WHAT’S THE ISSUE: CLASS OR STATUS?

Karl Marx and Max Weber famously disagreed about the nature of social hierarchies. Marx maintained that the crucial societal conflict was always between social classes and about the control over the means of production—material interests. Though he recognized that the dominant class sometimes dupes the others into “false consciousness”—ignorance of their own interests—he reduced all societal conflicts to economic struggles between social classes.

Weber, on the other hand, while recognizing the importance of social classes and economic control, also paid attention to two other types of hierarchy that did not interest Marx: status and power. Although class, status, and power are connected, no one of them is invariably the most important. Weberians (and I am one) tend to attribute social conflicts to status rivalry instead of money and property. Status is mainly prestige. People at the top are accorded dignity and social honor, whereas those at the bottom are treated with contempt.

However, even mainstream TV and newspaper commentators seem surprisingly Marxist, for they mainly attribute today’s global upsurge of right-wing populist movements to working class anger about their economic conditions. Take the analyses of the recent US elections as examples. The typical explanation of support for Trump is that he won in 2016 because he promised to bring back the good industrial jobs that corporate globalization had sent abroad. And indeed, Trump did get some support in 2016 from under-employed industrial workers in rust-belt areas.

But financial interests can explain only a little about the 2016 election and even less in 2020. Trump’s voters had a higher _average income than people who voted for Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. His popularity in 2016 was highest among _older, less educated, rural, white Christian (though not religiously practicing) males.1 Most Trump voters were not working class,2 nor did workers engage in Marxian class struggle by voting overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders. Trump did promise to fatten the wallets of unemployed workers, but he also pledged to take away their health care. Most voters knew he would give tax breaks to the rich, not to the poor, and this did not offend them. Instead of resenting the billionaire for cheating workers, they laughed about his gold-plated toilet. During one debate, when Hillary Clinton speculated that he was hiding his tax returns because he was not paying taxes, he replied that it showed how smart he was—and most voters apparently agreed. Such popular attitudes show the absence of class conflict.

The election results in 2020 fit Marx’s economic explanation even less. The numerous exit polls confound class-based analyses. When I analyze tables to judge the causal impact of various social factors, I disregard variables as of minor importance if they show less than about 20 percentage points difference between contrasting categories. It’s a simple criterion, but adequate to prove that age, education level, income level, marital status, the presence of young children at home, and union membership had little or no impact on whether citizens voted for Republicans or Democrats.3 The correlations were trivial or non-existent.

In fact, the effects of education and income seem contradictory: With increasing education came slightly more Democratic voting (but only for those with post-graduate degrees), whereas with increasing income came slightly more Republican voting (but only for those with annual w2incomes above $100,000). There is no coherent Marxian explanation for these findings.

I almost wish that Marxists were right—that people mainly do seek economic advantages—for that would make it easier to negotiate rational political deals. (Even ten-year-old kids can figure out how to divide up money.) But tragically, many truly democratic elections are won by people who do not rationally maximize their own material wellbeing, much less that of the whole world. Nobody forces democracies such as the UK, Canada, and the US to quit the EU, the Paris Agreement, and WHO; subsidize fossil fuels; or modernize NATO’s nuclear weapons. Voters freely choose politicians who will do those things. Evidently, many of us democrats are too irrational even to pursue our own interests. Worldwide, people are giving up on democracy and electing “strong leaders” who violate constitutions and human rights for the sake of acquiring more power. Freedom House reports that for the fifteenth consecutive year, freedom has been declining, country by country, around the world.

Moreover, about half of us do not even support our own moral values. In the US, 74 million citizens recently voted for an abusive narcissist who breaks every norm of civilized discourse, despoils the environment, molests women, incarcerates toddlers, denies scientific facts, cheats financially, lies twenty times a day, deprives sick people of medical care, and contests the legitimacy of any election that he loses. (Have I left anything out? Yes, if we shift our gaze to China or Myanmar we see genocidal rulers, and if we look at Russia we see one whose political enemies are shot or poisoned with polonium or Novichok. Trump is a petty crook in comparison to those people—who are nevertheless even more adored than himself.)4

WHY ARE THEY SO POPULAR?

Friends, we need to understand the popularity of such dangerous people.

I noticed that only two demographic variables are strongly associated with support for Trump: race and rural/urban residence. Black Americans overwhelmingly voted against Trump and rural people overwhelmingly voted for him. You cannot explain away their polarized responses as reflecting class differences, for economic variables have little impact on vote choices. Neither race nor location of residence are indicators of social class, but in the US today, they form “status groups.” Social rank, not money, is the basis of status, and what blacks and whites alike resent is being cheated of the dignity and respect they deserve. The very title “Black Lives Matter” says it all; many whites regard blacks as if their lives did not matter.

Likewise, rural Americans resent the loss of their traditional status as the backbone of free society. Population density has long explained a huge amount of the variation in voting patterns. For example, in the 2012 US election, 98% of the 50 most dense counties voted for Obama, while 98% of the 50 least dense counties voted for Romney.5 And according to The Economist, urban and rural voters are more divided today than they were in 2012 or 2016.

In an article about the rural voters of Iowa, who voted overwhelmingly for Trump, Chris McGreal explained it by quoting a mechanic:

“People felt slighted by them calling us racist hicks and talking about the backwards midwest out in the sticks…It was a huge insult to say that you support Trump because you’re a racist. A lot of them here voted for Obama. The Democrats see us as uneducated, simple thinkers who’ve got guns. It’s a huge boon for the Republican party of Iowa.”7

Arlie Hochschild’s book Strangers in their Own Land,8 describes the prevailing attitudes in “red states” before Trump was even a candidate. Having spent many weeks in Louisiana talking with Tea Party supporters, she noted that, like other “red states,” Louisiana needed federal funding more than “blue states,” yet they rejected it. They were suffering from the worst health care, unemployment, educational systems, and environmental pollution. Some people, fully aware that the petrochemical industry was dumping toxins into the pond behind their home that had killed members of their own families, nevertheless didn’t want the government to stop it. That’s not what angered them.

Instead, their political protests reflected their resentment for being considered culturally backward. And indeed, their status has slipped downward on America’s prestige scale, while other status groups—immigrant Latinos and Muslims, disabled people, women, gays, and transgenders—have been rising, with the encouragement of liberals and urban professionals. This rivalry—now called “identity politics”9 —is bitter.

When status groups express their mutual resentments, the hot issues are often about cultural differences, not practical problems. Indeed, real risks are sometimes discounted as merely symbolic—as in the cases of guns and masks. In realistic terms, gun ownership reduces American life expectancy, but Republicans disregard the mortality statistics and take offence at the disdain of “urban, coastal elites” toward their gun culture. Likewise, although it is clear that masks do inhibit the spread of COVID, the evidence is often ignored by Trump supporters, who see mask-wearing as a hostile political pronouncement.

AMERICA’S CULTURE WARS

Democrats and Republicans now represent opposing status groups that are radically polarized regarding several issues, some of which are practical and realistic, while others are more about lifestyle and customs. America’s ‘culture war’ is about abortion10; capital punishment11; gun control12; Employment Discrimination Act (prohibiting discrimination by sexual orientation or gender identity); the Equal Rights Amendment (prohibiting discrimination against females); legalization of same-sex marriages13; major reform (or ‘defunding’) of police14; and legalization of marijuana.15

Some disputes are more readily resolved by legislation than others. For example, the ‘winner-takes-all’ system of representation in the US means that rural voters will continue to wield a disproportionate amount of political power; reforming the system is required for the fulfillment of political equality.16 Whether such reforms can be achieved is one question, but whether doing so would reduce America’s levels of status resentment is quite another—and more difficult—question.

Unlike money, prestige or status is entirely a comparative measure; it reflects rank. And (unlike the children of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, who are all above average) identity groups cannot all rank above average. Logically, for every high-ranking group, there must be a lower-ranking one. As long as human beings make invidious comparisons, this problem cannot be quite solved. And low status cannot be a happy condition. It’s probably harder to reconcile a society divided by status than one divided by class interests.

The NY Times columnist Frank Bruni, shocked by the “softness of the spanking that voters just gave President Trump,” seems to accept this Weberian “status rivalry” explanation. He quotes a Democratic ex-Senator from North Dakota, Heidi Heitkamp, who surmised that Republicans resisted being told to wear masks because it came across as preachy and finger-wagging.

“People don’t like being judged,” she said. That’s why some maskless Americans lash out at the masked. They regard face coverings as an “implied judgment.”17 As shaming.

STATUS, SHAME, AND EMPATHY

Finger-wagging and preaching can only be done when there is some differential in moral, intellectual, or cultural status. The higher status person can heap shame on the lower-status person. I want to suggest that Trump’s supporters are enthusiastic primarily because _he models an unusual (and amazingly effective) bravado for resisting shame.

Nobody likes to feel humiliated, of course, but shame and guilt are actually necessary for social discipline. Yet shame is a double-edged sword. Whenever shaming is used, even for the sake of maintaining decency and social order, it causes pain. Sometimes people refuse to be chastened, but instead form a fascist political movement strong enough to jeopardize civilization itself.

Consider Nazis, for an extreme example. Right-wing demagogues all show fascist attitudes that attract people who feel humiliated. Trump displayed his leadership among such people by expressing approval for under-educated rural white supremacist male neo-Nazis. Everywhere on the planet today such “cultural underdogs” are resisting the shame assigned to them, chanting: “Make America/ UK/ Russia/ India/ China/ Poland/ Hungary/ Brazil Great Again!” This vaunted “greatness” would characterize a society in which high status is not reserved for experts and scientists in urban areas who professionally produce accurate information. Lying and intimidation would be okay.

Few voters in all these countries are fascists, of course. Some of them can provide coherent ideological arguments. Wendy Brown has described the nature of their shared anti-democratic ideology as a merger of two movements: neoliberalism and neoconservatism.18 Neoliberalism is the belief that, not only the economy but also the state itself, should be dominated by market rationality. Citizens are supposedly rational economic actors in every sphere of life and their moral stature is determined by their ability to provide for their own needs. Even in government, productivity and profitability are the main criteria. Neoconservatism is a desire for a strong state that is always prepared for war, and which empowers corporations, religions, and conventional family values.19 Put these two doctrines together and you have Trumpism and Putinism.

For the sake of reducing polarization, we sometimes look for ways of mollifying people who promote such ideologies—ways of demonstrating respect for them which we do not really feel. Is it possible to heal a polarized society by compromising with their grossly immoral politics? Even if it were ethically justifiable, it would be difficult or impossible to accomplish. We cannot change such people—but can we even live with them?

Maybe so—if we approach them in the spirit of therapists dealing with pathological personalities. This is awkward, for although they are mentally unwell, we recall the same illness in ourselves: chronic humiliation, which everyone has felt at times. Unfortunately, the future of democracy may depend on our developing better mechanisms for managing the shame of low status. The most widely used mechanism today is evidently a public posture that I’ll call “counter-phobia,” which is superbly demonstrated every day by Donald Trump.

People love their dictators, not despite their immoral conduct, but precisely for it. Demagogues feel no shame, and so long as they successfully resist shame, their followers can vicariously bluff and hide their own embarrassment.

Populist nationalism is both a personality trait and a political ideology. It arises where there is a deficit of empathy. When people lack empathy, they can avoid feeling shame or guilt when they should. Dictators appeal precisely by enabling their followers to feel comfortable in supporting cruelty and injustice.

“Character is destiny,” said Heraclitus. If he is right, then destiny of a nation may depend on the character of the leader it chooses. Then what determines the character of the candidates? Personality traits (e.g. temperament, particular aptitudes, shyness), can be partly inherited, but _character _traits are evidently learned.

“Character” includes moral traits such as generosity, fairness, and compassion, which put the interests of others ahead of one’s own. Such altruistic motives are not learned easily. Even good people are not always good, but moral educators have success stories to tell, as well as failures, and we can learn from them. They say that children learn self-discipline and compassion from the adults around them.

TOO MUCH … AND NEVER ENOUGH

Two books shed light on the markedly dissimilar moral educations of Donald Trump and Barack Obama. Mary Trump is a clinical psychologist and the daughter of Donald’s older brother Freddy. Her book, Too Much and Never Enough, portrays those two boys’ father, Fred, as a real estate mogul and ruthless bully who “expected obedience, that was all.”

Because of poor health, Fred’s wife could not nurture her children adequately—and besides, she was expected to rear only their daughters, while Fred would raise their three boys. He wanted them to be invulnerable—“killers,” as he put it—so when Freddy disappointed him by becoming a mild airline pilot, he turned his full attention instead to Donald, teaching him to “be tough at all costs, lying is okay, admitting you’re wrong or apologizing is weakness.” … To Fred, “there can be only one winner and everybody else is a loser (an idea that essentially precluded the ability to share) and kindness is weakness.”20

Contrast that narrative with Obama’s account of his own moral education. He repeats this message in his memoir21 and speeches, calling current political problems the result of an increasing “deficit of empathy.” His own capacity for empathy had been instilled by his mother, Ann Denham, who had consistently demanded it, as he recounted to Oprah Winfrey:

“She taught me empathy. The basic concept of standing in somebody else’s shoes and looking through their eyes. And she—if I did something, messed up, she’d just say, `How would that make you feel if somebody did that to you?’ And that ends up being, I think, at the center of my politics. And I think that should be the center of all our politics.”22

Of the many methods of teaching morality to children, punishment is probably the most commonly used, but evidently a better method is empathy, which instills the inevitability of feeling guilt or shame after doing wrong. Whatever we might later feel ashamed of having done, we refrain from doing.

INSOUCIANCE OR REMORSE?

But that only works after our conscience is fully operational, and it is empathy that plants those fertile seeds of remorse. Barack Obama’s mother was tough enough to persist until her son would recount his vicarious walks in his adversaries’ shoes; Donald Trump’s mother never tried that, or maybe just gave up too soon.

Sometimes these moral lessons become dramatic contests of will. I have witnessed a few such struggles. I remember especially one entire day observing a mother’s effort to evoke penitence in her five-year-old boy, who had done something egregiously cruel (I forget what). She believed that if he did not acknowledge remorse on that crucial occasion, a milestone would have been crossed and a faulty character trait would have been set for life.

In retrospect I think she was right. I know the adult son, who is no sociopath, but far from a Barack Obama either. When reminded of an obligation that he is not fulfilling, he usually dismissively replies, “Don’t guilt-trip me.”

Guilt and shame are prerequisites for a virtuous character—precisely because they are so unpleasant to most of us. But then, there is Donald Trump, who apparently never feels shame or guilt. It is exactly this brazenness that fascinates us. We are amazed to watch his insouciance when caught in scandals that would mortify anyone else. How does he do it?

Where others would feel guilt, sociopaths display little, if any, remorse. Where others would feel embarrassed, they flaunt their outrage or brag about it. This is counterphobia. I’ll illustrate with two contrasting types of shame-management.

Example One is an old story about a prim Arab, Abdul al-Souri, who was in a public meeting when he loudly broke wind. Overcome with humiliation, he fled to a faraway city. Thirty years passed before he dared visit his hometown, where he began talking in the street with a young boy. He mentioned that he had been away since 1830. “Oh,” said the boy. “That was the year when Abdul al-Souri farted.” Abdul fled again and never returned.

Example Two is the title of an essay, “Fart Proudly,” by Benjamin Franklin which perfectly expresses the defence mechanism that psychoanalysts call “counterphobia.”23 When Franklin served as ambassador to France, he wrote a number of naughty but witty essays, including a discussion of flatulence. Just by humorously alluding to this taboo topic, he demonstrated a massively strong ego—precisely the quality that (if maintained successfully) qualifies a person as a leader—or at least a celebrity.

There has never been a more beloved American than Ben Franklin, who even surpassed Donald Trump in his masterful use of counterphobia. Unlike Franklin, Trump lacks any sense of humor, so his counterphobia is a more serious act to maintain.

Almost everyone fears something that makes us anxious—snakes, say, flying in planes, or public speaking—and try to avoid it. Only rare individuals do the opposite: Whatever they fear might happen, they perform deliberately in public. A counterphobic who fears heights becomes a skydiver, for example. Or an ambassador who fears making an embarrassing faux pas at court jokes about farting proudly.

Of course, counterphobia is a risky game to play, for if people don’t go along with your outrageous pretensions, you’ll be twice as embarrassed. Once you start taking that kind of risk, you have to keep it up. You can never again play shy or run away, as Abdul Al-Souri did. Successful public demonstrations of counterphobia can confer enormous charisma—but at great cost. You have to maintain that public persona forever, and never again demonstrate normal levels of modesty. Few people can do it well. We are fascinated by those who can.

COUNTERPHOBIA AND CHARISMA

Probably Donald Trump’s greatest fear early in life was of being laughed at for some stupid blunder—but his father would not let him flee in humiliation, so he learned never, never, never to acknowledge any personal flaws or weaknesses. As a counterphobic, he pretends to be proud of every shameful act (e.g. by telling Hillary that not paying his taxes proves that he is smart). Sometimes he uses another defence mechanism called projection. As his niece Mary points out, before Donald is accused of doing something, he loudly blames someone else for doing precisely that. “It’s a disgrace!” he often accuses others, thereby avoiding the sting of shame himself. A champion liar himself, he charges fact-checking reporters of providing “fake news.” Never does he feel shame.

Fred Trump found allies who helped him instill shamelessness in Donald. One was the famous pastor Norman Vincent Peale, whose book The Power of Positive Thinking sold five million copies in the early 1950s. Fred Trump loved it, took his family to Marble Collegiate Church on Sundays, and made Peale into a close pal. Gwenda Blair describes the pastor’s message:

“Believe in yourself!” Peale’s book begins. “Have faith in your abilities!” He then outlines ten rules to overcome ‘inadequacy attitudes” and “build up confidence in your powers.” Rule one: “formulate and staple indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding,” “hold this picture tenaciously,” and always refer to it “no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.”

Subsequent rules tell the reader to avoid “fear thoughts,” “never think of yourself as failing,” summon up a positive thought whenever “a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind,” “depreciate every so-called obstacle,” and “make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 per cent.”24

Another powerful figure in Donald Trump’s upbringing was an athletic instructor in his military school, Theodore Dobias, whom he described this way: “Like so many strong guys, Dobias had a tendency to go for the jugular if he smelled weakness. On the other hand, if he sensed strength but you didn’t try to undermine him, he treated you like a man.”25

Frank Chamandy also attended that military school and knew Dobias, whom he described this way: “He pushed us to win. If you weren’t a winner, you were a loser, plain and simple…He was a bully. He was tough and unrelenting. Maybe he even brainwashed us. But he got results.”26

And Donald Trump is one of those results. His personal qualities are not the outcome of indifferent parenting; he underwent rigorous training to be a counterphobic, and—like it or not—this trait is key to his success as a leader. A July 2017 survey of 5,000 Americans found that a quarter of U.S. adults like the idea of having “a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections.”27 And 91 percent of Republicans say that Trump is a “strong leader.” He will never admit having lost the election to Biden, and most Republicans will agree with him, even against all evidence. That’s charisma.

According to Max Weber, charisma is “the supposed extraordinary quality of a personality that causes him or her to be considered a ‘leader.’ It may seem strange to attribute charisma to a seriously immoral person, since the term originated in religion, where it described persons who possessed a “gift of grace.” The most famous charismatic leaders include spiritual innovators: Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, Moses, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.

But there are charismatic politicians too, and they are not all noble: Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, and Fidel Castro. Even the spiritual ones are not necessarily benign; remember Jim Jones, the charismatic preacher who persuaded 900 of his followers to commit mass suicide in Guyana.

The success of charisma depends on acceptance by the followers, and charisma is not automatically transferred to a successor. Eva Peron is still revered in Argentina, and Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, though her reputation globally has gone from being an icon of democratic virtue to a genocidaire. Hugo Chavez was charismatic, but his chosen successor, Nicolas Maduro, is boring.

Fortunately, not all leaders are charismatic; many are bureaucratic rule-followers or traditional chieftains who are not expected to be counter-phobic megalomaniacs. Obama’s authority was based on his expertise and willingness to hear rational arguments. Trump’s authority comes from his rejection of expertise, rationality, and even empirical, factual evidence.

That’s the problem. If he were rational, his charisma would pose no particular danger. (Roosevelt and Churchill were charismatic too, but their decisions were largely rational.) But Trump and all the other populist world leaders have been getting away with issuing unreasonable orders because they are charismatic. They deny that nuclear weapons, climate change, and even Covid-19 are serious threats—and millions believe them.

People love their dictators—if they are charismatic. We may be unable to strip a leader of charisma. Those who had it may even acquire new followers after they are dead. The French still are proud of Napoleon. Russians still consider Stalin as the greatest leader in their history. Even Mongolians still name things after Genghis Khan.

Yet there are grounds for hope, both for immediate and longer-term solutions. We’ve had too much charisma. As we enter a new year, there is a chance for new, rational bureaucratic leadership. Let’s seize that opportunity by confirming the authority of science, fair journalism, and factual evidence as the basis for political decisions.

And for the long-term future of democracy, let’s remind parents to teach empathy to their children, who are the leaders of the future. Their wisdom depends on their capacity to feel remorse for their mistakes and joy for the happiness of others. Carpe diem!

Metta Spencer is editor of Peace and a retired professor of peace studies.



ENDNOTES

1 Election 2016 National Exit Poll Results and Analysis. ABC News Analysis Desk and Paul Blake, 9 November 2016, abcnews.go.com/Politics/election-2016-national-exit-poll-results-analysis/story?id=43368675

2 Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu, “It’s time to bust the myth: Most Trump voters were not working class.” Washington Post, The Monkey Cage, June 5, 2017. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-to-bust-the-myth-most-trump-voters-were-not-working-class

3 ABC News: Exit Polls for 2020 US Presidential Election: Results & Analysis. abcnews.go.com/Elections/exit-polls-2020-us-presidential-election-results-analysis

4 Freedom House Report, freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world

5 Dave Troy, “Is Population Density the Key to Understanding voting Behavior?” davetroy.medium.com/is-population-density-the-key-to-understanding-voting-behavior-191acc302a2b Aug. 22, 2016.

6 The Economist, “America’s urban-rural partisan gap is widening,” Nov. 10, 2020, http://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/11/10/americas-urban-rural-partisan-gap-is-widening

7 Chris McGreal, “‘He made a connection’: how did Trump manage to boost his support among rural Americans?” The Guardian, Nov 20, 2020. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/20/trump-made-a-connection-here-rural-supporters-iowa

8 Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.

9 Francis Fukuyama, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. Kindle Edition, 2018.

10 Michael Lipka and John Gramlich, “Five Facts about the abortion Debate in America,” Pew Research Center, Aug. 30, 2019. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/30/facts-about-abortion-debate-in-america

11 Baxter Oliphant, Public support for the death penalty ticks up, Pew Research, June 11, 2018

12 John Gramllich and Katherine Schaeffer, “Seven Facts about Guns in the US,” Pew Research Center, Oct. 20, 2019. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/22/facts-about-guns-in-united-states

13 Justin McCarthy, “U.S. Support for Same-Sex Marriage Matches Record High,” Gallup Poll, June 1, 2020. news.gallup.com/poll/311672/support-sex-marriage-matches-record-high.aspx

14 Steve Crabtree, “Most Amerians Say Policing Needs ‘Major Changes” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2020. news.gallup.com/poll/315962/americans-say-policing-needs-major-changes.aspx

15 Andrew Daniller, “ Two-thirds of Americans support marijuana legalization,” Pew Research Center, Nov. 13, 2019. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/14/americans-support-marijuana-legalization

16 America’s urban-rural partisan gap is widening,” op cit.

17 Frank Bruni, “We Still Don’t Really Understand Trump—or America” New York Times, Nov. 7, 2020. http://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/opinion/sunday/trump-election-performance.html

18 Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West (Columbia University Press, 2019). Also see her “American Nightmare: neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and de-democratization. Political Theory”, 34/6, 690-714.

19 Dina Zisserman-Brodsky, “De-democratization and Its Concomitants in Contemporary Russia,” Paper Presented to the ASN 2017 Convention, Columbia University, NY, May 2017.

20 Mary Trump, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020), p. 25. (Kindle Edition, 2018).

21 Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. (N.Y: Random House, 2007).

22 Barack Obama, 2006-10-18, Oprah Winfrey Show.

23 Benjamin Franklin, Fart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School. Carl Japikse, ed. Kindle edition, 2003.

24 Gwenda Blair, “How Norman Vincent Peale Taught Donald Trump to Worship Himself,” Politico, Oct. 15, 2015. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/donald-trump-2016-norman-vincent-peale-213220

25 Donald J. Trump and Tony Schwarz, The Art of the Deal, Kindle Edition, 1987, Chapter 3.

26 Frank Charmandy, “The President, his mentor, and me: I know what makes Donald Trump tick,” The Globe and Mail, Oct. 16, 2020. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-president-his-mentor-and-me-i-know-what-makes-donald-trump-tick

27 Trudy Rubin, “Rubin: 3 in 10 Americans would prefer a more authoritarian government, report says” The Mercury News, April 2, 2018. http://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/02/rubin-report-finds-disturbing-figures-3-in-10-americans-would-prefer-a-more-authoritarian-government

Besides, what does a bailout do, anyway? Well, other than finance huge bonuses for corporate executives, they only serve to consolidate wealth, power and control into fewer and fewer hands. Thanks to neoliberal capitalism we have legalized corporate personage, which means that the hands these resources fall into aren’t even people at all. Instead, faceless corporate bodies and legions of investor conglomerates reap record profits while real human beings who create and run the economy suffer. Even Kevin O’Leary and the Fraser Institute say that bailouts don’t work (please note this landmark moment where for the first time in history, we have agreed with Kevin O’Leary or the Fraser Institute).

Perhaps we could all chip in to buy politicians and senior decision makers the latest copy of Mankiw’s Macroeconomics. It is the single most prevalent introductory textbook on economics for undergraduate students in the Western world; I am sure a reminder of the basic principles of macroeconomics would be useful in this trying time. These mega-corporations could always follow Mankiw’s rules, and simply exit the market when they fail and allow innovative, successful businesses to take over—as capitalism is supposed to work (in theory). Perhaps we should remember that those who suffer are not companies, but Canadians: the people who allow those very companies to run and function. It is those workers who are in need of assistance, not companies.

This is not to say that the Government of Canada is ignoring ordinary Canadians. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) has launched, providing up to $2,000 a month for up to four months for those whose employment and income has been effected by COVID-19. Kudos for that, but will this really make a substantial difference? We have even followed in Denmark’s steps, paying up to 75 percent of employees’ salaries. But why stop at half measures? These solutions are only temporary stopgaps. They will only tide us over until the economy recovers, which, according to Ontario’s recent modelling, could be two years away.

We may not have two years to recover. COVID-19 is now a part of our daily lives, at least until a vaccine is found (if that is even possible). From polio in Canada in the 1950s to HIV/AIDS, to Spanish Flu, to the Black Death, history is rife with pandemics. These events are only going to come more often due to globalization and climate change. They will become part of the larger pattern of our civilizations, like the ongoing effects of global warming.

Therefore, our response cannot be a one-off event, and it certainly must not rely upon only stopgap measures. What type of response could fit the bill?
This is where universal basic income (UBI) enters the picture. Remember that promising idea Ontario Premier Doug Ford axed only weeks after his election? Instead of giving thousands of dollars to Canadians in the form of loans—which they may never be able to repay—perhaps we could move to an entirely new paradigm? This is not a revolutionary concept. Spain recently announced that it will be launching UBI; and not just for COVID-19, but as a lasting and permanent measure.

With a UBI, Canadians out of work due to the pandemic would not be nervous about their prospects, knowing that their basic needs would be met. Small businesses could close temporarily, knowing their employees will be taken care of, and able to return to work when possible. Rents would be paid, groceries bought and consumed, expenses managed, and debts handled. Life would go on–certainly with some trepidation and uncertainty, but Canadians would never fear losing their homes, being unable to feed their families, or feel terrified of needing to put themselves in vulnerable working conditions in the midst of a crisis.

What would this look like? Well, the CERB is $2,000 per month—lets start with that. UBI should cover the costs of the basics of life: rent, groceries, transportation (say a bus pass), and clothing. This is not going to pay for a fancy condo in downtown Toronto and the lease on your new Volvo; that’s not the point. UBI should cover the basic costs of living, so people have the opportunity to seek out jobs, to educate themselves, and to manage the disturbances that invariably come to all of our lives, such as the next pandemic that will inevitably shock the planet.

There would need to be other considerations as well. For instance, UBI should be available to all Canadians and permanent residents without requiring an application. Those who are incarcerated should not be eligible for the duration of their sentence, nor should those not residing in Canada (unless deployed overseas via the military or another government organization). Indigenous peoples should be given priority in the rollout of such a program; certainly we owe them that much for having stolen generations of their land, and in many cases their livelihoods, dignity and health.

Of course, we would need to pay for this, and it will not be cheap. Perhaps we could consider closing tax loopholes which cost the Canadian government billions of dollars in lost revenues each year. Maybe it is time to bring those found in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers to justice, along with their ill-gotten gains. Surely we could afford to start taxing digital giants like Facebook and Amazon who reap exorbitant profits, while running afoul of anti-trust laws, violating employees rights, and meddling in our elections.

There will be naysayers, just as there were doubters when Canada was preparing to adopt universal healthcare. A UBI will not be perfect, and standing alone it is not a panacea–what government program is? It will need to be adjusted as our economy and society shift and adapt over time, embodying a responsiveness that has been missing from policymaking of late. Sure, some may come to abuse the system, but maybe, just maybe, it is time to completely rethink our economic model and what is possible. Perhaps it is Canada’s time to take the lead, to preserve our productive potential while distributing the spoils among all. The time for universal basic income is now.

Canadian Dimension, April 22, 2020

On Monday, officials said seven B.C. workers tested positive for the novel coronavirus after returning from an oilsands project in northern Alberta. In High River, Alta., located south of Calgary with a population of 14,000, there are now 358 confirmed COVID-19 cases linked to an outbreak at the local Cargill meat-packing plant.

John said he’s thought of quitting, but it’s a difficult choice between work and health when he has bills to pay. He said he’s not worried for himself as much as others in the region if there was an outbreak, especially those who are elderly or immuno-compromised.

Nancy Taylor, 70, who lives in the nearby town of Dunster, is avoiding shopping in Valemount for that reason.

“I think it’s a double standard for all of us in the valley to be socially isolating and sticking to the rules and they (industry) can just come and go,” said Taylor, who is statistically less likely to survive if she contracts COVID-19 at her age.

However, rail transportation is critical to keeping supply chains going, and shutting work down isn’t possible, even in a pandemic, said CN media relations manager Jonathan Abecassis.

“CN is an essential part of the many supply chains Canadians rely on to get the goods they need. As an essential service in Canada, this includes completing safety critical work to ensure a safe and efficient rail infrastructure,” he said.

CN’s pandemic plan aligns with the World Health Organization, as well as provincial and federal authorities, Abecassis said. It includes procedures for self-isolation if an employee or someone they live with has symptoms of COVID-19.

“Employees have also been instructed to respect the protocols in place to maintain a safe working environment, including physical distancing requirements especially as they work in small communities across our network,” he said in an email to HuffPost.

Adding further pressure on the small community is the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, slated to start construction in the area soon. It plans to bring in 50 employees to begin assembling a work camp south of Valemount, which will have a capacity of between 600 to 900 people.

Manitoba NDP MP Niki Ashton is calling for federal leaders to step in and shut down all industrial projects amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Are diamonds and gold really essential services right now? No,” she said, referring to mining operations still running in Canada’s North.

Industry work camps tend to be in “northern regions, or adjacent or on Indigenous communities that are extremely vulnerable,” said Ashton, who represents the sprawling riding of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski.

These are ”regions that are completely unprepared to deal with a minimal spread [of COVID-19], let alone a surge. The idea of leaving it up to the provinces, and worst of all, leaving it up to employers whose obviously number one goal here is continued operations for profit …. is in stark contrast to what we need to be prioritizing right now, which is people’s health.”

At a press conference earlier this month, N.W.T. MLA Katrina Nokleby noted, “Safety is our number one priority, but next to that is ensuring that our economy remains healthy and people feel secure.” She expressed confidence in measures taken by resource companies and called them “strong corporate citizens.”

Public health officials in N.W.T. have ordered mining, oil and gas companies to screen employees entering the territory, and the firms have enhanced cleaning and added physical distancing measures including segregating southern and northern workers, according to Nokleby.

Dominion Diamond Mines suspended operations at its Ekati site in March to “safeguard its employees” during the pandemic, while the Diavik diamond mine, owned by Rio Tinto, remains open with about 500 people on site.

“Our focus is on the health and safety of our employees and communities, and on keeping our operations running safely so we can continue to contribute to the Northwest Territories economy,” said spokesperson Matthew Klar in a statement to HuffPost. Diavik has changed the frequency of shift roster changes from two weeks to four weeks, and employees from 12 isolated northern communities or who have specific risk factors remain off-site.

In B.C.’s Bulkley Valley, Coastal GasLink is following guidelines for construction sites and industrial work camps set by the provincial health officer, such as setting a maximum of 50 workers in dining and common areas, and increasing the number of hand-washing stations on work sites.

But there’s another layer to the concerns over Coastal GasLink’s LNG pipeline project that has faded during the pandemic: hereditary Wet’suwet’en chiefs continue to oppose the construction running through their traditional territory.

Solidarity protests and blockades that shut down many of Canada’s transportation corridors in February built momentum, leading to an intense, three-day emergency meeting between government officials, hereditary chiefs and Wet’suwet’en elected leadership.

Then, the pandemic hit.

‘They’re out there killing the land’
Nikal and her fellow “land defenders” were forced to isolate on their home reserves to avoid the coronavirus, which First Nations are particularly vulnerable to.

“This is heartbreaking,” Nikal said, of not being able to protect her ancestors’ lands currently being “dug up” by construction workers.

“Wet’suwet’en lands are at risk, let alone the people’s health from the coronavirus,” said Kate Gunn of First Peoples Law, who represents Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders. “Many First Nations and Indigenous communities have to divert their internal capacity to keep themselves safe in this pandemic. They can’t send resources out to protect the land right now.”

It’s business as usual on the near $7-billion project slated to carry LNG through northern B.C. to export to Asian markets. This week, Coastal GasLink announced it completed a construction milestone for the first part of the pipeline route.

“They’re out there killing the land. The workers and COVID are a huge threat to us now,” said Nikal.”

Link: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/pipelines-essential-services-coronavirus-mines-pipelines-indigenous_ca_5e9668b8c5b6ead1400463a0

And after Wheat organized the North American Climate Summit in late 2017, an event that brought together close to 50 prominent mayors from around the world, he truly realized the indispensable role that cities can, and must, play in tackling the climate crisis. Cities, he notes, are feeling the oversize impact of climate change, but they are also promising incubators of innovation.

Wheat’s faith in the power of cities to make a difference is part of the reason why he’s been such an effective advocate, notes Nora Mango, who oversees NRDC’s strategic communications for the American Cities Climate Challenge. What’s more, she adds, “Chris possesses a unique combination of tenacity, humor, and humility that makes him both easy to collaborate with and a strong leader. His ability to motivate action from city hall to city streets is incredibly valuable.”

As the director of strategy and city engagement for the Climate Challenge at NRDC, Wheat’s job is threefold. First, he helps manage a team of regional city strategists and climate advisors who are embedded in city halls and helping sustainability directors and mayors’ offices reach ambitious carbon emissions reduction goals. Second, he works with his NRDC colleagues to help address the political and communications challenges the cities face. And lastly, he serves as a city hall “old hand,” working with many of his former counterparts, helping to think through issues and solve problems related to the challenge.

“We’re actually seeing the ambition of cities grow as part of the Climate Challenge,” Wheat says. “Cities are looking to do more expansive and deeper work. So often for us it’s a matter of just keeping up with them.”

And sometimes, Wheat’s job is to slow them down, lest governments barrel right through without adequately considering the perspectives of their constituents. After all, it’s on NRDC and the Climate Challenge to consider who is at the table and help ensure a seat for those who have not necessarily had a voice in these climate conversations before. “There is often an inherent tension between the speed at which cities want to move, because mayors are inherently impatient people, and the need to stop and reflect, in terms of how communities are being engaged,” he says.

Wheat notes his own experience as a person of color—he’s the son of a Korean immigrant mother and an African-American father from rural eastern Arkansas—doesn’t necessarily inform this work because “it is a part of every moment of my being,” he says. He does, however, feel a responsibility to ensure that the places he works and the people he works with are prioritizing issues of equity for communities that have been historically marginalized. “It’s an ongoing challenge for those of us committed to the fight around climate change. We must consider and act upon these issues at the forefront, not [see them] as a nice-to-have,” he says.

And, of course, this work becomes even more urgent in the context of our current federal administration’s inaction on addressing the climate crisis. Wheat isn’t an activist by training, or even inclination. He isn’t the type to go to rallies. Instead, he’s harnessing his childhood “political geek” energy, learning as much as he can, and trying to make changes from within the system.

“The way I channel my anger about what’s happening at the federal level is by trying to be good at my job,” Wheat says. “If I’m good at my job and the Climate Challenge is successful, then I have supreme confidence that it will make a difference not only in terms of reducing emissions, not only ensuring political momentum around this issue, but also just in giving hope to individuals and communities around the country that, yes, the problem is real, but solutions are possible.”
Link: https://www.nrdc.org/stories/city-insider-proving-mayors-can-lead-climate

The draft measures were introduced to the council in June 2019 by Council members Daniel Dromm, Helen Rosenthal and Ben Kallos. Since then, New York peace, climate and disarmament activists have been campaigning to build endorsement from enough council members for the adoption of these two measures.

The campaign has included directed research, lobbying of councillors, public events & actions, and open letters in support such as the Move the Nuclear Weapons Money Open letter to New York City Council sent to every city councillor in November 2019.

‘City of New York pension funds should not be used to support any aspect of nuclear weapons production, plain and simple,’ Councillor Helen Rosenthal told a support action organised by the Move the Nuclear Weapons Money campaign in front of City Hall in October 2019.

‘Helping to fund nuclear proliferation (whether directly via investments in weapons manufacturers, or indirectly via Citibank and other financial institutions with ties to weapons makers) runs contrary to what this city and our 300,000+ municipal workers stand for. Our teachers, fire fighters, social workers, and so many other public sector workers have devoted their careers to making life better for their fellow New Yorkers. We cannot in good conscience assist in underwriting the catastrophic loss of life and environmental ruin that would result from a nuclear conflict.’

Impact of NYC nuclear weapons divestment:

New York City pensions have approximately $480 million invested in the nuclear weapons industry. The divestment of this amount would probably not make any financial impact on the weapons manufacturers.

However, it would serve as a positive example of an action that can be taken by cities and other investors to align their investments with their ethical values. And it would give support to federal initiatives to cut nuclear weapons budgets, such as the SANE Act introduced into the U.S. Senate by PNND Co-President Ed Markey and the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act, introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by PNND Member Eleanor Holmes-Norton.

The Hearings:

The public hearings on Thursday were run jointly by Council member Daniel Dromm and Council member Fernando Cabrera, chair of the NYC Committee on Governmental Operations. They included testimony from a wide range of New Yorkers and civil society organisations, including from labour, education, academia, finance, health, religious and law sectors and from communities impacted by the production, testing and use of nuclear weapons. Witnesses stretched in age from 19-90. Click here for a video of the testimonies.

As the public hearings opened on Thursday, the two measures were one-vote short of a veto-proof majority. By the end of the hearings, Council Member Fernando Cabrera had affirmed his support thus ensuring the required votes for adoption. As such, it looks fairly certain that the measures will be adopted.

New York Administration resistance addressed by Move the Nuclear Weapons Money

One unresolved issue from the hearings is which city department would oversee the implementation of the two measures. Another issue is what resources, including budget, would be required for implementation and from where these would come.

The New York City administration was represented by Ms Penny Abeywardena, New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs, who argued that her department (the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs) had neither the resources nor the mandate to implement the measures if they were adopted. She argued that her department was responsible for building good working relations between NY City and the United Nations, educating youth about the United Nations, and reporting to the UN on NYC’s implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, but not to engage in national security policy or international disarmament which was the mandate for the Federal government – not the city.

Mr Jonathan Granoff, representing Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, responded in his oral testimony that the remit from these resolutions was not that the City engage in advocacy at the United Nations, but rather to implement obligations arising from the UN that are applicable to cities as well as to federal governments. This is exactly what her department is doing with respect to SDGs, and is what they have a mandate to do for nuclear disarmament.

‘The very first resolution of the United Nations, which was adopted by consensus, affirmed a universal commitment to abolish atomic weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and this is further affirmed as an obligation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty ,’ said Mr Granoff, who is also President of Global Security Institute and an internationally respected lawyer.

‘Ms Abeywardena, in outlining her department’s commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, seems to be unaware that SDG 16 includes the obligation to implement such international law at all levels of government, including at city level. As such, the Commission on International Affairs does indeed have the mandate to implement these measures if and when they are adopted.’

With regard to the human resources required to implement the measures, Mr Granoff agreed with Ms Abeywardena that her commission and the City Council did not have much expertise on nuclear weapons. ‘This is exactly why an advisory committee is required – to provide that expertise, and that expertise is here in this room, and you can have our expertise for free. The only resource standing in the way of getting rid of nuclear weapons is emotional, spiritual and political will.’

New York City and Mayors for Peace:

The written testimony of Move the Nuclear Weapons Money included a proposal that a key action New York City should take in implementing the resolutions once adopted would be for them to join Mayors for Peace.

Jackie Cabassso, North America Representative for Mayors for Peace, in her oral testimony outlined some of the actions of Mayors for Peace – including introduction of nuclear disarmament resolutions that were adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Ms Cabasso reminded the City Council of the invitation from Mayors for Peace to New York to join, and urged she that they do so.

Link: shorturl.at/uBMUW

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what this — what does it mean, “low-yield” nuclear weapon?

WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, “low-yield” is actually a little bit wrong. The United States actually possesses nuclear weapons with even smaller yields than five to six kilotons, which is what this is estimated at. That’s 5,000 to 6,000 tons. And so, that would be — if you thought of it in Manhattan terms, it would be probably something on the order of 20 square city blocks obliterated and radiation coming from that area. So, to say “low-yield” is, of course, a little bit wrong. But it is the lowest-yield missile warhead available to the strategic nuclear forces.

And the real reason behind deploying a Trident warhead with this low-yield weapon was that the United States, the nuclear planners, felt that they didn’t have a prompt and assured capability to threaten Russia or threaten other adversaries — “prompt” meaning that it would be quickly delivered, 30 minutes, or even, if a submarine is close, as low as 15 minutes, and “assured” meaning that it isn’t a bomber or an airplane that has to penetrate enemy air defenses in order to get to the target. So, those two things, prompt and assured, is what they really wanted. And putting a warhead on the missiles on the submarines allowed them both covert deployments as well as getting close to the target.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what this means between the United States and Russia.

WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, between the United States and Russia, I think it really doesn’t change very much. The Russians can denounce the Trident warhead, but the reality is that they have 2,000 of their own small nuclear weapons of this sort opposite Europe. And one of the justifications for the deployment of this new nuclear weapon, Amy, was that the Russians in fact had, if you will, a numerical advantage against NATO, and there was a desire to have a more “usable” nuclear weapon in order to eliminate that advantage. I think the U.S.-Russian situation is certainly tense, but it’s not really what this weapon is about. What this weapon is about is having a more usable nuclear weapon against countries like Iran and North Korea, where in fact a shocking first use of nuclear weapons, a preemptive use of nuclear weapons, would be used to either stop a war or to destroy a very important target, say, for instance, if there were a missile on a launchpad ready to strike at that United States.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2017, General John Hyten, who’s now vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. already has military capabilities to respond to Russian deployment of nuclear weapons.

GEN. JOHN HYTEN: The plans that we have right now — one of the things that surprised me most when I took command on November 3rd was the flexible options that are in all our options today. So we actually have very flexible options in our plans. So, if something bad happens in the world and there’s a response and I’m on the phone with the secretary of defense and the president and the entire staff, which is the attorney general, secretary of state and everybody, I actually have a series of very flexible options, from conventional all the way up to large-scale nuke, that I can advise the president on to give him options on what he would want to do.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill Arkin, if you could respond?

WILLIAM ARKIN: Options. That’s what they’re always saying, “options.” They need better options to do this, better options to do that. You have to look at this new weapon and say, “In its most basic terms, what does it give the United States that it doesn’t already have?” And those two things that I already mentioned: a prompt capability, being able to strike at a target in 15 minutes or less, and, second, an assured capability — that is, a missile that’s able to penetrate any enemy air defenses.

That makes it a particularly dangerous weapon in the hands of the current president, because I’ve heard from many people, more than I expected in my reporting, that they were concerned that Donald Trump, in his own way, might be more prone to accept the use of nuclear weapons as one of options when he was presented with a long list of options. One senior officer said to me, “We’re afraid that if we present Donald Trump with a hundred options of what to do in a certain crisis, and only one of them is a nuclear option, that he might go down the list and choose the one that is the most catastrophic.” And that officer said, “In 35 years of my being in the military, I’ve never thought before that I had to think of the personality of the president in presenting military options.”

AMY GOODMAN: So let’s talk about Iran now and what this means for Iran.

WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, the deployment, it happened very quickly. The decision was made in February 2018. The Trident warhead was already on the production line for the strategic submarines. So, at the end of the run of these warheads, they made about 50 new ones that were of the low-yield variety, because the production line was already operating and hot. So it happened very quickly. Ironically, it happened at the very time that the House of Representatives was debating whether or not the weapon should even be deployed. And by the time that was finished and President Trump had signed the defense appropriations bill on 20th of December, the weapon had already been in the field. So, it shows really a disconnect, as well, in the congressional debate between what’s actually happening on the ground and what it is that they’re talking about.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, for this to have been passed, you know, the House isn’t the Senate. The House is controlled by Democrats, so the Democrats passed this.

WILLIAM ARKIN: That’s correct. But in the end, the Senate turned down the House recommendation that the weapon not be deployed. And really, the tragedy here is that all of this occurred while the Tennessee was being loaded with a new missile, while the Tennessee was being prepared to go out on a new patrol, while the Tennessee actually went out into the Atlantic Ocean.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk again about Iran, exactly.

WILLIAM ARKIN: So, Iran is important because in June, when the drone was shot down, the president declined to retaliate militarily. And I think he got a lot of criticism from his party, from his wing, that he had made the wrong decision, that the United States should have retaliated against Iran. I think that stuck with Donald Trump. And I think, in the end, when it came to the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, in Baghdad, killed on the 2nd of January, that strike, people have told me, specifically was approved by Donald Trump, enthusiastically pushed by Donald Trump, because it kind of erased the mistake of him not retaliating in June.

At the same time, the United States was also increasing the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, in the Iran area. B-52 bombers were flown to Qatar. The USS Abraham Lincoln was sailed into the region. And there was a general buildup of defensive forces in places like Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia.

At this very moment when U.S.-Iranian relations are at such a deep, I think, divide and at a time also when Iran is free — and it’s not clear that they will, but free — to continue to pursue the development of nuclear materials and nuclear weapons, I think that we see maybe the beginning of a little bit of a creation of an argument that Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction and that the United States is going to have to take action against that. And you’ve seen now from the president a number of very blunt statements that have said, “We will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.” That’s not necessarily what anyone I’m talking to in the military is focusing their attention on. They’re much more concerned about Iran in Syria, Iran in Yemen, Iran’s role in Iraq. But in terms of war planning, I think at the highest levels within the U.S. government there’s a general consensus about Iran as being still one of the “axis of evil,” still being in pursuit of nuclear weapons. And the Trump administration, particularly if it’s re-elected, is going to make Iran, I think, the centerpiece of a new defense strategy.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, it is President Trump that set that situation up by pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear accord and decimating it.

WILLIAM ARKIN: Yes, that and also the second decision that was made, which was designating the Quds Force as a foreign terrorist organization. This, ironically, in kind of the bureaucracy of terrorism, triggered a number of decisions and a number of actions, one of which was, with foreign terrorist organizations, the U.S. military then begins the process of targeting their leadership. And that’s what resulted in their starting to track Qassem Soleimani and then ultimately killing him. So it seems to me that we have these two separate tracks kind of converging at the same time: a foreign terrorist organization designation, on the one hand, and weapons of mass destruction, on the other.

AMY GOODMAN: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently advanced the Doomsday Clock 20 seconds closer to midnight, the clock a symbolic timekeeper that tracks the likelihood of nuclear war and other existential threats. It now stands closer to catastrophe than at any time since its creation in 1947. This is Mary Robinson, former Irish president, former U.N. human rights chief, speaking last month as the clock was set to 100 seconds to midnight.

MARY ROBINSON: The Doomsday Clock is a globally recognized indicator of the vulnerability of our existence. It’s a striking metaphor for the precarious state of the world, but, most frighteningly, as we have just heard, it’s a metaphor backed by rigorous scientific scrutiny. This is no mere analogy. We are now 100 seconds to midnight, and the world needs to wake up. Our planet faces two simultaneous existential threats: the climate crisis and nuclear weapons.

AMY GOODMAN: Former Irish President Mary Robinson. The significance of the Doomsday Clock, Bill?

WILLIAM ARKIN: I think the real significance is the lack of public interaction and public activism on the question of nuclear weapons. Really, that’s the missing ingredient today, Amy. We have a situation where the United States and Russia are engaged in multi-hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of nuclear modernization, at a time when the United States is at a high level of crisis with Iran and North Korea. And where is the public? Where is the public? And where is the anti-nuclear movement? And where even is any candidate speaking up about this subject?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, speaking of the anti-nuclear movement, the nuclear-armed submarine we’re talking about was deployed from Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia. This is the same base where seven Catholic peace activists were recently found guilty on three felony counts and a misdemeanor charge for breaking into the base on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birth [sic], on April 4th, 2018. This is Plowshares activist Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of Dorothy Day. It was actually the anniversary of his assassination. But this is Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, speaking after she was convicted.

MARTHA HENNESSY: The weapons are still there. The treaties are being knocked down one after the next. But we are called to keep trying. And we will do this together. And we have no other choice. Thank you so much.

AMY GOODMAN: Martha Hennessy is the granddaughter of the Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, one of the seven who were found guilty when they went onto that nuclear base. So, Bill, in this last comment, if you can talk about the significance of their action? And also, when you say “low-yield” nuclear weapon, it must calm people. But this is a third of the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima?

WILLIAM ARKIN: So, “low-yield” is merely the title. It’s like saying that a Hummer is a small truck. I think that what’s important for people to take away from this development is that the United States has a new usable nuclear weapon, what the military itself considers to be more usable. That’s the change. And it’s also a weapon that can be stealthily and covertly deployed in the oceans. And that’s a change. And we do it at a time when, at least against Russia and North Korea and Iran, the United States is engaged in nuclear brinksmanship, at a time when it seems to me that the Congress is out to lunch, and there isn’t really an anti-nuclear movement in the United States, a mass movement, that could take up arms against this.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of Martha Hennessy, Liz McAlister, the peace activist and widow of Phil Berrigan, and others getting convicted on their protest at the base?

WILLIAM ARKIN: I started writing about nuclear weapons in 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president. I believe that’s about the time when we met. And then we had marches in which hundreds of thousands of people were in Central Park and in Europe and around the world. And today we have nothing of the sort. So, yes, it’s important that these peace workers continue to do their work and continue to do their important attention operations and exercises, their own, if you will, actions against nuclear weapons. But it’s not enough. The public has to be more engaged. And I believe that the Democratic Party candidates for president need to speak up and say something about nuclear weapons, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, there is a debate tonight in New Hampshire. We’ll see if that question is raised. William Arkin, longtime reporter who’s focused on military and nuclear policy, author of many books, including Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State. And we will link to your articles and your cover story in Newsweek magazine.

Link: https://www.democracynow.org/2020/2/7/us_new_low_yield_nuclear_weapons

With this in mind, the federal Democratic party membership might want to critique the 2016 Democratic National Convention decision-makers’ apparent allowance of actual large-majority state-primary wins by Bernie Sanders to instead be given to the trailing Hillary Clinton as legitimate victories. For example, every county in West Virginia voted overwhelmingly for Sanders, yet the DNC declared them as wins for Clinton, the latter candidate’s neo-liberalism, quite unlike Sanders’ true progressiveness, already known for not rubbing against any big business grains.

P.S. Funny how I, an extensive news consumer, learned about this otherwise newsworthy 2016 DNC vote-tally shenanigan via a (superb) Michael Moore documentary rather than the mainstream news-media.

Her Green New Deal put special emphasis on cleaning up pollution and reversing global warming. It called for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Recently two prominent European movements, T-DEM chaired by Thomas Piketty and DiEM25 chaired by Yanis Varoufakis, have made detailed proposals that are also called Green New Deals. One of the authors of DiEM25, Ulf Clerwall, described it as . . ..
(read the rest as a Transcend Media Service article): https://www.transcend.org/tms/2019/06/green-new-deals/

https://rideauinstitute.ca/2016/11/24/a-shift-to-sustainable-peace-and-common-security/

Commenting on the report, Roy Culpeper, Chair of the Group of 78, and Peggy Mason, President of the Rideau Institute, stated:

We believe the election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of the United States, along with a Republican-dominated Congress, makes it imperative for Canada to articulate a clear set of guiding principles on foreign and defence policy.

Our submission recommends a “UN-centred sustainable peace and common security” framework with the UN Charter as its bedrock. . . .

This report is of, from and for civil society, drawing on over 50 interviews and guest articles from civil society activists, leaders and experts, as well as CIVICUS’ ongoing programme of research, analysis and advocacy. In particular, it presents findings from the CIVICUS Monitor, our online platform tracking conditions for civil society in 196 countries.

https://www.civicus.org/index.php/state-of-civil-society-report-2019

2019 State of Civil Society Report ftp://tosaveth@ftp.tosavetheworld.ca:921/public_html/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/PeoplePowerUnderAttack-1-300×229.png

http://www.decentralization.net/2015/10/the-sdgs-what-local-governments-need-to-know/