California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Is the World Engaged in “A Battle Between Democracy and Autocracy”?

by John Lawrence

Joe Biden thinks so. Here's what he said: "But we emerged anew in the great battle for freedom: a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force." Politicians tend to look at the world in binary terms. It's all black and white. Their system is bad; ours is good. In reality there's a lot of gray; it's not simply black or white. If Biden were to be absolutely truthful, he would have to say that the US has a version of democracy and so does China. America's version would be decried by the founders who were totally against what they called "factionalism." Jefferson abhorred political parties. This is from history.com:

"Today, it may seem impossible to imagine the U.S. government without its two leading political parties, Democrats and Republicans. But in 1787, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in Philadelphia to hash out the foundations of their new government, they entirely omitted political parties from the new nation’s founding document.

"This was no accident. The framers of the new Constitution desperately wanted to avoid the divisions that had ripped England apart in the bloody civil wars of the 17th century. Many of them saw parties—or “factions,” as they called them—as corrupt relics of the monarchical British system that they wanted to discard in favor of a truly democratic government."

The US' version of democracy is based on a two party system with a voting system called first-past-the-post. Neither parties or voting systems are mentioned in the Constitution. The first-past-the-post voting system essentially precludes third parties. The effect of a third party candidate is that of a "spoiler." He or she takes votes away from the party he or she is most closely associated with which tends to elect the least popular candidate if the third popular candidate were not running. This has had disastrous effects on American popular elections as it did in 2000 when Ralph Nader running as a third party candidate took votes away from Al Gore with the result that George W Bush, who subsequently lied us into the Iraq war, was elected President. Gore would have gotten the US further along the road of climate change mitigation.

The European parliamentary multi-party system is arguably more democratic than the US two party system because more parties with varied interests can be represented. Their head of government, the Prime Minister, equivalent to the US President, is not popularly elected but is elected by members of parliament. The US tends to identify heads of government not popularly elected with undemocratic systems yet Presidents in the US were not popularly elected until the 17th Amendment was passed in 1912. China has a version of democracy in which the President is not popularly elected but is elected by the highest legislative body - the National People's Congress. Yet the US keeps insisting that China is an autocracy but the parliamentary systems of Europe are OK as was the US before 1912. China has multiple political parties but is dominated by one party - the Chinese Communist Party. The question is to what extent is the Chinese one party system less democratic than the American two party system in the sense of which system most closely represents the needs and wants of its people.

Democratic elections are held in China at the local or county level. These Congresses elect officials at the provincial level and they in turn elect the National People's Congress. The people vote democratically for officials only at the local level. Officials at higher levels are only indirectly democratically elected similar to the US system before 1912 or the parliamentary system. Voters have selected U.S. senators in the privacy of the voting booth since 1913. This system of “direct election” was not what the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind, however, when they met at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Article I, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, as written by the framers, provided for election of senators by state legislatures, something Donald Trump sought to exploit. Election of officials by the democratic vote of a body that was democratically elected by the people is arguably democratic in some sense just as the election of head of government by a parliament is arguably democratic. Therefore, it can be argued that China has some version of democracy. Moreover, eight minor political parties in addition to the Chinese Communist Party exist.

One can quibble about how democratic a political system is. The point is that there is no absolute version of democracy so different systems have to be judged on their own merits. A one party system is not necessarily less democratic than a two party system which is not necessarily less democratic than a multi-party system, all things considered. How well the system functions to meet the needs of its own people, the historical evolution of the present system and how well established is the rule of law which exists in conjunction with the democratic election of leaders and representatives should also be considered. For instance, in China stability is a primary value whereas in the US freedom is a primary value. According to Keyu Jin in The New China Playbook, the Chinese people don't mind video surveillance in public because it minimizes street crime. On the other hand in the US video public surveillance is considered an infringement of freedom even though much street crime has been solved by both public and private video cameras .

Off the Top of My Head

500,000 Killed in Ukraine War. Is It Worth It Just To Insure That Ukraine Can Join NATO?

by John Lawrence

Putin's bottom line is that Ukraine should not join NATO. Biden insisted that it should be able to. That was the impasse that led to the Ukraine war. All that Biden had to do was to negotiate a time period during which Ukraine would not be considered for NATO membership. He would not do that. He could have called Putin's bluff if indeed it was a bluff that Putin would not invade if Ukraine were not allowed to join NATO. If Putin had still invaded after prohibiting Ukraine from joining NATO for a period of time, then the US and the EU could have gone ahead with their current strategy of supplying Ukraine with arms to defend itself. The New York Time reported:

The total number of Ukrainian and Russian troops killed or wounded since the war in Ukraine began 18 months ago is nearing 500,000, U.S. officials said, a staggering toll as Russia assaults its next-door neighbor and tries to seize more territory.

The officials cautioned that casualty figures remained difficult to estimate because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, and Kyiv does not disclose official figures. But they said the slaughter intensified this year in eastern Ukraine and has continued at a steady clip as a nearly three-month-old counteroffensive drags on.

Russia’s military casualties, the officials said, are approaching 300,000. The number includes as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops. The Russian numbers dwarf the Ukrainian figures, which the officials put at close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.

But Russians outnumber Ukrainians on the battlefield almost three to one, and Russia has a larger population from which to replenish its ranks.

Is it worth it? I repeat IS IT WORTH IT? For the principal that any country can join NATO? IMHO war is never worth it. Why is there not a peace movement? If it was so important that Russia keep its hands off Ukraine, why didn't Obama protest in 2014 as Russia seized territory in Eastern Ukraine? To be clear Obama did not want to commit the US to stopping Russian aggression in Ukraine according to Brookings:

As regards the two-year-old conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the president [Obama] said Ukraine is a core interest for Moscow, in a way that it is not for the United States. He noted that, since Ukraine does not belong to NATO, it is vulnerable to Russian military domination, and that “we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for.”" Obama was hesitant to get involved militarily in Ukraine. "But the president [Obama] has signaled privately that despite all the pressure, he remains reluctant to send arms. In part, he has told aides and visitors that arming the Ukrainians would encourage the notion that they could actually defeat the far more powerful Russians, and so it would potentially draw a more forceful response from Moscow. He also wants to give a shaky cease-fire a chance to take hold, despite a reported 1,000 violations so far, and seems determined to stay aligned with European allies that oppose arms for Ukraine.

“If you’re playing on the military terrain in Ukraine, you’re playing to Russia’s strength, because Russia is right next door,” Antony J. Blinken, the deputy secretary of state, told an audience in Berlin last week. “It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right on the border. Anything we did as countries in terms of military support for Ukraine is likely to be matched and then doubled and tripled and quadrupled by Russia.”

In February 2014 Obama even threatened Ukraine, not Russia, with sanctions, putting the onus on Ukraine. "TOLUCA, Mexico (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama called on Ukraine’s armed forces on Wednesday to stay out of the country’s political crisis and warned that there would be consequences for those who “step over the line.” Using his toughest language so far in response to a Ukrainian conflict that has drawn threats of U.S. and European Union sanctions, Obama denounced the violence and put the onus on Ukraine’s government to reach a peaceful resolution."

George W Bush, the perpetrator of lying us into the Iraq war, agreed with Obama: "There are good reasons why even George W. Bush backed off (or at least stopped short of pursuing) a pledge to consider Ukraine for NATO membership. First, calmer minds weighed the level of Western interests in Ukrainian independence against the cost of defending it in a pinch, and found the former coming up short." Calmer minds did not prevail, however, when Joe Biden became President. Despite all the good Biden has done domestically, his Ukraine policy has committed the US to what amounts to perpetual war.

Some advisors advocated for a moratorium on Ukraine's joining NATO as a way to stave off war. "Before the Russian invasion, Quincy Institute senior research fellow on Russia and Europe Anatol Lieven wrote that as part of a broader package to stave off war, the United States should propose “the declaration of a moratorium on Ukrainian membership of NATO for a period of 20 years, allowing time for negotiations on a new security architecture for Europe as a whole, including Russia.”"

Putin's primary concern was that Ukraine not join NATO, a concern that was effectively ignored in negotiations leading up to the February 2022 invasion.

"President Vladimir Putin accused Western nations of ignoring key Russian security concerns, following the U.S.′ refusal last week to concede to Moscow’s demands over Ukraine and NATO.

“It’s already clear now ... that fundamental Russian concerns were ignored,” Putin said at a press conference Tuesday, according to a Reuters translation.

Putin said that the U.S. wanted to “contain Russia” and that it was using Ukraine to do that, as he reiterated Russia’s position that any possible membership of Ukraine in NATO would “undermine Russia’s security.”

“Let’s imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member, it is fully packed of weapons, it gets advanced attack means like those in Poland and Romania and it starts an operation in Crimea,” Putin said, describing Crimea, a part of Ukraine annexed by Russia in 2014, as a “sovereign Russian territory.”

“Let’s imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member state and it initiates a military operation. What should we do then, [should we] fight against the NATO bloc? Did anyone think at least something about that? Apparently not.”

Nonetheless, Putin said he hoped dialog over Ukraine would continue and that a way needed to be found to, as he put it, “protect everyone’s security.”

Biden could have acknowledged Putin's concerns regarding Russia's security interests and argued for a moratorium on Ukraine's bid for NATO membership. This may or may not have forestalled Russia's 2022 invasion. If it had, the US and its allies had nothing to lose except the principal that any country should be free to join NATO. If it hadn't, Russia's invasion could be countered with the policy the US has pursued since Russia invaded which is to send weapons to arm Ukraine without putting "boots on the round." Subsequently, Russia secured Ukraine's non-membership in NATO by starting and pursuing what amounts to a perpetual war with the result of 500,000 people killed so far and billions of dollars in destroyed real estate. Has it been worth it to uphold the principal that Ukraine should be free to join NATO. I don't think so. A new security arrangement is needed for Europe including Russia sans NATO.

Off the Top of My Head

Contrasting the Chinese, EU and American Economic Systems

by John Lawrence

Since 2001, China has pursued a “going-out” investment policy. At first, the PRC (People's Republic of China) mainly encouraged SOEs (state owned enterprises) to invest overseas but in recent years, China's overseas investments have diversified with both state and private enterprises investing in nearly all industries and economic sectors. After Deng Xiaoping came to power in the late 1970s, China opened up its economic policy with the result that approximately 800 million people were lifted out of poverty in about 40 years. This turned China into a capitalistic nation ruled by the Chinese Communist party although the word "communist" is largely an anachronism at this point. China developed a unique economic system comprised of state owned enterprises and private enterprise. It has been the private aspects of China's system that have mainly driven the huge increases in GDP to the point where China is likely to take over the US as the world's largest economy in terms of GDP in a few years.

There are 4 components of GDP: consumption, investment, government spending and profit from exports. Some of the reasons for China's becoming an economic powerhouse are that consumption is only 38% of GDP whereas US consumption is nearly 70% of GDP. While Americans consume, China produces, exports and invests. I would characterize the US as having a Taylor Swift economy, an economy based on consumption of entertainment and other disposable items with no lasting value. It has been reported that Taylor Swift and the Barbie movie have been at least somewhat responsible for keeping the American economy afloat. When you add in social media and professional athletics, much of American consumption is immediately disposed of as soon as the event is over. In the EU consumption is about 52% of GDP so somewhat larger than China's but much less than the US.

Chinese investment is 43% of GDP while The US' is about 16%. EU investment is about 25% of GDP so midway between the US and China. At 21.4% EU government spending is larger than either the US (17.6%) or China (16%). Like the American government the Chinese government doesn't spend a lot of money on welfare. Chinese families are basically savers and provide a lot of the same services to their own intergenerational extended families which are provided by EU governments. The American ethos is largely individualistic and so many family members who can't provide for themselves fall through the cracks. This is one reason for the homeless crisis in the US.

The Chinese economy is bolstered by the fact that it is a net exporter (2.5% of GDP) while the US (-2.7%) and the EU (-2.7%) are net importers which subtracts from their GDPs. China also exports capital and manpower in the form of the Belt and Road Initiative. Announced in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to strengthen China’s connectivity with the world. It combines new and old projects, covers an expansive geographic scope, and includes efforts to strengthen hard infrastructure, soft infrastructure, and cultural ties. As of October 2019, the plan touches 138 countries with a combined Gross Domestic Product of $29 trillion and some 4.6 billion people. Supporting a diverse array of initiatives that enhance connectivity throughout Eurasia and beyond could serve to strengthen China’s economic and security interests while bolstering overseas development. 

The Chinese political system, nominally communist, has the same elements of democracy that the early US political system had which is that locally elected bodies select the next higher political body with 3 successive iterations so that the National Assembly is chosen by the provincial assemblies at the next lower level. The original American Constitution had a similar feature in that the Senate was not chosen directly by the people but by state legislatures. State legislatures continued to elect senators until adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1913 which provided for popular election of senators. The Chinese system tends to meritocraticy with the best and brightest ascending to the top levels whereas the more democratic American system has within it the possibility of electing complete idiots like Donald Trump whose ascendancy served to prove how vulnerable the two party system really is. By contrast the Chinese emphasize harmony and stability which are attributes of their main philosophical inheritance: Confucianism.

Off the Top of My Head

Ukraine War is First World War All Over Again

by John Lawrence

In the First World War, Britain relied on supplies from the US the same way that Ukraine is relying on supplies from the US. The only difference is that Britain first had to borrow the money from the US and then use that money to buy weapons from US defense contractors. As a result Britain went into debt and US defense contractors got rich. Now the US is just giving the weapons to Ukraine with the result that US tax payers are basically picking up the tab. I like Joe Biden and what he's accomplished with respect to the economy, but I think his open ended policy towards Ukraine is a big mistake leading to the continued escalation of the war. The war in Ukraine has become a war of attrition just like the First World War. US sanctions against Russia are having the same effect as the British blockade of German ports in the First World War. In both cases the wars of attrition slogged on. In WW 1 16.5 million people died. The winners lost more people than the losers. The war in Ukraine also slogs on with no end in sight. Both sides have too much to lose, and both have their sights set on winning. This is a formula for disaster in terms of loss of life and billions of dollars of real estate destroyed. At that point it does not matter much who is the eventual winner.

So what's the off ramp other than total victory by one side or the other? In the First World War there was a nominal winner - Britain - although both sides were losers. Both sides were destroyed and in debt. Will this be the same in Ukraine? While the war in Ukraine rages on fueled by the egos of Biden, Zelensky and Putin, more and more Ukrainians and Russians are dying. So far only Ukrainian property is being destroyed, but I think we are on the brink of seeing a further escalation in which Russian property will also start to be destroyed. Biden's war rules were that the fighting should take place only in Ukraine and not on Russian soil, a proposition which was inherently flawed as far as the Ukrainians were concerned. According to Biden's rules, Ukraine could only fight a defensive war against Russia while Russia was totally on the offense in Ukraine. Of course this does not result in a fair fight. So Zelensky will almost inevitably take the war onto Russian territory and then beg Biden for more offensive weapons with which to destroy Moscow and other Russian cities the way that Russia has attempted to destroy Ukrainian cities.

The war will become a war on civilians on both sides as the war of attrition on the battlefield stagnates since both sides will have weapons capable of causing major destruction to major cities occupied by civilians. As both sides dig in, the thought or consideration of a peace plan gets further and further out of sight. As the war escalates, the probability that Russia will use tactical nukes to end it increases just as the US used nukes in World War II to destroy the civilian populations of two Japanese cities. Putin will use the same logic, and, while the US accuses Putin of war crimes, Putin will accuse Harry Truman of war crimes since he used nukes to wipe out the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki under the rationale that it would save American lives if the US had to actually invade Japan. Putin could use much the same logic. In any event the longer the war goes on without any serious discussions of a peaceful settlement involving compromise, the more dangerous and heartbreaking will be the eventual outcome. All sides need to stop fighting and put their energy into fighting our common enemy - climate change.

Off the Top of My Head

Who Would Have Thunk It: China is the World's Leading Exporter of Cars!

by John Lawrence

In an article by Fareed Zakaria entitled, The rest of the world doesn’t see China the same way we do, there is this: "Ten years ago, China exported a relatively small number of cars. Today, it is the world’s leading exporter of automobiles, handily ousting Japan from that position. It is especially strong in electric vehicles. Two of every three EVs made in the world are made in China." So far Chinese cars have not shown up in the US, but they will. American car manufacturers are playing catch up. "As you enter a car showroom in Berlin, you see what looks like a Bugatti or a Ferrari, except more stylish. It’s an EP9, a top-of-the-line race car that has been sold to a handful of customers for about $3 million each. The company behind it is Nio, one of China’s new carmakers, which is going to take the world by storm."

The economies of the western world including the US and Europe are inextricably intertwined with that of China. The difference is that the US under Biden's leadership is taking a semi-belligerent attitude towards China while Europe is taking a much more deferential and mutually respectful approach. Biden's latest gaffe is referring to Xi Jinping as a "dictator" just after Secretary of State Antony Blinken just returned from China having tried to stop the downward spiral of US-China relationship. One of the problems is that the US insists on insulting China and the Chinese leadership. They really can't afford to do that any more if they want to create a mutually respectful relationship. Respect in nation to nation relationships is of the utmost importance. It could be argued that the lack of respect toward Russia was a precursor to the war in Ukraine. What is true among individuals - that mutual respect is important for creating and maintaining salubrious relationships is important - is equally true with respect to nations. Why doesn't the US leadership get this?

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown explained the European dilemma. “Europe needs an industrial policy, but it cannot afford to mimic the [Biden] administration’s protectionism,” he told me. “For Europe, trade is vital; its prosperity is dependent on trade with the rest of the world, including China, in a way that America’s is not. [Unlike America, Europe] imports energy and is not self-sufficient. Despite the surface agreement across the Atlantic, this could become a growing divide.” He acknowledged that the Biden administration has made moves to expand trade ties, but he expressed concern that all of them are bilateral or regional efforts that might undercut global trade. They come, he said, “at the expense of any real discussion of what a modern multilateralist order would look like.” Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former prime minister of Denmark, concurred. “Europe cannot divorce itself from China,” she explained. “That would be the end of globalization. That is why we want to de-risk, not decouple.” “De-risking,” a term famously used by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is the hottest buzzword in diplomacy these days. Even the Biden administration now says it also wants to de-risk rather than decouple. But many I spoke with in Europe said they worry that this is just a rhetorical change and that U.S. policies — and Chinese responses — will keeping moving the ratchet up.

"Kishore Mahbubani, the former Singaporean diplomat and author of “The Asian 21st Century,” pointed out that discussions in the West often forget that the world’s growth is mostly coming from Asia. He used his own region as an example. In 2000, Japan’s economy was about eight times larger than Southeast Asia’s. In about three years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is projected to be the same size economically as Japan. The largest trade relationship in the world is between China and ASEAN — almost $1 trillion. And ASEAN countries cannot grow without open and vibrant trade, especially with China." So the world is changing. The US is not changing with it, but instead is trying to maintain its grip on being the world's leading superpower. Criticizing other nations based on their forms of government is leaving the US open to the criticism that its foreign policy is subject to change with respect to other nations based on the election cycle and an administration coming into power every four years that has diametrically opposed views on the subject. China by contrast maintains a consistent approach over much longer periods so that once a successful policy has been implemented, it will probably remain in effect indefinitely and not be subject to an election cycle which can swerve back and forth and even spin out of control as it did on January 6, 2020.

The US also could be exposed to the criticism that any fool can become President as was the case in the election of 2016, not to mention any Congress person, while in China the best and brightest are usually promoted to the highest positions in government.

Off the Top of My Head

The Biden Policy in Ukraine Is Unraveling

by John Lawrence

President Biden's original policy in the Ukraine war included the notion that the war would be confined to Ukraine's physical territory and not lead to a wider war. The west would supply Ukraine with weapons, and Ukraine would have a fighting chance of pushing Russia out of their territory. The whole strategy was predicated on the goal of preventing World War III. Now that policy is failing due to the fact that the west has gradually increased the firepower and sophistication of the weapons supplied to Ukraine, and also the fact that Ukraine is starting to attack inside Russia. The war is widening and intensifying. Ukraine, meanwhile, is in no mood to try and negotiate a settlement to the war, and NATO doesn't seem to be in any mood to force them to negotiate. So the war is escalating. Zelensky never misses a chance to demand more and more sophisticated weapons from the west. Biden and other western leaders continue to support his rhetoric that Ukraine can win the war. It's all about winning or losing, not about a negotiated peace.

So what went wrong, and how could this war get so out of hand? First, it is undisputed that Russia invaded Ukraine unprovokedly. However, there were negotiations and events leading up to the invasion which might have resolved issues which would have prevented the invasion in the first place. On Dec. 17 2021, Russia presented security demands including that NATO pull back troops and weapons from eastern Europe and bar Ukraine from ever joining. Russia had been upset for years due to the fact that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO had marched resolutely eastward despite assurances to the contrary. I had written earlier:

"NATO expanded during the 1990s largely due to the imprecations of President Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright even though President Gorbachev had been promised that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward" as part of a deal to reunify Germany after the Cold War.

Politifact reported:

After explaining why the U.S. wanted the reunited Germany to stay within the framework of NATO, Baker told Gorbachev that "if we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO 1 inch to the east."

"I put the following question to (Gorbachev)," Baker recounted in a letter to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. "‘Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces, or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift 1 inch eastward from its present position?’"

Those comments, along with similar remarks from Baker’s European allies, like Genscher and Kohl, were part of what researchers at George Washington University’s National Security Archive called a "cascade of assurances" offered to the Soviets.

But Baker and other officials involved in the events have denied that the conversation ever turned on expanding NATO to other countries. 

So basically Gorbachev was sold a bill of goods that, if he consented to the reunification of Germany and with Germany as a NATO member, that NATO would not expand eastwards. However, "given assurances" is not the same as "legal and binding". Therefore, in July 1997, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic (where Albright was born) were formally invited to join NATO."

Ever since Russian Czar Peter the Great attempted to "westernize" Russia, there has been a dicey relationship between Russia and Europe, each eyeing the other warily. Culturally, in terms of literature, dance, music and athletics, Russia is a western nation. Even Putin expressed interest in being part of the west. George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2003, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said.

The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join NATO?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join NATO, they apply to join NATO.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

The account chimes with what Putin told the late David Frost in a BBC interview shortly before he was first inaugurated as Russian president more than 21 years ago. Putin told Frost he would not rule out joining NATO “if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner”.

He told Frost it was hard for him to visualise NATO as an enemy. “Russia is part of the European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world.”

However, Putin was rebuffed. He was further slighted when his demands that Ukraine not be considered for NATO membership before the war were, probably in his mind, disrespected. The whole Ukraine war could have been prevented perhaps by massaging sufficiently Putin's bruised ego - in other words intelligent diplomacy. In his mind it seems he and Russia were not properly respected nor were their interests properly taken into account. With two individuals, one of whom looks down on the other, more often than not a fight can ensue. It's the same between two nations. Mutual respect is important in any negotiation. Clearly, Putin did not feel that that was the case in negotiations before the war.

So now there is cross border fighting between Ukraine and Russia. This is clearly an escalation of the war and diminishes Biden's attempts of containing the war to Ukraine and preventing a larger conflict including perhaps World War III. The introductin of more sophisticated western weapons into Ukraine including offensive capabilities and more bellicose rhetoric on the part of Ukraine, no matter how justified, does not presage a good outcome for this complex situation. Putin and Russia could have perhaps been assuaged before the war by placing Ukraine's NATO membership on hold for a period of years, but Biden's insistence that any nation can apply and get NATO membership clearly was a non-starter for Putin. At this point the only alternative to escalation of the war and possibly a nuclear Armageddon, is a negotiated peace, something that Zelensky is disinclined to do and something that Biden is disinclined from telling him to do.

Off the Top of My Head

The World Needs the Cooperation of Russia to Forestall Global Warming

by John Lawrence

Ultimately, geography will determine which countries win and which countries lose as global warming and sea level rise progress. Landlocked countries with little or no exposure to the oceans will win as countries with large shoreline exposures and major coastal cities go underwater. Russia has no major cities that are exposed to sea level rise. Its only ocean exposure is in the far north to the Arctic ocean and a little bit to the northern Pacific ocean. In addition Russia has an abundance of fossil fuels which it is eager to sell to the rest of the world. It has an incentive to increase global warming rather than to mitigate it.

As the Arctic region warms, Russia profits from its northernmost regions becoming more inhabitable. In addition sea routes in the Arctic become more navigable. So Russia is in a position to profit from global warming and to profit financially from hastening global warming by selling fossil fuels. Russia has no disincentive to curtail the sale of fossil fuels which are its major natural resource and source of income. It can undercut and undersell renewables if it wants to. Sanctions have had little or no effect on Russia's internal economy. The departure of Starbucks and McDonald's accomplished nothing. Russia reopened these chains under Russian control with the profits staying in Russia instead of returning to the US. Starbucks became Starubles and McDonald's became Inanov's presumably.

On the other hand consider the world's major cities that are located right on the oceans and are subject to being submerged by global warming. Such cities as New York City, Miami, London, Amsterdam, New Orleans, Venice, Savannah, GA, Tokyo, Shanghai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Osaka, Dhaka, San Francisco, Sydney, Boston, Lisbon, Vancouver, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Dublin, Honolulu, Lagos, Charleston, Long Beach, Key West and many others in China, Africa, Vietnam, Bangladesh and east Asia. The US and its partners in Europe have major exposure to oceans for many major cities. Billions of dollars in real estate are at stake, not to mention that major trading routes will be disrupted and infrastructure destroyed. Particularly, the US east coast is exposed not only to sea level rise, but to increasingly virulent hurricanes and tornadoes.

So considering the fact that the US has relatively the most to lose from global warming and Russia has relatively the most to win, does it make any sense to make a pariah out of Russia? Regardless of the war in Ukraine, worsening relations with Russia only hasten the day when geography will determine the outcome of the war on climate change. China also has a long shoreline and plenty of major cities that are exposed to the ocean. It would be in China's interest to partner with the US to combat global warming. Yet the US is in the business of making a pariah out of Russia and starting a Cold War with China. So even if  the US wins its wars with Russia and China, it can still lose the war with respect to global warming. In the final analysis Russia and Mother Nature will win. It's all about geography.

Off the Top of My Head

"Spare me the bullshit about mental illness"

by John Lawrence

In sane countries abortions are legal and assault rifles are illegal just the opposite of the US. Italian women are eligible to request an abortion for health, economic or social reasons, including the circumstances under which conception occurred. Abortions are performed free of charge in public hospitals or in private structures authorized by the regional health authorities. Assault weapons are not legal in Italy, nor are any fully automatic rifles or handguns. Noise suppressors, or silencers, are also illegal, along with any kind of military or police-grade weapons. Abortion in the United Kingdom is de facto available through the Abortion Act 1967 in Great Britain, and the Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020.The following are generally prohibited: Fully automatic or burst-fire weapons, which may include some air guns. Semi-automatic or pump-action rifles that fire centre-fire ammunition (e.g. Ruger Mini-14, L1A1). The Swedish Abortion Act came into force in 1974, giving women the right to decide for themselves whether they wanted to end a pregnancy in the first eighteen weeks. Since then, abortion procedures have become more effective, safe, accepted and accessible. Current Norwegian legislation and public health policy provides for abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of gestation, by application up to the 18th week, and thereafter only under special circumstances until the fetus is viable, which is usually presumed at 21 weeks and 6 days. In Norway there is a total ban on automatic firearms for civilians, unless they fall into the collector category. Modification of semi-automatic guns into fully automatic without the consent of the police is a felony crime. The EU already bans all automatic weapons, plus some semi-automatic guns widely available in the United States.

Apart from the very few European nations that retain highly restrictive laws on abortion — Andorra, Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco and Poland — no other European country “bans” abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Instead, almost all European countries allow abortion throughout pregnancy on a range of grounds, including where there are risks to a patient’s physical or mental health, and in situations involving severe or fatal fetal impairment. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, 95% of European women of reproductive age live in a country where abortion services are available on demand.

NBC reported:

[Connecticut Senator] Murphy said the shooting deaths of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday was a uniquely American problem.

"This only happens in this country and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day. Nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids as I have had to do about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet for five minutes just in case a bad man entered that building. Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America. And it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue," Murphy said.

In comments to reporters afterward, Murphy took aim at the Republican talking point that mass shootings are a problem of mental illness, not easy access to guns.

"Spare me the bullshit about mental illness. We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world. You cannot explain this through a prism of mental illness, because we don’t — we’re not an outlier on mental illness. We’re an outlier when it comes to access to firearms and the ability of criminals and very sick people to get their hands on firearms. That’s what makes America different,” he said.

There are only three countries that have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms: Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States. The US quibbles while the earth burns and floods due to global warming. Nations are immersed in conflict while they need to be cooperating if the human species, despite all its vaunted high technology, is to survive. Earth itself will survive. The survival of the human species is doubtful unless every nation goes all out to prevent global warming which is not happening. What is happening is that nations are trying to prevent the release of greenhouse gasses on the margins without interfering with economic growth. It's a recipe for disaster.

Off the Top of My Head

Should we Have a Second Pentagon ... Devoted to Peace?

by John Lawrence

So we have a Pentagon of War. We should have an equally funded Pentagon of Peace, a huge 5-sided building where all they do is plan and seek to implement various peace scenarios. Unimaginable? That's because the human race has so little imagination, and the result is ... continuous warfare since the dawn of civilization and before including the wiping out of another species, the Neanderthals, by our species, homo sapiens. The history of the human race is one of war with some technological progress in the interstices. Let's face it. Human beings especially of the masculine variety get off on war. Most warmongers are completely bored by peace. They can't wait to get back into action and cover themselves in glory on the battlefield, to prove their mettle, to prove their masculinity. Right now the US spends close to a trillion dollars a year on war, the weapons of war and planning for war. We spend a pittance on peace, the implementation of peace and planning for peace. As a result the human race has been heading for some time to Mutually Assured Destruction. We will probably get there whether or not it happens by means of a nuclear holocaust or whether it happens by neglect of the things that need to be done to forestall climate change.

The war in Ukraine and the looming Cold (and maybe even Hot) War between the two sides that are lining up represents at least a dithering while the planet heats up and eventually burns becoming a Venus like uninhabitable hellscape. So we have the US and Europe on one side and Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea on the other. Of the not quite aligned nations, most of Africa is siding with the Chinese. Why? Because the Chinese have put great energy into developing African infrastructure with their Belt and Road initiative. The US on the other hand has put great energy into building military bases all around the world. "There are roughly 750 US foreign military bases; they are spread across 80 nations! After the U.S is the UK, but they only have 145 bases. Russia has about 3 dozen bases, and China just five. This implies that the U.S has three times as many bases as all other countries combined." So this goes to show the relative priorities of the various countries. The priorities of peace vs the priorities of war. Helping improve the economies of other people directly is something that the Pentagon of Peace should be about. Sad to say China did that first, but there's always hope. As my Dad used to say, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Sure China's goal was to make friends and influence people with its Belt and Road initiative. What's the US doing in the meantime ... building military bases.

The Peace Pentagon should have a budget equal to the War Pentagon's budget - roughly a trillion dollars. I'm not saying do away with the Department of War and become defenseless. No, keep a robust defense but counterbalance it with a robust Department of Peace. So if possible peace initiatives will carry the day, but, if worse comes to worse, well there's always the fantastic array of weapons of war that the US already possesses. The war capabilities are enormous. The peace capabilities are meager. There's a difference between pursuing our interests by becoming friends with other people and pursuing our interests by guarding ourselves from other people. One of the ways to avoid war is to recognize the legitimate interests of other countries as stated by them. The war in Ukraine could have been avoided if NATO and the US had acknowledged Russia's stated security interest in Ukraine's not becoming a member of NATO. But that interest was totally discarded by the West - not even put on the table, not even some sort of compromise which would have recognized that stated interest. I'm not saying if that interest was legitimate or not - only that that was the stated interest on the Russian side that was completely ignored and never even negotiated. The result of that non-negotiation and non-compromise was the mess in Ukraine right now - a grinding war of attrition in which only Ukraine civilian lives and only Ukraine real estate are being destroyed. Ukraine would like nothing better than to have advanced weapons such as F-16 fighter jets which would allow them to spread the war into Russian territory, and then you have World War III. That seems to be where we are heading.

Off the Top of My Head

The Glory of War

by John Lawrence

Throughout history men have gone to war to cover themselves in glory and prove their masculinity. In World War I, many young British men were gung ho for going to war. They intended to cover themselves in glory and be home before Christmas. Instead many of them died face down in muddy trenches or were impaled on barbed wire. According to historycrunch.com: "...one of the main reasons for the excitement of the war was that many viewed it as an adventure. They read stories about soldiers bravely marching into battle and dying heroically on the battlefields for their countries. For many of these young soldiers, they viewed the Great War as their opportunity to play a role in the ‘glory of war’ and follow in the path of earlier soldiers in earlier European conflicts. To them, war seemed adventurous and a show of bravery that many claimed they ‘did not want to miss’." It was forever so but in general only the victors were able to cover themselves in glory.

War, I would contend, is primarily a masculine pursuit. It represents an attempt by men to prove their manhood. Even some American Indian tribes cultivated a warrior tradition. Their women would have nothing to do with men until they had proved themselves in war. According to Wikipedia: "What evolved among the Plains Native Americans from the 17th to the late 19th century was warfare as both a means of livelihood and a sport. Young men gained both prestige and plunder by fighting as warriors, and this individualistic style of warfare ensured that success in individual combat and capturing trophies of war were highly esteemed." Not for nothing were they called Braves. Martina Sprague in her book The Glory of War: The Way to Historical Immortality writes:  "What motivates men to go to war? The answer is the desire for recognition and the opportunity to gain eternal fame. War is perhaps the most common way in which a man can become a hero. We tend to romanticize war. War is portrayed as a daring adventure for a sacred cause, where the soldier will ultimately reach the highest level of self-actualization. As demonstrated by the great military figures in history, the promise of honor and heroism can help a man conquer the world."

Covering oneself in glory, proving one's masculinity, becoming a hero, these are ultimately traps which cause the perpetuation of war. Some men become addicted to war, the excitement of war. If one war ends, they will seek out the next one. Life is never so dull as life without war. It is the ultimate football game because the stakes - life or death - are so high. Witness the volunteers from other countries who are putting their lives on the line in Ukraine. The problem is that the pursuit of peace is never as exciting as the pursuit of war. Until peacemaking becomes as noble and glorious a pursuit as war, there is no hope for the human race to live peaceably and cooperatively side by side with each other. Until they give out as many medals and honors for peace heroes as they do for war heroes, the human race will go down fighting and ultimately extinguish each other.

I'm afraid that the war in Ukraine is only the latest example of people preoccupied with the excitement of war. Sure it was a clumsy and ignoble thing for Russia to do to so overtly invade Ukraine. They should have taken a page out of the CIA's book and been more subtle and covert about it. For example, the CIA undermined the democratically elected regime of Salvador Allende in Chile because he was a socialist and a Marxist ushering in the regime of Augusto Pinochet and his reign of terror. "According to the Chilean government, the number of executions and forced disappearances was at least 3,095 [under Pinochet]. Operation Condor, a U.S.-supported terror operation focusing on South America, was founded at the behest of the Pinochet regime in late November 1975, his 60th birthday." I'm afraid that Zelensky is following the same playbook of promoting the war based on 'glory for Ukraine' and his David and Goliath symbolism. His insatiable lust for American artillery shells and other advanced weaponry is duly granted by President Biden and the European allies with the goal of "winning the war." No one except the Chinese seem the least interested in creating a peaceful solution to the war. Instead the war will only be escalated when Ukraine gets F-15 fighter jets. Then they will be able to hit Russian targets in Russia escalating the war even further. Until now tragically it's only Ukrainian civilian lives and property that are being destroyed.

It seems like revenge, hatred for Russia and glory for Ukraine are the ultimate factors at work here not a search for compromise which both sides can live with. Does Russia have any legitimate national security interests in Ukraine's not becoming a member of NATO? Did the US have any legitimate national security interests in Chile nor becoming a socialist and Marxist state? There are always many reasons for war, but few for peace. Meanwhile, a lack of cooperation among the world's nations is hastening the day in which global warming will put an end to human civilization unless we can wake up and see that peace and cooperation are more glorious than war.

Off the Top of My Head

The Immigration Debacle - Part 2

by John Lawrence

By international and American law, any foreign national has the right to present themselves at a port of entry and apply for asylum. To be given asylum one must prove that they have a fear of persecution in their home country. One also has a right to request asylum if they enter the US illegally ^i.e. swim across the Rio Grande or getting into the US by means of a weak link in the border fence. Title 42, implemented under the Trump administration allowed persons who entered illegally to be deported because of COVID restrictions. Also in a deal worked out with the Mexican government asylum seekers were required to remain in Mexico while applying for asylum. Title 8 which preceded Title 42 allowed asylum seekers to remain in the US until their court date at which time they were either granted asylum or deported. The Trump administration with Title 42 had a makeshift, half way solution to the border crisis: they discouraged people from coming to the southern border. However, they did nothing to address the root causes and conditions that incentivized this problem. It's true that the southern states shouldn't have to bear the brunt of immigrants legal or illegal coming across the border any more than Italy or Greece should have to bear the brunt of immigrants seeking entry to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. The current UNHCR law regarding refugees was implemented after WW II and is need of revision since the current situation is far different than the one prevailing then.

Applying for asylum status at a port of entry or entering illegally requires a lengthy and dangerous journey from a home country and possibly paying a coyote thousands of dollars. However, the US southern border is a magnet for asylum seekers because of the current law. That law should change in order to encourage migrants to apply for asylum in their home country. Unfortunately, their home country is the one they're fleeing from presumably because of a threat to their lives. One solution is for the US, hopefully with the cooperation of central American and south American countries which are providing most of the asylum seekers, to go into those countries and do whatever is necessary to root out the gangs which are threatening the violence from which the asylum seekers are escaping. The US could provide safe zones in those or neighboring countries to which asylum seekers could flee and apply for asylum or refugee status there. The US should give cash and/or other incentives to keep asylum seekers in or relatively close to their home country until their cases can be heard in court. Courts should also be located in these safe zones so they would not have to travel to the US.

At the same time that asylum seekers are incentivized to apply in or near their home countries, they should be disincentivized from coming to the US southern border. This could be done by denying a court hearing for asylum status to those presenting themselves at a port of entry or entering illegally. This relieves the pressure on the southern border. This would be in violation of the international law regarding asylum seekers, but would not foreclose the possibility of seeking asylum. To the extent that the US improved the conditions which created the need for asylum in the first place, the number of asylum seekers would diminish. In the present era many seeking to immigrate to the US or Europe are doing so to escape economic conditions in their home countries. Economic immigrants are already ineligible for asylum under international law. However, if developed and advanced countries like the US and European Union would devote major resources to improving economic conditions in poorer countries, this would decrease the need for immigration. At the present time and going forward immigration will also be driven by climate change as people lose the means to support themselves due to floods, fires and drought. The US, as the major cause of greenhouse gas emissions, has a responsibility to ameliorate conditions in countries which are suffering most from global warming.

UNHCR most recently estimated that, by mid-2021, for the first time in recorded history, the number of forcibly displaced persons is now 89.3 million with over 27.1 million refugees. The advanced countries - that means Europe and the US -  need to coordinate their policies and increase their quotas for the admission of refugees. The number worldwide will only increase due to climate change. Refugees are not the same as asylum seekers. They are mostly in refugee camps around the world while asylum seekers present themselves at the borders of a country they wish to immigrate to. Those seeking asylum in the US are not entitled to government benefits such as TANF or Medicare until they have actually been granted asylum. It is only then that they can get a green card and other benefits. However, the court system is so backlogged that this might take years. The system as it exists now needs to be thrown out and revised, and that should start by changing the law at the UN so that both a humane and a realistic system can be implemented based on current and projected conditions.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Could Solve the Gas Crisis Today by Taking Sanctions Off Russian Oil

by John Lawrence

Sanctions on Russian oil have been an abysmal failure. Russian oil profits are up 50% from last year! Just as American and British oil corporations have been scoring record profits, so has Russia. Oil prices are set on the world market and soaring prices result in record profits for Russia. If Putin had designed the sanctions himself, he couldn't have wreaked more havoc on the US and European economies. It's time for Biden to admit that his policy of sancti0ns against Russia has failed. They haven't deterred Russia from pursuing a war of attrition against Ukraine. They have demonstrated the abject failure of using US sanctions to control the actions of other countries. They are a total lost cause now and in the future. That's the lesson of the war in Ukraine for the west.

Bloomberg reported:

Russia’s oil revenues are up 50% this year even as trade restrictions following the invasion of Ukraine spurred many refiners to shun its supplies, the International Energy Agency said.

Moscow earned roughly $20 billion each month in 2022 from combined sales of crude and products amounting to about 8 million barrels a day, the Paris-based IEA said in its monthly market report. 

Russian shipments have continued to flow even as the European Union edges towards an import ban, and international oil majors such as Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE pledge to cease purchases. Asia has remained a keen customer, with China and India picking up cargoes no longer wanted in Europe.

The IEA, which advises major economies, kept its outlook for world oil markets largely unchanged in the report. Global fuel markets are tight and may face further strain in the months ahead as Chinese demand rebounds following a spate of new Covid lockdowns, it said. 

Reduced flows of Russian refined products such as diesel, fuel oil and naphtha have aggravated tightness in global markets, the agency noted. Stockpiles have declined for seven consecutive quarters, with reserves of so-called middle distillates at their lowest since 2008.

But for all the disruption, Moscow has continued to enjoy a financial windfall compared with the first four months of 2021. Despite the EU’s public censure of the Kremlin’s aggression, total oil export revenues were up 50% this year. 

The bloc remained the largest market for Russian exports in April, taking 43% of the country’s exports, the IEA said.

So where is this "world market" that is setting the price of oil? Is it on Wall Street? I'd like to have a word with whoever is in charge of this "world market." Lord knows the US produces enough oil to supply all the US' gas needs so why not take US oil production off the world market and just sell it to the American people at a reasonable price? Oh, I guess that's not how capitalism works. Ironic, isn't it, that a formerly communist country like Russia is now profiting from capitalist markets! So even if the US, Canada and Europe are having record inflation with recessions predicted in the near future, Biden won't take the sanctions off of Russian oil, and basically this is all for spite, all because he hates Putin so much. Biden has staked American prestige on fighting a proxy war with Russia based on the almighty dollar and the power it supposedly possesses over every financial transaction going on in the world. Problem is that all the sanctions on Russia have only proven the weakness and futility of using sanctions to achieve policy goals. Russia has demonstrated that the sanctions just don't work. They haven't deterred Russia in the least. China and India have taken up the slack in Russian oil purchases.

Besides that, what Biden fails to understand is that like the US, Russia's currency, the ruble, is a fiat currency. That means that unlike China, it is not pegged to the US dollar. Russia's central bank can print as many rubles as it wants without asking US permission. The US can of course do the same thing - print as many dollars as it wants except the limiting factor is inflation. So the US can't print dollars right now, but Russia can still print rubles. That means that Russia controls Russian investment in Russia and Russian control of internal consumer markets. Imported products come mainly from China, and China is Russia's friend. Russia is demanding payment for its gas in rubles rather than dollars, and this supports the value of the ruble as a convertible currency just as Nixon's demand that the Saudis price their oil in dollars supported the value of the dollar and made the dollar the world's reserve currency.

All this boils down to the fact that Russia is in the driver's seat with respect to the war in Ukraine. It's hard to see how the unending supply of western weapons is sufficient to win the war for Ukraine now that the policy of sanctions has failed. Demonizing Putin is not a policy that is likely to have an effect on the war one way or other. Putin still has a lot of friends in the world and US inflation, while being primarily a function of sanctions on Russian oil, is also dependent on the supply chain of products coming from China, Russia's friend. Biden should be careful about whom he demonizes. After demonizing MBS, he's now about to get back in bed with him and the Saudis. Biden's Build Back Better policy could have helped the American people, and even now could fight inflation, but alas, after promising that it would be passed "in tandem" with the bipartisan infrastructure bill, it never was. What up with that?

Off the Top of My Head

Russia Stands to Profit From Global Warming

by John Lawrence

With half the Arctic coastline, Russia is in a position to dominate the Arctic region as sea ice disappears. Ships will soon be able to sail directly across the top of the world, bringing new commercial, political, and economic opportunities for the Arctic region, while substantially reducing transit times between Asia and Europe by up to a third compared with taking the Suez Canal. Also there is $1 trillion worth of precious metals and minerals under the ice, along with the biggest area of untapped petroleum deposits left on the planet. While the rest of the world suffers from global warming, Russia will profit from the opening of the Northern route across the Arctic region and a wealth of natural resources that it will be possible to extract. Siberia could become the world’s next breadbasket. Time magazine reports:

"The Russian government is already positioning itself as a net beneficiary of global warming, writing in its 2020 Arctic Strategy that “climate change contributes to the emergence of new economic opportunities.” With half the Arctic coastline under its control, it’s not hard to see why. Led by Rosatom, a state-owned nuclear technology and infrastructure enterprise, the country has invested approximately $10 billion to develop ports and other facilities along a 3,000 nautical-mile-long shipping lane that stretches from Murmansk, near the Finnish border, to the Bering Strait. The Northern Sea Route offers the shortest passage between Europe and Asia, shaving nearly two weeks off a journey around India, while saving fuel, limiting vessel wear and tear, and reducing emissions. The investments are already paying dividends. In 2010 international cargo shippers made only one full Northern Sea Route transit. In 2021 there were 71, according to Norway’s Nord University’s Centre for High North Logistics.

"Russia is building up its existing 40-strong icebreaking fleet by commissioning at least half a dozen nuclear-powered heavy icebreakers at a cost of $400 million each. When the first of the newest batch—the world’s biggest and most powerful, according to Russian officials—launched its maiden voyage in 2020, Russia hailed it as the start of a new era of Arctic dominance. In 2021, commercial tankers, equipped with special ice-hardened hulls, started transporting natural gas between Russia’s Arctic coast oil installations and Chinese ports in the middle of winter—a strategic advance that results in a timely lifeline for Moscow if European nations follow through on threats to cut off purchases of Russian gas because of the conflict in Ukraine. “The creation of a modern nuclear icebreaker fleet capable of ensuring regular year-round and safe navigation through the entire Northern Sea Route is a strategic task for our country,” said Vyacheslav Ruksha, head of Rosatom’s Northern Sea Route Directorate, in a statement."

The war in Ukraine may pale in significance compared to the climate change issues which Russia is in a position to exploit. While the rest of the world is trying to slow down climate change, Russia just may be trying to accelerate it. The more climate change the better according to them because it will make for an ice free Arctic, an ice free passage across the Arctic via the Northern Sea Route connecting Europe with Asia and the ability to extract trillions of dollars of natural resources. Part of the route goes very close to Nome, Alaska which could bring the US and Russia into direct military contact.

Because of the changes brought about by global warming, It makes it even more important to not make Russia a pariah nation but to bring it into the community of nations. The Northern Sea Route will bring Russia and China even closer together as China also profits from shorter shipping routes to Europe. Rather than helping to get the world off of fossil fuels, Russia will profit immensely from their continued use. They certainly will not look kindly on supplications to limit the exploitation of fossil fuels if the western world considers them to be a pariah nation. The lack of cooperation among major world powers or even major blocs of power would be enough to doom the earth to greenhouse gas oblivion which eventually would destroy Russia and China too although Russia would probably be the last nation to succumb.

Off the Top of My Head

A New Security Structure for Europe?

by John Lawrence

There can be no peace in Europe until all European nations are part of a revised security structure that includes Russia. Instead the west is setting up a formula for continual tensions and continual war whether hot or cold. There must be a comprehensive security structure, not one which pits some nations against some other nations, not one where one bloc is hostile towards the other bloc. This is the failure of NATO. Until we get to the point where all nations are part of one cooperative bloc, we'll never solve the global warming problem. The division between democratic and authoritarian nations has lost all meaning and all validity. It shouldn't be cause for a dividing line among nations. NATO itself is composed of some authoritarian nations. Take Hungary and Poland, for example. Reuters reported:

"BRUSSELS, Feb 15, 2022 (Reuters) - Hungary and Poland are turning increasingly authoritarian, a European rights group said on Tuesday, a day before the European Union's top court rules on whether to cut funding to member states flouting democratic rights and freedoms. The Berlin-based Civil Liberties Union for Europe singled out the two formerly communist EU countries in a broader report highlighting how the rule of law has deteriorated across the 27-nation bloc during the coronavirus pandemic. The umbrella advocacy, which brings together rights groups from 17 EU countries, said Hungary and Poland were "seizing further control of the justice system, civil society and media, while cutting basic human rights and fueling divisions by scapegoating migrants and other minority groups". Warsaw and Budapest deny wrongdoing and accuse the EU of imposing liberal values alien to what they say are their traditional, conservative and Catholic societies. Hundreds of billions of euros are at stake in the rule of law battles in the EU. The bloc's cohesion and international standing have been damaged by the increasingly bitter dispute. Thirty-six billion euros in recovery funds earmarked for Poland, and 7 billion euros for Hungary, are already frozen over their track record on democratic rights and values. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused the EU of waging a cultural "jihad" on Hungary, while Warsaw has threatened to retaliate by stalling progress in other EU policies where decisions are made by consensus."

It is not helpful to continue to divide the world along the lines of democratic vs authoritarian. It is also not helpful (except to arms and weapons manufacturers) to continually fuel those divisions and even hatreds based on different political and economic systems. If the various countries can cooperate among each other, we shouldn't be concerned about what goes on within those countries or start telling them what to do or how to conduct their business. Definitely, we should not be setting up sophisticated weapons systems right on some country's border. That in and of itself is a hostile act. Like it or not we only have one planet, and we can either learn to live with one another or that planet will be lost to global warming. If we can get cooperation among nations and have constructive relationships among nations, then perhaps we can come together to save the planet from going up in flames. This involves mutual respect among nations and not putting down of one nation by another. We only have a short time to cooperate on this level, probably less than 5 years, before the effects of global warming will make planet earth uninhabitable, at least for our species.

Energy War in Europe Intensifies as Russia Cuts Off Gas Supply to Poland, Bulgaria

A gas storage facility owned by PGNiG company in Kosakowo, Poland is pictured on September 13, 2014. (Photo: NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images)

 

Russia's move "makes it clearer than ever that Europe needs to move quickly to reduce its reliance on Russian energy," said the head of the International Energy Agency.

 

Jake Johnson

April 27, 2022, from Common Dreams

European gas prices surged Wednesday after Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom cut off the supply of gas to NATO members Poland and Bulgaria, a move seen as a significant escalation of what has been dubbed a "fossil fuel war" between Moscow and the West.

Announced two months into Russia's deadly assault on Ukraine, Gazprom's decision came weeks after the United States halted fossil fuel imports from Russia and vowed to help European nations end their reliance on Russian oil and gas.

The Kremlin said the suspension of gas shipments to the Bulgarian company Bulgargaz and the Polish firm PGNiG over their "failure to pay in rubles" instead of euros or dollars and signaled it could take similar action against other countries.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov characterized Russia's move as a breach of contract and said that "we will not succumb to such a racket"—a message echoed by the leadership of the European Union, of which Poland and Bulgaria are members.

"The announcement by Gazprom that it is unilaterally stopping delivery of gas to customers in Europe is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail," said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. "This is unjustified and unacceptable.”

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Russia's move "could eventually force targeted nations to ration gas and deal another blow to economies suffering from rising prices."

"It could also deprive Russia of badly needed income to fund its war effort," the AP added. "Natural gas prices in Europe shot up 25% before the market opened Wednesday and then eased off but remained significantly higher."

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, tweeted Wednesday that "Gazprom unilaterally cutting gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland today makes it clearer than ever that Europe needs to move quickly to reduce its reliance on Russian energy."

Prior to Russia's full-scale assault on Ukraine, the European Union relied on Russia for around 40% of its gas supply and 27% of its oil imports, dependence that initially left E.U. members hesitant to target the Russian fossil fuel industry.

Last month, the Biden administration announced that it would take steps to increase U.S. gas exports to E.U. nations as they attempt to wean themselves off Russian fossil fuels. The U.S. move, which climate advocates slammed as dangerous for the planet, could be a major boon for American fossil fuel companies as they seize upon the war in Ukraine to expand their operations and boost profits.

One recent analysis estimated U.S. oil and gas corporations are poised to rake in windfall profits of up to $126 billion this year as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues with no end in sight.

The Intercept reported earlier this week that U.S. fossil fuel lobbyists are hard at work exploiting Russia's war on Ukraine to bolster their long-sought plans to increase fracked gas production and export capacity despite years of local opposition to such projects—and their role in accelerating the climate crisis.

"The unfolding crisis is now a common—and effective—talking point for corporate interest groups seeking regulatory relief," the outlet noted.

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More Fracked Gas Exports Will Worsen Climate Emergency. Send Heat Pumps Instead

A tanker carrying shale gas from Houston, Texas arrives in North Queensferry, Scotland on March 19, 2020. (Photo: Ken Jack/Getty Images)

 

Expanding LNG exports will decrease U.S. energy security and increase climate-harming methane emissions. Rather than toss another lifeline to a dying industry, Biden should help accelerate the energy transition processes already underway in Europe.

 

Anthony Ingraffea,  Robert W. Howarth

April 19, 2022 by The Hill via Common Dreams

The Biden administration is issuing orders to expand the amount of liquefied natural gas (LNG) that it exports by over 50% as Europe seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian gas. However, by doing so we are decreasing our own energy security, while increasing climate-harming methane emissions and diverting capital expenditures away from green energy to yet more new fossil fuel infrastructure. There are better ways to aid our European allies in their time of energy need.

There are better ways to aid our European allies in their time of energy need.

The U.S. tripled its worldwide LNG exports between 2019 and 2021. At our current internal consumption rate, the U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that the U.S. currently has about a 15-year remaining supply of its own natural gas. However, in 2021 the U.S. exported the equivalent of about a 2-month supply of our gas as LNG to Europe and Asia. With the rush to increase our LNG exports, 100-fold since 2015, we are diminishing our energy security at an increasing rate.

Leakage of unburned methane into the atmosphere from the internal U.S. oil and gas supply chain is a major source of a very potent greenhouse gas, about 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. However, the climate impact from that supply chain is worsened when it extends to Europe. Research based on a recent study by the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory shows that at least 230 million additional kilograms of methane leaked from the 28 billion cubic meters of natural gas exported from the U.S. to Europe as LNG last year. That is equal to about 16% of methane emissions from all sources in New York state. However, LNG exports to Europe will be increasing, at an increasing rate, so that leakage will only get worse.

Actual methane leakage from the oil and natural gas supply chain in the U.S. is inevitable and is now known to be far higher than estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At least one-quarter of our total methane emissions is from that supply chain. Sending increasing amounts of that gas for export as LNG adds leakage from pipelines to export terminals, the liquefying process, off-gassing during sea transport in cryogenic tankers and re-gasification and additional pipelining in Europe. Add the carbon dioxide emissions associated with all of these additional energy-hogging processes creates a nightmarish greenhouse gas footprint for LNG exports.

This rapid upscaling of U.S. LNG exports is demanding new pipelines, export facilities, and cryogenic tankers. This deflection of capital expenditures away from green energy deployment has two major results: First, it's a further delay in the green energy transition needed to increase the supply of renewable energy. Second, this increased demand for natural gas production comes at a moment when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Energy Agency, and all others truly concerned about climate change are saying no funds should go to new fossil fuel exploration, production, and infrastructure.

The U.S. should be exporting boatloads of high-efficiency electrical appliances and heat pumps to Europe.

It is crucial to emphasize that a well-intentioned move to aid our European allies has serious consequences, intended and unintended. Like the industry's cry for massive blue hydrogen production, which also demands an increase in natural gas production, this rapid increase in U.S. exports of LNG is tossing another lifeline to a dying industry. We cannot fail in our fight against climate change while helping to win a war exacerbated by a Russian natural gas cudgel.

So, what should we do instead? Accelerate the energy transition processes already underway in Europe. Help to decrease its demand for Russian natural gas. Most of the imported natural gas is used to generate heat for residential and commercial use, space and water heating, and cooking and drying. Therefore, electrify all these uses and gain the tremendous embedded efficiency increases: Electrification actually reduces the total energy demand for these end-uses. The U.S. should be exporting boatloads of high-efficiency electrical appliances and heat pumps to Europe. Simultaneously, accelerate the production of renewable energy to replace Russian natural gas. More boatloads from the U.S. of wind turbines, PV electrical components, and battery storage systems. As E.U. Climate Policy Chief Frans Timmermans said, "The answer to this concern for our security lies in renewable energy and diversification of supply."

The European energy crisis brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made clear that the key to energy security for all nations is the realization that nobody owns the infinite and free supplies of solar, wind, and hydro energy. They cannot be weaponized. We need to do all we can to export to Europe what will win the energy war in the long run while not imperiling the rest of the world with more greenhouse gas emissions.

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© 2021 The Hill

Anthony Ingraffea

Anthony Ingraffea is the Dwight C. Baum professor of engineering emeritus and Weiss presidential teaching fellow at Cornell University.

Robert W. Howarth

Robert W. Howarth is the David R. Atkinson professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University.

Off the Top of My Head

What Are the Implications of Russia's Pariahdom for Global Warming?

by John Lawrence

All western politicians and pundits (with the possible exception of Tucker Carlson) agree that Russia is and shall ever be a pariah state. Putin is a pariah who should be tried for war crimes. So how is the world and the community of nations going to combat our truly mortal enemy - global warming? As a major producer of fossil fuels, in order to get off the fossil fuel bandwagon, we would need Russia's cooperation. If Putin is to be a pariah, he could care less about global warming. He's probably thinking about all the resorts he could build in Siberia! Besides that, as the world warms, the tundra in Siberia is thawing releasing tons of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. In recent years, climate scientists have warned thawing permafrost in Siberia may be a “methane time bomb”. But now a study by three geologists says that a heat wave in 2020 has revealed a surge in methane emissions “potentially in much higher amounts” from a different source: thawing rock formations in the Arctic permafrost. Russia and Putin could have the last laugh as the rest of the world goes up in flames and Russia adapts to a more moderate climate.

The Washington Post reported:

"The difference is that thawing wetlands releases “microbial” methane from the decay of soil and organic matter, while thawing limestone — or carbonate rock — releases hydrocarbons and gas hydrates from reservoirs both below and within the permafrost, making it “much more dangerous” than past studies have suggested.

"Nikolaus Froitzheim, who teaches at the Institute of Geosciences at the University of Bonn, said that he and two colleagues used satellite maps that measured intense methane concentrations over two “conspicuous elongated areas” of limestone — stripes that were several miles wide and up to 375 miles long — in the Taymyr Peninsula and the area around northern Siberia.

"The study was published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Surface temperatures during the heat wave in 2020 soared to 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1979-2000 norms. In the long stripes, there is hardly any soil, and vegetation is scarce, the study says. So the limestone crops out of the surface. As the rock formations warm up, cracks and pockets opened up, releasing methane that had been trapped inside."

Have the western politicos miscalculated or are they just playing into the Russian playbook in which the Russians are thinking 3 moves ahead on the chess board? The politicos and pundits all agree that Russia's financial lifeline is the sale of oil and gas and that the west must do everything it can do to shut off those sales starving Russia financially. But wait a minute. What they fail to understand is that Russia does not need the sale of gas or any other commodity to survive financially because the ruble is a fiat currency. The Russian central bank can print as many rubles as it likes with the only constraint being inflation. The US dollar is also a fiat currency and the US Federal Reserve can print as many dollars as it likes, the only restraints being political and again inflation which the US is now experiencing to a greater degree than Russia is. In fact the printing of Russian rubles will only tend to balance their economy and prevent it from going into recession. Meanwhile, the west, Germany in particular, struggles with replacing Russian gas and oil with gas and oil from other sources in a futile attempt to starve Russia financially. Ellen Brown has pointed out why sanctions may even be good for Russia because it forces Russia to develop sectors of its own economy rather than relying on imports from the west.

Besides Russia has a lot of friends in the world, some of them like Hungary who are even NATO members. Viktor Orban, Hungary's authoritarian leader and key Putin ally, calls Zelensky an 'opponent' after winning reelection. So while the US and Britain mainly fulminate over Russia's Putin being a pariah, not everyone in the non-western world agrees. Russia still has plenty of friends, just not in the US or Britain. Which brings is back to our original question, how can we solve the problem of global warming without Russia's cooperation even if we are not friends with them? Is it worth it to destroy the whole planet earth because of two countries engaging in a war no matter how brutal and ill founded? The west must eventually come to terms with Russia and with Putin if Putin is still the Russian leader when the war ends or watch while planet earth, not just Ukraine, goes up in flames.

Off the Top of My Head

Two Truths About War and One About Planet Earth

by John Lawrence

1) Truth is the first casualty of war. 2) War is hell. 3) Planet earth can't survive without the cooperation of all nations. Despite the outcome of the war in Ukraine, the whole planet will go up in flames unless all nations can cooperate to solve the problem of global warming. If peace among all nations on earth is not possible, then we can kiss planet earth good-bye as a habitable refuge for humans and other forms of life. The cockroaches may survive, but there is no guarantee even for them. While we humans are busy fighting wars, the planet is warming, and there is not a lot of time to fix this problem before it gets to the point of being unfixable. Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by 6% in 2021 to 36.3 billion tons, their highest ever, as the world economy rebounded strongly from the Covid-19 crisis and relied heavily on coal to power that growth, according to a new IEA analysis released this March 2022. So we're going in the wrong direction heading for a cliff full steam ahead. Not only are we not turning around this catastrophe, we're accelerating it.

"The increase in global CO2 emissions of over 2 billion tons was the largest in history in absolute terms, more than offsetting the previous year’s pandemic-induced decline, the IEA analysis shows. The recovery of energy demand in 2021 was compounded by adverse weather and energy market conditions – notably the spikes in natural gas prices – which led to more coal being burned despite renewable power generation registering its largest ever growth"

So now with the sanctions on Russian gas, there is a likelihood that even more coal will be burned as gas prices soar around the world. We are shooting ourselves in the foot! More natural gas usage, even Russian natural gas, should be encouraged because it produces less greenhouse gas emissions than does the burning of coal. So whoever loses the war in Ukraine, the biggest loser of all will be planet earth. Combined with the methane emissions estimates that the IEA published last month and estimates of nitrous oxide and flaring-related CO² emissions, the new analysis shows that overall greenhouse gas emissions from energy rose to their highest ever level in 2021.

The IEA report emphasized:

"The use of coal for electricity generation in 2021 was intensified by record high natural gas prices. The costs of operating existing coal power plants across the United States and many European power systems were considerably lower than those of gas power plants for the majority of 2021. Gas-to-coal switching pushed up global CO² emissions from electricity generation by well over 100 million tonnes, notably in the United States and Europe where competition between gas and coal power plants is tightest."

So now because of sanctions on Russian natural gas, even more power plants across the US and Europe will be switching to coal! We should be closing all coal powered plants and even those powered by natural gas replacing them all with renewables, geothermal and nuclear. There are alternatives available, but the human race would rather be all concerned about war fighting and not at all concerned about the fate of the planet and the fate of the human race. When it comes to war, there is an unlimited budget. When it comes to peace, there is hardly any money available. Why? Because war is profitable. Defense contractors will be making record profits in the United States and Europe and their stock prices will soar. Meanwhile, there is a paltry budget for switching to renewable energy.

Off the Top of My Head

Two Contradictions in the Narrative About the War

by John Lawrence

1) That Saudi Arabia is a good friend. Then why do they refuse to pump more oil to relieve the gas crisis? 2) That it's a war between democracy and autocracy. Then why is the world's largest democracy, India, on the side of Russia? Let's take #1 first. If Saudi Arabia is our great friend, they could end the gas crisis tomorrow simply by pumping more oil. This they refuse to do. So whose side are they on? For all the criticism of Putin as a butcher, we forget that Mohammed bin Salman, affectionately known as MBS, had Jamal Khasoggi butchered. Khashoggi, 59, was a Saudi citizen living in Northern Virginia and writing columns for The Washington Post that were often critical of the Saudi monarchy. He was killed during a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018. His body was dismembered, and his remains have never been found. Then Donald Trump, defying Congress, proceeded to sell billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Saudis. Reuters reported:

"The Trump administration informed congressional committees that it will go ahead with 22 military sales to the Saudis, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, infuriating lawmakers by circumventing a long-standing precedent for congressional review of major weapons sales.

"Members of Congress had been blocking sales of offensive military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for months, angry about the huge civilian toll from their air campaign in Yemen, as well as human rights abuses such as the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey."

I repeat whose side are they on, and what values do they and our vaunted "western values" have in common? But enough on the Saudis.

Let's take #2. India, I repeat, the world's largest democracy, is on the side of Russia. At least they have not sided with the US, NATO and the west even though they supposedly share our democratic values which are totally at odds with "autocratic values." The narrative that the war in Ukraine represents a war between democratic values and autocratic values is totally bogus. India has long been a purchaser of Russian military equipment and was an ally with Russian support in its war with Pakistan. India’s friendship with the then-Soviet Union became official in 1971, after the two countries signed a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation. That year, the Soviets backed India in a war with Pakistan that ultimately led to the independence of Bangladesh. The US backed Pakistan. Now India is taking up the slack by buying more Russian oil, oil that isn't being sold to the western world which needs it badly to get gas prices back to normal. China is buying more Russian Ural crude oil as well.

As the world rallies to condemn Russia, India remains silent on the sideline. In addition to India some other countries siding with Russia or at least remaining neutral are China, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Algeria, South Africa, Angola, Morocco. Nearly half of all the countries that abstained from condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly are in Africa, and many are reluctant to join sanctions against Russia. In fact, only 28 out of the 54 African countries (just over 51 percent) represented in the U.N. voted in favor of the resolution. So not all countries are willing to turn Putin into a pariah and Russia into a pariah state. Even South Africa, which has a parliamentary democracy and is a strategic partner of the United States, was not willing to condemn Putin.

However, the war ends, it is important for world peace and the fight against climate change, let alone globalized markets, that some sort of constructive alliance among all countries be enacted taking the security interests of all countries into account. The problem with NATO is that it didn't do that. In fact the expansion of NATO eastward rubbed Russia's nose in the fact that it had lost the Cold War. Some American leaders gloated over that fact. Instead Russia should have been accepted into the community of nations. If Finland right on Russia's border can remain nonaligned and neutral without threat of invasion, perhaps that would have been the best course for other nations on Russia's border as well.

 

Off the Top of My Head

NATO Should Have Been Dissolved When the Warsaw Pact Was Dissolved After the End of the Cold War in 1991

by John Lawrence

NATO was formed in 1949 after the end of World War II as a counter to the ideological rivalry between communism as espoused by the Soviet Union  and capitalism as espoused by the US and Europe. That ideological rivalry ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were dismantled. The Warsaw Pact was a security pact between the Soviet Union and eastern European nations in direct response to NATO. Russia became essentially a capitalist nation in 1991. Ergo: no further ideological rivalry. At the same time China was also becoming a capitalist nation despite the name of its ruling party. The Berlin Wall had fallen in 1989. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, was given assurances that NATO would not advance one inch eastward, an assurance that was abrogated by US administrations shortly thereafter. The security structure of Europe should have been reworked after the fall of the Soviet Union, and NATO should have been eliminated at the same time the Warsaw Pact was eliminated. If that had happened Europe, not the US, would have been responsible for its own security.

So today Vladimir Putin is putting pressure on the western world to do something about the neglected assurances given to Gorbachev that NATO wouldn't move one inch eastward. Ukraine became a part of the Soviet Union after the Second World War and achieved its independence in 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. Crimea had also been part of the Soviet Union and Russia prior to that. In 1954 Nikita Khrushchev, along with the other leadership of the Soviet Union, transferred the Crimean Oblast from the Russian Soviet Federative Social Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Western leaders say that Putin wants to reestablish the Soviet Union or at least maintain control of nations that were previously part of the Soviet Union. Putin has said he wants to establish a new security structure for Europe. That is quite a different prospect from reestablishing the Soviet Union especially in light of the assurances given to Gorbachev about NATO's not moving an inch eastward.

The question must be asked: what is the purpose of NATO, which was established to counteract communist expansionism, when communism no longer exists at least as manifested by Russia. Gorbachev's advisor, Arbitov, had said, "We are going to deprive you of an enemy":

"In another sense, however, the passing of the cold war could not have been more disorienting. In 1987, Georgi Arbatov, a senior adviser to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, had warned: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you – we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”

"As the Soviet Union passed out of existence, Americans were left not just without that enemy, but without even a framework for understanding the world and their place in it. However imperfectly, the cold war had, for several decades, offered a semblance of order and coherence. The collapse of communism shattered that framework. Where there had been purposefulness and predictability, now there was neither."

Guess again, Mr. Gorbachev. The US military-industrial complex was not to be deprived of an enemy under any circumstances. The subsequent neocons saw to that. What Putin is asking for now is a new framework, a framework that should have been established by the west in diplomatic consultation with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and the termination of the Warsaw Pact, NATO's mirror. However, the US and perhaps the other actors as well cannot conceive of a world without war or the threat of war. They cannot conceive of a diplomatic treaty or framework which would leave the world at peace. Peace is an unknown entity and is for all intents and purposes inconceivable. Therefore, Russia is poised to take by force that which might not have been necessary in Putin's eyes if a framework had been established in which NATO hadn't started moving eastward or even conceivably in which European security arrangements could have been established which would have protected  all European nations including Russia sans NATO.

Off the Top of My Head

Going Green As Rapidly As Possible

by John Lawrence, November 27, 2020

Now is the time for a paradigm change on many levels. Our whole way of life needs to be redesigned. For instance, entrepreneurs are changing their mindsets from maximizing profits by any means necessary to inventing tools and methods to save the environment and the planet. We also need to design an economy so that the benefits which are widely available to the rich and the upper middle class are available to everyone, not only in the US but in the world in general. Instead of America First we need to think: Planet First. But there is resistance to the fact that government needs to guide this development so that it doesn't proceed haphazardly and is directed toward a greening of the economy because climate change on the planet is not waiting for us to take our sweet time. They are proceeding in Europe despite resistance from Poland's coal mining region. Justin Worland wrote:

The plan is simple yet bold. In December, the E.U. outlined plans to spend what would total €1 trillion ($1.17 trillion) on a “Green Deal” aimed at eliminating the bloc’s carbon footprint by 2050 and refashioning the economy around new, low-carbon industries. The investment, originally meant to be funded through the E.U. budget, private-sector financing and other country contributions, includes everything from retrofitting buildings to scaling up the infrastructure necessary for electric vehicles to investing in hydrogen-energy storage. After the pandemic struck, the E.U. structured its COVID-19 recovery package around accelerating the plan. “We need to change how we treat nature, how we produce and consume, live and work, eat and heat, travel and transport,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive body, in a September speech.

Correct. 1) How we treat nature. 2) How we produce and consume. 3) How we live and work. 4) How we eat and heat. 5) How we travel and transport. That about says it all. We need entrepreneurs who, in addition to wanting to make money, have the incentive to improve the environment and the planet. Those entrepreneurs who are entirely profit motivated might as well stay home. We don't need them. It's well known that, if all you want to do is to make money, the best way to achieve that is to come up with another novel alcoholic drink or another snack food loaded with sugar, salt and fat. Those are the roads to riches that we need to demolish, and instead build roads to new developments that are effective and safe for the planet just as a COVID vaccine must be safe and effective for human consumption. The economy must become a hybrid of private initiative combined with government participation. We need both. If you want to call that socialism, so be it.

Even in Europe there is resistance to going green despite the fact that polls show that 90% of the people support aggressive action on climate change. If the US is not to become the backwater of the world, we must get on board with rapid change because global warming is not waiting for us while we dilly dally around. Very soon fire and hurricane seasons are not going to be seasonal any more. They will be occurring year round. In transitioning away from fracking and fossil fuels in general we need to follow Europe's lead and create what they call a Just Transition:

So officials in Brussels crafted a so-called Just Transition plan to direct some €150 billion ($177 billion) to the regions most vulnerable to a move away from fossil fuels. The money is intended to act both as a catalyst for these regions to adapt and as an insurance policy to make sure the climate agenda maintains broad popular support. The Green Deal broadly—and Just Transition specifically—are altering the politics of climate change in Europe and the nature of the bloc’s economic development. It might determine the jobs and industries that employ workers across the Continent for the next century. In Poland, the Green Deal has already fueled a rush to chart a new path, one that honors the country’s coal-mining heritage while also preparing it for a new future. In September, the country committed to shutting down its coal mines for good. The question now is how to do that, and whether the country can move fast enough to meet the E.U.’s deadlines. “We are at a key, critical moment in the history of Poland and in the making of the European Green Deal,” says Michal Kurtyka, Poland’s Climate Minister.

Even the coal miners in Katowice are on board knowing that they will be taken care of when their coal mining jobs disappear. The US needs to follow the same path with emphasis on taking care of displaced workers in the fossil fuel industry. They can be transitioned to the renewable energy industry with minimal hardship if the process is done right. Joe Biden's idea to transition from the fracking industry is correct. Perhaps coordinating with European leaders will help so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

A LIFETIME ON TWO DIFFERENT CONTINENTS – WHERE IS AMERICA GOING?

by Frank Thomas

I have worked and lived with my family 42 years in America and 40 years in Europe now. Fourteen years ago, I decided to use my retirement time in the Netherlands to write about what’s happening in America, and comparing that to Europe. My many writings were published by the San Diego Free Press and in recent years by the California Free Press. I would like to share with the Bowdoin community some thoughts from one of my writings on a tension-filled issue tearing our nation apart, “The Alienation Rut Our America Is In.”

A question that haunts me is : What is basically at the core of our nation’s incapacity to rise above the destructive infighting divisions and divisive forces effectively poisoning constructive dialogue in our political and social lives for the last 40 years? I’ve concluded it’s about money, questioning the reality whether capitalism improves the quality of life for everyone. It’s now about a politics and media of online disinformation, provocative lies, conspiracy theories. However, something much deeper is occurring as we continue putting forward shoebox-size solutions to huge societal problems, thus taking us nowhere as a collective. I believe it’s essentially about the erosion of Common Purpose in America serving the Common Good. It’s about the erosion of listening to each other, of putting oneself in another’s shoes to really hear other perspectives. After 40 years in Europe, I have seen how advanced Europeans are in this open discourse and interchange of ideas; we Americans have become totally dysfunctional in the give-and-take process.

We are afflicted by a social-political virus that’s poisoning a constructive, creative, reasonable degree of rationality and compromise in solving societal problems. A disease that has led to an ugly political and social divide where +- 60 million Americans prefer in my view an irredeemable sociopath as president. An authoritarian leader full of guile who exploits political polarization and a resentful population ripe for: manipulation, shredding constitutional principles, egging on his rank and file full of nationalistic white rage, a vile dislike of immigrants, no respect but often contempt for those who disagree with them.

Our deep social divides are nurturing instability and attracting people who have given up, even hate their government. Historical examples show that an Empire collapses after it first erodes from within. Will Durant’s prophetic words, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” Empires break down when there’s little touch and feedback from the real world, an eroded accountability and respect for facts, no purpose other than maximizing profit and wealth gains, no common good being served fairly. In such situations, the incorruptible and competent are obstructed or ignored, the weak or vulnerable are marginalized, while the self-serving, corrupt and incompetent become con artists at gaming the system for their own power and financial benefits.

Rather than reveling in an economic model that extols greed as virtue, why not significantly reform or replace it with an economic system that has effective democratic checks and balances to contain people’s greed. Why not more democracy and Bottom-Up sharing in societal decisions instead of leaving those decisions predominately in the hands of the rich and powerful who buy politicians.

One observer noted: “The entire premise of a self-ruling democracy rests on some reasonable degree of rationality and a reasonable degree of an ability to discriminate between real information and falsehoods. And it goes deeper than that still. The entire premise of any society - democracy or not – is that it possesses a certain degree of shared community, a ‘we-ness’ that transcends narrow tribalisms and self-interests in critical ways and at critical moments.”

That social-democratic dynamic was in good health in the U.S. after WWII through the 1970s. But since then it has been unraveling step-by-step. Now, we’ve reached a critical imbalance point where we must redistribute power much more equally and widely … and nurture more sustainable and equitable ways to arrange the social and economic relations in our society. Both the Democrat and Republican party machines have obviously failed miserably over recent decades in creating adaptable change that benefits All working class Americans fairly. We have an ineffective, inefficient two-party political system that controls and drives change largely beneficial to the Top 10%. We are nearing the peak in system fragility and inequities where a social implosion could well occur.

What is critically needed is a much more engaging Bottom-Up governing process where parties and government cooperate with, rely on and trust a process where communities identify and collaborate on their own needs and policy decisions to solve problems. Having lived in the Netherlands for many years – and Belgium and Denmark for a few years - I’ve seen a broad, representative social democracy in operation in Holland that steers a healthy societal balance of social protections and a thriving market capitalism (similar to what we had up to late 1970s). The Netherlands, a country with 17.5 million people on a land territory half that of my state of Maine, has developed some very reputable, innovative world firms, e.g., Shell, Phillips, Unilever, Heineken, KLM, DSM, ASML, Tata Steel.

Success in Europe has NOT been achieved by being more Right or more Left nor by being more Capitalistic or more Socialistic. Labeling people, policies, programs “socialistic” and “capitalistic” as a discussion norm is seldom if ever done to evoke emotional reactions or to make prejudgements or charges that distort reality or debate. The degree to which American conservatives automatically invoke the frightful specter of ”socialism” – used often interchangeably with “fascism”- serves NO constructive purpose in advancing inclusive, creative, balanced policy discussions and legislative actions in Europe.

Mature EU countries with multi-party, coalition governance systems don’t see their unique form of hybrid “capitalism” with its high degree of economic freedom AND “socialist” elements – e.g., strong job protections, centralized unions, well-trained worker markets, affordable health care for excellent coverage, low cost trade schools and colleges – as a conflicting societal norm … but rather as a mutually reinforcing norm for improving the lot of ALL citizens. Conflicting and competing interests behind capitalism’s vast wealth creating capacity are sorted out so that income and social benefits are broadly and fairly shared. It’s generally a very self-critical, exceptionally transparent process of working together in common cause where constructive compromise is a sine qua non and fact based.

It’s all about building a more inclusive, sustainable economy. Actions must not just stimulate the economy for the short term, but transform it as well for the long-term. If we don’t get serious with substantive reform, the mistakes that caused the 2008 Great Depression crisis will return with a vengeance unimaginable! As one person said, “Democracy is never static; it must evolve in order to flourish. Countries, for example, that attached smart conditions to bailouts will have made the most headway in recalibrating the public-private relationship. That’s a mammoth challenge in times when humankind is radically divided in America – when even something as simple as wearing a mask to protect others and oneself during a deadly virus pandemic might provoke a violent confrontation.”

In our own renewal process of deep, collaborative, inclusive discussions to find timely solutions to crushing problems by a unique policy blend of capitalism and social welfare, we would do well to pause and not quickly, dismiss, ignore, belittle, misrepresent, ridicule others who disagree with us. Otherwise, most of us will ALL become self-obsessed, polarized and polarizing Trumpians.

Our divisive tribalism has reached an intractable social-political stage where it’s killing give-and-take communication and compromise for the Common Good of our nation, particularly the Bottom 90% … as opposed to enriching the already rich Top 10%. If we can come together in a mind-opened, balanced, common sense manner – acknowledging no party is perfect – we have the brains, energy, means to achieve longer cycles of a healthy social safety net, environmental protection, economic progress all Americans can fairly share in. “

That’s a BIG IF!

Frank Thomas The Netherlands November 17, 2020

FOOTNOTE

Michael D. Rich, president and CEO of the non-profit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior political scientist at RAND had an article in the Los Angeles Times Nov. 19, 2020 on our nation’s “Truth Decay.” This relates to the decline in public trust due to a lack of fact-based analysis as the basis of political discourse, including a serious gap in the transparent disclosure of government deliberations, plans, actions. Over time, this has been sadly undermining public confidence and faith in our government, politicians, and public institutions. What to do to rebuild that trust? Without going into the detailed explanations, Rich and Kavanagh state their main message so:

“Much like our bridges and roads, America’s civic infrastructure – the practices and policies that enable a nation to solve its communal problems – has been allowed to crumble. This has allowed Truth Decay to set in. Reconstructing this infrastructure will require concerted effort across many areas, starting with increasing government transparency, promoting expertise in the executive branch, assembling an inclusive administration , and investing in civic education.

I couldn’t agree more and this must occur Bottom-Up and Top Down.

Off the Top of My Head

If You Thought American Inequality Was Bad Before COVID, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

by John Lawrence, October 19, 2020

Pandemics should be the great equalizer, but COVID has exacerbated inequality. The rich have gotten richer. The poor have not only gotten poorer, they've slipped into poverty and homelessness. Around the world the Economist estimates that about 100 million people are falling back into extreme poverty, that is they are living on less than $2 a day. In the US between 6 and 8 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty within the last few months. CNBC reported that nearly 40% of cash-strapped Americans can't last a month on their savings. But there are success stories if you want to call them that. Amazon has seen its market cap increase by $750 billion to around $1.7 trillion. Jeff Bezos' net worth is now around $200 billion. Clearly the COVID economic depression has not been bad for everyone.

Americans are not encouraged to save for a rainy day, and 2020 has seen a series of the all time rainiest of days. We are encouraged to consume, consume, consume. Consumption is 70% of GDP in the US, much higher than the 51% share in Europe and 57% in China. The problem now is that Americans can't consume if they don't have the money to do it. That is why the CARES Act  was so important and why a further relief package is as important. If people don't spend to consume, the US will go into a depression. Consumer spending is important for the US economy much more so than elsewhere in the world.

China's economy will be the only one to grow this year while the US economy shrinks. China got COVID under control months ago, and its economy now is in full swing. It goes to show the wisdom of getting COVID under control first no matter how severe the measures that have to be taken to do so. Then the economy can open with no problem. The US, under the leadership of President Trump, did a half ass job of getting COVID under control with the result that opening the economy was done in a half ass way also. Now COVID is on the upswing in the US, and Trump is holding super spreader event rallies as he seemingly wants to take his supporters down with him if he fails to win on election day. The economy is on a roller coaster of half openings and half closings.

Clearly, there has been a K shaped recovery with the rich doing very well and the poor slipping into poverty. Poor essential workers such as meat packers and agricultural workers presumably still have their jobs. Nonessential poor workers such as maids in the hospitality industry and restaurant and bar workers have lost their jobs as those industries have either shut down or are struggling. The worst thing for these struggling industries would be to have to shut down completely again although that may be necessary if COVID cases continue to spike. Although the situation is bad for poor people in the US, it's worse in the rest of the world. The World Bank has revised its analysis of the effects of COVID, and they now estimate that the COVID pandemic is likely to push between 88 and 115 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, setting back poverty reduction by around three years. Meanwhile, billionaires saw their wealth climb 27.5% to $10.2 trillion from April to July this year, according to a report from Swiss bank UBS.

The US' response to COVID has been among the poorest in the world with the result that America's influence in the world, already on the downswing, is further eroding. Inevitably China will take over as the world's largest economy just based on its superior response to the COVID pandemic alone. That makes this year's elections crucial to resuming some semblance of American influence and respect in the world community. Not to mention that if Trump is reelected there is no hope for a remediated response to global warming and climate change. Either the US will get on the right track in several different dimensions with Joe Biden as President or Trump, if he serves another 4 years, will take America and the world down with him.

'A Win for the Planet!': Dutch Supreme Court Issues Landmark Ruling Mandating Climate Action

Published on Friday, December 20, 2019

by Common Dreams

The nonprofit that brought the case called it "a groundbreaking decision that confirms that individual governments must do their fair share to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

 

16 Comments

Supporters of a climate case in the Netherlands celebrated the Dutch Supreme Court's ruling Friday. (Photo: Urgenda/Twitter)

Advocates for climate action celebrated Friday after the Supreme Court of the Netherlands upheld a landmark ruling that found the Dutch government is obligated under international human rights law to more ambitiously reduce greenhouse gas emissions that drive global heating.

The case was initially launched in 2013 by the nonprofit Urgenda Foundation on behalf of hundreds of Dutch citizens and has been repeatedly appealed.

"Today, at a moment when people around the world are in need of real hope that governments will act with urgency to address the climate crisis, the Dutch Supreme Court has delivered a groundbreaking decision that confirms that individual governments must do their fair share to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," an Urgenda spokesperson said after the ruling.

The court ruled that the Dutch government must cut emissions by at least 25% compared with 1990 levels by the end of 2020 "because of the risk of a dangerous climate change that can also seriously affect the residents of the Netherlands in their right to life and well-being," according to a translation from BuzzFeed News.

History is written @climatecase @Urgenda pic.twitter.com/yByIgDOElW

— Urgenda (@urgenda) December 20, 2019

Tessa Kahn, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, took to Twitter to highlight former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson's reaction to the ruling:

Absolutely historic day for #climatejustice. Supreme Court confirms that human rights obligations of Dutch government require it to significant & urgently reduce emissions. No further opportunity for appeal. Climate justice is a legal and moral obligation. pic.twitter.com/8s4HmjSWhS

— Tessa Khan (@tessakhan) December 20, 2019

The ruling is "a victory for the climate, for our planet, and for future generations," declared Greenpeace International general counsel Jasper Teulings, who welcomed the news in a tweet. "Now let's put this in action."

Urgenda's win "could inspire people worldwide to hold governments legally accountable for #ClimateChange," the Greenpeace International account said on Twitter. "This puts all laggard governments on notice: act now or see you in court."

Reporting on the news out of the Netherlands Friday, Forbes pointed out that "inspired by the success of Urgenda's case, other organizations brought their representatives to court. Similar legal initiatives are taking place in several countries, including Belgium, Canada, Pakistan, and the United States."

Meanwhile, back in the Netherlands—as the environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth noted Friday—Urgenda is also suing fossil fuel giant Royal Dutch Shell for its contributions to the global climate crisis.

Fantastic news to kick of the winter break:

The Dutch supreme court has ruled the NL government must increase climate action now.

Guess who the brilliant lawyers @urganda are suing next? @Shell for damaging the #climate.#ClimateCase https://t.co/MFpw63kQbg https://t.co/78UUb0CG0N

— Friends of the Earth (@foeeurope) December 20, 2019

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What's Behind America's Vicious Cycle of Economic Inequality

PERILS TO AMERICA’S DEMOCRACY OF DESCENDING TO A NEO-LIBERAL CAPITALISTIC AUTOCRACY

by Frank Thomas

I agree with Umair Haque's excellent essay, Why America is the First Poor Rich Country, that our historical process of growing income/wealth concentration creates a vicious cycle that persists through generations, effectively corroding our democracy. A theme of inevitably increasing income and wealth concentration under our capitalistic model that the indefatigable researcher, Thomas Piketty focused on in depth. We have an enhanced Free Market Capitalism democracy variant that's dangerously evolving into an Aristocracy - sharp contrast to Europe's constantly refined 'mixed blending’ of socialist and capitalist elements in their multi-party, relatively inclusive Social Democracies. It comes down to a European 'noblesse oblige' culture. That means those with wealth, power, influence recognize that their advantageous positions come with some morally obligated social-economic responsibilities. Unlike the U.S., Europe has on average very low income 'break-levels' where the highest progressive tax rate kicks in for ALL at the same income break- level.

But unlike Europe, we have large numbers in the Top 1%, 5%, 10% income brackets earning increasingly prodigious incomes at much lower tax rates that kick in at very high income 'break-levels.' Besides low inheritance tax rates, this income tax advantage contributes greatly to our nation's huge income inequality and obscenely disproportionate shares of national income and wealth received by the Top 10% vs. the Bottom 90%. The Top 1% has a vast majority of wealth in the economy and control of financial markets. So, we have the 'noblesse' without the 'oblige,' i.e., the most fortunate maximize their income and wealth, with scant attention to a moral obligation to support the lot of the less fortunate and stagnantly progressing middle class. In fact, such 'oblige' behaviour is usually obstructed or given a token last thought by the conservative right.

As I've said before in prior writings, Europe's mature “social democracies” like the Scandinavian countries, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and others are NOT centres of “socialism” where individual freedom and enterprise are lost according to Republicans. This is the constant demonizing ad hominem rant of the American conservative right. With few exceptions, EU countries in the main are quintessentially vibrant capitalistic economies with sound, encompassing, well-managed social welfare and safety nets. An example of a thriving capitalistic economy with an outstanding multi-party structure and social welfare system is the Netherlands. A small country of 18 million people with an economy that has given rise to such world enterprising companies as Unilever, Phillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Heineken, KLM, DSM, ASML.

Europe's social democracies seek to ensure economic and job opportunity fairness, to incentivize opportunities, to provide protections, to restrain corruption and the excesses of capitalism including externalized costs. Europe's social democracies show us that free markets, lower consumption levels (52% of GDP vs. 70% of GDP in U.S.), high societal investments in infrastructure, education, quality social welfare and safety nets can co-exist rather well - even reinforce and complement each other.

In contrast, the U.S. economy and governing system based on a broad, strong working blue collar and middle class is being transformed into a feudal society by a small number of wealthy elites, giant corporations, banks and bought politicians. A society where a fair share in income and asset ownership by the common working folk has disappeared into a 'daily bread', pay check-to-pay check, job survival struggle - now being made appallingly worse by current and rapidly forthcoming technical advances in digitalization, robotization and artificial intelligence. Over recent decades a rough, ultra-demanding, dominant capitalistic paradigm has been in play in America where the working folk are experiencing near zero upward mobility; where a majority of people are failing to progress in good times and are forced to share the brunt of the pain in bad times.

Current levels and trends in income and wealth inequality would certainly have terrified the Founding Fathers. They believed that broad-based property ownership and prosperity were essential to the sustenance of the republic. John Adams wrote that the goal of the democratic government was not to help the wealthy and powerful but to achieve "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." Adams feared that "monopolies of land" would destroy the nation, that an oligarchy arising out of inequality would manipulate voters, creating a system of subordination to all. Does this sound familiar to what's been happening in America?

Since the late 1970s, our nation has been overtaken by the conservative-right, doctrinaire harangue that a minimally regulated ‘market’ economy equates with democracy; i.e., the 'market' is the foundation of our social-economic-political system. Like Umair Haque, I've examined and am haunted by how our free market capitalism politically influences and controls our economic system at the expense of the social welfare system. Simply said, the conservative right proponents of 'market liberalism' ignore how an unfettered 'market' and lobby-influenced politicians can come to function undemocratically. The moneyed elite and corporations inexorably use their leverage to marginalize the rights, wages, social welfare of average Americans, to exploit their tax advantages to the hilt using exotic tax avoidance structures.

The Founding Fathers clearly viewed government as the protector of the many, not the few. In general, they believed economics - not politics - concentrates wealth and power. Their conception of political democracy was that it extends to every citizen equally - one person, one vote. By contrast, the 'market' tends to recognize only money - one dollar, one vote. It cares less about the penniless, those hit by bad times, those unable to pay for decent healthcare coverage, those unable to pay for their children's trade school or college education. The Founders concluded that the rich and wealthy tend to monopolize society's resources and social welfare distribution. They knew that when income and wealth become highly concentrated, like in our country today, political power can never be democratically shared.

To repeat, the Founding Fathers believed wide disparities in wealth result when an elite manipulates politics to extract monies and benefits from the labour of hard-working citizens as well as marginalize their political power. For example, politics and our highest court aligned to form the legal reality of "corporate personhood" in the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. This decision makes corporations and labor unions free as 'citizens' to fund political candidates, to support or denounce an individual candidate (e.g.by political advertising). And there are no spending limits. Many reputable constitutional experts say the unconstrained corporate political spending is eroding our democracy. The Citizen’s United ruling contributes to making the one person, one vote principle fundamentally ever more compromised, if not a joke. We know that the primary goal of a corporate entity is to generate maximum profits for its shareholders. In contrast, most EU countries set and enforce very LOW limits on political spending by corporations and other associations.

After a long history of massively destructive wars and ruthless rulers-dictators-kingships Europeans have come to accept government’s role to hold income and wealth disparities equitably in balance – in order for the ‘market and democracy’ to operate democratically and harmoniously in any meaningful way. That’s why the maximum progressive individual tax rate in EU countries for ALL citizens averages around 51% on an individual ordinary income over $90,000 or euro 80,000.

This compares to U.S. progressive tax rates of 22% on incomes of $39,500 to $84,000, with step-by-step tax rate rises to 35% on incomes of $200,000 to $500,000 to a maximum tax rate of 37% on incomes above $500,000. Latter compares EU’s maximum average 51% tax rate on all incomes above +-$90,000. Extremely LOW U.S. progressive tax rates on very high levels of ordinary income and even lower rates of 0% to 20% on millions in capital gains – 10% of all American households own 84% of all stock – ensure that the Top 1%, 5% 10% income/wealth classes become richer and richer at the expense of the Bottom 90%.

In Europe, a significant income and social benefit comes from EU redistribution policies that bring a variety of financial gains to every citizen. To name a few using the Netherlands as an example: average student college costs of less than $15,000/year (euro+-13,500) with zero tuition costs in a number of EU countries; quality, reasonable healthcare coverage at an affordable universal monthly premium, of $130 (euro 115) for everyone 18 or above and a government subsidy of up to 70% of the monthly premium for incomes below $35,000 (euro 30,000); a government monthly apartment rental subsidy for low income people of up to 40%, 4-week vacation for everyone partly funded by withheld taxes; up-to-date, quality, well-maintained infrastructure and educational systems.

I'm not suggesting our country should copy the European progressive tax system or economic model which generally works well for most EU countries. And it’s adjusted up or down when societal needs warrant that. The European social-economic model has been achieved by, in addition to other factors noted by Umair, e.g. better economic interactions and redistribution, better public goods, better worker representation, uniform-for-all progressive high tax rates with hardly any deductions. And as mentioned, the highest progressive tax rates average around 51% and generally apply to Everyone with an income above $90,000. Thus, income and wealth distribution is FAR more broadly dispersed in Europe for a good quality-of-life standard for nearly all citizens. Reasonable social welfare benefits and safety nets support those with annual income levels below $35,000.

A good balance between capitalistic market and government social welfare policies has been achieved without the interaction of multiple factors that have caused the great divide in productivity and compensation in America since 1975. Again, I'm not advocating we should adopt a typical European social-economic model like the Netherlands or Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria. But we could learn a LOT by examining carefully the social-economic workings of these excellent free Market & Government “hybrid” social democracies.

Some radical adjustments indeed are needed to our "economic-social miracle paradigm:" a sky-high costly Military-Industrial complex; an unaffordable, poor coverage basic quality healthcare for all; trillions in investments required for a 3rd world obsolete infrastructure and weak pre-college education system; absence of a united, aggressive, innovative, pragmatic transition to green energy sources and lifestyle supported by a president who denies the existential reality of human-induced fundamental climate change, calling it a hoax, pure scientific rubbish!

Stagnant tax revenue and GDP growth in combination with $trillions needed in infrastructure and education investments, new records of Defence spending, steeply rising health care costs, 2017 tax cuts going mostly to the Top 10% and corporations in GOOD economic times are accelerating federal Deficits, Debt and Interest to new record levels. Thus, there’s little financial cushion for WEAK economic times. Federal deficits have been soaring to $779 (+15%) billion in FY2018, to $984 billion (+11%) in FY2019 to an expected rise of over $1.1 trillion in FY2020.

Obama inherited a huge unemployment level of 9.9% in July 2009; massive federal money pump-priming brought that down to 4.7% in 2016, to 4.1% in 2017. Around 85% of Trump’s Jan. 2017 tax cuts went to the rich and corporations. But data indicates the tax cuts are not being recovered by economic growth and a low 3.8% unemployment in March 2019. We are in a cycle where spending is growing faster than tax revenue generation and we are doing this in GOOD times.

TABLE 1: U.S. FY 2017-2018 & 2019-2020 Budget s Yield High Deficit Trend & Stagnant Growth in Tax Revenues

	FY 2016-2017	FY2017-2018	% Growth
TAX REVENUES :Data in Billions
Individual Income Taxes	$1,587.00	$1,684.00	6.10%
Corporate Income Taxes	$297.00	$205.00 30.9%
Payroll Taxes	$1,162.00	$1,171.00 0.7%
Excise Taxes/Other Taxes	$269.00	$270.00	0.4%
TOTAL REVENUES	$3,315.00	$3,329.00	0.40%
SPENDING	FY2016-2017	FY2017-2018	% Growth
Social Security	$945.00	$987.00	4.50%
Dept. of Defense	$569.00	$601.00	5.60%
Other Spending	$2,205.00	$2,195.00	-0.40%
Interest on Debt	$262.00	$325.00	26.6%
TOTAL SPENDING	$3,981.00	$4,108.00	3.20%
DEFICIT	$666.00	$779.00	17.0%

The Jan. 2017 tax cuts aren’t generating sufficient additional GDP growth to make tax revenues higher than they would have been if the tax cuts had never been passed. In fact, the CBO had forecast FY2018 government tax revenues at $3.53 trillion. But, revenues were actually $3.32 trillion or $200 billion less, contributing to a $779 billion deficit (+15%). In FY2019, tax revenues increased less than 1% while spending increased much more causing another sharp increase in the federal deficit to $984 billion (+26%). This occurred with a 2.5% GDP growth rate and a low 3.8% unemployment rate. Same story for FY2019-2020 where the deficit is expected to rise to $1.1 trillion (+11%) with a 2.5% GDP growth rate.

What’s the lesson here? The Trump tax cuts for the rich and corporations in GOOD economic times are in fact helping to accelerate America’s growing budget deficits. The tax cuts are way short of paying for themselves. Tax savings to the rich and corporations do not Trickle Down. Yes, more workers have jobs but mostly at marginal, bare survival wages. And then there are the financial pressures coming from critically needed substantial investments in our infrastructure and pre-college education systems. What happens when the economic situation slows down?

Welcome to the next world of a potential financial crisis of all crises. Despite all the ‘hurrahs’ about our economy’s current 2.75% GDP growth rate and unemployment rate of 3.8% in March 2019, The Joint Committee on Taxation, the Tax Policy Center, the CBO and Penn Wharton Budget Model are warning that the new Trump tax law is going to continue to lead to higher rising $1 trillion annual deficits over next 3 or 4 years.

SUMMARY 

The years after WWII into the late 70s through were ones of substantial economic growth, a broadly and equitably shared prosperity. Inflation-adjusted incomes grew at roughly the same rate for all income brackets, approximately doubling between the later 1940s and mid-1970s. The Top 1%’s share of U.S. annual income before taxes (including capital gains) peaked at 23.9% in 1928 before the Great Depression, fell to 10% in 1980, recovered to 23.5% in 2007 before the Great Recession, then fell somewhat, and is now back on path to a 25 % income share of U.S. income. Helped by Trump’s Jan. 2017 tax cuts to the rich and corporations.

The top individual tax rate was reduced to 37% on an increased break-level income $500,000. The corporate Statutory tax rate and Effective tax rate after special deductions were 35% and 27%, respectively. The 2017 tax cut law lowered the Statutory rate to 21%, thereby creating an Effective corporate tax rate today of +-18% after special deductions. Given this gigantic tax cut gift to corporations and the many tax avoidance loopholes still available, is it any wonder corporations paid an obscenely TINY 7% share (down from 10% in previous years) of total government tax revenues in FY2018. This monstrously low 7% share will inevitably drop further in subsequent years. It compares to a 50% share of all government tax revenues being paid by personal income taxes and 36% by payroll taxes. This change and the disproportionate income growth advantage of the Top 1% and 10% under the 2017 lowered progressive tax rates on high incomes and annual incomes above $500,000 have intensified our nation’s perilously deep income/wealth divide.

Under Trump’s 2017 tax law, 60 of our largest corporations paid zero taxes on $79 billion U.S. profits in 2018. In fact they received a $4 billion tax rebate. Prior to the new tax law, 30 corporations paid zero taxes. The Effective tax rate of corporations that paid taxes was a TINY 17% in 2018. That rate was the lowest since 1947, and substantially below the new 21% statutory tax rate.

In 1974, the average U.S. CEO salary was 50 times the average worker wage vs. 46 times in Europe. Today, the average U.S. CEO salary is over 310 times the average worker wage vs. 55 times in Europe. That will get ever worse, if possible, under the new 2017 tax law.

Umair Haque is right that the American public has little idea on what led to the extraordinary U.S. income and wealth gap compared to no such development in Europe. In his words:

"Why didn't Europe's "labour share of income" - that is, how much regular people receive - decline, like in the United States? The simple answer, of course, is "more social democracy, and less capitalism." But what does that mean? It means that European structures and institutions are radically different from American ones - so different, that many Americans have little idea such things ever exist.

Having lived and worked in Europe for nearly 40 years, I compliment Umair Haque for an incisive essay on our deep societal disintegration and polarization that keeps intensifying. About all I can say is what others like Umair are saying: we must open our eyes, minds and hearts to our country's severe disunity and structural problems and come to shared solutions. This calls for a reawakening of our civility towards each other, reclaiming cooperatively the social and economic balance and spaces in our society in favour of the small, the ignored, the local accountable community, the cooperative, the small existing and promising upstart enterprise.

Thinking creatively, constructively, cooperatively outside-the-box was what made our nation great before and after WWII through the 1970s. That more pragmatic, compromise, cooperative approach was working reasonably well and fairly for post WWII generations born in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s to late 1970s. But things have been going mostly downhill ever since for the average American.

All of the above brings me to some thoughtful words by Leroy Greason - former professor, dean, president of my alma mater Bowdoin College in Maine who died August 28, 2011:

"We are seldom absolutely right. Even when most alive and living beyond ourselves, we had best walk humbly with our gods." As one colleague of Mr. Greason remarked, "His greatest gift was his ability to find common ground among disparate people and to inspire them to work together."

We desperately need qualities like that in these times of overlapping, complex fundamental societal and environmental changes within and outside our traditional spaces and thinking process.

Frank Thomas The Netherlands March 16, 2019

Edited and Added To: December 1, 2019

Off the Top of My Head

US Alienating European Allies by Sanctioning Nord Stream 2 Natural Gas Pipeline

by John Lawrence, December 15, 2019

The US is getting prolific in its use of sanctions. It is now targeting a Russian pipeline, the Nord Stream 2, which is set to deliver natural gas to Germany. This is irritating the hell out of German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas who tweeted, “the European energy policy will be decided in Europe, not in the U.S. We fully reject external interference and extraterritorial sanctions.” So the US is pissing off not only its supposed enemies but also its friends and allies all over the world by its use of sanctions, which sanctions in Russia's and Germany's case will not do much to stop the almost completed pipeline. The sanctions — crafted by Senators Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat — have been attached to the 2020 National Defense Appropriations Act, which already has been approved by Congress.

The sanctions will also apply to to the TurkStream pipeline from Russia to Turkey which runs under the Black Sea. It seems everyone wants to get their natural gas from Russia and the US is doing a last ditch effort to slow down that progress although the effort will be futile in the long run and the only legacy will be that the US has pissed off its allies. The Nord Stream 2 runs under the Baltic Sea and allows Russia to by pass Ukraine which has become a sore spot for everyone concerned there. According to Bloomberg:

Congress could have been much harsher with its sanctions, though. It could have hit Nord Stream 2’s financial investors, all major European energy companies: Engie SA, Uniper SE, OMV AG, Wintershall Dea GmbH and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. It could have sanctioned Russian debt. It could have made it impossible to import equipment for the construction of Russian pipelines and do repairs and maintenance on them. All of these measures have been considered at various times, but struck down in order to avoid a major confrontation with the European Union and an upheaval in financial markets.

The US is rapidly isolating itself from the rest of the world by its use of sanctions and by Trump's stated goal of America First which amounts to the same thing. America is losing friends and losing its influence as a world leader something that it had taken for granted in the past. The US' use of sanctions has forced the rest of the world, allies and enemies alike, to come up with an alternative means of doing business without the use of the US dollar. This doesn't bode well for the US dollar which up to now has held sway as the world's reserve currency. Trump has set about destroying all those relationships which gave the dollar a privileged position among the world's currencies.

The US is already borrowing about $100 billion a month to fund its budget deficit. It relies on other countries to soak up most if not all of this debt, but other countries are buying less US debt each month especially in light of how the US has weaponized the US dollar by the use of sanctions. Barron's reported in May 2019:

Last week’s sale of 10-year Treasury notes was met with lackluster demand. Investors entered just $2.17 of bids for every $1 of notes sold, the lowest for any 10-year auction since 2009. Some analysts guessed that foreign buyers were retreating in the face of an escalating trade war with China, the largest single holder of Treasuries other than the Federal Reserve. The fear is that China will start dumping its holdings, driving the price of Treasuries down.

In the first four months 2019, foreigners bought 12% of the Treasuries auctioned, down from 2011’s average of 22%. Wall Street banks and hedge funds have had to step in to soak up the Treasuries that foreign governments are increasingly unwilling to buy. What happens then is that the Federal Reserve takes these Treasuries off Wall Street's hands and buries them on its balance sheet. The Fed announced in October 2019 that it would buy $60 billion worth of Treasuries a month, which amounts to Quantitative Easing (QE) although they're not calling it that. Basically, the Fed is eating $60 billion of US debt per month after Wall Street regurgitates it since it can't by law buy Treasuries directly. Wall Street is just the middle man. This, of course, is enriching Wall Street banks, but not the people of the US who would prefer QE for the people. The other angle is that the US needs to keep interest rates low because it has $23 trillion in national debt on which it has to pay interest. If interest rates rise, that means that the US will be going into debt at an increasing rate just to pay interest on its debt.

As Treasuries decline in value, US foreign creditors may not only buy less US debt, but they may also dump the US debt they now own on the market. This would lead to the fact that holding US Treasury debt may become less desirable as that debt becomes worthless, and as other currencies step up to replace the US dollar - at least in part - as the world's reserve currency. That may happen also as the US minimizes its relationship with Saudi Arabia which had agreed to price its oil only in terms of dollars in return for military support. With global warming upon us, the use of oil needs to decrease as fossil fuels in and of themselves become less desirable while other alternatives such as natural gas become preferable in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. All this presages a Federal Reserve that must step in to eat and bury more and more US debt tending to make the dollar less worthy and less effective as the world's reserve currency.

At COP 25 Kickoff, Spain's Socialist Leader Rips 'Fanatics' Like Trump Who Deny Climate Crisis

Published on Monday, December 02, 2019

by Common Dreams

"No one can escape this challenge by themselves. There is no wall that can protect any country, regardless of how powerful it is."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

4 Comments

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez delivers a speech during the first day of the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) on December 02, 2019 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo: Europa Press News/Europa Press via Getty Images)

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez kicked off COP 25 in Madrid, Spain on Monday by condemning the "handful of fanatics" who continue to deny the reality of the climate crisis as it wreaks havoc across the globe and threatens to render large swathes of the planet uninhabitable.

Sánchez, leader of the Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and proponent of a Green New Deal for Spain, did not condemn any nations or world leaders by name. But Sánchez implored the international community to combat "alternative facts," an apparent shot at the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

"No one can escape this challenge by themselves. There is no wall that can protect any country, regardless of how powerful it is."
—Pedro Sánchez, Spanish prime minister

"For years, several versions of climate change denial were in circulation," said Sánchez. "Today, luckily only a handful of fanatics deny the evidence. No one can escape this challenge by themselves."

"There is no wall that can protect any country, regardless of how powerful it is," Sánchez added in another thinly veiled jab at the Trump White House, which took the first step toward withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accord last month.

Sánchez said Spain will "lead by example" by crafting climate policy that phases out fossil fuels with sufficient urgency while ensuring a just transition for workers and vulnerable communities.

The PSOE emerged victorious in parliamentary elections in April and November after running on a Green New Deal platform. Following its November win, the PSOE agreed to form a coalition with the left-wing Podemos party as the far-right, climate-denying Vox party quickly gained ground in parliament.

As HuffPost's Alexander Kaufman wrote Sunday, "if Sánchez's center-left vision of a Green New Deal could be criticized for not being ambitious enough, the inclusion of the anti-austerity Podemos could make the country the first to seriously attempt the kind of Green New Deal progressives elsewhere have laid out to curb soaring economic inequality and planet-heating emissions."

"Green New Dealers on both sides of the Atlantic argue that addressing both crises at once is key to staving off a resurgent neo-fascist right wing," Kaufman wrote.

During his speech on Monday, Sánchez stressed the importance of ensuring that the "ecological transition" away from fossil fuels is fair and equitable.

"It must be the lever of change against inequality, it must imply justice and equity," said Sánchez. "Our country has assumed that mandate and is determined to act. Progress, if not sustainable, does not deserve to be called progress."

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Is Bernie’s & Elizabeth’s Universal Medicare Plan Better Done In Phases?

by Frank Thomas

I’ve written extensively about Holland’s universal Basic Healthcare Plan required for ALL of its 17 million people. It’s administered by private insurance firms under close Oversight Control by government agencies. Hospitals and insurance firms act as non-profit entities.

The Dutch Basic Plan provides standard coverage for everyone for 85%-90% of all medical needs which are paid for by standard uniform premiums, deductibles for everyone - adjusted once at the end of each year. Children below 18 pay no premium or deductible charges. And there are no co-pays. Insurers offer 3 upgrade levels to the Basic Plan for more exotic healthcare coverage possibilities at premiums that are not wildly expensive.

The Basic Plan standard coverage for all means that medical costs, ^e.g., a hip or appendix operation, vary little among service providers throughout Holland. Under a system of managed competition, 5 or 6 insurers administer ±95% of all annual medical claims. This factor and Holland’s Basic Plan standard coverage for ALL produce significant purchase cost savings. Pharmaceutical costs, while still unacceptably high, are ±40 to 60% less costly than same pharmaceuticals in the U.S.

The nation-wide standard medical services and medical coverage by non-profit insurer and hospital entities as well as enormous purchasing power leverage and operating efficiencies keep costs down. The system has built in efficiency policies, ^e.g., focusing strongly on preventative care, sharing knowledge, allocating expensive equipment and medical services among hospitals in a cost-effective way that also insures quality care. And it’s a transparent system. When things go wrong in any sector, they are generally addressed in a timely professional manner.

Under the Dutch Basic Plan for All, my wife and I this year each pay a monthly standard premium of euro 120 or $135 and standard yearly deductible of euro 385 ($430). This comes to a total combined annual premium cost of euro 2,700 ($3,200) and deductible cost of euro 770 ($860). In 2019, people with a collective annual income below euro 37,885 ($41,675) receive a government monthly allowance of up to 75% of the standard monthly premium noted above. Also, the value of one’s collective assets (such as savings and shares) must be below euro 145,136 ($160,000). Holland’s standard annual premium cost of $3,200 per household of two compares to America’s outrageous average annual self-insured household cost of ±$16,000 or employer sponsored insurance average cost of $18,800. (Source: Kaiser Foundation)

My question is simple. If Holland and other EU countries can achieve far less expensive, quality healthcare coverage under various universal healthcare plans for populations varying from 10 million to 80 million, why can’t we do the same with a Medicare Optional Healthcare Plan for ALL that begins with a lower population demand of ±120 million or less than a third of our total population of 325 million today?

A 'fast walk-before-we-run’ approach seems especially appropriate given the complexity and incredible lack of healthcare plan standardization and fragmented purchasing of our hybrid system. Half the money comes from private insurance of the self-insured by dozens of insurer firms and the employer insured, and the other half comes from the public sector of federal, state, and local governments paying into Medicare and Medicaid. Little wonder we have thousands of different healthcare plans with poor standardization where insurer shareholder interests and giant management salaries play a big role. All this makes transforming to a Medicare Plan for ALL a truly huge ‘revolutionary’ but technically difficult undertaking and battle with insurance firms.

A smaller scale but strong first-step ‘optional approach’ to achieving a 100% publicly tax-funded Basic healthcare for ALL - as Medicare today works for all people over 65 - seems to make a lot of sense. When the financial and quality-coverage benefits are shown in practice through broad-scale operational cost efficiencies and far better standard coverage, many millions more of the privately insured and employer insured people will very likely enter the Medicare Basic Plan. Of course the Basic Plan must incorporate the exact same standard excellent coverage for everyone in each state as occurs under Medicare’s current’s plan for ±75 million people over 65 - and under Holland’s Basic Plan for ALL of its 17 million people.

If a Medicare Plan ‘REQUIRED for ALL,’ ^i.e., Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s all-embracing approach - versus a Medicare ‘OPTIONAL Plan for ALL,’ ^i.e., Pete Buttigieg’s first-step approach - presents technical, public and/or political introductory acceptance problems incapable of being overcome in one leap, then why not pragmatically take a first-step smaller scale OPTIONAL Medicare Single Payer approach?

Eliminating the extremely high $16,000 to $18,800 average household self-insured and employer-sponsored insurance cost for premiums, deductibles, co-pays for mediocre coverage and replacing these sky-high cost plans with progressive tax rate increases plus very significant management, purchasing, and efficiency cost savings will produce considerable net household financial benefits for much improved ‘standard’ medical care coverage.

Just as an illustration, progressive tax rate increases might be 3% on family incomes below $50,000, rising to 4% on incomes up to $500,000, and 5% on incomes up to $1 million and capped at that level. The net result should be an annual average household healthcare cost of $10,000 or less - through increased taxes and significant system cost savings.

It shouldn’t be an Einstein problem to expertly and simply illustrate the mathematical credibility of a potentially substantial national and household cost reduction for much better medical care coverage under a publicly financed, smaller scale first-step Optional Medicare Single-Payer approach.

SUMMARY

The extraordinary fragmentation and non-standardization of our healthcare system among many small and some giant shareholder profit-oriented insurance firms and thousands of providers - operating generally under a myriad of diverse and often obtuse healthcare plans concerning what’s covered and what's not covered – will inevitably DRIVE premiums, co-pays, coinsurance higher and higher together with mediocre care coverage

Our structural, chaotic, super-costly system over 50 states is also getting ever worse by rising trends in enduring medical afflictions now being identified earlier in people by advancing technology. Treatment and payment of these long-term afflictions – ^e.g., cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s, disease, etc. – must be undertaken and paid for. Expensive long term care and acute medical costs cannot be absorbed by a Basic Plan for common medical care needs.

Holland’s answer is two forms of statutory health insurance. The statutory standard Basic Plan for all covers 90% common medical care needs. The Long-Term Care Act statutory social insurance covers long-term afflictions and uninsurable medical risks and cost that cannot be absorbed or born by individuals. About 90% of long-term care is financed through the Long Term Act. Taxpayers pay a nominal contribution based on taxable income. Long Term Care and Basic Plan Care are provided mostly by private non-profit organizations.

But the non-profit insurer/provider scheme in Holland is highly unlikely to occur in the U.S. where insurer and hospital profit making is so deeply ingrained. Today, nation-wide insurer profits are $100 billion. That’s why a ‘First-Step’ Optional Medicare ‘Single-Payer’ Plan is so critical. Without it, we’ll never get our huge national healthcare cost down from 16% of GDP to 11% of GDP as is the case in Europe. We’ll never get our obscene annual average family household healthcare cost down from +$16,000 - $18,800 to below $10,000 range as is the case in Europe.

Frank Thomas, October 21, 2019, The Netherlands

Off the Top of My Head

Allemansrätt or Outdoor Access Rights gives you the Right to a Free Campsite in Sweden. Why Not Allemansrätt for Homeless in US?

by John Lawrence, October 8, 2019

All over Europe it's legal to camp out on private or public property as long as you respect the property rights of the owner. In Sweden these include:

• You are allowed to access any land, except private residences, the immediate vicinity (70 meters) of a dwelling house and cultivated land.

• You can put up a tent.

• You are allowed to collect flowers, mushrooms and berries.

• Driving on private roads is allowed unless there’s a sign saying otherwise.

• Swimming in lakes is allowed.

• You can access any beach as long as you stay away from private residences.

• You are allowed to catch fish in the five big lakes and along the entire coastline.

Why is it so difficult to come to the same conclusion about homeless camping in America? They wouldn't have to sleep on public sidewalks in LA, San Diego or San Francisco if they had designated areas (parks) where they could rest in peace and security and with sanitation facilities. Part of the angst of the homeless is that they have no place to be, let alone call home, that is legally sanctioned and where they are not subject to being told to move by police and where they can rest assured that their belongings won't be put in a truck and hauled away to the city dump.

Rick Steves says:

In the US, we think of campgrounds as picturesque outposts near a lake or forest. By contrast, European "campings" (the international word for campgrounds) are often located within or on the outskirts of an urban center and can range from functional (like park-and-rides) to vacation extravaganzas, with restaurants, mini water parks, and miniature golf. Many campgrounds have small grocery stores and washing machines. In general, European campgrounds are less private than American versions, and many forbid open fires.

Aside from the biggest cities, most tourist-friendly areas have a campground within a reasonable walk or bus ride from the town center or train station. And if you're camping outside a major city, the money you save on parking alone will likely pay for your campsite (leave your car at the campground and take the handy bus downtown).

In Europe "wild camping" is legal in many countries, not just Sweden. Wild camping is camping other than in paid campgrounds so it's free. Even paid campgrounds are cheap and the fee could be absorbed by the City for the homeless if such a policy were to be carried out in California. Some of the countries in which wild camping is legal are the following:

Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine and Scotland among many other places. In addition "pole camping" is allowed in many countries like the Netherlands. Pole camping is a form of camping that is allowed in designated areas marked by poles.

You can even camp close to Paris, Florence, Venice and Rome. In Paris, for instance, you can camp in the Bois de Boulogne - A campground on the banks of the Seine in a vast city park. Time to downtown: 15 min.

I have advocated a solution to homelessness that involves placing campgrounds near or in major cities with portable sanitation facilities, lockers etc. There would be a small charge for paying customers, and they would be free for the homeless. These could be provided at minimal cost to the city compared to actual housing. With people paying $1000. a month just for a bed, let alone a room, in San Francisco, this seems like a reasonable solution. Free transit passes could even be provided for the homeless. Security could be provided and waste management, of course, would be important.

The alternative:

SAN FRANCISCO — Housing costs have become so expensive in some cities that people are renting bunk beds in a communal home for $1,200 a month. Not a bedroom. A bed.

PodShare is trying to help make up for the shortage of affordable housing in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles by renting dormitory-style lodging and providing tenants a co-living experience.

A PodShare membership allows you to snag any of the 220 beds — or pods — at six locations across Los Angeles and one in San Francisco. There’s no deposit and no commitment. You get a bed, a locker, access to wifi and the chance to meet fellow “pod-estrians.” Each pod includes a shelf and a personal television. Food staples, like cereal and ramen, and toiletries like toothpaste and toilet paper, are also included.

With legally sanctioned campsite near urban cores, the homeless problem could be resolved for a negligible cost compared to "affordable" housing which is inevitably market based. At the same time camping on public sidewalks should be made illegal. This would give the homeless a safe and clean place to be unhasseled by police as well as safe and clean sidewalks for urban residents. It's a no brainer so why aren't our politicians doing it?

Off the Top of My Head

Vaping or Cigarettes: Choose Your Poison

by John Lawrence, June 9, 2019

Only in America can you put a product on the market without any testing to see if there are any health risks. It's about testing by marketing to the American people and you find out later whether the product is toxic or not. In Europe they have the precautionary principle where products are tested first before they are released on the public. So who would have thought that a product that was touted as safer than cigarettes would turn out to be far more deadly and debilitating? Cigarettes contain tobacco which when inhaled is thought to be hazardous to your health, but, like a lot of other products, it won't kill you immediately. That will take 30 years or so. Vaping contains a toxic mixture of chemicals which, as it turns out, can kill you in far less time. Hundreds of people across the country have been sickened by a severe lung illness linked to vaping, and a handful have died, according to public health officials. Many were otherwise healthy young people, in their teens or early 20s.

So who would have thunk it? The Food and Drug Administration is warning that there appears to be a particular danger for people who vape THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. So people will just have to go back to smoking marijuana the traditional way - in a bong. Or maybe in a hookah. A hookah is a device for vaporizing nicotine using water instead of a bunch of chemicals. That seems far more healthier. It seems that the chemicals in e-cigarettes congeal in the lungs making their function useless and leading to lung disease. The e-cigarette industry, for whom vaping is extremely profitable, have tried to lay the blame on vaping THC and other street products. They would hate to see their investments go down the drain. However, in 53 cases of the illness in Illinois and Wisconsin, 17 percent of the patients said they had vaped only nicotine products, according to an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

So a word of caution to vapers: Get a life! You can smoke marijuana legally in most states now. Vote for a Democratic President, and, most importantly, a Democratic Senate in 2020, and marijuana will probably be legalized at the Federal level. Some so-called "hard drugs" have even been used on a regular basis by some people who have led very successful, even celebrated, lives. Take jazz drummer, Art Blakey, for example. Today he is being lauded for having had one of the most successful bands in jazz history. He is considered to be a legendary drummer. Blakey was a heroin addict, a very highly functioning one, and he introduced many of his sidemen to heroin. One of them was Lee Morgan, considered to be one of the great trumpet players of jazz history. However, Morgan's addiction did not have such a happy outcome as did Blakey's. By 1967 Lee was a junkie who had fallen so low that he was seen sleeping on the street outside Birdland without shoes and committing petty crimes so he could buy drugs. Still his record, "The Sidewinder", whose title tune was written on a piece of toilet paper during a break in a recording session, became Blue Note's best-selling record ever, breaking the previous sales record roughly ten times over. 

So a word of caution to Americans: be careful of what you put in your mouth. The American mantra is Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware. According to the journal article, “e-cigarette aerosol is not harmless; it can expose users to substances known to have adverse health effects, including ultrafine particles, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds and other harmful ingredients.” Omigod, you mean that I can't trust American products that I can buy legally on the market more than I can trust street drugs? Well opioids are a case in point. They have been prescribed by legitimate doctors, sold  by legitimate pharmacies and the patients have become addicts.

Another note of caution: stay away from Monsanto's Roundup, a pesticide whose main ingredient is glyphosate. The Guardian reports:

Germany has said it will phase out the controversial weedkiller glyphosate because it wipes out insect populations crucial for ecosystems and pollination of food crops.

The chemical, also suspected by some experts to cause cancer in humans, is to be banned by the end of 2023 when the EU’s approval period for it expires, ministers said.

Biologists have sounded the alarm over plummeting insect populations that affect species diversity and damage ecosystems by disrupting natural food chains and plant pollination.

“What harms insects also harms people,” said environment minister Svenja Schulze, of the centre-left Social Democrats, who warned of a future when fruit could become a luxury.

“What we need is more humming and buzzing,” added Schulze, stressing that “a world without insects is not worth living in”.

So modern technology is not all it's cracked up to be whether on the chemical level or on the fossil fuel level or on the plastics level. The fact of the matter is that the technology developed in the last couple hundred years since the advent of the Industrial Revolution is ruining the environment on small scales and large scales. Unless there is a change, the earth, let alone the oceans or mundane pollution, will become uninhabitable for humans at least. Probably some insects will survive, but insecticides and pesticides are doing their best to eliminate even those. Probably some day some space travelers will alight on earth only to wonder what happened here that the earth should have become a dead planet.

Off the Top of My Head

Europe Sets Up an Exchange to Get Around American Sanctions

by John Lawrence, July 2, 2019

France, Germany and the UK have set up a payment channel with Iran called INSTEX, to help continue trade and circumvent US sanctions. They are hoping that this will keep Iran from abrogating the JPCOA which is the deal that Trump backed out of and would have limited Iran's nuclear development. By circumventing US sanctions these European countries hope to continue doing business with Iran. But not so fast warns the US. The US will not let any country, even its allies, violate the spirit of the sanctions even if they find a way to violate the letter. The US threatens to sanction those European allies if they continue to do business with Iran under any circumstances. This is driving a wedge between the US and its allies who disagree with Trump's decision to quash the Iran nuclear deal.

The Paris-based Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) was formally registered by Britain, France and Germany and is operating essentially like a clearinghouse for credit points. It is now up and running. This avoids a need for the exchanging of real money. Europe hopes that continued trade will keep Iran adherent to its commitments under the nuclear deal. India, which has long relied on Iranian oil but is also a US ally, has started using a system that is separate from but similar to the EU effort. Thus US allies are challenging the global dominance of the American dollar.

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker said in a letter to Instex President Per Fischer. “I urge you to carefully consider the potential sanctions exposure of Instex. Engaging in activities that run afoul of U.S. sanctions can result in severe consequences, including a loss of access to the U.S. financial system.” As the US uses sanctions in an attempt to bully the rest of the world, it is attempting to dictate to other countries who it can and who it cannot do business with. So much for free trade. If the US doesn't like you, it can ruin your economy and the economy of any other nation who does like you. What the US has done is to isolate itself not only from its adversaries but from its allies and friends as well.

What this portends for the US dollar is that other trading systems will be set up around the world which exclude the use of the dollar. This will create alliances in which the US is excluded. Other countries will not bow down to US bullying tactics but will find ways to conduct business without the use of the American dollar. Thus US dominance of the global financial system will be diminished and the US will lose influence in the world.

'A Green Wave Has Swept the European Parliament': In Show of Demand for Climate Action, Green Parties Surge in EU Elections

Published on Monday, May 27, 2019

by Common Dreams

"A substantial share of the world has finally decided climate action is necessary now."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

11 Comments

"The Green Wave has swept across Europe. We want to thank everyone who has voted for change and climate action," Ska Keller, one of the Greens' leading candidates for European Commission president, said in a statement Sunday following four days of continent-wide voting. (Photo: European Greens)

Underscoring the growing demand for bold climate action that has found expression in global youth-led strikes, marches, and civil disobedience over the past year, Green parties across Europe had their strongest-ever EU parliamentary election performance after running on a platform of transformative environmental change.

"It's time the European Union puts all its efforts into a sustainable future and starts caring for its citizens."
—Bas Eickhout, European Greens

 

"The Green Wave has swept across Europe. We want to thank everyone who has voted for change and climate action," Ska Keller, a German MEP and one of the Greens' leading candidates for European Commission president, said in a statement Sunday following four days of continent-wide voting.

"This trust given to us by voters is both a task and a responsibility to put green polices into action," said Keller.

As The Guardian reported, the "Greens' surge was strongest in Germany, where Die Grünen finished second behind Angela Merkel's center-right CDU with almost 21 percent of the vote, according to provisional estimates—nearly double their 2014 total."

A #GreenWave has swept the European Parliament with a historic election result 🌻 https://t.co/p3Nr61H4mC#EUelections2019 pic.twitter.com/VCc2qE4Ccy

— European Greens (@europeangreens) May 26, 2019

Greens also had strong showings in Finland, France, and Ireland on the back of higher-than-usual voter turnout.

"Finland's Greens... came second with 16 percent of the vote, while in a major upset, Europe Écologie-Les Verts, led by a former senior Greenpeace figure, came third in France with 13.3 percent, up from 8.9 percent," according to The Guardian. "Against all expectations, a Portuguese Green Party won its first European parliamentary seat."

Projections Sunday indicated that, overall, Greens secured 71 seats in the European Parliament—up from 52 seats five years ago. According to exit polling, the Greens' surge was bolstered by strong support from young voters.

Bas Eickhout, vice president of the European Greens, said the election outcome gives the party a "mandate and duty to drive change in Europe."

"Any new Commission should take this into account, as our program of climate protection, social justice, and defense of rule of law and democracy gave the Greens this important win," Eickhout said in a statement. "It's time the European Union puts all its efforts into a sustainable future and starts caring for its citizens."

🇪🇺 #EuropeanElectionResults: Youth vote has been credited for the rise of the green parties pic.twitter.com/Twje5hM8SF

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) May 27, 2019

With much of the media's attention centered on electoral gains by far-right parties amid Brexit chaos, observers argued that gains by the Greens—particularly as the climate science becomes more grim by the day—should be the focus of headlines across the globe.

"The best news of the night is Green parties winning more seats than ever in EU elections," tweeted environmentalist Madalina Preda. "The people know we need climate action now."

The best news of the night is Green parties winning more seats than ever in EU elections. The people know we need climate action now 💚 https://t.co/XlHLjKgZDI

— Madalina Preda (@madalinampreda) May 27, 2019

The main story with European elections is the continent-wide surge of Green Parties. The kids striking for climate, @GretaThunberg, and @ExtinctionR are having an impact. More voters in Europe understand the climate crisis, and that it requires global coordination.

— manu saadia 🖖 (@trekonomics) May 26, 2019

Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org, said the European election results make Green parties important leaders in the global fight for a livable future.

"A substantial share of the world has finally decided climate action is necessary now," McKibben tweeted.

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Off the Top of My Head

Billionaire Wipes Out Student Loan Debt at Morehouse College

by John Lawrence, May 24, 2019

Robert Smith, a black billionaire, paid off all the student loan debt for the graduating class at historically black Morehouse College - some $40 million of it. One guy alone had $200,000 in student loan debt. Now it's up to some of the white billionaires to pay off student loan debt at their alma maters. Ha. Ha. Won't happen. Alternatively, if you are of Italian or Irish descent you can get a free college education anywhere in the EU and get dual citizenship to boot. Or you can go to Germany and get a free college education regardless of your heritage. Germany needs skilled workers, and this reality creates a win-win situation for American students. All students enrolled in any of the country’s public universities can attend for free. What’s more, German universities offer a wide range of programs entirely in English, and an American student can earn a university degree in Germany without speaking a word of German.

Why aren't American students taking advantage of these options? It's a no brainer. The opportunities today are at the global level. Someone who doesn't learn a foreign language and just graduates from some podunk American college with $50 or $100 thousand in student loan debt is choosing a life of debt peonage. People who qualify for Italian citizenship can also get free health care in that country. You can pass the citizenship on to your children. You can remain an American citizen so you have all the advantages of American citizenship as well as all the advantages of European citizenship. If you get citizenship in one EU country, you can travel or go to school in any EU country so it's like being a citizen of Europe not just Austria or Italy.

Europe remains a well-known, highly sought-after destination for students seeking refuge from high-priced U.S. colleges and universities, but public universities in countries such as Mexico and Brazil also have virtually free tuition; students pay registration fees, which amount to very little when considering the exchange rates. Some universities offer top-quality programs of study in English. Earning a degree south of the border also makes it possible for students to learn highly sought-after languages of commerce, such as Spanish and Portuguese.

It's a no brainer especially for the 17 million Americans of Italian descent. Citizenship in Italy means that you are a citizen of the EU and can live, work and travel visa free anywhere in the EU. Free medical care is nothing to take for granted. There is no free long term health care for seniors in the US even if you have Medicare. Medicare does not cover nursing homes which are very expensive. Jus sanguinis, or the right to citizenship because your ancestor was born in a particular country, applies to a number of other countries besides Italy: Ireland, Austria and the Czech Republic, for example. Some countries only recognize jus sanguinis for one generation. In other words you would have to be born to a father or mother who is a citizen of that country. But Italy recognizes your right to acquire Italian citizenship if your ancestor going back many generations was born in Italy. Italy only became a country in 1861 so you can't go back farther than that.

This is a wonderful opportunity especially for those of Italian descent. Being an Italian citizen is the same as being a citizen of the EU. With that and dual American citizenship you are practically a citizen of the world and can choose to live wherever it is most advantageous or propitious.

Off the Top of My Head

17 Million Americans Qualify for Italian Citizenship

by John Lawrence, May 22, 2019

There was an excellent show on CBS Sunday Morning last Sunday based in Florence, Italy in which one of the segments dealt with the fact that anyone of Italian descent in America or elsewhere can also claim Italian citizenship. It is called jus sanguinis, Latin for “right of blood,” which grants direct descendants citizenship to a country based on their ancestor's nationality. So most of the 17 million Italian Americans can also get dual citizenship in Italy. Having done that they have the right to live and work anywhere in the European Union! This means free medical care, free university and college tuition, visa free travel anywhere in the EU, the right to own property and get a job anywhere in the EU. And you don't have to give up your American citizenship. Such a deal!

The program went into depth about one American, a Phil Feretti, whose great grandfather moved from Italy to the US for a better life and now Phil has moved back to Italy for a better life. He sold his US real estate and bought a magnificent villa in Tuscany! Two sisters from Oregon also claimed their Italian citizenship by right of descent and visit often but have no plans to move there permanently. But who knows? If things descend into chaos here it may be a wise move to go there.

Some other countries also allow immigration if you can prove your ancestor was a citizen there. Such countries as France, Ireland, Australia, Hungary (where real estate is really cheap, fast developing, a good place for a summer home), Israel (if you're Jewish) and Argentina. In the US you are only a citizen if you're born on American soil unless you become a naturalized citizen. If your great grandfather was from Italy, for example, immigrated here and had children before he became a naturalized American citizen, his children and their children ad infinitum are considered to be Italian citizens.

As an Italian citizen, you are entitled to receive Italian healthcare which is world class and much more affordable when compared to healthcare in the States. Having Italian dual citizenship entitles you to rent and buy property hassle free. Here are some of the other advantages:

• The ability to work, reside and study in Italy and across the 27 EU member states (e.g. Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands etc.) without the need of a Visa. EU citizens are often prioritized over people from outside the EU for many professional and educational opportunities.

• Simplified and more cost-effective process to purchase properties in Italy.

• Tax-Free import of vehicles (car, trucks etc.) directly from the US to Italy

• You will have access to public medical care and high-quality public education as available to EU citizens.

• You will have the right to vote for the Italian Parliament representative in your region.

• You will be able to transfer Italian citizenship to all children under 18 years old automatically.

• You will be able to establish a firm identity with your Italian heritage.

As the US becomes the United State of Trumpistan, it is advisable to have an escape route from the madness and idiocy of the greatest empire the world has seen since the Roman Empire which is in the process of collapsing from overextension (800 military bases around the world) and hubris. Global warming has produced severe weather mainly in the nation's midsection with tornadoes, torrential rain and flooding on a daily basis. If I were Italian or of Italian descent, I wouldn't hesitate to trade all this for free medical care, no student loan debt, mozzerella and chianti. Unfortunately, most of my ancestors are from the UK and Germany where there is no jus sanguinis. I do have French ancestry, however, going back 11 generations. Paris, City of Light, here I come.

Running on Green New Deal and Economic Justice, Socialists Prevail in Spain's Snap Election

Published on Monday, April 29, 2019

by Common Dreams

While the rise of the far-right, xenophobic Vox Party sparked alarm, it performed well below expectations

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

6 Comments

Supporters gather outside of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) headquarters on April 28, 2019 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)

The Socialist Workers' Party emerged victorious in Spain's snap election on Sunday after running on a platform that included a Green New Deal to combat the climate crisis, a minimum wage increase, and higher taxes on the rich.

"Sánchez came out in support of the U.S. Green New Deal—sometimes translated as 'El New Deal Verde' or 'El Green New Deal de España'—in January and has campaigned on it throughout the election."
—Kate Aronoff, The Intercept

 

With more than 99 percent of the votes counted, the Socialist Party, or PSOE, won 123 of the 350 seats in Parliament. While not enough for an outright majority, the PSOE is now in a position to form a broad left-leaning coalition that would include the anti-austerity Podemos Party.

Speaking to supporters in Madrid following Sunday's election—which also saw the far-right Vox Party enter Parliament—Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the PSOE's win sends "a message to the world that it's possible to win against regression and authoritarianism."

"With that the future has won and the past has lost," said Sánchez at a victory rally.

A better than expected day for the Left in Spain. PSOE win easily according to the exits, Podemos in third only 2 points behind the PP! Looks like a coalition. pic.twitter.com/TImZfPyRUN

— Ronan Burtenshaw (@ronanburtenshaw) April 28, 2019

Decent result for the left of center in Spain. It looks like the specter of the far-right Vox actually drove votes for the Center-left PSOE. The far left Podemos declined a bit but will probably be in a coalition govt with PSOE plus some regional Catalan or Basque parties pic.twitter.com/MWY7liVMp9

— Nando (@nandorvila) April 28, 2019

As The Intercept's Kate Aronoff reported ahead of Sunday's election, "Sánchez came out in support of the U.S. Green New Deal—sometimes translated as 'El New Deal Verde' or 'El Green New Deal de España'—in January and has campaigned on it throughout the election."

"As outlined in the party's recently released 110-point manifesto," Aronoff wrote, "the overall goal of Spain's Green New Deal is an economy-wide mobilization involving participation from local communities, civil society, unions, and businesses, with an industrial policy that treats decarbonization as an engine of job creation."

Teresa Ribera, Spain's minister for ecological transition, told Aronoff that the Green New Deal "accepts that we are in an emergency moment where we need to transform."

"We cannot get as big a transformation as we need without [a] big dose of just transition and solidarity policies," Ribera said. "Otherwise there will be many people who are left behind."

The Labour party is pushing to declare a national emergency on climate change, and PSOE and Podemos in Spain are both running on a Green New Deal. Almost seems like left parties are the only ones taking this crisis seriously https://t.co/qZLgnGyU1l

— Kate Aronoff (@KateAronoff) April 28, 2019

While PSOE strengthened its position in the Spanish government, the rise of the xenophobic, anti-feminist Vox Party sparked alarm in the run-up to country's snap election.

As the New York Times reported, Vox—which won 24 seats in Parliament—"promised not only to quash the secessionist challenge in Catalonia but also to recentralize Spain by removing the powers of its regional governments."

But while acknowledging Vox's surge is certainly cause for serious concern, Washington Post reporter James McAuley noted that the far-right party performed well below expectations.

Don't disagree but would challenge emphasis

Tonight was also a win for Spanish left unafraid to govern as such. Sanchez raised 2019 min wage 22% and won big. And you say Spain never confronted fascist past, but Sanchez is the guy who is literally going to dig up Franco come June https://t.co/QwDUuJeoON

— James McAuley (@jameskmcauley) April 28, 2019

"Vox was supposed to do much better than it did. Its entry into Parliament is clearly huge but really not the story tonight," McAuley tweeted.

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Off the Top of My Head

New Zealand Does the Right Thing: Bans Assault Rifles and High Capacity Cartridges

by John Lawrence, March 21, 2019

After the horrific mass shooting, New Zealand has banned military style weapons in short order. Guess there's no NRA there! They followed the lead of Australia which did the same thing under similar circumstance. Now gun owners are required to turn in their guns. Authorities in Australia destroyed over a million guns. The US should follow suit and get these guns off the street and out of the hands of mass murderers. The licensing procedure for owning a gun should be harder than the licensing procedure for driving a car. It should consist of a thorough background check, a written and oral exam, a year's worth of classes and a demonstration of safe firearms usage. In short it should be harder to own and shoot a gun than it is to drive a car.

CNN reported:

All military-style semi-automatic weapons, assault rifles and high-capacity magazines will be banned in New Zealand following the mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques that killed 50 people, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday.

"On 15 March our history changed forever. Now our laws will too. We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place," Ardern said at a press conference in the capital Wellington. The announcement came after the country's cabinet agreed to overhaul the law and ban military-style semi-automatics and assault rifles 72 hours after the Christchurch attacks. "Every semi-automatic weapon used in the terror attack on Friday will be banned," Ardern continued, adding that she hoped the law would be in place by April 11. "This legislation will be drafted and introduced in urgency."

 

An estimated 1.2 million guns are in circulation in the country, according to New Zealand Police -- one for every three people. Ardern said the buyback scheme could cost between $100 million to $200 million. Later on Thursday, New Zealand Police announced all 50 bodies from the shootings had been identified. "This means that all victims are now able to be released to their families," Police Commissioner Mike Bush said in a statement. Arden said a "nationwide reflection" for the dead would be held on Friday -- one week after the attack. ...

 

In the wake of the reforms, mass shootings in Australia dropped to zero, gun suicides declined by an average of 4.8% per year, and gun-related homicides declined by an average of 5.5% per year. Philip Alpers, founding director of GunPolicy.org and a University of Sydney academic, said the buyback "has a good chance of delivering the same life-saving public health benefit as that which followed the 1996 Australian buyback."

 

It has been well known that the reduction of guns in society reduces the number of suicides and homicides as the Australian statistics show. Now will the gun capital of the world - the US - do the same? It would be well within the bounds of the Second Amendment to institute strict gun laws in the US requiring all gun owners to pass strict background checks and licensing procedures while eliminating military style weapons. It would also be within the Second Amendment to limit the number of guns a person could own to, say, two. Let's hope people in the US come to their senses or the US will end up being the only society where mass shootings occur.

 

Please see A Cultural Comparison: Gun Violence In The US And Europe

by Frank Thomas and John Lawrence in the San Diego Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Italy Defies US. Makes Deal With China

by John Lawrence, March 18, 2019

Italy has become the latest EU country (there are 13 others) to sign a deal to become a participant in China's Belt and Road Initiative as Xi Jinping gets ready to visit Italy March 21. The US and the EU fear that China is taking over the world, not by military force, but by being a do gooder, increasing trade and building ports, highways, roads and bridges. The US has cautioned its allies that it will not stand idly by and let this happen.

Reuters reported:

The Belt and Road project lies at the heart of China’s foreign policy strategy and was incorporated into the ruling Communist Party constitution in 2017, reflecting Xi’s desire for his country to take a global leadership role.

The United States, locked in a trade war with Beijing, worries that Xi’s initiative is designed to bolster China’s political and military influence, and could be used to spread technologies capable of spying on Western interests.

“No need for Italian government to lend legitimacy to China’s infrastructure vanity project,” a spokesman for the White House’s national security advisers said on Saturday in a rare public rebuke for one of Washington’s staunchest allies.

Refusing to back down, Italy has nonetheless tried to reassure the United States, releasing a draft of the MOU to show it offers up no firm commitments and makes no reference to the sort of technology transfers feared by Washington.

Likewise eager to show that its pro-China policy is bearing fruit, the government has leaked reports that 50 agreements might be signed during Xi’s March 21-23 visit, including deals with oil company Eni, gas infrastructure firm Snam and shipbuilder Fincantieri.

Italy also hopes to unveil projects to develop trade through its ports of Genoa, Trieste and Palermo. Although China’s COSCO Shipping has bought control of the largest port in Greece, Italy says it offers better entry points into Europe.

Germany has already defied the US by going ahead with the NORD II pipeline connecting Germany with Russia. The US has threatened to sanction Germany over the pipeline. So now the US is threatening not only its supposed enemies and the weaker countries in the world, it's threatening its allies. Probably not a good policy or the US won't have any friends left in the world. It has already broken with the EU and the rest of the world over the climate change agreement and over Iran. What next?

Reuters reported:

U.S. sanctions against the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline would be the wrong way to solve a dispute over energy supply, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Thursday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Germany of being a “captive” of Russia due to its energy reliance and urged it to halt work on the $11 billion, Russian-led gas pipeline that is to be built in the Baltic Sea.

“Questions of European energy policy must be decided in Europe, not in the U.S.,” Maas said. “To impose unilateral sanctions against Nord Stream 2 is certainly not the way to go.”

Meanwhile US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is threatening to deny visas to any member of the International Criminal Court who is investigating US war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere. "The United States will revoke or deny visas to any International Criminal Court (ICC) individuals investigating alleged war crimes by U.S. forces or allies, including in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said." Is US policy towards the rest of the world spinning out of control as it seems like the US is making enemies and losing friends? The US is continuing to threaten allies, enemies, the United Nations and everyone and anyone who disagrees with it. Is this any way to run a foreign policy? Before you know it the US will be going it alone in a world united against it.

WATCH: Pence Met with Icy Silence in Munich, Praising Trump and Attempting to Bully Leaders on Foreign Policy

Published on Saturday, February 16, 2019 by Common Dreams

The vice president arrived at the Munich Security Conference ready to promote President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda—but his demands over Venezuela and Iran were not well received

by Julia Conley, staff writer

 

92 Comments

Vice President Mike Pence was met with silence when he told a group of international leaders that he brought "greetings from President Donald Trump" to the Munich Security Conference. (Photo: @MostafaMe4/Twitter)

Vice President Mike Pence received an icy response from world leaders at the Munich Security Conference Saturday, as he made clear his aim for the weekend was to promote his President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda.

The vice president began his remarks by telling world leaders, "I bring greetings from the 45th president of the United States of America, President Donald Trump"—and was met with a long silence before describing Trump's accomplishments as "extraordinary" and "remarkable."

Addressing U.S. allies at the Munich Security Conference, Mike Pence is met with silence as he tells the audience: "I bring greetings from the 45th president of the United States of America, President Donald Trump." pic.twitter.com/yr7SNVhCVf

— Axios (@axios) February 16, 2019

Pence appears to have mistaken Munich audience for Trump tribute dinner

— Susan Glasser (@sbg1) February 16, 2019

In addition to heaping praise on the president, Pence chastised European and Asian leaders for remaining in compliance with the Iran nuclear deal and called on them to join the U.S. in recognizing Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela, weeks after the right-wing opposition leader declared himself the head of the country despite President Nicolas Maduro winning re-election last May.

Pence urged the E.U. to "step forward for freedom" by recognizing Guaido as president.

US Vice President Mike Pence calls on the European Union to recognise Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s president pic.twitter.com/F5nJCiuGGB

— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) February 16, 2019

Millions of Venezuelans in recent days have signed an open letter rejecting the United States' attempt to intervene and pressure the country and international community to recognize Guaido.

Slamming European countries for "undermining U.S. sanctions" by staying in the painstakingly-reached Iran nuclear deal, Pence called on world leaders to turn away from Iran while accusing the country of antisemitism.

"The Iranian regime openly advocates another Holocaust and it seeks the means to achieve it," said Pence.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called Pence's accusation "laughable."

"Iran has always supported the Jews," he told Der Spiegel. "We are just against Zionists."

"Iran's historic and cultural record of coexistence and respect for divine religions, particularly Judaism, is recorded in reliable historic documents of various nations," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi added in a statement.

"The principle that underlies our foreign policy is the aggressive and occupying nature of the Zionist regime [Israel] … which is a killing machine against the Palestinian people," he said.

Regarding Iran, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also addressed the conference, defending the decision of Germany and other European nations to stay in the nuclear agreement and observing the Trump administration's isolation in the debate over the deal.

Merkel has observed "the Europeans on one side and the Americans on the other side," she said—a dynamic which was illustrated by the conference's reception of the vice president.

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Off the Top of My Head

Pence Brings Greetings From Trump: No Applause. Merkel Mocks Trump: Wild Applause

by John Lawrence, February 18, 2019

Trump has become the pariah and laughingstock of the whole world. Angela Merkel took him down at the Munich conference and the audience cheered. Pence lauded Trump and got stony-faced silence from the audience.

The Washington Post reported:

MUNICH — An annual security conference where Western allies have long forged united fronts erupted Saturday into a full-scale assault on the Trump administration’s foreign policy. European leaders, would-be Democratic challengers and even the president’s Republican backers took the floor to rebuke the president’s go-it-alone approach.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel — habitually cautious about provoking Trump — led the charge, unleashing a stinging, point-by-point takedown of the administration’s tendency to treat its allies as adversaries. 

The speech appeared to provide much-needed catharsis. Trump’s antagonistic behavior has bred two years of accumulated grievance in much of Europe but has been met with few substantive answers on how to effectively challenge it.

Merkel accused the United States of strengthening Iran and Russia with its plans for a speedy military pullout from Syria. She expressed shock that the Trump administration would deem BMWs made in South Carolina a threat to national security.

... Merkel was followed to the podium Saturday by Vice President Pence, who was met with only tepid applause — and some incredulous looks — when he proclaimed Trump “the leader of the free world.”

Merkel even made fun of Trump's remark that German cars, many of which are manufactured in the US, are a threat to US national security. Clearly, the traditional European allies are standing up to Trump and calling him out over his pull-out from the Iran nuclear deal, over Germany's NORD 2 pipeline deal with Russia and Europe's refusal to go along with and bow down to ridiculous and wrong headed American policies and demands that the rest of the world kow tow to it. Pence demanded that Europe honor American sanctions against Iran but Europe is having none of it. They've developed a work-around and will continue to do business with Iran much to Pence's and Trump's chagrin.

How Capitalist Utopia Became Everyone Else’s Dystopia

by Umair Hague, Eudaimonia & Co., July 30, 2018

How American Elites Ruined Their Society in a Way the World Hasn’t Seen Since Weimar Germany

Take a good, hard look at the chart above. I don’t usually write essays about charts— but this one’s different. It’s American collapse in four lines. It says that American elites mismanaged their economy so badly, so fatally, so totally, the rich world hasn’t seen the like since Weimar Germany. They created a capitalist utopia — but the problem is that that’s everyone else’s dystopia.

To understand the story of this gargantuan, historic failure — not managing a society in any way resembling “well”, or even “sanely” — it’s probably best to understand what Europe did right — and then come back to what America did wrong. Which, in short, is that it embarked on one of history’s greatest fools’ quests since alchemy, a utopian mission to turn the lead of capitalism into the gold of prosperity for everyone. But lead doesn’t turn into gold.

Why didn’t Europe’s “labour share of income” — that is, how much regular people receive— decline, like in the States? The simple answer, of course, is “more social democracy, and less capitalism.” But what does that mean? It means that European structures and institutions are radically different from American ones — so different, that many Americans have little idea such things even exist.

The first way that Europe differed was in how economics institutions “interact” — deal with one another. In Europe, unions weren’t destroyed — they thrived. Deals between unions and companies are brokered formally or informally by governments. But that’s just the beginning. In Germany, for example, worker’s representatives sit on company boards. In France, collective bargaining is a right, negotiated by sectors, for example, among all waiters and restauranteurs — not individual companies and employers. In Scandinavia, companies have to account for their social costs and benefits. There’s much more — but this is just an essay. The point is that Europe developed better mechanisms for economic interaction —fuller ones, if you like, which ensured more stable, opportune, and empowered societies. Average people had genuine power to demand a fairer more of an economy’s gains — as they should, not just for moral reasons, but also socio-political ones, which we’ll come to.

But Europe’s story isn’t just about interactions — it’s also about investment. Europe also invested in great public goods. Public healthcare, education, finance, media, safety nets, and so on. Think of Britain’s NHS and BBC, or the French pension system. American economists came to call these great institutions the “welfare state”, derisively — and so they missed their economic point completely. It wasn’t just that they gave people “handouts”, as American pundits might have said — it was that they did something crucial in a modern economy: they employed vast numbers of people, at stable, rising, and decent incomes, doing meaningful work, not just at useless jobs.

So those great public institutions set a soft floor that the private sector had to compete with in terms of wages. America’s biggest employers, instead, became Walmart and McDonald’s — but one of Britain’s biggest is the NHS. The result is that European incomes stayed higher and more stable than American incomes, because people had alternatives to mega-capitalism preying on them a little more viciously every year.

Hence, social-scale public goods also meant that Europeans could enjoy the basics of life at reasonable prices, precisely because many of them were employed at better incomes, in the production of those very public goods — whereas in America, capitalism had to produce such things as healthcare, education, finance, and media. But it had no incentive to produce these things well, affordably, at high quality, or even completely. So Americans got squeezed savagely — they had to pay skyrocketing prices for the basics of life, which capitalism only offered them partially.

Hence, America became a place full of strange, weird, absurd capitalist paradoxes: fresh food costing three times as much as frozen food, whole cities without working utilities or supermarkets, basic medicines like insulin costing thousands, childbirth priced at half an average person’s yearly income. And some things just weren’t available to many at all. No “health insurance”? Sorry — you die. Bad “credit”? Sorry — no housing. Want that cutting edge cancer drug? It’ll cost you $500K — but for Europeans, it’s free. Americans lived perched right at the edge of ruin, trying desperately to afford the things that Europeans took for granted — but those things were the very ones which life depends on most — food, water, healthcare, education, finance, media, pensions.

What does all that remind you of? Shortages. Rationing. A system unable to provide for people’s fundamental needs. A cratering quality of life. The basics of life simply unavailable or unaffordable to most. It should remind you of the Soviet Union. That’s not just an analogy — it’s a repetition of history. Let me explain. America didn’t not just follow Europe’s lead. It did precisely the opposite. Remember Europe’s two great innovation? Better economic interactions, and better public goods? America did the reverse.

Let’s start with economic interactions — in America there was only one kind allowed, according to capitalist utopia: markets. Hence, America destroyed its unions, quite obviously. But more interesting is the fact that all these novel mechanisms Europe had pioneered — the German idea of workers’ representatives sitting on boards, the French idea of collective bargaining as deals between sectors of workers and employers, brokered formally or informally by governments, or even the idea that anyone but now powerless average people had any “responsibility” at all — were off the table. They were seen as outlandish science fiction, and still are. No one in the elite considered, proposed, or advocated them. Don’t you think that’s strange? Not on the right — and not on the left, either.

Both sides of American economics had devolved into something like alchemy. They were on a quest to turn lead into gold — that is, to turn capitalism into prosperity. The right advocated something like totalitarian capitalism, capitalism as the only force in society — and the left, something like slightly less totalitarian capitalism. Hence, not a single American economist of renown, left or right, said something like: “Hey everyone! We should have an NHS! A French-style sectoral bargaining for everyone! And also a BBC! They’d employ people, raise incomes, and reverse the big problem in the economy.” Don’t you think that’s strange?

Look at the chart above again. What date does it begin? 1980. The trend was there, in other words, for decades, to see. Yet no one chose to see it.No one of renown rang an alarm bell — except maybe Joe Stiglitz. Mostly, American elites thought everything was going swimmingly well. Isn’t that a little stunning?

Alchemists were looking to turn lead into gold. American elites were looking to turn capitalism — and only capitalism — into prosperity. Alchemists never looked elsewhere, questioning their question. American elites never looked at Europe, questioning their question. If they had — even once — they would have seen the trend above, wouldn’t they? American economics, in other words, became the study of capitalism, and capitalism alone. But that way, it became a kind of self-fulfilling, and self-defeating, prophecy. There were many times alchemists thought they’d turned lead into gold. But it turned out to be fools’ gold, or a patina, or a veneer. In the same way, American elites, only ever looking at America, only ever studying, researching, thinking about America, never looked at Europe — and so what could they learn? They couldn’t.

All that American elites could do was to keep trying more and more extreme forms of capitalism — because they’d already assumed that the answer to the question of prosperity was capitalist utopia. Hence, capitalism went extreme, and became dystopian. Having assumed they knew the answer to the wrong question, they set about imagining, theorizing, endorsing, and proposing was capitalism, taken to new heights of gruesome absurdity, every year, in a weird and fatal escalation of folly.

Let me give you one of my favourite examples. In the 1980s, it became legal to raid pensions funds. Why? Well, the idea was that collective investment were bad. Everyone should have their own “retirement account.” Let them eat stocks. But the problem was pretty obvious. If you’re working 10 hours a day, what time do you have to manage a pension? What if you’re not interested? And doesn’t it set long-term incentives for a company to hold such balances, too — to manage more wisely, instead of running something like a chop shop? Europe would have reeled in horror, laughing at such an obviously foolish idea. And yet American economists, obsessed with the idea of capitalist utopia, quickly launched “reform” after “reform”, of just the same manner. Privatization, deregulation, stripping away bargaining rights, rolling back basic protections, from minimum wages, to vacation time, to overtime, to unionization, to benefits.

All these eroded whatever norms, values, shared social contract employers might have once felt they had. Now anything was fair game. Companies had nothing invested in their workers beyond their daily wages, really — so why treat them as anything more than disposable commodities? And so soon enough, Americans were working “jobs” that weren’t really “jobs” in the old sense — they carried few benefits, offered little stability, security, mobility, and therefore, held out a shrinking chance at a decent life. America had handed total control of the economy over to capitalists. But the problem was that capitalists were a tiny number of people — 10% of people owned 80% of stocks, and even less owned companies, in any real sense. The effect was that industry after industry came to be dominated by mega-monopolies — Walmart, Amazon, Google, because there was simply nothing to restrain capital’s natural tendency to accumulate wealth, power, and fortune.

America had gone Soviet. It had become a land where gigantic institutions used artificial scarcity, controlled shortages, and rigid price controls (only upwards, not downwards) as a mechanism to exploit and prey on people — the system was unable to provide for people anymore, even in basic ways. And funnier and more tragically, it was precisely America’s elites who thought all this was exactly the right thing to do — not just economically, but morally, too. If you’re poor — you’re weak, and therefore, you deserve to be punished. Capitalist utopia is for the strong! The only kind of justice that was allowed in the promised land was the ideological whip. Because underlying this strange and foolish quest American thought had become, lay the same old myths which had always haunted, and maybe even cursed America: self-reliance, cruelty, greed, domination, might makes right.

Yet America’s elites never questioned themselves once. They never looked at the world. They were too busy mesmerized by the alchemists who were telling them fantastic tales of turning lead into gold. Of capitalism becoming a promised land of prosperity. It did — for a tiny handful of people, whom, today, are richer and more powerful than kings of old. But for everyone else, America became a gruesome, bizarre dystopia. A land where children are sold bulletproof backpacks because no one can rein in the gun lobby. Where people choose between chemotherapy and bankruptcy. Where billionaires plan to flee to Mars — but a single rocket could pay for a thousand teachers, or the drinkable water, healthcare, and income that millions don’t have.

Like all utopian dreams, America’s failed catastrophically. Not because it didn’t try hard enough at turning lead into gold. But because it did. Lead doesn’t turn into gold. Capitalism, alone, doesn’t turn into prosperity. It was a fools’ quest from the beginning. But there they still are, the wise men, wearing their suits, nodding their heads, stroking their chins, wagging their fingers— have they learned anything yet?

Umair
 July 2018

Off the Top of My Head

The American Empire

by John Lawrence, October5, 2018

It's an empire when you have 1000 military bases in almost every country of the world. Those countries without American military bases are surrounded by countries that do have them. It's an empire when you control the world's reserve currency and financial system. It's an empire when the American central bank (the Federal Reserve) controls the other central banks of the world. It's an empire when you can apply sanctions that limit the rights of other countries to do business with each other. It's an empire when you can freeze bank accounts of anyone anywhere in the world.

Total, the French oil company, won't do business with Iran because the US applied sanctions that would threaten Total's bottom line if they persisted in their business relationship with Iran.

CNBC reported:

French energy giant Total has yet to permanently pull out of Iran following the renewal of U.S. sanctions, but CEO Patrick Pouyanne on Wednesday sounded a pessimistic note about his company's prospects in the country.

Total positioned itself to develop a portion of the world's largest natural gas field after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal lifted punishing sanctions on the Iranian economy. However, the company is now preparing to abandon the Persian Gulf project unless the U.S. government issues the company a sanctions waiver.

That would protect Total from so-called secondary sanctions, which the United States can use to punish foreign companies that engage in prohibited activity with Iran. Washington gave firms 90 to 180 days to wind down their business in the country after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal last month.

"There's not a single international company like Total who can work in any country with secondary sanctions. I don't have the right. It's just the reality of the world," Pouyanne told CNBC at an OPEC seminar in Vienna.

Pouyanne acknowledged that his position probably does not sit well with Europe's leaders. The European Union has attempted to salvage the nuclear deal by passing measures aimed at protecting the bloc's firms that have business dealings in Iran.

But Pouyanne told CNBC he must be pragmatic and face reality.

"The reality is that the capital of the world today is in the hands of the U.S.," he said. "Is it right that in this world the U.S. [is] using that ... to impose some rules for other countries? That's a debate."

Secondary sanctions are particularly perilous for multinationals like Total. Engaging in sanctioned activity with Iran could prompt the American government to cut Total off from the massive U.S. financial system and force the firm to wind down its operations in the States.

"The U.S. could decide that I could not have access to any U.S. financing," Pouyanne said. "It's impossible, let me be clear, to run an international company like Total without having access to U.S. financing or to U.S. shareholding."

Total says U.S. banks are involved in about 90 percent of the company's financing operations, while American investors account for more than 30 percent of its shareholding. The company has more than $10 billion deployed in U.S. operations.

By comparison, Total spent less than 40 million euros, or roughly $46 million, on its project developing the massive South Pars natural gas field in Iranian waters.

America was already great before Trump came to office if by great you mean that the US controls every other country in the world both militarily and economically. The only thing not great about America is that it has a great underclass of homeless and people living paycheck to paycheck but every empire has had its slaves or peons. I guess Trump is going to double down on American greatness and really crack the whip on these other countries that don't fall into line. When he's done with them, they will either pay up or be forced into submission as American sanctions are applied to them.

Off the Top of My Head

Will the US Sanction the EU?

by John Lawrence

The rest of the world doesn't agree with President Trump's pulling out of the nuclear agreement with Iran. Iran has been complying with the agreement so why should the US pull out based on the judgment of one man? If the US is a democracy, shouldn't it take more than one to reverse a policy that was entered into on behalf of the world's greatest super power? The US has vowed to put sanctions on any entity doing business with Iran. However, the EU is standing up to the US in the persona of Trump and devising a workaround that will supply Iran with everything it needs regardless of Trump's threat of sanctions.

DW reported:

The remaining signatories of the Iran nuclear deal announced on Monday that they would establish a channel to facilitate payments for Iran's exports, including oil, as well as its imports. The decision was reached after high-level closed-door talks at the UN in New York.

"Mindful of the urgency and the need for tangible results, the participants welcomed practical proposals to maintain and develop payment channels, notably the initiative to establish a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to facilitate payments related to Iran's exports, including oil," Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the EU announced in a joint statement.

The members' stated intent is "to protect the freedom of their economic operators to pursue legitimate business with Iran."

The SPV could breathe life into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear deal, and was sought by Tehran in order to counter the reimposition of sanctions triggered by the US's exit from the deal.

The European Union has struggled to devise a workable legal framework to shield its companies from the effects of US sanctions, which are set to come into effect in November, and has tried to deter firms from pulling out of Iran.

If Trump can singlehandedly and unilaterally pull out of an international deal, it effectively makes him a dictator. The fact that this deal was never ratified by Congress signifies the fact that the US Congress is totally dysfunctional. In a democracy, the people or their representatives should stand behind the deals made in their name. Just because Trump thinks the Iran deal was a bad deal does not make it so. Every other signatory to the deal thinks it was a good deal. Trump is just exercising dictatorial powers turning the US into a dictatorship with a Congress that is irrelevant. This is how democracies become dictatorships.

Will the US then sanction the EU and drive the US further apart from its erstwhile allies? Already China and Russia are developing ways to circumvent US sanctions. They are tired of having the US, which they thought was a rational and trustworthy actor, control the world's financial system. When the dollar no longer reigns supreme, the chickens will soon be coming home to roost on the US national debt. But no worries. The Federal Reserve will simply print more money to pay off the debt. That seems to be working so far.

EU, China and Russia in move to sidestep US sanctions on Iran

From the Guardian:

Special Purpose Vehicle aims to keep Iran in 2015 nuclear deal with barter system

 Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov with EU external affairs chief Federica Mogherini in New York on Tuesday. Photograph: Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

The European Union, Iran, China and Russia have set out a plan to sidestep unilateral US sanctions designed to cripple the Iranian economy and force the Iranians to renegotiate the nuclear deal signed in 2015.

European diplomats hope the proposed measure – known as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) – will help persuade an increasingly reluctant Iran to stay inside the deal in the hope of rescuing its economy.

Speaking on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, Federica Mogherini, the EU external affairs chief, said the SPV was designed to facilitate payments related to Iran’s exports – including oil – and imports, so long as the firms involved were carrying out legitimate business under EU law.

Speaking on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, Federica Mogherini, the EU external affairs chief, said the SPV was designed to facilitate payments related to Iran’s exports – including oil – and imports, so long as the firms involved were carrying out legitimate business under EU law.

The aim is to make the SPV available not just to EU firms but to others, she added.

In his address to the United Nations general assembly, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, stressed Tehran’s continued commitment to the deal and accused the US of pressurising other countries into violating the nuclear agreement.

“Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength,” he said. “Rather, it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect. It betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world.”

But the US president Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, addressing an anti-Iran pressure group, said he was “disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed” by the EU plan.

“This is one of the of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security,” Pompeo said.

Versions of the SPV floated by thinktanks suggest it could underpin a sophisticated barter system that can avoid US Treasury sanctions. For example, Iran could ship crude oil to a French firm, accumulating credit that could then be used to pay an Italian manufacturer for goods shipped the other way, without any funds traversing through Iranian hands or the banking system.

A multinational European state-backed financial intermediary would be set up to handle deals with companies interested in Iran transactions and with Iranian counter-parties. Any transactions would not be transparent to the US, and involve euros and sterling rather than dollars.

The proposal is additional to a blocking statute passed by the EU in August that theoretically makes EU companies immune from sanctions imposed by the US in pursuit of its Iran policy. In theory, the statute empowers EU firms to seek compensation from US Treasury for trying to impose extra-territorial sanctions in breach of the statute. So far this statute has not been tested in court.

Richard Nephew, a former Barack Obama official and author of The Art of Sanctions, expressed scepticism on Twitter, saying that for the SPV to be taken up, European firms – many with either US employees, or US subsidiaries – must still be prepared to take the risk of being sanctioned by the US.

He also suggested US sanctions could be applied to the traded good as much as to the cash to fund the trade. He predicted few firms would take that risk, outside some SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] heavily dependent on Iran for their income.

Jarrett Blanc, another former Obama staffer for the Iran deal, broadly agreed with Nephew, but was more sympathetic, writing that “the symbolism here is probably Europe’s most important contribution, and it may be sufficient depending on what China, India, Turkey do on oil”. He added: “The payment mechanism move opens the door to a longer-term degradation of US sanctions power.”

Either way, Europe needs a solution soon after months of railing against US economic imperialism. The vast majority of European firms are planning to pull out.

Trump announced two sets of US secondary sanctions in May, and other sanctions imposed in August cover shipping and insurance. The other more important sanctions – aimed at ending Iranian oil exports, still the heart of the faltering Iranian economy – do not bite until 5 November.

In advance of the oil sanctions, Iran’s crude sales to China fell 21% between May and August, according to Eurasia Group. But it is unclear how long China will stick to that trend.

The assumption is that many countries like India and Russia will continue to trade with Iran and challenge the US to try to impose sanctions, pointing out that in reality it is the US, by tearing up the agreement and not them, that is in breach of UN resolutions.

Off the Top of My Head

Rather Than NATO Allies Increasing Spending Why Doesn't US Decrease Spending to Their Levels?

by John Lawrence, July 26, 2018

President Trump is upset about the disparity between European defense spending and American defense spending. He says NATO allies are getting a free ride. He wants them to increase defense spending to US levels. Here's an idea. Why doesn't the US with its bloated oversize defense budget decrease spending to their levels? The US defense spending, when you add in intelligence spending, spending on nuclear bombs (that's the Energy Department) and Homeland Security is over a trillion dollars. The US spends more on defense than the seven next highest spending countries combined. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2015 US defense spending outstripped that of China, Russia, UK, France, Japan, Saudi Arabia and India combined.  In 2018 it's even worse.

So why don't the European countries push back towards the US and demand that the US decrease its defense spending? I guess they really don't care that US citizens go without adequate food, shelter and infrastructure as long as their ox isn't being gored. They like the US being the world's policeman and making a big show about talking tough with Russia. Of course when it comes to practical matters, Germany is happy to partner with Russia on the Nord II pipeline which will bring Russian natural gas to Germany at a reasonable rate. Such hypocrisy! And needless waste of defense dollars.

Wouldn't it be better to bring Russia into the fold rather than continuing to make them the outsiders? Of course when you need something from them that's mutually beneficial, then they aren't the enemy any more. The fact is that if the US ceased to be the world's policeman and sanctions imposer, the US economy would collapse. It's based on financial engineering and military spending. Other than that it has shipped off its manufacturing base to countries where the labor input is cheaper. The US is the world's largest debtor nation so it has to keep all those creditor nations in line. Else they might come calling and demanding their money.

The US is so poor and in debt that it can't even keep up with a $4 trillion infrastructure deficit. It is borrowing money just to pay interest on the national debt! Meanwhile, China is building infrastructure not only in China but around the world with its Belt and Road initiative. They have figured out the correct way to use fiat money. The US uses fiat money only to bail out the big banks, not to help Joe Six Pack. His mortgage can go up in flames for all the Federal Reserve, the nation's privately owned central bank, cares. In China the central bank is publicly owned. Maybe that's the difference.

Can the Brit’s Baby Trump Blimp Come Play at Trump’s DC Military Parade?

Published on Tuesday, July 17, 2018 by Common Dreams

The UK protests should be an inspiration to Americans resisting Trump

by Medea Benjamin

 

8 Comments

The best thing about Donald Trump’s visit to England and Scotland was the protests—or Carnival of Resistance, as some called them. Their outrageous signs, costumes, and visuals, including the Baby Trump blimp, were in contrast to our oftentimes sedate US demonstrations.  That’s why a GoFundMe has been started to make Baby Trump Blimp the Guest of Honor at the November 10th protest against Trump’s scheduled military parade in Washington DC. The American public would certainly get a lift from an oversized Trump in diapers hovering above Trump’s macho display of guns and missiles.

The UK protests should be an inspiration to Americans resisting Trump. When Trump met with British Prime Minister Theresa May and Queen Elizabeth, then went to Scotland for a round of golf, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets in opposition. With good humor and lively, creative actions, they trounced Trump’s policies on everything from immigration, race relations, women, climate change, gun violence and war. One sign said it all: “We love the US but dislike pussy-grabbing, fake tanning, sabre rattling, serial philandering, white supremacist pandering, compulsive lying, first amendment-defying, corporate whoring, hate-mongering, no shaming, infant detaining, immigrant blaming, Putin colluding, climate change denying, over privileged, draft dodging, underperforming, inheritance squandering, insecure, infantile, snake-oil selling, small minded, tiny handed, celebrity demagogues.”

“The revolution is coming, I don’t care what you think; the ship looks stable right before it sinks.”

 

The carnival atmosphere included drag queens decked out in their finest wigs and gowns, with signs proclaiming “No Closets, No Cages.” A brass band called Trumpets Against Trump delighted the crowds with their brash tunes. A singing group with orange wigs crooned “We Shall Overcomb.” Young women held photos of Trump with sparkles and red lipstick advocating “Less Guns, More Glitter.” Rappers called for radical transformation: “The revolution is coming, I don’t care what you think; the ship looks stable right before it sinks.”

The belle of the ball, however, was Baby Trump—the delightful giant orange blimp of a screaming baby, wearing a diaper and gripping a cell phone for tweeting. The creators of the Baby Trump inflatable, who call themselves “the Babysitters,” got the idea while hanging out in a pub, thinking about how to visualize their opposition to Trump’s xenophobia that is affecting both the United States and Europe. Recalling comedian Jon Stewart’s characterization of Trump as a “man-baby,” they got the idea of making the blimp to target Trump’s fragile ego. “He doesn’t seem to be affected by the moral outrage that comes from his behavior and his policies,” said organizer Matt Bonner. “We realized that you can’t reason with him, but you can ridicule him.” They also thought that in these dark and disturbing times, both in the US and in Europe, humor would be a welcome relief. Their idea struck a chord with the public: a crowd-funding campaign garnered $25,000 to make the big baby fly.

The “Babysitters” did, indeed, nail Trump’s behavior, as he acted like an infantile bully on the visit.  He hurled insults at his host, Prime Minister Theresa May, chastising her for not following his advice on Brexit. He criticized London’s first Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, who authorized the Trump blimp on free speech grounds. Trump accused Khan of being soft on terrorism and allowing too many immigrants into London.

In a blatant show of dog whistle racism, Trump insulted not only Brits but all of Europe, saying immigration is "changing the culture" of Europe.

In a blatant show of dog whistle racism, Trump insulted not only Brits but all of Europe, saying immigration is "changing the culture" of Europe.

Ironically, vintage British culture was on full display at the protests, with signs such as “Teapot Not Despot,” “Hate is not my cup of tea,” or the height of disdain: “He probably doesn’t even like tea.” Some signs used widely recognized colloquialisms, like “Trump can bugger off” and “Too many tweets make a twat.” Others needed translation, like “Feed him to the corgis”, referring to a popular Welch dog originally bred to herd sheep, or “Go Home: Wonsit W*nker”, invoking a masterbuting orange cheese puff.

Trump certainly got the message. The protests led him to avoid the entire downtown of London. “When they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, [there was] no reason for me to go to London,” Trump told the Sun newspaper. “I used to love London as a city. I haven’t been there in a long time. But when they make you feel unwelcome, why would I stay there?” But even at the US Ambassador's residence in Regent's Park, where Donald Trump and Melania stayed, protesters showed up with signs like: “Not Even Your Wife Likes You.” And outside his meeting with the Queen, Trump was met by merrymakers proclaiming, “Save our queen from the fascist tangerine.”

Retreating to his golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland, Trump was still hounded by opponents. A Greenpeace activist was arrested for paragliding over the golf course with a banner reading "Trump: Well Below Par.” Scots gathered at the nearby beach to denounce Trump’s “special relationship” with Scotland because his mother grew up there. One sign opposing Trump’s treatment of immigrants read: “Yer Maw Was an Immigrant, Ye Nugget.”

Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn addressing the London crowd. “We are asserting our right to a world that is not divided by misogyny, racism, and hate. We wish to live in a world of peace not at war, we wish not to blame refugees for wars that they themselves are victims of.”

 

The protests did have a serious side, with speakers like popular Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn addressing the London crowd. “We are asserting our right to a world that is not divided by misogyny, racism, and hate. We wish to live in a world of peace not at war, we wish not to blame refugees for wars that they themselves are victims of,” Corbyn said to thunderous applause.“When we divide ourselves by xenophobia, when we divide ourselves by hatred, at the end of the day we all lose. When we unite together with common objectives, we can all win."

A woman leaving the London protest at the end of the day was ecstatic. “I don’t know if we made a difference, but we had a great time,” she laughed. “We saw Jeremy Corbyn, we saw the floating Baby Trump, and we drank gin. What more could we want?”

So on this side of the pond, let’s toast to values and creativity of the Brits and to Baby Trump crossing the Atlantic in time for Trump’s military parade. Join the GoFundMe to bring the big baby stateside. In these grim times, we could use a good dose of British humor.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Off the Top of My Head

Russia's Meddling in OUR Election: How Dare They!

by John Lawrence, July 16, 2018

A question that might be asked is "What dirt did they hope to get on Hillary by hacking into Hillary's personal server and the Democratic National Committee's server?" Why would Hillary have dirt about herself on her own server? Why would the DNC? This phony outrage about Russian meddling in our elections is a tempest in a teapot, a mountain out of a mole hill. The USA has meddled in the results of democratic elections by overthrowing Salvador Allende in Peru and Mossaddegh in Iran and installing brutal dictators in their respective places. Mohammad Mosaddegh was the head of a democratically elected government that was illegally removed in a CIA coup. He held office as the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953, when his government was overthrown in a coup d'état orchestrated by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency and the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service. I could go on and on about how the US has meddled in other countries' elections, but I won't. Look it up. The complicit American media won't tell you about it.

So as much as I don't want to, I have to agree with Trump again that Hillary and the DNC should have devoted more resources to securing their systems. It's just about time and money to make your server unhackable, but most people and entities don't want to spend the time or money. Instead, they're too busy dunning us for more money. The fact that Mueller has identified 13 Russians who were directly responsible for the "meddling" means nothing. The suggestion that Trump should ask Putin to extradite them to the US is risible. What planet are these politicians and media people living on?

Trump is disrupting the whole US military-industrial complex and media mindset on foreign policy. So far he has not suggested that the defense budget be reduced as Europe pays for a larger share of their own defense. That would be truly disruptive. If not Trump, then the progressives out there like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders should pick up the ball from Trump and demand that the US reduce its defense budget commensurate with the EU countries' increase in theirs. The Democratic party has staked their future on the fact that the American people will rise up and revolt against Trump once the facts of the Mueller investigation are out. I don't think the Mueller investigation will reveal anything earthshaking other than Trump was trying to feather his own nest by cutting business deals with Russia.

Why shouldn't we make friends with out enemies? If we did, we wouldn't have to spend so much on defense. But then the whole edifice of hate built up towards certain countries of the world would come tumbling down and the military-industrial complex' budget along with it. There is too much money at stake. We need enemies in order to justify spending a trillion dollars a year on defense. Trump is challenging the status quo on that. He's challenging the prevailong narrative that Russia is bad. We're good. Russia's allies are bad. Our allies are good. That's bullshit. Our ally, Saudi Arabia, is conducting genocide in Yemen with US assistance.  We could be at peace any time that a US President and the US political establishment decided to do so. But that would cost these guys too much money. Basically, they would just have to stop trying to bully other countries as their MO.

Instead, US foreign policy is all about making other countries do our bidding. After Trump established a cordial relationship with Kim Jong Un, right away the US meme of making it all about him getting rid of all his nuclear weapons before the US would do anything to benefit him got established. This is what Pompeo and the media were all about. They take the same tack with Putin. "Mr. Putin if you'll only give Crimea back to Ukraine and confess your sins, then we might be friends." Trump is absolutely right about the hypocracy of Angela Merkel and Germany in crying wolf over the Russians at the same time they are cooperatively building a pipeline in order for Germany to receive Russian natural gas. If Germany and Russia are such enemies, aren't they afraid that Russia might turn off the gas at a critical moment? No, it's all about the money not the underlying realities.

I thin the Dems better not hang all their hopes on the Mueller investigation revealing something perfidious on Trump's part. They better hang their hopes on Bernie Sanders' economic agenda, and, may I suggest, carrying forward a friendly relationship with our enemies that Trump has at least broken the ice with?

Off the Top of My Head

Does Trump's Challenging NATO Allies to Spend More on Defense Mean that the US Will Spend Concomitantly Less?

by John Lawrence, July 13, 2018

I would be all for Trump's jawboning our NATO allies to spend more on defense if that meant that the US would decrease its defense budget by the same amount as the total increase by our NATO allies. If it just means that the US will spend the same amount, then it's a bunch of poppycock. The EU should take over their own defense with minimal help from the US. Then there would be little reason for the US to spend such huge amounts on defense. The money could be spend on improving infrastructure here at home. If Trump wants to make America great again, he better start thinking about reducing the US defense budget which, all told, amounts to over a trillion dollars. He better start thinking about using the savings from a reduced defense budget to help the American people. In order to Make America Great Again, Step 1 would be to reduce the defense budget, which purportedly is for defending other countries around the globe, and use the money saved here at home. The defense budget should reflect that money which is necessary to defend just the US and not every other country in the world especially the EU countries which have plenty of money. We don't need to be the world's policeman.

Whatever happened to the idea that, if you make friends with your enemies, you won't have to spend so much money defending yourself against them? The US modus operandi is predicated on the fact that there will be permanent and ongoing wars. The military-industrial complex needs war and the threat of war in order to justify its existence and in order to justify all the money they're making off of war. Therefore, they have to gin up the threat. If peace broke out, large corporations like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman would lose business. Their stock price would go down. CEOs and executives wouldn't be able to justify their huge salaries. Therefore, it's in their interests to have a cottage industry thinking up reasons for even more defense expenditures. Besides it appeals to the macho nature of many men, civilian and otherwise.

As William Hartung points out, the defense budget , when you take into account all the hidden costs, is over a trillion dollars. Department of Defense: $639 billion. War Budget (outside the DoD budget): $64.6 billion. Nuclear Warheads (Department of Energy): $20 billion. Other Defense (Money that goes to defense related activities in departments other than DoD): $8 billion. Homeland Security: $50 billion. Military Aid at the State Department: $7 billion. Intelligence (16 separate agencies including CIA and NSA): $70 billion. Veterans Administration: $186 billion. Military retirement: $80 billion. Defense share of interest on national debt: $100 billion.

When you add it all up, pretty soon you're talking about real money - over a trillion dollars worth. Clearly, this situation is not sustainable. But the current mentality on Wall Street and elsewhere is make all the profits you can in the short term. When the whole edifice collapses, take your money and get out to whatever part of the world welcomes you and your money. Clearly, all those profiting from the current corporate culture do not have to stay here. Only the poor have to stay put and suffer the consequences of profligate defense spending.

The world needs realignment. Russia should be a friend, not an enemy. In these respects, Trump is right. The US and the Democratic Party should get off this kick about demonizing everyone that is Russia's friend like Iran, Syria and China. As Trump has suggested, to his credit, the US should accept Russia's annexation of Crimea. The US and the West should get over it - their horror of what Russia has supposedly done, much of it made up to support the military-industrial complex. And Germany is so horrified by Russia, but as Trump points out, they are building a major pipeline with Russia so they can get Russian natural gas. Quelle horreur!

Thanks to Trump, a peaceful world is at least thinkable. But the Democrats won't let go of their support of the status quo which supports Saudi Arabia.Their motto is that the ally of the enemy of my friend is my enemy too. Russia is the ally of Iran which is the enemy of Saudi Arabia so, therefore, Russia must be our enemy too or the whole world based on Nixon's petrodollar deal with Saudi Arabia would collapse. It will collapse anyway as the world goes more and more to recyclables and the value of oil plummets.

Off the Top of My Head

NATO is an Anachronism: The EU Should Provide for its Own Defense

by John Lawrence, July 7, 2018

I don't much like Trump's agenda (One thing I cheer is the fact Scott Pruitt is gone), but he is on the right track when it comes to NATO. The European Union needs to provide for its own defense needs and not rely on the US. The US could save hundreds of billions of dollars by decommissioning all its military bases in Europe and sending the personnel home. The US need not be the world's bully, ahem, policeman. That money saved could rebuild US infrastructure which is in a sorry state. Hundreds of thousands of US military are stationed at some 1000 bases all over the world. The US is effectively occupying all these countries.

Wouldn't it be cheaper and more effective to make peace with the world's supposed villains than to spend so much money defending ourselves against them? This is Trump's actual breakthrough in disrupting the status quo of the US military-industrial complex and defense establishment. The Democratic party is hell bent on recreating the Cold War and demonizing Russia and China. This demonizing is becoming ineffective especially with respect to China with whom we have enormous trade relationships. Most American corporations have moved their manufacturing operations to China so how can we possibly go to war with them when cheap American goods are produced in China? So the warmongers have been defeated there except for the fact that Trump is starting a trade war with them. We'll see how this all plays out, but I think his trade war won't amount to much. It threatens the whole US economy.

Also Trump's overtures to Russia, much to the dismay of the establishment and the Democrats who want to view Putin as a villain, threatens to take Russia off the table as a potential enemy. If only Hilllary had been elected, we would have been able to keep Russia squarely in the enemy camp. Now that Trump has made nicey-nice with North Korea, American bureaucrats are even further alarmed that Trump might pull troops out of South Korea. The defense establishment is alarmed that its budget might be reduced. They are alarmed that the US would relinquish its role as the world's policeman. They are fixated on keeping North Korea as an enemy, and their method of doing it is focusing exclusively on making having a peaceful relationship dependent on whether or not North Korea gets rid of all its nukes. This is putting the cart before the horse. The focus should be put on having a peaceful relationship first. Many other countries have nukes, and we are not so worried about them. Perhaps Trump inadvertently did the right thing by creating peace first, and then other things are negotiable. At least that's North Korea's view and the view of many other countries' diplomats.

The US should transition from being the world's bully to being the world's caretaker. But it will not because the defense lobby is so strong. Like other empires it will finally collapse when the US dollar becomes just one of many acceptable currencies. That is already happening. Then the full realization of the $20 trillion US national debt will hit us squarely in the face. We are already printing money just to pay the interest on it. How long will it be before the dollar's inherent worth slides down the scale? Regions of the US, notably California, are already taking steps to protect themselves from Wall Street's next collapse by establishing public banks which are detached from the Wall Street banking empire.

The next hopefully progressive US regime ala Bernie Sanders should correct Trump's egregiously unacceptable initiatives on climate change, the environment and taxation, but should take the ball and run with it on the examples he has set so far with respect to devillifying Russia and North Korea. Next should be Iran. The US needs to distance itself from Saudi Arabia and stop supporting its genocide in Yemen. Making peace with our enemies will delegitimize the US defense establishment and free up money for infrastructure and peace building activities throughout the world. The US should transition from being the world's bully to being the world's care taker.

Off the Top of My Head

Immigration: So What Is The Solution?

by John Lawrence, July 3, 2018

There has been a lot of turmoil lately over the subject of immigration. The Right wants to keep them all out; the Left wants to let them all in. No one, it seems, has a somewhat rational idea of how to solve the problem. There is a lot of heat, but little light. So here I offer a modest proposal for dealing with the immigration problem.

I divide it into three parts: 1) what to do with illegal immigrants that are already here, 2) how to keep potentially illegal immigrants out and 3) how to deal with legal immigration. As for #1, I think the court system should deal with them humanely. No separation of families. If they've been here a long time and have led constructive lives, grandfather them in. If they've been here a short time and/or have committed criminal acts, send them back. The court system should make those decisions. Especially if they have children who are American citizens, they should stay although they should not be given the rights of citizenship if they came here illegally.

2) Instead of devoting military resources to manning 1000 bases in every country in the world and spending almost the entire military budget of $1 trillion on foreign wars and threats, devote the lion's share of that budget to solving problems in our own hemisphere. A large share of that should go to preventing illegal immigration although it should be spent rationally not on some fantasy of a border wall. Most illegals get here by overstaying their visas. That program needs attention so that persons on visas are tracked to make sure they go back when their time is up. Secondly, a smart and sophisticated electronic and satellite patrol system should be set up at the border. The border patrol should be stepped up. Helicopter and camera surveillance should be implemented. In some places a wall or a virtual wall or a barrier of some kind should be put in place. It should be impossible just to raft across the Rio Grande and then take off on land. Human trafficking should be stopped.

Resources should be devoted to dealing with crime in Mexico and Central America and economic development should be undertaken there so people will be happy and secure in their home countries. This in lieu of our defense budget which is entirely misallocated and focused on Europe and Asia. It should be focused on our own border and our own hemisphere.

3) Immigration policy should focus almost exclusively on refugees. There is a refugee crisis going on all over the world, largely precipitated by wars in the Middle East which the US started. These countries were largely functional until George W Bush invaded Iraq based on a lie in 2003, and Obama encouraged the "Arab spring" and regime change. Europe, Germany in particular, is facing a a huge refugee crisis created by, guess who, us! Therefore, the US should be accepting a large number of those refugee immigrants that are now flooding Europe, and again the policy of economic development in their home countries which we have largely destroyed should be implemented. I totally disagree with Trump's policy of accepting as legal immigrants only the best and the brightest. We should be accepting refugees from all over the world as in Emma Lazarus' poem: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." That was US immigration policy then. There is even more reason why it should be US immigration policy now. And besides it will alleviate the pressure that Europe is under causing the upsurge in right wing politicians there.

In short US immigration policy should be compassion towards those who have come here illegally and have led constructive lives, zero illegal immigration brought about by devoting a significant part of the defense budget to prevention and a legal immigration policy focused on refugees, most of which have been created by American wars in the Middle East.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's Summits With Kim Jung Un and Now Putin

by John Lawrence, June 29, 2018

While the Washington establishment decries Trump's getting together with the likes of Kim and Putin, I think it's probably a good idea to talk and reduce the tension with our so-called enemies. There are lots of reasons why some Americans feel animosity towards these two, but the fact remains that we should try twice as hard to get along with those we disagree with as we do with those we agree with. Trump is charting his own path on foreign policy, and he might actually make a difference in this department although when it comes to climate change, the environment or taxes, he has gone totally the wrong route. But he could change on these issues given enough time. I'm not holding my breath. When it comes to immigration, we should look to our "allies" as to how they're dealing with their own, much more urgent, immigration crisis. Cooler heads could avail, but I doubt if they will.

I think Trump is all about enriching himself even further and using the Presidency to do it. After all, this is the model for US politicians at this point. All the Congressmen use their offices to enrich themselves when they leave Congress to "spend more time with their family" which is a euphemism for "to get a lucrative job with a corporation for which I got legislation they wanted written into law." I think that's what the Mueller investigation will find: that Trump was all about greasing his own palms and using his office to do it rather than doing something underhanded and nefarious to help Russia subvert American institutions.

The New York Times reported:

The Helsinki talks, which will come on the heels of a NATO summit meeting in Brussels on July 11 and 12, could exacerbate American relations with European allies even as it eases tensions with Russia.

Mr. Trump this week sent his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, to Moscow, where he met on Wednesday with Mr. Putin.

Afterward, an aide to Mr. Putin, Yuri Ushakov, reiterated Moscow’s denial that it tried to influence the United States presidential election in 2016, comments that Mr. Trump cited on Thursday in a Twitter post before the meeting with Mr. Putin was announced.

“Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!” Mr. Trump wrote.

The potential for such a high-level meeting has concerned some American allies in Europe, particularly because of recent tensions between the Trump administration and traditional American allies including Canada, France and Germany.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that it was important to get along with Russia and other countries.

But a meeting with Mr. Putin, and improving the relationship between the United States and Russia, have long appeared to be priorities for Mr. Trump.

Yes, the old status quo of NATO is hard to give up for the European allies and the Clinton branch of the Democratic party in the US. Trump is a disrupter, and, if he can bring some progress towards reintegrating Russia with Europe, that would be all to the better. Germany, in particular is hypocritical towards Russia as it leans on its NATO security blanket even while being dependent on Russian natural gas. The EU better get on with making friends with Putin instead of relying on the NATO and American security blankets which are frayed and superannuated. Just think how much money we could save if we didn't have to defend Europe. Trump has put that meme out there. I hope he follows up on it.