Sunday, November 24, 2024

Trump’s Victory Is a Despicable Reflection of the American Character


More than a Trump problem, there’s a voter problem. If you elect a monster once, you’ve made a mistake. If you elect it twice, you’re the monster.



Dan Dinello
Nov 21, 2024
Informed Comment

Reelecting the Insurrectionist who provoked the January 6 attack is a monumental dereliction of civic duty by the American people. Donald Trump was provided a plurality mandate—enough of a match for him to burn America down.

The electorate affirmed that the worst human being to hold the presidency deserves a second turn in the job. Despite Trump being eight years older and obviously losing his mind; despite the fact that he ran a corrosive campaign on naked malevolence; and despite his having promised to mass arrest, cage, and deport immigrants, Americans rewarded him with ultimate power.

Toward the end of the 2024 election, the candidates made their closing arguments. Trump painted the United States as a dark, terrifying and infested place, festering with pet-eating immigrants, violent criminals, and deviant trans people. America was a savage hellscape where good, “normal” Americans were forgotten as their white, heterosexual world was reshaped by Democrats into something alien and repulsive.

In 2020, we believed that we had broken with history, with the Trump era; in 2024, it is apparent that history has broken some part of us.

Trump stoked conspiracy theories and promised vengeance. He mused about reporters being shot, mimed oral sex with a microphone, spewed racist lies, and threatened to order the military against the “enemy from within.” He emphasized every rotten thing about himself. None of this prevented his popularity from expanding in multiple electorates across the country; it may have even facilitated his success.

Vice President Kamala Harris articulated a hopeful future. Positioning herself as a moderate, Harris expressed a willingness to work with her political opponents. She embraced diversity and promised to better the lives of all Americans. The electorate was offered a choice between a mainstream Democrat and a candidate running the most openly fascist campaign ever undertaken by a major-party nominee for president. They chose the latter.

Voters who cast their ballots for Trump engaged in contemptible behavior, turning amoral, unserious about governing, and proving themselves undeserving of our constitutional legacy. More than a Trump problem, there’s a voter problem. If you elect a monster once, you’ve made a mistake. If you elect it twice, you’re the monster.

Unlike Trump’s first election, this one cannot be minimized as the result of an overconfident Democratic campaign and the successful con of 100,000 voters in a handful of swing states. This time, voters decisively chose Trump. The autocrat, who has grown more belligerent and maniacal over the years, is now is a maniac with a mandate.

Time and again, we hear the wild lies Trump‘s voters believe, such as babies being aborted after birth. We act as if they are sharing the same reality as ours, as if they are making informed decisions about legitimate issues. The media often portrays this gullible crowd as woefully misunderstood: If only Democrats addressed their economic anxiety, they might vote differently. That’s a myth no one should believe. They are not congenitally ignorant. They chose to close their eyes to reality.

Autocracies thrive on befuddled, ill-informed populations. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt noted, “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”

Harris decried Trump as a fascist, a petty tyrant, a liar. If all America needed was an articulate case for why Trump was terrible, then Harris was the right candidate. With a long career as a prosecutor, she’s taken on perpetrators of all kinds: “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said. “I know Donald Trump’s type.” She was the prosecutor who would defeat the felon. The voters heard her case, and they found for the defendant. America knew his type, too, and liked it.

Many thought women would rise up in defense of bodily autonomy. And they did, but not enough. Abortion was less of a key issue than expected. Harris did win the support of 54% of women, lower than President Joe Biden’s 57% in 2020. No group of voters was more loyal to Trump than white men. He managed to drive up what were already sky-high margins with his white, blue-collar base. Male voters—terrified or resentful of women—bought into Trump’s regressive idea of masculinity in which power over women is a birthright.

Despite enthusiastic crowds and the endorsement of high profile celebrities, antagonism or apathy undermined Harris: Over 7 million Biden voters did not vote for her. Trump likely won as a result. Currently, Harris has received 74 million votes, while Biden obtained over 81 million votes. Some may have even voted for Trump, who increased his 2020 vote total by over 2 million, up to 76 million. The anti-Trump coalition failed to sustain their 2020 outrage. Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Julia Roberts lost to Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock, and Joe Rogan.

Voting in 2020 was portrayed as an act of heroism, because of the raging pandemic. Though Joe Biden provoked little passion, his campaign felt like the culmination of a liberation movement. The sense of outrage, which carried Biden to victory, was blunted for Harris. In a 2016 essay “Autocracy: Rules for Survival,” Masha Gessen wrote, “It is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock and outrage,” otherwise apathy would set in. And once that happened, autocracy would seem as natural as the weather.

Defusing Trump outrage and hanging over the election was the festering political wound that was Democratic support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The slaughter and starvation of Palestinians—funded by U.S. taxpayers and live-streamed on social media—has triggered one of the greatest surges in progressive activism in a generation. Roused to action by their government’s complicity in Gaza’s destruction, some voted for Jill Stein, many stayed home.

Harris loyally lined up behind the despicable and unpopular blank-check policy of Biden, which demoralized the party’s base and threatened its chances in Michigan. As the carnage continued and expanded, furious Arab American and Muslim voters determined to punish the party by making it lose. It appears to have worked: Trump captured Michigan partly thanks to a shocking, winning margin in Dearborn, the largest majority Arab-American city.

Trump will not improve the lives of Palestinians, nor those of most Americans. It’s no secret that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported Trump over Kamala Harris. He held off on any cease-fire deal that might help Harris. Trump supported Israel’s brutal bombing campaigns in both Lebanon and Gaza and told his buddy Netanyahu ”do what you have to do.” As a “gift” to the incoming Trump administration, Netanyahu is preparing a cease-fire plan regarding its bombing of Lebanon.

Along with recriminations about Harris’s failure to at least express more remorse about the suffering in Gaza, a profusion of Democratic self-flagellation began immediately after the brutal loss. The party was too woke. Harris—the candidate who had been a magnet for joyful enthusiasm—was disparaged. She was too centrist, too un-primaried, too female, and laughed too often. She leaned too much on reproductive freedom, or gave fatally little attention to concerns about immigration.

Democrats whined further: If only Biden hadn’t waited so long to withdraw, or if only he hadn’t mumbled something about “garbage.” Pundits opined furiously and confusingly: The campaign missed what spoke to men, perhaps particularly Black men, or Latino men—or was it women? Also, Harris failed to talk enough about the kitchen-table economy and failed to address the many grievances of the working class, who are not getting their share and fear “urban” crime.

Maybe there’s a little truth in some of that, but none of it explains the magnitude of what’s happened. Despite being the best-fed, richest, and most lethally defended humans in the history of planet Earth, Americans are afraid. Despite being coddled with too much of everything: more cars, more good roads, more personal gadgets, more guns, and more freedom than any country in the world, it’s not enough. Americans are annoyed. The price of eggs went up. Gas doesn’t cost what it cost in 1989. Did America elect a dictator because Cheerios—available in about 20 flavors—hit $5.29 at the grocery store?

Americans reelected a Bigot who promotes hatred and division and who lies—blatantly, shamelessly—every time he appears in public. They chose a man described by his own former advisers as a fascist. Voters witnessed his abuse of presidential power toward fascist ends and understood that returning him to office will immunize him legally for those abuses. Their votes affirm that conspiring to disenfranchise Americans by overturning a national election does not make someone unfit for national office—even if that someone is already plotting to do it again. There’s no way to rationalize an outright Trump victory except as a despicable reflection of the American character.

As president, Trump will likely issue shock and awe executive orders that will activate some form of Trump’s MAGA-pleasing deportation threat. The logistics of a nationwide mass kidnapping of millions of “illegals,” who are “poisoning the blood” of America are unclear. Trump confirmed last Monday that his plan for mass deportations will involve a national emergency declaration and the military. If street protests are mobilized, the regime—with a bloated strongman twitching for a reason to invoke the Insurrection Act—will deploy troops. The worst-case scenarios, including razor-wired concentration camps in the desert, are beyond horrifying.

Our country has been deliberately set on fire by fellow Americans. Aside from mass deportations and contempt for climate change, human rights, and gun control, Trump will appoint a more reactionary federal judiciary and assault the press. On day one, Trump will pardon the J6ers, creating a paramilitary force answerable to him. These are not the imaginings of a paranoiac. These are campaign promises announced from the podium and include a federal government stocked with fools and jesters whose highest qualification is fealty to the Great Leader.

Trump has already initiated a cabinet reminiscent of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the German Expressionist film about an evil hypnotist who brainwashes automatons to commit murders for him. Trump’s lackeys and loyalists include a propagandist for Russia—Tulsi Gabbard—as director of national intelligence, a Fox News host and subject of sexual assault charges—Pete Hegseth—as secretary of defense, an End Times Christian Zionist—Mike Huckabee—as ambassador to Israel, and an accused statutory rapist—Matt Gaetz—as attorney general.

Somehow topping all these MAGA freaks is the anti-vaxxer—Robert F. Kennedy—nominated to lead Health and Human Services. Kennedy recently commented that on its first day in power, the Trump regime will ban fluoride in water. Fluoridated water has been a favorite target of paranoid anti-communist conspiracists dating to the 1950s. In Stanley Kubrick’s vicious satireDr. Strangelove, General Jack D. Ripper explains that he avoids fluoridated water because it’s a communist plot that will sap his “precious bodily fluids.”

Trump’s nominations are meant to bolster his effort to lay waste to the institutions that he has come to despise or regard as threats to his power or purse strings. “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty,” wrote Arendt. Trump’s cabinet offers a deliberate negation or mockery of the government functions they’re supposed to administer. They are his shock troops.

Trump wants to force Senate Republicans to humiliate themselves by confirming these unqualified toadies. Republicans will not try to stop this Trump travesty or any other. On the contrary, they’ll say—and are already saying it—that they owe it to Americans to give them every stupid, destructive thing they voted for.

Having lived through the circus of Trump 1.0, the voters also affirm that they’d prefer to plunge the country back into that embarrassing prior horror: blatant corruption, blathering of state secrets, the turbo-obnoxious Trump family, freak-show personnel choices, blue-state retribution, government-by-impulse, and policy-by-tweet. Trump 2.0 will likely involve more overt and impeachable crises, like flouting court orders or the Constitution. Trump’s voters are plainly willing to run the risk. Knowing now what a Trump show-presidency looks like, they’ve voted for a sequel.

The public has chosen malevolent leadership. The only consolation for the enemies within is clarity—the moral clarity of the voter’s decision is crystalline: Trump will regard his slim plurality vote margin as a “mandate” to do his worst. We hope that many of the ideas on Trump’s demented wish list will not actually come to fruition and that our democracy can once more withstand this sociopath and the lunatics who surround him. But that is just desperate, wishful thinking. As of yet, there is nothing that will break the iron grip Trump has over his cult, now joined by a plurality of Americans.

Over the past decade, opinion polls have shown Americans’ faith in their institutions waning. But no opinion poll could make this shift in values any clearer than this vote. The United States will become a different kind of country. The lesson of this election is that the American people aren’t worthy of their Constitution. They elected a president who has never read it and who, by his behavior, holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, in contempt. Like the counter-culture hippies and anti-Vietnam radicals of the 1960s, the enemies within are rebels—strangers in a strange land, exiled inside a country many of us no longer feel fully part of.

In the midst of the Vietnam War and Watergate, Richard Nixon won a huge and depressing landslide reelection in 1972. In a stunning shift, this dark history was overturned with Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Change is always possible, but we should not underestimate how arduous it will be to achieve, or how long it will take. In 2020, we believed that we had broken with history, with the Trump era; in 2024, it is apparent that history has broken some part of us. Acknowledging this is not surrender but a realization that the fights ahead will be formidable, but that anything is possible.




© 2023 Juan Cole

Dan Dinello is the author of Children of Men, a critical analysis of Alfonso Cuarón's visionary dystopian science fiction film masterpiece. His other books include Finding Fela: My Strange Journey to Meet the AfroBeat King—a memoir of his 1983 trip to Lagos, Nigeria, to film African musical legend Fela Kuti—and Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology. Dan has also contributed chapters to books about Avatar, Westworld, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Ridley Scott, and Star Trek among others.
Full Bio >










Why Did Trump Win? Because Democrats Aren't Up In Arms Over Mass Layoffs

GM just told 1,000 workers they're jobs are gone. But I haven’t heard Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, or any other leading Democrat say a critical word about it.

 BOEING LAYS OFF 17,000 NOT A PEEP


Robert Reich
Nov 23, 2024
robertreich.substack.com

At the same time Democrats and progressives are justifiably enraged at Trump’s gonzo Cabinet picks, they’re all but mute about corporate America’s continued siphoning of economic gains to the top.

Yet this siphoning has created the stagnant wages and insecure jobs that helped propel Trump into the presidency and give Republicans control over both chambers of Congress.

Trump at least gave workers an explanation for what’s happened to them — although it was a lie: It isn’t undocumented immigrants or the “deep state” or transgender kids or any other Trump bogeyman.

It’s corporate greed.

The most recent example: On Friday, GM announced it was laying off 1,000 workers. These layoffs followed another round of GM layoffs in August, which saw 1,500 jobs cut. The cuts affected both salaried and hourly staff, including some United Auto Workers members.

Why aren’t Democrats, who still control the Senate and presidency, moving more aggressively to outlaw stock buybacks — which were considered illegal stock manipulations before Ronald Reagan’s SEC gave them the green light?

Most of the workers being laid off Friday were notified via email early Friday morning. Some had been working for GM for over thirty years.

GM says it has no choice. It must cut costs.

This is what we hear again and again from corporate America. We’ll be hearing even more of this as Artificial Intelligence takes over white-collar as well as blue-collar jobs.

No choice?

GM is on track for making record profits this year, surpassing its 2022 record profit of $14.5 billion. In the third quarter of 2024 alone, GM made $3.4 billion. That’s a $200 million increase from the same period last year.

GM CEO Mary Barra’s compensation for 2024 is $27.8 million. This includes a base salary of $2.1 million, stock awards of $14.6 million, stock option awards valued at $4.9 million, an “incentive plan” compensation (as if she needed more incentive) of $5.3 million, other payment of $997,392, and perks (personal travel, security, financial counseling, company vehicles, and an executive health plan) valued at $389,005.

The ratio of Barra’s compensation to that of the typical GM employee is estimated to be 303-to-1.

In June, GM announced $6 billion in stock buybacks. This means $6 billion of GM’s record profits will be used to purchase its own shares of stock — thereby boosting share prices (and the portion of Barra’s compensation in stock grants and options) simply because fewer shares of GM stock will be in circulation.

Keep in mind that the richest 1 percent of American hold over half of the value of all shares of stock held by Americans, and the richest 10 percent hold 92 percent.

So, in fact, GM’s savings from axing 1,000 jobs will be transferred into the pockets of wealthy Americans (including GM’s CEO).

Why aren’t Democrats up in arms about this? I haven’t heard Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, or any other leading Democrat say a critical word about GM’s latest move.

Democrats have offered no alternative explanation for what’s happened to average working people or agenda for remedying it. Trump's baseless explanation and agenda are the only ones available. So it’s no surprise that many working Americans voted for Trump on Election Day.

Why isn’t Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer — who may be in the running for president in 2028 (assuming we have another election) — accusing GM of sacrificing jobs for profits that are siphoned off to big investors?

Why aren’t Democrats, who still control the Senate and presidency, moving more aggressively to outlaw stock buybacks — which were considered illegal stock manipulations before Ronald Reagan’s SEC gave them the green light?

Why aren’t they demanding that capital gains taxes be increased on the super-wealthy, whose stock gains this year alone have made America’s billionaires 30 percent richer?

Why aren’t they moving to increase corporate taxes on corporations whose ratio of CEO pay to their median workers is more than 50 to 1? And impose even higher taxes if the ratio exceeds 100 to 1? (Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Representatives Barbara Lee and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have introduced just such a bill, but no one knows about it. Why isn’t the Democratic leadership loudly pushing this?)

The lesson of the debacle of the 2024 election is that big corporations and the wealthy have shafted average working Americans, whose wages and jobs have gone nowhere for decades and who are understandably frustrated and angry at what they see as a rigged system.

But Democrats have offered no alternative explanation for what’s happened to average working people or agenda for remedying it. Trump's baseless explanation and agenda are the only ones available. So it’s no surprise that many working Americans voted for Trump on Election Day.

Now Trump and his Republican stooges think they’ve been given a license to blow the system up — initially by appointing a bunch of clowns, conspiracy theorists, and sexual predators to key posts.

It’s important to rail against Trump’s appointments. But unless we attack the sources of the outrage Trump has tapped into, working Americans will continue to go along with whatever Trump and his lapdogs want to do.


© 2021 robertreich.substack.com


Robert Reich, is the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock" (2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond Outrage" (2012) and, "Saving Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common Good" (2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.
Full Bio >
GUESS WHO IS NOT INVITED TO DINNER

Canada will follow ICC warrant and arrest Netanyahu, Gallant if they enter country, Trudeau says

"We are one of the founding members of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. We will abide by all the regulations of the international
 court," he said.

NOVEMBER 23, 2024 
Canada's Justin Trudeau tours the Toronto Holocaust Museum in North York, Ontario, Canada, May 5, 2024(
photo credit: REUTERS/COLE BURSTON)

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that the country would abide by the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for his Israeli counterpart Netanyahu and Israel's former defense minister Yoav Gallant and will arrest the two should they enter the country, he told reporters on Thursday at a press conference.

"It's really important that everyone abide by international law. This is something we've been calling for since the beginning of the conflict," he said. "We are one of the founding members of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. As Canadians, we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international court."

US President Joe Biden rejected the ICC's decision to issue the warrants, saying that "whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security." The United States, however, is not one of the States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, unlike Canada.

Canada is among 124 countries that are States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Hamas on Thursday welcomed the arrest warrants. "We call on the International Criminal Court to expand the scope of accountability to all criminal occupation leaders," it said in a statement

.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shakes hands with members of Canadian Armed Forces in Toronto, Ontario, Canada February 24, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/CARLOS OSORIO)
Student protests across Canada the same day

The same day as Trudeau's comments on the ICC warrant, the Canadian province of Quebec saw about 85,000 students across over a dozen college campuses going on strike for two days, demanding their schools divest from Israel.

The main protest took place at Concordia University in Montreal but was joined by students from McGill and Dawson College.

Joanie Margulies, Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Mathilda Heller, and Reuters contributed to this report.

ICC warrants are binding, European Union cannot pick and choose, EU's Borrell says


Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country.

By REUTERS
NOVEMBER 23, 2024

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell attends a press conference on the day of EU-Ukraine Association Council in Brussels, Belgium March 20, 2024.(photo credit: REUTERS/YVES HERMAN)


European Union governments cannot pick and choose whether to execute arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against two Israeli leaders and a Hamas commander, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday.

The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri (Mohammad Deif) for alleged crimes against humanity.

All EU member states are signatories to the ICC's founding treaty, called the Rome Statute.

Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.

"The states that signed the Rome convention are obliged to implement the decision of the court. It's not optional," Josep Borrell, the EU's top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.

THE INTERNATIONAL Criminal Court in The Hague. (credit: PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW/REUTERS)

Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.

"It would be very funny that the newcomers have an obligation that current members don't fulfill," he told Reuters.

While Borrell welcomes ICC ruling, US rejects decision

The US rejected the ICC's decision, and Israel said the ICC move was antisemitic.

"Every time someone disagrees with the policy of one Israeli government - (they are) being accused of antisemitism," said Borrell, whose term as EU foreign policy chief ends this month.

"I have the right to criticize the decisions of the Israeli government, be it Mr Netanyahu or someone else, without being accused of antisemitism. This is not acceptable. That's enough."

In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza."

The warrant for Mohammad Deif lists charges of mass killings during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Israel says it has killed Deif.



The International Criminal Court decided to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, based on “reasonable grounds” that they bear responsibility for a war crime and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Global reactions have been mixed. The United States fundamentally rejected the court’s decision. The U.K. reiterated its support for the court but stopped short of saying whether it would arrest Netanyahu if he visited. Donatella Rovera, senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International, answered France 24's question


As Biden and Trump Teams Attack ICC, Tlaib Says Netanyahu 'Must Be Arrested'


"Today's historic arrest warrants cannot bring back the dead and displaced," said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, "but they are a major step towards holding war criminals accountable."



Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) holds a sign that reads "War Criminal" as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress on July 24, 2024.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Nov 22, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

The lone Palestinian American in the U.S. Congress said Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "must be arrested" in compliance with warrants issued by judges on the International Criminal Court, a response that contrasted sharply with that of the Biden administration and allies of President-elect Donald Trump.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), one of Congress' most outspoken opponents of Israel's war on Gaza, said in a statement that the ICC warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were "long overdue" given the gravity of the accusations against them.

The ICC panel that approved the warrants on Thursday said it found "reasonable grounds to believe" Netanyahu and Gallant are guilty of "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare" and the "crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts."

The ICC also approved an arrest warrant for Hamas military leader Muhammad Deif, whom Israel claims to have killed in an airstrike in southern Gaza last month.


Tlaib said Thursday that the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant represent a signal that "the days of the Israeli apartheid government operating with impunity are ending" and condemned the Biden administration's continued military and diplomatic support for Israel's catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip, where most of the population is now displaced and at growing risk of starvation and disease.

The Democratic congresswoman said the "historic arrest warrants cannot bring back the dead and displaced, but they are a major step towards holding war criminals accountable."

"If the world does not uphold international law, we will descend into further barbarism."

Tlaib was among a number of progressive U.S. lawmakers who backed the ICC's decision as the Biden White HouseRepublican and Democratic lawmakers, and likely members of the incoming Trump administration lashed out at the court and threatened retaliation—underscoring the country's outlier status as its allies affirmed their support for the ICC and said they would abide by its warrants.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Thursday that the ICC's decision represents "an important step to hold these war criminals accountable for their grave crimes against humanity and war crimes."

"I express my sincere admiration for the victims of the atrocities in Israel on October 7th and the victims of the war crimes that have and are currently taking place in Gaza who provided their testimony to the prosecutor's office to make these arrest warrants possible," said Omar. "Just as I have said for months, the ICC must continue to work independently without interference."

Omar denounced bipartisan calls for sanctions against the ICC as "shameful" and praised the court's staff for pushing to "uphold human rights, accountability, and the rule of law."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also voiced agreement with the ICC's decision to issue the warrants, saying late Thursday that the court's charges against Netanyahu, Gallant, and Deif "are well-founded."

The ICC formally issued the warrants just hours after Sanders forced a historic U.S. Senate vote late Wednesday in an effort to block American arms sales to Israel. The Sanders-led effort failed as an overwhelming majority of senators from both parties voted against halting the weapons transfers.

In his statement Thursday, Sanders said that "Netanyahu, Gallant, and Deif have all launched indiscriminate attacks against civilians, and all three have caused unimaginable suffering within the civilian population."

"If the world does not uphold international law," the senator warned, "we will descend into further barbarism."

'War Criminals Are Not Welcome': Dearborn Mayor Says He Would Arrest Netanyahu


"Our president may not take action, but city leaders can ensure Netanyahu and other war criminals are not welcome to travel freely across these United States," said Major Abdullah Hammoud.

Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, speaks during a press conference on February 28, 2024.
(Photo: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Nov 21, 2024
COMMON DREAMS 

The Biden administration on Thursday said it "fundamentally" rejected the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Israel's prime minister and ex-defense minister—but the Dearborn, Michigan mayor who has been an outspoken critic of U.S. support for Israel in recent months said he would join the majority of countries in recognizing the court's jurisdiction, and would carry out the warrants if given the chance.

"Our president may not take action, but city leaders can ensure [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and other war criminals are not welcome to travel freely across these United States," said Mayor Abdullah Hammoud on the social media platform X.

Hammoud said Dearborn authorities would arrest Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant if they set foot within city limits, and called on other cities across the United States to do the same.

The ICC said Thursday that it had found "reasonable grounds" to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant for "crimes against humanity and war crimes," more than 13 months after Israel began its bombardment and near-total blockade on Gaza. The court also issued a warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who was killed in an airstrike in July. The ICC said it could not confirm Deif's death.

In May, President Joe Biden said ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan's application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant was "outrageous."

On Thursday, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said the Biden administration was "deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants."

The U.S. is joined by powerful governments including those of China, Russia, Israel, and India in refusing to recognize the ICC's jurisdiction; 124 countries are parties to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC as a court that prosecutes individuals accused of war crimes.

Gaza officials say the death toll in the enclave has passed 44,000 since Israel began its assault, with Gallant saying he had "released all the restraints" on the military. Nearly 70% of deaths verified by the United Nations in Gaza have been among women and children. Israel also faces a case at the International Court of Justice in which South Africa and several other countries have accused it of genocidal acts.


The Irish Foreign Ministry on Thursday called on all governments to respect the ICC's "independence and impartiality, with no attempts made to undermine the court."

Progressive U.S. advocacy group RootsAction urged "people everywhere to perform a citizen's arrest of Netanyahu wherever he can be found, including in Washington D.C."

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a U.S.-based human rights group, noted that "Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute outlines clear criminal liability for aiding and abetting war crimes, which applies to individuals in non-member states like the U.S. when their actions enable violations under ICC jurisdiction."

"By continuing to provide military assistance to Israeli officials," said DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar, "despite credible accusations of war crimes by the ICC, U.S. leaders—including President Biden, Secretary [Antony] Blinken, and Secretary [Lloyd] Austin—are exposing themselves to personal liability under international law."


The ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu Is Also an Indictment of US Policy and Complicity

Ultimately, this is the story of how the Israel lobby undermined America, wrecked the Middle East, and set a series of international crimes against humanity in motion.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of the United States Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol March 3, 2015 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Jeffrey D. Sachs
Nov 21, 202
4Common Dreams

It’s official now. America’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one accorded more than 50 standing ovations in Congress just months ago, is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. America must take note: the U.S. Government is complicit in Netanyahu’s war crimes and has fully partnered in Netanyahu’s violent rampage across the Middle East.

For 30 years the Israel Lobby has induced the U.S. to fight wars on Israel’s behalf designed to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian State. Netanyahu, who first came to power in 1996, and has been prime minister for 17 years since then, has been the main cheerleader for U.S.-backed wars in the Middle East. The result has been a disaster for the U.S. and a bloody catastrophe not only for the Palestinian people but for the entire Middle East.

These have not been wars to defend Israel, but rather wars to topple governments that oppose Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel viciously opposes the two-state solution called for by international lawthe Arab Peace Initiativethe G20the BRICS, the OIC, and the UN General Assembly. Israel’s intransigence, and its brutal suppression of the Palestinian people, has given rise to several militant resistance movements since the beginning of the occupation. These movements are backed by several countries in the region.

The obvious solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis is to implement the two-state solution and to demilitarize the militant groups as part of the implementation process.

Israel’s approach, especially under Netanyahu, is to overthrow foreign governments that oppose Israel’s domination, and recreate the map of a “New Middle East” without a Palestinian State. Rather than making peace, Netanyahu makes endless war.

What is shocking is that Washington has turned the U.S. military and federal budget over to Netanyahu for his disastrous wars. The history of the Israel lobby’s complete takeover of Washington can be found in the remarkable new book by Ilan Pappé, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (2024).



Rather than making peace, Netanyahu makes endless war.

Netanyahu repeatedly told the American people that they would be the beneficiaries of his policies. In fact, Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people, bleeding the U.S. Treasury of trillions of dollars, squandering America’s standing in the world, making the U.S. complicit in his genocidal policies, and bringing the world closer to World War III.

If Trump wants to make America great again, the first thing he should do is to make America sovereign again, by ending Washington’s subservience to the Israel Lobby.

The Israel Lobby not only controls the votes in Congress but places hardline backers of Israel into key national security posts. These have included Madeleine Albright (Secretary of State for Clinton), Lewis Libby (Chief of Staff of Vice President Cheney), Victoria Nuland (Deputy National Security Advisor of Cheney, NATO Ambassador of Bush Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Obama, Under-Secretary of State for Biden), Paul Wolfowitz (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Sr., Deputy Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Douglas Feith (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Abram Shulsky (Director of the Office of Special Plans, Department of Defense for Bush Jr.), Elliott Abrams (Deputy National Security Advisor for Bush Jr.), Richard Perle (Chairman of the Defense National Policy Board for Bush Jr.), Amos Hochstein (Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Biden), and Antony Blinken (Secretary of State for Biden).

Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people, bleeding the U.S. Treasury of trillions of dollars, squandering America’s standing in the world, making the U.S. complicit in his genocidal policies, and bringing the world closer to World War III.

In 1995, Netanyahu described his plan of action in his book Fighting Terrorism. To control terrorists (Netanyahu’s characterization of militant groups fighting Israel’s illegal rule over the Palestinians), it’s not enough to fight the terrorists. Instead, it’s necessary to fight the “terrorist regimes” that support such groups. And the U.S. must be the one to lead:
The cessation of terrorism must therefore be a clear-cut demand, backed up by sanctions and with no prizes attached. As with all international efforts, the vigorous application of sanctions to terrorist states must be led by the United States, whose leaders must choose the correct sequence, timing, and circumstances for these actions.

As Netanyahu told the American people in 2001 (reprinted as the 2001 foreword to Fighting Terrorism):
The first and most crucial thing to understand is this: There is no international terrorism without the support of sovereign states. International terrorism simply cannot be sustained for long without the regimes that aid and abet it… Take away all this state support, and the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse into dust. The international terrorist network is thus based on regimes—Iran, Iraq, Syria, Taliban Afghanistan, Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, and several other Arab regimes, such as the Sudan.

All of this was music to the ears of the neocons in Washington, who similarly subscribed to U.S.-led regime change operations (through wars, covert subversion, U.S.-led color revolutions, violent coups, etc.) as the main way to deal with perceived U.S. adversaries.

After 9/11, the Bush Jr. neocons (led by Cheney and Rumsfeld) and the Bush Jr. insiders of the Israel Lobby (led by Wolfowitz and Feith), teamed up to remake the Middle East through a series of U.S.-led wars on Netanyahu’s targets in the Middle East (Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria) and Islamic East Africa (Libya, Somalia, and Sudan). The role of the Israel Lobby in stoking these wars of choice is described in detail in Pappe’s new book.

The neocon-Israel Lobby war plan was shown to General Wesley Clark on a visit to the Pentagon soon after 9/11. An officer pulled a paper from his desk and told Clark: "I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense's office. It says we're going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years—we're going to start with Iraq, and then we're going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran."

In 2002, Netanyahu pitched the war with Iraq to the American people and Congress by promising them that “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region[...] People sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.”

A remarkable new insider account of Netanyahu’s role in spearheading the Iraq War also comes from retired Marine Command Chief Master Sargent Dennis Fritz, in his book Deadly Betrayal (2024). When Fritz was called to deploy to Iraq in early 2002, he asked senior military officials why the U.S. was deploying to Iraq, but he got no clear answer. Rather than lead soldiers into a battle he could not explain or justify, he left the service.

The neocon-Israel Lobby teamwork has marked one of the greatest global calamities of the 21st century.

In 2005, Fritz was invited back to the Pentagon, now as a civilian, to assist Under-Secretary Douglas Feith in the declassification of documents about the war, so that Feith could use them to write a book about the war. Fritz discovered in the process that the Iraq War had been spurred by Netanyahu in close coordination with Wolfowitz and Feith. He learned that the purported U.S. war aim, to counter Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, was a cynical public relations gimmick led by an Israel Lobby insider, Abram Shulsky, to garner U.S. public support for the war.

Iraq was to be the first of the seven wars in five years, but as Fritz explains, that follow-up wars were delayed by the anti-U.S. Iraqi insurgency. Nonetheless, the U.S. eventually went to war or backed wars against Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Lebanon. In other words, the U.S. carried out Netanyahu’s plans—except for Iran. To this day, indeed to this hour, Netanyahu works to stoke a U.S. war on Iran, one that could open World War III, either by Iran making the breakthrough to nuclear weapons, or by Iran’s ally, Russia, joining such a war on Iran’s side.

The neocon-Israel Lobby teamwork has marked one of the greatest global calamities of the 21st century. All of the countries attacked by the U.S. or its proxies—Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria—now lie in ruins. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza continues apace, and yet again the U.S. has opposed the unanimous will of the world (other than Israel) this week by vetoing a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution that was backed by the other 14 members of the U.N. Security Council.

The real issue facing the Trump Administration is not defending Israel from its neighbors, who call repeatedly, almost daily, for peace based on the two-state solution. The real issue is defending the U.S. from the Israel Lobby.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of "A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism" (2020). Other books include: "Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable" (2017) and "The Age of Sustainable Development," (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.
Full Bio >


Trump National Security Advisor Pick Threatens ICC Over Netanyahu Arrest Warrant

Republican Rep. Mike Waltz declared that the International Criminal Court, which is recognized by more than 120 nations including major U.S. allies, "has no credibility."



U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz speaks at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 17, 2024.
(Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Nov 21, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pick for national security advisor on Thursday threatened the International Criminal Court with "a strong response" after the body formally issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's former defense minister, and Hamas' military chief, accusing the three of grave war crimes.

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), a vocal supporter of Israel's assault on Gazawrote on social media that the ICC "has no credibility," even though the court is recognized by 124 countries around the world—including Germany, the United Kingdom, and other major U.S. allies.

Waltz added that the ICC's "allegations have been refuted by the U.S. government," alluding to the Biden administration's widely rejected assessment that Israel's conduct in Gaza has been lawful.

"Israel has lawfully defended its people and borders from genocidal terrorists," Waltz wrote, vowing that the Trump administration would take action against supposed "antisemitic bias" at the ICC and United Nations.

Waltz's response to the arrest warrants offered a glimpse of the hostile approach the incoming Trump administration and the Republican Congress intend to take toward international efforts to hold the Israeli government to account for war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip—many of which have been carried out with U.S. weaponry.

"It is reasonable to expect that once Trump comes in, he will go after the ICC and the [International Court of Justice] in ways that profoundly damage the multilateral system," said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

"It is important to remember, however, that so did Biden," Parsi added.

After the ICC's chief prosecutor filed his applications for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant, and members of Hamas' leadership in May, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement questioning the legitimacy of the requests and reiterating the administration's view that the court "has no jurisdiction over this matter."

Blinken earlier this year also signaled support for potential sanctions against the ICC, a punitive step that Republicans—including the incoming leader of the GOP Senate majority, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.)—have demanded.

Neither the U.S. nor Israel recognizes the ICC, but the court has said it has jurisdiction over Israeli actions in Gaza given that Palestine is an ICC member. The Biden administration has been accused of hypocrisy on the issue of ICC jurisdiction given that it welcomed the court's arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As of this writing, the U.S. State Department has not responded to the ICC warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri. The department canceled its daily press briefing for Thursday.

"The European Union and other major democratic powers should immediately put in place measures to protect the safety and integrity of the International Criminal Court and its staff."


Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said in a statement Thursday that the ICC's arrest warrants "are a milestone for justice and accountability, and just about the only thing that stands a chance of saving international law at a moment of U.S.-backed genocidal Israeli impunity."

"Every member state of the International Criminal Court—and even its erstwhile champions like the U.S.—has a duty to swiftly arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant at the first opportunity they get," said Whitson.

Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, DAWN's director of research for Israel-Palestine, added that "in light of the threats already made by President-elect Trump and existing U.S. legislation known as the ' Hague Invasion Act,' the European Union and other major democratic powers should immediately put in place measures to protect the safety and integrity of the International Criminal Court and its staff."

The ICC has no police force of its own, making it reliant on member states to execute arrest warrants.

Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, said Thursday that the ICC's warrants must "be respected and implemented."

"This decision is a binding decision on all state parties of the court, which includes all members of the European Union," Borrell added.

Only Plants Can Save the People

We might not have control over the next administration’s assault on the environment, but for now, what we can do is plant native plants on land that’s considered “private.”



Sophie Pennes of Urban Farms LA roams with Owen in the yard of his parents and homeowners Katie Cordeal and Kyle Anido in Highland Park on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 in Los Angeles, California after they tore out their lawn and replaced it with a colorful landscape bursting with California native plants.
(Photo: Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Samantha Harvey
Nov 24, 2024
Common Dreams

In 2016 I believed this to be true: “Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo/ Only the people can save the people.” It’s the Latin American protest phrase recently used by communities recovering from devastating floods in Spain.


In that spirit, the day after Donald Trump’s first election, I made a pledge to myself (and a plea to others) to welcome difficult conversation, to “call in” rather than “call out,” and to trust the basic goodness of neighbors to bring us through the administration to a safer world of shared values, acceptance, and care.

But eight years later, contemplating another outrageous Trump ascendence, my faith has wavered. Although I still believe in people, we, alone, just don’t seem to be enough. So today, amid intersecting ecological, social, and political crises, I’d like to propose a different phrase: “Only the plants can save the people.”

Plants, on the other hand, are peaceful and apolitical—complex, adaptable, even sentient beings that began filling Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen 2 billion years before the first bipeds traversed soil on two feet.

Hear me out: Is it such a radical idea to suggest we might do well to look beyond human ingenuity alone, and instead toward the vast interconnectedness of species with whom we share the planet? The worldview that puts homo sapiens at the top of the decision-making ladder seems to have done little but entangle us in useless loops of struggle and defeat. Climate disaster has become just another thing many people now accept; a new normal that’s easier, bafflingly, than making any kind of structural shift to quell its root causes.

And yet, while humans doomscroll through paralysis, plants continue sequestering carbon, supporting biodiversity, cleaning the water and the air, and mitigating erosion. What might the world look like if we actually sought leadership, with renewed reverence and kinship, from the dirt beneath our feet?

In 2016 we’d learned to live with burning forests, but not a fire season that spans more than half the year. We knew about hurricanes, but inland folks never imagined the waters could come for them. Over the past eight years, we’ve seen MAGA amplify while biodiversity plummeted. Greenhouse gas levels rose while children in cages screamed for their families; floods, fires, and droughts accelerated while a global pandemic exacerbated suspicions and divisions. Temperatures ticked up as a racial justice reckoning raged and state-sanctioned military violence quashed peaceful protest on public streets and university campuses.

Plants, on the other hand, are peaceful and apolitical—complex, adaptable, even sentient beings that began filling Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen 2 billion years before the first bipeds traversed soil on two feet. The argument that they can save us isn’t a fairytale dream, but one based on real scientific scholarship, ecological principles, and the acceptance that humans are just one small part of a complex web of life on the planet. Native plants that have evolved in sync with insects and animals in specific bioregions are what will continue to support the trophic levels of all life, from insect to megafauna, on which our very existence as humans depends. This basic biological truth persists no matter how many billionaires claim we can technologize our way out of ecological collapse.

There is even evidence that nature can mend divisions between people. From Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods to more recent studies linking gardening to general well-being, we are learning “officially” what most people who come in from a walk in the woods or a dip in a sparkling lake have known for millennia: that time spent mingling with and caring for species outside the human realm is not only healing, but critical for our survival. Caring for the natural world can actually ameliorate all sorts of ailments, like loneliness, isolation, and depression—ills that may contribute to the surge of anger and loutishness that’s been plaguing our society.

Over the past eight years I’ve had two children, and I’ve watched them transform from furry, wriggling infants to curious kids who talk to plants and animals just as they talk to other humans. My son spent the morning of November 6 dancing around in pink bunny pajamas, feeding oatmeal to his stuffed animals. My work, now, is focused on preserving his joy while being honest about the fact that there’s been an almost 70% decline in species’ populations since I was his age. My daughter, who will spend her formative years in a country whose top officials don’t value her life, got on the bus to public school today, where she’ll be compelled to put her hand over her heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. My work, now, will be to teach her that “America” could stand for a promise of what’s to come; it could honor the billion-plus acres of thriving forest and prairie, the billions of birds and buffalo that fed its landscapes before colonizers arrived. “God” could stand for the spirit of the land that sustains us.

. My belief is that the plants can save the people; my hope is that we’ll let them.

This is not to suggest we turn our backs on other urgent struggles, like resisting authoritarianism and militarism, protecting human rights, stopping fossil fuel extraction, preserving our public education system, further democratizing healthcare access, and more. It does not mean we stop prioritizing the intergenerational solutions of climate justice communities hit first and worst by the ravages of these intersecting crises.

What it does mean is no one has to wait to get started. While those larger struggles persist, we can make change right away in our own homes and neighborhoods.

According to entomologist and Homegrown National Park founder Doug Tallamy, the American lawn (think bright green rectangle) took up close to 63,000 square miles as of 2021. That’s 63,000 square miles of “no vacancy” for the plant life that’s sustained us for millions of years; 63,000 square miles kept poisonously crisp with chemicals, mowers, and blowers. Those miles, almost the size of all our national parks added together, are currently acting not as the carbon sinks, watershed managers, and biodiversity regenerators they could be, but rather as a vast food desert for the insects and birds that critically transport energy within and across bioregions.

Luckily, transforming empty landscapes into regenerative ecosystems is something we can do without professional help or waiting for the next election. Volunteer networks, native plant landscaping companies, books, regional “how-to” guides, and do-it-yourself trial and error are all useful—critical, even—for beginning the vast rewilding needed to improve our environments and communities. A single milkweed plant in a pot won’t change the world, but in community, it’s a great start.

We might not have control over the next administration’s assault on the environment. But for now, what we can do is plant native plants on land that’s considered “private.” That could be three feet on your apartment’s fire escape, a 20x20 green lawn, a garden space in front of your small business, or replacing a tangle of invasives in your backyard. We have the power to change our relationship to the Earth; to do something good, simple and measurable; to reshape the landscapes of the future and transform them into bird-and-bee commons—now—without waiting for policy from above. And we can do it while forging relationships within our communities, getting outside and away from the manipulations of screens, reconnecting with our instincts, rebuilding alongside the species with whom we share the planet by digging our hands in dirt that knows no borders.

My hope is the despair many of us feel in the face of the next administration will not be met with more despair, or even with anger. My hope is we’ll collectively say “enough,” that we’ll recognize our shared worth and commonalities not only with each other, but with the other species around us. My belief is that the plants can save the people; my hope is that we’ll let them. And in reconnecting with our local landscapes, we can reconnect with each other, so that four years from now, the people will be able to save the people once again.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Samantha Harvey is a writer, meeting facilitator, and climate justice activist. She is currently developing 5x5 Refuge, a rewilding project intended to build community, connection, and resilience via pollinator pathway gaps.
Full Bio >
Op-Ed: The words that make the news – Idiocy, incompetence, stupidity, fraud, crime, etc.


By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
November 23, 2024

Australian legislation could force social media firms to take steps to prevent those under 16 years of age from accessing platforms such as X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Michael M. Santiago

There’s a pattern forming in common usage in media. These words and their equivalents are almost entirely unavoidable in the news. They are admittedly mostly opinionated words, but words like fraud and crime are equally hard to avoid.

These words are all used to direct the audience to a point of view, a specific perspective All sides of any debate use them. That doesn’t quite explain why they’re so prevalent. It just explains why nobody solves problems.

You’ll notice that words like fraud and crime are not opinionated words. They’re “qualifications” of their information. They have solid unambiguous meanings, every second of every day.

The word “idiocy” is a case in point. A search of “idiocy” on Google News indicates that the word is very popular to the point of being almost a default headline worldwide. The word “incompetence” is equally at plague levels on just about any subject.

The point here is that in any type of situational analysis there are strong indicators of core issues. Statisticians could spend years tracking the use of the word incompetence in so many contexts,

Market researchers could explore whether constant references to idiocy are important to audiences. Maybe not? Maybe the market samples are so used to idiocy that they don’t notice it anymore.

These could be very useful studies. A PhD or so could be written about the tireless coverage of apocalyptic idiocy, or chronic sycophantic incompetence, for example.

…Or maybe someone might like to find out why these topics dominate just about every bit of information regarding the whole of human existence right now.

The social dimension to these expressions and their usage is truly interesting, particularly in social media, that fountain of human perception:

If someone continuously yells “Fire!” other people might notice, particularly if things are falling down and collapsing. They might even do something about it.

If people constantly yell “idiocy, incompetence, stupidity, fraud, crime”, etc. absolutely nothing happens.

Any theories, geniuses?
Expert warns of signs that employees are losing morale


By Dr. Tim Sandle
November 23, 2024
DIGITAL JOURNAL

Workers Walor factory in eastern plants that make auto parts worry about the shift to electric vehicles - Copyright AFP FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI

Are you a manager? If so, you will appreciate the importance of keeping your workers motivated and reasonably content within the dynamics of the employment relationship (which is naturally conflictual at its heart).

One part of the welfare at work model is being able to detect when employees are unhappy or professing grievances.

What is the extent of employee disgruntlement? Looking into the U.S. economy, one poll finds that employees are more unhappy at work than they have been in years, and currently more than a quarter of U.S. citizens are looking to change roles. This is the highest in a decade.

To aid new business owners boost employee satisfaction, the firm Wix.com has provided to Digital Journal with signs to spot that will inform the employer that the employee is starting to slip.

How to spot when employees are losing morale?

Decreased productivity and poor performance

This may be evident when employees aren’t getting as much done as they used to. They may miss deadlines or demonstrate a reduced quality of work.

Increased absenteeism, lateness and time off

When your staff are disengaged, stressed or burnt out, they may begin to call in sick more often, show up late, and leave early.

High employee turnover

If employees are leaving in droves, it can be due to lost morale and general disengagement from the workplace. However, this also creates a vicious cycle whereby employees that remain at the company become equally low in morale and sceptical of management and the organization as a whole.

Lack of enthusiasm and innovation

When staff begin to feel as though their work is boring and meaningless, you’ll find that they are uninspired, perhaps less creative and less likely to take initiative.

Lack of teamwork and camaraderie

If you’ve noticed a team member being less active in team activities or conversations, whether remote or in the office, they’re likely suffering from low morale.

Doing the bare minimum

Staff may meet deadlines and quality standards but won’t go above and beyond, they’ll complete the minimum of what is expected of them and nothing further. This can also be seen as ‘quiet-quitting’, that is not doing so little that it’s brought to management’s attention but also not going above and beyond.

Avolition

If an employee struggles to start or finish a task without constant supervision, they may feel disengaged from work. It’s important to determine the root cause of this and provide appropriate support.

Aid only ‘delaying deaths’ as Sudan counts down to famine: agency chief

By AFP
November 23, 2024

In Sudan, one in every five people has been displaced by conflict, according to UN figures. - Copyright AFP IBRAHIM AMRO

Bahira Amin

War-torn Sudan is on a “countdown to famine” ignored by world leaders while humanitarian aid is only “delaying deaths”, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) chief Jan Egeland told AFP on Saturday.

“We have the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet in Sudan, the biggest hunger crisis, the biggest displacement crisis… and the world is giving it a shrug,” he said in an interview from neighbouring Chad after a visit to Sudan this week.

Since April 2023, war has pitted Sudan’s regular army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing tens of thousands of people and uprooting more than 11 million.

The United Nations says that nearly 26 million people inside Sudan are suffering acute hunger.

“I met women barely surviving, eating one meal of boiled leaves a day,” Egeland said.

One of few organisations to have maintained operations in Sudan, the NRC says some 1.5 million people are “on the edge of famine”.

“The violence is tearing apart communities much faster than we can come in with aid,” Egeland said.

“As we struggle to keep up, our current resources are merely delaying deaths instead of preventing them.”



– ‘Me first’ politics –



Two decades ago, allegations of genocide brought world attention to Sudan’s vast western region of Darfur where the then government in Khartoum unleashed Arab tribal militias against non-Arab minorities suspected of supporting a rebellion.

“It is beyond belief that we have a fraction of the interest now for Sudan’s crisis than we had 20 years ago for Darfur, when the crisis was actually much smaller,” Egeland said.

He said Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon and Russia’s war with Ukraine had been allowed to overshadow the conflict in Sudan.

But he said he detected a shift in the “international mood”, away from the kind of celebrity-driven campaigns that brought Hollywood star George Clooney to Darfur in the 2000s.

“More nationalistic tendencies, more inward-looking,” he said of Western governments led by politicians compelled to “put my nation first, me first, not humanity first.”

“It will come to haunt” these “short-sighted” leaders, when those they failed to assist in their homeland join the tide of refugees and migrants headed north.

In Chad, he said he had met young people who just barely survived ethnic cleansing in Darfur, and had made the decision to brave the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean to Europe even though they had friends who had drowned.



– ‘Freefall into starvation’ –



Inside Sudan, one in every five people has been displaced by this or previous conflicts, according to UN figures.

Most of those displaced are in Darfur, where Egeland says the situation is “horrific and getting worse”.

The North Darfur state capital of El-Fasher has been under siege by the RSF for months, nearly disabling all aid operations in the region and pushing the nearby Zamzam displacement camp into famine.

But even areas spared the devastation of war “are bursting at the seams,” Egeland said. Across the army-controlled east, camps, schools and other public buildings are filled with displaced people left to fend for themselves.

On the outskirts of Port Sudan — the Red Sea city where the army-backed government and UN agencies are now based — Egeland said he visited a school sheltering more than 3,700 displaced people where mothers were unable to feed their children.

“How come next door to the easiest accessible part of Sudan… there is starvation?” he asked.

According to the UN, both sides are using hunger as a weapon of war. Authorities routinely impede access with bureaucratic hurdles, while paramilitary fighters have threatened and attacked aid workers.

“The ongoing starvation is a man-made tragedy… Each delay, every blocked truck, every authorisation delayed is a death sentence for families who can’t wait another day for food, water and shelter,” Egeland said.

But in spite of all the obstacles, “it is possible to reach all corners of Sudan,” he said, calling on donors to increase funding and aid organisations to have more “guts”.

“Parties to conflicts specialise in scaring us and we specialise in being scared,” he said, urging UN and other agencies to “be tougher and demand access”.

Thousands demand lower rents at Barcelona demo

LOWER RENTS LOWER INFLATION


By AFP
November 23, 2024

Protesters in Barcelona demand lower rents to counter a housing crisis in Spain's main cities - Copyright AFP Josep LAGO

Thousands of protesters marched through Barcelona on Saturday demanding lower rents in Spain’s second city.

Barcelona, which has already taken action to stop the spread of holiday rental apartments, is the latest Spanish city to see protests for cheaper housing.

Backed by left-wing parties and unions, the demonstrators gathered in central Barcelona behind a giant banner declaring “Lower the rents”.

“Today a new political cycle starts concerning housing,” Carme Arcarazo, spokesperson for the Catalan Tenants Union, the main organiser, told reporters.

“Investors must not be allowed to come to our cities and play with the apartments like a game of Monopoly,” she added.

The union would target “profiteers” who are taking “half of our salaries”, Arcarazo said.

The demonstrators demanded a 50 percent cut in rents, leases with an unlimited term and a ban on “speculative” sales of buildings. They threatened to start a rent strike.

An estimated 22,000 people took part in a similar demonstration in Madrid on October 13. Campaigns have been launched in other cities.

According to the Idealista specialised website, rental prices per square metre have risen 82 percent across Spain over the past decade.

The average salary has gone up by 17 percent in that time, according to the national statistics institute.

Facing pressure over a housing crisis, the government in 2023 passed legislation calling for more social housing, greater restrictions on rents in high demand areas and penalties for owners who do not occupy properties.

But rents have continued to rise while the government has battled city and regional authorities to get some parts of the law applied.

Trump’s mass deportation plan could end up hurting economic growth


By AFP
November 23, 2024

President-elect Trump has said he would start a campaign of mass deportation 'on day one' of his new administration - Copyright AFP Olivier Touron

Daniel AVIS

President-elect Donald Trump’s hardline immigration proposals — including a controversial mass deportation plan — could prove economically damaging, analysts say, with US sectors that rely heavily on foreign workers like agriculture and construction especially hard hit.

US authorities estimate that there are around 11 million unauthorized people living in the United States, the vast majority of whom come from Mexico.

Around 8.3 million unauthorized people were in the labor force in 2022, according to a recent estimate from the Pew Research Center. That was equivalent to just under five percent of the overall workforce.

“Today our cities are flooded with illegal aliens,” Trump said on the campaign trail earlier this year, adding: “Americans are being squeezed out of the labor force and their jobs are taken.”

The reality, however, is more complex; many of the sectors that could be the hardest-hit have long struggled to attract US workers.

“The construction and agriculture industries would lose at least one in eight workers, while in hospitality, about one in 14 workers would be deported due to their undocumented status,” the non-profit American Immigration Council (AIC) said in a recent report on Trump’s deportation plans.

The deportations would also impact “more than 30 percent” of plasterers, roofers, and painters, along with a quarter of housekeeping cleaners, according to the report.



– Economic impact –



A recent joint study by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Brookings Institution, and the Niskanen Center estimated that Trump’s immigration plans could curb US GDP growth in 2025 by as much as 0.4 percentage points.

The impact on growth would primarily come from the direct effect of having fewer foreign workers producing goods and services, with an additional, smaller decline in output coming from less consumer spending by those groups.

In such a scenario, the authors said, “legal immigration is slightly below where it was during the pre-pandemic Trump administration, while enforcement and deportation efforts reach levels not seen in recent decades.”

A total of 3.2 million people would be deported during Trump’s term under this projection, with net migration — arrivals minus departures — falling from 3.3 million in 2024 to negative 740,000 in 2025, boosted by a sharp rise in voluntary emigration.

In a more extreme scenario, which analysts say is highly unlikely, the impact on growth could be much more significant.

A recent Peterson Institute for International Economics report modelled the impact of expelling all 8.3 million unauthorized immigrant workers.

It predicted that economic growth by 2028 could be 7.4 percent beneath baseline estimates, “meaning no US net economic growth occurs over the second Trump term because of this policy alone.”

At the same time, US inflation would be 3.5 percentage points higher by 2026 than it would otherwise be, as employers raised wages to attract American workers.

But even in a less significant scenario, mass deportations could push up prices, analysts say.

Trump’s immigration plans “could lead to big price increases in certain sectors of the economy, but could also lead to inflation,” Michael Strain, AEI’s director of economic policy studies, told AFP.

But mass deportations’ aggregate effect on inflation would likely be small, economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote in an investor note, “with upward pressure in sectors like agriculture and construction partly offset by weaker demand in general and slower inflation in some other areas, such as housing.”



– Obstacles –



Most analysts expect legal, logistical and financial challenges will blunt the most extreme proposals — as they did during the first Trump administration — with the end result being that net migration eases modestly next year compared to pre-pandemic levels.

“We expect tighter policy to lower net immigration to 750k per year, moderately below the pre-pandemic average of 1 (million) per year,” economists at Goldman Sachs wrote in an investor note.

“We’re sceptical that the kind of deportations proposed on the campaign could occur,” Oxford Economics chief US economist Ryan Sweet wrote in a note to clients.

Afghan women turn to entrepreneurship under Taliban


By AFP
November 23, 2024

Many Afghan women have launched small businesses to meet their own needs and support other women - Copyright AFP Wakil KOHSAR

Aysha Safi

When Zainab Ferozi saw Afghan women struggling to feed their families after Taliban authorities took power, she took matters into her own hands and poured her savings into starting a business.

Two-and-a-half years after putting 20,000 Afghanis ($300) earned from teaching sewing classes into a carpet weaving enterprise, she now employs around a dozen women who lost their jobs or who had to abandon their education due to Taliban government rules.

Through her business in the western province of Herat, the 39-year-old also “covers all the household expenses” of her family of six, she told AFP from her office where samples of brightly coloured and exquisitely woven rugs and bags are displayed.

Her husband, a labourer, cannot find work in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Ferozi is one of many women who have launched small businesses in the past three years to meet their own needs and support other Afghan women, whose employment sharply declined after the Taliban took power in 2021.

Before the Taliban takeover, women made up 26 percent of public sector workers, a figure that “has effectively decreased to zero”, according to UN Women.

Girls and women have also been banned from secondary schools and universities under restrictions the UN has described as “gender apartheid”.

Touba Zahid, a 28-year-old mother-of-one, started making jams and pickles in the small basement of her home in the capital Kabul after she was forced to stop her university education.

“I came into the world of business… to create job opportunities for women so they can have an income that at least covers their immediate needs,” Zahid said.

Half a dozen of her employees, wearing long white coats, were busy jarring jams and pickles labelled “Mom’s delicious homecooking”.



– Growing number of businesses –



While women may be making the stock, running the shops in Afghanistan remains mostly a man’s job.

Saleswomen like Zahid “cannot go to the bazaar to promote and sell their products” themselves, said Fariba Noori, chairwoman of the Afghanistan Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AWCCI).

Another issue for Afghan businesswomen is the need for a “mahram” — a male family member chaperone — to accompany them to other cities or provinces to purchase raw materials, said Noori.

After 40 years of successive conflicts, many Afghan women have been widowed and lost many male relatives.

Despite these challenges, the number of businesses registered with AWCCI has increased since the Taliban takeover, according to Noori.

The number went “from 600 big companies to 10,000” mainly small, home-based businesses and a few bigger companies, said Noori, herself a businesswoman for 12 years.

Khadija Mohammadi, who launched her eponymous brand in 2022 after she lost her private school teaching job, now employs more than 200 women sewing dresses and weaving carpets.

“I am proud of every woman who is giving a hand to another woman to help her become independent,” said the 26-year-old.

Though businesses like Mohammadi’s are a lifeline, the salaries ranging from 5,000 to 13,000 Afghanis, cannot cover all costs and many women are still stalked by economic hardship.

Qamar Qasimi, who lost her job as a beautician after the Taliban authorities banned beauty salons in 2023, said that even with her salary she and her husband struggle to pay rent and feed their family of eight.

“When I worked in the beauty salon, we could earn 3,000-7,000 Afghanis for styling one bride, but here we get 5,000 per month,” said the 24-year-old.

“It’s not comparable but I have no other choice,” she added, the room around her full of women chatting as they worked at 30 looms.



– Women-only spaces –



The closure of beauty salons was not only a financial blow, but also removed key spaces for women to socialise.

Zohra Gonish decided to open a restaurant to create a women-only space in northeastern Badakhshan province.

“Women can come here and relax,” said the 20-year-old entrepreneur.

“We wanted the staff to be women so that the women customers can feel comfortable here.”

But starting her business in 2022, aged 18 was not easy in a country where the labour force participation for women is 10 times lower than the world average, according to the World Bank.

It took Gonish a week to convince her father to support her.

Aside from helping their families and having space to socialise, some women said work has given them a sense of purpose.

Sumaya Ahmadi, 15, joined Ferozi’s carpet company to help her parents after she had to leave school and became “very depressed”.

“(Now) I’m very happy and I no longer have any mental health problems. I’m happier and I feel better.”

The work has also given her a new goal: to help her two brothers build their futures.

“Because schools’ doors are closed to girls, I work instead of my brothers so they can study and do something with their lives.”