Good News, Bad News -- Which Do You Want First?

Me, I want to get the bad news up front but appreciate the warning (bad news coming): Nancy Pelosi, an 80 year old multi-millionaire so clueless she proudly showed off her two luxury refrigerators full of gelato during the first pandemic lockdown, yesterday was re-elected to lead the House of Representatives for her corporate sponsors. 

This after presiding over a pathetic $600 one time payment to struggling taxpayers while other countries have been providing thousands per month so people could afford to stay home.

The really bad news for many was that the so-called Squad of progressive Democrats in the House caved and supported Pelosi even though their followers were calling en masse for them to withhold their votes in order to #ForceTheVote on the wildly popular brand of universal health care, Medicare for All.

The fact that any progressive in Congress generally gets co-opted within a couple of years and falls obediently into line on behalf of her career is not a new phenomenon. 

Most mysterious to me is why people continue being (acting?) surprised when this happens.

Worthy of note is that my representative did something really unexpected and unusual: he voted for a fellow war veteran who serves in the U.S. Senate. This taught me that the Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House (who knew?), and suggests that he could not bring himself to vote for corporate shill Pelosi. The statement explaining his choice shows that he and his staff get the sentiment that is abroad in Maine and throughout the land:

I am of the opinion that only a general strike will bring about universal health care in the U.S. 

Our corporate overlords have long since indicated that we can eat shit and die as far as they're concerned. Withholding the labor that builds all that wealth would be powerful -- and calls to do so are growing every day. Status quo upholders claim "that will never happen" to which I say: return to your history books and read up on what happened when elites had bled the working class dry in empires of the past.

Ok, ready for the good news?

A conservative judge who was expected to extradite journalist Julian Assange to face trumped up espionage charges in the U.S. did not do so. Her stated reason: mistreatment during his long imprisonment by the UK on behalf of the U.S. has rendered him a suicide risk, and District Judge Vanessa Baraitser does not believe the conditions in U.S. prisons are such that Assange could be prevented from killing himself in custody. 

According to AP:

“I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” the judge said.

(Wondering if she was thinking about Jeffrey Epstein here. Does anyone really believe he killed himself in prison?)

According to independent journalist Jeremy Scahill:

Undoubtedly a victory that Assange extradition blocked. He may well have died in prison if extradited to the US. The UK judge was correct about the horrid conditions in US prisons. But this ruling largely supports the dangerous US position on the Assange case. Far from over.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) January 4, 2021

So this one victory does not mean the persecution of Julian Assange for revealing evidence of war crimes via Wikileaks is over. In order to stay up to date on the health of the free press canary in the corporate coal mine, we can't rely on the Associated Press or other corporate news outlets who ignore him whenever possible. Instead, we can use this handly list compiled by independent journalist Kevin Gosztola of other reporters who are consistently paying attention.

Because without real news, we're doomed to die in the dark.

Stench From The Camps Is The Defining Smell Of U.S. Government Rotting

Palestinian child being evicted, and not for the first time, by apartheid-state Israel in 2018. Yesterday Israel was admonished by the UN for demolishing dozens of Palestinian homes.
(Image by UNRWA/Lara Jonasdottir)

Sometimes the news is so sad, so troubling, and so bizarre that my feelings about current events are best expressed in a digest of what I've been reading.

So, here goes for the final week of a very hot and very ugly July with dollops of fierce kindness and (probably unfounded) optimism.

Trending on Twitter July 18 after the demagogue with bad hair had a crowd in South Carolina chanting "send her back" about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

 Omar has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for 16 years, which is longer than the demagogue's current wife. Stochastic terrorism is the demagogue's specialty. Indeed, two police officers in Louisiana were fired this week after posting and liking on Facebook that someone should use one of America's 300,000+ guns on another member of "the Squad" whom the demagogue loves to target, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It would take an week of posts to list all the threats of violence against the four women of color who make up the Squad.

Note the asymmetry on Twitter, the demagogue's presumed home court: 134,000 versus 39,800.

(My eternal optimism was deflated by a convo with my youngest who explained that Area 51 is a morally vacant millennial joke -- not a metaphor about storming government facilities to free "aliens" being held captive as I had hoped.)

Speaking of so-called aliens being held captive, here is a long post from an immigration lawyer who is doing a difficult job in worsening times:

Then, for some dark comic relief, a letter from my "representative" in Congress who this week represented General Dynamics, not me, when he voted to authorize $733 billion in Pentagon funding for 2020. His statement on the vote is predictable, while his expressed views on justice for Palestinians makes him sound like a poorly informed middle school student.

To say that Golden is in AIPAC's back pocket so soon in his maiden voyage as an elected official would be disappointing except that I expected no better. After all, he ran as a Democrat and veteran bragging about his role in U.S. wars of aggression against Israel's foes.Is the fact that the Pentagon's bloated budget and insatiable appetite for petroleum are causing a climate emergency lost on him? No reply on that topic of my communications with him. Nor any meaningful response to the humanitarian disaster of brown babies and children being held in U.S. concentration camps.

Photo credit: USA Today

The stench from the camps is the defining smell of our times.It has become ever more necessary to hold your nose while attending to the media circus of which candidate will get the Democratic Party nomination.I'll bet you that, no matter who else is running, the oligarchs will keep the demagogue with bad hair in office by hook or by crook. They find 8-year terms much more convenient than taking on a whole other group of Katie Johnsons and Stormy Daniels to pay off, hush up, etc. every four years.Of course I'm praying he goes down with Jeffrey Epstein. But I'll believe it when I see it.

Of Great White Whales And Sacred Cows: Who Dares Criticize Bill McKibben?

A certainty of my waning years is that any likely social movement is almost immediately co-opted by $$$$$$$, sometimes masquerading as the Democratic Party. I say masquerading because, even though the DNC was too racist for my parents to want to belong, it subsequently rebranded itself as progressive, socially aware, and concerned with the plight of poor people. This is a convenient mask to wear while wining and dining with General Dynamics.

The Squad in Congress who object to military funding pointing out, as Rep. Rashida Tlaib did, "These are huge checks being written to Boeing and Lockheed," are inconvenient to the ruling class. D's and R's have criticized them, while history suggests they will be wooed by many a suitor to abandon their principles. Only time will tell.

So goes life under late capitalism, with its designed-to-be-endless wars hastening climate catastrophe barreling down on us.

Climate activists have their share of Democratic Party-style apologists. Bill McKibben's recent piece in the New York Review of Books shows him doing backflips to minimize the Pentagon's role in hastening climate change, and frame the U.S. military as, not a cause, but a solution.

My good friend and climate activist Janet Weil had this to say about that:

The thing that really stood-out for me in McKibben's article was the "of course" about 800 U.S. military bases all over the world.

Of course they are! Just like seawater in the seas, or any other "natural" phenomenon. 

But we can hope for a world where U.S. military bases, of whatever number, all over the world and into space and maybe Mars someday, are fueled by renewable energy! Which is magic and comes from renewable fairies, not resources dug out of the ground and fought for/defended by...the military!

Journalist Cory Morningstar addressed some of McKibben's other points in a Facebook post on July 4:



If you don't do Facebook the See More link will not work, so here are screenshots of the rest of Morningstar's commentary:

What would real action on Pentagon climate crimes look like? Extinction Rebellion marched on Washington DC recently. They are on the list for big donations from a "philanthropist" being advised by McKibben and others of his ilk. Probably because of sentiments like this one from an extinction rebel in DC interviewed by Popular Resistance:

“I’m here because I have seen that what traditional environmental NGOs do to address climate change isn’t working,” [Dominic Serino] said.

Which brings me to the best article I've read in a long time on climate, governance, human behavior and, yes, literature: "Ye cannot swerve me: Moby-Dick and climate change" by Manuel Garcia, Jr. in Counterpunch.

Some choice morsels from Mr. Garcia's analysis:

...fossil fuels are the opiates in the addiction to war that would be the death of humanity by Planet Earth’s rejection of it.

Do we work dutifully to the death, or till cast adrift as expendable, and do we willingly follow the leader to perdition if he is hellbound and determined for it; or do we rebel, overturn the structure of command, and lead ourselves even if such freedom entails a hard life? Is humanity as a whole worth our individual pains in this effort? Or, is the idea of restructuring human civilization — and soon — to jettison capitalism, authoritarianism, and their enabling fossil-fueled militarism and marbling corruption, just a chimera that would use up our individual life forces to no avail;

We're the crew of the doomed ship. Young people are demanding we swerve, the whale is climate catastrophe, and I think we can guess who Captain Ahab is.

Ha, you thought it was going to be the demagogue with bad hair, didn't you? Sadly, it's McKibben.

If you find other authors who dared to criticize Bill McKibben's article, drop me a line will you?

Meanwhile, you owe it to yourself to read Garcia's whole piece, for the hope and optimism contained within its bitter truth.