'A Real Threat to Democracy': Musk Buys Twitter for $44 Billion

"This isn't just some corporate takeover," said one critic. "This is about a set of very specific moves that our oligarchs have been taking that have gradually concentrated economic, political, and discursive power in fewer and fewer hands."


Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter for $44 billion on April 25, 2022, is seen in Grünheide near Berlin, Germany. 

(Photo: Patrick Pleul/ Pool/Getty Images)

JULIA CONLEY

April 25, 2022

Rights advocates, public health experts, and media critics were among those on Monday who warned that the purchase of Twitter by mega-billionaire Elon Musk, the world's richest person, creates a direct threat to democracy and the common good by putting the outsized power of the social media platform used by hundreds of millions worldwide into the hands of one man.

The social media company accepted Musk's offer to purchase Twitter for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share—leading some critics to note other ways the enormous sum of money could have been spent rather than on what Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) called "a vanity project boondoggle to silence" Musk's critics.

"Tax the rich," Garcia said on Twitter.

Musk's purchase has led to concern that former President Donald Trump's Twitter account will be reinstated. Trump was banned from the platform in January 2021 after violating its rules by inciting his followers to violently attack the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

"With control of such a massive platform comes great responsibility—and Musk hasn't shown he has the capacity to be accountable to this diverse online community."

"Musk hasn't just purchased another expensive play toy, but a global online community that includes about 330 million regular users," said Jessica Gonzalez, co-CEO of Free Press.

"With control of such a massive platform comes great responsibility—and Musk hasn't shown he has the capacity to be accountable to this diverse online community," she added, noting Musk's own history of using Twitter to "intimidate and disparage others, including journalists, elected officials, owners of competing businesses and anyone else who might challenge his views."

With Musk at the helm, said Gonzalez, Twitter must improve its content moderation practices and "stop amplifying bigotry and conspiracy theories that pollute public discourse, threaten the health and safety of users, and undermine democracy."

Musk has criticized Twitter's efforts to moderate the platform, saying early this month that he believes "it's just really important that people have the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law" and that "the civilizational risk is decreased the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform."

Journalist Anand Giridharadas said that by taking over Twitter and claiming he'll protect the platform as "the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk is "doing is what plutocrats have been doing... branding themselves the solution to the very problem they are."

"This isn't just some corporate takeover," said Giridharadas. "This is about a set of very specific moves that our oligarchs have been taking that have gradually concentrated economic, political, and discursive power in fewer and fewer hands."

As Media Matters reported Monday, right-wing politicians in the U.S. have been in favor of Musk's purchase since he first offered to buy the platform earlier this month. On Friday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) led 18 House Republicans in writing to Twitter's board of directors, demanding that the board preserve all records related to Musk's bid.

"The right's propagandists had celebrated Musk's bid as a way to garner political gain by ending the company's purported political censorship," reported senior fellow Matt Gertz. "Then its elected GOP champions, responding to hesitation from and when Twitter's board, raised the prospect of a costly congressional investigation if his offer wasn't accepted."



While Twitter was a large and powerful company before Musk's takeover was announced, said Sana Saeed of Al Jazeera, the purchase "does underscore an unnerving trend—the ability of a single man to purchase something that impacts hundreds of millions (beyond users) in order to influence it in his own image."

"It's less than great when billionaires own sports teams—which bind communities together—as their playthings," said Robert Weissman, president of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. "Having a billionaire own Twitter—a vital platform for communication and community—as his plaything is far more serious. It's a real threat to democracy."

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Progressive Twitter accounts lose followers, conservatives gain

2022/4/27 
© Agence France-Presse

Elon Musk has struck a deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion

San Francisco (AFP) - Key figures on the American left, Barack Obama among them, have shed thousands of followers since Elon Musk's planned purchase of Twitter emerged, while numbers have soared for right-wing politicians.

Musk, the world's richest man, struck a deal Monday to buy the US-based social media platform for $44 billion.

The news was greeted with enthusiasm by fans of Musk, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, and horror by proponents of strong moderation of disinformation and hate speech.

Promises to leave the platform trended under hashtags such as #LeaveTwitter. Within hours, many appeared to be following through.

Former US president Obama, the most popular person on Twitter with more than 131 million followers, lost 300,000 of them nearly overnight, according to news outlet NBC.

Controversial Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, by contrast, gained nearly 100,000 to her official congressional Twitter account in just 24 hours.

Greene, a vocal ally of former president Donald Trump whose personal profile was banned by the platform, praised the acquisition.

"Prepare for blue check mark full scale meltdown after @elonmusk seals the deal and I should get my personal Twitter account restored," she tweeted, referencing the site's system for verifying users.

"It really is something how conservative accounts are getting massive follower increases today," Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, another Trump ally, said Tuesday.

Twitter on Tuesday told AFP that while they were monitoring the situation, the fluctuations appeared to be organic and largely due to new accounts being created and existing ones deactivated.

The exodus extended beyond political accounts.

"It's strange to see a loss of some 35,000 followers overnight," the Auschwitz Memorial account posted Tuesday. The profile, which has 1.3 million followers, tweets photos and stories of concentration camp victims.

Musk has said he wants to increase trust in Twitter, which he sees as a digital town square for free speech and debate.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted Monday that "Elon's goal of creating a platform that is 'maximally trusted and broadly inclusive' is the right one."

He thanked Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal "for getting the company out of an impossible situation.

"This is the right path...I believe it with all my heart."

Free speech or hate speech? Fears for Musk's Twitter

2022/4/26 
© Agence France-Presse

In this file photo taken on April 14, 2022 In this photo illustration, a phone screen displays the Twitter account of Elon Musk with a photo of him shown in the background, on April 14, 2022, in Washington, DC

New York (AFP) - Elon Musk describes himself as a "free-speech absolutist," leaving rights groups fearful that Twitter will provide a forum for hate speech and disinformation under his ownership.

The world's richest man has signaled that, following his $44 billion takeover, he intends to reform what he sees as over-zealous policing of tweets.

Civil activists are worried that means Musk, 50, will allow banned extremists back to the platform.

"The last thing we need is a Twitter that willfully turns a blind eye to violent and abusive speech against users, particularly those most disproportionately impacted, including such as women, non-binary persons, and others," Michael Kleinman, technology and human rights director at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.

Like other social media networks, Twitter has struggled against disinformation, bullying and hate-fuelled content in recent years.

It has banned numerous users for promoting violence or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

High-profile people removed from the platform include former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and ex-president Donald Trump.

Twitter has also cracked down on lies about Covid-19 and removed thousands of accounts linked to the far-right "QAnon" movement, whose followers believe Trump is waging a secret war against a global liberal cult of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

Many conspiracy theorists joined newer, far-right-friendly platforms such as Gab and Parler.

Trump, who was banned after the assault on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6 last year as they sought to overturn the 2020 US presidential election result, vowed not to return to Twitter even if Musk reinstated him.

But conservatives, who have long complained about social media platforms being run by Silicon Valley-based liberals, are heralding libertarian Musk's deal.

"I am hopeful that Elon Musk will help rein in Big Tech's history of censoring users that have a different viewpoint," tweeted Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn.

Derrick Johnson, CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said that while "free speech is wonderful, hate speech is unacceptable."

"Do not allow Twitter to become a petri dish for hate speech, or falsehoods that subvert our democracy. Protecting our democracy is of utmost importance, especially as the midterm elections approach," he said.
Moderation

In Brussels, the International Federation of Journalists echoed that call, expressed concern that the billionaire would damage media freedoms "by exacerbating opportunities to attack journalists" on the site.

IFJ general secretary Anthony Bellanger said Twitter, which has 400 million users, "must be duly moderated, while respecting freedom of speech."

Experts say that once at the helm, Musk may find that staying true to his free speech instincts isn't so simple.

In the European Union for example, Twitter will have to comply with the new Digital Services Act, a major piece of EU legislation ensuring tougher consequences when platforms host banned content.

"He's going to have to have some form of content moderation policy. That's going to be challenging for Musk," New York University politics and media expert Joshua Tucker told AFP.

The entrepreneur will also be wary about making too many changes that contribute to users flocking away from the site, analysts say.

"If it becomes a place of hateful content and it chases away journalists, then it loses its value," Karen North, professor of digital social media at the Annenberg journalism school in California told AFP.

Musk has not specified exactly what restrictions he intends to roll back, but stated in a tweet Tuesday that he is "against censorship that goes far beyond the law."

"If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people," he added.

BIDEN DID NOT PARDON LEONARD PELTIER

Biden Urged to 'Do Better' After Pardoning or Commuting Sentences of Just 78 People

"This early use of clemency power is a good first step in the long road to end mass incarceration, but there is a lot more work to be done if the president is to fulfill his commitment to justice and equity."


JESSICA CORBETT

April 26, 2022

After U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday used his clemency powers for the first time—well over a year into his presidency—criminal justice reform advocates called on him to go even further to tackle mass incarceration.

"If we are to be a nation of second chances and justice for all, then the president must lead through his action—and clemency is a powerful way to lead."

Biden announced in a statement that he was pardoning three people and commuting the sentences of 75 others with nonviolent drug offenses. The president also revealed new steps his administration is taking "to support those reentering society after incarceration."

Framing Biden's pardons and commutations as "just modest steps," Inimai Chettiar, federal director of the advocacy group Justice Action Network, encouraged him "to meet the urgency of the moment."

"President Biden ran on a promise to help end mass incarceration, and he has broad public support for that promise," Chettiar told the Associated Press.

Noting that many people impacted by Biden's moves fit into categories called for by the ACLU's Redemption Campaign, an effort to free 50,000 people from U.S. prisons, Cynthia W. Roseberry, deputy director of the group's Justice Division, also welcomed the announcement while urging him to take more action.

Various polls "have shown that voters support the president using his clemency powers in a bold manner," she pointed out. "This early use of clemency power is a good first step in the long road to end mass incarceration, but there is a lot more work to be done if the president is to fulfill his commitment to justice and equity."

"In a poll soon to be released by the ACLU, there is broad support for the president to grant clemency," she continued. "Americans from all political ideologies support giving people a second chance. If we are to be a nation of second chances and justice for all, then the president must lead through his action—and clemency is a powerful way to lead."

Roseberry highlighted that the United States is responsible for "20% of the world's prison population despite comprising only 5% of the global population, with Black people 10 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses than anyone else."

"At a cost of $80 billion annually, the carceral system is a behemoth albatross for justice and equality," she said. "The grant of clemency plus the initiatives announced as wraparound services is essential to returning people to their communities and to their families."

As Biden detailed Tuesday, the services include "a new collaboration between the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Labor to provide job training; new grants for workforce development programs; greater opportunities to serve in federal government; expanded access to capital for people with convictions trying to start a small business; improved reentry services for veterans; and more support for healtcare, housing, and educational opportunities."

Biden granted pardons to Abraham W. Bolden Sr., an 86-year-old former U.S. Secret Service agent; Betty Jo Bogans, a 51-year-old convicted of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine; and Dexter Jackson, a 52-year-old convicted for using his business to facilitate the distribution of marijuana.


The president explained that he was pardoning three people "who have demonstrated their commitment to rehabilitation and are striving every day to give back and contribute to their communities."

"I am also commuting the sentences of 75 people who are serving long sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, many of whom have been serving on home confinement during the Covid pandemic—and many of whom would have received a lower sentence if they were charged with the same offense today, thanks to the bipartisan First Step Act," Biden added, referencing legislation signed into law by his predecessor.

"While today's announcement marks important progress," he said, "my administration will continue to review clemency petitions and deliver reforms that advance equity and justice, provide second chances, and enhance the well-being and safety of all Americans."
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Afghan-American Groups Challenge Illegal Seizure of Billions by US

"The seizure of funds would be a deep and grave injustice adding to the continued suffering for the Afghan people that would be felt for generations," said one rights advocate.


Severely malnourished Afghan children fill the therapeutic feeding wards at the Indira Ghandi Institute of Child Health, a state hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, on January 18, 2022.

 (Photo: Scott Peterson/Getty Images)

JULIA CONLEY

April 26, 2022

Condemning the Biden administration's seizure of U.S.-held Afghanistan Central Bank funds as "a deep and grave injustice" that will worsen the humanitarian crisis already being suffered by millions of Afghans, several civil society groups have filed official statements in federal court demanding President Joe Biden's executive order regarding the funds be overturned.

"Releasing these funds back to the Afghan people is a critical step in addressing the conditions imposed on Afghans."

As Afghans For A Better Tomorrow (AFBT) said in a statement released Monday, the group joined Project ANAR, Afghan-American Community Organization (AACO), and Global Advocates for Afghanistan (GAA) in filing an amicus brief in the Southern District of New York last week, demanding the U.S. government release $3.5 billion in Central Bank reserves so they can be used to alleviate hunger and poverty for Afghan households.

"The Afghan people have suffered injustice after injustice—including having to endure brutal Taliban oppression and the seizure of Afghan reserves, leading to the world's worst humanitarian disaster," said Arash Azizzada, co-director for AFBT. "The seizure of funds would be a deep and grave injustice adding to the continued suffering for the Afghan people that would be felt for generations."



Last year after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban quickly took control of the country, the Biden administration froze $7.1 billion that the previous Afghan government had placed in the New York Federal Reserve.

In February, Biden signed an executive order allocating half of the money for humanitarian relief in Afghanistan but seizing the other half and holding it for families who lost loved ones on September 11 and have brought cases against the Taliban.

"It would be both unlawful and profoundly unjust to turn over assets belonging to the Afghan people to satisfy judgments against a terrorist-designated group."

The remaining $3.5 billion must go to supporting the people of Afghanistan, said the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which is representing the Afghan civil society groups in federal court.

"The 9/11 families should be able to enforce their judgments—against the Taliban, with the Taliban's funds," said Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at CCR. "It would be both unlawful and profoundly unjust to turn over assets belonging to the Afghan people to satisfy judgments against a terrorist-designated group."

The seizure of the funds is worsening a humanitarian emergency "in a country where U.S. and European sanctions are compounding suffering caused by decades of war and misrule," said CCR.

Instead of holding the Taliban accountable, the groups said, the U.S. seizure of the funds has only exacerbated Afghanistan's economic crisis and plunged millions of people into a humanitarian catastrophe. Last month, the United Nations reported that half of Afghanistan's nearly 39 million people are facing acute hunger, "including nine million in a state of emergency food insecurity—the highest number in the world."

GAA reported last week that "Afghan parents are selling their organs in order to secure the next meal for their families."

"Subjecting the entire population of Afghanistan to further suffering by taking Afghan resources can and must be avoided," said Sadaf Doost, co-founder of the group.

By the second half of 2022, 97% of Afghans are expected to be living "well below the poverty line," according to the International Rescue Committee.

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'Death Sentence for Untold Numbers of Civilians': Biden to Permanently Seize Afghan Assets

Jon Queally

"Every day, we speak to clients who are still in Afghanistan and their situation grows more dire by the moment," said Laila Ayub, co-director of Project ANAR. "Releasing these funds back to the Afghan people is a critical step in addressing the conditions imposed on Afghans."

Separately last week, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows also filed an amicus brief opposing the Biden administration's seizure of the $3.5 billion.

"This money does not belong to the Taliban or to 9/11 families," said the group in February. "The money belongs to the people of Afghanistan. Cut off from the world financial system and deprived of its central bank funds by the U.S. and its allies, the Afghan economy is being crippled. The freezing of these funds means that wages aren't being paid, money is not flowing, and the economy is in free-fall."

Turning the $3.5 billion over the 9/11 families would also elevate the status of the Taliban, which is not internationally recognized as the government of Afghanistan, said CCR.

"It would implicitly recognize them as the owner of sovereign assets, granting them a status that not only contravenes U.S. foreign policy but harms the [Afghan civil society] organizations and the millions of other Afghans who are suffering a humanitarian and human rights crisis under the Taliban," said the group.
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Brazil Court Deals Blow to Massive Amazon Gold Mine Project

One prosecutor called the ruling "another victory for the Indigenous and riverine people of Volta Grande do Xingu," who "know that a mining project can have devastating impacts on the region."

An Indigenous Brazilian man holds a sign reading "Take mining out of the forest urgently" during the March 9, 2022 #AtoPelaTerra (Stand Up for Earth) protest in Brasília, Brazil. 

(Photo: Sergio Lima/AFP via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS

April 26, 2022

Environmental and Indigenous rights defenders on Tuesday welcomed a Brazilian court ruling that will continue to block a Canadian company from building what would be the South American nation's largest open-pit gold mine in the Amazon rainforest.

"Belo Monte already has had a major impact on the Xingu. A second project could mean the death of the local peoples."

In a 3-0 decision, the Federal Regional Court of Brasília on Monday upheld the suspension of an environmental license for Belo Sun Mining Corp., affirming a 2017 ruling that found the company failed to adequately consult with Indigenous peoples on the social and environmental impacts of an $800 million project located in the Volta Grande do Xingu region in the state of Pará.

"My community wasn't consulted about the Belo Sun project," Lorena Curuaia, a leader from Iawa village, told the Associated Press.

Referring to the world's third-largest hydroelectric dam—located just 12 miles from the proposed mine site—Curuaia added: "Belo Monte already has had a major impact on the Xingu. A second project could mean the death of the local peoples."



Federal prosecutor Felício de Araújo Pontes Jr. called the ruling "another victory for the Indigenous and riverine people of Volta Grande do Xingu," who "know that a mining project can have devastating impacts on the region."

"The judgment shows the resilience of this population," he told the AP.

Advocacy groups warn that Indigenous peoples—including Juruna, Arara, Kuruaya, Xipaia, and others—would suffer serious direct impacts from the Volta Grande project.

As the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) detailed:

According to experts, the Belo Sun mining project in Volta Grande do Xingu has serious structural flaws which were not clearly presented to the impacted communities during the consultation process. Environmental impact studies carried out by the mining company disregard both the potential seismic impacts on the tailings dam that needs to be built and the cumulative impacts it would cause along with the dam of the Belo Monte plant.

The dam designed for the mine would be similar in size to the Vale dam that collapsed in Mariana in 2015, causing Brazil's biggest environmental disaster. A report by an expert in geology and mining, Dr. Steven H. Emerman, claims that at least nine million cubic meters of toxic mining waste could reach the Xingu River and travel more than 40 kilometers in two hours, causing irreversible damage. These tailings could contain highly toxic metals, such as cyanide, arsenic, and mercury, which could lead to ecocide of the Xingu River.

"Other studies point to impacts such as changes in the reproductive cycle of fauna, deforestation and/or burning, pollution of water resources, and soil contamination," AIDA added.

The court ruling came as a series of bills backed by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's right-wing president and self-described "Captain Chainsaw," advance through the National Congress. If passed, critics say the so-called "package of destruction" would allow mining on Indigenous lands, relax restrictions on the use of pesticides, and encourage illegal logging and land seizures.

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House Dems Back Marijuana Industry Workers in Unionizing Push

"Workers need economic security and fair treatment in the workplace, and cannabis workers are no different," said one union representative recently.


A customer makes a purchase at Sunnyside Cannabis Dispensary on January 1, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo: Kamil Krzaczynsi/AFP via Getty Images)


JULIA CONLEY

April 26, 2022

Workers in the marijuana industry joined union representatives and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday for a round table discussion about a growing push to organize workplaces in the sector and about federal legislation to protect workers' rights in all industries.

Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Donald Norcross (D-N.J.). met with employees from marijuana businesses in New Jersey, where legal sales for recreational use began last week.

Recreational use of marijuana has now been legalized in at least 18 states, with the pace of decriminalization picking up in recent years.

At the same time, workers at Amazon, Starbucks, John Deere, and other workplaces have garnered national attention for forming labor unions and staging strikes to demand fair pay, stronger safety protections, and a say in decision-making.

"I think that one of the things we look at is the cannabis industry really is prime for organizing right now—just like you're seeing with Starbucks, just like you're seeing with Amazon," Pocan told Marijuana Moment ahead of the round table.

Hourly workers in cultivation and retail in the industry earn $15 per hour on average, according to a 2021 survey.

"We're here to basically talk from the perspectives of those workers, budtenders... who are trying to make a career out of it, trying to earn a livable wage, get earned time off that coincides with the amount of time that they spend at the facility, " said one worker named Emilio who attended the round table discussion.

"The cannabis industry really is prime for organizing right now—just like you're seeing with Starbucks, just like you're seeing with Amazon."

Cannabis workers in St. Louis and Manistee, Michigan have voted this month to join the United Food & Commercial Workers, becoming the first dispensary employees in each state to unionize.

At Root 66 in St. Louis, the eight budtenders who voted to unionize had concerns about a lack of consistent company policies and policy changes, no paid time off for sick leave or vacation, and low wages.

"Cannabis workers across the country are voting to join a union because they know it's the best way to secure good wages and benefits on the job," said UFCW Local 655 President Dave Cook after the vote in St. Louis on April 4. "Workers need economic security and fair treatment in the workplace, and cannabis workers are no different."

Pocan and Norcross, both union members themselves, have advocated for passage of the PRO Act, which the U.S. House passed in 2020 but which has been held up in the Senate due to right-wing opposition and the legislative filibuster.

The legislation "will help all sectors and make it easier for people who want to have an election actually be able to get an election and be able to form a union,” Pocan told Marijuana Moment.

"I think you have potential to see that with the cannabis industry, and that's a good thing," he said. "When people are organized, depending on the position, it's like $3,000 to $8,000 more they can make simply by being a member of a unionized business in cannabis."

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Jared Kushner Sold Out to Saudis for $2 Billion and Nobody Seems to Care

Have we all been witnessing a young con-man walk away with billions after selling out Yemen, Khashoggi, and the U.S.? 

With virtually no questions from Congress or the mainstream media?


Jared Kushner listens as then-President Donald Trump visits his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, November 3, 2020. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)


THOM HARTMANN

April 26, 2022

After President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother as Attorney General, Republicans freaked out and passed an anti-nepotism law against presidents hiring family members.

After Kushner met in secret with MBS, America's ally and the ruler of Saudi Arabia MBN was arrested and thrown into prison where he remains to this day.

When Donald Trump put Jared Kushner into the White House (even after he failed a security clearance), his Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel ruled, essentially, that Trump could ignore the law.

Saudi Arabia was then run by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (MBN), the grandson of the nation's founder, King Abdulaziz; MBN's father, Nayef bin Abdulaziz, had run the country before him.

Like his father and grandfather, MBN was tight with US intelligence agencies and committed to a stable long-term relationship with the United States and Europe.

When Trump came into office in 2017, MBN's cousin, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was merely one of many Saudi princes jockeying for position and power in the kingdom.

At the time Trump appointed Kushner in 2017, US intelligence and the State Department were concerned that if MBS were to overthrow MBN the consequences could be unpredictable for the United States. Kushner, with his new security clearance in hand, would have had access to that information.

Things were getting wild in the kingdom.

MBS wanted to overthrow MBN, and, according to some extraordinary reporting from Vicki Ward (who's Substack newsletter is worth subscribing to), Jared saw an opportunity to go around US interests and help MBS overthrow and imprison his cousin so MBS could seize control of the Kingdom and its more than $700 billion:

"Four well-placed sources," she reports, "say that the primary reason Kushner has now received $2 billion is that he helped MBS depose MBN, knowing that this went directly against what U.S. intelligence wanted or thought was good for national security. (Kushner has always said he did not give U.S. intelligence to the Saudis.)"

Suddenly, the news was full of stories about members of the Saudi royal family who were being held by security forces in fancy hotels, some being tortured and a few even "vanished."

After Kushner met in secret with MBS, America's ally and the ruler of Saudi Arabia MBN was arrested and thrown into prison where he remains to this day.

As a result, Jared's buddy MBS now runs the kingdom and controls its money.

David Ignatius of the Washington Post noted a few weeks after MBS began arresting his royal political foes, apparently using information from inside US intelligence agencies:


"It was probably no accident that last month, Jared Kushner, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, made a personal visit to Riyadh. The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy."

Did Jared sell out American interests for $2 billion?

It was with MBS that President Trump negotiated a 2.2 million-barrels-a-day production cut in 2020, when the pandemic had crashed demand for oil.

It was MBS who reportedly said he had Jared "in his pocket."

It was MBS who reportedly had Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi murdered and dismembered by an assassination squad when visiting a Saudi embassy to get a visa to marry his fiancé.

And, the New York Times notes, it was Jared who was there for MBS when he needed a friend on the inside: "As the killing set off a firestorm around the world and American intelligence agencies concluded that it was ordered by Prince Mohammed [MBS], Mr. Kushner became the prince's most important defender inside the White House…"

It's MBS who The Wall Street Journal reports is now moving his country "closer" to Russia and China to "punish" President Joe Biden.

It's also MBS who's today refusing to take President Biden's calls about restoring that oil production, which would reduce oil prices and relieve much of the political pressure now on Biden and Democrats as we head toward the 2022 and 2024 elections.

Have we all been witnessing a young con-man walk away with billions after selling out Yemen, Khashoggi, and the United States? With virtually no questions from the mainstream media or Congress?

The son of a professional grifter (Charles Kushner, who was pardoned by Trump) and a minor slumlord, Jared is said to have gotten advice from a PR professional when his father went to prison. Ben Walsh noted for Huffington Post that Jared's dad tells the story that his PR friend advised Jared:

"Step one: Buy a New York newspaper. Don't be too particular…. Any newspaper will do. Step two: Buy a big Manhattan building. Any building will do. Step three: Marry the daughter of a rich New York family. Anyone will do."

Jared, the story goes, then purchased the New York Observer newspaper, overpaid for the 666 Fifth Avenue office building just down the street from Trump Tower, and, now impressively credentialed as a Serious Guy, hooked up with Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka.

From there it was a straight shot to the White House and then cashing in with $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, authorized by MBS, who had to override his investment advisors to hand the cash to Jared.

Which is a crime.

Our Constitution contains two emoluments clauses, both forbidding officials from taking gifts from foreign governments. The most well-known one (in Article II) forbids presidents from taking what could be bribes; the second, from Article I of the Constitution, forbids such behavior by anybody working in the federal government without the explicit permission of Congress:

"[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

As the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes:

"The purpose of the Foreign Emoluments Clause is to prevent corruption and limit foreign influence on federal officers. The Clause grew out of the Framers' experience with the European custom of gift-giving to foreign diplomats, which the Articles of Confederation prohibited. Following that precedent, the Foreign Emoluments Clause prohibits federal officers from accepting foreign emoluments without congressional consent."

History will tell us if Jared Kushner sold out his country and damaged prospects for peace in the world by helping MBS rise to power and then push Saudi Arabia toward Russia, just to get his hands on a few billion dollars.

But that history is being written today, and if there was ever a scandal more worthy of a DOJ and congressional investigation than Benghazi or Hillary's emails, this is it.

This article first appeared at the Hartmann Report and appears here with permission.

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THOM HARTMANN

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print.

NATO NATION BUILDING; LIBYA
Casualties of America's Never-Ending Global War on Terror

The civilian deaths you haven't heard about.

A boy stands before ruins in Benghazi's old city on February 4, 2019 in Libya.

 (Photo: Giles Clarke/UNOCHA via Getty Images)

NICK TURSE

April 26, 2022 

by TomDispatch

Madogaz Musa Abdullah still remembers the phone call. But what came next was a blur. He drove for hours, deep into the Libyan desert, speeding toward the border with Algeria. His mind buckled, his thoughts reeled, and more than three years later, he's still not certain how he made that six-hour journey.

"What I saw was so terrible," he told me, his voice rising, ragged, and loaded with pain. "I can't even describe it."

The call was about his younger brother, Nasser, who, as he told me, was more than a sibling to him. He was also a close friend. Nasser was polite and caring. He loved music, sang, and played the guitar. Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Bob Marley were his favorites.

Abdullah finally found Nasser near the village of Al Awaynat. Or, rather, he found all that remained of him. Nasser and 10 others from their village of Ubari had been riding in three SUVs that were now burnt-out hunks of metal. The 11 men had been incinerated. Abdullah knew one of those charred corpses was his brother, but he was at a loss to identify which one.

If these bodies had recently been found strewn about in the village of Staryi Bykiv, in the streets of Bucha, outside a train station in Kramatorsk, or elsewhere in Ukraine where Russian forces have regularly killed civilians, the images would have been splashed across the Internet, earning worldwide attention and prompting fierce—and justified—outrage. Instead, the day after the attack, November 29, 2018, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) issued a press release that was met with almost universal silence.

"In coordination with the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), U.S. Africa Command conducted a precision airstrike near Al Awaynat, Libya, November 29, 2018, killing eleven (11) al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorists and destroying three (3) vehicles," it read. "At this time, we assess no civilians were injured or killed in this strike." Photos of the aftermath of the attack, posted on Twitter that same day, have been retweeted less than 30 times in the last three and a half years.

Ever since then, Abdullah and his Tuareg community in Ubari have been insisting to anyone who would listen that Nasser and the others riding in those vehicles were civilians. And not just civilians, but GNA veterans who had fought terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and even, alongside the United States two years earlier, the Islamic State in the city of Sirte. For more than three years now, despite public protests and pleas to the Libyan government for an impartial investigation, the inhabitants of Ubari have been ignored. "Before the strike, we trusted AFRICOM. We believed that they worked for the Libyan people," Abdullah told me. "Now, they have no credibility. Now, we know that they kill innocent people."

Hellfire in Libya

Earlier this month, Abdullah, along with a spokesperson for his ethnic Tuareg community and representatives of three nongovernmental organizations—the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Italy's Rete Italiana Pace e Disarmo, and Reprieve, a human rights advocacy group—filed a criminal complaint against Colonel Gianluca Chiriatti, the former Italian commander at the U.S. air base in Sigonella, Italy, from which that American drone took off. They were seeking accountability for his role in the killing of Nasser and those other 10 men. The complainants requested that the public prosecutor's office in Siracusa, where the base is located, prosecute Colonel Chiriatti and other Italian officials involved in that air strike for the crime of murder.

"The drone attack of 29 November 2018 where 11 innocent people lost their lives in Libya is part of the broader U.S. program of extrajudicial killings. This program is based on a notion of pre-emptive self-defense that does not meet the canons of international law, as the use of lethal attacks of this nature is only legitimate where the state is acting to defend itself against an imminent threat to life. In this circumstance, the victims posed no threat," reads the criminal complaint. "In light of this premise, the drone attack on Al Awaynat on 29 November 2018 stands in frontal contrast to the discipline, Italian and international, regarding the use of lethal force in the context of law enforcement operations."

For the last two decades, the United States has been conducting an undeclared war across much of the globe, employing proxy forces from Africa to Asia, deploying commandos from the Philippines to the West African nation of Burkina Faso, and conducting air strikes not only in Libya, but in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Over those years, the U.S. military has taken pains to normalize the use of drone warfare outside established war zones while relying on allies around the world (as at that Italian base in Siracusa) to help conduct its global war.

"Clearly, a drone operation employing lethal force is not routine," said Chantal Meloni, legal advisor at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. "While AFRICOM is directly responsible, the Italian commander must have known about and approved the operation and can therefore be criminally responsible as an accomplice for having allowed the unlawful lethal attack."

That November 2018 drone attack in Libya was anything but a one-off strike. During just six months in 2011, alone, U.S. MQ-1 Predator drones flying from Sigonella conducted 241 air strikes in Libya during Operation Unified Protector—the NATO air campaign against then-Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi—according to retired Lt. Col. Gary Peppers, the former commander of the 324th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron. The unit was responsible, he told The Intercept in 2018, for "over 20 percent of the total of all Hellfire [missiles] expended in the 14 years of the system's deployment."

The U.S. air war in Libya accelerated in 2016 with Operation Odyssey Lightning. That summer, the Libyan Government of National Accord requested American help in dislodging Islamic State fighters from Sirte. The Obama administration designated the city an "area of active hostilities," loosening guidelines designed to prevent civilian casualties. Between August and December of that year, according to an AFRICOM press release, the U.S. carried out in Sirte alone "495 precision airstrikes against Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices, heavy guns, tanks, command and control centers, and fighting positions."

The Shores of Tripoli

Those military strikes were nothing new. The United States has been conducting attacks in Libya since before there even was a Libya—and almost a United States. In his first address to Congress in 1801, President Thomas Jefferson spoke of coastal kingdoms in North Africa, including the "least considerable of the Barbary States," Tripoli (now, the capital of modern Libya). His refusal to pay additional tribute to the rulers of those kingdoms in order to stop their state-sponsored privateers from seizing American sailors and cargo kicked off the Barbary Wars. In 1804, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a daring nighttime mission, boarding a captured U.S. ship, killing its Tripolitan defenders, and destroying it. And an attack the next year by nine Marines and a host of allied mercenaries on the North African city of Derna ensured that "the shores of Tripoli" would have prime placement in the Marine Corps hymn.

Libya has also been a long-time proving ground for new forms of air war. In November 1911—107 years to the month before that drone attack killed Nasser Musa Abdullah—Italian Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti conducted the world's first modern airstrike. "Today I have decided to try to throw bombs from the aeroplane," he wrote in a letter to his father, while deployed in Libya to fight forces loyal to the Ottoman Empire. "I take the bomb with my right hand, pull off the security tag and throw the bomb out, avoiding the wing."

Gavotti not only pioneered the idea of launching air raids on troops far from the traditional front lines of a war, but also the targeting of civilian infrastructure when he bombed an oasis that served as a social and economic center. As Thomas Hippler put it in his book Governing from the Skies, Gavotti introduced aerial attacks on "hybrid target[s]" that "indifferently mingled civilian and military objectives."

More than a century later, in 2016, Operation Odyssey Lightning again made Libya ground zero for the testing of new air-war concepts—in this case, urban combat involving multiple drones working in combination with local troops and U.S. Special Operations forces. As one of the drone pilots involved was quoted as saying in an Air Force news release: "Some of the tactics were created and some of the persistent attack capabilities that hadn't been used widely before were developed because of this operation."

According to Colonel Case Cunningham, commander of the 432nd Expeditionary Wing at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada—the headquarters of the Air Force's drone operations—about 70% of the MQ-9 Reaper drone strikes conducted during Odyssey Lightning were close-air-support missions backing up local Libyan forces engaged in street-to-street combat. The drones, he reported, often worked in tandem with one another, as well as with Marine Corps attack helicopters and jets, helping guide the airstrikes of those conventional aircraft.

"The Deaths of Thousands of Civilians"

Despite hundreds of attacks in support of the Libyan Government of National Accord, the employment of U.S. proxies in counterterrorism missions, combat by American commandos, and more than $850 million in U.S. assistance since 2011, Libya remains one of the most fragile states on earth. Earlier this year, President Biden renewed its "national emergency" status (first invoked by President Barack Obama in 2011). "Civil conflict in Libya will continue until Libyans resolve their political divisions and foreign military intervention ends," wrote Biden, failing to mention the U.S. "foreign military intervention" there, including that November 2018 airstrike. "The situation in Libya continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

In early 2021, the Biden administration imposed limits on drone strikes and commando raids outside of conventional war zones, while launching a review of all such missions, and began writing a new "playbook" to govern counterterrorism operations. More than a year later, the results, or lack thereof, have yet to be made public. In January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed subordinates to draw up a "Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Plan" within 90 days. That, too, has yet to be released.

Until the Defense Department overhauls its airstrike policies, civilians will continue to die in attacks. "The U.S. military has a systemic targeting problem that will continue to cost civilians their lives," said Marc Garlasco, formerly the Pentagon's chief of high-value targeting—in charge, that is, of the effort to kill Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein in 2003—and now, the military adviser for PAX, a Dutch civilian protection organization. "Civilian deaths are not discrete events; they are symptoms of larger problems such as a lack of proper investigations, a faulty collateral-damage estimation methodology, overreliance on intelligence without considering open-source data, and a policy that does not recognize the presumption of civilian status."

Such "larger problems" have been revealed again and again. Last March, for example, the Yemen-based group Mwatana for Human Rights released a report examining 12 U.S. attacks in Yemen, 10 of them airstrikes, between January 2017 and January 2019. Its researchers found that at least 38 Yemeni noncombatants had been killed and seven others injured in those attacks.

A June 2021 Pentagon report on civilian casualties did acknowledge one of those incidents, the death of a civilian in al-Bayda, Yemen, on January 22, 2019. Mwatana's investigation determined that the attack killed Saleh Ahmed Mohamed al Qaisi, a 67-year-old farmer who locals said had no terrorist affiliations. The U.S. had previously acknowledged four to 12 civilian deaths in a raid by Navy SEALs on January 29, 2017, also chronicled by Mwatana (though it reported a higher death toll). As for the remaining allegations, Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, told Mwatana in an April 2021 letter that it was "confident that each airstrike hit its intended Al Qaeda targets and nothing else."

Rigorous investigative reporting by the New York Times on the last U.S. drone strike of the Afghan War in August 2021 forced an admission from the Pentagon. What General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had originally deemed a "righteous strike" had actually killed 10 civilians, seven of them children. A subsequent Times investigation revealed that a 2019 U.S. airstrike in Baghuz, Syria, had killed up to 64 noncombatants, a toll previously obscured through a multilayered cover-up. The Times followed that up with an investigation of 1,300 reports of civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria, demonstrating, wrote reporter Azmat Khan, that the American air war in those countries was "marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government's image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs."

Since the Sirte campaign ended in late 2016, U.S. attacks in Libya have slowed considerably. AFRICOM conducted seven declared airstrikes there in 2017, six in 2018, four in 2019, and none since. But the U.S. military has made little effort to reevaluate past strikes and the civilian casualties they caused, including the November 2018 attack that killed Nasser Musa Abdullah. "U.S. Africa Command followed the civilian casualty assessment process in place at the time and determined that the reports were unsubstantiated," said AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan. Despite the criminal complaint filed on April 1st, the command is not reexamining the case. "There is nothing new or different regarding the Nov 30, 2018 airstrike," Cahalan told me by email.

Africa Command has clearly moved on, but Abdullah can't. Memories of his brother and those charred bodies are irrevocably lodged in his mind but get caught in his throat. "I was in shock," he told me when discussing the phone call that preceeded his dash across the desert. "I'm so sorry, but I can't explain in words what I felt."

Abdullah was similarly stuck when he attempted to describe the grisly scene that greeted him hours later. He was eloquent in speaking about the justice he seeks and how being branded a "terrorist" robbed his brother and their community of dignity. But of his final memory of Nasser, there is simply nothing that can be said, not by him anyway. "What I saw was so terrible," he told me, his voice rising, ragged and loaded with pain. "I can't even describe it."

© 2021 TomDispatch.com


NICK TURSE

Nick Turse is the Managing Editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Type Media Center. His latest book is "Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan" (2016). He is the author/editor of several other books, including: "Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa" (2015); "Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam" (2013); "The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Spies, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyber Warfare" (2012); "The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives" (2009); and "The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan" (2010). Turse was a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute. His website is www.Nick Turse.com.

Global Military Spending Tops $2 Trillion for First Time in History

"If global leaders actually care about charting a more secure future, then we need a massive realignment in spending priorities," said one prominent peace group.


U.S. warplanes and the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan are seen during a deployment in the Indian Ocean on June 32, 2021. 

(Photo: U.S. Pacific Fleet/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0)

BRETT WILKINS

April 25, 2022

Global military expenditures surpassed $2 trillion for the first time ever last year, with the United States spending more on its war-making capacity than the next nine nations combined, according to new data published Monday.

"Spending 12 times as much on our military as Russia didn't prevent a war in Europe. It just deprived us of resources at home."

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in worldwide military spending for 2021, a 0.7% increase from 2020 levels and the seventh straight year of increased expenditures.

"Even amid the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels," SIPRI senior researcher Diego Lopes da Silva said in a statement. "There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%."

Tori Bateman, policy advocacy coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, said that "this year, we've seen how military spending fails to keep us safe. It's shameful that governments, especially the United States, continue to destabilize our world with more weapons, while failing to address climate change, public health, and other true global crises."

"It's time for the United States, and world leaders everywhere, to cut military spending and commit to solving our problems for real," she added.

With $801 billion—or 38% of total global military spending—the United States spent more in 2021 than the next nine nations combined: China ($293 billion), India ($76.6 billion), the United Kingdom ($68.4 billion), Russia ($65.9 billion), France ($56.6 billion), Germany ($56 billion), Saudi Arabia ($55.6 billion), Japan ($54.1 billion), and South Korea ($50.2 billion).

U.S. funding for military research and development increased by nearly a quarter between 2012 and 2021, while arms procurement expenditures fell by 6.4% over that same period, a trend that "suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies," according to SIPRI researcher Alexandra Marksteiner.

"The U.S. government has repeatedly stressed the need to preserve the U.S. military's technological edge over strategic competitors," she added.

The latest SIPRI analysis comes weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden rejected progressive lawmakers' calls for Pentagon spending cuts and asked Congress to green-light more than $813 in new military spending for the next fiscal year—a $31 billion increase from current levels.

That amount includes nearly $146 billion for the procurement of new weaponry, including Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, Northrup Grumman B-21 bombers, and Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast attack submarines manufactured by General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

The new SIPRI report also comes as some of the largest U.S. weapons makers are gearing up for what is expected to be a big earnings week as the West's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine—providing Ukrainian forces with billions of dollars in weaponry—fuels arms industry profits.

Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, recently noted that "spending 12 times as much on our military as Russia didn't prevent a war in Europe. It just deprived us of resources at home."

"Even during a pandemic, supply chain crisis, and painful inflation, we'll put more resources into the military and war than public health, education, green jobs, affordable housing, scientific and medical research, child care, and every other domestic need—combined," she wrote. "This special treatment for the Pentagon recklessly squanders precious resources that could be used to strengthen our families and communities against our compounding crises at home."

Last week, an analysis by In These Times and Zain Rizvi at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen revealed that the U.S. has spent 7.5 times more money on nuclear weapons than on global Covid-19 vaccine donations, despite Biden's pledge that "America will become the arsenal of vaccines as we were the arsenal of democracy during World War II."

"What's keeping us safe," asked Koshgarian, "Is it maintaining this huge nuclear stockpile or delivering these vaccines?"

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

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PERMANENT+ARMS+ECONOMY+

The Earth Day We Shut Down the Weapons Makers at Pratt & Whitney

Our rally not only emphasized the war machine production of Pratt and Whitney, but also called attention to its effect on the climate emergency.


We rallied, we paraded, and we performed a direct action. 

(Photo: Reject Raytheon AVL/Facebook)

KEN JONES

April 26, 2022

It was an Earth Day to remember. On a beautiful sunny spring day, our local citizen coalition Reject Raytheon in Asheville, NC pulled off a three-part demonstration for the protection of the earth and earthlings and against the US military-industrial complex. We rallied, we paraded, and we performed a direct action.

In the park, over 50 of us came together to call for conversion from the war economy to one that addresses the climate emergency.

The event on Friday, April 22, began at 10 am in the Bent Creek River Park, on the banks of the French Broad River. The park sits exactly next to the new bridge being built for the 1.2 million square foot Pratt and Whitney plant and in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge over the river. Across the river from the park is a dirt road, called Old River Road, that provides access to the many trucks coming and going from the plant every day. On this morning, it was busy, full of power and commerce.

In the park, over 50 of us came together to call for conversion from the war economy to one that addresses the climate emergency. The theme of the gathering was Windmills Not War Machines. We had a number of speakers describe the dangers of the Pratt & Whitney plant and also what a better economic development plan for the Asheville area could look like.

Pratt and Whitney is wholly owned by Raytheon Technologies, the second largest war corporation in the world. Its new plant here will be making airfoil turbines for jet engines that will be used by both military and commercial aircraft. The military engines are for notorious fighter jets like the F-35 and F-16, which are sold for wars all over the world, including in Yemen and Palestine. Sales of these weapons have soared with the onset of the war in Ukraine. This is a war profiteer coming to our community.

Our rally not only emphasized the war machine production of Pratt and Whitney, but also called attention to its effect on the climate emergency. What we don’t need in this urgent time is more fossil fuel intensive jet engines, even if they are for commercial use, and even if they are supposedly more efficient.

At the end of our rally, the Brass Your Heart social justice marching band led the group on a parade. With music, chants, banners, and signs, we moved from the park up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we crossed the bridge to the other side of the river. It was festive as well as pointed.

While the parade was in process, eight of us took a position on the Old River Road and blockaded the oncoming construction traffic from both directions. Five of us spanned the entire road with a 20 foot banner that said “Make Wind Turbines, Not War Machines.” Another held a smaller banner that said, “Pratt and Whitney Fans the Flames of Climate Emergency.” And two of us stood in front and behind the blockade with the stop-sign shaped message: “No War Industry.”

As our parading friends came to the end of the bridge, they stood above us waving, cheering, and singing along with the band. Construction traffic came to a halt and backed up for as far as the eye could see.

Amazingly, this stoppage lasted a full two hours. Biltmore Farms, which owns all the surrounding land and donated 100 acres to Pratt & Whitney for its plant, sent its security guards very quickly. They said we were on private property and threatened to have us arrested. Truck drivers walked up to us with a range of emotions from anger to sympathy to amusement. Soon the site was swarming with confused workers and authority figures. Eventually, the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) came and asked us to leave. When we didn’t, a prolonged series of phone calls ensued.

As we found out later, there was an uncertainty about jurisdiction. We were actually on the National Park Service (NPS) easement for the Blue Ridge Parkway, not on Biltmore Farms private property. Technically, this meant that NPS was the proper authority to remove us. It apparently was decided that they would ask BCSO to take charge.

We huddled up and decided on door #2: we took citations and walked away. We are hoping for our day in court where we can tell why we did this direct action and what is at stake with this war industry plant getting built.

It was probably also the case that executives from both Biltmore Farms and Pratt & Whitney were discussing how to handle this situation in a way that would get them the least amount of negative publicity.

What this amounted to was a 2-hour shut down of business-as-usual for the corporations bringing a war industry to our county. It was just a small victory for us earth protectors, but still a moment to savor on Earth Day.

The decision the police finally made was to give us a choice. We could just walk away with no charges, we could walk away with a citation for misdemeanor trespass, or we could get arrested and taken to jail. We huddled up and decided on door #2: we took citations and walked away. We are hoping for our day in court where we can tell why we did this direct action and what is at stake with this war industry plant getting built. A trial will be a means of continuing to raise public awareness about it.

And it’s not just this one plant. What we also know is that Jack Cecil, owner of Biltmore Farms, is working with the local Chamber of Commerce to bring more businesses like Pratt & Whitney into this area. Some 1,000 acres have been set aside for an industrial park that will likely be centered on the toxic aerospace industry. The gas pipeline just put in by Dominion Energy will service not just Pratt and Whitney, but also the companies now being actively recruited to come here. The new interstate exchange on I-26 will likewise serve this future development.

Say goodbye to a lot more trees and worry about the health of the French Broad River. Pratt and Whitney is just the beginning of this Biltmore Farms project. It is like the anchor store in a mall. It is being used to attract others of the same ilk.

This is why Reject Raytheon is calling not just for conversion of this plant that is now nearing completion, but for a moratorium on any more approvals for industries that are connected to the military-industrial-fossil fuel monster that is devouring our earth and making life untenable for us and our children and grandchildren.

We who stood in the road are not the criminals here. The criminals are those who are making profits from the destruction of life on this planet. It is they who should be on trial and that is what we intend to do if we get our day in court. We, the Earth Day 8, hope you will follow us in solidarity.

We will also keep on showing up in the streets to raise the alarm. Ever since we found out in October, 2020 that the Buncombe County commissioners voted to give $27 million in tax incentives to Pratt & Whitney, we have been crying foul. But it’s even worse than that. If you take into account all the subsidies provided to this huge multinational corporation - state, local, and private - it comes to over $100 million. Think about how much we need that money for the many human needs of our community.

And don’t be deceived about the jobs being promised. Yes, there will be jobs, but there is no actual guarantee about how many nor who will get them. And we know very well that we would have many more jobs than the 800 they tout (counted cumulatively, over 10 years) if we put that same $100M into clean energy, education, health, housing - literally anything other than the military-industrial complex. Why would anyone think that a huge corporation like Raytheon cares about anything other than its own profits, notwithstanding all of its local greenwashing and public relations efforts?

It is this prioritizing of profits over people that we need to change. Visit Reject Raytheon’s website for more information.

Forward together for Mother Earth and for us, her children.

The Earth Day 8, who all live in and around Asheville, NC, are:

Rachael Bliss, 76, writer and founder of WNC4Peace
Claire Clark, 40, labor organizer and LGBTQ activist
Padma Dyvine, 72, retired nurse, healthcare and climate activist
Ken Jones, 73, retired professor of teacher education and VFP member
Steve Norris, 78, grandfather, carpenter, teacher, activist
Lyle Peterson, 73, blacksmith and founding member of VFP chapter
Gerry Werhan, 68, retired Medical Service Corps officer and VFP chapter president
Greg Yost, 55, former high school teacher and zip line guide

This Asheville action was one of 30+ events around the country carried out in a week of mobilization sponsored by the War Industry Resisters Network.

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

KEN JONES

Ken Jones is a retired professor of teacher education living in Swannanoa, NC.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PERMANENT+ARMS+ECONOMY+