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)
Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Malnutrition and Mortality in Gaza, One Year Later. Who’s Counting the Dead?
by E. Mark Windle / November 5th, 2024
It’s a tragic sign of the times when little introductory narrative is needed to set the near-apocalyptic scene that exists in Gaza today. The world watches from a distance as Israel’s onslaught continues and the civilian death toll escalates to unimaginable levels. Now, the nightmare that Palestinian survivors are currently enduring is about to take on another dimension.
The prediction made one year ago of a man-made famine is about to be realised, though in truth, Gazans have suffered food insecurity for decades. Despite a heavy dependency on international agencies for humanitarian assistance, access to food and safe water supplies has repeatedly been denied due to blockades imposed by Israel.1As is the trend in such crises, women and children are particularly affected by malnutrition. Anaemia and other manifestations of nutrient deficiency have led to adverse effects on maternal, foetal and child health. Miscarriage and birth defect rates are high. Suboptimal nutritional status also impairs immune function and the ability of mother and child to recover from disease.2,3
This dire baseline has only amplified the number of civilian losses caused by violence. The proportion of deaths in Gaza attributed to trauma-related injury versus that from malnutrition is hard to define; in many cases, it’s part of the same story. Malnutrition significantly affects the ability to recover from internal injuries, limb loss, and surgery, thereby increasing the risk of infection, sepsis and death.
Obtaining accurate quantitative information on injury, disease and deaths is essential. It draws global attention and allows humanitarian organisations to focus their resources. The tricky bit of course is that over- or under-inflation of rates can occur for political gain. Regardless, even Israeli officials admit that the Palestinian Ministry of Health are the only governmental body actively collating decent morbidity and mortality data.4 There are pro-Israel lobbyists who are still quick to dismiss those figures, citing that a third of the 38,000 deaths declared earlier this summer were unverifiable. However, the reality of real-time assessment in this war zone is that many of the dead are still buried under rubble. Formal ID is impossible: collected statistics unavoidably include household losses reported by family members. Any remaining deniers of data coming out of Gaza should consider satellite image analysis performed by the City University of New York and Oregon State University. Almost 98,000 buildings had been destroyed as of 29 November 2023, most of which were in the Gaza Strip area and in densely populated residential areas.5 The World Health Organisation and United Nations have also found mortality rates quoted by the Palestinian Ministry of Health to be reliable during earlier critical periods in Gaza’s history.
Malnutrition prevalence from (neutral) aid agency field and clinic data also paints a progressively disturbing picture. In March, nutrition monitoring by UNICEF and others highlighted that around 1 in 20 children attending health centres and in shelters were at a life-threatening stage of severe wasting. In addition, over 30 percent of children under 2 years of age were classified as acutely malnourished; double that of three months earlier.6 By June, major nutritional concerns were no longer primarily restricted to the north. Almost 3,000 children in southern Gaza were in need of intervention to manage the effects of moderate to severe malnutrition yet were prevented from attending clinics due to ongoing conflict.7 Spring and late summer saw some alleviation of food insecurity, as more convoys were able to cross the border and distribute supplies. Then September marked the month with the lowest cross-border transfer and distribution of food and bottled water.
The UN continues to monitor the situation closely. Is Gaza now ‘officially’ in famine? To meet the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) definition, at least 20 percent of the population should have significant lack of access to food; acute malnutrition prevalence should be at least 30 percent; and mortality should be at or above 2 deaths per 10,000 people daily. At the time of writing, forty-three thousand are dead. The majority of the surviving population are now displaced, and one in five are facing “catastrophic levels of denied access to nutrition” (another IPC classification). Three-quarters of all crop fields have been destroyed. Access to food and safe water supplies, medical care and the availability of proper sanitation continues to be impossible in most situations. As the UN have stressed, Gaza sits on the very brink of famine.8 Without an immediate ceasefire, this will be a forgone conclusion.
E. Mark Windle is a freelance writer, with a former 25-year career as a clinical dietitian specialising in burn injury and critical care nutrition. He has also worked as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter for Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA). Read other articles by E. Mark, or visit E. Mark's website.
How Joe Biden Could Save Lives And Change American Politics on His Way Out the Door
Wait, what? We’re talking about Joe Biden? Why? He’s a “lame duck.” No matter who wins the US presidential election on November 5, he’s going home to Delaware on January 20. His chances of asking for, and getting, much from Congress during that two-and-a-half month interregnum are negligible.
But as head of the US government’s executive branch, what he can do is follow the laws, no matter how loudly Congress howls, absent Supreme Court intervention in support of criminal behavior.
He won’t do it now for fear of harming Kamala Harris’s chances versus Donald Trump, but once the votes are in he’s free to follow his conscience … if he still has one after decades in politics, where a conscience is a liability.
The laws I’m speaking of are Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2378d), which applies to the Secretary of State, and its Department of Defense analog, 10 U.S.C. 362, informally known as the “Leahy Laws.”
Those laws, according to the US State Department Fact Sheet on them, prohibit “the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.”
Evidence that Israeli units have committed, and continue to commit, gross violations of human rights in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon isn’t just credible, it’s overwhelming.
Israeli forces have killed at least tens of thousands, and more likely in the 200,000 range, in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and Lebanon, since last October. Most of the dead are non-combatants, many of them children.
Israeli forces have been caught red-handed in numerous atrocities, from bombing hospitals and refugee camps to anally raping male prisoners with metal rods. Israeli politicians openly defend and encourage even that last one.
There’s no doubt whatsoever that Israeli forces are committing gross violations of human rights … and it is therefore illegal for the US government to provide one thin dime of military aid or assistance to those forces. Period.
Why hasn’t Biden already ordered the Secretaries of State and Defense to stop writing checks and shipping weapons to Israel?
Because Israel has a powerful political lobby in the US. Anything less than complete and unquestioning obedience to Benjamin Netanyahu’s every demand is a “third rail”… for politicians who face re-election.
Biden doesn’t face re-election.
And these days, the Israel lobby’s support goes mostly to Republicans. Its main intervention on behalf of Democrats is meddling in primaries to ensure “pro-Israel” Democrats get nominated in “safe” Democratic seats.
At some point, there’s going to have to be one of those “national conversations” over whether it’s really in the interests of the United States to unstintingly support a violent, atrocity-prone, ethno-supremacist regime.
That conversation is unlikely to go Israel’s way. But it has to be started by a figure of national stature who needn’t worry about re-election.
If Biden does possess a conscience, or even just desires a big “legacy” accomplishment, he’ll cut the Israeli regime off come November 6.
Author: Thomas Knapp
Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism, publisher of Rational Review News Digest, and moderator of Antiwar.com’s commenting/discussion community. View all posts by Thomas Knapp
Disabilities and Bullying and the Harris-Trump Road Show
Read the Time Magazine article written by his nephew.
Here, reality check for democrats and republicans:
Some legit writing here from me to be published in “legit” media around my area:
When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful
“I’d like to have enough resources, money, to take a trip somewhere. I don’t want to be homeless if housing finds out I have extra money in my bank account.”
Seems like a wish for anyone supposedly in the land of the free – not to be homeless. Variations on this goal were broached at the Oct. 23-24 self-advocacy meeting at the Best Western at Agate Beach.
More than forty people attended the planning and visioning session to carve out some future collective goal to make change a community of people living in the developmental disability and neurodiverse world. One of the main organizers of this self-advocacy event is Julie Chick, Sammy’s Place Director, a nonprofit out of Nehalem.
I attended the event wearing several hats – an educator, an activist, journalist and assisting working with clients in the neurodiverse “world” with Essential Services. Right out of the blocks I asked Chick to synthesize what she got out of the two-day meeting.
What did you find valuable in the event?
“The person-to-person connections and relationships again can be taken for granted by those that easily access their community, and can be difficult if you have no wheels or knowledge of public transportation. Relationships of all types are the bedrock of humanity, yet some of the people in our DD system had not had much opportunity to get out and make friends. These folks have been meeting though this self-advocacy work, Arc of Lincoln’s Day Services Activities, and Beach Buddies, and their circle is growing with some coming in from other counties.”
The critical mass around self-advocacy is fighting for basic rights, like lifting up the maximum allowable savings and checking account balance above the draconian $2000 law.
With such a limit on money given to or earned by people living in subsidized housing, and those receiving disability payments from the government, and other services, like personal assistants, the fear losing those hard-fought safety nets is palatable.
Connecting with others along the coast, in the seven counties situated along the Pacific, the participants were passionate and determined to come away with tools to advocate for themselves not only politically, but through better transportation services, more opportunities to make money on the side with arts and crafts creations, and better ways to make personal connections, even romantic ones.
“I want to meet people who respect me for who I am and so I can follow my dreams,” stated advocate Frank Perdue. “I don’t understand why ‘normal’ people don’t want to go out on dates with people like us. We need better opportunities to meet people who think like us.”
For anyone interested in the complexities of life as a man or woman living in the neurodiverse world, a recent Hulu documentary might be their entry point. “Patrice” follows New Jersey school crossing guard Patrice Jetter. The kids love her, and she loves them.
She is also an amazing artist, entertainer and performer. She is romantically involved with Garry, who lives with cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. The story is about a commitment ceremony – between Patrice and Garry – since they were told their marriage quest would jeopardize their individual monthly social security stipends and their subsidized housing.
The documentary utilizes vérité footage of Patrice and Garry’s daily life, both together and apart. Their lives are at a rather challenging level just accomplishing daily routines like preparing a meal. Patrice walks with a cane and leg braces, whereas Garry uses a wheelchair and needs help into bed.
They both have their separate apartments, 20 minutes apart via bus. Also part of the movie is the handicapped-equipped van Patrice owns which breaks down for good in the documentary. Much of Patrice’s story focuses on raising funds (and awareness) around a vehicle they need – for Patrice to get to work as a school crossing guard and for Garry to live a more mobile life with his significant other. Collecting aluminum cans just won’t cut the $55,000 price tag, and alas, a Go Fund Me drive gets Patrice to that goal and the new vehicle.
Many of my current and past clients will relate well with this documentary, from the Special Olympics participation, to the end-of-the-month dilemma of $28 left for food or incidentals. The shared values and the care each of the main protagonists display should melt any cold heart, but the reality is that both democrats and republicans have stalled on a marriage equity bill allowing a legal union AND continuation of both spouses’ Social Security/Medicaid support.
Garry and Patrice had terrible upbringings and experiences during their formative years, and Patrice’s reads read like a horror story of abuse, bullying, assaults and rape. The oppression from the government agencies is just another knife in the heart. We learn that Patrice’s mother was from a family of abusers, and that Patrice’s stepfather abused her mother.
Patrice is on her own as her siblings are dead, as well as her mother. But by the end of the movie, with the Go Fund Me videos, it is clear that she has a plethora of friends and tribal family.
Compelling is Patrice’s real life friend, Elizabeth Dicker, who happens to be the Accessibility Specialist at Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services. Elizabeth summarizes how Garry and Patrice’s situation is not just cruel, but also illogical:
“If two people are having Medicaid benefits, and then those two people get married and then they just don’t lose their benefits, how is the government making or losing any money?”
Situating the real policy issues now, after billions ($15.5 billion) were spent on the 2024 elections, we learn from advocates like Julie Chick and Frank Perdue that the limitations on Supplemental Security Income are badly out of date.
Organizations like Oregon Self Advocacy Coalition (OSAC) work hard to engage communities in advocating for the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
I spoke at length with Gabrielle Guedon, director of OSAC. She was really interested in the power of the press to bring OSAC members’ struggles to the general public. She is also inviting people to read the GO! Bulletin on how to get involved in advocacy about policies.
She lives by this credo by Malala Youseif: —
“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”
And, on the OSAC webpage we see she’s just like anyone you might know:
“I build miniature doll houses and make pillow cases. I love camping. I’m a carb-o-holic! I like rock-n-roll and I would love to visit Australia.”
In January 2020, just before COVID hit, Lisa, myself, and a team of advocates met with Chris Neeley, who headed the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, a much-needed federal advisory committee that promotes policies and initiatives that support independent and lifelong inclusion. We discussed the need for all medical schools to include courses that focus on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We emphasized how crucial it was for hospitals and other acute-care facilities to help patients transition from pediatric to adult services. We emphasized the importance of collecting sufficient data to explain medically complex disorders. This was not about more government spending. It was about smarter investing and greater efficiency.
We spent the next few months making calls and talking with officials and gathering our own recommendations, giving special attention to the critical need for housing support for people with disabilities. We were back in Washington in May.
By this time, COVID was raging. We were all masked up and COVID tested on the way into the White House Cabinet Room. Once we got inside, we sat down with Alex Azar, the administration’s secretary of health and human services, and Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health, both of whom served on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. The promising agency motto stated: HHS: Enhancing the Health and Well-Being of All Americans.
Sharp, direct, and to the point, Azar exhibited my kind of efficiency with no time to waste. His first question was, “OK, why are you here?”
I made a brief introduction. Our group included a leading doctor and several highly qualified advocates. What followed was a great discussion. Something clicked with Giroir—an idea for a program everyone could agree on that would cut through the bureaucracy and control costs and also yield better and more efficient medical outcomes.
Excellent. We were making progress.
“Really appreciate your coming in,” Azar finally said, more warmly than he had sounded at the start. “I know we’re going to see the President.”
The meeting I had assumed would be a quick handshake hello with Donald had turned into a 45-minute discussion in the Oval Office with all of us—Azar, Giroir, the advocates, and me. I never expected to be there so long. Donald seemed engaged, especially when several people in our group spoke about the heart-wrenching and expensive efforts they’d made to care for their profoundly disabled family members, who were constantly in and out of the hospital and living with complex arrays of challenges.
Donald was still Donald, of course. He bounced from subject to subject—disability to the stock market and back to disability. But promisingly, Donald seemed genuinely curious regarding the depth of medical needs across the U.S. and the individual challenges these families faced. He told the secretary and the assistant secretary to stay in touch with our group and to be supportive.
After I left the office, I was standing with the others near the side entrance to the West Wing when Donald’s assistant caught up with me. “Your uncle would like to see you,” she said.
Azar was still in the Oval Office when I walked back in. “Hey, pal,” Donald said. “How’s everything going?”
“Good,” I said. “I appreciate your meeting with us.”
“Sure, happy to do it.”
He sounded interested and even concerned. I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.
“Those people … ” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”
I truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives. For Donald, I think it really was about the expenses, even though we were there to talk about efficiencies, smarter investments, and human dignity.
I turned and walked away.
And, yes, this is an equal deformity essay, so, drum roll, Harris did what?
And, yes, bullying at school is a effing big thing, leading to depression, and, yep, suicide. But another clown just didn’t/doesn’t get it.
[Cheree Peoples outside of the apartment where she lives when her 17-year-old daughter, Shayla Rucker, is at Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Peoples was arrested six years ago for Shayla’s repeated truancy despite ample evidence given to the Orange County school showing Shayla suffers from sickle cell anemia, which leaves her in constant pain and requires frequent hospitalization.]
On the morning of April 18, 2013, in the Los Angeles suburb of Buena Park, a throng of photographers positioned themselves on a street curb and watched as two police officers entered a squat townhouse. Minutes later, their cameras began clicking. The officers had re-emerged with a weary-looking woman in pajamas and handcuffs, and the photographers were jostling to capture her every step.
“You would swear I had killed somebody,” the woman, Cheree Peoples, said in a recent interview.
In fact, Peoples had been arrested for her daughter’s spotty school attendance record under a truancy law that then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris had personally championed in the state legislature. The law, enacted in January 2011, made it a criminal misdemeanor for parents to allow kids in kindergarten through eighth grade to miss more than 10 percent of school days without a valid excuse. Peoples’ 11-year-old daughter, Shayla, had missed 20 days so far that school year.
[Cheree Peoples outside of the apartment where she lives when her 17-year-old daughter, Shayla, is at Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Peoples was arrested six years ago for Shayla’s repeated truancy despite ample evidence given to the Orange County school showing Shayla suffers from sickle cell anemia, which leaves her in constant pain and requires frequent hospitalization. (Credit: Tara Pixley for HuffPost) ABOVE: Buena Park police officers Luis Garcia (left) and James Woo escort Peoples, 33, to their patrol car on April 18, 2013. She was handcuffed and under arrest.]
Yet the penalties she once championed for truancy and the way she originally thought about the issue are foundational to how California handles truancy today. Peoples’ arrest wasn’t a freak occurrence ― it was the inevitable outcome of Harris’ campaign to fuse the problem of truancy with the apparatus of law enforcement. And Peoples is far from an outlier. There are still hundreds of families across California entering the criminal justice system under the aegis of Harris’ law.
“I think it was a good thing that she shined a light on [truancy],” Jeff Adachi, who served as San Francisco’s chief public defender from January 2003 until his death on Feb. 22, told HuffPost in February. “There is a correlation between children who fail at school and what happens later in life. [But] the idea of locking parents up, or citing them with a crime because they’re not taking their children to school — it doesn’t address the root of the problem.”
“What it ended up being, practically, is families and kids having to come to court to be told to utilize certain services in order to come to school. Which, from where I sit, is very much the job of the school district and not the job of the criminal court.” – a public defender
And then this criminal, Trump?
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Paul Haeder's been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.
Who Should be the Next Emperor of the Violent Global Imperium?
by K.J. Noh / November 5th, 2024
As US voters go to the polls on November 5, they need to remind themselves that when the US elects its next domestic president, it is also selecting the emperor of a violent, global imperium. Choices made over sundry domestic issues have far reaching effects, far beyond local pocketbook or civil rights issues. They determine who lives and dies across the planet, and how much pain, harm and suffering the rest of the world will have to bear.
In this context, it’s fair to ask, who is the lesser evil? Trump or Harris?
The answer, of course, is “neither”. Like infinity, when it comes to evil, there’s not much use in finger-counting which is greater or lesser. They are cardinal equivalents. Third party is the moral choice.
However, between two terrible choices, President Kamala Harris–to the extent that she has institutional continuity with the Biden/CNAS administration and retains key advisors–is likely to wage more wars: in Ukraine and most certainly with China.
This is not because Trump is less hawkish or more prudent, but because he is likely to be less effective. These have to do with the following:
Distraction, Obstruction, and Opprobrium
Trump is likely to be focused on attacking/settling scores with domestic enemies, who have harassed, belittled, betrayed, tattled, audited, impeached, sued, indicted, prosecuted him, and possibly attempted his assassination. He is also more likely to be thwarted or obstructed by institutional forces as he implements his agenda, even if it is similar to Joe Biden’s, and more likely to attract opprobrium and opposition, including if he wages war.
Bean-counting vs Seoul force
Trump has contempt for South Korea’s Yoon administration and wants to multiply the cost of stationing US troops in Korea nine-fold to $10 Billion/year. That could be a deal breaker. He openly refers to South Korea as a “money machine“. This mercantile transactionalism is likely to put sand into the gears of the US war machine that is preparing Korea as the easiest and first place to start an omnicidal war with China.
South Koreans are already furious with President Yoon Sok Yeol for subordinating South Korea’s political and economic interests to US foreign policy, and they are likely to impeach Yoon if he submits to such flagrant extortion. On the other hand, If he doesn’t pay up, and the US administration weakens its support of Yoon, the Korean people will rise up and overthrow him as they have other US-quisling presidents like Syngman Rhee, Chun Doo Hwan, Park Geun Hye. This will strategically diminish the prospects of the Empire. The canard of North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine is an attempt to stave off this bad end by heightening the stakes, promoting South Korea (and Yoon’s) status as a global “pivot state”, and enmeshing Korea into the Ukraine-NATO-Empire trainwreck.
Compassionate rape indulgences
Trump was openly contemptuous of “Shinzo” (Abe), but he has even less relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Ishida (or any future potential Japanese PM). However, as with South Korea, his uncouth transactionalism around the omoiyari yosan (Japan’s “empathy contribution budget”) for US troops in Japan, is likely to disorient and vex the Japanese leadership, and outrage the populace who are already livid to be paying reverse indulgences for occupation and rape. JAKUS, the Japan-Korea-US alliance is already brittle, due to the current political weakness of Japan’s ruling LDP and South Korea’s hatred for Yoon’s pro-collaborationist position. Prime Minister Ishida has lost the lower house and the LDP, which has governed Japan as a virtual one-party state, is at its weakest in decades. Simultaneously, Yoon’s military collaboration with Japan, Korea’s former colonizer, is sending Yoon into crisis territory, as his approval rating plummets down to 17%.
Deadly Insurance policy
Trump has said that the Taiwan authorities need to pay the US for protection because the US is “no different from an insurance company”. But Trump’s insurance company is a corporation that has no intention of paying out if Taiwan becomes the next Ukraine. He has also stated that Taiwan should spend 10% of its shrinking GDP on the military, a coded demand to buy more marked up US weapons systems. Again, the ruling DPP will be bewildered and rattled by Trump’s demand—an offer they can’t refuse: being asked to pony up for an extortionary “insurance” policy that guarantees almost certain denial of services while bankrupting the country: Trump has refused to state if he will commit troops to Taiwan to support US-prompted secessionism.
Currently Vice President Louise Hsiao, a former US citizen and deep state denizen, serves as President’s William Lai’s US minder. A prissy preacher’s daughter from New Jersey, it’s a pretty good bet that neither Trump nor Vance will get along with the self-proclaimed “cat warrior” princess. Hsiao, for her part, has bet all her chips on Ukraine–stating that “the Ukraine war sends a powerful message to China”–the de-knickered message of a person squatting in an outhouse hit by a tornado. Trump’s potential Ukraine pullout could heighten the mortification.
Disdain for the McCain Stain
Certainly, Trump is hawkish and belligerent on Iran and could greenlight war. He will also support Israel in continuing to wage its horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing, just as the Biden administration ministers to, indulges, and excuses every genocidal whim and action of Israel.
But Trump is likely to force some kind of settlement on Ukraine, because he hates losing and losers, and Ukraine is a losing war, which he can blame on Biden.
Trump’s language is extremely belligerent and hawkish, and he is rash and impulsive, but his narcissism traps him into trying to make himself look like a winner at all times. Like the over-validated child, who will avoid any challenge that might reveal the limits of his competence, Trump is less likely to test the outer limits of US power with peer competitors. That means he could be less likely to start conventional wars he cannot win, and be more likely to try to get out of losing wars. This could even be true for the genocidal war on Gaza, which despite its stream of atrocities, is Israel’s John McCain moment: a strategic and political loss for a colonizer that has been taken hostage by its own insanity.
Catastrophic Reboot Risk
The catastrophic geopolitical risk with Trump is he may not understand the real risks of nuclear war—he has asked “Why have nukes if they can’t be used?”—and could be recklessly tempted or prompted to use them. This is in contradistinction to the CNAS neocons who will control Harris’ foreign policy and her nuclear threat posture: they understand the risks and costs, and they still seek to use them deliberately. They believe in integrating nuclear war seamlessly into conventional doctrine, exercises, signaling, and operations.
This is true also for climate change. Trump denies global warming and has stated that it is a Chinese conspiracy to undermine the US economy. The Harris-Biden administration understands global warming but sees sustainable transition as unacceptable because it would boost China’s development and global status. They see doubling down on burning fossil fuels as in the core strategic interests of the US in maintaining hegemony. They would rather burn up the planet than let China shine. In fact, they would rather destroy the planet than give up an ounce of privilege to the burgeoning multipolar world. Wonk-speaking necropolitical ideologues from their first cakewalk to the final funeral march of mankind, they would rather be dead rather than be led into a better world of sovereign independence, equality, non-interference, and peace.
If Trump is elected, the global south will pray that he never abandons his neo-mercantilist transactionalism and his petty narcissistic fraudulence. Until the dismantling of Empire and Capital, and until the West stops using wars to reboot the economy, this may be about the only thing that saves the world.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
K.J. Noh is a long time activist, writer, and teacher. He is a member of Veterans for Peace and works on global justice issues. He can be reached at: k.j.noh48@gmail.com. Read other articles by K.J..
What the Air Force Doesn’t Want Us to Notice on Election Night
by Leah Yananton / November 5th, 2024
Much significance will happen at the end of Election Day, and a countdown will begin at 11:00 p.m. PDT on November 5th. While everyone’s attention will be on who our next president will be, the U.S. The Air Force will test-launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with a dummy hydrogen bomb on the tip from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The missile will cross the Pacific Ocean and 22 minutes later crash into the Marshall Islands. The U.S. Air Force does this several times a year. The launches are always at night while Americans are sleeping.
This is what nightmares are made of – between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, and the result is that the Marshallese people have lost their pristine environment and face health problems. Our environment is threatened here as well. Not only did the indigenous Chumash people lose their sacred land to Vandenberg Air Force Base, but also America’s Heartland presently has around 400 ICBMs stored in underground silos equipped with nuclear warheads that are ready to launch at a hair trigger’s notice. Named “MinuteMen III,” after Revolutionary War soldiers who could reload and shoot a gun in less than a minute, ICBMs not only put Americans at risk of accident, but they put all life on earth in danger.
ICBMs are not viable for national defense. They are a relic of a bygone era having been invented by Nazi Germany, and their presence only escalates the risk of nuclear accidents or conflicts.A single launch could lead to a nuclear exchange that would annihilate cities, contaminate the environment, and cause irreversible harm to our planet’s ecosystem. Once an ICBM is launched, it cannot be recalled. I don’t want a nuclear strike or accident to happen. We can change course now, and our first step is to decommission the ICBM program also because it is a staggering financial burden to maintain.
The U.S. plans to spend over $1.2 trillion on nuclear modernization over the next 30 years, which means new, larger nuclear bombs and new, larger ICBMs called Sentinels that will need to be tested. This massive investment in outdated technology diverts critical funds away from humanitarian needs like healthcare, education, and healing climate change— issues that directly impact our quality of life, and our children’s future.
I teach 4th and 5th graders Creative Writing. I adore children’s imaginations, but when my students were given the assignment to write about something important to them, they wrote lines that broke my heart. This is a wake-up call for us adults to face the reality we have made for our children.
“Such a shame, a perfectly good planet, trashed.” Claire, age 9.
“What would you think about no nature in the world? No trees, no butterflies, no birds or bunnies at all! Most important of all, no people. There would be no technology, no schools, no history, no entertainment; everything we have worked for would be wasted. What would you think about a beautiful world that basically had nothing? I think I would absolutely hate it.,” Brynn, age 9.
Other than destruction caused by industrial global warming and by war, which the children are all-too aware of, this child does not know what actually could turn nature and civilization to nothing in a matter of minutes; she doesn’t know about “nuclear winter” or how vulnerable we are to a nuclear accident. Most people don’t.
The claim is that nuclear weapons are deterrents, but it is diplomacy that creates alliances and peace. Nuclear weapons only provide the terrifying threat of annihilation, either by command or by accident. Nuclear weapons and ICBMs only make the world less safe and strip us of security.
As the warring ruling class seems to be pushing for nuclear brinkmanship, on this election night let us not be distracted. By decommissioning ICBMs, the U.S. could lead the world in reducing the nuclear threat and encourage other nations to do the same. For the sake of our health, environment, and the safety of future generations, it’s time to scrap the ICBM program. We owe it to our children to invest in a future that prioritizes peace and sustainability over destruction.
As it is we the people who possess the right of self-determination, we must confront the material reality of our homeland and face what it will take to protect it. Do we have the courage to change our country for the better and ensure our futures? Yes we do, and now is the time to take action.
“Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress,” said Daniel Ellsberg, U.S. military analyst, economist, and author of “The Doomsday Machine.”
May we cancel this nightmare weapons program for once and for all and give our children the security that they deserve.
Leah Yananton is a teacher, filmmaker and writer with attention on biosphere dynamics, human connection, indigenous stewardship, nuclear disarmament, and the peace economy. Read other articles by Leah.
Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons From Hurricane Helene
by Ellen Brown / November 6th, 2024
Asheville, North Carolina, is known for its historic architecture, vibrant arts scene and as a gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a favorite escape for “climate migrants” moving from California, Arizona, and other climate-challenged vicinities, until a “500 year flood” ravaged the city this fall.
Hurricane Helene was a wakeup call not just for stricken North Carolina residents but for people across the country following their tragic stories in the media and in the podcasts now favored by young voters for news. “Preppers” well equipped with supplies watched in helpless disbelief as homes washed away in a wall of water and mud, taking emergency supplies in the storm. Streets turned into rivers, and many businesses and homes suffered extensive water damage if they were not lost altogether.
The raging floods were triggered by unprecedented rainfall and winds, but a network of fragile dams also played a role. On Sept 27, when the floods hit, evacuation orders were issued to residents near a number of critical dams due to their reported “imminent failure” or “catastrophic collapse.” Flood waters were overtopping the dams to the point that in some cases the top of the dam structure could not be seen.
The dams did not collapse, but to avoid that catastrophe, floodgates and spillways had to be opened, releasing huge amounts of water over a number of days. Spokesmen said the dams had “performed as designed,” but they were designed for an earlier era with more stable, predictable climates and no population buildup below the dams.
Five days after the floods hit in East Tennessee, half a million gallons of water were still being released per second from Douglas Dam, northwest of Asheville and upstream from Knoxville on the French Broad River. (Video clip of opened floodgates.) The Watauga Dam in Tennessee was also releasing record flows, surrounding nearby homes in water. WTVC NewsChannel 9 Chattanooga reported that Chickamauga Dam, upstream from Chattanooga, released approximately 566,118 gallons of water per second.
The Nolichucky Dam, in Tennessee near the North Carolina border, was reported to have “withstood nearly twice the water flow of Niagara Falls.” (See dramatic videos on Fox Weather showing the overflow and the floodgate release continuing three weeks later, a similar clip from 11Alive adding the damage downstream, and overflow footage on WKYC Charlotte.) Other major dams in which the floodgates were opened included Cowans Ford Dam, north of Charlotte (see video clip of the floodgate release); and Waterville Dam (also called Walters Dam), upstream from Newport in Tennessee (video). Homeowners accused Duke Energy of sacrificing poor neighborhoods for wealthier properties, but as one official said, the excess water had to go somewhere. It had to go downstream. They did what they had to do to avoid outright collapse of the dams, a much worse disaster.
Upriver from Asheville, the auxiliary spillway of the North Forks Dam was activated. It too is said to have “performed as designed,” but the result was again significant flooding. Mandatory evacuation orders were put in place from the dam to Biltmore Village in Asheville, which suffered major damage. North Forks Dam is classified as a ”high-hazard potential dam,” meaning its failure could result in potential loss of life and serious property damage.
One concerned Asheville podcaster complained that the city had known for 20 years that the North Forks Dam was inadequate and a lethal danger under flood conditions, but it hadn’t been repaired. The dam was put to the test in September, when residents were told there was no choice but for the flood gates to be opened to prevent the dam from breaking. The result was a 30 foot wall of water that swept homes and lives away, rushing so fast that people were found in the tops of trees. The podcaster’s suspicions were aroused because lithium worth billions of dollars is located in Western North Carolina, where a mining company has been trying to restart operations since 2021, over community protests.
That was also true of the nearby town of Spruce Pine, downstream from the North Toe Dam, which was submerged under eight feet of water from the combination of torrential rain and the release of the dam’s floodgates. Spruce Pine is a major producer of high-quality quartz, a rare but necessary resource for many tech products. Mining companies have been attempting to double their operations in Spruce Pine, but they too have met resistance from local landowners. For some controversial details, see here.
Asheville is also downstream from Lake Lure Dam, which was reported on Sept. 27 to be “at risk of imminent failure” as the river was overtopping the dam. Most heavily affected was Chimney Rock, the town immediately downstream from Lake Lure, known for both its rustic scenery and its lithium mines. The damage was extensive.
According to an Oct. 2 broadcast on WBTV News in Charlotte titled “Lake Lure Dam ‘high hazard’ and needed repairs at time Helene hit,” the dam, completed in 1926, does not meet current state safety requirements. Repairs were ongoing but unfinished. Lake Lure Dam is one of 1,581 dams across the state considered “high hazard,” and according to a 2022 report, North Carolina has 194 high-hazard dams in poor or unsatisfactory condition, meaning they “may require immediate or emergency remedial action.”
The High Cost of Repair
The catastrophic flooding and destruction in western North Carolina has caused a record $53 billion or more in damages and recovery needs, according to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration. The storm and its aftermath caused 1,400 landslides and damaged over 160 water and sewer systems, at least 6,000 miles of roads, more than a thousand bridges and culverts, and an estimated 126,000 homes. Some 220,000 households are expected to apply for federal assistance.
Whether the federal government will have the funds, and how long it will take residents and businesses to get assistance, are yet to be determined. On Oct. 2, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not have enough funding to make it through the hurricane season, which runs to Nov. 30. President Biden said that the more urgent problem now is the Small Business Administration, which provides low interest loans to homeowners (up to $500,000) and businesses (up to $2 million) for rebuilding after disasters. The SBA announced on Oct. 15 that its funds would soon run out and that it was pausing its loan offers to disaster survivors until Congress appropriates additional funds.
Applications for those funds are complicated, and reimbursement can take years — too late for demolished businesses to get back on their feet, or displaced homeowners living in tents on their properties to rebuild.
Failing Dams Are a Nationwide Problem
Dams in poor condition are found not just in Appalachia but across the country. A May 5, 2022 NPR report cites an Associated Press analysis of dams needing repair:
More than 2,200 dams built upstream from homes or communities are in poor condition across the U.S., likely endangering lives if they were to fail. The number of high-hazard dams in need of repairs is up substantially from a similar AP review conducted just three years ago.
There are several reasons for the increased risk. Long-deferred maintenance has added more dams to the troubled list. A changing climate has subjected some dams to greater strain from intense rainstorms. Homes, businesses and highways also have cropped up below dams that were originally built in remote locations. …
The nation’s dams are on average over a half-century old. They have come under renewed focus following extreme floods, such as the one that caused the failure of two Michigan dams and the evacuation of 10,000 people in 2020.
The $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed last year by President Joe Biden will pump about $3 billion into dam-related projects, including hundreds of millions for state dam safety programs and repairs….
Yet it’s still just a fraction of the nearly $76 billion needed to fix the tens of thousands of dams owned by individuals, companies, community associations, state and local governments, and other entities besides the federal government, according to a report by the Association of State Dam Safety Officials [ASDSO].
Less than a year later, the ASDSO announced the release of a new report dated February 2023, stating that the current cost of rehabilitating all non-federal U.S. dams is an estimated $157.5 billion, more than double ASDSO’s estimate from 2022.
Our Neglected National Infrastructure
Repairing dams is only one of a litany of infrastructure needs across the country, including roads, highways and bridges; public transportation; ports, harbors and other maritime facilities; intercity passenger and freight railroads; freight and intermodal facilities; airports; and telecommunication networks. National spending on infrastructure has fallen to its lowest level in 70 years, to 2.5% of the nation’s GDP. That’s half the comparable level in Europe and one-third the level in China. As a result, productivity, investment and manufacturing have collapsed; and we are losing our worldwide competitive edge.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimated in its 2021 report that $6.1 trillion is needed just to repair our nation’s infrastructure, of which $2.6 trillion is currently unfunded. The gap, which increases the longer the work is put off, is now $2.9 trillion according to the latest ASCE update. Meanwhile, the federal debt is over $34.8 trillion, with the interest tab alone topping $1 trillion annually.
How can infrastructure requirements be met without driving the federal government $3 trillion further into debt? We need some form of off-budget financing. We have done it before, notably when Congress was heavily in debt right after the American Revolution, and when the banking structure had completely collapsed in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Alexander Hamilton, our first U.S. Treasury secretary, developed the national infrastructure bank model used by many other countries today. Winning our freedom from Great Britain left the country with what appeared to be an unpayable debt. Hamilton traded the debt along with a percentage of gold for shares in the First U.S. Bank, paying a 6% dividend. This capital was then leveraged many times over into credit to be used specifically for infrastructure and development. The Second U.S. Bank, based on the same model, funded the vibrant economic activity of the first decades of the new country.
Today, virtually our entire circulating money supply is created by banks in this way when they make loans. The new money is not inflationary so long as it creates new goods and services, allowing supply to rise with demand and keeping prices stable. The new money is liquidated when the loans are paid off with profits from sales.
In the 1930s, Roosevelt’s government pulled the country out of the Great Depression by repurposing an agency created under President Hoover into a lending machine for development on the Hamiltonian model. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was an off-budget source of revenue, allowing the government to build infrastructure all across the country and fund a world war while actually turning a profit. Many of today’s dams were built with that credit, but they are nearly a century old. They need an upgrade, which can be financed by a national infrastructure bank on the same model. A fuller discussion is here.
HR 4052 (formerly HR 3339), titled “The National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2023,” is currently before Congress and has 40 sponsors. It has been endorsed by dozens of legislatures, city and county councils, and many organizations. Like the First and Second U.S. Banks, it will be a depository bank capitalized with existing federal securities held by the private sector, for which the bank will pay an additional 2% over the interest paid by the government. The bank will then leverage this capital into roughly 10 times its value in loans, as all depository banks are entitled to do. The bill proposes to fund $5 trillion in infrastructure capitalized over a 10-year period with $500 billion in federal securities exchanged for preferred stock in the bank. Like the RFC, the bank will be a source of off-budget financing, adding no new costs to the federal budget. For more information, see https://www.nibcoalition.com/.
State-owned Banks
Leveraging available funds into new credit-dollars for disaster relief can also be done locally at the state level. The possibilities are illustrated by the century-old Bank of North Dakota, currently our only state- owned bank. The BND’s emergency capabilities were demonstrated in 1997, when record flooding and fires devastated Grand Forks, North Dakota. The town and its sister city, East Grand Forks on the Minnesota side of the river, lay in ruins. Floodwaters covered virtually the entire city and took weeks to fully recede. Property losses topped $3.5 billion.
In North Carolina, FEMA was criticized for still being absent from recovery efforts a week after the Helene emergency was declared, too late for people trapped in rivers or under debris who could be reached only by helicopter. In North Dakota by contrast, the response of the state-owned bank was immediate and comprehensive.
Soon after the floodwaters swept through Grand Forks, the BND was helping families and businesses recover. The bank quickly established nearly $70 million in credit lines – to the city, the state National Guard, the state Division of Emergency Management, the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and for individuals, businesses and farms. It also launched a Grand Forks disaster relief loan program and allocated $5 million to help other areas affected by the spring floods. Local financial institutions matched these funds, making a total of more than $70 million available.
Besides property damage, flooding swept away many jobs, leaving families without livelihoods. The BND coordinated with the U.S. Department of Education to ensure forbearance on student loans; worked closely with the Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration to gain forbearance on federally backed home loans; established a center where people could apply for federal/state housing assistance; and worked with the North Dakota Community Foundation to coordinate a disaster relief fund, for which the bank served as the deposit base. The bank also reduced interest rates on existing Family Farm and Farm Operating programs. Families used these low-interest loans to restructure debt and cover operating losses caused by wet conditions in their fields.
The city was quickly rebuilt and restored. Remarkably, no lives were lost, vs. an official death toll to date in North Carolina of 98, thought to actually be much higher. Grand Forks lost only 3% of its population to emigration between the 1997 floods and 2000, while East Grand Forks, right across the river in Minnesota, lost 17% of its population.
Small businesses are now failing across the country at increasingly high rates. That means layoffs, need for more government assistance, lower productivity, and higher taxes. But that’s not true in North Dakota, which was rated by Forbes Magazine the best state in which to start a business in 2024. On Oct. 2, Truth in Accounting’s annual Financial State of the States report rated North Dakota ND #1 in fiscal health, with a budget surplus per taxpayer of $55,600.
Meanwhile in Helene-ravaged Appalachia
Publicly-owned state and federal banks are possibilities for future disasters, but they will be too late for the flood victims of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. Survivors’ moods have been lifted in the meantime by the extraordinary generosity of local and out-of-state volunteers, who were on the ground immediately with supplies, equipment and labor.
But it has been a month, supplies are falling off, and the need is still great. According to a podcast titled “Helene VICTIMS need THESE 5 things One Month Later!,” 98% of businesses are still open; but they are largely based on tourism, and tourists have been scarce because the news media have featured the disaster areas to the exclusion of the small surrounding towns that are still functional, beautiful and welcoming visitors. First on the podcaster’s list of needs was prayer.
People whose houses have been lost are camping on their land, trying to hang onto properties that in some cases have been in their families for generations. With winter coming, they need heavy duty camping equipment— winter tents, winter sleeping bags, small propane tanks. Other supplies for which there is particular need are food and water, cold and flu medicines, and first aid kits.
Though the situation is still dire for many, an Oct. 31 wrapup from Gov. Roy Cooper and country music star Eric Church, following a visit to the state’s mountain area, was hopeful. So, too, is this story told with soul: HURRICANE HELENE — A Love Letter To Appalachia ♡.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
