CRIMINAL CYBER CAPITALI$M
Google ordered to pay $43 million by Australian court for misleading users
August 13, 2022
Australia's Federal Court has ordered Google to pay A$60 million ($42.7 million) in penalties for misleading users on collection of their personal location data, reports Reuters.
The court found Google breached Australia’s Consumer Law between January 2017 and December 2018 by misleading customers about location data collected through their Android devices.
The court previously found that Google had breached the Australian Consumer Law by representing to some Android users that a setting titled “Location History” was the only setting that affected whether Google used personally identifiable data about a user’s location. However, another Google account setting — “Web & App Activity” — also enabled Google to collect, store and use personally identifiable location data, according to Australia’s Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC.)
Sunday, August 14, 2022
OP-ED
THE MASKED SINGER (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSER): U.S. POLICY IN MACEDONIA
Читај на македонски
PRESS RELEASE
MHRMI, KARAKAMISHEVA-JOVANOVSKA LAUNCH EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS CASE TO OVERTURN FORCED MACEDONIA NAME CHANGE
THE MASKED SINGER (HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSER): U.S. POLICY IN MACEDONIA
Читај на македонски
August 13, 2022
It's a New Kind of Reality Competition
Human rights abuses must be condemned no matter the perpetrator. But that is not the American way. The American way is to condemn abuses unless they’re committed by the United States or a U.S.-backed proxy.
Continuing the “American way” theme, I’ve found a new way of exposing U.S. foreign policy hypocrisy – a reality TV competition! Let’s play The Masked Human Rights Abuser:
For those unfamiliar with the premise: we’ll conceal the identity of the abuser; outline the abuse; conduct a vote on whether it should be condemned; then we expose the abuser, aka “the big reveal”! A second vote, testing hypocrisy, is then held.
Ready? Round One!
The contestant, along with members of the brutal regime in Macedonia, forcibly holds female opposition MPs in chambers and threatens to arrest their family members unless they agree to follow instructions on upcoming votes in order to benefit the contestant’s country and their “strategic partners”.
Your vote? Guilty? You are correct! And the perpetrator is…U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily!
American foreign policy dictates that you immediately change your vote and either ignore the abuse, deny it, spin it to justify it, and, of course, blame [insert current U.S. enemy here].
But will you defend human rights or only if the oppressor and oppressed suit you? If you answered the latter, your ideal career path is: U.S. politician or political pundit.
But why would Baily do this? To force through the Macedonia name change to the highly offensive “North Macedonia” (designed to eradicate Macedonian identity, culture and history), thus appeasing Greece’s demand to change Macedonia’s name and removing its veto of Macedonia’s U.S.-imposed NATO membership bid. The benefit for the U.S.? Increased NATO membership and U.S. imperialism! The benefit for Greece? American assistance in fulfilling its number one policy directive — denying the existence and persecution of its large Macedonian minority and eradicating the existence of Macedonians as an ethnic group!
Ready for Round Two? Let’s go!
Macedonians are protesting against U.S. foreign interference and the upcoming forced name change. The contestant orders riot police to attack, brutally beat, and arrest civilians. Intimidation, threats, attacks, and arrests continue daily. Macedonians are sentenced to 15 years in prison, subject to abhorrent conditions, and are targets of more beatings in jail.
The contestant who ordered the attacks is guilty? Of course!
It is actually contestants, plural, and they are both U.S. political parties, the U.S. State Department, U.S. Embassy in Macedonia, and the U.S.-installed regime in Macedonia!
Again, do you change your vote or do you stand up for human rights? U.S. foreign policy dictates that you defy logic and invent ridiculous charges to ensure that human rights defenders are locked up — because they stand in the way of racist U.S. foreign policy. For bonus points, use the exact charges that the U.S. condemns as fabricated in [insert current U.S. enemy country here].
We could go on with rounds and rounds of The Masked Human Rights Abuser — I even had a lightning round ready in case of a tie — but I think we all agree: human rights abuses must be condemned no matter the perpetrator. Now, act on it. Condemn U.S. abuses and interventionism. Defend Macedonians’ right to exist.
Bill Nicholov, President
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
twitter.com/billnicholov
It's a New Kind of Reality Competition
Human rights abuses must be condemned no matter the perpetrator. But that is not the American way. The American way is to condemn abuses unless they’re committed by the United States or a U.S.-backed proxy.
Continuing the “American way” theme, I’ve found a new way of exposing U.S. foreign policy hypocrisy – a reality TV competition! Let’s play The Masked Human Rights Abuser:
For those unfamiliar with the premise: we’ll conceal the identity of the abuser; outline the abuse; conduct a vote on whether it should be condemned; then we expose the abuser, aka “the big reveal”! A second vote, testing hypocrisy, is then held.
Ready? Round One!
The contestant, along with members of the brutal regime in Macedonia, forcibly holds female opposition MPs in chambers and threatens to arrest their family members unless they agree to follow instructions on upcoming votes in order to benefit the contestant’s country and their “strategic partners”.
Your vote? Guilty? You are correct! And the perpetrator is…U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily!
American foreign policy dictates that you immediately change your vote and either ignore the abuse, deny it, spin it to justify it, and, of course, blame [insert current U.S. enemy here].
But will you defend human rights or only if the oppressor and oppressed suit you? If you answered the latter, your ideal career path is: U.S. politician or political pundit.
But why would Baily do this? To force through the Macedonia name change to the highly offensive “North Macedonia” (designed to eradicate Macedonian identity, culture and history), thus appeasing Greece’s demand to change Macedonia’s name and removing its veto of Macedonia’s U.S.-imposed NATO membership bid. The benefit for the U.S.? Increased NATO membership and U.S. imperialism! The benefit for Greece? American assistance in fulfilling its number one policy directive — denying the existence and persecution of its large Macedonian minority and eradicating the existence of Macedonians as an ethnic group!
Ready for Round Two? Let’s go!
Macedonians are protesting against U.S. foreign interference and the upcoming forced name change. The contestant orders riot police to attack, brutally beat, and arrest civilians. Intimidation, threats, attacks, and arrests continue daily. Macedonians are sentenced to 15 years in prison, subject to abhorrent conditions, and are targets of more beatings in jail.
The contestant who ordered the attacks is guilty? Of course!
It is actually contestants, plural, and they are both U.S. political parties, the U.S. State Department, U.S. Embassy in Macedonia, and the U.S.-installed regime in Macedonia!
Again, do you change your vote or do you stand up for human rights? U.S. foreign policy dictates that you defy logic and invent ridiculous charges to ensure that human rights defenders are locked up — because they stand in the way of racist U.S. foreign policy. For bonus points, use the exact charges that the U.S. condemns as fabricated in [insert current U.S. enemy country here].
We could go on with rounds and rounds of The Masked Human Rights Abuser — I even had a lightning round ready in case of a tie — but I think we all agree: human rights abuses must be condemned no matter the perpetrator. Now, act on it. Condemn U.S. abuses and interventionism. Defend Macedonians’ right to exist.
Bill Nicholov, President
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
twitter.com/billnicholov
PRESS RELEASE
MHRMI, KARAKAMISHEVA-JOVANOVSKA LAUNCH EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS CASE TO OVERTURN FORCED MACEDONIA NAME CHANGE
July 26, 2022
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International has launched another case in the European Court of Human Rights, the latest being in conjunction with Tanja Karakamisheva-Jovanovska, Full Professor of Macedonian Constitutional Law.
Leading up to, and as a result of the forced name change — illegally imposed by the regime in Macedonia through the "Prespa Agreement" — serious violations of human rights have been committed against Macedonians and continue to increase exponentially.
At its core, the illegal, forced name change violates multiple human rights conventions to which Macedonia has ratified, is in direct violation of Macedonian and international law, the Macedonian constitution, parliamentary rules and procedures, and thus, has no standing.
Further, the forced name change is a direct cause of the vast human rights violations being committed against Macedonians and, as such, MHRMI and Karakamisheva-Jovanovska seek to overturn it and reinstate Macedonia's name based on, and by invoking, the following Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, all of which the regime continuously violates:Protocol 1, Article 2 - The right to education
Article 3 – Prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
Article 6 – Right to a fair trial
Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
Article 9 – Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
Article 10 – Freedom of expression
Article 13 – Right to an effective remedy
Article 14 – Prohibition of discrimination
Professor Karakamisheva-Jovanovska explains:
"Human rights and the need for their constant and consistent affirmation and protection is a motive for action from every reasonable human being. When human rights, whether individual or collective, are blatantly trampled upon, the most natural human reaction is to embark on their unreserved protection. Hence, the world should understand that we, the Macedonians will never give up our Macedonian identity, our Macedonian language, our history and civilization, our past, present, future. At a time when the existence of the Macedonian people and the Macedonian language is most brazenly denied by European institutions and European states, there is no other way but to express resistance to these actions and loudly protest against this cultural genocide. In the 21st century, it is impermissible to change the identity of a nation just because of the whims of that nation's neighbours. We call on the international community to defend our rights to be who we are - Macedonians from Macedonia."
Trajche Torov, the lawyer retained by MHRMI and Karakamisheva-Jovanovska in this case and by MHRMI in other, ongoing ECHR cases, describes the latest court case:
"The forced name change also caused a forced identity change on all Macedonians, and, for a person living in the Republic of Macedonia, such as Karakamisheva-Jovanovska, a forced change of her identity on her personal documents, censorship of her thoughts as an author, writer, and educator, a profoundly negative impact on the mindset of her children, the censorship of their school books and change of their curriculum to suppress any expression of Macedonian identity, the removal and desecration of Macedonian cultural and historical monuments, limitations imposed on the Macedonian language, and mass foreign interventionism in executing the ban on expressing Macedonian ethnic identity and self-determination. Karakamisheva-Jovanovska first sought protection by the domestic Constitutional Court, but due to its clear lack of impartiality and independence from the regime, her case was expressly rejected. So we now lodged a case in front of the European Court of Human Rights. We hope that the ECHR will protect her human rights and stop the modern-day cultural genocide of Macedonians."
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) has been active on human and national rights issues for Macedonians and other oppressed peoples since 1986. MHRMI demands respect for Macedonia's name, identity and human rights for oppressed Macedonians in the Balkans.
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International has launched another case in the European Court of Human Rights, the latest being in conjunction with Tanja Karakamisheva-Jovanovska, Full Professor of Macedonian Constitutional Law.
Leading up to, and as a result of the forced name change — illegally imposed by the regime in Macedonia through the "Prespa Agreement" — serious violations of human rights have been committed against Macedonians and continue to increase exponentially.
At its core, the illegal, forced name change violates multiple human rights conventions to which Macedonia has ratified, is in direct violation of Macedonian and international law, the Macedonian constitution, parliamentary rules and procedures, and thus, has no standing.
Further, the forced name change is a direct cause of the vast human rights violations being committed against Macedonians and, as such, MHRMI and Karakamisheva-Jovanovska seek to overturn it and reinstate Macedonia's name based on, and by invoking, the following Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, all of which the regime continuously violates:Protocol 1, Article 2 - The right to education
Article 3 – Prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
Article 6 – Right to a fair trial
Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
Article 9 – Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
Article 10 – Freedom of expression
Article 13 – Right to an effective remedy
Article 14 – Prohibition of discrimination
Professor Karakamisheva-Jovanovska explains:
"Human rights and the need for their constant and consistent affirmation and protection is a motive for action from every reasonable human being. When human rights, whether individual or collective, are blatantly trampled upon, the most natural human reaction is to embark on their unreserved protection. Hence, the world should understand that we, the Macedonians will never give up our Macedonian identity, our Macedonian language, our history and civilization, our past, present, future. At a time when the existence of the Macedonian people and the Macedonian language is most brazenly denied by European institutions and European states, there is no other way but to express resistance to these actions and loudly protest against this cultural genocide. In the 21st century, it is impermissible to change the identity of a nation just because of the whims of that nation's neighbours. We call on the international community to defend our rights to be who we are - Macedonians from Macedonia."
Trajche Torov, the lawyer retained by MHRMI and Karakamisheva-Jovanovska in this case and by MHRMI in other, ongoing ECHR cases, describes the latest court case:
"The forced name change also caused a forced identity change on all Macedonians, and, for a person living in the Republic of Macedonia, such as Karakamisheva-Jovanovska, a forced change of her identity on her personal documents, censorship of her thoughts as an author, writer, and educator, a profoundly negative impact on the mindset of her children, the censorship of their school books and change of their curriculum to suppress any expression of Macedonian identity, the removal and desecration of Macedonian cultural and historical monuments, limitations imposed on the Macedonian language, and mass foreign interventionism in executing the ban on expressing Macedonian ethnic identity and self-determination. Karakamisheva-Jovanovska first sought protection by the domestic Constitutional Court, but due to its clear lack of impartiality and independence from the regime, her case was expressly rejected. So we now lodged a case in front of the European Court of Human Rights. We hope that the ECHR will protect her human rights and stop the modern-day cultural genocide of Macedonians."
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) has been active on human and national rights issues for Macedonians and other oppressed peoples since 1986. MHRMI demands respect for Macedonia's name, identity and human rights for oppressed Macedonians in the Balkans.
For more information: 1-416-850-7125,
info@mhrmi.org, mhrmi.org, twitter.com/mhrmi, facebook.com/mhrmi, instagram.com/MacedonianHumanRights
#OurNameIsMacedonia
OP-ED
US SUPPORTS CULTURAL GENOCIDE IN MACEDONIA AND IMPRISONMENT OF DISSIDENTS AS PART OF ITS GEO-STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT WITH GREECE
OP-ED
US SUPPORTS CULTURAL GENOCIDE IN MACEDONIA AND IMPRISONMENT OF DISSIDENTS AS PART OF ITS GEO-STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT WITH GREECE
May 24, 2022
But few Americans seem to know or care
Article by MHRMI President Bill Nicholov published in US anti-imperialism media outlet Covert Action Magazine (CAM), dedicated to exposing US covert action worldwide:
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/05/23/u-s-supports-cultural-genocide-in-macedonia-and-imprisonment-of-dissidents-as-part-of-its-geo-strategic-alignment-with-greece/
[Note from the Editors of Covert Action Magazine: CAM uses the name “Macedonia”—rather than the imposed “North Macedonia”—as we respect the Macedonian people’s right to self-determination and their own name, identity and history.]
Macedonian girl calling for the release of her father, a political prisoner jailed for opposing the U.S.-installed regime in Macedonia.
The former U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily, presided over the imprisonment of the father of the girl featured in the above photo.
Baily did the same for riot police attacks on innocent civilians, threats against their families, election fixing, shutting down media and imposing prison sentences for journalists, blocking social media access for individuals and media outlets, firing thousands of Macedonians from public and private sector jobs, outlawing and criminalizing the use of the term “Macedonia”, investigating and intimidating Macedonian civilians including physical attacks and arson, and yes, imprisoning even more Macedonians and subjecting them all to abhorrent prison conditions.
Their “crime”? Opposing U.S. interventionism in Macedonia and the U.S. policy of eradicating Macedonia’s name, identity, culture and history in order to appease our oppressors.
You would oppose U.S. policy too.
In one of Baily’s most infamous acts, he and several members of the U.S.-installed regime in Macedonia held female opposition MPs in parliamentary chambers against their will, blackmailed and threatened them and their family members with imprisonment until they followed orders to vote to change Macedonia’s name.
But how could all of this be a policy of the self-proclaimed “global leader in spreading democracy and human rights”? One could also ask why the U.S. formerly viewed Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden as allies, why they overthrow governments worldwide, and why they either invade or start proxy wars and kill millions of innocent civilians.
The short—and only—answer is imperialism. Nothing will stand in the way of the United States imposing its will on the rest of the world. Not human rights, innocent lives, basic decency. Nothing.
In Macedonia’s case, the United States deemed it a priority to increase NATO membership at any cost so it sided with Greece and its campaign—publicly admitted and celebrated—of cultural genocide against Macedonians. As part of the United States’ policy to expand its influence and empire, it has an important military base on Crete and wanted to especially fortify ties with the Greek government after its relations with Turkey began to fray.
Greece had pledged to veto Macedonia’s U.S.-imposed NATO membership bid unless its name was changed, and everything Macedonian was eradicated.
Vast human rights abuses against an entire ethnic group? Of course the United States was in. And they were not alone.
Macedonian prison where political prisoners are housed. [Source: republika.mk]
Bulgaria saw Greece’s “success” so, in a ramp-up of their own generations-old campaign of cultural genocide against Macedonians, they pledged to veto Macedonia’s Western-imposed European Union membership bid unless even more of its own anti-Macedonian demands were met, and they even threw in attacks against Jews in the region.
As a result of Greece and Bulgaria’s Western-enabled anti-Macedonian campaigns, there are now multiple treaties that outline how Macedonians are “permitted” to define ourselves. As I said on a panel discussion on Turkey’s international news channel, TRT World, “There is a 19-page document telling me who I am. Does this seem normal?”
This document is, ironically, known as the “Prespa Agreement”, and was overwhelmingly rejected by Macedonians in a referendum on September 30, 2018. In it, Article 7(2) officially hands over the term “Macedonia” to Greece, and renders the entire Macedonian population in Aegean Macedonia (annexed by Greece in 1913) as non-existent. Article 8(5) mandates that a panel of Greek diplomats rewrite Macedonian history and that Macedonian textbooks be rewritten to officially remove any trace of our existence.
Protest in Macedonia against the forced name change. The sign displays the slogan of Macedonian Human Rights Movement International: “Nobody has the right to change our name and identity – Our Name Is Macedonia”
Bulgaria’s demands include additions to the ironically named “Agreement on Friendship and Good Neighbourliness,” which renounces the existence of Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia (annexed by Bulgaria in 1913), and declarations that Macedonians never existed and are “really Bulgarian.” They also rewrite Macedonian—and Jewish—history to erase any reference to Bulgarian persecution of Macedonians, including the removal of any reference to Bulgaria’s alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II, occupation of Macedonia, and deportation of more than 7,000 Macedonian Jews to the Treblinka death camp in Poland.
Adolf Hitler receives King Boris III of Bulgaria at his headquarters following the collapse of Yugoslavia, April 25, 1941. [Source: wikipedia.org]
How do the U.S., NATO and EU respond? By calling on (read: threatening) Macedonia to “compromise.” Leading up to the forced name change, a slew of international interventionists, including EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, multiple U.S. Secretaries of Defense and Secretaries of State—both Democratic and Republican—have all visited Macedonia to issue blatant threats. The common message, “Change your name or else.”
Subsequently, as per Western orders, every applicable Macedonian and international law, parliamentary rule, constitutional law, human rights convention, and even a referendum, were all violated or ignored to force through the name change to the highly offensive “North Macedonia,” a name specifically designed to eradicate Macedonians’ ethnic identity.
Forget “silence is complicity”; in the West’s case, they are blatantly and “proudly” complicit. And Western media follow their leaders/bosses.Politico EU described a Bulgarian politician’s speech denying Macedonians’ ethnic identity as“a very long and emotional”one.
Politicochose to side with notorious human rights abuser Bulgaria, convicted more than a dozen times by the European Court of Human Rights, in its position to deny Macedonians their basic rights to self-determination and self-identification. And without reservation or condemnation, Reuters published Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva’s statement outlining Bulgaria’s chilling policy regarding Macedonians:
“Our concerns come from the never-ending claims for a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. The acknowledgment of Bulgarian roots would put an end to this.”
Ekaterina Zakharieva [Source: wikimedia.org]
Replace Macedonians (our oppressors are trying to) with any other ethnic group and there would be an immediate outcry in defence of human rights. Do Macedonians not count? Not in the Western world’s eyes. Macedonians are clearly expendable in the West’s supposed campaign to “defend human rights and self-identification.” These policies have prompted me to ask every leader, foreign minister, politician, diplomat, bureaucrat and journalist I’ve ever met—“You wouldn’t give away your ethnic identity, so why should Macedonians?”
The shocking irony is that, after Macedonia’s partition in 1913 among Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and, in 1919, Albania, and each country brutally denying the existence of the “M” word and trying to wipe out any trace of Macedonia and Macedonians, Greece suddenly, in 1988, began claiming that the name “Macedonia” belonged to them. Greek officials, including former Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis, even admitted in 1995 that the so-called “name dispute” had nothing to do with Macedonia’s name, but everything to do with hiding Greece’s policy of denying the existence—and cultural genocide—of the large Macedonian minority in Greece.
Constantine Mitsotakis [Source: wikipedia.org]
This led me to ask another question of the aforementioned group:“What would happen if the English claimed that the names of Indigenous groups belonged to them — does that mean colonization and brutalization of Indigenous lands and people didn’t happen?”This is exactly what Greece will have you believe about Macedonia and Macedonians. They’re selling the idea that, if you own the name, identity and history of the oppressed, no oppression could possibly have occurred.
Many more analogies spring to mind and I have asked them all of several political leaders, including Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. One of my “favourites” is an analogy to France, as French governments have traditionally been unabashedly anti-Macedonian and pro-Greek (and now pro-Bulgarian): I’ve asked what they would do if Germany demanded that France change its name to “West France,” declare that the name “France” now belongs to Germany, as does the French identity, language and culture and, let’s not forget to add the revision of French history to declare that Nazi Germany did not invade, occupy and brutalize France, and that it was an “administrator” and “liberator” of France. Welcome to Macedonia’s world.
Back to the ringleader—the United States. The U.S. State Department officials I have met with know all of this—and they do not care. As they have told me, they “execute the direction of the president.” Execute being the key word. Since the beginning of the United States’ foreign policy switch almost eight decades ago to being outwardly interventionist, Macedonians have experienced all of the weapons in the U.S. arsenal, both literally and figuratively.
Little did my family know that, soon after this photo was taken during World War II, the US and UK would start bombing Macedonian villages–in support of Greek fascism.
Despite being on the Allied side in both world wars, Macedonians were the target of U.S. and UK terror after World War II because these “beacons of democracy” chose to aid Greece, its ruling Nazi-supporting fascists, and its policy of complete eradication of Macedonians in its pursuit of creating a country that is “culturally pure” and rid of anyone “inferior.”
If a country aligns with U.S. and UK foreign policy, despite mimicking Nazi tactics and committing genocide, they will support it. And did they ever. The U.S. and UK dropped bombs all over the Aegean part of Macedonia (annexed by Greece earlier in the century)—deliberately targeting civilians—and murdering countless Macedonians, many members of my family included.
The U.S. has since expanded its terrorist repertoire to include modern methods of cultural genocide while still employing “classic” methods of invasion, occupation and murder (or getting a U.S. proxy to do the dirty work) in many countries. (Side note: You can see that the UK started obeying its American little brother long before the Iraq invasion and “WMD” debacle.)
Now to more of the United States’ modern methods: Before Jess Baily’s assault on Macedonia, the United States had gone through a myriad of ambassadors executing its united Democratic/Republican anti-Macedonian policy (see, bipartisanship does exist!).
This policy included: a) starting a civil war; b) supporting neo-Nazi Albanian separatist groups; c) granting them amnesty despite being convicted of terrorism and murder; and d) awarding them with high-level government posts (the more kills, the higher the post). This all lay the groundwork for: a) the forced Macedonia name change; b) forced Macedonia NATO membership; c) increased U.S. imperialism; and d) eventually (possibly not that far off), another partition of Macedonia’s territory.
Albanian separatists supported by the U.S. [Source: kosovo.net]
And since Baily’s departure from Macedonia, the U.S. has replaced him with other sadistic stooges, who are also not shy about their goals to eradicate Macedonians’ ethnic identity, including the enabling of daily anti-Macedonian hate speech and crackdown on Macedonians’ rights by Greek and Bulgarian government officials, and enabling physical attacks by Greek and Bulgarian secret police and neo-Nazis (yet again) against their large Macedonian minorities.
We have seen what happens to Macedonians in Macedonia when they oppose U.S. policy. But what happens to Macedonians abroad? We become the targets of an executive order by Joe Biden banning critics from entering, and owning property in, the United States.
Well, you can cross the U.S. off my list of potential vacation destinations as this executive order puts me on the U.S. blacklist—for having the “audacity” to stand up for the human rights that they claim to defend. Biden has now joined the United States’ anti-Macedonian “strategic partner” Greece, which blacklisted me two decades earlier. Originality is not his strong suit.
But being blacklisted is a blessing. It keeps me from seeing Joe Biden and subsequent U.S. presidents and their minions from preaching/lying to the world in person. As I have asked so many of them,“How do you sleep at night?”And since I am on an inquisitive theme, I will leave you with this and ask those who claim to defend democracy, human rights and the rule of law,“How long will you keep letting the United States, literally, get away with murder?”
Bill Nicholov, President
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
twitter.com/billnicholov
But few Americans seem to know or care
Article by MHRMI President Bill Nicholov published in US anti-imperialism media outlet Covert Action Magazine (CAM), dedicated to exposing US covert action worldwide:
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/05/23/u-s-supports-cultural-genocide-in-macedonia-and-imprisonment-of-dissidents-as-part-of-its-geo-strategic-alignment-with-greece/
[Note from the Editors of Covert Action Magazine: CAM uses the name “Macedonia”—rather than the imposed “North Macedonia”—as we respect the Macedonian people’s right to self-determination and their own name, identity and history.]
Macedonian girl calling for the release of her father, a political prisoner jailed for opposing the U.S.-installed regime in Macedonia.
The former U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily, presided over the imprisonment of the father of the girl featured in the above photo.
Baily did the same for riot police attacks on innocent civilians, threats against their families, election fixing, shutting down media and imposing prison sentences for journalists, blocking social media access for individuals and media outlets, firing thousands of Macedonians from public and private sector jobs, outlawing and criminalizing the use of the term “Macedonia”, investigating and intimidating Macedonian civilians including physical attacks and arson, and yes, imprisoning even more Macedonians and subjecting them all to abhorrent prison conditions.
Their “crime”? Opposing U.S. interventionism in Macedonia and the U.S. policy of eradicating Macedonia’s name, identity, culture and history in order to appease our oppressors.
You would oppose U.S. policy too.
In one of Baily’s most infamous acts, he and several members of the U.S.-installed regime in Macedonia held female opposition MPs in parliamentary chambers against their will, blackmailed and threatened them and their family members with imprisonment until they followed orders to vote to change Macedonia’s name.
But how could all of this be a policy of the self-proclaimed “global leader in spreading democracy and human rights”? One could also ask why the U.S. formerly viewed Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden as allies, why they overthrow governments worldwide, and why they either invade or start proxy wars and kill millions of innocent civilians.
The short—and only—answer is imperialism. Nothing will stand in the way of the United States imposing its will on the rest of the world. Not human rights, innocent lives, basic decency. Nothing.
In Macedonia’s case, the United States deemed it a priority to increase NATO membership at any cost so it sided with Greece and its campaign—publicly admitted and celebrated—of cultural genocide against Macedonians. As part of the United States’ policy to expand its influence and empire, it has an important military base on Crete and wanted to especially fortify ties with the Greek government after its relations with Turkey began to fray.
Greece had pledged to veto Macedonia’s U.S.-imposed NATO membership bid unless its name was changed, and everything Macedonian was eradicated.
Vast human rights abuses against an entire ethnic group? Of course the United States was in. And they were not alone.
Macedonian prison where political prisoners are housed. [Source: republika.mk]
Bulgaria saw Greece’s “success” so, in a ramp-up of their own generations-old campaign of cultural genocide against Macedonians, they pledged to veto Macedonia’s Western-imposed European Union membership bid unless even more of its own anti-Macedonian demands were met, and they even threw in attacks against Jews in the region.
As a result of Greece and Bulgaria’s Western-enabled anti-Macedonian campaigns, there are now multiple treaties that outline how Macedonians are “permitted” to define ourselves. As I said on a panel discussion on Turkey’s international news channel, TRT World, “There is a 19-page document telling me who I am. Does this seem normal?”
This document is, ironically, known as the “Prespa Agreement”, and was overwhelmingly rejected by Macedonians in a referendum on September 30, 2018. In it, Article 7(2) officially hands over the term “Macedonia” to Greece, and renders the entire Macedonian population in Aegean Macedonia (annexed by Greece in 1913) as non-existent. Article 8(5) mandates that a panel of Greek diplomats rewrite Macedonian history and that Macedonian textbooks be rewritten to officially remove any trace of our existence.
Protest in Macedonia against the forced name change. The sign displays the slogan of Macedonian Human Rights Movement International: “Nobody has the right to change our name and identity – Our Name Is Macedonia”
Bulgaria’s demands include additions to the ironically named “Agreement on Friendship and Good Neighbourliness,” which renounces the existence of Macedonians in Pirin Macedonia (annexed by Bulgaria in 1913), and declarations that Macedonians never existed and are “really Bulgarian.” They also rewrite Macedonian—and Jewish—history to erase any reference to Bulgarian persecution of Macedonians, including the removal of any reference to Bulgaria’s alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II, occupation of Macedonia, and deportation of more than 7,000 Macedonian Jews to the Treblinka death camp in Poland.
Adolf Hitler receives King Boris III of Bulgaria at his headquarters following the collapse of Yugoslavia, April 25, 1941. [Source: wikipedia.org]
How do the U.S., NATO and EU respond? By calling on (read: threatening) Macedonia to “compromise.” Leading up to the forced name change, a slew of international interventionists, including EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, multiple U.S. Secretaries of Defense and Secretaries of State—both Democratic and Republican—have all visited Macedonia to issue blatant threats. The common message, “Change your name or else.”
Subsequently, as per Western orders, every applicable Macedonian and international law, parliamentary rule, constitutional law, human rights convention, and even a referendum, were all violated or ignored to force through the name change to the highly offensive “North Macedonia,” a name specifically designed to eradicate Macedonians’ ethnic identity.
Forget “silence is complicity”; in the West’s case, they are blatantly and “proudly” complicit. And Western media follow their leaders/bosses.Politico EU described a Bulgarian politician’s speech denying Macedonians’ ethnic identity as“a very long and emotional”one.
Politicochose to side with notorious human rights abuser Bulgaria, convicted more than a dozen times by the European Court of Human Rights, in its position to deny Macedonians their basic rights to self-determination and self-identification. And without reservation or condemnation, Reuters published Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva’s statement outlining Bulgaria’s chilling policy regarding Macedonians:
“Our concerns come from the never-ending claims for a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. The acknowledgment of Bulgarian roots would put an end to this.”
Ekaterina Zakharieva [Source: wikimedia.org]
Replace Macedonians (our oppressors are trying to) with any other ethnic group and there would be an immediate outcry in defence of human rights. Do Macedonians not count? Not in the Western world’s eyes. Macedonians are clearly expendable in the West’s supposed campaign to “defend human rights and self-identification.” These policies have prompted me to ask every leader, foreign minister, politician, diplomat, bureaucrat and journalist I’ve ever met—“You wouldn’t give away your ethnic identity, so why should Macedonians?”
The shocking irony is that, after Macedonia’s partition in 1913 among Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and, in 1919, Albania, and each country brutally denying the existence of the “M” word and trying to wipe out any trace of Macedonia and Macedonians, Greece suddenly, in 1988, began claiming that the name “Macedonia” belonged to them. Greek officials, including former Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis, even admitted in 1995 that the so-called “name dispute” had nothing to do with Macedonia’s name, but everything to do with hiding Greece’s policy of denying the existence—and cultural genocide—of the large Macedonian minority in Greece.
Constantine Mitsotakis [Source: wikipedia.org]
This led me to ask another question of the aforementioned group:“What would happen if the English claimed that the names of Indigenous groups belonged to them — does that mean colonization and brutalization of Indigenous lands and people didn’t happen?”This is exactly what Greece will have you believe about Macedonia and Macedonians. They’re selling the idea that, if you own the name, identity and history of the oppressed, no oppression could possibly have occurred.
Many more analogies spring to mind and I have asked them all of several political leaders, including Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. One of my “favourites” is an analogy to France, as French governments have traditionally been unabashedly anti-Macedonian and pro-Greek (and now pro-Bulgarian): I’ve asked what they would do if Germany demanded that France change its name to “West France,” declare that the name “France” now belongs to Germany, as does the French identity, language and culture and, let’s not forget to add the revision of French history to declare that Nazi Germany did not invade, occupy and brutalize France, and that it was an “administrator” and “liberator” of France. Welcome to Macedonia’s world.
Back to the ringleader—the United States. The U.S. State Department officials I have met with know all of this—and they do not care. As they have told me, they “execute the direction of the president.” Execute being the key word. Since the beginning of the United States’ foreign policy switch almost eight decades ago to being outwardly interventionist, Macedonians have experienced all of the weapons in the U.S. arsenal, both literally and figuratively.
Little did my family know that, soon after this photo was taken during World War II, the US and UK would start bombing Macedonian villages–in support of Greek fascism.
Despite being on the Allied side in both world wars, Macedonians were the target of U.S. and UK terror after World War II because these “beacons of democracy” chose to aid Greece, its ruling Nazi-supporting fascists, and its policy of complete eradication of Macedonians in its pursuit of creating a country that is “culturally pure” and rid of anyone “inferior.”
If a country aligns with U.S. and UK foreign policy, despite mimicking Nazi tactics and committing genocide, they will support it. And did they ever. The U.S. and UK dropped bombs all over the Aegean part of Macedonia (annexed by Greece earlier in the century)—deliberately targeting civilians—and murdering countless Macedonians, many members of my family included.
The U.S. has since expanded its terrorist repertoire to include modern methods of cultural genocide while still employing “classic” methods of invasion, occupation and murder (or getting a U.S. proxy to do the dirty work) in many countries. (Side note: You can see that the UK started obeying its American little brother long before the Iraq invasion and “WMD” debacle.)
Now to more of the United States’ modern methods: Before Jess Baily’s assault on Macedonia, the United States had gone through a myriad of ambassadors executing its united Democratic/Republican anti-Macedonian policy (see, bipartisanship does exist!).
This policy included: a) starting a civil war; b) supporting neo-Nazi Albanian separatist groups; c) granting them amnesty despite being convicted of terrorism and murder; and d) awarding them with high-level government posts (the more kills, the higher the post). This all lay the groundwork for: a) the forced Macedonia name change; b) forced Macedonia NATO membership; c) increased U.S. imperialism; and d) eventually (possibly not that far off), another partition of Macedonia’s territory.
Albanian separatists supported by the U.S. [Source: kosovo.net]
And since Baily’s departure from Macedonia, the U.S. has replaced him with other sadistic stooges, who are also not shy about their goals to eradicate Macedonians’ ethnic identity, including the enabling of daily anti-Macedonian hate speech and crackdown on Macedonians’ rights by Greek and Bulgarian government officials, and enabling physical attacks by Greek and Bulgarian secret police and neo-Nazis (yet again) against their large Macedonian minorities.
We have seen what happens to Macedonians in Macedonia when they oppose U.S. policy. But what happens to Macedonians abroad? We become the targets of an executive order by Joe Biden banning critics from entering, and owning property in, the United States.
Well, you can cross the U.S. off my list of potential vacation destinations as this executive order puts me on the U.S. blacklist—for having the “audacity” to stand up for the human rights that they claim to defend. Biden has now joined the United States’ anti-Macedonian “strategic partner” Greece, which blacklisted me two decades earlier. Originality is not his strong suit.
But being blacklisted is a blessing. It keeps me from seeing Joe Biden and subsequent U.S. presidents and their minions from preaching/lying to the world in person. As I have asked so many of them,“How do you sleep at night?”And since I am on an inquisitive theme, I will leave you with this and ask those who claim to defend democracy, human rights and the rule of law,“How long will you keep letting the United States, literally, get away with murder?”
Bill Nicholov, President
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
twitter.com/billnicholov
Democrats’ ‘Climate Bill’ Puts Polluters before People and the Planet
Congressional Democrats, supported by President Biden, just passed a major spending bill focused on climate change, health care, and taxes. But it’s no win for the climate or the working class.
Robert Belano
Congressional Democrats, supported by President Biden, just passed a major spending bill focused on climate change, health care, and taxes. But it’s no win for the climate or the working class.
Robert Belano
August 13, 2022
LEFTVOICE.ORG
What’s in the Bill and What’s Not
The more than 700-page IRA includes provisions related to climate, inflation, healthcare, and corporate taxes, among others. Democrats were initially fearful that the party’s most conservative senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, would upend the bill, as the two did with Biden’s Build Back Better plan last year. But after weeks of negotiations that included further concessions to fossil fuel, pharmaceutical, and private equity companies, the bill cleared its main obstacle in the Senate.
Around half of the bill’s allocated funding, or $370 billion over 10 years, falls roughly in the category of climate measures. The majority of that is in the form of tax credits for corporations, small businesses, and consumers to incentivize “green” energy production and usage, and to implement energy efficiency in homes and businesses. The funding, while hailed as “sweeping” and “historic” by many media outlets, represents around a one-third reduction of the original Build Back Better climate funding that was spiked by Manchin last year, an amount that was already woefully inadequate.
Its measures must also be put in the context of other federal spending. The IRA’s per-year allocation represents only a small fraction — approximately 5 percent — of the annual U.S. military budget, which now stands at approximately $800 billion. The U.S. military, it should be noted, happens to be the world’s largest polluter. How can we view this legislation seriously considering that?
Furthermore, the bill contains little that can meaningfully reduce carbon emissions. It certainly won’t be enough to keep warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, the stated goal of the Paris Agreement, signed onto by Obama in 2015 with much fanfare. It aims for a 40 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (below the 50 percent reduction agreed to in 2015.) But even this is not backed up with any enforceable measures. Instead, it’s projected to come as a result of tax breaks for companies that elect to transition away from fossil fuels. Above all, the IRA aims to incentivize corporations to take up “green” energy projects or replace their existing fossil fuel-based infrastructure. Any emissions reductions will be the result of a cost-benefit calculation for big businesses — in other words, the bill relies on the same “green capitalist” logic that has failed for decades to make a dent in global carbon emissions.
Included in the bill are billions in tax credits to adopt wind, solar, or geothermal energy, along with nuclear energy and biofuel projects. The latter two sources are not only far from sustainable methods of energy, but in the case of biofuels, a dubious alternative to fossil energy in reducing emissions. There are also tax incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles, to improve energy efficiency in homes, or upgrade to “greener” appliances. There is no doubt that new energy efficient technologies are needed. But tax credits for buying electric vehicles ultimately means the manufacturing of millions of new cars at a tremendous energy (and therefore carbon) cost.
Most notably, there are no provisions that curtail the extraction of fossil fuels. Neither are there any timelines imposed on utility companies or auto manufactures to transition away from fossil energy. No penalties exist for companies that maintain emissions at or above current levels. “All carrots, no sticks,” says Paul Krugman of the bill (approvingly.) If fossil fuels remain more profitable than non-fossil energy, corporations may continue burning them without any legal or financial repercussions. Given this, it is hard to comprehend how the plan will achieve its ultimate goal of reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent over the next eight years.
New Funding for Renewables, but at What Cost?
Writing in OpenDemocracy, Aaron White notes that the Manchin-Schumer bill “furthers the US’ most profligate pastimes: drilling oil and driving big cars.” Its tax credits for electric vehicles stimulates the manufacturing of millions of new cars, at an enormous energy cost, while doing nothing to build electric mass transit and reduce the country’s car dependence. Measures to attempt to reduce carbon emissions are accompanied by provisions that encourage the expansion of fossil fuel extraction. Because of this, he and other climate advocates have called it “a climate deal with the devil.”
Incredibly, the IRA stipulates that any new wind or solar projects on federal lands must be accompanied by major expansions in leases for oil and gas drilling. Since investments made by fossil fuel companies into these drilling projects must be recuperated later, fossil fuel combustion can be assumed for many years or even decades into the future. The bill also greenlights new offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaskan waters.
These provisions are so egregious that the Climate Justice Alliance has determined that the bill’s negative environmental impact actually outweighs any emissions reductions it may cause. The bill also provides funding for new carbon capture facilities, a scheme that, more often than not, serves as a cover for continued coal, oil, and gas production. Nowhere are any of the more progressive elements of the Green New Deal, the supposed “framework” for Biden’s climate agenda during the 2020 elections, such as a jobs guarantee, universal healthcare, or a public works program.
Biden has made good, however, on his promise that “we’re not getting rid of fossil fuels for a long time.” The IRA fails to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and even promotes new extractive activity. It is no win for the climate nor for the majority of the earth’s people. This is the contradiction of the “green capitalism” that the Democrats aspire to. Capitalism is an inherently unsustainable and dirty system of production. While oil, gas, and even coal remain profitable commodities, there will be no meaningful cutbacks to their extraction and consumption. There are alternative solutions that can keep fossil fuels in the ground, provide universal employment, and quality healthcare for all. But they won’t come from this party, which has always put the interests of polluters before the people and the planet.
Robert Belano is a writer and editor for Left Voice. He lives in the Washington, DC area.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
After an embarrassing past few months which included the overturning of Roe v. Wade, rising inflation, a stalled legislative agenda, and Nancy Pelosi’s ill-advised visit to Taiwan, Biden and the Democratic leadership were desperate for a victory. A small win for the party has arrived in the form of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), approved by Congress on Friday and soon to be signed into law by Biden. Two years of inaction on carbon emissions — and increasingly devastating extreme weather events, like flooding in Kentucky and droughts in the western U.S. — also amped up the pressure to pass climate legislation.
The “climate conscious” establishment — the corporate-owned liberal media outlets, the environmental nonprofits, the think tanks, and Democratic politicians — have generally hailed the agreement as a saving grace. The liberal economist Paul Krugman’s recent New York Times op-Ed is bombastically titled “Did the Democrats Just Save Civilization?” The response to the bill has been more muted among climate activists, but many on the reformist Left have accepted it as a step forward despite its problems. As Jacobin’s Branco Marcetic put it “The Biden-Manchin Climate Bill isn’t very good, but it’s all we’ve got.”
But what if “all we’ve got” keeps us on a trajectory above 2°C warming, a scenario that puts the homes of tens of millions in coastal cities around the world underwater, makes large sections of the Earth uninhabitable, and fuels more numerous and more deadly fires, storms, and droughts? And what if, at the same time, “all we’ve got” keeps billions flowing annually into the coffers of the same fossil fuel companies and auto manufacturers that created this disaster? What relief should we feel then?
The deal is emblematic of the Democratic Party’s strategy: a few token concessions to the multi-racial and working-class party base, and massive giveaways to the true directors of the party, big business and Wall Street. Although the bill stimulates the development of some renewables, the IRA actually promotes the expansion of fossil fuel extraction, tying any funding for non-fossil energy projects on federal lands to leases for new oil and gas projects.
Of course, the Democratic Party could never be expected to deliver a bill that would truly put the needs of the planet and its people first. That objective would necessarily contradict capitalist logic, which rests on minimal business regulations, low corporate taxes, and low wages. Party leaders will try to pass this bill off as a win for business, climate, and working people. But the real benefits are heavily weighted on the corporate end of the scale, the same actors most responsible for the climate emergency itself.
After an embarrassing past few months which included the overturning of Roe v. Wade, rising inflation, a stalled legislative agenda, and Nancy Pelosi’s ill-advised visit to Taiwan, Biden and the Democratic leadership were desperate for a victory. A small win for the party has arrived in the form of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), approved by Congress on Friday and soon to be signed into law by Biden. Two years of inaction on carbon emissions — and increasingly devastating extreme weather events, like flooding in Kentucky and droughts in the western U.S. — also amped up the pressure to pass climate legislation.
The “climate conscious” establishment — the corporate-owned liberal media outlets, the environmental nonprofits, the think tanks, and Democratic politicians — have generally hailed the agreement as a saving grace. The liberal economist Paul Krugman’s recent New York Times op-Ed is bombastically titled “Did the Democrats Just Save Civilization?” The response to the bill has been more muted among climate activists, but many on the reformist Left have accepted it as a step forward despite its problems. As Jacobin’s Branco Marcetic put it “The Biden-Manchin Climate Bill isn’t very good, but it’s all we’ve got.”
But what if “all we’ve got” keeps us on a trajectory above 2°C warming, a scenario that puts the homes of tens of millions in coastal cities around the world underwater, makes large sections of the Earth uninhabitable, and fuels more numerous and more deadly fires, storms, and droughts? And what if, at the same time, “all we’ve got” keeps billions flowing annually into the coffers of the same fossil fuel companies and auto manufacturers that created this disaster? What relief should we feel then?
The deal is emblematic of the Democratic Party’s strategy: a few token concessions to the multi-racial and working-class party base, and massive giveaways to the true directors of the party, big business and Wall Street. Although the bill stimulates the development of some renewables, the IRA actually promotes the expansion of fossil fuel extraction, tying any funding for non-fossil energy projects on federal lands to leases for new oil and gas projects.
Of course, the Democratic Party could never be expected to deliver a bill that would truly put the needs of the planet and its people first. That objective would necessarily contradict capitalist logic, which rests on minimal business regulations, low corporate taxes, and low wages. Party leaders will try to pass this bill off as a win for business, climate, and working people. But the real benefits are heavily weighted on the corporate end of the scale, the same actors most responsible for the climate emergency itself.
What’s in the Bill and What’s Not
The more than 700-page IRA includes provisions related to climate, inflation, healthcare, and corporate taxes, among others. Democrats were initially fearful that the party’s most conservative senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, would upend the bill, as the two did with Biden’s Build Back Better plan last year. But after weeks of negotiations that included further concessions to fossil fuel, pharmaceutical, and private equity companies, the bill cleared its main obstacle in the Senate.
Around half of the bill’s allocated funding, or $370 billion over 10 years, falls roughly in the category of climate measures. The majority of that is in the form of tax credits for corporations, small businesses, and consumers to incentivize “green” energy production and usage, and to implement energy efficiency in homes and businesses. The funding, while hailed as “sweeping” and “historic” by many media outlets, represents around a one-third reduction of the original Build Back Better climate funding that was spiked by Manchin last year, an amount that was already woefully inadequate.
Its measures must also be put in the context of other federal spending. The IRA’s per-year allocation represents only a small fraction — approximately 5 percent — of the annual U.S. military budget, which now stands at approximately $800 billion. The U.S. military, it should be noted, happens to be the world’s largest polluter. How can we view this legislation seriously considering that?
Furthermore, the bill contains little that can meaningfully reduce carbon emissions. It certainly won’t be enough to keep warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, the stated goal of the Paris Agreement, signed onto by Obama in 2015 with much fanfare. It aims for a 40 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (below the 50 percent reduction agreed to in 2015.) But even this is not backed up with any enforceable measures. Instead, it’s projected to come as a result of tax breaks for companies that elect to transition away from fossil fuels. Above all, the IRA aims to incentivize corporations to take up “green” energy projects or replace their existing fossil fuel-based infrastructure. Any emissions reductions will be the result of a cost-benefit calculation for big businesses — in other words, the bill relies on the same “green capitalist” logic that has failed for decades to make a dent in global carbon emissions.
Included in the bill are billions in tax credits to adopt wind, solar, or geothermal energy, along with nuclear energy and biofuel projects. The latter two sources are not only far from sustainable methods of energy, but in the case of biofuels, a dubious alternative to fossil energy in reducing emissions. There are also tax incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles, to improve energy efficiency in homes, or upgrade to “greener” appliances. There is no doubt that new energy efficient technologies are needed. But tax credits for buying electric vehicles ultimately means the manufacturing of millions of new cars at a tremendous energy (and therefore carbon) cost.
Most notably, there are no provisions that curtail the extraction of fossil fuels. Neither are there any timelines imposed on utility companies or auto manufactures to transition away from fossil energy. No penalties exist for companies that maintain emissions at or above current levels. “All carrots, no sticks,” says Paul Krugman of the bill (approvingly.) If fossil fuels remain more profitable than non-fossil energy, corporations may continue burning them without any legal or financial repercussions. Given this, it is hard to comprehend how the plan will achieve its ultimate goal of reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent over the next eight years.
New Funding for Renewables, but at What Cost?
Writing in OpenDemocracy, Aaron White notes that the Manchin-Schumer bill “furthers the US’ most profligate pastimes: drilling oil and driving big cars.” Its tax credits for electric vehicles stimulates the manufacturing of millions of new cars, at an enormous energy cost, while doing nothing to build electric mass transit and reduce the country’s car dependence. Measures to attempt to reduce carbon emissions are accompanied by provisions that encourage the expansion of fossil fuel extraction. Because of this, he and other climate advocates have called it “a climate deal with the devil.”
Incredibly, the IRA stipulates that any new wind or solar projects on federal lands must be accompanied by major expansions in leases for oil and gas drilling. Since investments made by fossil fuel companies into these drilling projects must be recuperated later, fossil fuel combustion can be assumed for many years or even decades into the future. The bill also greenlights new offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaskan waters.
These provisions are so egregious that the Climate Justice Alliance has determined that the bill’s negative environmental impact actually outweighs any emissions reductions it may cause. The bill also provides funding for new carbon capture facilities, a scheme that, more often than not, serves as a cover for continued coal, oil, and gas production. Nowhere are any of the more progressive elements of the Green New Deal, the supposed “framework” for Biden’s climate agenda during the 2020 elections, such as a jobs guarantee, universal healthcare, or a public works program.
Biden has made good, however, on his promise that “we’re not getting rid of fossil fuels for a long time.” The IRA fails to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and even promotes new extractive activity. It is no win for the climate nor for the majority of the earth’s people. This is the contradiction of the “green capitalism” that the Democrats aspire to. Capitalism is an inherently unsustainable and dirty system of production. While oil, gas, and even coal remain profitable commodities, there will be no meaningful cutbacks to their extraction and consumption. There are alternative solutions that can keep fossil fuels in the ground, provide universal employment, and quality healthcare for all. But they won’t come from this party, which has always put the interests of polluters before the people and the planet.
Robert Belano is a writer and editor for Left Voice. He lives in the Washington, DC area.
Saturday, August 13, 2022
Rep. Jayapal: Inflation Is A "Theoretical Word That Economists Use"
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) defended the Inflation Reduction Act and dismissed inflation as a "theoretical word" on Friday to reporters outside of the Capitol building: "It is ultimately going to lead to a reduction in overall inflation, but most importantly, to the budget that people have every single day. Inflation is like a theoretical word that economists use, but what families feel every day is the up or down of costs."
Bridger pipeline in Wyoming cracks and spills 45,000 gallons of diesel fuel
AFP
Published August 13, 2022
Gas pipeline under construction. Source - PROJECT_MANAGER, CC SA 2.0.
A diesel pipeline in Wyoming owned by a company that’s being sued by federal prosecutors over previous spills in two other states cracked open and released more than 45,000 gallons (205,000 liters) of fuel, state regulators and a company representative disclosed Friday.
Joe Hunter, Emergency Response Coordinator with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality said the cleanup has been an ongoing process since the spill was first discovered on July 27 by the pipeline’s operator.
The fuel spilled into sandy soil on private ranchland near the small community of Sussex in eastern Wyoming and did not spread very far, he said.
The contaminated soil is being excavated and placed in a temporary holding area and it will be spread onto a nearby dirt road where the fuel is expected to largely evaporate, Hunter said.
According ro PBS.org, the line is operated by Bridger Pipeline, a subsidiary of Casper-based True companies, according to an accident report submitted to the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Center.
Interestingly, the nitial report on the pipeline break reported only 420 gallons (1,590 liters) had spilled, but later revised its estimate to 45,150 gallons (205,250 liters), according to a National Response Center database.
Truye and its subsidieries have a rather crappy record when it comess to oil spills. One particularly infamous spill took plac in 2015.
In May 2022, federal prosecutors in Montana alleged that representatives of Bridger Pipeline had concealed from regulators problems with a pipeline that broke beneath the Yellowstone River near the city of Glendive in 2015. The break spewed more than 50,000 gallons (240,000 liters) of crude into the river and fouled Glendive’s drinking water supply.
In North Dakota, federal prosecutors and the state Attorney General’s Office are pursuing parallel claims of environmental violations against a second True companies subsidiary responsible for a 2016 spill that released more than 600,000 gallons (2.7 million liters) of crude, contaminating the Little Missouri River and a tributary.
Kenneth Clarkson with the Pipeline Safety Trust, a Bellingham, Washington-based group that advocates for safer pipelines, said a thorough investigation into the spill’s cause needs to conducted.
“It’s frustrating to hear of another spill by Bridger Pipeline LLC,” Clarkson said. “This spill of 45,000-plus gallons of diesel into rural Wyoming negatively impacts the environment, wildlife, and surrounding communities.”
AFP
Published August 13, 2022
Gas pipeline under construction. Source - PROJECT_MANAGER, CC SA 2.0.
A diesel pipeline in Wyoming owned by a company that’s being sued by federal prosecutors over previous spills in two other states cracked open and released more than 45,000 gallons (205,000 liters) of fuel, state regulators and a company representative disclosed Friday.
Joe Hunter, Emergency Response Coordinator with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality said the cleanup has been an ongoing process since the spill was first discovered on July 27 by the pipeline’s operator.
The fuel spilled into sandy soil on private ranchland near the small community of Sussex in eastern Wyoming and did not spread very far, he said.
The contaminated soil is being excavated and placed in a temporary holding area and it will be spread onto a nearby dirt road where the fuel is expected to largely evaporate, Hunter said.
According ro PBS.org, the line is operated by Bridger Pipeline, a subsidiary of Casper-based True companies, according to an accident report submitted to the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Center.
Interestingly, the nitial report on the pipeline break reported only 420 gallons (1,590 liters) had spilled, but later revised its estimate to 45,150 gallons (205,250 liters), according to a National Response Center database.
Truye and its subsidieries have a rather crappy record when it comess to oil spills. One particularly infamous spill took plac in 2015.
In May 2022, federal prosecutors in Montana alleged that representatives of Bridger Pipeline had concealed from regulators problems with a pipeline that broke beneath the Yellowstone River near the city of Glendive in 2015. The break spewed more than 50,000 gallons (240,000 liters) of crude into the river and fouled Glendive’s drinking water supply.
In North Dakota, federal prosecutors and the state Attorney General’s Office are pursuing parallel claims of environmental violations against a second True companies subsidiary responsible for a 2016 spill that released more than 600,000 gallons (2.7 million liters) of crude, contaminating the Little Missouri River and a tributary.
Kenneth Clarkson with the Pipeline Safety Trust, a Bellingham, Washington-based group that advocates for safer pipelines, said a thorough investigation into the spill’s cause needs to conducted.
“It’s frustrating to hear of another spill by Bridger Pipeline LLC,” Clarkson said. “This spill of 45,000-plus gallons of diesel into rural Wyoming negatively impacts the environment, wildlife, and surrounding communities.”
US government in 'direct contact' with Assad regime over Austin Tice: report
The New Arab Staff
13 August, 2022
The revelations follow public calls by the Biden Administration for the Syrian regime to release Tice - who they have never admitted official to holding.
US President Joe Biden met with the Tice family recently to discuss the case [Getty]
The US government has communicated directly with the Syrian government for the first time in years in efforts to secure the release of jailed journalist Austin Tice, CNN reported Friday.
The American government had addressed the Assad regime publicly to call for the journalist’s release, but details of direct communication with Damascus are now emerging for the first time.
Austin Tice has been held hostage by the Assad regime for 10 years, after being captured at a checkpoint while reporting from Damascus.
No government or armed group has ever admitted to holding Tice in their custody.
According to US President Joe Biden, the US government knows “with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime” - but has not confirmed that they know his whereabouts.
"The United States has engaged extensively to try to get Austin home, including directly with Syrian officials and through third parties," the senior administration official said to CNN.
"Unlike in other situations where Americans are detained abroad, for many months, the Syrian government has not agreed to senior-level meetings to discuss Austin's case, nor has it ever acknowledged holding him," they added.
Diplomatic ties between Syria and the United States were suspended indefinitely in 2012, after the onset of the Syrian civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead and forced millions to flee from their homes.
Despite the exceptional communication on the Tice case, a wider resumption of diplomatic communication seems unlikely in the immediate future.
"The United States will not normalise or upgrade our diplomatic relations with the Assad regime nor do we encourage others to do so, given the atrocities inflicted by the Assad regime on the Syrian people," a State Department spokesperson said in an email to Reuters in November 2021.
"Assad has regained no legitimacy in our eyes, and there is no question of the US normalising relations with his government at this time."
The New Arab Staff
13 August, 2022
The revelations follow public calls by the Biden Administration for the Syrian regime to release Tice - who they have never admitted official to holding.
US President Joe Biden met with the Tice family recently to discuss the case [Getty]
The US government has communicated directly with the Syrian government for the first time in years in efforts to secure the release of jailed journalist Austin Tice, CNN reported Friday.
The American government had addressed the Assad regime publicly to call for the journalist’s release, but details of direct communication with Damascus are now emerging for the first time.
Austin Tice has been held hostage by the Assad regime for 10 years, after being captured at a checkpoint while reporting from Damascus.
No government or armed group has ever admitted to holding Tice in their custody.
According to US President Joe Biden, the US government knows “with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime” - but has not confirmed that they know his whereabouts.
"The United States has engaged extensively to try to get Austin home, including directly with Syrian officials and through third parties," the senior administration official said to CNN.
"Unlike in other situations where Americans are detained abroad, for many months, the Syrian government has not agreed to senior-level meetings to discuss Austin's case, nor has it ever acknowledged holding him," they added.
Diplomatic ties between Syria and the United States were suspended indefinitely in 2012, after the onset of the Syrian civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead and forced millions to flee from their homes.
Despite the exceptional communication on the Tice case, a wider resumption of diplomatic communication seems unlikely in the immediate future.
"The United States will not normalise or upgrade our diplomatic relations with the Assad regime nor do we encourage others to do so, given the atrocities inflicted by the Assad regime on the Syrian people," a State Department spokesperson said in an email to Reuters in November 2021.
"Assad has regained no legitimacy in our eyes, and there is no question of the US normalising relations with his government at this time."
MAKES SENSE
Joan of Arc to be portrayed as nonbinary in new production at London's Globe Theatre“People and communities deserve to be championed, and there’s no limit to the number we can do that for,” actor Isobel Thom told NBC News.
SHE IS THE PATRON SAINT OF ANDROGYNY
Aug. 13, 2022, 8:40 AM MDT
By Leila Sackur
Legendary French heroine Joan of Arc will be portrayed as nonbinary in a radical departure from the historic figure's usual depiction at London’s Globe Theatre.
A patron saint of France, who is beloved for her role in the Siege of Orleans between 1428 and 1429 — a major French military victory over the English during the Hundred Years War — the new interpretation of her life will be performed at the theater that was home to famed British playwright William Shakespeare.
Nonbinary actor Isobel Thom will play the role in “I, Joan,” scripted with “they” and “them” pronouns by Charlie Josephine, who is also nonbinary, the Globe said in a news release. It will directed by Ilinca Radulian, who identifies as a woman.
“Our story of Joan is full of joy and love and hope and magic and revolution,” Thom told NBC News by email Saturday.
“Storytelling and art is a platform to share experiences, to stretch imaginations, to excite and inspire, to explore language, and to represent. People and communities deserve to be championed, and there’s no limit to the number we can do that for,” Thom added.
In a separate statement, Michelle Terry, the artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, said the theater was “not the first to present Joan in this way, and we will not be the last.”
“Regarding the use of pronouns, ‘they’ to refer to a singular person has been traced by the Oxford English Dictionary to as early as 1375, years before Joan was even born” she added.
The production aims to “question the gender binary” and “offer the possibility of another point of view,” Terry Said.
“Theaters produce plays, and in plays, anything can be possible. Shakespeare did not write historically accurate plays. He took figures of the past to ask questions about the world around him,” she said.
Located on the bank of the River Thames in London, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is a modern reconstruction of the famous playwright's original theater, which stood on the same site and was completed in 1599.
Destroyed by fire and then closed by a public order after the English Civil War, today’s Globe is the third reconstruction of the theater, and welcomes 1.25 million visitors a year.
Original performances of Shakespeare’s plays, like “Romeo and Juliet” and “Twelfth Night,” would have included male actors playing women, and male actors playing women playing men.
Born a peasant in medieval France, Joan of Arc believed God had chosen her to lead her country to victory in its long-running war with England. She led the French to a stunning victory in the battle of Orleans but was later captured by English forces, who burned her at the stake in 1431 when she was 19.
The gender identity and sexuality of Joan of Arc has been a subject of intense academic debate for decades in France and England. In the 1930s, British writer Vita Sackville West was the first to write a biography in which she hypothesized that Joan might have been a lesbian.
But some lawmakers and activists have criticized the decision to make the saint nonbinary.
British legislator Rosie Duffield called the decision “misogyny,” while Sophie Walker, co-founder of The Activate Collective, which raises money for women to run in elections, also tweeted: “When I was a little girl, Joan of Arc presented thrilling possibilities about what one young girl could do against massed ranks of men. Rewriting her as not female and presenting it as progress is a massive disappointment.”
Thom did not respond to the comments directly, but in a separate tweet, they urged people to watch the play before casting judgement on it.
Others however, praised the decision, including the actor and composer Olivia Mace, who called the idea "interesting" in a Twitter post. "Allow it to be explored. It won’t hurt anyone," she wrote.
“Imagining Joan as a they/them is an exercise in placing Joan in the modern day, connecting Joan’s struggles against the forces of oppression with today. A play doing this is not saying ‘I believe Joan was non-binary.’ It is posing a question of ‘what if Joan was?’” non-inary writer Diane Anderson also tweeted.
“This is why things like ‘Hamilton’ work as art — we know that Hamilton and his crew were white men. Aaron Burr and Leslie Odom Jr. look nothing alike. Thomas Jefferson did not have an afro. But we can imagine it because that’s what art does,” Anderson added.
A statement on the Globe’s website also affirmed its commitment to “becoming an inclusive and diverse organisation.” It said the theater "is unequivocally pro-human rights,” and “trans men and women and non-binary identities exist and are valid.”
A statue of Joan of Arc in Orleans, France.
Guillaume Souvant / AFP
Aug. 13, 2022, 8:40 AM MDT
By Leila Sackur
Legendary French heroine Joan of Arc will be portrayed as nonbinary in a radical departure from the historic figure's usual depiction at London’s Globe Theatre.
A patron saint of France, who is beloved for her role in the Siege of Orleans between 1428 and 1429 — a major French military victory over the English during the Hundred Years War — the new interpretation of her life will be performed at the theater that was home to famed British playwright William Shakespeare.
Nonbinary actor Isobel Thom will play the role in “I, Joan,” scripted with “they” and “them” pronouns by Charlie Josephine, who is also nonbinary, the Globe said in a news release. It will directed by Ilinca Radulian, who identifies as a woman.
“Our story of Joan is full of joy and love and hope and magic and revolution,” Thom told NBC News by email Saturday.
“Storytelling and art is a platform to share experiences, to stretch imaginations, to excite and inspire, to explore language, and to represent. People and communities deserve to be championed, and there’s no limit to the number we can do that for,” Thom added.
In a separate statement, Michelle Terry, the artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, said the theater was “not the first to present Joan in this way, and we will not be the last.”
“Regarding the use of pronouns, ‘they’ to refer to a singular person has been traced by the Oxford English Dictionary to as early as 1375, years before Joan was even born” she added.
The production aims to “question the gender binary” and “offer the possibility of another point of view,” Terry Said.
“Theaters produce plays, and in plays, anything can be possible. Shakespeare did not write historically accurate plays. He took figures of the past to ask questions about the world around him,” she said.
Located on the bank of the River Thames in London, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is a modern reconstruction of the famous playwright's original theater, which stood on the same site and was completed in 1599.
Destroyed by fire and then closed by a public order after the English Civil War, today’s Globe is the third reconstruction of the theater, and welcomes 1.25 million visitors a year.
Original performances of Shakespeare’s plays, like “Romeo and Juliet” and “Twelfth Night,” would have included male actors playing women, and male actors playing women playing men.
Born a peasant in medieval France, Joan of Arc believed God had chosen her to lead her country to victory in its long-running war with England. She led the French to a stunning victory in the battle of Orleans but was later captured by English forces, who burned her at the stake in 1431 when she was 19.
The gender identity and sexuality of Joan of Arc has been a subject of intense academic debate for decades in France and England. In the 1930s, British writer Vita Sackville West was the first to write a biography in which she hypothesized that Joan might have been a lesbian.
But some lawmakers and activists have criticized the decision to make the saint nonbinary.
British legislator Rosie Duffield called the decision “misogyny,” while Sophie Walker, co-founder of The Activate Collective, which raises money for women to run in elections, also tweeted: “When I was a little girl, Joan of Arc presented thrilling possibilities about what one young girl could do against massed ranks of men. Rewriting her as not female and presenting it as progress is a massive disappointment.”
Thom did not respond to the comments directly, but in a separate tweet, they urged people to watch the play before casting judgement on it.
Others however, praised the decision, including the actor and composer Olivia Mace, who called the idea "interesting" in a Twitter post. "Allow it to be explored. It won’t hurt anyone," she wrote.
“Imagining Joan as a they/them is an exercise in placing Joan in the modern day, connecting Joan’s struggles against the forces of oppression with today. A play doing this is not saying ‘I believe Joan was non-binary.’ It is posing a question of ‘what if Joan was?’” non-inary writer Diane Anderson also tweeted.
“This is why things like ‘Hamilton’ work as art — we know that Hamilton and his crew were white men. Aaron Burr and Leslie Odom Jr. look nothing alike. Thomas Jefferson did not have an afro. But we can imagine it because that’s what art does,” Anderson added.
A statement on the Globe’s website also affirmed its commitment to “becoming an inclusive and diverse organisation.” It said the theater "is unequivocally pro-human rights,” and “trans men and women and non-binary identities exist and are valid.”
There Are Good Reasons to Defund the FBI. They Have Nothing to Do With Trump.
This week the FBI took the unprecedented step of executing a search warrant on the Mar-a-Lago home of former President Donald Trump. No former president has ever been the subject of such an investigative practice. In response, chief Trump supporter and MAGA cheerleader Marjorie Taylor Greene expressed outrage at the FBI’s actions by tweeting, “DEFUND THE FBI!” Far right Rep. Paul Gosar hit similar notes, tweeting, “We must destroy the FBI. We must save America.” While this about-face on “Back the Blue” is an amusing example of the right-wing ideological confusion that ensues when lawmakers adhere to diehard Trump loyalism, we on the left should use this moment as an opportunity to explore a plan to actually do that. The FBI should indeed be defunded — though the reasons for that have nothing to do with the fact that the agency searched Donald Trump’s home.
The January 6 attack on the Capitol showed us the deep fissures in the Back the Blue concept trotted out by the right in response to the Black Lives Matter protests of recent years. While conservatives claim to support the police, they do so on a very narrow basis. Police authority is desirable to them only as long as it is solely directed at what they perceive to be suspect classes, including poor people, BIPOC communities, trans people, immigrants, anti-fascists, sex workers, and other marginalized groups. Built into right-wing support for the police is an understanding — grounded in history — that police authority should not be exercised against the powerful classes, including the wealthy, the politically dominant — and white nationalists. This understanding is why many on the right do not view images of “Back the Blue” proponents beating Capitol police with their Trump flags as hypocritical.
This seeming contradiction helps us get to a deeper truth about the nature of police power. The FBI in particular, and the police in general, were not created to provide justice. Instead, the history of the FBI is one of repressing movements for liberation and carrying out wars on marginalized communities in the guise of wars on drugs, crime, terrorism, gangs and communism, among other phenomena determined by the state to be threats. The FBI’s long-running stretches of state-sanctioned violence have served to criminalize those that challenge the status quo, either through organized resistance or through survival strategies that interfere with capitalist notions of protecting the private property and individual autonomy of the rich and powerful.
The precursor to the FBI, the Bureau of Investigation, was created in 1908 in large part to investigate political threats to the power of the robber barons. These threats included striking workers, anarchists and communists. Driven initially by fears of communist revolution following the Russian Revolution and then the massive strikes and labor militancy of the 1930s, the Bureau of Investigation became the primary federal tool for surveilling and subverting left organizing. It was taken over by J. Edgar Hoover in 1924 and transformed into the FBI in 1934, when it became a massive domestic intelligence-gathering operation with files on millions of Americans including politicians, celebrities, labor leaders, journalists, religious figures, and anyone suspected of subversive leanings, many of whom were people of color, Jews, and other members of historically oppressed communities. Tim Weiner, in his book, Enemies: A History of the FBI, meticulously documents the political origins of the FBI and its dirty tricks.
In the 1960s, Hoover identified a new subversive threat: the civil rights movement. The Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), was an FBI-created program that spied on and undermined both socialist leaders and civil rights movement leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., and helped coordinate local attacks on the Black Panthers, the Socialist Workers Party, and many other groups. FBI agents attended activist groups’ meetings, openly photographed license plates of attendees, wiretapped phones, sent fake correspondences, and used informants to plant false rumors about marital infidelities and police cooperation to sow fear and dissension. The FBI was directly involved with local officials in Chicago who conspired to assassinate Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.The history of the FBI is one of repressing movements for liberation and carrying out wars on marginalized communities.
The FBI has long been a tool of political subversion used to suppress threats to the status quo. But, in contrast to the claims of Trump loyalists, the focus of the FBI’s attacks has rarely been the right-wing extremists that now dominate much of the Republican Party. In his book Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide, former FBI agent Michael German points out how federal law enforcement has largely ignored or excused right-wing violence, leaving a focus on Muslim immigrants, environmental activists and the Movement for Black Lives, among other marginalized groups.
Given this history of politically motivated repression, it should be the left calling for defunding and defanging the FBI. Here is a concrete program to begin that process:
1) End the FBI’s role in political policing. The FBI should be forced to shut down the intelligence-gathering activities that make possible the subversion tactics at the center of the agency’s history. Following the revelations of COINTELPRO in the 1970s, the Church Committee attempted this through the power of congressional oversight, but many of the FBI’s harmful practices remained, although they were better hidden from view and protected by language intended to restrict — but not eliminate — their activities.
2) End the FBI’s role in the “war on terror.” One of the primary tools in waging this war has been the entrapment of people who are lured into fantastical plots invented by FBI agents so that they can be arrested for planning actions they had no intention or ability to ever complete. The goal of these operations, such as the targeting of an intellectually disabled man in New York who was lured into a FBI-created plot to bomb the Herald Square subway station, seem designed to give the FBI the appearance of winning — to garner support for counterterrorism funding for the agency. We should also dismantle fusion centers and Joint Terrorism Task Forces. As Brendan McQuade documents in Pacifying the Homeland, these efforts have had little to do with protecting us from actual violence. Instead, they have morphed into all-purpose “predictive” policing operations that spend much of their time preparing threat assessments for local police and private business interests that both exaggerate the threat of politically motivated violence and use complex algorithms to justify intensive and invasive policing of poor and BIPOC communities.
3) End the FBI’s role in the “war on drugs.” The war on drugs has been an unmitigated failure, if your metric of success is saving lives and improving community safety. If, however, your metric of success is one of criminalizing political enemies and violently targeting the poor and people of color, then the mission has certainly been accomplished. The federal prohibition on many drugs has been a major driver of mass incarceration, the criminalization of non-white communities and the overdose crisis. Susan Phillips’s Operation Flytrap shows how the eponymously named FBI anti-drug sting did nothing to end the flow of drugs into Los Angeles, and instead pointlessly criminalized the most vulnerable people in a community hard hit by poverty, unemployment, and public and private sector disinvestment. In addition, we should abolish the Drug Enforcement Agency, and use the savings to invest in police-free harm reduction projects, high-quality and noncoercive drug treatment, and targeted economic development programs.
4) End the FBI’s role in so-called violence reduction. Presidents have repeatedly used the FBI as a political tool for looking “tough on crime.” “Gang takedowns” and special initiatives have been created to give the appearance of federal action to tackle crime, but have little to show for themselves other than police-perpetrated abuse and mass incarceration. For years the FBI has been using RICO conspiracy laws to target youth violence. As The Policing and Social Justice Project documented in New York City, these takedowns ensnare large numbers of young people based on their associations, rather than direct involvement in violence. City University of New York law professor Babe Howell showed that in one such mass arrest of 120 young people, half of those charged were simply accused of drug-related offenses, despite being called the “worst of the worst” and held without bail for up to two years awaiting dispositions. (However, even if they had been accused of actual violence, there would be no justification for treating them in this way.) Instead of pouring money into “anti-violence” initiatives that are themselves purveyors of violence, we should be looking to community-driven solutions. The New York City G.A.N.G.S. Coalition and others around the U.S. have called instead for investments in community-based anti-violence initiatives and reinvestments in communities devastated by deindustrialization, redlining and austerity.Federal law enforcement has largely ignored or excused right-wing violence.
In 2019, Donald Trump laid out his plan to use the FBI to help with his reelection effort, called Operation Relentless Pursuit. He targeted seven cities run by Democratic mayors to receive infusions of federal agents and money for more local police to engage in intensive policing of “high crime” communities, backed up by intensive federal prosecutions. Local activists in the targeted cities of Memphis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Baltimore and Albuquerque mobilized against local cooperation with this initiative citing the lack of federal accountability and the need for community investments, not more policing.
These four steps would dramatically shrink the scope and power of the FBI and pave the way toward abolishing an agency that has not provided real justice or protection for large segments of U.S. society. As right-wingers make a bizarre and twisted case for defunding the FBI, we on the left need to make our own case for defunding the FBI’s intrusive and illegitimate political policing. Then we must go further and question the basic function of federal law enforcement in propping up a system of profound inequality, injustice and state violence.
Alex S. Vitale is professor of sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College, and author of The End of Policing. Follow him on Twitter: @avitale.
A member of the Secret Service is seen in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 9, 2022.
GIORGIO VIERA / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
OP-ED
PRISONS & POLICING
PRISONS & POLICING
BY Alex S. Vitale,
August 10, 2022
This week the FBI took the unprecedented step of executing a search warrant on the Mar-a-Lago home of former President Donald Trump. No former president has ever been the subject of such an investigative practice. In response, chief Trump supporter and MAGA cheerleader Marjorie Taylor Greene expressed outrage at the FBI’s actions by tweeting, “DEFUND THE FBI!” Far right Rep. Paul Gosar hit similar notes, tweeting, “We must destroy the FBI. We must save America.” While this about-face on “Back the Blue” is an amusing example of the right-wing ideological confusion that ensues when lawmakers adhere to diehard Trump loyalism, we on the left should use this moment as an opportunity to explore a plan to actually do that. The FBI should indeed be defunded — though the reasons for that have nothing to do with the fact that the agency searched Donald Trump’s home.
The January 6 attack on the Capitol showed us the deep fissures in the Back the Blue concept trotted out by the right in response to the Black Lives Matter protests of recent years. While conservatives claim to support the police, they do so on a very narrow basis. Police authority is desirable to them only as long as it is solely directed at what they perceive to be suspect classes, including poor people, BIPOC communities, trans people, immigrants, anti-fascists, sex workers, and other marginalized groups. Built into right-wing support for the police is an understanding — grounded in history — that police authority should not be exercised against the powerful classes, including the wealthy, the politically dominant — and white nationalists. This understanding is why many on the right do not view images of “Back the Blue” proponents beating Capitol police with their Trump flags as hypocritical.
This seeming contradiction helps us get to a deeper truth about the nature of police power. The FBI in particular, and the police in general, were not created to provide justice. Instead, the history of the FBI is one of repressing movements for liberation and carrying out wars on marginalized communities in the guise of wars on drugs, crime, terrorism, gangs and communism, among other phenomena determined by the state to be threats. The FBI’s long-running stretches of state-sanctioned violence have served to criminalize those that challenge the status quo, either through organized resistance or through survival strategies that interfere with capitalist notions of protecting the private property and individual autonomy of the rich and powerful.
The precursor to the FBI, the Bureau of Investigation, was created in 1908 in large part to investigate political threats to the power of the robber barons. These threats included striking workers, anarchists and communists. Driven initially by fears of communist revolution following the Russian Revolution and then the massive strikes and labor militancy of the 1930s, the Bureau of Investigation became the primary federal tool for surveilling and subverting left organizing. It was taken over by J. Edgar Hoover in 1924 and transformed into the FBI in 1934, when it became a massive domestic intelligence-gathering operation with files on millions of Americans including politicians, celebrities, labor leaders, journalists, religious figures, and anyone suspected of subversive leanings, many of whom were people of color, Jews, and other members of historically oppressed communities. Tim Weiner, in his book, Enemies: A History of the FBI, meticulously documents the political origins of the FBI and its dirty tricks.
In the 1960s, Hoover identified a new subversive threat: the civil rights movement. The Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), was an FBI-created program that spied on and undermined both socialist leaders and civil rights movement leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., and helped coordinate local attacks on the Black Panthers, the Socialist Workers Party, and many other groups. FBI agents attended activist groups’ meetings, openly photographed license plates of attendees, wiretapped phones, sent fake correspondences, and used informants to plant false rumors about marital infidelities and police cooperation to sow fear and dissension. The FBI was directly involved with local officials in Chicago who conspired to assassinate Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.The history of the FBI is one of repressing movements for liberation and carrying out wars on marginalized communities.
The FBI has long been a tool of political subversion used to suppress threats to the status quo. But, in contrast to the claims of Trump loyalists, the focus of the FBI’s attacks has rarely been the right-wing extremists that now dominate much of the Republican Party. In his book Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide, former FBI agent Michael German points out how federal law enforcement has largely ignored or excused right-wing violence, leaving a focus on Muslim immigrants, environmental activists and the Movement for Black Lives, among other marginalized groups.
Given this history of politically motivated repression, it should be the left calling for defunding and defanging the FBI. Here is a concrete program to begin that process:
1) End the FBI’s role in political policing. The FBI should be forced to shut down the intelligence-gathering activities that make possible the subversion tactics at the center of the agency’s history. Following the revelations of COINTELPRO in the 1970s, the Church Committee attempted this through the power of congressional oversight, but many of the FBI’s harmful practices remained, although they were better hidden from view and protected by language intended to restrict — but not eliminate — their activities.
2) End the FBI’s role in the “war on terror.” One of the primary tools in waging this war has been the entrapment of people who are lured into fantastical plots invented by FBI agents so that they can be arrested for planning actions they had no intention or ability to ever complete. The goal of these operations, such as the targeting of an intellectually disabled man in New York who was lured into a FBI-created plot to bomb the Herald Square subway station, seem designed to give the FBI the appearance of winning — to garner support for counterterrorism funding for the agency. We should also dismantle fusion centers and Joint Terrorism Task Forces. As Brendan McQuade documents in Pacifying the Homeland, these efforts have had little to do with protecting us from actual violence. Instead, they have morphed into all-purpose “predictive” policing operations that spend much of their time preparing threat assessments for local police and private business interests that both exaggerate the threat of politically motivated violence and use complex algorithms to justify intensive and invasive policing of poor and BIPOC communities.
3) End the FBI’s role in the “war on drugs.” The war on drugs has been an unmitigated failure, if your metric of success is saving lives and improving community safety. If, however, your metric of success is one of criminalizing political enemies and violently targeting the poor and people of color, then the mission has certainly been accomplished. The federal prohibition on many drugs has been a major driver of mass incarceration, the criminalization of non-white communities and the overdose crisis. Susan Phillips’s Operation Flytrap shows how the eponymously named FBI anti-drug sting did nothing to end the flow of drugs into Los Angeles, and instead pointlessly criminalized the most vulnerable people in a community hard hit by poverty, unemployment, and public and private sector disinvestment. In addition, we should abolish the Drug Enforcement Agency, and use the savings to invest in police-free harm reduction projects, high-quality and noncoercive drug treatment, and targeted economic development programs.
4) End the FBI’s role in so-called violence reduction. Presidents have repeatedly used the FBI as a political tool for looking “tough on crime.” “Gang takedowns” and special initiatives have been created to give the appearance of federal action to tackle crime, but have little to show for themselves other than police-perpetrated abuse and mass incarceration. For years the FBI has been using RICO conspiracy laws to target youth violence. As The Policing and Social Justice Project documented in New York City, these takedowns ensnare large numbers of young people based on their associations, rather than direct involvement in violence. City University of New York law professor Babe Howell showed that in one such mass arrest of 120 young people, half of those charged were simply accused of drug-related offenses, despite being called the “worst of the worst” and held without bail for up to two years awaiting dispositions. (However, even if they had been accused of actual violence, there would be no justification for treating them in this way.) Instead of pouring money into “anti-violence” initiatives that are themselves purveyors of violence, we should be looking to community-driven solutions. The New York City G.A.N.G.S. Coalition and others around the U.S. have called instead for investments in community-based anti-violence initiatives and reinvestments in communities devastated by deindustrialization, redlining and austerity.Federal law enforcement has largely ignored or excused right-wing violence.
In 2019, Donald Trump laid out his plan to use the FBI to help with his reelection effort, called Operation Relentless Pursuit. He targeted seven cities run by Democratic mayors to receive infusions of federal agents and money for more local police to engage in intensive policing of “high crime” communities, backed up by intensive federal prosecutions. Local activists in the targeted cities of Memphis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Baltimore and Albuquerque mobilized against local cooperation with this initiative citing the lack of federal accountability and the need for community investments, not more policing.
These four steps would dramatically shrink the scope and power of the FBI and pave the way toward abolishing an agency that has not provided real justice or protection for large segments of U.S. society. As right-wingers make a bizarre and twisted case for defunding the FBI, we on the left need to make our own case for defunding the FBI’s intrusive and illegitimate political policing. Then we must go further and question the basic function of federal law enforcement in propping up a system of profound inequality, injustice and state violence.
Alex S. Vitale is professor of sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College, and author of The End of Policing. Follow him on Twitter: @avitale.
Monkeypox Is Yet Another Global Health Crisis Fueled by Governmental Neglect
Health care and LGBTQ rights activists rally outside the San Francisco Federal Building to demand an increase in Monkeypox vaccines and treatments outside of the San Francisco Federal Building on August 8, 2022, in San Francisco, California.
JUSTIN SULLIVAN / GETTY IMAGES
August 13, 2022
It’s hard not to think about AIDS when thinking about monkeypox — the media images of otherwise healthy gay men covered in sores, the homophobic anti-sex puritanism from people across the political spectrum, and the widespread culture of blame and shame directed at queer sexual pleasure. And, as always, stigma distracts from the actual cause of the problem, which, in this case, is devastating neglect by the United States government.
Every queer person lives with the ongoing trauma of the AIDS crisis, and this plays out generationally. There is a generation that experienced sexual liberation in the 1970s, and then watched as entire circles of friends died of a mysterious illness while the government did nothing to intervene. There is a generation that grew up in the midst of the AIDS crisis, and internalized the trauma of mass death as part of becoming queer. And there is a generation growing up now, with effective treatment and prevention available, and yet still grappling with the magnitude of the AIDS crisis at the personal, social, intimate and collective levels.
For anyone familiar with the ongoing trauma of the HIV/AIDS crisis, there are brutal parallels in the mishandling of the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. Unlike the early years of the AIDS crisis, though, when no effective treatments were available until a decade of mass death and public protest forced the government and pharmaceutical industry to action, monkeypox is generally not a deadly disease, and we already have the tools for treatment and prevention: the Jynneos vaccine (a smallpox vaccine that is also effective against monkeypox); tecovirimat (also called Tpoxx), an antiviral medication; and pre-approved tests for rapid diagnosis. The problems are the lack of access and the lack of care.
Three months into the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S., the federal government has finally declared monkeypox a health emergency, and this may direct more resources to helping people in need. But if the government had acted with a sense of urgency right away, and distributed the vaccine immediately to those most at risk, then it’s possible that monkeypox wouldn’t have become such a crisis.
While the spread of monkeypox is a new phenomenon in the United States, the virus has existed in Central and West Africa for decades. In 2017, there was a deadly outbreak. At that time, the U.S. government let 20 million doses of the vaccine in its strategic stockpile expire rather than using those doses to help people suffering from the disease in Nigeria. If those 20 million doses had been sent to Nigeria five years ago, perhaps monkeypox would not have become a global emergency. Even more importantly, the people suffering then would have received the care they so desperately needed. Still, to this day, neither the vaccine nor the medication are available at all in Nigeria, while the outbreak which began in 2017 continues.
Terms like “vaccine apartheid” and “vaccine hoarding” have been popularized during the COVID pandemic, but vaccine hoarding predates the COVID crisis. What is it called when you stockpile 20 million doses of an expiring vaccine instead of offering it to the people who need it? You can’t blame this on governmental ineptitude. It stems from racist arrogance and the continuing legacy of colonialism.
Every article about monkeypox should state that the U.S. government is a cause of this crisis, instead of shifting the blame onto individual acts and policing people’s sex lives while refusing to challenge the structural violence that continues, along with its devastating consequences.
As virologist Joseph Osmundson says, “Gay sex is not driving this epidemic, this epidemic is being driven by a lack of access to resources globally that could prevent spread. People want to get vaccinated, and they can’t get vaccinated.”Every article about monkeypox should state that the U.S. government is a cause of this crisis, instead of shifting the blame onto individual acts.
Here in the United States, there is an extreme shortage of the Jynneos vaccine, and mass panic among the people most affected by monkeypox in this country — at least 97 percent of the reported cases are among gay and bisexual men, and trans, genderqueer and nonbinary people who are part of their sexual networks. So across the U.S., we see the dystopian spectacle of queer folks desperately waiting in line for hours and hours to get the vaccine — 10 hours outside a bathhouse in Berkeley; five hours in hospital hallways in Seattle and San Francisco; outside in a sweltering New York City heat wave. Sometimes people wait in line for hours, only to be turned away because supplies of the vaccine have run out.
None of this is necessary. It’s been over a year since COVID vaccines were rolled out, when hundreds of people were vaccinated at a time in some locations, thousands of doses a day in many cities, and now most cities don’t even have thousands of doses of the monkeypox vaccine in total. So why couldn’t the same kind of care and attention be directed to administering the monkeypox vaccine quickly and effectively, without adding to risk or vulnerability, while we are still in the midst of the COVID pandemic? This is being done just across the border in Canada, while in the U.S. we’re faced with a top-down model of scarcity and a “while supplies last” mentality of vaccine availability: Get in line, shoppers, the wait is definitely worth it… If you’re still standing.
Meanwhile, people suffering from monkeypox do so in extreme pain, without the financial support necessary for the isolation to prevent the spread of the disease, and most often without the antiviral medication that alleviates the excruciating symptoms, since Tpoxx is only available through a convoluted CDC protocol.
Who has access to this knowledge? Information about where, when, and how to get the vaccine and treatment for monkeypox has been passed on anecdotally through the social and sexual networks of the people most impacted. Again, this echoes the early years of the AIDS crisis. There is a potential in sharing strategies for how to beat the system so the system will actually serve you, but not if you are in unnecessary pain and distress. And, this informal sharing of knowledge prioritizes the people who already have the most access — often wealthy and white — furthering the privatization of a public health system that barely serves the people most in need, including poor people, people of color, and undocumented, disabled and unsheltered people.
The trauma of the AIDS crisis comes to the fore again as queer folks seeking the knowledge, information and access necessary to take care of one another during another health crisis face the brutality of a resurgent sexual moralism, in a country steadily moving backwards. Viruses don’t cause stigma, people do. We already have the tools necessary to treat monkeypox and prevent the spread of the disease, but, as we have seen with the ongoing COVID pandemic, the U.S. government is far more adept at abandoning the people who are most vulnerable than offering care. So, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, and in the shadow of the AIDS crisis, we are faced with yet another unnecessary global health crisis furthered by structural racism and homophobia.
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is most recently the editor of Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing Up with the AIDS Crisis, named one of the “100 Most Influential Queer Books of All Time” by BookRiot, and the author of The Freezer Door, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Her next book, Touching the Art, will be published by Soft Skull in November 2023.
Every queer person lives with the ongoing trauma of the AIDS crisis, and this plays out generationally. There is a generation that experienced sexual liberation in the 1970s, and then watched as entire circles of friends died of a mysterious illness while the government did nothing to intervene. There is a generation that grew up in the midst of the AIDS crisis, and internalized the trauma of mass death as part of becoming queer. And there is a generation growing up now, with effective treatment and prevention available, and yet still grappling with the magnitude of the AIDS crisis at the personal, social, intimate and collective levels.
For anyone familiar with the ongoing trauma of the HIV/AIDS crisis, there are brutal parallels in the mishandling of the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. Unlike the early years of the AIDS crisis, though, when no effective treatments were available until a decade of mass death and public protest forced the government and pharmaceutical industry to action, monkeypox is generally not a deadly disease, and we already have the tools for treatment and prevention: the Jynneos vaccine (a smallpox vaccine that is also effective against monkeypox); tecovirimat (also called Tpoxx), an antiviral medication; and pre-approved tests for rapid diagnosis. The problems are the lack of access and the lack of care.
Three months into the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S., the federal government has finally declared monkeypox a health emergency, and this may direct more resources to helping people in need. But if the government had acted with a sense of urgency right away, and distributed the vaccine immediately to those most at risk, then it’s possible that monkeypox wouldn’t have become such a crisis.
While the spread of monkeypox is a new phenomenon in the United States, the virus has existed in Central and West Africa for decades. In 2017, there was a deadly outbreak. At that time, the U.S. government let 20 million doses of the vaccine in its strategic stockpile expire rather than using those doses to help people suffering from the disease in Nigeria. If those 20 million doses had been sent to Nigeria five years ago, perhaps monkeypox would not have become a global emergency. Even more importantly, the people suffering then would have received the care they so desperately needed. Still, to this day, neither the vaccine nor the medication are available at all in Nigeria, while the outbreak which began in 2017 continues.
Terms like “vaccine apartheid” and “vaccine hoarding” have been popularized during the COVID pandemic, but vaccine hoarding predates the COVID crisis. What is it called when you stockpile 20 million doses of an expiring vaccine instead of offering it to the people who need it? You can’t blame this on governmental ineptitude. It stems from racist arrogance and the continuing legacy of colonialism.
Every article about monkeypox should state that the U.S. government is a cause of this crisis, instead of shifting the blame onto individual acts and policing people’s sex lives while refusing to challenge the structural violence that continues, along with its devastating consequences.
As virologist Joseph Osmundson says, “Gay sex is not driving this epidemic, this epidemic is being driven by a lack of access to resources globally that could prevent spread. People want to get vaccinated, and they can’t get vaccinated.”Every article about monkeypox should state that the U.S. government is a cause of this crisis, instead of shifting the blame onto individual acts.
Here in the United States, there is an extreme shortage of the Jynneos vaccine, and mass panic among the people most affected by monkeypox in this country — at least 97 percent of the reported cases are among gay and bisexual men, and trans, genderqueer and nonbinary people who are part of their sexual networks. So across the U.S., we see the dystopian spectacle of queer folks desperately waiting in line for hours and hours to get the vaccine — 10 hours outside a bathhouse in Berkeley; five hours in hospital hallways in Seattle and San Francisco; outside in a sweltering New York City heat wave. Sometimes people wait in line for hours, only to be turned away because supplies of the vaccine have run out.
None of this is necessary. It’s been over a year since COVID vaccines were rolled out, when hundreds of people were vaccinated at a time in some locations, thousands of doses a day in many cities, and now most cities don’t even have thousands of doses of the monkeypox vaccine in total. So why couldn’t the same kind of care and attention be directed to administering the monkeypox vaccine quickly and effectively, without adding to risk or vulnerability, while we are still in the midst of the COVID pandemic? This is being done just across the border in Canada, while in the U.S. we’re faced with a top-down model of scarcity and a “while supplies last” mentality of vaccine availability: Get in line, shoppers, the wait is definitely worth it… If you’re still standing.
Meanwhile, people suffering from monkeypox do so in extreme pain, without the financial support necessary for the isolation to prevent the spread of the disease, and most often without the antiviral medication that alleviates the excruciating symptoms, since Tpoxx is only available through a convoluted CDC protocol.
Who has access to this knowledge? Information about where, when, and how to get the vaccine and treatment for monkeypox has been passed on anecdotally through the social and sexual networks of the people most impacted. Again, this echoes the early years of the AIDS crisis. There is a potential in sharing strategies for how to beat the system so the system will actually serve you, but not if you are in unnecessary pain and distress. And, this informal sharing of knowledge prioritizes the people who already have the most access — often wealthy and white — furthering the privatization of a public health system that barely serves the people most in need, including poor people, people of color, and undocumented, disabled and unsheltered people.
The trauma of the AIDS crisis comes to the fore again as queer folks seeking the knowledge, information and access necessary to take care of one another during another health crisis face the brutality of a resurgent sexual moralism, in a country steadily moving backwards. Viruses don’t cause stigma, people do. We already have the tools necessary to treat monkeypox and prevent the spread of the disease, but, as we have seen with the ongoing COVID pandemic, the U.S. government is far more adept at abandoning the people who are most vulnerable than offering care. So, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, and in the shadow of the AIDS crisis, we are faced with yet another unnecessary global health crisis furthered by structural racism and homophobia.
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is most recently the editor of Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing Up with the AIDS Crisis, named one of the “100 Most Influential Queer Books of All Time” by BookRiot, and the author of The Freezer Door, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Her next book, Touching the Art, will be published by Soft Skull in November 2023.
Tenants Call on Biden to Act as Rent Increases Reach a 35-Year High
Tenants and activists take part in a rally at the Delta Pines apartment complex in Antioch, California, on June 22, 2022.
JANE TYSKA / DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA / EAST BAY TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES
BY Mike Ludwig,
BY Mike Ludwig,
Truthout
“For the median tenant in one of the 50 largest American cities, you are paying $200 more now than you were last year, and that’s money people can’t spend on groceries and school supplies,” Mitchell told reporters on Thursday. “When the alternative is homelessness, it really puts tenants in a bind.”
Vanessa Armour knows this story all too well. An activist and retired postal worker living in Las Vegas, Nevada, Armour was excited about the prospect of spending her retirement in her current apartment when she moved in. However, her landlord has tacked on fees for “assessments,” Armour said, effectively raising her $1,100 rent by more than $200 per month. So, Armour said, she was forced to leave retirement and take a part-time job; her fixed income was no longer enough to afford basics such as food and medication.
“Should I live in the dark, skip my medications, or do I just not eat?” Armour said during a Zoom call on Thursday. “I worked so damn hard for 38 years. I should be able to enjoy my retirement.”
Armour, a leader of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said she and other advocates held a meeting this week with Sandra Thompson, the deputy director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Like millions of other people, Armour lives in a property benefiting from federal loans under the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs created by Congress, and Thompson is the top regulator overseeing the programs, which are designed to allow liquidity in the housing market and keep prices down.
Thompson pledged to investigate her agency’s power to tie federal financing for landlords and property managers to new protection for tenants against harmful rent increases, according to Armour. The White House announced a plan in May to bolster the housing supply with new infrastructure funding and zoning reforms. Yet the question of whether federal agencies will muster their regulatory power to challenge landlords and tackle rising rents — which are undoubtedly on the minds of voters — remains to be answered.
August 12, 2022
Inflation cooled off and remained unchanged during the month of July, providing President Joe Biden and vulnerable Democrats a reason to celebrate ahead of the midterms. However, on Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its consumer price index, which reports that the cost of paying rent inflated by 6.3 percent over the past year, the largest increase in 35 years and a clear signal that the housing crisis enflamed by the COVID pandemic continues.
The rent inflation index reflects landlords raising rents on existing tenants; it does not include the prices of new leases when tenants move. A monthly report from Apartment List, a company that tracks rental data, found that when price hikes in new leases are included, rents actually grew by 12.3 percent over the past 12 months, down from a peak 18 percent in January. Nationally, the median cost of an apartment reached $2,000 for the first time ever in June.
Despite billions of dollars in federal assistance for renters and landlords, eviction rates in cities across the country climbed to pre-pandemic levels in 2022 after moratoriums on kicking people out during a health crisis expired last year.
Housing advocates say corporate landlords are knowingly profiting off the misery of tenants suffering under high prices for food, health care, school supplies, and other essentials, but Congress is not expected to act. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Senate Democrats this week, would invest $370 billion in climate, energy and environmental justice programs but notably does not include provisions focused on affordable housing.
Rev. Rhonda Thomas, a faith-based racial justice organizer in Florida, said the housing and climate crises are colliding, and policy makers must consider the “people who have suffered the most” from these intersecting emergencies as the nation transitions to cleaner energy.
“In Florida, the climate emergency has created a housing crisis that, again, adversely impacts communities of color,” Thomas said in a statement released by a coalition of Black women in response to the legislation this week. “Housing prices have skyrocketed even as wages have stagnated.”
Instead of focusing on Congress, many housing advocates are targeting the Biden administration, which they argue can regulate the rental market through a number of federal agencies. Ahead of the latest inflation data on Tuesday, a coalition of more than 220 housing and community organizations demanded Biden declare a national housing emergency and outlined a plan for taking federal action without waiting on Congress.
For example, the Federal Trade Commission could issue a regulation defining excessive rent increases as an unfair business practice and enforce the standard through lawsuits and administrative proceedings, according to the coalition. The Securities and Exchange Commission can impose disclosure requirements when publicly traded corporations raise rent on tenants, and regulators can investigate new bundled securities backed by rent and mortgage payments that are a hot new thing on Wall Street.
Such federal action could hold landlords accountable to the public but would not provide direct relief to struggling renters. The administration could consider rent controls for landlords working with federal housing programs, but these types of regulations would only help some of the lowest-income tenants.
Rent is often the largest line item on most household budgets, with families spending an average 35 percent of their income on housing in 2020, according to federal data.
For households on low or fixed incomes, rent increases mean choosing between paying the landlord and buying essentials, according to Michael Mitchell, a director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Inflation cooled off and remained unchanged during the month of July, providing President Joe Biden and vulnerable Democrats a reason to celebrate ahead of the midterms. However, on Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its consumer price index, which reports that the cost of paying rent inflated by 6.3 percent over the past year, the largest increase in 35 years and a clear signal that the housing crisis enflamed by the COVID pandemic continues.
The rent inflation index reflects landlords raising rents on existing tenants; it does not include the prices of new leases when tenants move. A monthly report from Apartment List, a company that tracks rental data, found that when price hikes in new leases are included, rents actually grew by 12.3 percent over the past 12 months, down from a peak 18 percent in January. Nationally, the median cost of an apartment reached $2,000 for the first time ever in June.
Despite billions of dollars in federal assistance for renters and landlords, eviction rates in cities across the country climbed to pre-pandemic levels in 2022 after moratoriums on kicking people out during a health crisis expired last year.
Housing advocates say corporate landlords are knowingly profiting off the misery of tenants suffering under high prices for food, health care, school supplies, and other essentials, but Congress is not expected to act. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Senate Democrats this week, would invest $370 billion in climate, energy and environmental justice programs but notably does not include provisions focused on affordable housing.
Rev. Rhonda Thomas, a faith-based racial justice organizer in Florida, said the housing and climate crises are colliding, and policy makers must consider the “people who have suffered the most” from these intersecting emergencies as the nation transitions to cleaner energy.
“In Florida, the climate emergency has created a housing crisis that, again, adversely impacts communities of color,” Thomas said in a statement released by a coalition of Black women in response to the legislation this week. “Housing prices have skyrocketed even as wages have stagnated.”
Instead of focusing on Congress, many housing advocates are targeting the Biden administration, which they argue can regulate the rental market through a number of federal agencies. Ahead of the latest inflation data on Tuesday, a coalition of more than 220 housing and community organizations demanded Biden declare a national housing emergency and outlined a plan for taking federal action without waiting on Congress.
For example, the Federal Trade Commission could issue a regulation defining excessive rent increases as an unfair business practice and enforce the standard through lawsuits and administrative proceedings, according to the coalition. The Securities and Exchange Commission can impose disclosure requirements when publicly traded corporations raise rent on tenants, and regulators can investigate new bundled securities backed by rent and mortgage payments that are a hot new thing on Wall Street.
Such federal action could hold landlords accountable to the public but would not provide direct relief to struggling renters. The administration could consider rent controls for landlords working with federal housing programs, but these types of regulations would only help some of the lowest-income tenants.
Rent is often the largest line item on most household budgets, with families spending an average 35 percent of their income on housing in 2020, according to federal data.
For households on low or fixed incomes, rent increases mean choosing between paying the landlord and buying essentials, according to Michael Mitchell, a director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
“For the median tenant in one of the 50 largest American cities, you are paying $200 more now than you were last year, and that’s money people can’t spend on groceries and school supplies,” Mitchell told reporters on Thursday. “When the alternative is homelessness, it really puts tenants in a bind.”
Vanessa Armour knows this story all too well. An activist and retired postal worker living in Las Vegas, Nevada, Armour was excited about the prospect of spending her retirement in her current apartment when she moved in. However, her landlord has tacked on fees for “assessments,” Armour said, effectively raising her $1,100 rent by more than $200 per month. So, Armour said, she was forced to leave retirement and take a part-time job; her fixed income was no longer enough to afford basics such as food and medication.
“Should I live in the dark, skip my medications, or do I just not eat?” Armour said during a Zoom call on Thursday. “I worked so damn hard for 38 years. I should be able to enjoy my retirement.”
Armour, a leader of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said she and other advocates held a meeting this week with Sandra Thompson, the deputy director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Like millions of other people, Armour lives in a property benefiting from federal loans under the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs created by Congress, and Thompson is the top regulator overseeing the programs, which are designed to allow liquidity in the housing market and keep prices down.
Thompson pledged to investigate her agency’s power to tie federal financing for landlords and property managers to new protection for tenants against harmful rent increases, according to Armour. The White House announced a plan in May to bolster the housing supply with new infrastructure funding and zoning reforms. Yet the question of whether federal agencies will muster their regulatory power to challenge landlords and tackle rising rents — which are undoubtedly on the minds of voters — remains to be answered.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)