Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Canadians Against War on Yemen Block Shipment of Armoured Vehicles Headed to Saudi Arabia

The direct action in Hamilton, Ontario coincides with hundreds of events to pressure the new Biden administration and other world governments to stop arming Saudi Arabia.


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Published on Monday, January 25, 2021 
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People hold a banner and stand in front of trucks at Paddock Transport International in Hamilton, Ontario to stop the company from shipping what activists say are Canadian-made tanks to Saudi Arabia, on January 25, 2021.

People hold a banner and stand in front of trucks at Paddock Transport International in Hamilton, Ontario to stop the company from shipping what activists say are Canadian-made tanks to Saudi Arabia, on January 25, 2021. (Photo: World BEYOND War Canada)

Antiwar activists in southern Ontario put their bodies in front of trucks at a Canadian company Monday to disrupt what organizers say is the transport of weaponry that will worsen the Western-backed war on Yemen to Saudi Arabia.

The direct action in Hamilton targeting Paddock Transport International's transport of Canadian-made tanks is one of hundreds of events taking place across the globe Monday as part of the Global Day of Action for Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition's war on Yemen—fueled with Western-made weapons, airstrikes, and intelligence—has resulted in a six-year war and worsened what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster in which millions are on the brink of famine, infrastructure is devastated, and at least 20,000 civilians have been killed.

Paddock Transport is complicit in the disaster, according to organizers, because it transports General Dynamics Land Systems tanks made in the province to port where they're brought onto Saudi ships.

"Most Canadians don't realize that weapons manufactured here continue to fuel a war that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people," Simon Black, a member of Labour Against the Arms Trade, said in a statement.

"Countries like Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden have all cancelled their weapons deals with Saudi Arabia," said Black. "There's absolutely no reason why Canada can't do the same and help end this war."

"People across Canada are demanding the federal government immediately end arms exports with Saudi Arabia and expand humanitarian aid for the people of Yemen," Rachel Small of World BEYOND War said in a statement.

"A child in Yemen dies every 10 minutes because of this horrific war. As a parent, how can I ignore that tanks made in Canada are rolling right by me on their way to the worst humanitarian situation on Earth?" said Small.

Also coming in for scrutiny Monday for its role in continuing the Saudi-led war is the U.S., with groups including the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and CodePink urging the new Biden administration to act quickly to stop worsening Yemenis' suffering. A key way, they say, is by stopping the flow of arms.

The kingdom is the biggest recipient of U.S. arms, and Saudi Arabia is overall the world's biggest weapons importer, according to (pdf) data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Saudi Arabia's biggest arms suppliers, in order, are the U.S., U.K., and France.

SIPRI's data also suggests Western nations' arms sales are fueling the conflict that began in 2015 with weapons imports by Saudi Arabia 130 per cent higher 2015–19 compared to the previous five-year period.

With that key role in mind, CodePink singled out ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia as one of the key demands antiwar groups are addressing to Biden and other world leaders:

CodePink and other critics of the Saudi-led war on Yemen amplified demands for peace with a global online rally Monday. Featuring speakers including Yanis Varoufakis and Cornell West, the virtual rally was timed, according to the event's description, to "take place just days after the inauguration of Joe Biden, who has promised to end U.S. support for the war. This is our one central aim—to hold him to his word and force fellow governments to follow suit."

Chris Nineham, founder of Stop the War Coalition, echoed those sentiments in a Monday op-ed.

"A global movement to end this war has now been launched," he wrote. "We have a chance for change, we must take it."

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Yemen Can't Wait: Why a Global Day of Action Has Created a Chance for Change

Joe Biden has suggested a new direction on Yemen—we must seize the opportunity to protest in his first week as US President to make sure he keeps his promise.

by Chris Nineham
Published on Monday, January 25, 2021
by The Morning Star

Supporters of Yemen's Huthi rebels march with banners during a rally denouncing the United States and the outgoing Trump administration's decision to apply the "terrorist" designation to the Iran-backed movement, in the Huthi-held capital Sanaa on January 25, 2021
(Photo: MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP via Getty Images)


P TO a quarter of a million people have died as result of the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. The UN believes the war and the accompanying blockade threaten 24 million people with acute food shortages.

Yemen has experienced the worst cholera outbreak anywhere in the world for decades while the Covid-19 situation in the country remains unclear because the health system has been pulverised.

Yet the war on Yemen is a largely unreported catastrophe. The problem for the Western media is that this is a disaster whose roots lie in Western foreign policy.

As Jan Egeland, the council’s secretary-general and a former UN humanitarian relief official said recently, “Yemenis aren’t falling into starvation, they are being pushed into the abyss by men with guns and power.”

Everyone who wants to see an end to the hidden savagery of this war should get involved one way or another.

Saudi Arabia is the biggest recipient of arms sales from both the US and Britain.

In the nearly six years since the start of the war both countries have increased their support for Saudi Arabia, diplomatically, politically and militarily.

Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has had red carpet receptions in both Washington and Whitehall in the intervening years.

Though government spokespeople deny direct involvement, both Britain and the US have forces and technology supporting front-line troops.

Saudi’s military effort is in fact largely dependent on Western support. A former MoD mandarin and defence attache to Saudi Arabia, John Deveril, said in 2019, “the Saudi bosses absolutely depend on BAE Systems, they couldn’t do it without us.”

A BAE employee confirmed this view to Channel 4’s Dispatches, “If we weren’t there, in seven to 14 days there wouldn’t be a jet in the sky.”

Britain’s support for the war effort is partly a product of its colonial history in the country.

It is driven too by post-colonial concern to secure oil supplies from the region as well as the recent emphasis on Britain’s global role.

But more than anything it is a product of the general strategy of strengthening the anti-Iranian alliance in the region with Saudi Arabia at its heart.

We have now, however, a real opportunity to push for the end of the war.

Public opinion in the West is clearly against the intervention. In Britain fully 63 per cent of the population have opposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia for at least the last two years, with only 13 per cent in favour.

In the US the figure is even higher.

Despite a recent accord between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the war coalition is no nearer achieving its war aims than it was after the initial bombing campaign in 2015.


The majority of the population remain in areas controlled by the Houthi-backed Alah Ansar who oppose the Western-backed former president Hadi.

The growing economic crisis in Saudi Arabia makes this costly war more and more difficult to sustain.

All this is reflected in the fact that Joe Biden has changed his attitude to the war.

In 2015 as vice-president he was instrumental in launching US involvement in hostilities.

During last year’s election campaign he promised to end US support for the war and to push for a peaceful solution, even if he provided little detail.

His picks for his foreign policy team are not particularly encouraging, but the new administration and Biden’s promises provide an opportunity to escalate the pressure on the Western powers to change course.

That is why the global day of action against the war is so important. Timed to coincide with Biden’s first full day at work, its purpose is to maximise pressure on all the countries backing the Saudi-led coalition of war.

Support has been remarkable. There are 320 organisations from eighteen different countries backing the protests.

These range from local anti-war groups to national peace coalitions and political groups like France Insoumise and the Democratic Socialists of America.

Many Yemeni organisations from the country itself and beyond are involved.

Despite the difficulties posed by Covid-19, news of more and more local protests keeps coming in. In other places, local groups are putting on their own zoom events in support.

The protest will culminate in an international online rally at 7pm GMT on the day.

Speakers include Cornel West, Danny Glover and Shireen Al-Ameida from the US, Daniele Obono from France, Yanis Varoufakis from Greece and Jeremy Corbyn.

Everyone who wants to see an end to the hidden savagery of this war should get involved one way or another.

Post photos and video messages on social media, tweet using the #YemenCantWait hashtag, lobby your MP, and above all get along to what looks like being a historic rally.

A global movement to end this war has now been launched, we have a chance for change, we must take it.

© 2020 The Morning Star


Christopher Mark Nineham is a British political activist and founder member of the Stop the War Coalition serving as National Officer and Deputy Chair of the Stop the War Coalition in the UK. He served under Jeremy Corbyn from 2011 to 2015.
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US Designation of Houthis as 'Terrorists' Is Wrong and Hurts the Most Vulnerable

Ending America's endless wars should mean not only withdrawing troops but also putting an end to the misuse of terrorist designations and the accompanying destructive economic sanctions.


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 Published on Tuesday, January 26, 2021

by
Al-Jazeera English
A Yemeni boy rides a bike on rubble of houses destroyed in a recent airstrike carried out by warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition, on May 23, 2019 in Sana'a, Yemen. (Photo: Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

A Yemeni boy rides a bike on rubble of houses destroyed in a recent airstrike carried out by warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition, on May 23, 2019 inSana'a, Yemen. (Photo: Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

On January 10, then US Secretary of State Pompeo announced that the Trump administration was designating Ansar Allah, the de facto Houthi-led government in North Yemen, as a terrorist entity, “to hold [it] accountable for its terrorist acts.” As most commentators pointed out, this designation would dramatically worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, making it extremely difficult to provide much-needed aid to the country and undermine the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the war.

It also further exposes the US as a belligerent actor that has knowingly harmed the people of Yemen for the past six years.

As damaging, but rarely noted, is the unprincipled politicisation of America’s “terrorism” designation and its selective use as a tool of warfare against political opponents. It undermines any credibility that the US might retain in a facts-based, even-handed designation of terrorist actors around the world. It also further exposes the US as a belligerent actor that has knowingly harmed the people of Yemen for the past six years.

There is no doubt that since the start of the Saudi-UAE-led war on Yemen in March 2015, all parties to the conflict – and there are now many – have carried out heinous attacks on civilians in violations of the laws of war. The facts of Ansar Allah’s abuses are well documented, including indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, obstruction of food and medical aid, and the use of child soldiers.

Even more catastrophic, in terms of scale, severity and frequency, have been war crimes by the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition. These have included deliberate and indiscriminate attacks that have terrorised Yemeni civilians, including repeated attacks on children, resulting in over 112,000 casualties.

As of 2016, coalition airstrikes were responsible for two-thirds of the civilian deaths. The coalition has carried out widespread and systematic attacks on Yemeni hospitals, medical clinics, schools, universities, factories, weddings, funerals, and residential areas using US-supplied bombs.

The coalition’s harm to Yemen has been dramatically compounded by its unprecedented land, air, and sea blockade on the country, making it extremely difficult, if not often impossible, to import food, medicine and fuel into the country and contributing to record-breaking starvation, malnutrition, and disease. The recklessness and cruelty of Saudi and Emirati conduct in this war have led to countless denunciations by the United Nations and governments around the world, notwithstanding endless bullying, threats and bribery from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

The US’s participation in this war – as a party to the conflict, providing intelligence, targeting support, and refuelling, in addition to billions of dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE and its contribution to the needless devastation in Yemen – has faced serious domestic challenges and even worries about war crimes liability.

In 2018, over two dozen Obama administration officials signed a letter urging an end to US involvement in the Yemen war – an unprecedented public mea culpa for green-lighting and then supporting the war effort. The US Congress also weighed in, passing a number of resolutions demanding an end to the US role in this war and to ongoing arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which were saved by former President Donald Trump’s vetoes.

It remains to be seen if President Joe Biden – whose staff is filled with many of the signatories of the Yemen letter, including Antony Blinken, Wendy Sherman, and Jake Sullivan – will keep his own promise to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia and US participation in the Yemen war.

Frustrated by their inability to defeat Ansar Allah, despite billions spent on bombarding Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have persistently lobbied the US Department of State to designate the group as “terrorist”, in order to trigger severe sanctions on the country. Like the economic sanctions and terrorist designations applied to Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba and entities within them, the State Department’s designation of Ansar Allah has nothing to do with an impartial assessment of the facts on the ground or merits of such a policy.

Instead, it has been deployed as an economic tool of warfare against international nemeses in the hopes that they will say uncle to US demands and give up power. Every one of these targeted governments remains in power, while the sanctions against them have only harmed ordinary people who have little to no say in what their governments do or do not do.

To argue against the terrorist designation of Ansar Allah purely on humanitarian grounds or for their negative impact on future peace negotiations, as some progressive groups have done, is overly narrow and avoids addressing a different but equally nefarious consequence. When the US chooses to designate as “terrorist” one side of an armed conflict, in this case, Ansar Allah, while not only ignoring but supporting the even more egregious terrorist attacks of the other, our government undermines any credibility the designation may have and diminishes its own international standing.

The Ansar Allah terrorism designation and related sanctions deserve condemnation not only because of the harm and suffering they will cause the Yemeni people, but because they manipulate and distort the original purpose and intent of such labelling. To argue only about the extent of the suffering these designations cause is a distraction that opens a tangential debate about whether or not the suffering is as bad as claimed, or who is actually to blame for the consequent suffering – the sanctions or the government.

Arguments against any terrorism designation should centre on Washington’s extensive misuse of sanctions and terrorism designations as an undeclared tool of warfare. Failure to confront the policies and laws that allow the US to sanction, starve, and harm peoples around the world – as it is doing in 39 countries around the world – leaves us endlessly arguing the particular merits of sanctions in one place, then another, then another.

President Biden has a responsibility to dramatically reform legislation that empowers one administration after another to deploy economic harm to peoples around the world. Ending America’s endless wars should mean not only withdrawing troops but also putting an end to the misuse of terrorist designations and the accompanying destructive economic sanctions.

Sarah Leah Whitson is the Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now and formerly Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division.

© 2021 Al-Jazeera English
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Budget Chair Sanders Dares GOP to Criticize Him for Using Reconciliation to 'Protect Ordinary People, Not Just the Rich'

"If they want to criticize me for helping to feed children who are hungry or senior citizens in this country who are isolated and alone and don't have enough food, they can criticize me."

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) arrives at the inauguration of President Joe Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) arrives at the inauguration of President Joe Biden

 on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

 (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the incoming chairman of the powerful Senate Budget Committee, dared his Republican colleagues on Sunday to criticize him for attempting to use the expedited reconciliation process to push through a coronavirus relief package, noting that the GOP utilized the same procedural tool to pass major tax cuts for the rich just over three years ago.

In an interview on CNN Sunday, the Vermont senator said the Democrat-controlled federal government cannot wait "months and months" trying to convince austerity-obsessed Republicans to support the kind of sweeping Covid-19 relief package that experts say is necessary to slow the spread of the deadly virus, stimulate the economy, and provide crucial aid to millions of struggling families.

"You did it, we're gonna do it, but we're gonna do it to protect ordinary people, not just the rich and the powerful."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders

If Republicans—who in recent days have criticized the $1.9 trillion price tag of President Joe Biden's opening relief proposal—refuse to quickly come aboard, Sanders reiterated that he is prepared to use the budget reconciliation process to pass a coronavirus aid package and legislation that addresses other key priorities, from the existential climate crisis to prescription drug prices. The reconciliation process is filibuster-proof and thus requires only a simple-majority vote.

"Reconciliation... was used by the Republicans under Trump to pass massive tax breaks for the rich and large corporations," said Sanders. "It was used as an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And what we are saying is, 'You used it for that, that's fine. We're gonna use reconciliation—that is, 50 votes in the Senate plus the vice president—to pass legislation desperately needed by working families in this country right now. You did it, we're gonna do it, but we're gonna do it to protect ordinary people, not just the rich and the powerful."

Top Democrats in the House and Senate, according to Roll Call, are already "prepping an audacious and fast-moving game plan" to pass a relief package through reconciliation should the GOP continue to obstruct.

When CNN host Dana Bash noted that Sanders has previously criticized Republicans over their use of the reconciliation process, the Vermont senator responded, "Yes, I did criticize them for that. And if they want to criticize me for helping to feed children who are hungry or senior citizens in this country who are isolated and alone and don't have enough food, they can criticize me."

Sanders' remarks came as the work of the Senate has effectively been "ground to a halt" by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is threatening to block a must-pass organizing resolution if Democrats refuse to commit to leaving the archaic 60-vote legislative filibuster in place. The organizing resolution itself is subject to the filibuster, a fact McConnell is using in an attempt to extract early concessions from the new majority party.

In a floor speech on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said McConnell's proposal is "unacceptable" and "won't be accepted."

As the Washington Post reported Sunday, "Without an organizing accord, Republicans remain in the majority of most Senate committees—veteran GOP lawmakers such as Sens. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Richard C. Shelby (Ala.) and James M. Inhofe (Okla.) continue as chairs of key panels, while veteran Democrats eager to seize the gavels and advance their long dormant agendas can only wait and wonder."

"That's because the old Senate structures—which had Republicans controlling the committees—will remain in place until Schumer and McConnell reach a power-sharing agreement," the Post explained. "Newly sworn-in Democratic senators cannot get committee assignments until an organizational deal is struck."

One option available to Senate Democrats is to immediately eliminate the filibuster—a move that would require the support of the entire Senate Democratic caucus and a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris—and then pass an organizing resolution with 51 votes.

"If McConnell insists, the Dem response should be to go nuclear on the organizing resolution, which under current rules needs 60 to pass," former Senate aide Adam Jentleson, public affairs director at Democracy Forward, said last week. "Dems extended a reasonable deal, McConnell spit on it. So reform the filibuster now, organize the Senate as Dems want, and pass Biden's agenda."

In an appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)—the number two Senate Democrat—said that "if this filibuster has now become so common in the Senate that we can't act, that we just sit there helpless, shame on us."

"Of course we should consider a change in rule under those circumstances," Durbin added. "But let's see."

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Five Ways the Biden Labor Team Can Defend Workers Against the Lawless Digital Economy

The Biden administration must break the unprecedented nexus of capital concentration and big data hoarding or it will have no power to protect workers or citizens.


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 Published on 

by
Inequality.org

Governing the gig economy will require both a committed labor policy team and a committed digital policy team, and they will have to work together. (Photo by studioEAST/Getty Images)

Governing the gig economy will require both a committed labor policy team

 and a committed digital policy team, and they will have to work together.

 (Photo by studioEAST/Getty Images)

The Biden-Harris administration is off to a great start for workers, with a progressive incoming labor team and immediate removal of Trump loyalists at places like the National Labor Relations Board. But are they ready to take on the 21st century’s most prominent challenge—the lawless digital economy?

As the Washington Post pointed out, tackling gig work may be the administration’s most explosive labor issue. President Biden took a stand during his campaign, opposing California’s pernicious Prop 22. Now his team needs a powerful and systemic approach to governing the gig economy.

If gig companies can’t make their business model work in ways favorable to the public interest, they should go out of business and clear the field for genuine innovators who aren’t simply making their profits off scofflaw practices.

Governing the gig economy will require both a committed labor policy team and a committed digital policy team, and they will have to work together. For too long, the platform giants have exploited the space between the experts on labor law and those focused on the digital economy, cloaking themselves in claims that their product was simply technology.

The evidence of bad faith in such arguments is now well-detailed. "Technology" has been used to aggressively promote an unsustainable and exploitative business model that cranked up in the wake of the 2008 economic recession and popularized the idea that app-based gigs could be a cushion for the unemployed while the economy recovered.

The stigma of surviving off odd jobs was mitigated by the status-enhancing fantasy of belonging to the "tech sector." In reality, corporations have used digital platforms to dismantle labor protections so that 21st century California has come to look more like Colombia or Cambodia.

Here’s a five-point plan bridging digital rights and labor rights—not just to address exploitation of platform workers, but to reverse the erosion of decent work in the United States.

1. The Biden administration’s first task is simply to do what should have been done all along: make it possible for people to survive on a single full-time job and give them access to affordable care options. The incoming administration has a made a good start by supporting a $15 minimum wage and committing to invest in the care economy.

If they don’t succeed in this, corporations will continue to win campaigns for gig-friendly regulations, as they did in California, backed by testimonials from workers who say they’ve turned to platform jobs because they can’t afford to live on the wages provided by their regular, full-time jobs or cannot afford care for their children or elderly parents.

2. We need strong Labor Department action on disguised employment and rampant misclassification. It’s time to stop indulging the bad faith argument that companies like Uber and Lyft are not employers. They have, as California courts determined in 2018, simply used technology to mask disguised employment. California should never have needed legislation to get s court ruling on a simple “ABC test” The Trump team gave employers license to misclassify. The incoming team can use its oversight power to quickly correct the record, and in the long term, strengthen federal protections to end the fiction that those controlled by apps or platforms are “independent.”

3. The NLRB needs to protect online and non-traditional organizing. As Miller and Dehlendorf point out in a great longer piece on this subject, “Using social networks and internal communications networks within corporations themselves, people are claiming virtual space to link dynamically with on-the-ground power building.”

Importantly, the NLRB ruled in 2011 that social media organizing is protected activity. Yet under the Trump administration, Google and other firms’ worker actions, such as a push to end contracts with ICE, led to the termination of those involved, with no repercussions for the companies.

On the bright side, such actions likely also stimulated more formal organizing and new unions like the recently launched Alphabet Workers’ Union. These emerging groups will need a credible NLRB at their backs, and NLRB will need to step up with more stringent sanctions against companies that surveil their employees’ online activities.

4. We need to regulate data ownership, and here is where we will need commercial and digital regulators to partner with labor regulators. The digital economy treats worker data as the property of employers. This needs to end immediately.

You can’t compel workers to provide their blood or organs to an employer and so too, the extraction of their private, personal data should be out of bounds for any company. Nor is a simple right of consent like Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sufficient. We need to treat data like the resource it is, and develop citizen controls over what entities can access and how they can use digitally acquired data sets.

In situations where workers willingly provide certain data to companies, such as Uber drivers providing location information, they still need the right to contest the programming logic behind automated decision making. Workers have a right not just to the raw data they provide, but to know how companies are using it. This means companies must be obliged to share code with workers, where that code is directly relevant to their work.

5. Innovative businesses that respect workers need space to flourish, and that can only happen if we take on capital concentration in the platform sector. Amazon alone has acquired enormous monopoly power over markets—and data—worldwide. The unprecedented nexus of capital concentration and big data hoarding are leading us to overall concentrations of power that leave citizens worldwide at risk.

The way forward with respect to some platforms may be to turn them into public utilities.

These companies will become too big to regulate. The Biden administration must break this nexus, or it will have no power to protect workers or citizens. The way forward with respect to some platforms may be to turn them into public utilities. In other cases, governments must break data monopolies on the principle that data is part of the public “commons.” If gig companies can’t make their business model work in ways favorable to the public interest, they should go out of business and clear the field for genuine innovators who aren’t simply making their profits off scofflaw practices.

President Biden’s inaugural address was clear-eyed about the unprecedented challenges his administration will face. The digital economy today is part of the problem and not the solution. It’s not too late to change that.

Bama Athreya

Bama Athreya is an Economic Inequality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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'100 Seconds to Midnight': Doomsday Clock Reveals Humanity Closer Than Ever to the Apocalypse

Citizens must "demand... that their governments reorder their priorities and cooperate... to reduce the risk of nuclear war, climate change, and other global disasters, including pandemic disease."

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The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' "Doomsday Clock"—an estimate of how close humanity is to the apocalypse—remains at 100 seconds to zero for 2021. (Photo: Eva Hambach/AFP via Getty Images)

One hundred seconds to midnight. That's how close humanity is to the apocalypse, and it's as close as the world has ever been, according to Wednesday's annual announcement from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group that has been running its "Doomsday Clock" since the early years of the nuclear age in 1947. 

"In 2020, online lying literally killed." 
—Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 

Although the scientists cite the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed 1.7 million people around the world and has "revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly," they acknowledge that the coronavirus does not pose an existential threat to Homo sapiens. 

However, nuclear weapons and, increasingly, catastrophic global heating caused and exacerbated by human activity—the climate crisis—do. 

"Accelerating nuclear programs in multiple countries moved the world into less stable and manageable territory last year," the scientists say. "Development of hypersonic glide vehicles, ballistic missile defenses, and weapons-delivery systems that can flexibly use conventional or nuclear warheads may raise the probability of miscalculation in times of tension."

"Events like the deadly assault earlier this month on the U.S. Capitol renewed legitimate concerns about national leaders who have sole control of the use of nuclear weapons," they say. "Nuclear nations, however, have ignored or undermined practical and available diplomatic and security tools for managing nuclear risks."

"By our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into nuclear war—an ever-present danger over the last 75 years—increased in 2020," they conclude. 

Thirty years ago, by contrast, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock to 17 minutes to midnight as the Soviet Union collapsed and the threat of thermonuclear annihilation ebbed to its lowest level since before the United States invented the atomic bomb and waged the only nuclear war in history against Japan in 1945. That was the year that Albert Einstein—who helped develop the first nuclear weapons—and other researchers formed the Bulletin.

Once again this year, the scientists stress that governments have also "failed to sufficiently address climate change," and although "a pandemic-related economic slowdown temporarily reduced the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming," much more needs to be done to rein in planetary warming. 

"Over the coming decade fossil fuel use needs to decline precipitously if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided," they state. "Instead, fossil fuel development and production are projected to increase. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record high in 2020, one of the two warmest years on record."

"The massive wildfires and catastrophic cyclones of 2020 are illustrations of the major devastation that will only increase if governments do not significantly and quickly amplify their efforts to bring greenhouse gas emissions essentially to zero," they warn. 

Another warning came in the form of the scientists' condemnation of what they call the "threat multiplier" of "false and misleading information," both online and in more traditional media. 

"This wanton disregard for science and the large-scale embrace of conspiratorial nonsense—often driven by political figures and partisan media—undermined the ability of responsible national and global leaders to protect the security of their citizens," the scientists posit. "False conspiracy theories about a 'stolen' presidential election led to rioting that resulted in the death of five people and the first hostile occupation of the U.S. Capitol since 1814."

"In 2020, online lying literally killed," they write. 

However, this year's report is not all gloom and doom. 

"The election of a U.S. president who acknowledges climate change as a profound threat and supports international cooperation and science-based policy puts the world on a better footing to address global problems," the scientists assert. "For example, the United States has already announced it is rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Biden administration has offered to extend the New START arms control agreement with Russia for five years."

"In the context of a post-pandemic return to relative stability, more such demonstrations of renewed interest in and respect for science and multilateral cooperation could create the basis for a safer and saner world," they write. 

"If humanity is to avoid an existential catastrophe—one that would dwarf anything it has yet seen—national leaders must do a far better job of countering disinformation, heeding science, and cooperating to diminish global risks."
—Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 

"We continue to believe that human beings can manage the dangers posed by modern technology, even in times of crisis," the researchers conclude. "But if humanity is to avoid an existential catastrophe—one that would dwarf anything it has yet seen—national leaders must do a far better job of countering disinformation, heeding science, and cooperating to diminish global risks."

Ultimately, the scientists say, it's up to "citizens around the world" to "organize and demand—through public protests, at ballot boxes, and in other creative ways—that their governments reorder their priorities and cooperate domestically and internationally to reduce the risk of nuclear war, climate change, and other global disasters, including pandemic disease."  

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Walter Bernstein Survived the Hollywood Blacklist – And Lived to Be 101

The screenwriter was my friend and my hero, a brave opponent of right-wing repression during a dark period of our history.

by Michael Winship
Published on Monday, January 25, 2021
by Common Dreams


Screenwriter Walter Bernstein (1919-2021) attends The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences Presents "Spotlight On Screenwriting: Hollywood's Darkest Moment: An Evening With Blacklisted Screenwriter Walter Bernstein And A Special 40th Anniversary Screening Of The Front" on June 7, 2016 in New York City. (Photo: Robin Marchant/Getty Images for Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences)

When the brilliant songwriter George Gershwin passed away, the writer John O'Hara famously declared that Gershwin had died on July 11, 1937, "but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to."

My friend and colleague Walter Bernstein died over the weekend and I don't have to believe it either.

You should know about Walter. He was 101 years old and lived a remarkable, courageous life of bounteous creativity and fierce political commitment right up to the end. For many years, we served together on the governing council of the Writers Guild of America East, and during the decade when I was its president especially, I thought of him as my consigliere, the person I could call on for sage counsel and reassurance when the union was in a scrape and needed help. Many, many others felt the same.

He would hear the arguments pro and con, and then from his vast well of experience come up with a simple, fair solution. Often, he'd sum up with a succinct line from an old vaudeville sketch he liked: "Pay the two dollars." In other words, sometimes you have to concede a minor point because otherwise, you'll wind up with a much bigger problem. Compromise isn't always the enemy of progress.

"The government wanted him to name names and Walter would not, and so he lived in the shadows for all those years, until a few brave souls in the industry broke the fever of the blacklist and began putting those falsely accused of disloyalty to country back on the payroll."

A noted writer for movies and TV, and a fervent political advocate, Walter's credits include Fail Safe (about a nuclear confrontation between the US and Russia), Semi-Tough (pro football and EST!), The Molly Maguires (a hell of a film about coal mines, labor and social justice) and The Front, perhaps the film closest to his heart and most resonant with his own life.

That's because Walter was one of the last living survivors of the Hollywood blacklist. During the 1950s into the early '60s, it was an ugly, unholy registry of writers, producers, performers and directors who were unofficially banned from working in the TV and movie industry because of their left-wing political views and affiliations.

The Front tells the story of a night cashier/part-time bookie, played by Woody Allen, who agrees to pose as the author of television scripts actually written by a group of writers who have to keep their identities hidden for fear of McCarthyism's fierce retribution. At first apolitical and cynical, over the course of the movie Allen's character slowly grows a spine and ends up in prison when he tells the House Un-American Activities Committee to do something I continue to believe is anatomically impossible.

In any case, see the movie. Walter tells the story much better than I do.

The Front was based on personal experience. During the blacklist, he wrote scripts under a variety of pseudonyms for such TV shows as Danger and You Are There, a series hosted by Walter Cronkite in which historical incidents, from the death of Socrates to the trial of Susan B. Anthony, were covered as news events.

Walter was a member of the American Communist Party until 1956 but quit after the Soviet invasion of Hungary and Premier Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin's atrocities. "I had left the Party," he wrote, "but not the idea of socialism, the possibility that there could be a system not based in inequality and exploitation."

There was nothing illegal about his party membership and he felt no need to disavow or apologize for his beliefs. But for eight years in films and eleven years in television, his political views were used against him to deny his livelihood. He was listed in a notorious Cold War publication called "Red Channels"—a list of "151 actors, writers, directors, producers, painters and musicians, together with their alleged Communist or Communist-front affiliations," Walter wrote in his fascinating memoir, Inside Out. "'Red Channels' became the bible of the blacklist movement. There were eight listings for me, all of them true…


I would have felt insulted if I had not been included. On the other hand, inclusion in 'Red Channels,' however honorable, meant an automatic blacklisting. No one ever questioned this; it was simply accepted by the networks and movie studios. There was no government edict behind it, no proof of illegality, moral turpitude or, even worse, lack of talent.


As Associated Press national writer Hillel Italie wrote in Walter's obituary, the result of this rabid anti-Communist paranoia, "ruined the lives of many of his peers and led some to suicide. Job offers to Bernstein were rescinded and onetime friends stopped speaking to him. FBI agents looked through his trash, showed up at his door and followed him outside."

The government wanted him to name names and Walter would not, and so he lived in the shadows for all those years, until a few brave souls in the industry broke the fever of the blacklist and began putting those falsely accused of disloyalty to country back on the payroll.

A native Brooklynite descended from Jewish immigrants, he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a movie nut from the start. Walter even was film critic for the Dartmouth College student newspaper, until he was fired for panning the movie Lost Horizon.

Six months of an intensive language course in pre-war Europe made him an eyewitness to the rise of fascism and helped stir his interest in communism as an alternative. Drafted in 1941, he served in the army during World War II and became a correspondent for the GI newspaper, Yank.

He scooped the world when he snuck behind enemy lines and interviewed Josip Broz Tito, the leader of partisan fighters against the Nazis and Yugoslavia's president for life. Framed in a bathroom in Walter's apartment is a page from a comic book that told the story of that adventure. Unfortunately, that journey was one of the things the political witch hunters used against him, citing it as evidence of treachery. Tito was, after all, a Communist.

The bathroom wall also displays a short letter from Harold Ross, the legendary founding editor of The New Yorker, written to the playwright and director Moss Hart, who had sent Ross a short piece of Walter's for publication. Walter wound up writing for the magazine both during and after the war.

His first trip to Hollywood came in 1947 when he went to work for the writer-director Robert Rossen. Rossen was in the middle of writing the screenplay for All the King's Men, novelist Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece about a Southern demagogue he modeled after Louisiana's Huey Long. The Hollywood Ten—a group of left-leaning writers, producers and directors—had just been called before the House Un-American Activities Committee but Walter knew he had done nothing seditious and thought he was low enough on the ladder to be safe. He was wrong.

My memories of Walter will include not only the many union meetings we shared but also the too few lunches and dinners, often with his wife the literary agent Gloria Loomis, including one for my 65th birthday. Each was stimulating, entertaining and infused with his characteristic wit and enthusiasm. He was a mentor and friend not only to me, my colleagues and many other screenwriters but also to the students he taught for years at NYU and the fledgling independent filmmakers at Robert Redford's Sundance Lab.

I also remember a train ride from New York to Washington with Walter and Victor Navasky, the wry and wonderful publisher emeritus of The Nation magazine. I was moderating and they were appearing on a panel at the National Press Club marking the 60th anniversary of the blacklist (Victor's book Naming Names is an essential history of the era). Walter was 88, Victor was 73 and I a boyish 56, but the laughter of our conversation—we tried to keep it down—almost got us kicked off the train's quiet car.

A decade ago, at the request of the Writers Guild Foundation, Walter and I sat down for a wide-ranging conversation about his life and career. You can view the whole thing here (or watch below):



And now he's gone. Walter lived just long enough to see Donald Trump come and blessedly go—for now, at least. Because if you don't think it can happen here, think again. It happened to Walter Bernstein.



Michael Winship is the Schumann Senior Writing Fellow for Common Dreams. Previously, he was the Emmy Award-winning senior writer for Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com, a past senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group Demos, and former president of the Writers Guild of America East. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelWinship
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