The Most Important Election in the Americas is in Brazil

BY VIJAY PRASHAD

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

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Photograph Source: Ricardo Stuckert/PR – Agência Brasil – CC BY 3.0 BR

Former Brazilian President Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) runs about on stage at the Latin America Memorial in São Paulo. He was there on August 22, 2022, speaking at a book launch featuring photographs by Ricardo Stuckert about Lula’s trips around the world when he was the president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010. Lula is a man with a great deal of energy. He recounts the story of when he was in Iran with his Foreign Minister Celso Amorim in 2010, trying to mediate and end the conflict imposed by the United States over Iran’s nuclear energy policy. Lula managed to secure a nuclear deal in 2010 that would have prevented the ongoing pressure campaign that Washington is conducting against Tehran. There was relief in the air. Then, Lula said, “Obama pissed outside the pot.” According to Lula, then-U.S. President Barack Obama did not accept the deal and crushed the hard work of the Brazilian leadership in bringing all sides to an agreement.

Lula’s story puts two important points on the table: he was able to build on Brazil’s role in Latin America by offering leadership in far-off Iran during his previous tenure as president, and he is not afraid of expressing his antipathy for the way the United States is scuttling the possibility of peace and progress across the world for its own narrow interests.

The book release took place during Lula’s campaign for president against the current incumbent—and deeply unpopular—President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula is now in the lead in the polls ahead of the first round of Brazil’s presidential election to be held on October 2.

Fernando Haddad, who ran against Bolsonaro in 2018 and lost after receiving less than 45 percent of the vote, told me that this election remains “risky.” The polls might show that Lula is in the lead, but Bolsonaro is known to play dirty politics to secure his victory. The far right in Brazil, like the far right in many other countries, is fierce in the way it contests for state power. Bolsonaro, Haddad said, is willing to lie openly, saying offensive things to the far-right media and then when challenged about it by the mainstream media, he tends to feign ignorance. “Fake news” seems to be Bolsonaro’s best defense each time he is attacked. The left is far more sincere in its political discourse; leftists are unwilling to lie and eager to bring the issues of hunger and unemployment, social despair and social advancement to the center of the political debate. But there is less interest in these issues and less noise about them in a media landscape that thrives on the theatrics of Bolsonaro and his followers. The old traditional right is as outflanked as the far right in Brazil, which is a space that is now commanded by Bolsonaro (the old traditional right, the men in dark suits who made decisions over cigars and cachaça, are unable to supplant Bolsonaro).

Both Bolsonaro and Lula face an electorate that either loves them or hates them. There is little room for ambiguity in this race. Bolsonaro represents not only the far right, whose opinions he openly champions, but he also represents large sections of the middle class, whose aspirations for wealth remain largely intact despite the reality that their economic situation has deteriorated over the past decade. The contrast between the behavior of Bolsonaro and Lula during their respective presidential campaigns has been stark: Bolsonaro has been boorish and vulgar, while Lula is refined and presidential. If the election goes to Lula, it is likely that he will get more votes from those who hate Bolsonaro than from those who love him.

Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is reflective on the way forward. She told me that Lula will likely prevail in the election because the country is fed up with Bolsonaro. His horrible management of the COVID-19 pandemic and the deterioration of the economic situation in the country mark Bolsonaro as an inefficient manager of the Brazilian state. However, Rousseff pointed out that about a month before the election, Bolsonaro’s government—and the regional governments—have been rolling out policies that have started to lighten the burden on the middle class, such as the lifting of taxation on gasoline. These policies could sway some people to vote for Bolsonaro, but even that is not likely. The political situation in Brazil remains fragile for the left, with the main blocs on the right (agro-business, religion and the military) willing to use any means to maintain their hold on power; it was this right-wing coalition that conducted a “legislative coup” against Rousseff in 2016 and used “lawfare,” the use of law for political motives, against Lula in 2018 to prevent him from running against Bolsonaro. These phrases (legislative coup and lawfare) are now part of the vocabulary of the Brazilian left, which understands clearly that the right bloc (what is called centrão) will not stop pursuing their interests if they feel threatened.

João Paulo Rodrigues, a leader of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) is a close adviser to the Lula campaign. He told me that in the 2002 presidential election, Lula won against the incumbent Fernando Henrique Cardoso because of an immense hatred for the neoliberal policies that Cardoso had championed. The left was fragmented and demoralized at that time of the election. Lula’s time in office, however, helped the left mobilize and organize, although even during this period the focus of popular attention was more on Lula himself rather than the blocs that comprised the left. During Lula’s incarceration on corruption charges, which the left says are fraudulent, he became a figure that unified the left: Lula Livre, “Free Lula,” was the unifying slogan, and the letter L (for Lula) became a symbol (a symbol that continues to be used in the election campaign). While there are other candidates from Brazil’s left in the presidential race, there is no question for Rodrigues that Lula is the left’s standard-bearer and is the only hope for Brazil to oust the highly divisive and dangerous leadership of President Bolsonaro. One of the mechanisms to build the unity of popular forces around Lula’s campaign has been the creation of the Popular Committees (comités populares), which have been working to both unify the left and create an agenda for the Lula government (which will include agrarian reform and a more robust policy for the Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian communities).

The international conditions for a third Lula presidency are fortuitous, Rousseff told me. A wide range of center-left governments have come to power in Latin America (including in Chile and Colombia). While these are not socialist governments, they are nonetheless committed to building the sovereignty of their countries and to creating a dignified life for their citizens. Brazil, the third-largest country in the Americas (after Canada and the United States of America), can play a leadership role in guiding this new wave of left governments in the hemisphere, Rousseff said. Haddad told me that Brazil should lead a new regional project, which will include the creation of a regional currency (sur) that can not only be used for cross-border trade but also for holding reserves. Haddad is currently running to be the governor of São Paulo, whose main city is the financial capital of the country. Such a regional currency, Haddad believed, will settle conflicts in the hemisphere and build new trade linkages that need not rely on long supply chains that have been destabilized by the pandemic. “God willing, we will create a common currency in Latin America because we do not have to depend on the dollar,” said Lula in May 2022.

Rousseff is eager for Brazil to return to the world stage through the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and offer the kind of left leadership that Lula and she had given that platform a decade ago. The world, Rousseff said, needs such a platform to offer leadership that does not rely on threats, sanctions and war. Lula’s anecdote about the Iran deal is a telling one since it shows that a country like Brazil under the leadership of the left is more willing to settle conflicts rather than to exacerbate them, as the United States did. There is hope, Rousseff noted, for a Lula presidency to offer robust leadership for a world that seems to be crumbling due to the myriad challenges such as climate catastrophe, warfare and social toxicity.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Vijay Prashad’s most recent book (with Noam Chomsky) is The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and the Fragility of US Power (New Press, August 2022).

Hezbollah at 40 stronger than ever but has more enemies

By Bassem Mroue | AP
September 1, 2022 

  

A  Hezbollah member wears a vest with Arabic that reads: “40 years and we stay with Hussein (the Prophet Muhammad’s grand son),” during the holy day of Ashoura that commemorates the 7th century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 9, 2022. Forty years since it was founded, Lebanon’s Hezbollah has transformed from a ragtag organization to the largest and most heavily armed militant group in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

BEIRUT — Forty years since Hezbollah was founded at the height of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the group has morphed from a ragtag organization to the largest and most heavily armed militant group in the Middle East.
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The Iranian-armed and funded Hezbollah, which has marked the anniversary with ceremonies in its strongholds in recent weeks, dominates Lebanon’s politics and plays an instrumental role in spreading Tehran’s influence throughout the Arab world.

But the Shiite powerhouse, once praised around the Arab world for unrelentingly standing against Israel, faces deep criticism on multiple fronts.

At home in Lebanon, a significant part of the population opposes its grip on power and accuses it of using the threat of force to prevent change. Across the region, many resent its military interventions in Iraq and in Syria’s civil war, where it helped tip the balance of power in favor of President Bashar Assad’s forces.

There is no specific date on when Hezbollah was founded, starting as a small, shadowy group of fighters helped by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. But the group says it happened during the summer of 1982.

The 40th anniversary comes this year as Hezbollah officials have warned of a possible new war with Israel over the disputed gas-rich maritime border between Lebanon and Israel.

Over the years, Hezbollah has boosted its military power. It boasts of having 100,000 well-trained fighters. And now its leader says they have precision-guided missiles that can hit anywhere in Israel and prevent ships from reaching Israel’s Mediterranean coast, as well as advanced drones that can either strike or gather intelligence.

“Hezbollah has evolved tremendously in the past four decades in its organizational structure, global reach, and regional involvements,” says Middle East analyst Joe Macaron.

Hezbollah’s biggest achievement over the past 40 years was its guerrilla war against Israeli forces occupying parts of southern Lebanon. When Israel’s army was forced to withdraw in May 2000 — without a peace deal like the ones it reached with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians — the victory brought Hezbollah praise from around the Middle East.

“Who would have imagined that our enemy could be defeated?” Hezbollah’s chief spokesman Mohammed Afif said a press conference held in July to mark the anniversary.

But since the withdrawal, the controversy over Hezbollah has steadily grown as its role has changed.

In 2005, Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the most powerful Sunni politician in the country at the time, was killed in a massive truck bomb in Beirut. A U.N.-backed tribunal accused three Hezbollah members of being behind the assassination. Hezbollah denies the charges.

Hezbollah was blamed for other assassinations that followed, mostly targeting Christians and Sunni Muslim politicians and intellectuals critical of the group. Hezbollah denies the accusations.

“Hezbollah’s danger to Lebanon is huge,” says journalist and former Cabinet minister May Chidiac who lost an arm and a leg in a 2005 assassination attempt with explosives placed in her car. She said Hezbollah has been expanding Iran’s influence in Lebanon, “and this is a long-term plan that they have been working on for 40 years.”

Asked if Hezbollah is to blame for the attempt on her life, Chidiac said: “Of course. There is no doubt about that. All these assassinations are linked.”

Lebanese have been sharply divided by Hezbollah’s determination to keep its weapons since Israel’s withdrawal. Some call for its disarmament, saying only the state should have the right to carry weapons. Others support the group’s stance that it must continue to be able to defend against Israel.

Hezbollah fought Israel to a draw in a 34-day war in the summer of 2006. Israel today considers Hezbollah its most serious immediate threat, estimating that the militant group has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at it.

In early July, the Israeli military shot down three unmanned aircraft launched by Hezbollah heading toward an area where an Israeli gas platform was recently installed in the Mediterranean Sea. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned that Israel will not be allowed to benefit from its gas fields in the disputed maritime border area before a deal is reached with Lebanon.

Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, the incoming head of Israel’s Northern Command, described Hezbollah as a “serious threat,” due to both its proximity to Israel and its arsenal.

“This is a very strong terror army,” he told The Associated Press in Jerusalem. “Not as strong as the Israeli military, not as strong as the Israeli air force. We are in a completely different place when it comes to our military capabilities. But it can do some significant damage. I have to say that.”

Afif, the Hezbollah spokesman, said that “as long as there is an aggression, there will be resistance.”

In 2008, the government of Western-backed Prime Minister Fouad Saniora decided to dismantle Hezbollah’s telecommunications network. Hezbollah responded by capturing by force Sunni neighborhoods in Beirut. It was the worst internal fighting since the 1975-90 civil war ended and marked a breach in Hezbollah’s pledge never to use its weapons at home.

Perhaps the most controversial decision Hezbollah has made was by sending thousands of fighters to Syria since 2013 to back Assad against opposition fighters, as well as against al-Qaida-linked fighters and the Islamic State group.

The intervention “meant becoming entangled in the internal conflict of a neighboring Arab country rather than fulfilling Hezbollah’s claimed mandate of resistance against Israel,” Macaron said.

Across the Arab world, it cemented an image of Hezbollah as a sectarian Shiite force fighting mainly Sunni insurgents and spreading Iran’s power.

Hezbollah was also accused of helping Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, leading at least six Arab countries to list the group as a terrorist organization.

Within Lebanon, Hezbollah has used its powerful support among the Shiite community and tough tactics to gain political dominance.

In 2016, it secured the election of its Christian ally Michel Aoun as president, then it and its allies won a parliament majority in subsequent elections.

But that also sealed its role as part of a governing system whose decades of corruption and mismanagement have been blamed for Lebanon’s economic collapse, starting in late 2019. With the currency crumbling and much of the population thrown into poverty, the political elite, which has been running Lebanon since the 1975-90 civil war ended, has resisted reforms.

Massive protests demanding the removal of those politicians began in late 2019, and days afterward, hundreds of Hezbollah supporters attacked the protesters in downtown Beirut, forcing them to flee. In October, Hezbollah supporters and a rival militia had an armed clash in Beirut over investigations into the 2020 devastating explosion at Beirut’s port.

Voters punished Hezbollah and its allies in this year’s elections, making them lose their parliamentary majority.

One former senior figure in Hezbollah, Sobhi Tufaili, pointed to the new image of the group as part of the system in a recent interview with a local TV station.

“There is a ship full of thieves,” he said, “and Hezbollah is its captain and protector.”
____


Associated Press writer Josef Federman contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

Mary Peltola Thanks Supporters After Alaska House Special Election Win

Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, becoming the first Alaska Native in Congress.

Abrams, Warnock decry 'inhumane' healthcare policy in joint Marietta rally

Chart Riggall, Marietta Daily Journal, Ga.

Thu, September 1, 2022 

Sep. 1—MARIETTA — Two of the biggest names in Georgia politics were met with a roar of support by Cobb's Democratic faithful as they embraced under the shade of a tree behind the Cobb County Civic Center Wednesday.

With just over two months until Election Day, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams asked voters to send the former back to Washington "for a nice, long six-year term" and the latter to the governor's mansion.

"We had a warm-up in 2018," said Abrams of her first gubernatorial run. "We proved ourselves in 2020, and because we're Southern, we sent them two U.S. senators in 2021."

A crowd of over 100 attendees, including press and staff, was on-hand for the joint rally. The event was originally set to be a Warnock-only affair, but Abrams — whose black SUV trailed behind Warnock's unmistakable bus — was announced as a late addition earlier in the day.

Both candidates have consistently called for Gov. Brian Kemp to expand Medicaid in Georgia, which advocates have said would insure hundreds of thousands of low-income residents. Warnock and Abrams pointed to the news Wednesday morning that Wellstar Health System is reportedly considering closing Atlanta Medical Center as evidence the expansion is needed.

"It's not because they don't have enough patients — they've got enough. It's not that the resources necessary don't exist — they do exist. It is because we have a governor who refuses to expand Medicaid," said Abrams.

Warnock called the nation's healthcare shortcomings "the most shocking and the most inhumane" of its injustices.

Neither candidate — indeed, none of the speakers Wednesday — mentioned President Joe Biden by name. Cobb Democratic Party Chair Jacquelyn Bettadapur attributed that to Warnock's focus on policy.

"It's an emphasis on the work," Bettadapur said. "I find that with Warnock, he emphasizes the work and removes himself from the personalities and the ideologies and sort of all the nonsense that goes on in Washington."

Added state Rep. Teri Anulewicz, D-Smyrna, who introduced Abrams, "We were focused on Cobb County, and I know I was focused on all of the ways that I know Sen. Warnock has been here for Cobb County, and how he has had Cobb County's back in Washington," citing his advocacy for Lockheed Martin to win new aerospace contracts.

Indeed, between Warnock's calls for greater "moral imagination" and for activists to "pray with your legs" he weaved a thread of purported policy achievements. He name-checked 2021's American Rescue Plan Act and the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act which aims to boost American semiconductor production.

"Imagine the United States of America, the KIA plant (in West Point) — or name some other plant — waiting on chips to come from China that we can make right here in Georgia," he boomed.

He also highlighted his work with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to designate a proposed extension to Interstate 14 from Texas to Georgia.

"Yeah, him," Warnock joked. He later said, "There's a road that runs through Texas that also runs through Georgia. And there's a road that runs through our humanity that's bigger than politics, that's bigger than partisan bickering, that's bigger than the culture wars that folks are trying to drag us into."

The crowd was unfazed by Republican protesters who lined Fairground Street and denounced Warnock while waving signs for Senate hopeful Herschel Walker.

"I'm so disappointed at higher taxes, bigger government ... I'm for less government. I think the federal government is too corrupt at this point, and (Warnock) has gone along with the system," said John Barnes of Marietta.

Barnes argued Walker's well-publicized personal issues have been overblown.

"Even though all of us have things in the background, he's a likely very good candidate," he added. "...When we look at all of our candidates in Washington, everybody has something that could be said about them. And what I want is people voting for America, smaller government, less regulations, and returning rights back to the states."

Rosie Turner, a Warnock supporter who recently moved to Mableton from Augusta, said she was largely enthused by Warnock and Abrams' remarks. But there was a major point she felt was overlooked.

"I can see he's working from the religious and spiritual standpoint, as well as the political point of view, which is, I think, very nice. But I wish he would address the abortion thing, and that's something I want to talk to him about. Because I think it's a human right," said Turner.

Baiting Tigers and Poking Dragons – A Kungfu Perspective on China and Taiwan

BY MALIK DIAMOND

 SEPTEMBER 1, 2022
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Image by Alejandro Luengo.

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.”

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, circa 5^th century B.C.

Nancy Pelosi’s recent saber-rattling jaunt to Taiwan has put the Fear into a lot of sensible people, and with good reason. Sometimes I wonder if people like her secretly want to die in a nuclear holocaust, or if being a shill for the arms industry simply requires epic stupidity. I suspect it’s both.

It’s clear that her visit was orchestrated to fill a certain type of American with jingoistic fervor. Over the years, the western imperial world has gotten a lot of mileage out of selling the Yellow Peril. Yet the military budget of the United States dwarfs that of China. Pelosi and her ilk are pumping fear over threats that don’t really exist.

Communist China regards Taiwan as a renegade province. Some say China has a legitimate claim, and maybe that’s true. As far as I’m concerned, the claim of any state has about as much moral weight as the claim John Wayne Gacy had to the children he raped and murdered. The Right of Might has inspired many imperial powers to occupy Taiwan, from the Dutch to the Japanese. I get it that there are strategic reasons why China won’t consider Taiwanese independence—particularly considering how cozy Taiwan’s government has always been with the U.S.—but strategy is not the same as morality. Regardless, my basic feeling on the China vs. Taiwan matter is that it’s none of my business. Then again, I’m not the CIA.

The inherently racist character of America views China as simultaneously weak, dangerous, and sexy. I’ve heard plenty of talk in my life about the “deviousness” of the Chinese, yet in popular American culture they’re consistently feminized, and just about every other pasty techbro I come across in San Francisco is either dating or fantasizing about dating a Chinese woman. How could a body politic like this possibly be clear-headed about any potential conflict with China? In addition, in America anti-communist sentiment is damn near instinctual; for all practical purposes, leftism here is dead, murdered by cointelpro and capitalist brainwashing.

Americans are dumb and they specialize in bluster. The U.S. is a relatively new country, and its citizens have no sense of their own history, let alone that of other countries. China, meanwhile, is the world’s oldest continuous civilization. You don’t reach that point by falling into every sucker’s trap that comes along. It’s no secret that the U.S. government’s big strategy is to provoke Russia and China into resource-depleting wars. It obviously worked on Iron Fist Puto, but I doubt Chinese leaders will be so easily hoodwinked.

However, that doesn’t mean they’ll roll over if seriously threatened. I doubt that a sinister and disingenuous idiot like Pelosi understands China well enough to realize the dragon she’s poking can and will defend itself. If that happens, either China will win—in the sense that Vietnam won, i.e. by preventing defeat… or all of us will lose.

Personal experience can be a powerful vaccination against bigotry. For example, during the Bush II regime America was saturated with propaganda about psychotic Muslim terrorists, but I was impervious to that bullshit partly because I went to grade school with people from several different Islamic cultures—specifically Iranians, Pakistanis, and Afghanis. As a kid I may not have known (or cared) about their cultural particularities, but I also knew they weren’t a bunch of alien zealots.

My interest in the history, culture, and politics of China began when I was in my early twenties. It was a direct outgrowth of my interest in kungfu, which I began studying in 1999 while attending UCLA. The on-campus recreation center offered a wide variety of martial arts classes, and I signed up for as many as I could fit into my schedule. I soon found myself immersed in the “kungfu underground,” known in China as the Jianghu—literally, “Rivers & Lakes,” a reference to the fringe habitats of kungfu practitioners both historical and folkloric.

The Los Angeles area has long had a thriving martial arts culture, partly due to the film industry; many martial artists have come to Hollywood to be stuntmen and fight choreographers. While I was living in L.A. I met a number of skilled kungfu masters, many of whom taught in parks to a small handful of students. I encountered some great people, along with plenty of frauds and freaks. I spent a lot of time at Chinese tea shops and restaurants. I learned Mandarin. And for the record, no, I didn’t date any Chinese women—despite recommendations from a number of middle-aged Chinese hostesses.

There are a couple of teachers I met who were quite famous in their milieu; they have since passed away. This included Hawkins Cheung, a former kungfu-brother of Bruce Lee, both of them having been students of the now-famous master Ip Man. I also met Dr. Jiang Haoquan, who was a master of several kungfu styles, a champion gymnast and diver, and a heavyweight boxing champion; in 1985—at the age of 68—he had an exhibition match with Muhammad Ali. When I met Dr. Jiang he was in his 80s, still powerful and agile, and married to much younger woman.

Dr. Jiang had been a kungfu-brother of Chang Dongsheng, one of the most famous and highly skilled masters of the twentieth century. Chang was a devout Muslim from the Hui ethnic group in northern China. At twelve years old he began studying the art of Shuai Jiao—usually called “Chinese wrestling” in English, it’s actually a throwing art; the Chinese never developed ground-based competition bondage arts like Greco-Roman wrestling or Brazilian Jujitsu.

According to reputation, Chang fought in hundreds of competitions and challenge matches, both friendly and not-so-friendly, and was never defeated.

Chang also taught Shuai Jiao at the Nanjing Central Guoshu Academy, created by Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) in 1928. The Chinese state has long cast a wary eye upon martial artists, with their secret societies and their tendency to rebel against state control; the Boxer Rebellion is merely the most well-known example of kungfu trouble-making. Unregulated civilian martial arts practice inherently undermines the state monopoly on violence. The KMT dealt with this by following Japan’s example and organizing martial arts under the purview of the state. Thus was born the world’s first kungfu university.

Chang Dongsheng later became an instructor for the Red Wall paratroopers, an elite KMT military unit that fought both the Japanese and the Communists. He fled with the defeated KMT to Taiwan, where he was appointed senior instructor for the Central Police University. He also taught a number of KMT dignitaries, bodyguards, and other state-sponsored miscreants. According to one story I heard, when Chang retired from active service, Chiang Kai-Shek summoned him into the dictator-for-life office and offered him whatever he wanted. As a man whose service came from a powerful sense of honor and loyalty, Chang declined. Chiang Kai-Shek took the Taiwanese flag off the wall, folded it up, and gave it to Chang. Until he died of cancer in his 70s, Chang continued to conduct Shuai Jiao demonstrations with his uniform jacket open, signaling that he remained willing to accept any and all challengers.

The Communists had a different approach to dealing with the potential subversiveness of kungfu practitioners: they worked them to death in labor camps or murdered them outright. When the Cultural Revolution arrived, it destroyed much of what remained of kungfu’s legacy. For decades the practice was outlawed; masters had to teach in secret. The People’s Republic eventually engineered a facsimile version of kungfu, the acrobatic sport known as Modern Wushu. Their first major propaganda effort for promoting this new sport was the 1982 film Shaolin Temple, starring a young prodigy named Jet Li, now an internationally famous action star. The temple itself is now a popular tourist attraction, and China is adamantly pursuing the inclusion of Modern Wushu in the Olympics.

Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT were a glorified cabal of villainous gangsters. But then again, civilization itself has never been anything but a protection racket enforced by a glorified cabal of villainous gangsters. In that sense, the KMT is fairly old-fashioned. The Chinese Communist state, on the other hand, is thoroughly modern—a mechanical beast engineered by totalitarian ideology. It may have lifted an unprecedented number of its citizens out of poverty, but it has done so with a terrifying trail of atrocities and environmental holocaust. A combination of the Qing dynasty’s corruption and predation by European imperial powers set the stage for Mao and his cult.

Due to the influence of film and television, most Americans have a somewhat romanticized view of kungfu, and of Asian martial arts in general. Much of the history of these arts and their practitioners is far uglier than the average middle-class mom dropping her kid off at the local dojo would care to imagine. Even the beloved fighting monks of the Shaolin Temple™, mythical origin place of many kungfu styles, in reality were essentially a private militia; Buddhist temples were some of the largest landholders in dynastic China. Like all private armies, the Shaolin monks committed their share of atrocities.

Through much of China’s history, martial arts were largely a working-class trade skill; the career options of a “kungfu professional” were mostly limited to military service, private security for merchants and trade caravans, entertainment, banditry, and organized crime. To an extent, this is still true; two of the first Chinese masters to teach kungfu publicly in America, Lau Bun and T.Y. Wong, both served as Tong enforcers. They mediated disputes, kept drunks in line, collected gambling debts, and trained the Tong muscle.

For that matter, many of my fellow thugs-for-hire at the security company I work for, all Black men, are kungfu practitioners—several are former students of one of our supervisors, who used to have a kungfu school in East Oakland. When I’m sitting in my car all night keeping an eye out for bandits, I like to think of myself as part of a proud, international working-class tradition.

In conclusion, a story from my days as a kungfu student:

It was sometime around the year 2000, in the city of Alhambra, California. Having assisted in moving furniture to clear a practice space, I was standing off to the side in the meticulously decorated living room of my kungfu teacher, watching as a visiting master prepared to give a demonstration of his grappling skill. His competitor in this friendly match was another student, a gym-built American who was a former collegiate wrestling champion, and had spent several post-grad years expanding his fighting repertoire with Judo and Jujitsu. The student out-weighed the visiting master by a good twenty pounds of solid muscle.

The master, who was in his 50s, invited the student to give his best try at taking him down. What happened next was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed, before or since: not only did the student fail to take the master down, but he was so thoroughly out-classed that he could only laugh at his own failure. The master foiled all attempts at being controlled; every clash ended with him sitting on top of the student, striking poses and giggling. It was amazing, and it was hilarious. I was hooked; I wanted that skill, and so I became a student of that master. I’ll never make it to his level, but I’ll say this: I’m not an easy person to put into a “compliance hold.”

Now riddle me this: just what do you think the American response would be if its precious military forces went on the warpath against China and were likewise defeated and humiliated? Remember, these are the same forces that failed to subdue a bunch of poorly armed Afghani militants.

Let me put it another way: do you like mushroom clouds?

I’m not afraid of China. I’m afraid of Americans.

Malik Diamond is a hip hop artist, cartoonist, author, educator, and martial arts instructor. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is the descendant of kidnapped Africans, conquered Natives, and rural laborers of the Scots-Irish, Swiss, and German varieties. He currently lives in Oakland, California, with two brown humans and a white cat. E-mail: malikdiamond (at) hotmail (dot) com

DEMOCRATIC UNION

Volkswagen's Mexico factory workers reject union pay deal
Wednesday

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Workers at Volkswagen's Mexico factory on Wednesday rejected a deal for a 9% pay hike, according to an official statement, voting for a second time against what would have become the country's largest automaker raise in recent years.


Union at Volkswagen in Mexico holds new contract vote© Reuters/IMELDA MEDINA

The union for workers at the plant in Puebla, in central Mexico, had initially sought a raise of more than 15% to account for soaring inflation, from salaries that range from $15 to $48 per day.

About 3,450 workers had voted against the deal, compared with 3,225 in favor, Mexico's Federal Labor Center said in a statement.

(Reporting by Kylie Madry and Sarah Morland; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

UKRAINE

The Missing “Peace” in the $13.5 Billion Military Package

BY MARCY WINOGRAD  

 SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

Image by israel palacio.

The Department of Defense recently announced it would send nearly $3 billion more in weapons and assistance to Ukraine. The White House news of the largest Ukraine arms package yet–rockets, drones, 350,000 rounds of ammunition– was drowned out by President Biden’s announcement to cancel federal student loan debt for almost half of the country’s 43-million debt-saddled people. So while our nation debated whether U.S. citizens should be burdened with huge predatory interest for seeking an education; predatory weapons of war were given the greenlight for Ukraine, even though there’s no accountability for who will receive those weapons, including the neo-Nazi Azov Batallion, an official wing of the Ukrainian military.

The latest announcement from the DOD brings the total in weapons, ammunition and military training to escalate the war in Ukraine to at least $13.5 billion dollars.

We cannot call for peace in Ukraine while simultaneously supplying that country with advanced rocket systems and missiles that could lead to a direct war between the US and Russia, the world’s most heavily armed nuclear nations. A new study estimates that a nuclear war would kill five billion people, over 60% of the human population, with 360 million burning up in the immediate aftermath, the rest dying from starvation during a dark subzero winter.

We must step back from the brink. How?

Ultimately, the US, the nuclear states and all NATO countries must become signatories to the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to outlaw the development, possession, use and threatened use of nuclear weapons.

In the short term we must support an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, not simply around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor under shelling in southeastern Ukraine, but throughout the entire country where the Russian invasion has displaced millions and destroyed much of the Soviet-era infrastructure: rail and electrical lines, bridges, hospitals.

We must tell Congress and the White House there is no military solution, only a diplomatic one that acknowledges the security interests of all stakeholders.

If Ukraine and Russia can negotiate grain exports, prisoner exchanges and an international inspection of a nuclear plant, they can reach a negotiated settlement. The more weapons we send, however, the less incentive there is to sit down and talk. Without the US and NATO fueling the war with more weapons, a settlement might have been reached months ago, perhaps as early as last March when Turkey brokered a deal scuttled at the last minute.

This war might have been stopped before it started had NATO not expanded to Russia’s neck and the US not shipped weapons to Ukraine to escalate a civil war with Russian separatists in Ukraine’s industrial region.

It is long past time for President Biden to pick up the phone and engage in direct talks with Russia’s President Vladamir Putin. There is much to talk about, starting with a request that Russia remove nuclear-capable missiles from Kaliningrad, a region sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, in return for US agreement to rejoin US-Russia arms control agreements–Open Skies Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty– abandoned under the Trump administration. Also up for negotiation might be the removal of US nuclear weapons from five of Europe’s NATO countries–Turkey, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands with assurances that both Russia and US-dominated NATO will cease mock nuclear strikes.

Such a conversation could lead to a negotiated settlement in Ukraine. It has in the past. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis ended when former President John F. Kennedy agreed to remove US nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy in exchange for Soviet removal of missiles from Cuba.

We must ask ourselves what is the cost of war?

For the world, the cost is a worsening of the climate crisis with exponentially increased greenhouse gas emissions from missiles, rockets and tanks. Rockets also pollute the soil and groundwater; warships disrupt marine ecosystems.

For the Middle East and Africa, countries dependent for grain on Russia and Ukraine–the breadbasket of the world– the cost is famine.

For Ukraine, the cost of a protracted war is more lives needlessly lost, millions more displaced from their homes.

For the United States, the cost is rising inflation and shrinking paychecks for the working class.

Rather than risk World War III and nuclear annihilation, President Biden and Congress

must consider the urgent needs of people in the United States, where 100 million are steeped in medical debt, 100 million may face eviction, 38 million are food insecure and millions more contend with inflationary woes. Thousands of residents of Flint, Michigan, still have no clean water.

It is unconscionable to hurl money at war profiteers –Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman–for more weapons to fuel a protracted war over there while over here the people struggle to survive.

We have been here before.

In Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq–the US launched protracted wars that resulted in millions of civilian deaths. To what end?

Someone needs to tell the White House, Congress, the media, politicians, and political pundits that war is not the answer.

The outlines of a peace agreement–ceasefire, withdrawal of foreign troops and weapons, self-governance for Donetsk and Luhansk, control of state borders by Ukraine–already exist. MINSK II is an agreement signed by Ukraine and Russia in 2015 but never implemented for lack of political will.

The solution must be a diplomatic one centered around reparations and debt forgiveness for Ukraine, release of US sanctions in return for Russian concessions, semi-autonomy for the Donbas and guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO. The possibility to end the war in Ukraine starts with the missing peace. Diplomacy.

Marcy Winograd is a retired public school teacher and author from California. She is the Coordinator of CODEPINK Congress and the Peace in Ukraine Coalition, which is planning a week of action September 12th-15th to end the war.

“WE FELT LIKE HOSTAGES”: UKRAINIANS DESCRIBE FORCIBLE TRANSFERS AND FILTRATION BY RUSSIAN FORCES

A report from Human Rights Watch documents Russia’s deportation and screening of Ukrainians, but cautions the full extent is not yet known

Civilians are being evacuated along humanitarian corridors from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol under the control of Russian military and pro-Russian separatists, on March 24, 2022. Photo: Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Alice Speri

THE INTERCEPT
September 1 2022

WHEN RUSSIAN FORCES took control of Nataliya’s village outside Kharkiv, on the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they offered bus rides to residents seeking to evacuate the area but with a catch: They could only go to Russia. Those hoping to escape to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which remained under Ukrainian control, were not allowed to leave.

For months, Nataliya stayed behind, even as some neighbors chose to go to Russia as the conflict escalated. Then last May, Russian forces occupying the village told residents that a corridor had been opened to Ukrainian-controlled territory. Nataliya and others boarded a bus that they were told was headed to Kharkiv. But when the bus stopped, she realized they were in Shebekino, a city just across the border.

“I suddenly realized that we were in Russia,” Nataliya told human rights investigators. “We didn’t even go through a border crossing.”

Over the next days, Nataliya and others from her village were taken to a motorsport complex turned makeshift transit camp for thousands of Ukrainians, she told investigators. Russian officials photographed her, took her fingerprints, and made her fill out an immigration form. After a few days sleeping in tents, most people boarded buses to other destinations in Russia, but Nataliya managed to take a train to Moscow, then traveled to Poland and back into Ukraine, eventually reaching Kharkiv.


Nataliya’s ordeal is one of several documented in a Human Rights Watch report published Thursday, which paints the most detailed picture yet of so-called filtration and forcible transfers of Ukrainians by Russian forces. Allegations that thousands of Ukrainians seeking to flee the fighting were forced to undergo interrogations and an invasive screening process, and that many were deceived or pressured into moving to Russian-controlled territory or across the border into the Russian federation itself, have emerged consistently over the last several months. But access to people subjected to forced screenings and transfers has been a challenge, making it difficult for investigators to understand their scope and scale. In April, Russian authorities shut down Human Rights Watch’s office in the country along with those of a dozen other human rights organizations, making it impossible for the group to investigate alleged abuses from within Russia.

In the new report, based on dozens of interviews, including 18 with people who traveled to Russia and were ultimately able to leave, Human Rights Watch concludes that an unknown number of Ukrainians were transported to Russia in “organized mass transfers” conducted in a manner and context that rendered them illegal forcible transfers — a war crime and potential crime against humanity. Forcible transfers include cases in which a person consents to move “only because they fear consequences such as violence, duress, or detention if they remain, and the occupying power is taking advantage of a coercive environment to transfer them,” the rights group wrote.

“When Russian forces transfer Ukrainian civilians from areas of active hostilities to areas of Ukraine under Russian occupation or to the Russian Federation, under the guise of evacuations, they are not merely removing civilians from the hazards of war,” the report concluded. “They are implementing policy ambitions articulated by Russia’s leadership in the lead up to and during the current conflict.”

Russian and Ukrainian officials have each pointed to the movement of tens of thousands of Ukrainians across the border as supporting evidence for their narratives about the conflict, but observers argue that the full picture is more complex and nuanced. Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, said earlier this summer that 1.2 million Ukrainians had been forcibly taken to Russia, including 240,000 children. Russian officials, for their part, claimed that over 2.8 million Ukrainians had entered the Russian federation from Ukraine, including 448,000 children, at least half of which came from areas of Ukraine that had been under Russian control since 2014. The Ukrainian and Russian governments did not respond to requests for comment from The Intercept.

While Human Rights Watch documents the forcible transfer of several people, the group couldn’t determine how many Ukrainians have been forced into Russia that way, and it warned against drawing generalized conclusions about the movement of people amid ongoing conflict. Some Ukrainians felt they had no choice but to go to Russia, which they saw as the only way to escape relentless shelling — and a decision made under such conditions, Human Rights Watch notes, amounts to forcible transfer. While in Russia, some of the people transferred there were pressured to sign declarations stating that they had witnessed war crimes by Ukrainian forces, the group added.

But many Ukrainians also made the journey to Russia or Russian-controlled territory voluntarily, either because they held pro-Russian views, had family ties in Russia, or as a way to travel on to other destinations after the Ukrainian government imposed martial law, forbidding most adult males from leaving the country.

“One really needs to be very careful in determining in each case whether a forcible transfer has occurred, and one cannot generalize and say, ‘OK, the Russians are saying it’s 2 million Ukrainians so we then say, 2 million Ukrainians have been forcibly transferred to Russia,’” Belkis Wille, the report’s lead researcher, told The Intercept. “There are some Ukrainians who have chosen to go to Russia, including because they wanted to transit on to Europe. … Even if we had the numbers on how many people went to Russia, that doesn’t mean that that many people were forcibly transferred.”

Human Rights Watch also noted that because reaching transferred Ukrainians remains a challenge, and because many were too fearful to speak to investigators, its report was based almost exclusively on interviews with those with access to social media or to a network of activists who helped them eventually leave Russia. “Their experiences are not necessarily representative of the many other Ukrainians who are still in Russia, who neither went there or remain there by choice,” the group wrote, calling for further research “to understand the full range of abuses that forcibly transferred Ukrainians in Russia may have experienced and be experiencing.”


Civilians flee the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, on March 24, 2022.
Photo: Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Kharkiv and Mariupol

According to the report, most of those who were forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian-controlled territory came from the region around Kharkiv and from the city of Mariupol, which was under siege for 10 weeks before falling under Russian control in May. As several Ukrainian government attempts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol to Ukrainian-controlled territory failed throughout the siege, thousands of residents attempted to leave the destroyed city, escaping at times on foot, under heavy shelling, through streets filled with dead bodies. Many of these civilians were made to believe that in order to be allowed passage out of areas with active hostilities they had to submit to a “filtration” process by Russian forces, which included surrendering their phones and passports, having their biometrics recorded, and undergoing body searches and interrogations about their jobs and political views.

Those with access to private vehicles were often able to skirt the process, Human Rights Watch noted. But thousands of those who were reliant on evacuation buses to flee the violence or who were made to believe that they needed to show filtration “receipts” in order to move through Russian-controlled areas spent days and in some cases weeks in schools, community centers, tents, or vehicles waiting for clearance, often in squalid conditions and with little food. Those who failed the screening because of suspected ties to the Ukrainian military or nationalist groups were detained in Russian-controlled territory and the whereabouts of several remain unknown, according to family members interviewed by Human Rights Watch. The group warned that they may be at risk of torture and enforced disappearance.

Wille, the Human Rights Watch researcher, noted that the mass biometric data collection happening as part of the filtration process was especially concerning.

“It fits into a much bigger thing going on in Russia,” she told The Intercept, noting that Human Rights Watch has documented widespread efforts by Russian authorities to build biometric databases for surveillance and monitoring. “They’re trying to, à la Xinjiang, create something quite similar and comprehensive in Russia. And I think this gives them a big kind of ground for experimentation. … I think the consequences are significant because we don’t know yet what they’re going to be.”

Those who spoke to Human Rights Watch noted their fear and helplessness as Russian soldiers made them board buses and either lied to them or refused to disclose their destination. They described being held in filtration centers that were overcrowded and filthy.

“We felt like hostages,” said a man who was detained while walking in Mariopul to check on his grandmother and was held for two weeks in a schoolhouse in Russian-controlled territory. “We were afraid they had some dodgy plans for us.”

Another man, who spent 40 days interned in a village outside Mariupol, described inedible food and sanitary conditions that made many people sick. “But more than anything, it was the uncertainty,” he said. “We kept asking, ‘Why keep us there? When will we get the passports back?’ But [the Donetsk People’s Republic authorities] would not tell us anything coherent.”
Historical Precedent

Both “filtration” and the mass transfer of people have precedents in Russian and Soviet history, though the practices have also been widespread elsewhere. “When we talk about filtration, we should not really attribute it only to Russia,” Alexander Statiev, a history professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, told The Intercept. “The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, for instance, it was a filtration center. The Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, it was also a screening facility.”

Soviet officials established filtration camps during World War II, targeting soldiers who had found themselves in German-controlled areas, to identify suspected defectors and collaborators. “Because of this Stalinist, permanent suspicion of spies and enemy agents, they had to undertake this filtration, this screening process,” said Statiev. Soon, the practice was extended to several million civilians who had been living in German territory.

Population transfers, often along ethnic lines, were also commonplace in Soviet Russia, added Statiev, who pointed to the deportation of 170,000 ethnic Koreans, suspected of sympathizing with the Japanese, from the Soviet Union’s far east to Central Asia.

More recently, filtration camps were a defining feature of the Chechen wars, which started in the 1990s. Some 200,000 Chechens, a fifth of the population, passed through the camps, where they were subjected to widespread and well-documented human rights abuses. “Filtration is a standard counterinsurgency procedure … but if a rebellion is popular — and in Chechnya it was popular — a lot of people support the rebels,” said Statiev, noting that there is no evidence that the filtration currently underway in Ukraine is comparable in terms of scale and treatment. “Russia did it on a very large scale in Chechnya, on a very large scale during the Second World War, but the scale of the current formulation is not really clear.”

The Russian government’s goal when encouraging or forcing Ukrainians to move to Russia is also unclear. Over the last several years, Russian officials dealing with a population decline have been trying to lure citizens of former Soviet countries to regions of the federation facing labor shortages, even though promises of support to those who agree to go often fall short. While some Ukrainians have chosen to move to Russia in the aftermath of their country’s invasion, Russian officials failed to articulate a vision for how the war and the destruction it wrought would serve their ultimate goals.

“I don’t think Russians are clear themselves. The trouble is that they started the war without rationally formulating the end game,” said Statiev. “We don’t really know what they would do with all those people. A great deal of them hate Russia as a state, not so much the people, but Russia as a state. And to find within your state so many people who hate you — what is the point?”

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

US promises to review impacts of IRA on Korean EV makers

By Jo He-rim
Published : Sept 1, 2022 - 

South Korean National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han arrives at his hotel in Honolulu on Wednesday, after holding bilateral talks with his US and Japanese counterparts, Jake Sullivan and Takeo Akiba, respectively. (Yonhap)


The United States will look into the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on South Korean automakers, a Korean national security official said after a bilateral talk with his US counterpart on Thursday.

South Korea's National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han held a bilateral meeting with his US counterpart Jake Sullivan on the sidelines of a trilateral security meeting involving Japanese national security adviser Takeo Akiba in Hawaii.

"(Sullivan) said IRA does offer more of advantages than disadvantages for Korea, but also said that the US will look closely to see how the EV subsidy discussion goes, and of the impacts (IRA) would have," Kim said after his meeting with Sullivan.

The US NSC will review the impacts and explain the results of its assessment to Korea before making any administrative order.

In a previous discussion with a Korean delegation of negotiators, the US also was positive on forming an official channel with South Korea to discuss ways to minimize potential damage the new law could have on Korean firms, according to South Korean officials.

The presidential office also said Thursday that the US' new law is a topic that can be discussed in bilateral talks with Washington.

According to Deputy Trade Minister An Sung-il, who led a Korean delegation to Washington to deliver concerns over the act, the US side took their opinions seriously and responded positively on forming a new channel for discussions.

“We relayed our situation and the positions of (Korean firms), the atmosphere at the National Assembly and Korean sentiment, and the US side showed they take this matter seriously,” An said on Wednesday at the airport before returning to Seoul from his three-day trip in Washington.

The Korean government sent a delegation of negotiators, including Lee Mi-yon, director general for Bilateral Economic Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, to relay rising concerns here.

US President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law on Aug. 16. The new law, which encompasses health care, taxation and climate measures, has raised concerns in Korea’s electric vehicle industry, as it stipulates that only those vehicles assembled inside North America are qualified to receive the government’s maximum tax subsidies of $7,500.

While details have not yet been drawn out, the law would also mandate the batteries used in the vehicles not only be produced with materials imported from countries with free trade agreements with the US, but also demand that a certain percentage of the batteries be made in North America.

During the three-day trip, the delegation met with officials of the US Trade Representative and the departments of Commerce, Treasury and State, as well as the legislature.

"They (the US) were also taking this issue very seriously and were aware of our concerns. They recognized South Korea as an important ally, and they said they were prepared to continue to discuss the issue together," An said.

In their working-level meetings with the US administration and legislature, officials from White House also joined, the official explained.

A more detailed discussion on how to handle the impacts of the IRA is expected when South Korean Trade Minister Ahn Duk-keun travels to Washington to attend a meeting for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework next week.

Korean electric-car makers have been left scrambling to deal with the fallout.

The IRA poses a serious threat to Korean automakers, including Hyundai Motor and Kia, who build their flagship electric models here and export them overseas. The companies automatically lost price competitiveness as they were excluded from the US subsidy.

Some 100,000 Korean electric vehicles for export will be affected annually by the IRA, according to an estimate from the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association.

To minimize losses for Korean companies, time is important. But the US side maintains they need to analyze the situation first, as it has only been a couple of weeks since the law passed.

Seoul views that the US law violates the US-Korea free trade agreement, and has also considered bringing the case to the World Trade Organization for a possible violation of the “most favored nation” principle.

The Federation of Korean Industries has also sent a letter to the US president, delivering the concerns of Korean companies, it said Thursday.

The National Assembly also adopted a resolution highlighting the discriminatory nature of the US law and raised concerns on possible damages. In the plenary meeting held Thursday, 254 lawmakers out of 261 who attended the session voted in favor of the resolution.

U$A

Deadly bird flu returns to Midwest earlier than expected

Bird flu has returned to the Midwest earlier than authorities expected after a lull of several months

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press
August 31, 2022, 4:03 PM


On Location: September 2, 2022

MINNEAPOLIS -- Bird flu has returned to the Midwest earlier than authorities expected after a lull of several months, with the highly pathogenic disease being detected in two commercial turkey flocks in western Minnesota and a hobby flock in Indiana, officials said Wednesday.

The disease was detected after a farm in Meeker County reported an increase in mortality last weekend, the Minnesota Board of Animal Health said. The flock was euthanized to stop the spread. The board later reported that a second flock in the county tested positive Tuesday evening.

They were the first detections of avian influenza in Minnesota since May 31, when a backyard flock was struck in Becker County. Indiana's case was its first since a backyard flock there tested positive June 8, which had been the last detection in the Midwest before this week.

However, there have been several detections in western states in July and August, including California, where a half-dozen commercial farms have had to kill more than 425,000 chickens and turkeys since last week. There have also been cases in Washington, Oregon and Utah, plus a few in some eastern states.

“While the timing of this detection is a bit sooner than we anticipated, we have been preparing for a resurgence of the avian influenza we dealt with this spring,” said Dr. Shauna Voss, the board's senior veterinarian. “HPAI is here and biosecurity is the first line of defense to protect your birds.”

The Indiana State Board of Animal Health reported that a small hobby flock of chickens, ducks and geese in northern Indiana's Elkhart County tested presumptively positive on Tuesday, though final confirmation from a federal lab was pending.

Across the country, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 414 flocks in 39 states have been affected since February, costing producers over 40 million birds, mostly commercial turkeys and chickens. The disease has struck 81 Minnesota flocks this year, requiring the killing of nearly 2.7 million birds.

Minnesota produces more turkeys annually than any other state.

This year's outbreak contributed to a spike in egg and meat prices, and killed an alarming number of bald eagles and other wild birds. It also affected some zoos. It appeared to be waning in June, but officials warned then that another surge could take hold this fall.

The disease is typically carried by migrating birds. It only occasionally affects humans, such as farm workers, and the USDA keeps poultry from infected flocks out of the food supply. A widespread outbreak in 2015 killed 50 million birds across 15 states and cost the federal government nearly $1 billion.