Time to Boycott the US?

John Feffer

 December 16, 2024
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Image by Alisdare Hickson.

Liberals hate Trump, no question about it. He’s the definition of illiberal: authoritarian, racist, sexist, and downright nasty. Not only that, he’s a living repudiation of the liberal delusion that America runs on meritocracy.

But you want to know a dirty, little secret? In back alleys, encrypted group chats, and off-the-record conversations, liberals will still support Trump on a case-by-case basis. Of course, they’d never vote for the guy, but they’ll give two cheers for some of his policies.

I discovered this ugly truth during Trump’s last term while writing an article on the shift in U.S. policy toward China from lukewarm engagement to hostile decoupling. The general consensus among the foreign policy elite was that, at least in terms of relations with Beijing, Trump was a useful idiot for slowing China’s roll with harsh rhetoric and tariffs.

“Trump is a madman, but I want to give him and his administration their due,” one prominent liberal intellectual told me. “We can’t keep playing on an unlevel playing field and take promises that are never delivered on. It’s really China’s turn to respond, and it’s long overdue.”

It wasn’t just China. For years, liberals and conservatives alike were, for instance, pushing the concept of burden-sharing: getting U.S. allies to cover more of the bill for their security needs. But it was only Trump who really made it happen by blackmailing NATO members and other U.S. partners into doing so.

Sure, few warmed to the idea of the United States actually pulling out of NATO, but even many of our European allies, though they publicly grumbled, were secretly happy about The Donald’s gaiatsu. That’s the Japanese word for outside pressure that enables a leader to force through unpopular changes by blaming it all on foreigners. The self-described liberal leader of NATO, Dutch politician Mark Rutte, even came out in the open after Trump’s reelection to praise the American president for making European countries more militarily self-sufficient.

It wasn’t just liberals who thrilled to Trump’s unorthodox foreign policy during his first term either. Some of those further to the left also embraced Trump the engager (with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un), Trump the isolationist (and his threats to close U.S. military bases globally), and Trump the putative peacemaker (for concluding a deal with the Taliban to end the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan).

Trump, in other words, was not just an unanticipated crisis; he was also an opportunity. Deep in their hearts, anyone unhappy with the status quo will support a disrupter. Quite a few Democrats disgusted with this country’s border policies, inflation, and its coastal elites even crossed over to vote for Trump in November because they wanted change, regardless of the consequences.

Trump 2.0 is going to be the same but worse, like a strong cheese voted out of the refrigerator only to grow ever more pungent as it moldered in a dark corner of Florida. The latest version of Trump has promised more violence and destruction the second time around, from mass deportations to mass tariffs. And he’s planning to avoid appointing anyone to his administration who might have a contrary thought, a backbone to resist him, or the least qualification to enact sensible policy.

In the face of such a vengeful and truculent force returning to the White House, surely, you might think, it will be impossible to find any liberals embracing such anarchy the second time around.

Think again. This is how American politics works, if only for liberals. The modern Republican Party routinely boycotts Democratic administrations: blocking Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination, working overtime to shut down the federal government, voting en masse against legislation it would have supported if introduced by a Republican administration. The MAGA crowd has, in fact, turned noncooperation into something of an art form.

Liberals, on the other hand, pride themselves on bipartisanship, on getting things done no matter who’s in power. So, inevitably, there will be cooperation with the Trump team as it sets about the “deconstruction of the administrative state” (as Trump cheerleader Steve Bannon once put it). Worse, there will even be some silver-lining liberals (and a few leftists) who pull up a seat to applaud the wrecking ball — not perhaps for its wholesale destruction of neighborhoods but at least for its demolition of a select number of buildings that they deem irreparable.

Each time such destruction takes place, the self-exculpatory comment from such silver-liners will be: “Well, somebody had to come along and do something!” If Trump is the only tool in the governing toolbox, some liberals will indeed try to use him to pound in a few nails they think need hammering.

Burning Bridges with China

In his 2024 State of the Union address, Joe Biden argued that he did a better job than Donald Trump of standing up to China. He certainly devoted more Pentagon dollars to containing China. And not only did he not roll back Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products, but he added some of his own, including a 100% tax on Chinese electric vehicles. Biden also made concrete moves to decouple the U.S. economy from China’s, especially when it came to the supply chains for critical raw materials that Beijing has sought to control. “I’ve made sure that the most advanced American technologies can’t be used in China,” he insisted, adding, “Frankly for all his tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do any of that.”

Biden’s moves on China, from export controls and subsidies for chip manufacturers to closer military relationships with Pacific partners like Australia and India, received the enthusiastic support of his party. No surprise there: It’s hard to find anyone in Washington these days who has a good word to say about engaging more with China.

So, when Trump takes office in January, he won’t actually be reversing course. He’ll simply be taking the baton-like stick from Biden while leaving all the carrots in the ground.

That said, Trump’s proposed further spike in tariffs against China (and Canada and Mexico and potentially the rest of the world) does give many liberals pause, since it threatens to unleash an economically devastating global trade war while boosting prices radically at home. But trade unions backed by such liberals support such measures as a way to protect jobs, while the European Union only recently imposed stiff tariffs of their own on Chinese electrical vehicles.

So, yes, neoliberals who embrace free trade are going to push back against Trump’s economic policies, but more traditional liberals who backed protectionist measures in the past will secretly (or not so secretly) applaud Trump’s moves.

Back to the Wall

On taking office, Joe Biden rolled back his predecessor’s harsh immigration policies. The rate of border-crossings then spiked for a variety of reasons (not just the repeal of those Trump-era laws) from an average of half a million to about two million annually. However, in 2024, those numbers plummeted, despite Trump’s campaign claims — but no matter. By then, many Democrats had already been reborn as border hawks.

That new, tougher attitude was on display in executive actions President Biden took in 2024 as well as the border security bill that Democrats tried to push through Congress earlier this year. Forget about finding a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants who keep the American economy humming, Biden’s immigration policy focused on limiting asylum petitions, increasing detention facilities, and even allocating more money to build Trump’s infamous wall.

As Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, pointed out on the eve of the November election, “What we are seeing is that the center of the Democratic Party is now adopting the same policies, the same postures, that MAGA Republicans were fighting for about six years ago.”

And yet such punitive policies still weren’t harsh enough for MAGA Republicans and their America First followers. The bottom line was that immigration-averse voters didn’t want to support Democrats pretending to be MAGA Republicans. When it came to the White House, they wanted the real thing.

As politics change hands in Washington next January, it’s going to be difficult to find any Democrats who will support the mass detentions and deportations Trump is promising. Yet many liberals, like the unprecedented number of Latinos who pulled the lever for Trump in 2024, do want major changes at the border with Mexico. In Arizona, Democrat Ruben Gallego won a squeaker of a Senate election by emphasizing border security and even backing a border wall (in certain areas). Such liberal border hawks will be happy when the Republican president does the dirty work so that Democrats don’t suffer the political fallout that is sure to follow.

Remapping the Middle East

On the face of it, the Abrahamic Accords were a liberal nightmare. The brainchild of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, they promised to repair relations between Israel and the major authoritarian regimes in the region: Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Morocco, and Sudan. The deal was a reward for illiberal leaders, particularly Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. The primary losers would, of course, be the Palestinians, who would have to give up their hopes for a separate state in exchange for some Saudi handouts, and the Sahrawi people who lost their claim to the Western Sahara when the United States and Israel recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire region.

Instead of shelving the Accords, however, the Biden administration pushed ahead with them. After roundly criticizing Saudi autocrat Mohammed bin Salman for, among other things, ordering the murder of a U.S.-based Saudi journalist, Biden mended ties, fist-bumping that rogue leader, and continuing to discuss how and when the Kingdom would normalize relations with Israel. Nor did his administration restrict Washington’s staggering weapons deliveries to Israel after its invasion and utter devastation of Gaza. Yes, Biden and crew made some statements about Palestinian suffering and tried to push more humanitarian aid into the conflict zone, but they did next to nothing to pressure Israel to stop its killing machine (nor would they reverse the Trump administration’s decision on the Western Sahara).

The liberals who support Israel (come what may) like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, New York Congressman Ritchie Torres, and the New Democrat Coalition in the House of Representatives are, of course, going to be enthusiastic about Trump’s ever tighter embrace of Netanyahu next year. But there are also likely to be quiet cheers from other corners of the liberal-left about the harder line Trump is likely to take against Tehran. (Remember Kamala Harris’s assertion during her presidential run that Iran was the main adversary of the United States?) The Arab Spring is long gone and a strong man in the White House needs to both schmooze with and go toe to toe with the strong men of the Middle East — or so many liberals will believe, even as they rationalize away their relief over Trump’s handling of a thoroughly illiberal region.

Looking Ahead (Or Do I Mean Behind?)

Anyone to the left of Tucker Carlson will certainly think twice about showing public enthusiasm for whatever Trump does. Indeed, most liberals will be appalled by the new administration’s likely suspension of aid to Ukraine and withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, not to mention other possible hare-brained maneuvers like sending U.S. troops to battle narcotraffickers in Mexico.

Trump will attract liberal support, however quietly or even secretively, not because of his bridge-building genius — in reality, he couldn’t even get a bridge-building infrastructure bill through Congress in his first term — but because all too many liberals have already moved inexorably rightward on issues ranging from China and the Middle East to immigration. The MAGA minority has seized the machinery of power by weaponizing mendacity and ruthlessly breaking rules, in the process transforming politics much the way the Bolshevik minority did in Russia more than a century ago. In the pot that those Republicans put on the stove, the water has been boiling for more than a decade and yet the left-of-center frogs barely seem to recognize just how altered our circumstances have become.

In normal times, finding overlapping interests with your political adversaries makes sense. Such bedrock bipartisanship stabilizes fractious countries that swing politically from center left to center right every few years.

These are, however, anything but normal times and the second-term Trump team anything but center-rightists. They are extremists bent on dismantling the federal government, unstitching the fabric of international law, and turning up the heat drastically on an already dangerously overcooking planet.

In 2020, I raised the possibility of a boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement against the United States if Trump won the elections that year. “People of the world, you’d better build your BDS box, paint ‘Break Glass in Case of Emergency’ on the front, and stand next to it on November 3,” I wrote then. “If Trump wins on Election Day, it will be mourning in America. But let’s hope that the world doesn’t mourn: it organizes.”

Four years later, Trump has won again. Do I hear the sound of breaking glass?

Here, in the United States, a stance of strict non-engagement with Trump 2.0, even where interests overlap, would not only be a good moral policy but even make political sense. When things go disastrously south, laws are broken, and the government begins to truly come apart at the seams, it’s vitally important that no left-of-center fingerprints be found at the scene of the crime.

Let’s be clear: the Trump administration will not be playing by the rules of normal politics. So, forget about bipartisanship. Forget about preserving access to power by visiting Mar-a-Lago, hat in hand, like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Fascism can be defeated,” historian Timothy Snyder wrote immediately after the November elections, “but not when we are on its side.”

So, my dear liberal-left, which side are you on?

This piece first appeared on TomDispatch.

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus, where this article originally appeared.

Resurgent Puerto Rico Independence Movement Challenges 126 Years of Colonialism

Openly promoting decolonization and a social democratic alternative, a historic coalition made record electoral gains.

By Jonathan Ng , 

Truthout

December 10, 2024

People wave flags of the Puerto Rican Independence Party as they react to the election results, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on November 5, 2024.J

aydee Lee Serrano / AFP via Getty 

Weeks after the November elections, officials in Puerto Rico are still counting votes. The agonizing delays and inefficiency have elicited frustration and calls for serious electoral reform.

Yet one outcome appears undeniable: The pro-independence candidate for governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Dalmau, made record electoral gains. According to a preliminary review, Dalmau received the second-most votes while representing the Alliance, a historic coalition between the Puerto Rican Independence Party and Citizens’ Victory Movement.

Months before the election, the Alliance’s meteoric rise shocked pollsters, putting Dalmau in a tight race with Jenniffer González of the reigning New Progressive Party. For decades, González and her party have favored big business and austerity policies that exacerbate inequality. Under pressure from Dalmau, she relied on heavy corporate contributions and a smear campaign portraying him as a communist to claim victory.

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Founded in 2023, the Alliance promotes social programming, public investment, gender equity and environmental protections. Its growing appeal signifies the potential realignment of Puerto Rico’s two-party system, embarrassing the once dominant Popular Democratic Party and putting conservatives on edge.

But more than anything, Dalmau’s electoral gains reflect an escalating legitimacy crisis for the colonial order. Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the world, and the United States’s rule has grossly exacerbated political corruption, a major debt crisis and widespread poverty. In recent years, the left-leaning parties and social movements that comprise the Alliance have openly promoted “decolonization” and a social democratic alternative. Their mobilization challenges 126 years of colonial violence and exploitation — and bears the scars of past confrontations against a repressive status quo.

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Op-Ed |
Politics & Elections
As VP Harris Visits Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans Call for End to US Colonialism
Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting Puerto Rico during a week marking the abolition of slavery and a massacre.
By Erica González Martínez , TruthoutMarch 21, 2024
State of Exception

In July 1898, U.S. forces seized Puerto Rico from Spain, in order to gain a strategic launchpad for operations across the Caribbean and assert control over the Panama Canal. Only two weeks after the invasion, a “commercial army” of businessmen arrived by steamship seeking commercial opportunities. In a stampede of speculation, foreign investors bought up land before the U.S. had even signed a peace agreement with Spain.

Over the following decades, foreign capitalists transformed Puerto Rico’s economy, consolidating its lush farmland into massive sugar plantations. By 1929, four U.S. corporations controlled almost 70 percent of sugarcane fields, brazenly buying the votes of workers, bribing local legislators and violating a law that prohibited the formation of estates over 500 acres.

A 1924 article in National Geographic boasted that “no other nation in history has ever created a finer record in colonial administration” than the U.S. in Puerto Rico. In reality, the majority of the population lived in poverty, as corporations drove peasants off their land and turned them into ruthlessly exploited day laborers. Although leading the colonial government, Luis Muñoz Rivera of the Unionist Party was privately scathing. “Blame will fall on the landowners who abuse their workers,” he confided to a colleague. “Capital wants everything and takes it from labor. We are their accomplices because of our inexcusable silence.”

Colonial officials not only exploited the wealth but also the health of Puerto Rico, turning the island into a captive laboratory for medical research. Most notoriously, The Rockefeller Foundation hired Cornelius Rhoads, who called his Puerto Rican patients “experimental ‘animals’” while studying malnutrition.

In 1932, pro-independence supporters ignited a scandal by publishing one of his private letters. “Porto Ricans,” Rhoads wrote, “are beyond doubt the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever inhabiting this sphere. What this island needs is not public health work but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the population.” Rhoads claimed that he had already contributed to “the process of extermination by killing off 8.”

Despite public backlash, he escaped with his reputation intact, later receiving a flattering feature in Time magazine for his medical research.

Echoing Rhoads, most U.S. officials claimed that “overpopulation,” rather than exploitation, was the main cause of Puerto Rico’s poverty. Adopting an aggressive birth control program, they tested contraceptives on residents and eventually sterilized one-third of the female population of reproductive age. Feminists later argued that the policy constituted a form of “genocide,” since doctors forced women in labor to accept sterilizations and apparently targeted minors to meet “quotas.”

The coercive medical experiments, sprawling sugar plantations and pervasive racism of officials reflected the colonial status of Puerto Rico. For U.S. authorities, the archipelago was an “unincorporated territory” that “belong[ed] to” the U.S., but was “not a part of” it. As sociologist José Atiles-Osoria argues, Puerto Rico became a nation suspended in a permanent state of exception: a territory without sovereignty that foreign soldiers, investors and scientists exploited at will.
Outlawing the Nation

During the 1930s, a burgeoning independence movement emerged under the leadership of Pedro Albizu Campos and the Nationalist Party, which propounded Spanish-language education, workers’ rights and a clean break from the United States. A spellbinding speaker, Albizu Campos promoted international solidarity with anti-colonial forces, while backing a mass strike that immobilized the sugar industry in 1934. The previous year, the unemployment rate had hit 65 percent, dramatizing the failures of U.S. rule.

Fearing the movement’s appeal, authorities militarized the police, arming members with submachine guns, rifles and riot gear. In 1935, security forces massacred a group of independence supporters in Río Piedras returning from a political rally. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and local officials harassed and spied on independence activists in dozens of cities, imprisoning Albizu Campos and opening thousands of illegal “carpetas” (“files”) on citizens. Opposed to dissent, Gov. Blanton Winship left little room for ambiguity: “In front of the nationalists, always shoot to kill.”

Tensions peaked in March 1937, as the Nationalist Party planned a parade in Ponce commemorating the abolition of slavery. Preparing to smash the procession, Capt. Felipe Blanco ordered subordinates to bring reinforcements that “shoot well,” while Governor Winship monitored developments from a nearby farm.

As the march began, around 200 police suddenly opened fire, mowing down civilians with automatic weapons. The newspaper El País reported that streets ran with blood, giving the city “the unpleasant appearance” of “a butcher shop.” Police finished off the injured with pistol shots and billy club blows, while riddling both adult and child spectators with bullets. Ultimately, they killed 19 people and wounded about 200 others.

The Ponce massacre had an immediate chilling effect, prompting a mass exodus from the Nationalist Party, intimidating independence advocates and offering a pretext for another wave of repression. Over the following decade, Winship and his successors exploited “every mechanism at their disposal to combat, isolate, or eliminate the independence movement,” according to the Puerto Rico Civil Rights Commission.

Above all, the imprisonment of Albizu Campos reflected the ferocity of colonial policy. Despite claiming he was mentally ill, the FBI plotted to drop “a psychological bombshell” inducing “stress and strain” on him, and captors allegedly tortured the independence leader with radiation, turning his skin into a tapestry of spreading burn marks.

Ultimately, the campaign of intimidation weakened the Nationalists, and convinced other parties to withdraw support for independence altogether. Through raw violence and subtle pressure, U.S. policy makers squeezed the parameters of acceptable political debate, stigmatized dissent and convinced the local elite to respect the implicit limits of Puerto Rico’s colonial order.
The Model Police State

By the late 1940s, pressure from the United Nations and decolonizing Global South compelled the U.S. to address the most glaring features of the colonial regime. In 1950, President Harry Truman and Gov. Luis Muñoz Marín announced that Puerto Rico would become a “Free Associated State” (FAS), fostering the illusion of self-determination even as the federal government retained control over its security, trade, foreign policy, and other essential domains.

By revising the territory’s status, Washington modernized the colonial order to preserve it, allowing Puerto Ricans to elect local officials, maintain a nonvoting representative in the U.S. Congress and enjoy limited “autonomy” — giving colonialism a Puerto Rican face and democratic façade.

Gov. Muñoz Marín became the preferred collaborator of the U.S., while lobbying for the FAS and stifling political dissent. He and the FBI developed a tense yet symbiotic relationship. The historian Nelson Denis claims that the agency leveraged knowledge of his opium addiction to keep Muñoz Marín on a tight leash. Meanwhile, he manipulated its obsession with communism to muzzle his political opponents. Privately, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover mused that “Gov. Muñoz Marín wants his own banana republic, with American air conditioning.”

To discredit the FAS project, the badly battered Nationalist Party launched an uprising in October 1950. Through a dramatic confrontation, organizers hoped to expose the colonial architecture of the political system and gain international support for independence. They seized at least 10 towns and even tried to assassinate President Truman in Washington, D.C.

Authorities responded with indiscriminate fury. Soldiers leveled the towns of Jayuya and Utuado with air raids, before executing revolutionaries without a trial. Attorney General Vicente Géigel Polanco recalled that Muñoz Marín “ordered that all the nationalists in Puerto Rico were arrested.” Police ripped civilians from bed at machine-gun point, imprisoning nearly 1,000 in only two days. The list of “subversives” that they used was so broad that it included Muñoz Marín’s own wife and a future chief justice of Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court — the result of two decades of unrelenting surveillance.

Throughout the Cold War, the violent policies that drowned out the October uprising persisted, even as National Geographic and other U.S. media claimed that Puerto Rico was “a model for Latin America” and “a booming showcase of democracy.”

Repression noticeably heightened after the Cuban Revolution inspired a new generation of political activists. During the 1970s, the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, Young Lords Organization, Macheteros, and other New Left groups not only promoted independence but a socialist alternative. Once more, U.S. authorities responded with a heavy hand: screening job candidates across the island, opening the mail of dissidents, and targeting critics with surveillance operations, smear campaigns and even death squads. In July 1978, police notoriously lured student activists to Cerro Maravilla before murdering them in cold blood.

The ethical compromises, political manipulation and structural violence that Muñoz Marín and the Free Associated State enshrined left a corrosive legacy. As the Cold War ended, Supreme Court Justice Antonio Negrón García admitted that law enforcement practices were “typical of a fascist terror or military dictatorships.” In the end, police compiled 16,793 dossiers and 151,541 reference cards on alleged dissidents, overwhelming the Intelligence Division’s offices and compelling officers to store files in their own homes. Puerto Rico remained in geopolitical purgatory: a colony that had missed the great drama of the 20th century, decolonization, yet could not escape the past.
Island Warlords

Since the Cold War ended, U.S. colonialism has remained a violent and inescapable reality for residents of Puerto Rico. A 2022 American Medical Association article concludes that “Colonialism is literally killing Puerto Ricans,” as the restructuring of the territory’s finances has gutted the health care system and public services. A rolling debt crisis, decades of austerity and a heavily militarized law enforcement system continue to infuse everyday life with shades of repression.

Nowhere is this clearer than Vieques, an island that the Navy historically commandeered for military exercises by bulldozing entire neighborhoods to the ground. By the late 1990s, the military occupied 75 percent of the island, while sowing its beaches with explosives. In a cruel twist, the U.S. effectively waged war against Vieques while claiming to defend it — literally bombing hills into dust. Later, government investigators concluded that shooting exercises were turning the island “into a desert,” even leading to the “disfiguration of mountains.”

Beyond “strangling” the local economy, investigators stressed, the military fostered “a culture of violence.” Rape was commonplace. Lucía Meléndez Sanes recalled that soldiers arrived in her neighborhood “looking for girls” in the evening. “You could not be outside at that hour because they behaved like animals in the street.” Parents hid their daughters, while living in constant fear. As U.S. forces occupied Afghanistan, Vieques resident Carmen Valencia emphasized that “we knew what terrorism was because of them. Because we lived in terror all the time.”

In 1999, fighter pilots accidentally bombed a local security guard, David Sanes Rodríguez, galvanizing a national movement to expel the military. Over four years, authorities arrested over 1,000 people for civil disobedience, as residents camped on shooting ranges and beaches. A government commission discovered that the military had fired depleted uranium shells, poisoned water with explosives and almost bombed the local capital, Isabel Segunda. Investigators also reported that Navy exercises routinely unleashed seismic waves that “shake educational facilities, affecting the educational process.”

Movement pressure forced the base to close in 2003, but Vieques remains a war zone. Residents still struggle to regain access to their land, while demanding the military remove decades of debris and unexploded ordnance. So far, the Pentagon has collected over 41,000 projectiles and 32,000 bombs, estimating that the monumental cleanup initiative will last until 2032.
Death by Colonialism

In many ways, U.S. policy in Vieques dramatizes broader patterns of colonial violence in Puerto Rico, as federal authorities, foreign capital and a corrupt local elite impose punitive austerity measures that destroy the economy and public sector, making the explosive power of bombs unnecessary.

For decades, the territory has struggled with unsustainable debt, and officials have responded by slashing funds for health care and education while privatizing control of the electrical grid. Puerto Rico’s colonial status vastly complicates the crisis, since the territory lacks the power to declare bankruptcy or renegotiate its financial obligations. In 2016, the Supreme Court reaffirmed in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle that Congress possesses ultimate sovereignty over the archipelago. That same year, the federal government appointed an oversight board staffed by foreign financiers to manage its budget, rudely dispelling the illusion of Puerto Rican “autonomy.”

The results have been disastrous. Within only two years, authorities closed 438 schools, while cuts to health services have spiked rates of cardiovascular disease, mental illness and other ailments. Between 2010 and 2020, Puerto Rico lost over 10 percent of its population, as economic turmoil compels residents to emigrate — a trend that accelerated after Hurricane María devastated the archipelago in 2017.

Repeatedly, law enforcement agencies have met anti-austerity protests with brute force, recycling tactics developed to repress the independence movement. The ACLU asserts that the Puerto Rico Police Bureau is “plagued by a culture of violence” and “has run amok for years,” while the Department of Justice admits that “constitutional violations” are “pervasive and plague all levels.”

In this light, the 2024 gubernatorial election is a major milestone signifying the repudiation of the colonial order and its pervasive violence.

Until recent months, the projected winner was Jenniffer González, who has long defended austerity and police brutality against protesters, alleging that student demonstrators plot to “destroy democracy through violence.” A week before the election, a comedian at a Trump campaign claimed that Puerto Rico was “a floating island of garbage,” embarrassing González, who fervently supports the Republican leader.

By contrast, Juan Dalmau of the Puerto Rican Independence Party represents a movement that U.S. authorities have persecuted since the Ponce massacre. A lawyer, Dalmau began his career investigating the infamous police “carpetas,” before himself being arrested for protesting the military occupation of Vieques. Indeed, the historical connections run deep: At his closing campaign rally, a star-studded lineup of artists paid homage to Albizu Campos and the Nationalist Party.

Dalmau’s electoral clout shocked observers, raising serious talk of a pro-independence governor for the first time. Although he lost, the election constitutes only one chapter in an ongoing history of resistance. The Alliance and community activists continue to combat private mismanagement of the electrical grid, foreign investors and political violence — recently advocating for the formation of a Department of Human Rights.

The colonial order is exhausted yet unyielding. Suspended in political purgatory, Puerto Rico remains in but not of the U.S. — its residents creatively resisting the violence of an empire that excludes them.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
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Jonathan Ng is a postdoctoral fellow at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.

'Not sorry to see them go': Dems slam Manchin and Sinema for 'pathetic, disappointing' votes

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in Phoenix on May 28, 2024 (Gage Skidmore)

Alex Henderson

December 14, 2024

ALTERNET

On Wednesday, December 11, centrist Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — both former Democrats who became independents — voted to block President Joe Biden's nominee, Lauren McFerran, from serving another five-year term on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

According to The Hill's Alexander Bolton, they have been drawing scathing criticism from Senate Democrats because of it.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) slammed Manchin and Sinema's opposition to the nominee as "pathetic," while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) told The Hill, "Millions of working people across the country will pay the price for their actions."

READ MORE: 'The next recession starts here': Trump team weighs abolishing bank regulators

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) told The Hill, "There's a tradition of having a balance on that board, and it's important. So, it's disappointing they weren't able to get that done."

Manchin and Sinema both decided against seeking reelection in 2024 and will be gone when a new GOP-controlled Senate is seated in January.

Some of Sinema's supporters hoped she would run as an independent in Arizona, but she decided against that. Arizona's Senate race became a battle between Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and far-right MAGA Republican Kari Lake, and Gallego won.

A Democratic senator, interviewed on condition of anonymity, had no kind words for either Manchin or Sinema and told The Hill, "I think people are not sorry to see them go…. Overall, I think people are happy to see them move on."

Psychoanalysis explains why Donald Trump is taunting Canada and ‘Governor Justin Trudeau’

Donald Trump talks with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Plenary Session at the NATO summit in Watford, Britain, December 4, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

The Conversation

December 15, 2024

Canadian policymakers were just beginning to recover from the shock of Donald Trump’s recent threats to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico when the president-elect detonated another rhetorical explosive. In an overnight social media post, Trump referred to the “great state of Canada” and “Governor Justin Trudeau.”

While Canadian cabinet ministers have largely shrugged off Trump’s unsettling mockery, Canada’s response to the tariff threat has been twofold.

First, it has sought to demonstrate the practical, economic benefits of bilateral trade. Trudeau’s hastily organized visit to Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 29 was intended to communicate this to Trump and his advisers, although it doesn’t seem to have been successful given Trump’s snide mention of the dinner in the Truth Social post trolling Trudeau and Canada.

Second, some Canadian politicians have sought to appeal to the shadier side of Trump’s trade politics, aligning Canada with the United States against Mexico by accusing Mexico of being a back door for Chinese imports and posing a national security threat.

What’s at play as a chaotic Trump prepares to take office for a second time?

We suggest the answer lies not only in economic explanations but especially in psychoanalytic ones. Political strategy is often grounded not in rational economic goals, but in irrational desires that sometimes drive politics and politicians to destructive ends.
The psychology behind ideology

In our recent book examining psychoanalysis and politics, we argue that too often media and policymakers downplay the significance of unconscious desire in everyday politics and economics.

We believe ideology — whether it’s “free trade,” “free choice” or “Make America Great Again” — is not comprised of tired rallying cries by political leaders, but something seductive that both politicians and voters unconsciously desire, regardless of the eventual, and usually negative, repercussions.

“Trade” is therefore more than the sum of economic parts; it is also highly emotional and even fetishized, imbued with near-magical expectations that defy economic common sense and prudence.

Trump’s election campaign successfully drew on this emotional allure, tapping into popular economic frustrations over the rise of China and the relative decline of the U.S. He offered up trade and tariffs as tools to “Make America Great Again.”

Canada, meanwhile, has been caught in the crosshairs, seeking to appease the U.S. while becoming the target of Trump’s populism regardless.
Canada: Teammate or target?

Before the American election, Canada sought to align itself with the U.S. in its trade war with China, announcing tariffs of 100 per cent on Chinese electric vehicles and 25 per cent on Chinese steel and aluminum.

There is an economic logic to such mercantilist thinking. Trump’s strategy, after all, is to use protective tools to reassert American dominance over sectors where it’s fallen behind. Canada and Mexico are being told to get on board or be left out, and Canadian tariffs against China may be its attempt to do so.

Canada has also responded by parroting American accusations against Mexico. Ontario Premier Doug Ford suggested Canada consider a bilateral trade agreement that would squeeze Mexico out of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, while expressing tentative support for the trilateral trade deal, chastised Mexico for “not acting the way that Canada and the U.S. are when it comes to its economic relationship with China.” This is despite the fact that Canada has been as devoted to trade with China as Mexico is.

But when Trump announced at the end of November that he intended to impose tariffs on both Canada and Mexico, and also demanded the end of illegal migration and drugs across the border, Canadian elected officials were stunned. Ford expressed open dismay, saying: “To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I have ever heard from our friends and closest allies.”

Within days, Canada pledged more spending on border security in an apparent effort to mollify the U.S.
Stoking American anxieties

What’s at stake in Trump’s populist ideology is not just economics, but the global status of the U.S.

With China on the rise, this status is seen as under threat, sparking American anxieties. The election outcome suggested a nostalgic desire to regain America’s past “greatness” while eliminating any obstacles standing in its way.

But although Trump has proven adept at exploiting this desire, the irrationality of his populist politics will likely prove counter-productive. Rather than addressing structural American economic and trade problems — for example, unprecedented income inequality and pervasive precarious employment — the emphasis is on flexing muscle and subordinating others.

This is a classic psychoanalytic maneuver: instead of attending to your own failures, you displace them onto a stereotypical other — China, migrants, Muslims, etc.

This is evident in Trump’s attempts to frame Mexicans as “bad hombres,” spearheading an “Invasion of our Country!” in the form of drugs and illegal immigrants, all the while allegedly making “a fortune from the US.”

This despite the fact that, while experiencing economic gains in recent years, Mexico has trailed well behind both the U.S. and Canada in productivity and income growth over the past 30 years.

Trump’s emphasis on potential Chinese investment in the Mexican auto industry — there is currently only one Chinese-owned auto plant in Mexico — diverts attention from the persistent failure of the U.S.-based auto industry to keep up with Chinese technology.

But Trump’s plans to prey on American fears via trade protectionism are likely to backfire. They may temporarily buoy nationalist sentiment and provide relief to some U.S. manufacturers, but soon American consumers will suffer higher prices while producers could be hit by more expensive oil and gas from Canada.

China could also target U.S. agriculture in response to renewed Trump tariffs, negatively affecting the same rural areas that have provided political support for Trump.
The irrationality of populist desire

The irrationality of Trump’s populist protectionist policies is plain for all to see. No wonder Chinese officials point out that “no one will win a trade [or] tariff war.”

As for Canada, it is unlikely that appeasing Trump or betraying Mexico will do much to placate the president-elect. To the contrary, these efforts could well be taken as evidence that more bullying is in order and further concessions can yet be extracted.

Trump’s latest taunts to Trudeau, in fact, prove that escalated bullying will be a common presidential tactic in the months and years ahead — as if we needed more.

Gavin Fridell, Professor of Political Science and Global Development Studies, Saint Mary’s University and Ilan Kapoor, Professor, Psychoanalytic Theory/Politics, York University, Canada

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Assad’s prisoner No 3006 tells his story

By AFP
December 15, 2024

Freed Syrian prisoner Ghazi Mohammed al-Mohammed, 39, with his mother Fatima Abd al-Ghany -- 'It's like he's not my son' anymore, she says - Copyright AFP OZAN KOSE
Anne Chaon

The Syrian military intelligence officers who detained Ghazi Mohammed al-Mohammed told him to forget his name and who he was.

They took away his papers, he said, and told him: “Now you’re number 3006.”

For five and a half months Mohammed languished in one of president Bashar al-Assad’s jails, losing 40 kilograms (88 pounds), all the while under the threat of imminent execution.

Since Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad’s paranoid and brutal government one week ago, numerous ex-prisoners like Mohammed are shedding light on the depths of the despair visited upon Syria’s people over the past decades.

Mohammed, an emaciated man propped up on cushions in front of the stove in Sarmada, near Aleppo in northwestern Syria, is a shadow of his former self.

The 39-year-old swears he was never involved in politics in Syria, that he is a simple merchant trying to make a living along with his brothers.

He was seized on a brief business trip to Damascus, and plunged into a living hell.

“The moment comes when you lose all hope,” said Mohammed, his beard and dark hair closely cropped.

“Towards the end I just wanted to die, waiting for when they would execute us. I was almost happy, as it would mean my suffering was over.”

It was the mukhabarat, the omnipotent intelligence henchmen and enforcers of Assad rule, who seized him when he visited the capital.

They took him away, hands clamped behind his back, along with one of his friends, a doctor.

“That was five and a half months ago,” Mohammed told AFP.

He doesn’t know why he was arrested, but thinks it may have been because he comes from the northwestern province of Idlib, heartland of the rebels whose lightning push south forced Assad to flee on December 8.

Manacled and blindfolded, Mohammed was taken to a detention centre in the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus, home to embassies, United Nations offices and security headquarters.

They took him deep into a building, and it was there that the blows began.



– Hung by his wrists –



For the first few days, he was hung by his wrists from a bar high up in a cell, his feet unable to touch the floor. Then he was lowered so at least he could touch the ground.

Mohammed was beaten and fed practically nothing. His only contact was with the jailers.

“They told me to confess that my brother had joined the rebels,” he said.

“To be honest, I told them what they wanted to hear, even though my brother’s a businessman who runs an aid organisation here in Sarmada.”

He said he could hear the cries of women and children being tortured in front of loved ones to make them confess.

After a month or so, Mohammed was handed over to military intelligence, the ones who told him that, from then on, he would only be a number.

He was thrown into a narrow cell about two metres (six feet) long, roughly the length of a man, and 1.2 metres wide. An overhead skylight provided the only source of light.

The cell had no electricity, no water, and when he needed the toilet, he said the guards forced him to go there naked, bent over and with his eyes fixed on the floor.

They taunted him, saying he would be executed.

“You’ll have your throat slit like a sheep. Unless you prefer hanging by the legs? Or being impaled?”

Towards the end, Mohammed was of course unaware of what was happening on the outside, of the rapid 11-day rebel advance from the north as Assad’s forces abandoned their tanks and other equipment.



– ‘He has changed’ –



“One night they brought us out of the cells and lined us all up in the corridor, tied to each other. Two rows of 14 prisoners. We could see each other for the first time, and assumed we were going to die,” he said.

They were kept standing there for about an hour, before being shoved back into random cells.

“I called out that I was sick and need the toilet, but nobody came,” Mohammed said.

“Then we heard the sound of helicopters landing and taking off again, I suppose to take away the officers.”

A few hours later the cell doors were broken open and rebels freed them.

“I saw the fighters appear. I thought I was dreaming.”

As Mohammed told his story, his 75-year-old mother sat beside him and nuzzled his anorak. Not once did she take her eyes off her son.

Nobody ever told her he had been arrested. He simply disappeared.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has documented more than 35,000 cases of disappearances in Syria.

Unlike many, Mohammed was lucky. He came back.

“But he has changed,” his mother Fatima Abd al-Ghany said. “When I look at him, it’s like he’s not my son.”

He has nightmares, she said, despite his denials.

“I hope they’re brought to justice,” Mohammed said of his captors. He’s sure he can identify three of them.

Syrian national living in S.C. charged with torturing dissidents at Damascus prison in 2000s


An interior view as teams carry out investigation in secret compartments at Sednaya Prison after the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Syria on December 10, 2024. Syrian rescuers searched the Sednaya jail, synonymous with the worst atrocities of ousted president Bashar al-Assad's rule. On Thursday, the United States charged a Syrian national on accusations of torturing detainees at the Damascus Central Prison. 

Photo by Asaad al-Asaad/UPi | License Photo


Dec. 13 (UPI) -- A former Syrian government official residing in South Carolina has been charged with torturing political dissidents at a Damascus prison he oversaw in the mid-2000s.

Samir Ousman Alsheikh, 72, of Lexington, S.C., was originally indicted with immigration fraud charges in August on accusations of lying about his employment at the Damascus Central Prison when applying for U.S. citizenship in 2023, as well as when applying for a visa to enter the country in 2020, to become a permanent resident and to obtain a green card.

The indictment announced Thursday adds three counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture to his two original immigration offense-related charges.

"The allegations in this superseding indictment of grave human rights abuses are chilling. Our country will not be a safe harbor for those accused of committing atrocities abroad," U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada for the Central District of California said in a statement.

According to the superseding indictment, Alsheikh held a variety of positions in the Syrian state security apparatus, including being the head of the Damascus Central Prison, commonly known as Adra Prison, from about 2005 through 2008.

Federal prosecutors allege that in his role at the prison he directed his employees to "inflict, and was sometimes personally involved in inflicting, severe physical and mental pain and suffering on political and other prisoners," the Justice Department said in the release announcing the superseding indictment.

The indictment states that Alsheikh allegedly ordered some prisoners to be held in Adra facility's so-called punishment wing, where detainees were beaten while suspended from the ceiling with their arms extended and forced to endure a device known as the Flying Carpet.

According to Amnesty International, the Flying Carpet device consists of two wooden boards on which a prisoner is strapped, with their upper body on one board and their lower body on the other. The boards, which are hinged together, are folded on top of one another, forcibly pushing the prisoner's straightened legs toward their chest.

The Justice Department said this causes "excruciating pain and sometimes resulting in fractured spines."

If convicted, Alsheikh faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the torture-related charges and a maximum of 10 years for each of the immigration-related counts.

"The defendant is accused of torturing prisoners in Syria almost 20 years ago, and today, we are one step closer to holding him accountable for those heinous crimes. The United States will never be a safe haven for those who commit human rights abuses abroad," said Special Agent in Charge Eddy Wang of the Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles Field office.

The indictment is the second the United States has filed against Syrian officials this week after the fall of the dictator government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

On Monday, an indictment was unsealed, charging two top Syrian officials on accusations of abusing political dissidents at a detention facility at Mezzeh Military Airport, near the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Unlike Alsheikh, Syrian Air Force Intelligence officers Jamil Hassan, 72, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, 65, remain at large.

The indictments come after the government of Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since the 1970s, fell last week to a fast-moving insurgency, effectively ending the country's civil war, which began in 2011.

Five years on from the pandemic, long Covid keeps lives on hold

By AFP
December 15, 2024

Andrea Vanek has suffered from long Covid for three years 

- Copyright AFP ANTHONY WALLACE

Julia ZAPPEI

Three years ago, Andrea Vanek was studying to be an arts and crafts teacher when spells of dizziness and heart palpitations suddenly started to make it impossible for her to even take short walks.

After seeing a succession of doctors she was diagnosed with long Covid and even now spends most of her days in the small living room of her third-floor Vienna apartment, sitting on the windowsill to observe the world outside.

“I can’t plan anything because I just don’t know how long this illness will last,” the 33-year-old Austrian told AFP.

The first cases of Covid-19 were detected in China in December 2019, sparking a global pandemic and more than seven million reported deaths to date, according to the World Health Organization.

But millions more have been affected by long Covid, in which some people struggle to recover from the acute phase of Covid-19, suffering symptoms including tiredness, brain fog and shortness of breath.

Vanek tries to be careful not to exert herself to avoid another “crash”, which for her is marked by debilitating muscle weakness and can last for months, making it hard to even open a bottle of water.

“We know that long Covid is a big problem,” said Anita Jain, from the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme.

About six percent of people infected by coronavirus develop long Covid, according to the global health body, which has recorded some 777 million Covid cases to date.

Whereas the rates of long Covid after an initial infection are declining, reinfection increases the risk, Jain added.

– ‘Everything hurts’ –

Chantal Britt, who lives in Bern, Switzerland, contracted Covid in March 2020. Long Covid, she said, has turned her “life upside down” and forced her to “reinvent” herself.

“I was really an early bird…. Now I take two hours to get up in the morning at least because everything hurts,” the 56-year-old former marathon runner explained.

“I’m not even hoping anymore that I’m well in the morning but I’m still kind of surprised how old and how broken I feel.”

About 15 percent of those who have long Covid have persistent symptoms for more than one year, according to the WHO, while women tend to have a higher risk than men of developing the condition.

Britt, who says she used to be a “workaholic”, now works part-time as a university researcher on long Covid and other topics.

She lost her job in communications in 2022 after she asked to reduce her work hours.

She misses doing sports, which used to be like “therapy” for her, and now has to plan her daily activities more, such as thinking of places where she can sit down and rest when she goes shopping.

A lack of understanding by those around her also make it more difficult.

“It’s an invisible disease…. which connects to all the stigma surrounding it,” she said.

“Even the people who are really severely affected, who are at home, in a dark room, who can’t be touched anymore, any noise will drive them into a crash, they don’t look sick,” she said.

– Fall ‘through the cracks’ –

The WHO’s Jain said it can be difficult for healthcare providers to give a diagnosis and wider recognition of the condition is crucial.

More than 200 symptoms have been listed alongside common ones such as fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive dysfunction.

“Now a lot of the focus is on helping patients, helping clinicians with the tools to accurately diagnose long Covid, detect it early,” she said.

Patients like Vanek also struggle financially. She has filed two court cases to get more support but both are yet to be heard.

She said the less than 800 euros ($840) she gets in support cannot cover her expenses, which include high medical bills for the host of pills she needs to keep her symptoms in check.

“It’s very difficult for students who get long Covid. We fall right through the cracks” of the social system, unable to start working, she said.

Britt also wants more targeted research into post-infectious conditions like long Covid.

“We have to understand them better because there will be another pandemic and we will be as clueless as ever,” she said.

Indian chess king Gukesh returns to hero’s welcome

By AFP
December 16, 2024

India's Gukesh Dommaraju returned to a hero's welcome in his home city on Monday - Copyright AFP R. Satish BABU

India’s chess star Gukesh Dommaraju returned to a hero’s welcome in his home city on Monday after becoming the youngest world champion aged only 18.

Hundreds of fans crowded the arrivals area of Chennai airport, cheering alongside banks of television cameras as Gukesh made his way out of the airport after victory in taking the World Chess Championship title.

“It means a lot to bring back the trophy to India,” Gukesh told reporters, with garlands of flowers draped around his neck, brandishing the glittering trophy in his hand.

“I can see the support and what it means to India, I am glad to be here,” he added, as celebratory petals thrown into the air smothered his hair.

Gukesh downed China’s Ding Liren in a dramatic endgame in Singapore last week — becoming a sudden superstar in a nation where sporting fans are usually only obsessed with cricket.

The scenes in the south Indian city of Chennai were reminiscent — albeit on a smaller scale — of this year’s triumphant homecoming of the country’s cricket stars with the T20 World Cup trophy.

Young fans, mainly from Gukesh’s school, held placards and photos of their new hero — whose victory has given a boost to dreams of pursuing chess as a professional sport.

When he won in Singapore — after nearly three weeks and 14 games of intense battle against the 32-year-old Ding — Gukesh burst into tears.

Gukesh, who is usually reserved and more used to quiet and cerebral tournaments than wild celebrations, looked almost overwhelmed by the rock star welcome on Monday.

“You guys are amazing,” he told fans, before he was swiftly ushered into a car smothered in posters of him, alongside his father. “You gave me so much energy”

– ‘Inspired millions’ –

Gukesh’s father, a doctor, has been by his son’s side in a rollercoaster ride that took off when he became India’s youngest grandmaster aged 12 years, seven months and 17 days — among the youngest in the history of the game.

In April, he became the youngest-ever winner of the prestigious Candidates Tournament, clinching his entry into the world championship.

Gukesh surpassed a record held by Russia’s Garry Kasparov, who won the title at age 22, after Ding, 32, faltered at the final hurdle of his title defence.

He is the second Indian to hold the title after five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, who also hails from Chennai.

Gukesh will be honoured by the government of his home state Tamil Nadu, and is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the capital New Delhi later this month.

Modi has already praised his “remarkable accomplishment”, saying in a statement that “his triumph has not only etched his name in the annals of chess history but has also inspired millions of young minds to dream big and pursue excellence.”