse gas emissions. She worked with the Department of Energy to regulate industrial appliances to make them energy efficient. “Those things are significant,” she said. “If done properly and aggressively, they will give you measurable and sustainable reductions.”
Podesta gave a different example of a Cabinet secretary who made a big impact on the environment: Bruce Babbitt. Babbitt, who served as Clinton’s secretary of the interior, moved the needle on conservation in the Clinton administration by encouraging Clinton to use the Antiquities Act to significantly expand the national monument system across the U.S. By the end of his time in office, Clinton had added nearly 6 million acres of protected land to the national monument system. “That doesn’t happen by chance,” Podesta said. “Babbitt was a particular champion.” Haaland, a major proponent of conservation and, if confirmed, the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary, could lobby Biden in a similar way to expand protections to not only land, but tribes and their respective cultural and natural heritages, too.
And while it’s true that Biden’s Cabinet has a mountain of work ahead of it, to borrow a phrase the president-elect wore thin on the campaign trail, his nominees can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. “They have their work cut out, but it’s not an impossible battle by any means,” Browner said. “You can have a group of people working on fixing all of the bad stuff Trump left behind and you can have another group moving forward… There’s no reason you can’t call the car companies in on day one and say, ‘Let’s talk about how many electric vehicles you’re gonna make by what year.’”
There’s another reason why Biden’s administration will be well suited to pushing through climate policy: Biden hasn’t just appointed climate hawks to head the departments that traditionally deal with the environment, like Interior and EPA; he’s also appointed people with solid climate records to head other departments across the federal government. He tapped Janet Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve under Obama, to head his Treasury Department. Yellen has a record of talking about the risk climate change poses to global financial stability. He intends to put former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and rival presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in charge of his Department of Transportation. During the Democratic primaries, Buttigieg released a $1 trillion plan centered around updating and equalizing the country’s infrastructure. Biden will nominate Xavier Becerra, the California attorney general who has sued the Trump administration over its environmental rollbacks more than 50 times, to lead his Department of Health and Human Services.
“You want people across the government to embrace the program that Biden has laid out,” Podesta said. “It’s really a whole-of-government thing.”
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