California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Kamala Equals Pragmatism

by John Lawrence

Last night on the Town Hall Kamala made it clear that she is a pragmatist. This makes a lot of sense since the old political left right spectrum in and of itself doesn't make sense any more. Take the border for instance. There is a consensus that no one should be coming across the border illegally. Even if applying for amnesty there is a legal and an illegal way to do it. Enough resources need to be applied to the border to make sure that the only option for people wanting to come into the US is the legal option. On this both Democrats and Republicans finally agree. Pragmatism is the penultimate American value. As Kamala said she just wants to "get stuff done."  As to whether or not her administration would be "just a continuance of the Biden administration," what difference does it make? Joe Biden did more for the American economy since Franklin Roosevelt. Most of this was directed towards sorely needed infrastructure improvement. American infrastructure has not kept up with most of the rest of the developed world. Now with the weather disasters caused by climate change, it needs to be hardened and improved that much more. However, all a lot of Americans, including those who can most afford it, seem to be fixated on is the price of groceries.

As for fracking, even under the Biden administration, there has been a capitulation to the fossil fuel industry and a realization that the American people will not sacrifice their lifestyles in order to combat climate change. Therefore, not only fracking but every other concession to fossil fuels has been made in order to keep gas prices low. The fact is that renewable energy production has fallen far short insofar as providing all of our energy needs. The demand for energy has outstripped the increase in renewable energy production. Hence, Kamala, not to mention Joe Biden, is now for fracking. So climate change continues apace. Weather disasters will get worse. Instead of describing floods as "1000 year floods," we should now be describing them as "twice a year floods." Americans seem to accept these weather disasters as long as the Federal government provides the money to rebuild after the disaster takes place. The insurance market is a different story. Private insurance will no longer be available in many regions of the country. Perhaps people who want to relocate out of disaster prone areas should study the insurance maps to see where insurance is available and where it is not, and then make their choices.

Romans were bought off from thinking critically by "bread and circuses." Americans seem to be following the same pattern. Instead of being concerned about climate change and infrastructure development to mitigate against climate change, Americans complain about grocery prices while attending concerts where the ticket prices are in the thousands of dollars. In fact the ones who complain about grocery prices the most are those who can well afford them, those for whom grocery prices are a minimum part of their budgets. Americans have been trained to only think about their own personal economic situation and not about the good of the world, not about helping those whose economic situations are much worse. People is Gaza are starving. People in Sudan are starving. People in Cuba don't have any electricity. UNHCR most recently estimated that, by the end of 2023, for the first time in recorded history, the number of people forcibly displaced is now over 117.3 million, with over 31.6 million refugees under UNHCR's mandate and another 6 million Palestinian refugees. These people have far more to worry about than grocery prices and that's if even groceries are available at all.

As for Kamala, sure her administration would be a continuation of the Biden administration and that's a good thing. Part of Biden's Build Back Better plan was to expand Medicare to provide for in home caregivers. That part was stripped out of the infrastructure bill due to compromises with Republicans. Now this is part of what Kamala wants to do - to pick up pieces previously rejected by Republicans. Of course she can't say that. She will be branded an extreme leftist by Republicans just for wanting to help people and improve the lives of Americans. In the final analysis though, Kamala is a pragmatist just wanting to "get stuff done" while Repiublicans are still down the Qanon rabbit hole palavering about inconsequential things that have nothing to do with anything.

Off the Top of My Head

Upgrading the UN Peacekeepers to UN Peacemakers

by John Lawrence

The problem with both ongoing wars is that there is no referee that can step in and separate the sides. President Biden appeals to Israel and Hamas to come to a cease fire, but neither side is listening to him. He leaves it up to them to come to a cease fire while having no means to actually force them to come to a cease fire. Of course he could stop supplying Israel with money and weapons, but by not doing so he leaves himself open to the accusation of being Netanyahu's patsy. When two children are caught fighting, a teacher steps in and separates the parties. In a prize fight, the referee steps in and separates the fighters when they are in a clinch. Rather than let two belligerents continue fighting until they can come to an agreement among themselves to stop fighting, a stronger power might step in militarily to separate the fighters. This is not something Biden or any other leader is willing to do. It is something that can only be done by a neutral party, not someone who is allied or aligned with one of the belligerents.

It would be best if the power that steps in to separate the belligerents had the sanction of the United Nations. United Nations Peacekeepers have fulfilled something like that role, but without the wherewithal to actually enforce the peace rather than keeping the peace, a somewhat different situation. This is from their website: "UN Peacekeeping helps countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace. We have unique strengths, including legitimacy, burden sharing, and an ability to deploy troops and police from around the world, integrating them with civilian peacekeepers to address a range of mandates set by the UN Security Council and General Assembly." One of the principals for engagement of UN Peacekeepers is "consent of the parties." This limits their effectiveness. It is unimaginable that Israel and Hamas would consent to having UN Peacekeepers intervene. There has to be third party intervention that has teeth in it to force the parties to quit hostilities.

The same thing is true in Ukraine. A strong referee needs to step in to stop the fighting and force the parties to the bargaining table. Peace plans abound. A diplomatic settlement or a peace treaty needs to be enforced or at least facilitated. There are many out there. For instance freezing the front line and putting a peace keeping force there to separate the two parties. Then taking into account at the peace talks some compromise between the maximal demands of both parties. However, a third party stepping in to stop the fighting and demanding that the parties proceed to the peace table would be the least that should be accomplished. Continuing the destruction of life and property on both sides is accomplishing nothing except for the fact that Ukraine will never be accepted as a member of NATO as long as a war of attrition is ongoing. Perhaps that should be the starting point: that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO in the foreseeable future. That's better than ongoing war.

In the war in Gaza there is no lack of officials calling for a two state solution. Problem is that neither Israel or Hamas is interested. Therefore, a two state solution must be imposed by a neutral power that has the wherewithal to do so. The UN Peacekeepers need to be upgraded to the UN Peacemakers with the authority and power to enforce a peace between belligerents and bring them to the bargaining table.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Not Issue an ID Card to Every Member of the Human Race?

by John Lawrence

Every member of the human race should be issued an ID card at birth which qualifies them for all the rights and privileges of being a human without respect to nationality, ethnicity or religion. Every member of the human race deserves a certain status, dignity and respect given to them as their birthright, and it's the duty of every other member to respect those rights and privileges. Human beings need to deethnicize, dereligicize and denationicize. In short we need to secularize. No one's religion, ethnicity or national origin should take priority over one's rights as a human being. Most of the problems of humanity have come about because of rivalries having to do with religion, ethnicity or nationalistic hubris. People have hubris about their political and economic systems thinking that their system is better than someone else's system. Why not respect whatever system some other country chooses to enact? The bottom line is everyone regardless of where they live or where they came from or what religion they choose to be a part of deserves certain basic human rights as a function of being a human being. Wars have been fought over religion for thousands of years. Muslims and Christians fought for hundreds of years during the Crusades era. Protestants and Catholics fought wars in Europe for hundreds of years. Hindus and Muslims fought for years until the partition of India in 1947.

The following is from Wikipedia:

The Partition of India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent and the creation of two independent dominions in South Asia: India and Pakistan. The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan—which at the time comprised two regions lying on either side of India—is now the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition was outlined in the Indian Independence Act 1947. The change of political borders notably included the division of two provinces of British India, Bengal and Punjab. The majority Muslim districts in these provinces were awarded to Pakistan and the majority non-Muslim to India. The other assets that were divided included the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Royal Indian Air Force, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury. Provisions for self-governing independent Pakistan and India legally came into existence at midnight on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively.

Perhaps the partition of India could be a template for a cease fire and  political settlement of the wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. Borders have been moved for millennia and imposed from the outside. Borders were moved after the First World War and after the Second World War. Since the end of World War II, the international community has been committed to the preservation of territorial borders as they existed at that time. Is this realistic or even desirable when the movement of borders could resolve wars and create peaceful solutions? Borders have been changing for millennia. Saying that the world is outraged by a violation of international norms regarding territorial integrity disregards the fact that wars and disputes might be better ended by readjusting international borders. In both wars the two parties are contesting international boundaries when a redrawing of those boundaries might yield a better solution than the obliteration of one people by another, leaving the warring parties to either win or lose the war while civilian lives are being destroyed. What is more important - the retention of current borders with the concomitant destruction of civilian lives and property or the redrawing of borders while acknowledging the rights of human beings as people to exist?

In Ukraine a partition drawn where the front lines are now located might bring the bloodshed to an end. Is it right that the people of Ukraine should suffer and die over where the borders between the two adjacent countries should be drawn. After all eastern Ukraine and Crimea have been part of the Russian empire since the time of Catherine the Great. Most of Ukraine fell to the Russian Empire under the reign of Catherine the Great; the Crimean Khanate was annexed by Russia in 1783, following the Emigration of Christians from Crimea in 1778, and in 1793 right-bank Ukraine was annexed by Russia in the Second Partition of Poland. In Israel/Palestine IMHO the borders should be redrawn so that both Israel and Palestine have roughly the same amount of contiguous territory. That means that the West Bank should be expanded and Gaza eliminated as Palestinian territory. Does it make sense for the Palestinians to have two discontiguous pieces of real estate as a national entity? There should be international recognition of two separate contiguous states. Leaving it up to Israel and the Palestinians to work this out is a mistake. They will never do it voluntarily; they will fight on in perpetuity. A two state solution must be imposed from the outside with a powerful coalition probably involving the US guaranteeing the peace. What good is the military might of the US if it can't be used to impose and guarantee a peaceful solution to hostilities whether or not the hostile parties agree to it. Once the territorial boundaries are equalized, the two countries should be treated and resourced equally again whether they like it or not. One country should not be favored over the other.

War is about winning or losing irregardless of human suffering. As modern warfare has developed, the ones doing the suffering and dying are primarily civilians not soldiers as was the case in the old days, and now in Gaza the civilians doing the dying are mostly children. This is a pathetic indictment of the modern world and the human race. Humans have fought wars and committed atrocities for hundreds of thousands of years and yet we have, as a race, learned absolutely nothing. The situation has only gotten worse. Condemning the other side and insisting that our side win the war is only causing continued human - mainly civilian - mainly women and children - suffering death and destruction because (mainly men) have their egos involved and are just moving military pieces around on a chess board. Insisting on the respect and dignity given to every human qua human as being more important than who wins and who loses a war would be an advance in human civilization. The secularization of the human world with respect to religion, ethnicity and national boundaries needs to happen or humans will continue to destroy each other in the name of religion, ethnicity and national boundaries.

Off the Top of My Head

Most "Aid" to Ukraine is Spent in the US Thus Benefiting US Defense Contractors and Adding to Inflation

by John Lawrence

Financial aid to Ukraine mostly benefits the US military-industrial complex from which Ukraine buys most of its weapons. This money, therefore, floods into the US economy thus increasing inflation because it's well known that money injected into the US economy by the government has an inflationary impact. In an article entitled "Most ‘aid to Ukraine’ is spent in the US. A total shutdown would be irresponsible" we find the following: "A lot of money considered to be "aid to Ukraine" is actually spent in the US. In this op ed, Mark Cancian argues that eliminating that funding would be bad business for both Ukraine and American interests." And the following: "As the discussion above shows, a large part of the aid is spent in the United States. Funding of US agencies, most of the funding for US military forces, most of the military equipment backfill and Ukrainian equipment purchases, and a part of the humanitarian assistance stay in the United States. In all, about $68 billion of the $113 billion enacted (60 percent) would be spent in the United States, benefiting the armed forces and US industry." So advocates for the military-industrial complex itself are arguing that, since the war in Ukraine benefits US business interests, taxpayers should continue to fund it.

Of course no one wants to talk about or connect the facts that when the government spends too much money into the US economy, it tends to have an inflationary impact. I support President Biden with the historic $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the $53 billion CHIPS and Science Act, the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.  Biden has accomplished more than any President since Franklin Roosevelt. Nevertheless, critics of the war in Ukraine are correct when they say that supporting a US proxy war in Ukraine is having an inflationary effect on the US economy. Probably all the previous government spending, although beneficial, had a lot to do with causing inflation in the first place. More government spending is pouring even more money into the US economy at a time when the government should be using its authority to decrease the US money supply thereby helping to bring inflation down. Thy could do this, for example, by taxing the rich. Too much money sloshing around in the economy causes inflation. Too little money in the US money supply has the opposite effect - deflation.

The possibility arises that the US has gotten itself into a forever proxy war of attrition in Ukraine based on the noble premise that Ukraine has a right to join NATO. The alternative to that forever war, which will only result in the loss of many more Ukrainian lives, the destruction of Ukrainian families and the loss of billions of dollars of Ukrainian real estate and infrastructure, is a peaceful solution to the war along the lines of a ceasefire and Russian control of the portion of eastern Ukraine that it has controlled since 2014 including Crimea with western Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. Additionally UN peace keepers could patrol the border between those two entities to maintain a peaceful, stable border. Historically, Ukraine had been a part of Russia since the era of Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century, but only gained full autonomy by virtue of the fact that Premier Nikita Khrushchev granted it independence in 1954. So the history is complex. What is important now is to settle the conflict by a ceasefire and recognition of the current de facto borders. This is important not only from the point of view of Ukraine in light of a continued loss of life and real estate, but in view of the continued drain on the US economy. The money going to fund the war in Ukraine by the US could be better spent at home or not spent at all in light of the continuing, albeit reduced, inflation.

Off the Top of My Head

The Two State Solution Must Be Created, Implemented and Enforced ... Now

by John Lawrence

So now they are having a 5 day peace after which time they will resume the killing? They should be using the time to come up with a permanent solution, not just pausing the killing for humanitarian reasons. That's a contradiction in terms. The US has the power to impose a Two State solution on Israel and the Palestinians instead of leaving it up to them. Leaving it up to them means that it will never happen. They will go on killing each other till the end of time. What good is unlimited military power unless it is used to impose peace? What is the principal here - that every "free" state is free to make peace or war as they so choose. I say that peace needs to be imposed, and in this case it can be imposed because neither state is big enough to resist it if that is what the world community wants to do. Israel and the Palestinians should not be free to kill each other till the end of time. Mose Allison has a song with the lyric, "Everyone's crying peace on earth just as soon as we win this war." Now even that lyric has been corrupted to, "Everyone's crying peace on earth (temporarily) until we can get on with this war." But squandering a pause in the fighting for humanitarian reasons seems a travesty knowing that in a few days, once those humanitarian reasons have been accomplished, we will get on with what we really want to do - continue the war!

We know what a Two State solution would look like. Even all the details have been worked out. It's just that Israel and the Palestinians won't agree to it. Therefore, it must be imposed on them ... both. They should not be free to continue their mutual madness forever. What a bizarre notion of "freedom:" this portends. Why, sir, your freedom includes a right to hate and attack your neighbor in perpetuity. Free and sovereign states should not be impeded from protecting themselves even if in the long run they are not protecting themselves but just involving themselves in endless rounds of attacks and counter attacks. The world's most powerful nation just stands back and says in effect "we don't want to impose ourselves on your freedom and sovereignty. You have a sovereign right to go on with endless rounds of revenge, hatred and war."

UN peacekeepers should separate the two sides and impose peace on Israel and Palestine by imposing a two state solution backed by the power of the US. The world should say to them, "Enough." You guys are totally incapable of solving your problems, and, left to your own devices, you will go on killing each other indefinitely. By virtue of your incompetence at creating peace among yourselves, you have both lost your right to come up with a workable solution, and, therefore, one must be imposed on you, like it or not. You have both lost your right to be completely free and sovereign nations. You are both making the world a worse place. Therefore, the world community has lost its patience and tolerance for your local squabbles which are forcing the whole world to stop what it is doing and deal with your seemingly overwhelming problems. We'd like to get on with solving the problem of climate change instead of devoting our attention to interminably, intermittent wars.

'Baby Steps' Will Not Avert Climate Catastrophe, UN Warns

Firefighters tackle forest fires near Porto Jofre, Mato Grosso State, Brazil, on November 13, 2023.

(Photo: Rogerio Florentino/AFP via Getty Images)

The United Nations assessment coincided with the release of "the world's most comprehensive roadmap of how to close the global gap in climate action across sectors."

by Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, November 14, 2023

 

"The world is failing to get a grip on the climate crisis."

That's how United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres began his Tuesday remarks about a new U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) report on nationally determined contributions (NDCs), or countries' plans to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, including its 1.5°C temperature target.

The UNFCCC analysis "provides yet more evidence that the world remains massively off track to limiting global warming to 1.5°C and avoiding the worst of climate catastrophe," said Guterres. "As the report shows, global ambition stagnated over the past year and national climate plans are strikingly misaligned with the science."

"COP28 must be the place to urgently close the climate ambition gap."

Under current NDCs from the 195 Paris agreement parties, global greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise by nearly 9% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels, according to the analysis. While that's a slight improvement on the 10.6% increase from last year's assessment, it's still nowhere near the cuts that experts say are needed.

The analysis of NDCs comes as scientists project that 2023 will be the hottest year in 125,000 years and just over two weeks before the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, a summit controversially led by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

"As the reality of climate chaos pounds communities around the world—with ever fiercer floods, fires, and droughts—the chasm between need and action is more menacing than ever," Guterres declared. "COP28 must be the place to urgently close the climate ambition gap."

U.N. Climate Change Executive-Secretary Simon Stiell echoed Guterres' call to action, stressing in a statement that the new assessment makes clear governments are merely "taking baby steps to avert the climate crisis."

"It shows why governments must make bold strides forward at COP28 in Dubai, to get on track," Stiell said. "This means COP28 must be a clear turning point. Governments must not only agree what stronger climate actions will be taken but also start showing exactly how to deliver them."

The UNFCCC document was released on the same day as State of Climate Action 2023, which its crafters called "the world's most comprehensive roadmap of how to close the global gap in climate action across sectors."

Published under Systems Change Lab, the latter report highlights that only one of the dozens of indicators assessed, the share of electric vehicles in passenger car sales, is on track to meet its 2030 target.

As the publication details:

Recent rates of change for 41 of the 42 indicators across power, buildings, industry transport, forests and land, food and agriculture, technological carbon removal, and climate finance are not on track to reach their 1.5°C-aligned targets for 2030. Worryingly, 24 of those indicators are well off track, such that at least a twofold acceleration in recent rates of change will be required to achieve their 2030 targets. Another six indicators are heading in the wrong direction entirely. Within this subset of lagging indicators, the most recent year of data represents a concerning worsening relative to recent trends for three indicators, with significant setbacks in efforts to eliminate public financing for fossil fuels, dramatically reduce deforestation, and expand carbon pricing systems.

To get back on track, the international community must "dramatically increase growth in solar and wind power" while also phasing out "coal in electricity generation seven times faster—which is equivalent to retiring roughly 240 average-sized coal-fired power plants each year through 2030," the report warns.

The publication also emphasizes the need for shifting to healthier, more sustainable diets eight times faster, increasing the coverage of rapid transit six times faster, reducing the annual rate of deforestation four times faster, and scaling up global climate finance by nearly $500 billion annually until 2030.

"Despite decades of dire warnings and wake-up calls, our leaders have largely failed to mobilize climate action anywhere near the pace and scale needed," declared the report's lead author, Sophie Boehm of the World Resources Institute (WRI). "Such delays leave us with very few routes to secure a livable future for all. There's no time left to tinker at the edges. Instead, we need immediate, transformational changes across every single sector this decade."

Every world leader is under pressure to ramp up efforts to cut emissions, including U.S. President Joe Biden, who on Tuesday received a letter from hundreds of scientists urging him to "increase the ambition of domestic climate action—including through accelerating a just and equitable clean energy transition, rejecting the expansion of new long-lived fossil fuel infrastructure, investing in climate resilience, and ramping up climate finance—while working toward the strongest possible agreement at COP28."

The United States now ranks behind China as the top emitting country but still leads the world in cumulative planet-heating emissions. According to a U.S. government assessment released Tuesday, the nation is "warming faster than the global average," and "the effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

 

 

Jessica Corbett

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

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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.

Off the Top of My Head

What is Justice for George Floyd?

by John Lawrence, June 4, 2020

I just listened to the Reverend Al Sharpton's rousing eulogy for George Floyd. He said we want justice for George Floyd. All over the world people want justice for George Floyd. Even in bombed out Syria, an artist painted a wall honoring George Floyd. That's significant. It's not justice for George Floyd here in America. It's justice for George Floyd all over the world. That means justice for George in the Middle East, justice for George in Iran, justice for George Floyd in China, in Russia. So what would justice be? Reverend Al quoted Ecclesiastes, "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal." So what would this justice be?

For sure criminal justice system reform. Let's start with a national ban on carotid restraint, a national ban on the knee-to-neck restraint. Yes, but that's not enough. I feel that all this protest energy might just be dissipated unless there are concrete demands on the system. Where is Bernie Sanders when we need him now? He had concrete demands: a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, forgiveness of student loan debt. Most of the protesters both black and white are millenials, the most screwed generation in American history. But who among them would most benefit from these progressive demands? African Americans. They are the Americans who not only suffer from the criminal justice system and the law enforcement system, they are the ones who most suffer from poverty as it was made clear George Floyd's family did. Reforming the criminal justice system is not enough. Reforming the economic system is necessary to redress the grievances of first slavery, then Jim Crow and now the videotaped deaths of so many black people that generated the Black Lives Matter movement.

Black Lives Matter in terms of equal economic justice and millenial lives, both black and white, weighed down with student loan debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, matter as well. A country which supports a bloated military bureaucracy that consumes a trillion dollars a year while there is 20% unemployment represents a knee on all our necks. Justice for George Floyd has to extend to justice for all those innocent lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Syria. Justice for George Floyd is justice for the 70 million people, half of them children, in refugee camps. Justice for George is justice for all the poverty stricken in favellas and barrios who can't socially distance. Justice for George Floyd is American acceptance of the United Nations 1948 Declaration of Human Rights which include economic as well as political rights.

Justice for George Floyd is justice for people all over the world: black, white and all shades in between. Justice for George Floyd is justice for people without regard to race, religion or national residence. Justice for George Floyd is electing leaders of our country who will make friends instead of enemies, who will convert swords into plowshares, who will create peace and justice in the world.

Off the Top of My Head

A Jobs Program for Inessential Workers
by John Lawrence, April 30, 2020

Turn inessential workers into essential workers by putting them to work building green infrastructure. This is essential work that is not getting done. Much of the previous inessential work they did is better left undone even in a recovery. It is still inessential. It'll always be inessential compared to what needs to be done in creating and building green infrastructure. Building out solar and wind renewable energy could employ thousands if not millions of people. Repairing roads, bridges, waterways, clean water systems, airports, railroads and all other infrastructure could employ millions. This is essential work that has remained undone despite the fact that the American Society of Civil Engineers has given the US a D rating for infrastructure. High speed rail needs to be built. The widespread adoption of electric cars has to be mandated, and construction of a national electric vehicle charging network to power them has to be built.

Unemployed people still need jobs. Mark Cuban said on CNN this morning that there should be a jobs program similar to that of the New Deal. He is exactly right although he didn't make the necessary connection about the essential work that's still being left undone and the inessential work that doesn't need to be done even in a recovery. Forget Cuban's sports and entertainment enterprises. I hate to tell you that they are basically inessential. What is essential is greatly expanding the public health undertakings of the Federal  government which has been totally behind the curve in this pandemic.

We must ask ourselves what is essential and not go back to a new normal in which all the inessential businesses of the past are brought back just in order to provide employment to the millions who have lost their jobs. The pre-pandemic economy was 70% consumerism. The economy post epidemic should be much less a consumerist economy and much more an investment economy. The four components of gross domestic product are personal consumption, business investment, government spending, and net exports. Of these government spending must be ramped up to provide the essential jobs in infrastructure building as well as in the areas that the pandemic has made clear are indeed essential: health care, education, transportation, agriculture.

Government spending must go up; personal consumption must go down. It's as simple as that. As for business investment, it's a lost cause as business will only do what's profitable for itself as has been made abundantly clear. Investment in fossil fuels and plastics which the big oil companies are making is only destructive to a green economy, not constructive. As far as exports are concerned, the dollar has already been weakened as much as it could possibly be by zero interest rates, so increased exports, although desirable, are not likely to happen any time soon.

Private enterprise knows only one thing in terms of the economy "reopening": get back to consumer spending. It ain't going to happen. People are still afraid of the virus. The pandemic is not over. They will use their money to pay off debts instead of going in debt to the hilt like they are used to. People will save their money instead of entertaining themselves to death. Why? Maybe they have learned their lesson that a high employment economy predicated on the fact that people will always have a job and always have a prepensity to consume is just a chimera. Rather than living paycheck to paycheck, I hope people will understand that there may come a rainy day, and they need to save for that. That lesson has really been brought home by the coronavirus pandemic.

The true heroes are essential workers not the military. The military itself was brought to its knees by COBID-19. There is a lesson there. It's more important to spend our collective money on preparing for the coming pandemic of global warming than on a bloated military. It is more important to house the homeless and guarantee the economic rights of shelter and health care to all Americans as in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights. It is more important to help people all over the world escape from extreme poverty because poverty breeds health crises which then can spread all over the world. It's more important to make peace with our rivals rather than try to control them with military threats and sanctions.

May the next President (and I hope to heaven that it's not Donald Trump) see the light of a more rational, compassionate and humane world, one more concerned about the health and welfare of all the world's peoples. I hope Governor Cuomo's values of being tough, smart, disciplined and most importantly loving spread to every corner of US and world society, and we get on with essential business instead of the inessential business of amusing, entertaining and consuming ourselves to death.

'Global Precedent' Set as UN Rules Climate Refugees Cannot Be Sent Back to Life-Threatening Conditions

Published on Monday, January 20, 2020

by Common Dreams

Advocates praised the ruling as an "excellent step forward in refugee rights."

by Julia Conley, staff writer

 

16 Comments

A U.N. ruling earlier this month stated that countries cannot send climate refugees back to their home countries if they apply for asylum. (Photo: Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty)

Human rights advocates on Monday applauded a "ground-breaking" ruling by a United Nations panel which stated that climate refugees seeking asylum cannot legally be sent back to their home countries if they face life-threatening conditions due to the climate crisis.

"Without robust national and international efforts, the effects of climate change in receiving states may expose individuals to a violation of their rights," ruled the U.N. Human Rights Committee, "thereby triggering the non-refoulement obligations of sending states."

Amnesty International praised the decision as "good news" and said in a statement that it could help prompt the international community to take concrete action to sharply reduce fossil fuel emissions as quickly as possible in hopes of limiting global warming to 1.5º Celsius.

GOOD NEWS! It's now illegal for governments to return #climate refugees to their home countries, thanks to a landmark ruling by the UN Human Rights Committee. Read more: https://t.co/tsooQN774j

— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) January 20, 2020

Dan Sohege of the human rights advocacy group Stand for All called the ruling an "excellent step forward in refugee rights."

Excellent step forward in refugee rights. As the challenges facing people evolve so must the definition of "refugee". Whether fleeing war, economic deprivation or climate change, the end result remains the same even if the driving factors for it do not.https://t.co/PqOC3Pp3Rj

— Dan Sohege (@thefishareloose) January 20, 2020

The committee handed down its ruling earlier this month in a case brought by Ioane Teitiota, a man who applied for asylum in New Zealand in 2013 after sea level rise and other conditions in his home country of Kiribati forced him and his family to leave.

"The decision sets a global precedent. It says a state will be in breach of its human rights obligations if it returns someone to a country where—due to the climate crisis—their life is at risk, or in danger of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment."
—Kate Schuetze, Amnesty International

Kiribati is expected to be uninhabitable in the coming decades—as soon as 10 to 15 years from now, according to Teitiota's case—as rising sea levels leads to overcrowding on the Pacific nation's islands. Teitiota took his case to the committee in 2016 after being deported back to Kiribati by New Zealand's government the previous year.

He argued that the lack of fresh water and difficulty growing crops in Kiribati has caused health problems for him and his family, as well as land disputes.

 

The committee ultimately rejected Teitiota's case this month, saying in its ruling that since he argued that Kiribati is expected to be uninhabitable in 10 to 15 years, the country and the international community have time to move the population to safety or to make the islands safe.

But, Amnesty International said, the ruling held promise for the 143 million people who are expected to become climate refugees by 2050—many of whom reside in Pacific Island nations.

"The decision sets a global precedent," said Kate Schuetze, Pacific researcher at Amnesty International, in a statement. "It says a state will be in breach of its human rights obligations if it returns someone to a country where—due to the climate crisis—their life is at risk, or in danger of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment."

"The message in this case is clear: Pacific Island states don't need to be underwater before triggering those human rights obligations," Schuetze told The Guardian. "I think we will see those cases start to emerge."

Two members of the committee dissented, arguing Teitiota was entitled to protection by New Zealand's government.

"The conditions of life laid out by the author—resulting from climate change in the Republic of Kiribati, are significantly grave, and pose a real, personal, and reasonably foreseeable risk of a threat to his life," said Ambassador Duncan Laki Muhumuza of Uganda.

Prof. Jane McAdam of the Kaldor Center for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales agreed with Amnesty's assessment, saying that while the ruling was not in Teitiota's favor, "the committee recognized that without robust action on climate at some point in the future it could well be that governments will, under international human rights law, be prohibited from sending people to places where their life is at risk or where they would face inhuman or degrading treatment."

"Even though in this particular case there was no violation found, it effectively put governments on notice," she told The Guardian.

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