It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Unavoidable evidence of the catastrophic consequences of climate change confronts us at every turn. Record high ocean temperatures. Once-a-century storms that appear every other year. And on and on. In the face of ongoing ecological disaster, international best-selling author Kōhei Saitō asks why our society continues to prioritize corporate profits (and the rapacious expansion on which they depend), and proposes a revolutionary alternative to unfettered capitalism: degrowth communism.
In Slow Down, Saitō provocatively argues that any solutions that don’t directly confront capitalism itself—from the COP agreements to the “Green New Deal”—represent dangerous compromises that may ultimately worsen the climate emergency. Because it creates artificial scarcity and endlessly produces commodities based on their value, rather than their usefulness, our economic system itself makes it impossible to reverse climate change so long as capitalism remains in place. The biggest contributor to the problem cannot be an integral part of its solution.
Instead, Saitō advocates for degrowth and deceleration, which he conceives as the slowing of economic activity through the democratic reform of labor and our system of production. By returning to a system of social ownership, degrowth communism, we can restore the abundance of things that we truly need, and can focus on those activities that are essential for human life.
What would this alternative look like? How do we end mass production and mass consumption without reducing living standards? What do we need to do to redress global inequality without accelerating the rate at which the planet burns?
For this launch event Saitō will be in conversation on all of this, and more, with Science for the People editor, and Pilsen Community Books collective member and CounterPunch Radio co-host Erik Wallenberg. This event occurred on May 24, 2024 at Haymarket House in Chicago.
Green Party Conference votes to declare Israel’s actions in Gaza a ‘genocide’
The Green Party also reiterated its support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
Members of the Green Party of England and Wales have today voted to declare Israel’s actions in the assault on Gaza a ‘genocide’. Alongside this, members backed branding Israel an ‘apartheid’ regime.
Party members overwhelmingly voted for a motion which said the Green Party “reaffirms its commitment to international law and promoting equality and human rights of the Palestinian people.”
The motion was proposed by a number of high profile party members including Croydon Councillor Ria Patel and the party’s equality and diversity coordinator Kefentse Dennis.
In addition to branding Israel’s actions ‘genocide’, the motion reiterated the Green Party’s longstanding support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
The motion read: “We affirm our commitment to explicitly supporting BDS in our internal and external communications going forward.
“Supporting the BDS movement is essential to holding Israel accountable, to supporting Palestinians’ rights to equality and self-determination, and to demonstrating that our support, as a nation, is not performative.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
This article is jointly published with Bright Green
Green Party's Gaza stance won over Muslim voters - now they hope their progressive policies will keep them
The Green Party won four MPs at the general election, with lots of its new support coming from the Muslim community due to its stance on Gaza.
The Green Party under co-leaders Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer won four MPs at the election
The Green Party had a very good general election and they know it.
Alongside their hemp tote bags and multi-use water bottles this weekend, there was a palpable sense of renewed enthusiasm at their annual conference.
They were not shy about where some of their two million votes came from. Soaring numbers of British Muslims voted Green this election and helped the party secure four new MPs. And this weekend felt as if they wanted to build on that support.
It was no secret, even before the election, that some British Muslims had begun to lose trust in Labour over its early stance on the Israel-Gaza war.
This anti-Labour sentiment was galvanised through efficient organising by campaign groups like "The Muslim Vote" which had begun a campaign to try to funnel votes away from the major parties and towards the candidates they believed better served the Muslim community.
While there is a wide diversity of Muslim voters, and huge complexities in how different communities vote, the biggest uniting factor that focused minds around voting was undoubtedly the community's dismay at Israel's bombing of Gaza.
Looking on from afar were the Greens. The Greens were all too happy to fill Labour's space.
Sir Keir Starmer with Thangam Debbonaire during a visit to Bristol Rovers FC. Pic: PA
Sky polling just ahead of the election discovered a slight "Gaza effect", which showed leader satisfaction levels for the Conservatives and Labour significantly dropping after 7 October amongst ethnic minority voters, with IPSOS suggesting they were moving towards smaller parties.
If anywhere showed that most visibly on election night, it was Bristol Central where the Greens won its biggest scalp of the night.
Thangam Debbonaire, a big beast in the Labour Party and the shadow culture secretary, lost her seat of Bristol Central - where there is a significant Somali community - to the Greens co-leader Carla Denyer.
Sir Keir Starmer even visited the constituency throughout the election, in perhaps a sign that the party knew her campaign needed heavyweight support.
Where the Greens came a strong second and third place in constituencies around places like Sheffield Central and in east London, data showed they were in areas with large Muslim populations.
The Green Party under co-leaders Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer. Pic: AP
This weekend, the Greens chose their one media visit outside the conference to visit a mosque in the Tory town of Altrincham to highlight community engagement. The focus? Gaza.
In his speech, Zach Polanski, the Greens deputy leader, called the situation in Gaza a "genocide" - something Israel has repeatedly denied - and pushed Labour to stop arms sales completely to Israel, instead of just the 30 out of 350 arms export licences they suspended earlier this week.
I asked the Green's co-leader Adrian Ramsay whether this was part of a strategic play for more votes.
"I particularly wanted to make sure I was visiting the mosque, engaging with the Muslim community because we have to remember how much our Muslim communities around the country have felt targeted, felt vulnerable by the horrific events and disorder from political violence during the summer," he said.
"We do need to stand together, and we also need to stand together with our Jewish and Muslim communities who feel vulnerable because of what's happening in the Middle East"
Fesl Reza-Khan set up the Muslim Greens
Fesl Reza-Khan, a new party member who signed up in November because of the party's stance on Gaza, co-created a Muslim Greens group to organise activists across the UK.
"A lot of us are from ethnic minority backgrounds. My parents are from South Asia, when we see something, it's instinctive," he said.
"And what I see in Gaza, I think: 'Hang on, that's happened to me, that's happened to my forefathers, that whole occupation, exploitation, colonisation'.
"That's what was instinctive and none of the parties were acknowledging it, they were actually gaslighting me, telling me, 'that's not happening, that's not what I'm seeing'.
"And I don't need to be told what I'm seeing and witnessing."
For lots of ethnic minorities, the Green Party is not a natural home.
Out of the hundreds of councillors the Greens secured in the latest local elections, fewer than a dozen are ethnic minorities. They know their image is one of the "crusty old Green member", as one insider told me.
They're keen to modernise, to capitalise on what they see as the hegemony of the major political parties, and they think this is a good way to start.
"We just needed an attentive audience, just one door to open, Gaza has been that defining moment," Mr Reza-Khan said.
"So now that people are listening, they're realising actually, the Greens are about far more than just Gaza, they're actually very, very good on so many issues, from families, to cost of living to transport."
Green Party to demand wealth tax
The party hope with thousands more members in the party, some will stay for their stance on other progressive issues, most recently trying to set themselves against Labour on the two-child benefit cap and its changes to the winter fuel payments.
In the 2017 election, the Green party saw its support drop by more than half as some of their voters turned to more radical politics under Labour's then-leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
And if the 2024 general election taught us anything, it was that voters can be flaky.
Co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay are hoping their strong election performance is a good foundation to build into longer-lasting support and they are starting with communities they think are most disaffected with mainstream politics.
Green Party conference votes to support immediate ban on greyhound racing
At their autumn conference in Manchester on September 8, Green Party members voted to support an immediate ban on greyhound racing and the use of the whip in horse racing.
In backing a motion on the issue, members also supported a compulsory levy to be imposed on all betting, to be used solely for welfare improvements, and a single regulatory authority to enforce animal welfare standards.
Speaking following the decision, the Green Party’s co-leader Adrian Ramsay said: “We are the first party to pledge to ban greyhound racing, a position supported by the RSPCA, Dog’s Trust, Blue Cross, and a majority of the public.
“Preventing greyhounds from being raced for the benefit of the betting industry and commercial gain would bring an end to the unnecessary deaths and suffering of these dogs.
“Approximately 200 horses die every year from horse racing. Banning the use of the whip is a basic step for animal welfare. Equally the horse racing industry needs to answer how it will stop the shocking number of deaths it’s industry causes that no one wants to see.
“These measures would also help reduce the harm caused by problem gambling.”
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has visited a mosque in Manchester and speaks to members and trustees of the Altrincham & Hale Muslim Association. He said he wanted to make sure he engaged with the Muslim community during his party conference because it felt targeted and vulnerable during the recent riots. He said "We need to stand together" and termed the recent UK riots "racist and Islamophobic".
Scottish Greens can't back budget without 'green stuff' - Slater
PA Media Lorna Slater said it looks like the Scottish government does not want Green support
Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater says it is hard to see how the SNP will secure enough votes for the upcoming budget that has "cut all the green stuff".
Past budgets have relied on support from the Greens, but this will be the first since the SNP ended their power-sharing deal.
Ms Slater said "it doesn't look like they want our votes", but the Scottish government said it was confident that "common ground" could be found.
Ms Slater told BBC Radio Scotland’s The Sunday Show: “We worked really hard within government to make sure there was funding for nature restoration, things like Zero Waste Scotland, all the net zero policies - transportation, active travel.
"Greens worked hard to make sure all of our core priorities were funded and we had to make difficult decisions for that to be the case.
“The SNP have now rolled back on all of that. If they wanted Green votes, I think they would have signalled that more strongly.”
This Scottish budget, planned for 4 December, will provide detail on the programme for government announced by First Minister John Swinney last week.
The Scottish Greens have supported every budget since 2016.
But since ending the Bute House agreement in April, the SNP has been left with a minority at Holyrood and needs support from some opposition MSPs to pass its plans.
Ms Slater added: “It is hard to imagine who is going to sign up to this budget. The SNP now are in a difficult place.”
PA Media Mr Swinney's rollback on school meals was called a "betrayal" by the Greens
Mrs Slater, who previously served as circular economy minister, said a "restoration" of shared priorities in the Bute House agreement would be needed before the Greens supported Mr Swinney's plans.
She added: “We are outside of the room, different choices are being made. Why would we support it?
“It looks like the SNP have changed direction away from that more progressive, more urgent action on the climate.
"As soon as the Greens are out of the room, the SNP backtrack on everything.”
'Common ground'
The Scottish government has said it is still open for discussion with other parties.
Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee told BBC Radio Scotland that there was "a lot of politics" behind Ms Slater's comments.
He said: "You have to remember this happens every year.
"We had the Greens in government for a short time, but for most of the last 17 years, this has been an annual process.
“The Scottish government works with other parties, in most cases to find common ground, and we’ve managed to get agreements from most of the parties at various times.”
Mr McKee said the SNP had already made "significant inroads" in recent years in tackling Mr Swinney's priorities.
He added: "This government is focused on the first minister’s four missions - growing the economy, providing excellent public services, tackling climate change and the move towards net zero and tackling child poverty."
Getty Images Mr Swinney made his free school meal pledge when he was education secretary
Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives have said they will use parliamentary business slots next week to urge the first minister to reverse the school meals decision.
Party education spokesman Liam Kerr said: "John Swinney as education secretary personally made this promise to deliver free school meals to every primary school pupil in Scotland.
"By ditching it, it flies in the face of the SNP's plans to eradicate child poverty.
"I urge the SNP to do the right thing and deliver this pledge as promised."
The Scottish government said it was facing significant financial challenges, due to "prolonged Westminster austerity, the cost-of-living crisis and record high inflation".
A spokesperson said: "That means that, whilst we remain resolutely committed to the universal expansion of free school meals in primary schools, this will not now be fully completed by 2026."
Real Change means ending austerity, not deepening it – Sarah Woolley, BFAWU #TUC24
“We must send a clear message that we won’t accept empty promises or half-measures. We demand real change – & won’t rest until we see it.”
By Sarah Wooley, BFAWU General Secretary
We’re at a pivotal moment for workers’ rights: after fourteen years of austerity and workers’ rights being systematically stripped back, we have an opportunity for change. But that change will only come if we fight for it.
The election and aftermath shows the fight for justice and fairness is far from over – there’s an urgent need for political and economic transformation, and that has to mean ending austerity for good.
The Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union recently conducted a comprehensive survey to understand our members’ priorities. The results highlight how our members are politically engaged and determined to see change. They’re not content with the status quo, and the issues they face reflect broader societal challenges.
Our survey shaped the Bakers’ Dozen manifesto of 13 demands. These aren’t just aspirations – they’re essential changes to improve lives:
£15 an Hour Minimum Wage: because every worker deserves a living wage, regardless of age. This will end the unfair youth limit on the national minimum wage.
Abolish Zero-Hour Contracts: We demand job security and predictability for all workers- and this should be all Zero Hour contracts, because they can all be exploitative.
Full Employment Rights from Day One: All workers should have their rights protected from the moment they start their job.
Contractual Sick Pay at 100%: Employers must provide six weeks of sick pay at full wage to all workers.
Repeal Anti-Union Legislation: Unions need the freedom to organise and advocate without restrictive laws.
Maximum Workplace Temperature: Legislation is needed to ensure safe and comfortable working conditions.
Accountability for Company Failures: Companies must not evade their financial responsibilities through administration loopholes.
Public Ownership of Utilities: Water, energy, and Royal Mail should be publicly owned to curb excessive pricing and ensure fair access.
Right to Food: A statutory right to food, free school meals, and a cap on supermarket profits are essential to combat food insecurity.
Affordable Public Transport: Re-nationalise train companies, cap bus fares, and provide free public transport for young people aged 16-25.
End Arms Sales to Israel: We must take a stand for human rights and justice globally.
Abolish Tuition Fees: Education should be accessible to all, regardless of financial background, and they must bring back a new and improved version of the Union Learning Fund in England so everyone has the opportunity to upskill and develop themselves.
Create a National Care Service: Providing dignity and care for the elderly and vulnerable is a societal duty.
Our collective strength and solidarity are our greatest assets. We must continue to organise, educate and mobilise to hold those in power accountable: just because they are now the Labour Party it doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels, and the early evidence of how Labour is behaving in power confirms this.
First, they suspended seven MPs for voting against the two-child benefit cap in Parliament, and now they are forcing through a cruel cut of people’s Winter Fuel Payments. This is not just continuing austerity, it is deepening it, and should set alarm bells ringing across our movement that this new Government looks set to be an austerity government.
At the TUC this week and beyond, we must send a clear message that we won’t accept empty promises or half-measures. We demand real change – and won’t rest until we see it.
This article is part of the special ‘Labour Outlook’ bulletin produced for TUC and Labour Conferences 2024. Download it here.
Read the ‘Bakers Dozen’ demands in full at www.bfawu.org
TUC Congress 2024: Delegates approve calls for collective bargaining across the economy
Daniel Green & Morgan Jones
8th September, 2024,
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Delegates at the TUC Congress have called for radical improvements to collective bargaining, a national minimum wage that ends in-work poverty and an above-inflation pay rise for all NHS staff.
Representatives from across the trade union movement gathered in Brighton for the first day of the annual conference, the first in more than a decade to take place under a Labour government.
Trade union delegates are set to discuss a series of motions over the coming days, covering subjects including Labour’s New Deal for Working People, Britain’s relationship with the European Union and calls for a “just transition” for North Sea oil workers.
‘We expect Labour to end austerity in public services’
The first wave of motions saw delegates back a call from the PCS union to campaign for pay reform in the public sector to ensure it remains a “career of choice”, including a flexible working offer to help retain and attract talent, competitive pay for the skills required and a public sector-wide approach to health and wellbeing to address high rates of burnout.
The motion also included pledges to campaign for a rise in the national minimum wage to end in-work poverty, an end to pay discrimination and “radical improvements to collective bargaining structures”, particularly in the public sector.
Speaking in favour of the motion, PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “We expect this Labour government to end austerity in public services” and argued that recent pay deals were not enough, with pay restoration needed across the public sector. She called on the Labour government to “lead by example” on equal pay.
Other speakers in favour of the motion included Jill Taylor of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, Jane Peckham of NASUWT, Adam Sutcliffe of EIS, Ellie Wade of Prospect, Kathy Smith of Unite, President of the NEU Phil Clark, and FDA president Margaret Haig, who argued that the public sector has been “treated as second class for too long”.
‘The NHS cannot survive on kindness alone’
A motion calling for fair pay, terms and conditions for NHS staff, put forward by the Royal College of Midwives and supported by Unison, also received the support of delegates – calling on the TUC to work with NHS workers to ensure the government implements an above-inflation pay rise for all NHS staff in 2024/25 as a “first step to addressing real-terms pay decline” and commit to a clear timeline for restoring NHS pay to competitive levels.
Speaking in favour of the motion, Chrissy Walsh of the Royal College of Midwives said: “The NHS cannot survive on kindness alone. Our NHS staff cannot provide patient-centred care if we do not have employee-centred employment.”
Other speakers in favour of the motion included Martin Jones of the British Dietetic Association, Tanya Pretswell of Unison, Dean Rodgers of the Society of Radiographers, Lesley Mansell of Unite, Gary Boyle of Aslef and Martin Furlong of the Royal College of Podiatry.
Union representatives also backed calls to support the development of a fair pay agreement in adult social care, campaign for a new independent whistleblowing agency, lobby the government to strengthen the Civil Service Commission for more ethical government, and demand a long-term sustained investment in the fire and rescue service from the new Labour administration.
General secretary of the TUC Paul Nowak will address delegates tomorrow as representatives debate and discuss motions on education, rail nationalisation, and the New Deal for Working People.
‘You are our partners in delivering change in government’: Ellie Reeves at TUC Congress 2024
Daniel Green
8th September, 2024
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Ellie Reeves has thanked trade unions for their support at the general election and vowed to always be on the side of working people.
In an address to delegates at the TUC Congress in Brighton, the Labour Party chair said that successive Conservative governments had trampled over employment rights, but said that Labour would offer something different.
She said: “We are ending long-standing industrial disputes, getting round the table and engaging in negotiations in a grown-up way.
“We’ve honoured the recommendations for public sector payrolls after years of Tory contempt, and we will deliver the New Deal for Working People, banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, ending fire and rehire, making flexible working a day one right and new rights to trade union access to workplaces.”
Reeves said that the Labour Party has an intrinsic link with the trade union movements after they came together to form “the only party in British history to truly represent those workers”.
“We’ve had our disagreements before, we will again, but never doubt the Labour Party under Keir Starmer’s leadership will always be on the side of working people,” she said.
Reeves said that the “scorched earth policy” of successive Conservative governments makes the party’s relationship with trade unions even more important in the goal to deliver economic growth.
She said: “This will require the full force of the labour movement working in unison for the good of the country. We’ve done it before in 1945, 1964 and 1997 – now we must do it again.”
Reeves reflected on her time as a trade union lawyer and said: “Defending workers’ rights runs through my DNA.”
Addressing trade union delegates, she said: “You were are our partners as we took on the Conservatives from opposition, and now we are in government you are our partners in helping deliver the change that working people desperately need – securing our New Deal and rebuilding public services after 14 years of Tory devastation.
“Make no mistake, this is the worst inheritance of any incoming government in living memory. It will be hard, and there will be tough choices, but working together we can restore our country, we can rebuild trust and we can give Britain its future back.”
TUC Congress 2024: “You must offer hope” – President’s message to Labour government
Morgan Jones 8th September, 2024,
Matt Wrack 2024
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TUC President Matt Wrack has told the annual meeting of the Trades Union Congress that the new Labour government must “offer hope”, arguing that “people cannot take more of the same”.
Wrack called on unions to continue campaigning hard to ensure that improvements to workers’ rights are delivered and anti-union legislation repealed.
He argued that there “are powerful forces in play which will seek to resist measures to strengthen our unions or to shift economic power in favour of the majority”.
He also said that unions must not “miss the opportunity” presented by the new government, arguing: “We already hear some people saying there is little difference between politicians. That is a mistake as serious as complacency”.
Wrack, who has served as general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) since 2005, is at the end of his one-year term as TUC President and his service in this role was the subject of a motion of thanks at the congress in Brighton.
Wrack also spoke about the final report of the Grenfell Inquiry which was published this week. “I visited that fire as operations were still underway,” he said, praising the work of firefighters and others who worked in the aftermath of the disaster.
“Almost to a man and a woman, the people entering that inferno that night, risking their own lives in desperate attempts to save others, were trade unionists, members of the Fire Brigades Union”, he said.
Wrack cited Margaret Thatcher’s drive to promote profit and David Cameron’s war against “excessive health and safety” as being responsible for events like Grenfell, describing it as the result of a “grotesque ideology” which “has created a building safety crisis affecting millions.”
The FBU general secretary also described himself as an internationalist and sent “solidarity to the Palestinian people”, saying of the war in Gaza that for the new Labour government “it should not be difficult to take the right side and make the right decisions”.
WALES
Steel workers to vote over redundancy terms
Huw Thomas Business Correspondent, BBC Wales•huwthomas Steel workers are being balloted over Tata Steel's "best ever" redundancy deal
Steel unions have begun balloting members on a redundancy package which will pave the way for thousands of job losses in south Wales.
Three unions representing workers – Community, Unite and the GMB – have finalised an agreement with Tata Steel over severance payments and future investment in steelmaking.
In a message to members, the Community and GMB unions said the agreement was the “best that can be achieved through negotiation” with Tata Steel.
Tata Steel closed one blast furnace in Port Talbot in July and plans to close its second at the end of September.
The company has consistently argued that its blast furnace operations were losing £1m a day, and that its commitment to build a £1.25bn electric arc furnace would bring greener steelmaking to south Wales.
Roy Rickhuss and Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, the general secretaries of Community and GMB, told members that Tata Steel’s proposals would “reduce capacity and slash jobs” and that the union had spent months negotiating the terms of any redundancy.
They said the agreement “includes a number of key elements including significant enhancements to redundancy terms, a skills and retraining scheme, commitments to protect and fully load the downstream operations, and the assurances on future investments".
Reuters Tata Steel plans to switch off the second of two blast furnaces later this month
The decision to ballot members was the result of a commitment from all three unions to put the decision to a vote by the workers.
More than 2,000 workers have already expressed an interest in taking voluntary redundancy, the majority of whom are based at the UK’s largest steelworks in Port Talbot.
Tata Steel is planning to cut 2,500 posts during the current redundancy period, with a further 300 roles due to close in future.
The company has said that the redundancy terms are its best ever offer to staff.
Employees will receive 2.8 weeks’ salary for every year of service, up to a maximum of 25 years.
They will receive a guaranteed minimum payment of £15,000 and an attendance-related payment of £5,000.
Mr Rickhuss and Ms Brumpton-Childs said in a statement the imminent closure of Port Talbot’s second blast furnace meant it was “imperative” that workers were balloted now.
They told members that ballots had opened on Sunday and would close at midday on 16 September.
Workers were also told that an agreement had been reached between the UK government and Tata Steel, which is expected to confirm the £500m grant offered by the previous Conservative government towards the cost of Tata’s new electric arc furnace.
Further details of the government agreement are expected to be announced later in the week.
Belief in alien visits to Earth is spiraling out of control – why that’s so dangerous
The Conversation September 3, 2024 An Extraterrestrial (DanieleGay/Shutterstock)
The idea that aliens may have visited the Earth is becoming increasingly popular. Around a fifth of UK citizens believe Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials, and an estimated 7% believe that they have seen a UFO.
This belief is slightly paradoxical as we have zero evidence that aliens even exist. What’s more, given the vast distances between star systems, it seems odd we’d only learn about them from a visit. Evidence for aliens is more likely to come from signals from faraway planets.
The belief is now rising to the extent that politicians, at least in the US, feel they have to respond. The disclosure of information about claimed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs rather than UFOs) from the Pentagon has got a lot of bi-partisan attention in the country.
Much of it plays upon familiar anti-elite tropes that both parties have been ready to use, such as the idea that the military and a secretive cabal of private commercial interests are keeping the deep truth about alien visitation hidden. That truth is believed to involve sightings, abductions and reverse-engineered alien technology.
Belief in a cover-up is even higher than belief in alien visitation. In 2019, a Gallop poll found that a staggering 68% of Americans believed that “the US government knows more about UFOs than it is telling”.
This political trend has been decades in the making. Jimmy Carter promised document disclosure during his presidential campaign in 1976, several years after his own reported UFO sighting. Like so many other sightings, the simplest explanation is that he saw Venus. (That happens a lot.)
Former president Bill Clinton claimed to have sent his chief of staff, John Podesta, down to Area 51, a highly classified US Air Force facility, just in case any of the rumours about alien technology at the site were true. It is worth nothing that Podesta is a long-time enthusiast for all things to do with UFOs.
The most prominent current advocate of document disclosure is the Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer. His stripped back 2023 UAP disclosure bill for revealing some UAP records was co-sponsored by three Republican senators.
Pentagon disclosure finally began during the early stages of Joe Biden’s term of office, but so far there has been nothing to see. Nothing looks like an encounter. Nothing looks close.
Still, the background noise does not go away.
Problems for society
All this is ultimately encouraging conspiracy theories, which could undermine trust in democratic institutions. There have been humorous calls to storm Area 51. And after the storming of the Capitol in 2021, this now looks like an increasingly dangerous possibility.
Too much background noise about UFOs and UAPs can also get in the way of legitimate science communication about the possibility of finding microbial extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology, the science dealing with such matters, has a far less effective publicity machine than UFOlogy.
History, a YouTube channel part owned by Disney, regularly delivers shows about “ancient aliens”. The show is now in its 20th season and the channel has 13.8 million subscribers. The NASA astrobiology channel has a hard won 20,000 subscribers. Actual science finds itself badly outnumbered by entertainment repackaged as factual.
Alien visitation narratives have also repeatedly tried to hijack and overwrite the history and mythology of indigenous people.
The first steps in this direction go back to Alexander Kazantsev’s science fiction tale Explosion: The Story of a Hypothesis (1946). It presents the 1908 Tunguska meteorite impact event as a Nagasaki-like explosion of an alien spacecraft engine. In Kazantsev’s tale, a single giant black female survivor has been left stranded, equipped with special healing powers. This lead to her adoption as a shaman by the indigenous Evenki people.
NASA and the space science community do support efforts such as the Native Skywatchers initiative set up by the indigenous Ojibwe and Lakota communities to ensure the survival of storytelling about the stars. There is a real and extensive network of indigenous scholarship about these matters.
But UFOlogists promise a far higher profile for indigenous history in return for the mashing together of genuine indigenous stories about life arriving from the skies with fictional tales about UFOs, repackaged as suppressed history.
The modern alien visitation narrative has not, after all, emerged out of indigenous communities. Quite the opposite. It emerged in part as a way for conspiracy-minded thinkers in a Europe torn apart by racism to “explain” how complex urban civilisations in places like South America could have existed prior to European settlement.
Squeezed through a new age filter of 1960s counterculture, the narrative was flipped to value indigenous people as having once possessed advanced technology. Once upon a time, according to this view, every indigenous civilization was Wakanda, a fictional country appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
If all of this stayed in its own box, as entertaining fiction, then matters would be fine. But it doesn’t, and they aren’t. Visitation narratives tend to overwrite indigenous storytelling about sky and ground.
This is a problem for everyone, not just indigenous peoples struggling to continue authentic traditions. It threatens our grasp of the past. When it comes to insight into our remote ancestors, the remnants of prehistoric storytelling are few and precious, such as within indigenous storytelling about the stars.
This may be why these tales in particular are heavily targeted by alien visitation enthusiasts, some of whom even claim to be “Pleiadeans”. No surprises, Pleiadeans do not look like the Lakota or Ojibwe, but are strikingly blond, blue-eyed and Nordic.
It is increasingly clear that belief in alien visitation is no longer just a fun speculation, but something that has real and damaging consequences.
