Tony Blair: Profiteer and Emissary of Artificial Intelligence

by Binoy Kampmark / July 14th, 2024

His entire set of teeth, and gums, must be gold plated by now.  Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has decided to let the world, and more specifically Sir Keir Starmer’s freshly elected government, in on a secret: that artificial intelligence is inexorably majestic, glorious and sovereign.  Embrace it and fob off the doomsdayers.  Importantly for Blair, embracing it will ensure that the rivers of gold continue to flow into his private purse.

In May, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) released a report that unabashedly embraced the role of AI in influencing the way states govern.  It is the accompanying document to Blair’s own address given at the Future of Britain Conference on July 9, which called for reimagining the state through the prism of AI.  As he spoke, the sound of money going out the door was palpable.

The former PM would have the new Labour government believe, plucking various numbers out of the air, that technological reforms made to the public sector could see £12 billion of “annual fiscal space” at the conclusion of the first term, followed by £40 billion at the end of the second, with cumulative savings of £15 billion in the first term and £150 billion in the second.

As one has come to expect from Blair’s ruminations, complexity and troubling consequence is obscured by anaemic waffle.  He found it hard to avoid the prospect that this enthusiastic embrace of AI by governments would see a contraction of the public sector, offering no details about chronology or severity.  Little, as well, on how the revolution could offer “the best route to a society that is not only more productive but one that is more equitable… a contemporary version of the combination of economic efficiency and social justice.”

In Governing in the Age of AI: A New Model to Transform the State, the institute takes a hammer to the traditional caution expressed by the state.  “Like all well-established organisations, the state has a bias towards caution.  But this is an illusion – a failure to modernise, reform and deliver is a perilous course for a nation and those who govern it.”  With a breezy confidence, the report estimates that £40 billion in annual savings will be made as things stand with current technology.  “But of course, over time, this technology will accelerate dramatically in its capability, and so will the savings.”

The report is shameless in charting out the institute’s own marketing strategy.  Here is the scenario, and we are happy to offer our services in facilitating it, swooping in for the corporate kill.  “To access this opportunity [presented by AI], government will need a coordinated strategy to put in place the necessary infrastructure, sovereign capability and skills.”  Appropriate data, “interoperable” across departments, will require investment.  Models will need to be trained, with necessary computing power to “for AI to run at scale”.  Enter the linking of hands between government and the private sector, something the institute is more than willing to facilitate.

Blair’s donor base is impossible to discount when considering his speeches on the subject of AI and the reports of his institute.  Over the years, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, has forked out vast sums to the organisation.  In 2021, Ellison, through his philanthropic offices, furnished the institute with US$33.8 million, with a promise of US$49.4 million in 2022.  These contributions should suggest more than a bit of string pulling by the likes of Ellison over the TBI research agenda, a case of purchasing corrupted advice that can be duly advertised to government and corporate clients the world over.

Benedict Macon-Cooney, the body’s chief policy strategy, is dismissive of the suggestion.  “There is no conflict of interest, and donations are ringfenced.”  He did, however, concede that the institute did partner public officials with companies to attain their respective goals.  “Sometimes the state is the best way to do things, but if we are [to] look around and see private providers which would be better helping with reforms, then we will say so.”

In what seems like a mud wrestle between the mendacious and truth in slant, Goldman Sachs has begged to differ from the TBI’s dreams of technological nirvana in a dampening analysis.  On this occasion, the devil is singing in different registers.  In its June 2024 report, the investment banking colossus notes that the vast sums being expended – an estimate of US$1 trillion over the next few years is offered – on data centres, chips, AI infrastructure and the power grid has, and will have “little to show for it in so far beyond reports of efficiency gains among developers.”

The report features an interview with MIT’s Daron Acemoglu, who estimates that a mere quarter of tasks subject to AI “will be cost effective to automate within the next 10 years, implying that AI will impact less than 5% of all tasks.”  In his interview, Acemoglu observes that numerous tasks currently being performed by humans “for example in the area of transportation, manufacturing, mining, etc., are multifaceted and require real-world interaction, which AI won’t be able to materially improve any time too soon.”

The GS Head of Global Equity Research, Jim Cavello, is even less impressed, noting that AI technology, to be viable, must be able to solve complex problems.  AI technology is not the holy grail of company valuations, being simply too costly in terms of building critical products such as GPU chips and unable, so far, to “replicate humans’ most valuable capabilities.”

There you have it.  On the one hand, the flowery promises of AI benefits and savings arising from a fierce embrace of technology by governments, as put forth by Blair and his institute.  Then we have Goldman Sachs, similarly famed for its ruthless tailoring of advice to swell monetary returns.  Neither is encouraging, but Blair’s offerings always come with a barely concealed odour of self-interest masquerading as human salvation.



ail

Terminating Partnerships: The UK Ends the Rwanda Solution

by Binoy Kampmark / July 10th, 2024

The dishonour board is long.  Advisors from Australia, account chasing electoral strategists, former Australian cabinet ministers happy to draw earnings in British pounds.  British Conservative politicians keen to mimic their cruel advice, notably on such acid topics as immigration and the fear of porous borders.

Ghastly terminology used in Australian elections rhetorically repurposed for the British voter: “Turning the Back Boats”, the “Rwanda Solution”.  Grisly figures such as Boris Johnson, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Rishi Sunak, showing an atavistic indifference to human rights.  The cruelty and the cockups, the failures and the foul-ups.  Mock the judges, mock the courts.  Soil human dignity.

All this, to culminate in the end of the Rwanda Solution, declared by the new Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, as “dead and buried before it even started”.  Yet it was a sadistic policy of beastly proportion, offering no prospect of genuine discouragement or deterrence to new arrivals, stillborn in execution and engineered to indulge a nasty streak in the electorate.

In April 2022, the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced the Asylum Partnership Arrangement with Rwanda, ostensibly designed “to contribute to the prevention and combating of illegally facilitated and unlawful cross border migration by establishing a bilateral asylum partnership”.

Mysteriously, British officials suddenly found Rwanda an appropriate destination for processing asylum claims and resettling refugees, despite Kigali doing its bit to swell the ranks of potential refugees.  In June 2023, the UK Court of Appeal noted the risks presented to asylum seekers, notably from ill-treatment and torture, arguing that the British government would be in breach of the European Convention on Human rights in sending them into Kigali’s clutches.  In November that year, the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion.

These legal rulings did not deter the government of Rishi Sunak.  With lexical sophistry bordering on the criminal, the Safety of Rwanda bill was drafted to repudiate what the UK courts had found by denying officials and the judiciary any reference to the European Convention of Human Rights and the UK’s own Human Rights Act 1998 when considering asylum claims.

The bookkeeping aspect of the endeavour was also astonishing.  It envisaged the payment of some half a billion pounds to Kigali in exchange for asylum seekers.  The breakdown of costs, not to mention the very plan itself, beggared belief.  The Home Office would initially pay £370 million under the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund, followed by a further £20,000 for every relocated individual.  Once the risibly magic number of 300 people had been reached, a further £120 million would follow.

Operational costs for each individual kept in Rwanda would amount to £150,874 over the course of five years, ceasing in the event a person wished to leave Rwanda, in which case the Home Office would pay £10,000 to assist in the move.

With biting irony, the UK government had demonstrated to Rwanda that it could replace the supposedly vile market of people smuggling in Europe with a lucrative market effectively monetising asylum seekers and refugees in exchange of pledges of development.

By February 2024, according to the National Audit Office, the UK had paid £220 million to Rwanda, with a promise of another £50 million each year over three years.  It was a superb return for Kigali, given that no asylum seekers from the UK had set foot in the country.  When asked at the time why he was hungrily gobbling up the finance, Paul Kagame feigned serenity.  “It’s only going to be used if those people will come.  If they don’t come, we can return the money.”

With an airy contemptuousness, the Kagame government has refused to return any of the monies received in anticipation of the policy’s full execution.  Doris Uwicyeza Picard, the central figure coordinating the migration partnership with the UK, was blunt: “We are under no obligation to provide any refund.  We will remain in constant discussions.  However, it is understood that there is no obligation on either side to request or receive a refund.”

In another statement, this time from deputy spokesman for the Rwandan government, Alain Mukuralinda, the sentiment bordered on the philosophical: “The British decided to request cooperation for a long time, resulting in an agreement between the two countries that became a treaty.  Now, if you come and ask for cooperation and then withdraw, that’s your decision.”

In an official note from Kigali, the government haughtily declared that the partnership had been initiated by the UK to address irregular migration, “a problem of the UK, not Rwanda.”  Rwanda, for its part, had “fully upheld its side of the agreement, including with regard to finances”.  Redundantly, and incredulously, the note goes on to claim that Kigali remained “committed to finding solutions to the global migration crisis, including providing safety, dignity and opportunity to refugees and migrants who come to our country.”

The less than subtle message in all of this: Rwanda is ready to keep cashing in on Europe’s unwanted asylum seekers, whatever its own record and however successful the agreement is. Kagame has no doubt not lost interest in Denmark, that other affluent country keen on outsourcing its humanitarian obligations.  While Copenhagen abandoned its partnership with Rwanda in January 2023 regarding a similar arrangement to that reached with the UK, it is now showing renewed interest, notably after hosting a high-level conference on immigration.

In opening the conference on May 6, the Social Democratic Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, speaking in language that could just as easily have been associated with any far right nationalist front, decried the “de facto” collapse of the “current immigration and asylum system”.  Those in the Rwandan treasury will be rubbing their hands in anticipation.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

 

Building a Planet of Peace Is the Only Realistic Thing to Do

by Vijay Prashad / July 15th, 2024

Beatriz González (Colombia), Señor presidente, qué honor estar con usted en este momento histórico (‘Mr President, What an Honour to Be with You in This Historic Moment’), 1987.

There are times in life when you want to set aside complexity and return to the essence of things. Last week, I was on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, travelling from Isla Grande to the mainland of Colombia, when it began to rain heavily. Though our boat was modest, we were in minimal danger with Ever de la Rosa Morales, a leader of the Afro-Colombian community on the twenty-seven Rosario Islands (located off the coast of Cartagena), at the helm. During the downpour, a range of human emotions swept through me, from fear to exhilaration. The rain was linked to Hurricane Beryl, a storm that struck Jamaica at a Category Four level (the highest the country has experienced) and then moved toward Mexico with a more muted ferocity.

The Haitian poet Frankétienne sings of the ‘dialect of lunatic hurricanes’, the ‘folly of colliding winds’, and the ‘hysteria of the roaring sea’. These are fitting phrases to describe the way we experience the power of nature, a power that has redoubled as a result of the damage inflicted upon it by capitalism. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report suggests that the North Atlantic has almost certainly experienced stronger and more frequent hurricanes since the 1970s. Scientists say that long-term greenhouse gas emissions have led to warmer ocean waters, which pick up more moisture and energy and lead to both stronger winds and more rainfall.

On Isla Grande, where pirates used to stash their loot and where Africans escaping enslavement fled over five hundred years ago, residents held an assembly in early July to discuss the need for an electricity plant that would benefit the islanders. The assembly is part of a long struggle that ultimately allowed them to remain on these islands, despite the Colombian oligarchy’s attempt to evict them in 1984, and succeeded in removing the rich owner of the best land on Isla Grande, upon which they built the town of Orika through a process called minga (community solidarity). Their Community Action Board (Junta de Acción Comunal), which led the struggle to defend their land, is now called the Community Council of the Rosario Islands (Consejo Comunitario de las Islas del Rosario). Part of that council held the assembly, an example of the permanent minga.

The island is knit together by this spirit of minga and by the mangroves, which preserve the habitat from the rising waters. The assembled residents know that they must expand their electricity capacity, not only to promote eco-tourism, but also for their own use. But how can they generate electricity on these small islands?

On the day of the rains, Colombian President Gustavo Petro visited the town of Sabanalarga (Atlántico) to inaugurate the Colombia Solar Forest, a complex of five solar parks with a capacity of 100 megawatts. This park is set to benefit 400,000 Colombians and cut annual CO₂ emissions by 110,212 tonnes, which is equivalent to 4.3 million car trips from Barranquilla to Cartagena. At this event, Petro called on mayors in the Colombian Caribbean to build ten-megawatt solar farms for each municipality, reduce electricity rates, decarbonise the economy, and promote sustainable development. This is perhaps the most concrete solution for the islands to date, whose coastlines are being eroded by the rising waters.

Marisa Darasavath (Lao People’s Democratic Republic), Oil Painting #7, 2013.

As Petro spoke in Sabanalarga, I thought about his speech to the United Nations last year, where he pleaded for world leaders to honour the ‘crisis of life’ and fix our problems together rather than ‘waste time killing one another’. In that speech, Petro lyrically described the situation in 2070, forty-six years from now. In that year, he said, Colombia’s lush forests will become deserts and ‘people will go north, no longer attracted by the sequins of wealth, but by something simpler and more vital: water’. ‘Billions’, he said, ‘will defy armies and change the Earth’ as they travel to find the remaining sources of water.

Such a dystopia must be prevented. To do so, Petro said, at the very minimum sufficient funding must be provided for the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), established by a treaty in 2015. While the entire process of developing these SDGs was fraught with problems, including how they disarticulate issues that are inextricably connected (poverty and water, for instance), their existence and acceptance by world governments provides an opportunity to insist that they be taken seriously. On 8 July, the United Nations Economic and Social Council opened the 2024 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, which will last for ten days. The gap between the funds pledged to meet the SDGs and the actual amount provided to implement the programme in developing countries is now $4 trillion per year (up from $2.5 trillion in 2019). Without sufficient funding, it is unlikely that this forum will have any meaningful outcome.

Abdelaziz Gorgi (Tunisia), Les Joueuses de Cartes (‘Card Players’), 1973.

In anticipation of the forum, the UN released the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024, which shows that only ‘minimal or moderate’ progress has been made toward nearly half of the seventeen targets, and more than a third have either stalled or regressed. While the first sustainable development goal is to eradicate poverty, for instance, the report notes that ‘the global extreme poverty rate increased in 2020 for the first time in decades’, and that by 2030, at least 590 million people will be in extreme poverty and fewer than one in three countries will halve national poverty. Similarly, while the second goal is to end hunger, in 2022 one in ten people faced hunger, 2.4 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure, and 148 million children under the age of five suffered from stunting. These two goals, ending poverty and ending hunger, are perhaps the ones with the highest global consensus. And yet, we are nowhere near meeting even a modest interpretation of these goals. Ending poverty and hunger would also assist in the fifth SDG, gender equality, since it would reduce the increased burden of care work placed mostly on women, who largely bear the weight of austerity policies.

There is, as President Petro said, a ‘crisis of life’. We seem to favour death over life. Each year, we spend more and more on the global military. As of 2022, this number was $2.87 trillion – nearly the amount needed to finance all seventeen SDGs for one year. It is strange how the advocates of a planet at war claim that they are realistic, while those who want a planet of peace are seen as idealists; yet, in fact, those who want a planet of war are exterminators, while those of us who advocate for a planet of peace are the only possible realists. Reality demands peace over war, spending our precious resources to solve our common problems – such as climate change, poverty, hunger, and illiteracy – above all else.

In September 2023, a month before the current genocidal assault against Gaza began, Petro called for the UN to sponsor two peace conferences, one for Ukraine and one for Palestine. If there can be peace in these two hotspots, Petro said, ‘they would teach us to make peace in all regions of the planet’. This perfectly reasonable suggestion was ignored then and is ignored now. Nonetheless, this did not stop Petro from organising a massive Latin American concert for peace in Palestine in early July.

Rosângela Rennó (Brasil), from the series Rio-Montevideo, 2016.

There is madness in our choices. The revenues of the top five arms dealers in 2022 alone (all domiciled in the United States) were around $276 billion, a number that should be a standing rebuke to humanity. Israel has dropped roughly 13,050 MK-84 ‘dumb bombs’ on Gaza, which have an explosive capacity of 2,000 pounds (around 900 kgs) per bomb. Each of these bombs costs $16,000, meaning that the bombs already dropped have cost over $200 million in total. It is strange that the very governments that supply Israel with these bombs and that give it political cover (including the US) then turn around and fund the UN to dismantle unexploded dumb bombs from Gaza during the pause between bombings. Meanwhile, aid for relief and development in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (which includes Gaza) has not exceeded hundreds of millions – in a good year. More spent on weapons, less spent on life – the ugliness of our humanity needs to be transformed.

Mohamed Sulaiman (Western Sahara), Red Liberty, 2014.

The young artist Mohamed Sulaiman grew up in Algeria, at the Smara Refugee Camp of the displaced peoples of Western Sahara. After studying at Algeria’s University of Batna, Sulaiman returned to the camp to make art based on calligraphy traditions that use the oral histories of the Saharawi people as well as poems of contemporary Arab writers. In 2016, Sulaiman founded the Motif Art Studio, built from recycled materials to resemble traditional desert homes. In his studio, which opened in 2017, Sulaiman hangs Red Liberty, which carries a line from the Egyptian poet Ahmad Shawqi (1868–1932): ‘Red freedom has a door, knocked on by every bloodstained hand’. The line comes from ‘The Plight of Damascus’, a poem that reflects on the French destruction of Damascus in 1916 as revenge for the Arab revolt. The poem encapsulates not only the ugliness of the war, but also the promise of a future:

Homelands have a hand that has alreadylent a favour
and to which all free people owe a debt.

The bloodstained hand is the hand of those before us who struggled to build a better world, many of whom perished in that struggle. To them, and future generations, we owe a debt. We must turn this ‘crisis of life’ into an opportunity to ‘live far from the apocalypse and times of extinction,’ as Petro said last year; ‘A beautiful horizon [is coming] amidst the storm and darkness of today, a horizon that tastes like hope’.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. Prashad is the author of twenty-five books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. Read other articles by Vijay, or visit Vijay's website.

 

The FDA Needs to Bloody Well Get Its Act Together

by Sheila Velazquez / July 15th, 2024

While we flit from story to story, post to post, that warn us of the dangers of the day, much of it exaggerated or imagined, the actual harm that is being done to us continues to escalate. And very few in the media are covering it. So much time is spent hashing over politics and “injustice,” but so little to our health, safety, and financial security. Corporate media does not give a crap about us, and we all know it.

Little attention is paid to women’s health, except when the rhetoric serves someone’s purpose, usually political or financial. The results of a study of tampons, the first such study ever undertaken, were recently released. Kind of strange, since they’ve studied just about everything else we put into our bodies and tortured and killed millions of test animals in the process, but no one thought to check to see if contaminated tampons might harm the women who use them or the babies born to them. Apparently, they didn’t want to touch those nasty old menstrual products from which they earn up to 70% in gross profit margin on the yearly sales in the US alone of $2 billion.

The study was performed by a team from UC Berkeley, Columbia University, and Michigan State University. They tested products available in New York City, London, and Athens.

Pesticide use has jumped dramatically since around the time biologist and environmental pioneer Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962. We are bombarded with chemically soaked foods and fibers. Among the crops harboring the most concentrated amounts of herbicides and pesticides is cotton, the main component of tampons. The tissue of the vagina is delicate and more easily absorbs chemicals than the skin on other parts of the body, thereby increasing the danger.

The study found that there is no difference in the amounts of metals between organic and non-organic tampons. Fourteen brands and 18 products lines were tested, from both top sellers and store brands, and measurable traces of 16 toxic metals, including lead and arsenic were found, in every … single … one.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies tampons as medical devices. Surely, they must do extensive testing, I thought. But no. As with so many other consumer products, they rely on the manufacturers, who have nothing but our health and safety at heart.

From the FDA website: “As part of the FDA’s review, manufacturers submit data including the results of testing to evaluate the safety of the materials used to make tampons and applicators (if present); tampon absorbency, strength, and integrity, and whether tampons enhance the growth of certain harmful bacteria or change normal bacteria levels in the vagina.” That’s like trusting a stranger to watch your kid.

Else Proulx wrote for Berkeley Public Health, “Metals have been found to increase the risk of dementia, infertility, diabetes, and cancer. They can damage the liver, kidneys, and brain, as well as the cardiovascular, nervous, and endocrine systems. In addition, metals can harm maternal health and fetal development.”

Women experience their periods for seven years of their lives on average. In addition, there is a mental cost for women who can’t afford these products, and there are approximately 500 million of them worldwide who experience “period poverty.” In some cultures women fashion their own menstrual pads and tampons. When I was young, I had an immigrant friend who taught me how to make pads from rags, and while that practice was normal in her country, most girls in the US used manufactured products when they had their monthly “curse.”

The European Union has much stricter standards than does our FDA. For example, they have banned ingredients in many personal care products that the FDA does not even regulate. Time to clean house and insist that the people we pay to watch out for us, actually do.

As I alluded to above, the government that extracts billions of taxpayers dollars relies on corporate oversight when deciding what is or isn’t good for us. If that’s the best these agencies have to offer, they should be abolished and actual scientists and scholars put in their place. Our bloated and ineffective federal oversight system is out of control, and this is just one example of how far away from their purpose they have strayed. We should be justifiably outraged.

Sheila Velazquez lives and writes in Northwest Massachusetts. Her work is informed by decades of experience with unions, agriculture, public health, politics and her support of populism. She welcomes contact by email: simplelifestyle101@yahoo.com. Read other articles by Sheila.

The US Supreme Court Takes on the Administrative State

by Ellen Brown / July 15th, 2024

In a highly controversial decision, the Supreme Court on June 28 reversed a 40-year old ruling, reclaiming the Court’s role as interpreter of statutory law as it applies to a massive body of regulations imposed by federal agencies in such areas as the environment, workplace safety, public health and more.

The Court’s 6-3 conservative majority overturned a 1984 ruling, also issued by that Court’s conservative majority, that  granted authority to a federal agency if a Congressional statute involving that agency was ambiguous or incomplete. It left the interpretation of the law to the agency rather than the courts.

This principle blocked individuals and businesses from suing agencies in court for damages incurred when the agencies exceeded their Congressional mandates.

“Chevron deference,” the name given the 1984 decision due to the litigation involving that company, has been grounds for upholding thousands of regulations by a host of federal agencies over the last four decades. Opinions by commentators on its reversal range from “an epic disaster, … one of the worst Supreme Court rulings … another huge gift to special interests and corporations,” to “a victory for the common man” and “an important win for accountability and predictability at a time when agencies are unleashing a tsunami of regulation — in many cases clearly exceeding their statutory authority ….”

On July 10, Reuters reported that House Republicans had asked all federal agencies to begin reviews of regulations that could be affected by the recent ruling, noting:

Three House committees — Agriculture, Oversight, and Education and Workforce — targeted agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Labor in what the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, Steve Scalise, called a “fight to free the American people from the power-​hungry administrative state.”

The “administrative state” had modest beginnings during George Washington’s presidency, with the formation of the Defense, State, Treasury and Justice Departments. Today it has mushroomed into more than 400 agencies.  For the 178 laws passed by Congress in 2020 alone, federal agencies issued an average of 19 rules and regulations for each law passed, for a total of 3,382 such rules. The Federal Register, a common measure of regulatory action, hit an all-time high 95,894 pages in 2016. That’s 75 times The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which contains 1280 pages.

The issues raised by the Chevron doctrine go back to the founding of the country and make for an interesting lesson in civics. But first a look at the fishing case that reversed it.

The Fishermen Who Challenged a Bureaucracy

On Jan.17, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two combined cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo and Relentless, Inc v Department of Commerce, which would determine the fate of Chevron. On June 28, the Court ruled in favor of the fishermen plaintiffs in the Loper Bright case, rejecting the deference that courts have given federal agencies in cases where the law is unclear. The Court did not rule on the merits — the question whether the agency had exceeded its statutory authority. It just ruled on the judicial question whether Chevron blocked the case from proceeding. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the Opinion of the Court, stated:

Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do. …

Chevron is overruled. Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the APA [Administrative Procedures Act] requires.

The case was therefore allowed to go forward in the lower D.C. District Court where it originated. Those proceedings are expected to begin this fall.

The plaintiffs are three New Jersey herring fishermen who challenge what they say is an unlawful requirement that forces them to surrender 20% of their earnings to pay at-sea monitors – individuals who gather information used to regulate their industry. The cost works out to as much as $700 a day, which can be more pay than the crews themselves take home.

The requirement was imposed on them by the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which regulates the nation’s fisheries. The fishermen don’t contest that federal law allows the government to require at-sea monitors on their boats, but they argue that Congress never gave the executive branch authority to pass monitoring costs onto the fishermen. They contend that the NOAA abused its power, but they were handicapped by Chevron in fighting the rule.

“We are grateful the Court has overruled Chevron,” said Bill Bright, one of the fishermen plaintiffs. “Restoration of the separation of powers is a victory for small, family-run businesses like ours, whether they’re involved in fishing, farming or retail.”

Paul Clement, former U.S. Solicitor General and attorney for the fishermen, echoed that sentiment, stating, “We are gratified that the Court restored the constitutionally mandated separation of powers.” And that Constitutional mandate is what makes for an interesting civics lesson on the issues.

Designing a Republic with a Balanced Separation of Powers

The Founding Fathers were famously afraid of centralized power, and they designed the Constitution and Bill of Rights to avoid it. Power was balanced among separate branches of the government — watchers watching the watchdogs, with no one imperial controller.

In colonial America, judges were appointed and paid by the monarchy, receiving salaries that were raised from duties paid by the colonists. King George exercised sole authority to appoint colonial governors to represent the Crown’s interests. For legislative control, the monarchy possessed the powers of the purse and the sword, stationing soldiers in the colonies while requiring that colonists house, feed, and pay taxes for the soldiers’ imported supplies.

Today, many regulatory agencies have their own in-house court systems, which similarly serve as judge and jury. As Stone Washington with the Competitive Economic Institute, a nonprofit libertarian think tank, wrote:

The judicial branch is presumably an independent branch of government, alongside the legislative and executive branches. But many regulatory agencies have their own in-house court systems, called administrative law courts (ALCs). In ALCs, agencies choose their own judges, pay their salaries, and set the rules of procedure. Agencies rarely lose in their own courts. And their abuses to established constitutional norms have garnered the attention of federal courts in recent years especially in antitrust and securities law matters.

In administrative law courts, private litigants are deprived of basic constitutional privileges, including the right to trial by jury, freedom to petition a case before a Constitutional (Art. III) court, and equal application of justice under the law. Litigants who lose may or may not be granted the right to appeal to a federal court; but even if they succeed in getting on the appellate court docket, the process is lengthy and expensive, undemocratically excluding those who cannot afford the cost or the time to wait for a decision.

The New Jersey fishermen in the two herring boat cases were not required to go through the administrative law court system, but the result was the same: the agency made the rules and enforced them; and under “Chevron deference,” the plaintiffs were powerless to contest the outcome.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist that any irreconcilable differences between the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress were to be decided in favor of protecting the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. The power of judicial review was first asserted in the Supreme Court’s 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison, recognizing the Constitution as the highest law in the land. Through judicial review, the Court reinforced that constitutional system by checking the power of other branches. Not just the administrative arm of the executive branch but the legislature itself could be restrained from passing legislation that violated the Constitution.

In 1946, Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to codify the procedure for executing administrative law. The APA provides that the “reviewing court shall decide all  relevant questions of law, [and] interpret… statutory provisions.”

It is that deviation from the constitutional system as codified in the APA that the Supreme Court intended to rectify. Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the dissenting opinion, stated that “the majority’s decision today will cause a massive shock to the legal system, ‘cast[ing] doubt on many settled constructions’ of statutes and threatening the interests of many parties who have relied on them for years.”  But Justice Roberts made clear that prior decisions relying on Chevron were not automatically nullified but stood under stare decisis (to “stand by things decided”). The issues could be challenged in new cases, but the challenged rules had to be shown to exceed the mandate of Congress.

The Question of Corporate Capture

No doubt the floodgates to new cases will be opened, as other critics have stated; and it will be a major burden for the court system, which is already backlogged. But it is actually a democratic development. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explains on X:

The Chevron decision cuts both ways. The original ruling allowed agencies to function effectively, which they cannot if every interpretative gray area in the law requires a court decision. If the agency is working in the public interest, we definitely want it to exercise broad interpretive leeway. For instance, almost every important environmental decision in federal court over the past 40 years is based upon Chevron. Without it, the EPA (not an entirely captured agency) is virtually powerless. But when corporate interests have captured a federal agency, then the same interpretive leeway gives the agency even more power to serve their corporate masters at the expense of the public interest. Thus we have the FDA sending armed police to shut down Amish farmers and grocery stores for selling raw milk, while they allow into our food supply hundreds of harmful but profitable chemical additives that are banned in other countries. The Chevron controversy is therefore a false dilemma with no solution. The real issue is corporate capture. If federal agencies served the public interest, then no one would want to hamstring them.

Although critics say the ruling is a boon to corporations, it is the agencies themselves that are notoriously susceptible to “corporate capture.” As explained in Investopedia:

Regulatory capture is a process by which regulatory agencies may come to be dominated by the industries or interests they are charged with regulating. The result is that an agency, charged with acting in the public interest, instead acts in ways that benefit incumbent firms in the industry it is supposed to be scrutinizing.

It is that sort of corporate capture that Chevron deference protected from the reach of the courts, and that the Supreme Court’s latest ruling has opened to private challenge. The APA tells agencies they cannot act illegally, arbitrarily, or without letting the public meaningfully participate in the creation of new rules. Many agency rules are now vulnerable to judicial review for violating those standards.

Agency Overreach: Some Areas of Vulnerability

Technically, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the Treasury, the State Department, the IRS and even the Defense Department are agencies falling under the Administrative Procedure Act and its rules. Even those secretive, non-transparent, unaccountable intelligence agencies sometimes called the “deep state” could be subject to APA review. But as detailed in a Vanderbilt Law School article titled “The Politics of Deference,” “national security” has its own special deference under separate case law, so it probably cannot be reached.

The more likely initial targets will be agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

MSNBC experts expect electric vehicles to be most at risk. A Reuters article titled “Biden Tailpipe Emission Rules on Shakier Ground after Supreme Court Ruling” explains, “That’s because the rules target mobile sources of greenhouse gas rather than stationary ones like power plants, even though environmental laws are ambiguous on whether regulators have the mandate to do that.” Another expert says the controversial tailpipe regulations “will eliminate most new gas cars and traditional hybrids from the U.S. market in less than a decade.”

Steve Forbes argues that Congress would not have passed such a prohibition because of intense public opposition, so it got kicked over to the EPA, which was thought to be untouchable under Chevron. But Chevron deference is no more. On July 3, 26 states filed suit against the Administration over EV mandates. The Petition for Review states, “the final rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and otherwise is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law.”

Other agency regulations expected to be the subject of lawsuits include the SEC’s imposition of civil penalties without the benefit of a jury trial, and FDA and CDC regulations involving vaccines, pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements.

The administrative law system does not follow constitutional principles, which it must if it is ruling on regulations having the force of law. Removing some of the arbitrary red tape hampering small business, local politicians, schools and families by holding administrative regulations up to Constitutional standards can not only stimulate economic productivity and lower inflation and taxes but can help restore the system of checks and balances so important to our country’s founders.

• This article was first posted as an original to ScheerPost.com.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, co-chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. Read other articles by Ellen.

 

170 Years of U.S. Aggression against Nicaragua

by Rick Sterling / July 15th, 2024

When the Monroe Doctrine was declared, in 1823,  it was aimed at European colonial powers. It told them to butt out: the US “sphere of influence” included all of Latin America and the Caribbean. During the past two centuries,virtually every Latin American and Caribbean country has had to endure US intervention and interference in their internal affairs. The coups, political manipulation and aggression directed by Washington have been relentless.

One of the most victimized countries has been Nicaragua. In this article, I will review the different types of aggression used by Washington against Nicaragua. This is not ancient history; the interference continues to today. The methods change but the purpose remains the same: to subjugate nominally independent countries and use them in the interests of US corporations, elites and government. When nations resist domination and insist on independence, the US goal becomes to prevent them from succeeding.

July 19, 2024

On July 19 Nicaragua will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. On that day, Nicaraguans overthrew the US backed Somoza dictatorship. In Managua, Nicaraguans will honor the day and re-assert their sovereignty and independence. Nicaraguan leaders will likely denounce US interference and their right to have friendly relations with any country they choose to. At the same time, we will surely see negative comments about Nicaragua from Washington and US media.

There have been eight distinct types  of  US interference and aggression against Nicaragua.

1 – Conquest 1855-56

In 1855, with a small army of US and European soldiers, William Walker arrived in Nicaragua. The country was in the midst of a civil war and the foreign military turned the tide. When Walker’s forces seized control of the Nicaraguan city of Grenada, he declared himself  President of Nicaragua.  Walker’s presidency was quickly recognized by US President Franklin Pierce. Supported by southern slave holding US states, one of Walker’s early actions as Nicaraguan president was to re-legalize slavery which had been outlawed in 1832. Nicaraguans did not accept this. Within a couple years, Walker’s forces were defeated, and in 1857 he was executed in neighboring Honduras.

2 – Military occupation 1909-1933

Beginning in 1909, US Marines invaded and occupied Nicaragua when US financial interests were not being considered paramount. Nicaraguans were considering borrowing money from European countries to finance a canal running across the isthmus. For the next three decades, the US Marines were ever present to ensure Washington and Wall Street controlled major decisions. USMC Major General Smedly Butler later reflected on his role:  “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers.” Beginning in 1927, US foreign military dominance was increasingly challenged by a peasant army led by Augusto Cesar Sandino. Sandino’s July 1, 1927 manifesto denounces the collaborators and commits to “defend the national honor and redeem the oppressed.” By 1930, Sandino’s army was 5,000 strong and inflicting serious blows. In 1933 the last US Marines left Nicaragua following the election of Juan Batista Sacasa.

3 – US-backed dictatorship 1934-1969

The US Marines departed but left behind trained surrogates. In 1934, the “National Guard” reneged on a peace agreement with Sandino and murdered him, his brother and two generals.  They proceeded to destroy Sandino’s army and then overthrew the elected government.  With US support, the Somoza family dominated the country for the next forty-five years. Poverty and illiteracy were widespread while corruption was rampant. In 1961,  armed opposition to the Somoza dictatorship was formed under the banner of  the Sandinista Front for the Liberation of Nicaragua (FSLN).  After fifty thousand deaths, the Somoza dictatorship was overthrown on 19  July 1979.

4 – Terrorism 1969-1980

Under the FSLN, Nicaragua made huge improvements with land reform and a very successful literacy campaign.  For the first time, medical help was made available in remote communities and schools were open to all children.  But in Washington, the Reagan administration could not accept an independent Nicaragua. US President Reagan was obsessed with overthrowing the Sandinista government.  They tried to do this by creating a “Contra” army which attacked community clinics, bombed gas pipelines and infrastructure and killed healthcare and rural cooperative members. They even killed foreign aid workers such as young US engineer Ben Linder who was constructing a small hydroelectric dam to provide electricity to a remote village.

In the face of such obvious crimes, Nicaragua filed charges against the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They won their case and the US was ordered to pay compensation for the damages caused. Flaunting the ruling of the highest court in the world, the Reagan administration refused to pay damages to Nicaragua and continued to support the terrorist army. Under popular pressure, Congress passed the Boland amendment outlawing US assistance to the terrorist Contras. The Reagan administration ignored this as well, funding the Contras through a scheme where weapons were sent to the Contras in small private airplanes. The same planes were used to bring Colombian cocaine into the US.  The profits went to the Contras while crack cocaine flooded poor and largely Black communities. A recent book from a CIA “Black Ops”agent documents the creation, training and financing of the terrorist Contras.

5 –  Economic warfare 1985 to 1990

In 1985, an economic embargo was applied by the US against Nicaragua. US products could no longer be exported to Nicaragua and Nicaraguan products were barred from entering the US.  The goal was clearly to hurt the Nicaraguan economy and pressure the Nicaraguan people to turn against the government.  The justification stated: “I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, find that the policies and actions of the Government of Nicaragua constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”  (underline added) The truth was the exact opposite: the policies of aggression by the United States was an extreme threat to Nicaragua.

6  – Election interference 1984 to today

The first democratic election in Nicaragua’s history took place in 1984. The FSLN won against a very divided opposition. Chuck Kaufman analyzed what happened then and afterward:

Already in 1984, we saw the United States place itself as the final judge and jury as to whether or not an election was legitimate… Delegitimizing elections is one of the primary overt tools used by the United States to subvert democracy around the world…. The 1990 election is where the US game plan for election intervention was written, perfected and victorious…. Through the use of money and pressure, the US took advantage of Nicaragua’s lack of laws controlling foreign money in its elections to create a unified 14 party anti-Sandinista coalition … The US then spent more money per Nicaraguan voter than George H W Bush and Michael Dukakis combined spent per US voter in our 1988  presidential election. At the same time the US warned Nicaraguan voters that the Contra War, which had cost them 40,000 sons and daughters, would continue if Daniel Ortega won reelection.

US intervention was “successful” in bringing  the US-supported team into power in Managua. A slim majority of Nicaraguans cried uncle in the face of  US aggression and threats. The US and western media was surprised when Daniel Ortega and the FSLN peacefully left office and passed on the leadership.

Neoliberal policies reigned for the next 16 years. While they were good for the wealthy and elites, they were a disaster for the majority of Nicaraguans.  Health care and education was again privatized. Land reform measures and the literacy campaign were ended. Illiteracy again became widespread.  State controlled infrastructure including roads, water and electricity was not improved. It was in disrepair and decline.

In the elections of 2006, Daniel Ortega and the FSLN won a plurality. There were multiple reasons: first, the economy and deteriorating infrastructure was a disaster.  Second, the US failed to unite the right. Third, US election interference was publicly revealed after the US ambassador unwisely told some visiting activists how many millions were allotted for interfering in the election.

7 –  Subversion through NGOs and “color revolution”

After 16 years in opposition, the FSLN came back to power in 2007 under the leadership of Ortega.  With ever increasing electoral support, they have governed since then. The reasons for their popularity are practical.  Healthcare and education are provided free.  Roads and highways have been greatly improved and now extend across the country to the Caribbean. Electricity and running water have been continuously expanded and are now available throughout 98% of the country. Nicaragua is in the world top 10%  in gender equality and renewable energy. Nicaragua actively assists small farmers and is 90% food sovereign.

Washington has not rushed to congratulate Nicaragua on their successes. On the contrary, this success has been noted with displeasure and Nicaragua has returned to the list of countries targeted for destabilization.

Over the past decades, the US has developed a softer approach to undermining governments which are deemed to be “adversary”. A key component of this is funding “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs). These organizations may have innocuous or even progressive sounding purposes but inevitably serve US goals. The NGOs receive much of their funding from US government related organizations such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. As documented by Max Blumenthal in June 2018, the NGOs proudly boasted of their role in “laying the groundwork for insurrection” and “nurturing the current uprisings”.

With salaries which are high in comparison to local standards,  the NGOs attract and influence ambitious students and youth. The directors of the NGOs learn which youth are promising to their objectives and what issues motivate them.  In Nicaragua there were dozens of NGOs with a mission of  “democracy promotion”.  In essence, these were training sessions in anti-government activism.  Other focal points were journalism and the use of social media. There was little or no monitoring of these foreign funded activities.

In the spring of 2018, there was an attempt to overthrow the elected Sandinista government. The coup attempt was driven by youth influenced by US funded NGOs with muscle provided by mercenary thugs and gangs. The coup attempt, from beginning to end, is described in a series of articles by Nicaraguan resident and journalist John Perry and author Dan Kovalik. This was similar to “color revolutions” carried out in numerous other countries on US target list.  The common characteristics are: youth mobilized by US funded NGOs, heavy use of social media, false or exaggerated accusations of government violence, false claims that the protests are strictly “peaceful” when there are actually widespread provocations and violence.

Nicaragua passed through this stage from April to July 2018. The insurrection died when it became clear the violence was instigated by the protesters and the average Nicaraguan was being deeply hurt by the continued disruption and roadblocks.  Dozens of police and hundreds of civilians were killed in the confrontations. Hundreds of government buildings, police stations and schools were attacked and the economy severely disrupted.

Ultimately, the insurrection and coup attempt collapsed.  With police ordered to stay in their barracks, it was clear who was responsible for the violence. The public became increasingly angry at the protesters because their roadblocks and violence were ruining lives and the economy. The silver lining is that it sparked a realization in the FSLN that they needed to be more vigilant about education of youth and monitoring foreign funded organizations.

8 –  Information warfare and extreme sanctions

Beginning with the 2018 coup attempt in Nicaragua, the US information war on Nicaragua escalated dramatically.  In 2020, Nicaragua started regulating foreign-backed organizations.  Given that  foreign supported organizations played a big role in the insurrection resulting in hundreds of deaths and billions in economic damage, the need to do this was clear.  The new regulations require foreign-backed organizations to document where their funding comes from and how it is spent. The US has the same requirement known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but that does not stop western media from claiming that these laws are “dismantling civil society”.  On the contrary, many NGOs registered and continued as before. Those who refused to register were denied a permit, just as they would be in the United States.

US government influence extends to many “human rights” groups and some branches of the United Nations. For example, the UN’s Human Rights Council established a “Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua” to investigate alleged Nicaraguan human rights violations and abuses since April 2018. Their mandate was extended until February 2025 but they have issued two preliminary reports that claim Nicaragua is committing crimes, violations and abuses including “persecution of  any dissenting voice”, torture and the “deprivation of Nicaraguan nationality.”

The reports by three “experts”, none of whom is Nicaraguan, are extremely biased.  They have been rebutted in a detailed article co-written by international legal scholar Alfred de Zayas. It is endorsed by 85 different organizations and over 450 individuals including Nicaraguan citizens and residents. The article reveals that the “experts” failed to comply with their own mandate to gather information from all sides. The report of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) is solely based on the opinions and accusations of the dissidents and is a mockery of what should be an objective report based on evidence from all sides.

Along with the drumbeat of negative accusations based on subjective or no evidence, the US keeps adding more and more sanctions on Nicaragua. Unknown to most Americans, sanctions (called ‘unilateral coercive measures’) have been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations General Assembly.  They are considered to be in violation of international law and the UN Charter. Ignoring the opinions of 75%  of the world, the US Treasury Department has recently issued a slew of sanctions on Nicaraguan officials, state corporations, judges, mayors and attorney general.

While trying to hurt the Nicaraguan economy, the US has started offering easy immigration to the US for Nicaraguans. They are even using Facebook and social media to lure Nicaragua youth. The goal seems to be to undermine the economy and encourage “brain drain” where youth with skills and ambition will be tempted to leave the country.  After all, despite the positive gains and accomplishments, including free health care and education, most Nicaraguans are still poor. This phenomenon has been well documented in articles such as  “New US Immigration Policies Effect on Nicaragua: Brain Drain and Deportation” and “US government exploits animosity toward migrants to demonize socialist countries”.

Summary

In late 2021, three years after the coup attempt, Nicaragua held its national election.  Western criticisms of the election were refuted in this article. International observers were impressed with organization, large turnout and enthusiasm. The US administration and media falsely claimed the main opposition candidates had been imprisoned. In fact, the few imprisoned individuals represented no parties or significant base of support. They claimed to be “precandidates” not because they were viable contenders but because they sought to avoid prosecution while slandering the Nicaraguan government.

On the contrary, there were five opposition candidates representing genuine parties and movements. The voters had a real choice. With 66% of the electorate voting, 75% voted for Daniel Ortega and the FSLN over the competitors.  The theme of the election was “Soberania”, beautifully sung by a young Nicaraguan patriot at the house where Cesar Augusto Sandino grew up.

Nicaragua continues to assert its sovereignty and pursue its own foreign policy. In September 2021, Nicaragua cut ties with Taiwan and established diplomatic relations with China. In October 2022, Nicaragua refused to condemn Russia for its intervention in Ukraine, blaming the US and NATO for having provoked the conflict. On Oct 24 2023, Nicaragua called for an emergency session of the UN General Assembly to consider “protection of the Palestinian civilian population.” Later, Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said the Palestinian cause is one of the most just causes of our times.  In January 2024, Nicaragua filed charges at the International Court of Justice against Germany for being an accomplice to genocide in Gaza.

In June the results of an extensive poll conducted by the independent and well regarded M&R Consultants were released. They indicate high satisfaction with the direction and leadership of the country. Confidence in the “stability, security, and economic progress” of the country has risen from 36.8% in 2018 to 74.8% today.

Nicaragua has good reason to be wary of the United States. In the eight different ways described above, the US has interfered with Nicaragua’s independence for 170 years.  The vast majority of Nicaraguans continue to  resist, calmly insisting on their independence and sovereignty. As the song “Soberania” says, “Respect my flag or go away.”

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@protonmail.com. Read other articles by Rick.