At the beginning of 2024, Amazon reported $10.6 billion in profits during the fourth quarter of the previous year, an unexpected level of success which Andrew Jassy, the company’s CEO, attributed to the company’s 14% growth from last year in holiday season sales. Holiday shopping has long been crucial to Amazon’s business model, so much so that Amazon announced in October its intention to hire 250,000 more workers nationwide for the holiday season. But at JFK-8—the Staten Island fulfillment center where workers became the first employees in Amazon’s history to win union recognition in 2022, and have yet to reach a contract agreement with the company—workers have only seen their workloads increase, and are struggling amid greater productivity demands from management.

“During this time of the year, health and safety goes out the window,” says Tristan Martinez, a six-year Amazon employee and organizer for the Amazon Labor Union (ALU). “It’s all about pushing the numbers so they [management] can get their bonuses.”

During “peak” season, the time between Amazon Prime Day (a two day Prime Member exclusive event, during which Amazon promises “epic deals on top brands”) in October and the holidays, Amazon forces its associates across the country to work overtime. This increased demand for labor starts around Prime Day and ramps up as the holiday season approaches. Workers I spoke to at JFK-8 reported shifts up to 12 hours long, with one 30-minute and two 15-minute breaks, five days a week.

Amazon warehouse workers were nearly twice as likely to be injured as workers at other warehouses in the industry.

For most of their shifts, Amazon warehouse workers are on their feet, picking items from inventory and preparing them to get picked out, packing them, and loading them on Amazon’s blue trucks. Several workers I spoke to make long commutes from neighborhoods such as Canarsie, Harlem, and Crown Heights, which usually take upwards of two hours. If they’re lucky with the timing of bus and subway transfers, they would get home at around 9 p.m. that night, only to embark on their commute eight short hours later for the start of another 12-hour shift at 7 a.m.

“We’re not machines. Everyone has their own circumstances,” Jasmine Youma, who has worked as a picker and packer at Amazon for over a year, told me as she rushed into a crowded bus.

She wasn’t the only Amazon worker I spoke to who felt the need to remind me she was human. “They think we’re robots,” said Shayna, a packer of five years who asked that her last name not be used. “If you’re not hitting the numbers, they’ll come out and talk to you.”

Workers across the board feel dehumanized. “Productivity manager to associate relationships are very robotic,” says Jaquan Taylor, who has worked at Amazon for six years. “In order to work as a manager here, you have to lose all sense of humanity.” According to some Amazon associates, the increased productivity demands result in less workplace safety. “They talk about safety, but when it’s time to apply safety, they only look at the numbers,” says Terry, a processing assistant of four years who asked that her last name not be used.

This month, the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), released a report on workplace safety at Amazon Warehouses. The committee found that Amazon warehouse workers were nearly twice as likely to be injured as workers at other warehouses in the industry.

The Senate’s report corroborates the sentiments expressed by Jasmine, Shayna, Jaquan, Terry, and Tristan, finding that “workers are forced to choose between following safety procedures and risking discipline and potential termination for not moving fast enough.” The report also states that Amazon is aware of the dangers to worker safety associated with their productivity demands, but manipulates data to make the problem look less severe.

As a result, Amazon workers all over the world have been organizing for better working conditions. JFK-8 made history two years ago by becoming the first unionized Amazon Warehouse in the United States. Amazon unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) election result in 2022, and has since has since refused to recognize the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and begin contract negotiations, in defiance of the NLRB's orders. In 2024, the company joined SpaceX and Trader Joe’s in filing a federal lawsuit against the NLRB, alleging that the agency’s structure is unconstitutional.

If the courts rule in Amazon’s favor, labor activists fear that it could undo a century of progress on workers’ rights in the United States. Legal actions have not deterred Amazon workers from organizing, with new unions forming in Atlanta, City of Industry, and San Bernardino with the help of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. On December 21, 2024, Amazon Teamsters at JFK-8 began their strike, joining eight other Amazon warehouses in California, New York, and Illinois.

At JFK-8, the NLRB found that Amazon retaliates against employees who support the union. The union contends that several organizers have been terminated for their union activity, among them Christian Smalls, Sultana Hossain, and Pasquale Cioffi. Martinez, who has been involved in organizing at JFK-8 since 2020, describes his experience as “coming every day with a target on your back. That’s what it’s like working here whether you’re an organizer or not.”

Though most of the workers I spoke to were not actively involved in organizing, their general sentiments toward the union were positive. Workers expressed excitement at the prospect of longer breaks, shorter hours, better pay, and more reliable transportation.

Amazon workers’ labor is visible everywhere this city, from the trucks stopped on neighborhood streets, to the packages that appear on every other doorstep. The workers themselves are hardly ever seen, spending most of their time in a part of the city that rarely crosses the minds of tourists and locals alike. In the midst of the holiday season, customers appreciate the convenience of Amazon’s quick deliveries and endless catalogue of goods.

Rather than rushing around the city, waiting in lines, and lugging bags onto crowded trains, New Yorkers can do their holiday shopping in just a few clicks. Yet, the holiday stress does not cease to exist. It’s only transferred somewhere else, to someone else, several trains, buses, and ferries away. Far enough to be forgotten, but not so far that it affects the convenience of two-day delivery. The convenience and savings come at a high, yet largely invisible, price. As Martinez puts it, “people bleed to make sure your packages are delivered on time.”

The Israeli Air Force on Thursday extended its total war on its neighbors to Yemen for a fourth time. The Air Force has gained the technical capability of refueling fighter jets in midair, for which the Israelis and other U.S. allies in the region used to have to depend on the United States. This capability allows them now to fly down the Red Sea to Yemen and bomb it. The attack comes in response to repeated launching of missiles at Israel by the Houthi government of northern Yemen in sympathy with the people of Gaza.

The Israelis bombed the airport in the capital, Sanaa, the port of Hodeida, and oil refineries. Al-Mashhad al-Yemeni reports that according to local sources, the Israeli fighter jets primarily targeted Sanaa International Airport and al-Dailami Air Base, with eight raids having been carried out almost at once.

The Houthis have not been flying jets against Israel, so attacking the airport just harms the civilian Yemeni economy.

The Israelis destroyed the control tower at the airport and appear to have damaged the tarmac, putting it out of operation.

Since the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) was in Sanaa and was at the airport, the attack endangered his life.

Local sources said that Israeli fighter jets conducted three similar raids on Hodeida and oil facilities around the port.

The Israelis have a legitimate casus belli or legal basis for war, given that the Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel, endangering schoolchildren and other civilians. Likewise, the Houthis have disrupted Red Sea commerce by attacking random cargo ships, which further violates the laws of war.

However, the Houthis have not been flying jets against Israel, so attacking the airport just harms the civilian Yemeni economy. Likewise, the Hodeida port is the main conduit for food and other necessities to reach the north for civilian purposes. Attacking oil facilities means lack of gasoline for civilian families to drive into the market and get food. Yemen is a country with a profound health crisis after a decade of war, with millions suffering food insecurity and the danger of disease outbreaks rampant. It has the highest burden of cholera globally.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was at the airport when it was struck, and whose close call exemplifies the Israeli practice of disregarding civilian life, described the scene:

Our mission to negotiate the release of U.N. staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in Yemen concluded today. We continue to call for the detainees’ immediate release.

As we were about to board our flight from Sana’a, about two hours ago, the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured. At least two people were reported killed at the airport. The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge—just a few meters from where we were—and the runway were damaged.

We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave.

My U.N. and WHO colleagues and I are safe.

Our heartfelt condolences to the families whose loved ones lost their lives in the attack.

U.N. spokesperson Stéphanie Tremblay reported that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “warns that airstrikes on Red Sea ports and Sana’a airport pose grave risks to humanitarian operations at a time when millions of people are in need of life-saving assistance.”

The Israeli doctrine of total war, in other words, in which civilian harm is completely disregarded, is now being applied to Yemen. The Israelis are not the first. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates heavily bombed Yemen from 2015-2022, inflicting substantial damage on civilian infrastructure and killing many civilians, in a failed attempt to dislodge the Houthis from power. On the whole, bombing guerrilla groups is ineffectual unless combined with a land campaign.

Even The New York Times has finally caught up to Israeli reporters at +972 Mag, who reported last spring that Israeli commanders were allowing up to 100 dead civilians for each senior militant killed, and up to 20 civilians dead for each lower-level fighter. These barbaric rules of engagement have led NATO to cease military cooperation with Israel, since their ROE violates the norms of the armies of civilized countries.

The Houthis grabbed power in 2014-2015, overthrowing the recognized Yemeni government. They are a militant movement that sprang from the Zaydi denomination of Shiite Islam. The Zaydis differ from the Shiites of Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon in not having ayatollahs and in having relatively good relations with Sunnis historically. Although Zaydis make up only 25% of the Yemeni population of 34 million, they comprise half of the population of northern Yemen where the Houthis rule. Some Sunni tribes have allied with the Houthis, so the latter they rule 70% to 80% of the population.

Of the already perilous condition of the civilian population, UNHCR writes,

The ongoing conflict and related breakdown of basic infrastructure and services, as well as limited availability of humanitarian assistance, has left many displaced individuals and households living in substandard conditions. Inadequate water and sanitation facilities contribute to frequent outbreaks of cholera, with resulting malnutrition. Compounding the severity of these needs, Yemen’s economy is in crisis, with over 80% of the population now living below the poverty line. Of the 96,907 IDP and host community households (588,835 individuals) assessed to date in 2024, almost 50% reported earning 25,000 Yemeni Rial (50 USD) or less per month, with 35% reporting no income at all. This forces some families to rely on harmful coping mechanisms, such as skipping meals, taking children out of school to work, begging, and exposing women and children to other forms of exploitation and abuse, including early marriage.

Yemen is enormous, bigger than California, but its south and east are thinly populated, and those are the areas the Houthis do not control—some 60% of the land area.

DOGE co-chief Vivek Ramaswamy says America generates fewer great engineers than other countries, so we have to import them from overseas using H1B visas. Not only is he opening a division on immigration within Trump World, he’s starting a conversation about American pop culture, which he claims elevates jocks over nerds. Should we bring in STEM workers from overseas even while many of our US citizens are unemployed? Is jock culture the main reason we are under-engineered? “The TMI Show” co-hosts Manila Chan and Ted Rall, the latter of whom spent three years as an Applied Physics and Nuclear Engineering major at Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, have opinions.

The post TMI Show Ep 45: Vivek Says To Be Nicer to Engineers first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post TMI Show Ep 45: Vivek Says To Be Nicer to Engineers appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

President-elect Donald Trump said at a conference for young conservatives in Arizona this past Sunday that the official policy of his upcoming administration would be the recognition that there are only two genders, male and female, and pledged to stop “transgender lunacy” from day one of his presidency.

Transgender issues have become a hot topic in U.S. politics, with Democrats and Republicans adopting opposing policies on matters such as healthcare provision and the types of books allowed in public schools and libraries. Republicans have been pushing against LGBTQ rights for many years now, and Republican-led state legislatures have passed legislation restricting medical care to transgender youth. As such, there is little doubt that the incoming Trump administration will seek to make good on its promise to punish transgender people and the LGBTQ community in general.

There are an estimated 1.6 million transgender people in the United States, facing severe discrimination and constant denial of their fundamental rights and, in many cases, even rejection by their own families. Their only crime is that they do not conform to societal expectations of gender identity, meaning that they do not fit the confines of male and female binaries. Yet, transgender people have existed for as long as humans have been around. There is ample documentation of transgender people from ancient Mesopotamia to the Greek and Roman empires. Indeed, the ancient Greeks did not have the same concepts of gender and sexuality that eventually became crystalized in the modern Western world, from around the start of the 16th century. In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus, the god of hermaphrodites and effeminates, was partly male, partly female.

Transphobia kicks in to enforce the division of labor by sex and gender as roles in the workforce in capitalist societies have mainly defined and formed our gender.

Records from U.S. hospitals and clinics of trans kids seeking medical care date back to the early 20th century. Therefore, arguments denying transgender realities are simply outrageous while policies restricting the rights of transgender people (such as receiving basic healthcare, education, and legal recognition) should be treated as nothing short of conscious attempts to cause direct harm to individuals identifying themselves as transgender and assessed as nothing less than criminal.

There are many reasons why people wish to deny transgender realities and why so many states want to limit transgender rights, ranging from cultural and religious reasons to psychological ones. Transphobia however is also a product of a particular type of society, one built around class divisions where maximization of profit and the reproduction of labor power are essential features. In class divided societies, gender stereotypes and thus sexual dimorphism go hand in hand with the desire to maintain the existing status quo and the specific form of labor relations built into such systems. Indeed, under capitalism, beliefs and assumptions about biological essentialism and gender binarism are convenient ways to keep reproducing a mode of production and a social order in which people need to be divided and boxed into neat categories. Transness disrupts capitalist social relations as masculinity and femininity are built into the economy as a binary relation. In this context, transphobia kicks in to enforce the division of labor by sex and gender as roles in the workforce in capitalist societies have mainly defined and formed our gender.

Under capitalism, transgender people are affected by the same structures that oppress the working class. Aside from the treatment of transgender people by the private healthcare industry, whereby discrimination is quite prevalent, some 50% of trans people also report employment discrimination while their level of unemployment is double the natural average. Transgender workers tend to have much lower income than the general population and are twice as likely to be living in poverty.

Transgender rights are therefore a working-class issue and “the fight for trans equality must be recognized as class struggle.” Of course, this is not to deny the fact that there are very rich queer people inside the system that do what capitalists basically do, which is to exploit other people. There is even a proportion of the capitalist class that supports transness and LGBTQ people, but we should bear in mind that the relationship between capitalism and oppression has always been dynamic and contradictory rather than mechanical and linear.

That said, working class politics must embrace trans rights as the fight for trans rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights are not separate from the fight of the working class. A working-class program must address the needs and wants of trans people as most of them are indeed disproportionally poor and working-class. Unions, for instance, should follow the example of United Steelworkers who got rid of exclusions of gender-affirming healthcare. Unions should mobilize their members to fight back against anti-trans legislation at every level. And we must not forget that most of our citizens are not on the side of Trump and the Republicans when it comes to transgender people. Polling shows that two-thirds of U.S. citizens oppose transphobic bills, even though more than half of the states have introduced pieces of legislation seeking to curb the rights of transgender people.

Trumpism as a political strategy has always been about polarization, division, and bigotry. The fight against the upcoming administration requires class solidarity among all oppressed and marginalized group in U.S. society. The fight for transgender rights is a fight whose outcome will undoubtedly prove pivotal in the overall struggle to resist Trump’s extreme agenda (which includes mass deportations) in the next four years, starting January 20, 2025.

At the conservative conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump simple reiterated his plans to pass a federal ban on gender-affirming care for youth and to redefine gender at the federal level whereby the recognized genders are as assigned at birth. These policies would be an extension of what took place during the first four years of Trump in office, a relentless onslaught of attacks toward queer people. And Trump has already announced a host of extreme anti-trans appointees to key administration positions, which include former professional wrestling executive and anti-transgender advocate Linda McMahon as education secretary; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who opposes gender-affirming care, as secretary of health and human services; and white supremacist and anti-LGBQ Stephen Miller as White House deputy chief of staff for policy.

The challenges that lie ahead for progressive communities across the United States for the next four years are many and severe. The fight for trans rights will be a long, arduous one, but winning it will be a huge victory for equality. There should be no mistake about that, which is why it must be recognized as class struggle.

In today’s world of widespread poverty and unprecedented wealth, how about raising the wages of the most poorly-paid workers?

This October, the World Bank reported that “8.5% of the global population―almost 700 million people―live today on less than $2.15 per day,” while “44% of the global population―around 3.5 billion people―live today on less than $6.85 per day.” Meanwhile, “global poverty reduction has slowed to a near standstill.”

In early 2024, the charity group Oxfam International noted that, since 2020, “148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profit, 52% up on 3-year average, and dished out huge payouts to rich shareholders.” During this same period, the world’s five wealthiest men “more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion,” an increase of $14 million per hour. As corporate elites gathered in Davos for a chat about the world economy, 10 corporations alone were worth $10.2 trillion, more than the GDPs of all the countries in Africa and Latin America combined.

The world’s vast economic inequality “is no accident,” concluded a top Oxfam official. “The billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else.”

The growth of multinational corporations provided businesses with opportunities to slip past these national laws and dramatically reduce their labor costs by moving production of goods and services to low-wage nations.

Although inequalities in income and wealth have existed throughout much of human history, they have been softened somewhat by a variety of factors, including labor unions and―in modern times―minimum wage laws. Designed to provide workers with a basic standard of living, these laws create a floor below which wages are not allowed to sink. In 1894, New Zealand became the first nation to enact a minimum wage law, and―pressured by the labor movement and public opinion―other countries (including the United States in 1938) followed its lead. Today, more than 90% of the world’s nations have some kind of minimum wage law in effect.

These minimum wage laws have had very positive effects upon the lives of workers. Most notably, they lifted large numbers of wage earners out of poverty. In addition, they undermined the business practice of slashing wages (and thus reducing production costs) to increase profit margins or to cut prices and grab a larger share of the market.

Even so, the growth of multinational corporations provided businesses with opportunities to slip past these national laws and dramatically reduce their labor costs by moving production of goods and services to low-wage nations. This corporate offshoring of jobs and infrastructure gathered steam in the mid-20th century. Initially, multinational corporations focused on outsourcing low-skilled or unskilled manufacturing jobs, which had a negative impact on employment and wages in advanced industrial nations. In the 21st century, however, the outsourcing of skilled jobs, particularly in financial management and IT operations, rose dramatically. After all, from the standpoint of enhancing corporate profits, it made good sense to replace an American IT worker with an Indian IT worker at 13% of the cost. The result was an accelerating race to the bottom.

In the United States, this export of formerly good-paying jobs to low-wage, impoverished countries―combined with “free trade” agreements, a corporate and government assault on unions, and conservative obstruction of any raise in the pathetically low federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour)―produced a disaster. The share of private sector goods-producing jobs at high wages shrank, since the 1960s, from 42 to 17%. Increasingly, U.S. jobs were located in the low-paid service sector. Not surprisingly, by 2023 an estimated 43 million Americans lived in poverty, while another 49 million lived just above the official poverty line. Little wonder that, in this nation and many others caught up in corporate globalization, there was an alarming rise of right-wing demagogues playing on economic grievances, popular hatreds, and fears.

If, therefore, wages in underdeveloped nations and in advanced industrial nations are not keeping pace with the vast accumulation of capital by the world’s wealthiest people and their corporations, one way to counter this situation is to move beyond the disintegrating patchwork of wage floor efforts by individual nations and develop a global minimum wage.

Such a wage could take a variety of forms. The most egalitarian involves a minimum wage level that would be the same in all nations. Unfortunately, though, given the vast variation among countries in wealth and current wages, this does not seem practical. In Luxembourg, for example, the average yearly per capita purchasing power is 316 times that of South Sudan. But other options are more viable, including basing the minimum wage on a percentage of the national median wage or on a more complex measurement accounting for the cost of living and national living standards.

Over the past decade and more, prominent economists and other specialists have made the case for a global minimum wage, as have a variety of organizations. For an appropriate entity to establish it, they have usually pointed to the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency that has long worked to set international labor standards.

The advantages of a global minimum wage are clear.

It would lift billions of people out of poverty, thus enabling them to lead far better lives.

It would reduce the corporate incentive for offshoring by limiting the ability of multinational corporations to obtain cheap labor abroad.

By keeping jobs in the home country, it would aid unions in wealthy nations to retain their memberships and provide protection against “corporate blackmail”―the management demand that unions either accept contract concessions or get ready for the shift of corporate jobs and production overseas.

By raising wages in impoverished countries, it would reduce the poverty-driven mass migration from these nations and, thereby, deprive right-wing demagogues in wealthier countries of one of their most potent issues.

Of course, higher labor costs at home and abroad would reduce corporate profits and limit the growth of billionaires’ wealth and power. But wouldn’t these also be positive developments?

My new friend in Gaza tells me, "Humanity is everything. It is taste. It is God's mercy that's in you..." I am not a believer, but I accept whatever keeps her going for herself and her family.

Like many all over the world, I've been horrified by the war on Gaza and my country's unwavering support for Israel. Yes, I was horrified by the Hamas attack, but the relentless retaliation, now in it's 14th month, which has claimed the lives of over 45,000 innocent civilians, many of them women and children, turned the horror into rising anger. I've engaged in protests at the federal building, blocked roads, written and called my members of Congress regularly. I've participated in daily Jewish Voice for Peace Power Half-Hours for Gaza, and still the war rages on.

Early on, I began donating to various humanitarian aid agencies. But the aid doesn't always reach its intended recipients for a variety of reasons—non-stop bombing and hindering of aid by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as well as criminal gangs stealing the aid, a common reality in war zones. What else could I do?

Fatima's intro on Facebook reads: "Oh, you damned war, you must stop. We are no longer able to continue. We are tired of staying alive."

Facebook was an open book about my sentiments. Soon families began reaching out to me. Families in Khan Younis, Jabalya, Gaza City. Then one woman stepped forward, and I felt compelled to share her story, and that of others. Her name is Fatima Qadeesh.

She tells me she fights to stay alive, this woman whose country my own has helped destroy with an estimated $22.76 billion from October 7, 2023 to September 30, 2024 alone. She fights for herself, her children, and her disabled father. Her deep brown eyes look out with defiance and dignity from a keffiyeh wrapped around her head in her profile. "I lost my husband in the genocide. And now I am fighting alone to provide food, drink, detergents, medicine, clothes, milk, and blankets," she says.

Direct and determined, Fatima is a new Facebook friend. No amount can give her back the father of her children or her beloved Gaza, but at least I can help with donations whenever I can, to make small amends for my country, which refuses to stop the weapons and the carnage, regardless of the toll on human life.

After one donation, Fatima starts to message me regularly: "How are you my dear friend? I hope you are in good health. I send my love to you and your dear family. I wish you a day full of love and happiness."

A few days later I message her: "Hello Fatima. Just sent you a little more money. May the war end soon. I am so sorry for my country's complicity. Please stay safe. It's 11:43 p.m. for you now. Hope there are no bombs and the night is sweet. All my good wishes."

She replies with a heart emoji, followed by, "God bless you my dear friend."

I reply with three butterfly emojis: "Some say butterflies represent transformation and freedom. May it be so!"

Fatima replies with another heart emoji and the words: "I hope so and I hope we meet one day and drink Arabic coffee. You are a great woman. I love you," followed by an emoji with two open hands, palms facing up.

I reply: "I like the idea of drinking Arabic coffee together. But I don't consider myself very great—only a woman with a conscience. Stay strong," to which she replies, "Oh my God, how great you are. I respect your decision."

Another few days pass and Fatima messages me again: "My dear friend, can I ask you a small question?"

I reply, "Of course."

"My request is that you help me spread my campaign to close friends to provide a bag of flour that I cannot provide due to the high prices of goods today," she writes. "It is worth $350, and I cannot provide it. I have received half of its due. If there is any disturbance, no need. This is my story on Facebook, take a look at it. I'm sorry if I bothered you with my message."

I tell her I'll post her GoFundMe page at the top of my Facebook posts. She shares a picture of her three young children, another of someone who may be her mother, and another of tents being ripped apart by the wind and rain. When her home was turned to rubble by relentless Israeli bombing, she was displaced. Tents on the beach became the only refuge. But with the arrival of the rainy season, keeping them intact and dry is a challenging and often impossible proposition. The Norwegian Refugee Council-led Shelter Cluster in Palestine says it will take humanitarian aid agencies more than two years to deliver materials to repair tents in southern Gaza alone. According to the agency, only 23% of Gaza's shelter needs were addressed this fall, leaving nearly 1 million Palestinians exposed to winter rains with no shelter at all.

Fatima's intro on Facebook reads: "Oh, you damned war, you must stop. We are no longer able to continue. We are tired of staying alive." While the first and third sentiments are no doubt true, the second seems fleeting because she always rebounds. "In the midst of this chaos, my family remains my anchor," she says in one of her posts, "And I am determined to protect them from any further harm."

More days pass. She messages me again: "May God make you happy. I don't know how to thank you. It was a heavy rain today. The tent is leaking. I moved to my neighbor because of the heavy rains. I can't afford nylon to fix the tent and protect my children. The situation is very difficult." She tells me she is running out of flour and asks if I can help. "I have sent to many people. You are my only refuge. You are in my heart and soul."

Fatima is in my heart and soul as well. I feel a deep connection. How can this be for someone I've known less than a month? Is it compassion, that innate ability to empathize? Is it shared humanity, the kind I've often exercised as someone who was raised, in part, as a Quaker? Is it outrage at the ongoing horror that I'm determined to make right? Or is it guilt because of my Jewish, but decidedly non-Zionist, heritage? Perhaps it's a blending of all of these things, but Fatima is my sister now and I won't abandon her.

Many of the 1.9 million displaced in Gaza are asking for help. GoFundMe has seen a surge of support for those in Gaza and Israel, since the Hamas attack, according to its web page. For my part, I feel honored to know Fatima and others who've reached out to me including Rasha, Samir, Ayat, Reham, Ahmed, Sama, and Mohamed.

Let me tell you a little about Mohamed. He, his 10-year-old daughter Judy, his siblings, and his parents have been displaced multiple times. For a while they tried living in a tent but in late fall returned to the rubble of their home, south of Khan Younis. The home is missing most of the roof and walls. A California-based organizer for his GoFundMe page says the donations have provided supplies to get through the winter and boosted the morale of him and his family.

On Christmas morning, Mohamed sends images of veggie starts he planted in the ground where his parents' room once stood. Mint, arugula, parsley, green locust, spinach, radish, and onion. It is the finest gift I can remember.

His first message to me is this: "Hello my dear friend. I'm sorry to bother you. Unfortunately, crises are accumulating. No house, no clothes, and now there is famine and high prices for food commodities, vegetables, and flour. Please help so we can buy food. Prices are very, very high, and this is what makes us constantly need help."

I send a donation, in spite of having a bad cold.

Like everyone I've been in touch with in Gaza, he is remarkably gracious—"I wish you recovery and safety." The next day he sends this message: "How did you become my dear sister? I hope you are well."

I tell him my head cold is persistent but it is nothing compared to what he is going through. We discuss the issue of humanitarian aid being blocked by the IDF, and he confirms that aid is also being stolen. We move on to the possibility of a cease-fire. "Yes, there are serious talks to end the war," he says. "I hope they will succeed and this nightmare will end soon."

He often wishes me good morning, and, since it is night for him, I wish him a good evening. "Goodness and happiness to you at all times, morning and evening," he says.

"The same to you and your family," I reply. "So many of us around the world want to see a free Palestine where there is peace and dignity, housing, bountiful food and water. Electricity! Schools! Playgrounds! Cultural centers and land to grow food. Is that too much to ask? I don't think it is."

He replies: "It will happen, my dear, no matter how late it is, but it will happen. I am optimistic, and what makes me so is your presence beside us and your sympathy with us."

The next day he wishes me good morning and sends an image of bare ground between bombed buildings. "Here was my father and mother's room. It has been cleaned of rubble, and I will plant it." Initially I think he means he will rebuild it. More clarity on this emerges days later.

I congratulate him on the task but receive no response, which is unusual when new Gaza friends and I are in messaging mode. I message again but still no response. "Please tell me you and Judy and your extended family are alright. Al Jazeera says Israeli forces are bombing Khan Younis today," I write. NPR posts an Associated Press report that at least 20 people, including five children, were killed by Israeli strikes across Gaza that day. In the southern city of Khan Younis, where Mohamed and his family live, a husband and wife were killed in a strike just after midnight.

There are no new messages from Mohamed that day. Finally in the morning he lets all of his Facebook friends know that someone tried to hack his Facebook page: "My dear friends, the Facebook account has been restored after it was locked due to a hacking attempt. Thank you very much to everyone who helped me."

I message him, "You have many brothers and sisters around the world. And while we may not be able to give you everything you need, like a cease-fire and a restored landscape, we are not going anywhere."

Mohamed replies, "You are the closest to my heart. You are my family and my loved ones. I wish I could meet you all and put a kiss on your forehead."

"Perhaps we will all meet you someday," I reply. "Until then we send you life and breath from far, far away."

On Christmas morning, Mohamed sends images of veggie starts he planted in the ground where his parents' room once stood. Mint, arugula, parsley, green locust, spinach, radish, and onion. It is the finest gift I can remember.

(Photo: Mohamed Samir Elnabris)

GoFundMe requests come in daily. I can't answer the need on my own. But if you can help even in a small way, please message me.

Weeks and months after she lost her presidential campaign, which ended with her millions of dollars in debt despite raising billions of dollars, vice president Kamala Harris continues to shake down Democrats for donations.

The post Final Attraction first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post Final Attraction appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Once upon a time, in a precinct long, long ago, there was a campaign that built voter contact programs solely from those who lived in the targeted neighborhood. The entire community shopped at the same grocery stores and even saw one another at the bank, gym, and library. In other words, this was totally different from today's "ground game," manned by people who drive from hours away, armed with clipboards, shiny new campaign t-shirts, and ready to tell residents exactly how they should vote.

While a ton of articles have been written about the importance of the "ground game" in the final days of the Harris campaign, no one is discussing the increasing problems and decreasing rate of return of this tactic. Time Magazine's October election article, "Democrats Bank on Ground Game Advantage in Pennsylvania," opens with the author observing that "most of the people on Elana Hunter's list weren't answering the door," but does not dig into the actual problem. The same is true with campaign analysis in hundreds of other news outlets. The New York Times wrote a lengthy piece comparing Vice President Kamala Harris' in-house door-knocking operation to the Trump campaign's outsourced field operation. The article highlights both sides bragging about how many doors they knocked on and how much paid staff was hired. But, neither side (nor the writers) discuss how few people answer their doors or even care what the stranger is selling.

This analysis misses the real problems of modern-day door knocking: Voters don't open their doors anymore, voters do not know their neighbors, and undecided voters are more skeptical than ever when it comes to talking about politics.

As Democrats, we should know that a last-minute paid "ground game" that gets dropped into the battleground days before an election hasn't worked in years.

Year-round precinct work with "local captains" who knew their "turf" and how each neighbor would vote disappeared as the campaign industry grew and political parties stopped building traditional ward systems. Instead, they were replaced with volunteers and paid voices that only knocked on doors during major elections. This transition from a known, trusted neighbor to an unknown door knocker has made modern campaigning a data-driven competition that ignores effectiveness as it optimizes toward knocking on the most doors.

Nonetheless, message and messenger still matter in all aspects of campaigns, especially in the field. Door-to-door salesmen are a relic of history (Even the legendary Fuller Brush company started transitioning out of door-to-door sales in 1985).

Public safety studies show neighborhoods are more responsive to community policing programs when public safety officers know the people they serve. Why would political campaigns be different?

Technology has also had a major impact on door knocking. It's now been a decade since the invention of video door camera technology. According to a 2024 Consumer Reports study, 30% of Americans use video door cameras. These changes in neighborhood dynamics and consumer behaviors are realities that must be faced.

The rite-of-passage, where a volunteer gets lost in below-freezing weather canvassing an unknown precinct or gets bitten by a dog while knocking on doors, needs to be relegated to history. While campaign war stories are fun, it's time to be honest about the changing times and begin a new chapter: These age-old tactics are neither sacred nor effective. If no one is home or no one is answering their door even if they are home, political campaigns need to change with the times.

To win more elections, target voters with appropriate messages and messengers. It's time to explore better ways to use scarce time, people, and money to achieve the desired victory. Are there better places to send volunteers to work more efficiently and rally potential voters?

This is not to say that field organizing should be discarded or that campaigns should go completely digital. (Lots of criticism is being written on the current problems with these newer tactics that will hopefully be fixed.) But, as the Democratic Party's messaging and mobilization are transformed, an honest assessment of all tactics is needed to understand what works and create better ways to win.

Remember, just because a tactic worked on one campaign, it will not always continue to work the same four years later. We have tried this with auto-calling and text messaging technologies and know they have diminishing returns each cycle. Now is the time to dig deep and have honest conversations with field organizers and volunteers to learn what tactics need to be retired and start adopting new approaches.

Let's stop pretending that more "fake neighbors" door-knocking is the solution to the Democrats' problems and focus on how to best reach targeted voters with a message that resonates, delivered by respected voices that matter, while we have time now to build a real organic field effort.

As Democrats, we should know that a last-minute paid "ground game" that gets dropped into the battleground days before an election hasn't worked in years. It didn't work on Howard Dean's well-funded 2004 campaign that flew tons of staff and volunteers to Iowa. It's now 20 years after the infamous Dean scream, and we continue to blindly follow the same failed "orange cap" tactics of these past campaigns: inserting last-minute volunteers and door-knocking teams instead of thinking about how to create long-term community-based approaches.

We all have to grow up at some point and face the truth. Or you could keep believing in Santa Claus and see what gift he brings you in the next election cycle.

The great question for people who care about the climate is: what now? How do we proceed with the most important fight in the world, when the most important office in the world is about to be filled by a climate denier, and when there’s a Congress with no hope of advancing serious legislation.

One important answer is: We go state by state, and city by city, making gains everywhere we still can. That sounds like small beer—but it’s worth remembering just how big American states are. California is the world’s fifth largest economy, and the energy transition is fully advanced there. Texas is the eighth largest economy—larger than Russia. Things are ripping along there too.

And New York is the 10th largest economy (New York City by itself would be the 12th). That’s bigger than Mexico or Australia or South Korea.

Which is why it’s very exciting news that earlier today the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, announced that she would sign the so-called “polluter pays” climate superfund bill. Here’s the release from the governor’s office, in which she points out that

With nearly every record rainfall, heatwave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment. Establishing the Climate Superfund is the latest example of my administration taking action to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment and requiring major investments in infrastructure and other projects critical to protecting our communities and economy.

Activists have been pushing hard for the legislation. Over the last few weeks scores have occupied rooms in the capitol, and about 20 people, a great many of them elder members of Third Act, have been arrested for trespassing around the state Xmas tree—they’ve been singing carols as the cuffs go on. (Campaigners also won a big victory in Albany last week, when Hochul signed a bill that should prevent backdoor attempts at overturning the state’s fracking ban).

I’ve written about this effort before—my home state of Vermont became the first to pass it, earlier this year. But Vermont is… not one of the world’s largest economies. Its attorney general’s office is… small. Against the might of Big Oil, well…

New York’s attorney general, on the other hand, is Letitia James, who has built a reputation for taking on big players. She’s got a giant staff, and she’s not scared of Exxon. Which is important, because Exxon, and its brethren, will have no choice but to fight these laws: they cut too close to the bone. As Inside Climate News explains,

The bill borrows from the federal “polluter pays” principle, which allows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to hold companies accountable for releasing pollution into the environment. But it strays from that slightly by applying the concept to manufacturers of fossil fuels, not all air pollution emitters.

Under the superfund act, the world’s largest fossil fuel companies would be required to pay the Empire State billions for the damages caused by their products, raising $75 billion over 25 years. Fees would be allocated according to a company’s share of emissions from 2000 to 2018. By the turn of the millennium, climate science was so well established that “no reasonable corporate actor could have failed to anticipate regulatory action to address its impacts,” lawmakers wrote in the bill.

If you think this would be a slam dunk in New York—which is, after all a blue state with essentially no fossil fuel production—think again.

Business groups have opposed it, and Hochul has been noncommittal—it passed the legislature months ago, but she sat on her hands. Which is why young people, old people, faith leaders, and the like have all descended on the state’s lovely capitol building. Their passion is largely rooted in the climate fight, but the argument is rooted in sheer populist economics. In essence, taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay to rebuild the bridges wrecked by climate change. That should be up the shareholders who have profited so handsomely. (Exxon, Chevron, and Shell had combined profits of $85 billion last year).

If you want to know the backstory, here’s a part of it, from Lee Wasserman of the Rockefeller Family Fund:

The idea for the climate superfund bill was hatched when I was at Fenway watching the Red Sox with an old friend, Rob Plattner, who had been earlier in his career deputy commissioner for policy at the NYS Tax Dept. We were chatting about the climate damages lawsuits and somewhere around the fifth inning we came to the conclusion that it would be totally appropriate for state legislatures to ask for a contribution from the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage they caused and the adaption costs states will face for decades to come. Polluters paying for the damage they cause is, of course, a highly recognized and supported concept and it seemed particularly apt in the climate context.

We put together a bill initially for NY state when Cuomo was governor but couldn't get his attention before he retreated from the governor's mansion. By then, Biden was in office with his Build Back Better proposal, and I thought it worth a try to get it into the D.C. conversation. It found a lot support, with Van Hollen and Bernie its prime Senate sponsors, and leadership broadly supportive. The federal bill came out of nowhere and made a great deal of progress, but was resigned to a long list of items that would have become law but for Joe Manchin.

So instead they went to the state level, and put together campaigns in six states. Vermont, as I have said, was the first to sign on; with New York on board there is great hope that California, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota will come next. They’ve found outfront allies in the Public Interest Research Groups or PIRGs (Paul Burns and the Vermont chapter were crucial in the Green Mountain State). Behind the scenes, Fossil Free Media and Jamie Henn have been providing crucial comms work. And I’m very proud of all the Third Actors that stood up, often hand in hand with young activists. (A particular shout out to Michael Richardson and the TA upstate New York chapter; you can read today’s edition of their newsletter here.) In the end it was enough, even to get past Hochul who earned the ire of environmentalists earlier in the year when she (temporarily, as it turns out) nixed congestion pricing in Manhattan to avoid angering suburban motorists.

Hochul signed this bill in part because it doesn’t cost anyone in New York anything. The oil companies have tried to say it will raise gas prices for New Yorkers, but that’s not how the cost of oil works. As the Nobelist Joe Stiglitz pointed out

The specific attributes of the global oil market preclude price increases resulting from the Climate Change Superfund assessments. The price of crude oil is set by the global market, based on the global balance of supply and demand. Individual companies cannot directly raise the price of crude even if it would be in their interest to do so. The price of gasoline at the pump, derived from crude oil, is set by a combination of global crude prices, refining costs, distribution and marketing costs, and local taxes and fees. The Superfund assessment does not impact any of those factors, as it is assessed too far upstream to impact local costs, and is far too small and affects too limited a universe of companies to impact global prices.

You could argue that it’s not the most elegant solution to the problem. But as Liz Krueger, the legislator who really pushed the measure, told The Wall Street Journal over the summer

Look, would I prefer this all be done at the federal level? Yes. But the states have learned over the last few years, we can’t count on the federal government to do these things for us.

It’s possible that Exxon et al will try to get Congress to immunize them from such measures; they’ll certainly be in court arguing that it’s all unfair. But at least initially those will be state courts, under state statutes. (It was Letitia James, remember, who used these tactics to convict President-elect Donald Trump on fraud charges last year).

And now those other states may join in too. The billions begin to add up. This is, more or less, how the states slowly and then quite rapidly took down the tobacco industry. So—many many thanks to the people who but their bodies on the line these past days, and those who have worked so hard for years to get us here. This may be what progress looks like in the Trump years.

12/25/24, 12:00 p.m., Northampton, MA—As I sit to write a brief account of a visit by members of River Valley for Gaza Healthcare to Cooley Dickinson/Mass Brigham Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts this Christmas morning, a text appears on my phone... perhaps the final words, not even a plea to the outside world this time, of Dr. Husam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Beit Lahia, sent beyond the confines of Gaza via the internet a half hour earlier:

The hospital is being bombed now. Some of the internal walls have collapsed. The situation is unbearable.

Translation: Israel and its criminal henchmen in the U.S. government appear to have chosen Christmas Day and the first day of Hanukkah, 2024, to finish their 85+-day siege on Kamal Adwan Hospital and all of the human souls within it.

As these horrors unfold at Kamal Adwan, three members of River Valley for Gaza Healthcare arrive, on a brilliantly sunny, cold Christmas morning, at the main entrance of Cooley Dickinson/Mass Brigham Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts. We have come to stand inside the lobby of the hospital and hold a large banner declaring: "If this hospital were in Gaza, it would be rubble."

(Photo: Nick Mottern)

Our group is working in partnership with a new, national coalition—Doctors Against Genocide—which has called on healthcare providers and consumers to hold vigils for Gaza in hospital lobbies across the country this Christmas Day.

Along with our big banner, we carry flyers for hospital workers encouraging them to reach out to our group to organize with us in solidarity with their colleagues 8,000 miles away. And finally, we have a small Christmas tree adorned with multi-colored balls, and unusual ornaments that, upon close inspection, prove to be photographs of healthcare workers martyred by Israel during its 14-month and counting genocide of the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip.

(Photo: Nick Mottern)

The hospital lobby is silent and devoid of any human bustle. Carrying our banner, flyers, and tree, we proceed deeper into the building to a second lobby complete with registration desk, grand central staircase, and high ceilings. All of the signs of a well-functioning, fully-funded medical facility are apparent: gleaming surfaces, seasonal decorations, comfortable chairs for visitors and patients, humming elevators, handsomely framed artwork, and signs helpfully indicating the way to various departments.

Still, not a single soul, except for the momentary, whimsical appearance, far down the hall, of a tall figure dressed in a green elf costume and pointy hat. The elf disappears. We take some photos of ourselves with our banner and tree, before walking long hallways to the rear of the building. There, the empty cafeteria, decorated with a glittering tree, nicely spaced tables and chairs, and complete with coffee machines and microwaves, awaits the lunch hour. A kind cafeteria worker greets us, turns lights on for us to take another photo of our banner, and even nods approvingly when she reads it. We leave little stacks of outreach flyers on the cafeteria tables and by the coffee machines.

Finally, we make our way, through still silent, empty halls, to the emergency department. A few people are here, waiting to be seen for various ailments. We offer our little tree to the staff behind the glass partition, and explain the photo ornaments of the martyred Palestinian medics. When we unobtrusively try to take a last photo of our banner, we are immediately told to leave. We put our little tree on a corner table, and, as we make our way out, we see a doctor pick it up and disappear with it. We hope it will at least stir some conversation among the healthcare providers in the emergency department, and perhaps end up in someone's private office.

Outside, we take our last photos, to be used to document our action for Doctors Against Genocide. One in front of a gleaming red and silver ambulance sporting a large wreath (all ambulances in Gaza are bombed, blood-streaked, burned-out hulks), and another beneath the hospital's sign, towering above us near the roof of the building.

What will come of this small action at this well-endowed New England hospital whose CEO, Debra Rogers, has refused to meet with us and declined to make any statement in solidarity with the suffering and dying healthcare workers of Gaza? Our minds and hearts are overwhelmed with what we know is happening, a world away, at Kamal Adwan Hospital, as Dr. Abu Safiya and his heroic co-workers make what may be their final stand against the Israeli-U.S. death machine. How can we reconcile this orderly, peaceful, well-appointed hospital down the road from our homes, with a hospital in north Gaza (not the only one) that is besieged, attacked, blockaded, surrounded by tanks, quadcopters, snipers and troops, mountains of rubble, and starving and injured cats and dogs forced to feed on human corpses? A hospital whose director refuses to leave, despite being offered "safe passage" and the targeted murder, a few weeks ago, of his teenaged son by the Israel Defense Forces because his father refused to leave his post.

What we know is that the silence of the U.S. medical establishment about what is happening in Gaza is nothing short of normalization of genocide and of the deliberate destruction of an entire healthcare system. This is unprecedented even in the history of human warfare. It is being carried out in full view of the world, of governments, of international bodies, in defiance of the Geneva Conventions and humanitarian laws and norms. It is grotesquely, indescribably, unspeakably shameful, sorrowful, angering, and incomprehensible. It reveals the profound taste for evil of those who rule us. It requires revolution.

It’s the most special time of the year: Festivus, when Americans gather by an unadorned pole to vent their grievances. Grievance number one: we’re three days late to this Festivus Special! Ted and Manila, two people paid to kvetch and complain, share their personal and political whines, grouses and rants to a world that’s too busy whining about their own silly worries to pay attention to our all-too-important complaints. Ted and Manila are pissed, and you’re gonna hear about it!

The post TMI Show Ep 44: A TMI Festivus Special first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post TMI Show Ep 44: A TMI Festivus Special appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Some 2,000 years ago, an itinerant preacher, Saul of Tarsus, was writing to a wayward congregation in Corinth, Greece. Curiously enough, his words still capture the epochal change that may await us just over history’s horizon. “For now we see in a glass, darkly,” he wrote. “Now I know in part, but then shall I know fully.”

Indeed, mesmerized by a present filled with spellbinding events ranging from elections to wars, we, too, gaze into a darkened glass unable to see how the future might soon unfold before our eyes—a future full of signs that the four empires that have long dominated our world are all crumbling.

Since the Cold War ended in 1990, four legacy empires—those of China, France, Russia, and the United States—have exercised an undue influence over almost every aspect of international affairs. From the soft power of fashion, food, and sports to the hard power of arms, trade, and technology, those four powers have, each in its own way, helped to set the global agenda for the past 35 years. By dominating vast foreign territories, both militarily and economically, they have also enjoyed extraordinary wealth and a standard of living that’s been the envy of the rest of the world. If they now give way in a collective version of collapse, instead of one succeeding another, we may come to know a new world order whose shape is as yet unimaginable.

An Empire Once Called Françafrique

Let’s start with the French neocolonial imperium in northern Africa, which can teach us much about the way our world order works and why it’s fading so fast. As a comparatively small state essentially devoid of natural resources, France won its global power through the sort of sheer ruthlessness—cutthroat covert operations, gritty military interventions, and cunning financial manipulations—that the three larger empires are better able to mask with the aura of their awesome power.

For 60 years after its formal decolonization of northern Africa in 1960, France used every possible diplomatic device, overt and covert, fair and foul, to incorporate 14 African nations into a neo-colonial imperium covering a quarter of Africa that critics called Françafrique. The architect of that post-colonial confection was Jacques Foccart, a Parisian “man of the shadows.” From 1960 to 1997, using 150 agents in the Africa section of the state’s secret service, he managed that neocolonial enterprise as France’s “presidential adviser for Africa,” while cultivating a web of personal connections to presidential palaces across the northern part of that continent.

As part of that postcolonial empire, French paratroopers (among the world’s toughest special forces) shuttled in and out of northern Africa, conducting more than 40 interventions from 1960 to 2002. Meanwhile, more than a dozen client states there shared autocratic leaders shrouded in vivid personality cults, systemic corruption, and state terror. In that way, Paris ensured the tenure of compliant dictators like Omar Bongo, president of the oil-rich country of Gabon from 1967 to 2009. Apart from exporting their raw materials almost exclusively to France, the firm economic foundation for Françafrique lay in a common currency, the CFA franc, which gave the French treasury almost complete fiscal control over its former colonies.

Just last month, the foreign minister of Chad announced that it was time for his country “to assert its sovereignty” by expelling French forces from their last foothold in the Sahel, effectively ending Françafrique after 60 years of neocolonial dominion.

From Paris’ perspective, the aim of the game was the procurement of cut-rate commodities—minerals, oil, and uranium—critical for its industrial economy. To that end, Foccart proved a master of the dark arts, dispatching mercenaries and assassins in covert operations meant to eternally maximize French influence.

The exemplary state in Françafrique was undoubtedly Gabon, then a poor country of just a half-million people rich in forestry concessions, uranium mines, and oil fields. When the country’s first president was being treated for fatal cancer in a Paris hospital in 1967, Foccart manipulated its elections to install Omar Bongo, a French intelligence veteran, who was then only 31.

As political opposition to his corrupt rule intensified in 1971, Foccart’s office dispatched notorious assassin and mercenary Bob Denard. When a key opposition leader arrived home from the movies one night, “Mr. Bob” stepped from the shadows and gunned the man down in front of his wife and child. The Foccart network also secured Bongo’s rule by training the presidential guard and forming a security force to protect French oil facilities there.

Through rigged elections in 1993, 1998, and 2005, Bongo clung to power while French officials enabled his graft, facilitating more than $100 million yearly in illicit payments from France’s leading oil company. When he finally died in 2009, his son Ali-Ben Bongo succeeded him, inheriting 33 luxury properties in France worth $190 million and a country a third of whose population lived in misery on the equivalent of two dollars a day. But in August 2023, after one too many rigged elections, Ali Bongo was finally toppled by a military coup, ending a dynasty that had lasted nearly six decades.

As it turned out, his downfall would be a harbinger for the fate of Françafrique. During the preceding decade, France had deployed some 5,000 elite troops to fight Islamic terrorists in six nations in Africa’s Sahel region, an arid strip of territory extending across the continent just south of the Sahara Desert.

By 2020, however, nationalist consciousness against repeated transgressions of their sovereignty was rising in many of those relatively new countries, putting pressure on French forces to withdraw. As its troops were expelled from Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, Russia’s secretive Wagner Group of mercenaries moved in and, by 2023, had become increasingly active there. Just last month, the foreign minister of Chad announced that it was time for his country “to assert its sovereignty” by expelling French forces from their last foothold in the Sahel, effectively ending Françafrique after 60 years of neocolonial dominion.

In those same months, Chad also expelled a U.S. Special Forces training unit, while nearby Niger cancelled U.S. Air Force access to Air Base 201 (which it had built at a cost of $110 million), leaving Russia the sole foreign power active in the region.

Russia’s Fragile Empire

While France’s African imperium was driven by economic imperatives, the revival of Russia’s empire, starting early in this century, has been all about geopolitics. During the last years of the Cold War, from 1989 to 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, with Moscow losing an empire of seven Eastern European satellite states and 15 “republics” that would become 22 free-market democratic nations.

In 2005, calling the collapse of the Soviet Union the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Russian President Vladimir Putin set about reclaiming parts of the old Soviet sphere—invading Georgia in 2008, when it began flirting with NATO membership; deploying troops in 2020-2021 to resolve a conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan; and dispatching thousands of Russian special forces to Kazakhstan in central Asia in 2022 to gun down pro-democracy protesters challenging a loyal Russian ally.

Moscow’s main push, however, was into the old Soviet sphere of Eastern Europe, where, after a rigged election in 2020, Putin backed Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko in crushing the democratic opposition, making Minsk a virtual client state. Meanwhile, he pressed relentlessly against Ukraine after the ouster of his loyal surrogate there in the 2014 Maidan “color revolution” — first seizing Crimea, then arming separatist rebels in the eastern Donbas region adjacent to Russia, and finally invading the country with nearly 200,000 troops in 2022.

If Senator John McCain was right when, in 2014, he called Russia “a gas station masquerading as a country,” then the rapid switch to alternative energy across Eurasia could, within a decade, rob Moscow of the finances for further adventures.

But perhaps Putin’s boldest move was a little-understood geopolitical flanking maneuver against NATO, played out across two continents. Starting in 2015, Moscow hopped over the NATO barrier of Turkey by setting up a naval base and an airfield in northern Syria and began a bombing campaign that would soon reduce cities like Aleppo to rubble to keep its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, in power in Damascus. In 2021, Moscow skipped over another U.S. ally, Israel, and began supplying Egypt with two dozen of its advanced Sukhoi-35 jet fighters so its airmen could compete with Israelis flying American F-35s. Completing Russia’s push into the region, Putin built upon shared interests as oil exporters to befriend Saudi Arabia’s uncrowned leader, Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Using his Syrian bases as a springboard, his final geopolitical gambit was a pivot across North Africa from Sudan to Mali conducted covertly by a notorious crew of Russian mercenaries called the Wagner Group.

In recent weeks, however, Putin’s geopolitical construct suffered a serious blow when rebels suddenly swept into Damascus, sending Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Moscow and ending his family’s more than 50 years in power. After suffering a stunning 700,000 casualties and the loss of 5,000 armored vehicles in three years of constant warfare in Ukraine, Russia had simply stretched its geopolitical reach too far and no longer had sufficient aircraft to defend Assad. In fact, there are signs that Russia is pulling out of its Syrian bases and so losing a key pivot for power projection in the Mediterranean and northern Africa.

Meanwhile, as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte condemned the “escalating campaign of Russia’s hostile actions” and its attempt to “crush our freedom and way of life,” Western Europe began ramping up its defense industries and cutting its economic ties to Russia. If Senator John McCain was right when, in 2014, he called Russia “a gas station masquerading as a country,” then the rapid switch to alternative energy across Eurasia could, within a decade, rob Moscow of the finances for further adventures, reducing Russia, now also harried by economic sanctions, to a distinctly secondary regional power.

The Limits of China’s Power

For the past 30 years, China’s transformation from a poor peasant society into an urban industrial powerhouse has been the single most dramatic development in modern history. Indeed, its relentless rise as the planet’s top industrial power has given it both international economic influence and formidable military power, exemplified by a trillion-dollar global development program and the world’s largest navy. Unlike the other empires of our era that have expanded via overseas bases and military intervention, China has only acted militarily on contiguous territory—invadingTibet in the 1950s, claiming the South China Sea during the past decade, and endlessly maneuvering (ever more militarily) to subdue Taiwan. Had China’s unprecedented annual growth rate continued for another five years, Beijing might well have attained the means to become the globe’s preeminent power.

But there are ample signs that its economic juggernaut may have reached its limits under a Communist command-economy. Indeed, it now appears that, in clamping an ever-tighter grip on Chinese society by pervasive surveillance, the Communist Party may be crippling the creativity of its talented citizenry.

Should Beijing launch a war on Taiwan, whether to fulfill its promise or distract its people from growing economic problems, the result could prove catastrophic.

After a rapid 10-fold expansion in university education that produced 11 million graduates by 2022, China’s youth unemployment suddenly doubled to 20% and continued climbing to 21.3% a year later. In a panic, Beijing manipulated its statistical methods to produce a lower figure and began fabricating numbers to conceal a youth unemployment rate that may already have reached 30% or even 40%. The potential power of youth to break the hold of the communist state was evident in November 2022, when protests against zero-Covid lockdowns erupted in at least 17 cities across China, with countless thousands of youths chanting, “Need human rights, need freedom,” and calling for President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party to “step down.”

The country’s macroeconomic statistics are growing ever grimmer as well. After decades of rip-roaring growth, its gross domestic product, which peaked at 13%, has recently slumped to 4.6%. Adding to its invisible economic crisis, by 2022 the country’s 31 provinces had shouldered crippling public debts that, The New York Times reported, reached an extraordinary “$9.5 trillion, equivalent to half the country’s economy,” and some 20 major cities have since leaped into the abyss by spending wildly to give the economy a pulse. Seeking markets beyond its flagging domestic economy, China, which already accounted for 60% of global electric vehicle purchases, is launching a massive export drive for its cut-rate electric cars which is about to crash headlong into rising tariff walls globally.

Even China’s daunting military may be a bit of a paper tiger. After years of cloning foreign weapons, Beijing’s arms exports have reportedly dropped in recent years after buyers found them technologically inferior and unreliable on the battlefield. And keep in mind that, even as its military technology has continued to advance, China hasn’t fought a war in nearly 50 years.

Nonetheless, President Xi keeps promising the Chinese people that Taiwan’s reunification with “the motherland is a historical inevitability.” However, should Beijing launch a war on Taiwan, whether to fulfill its promise or distract its people from growing economic problems, the result could prove catastrophic. Its inexperience with combined arms—the complex coordination of air, sea, and land forces—could lead to disastrous losses during any attempted amphibious invasion, and even a victory could do profound damage to its export economy.

The End of the American Century

When it comes to that other great imperial force on Planet Earth, let’s face it, Donald Trump’s second term is likely to mark the end of America’s near-century as the world’s preeminent superpower. After 80 years of near-global hegemony, there are arguably five crucial elements necessary for the preservation of U.S. world leadership: robust military alliances in Asia and Europe, healthy capital markets, the dollar’s role as the globe’s reserve currency, a competitive energy infrastructure, and an agile national security apparatus.

However, surrounded by sycophants and suffering the cognitive decline that accompanies aging, Trump seems determined to exercise his untrammeled will above all else. That, in turn, essentially guarantees the infliction of damage in each of those areas, even if in different ways and to varying degrees.

By the time Trump retires (undoubtedly to accolades from his devoted followers), he will have compressed two decades of slow imperial decline into a single presidential term, effectively ending Washington’s world leadership significantly before its time.

America’s unipolar power at the end of the Cold War era has, of course, already given way to a multipolar world. Previous administrations carefully tended the NATO alliance in Europe, as well as six overlapping bilateral and multilateral defense pacts in the sprawling Indo-Pacific region. With his vocal hostility toward NATO, particularly its crucial mutual-defense clause, Trump is likely to leave that alliance significantly damaged, if not eviscerated. In Asia, he prefers to cozy up to autocrats like China’s Xi or North Korea’s Kim Jong-un instead of cultivating democratic allies like Australia or South Korea. Add to that his conviction that such allies are freeloaders who need to pay up and America’s crucial Indo-Pacific alliances are unlikely to prosper, possibly prompting South Korea and Japan to leave the U.S. nuclear umbrella and become thoroughly independent powers.

Convinced above all else of his own “genius,” Trump seems destined to damage the key economic components of U.S. global power. With his inclination to play favorites with tariff exemptions and corporate regulation, his second term could give the term “crony capitalism” new meaning, while degrading capital markets. His planned tax cuts will add significantly to the federal deficit and national debt, while degrading the dollar’s global clout, which has already dropped significantly in the past four years.

In defiance of reality, he remains wedded to those legacy energy sources: coal, oil, and natural gas. In recent years, however, the cost of electricity from solar and wind power has dropped to half that of fossil fuels and is still falling. For the past 500 years, global power has been synonymous with energy efficiency. As Trump tries to stall America’s transition to green energy, he’ll cripple the country’s competitiveness in countless ways, while doing ever more damage to the planet.

Nor do his choices for key national security posts bode well for U.S. global power. If confirmed as defense secretary, Peter Hegseth, a Fox News commentator with a track record of maladministration, lacks the experience to begin to manage the massive Pentagon budget. Similarly, Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has no experience in that highly technical field and seems prone to the sort of conspiracy theories that will cloud her judgment when it comes to accurate intelligence assessments. Finally, the nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, is already promising to punish the president’s domestic critics rather than pursue foreign agents through counterintelligence, the bureau’s critical responsibility.

By the time Trump retires (undoubtedly to accolades from his devoted followers), he will have compressed two decades of slow imperial decline into a single presidential term, effectively ending Washington’s world leadership significantly before its time.

A New World Order?

So, you might ask, if those four empires do crumble or even collapse, what comes next? The forces of change are so complex that I doubt anyone can offer a realistic vision of the sort of world order (or disorder) that might emerge. But it does seem as if we are indeed approaching a historical watershed akin to the end of World War II or the close of the Cold War, when an old order fails with utter finality and a new order, whether redolent with promise or laden with menace, seems inevitable.

This week, The New York Times reported that the U.S. government made war in Afghanistan while helping to “recruit, train, and pay for lawless bands of militias that pillaged homes and laid waste to entire communities.” Those militias “tortured civilians, kidnapped for ransom, massacred dozens in vendetta killings, and razed entire villages, sowing more than a decade of hatred toward the Afghan government and its American allies.”

Written by a former Kabul bureau chief for the Times, the article appeared under a headline saying that “U.S.-backed militias” in Afghanistan were “worse than the Taliban.”

Now they tell us.

The new reporting made me think of a chapter in my book War Made Invisible titled “Now It Can Be Told.” Here’s an excerpt:

* * * * *

Timing is crucial in media and politics—and never more so than when war is at stake. It’s completely unsatisfactory for journalists to toe the war line for years and then finally report, in effect: Now it can be told—years too late.

Virtually the entire U.S. media establishment gave full-throated support to the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in early October 2001. Twenty years later, many of the same outlets were saying the war was ill-conceived and doomed from the start.

Immediately after the invasion of Iraq began in March 2003, with very few exceptions, even the mainstream news organizations that had been expressing trepidation or opposition swung into line to support the war effort. Two decades later, many of the same media outlets were calling the invasion of Iraq the worst U.S. foreign-policy blunder in history.

A pattern of regret (not to say repentance or remorse) emerged from massive U.S. outlays for venture militarism that failed to triumph in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is little evidence that the underlying repetition compulsion disorder has been exorcized.

But such framing evades the structural mendacity that remains built into the military-industrial complex, with its corporate media and political wings. War is so normalized that its casualties, as if struck by acts of God, are routinely viewed as victims without victimizers, perhaps no more aggrieved than people suffering the consequences of bad weather.

What American policymakers call mistakes and errors are, for others, more aptly described with words like catastrophes and atrocities. Attributing the U.S. wars to faulty judgment—not premeditated and hugely profitable aggression—is expedient, setting the policy table for supposed resolve to use better judgment next time rather than challenging the presumed prerogative to attack another country at will.

When the warfare in Afghanistan finally ended, major U.S. media—after avidly supporting the invasion and then the occupation—were awash in accounts of how the war had been badly run with ineptitude or deception from the White House and the Pentagon. Some of the media analysis and commentaries might have seemed a bit sheepish, but news outlets preferred not to recall their prior support for the same war in Afghanistan that they were now calling folly.

A pattern of regret (not to say repentance or remorse) emerged from massive U.S. outlays for venture militarism that failed to triumph in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is little evidence that the underlying repetition compulsion disorder has been exorcized from America’s foreign-policy leadership or major news media, let alone its political economy. On the contrary: the forces that have dragged the United States into an array of wars in numerous countries still retain enormous sway over foreign and military affairs. For those forces, over time, shape-shifting is essential, while the warfare state continues to rule.

The fact that strategies and forms of intervention are evolving, most conspicuously in the direction of further reliance on airpower rather than ground troops, makes the victims of the USA’s firepower even less visible to American eyes. This presents a challenge to take a fresh look at ongoing militarism and insist that the actual consequences for people at the other end of U.S. weaponry be exposed to the light of day—and taken seriously in human terms.

Despite all that has happened since President George W. Bush vowed in mid-September 2001 to “rid the world of the evil-doers,” pivotal issues have been largely dodged by dominant U.S. media and political leaders. The toll that red-white-and-blue militarism takes on other countries is not only a matter of moral principles. The United States is also in jeopardy.

That we live in one interdependent world is no longer debatable. Illusions about American exceptionalism have been conclusively refuted by the global climate emergency and the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the ever-present and worsening dangers of thermonuclear war. On a planet so circular in so many ways, what goes around comes around.

Friends,

The holidays provide an apt time to pause and assess where we are.

You have every reason to be worried about what happens after January 20. Many people could be harmed.

Yet I continue to have an abiding faith in the common sense and good-heartedness of most Americans, despite the outcome of the election.

Many traditional Democratic voters did not vote — either because they were upset about the Biden administration’s support for Benjamin Netanyahu or they were unmoved by Kamala Harris. Others chose Trump because their incomes have gone nowhere for years and they thought the system needed to be “shaken up.”

An explanation is not a justification.

There have been times when I doubted America. I think the worst was 1968, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy, the riots and fires that consumed our cities, the horrific Democratic convention in Chicago along with protests and violent police response, the election of the dreadful Nixon, and the escalating carnage of Vietnam.

It seemed to me then that we had utterly lost our moral compass and purpose.

But the Watergate hearings demonstrated to me that we had not lost it. Democrats and Republicans worked together to discover what Nixon had done.

I had much the same feeling about the brilliant work done by the House’s special committee to investigate January 6, 2021, including chair Bennie Thompson and vice chair Liz Cheney.

I think it important not to overlook the many good things that happened under the Biden-Harris administration — the most aggressive use of antitrust and most pro-union labor board I remember, along with extraordinary legislative accomplishments.

When I think about what’s good about America, I also think about the jurors, the prosecutors, and the judge in Trump’s trial in Manhattan, who took extraordinary abuse. Their lives and the lives of their families were threatened. But they didn’t flinch. They did their duty.

I think about our armed services men and women. Our firefighters and police officers. Our teachers and social workers. Our nurses who acted with such courage and dedication during the pandemic. I think about all the other people who are putting in countless hours in our cities and towns and states to make our lives better.

A few days ago, I ran into an old friend who’s spending the holidays running a food kitchen for the unhoused.

“How are you?” she asked, with a big smile.

“Been better,” I said.

“Oh, you’re still in a funk over the election,” she said. “Don’t worry! We’ll do fine. There’s so much work to do.”

“Yes, but Trump is …”

She stopped me, her face turning into a frown. “Nothing we can do about him now, except get ready for his regime. Protect the people who’ll be hurt.”

“You’re right.”

After a pause she said, “We had to come to this point, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Biden couldn’t get done nearly enough. The reactionary forces have been building for years. They’re like the pus in an ugly boil.”

“That’s the worst metaphor I’ve heard!” I laughed.

“The boil is on our collective ass,” she continued, laughing along with me. “And the only way we get up enough courage to lance the boil is for it to get so big and so ugly and so mean that no one can sit down!”

“I don’t know whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist,” I said, still laughing.

“Neither,” she explained, turning serious. “A realist. I’ve had it with wishy-washy Democratic ‘centrists.’ A few years of the miserable Trump administration and we can get back to the real work of the country.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“And now I have to get back to work. Lots of people to feed! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy New Year!”

With that, she was gone.

So, there it stands in your living room—the crown jewel of December. Your Christmas tree, dressed to the nines in ornaments that range from genuinely lovely to “why do we still have this macaroni abomination from 1997?” Beneath it, gifts for loved ones and a few hastily wrapped “emergency backups” for people you forgot about until yesterday. It’s not just a tree; it’s the spirit of the season—a symbol of hope, renewal, and festivity.

But halfway across the world, another tree tells a far grittier, far less sparkly story. The olive tree. For Palestinians, this tree doesn’t glitter—it sustains. Its fruit isn’t decorative—it’s dinner. And while it doesn’t cradle stockings or fairy lights, it carries something heavier: the survival of families who’ve relied on its branches for generations.

A Season of Loss (and Rage)

Picture this: You arrive at your family’s olive grove in the West Bank, expecting to gather the fruit of months of labor. Instead, you find the trees—some hundreds of years old—hacked to the ground. These weren’t just trees; they were ancestors, livelihoods, the living heart of your family history. Each stump is an act of violence, as if someone took a chainsaw to your roots.

This holiday season, why not let your generosity extend beyond your living room? Support organizations like Treedom for Palestine, Development in Gardening, or Grassroots International.

This isn’t vandalism––it’s strategy. Uprooting olive trees is a brutal tool in the ongoing effort to displace Palestinian families from the land they’ve farmed for centuries. This year alone, settlers have destroyed more than 4,000 trees. Armed settlers patrol the land, while IDF soldiers turn a blind eye—or worse, assist. Two farmers were killed during the olive harvest including a 50-year-old woman shot by an Israeli soldier whilst tending her trees.

If you’re outraged, good. You should be. But rage alone isn’t enough to counter despair.

There’s also hope.

Planting as Protest

In 2018, Motaz Bsharat knelt in his field and planted 250 olive trees. But he wasn’t just planting—he was envisioning a future. His grove—fenced, irrigated, and fortified—became the first Freedom Farm. Today, there are 70 Freedom Farms across the West Bank, each a living testament to resilience.

This year, Motaz harvested his first full crop: 500 kilograms of olive oil, valued at $10,000. Next year, that yield will double. But this isn’t just an economic success. It’s proof—proof that even in a land scarred by violence, life persists.

The Freedom Farms are thriving, but the destruction hasn’t stopped. Since the occupation began, 2.5 million olive trees have been destroyed. Each tree uprooted is a scar on the land and its people. And yet, the farmers remain. They plant. They rebuild. They endure.

The Humble Hero

Olive trees are miracles of nature. They thrive in arid soil, resist drought, and live for centuries, bearing fruit for generations. They sequester carbon and sip water sparingly. In so many ways, they’re a Christmas tree for Palestinians: symbols of hope and renewal.

In response to the settler violence this year, Treedom for Palestine launched its 4,000 Strong Campaign to replace every olive tree destroyed this year by settlers. These new groves are more than replacements—they’re fortified Freedom Farms, designed to withstand violence and flourish under the harshest conditions.

Planting a tree in Palestine is not just reforestation. It’s reclamation. Each sapling declares: We are still here.

Deck the Halls, Plant The Fields

As you sit by your Christmas tree, marveling at its glow and wondering whether you really needed a third slice of pie (you did), spare a thought for the olive tree. For Palestinian families, it’s more than a decoration—it’s their lifeline, their anchor, their inheritance.

This holiday season, why not let your generosity extend beyond your living room? Support organizations like Treedom for Palestine, Development in Gardening, or Grassroots International. Every tree planted isn’t just a tree—it’s a promise. A promise that families will stay rooted, that livelihoods will be rebuilt, and that peace might actually take root one day.

This Christmas Day, while the world pauses to celebrate, Treedom for Palestine will do what it does best: plant. Instead of carols and candlelight, three new Freedom Farms—750 olive trees—will take root in the West Bank. These aren’t just trees; they’re acts of quiet defiance and faith in prosperity and peace, each one declaring: We are still here. Until peace takes root, we’re holding a space for it.

Because like the Christmas tree, the olive tree is a savior tree—but one that doesn’t just light up for a season. It lights the way for generations. By planting this holy tree in the Holy Land at a time like this, it’s not just the tree we’re saving.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent clemency grants to 1,500 Americans sparked renewed discussions about second chances.

Yet for millions of parents—mothers and fathers—the shackles of their past legal convictions extend far beyond their time served. The collateral consequences of a criminal record don’t just haunt individuals. They ripple through families, shaping the lives of children who had no part in their parents’ mistakes.

As someone who has traversed the lasting consequences of a conviction, I know firsthand how society judges parents like me—not by the love and care we provide our children but by the labels of our past. But when we reduce people to their convictions, we fail to see their humanity, their potential, and the harm this judgment causes not just to them but to their families.

The collateral consequences of a criminal conviction aren’t just abstract statistics—they’re the missed field trips, the lost jobs, the countless times parents must tell their children, “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Around 77 million Americans, or one in three Americans, have criminal records, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Each year, more than 600,000 Americans are released from prison and reenter society. It is a transition rife with barriers of injustice, prejudice, racism, and inequality.

The United States has more than 44,000 laws and policies that restrict people with criminal convictions from accessing basic rights and opportunities. These rules create barriers to housing, employment, education, and even parenting. For mothers and fathers, the inability to rebuild their lives post-incarceration isn’t just a personal struggle—it’s a family crisis.

One of the most painful moments after my conviction was realizing I couldn’t chaperone my 13-year-old daughter’s eighth grade field trip because of my record. Telling her I wasn’t allowed to go broke something inside me.

For parents like me, these moments happen all the time—when we can’t volunteer at school, rent an apartment near better schools, or secure a job that provides stability. To our children, it feels like rejection.

One report estimates that the number of children with incarcerated parents ranges from 1.7 to 2.7 million. Research shows these children are more likely to face emotional, behavioral, and academic challenges. They’re often treated as if their parent’s conviction is their fault. This stigma perpetuates cycles of poverty and marginalization, making it harder for families to break free from systemic barriers.

Beyond the personal pain, the statistics paint a bleak picture. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, nearly 70% of formerly incarcerated individuals are unemployed or underemployed a year after release. For parents, this means struggling to provide even the basics for their children.

Women are particularly vulnerable, with many returning to find their housing options limited because public housing policies exclude people with records. Fathers, too, often face obstacles in reestablishing their parental rights or even being present in their children’s lives due to parole restrictions and ongoing stigma.

These systemic barriers serve as a constant reminder that, in the eyes of society, those with records are defined by their convictions. It’s as though the world has dog eared a page from their worst chapter, refusing to read further.

To be sure, accountability matters. Parents who commit harm must take responsibility for their actions. But accountability must not equate to a lifetime of condemnation. Punishing parents indefinitely only compounds harm, especially for the children who depend on them for stability and love.

Parents are more than their past mistakes, just as a book is more than its cover. Judging someone solely by their record robs them of the chance to write a better chapter. It also robs their children of the opportunity to see their parents as whole people—flawed but capable of change and love.

The collateral consequences of a criminal conviction aren’t just abstract statistics—they’re the missed field trips, the lost jobs, the countless times parents must tell their children, “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

If we truly value redemption as a society, we must move beyond judging people solely by their convictions.

Every parent deserves the chance to show their children that they are more than their past. And every child deserves the opportunity to believe in second chances. Clemency relies on laws, policies, pardons, and humanity.

Cities have been hollowed out in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of working at home. As office buildings emptied out, urban dwellers were asking themselves why they were paying so much rent to commute to a job that no longer requires them to do so. As warm apartments and storefronts sit empty, there’s probably never been a more searing indictment of capitalism than the fact that American citizens continue to sleep outside in the cold.

The post Born To Kill first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The post Born To Kill appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

In the 1990s, all the talk was about the end of socialism and the unchallenged military and economic superiority of the United States. Nonetheless, two decades later, socialism was revived as a possible political alternative as the Great Recession of 2008 and the intensification of neoliberalism’s cruelties tore a huge hole in people’s faith in capitalism, especially among young people in the United States whose hearts had been captured by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ fiery calls for universal healthcare, free public college, and economic and climate justice. Socialism remains a political alternative taken seriously by many across the United States although its vision is still far away from becoming a hegemonic political project.

However, there are different kinds of socialism, and some of them, such as social democracy and market socialism, seek reform rather than the actual replacement of capitalism. On the other hand, the Soviet model, which is the only version of socialism that gave birth to an alternative socioeconomic system to that of capitalism, had many undesirable features and proved unsustainable.

So what would be the ideal system of socialism in the 21st century? In the interview that follows, radical economist David Kotz dissects the lessons drawn from the experience of the Soviet model, explains why reforming capitalism does not solve the problems built into the system of capitalism, and makes a case in defense of democratic socialism as the only sustainable alternative to capitalism. David Kotz is the author of The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism and of the soon-to-be-published book Socialism for Today: Escaping the Cruelties of Capitalism. He is professor emeritus of economics and senior research fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 2010-19, Kotz also served as distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the department of political economy at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

C.J. Polychroniou: David, in a soon-to-be-published book titled Socialism for Today, you make the case that democratic socialism is the only alternative to the long list of severe problems (massive social inequalities and economic disparities, environmental degradation, racism, poverty, homelessness, and so on) that plague the United States under capitalism. Now, you acknowledge that a shift to a radically different economic system would be a difficult and costly process but also maintain that the problems mentioned above cannot be solved by reforming capitalism. What do you understand by the term “reform of capitalism,” and do you think all struggles to reform capitalism have ultimately failed?

David Kotz: By reform of capitalism, we generally mean the introduction of institutions and policies that modify the way the system works but without replacing its core features—private ownership of the means of production, the wage-labor relation, and the pursuit of profit by the capitalist class as the basic logic of the system. Since the end of World War II, we have seen two types of reform of capitalism. First, the type of reform that emerged in the industrialized countries after the Second World War and came to be called regulated capitalism or social democratic capitalism and, second, the unrestrained version of capitalism that emerged in the 1980s and has been nothing short of a disaster.

Social democratic capitalism included a more active role for government in the economy, a major role for unions in the capital-labor relation, and changes in the way corporations conduct their businesses. Reforming capitalism along a social democratic line was a process that had started before World War II, thanks to the rise of working-class politics and the fact that socialist parties, in some cases, rose to power. But big business and its political representatives also went along out of fear that capitalism might not survive the political pressures from below without reforms. Sweden led the way to social democratic capitalism in the 1930s, but reform capitalism also spread to other parts of Western Europe after the end of the Second World War. In the United States, reform capitalism took place with Roosevelt’s New Deal policies on account of the Great Depression and had many common features with European social democracy.

"Full equality is antithetical to the logic and functioning of capitalism. A capitalist economy cannot work without exploiting workers."

Regulated capitalism in the United States produced many benefits for working people. Starting in the early 1950s, labor productivity went up, wages increased, and income inequality remained relatively stable. By the late 1960s, regulated capitalism also led to major improvements in air and water quality and in occupational safety and health. Those regulations were passed under pressure from a broad coalition of environmental activists, consumer product safety activists, and labor unions. People of color also advanced in economic opportunities. Nonetheless, while regulated capitalism created favorable conditions for making progress toward social, economic, and racial equality, full equality remained a chimera. The empirical evidence suggests that racial/ethnic equality and gender equality can be reduced through political and economic struggle but cannot be eliminated. Full equality is antithetical to the logic and functioning of capitalism. A capitalist economy cannot work without exploiting workers. The improvements made by regulated capitalism were indeed limited and did not resolve all the problems generated by capitalism. Unions had to make major concessions to secure agreements for the reforms from the powerful business interests. The official poverty rate declined over the period of the duration of regulated capitalism, but deep pockets of poverty remained in many parts of the country. The imperialist drive of capitalism also was not tamed in postwar regulated capitalism, and capitalist democracies remained only partially democratic as wealthy individuals and large corporations remained politically powerful.

The biggest problem with regulated capitalism is that it is simply not sustainable in the long run. Why? Because it generates a powerful drive on the part of capitalists to resist restriction in the pursuit of the maximization of profit, which is what capitalism is all about. Capitalism has always faced periodic economic crises. When such crises occur, capitalists will grab the opportunity to overthrow regulated capitalism. This is what happened in the 1970s, and regulated capitalism gave way to a decade of accelerating inflation and a severe business cycle. The neoliberal reforms of capitalism in the early 1980s were born out of the inability of regulated capitalism to persist and bring long-term stability.

C.J. Polychroniou: OK, but since the aim seems to be full equality and the absence of exploitation from human affairs, the argument can also be rather easily made that 20th-century efforts to build a full-fledged socialist alternative to capitalism also failed. Isn’t that so?

David Kotz: There were two types of post-capitalist systems that emerged from efforts to move beyond capitalism. One was the Soviet model that emerged after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. The second was market socialism that surfaced following the collapse of the Soviet model. Neither type succeeded in building a sustainable alternative system. But let me focus on the first type since it did abolish capitalism and build an alternative system. The Soviet model, which spread to many other countries around the world, though with some variations, relied initially on an institution called “soviets,” elected by workers, peasants, soldiers, and sailors. It was supposed to be the supreme authority in the new social and political order. But soon after the revolution, the Bolshevik party established a repressive regime that did not tolerate dissent. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Joseph Stalin became the top leader of the Soviet Union. He established a brutal dictatorship that went on to eliminate much of the leadership that had made the revolution.

Under the Soviet model, all enterprises were owned by the state and allocation decisions were made by a highly centralized and hierarchical form of economic planning. Five-year and one-year plans were formulated for the entire country. Enterprises were given target outputs and provided with the inputs and labor time needed to produce them. Enterprise decision-makers did not aim for maximum profit. There were markets in the Soviet model in the sense that people bought consumer goods in stores and workers decided on jobs in the labor market. However, buying and selling in the Soviet economy did not generate “market forces.” Market forces refers to a system in which relative profitability determines which products will get additional inputs and which will be cut back. Thus, market exchange took place, but the system was not guided by market forces.

Centralized economic planning transformed the Soviet economy from a backward agricultural economy to an industrialized economy in record time. In just a couple of decades, an industrial base was built that allowed the Soviet Union to produce military hardware that was key to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Between the 1950-70s, the Soviet economy was growing so fast that Western analysts were afraid that it would soon surpass the leading capitalist economies. The Soviet model transformed the lives of the Soviet people for the better in many measurable ways. Between 1950 and 1975, consumption per person in the Soviet Union grew faster than in the U.S. By the 1980s, Soviet production surpassed that of the U.S. in steel, cement, metal-cutting and metal-forming machines, wheat, milk, and cotton. It had more doctors and hospital beds per capita than the United States. There was continuous full employment, stable prices, and no ups and downs of the business cycle, while income was relatively equally distributed.

However, the system had serious economic problems. Many sectors of the economy were inefficient, many consumer goods were of low quality, and many consumer services were simply unavailable. Households often faced shortages of consumer goods.

C.J. Polychroniou: In thinking then about a sustainable alternative system to capitalism, what do we keep from the experience of the Soviet model?

David Kotz: As I sought to indicate earlier, the Soviet model brought significant economic and social progress for some 60 years. In my view, the problems of the Soviet model stemmed from its authoritarian and repressive political institutions and the highly centralized form of economic planning that was adopted. But while the Soviet model lacked popular democracy, it did include the key institutions that socialists have long supported: production for use rather than profit, public ownership of enterprises, and a planned economy. The entire experience of the Soviet model holds useful and important lessons for a future socialism.

C.J. Polychroniou: What about market socialism? What lessons should we draw from that experience?

David Kotz: The idea of combining market allocation with socialist planning has a long history. New models of market socialism were proposed following the collapse of the Soviet model in 1991. The hope was that markets would guarantee economic efficiency while a socialist state assured economic justice and material security. Market socialism did not emerge in Russia after the collapse of state socialism, but it did emerge in China after 1978 under the post-Mao leadership of Deng Xiaoping. In China, market forces were introduced gradually and with a high degree of state oversight to avoid economic chaos. The record shows that market socialism not only reproduced many of the problems of capitalism but has a tendency to promote a return to capitalism. That’s because market forces can do their job of allocating resources only by activating the profit motive as the primary force of productive activity.

C.J. Polychroniou: In your book, you argue that economic planning is the institution that can achieve the aim of creating just and sustainable societies—not market forces. But you also argue that an “effective and sustainable socialism” requires direct participatory planning and new forms of public ownership of the means of production. Can you briefly lay out the basic features of democratic socialism?

David Kotz: Here I can respond only briefly to this question, which I consider in detail in my forthcoming book. My view follows closely the model of socialism in Pat Devine’s book Democracy and Economic Planning. The following are some of the key features of a future democratic socialism in my view:

1. Economic allocation decisions are made by all parties affected by the decision. That includes workers, consumers, and the local community.
2. Differences are settled whenever possible by negotiation and compromise among the relevant parties. If necessary, majority voting can be used.
3. The mass media are free to criticize the state and its officials.
4. Individuals are free to criticize the state and its officials.

Democratic socialism will inevitably face a contradiction between wide participation in decision-making and the need to make allocation decisions in a timely manner, allocation decisions that are inter-dependent in an actual economy. It will not be perfect, but it promises the best possible future for the human species.

It’s true I have a favorite Christmas song, but as it turns out, it’s not one that many people know—at least I assume most people don’t know it.

Funny enough, the title is simply “Christmas Song,” and it was performed—at least the version I know—by songwriter Greg Brown during a live show back in 2001.

Though an atheist, my fondness for Christmas—perhaps like it is for many—is wrapped in the nostalgia of the holiday of my upbringing as well as the ongoing joys I find during this “season of giving.” Like religious celebrations across many faiths, Christmas has the ability to open the human heart and reminds us (if we let it) of that spirit that enriches us and challenges us to understand what it means to share, not material gifts, but time and warmth with one another.

In Brown’s song—which I encourage you to listen to here or below—the story of Jesus is subtly inverted.

Rather than a story of miraculous birth—”It was the night before Christmas,” the song begins, “but nobody was really noticing that”—it is a story about the routine of birth (“something women do” and that “men kinda, sorta, a little bit… help”) in which the only miracle is the gift of life that we’ve all been granted.

Just getting born is such an amazing thing
You'd think we'd all just be nice forever after—
Just to get to be a part of it.

You'd think that anybody that ever held a little baby in their arms
Would be so careful not to ever do any damage
To another human being—or to the creation
Of which we are so obviously a part.

The song presents a story of Jesus that escapes Christianity, which is perhaps why I find it so lovely and piercing, and opens the door to thinking about the hidden promise of a holiday that too often asks us “what we want” as opposed to reflecting on the joys of what we’ve been given.

Sometimes when I get distraught
About our world and what we're doing to it
I remind myself that little children like that are being born every day.

The story in the song is not about a boy who grew up to “found any big religions, with shiny churches,” but rather a story “about a world so much better than this one.” In this story, the unnamed boy “was just a child full of love, who went around and talked about love.”

And so it follows that the lesson of such a child is not that he was exemplary (though perhaps he was), but that we too often fail to recognize the potent and profound goodness of so many people among us, past and present—not children of God, but examples of humility and decency.

Sometimes when I get distraught
About our world and what we're doing to it
I remind myself that little children like that are being born every day.
They may not make a lot of big news
But in their life, they’re kind;
They take care of people;
They don’t blow things all out of proportion.

They spread the news that this life,
So mysterious and hard, is a wonderful enterprise
That should be cherished.

And Brown, led all along by the slow strum of guitar, speaks sorrowfully but clearly as he tells his listener:

So Christmas, if it’s anything at all,
It’s every day. It’s every night.
And even when things look dark, way down…
In the human heart,
That we all share...
There’s a light.

And, only to the song’s credit, it makes me think that’s true. I don’t call it religion, but that idea has shaped my understanding of what the promise of human goodness really is. We know it exists, not because we read about it or were told to believe in it—but because we’ve seen it. We’ve witnessed it.

So Christmas, if it’s anything at all, it’s every day. It’s every night.

Even amidst all the horror and violence and injustice, we know in our life, the good people—young and old and those neither young nor old—and they don’t ask us to believe, but show us the way.

When I listen to this song—as I often will at this time of year—it does something solemn to my heart, the hearts of my family, and those we share it with.

Since I first heard it, the song has always been to me a magnificent expression, though that was not its intent, of what Common Dreams seeks to represent—a world full of people who embody that spirit of loving one another and defending the common good while challenging “the political leadership of the day,” as the song puts it.

We don’t often use that kind of language, but that’s what this project we call Common Dreams is about: love. The news we report and the opinions and analysis we share are all grounded in a deep love for people, community, life of all kinds, and the planet that sustains us all.

I know very well how dark it feels right now for so many. We are right to be frightened and angry and frustrated. And at the same time, we must remember that the light “we all share, in the human heart” is the beginning of our path forward. We are going to have to fight like hell, but that fight will be built on love and solidarity or nothing at all.

If you want to support Common Dreams during this season of giving and reflection, please consider making a contribution to our crucial End-of-Year campaign. Without doubt, our work will be better and stronger with your help. No gift is too small and every gift—no matter the size—makes the biggest difference.

With endless gratitude for all you do in the world, dear reader, and the example you set for the rest of us.

As political analysts continue to piece together the results of this year’s general election, an illuminating takeaway has emerged on issues related to criminal justice: Voters who cast their ballot in red states also voted in local elections for reform-minded candidates and passed progressive criminal justice ballot measures; whereas in some blue states, voters preferred candidates who promise to implement tough-on-crime policies.

These results show that people’s political beliefs no longer easily fall along party lines. And criminal justice reform doesn’t offer any obviously easy solutions. For many, what matters most is feeling safe in our communities. It also suggests that most people believe accomplishing this requires us to no longer view matters like criminal justice as partisan issues.

When I think about this, the legacy and words of John Lewis—a civil rights leader turned congressman—spring to mind: “We cannot thrive as a democracy when justice is reserved for only those with means,” Lewis wrote in 2020. It was at the height of a national movement for racial justice, and his words and the social unrest were signs of a new movement for a more just and equitable America. Lewis was 80 years old then and severely ill with cancer, yet he remained optimistic about the future of America. Several years since his death, Lewis’ lifework and reflections still resonate deeply.

Supporting different networks of mutual aid organizations, like bail funds, is how communities can lean on their shared values and hold tight to their purpose.

As our nation works to bridge divides and find common ground, Lewis’ legacy continues to offer our nation guidance. From the Jim Crow era of the 1960s to the political and racial justice movement that swept the country in 2020, Lewis witnessed our country’s capacity to transform. His life experiences and reflections offer a roadmap for how people can protect and strengthen American democracy. He believed, for instance, that democracy cannot thrive “where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option—for peace cannot exist where justice is not served.”

In today’s America, countless people are still living on the receiving end of that reality. Unarmed Black men continue to be brutally beaten by police. Women are being criminalized for pregnancy loss and for seeking reproductive healthcare. Meanwhile, families are being torn apart by a broken criminal justice system that puts a price on freedom for the legally innocent. But Lewis’ words offer us insight: “As a nation, if we care for the Beloved Community, we must move our feet, our hands, our hearts, our resources to build and not to tear down, to reconcile and not to divide, to love and not to hate, to heal and not to kill.”

To follow in Lewis’ footsteps means viewing this moment in our nation’s history as an opportunity to turn feelings of frustration and uncertainty into positive engagement with our community and fellow neighbors. One way to do that is through mutual aid—the practice of ordinary people helping others in their community by providing resources and services to help meet people’s needs. Groups organized for this purpose, like local community bail funds and The Bail Project, exist to support people when the government does not. Through wealth-based detention that results from the use of cash bail, our cities, states, and counties have shirked their responsibility to preserve the presumption of innocence, establishing a two-tiered system of justice: one for the rich, and another for everyone else.

Charitable bail organizations, like The Bail Project, are often local grassroot groups spearheaded by people from the communities they serve, staffed, for example, by faith leaders, legal experts, and advocates for criminal justice reform. Charitable bail organizations provide free bail assistance and even supportive services—such as court reminders and transportation assistance—to incarcerated people who have already been deemed eligible for release by a judge. In fact, many of the legally innocent people they help have been accused of low-level nonviolent misdemeanors, such as forgetting to attend a scheduled court date. Oftentimes, the only reason people remain incarcerated in jail before trial is because they cannot afford to pay the court a few hundred dollars in exchange for their release before trial—not because they pose a risk of flight or public safety concerns.

Bail funds play a powerful and important role not only in reducing the structural harms caused by our nation’s reliance on failing cash bail policies, but also in strengthening and preserving our country’s democratic ideals. In providing people who a judge has already determined is safe to release with free bail assistance and court support, we safeguard our country’s notions of liberty, freedom, and the presumption of innocence. These are fundamental principles that underpin American democracy—regardless of political affiliation. This work helps our society reimagine how our bail and pretrial systems can be improved.

As we look ahead, the road forward may not be easy, but we’re not alone on it. The work of mutual aid groups and charitable bail funds has helped usher in change. Over the last decade, more than 20 cities have safely minimized the use of cash bail. Supporting different networks of mutual aid organizations, like bail funds, is how communities can lean on their shared values and hold tight to their purpose. Now, more than ever, we must keep our eyes on what we’re here to accomplish, the change we’re fighting for, and the commitment that brought us together. Because, in the words of Lewis: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.”